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Moscow threatens NATO member Lithuania over transit ban on goods to Russia’s European exclave Kaliningrad

Moscow threatens NATO member Lithuania over transit ban on goods to Russia’s European exclave Kaliningrad

CBS News reports: Lithuania’s decision to ban the transit of certain goods between Russia and its isolated exclave of Kaliningrad has provoked wrath among top officials in Moscow, and even a threat of retaliation against the European nation. Kaliningrad shares land borders with two NATO nations, Lithuania and Poland, but not Russia. Captured from Nazi Germany by the Soviet Red Army in 1945 and later ceded to the Soviet Union, the Russian territory is home to about 500,000 people. While…

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Bulgaria’s Petkov points finger at mafia and Russia as government collapses

Bulgaria’s Petkov points finger at mafia and Russia as government collapses

Politico reports: Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov planted the blame squarely on Russia and his own country’s powerful mafia after his government lost a no-confidence vote on Wednesday. Petkov, who only came to power six months ago, was voted in on a pledge to fight the country’s rampant corruption and has pushed Sofia to take an unusually strong line against Russia since the invasion of Ukraine. In the vote of no-confidence, some 123 lawmakers out of 239 in parliament voted…

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Gavin Newsom jumps onto the national stage and Bidenworld takes notice

Gavin Newsom jumps onto the national stage and Bidenworld takes notice

Politico reports: Newsom has long centered Republican leaders as foils, using his State of the State speech in March to argue that America is plagued by agents of a “national anger machine” that’s fueling division and weaponizing grievance. Often focusing on Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas, Republican governors who revel in making California an example of progressivism run amuck, Newsom argues, the GOP is counting on complacency to erode voting rights, scapegoat minorities, conjure conspiracies and…

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How the brains of social animals synchronise and expand one another

How the brains of social animals synchronise and expand one another

Sofia Quaglia writes: Humans are not the only creatures that show a refined grasp of social norms. If a group of adult male rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) find themselves sitting around a turning table set with food, they will display an ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine’ ethos of reciprocity. One monkey will offer another one a piece of fruit and, what’s more, will expect the gesture to be reciprocated. If the offer isn’t forthcoming, the first monkey is…

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Western move to choke Russia’s oil exports backfires, for now

Western move to choke Russia’s oil exports backfires, for now

The New York Times reports: When the United States and European Union moved to curtail purchases of Russian fossil fuels this year, they hoped it would help make the Russian invasion of Ukraine so economically painful for Moscow that President Vladimir V. Putin would be forced to abandon it. That prospect now seems remote at best. China and India, the world’s most populous countries, have swooped in to buy roughly the same volume of Russian oil that would have gone…

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Ukraine war: Germany turns to coal as Russia throttles gas supplies

Ukraine war: Germany turns to coal as Russia throttles gas supplies

CNBC reports: Germany has said the deteriorating gas market situation means Europe’s largest economy must limit the use of natural gas for electricity production and burn more coal for a “transitional period.” Economy Minister Robert Habeck on Sunday warned that the situation is going to be “really tight in winter” without precautionary measures to prevent a supply shortage. As a result, Germany will seek to compensate for a cut in Russian gas supplies by increasing the burning of coal —…

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Ireland a potential ‘weak link’ for Russia money, says anti-corruption campaigner

Ireland a potential ‘weak link’ for Russia money, says anti-corruption campaigner

The Irish Times reports: Ireland is a potential “weak link” and “soft touch” for Russian money, according to the anti-corruption campaigner who has helped change laws in 34 countries to target human rights abuses. US-born financier and political activist Bill Browder, who has campaigned for 12 years for countries to introduce “Magnitsky” legislation allowing them to sanction people involved in human rights abuses or corruption, is pushing Ireland to introduce its own legislation. Mr Browder, once Russia’s largest foreign investor,…

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Reporters Without Borders investigation indicates Mark Levin and his bodyguard were executed by Russian soldiers

Reporters Without Borders investigation indicates Mark Levin and his bodyguard were executed by Russian soldiers

Reporters Without Borders: RSF sent two investigators to collect evidence and search for clues from 24 May to 3 June: Arnaud Froger, the head of RSF’s investigation desk, and Patrick Chauvel, a French war photo-reporter who had worked with Levin in the Donbas at the end of February. They concluded that Levin and Chernyshov were executed in cold blood. The evidence against the Russian forces is overwhelming. It is detailed in a report published today entitled How Ukrainian journalist Maks…

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Modern city dwellers have lost about half their gut microbes

Modern city dwellers have lost about half their gut microbes

Science reports: Deep in the human gut, myriad “good” bacteria and other microbes help us digest our food, as well as keep us healthy by affecting our immune, metabolic, and nervous systems. Some of these humble microbial assistants have been in our guts since before humans became human—certain gut microbes are found in almost all primates, suggesting they first colonized a common ancestor. But humans have also lost many of these helpers found in other primates and may be losing…

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Google Search is not what it used to be

Google Search is not what it used to be

Charlie Warzel writes: A few weeks ago my house had a septic-tank emergency, which is as awful as it sounds. As unspeakable things began to burble up from my shower drain, I did what any smartphone-dependent person would: I frantically Googled something along the lines of poop coming from shower drain bad what to do. I was met with a slew of cookie-cutter websites, most of which appeared hastily generated and were choked with enough repetitive buzzwords as to be…

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The spooky quantum phenomenon you’ve never heard of

The spooky quantum phenomenon you’ve never heard of

Katie McCormick writes: Perhaps the most famously weird feature of quantum mechanics is nonlocality: Measure one particle in an entangled pair whose partner is miles away, and the measurement seems to rip through the intervening space to instantaneously affect its partner. This “spooky action at a distance” (as Albert Einstein called it) has been the main focus of tests of quantum theory. “Nonlocality is spectacular. I mean, it’s like magic,” said Adán Cabello, a physicist at the University of Seville…

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Russia begins to pay the price for sanctions

Russia begins to pay the price for sanctions

Kseniya Kirillova writes: Russia is now the world leader in the number of sanctions imposed (more than 5,500 measures), overtaking even Iran. While the Kremlin insists that the only party affected by these measures is the West itself, economic experts and even its propagandists now struggle to deny the effects on key sectors of the economy, following the unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine. During a summit on economic issues on June 17, Vladimir Putin said that the “blitzkrieg” of…

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Russia’s invasion could cause long-term harm to Ukraine’s prized soil

Russia’s invasion could cause long-term harm to Ukraine’s prized soil

Science News reports: By now, wheat planted late last year waves in fields across Ukraine. Spring crops of sunflowers and barley are turning swaths of dark earth into a fuzz of bright green. But with Russia’s war being waged in some of the most fertile regions of Ukraine, uncertainty looms over summer harvesting. Ukrainian farmers braved a war zone to carry out close to 80 percent of spring planting, covering roughly 14 million hectares. Still, Russia’s invasion has raised fears…

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Russian ruble keeps rising, hitting a seven-year high

Russian ruble keeps rising, hitting a seven-year high

The New York Times reports: The ruble cemented its unlikely status as the world’s best-performing currency, rising to new multiyear highs this week. Since collapsing in the weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which triggered sweeping international sanctions aimed at crippling the Russian economy, the ruble has come roaring back. On Tuesday, it traded at its strongest level against the U.S. dollar since June 2015. It has gained about 35 percent so far this year, beating every major currency, and…

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