Thomas Hawk posted a photo:
OLESJKY (ANP/AFP) - Het staakt-het-vuren dat de afgelopen dagen om humanitaire redenen van kracht was rond de Oekraïense stad Olesjky, is zoals gepland beëindigd. Dat verklaarde de Oekraïense ombudsman voor de mensenrechten Dmytro Loebinets zondagavond. Rusland meldde eerder al de humanitaire operatie te hebben afgerond.
Loebinets noemde het bestand "een belangrijke stap in onze gezamenlijke humanitaire inspanningen" met Rusland. Olesjky staat sinds het begin van de Russische inval in februari 2022 onder Russische controle. Inwoners kampten al maanden met tekorten aan voedsel, water en medicijnen. Tijdens het staakt-het-vuren werden humanitaire middelen geleverd en werd inwoners evacuatie aangeboden. Zij mochten daarbij kiezen of ze naar Rusland of Oekraïne wilden.
De zeldzame onderbreking van de gevechten tussen Rusland en Oekraïne kwam tot stand door de Amerikaanse first lady Melania Trump. Ook paus Leo was daarbij betrokken.
KYIV (ANP) - Amnesty International zegt dat komende winter een nieuwe humanitaire ramp dreigt in Oekraïne. Russische autoriteiten, waaronder president Vladimir Poetin, kondigden eerder aan de energie-infrastructuur in Oekraïne opzettelijk te zullen aanvallen. De mensenrechtenorganisatie verwacht dat dit grote problemen zal veroorzaken voor burgers in het land.
Scott Edwards van Amnesty noemt de aanvallen op energie-infrastructuur en andere essentiële infrastructuur een "onwettige campagne die erop gericht lijkt om onleefbare omstandigheden te creëren voor Oekraïense burgers". Vorige week meldde de internationale Onderzoekscommissie voor Oekraïne nog dat de opzettelijke Russische aanvallen op energie-infrastructuur gedurende voorgaande winters oorlogsmisdrijven en misdaden tegen de menselijkheid zouden zijn geweest. Volgens het internationaal humanitair recht zijn elektriciteits- en verwarmingsinstallaties burgerdoelen.
In de winter van 2025-2026 voerde Rusland minstens "423 aanvallen uit op elektriciteitsinfrastructuur en 74 aanvallen op verwarmingsinstallaties", aldus Amnesty. Hierdoor zaten honderdduizenden mensen zonder verwarming bij temperaturen die tot onder de -20 graden Celsius daalden. Ook leidden de aanvallen tot problemen bij de levering van elektriciteit en water waardoor de gezondheidszorg en het onderwijs verstoord raakten.
Ook zou het aantal burgerdoden in Oekraïne de afgelopen maanden door de illegale Russische invasie aanzienlijk zijn gestegen. In september 2026 werden 85 procent meer burgerslachtoffers gemaakt in Oekraïne ten opzichte van een jaar daarvoor. Amnesty verwacht dat oktober 2026 een van de dodelijkste maanden wordt voor de Oekraïense burgerbevolking.
De mensenrechtenorganisatie roept Rusland op te stoppen met de aanvallen op Oekraïne.
MEXICO-STAD (ANP) - Max Verstappen is door zijn overwinning in de Grote Prijs van Mexico-Stad van de vierde naar de tweede plaats geklommen in het kampioenschap. Dat is ook het maximaal haalbare voor de viervoudig wereldkampioen van Red Bull, want de 20-jarige Italiaan Kimi Antonelli verzekerde zich als jongste ooit al van de wereldtitel in de Formule 1. De coureur van Mercedes finishte als derde in Mexico en scoorde daarmee zoveel punten, dat hij in de resterende vier grands prix van dit seizoen niet meer te achterhalen is.
Antonelli is op 380 punten gekomen, Verstappen heeft 261 punten. Hij haalde Lewis Hamilton (259 punten) en George Russell (250 punten) in. "Het was een hectische race, maar ik had wel een hele goede start en een hele goede eerste ronde. Die bepaalden eigenlijk al de race voor mij", zei de coureur na afloop in het interview op de baan. "Ik miste nog wel een beetje snelheid, denk ik, maar het team nam de juiste beslissingen op de juiste momenten. Al was het flink zweten om aan het einde van de race Hamilton achter me te houden."
MEXICO-STAD (ANP) - Kimi Antonelli huilde van geluk toen hij als derde over de finish reed tijdens de Grote Prijs van Mexico-Stad en zich met die positie als jongste ooit verzekerde van de wereldtitel in de Formule 1. "Ik heb het gedaan, ik heb er geen woorden voor. Dit moet ik even verwerken", zei de 20-jarige Italiaan van Mercedes tijdens het interview op de baan.
"Het is een fantastisch seizoen geweest en ik dank alles aan Mercedes en mijn familie. Ik was dit weekend meer gespannen dan anders, maar nu heel blij. De rest van het seizoen kan ik nu genieten. Het is ook geweldig om het podium te delen met Max Verstappen en Lewis Hamilton, twee grote kampioenen. Ik hoop nog veel mooie duels met die twee uit te vechten in de toekomst."
Het Formule 1-team van Mercedes stelde de in Bologna geboren Antonelli in 2025 aan als tweede rijder naast George Russell. Hij nam de plek in van de naar Ferrari vertrokken Hamilton. Hij boekte in zijn 'rookiejaar' drie podiumplekken: derde in Canada en in Las Vegas en tweede in Brazilië, maar kende ook periodes met mindere resultaten.
Dit jaar blonk Antonelli uit in consistentie en koelbloedigheid. Hij nam al na zijn zege in de GP van Japan, de derde race van dit jaar, de leiding in het kampioenschap. De Italiaan boekte in totaal dit jaar al negen overwinningen en brak het ene na het andere leeftijdsrecord. Geen moment zwichtte hij onder de toenemende druk. "Ik wist al vroeg in het seizoen dat de titel mogelijk was, omdat de auto zo snel was en ik constant goed presteerde", zei Antonelli in een later interview op het circuit.
Max Verstappen, die voor de zesde keer de race op het hooggelegen Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez won, sprak lovende woorden over Antonelli. "Het is indrukwekkend wat hij op zo'n jonge leeftijd heeft laten zien dit seizoen. Ik ben trots op hem."
President again took aim at progressive Senate candidate and lauded Haley Stevens for endorsing Mike Rogers
Donald Trump railed against Democratic US senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed at a campaign event in Iowa Sunday, repeatedly referring to the Michigan progressive as a “jihadist”.
Trump’s comments aimed to influence a neck-and-neck race that will play an outsized role in determining which party controls the senate after Tuesday’s midterm elections.
Continue reading...The train disaster, one of Europe’s deadliest rail incidents this century, killed 69 people, including 54 Spaniards
Four US citizens and one each from Canada, Japan, Argentina, Mexico, Tunisia and the Czech Republic were among the 69 killed in last week’s high-speed train collision in Spain, authorities said.
Wednesday’s disaster – one of Europe’s deadliest rail accidents this century – has seen victims’ relatives endure an agonising wait as forensics teams identify the dead, sometimes from individual body parts.
Continue reading...The train disaster, one of Europe’s deadliest rail incidents this century, killed 69 people, including 54 Spaniards
Four US citizens and one each from Canada, Japan, Argentina, Mexico, Tunisia and the Czech Republic were among the 69 killed in last week’s high-speed train collision in Spain, authorities said.
Wednesday’s disaster – one of Europe’s deadliest rail accidents this century – has seen victims’ relatives endure an agonising wait as forensics teams identify the dead, sometimes from individual body parts.
Continue reading...The app for a short time showed some areas subject to false nuclear and chemical alerts; temporary local ceasefire expires in southern Kherson. What we know on day 1,713
Ukraine’s air force said it suspected the country’s aid raid alert app – which is used across the country to warn people of the threat of airstrikes – had been hacked. On Sunday the app for a short time showed Kyiv and other areas subject to nuclear and chemical alerts. An erroneous message also said Russia’s hypersonic Oreshnik missile had been deployed. “The air alert app appears to have been subjected to enemy influence,” the air force said on Telegram. “There is no radiation threat! Stay calm and follow our updates on our channel!”
Some hours later, Russia claimed a “massive cyber-attack” had hit its application designed to warn people of incoming drone attacks and other threats. “Attention! The mobile application of the Ministry of Emergencies of Russia has been subjected to a massive cyber-attack, enabling attackers to send false information to the public,” Moscow’s emergencies ministry posted on Telegram early on Monday.
Ukraine’s military said it evacuated 167 people from areas of southern Kherson region on Sunday as a temporary local ceasefire expired – two days after buses carried residents out of the Russian-held town of Oleshky. A six-day local ceasefire in Oleshky and the surrounding area was reached after mediation efforts by US first lady Melania Trump and with the involvement of Pope Leo. Neither side reported violations after the truce began, in what one Ukrainian lawmaker described as the “biggest de-escalation since 2022”. US-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine are set to resume this month, having been effectively frozen since the US and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran in February.
Kherson regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin warned local people to be particularly vigilant when the ceasefire ended and to “respond immediately to warnings about Russian attacks”. A Ukrainian military officer, speaking on condition of anonymity to AFP, expressed concern that the fighting would be “worse than before” when it resumed. Russian forces on the other side of the Dnipro river, had taken advantage of the calm of the past few days to amass new troops, transport ammunition stocks, and collect intelligence on Ukrainian positions using surveillance drones, the officer said.
Ukraine has resumed its attacks on Russian oil refineries in defiance of pressure from Donald Trump ahead of the US midterm elections, Luke Harding reports from Kyiv. Russian state media said on Sunday Ukrainian long-range drones had set fire to the Kstovo refinery in Nizhny Novgorod oblast, soon after a major strike against another big refinery in Samara oblast, owned by the Russian state energy company Rosneft. Trump has blamed the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for the rise in global fuel prices, and last month lifted US sanctions on Russian diesel.
Zelenskyy said on Sunday that Ukraine would stop hitting Russian oil refineries – a key demand of Trump – if Washington provided Kyiv with powerful Patriot interceptor missiles. Speaking to Fox News on Sunday, Zelenskyy said: “We said that if you want us not to attack Russia’s refineries, they have not to attack our energy system. Another alternative, give us Patriot missiles, we will find money, not just aid.” Zelenskyy said if Washington provided the missile systems for one month Kyiv would cease attacks on Russian refineries for the same period. The Trump administration on Friday green-lit the sale of 500 Patriots to Ukraine, the state department said, but the Ukrainian president warned deliveries could take years. Ukrainian authorities have been warning for weeks that their supplies of the interceptor missiles were dwindling.
Continue reading...
Sergiy Galyonkin has added a photo to the pool:
A draped chair, glass jars and a washstand beside a sunlit window at the Historic Village of Hokkaido (Kaitaku no Mura), Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan. July 2026.
Toyota's EV sales have jumped 127% through September, reports Electrek:
Including Lexus, Toyota sold 309,766 battery electric vehicles (BEVs) globally through the first nine months of 2026, up 127.4% from the same period last year. Except for January (+87.5%), Toyota's EV sales have more than doubled every month this year compared with 2025...
While its EVs are catching on, Toyota Motor's global sales fell for the third straight month in September. Toyota sold 860,107 vehicles in September, down 2.2% from the previous year. The company said that although overall demand remained steady, sales in China fell, leading to lower overall sales than last year. Through September, Toyota sold 7.51 million vehicles globally, down 3.4%. In China, Toyota's sales plunged nearly 20%, marking its eighth consecutive month with lower sales. Toyota said the overall market in China "remained weak due in part to rising gasoline prices, while the market for gasoline vehicles and hybrid vehicles was particularly affected," resulting in lower sales. In the first nine months of 2026, Toyota sold just over 1.05 million vehicles in China, 18.9% fewer than in the same period last year... After the US, China is Toyota's second-largest market.
Including Lexus, Toyota sold 309,766 battery electric vehicles (BEVs) globally through the first nine months of 2026, up 127.4% from the same period last year. Except for January (+87.5%), Toyota's EV sales have more than doubled every month this year compared with 2025...
While its EVs are catching on, Toyota Motor's global sales fell for the third straight month in September. Toyota sold 860,107 vehicles in September, down 2.2% from the previous year. The company said that although overall demand remained steady, sales in China fell, leading to lower overall sales than last year. Through September, Toyota sold 7.51 million vehicles globally, down 3.4%. In China, Toyota's sales plunged nearly 20%, marking its eighth consecutive month with lower sales. Toyota said the overall market in China "remained weak due in part to rising gasoline prices, while the market for gasoline vehicles and hybrid vehicles was particularly affected," resulting in lower sales. In the first nine months of 2026, Toyota sold just over 1.05 million vehicles in China, 18.9% fewer than in the same period last year... After the US, China is Toyota's second-largest market.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google has revealed some of its Asian customers – almost certainly Chinese e-tailers – are buying fewer ads. Speaking on Alphabet’s Q3 earnings call last week, chief business officer Philipp Schindler addressed the slowdown in ad sales growth with the following remark: “In retail, some of our APAC advertisers were impacted by the EU eliminating its de minimis exemption.” That’s a reference to the European Union’s changes to import duties, which saw the bloc introduce a temporary €3 customs duty for every consignment valued at under €150 imported from outside the EU. The EU previously operated the de minimis exemption that Schindler referred to, meaning it collected no import duty on almost 5.9 billion low-value items shipped to the continent in 2025 alone. The new regime aims to protect European retailers from cheap imports. A great many of those items came from Chinese e-tail giants – the likes of Temu, Shein, and Alibaba – who are thought to account for perhaps ten percent of advertising revenue at Google and Meta. EU policy has therefore contributed to slower growth at Google. Huawei’s brake pedals reportedly break Huawei’s automotive efforts appear to have driven it into a cul de sac of controversy. The Chinese tech giant works with a company called Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Co. (JAC) under the Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance, which aims to produce intelligent cars. The flagship model produced by Huawei and JAC is a luxury EV called the Maextro V800, which when tested by Chinese automotive review site Dongchedi produced a rather terrifying fault: the brake pedal bracket broke when drivers exerted maximum force during tests to assess the car's ability to decelerate suddenly at 100 km/h. The site’s drivers were still able to stop the car, but rather more slowly than is optimal. Within days of the review site posting its findings, reports of its work started to disappear from the internet, according to China Digital Times, a US-based outlet that says it publishes independent news on Chinese affairs. Even some opinion pieces that called for further assessment of the car’s safety disappeared, giving rise to theories that Beijing is displeased with negative coverage of its technology champions and automotive industry. North Korea named as Binance hacker The USA’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Saturday named North Korea’s elite cybercrime crew “TraderTraitor” as the source of last week’s attack on cryptocurrency exchange Binance. Cyber-defense company TRM also reached the same conclusion. Its analysts last week declared they have “high confidence” that “on and off-chain intelligence” suggest TraderTraitor did the deed. “On the evening of October 29, billions of dollars in crypto began leaving wallets belonging to Binance,” TRM’s analysts wrote. “Within minutes, Binance wallets on the XRP Ledger, Ethereum, Bitcoin, Tron, Solana and four other networks had sent their balances to addresses controlled by a single attacker. A second wave around 23:05 UTC reached Binance wallets on Avalanche and Polygon.” TRM thinks Trader Traitor started its raid 36 hours before the theft. “The attacker's operator wallet received three small withdrawals from Tornado Cash, a service that obscures where crypto comes from, starting the morning of October 28,” TRM wrote. “Early on October 29, the operator deployed a first piece of code for the attack and tested it on two wallets. Later that day, it rehearsed the final version on a third wallet, then routed the test funds back to itself. Four hours after that rehearsal, the same code was installed on a Binance hot wallet.” Binance first said the cause of the incident was a single compromised laptop. It has since detected “additional points of breach” but has not offered additional information while it investigates the matter. The crypto exchange continues to reassure users that its platform is safe and that it will make good any losses. North Korea steals cryptocurrency to fund its government, especially its belligerent defense efforts. Samsung posts monster profit Samsung last week delivered the monster profits it promised early in October. The Korean giant announced record Q3 revenue of ₩195.3 trillion ($146.2 billion ) and operating profit of ₩107 trillion ($80 billion). Samsung’s DS division, which covers all its chipmaking efforts, earned over 99 percent of that operating profit and $110 billion of the company’s revenue. The company said its foundry business “experienced a notable revenue and earnings improvement on HBM base-die sales growth” and expects it will notch up “double-digit revenue growth and continued earnings improvement on new mobile products, mass production ramp-up of 4nm NPUs, and expanded memory product sales” in its next quarterly report. “In 2027, the Business will aim for revenue growth led by 4nm and 2nm advanced nodes based on strong AI and HPC demand. It also expects to strengthen its global supply capabilities with the commencement of operations at its new fab in Taylor, Texas,” the company said. That last item is welcome news as the reason Samsung and other memory-makers are making so much money is shortages mean they can inflate prices. More factories coming online may help to ease price pressures. Fast-charging batteries set for takeoff Dr Rachid Yazami, the scientist who developed the graphite anode that made lithium-ion batteries mainstream, has shown off a new battery design that can achieve 70 percent charge in under four minutes. In tests of its lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cell, Dr Yazami’s startup KVI was able to go from 10 percent to 70 percent charge in 3.7 minutes, and to full charge in seven minutes, using “Non-Linear Voltammetry (NLV)” technology that he says “uses a proprietary, stepwise voltage-controlled approach” that “allows the current to respond to the battery’s changing electrochemical characteristics” during charging. “The challenge is not simply to push more electricity into a battery in less time,” Dr Yazami said. “It is to understand how the battery responds during charging and use that information to deliver energy more effectively.” Japanese company SkyDrive, which hopes to manufacture electric-powered flying vehicles, has signed up to test the tech. ®
Google has revealed some of its Asian customers – almost certainly Chinese e-tailers – are buying fewer ads. Speaking on Alphabet’s Q3 earnings call last week, chief business officer Philipp Schindler addressed the slowdown in ad sales growth with the following remark: “In retail, some of our APAC advertisers were impacted by the EU eliminating its de minimis exemption.” That’s a reference to the European Union’s changes to import duties, which saw the bloc introduce a temporary €3 customs duty for every consignment valued at under €150 imported from outside the EU. The EU previously operated the de minimis exemption that Schindler referred to, meaning it collected no import duty on almost 5.9 billion low-value items shipped to the continent in 2025 alone. The new regime aims to protect European retailers from cheap imports. A great many of those items came from Chinese e-tail giants – the likes of Temu, Shein, and Alibaba – who are thought to account for perhaps ten percent of advertising revenue at Google and Meta. EU policy has therefore contributed to slower growth at Google. Huawei’s brake pedals reportedly break Huawei’s automotive efforts appear to have driven it into a cul de sac of controversy. The Chinese tech giant works with a company called Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Co. (JAC) under the Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance, which aims to produce intelligent cars. The flagship model produced by Huawei and JAC is a luxury EV called the Maextro V800, which when tested by Chinese automotive review site Dongchedi produced a rather terrifying fault: the brake pedal bracket broke when drivers exerted maximum force during tests to assess the car's ability to decelerate suddenly at 100 km/h. The site’s drivers were still able to stop the car, but rather more slowly than is optimal. Within days of the review site posting its findings, reports of its work started to disappear from the internet, according to China Digital Times, a US-based outlet that says it publishes independent news on Chinese affairs. Even some opinion pieces that called for further assessment of the car’s safety disappeared, giving rise to theories that Beijing is displeased with negative coverage of its technology champions and automotive industry. North Korea named as Binance hacker The USA’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Saturday named North Korea’s elite cybercrime crew “TraderTraitor” as the source of last week’s attack on cryptocurrency exchange Binance. Cyber-defense company TRM also reached the same conclusion. Its analysts last week declared they have “high confidence” that “on and off-chain intelligence” suggest TraderTraitor did the deed. “On the evening of October 29, billions of dollars in crypto began leaving wallets belonging to Binance,” TRM’s analysts wrote. “Within minutes, Binance wallets on the XRP Ledger, Ethereum, Bitcoin, Tron, Solana and four other networks had sent their balances to addresses controlled by a single attacker. A second wave around 23:05 UTC reached Binance wallets on Avalanche and Polygon.” TRM thinks Trader Traitor started its raid 36 hours before the theft. “The attacker's operator wallet received three small withdrawals from Tornado Cash, a service that obscures where crypto comes from, starting the morning of October 28,” TRM wrote. “Early on October 29, the operator deployed a first piece of code for the attack and tested it on two wallets. Later that day, it rehearsed the final version on a third wallet, then routed the test funds back to itself. Four hours after that rehearsal, the same code was installed on a Binance hot wallet.” Binance first said the cause of the incident was a single compromised laptop. It has since detected “additional points of breach” but has not offered additional information while it investigates the matter. The crypto exchange continues to reassure users that its platform is safe and that it will make good any losses. North Korea steals cryptocurrency to fund its government, especially its belligerent defense efforts. Samsung posts monster profit Samsung last week delivered the monster profits it promised early in October. The Korean giant announced record Q3 revenue of ₩195.3 trillion ($146.2 billion ) and operating profit of ₩107 trillion ($80 billion). Samsung’s DS division, which covers all its chipmaking efforts, earned over 99 percent of that operating profit and $110 billion of the company’s revenue. The company said its foundry business “experienced a notable revenue and earnings improvement on HBM base-die sales growth” and expects it will notch up “double-digit revenue growth and continued earnings improvement on new mobile products, mass production ramp-up of 4nm NPUs, and expanded memory product sales” in its next quarterly report. “In 2027, the Business will aim for revenue growth led by 4nm and 2nm advanced nodes based on strong AI and HPC demand. It also expects to strengthen its global supply capabilities with the commencement of operations at its new fab in Taylor, Texas,” the company said. That last item is welcome news as the reason Samsung and other memory-makers are making so much money is shortages mean they can inflate prices. More factories coming online may help to ease price pressures. Fast-charging batteries set for takeoff Dr Rachid Yazami, the scientist who developed the graphite anode that made lithium-ion batteries mainstream, has shown off a new battery design that can achieve 70 percent charge in under four minutes. In tests of its lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cell, Dr Yazami’s startup KVI was able to go from 10 percent to 70 percent charge in 3.7 minutes, and to full charge in seven minutes, using “Non-Linear Voltammetry (NLV)” technology that he says “uses a proprietary, stepwise voltage-controlled approach” that “allows the current to respond to the battery’s changing electrochemical characteristics” during charging. “The challenge is not simply to push more electricity into a battery in less time,” Dr Yazami said. “It is to understand how the battery responds during charging and use that information to deliver energy more effectively.” Japanese company SkyDrive, which hopes to manufacture electric-powered flying vehicles, has signed up to test the tech. ®
Kimi Antonelli became the youngest Formula 1 World Champion as third place in the Mexico City Grand Prix was enough for the Mercedes driver to claim the 2026 crown, with Max Verstappen taking race victory from Lewis Hamilton.
Kimi Antonelli won his maiden Drivers’ Championship with a third-place finish at the Mexico City Grand Prix, leaving him emotional as he reacted to his momentous achievement.
This looked like a spicy way to introduce Ancient Americas to y'all. Most of the channel's videos are about particular peoples, region(s), & time periods covering ancient South, North, and Mesoamerica. Archaeology, language, oral histories, artifacts, and always images of what's being talked about. Many of those make good context for deep dives on subjects that connect across regions and times, such as potatoes, the Mesoamerican calendar or ballgame, or now, peppers!. Come to learn about ornithochory! (Capsicum spread fairly recently in evolutionary terms, via birds — immune to capsaicin — before we continued their spread around the globe.) Stay for the spicy chocolate beverage recipes (19:40). inevitable chocolate video
iain.davidson100 has added a photo to the pool:
iain.davidson100 has added a photo to the pool:
