#Building Safety Act 2022

[jcmarchi]

AI sector study: Record growth masks serious challenges

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/ai-sector-study-record-growth-masks-serious-challenges/

AI sector study: Record growth masks serious challenges

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A comprehensive AI sector study – conducted by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) in collaboration with Perspective Economics, Ipsos, and glass.ai – provides a detailed overview of the industry’s current state and its future prospects.

In this article, we delve deeper into the key findings and implications—drawing on additional sources to enhance our understanding.

Thriving industry with significant growth

The study highlights the remarkable growth of the UK’s AI sector. With over 3,170 active AI companies, these firms have generated £10.6 billion in AI-related revenues and employed more than 50,000 people in AI-related roles. This significant contribution to GVA (Gross Value Added) underscores the sector’s transformative potential in driving the UK’s economic growth.

Mark Boost, CEO of Civo, said: “In a space that’s been dominated by US companies for too long, it’s promising to see the government now stepping up to help support the UK AI sector on the global stage.”

The study shows that AI activity is dispersed across various regions of the UK, with notable concentrations in London, the South East, and Scotland. This regional dispersion indicates a broad scope for the development of AI technology applications across different sectors and regions.

Investment and funding

Investment in the AI sector has been a key driver of growth. In 2022, £18.8 billion was secured in private investment since 2016, with investments made in 52 unique industry sectors compared to 35 sectors in 2016.

The government’s commitment to supporting AI is evident through significant investments. In 2022, the UK government unveiled a National AI Strategy and Action Plan—committing over £1.3 billion in support for the sector, complementing the £2.8 billion already invested.

However, as Boost cautions, “Major players like AWS are locking AI startups into their ecosystems with offerings like $500k cloud credits, ensuring that emerging companies start their journey reliant on their infrastructure. This not only hinders competition and promotes vendor lock-in but also risks stifling innovation across the broader UK AI ecosystem.”

Addressing bottlenecks

Despite the growth and investment, several bottlenecks must be addressed to fully harness the potential of AI:

Infrastructure: The UK’s digital technology infrastructure is less advanced than many other countries. This bottleneck includes inadequate data centre infrastructure and a dependent supply of powerful GPU computer chips. Boost emphasises this concern, stating “It would be dangerous for the government to ignore the immense compute power that AI relies on. We need to consider where this power is coming from and the impact it’s having on both the already over-concentrated cloud market and the environment.”

Commercial awareness: Many SMEs lack familiarity with digital technology. Almost a third (31%) of SMEs have yet to adopt the cloud, and nearly half (47%) do not currently use AI tools or applications.

Skills shortage: Two-fifths of businesses struggle to find staff with good digital skills, including traditional digital roles like data analytics or IT. There is a rising need for workers with new AI-specific skills, such as prompt engineering, that will require retraining and upskilling opportunities.

To address these bottlenecks, the government has implemented several initiatives:

Private sector investment: Microsoft has announced a £2.5 billion investment in AI skills, security, and data centre infrastructure, aiming to procure more than 20,000 of the most advanced GPUs by 2026.

Government support: The government has invested £1.5 billion in computing capacity and committed to building three new supercomputers by 2025. This support aims to enhance the UK’s infrastructure to stay competitive in the AI market.

Public sector integration: The UK Government Digital Service (GDS) is working to improve efficiency using predictive algorithms for future pension scheme behaviour. HMRC uses AI to help identify call centre priorities, demonstrating how AI solutions can address complex public sector challenges.

Future prospects and challenges

The future of the UK AI sector is both promising and challenging. While significant economic gains are predicted, including boosting GDP by £550 billion by 2035, delays in AI roll-out could cost the UK £150 billion over the same period. Ensuring a balanced approach between innovation and regulation will be crucial.

Boost emphasises the importance of data sovereignty and privacy: “Businesses have grown increasingly wary of how their data is collected, stored, and used by the likes of ChatGPT. The government has a real opportunity to enable the UK AI sector to offer viable alternatives.

“The forthcoming AI Action Plan will be another opportunity to identify how AI can drive economic growth and better support the UK tech sector.”

AI Safety Summit: The AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park highlighted the need for responsible AI development. The “Bletchley Declaration on AI Safety” emphasises the importance of ensuring AI tools are transparent, fair, and free from bias to maintain public trust and realise AI’s benefits in public services.

Cybersecurity challenges: As AI systems handle sensitive or personal information, ensuring their security is paramount. This involves protecting against cyber threats, securing algorithms from manipulation, safeguarding data centres and hardware, and ensuring supply chain security.

The AI sector study underscores a thriving industry with significant growth potential. However, it also highlights several bottlenecks that must be addressed – infrastructure gaps, lack of commercial awareness, and skills shortages – to fully harness the sector’s potential.

(Photo by John Noonan)

See also: EU AI Act: Early prep could give businesses competitive edge

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is co-located with other leading events including Intelligent Automation Conference, BlockX, Digital Transformation Week, and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo.

Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

Tags: ai, artificial intelligence, computing, cybersecurity, europe, government, infrastructure, investment, report, research, safety, security, strategy, study, supercomputer, uk

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #26

July 5-12 2024

The IRS announced it had managed to collect $1 billion in back taxes from high-wealth tax cheats. The program focused on persons with more than $1 million in yearly income who owned more than $250,000 in unpaid taxes. Thanks to money in Biden's 2022 Inflation Reduction Act the IRS is able to undertake more enforcement against rich tax cheats after years of Republicans cutting the agency's budget, which they hope to do again if they win power again.

The Biden administration announced a $244 million dollar investment in the federal government’s registered apprenticeship program. This marks the largest investment in the program's history with grants going out to 52 programs in 32 states. The President is focused on getting well paying blue collar opportunities to people and more people are taking part in the apprenticeship program than ever before. Republican pledge to cut it, even as employers struggle to find qualified workers.

The Department of Transportation announced the largest single project in the department's history, $11 billion dollars in grants for the The Hudson River Tunnel. Part of the $66 billion the Biden Administration has invested in our rail system the tunnel, the most complex Infrastructure project in the nation would link New York and New Jersey by rail under the Hudson. Once finished it's believed it'll impact 20% of the American economy by improving and speeding connection throughout the Northeast.

The Department of Energy announced $1.7 billion to save auto worker's jobs and convert factories to electronic vehicles. The Biden administration will used the money to save or reopen factories in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, and Virginia and retool them to make electric cars. The project will save 15,000 skilled union worker jobs, and created 2,900 new high-quality jobs.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development reached a settlement with The Appraisal Foundation over racial discrimination. TAF is the organization responsible for setting standards and qualifications for real estate appraisers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics last year found that TAF was 94.7% White and 0.6% Black, making it the least racially diverse of the 800 occupations surveyed. Black and Latino home owners are far more likely to have their houses under valued than whites. Under the settlement with HUD TAF will have to take serious steps to increase diversity and remove structural barriers to diversity.

The Department of Justice disrupted an effort by the Russian government to influence public opinion through AI bots. The DoJ shut down nearly 1,000 twitter accounts that were linked to a Russian Bot farm. The bots used AI technology to not only generate tweets but also AI image faces for profile pictures. The effort seemed focused on boosting support for Russia's war against Ukraine and spread negative stories/impressions about Ukraine.

The Department of Transportation announces $1.5 billion to help local authorities buy made in America buses. 80% of the funding will go toward zero or low-emission technology, a part of the President's goal of reaching zero emissions by 2050. This is part of the $5 billion the DOT has spent over the last 3 years replacing aging buses with new cleaner technology.

President Biden with Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau and Finnish President Alexander Stubb signed a new agreement on the arctic. The new trilateral agreement between the 3 NATO partners, known as the ICE Pact, will boost production of ice breaking ships, the 3 plan to build as many as 90 between them in the coming years. The alliance hopes to be a counter weight to China's current dominance in the ice breaker market and help western allies respond to Russia's aggressive push into the arctic waters.

The Department of Transportation announced $1.1 billion for greater rail safety. The program seeks to, where ever possible, eliminate rail crossings, thus removing the dangers and inconvenience to communities divided by rail lines. It will also help update and improve safety measures at rail crossings.

The Department of the Interior announced $120 million to help tribal communities prepare for climate disasters. This funding is part of half a billion dollars the Biden administration has spent to help tribes build climate resilience, which itself is part of a $50 billion dollar effort to build climate resilience across the nation. This funding will help support drought measures, wildland fire mitigation, community-driven relocation, managed retreat, protect-in-place efforts, and ocean and coastal management.

The USDA announced $100 million in additional funds to help feed low income kids over the summer. Known as "SUN Bucks" or "Summer EBT" the new Biden program grants the families of kids who qualify for free meals at school $120 dollars pre-child for groceries. This comes on top of the traditional SUN Meals program which offers school meals to qualifying children over the summer, as well as the new under President Biden SUN Meals To-Go program which is now offering delivery of meals to low-income children in rural areas. This grant is meant to help local governments build up the Infrastructure to support and distribute SUN Bucks. If fully implemented SUN Bucks could help 30 million kids, but many Republican governors have refused the funding.

USAID announced its giving $100 million to the UN World Food Program to deliver urgently needed food assistance in Gaza. This will bring the total humanitarian aid given by the US to the Palestinian people since the war started in October 2023 to $774 million, the single largest donor nation. President Biden at his press conference last night said that Israel and Hamas have agreed in principle to a ceasefire deal that will end the war and release the hostages. US negotiators are working to close the final gaps between the two sides and end the war.

The Senate confirmed Nancy Maldonado to serve as a Judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Maldonado is the 202nd federal Judge appointed by President Biden to be confirmed. She will the first Latino judge to ever serve on the 7th Circuit which covers Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.

Bonus: At the NATO summit in Washington DC President Biden joined 32 allies in the Ukraine compact. Allies from Japan to Iceland confirmed their support for Ukraine and deepening their commitments to building Ukraine's forces and keeping a free and Democratic Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression. World leaders such as British Prime Minster Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, praised President Biden's experience and leadership during the NATO summit

[ileftherbackhome]

i think the thing i hated the most about the public abuse campaign against amber heard in 2022 is that even well-intentioned but ignorant people to the entirety of the details in the case were saying things like "amber is an imperfect victim but she is still a victim" because they knew she would fight back and would try and negotiate with her abuser sometimes instead of just leaving like society thinks you should do.

and this is building off the previous post about the two types of child abuse because it allows applies to how we treat domestic violence as a society as well. amber heard was a perfect victim, her abuse story was textbook open and shut.

she grew up in an household witnessing DV between her parents. she is a bisexual woman. she was a young starting actress when she met johnny depp, at half his age. at this time, depp ALREADY had a history of public drunkness and violence because he was well into his 40s, maybe 50s at the time.

he was amazing to her in the first months of dating, maybe even a year. then he hit her for the first time after she makes a joke at his expense and she was shocked.

she knew abuse was wrong. she knew the behavior was unacceptable. but this wasnt her boyfriend. this wasnt the man she knew. she had never seen him act this way before, there were no signs up until now. he was so loving. he was drunk and probably high anyways. maybe it was a one time thing. he was so sorry afterwards. she gave him another chance because it had been months of living together (or at the very least spending weeks holed up with one another only!!!!!! red flag af) in perfect harmony at this point.

he goes back to normal. things are better than before. he pulls out all the stops. hes caring towards her friends and family. she feels like he cares about her safety still at this point. obviously he didnt want to hurt her. obviously he just lost control.

it happened again. and again. and again. each time the cycle gets faster. each time, the abuse more violent.

it leads to sexual assault. she's married him at this point. this is on their honeymoon i believe. she feels embarrassed. she spent 5 years putting up with him. she feels the most violated ever. she doesn't know what to do. she's ashamed. she tries to make it work again.

it leads to the worst attack on her life. she was worried she was going to die. over a dog shitting on their bed when she was out of town. her friend called the police to de escalate the situation because he wasnt listening to anyone's explanations and accusing everyone of conspiring against him. it sounded lethal over the phone. they were worried for her safety.

the police come but everyone has already calmed down at that point. she is ashamed of what has happened so publically at this point. she knows she cant stay. she knows he doesnt care about her safety finally. she leaves. she files for divorce and alleges abuse as the reason why.

she has YEARS of testimony. he paid doctors to drug her. he wrote awful texts about wanting to rape her corpse. he called her a lesbian camp counselor and made her apologise for being bisexual and having women friends. there are videos of him being violent and slamming doors around her drunk and incoherent rambling. you can tell she doesnt want him to see the camera but she needs the proof. she knows nobody will believe her without proof.

she has dozens many hundreds of photos of the abuse. she has MEDICAL TESTIMONY FROM HER THERAPISTS AND HIS THERAPIST HE FORCED HER TO ATTEND WITH HIM.

he convinces her to drop the abuse allegations and sign AN NDA after a hours long conversation his lawyer would leak to the public in a future lawsuit as part of a smear campaign against her.

she waits until he speaks publically about the abuse allegations in an interview before she writes an article about protecting women legally who are abuse victims and states she was "a figure representing domestic violence publically" or something to that affect.

he files a defamation lawsuit against her and the newpapers calling him a wife beater as a result. he loses in a country where liberaci won his defamation lawsuit for the press calling him gay publically.

he files another defamation lawsuit against her, a tactic that is well documented as an abuser DARVO tactic online with advocacy groups everywhere. he files it in a country with terrible media laws and in a state with even worse laws protecting DV victims.

he gets a famous alt right misinformation company to spend thousands of dollars running a social media smear campaign with bots.

he wins the defamation lawsuit because people genuinely believe a grown woman alleging abuse shat in this man's bed as an elaborate plot to abuse him and steal his money and fame or something??????????????

this is like clear cut perfect victimhood. if amber heard isnt a perfect victim, who the fuck is??????

not that i agree with perfect versus imperfect victimhood because its such a gross concept imho to ascribe to but like she is definitely a perfect victim.

and it all stems from the fact that society doesnt understand how someone can choose to stay with an abusive partner for years before leaving that relationship. society doesn't understand how someone can grow up witnessing abuse as a sign of love and that changing their perspecting on what real love should look like.

idk like i genuinely think about amber heard all the fucking time and all the abuse victims that summer destroyed emotionally and mentally witnessing yall behave like that. and yall just moved on. yall moved on. you ruined that woman's life and all she wanted to do was be honest about her truth and be believed. yall stole that from her and you told every abuse victim watching that you are not a safe person to be around and then yall just... moved on.

well im still at the restaurant, this is the corner im haunting for the rest of my life. i cannot accept it, it breaks my heart when i think about it.

[mariacallous]

The US Coast Guard’s Titan submersible hearing kicked off with a startling revelation.

“I told him I’m not getting in it,” former OceanGate engineering director Tony Nissen said to a panel of Coast Guard investigators, referring to a 2018 conversation in which CEO Stockton Rush allegedly asked Nissen to act as a pilot in an upcoming expedition to the Titanic.

“It’s the operations crew, I don’t trust them,” Nissen told the investigators. “I didn’t trust Stockton either. You can take a look at where we started when I was hired. Nothing I got was the truth.”

Nissen’s testimony, which focused on the design, building, and testing of OceanGate’s first carbon fiber submersible, was a dramatic start to nearly two weeks of public testimony in the US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation’s hearings into the fatal June 2023 implosion of the Titan. Its five occupants, including Rush, all likely died instantly.

Before Nissen took the stand, the Coast Guard presented a detailed timeline of OceanGate as a company, the development of the Titan submersible, and its trips to the wreck of the Titanic, resting nearly 3,800 meters down in the north Atlantic. These slides revealed new information, including over 100 instances of equipment failures and incidents on the Titan’s trips in 2021 and 2022. An animated timeline of the final few hours of the Titan also included the final text messages sent by people on the sub. One sent at about 2,400 meters depth read “all good here.” The last message, sent as the sub slowed its descent at nearly 3,400 meters, read “dropped two wts.”

The Coast Guard also confirmed reports that the experimental carbon fiber sub had been stored in an outdoor parking lot in temperatures as low as 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (–17 Celsius) in the run-up to last year’s Titanic missions. Some engineers worried that water freezing in or near the carbon fiber could expand and cause defects in the material.

Nissen said that almost from when he joined OceanGate in 2016, Rush kept changing the company’s direction. A move to certify the vessel with an independent third party fell by the wayside, as did plans to test more scale models of the Titan’s carbon fiber hull when one failed early under pressure. Rush then downgraded titanium components to save money and time. “It was death by a thousand cuts,” Nissen recalls.

He faced tough questioning about OceanGate’s choice of carbon fiber for a hull and its reliance on a newly developed acoustic monitoring system to provide an early warning of failure. One investigator raised WIRED’s reporting that an outside expert Nissen hired to assess the acoustic system later had misgivings about Rush’s understanding of its limitations.

“Given the time and constraints we had,” Nissen said, “we did all the testing and brought in every expert we could find. We built it like an aircraft.”

Nissen walked the Coast Guard board through deep-water testing in the Bahamas in 2018, during which he says the sub was struck by lightning. Measurements on the Titan’s hull later showed that it was flexing beyond its calculated safety factor. When a pilot subsequently found a crack in the hull, Nissen said, he wouldn’t sign off on another dive. “I killed it,” he testified. “The hull is done.” Nissen was subsequently fired.

Nissen sought to draw a line in the sand between the vessel he worked on and the one that took the fateful voyage to the Titanic. The latter had a replacement hull and a redesigned acoustic monitoring system. “My design was collecting data such that we would prevent a catastrophic failure and ultimately the loss of human life,” he said. “We did that with serial 1. What they did in serial number 2, I don’t know. “

The next witness, Bonnie Carl, worked at OceanGate for less than a year between 2017 and 2018. Carl was hired as a director of human resources and finances and was also training to be a pilot for OceanGate’s submersibles. Carl said that one of the company’s board members, former Coast Guard rear admiral John Lockwood, was brought in for oversight and “to show that we’re talking to the Coast Guard.”

She also echoed Nissen’s testimony that Rush was in complete control of the company: “There might be discussion, but in the end … all decisions were made by Stockon,” she said.

The final witness of the day was an OceanGate contractor and veteran submersible operator, Tym Catterson. Catterson is one of only two witnesses the Coast Guard has called who was among the 42 people aboard the Polar Prince, OceanGate’s support ship, that June. He was operating the floating platform used to transport, launch, and recover the Titan submersible.

The preparations for the Titan’s dive that day went smoothly, said Catterson: “The sun came out, there were no red flags, and it was one of the first times we ever launched on schedule.”

He did have positive things to say about OceanGate’s safety culture, noting that Titan’s predive checklist was longer and more thorough than those used by other submersibles. But Catterson also admitted to contributing to an “uncomfortable” incident on a previous Titan dive, where an incorrectly closed valve caused the sub to tilt, tumbling its passengers together for an hour.

Catterson was able to give only a very spotty account of events following Titan’s loss of communication. He repeatedly referred the board to OceanGate’s operations director Scott Griffith as someone who could provide a more complete account of the dive. Griffiths is not on the Coast Guard’s list of witnesses, nor are any employees of OceanGate’s operations team.

Catterson was there for the recovery of some of the Titan’s wreckage, however. He testified that the inside edge of one titanium ring was sheared off all the way around. One former OceanGate engineer believes this supports the theory that the implosion was allegedly caused by damage to the carbon fiber there, perhaps from freezing water or lifting the sub without using the correct equipment, rather than a failure of the hull from pressure alone.

The hearing continues this week and next.

[queenwille]

is it finally time to reveal that one of the main reasons hamas took the chance on october 7th was a political crisis in israel?

i’ll try to make it short for my ADHD sibs in the crowd:

israel had a really tough political crisis between 2019 to 2022, where no elected leader was able to gather a government (men) under the israeli democratic requirements, so it led to 5 elections in 4 years 🫨

when finally netanyahu managed to build a coalition by selling his dignity and the israeli soul to religious extremists (as he always does since he only cares about being on top, no matter what) the very large secular and left public in israel were having non of that.

forward a few months, the extremist criminal members of the coalition tried to pass an absence law that takes the grand jury’s power to overrule the government if needed, which fired up protests and manifests literally EVERYWHERE. public facilities closed down as an act of rebellion, roads were blocked and much more. Galant, the minister of defense, said publicly that the gov really needs to freeze the passing of that law due to valid concerns about the country and its citizens’ safety. due to that comment, netanyahu publicly announced that he’d be firing galant for going against the government’s current agenda. oh boy, the night that happened, all hell broke loose. people literally shot the country down until the late late hours of the night. the lack of freedom of speech was a serious deal breaker (reminder: they have been protesting HARD for W E E K S). many were on reserved duty (it’s when they complete their mandatory service, but come every once in a while for a few days of duty like training or backup and in case of a war, they need to report back to duty when they’re up to date and well trained) said they wouldn’t come to their scheduled duty days under a government that is extremist, not equal (ultra orthodox don’t have to serve as the rest) and doesn’t allow freedom of speech. it was a whole thing, netanyahu changed his tune real fast. you need to understand that for israelis to rebel against their duty is extreme af. military service in israel is mandatory and a valuable part of the soldiers’ culture and identity, it’s not a just job they chose like in many countries.

BACK TO THE AGENDA. hamas documents and recordings revel that they were very much aware of the ongoing civil (and military) crisis and mentioned it as a perfect opportunity to hurt israel.

many of you think that when we identify with the word zionist, it means we agree with everything. the main thing y’all cancel when you call israelis white colonialists, it’s first the rich and diverse population it has. are all christians alike? do all muslims think the same? why is it that when it comes to the jewish people, everyone is so quick to assume we’re all clones? judaism itself has a few ethnicities which is very much a topic on the israeli agenda since like forever. and then you have, as any other religion, religious people and then secular and then people who are in between. that’s all before you mention the 2.5m non jews living in israel.

TL;DR no, not only not all israelis support netanyahu, but you’d actually be surprised how many oppose to his egocentric regime. take the time and ask, don’t just take the easy way out of goysplaining.

[orangerosebush]

Article is here, full text attached below.

ARTICLE TEXT:

Puberty blockers, which pause the physical changes of puberty such as breast development or facial hair, will now only be available to children as part of clinical research trials.

It follows a public consultation on the issue and an interim policy, and comes after NHS England commissioned an independent review in 2020 of gender identity services for children under 18.

That review, led by Dr Hilary Cass, followed a sharp rise in referrals to the Gender Identity Development Service (Gids) run by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, which is closing at the end of March.

The clinic has come under repeated scrutiny.

In February 2022, Dr Cass published an interim report saying there was a need to move away from one unit and recommended the creation of regional services to better support youngsters.

She also pointed to a lack of long-term evidence and data collection on what happens to children and young people who are prescribed medication.

She added that Gids had not collected routine and consistent data “which means it is not possible to accurately track the outcomes and pathways that children and young people take through the service.”

Following the Tavistock’s closure, two new NHS services will now open in early April, situated in London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital and Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool.

The NHS has said children attending these clinics will be supported by clinical experts in neurodiversity, paediatrics and mental health, “resulting in a holistic approach to care”.

Former prime minister Liz Truss, who has mooted an amendment to the Health and Equalities act, that includes a ban on the prescription of body-altering hormones to children questioning their sex, both privately and on the NHS, said: “I welcome NHS England’s decision to end the routine prescription of puberty blockers to children for gender dysphoria.

"I urge the government to back my Bill on Friday which will reinforce this in law and also prevent these drugs being supplied privately.”

Health minister, Maria Caulfield, said: “We have always been clear that children’s safety and wellbeing is paramount, so we welcome this landmark decision by the NHS.

“Ending the routine prescription of puberty blockers will help ensure that care is based on evidence, expert clinical opinion and is in the best interests of the child.”

The consultation on the future of services received more than 4,000 responses, including around a quarter from members of the public, 22% from patients, 21% from parents, 10% from trans adults and 5% from clinicians.

John Stewart, national director of specialised commissioning at NHS England said: “Given that the debate is often very polarised, so too were the responses to the consultation.

“Many people said the policy didn’t go far enough in terms of still allowing potential access (to puberty blockers) through research, and others saying clearly they disagreed fundamentally and that these should be routinely available to everyone who believes they need it.”

Regarding the new clinics, he said: “This is just the first step in building a regional model, where our aim is to establish between seven and eight specialist centres including the north and the south hubs over the next year to two years.”

Around 250 patients are expected to be transferred to the new clinics from Gids when they open.

Some 5,000 more children and young people are currently on the waiting list for referral into the new clinics.

[thoughtportal]

Microsoft deal would reopen Three Mile Island nuclear plant to power AI

Pennsylvania’s dormant Three Mile Island nuclear plant would be brought back to life to feed the voracious energy needs of Microsoft under an unprecedented deal announced Friday in which the tech giant would buy 100 percent of its power for 20 years.

The restart of Three Mile Island, the site of the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history, would mark a bold advance in the tech industry’s quest to find enough electric power to support its boom in artificial intelligence.The plant, which Pennsylvanians thought hadclosed for good in 2019 amid financial strain, would come back online by 2028 under the agreement, according toplant owner Constellation Energy.

If approved by regulators, Three Mile Island would provide Microsoft with the energy equivalent it takes to power 800,000 homes, or 835 megawatts. Never before has a U.S. nuclear plant come back into service after being decommissioned, and never before has all of a single commercial nuclear power plant’s output been allocated to a single customer.

But the economics of both the power and computing industries are changing rapidly. Tech companies are scouring the nation for power that is both reliable and helps them meet their pledge to fuel AI development with zero emissions electricity — driving a nuclear power revival.

“The energy industry cannot be the reason China or Russia beats us in AI,” said Joseph Dominguez, chief executive of Constellation. “This plant never should have been allowed to shut down, ... It will produce as much clean energy as all of the renewables [wind and solar] built in Pennsylvania over the last 30 years.”

Follow Climate & environment

The four-year restart plan would cost Constellation about $1.6 billion, he said, and is dependent on federal subsidies in the form of tax breaks earmarked for nuclear power in the 2022 Inflation Recovery Act.

Constellation will also need to clear steep regulatory hurdles, including intensive safety inspections from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has never before authorized the reopening of a plant. The deal also raises thorny questions about the federal tax breaks, as the energy from the plant would all be produced for a single private company rather than a utility serving entire communities.

A partial reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979 sent the nation into a panic and the nuclear industry reeling. The unit that Constellation plans to fire back up sits adjacent to the one that malfunctioned 45 years ago.

Constellation and Microsoft conceived the novel deal to solve a deepening energy problem. The sprawling data centers Microsoft and other digital giants need have become so big and energy-intensive that they are straining existing power supplies across the nation.

Constellation disclosed months ago that it was exploring options for restarting Three Mile Island, which sits along the Susquehanna River. The news was met with mixed reactions. Nuclear safety advocates expressed alarm. But some community leaders welcomed the development, seeing potential to revive an economic anchor in a region beset with financial hardship. A study funded by the Pennsylvania Building & Construction Trades Council says a reopening would create 3,400 jobs at the plant and in businesses serving it and its workers, and generate $3 billion in state and federal taxes.

The tax breaks in the Inflation Recovery Act are crucial to making the deal economically feasible, according to Constellation. They provide a credit for every megawatt hour of nuclear energy produced.

Constellation declined to provide details about its contract with Microsoft or disclose the value of tax credits. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has said in the past that federal subsidies could cut the cost of bringing a new plant on line by as much as half.

The announcement of the Microsoft deal follows an agreement Amazon reached with Talen Energy to purchase power produced by the financially troubled Susquehanna nuclear plant for a planned data center campus in Pennsylvania. That arrangement is running into snags with regulators, as regional utilities express concern that their ratepayers will be saddled with the bill for the power grid updates needed.

Amazon’s plan also raised concerns among clean-energy advocates that tech companies are shifting from driving the transition to clean energy to elbowing others out of it by claiming such large amounts of available clean electricity for themselves.

Dominguez argues that the Three Mile Island case is an example of how Silicon Valley’s outside-the-box thinking will help stabilize the power grid for everyone. The power from the plant will not go directly to Microsoft facilities but into the overtaxed regional power grid that serves 65 million people across 13 states and the District of Columbia, called the PJM Interconnection.

Nuclear power is considered “clean” because unlike burning natural gas or coal to produce electricity, it does not create greenhouse gas emissions. The plants are expensive to build or restart, and industry still has no long-term solution for spent but highly radioactive uranium fuel rods.

“This agreement is a major milestone in Microsoft’s efforts to help decarbonize the grid in support of our commitment to become carbon negative,” said a statement from Bobby Hollis, vice president of energy at Microsoft.

Dominguez said other ratepayers on the PJM grid will not be expected to shoulder any of the costs, nor will Constellation be seeking special subsidies fromthe state of Pennsylvania.

Constellation has already been doing extensive testing at Three Mile Island.It says most of its components are ready to operate again. “The plant is in extraordinary shape,” Dominguez said.

Three Mile Island is not the only nuclear plant the industry is eager to revive. The owners of a plant in Western Michigan called Palisades are also working to bring that dormant facility back. That project was approved for a $1.5 billion federal loan guarantee. The plant owner, Holtec, says it hopes to feed nuclear energy from Palisades into the region’s power grid by late next year.

The Palisades effort came about at the urging of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), as her state struggles to both meet its climate goals and generate adequate energy. The plant was destined for permanent closure when Holtec acquired it in 2022. The company had planned to decommission the facility but changed course after conversations with the governor.

On Wednesday, though, that plan was dealt a setback when federal nuclear regulators disclosed “a large number of steam generator tubes” could be faulty and need further inspection. Holtec said the finding does not alter its plans. But some nuclear safety advocates argue the company’s push to quickly reopen the plant puts the public at risk.

The huge cost and regulatory headaches associated with nuclear power are not deterring the tech industry from betting on it. In a remarkable turn of fortune for an industry that just a few years ago was struggling to stay competitive and focused mostly on closing plants, it now finds itself in expansion mode. Beyond seeking contracts for power from existing plants, tech companies are also bullish on next generation nuclear technologies.

Several are investigating the potential of locating their facilities near small modular nuclear reactors that could feed them power directly. Such technology is in its infancy and has not yet been approved by regulators. That isn’t stopping a company chaired by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates from doubling down on it. The firm, called Terra Power, this year began construction at what it plans to be a small reactor site in site in Wyoming.

Microsoft is also pursuing power from nuclear fusion, a potentially abundant, cheap and clean form of electricity that scientists have been trying to develop for decades — and most say is still a decade or more away from generating electricity. Microsoft has signed a contract to purchase fusion energy from a start-up that claims it can deliver it by 2028.

correction

A previous version of this article misspelled the last name of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The article has been corrected.

[rjzimmerman]

Many of you know that I'm a lawyer, retired, but still a member of the bar. I don't practice law (can't), but I still read professional articles and media reports about environmental law and other laws that interest me. From my humble perspective, some of the recent decisions of the US Supreme Court are invalid because the decisions were issued by the Court acting not in its constitutional capacity of a court of appeals, but acting as a court of original jurisdiction. If I'm correct (and I'm sure I can find a slew of right wing lawyers who are laughing at me), then the executive branch of the US government, i.e., the President, is not obligated to enforce those decisions. Plus, the ethical issues of Justice Thomas.......what the fuck is he doing participating in a decision on trump's January 6 sins when Thomas' wife was furiously clicking away on e-mails encouraging the rioting and insurrection? Wishful thinking, but somehow sometime somewhere something dramatic has to happen to smack down the Supreme Court, or at least create some sense of doubt in their tiny little pointed heads.

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

A spate of decisions over the past two years by the Supreme Court has significantly impaired the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to limit pollution in the air and water, regulate the use of toxic chemicals and reduce the greenhouse gasses that are heating the planet.

This term, the court’s conservative supermajority handed down several rulings that chip away at the power of many federal agencies.

But the environmental agency has been under particular fire, the result of a series of cases brought since 2022 by conservative activists who say that E.P.A. regulations have driven up costs for industries ranging from electric utilities to home building. Those arguments have resonated among justices skeptical of government regulation.

On Friday, the court ended the use of what is known as the Chevron doctrine, a cornerstone of administrative law for 40 years that said that courts should defer to government agencies to interpret unclear laws. That decision threatens the authority of many federal agencies to regulate the environment and also health care, workplace safety, telecommunications, the financial sector and more.

But more remarkable have been several decisions by the court to intervene to stop environmental regulations before they were decided by lower courts or even before they were implemented by the executive branch.

On Thursday, the court said the E.P.A. could not limit smokestack pollution that blows across state borders under a measure known as the “good neighbor rule.” In that case, the court took the surprising step of weighing in while litigation was still pending at the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The court also acted in an unusually preliminary fashion last year when it struck down a proposed E.P.A. rule known as Waters of the United States that was designed to protect millions of acres of wetlands from pollution, acting before the regulation had even been made final.

Similarly, in a 2022 challenge to an E.P.A. climate proposal known as the Clean Power Plan, the court sharply limited the agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, even though that rule had not yet taken effect.

That kind of intervention has little in the way of precedent. Usually, the Supreme Court is the last venue to hear a case, after arguments have been made and opinions have been rendered by lower courts.

“This court has shown an interest in making law in this area and not having the patience to wait for the cases to first come up through the courts,” said Kevin Minoli, a lawyer who worked in the E.P.A.’s office of general counsel from the Clinton through the Trump administrations. “They’ve been aggressive on ruling. It’s like, we’re going to tell you the answer before you even ask the question.”

Collectively, those decisions now endanger not only many existing environmental rules, but may prevent future administrations from writing new ones, experts say.

“These are among the worst environmental law rulings that the Supreme Court will ever issue,” said Ian Fein, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group. “They all cut sharply against the federal government’s ability to enforce laws that protect us from polluters.”

The march of environmental cases is not over: The court has agreed to hear a case next term that could limit the reach of National Environmental Policy Act, the 1970 law that requires federal agencies to analyze whether their proposed projects have environmental consequences. Businesses and industries have long complained that the reviews can take years, inflate costs and be used by community groups to block projects.

[the-rad1o-demon]

@neil-gaiman, @transformativeworks, @vancityreynolds :

I am asking you to reblog this to spread the word, to make sure people see all of this. You don't have to if you don't want to, but it would be extremely appreciated it you did! 💛

It's important that we stop these bills and keep Project 2025 from ever winning. I do not want to live in a world where the Internet is censored by LGBTQ+phobic and racist politicians. I do not want to live in a country where Donald Trump is literally the dictator. I do not want to live in a country where people such as myself are oppressed and forced into hiding/out of the country because of extremists like the ones behind KOSA, behind all these other really bad Internet bills, and behind Project 2025.

I am asking you to reblog/share this post, and I am asking you also that if you're able to take action against these bills. And definitely try to make people more aware of Project 2025 especially, because it will seriously fuck things up for nearly everyone in the United States (except for the ones running that show, obviously).

To help stop KOSA in particular, I'm copying and pasting from a document I wrote for the folks on my campus:

[BEGIN COPY-PASTED SECTION]

WAYS YOU CAN HELP STOP KOSA

Email to your friends, family, classmates, professors, etc.

Stage protests (and stay safe if doing so!)

Create and print out posters you can put up in areas people will see (if it's allowed there)! Doesn’t need to be fancy, it can be something like this in terms of text content:

STOP KOSA 2023

This bill threatens to censor many marginalized communities and topics on the Internet, including but not limited to:

The LGBTQ+ community

The discussion of race

Mental health issues

And many more!

It also will take away even more of both children’s and adults’ privacy on the Internet!

Call your state’s senators to tell them not to sign. Slightly edited scripts you can use are copied and pasted below, the Google doc from whence they came is below:

………………

DEMOCRATIC VERSION Hi, I am urging you to VOTE NO on KOSA, s.1409. Almost 100 human rights and LGBT organizations came out in an open letter opposing it in 2022 and 2023 because of how dangerous it is. The new language does NOT meet any concerns brought up, in fact many organizations were ignored. Major news have reported that this bill actively harms kids. When you look online through social media, you will find hundreds of posts by Gen Z who are opposed to this bill. We do not want this. This bill would allow any state attorney general to sue any website for “harmful” content. When you have Republicans calling anything LGBT “sexual exploitation” or anything about race “CRT” to successfully ban books and teachers, then they will use any justification to censor the internet. The Missouri attorney general used “mental health” successfully to ban gender-affirming care with backed up research. Suicide rates will skyrocket for marginalized youth with this bill restricting content. Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language. KOSA hands more private data of children to third party companies. Furthermore, updated language threatens encryption the same way the Earn It Act does. How is this protecting children’s privacy? KOSA actively harms kids by taking away educational resources they need right now. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you.

REPUBLICAN VERSION I am urging you to VOTE NO on KOSA, s.1409. This is a dangerous bill that will harm children. Many news organizations have reported that this bill actively harms kids by exposing their private data to strangers under the guise of protecting them. We need to hold Big Tech accountable, but KOSA is not the solution. This bill would allow any state attorney general to sue any website for “harmful” content. Do we really want blue state lawyers deciding what can and can’t be allowed online and continue to censor people? This is massive government overreach. We need a bill that actually protects people by creating better security measures instead of bringing about more censorship. Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language. KOSA hands more private data of children to third party companies, which would put them in further danger. How is this protecting children’s privacy? What parent would want their child’s private data in the hands of strangers like this? KOSA is actively putting kids in danger. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you. ……………… This version comes from this Google doc, which has additional learning resources! (It also has additional resources for fighting the KOSA bill, but some of it is outdated due to Congress having already done their thing):

Note that there is a separate script for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, use THIS ONE for him:

If you know anyone in Massachusetts specifically, tell them to call Senator Warren in order to ask her to rescind her support of KOSA. Script you can use written below (this one I wrote myself):

……………… Hello, Senator Warren. I am calling you today to ask that you rescind your support of the KOSA bill. It does not protect children. If anything, it will actively them by cutting them off from important discussions about the LGBTQ+ community, discussions about race, and mental health issues. There are even children in abusive situations who might not even know they’re being abused, and by censoring the Internet like this, or blocking children out of certain discussions, they may not find out until they’re adults. Senator Blackburn has made it perfectly clear that this bill aims to “protect” children from the trans community. Civil lawmakers, civil rights organizations, and many others have been saying over and over that this bill could be used to censor other marginalized groups as well. Please don’t support this bill. Thank you for your time and your consideration. ………………

Another important and final thing to do is to stay informed. Keep an eye on the news and on what’s happening with the KOSA bill.

That’s all I have for you!

[END COPY-PASTED SECTION]

Also!! Petition you can sign!

Thank you so much for your time, and please do whatever you can to help stop this train wreck.

EDIT - UPDATE:

Please look at the following post!

[beardedmrbean]

Jewish people in the EU continue to face high levels of antisemitism, according to the latest survey from the bloc's Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA).

More than 8,000 Jews in 13 EU countries, including Germany and France, were interviewed - with 96% saying they had encountered antisemitism in their daily life.

The vast majority had experienced harassment online.

The FRA's director, Sirpa Rautio, warned that Europe was facing a "wave of antisemitism" - driven partly by the conflict in the Middle East.

She warned that this was severely limiting the ability of Jewish people in EU countries to "live in safety and with dignity".

The survey, which looked at participants' experiences in the year before it was carried out, took place in the first half of 2023 - before the 7 October Hamas attacks and Israel's resulting military campaign in Gaza.

However, the FRA said there had been a dramatic rise in reported antisemitic attacks since the Gaza war began.

It was sparked when gunmen from Hamas and other Palestinian groups attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage on 7 October last year.

Israel's retaliatory attacks have since killed 38,295 people in Gaza, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

The FRA said its research over the years had found that antisemitism tends to increase in times of tension in the Middle East.

It added that 75% of those who took part in their latest survey felt that they were held responsible for the Israeli government’s actions because they are Jewish.

While 90% of respondents said they had encountered antisemitism on the internet, the FRA said "antisemitic harassment and violence mostly take place in streets, parks, or shops".

More than half of those surveyed expressed concern for their own safety or that of their family, while 76% said they hid their Jewish identity at least occasionally,

The organisation also collected responses from 12 Jewish organisations in January and February this year and found a dramatic increase in the number of reported antisemitic attacks across all surveyed countries. These attacks included personal harassment, intimidation and violence.

In Austria and Sweden, antisemitic incidents had increased by more than 400% in October to December last year compared to the same period in 2022.

In 2022, Denmark had reported only nine antisemitic incidents, but this increased to 121 last year.

The FRA warned that the safety concerns and the protection of Jewish people and institutions had become urgent.

It has called on governments to do more to fund the security needs of Jewish communities such as at schools and synagogues.

"We need to build on existing laws and strategies to protect communities from all forms of hate and intolerance, online as well as offline," Ms Rautio said.

The FRA also called on governments to use the EU's Digital Services Act to remove antisemitic content online, and step up efforts to prosecute antisemitic hate crimes.

[batboyblog]

The Biden-⁠Harris Administration Advances Equity and Opportunity for Black Americans

Growing Economic Opportunity for Black Families and Communities Through the President’s legislative victories, including the American Rescue Plan (ARP), the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—as well as the President’s historic executive orders on racial equity—the Biden-Harris Administration is ensuring that federal investments through the President’s landmark Investing in America agenda are equitably flowing to communities to address longstanding economic inequities that impact people’s economic security, health, and safety. And this vision is already delivering results. The Biden-Harris Administration has:

Powered a historic economic recovery that created 2.6 million jobs for Black workers—and achieved both the lowest Black unemployment rate on record and the lowest gap between Black and White unemployment on record.

Helped Black working families build wealth. Black wealth is up by 60% relative to pre-pandemic—the largest increase on record.

Cut in half the number of Black children living in poverty in 2021 through ARP’s Child Tax Credit expansion. This expansion provided breathing room to the families of over 9 million Black children.

Began reversing decades of infrastructure disinvestment, including with $4 billion to reconnect communities that were previously cut off from economic opportunities by building needed transportation infrastructure in underserved communities, including Black communities.

Connected an estimated 5.5 million Black households to affordable high-speed internet through the Affordable Connectivity Program, closing the digital divide for millions of Black families.

Helping Black-Owned Businesses Grow and Thrive Since the President entered office, a record 16 million new business applications have been filed, and the share of Black households owning a business has more than doubled. Building on this momentum, the Biden-Harris Administration has:

Achieved the fastest creation rate of Black-owned businesses in more than 30 years—and more than doubled the share of Black business owners from 2019 to 2022.

Improved the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) flagship loan guarantee programs to expand the availability of capital to underserved communities. Since 2020, the number and dollar value of SBA-backed loans to Black-owned businesses have more than doubled.

Launched a whole-of-government effort to expand access to federal contracts for small businesses, awarding a record $69.9 billion to small disadvantaged businesses in 2022.

Through Treasury’s State Small Business Credit Initiative, invested $10 billion to expand access to capital and invest in early-stage businesses in all 50 states—including $2.5 billion in funding and incentive allocations dedicated to support the provision of capital to underserved businesses with $1 billion of these funds to be awarded to the jurisdictions that are most successful in reaching underserved businesses.

Helped more than 37,000 farmers and ranchers who were in financial distress, including Black farmers and ranchers, stay on their farms and keep farming, thanks to resources provided through IRA. The IRA allocated $3.1 billion for the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to provide relief for distressed borrowers with at-risk agricultural operations with outstanding direct or guaranteed Farm Service Agency loans. USDA has provided over $2 billion and counting in timely assistance.

Supported small and disadvantaged businesses through CHIPS Act funding by requiring funding applicants to develop a workforce plan to create equitable pathways for economically disadvantaged individuals in their region, as well as a plan to support procurement from small, minority-owned, veteran-owned, and women-owned businesses.

Created the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund that will invest in clean energy projects in low-income and disadvantaged communities.

Increasing Access to Housing and Rooting Out Discrimination in the Housing Market for Black Communities To increase access to housing and root out discrimination in the housing market, including for Black families and communities, the Biden-Harris Administration has:

Set up the first-ever national infrastructure to stop evictions, scaling up the ARP-funded Emergency Rental Assistance program in over 400 communities across the country, helping 8 million renters and their families stay in their homes. Over 40% of all renters helped are Black—and this support prevented millions of evictions, with the largest effects seen in majority-Black neighborhoods.

Published a proposed “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” rule through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which will help overcome patterns of segregation and hold states, localities, and public housing agencies that receive federal funds accountable for ensuring that underserved communities have equitable access to affordable housing opportunities.

Created the Interagency Task Force on Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity, or PAVE, a first-of-its-kind interagency effort to root out bias in the home appraisal process, which is taking sweeping action to advance equity and remove racial and ethnic bias in home valuations, including cracking down on algorithmic bias and empowering consumers to take action against misvaluation.

Taken additional steps through HUD to support wealth-generation activities for prospective and current homeowners by expanding access to credit by incorporating a borrower’s positive rental payment history into the mortgage underwriting process. HUD estimates this policy change will enable an additional 5,000 borrowers per year to qualify for an FHA-insured loan.

Ensuring Equitable Educational Opportunity for Black Students To expand educational opportunity for the Black community in early childhood and beyond, the Biden-Harris Administration has:

Approved more than $136 billion in student loan debt cancellation for 3.7 million Americans through various actions and launched a new student loan repayment plan—the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan—to help many students and families cut in half their total lifetime payments per dollar borrowed.

Championed the largest increase to Pell Grants in the last decade—a combined increase of $900 to the maximum award over the past two years, affecting the over 60% of Black undergraduates who rely on Pell grants.

Fixed the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, so all qualified borrowers get the debt relief to which they are entitled. More than 790,000 public servants have received more than $56 billion in loan forgiveness since October 2021. Prior to these fixes, only 7,000 people had ever received forgiveness through PSLF.

Delivered a historic investment of over $7 billion to support HBCUs.

Reestablished the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Black Americans.

Through ARP, secured $130 billion—the largest investment in public education in history—to help students get back to school, recover academically in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and address student mental health.

Secured a 30% increase in child care assistance funding last year. Black families comprise 38% of families benefiting from federal child care assistance. Additionally, the President secured an additional $1 billion for Head Start, a program where more than 28% of children and pregnant women who benefit identify as Black.

Improving Health Outcomes for Black Families and Communities To improve health outcomes for the Black community, the Biden-Harris Administration has:

Increased Black enrollment in health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act by 49%—or by around 400,000—from 2020 to 2022, helping more Black families gain health insurance than ever before.

Through IRA, locked in lower monthly premiums for health insurance, capped the cost of insulin at $35 per covered insulin product for Medicare beneficiaries, and helped further close the gap in access to medication by improving prescription drug coverage and lowering drug costs in Medicare. 

Through ARP, expanded postpartum coverage from 60 days to 12 months in 43 states and Washington, D.C., covering 700,000 more women in the year after childbirth. Medicaid covers approximately 65% of births for Black mothers, and this investment is a critical step to address maternal health disparities.

Financed projects that will replace hundreds of thousands of lead pipes, helping protect against lead poisoning that disproportionately affects Black communities.

Provided 264 grants with $1 billion in Bipartisan Safer Communities Act funds to more than 40 states to increase the supply of school-based mental health professionals in communities with high rates of poverty.

Launched An Unprecedented Whole-Of-Government Equity Agenda to Ensure the Promise of America for All Communities, including Black Communities President Biden believes that advancing equity, civil rights, racial justice, and equal opportunity is the responsibility of the whole of our government, which will require sustained leadership and partnership with all communities. To make the promise of America real for every American, including for the Black Community, the President has:

Signed two Executive Orders directing the Federal Government to advance an ambitious whole-of-government equity agenda that matches the scale of the challenges we face as a country and the opportunities we have to build a more perfect union.

Nominated the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court and more Black women to federal circuit courts than every President combined.

Countered hateful attempts to rewrite history including: the signing of the Emmett Till Antilynching Act; establishing Juneteenth as a national holiday; and designating the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument in Mississippi and Illinois. The Department of the Interior has invested more than $295 million in infrastructure funding and historic preservation grants to protect and restore places significant to Black history.

Created the Justice40 Initiative, which is delivering 40% of the overall benefits of certain Federal investments in clean energy, affordable and sustainable housing, clean water, and other programs to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution as part of the most ambitious climate, conservation, and environmental justice agenda in history.

Protecting the Sacred Right to Vote for Black Families and Communities Since their first days in office, President Biden and Vice President Harris have prioritized strengthening our democracy and protecting the sacred right to vote in free, fair, and secure elections. To do so, the President has:

Signed an Executive Order to leverage the resources of the Federal Government to provide nonpartisan information about the election process and increase access to voter registration. Agencies across the Federal Government are taking action to respond to the President’s call for an all-of-government effort to enhance the ability of all eligible Americans to participate in our democracy.

Repeatedly and forcefully called on Congress to pass essential legislation, including the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, including calling for an exception to the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation.

Increased funding for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, which has more than doubled the number of voting rights enforcement attorneys. The Justice Department also created the Election Threats Task Force to assess allegations and reports of threats against election workers, and investigate and prosecute these matters where appropriate.

Signed into law the bipartisan Electoral Reform Count Act, which establishes clear guidelines for our system of certifying and counting electoral votes for President and Vice President, to preserve the will of the people and to protect against the type of attempts to overturn our elections that led to the January 6 insurrection.

Addressing the Crisis of Gun Violence in Black Communities Gun violence has become the leading cause of death for all youth and Black men in America, as well as the second leading cause of death for Black women. To address this national crisis, the President has:

Launched the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, and taken more executive action on gun violence than any President in history, including investments in violence reduction strategies that address the root causes of gun violence and address emerging threats like ghost guns. In 2022, the Administration’s investments in evidence-based, lifesaving programs combined with aggressive action to stop the flow of illegal guns and hold shooters accountable yielded a 12.4% reduction in homicides across the United States.

Signed into the law the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the most significant gun violence reduction legislation enacted in nearly 30 years, including investments in violence reduction strategies and historic policy changes to enhance background checks for individuals under age 21, narrow the dating partner loophole in the gun background check system, and provide law enforcement with tools to crack down on gun trafficking.

Secured the first-ever dedicated federal funding stream for community violence intervention programs, which have been shown to reduce violence by as much as 60%. These programs are effective because they leverage trusted messengers who work directly with individuals most likely to commit gun violence, intervene in conflicts, and connect people to social, health and wellness, and economic services to reduce the likelihood of violence as an answer to conflict.

Enhancing Public Trust and Strengthening Public Safety for Black Communities Our criminal justice system must protect the public and ensure fair and impartial justice for all. These are mutually reinforcing goals. To enhance equal justice and public safety for all communities, including the Black community, the President has:

Signed a historic Executive Order to put federal policing on the path to becoming the gold standard of effectiveness and accountability by requiring federal law enforcement agencies to ban chokeholds; restrict no-knock warrants; mandate the use of body-worn cameras; implement stronger use-of-force policies; provide de-escalation training; submit use-of-force data; submit officer misconduct records into a new national accountability database; and restrict the sale or transfer of military equipment to local law enforcement agencies, among other things. 

Taken steps to right the wrongs stemming from our Nation’s failed approach to marijuana by directing the Departments of Health and Human Services and Justice to expeditiously review how marijuana is scheduled under federal law and in October 2022 issued categorical pardons of prior federal and D.C. offenses of simple possession of marijuana and in December 2023 pardoned additional offenses of simple possession and use of marijuana under federal and D.C. law. While white, Black, and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, Black and brown people have been arrested, prosecuted, and convicted at disproportionately higher rates.

Announced over 100 concrete policy actions as part of a White House evidence-informed, multi-year Alternatives, Rehabilitation, and Reentry Strategic Plan to safely reduce unnecessary criminal justice system interactions so police officers can focus on fighting crime; supporting rehabilitation during incarceration; and facilitating successful reentry.

FACT SHEET

[coochiequeens]

Another violent man trying to worm his way into spaces with vulnerable women. Did he feel like a woman when he attacked a women’s health center?

By Anna Slatz March 20, 2024

A trans-identified male serving a 53-year sentence for multiple domestic terrorism charges is suing the Bureau of Prisons, demanding transfer to a women’s prison. Emily Claire Hari, formerly known as Michael Hari, led a ragtag right-wing militia called Patriot Freedom Fighters, later re-named to the White Rabbits.

Hari, along with the small group, began engaging in criminal activity in 2017 with the intention of carrying out acts of domestic terrorism. In August of that year, Hari’s group set an improvised incendiary device near the Imam’s office of the Dar-al Farooq Islamic Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. One of Hari’s associates, Micheal McWhorter, would later confirm the purpose of the attack was to “scare Muslims out of the United States.” No one was injured in the attack.

In November of 2017, Hari and his “soldiers” targeted the Women’s Health Practice in Champaign, Illinois, where they threw a pipe bomb into the building. The bomb did not detonate and was found by a receptionist of the clinic who called police to safely extract the device from the facility. 

Hari in Sherburne County Jail in 2021.

Hari and his militia would go on to engage in a series of petty crimes in an attempt to gather the funds to continue their operations, including robbing a Hispanic man and holding up two local Walmarts in Clarence, Illinois in December of 2017.

In early 2018, Hari and his ‘militia’ attempted to sabotage railroad tracks near Effingham, Illinois with a bomb. After the attack, the group sent ransom emails demanding $190,000 in cryptocurrency under threat they would damage the railway further. 

Shortly after, Hari tried to frame another individual for the crimes, but the effort would only lead to Federal Investigators more easily tracking him and the members of his militia down.

Hari and his colleagues were ultimately arrested, and, in 2021, Hari was sentenced to 53 years for his role in the Dar al-Farooq bombing. He later received an additional 14 years in 2022 on a number of other charges related to his domestic terrorist activity and the attempted bombing of the women’s clinic. The 14 years is to be served concurrently with the 53-year sentence.

During his trial, it was revealed that Hari identified as a transgender “woman.” While leading the White Rabbit militia, he had been searching terms such as ‘sex change,’ ‘transgender surgery,’ and ‘post-op transgender’ on the internet. Hari allegedly planned on fleeing to Thailand to get ‘gender affirming’ surgeries.

Hari had asked the court to take his gender dysphoria into consideration, and made a request for an amended federal prison placement based on his identity. The details of his request were placed under a seal and the presiding judge stated he would defer to the Bureau of Prisons to make the final call.

But Reduxx has now learned that the judge in the case recommended Hari be placed at FMC Carswell, a female institution, but that Bureau of Prisons instead sent him to a men’s facility. As a result, Hari launched a lawsuit agains the Bureau of Prisons in late 2022 in a case that has been quietly making its way through the US District Court in the Central District of Illinois.

Hari is seeking transfer to a women’s prison under the Bureau of Prison’s transgender policy, which was amended in February of 2022 to make a transgender inmate’s “personal safety” and gender identity a priority when determining housing.

In his complaint, which was hand-written, Hari claims he has been subjected to sexual harassment by “dangerous tranny chasers,” and made fun of for his gender identity. He has since filed over two dozen “exhibits,” attempting to show the court he does not belong in a men’s prison. Among these exhibits include photos of himself wearing a dress-like inmate uniform.

Hari formally applied for transfer to a women’s prison in October of 2023, attempting to exhaust his internal remedies.

In an email exchange dated January 10, 2024, the Transgender Executive Council, which makes housing decisions, re-affirmed his placement at the men’s facility and told Hari his case would be re-reviewed in November — something Hari had been told repeatedly in the past.

In a Motion for Miscellaneous Relief, Hari claimed that if he were not transferred to a women’s prison in November, he would go on a hunger strike and slice off his own penis.

“The hunger strike is a political protest against both the conditions that I have been held under, and the conditions that my transgender sisters have been held under in BOP custody,” Hari wrote. “If I am not given some reasonable assurance that I am to be moved to a gender affirming housing by November 5, I will initiate a hunger strike and auto-castration on that date.”

From the motion for miscellaneous relief filed on November 13, 2023.

Hari is currently housed at Allenwood USP, a high-security facility in Pennsylvania for male offenders. While he is classified as a “male” inmate, his name in the BOP system has been changed from “Michael” to “Emily.”

If Hari is moved to FMC Carswell, he will be one of several dangerous trans-identified males held at the facility.

As previously broken by Reduxx in December, a trans-identified male convicted of rape and child sexual abuse was transferred FMC Carswell after launching a lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons claiming “discrimination.” July Justine Shelby, born William McClain, was convicted on multiple counts of child pornography trafficking after being caught distributing photos of infants being sexually abused.

According to Keep Prisons Single Sex USA, there are approximately 1,980 transgender offenders in the federal system, of which 1,295 are trans-identified males. Of them, almost 50% are in custody for sex offenses. This is compared to just 12% of the general federal inmate population, meaning that trans-identified males are incarcerated for sex offenses at a rate of almost four times that of non-transgender inmates.

Between 2022 and 2023, there was an almost 23% increase of federal inmates who identified as transgender.

[mariacallous]

The European Union today agreed on the details of the AI Act, a far-reaching set of rules for the people building and using artificial intelligence. It’s a milestone law that, lawmakers hope, will create a blueprint for the rest of the world.

After months of debate about how to regulate companies like OpenAI, lawmakers from the EU’s three branches of government—the Parliament, Council, and Commission—spent more than 36 hours in total thrashing out the new legislation between Wednesday afternoon and Friday evening. Lawmakers were under pressure to strike a deal before the EU parliament election campaign starts in the new year.

“The EU AI Act is a global first,” said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on X. “[It is] a unique legal framework for the development of AI you can trust. And for the safety and fundamental rights of people and businesses.”

The law itself is not a world-first; China’s new rules for generative AI went into effect in August. But the EU AI Act is the most sweeping rulebook of its kind for the technology. It includes bans on biometric systems that identify people using sensitive characteristics such as sexual orientation and race, and the indiscriminate scraping of faces from the internet. Lawmakers also agreed that law enforcement should be able to use biometric identification systems in public spaces for certain crimes.

New transparency requirements for all general purpose AI models, like OpenAI's GPT-4, which powers ChatGPT, and stronger rules for “very powerful” models were also included. “The AI Act sets rules for large, powerful AI models, ensuring they do not present systemic risks to the Union,” says Dragos Tudorache, member of the European Parliament and one of two co-rapporteurs leading the negotiations.

Companies that don’t comply with the rules can be fined up to 7 percent of their global turnover. The bans on prohibited AI will take effect in six months, the transparency requirements in 12 months, and the full set of rules in around two years.

Measures designed to make it easier to protect copyright holders from generative AI and require general purpose AI systems to be more transparent about their energy use were also included.

“Europe has positioned itself as a pioneer, understanding the importance of its role as a global standard setter,” said European Commissioner Thierry Breton in a press conference on Friday night.

Over the two years lawmakers have been negotiating the rules agreed today, AI technology and the leading concerns about it have dramatically changed. When the AI Act was conceived in April 2021, policymakers were worried about opaque algorithms deciding who would get a job, be granted refugee status or receive social benefits. By 2022, there were examples that AI was actively harming people. In a Dutch scandal, decisions made by algorithms were linked to families being forcibly separated from their children, while students studying remotely alleged that AI systems discriminated against them based on the color of their skin.

Then, in November 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT, dramatically shifting the debate. The leap in AI’s flexibility and popularity triggered alarm in some AI experts, who drew hyperbolic comparisons between AI and nuclear weapons.

That discussion manifested in the AI Act negotiations in Brussels in the form of a debate about whether makers of so-called foundation models such as the one behind ChatGPT, like OpenAI and Google, should be considered as the root of potential problems and regulated accordingly—or whether new rules should instead focus on companies using those foundational models to build new AI-powered applications, such as chatbots or image generators.

Representatives of Europe’s generative AI industry expressed caution about regulating foundation models, saying it could hamper innovation among the bloc’s AI startups. “We cannot regulate an engine devoid of usage,” Arthur Mensch, CEO of French AI company Mistral, said last month. “We don’t regulate the C [programming] language because one can use it to develop malware. Instead, we ban malware.” Mistral’s foundation model 7B would be exempt under the rules agreed today because the company is still in the research and development phase, Carme Artigas, Spain's Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence, said in the press conference.

The major point of disagreement during the final discussions that ran late into the night twice this week was whether law enforcement should be allowed to use facial recognition or other types of biometrics to identify people either in real time or retrospectively. “Both destroy anonymity in public spaces,” says Daniel Leufer, a senior policy analyst at digital rights group Access Now. Real-time biometric identification can identify a person standing in a train station right now using live security camera feeds, he explains, while “post” or retrospective biometric identification can figure out that the same person also visited the train station, a bank, and a supermarket yesterday, using previously banked images or video.

Leufer said he was disappointed by the “loopholes” for law enforcement that appeared to have been built into the version of the act finalized today.

European regulators’ slow response to the emergence of social media era loomed over discussions. Almost 20 years elapsed between Facebook's launch and the passage of the Digital Services Act—the EU rulebook designed to protect human rights online—taking effect this year. In that time, the bloc was forced to deal with the problems created by US platforms, while being unable to foster their smaller European challengers. “Maybe we could have prevented [the problems] better by earlier regulation,” Brando Benifei, one of two lead negotiators for the European Parliament, told WIRED in July. AI technology is moving fast. But it will still be many years until it’s possible to say whether the AI Act is more successful in containing the downsides of Silicon Valley’s latest export.

[oroniel]

On some level, I was writing this particular fic against the possibility of today. On some other level, I was writing it about the years I spent working with refugees in conflict zones. I was far too young, but even then always in awe of the human capacity to pick up and keep going after the very worst had happened, after everything falls apart and you lose loved ones, your sense of home and safety and identity. It is a hard, hard thing to do, and yet you move forward and build something new.

The story is pretty unsubtle, but anyway, I'm sharing it again because I had the possible outcome of this day in mind when I wrote it, and maybe others might also want to reflect on Gandalf's remarks about small acts of kindness keeping the darkness at bay, even when things can't be fixed.

[eretzyisrael]

by Daniel Greenfield

Last year, Biden met with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas and boasted that, “I reversed the policies of my predecessor and resumed aid to the Palestinians — more than a half a billion dollars in 2021.”

Batsheva Nigri, a preschool teacher, was riding in a car with her twelve-year-old daughter when Islamic terrorists from the Palestinian Authority’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade cut them off and riddled the car with 22 bullets. Batsheva’s twelve-year-old daughter watched her mother die.

The Palestinian Authority’s terror group hailed the murder of a 42-year-old preschool teacher as a “natural response to the crimes of the occupation” and as revenge for Denis Michael Rohan, a non-Jewish Australian tourist, starting a fire in the Al-Aqsa occupation mosque in 1969.

Those who knew the preschool teacher described her as a woman with a “heart of gold” to whom “all the children were like her children.” Hamas and Islamic Jihad however claimed that her murder glorifies Allah.

Last Monday’s murder comes after an Israeli father and son were shot to death on the Sabbath. They’re among a growing list of terror victims this year ranging in age from a 6-year-old boy purposely run down on a Jerusalem street to an 82-year-old woman who was killed while trying to get her disabled husband to safety when a rocket hit their building.

The twenty-six terror victims are a sharp increase from the only 3 deaths in 2020 when the Trump administration’s cutoff of aid to the terrorists occupying parts of Israel took effect.

The number of terror victims fell every year Trump was in office, from 15 in 2017, to 12 in 2018, 10 in 2019 and then only 3 in 2020.

And the number of terror victims shot up every year Biden was in office from 17 in 2021, to 31 in 2022, and there is every sign that 2023 will top that.

Twice as many Israelis were killed in one month of Biden than in one year of Trump.

It’s only August and already 26 Israelis have been killed by Islamic terrorists. Last year at this time 18 Israelis had been killed by terrorists making for a 40% increase in 2023.

What made all the difference? As Rep. Ilhan Omar once said, “It’s all about the ‘benjamins’”.

In 2018, Congress passed the Taylor Force Act, named after an Iraq War veteran who was stabbed to death by a terrorist in Jerusalem, which cut off most aid to the Palestinian Authority. In 2019, President Trump went even further with a nearly total cutoff of aid to the Palestinian Authority. Biden not only restored aid, he sharply increased the flow of cash to the terrorists.

Biden’s half a billion dollars helped fuel a massive surge in Islamic terrorism. While the money is officially listed as humanitarian aid, injecting money into terror zones funds terrorism.

The Palestinian Authority maintains a ‘pay-to-slay’ program which pays salaries to terrorists based on the lengths of their prison sentences. That means successful killers can earn $3,000 a month in a part of the world where the average salary is around $700 a month. It’s five times more profitable to be a terrorist than a teacher.

That’s the price of Batsheva’s life and that is what the Biden administration has been paying for.

The Biden administration is well aware that the Palestinian Authority funds terrorism. While Biden and Secretary of State Blinken refused to raise the issue with terror leader Mahmoud Abbas, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf claimed, “we are working to bring pay-to-slay to an end.” Instead the United States is funding pay-to-slay.

And worse.

Recent documents reveal that the State Department applied for an OFAC license which exempts it from Global Terrorist Sanctions Regulations in order to provide foreign aid.

A government sanctions exemption document warned that, “we assess there is a high risk Hamas could potentially derive indirect, unintentional benefit from U.S. assistance to Gaza. There is less but still some risk U.S. assistance would benefit other designated groups.”

The Biden administration knows that it’s funding terrorism. It is not only aware of it but it actually applied for an exemption in order to be able to continue funding terrorists… including Hamas.

Batsheva’s murder, like that of the 74 terror victims killed under Biden, was paid for directly and indirectly through foreign aid to terrorists and sanctions relief on Iran’s terror regime. These policies were not undertaken in ignorance, the OFAC documents provide clear evidence that the Biden administration had been warned that it was funding terrorism and that people would die.

That’s why the number of Israelis continues to climb every year that Biden has been in office.

After 7 Israelis, including a 14-year-old boy, were killed in a Sabbath terrorist attack outside a synagogue in January 2023, Secretary of State Blinken met with Mahmoud Abbas and promised another $50 million to UNRWA which acts as the employment agency for Hamas. Earlier that same month, the Biden administration warned Israel to turn over $39 million in tax revenues to terrorists rather than providing that money to help terror victims rebuild their lives.

In August, with 4 Israelis already murdered, the Biden administration demanded that Republicans stop blocking $75 million in “humanitarian aid” to the UN agency. Sen. Jim Risch and Rep. Michael McCaul are determined to block that aid until Secretary of State Blinken certifies that UNRWA “is not affiliated with U.S. designated foreign terrorist organizations”. And yet the Biden administration can’t seem to even manage to clear that lowest of legal bars.

In Batsheva’s kindergarten in Efrat, which the Biden administration considers an “illegal settlement” despite being referenced numerous times in the bible, the children have lost a teacher and a friend.

The murdered preschool teacher had been on the way to “prepare the kindergarten for the start of the year.” A woman who worked with her described how “every time I entered the kindergarten, she welcomed me with a beaming smile that always accompanied her. The children were everything to her, she always hugged them and gave what she could to the children, the staff, the parents.”

Batsheva did not have to die. None of the 26 already killed this year did. The 3 dead in 2020 show what’s possible. The Biden administration is knowingly funding the murder of the innocent.

[nicklloydnow]

“On the night of Nov. 5, I didn’t sleep at all, but it wasn’t because of air raid sirens. When it seemed clear that Donald Trump would win the U.S. presidential election, the mood on Ukrainian social media and among friends turned overwhelmingly negative (when it wasn’t outright disbelief: My publisher, who lives in Kharkiv, insisted for more than 30 minutes that something was surely wrong with the data).

The war was effectively over, people said. Mr. Trump would halt all American military aid and Ukraine would be forced to cede large swaths of territory to Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president. I told myself that Ukrainians have a tendency toward pessimism. That Ukraine is the front line against Mr. Putin’s project to make Russia great again, a project that is certainly incompatible with Mr. Trump’s. Surely Mr. Trump would decide that it is in his interest to thwart Mr. Putin and act decisively. But my mood, too, eventually tumbled to dark places.

(…)

In Ukraine, there is safety in simply trusting that the worst will happen. To dare to hope has always been the risk.

“What good things have I seen in my lifetime?” our 87-year-old neighbor Grandma Anya likes to say, with a solid fatalism that’s built on being born soon after the famine of the early 1930s to parents who had lost three children; on watching her savings, like many others’, become worthless right before the breakup of the U.S.S.R.; and on the steely hand from Moscow that has grasped at the heels of Ukrainians as we’ve strained for democracy, Europe and the rule of law.

In the past few years, however, there have been moments for hope. Like in the spring of 2022, when our army routed Russian forces from the suburbs around Kyiv and then took back nearly all of Kharkiv region, in the north, in the fall. There was a confidence then that Ukraine had earned the support of allies and that together we would repel Russian aggression.

But we’re tired. Some troops on the front lines have gone without leave for many months. Some in the east are falling back more than a mile a day at times. This week it snowed. The cold season is beginning, and with so many power stations already destroyed, the prospects for the winter are bleak.

We read that Russia is burning through men and matériel, but also that it has harnessed its economy to serve the war and produces weapons and ammunition around the clock. That it has used fewer missiles recently not to go easy on us, but because it is stockpiling them to inflict more damage when it gets colder.

Even before Mr. Trump’s election, the West’s support for Ukraine was indecisive, and the clamor among those who think this war is simply costing too much is growing louder. “Some still want to continue sending enormous amounts of money into this lost war,” Viktor Orban, Hungary’s president, told Hungarian national radio last week. “But the number of those who remain silent, and those who cautiously argue that we should adjust to the new situation, is growing.” Mr. Orban is on particularly friendly terms with America’s president-elect.

So what happens now? We wait. We wait for the publication of Mr. Trump’s plan for peace and eagerly consume the reported details of it that appear in American newspapers. We decide whether to believe the news reports that Mr. Trump had a call with Mr. Putin, or the Kremlin, which said the call never took place. We wait for Mr. Trump to tell us our fate in his own time. We decide whether to risk a hope.”

“Ukraine could develop a rudimentary nuclear bomb within months if Donald Trump withdraws US military assistance, according to a briefing paper prepared for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence.

The country would quickly be able to build a basic device from plutonium with a similar technology to the "Fat Man" bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945, the report states. "Creating a simple atomic bomb, as the United States did within the framework of the Manhattan Project, would not be a difficult task 80 years later," the document reads.

With no time to build and run the large facilities required to enrich uranium, wartime Ukraine would have to rely instead on using plutonium extracted from spent fuel rods taken from Ukraine's nuclear reactors.

Ukraine still controls nine operational reactors and has significant nuclear expertise despite having given up the world's third largest nuclear arsenal in 1996. The report says: "The weight of reactor plutonium available to Ukraine can be estimated at seven tons ... A significant nuclear weapons arsenal would require much less material ... the amount of material is sufficient for hundreds of warheads with a tactical yield of several kilotons."

Such a bomb would have about one tenth the power of Fat Man, the document's authors conclude.

"That would be enough to destroy an entire Russian airbase or concentrated military, industrial or logistics installations. The exact nuclear yield would be unpredictable because it would use different isotopes of plutonium," said the report's author, Oleksii Yizhak, head of department at Ukraine's National Institute for Strategic Studies, a government research centre that acts as an advisory body to the presidential office and the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine.

The plutonium would need to be imploded using "a complicated conventional explosion design, which must occur with a high detonation wave velocity simultaneously around the entire surface of the plutonium sphere," the report reads. The technology is challenging but within Ukraine's expertise, according to the briefing.

Last month President Zelensky said he had told Trump that Ukraine would need nuclear weapons to guarantee his country's security if it were prevented from joining Nato, as President Putin has demanded. Zelensky later said he had meant there was no alternative security guarantee, and Ukrainian officials have since denied Kyiv is considering nuclear rearmament.

The paper, which is published by the Centre for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies, an influential Ukrainian military think tank, has been shared with the country's deputy defence minister and is to be presented on Wednesday at a conference likely to be attended by Ukraine's ministers for defence and strategic industries.

It is not endorsed by the Kyiv government but sets out the legal basis under which Ukraine could withdraw from the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT), the ratification of which was contingent on security guarantees given by the US, UK and Russia in the 1994 Budapest memorandum. The agreement stated that Ukraine would surrender its nuclear arsenal of 1,734 strategic warheads in exchange for the promise of protection.

"The violation of the memorandum by the nuclear-armed Russian Federation provides formal grounds for withdrawal from the NPT and moral reasons for reconsideration of the nonnuclear choice made in early 1994," the paper states.

Russian troops are gaining momentum as they advance in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, and Trump has pledged to cut US military aid unless Kyiv submits to peace talks with Putin.

Bryan Lanza, a Trump adviser, has already said that Ukraine will have to surrender Crimea. This week Donald Trump Jr taunted Zelensky, posting on X: "You're 38 days from losing your allowance."

Ukrainian forces are heavily dependent on US weaponry, and any reduction in the flow of western arms into the country, let alone a complete curtailment, would have catastrophic consequences on the battlefield. That has prompted Ukrainians to look for a way to take matters into their own hands.

"You need to understand we face an existential challenge. If the Russians take Ukraine, millions of Ukrainians will be killed under occupation," said Valentyn Badrak, director of the centre that produced the paper. "There are millions of us who would rather face death than go to the gulags." Badrak is from Irpin, where occupying Russians tortured and murdered civilians, and he was hunted by troops with orders to kill him.

Western experts believe it would take Ukraine at least five years to develop a nuclear weapon and a suitable carrier, but Badrak insists Ukraine is less than a year from building its own ballistic missiles. "In six months Ukraine will be able to show that it has a long-range ballistic missile capability: we will have missiles with a range of 1,000km," Badrak said.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former commanding officer of the UK's Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment told Times Radio that Ukraine "certainly" had the technical know-how and practical wherewithal to produce a nuclear weapon.

"Trump will take note because the last thing we want is more nuclear proliferation and any sort of nuclear strike in Europe, be it from Ukrainians or the Russians," he added.

Bretton-Gordon called Zelensky a "master strategist" who was willing to try "absolutely everything".”