NYT: E.U. Vessels Surround Anchored Chinese Ship After Cables Are Severed in Baltic Sea
For more than a week, a Chinese commercial ship has apparently been forced to anchor in the Baltic Sea, surrounded and monitored by naval and coast guard vessels from European countries as the authorities attempt to unravel a maritime mystery.
The development arose after two undersea fiber-optic cables were severed under the sea, and investigators from a task force that includes Finland, Sweden and Lithuania are trying to determine if the ship’s crew intentionally cut the cables by dragging the ship’s anchor along the sea floor.
On Wednesday, the Swedish police announced that the inquiry into the episode had concluded but that an investigation was ongoing. Sweden did not release any initial findings.
American intelligence officials had assessed that the cables were not cut deliberately, though the authorities in Europe say they have not been able to rule out sabotage.
9to5Mac: Review: FInd your lost wallet with your iPhone using SwitchBot Wallet Finder Card
I have an AirTag on my keychain to keep track of my keys, but obviously an AirTag is too big and bulky to fit inside a wallet. That’s what the SwitchBot Wallet Finder is for. (Wallet Finder is currently 30% off for Black Friday [Amazon link], so it’s an even better deal than normal right now.)
Disguised inside a thin, credit-card form factor, the SwitchBot Wallet Finder connects to the Find My app on your iPhone, so you can follow its location, and it even houses a speaker so you can make it beep to help you find your wallet when it inevitably gets lost somewhere in your home. Read on for my review …
BBC: Daniel Khalife was a British soldier who spied for Iran and wanted to be a double agent
At secondary school in south-west London, many of Khalife’s friends came from well-off families and he felt ashamed of his relative poverty. He had struggled to focus at school but managed to get 10 GCSEs.
Aged 15, Khalife was caught stealing goods from a shop by using a powerful magnet to remove security tags.
“I have always had a gift for exposing flaws in security,” he told the jury during his recent trial.
Certainly in other cases people’s need or desire for money has been a significant motivator in their willingness to spy.
BBC: Israel building new military dividing line across Gaza, satellite images suggest
Experts disagree over how long the new partition might be intended to remain in place. Dr Hellyer suggested that it could form the basis of plan to expel Palestinians from the area permanently.
“Personally I think they’re going to settle Jewish settlers in the north, probably in the next 18 months,” he said. “They won’t call them settlements. To begin with they’ll call them outposts or whatever, but that’s what they’ll be and they’ll grow from there.”
Discover Magazine: Two Different Early Human Species Walked the Same Lake 1.5 Million Years Ago
About 1.5 million years ago, two different species of early man likely came within hours of passing each other on the shores of what is now known as Lake Turkana in Kenya. Two sets of footprints tracing each hominin’s path represent the first geological record of such an example, according to a report in Science.
Those footprints are part of a much larger picture that tells a more complete story of life there then.
“The footprint evidence provides a unique window into the occupation of the landscape over a short period of time,” says Craig Feibel, a geology professor at Rutgers and an author of the study. “We can actually see not only two different species of hominid, but all of these birds and antelope and everything else active on the lake margin 1.5 million years ago.”
NewsNation: Amazon workers on strike from Black Friday to Cyber Monday
Amazons workers across 20 countries, including the United States, are striking against what the organizing labor union calls anti-worker and anti-democratic practices.
This is the fifth year UNI Global Union has spearheaded the “Make Amazon Pay” movement with the aim to hold Amazon accountable for “labor abuses, environmental degradation and threats to democracy.”
MacRumors: tvOS 18.2 No Longer Expected to Include More Apple TV+ Screen Savers
The upcoming tvOS 18.2 update adds a rotation of Snoopy screen savers to 2021 and newer Apple TV models, but it seems that an additional “TV and Movies” category of screen savers has been canceled, or at least postponed. These screen savers were expected to be based on various Apple TV+ series and movies.
PBS: Supreme Court to hear case on crackdown of sweet vapes popular with kids
Vaping is coming before the Supreme Court next week as federal regulators ask the high court to uphold its block on sweet, flavored products following a spike in youth e-cigarette use.
The Food and Drug Administration has denied more than a million marketing applications for candy- or fruit-flavored products that appeal to kids, part of a wider crackdown that advocates say helped drive down teen vaping after an “epidemic level” surge in 2019.
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The marketing refusals combined with age-limit enforcement on the federal and state levels have helped drive down youth nicotine use to its lowest level in a decade, said Dennis Henigan, vice president for legal and regulatory affairs at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
He says the FDA was clear in its requirements and fears a court decision that leads to wider availability for flavored vape products, which are the dominant choice among the 1.6 million high school students who still vape. “We think that would be a real harm to public health,” Henigan said.
UPI: Stowaway flies aboard Delta flight to Paris from New York City
The woman was discovered while the Boeing 767-400ER was in midair and was arrested in Paris, the airline told CNN.
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The woman had completed security screening and bypassed two identity verification and boarding status stations before boarding the aircraft, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Transportation Security Administration.
Her bags also were scanned for prohibited items before she went to the gate.
Stuff: High income workers unable to claim unjustifiable dismissal thanks to new policy
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden said the change would enable employers to ensure they have the right fit for their high impact leadership and specialist roles.
“This policy is about offering workers and employers more choice when negotiating contracts. Employers and employees are free to opt back into unjustified dismissal protection if they choose to or negotiate their own dismissal procedures that work for them,” she said.
And who wouldn’t negotiate it into their contract, except people people in the middle who don’t have negotiated contracts.
Stuff: Report: Nissan may have just ‘12 or 14 months’ to survive
Nissan is really in dire straits, it seems. A new report from The Financial Times has revealed it is urgently looking into a long-term shareholder as its Alliance partner, Renault, considers pulling back its stake.
“We have 12 or 14 months to survive,” a senior official close to Nissan told the publication. “This is going to be tough. And in the end, we need Japan and the US to be generating cash.”
When asked for comment by Stuff, a Nissan representative said the brand cannot comment on speculation.
Last Updated: 28.Nov.2024 23:55 EST
