While the SpaceX rocket launched Tuesday takes supplies to the International Space Station, it also released samples of the remains of some 300 people, including an astronaut and a man who played a space traveler on television and in movies. Astronaut Gordon Cooper, who died in 2004, and Star Trek actor James Doohan, who died in 2005, are among those who chose to have several grams of their ashes launched on a "memorial spaceflight" with the help of a private company called ...

Concluding their summit in Chicago, leaders of NATO's 28 member states agreed on a unified plan to gradually wind down the war in Afghanistan. The plan, which calls for Afghan security forces to take the lead in combat operations by the middle of 2013, sees all NATO combat forces withdrawn from the country by December 2014. While Afghanistan was the main topic at the summit, NATO leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to a ballistic-missile defense system. Experts call the plan ...