By SEAN MURPHY

When Ann Walter looked outside her rural West Texas home, she didn’t know what to make of the bulky object slowly drifting across the sky.

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She was even more surprised to see what actually landed in her neighbor’s wheat field: a boxy piece of scientific equipment about the size of a sport-utility vehicle, attached to a massive parachute, adorned with NASA stickers. She called the local sheriff’s office and learned that NASA, indeed, was looking for a piece of equipment that had gone lost.

“It’s crazy, because when you’re standing on the ground and see something in the air, you don’t realize how big it is,” she said. “It was probably a 30-foot parachute. It was huge.”

Walter said she soon got a call from NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility, which launches large unmanned, high altitude research balloons more than 20 miles into the atmosphere to conduct scientific experiments.

Officials at NASA, which is impacted by the ongoing government shutdown, did not return messages Thursday. A message left with the balloon facility also was not immediately returned.

In this photo provided by Ann Walter, labels are seen on a piece of NASA research equipment that Ann Walter says fell from the sky near her home in Edmonson, Texas, Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025. (Ann Walter via AP)

A launch schedule on the balloon facility’s website shows a series of launches from Fort Sumner, New Mexico, about 140 miles west of where the equipment landed.

Hale County Sheriff David Cochran confirmed that NASA officials called his office last week in search of the equipment.

Walter said she ultimately spoke with someone at the balloon facility who told her it had been launched a day earlier from Fort Sumner, and uses telescopes to gather information about stars, galaxies and black holes.

In this photo provided by Ann Walter, Ann Walter stands in front of a piece of NASA research equipment attached to a parachute that fell from the sky near her home in Edmonson, Texas, Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025. (Ann Walter via AP)

“The researchers came out with a truck and trailer they used to pick it up,” she said.

But not before Walter and her family, who live in Edmonson, Texas, were able to capture some photos and videos.

“It’s kind of surreal that it happened to us and that I was part of it,” she said. “It was a very cool experience.”

By MATTHEW BROWN and MATTHEW DALY

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional Republicans have voted to roll back restrictions on mining, drilling and other development in three Western states, advancing President Donald Trump’s ambitions to expand energy production from public lands.

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Senators voted 50-46 Thursday to repeal a land management plan for a large swath of Alaska that was adopted in the final weeks of Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration. Lawmakers voted to roll back similar plans for land in Montana and North Dakota earlier this week.

The timing of Biden’s actions made the plans vulnerable to the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to terminate rules that are finalized near the end of a president’s term. The resolutions require a simple majority in each chamber and take effect upon the president’s signature.

The House approved the repeals last month in votes largely along party lines. Trump is expected to sign the measures, which will boost a proposed 211-mile road through an Alaska wilderness to allow mining of copper, cobalt, gold and other minerals.

Trump ordered approval of the Ambler Road project earlier this week, saying it will unlock access to copper, cobalt and other critical minerals that the United States needs to compete with China on artificial intelligence and other resource development. Copper is used in the production of cars, electronics and even renewable energy technologies such as wind turbines.

The road was approved in Trump’s first term, but was later blocked by Biden after an analysis determined the project would threaten caribou and other wildlife and harm Alaska Native tribes that rely on hunting and fishing.

(AP Graphic)

The Biden-era restrictions also included a block on new mining leases in the nation’s most productive coal-producing region, the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming. On Monday, the Trump administration held the biggest coal sale in that area in more than a decade, drawing a single bid of $186,000 for 167.5 million tons of coal, or about a tenth of a penny per ton.

Trump has largely cast aside Biden’s goal to reduce climate-warming emissions from the burning of coal and other fossil fuels extracted from federal land. Instead, he and congressional Republicans have moved to open more taxpayer-owned land to fossil fuel development, hoping to create more jobs and revenue. The Republican administration also has pushed to develop critical minerals, including copper, cobalt, gold and zinc.

A decision on whether to accept the recent bid from the Navajo Transitional Energy Co. is pending, and the lease cannot be issued until the Montana land plan is altered. The dirt-cheap value reflects dampened industry interest in coal despite Trump’s efforts. Many utilities have switched to cheaper natural gas or renewables such as wind and solar power.

Administration officials expressed disappointment that they did not receive “stronger participation” in the Montana sale. In a statement, Interior Department spokesperson Aubrie Spady blamed a “decades long war on coal” by Biden and former Democratic President Barack Obama.

Republican Sen. Tim Sheehy of Montana said the repeal of the land-management plan in his state was “putting an end to disastrous Biden-era regulations that put our resource economy on life support.”

Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska called the Biden-era plan for 13 million acres in the central Yukon region “a clear case of federal overreach that locks up Alaska’s lands, ignores Alaska Native voices … and blocks access to critical energy, gravel & mineral resources.”

The GOP legislation “restores balance, strengthens U.S. energy & mineral security and upholds the law,” Sullivan said in a statement.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum points to a map of Alaska as he speaks before President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office at the White House, Monday, Oct. 6, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democrats urged rejection of the repeals, arguing that Trump’s fossil fuel-friendly agenda is driving up energy prices because renewable sources are being sidelined even as the tech industry’s power demands soar for data centers and other projects.

“We are seeing dramatic increases in the price of energy for American consumers and businesses and the slashing of American jobs, so that Donald Trump can give an easy pass to the fossil fuel industry,” Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia said Wednesday on the Senate floor.

Last week, the administration canceled almost $8 billion in grants for clean energy projects in 16 states that Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris won in the 2024 election.

Ashley Nunes, public lands specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, said Republicans were unleashing “a wholesale assault on America’s public lands.” Using the Congressional Review Act to erase land management plans “will sow chaos across the country and turn our most cherished places into playgrounds for coal barons and industry polluters,” she said.

Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

By NICHOLAS RICCARDI

DENVER (AP) — Voting equipment company Dominion Voting Systems, a target of false conspiracy theories from President Donald Trump and his supporters since the 2020 election, has been bought by a firm run by a former Republican elections official, the new company announced Thursday.

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The newly formed company, Liberty Vote, also vowed to follow the executive order Trump signed last spring seeking sweeping changes to election policies that multiple judges have put on hold for violating the Constitution.

KNOWiNK, a St. Louis-based provider of electronic poll books that allow election officials to confirm voter information, announced the deal and the name change. In a possible nod to a groundless conspiracy theory that linked Dominion to the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, the release highlighted that the company would become “100% American-owned.”

The announcement also quotes KNOWiNK’s owner, former St. Louis elections director Scott Leiendecker, as vowing to provide “election technology that prioritizes paper-based transparency,” one of the longtime demands of election conspiracy theorists. Almost all U.S. voting equipment already leaves a paper trail.

Dominion’s former CEO confirmed the sale in a single-sentence statement on Thursday: “Liberty Vote has acquired Dominion Voting Systems,” John Poulos said.

The release from the new company vows to reintroduce “hand-marked paper ballots” and adjust company policies to follow Trump’s executive order on voting procedures, which is not in effect because judges have ruled that Trump doesn’t have the power to mandate them. Part of the president’s order sought to prohibit voting equipment that produces a paper record with “a barcode or quick-response code” — equipment that is currently in use in hundreds of counties across 19 states.

Denver-based Dominion was at the heart of some of the most fevered conspiracy theories about Trump’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Those false allegations sparked a number of defamation lawsuits against conservative-leaning media and the president’s allies, including a settlement in 2023 in which Fox News agreed to pay Dominion $787 million and one this year that Newsmax settled for $67 million.

The announcement from the new company does not disclose the cost of the transaction, but a spokesman said all the money was put up by Leiendecker. Both companies involved are privately held.

The false allegations against Dominion made its brand toxic in many Republican-leaning states and counties. But voting machine companies are usually careful about making overt political statements, given that the market for their equipment is split between places under Republican and Democratic control.

The statements by Liberty Vote saying it will align with Trump’s executive order, which has been challenged by Democratic state attorneys general, the Democratic National Committee and an array of voting and civil rights groups, could lead to concerns in blue states that currently use Dominion equipment.

But some election officials said Thursday that KNOWiNK had seemed to steer clear of 2020 conspiracy theories and acted like a typical, nonpartisan firm.

“They have a good reputation in the field,” Stephen Richer, a Republican who was targeted by Trump and his allies when he served as the top elections official in Arizona’s Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix.

Despite years of detailed debunking of the Dominion conspiracy theories, Trump has continued to repeat them even as recently as a few weeks ago, when he vowed to get rid of voting machines. The president doesn’t have the power to do that because the Constitution gives states and Congress the authority to set election and voting rules.

By KONSTANTIN TOROPIN and MICHELLE L. PRICE

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is sending about 200 troops to Israel to help support and monitor the ceasefire deal in Gaza as part of a team that includes partner nations, nongovernmental organizations and private-sector players, U.S. officials said Thursday.

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The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details that were not authorized for release, said U.S. Central Command is going to establish a “civil-military coordination center” in Israel that will help facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid as well as logistical and security assistance into the territory wracked by two years of war.

The remarks provide some of the first details on how the ceasefire deal would be monitored and that the U.S. military would have a role in that effort. After Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase of a Trump administration plan to halt the fighting, a litany of questions remain on next steps, including Hamas disarmament, a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a future government in the territory.

One of the officials said the new team will help monitor implementation of the ceasefire agreement and the transition to a civilian government in Gaza.

The coordination center will be staffed by about 200 U.S. service members who have expertise in transportation, planning, security, logistics and engineering, said the official, who noted that no American troops will be sent into Gaza.

A second official said the troops would come from U.S. Central Command as well as other parts of the globe. That official added that the troops already have begun arriving and will continue to travel to the region over the weekend to begin planning and efforts to establish the center.

Two other senior U.S. officials who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss internal deliberations offered more details about forces from other countries and what U.S. troops would be doing.

Members of the armed forces of Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are expected to be embedded with the team of 200 U.S. troops, according to one of the officials. The American service members will integrate the multinational force and coordinate with Israeli defense forces, the official said.

The exact location of where U.S. troops will be positioned is something they will be working to determine Friday, the other official said.

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, highlighted Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Thursday, saying he had worked alongside special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“Cooper — I hear he’s been fantastic,” Trump said.

Cooper joined the U.S. side of the talks in Egypt this week, according to one of the U.S. officials, and he helped reassure the Arab countries at the negotiating table that the U.S. would put a strong guarantee behind its commitments — a reassurance the Arab countries then passed along to Hamas.

In a show of readiness, Cooper told them he could have a command post up and running in the next two and a half weeks.

A breakthrough deal to pause the war in Gaza was reached Wednesday after the United States and mediators in the region pressured both Israel and Hamas to end the fighting that has devastated the Gaza Strip, killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, sparked other conflicts and isolated Israel.

That push sealed an agreement on a first phase that would free the remaining living Israeli hostages within days in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.