War in Ukraine forces Sweden to confront the reality of Russian aggression

War in Ukraine forces Sweden to confront the reality of Russian aggression

The New York Times reports: The Gotland regiment of the Swedish Army was going through its paces, practicing how to use its Swedish-designed lightweight anti-tank missiles, the NLAWs, that are proving so effective in Ukraine. The regiment, which was resurrected in 2018 on this strategic island that helps control the air and naval space of the Baltic Sea, is in the process of rebuilding with the aim of expanding to 4,000 soldiers from the current 400 — still a far…

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An interview with Crimean Tatar leader and Soviet dissident Mustafa Dzhemilev

An interview with Crimean Tatar leader and Soviet dissident Mustafa Dzhemilev

Riada Asimovic Akyol writes: Crimean Tatars, the indigenous Muslims of Ukraine and the country’s largest ethnic minority, have joined the fight against Russia’s invasion. Tatars serve throughout Ukraine’s military ranks and as civilian volunteers offering humanitarian help. Tatars are Turkic-speaking Muslims who have lived in Crimea since the 13th century. Russian rulers have persecuted them for almost 300 years. One of the greatest tragedies in Tatar history was their genocidal expulsion from Crimea by Josef Stalin in 1944. About 200,000…

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Climate chaos certain if oil and gas mega-projects go ahead, warns IEA chief

Climate chaos certain if oil and gas mega-projects go ahead, warns IEA chief

The Guardian reports: The world’s leading energy economist has warned against investing in large new oil and gas developments, which would have little impact on the current energy crisis and soaring fuel prices but spell devastation to the planet. Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), was responding to an investigation in the Guardian that revealed fossil fuel companies were planning huge “carbon bomb” projects that would drive climate catastrophe. He said countries must seek to…

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The race against radon

The race against radon

Chris Baraniuk writes: Deep in the frozen ground of the north, a radioactive hazard has lain trapped for millennia. But UK scientist Paul Glover realized some years back that it wouldn’t always be that way: One day it might get out. Glover had attended a conference where a speaker described the low permeability of permafrost — ground that remains frozen for at least two years or, in some cases, thousands. It is an icy shield, a thick blanket that locks…

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I thought I was writing fiction in The Handmaid’s Tale

I thought I was writing fiction in The Handmaid’s Tale

Margaret Atwood writes: In the early years of the 1980s, I was fooling around with a novel that explored a future in which the United States had become disunited. Part of it had turned into a theocratic dictatorship based on 17th-century New England Puritan religious tenets and jurisprudence. I set this novel in and around Harvard University—an institution that in the 1980s was renowned for its liberalism, but that had begun three centuries earlier chiefly as a training college for…

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How I started to see trees as smart

How I started to see trees as smart

Matthew Hutson writes: A couple of decades ago, on a backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada, I was marching up a mountain solo under the influence of LSD. Halfway to the top, I took a break near a scrubby tree pushing up through the rocky soil. Gulping water and catching my breath, I admired both its beauty and its resilience. Its twisty, weathered branches had endured by wresting moisture and nutrients from seemingly unwelcoming terrain, solving a puzzle beyond my…

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Kremlin threatens retaliation after Finland leaders say it must join NATO

Kremlin threatens retaliation after Finland leaders say it must join NATO

The Guardian reports: Finland must apply to join Nato “without delay” in the wake of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, its president and prime minister have said, signalling a historic shift in the country’s security policy that drew a blunt warning of retaliation from the Kremlin. With neighbouring Sweden expected to follow suit, Sauli Niinistö, Finland’s president, and Sanna Marin, the prime minister, made the call in a joint statement, adding: “We hope that the national steps still needed to make…

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Sen. Rand Paul is still working for Vladimir Putin

Sen. Rand Paul is still working for Vladimir Putin

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) on Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) following the Senator’s objection to a bill advancing Montenegro’s bid to join NATO, March, 2017. The Wall Street Journal reports: The Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate tried to fast track a nearly $40 billion U.S. aid package to help Ukraine in its fight against Russia, only to be blocked by Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R.,…

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With Russia failing to achieve a strategic breakthrough, a long and bloody battle for eastern Ukraine looms

With Russia failing to achieve a strategic breakthrough, a long and bloody battle for eastern Ukraine looms

The Wall Street Journal reports: Western weapons, including NATO-standard 155-mm howitzers supplied by the U.S. and its allies, have begun arriving on the battlefield in Donbas. Ukrainian officials say that will allow them to switch from defense to offense and seek to regain lost ground. “Our first task was to stop and destroy the enemy, but after that we have to liberate everything that they have taken from us. This will take time, at least the whole summer. It won’t…

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Russian soldiers refusing to fight in conflict that Putin refuses to call a war

Russian soldiers refusing to fight in conflict that Putin refuses to call a war

The Guardian reports: When the soldiers of an elite Russian army brigade were told in early April to prepare for a second deployment to Ukraine, fear broke out among the ranks. The unit, stationed in Russia’s far east during peacetime, first entered Ukraine from Belarus when the war started at the end of February and saw bitter combat with Ukrainian forces. “It soon became clear that not everyone was onboard with it. Many of us simply did not want to…

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The ‘carbon bombs’ set to trigger catastrophic climate breakdown

The ‘carbon bombs’ set to trigger catastrophic climate breakdown

The Guardian reports: The world’s biggest fossil fuel firms are quietly planning scores of “carbon bomb” oil and gas projects that would drive the climate past internationally agreed temperature limits with catastrophic global impacts, a Guardian investigation shows. The exclusive data shows these firms are in effect placing multibillion-dollar bets against humanity halting global heating. Their huge investments in new fossil fuel production could pay off only if countries fail to rapidly slash carbon emissions, which scientists say is vital….

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Covid-era babies are ‘talking’ less, signaling future reading challenges

Covid-era babies are ‘talking’ less, signaling future reading challenges

Natalie Wexler reports: We know the pandemic has had a serious negative impact on the academic achievement of school-age children. But recent evidence shows we also need to worry about Covid-era babies and toddlers. Because of Covid-related disruptions, about a third of early elementary students will likely need intensive support to become proficient readers, according to one study. Now two additional studies suggest that many children born during the pandemic will also be at risk for academic failure. It seems…

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Origin of life theory involving RNA–protein hybrid gets new support

Origin of life theory involving RNA–protein hybrid gets new support

Nature reports: Chemists say they have solved a crucial problem in a theory of life’s beginnings, by demonstrating that RNA molecules can link short chains of amino acids together. The findings, published on 11 May in Nature, support a variation on the ‘RNA world’ hypothesis, which proposes that before the evolution of DNA and the proteins it encodes, the first organisms were based on strands of RNA, a molecule that can both store genetic information — as sequences of the…

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How Putin and the security services captured the Russian state

How Putin and the security services captured the Russian state

Nina Khrushcheva writes: On December 20, 1999, Vladimir Putin addressed senior officials of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) at its Lubyanka headquarters near Moscow’s Red Square. The recently appointed 47-year-old prime minister, who had held the rank of lieutenant colonel in the FSB, was visiting to mark the holiday honoring the Russian security services. “The task of infiltrating the highest level of government is accomplished,” Putin quipped. His former colleagues chuckled. But the joke was on Russia. Putin became interim…

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