The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, topped with an autonomously operated Crew Dragon capsule dubbed Freedom, was launched from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, along Florida’s Atlantic Coast

International News via Reuters:

A SpaceX rocket lifted off from Florida early on Friday with a crew of two U.S. NASA astronauts, a French astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut headed to the International Space Station for an eight-month science mission in Earth orbit.

The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, topped with an autonomously operated Crew Dragon capsule dubbed Freedom, was launched from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, along Florida’s Atlantic Coast, at about 5:15 a.m. EST (1015 GMT).

A live NASA-SpaceX webcast showed the 25-story-tall vehicle rising from the launch tower as its nine Merlin engines roared to life, gulping 700,000 gallons of fuel per second, emitting clouds of vapor and a reddish fireball that lit up the predawn sky.

The four crew were set to reach the space station on Saturday afternoon after a 34-hour flight, docking with the orbiting laboratory platform some 250 miles (420 km) above Earth.

The mission, designated Crew-12, marks the 12th long-duration ISS team that NASA has flown aboard a SpaceX launch vehicle since the private rocket venture founded in 2002 by billionaire Elon Musk began sending U.S. astronauts to orbit in May 2020.

Crew-12 was led by Jessica Meir, 48, a veteran astronaut and marine biologist on her second trip to the space station, nearly seven years after making history with NASA colleague Christina Koch by completing history’s first all-female spacewalk.

Joining her was Jack Hathaway, 43, a former U.S. Navy fighter pilot and rookie astronaut; European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, 43, a master helicopter pilot from France; and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, a former military pilot on his second mission to the ISS.

Upon arrival, the team will get busy with a host of scientific, medical and technical research tasks in microgravity, according to NASA.

Those include studies of pneumonia-causing bacteria to improve treatments on Earth, and experiments with plant and nitrogen-fixing microbe interactions to boost food production in space.

Crew-12 will be welcomed aboard the space station by three current ISS occupants – NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev.

Four Crew-11 members who were supposed to have stayed aboard until the arrival of Crew-12 departed a few weeks early, when an undisclosed serious health condition affecting one forced an unprecedented medical evacuation flight home in mid-January.

The ISS, which spans the length of a football field and ranks as the largest human-made object in space, has been continuously operated by a U.S.-Russian-led consortium that includes Canada, Japan and 11 European countries.

The first hardware for the outpost was launched more than a quarter century ago. It was conceived as part of a multinational venture to improve ties between Washington and Moscow following the Soviet Union’s collapse and the end of Cold War rivalries that spurred the original U.S.-Soviet space race in the 1950s and 1960s.

NASA has said it is committed to keeping the space station operating until the end of 2030.

Reporting by xxxxx in Cape Canaveral, Florida; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Clarence Fernandez

Leaders met yet again on Thursday to brainstorm about ways to survive aggressive economic rivalry from the U.S. and China

International News via Reuters:

The EU’s trade surplus kept shrinking, data showed on Friday, as tariffs weighed on exports to the U.S. and rising Chinese imports crowded out domestic production, highlighting existential threats to the bloc’s economic model.

Shifting trade and political relations with the world’s biggest powers have been squeezing Europe for years, and leaders met yet again on Thursday to brainstorm about ways to survive aggressive economic rivalry from the U.S. and China.

The European Union’s trade surplus fell to 12.9 billion euros in December from 13.9 billion a year earlier as machinery and vehicle sales, the engine of export growth for years, kept falling, and chemicals sales were also down.

Exports to the U.S., the bloc’s biggest export market, fell by 12.6% from a year earlier, pushing down the surplus by a third to 9.3 billion euros, while the bloc’s trade deficit with China rose to 26.8 billion euros from 24.5 billion.

Exports have been volatile since the U.S. announced a raft of tariffs in early 2025 but, smoothed for this volatility, the trend shows significantly lower sales as higher prices force U.S. importers to either cut purchases or source their products from elsewhere.

Economists say it will take years for Europe to regain this lost market, leaving a large gap in the economy as net exports have been the key plank in growth and the euro zone is now facing years of expansion barely above 1% per year.

Still, the domestic economy appears to be resilient to the trade shock for now as AI-related investments and domestic consumption are kicking into higher gear, keeping GDP growth at a modest but still respectable rate.

In the final quarter of 2025, the euro zone grew by 0.3%, in line with a preliminary estimate, Eurostat said in a separate release.

In another hopeful sign, employment in the euro zone rose by 0.2% over the previous quarter, holding steady from three months earlier.

Some optimism is also fuelled by rising domestic spending, particularly in Germany, where the government is boosting investment into defence and infrastructure, two long-neglected areas.

This spending is slow to pick up pace but should already lift second quarter figures and be at full speed by the end of the year.

The bloc’s external economic challenges could also kick start long-stalled reform efforts at home and the European Central Bank estimates that breaking down external barriers could offset trade lost to U.S. tariffs.

Reporting by Balazs Koranyi

Kos said the commission was reviewing funding for Serbia under the EU Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, aimed at aligning the region to EU rules and ultimately bringing countries such as Serbia into the bloc

International News via Reuters:

The European Union could withhold funds from a 1.6 billion euro allocation of loans and grants to Serbia, after Belgrade passed laws that are “eroding trust” in its commitment to the rule of law, the bloc’s enlargement commissioner said.

Reforms to centralise the judiciary that came into force this week brought criticism from judges and prosecutors who see them as bolstering President Aleksandar Vucic’s hold on power, weakening the fight against organised crime and undermining Serbia’s bid to join the EU.

“These amendments are eroding trust. It is becoming harder for those in Brussels who are willing to advance with Serbia to make their case,” EU enlargement commissioner Marta Kos said in emailed comments to Reuters late on Thursday.

Kos said the commission was reviewing funding for Serbia under the EU Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, aimed at aligning the region to EU rules and ultimately bringing countries such as Serbia into the bloc. Serbia was allocated 1.6 billion euros of loans and grants under the programme.

“These (funds) contain preconditions linked to the rule of law,” she said. 

Serbia began official talks to join the EU in 2014 but widespread corruption and weak institutions have slowed progress. 

The judicial reforms include limiting the mandate of chief public prosecutors and granting court presidents – responsible for court administration – greater powers over judges. Critics fear the reforms will erode judges’ independence and jeopardise high-level corruption cases overseen by the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime.

The government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday. The justice ministry has said that the new laws will make the judiciary more efficient by streamlining the decision-making process.

Since the backlash, Serbia has requested the opinion of the Venice Commission, a panel of constitutional law experts of the Council of Europe, a human rights body. 

“Once that opinion is issued, we expect these laws to be revised accordingly and in an inclusive manner,” Kos said.

Reporting by Edward McAllisterEditing by Peter Graff