Lawsuit against Meta asks if Facebook users have right to control their feeds using external tools
Do social media users have the right to control what they see — or don't see — on their feeds?
Three Chinese astronauts have begun making China's new space station their home for the next three months, after their launch and arrival at the station Thursday marked further advances in the country's ambitious space program.
Their Shenzhou-12 craft connected with the station about six hours after taking off from the Jiuquan launch center on the edge of the Gobi Desert.
About three hours later, commander Nie Haisheng, followed by Liu Boming and space rookie Tang Hongbo, opened the hatches and floated into the Tianhe-1, the core living segment of the station. Pictures showed them busy at work unpacking equipment and at one point turning to the camera to greet and salute audiences back on Earth.
"This represents the first time Chinese have entered their own space station," state broadcaster CCTV said on its nightly news.
China has now sent 14 astronauts into space since 2003, when it became only the third country after the former Soviet Union and the United States to do so on its own. China's leaders hope the mission will be a complete success as the ruling Communist Party prepares to celebrate its centennial next month.
Although contact between the Chinese space program and NASA is restricted by U.S. law, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson issued a statement Thursday expressing, "Congratulations to China on the successful launch of crew to their space station! I look forward to the scientific discoveries to come."
The mission is the third of 11 planned through next year to connect the Tianhe-1 to two laboratory modules and send up crews and supplies. The current crew will carry out experiments, test equipment and prepare for the future missions.
A fresh crew and supplies will be sent in three months. Each crew will have three members, with the station's capacity at six, when crews are being exchanged. Two of China's past astronauts were women, and future crews on the station will include women.
Uniformed military personnel and children waving flowers and flags and singing patriotic songs saw off the astronauts before they entered the Shenzhou-12 to be blasted into space atop a Long March-2F Y12 rocket at at 9:22 a.m (0122 GMT) Thursday Beijing time.
The rocket dropped its boosters about two minutes into the flight followed by the cowling surrounding the crew's craft. After about 10 minutes it separated from the rocket's upper section, extended its solar panels and shortly afterward entered orbit.
About a half-dozen adjustments helped line up the craft for docking with the Tianhe-1, or Heavenly Harmony, module at about 4 p.m. (0800 GMT).
The travel time is down from the two days it took to reach China's earlier experimental space stations, a result of a "great many breakthroughs and innovations," the mission's deputy chief designer, Gao Xu, told state broadcaster CCTV.
"So the astronauts can have a good rest in space which should make them less tired," Gao said.
Other improvements include an increase in the number of automated and remote-controlled systems that should "significantly lessen the pressure on the astronauts," Gao said.
China is not a participant in the International Space Station, largely as a result of U.S. objections to the Chinese programs secrecy and close military ties. However, China has been stepping up cooperation with Russia and a host of other countries, and its station may continue operating beyond the International Space Station, which is reaching the end of its functional life.
Chinese space officials have also said foreigners may be part of future crews on the station after it is fully built next year.
China landed a probe on Mars last month that carried a rover, the Zhurong, and earlier landed a probe and rover on the moon's less explored far side and brought back the first lunar samples by any country's space program since the 1970s.
China and Russia this week also unveiled an ambitious plan for a joint International Lunar Research Station running through 2036. That could compete and possibly conflict with the multinational Artemis Accords, a blueprint for space cooperation that supports NASA's plans to return humans to the moon by 2024 and to launch an historic human mission to Mars.
After the Tianhe-1 was launched in April, the rocket that carried it into space made an uncontrolled reentry to Earth. Usually, discarded rocket stages reenter the atmosphere soon after liftoff, normally over water, and don't go into orbit.
China dismissed criticism of the potential safety hazard at the time, and officials said the rocket used Thursday was of a different type and reentering components were expected to burn up before they could be a danger.
This story has been corrected to show China conducted its first spacewalk in 2008, not 2011.
Do social media users have the right to control what they see — or don't see — on their feeds?
A 15-year old boy who was critically injured after a stabbing in Nepean on Thursday has died of his injuries, Ottawa's English public school board said Sunday.
Police say it’s fortunate no one was injured or killed in a collision at North Vancouver’s Park and Tilford shopping centre Saturday evening that sent one vehicle careening into a flower shop and another into a set of concrete barriers outside a Winners store.
Princess Anne saluted Canadian veterans and current forces members today during a ceremony at British Columbia's legislature cenotaph commemorating the Second World War's Battle of the Atlantic.
As Canadians brace themselves for summer temperatures, forecasters say a weakening El Nino cycle doesn’t mean relief from the heat.
A child in Texas died Sunday after being swept away in floodwaters as storms swept across the state.
The Maple Leafs battled back from a 3-1 series deficit against the Boston Bruins with consecutive 2-1 victories - including one that required extra time - in their first-round playoff series to push the club's Original Six rival to the limit before suffering a devastating Game 7 overtime loss.
Amid scientists' warnings that nations need to transition away from fossil fuels to limit climate change, Canadians are still lukewarm on electric vehicles, according to a study conducted by Nanos Research for CTV News.
Three people have died and two have been hospitalized after a speeding car struck a tree and landed on another vehicle in Fredericton Sunday morning.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.