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Opinion | The Green Transition Is Happening Fast. The Climate Bill Will Only Speed It U... - 0 views

  • Among the first things you likely heard about the Inflation Reduction Act was its size.The bill, signed into law by President Biden on Tuesday, makes $369 billion in climate and energy investments — by far the largest such investment in American history.
  • But there are several ways to measure the size of a bill, and given how high the country’s emissions targets are, even many of the I.R.A.’s supporters will openly concede that it is, on its own, inadequate
  • it is ultimately how much carbon we put into the atmosphere and not how much solar power we produce that determines the future of warming. But the power of carrots also just reflects some new realities: To simplify radically, a 90 percent reduction in the cost of solar power over the last decade means that the same amount of money now goes ten times as far.
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  • the broader economic and cultural landscape is so different now than it was just a few years ago that public investments of even this somewhat smaller scale appear poised to make an enormous difference.
  • That’s because those public investments are being made not against dirty-energy headwinds but with the support of much broader tailwinds
  • Thanks to technological change and the plunging cost of renewables, a growing political and cultural focus on decarbonization and increasing awareness of the public health costs of pollution and market trends for things like electric vehicles and heat pumps, it’s genuinely a whole new world out there. Not that long ago, the upfront cost of a green transition looked almost incalculably large. Today it seems plausible that quite dramatic emissions gains can be achieved for just, say, $369 billion
  • For 90 percent of the world, clean energy is now cheaper than dirty alternatives, and while countries like Spain are boasting about more than tripling solar power capacity by 2030, in Texas, solar output has grown 39-fold in just six years. Globally, renewable output has grown fourfold in the past decade
  • Ten years ago, when the United States endeavored to tackle the problem of climate change, it tried to do so largely by punishing the cost of dirty energy with a cap-and-trade system. This time, it’s giving a kick-start, or a boost of momentum, to an already ongoing green transition.
  • this strategic choice of carrots rather than sticks has received some deserved praise: It’s better and more popular to subsidize cheap, clean energy than it is to make the bad stuff more expensive
  • A “fair share” analysis suggests the United States — today the world’s second largest emitter, and historically the largest by far — should be moving faster than any nation in the world.
  • The models may ultimately prove optimistic, given the complications of infrastructure build-out
  • it is fair to wonder about the uncertain economics of some of the bill’s technological bets, like carbon capture and storage, which could allow emissions from industry and power generation to be trapped and sequestered, and which some climate activists and environmental justice advocates distrust
  • Jesse Jenkins, who leads the REPEAT Project, says he believes that the tech problems of C.C.S. have been solved and that, with tax credits, the bill will address its cost problem, leading to a dramatic scale-up in use. Julio Friedmann, a former Obama-era Energy Department official turned carbon removal advocate, says that a rapid scale-up of C.C.S. would be, while miraculous, also plausible.
  • the fact that this much climate progress appears even remotely possible for less than the annualized budget of the State Department, as Ben Dreyfuss recently put it, is a remarkable reflection of the state of green energy today, even without the new law. When it comes to emissions, we are no longer fighting an uphill battle, at least in the United States and many other countries like it. We are deciding how quickly to race downhill.
  • at the risk of playing Pollyanna, I think it is also possible to see the size of the bill — its relative smallness — as at least a mark of good news
  • The headline projection of the I.R.A. impact appears, if inadequate by the standards of the Paris agreement, nevertheless impressive: a 40 percent reduction in just eight years
  • already today the United States has reduced emissions 20 percent from 2005 levels, and was projected to reduce them further even without the benefit of the I.R.A. As recently as a few weeks ago, before the bill was revived, it might have felt like the United States was permanently stalled on climate action, but in fact the country was already moving to decarbonize, if not fast enough.
  • peed really matters; as the writer and activist Bill McKibben put it, when it comes to warming, “winning slowly is the same as losing.” Simply moving in the right direction isn’t enough, and too much time has been squandered — within the United States and globally — to avoid what was once described as a catastrophic climate future.
  • If the United States achieves that 40 percent reduction, that’s still well short of the country’s target of a 50-52 percent reduction by 2030. The gap may seem relatively small, but it represents more than half a billion tons of carbon each year. That’s a lot.
  • the I.R.A. is a compromise, obviously and outwardly, tying new leases for wind power development to new ones for oil and gas, only moderately reducing the country’s demand for oil and gas over the next decade and investing less in environmental justice measures than Biden himself promised not too long ago
  • But its basic bet — that many of these markets and technologies are close enough to tipping points that relatively small public support can get them racing toward inevitability — also means the ultimate impacts could be larger and far-reaching.
  • The effects on prices and markets could make state and local action cheaper and easier, and even federal regulation more palatable
  • the bill includes some unheralded provisions to help retire coal power more quickly, as Keane Bhatt, the policy director for the Progressive Caucus, has pointed out, as well as an under-discussed “stick” in the form of a fee for methane
  • The impact of its “green bank” and Energy Department loans could be quite large — some estimates have suggested they could run into the hundreds of billions, and the $27 billion handed to the Green Bank could catalyze ten times as much private capital
  • because much of the I.R.A.’s top-line “investment” comes in the form of tax credits, its outlays — and impacts — could ultimately grow substantially if certain sectors (wind, solar and C.C.S., for instance) really do take off.
  • This might not ultimately be just a $369 billion package, in other words, but something quite a bit bigger. Enough to get us to 50 percent by 2030? “I think we have a pretty good chance,” Jenkins says.
  • it is striking that, given where we were not that long ago, such a proposition seems credible at all. Here’s hoping.
  • The provisions tying future auctions for wind power to leases for oil and gas development have been called “poison pills,” because they appear to lock in future emissions. But the ultimate impact is likely to be quite small. (Energy Innovation estimates at most 50 million tons of additional annual carbon emissions, compared with a billion in reductions from other measures in the bill.)
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The Radical Strategy Behind Trump's Promise to 'Go After' Biden - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Mr. Trump’s message was that the Justice Department charged him only because he is Mr. Biden’s political opponent, so he would invert that supposed politicization. In reality, under Attorney General Merrick Garland, two Trump-appointed prosecutors are already investigating Mr. Biden’s handling of classified documents and the financial dealings of his son, Hunter.
  • But by suggesting the current prosecutors investigating the Bidens were not “real,” Mr. Trump appeared to be promising his supporters that he would appoint an ally who would bring charges against his political enemies regardless of the facts.
  • Mr. Trump’s promise fits into a larger movement on the right to gut the F.B.I., overhaul a Justice Department conservatives claim has been “weaponized” against them and abandon the norm — which many Republicans view as a facade — that the department should operate independently from the president.
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  • Mr. Clark and Mr. Vought are promoting a legal rationale that would fundamentally change the way presidents interact with the Justice Department. They argue that U.S. presidents should not keep federal law enforcement at arm’s length but instead should treat the Justice Department no differently than any other cabinet agency.
  • They are condemning Mr. Biden and Democrats for what they claim is the politicization of the justice system, but at the same time pushing an intellectual framework that a future Republican president might use to justify directing individual law enforcement investigations.
  • Like other conservatives, Mr. Clark adheres to the so-called unitary executive theory, which holds that the president of the United States has the power to directly control the entire federal bureaucracy and Congress cannot fracture that control by giving some officials independent decision-making authority.
  • Mr. Trump often exploited gaps between what the rules technically allow and the norms of self-restraint that guided past presidents of both parties. In 2021, House Democrats passed the Protecting Our Democracy Act, a legislative package intended to codify numerous previous norms as law, including requiring the Justice Department to give Congress logs of its contacts with White House officials. But Republicans portrayed the bill as an attack on Mr. Trump and it died in the Senate.
  • The modern era for the Justice Department traces back to the Watergate scandal and the period of government reforms that followed President Richard M. Nixon’s abuses. The norm took root that the president can set broad policies for the Justice Department — directing it to put greater resources and emphasis on particular types of crimes or adopting certain positions before the Supreme Court — but should not get involved in specific criminal case decisions absent extraordinary circumstances, such as if a case has foreign policy implications.
  • Since then, it has become routine at confirmation hearings for attorney general nominees to have senators elicit promises that they will resist any effort by the president to politicize law enforcement by intruding on matters of prosecutorial judgment and discretion.
  • Mr. Trump’s top rival for the Republican nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, also rejects the norm that the Justice Department should be independent.
  • “Republican presidents have accepted the canard that the D.O.J. and F.B.I. are — quote — ‘independent,’” Mr. DeSantis said in May on Fox News. “They are not independent agencies. They are part of the executive branch. They answer to the elected president of the United States.”
  • The most powerful conservative think tanks are working on plans that would go far beyond “reforming” the F.B.I., even though its Senate-confirmed directors in the modern era have all been Republicans. They want to rip it up and start again.
  • “The F.B.I. has become a political weapon for the ruling elite rather than an impartial, law-enforcement agency,” said Kevin D. Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, a mainstay of the conservative movement since the Reagan years. He added, “Small-ball reforms that increase accountability within the F.B.I. fail to meet the moment. The F.B.I. must be rebuilt from the ground up — reforming it in its current state is impossible.”
  • Conservative media channels and social media influencers have been hammering the F.B.I. and the Justice Department for months since the F.B.I. search of Mar-a-Lago, following a playbook they honed while defending Mr. Trump during the investigation into whether his campaign conspired with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election.
  • On its most-watched nighttime programs, Fox News has been all-in on attacks against the Justice Department, including the accusation, presented without evidence, that Mr. Biden had directed the prosecution of Mr. Trump. As the former president addressed his supporters on Tuesday night at his Bedminster club, Fox News displayed a split screen — Mr. Trump on the right and Mr. Biden on the left. The chyron on the bottom of the screen read: “Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.”
  • As president, Mr. Trump saw his attorney general as simply another one of his personal lawyers. He was infuriated when his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, recused himself from the Russia investigation — and then refused to reverse that decision to shut down the case.
  • After firing Mr. Sessions, Mr. Trump believed he had found someone who would do his bidding in William P. Barr, who had been in the role during George H.W. Bush’s presidency
  • Under Mr. Barr, the Justice Department overruled career prosecutors’ recommendations on the length of a sentence for Mr. Trump’s longest-serving political adviser, Roger J. Stone Jr., and sought to shut down a case against Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who had already pleaded guilty. Both cases stemmed from the Russia investigation.
  • But when Mr. Trump wanted to use the Justice Department to stay in power after he lost the election, he grew enraged when Mr. Barr refused to comply. Mr. Barr ultimately resigned in late 2020.
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Opinion | The Brotherhood of the Philandering Oligarchs - The New York Times - 0 views

  • I covered Silvio Berlusconi.That was from 2002 to 2004, during the second of his four stints as prime minister of Italy. He was arguably at the peak of his power. And he was Trump before Trump, a harbinger of Trump, a dress rehearsal of Trump, nearly as hubristic, similarly nationalistic, contemptuous of norms, disdainful of the law, a creature of show business awash in creature comforts, loud, lewd — all of it.
  • The Times on Tuesday, Mattia Ferraresi sketched the many parallels between the two tycoons, noting, for example, that Berlusconi and his businesses were constantly drawing the attention of prosecutors, that he claimed to be the victim of rigged elections, that he bellowed about his persecution and that he cozied up to Vladimir Putin. Berlusconi and Trump are a Venn diagram that’s all overlap.
  • it’s worth dwelling a bit longer on those shared traits, because they point to verities bigger than the both of them — to dynamics that will play out in Western politics for some time.
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  • Another Berlusconi-Trump lesson is that vulgarity can be an asset, not a liability, because as soon as it’s derided as such — the minute detractors tsk-tsk and curl their lips — it positions a politician in opposition to “the elites.
  • Trump, too, has benefited from a congenital affinity for television. But he also took to more recent inventions, to changes in the information ecosystem that suited him as well as “The Apprentice” did. He spotted the internet’s fertility for lies. He saw that the greatest currency on social media is spite
  • One of those is that ultimate power and ultimate persuasion depend on an intuitive, visceral understanding of the age’s media
  • Another: Voters will put up with narcissism because many of them will interpret it at least in part as a perk of success and as confidence’s sufferable sidekick.
  • And there’s an authenticity to artifice. Trump embodies that oxymoron the same way Berlusconi did.
  • Few among us have gone to the amoral lengths of a Trump or a Berlusconi to preserve ourselves (and I don’t mean cosmetically) at any cost. That’s the real secret binding these braggarts.
  • If you don’t care about how thoroughly you’re degrading your country, if you’re willing to sacrifice its future on the altar of your own greedy here and now, you can scheme with abandon, lie with conviction and vilify anyone and everyone who gets in your way. Shamelessness is its own reward.
  • The Trumps after Trump are taking notes.
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Elon Musk, Sam Altman illustrate a Silicon Valley truth: icons are fallible - The Washi... - 0 views

  • The mutiny inside OpenAI over the firing and un-firing of chief executive Sam Altman, and the implosion of X under owner Elon Musk, are not just Silicon Valley soap operas. They’re reminders: A select few make the decisions inside these society-shaping platforms, and money drives it all.
  • The two companies built devoted followings by promising to build populist technology for a changing world: X, formerly known as Twitter, with its global village of conversations, and OpenAI, the research lab behind ChatGPT, with its super-intelligent companions for human thought.
  • But under Musk and Altman, the firms largely consolidated power within a small cadre of fellow believers and loyalists who deliberate in secrecy and answer to no one.
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  • “These are technologies that are supposed to be so democratized and universal, but they’re so heavily influenced by one person,”
  • “Everything they do is [framed as] a step toward much larger greatness and the transformation of society. But these are just cults of personality. They sell a product.”
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  • “These are private-sector people making money off something that serves a public function. And when they take a turn because of very personal, very individual decisions, where a handful of people are shaping the trajectory of these companies, maybe even the existence of these companies, that’s something new we all have to deal with.”
  • where the other firms sold phones and search engines, Musk and Altman championed their work as a public mission for protecting mankind, with a for-profit business attached. It is notable that as private companies, they don’t have to report to federal regulators or to shareholders, who can vote down proposals or push back against their work.
  • The corporate storytelling that pushes technology as a force for public harmony has proved to be one of Silicon Valley’s great marketing tools, said Margaret O’Mara, a professor at the University of Washington who studies the history of technology. But it’s also obscured the dangers of centralizing power and subjecting it to leaders’ personal whim
  • “Silicon Valley has for years adopted this messaging and mood that it’s all about radical transparency and openness — remember Google’s ‘Don’t be evil’ motto? — and this idea of a kinder, gentle capitalism that’s going to change the world for the better,” she said.
  • “Then you have these moments of reckoning and remember: It’s capitalism. Some tech billionaires lost, and some other ones are winning,”
  • Jeff Hauser, the head of the left-leaning advocacy group Revolving Door Project, said in a statement Wednesday that Summers’s role on the board was a sign OpenAI was “unserious” about its oversight, and that it “should accelerate concerns that AI will be bad for all but the richest and most opportunistic amongst us.”
  • Ro Khanna, who represents parts of Silicon Valley, said in an interview that the OpenAI turmoil underscores concerns that “a few people, no matter how talented, no matter how knowledgeable, can’t be making the rules for a society on a technology that is going to have such profound consequences.”
  • “We’ve seen a parade of these big tech leaders come to D.C.,” Khanna said. “I think highly of them, but they’re not the ones who should be leading the conversation on the regulatory framework, what safeguards we need.”
  • Musk on Tuesday posted a message, under a picture of him holding a katana, saying, “There is a large graveyard filled with my enemies. I do not wish to add to it, but will if given no choice.”
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Faith leaders lead community in grieving after Uvalde shooting - 0 views

  • On Tuesday, a gunman entered the elementary school and killed 21 people — 19 of them students — in Uvalde, Texas. Two weeks before in Buffalo, a gunman shot and killed 10 people — most of whom were Black — in a racist massacre.
  • “It’s very hard for people to even talk about their grief right now,” said Thomson. “When we don’t know what to do, we come together as a community.”
  • The Rev. Mark Tyler of Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church shared with his congregation on Sunday that people are “getting sick” of watching people continue to die in mass shootings while nothing is done to change the status quo. According to Tyler, healing is found when feelings are shared and heard.
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  • “A grieving process allows us to heal. When we deny that process, that’s when the numbness sets in. Then beyond that we start feeling symptoms of anxiety, and beyond that — depression,” said Whaley-Perkins. “So it’s really important for people who are vulnerable or have previous traumas that you don’t wait to see if it’s going to go away. Healing is extraordinarily important.”AdvertisementAccording to Whaley-Perkins, a community should be a group of people that provide safety, can be trusted, and where one can be vulnerable with their feelings. For many in Philadelphia, where they practice their faith is also where communities resides.
  • “Unless we change fundamentally how we educate our society, unfortunately people will still find a way to do these things,” said Shemtov. “We are all different — but we were all created by God with a purpose. Everybody has to start where they can start. If you’re not in the position to make national or local change, we can all change how we treat ou
  • As the country reckons with how to move forward, interfaith leaders in Philadelphia look to balance healing with collective action. To Chad Dion Lassiter, who is a national race relations expert and executive director of Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, taking care of oneself, of one’s community, and finding the motivation to take action are made possible by taking the healing process seriously.
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Nepal Plane Crash: All 22 Bodies Are Recovered - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Rescue workers recovered 22 bodies on Monday and Tuesday after a nearly 48-hour operation to reach and assess the site of a plane crash in the rocky heights of the Himalayas, according to officials in Nepal.
  • The flight normally takes about 30 minutes, but the plane went down in bad weather with 13 Nepalis, four Hindu pilgrims from India and two German trekkers on board.
  • “No one is alive,” said Narendra Shahi, an international mountain guide, who was sent to the crash site as part of the rescue operation. “The plane has crashed into pieces. It’s so heartbreaking.”
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  • Nepali officials on Monday said the cause of the crash was not immediately clear. The most likely possibility, they said, was that the plane crashed into a mountain after it lost contact with air traffic controllers while navigating in particularly bad weather.
  • To reach remote mountainous places like Jomsom, residents and visitors rely on small twin-engine planes. The route from Pokhara to Jomsom is considered one of the riskiest in Nepal because planes have to fly through narrow valleys, where visibility is often a challenge. Crashes are more common than usual because of frequent bad weather, rocky terrain and aging plane fleets.
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What Canada Doesn't Know About Its Guns - The New York Times - 0 views

  • A drone lifted off from Michigan this month and flew across the St. Clair River toward Port Lambton, Ontario. Its spooked pilot aborted the landing after being spotted by a neighbor, leaving the police to later fish the drone out of a tree and discover 11 handguns strapped to it with plastic bags, tape and carabiner clips.
  • The problem is also glaring on the U.S.-Mexico border. Last August, Mexico sued 10 American gunmakers, blaming them for fueling violence in Mexico.
  • The spillover across Canada’s border with the United States extends beyond the guns themselves to the shared grief and calls for increased firearms regulations in the wake of mass shootings, including two just this month: 10 people were killed in a racist attack in a Buffalo supermarket on May 14; and 19 students and two teachers were killed on Tuesday at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
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  • “Conservatives very much associate themselves now with the opposition to gun control, but that wasn’t always the case,” Blake Brown, a history professor at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, told me. He said that Liberals and Conservatives passed firearms control measures in the 1950s and 1960s, and that both parties strengthened Canada’s gun laws in the years following the 1989 Montreal massacre.
  • As of May 18, Canadians who purchase a nonrestricted firearm, basically a rifle or shotgun, must provide identification as well as a valid firearms license. Businesses are required to keep these records, which may be viewed by the police with a warrant.
  • Two years ago, after the deadliest mass shooting in Canada’s history took place in Nova Scotia, his government banned military-style assault weapons. Last week, it carried out previously announced firearms record-keeping regulations.
  • “Certainly there have been periods in American history where they’ve been more aggressive in gun control than in Canada,” he said. “But, overall, the trend has been that Canada has seen themselves differently when it comes to firearms.” That has led to stricter gun laws amid fears of importing American gun violence.
  • It found that shotguns and rifles in Canada’s illegal market generally enter the system through legal purchases. That’s unlike illicit handguns, it said, which tend to be smuggled into Canada.
  • Since there is no systemic data collection on the origins of crime guns, one internal Statistics Canada presentation I read emphatically placed it in the “What we don’t know” category.
  • Without gun tracing and better data, the full picture of the United States’ effect on gun crimes in Canada will remain incomplete and based on haphazardly-tracked incidents like that of the gun-toting drone.
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House Democrats Prepare Gun Control Legislation Amid Bipartisan Talks in Senate | Polit... - 0 views

  • The set of proposals, called the “Protecting Our Kids Act,” would, among other things, raise the age from 18 to 21 to purchase certain firearms like semi-automatic centerfire rifles and shotguns, deter gun trafficking, bolster safer gun storage and prevent untraceable guns like “ghost guns,” which don’t have serial numbers from licensed manufacturers or importers. Punchbowl News first reported that the Judiciary Committee scheduled an emergency markup Thursday to consider and vote on the package while members are on recess until next week.
  • Black neighborhood in Buffalo. The sharp uptick in mass shootings this year has prompted new attempts of congressional action on gun control despite years of fruitless talks and votes.
  • Schumer has promised votes on Democrat-led bills like universal background checks if talks go nowhere. But without senators striking a compromise, House-passed legislation will once again languish in a split 50-50 Senate since at least 10 Republicans will need to join them to reach the 60-vote threshold and overcome the threat of a filibuster. Democrats’ Protecting Our Kids Act would likely face a similar fate, with a final product likely looking more like what emerges from a potential Senate compromise.
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  • “I do think there’s an opportunity right now to be able to pass something significant. I’ve seen more Republican interest in coming to the table and talking this time than at any other moment since Sandy Hook,” Murphy said in a Sunday interview with CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” “I really think that we can pass something that saves lives and breaks this logjam that we’ve had for 30 years. … I think we can get something done but we don’t have a lot of time.”
  • Democrats will need more Republican buy-in, especially from those in leadership. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas is the GOP point-person on the issue and will participate virtually in the talks on Tuesday. Cornyn said he also wants to look at strengthening mental health treatment, which has been a major concern for his party in relation to mass shootings.“One thing I hope does not happen is that the various parties sort of fall back into their typical talking points,” Cornyn told reporters at a press conference from Texas. “I hope we will try to look in a clear-eyed way at what happened, and ask this question: What can we do to fix this problem? And if we can't fix it, what can we do to make it better?”
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Germany to Send IRIS-T Air Defence System to Ukraine -Scholz | World News | US News - 0 views

  • BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany will supply Ukraine with the IRIS-T air defence system, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, following pleas from Kyiv and German opposition parties to step up heavy weapons deliveries.Scholz said Germany had been "delivering continuously since the beginning of the war", pointing to more than 15 million rounds of ammunition, 100,000 grenades and over 5,000 anti-tank mines sent to Ukraine since Russia invaded the country on Feb. 24.
  • A security source told Reuters last month that Germany was considering supplying IRIS-T SLM medium-range surface-to-air defence systems to Ukraine.Responding to critics in his speech to parliament, Scholz said his government had responded to the Russian attack with a "massive change of policy in Germany" by opting to send heavy weapons into a war zone.
  • On Tuesday, the chancellor announced that Germany would deliver infantry fighting vehicles (IFV) to Greece so that the government in Athens can pass on Soviet-style weapons to Ukraine.(Reporting by Rachel More and Miranda Murray; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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Shanghai Reopens After Nearly 2-Month Covid Lockdown - The New York Times - 0 views

  • As Shanghai eased one of the longest, toughest lockdowns anywhere since the pandemic began, many of its 25 million residents celebrated being free to move around. The reopening on Wednesday came after Shanghai’s two-month siege against Covid had set off public anger over shortages of food and medicine as well as the harsh enforcement of quarantine rules.
  • For now at least, that anger gave way to relief after the government wound back many restrictions. During the day, people — all wearing masks — basked in the novelty of previously mundane pleasures like meeting friends and relatives, strolling in parks, and driving through streets that had been largely empty since early April. Hairdressers were, as in many cities freed from lockdowns, busy. Subway lines were open but quiet.
  • The uncertainty and anxiety about the future could impede Shanghai’s — and China’s — recovery. Officials have been cautiously lifting some restrictions on residents and selected companies since midway through May.
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  • With daily infections now falling to low double digits, the government has launched an urgent effort to revive factories, companies and supply lines vital to China’s sagging economy. On Tuesday, Shanghai recorded 15 infections.
  • Over 10 million students in Chinese universities, many in Shanghai, are about to graduate and enter the job market.
  • Despite the easing, hundreds of thousands of Shanghai residents remain locked in their housing compounds because of recent infections in their areas. Under China’s stringent rules, being in the vicinity of a confirmed infection is enough to land someone in a quarantine facility.
  • Mr. Xi and other Chinese officials maintain that their zero-tolerance strategy has spared the country the millions of deaths that the virus has inflicted in the United States, Europe and other richer countries. China has officially recorded 5,226 deaths from Covid, though the real number is probably higher, because China typically classifies Covid-related deaths more narrowly than many other countries. Shanghai has counted 588 deaths from the recent outbreak.
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Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard: Monica Lewinsky calls it 'courtroom porn' | Fox News - 0 views

  • Monica Lewinsky weighed in on the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard trial in an op-ed Tuesday, calling it "courtroom porn and a "pure car wreck."
  • "We are drenched in the taint of the dirt and aggression of the social media wars," wrote Lewinisky, 48, who is no stranger to scandal. 
  • "Having been on the receiving end of this kind of cruelty, I can tell you the scars never fade," she wrote, noting that the negative online discourse was predominantly directed at Amber Heard, "the woman."
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  • The seven-member jury began deliberating Friday afternoon and has yet to reach a verdict.
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Rapid grocery delivery start-ups Getir, Gorillas slash jobs - 0 views

  • Fears of an impending recession are forcing rapid grocery delivery companies to slam the brakes on growth.This week, two of the largest instant grocery apps, Getir and Gorillas, announced decisions to lay off hundreds of employees. Another firm, Zapp, said it is proposing redundancies in its U.K. team.Getir told staff Wednesday that it plans to reduce its global headcount by 14%. The Turkish company employs more than 6,000 people worldwide, according to LinkedIn.
  • Gorillas on Tuesday said it was making the “extremely hard decision” to let go about 300 of its employees, citing the need to reach profitability in the long run.The Berlin-based company is also evaluating a possible exit from Italy, Spain, Denmark and Belgium, among other “strategic options,” as it shifts focus to more profitable markets like the U.S., U.K. and Germany.
  • Getir and Gorillas have raised $1.8 billion and $1.3 billion to date, respectively. Getir scored a $12 billion valuation in March, while Gorillas was last valued at $3 billion. Both firms have burned through significant amounts of cash to expand in the U.S.London-based grocery start-up Zapp on Wednesday confirmed reports that it is considering making layoffs of up to 10% of staff. A final decision hasn’t yet been made as a consultation is underway with the firm’s U.K. employees.
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  • “As a venture-backed scale-up that will need to fundraise again in the future, we therefore need to adjust our business plan to reduce costs and accelerate our path to profitability.”
  • The recent raft of layoffs in the industry highlights a broader shift in investor sentiment toward high-growth tech companies, many of which have taken steps to cut down on costs recently against the backdrop of a sharp plunge in global stock markets. Earlier this week, buy now, pay later firm Klarna said it would lay off about 10% of staff following reports the company was seeking a new round of funding that would reduce its valuation by a third.
  • Meanwhile, New York start-ups Fridge No More and Buyk — which both raised money from Russian investors — wound down their operations after facing issues with fundraising after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
  • Earlier this month, London-based grocery service Jiffy said it would stop making deliveries and instead shift its focus toward in-person grocery collection, in a bid to convince investors that it can achieve profitability. The company has since announced plans to resume deliveries through a deal with Zapp.
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Biden says he heard late about baby formula shortage - The Washington Post - 0 views

  • Biden’s comments came after he met with executives of companies that manufacture infant formula, who told the president they knew the shortage would be severe in February after the closure of an Abbott plant in Michigan. Biden suggested he was not informed until April.
  • The disconnect between the industry’s alertness to the looming crisis and the administration’s lack of awareness was hinted at during the panel discussion itself. Biden asked one panelist directly if his company had been surprised by the “profound effect immediately” of the Abbott closure.“No, sir, we were aware of the general impact that this would have,” said Robert Cleveland, a senior vice president at Reckitt. “From the moment that that recall was announced, we reached out immediately to retail partners like Target and Walmart to tell them this is what we think will happen.”
  • “We have been doing this whole-of-government approach since the recall,” she said at the White House daily press briefing after Biden met with the executives. “We have been working on this for months, for months. We have been taking this incredibly seriously.”When pressed why Biden himself said he was unaware of the “whole-of-government approach,” Jean-Pierre said that Biden “has multiple issues, crises at the moment” and that administration officials often respond to problems before the president is aware.
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  • In recent weeks, Biden has scrambled to show he is on top of the matter. He invoked the Defense Production Act to ramp up domestic production of baby formula, and his administration has airlifted supplies from foreign countries to try to address the mushrooming crisis. But the declaration by industry leaders that the scope of the problem was immediately clear to them in February raises questions of why the president was slow to learn of the issue.
  • “Seeing the empty shelves is unacceptable,” she said. “Seeing what families are going through is unacceptable. This is why we have been working 24-7 to make sure that we are using every lever at our disposal to deliver for the American people.”
  • Officials said United Airlines had agreed to transport Kendamil formula for free from Heathrow Airport in London to multiple airports across the United States over a three-week period. The formula will be distributed and available for purchase at selected U.S. retailers nationwide as well as online, the White House said.All told, about 3.7 million 8-ounce bottle equivalents of Kendamil infant formula will be delivered, it said.
  • Still, despite the all-hands-on-deck approach to replenishing the American supply, store shelves continue to be emptier: Data firm IRI reported Tuesday that the nationwide in-stock inventory figure was 76 percent for the week ending May 22, down from 79 percent the week before.
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Live updates: Ukraine-Russia crisis - 0 views

  • German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stopped the progression of the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline following Moscow’s actions in eastern Ukraine. The pipeline, which would have increased European reliance on energy from Russia, has been a major source of contention in Europe and the United States for years. Without undergoing the certification or approval process, the pipeline cannot start running. 
  • Prime Minister Boris Johnson has unveiled the "first tranche" of British sanctions on Russia, condemning Vladimir Putin's Ukraine aggression.
  • The European Commission proposed sanctions to EU members states and placed a particular emphasis that would mirror sanctions taken in Crimea after the 2014 annexation by Moscow.
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  • Sources say US and European officials have been in intense discussions over the several past hours over how to proceed with additional sanctions against Russia.
  • Monday's sanctions were cautious in nature and Tuesday's sanctions are expected to go further but it will not be the full blow that the US has previewed, pending "further actions" by Russia.
  • President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to recognize breakaway eastern Ukrainian territories, calling it “unacceptable," and saying it is contrary to the Minsk Agreements.
  • China's Foreign Ministry evaded more than a dozen questions on Ukraine in its daily briefing on Tuesday. In his responses, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin reiterated that any country’s “legitimate security concerns should be respected” and urged all parties to "exercise restraint.” Beijing is navigating a complex position as it attempts to balance deepening ties with Moscow with its practiced foreign policy of staunchly defending state sovereignty.
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US ambassador labels UN meeting on Ukraine an 'absolute success' | TheHill - 0 views

  • The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-GreenfieldLinda Thomas-GreenfieldRussia delivers written response to US over Ukraine-related proposal US, Russia face off over Ukraine at Security Council meeting The Hill's Morning Report - What's Putin's next move? MORE, on Tuesday characterized the recent U.N. Security Council meeting on Ukraine as an "absolute success."
  • When asked how the public meeting affected efforts to resolve tensions through quiet diplomacy, Thomas-Greenfield said it was "one more diplomatic effort to give the Russians an opportunity to explain what they are doing on the border with Ukraine."
  • Russia denies that it has plans to invade but has issued security ultimatums to the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that include denying Ukraine any entrance to the alliance in the future and committing to never placing offensive arms in the former Soviet state.
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Danish energy fund to lead massive green hydrogen project in Spain - 0 views

  • On Tuesday, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners announced details of a partnership with Spanish companies Naturgy, Enagás and Fertiberia. Vestas, the Danish wind turbine manufacturer, is also involved.
  • A pipeline will link Aragon with Valencia in the east of Spain, sending the hydrogen to a green ammonia facility. CIP said this ammonia would then be “upgraded” into fertilizer.
  • The scale of the overall development is considerable. “Once fully implemented, Catalina will produce enough green hydrogen to supply 30% of Spain’s current hydrogen demand,” CIP said.
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  • Hydrogen has a diverse range of applications and can be deployed in a wide range of industries. It can be produced in a number of ways. One method includes using electrolysis, with an electric current splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen.
  • And in July 2021, a briefing from the World Energy Council said low-carbon hydrogen was not currently “cost-competitive with other energy supplies in most applications and locations.” It added that the situation was unlikely to change unless there was “significant support to bridge the price gap.”
  • For its part, the European Commission has laid out plans to install 40 GW of renewable hydrogen electrolyzer capacity in the European Union by the year 2030.
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The War in Ukraine Holds a Warning for the World Order - The New York Times - 0 views

  • The liberal world order has been on life support for a while.
  • President Biden, in his inaugural address, called democracy “fragile.”
  • President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said two years ago that “the liberal idea” had “outlived its purpose,” while China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has extolled the strength of an all-powerful state and, as he put it last March, “self-confidence in our system.”
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  • The multinational response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shown that the demise of the global postwar rules-based order may not be inevitable.
  • But the reappearance of war in Europe is also an omen. With toddlers sheltering in subway tunnels, and nuclear power plants under threat, it is a global air raid siren — a warning that the American-led system of internationalism needs to get itself back into gear, for the war at hand and for the struggle against authoritarianism to come.
  • “The global system was built in the 1950s, and if you think of it as a car from those years, it is battered, out of date in some ways, and could use a good tuneup,”
  • “But it is still on the road, rolling along, and, ironically enough, Vladimir Putin has done more in a week to energize it than anything I can remember.”
  • Almost universally, from leaders in Europe and Asia to current and former American officials, Ukraine is being viewed as a test for the survival of a 75-year-old idea: that liberal democracy, American military might and free trade can create the conditions for peace and global prosperity.
  • Because the founder of that concept, the United States, continues to struggle — with partisanship, Covid and failure in distant war zones — many foreign policy leaders already see Ukraine in dire terms, as marking an official end of the American era and the start of a more contested, multipolar moment.
  • For at least a decade, liberal democracies have been disappearing. Their numbers peaked in 2012 with 42 countries, and now there are just 34, home to only 13 percent of the world population, according to V-Dem, a nonprofit that studies governments
  • In many of those, including the United States, “toxic polarization” is on the rise.
  • Mr. Biden, in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, spoke bluntly of the future risk, saying, “When dictators do not pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos.” He insisted that the free world was holding Mr. Putin accountable.
  • One lesson seems to be that alliances matter. But for many, the most important lesson echoes what Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman concluded about World War II: America cannot retreat into isolationism; its own prosperity depends on actively trying to keep the world’s major powers at peace.
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Gov. Abbott Pushes to Investigate Treatments for Trans Youth as 'Child Abuse' - The New... - 0 views

  • Gov. Greg Abbott told state health agencies in Texas on Tuesday that medical treatments provided to transgender adolescents, widely considered to be the standard of care in medicine, should be classified as “child abuse” under existing state law.
  • “all licensed professionals who have direct contact with children who may be subject to such abuse, including doctors, nurses, and teachers, and provides criminal penalties for failure to report such child abuse.”
  • It is still unclear how and whether the orders, which do not change Texas law, would be enforced.
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  • “This is a complete misrepresentation of the definition of abuse in the family code,” Christian Menefee, the Harris County attorney, said in an interview.
  • “We don’t believe that allowing someone to take puberty suppressants constitutes abuse,”
  • Governor Abbott’s effort to criminalize medical care for transgender youth is a new front in a broadening political drive to deny treatments that help align the adolescents’ bodies with their gender identities and that have been endorsed by major medical groups.
  • Arkansas passed a law making it illegal for clinicians to offer puberty blockers and hormones to adolescents and banning insurers from covering care. But the law was temporarily blocked by a federal judge in July after the American Civil Liberties Union sued on behalf of four families and two doctors.
  • Several such bills were also introduced in Texas. None passed.
  • She said that blocking gender-affirming care and forcing teenagers to go through the physical changes of puberty for a gender they don’t identify with was “inhumane.”
  • “Our nation’s leading pediatricians support evidence-based, gender-affirming care for transgender young people.”
  • A growing number of transgender adolescents have sought medical treatments in recent years. Transgender teenagers are at high risk for attempting suicide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Preliminary research has suggested that adolescents who receive such medical treatments have improved mental health.
  • “What is clear is that politicians should not be tearing apart loving families — and sending their kids into the foster care system — when parents provide recommended medical care that they believe is in the best interest of their child.”
  • “It’s designed to make parents scared,” he said. “It’s designed to make doctors scared for even facilitating gender-affirming health care.”
  • “Minors are prohibited from purchasing paint, cigarettes, alcohol, or even getting a tattoo,” Jonathan Covey, director of policy for the group Texas Values, said in an emailed statement. “We cannot allow minors or their parents to make life-altering decisions on body-mutilating procedures and irreversible hormonal treatments.”
  • Professional medical groups and transgender health experts have overwhelmingly condemned legal attempts to limit “gender-affirming” care and contend that they would greatly harm transgender young people.
  • “Gender-affirming care saved my life,” they said in a statement. “Trans kids today deserve the same opportunity by receiving the highest standard of care.”
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U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Yacht Company That Caters to Russian Elites - The New York Times - 0 views

  • WASHINGTON — The U.S. government leveled sanctions against a yacht management company and its owners, describing them as part of a corrupt system that allows Russian elites and President Vladimir V. Putin to enrich themselves, the Treasury Department announced on Thursday.
  • “Russia’s elites, up to and including President Putin, rely on complex support networks to hide, move and maintain their wealth and luxury assets,” said Brian Nelson, the under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the Treasury Department.
  • “We will continue to enforce our sanctions and expose the corrupt systems by which President Putin and his elites enrich themselves,” he added.
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  • According to a U.S. intelligence assessment, a group of investors led by one of Russia’s richest men, Gennady Timchenko, who has been under sanctions since 2014, provided the money to buy three ships: the Scheherazade, the Crescent and the Amadea, whose construction at a German shipyard was overseen by Imperial Yachts. Their combined cost of as much as $1.6 billion could have bought six new frigates for the Russian navy.
  • “Imperial Yachts conducts all its business in full compliance with laws and regulations in all jurisdictions in which we operate,” the company added. “We are not involved in our clients’ financial affairs.”
  • But Treasury officials disputed that contention in their announcement. U.S. and international authorities have moved to seize the three yachts connected to Mr. Kochman and his company.
  • In an interview Tuesday, before the new sanctions were announced, Elizabeth Rosenberg, the assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes at the Treasury Department, said that international cooperation to go after Russian oligarchs and their assets was increasing.
  • “It feels like we’re experiencing a sea change right now,” Ms. Rosenberg said. “It’s a huge leap forward on international cooperation for hunting assets, for freezing them and for pursuing law enforcement investigations and activity, including seizure activities.”
  • Treasury officials say taking action against oligarchs and the companies that help them spend their wealth will ultimately hurt the Russian government’s ability to wage war against Ukraine.
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Israel Signs Trade Deal With U.A.E. - The New York Times - 0 views

  • JERUSALEM — Government ministers from Israel and the United Arab Emirates signed a free-trade agreement on Tuesday that, once ratified, would be the widest-ranging deal of its kind between Israel and an Arab country and the latest example of deepening ties between the Jewish state and some Arab governments.
  • But officials said that once confirmed, the agreement would loosen restrictions on almost all trade between the two countries and could increase its annual value 10-fold within five years.
  • For decades, Israel was ostracized by all but two Arab countries,
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  • The deal will lead to the removal of tariffs on 96 percent of goods traded between the two countries within five years, both ministries said.
  • Mohamed Al Khaja, the Emirati ambassador to Israel, called it “an unprecedented achievement.”
  • Jews living in the Emirates are also observing their religious traditions increasingly openly.
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