cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26592059

Summary

Donald Trump is upset after King Charles warmly welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at Sandringham, making Trump’s own state visit invitation seem “less special.”

Trump’s allies allegedly asked the British government to intervene, but officials stated the king makes his own decisions.

Relations may also be strained by Trump’s criticism of Canada, where Charles remains head of state.

The U.K. government denied tensions, reaffirming strong U.S.-U.K. ties.

Between January 10 and January 12, after being warned that an EV rebate program was running out of funds, Tesla dealerships in Canada managed to claim 8,669 individual iZEV EV rebates, or about $43 million CAD in incentives. That’s a staggering number of sales to log in a single weekend, about 1.5 sales per minute. Let's dig into the numbers.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26592059

Summary

Donald Trump is upset after King Charles warmly welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at Sandringham, making Trump’s own state visit invitation seem “less special.”

Trump’s allies allegedly asked the British government to intervene, but officials stated the king makes his own decisions.

Relations may also be strained by Trump’s criticism of Canada, where Charles remains head of state.

The U.K. government denied tensions, reaffirming strong U.S.-U.K. ties.

Weiss heads the radical Nachala settlement organisation and calls for the complete annexation of the occupied West Bank and resettlement of the war-torn Gaza Strip, once inhabited by settlers before Israel left the enclave in 2005.

Like many extremist Israeli leaders, her inciteful language against the Palestinians has led to violent settler attacks.

Two professors from Israel’s Ariel University and Ben-Gurion University submitted Weiss' candidacy for the award for her "decades-long efforts in strengthening Jewish communities and promoting regional stability".

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26559092

Summary

DOGE staffers Tyler Hassen and Bryton Shang tried pressuring the Bureau of Reclamation to open a California water pump to aid Los Angeles during January’s wildfires, though the system couldn’t reach the city.

When denied, they flew there to do it themselves but failed due to maintenance and access restrictions.

Critics called DOGE a “slapstick operation of 20-somethings they’re seeing as whiz kids but have zero knowledge.”

Trump later ordered dam releases, flooding farmland. Critics called DOGE’s actions reckless and uninformed.

Summary
Officials from Putin’s United Russia party in Murmansk gave meat grinders to mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine during International Women’s Day.

The gift choice drew criticism as "shameful" and "inappropriate" because the term "meat grinder" (myasorubka) is commonly used to describe Russia's brutal frontline tactics of sending waves of soldiers into battle with high casualty rates.

Party officials defended themselves, claiming one mother specifically requested a meat grinder.

Russia rarely discloses casualty figures, but independent sources have identified at least 91,000 Russian soldiers killed, with US estimates suggesting 700,000 killed or wounded. Ukraine has reported over 46,000 of its soldiers killed.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a prominent Republican congresswoman and a staunch ally of Trump, suggested a return to "measles parties" for children. She criticized contemporary attitudes towards vaccination, stating, "Now, they demonize parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids."

Riley Sennott, 26, is listed as a "senior advisor" in an internal NASA directory, similar to the nebulous titles given to some DOGE staff in other agencies. His name and involvement with DOGE have not been previously reported.

Like many other DOGE workers, he deleted his LinkedIn profile and made his X account private in recent months. However, Sennott did not make the Google Calendar linked to his personal email address private.

Anyone with the address could see every appointment Sennott had on the calendar going back to 2016. On January 6, for example, the calendar included a 15-minute event titled "Riley Sennott and DOGE Recruiting." The invite came from a Gmail address that DOGE appeared to be using for recruiting.

A calendar appointment from 2023 noted that Sennott "is currently working with a non-profit team in Ukraine to efficiently deliver aid and support evacuations." The blurb said that Sennott studied symbolic systems and environmental studies in college, "briefly dabbled in consulting," and has an "entrepreneurial spirit." His calendar also showed several events related to an internship at Booz Allen Hamilton in 2021.

"The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has arrived onsite at the agency. We anticipate that they will start reviewing our contracts to find efficiencies," the email reads, according to a copy reviewed by BI.

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/26623355

A woman from Dunfermline has spoken of her shock after an Apple voice-to-text service mistakenly inserted a reference to sex - and an apparent insult - into a message left by a garage.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26507276

Summary

The Trump administration is facing backlash after reports that the Defense Department flagged over 26,000 images for deletion due to alleged connections to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

Among them are photos of trailblazing pilots, including the Tuskegee Airmen and Col. Jeannie Leavitt.

Most controversially, an image of the WWII aircraft Enola Gay was flagged, seemingly because its name includes the word "gay."

The revelation has sparked mockery online, with critics calling this "the STUPIDEST administration in American history."

cross-posted from: https://biglemmowski.win/post/5333980

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18780870

Corroboration

Yet the White House doubled down today on Trump’s line, sharing a government webpage that declared, in a slightly more nuanced phrasing: “Yes, Biden spent millions on transgender animal experiments.” As is typical of DOGE, the page tallies up spending in a completely misleading way in order to arrive at an arbitrary number. One line item, for more than $3 million, was research examining how “sex-specific inflammatory mechanisms controlled by hormones” may contribute to asthma, and whether estrogens account for a higher prevalence of the chronic lung disease in women. A different hormone study, priced at $1.2 million, indeed used “transgenic” — not transgender — mice. About $2.5 million went to a fertility study. Another project looked at how gender hormones affect the gut microbiome of mice. Of the highlighted research that does address transgender health, there’s a $300,000 analysis of breast cancer risk for female-to-male trans individuals taking testosterone. Again, the mice used for clinical purposes did not undergo gender transition.

A single entry, pegged at $455,000, was for HIV researchers looking at the immune response of mice who had been given cross-hormone therapy, which is perhaps the closest the list gets to an example of “making mice transgender.” Clearly, however, that was not the ultimate objective of their work.

Asked about the Trump administration's position on Israel's withholding of food and other basic needs for Palestinians, Tammy Bruce - holding her first briefing - indicated that it's Hamas that makes conditions too dangerous for aid to be delivered.

"Aid can only be delivered in a safe framework, so as long as it is something that is unsafe or we can't guarantee the safety of something moving in, that is going to be stopped," she said. "It is not a withholding, but it certainly feels it's a reflection of the framework of the situation on the ground," she added.

"The hostages have got to be released. They need to be released now, the bodies they are holding, everything, everyone needs to be released. And without doing that, there is no path forward," she continued, indicating that the Israeli blockade is indeed being used to squeeze Hamas.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26380713

Summary

A Canada goose successfully fended off a bald eagle in a rare 20-minute battle on a frozen lake in Burlington, Ontario.

Captured by photographer Mervyn Sequeira, the encounter took on symbolic meaning amid rising tensions between Canada and the U.S., sparked by Donald Trump's trade policies and comments about annexation.

The confrontation paralleled recent national pride moments, including Canada’s overtime hockey victory against the U.S.