By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An asteroid that NASA used for target practice a few years ago was nudged into a slightly different route around the sun, findings that could help divert a future incoming killer space rock, scientists reported Friday.

It’s the first time that a celestial body’s orbit around the sun was deliberately changed. The asteroid that NASA’s Dart spacecraft slammed into was never a threat to Earth.

“This study marks a notable step forward in our ability to prevent future asteroid impacts on Earth,” the international research team wrote in Science Advances.

The changes were slight — reductions of just one-tenth of a second and one-half of a mile (720 meters) to a solar lap spanning two years and hundreds of millions of miles (kilometers), according to the scientists.

“Even though this seems small, a tiny deflection … can add up over decades and make the difference between a potentially hazardous asteroid hitting or missing the Earth in the future,” lead author Rahil Makadia, of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said in an email.

For any save-the-planet tests, “the key isn’t delivering a huge shove at the last minute. The key is delivering a tiny shove many years in advance,” he added.

Launched in 2021 on the world’s first planetary defense exercise, the Dart spacecraft deliberately plowed into Dimorphos, which orbits a bigger asteroid, Didymos, as they circle the sun together. The space agency quickly determined that the 2022 strike trimmed the smaller asteroid’s orbit around its bigger companion.

But it took until now for scientists to confirm, based on observations from around the world, that the impact cut the duo’s travel time around the sun by 0.15 seconds. With each solar orbit lasting 769 days, that’s a real-time slowdown of just over 10 micrometers per second, shrinking the asteroids’ 300-million-mile (480-million-kilometer) orbit by 2,360 feet (720 meters).

The researchers said all the boulders and other debris flung off Dimorphos in the crash provided as much push to Dimorphos as the spacecraft itself — a doubling of momentum. Last summer, a U.S.-Italian team estimated that 35 million pounds (16 million kilograms) of rock and dust were ejected.

The good news is that even with the change in the asteroids’ course, Earth remains safely out of their way for the foreseeable future. That’s why this rubble-packed system was picked for the mission, said Steven Chesley of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who took part in the study.

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“While it is just a single experiment, it is nonetheless an important data point that will be relevant to any future asteroid deflection missions,” Chesley said in an email.

Scientists expect to learn even more about the impact’s aftermath when the European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft reaches the asteroids in November. Dimorphos is 525 feet (160 meters) in diameter. Fast-spinning Didymos is 2,560 feet (780 meters) across with, according to the latest study, 200 times more mass than its sidekick.

Unlike Dart, Hera will not strike but will tag along for months of surveying. A pair of small experimental probes will peel away and attempt to land.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Pentagon policy limiting journalists’ access to the building is depriving Americans of vital information about U.S. military operations while the country is at war, a New York Times attorney argued Friday in urging a judge to block the new rules.

“It’s more important than ever for the public to know as much as they can,” Times attorney Theodore Boutrous told U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman during the first hearing for the newspaper’s lawsuit against the Defense Department.

Friedman didn’t immediately rule on whether to order the Pentagon to reinstate press credentials for reporters who walked out of the building last October rather than agree to the new rules. But the judge’s remarks suggested he was skeptical of key arguments in the government’s defense of the policy.

Judge cites need for ‘a variety of views’

Friedman, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Bill Clinton, suggested it is “more important than ever” for Americans to hear “a variety of views” about the activities of the federal government and its elected leaders.

“A lot of things need to be held tightly and secure, but openness and transparency allows members of the public to know what their government is doing,” the judge said.

Justice Department attorney Michael Bruns said the credentialing policy reflects the government’s “compelling interest” and its “statutory obligation” to protect national security information.

“This is not a trivial exercise,” Bruns argued.

Friedman said he intends to issue “as prompt a decision as I can, because I know it’s important for lots of reasons.”

The Times sued the Pentagon and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in December, claiming the credentialing policy violates the journalists’ constitutional rights to free speech and due process.

Times spokesperson Charles Stadtlander said the U.S. attacks on Iran — and the resulting deaths of American troops — “illuminate the public’s right to access deep, impartial reporting on the details of the military actions happening as we speak.”

“Today was an important opportunity for The New York Times’s lawyers to make our case for the clear importance and public service of allowing journalists to report fully on the Pentagon,” Stadtlander said in a statement.

The current Pentagon press corps comprises mostly conservative outlets that agreed to the policy. Reporters from outlets that refused to consent to the new rules, including those from The Associated Press, have continued reporting on the military from outside the building.

The AP, meanwhile, is awaiting a decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court of Appeals on its separate lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s administration. The AP contends that Trump’s team punished it by reducing its access to presidential events because the outlet hasn’t followed the president’s lead in renaming the Gulf of Mexico.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks at the inaugural Americas Counter Cartel Conference at U.S. Southern Command in Doral, Fla., Thursday, March 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

The Pentagon calls the policy ‘common sense’

The Pentagon has argued that the policy imposes “common sense” rules that protect the military from the disclosure of national security information.

“The goal of that process is to prevent those who pose a security risk from having broad access to American military headquarters,” government attorneys wrote.

Times attorneys claim the policy is designed to silence unfavorable press coverage of Trump’s administration.

“The First Amendment flatly prohibits the government from granting itself the unbridled power to restrict speech because the mere existence of such arbitrary authority can lead to self-censorship,” they wrote.

The Times argues that the Pentagon has applied its own rules inconsistently. The newspaper said Trump ally Laura Loomer, a right-wing personality who agreed to the Pentagon policy, appeared to violate its prohibition on soliciting unauthorized information by promoting her “tip line.”

The government didn’t object to Loomer’s “general tip line” but concluded that a Washington Post tip line does violate its policy because it purportedly “targets” military personnel and department employees.

“It’s mystifying,” Boutrous said. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

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The judge asked Bruns, the government attorney, what standards are used to decide if a reporter poses a security risk.

“Don’t there have to be some criteria that are applied in a uniform way?” Friedman asked.

Yes, Bruns answered. But he said the government has “far more leeway” to restrict speech in a secure forum like the Pentagon.

“The reason for the policy is the security of the Pentagon,” he added.

Yale Law School professor David Schulz, who represents the Pentagon Press Association, said the challenged policy represents a “stark break from the past.”

“The press has been in the building since the day it opened,” Schulz told the judge. “It has always been there.”

AP Media Writer David Bauder in New York contributed to this story.

Metro Transit, the city of St. Paul and Ramsey County are weighing whether to make three blocks of a dedicated westbound bus lane on Marshall Avenue permanent. A public survey closes March 20.

A permanent bus lane from Metro Transit’s Lake Street and 36th Avenue Station in Minneapolis to Marshall and Cretin avenues in St. Paul primarily accommodates the Metro B Line, a bus rapid transit service that travels from Uptown, Minneapolis to downtown St. Paul.

An extension of the bus lane was installed in the fall of 2023 from Cretin Avenue to Wilder Street, and described by Metro Transit at the time as a temporary measure while the state completed construction along Interstate 94. Highway construction ended last August, but the bus lane will remain in place at least through spring, according to Metro Transit.

The bus lane, which is also open to bicycles and cars making right turns, is “active” weekdays from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., and on-street parking for approximately 40 vehicles is not permitted during those hours, to the chagrin of some property owners.

“It hurts my tenants because it makes the availability of parking in the area go way down,” said Thomas Mollner, a Highland Park real estate agent active in the area. “I’ve already had a couple tenants move because of parking. It was done without asking anybody in the neighborhood about it.”

Mollner and other critics have called the temporary lane underutilized, but transit officials say the lane has made travel times more reliable for bus services, including the B Line, which debuted in June 2025. Transit advocates say faster service could help draw new tenants who embrace a car-free lifestyle.

The survey will be available through March 20 at tinyurl.com/BUSLANE26.

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By SEUNG MIN KIM and AAMER MADHANI

WASHINGTON (AP) — Russia has provided Iran with information that could help Tehran strike American warships, aircraft and other assets in the region, according to two officials familiar with U.S. intelligence on the matter.

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The people, who were not authorized to comment publicly on the sensitive matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity, cautioned that the U.S. intelligence has not uncovered that Russia is directing Iran on what to do with the information.

Still, it’s the first indication that Moscow has sought to get involved in the war that the U.S. and Israel launched on Iran a week ago. Russia is in the rare club of countries that maintains friendly relations with Tehran, which has faced years of isolation over its nuclear program and its support of proxy groups that have wreaked havoc in the Middle East, including Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis.

The White House downplayed reports that Russia was sharing intelligence with Iran about U.S. targets in the region. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Friday told reporters that “it clearly is not making any difference with respect to the military operations in Iran because we are completely decimating them.”

Leavitt declined to say if Trump had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the reported intelligence sharing or whether he believed Russia should face repercussions, saying she would let the president speak to that himself.

Asked whether Russia would go beyond political support and offer military assistance to Iran, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there has been no such request from Tehran.

“We are in dialogue with the Iranian side, with representatives of the Iranian leadership, and will certainly continue this dialogue,” he said Friday.

Pushed on whether Moscow has provided any military or intelligence assistance to Tehran since the Iran war’s start, he refrained from comment.

Russia has tightened its relationship with Iran as it looked for badly needed missiles and drones to utilize in its four-year war Ukraine.

The Biden administration declassified intelligence findings that showed Iran supplies Moscow with attack drones and has assisted the Kremlin with building a drone-manufacturing factory.

The former U.S. administration also accused Iran of transferring short-range ballistic missiles to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

Details about the U.S. intelligence were first reported by the Washington Post.

Asked whether the revelation had shaken Trump’s faith in Putin’s ability to cut any peace deal in the Russia-Ukraine war, Leavitt said, “I think the president would say that peace is still an achievable objective with respect to the Russia-Ukraine war.”

Associated Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.