Tuesday, Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan did not rule out providing aid to the Taliban following the United States’ withdrawal out of Afghanistan.
Sullivan told ABC News’ “Good Morning America” that giving aid to the Taliban “will be about whether the terrorist organization follows through on its commitments,” including safe passage for Americans and Afghan allies.
“[F]irst of all, we do believe that there is an important dimension of humanitarian assistance that should go directly to the people of Afghanistan,” Sullivan outlined. “They need help with respect to health and food aid and other forms of subsistence, and we do intend to continue that. Secondly, when it comes to our economic and development assistance relationship with the Taliban, that will be about the Taliban’s actions. It will be about whether they follow through on their commitments, their commitments to safe passage for Americans and Afghan allies, their commitment to not…
The Virginia Supreme Court on Monday upheld the reinstatement of a Loudoun County gym teacher who had been suspended after he spoke against a policy that protects transgender students.
The Loudoun County School Board earlier this month approved Policy 8040, which allows trans students to use their preferred names and pronouns and school facilities that align with their gender identity. This policy is in accordance with legislation that Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam signed into law last year.
….Tanner Cross, a gym teacher at Leesburg Elementary School, at a May 25 hearing stated it was against his beliefs to “affirm that a biological boy can be a girl and vice versa” and was placed on administrative leave.
A bomb-laden drone on Tuesday targeted an airport in southwestern Saudi Arabia, wounding eight people and damaging a civilian plane, Saudi state television reported.
It was the latest assault on the kingdom amid its grinding war in neighboring Yemen. The earlier attack, blamed on Yemen’s Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels, scattered shrapnel across the tarmac but caused no casualties. There have been dozens of such attacks in recent months since the US delisted Yemen’s Houthis from its terririst list.
The Saudi-led military coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen did not elaborate on the assault or provide details about those hurt, beyond saying that its forces had “intercepted” the explosive drone.
A new luminescent sensor can detect terbium, a valuable rare earth element, from complex environmental samples like acid mine waste.
The sensor takes advantage of a protein that very specifically binds to rare earth elements. It could help develop a domestic supply of these metals, which smart phones, electric car batteries, and energy efficient lighting require. A paper describing the sensor appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Terbium, one of the rarest of the rare earth elements, produces the green color in cell phone displays and also has a role in high-efficiency lighting and solid-state devices. However, there are a variety of chemical, environmental, and political challenges to obtaining terbium and other rare earth elements from the environment.
Developing new sources of these metals also requires robust detection methods, which poses another challenge. For example, the gold standard method of detecting rare earth elements in a sample—a type of mass spectrometry called ICP-MS—is expensive and not portable. Portable methods, however, aren’t as sensitive and do not perform well in complex environmental samples, where acidic conditions and other metals can interfere with detection.
The Financial Administration of the Republic of Slovenia (FURS) has proposed changes to the taxation regime applicable to cryptocurrencies. The authority wants to impose a 10% tax for the crypto amounts spent on goods and services or converted into cash. Quoted in a report by the STA news agency, FURS clarified:
We would like to emphasize that it is not profit which would be taxed but rather the amount a Slovenian tax resident receives on their bank account on turning the virtual currency into cash or when buying a thing.
The Slovenian tax office intends to implement the new taxation scheme through the adoption of legislative changes. FURS claims it…
In a strongly worded letter to Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early Jr., the president of Worcester’s Patrolmen’s Union said they’ll never endorse him again after charges were dropped against protesters.
More than a dozen people were arrested hours after a George Floyd protest last June.
The District Attorney’s Office announced, after reviewing the cases, there was insufficient evidence to move forward with the prosecution.
Worcester Patrolmen Union President Daniel Gilbert said he is ashamed and disappointed the district attorney turned his back on police officers.
The US has officially withdrawn from Afghanistan, with its last jet taking off from the country on Monday night.
Videos showed Taliban fighters celebrating the US exit with gunfire, and seizing Kabul’s airport, where thousands of Afghans had desperately tried to flee after they took over the country.
BBC News broadcast footage of the gunfire, with Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet saying she could hear celebratory tracer fire and guns going off. She said it was…
Satellite images taken by Planet and analyzed by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (CNS/MIIS) show that China is significantly expanding the number of silos for its arsenal of intercontinental range-ballistic missiles. 120 silos under construction near Yumen were identified by Decker Eveleth, a former nonproliferation fellow at CNS/MIIS and incoming student. Yuman silos started construction in early 2020.
A second Hami missile silo field was found. It is in a much earlier stage of development than the Yumen site. Construction began at the start of March 2021 in the southeastern corner of the complex and continues at a rapid pace. Since then, dome shelters have been erected over at least 14 silos and soil cleared in preparation for the construction of another 19 silos. The grid-like outline of the entire complex indicates that it may eventually include approximately 110 silos. The Hami site was…
Virginia’s highest court has upheld an injunction ordering the reinstatement, on free speech grounds, of a teacher who was suspended after speaking up at a school board meeting against a proposed policy requiring respect for transgender students.
The Virginia Supreme Court on Monday ruled without dissent in favor of Tanner Cross, an elementary school physical education teacher in the Loudoun County school district in suburban Washington.
Cross spoke at a May 25 meeting of the Loudoun County school board against a then-proposed policy that would, among other things, require school staff members to use the chosen names and pronouns of transgender students.
“I’m a teacher but I serve God first,” Cross said as a public speaker at the meeting. “And I will not affirm that a biological boy can be a girl and vice versa because it is against my religion.”
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