A US citizen has been arrested in Moscow on drug-related charges, according to an official statement released Tuesday.

The citizen, named as Robert Woodland, is accused of preparing and attempting a crime, as well as illegally dealing with drugs.

“By a resolution of the Ostankino District Court of Moscow dated January 6, 2024, Woodland Robert Romanov was given a preventive measure in the form of detention for a period of 2 months, that is, until March 5, 2024,” the Russian court’s statement reads.

Pro-Kremlin tabloid Komosomolskaya Pravda reported earlier that Woodland is an US citizen of Russian origin, who was adopted by scientists from the US and 27 years later returned to Russia.

Last month Yuri Malev, a Russian-US dual national, was detained in St. Petersburg over accusations he showed “clear disrespect” toward the military and was therefore “vindicating Nazism” in social media posts, the Smolninsky District Court said in statement.

That arrest followed a string of high-profile detentions of US citizens and dual nationals in Russia, including Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter. The US classifies Gershkovich as wrongfully detained.

This is a developing story. It will be updated.

South Korea’s parliament passed a bill Tuesday banning the breeding and slaughter of dogs for consumption, ending the traditional yet controversial practice of eating dog meat after years of nationwide debate.

The bill received rare bipartisan support across South Korea’s divided political landscape, highlighting how attitudes toward eating dog have transformed over the past few decades during the country’s rapid industrialization.

The law will ban the distribution and sale of food products made or processed with dog ingredients, according to the corresponding committee of the National Assembly.

However, customers who consume dog meat or related products will not be subject to punishment – meaning the law would largely target those working in the industry such as dog farmers or sellers.

Under the bill, anybody slaughtering a dog for food can be punished by up to three years in prison or fined up to 30 million Korean won (about $23,000). Anyone who breeds dogs for eating, or who knowingly acquires, transports, stores or sells food made from dogs, also faces a lower fine and prison time.

Farm owners, dog meat restaurants and other workers in the dog trade will have a three-year grace period to close or change their business, according to the committee. Local governments will be required to support those business owners to “stably” transition to other businesses.

The bill now heads to President Yoon Suk Yeol for final approval. It was proposed by both Yoon’s ruling party and the main opposition party, and has received vocal support from First Lady Kim Keon Hee, who owns multiple dogs and visited an animal protection organization during a presidential state visit to Netherlands in December.

Like parts of Vietnam and southern China, South Korea has a history of consuming dog meat. It was traditionally viewed in South Korea as a food that could help people beat the heat during the summer, and was also a cheap and readily available source of protein at a time when poverty rates were far higher.

There are about 1,100 dog farms operating for food purposes in South Korea, and about half a million dogs being raised on these farms, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

But the practice has also come under criticism in recent decades, with animal rights activists at the forefront; international rights groups such as Humane Society International (HSI) have worked to rescue dogs from South Korean farms and relocate them overseas.

The number of South Koreans eating dog meat has also declined dramatically as pet ownership became more common. Consumers of dog meat now skew older, while younger, more urban South Koreans tend to veer away, mirroring similar trends in other parts of Asia.

In a 2022 survey by Gallup Korea, 64% of respondents were against eating dog meat – a notable increase from a similar survey in 2015. The number of respondents who had eaten dog meat in the past year had also fallen, from 27% in 2015, to just 8% in 2022.

Between 2005 and 2014, the number of restaurants serving dog in the capital Seoul fell by 40% due to the declining demand, official statistics showed.

“Our perception of dog meat consumption and animals in general has been changing over the last decades,” said Lee Sang-kyung, campaign manager of the dog meat ban at HSI Korea.

“It was once popular when our food resources (were) scarce, such as during the Korean War, but as the economy develops and people’s perception towards animals and our food consumption, food choices, and things change, then I think it’s the right time to move with the times.”

He added that the bill’s passing on Monday is partly due to increased political will, which “is growing with the First Lady’s interest.”

But the bill has also met fierce resistance from dog farmers and business owners who say it will devastate their livelihood and traditions.

In November, dozens of dog farmers and breeders gathered outside the presidential office in Seoul to protest the bill – with many bringing their farmed dogs in cages that they intended to release at the scene, according to Reuters. Scuffles broke out between the farmers and police at the scene, with some protesters detained.

One such dog farmer, Lee Kyeong-sig, told Reuters last November: “If I have to close down, with the financial condition I’m in, there really is no answer to what I can do … I’ve been in this for 12 years and it is so sudden.”

In a November news release, the Korean Dog Meat Association accused the government of “threatening to trample” the industry, and of proposing the bill “without a single discussion or communication” with dog meat consumers or workers.

“No one has the right to rob 10 million (dog meat consumers) of their right to food and the right to survival of 1 million livestock dog farmers and workers,” it said in the news release.

However, Lee, the HSI manager, was optimistic that the bill’s grace period and relief measures would help keep dog farmers afloat.

“Based on our experience talking to industry workers at HSI, we knew that the majority of dog meat farmers and slaughterers, they want to leave the industry but they don’t know how to leave the industry,” he said.

“But now with the bill, having a compensation package (and) financial support from the government, I think it’s the right time to leave the industry for them as well.”

India’s top court on Monday reversed a state government’s decision to release 11 men convicted of gang-raping a pregnant Muslim woman during Hindu-Muslim riots in 2002, and ordered for them to be sent back to jail.

The men were part of a Hindu mob sentenced to life in prison for the gang rape of Bilkis Bano, who was 21 years old and pregnant at the time. The same mob killed 14 members of her family, including her 3-year-old daughter.

They were released in August 2022 after serving 14 years of their sentence following a decision made by an advisory panel set up by the Gujarat state government, which is led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

But on Monday, India’s Supreme Court quashed that decision and ordered the men to report back to prison authorities within two weeks.

The Gujarat government was “lacking in competency” to pass the remission orders as the trial and sentencing happened in Maharashtra state, the court ruled. The court slammed the Gujarat government for abusing its discretionary powers in releasing the 11 convicts without authority.

Bano welcomed the ruling saying she “wept tears relief”.

“I have smiled for the first time in over a year and half. I have hugged my children. It feels like a stone the size of a mountain has been lifted from my chest, and I can breathe again,” she said in a statement.

When the convicts were released on remission in August 2022, Bano said she felt she had “exhausted her reservoir of courage” but she then found strength in the solidarity that came her way from thousands of people across the country.

“You gave me the will to struggle, to rescue the idea of justice not just for me, but for every woman in India. I thank you,” she said.

The move was celebrated by supporters of Bano, who had decried the men’s release as an attack not only on Muslims but women’s rights in a country where government data shows a woman is raped every 17 minutes.

“Rule of law has been restored by this judgment. Many Congratulations to Bilkis and to all of us who stood by her and fought for her,” said Shobha Gupta, Bano’s lawyer, on Monday after the ruling.

Aparna Bhat, an advocate for one of the petitioners of the case, also praised the ruling. “We really salute the judges who interpreted the whole provision of the law and for categorically directing that the accused should surrender,” Bhat said. “This was an extraordinary case and a phenomenal judgment by the Supreme Court.”

The crimes committed against Bano took place in February 2002 when centuries-old divisions erupted in Gujarat between the majority Hindus and the minority Muslim community.

It was one of India’s worst religious riots, leading to the deaths of more than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims.

An inquiry found Modi – then Gujarat’s chief minister – wasn’t to blame for the riots.

Bano would later tell the court the men ran toward them with swords, sticks and sickles. According to court documents, one grabbed her young daughter and smashed her on the ground. Three men raped her, while the others attacked her sisters, aunts and their daughters. She fell unconscious and woke hours later, surrounded by bodies.

In 2008, after a high-profile trial, her attackers were sentenced to life in prison for rape and murder. But in August 2022, the state government granted them remission under a provision in India’s Code of Criminal Procedure that allows prisoners to be freed once they serve 14 years.

The decision sparked outrage across India, with protests held in support of Bano from Kolkata to Mumbai. Critics claimed the decision to release the men was tainted by politics, misogyny and religious discrimination.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday appointed 34-year-old Gabriel Attal to become the country’s next prime minister.

Attal will be the youngest prime minister since the founding of the French Fifth Republic in 1958, and will also be the first openly gay man to serve as the country’s second-most powerful politician.

Attal, a rising star in Macron’s Renaissance Party, has served as Minister of Education and National Youth since July 2023. During his tenure, he enacted a controversial ban on the wearing of the abaya in French public schools and has worked on raising awareness of bullying in schools.

“I know I can count on your energy and your commitment,” Macron said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, following the announcement.

Before leading the Education Ministry, Attal served as the government spokesman and then as minister of public works and public accounts.

He replaces Elisabeth Borne, who resigned from her post on Monday after a tumultuous 20-month tenure marked by an unpopular decision to raise the retirement age and urban riots over the summer after police shot and killed a teenage boy of Algerian descent.

Her departure was unsurprising, as it came ahead of a long-anticipated cabinet reshuffle.

This is a breaking news story. More details to come…

Pope Francis has called for a universal ban on surrogacy, calling the practice “deplorable” in a speech in Vatican City on Monday.

“I deem deplorable the practice of so-called surrogate motherhood, which represents a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child, based on the exploitation of situations of the mother’s material needs,” the Pope said.

“A child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract.”

Pope Francis said that he hopes that the international community will make efforts to “prohibit this practice universally.”

“At every moment of its existence, human life must be preserved and defended,” he added.

The Catholic Church has long opposed surrogacy as well in vitro fertilization because, it said, it depersonalizes conception and disposes of some embryos, which it argues is the equivalent to abortion.

Surrogacy is illegal in Italy and several other countries, while in others, like the United Kingdom, surrogacy is legal but restricted, and commercial surrogacy is outlawed. Surrogacy laws vary from state to state in the United States.

Surrogacy provides a path to parenthood for those who have struggled to conceive and same-sex couples and individuals who are unable to conceive on their own.

Though there have been longstanding ethical concerns around surrogacy, including whether the practice is exploitative.

The pontiff has faced opponents among the more traditionalist wing of the church over some of his approaches to contemporary issues, including an openness to giving communion to divorced and remarried Catholics, his pastoral welcome to LGBTQ people, and his focus on migrants and the climate crisis.

Last month, Pope Francis formally permitted Roman Catholic priests to bless same-sex couples, in a significant shift in the church’s approach to LGBTQ+ people. The blessings may be carried out providing they are not part of regular Church rituals or liturgies, nor at the same time as a civil union, according to a Vatican document approved by the pope.

He has, however, taken a strong line on abortion, which he has likened to hiring “a hitman to solve a problem,” and surrogacy. In 2022, Pope Francis said that surrogacy was an “inhuman and increasingly widespread practice of the ‘rented uterus’, in which women, almost always poor women, are exploited and children treated as commodities.”

In his address Monday, Francis also said he noted “with regret, especially in the West, the continued spread of a culture of death, which in the name of a false compassion discards children, the elderly and the sick.”

About one in every 100 people in Gaza has been killed since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted on October 7, according to Palestinian statistics.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah announced in its daily update on Monday that at least 22,835 people have been killed in the besieged enclave since the beginning of the war.

That staggering death toll means that 1% of the enclave’s total pre-war population of 2.27 million people has now has been wiped out.

According to the ministry, an additional 58,416 people have been injured, which means more than one in 40 Gazans have now been wounded in the conflict. The ministry generates its data from hospitals in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

The IDF began its operation in Gaza immediately after Hamas launched a terror attack into southern Israel on October 7. Its militants killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped some 200 others. Some of the hostages who were taken to Gaza have since been released by Hamas in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

As of last week, the Israeli government believed 132 hostages from October 7 were still being held in Gaza, of whom dozens are thought dead.

One in 120 children is dead

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that more than 5,300 of the dead are women and more than 9,000 were children.

With the pre-war child population of Gaza at about 1.1 million, according to UNICEF, this means that one out of every approximately 120 children living in the enclave has been killed.

A separate statistic released by the international organization Save the Children said more than 10 children on average have lost one or both of their legs every day in Gaza since October.

International organizations have been warning that the humanitarian crisis inside Gaza is now so deep that people are at risk of dying of starvation.

According to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), 90% of Gazans have been displaced.

UN emergency relief chief Martin Griffiths said last week that famine was “around the corner” as people in Gaza face the “highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded.”

The youngest children are most at risk of starvation, according to a UNICEF statement last month.

The children’s aid organization estimated that in the coming weeks, “at least 10,000 children under five years will suffer the most life-threatening form of malnutrition, known as severe wasting, and will need therapeutic foods.”

The lack of sanitation for the displaced now packed into parts of southern Gaza has led to the spread of contagious and respiratory diseases.

Diseases that would normally be easily curable are becoming deadly because of the lack of even the most basic medical equipment.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that he plans to push the Israeli government “on the absolute imperative to do more to protect civilians” in Gaza during meetings Tuesday.

Blinken said he would also push Israeli officials on the need to increase humanitarian aid entering the war-torn strip “and also to talk to them about the future direction of their military campaign in Gaza.”

Astrobotic Technology, the company that developed the first lunar lander to launch from the United States in five decades, said its spacecraft has suffered “critical” propellant loss attempting to correct itself after running into a major issue in space.

Just hours after launching from Florida toward the moon early Monday morning, the company announced the spacecraft was in jeopardy. The lunar lander, dubbed Peregrine, was unable to place itself in a position facing the sun, likely because of a propulsion issue, according to the company. The wayward orientation prevented the spacecraft from charging its batteries.

The battery issue was later resolved, but Astrobotic was not able to correct the apparent issue with the Peregrine lander’s propulsion system.

“Unfortunately, it appears the failure within the propulsion system is causing a critical loss of propellant,” Astrobotic said in a mission update posted just after 1 p.m. ET. “The team is working to try and stabilize this loss, but given the situation, we have prioritized maximizing the science and data we can capture. We are currently assessing what alternative mission profiles may be feasible at this time.”

That could mean the company will not attempt to land the Peregrine lander on the moon, as it was expected to do on February 23.

Later on Monday, Astrobotic shared the first image of the Peregrine lander in space. The photograph showed the outer layers of insulation on the vehicle were crinkled.

The distorted material was “the first visual clue that aligns with our telemetry data pointing to a propulsion system anomaly,” the company said in a post on the social media platform X at 4:12 p.m. ET. It was not clear whether the company was still considering a potential path toward the moon or was working to map out an alternative destination for the lander.

From launch to a lunar trajectory

Astrobotic was initially able to make contact with the vehicle after its 2:18 a.m. ET launch, but then the mission hit a snag that left the vehicle pointed away from the sun and unable to charge its battery.

In an update issued on social media on Monday, Astrobotic said that it believes the likely cause of the problem “is a propulsion anomaly that, if proven true, threatens the ability of the spacecraft to soft land on the Moon.”

Astrobotic initially said that the anomaly — an aerospace term for an issue or problem that threatens a mission — “prevented Astrobotic from achieving a stable sun-pointing orientation,” the company posted on X at 9:37 a.m. ET. It added that its engineers were troubleshooting the issue in real-time.

A sun-facing position is typically necessary to provide solar power for charging a spacecraft’s batteries.

Mission controllers then “developed and executed an improvised maneuver to reorient the solar panels toward the Sun,” according to the company.

That effort proved successful, Astrobotic said.

“The team’s improvised maneuver was successful in reorienting Peregrine’s solar array towards the Sun. We are now charging the battery,” the company said in an update posted at 12:34 p.m. ET.

Still, the company said it must correct the underlying propulsion issue. The spacecraft would need to use its onboard thrusters — and have enough propellant left over — to make a soft touchdown on the moon.

A successful first leg

The lunar lander, called Peregrine after the fastest bird in the world, appeared to have a wholly successful first leg of its trip after lifting off atop a Vulcan Centaur rocket developed by the joint Lockheed Martin and Boeing venture United Launch Alliance.

It was the first ever flight of a Vulcan Centaur rocket, a new vehicle from ULA designed to replace its older lineup of rockets.

The company confirmed just after 3 a.m. ET that the Vulcan Centaur performed as expected, delivering the Peregrine lunar lander into a trans-lunar injection orbit, according to ULA. That involves a precisely timed engine burn that pushed the Peregrine lander onto a path in Earth’s orbit that should allow it to sync up with the moon some 384,400 kilometers (238,855 miles) away.

The Peregrine lander was then expected to fire up its own onboard thrusters, using up to three maneuvers to pinpoint its path.

In a statement, Astrobotic said that Peregrine successfully began communicating with NASA’s Deep Space Network, activated its avionics systems, and “the thermal, propulsion, and power controllers, all powered on and performed as expected.”

“After successful propulsion systems activation, Peregrine entered a safe operational state,” the company said.

It was after that, however, that the Peregrine lander experienced the “anomaly.”

Peregrine mission stakes

Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic Technology developed Peregrine under a $108 million contract with NASA. The vehicle was designed from the outset to be relatively cheap — aiming to fulfill NASA’s vision to reduce the cost of putting a robotic lander on the moon by asking the private sector to compete for such contracts.

“This really is like a 50-50 shots on goal kind of an approach — where it’s really more about the industry succeeding, not any specific one mission,” Thornton said.

Joel Kearns, the deputy associate administrator for exploration at NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, issued a statement Monday, saying, “Each success and setback are opportunities to learn and grow. We will use this lesson to propel our efforts to advance science, exploration, and commercial development of the Moon.”

In a statement, NASA added that it plans to continue sharing updates as more information becomes available and expects that the space agency’s administrator, Bill Nelson, will make remarks later today.

“It’s certainly going to have some some impact on our relationships and our ability to to secure additional missions in the future,” Thornton said. “It certainly wouldn’t be the end of the business, but it would certainly be challenging.”

If the moon mission fails, it could be a major loss not only for Astrobotic, but also for NASA and other countries and institutions with payloads aboard the Peregrine lander.

A loss of the lander so early in the mission would also mean that Astrobotic is not able to test the vehicle’s ability to land on the lunar surface.

On board the Peregrine vehicle are five scientific instruments from NASA and 15 other payloads from a variety of organizations and countries. The commercial payloads on the lander include mementos and even human remains that paying customers had paid to fly to the lunar surface.

In its update posted just after 4 p.m. ET Monday, Astrobotic said its Peregrine team has “been awake and working diligently for more than 24 hours.”

“We ask for your patience as we reassess incoming data so we can provide ongoing updates later this evening,” the statement reads.

Odd radio circles in space have mystified astronomers since the cosmic objects were first discovered in 2019. Now, scientists think they may understand what forms these mysterious celestial structures, and the answer could provide insights into galactic evolution.

The odd radio circles, also known as ORCs, are so massive that entire galaxies reside at their centers, and the objects span hundreds of thousands of light-years.

Our Milky Way galaxy is 30 kiloparsecs across, and one kiloparsec equals 3,260 light-years. The odd radio circles measure hundreds of kiloparsecs across. So far, only 11 have been detected, and some of those are potential ORCs that haven’t been confirmed, according to researchers.

Astronomers have come up with many theories to determine what might form the space rings, including that they’re the result of massive cosmic collisions. But a new study suggests that the circles are shells sculpted by the powerful galactic winds created when massive stars explode.

Pinpointing ORCs

Astronomers first spotted the odd radio circles using the SKA Pathfinder telescope, operated by Australia’s national science agency CSIRO, or Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.

The telescope can scan large parts of the sky to detect faint signals, which allowed scientists to discover the unusual objects.

Researchers using the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory’s MeerKAT telescope also captured the first image of an ORC, labeled ORC 1, in 2022. (MeerKat is shorthand for Karoo Array Telescope, preceded by the Afrikaans word for “more.”) The powerful telescope is sensitive to faint radio light.

Theories poured in after the odd radio circles were discovered: Perhaps they were the throats of wormholes, the remnants of black hole collisions or powerful jets pumping out energetic particles, researchers hypothesized.

But prior to the new study, the circles had only been observed through radio waves. Despite their massive size, no visible light, infrared or X-ray telescopes detected the odd radio circles.

University of California San Diego professor of astronomy and astrophysics Alison Coil and her collaborators decided to look closely at ORC 4, the first known odd radio circle observable from Earth’s Northern Hemisphere. Coil and her team studied ORC 4 using the W.M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii, which revealed the presence of more luminous heated gas in visible light than seen in typical galaxies.

The finding only sparked more questions.

A missing link

Coil became captivated by the odd radio circles because she and her fellow researchers study massive “starburst galaxies,” which have a high rate of star formation. The galaxies also can drive rapidly outflowing winds. When giant stars explode, they release gas into interstellar space, or the space that exists between stars.

When enough stars explode at once, the force from the explosions can drive the gas out of a starburst galaxy at up to 4,473,873 miles per hour (2,000 kilometers per second).

“These galaxies are really interesting,” said Coil, lead study author and chair of the University of California San Diego’s department of astronomy and astrophysics, in a statement. “They occur when two big galaxies collide. The merger pushes all the gas into a very small region, which causes an intense burst of star formation. Massive stars burn out quickly and when they die, they expel their gas as outflowing winds.”

Coil and her team thought that the radio rings might be related to starburst galaxies.

By using visible and infrared light data, Coil’s team calculated that the stars within the galaxy inside ORC 4 are 6 billion years old.

“There was a burst of star formation in this galaxy, but it ended roughly a billion years ago,” Coil said.

Then, study coauthor Cassandra Lochhaas, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, ran simulations to recreate the size and properties of the radio circle that included the amount of gas they detected with the Keck telescope.

Lochhaas’ simulation showed that outflowing galactic winds had blown for 200 million years before ceasing. Then, the forward-moving shockwave continued to send hot gas out of the galaxy, creating the radio circle. Meanwhile, a reverse shock sent cooler gas back into the galaxy.

These events took place over the course of an estimated 750 million years.

The new research was published in the journal Nature and presented at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans on Monday.

“To make this work you need a high-mass outflow rate, meaning it’s ejecting a lot of material very quickly. And the surrounding gas just outside the galaxy has to be low density, otherwise the shock stalls. These are the two key factors,” Coil said. “It turns out the galaxies we’ve been studying have these high-mass outflow rates. They’re rare, but they do exist. I really do think this points to ORCs originating from some kind of outflowing galactic winds.”

Understanding the origins of odd radio circles also helps astronomers ultimately understand what impact the phenomena may have on shaping galaxies over time.

“ORCs provide a way for us to ‘see’ the winds through radio data and spectroscopy,” Coil said. “This can help us determine how common these extreme outflowing galactic winds are and what the wind life cycle is. They can also help us learn more about galactic evolution: do all massive galaxies go through an ORC phase? Do spiral galaxies turn elliptical when they are no longer forming stars? I think there is a lot we can learn about ORCs and learn from ORCs.”

NASA leadership is expected on Tuesday to announce a “months-long delay” to the first crewed mission of the agency’s flagship Artemis program, according to one current and one former NASA employee.

The delay affects NASA’s Artemis II mission, which aims to send four astronauts on a journey to fly by the moon and was slated to lift off this November.

But the mission is no longer expected to take place before 2025, according to the sources, confirming months of speculation that a delay was imminent.

NASA’s Inspector General hinted at potential delays for the mission in a November report, citing three main challenges the space agency must address before it can safely fly humans to the moon.

First, the ground structure used to build, transport and launch the program’s massive Space Launch System rocket — dubbed Mobile Launcher 1 — “sustained more damage than expected.”

The November report stated that repairs to the structure were ongoing.

Second, the heat shield on the Orion spacecraft — intended to be the astronauts’ home on Artemis II — “eroded in an unexpected way” during Artemis I as it was exposed to temperatures about half as hot as the surface of the sun upon reentry into Earth’s atmosphere.

Finally, the Inspector General noted what NASA officials believed to be “the primary critical path” for the Artemis II mission: preparing Orion for its first crew and integrating it with the European Service Module, which provides power and propulsion. The “critical path” in project planning refers to the aspect of the mission that’s expected to take the longest.

Artemis goals

The Artemis II mission was slated to build upon the successful completion of the Artemis I mission, an uncrewed test flight that sent NASA’s Orion capsule on a 1.4 million-mile voyage to lap the moon. That journey concluded in December 2022.

The Artemis II mission is set to be the first time humans will orbit the moon since the end of the Apollo program. The crew, announced in April, includes NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

The journey is expected to last about 10 days and will send the crew out beyond the moon, potentially farther into space than any human has ever traveled, though the exact distance is yet to be determined.

Artemis II is expected to pave the way for the Artemis III mission later this decade, which NASA has vowed will put a woman and person of color on the lunar surface for the first time. It will also mark the first time humans have touched down on the moon since the Apollo program ended in 1972.

NASA has been targeting a 2025 launch date for Artemis III, though the space agency’s inspector general has already said delays will likely push the mission to 2026 or later.

On a brisk December day, junior high school students in Fuzhou, southeast China, converged at a country park to study the thoughts of Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Unfurling a red banner that declared their outing a “walking classroom of politics and ideology,” they sought enlightenment by retracing the footsteps Xi took on his 2021 visit to the neighborhood, according to a state-affiliated local news outlet.

Another group of youngsters in the northern coastal city of Tianjin toured a fort to reflect on “the tragic history of Chinese people’s resistance to foreign aggression.”

The trips are part of a ramping up of nationalist education in China in recent years – now codified into a sweeping new law that came into effect earlier this week.

That “Patriotic Education Law,” aimed at “enhancing national unity,” mandates that love of the country and the ruling Chinese Communist Party be incorporated into work and study for everyone – from the youngest children to workers and professionals across all sectors.

It is meant to help China “unify thoughts” and “gather the strength of the people for the great cause of building a strong country and national rejuvenation,” a Chinese propaganda official told a news briefing last month.

The push for a love of country and the Communist Party is far from new in China, where patriotism and propaganda have been an integral part of education, company culture and life since the People’s Republic was founded nearly 75 years ago.

And Chinese nationalism has thrived under Xi, the country’s most authoritarian leader in decades, who has pledged to “rejuvenate” China to a place of power and prominence globally and encouraged a combative, “wolf warrior” diplomacy amid rising tensions with the West.

Ultra-nationalism has flourished on social media, where anyone perceived as slighting China – from live-streamers and comedians to foreign brands – will face a fierce backlash and boycotts.

The new rules mark the latest expansion of Xi’s efforts to deepen the party’s presence in all aspects of public and private life.

But this time, they also follow years of stringent Covid-19 controls in China, which ended late in 2022 after young people across the country took to the streets in unprecedented protests against Xi’s government and its rules.

They also come as the economy slumps and youth unemployment has reached a record high – raising the potential for more discontent.

Experts said Beijing may see the new legal framework as a way to drum up nationalism and consolidate power to ensure social stability amid the challenges ahead.

China has long relied on its people to buy into its vision like an unwritten “social contact,” but it is now “in for a bumpy ride in the coming years,” said Jonathan Sullivan, an associate professor specializing in Chinese politics at the University of Nottingham.

“There could be challenges to that if there’s a protracted economic downturn … they’re doing the work to make sure the politically correct way of thinking is completely locked down, consolidating beyond doubt that the party’s way is the only way for China, and that if you love China, you ought to love the party,” he said.

That message has been hammered home in once outspoken Hong Kong following the huge democracy protests that erupted there in 2019.

Since then, Beijing has made clear it wants a new generation of patriots incubated in the city, rolling out patriotic education rules and political restrictions that forbid anyone deemed unpatriotic from standing for office.

The introduction of the law also coincides with the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China this coming October 1. Officials will be under pressure to ensure a celebration of patriotism – and to stamp out any possibility for dissent.

Patriotic curriculum for all walks of life

Under the law, professionals – from scientists to athletes – should be nurtured to profess “patriotic feelings and behavior that bring glory to the country.”

Local authorities are required to leverage cultural assets, such as museums and traditional Chinese festivals, to “enhance feelings for the country and family,” and step-up patriotic education through news reports, broadcasting and movies.

Religious bodies should also “strengthen religious staff and followers’” patriotic sentiment and their awareness of the rule of law – a stipulation in line with China’s push to “sinicize” and tighten its control over religion.

The latest legislation follows a 2016 directive from the Ministry of Education to introduce across-the-board patriotic education at each stage and in every aspect of schooling, which plays a major part in the new unified law.

It also follows past efforts, such as smartphone apps for people to “learn about new socialist thought” – including a lesson on how “Grandpa Xi led us into the new era” – and for adults to read up and take quizzes on Xi’s latest theories.

The latter was deemed a success in terms of downloads – as all 90 million Communist Party members were ordered to use it alongside many employees of state-owned enterprises.

The new rules affirm that patriotic education will be blended into school subjects and teaching materials “at all grades and all types of institutions,” while parents at home are required to guide their children and encourage them to take part in patriotic activities.

“(This has to do) with Xi’s consolidation of power. He wants patriotic education to start early,” said Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.

He said the move is aimed at cultivating a loyal mindset toward Xi from a young age, while also sending a message to the wider public that Beijing’s focus is now on consolidating Xi’s power following the economic boom of the past decade.

The new law also orders cultural establishments such as museums and libraries to be turned into venues of patriotic education activities and tourist destinations into places that “inspire patriotism.”

Schools are required to organize trips for students to visit these sites, which officials call “walking classrooms of politics and ideology.”

Such trips were not uncommon in the past, but the law now officially imposes a legal mandate for schools to do so.

China has other legislation aimed at stamping out unpatriotic behavior, such as banning the desecration of national flags and insults to soldiers. And under Xi in recent years, any dissent in China – even in the form of online comments that don’t toe the party line – is enough to land people in trouble with authorities.

But the latest law appears to hint at the introduction of penalties for acts not already punishable under existing laws, according to Ye Ruiping, senior law lecturer from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.

For example, it states that behaviors “advocating, glorifying and denying acts of invasion, wars and massacres” and “damaging patriotic education facilities” could be subject to punishments, she said.