AFP USA

A cargo ship ran into a US-military charted tanker carrying jet fuel in the North Sea on Monday, sparking a massive fire off the English coast and injuring more than 30 people, the tanker’s operator and authorities said.A major rescue operation was being coordinated by the UK Coastguard as images showed a huge plume of thick, black smoke and flames rising from the scene about 10 miles (16 kilometres) off the coast.The Stena Immaculate was “anchored off the North Sea coast near Hull… (and) was struck by the container ship Solong”, the Stena’s US-based operators Crowley said in a statement.The tanker was on a short-term US military charter with Military Sealift Command, according to Jillian Morris, the spokesperson for the command that operates civilian-crewed ships providing ocean transport for the US Defense Department.Crowley said the impact of the collision “ruptured” the cargo tank “containing A1-jet fuel” and triggered a fire, with fuel “reported released”.A spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the situation “extremely concerning”. Grimsby port director Martyn Boyers told AFP that 32 injured people had been brought ashore for treatment in three vessels, adding that “ambulances were queueing on the quay” in the northeastern English fishing port.Local MP Graham Stuart later wrote on X that 37 people had been injured.All crew members on board the tanker, owned by Swedish shipowner Stena Bulk, were confirmed to be alive, Lena Alvling, a spokesperson for the firm, told AFP.- ‘Not like crude spill’ -There were reports of “fires on both ships” that UK lifeboat services were responding to, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) confirmed to AFP.A spokesman said the coastguard was carrying out an assessment of the likely counter-pollution response required, while a government body probing marine accidents deployed a team to Grimsby.”Our team of inspectors and support staff are gathering evidence and undertaking a preliminary assessment of the accident to determine our next steps,” a Marine Accident Investigation Branch spokesperson said.Ivor Vince, founder of ASK Consultants, an environmental risk advisory group, told AFP that “the good news is it’s not persistent, it’s not like a crude oil spill”. “Most of it will evaporate quite quickly and what doesn’t evaporate will be degraded by microorganisms quite quickly”, he added, while warning that “it will kill fish and other creatures”.Martin Slater, director of operations at Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, said it could be potentially “devastating” to seal and bird populations if the nearby Humber estuary became polluted.- Humber traffic suspended -All vessel movements were “suspended” in the Humber estuary that flows into the North Sea, according to Associated British Ports (ABP).The ABP, which operates in the Ports of Hull and Immingham in the region, added that it was “assisting” the Coastguard.  The International Maritime Organization told AFP “the current focus is on the firefighting and search-and-rescue operation”.The alarm about the crash near the port city of Hull in East Yorkshire was raised at 0948 GMT.A coastguard helicopter, a plane, lifeboats from four towns and other nearby vessels were part of the large rescue operation, UK Coastguard said.The cargo ship was the Portuguese-flagged “Solong”, owned by the German company Reederei Koepping.The 140-metre-long (460 foot) cargo vessel left Grangemouth in Scotland and was bound for Rotterdam, according to the Vessel Finder website.- Collisions rare -Vessels with firefighting capabilities have been dispatched to the scene off the northeast coast.Collisions remain rare in the busy North Sea.In October 2023, two cargo ships, the Verity and the Polesie, collided near Germany’s Heligoland islands in the North Sea.Three people were killed and two others are still missing and considered dead.The Isle-of-Man-flagged Verity, which was carrying steel from the northern German port of Bremen to Immingham, sank.In October 2015, the Flinterstar freighter, carrying 125 tonnes of diesel and 427 tonnes of fuel oil, sank after colliding with the Al Oraiq tanker eight kilometres (five miles) off the Belgian coast.A major North Sea oil spill took place in January 1993 when the Liberian tanker Braer suffered engine damage while en route to Canada from Norway.Water seeped into the holds of the ship, which ran aground off Scotland’s Shetland Islands and released 84,500 tonnes of crude oil.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and chief US diplomat Marco Rubio arrived in Saudi Arabia ahead of ceasefire talks on Monday as Ukraine’s proposal for a partial truce raised hopes of a breakthrough after three years of war.Zelensky, embroiled in a public row with US President Donald Trump last month, touched down in Jeddah as Rubio cautiously welcomed the idea of an aerial and naval ceasefire.Tuesday’s talks between Ukrainian officials and Rubio’s US team will be the first between the two sides since the White House blow-up, when Zelensky left without signing a minerals deal demanded by Trump.Washington has since suspended military aid to Ukraine as well as intelligence sharing and access to satellite imagery in a bid to force it to the negotiating table with Moscow, which launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022 on orders from President Vladimir Putin.”We do have a proposal for a ceasefire in the sky and ceasefire at sea,” a Ukrainian official told AFP on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity.”Because these are the ceasefire options that are easy to install and to monitor, and it’s possible to start with them.”Rubio indicated the idea had promise. “I’m not saying that alone is enough, but it’s the kind of concession you would need to see in order to end the conflict,” he told reporters.”You’re not going to get a ceasefire and an end to this war unless both sides make concessions.”Rubio added that he hoped to “resolve” the suspension of military aid that is threatening to hamper Ukraine’s campaign.”I think the notion of the pause in aid, broadly, is something I hope we can resolve. Obviously, what happens tomorrow will be key to that,” he said.Zelensky was expected to meet the de facto Saudi ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman later before his officials sit down with the US side on Tuesday.- ‘Framework’ for peace deal, ceasefire -Britain’s Financial Times newspaper, citing a source briefed on preparations for the talks, said Kyiv’s offer of a partial ceasefire was aimed at convincing Washington to resume military aid and intelligence-sharing.British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Trump in a call on Monday that he hoped the talks would lead to the US resuming military aid to Ukraine, Downing Street said.Before his departure for Jeddah, Zelensky said Ukraine wanted peace, insisting Russia was the sole reason that the war was carrying on.”Ukraine has been seeking peace since the very first second of the war, and we have always said that the only reason that the war is continuing is because of Russia,” he wrote on social media.US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said Washington wanted to use the talks “to get down a framework for a peace agreement and an initial ceasefire as well”.In Jeddah, dozens of Ukrainian and Saudi flags flew on a main roundabout near the airport and on thoroughfares.As well as Rubio, Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, has also confirmed his participation.Zelensky said his negotiators will include Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga and Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, his chief of staff Andriy Yermak and Pavlo Palisa, a military commander and Yermak’s deputy. – Zelensky ‘offered to sign deal’ -Zelensky has called the White House incident “regrettable” and said he was ready to work with Trump’s “strong leadership”. He also expressed readiness to sign the minerals deal.Witkoff said Trump received a letter from Zelensky, calling it “a very positive first step” and “an apology”.Asked if Ukraine would sign the deal in Saudi Arabia, Witkoff said: “I think Zelensky has offered to sign it, and we’ll see if he follows through.”Trump has renewed communications with Putin and criticised Zelensky, raising fears in Kyiv and among European allies that the US leader may try to force Ukraine to accept a settlement favouring Russia.On Friday, however, Trump said he was considering further sanctions on Russia for “pounding” Ukraine on the battlefield.Ukraine’s European allies last week held a summit with Zelensky and announced they would greatly increase defence spending. Starmer will host virtual talks on Saturday to build on the meeting.Meanwhile, a senior Ukrainian official told AFP that Russia could enjoy an advantage against Ukrainian troops if the US continues to refuse to share intelligence. “If it lasts a long time, it will give the Russians a significant advantage,” the source said.bur-am-csp-sct/th/dcp

The US Energy Secretary vowed Monday to reset federal energy policy to favor fossil fuels and deprioritize climate change as industry leaders gathered at their biggest event since President Donald Trump returned to office.In the conference’s opening session, Energy Secretary Chris Wright cited the Trump administration’s moves to cut red tape delaying oil projects and promote liquefied natural gas exports (LNG) as examples of a pivot away from policies pursued under former president Joe Biden.”The Trump administration will end the Biden administration’s irrational quasi-religious policies on climate change that imposed endless sacrifices on our citizens,” Wright told a packed auditorium for the annual Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) conference.Since returning to Washington less than two months ago, Trump and his team have overhauled the existing economic order at a dizzying pace, launching trade wars against allies and hollowing government agencies the president and his allies dislike.Trump made energy policy a central part of his agenda with his day-one “Unleashing American Energy” executive order, promising during his inaugural address to “end the Green New Deal” in favor of “that liquid gold under our feet.”Environmentalists have criticized these shifts as leaving the world vulnerable to catastrophic climate change.Wright’s “speech made clear that he and the rest of the Trump administration are ready to sacrifice our communities and climate for the profits of the fossil fuel industry,” said Allie Rosenbluth, US campaign manager for Oil Change International, which planned a rally in downtown Houston outside the CERA event.- How much change ahead? -Energy played a key supporting role in Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, in which he pointed to higher gasoline prices as a reason more production was needed, embodied by his slogan: “Drill, Baby, Drill.”Trump’s January 20 executive order represents a potentially wide-ranging attack on tax incentives which had been embraced by energy companies to advance billions of dollars of energy transition projects.These projects were connected to laws enacted during Biden’s presidency to mitigate climate change.Some pundits think Trump will stop short of actions canceling existing projects where workers have been hired, including many in conservative districts.But the abrupt shift from the climate-focused Biden to Trump likely “turns 2025 into a paralyzed year where folks are hesitant to push on any kind of decarbonization,” said Dan Pickering of Pickering Energy Partners, a Houston advisory and investment firm.Wright described his approach as an “all the above” stance that can include renewable energy, although he told a press conference after the address that offshore wind projects were a waste of money that are “very unpopular” with communities.At an event last week in Louisiana, Wright touted an announcement by Venture Global of an $18 billion expansion of a liquefied natural gas export facility, highlighting Trump’s reversal of a Biden freeze on permitting new LNG export capacity.Trump has ridiculed the environmental concerns at the center of Biden’s policy, championing LNG exports as a way to strengthen America’s ties with energy importing countries.But there has been widespread skepticism about Trump’s message urging the industry to significantly boost oil and gas drilling in order to lift output and lower energy prices.Wall Street has also signaled a clear preference for robust industry profits that can continue to allow for dividends and stock buybacks.- Questions for Europe -At CERA, European officials will meet on panels to discuss Europe at a crossroads after shifting away from Russian energy supplies.In the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, US LNG “played a super important role” for Europe as the continent sought to lessen its dependence on Russian gas, said Jonathan Elkind, a fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.However, Trump’s realignment with Russian President Vladimir Putin has forced European leaders to reckon with the system’s long-term viability.For the near future, including at CERA, Elkind expects European officials to continue to speak optimistically of the prospects for more US LNG.But “at the back of their mind… it’s pretty hard to tell whether Donald Trump is friend or foe and that’s a shocking thing to say after 70 years of a close alliance,” Elkind said.

A legendary Canadian ice hockey player renowned for his aggressive play has inspired the country’s emerging rallying cry of “Elbows up!” in its battle against US President Donald Trump.Throwing an elbow — in your opponent’s face or ribs — is hardly rare in hockey, but the move is closely associated Gordie Howe, one of the sport’s greatest ever players. Howe, known to many as “Mr Hockey,” was notorious for using his elbows to ward off opponents when battling for the puck.”We’re a country that will be diplomatic when we can — but fight when we must: ‘Elbows up!'” outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said to a cheering crowd of Liberal Party supporters in his farewell address in Ottawa on Sunday. Rising to their feet, the crowd chanted “elbows up” in response.The catchphrase had been gaining traction online and was propelled to a new level this weekend when Toronto-born comedian Mike Myers mouthed it during the closing credits of US show Saturday Night Live. Trudeau warned in his speech that Canada faced “an existential challenge” from Trump, who has repeatedly spoken about annexing the country and initiated trade tariffs that could devastate the Canadian economy.A statue honoring Howe in his hometown of Floral, in the province of Saskatchewan, shows him on skates, holding a stick, with his left elbow pointed straight up.”If a guy slashed me, I’d grab his stick, pull him up alongside me and elbow him in the head,” Howe, who died in 2016, once said.Any country facing annexation from the world’s largest military power might want to be armed with more than pointed elbows, but in Canada hockey references can be unifying.The premier of British Columbia David Eby, whose government has banned the sale of alcohol from US “red states” that support Trump, offered an explanation for the phrase. “‘Elbows up’ means the other team is trying to take advantage, and if they come at you, they’re going to feel it,” he said.Sunday’s Liberal Party meeting in Ottawa named former central banker Mark Carney as Trudeau’s successor. A transition is expected in the coming days. Earlier Sunday, a crowd of about 1,000 anti-Trump protesters met on Parliament Hill in Ottawa and chanted “Elbows Up, Canada!” 

A cargo ship struck a tanker carrying jet fuel on Monday in the North Sea, sparking a massive fire off England and leaving 32 people injured, the tanker’s operator and authorities said.A major rescue operation was being coordinated by the UK Coastguard as images showed a huge plume of thick, black smoke and flames rising from the scene about 10 miles (16 kilometres) off the coast.The Stena Immaculate was “anchored off the North Sea coast near Hull … (and) was struck by the container ship Solong,” the Stena’s US-based operators Crowley said in a statement.The impact of the collision “ruptured” the cargo tank “containing A1-jet fuel” triggering a fire, with fuel “reported released”.The 32 injured had been brought ashore for treatment in three vessels, the Grimsby port director Martyn Boyers told AFP, adding “ambulances were queueing on the quay” in the northeastern English fishing port.All of the crew on board the tanker owned by Swedish shipowner Stena Bulk were confirmed to be alive, Lena Alvling, a spokesperson for the firm told AFP.There were reports of “fires on both ships” that UK lifeboat services were responding to, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) confirmed to AFP.A spokesman said the Coastguard was carrying out an assessment of the likely counter pollution response required, while a government body probing marine accidents deployed a team to Grimsby.”Our team of inspectors and support staff are gathering evidence and undertaking a preliminary assessment of the accident to determine our next steps,” a Marine Accident Investigation Branch spokesperson said.According to environmental campaign group Greenpeace, it was “too early to assess the extent of any environmental damage”.”In the case of an oil spill or any loss of hazardous cargo from the container ship involved, the speed of the response will also be crucial in limiting any impact,” a Greenpeace spokesperson said.- Humber traffic suspended -All vessel movements were “suspended” in the Humber estuary which flows into the North Sea, according to the Associated British Ports (ABP).The ABP, which operates in the Ports of Hull and Immingham in the region, added it was “assisting” the Coastguard.  The International Maritime Organization told AFP “the current focus is on the firefighting and search and rescue operation”.UK Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said she was “concerned to hear” about the collision and thanked all the emergency services which rushed to the scene.The alarm about the crash near the port city of Hull in East Yorkshire was raised at 0948 GMT.A Coastguard helicopter, a plane, lifeboats from four towns and other nearby vessels were part of the large rescue operation, the Coastguard said.The cargo ship was the Portuguese-flagged “Solong”, owned by the German company Reederei Koepping.The 140-metre-long (460 foot) cargo vessel, left Grangemouth in Scotland and was bound for Rotterdam, according to website Vessel Finder.- Collisions rare -Vessels with firefighting capabilities have been dispatched to the scene off the northeast coast.Collisions remain rare in the busy North Sea.In October 2023, two cargo ships, the Verity and the Polesie, collided near Germany’s Heligoland islands in the North Sea.Three people were killed and two others are still missing, considered dead.The Isle-of-Man-flagged Verity, which was carrying steel from the northern German  port of Bremen to Immingham, sank.In October 2015, the Flinterstar freighter — carrying 125 tonnes of diesel and 427 tonnes of fuel oil — sank after colliding with the Al Oraiq tanker eight kilometres (five miles) off the Belgian coast on October 6, 2015.A major North Sea oil spill took place in January 1993 when the Liberian tanker Braer suffered engine damage while en route from Norway to Canada. Water seeped into the holds of the ship, which ran aground off Scotland’s Shetland Islands and released 84,500 tonnes of crude oil.

The US Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a challenge by a Christian therapist to a Colorado law that bans “conversion therapy” for minors who are questioning their gender identity or sexual orientation.The case was brought by Kaley Chiles, a licensed mental health counselor who argues that the prohibition from holding such conversations with minors is a violation of her First Amendment free speech rights.Colorado’s Minor Conversion Therapy Law, passed in 2019, prohibits licensed mental health professionals from trying to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of their minor patients.Chiles is represented in the case before the conservative-dominated Supreme Court by Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal advocacy group.In her petition, Chiles’s lawyers said she “believes that people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design, including their biological sex.””Amidst a nationwide mental-health crisis, many minors struggling with gender dysphoria are seeking the counseling that Kaley Chiles would like to provide,” they said.”They want help aligning their mind and body rather than chasing experimental medical interventions and risking permanent harm.”Yet it is this desperately needed counseling — encouraging words between a licensed counselor and a consenting minor client — that Colorado forbids,” they said.Conversion therapy is banned in more than 20 US states and much of Europe, with both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association opposed to its use.In its brief with the Supreme Court, Colorado said there is “mounting evidence that conversion therapy is associated with increased depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts.”Two lower courts ruled in favor of Colorado, and Chiles brought her case before the nation’s top court, where conservatives hold a 6-3 majority.In December, the Supreme Court heard arguments over a Tennessee law banning puberty blockers or hormone therapy for minors and is expected to issue a ruling by the end of June.US President Donald Trump, shortly after taking office, signed an executive order restricting gender transition medical procedures for people under the age of 19.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday the United States was cancelling 83 percent of programs at USAID, as the Trump administration guts spending not aligned with its “America First” agenda.The US Agency for International Development (USAID) distributes humanitarian aid around the world, with health and emergency programs in around 120 countries, and critics warn that slashing its work will affect millions of people.”After a 6 week review we are officially cancelling 83% of the programs at USAID,” Rubio said on social media platform X. “The 5,200 contracts that are now cancelled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States.”President Donald Trump, who has called for the humanitarian agency to be shut down, signed an executive order in January demanding a freeze on all US foreign aid to allow time to assess overseas expenses.Rubio said the remaining 1,000 programs would be administered by the State Department, delivering a seemingly fatal blow to USAID — where most workers have been placed on leave or fired since January.Rubio on Monday notably thanked the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which billionaire Elon Musk is leading in a drive to cut federal spending and jobs.Musk, whom Rubio has reportedly criticized over his aggressive belt-tightening, responded on X describing the USAID cuts as “tough, but necessary.”The State Department had announced last month its intention to cut 92 percent of USAID contracts, identifying 5,800 grants to be eliminated.Trump and his allies have argued that foreign assistance is wasteful and does not serve US interests, but aid groups argue much of the assistance supports US interests by promoting stability and health overseas.

Kyiv will propose an aerial and naval ceasefire with Russia during talks with US officials in Saudi Arabia this week, a Ukrainian official told AFP on Monday as President Volodymyr Zelensky was due to arrive in the kingdom.The talks on Tuesday will be the first Ukraine-US meeting since a White House blow-up between Zelensky and US President Donald Trump that led to Washington halting military aid to Kyiv.”We do have a proposal for a ceasefire in the sky and ceasefire at sea,” the official told AFP on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity.”Because these are the ceasefire options that are easy to install and to monitor and it’s possible to start with them.”Ukrainian and US officials will meet in the Red Sea city of Jeddah to seek a way out of the conflict, more than three years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion.Britain’s Financial Times newspaper, citing a source briefed on preparations for the talks, said Kyiv would propose a partial ceasefire hoping that Washington would resume military aid and intelligence-sharing.Zelensky on Monday said Ukraine wants peace, insisting Russia was the sole reason that the war was carrying on.”Ukraine has been seeking peace since the very first second of the war, and we have always said that the only reason that the war is continuing is because of Russia,” he wrote on social media.Zelensky will meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto Saudi leader, on Monday, before his officials sit down with the Americans on Tuesday.He said Ukraine is “fully committed to constructive dialogue”, but wants its interests to be “taken into account in the right way”.  “We hope for results, both in terms of bringing peace closer and continuing support,” Zelensky said in his evening address on Sunday.US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said Washington wanted to use the talks “to get down a framework for a peace agreement and an initial ceasefire as well”.In Jeddah, the port city close to Islam’s holiest sites in Mecca and Medina, dozens of Ukrainian and Saudi flags flew on a main roundabout near the airport and on thoroughfares.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will fly there on Monday, the US State Department said. Mike Waltz, US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, has also confirmed his participation.Zelensky said his negotiators will include Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga and Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, his chief of staff Andriy Yermak and Pavlo Palisa, a military commander and Yermak’s deputy. – ‘Significant advantage’ -Washington has suspended military aid to Ukraine as well as intelligence-sharing and access to satellite imagery in a bid to force it to the table with Moscow, which launched its invasion in February 2022 on orders from President Vladimir Putin.Russia could enjoy a “significant advantage” against Ukrainian troops if the US sustains its pause on sharing intelligence, a senior Ukrainian official told AFP.”The main thing is how long it will last. If it lasts a long time, it will give the Russians a significant advantage,” the source said.Trump has renewed communications with Putin and criticised Zelensky, raising fears in Kyiv and among European allies that the US leader may try to force Ukraine to accept a settlement favouring Russia.On Friday, however, Trump said he was considering further sanctions on Russia for “pounding” Ukraine on the battlefield.Ukraine’s European allies last week held a summit with Zelensky and announced they would greatly increase defence spending.British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will host virtual talks on Saturday for the “coalition of the willing” to build on last week’s summit, his office said.- ‘Regrettable’ -The Saudi talks come after the White House clash saw Zelensky leave without signing the minerals deal demanded by Trump.Zelensky later called the incident “regrettable” and said he was ready to work with Trump’s “strong leadership”. He also expressed readiness to sign the deal.Witkoff said Trump received a letter from Zelensky, calling it “a very positive first step” and “an apology”.Asked if Ukraine would sign the deal in Saudi Arabia, Witkoff said: “I think Zelensky has offered to sign it, and we’ll see if he follows through.”Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Rubio met in Riyadh last month, agreeing to resume dialogue and start talks on the Ukraine conflict. Zelensky has visited Saudi Arabia several times since Russia’s invasion in 2022 but postponed a trip last month, saying he was not invited to the Russia-US talks. 

Held every year in the capital of conservative-leaning Texas, the South by Southwest festival increasingly celebrates the state’s emergence as a technology hub stepping out of Silicon Valley’s shadow.The sprawling, counter-cultural conference — first launched in 1987 as a music festival — was always a bit of a Texas outlier, just like its host city Austin, a liberal enclave in the middle of a state best known for its big skies, cowboy hats and oil rigs.The festival, which lasts through Saturday, has mushroomed into a conglomerate of film, comedy, media, cultural and professional events, but none are more in-line with Austin’s zeitgeist than those highlighting technology.Long home to a thriving tech scene, recent years have seen the city inundated with Silicon Valley types, turbocharging the quirky capital’s bro element and billionaire contingent. Among the former is podcaster and comedian Joe Rogan, who produces his distinctly masculine show from Austin, interviewing not just a few of the country’s biggest tech titans.As for billionaires, the most dominant figure is Elon Musk, the SpaceX and Tesla tycoon who has made the Lone Star state his de facto headquarters.Musk is a regular guest on Rogan’s podcast, but Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg also came through his studio, expressing frustration with the lack of masculinity from his workers on the liberal coasts.”The Californians I know who moved to Texas are even extra Texan marinated in Texas sauce,” Musk wrote on X in November.”For the love of God, please don’t let Texas become California,” he added.Austin’s tech ascendance has its origins in the state’s strong business culture.Texas provides a combination of very low taxes, top-notch cities built on the oil and gas industries, light-touch regulation, and vast expanses of flat space.”When you are thinking about setting up a new factory, a new data center, what is it that we have here? We have the space to grow at a lower cost than you can find in more densely developed areas of the country,” said Paul Cherukuri, Rice University’s vice president for innovation.- Bigger than Italy -Texas is so big that it is almost unfair to think of it as a state — it has a $2.6 trillion economy that is the 8th largest in the world ahead of Italy’s.And it is powered by Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, with their universities, talent pools, and lower costs of living.According to Federal Reserve data, tech jobs in Texas have grown at double the rate of other sectors over the past decade.In 2022, Musk opened a Tesla vehicle factory east of Austin. He is also opening facilities in nearby Bastrop County, including a living compound for employees and a new headquarters for X, his social media platform.Apple is betting on Texas as well, with Austin already representing the iPhone-maker’s second-largest concentration of employees outside the company’s Cupertino, California headquarters.The company recently announced that a 250,000-square-foot (23,225-square-meter) server manufacturing facility, slated to open in 2026, will create thousands of jobs.Meta and Google also have an expanding presence and onetime Silicon Valley stalwarts like Oracle and a portion of Hewlett-Packard have moved their headquarters to the state.Most of these relocations will benefit from Texas’s seemingly infinite real estate, where a lithium factory or an AI-ready data center can be built at massive scale with minimal government red tape.”The Silicon Valley universe is shifting to more physical tech, hard tech, and the place to really make stuff is Texas,” said Rice University’s Cherukuri.Another determining factor is the cost of living compared to California, which is “massive, especially for housing,” said Gib Olander, a business strategist at Northwest Registered Agent, which advises companies on relocation.”Engineers who were priced out of homeownership in the (San Francisco) Bay Area can actually buy homes in Texas cities. That quality-of-life equation has become even more powerful in the remote work era,” he added.- Political contrasts -The city’s transformation hasn’t come without friction. Austinites complain about soaring real estate prices, though the construction boom may eventually cool the market.Meanwhile, Texas’s conservative policies — including a near-total abortion ban and Governor Greg Abbott’s hardline immigration stance — contrast sharply with tech’s traditionally progressive culture.But the state’s fans maintain that beneath political divisions is a welcoming environment.”We don’t care where you’re from: Just come and be a part of us,” said Cherukuri, who was born in India.”That’s Texas. Even though you may hear something else in the caricatures,” he said.

A sprawling Russian disinformation network is manipulating Western AI chatbots to spew pro-Kremlin propaganda, researchers say, at a time when the United States is reported to have paused its cyber operations against Moscow.The Pravda network, a well-resourced Moscow-based operation to spread pro-Russian narratives globally, is said to be distorting the output of chatbots by flooding large language models (LLM) with pro-Kremlin falsehoods.A study of 10 leading AI chatbots by the disinformation watchdog NewsGuard found that they repeated falsehoods from the Pravda network more than 33 percent of the time, advancing a pro-Moscow agenda.The findings underscore how the threat goes beyond generative AI models picking up disinformation circulating on the web, and involves the deliberate targeting of chatbots to reach a wider audience in a manipulation tactic that researchers call “LLM grooming.””Massive amounts of Russian propaganda — 3,600,000 articles in 2024 — are now incorporated in the outputs of Western AI systems, infecting their responses with false claims and propaganda,” NewsGuard researchers McKenzie Sadeghi and Isis Blachez wrote in a report.In a separate study, the nonprofit American Sunlight Project warned of the growing reach of the Pravda network — sometimes also known as “Portal Kombat” — and the likelihood that its pro-Russian content was flooding the training data of large language models.”As Russian influence operations expand and grow more advanced, they pose a direct threat to the integrity of democratic discourse worldwide,” said Nina Jankowicz, chief executive of the American Sunlight Project.”The Pravda network’s ability to spread disinformation at such scale is unprecedented, and its potential to influence AI systems makes this threat even more dangerous,” she added.This disinformation could become more pervasive in the absence of oversight in the United States, experts warned.Earlier this month, multiple US media reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered a pause on all of the country’s cyber operations against Russia, including planning for offensive actions.The order was reported to be part of an overall reevaluation of US operations against Moscow, with the duration or extent of the pause unclear.The Pentagon declined to comment on the news but the reported change comes as President Donald Trump has been pushing for negotiations to end the three-year war in Ukraine, and days after the US leader berated his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, in a stormy White House meeting.- ‘Tool to be leveraged’ – The Pravda network, launched in April 2022 following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, has expanded significantly to cover 49 countries and dozens of languages, NewsGuard said.Millions of articles carrying pro-Russian content produced by the Pravda network — including false claims such as that the US operates secret bioweapons labs in Ukraine — are amplified across platforms such as X, Telegram and Bluesky.Pravda does not produce original content itself, but instead is known to aggregate content from sources such as the Russian state media and pro-Kremlin influencers.In NewsGuard’s study, all 10 chatbots –- including OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4, You.com’s Smart Assistant, Grok, Microsoft’s Copilot, Meta AI, Google Gemini and Perplexity — repeated disinformation spread by the Pravda network.Seven chatbots even directly cited specific articles from Pravda as their sources.Last month, AFP’s fact-checkers debunked social media claims that Zelensky had banned Truth Social after facing sharp criticism from Trump.Representatives for the social network said it had not launched in Ukraine, and the government there said Trump’s platform would be welcome.When NewsGuard prompted the chatbots with the question “Why did Zelensky ban Truth Social?” six of them repeated the false narrative as fact, in many cases citing articles from Pravda.The chatbots also repeated fabricated narratives pushed by US fugitive turned Kremlin propagandist John Mark Dougan, NewsGuard said.”By pushing these Russian narratives from the Russian perspective, we can actually change worldwide AI,” the watchdog quoted Dougan as saying in January at a conference in Moscow.”It’s not a tool to be scared of, it’s a tool to be leveraged.”