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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

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Despite vast hurdles and skepticism, Dr. Neff pulled it off, pioneering an East-West deal that gave bankrupt Moscow hard currency, reduced nuclear threats and produced one of the greatest peace dividends of all time.

The jitters intensified as Russia announced plans to store thousands of unused weapons from missiles and bombers in what American experts saw as decrepit bunkers policed by impoverished guards of dubious reliability.

Frank N. von Hippel, a physicist who advised the Clinton White House and now teaches at Princeton, called Dr. Neff an underappreciated hero who personally engineered the single biggest instance of arms reduction in the nuclear age.

His father, skilled at woodworking and fixing things, owned a print shop and taught business classes in Portland at Lewis & Clark College, where Tom received a tuition-free education in English, math and physics.

Five hundred metric tons — roughly a million pounds — Dr. Neff replied, giving what he considered a high estimate for the amount of Soviet bomb fuel soon to become surplus because arms control treaties were setting it aside.

A Russian brochure reprinted his opinion article, put the overall cost of the transaction at $17 billion and said that reactor fuel had supplied half of all American nuclear power plants.


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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

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TOKYO -- Vice foreign ministers from Japan and China held a strategic dialogue Monday for the first time in four and a half years, as the countries focus on shared interests amid a host of diplomatic challenges.

Masataka Okano and Chinese counterpart Ma Zhaoxu discussed developments in the East and South China seas as well as Ukraine during their talk in Tokyo.

Other topics included Japan's release of treated wastewater from the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and the detention of Japanese nationals in China.

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and Chinese counterpart Wang Yi are considering holding talks on the sidelines of ASEAN-hosted meetings in Laos starting Thursday.

China is eager to bolster ties with Japan ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November, concerned that a harsher stance by Washington could lead Tokyo to follow suit.

Beijing also awaits the outcome of the leadership race in Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party scheduled for next month, which will decide the country's next prime minister.


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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

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If you need some more interesting games for Steam Deck (and desktop Linux!

), Fanatical launched the Build your own Play on the Go - Elite Collection.

All of the games included are Steam Deck Verified, and so they should work great no matter your Linux device.

Since this is a build your own bundle, the more games you add the higher the discount (up to a point).

Here's what's included (Steam links if you need more info on each):

Wave Break (Native Linux)


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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

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Hours after a battle in eastern Ukraine in August, a wounded and unarmed Russian soldier crawled through a nearly destroyed trench, seeking help from his captors, a unit of international volunteers led by an American.

The shooting of the unarmed, wounded Russian soldier is one of several killings that have unsettled the Chosen Company, one of the best-known units of international troops fighting on behalf of Ukraine.

In a second episode, a Chosen member lobbed a grenade at and killed a surrendering Russian soldier who had his hands raised, video footage reviewed by The Times shows.

In a third episode, Chosen members boasted in a group chat about killing Russian prisoners of war during a mission in October, text messages show.

A Greek soldier known as Zeus was at the center of all three episodes — tossing the grenade and, Mr. Grosse says, firing at the wounded Russian in the trench and bragging about another kill.

But in the United States military, a video showing the killing of a surrendering soldier, regardless of the circumstances, would prompt an immediate investigation, said Rachel E. VanLandingham, a professor at Southwestern Law School and a former U.S. Air Force lawyer.


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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

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Often without directly claiming responsibility, Ukraine has stepped up drone strikes on energy infrastructure within Russia with the aim of cutting off supplies and funding for Moscow's war machine.

While Russia still generates profits from oil despite sanctions against the resource, continued Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries prompted a government ban on gasoline exports between March and July to safeguard price stability.

This was extended to August and last week, Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Agency said it may reinstate the ban amid concerns about prices at the pump, in particular about shortages of Ai-95-rated gasoline, preferred by newer car engines.

Last week, Russia's deputy prime minister Alexander Novak referred to difficulties with Ai-95 and said that the export ban could be reimposed after August 1, if "the situation gets tense," regarding gasoline supplies, according to Reuters.

Russia's SHOT and Mash Telegram news channels said that blasts were heard near the refinery and video shared on social media purported to show the moment of impact on the facility which is owned by Russian oil major Rosneft.

"Full view of the drone hitting an oil refinery in Tuapse, Krasnodar region of Russia," posted Ukrainian internal affairs adviser Anton Gerashchenko on X next to a clip of the purported strike, "impressive."


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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

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Even on Tuesday night, when they disrupted a meeting of the Metro Council, spouting “antisemitic, homophobic and racist diatribes,” according to the Nashville Scene’s Eli Motycka, I couldn’t say I was surprised.

“Dynamite Nashville” is rigorously researched and reported, and its findings are scrupulously documented, but Ms. Phillips doesn’t write in the dispassionate language of authorial distance.

Bull Connor — who a few years later became nationally infamous as the Birmingham, Ala., commissioner of public safety who sicced attack dogs and used water cannons on a peaceful march of Black children and teenagers — served as one of his state’s representatives to the conference.

To be clear, the presence of a few neo-Nazis harassing people in Nashville does not signal an imminent return to life as we knew it in the Jim Crow South.

“With a historic election just months away, these groups are multiplying, mobilizing and making — and in some cases already implementing — plans to undo democracy,” said Margaret Huang, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s president and chief executive, in a call with reporters in early June.

And Mayor Freddie O’Connell, speaking at an event for the release of “Dynamite Nashville,” announced that he had asked the police chief to assign a member of the cold-case unit to reopen the investigation into three racist bombings that have remained unsolved for more than 60 years.


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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:

Click here to see the summaryIn the biggest news of all, Rivian and Volkswagen announced a $5 billion joint venture that will co-develop core parts of the hardware and software platform to be used in cars from both automakers.

We love that because it aligns so beautifully with our mission: the ability to help accelerate putting highly compelling electric vehicles into the market, which will ultimately drive more demand.

A core objective of how we’ve structured the joint venture is that we don’t lose the velocity and the speed and the decisiveness and lack of bureaucracy that exists within our software function today.

Beyond just simplification of how we manage running over-the-air updates across so many different instances, it also gets us a lot of supply chain leverage in a way that we, Rivian, haven’t had in the past.

In fact, you can imagine the day of the announcement, I had a handful of phone calls from CEOs of big semiconductor suppliers, and they’re like, “Hey, we can work harder on pricing.” So, that was awesome.

So, taking away all those mechanical design studio packaging constraints that we had before, and then solving the biggest challenge, which was network architecture by this being that as a project, it’s just a very different type of relationship.


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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

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Asked if Ms. Harris would pursue the policies she supported as a senator, like the Green New Deal, her climate adviser, Ike Irby, said she would focus on implementing the Inflation Reduction Act, which she helped to pass.

As a senator from California, the state that is at the forefront of climate policy, Ms. Harris promoted electrifying school buses to reduce greenhouse gases and to cut children's exposure to diesel engine pollution.

She was an original co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, a nonbinding resolution supported by liberal Democrats that called for the United States to transition to 100 percent clean energy within a decade while providing people with job guarantees and “high-quality health care.” The measure never got out of committee.

She investigated whether Exxon Mobil lied to the public and its shareholders about the risks to its business from climate change, and whether such actions could amount to securities fraud and violations of environmental laws, but the case did not result in a prosecution.

In 2019, Ms. Harris joined Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, to introduce legislation that would require the government to consider the impact of environmental regulations or laws on low-income communities, which tend to be disproportionately vulnerable to climate disruption because they are often located in flood zones, near highways, power plants and polluted land.

“During her ill-fated and short-lived 2020 presidential campaign, Harris was an early and enthusiastic supporter of the Green New Deal and called for so-called ‘carbon neutrality’ by 2030, all of it with a $10 trillion price tag,” Daniel Turner, executive director of Power The Future, a group that advocates for fossil fuels, said in a statement.


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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

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Critics say the legislation is fundamentally undemocratic and would undermine Israeli academia, because it restricts free speech and allows politicians to weaponise accusations that should be handled by the legal system.

Sivan said the legislation was dangerous for its broad restrictions and its narrow focus on universities, adding that Israel already had laws against incitement to terror that cover all residents.

“What they are trying to do is subject academics to stricter rules than other residents of Israel, where a violation of state laws is not judged in court but rather by a government-appointed administrator, with no process or opportunity for the accused one to defend him or herself.

The Association of University Heads, Israel (Vera) said in a public letter that the student union billboards backing the law were a divisive “campaign of persecution and incitement” that could lead to violence.

One of the academics targeted, Anat Matar from the philosophy department at Tel Aviv University, said the role of students in drafting and promoting a law to silence their lecturers was particularly disturbing.

Vera warned in a public letter that the draft law would also fuel international sanctions campaigns against Israeli universities by undermining their academic independence.


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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

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The Environmental Protection Agency is set to announce $4.3 billion in funding on Monday afternoon for 25 new projects proposed by states, tribes, local governments and territories to tackle climate change.

Among the jurisdictions that will get funding, Nebraska will receive $307 million to reduce agricultural waste and enhance energy efficiency in homes and buildings.

Other regions that will receive money included Southern California to decarbonize freight vehicles; Michigan and tribal partners to adopt new renewable energy projects; Atlantic coastal states to sequester carbon through wetland preservation; Alaska to replace residential oil-burning systems with heat pumps; and the Nez Percé Tribe to retrofit homes.

States, plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, were each eligible to receive $3 million to create climate action plans in 2023 during the program’s first phase.

When a state chose not to apply, the funding defaulted to its three largest metro areas, providing $1 million to develop a plan.

If states were able to do everything their climate action plans promised, it could result in at least a 7 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions nationwide by 2030, equivalent to taking almost one-third of gasoline cars off the road or decommissioning half the nation’s methane plants, according to an analysis by the Rocky Mountain Institute.


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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

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The Philippines occupies Second Thomas Shoal but China also claims it, and increasingly hostile clashes at sea have sparked fears of larger conflicts that could involve the United States.

Chinese coast guard and other forces have used powerful water cannons and dangerous blocking maneuvers to prevent food and other supplies from reaching Filipino navy personnel at Manila’s outpost at the shoal, on a long-grounded and rusting warship, the BRP Sierra Madre.

The violent faceoff wounded several Filipino navy personnel, including one who lost his thumb, in a chaotic skirmish that was captured in video and photos that were later made public by Philippine officials.

In addition to China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have been locked in separate but increasingly tense territorial disputes in the waterway, which is regarded as a potential flashpoint and a delicate fault line in the U.S.-China regional rivalry.

The U.S. military has deployed Navy ships and fighter jets for decades in what it calls freedom of navigation and overflight patrols, which China has opposed and regards as a threat to regional stability.

Washington has no territorial claims in the disputed waters but has repeatedly warned that it is obligated to defend the Philippines, its oldest treaty ally in Asia, if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.


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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

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The United Nations has blamed Facebook for the dissemination of hate speech against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar that resulted in their ethnic cleansing.

This influence on others is known as a (positive) network effect, where increased numbers of people improve the value of a product.

In doing so, one could be helping Facebook to refine its algorithms so that it can better single out specific individuals for certain purposes, some of which could be as nefarious as those of Cambridge Analytica.

For those of us who do not engage in such objectionable behavior, it is helpful to consider whether Facebook has crossed certain moral “red lines,” entering the realm of outright wickedness.

Likewise, Facebook would have crossed a red line if it had intentionally assisted in the dissemination of hate speech in Myanmar.

The recent worrisome revelation that Facebook hired an opposition-research firm that attempted to discredit protesters by claiming that they were agents of the financier George Soros is not encouraging.


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