Nasa's Artemis II mission thundered away from Florida's coast, taking its four crew members on their historic journey to circle the Moon.

There was a deep rumbling as a sheet of brilliant white flame suddenly erupted, momentarily engulfing the whole launch pad as the mightiest rocket Nasa has ever built rose into the sky.

Nasa's Space Launch System (SLS) majestically crept upwards - slow at first, then gathering pace, riding on two blinding pillars of flame that crackled and roared with increasing volume until the rumbling was almost deafening, a sound we could feel in our bodies as we watched on in amazement, three miles (4.8km) away from the launch pad.

There were small cheers from those in the know as the rocket past the moment of maximum danger - one minute and 10 seconds into the launch. This is where the pressure hits the rocket the hardest, and when engineers know that even a small structural weakness can be disastrous.

There was no weakness, and SLS arced out over the Atlantic like a fiery white angel, leaving a white smoky trail as the sound subsided and the spacecraft disappeared from view, shrinking to a single bright star as it chased the Moon.

Afterwards, there was a giddy euphoria among staff at the Kennedy Space Center.

One person told me they felt quite emotional and another said they wanted to cry – no doubt a release of tension built up over the past few months when Artemis II came close to launch, but ended up being scrubbed for various reasons.

Tonight, though, Nasa employees were laughing and clapping - this is the moment that they have spent years working towards. There is still work to do, but for now they are bathing in the moment of triumph.

• Everything you need to know about the Artemis II mission
• First stop, the Moon. Next stop, Mars? Why Nasa's mission matters
• Inside the Moon mission to fly humans further than ever

In the hour before take-off there were issues which threatened the launch.

They concerned the launch abort system, which enables Nasa engineers to eject the astronauts and blow up the rocket if there is a malfunction.

The countdown clock was held at 10 minutes while engineers resolved the problem. They worked quickly, but it was an agonising wait to see if the launch could still go ahead.

Then came the staccato rhythm of the calls by each engineer responsible for the rocket's critical systems: "booster, go", "GNC, go", "range, go" – each reply, a tiny release of tension and a build-up of expectation.

"Artemis II, this is launch director," said Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, the first woman to hold the position at Nasa.

"You are go for launch," she told the crew. "We go for all humanity", Commander Reid Wiseman responded.

Cheesy words in normal circumstances, but that was the moment our spines began to tingle and we knew we were about to witness history.

The Kennedy Space Center was built to send astronauts to the Moon, but that hasn't happened since 1972 when Apollo 17 blasted off. Today, the centre was back in business, doing what it was made for.

The press corps headed outside, where clouds that had threatened to cancel the launch had evaporated.

As the countdown clock restarted, the atmosphere turned to electric anticipation.

The four RS 25 engines and twin solid rocket boosters lit up, driving more than 8.8 million pounds of thrust into the Florida evening sky.

"God Speed Artemis II" Blackwell-Thompson said in another echo from the past. The same words were used in a launch from here in 1962 to send John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, on his way.

I have been lucky enough to see launches of the Space Shuttle to the International Space Station from the Kennedy Space Center. Those launches are almost as impressive in flight, surging into space with an enormous bang and rising at the speed of a bullet.

But the SLS launch was not only more beautiful, it meant much more: a moment full of emotion for all those who saw it, perhaps because it reminded us of what humanity can do when it comes together, or perhaps because we may be entering a new era of space travel.

In the 1990s, I had the opportunity to speak to Neil Armstrong, who, in 1969, became the first person to ever walk on the moon.

Our discussion came at a time when the dream of human space travel seemed to be over. I asked him whatever happened to that dream? He smiled and said "the reality may have faded but the dream is still there and it will come back in time".

Today was the day the dream returned.

President Donald Trump has told the nation in a televised speech that the US military has nearly completed its goals in the Iran war.

He vowed to strike Iran "extremely hard" over the next two to three weeks and finish the job "very fast", without setting any timeline for ending the conflict.

In his primetime address, Trump called for countries that receive oil through the Strait of Hormuz to show "courage" and seize the key waterway, which has been effectively closed by Iranian attacks since the conflict began.

The president is grappling with rocketing gas prices and sliding personal popularity ratings as the war continues into its fifth week and US midterm elections loom in November.

Wednesday night's speech did little immediately to reassure global oil markets that disruption to the Strait of Hormuz shipping route will ease anytime soon.

The price of benchmark Brent crude was trading at about $100 a barrel before the president started speaking. Afterwards it rose to $105.

In the 20-minute speech from the White House, Trump said the US was "nearing completion" of its "core strategic objectives" in the conflict, and had "decimated" Iran's navy drone and ballistic missile forces.

"Very shortly, we are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks," Trump said.

However, he provided little insight into the state of what he described as "ongoing" discussions with Iran's leadership, leaving open the possibility of hitting Iranian energy infrastructure if negotiations prove fruitless.

"If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard, and probably simultaneously," the US president said.

"We have not hit their oil, even though that's the easiest target of all, because it would not give them even a small chance of survival or rebuilding."

Earlier in the day, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that Iran had asked for a ceasefire - a claim that Iran's foreign ministry quickly described as "false and baseless".

In his speech on Wednesday night, as he has done several times in recent days, Trump called on US allies to do more to secure shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz.

He urged them to "build up some delayed courage".

"Go to the Strait and just take it," he added.

Trump made no specific mention of the future of the Nato alliance, after earlier telling the British newspaper the Telegraph that he'd reconsider the US role in what he described as a "paper tiger".

His address to the nation came shortly after it emerged that Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, who is known as "the Trump whisperer" because of his influence with the president, is planning to visit the White House next week.

The president's political opponents were quick to criticise his speech. New York Democrat and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described the address as "rambling, disjointed and pathetic".

"Donald Trump's actions in Iran will be considered one of the greatest policy blunders in the history of our country, failing to articulate objectives, alienating allies, and ignoring the kitchen table problems Americans are facing," Schumer wrote on X. "He is completely unfit to be Commander-in-Chief and the whole world knows it."

According to an update by US Central Command on Wednesday, American forces have struck more than 12,300 targets across Iran since Operation Epic Fury began, including Iranian naval vessels and facilities, missile launchers and defence manufacturing plants.

But despite his claims of victory, Iranian attacks across the region continued on Wednesday, with authorities in both the United Arab Emirates and Qatar responding to missile and drone strikes.

In separate incidents, British troops said they brought down 10 Iranian drones in countries including Jordan, Bahrain and Cyprus.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll last week suggested that two-thirds of Americans believe the US should end the war quickly, even if it means not achieving Trump's goals. In the survey, 60% of respondents disapproved of the military strikes on Iran, while 35% approved.

Officials in Utah have formally closed a 51-year-old cold case after using new DNA technology to identify a murdered teenager as a victim of serial killer Ted Bundy.

Laura Ann Aime, 17, disappeared after leaving a party on Halloween in 1974. Her body was discovered about one month later by hikers in the American Fork Canyon.

On Wednesday, the Utah County Sheriff's Office announced that new testing "confirmed irrefutably that DNA evidence recovered from Laura's body verified the existence of DNA belonging to Bundy".

Between February 1974 and February 1978 Bundy murdered at least 30 women. He has also been linked to many more killings throughout the country.

Before he was executed in Florida in 1989, Bundy confessed to Laura's killing, but since he would not elaborate or give any detail to his actual involvement in her death, "the Sheriff's Department elected to keep this case open until investigators could prove, without a shadow of doubt", that he was her killer, the sheriff said in a statement.

"This case is now officially closed," Utah County Sheriff Mike Smith declared during a news conference, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

The sheriff added that if Bundy were still alive, prosecutors would pursue the death penalty against him.

Bundy is among America's most infamous serial killers, and began his spree by attacking victims throughout the Pacific Northwest of the US. He later killed victims in Colorado, Utah and Florida.

At the time of Laura's death, he was living in Salt Lake City and studying law at the University of Utah.

The sheriff's statement said Laura is remembered as an "outgoing free spirit who enjoyed outdoor activities and shared a passion for riding horses, hunting, and caring for her several siblings".

Bundy was known to often approach women in public places, gain their trust with his charm or a fake injury, and then lure them to secluded areas and kill them.

He was first arrested in 1975 for kidnapping a woman and sentenced to 15 years in jail.

But in 1977 he escaped by jumping out of a prison library window.

He was recaptured for eight days and then escaped again, continuing to kill until he was finally caught in 1978.

The Supreme Court appeared sceptical of President Donald Trump's executive order limiting birthright citizenship, a sign the high court could strike down a key element of his immigration agenda.

A majority of the court's justices on Wednesday seemed unconvinced that the US should stop granting citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants and some temporary US visitors.

The administration has argued that its effort to limit birthright citizenship is necessary to help rein in illegal immigration. Opponents argue it would upend more than a century of precedent and unravel a cornerstone of US immigration law enshrined by the 14th Amendment.

Trump attended the oral arguments in person on Wednesday, a rare move by a sitting president that underscored the high stakes of the case.

A defeat for Trump would mark a second straight setback at the high court, following the decision last month that invalidated the president's global tariffs. A win would help Trump deliver on his pledge to reshape America's immigration policies.

During more than two hours of arguments, U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer sought to convince the justices that the 14th Amendment - which establishes the concept of birthright citizenship and was extended formerly to enslaved people - and subsequent court rulings and laws passed by Congress all mistakenly expanded birthright citizenship.

Chief Justice John Roberts, a key swing vote on the court, questioned Trump's authority to exclude the children of undocumented immigrants from receiving US citizenship.

"I'm not quite sure how you can get to that big group," Roberts said.

• Trump says he will attend birthright citizenship arguments at Supreme Court
• Trump wants to end birthright citizenship. Where do other countries stand?

The oral arguments turned on a key clause in the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the US who are "subject to the jurisdiction thereof."

Bauer argued that the clause should only apply to the children of foreign diplomats and a few other limited groups. Parents who are in the country illegally when their children are born have "allegiance" to their home countries and therefore don't fall under the jurisdiction of US law, he said.

"Jurisdiction means allegiance," Sauer said. Citing a previous court opinion, he later argued that "permanent residence and domicile decides [citizenship]. That's what the court should be bound by."

But several justices said that interpretation would fundamentally reshape how Americans and people living around the world understand the US birthright citizenship process.

Justice Elena Kagan said the administration was seeking to undo a legal tradition of birthright citizenship that dates back to English common law. "What the 14th Amendment did was accept that tradition and not attempt to put any limitations on it. That was the clear rationale," Kagan said.

Several justices also pointed to the 1898 Supreme Court ruling, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the landmark decision that upheld birthright citizenship in the case of a child born to Chinese immigrants living in the US.

Cecillia Wang, an ACLU attorney representing the plaintiffs in court on Wednesday, used the decision to argue that Trump's executive order should be overturned.

"If we agree with you how to read Wong Kim Ark, then you win," Justice Brett Kavanaugh said. "That could be just a short opinion."

Whether the court ultimately issues a broad or narrow opinion remains to be seen. The difference between a sweeping ruling on constitutional grounds versus a more tailored opinion on statutory grounds is a critical one, legal experts said.

The justices could choose to focus on a 1952 law passed by Congress that codified birthright citizenship and not wade into the larger constitutional debate, said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law expert.

"The court does not like to rule on constitutional issues if it doesn't have to," Yale-Loehr said. "The court could argue that the Trump executive order is invalid on statutory grounds."

The court is expected to issue its decision in June. It would be the first major immigration case decided by the court on its merits since Trump started his second term. The court has taken up other immigration cases, but has so far sent them back to lower courts for further review.

Trump's push to end birthright citizenship is one part of his larger immigration crackdown. But it's nevertheless a longtime goal of many on the right, and something Trump has supported since his first term in office. A victory in this case would help Trump make the case that he is delivering on his campaign pledge to limit illegal immigration.

A loss would be a setback to Trump's immigration agenda. But it would also represent a larger blow to his efforts to aggressively expand executive power since returning to office. The ruling in February overturning Trump's sweeping global tariffs showed the justices are not willing to give Trump a blank check to bypass Congress and the courts.

Trump signaled his interest in the case by attending the oral arguments on Wednesday. Critics said his appearance was an improper effort to influence the court ahead of a decision that will have major repercussions for his domestic policy agenda.

"We are the only Country in the World STUPID enough to allow 'Birthright' Citizenship!" Trump said incorrectly on social media after leaving the court.

Marie McLaren is a latecomer to the stage - but she's in good company at her comedy class in Glasgow.

The 88-year-old has been learning the ropes of stand-up comedy from professional comedian Viv Gee over the last four weeks.

She is part of a group of over-50s who took part in the sessions, which will end with them taking the stage for live shows at The Social Hub Glasgow.

"The danger of doing comedy as an older person is that people might think you have lost it," Marie says.

"But in my opinion age is only a number."

Marie, from East Kilbride, was nominated for the class by her daughter.

"I've always liked jokes and laughs and make a joke out of anything," she says.

"Nobody's interested in moaners, so it's quite nice to just make people laugh and enjoy life."

Retired journalism lecturer Ronnie Bergman says the class is an opportunity to try something new.

"You kind of disappear when you get older. You get on the bus and people ignore you," says the 74-year-old.

"I was getting too comfortable and in too much of a rut, but this is out of my comfort zone.

"I hate getting my photo taken and I'm disappointed by the sound of my own voice so this is uncomfortable - but I enjoy it."

Ronnie says the benefit of being an older comedian is that he has heard a lot more jokes.

As the class wraps up, he says he will be drawing on Billy Connolly as his comedy hero.

"He's an older comedian and he's still funny," Ronnie says.

Seventy-year-old Christine MacCormack believes her age helps to give her a difference perspective on comedy.

"We look at life differently because we born in a different time," she says.

"I'm just living my best life and I just want to enjoy the experience and my five minutes in the spotlight."

The group took to the stage at the Social Hub for the first time on Wednesday in a show entitled The Old Ones are the Best, which has been organised in partnership with Age Scotland.

We watched as they ran through their material ahead of their debut performance.

With decades of life experience, the jokes run from the cradle to the grave - including a one-liner about being too old to buy a bag for life.

Health problems, family life and the habits of the younger generation have also provided a wealth of material.

But these are not your typical granddad jokes.

In one routine, 65-year-old Mitch Milmore buzzes around the stage wearing a pair of homemade bug-eyed goggles.

Meanwhile, 67-year-old Andy Burke finds his humour in his hometown.

"I come from a wee fishing village in Glasgow called Springburn," he tells the audience.

"It's got some lovely pubs up there - you go in laughing and come out in stitches."

He then launches into an expletive-laden set for the next five minutes before turning to tutor Viv for feedback.

"The great thing about comedy is anyone can do it," says the Scottish Comedy Awards winner.

"I can't teach them to be funny but I can teach them to be funnier."

At 2:45am, much of the country is fast asleep - but for nearly three decades that's when Carol Kirkwood's day has begun.

Now, after leaving the BBC this week, the early alarm is the first thing she's ready to leave behind - it's "well and truly going in the bin".

It marks the end of an era, not just for Kirkwood, but for millions of viewers who have watched her present the weather forecast.

She has been the main weather presenter on BBC Breakfast since 2010, having started her BBC presenting career on the news channel.

Reflecting on her 28 years at the corporation, she tells us the biggest privilege was presenting the weather out in the field because "you meet members of the public who are always so lovely and kind to me".

Although it's "impossible to pinpoint one standout moment", reporting from events such as the Wimbledon tennis championships and Chelsea Flower Show were some of her highlights.

"I've reported from so many beautiful places and visited a lot of the country that I might not otherwise have seen," she adds.

Kirkwood announced she would be retiring back in February, but now her final few days at the BBC have arrived it's been "really surreal and emotional" to say goodbye.

Last week, while she was reporting on the weather at the Tower of London, she was given a special gold poppy that "is incredibly rare and hardly anyone has one".

"I was so surprised by the kindness they showed me," she says. Earlier this week she was "left in tears" after RHS Garden Wisley renamed its weather station in honour of her.

"The thing is you just go to work to do your job - you don't realise how appreciated you are," she says.

"You don't expect people to come and tell you how good you are because you're just doing your job.

"It's fabulous but it makes it even harder to leave."

But the 63-year-old, from Morar on Scotland's west coast, will miss her colleagues above all else.

"I love the weather and I'm fascinated by it but it's undoubtedly the people that make a job and it's so sad saying goodbye to them because I've known so many of them for decades. I know we'll stay in touch but it won't be the same."

On the flip side, without the 2:45am alarm, she "cannot wait to sit in the garden in the summer in the evening or go to the theatre without worrying about the lack of sleep I would get".

In a glittering career, Kirkwood has also reported for The One Show and competed on Strictly Come Dancing in 2015, reaching week eight with her partner Pasha Kovalev.

She has repeatedly been named best TV weather presenter at the TV and Radio Industries Club Awards.

'I should get on with my retirement'

In 2023, Kirkwood married police officer Steve Randall and one of the main reasons she chose to retire was to spend more time with him.

She'd been considering it for about six months and discussing it regularly with Steve and she explains that they kept coming back to the simple question: what are we waiting for?

"I'm not getting any younger, I'm newly married and we've had some losses in our lives recently."

She didn't elaborate on what losses she had experienced but says it helped her realise "I should get on with my retirement and that's what I'm going to do".

She's most excited to go travelling and has already planned trips to France and Italy.

"The freedom of being able to get in the car, drive and go anywhere we want for as long as we want is really appealing," she adds.

She and Steve love walking and she feels acutely aware she'll be "turning 64 in May and we want to do this while we're fit and healthy".

As for her other hobbies, her sixth romance novel is out in October and she has committed to writing at least two more books after that. She also says she'd love to learn the guitar and get a couple of cats.

When Kirkwood began forecasting in the 1990s, the job looked very different.

"We had little symbols of a sun and a cloud that would cover a whole area and that would be it," she explains. "Now we have 3D graphics that move across the area which is a lot clearer and easier to understand."

The weather has changed in almost three decades, too. "We used to have four definitive seasons and now they are such a muddle because of climate change."

She might be a pro at presenting the weather but it wasn't quite her dream job growing up, as she admits: "Not in a million years did I think I'd be doing this."

"When I was a child I wrote to Blue Peter producer Biddy Baxter because I wanted to be a presenter on the show as they always looked like they were having such good fun."

Her advice to anyone looking to pursue a similar career to her is to "always follow your dreams and put yourself out there".

"If you followed your dreams and they don't come true then at least you know you would have tried," she says.

Kirkwood's dreams did come true and now her dream retirement "can finally begin".

When Margo Oakley, now 59, was introduced to her older sister's new boyfriend her first impressions of the "po-faced" and "judgey" young man were not great.

And for Mark Blythen, 67, his feelings about his girlfriend's "loud and wild" younger sibling were mutual.

But more than 40 years later the pair became the first set of in-laws to compete on Race Across the World - the BBC show that offers a £20,000 cash prize to the first of five duos to reach the finish line without the aid of phones, internet or air travel and with a limited budget.

They told the BBC the decision to enter the intense TV contest together followed the "last wishes" of Mark's wife and Margo's sister Julia, who died from the rare blood cancer myelofibrosis in 2022.

Mark, from London, met Julia, from Liverpool, while they were both students at Huddersfield Polytechnic, even though initially she was dating one of his flatmates.

"She hit him over the head with a brolly and then about three weeks later I went out with her," he said.

Mark revealed the one thing he and Margo agreed on in those early days was that Julia was "out of my league".

"It took us 23 years to get married but as soon as I met Julia, she was the person I knew I wanted to be with," Mark said.

"She was gregarious, she was funny and she was just everything I wanted in someone, a partner."

His first introduction to Margo came during a weekend visit to Liverpool.

"He wasn't what I imagined her going out with," Margo said.

"He was quite po-faced about me and my friends. We were young, we were having fun. He seemed judgey."

"I was very judgey," Mark agreed.

The pair said they "rubbed along" over the years since then, with occasional "eruptions".

But Julia was "the glue that held us together", they said.

And one thing Margo never doubted was Mark's commitment to her sister.

"I have to say, he was a good husband. He was very, very devoted to her. He couldn't have been more," she said.

"I mean, in a way, and that's part of really the story of the race, in a way he put a lot of who he was aside just because he worshipped her so much."

After decades of not seeing eye-to-eye, Mark and Margo's relationship developed a new dimension in 2019 when Julia became ill.

She had a particularly aggressive form of the disease, and despite undergoing a stem-cell transplant, her condition deteriorated.

As Mark cared for his wife, he said he came to value Margo's visits for the impact they had on her mood.

"One of the things about caring for somebody is that it's very easy to just get lost and focus on caring for someone," he said.

"People that are being cared for, they need to have fun and Margo provided that fun. I think that's what kept Julia going for so long, that Margo would come down and raise her spirits."

Margo said she noticed the toll Julia's illness was taking on Mark.

"When he was caring for Julia, he didn't even know, realise how much it was taking from him," she said.

"We had different roles, but also as well, I knew Mark, like every carer, needed support."

While their relationship had been strengthening anyway, Julia explicitly told them she wanted them to remain close after she was gone.

"It was Julia's last wishes, and it was literally last wishes, that the friendship that Margo and myself had formed continued and we strengthened and we didn't lose it."

Margo said that while her sister had wanted their relationship to continue, how they went about it was an open question.

"You don't really have any blueprint for it, you know, it's an unusual relationship for all those years of friction," she said.

Both Mark and Margo said Julia was a big fan of Race Across the World, but "would never have gone on it" herself.

The inspiration to apply hit Margo suddenly.

"I saw the race advertised and I just thought 'that really speaks to me'. I was looking for adventure because I have a lot on in my life in Liverpool because I care for my mum.

"As soon as I saw the race advertised, just something, I have no idea, spoke to me and said, ask Mark. A voice kind of told me, ask Mark...

"I didn't think twice. And very quickly I asked him and immediately he said 'yes'."

The pair did not want to reveal too much about what went on during filming to avoid spoilers - but said the "magical" journey towards the final destination - Mongolia - featured "real highs and really big lows".

"I don't think that's a spoiler to say, that's the nature of the race. Even the lows, there was absolute magic and alchemy in them," she said.

"Some of the lows, that's where the absolute gold is wasn't it?"

"You find the treasure at the bottom", Mark agreed.

Margo said she believed the excitement and joy in taking part in the race and the sadness of losing Julia would be relatable for people who have experienced loss.

"There's beauty in holding both those things, of sadness and joy of life and honouring her," she said.

The new series of Race Across the World begins at 21:00 BST on Thursday 2 April on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

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