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The Daring Ruse That Exposed China’s Campaign to Steal American Secrets

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How the downfall of one intelligence agent revealed the astonishing depth of Chinese industrial espionage.

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TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is set to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday as the massive social media platform faces a potential ban over national security concerns that stem from its China-based parent company, ByteDance.

At a recent congressional hearing on worldwide threats, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified that TikTok - by virtue of its more than 150 million U.S. users - has the power to "drive narratives" and "divide Americans" through the manipulation of its content algorithm. Noting that ByteDance is based in China and required by law to comply with requests made by the Chinese Communist Party, Wray said, "This is a tool that is ultimately within the control the Chinese government, and it, to me, it screams out with national security concerns."

Chew will be making his first appearance before Congress as TikTok faces an ongoing security review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) - an interagency group that evaluates threats to U.S. national security posed by foreign investments or transactions. CFIUS has been looking into TikTok since 2019 and has reportedly threatened to ban TikTok unless ByteDance divests its stake in the platform's U.S. operations, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.
TIKTOK CEO TO PLEDGE COMPANY WILL GUARD DATA FROM CHINESE ACCESS, IN BID TO STAVE OFF BAN

The Biden administration is currently implementing the removal of TikTok from government devices as required by a bipartisan law enacted last year. New legislation introduced by Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., and Mark Warner, D-Va., known as the RESTRICT Act, would give the federal government the ability to investigate and potentially ban problematic technology products like TikTok that have ties to adversarial countries including China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela.

Thune noted the connections between TikTok's parent company ByteDance and the Chinese government as being deeply troubling: "I'm particularly concerned about TikTok's connections to the Chinese Communist Party, which repeatedly spies on American citizens. It was reported last year that China-based employees of ByteDance have repeatedly accessed non-public data about users in the U.S. despite TikTok saying to the contrary."
SENATE'S BIPARTISAN RESTRICT ACT WOULD BLOCK TECH PRODUCTS LIKE TIKTOK MADE IN ADVERSARIAL COUNTRIES

TikTok's data collection practices have been frequently cited as a threat to Americans' privacy. The app not only collects the imagery and objects contained in the short-form videos made by users but also biometric identifiers such as faceprints and voiceprints, activities on other websites or apps - plus the content of messages: when they're sent, received, read and by whom. Taken together, the data helps TikTok target videos, ads and political messages based on a user's habits and interests.

ByteDance is reportedly under investigation by the Justice Department and FBI for using the app to surveil U.S. journalists as at least two China-based employees at the company tried to use the data to determine which of their colleagues was leaking information to the press. The incident was first reported by Forbes.
FBI DIRECTOR WRAY TESTIFIES CHINESE-OWNED TIKTOK HAS POWER TO 'DRIVE NARRATIVES,' 'DIVIDE AMERICANS'

In written testimony posted on the House Energy and Commerce Committee website, Chew touted TikTok's "Project Texas" initiative under which it plans to form a special subsidiary called TikTok U.S. Data Security Inc. to oversee the protection of American users' data and the TikTok U.S. platform under a contract with Oracle. Project Texas is TikTok's attempt to satisfy the concerns raised by CFIUS and avoid a U.S. ban or the platform's divestment from its China-based parent company.

"I steadfastly believe that all concerns that have been raised have solutions. Bans are only appropriate when there are no alternatives," Chew wrote. "We do not believe that a ban that hurts American small businesses, damages the country's economy, silences the voices of over 150 million Americans, and reduces competition in an increasingly concentrated market is the solution to a solvable problem."
GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE
He added that "divestment doesn't address the fundamental concerns that I have heard, as a change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access."

Chew sought to emphasize in his written testimony that TikTok and its parent company are not beholden to the Chinese government, writing, "Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country."
Fox Business' Chris Pandolfo and Danielle Wallace contributed reporting.

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TikTok CEO to testify as social media giant faces ban over China ties

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TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is set to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday as the massive social media platform faces a potential ban over national security concerns that stem from its China-based parent company, ByteDance.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is set to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday as the massive social media platform faces a potential ban over national security concerns that stem from its China-based parent company, ByteDance.

At a recent congressional hearing on worldwide threats, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified that TikTok - by virtue of its more than 150 million U.S. users - has the power to "drive narratives" and "divide Americans" through the manipulation of its content algorithm. Noting that ByteDance is based in China and required by law to comply with requests made by the Chinese Communist Party, Wray said, "This is a tool that is ultimately within the control the Chinese government, and it, to me, it screams out with national security concerns."

Chew will be making his first appearance before Congress as TikTok faces an ongoing security review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) - an interagency group that evaluates threats to U.S. national security posed by foreign investments or transactions. CFIUS has been looking into TikTok since 2019 and has reportedly threatened to ban TikTok unless ByteDance divests its stake in the platform's U.S. operations, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.
TIKTOK CEO TO PLEDGE COMPANY WILL GUARD DATA FROM CHINESE ACCESS, IN BID TO STAVE OFF BAN

The Biden administration is currently implementing the removal of TikTok from government devices as required by a bipartisan law enacted last year. New legislation introduced by Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., and Mark Warner, D-Va., known as the RESTRICT Act, would give the federal government the ability to investigate and potentially ban problematic technology products like TikTok that have ties to adversarial countries including China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela.

Thune noted the connections between TikTok's parent company ByteDance and the Chinese government as being deeply troubling: "I'm particularly concerned about TikTok's connections to the Chinese Communist Party, which repeatedly spies on American citizens. It was reported last year that China-based employees of ByteDance have repeatedly accessed non-public data about users in the U.S. despite TikTok saying to the contrary."
SENATE'S BIPARTISAN RESTRICT ACT WOULD BLOCK TECH PRODUCTS LIKE TIKTOK MADE IN ADVERSARIAL COUNTRIES

TikTok's data collection practices have been frequently cited as a threat to Americans' privacy. The app not only collects the imagery and objects contained in the short-form videos made by users but also biometric identifiers such as faceprints and voiceprints, activities on other websites or apps - plus the content of messages: when they're sent, received, read and by whom. Taken together, the data helps TikTok target videos, ads and political messages based on a user's habits and interests.

ByteDance is reportedly under investigation by the Justice Department and FBI for using the app to surveil U.S. journalists as at least two China-based employees at the company tried to use the data to determine which of their colleagues was leaking information to the press. The incident was first reported by Forbes.
FBI DIRECTOR WRAY TESTIFIES CHINESE-OWNED TIKTOK HAS POWER TO 'DRIVE NARRATIVES,' 'DIVIDE AMERICANS'

In written testimony posted on the House Energy and Commerce Committee website, Chew touted TikTok's "Project Texas" initiative under which it plans to form a special subsidiary called TikTok U.S. Data Security Inc. to oversee the protection of American users' data and the TikTok U.S. platform under a contract with Oracle. Project Texas is TikTok's attempt to satisfy the concerns raised by CFIUS and avoid a U.S. ban or the platform's divestment from its China-based parent company.

"I steadfastly believe that all concerns that have been raised have solutions. Bans are only appropriate when there are no alternatives," Chew wrote. "We do not believe that a ban that hurts American small businesses, damages the country's economy, silences the voices of over 150 million Americans, and reduces competition in an increasingly concentrated market is the solution to a solvable problem."
GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE
He added that "divestment doesn't address the fundamental concerns that I have heard, as a change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access."

Chew sought to emphasize in his written testimony that TikTok and its parent company are not beholden to the Chinese government, writing, "Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country."
Fox Business' Chris Pandolfo and Danielle Wallace contributed reporting.

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TikTok CEO to testify as social media giant faces ban over China ties

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TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is set to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday as the massive social media platform faces a potential ban over national security concerns that stem from its China-based parent company, ByteDance.

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A suite of notes that attempt to explain or clarify complex climate phenomena, Climate Monitoring products and methodologies, and climate system insights

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Since Russia launched its unjustified and unprovoked all-out war against Ukraine in February 2022, the United States has worked with Allies and partners around the world to impose an unprecedented range of sanctions and export controls on Russia for its brutal aggression. Moreover, we will continue to impose costs on the Kremlin for as long as its war of aggression continues.

Sanctions and export controls are having significant and long-lasting consequences on Russia's defense industrial base. Since February 2022, the United States and our partners and Allies have coordinated to use export controls and sanctions to restrict Russia's access to advanced technology , which has the Russian weapons industry's ability to produce and stockpile weapons to replace those that have been destroyed in the war.

A few effects include:

Major supply shortages for Russian forces in Ukraine are forcing Russia to turn to less technologically advanced countries such as and North Korea for supplies and equipment.

Russia is struggling to import semiconductors and other key components. Export controls have forced Russia to cannibalize existing airline parts they can no longer access abroad.

Russian hypersonic ballistic missile production has nearly ceased due to the lack of necessary semiconductors used in the manufacturing process.

Russia's military aviation program has been cut off from resupply provided by global aviation trade.

Russian media reports that production of its next-generation airborne early warning and control military aircraft has stalled due to lack of foreign components, including semiconductors.

Mechanical plants, including those producing surface-to-air missiles, have been shut down due to shortages of foreign-origin components.

Russia has reverted to Soviet-era defense stocks because our measures have interrupted Russian companies' abilities to replenish domestic supply chains.

Exports on certain goods and services, including dollar-denominated banknotes, accounting, management consulting, quantum computing, and trust and corporate formation services to persons located in the Russian Federation are now prohibited.

In addition, since February 2022, the U.S. government has:

Denied all [U.S.] exports, reexports to, and transfers of items subject to the Export Administration Regulations for military end uses or end users in the Russian Federation and Belarus.

Targeted Russian and Belarusian military end users through their addition to the Department of Commerce's Entity List, which has effectively cut off these end users from nearly all items subject to the Export Administration Regulations.

Denied exports to, reexports to, and transfer within Russia and Belarus of items needed for oil refining. Also imposed additional license requirements to further limit the Russian oil sector by restricting the export, reexport and transfer of additional items needed for oil refining.

Targeted items useful for Russia's chemical and biological weapons production capabilities and other advanced manufacturing by imposing export controls.

Targeted luxury goods to impose costs on certain Russian oligarchs who support the Russian government by imposing license requirements and denying licenses for the export and reexport of luxury goods for all end users within Russia.

Used new foreign direct product rules targeted at Russia to prevent exports of foreign-origin items produced with U.S. advanced technologies, tools, and software. This prevents these items being transferred to support Russia's military capabilities.

Formed a coalition of 37 countries that has amplified the impact of U.S. actions by applying substantially similar controls to those imposed by the United States. This robust global coalition reinforces U.S. efforts to isolate Russia from commodities, technologies, and software necessary for Putin's war.

Furthermore, sanctions (administered and enforced by the U.S. Department of Treasury) are having a significant impact on Russia's ability to wage its unjust war against Ukraine.Specifically, sanctions implemented by the United States along with Allies and partners and allies have immobilized about $300 billion worth of Russian Central Bank assets, limiting the central bank's ability to aid the war effort and mitigate sanctions impacts. Sanctioned Russian oligarchs and financial institutions have been forced to divest from long-held assets outside Russia. Moreover, sanctions have prompted banks in several countries to curtail ties with the Russian financial sector. Despite benefiting from high energy prices, the IMF still expects Russia's economy will contract by over 3 percent this year. Lost investment, export controls, and constraints on Russia's real economy will create a drag on Russia's growth prospects for years to come. Significantly, U.S. sanctions and export controls have severed Russia's access to key technologies and industrial inputs that erode its military capability. Since February 2022, the United States has issued approximately 1,500 new and 750 amended sanctions listings, including:

State Corporation Rostec, the cornerstone of Russia's defense-industrial base that includes more than 800 entities within the Russian military-industrial complex, such as Sukhoi, MiG, and Kalashnikov Concern.

Joint Stock Company Mikron, Russia's largest manufacturer and exporter of microelectronics.

Tactical Missiles Corporation JSC, a Russian state-owned enterprise that produces missiles used by the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine.

Individuals and entities located outside Russia who have sought to procure goods and technology for the Russian military-industrial complex and intelligence services

Russia's largest financial institutions and restricted dealings with banks representing 80 percent of Russian banking sector assets.

Rosoboronexport, which is Russia's sole state-controlled intermediary agency for exporting and importing the entire range of military, defense, and dual-use products, technologies, and services.

Issued guidance emphasizing the sanctions and export control risk to individuals and entities inside and outside Russia that provide material support for Russia's sham referenda and purported annexation of the Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions of Ukraine.

For further information, visit www.state.gov.

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The Impact of Sanctions and Export Controls on the Russian Federation - United States Department of State

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Since Russia launched its unjustified and unprovoked all-out war against Ukraine in February 2022, the United States has worked with Allies and partners around the world to impose an unprecedented range of sanctions and export controls on Russia for its brutal aggression.

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The Economic Impact of the Russia-Ukraine War

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Our survey shows that companies are unsettled about the current situation. Above all, sanctions and price increases are major challenges.

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Economic sanctions are defined as financial penalties imposed on a nation, country or self-governing state by an individual or a group of nations in order to harm and disrupt the economy of the target nation. This effect can be accomplished by imposing tariffs, quotas, subsidies, restrictions on financial transactions and much more.

The United States of America has imposed economic sanctions on multiple countries, such as France, Great Britain and Japan since the 1800s. Some of the most famous economic sanctions in the history of the United States of America include The Boston Tea Party against the British Parliament, The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act against the United States of America's trading partners and the 2002 steel tariff against The People's Republic of China. Most recently, the United States of America has been involved in multiple trade wars and imposed economic sanctions on multiple countries such as The People's Republic of China, Iran and Russia. In retaliation, multiple countries have imposed economic sanctions on the United States of America.

The United States of America had multiple sanctions imposed on them throughout history.[citation needed ] Most recently, United States President Donald Trump has introduced economic sanctions in 2018 on multiple trade partners, including The People's Republic of China, Canada, the European Union and Mexico. This series of tariffs are known as the " Trump Tariffs" and has been responded negatively to by sanctioned trade partners. The United States of America has also imposed ongoing economic sanctions on Iran and Russia dating back to 1995 and 2014 respectively. As of June 2019, the following countries and political unions below have introduced economic sanctions against the United States.

Country / Political union

Summary of economic sanction

European Union

The European Union retaliated to the sanctions with a tariff on 180 U.S goods for over $3 billion on 22 June 2018.

Iran is preparing to announce retaliatory actions economically against the United States of America for its economic sanctions in the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

The People's Republic of China

The trade war between the People's Republic of China and the United States began in 2018. Initially conducted through tariffs and other types of economic sanctions, Donald Trump, the former President of the United States of America imposed tariffs on Chinese goods valued at $250 billion, escalating the trade war.

China's Ministry of Commerce responded by imposing retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods of a similar value, including a tariff of $60 billion U.S goods and a further $100 billion tariff on the United States of America.

Donald Trump, the former President of the United States of America introduced a tariff on Canadian steel and aluminium on 31 May 2018.

Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada retaliated to the tariff with economic sanctions on U.S goods such as steel and aluminum, as well as goods such as paper, plywood, whiskey and more on 31 May 2018.

Former US President Donald Trump introduced a tariff on Canadian steel and aluminium on 31 May 2018 as part of the Trump tariffs.

The European Union retaliated with a tariff on U.S goods such as steel and aluminium, along with other agricultural goods such as corn, orange juice, cranberry juice and manufactured goods such as electronic devices, washing machines, motorcycles, makeup and cosmetics, clothing and more on 22 June 2018.

Former President of the United States of America Donald Trump introduced a tariff on Canadian steel and aluminium on 31 May 2018 as part of the Trump tariffs.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico retaliated with a tariff on U.S goods such as steel and aluminium, along with other agricultural goods such as cheese, pork, whiskey, apples and more on 5 June 2018.

In November 1979, then President Jimmy Carter announced and imposed the sanctions for the first time after the American Embassy in Tehran was seized by a group of radical students and people were taken hostage. In 1984, The United States of America approved sanctions to prohibit weapons sales and assistance to Iran. Since then, there have been no formal diplomatic relations between Iran and the United States of America.

Dating from March 2014, the United States and Russia has had a strained diplomatic relationship due to a series of political events. On 6 August 2014, Russia imposed a ban on U.S agricultural products and since then, the USA and Russia have been imposing economic sanctions on goods such as oil, agricultural products and more.

The economic effects of an economic sanction can affect both the target country and the country that imposed the sanction. One immediate effect for the targeted country will be an increase in price or ban on the targeted exported goods; this can be seen in Mexico, as goods such as steel, pork, cheese and apples will become more expensive. Also, The People's Republic of China has fallen from the second largest to the third largest market capitalization due to the ongoing trade war with the United States of America. As the U.S is one of China's largest trading partners, an economic loss for both countries is created.

Economic sanctions can negatively affect the targeted country's GDP by increasing unemployment rate. By imposing tariffs on certain industries, the income of that industry will decrease due to a fall in production of the goods targeted and an increase in price of the goods in the country that imposed the economic sanction. As the price of the product increases, consumers may choose to purchase domestic goods rather than imported goods due to the difference in price. Also, due to the decrease in production of the targeted goods, the producers of the goods will no longer require as much manpower as before, this will lead to an increase in unemployment rate as workers will be laid off in order to reduce costs for the producers. According to Okun's law, there is a clear relationship between economic growth and unemployment rate. Okun's law states that for every 1% increase in unemployment rate, a country's GDP will decrease by 2%. The effects above will lead to a decrease in economic growth for the targeted country while the country that imposed the economic sanction may experience an increase in economic growth due to consumers choosing to purchase domestic goods rather than imported goods.

Tariffs and other economic sanctions are a main source of income for governments and businesses will profit from economic sanctions due to the decrease in competition from other countries. However, if the targeted country retaliates with economic sanctions against the imposing country, consumers will be worse off due to the increase in price of both domestic and imported goods, while both governments will not generate much revenue due to the two economic sanctions nullifying each other's effects.

An economic sanction could cripple the targeted country's industries. For example, if a targeted country's industry gets sanctioned for a prolonged period of time, it can bring effects such as unemployment and industry collapse to the targeted industry. A real life example would be the U.S's sanction on Venezuela's oil industry. Because of the economic sanction, Venezuela has turned from a democratic to autocratic country. Since the election of Nicolás Maduro as president in 2013, Maduro has been accused by Western interests (including their media apparatuses and NGOs) of using his power as the President of Venezuela to maintain his power. This can put significant political pressure on the targeted country's government from its citizens.

Economic sanctions are often used as political weapons towards other countries, President Donald Trump and the United States of America has been noted for using economic sanctions, such as tariffs against Iran and North Korea in order to restrict these countries from using weapons of mass destruction, In particular, the economic sanctions against Iran are effective in restricting the development for nuclear weapons, while the economic sanctions against North Korea are used to halt North Korea's development in missile and nuclear weapons programs, military technology and equipment, labor and more.

As economic sanctions are becoming more widespread in the past century, there are some moral issues to such sanctions that should be recognized. One notable example is that some countries impose tariffs or bans on certain goods to protect their industry. While the country that imposed the tariff may argue the economic sanction is justified since they need to protect their new industries against foreign competition that have well-developed and established industries, this can have unintended effects on the targeted country. For example, since the targeted country's industry will have less income due to the exported goods being more expensive in other countries. Consumers may choose to purchase domestic goods to avoid paying high prices. This will lead to increasing unemployment rates in the targeted country since the industry no longer requires as much manpower due to the decrease in sales and a fall in production. Consequently, the unemployed workforce will not be able to provide for their family since they lost their source of income. In Venezuela, nine out of ten Venezuelans live in poverty and in 2017, Venezuelans lost an average of twenty four pounds. Most Venezuelans live without access to basic goods, such as food and medical supplies due to a shortage of basic goods in Venezuela. The effects mentioned above combined to form a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, where one out of every ten Venezuelans have fled the country in hopes of a better living condition elsewhere.

While the country imposing the economic sanction gains both economic and political advantages, the targeted country will suffer (if one views 'suffering' as the continued existence of their elected governments) as a result from the particular economic sanction. One real life example is the United States of America's sanction on Venezuela's oil industry. As Venezuela is heavily dependent on their oil industry, which contains around 50% of their GDP, the sanction led to hyperinflation, a decrease in the production of oil and a perceived turn to autocratic power by many thinktanks and NGOs in Venezuela. This has also allowed President Nicolás Maduro to take advantage of the situation to secure his power in Venezuela. Over the course of his presidency, Nicolás Maduro has been found guilty by the Organization of American States for dozens of murders, over 12,000 cases of arbitrary detentions, over 290 cases of torture and more. As a result, more than 1.1 million people have been displaced due to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Venezuela.

Leyton-Brown, D. (1987). The utility of international economic sanctions. 1st ed. London: Routledge.

Cortright, D., Dellums, R. and Lopez, G. (1995). Economic Sanctions. 1st ed. New York: Routledge.

Che, Y., Lu, Y., Pierce, J., Schott, P. and Tao, Z. (2016). Does Trade Liberalization with China Influence U.S. Elections?. 1st ed. [ebook] Massachusetts: National Bureau of Economic Research. Available at: https://www.nber.org/papers/w22178 [Accessed 31 Mar. 2019].

Broadberry, S. and Harrison, M. (2009). The Economics of World War I. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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Economic sanctions against the United States - Wikipedia

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Economic sanctions are defined as financial penalties imposed on a nation, country or self-governing state by an individual or a group of nations in order to harm and disrupt the economy of the target nation. This effect can be accomplished by imposing tariffs, quotas, subsidies, restrictions on financial transactions and much more.

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(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Venus is still alive.

Scientists studying data sent home by NASA's Magellan spacecraft in the early 1990s say they have spotted volcanic activity on . The discovery, announced in a paper published Wednesday (March 15), is based on changes of a vent near one of the planet's largest volcanoes, .

"Where we made the discovery is the most likely place that there should have been new volcanism," Robert Herrick, a researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, said Wednesday (March 15) at the 54th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) being held in Texas and virtually.

Related: Scientists hail 'the decade of Venus' with 3 new missions on the way

Scientists have long known about lava flows on Venus from volcanoes that erupted a few million years ago. Although around 1,600 major volcanoes and close to a million smaller ones dominate the planet's surface, whether any of them still flare up has been hotly contested.

The latest finding marks the first time that scientists have found direct evidence of recent volcanic activity on the surface of Earth's closest neighbor. They think such eruptions - less explosive than those on Earth - occur at least a few times each year, adding to the growing evidence that volcanoes play a major role in the planet's youthful surface.

In the latest study, scientists analyzed two Magellan images taken eight months apart in 1991. In those eight months, they noticed that a volcanic vent measuring 0.7 square miles (2 square kilometers) grew "considerably larger," to about 1.5 square miles (4 square km).

They saw that the vent's shape too had changed: it was circular in the first image, while the second showed it to be kidney-shaped with a dark interior, which is evidence of "a volcano that has erupted on the surface of Venus," Herrick said during his presentation at LPSC. The dark patch is likely a lava lake filling the vent to its rim, he added.

With the limited data on hand, the team speculates that Venus' high pressure and blistering temperatures make the lava runnier and flow for longer than it does on Earth.

Venus is overwhelmingly covered with volcanoes, so there are likely many more active ones waiting to be discovered. Herrick said he stopped looking after making the discovery, but "by no means has all the potential searching for new stuff with the Magellan data been done."

The latest study covers just 1.5% of the planet, while about 40% has been imaged by Magellan twice, giving scientists lots of radar images to sift through.

"There's still several Hawaii-like volcanoes on Venus that I did not get a chance to search, so there is plenty more to do there," Herrick said.

Related: 10 incredible volcanoes in our solar system (photos)

(Image credit: Altitude data for the Maat and Ozza Mons region on the Venus surface is shown at left, with the area of study indicated by the black box. At right are the before (A) and after (B) Magellan observations of the expanded vent on Maat Mons, with possible new lava flows after an eruptive event.)

A discovery from 30-year old data

The Magellan spacecraft arrived at Venus in 1990 and snapped photos from orbit for two years. During this time, the spacecraft revisited the same spots once every eight months. Back then, the purpose of each visit was not to look for changes on the surface like scientists are doing now but to perform various other tasks, so the images ended up being at different angles and heights, Herrick said. Both images pertaining to the discovery could be thought of as being snapped from windows on different sides of a plane, he added.

The first image - taken as if the vent site were seen from a window on the plane's left side - shows the vent site to be circular in shape. The second image - clicked from a right-side window - shows a kidney-shaped vent with shorter, collapsed walls likely a few hundred feet deep. Herrick also spotted a brighter patch on the ground farther downhill, which he thinks is a new lava flow that poured out of the volcano.

Even though the Magellan images are 30 years old, Herrick attributed the timing of this discovery to recent improvements in software and hardware for planetary scientists. Much like Google Earth, scientists can now easily download large datasets and zoom in and out of radar images, which they couldn't do three decades ago.

Because Magellan's images were clicked at different angles, Herrick and his team picked points on the surface of Venus that remained the same in both pictures, and processed them such that they looked as they would if seen from overhead. The process, called orthorectification, helps scientists convert raw images into a format friendly for modeling.

"We really wanted to nail down that the difference we saw in the vent could not possibly, in any way, be a factor of simply looking at the same feature from different angles," Herrick said during his presentation at LPSC.

Is it really a volcano?

To confirm if what they were seeing was really volcanic activity, Herrick teamed up with Scott Hensley, a project scientist for two of NASA's upcoming Venus missions.

"I was immediately cautiously optimistic and excited, because it did look real," Hensley said, adding that previous efforts that looked for similar changes in the images did not lead to positive results. Moreover, many features that did not change on Venus looked different in various Magellan images, thanks to variations in lighting and spacecraft angles.

"We wanted to be very careful here that we really had something," Hensley said.

So to rule out that the spacecraft angles themselves were responsible for the changes they saw, Hensley used Magellan data about the vent's shape, depth and other features to simulate hundreds of volcanic vents, 60 of which are outlined in the new paper (opens in new tab), which was published online Wednesday in the journal Science.

"None of our simulations could mimic the kidney shape of the vent," he said, adding that their simulations also did not show a dark floor throughout the vent spotted by Magellan. "That is what led us to very strongly believe we had a real change on the surface of Venus."

'The decade of Venus' likely to reveal more volcanic activity

In the 2030s, a fleet of spacecraft will visit the planet next door, including NASA's (or Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography and Spectroscopy) and DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry and Imaging) and Europe's .

will send an atmospheric probe into Venus' clouds, and VERITAS and EnVision will peer through the planet's thick atmosphere from orbit, looking for miniscule, "centimeter-sized changes" on the planet's surface - a great deal more than what scientists are able to do with Magellan's data alone.

"Right now, Magellan is the state of the art," Lori Glaze, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, told reporters at the conference. "That is the highest resolution we have. We really need to get VERITAS and EnVision at Venus in the next decade."

DAVINCI is slated to lift off in 2029. After a delay that set its launch back by three years, VERITAS is now scheduled to launch between 2032 to 2034, followed closely by EnVision, which will fly between 2035 to 2039. Venus scientists hunting for signs of ongoing volcanic activity are most excited that these new missions will not have the one-sided viewing problem that Magellan did, so future data will be a lot easier to work with, Hensley said.

"It's going to be a really exciting dataset, and the whole Venus community just can't wait to get their hands on these data," he said.

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Not dead yet: Active volcano spotted on Venus

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(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) Venus is still alive. Scientists studying data sent home by NASA's Magellan spacecraft in the early 1990s say they have spotted volcanic activity on . The discovery, announced in a paper published Wednesday (March 15), is based on changes of a vent near one of the planet's largest volcanoes, .

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(Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team)

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured a dazzling image of a star about to go supernova in a massive explosion.

The picture, released by NASA on Tuesday (March 14), shows the star WR 124 in the middle of a spectacular cosmic cloud. As it goes supernova, the star, which is about 30 solar masses, is expelling its outer layers; so far, it has ejected more than 10 solar masses' worth of material. This is a rarely seen phenomenon in some stars' life cycle called the Wolf-Rayet (WR) phase.

"Massive stars race through their life cycles, and only some of them go through a brief Wolf-Rayet phase before going supernova, making Webb's detailed observations of this rare phase valuable to astronomers," NASA officials wrote in a description of the images (opens in new tab).

The gigantic star resides 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagitta.

TheJWST first snapped a photo of WR 124 in June 2022, just after it became operational.The star's luminous halo is captured in unprecedented detail thanks to the telescope's ability to detect the infrared glow of gas as it cools down to form cosmic dust.

Related: James Webb Telescope spots galaxies from the dawn of time that are so massive they 'shouldn't exist'

The cloud could survive the star's supernova collapse and contribute to the universe's "dust budget," NASA officials said. "Dust is integral to the workings of the universe," they wrote. "It shelters forming stars, gathers together to help form planets and serves as a platform for molecules to form and clump together - including the building blocks of life on Earth."

The universe currently contains more dust than astronomers can explain. "The universe is operating with a dust surplus budget," NASA officials wrote in the image description. But JWST observations like this one could shed light on the mysterious origin of all this dust.

"Before Webb, dust-loving astronomers simply did not have enough detailed information to explore questions of dust production in environments like WR 124, and whether the dust grains were large and bountiful enough to survive the supernova and become a significant contribution to the overall dust budget," they wrote. "Now those questions can be investigated with real data."

On Oct. 13, 2022, astronomers discovered an early-warning system to watch supernova explosions as they unfold. As seen on the image of WR 124, a thick cocoon of circumstellar dust builds around stars in the last few months before they blow up. In the aftermath of a supernova event, all that is left of a star is a dense core, which can turn into a neutron star.

Also last year, scientists discovered a dead neutron star on a collision path with a massive star, which they think is doomed to explode in a fiery kilonova - an explosion caused by two stellar corpses zooming into each other.

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James Webb Space Telescope captures star going supernova in a dazzling cloud of dust

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The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured a dazzling image of a star about to go supernova in a massive explosion. The picture, released by NASA on Tuesday (March 14), shows the star WR 124 in the middle of a spectacular cosmic cloud.

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WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Poland's president says his country plans to give Ukraine a dozen MiG-29 fighter jets, becoming the first NATO member country to fulfill the Ukrainian government's increasingly urgent requests for warplanes.

President Andrzej Duda said Thursday that Poland would hand over four of the Soviet-made warplanes in the coming days and the rest need to be checked and would be supplied later.

Duda did not say if other countries would be making the same move, although Slovakia has said it would send its disused MiGs to Ukraine.

While Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pleaded for Western supporters to share fighter jets, NATO allies have expressed hesitancy.

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Poland plans to grant Ukraine's request for fighter jets

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WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Poland's president says his country plans to give Ukraine a dozen MiG-29 fighter jets, becoming the first NATO member country to fulfill the Ukrainian government's increasingly urgent requests for warplanes. President Andrzej Duda said Thursday that Poland would hand over four of the Soviet-made warplanes in the coming days and the rest need to be checked and would be supplied later.

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U.S. tells TikTok’s Chinese owners to sell stakes or face possible ban

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The demand marks a shift in the U.S. government’s stance toward the Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd., which owns the popular video sharing app.

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U.S. tells TikTok’s Chinese owners to sell stakes or face possible ban

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The demand marks a shift in the U.S. government’s stance toward the Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd., which owns the popular video sharing app.

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(Image credit: Image courtesy of NASA and Drs. Joseph Wu, Dilip Thomas and Xu Cao, Stanford Cardiovascular Institute)

SpaceX's Dragon cargo ship is scheduled to launch Tuesday (March 14) evening, carrying nearly 6,300 pounds (2,860 kilograms) of cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). But among the spacewalk equipment, vehicle hardware and fresh fruit for the crew, there will be several small devices that contain something a little more unusual: beating human heart tissue.

The tissue will be used in two experiments - Cardinal Heart 2.0 and Engineered Heart Tissues-2 - which will test whether existing drugs can help prevent or reverse spaceflight's negative effects on the heart.

Research indicates that spaceflight can shrink the heart, because in microgravity, the heart muscles don't need to work as hard to pump blood through the upper parts of the body. In addition, the heart may change shape under the influence of microgravity, as blood shifts upward, out of the legs and abdomen and into the head and torso, causing the heart to swell, according to (opens in new tab).

Studies suggest that the heart also undergoes cellular changes associated with aging during spaceflight. Therefore, this research is not only critical to future space exploration but could also lead to improved treatments for age-related heart dysfunction and disease on Earth, (opens in new tab), a doctoral candidate at Johns Hopkins University who's involved in Engineered Heart Tissues-2, said during a NASA news conference Tuesday.

Related: Tiny 'hearts' self-assemble in lab dishes and even beat like the real thing

The experiments are part of the Tissue Chips in Space initiative, a joint project of the National Institutes of Health and the International Space Station National Laboratory aimed at understanding the effects of spaceflight and microgravity on the human body, according to (opens in new tab).

The Engineered Heart Tissues-2 (opens in new tab) experiment involves two devices that carry cardiomyocytes - the heart muscle cells that contract - in small, fluid-filled chambers. The muscle cells were grown from stem cells and coaxed into 3D shapes in the lab. They were then strung between two posts within each chamber, similar to how tennis nets are suspended between a pair of posts. One post contains a magnet that moves each time the muscle cells contract. A sensor tracks the magnet's movement, allowing the researchers to monitor muscle contractions in real time.

Mair and his colleagues previously sent heart tissue to space in March 2020, and in that experiment, they observed signs that cells' mitochondria were malfunctioning, he said at the NASA news conference. Mitochondria provide power to cells and thus fuel the pumping of the heart, and their dysfunction has been tied to a variety of heart problems, including irregular heartbeat and heart failure. In an experiment launched on this trip to the ISS, the team will continue to study mitochondrial dysfunction, as well as test several existing drugs to see if they prevent or reverse the problems, Mair said.

"These drugs specifically target mitochondrial dysfunction and upstream mechanisms that lead to this dysfunction," Mair told Live Science in an email.

Similarly, the Cardinal Heart 2.0 (opens in new tab) experiment will use tiny, 3D clumps of heart tissue, known as heart organoids, to test whether already-approved drugs can protect heart cells from the stress of microgravity. The organoids will be treated prior to Dragon's launch, with the goal of preventing the negative effects of microgravity from setting in, Dilip Thomas (opens in new tab), a postdoctoral researcher at the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute who's involved in Cardinal Heart 2.0, said at the news conference. These drugs include a statin and an anti-hypertensive drug used for heart failure, Thomas told Live Science in an email.

The organoids, grown from stem cells, are tiny models of full-size hearts that mimic key features of the organ's structure and function. They contain cardiomyocytes, as well as cells that provide physical scaffolding for heart muscles (cardiac fibroblasts), and ones that line blood vessels (endothelial cells).

The Dragon spacecraft is set to launch at 8:30 p.m. EDT Tuesday (0030 GMT Wednesday) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Here's how to watch it live (opens in new tab).

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Beating 'hearts on a chip' will travel to space on SpaceX's Dragon cargo ship tonight

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(Image credit: Image courtesy of NASA and Drs. Joseph Wu, Dilip Thomas and Xu Cao, Stanford Cardiovascular Institute) SpaceX's Dragon cargo ship is scheduled to launch Tuesday (March 14) evening, carrying nearly 6,300 pounds (2,860 kilograms) of cargo to the International Space Station (ISS).

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NASA, SpaceX Dragon to Deliver Heart Studies, More to Space Station

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NASA has another cargo shipment enroute to the International Space Station following a successful Falcon 9 launch of SpaceX's 27th resupply mission for the agency.

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Rise of TikTok

The wildly popular app's link to China has sparked fears over propaganda and privacy. It's also exposed America's failure to safeguard the web.

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In 2020, TikTok, the world's most popular app, seemed inches from annihilation.

President Donald Trump's top advisers had staged a raucous brawl in the Oval Office, shouting at each other over whether the app's U.S. presence should be carved up and sold or banned for life.

Trump responded by ordering the app banished from the country within 45 days, signing its death warrant aboard Air Force One. Then, with his flair for messy drama, he changed his mind, demanding the company instead get sold to a U.S. buyer - provided, he said, that the United States got rewarded for its efforts by pocketing a " very large " cut of the sale's proceeds.

The leaders of TikTok, owned by the Beijing-based tech giant ByteDance, had resigned themselves to selling to some stalwart of American capitalism, like Microsoft or Walmart, if it meant the app could survive, according to people familiar with the inner workings of the company who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive matters.

But the Chinese government had the final say. Feeling protective of their powerful asset and antagonized by Trump, officials moved quickly to squash the takeover, adding the algorithms that drive TikTok's growth to their list of banned exports and warning ByteDance through a state-owned news organ to "strongly and carefully" reconsider any deal.

The Chinese government "would rather have the company die than have it sold," one of the people said. "They are not going to let the United States have one of their crown jewels - their algorithms. They would rather destroy it."

The fight over TikTok has become one of the biggest standoffs of the modern internet: two global superpowers deadlocked over a multibillion-dollar powerhouse that could define culture and entertainment for a generation. Yet the battle has often played out like a farce, loaded with an almost comical level of contortions and contradictions - even as China's power over the company has grown.

No piece of software has ever stirred so much angst in Washington. Once dismissed as a trivial teen craze, TikTok has been pummeled as a child-spying, data-crazy, " sophisticated surveillance tool" - what Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) once called "a Trojan horse the Chinese Communist Party can use to influence what Americans, see, hear and ultimately think."

But if TikTok truly is the ultimate propaganda weapon, Washington has rarely treated it like one. Few of the expressions of federal dread - the dozens of congressional letters and agency bans and statements calling for someone to investigate something - have translated into actual action.

[ The Washington Post tried to get suppressed on TikTok. Here's what happened.]

Trump ultimately decided against a TikTok ban before the 2020 election after being shown internal polls suggesting the move would hurt his standing with young people and suburban moms, a former Trump aide told The Post. TikTok is now bigger than ever: Since Trump left the White House, the app has been downloaded in the United States more than 100 million times.

For the Biden administration, TikTok has become a giant test of how to regulate a formidable and wildly popular cultural phenomenon while navigating the contours of U.S.-China relations and grappling with the new reality of an internet that American firms no longer dominate.

Federal officials have spent months negotiating a national security agreement that could reshape how the company operates in the U.S. But all of it could get blown up in an instant if Republicans retake Congress next month - or if Chinese government officials in Beijing balk at a deal.

The U.S. has failed to pass major social media regulations governing domestically run platforms that are committed, at least nominally, to American attitudes about freedom of speech. Now, the industry's biggest hit in years comes from an authoritarian country with a radically different ideology on civil liberties and media control - and Washington is once again stalled on how to proceed.

The Biden administration, which vowed to evaluate TikTok's risks in a "decisive and effective fashion," launched a security review in June 2021 that has yet to publish its results. The Commerce Department's months-old pledge to develop a new strategy for apps that foreign adversaries might exploit also still has nothing to show.

And a three-year, nine-agency investigation by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a secretive government group with the power to veto international business deals, has taken so long - and involved so many lawyers - that even some TikTok employees have complained it feels like the government is in no hurry to get anything done.

The two sides have agreed on some initial terms - oversight from U.S. government specialists, new data-security rules - but the deal is still not close to a clear outcome, according to two officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity.

The Biden administration is considering a broader data-security executive order that could limit how Americans' data is shared with China, the officials said, but it will probably not publish until late this year or early next year.

TikTok spokeswoman Brooke Oberwetter said the company is "on a path to fully satisfy all reasonable U.S. national security concerns. ... Our operations in the U.S. have been scrutinized from every angle, and we have willingly engaged in that process."

A CFIUS spokesman declined to comment, saying only that the group is "taking all necessary actions ... to safeguard U.S. national security." The White House's National Security Council also declined to comment.

The concerns about TikTok have been amplified by lingering questions in Washington about how the app is run. TikTok's U.S. executives say they operate independently of ByteDance executives in Beijing, are not influenced by the Chinese government, have never been pressed for data by Chinese authorities and would refuse to provide it if they were asked.

TikTok officials insist decisions about data security, business strategy and content rules are handled by company executives in Dublin, Mountain View, Calif., and Singapore, where the app's chief executive, Shou Zi Chew, lives. TikTok's California-based chief operating officer, Vanessa Pappas, told a Senate committee last month that ByteDance is a "distributed company," without an official headquarters in China or anywhere else.

But current and former TikTok employees say managers in Beijing, where many of the company's executives and employees still work, have assumed an increasingly active role in the U.S. team's operations, leading them to question what leverage they would have to resist unwanted interference. Chew, the Singapore-based CEO, also reports to ByteDance's chief and board.

Although the U.S. offices have some independence, China remains the company's central hub for pretty much everything, according to the current and former employees, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of endangering their careers. Beijing managers sign off on major decisions involving U.S. operations, including from the teams responsible for protecting Americans' data and deciding which videos should be removed. They lead TikTok's design and engineering teams and oversee the software that U.S. employees use to chat with colleagues and manage their work. They're even the final decision-makers on human resources matters, such as whether an American employee can work remotely.

There's been "a full-blown recognition" inside the company that China's efforts to control its tech giants extend even to TikTok, a service that can't be seen inside China, said one person familiar with TikTok's internal operations. Government officials "want to put their finger on the scale" of the nation's tech industry, this person said.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said in a statement that TikTok follows "international rules and abides by U.S. laws and regulations."

The U.S., Liu said, has "frequently used state power to unreasonably suppress" foreign-owned companies "under the pretext of national security" in what he called "a blatant act of bullying."

"We urge the U.S. side to ... refrain from politicizing economic issues," he said, "and provide a fair, just and nondiscriminatory environment for the normal operation and investment of companies from all countries."

A 'different animal'

In Washington, TikTok has fueled an intense debate over how muchoperational leeway any Chinese company should get. Some in the Biden administration have backed a system of privacy commitments and regulatory checks, worried that an outright ban, based on vague national security concerns, would reek of nationalist protectionism - the same sin the U.S. has accused China of all along.

[ Biden administration weighing new rules to limit TikTok, foreign apps]

No one wants to repeat Trump's failure; his orders collapsed in court after federal judges ruled he had shown little "substantial" evidence of TikTok's threat. But some worry that nuanced technical measures won't be enough to resolve the fact that one of America's most dominant online megaphones is in the hands of its biggest ideological rival.

"It's one of the very few areas where Donald Trump may have been right," Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in an interview.

Lacking coherent guidance, the official U.S. relationship with TikTok has been in a state of constant disorder. American soldiers banned from installing the app on military devices still use it all the time on personal phones. The White House said it was scrutinizing the app for national security risks, then gave special briefings to its biggest stars - as was first reported by The Washington Post, whose namesake TikTok account has 1.5 million followers.

The House of Representatives' chief administrator warned House staff in August not to use the "high-risk" app. But the Democrats, who run the House, already employ a full-time TikTok content strategist to help run their 130,000-follower account. Stacey Abrams, Val Demings, Jon Ossoff and other rising Democratic stars are all regulars; so are both sides of the Pennsylvania Senate race, John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz. President Biden himself appeared in a TikTok influencer's video on the same day last month that Pappas, the company executive, was getting grilled on Capitol Hill.(A DNC spokesperson said its TikTok videos are made on dedicated devices, isolated from the committee's other business, to mitigate potential privacy risks.)

Even politicians who don't have a TikTok presence acknowledge that many of their friends and family are users. "It seems like every day someone's sending me a TikTok," said Rep. James Comer (Ky.), the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee. He doesn't have an account himself and said, "I don't think it's out of the question to suspect China may be up to no good."

The federal government, however, has yet to provide actual evidence of harm or conspiracy for an app many Americans know and love. And American companies have shown plenty of problems of their own. Facebook paid a record $5 billion settlement to the Federal Trade Commission for violations of user privacy, while researchers have shown that political misinformation on the platform helped fuel the violence of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Twitterrecently was accused by its former security chief of major security failures and of harboring foreign-government spies.

When lawmakers have reached agreement over TikTok's risks, they've focused on issues that technical experts view as irrelevant, like where Americans' data is stored. TikTok argued for years that the risk to Americans' data was low because the information was stored on servers in Virginia and Singapore. Then, as the negotiations with CFIUS continued, the company announced an initiative known as Project Texas that would move all U.S. user data to servers in Texas run by the tech giant Oracle.

But that concern and the solution has always struck independent technical experts as off point. It doesn't matter where a server is plugged in, they argue, if someone still has access half a world away. TikTok executives say Chinese employees still will be able to access the data, rendering the solution effectively moot.

"These measures were completely undermined as soon as they were announced," said Adam Segal, a cybersecurity expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, referring to Project Texas. More to the point perhaps, he said, "the data is not particularly high quality to begin with."

Some lawmakers have voiced support for Oracle becoming an independent auditor of TikTok's algorithms. But the company is not a public watchdog; it's TikTok's business partner - and was almost a part owner, had Trump's sell-off push not failed. Co-founded by Trump ally Larry Ellison, Oracle has no social media experience and has shared no details of how its audits would work.

As a protector of Americans' data, it's also an unusual choice: Oracle runs massive businesses, known as data brokers, that sell Americans' personal records by the billions - a practice that has triggered lawsuits over the company's "global surveillance machine." Oracle declined to comment.

The intense focus on TikTok, some technical experts argue, has overshadowed more problematic ways Americans' data gets gathered and exploited in a country - the United States - without any basic data-privacy laws. And banning TikTok would do nothing to prevent buyers in China or around the world from collecting more sensitive information on Americans from unregulated companies, including data brokers, whenever they please.

"TikTok is this totally different animal that no one in the U.S. government really understands, and so there's just been months of hand-wringing," said Paul Triolo, senior vice president for China at the business strategy firm Albright Stonebridge Group.

"Is the worry that teens will do such idiotic videos when they're 15 that they'll be blackmailed by the Chinese government later in life? Or that the AI algorithm will be abused to serve up a bunch of anti-Joe Biden videos?" Triolo said. "These things aren't impossible, but there's no evidence that any of this is happening. And there are real consequences to taking action on the basis of potential future risk that you can't quantify very well."

'Always vulnerabilities'

TikTok has for years coached employees to downplay its "China association." Pappas, a former YouTube executive who had worked with some of the video giant's biggest creators, told The Post in 2019 that TikTok's U.S. operation had "a large degree of autonomy" from Beijing and worked best "without executives 10,000 miles away involving themselves in their decisions."

To underscore that independence, TikTok has said it limits which employees in China can see data from Americans' profiles. But TikTok's own employees have questioned those limits. In recordings of internal meetings first reported by BuzzFeed in June, and which a former TikTok employee provided to The Post, company employees in the U.S. can be heard saying some engineers in Beijing had "access to everything."

TikTok executives disputed that interpretation, saying the recordings proved the company had been looking for problem spots in a giant organization and figuring out ways to firm them up. And many of the meetings did discuss new safeguards, with one employee in the recordings calling for all Chinese data-access privileges to be questioned with "additional ... scrutiny."

In any case, TikTok has now made it clear: The access by staff in China isn't going away. U.S. executives have said that teams in China will retain access to Americans' data for "engineering functions" and other "daily duties." In a letter to nine Republican senators in June, Chew, TikTok's CEO, said employees in China would continue working on the app's most critical elements, including the "For You" algorithm that shapes what each user sees.

The revelations kicked up a fury among congressional Republicans, who accused the company of placing the "safety and privacy of millions of U.S. citizens in jeopardy."

TikTok's defenders argue that much of the data-privacy outrage is overwrought. The app collects people's ages, locations, phone numbers, facial photos, voice recordings and search histories, its privacy policy shows - but that kind of data is gathered by most social networks, and America's biggest ones collect even more.

Facebook has spent nearly two decades compiling people's photos, work histories and relationship statuses for ad-targeting databases. Snapchat, criticized for its security promises, has operated under an FTC settlement order since 2014. And a Twitter whistleblower recently alleged in a federal complaint that Chinese entities could use that platform to punish users who had jumped the country's firewall.

Jeremy Fleming, the head of the British cyberintelligence agency, said this month that he was unconcerned by children's use of the app as long as they were attentive about what data they were sharing. "Make those videos, use TikTok, but just think before you do," he said.

Some privacy advocates question why members of Congress critical of TikTok haven't directed the same degree of outrage at data brokers, whose industry sells bulk details on Americans' health and finances, including to foreign buyers. No one has accused TikTok of breaking federal data-privacy laws, because the U.S. doesn't have any; a proposal for baseline privacy protections that would apply to all companies, not just Chinese ones, remains indefinitely stalled in Congress.

TikTok is more aggressive about collecting data than its competitors in some notable ways, however. The app will continuously ask for a user's full contact list, even after they say no, the U.S.-Australia research team Internet 2.0 found in July. Another researcher, Felix Krause, discovered code that could record everything a user types into the app's internal web browser, including passwords; the company said the code was never used to record keystrokes.

The gathering of such data, and its open flow to Chinese engineers, has alarmed some former employees. A former TikTok employee and a former security contractor told The Post they had spoken with the FBI separately about their concerns. The FBI declined to comment.

TikTok executives have argued that Americans' information is not subject to Chinese laws, which can force tech companies to hand over data and cooperate with "national intelligence" work. TikTok, they note, isn't even available in China, though ByteDance offers a similar service, Douyin, that looks and works just like it.

But Chinese authorities have some experience in back-channeling surveillance requests: Federal prosecutors in 2020 charged a Zoom executive in China with giving people's data to government officials and disrupting video calls about Tiananmen Square; he remains wanted by the FBI.

Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank, said TikTok would be limited in its ability to resist a government order. "When it comes to data access from the Chinese state," he said, "there are always vulnerabilities."

Since its close call with Trump-induced oblivion, TikTok and ByteDance have spent heavily to make new friends in Washington. They have paid more than $13 million for nearly 50 lobbyists to work the White House, the Pentagon and Capitol Hill, federal disclosures show, with a crew that includes two former U.S. senators and a state chief of both of Trump's presidential campaigns.

Much of their outreach has focused on the political party whose members seem to despise them: TikTok has donated to the Republican Attorneys General Association and was listed among the attendees of the political influence group's donor retreat this summer in Palm Beach, Fla., down the road from Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club.

Inside the company's U.S. offices, the connections to Beijing are hard to miss. Several employees said they had been surprised to find themselves called into weekly meetings with their Chinese counterparts to discuss intimate details of how the U.S. app runs. "As I get more senior at the company, I realize China has more control," said an employee who works in U.S. content moderation and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

TikTok last month banned all political-campaign fundraising and began requiring all candidates and political parties to go through a " mandatory verification" process, saying the move would help reduce "harmful misinformation." The change expanded TikTok's long-running ban on ads promoting any politician, partisan cause or " issue of public importance," which its executives have argued is designed to protect the app as a place for "joyful" content.

A person familiar with the company's corporate decision-making said TikTok's approach to political content has been driven by its leaders' eagerness to avoid political squabbles at all costs. The fear of Washington controversy, the person said, has also driven the company's attitudes around which videos should be permitted or suppressed. TikTok officials deny that fear of political blowback has driven policy.

TikTok's parent company faces similar strains in China. Authorities there in recent months have intensified a national crackdown on thousands of tech companies, including passing intricate new rules detailing how algorithms should run and what topics should be banned from discussion. Regulators have issued rules demanding that recommendation algorithms spread only "positive energy" and a creator "Code of Conduct" that bans content that promotes "immoderate" lifestyles or seeks to create "hot issues in public opinion."

TikTok officials acknowledge that the app uses built-in measures to demote videos the company doesn't want seen, marking videos so that they are visible to the creator and their followers but never shown on people's "For You" feeds - an algorithmic kiss of death.

In TikTok's early years, leaked guidelines showed that moderators were told to suppress videos about the Tiananmen Square massacre and other fraught topics, as well as videos showing people with disabilities or " ugly facial looks."

TikTok executives have said that those guidelines were a "blunt instrument" to minimize conflict and have since been replaced. But questionable suspensions remain routine.

When a teenager's account was suspended in 2019 after she discussed China's detention of Uyghur Muslims, TikTok blamed a "human moderation error." When phrases such as "I am a Black man" were flagged as inappropriate, TikTok blamed a "flaw" in its hate-speech detection software. When a famous Tiananmen Square clip was made invisible, the company blamed a misapplied ban on "military information." And when, in February, its automatic-subtitle feature blotted out phrases such as " reeducation camps," which China runs in its western province of Xinjiang, the company blamed an "outdated" system built to block profanity.

[ Inside TikTok: A culture clash where U.S. views about censorship often were overridden by the Chinese bosses]

TikTok's defenders say these were inadvertent mistakes, not attempts at mass censorship; Facebook and Instagram, they note, have been criticized for their handling of race and censorship, too. Citizen Lab, the University of Toronto research group, found only "inconclusive" evidence last year in a test of whether TikTok was censoring politically sensitive posts: Some posts vanished, while others stayed up, with no clear pattern of blame. And any TikTok viewer in the U.S. can now find hours of videos that discuss topics that would be banned on China's internet, including about its mass detention camps and Tiananmen Square.

But the company's internal debate over tolerable speech remains very much alive. A TikTok employee suggested censoring a Financial Times report in June about a ByteDance executive who had spoken dismissively of maternity leave, the newspaper found. TikTok said the idea was never considered.

TikTok said, in its most recent " transparency report," that government authorities had asked it to remove or restrict more than 400 videos or accounts last year - but that none of those requests had come from China, one of the most censorious countries in the world.

Chinese companies, however, must routinely agree to Chinese government involvement, and ByteDance is no exception. In 2018, ByteDance's founder responded to government punishment by pledging to help boost the Communist Party's core values. Last year, the Chinese government took over one of the three board seats in a ByteDance subsidiary critical to its biggest apps. And in August, Chinese regulators said ByteDance had submitted the core "behavioral data" algorithm used in Douyin for registration and review.

If the U.S. government wanted to come down hard on TikTok, the punishment could resemble that meted out to another Chinese tech star, Huawei. The company was one of the world's biggest sellers of telecommunications gear when U.S. officials blacklisted it as a national security threat; several sanctions, export restrictions and federal investigations later, the company's global market share and revenue have dwindled, and its U.S. presence has effectively collapsed. (The company has said the claims are baseless.)

Some former U.S. employees of TikTok, however, said that much of the Washington fearmongering around the app appears overly dramatic. "Never once did I think, 'Oh, no, the Chinese are going to come and set all our policies,' " one former TikTok manager said.

Still, some argue that the company's internal secrecy and murky chain of command limit the U.S. team's ability to know who in Beijing is really in control. One former employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said: "There was always this hierarchical culture from China. They had made these decisions, and we should just follow." (TikTok officials said the company discourages corporate hierarchies.)

TikTok has previously promised to dispel all doubts about its independence, pledging in early 2020 to open physical "Transparency Centers" where experts could observe the company's real-time moderation decisions and examine its algorithms' code. But the company indefinitely shelved the plan soon after, citing the pandemic, and has instead offered guided virtual tours to journalists and political staff.

In August, Axios reported that Oracle officials had begun auditing TikTok's algorithm and were using "regular vetting and validation" to ensure "the models have not been manipulated in any way."But two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it, said the audits have not been started or closely planned.

TikTok officials said they chose Oracle based on its technical prowess and experience with government contracts. But both companies declined to answer questions seeking further details for how any of this oversight would work, including how much Oracle would be paid, what its auditors will do or how they'll respond if they see anything wrong.

Oracle, which is publicly traded, has filed nothing with the Securities and Exchange Commission detailing the arrangement. For now, the people said, Oracle is functioning solely as TikTok's server provider, a web-hosting role with no authority to police operations. Oracle has not been involved in TikTok's negotiations with CFIUS, these people said, and no official national security agreement has outlined what a third-party TikTok auditor would even look for.

Graham Webster, a researcher with the Stanford Cyber Policy Center who studies China, said he wasn't surprised that TikTok's mystery and power had fueled people's suspicions. But so much of the angst around TikTok, he said, has focused on anxieties about the internet that also remain unresolved for American companies: about data harvesting and political manipulation, about the fickle whims of screen-glued teens, about the unaccountable algorithms shaping our lives.

"Rather than confront head-on what's happening in our own society ... we have a multiyear convulsion about one company that happens to come from China," Webster said. "China has become an avatar for fears that Americans reasonably have about ourselves."

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As Washington wavers on TikTok, Beijing exerts control

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Rise of TikTok Warning: This graphic requires JavaScript. Please enable JavaScript for the best experience. In 2020, TikTok, the world's most popular app, seemed inches from annihilation. President Donald Trump's top advisers had staged a raucous brawl in the Oval Office, shouting at each other over whether the app's U.S.

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Gift this Article Send this article to anyone, no subscription is necessary to view it

Opinion editor's note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

***

Perhaps no nation has rallied behind Ukraine as much as Estonia, where Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has been resolute on the need to defeat Russian forces - and the power of imperialism unleashed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

This leadership has come at a cost. Estonia is suffering from war-induced inflation, and the small Baltic country is the most significant contributor to Ukraine based on GDP, donating about 44% of its military budget.

The support was expected to cost Kallas in last week's national election as populist politicians ran on reining in or even ending Ukrainian aid. But Estonian voters held their ground and gave Kallas' center-right Reform Party more of the vote than in the last election, meaning the prime minister will return to lead a governing coalition.

Estonia has been "at the forefront to support Ukraine in any dimension," Marie Jourdain, a visiting fellow at the Atlantic Council's Europe Center, told an editorial writer. Jourdain, a former French Ministry of Defense staffer, added that Eastern European nations have "an appreciation about how existential this is." She also noted that Kallas' stance was a signal not just to Estonians but also to Europeans and Americans.

But recent polls suggest American and even European alacrity is lessening, jeopardizing Ukraine, which depends on allied arms and aid to prevail. The slippage of support in the U.S. is increasingly partisan, reflecting the political splits manifest on so many other issues.

In a December poll from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, for instance, there is a 21-percentage-point gap between Democrats and Republicans on "sending additional arms and military supplies to the Ukrainian government" (favored by 76% of Democrats but only 55% of Republicans). An even wider divide appears on "providing economic assistance to Ukraine," with 81% of Democrats in favor compared with only half of Republicans.

January data from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research reports that while overall support is softer than last May, similar partisan differences are intensifying over time: 63% of Democrats are in favor of "providing weapons to Ukraine" (down from 71% in May) compared to only 39% of Republicans in favor (down from 53% in May). Regarding "sending government funds directly to Ukraine," Democrats are again more resolute than Republicans, with 59% in favor (down slightly from 63% in May) compared with only 21% of Republicans (down from 28% in May).

These and other data show that when the initial AP-NORC poll was taken, "partisan positions on the issue were not as clearly staked out," Jennifer Benz, the AP-NORC Center deputy director for public affairs research, told an editorial writer. She added that one key factor was Rep. Kevin McCarthy making "controlling spending on Ukraine a key point in his campaign for House speaker."

The partisan gaps are "more being driven by our domestic discourse" than an assessment of the war itself, Emily Sullivan, a research assistant on public opinion and foreign policy for the Chicago Council, told an editorial writer. She pointed to an assessment on the state of the war that found 27% of Republicans believe "Russia has the advantage," compared with 23% of Democrats. In comparison, 23% of Republicans believe "Ukraine has the advantage," while 32% of Democrats do (overall, 48% of Republicans and 44% of Democrats believe "neither side has the advantage").

GOP support, Sullivan added, "got tied up in conversations" about inflation (data also apparent in the AP-NORC poll). And rising costs across the pond are also pounding down support for Ukraine in some European countries, according to an Economist/YouGov poll.

The Chicago Council poll shows that growing partisan separation means more Republicans favor urging Ukraine "to settle for peace as soon as possible so that the costs aren't so great for American households" (63% of Republicans favor this view compared with 36% of Democrats). Conversely, 61% of Democrats but only 33% of Republicans support "for as long as it takes, even if American households have to pay higher" consumer prices.

But rewarding Russian revanchism would only invite more of it and could send an incentivizing signal to China, which would ultimately be far more economically, militarily and geopolitically costly.

Kallas advocates "that Russia needs to go through a strategic defeat and renounce imperialistic ends because [Putin] would not stop in Ukraine," Jourdain said. "The legitimacy she gained and the fact that the whole [Estonian] population, which is suffering a lot from the consequences of the war ... still decided to go on for Ukraine because it's more important" gives a "big message" to the West about what it takes "to actually live up to your values and to the survival of your own identity and your country and the future of the European Union and NATO."

This "big message" shouldn't be heard and heeded unequally based on party identification but supported because of longstanding values previously embraced by Americans of all political persuasions.

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EDITORIAL | Ukraine support should be bipartisan

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Gift this Article Send this article to anyone, no subscription is necessary to view it Opinion editor's note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

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Western sanctions have hit Russian banks, wealthy individuals and technology imports. But after a year of far-reaching restrictions aimed at degrading Moscow's war chest, economic life for ordinary Russians doesn't look all that different than it did before the invasion of Ukraine.

There's no mass unemployment, no plunging currency, no lines in front of failing banks. The assortment at the supermarket is little changed, with international brands still available or local substitutes taking their place.

Crowds might have thinned at some Moscow malls, but not drastically. Some foreign companies like McDonald's and Starbucks have been taken over by local owners who slapped different names on essentially the same menu.

"Economically, nothing has changed," said Vladimir Zharov, 53, who works in television. "I work as I used to work, I go shopping as I used to. Well, maybe the prices have risen a little bit, but not in such a way that it is very noticeable."

Russia's economy has weathered the West's unprecedented economic sanctions far better than expected. But with restrictions finally tightening on the Kremlin's chief moneymaker - oil - the months ahead will be an even tougher test of President Vladimir Putin's fortress economy.

Economists say sanctions on Russian fossil fuels only now taking full effect - such as a price cap on oil - should eat into earnings that fund the military's attacks on Ukraine. Some analysts predict signs of trouble - strained government finances or a sinking currency - could emerge in the coming months.

But other economists say the Kremlin has significant reserves of money that haven't been hit by sanctions, while links to new trade partners in Asia have quickly taken shape. They say Russia isn't likely to run out of money this year but instead will face a slow slide into years of economic stagnation.

"It will have enough money under any kind of reasonable scenario," Chris Weafer, CEO and Russian economy analyst at the consulting firm Macro-Advisory, said in a recent online discussion held by bne IntelliNews.

Russia will keep bringing in oil income, even at lower prices, so "there is no pressure on the Kremlin today to end this conflict because of economic pressures," he said.

<iframe title="Top importers of Russian oil" aria-label="Interactive line chart" id="ap-chart-uH4jN" src=https://interactives.ap.org/embeds/uH4jN/2/ scrolling="no" width="100%" style="border:none" height="400"></iframe><script type="text/javascript">!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(e){if(void 0!==e.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var a in e.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r<t.length;r++){if(t[r].contentWindow===e.source)t[r].style.height=e.data["datawrapper-height"][a]+"px"}}}))}();</script> <iframe title="The flow of Russian oil, gas, coal" aria-label="Interactive area chart" id="ap-chart-g7ZZK" src=https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/g7ZZK/4/ scrolling="no" width="100%" style="border:none" height="400″></iframe><script type="text/javascript">!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(e){if(void 0!==e.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var a in e.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r<t.length;r++){if(t[r].contentWindow===e.source)t[r].style.height=e.data["datawrapper-height"][a]+"px"}}}))}();</script>

As the economy teeters between sanctions and resilience, what everyday Russians can buy has stayed remarkably the same.

Apple has stopped selling products in Russia, but Wildberries, the country's biggest online retailer, offers the iPhone 14 for about the same price as in Europe. Online retailer Svaznoy lists Apple AirPods Pro.

Furniture and home goods remaining after IKEA exited Russia are being sold off on the Yandex website. Nespresso coffee capsules have run short after Swiss-based Nestle stopped shipping them, but knockoffs are available.

Labels on cans of Budweiser and Leffe beer on sale in Moscow indicate they were brewed by ABInBev's local partner - even though the company wrote off a stake in its Russian joint venture and put it up for sale. Coke bottled in Poland is still available; local "colas," too.

ABInBev says it's no longer getting money from the venture and that Leffe production has been halted. Wildberries and Svyaznoy didn't answer emails asking about their sourcing.

But it's clear goods are skirting sanctions through imports from third countries that aren't penalizing Russia. For example, Armenia's exports to Russia jumped 49% in the first half of 2022. Chinese smartphones and vehicles are increasingly available.

The auto industry is facing bigger hurdles to adapt. Western automakers, including Renault, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz, have halted production, with sales plunging 63% and local entities taking over some factories and bidding for others.

Foreign cars are still available but far fewer of them and for higher prices, said Andrei Olkhovsky, CEO of Avtodom, which has 36 dealerships in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Krasnodar.

"Shipments of the Porsche brand, as for those of other manufacturers, aren't possible through official channels," he said. "Whatever is on the market is scattered offerings of cars that were imported by individual persons or through friendly countries by official channels."

Unlike European automakers, some corporations are far from bailing.

While 191 foreign companies have left Russia and 1,169 are working to do so, some 1,223 are staying and 496 are taking a wait-and-see approach, according to a database compiled by the Kyiv School of Economics.

Companies are facing public pressure from Kyiv and Washington, but some have found it's not so easy to line up a Russian buyer or say they're selling essentials like food.

Moscow residents, meanwhile, have downplayed the impact of sanctions.

"Maybe it hasn't affected me yet," 63-year-old retiree Alexander Yeryomenko said. "I think that we will endure everything."

Dmitry, a 33-year-old who declined to give his last name, said only clothing brands had changed.

"We have had even worse periods of time in history, and we coped," he said, but added that "we need to develop our own production and not to depend on the import of products."

One big reason for Russia's resilience: record fossil fuel earnings of $325 billion last year as prices spiked. The surging costs stemmed from fears that the war would mean a severe loss of energy from the world's third-largest oil producer.

That revenue, coupled with a collapse in what Russia could import because of sanctions, pushed the country into a record trade surplus - meaning what Russia earned from sales to other countries far outweighed its purchases abroad.

The boon helped bolster the ruble after a temporary post-invasion crash and provided cash for government spending on pensions, salaries and - above all - the military.

The Kremlin already had taken steps to sanctions-proof the economy after facing some penalties for annexing Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in 2014. Companies began sourcing parts and food at home and the government built up huge piles of cash from selling oil and natural gas. About half of that money has been frozen, however, because it was held overseas.

Those measures helped blunt predictions of a 11% to 15% collapse in economic output. The economy shrank 2.1% last year, Russia's statistics agency said. The International Monetary Fund predicts 0.3% growth this year - not great, but hardly disastrous.

The big change could come from new energy penalties. The Group of Seven major democracies had avoided wide-ranging sanctions against Russian oil for fear of sending energy prices higher and fueling inflation.

The solution was a $60-per-barrel price cap on Russian oil heading to countries like China, India and Turkey, which took effect in December. Then came a similiar cap and European embargo on Moscow's diesel fuel and other refined oil products last month.

Estimates differ on how hard those measures will hit. Experts at the Kyiv School of Economics say Russia's economy will face a "turning point" this year as oil and gas revenue falls by 50% and the trade surplus plunges to $80 billion from $257 billion last year.

They say it's already happening: Oil tax revenue fell 48% in January from a year earlier, according to the International Energy Agency.

Other economists are skeptical of a breaking point this year.

Moscow could likely weather even a short-term plunge in oil earnings, said Janis Kluge, a Russian economy expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

Even cutting Russian oil revenue by a third "would be a severe hit to GDP, but it would not bankrupt the state and it would not lead to a crash," he said. "I think from now on, we are talking about gradual changes to the economy."

He said the real impact will be long term. The loss of Western technology such as advanced computer chips means an economy permanently stuck in low gear.

Russia may have successfully restarted factories after the Western exodus, "but the business case for producing something sophisticated in Russia is gone, and it's not coming back," Kluge said.

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Russia's economy holds up, but growing challenges test Putin

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Western sanctions have hit Russian banks, wealthy individuals and technology imports. But after a year of far-reaching restrictions aimed at degrading Moscow's war chest, economic life for ordinary Russians doesn't look all that different than it did before the invasion of Ukraine.

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These all look good! Just make sure your articles are all fairly recent. 

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These all look good! Just make sure your articles are all fairly recent. 

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These look good... I just need to check them against your reasons (1-3) to make sure they align 

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These look good... I just need to check them against your reasons (1-3) to make sure they align 

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These are all good... make sure you use them to prove a different point in each body paragraph (reason 1 should be different from reason 2 and 3, and so on)

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These are all good... make sure you use them to prove a different point in each body paragraph (reason 1 should be different from reason 2 and 3, and so on)

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You need a few more... this is a little light

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You need a few more... this is a little light

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Your reason 3 should actually be your counterclaim... Let's brainstorm better ideas for reason 3

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Your reason 3 should actually be your counterclaim... Let's brainstorm better ideas for reason 3

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Looks good! I put a logic sequence idea for you to build your argument.... see worksheet.

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Looks good! I put a logic sequence idea for you to build your argument.... see worksheet.

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You just need to find 2-3 articles to support reason 3 

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You just need to find 2-3 articles to support reason 3 

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Trains canceled, schools closed in the United Kingdom after blizzard, heavy winds hit the country

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Blasts of snow and heavy winds hit the United Kingdom on Friday, causing some schools to close and trains to be cancelled. Northern England and north Wales were hit the hardest

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Kotzebue declared a disaster Mondayafter a blizzard hit Northwest Alaska over the weekend, causing power outages and water service interruptions.

Northwest Arctic Borough Mayor Dickie Moto allocated $50,000 to the city of Kotzebue from borough disaster funds, borough incident commander Carl Weisner said in an email.

The weather system moved into the region Saturday and lingered until Monday, National Weather Service meteorologist Andrew Stokes said. Peak winds in the Kotzebue area reached about 55 mph, and the strongest gusts north of Point Hope reached 105 mph. The snow accumulation added up to about 7 inches, he said.

In addition to blizzard conditions, Kotzebue residents are contending with power outages, water service interruptions and travel complications. A power outage led to a loss in water pressure at the Kotzebue water plant, and the city on Sunday issued a boil-water notice - a precaution against possible contamination of the water system while pressure was down, said plant supervisor Matthew Lazarus.

Accessing businesses and neighborhoods has grown challenging for emergency services, and 76 fire hydrants were buried under snow, Kotzebue City Manager Tessa Baldwin said.

"We have so much snow building up within our city limits that it's become a flooding hazard," Baldwin said Monday.

In the letter to Mayor Moto, Baldwin said that if the "snow is not removed from the city in a timely manner, there will be extensive flooding during breakup resulting in serious property damage and a public health crisis as the city's sewer system is overwhelmed with melting snow runoff - the city has no storm drainage system."

To remove snow - with berms on the busiest Kotzebue streets up 5 to 6 feet high, and 15 to 20 feet on outlying streets - the city was looking at contracting solutions to ease the workload for their four-person operation, Baldwin said.

The disaster declaration should allow the city to secure funds to hire private contractors "before breakup begins in several weeks," Baldwin said in the letter.

And then there is a question of where to haul the snow.

"Not only do we have a small team - a small team that works extremely hard - we are inundated with snow right now," Baldwin said. "There's nowhere to put it."

The city was "unburying" some of the busy streets as of Monday, Baldwin said. With high-traffic streets reduced to one lane, city officials asked residents to avoid travel.

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Kotzebue declares disaster after Northwest Alaska blizzard leads to power losses and boil-water notice

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Kotzebue declared a disaster Mondayafter a blizzard hit Northwest Alaska over the weekend, causing power outages and water service interruptions. Northwest Arctic Borough Mayor Dickie Moto allocated $50,000 to the city of Kotzebue from borough disaster funds, borough incident commander Carl Weisner said in an email.

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La Nina is officially gone. What does that mean for hurricane season?

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La Nina’s three-year run officially ended.

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TANGIPAHOA PARISH, La. - Louisiana is assessing the damages after a tornado ripped through Tangipahoa Parish overnight.

Tornado Watches were in place for more than 5 million Americans as the threat of severe storms rolled into the lower Mississippi Valley on Wednesday. Communities from to Missouri reported seeing the damage that included large hail, damaging winds and at least one tornado.

The hardest hit appeared to be Tangipahoa Parish, located about 60 miles east of Baton Rouge, where Louisiana authorities spent the evening surveying damage after the observed tornado rolled through just after sunset.
CHILDREN FOUND IN OVERTURNED TRAILER AFTER TORNADO RIPS THROUGH LOUISIANA
'This one took us out'

Lynelle Posey was in her living room using candles and flashlights after her lights went out during the storm. She then got an alert on her phone to seek shelter immediately.

"The next thing I know, the top of the trailer came off," she recalled as she became trapped underneath her roof.

Posey said she was stuck for about 30 minutes until a sheriff's deputy arrived to help rescue her from the rubble.

"I wasn't panicking," she said. "I was scared for a bit, but I never thought about death."
HOW ARE TORNADOES RATED? THE ENHANCED FUJITA SCALED EXPLAINED

This is supposed to be a quiet time for residents in the area before hurricane season, but this year has been everything but that.

Posey's mother, Robin Robinson, spent her Thursday salvaging what she could from her home - especially her insulin. Her family has survived every major storm in her parish.

"Rita, Ida, Katrina, we went through them all," she said. "And this one here just came and took us out. This one took us out. We went through all that."

The Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's office confirms at least three non-life-threatening injuries and no reported deaths from the storm.

A National Weather Service team assigned a preliminary rating on an EF-2 to the twister. Winds were estimated to be greater than 111 mph.

There were six other tornadoes that were reported from around Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to near Jackson, Mississippi.

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'This one took us out': Louisiana tornado destroys home of family who has survived multiple hurricanes

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TANGIPAHOA PARISH, La. - Louisiana is assessing the damages after a tornado ripped through Tangipahoa Parish overnight. Tornado Watches were in place for more than 5 million Americans as the threat of severe storms rolled into the lower Mississippi Valley on Wednesday.

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This includes the counties in our listening area of McLean, Burleigh, Kidder, McIntosh, and Logan. This includes the cities of Underwood, Wilton, Washburn, Turtle Lake, Steele, Wishek, Tappen, Steele, and Bismarck.

Other areas in North Dakota included in the Blizzard Warning include northwest North Dakota, much of central North Dakota, and the James River Valley area.

Much of our remaining listening area such as Morton, Oliver, Grant, Sioux, and Emmons counties are in a Winter Weather Advisory starting at 6 pm tonight and going until 12 noon Saturday. 2 to 4 inches of snow are expected but blizzard-force winds up to 55 miles per hour.
This warning is in effect from Saturday, March 11th from midnight going until noon on Saturday.
So, this will be a fast-moving storm. Heavy wet snow is expected. 3 to 8 inches of snow, with winds gusting to 55 miles per hour, and thundersnow is possible.

Heavier snow is expected in counties north of our listening area where as much as 12 inches of snow could fall.
Travel will be very difficult to impossible.
Widespread blowing snow will significantly reduce visibility. This will create very dangerous driving conditions with already very slippery area roads.

The National Weather Service advises to only travel in the case of an emergency. Be sure to have a winter survival kit inside your vehicle. Notify a friend or family member of your travel plans. If you become stranded you should always stay in your vehicle and not attempt to walk for help.

LOOK: The most expensive weather and climate disasters in recent decades

The Biggest Home In All Of North Dakota

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Blizzard Warning Has Been Issued For Much Of North Dakota

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This includes the counties in our listening area of McLean, Burleigh, Kidder, McIntosh, and Logan. This includes the cities of Underwood, Wilton, Washburn, Turtle Lake, Steele, Wishek, Tappen, Steele, and Bismarck. Other areas in North Dakota included in the Blizzard Warning include northwest North Dakota, much of central North Dakota, and the James River Valley area.

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The first storm system of meteorological spring produced tornadoes, hail and hurricane-force winds Thursday across at least three Southern states, and residents captured the scenes on video.

Storms started firing during the early afternoon in central Texas as the Fox Forecast Center tracked a warm front that lifted northward, which helped the atmosphere become more volatile.

Severe storms during the early afternoon were large hail producers, and residents in Sherman, Texas, took video of at least golf ball-size hail slamming into vehicles and covering the ground in some neighborhoods.

As the storms developed farther east, conditions were more prime for tornadoes to develop. The first video of a twister emerged from the area around Pickton, Texas, where law enforcement said five homes were damaged.

Fox Weather's Will Nunley was at the scene and spotted storm victims trying to assess the damage.

"I could hear the roaring of the storm - whatever it was - and all of a sudden, the garage, which the car was parked in, just come up off the ground and went flying in the air. And I mean everything settled down, and we looked out here. The roof was off the house, the garage was gone, the storage shed back there, the kids had a trampoline and everything had blown away," said Shirley Cartom, a storm victim.

Despite the significant damage, there were no initial reports of fatalities in the region.

AP

Tornado warnings were also issued for areas around the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, but it was the damaging winds that caused most of the problems.

Wind gusts topped hurricane force (at least 74 mph) in many communities in north Texas, which resulted in at least 350,000 power outages, according to PowerOutage.US.

Due to the inclement weather, aviation traffic was temporarily halted into and out of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

Power flashes were witnessed throughout the metro, and emergency management reported responding to a partial roof collapse at an Amazon facility southeast of Dallas in Balch Springs.

According to initial reports, there were no injuries at the facility.

Also in north Texas, a driver came face to face with a tornado and captured the entire incident on video.

The driver wrote on Instagram:
"Minutes ago, I met a Texas tornado face to face. I was trying to get home because I knew that bad weather was coming our way in North Texas, but my radar kept telling me it was a severe thunderstorm warning. I knew that clearly wasn't the case when I heard sirens all around me and saw several wall and funnel clouds forming ... then, out of nowhere, JUST LIKE THAT, a MASSIVE TORNADO was on the ground, 100 yards away from me. At that point, I didn't care, I went into survival mode. Many cars were frozen in panic and would not move, so I just HIT THE PEDAL! As I was driving east, to my left, and north of me, were several more tornadoes, not as large as the first one to touch the ground. I was just holding the camera, not really knowing what I was filming because debris was flying everywhere. It was one of the scariest experiences of my life. Please forgive some of the language. I am so grateful to GOD."
Areas eastward also saw their fair share of severe weather, with at least two confirmed tornadoes in Louisiana. The National Weather Service confirmed tornadoes impacted Shreveport and Alexandria.

Several businesses were damaged by the twister and debris littered roadways in Bossier City.

There were no reports of initial injuries, but around 5,000 power outages were reported in the northwestern portion of Louisiana.

The storm severely impacted businesses that included a laundromat and an insurance office.

The threat of severe storms is expected to advance northeastward on Friday and impact parts of the Southeast and the Tennessee and Ohio valleys with damaging winds and possible tornadoes.

Damage was reported in Grant and Pike counties in Arkansas early Friday as a line of severe storms moved eastward across the state. In the town of Kirby, Arkansas, an emergency manager reported that 20 to 30 homes were damaged or destroyed. Some minor injuries were reported in the area.

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Severe weather outbreak produces hurricane-force winds, tornadoes

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The first storm system of meteorological spring produced tornadoes, hail and hurricane-force winds Thursday across at least three Southern states, and residents captured the scenes on video. Storms started firing during the early afternoon in central Texas as the Fox Forecast Center tracked a warm front that lifted northward, which helped the atmosphere become more volatile.

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As global warming threatens the long-term survival of many forests in the Western United States, a new study suggests that reducing the intensity and size of wildfires would help conifers regenerate after the destructive blazes that have become more frequent in recent decades.

The team of more than 50 scientists analyzed data from more than 10,000 field plots after 334 wildfires to assess how forests regrow after fires. They also compared the effects of the fires to what's expected from a warming climate.

The findings, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, show that, for the next few decades, fire intensity is the bigger factor influencing how forests regenerate after a blaze. And they suggest that there is a short-term window of opportunity to help coniferous forests regenerate with pro-active management of wildfires and forests.

The key would be to reduce the overall intensity of wildfires and to minimize the size of the most intense fire patches, said co-author Phil Higuera, an ecosystem and conservation science researcher at the University of Montana. The way to do that is by using intentionally set fires, as well as selective logging, to clear smaller trees out of forests.

Higuera said the biggest advance of the study was the broad-scale assessment of the relative influence of changes in climate and the effects of wildfires, and how they will impact post-fire tree regeneration, in combination with assumptions of how fires will burn in the future. The study covered most of the forested area in Western states, and Higuera said he was somewhat surprised that the modeled effects of fire severity hampered regeneration more than droughts and other effects of climate change, at least for the next 30 years.

"But the longer you wait, the bigger the warming effect gets," he said. "Importantly, the projections only go through 2050, and that seems a lot closer than it used to."

The key take-home message is that, "If we can modify the way that fire burns now, particularly over these next several decades, that will greatly increase our chances of getting seedlings established," he said. "Then they're more robust to changes in climate and year to year variability."

"If we can get seedlings established, that gives us one more forest generation into the future," he said. "And for this to be a hopeful message, that has to happen in parallel with us addressing climate change."

The current international climate target is to get to net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. If the atmospheric concentration of the greenhouse gas levels off, so should the global temperature increase, which could give some forests a chance to adapt to the warmer but stabilizing temperatures in the second half of the century.

Forests in Serious Trouble

The new research underscores the "sobering reality" that many forests across the Western United States are in serious trouble due to climate change and, in some cases, "high-severity wildfire," said forest and fire ecologist Evan Frost, who was not involved in the study.

The new paper also shows the trend of increasing forest loss across many parts of the West intensifying in the coming decades, said Frost, who heads Wildwood Consulting LLC, a private forest research group.

He said one of the stand-out projections is that conifer forests across 58 to 60 percent of the expansive study area are "unlikely to regenerate following wildfire irrespective of severity with predicted near-term climate change."

There are big regional differences in forests' ability to regenerate following high-severity wildfires.

"Overall, drier and low-elevation forest types such as those found in California and U.S. Southwest are showing more significant regeneration declines, compared to moister, higher elevation forests in the Northern Rockies," Frost said.

Another recent study shows that low-elevation forests in California, including vast stands of Ponderosa and Jeffrey pine, are among the least likely to recover after fires. Those findings mesh with the new research, which showed the greatest forest declines at lower elevations and in the Southwest.

Coniferous forests rely on seed dispersal to regenerate, and there are only a few ways that can happen. For lighter, winged seeds, the wind plays an important role, and for the heavier seeds of five-needle pine species, like limber and whitebark pines, dispersal by birds and small mammals is critical. Wildfire can affect both, said Higuera.

Larger patches of severely burned forest increase the distance between burned areas that need seeds and the trees that can provide them, so reducing the size of high-intensity burns that kill all the trees can make it more likely those areas will regenerate.

"You can have one surviving large tree in the middle of a big burn, and that'll be enough to reseed the area," he said.

Wildfires so severe that they leave no surviving trees with seeds can also wipe out the habitat for some animals that might have helped the landscape recover by bringing in seeds from other areas. Keeping the most severely burned patches of wildfires smaller can also help animals spread seeds to regenerate them.

"We have only a few decades to act, said Alistair Jump, dean of the faculty of natural sciences at the University of Stirling in the United Kingdom. "The paper shows that we can act to reduce current and future risk, but we are limited by our capacity to manage the very substantial areas of forest under threat."

But even a massive program of forest thinning and prescribed fires won't eliminate the risk of catastrophic forest loss, he said, "So we also need to ensure that we prepare for very serious negative outcomes for our forests and forest-associated communities over the years ahead whilst working equally hard to avoid them."

Regional Nuances Are Important

The changes described for the study periods-from 1981 to 2020 for the observations, and from 2031 to 2050 for the projections-were not uniform across the West, with the worst impacts in lower and warmer areas.

"Selfishly, I feel like it gives the Northern Rockies an opportunity to learn and see how things are playing out in other ecosystems," Higuera said. "But it's not that we can sit back and say hey, we're buffered forever."

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It's also not a problem unique to the Western United States, said University of New Mexico forest ecologist Matthew Hurteau, another co-author of the paper.

"We see regeneration failure of different tree species around the planet, from alpine forests in Tasmania to the loss of resprouting tree species in Mediterranean Europe because of high fire frequency," he said. "Climate change is making forest ecosystems more flammable and it is making the post-fire environment more stressful for tree seedlings."

Like in the Western United States, temperate forests in Europe are beset by multiple threats that decrease forest resilience, and in the Mediterranean region, increasing fire frequency is extirpating some forests, he said.

Frost said it's also important to recognize that for forest regeneration and persistence, short, acute events may be more influential than the more gradual, steady increase in the global average temperature, like hot droughts and extreme heat waves that exceed tree species' tolerance.

"This is consistent with what we've been seeing as causative drivers for large-scale tree mortality events occurring, and increasing, in recent years across the Western U.S.," he said.

Forest Management Can Help, but Slowing Climate Change is Key

Many foresters and fire scientists say the short time window to slow forests' decline demands a steep increase in treatments-cutting excess vegetation and setting fires to thin overgrown woodlands-to reduce the severity of wildfires and the size of high-intensity burns.

"We actually know that a combination of thinning and prescribed fire, and in some cases, prescribed fire alone, are pretty effective at changing forest structure (in a way that) subsequently changes the fire behavior after those treatments," said co-author Marcos Robles, a forest researcher with The Nature Conservancy.

Both options clear spaces between larger, fire-resilient trees so that when wildfires ignite, they burn close to the ground and don't wipe out all the seed-bearing tree-tops.

"The issue has been the scale of the problem," he said. "Forest management has not yet been able to reach the pace needed to address that scale of wildfires."

But he sees opportunity with the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which included something like $3 billion to try and respond to the country's wildfire crisis by treating 50 million acres of forest in the next 10 years, a dramatic increase in the pace and scale of thinning and prescribed burning treatments.

"So far, fire severity just keeps going up and up and up," he said. "I've seen these patches where you have 100 percent tree mortality, and 10 or 20 or 30 years later, after the fire, you don't have seedlings."

The new paper highlights the need for urgency to slow the increase in the number of forest areas that are unable to regenerate, he said.

Frost said it's an open scientific question, with high levels of uncertainty, whether fuels-focused approaches-burns and thinning operations to reduce the amount of vegetation available to fuel severe wildfires-are capable of successfully mitigating future fire behavior at the large scales required in the face of climate change.

"Many forest scientists and practitioners, including myself, are doubtful that fuels reduction alone will tip the scales toward less intense fire behavior," he said.

"Unless we get a handle on climate change soon, any management interventions we make are unlikely to do much to help dry forests survive and regenerate."

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Increasingly Large and Intense Wildfires Hinder Western Forests' Ability to Regenerate - Inside Climate News

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As global warming threatens the long-term survival of many forests in the Western United States, a new study suggests that reducing the intensity and size of wildfires would help conifers regenerate after the destructive blazes that have become more frequent in recent decades. The team of more than 50 scientists analyzed data from more than [...]

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A brush fire Wednesday afternoon consumed around 67 acres of land in the area of Knight Farm Road between Halifax and Scotland Neck.

Halifax County Ranger Jim Short of the North Carolina Forest Service said the cause of the fire was attributed to "an escaped prescribed burn."

Short said the forest service along with the Tillery and Scotland Neck volunteer fire departments were dispatched shortly after 2:30 p.m. and arriving units observed between 25 to 30 acres burning - the fire moving quickly due to high winds and low humidity.

The forest services deployed two bulldozers and requested aircraft while the fire departments worked on holding and extinguishing one flank of the fire.

The forest service dispatched a scout plane for recon work and two single-engine air tankers with a lead plane to slow the fire growth and allow firefighters on the ground to overtake the blaze.

Short said the fire was stopped at 67 acres with some of the property owner's property burned as well as some timberland owned by Roseburg.

The scene was cleared shortly after 7 p.m.

Short said Tillery dispatched two engines and personnel; Scotland Neck a water tanker and personnel; a dozer and operator from the Halifax County Forest Service; a dozer and operator from the Northampton County Forest Service; a Halifax County ranger with a type 6 engine; an Edgecombe County ranger with a type 6 engine; a Nash County ranger with a type 6 engine; the scout plane, the two single-engine air tankers and the lead plane which were dispatched from district 6 based in Fayetteville.
Photos courtesy of the Halifax County ranger station Spring wildfire season
March officially signals the start of spring wildfire season and the forest service encouraged residents to practice caution and prioritize safety when burning leaves, limbs and other yard waste.

In 2022, nearly 6,400 wildfires burned more than 27,000 acres across the state.

According to the National Interagency Fire Center, North Carolina ranked third in the nation for number of human-caused wildfires with 99 percent of wildfires in the state resulting from human activity. Escaped outdoor fires continue to be the leading cause of wildfires in North Carolina.

"You continue to be the best defense against wildfires," said Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler. "Always exercise caution with any outdoor burning. Avoid burning on dry, windy days and be sure you have a valid burn permit."

The forest service recommends the following prevention tips:

Forest Service recommends the following tips:

Consider alternatives to burning. Some types of debris, such as leaves, grass and stubble, may be of more value if they are not burned but used for mulch instead.

Check local burning laws. Some communities allow burning only during specific hours. Others forbid it entirely.

Make sure you have a valid permit. You can obtain a burn permit at any forest service office or authorized permitting agent, or online at this link

Keep an eye on the weather. Don't burn on dry, windy days.

Local fire officials can recommend a safe way to burn debris. Don't pile vegetation on the ground. Instead, place it in a cleared area and contain it in a screened receptacle away from overhead branches and wires.

Household trash must be hauled away to a trash or recycling station. It is illegal to burn anything other than vegetative material.

Be sure you are fully prepared before burning. To control the fire, you will need a hose, bucket, steel rake and a shovel for tossing dirt on the fire. Keep a phone nearby, too.

Never use kerosene, gasoline, diesel fuel or other flammable liquids to speed up debris burning.

Stay with your fire until it is completely out.

A fireline should be plowed around the area to be burned when burning agricultural residue and forestland litter. Large fields should be separated into small plots for burning one at a time. Before any burning in a wooded area, contact your NCFS county ranger for technical advice on burning.

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With wildfire season underway, rangers tackle 67-acre blaze

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A brush fire Wednesday afternoon consumed around 67 acres of land in the area of Knight Farm Road between Halifax and Scotland Neck. Halifax County Ranger Jim Short of the North Carolina Forest Service said the cause of the fire was attributed to "an escaped prescribed burn."

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Firefighters contained a wildfire that burned for hours in Ocean County, New Jersey, on Tuesday.

The fire started Tuesday afternoon at the Stafford Forge Wildlife Management Area in Little Egg Harbor Township.

Route 539 was closed from Forge Road to Warren Grove Spur Road as the New Jersey Forest Fire Service battled the flames while local volunteer fire companies protected 16 nearby structures. The road was later reopened.

At 7:30 p.m., the New Jersey Forest Fire Service achieved 100 percent containment after the fire burned 418 acres.

No injuries were reported.

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Wildfire Contained After Burning 418 Acres in Little Egg Harbor Township, NJ

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Firefighters contained a wildfire that burned for hours in Ocean County, New Jersey, on Tuesday. The fire started Tuesday afternoon at the Stafford Forge Wildlife Management Area in Little Egg Harbor Township. Route 539 was closed from Forge Road to Warren Grove Spur Road as the New Jersey Forest Fire Service battled the flames while local volunteer fire companies protected 16 nearby structures.

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SANTA CRUZ, Calif. - Torrential rains and extreme mountain snows are again pummeling California Friday at the hands of yet another potent atmospheric river, triggering an "extreme" risk of flash flooding for some regions. At the same time, new snowfall totals in the highest elevations could reach 100 inches, and ridgetop wind gusts have reached well over 100 mph.

Torrential rains triggered a dire Flash Flood Emergency warning in the central California town of Springville Friday morning, where spotters reported 1.5 and 3 inches of rain amid rapid snow melt. Forecasters warn life-threatening flooding is occurring and are urging those in the area to seek higher ground.

Rising rivers have forced the evacuation of some communities in coastal Santa Cruz County while mudslides and heavy rains have covered several roads and highways in central California.

In Redwood City, a tree fell across the front of a car as two people were inside, according to the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office. Both escaped without serious injury.

Extreme risk of a 'potentially deadly and damaging flash flood day'

NOAA's Weather Prediction Center has now issued an "extreme" risk of flash flooding for the southern Sierra Nevada and the Central California coastal range south of Monterey as the latest computer forecast guidance suggests the atmospheric river will be even warmer and wetter than previously forecast. It's the highest risk NOAA and National Weather Service officials can issue, occurring with only about 4% of storms.
WHY RARE 'HIGH RISK' FLOOD DAYS NEED TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY
Heavy rain and mountain snow pushed into Northern and Central California on Thursday, with significant rainfall spreading south into Southern California on Friday.

The FOX Forecast Center warned that areas of flash flooding are "very likely" to "extreme" in the Sierra and the coastal mountains and foothills by Friday, including the areas of Big Sur, San Luis Obispo, Visalia and Fresno.

California's central and southern coastal regions and valleys could see 2 to 3 inches of rain, with some higher amounts by the weekend. The San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento Valley had already received about 1 to 1.5 inches of rain by early Friday morning, but heavier rains were tapering off there as the storm focused its wrath farther south.

The lower elevations of the mountains could see 4 to 9 inches of rain instead of snow this time as snow levels rise to about 7,000 to 9,000 feet, with some spots in the Sierra foothills receiving as much as 12 inches of rain.

'Unprecedented flooding' possible in areas where reservoirs are nearly full

State agencies are warning residents about the potential runoff from torrential rains, which could lead to mudslides, flash flooding on roadways and swift-moving drainage canals and rivers.
WHAT IS AN ATMOSPHERIC RIVER?
In the extreme flash flooding risk areas, NWS forecasters expressed concern for "potentially unprecedented flooding in areas where reservoirs are already near full" and isolated major flooding possible over Monterey County. In nearby Santa Cruz County, the San Lorenzo River near Felton reached moderate flood stage Friday.

The California Department of Water Resources has announced it will be opening up Oroville Dam's main spillway for flood control as the heavy rain arrives, FOX Weather's Max Gorden reported.

The NWS warned that these "extreme" excessive rainfall threats in past storms had averaged nearly four deaths per day and millions of dollars in damage. These kinds of storms account for two out of every five flood-related deaths in the continental U.S. and about 80% of all flood-related damage.

Warmer storm brings dual flooding threat of heavy rain, snowmelt

In lower-elevation mountain communities that are still digging out from feet of snow at the hands of colder storms two weeks ago, warmer air will combine with the heavy rain and lingering snowpack to add melting snow to the flooding threats.

"That's because an atmospheric river brings warmer weather," FOX Weather meteorologist Stephen Morgan said. "This moisture is tapped from the tropics, the subtropics, and so it's just naturally warmer. And that's important because some of these snow levels with recent systems, we saw snow at about a thousand feet, so some people saw graupel along the beach. But the snow level is going to be more than perhaps 8,000 feet through the Sierra. And that's significant. More than just the foothills are going to see rain."

It's left those still digging out from snow now worried about a lot of rain.

"Everybody's trying to get the snow off their roofs," Cindy Powers of Running Springs told FOX Weather. "Everybody's scared of the snow melting and what that's going to cause ... we just don't know what to expect, so we're bracing for this new storm."
'QUITE CATASTROPHIC': CALIFORNIA MOUNTAIN RESIDENTS PLEAD FOR MORE HELP AS FEET OF SNOW REMAIN
Over 100 inches of snow looms for higher Sierra Nevada elevations - again

In higher elevations of the Sierra and Siskiyous mountain ranges, snow totals will once again be measured in several feet. In fact, you can pick a number between 1 and 100 inches and find a snow forecast for that amount in the varying elevations of the Sierra.

Winter Storm Warnings signal as much as 2 to 4 feet of new snow is expected above 7,000 feet, and 6 to 8 feet of snow or more above 9,000 feet in the central and southern Sierra. The NWS said several of the Sierra's highest passes, including Carson, Sonora and Tiaoga, could see over 100 inches of new snow by the end of the weekend.

Donner Pass, the height of Interstate 80's busy journey through the Sierra, could see 3 to 4 feet of new snow in an area where around 300 inches of snow already sits.

"Our snow amounts across the Sierras right now are of historic proportions," Placer County Sheriff Brian Estes told FOX Weather on Monday.

Along the lower elevations of Interstate 80, heavy rain was causing flooding issues where runoff down the hillsides was blocked from draining by snow-covered shoulders.

Meanwhile, parts of Interstate 5 were closed in Northern California between Weed and Yreka Thursday night due to heavy snow.

Damaging wind gusts could knock out power

As if the heavy rains weren't enough, damaging wind gusts will spread their reach across much of the state through Friday, adding power outage threats to the weather woes.

Widespread gusts across the Bay Area and Sacramento Valley are expected to reach 50 to 55 mph, with gusts to 60 mph along the coast and 65 to 75 mph along the mountain foothills.

Go even higher, and you'll find hurricane-force winds, with gusts of 70 to 80 mph common along the high Sierra, including Donner Pass, leading to blowing snow, near-zero visibility and tree falls. The mountain ridgetops near Lake Tahoe could see gusts between 100 and 120 mph or more, according to the region's Winter Storm Warning. A wind gauge along the top of the Palisades Tahoe Ski Resort clocked a gust of 139 mph Friday.

And the extended forecast shows perhaps even more stormy weather later in the weekend and early next week.
RIDICULOUS PHOTOS SHOW AFTERMATH OF 12 FEET OF SNOW IN CALIFORNIA'S SIERRA NEVADA
Atmospheric river impacts linger into the weekend, then more storms?

While the heaviest rain will continue to fall Friday, rain and mountain snow will linger into the weekend.

The current storm fades into early Saturday, but more storms loom for Sunday and then possibly again early next week.

Another 3 to 5 feet of snow could fall in the Sierra, with 1 to 3 inches of rain in the lowlands.

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California atmospheric river triggers flood emergency, evacuations as torrential rains threaten 38 million

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A potent atmospheric river - the latest in a winter season that's featured about a dozen significant storms so far - has brought another round of heavy rain, damaging winds and extraordinary amounts of heavy snow to parts of the state that simply have too much of both right now.

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Soaring Death Toll Gives Grim Insight Into Russian Tactics

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Moscow is sending poorly trained recruits, including convicts, to the front lines in eastern Ukraine to pave the way for more seasoned fighters, U.S. and allied officials say.

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MADRID, 9 (EUROPA PRESS)

Elecnor se ha adjudicado mediante un proceso de licitación pública internacional dos nuevos proyectos para la Empresa Nacional de Energía Eléctrica (ENEE) de Honduras por 56,5 millones de euros, ha informado la compañía.

Dichos proyectos se ejecutarán con fondos procedentes del BID mediante un préstamo concedido al Gobierno de Honduras por un plazo de 40 años.

El primero de ellos consiste en la construcción de una subestación en la capital de Honduras que también incluye la ampliación de tres subestaciones en la zona norte, donde se concentra la mayoría de la industria del país. Adicionalmente, para este contrato se construirá una Línea de Transmisión de 27 kilómetros, conectando las subestaciones de San Pedro Sula Sur y Progreso.

El segundo contrato consiste en la ampliación de seis subestaciones más. En este proyecto, destaca la ampliación de la subestación Comayagua, que alimenta al nuevo Aeropuerto Internacional de Palmerola, que entró en funcionamiento a finales de 2021.

Elecnor participó en la construcción de la Central Eléctrica, el Edificio de Bomberos, la Torre de Control y el Balizamiento de esta infraestructura aeroportuaria.

Con estos dos proyectos se fortalecerá el servicio energético en sectores que tienen alta demanda y serias deficiencias de potencia energética, especialmente en San Pedro Sula y alrededores, ha informado la compañía.

BENEFICIARÁ A 5 MILLONES DE HONDUREÑOS

Se estima que beneficiará a más de cinco millones de hondureños ya que se mejorará el transporte de energía y se ampliará la capacidad de transformación de subestaciones que fueron construidas hace muchos años y que no han recibido mejoras, pese a que la demanda energética se ha incrementado año tras año.

Elecnor, que trabaja desde hace más de 33 años en Honduras está ejecutando actualmente para la ENEE, bajo el mismo esquema de estos dos nuevos contratos, las obras de construcción de ampliación de las subestaciones Miraflores, Laínez, Bellavista y de la nueva subestación El Centro; así como la construcción de líneas de transmisión 138 kV de Miraflores-Laínez y Bellavista-El Centro, cuyas obras comenzaron en abril de 2022 y están previstas finalizar en marzo de 2024, y cuyo importe es de 21,5 millones de euros.

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Economía.- Elecnor se adjudica por 56,5 millones dos contratos para fortalecer el sistema eléctrico de Honduras

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MADRID, 9 (EUROPA PRESS) Elecnor se ha adjudicado mediante un proceso de licitación pública internacional dos nuevos proyectos para la Empresa Nacional de Energía Eléctrica (ENEE) de Honduras por 56,5 millones de euros, ha informado la compañía. Dichos proyectos se ejecutarán con fondos procedentes del BID mediante un préstamo concedido al Gobierno de Honduras por un plazo de 40 años.

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Data: Zignal Labs; Chart: Axios Visuals

In the age of social media, companies, brands and public figures are just one viral TikTok or tweet away from a full-fledged public relations crisis.

Why it matters: If communicators hope to regain control of the message and re-establish trust, their crisis management playbooks must now include strategies to combat misinformation and disinformation online.

State of play: Social media is the current battlefield for crises because it's where issues have the most potential to spin out of control.

A recent MIT study found false news online reaches people about six times faster than the truth and falsehoods are 70% more likely to be retweeted on Twitter than the truth.

Public chatterabout mis- and disinformation continues to skyrocket, accumulating 25 million mentions - a 30% increase from last year, according to data shared by Zignal Labs.

Data: Security.org; Chart: Axios Visuals

By the numbers: While most are aware that misinformation abounds, few are prepared to address it.

Most U.S. businesses admit they are inadequately prepared to communicate during a crisis, a recent Capterra survey found.

28% of businesses don't have formal response plans and 23% have no plan at all.

Of the leaders who have witnessed a crisis, 84% say they would increase crisis planning and 72% would broaden the scope of their communications plan.

What they're saying: Crisis plans need to be social media friendly, says Molly McPherson, a crisis communications consultant and avid TikTok user.

"Crisis communication response, particularly as it relates to social media, has changed dramatically due to the influence of short-form video," McPherson told Axios.

"Prior to TikTok, most social media crises were happening on Twitter and companies were combating words with words. What has changed is not only a new social media giant, but one that is fueled by younger generations who have very strong opinions and are highly engaged."

Between the lines: Just when companies and brands were getting comfortable issuing nameless, faceless statements on Twitter, a platform that doesn't allow for corporate anonymity comes along.

TikTok's user-generated content can quickly go viral and directly impact a brand's reputation - from extreme instances like Southwest's flight meltdowns and Daily Harvest recalls to cultural head-scratchers like West Elm Caleb.

To better manage these viral moments and push out facts, teams must evolve to meet audiences where they are with short-form video, says McPherson.

Yes, but: In some cases, a corporate response on social media can backfire by bringing more attention to the issue.

"You have to weigh whether [the issue] is an actual risk to the company. Then you have to take a hard look at the source," crisis and issues management expert Larry Cristini told Axios. "Responding to those that don't have influence or credibility could actually raise their standing by drawing you into some engagement online."

And if the source isn't credible, a company can still be proactive on social media "by highlighting what they do well and focusing on the positives instead of combating what's been said," Jo Robertson, author of "Executing Crisis: A C-Suite Crisis Leadership Survival Guide," told Axios.

The big picture: Misinformationcan spread faster than facts, so communicators need to get ahead rather than play catch up.
According to experts Axios spoke to, here's how ...

1. Establish a rapid response team to monitor for misinformation during all hours. Response time is critical in the early stages of a misinformation campaign.

2. Create an information hub - usually a website - for the most up-to-date, public information. This should be a reliable resource for reporters, community members, employees and shareholders.

3. Find the messenger who can over-communicate, provide the public with updated information and address all inaccuracies point by point.

4. Meet audiences where they are by using all platforms at your disposal - traditional media, social media, owned platforms and internal message boards or channels.

Plus, a few general crisis response tips to keep in mind ...

The only way out is through. Leadership should identify where they want things to stand once the crisis has passed. What are the goals and objectives? Work back from that.

Live in reality by coming to terms with your role in the crisis - are you the villain or the victim? This answer should inform your actions.

Less spin, more action. All communications following a crisis should focus on the actionable next steps - it's not just about what you're saying, but what you're doing.

Look at the data. Data can shed light on sentiment, inform when to weigh in and prescribe where to go to reach specific audiences.

Engage with surrogates and be proactive by reaching out to trusted journalists.

And don't forget about employees - theyare your strongest allies. Be transparent, share the facts and explain the crisis plan to them.

The bottom line: Crises and misinformation campaigns can happen across all platforms. Communicators should have a plan in place that uses all available channels and reaches hyper-targeted, engaged audiences.
Subscribe to Axios Communicators.

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The modern crisis communications playbook

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In the age of social media, companies, brands and public figures are just one viral TikTok or tweet away from a full-fledged public relations crisis. Why it matters: If communicators hope to regain control of the message and re-establish trust, their crisis management playbooks must now include strategies to combat misinformation and disinformation online.

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BRUSSELS, Feb 28 (Reuters) - The European Parliament has banned TikTok from staff phones, following in the footsteps of two top European Union policymaking institutions and underlining the mounting unease over the Chinese short video-sharing app and who accesses its user data.

The European Commission and the EU Council last week banned TikTok from staff phones due to growing concerns about the company, which is owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, and whether China's government could harvest users' data or advance its interests.

Beijing has regularly denied having any such intentions.

The ban, starting from March 20, will apply to corporate devices such as mobile phones and tablets which are enrolled in Parliament's mobile management application, a Parliament spokesperson said.

The assembly also strongly recommended lawmakers and staff remove TikTok from their personal devices, confirming an earlier Reuters story.

TikTok said the bans were misguided and based on fundamental misconceptions.

"TikTok is enjoyed by 125 million EU citizens and potentially depriving users from access to their representatives is a self-defeating step, especially in our shared fight against misinformation and when this action is being taken on the basis of fears rather than facts," the company said.

The U.S. Senate also banned TikTok on government-owned devices, with Canada adopting a similar decision on Monday. India has banned the app throughout the country.

Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Louise Heavens and Josie Kao

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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European Parliament latest EU body to ban TikTok from staff phones

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BRUSSELS, Feb 28 (Reuters) - The European Parliament has banned TikTok from staff phones, following in the footsteps of two top European Union policymaking institutions and underlining the mounting unease over the Chinese short video-sharing app and who accesses its user data.

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Gun violence cause more than 110 people died everyday.

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Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven is a senior adviser at Berlin Global Advisors. He is a former German Ambassador to Poland.
As Ukraine's staunchest supporter, Poland's place both in Europe and the world has been transformed. And with United States President Joe Biden recently completing his second visit to the Polish capital - even though he's yet to visit Berlin or Paris - Europe's heart, so it seems, now beats in Warsaw.

Yet, the Polish government's ongoing nationalist, illiberal policies continue to undermine Europe's unity at the very same time.

From a personal perspective, as a former German Ambassador to Poland, the most painful - and counterproductive - part of Polish policy is its antagonism toward my country. And if Europe is to succeed in beating Russian aggression, Warsaw and Berlin must learn to work together.

Before Russia's invasion, U.S.-Polish relations had hit rock bottom. As a presidential candidate, Biden cited Poland alongside Belarus as a country where democracy was under threat. And together with Hungary, Poland was Europe's problem child.

Today, it has become the star student.

Poland led the lobbying effort to impose tough sanctions against Russia and to back Ukraine with strong political, economic and military assistance. It is the main conduit for military supplies into Ukraine and has donated massive military aid, including 300 tanks from its own stocks. Polish leaders were also among the first to travel to Kyiv, when artillery was still shelling the city. And the country supports Ukraine's early accession to the European Union.

Unlike many others, Poland can claim moral leadership too. It has long warned against the dangers of Russian President Vladimir Putin's imperialism, as opposed to Germany and other Western countries. It built a pipeline to Norway to replace Russian gas and started beefing up its military before the war began. Warsaw is now in line to bring its defense budget up to 4 percent of its GDP - twice the NATO benchmark - as well as increase the size of its army from 114,000 to 300, 000 troops.

Poland has even become a "humanitarian superpower" now, to quote U.S. Ambassador Mark Brzezinski. In stark contrast to its previous firm refusal to accept refugees in 2015 and - via Belarus - 2021, the country has provided shelter to over 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees, a shining example of compassion and empathy.

But there's another side to the story as well.

Poland has always put national sovereignty before European solidarity. And despite the understandable historical reasons behind this, it is an attitude that obstructs building a strong EU, which will be needed to guarantee the Continent´s security and prosperity.

Critically, Poland's present government has attacked a fundamental pillar of the EU - rule of law. Eroding the independence of judges and undermining the impartiality of the courts, the country's "legal Polexit" rejects the primacy of European law. And this dangerous "Poland-first" policy will continue if the present government is reelected later this year.

Another danger is the country's deteriorating relations with Germany.

German-bashing remains a hallmark of the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party, with its leader Jarosław Kaczyński accusing Berlin of trying to create a "Fourth Reich" via Brussels. In 2021, the Polish government even published a series of campaign posters depicting German representatives against a backdrop of swastikas and Nazi murders. It would be difficult to find a similarly hateful attack from one EU member against another in the bloc's entire history.

Later, when Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced an increase in Germany's defense budget by €100 billion - a move widely welcomed across NATO - Kaczynski asked, possibly rhetorically, if the spending was directed against Russia, or against Poland.

Since Russia's invasion, the PiS government has also beefed up its campaign to claim €1.3 trillion in World War II reparations. The constant anti-German drumbeat has negatively influenced Polish public opinion, reaching a point where Polish politicians now avoid being seen in public with Germans. In this election year, Poland prefers to portray Germany as an enemy rather than an ally.

Meanwhile, it is important to remember the Polish government had attempted to create a Europe-wide club of nationalist, Euroskeptic parties as well. Two months before Russia's invasion, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki convened a meeting of 16 right-wing leaders, many of them Putin friends or apologists. And on the day of the Warsaw summit, France's Marine Le Pen claimed Ukraine was "of course, in Russia's sphere of influence." Putin must have loved it.

All this aside, as a German, I admire Poland's clear vision and action on Russia and Ukraine. But long-term security in Europe will require the country to help foster unity in the Western camp, which, in turn, will require it to fall in line on rule of law and reconcile with its European allies - including Germany.

It's tragic that German-Polish relations have soured precisely as Germany has scrapped its once sacrosanct Ostpolitik. Indeed, today, Germany and Poland's visions vis-à-vis Russia, Ukraine and the future of European security are more aligned than they have ever been.

German-Polish relations are as critical to Europe now as German-French relations were after 1945 - which means Germany needs to speed up the implementation of its Zeitenwende, and Poland needs to return to a policy of cooperation with its Western neighbor.

Together, we should be developing strategies for the reconstruction of Ukraine and the strengthening of NATO's eastern flank. It's a golden opportunity that shouldn't be wasted.

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Bravo Poland for supporting Ukraine. Now make nice with Germany

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Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven is a senior adviser at Berlin Global Advisors. He is a former German Ambassador to Poland. As Ukraine's staunchest supporter, Poland's place both in Europe and the world has been transformed.

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¿Qué barrios y colonias de Honduras no tendrán energía eléctrica el viernes 24 de febrero?

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Las cuadrillas de mantenimiento de la Empresa Energía Honduras (EEH) realizarán trabajos en dos departamentos del país a partir de las 8:00 de la mañana

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The advertising industry went into a tailspin in 2022. High inflation and rising interest rates left consumers with less money to spend, so businesses are spending less to market to them. That dealt a blow to social media giant Snap , which generates revenue by selling digital ads on its Snapchat platform. The stock is currently trading down 87% from highs set in the fall of 2021.

While the ad industry hasn't seen a full recovery yet, Snap stock did jump 32% so far in 2023 thanks to a host of other reasons. It just announced the introduction of a new in-app chatbot that's powered by the same artificial intelligence (AI) engine responsible for OpenAI's ChatGPT. Plus, ByteDance's TikTok has attracted the attention of the U.S. government in the worst way, so one of Snapchat's fiercest competitors could soon be banned in the U.S.

Here's why those factors (and others) point to this being a major buying opportunity for Snap stock.

Snap is redesigning the advertising experience

Snap can't force its advertising customers to return to the platform in this economic environment, nor can it compel them to spend more money. What it can do is improve the experience so that those ads generate better results, which will encourage more spending.

How is Snap doing that? Through advanced technology like augmented reality (AR). Snap is a leader in the field, and it allows users to have unique experiences with the brands they love. Clothing retailers, for example, can create Lenses that allow customers to try on products virtually through the camera on their smartphone.

Recently, European fashion retailer Zalando ran an AR campaign on Snapchat and found conversions were 46% cheaper than its non-AR campaigns. In other words, it was raking in almost twice as many sales per dollar spent on Snap advertising.

Snap's revenue rose 12% in 2022 to come in at $4.6 billion. That's much slower than the 64% growth it generated in 2021, a deceleration that's mostly attributable to the slowing economy. But Snap's investments in AR could drive a major growth cycle when the advertising market rebounds, especially if those campaigns continue to produce superior results.

TikTok is in the government's crosshairs

TikTok's revolutionary short-form video platform has disrupted the social media landscape. Users find themselves consuming more content curated by AI algorithms rather than their friends and personal networks, and that shift is undoubtedly funneling ad dollars in TikTok's direction. It has become the fastest-growing mobile app in history, with over 1 billion users checking in at least once a month.

But there's a problem: TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, is based in China, and U.S. officials and others have some serious concerns about the way ByteDance is handling users' personal data. In fact, the app is already banned on government devices in the U.S. in addition to Australia, Europe, and Canada.

There are a couple of reasons for concern. First, TikTok's content recommendation engine is powerful, and Western governments are concerned it could be used to push misinformation on their citizens. Second, the Chinese government has the power to demand personal user data from China-based companies, which theoretically means a TikTok user in the U.S. could have their location pinpointed by foreign entities at any time.

Now, Congress is considering a bill that would hand President Joe Biden the power to ban TikTok -- and other apps that are deemed to be security risks -- from all devices nationwide. If that happens, billions of dollars in advertising will have to find a new home, which would be great news for Snap.

It's unclear whether a wide-scale ban would be possible from a practical standpoint, or whether it would hold up against legal challenges. President Donald Trump's attempt to ban TikTok downloads back in 2020 was blocked by a federal judge. Still, all of this political pressure might be making TikTok's advertising customers nervous.

Snap's My AI chatbot has entered the conversation

There are quite a few ways for investors to gain exposure to OpenAI's revolutionary online chatbot, ChatGPT, but Snap might be the most interesting so far. Tech giant Microsoft is integrating it into its Bing search engine to change the way people seek information online. Snap, on the other hand, has introduced a version called My AI that can serve as a digital personal assistant.

It can help craft messages to friends, pick out birthday gifts, or even help you decide what you should have for dinner. Users can personalize their bot by giving it a name and changing the wallpaper on the chat screen. Snap thinks this is the beginning of a future where people use it to not only interact with their friends, but also with AI, and that could drive engagement to new heights as the technology grows smarter.

As is the case with most AI models, every conversation Snap users have with their chatbot will be used to train and improve the software, so more users equals more data, and a better product in the long run. Right now, My AI is only available to Snap's subscribers who pay $3.99 per month. There are only 2 million of them compared to its 375 million daily active users, so we'll have to wait and see how Snap strategizes a broader rollout.

According to an incredibly bullish estimate by Cathie Wood's Ark Investment Management, AI could support the addition of $200 trillion in output to the global economy by 2030. If that does happen, Snap's early foray into the space might prove to be incredibly valuable to investors in the long run.

All of those tailwinds for Snap are available in a stock that's currently valued at a price-to-sales ratio of just 4, which is near the cheapest valuation it has ever traded at. For investors, that suggests this might be a buying opportunity, especially given that the stock price could gain ground in the next few years on the back of an improving economy alone.

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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

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Artificial Intelligence, TikTok, and Augmented Reality: Here's Why Snap Stock Is a Buy

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The advertising industry went into a tailspin in 2022. High inflation and rising interest rates left consumers with less money to spend, so businesses are spending less to market to them. That dealt a blow to social media giant Snap (NYSE: SNAP), which generates revenue by sellin

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More Americans died of gun -related injuries than any other injuries.

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WASHINGTON, March 8 (Reuters) - China's government could use TikTok to control data on millions of American users, FBI Director Christopher Wray told a U.S. Senate hearing on Wednesday, saying the Chinese-owned video app "screams" of security concerns.

Wray told a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats to U.S. security that the Chinese government could also use TikTok to control software on millions of devices and drive narratives to divide Americans over Taiwan or other issues.

"Yes, and I would make the point on that last one, in particular, that we're not sure that we would see many of the outward signs of it happening if it was happening," Wray said of concerns China could feed misinformation to users.

"This is a tool that is ultimately within the control of the Chinese government - and it, to me, it screams out with national security concerns," Wray said.

The White House backed legislation introduced on Tuesday by a dozen senators to give President Joe Biden's administration new powers to ban TikTok and other foreign-based technologies if they pose national security threats. The endorsement boosted efforts by a number of lawmakers to ban the popular app, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance and used by more than 100 million Americans.

Other top U.S. intelligence officials including Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, CIA Director William Burns and National Security Agency Director Paul Nakasone agreed at the hearing that TikTok posed a threat to U.S. national security.

Nakasone on Tuesday expressed concern during Senate testimony about TikTok's data collection and potential to facilitate broad influence operations.

Reporting by Michael Martina and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Will Dunham

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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FBI chief says TikTok 'screams' of US national security concerns

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WASHINGTON, March 8 (Reuters) - China's government could use TikTok to control data on millions of American users, FBI Director Christopher Wray told a U.S. Senate hearing on Wednesday, saying the Chinese-owned video app "screams" of security concerns. Wray told a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats to U.S.

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TikTok faces bans in US and other countries. Here’s why.

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Some U.S lawmakers pushed to give President Joe Biden the authority to impose a ban on the app for all users.

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Egypt is in an economic crisis made more severe by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The conflict, now in its second year, has increased food and energy prices.

High inflation, the low exchange value of Egyptian money and unpopular government policies all add to Egypt's problems.

The crisis has pushed many Egyptians out of the middle class. The country's poor - about one-third of the population - are cutting back on basic goods. Many are asking how long they can survive like this.

Hany Hassan has found himself struggling to feed his four young children. Pay from his job at a cafe is buying less and less.

Hassan, who is 43 years old, earns about $110 a month working 12 hours a day seven days a week. "I am scared that one day I won't be able to feed the kids," he said.

Yearly inflation reached 26.5 percent in January, the highest rate in five years. Food prices in urban areas have increased 48 percent.

Many important goods like rice, cooking oil, bread and most recently, eggs, have all doubled in cost in Cairo's supermarkets. The prices of chicken and other meat have almost doubled from a year ago.

The war in Ukraine hit Egypt where it is financially weak. The most populous Arab country and world's biggest importer of wheat needs to buy most of its food from other countries.

Egypt's import costs first increased because of higher world prices for things like fuel and wheat that are purchased in dollars. This led to foreign currency shortages, said Callee Davis, an economist at Oxford Economics Africa, a business advisory company based in Britain.

The low exchange value of Egypt's money forced the Central Bank of Egypt to pass policies to preserve the country's foreign reserves. The policies included restrictions on imports. That drove inflation even higher, Davis said.

For many Egyptians, difficulties began in 2016 when President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi's government started a reform program. The program aimed to reform Egypt's economy in return for loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The program introduced new taxes and included large cuts in state subsidies for basic goods.

Western governments and international financial institutions supported the spending cuts. However, they have made life difficult for many Egyptians. El-Sissi has blamed the war in Ukraine for the most recent inflation.

To help poor and middle-class families, the government increased social welfare programs and raised pay for government workers. It also delayed cuts to subsidized bread and planned electricity price increases. The government also created hundreds of government-owned markets that sell basic goods for low prices.

The government received a new loan from the IMF last year, the fourth in six years. The hope is that the $3 billion deal will help Egypt's international and regional partners provide another $14 billion. Possible lenders include wealthy Gulf countries.

But Gulf Arab states seem increasingly unwilling to help Egypt as they have over the past 10 years.

"We want to help, but we want you also to do your part," said Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan at the World Economic Forum in January.

Egypt has promised to keep the IMF-guided reforms. Those include an exchange rate set by foreign exchange markets and lessening the military's hold on the economy.

But Egyptian leaders are facing criticism for their handling of the economy. They have created costly infrastructure projects, like a new $45 billion capital building, other developments and highways. The government has defended the projects as important for improving living conditions. It also says the projects create jobs for the growing population.

H. A. Hellyer is a political expert at the Royal United Service Institute for Defense Studies in London. He said the pressures on the Egyptian economy would be difficult for any government.

"Some good moves have been taken, the question is whether these are sufficient to turn the economic crisis around or not," he said.

I'm Dan Novak.
Dan Novak adapted this story for VOA Learning English based on reporting by The Associated Press.
Words in This Story

foreign reserves -n. foreign money held by a nation's central bank

subsidy - n. government payments aimed at keeping the price of some product or service lower than it would be without the payments

regional - adj. related to an area, within a country or the world, that is separate for some reason

infrastructure - n. structures, such as roads, bridges, ports and airports, that are needed for a modern society

sufficient - adj. enough

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Egypt Struggles with Economic Problems Intensified by Ukraine War

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Egypt is in an economic crisis made more severe by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The conflict, now in its second year, has increased food and energy prices. High inflation, the low exchange value of Egyptian money and unpopular government policies all add to Egypt's problems. The crisis has pushed many Egyptians out of the middle class.

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American children face a substantial risk of exposure to firearm injury and death according to scientific literature.

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Comunicado de Prensa

El Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), la Secretaría de Estado en el Despacho de Energía de Honduras (SEN) y la Empresa Nacional de Energía Eléctrica (ENEE) firmaron este viernes 14 de octubre un convenio de cooperación para el desarrollo de proyectos en materia energética de beneficio regional.

El convenio fue suscrito por Marco Acuña, presidente de Grupo ICE, y Erick Tejada, gerente general interino de la ENEE y titular de la SEN de Honduras.

La suscripción del acuerdo se realizó en el marco de la visita de una misión del sector energético de Honduras realizada esta semana a Costa Rica, en la que se comparte la experiencia costarricense en el desarrollo de la electromovilidad.

El convenio permitirá impulsar programas y proyectos entre el ICE, la SEN y la ENEE, para fomentar la competitividad y la eficiencia del sector energía de ambas naciones, beneficiando el desarrollo económico, social y tecnológico regional.

"Nos complace que esta cooperación fortalezca las políticas regionales en materia de energía, en procura de mayor desarrollo y bienestar para nuestros pueblos. Las fuentes renovables deben estar en el centro de nuestras iniciativas y apropiarse de temas vitales, como el transporte público y privado", destacó Acuña.

Por su parte, Tejada indicó que "la experiencia, el prestigio y la cooperación técnica del ICE, como una empresa pública fortalecida, es fundamental para nosotros en temas como electromovilidad, reducción de pérdidas y líneas de transmisión, lo que ayudará no solo a la ENEE, si no que también a todo el subsector eléctrico del país".

La cooperación se ejecutará en el sector eléctrico, en áreas como estudios de investigación e intercambio de información técnica, científica y tecnológica, así como proyectos de divulgación, transferencia de conocimiento e investigación científica, además de asesoría técnica y tecnológica, entre otras ( ver recuadro).

Durante la visita de la misión de Honduras a Costa Rica -en la que también participaron delegados de los gobiernos de República Dominicana y Guatemala- los participantes conocieron los avances en electromovilidad logrados por instituciones costarricenses como Grupo ICE, la UCR, MINAE y MIDEPLAN.
Áreas de cooperación entre Costa Rica y Honduras
* Fomento de electromovilidad con enfoque de integración energética regional.

* Fortalecimiento de interconexión en el marco del Mercado Eléctrico Regional.

* Desarrollo de la geotermia para uso directo y generación de electricidad.

* Estrategias para el control y la reducción de pérdidas eléctricas.

* Repotenciación y modernización de centrales hidroeléctricas.

* Desarrollo técnico de integración de generación distribuida.

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BNamericas - Costa Rica y Honduras suscriben cooperación ...

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Comunicado de Prensa El Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), la Secretaría de Estado en el Despacho de Energía de Honduras (SEN) y la Empresa Nacional de Energía Eléctrica (ENEE) firmaron este viernes 14 de octubre un convenio de cooperación para el desarrollo de proyectos en materia energética de beneficio regional.

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American has the weakest gun law.

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Gun are deeply ingrained in American society and the nation's political debates.

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Xiomara Castro 2022, logros y desafíos económicos – Rebelion

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Este artículo es un resumen de los conversatorios con estudiantes de las carreras de sociología y desarrollo local de la UNAH al cumplirse un año del gobierno del partido LIBRE.

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TORONTO - Canada is banning TikTok from all government-issued mobile devices and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it might be a first step to further action.

The European Union's executive branch said last week it has temporarily banned TikTok from phones used by employees as a cybersecurity measure. The EU's action follows similar moves in the U.S., where more than half of the states and Congress have banned TikTok from official government devices.
Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russia's war in Ukraine.
TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company that moved its headquarters to Singapore. It has been targeted by critics who say the Chinese government could access user data, such as browsing history and location. U.S. armed forces also have prohibited the app on military devices.

TikTok is consumed by two-thirds of American teens and has become the second-most popular domain in the world. But there's long been bipartisan concern in Washington that Beijing would use legal and regulatory power to seize American user data or try to push pro-China narratives or misinformation.

Here's a look at the broader debate over TikTok:

___

WHAT ARE THE CONCERNS ABOUT TIKTOK?

Both the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission in the U.S. have warned that TikTok user data could be shared by owner ByteDance Ltd. with China's authoritarian government. U.S. officials also worry that the Chinese government might use TikTok to push pro-China narratives or misinformation.

Fears were stoked by news reports last year that a China-based team improperly accessed data of U.S. TikTok users, including two journalists, as part of a covert surveillance program to ferret out the source of leaks to the press.

There are also concerns that the company is sending masses of user data to China, in breach of stringent European privacy rules.

Additionally, there's been concern about TikTok's content and whether it harms teenagers' mental health.

___

WHO HAS PUSHED FOR RESTRICTIONS?

In 2020, then-President Donald Trump and his administration sought to ban dealings with TikTok's owner, force it to sell off its U.S. assets and remove it from app stores. Courts blocked Trump's efforts to ban TikTok, and President Joe Biden rescinded Trump's orders after taking office but ordered an in-depth study of the issue. A planned sale of TikTok's U.S. assets was shelved.

In the U.S. Congress, concern about the app has been bipartisan. Congress last month banned TikTok from most U.S. government-issued devices over bipartisan concerns about security.

The Senate in December approved a version of the TikTok ban authored by conservative Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, a vocal critic of big tech companies.

But Democratic U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, of Illinois has co-sponsored legislation to prohibit TikTok from operating in the U.S. altogether, and the measure approved by Congress in December had the support of Democratic U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Last week, Canada's federal privacy watchdog and its provincial counterparts in British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec announced an investigation to delve into whether the app complies with Canadian privacy legislation.

___

WHAT DOES TIKTOK SAY?

"It's curious that the Government of Canada has moved to block TikTok on government-issued devices-without citing any specific security concern or contacting us with questions-only after similar bans were introduced in the EU and the US. We are always available to meet with our government officials to discuss how we protect the privacy and security of Canadians, but singling out TikTok in this way does nothing to achieve that shared goal. All it does is prevent officials from reaching the public on a platform loved by millions of Canadians," a TikTok spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

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EXPLAINER: Canada latest to ban TikTok on government phones

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TORONTO - Canada is banning TikTok from all government-issued mobile devices and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it might be a first step to further action. The European Union's executive branch said last week it has temporarily banned TikTok from phones used by employees as a cybersecurity measure.

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Gun are the leading cause of death among American children and teens.

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Each day 12 children die from gun violence in America.

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Please make sure your browser supports JavaScript and cookies and that you are not blocking them from loading. For more information you can review our Terms of Service and Cookie Policy.

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​China ​ripped off US military technology to build an advanced high-tech jet fighter, and experts warn that more must be done to protect American weapons information​ and keep Beijing from making such huge developmental leaps​ in the future, according to a report​ Thursday​.

"What we know is that because of the espionage efforts, [China's] J-20 is more advanced than it otherwise would be, and that's the important point here," former Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Policy James Anderson ​told Fox News Digital in an interview.

"They have profited greatly from their thievery over the years," ​Anderson said. "They've put it to good use, and they've come up with an advanced fifth-generation fighter​."​

But he said it's difficult to determine how the J-20 matches up against the US F-22 Raptor "short of actual combat."​​

​A Chinese J-20 jet fighter performs at the Changchun Air Show on Aug. 26, 2022, in China.

China News Service via Getty Images

Beijing started development on the J-20 stealth fighter for the People's Liberation Army Air Force in 2008 with the aim to develop a warplane that would be able to compete with American fighters, the report said.

The J-20 embarked on its first flight in 2011 and was introduced into service in 2017.

But reports surfaced as far back as 2015 noting similarities in technology and capability between China's jet and US planes - and an Associated Press report even pointed out that "some of its technology, it turns out, may well have come from the US itself."

​A US Air Force F-22 Raptor jet fighter ​carries out an aerial display during the Australian International Airshow Aerospace and Defense Expo on March 3.

AFP via Getty Images

The emergence of the J-20 fighter jet shows that China is beginning to bridge the technological chasm with the United States because of its ongoing intellectual property theft - a development that is garnering renewed attention amid tense relations between Beijing and Washington.

Amplifying the concerns is China's intentions for self-ruled Taiwan, where an invasion could draw the US into a military clash.

Anderson told Fox News Digital that China employs a variety of espionage techniques, ranging from "old-fashioned" and "low-tech" - like using spies and honey traps, as well as bribery to recruit American contractors, university academics and government officials - to more advanced methods like cyber hacking to pilfer critical military information.

Former Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Policy James Anderson told Fox News Digital that China stole US military technology for the development of its advanced J-20 fighter jet.

Bloomberg via Getty Images

"Unfortunately, they've had some success there," Anderson said, pointing out that Beijing spent "well over a decade" repeatedly pursuing data about the Joint Strike Fighter for use in the design and construction of the J-20.

"It saves the Chinese time and money. In effect, we end up subsidizing a portion of their research and development budget because they are successfully stealing some of our secrets," Anderson said. "Ultimately, this puts our men and women at greater risk on the battlefield."

Matt McInnis, a senior fellow for the Institute for the Study of War's China program, said the desire to "understand more sophisticated jet engines" in the West has been a substantial component of Chinese espionage.

McInnis told Fox News Digital that China has placed its focus "almost more than anything else" on acquiring jet engine technology after "struggling for decades" to stay on pace with the US.

"As someone who's watched China for a long time, that's always the joke ... will the Chinese ever be able to produce their own jet engine?" McInnis said. "So they've slowly been able to become more independent in creating jet engines for their more advanced aircraft."

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China reportedly stole US military technology for its J-20 fighter jet

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​China ​ripped off United States military technology to build an advanced high-tech jet fighter, and experts warn that more must be done to protect American weapons information​ to keep Beijing from making such huge development leaps​ in the future, according to a report​ on Thursday​.

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The European Union, the United States and Canada have all recently issued orders banning the use of TikTok on government-issued devices, as concerns grow over the app's privacy and security.

The video-sharing platform, which is owned by the Chinese company Bytedance, has long maintained that it does not share users' data with the Chinese government, and that it is run independently.

But some experts worry that sensitive information could be exposed when the app is downloaded, especially on government devices.

TikTok disputes accusations that it collects more user data than other social media companies, and has called the bans "basic misinformation," saying these had been decided with "no deliberation or evidence".

But many countries remain cautious about the platform and its ties to China. Western technology companies including Airbnb, Yahoo and LinkedIn have also been leaving China or downsizing operations there because of Beijing's strict privacy law, which specifies how companies can collect and store data.

Other Western countries including Denmark are now pursuing similar bans on Tiktok, citing espionage fears.

Here are the countries and regions that have already implemented partial or total bans on the app.

EU institutions

The European Parliament, European Commission and the EU Council, the three top EU bodies, have all imposed bans on TikTok on staff devices, citing cybersecurity concerns.

The European Parliament's ban, announced on Tuesday, takes effect on March 20. It also "strongly recommended" that members of parliament and staff remove the app from their personal devices as well.

United States

This week, the US said government agencies had 30 days to delete TikTok from federal devices and systems over data security concerns. The ban applies only to government devices, though some US lawmakers are advocating an outright ban.

More than half of the 50 US states have also banned the app from government devices.

Both the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission have warned that ByteDance could share TikTok user data with China's authoritarian government.

There is also concern about TikTok's content and whether it harms teenagers' mental health. Researchers from the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate said in a report in December that eating disorder content on the platform had amassed 13.2 billion views.

Roughly two-thirds of US teens use TikTok, according to the Pew Research Center.

Canada

After the US announcement, Canada announced on Monday that government-issued devices must not use TikTok, saying that it presents an "unacceptable" risk to privacy and security.

Employees will also be blocked from downloading the application in the future.

India

In 2020, India imposed a ban on TikTok and dozens of other Chinese apps, including the messaging app WeChat, over privacy and security concerns. The ban came shortly after a clash between Indian and Chinese troops at a disputed Himalayan border killed 20 Indian soldiers and injured dozens.

The companies were given a chance to respond to questions on privacy and security requirements but the ban was made permanent in January 2021.

Taiwan

In December 2022, Taiwan imposed a public sector ban on TikTok after the FBI warned that TikTok posed a national security risk.

Government devices, including mobile phones, tablets and desktop computers, are not allowed to use Chinese-made software, which include apps like TikTok, its Chinese equivalent Douyin, or Xiaohongshu, a Chinese lifestyle content app.

Pakistan

Pakistani authorities have temporarily banned TikTok at least four times since October 2020, citing concerns that the app promotes immoral content.

Afghanistan

Afghanistan's Taliban leadership banned TikTok and the game PUBG in 2022 on the grounds of protecting youths from "being misled".

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Which countries have banned TikTok, and why?

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The European Union, the United States and Canada have all recently issued orders banning the use of TikTok on government-issued devices, as concerns grow over the app's privacy and security. The video-sharing platform, which is owned by the Chinese company Bytedance, has long maintained that it does not share users' data with the Chinese government, and that it is run independently.

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Kim Mackrael in Brussels and Stu Woo in London

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TikTok Banned on EU Executive Staff Devices

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The move comes as officials in Europe and the U.S. scrutinize TikTok over concerns that Beijing could force the company to hand over data on its users.

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E.U. Officials Ban TikTok From Employees’ Phones

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The European Commission took aim at the popular Chinese-owned app, citing “cybersecurity threats.”

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People death increase by gun violent.

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Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Tuesday at a House committee hearing that China has stolen more American data "than every other nation combined."

"China's vast hacking program is the world's largest, and they have stolen more Americans' personal and business data than every other nation combined," Wray said at the House Homeland Security Committee's annual worldwide threats hearing.

The director, who served as an assistant attorney general under former President George W. Bush, emphasized that the U.S. has a "national security concern" when it comes to China.

Wray referenced the prevalence of TikTok and its parent company ByteDance, based in China, as one major intelligence concern.

White House: Russia working to overthrow Moldovan government, but no immediate military threat House unanimously sends COVID-19 origins declassification bill to Biden's desk

"They include the possibility that the Chinese government could use to control data collection on millions of users or control the recommendation algorithm, which could be used for influence operations if they so chose or to control software on millions of devices, which gives the opportunity to potentially tactically compromised personal devices," Wray said of the problems posed by TikTok.

There are still unresolved questions about data sharing between Chinese companies and the government in Beijing, said Wray, adding that "there's a number of concerns there as to what is actually happening and actually being done."

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and National Counterterrorism Center Director Christine Abizaid also testified at Tuesday's hearing.

Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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FBI head: China has 'stolen more' US data 'than every other nation combined'

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FBI Director Christopher Wray said Tuesday at a House committee hearing that China has stolen more American data "than every other nation combined." "China's vast hacking program is the world's largest, and they have stolen more Americans' personal and business data than every other nation combined," Wray said at the House Homeland Security Committee's annual...

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Companies Are Getting Out of Russia, Sometimes at a Cost

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Under pressure from investors and consumers, many Western companies are unwinding their investments, closing stores and pausing sales in Russia.

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Yale CELI List of Companies

Updated By: Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Yale Research Team: Wiktor Babinski, Ricardo Barcelo, Yash Bhansali, Forrest Michael Bomann, Michal Boron, Katie Burke, Adriana Coleska, Samuel Choi, Drew D'Alelio, Kevin Grold, Hunter Harmon, Georgia Hirsty, Daniel Jensen, Mateusz Kasprowicz, Cate Littlefield, Maksimas Milta, Rémi Moët-Buonaparte, Christophe Navarre, Marina Negroponte, Camillo Padulli, Jeremy Perkins, Magdalena Rego, Nick Shcherban, Franek Sokolowski, Steven Tian, Ryan Vakil, Michal Wyrebkowski, Israel Yolou, and Steven Zaslavsky.

Last Updated: September 6, 2022

How We Do It: We have a team of experts with backgrounds in financial analysis, economics, accounting, strategy, governance, geopolitics, and Eurasian affairs with collective fluency in ten languages including Russian, Ukrainian, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, Polish and English, compiling this unique dataset using both public sources such as government regulatory filings, tax documents, company statements, financial analyst reports, Bloomberg, FactSet, MSCI, S&P Capital IQ, Thomson Reuters and business media from 166 countries; as well as non-public sources, including a global wiki-style network of 250+ company insiders, whistleblowers and executive contacts.

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Over 1,000 Companies Have Curtailed Operations in Russia-But Some Remain

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Yale CELI List of Companies Updated By: Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Yale Research Team: Wiktor Babinski, Ricardo Barcelo, Yash Bhansali, Forrest Michael Bomann, Michal Boron, Katie Burke, Adriana Coleska, Samuel Choi, Drew D'Alelio, Kevin Grold, Hunter Harmon, Georgia Hirsty, Daniel Jensen, Mateusz Kasprowicz, Cate Littlefield, Maksimas Milta, Rémi Moët-Buonaparte, Christophe Navarre, Marina Negroponte, Camillo Padulli, Jeremy Perkins, Magdalena Rego, Nick Shcherban, Franek Sokolowski, Steven Tian, Ryan Vakil, Michal Wyrebkowski, Israel Yolou, and Steven Zaslavsky.

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Today, President Biden will sign an Executive Order (E.O.) to ban the import of Russian oil, liquefied natural gas, and coal to the United States - a significant action with widespread bipartisan support that will further deprive President Putin of the economic resources he uses to continue his needless war of choice.

The United States made this decision in close consultation with our Allies and partners around the world, as well as Members of Congress of both parties. The United States is able to take this step because of our strong domestic energy infrastructure and we recognize that not all of our Allies and partners are currently in a position to join us. But we are united with our Allies and partners in working together to reduce our collective dependence on Russian energy and keep the pressure mounting on Putin, while at the same taking active steps to limit impacts on global energy markets and protect our own economies.

This announcement builds on unprecedented economic costs the United States and our Allies and partners have imposed on Russia. As a result of our historic, multilateral coordination, Russia has become a global economic and financial pariah. Over 30 countries representing well over half the world's economy have announced sanctions that impose immediate and severe economic costs on Russia, cut off access to high-tech technology, sap its growth potential, and weaken its military for years to come. The Russian ruble is now worth less than a penny and has hit an all-time low after losing almost half of its value since Putin announced his further invasion of Ukraine. By isolating Russia's Central Bank and cutting off the largest Russian banks from the international financial system, we have disarmed his war chest of foreign reserves and left Putin to soften the blow of our sanctions. U.S. and allied export controls are impacting industrial production in Russia, Russian commercial aviation, and other key sectors of the Russian economy. The United States and governments all over the world are going after Putin's cronies and their families by identifying and freezing the assets they hold in our respective jurisdictions - their yachts, luxury apartments, money, and other ill-gotten gains.

Today's Executive Order bans:

The importation into the United States of Russian crude oil and certain petroleum products, liquefied natural gas, and coal. Last year, the U.S. imported nearly 700,000 barrels per day of crude oil and refined petroleum products from Russia and this step will deprive Russia of billions of dollars in revenues from U.S. drivers and consumers annually.

New U.S. investment in Russia's energy sector, which will ensure that American companies and American investors are not underwriting Vladimir Putin's efforts to expand energy production inside Russia.

Americans will also be prohibited from financing or enabling foreign companies that are making investment to produce energy in Russia.

Putin's brutal war has led to higher energy prices and raised costs for Americans at home. Today, President Biden made clear that he will keep working to mitigate the pain American families feel at the pump and reduce our dependence on foreign oil and fossil fuels:

The Administration has already committed to releasing more than 90 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve this fiscal year, with an emergency sale of 30 million barrels announced just last week. After intensive around-the-clock coordination and consultation by President Biden, the International Energy Agency (IEA) Member countries agreed to a collective release of an initial 60 million barrels of crude oil from our strategic petroleum reserves, with the United States committing half of that in the emergency sale. We are in conversations with a range of energy producers and consumers on further steps we can take to ensure a stable global supply of energy.

U.S. oil and gas production is approaching record highs, while thousands of drilling permits on federal lands go unused. Federal policies are not limiting the production of oil and gas. To the contrary, the Biden Administration has been clear that in the short-term, supply must keep up with demand, at home and around the world while we make the shift to a secure clean energy future. We are one of the world's largest producers with a strong domestic oil and gas industry. Natural gas production has never been higher, and crude oil production is expected to hit a new high next year. Oil and gas companies, and the finance firms that back them, should not use Putin's war as an excuse for excess price increases or padding profits, and, as major energy company leaders have themselves said, they have the resources and incentives they need to further increase production in the United States.

In the long run, the way to avoid high gas prices is to speed up - not slow down - our transition to a clean energy future. We cannot drill our way out of dependence on a global commodity controlled in part by foreign nations and their leaders, including Putin. The only way to eliminate Putin's and every other producing country's ability to use oil as an economic weapon, is to reduce our dependency on oil. So, even as President Biden does everything in his power in the short term to make sure we can readily access the oil and gas necessary to protect American consumers and allied countries- including through greater U.S. domestic production that is expected to hit record highs next year - this crisis reinforces our resolve to make America truly energy independent, which means reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. This is a shared goal with our European allies, that we will work together to achieve.

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FACT SHEET: United States Bans Imports of Russian Oil, Liquefied Natural Gas, and Coal | The White House

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Today, President Biden will sign an Executive Order (E.O.) to ban the import of Russian oil, liquefied natural gas, and coal to the United States - a significant action with widespread bipartisan support that will further deprive President Putin of the economic resources he uses to continue his needless war of choice.

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international relations and national security

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US and its allies have frozen more than $58 billion from Russian oligarchs | CNN Politics

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The US and its allies have blocked or seized more than $58 billion worth of assets owned or controlled by sanctioned Russians in the past year as Western governments continue to dial up the pressure over the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine, according to a joint statement from a multinational sanctions enforcement task force.

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An 88th Mechanized Brigade Panthera F9 armored truck.
88th Mechanized Brigade photo

The Ukrainian army has been forming new mechanized brigades as fast as it can recruit, train and equip the troops. It's a sometimes messy process as the government in Kyiv struggles to fight the war with forces it already has, while also preparing new forces for the war's next phase.

The 88th Mechanized Brigade might be the newest Ukrainian mechanized formation. Its table of organization and equipment is ... weird. Soviet-made anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns from the early 1960s. Modern Swedish air-defense missiles. The latest Emirati armored trucks.

The 88th Mechanized Brigade stood up in early 2023 after recruiting troops "from different parts of Ukraine, of different ages, with different life experiences," the unit stated on Telegram.

It joins as many as 40 other mechanized brigades in comprising the bulk of Ukraine's land forces. A brigade might have three or four front-line battalions, each with several hundred troops and dozens of armored vehicles. Artillery, air-defense and engineering battalions and companies usually round out a brigade's force structure.

Ukraine's army has expanded faster than Ukrainian industry can equip it with newly built or reconditioned Soviet-style hardware. Increasingly, the Ukrainians get their heavy weaponry from abroad. New foreign weaponry complementing older ex-Soviet gear.

The 88th Mechanized Brigade exemplifies this uniquely Ukrainian force mix. Its soldiers carry AK-style assault weapons. But their crew-served weapons and vehicles are an ecclectic blend of East and West.

We can confirm, from the brigade's Telegram account, that it's been training to use the MT-12 100-millimeter anti-tank gun.

The MT-12 is a Soviet classic from 1960. Ukrainian gunners not only use the gun in its traditional direct-fire role targeting enemy tanks from two miles away, they also angle it high so it can double as a howitzer-albeit a short-range one. Ukrainian technicians have mounted spare MT-12s on MT-LB armored tractors.

The MT-12 isn't the 88th's only anti-tank weapon. The brigade has Ukrainian-made Stugna-P missiles, as well. A Stugna-P can range as far as three miles.

The 88th Mechanized Brigade is training on the ZU-23-2 towed anti-aircraft gun. The ZU-23-2 is a side-by-side pair of fast-firing 23-millimeter cannons that entered service with the Soviet army back in 1960.

With its 1.5-mile range and manual sights, the ZU-23-2 is a middle anti-aircraft gun. But point it at the targets on the ground, and it makes a devastating infantry-support weapon.

The brigade doesn't need the ZU-23-2 to defend it from aerial attacks. For that, it has Swedish-made RBS-70 shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. The missile rides a laser beam out to a range of five miles. The original RBS-70 entered service in 1977; upgrades have added speed and range and improved the guidance.

It's not totally clear what vehicles the 88th Mechanized Brigade rides in. The brigade has posted photos of up-armored American Humvees and brand-new Panthera F9 mine-resistant armored trucks from the United Arab Emirates.

The trucks can move infantry around the battlefield, but they're too lightly armored and too lightly armed for direct combat. Most Ukrainian mechanized brigades deploy a mix of Soviet-style T-64 or T-72 tanks and BMP fighting vehicles. It seems the 88th Mechanized Brigade has locally-upgraded T-64BVs and old BMP-1s-but it's hard to say for sure.

The brigade in a March 3 Telegram post hinted that it might be in line for some of the roughly 60 Leopard 2 tanks that Germany, Poland, Spain and other European countries have pledged to Ukraine. "The first 14 Leopard 2 tanks from our Polish brothers arrived on the territory of Ukraine," the 88th stated. "Who do you think will have them soon?"

That might have been trolling. There are indications that the Leopard 2s will reequip one of the Ukrainian army's armored brigades- perhaps the battle-hardened 4th Tank Brigade, which has spent much of the last year fighting in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region.

We don't know yet when and where the 88th Mechanized Brigade will enter combat. It's possible Kyiv is holding the brigade in reserve for a widely-anticipated spring offensive.

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Swedish Missiles. Emirati Armored Trucks. The Ukrainian Army's Newest Mechanized Brigade Has A Weird Mix Of Weapons.

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The Ukrainian army has been forming new mechanized brigades as fast as it can recruit, train and equip the troops. It's a sometimes messy process as the government in Kyiv struggles to fight the war with forces it already has, while also preparing new forces for the war's next phase.

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As the U.S. and Europe look for ways to increase their output of shells to keep their own warehouses stocked and supply Ukraine for its warm weather offensives, they are looking at the current training efforts in England and Germany to change how Ukraine moves on the battlefield. Part of that means figuring out ways to fend off Russia without expending too much ammo.

"We are working with the Ukrainian soldiers in various places throughout Europe to emphasize additional training on maneuver," Austin said, "so that as they place more emphasis on maneuver, and shaping the battlefield with fires and then maneuvering, there's a good chance that they'll require less artillery munitions."

The U.K., which has already trained 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers in infantry tactics, has pledged to train another 20,000 this year with the help of Norway, the Netherlands and other NATO trainers on the ground.

There was some movement on the artillery issue in Tuesday's Ukraine Defense Contract Group meeting in Brussels, a gathering of defense leaders from over 50 countries who meet once a month to coordinate military aid for Kyiv.

France and Australia have agreed to work together to produce more 155mm munitions, which are the backbone of Ukraine's newly-acquired Western artillery arsenal.

The U.S. has also scrambled over the past year to increase its own output of 155mm shells, as Ukraine continues to fire thousands of rounds a day, burning through the one million-plus 155mm munitions the U.S. and allies have sent.

The U.S. Army has pledged to triple its monthly output of shells from the prewar total of about 14,000 a month to up to 90,000 a month by 2025.

The dwindling of ammunition stocks aren't limited to cannon artillery. In recent meetings at the Pentagon, U.S. officials have informed the Kyiv's representatives that it doesn't have enough Army Tactical Missile Systems in its warehouses to spare for the Ukrainian military, POLITICO reported Monday.

Transferring the ATACMS, which would more than double the range of current Ukrainian rocket artillery to about 190 miles, would dwindle America's stockpiles and harm the U.S. military's readiness for a future fight, the Pentagon has told them.

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U.S. focuses on training Ukrainian troops to use less ammo

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As the U.S. and Europe look for ways to increase their output of shells to keep their own warehouses stocked and supply Ukraine for its warm weather offensives, they are looking at the current training efforts in England and Germany to change how Ukraine moves on the battlefield.

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Press play to listen to this article

In a swift decision, a group of Eurocrats inside the European Commission decided to ban the social media app TikTok from work-related devices - a move that was quickly followed by the EU Council, the EU's diplomatic service and later its Parliament, too.

The question, lingering in its aftermath, is: Why?

European politicians are playing catchup in dealing with the implications of the ban, ever since the EU services decided to block the use of the Chinese-owned app on officials' phones. Even inside the EU executive's headquarters in Brussels, the Berlaymont, officials were caught off-guard and have been vague on details of what led to the decision.

Countries have reached out to the Commission to ask for its risk assessment that led to the ban. And members of the European Parliament are calling for transparency over what is behind the decisions.

"As members of the European Parliament, receiving just an email that tells us, 'You must remove TikTok before March 20, there are threats' - without knowing more about it - it's a little bit infantilizing," said Leïla Chaibi, a French far-left MEP who has 3,500 followers on TikTok. (The Parliament "strongly" recommended MEPs delete the app, while the institution's staff are forced to remove it.)

"Tomorrow if I receive an email that tells me to jump out of the window, will I jump out of the window? I just ask that they give us a bit more information," she said.

Some of the fallout is outright awkward. In Germany, the health ministry runs a 144,000-follower TikTok account but said the app was "not installed or used for official purposes." In Belgium, the country's defense minister Ludivine Dedonder came under fire for running a 9,000-follower account while her ministry had internal guidance not to install the app. Dedonder, too, said that "the application is not installed on my work phone" and her work-related data was protected from leaking.

It's not like the video-sharing app - whose parent company ByteDance is based in Beijing - is squeaky clean. It's being investigated by the lead European privacy regulator over allegedly illegally sending European users' data to China. TikTok admitted in December some ByteDance staff in China and the United States, who were later fired, tracked journalists using the app.

Yet, the confusion and political contortions around the EU ban reveal Europe's unease with addressing security questions - particularly when they involve China, a country on which the bloc is economically reliant but with which it has had to revise its relationship in past years, as it grew wary of Beijing's autocratic tendencies and rise as a technological power.

From 'cyber threats' to data protection

It is the first time EU institutions have banned a social media app from work-related devices for security reasons. The Commission previously advised its officials to use encrypted chat app Signal instead of WhatsApp for private use, but it hasn't reported any blocks comparable to the TikTok ban.

The European Commission announced its decision in an email to staff asking them to uninstall the video-sharing app as soon as possible, and by March 15 at the latest. The other institutions followed suit, with Parliament being the latest to impose a ban covering official devices Tuesday.

The European Commission announced its decision in an email to staff asking them to uninstall the video-sharing app as soon as possible | Image via iStock

The emails, seen by POLITICO and sent by the Commission and Parliament to their staff, highlighted a mix of reasons for the decision, from data protection to cybersecurity threats.

"The measure is necessary due to data protection concerns related to the app. It aims to protect Commission data and systems from potential cybersecurity threats," said the Commission internal email sent on February 23 to its staff numbering over 30,000.

"Cybersecurity concerns have been raised on the usage of the social media platform TikTok, in particular regarding data protection and collection of data by third parties," reads Parliament's email to staff, sent on February 28. Its 8,000 officials have until March 20 to uninstall the app from their work mobiles and tablets. Web access to TikTok from corporate desktops and laptops has already been blocked.

Commissioner Johannes Hahn, who is responsible for the institution's internal cybersecurity, told reporters on the day of the decision that "there is no immediate threat," but that "we have to take measures in order to avoid anything in the future" as part of fighting an "increased cybersecurity threat" to the European Commission.

This all came across as somewhat confusing to security experts. The fears around TikTok range from child protection to privacy concerns and fears of intrusive data gathering, all the way to theories that the app could be abused to spread malicious software. TikTok denies posing a threat.

The EU's explanations did little to illuminate what, precisely, it was concerned about.

Admin beats politics

Part of what caught EU politicians and national government off-guard was how the Commission decided on its ban.

Because the decision related to internal Commission matters, it was taken by the EU executive's "corporate management board," a group of high-ranking bureaucrats reporting to President Ursula von der Leyen that generally deals with management decisions. The group is chaired by the secretary-general, and includes the directors general responsible for budget, human resources and security and the director general of the legal service.

The ban seemingly skipped any political decision-making bodies, like its weekly College meeting of commissioners. The process hardly involved key cabinets of commissioners dealing with the EU's cybersecurity and data protection policy, like Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, Vice President for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová, Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders and others.

It didn't help that the corporate management board announced its decision during a public-holiday week in Belgium - a time typically favored by EU officials for skiing or family getaways.

Breton - not one known to hold back on speaking out about the Commission's more contentious proposals - told members of the European Parliament this week, "We have a highly conscientious cybersecurity team ... If it was taken, it became clear that there were obvious reasons that it was necessary to do so."

Lawmakers, capitals have questions

The European Parliament on Wednesday laid into the EU institutions' decisions. Breton was put under the spotlight during a public hearing in the European Parliament as some MEPs asked to know more.

Danish S&D MEP Christel Schaldemose questioned the decision in Parliament | Philippe Stirnweiss/European Union

Danish S&D MEP Christel Schaldemose questioned the decision in Parliament this week, saying that "everybody is banning Tiktok at the moment; why not others that also steal our data, or is it really a special TikTok issue?"

Other MEPs have also shared their puzzlement. "We should be told exactly what this is about," said Chaibi, the far-left French MEP. "I don't want to trust blindly. After all, if the decision is taken it's because there's something behind it."

The EU's decisions also prompted some countries - including Poland, France, the Netherlands and (non-EU member country) Switzerland - in the past few days to reach out to the Commission to ask for Brussels' assessment and more information on the technical details behind this decision. Some, including Paris, said they'd consider their own restrictions based on the EU's guidance.

While Brussels' assessment could feed into EU members' decisions, some of them have already lined up potential grounds to pull the trigger on a ban. Dutch Digital Minister Alexandra Van Huffelen told POLITICO it would assess whether TikTok fit the country's government use criteria for apps out of "countries with an offensive cyber program against the Netherlands." In a parliamentary hearing, Belgium's new cyber command chief referred to the app's lack of two-factor authentication and an insecure data-transfer protocol as potential dangers.

Breton in his comments responded that other institutions as well as other capitals took similar measures as the Commission. Among others, Finland instructed its government officials to delete the app on their work devices in August 2022, German ministries have guidance to keep the app off phones, and the Dutch government recommended against using TikTok on official phones in recent months.

The French commissioner added, "Our friends and partners on the other side of the Atlantic for their own reasons - similar to ours - felt that it was the right decision to take." The U.S. in December moved to prohibit the app from all federal government devices amid fears of potential spying and amid a souring relationship between Washington and Beijing.

Lastly, the company at the center of the storm, TikTok, said it too was blindsided by the EU institutions' move and asked for meetings last week. A spokesperson said, "We are surprised that the Commission did not contact us directly, nor offer any explanation."

Laura Kayali, Edith Hancock, Louis Westendarp, Paola Tamma contributed reporting.

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Brussels banned TikTok. Europe has questions.

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Press play to listen to this article In a swift decision, a group of Eurocrats inside the European Commission decided to ban the social media app TikTok from work-related devices - a move that was quickly followed by the EU Council, the EU's diplomatic service and later its Parliament, too.

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"Hay varias personas identificadas por los equipos que se desplazaron a la zona desde el momento que se registró el hecho y continuamos con las investigaciones", enfatizó Sánchez sobre el caso en la zona central del país.

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Zonas de Honduras que no tendrán electricidad este miércoles 8 de marzo

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"Hay varias personas identificadas por los equipos que se desplazaron a la zona desde el momento que se registró el hecho y continuamos con las investigaciones", enfatizó Sánchez sobre el caso en la zona central del país.

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Dutch chip firm ASML says former China employee stole data | CNN Business

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ASML, the Dutch chip equipment maker, has accused a former employee in China of stealing data related to its proprietary technology, in a case that highlights its importance in the global semiconductor supply chain as tension grows between the United States and China.

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At a meeting of EU defense ministers in Sweden, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that a total of 9,000 servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will undergo training in Germany by the end of the year.

"Defense Minister Pistorius announced the delivery of 18 German Leopard 2 to Ukraine by the end of this month and the training of about 9,000 Ukrainian soldiers by the end of the year," the German Federal Ministry of Defense wrote on Twitter.

It is noted that during an informal meeting in Stockholm, Pistorius met with "tank coalition" partners - representatives of Portugal and Sweden.

Read also: Ukrainian pilots ready to leave for any country to receive training immediately - Ihnat

As reported, an informal meeting of EU defense ministers is taking place in Stockholm on March 7-8 under the auspices of Sweden, which presides over the European Union. The key issue at the meeting is the acceleration of military support to Ukraine.

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9,000 Ukrainian soldiers to undergo training in Germany this year

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At a meeting of EU defense ministers in Sweden, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that a total of 9,000 servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will undergo training in Germany by the end of the year. - Ukrinform.

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Here are four reasons the International Rescue Committee's Emergency Watchlist ranks Ethiopia as the country, after Somalia, most at risk of worsening humanitarian crisis in 2023.

Population: 120.8 million

28.6 million people in need of humanitarian aid

20 million people estimated to be experiencing food insecurity

3.5 million people internally displaced

31.9 million people affected by drought

How is the IRC responding?

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Crisis in Ethiopia: Drought and conflict put 28 million in need

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Here are four reasons the International Rescue Committee's Emergency Watchlist ranks Ethiopia as the country, after Somalia, most at risk of worsening humanitarian crisis in 2023.

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“El BCIE será un aliado en el rescate del sector eléctrico y de la ENEE”: Dante Mossi

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El presidente ejecutivo del Banco Centroamericano dice que para atraer inversión al subsector eléctrico es necesario contar con reglas claras en un ambiente transparente y organizado

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Ukraine Friends Ships 22 Ambulances to Ukraine from Port of Baltimore

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First U.S. Shipment of Ambulances by Ukraine Friends & Volunteer Ambulance Corps NEW YORK, NY and WASHINGTON, DC / ACCESSWIRE / March 8, 2023 / Ukraine Friends (www.Ukrainefriends.org), a non-profit established as a collective humanitarian response to the invasion of Ukraine, with assistance from The Volunteer Ambulance Corps, is for the first time shipping ambulances from the United States to Ukraine.

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Somalia is in the midst of the longest and most severe drought in its history, following five consecutive poor rainy seasons, which has devastated the country.

Roughly 8.25 million people, nearly half the population, require immediate lifesaving aid and protection.

Lives on the line

They warn that famine is a strong possibility from April to June and beyond if humanitarian assistance is not sustained and the next rainfalls are insufficient.

"The efforts of local communities and the scale up of humanitarian assistance prevented famine thresholds from being surpassed in 2022, but millions of lives remain on the line," said Adam Abdelmoula, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia.

The drought, which is also affecting parts of Kenya and Ethiopia, is the worst in four decades.

'Paying the price'

The Horn of Africa has become hotter and drier due to climate change, and at least 36.4 million people across the region need emergency assistance to survive, according to the UN's humanitarian affairs agency, OCHA.

In Somalia, more than 1.4 million people have been displaced while at least 3.5 million livestock have died, destroying livelihoods and reducing children's access to milk.

"The people of Somalia are paying the price for a climate emergency they did very little to create," said Salah Jama, Deputy Prime Minister in the Federal Government.

Although technical famine thresholds have not been reached, OCHA said the situation in Somalia is extremely alarming as prolonged and extreme conditions have led to higher-than-normal deaths.

Hunger set to rise

Meanwhile, amid an anticipated reduction in funding for humanitarian assistance, some 8.3 million Somalis will likely experience high levels of acute food insecurity between April and June.

This includes more than 727,000 who are likely to face catastrophic conditions.

Furthermore, about eight million people do not have access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene services. Cholera and measles cases have surged, along with acute malnutrition, while conflict and insecurity continue to drive needs and hamper humanitarian access.

Step up support

Last year, aid organizations, local communities and government authorities ramped up response and reached 7.3 million people, but now they are calling for additional resources and unhindered access to those in need.

"The Federal and State governments, local communities and the Somali private sector and diaspora are working with the international community to assist the most vulnerable people in the areas with highest needs," said Mr. Jama. "I urge all partners to support these lifesaving efforts."

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator also appealed for more donors to "step up and frontload their support", warning that any delay in assistance truly is a matter of life or death.

"We must also invest in livelihoods, resilience, infrastructure development, climate adaptation and durable solutions to break the cycle of chronic and recurrent humanitarian crises in Somalia and ensure that those affected can adapt and thrive," he said.

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Somalia: $2.6 billion appeal to support millions amid historic drought and famine fears

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Somalia is in the midst of the longest and most severe drought in its history, following five consecutive poor rainy seasons, which has devastated the country. Roughly 8.25 million people, nearly half the population, require immediate lifesaving aid and protection.

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Cyberattacks on young gamers up 57% in 2022

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Cybercriminals launched more than 7 million attacks on children exploiting popular game titles in 2022

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European countries historically rich in water are hastily rolling out emergency measures to cope with a cumulative drought that has sapped waterways, threatened food security and strained energy production - with little end in sight.

Swathes of the continent have been hit - from Ireland to Turkey - with satellite data showing particularly dramatic images in western Europe, where governments have swung into action to mitigate water shortages ahead of the summer.

Instructing regional authorities to implement urgent water restrictions, French President Emmanuel Macron last week warned of "the end of water abundance", while Italy took the unprecedented step of appointing a commissioner with executive powers to carry out a drought battle plan.

The government of Catalonia ramped up water-saving rules for nearly 6 million people - including the residents of Barcelona - amid a crippling drought that's lasted more than two years. Public parks no longer get watered, and the region's water supplies have dropped to 27 percent.

Add to that images of snowless slopes in the Alps, which have seen less than half their normal snowfall this season; dried-up canals in Venice, a lagoon city usually prone to flooding; critically low water levels affecting barge traffic in the Rhine, Europe's biggest commercial waterway; and vegetation stress in Ireland, whose most important crop is grass.

Worst drought in 500 years

The European Commission's Joint Research Centre earlier warned the drought was shaping up to be Europe's worst in 500 years - with the potential to affect almost half of the continent.

A study by Austria's Graz University of Technology in January found that groundwater levels had been left precariously low by a severe European drought that began in 2018.

This is supported by data from the EU's Copernicus satellite programme, which published a map revealing low soil moisture in multiple countries.

The lack of rainfall coupled with record temperatures are a double whammy that have forced farmers to seek water from greater depths, which in turn has contributed to what researchers estimate is the loss of some 84 gigatonnes of water per year since the start of the century.

After France marked a record 32 days without rain in February - cementing a dry winter that followed an already difficult 2022 - Environment Minister Christophe Béchu warned the nation was in a "state of alert" for potential further drought in the months ahead.

"It's undeniable that this is serious," European Commissioner for the Environment, Virginijus Sinkevicius, said in a Twitter post - while experts at the European Drought Observatory fear water levels may not be able to recover in time for the summer.

Drought indicator for France:

February 2021 ➡️ 2022 ➡️ 2023

32 days straight without rain, the longest streak since 1959.

It's undeniable that this is serious.

Actions like our 🇪🇺 Soil Health & Nature Restoration Law are the solutions we must deploy. https://t.co/5bgCVMOFxu pic.twitter.com/2JKcLerYde
- Virginijus Sinkevičius (@VSinkevicius) March 1, 2023

Threat to energy security

The persisting drought spells bad news for Europe's energy production, with France becoming a net importer of energy in 2022 for the first time in four decades.

Water scarcity has affected the output of the country's nuclear power plants, already hit by maintenance issues, which are typically built near rivers because their cooling circuits rely on large quantities of water.

The lack of rain and snowfall has also driven h ydroelectricity supplies into deficit, energy policy expert Jean-Marc Jancovici told French radio RTL.

"There has been less electricity from renewable sources in France because the dams have produced less," Jancovici said, adding that lack of snow melt would result in more depleted rivers in the spring and summer.

"This poses a problem for all facilities that need to take water from rivers."

Meanwhile a study in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, this week found that extreme weather caused by climate change risked costing the country up to 900 billion euros between now and 2050.

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Europe on alert as severe drought hits food, energy production

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European countries historically rich in water are hastily rolling out emergency measures to cope with a cumulative drought that has sapped waterways, threatened food security and strained energy production - with little end in sight.

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United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

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One year on, volunteers in Poland are still doing all they can for Ukrainian refugees

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Volunteer known as “Our Lady of Krakow” is among many concerned citizens in Poland who continue to show solidarity with refugees from neighbouring Ukraine.

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Observations of supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies point to a likely source of dark energy - the 'missing' 70% of the Universe.

The measurements from ancient and dormant galaxies show black holes growing more than expected, aligning with a phenomenon predicted in Einstein's theory of gravity. The result potentially means nothing new has to be added to our picture of the Universe to account for dark energy: black holes combined with Einstein's gravity are the source.

We started off looking at how black holes grow over time, and may have found the answer to one of the biggest problems in cosmology. Dr Dave Clements

The conclusion was reached by a team of 17 researchers in nine countries, led by the University of Hawai'i and including Imperial College London and STFC RAL Space physicists. The work is published in two papers in the journals The Astrophysical Journal and The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Study co-author Dr Dave Clements, from the Department of Physics at Imperial, said: "This is a really surprising result. We started off looking at how black holes grow over time, and may have found the answer to one of the biggest problems in cosmology."

Study co-author Dr Chris Pearson, from STFC RAL Space, said: "If the theory holds, then this is going to revolutionise the whole of cosmology, because at last we've got a solution for the origin of dark energy that's been perplexing cosmologists and theoretical physicists for more than 20 years."

Gravity versus dark energy

In the 1990s, it was discovered that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating - everything is moving away from everything else at a faster and faster rate. This is difficult to explain - the pull of gravity between all objects in the Universe should be slowing the expansion down.

To account for this, it was proposed that a 'dark energy' was responsible for pushing things apart more strongly than gravity. This was linked to a concept Einstein had proposed but later discarded - a 'cosmological constant' that opposed gravity and kept the Universe from collapsing.

This concept was revived with the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe, with its main component being a kind of energy included in spacetime itself, called vacuum energy. This energy pushes the Universe further apart, accelerating the expansion.

Black holes posed a problem though - their extremely strong gravity is hard to oppose, especially at their centres, where everything seems to break down in a phenomenon called a 'singularity'.

The new result shows that black holes gain mass in a way consistent with them containing vacuum energy, providing a source of dark energy and removing the need for singularities to form at their centre.

Black hole growing pains

The conclusion was made by studying nine billion years of black hole evolution. Black holes are formed when massive stars come to the end of their life. When found at the centres of galaxies, they are called supermassive black holes. These contain millions to billions of times the mass of our Sun inside them in a comparatively small space, creating extremely strong gravity.

Black holes can increase in size by accreting matter, such as by swallowing stars that get too close, or by merging with other black holes. To discover whether these effects alone could account for the growth of supermassive black holes, the team looked at data spanning nine billion years.

The researchers looked at a particular type of galaxy called giant elliptical galaxies, which evolved early in the Universe and then became dormant. Dormant galaxies have finished forming stars, leaving little material for the black hole at their centre to accrete, meaning any further growth cannot be explained by these normal astrophysical processes.

Comparing observations of distant galaxies (when they were young) with local elliptical galaxies (which are old and dead) showed growth much larger than predicted by accretion or mergers: the black holes of today are 7-20 times larger than they were nine billion years ago.

Cosmological coupling

Further measurements with related populations of galaxies at different points in the Universe's evolution show good agreement between the size of the Universe and the mass of the black holes. These show that the measured amount of dark energy in the Universe can be accounted for by black hole vacuum energy.

This is the first observational evidence that black holes actually contain vacuum energy and that they are 'coupled' to the expansion of the Universe, increasing in mass as the Universe expands - a phenomenon called 'cosmological coupling'. If further observations confirm it, cosmological coupling will redefine our understanding of what a black hole is.

Study first author Duncan Farrah, University of Hawai`i Astronomer and former Imperial PhD student, said: "We're really saying two things at once: that there's evidence the typical black hole solutions don't work for you on a long, long timescale, and we have the first proposed astrophysical source for dark energy.

"What that means, though, is not that other people haven't proposed sources for dark energy, but this is the first observational paper where we're not adding anything new to the Universe as a source for dark energy: black holes in Einstein's theory of gravity are the dark energy.''

-

' A Preferential Growth Channel for Supermassive Black Holes in Elliptical Galaxies at z ? 2' is published in The Astrophysical Journal.

' Observational evidence for cosmological coupling of black holes and its implications for an astrophysical source of dark energy' is published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

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Scientists find first evidence that black holes are the source of dark energy | Imperial News | Imperial College London

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Observations of supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies point to a likely source of dark energy - the 'missing' 70% of the Universe. The measurements from ancient and dormant galaxies show black holes growing more than expected, aligning with a phenomenon predicted in Einstein's theory of gravity.

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The Government of Canada is in talks to supply Ukraine with hundreds of high-tech Canadian-made drones.

This is reported by the National Post, citing a source. According to them, back in July, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Sviridenko requested 300 Teledyne Flir R70 Skyranger drones from Canada.

"These Canadian systems will be put to good and immediate service," - quotes her publication.

It is noted that sending these drones will cost Canada about $150 million. They are equipped with thermal imagers and can also detect chemical weapons and intercept signals. The latter allows the drone to determine where enemy phones are and even identify people.

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Canada is ready to transfer modern drones to Ukraine | odessa-journal.com

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The Government of Canada is in talks to supply Ukraine with hundreds of high-tech Canadian-made drones. This is reported by the National Post, citing a source. According to them, back in July, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Sviridenko requested 300 Teledyne Flir R70 Skyranger drones from Canada.

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As part of the energy reform in Honduras initiated by the current government, the renegotiation processes of the Power Supply Agreements (PPAs) that the National Electric Energy Company (ENEE) has signed with the different generators around the country began in May 2022. This process was carried out hand in hand with the private sector, including the participation of the heads of the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Finance and a representative of the Honduran Council of Private Enterprise (COHEP). The initiative behind the renegotiation of the contracts is the result of the power granted to ENEE through the "Special Law to Guarantee the Electric Energy Service as a Public Good of National Security and a Human Right of Economic and Social Nature" approved and published in the official gazette La Gaceta through Decree 46-2022 of May 16, 2022.

This Law, in its Article 1, establishes that the State of Honduras declares that the electric energy service is a public good of national security and also a human right of economic and social nature, therefore, it must be safeguarded as such. The State guarantees the provision of the electric energy service to the entire population and exercises its control through ENEE and operating as a regulatory entity the Comisión Reguladora de Energía Eléctrica (CREE). It also indicates the power of ENEE to renegotiate the contracts and prices at which the State, through ENEE, acquires all supplies of hydro, solar and thermal power plants.

During the renegotiation process, it was verified that the generating companies had an integrated and uninterrupted provision of energy sales to ENEE. As a result, to date, 16 energy contracts have been renegotiated with 14 companies, 55% of the contracts were considered to have higher prices, representing a saving of approximately one billion lempiras per year for the country, according to state authorities.

The renegotiation agreement entails, among other things, the reduction of tariffs and greater efficiency for ENEE in terms of distribution, commercialization and transmission of energy to the entire population. Currently, several discussions are being developed for the approval of regulations that will bring benefits for the energy sector and for the State. All this with the purpose of restructuring and encouraging this sector and the subjects involved.

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Honduras: Energy Contracts Renegotiation between Honduras and its Generators.

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As part of the energy reform in Honduras initiated by the current government, the renegotiation processes of the Power Supply Agreements (PPAs) that the National Electric Energy Company (ENEE) has signed with the different generators around the country began in May 2022.

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The U.S. Small Business Administration Office (SBA) of Disaster Recovery and Resilience announced Monday that more than $50.2 million has been approved in federal disaster loans for California businesses and residents impacted by severe winter storms, flooding, landslides, and mudslides that occurred from Dec. 27, 2022, through Jan. 31, 2023.

According to Tanya N. Garfield, SBA's Disaster Operations Center-West director, SBA approved $6,964,000 for businesses and $43,239,200 for residents to help rebuild and recover.

SBA disaster loan borrowers have up to one year from the date of the note to begin making payments. In addition, interest does not begin to accrue until 12 months from the date of the initial loan disbursement and accrues only on the amount disbursed.

SBA continues to provide one-on-one assistance to disaster loan applicants at all the federal-state Disaster Recovery Centers, SBA Business Recovery Centers and SBA Disaster Loan Outreach Centers throughout the affected areas to explain SBA's disaster loan program and help business owners and residents apply for assistance and close their approved disaster loans.

Businesses of all sizes and private nonprofit organizations may borrow up to $2 million to repair or replace damaged or destroyed real estate, machinery and equipment, inventory and other business assets. The SBA can also lend additional funds to help business and residents with the cost of making improvements that protect, prevent or minimize the same type of disaster damage from occurring in the future.

For small businesses and most private nonprofit organizations of all sizes, SBA offers Economic Injury Disaster Loans to help meet working capital needs caused by the disaster. Economic injury assistance is available regardless of whether the business suffered any property damage.

Disaster loans up to $200,000 are available to homeowners to repair or replace damaged or destroyed real estate. Homeowners and renters are eligible for up to $40,000 to repair or replace damaged or destroyed personal property.

The deadline to apply for property damage is March 16. The deadline to apply for economic injury is Oct. 16.

Applicants may apply online, receive additional disaster assistance information and download applications at disasterloanassistance.sba.gov/. Applicants may also call SBA's Customer Service Center at (800) 659-2955 or email disastercustomerservice@sba.gov for more information on SBA disaster assistance.

For people who are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability, please dial 7-1-1 to access telecommunications relay services.

Completed applications should be mailed to U.S. Small Business Administration, Processing and Disbursement Center, 14925 Kingsport Road, Fort Worth, TX 76155.

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SBA approves $50M in disaster assistance loans for CA residents & businesses

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The U.S. Small Business Administration Office (SBA) of Disaster Recovery and Resilience announced Monday that more than $50.2 million has been approved in federal disaster loans for California businesses and residents impacted by severe winter storms, flooding, landslides, and mudslides that occurred from Dec. 27, 2022, through Jan. 31, 2023.

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Scandinavian airline SAS said it was hit by a cyber attack Tuesday evening and urged customers to refrain from using its app but later said it had fixed the problem.

News reports said the hack paralyzed the carrier's website and leaked customer information from its app.

Karin Nyman, head of press at SAS, told Reuters at 2035 GMT [on Feb. 14] that the company was working to remedy the attack on its app and website.

"We aren't able to say a lot more right now as we are right in the attack right now," she said, adding that the app was at that point working fine.

Earlier, she told the national news agency TT that there was a risk of getting incorrect information by logging onto the app and urged customers to refrain from using it.

The entire website was down for a while on Tuesday.

According to TT, customers who tried to log into the SAS app were logged onto the wrong accounts and had access to personal details of other people. Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang reported that this happened to Norwegian customers as well.

Various Swedish companies and organizations have recently been hit by presumed cyber attacks.

Earlier on Tuesday, Sweden's national public television broadcaster, SVT was temporarily down. The broadcaster wrote on its website that a group called "Anonymous Sudan" had taken credit for the attack posting on Telegram that Swedish media would be attacked as a result of Koran burnings in Sweden.

(Reporting by Marie Mannes; editing by Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio)

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Scandinavian Airline SAS Hit by Cyber Attack, Affecting App

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Scandinavian airline SAS said it was hit by a cyber attack Tuesday evening and urged customers to refrain from using its app but later said it had fixed the problem. News reports said the hack paralyzed the carrier's website and leaked customer information from its app.

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New estimate adds $8 million to Williamson County's ice storm cleanup costs

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Cleaning up tree debris from the February ice storm will cost Williamson County another estimated $8 million on top of the $12.4 million the county already has spent to recover from it, officials said. The Williamson County Commissioners Court voted Tuesday to extend its emergency declaration by 60 days to include more time to assess damage.

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Press Release

Bnamericas Published: Wednesday, February 22, 2023

Statement of the Presidency of the Republic
This is an automated translation of the press release issued in Spanish
Erik Tejada, head of the Secretary of Energy and also interim manager of the National Electric Power Company (ENEE), signed contracts with the companies Equipos Industriales and ELECNOR to support the National Electric Power Transmission Program.

In addition, with the support that the Inter-American Development Bank will give to said program, more than 1,500 million lempiras will be invested with which more than 15 electrical substations will be built and expanded in the northern and central areas of Honduras.

Subscribe to the most trusted business intelligence platform in Latin America. Let us show you our solutions for Suppliers, Contractors, Operators, Government, Legal, Financial and Insurance.

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BNamericas - Honduras: Ministry of Energy signs contracts...

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Press Release Bnamericas Published: Wednesday, February 22, 2023 Statement of the Presidency of the Republic This is an automated translation of the press release issued in Spanish Erik Tejada, head of the Secretary of Energy and also interim manager of the National Electric Power Company (ENEE), signed contracts with the companies Equipos Industriales and ELECNOR to support the National Electric Power Transmission Program.

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Astronomers looking at how black holes grow over time may have found the answer to one of the biggest problems in cosmology.
Black holes are arguably one of the most interesting celestial bodies in the Universe. First predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity in 1915, their gravity is so strong that not even light can escape them.

Astronomical observations have shown that the largest of these objects are often located at the centers of galaxies, significantly affecting their evolution. However, it has recently been discovered that the masses of some black holes are much larger than current theory of galaxy formation predicts.

To solve this disagreement between theory and observation a team of researchers from nine countries and 26 institutions have proposed a new mechanism for black hole growth. They are commonly thought to increase in mass by absorbing matter, but the researchers of the new study think another mechanism is also at play. They believe this might not only resolve the above contradiction, but also indicate that black holes could be a fundamental constituent of a mysterious entity called dark energy.

"This is a really surprising result," explained David Clements of Imperial College London, one of the authors of the study, in a statement. "We started off looking at how black holes grow over time and may have found the answer to one of the biggest problems in cosmology."

Black holes that are too big

Galaxies hosting these massive black holes are called giant ellipticals, which describes their size and shape, and are thought to have evolved rapidly during a time in the early universe, after which they became dormant. This means that star formation in these galaxies has long since ended, leaving almost no material in their galactic centers for black holes to consume, thus halting their growth.

However, recent astronomical observations have shown that their black holes are too large to fit this picture as they are 8-20 times heavier than scientists expected based on the rate at which black holes should absorb galactic matter by pulling it in with their enormous gravity.

To resolve this discrepancy, the team has revived an idea put forward earlier, according to which a black hole not only grows by accreting matter but increases in size with the expansion of the Universe. This hypothetical phenomenon is known as "cosmological coupling".

In their paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the researchers have analyzed various possible types of cosmological coupling of black holes with the Universe expansion within the framework of general relativity and concluded that if black holes grow at exactly the same rate as the Universe expands, then their observed sizes are in perfect agreement with the theory, and the contradiction disappears.

Black holes as dark energy

While this reconciliation of observational data with theory is very important in itself, an even more striking result of the study maybe the fact that growing black holes could be the cause for the accelerated expansion of the Universe.

The evolution of the cosmos as a whole is described by Einstein's general theory of relativity, which treats space as a dynamical entity whose shape is determined by the particles and fields moving in it. However, to date, theorists have found that no known types of matter or radiation can be used to describe this accelerated expansion. In order to account for this, they speculate that an unknown substance, called dark energy, must be responsible to help make current theory consistent with observations.

Despite the fact that dark energy helps explain observational data, many scientists are not convinced by an entity whose origin is unclear and for which there is no evidence.

Clemens and his collaborators have shown that if black holes indeed grow as the Universe expands, then this has the same effect on the geometry of space and on the behavior of all types of matter as dark energy.

"What that means, though, is not that other people haven't proposed sources for dark energy, but this is the first paper where we're not adding anything new to the Universe as a source for dark energy: black holes in Einstein's theory of gravity are the dark energy," said Duncan Farrah of the University of Hawai'i, lead author of the study.

The scientists have computed the effect that black holes should have on the expansion of the Universe and found that there are enough of them to cause the observed rate of expansion, which means that the need for dark energy disappears.

They emphasize that further astronomical observations are needed to make sure that their hypothesis is correct, but if it turns out that it is, this will be one of the most important discoveries in cosmology in recent years.

"If the theory holds, then this is going to revolutionize the whole of cosmology, because at last we've got a solution for the origin of dark energy that's been perplexing cosmologists and theoretical physicists for more than 20 years," concluded Chris Pearson from STFC RAL Space and another of the study's authors.
Reference: D. Farrah et al., Observational Evidence for Cosmological Coupling of Black Holes and its Implications for an Astrophysical Source of Dark Energy, The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2023), DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/acb704. Feature image credit: AlexAntropov86 on Pixabay

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Could black holes be dark energy? - Advanced Science News

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Astronomers looking at how black holes grow over time may have found the answer to one of the biggest problems in cosmology. Black holes are arguably one of the most interesting celestial bodies in the Universe. First predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity in 1915, their gravity is so strong that not even light can escape them.

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NASA and the Department of Energy are developing an instrument that can survive the tough conditions of night on the far side of the moon to try to measure the Dark Ages of the Universe for the first time, according to an announcement on Tuesday.

Energy's Office of Science, Brookhaven National Laboratory, the University of California Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory, and NASA's Science Mission Directorate created the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment-Night-or LuSEE-Night-to understand the moon's radio environment and try to "take a first look at a previously unobserved era in our cosmic history."

Specifically, the Dark Ages of the Universe-which occurred between 380,000 to 400 million years after the origin of the universe, otherwise known as the Big Bang-are an important time in cosmological studies because they can offer new insight into the formation and evolution of the universe. The agencies noted that radio waves are the only signal that can be used to measure evidence from the Dark Ages, so LuSEE-Night gives researchers an opportunity to "learn how the first non-luminous matter evolved into the stars and galaxies that we see dominating the observable Universe today."

The radio wave signals cannot be measured from Earth because of Earth's "opaque ionosphere and the noise from Earth's constant 'pollution' of the inner solar system with radio waves." However, it should be possible to study such signals from the far side of the moon.

"LuSEE-Night is a fascinating experiment that will get us closer to observing something we've never been able to before-the Dark Ages signal," said Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, the director of DOE's Office of Science. "With this collaboration, DOE and NASA are setting conditions for successful exploration of the Dark Ages cosmology in the decades to come."

LuSEE-Night will use deployable antennas and radio receivers to possibly observe sensitive radio waves from the Dark Ages for the first time. By having the instrument on the moon's surface and measuring at the right time, several external sources of radio interference will be removed, such as radio noise from the Sun, Earth, Jupiter and Saturn.

According to the agencies, it will be a challenge for LuSEE-Night to "survive the harsh, cold and dark environment of the lunar night on the far side of the Moon long enough to collect and return data to Earth" because of large temperature fluctuations--250ºF during the day and -280ºF at night. The change in temperature will cause challenges for data transmissions and could cause the instrument to freeze or the mission to end early. As a result, the agencies stressed the importance of having technology that can handle these conditions.

"LuSEE-Night will operate during the cold temperatures of the 14-day lunar night, when no sunlight is available to generate power or heat," said Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA's Science Mission Directorate. "In addition to the significant potential science return, demonstration of the LuSEE-Night lunar night survival technology is critical to performing long-term, high-priority science investigations from the lunar surface."

If the instrument is successful, it will be a pathfinder to help develop larger future instruments to further measure radio frequencies-like the Dark Ages signals-that could not be measured otherwise.

"This measurement is very challenging; radio emission from the galaxy is very bright, and our Dark Ages signal is hiding behind it," said Professor Stuart D. Bale of University of California, Berkeley, and the NASA principal investigator for LuSEE-Night.

"Every time we have opened a new frequency window in cosmology, we have unlocked new discoveries about the history of the Universe and our place within it," Anže Slosar, Brookhaven National Lab Energy lead and LuSEE-Night science collaboration spokesperson, said.

LuSEE-Night will go to the moon on a future Commercial Lunar Payload Services flight. According to the agencies, through CLPS flights, NASA is buying a complete commercial robotic lunar delivery service, where it does not provide launch services, own the lander or lead landing operations.

This collaboration also further strengthens the agencies' long-standing partnership to help space innovation and exploration.

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NASA, Energy Collaborate on Lunar Experiment Exploring Dark Ages of the Universe

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NASA and the Department of Energy are developing an instrument that can survive the tough conditions of night on the far side of the moon to try to measure the Dark Ages of the Universe for the first time, according to an announcement on Tuesday.

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Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's arrival to Europe in early February came with a clear message for his allies: give us combat aircraft and heavy weapons, and don't delay.

"The sooner Ukraine can get powerful, long-range weapons [...] the sooner this Russian aggression will end and we will bring peace back to Europe," he said in a joint statement with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Paris on 8 February.

But the decision to provide Ukraine - which is not a NATO member and thus is not protected by collective defence enshrined in Article 5 of its founding treaty - with heavy weapons is fraught with potential problems, as countries weigh up supporting Ukraine militarily against concerns of potentially escalating the conflict.

So, which countries are sending heavy weapons to Ukraine? And are they doing enough?

What are countries sending?

The US, UK, Poland and Germany have spent the most military support for Ukraine, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy's Ukraine support tracker.

The same data shows that the United States is clearly leading the way, having pledged €44,3 billion since January 2022.

"The United States has led by far, it's not even close," said Brad Bowman, Senior Director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). "And, I think that, combined with Ukrainian bravery and agility, is the reason why Ukraine continues to exist."

The UK is the second-largest provider of military support to Ukraine, according to the Kiel Institute.

Data shows that the UK has supplied a wealth of rockets, defence systems, armoured vehicles, weapons, ammunition and training to Ukraine over the last year, to the tune of €2.5 billion. On 14 January 2023, the UK became the first country to provide Ukraine with Challenger 2s, the main modern western battle tank.

According to data from the Kiel Institute, Poland, which shares its eastern border with Ukraine, pledged €2.4 billion in military aid last year. Germany also exported over €2.4 billion in military goods.

"I would point to the Poles as playing a particularly-laudable role. I would point out the Baltic countries as playing a very positive role. You know, big surprise right there on the eastern flank of NATO, they're closest to the Russian bear, and so they have no illusions about our adversary there", said Brad Bowman.

While not a big spender compared to the likes of the US and UK, Estonia is, however, the top provider of defence and humanitarian aid, they have spent around 1.1% of their GDP.

Indeed, Estonia's Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has said that "If Ukraine fell, freedom would also be in danger in other parts of the world. By helping Ukraine to defend its independence, we are defending the right to freedom and democracy of all countries, including Estonia."

In 2022, Poland and Estonia were reportedly seeking to raise the alliance's defence spending benchmark from 2% to 2.5% or even 3% of member countries' GDP.
Are NATO members sending enough?
The US, the UK and Germany are sending tanks, and Germany has allowed other Western countries to send its homemade tanks from their fleets, but this doesn't appear to have silenced Kyiv's call for heavy weapons.

Ukraine has urged the West to provide fighter jets to defend the country against Russia. On his visit to the UK last month, Zelenskyy asked Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to "give us wings." And, US President Joe Biden has already "ruled out" sending the highly sought-after F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.

"The F-16s could provide a number of benefits, of capabilities for Ukraine, no doubt. The response the Biden administration is giving is that's not what they need most right now. I agree with that," Brad Bowman told Euronews.

Instead, Bowman stressed that NATO allies could be doing much more in terms of fulfilling their defence spending pledges.

"I would just quickly point to [...] the most recent report on defence spending by NATO. We still, at this late hour, have most of our European allies not honouring their defence spending commitments. I mean, come on, that's deeply disappointing," he told Euronews.

"I'm not a reflexive critic of Europe here, but I mean, come on: the largest land invasion in Europe since World War Two; a major assault on a European capital; tens of thousands of people being murdered and killed in an unjust war trying to defend their homes and you're not going to honour your defence spending commitments? [...] We don't have the logistics here. Here, Ukraine, here are four tanks. Oh, here are eight tanks. Here are 12 tanks. They need hundreds of tanks!"

Are heavy weapons arriving quickly enough?

In February, the Biden administration pledged to send the Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb, or GLSDB, a system with a far greater range than Ukraine's Western-supplied artillery rockets.

However, these weapons are not expected to arrive until autumn and experts fear this will be too late as key Russian and Ukrainian offensives are expected and could determine how the war will play out.

"A lot of countries, including the United States [...] have done what we call 'the cheque's in the mail' approach: hey, we're going to send this or that. And in a lot of cases, the item in question will not arrive until four months later," Bowman explained.

"If you're a Ukrainian fighting on the front lines, seeing your buddies getting killed and maimed [...] the 'cheque's in the mail' approach is probably particularly dissatisfying for them [...] especially when they understand that they literally are on the frontier of freedom, fighting for all of us."

Fear of provocation

In a speech to the Bundestag on 25 January, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that Germany would finally send 14 Leopard 2A tanks to Ukraine and would also allow other countries to re-export theirs if they wished to do so.

Berlin was initially hesitant to pledge heavy weapons deliveries, citing concerns about potentially escalating the conflict. It chose instead to offer non-lethal equipment, like combat helmets.

It was heavily criticised for this, notably by President Zelenskyy. There was also pressure from fellow European neighbours, such as Poland, to approve the re-export of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.

Bowman made reference to Ukraine's former President Petro Porosheko's 2014 visit to the White House to ask then-President Barack Obama for weapons to fight Russia-backed separatists in Crimea.

In a speech to the US Senate and House of Representatives, he said "Blankets and night-vision goggles are also important. But one cannot win the war with blankets."

"He was saying that because the Obama administration refused to provide weapons to Ukraine. Why? Why? Because we didn't want to provoke Putin," Bowman explained.

"So my core message to anyone willing to listen is that we should spend more time helping build beleaguered democracies and less time worrying about provoking authoritarian bullies who are probably going to invade anyway."

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Who is sending heavy weapons to Ukraine, and is it enough?

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Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's arrival to Europe in early February came with a clear message for his allies: give us combat aircraft and heavy weapons, and don't delay. "The sooner Ukraine can get powerful, long-range weapons [...]

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Welcome to The Cybersecurity 202! Saving you a click: No, SNL is not only funny when everyone breaks character. In fact, it's almost never funny when someone breaks character.
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Below: Israel's leading technology university was reportedly hacked on Sunday and some Pentagon staffers are using unauthorized apps on government-issued devices. First:

The biggest risks in cyberspace in 2023 could come on defense, offense and the economy

The top cyber risks of 2023 range from growing geopolitical tensions to insufficient corporate leadership attention and the scarcity of cyber personnel, according to a new report from the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

This year's other top cybersecurity risks, according to the report, include technological advancement fueling a cyber arms race; economic uncertainty; lackluster preparation for cyberattacks; a patchwork of regulations; and vulnerable infrastructure.

Cybercriminals this year have already targeted schools and hospitals, as well as high-profile organizations like U.K. postal service Royal Mail. Those cyberattacks came after a 2022 that saw cyberattacks out of the war in Ukraine, a flurry of major ransomware attacks and some newer groups, like a group of teenagers who hacked major companies.

The Bipartisan Policy Center report drew on the expertise of a working group made up of state government officials, former federal government leaders, and representatives from civil society groups and corporate giants like Bank of America and Comcast. Equifax provided support for the project.

I'm moderating a panel today at 10 a.m. Eastern at the Bipartisan Policy Center headquarters to discuss the report. Until then, here's a rundown of some of its conclusions.
"Evolving geopolitical environment"

Offense-oriented risks
"Accelerating cyber arms race"
Rising international conflict and protectionism are driving risk, the center found. Russia's war in Ukraine is the biggest factor, with the potential for cyberattacks to spill out of the borders of that conflict. But conflicts between China and Western nations, as well as conflict in the Middle East, are other drivers of risk.

Decades-old attacks can still be effective, but innovation causes problems for cyberdefense, the report observes. "Rapid and continual advancements in offensive and defensive capabilities require defenders to keep pace in an environment that disproportionately favors attackers," it states. "Advances in artificial intelligence simultaneously offer great opportunity and danger, the democratization of advanced attack techniques, and unprecedented automation/scalability."
"Vulnerable infrastructure"

Defense-oriented risks
"Lack of investment, preparedness and resilience"
Critical infrastructure will always be an attractive target for hackers, particularly smaller operators, the Bipartisan Policy Center noted. At particular risk are smaller operators who rely on state and local agencies or third-party suppliers.

Neither governments nor businesses have adequately invested in preparing for disastrous cyberattacks, including ransomware, according to the report. A lack of preparedness, and reliance on third-party suppliers, also increases the risk of data breaches and loss of confidential information.
"Global economic head winds"

Economy-oriented risks
"Lagging corporate governance"
Stock market volatility, inflation and the chances of a recession stand to affect cyber risk in a number of ways, the report states. Chief among them is entities putting off cybersecurity to shift money to other priorities, but a recession also could lead investors to avoid putting money into cybersecurity start-ups.
"Overlapping, confusing and subjective regulations"
Large firms have made "modest headway" toward adding cyber expertise to corporate boards and senior leadership, but too many still haven't, the Bipartisan Policy Center concluded. Small- and medium-sized businesses have a particular lack of expertise. The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed amendments to its rules that would require public companies to report periodically on management and board of directors expertise.

"In the United States, and internationally as a consequence of their global nexus, companies navigate the complex patchwork of required cybersecurity, data security, and privacy regulations implemented by national, state, and local authorities, with varying prescriptive requirements," the report reads.
"Talent scarcity"
Governments need to come to conclusions about things like deciding what level of confirmation of a cyberattack triggers requirements for a victim to report it to the government, according to the center. Some critics of strict notification requirements say that swift notification mandates can hamper responses to an incident, or lead to companies passing along useless, unconfirmed information.

Fortune 100 companies were less likely last year to report they had sufficient cyber talent - just 1 percent of them did - than in 2020, when 10 percent said they had enough. "The influence of COVID-driven educational attainment gaps that have yet to manifest might further contribute to the cybersecurity talent shortage," the report says.

The Bipartisan Policy Center pointed out some smaller strategic and operational risks, with white-collar cybercrime (such as intellectual property theft) an example of the former and the commercialization of malware (such as dark web hacking kits) an example of the latter.

In its report, the think tank stops short of making recommendations to address the risks.

"We intentionally focused on identifying risks, not solutions, because various stakeholders may need to take different approaches," the report states. "There are no one-size-fits-all fixes. Rather, these top risks must be considered individually by companies and collectively by the nation."

Israeli cybersecurity officials plans to help top university recover from reported breach

One of Israel's top technology universities, the Technion, was apparently breached by a new hacking group calling itself DarkBit, the Jerusalem Post's Yonah Jeremy Bob reports.

The group is asking for 80 bitcoins, equal to around $1.7 million, to end the attack. It also said it would increase the ransom by 30 percent if the university does not pay the payment within 48 hours.

The Israel National Cyber Directorate has already reached out to the university. The agency said it plans to assist with resolving the incident and will study its consequences to help defend institutions from these kinds of hacks, although it doesn't have the authority to enforce cyber standards on schools.

"The field of higher education has been a central target for cyber attackers, with the INCD identifying 53 [serious] incidents of such attacks in 2022, most of which were prevented," the agency added.

It's not clear what caused the attack, but the university said that classes would resume as normal, with the only exception being that students' devices must be disconnected from the Technion's network.

Hackers interrupt Iranian president's TV speech

Anti-government hackers briefly interrupted a televised speech by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Saturday, which marked the 44th anniversary of the country's revolution, CNN reports.

The incident lasted for about a minute, with a logo appearing on the screen representing the "Edalate Ali" or "Justice for Ali" hacking group. In Tehran's Azadi Square, where Raisi was delivering the speech, a voice shouted "Death to the Islamic Republic" during the interruption. Last year, hackers briefly disrupted state television.

The incident comes as young people and others continue to protest across the country and call for the removal of Raisi's administration. After Mahsa Amini, 22, died in September while in the custody of Iran's morality police, sparking a massive protest movement, "security forces have responded with a deadly crackdown to the protests, among the strongest challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution ended 2,500 years of monarchy," CNN reports.

Pentagon staffers found installing dating apps, games on government phones

Defense Department staffers are using unauthorized apps on government-issued devices, including apps for dating, video streaming, messaging and fantasy football, according to an inspector general's report released Thursday,PC Magazine's Michael Kan reports.

The report falls short of naming the specific apps that were able to be installed on Pentagon smartphones, but said that it is a major issue because a lot of software from public app stores can collect personal data without the user's full knowledge. In December, President Biden signed an order banning TikTok from government devices over concerns the Chinese government could pressure the app to spy on Americans. The U.S. Army banned the app on government devices in 2019.

"Many unmanaged applications routinely require access to a user's contact list, location data and photo library that could reveal sensitive DoD locations and information," the inspector general said.

It blamed the Defense Department's lack of "a comprehensive mobile device and application policy" for the unauthorized app use. In addition, the report alleges that some military departments offer no training to staff on appropriate app use.

Pentagon officials responded to the report, writing to the watchdog that they agreed with some of the report's findings.
Now for sale: Data on your mental health (Drew Harwell)

Privacy patch
The FBI's most controversial surveillance tool is under threat (Wired)

Government scan
Cybercriminals bypass ChatGPT restrictions to make malware worse, phishing emails better (the Rappler) New ESXiArgs ransomware variant emerges after CISA releases decryptor tool (the Hacker News ) Ransomware crooks steal 3m+ patients' sensitive info (the Register) Clop ransomware claims it breached 130 orgs using GoAnywhere zero-day (Bleeping Computer)

Cyber insecurity

The Bipartisan Policy Center holds a meeting with experts to discuss cybersecurity risks that companies, governments and individuals will face this year at 10 a.m. today. Your Cybersecurity 202 anchor, Tim Starks, will be hosting the event.

The House Judiciary Committee holds a hearing to discuss protecting children online on Tuesday at 10 a.m.

The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee will hold a meeting to examine why financial system safeguards are needed for digital assets on Tuesday at 10 a.m.

The Future of Privacy Forum holds its 13th annual privacy papers for policymakers summit and awards ceremony on Thursday at 5:30 p.m.

The National Association of State Election Directors holds its winter conference in D.C. Thursday through Saturday.

The Intelligence and National Security Alliance holds its annual achievement awards on Thursday at 6 p.m. in Arlington, Va.

Secure log off

Puppy Bowl Competitors Hide Under Couch During Terrifying Halftime Fireworks Display https://t.co/1aH9xoVsB2 pic.twitter.com/ly69p5GF9x
- The Onion (@TheOnion) February 12, 2023

Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.

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Analysis | The top cyber risks to watch out for in 2023

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Welcome to The Cybersecurity 202! Saving you a click: No, SNL is not only funny when everyone breaks character. In fact, it's almost never funny when someone breaks character. Reading this online? Sign up for The Cybersecurity 202 to get scoops and sharp analysis in your inbox each morning.

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US-led sanctions campaign weakened Russia’s economy in first year of Ukraine war. Year 2 is about sealing the cracks. | CNN Politics

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A year of unprecedented, US-led sanctions designed to isolate one of the world’s largest economies has left Russia weakened, but not incapacitated.

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Webb telescope makes a surprising galactic discovery in the distant universe | CNN

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Astronomers have used the James Webb Space Telescope to peer back in time to the early days of the universe and saw something surprising. They observed six massive galaxies much larger than what was expected to exist so soon after the big bang.

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Astronomers have revealed the latest deep field image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, featuring never-before-seen details in a region of space known as Pandora’s Cluster (Abell 2744).