Multiple bridges in Calgary shut down for police incident
Calgary police have shut down a number of bridges into and out of the downtown core as officers deal with a distraught individual.
Tom Cruise got a sneak preview of what it's like to circle Earth in a SpaceX capsule.
Representatives for SpaceX's first privately chartered flight revealed Friday that the actor took part in a call with the four space tourists orbiting more than 360 miles up. Thursday's conversation, like the entire three-day flight, was private and so no details were released.
“Maverick, you can be our wingman anytime,” came the announcement from the flight's Twitter feed. Cruise starred as Navy pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in the 1986 film “Top Gun.” A sequel comes out next year.
Last year, NASA confirmed it was in talks with Cruise about visiting the International Space Station for filming. SpaceX would provide the lift, as it does for NASA astronauts, and like it did Wednesday night for the billionaire up there now with his two contest winners and a hospital worker.
Their flight is due to end Saturday night with a splashdown in the Atlantic off the Florida coast.
The four showed off their capsule in a live broadcast Friday. They're flying exceedingly high in the automated capsule, even by NASA standards.
SpaceX got them into a 363-mile (585-kilometer) orbit following Wednesday night's launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. That's 100 miles (160 kilometers) higher than the International Space Station. It's so high that they're completing 15 orbits of Earth daily, compared with 16 for station astronauts.
Until this all-amateur crew, relatively few NASA astronauts had soared that high. The most recent were the shuttle astronauts who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope over multiple flights in the 1990s and 2000s.
To enhance the views, SpaceX outfitted the Dragon capsule with a custom, bubble-shaped dome. Photos of them looking out this large window were posted online, otherwise little else had been publicly released of their first day in space.
Besides talking space with Cruise, the four capsule passengers chatted Thursday with young cancer patients. Hayley Arceneaux, a childhood cancer survivor, led the conversation from orbit with patients from the hospital that saved her life almost 20 years ago: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. A 6-year-old-boy wanted to know if there are cows on the moon - like in the nursery rhyme.
“I hope there will be one day. Right now, no, there aren't,” replied another passenger, Sian Proctor. “We're going to go back to the moon soon and we're going to investigate all kinds of things about it.”
The video linkup was not broadcast live, but shared by St. Jude on Friday. Seeing the Earth from so high is “so beautiful,” Arceneaux told them.
Now a physician assistant at St. Jude, Arceneaux is the youngest American in space at age 29.
Pennsylvania entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, 38, purchased the entire flight for an undisclosed amount. He's seeking to raise $200 million for St. Jude through the flight he's named Inspiration4, half of that coming from his own pocket.
The two other Dragon riders won their seats through a pair of contests sponsored by Isaacman: Chris Sembroski, 42, a data engineer, and Proctor, 51, a community college educator.
During the broadcast Friday afternoon, Sembroski played a ukulele that will be auctioned off for St. Jude. “You can turn your volume down if you wish, but I'll give it a shot,” he said.
Proctor, who is an artist, showed off a drawing in her sketchbook of a Dragon capsule being carried by a mythological dragon away from Earth.
All four share SpaceX founder Elon Musk's quest to open space to everyone.
“Missions like Inspiration4 help advance spaceflight to enable ultimately anyone to go to orbit & beyond,” Musk tweeted Thursday after chatting with his orbiting pioneers.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Calgary police have shut down a number of bridges into and out of the downtown core as officers deal with a distraught individual.
Ontario released its annual sunshine list Thursday afternoon, noting that the largest year-over-year increases were in hospitals, municipalities, and post-secondary sectors.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is officially selling a copy of the Bible themed to Lee Greenwood’s famous song, 'God Bless the USA.' But the concept of a Bible covered in the American flag has raised concern among religious circles.
Former Humboldt Broncos goaltender and bus crash survivor Jacob Wassermann has qualified Canada for a rowing event for the 2024 Paralympic games in Paris.
The emergency room at Listowel’s hospital is open today, but come summer, their obstetrics unit will be temporarily closing its delivery rooms.
Genetic analysis has shed light on a long-standing mystery surrounding the fates of U.S. President George Washington's younger brother Samuel and his kin.
Canadians will be missing out on a sweet new partnership between McDonald's and Krispy Kreme, which will see doughnuts available at McDonald's locations across the U.S. by the end of 2026.
A spokesman for a regional Muslim advocacy group says Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's stance on the Israel-Hamas war could complicate his party's relationship with Muslim Canadians.
A judge has ordered a Quebec man to stand trial on charges of first-degree murder in the deaths of two children killed when a bus rammed into a Montreal-area daycare last year.
B.C. conservation officers recently seized a nine-foot-long Burmese python from a home in Chilliwack.
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
The Ontario government is introducing changes to auto-insurance, but some experts say the move is ill-advised.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
Newfoundland’s unique version of the Pine Marten has grown out of its threatened designation.
A Toronto man is out $12,000 after falling victim to a deepfake cryptocurrency scam that appeared to involve Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
It started small with a little pop tab collection to simply raise some money for charity and help someone — but it didn’t take long for word to get out that 10-year-old Jace Weber from Mildmay, Ont. was quickly building up a large supply of aluminum pop tabs.
There’s a group of people in Saskatoon that proudly call themselves dumpster divers, and they’re turning the city’s trash into treasure.
Ontario is facing a larger than anticipated deficit but the Doug Ford government still plans to balance its books before the next provincial election.