Scientists said goodbye to the Ulysses solar probe on Tuesday, following 18 years of activity.
“Ulysses has taught us more than we ever expected about the sun and the way it interacts with the space surrounding it,” said Richard Marsden, Ulysses project manager with the European Space Agency (ESA).
Named for the Latin translation of Odysseus, after Dante’s Inferno, the veteran solar probe has been retrieving data for more than 18 and 1/2 years – four times longer than scientists had expected.
Ulysses was launched October 6, 1990 from the Space Shuttle Discovery …

Oil prices rose above $70 a barrel Wednesday in Asia as a drop in U.S. crude inventories suggested demand may be picking up. Benchmark crude for August delivery rose 74 cents to $70.63 a barrel by midmorning Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Tuesday, it dipped $1.60 to settle at $69.89. U.S. inventories dropped by 6.8 million barrels last week, the American Petroleum Institute said Tuesday. Investors will be watching for inventory data from the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration on Wednesday …

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, already struggling to salvage his family and his political career after admitting a scandalous affair, added explosive details Tuesday, including more visits with the mistress he calls his “soul mate” and additional women in his past.
The once-promising presidential prospect said he is committed to reconciling with his wife, but professed to The Associated Press his continued love for the Argentine woman at the center of the firestorm that gutted his political future.
In emotional interviews with the AP over two days, he said he would die …

Government experts called for sweeping safety restrictions Tuesday on the most widely used painkiller, including reducing the maximum dose of Tylenol and eliminating prescription drugs such as Vicodin and Percocet. The Food and Drug Administration assembled 37 experts to recommend ways to reduce deadly overdoses with acetaminophen, which is the leading cause of liver failure in the U.S. and sends 56,000 people to the emergency room annually. About 200 die each year. “We’re here because there are inadvertent overdoses with this drug that are fatal and this is …

Michael Jackson was so distraught over persistent insomnia in recent months that he pleaded for a powerful sedative despite warnings it could be harmful, says a nutritionist who was working with the singer as he prepared his comeback bid. Cherilyn Lee, a registered nurse whose specialty includes nutritional counseling, said Tuesday that she repeatedly rejected his demands for the drug, Diprivan, which is given intravenously. But a frantic phone call she received from Jackson four days before his death made her fear that he somehow obtained Diprivan or …