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Timelapse Shows World’s Largest Iceberg Running Aground Off Remote Island Timelapse Shows World’s Largest Iceberg Running Aground Off Remote Island Timelapse satellite imagery captured the movements of the world’s largest iceberg before it ran aground in shallow water off the remote British island of South Georgia. The mega-iceberg A23a weighs nearly a trillion metric tonnes and, when measured in August 2024, was found to be slightly smaller than Rhode Island and more than twice the size of London. It had been drifting with the currents of the Southern Ocean towards South Georgia since 2020, the according to British Antarctic Survey (BAS). It was feared the iceberg could have impacted the wildlife of South Georgia, home to large colonies of penguins and seals, but those fears have abated as the berg appeared to have grounded on the continental shelf around 90 km (56 miles) from shore, the BAS said. Trusted news and daily delights, right in your inbox See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories. CSU/CIRA & NOAA captured the iceberg moving through the Southern Ocean toward South Georgia over the course of February. A23a is expected to eventually break up, according to the BAS, and the smaller icebergs it produces will pose a hazard to fishing and shipping operations as they are harder to detect and track. Credit: CSU/CIRA & NOAA via Storyful Source link #Timelapse #Shows #Worlds #Largest #Iceberg #Running #Aground #Remote #Island Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

How to Get Super Credits in Helldivers 2 How to Get Super Credits in Helldivers 2 Super Credits are the premium currency in Helldivers 2. You can use them to buy Warbonds, exclusive armor sets, and rotating items from the Superstore. Like most games, you get Super Credits mainly through in-game purchases for real money, but if you have the patience, there are multiple ways to get them for free while playing. They’re paid but also free. Image Credit: @Ebontis/YouTube You can farm Super Credits while playing by looting Points of Interests (POIs) and doing Bunker missions. With the right knowledge, it becomes very easy to grind thousands of Super Credits for free. Let’s take a look at exactly how. How to Earn Super Credits For Free in Helldivers 2 Get ready to scavenge. | Image Credit: @FalloutPlays/YouTube Helldivers 2 has the option to buy Super Credits through the in-game store, but worry not because you can earn them for free too. The way to do this is by looting them from in-game missions. Super Credits can be found in sealed pods, locked containers, and bunkers at minor Points of Interest (POIs) on any map. Looking to stockpile Super Credits and Medals ahead of the Helldivers 2 Cutting Edge Warbond drop? Here’s where to look before the goods arrive tomorrow pic.twitter.com/UThmlz7ie1 — PlayStation (@PlayStation) March 13, 2024 With this in mind, the best way for you to farm Super Credits for free is to farm maps with a lot of POIs. The difficulty level of the missions you take on doesn’t affect the drop rate, so the most efficient way to farm is by repeatedly playing low-difficulty missions. Trivial (level 1) missions have fewer enemies and smaller maps and you’ll be able to quickly find and get the loot. Certain biomes also make it easier to farm Super Credits. The new Urban Megastructures that were introduced with the Illuminate faction have lots of POIs and fewer enemies, making them ideal for farming. You’ll also want to activate radar dishes that can reveal the POI locations in every map. I once got the legendary +100 super credits, it was beautiful | #Helldivers2 Some_Syrup_7388 pic.twitter.com/vdujKsk5Hw — HELLDIVERS 2 Updates (@Helldivers2HQ) February 22, 2025 The best part about farming for Super Credits this way is that they are instantly added to your account once you collect them. That means you don’t have to extract or be afraid of losing your progress if a mission goes sideways. Bunker missions are another way to earn Super Credits. These missions reward you with SC upon completion, making them a reliable source of income. You can also find Locked containers and sealed pods that give SC, some of them need two players to open though. This isn’t the fastest method, but it’s a way to accumulate SC over time by just playing the game. How to Use Super Credits in Helldivers 2 Get all the bling you want! | Image Credit: @shellstrike/YouTube Once you’ve collected Super Credits, you can spend them in two main places: the Acquisitions Center (Superstore) and the Warbond System. In the Acquisitions Center, you’ll find exclusive cosmetic items that go in and out of rotation, such as helmets and armor sets. These items are available for a limited time, so if you see something you like, it’s best to purchase it before it cycles out of the store. And then there’s the Warbonds. Warbonds function as Helldivers 2’s battle pass system, but there’s a twist, a good one. They never expire. Each Warbond costs 1,000 Super Credits, but players must still use Medals to unlock specific items within them. But since they never expire, you can take your sweet time unlocking everything you want. In the end, Super Credits provide access to premium content, but they are not essential for enjoying Helldivers 2. The game allows players to progress and unlock most content without spending money, making it a fair experience for both free-to-play and paying players. You get to decide how you play the game, and that is the best part. Source link #Super #Credits #Helldivers Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

In Democratic response, Slotkin trashes Trump's 'chaotic' style, warns of recession – Detroit Free Press In Democratic response, Slotkin trashes Trump's 'chaotic' style, warns of recession – Detroit Free Press In Democratic response, Slotkin trashes Trump’s ‘chaotic’ style, warns of recession Detroit Free PressSlotkin Warns Trump ‘Will Make You Pay’ in Democrats’ Response to Speech The New York Times‘Reagan must be rolling in his grave’: Hear Democratic response to Trump’s address CNN’Would have lost us the Cold War’: Slotkin blasts Trump’s foreign policy in response to Congress address Fox News Source link #Democratic #response #Slotkin #trashes #Trump039s #039chaotic039 #style #warns #recession #Detroit #Free #Press Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

T Coronae Borealis Nova Event: When and Where to See the ‘Blaze Star’ T Coronae Borealis Nova Event: When and Where to See the ‘Blaze Star’ T Coronae Borealis, commonly known as the ‘Blaze Star,’ is expected to undergo a rare outburst, making it visible to the naked eye for a short *******. Located around 3,000 light-years away in the constellation Corona Borealis, this recurrent nova brightens approximately every 80 years due to a thermonuclear explosion on its surface. Predictions had placed the event between April and September 2024, but as it has not yet occurred, astronomers believe the eruption is imminent. The star has remained faint in recent months, but with its host constellation rising in the evening sky, skywatchers have a key opportunity to locate it before its expected brightening. Predicted Timing of the Nova According to reports, the constellation Corona Borealis will become visible in the eastern sky about three hours after sunset in March 2025. Within four hours of sunset, the star’s position will be easier to identify. If the nova occurs as predicted, the star’s brightness will rapidly increase, reaching a magnitude similar to Polaris, the North Star, before fading over the following days. Since such an event has not been observed since 1946, astronomers are closely monitoring any changes in brightness. Where to Locate T Coronae Borealis T Coronae Borealis is positioned between two of the brightest stars in the night sky—Vega in the northeast and Arcturus in the east. Locating the Big Dipper and following the arc of its handle to Arcturus provides a simple way to find the constellation. Corona Borealis appears as a semicircle of stars, with the ‘Blaze Star’ situated near Epsilon CrB, one of its brighter members. Understanding the Nova Event T Coronae Borealis is a binary star system consisting of a white dwarf and a red giant. Over time, the white dwarf accumulates material from its companion until a thermonuclear reaction ignites, causing a dramatic increase in brightness. Observations in 2023 suggested that the nova was approaching, though an explosion has yet to be recorded. Since such an event is expected to last about a week, astronomers are encouraging skywatchers to familiarize themselves with the star’s location in advance. For details of the latest launches and news from Samsung, Xiaomi, Realme, OnePlus, Oppo and other companies at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, visit our MWC 2025 hub. Firefly Blue Ghost Moon Lander Successfully Lands on Moon for NASA Mission Qualcomm Launches Dragonwing Fixed Wireless Access Gen 4 Elite Platform Alongside Qualcomm X85 5G Modem-RF at MWC 2025 Source link #Coronae #Borealis #Nova #Event #Blaze #Star Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Gaza food prices spike and shortages loom after Israel halts aid Gaza food prices spike and shortages loom after Israel halts aid Reuters ************ children in Gaza gather to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen Food prices in Gaza have spiked and aid food parcels could soon run out after Israel blocked the entry of humanitarian aid, the UN’s humanitarian agency said. OCHA’s partners reported that flour and vegetable prices more than doubled in some cases, with Gazans telling the BBC the same. If the block continues, “at least 80 community kitchens may soon run out of stock” and remaining food parcels that “will support 500,000 people, will soon run out”, OCHA said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chose to stop aid at the weekend, accusing ****** of stealing supplies and refusing a US proposal to extend the Israel-****** ceasefire. A ****** spokesman said the halt was “cheap blackmail”. Thousands of aid trucks had surged into Gaza each week under the ceasefire that started on 19 January. After the ceasefire’s first phase expired on Saturday, Netanyahu’s office accused ****** of stealing aid “to finance its terror machine”. ****** has previously denied stealing humanitarian aid in Gaza. Netanyahu also said ****** was refusing to accept a six-week ceasefire extension, under different terms from those previously agreed, as proposed by US President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff. After the halt of aid in response, OCHA said on Tuesday that some community kitchens which remain operational “will need to start to adjust meal content or reduce the number of meals prepared to cope with anticipated shortages”. Partners would also “be forced to reduce food rations”. While they are distributing previously dispatched food parcels, remaining supplies are expected to run out soon. As a result, Abu Qais Aryan, from Khan Younis, told BBC Arabic the cost of basic goods doubled over Sunday night. Prices had already doubled or tripled since the war began, he said. Other residents said the price of a kilo of tomatoes rose overnight from five shekels (£1) to ten, and a kilo of cucumbers from six to 17 shekels. “We could barely afford to buy a kilo of tomatoes just to satisfy our hunger,” said one man, Issam, adding that people could not buy food “because there is no cash liquidity”. Getty Images Palestinians sell food in the rubble of destroyed buildings in Jabalia Issa Meit, a resident of Gaza City, said there was a shortage of goods and very high consumption, and he was “very afraid that prices will increase again”. “The recent decision is unfair as it wrongs our children. How will our children live in light of these high prices that will increase in an arbitrary way?” he said. Some blamed merchants for hiking prices, saying they were exploiting the situation. Merchant Mahmoud Abu Mohsen told BBC Arabic he raised prices because the wholesalers he purchases from did as well. “For example, I used to buy sugar for five shekels, three shekels, or four shekels, but now I buy sugar for six shekels, meaning I don’t make more than a small profit,” he said. “The news that Netanyahu announced is what caused a stir among the people.” Getty Images Palestinians shop in Gaza City Doctors Without Borders (MSF)’s spokeswoman Caroline Seguin said in a statement the “news has created uncertainty and fear, causing food prices to spike”. “Israel is once again blocking an entire population from receiving aid, using it as a bargaining chip,” Seguin said. “This is unacceptable, outrageous, and will have devastating consequences.” Qatar and Egypt, which helped mediate the ceasefire, condemned Israel’s move. Qatar’s foreign ministry called the decision “a clear violation of the ceasefire agreement” and “international humanitarian law” in a statement. Egypt’s foreign ministry accused Israel of using starvation as “a weapon against the ************ people”, the AFP news agency reported. David Mencer, Israeli government diplomacy spokesman for the prime minister’s office, said in a video briefing that “****** has hoarded for months and months of supplies. They have enough food to fuel an obesity epidemic.” “The supplies are there but ****** doesn’t share,” he added. Many Gazans use aid: a month ago, OCHA said more than a million people – roughly half of the population – had received food assistance since the ceasefire began. All aid, not just food, is affected by the blockade. Charity Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) said that inside Gaza, it had some medicine in reserve for its clinics and assistive devices for people with disabilities, in addition to hygiene kits. “However, we don’t currently have high aid reserves as most items entering were for immediate distribution,” the charity said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have stock that we can use during a long closure of Gaza.” The ceasefire aimed to end 15 months of conflict, after ****** killed about 1,200 people and took another 251 hostage in its attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. Israel responded with an air and ground campaign in Gaza that killed at least 48,405 people, according to the ******-run health ministry. Source link #Gaza #food #prices #spike #shortages #loom #Israel #halts #aid Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Jackson Barrett: Steve Smith’s retirement from one-day international cricket is a win for Australia Jackson Barrett: Steve Smith’s retirement from one-day international cricket is a win for Australia It was the bombshell retirement we didn’t see coming — but maybe we should have. Steve Smith has quit ODI cricket to nurture the rejuvenated back-end of his famous Test career, writes Jackson Barrett. Source link #Jackson #Barrett #Steve #Smiths #retirement #oneday #international #cricket #win #Australia Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Book Review: ‘I Leave It Up to You,’ by Jinwoo Chong Book Review: ‘I Leave It Up to You,’ by Jinwoo Chong I LEAVE IT UP TO YOU, by Jinwoo Chong Nearly half a decade after the W.H.O. declared Covid-19 a pandemic, I’ve found that recalling the contagion’s early days is a struggle. Instead of blurring together, the memories have fractured into a dangerous mound of shards I’d prefer to leave undisturbed. So how invigorating it was to read Jinwoo Chong’s wise and poignant sophomore novel, “I Leave It Up to You,” which features a protagonist who has no memories of Covid’s first two years at all. The book is a welcome twist on the quickly established (and frequently disappointing) “pandemic novel” subgenre. The story follows Jack Jr., a 30-year-old who wakes up in a hospital bed in late 2021. He’s confused: The last he remembers it was October 2019. Also, why is his attending nurse, Emil, wearing a surgical mask and a plastic shield over his face? Even more pressing: Why does Jack Jr. have so many tubes shoved inside his body? Where is his fiancé? What has happened to Jack Jr. and, more important, his life? Those answers will come later. Once released, he returns to his family’s home in Fort Lee, N.J. It’s an unexpected arrangement — Jack Jr. has spent the past decade estranged from his parents. Though his departure left plenty of open wounds, he is welcomed into his old life almost as if no time has passed at all, easily slotting back into the family’s routines and returning to work at Joja, the Korean-Japanese restaurant opened by his father. Jack Jr. must now contend with his past — both the family he left as well as the world-altering years he missed entirely — and begin recalculating what his future could be. Chong, who is a sales planner for The New York Times, writes mouthwatering descriptions of food, and his peeks behind the curtain at the gargantuan amount of work that goes into running a restaurant will give readers a new respect for their favorite neighborhood spot. But the novel’s most memorable pleasures lie outside the kitchen. It is, for example, Jack Jr.’s reconnection with his 16-year-old nephew, Juno, and his courtship with Emil where “I Leave It Up to You” finds its firmest footing and most unexpected charms and laughs. Juno and Jack Jr. have a fascinating and frequently uproarious dynamic: Here’s a gay uncle who’s been asleep for two years and a teenage nephew who came of age during the pandemic. Their memories of each other are woefully half-formed but filled with an easy, if clumsy, kind of love. And then there’s Emil. He’s a white man who’s never had sushi embarking on a relationship with a Korean man who works in a sushi restaurant. And he’s suffering the inverse of Jack Jr.’s tragedy: Jack Jr. was asleep for two years, but Emil, haunted by his time caring for and losing Covid patients, finds rest almost impossible. Despite the awkwardness of their hospital room meet-drab (something his family accepts with perhaps a little too much ease), their relationship flourishes. Their story line felt like a gift to the reader; finally we can see something lovely emerge from such a dire time. That sense of comfort is characteristic of Chong’s writing throughout the book. Even when there are dramatic turns — like the return of Ren, the Chekhov’s Fiancé of Jack Jr.’s past life — he keeps the story at a gentle simmer. Modern life, especially since the pandemic, feels like a cascade of increasingly ********** tragedies. “I Leave It Up to You” is about finding — or rediscovering — the people who make the hardships worth enduring. More than once exhausted characters say, “We are all just trying to stay alive.” Among their heaviest burdens are their memories of the past, but how lucky they are to wake up each morning with the chance to forge a new future. I LEAVE IT UP TO YOU | By Jinwoo Chong | Ballantine | 310 pp. | $28 Source link #Book #Review #Leave #Jinwoo #Chong Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

PB&J Transcends the Lunchbox – The New York Times PB&J Transcends the Lunchbox – The New York Times The Chefs Making PB&J for Adults In a 1901 article in the Boston Cooking School Magazine of Culinary Science & Domestic Economics, the food writer Julia Davis Chandler introduced one of America’s most iconic culinary couples: peanut butter and jelly. In the time since, PB&J has dominated school lunchboxes and shown up in various packaged treats, from Uncrustables to M&M’s. Now pastry chefs like New York’s Miro Uskokovic, 41, are embracing and updating the pairing. At Hani’s, the East Village bakery that he co-owns with his wife, Shilpa, PB&J cake is a perpetual best seller. “With desserts, you should never go too intellectual,” says Uskokovic, who sandwiches wild blueberry compote, peanut butter buttercream and peanut-sesame crunch between layers of yellow sponge. “I haven’t met many people who don’t like PB&J.” At Brio, an Italian restaurant in Amsterdam, the chef Maddy Caldwell, 24, serves a frozen version of the combo, topping her ice cream sundae with peanut sauce and quince jelly, while in Asheville, N.C., Owl Bakery’s Lola Borovyk, 32, simmers local muscadine grapes into jam and then combines them with peanut frangipane and streusel in a twice-baked croissant. “It’s lowbrow meets highbrow,” she says. At Hellbender, a ******** American restaurant in Ridgewood, Queens, the executive chef Yara Herrera, 33, took inspiration from another childhood favorite: Jell-O. Her parfait features alternating stripes of silky peanut butter and concord grape gelatin with a topping of whipped cream and candied peanuts. Originally conceived of as a special, the dessert was so popular that it’s become a menu mainstay. Says Herrera, “I don’t think PB&J is ever going out of style.” — Tanya Bush In Norway, a New Stay on a Private Island When it comes to solitude and scenery, few places rival Norway’s western coast, with its tens of thousands of islands and islets, and its maze of fjords. But luxury accommodations are scarce in this part of the country, which means visitors are more likely to sail by than to linger on land. Today, though, you can stay at Lilløy Lindenberg, a guesthouse on a nine-acre private island. (You reach the property, a converted farmstead, via a 10-minute boat ride from the neighboring island of Herdla, which connects to the mainland by bridge.) The closest major city is Bergen, home to Lilløy’s interior designers, Vera Kleppe and Åshild Kyte, who commissioned a number of the region’s artisans, from a glassblower to woodworkers, to help refresh the farm’s existing two buildings, as well as a stand-alone sauna and a shop. The original main house, built in 1906 and paneled with a mix of repurposed wood and knotty and solid pine, contains three guest rooms, while the fourth is in the former boathouse perched above the sea. The colors in all the rooms — soft greens, rusts and rich browns — reflect the surroundings, as does the menu, which includes locally foraged mushrooms and seaweed, plus cardamom buns made by a baker on a nearby island. In summer, the kitchen will pack a picnic lunch for guests who want to go kayaking for the day. From about $615 a night, or about $1,670 for the entire property, thelindenberg.com. — Gisela Williams A Watch That Accounts for Leap Years In the world of luxury horology, the perpetual calendar is one of the most arcane mechanical complications, displaying the correct day and date until the year 2100 without adjustment, despite the varying lengths of months and the inconvenience of leap years. It’s little wonder, then, that Panerai, the Italian house that has long made its timepieces in Switzerland, would want to show off its work. The latest addition to its Luminor line, this 44-millimeter watch (available in September), with a case made from a scratch-resistant alloy that’s 95 percent platinum, has a semitransparent sapphire crystal face that allows a glimpse of its ingenious calendar wheels (the current day and date are visible through two polarized windows at the 3 o’clock position). Time doesn’t fly with a watch like this; it marches on, defiant. Panerai Luminor Perpetual Calendar G.M.T., price on request, (212) 223-1562. — Nancy Hass Photo assistant: Pauline Devès. Set designer’s assistant: Jean-Baptiste Romefort Source link #PBJ #Transcends #Lunchbox #York #Times Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Want to Outperform Nearly 92% of Professional Fund Managers? Buy This 1 Investment and Hold It Forever. Want to Outperform Nearly 92% of Professional Fund Managers? Buy This 1 Investment and Hold It Forever. Professional fund managers get paid a lot of money to invest hundreds of billions of dollars for their investors. On the surface, there are good reasons to trust these pros with all that money: They’re highly educated and have developed significant expertise over the years. That should give them a significant advantage when it comes to generating outsized returns. But the truth is most professional fund managers fail to earn enough for their investors to make up for the high fees they charge. You don’t need any advanced education or special insights in the market to outperform up to 92% of professional fund managers over the long run. All you need to do is buy an S&P 500 index fund, such as the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO), and hold it forever. Image source: Getty Images. S&P Global publishes its SPIVA (S&P Indices Versus Active) Scorecard twice per year, detailing how many actively managed mutual funds outperform their respective S&P benchmark index. It corrects for factors like survivorship bias, which would skew active fund performance higher. And as a result, it found just over 8% of active large-cap U.S. equity stock funds have outperformed the S&P 500 over the last 20 years. There are several reasons why beating the market, even for these seasoned professionals, is really hard. First, consider that the stock market, particularly large-cap stocks, is dominated by institutional investors like those managing active mutual funds. Roughly 80% of the volume in large-cap stocks comes from institutional investors. That means the price of a highly-traded stock is largely dictated by those professionals. In other words, active fund managers are working against other active fund managers to find value and outperform the broader market. The result is that any advantages they may have quickly evaporate, leaving the odds of outperforming somewhere around 50/50. Active management also suffers from what Michael Mauboussin, author and head of Consilient Research at Counterpoint Global in New York, calls the paradox of skill. When skill is very high and consistent across the field, luck plays a much ******* role in determining which managers outperform. Imagine two equally matched pro tennis players trying to win a point; one weird bounce on the court or a strong breeze could end up determining the winner. But active managers don’t just have to get lucky enough to outperform the market, they have to outperform the market by enough to justify their fee. In a 1997 speech, Jack Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, laid out a very simple theory: “Investors as a group cannot outperform the market, because they are the market,” he said. In fact, he took that a step further by saying investors, as a group, must underperform the market “because of the costs of participation.” Those costs include things like transaction costs, administrative fees, and the expense ratio on your mutual funds. Story Continues Warren Buffett spoke of those same challenges for investors in his parable of the Gotrock family. The family once owned every American corporation but lost it all as individual members hired “helpers” like brokers, managers, and financial advisors to help them grow their wealth faster than other family members. If the Gotrocks had simply maintained their ownership of everything, they would have come away with far more wealth in the long run. Reducing your cost of participation is paramount to long-term success in investing. Many actively managed mutual funds have high expense ratios, especially when compared to index funds. The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF sports an expense ratio of just 0.03%. It’s hard to find anything less expensive than that. While there are fund managers who can outperform their fees for an extended ******* of time, identifying them beforehand is practically impossible. What’s more, successful managers tend to attract attention and the capital that comes along with it. At the very least, their successful investments produce a ton of capital they must eventually redeploy. With more capital to invest, the fund manager must extend their portfolio to less promising investments, increasing the role of luck in outperformance. As a result, strong outperformance often leads a smart and successful manager to become less successful (but no less smart) over the long run. That challenge will never plague an index fund, which simply matches the benchmark it’s designed to track. An index fund with a strong record of closely tracking the returns of the index it follows is an excellent investment for most individuals. With a low “cost of participation” and a simple expectation of matching the market, it can outperform the vast majority of actively managed mutual funds over the long run. Before you buy stock in Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Vanguard S&P 500 ETF wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $699,020!* Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 863% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 173% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of March 3, 2025 Adam Levy has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends S&P Global and Vanguard S&P 500 ETF. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Want to Outperform Nearly 92% of Professional Fund Managers? Buy This 1 Investment and Hold It Forever. was originally published by The Motley Fool Source link #Outperform #Professional #Fund #Managers #Buy #Investment #Hold Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

In ‘The Electric State,’ Jolting a Robot to Life In ‘The Electric State,’ Jolting a Robot to Life Kid Cosmo’s head is enormous, as robot heads go. The primary nonhuman hero of the film “The Electric State” (on Netflix March 14), Cosmo has a bright yellow globe of a head the size and shape of an exercise ball, propped atop an incongruously spindly frame. Cute? Yes. Mechanically feasible? Not really. Cosmo’s character was inspired by Skip, the similarly bigheaded hero of Simon Stalenhag’s graphic novel. A cult hit when it was first published in 2018, the book “The Electric State” is set in an alternate 1990s universe after a mysterious war has ravaged the California landscape, leaving the husks of enormous drones and robots in its wake. “Simon Stalenhag’s work is what attracted me to this movie to begin with,” said Matthew E. Butler, the film’s visual effects supervisor. “But his designs are often aesthetically cool and engineeringly impossible.” In the film, Cosmo and his young companion, Michelle, played by Millie Bobby Brown, embark on a journey across the American West to find Michelle’s brother. Along the way, they meet up with scores of other robots, many just as improbably designed as Cosmo. Of course, Cosmo doesn’t really need to make mechanical sense in either the graphic novel or the feature film, given the flights of physics fancy regularly found in both mediums. But Anthony and Joe Russo, the film’s directors, wanted to ground their movie in reality, even more so given the story’s 1990s setting (think Orange Julius and MTV News with sci-fi enhancements), and the film’s fanciful robots, which include a midcentury postal carrier (voiced by Jenny Slate) and an urbane Mr. Peanut (Woody Harrelson). “We’re creating a fantasy world, but one that’s based on a world you recognize and perhaps even lived through,” Anthony said. “Part of delivering that recognizable world is making everything feel real.” With Cosmo, the filmmakers had to create a robot that viewers would believe could work — based on a comic book robot that decidedly would not. “We did a lot of research with true robot designers, and they like to keep a robot’s mass at the core,” Butler said. “As extremities move out, the mass wants to drop off, so you’ll see typical robots have smaller and smaller appendages at the end.” The stakes were high. Not only did viewers have to believe Cosmo was real, they also had to feel for him, a tall order given that the book’s version has a static, painted-on face and is incapable of speech. “We loved the idea that this girl was on a very emotional cross-country journey to find her brother with a robot that had very limited communication skills,” Joe said. One of the first things the Russo Brothers did was create a back story for their bot. In the film’s alternate reality timeline, Walt Disney created a series of robots to promote the opening of Disneyland in 1955. The robots worked so well, however, that they soon began to replace human workers in all sorts of unpleasant jobs. Cosmo was one of those robots, a promotional model based on a popular animated children’s TV show (like Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy, with a similarly unlikely hairdo). “You could rent him for children’s parties,” Joe said. In the film, Cosmo’s face has the old-timey look of a circa-1950s tin toy with a manufacturing seam down the middle of his face, enormous painted-on ovals for eyes, and a goofily wide grin. “That was all Simon,” said the production designer Dennis Gassner (“Apocalypse Now,” “Blade Runner”). “We tried a variety of smiles, but that was pretty much what Simon created.” One challenge, said Gassner, who has a variety of tin toys in his home collection, was retaining the static look of those antique collectibles while nodding at the somebody, or something, inside. Butler also expressed this dilemma, saying, “We convey a lot of information with our faces, so when all of a sudden you have this inert object, you’ve starved the animator of a lot of their tools.” Animators can do a lot without a moving face — Butler points to Luxo Jr., Pixar’s animated desk lamp mascot, as proof — but it’s hard. “There was a knee-jerk reaction to try and add animated parts to his face, but thankfully we didn’t go there,” he said. “We wanted the character to be hard to access and decipher,” Anthony said. “But we also had to have that robot be able to convey intention or emotion.” The solution: add camera lenses that were evocative of eyes, but set deep within the robot’s painted eye holes. The filmmakers also wrestled with making Cosmo’s improbable structure — his big head, spindly legs and oversized boots — physically believable onscreen. “We spent a lot of time focusing on subtle, surreptitious design ideas that would allow the audience to believe that he’s been mechanized to achieve this,” Butler said. The designers beefed up Cosmo’s neck with mechanical sinews, the better to hold up that oversized head, and added twisting coils to his feet. “His silhouette at a distance looks very much like Simon’s design, but when you get in close, you see the pistons and push rods,” Butler said. “You go, OK, that’s how he’s able to move his body around.” Later, sound designers added the hisses and whirs of moving servos to complete the effect. The robot’s movements were created through a mix of animation and motion capture. Devyn Dalton, an actress, stuntwoman and motion- capture performer (“War for the Planet of the Apes”) was called upon to play Cosmo. A proxy head was created to give the actress a sense of how big Cosmo’s noggin would be; later, the design crew considered having Dalton don big clunky shoes to help her get into character, but ultimately nixed that. As it turned out, most of the props were unnecessary. “She’s an amazing actress,” Joe said, “so she was able to embody the movement of the character just through hours of workshop.” In the film, Cosmo is strictly a computer-generated creation, but for press events, the filmmakers enlisted the Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLA) at the University of California, Los Angeles, to create an actual physical robot. At last October’s New York Comic ****, a life-size Cosmo appeared alongside Brown, her co-star, Chris Pratt, and the directors, waving at attendees and chatting up the crowd. It was a particularly meta idea: create a promo robot to promote a film about a promo robot, and build it at a West Coast university for a film that is set in an alternate Western United States hellscape. “Basically we told them to bring him to life as best as they could, and they exceeded all expectations,” Joe said. U.C.L.A.’s team took a year to create their practical bot. For the Russo Brothers, similar care was taken in creating their C.G. one. “Dennis Gassner, who’s one of the great production designers of all time, and his team, were very methodical in asking, how is this thing constructed in a factory?” Joe said. “What is it made of? Were those rivet shoes? Are there cameras behind the eyeballs? We just asked thousands of questions.” Source link #Electric #State #Jolting #Robot #Life Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

In ‘The Electric State,’ Jolting a Robot to Life In ‘The Electric State,’ Jolting a Robot to Life Kid Cosmo’s head is enormous, as robot heads go. The primary nonhuman hero of the film “The Electric State” (on Netflix March 14), Cosmo has a bright yellow globe of a head the size and shape of an exercise ball, propped atop an incongruously spindly frame. Cute? Yes. Mechanically feasible? Not really. Cosmo’s character was inspired by Skip, the similarly bigheaded hero of Simon Stalenhag’s graphic novel. A cult hit when it was first published in 2018, the book “The Electric State” is set in an alternate 1990s universe after a mysterious war has ravaged the California landscape, leaving the husks of enormous drones and robots in its wake. “Simon Stalenhag’s work is what attracted me to this movie to begin with,” said Matthew E. Butler, the film’s visual effects supervisor. “But his designs are often aesthetically cool and engineeringly impossible.” In the film, Cosmo and his young companion, Michelle, played by Millie Bobby Brown, embark on a journey across the American West to find Michelle’s brother. Along the way, they meet up with scores of other robots, many just as improbably designed as Cosmo. Of course, Cosmo doesn’t really need to make mechanical sense in either the graphic novel or the feature film, given the flights of physics fancy regularly found in both mediums. But Anthony and Joe Russo, the film’s directors, wanted to ground their movie in reality, even more so given the story’s 1990s setting (think Orange Julius and MTV News with sci-fi enhancements), and the film’s fanciful robots, which include a midcentury postal carrier (voiced by Jenny Slate) and an urbane Mr. Peanut (Woody Harrelson). “We’re creating a fantasy world, but one that’s based on a world you recognize and perhaps even lived through,” Anthony said. “Part of delivering that recognizable world is making everything feel real.” With Cosmo, the filmmakers had to create a robot that viewers would believe could work — based on a comic book robot that decidedly would not. “We did a lot of research with true robot designers, and they like to keep a robot’s mass at the core,” Butler said. “As extremities move out, the mass wants to drop off, so you’ll see typical robots have smaller and smaller appendages at the end.” The stakes were high. Not only did viewers have to believe Cosmo was real, they also had to feel for him, a tall order given that the book’s version has a static, painted-on face and is incapable of speech. “We loved the idea that this girl was on a very emotional cross-country journey to find her brother with a robot that had very limited communication skills,” Joe said. One of the first things the Russo Brothers did was create a back story for their bot. In the film’s alternate reality timeline, Walt Disney created a series of robots to promote the opening of Disneyland in 1955. The robots worked so well, however, that they soon began to replace human workers in all sorts of unpleasant jobs. Cosmo was one of those robots, a promotional model based on a popular animated children’s TV show (like Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy, with a similarly unlikely hairdo). “You could rent him for children’s parties,” Joe said. In the film, Cosmo’s face has the old-timey look of a circa-1950s tin toy with a manufacturing seam down the middle of his face, enormous painted-on ovals for eyes, and a goofily wide grin. “That was all Simon,” said the production designer Dennis Gassner (“Apocalypse Now,” “Blade Runner”). “We tried a variety of smiles, but that was pretty much what Simon created.” One challenge, said Gassner, who has a variety of tin toys in his home collection, was retaining the static look of those antique collectibles while nodding at the somebody, or something, inside. Butler also expressed this dilemma, saying, “We convey a lot of information with our faces, so when all of a sudden you have this inert object, you’ve starved the animator of a lot of their tools.” Animators can do a lot without a moving face — Butler points to Luxo Jr., Pixar’s animated desk lamp mascot, as proof — but it’s hard. “There was a knee-jerk reaction to try and add animated parts to his face, but thankfully we didn’t go there,” he said. “We wanted the character to be hard to access and decipher,” Anthony said. “But we also had to have that robot be able to convey intention or emotion.” The solution: add camera lenses that were evocative of eyes, but set deep within the robot’s painted eye holes. The filmmakers also wrestled with making Cosmo’s improbable structure — his big head, spindly legs and oversized boots — physically believable onscreen. “We spent a lot of time focusing on subtle, surreptitious design ideas that would allow the audience to believe that he’s been mechanized to achieve this,” Butler said. The designers beefed up Cosmo’s neck with mechanical sinews, the better to hold up that oversized head, and added twisting coils to his feet. “His silhouette at a distance looks very much like Simon’s design, but when you get in close, you see the pistons and push rods,” Butler said. “You go, OK, that’s how he’s able to move his body around.” Later, sound designers added the hisses and whirs of moving servos to complete the effect. The robot’s movements were created through a mix of animation and motion capture. Devyn Dalton, an actress, stuntwoman and motion- capture performer (“War for the Planet of the Apes”) was called upon to play Cosmo. A proxy head was created to give the actress a sense of how big Cosmo’s noggin would be; later, the design crew considered having Dalton don big clunky shoes to help her get into character, but ultimately nixed that. As it turned out, most of the props were unnecessary. “She’s an amazing actress,” Joe said, “so she was able to embody the movement of the character just through hours of workshop.” In the film, Cosmo is strictly a computer-generated creation, but for press events, the filmmakers enlisted the Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLA) at the University of California, Los Angeles, to create an actual physical robot. At last October’s New York Comic ****, a life-size Cosmo appeared alongside Brown, her co-star, Chris Pratt, and the directors, waving at attendees and chatting up the crowd. It was a particularly meta idea: create a promo robot to promote a film about a promo robot, and build it at a West Coast university for a film that is set in an alternate Western United States hellscape. “Basically we told them to bring him to life as best as they could, and they exceeded all expectations,” Joe said. U.C.L.A.’s team took a year to create their practical bot. For the Russo Brothers, similar care was taken in creating their C.G. one. “Dennis Gassner, who’s one of the great production designers of all time, and his team, were very methodical in asking, how is this thing constructed in a factory?” Joe said. “What is it made of? Were those rivet shoes? Are there cameras behind the eyeballs? We just asked thousands of questions.” Source link #Electric #State #Jolting #Robot #Life Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Luka Doncic, LeBron James are dominant as Lakers extend win streak to seven – Yahoo Sports Luka Doncic, LeBron James are dominant as Lakers extend win streak to seven – Yahoo Sports Luka Doncic, LeBron James are dominant as Lakers extend win streak to seven Yahoo SportsView Full Coverage on Google News Source link #Luka #Doncic #LeBron #James #dominant #Lakers #extend #win #streak #Yahoo #Sports Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Fact-checking Donald Trump’s speech to Congress Fact-checking Donald Trump’s speech to Congress Lucy Gilder, Jake Horton & Ben Chu BBC Verfiy Getty Images In his address to Congress, which ran for more than an hour and a half, President Donald Trump made a series of claims about the state of the US under his predecessor Joe Biden and the achievements of his first weeks in office. He returned to key campaign themes including ******** immigration, rising prices and what he called “appalling waste” in government spending. BBC Verify has looked into the facts behind some of his key claims. Did Trump inherit an economic catastrophe? Trump said he inherited an “economic catastrophe” from Biden. This is misleading. The US economy was growing at an annual rate of 2.3% in the final quarter of 2024 under the previous administration. It expanded by 2.8% over 2024 as a whole according to official US statistics. The International Monetary Fund estimates that the US growth rate in 2024 was faster than any other nation in the G7. On rising prices, Trump added “we suffered the worst inflation in 48 years, but perhaps even in the history of our country”. Inflation under Biden peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 – the highest level since 1981 – so not quite as far back as Trump claimed. The 2022 peak was in the context of high inflation in the rest of the world in the wake of the Covid pandemic and a global energy shock. The inflation rate had dropped to 3% by the time Trump took office. Inflation has also been much higher than 9% at several other points in US history, including the 1940s and 1920s. Did Biden let egg prices get out of control? Trump went on to blame Biden for egg prices, claiming he “let the price of eggs get out of control”. Prices are high, but this has been linked to a bird flu outbreak in the US. Egg prices rose under Biden in 2023, and in January a dozen eggs averaged over $5, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). That is 53% above the average for the whole of 2024. The USDA has said a bird flu outbreak has led to US farmers having to kill millions of chickens, creating egg shortages, and has announced a $1bn (£780m) plan to help combat the issue. The outbreak started in February 2022 and last year the Biden administration allocated more than $800m to tackle it. The Trump administration recently fired a number of USDA officials who worked on the government’s response to bird flu as part of cost-cutting measures by the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge). They are now reportedly attempting to rehire some of them. Has Doge found hundreds of billions in fraud? Trump praised Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) and claimed the advisory body had found “hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud” in federal government spending. No evidence has been provided for this figure. On its official website, Doge states that it has saved an estimated $105bn, from fraud detection, contract and grant cancellations, real estate lease terminations, asset sales, workforce reductions, programmatic changes, and regulatory savings. However, that figure cannot be independently verified as, so far, Doge has only published “receipts” for contract, grant and real estate lease cancellations on the website. These add up to about $18.6bn. We have asked the White House for evidence of the remaining $86bn of savings. US media outlets have also highlighted some accounting errors. For example, Doge initially listed its largest saving of $8bn from scrapping an immigration agency contract – it later corrected this to $8m. Was February the lowest ever month for border crossings? Speaking about his actions to tackle ******** immigration, Trump said that “as a result, ******** border crossings last month were by far the lowest ever recorded”. This is true. In February 2025, there were 8,326 encounters at the southwest border with Mexico – by US border patrol. This is the lowest level since monthly records began in 2000. By comparison, there were about 140,000 encounters by US border patrol at this border in February last year under Biden. Numbers fell for the rest of the year to 96,000 at the end of 2024. Getty Images Trump has ordered US troops to patrol the southern border with Mexico Did 21 million migrants enter US under Biden? Continuing with ******** migration, Trump claimed: “Over the past four years, 21 million people poured into the United States”. There is no evidence for a figure this high. Encounters with migrants at the borders – a measure of ******** migration – reached 10 million under Biden but this does not mean this many people stayed in the US. It is impossible to know exactly how many ******** immigrants have come to the US, as many will have evaded law enforcement agencies, but several estimates put the number at around half what Trump stated. A report published by the Office of Homeland Security last year estimated the number of ******** immigrants living in the US, as of January 2022, at 11 million. It says about a fifth of them arrived in 2010 or later but the majority arrived before this time, some as early as the 1980s. Has the US spent $350bn on Ukraine? On US aid to Ukraine, Trump claimed: “We’ve spent perhaps $350bn… and they [Europe] have spent $100bn. What a difference that is.” BBC Verify is unable to find any evidence for Trump’s $350bn claim and some figures suggest Europe has spent more as whole when all aid to Ukraine is included. The US is, by some margin, the largest single donor to Ukraine. But Europe combined has spent more money than the US, according to the Kiel Institute think tank. It calculates that between 24 January 2022 and the end of 2024, Europe as a whole spent $138.7bn on Ukraine, while the US spent $119.7bn. The US Department of Defense has a higher figure of $182.8bn – taking into account a broader range of US military activity in Europe – but this is still considerably less than Trump’s figure. We have asked the White House where it comes from. BBC Verify is looking at other claims from Trump’s speech. Additional reporting by Shayan Sardarizadeh & Anthony Reuben. Source link #Factchecking #Donald #Trumps #speech #Congress Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Book Review: ‘Seven Social Movements That Changed America,’ by Linda Gordon Book Review: ‘Seven Social Movements That Changed America,’ by Linda Gordon SEVEN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS THAT CHANGED AMERICA, by Linda Gordon This is what political upheaval looks like when delivered from on high: The president of the United States directs the world’s richest man to descend on federal agencies and treat them like a private company, slashing funding and purging workers, with nary a peep from the Republican majority in Congress. But as the standard-bearer of the MAGA movement, President Trump also owes his ascendancy to a political transformation that bubbled up from below. “Social movements have changed the world as often and as profoundly as wars, natural disasters and elections have done,” the historian Linda Gordon writes in “Seven Social Movements That Changed America.” They are entwined with democracy as both a product of mass political power and a factor in its spread. And even when they adopt the language of populism, they can also promote authoritarianism, at least for those people excluded from their ranks. One chapter in her book traces the revival in the 1920s of the Ku Klux Klan, whose middle-class recruits made virulent bigotry mainstream. Gordon’s chapter on the Klan is an outlier in a book that is otherwise filled with 20th-century movements she admires. (Her previous work of history was “The Second Coming of the KKK.”) “Seven Social Movements” begins with settlement houses, which helped migrants and the poor get toeholds in the cities, and ends with the second-wave feminist groups Bread and Roses and the Combahee River Collective. In between she explores the rise and fall of the 1920s Klan; the campaign for old-age pensions; the swell of activism among the unemployed during the Great Depression; the Montgomery bus boycott in Jim Crow Alabama; and the United Farm Workers union under Cesar Chavez. The variety of her examples means that her working definition of a social movement is necessarily imprecise: “large-scale, participatory activism, beyond electoral politics, aimed at social and political change.” This big-tent approach makes it harder for Gordon to tease out common threads, but she does select a few. Charismatic leadership, for example, is often double-edged. It can be a galvanizing force, supplying a movement with crucial energy along with a sense of direction. She tells the strange, circuitous story of a doctor by the name of Francis Townsend, who — at the age of 67 — created what Gordon calls “the largest social movement of the 1930s” that also happens to be “the least studied social movement in American history.” Townsend’s call for pensions for the elderly culminated in the Social Security Act of 1935. Such a momentous policy looked like a towering success, even if Townsend went on to rail against Social Security as woefully insufficient, throwing in his lot with far-right demagogues like Father Charles Coughlin. In the chapter on the United Farm Workers, Gordon shows how Chavez commanded a cult of personality while letting his organization deteriorate: “There was no accurate record of how many union members were current, how many paid dues, whether dues corresponded to hours of work or who got what jobs.” Chavez, she writes, “was becoming a tyrant without a movement to tyrannize.” But a lack of hierarchy can imperil a movement, too. Gordon, who writes about the feminist collective Bread and Roses from her experience as a participant, recalls how commitments to respond “to each other’s emotional needs” could sometimes “erode efficient decision making.” The motivation behind such commitments were noble: a desire for the movement to be a microcosm of the world it wanted to bring about. Moreover, Gordon notes, the fixation on participatory democracy could be self-defeating. The absence of organizational structure generated a vacuum, inadvertently amplifying the power and privilege of those women who could attend endless meetings because they happened to have more time on their hands. The second-wave feminists Gordon writes about were still effective at pushing some of their ideas into the American mainstream. Even when organizations falter, movements can live on. A successful movement is one whose achievements become so embedded in the culture that they get taken for granted. “Younger generations of women are surprised and shocked when they learn about the many laws and practices that constricted women’s lives a half century ago,” Gordon writes. “The fact that these achievements are under attack should not keep us from celebrating what was accomplished — and understanding that these gains were produced by a social movement.” She isn’t wrong, but it’s the kind of pat generalization that sits incongruously with the roiling history she so painstakingly describes. After all, as one of her earlier chapters shows, a very different set of “achievements” might be credited to the 1920s K.K.K. The second Klan eventually collapsed under the weight of its leadership’s corruption, much of which came to light when the K.K.K.’s Grand Dragon in Indiana was convicted of torturing, raping and murdering his secretary. Feeling abandoned by the Klan, the Grand Dragon released documents detailing a web of graft. But the Klan — which at one point had as many as five million adherents — had already succeeded in normalizing and intensifying a culture of bigotry. This, Gordon suggests, was perhaps its “greatest accomplishment.” Gordon is too restrained as a writer to go in for much editorializing, but she does quote from a speech about fascism that the novelist Toni Morrison delivered three decades ago. “Before there is a final solution, there must be a first solution, a second one, even a third,” Morrison said, reflecting on how a society slides from cruel rhetoric into violence. “The move toward a final solution is not a jump. It takes one step, then another, then another.” SEVEN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS THAT CHANGED AMERICA | By Linda Gordon | Liveright | 515 pp. | $39.99 Source link #Book #Review #Social #Movements #Changed #America #Linda #Gordon Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

US Army’s new vertical takeoff cruise missile packs HIMARS punch, 180-mile range US Army’s new vertical takeoff cruise missile packs HIMARS punch, 180-mile range Mach Industries has been awarded a significant contract by the Army Applications Laboratory to develop the Strategic Strike, a vertical takeoff (VTO) cruise missile aimed at enhancing the precision strike capabilities of maneuver units. In a press release on March 4, the company said this contract, granted in the third quarter of 2024, positions Mach Industries at the forefront of defense technology, particularly in improving brigade-level operational efficacy. Following the contract award, Mach Industries moved quickly to advance the Strategic Strike program, successfully finalizing the missile’s design by the end of September 2024. By mid-January 2025, the company had completed critical testing phases, demonstrating a successful transition from vertical takeoff to full-performance wingborne flight. Currently, the team is integrating advanced artificial intelligence (AI) visual and radio frequency (RF) sensing technologies to facilitate operations in environments where GPS and communications systems are compromised. New vertical takeoff cruise missile The Strategic Strike missile boasts an impressive operational range of 180 miles (290 kilometers), capable of carrying a warhead exceeding 22 pounds (10 kilograms). This unique combination of vertical takeoff capability, high speed, and substantial payload capacity distinguishes it in the current landscape of military assets. Upon completion of the program, Mach Industries aims to deliver a system that blends the range of the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), the speed of a cruise missile, and the targeting precision similar to Hellfire missiles. The evolving battlefield has introduced new challenges for maneuver units, notably the rise of low-cost, portable intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets. These advancements have enabled forces to gather intelligence from greater distances than they can effectively engage. Modifying high-value targets often necessitates coordination across multiple military branches and organizational levels. In contrast, the design of the Strategic Strike missile seeks to markedly enhance a maneuver force’s capability to strike high-value targets situated beyond the forward lines of troops. This development is anticipated to yield a flexible strike platform that can deliver significant payloads over extended ranges, enhancing operational effectiveness in various combat scenarios. Strikes deep like HIMARS One of the critical goals of the Strategic Strike missile is to enable launches from outside the reach of enemy radar systems. This approach minimizes the likelihood of detection and significantly enhances the survival prospects for launch teams operating in hostile environments. As a result, tactical maneuver units will be able to target and engage high-value military assets, such as radar installations and artillery units, without placing themselves directly in harm’s way. Ethan Thornton, CEO and Founder of Mach Industries, expressed his appreciation for the contract and his team’s progress. “It’s a tremendous opportunity to deliver a capability that could transform military operations. I’m continually impressed by our engineering and manufacturing teams, who have taken Strategic Strike from initial design to flight testing in just 14 weeks. The dedication and talent of our product team will provide valuable advancements for the U.S. military at a critical juncture,” Thornton noted. He emphasized the anticipation within the company regarding the potential for large-scale missile production to deter future conflicts. The development of the Strategic Strike missile appears poised to substantially impact how the military addresses emerging threats, reinforcing the importance of innovation in defense technologies. As Mach Industries works towards bringing this advanced weapon system to deployment, the implications for future combat scenarios remain a topic of significant interest within military circles. Source link #Armys #vertical #takeoff #cruise #missile #packs #HIMARS #punch #180mile #range Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Lace-Up Shoes That Feel Timeless Lace-Up Shoes That Feel Timeless Inspired by classic designs, pared-down sneakers are spring’s most versatile accessories. Source link #LaceUp #Shoes #Feel #Timeless Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

‘We Have Given Him Everything’: Trump’s Tariffs Stun Mexico ‘We Have Given Him Everything’: Trump’s Tariffs Stun Mexico Up to the last minute, Isaac Presburger, like a lot of other ******** businessmen, still could not believe that President Trump would deliver on his promise to hit Mexico with tariffs. Little did it matter that Mr. Trump had announced that very day that he would go ahead with the planned taxes. “I am still incredulous,” said Mr. Presburger, director of sales at Preslow, a family-run apparel business in Mexico. “We know by now that Trump pressures you so you give him want he wants. We have given him everything and he has not let loose of his grip.” In response to Mr. Trump’s threat to impose 25 percent tariffs on ******** products, Mexico made a major effort: Leaders agreed to send more than two dozen alleged cartel heads to be tried in the United States, a departure from the government’s previous stance on extraditions. President Claudia Sheinbaum dispatched thousands of National Guard troops to the state of Sinaloa, the hub of fentanyl trafficking, where they seized vast amounts of the synthetic opioid and busted hundreds of laboratories. She sent thousands more to the U.S. border, contributing to a plunge in the number of ******** crossings. Ms. Sheinbaum bent further than anyone had expected to show the Trump administration that her government was serious about meeting U.S. demands, analysts say. And yet, in spite of it all, the tariffs struck after midnight on Tuesday. That has left people in Mexico’s government, business and civil society reeling, but also feeling exasperated, even betrayed. “We are emphatic,” Ms. Sheinbaum said in a news conference on Tuesday morning, hours after Mr. Trump’s tariffs took effect on its biggest trading partners, including Mexico and Canada. “There is no reason, justification or excuse that supports this decision that will affect our people and nations.” She ticked off what she described as her government’s “significant actions” against organized crime, and noted a 50 percent drop in fentanyl seizures between October and January at the U.S.-Mexico border. “We have worked and delivered results on security matters,” she said. The tariffs represent not just a rift in the fabric of two economies that have been deeply interwoven for decades, but a sudden departure from a relationship that had long been collaborative and from what many in Mexico expected would take place: a last-minute deal. Through late last week, a delegation from Mexico had been frantically negotiating with officials in Washington, and leaders had been projecting confidence. Even the financial markets held steady in Mexico. Mexico’s economy minister, Marcelo Ebrard, posted to social media on Friday, “Mexico and the United States have a great future working together,” with three thumbs-up emojis. Business leaders across the country shared the same optimism until Monday. José de Jesús Rodríguez, president of Mexico City’s chamber of commerce, said Mr. Trump’s decision surprised him, particularly in light of the American leader’s suggestion that he would not impose tariffs if Mexico produced results on migration and drug trafficking. The results it delivered included a barrage of high-level arrests and the handover of the 29 accused drug bosses that the U.S. government had long sought to get on its own soil. But Mr. Trump, whose criticism of Mexico had focused on ******** fentanyl, shifted his terms on Monday, saying that Canada and Mexico needed to relocate automotive factories and other manufacturing to the United States. “What they have to do is build their car plants, frankly, and other things in the United States, in which case they have no tariffs,” he said. “It is extremely disappointing and frustrating,” Mr. Rodríguez said. “The United States broke their word, and it dictates the future of our commercial relationship.” “It’s time for us to look to other regions,” he added. Ms. Sheinbaum said she had a call scheduled with Mr. Trump for Thursday, and told reporters on Tuesday that if the tariffs remained in effect afterward, her government would go ahead with a number countermeasures, including retaliatory taxes, which would be announced on Sunday. Canada also announced reciprocal tariffs. “We don’t want to enter into a trade war,” she said. “That only affects the people.” Ms. Sheinbaum’s approval ratings in Mexico have soared, with many praising her coolheaded approach to handling Mr. Trump, who called her a “wonderful woman.” But the trade wars that are now underway will test not only that relationship but how much the government can insulate its economy and its population from chaos and pain. Mr. Presburger, the Preslow sales director, said that he still hoped the tariffs wouldn’t last more than a few days, or that Mr. Trump would change his mind. Otherwise, “it will be disastrous for Mexico.” The United States buys more than three quarters of Mexico’s exports, and tariffs will hit manufacturing, agriculture and other businesses, immediately disrupting the supply chain and most likely raising the cost of ******** goods sold in the United States. Just hours before the tariffs went into effect, Manuel Sotelo, president of the association of transporters of Ciudad Juárez, said the uncertainty hovered over the many who truck goods into the United States. He said if tariffs applied to all ******** products, they would affect everyone. But if they also applied to raw materials coming from businesses on the border, “then the situation is going to get worse for the region.” He said the transportation industry could not last even a week if trade were frozen. When Mr. Trump hit Mexico with tariffs during his first term, it carried out a surgical response, targeting the retaliatory tariffs at products that were produced in Republican states considered part of Trump’s base — such as Kentucky bourbon. The tariffs were lifted after about a year. Preparing for the worst, ******** business owners and trade groups were already starting to scramble. Antonio Lancaster, president of the council of industrial chambers of the state of Jalisco, one of the largest exporters of food and beverages — including tequila — to the United States, said the chambers’ leaders were already in talks with the state and federal government about plans to bolster local production and pursue other export markets. “We saw this coming, and this means we will pursue a rearrangement of our exports,” Mr. Lancaster said. He added, “We will end up exporting to Europe, Asia or anywhere else.” Businessmen like Mr. Lancaster argued that the tariffs will ultimately end up hurting American consumers as well as ******** producers. “We all lose here,” he said. Jesús Manuel Salayandía, coordinator of a business group on the border, said that corporate leaders mostly based in the United States, have been meeting to plan their response to the tariffs. “They are analyzing whether they will move to Central America, to the southern part of the country, if they will return to the United States, or if they will automate or robotize certain production lines,” he said. “All of that is being considered.” Mr. Salayandía said that the ******** government, perhaps expecting a last-minute deal, had not worked to prepare. They had been thinking, “Let’s wait for Trump to tell us what will happen,” he said. “But they’re not working on a plan to strengthen the domestic market or to offer incentives to the companies already here.” Marcelo Vázquez, state delegate of the National Association of Importers and Exporters of the ******** Republic in Chihuahua, said for the last few weeks some companies had workers on duty virtually around the clock to export goods into the United States before the tariffs came into effect. “But that’s just an aspirin for the headache; it doesn’t really solve the problem.” Rocío Gallegos contributed reporting from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Source link #Trumps #Tariffs #Stun #Mexico Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Volvo reveals its ES90 EV with an 800-volt charging system Volvo reveals its ES90 EV with an 800-volt charging system Volvo has officially launched the ES90, the fully electrified version of its S60 sedan. While the vehicle can technically be considered a sedan, Volvo says it has the “adaptability of a fastback, and the spacious interior and higher ground clearance associated with SUVs.” It’s the first Volvo EV with an 800-volt system, which promises faster charging times. Since Volvo’s 800-volt technology uses lighter components to reduce the vehicle’s overall weight, it could also lead to a longer range and better acceleration. For the ES90, specifically, Volvo promises a driving range of 700 kilometers or 435 miles, though the official EPA range could be shorter. When plugged into a 350 kW fast charger, the model can add 300 kilometers (186 miles) of range in just 10 minutes, and its 106 kWh battery can go from 10 to 80 percent full in just 20 minutes. All the vehicle’s variants have a top speed of 112 mph, but the Twin Motor Performance (all-wheel drive) version has the fastest acceleration and can go from 0 to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds. The ES90 was built on top of the Volvo Cars Superset tech stack, just like the EX90 SUV. That’s a single set of hardware and software that will serve as the base for all of Volvo’s electric vehicles and will make it possible to simultaneously roll out over-the-air updates for all its EVs as needed. ES90, however, is the first Volvo model to be powered by dual NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Orin configuration, which the company’s chief engineering and technology officer says makes it the “most powerful car [Volvo has] ever created in terms of core computing capacity.” Volvo gave the ES90 a slightly raised ride height and its Thor’s Hammer headlight design, along with its new C-shaped LED rear lamps. It also equipped the vehicle with an array of sensors that include one lidar, five radars, seven cameras and twelve ultrasonic sensors for its active safety systems that can help drivers avoid collision and hazards. Inside, owners can individually fold down its three rear seats for more space. And while the panoramic roof provides 99.9 percent UV protection, buyers can choose the electrochromic version that will allow them to darken the glass and reduce glare at the touch of a button. Owners can access the model’s infotainment system on its 14.5-inch center screen display, which comes with built-in Google apps, including Maps and Assistant. Interested buyers can now order the ES90 in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Volvo will release it in more markets later this year and into 2026. Volvo If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission. Source link #Volvo #reveals #ES90 #800volt #charging #system Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

150 Years of Change: How Old Photos, Recaptured, Reveal a Shifting Climate 150 Years of Change: How Old Photos, Recaptured, Reveal a Shifting Climate For 30 miles we bounce along a dirt road in southwestern Wyoming, heading toward a jagged skyline. It’s early September and the aspens are starting to turn yellow. As we climb toward the mountains, the air grows colder. Soon the road will see snowfall. Jeff Munroe, a professor of geology at Middlebury College in Vermont, is taking us back in time. Our small group of scientists and adventurers will be backpacking into the Uinta Mountains to recreate a series of photographs made in 1870 by William Henry Jackson, a photographer who worked for the United States Geological Survey under the direction of the geologist Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden. Jackson and Hayden documented the landscape and natural resources of the Wyoming Territory in support of U.S. expansion. We’re going to see exactly how the environment has changed. Re-photography — capturing the same scene from the same location after a span of time — enables scientists to track long-term changes such as alpine tree-line rise, shoreline erosion and glacial retreat, which are difficult to study otherwise. The technique can be more challenging than it sounds. Finding the general location is the first hurdle, as place names change over time and descriptions are separated from historical images. Next, researchers must identify the precise coordinates of the original tripod placement, which can be especially vexing in landscapes prone to rockslides or erosion. Subtle variations in photographic equipment can also make it hard to create matching images as cameras, films and lens sizes change. In our case, the difficult terrain, which was now coupled with unsettled weather, meant that we might not even be able to reach the general area, let alone find half a dozen tripod locations. And although some re-photography projects rely on drones to scout their locations, we’ll be doing all our work on foot, as Jackson had. Jeff first rephotographed these Uinta sites in 2001. What he saw then would have been unimaginable in the 19th century. Elements of the landscape that Hayden described as everlasting, from the “perpetual snows” to the “upper limit” of the tree line, were changing. Over the intervening 131 years, the climate had warmed. Ecological changes were plainly visible in Jeff’s new photographs. Trees had filled in the open meadows and ascended the mountain slopes. Lower-altitude species had established themselves higher up. All this change was squeezing the unique high alpine areas and the species that have adapted to them. Soon they would have nowhere left to go. When I asked Jeff, before our trip, about why he planned to rephotograph these sites again just 23 years later, he explained that the pace of climate-driven changes is accelerating. “If I had looked at this landscape between 1950 and 1975, it might have changed a little bit,” he said. “But I think between 2001 and 2024, it’s going to have changed a lot more, in roughly the same amount of time.” Working from Jackson’s photographs allows Jeff and his collaborator, Townsend Peterson, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Kansas, to see more than 150 years of change, overlaid on top of the hundreds of millions of years buried in the landscape. * AFTER AN HOUR on the road, we cross the Utah state line. Jeff predicts we’ll have solitude here in the Uintas. As it turned out, we’d see only three other people during our entire trip. We pull into the parking lot. On the tailgate of Jeff’s rented truck, two graduate students from the University of Kansas, Joanna Corimanya and Anahí Quezada, wrestle with their heavy backpacks. In addition to their backpacking gear, they’re carrying cameras and GPS equipment to record the views for later analysis back in Peterson’s lab. We’re also joined by Eric Glassco, a former Army Green Beret who began exploring and photographing in the Uintas when he retired from the Special Forces. A few minutes into our hike, a hard rain starts, unlocking the scents of the forest. While we zip up our rain gear, Eric tells us that a week ago his tent had been shredded in the Uintas by “peanut-size” hail. This is a place of extremes. The east-west-oriented range boasts a vast area of uninterrupted high-elevation terrain, including at least 19 summits over 13,000 feet. Temperature swings and storms come on suddenly, and the landscape offers few options for cover. We climb a series of steep switchbacks and eventually pass through a trough of reddish cobbles. This, Jeff explains, is the lateral moraine, the debris that the ancient glacier picked up and deposited at its edge. We continue climbing and enter the High Uintas Wilderness, managed by the Wasatch-Cache and Ashley National Forests. Above this point, no mechanized equipment or motor vehicles are allowed. At around 11,000 feet, our group reaches a broad plateau of short tawny grasses. Dotted with intermittent clusters of stunted, shrubby trees, this is the beginning of the tree line, above which trees are unable to grow. We gather under a tarp to boil water for our dinners. Lightning rips through the woods. I look around nervously, but Jeff is calm; he guesses it struck a quarter-mile away. Storms pass through our campsite several more times overnight. I wake to find my tent looking like limp laundry on a clothesline, but inside I’m still dry and warm. * AFTER BREAKFAST, we pack up and make our way back to the trail where dark-eyed juncos are singing from the bushes. Jeff thinks the Hayden party may have passed through here just a few days later than us in September of 1870. From here we can see down to Bald Lake, the site of our next camp. Beyond, the classic skyline view of the Uintas starts to reveal itself, featuring Gunsight Pass and Kings Peak, the highest point in Utah at 13,528 feet. Thick clouds are building again, so we quickly descend, filter the lake’s cold water and set up camp, then head out to scout our first photo point, Bald Lake. Jackson’s photograph shows three men seated in the open foreground, wearing hats and woolen jackets. It’s hard to make the view match the printed photo that Joanna and Anahí brought along. The grassy ground where Jackson’s colleagues posed is now a thicket of trees. After we finish the Bald Lake photograph, we cross the tundra, heading toward the Red Castle, a mountain that Hayden’s party described as a great “Gothic church” of purplish rock. The view is like nothing I’ve seen before. I’m surprised even by the description of it as “tundra,” a term I’ve only ever heard applied to Arctic regions. We’re still trying to find the first tripod location when a frigid wind gushes across the plain, splattering our jackets with wet snow. * ON OUR LAST FULL DAY in the mountains, we set out in search of two more photo points. Jeff’s saved GPS locations lead us off-trail across the plateau, then down a slope. Near the border of a tree-line forest, we pass several small lodgepole pines. “We’re descending into the vanguard, Jeff says, referring to the trees. “They’re like a rising wave.” Jackson noted in 1870 that his photographs were taken at “the upper limit of arborescent vegetation.” Now, lodgepole pines, which typically aren’t found this high up in the Uintas, are settling in above the old tree line. The expanded range of a species like this points to the changes associated with a warming climate, including higher nighttime temperatures and fewer days of deep freeze. Jeff is deep in memory, following a mental map, since the GPS location isn’t quite right. I offer to show him a copy of the image on my phone, but he doesn’t need it. Joanna and Anahí take a few photos, knowing at least that we have a skyline match. Back in the lab with Peterson, they’ll layer the photographs, locking the images into place with known GPS coordinates. Joanna describes the process as “pulling a string” through the layers. The composite will allow them to measure the height of the tree line and the density of the forest in comparison with historical images. Jeff keeps pacing around, looking for a better window into the past. When he spots a familiar tree, the rest of the view settles into place. There’s the flat rock at the edge of the precipice; here’s the low tangle of trees, though grown much larger. I back up, look down and notice a pile of rocks. Jeff remembered building a cairn to mark this place 23 years ago. Jeff wonders aloud, “Were you even alive when I made this cairn?” Anahí had been 4 years old, living in Ecuador. Eric joined the Special Forces that year. I was in college, studying in France. It’s a world away for all of us. And yet here we are together now, watching this ancient landscape transforming at a rate that’s visible even in human terms. * HAYDEN, THE GEOLOGIST in charge of the 1870 expedition, detailed the region’s abundant natural resources in the formal report that was published upon his return to Washington, D.C. He promised “millions of feet of timber” for the railroad, as well as pasture lands and plentiful water that could be used to irrigate crops. His mandate was to make this place widely known and accessible, in scientific, economic and cultural terms. The Hayden party was the vanguard, the rising tide of their day. Their work facilitated enormous impacts, including white settlement and the violent displacement of Indigenous people, expansion of the railroad, grazing, farming and mining. All of these changes are related to the long-term effects that we’re seeing now — the warming climate and the advance of trees into the alpine zone. But the historical photographs are also valuable. “Scientists can be so excited about their data, but they’ve got caveats and footnotes and ambiguities,” Jeff told me. For nonspecialists, he says, data can be tricky in a way that photography isn’t. Photo pairs, he explains, can tell a story — “about how humans have been changing the climate, changing the landscape, changing ecosystems for a long time, and dealing with the consequences.” A couple of weeks later, Joanna, Anahí, Townsend Peterson and I met on Zoom to discuss their preliminary results. At Bald Lake, one of the tree lines had been extremely stable, rising less than three and a half feet between 1870 and 2001. But since 2001, that same tree line has climbed a staggering 213 feet. Tree-line advance varies across different sites because of factors including slope, sun exposure and soil quality; not every location experienced such dramatic increases. Still, the group found that tree lines in the Uintas are rising overall. At a site near Red Castle, only about 260 vertical feet of tundra remain above the tree line, which had advanced at a rate of nearly five feet per year between 2001 and 2024. The loss of the tundra would mean the disappearance of species like marmots, ptarmigan and rosy finches, all of which live in this distinctive environment. Peterson clarifies that his group isn’t designing the conservation solutions. “What we’re doing is raising the red flag,” he says. They aim to use re-photography to identify sites experiencing rapid change, in the Uintas and around the world. Standing on the tundra with Jackson’s photographs in hand felt like squinting into the past. As we compared then and now, the dark clouds of the future seemed to gather on the horizon. Kim Beil’s previous work for The Times includes an essay about an enigmatic Ansel Adams photograph and a roundup of historic observatories around the United States. Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram and sign up for our Travel Dispatch newsletter to get expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2025. Source link #Years #Change #Photos #Recaptured #Reveal #Shifting #Climate Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

How Soon Could Ukraine’s Forces ‘Start to Buckle’ Without U.S. Weapons? How Soon Could Ukraine’s Forces ‘Start to Buckle’ Without U.S. Weapons? Without billions of dollars in American-made weapons, it may be only a matter of time before Ukraine’s forces falter against Russia. How much time, however, depends on how quickly Europe and Ukraine can make up for the artillery, missiles, air-defense systems and other arms that Trump administration officials said on Monday were being put on hold. The United States had committed to delivering as much as $11 billion in weapons and equipment to Ukraine this year. Some of it was from Pentagon stockpiles, while some was ordered through new defense contracts, according to a new analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. A former senior U.S. defense official on Tuesday said the actual figure was likely closer to $9 billion. Despite Europe’s pledges of unwavering support for Ukraine, which have only intensified since the Trump administration began pulling back, it would be nearly impossible for it to fill the weapons gap quickly. European defense industries have ramped up, but only in fits and starts. And individual countries need to maintain their own weapons stockpiles. “Europe can’t possibly replace American aid,” the former deputy of Ukraine’s military general staff, Lt. Gen. Ihor Romanenko, said last month. Ukraine itself has been churning out drones and building up domestically made artillery systems, and it plans to spend 26 percent of its budget on defense this year. But some top Ukrainian officials say the military will be in dire straits if American support is not restarted. “Ukraine definitely has a safety margin of about six months even without systematic assistance from the United States, but it will be much more difficult, of course,” one lawmaker, Fedir Venislavskyi, told the news agency RBC-Ukraine on Tuesday. Some analysts say they think even that may be overly optimistic. “Certainly, by the four-month time *******, their forces would start to buckle, because they just wouldn’t have enough munitions and equipment to replace what they’ve lost,” said one of the authors of the Center for Strategic and International Studies study, Mark F. Cancian, a former White House weapons strategist. Why can’t Europe fill the gap? Of the $136 billion in military aid that allies provided Ukraine from the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022 to the end of last year, nearly half came from the United States, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a ******* research organization. The American share has dwindled over time as the defense industries in Ukraine and Europe have accelerated production. Only about 20 percent of military hardware currently supplied to Ukraine comes from the United States, according to recent estimates by the Royal United Services Institute, an analytical group affiliated with the British military. “But the 20 percent is the most lethal and important,” said Malcolm Chalmers, the institute’s deputy director general. Ukraine won’t abruptly collapse without the American weapons, Mr. Chalmers predicted. “The effect,” he said, “will be cumulative.” The United States, the world’s largest economy, simply has more resources at its disposal. Its Air Force, for example, has 17 large electronic surveillance aircraft, while Britain has only three, according to Douglas Barrie, a military aerospace expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. The United States contributes over half of all NATO’s fighter jets and ground-attack aircraft. Citing the “short-term urgency to act,” the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, on Tuesday announced a $841 billion plan to increase defense budgets across Europe and encourage joint procurement among states to speed weapons manufacturing. But previous efforts have fallen short, with E.U. countries pulled between domestic spending priorities and defense contractors unable to produce vast amounts of costly weapons without upfront capital. Ms. von der Leyen seemed to acknowledge this. “The real question in front of us is whether Europe is prepared to act as decisively as the situation dictates, and whether Europe is ready and able to act with speed and with the ambition that is needed,” she said. Artillery production in Europe is now nearly able to keep up with the wartime demands, said Camille Grand, who was NATO’s assistant secretary general for defense investment when Russia invaded. That is a remarkable turnabout for an industry that had atrophied after the end of the Cold War in 1991. But manufacturers of more advanced weapons like the air defenses Ukraine says are crucial to its survival are still struggling to quickly produce those systems in large numbers. It can take years to hire and train additional workers, expand factory space and obtain rare earths and other raw materials in a competitive market that has been slowed by a limited supply chain. And industry executives say they cannot invest in those improvements without the guarantee of contracts that generally run for at least a decade, and that some governments have been unwilling to provide. “We are not on a real war economy footage as we speak, certainly by comparison with Russia,” said Mr. Grand, now a weapons expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He said it would take more political will in Europe to get defense contracts rolling: “Money is not sufficient to solve everything.” What is Ukraine doing to arm itself? Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, insisted on social media this week that “of course, our military, the government, have the capabilities, the tools to maintain the situation on the front line.” But he would not disclose what is left in Ukraine’s stockpile, likely to prevent exposing any vulnerabilities to Russia. Mr. Shmyal said that Ukraine would be able to produce enough artillery for itself by later this year, and that it was building its own armored vehicles and antitank weapons. Last year, Ukraine built more than one million first-person-view drones, and intends to increase production in 2025. Ukraine is also reportedly trying to produce air defenses as sophisticated as the American-made Patriot system, which can intercept ballistic missiles. Each Patriot system — consisting of interceptor missiles, launchers, radar and a command center — can cost $1 billion and takes up to two years to build. Of the seven Patriot air defense systems that the United States and Germany have given Ukraine, at least two have been destroyed, according to the weapons tracking site Oryx. Shorter-range air defenses have been sent by Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Romania, among others. But Ukraine is the second-largest country in Europe, and the Russian bombardment has been incessant. “You’re always going to have to pick and choose — you aren’t going to be able to defend against everything,” said Mr. Barrie, the military aerospace expert. ‘Doomed?’ In his study, titled “Is Ukraine Now Doomed?” Mr. Cancian predicted that without U.S. military aid, Kyiv would be forced to accept an unfavorable cease-fire agreement with Russia. That might mean ceding a fifth of its territory and giving up its aspirations to join NATO. And some allies might now decide to cut back their own aid, reasoning that without American support, “this is a lost cause,” Mr. Cancian said in an interview. It is not clear if the Trump administration will also cut off intelligence sharing with Ukraine. Fears also have been raised recently that Ukraine will lose access to the Starlink satellite internet system that facilitates military communication and is owned by Elon Musk, Mr. Trump’s close ally. But it is clear that “halting security assistance will only make it more challenging for Ukraine to reach a just and lasting end to this war,” said David Shimer, who was the National Security Council’s director for Eastern Europe and Ukraine during the Biden administration. “It will reduce Ukraine’s leverage, weaken the Ukrainian military, and therefore undermine Ukraine’s negotiating position with Russia,” Mr. Shimer said. “The United States should be focused on strengthening, not weakening, Ukraine’s hand ahead of a negotiation.” Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting. Source link #Ukraines #Forces #Start #Buckle #U.S #Weapons Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

How Soon Could Ukraine’s Forces ‘Start to Buckle’ Without U.S. Weapons? How Soon Could Ukraine’s Forces ‘Start to Buckle’ Without U.S. Weapons? Without billions of dollars in American-made weapons, it may be only a matter of time before Ukraine’s forces falter against Russia. How much time, however, depends on how quickly Europe and Ukraine can make up for the artillery, missiles, air-defense systems and other arms that Trump administration officials said on Monday were being put on hold. The United States had committed to delivering as much as $11 billion in weapons and equipment to Ukraine this year. Some of it was from Pentagon stockpiles, while some was ordered through new defense contracts, according to a new analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. A former senior U.S. defense official on Tuesday said the actual figure was likely closer to $9 billion. Despite Europe’s pledges of unwavering support for Ukraine, which have only intensified since the Trump administration began pulling back, it would be nearly impossible for it to fill the weapons gap quickly. European defense industries have ramped up, but only in fits and starts. And individual countries need to maintain their own weapons stockpiles. “Europe can’t possibly replace American aid,” the former deputy of Ukraine’s military general staff, Lt. Gen. Ihor Romanenko, said last month. Ukraine itself has been churning out drones and building up domestically made artillery systems, and it plans to spend 26 percent of its budget on defense this year. But some top Ukrainian officials say the military will be in dire straits if American support is not restarted. “Ukraine definitely has a safety margin of about six months even without systematic assistance from the United States, but it will be much more difficult, of course,” one lawmaker, Fedir Venislavskyi, told the news agency RBC-Ukraine on Tuesday. Some analysts say they think even that may be overly optimistic. “Certainly, by the four-month time *******, their forces would start to buckle, because they just wouldn’t have enough munitions and equipment to replace what they’ve lost,” said one of the authors of the Center for Strategic and International Studies study, Mark F. Cancian, a former White House weapons strategist. Why can’t Europe fill the gap? Of the $136 billion in military aid that allies provided Ukraine from the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022 to the end of last year, nearly half came from the United States, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a ******* research organization. The American share has dwindled over time as the defense industries in Ukraine and Europe have accelerated production. Only about 20 percent of military hardware currently supplied to Ukraine comes from the United States, according to recent estimates by the Royal United Services Institute, an analytical group affiliated with the British military. “But the 20 percent is the most lethal and important,” said Malcolm Chalmers, the institute’s deputy director general. Ukraine won’t abruptly collapse without the American weapons, Mr. Chalmers predicted. “The effect,” he said, “will be cumulative.” The United States, the world’s largest economy, simply has more resources at its disposal. Its Air Force, for example, has 17 large electronic surveillance aircraft, while Britain has only three, according to Douglas Barrie, a military aerospace expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. The United States contributes over half of all NATO’s fighter jets and ground-attack aircraft. Citing the “short-term urgency to act,” the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, on Tuesday announced a $841 billion plan to increase defense budgets across Europe and encourage joint procurement among states to speed weapons manufacturing. But previous efforts have fallen short, with E.U. countries pulled between domestic spending priorities and defense contractors unable to produce vast amounts of costly weapons without upfront capital. Ms. von der Leyen seemed to acknowledge this. “The real question in front of us is whether Europe is prepared to act as decisively as the situation dictates, and whether Europe is ready and able to act with speed and with the ambition that is needed,” she said. Artillery production in Europe is now nearly able to keep up with the wartime demands, said Camille Grand, who was NATO’s assistant secretary general for defense investment when Russia invaded. That is a remarkable turnabout for an industry that had atrophied after the end of the Cold War in 1991. But manufacturers of more advanced weapons like the air defenses Ukraine says are crucial to its survival are still struggling to quickly produce those systems in large numbers. It can take years to hire and train additional workers, expand factory space and obtain rare earths and other raw materials in a competitive market that has been slowed by a limited supply chain. And industry executives say they cannot invest in those improvements without the guarantee of contracts that generally run for at least a decade, and that some governments have been unwilling to provide. “We are not on a real war economy footage as we speak, certainly by comparison with Russia,” said Mr. Grand, now a weapons expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He said it would take more political will in Europe to get defense contracts rolling: “Money is not sufficient to solve everything.” What is Ukraine doing to arm itself? Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, insisted on social media this week that “of course, our military, the government, have the capabilities, the tools to maintain the situation on the front line.” But he would not disclose what is left in Ukraine’s stockpile, likely to prevent exposing any vulnerabilities to Russia. Mr. Shmyal said that Ukraine would be able to produce enough artillery for itself by later this year, and that it was building its own armored vehicles and antitank weapons. Last year, Ukraine built more than one million first-person-view drones, and intends to increase production in 2025. Ukraine is also reportedly trying to produce air defenses as sophisticated as the American-made Patriot system, which can intercept ballistic missiles. Each Patriot system — consisting of interceptor missiles, launchers, radar and a command center — can cost $1 billion and takes up to two years to build. Of the seven Patriot air defense systems that the United States and Germany have given Ukraine, at least two have been destroyed, according to the weapons tracking site Oryx. Shorter-range air defenses have been sent by Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Romania, among others. But Ukraine is the second-largest country in Europe, and the Russian bombardment has been incessant. “You’re always going to have to pick and choose — you aren’t going to be able to defend against everything,” said Mr. Barrie, the military aerospace expert. ‘Doomed?’ In his study, titled “Is Ukraine Now Doomed?” Mr. Cancian predicted that without U.S. military aid, Kyiv would be forced to accept an unfavorable cease-fire agreement with Russia. That might mean ceding a fifth of its territory and giving up its aspirations to join NATO. And some allies might now decide to cut back their own aid, reasoning that without American support, “this is a lost cause,” Mr. Cancian said in an interview. It is not clear if the Trump administration will also cut off intelligence sharing with Ukraine. Fears also have been raised recently that Ukraine will lose access to the Starlink satellite internet system that facilitates military communication and is owned by Elon Musk, Mr. Trump’s close ally. But it is clear that “halting security assistance will only make it more challenging for Ukraine to reach a just and lasting end to this war,” said David Shimer, who was the National Security Council’s director for Eastern Europe and Ukraine during the Biden administration. “It will reduce Ukraine’s leverage, weaken the Ukrainian military, and therefore undermine Ukraine’s negotiating position with Russia,” Mr. Shimer said. “The United States should be focused on strengthening, not weakening, Ukraine’s hand ahead of a negotiation.” Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting. Source link #Ukraines #Forces #Start #Buckle #U.S #Weapons Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Test Your Body Awareness – The New York Times Test Your Body Awareness – The New York Times To hit a tennis ball or dance the merengue you need sharp eyes and a good ear. But there’s also another rarely discussed sense at work: proprioception, or body awareness. While it’s not one of the classic five senses, body awareness is crucial to moving and aging with grace. And it can be trained. This sense is what tells you where your body is in space, and it’s always on, said Katherine Wilkinson, a neurobiologist at San Jose State University, who studies the basic science behind it. When you reach for a cup of coffee, neurons and tissues embedded in your muscles, joints and tendons sense they’re being stretched, rotated or bent. This information travels to your brain, helping you coordinate your arm and hand. Elite gymnasts, dancers and football players tend to have particularly acute body awareness, but it also helps the rest of us recover after a slip. Because these organs (known as proprioceptors) are in your muscles and tendons, your body awareness can be impaired or lost if you sprain your ankle or tear your rotator cuff. But it can be retrained by movement, which is part of why physical therapy is so important for a damaged joint or tendon, said Claire Morrow, a physical therapist with Hinge Health, a virtual clinic for muscle and joint pain. Your body awareness naturally declines with age, increasing your risk of falls. This tends to make people more hesitant to move, said Jia Han, a professor of physiotherapy at Shanghai University of Medicine and Health Sciences. And so a vicious cycle begins: When you move less, your body awareness deteriorates, which prompts you to move even less. But there are several exercises that some small studies suggest can help improve your balance, stability and gait by enhancing awareness of your position and movement. Doctors and physical therapists use specialized equipment to assess proprioception, but you can get a general sense of yours with two simple tests. Test your upper body Body awareness works alongside your eyes and inner ear to give you a mental picture of where your body parts are. But the eyes are an imperfect crutch — able to guide you into a static pose, say, but too slow to help you react to real-world movements. This test forces you to rely on your body awareness alone. While standing in front of a mirror, close your eyes and try to raise both arms to shoulder height, parallel to the floor. Once you think you’re positioned like an uppercase ‘T,’ open your eyes and use the mirror to note how far your arms are from where you expected. Although this exercise may seem easy, experts said many people are surprised at how far off they are. A small difference of a couple inches can often be addressed with targeted exercises said Katy Bowman, a biomechanist and author of “Rethink Your Position,” a body alignment and exercise guide. A more extreme asymmetry (a difference of eight or more inches) could indicate a neurological condition like a stroke or Parkinson’s disease, said Dr. Han. Test your lower body This test assesses your lower body proprioception, especially in your ankles, knees and feet. With your eyes open and both arms crossed over your chest, time how long you can keep your balance while standing on one leg. Repeat the exercise with your eyes closed. Repeat both tests with the other leg. According to Dr. Morrow, healthy adults under 50 should be able to balance for 40 seconds with both eyes open and seven seconds with both eyes closed. By the time you reach your 70s, those numbers drop to 15 and two seconds. If your times deviate significantly from the average for your age range, consult a physical therapist or an exercise physiologist. How to improve your body awareness Once you’ve established your base-line body awareness, there are some strategies to maintain or even enhance it. You can expect to see noticeable gains after four to six weeks, Dr. Han said. Add complexity to your moves One way to improve body awareness is to make your established routines more varied. Skip the weight machine and use free weights, which force you to coordinate your right and left sides. Use a mirror to check that your limbs are where you expect during exercise and teach your body how different positions feel. “Your body has to practice feeling where it is in space to continue to know where it is,” said Ms. Bowman. You can also try exercising on an unstable surface. Ms. Bowman recommended walking on grass or sand, which can challenge your feet and ankles into unfamiliar positions. Similarly, exercising with a wobble-board prompts you to engage new muscles and make adjustments that aren’t necessary on solid ground, said Eiman Azim, a neurobiologist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. If it’s safe to do so, you can up the ante by closing your eyes. Challenge your strength and balance simultaneously Because proprioception is mostly unconscious, practice moves that split your attention, like a multidirectional single-leg squat. An inverted kettlebell press is another excellent exercise for wrist proprioception, Dr. Morrow said, because the wrist muscles must work harder to stabilize the joint while keeping a heavy weight aloft. For an added challenge, try having a conversation with a friend or watching a documentary during your workout. Prioritize activities that demand agility Proprioception is speedy — its signals reach the brain in a few milliseconds. Your vision, by contrast, can take 100 milliseconds. When your body awareness functions well, it helps you move with agility and intention. To train it, we should “put ourselves in situations where we need to get to a specific point in space with precision and speed,” like hitting a fast moving pickleball or blocking a goal in soccer, Dr. Azim said. You can try dancing, ball sports, martial arts or even parkour. But above all, move often, and move differently. When it comes to body awareness, you have to use it or you’ll lose it. Connie Chang is a freelance science and parenting writer in Silicon Valley. Source link #Test #Body #Awareness #York #Times Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Dressing the Part: A Fantasy Fayre 2025 Experience with Sinderella Costume Hire Dressing the Part: A Fantasy Fayre 2025 Experience with Sinderella Costume Hire There’s something truly magical about stepping into another world—where fantasy meets reality, and for a day, you can become a warrior, a noble, or an adventurer from legend. Thanks to Sinderella Costume Hire, that dream became a reality for me and my fiancée at Fantasy Fayre 2025. From the moment we stepped into the Edenvale store, we were met with incredible service, an astonishing range of costumes, and a team of passionate experts who went above and beyond to bring our fantasy looks to life. The Sinderella Experience: More Than Just a Costume Walking into Sinderella Costume Hire, we were immediately immersed in a world of possibilities. The store’s collection is nothing short of breathtaking—medieval gowns, warrior tunics, cloaks, armor pieces, and accessories that transform you into a character straight out of a fantasy novel. The staff at the Edenvale branch were hands-on, hardworking, and genuinely excited to help us find the perfect pieces. They didn’t just hand us costumes; they curated an experience, making sure every detail was on point, even going on searches for specific items when needed. The moment I first saw my fiancée in her medieval fantasy dress, I was utterly mesmerized. She looked like she had stepped straight out of an enchanted realm, full of grace, elegance, and otherworldly beauty. I fell even more in love with her in that moment—seeing her not only in this breathtaking outfit but also knowing she made this effort to geek out with me, to step into this world with me. If younger me could see this moment, he wouldn’t believe it. Fantasy Comes to Life at the Fayre Dressed to impress, we arrived at Fantasy Fayre 2025, fully immersed in the magic of the event. The reactions were instant and overwhelming—countless compliments, curious inquiries about our outfits, and moments where we were stopped just so people could admire the detail of our costumes. It was an amazing feeling to step onto the event grounds knowing we looked the part, and even better to proudly announce on the mic during the Best Dressed Competition that our outfits came from Sinderella Costume Hire. The day was packed with exciting activities—archery, fire dancing workshops, sword fighting, and more. There’s something exhilarating about drawing a bow or clashing swords when you’re dressed in full medieval attire. Every moment felt like we had stepped into a grand adventure, and through it all, I couldn’t take my eyes off my fiancée. She was radiant, and I was in complete awe of her. A Heartfelt Thank You to Sinderella Costume Hire This experience wouldn’t have been the same without Sinderella Costume Hire. The quality, service, and passion they bring to costuming elevate every event, making you feel like a true part of the fantasy world you’re stepping into. A massive thank you to Ras for making this opportunity possible, and to the Edenvale staff for their dedication and enthusiasm—your hard work does not go unnoticed, and your commitment to finding the perfect costume for each person makes all the difference. If you’re planning to attend an event, whether it’s fantasy, medieval, cosplay, or anything in between, Sinderella Costume Hire should be your first stop. Trust me, once you experience the magic of stepping into a costume crafted with such detail and care, you’ll never want to attend an event any other way. I can’t wait for the next adventure—and to do it all over again, dressed in the best that Sinderella has to offer! Source link #Dressing #Part #Fantasy #Fayre #Experience #Sinderella #Costume #Hire Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

A family tree BRCA gene revelation may have saved my life A family tree BRCA gene revelation may have saved my life Elise McGinley BBC Scotland News Hannah Howie Hannah Howie discovered she had the BRCA 2 gene in November 2023 Hannah Howie was a year away from getting married when a revelation from the past turned her life upside down. Through research into her ancestry and family tree, her brother-in-law made an alarming discovery. Luke Emerton found that a number of women on the paternal side had died from breast ******* at a young age – including Hannah’s grandmother. This led to the 34-year-old having genetic testing and finding out she had a faulty gene, which dramatically increases the risk of certain cancers. The BRCA genes are present in every person, both men and women, but when a fault occurs in one of them it can result in DNA damage and lead to cells becoming cancerous. People with a genetic variant have a 50% chance of passing it on to their children. Luke told BBC Scotland News how he stumbled upon the discovery. He said: “We were trying to pull together a family tree for Hannah’s dad for his birthday and we found there was a line of female relatives on her dad’s side who had died of breast ******* at a young age. “We clocked it with her gran, Agnes, who died at 33. “Then we started noticing a pattern.” He said the enormity of his discovery had yet to hit home. Luke said: “Looking back, it’s so strange how all of this has come from that one gift. “I’m so glad we found out this way and that Hannah knows about it and can act on decreasing the risk. “The fact she has been able to pre-empt all of this is incredible.” ‘I had to know’ Prof Zosia Miedzybrodska, of the University of Aberdeen, decsribed BRCA 2 as a “huge gene” and said it could mutate and go wrong “in many ways”. And she said the percentage difference between male and female cancers was “quite significant”. “The risk increase for a woman with breast ******* is anywhere up to 85%,” she said. “For prostate ******* it’s 27% and for male breast ******* it’s 10%. “The only way you know if you have the faulty BRCA 2 gene is if there is a history of breast, prostate or ovarian ******* in the family.” Cruise ship entertainer Hannah booked an appointment to discover if she had the gene, which also dramatically increases the risk of ovarian *******. She told BBC Scotland News: “I had to find out if I had the faulty BRCA 2 gene. “Some people don’t want to know but for my sanity, I really had to know.” Hannah Howie Hannah is a cruise ship entertainer A few weeks later, in November 2023, it was confirmed that Hannah had the BRCA 2 gene. She immediately switched to survivor mode. Hannah added: “When I heard the news, there were so many treatment options available. “I knew I had to pick the one that would give me the most longevity in my life. “The life I lead is too good to let it go.” The entertainer said she had little doubt about what to do. She said: “The doctor explained the biggest risk averter would be going for a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. “If I go for this option, the breast ******* risk drops from 85% to 5%. “It was a no-brainer for me. It was what I had to do.” Hannah is due to go for a double mastectomy next week to remove the breast tissue and reduce her risk of breast *******. This will be followed by reconstructive surgery in the next few months. Hannah Howie Hannah and her husband Graeme McLean pictured alongside TV presenter Carol Smillie on their wedding day last December Breast ******* surgeon Dr Liz O’Riordan said: “The reason we can’t say the percentage of BRCA 2 is 0% after the surgery is because it’s impossible to know if we have removed all breast tissue. “It’s like removing seeds from an orange. You can’t be certain you’ve got them all. “Even after surgery, our patients are told to be hypervigilant in checking themselves. “You can’t be too careful when checking your body for any lumps or bumps.” Hannah, who is just a year older than her late gran was when she died, is receiving her treatment through the NHS. She is being supported by her husband, Graeme McLean, who she married in December last year. Hannah said: “I had started thinking about children. “If I have them, I run the risk of passing the gene onto them. “Did I really want the possibility of my future children having to go through the same as me?” Hannah, who is from Edinburgh but now lives in Motherwell, said she was overwhelmed at the thought of that happening. She added: “That’s when I decided I would start taking my life day-by-day, hour-by-hour and minute-by-minute. “I had to for my sanity.” ‘A huge game-changer’ To cope with the life-altering development Hannah has written and starred in a cabaret called A ******** for My Boobs. She said: “I know it’s something many would look at negatively. “Looking at it positively has really helped me come to terms with it. “I call it A Fun-eral for My Boobs because to me it just feels like I’m welcoming the next chapter of my life.” In the meantime, she said she is thankful for the “geekiness” of her brother-in-law whose research changed everything. She said: “Mentally and physically, knowing has been a huge game-changer. “I’ve had to rethink my entire future but knowing this has allowed me to pre-empt and prepare for it. “That’s a luxury not a lot of people have.” Source link #family #tree #BRCA #gene #revelation #saved #life Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Trump administration expected to seek to let Idaho enforce its strict abortion ban, in drastic reversal from Biden White House’s stand Trump administration expected to seek to let Idaho enforce its strict abortion ban, in drastic reversal from Biden White House’s stand Washington — The Trump administration signaled Tuesday it will move to let Idaho enforce its strict abortion ban, even in the treatment of pregnant women suffering medical emergencies, a dramatic reversal from the previous administration in a closely watched lawsuit. The state’s largest hospital system said it could be forced to airlift women out of state for care if the federal lawsuit is dismissed. That persuaded a judge to quickly grant a temporary order allowing doctors to keep providing abortions they deem necessary to treat emergencies. The move to dismiss the lawsuit originally filed by the Biden administration could come as soon as Wednesday, St. Luke’s Health System wrote in a court filing, citing communication with the Justice Department. Dropping the case would be among the new administration’s first major moves on abortion. In his first term, President Trump appointed many of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn the nationwide right to abortion in 2022. He has since said the issue should be left to the states. Complaints that pregnant women were turned away from U.S. emergency rooms spiked after the overturning of Roe v. Wade amid questions about what care hospitals could legally provide, federal records showed. A Justice Department spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. History of legal battle over Idaho abortion ban In its original lawsuit against Idaho, the Biden administration argued that federal law required doctors to perform abortions in emergency situations if a patient’s health or life were at serious risk – even if ending the pregnancy could run afoul of the state’s abortion ban, one of the country’s most restrictive. Idaho has pushed back, saying that its state law allows for abortions in life-threatening situations and that the Democratic administration was trying to improperly expand its exceptions. The Supreme Court stepped into the Idaho case last year and ultimately handed down a narrow ruling that allowed hospitals to keep making determinations about emergency pregnancy terminations. The high court did not, however, resolve key legal questions in the case, and it was argued before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in December. The appeals court hasn’t ruled yet. Idaho Deputy Attorney General Brian Church had urged the court to reject St. Luke’s request for a restraining order, saying the hospital system was trying to reinterpret federal law and wrest control from the state legislature now that, “the United States is abandoning its erroneous interpretation” that federal law requires emergency abortions. “It is now seeking to usurp the role of the Idaho Legislature in setting statewide medical standards of care,” Church wrote. He said any changes to state policy should come from the ballot box, not the courts. When might emergency abortions be performed? About 50,000 people in the U.S. develop life-threatening pregnancy complications each year, including major blood loss, sepsis or the loss of reproductive organs. In rare cases, doctors might need to terminate a pregnancy to protect the health of the pregnant person, especially in cases where there is no chance for a fetus to survive. When Idaho was able to fully enforce its ban during medical emergencies, some Idaho doctors reported that pregnant women were facing delays in care and in some cases being flown to out-of-state hospitals for treatment they would have previously been able to get at home. “My colleagues and I lived in constant fear that patients would present in an emergency room who were not stable enough to transfer, yet the medically indicated stabilizing care-termination-could not be provided because it was not yet needed to prevent the patient’s death,” one doctor said in court documents. While the law does allow for life-saving abortions, it’s still impossible to tell exactly when a dire case crosses the line to potentially fatal in the eyes of the law, she wrote. In another abortion-related case this week, the Trump administration received additional time to make a filing – which would also give it time to change the government’s position on the issue. In that case, the states of Idaho, Kansas and Missouri are seeking to restrict the abortion pill mifepristone. Under Mr. Biden, the government was defending access. Most Republican-controlled states have started enforcing new bans or restrictions since 2022. Currently, 12 states are enforcing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions, and four have bans that kick in at or about six weeks into pregnancy – often before women realize they’re pregnant. The Battle Over Abortion More More Source link #Trump #administration #expected #seek #Idaho #enforce #strict #abortion #ban #drastic #reversal #Biden #White #Houses #stand Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]