BEIJING (AP) — China launched the Shenzhou 22 spacecraft on Tuesday to help bring back a team of astronauts after a damaged spacecraft left them temporarily stranded on China’s space station.

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The Shenzhou 22, which successfully docked at the Tiangong space station Tuesday, will be used sometime in 2026 by the three astronauts who arrived on Nov. 1.

Earlier this month, another group of Chinese astronauts from the Shenzhou 20 mission faced a nine-day delay in their return to Earth after their craft’s window was damaged. They eventually returned using the Shenzhou 21 spacecraft, which had just carried the replacement crew to Tiangong.

While the three-person crew landed safely on Earth, three of their fellow astronauts on the replacement crew were temporarily left without a guaranteed way to return in case of an emergency.

The Shenzhou 20 spacecraft — the damaged one, which for now remains in space — will be brought down to Earth later and assessed, according to state broadcaster CCTV. The space program determined it didn’t meet safety standards for transporting the astronauts.

Chinese astronauts have been carrying out missions to the Tiangong space station in recent years as part of Beijing’s rapidly progressing space program, initially building out the station module-by-module.

China developed Tiangong after the country was excluded from the International Space Station over U.S. national security concerns, since China’s space program is controlled by its military.

Tiangong, which means “Heavenly Palace,” hosted its first crew in 2021. It is smaller than the International Space Station, which has been operating for 25 years.

By SAM McNEIL, Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union lawmakers voted on Tuesday to deepen integration of the bloc’s defense industry with Ukraine as a U.S. peace plan remains in flux and Russia’s unconventional warfare operations rattle the 27-nation bloc.

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European Parliament legislators voted 457-148, with 33 abstentions, to approve a 1.5-billion euro ($1.7 billion) program, with 300 million euros ($345 million) slated for the Ukraine Support Instrument.

Raphaël Glucksmann, an EU lawmaker from France’s S&D party, said that the defense program “will enable us to build a more resilient and sovereign Europe” through partnering with Ukraine to build a cutting-edge military industrial complex.

“This is key to making sure we can protect our democracies effectively and autonomously,” he said.

Ukraine’s defense industry “needs us,” EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius told EU lawmakers before the vote in Strasbourg, France, without mentioning the ongoing peace negotiations to end the war. “But we need Ukraine’s defense innovations even more.”

He said that allowing Ukrainian access to the EU’s Defence Investment Program “makes it possible to procure defense equipment in, with and for Ukraine.”

EU defense spending is expected to total around 392 billion euros (more than $450 billion) this year, almost double the amount of four years ago, before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

The Trump administration has signaled that it’s prioritizing U.S. security on its own domestic borders and in Asia. It has told Europeans that they must fend for themselves and Ukraine in the future.

Born out of the carnage of the two world wars, the EU started as a trading bloc designed to avert conflict. But Russia’s war in Ukraine has spurred a shift in the Brussels-based bloc, heightening its defense and security posture.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, believes that about 3.4 trillion euros ($4 trillion) will probably be spent on defense over the next decade. To help, it intends to propose boosting the EU’s long-term budget for defense and space to 131 billion euros ($153 billion).

“We shall be powerful geopolitically if we shall be strong in our defense, and we shall be strong in defense if we shall be strong in our defense industry, and if we shall be strong in our defense industry, we shall be industrially independent, autonomous and much less fragmented,” Kubilius said.

EU member countries are being urged to buy much of their military equipment within the bloc, working mostly with European suppliers — in some cases with EU help to cut prices and speed up orders. Under the road map, EU nations should only purchase equipment from abroad when costs, performance or supply delays make it preferable.

Kubilius said that EU-based defense companies can apply for tax breaks and other financial incentives to fund so-called European defense projects of common interest that “no member state can ever build alone, but that will protect the whole of Europe,” like Eastern Flank Watch, Drone Defense Initiative or Space Shield.

Permitting Ukrainian companies to participate in these projects “allows us to inject Ukrainian military innovation in the European defense industry,” he said.

Last week, the European Commission rolled out a new defense package to allow tanks and troops to deploy more rapidly across Europe as well as the EU Defense Industry Transformation Roadmap, which aims to simplify and unify regulations on the EU’s defense industry, and corral investment into domestic production of weapons, vehicles, satellites, shells and bullets.

Before the vote, Kubilius said that the defense program is meant to make sure big nations cannot seize territories of weaker nations.

“My country Lithuania was really a victim of such previous policies prevailing in the European continent,” he said, referring to the Soviet occupation of Lithuania for 50 years. “That is why I am for a strong Europe and a strong European defense industry.”

A nonprofit that has been working for years to bring an indoor pool and community center to the Stillwater area has entered into an agreement to purchase the current Lake Elmo Elementary School site for $4.25 million.

Stillwater Area Public School District officials announced on Tuesday morning that the district is selling the property at 11030 Stillwater Blvd. N. to Valley Community Center Partners Inc. The sale includes the building and approximately 12.86 acres of land.

The nonprofit is planning to build a new community center on the site. Among the planned amenities: an aquatics facility, fitness and recreation spaces, courts for multiple sports, youth activity areas, gathering spaces and programs serving people of all ages and abilities.

The group’s vision is to “create a central, accessible place that promotes social connection, physical and mental wellness and recreational opportunities for the entire St. Croix Valley region,” according to the group’s website. “At this time, no equivalent community resource exists.”

Potential demolition costs for the existing building are already accounted for within the district’s voter-approved bond proceeds, district officials said.

The organization will have a 210-day due-diligence period to review title, survey, environmental, soil and feasibility considerations.

The closing is scheduled for Dec. 1, 2026, or earlier by mutual agreement. That date allows the district to finish out the current school year before moving into the new Lake Elmo Elementary building over the summer. The new school, which is currently under construction at the corner of 10th Street and Lake Elmo Avenue, opens next fall.

“We are pleased that this agreement both supports our district’s long-term facilities plan and opens the door for a community-focused redevelopment of the site,” said Superintendent Mike Funk. “This project has the potential to bring meaningful benefits to families across the region.”

Valley Community Center Partners has been working for years to create a central, accessible community hub within the boundaries of the Stillwater Area School District.

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In 2023, the group hired Colorado-based Ballard*King & Associates, a consulting firm that specializes in, among other things, creating feasibility studies for recreational and sports facilities, to conduct a survey of more than 1,300 residents of the area.

Nearly 90 percent of the respondents supported an indoor pool. “Spoiler alert: everybody wants a pool,” Diane Polasik, vice president of the board, told the Pioneer Press at the time. “Since we don’t have a pool, we have to go to other community pools and drive a ways to get there.”

In addition to an indoor pool, top trends in the survey were multi-purpose gyms, group exercise, indoor play, community gathering, indoor run/jog and teens programs. More than 80 percent of the responders indicated those things were important.

More information about Valley Community Center is available at thevalleycenter.org.

By MATT BROWN, Associated Press

In a packed room at library in a downtown Boston, Rep. Ayanna Pressley posed a blunt question: Why are Black women, who have some of the highest labor force participation rates in the country, now seeing their unemployment rise faster than most other groups?

The replies Monday from policymakers, academics, business owners and community organizers laid out how economic headwinds facing Black women may indicate a troubling shift for the economy at large.

The unemployment rate for Black women increased from 6.7% to 7.5% between August and September this year, the most recent month for available data because of the federal government shutdown.

That compares with a 3.2% to 3.4% increase for white women over the same period. And it extended a year-long trend of the Black women’s unemployment rate increasing at a time of broad economic uncertainty.

Many roundtable attendees view those numbers as both an affront and a warning about the uneven pressures on Black women.

“Everyone is missing out when we’re pushed out of the workforce,” said Pressley, a progressive Democrat. “That is something that I worry about now, that you have all these women with specific expertise and specializations that we’re being deprived of.”

And when Black women do have work, she said they tend to be “woefully underemployed.”

Black women had the highest labor force participation rate of any female demographic in 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, yet their unemployment rate remains higher than other demographics of women.

Historically, their unemployment rate has trended slightly above the national average, widening during periods of slowed economic growth or recession. Black Americans are overrepresented in industries like retail, health and social services, and government administration, according to a 2024 Bureau of Labor Statistics Survey.

“Black women are at the center of the Venn diagram that is our society,” said Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman, a PhD candidate in public policy and economics at the Harvard Kennedy School.

She pointed to April as the month when Black women’s unemployment began to diverge more sharply from other groups. A policy agenda that ignores the causes, she said, could harm the broader economy.

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Roundtable participants cited many long-standing structural inequities but attributed most of the latest divergence to recent federal actions. They blamed the Trump administration’s downsizing of the Minority Business Development Agency and the cancellation of some federal contracts with non-profits and small businesses, saying those actions disproportionately impacted Black women. Others said tariff policies and mass federal layoffs also contributed to the strain.

The administration’s opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives was repeatedly mentioned by participants as a cause for a more hostile environment for Black women to find employment, customers or government contracting.

There is no concrete data on how many Black federal workers were laid off, fired or otherwise dismissed as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts through the federal government.

The attendees discussed a wide range of potential solutions to the unemployment rate for Black women, including using state budgets to bolster business development for Black women, expanding microloans to different communities, increasing government resources for contracting, requiring greater transparency on corporate hiring practices and encouraging state and federal officials to enforce anti-discrimination policies.

“I feel like I was just at church,” said Ruthzee Louijeune, the Boston City Council president, as the meeting wrapped up. She encouraged attendees to keep up their efforts, and she defended DEI policies as essential to a healthy workforce and political system. Without broad-based efforts, the Democrat said, the country’s business and political leadership would be “abnormal” and weakened.

“Any space that does not look like our country and like our cities is not normal,” she said, “and not the city or country we are trying to build.”