PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — Jurors in the Lindsay Clancy trial ended a fourth day of deliberations without a verdict Tuesday after earlier saying they couldn’t agree whether the Massachusetts mother is criminally responsible for killing her three young children.

Not long after arriving at the courthouse, the jury sent Judge William Sullivan a note saying they had been unable to reach a unanimous decision despite many hours of back and forth. He told them to keep trying.

It was the jury’s first indication of an impasse in the closely watched trial that has focused on maternal mental health after childbirth, and which has stirred deep divisions among the public.

Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, doesn’t deny strangling her children but says postpartum psychosis led to her actions. Prosecutors argue she knew what she was doing. Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility.

Clancy stared straight ahead as the jury entered in the morning to say they were at a standstill, then looked toward them as the judge spoke.

Sullivan told the jurors that he recognized it had been a long trial with more than 80 witnesses and 300 exhibits. “But because of that, I’m going to ask you to go back out,” he said.

They’re expected to resume deliberations Wednesday.

What happens if there’s a hung jury

The jury, which began deliberating Thursday afternoon, could convict Clancy of murder or manslaughter, or acquit her if they believe her deteriorating mental health was to blame.

A conviction could lead to a life prison sentence. If she is acquitted, a judge could still order her confined to a mental health facility if an evaluation determines she is a danger to the public.

If jurors can’t reach a verdict and a mistrial is declared, the charges against Clancy would remain. Prosecutors would need to decide whether to try Clancy again before an entirely new group of jurors.

Prosecutors could offer a plea deal to Clancy, although her attorney is more likely to push for them to drop the charges, said Brad Bailey, a Boston defense attorney and former prosecutor who is not involved in the case.

Defense attorney Kevin Reddington called it a good sign that the jury hasn’t given up. “I think that they’re showing that they are more than willing to keep working at it,” he said.

Trial focused on Lindsay Clancy’s mental health

During more than four weeks of testimony, jurors heard differing views from medical experts.

Clancy’s lawyer argued she loved her children, but killed them because she lost her grip on reality — and on herself — due to bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness that can follow childbirth.

Prosecutors said Clancy was depressed and tired of living, and made a conscious choice to kill the children. A forensic psychologist who testified for the prosecution said he concluded that Clancy killed the children because she wanted to end her life but didn’t want to leave them behind.

Clancy’s mother and sister testified that she became anxious, paranoid and suicidal after the birth of her third child. She sought treatment for her worsening mental health, including a stay in a psychiatric hospital, in the months before killing Cora, Dawson and Callan Clancy, ages 5, 3 and 8 months.

Less than three weeks after being discharged, she sent her husband on an errand and killed the children with exercise bands in the basement of their home south of Boston. She then jumped from a second-floor window and remains paralyzed from the waist down. Her lawyers say she heard a voice telling her to kill the children so she could end her own life.

Lindsay Clancy didn’t take the stand during her trial

Clancy chose not to testify. She watched the proceedings from the defense table, occasionally weeping, as when prosecutors showed autopsy photos of the children to the jury.

Jurors spent two days listening to testimony from her former husband, Patrick Clancy, and his anguished 911 call. He was on the phone when he discovered the children’s bodies, minutes after finding his wife.

Patrick Clancy has said in interviews that he forgives his ex-wife, whom he viewed as ill rather than evil. The trial marks the first time he has seen Lindsay Clancy since the killings.

Postpartum psychosis, the condition that Clancy’s attorney says she had when she killed the children, is more serious and less common than postpartum depression. Researchers estimate that the condition afflicts 1 to 2 out of 1,000 women after delivery.

CUPERTINO (AP) — Apple’s new CEO John Ternus takes the helm of the iconic tech giant on Tuesday, ending Tim Cook’s 15-year tenure during which the company’s value skyrocket to $4.6 trillion thanks to the iPhone’s enormous popularity.

The transition to a new CEO comes at a pivotal time for Apple. Artificial intelligence has unleashed the greatest upheaval within the industry since Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone in 2007. Apple has gotten off to a rough start in AI after stumbling in its efforts to deliver new features built on the technology, as promised nearly two years ago.

Earlier this year, it unveiled new artificial intelligence advances, including upgrades to its Siri assistant, emphasizing a focus on privacy and day-to-day use as the iPhone maker tries to catch up with rivals.

Ternus faces challenges that will force him to step outside his comfort zone in hardware engineering. Beyond finding ways to keep Apple competitive in the artificial intelligence race, he will need to navigate supply chain questions and relationships with figures such as President Donald Trump, who offered public praise for his predecessor on Tuesday.

Serving as Apple CEO will also require soft skills, including developing relationships with important figures. Cook cultivated ties with Trump as he navigated the company through business challenges, including Trump’s trade and tariff war targeting countries in Asia, where Apple has extensive manufacturing supply chains. Although he is handing over the CEO reins at Apple, Cook is widely expected to help the company maintain a good relationship with Trump after he shifts to his new role as executive chairman.

Ternus worked on some of Apple’s signature products under Cook, including the Apple Watch, AirPods and Apple Vision Pro. He will headline next week’s launch of the latest iPhone at Apple’s Cupertino, California, headquarters.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s newest crown jewel blasted off Sunday to hunt for planets around other stars, explore secret dark energy and survey the cosmos like never before.

SpaceX launched the $4.3 billion Roman Space Telescope shortly after daybreak aboard a triple-the-firepower Falcon Heavy rocket. Roman blazed toward an observation point 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) away that’s home to the Webb Space Telescope, one of NASA’s other big-ticket eyes in the sky.

The bus-sized telescope — named after the late Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer — will take more than three months to reach its destination. Once there, it will cast the widest gaze yet on the hidden parts of the universe from space, uncovering the unimaginable with unsurpassed speed.

“It’s going to find thousands of supernovae, tens of thousands of planets, billions of galaxies and tens of billions of stars,” said NASA science mission director Nicky Fox. “It’s going to be able to do things that we’ve never been able to do before with its massive field of view.”

3… 2… 1… Liftoff! And a call from the president

Several minutes after the thunderous launch from Kennedy Space Center, the rocket’s two reusable side boosters descended tail-first in a thrilling scene, producing sharp sonic booms as they landed back at Cape Canaveral. Soon afterward, the telescope separated successfully from the rocket’s upper stage, drawing applause from ground controllers.

Fox was in tears watching the action unfold. “It’s such a good day!” she said.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman was in the middle of a news conference a couple hours later, predicting that the Roman Space Telescope would soon become a household name, when his cellphone rang. President Donald Trump was on the line, offering congratulations.

“Boy, it looked beautiful on television,” said Trump, fresh off his visit to Houston’s Johnson Space Center on Friday to honor the Artemis II moon crew. “You’re the hottest in space.”

Roman Space Telescope will provide a wider perspective

Roman’s field of view is more than 100 times wider than that of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, still churning out celestial glamour shots after 36 years in orbit. Webb joined the effort several years ago with an even narrower yet spot-on vision capable of zooming in on objects almost as old as the universe-creating Big Bang.

These three orbiting powerhouses will join forces — along with the European Space Agency’s Euclid spacecraft and the National Science Foundation’s Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile — to reveal some of the universe’s biggest secrets.

Inside the countless galaxies awaiting discovery are stars with planets. Once these new worlds are spotted by Roman, the more powerful and sensitive Webb will take aim to fill in the blanks.

“Roman’s vast reach will allow us to find the weird, the rare and the unusual,” senior project scientist Julie McEnery said on the eve of launch. “We’ll redefine what it means to find a needle in a haystack.”

Perhaps even more important, astronomers expect Roman to shed light on the dark matter and dark energy that make up most of the universe yet remain concealed. Roman’s catalog of galaxies will help scientists ascertain how quickly the universe is expanding due to these puzzling, unseen forces.

Roman will scan the sky 1,000 times faster than Hubble

Roman’s superpower is speed.

A month of Milky Way observations by Roman would take Hubble a century to complete, according to McEnery. Roman should make quick work of scanning the galactic bulge at dead center, she added, providing the deepest look yet into the heart of our galaxy.

Besides a wide-field infrared camera that matches Hubble’s sensitivity but is 1,000 times faster, Roman holds an instrument to block out starlight. This experimental, eclipse-creating coronagraph will allow Roman to directly image any planet, however faint, that might be orbiting the masked star.

While Roman isn’t designed to search for life, Fox said it will pave the way for future observatories to answer what NASA considers the biggest question: “Are we alone? Is there another Earth 2.0 looking back at me?”

The telescope is designed to be refueled, meaning if a robotic tanker becomes available in the coming decade, that could extend its life.

The telescope’s mirror has a surprising origin

Launching nearly a year ahead of schedule and within budget, Roman is NASA’s first space telescope to be named after a woman.

Retired NASA scientist Ed Weiler said the honor is long overdue. He coined the phrase “Mother of Hubble” for Roman, who hired him in 1978. Observatories above Earth’s obscuring atmosphere can see farther and better, she insisted after joining the brand new NASA in 1959. She died in 2018 at age 93.

“This is very, very fitting. I think Nancy would be very proud” that the namesake telescope will tackle some of the biggest, lingering questions about the universe such as dark energy, Weiler said.

Hubble launched in 1990 with a flawed mirror that required spacewalking astronauts’ dramatic intervention. Roman’s primary mirror is the same size as Hubble’s — nearly 8 feet (2.4 meters) in diameter — and is actually spy satellite surplus.

The National Reconnaissance Office donated two leftover mirrors to NASA more than a decade ago for repurposing. The second mirror is still in storage.