Resistance Will Endure in the Wake of Alexei Navalny’s Death

 by Stephen J. Lyons
02/28/24
in Opinion

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Photo: AFP


As fate would have it, the day I heard the sad but unsurprising news about Alexei Navalny’s murder death in an Arctic gulag prison, I was reading the riveting account of modern-day Russia by journalist Elena Kostyuchenko.

Her book, I Love Russia: Reporting from A Lost Country, is a must-read for anyone wanting to know what life is like in an autocratic nation run by one of the most despicable men on Earth, the corrupt despot Vladimir Putin, apparently a mentor for former President Donald Trump as well as his favorite hand puppet, Tucker Carlson.

Carlson’s recent softball interview with Putin further enshrined the fired FOX News host as an enemy of democratic ideals.

He also placed his foot firmly in his mouth when he said, regarding not challenging Putin on increased repression in Russia, “I have spent my life talking to people who run countries, in various countries, and have concluded the following: That every leader kills people, including my leader. Every leader kills people, some kill more than others. Leadership requires killing people, sorry….”

Navalny’s assassination death was announced four days later.

Repressive Turn

Don’t let the title of Kostyuchenko’s book fool you. It is an ironic statement, but probably also true. The former reporter for the now-shuttered newspaper Novaya Gazeta is a native Russian who loves her country but is also critical of the Stalin-like repressive turn her nation has taken under Putin and his cronies.

Too many of her colleagues at the newspaper have been murdered for their fearless reporting, including famed journalist Anna Politkovskaya, gunned down in the elevator of her apartment building, the price apparently for speaking truth to power in Russia.

In her book, Kostyuchenko reports from Russia’s cruel and poorly-run mental hospitals and from the country’s environmental disasters, where whistleblowers are cowed into silence and health concerns are covered up by Putin’s puppets.

And, like Navalny himself, Kostyuchenko was also a victim of poisoning, a frequent staple in Putin’s arsenal of vengeance that he deploys anywhere in the world without consequences because, as Carlson said, “Leadership requires killing people.”
Lies and Cover-Ups

Life in Russia is dismal under Putin. State-controlled media fills citizens with lies and cover-ups. Protesters of Putin’s unjust war are beaten and jailed, including the mothers of the more than 120,000 Russian soldiers killed and the 180,000 wounded. (Ukraine estimates 70,000 of its soldiers have been killed and as many as 120,000 wounded.)

In the case of Novaya Gazette, Putin shut the newspaper down in 2022, calling it “undesirable.” Its crime? Too much honest reportage in the wake of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine the same year. The publication has resurfaced as Novaya Gazeta Europe and now publishes from Riga, Latvia. On its website is the following mission statement: “Censorship may have decimated independent journalism in Russia, but it won’t stop us reporting freely about the country and the war in Ukraine.”

Recent headlines: Scorched earth: Photos from Avdiivka, the ruined Ukrainian city now under Russia’s control; A mysterious commotion: A fellow inmate recounts events in the IK-3 penal colony on the eve of Alexey Navalny’s death; and At least 157 people detained in 25 cities as Russians mourn the loss of Alexey Navalny.

That number keeps growing. Since Navalny’s homicide passing at the Polar Wolf IK-3 penal colony, some 400 Russians have been arrested for holding peaceful protests around the country. Will they get a fair trial? Doubtful. Will they be found guilty? No doubt.

A Ukrainian soldier near the frontline of Russia-backed separatists. 

Photo: Anatoli Stepanov/AFP via Getty
Our Fight

As Kostyuchenko writes in I Love Russia, “In 2021, Russian courts oversaw the trials of 783,000 people. Of these, exactly 2,190 were found innocent… The probability of someone charged with a crime being exonerated was 0.28 percent.”

As I write this, Navalny’s body has not been released to his widow Yulia Navalnaya. The reason seems obvious. His corpse would reveal the cause of his very unnatural death. Navalnaya believes her husband was killed with the nerve agent Novichok and the Kremlin is holding his body until the poison dissipates. Novichok was employed against former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in England in 2018. They survived.

Putin will be “elected” next month for a fifth term. With Navalny and others out of the way, the “election” is just another orchestrated Russian Potemkin farce that fools no one.

The death of Navalny will ignite a thousand Navalnys because all autocrats eventually meet their end because the power of ideas cannot be crushed with force. The walls of oppression are porous. Because of the courage of journalists like Elena Kostyuchenko and the doggedness of news organizations like Novaya Gazeta Europe, Putin’s day will also come sooner rather than later.

As Yulia Navalnaya said in her recent video message to the world: “I will continue Alexei Navalny’s work … I want to live in a free Russia, I want to build a free Russia. I call on you to stand with me. To share not only grief and endless pain … I ask you to share with me the rage. The fury, anger, hatred for those who dare to kill our future.”

All of us around the world share that rage. Navalny’s fight is our fight, and it is not yet finished.Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Globe Post.



Stephen J. Lyons
Author of six books of reportage and essays, most recently “Searching for Home: Misadventures with Misanthropes” (Finishing Line Press)

FIRST COVID, NOW MEASLES: FLORIDA OUTBREAK SPREADING RAPIDLY

Sby Mary Spiller
February 26, 2024

There are currently seven known cases of measles in Florida—and the number is likely to grow.

The measles outbreak in Florida is spreading rapidly. On Feb. 23, Broward County health officials confirmed a seventh case of the virus in a child under the age of 5.

Since the child is the youngest ever to be infected during the outbreak, parents have been advised to be more careful. The anonymous child is the first to be infected outside of students at the Manatee Bay Elementary School in Weston, near Fort Lauderdale, according to NBC News.

Co-director of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Dr. David Kimberlin, said to expect more cases because they are “not going to stay contained just to that one school, not when a virus is this infectious.”

The measles outbreak isn’t just contained to Florida. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that as of Feb. 23, there have been at least 35 measles cases in 15 different states in 2024. It hypothesized that most of the cases are a product of international travel. However, Florida’s outbreak is the most pervasive in the country.

Kimberlin described measles as being so contagious that it’s difficult to quarantine those infected. “Measles is the most infectious pathogen in humans that we know of. It’s like a heat-seeking missile. It will find the people who are not immune, and they’re going to get sick.”

Unvaccinated people have a 90% chance of becoming infected if they’re exposed.

Katelyn Jetelina, who tracks illnesses for the website “Your Local Epidemiologist,” said, “Epidemiology 101 is to identify and isolate.” This is especially difficult for measles since people who are infected can spread it to others for up to three weeks.

Dr. Joseph Ladapo, Florida’s surgeon general, sent letter to parents at Manatee Bay Elementary School, informing them that, “Due to the high-immunity rate in the community, as well as the burden on families and educational cost of healthy children missing school, DOH is deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance.”

The letter included several symptoms of measles to watch out for during the outbreak, including, “high fever, rash, red, [and] watery eyes.”

'Uncommitted' protest vote in Michigan is a warning Biden cannot ignore

By Sarah Smith

BBC

North America editor in Michigan

Activists from the Listen to Michigan campaign cheered as election results came in

Michigan voters have sent a clear warning to the White House that Joe Biden's support for Israel's war in Gaza could cost him dearly in the presidential election in November.

Activists encouraged people voting in Tuesday's Democratic primary to withhold their votes from President Biden and instead mark the box marked "uncommitted" as a protest. More than 100,000 voters did just that.

The protest vote - while a sharp rebuke - poses no immediate danger to Mr Biden, who still won the contest with 81% of the vote. He's the incumbent president and has no serious challenger from within his party, so he can't lose the race to choose the Democratic candidate.

But what if all the people who withheld their support from him this time don't come out to vote for him in the general election? That could be decisive.

Every vote counts in a key swing state that the US president almost certainly needs to win to have a shot at a second term. In 2016, for example, Hillary Clinton lost Michigan to Donald Trump by fewer than 11,000 ballots.

Mr Trump, following his own victory in the Republican primary, declared: "We win Michigan, we win the whole thing."

This Midwestern state is home to America's largest Arab-American population, most of whom are deeply upset by the devastation they see in Gaza.

President Biden can't afford to ignore their demands that he call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza - rather than the temporary one that the White House has been pushing for. He did not mention the war or the protest vote in his statement following his victory, but his campaign team will have surely heard the message loud and clear.

I asked Leyla Elabed, manager of the "Listen to Michigan" campaign, if she was worried she might be inadvertently helping Donald Trump back into the White House by damaging Joe Biden's electability.

"If Biden doesn't act now, and listen to the 80% of Democrats and the 66% of Americans that want a permanent ceasefire right now," she told me before Tuesday's primary, "it is going to be Biden, his administration and the Democratic Party that are going to be accountable for handing the White House to Trump in November."

President Biden has offered some recent criticism of Israel's conduct of the war, describing it as "over the top". He appears to be becoming increasingly frustrated with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and has warned that Israel is at risk of losing international support.

His administration is strongly advocating for a temporary ceasefire over the Muslim holiday of Ramadan that would include an exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners. But Mr Biden says it's not the right time to call for the permanent ceasefire his detractors in Michigan are demanding.


Biden's support for Israel has lost him votes among Arab Americans

Dissatisfaction on this issue goes beyond the Arab-American and Muslim communities, however. Many younger voters - another key part of the electoral coalition that voted for the oldest-ever US president - are also angry. Regular protests are taking place on college campuses across America.

In Detroit, the views of students from the Wayne State College Democrats highlighted President Biden's vulnerability on the issue.

Karon Heath, 18, an anthropology and law major, said she was enraged that the White House had not been advocating for a permanent ceasefire despite months of war and "heartbreaking" scenes in Gaza.

Taylor James, 22, who is studying economics, believes the US - Israel's strongest international ally - should stop sending aid to Mr Netanyahu's government.

But Cassidy Collins did vote for Mr Biden on Tuesday. She thinks he needs all the support he can get to stop Mr Trump from returning to the White House. She described that prospect as "one of the most scariest things I could possibly imagine".

Each of these students said they wished Mr Biden had stood aside and allowed another candidate to get the Democratic nomination this year. They think that at 81, he is too old to understand the concerns of their generation, and that he hasn't been aggressive enough on climate change or on forgiving student loan debt.

The complaints from these young people - each of them a signed-up Democrat - were different to the concerns I tend to hear from undecided voters who are considering backing Donald Trump. Those moderate voters - whom I've met in the wine bars of Atlanta, the sandwich shops of Philadelphia and the rural outposts of Iowa - often help decide who wins the White House.

They've told me they felt much better off when Donald Trump was in office. And they're not convinced yet by the Biden administration's attempts to persuade Americans the economy is improving.

Nearly every voter also cites the record levels of illegal immigration at the southern border.

It's a vulnerability that explains why Mr Biden is about to tackle the immigration issue head on with a high-profile visit to the border on Thursday. Donald Trump will also be there on the same day to argue that Mr Biden's policies are to blame for the crisis.

The White House hopes to undermine Mr Trump on his signature issue by highlighting that the former president recently got his supporters in Congress to defeat a bipartisan bill that would have provided billions of dollars to beef up border security.

Mr Biden may soon introduce a presidential executive order aimed at reducing the number of asylum seekers entering the US. Yet it could be too late to convince voters he can be trusted on this issue.

The president is simultaneously under attack from the right by voters who blame him for allowing unprecedented numbers of migrants to enter the US - and on the left by disappointed Democrats who are appalled by his strong support for Israel.

The president needs to address both issues - and to find a way to appeal to the middle, while also motivating his base. It will not be an easy strategy to pull off.

None of the dozens of Michiganders protesting over the war in Gaza that I spoke to this week said they were planning to vote for Mr Trump.

But if the deeply felt anger towards Mr Biden in parts of Michigan leads thousands of voters to stay home in November, or to cast their ballot for a third party candidate, that could still cost Mr Biden the White House.

Uncommitted Michigan Campaign Shows Arab Americans' Disapproval of Biden Over Gaza

More than 100,000 Michigan residents voted “uncommitted” in the presidential primary.

BY RACHEL JANFAZA

TEEN VOGUE
BY FEBRUARY 28, 2024

ANADOLU/GETTY IMAGES

President Joe Biden just received a loud and clear message from Michigan's Arab American community over his handling of Israel’s war in Gaza. In Tuesday's presidential primary, more than 100,000 Michigan registered Democrats voted "uncommitted,” according to the Associated Press. Though Biden and Donald Trump won the Michigan primaries outright, leaders with the Listen to Michigan initiative said in a memo this week that organizing a protest vote, “ignited a vital conversation about the values we hold dear as Democrats, Americans, and people of conscience across faith and backgrounds.”

“This is a grassroots effort. We built a coalition that is multigenerational, so it includes a lot of our young community leaders, community activists, and just young people who are frustrated and discontent[ed], you know — have a feeling of discontent and betrayal with the current Biden administration's lack of action around Israel's aggression against Palestinians in Gaza,” Listen to Michigan’s campaign manager Layla Elabed, 34, told Teen Vogue.

An estimated 29,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza after Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. In the U.S. and abroad, young Americans in particular have put mounting pressure on the Biden administration to demand a ceasefire, organizing protests and letters against his position on the war. A New York Times/Siena poll from December found that 72% of registered voters between the ages of 18-29 disapproved of Biden’s handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We've had a lot of young volunteers on college campuses that have either helped us host rallies and get student organizations involved or who have kind of picked up the Listen to Michigan ‘uncommitted’ campaign themselves and have ran their own initiatives on their own college campuses to get their student bodies to go uncommitted in today's presidential primary,” she said.

According to the Listen to Michigan campaign, “Student organizers are leading efforts to spread Listen to Michigan's message on campuses such as The University of Michigan, Michigan State, Wayne State, Kzoo College, Western, and Eastern.”

Michigan is home to a large number of Arab and Muslim Americans. U.S. Census Bureau data from 2020 shows that people of Middle Eastern or North African ancestry account for the majority of people (54.5%) in the city of Dearborn, specifically. According to a report from Emgage, which works to turn out Muslim voters nationwide, 145,620 Muslim voters in Michigan cast ballots in the 2020 general election. Biden won Michigan by 154,188 votes in 2020.

The Listen to Michigan campaign was based on the premise that if enough Democratic voters abstained from voting for Biden in Tuesday’s primary, it would signal that the president should reconsider his support for Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza.

In a Monday memo, Elabed said the group was hoping at least 10,000 Michigan Democrats would vote uncommitted. “10,000 votes is about the same as Donald Trump’s margin over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Biden must support a lasting ceasefire and stop funding Israel’s war in Gaza. This is not a messaging problem, it is a bombs problem,” she wrote.

Uncommitted: 101,000 in Michigan tell Biden, “Ceasefire now!”

February 28, 2024 

 BY MARK GRUENBERG AND JOHN WOJCIK

PEOPLES WORLD

Fatima Salman of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., one of the Listen to Michigan grassroots organizers, applauds as she listens to Detroit City Councilperson Gaby Santiago-Romero speaking on stage during Listen to Michigan's election night gathering in Dearborn on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. | Junfu Han / Detroit Free Press via AP


DETROIT—The big takeaway in the Michigan primaries last night was that tens of thousands of voters went to the polls and cast their votes for Uncommitted, the path crafted by a coalition demanding that President Biden come out for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

The “Listen to Michigan” operation mobilized 101,000 voters to cast their votes for a ceasefire by voting for Uncommitted instead of voting for President Biden in the Democratic primary.

Pundits who tried to pay down the importance of that vote by tens of thousands of Arab American, young, African American and other voters noted that Michiganders often cast votes for Uncommitted in primaries when they want to protest policies of incumbents. They noted that it even happened when Barack Obama was on the primary ballot in Michigan. The Uncommitted vote when Obama was the Democratic candidate for president was only 10,000, however, a number dwarfed by the 101,000 who voted that way this time. Trump won his election in Michigan in 2016 by only 10,000 votes.

The implications cannot possibly be lost on a Biden Administration that is associated with total support of Israel’s genocidal polies in Gaza. The problems they will have go well beyond the large Arab American communities in Michigan.

All night on Tuesday going into Wednesday social media was abuzz with thousands of young people who lived in states other than Michigan anxiously watching, reporting on and celebrating the Uncommitted totals as they rose through the night. Many of those young people live in battleground or swing states.

While enjoying an ice cream cone with comedian Seth Meyers on Monday, President Joe Biden said he believes a temporary ceasefire deal could come as early as next Monday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, however, announced it is still moving ahead with plans to attack Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians have sought refuge. | via YouTube

Democratic Rep. Ro Khana of California, a leader among progressive Democrats and a supporter of an immediate ceasefire, who was in Michigan last night, said that there must be a permanent ceasefire by Israel and that he expected the Biden administration to listen. “Even if they change course, however, it will not automatically bring everyone back into the fold,” he warned, “There will have to be a period of healing before some people come back into the Biden camp.”

There is talk that Biden is trying to negotiate a “temporary” ceasefire contingent upon freeing the remainder of the hostages but that is not enough, according to leaders of Listen to Michigan who insist that a ceasefire by Israel must be permanent if the genocide in Gaza is to stop.

Thus far the administration has not talked about cutting off the U.S. arms that Israel is using to slaughter the people of Gaza. The anger by opponents of the administration’s policy in the Mideast is palpable and they want to see a total, unequivocal end to U.S. backing of policies that have oppressed the Palestinian people for many decades, including the illegal settling of occupied territories by right wing Israeli settlers who have been murdering Palestinians.

In some of the communities with large numbers of Arab American voters last night the Uncommitted vote was in the neighborhood of 60 percent and even higher. In two congressional districts that include parts of Wayne County the Uncommitted vote was high enough to insure that uncommitted delegates will go to the Democratic Party convention in Chicago this year. Michigan rules say delegates are allotted whenever totals exceed 15 percent in a given congressional district.

Another practical reason for the Biden administration to reverse its policy in Gaza is that it does not want to see huge protests at the Democratic Party convention in Chicago this year. They do not want large numbers of Arab Americans who live in Chicago, Michigan and elsewhere to show up with young people and other anti-war protesters. Historical and even personal memories of the bitter protests against the war in Vietnam and the ensuing police riots at a Chicago Democratic convention will never be forgotten and the party wants nothing like that to ever happen again.

At first glance, it would seem that Republican front-runner Donald Trump coasted to victory in his party’s Michigan primary on February 27. And he did. But the voting also carried danger signals for him with at least a quarter of the vote going to Nikki Haley. Most calculations have it that Trump cannot afford to lose more than five percent of the vote from Republicans if he is to win in November.

Biden, on the other hand, garnered a much large percentage of support from Democrats than Trump did from Republicans, That was true also in the South Carolina primaries.

The leaders of the Uncommitted campaign set a goal of getting 10,000 votes. The “Listen to Michigan” Uncommitted delegate campaigners garnered 100,960–ten times their goal.

The 10,000 number the ceasefire supporters targeted represents Trump’s 2016 0.2% victory margin in Michigan over Democrat Hillary Clinton. For comparison, Biden beat Trump by 3% and 154,000 votes in Michigan in 2020.

Claimed he’d win by 80 points

For Trump, it was his radio prediction he’d beat his last remaining active foe, former Gov. Nikki Haley, R-S.C. “by 80 points or something like that.” He didn’t. With 98% of the Republican ballots counted, Trump had 68.2% of the vote, and Haley had 26.5%.

With 98% of Democratic primary ballots counted, Biden had 617,728 votes (81.1%) and uncommitted had 100,960 (13.3%). In Detroit and Wayne County, home to much of Michigan’s 200,000-person Arab-American community—Uncommitted led Biden 78%-17%.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., who represents Detroit and who is the first Palestinian-American in Congress, said the combination of the Uncommitted vote and a poll the week before indicating 74% of Michigan Democrats oppose Biden’s continuing one-sided military aid to Israel shows he has real problems he has to face in his reelection campaign. Tlaib voted Uncommitted.

“When 74% of Democrats in Michigan support a cease-fire yet President Biden is not hearing us, this is the way we can use our democracy to say, ‘Listen, listen to Michigan’,” Tlaib told the Associated Press

.

Trump won another primary, but as in previous states, he was carried to victory by his narrow extreme right-wing base. It’s not clear that this is force large enough to guarantee a win in the general election. Here, he is seen campaigning in Waterford Township, Mich., on Feb. 17. | AP

“It is not lost on me that this president has softened his language and begun to recognize Palestinian suffering,” the mayor of Dearborn said. “But what is not enough is lip service. What we need is a withdrawal of support” for Israel, Mayor Abdullah Hammoud told AP. His city is the center of Michigan’s Arab American community. “What’s most important is to understand that the White House is listening.”

Popular Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a national co-chair for Biden, had predicted “a sizable” vote for Uncommitted delegates, though she declined to put a number on it. She believes those voters, however dismayed by the war on Gaza and Biden’s stand, will come back to him.

“At the end of the day, I am advocating that people cast an affirmative vote for Joe Biden because anything other than that makes it more likely we see a second Trump term and that’s bad for all the communities,” she told AP.

The Republican primary was a “beauty contest,” to the extent that the party convention later in the week will pick actual delegates—assuming the state GOP overcomes its chaos and Trumpites-vs-business infighting and holds only one convention, not two in separate cities with separate state chairs. So neither Trump nor Haley campaigned much in Michigan.

Trump ran as a virtual incumbent and with a record as a white supremacist, xenophobe and misogynist, who also faces four upcoming trials and 91 counts in state and federal courts. His first criminal trial starts March 25 in New York. Others would be in D.C., Georgia and Florida.

Trump crowed about his win and used his speech to again criticize United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, calling him “stupid.” He falsely claimed. “the auto workers are all in my camp.”

That is not expected to go over well with members happy with record gains made under Fain’s leadership. Biden also made history by being the first president ever to walk the picket line with the auto workers in their recent historic strike

At their legislative conference just weeks ago, the Auto Workers’ new and much more activist board, and conference delegates, endorsed and cheered Biden, who spoke. The endorsement from Fain, the union’s first-ever popularly elected president, was enthusiastic.

CONTRIBUTORS

Mark Gruenberg
Award-winning journalist Mark Gruenberg is head of the Washington, D.C., bureau of People's World. He is also the editor of the union news service Press Associates Inc. (PAI). Known for his reporting skills, sharp wit, and voluminous knowledge of history, Mark is a compassionate interviewer but tough when going after big corporations and their billionaire owners.

John Wojcik
John Wojcik is Editor-in-Chief of People's World. He joined the staff as Labor Editor in May 2007 after working as a union meat cutter in northern New Jersey. There, he served as a shop steward and a member of a UFCW contract negotiating committee. In the 1970s and '80s, he was a political action reporter for the Daily World, this newspaper's predecessor, and was active in electoral politics in Brooklyn, New York.

Biden orders crackdown on selling Americans’ personal data abroad

The broader issue of data harvesting remains an issue.

By Wes Davis, 

Feb 28, 2024

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

President Joe Biden has issued an executive order authorizing the US attorney general “to prevent the large-scale transfer of Americans’ personal data to countries of concern.” According to the US Department of Justice today, those countries could include China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

The White House says it’s targeting data brokers, which it says collect more personal data than ever before — data that includes things like personal health and financial data. The scale can be staggering: in a recent extreme example from a Consumer Reports study, 48,000 companies had sent Facebook data on a single user.

Several departments will be required to roll out new protections under the order. The White House writes that the Department of Justice (DOJ) will have to create rules to prevent countries of concern from exploiting personal data, though it’s not clear through what means the DOJ would accomplish this. The data would include that related to genomics, biometrics, personal health, finances, and “certain kinds of personal identifiers.” The DOJ would also be required to work with the Department of Homeland Security to set new security standards regarding data gathered through “investment, vendor, and employment relationships.”

Related  FTC bans major data broker from selling invasive location tracking details

Biden also ordered the Departments of Health and Human Services, Defense, and Veterans Affairs to ensure that Americans’ health data can’t be transferred via other routes like federal grants.

Finally, the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector would have to consider personal data threats when reviewing submarine cable licenses. The order, which would be the president’s third so far this year, has not yet been published to the Federal Register.

The order described by the White House’s announcement doesn’t appear to address the overall issue of the personal data market in the US, which has very little in the way of boundaries. That leaves us with case-by-case regulatory action by agencies like the FTC, which recently banned two brokers from selling precise location data that could endanger consumers.

Foreign actors aren’t the only concern. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), who has been beating the drum for digital privacy for many years, cited one of those bans when he called on the NSA to stop buying location information from data brokers. The US director of national intelligence said information US intelligence agencies buy from them is as detailed as any it could have gotten “only through targeted (and predicated) collection.”

By Wes Davis, a weekend editor who covers the latest in tech and entertainment. He has written news, reviews, and more as a tech journalist since 2020.

Apple Car canceled after 10 years of hard work

TECH By Abid Iqbal Shaik
 February 28th, 2024 


Apple has allegedly been developing a car (usually referred to as Apple Car) under Project Titan since 2014. Unfortunately, after a decade of pouring investment and hard work into the project, the company has finally canceled the development of the Apple Car, according to a new report from Mark Gurman on Bloomberg (via Engadget).

Reportedly, Apple broke the latest news to 2,000 people working on the project on Tuesday. Mark says that Apple will move some of those employees to the company’s artificial intelligence department where they will focus on generative AI projects, allow the remaining people to apply for a job in other divisions, and lay off the rest. At the moment, there’s no information about why Apple canceled the project.

Initially, Apple wanted to develop a fully self-driving car with no steering wheel or pedals. However, over the years, the company dialed down on the capabilities of the car (mostly because of technical challenges) with the most recent report suggesting that it would be an electric vehicle similar to the Tesla Model X. Plus, there were many delays/setbacks in the project. Maybe Apple canceled Apple Car because it wasn’t going to be what the company had envisioned initially and due to delays and setbacks.

Apple’s electric car project is dead

After a decade of work, the company is reportedly giving up on its ambitious effort to create an autonomous electric car.

By Emma Roth, 

Feb 27, 2024, 

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Apple has halted its long-rumored “Project Titan” work on developing an electric car, according to Bloomberg. The company reportedly announced the news internally on Tuesday and said many people in the 2,000-person team behind the car will shift to generative AI efforts instead.

Apple’s chief operating officer Jeff Williams and Kevin Lynch, a vice president in charge of the project, informed employees of the project’s discontinuation, Bloomberg reports. The outlet adds that there will also be layoffs, but it’s not clear how many workers it will affect.

Apple’s efforts to build its own electric car have been rumored for years, and recent reports suggested Apple was still working on the project. Earlier this month, Wired reported that Apple had driven over 45,000 miles in 2023 using the autonomous driving tech it’s developed, while Bloomberg said in January Apple pushed back the car’s expected launch to 2028. The Verge reached out to Apple with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.

Rumors about Apple’s secretive car project, nicknamed Project Titan, first emerged in 2015. Apple hired a number of key leaders to work on the project, including Tesla’s former Autopilot software director and the former CEO of the embattled EV startup Canoo. However, the project seems to have hit a number of roadblocks over the years, including the 2021 departure of Apple car chief Doug Field. In 2022, a report from The Information outlined how Apple had struggled with high turnover among staff, constantly changing plans, and internal skepticism.

Meanwhile, other reports suggested that the car, which was rumored to remain under the $100,000 threshold, wouldn’t come with the advanced self-driving capabilities the company initially hoped. Shifting its resources to AI might make sense for Apple, as it’s reportedly spending millions of dollars a day on training an AI model of its own, called Ajax. Apple CEO Tim Cook also recently confirmed that Apple is launching generative AI features “later this year,” while rumors indicate the company is testing AI updates for Spotlight and Xcode.

Even though Apple may have abandoned the self-driving electric vehicle dream, Sony and Honda are still working to open preorders for their Afeela electric cars with autonomous features in North America next year ahead of a rollout in 2026.

By Emma Roth, a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO.

Odysseus Moon Lander Still Operational, In Final Hours Before Battery Dies

Steve Gorman
28th Feb, 2024




Odysseus, the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon since 1972, neared the end of its fifth day on the lunar surface still operational, but with its battery in its final hours before the vehicle is expected to go dark, according to flight controllers.

Texas-based Intuitive Machines said in an online update on Tuesday that its control center in Houston remained in contact with the lander as it “efficiently sent payload science data and imagery in furtherance of the company’s mission objectives.”

The spacecraft reached the lunar surface last Thursday after an 11th-hour navigational glitch and white-knuckle descent that ended with Odysseus landing in a sideways or sharply tilted position that has impeded its communications and solar-charging capability.

Intuitive Machines said the next day that human error was to blame for the navigational issue. Flight readiness teams had neglected to manually unlock a safety switch before launch, preventing subsequent activation of the vehicle’s laser-guided range finders and forcing flight engineers to hurriedly improvise an alternative during lunar orbit.

An Intuitive executive told Reuters on Saturday that the safety switch lapse stemmed from the company’s decision to forgo a test-firing of the laser system during pre-launch checks in order to save time and money.

Whether or not failure of the range finders and last-minute substitution of a work-around ultimately caused Odysseus to land in an off-kilter manner remained an open question, according to Intuitive officials.

Nevertheless, the company said last Friday that two of the spacecraft’s communication antennae were knocked out of commission, pointed the wrong way, and that its solar panels were likewise facing the wrong direction, limiting the vehicle’s ability to recharge its batteries.

As a consequence, Intuitive said on Monday that it expected to lose contact with Odysseus on Tuesday morning, cutting short the mission that held a dozen science instruments for NASA and several commercial customers and had been intended to operate on the moon for seven to 10 days.

BESIDE CRATER WALL?

On Tuesday morning, Intuitive said controllers were still “working on final determination of battery life on the lander, which may continue up to an additional 10-20 hours.”

The latest update from the company indicated the spacecraft might last for a total of six days before the sun sets over the landing site.

The company’s shares closed 7% higher on Tuesday. The stock plummeted last week following news the spacecraft had landed askew.

It remained to be seen how much research data and imagery from payloads might go uncollected because of Odysseus’ cockeyed landing and shortened lunar lifespan.

NASA paid Intuitive $118 million to build and fly Odysseus.

NASA chief Bill Nelson told Reuters on Tuesday he understood that agency scientists expected to retrieve some data from all six of their payloads. He also said Odysseus apparently landed beside a crater wall and was leaning at a 12-degree angle, though it was not clear whether that meant 12 degrees from the surface or 12 degrees from an upright position.

Intuitive executives said on Feb. 23 that engineers believed Odysseus had caught the foot of one of its landing legs on the lunar surface as it neared touchdown and tipped over before coming to rest horizontally, apparently propped up on a rock.

No photos from Odysseus on the lunar surface have been transmitted yet. But an image from an orbiting NASA spacecraft released on Monday showed the lander as a tiny speck near its intended destination in the moon’s south pole region.

Despite its less-than-ideal touchdown, Odysseus became the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon since NASA’s last crewed Apollo mission to the lunar surface in 1972.

It was also the first lunar landing ever by a commercially manufactured and operated space vehicle, and the first under NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to Earth’s natural satellite this decade.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles, Joey Roulette in Washington and Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by David Gaffen, Jonathan Oatis, Rosalba O’Brien and Gerry Doyle)

Thyssenkrupp May Cut 5,000 Jobs Under Steel Unit Revamp – Handelsblatt

Bartosz Dabrowski
28th Feb, 2024


Thyssenkrupp could cut at least 5,000 jobs as part of the planned restructuring of its steel division, the German daily Handelsblatt reported on Wednesday, citing company sources.

The management board of the company is working on a concept, due to be presented in mid-April, which would see the future structure of the unit reduced to 27,000 employees, it added.

Thyssenkrupp declined to comment on the report.

(Reprting by Bartosz Dabrowski and Tom Kaeckenhoff; Editing by Madeline Chambers)

Record Year For Wind Farms Raises Hope For EU Green Energy Goals

Kate Abnett
28th Feb, 2024



Arecord year for building new wind farms and a rebound in investments in the sector have raised hopes that the EU may achieve its clean energy targets, industry group WindEurope said on Wednesday.

In an annual report, WindEurope described 2023 as a year of “significant improvements” in key areas of Europe’s wind energy sector, which struggled in 2022 with soaring inflation, interest rates and volatile energy markets after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Investments in European offshore wind last year jumped to 30 billion euros, up from the scant 0.4 billion euros that were invested in 2022. EU countries also installed a record-high 16.2 gigawatts of new wind energy capacity last year, around 80% of which was onshore wind farms, the group said.

The lobby group said EU policies to speed up project permits has encouraged the sector, in addition to the bloc’s proposals to help wind projects access financing and index prices in government renewable energy auctions.

Germany and Spain each permitted 70% more onshore wind in 2023, compared with the year before.

Europe’s wind firms have faced a bleak period of supply chain setbacks, inflation and equipment problems – although Danish turbine manufacturer Vestas (VWS.CO) returned to profit in the fourth quarter of 2023.

WindEurope said it now expects Europe to install an average of 29GW per year from 2024 to 2023, reaching a total 393GW of wind energy capacity in 2030 – pulling close to the 425GW needed to comply with the EU’s 2030 renewable energy targets.

“This puts us within striking distance of actually delivering the 2030 wind targets, which are extremely ambitious,” the group’s Chief Policy Officer Pierre Tardieu said.

The EU warned last year countries’ own energy plans mean they are not on track for the bloc’s overall 2030 target to get 42.5% of its energy from renewables, including other sources like solar and biomass energy.

WindEurope said the biggest risk to Europe’s wind energy expansion is now sluggish investments in upgrading power grids to handle the fast-growing share of renewable energy.

(Reporting by Kate Abnett; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

Aston Martin Delays First Electric Car As Losses Narrow

Yadarisa Shabong
28th Feb, 2024

Aston Martin is delaying the launch of its first electic car because of a lack of consumer demand, it said on Wednesday, as record prices for its luxury and special edition models helped the British carmaker shrink annual losses.

Aston Martin is now targeting the launch of its battery electric vehicle (BEV) in 2026, a year later than planned – becoming the latest automaker to push back electrification goals as investment in capacity and technology has outpaced EV demand.

“The consumer demand (for BEVs), certainly at an Aston Martin price point, is not what we thought it was going to be two years ago,” Executive Chairman Lawrence Stroll told journalists.

Stroll said there was “much more driven demand” for plug-in hybrid vehicles, especially for a company like Aston Martin, as people “want some electrification … but (to) still have the sports car smell and feel and noise”.

Aston Martin’s first hybrid supercar, Valhalla, is on course to enter production this year.

The company’s annual pretax losses more than halved in 2023, coming in smaller than market expectations, after selling prices reached record levels as it delivered its Valkyrie models and other special edition cars.

Mercedes-Benz earlier this month delayed its electrification goal by five years and assured investors it would keep sprucing up its combustion engine models.

Last June, Aston Martin signed a supply agreement with Saudi Arabia-backed Lucid Group to bolster its electrification strategy.

Stroll, who played down concerns about competition from Chinese EV maker BYD, added he was happy with the battery technology and platforms available to the company.

PIVOT

Fictional secret agent James Bond’s car brand of choice, Aston Martin has had a tough time since its market debut in 2018.

However, top shareholder Stroll has been trying to bolster its cash and margins by rolling out next-generation sports cars – the latest of which was the new Vantage sports model unveiled this month.

The carmaker’s shares were down 2% at 1047 GMT as investors fretted about its cash flow and volumes.

Aston Martin had hoped to turn free cash flow positive in the fourth quarter, but was hit by the timing of deliveries of its DB12 and Valour models.

It now expects positive cash generation in the second half of this year.

“Aston Martin is pumping reams of cash into marketing in a bid to help position itself at the ultra-luxury end of the spectrum. This pivot was never going to come cheap,” said Hargreaves analyst Sophie Lund-Yates.

Aston Martin reported an adjusted pretax loss of 171.8 million pounds ($217.4 million) for the year ended Dec. 31, compared with a 451 million pounds loss a year earlier.

Analysts, on average, expected a loss of 209 million pounds, according to a company-compiled consensus.

The company kept its near- and medium-term forecasts unchanged.

(Reporting by Yadarisa Shabong in Bengaluru; Editing by Miral Fahmy and Mark Potter)

Kyivan Rus: The First East Slavic State

 

Kyivan Rus: The First East Slavic State

Wednesday 28 February 2024

Long before Russia or Ukraine existed, there was Kyivan Rus.

Centuries before Russia or Ukraine raised arms against each other, Scandinavians made their way to Novgorod before moving on to Kyiv.

Kyivan Rus rose up during the 9th century and laid the foundations for the development of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

The city of Kyiv was the heart of Kyivan Rus, a loosely bound federation of principalities, each under the governance of its individual prince.

The state reached its pinnacle in the late 10th century when it adopted Christianity from Byzantium, marking the conversion of Kyivan Rus into Orthodox Christianity.

It also was a crucial hub for trade between the Baltic and Black Seas, helping foster growth and cultural exchange. This fusion of Slavic and Byzantine aesthetics in art, architecture, and political rule emerged. While it was taking in and absorbing influences around it, it was truly becoming a culture of its own. 

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Tuesday 27 February 2024

The Vinland Map: How a Mysterious Forgery Fooled Experts for Decades

The Vinland Map courted controversy from the moment its discovery was announced. / Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University // Public Domain (map); wilatlak villette/Moment/Getty Images (background)

In 1965, Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice Michael A. Musmanno traveled to Yale University to look at a map that, until recently, had been kept a closely guarded secret.

The document, dubbed the Vinland Map, was said to date back to 1440. It was inscribed with a phrase alternately deciphered as Vinlanda Insula, Vimlanda Insula, or Vinilanda Insula, and depicted a version of North America that included Greenland as an island as well as part of what appears to be the North American coast. When translated, text on the map seemed to corroborate the events of what are known as the Vinland Sagas, two 13th-century Icelandic texts that speak of legendary explorer Leif Erikson arriving in North America—likely present-day Newfoundland, Canada—by way of Greenland around 1000. If legit, as the university claimed it was, the map was the earliest representation of North America and provided more evidence that Vikings had made it to the continent nearly 500 years ahead of Christopher Columbus—who, although he sailed for Spain, was Genoese by birth and was later embraced by Italian Americans as a hero.

In a blow to their pride, the map’s existence was announced in a splashy press conference just before the holiday honoring the explorer. With it came a book written by scholars who had worked in secret for seven years to verify the map’s authenticity. “Cartographic Scholarship Turns Over New Leif,” the Los Angeles Times punned.

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