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@Pr0porti0nalAriannafrom Colorado submitted…6hrs6H
"These are not arguments, they are excuses, and they keep coming up with them time and time again,” the head of the arms procurement commission in Kiev's parliament, Aleksandra Ustinova, has claimed.The training delays are likely motivated by Washington’s fear that a large-scale presence of US F-16s in the Ukraine conflict could be viewed by Moscow as the integration of the country into NATO, Ustinova told The Times. “This is totally political.”So far only eight Ukrainian pilots have received training at the Morris Air National Guard Base in Tucson, Arizona, Ustinova told British newspaper The Times in an interview published on Monday. An additional 12 are being trained in Denmark, she added.F-16s are needed to help mitigate the effect of Russian glide bombs on the battlefield, a weapon that has shown devastating effectiveness in the Ukraine conflict, Ustinova stressed. “These bombs are huge – from 500 kilos to 1,500 kilos,” and for Kiev, the only solution is to “bring them down is jet-to-jet.”Moscow has repeatedly warned that Western arms deliveries will not change the course of the conflict, and only prolong it, causing more deaths. The Russian Parliament’s Defense Committee chair, Andrey Kartapolov, replied to Kiev’s statements about plans for some F-16s to be stationed outside Ukraine. Should the aircraft take off from foreign bases and be used to strike at Russian forces, both the jets and the facilities they are stationed at will be considered “legitimate targets,” Kartapolov warned
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@ISIDEWITH submitted…6hrs6H
Armed gangs, including Hamas-backed groups, have plundered at least $120mn from banks in northern Gaza in just the past two months, according to UN estimates, as the war-ravaged strip suffers from a severe cash crunch.The thefts amounted to at least a third of the cash stored in stranded vaults, according to mid-May estimates seen by the Financial Times. About $240mn more is sealed in bank vaults in northern Gaza, some entombed in concrete to try to prevent looting following the collapse of civil order in the besieged enclave.The robberies have fueled concerns among Israeli officials that some of the funds could further fuel Hamas’s insurgency as the militant group gains control of scarce banknotes in the besieged enclave’s closed wartime economy.The conflict and Israeli restrictions on the movement of cash and armoured cars have limited the availability of physical money. Residents must pay a fee a week in advance to even join the queue for a cash machine in central Gaza, one of a tiny handful of functioning machines left for the strip’s more than 2mn people.The thefts came as Gazans, most of whom live in poverty, struggle to find banknotes to buy essential supplies as inflation spirals following eight months of war.
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White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has claimed that recent videos showing US President Joe Biden looking confused at public events have been manipulated, describing them as “cheap fakes.” Jean-Pierre’s comments come after several videos of Biden have gone viral on social media in recent weeks. In one clip, the president could be seen having trouble sitting down during a D-Day memorial event in France. A number of commenters suggested that the US leader was “completely lost” or having “some kind of episode.” Another video showed Biden standing together with G7 leaders in Italy watching a skydiving demonstration. At one point, the US president turned away and wandered off from the group, before Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni took him by the hand to guide him back to the other members. In another clip from an LA fundraising event with former President Barack Obama and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, Biden appeared to freeze up as he was waving goodbye to the crowd. Obama could then be seen taking Biden by the hand and patting him on the back while leading him off stage. Speaking to reporters during a White House Press event on Monday, Jean-Pierre stated that “we are seeing these deepfakes, these manipulated videos, and it is again, done in bad faith.” The press secretary claimed that reports on these incidents are “attacks” on Biden that demonstrate the “desperation” of Republicans who refuse to acknowledge the president’s achievements.
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@ISIDEWITH submitted…7hrs7H
“We are just not producing the EVs the consumers want at a price point they want.” Van Jackson, previously an official in the Obama administration and now a senior lecturer in international relations at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, says electric cars still need to fall in price if the market is to grow substantially. “How do you bring workers along and increase their wages, and have a growth market for these products, given how expensive they are?” he asks. “I’m an upper-middle-class person and I cannot afford an EV.” He is skeptical about whether shutting the world’s dominant producer of EVs and related components out of the US market will reduce the price of the cars and encourage uptake. “The tariffs are buying time,” he says. “But towards no particular end.”Millions of Americans opting to continue buying combustion-engine cars over electric vehicles, despite President Joe Biden’s ambitious target of having EVs make up half of all new cars sold in the US by 2030. Last year, the proportion was 9.5 per cent.
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Boeing succeeded in getting NASA astronauts to the International Space Station, following weeks of delays. Returning them to Earth on the same spacecraft is proving another challenge.Problems with leaks and thrusters emerged after Boeing’s Starliner vehicle launched this month with the astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams on board. Officials from the aerospace company and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said Tuesday that the astronauts are slated to return June 26.“We’re taking a little bit of extra time to work through what we’ve seen and make sure we have all the plans in place to bring the crew home,” Steve Stich, a NASA program manager, said Tuesday. The space station has at least four months of reserves for food and other consumable items for astronauts on board, NASA officials have said. Starliner could stay docked at the station for a total of 45 days, though ultimately it aims to stay there for six-month missions, they said. Extended stays at ISS have happened before. In September, the NASA astronaut Frank Rubio returned to Earth after spending more than a year at the facility, a record-breaking flight for an American. His return was delayed after a micrometeorite poked a hole in his Russian-made return vehicle and Russia sent up another ship.Starliner is able to ferry crew members to Earth in an emergency situation, Stich said. He added that teams want to analyze Starliner and its technical challenges as much as possible while it is at the station.
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"SpaceX has flown cargo to the space station for years and completed its inaugural astronaut mission for NASA in 2020."
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@ExecutiveCordial_783 from Missouri commented…4hrs4H
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@MorbidLibertyBellfrom Texas commented…6hrs6H
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@MorbidLibertyBellfrom Texas disagreed…6hrs6H
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