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I have no relationship with Trump, Brazil’s President Lula tells BBC– www.bbc.com

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

I have no relationship with Trump, Brazil’s President Lula tells BBC– www.bbc.com
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Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has told the BBC in an exclusive interview that he has “no relationship” with US President Donald Trump.

Lula has frequently criticised Trump, but this is the clearest signal yet that he thinks communication between him and his US counterpart is now broken.

Even though the US has a trade surplus with Brazil, Donald Trump imposed 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods in July, citing the trial on coup charges of Brazil’s right-wing former president Jair Bolsonaro as a trigger.

Lula described the tariffs as “eminently political” and said US consumers would be facing higher prices for Brazilian goods as a result.

The tariffs imposed by Trump have hit Brazilian exports to the US, like coffee and beef, which Lula said would become more expensive: “The American people will pay for the mistakes President Trump is incurring in his relationship with Brazil.”

The two leaders have never spoken directly to each other. When pushed on why he had not just tried to pick up the phone or form a relationship, President Lula said: “I never tried that call because he never wanted to have a conversation.”

Dems Are Desperate for a Shutdown but Have No Idea How to Get Out of It – PJ Media– pjmedia.com

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

Dems Are Desperate for a Shutdown but Have No Idea How to Get Out of It – PJ Media– pjmedia.com
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Rehearsals for this year’s production of Shutdown Theater are nearing an end, and, with last-minute changes to the script, Democrats are at a loss.

They have no idea how to create a happy ending.

“We may not have the luxury of a victory scenario,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.). “I think what we’re trying to do is avoid things getting worse. I don’t think victory is in anyone’s hopes and dreams in this moment.”

Democrats, under enormous pressure from their hysterical base to “Fight! Fight! Fight!,” have decided on the Götterdämmerung approach: blow it all up and pick up the pieces later.

In other words, they don’t care if the voters blame them for the shutdown, or so they say.

When Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer was asked if he was willing to shut the government down, he said, “Ask the Republicans if they are willing to shut the government down.”

A law enforcement surge has taken a toll on children of immigrants in Washington schools– abcnews.go.com

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

A law enforcement surge has taken a toll on children of immigrants in Washington schools– abcnews.go.com
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WASHINGTON — The last time she saw her husband, the father of her three children, was when he left their Washington apartment a month ago to buy milk and diapers. Before long he called to say he had been pulled over — but not to worry, because it was just local police. The next time she heard from him, he was at a detention center in Virginia.

Since that day, the 40-year-old mother of three has been too afraid to take her two sons to their nearby charter school. Like her husband, who has since been deported, she is an immigrant from Guatemala and has lived in the U.S. illegally for more than a decade. She spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear she would be targeted by immigration authorities.

All three of the couple’s children were born in the nation’s capital, and the older two attend a local charter school. She planned to keep them home until a volunteer offered to drive them. Still, one of the boys was so upset over his father’s absence he missed three days of school one week.

Schools in Washington reopened late last month against the backdrop of a law enforcement surge that brought masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into normally quiet neighborhoods, scenes likely to be replicated elsewhere as President Donald Trump dispatches federal agents to the streets of other big cities.

French unions strike against austerity, pressuring Macron – Reuters– news.google.com

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

French unions strike against austerity, pressuring Macron – Reuters– news.google.com
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Hundreds of thousands took part in anti-austerity protests across France on Thursday, urging President Emmanuel Macron and his new Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu to acknowledge their anger and scrap looming budget cuts.
Teachers, train drivers, pharmacists and hospital staff were among those who went on strike as part of the day of protests, while teenagers blocked dozens of high schools for hours.

Secrets of Chinese AI Model DeepSeek Revealed in Landmark Paper– www.scientificamerican.com

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

Secrets of Chinese AI Model DeepSeek Revealed in Landmark Paper– www.scientificamerican.com
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The success of DeepSeek’s powerful artificial intelligence (AI) model R1 — that made the US stock market plummet when it was released in January — did not hinge on being trained on the output of its rivals, researchers at the Chinese firm have said. The statement came in documents released alongside a peer-reviewed version of the R1 model, published today in Nature.

R1 is designed to excel at ‘reasoning’ tasks such as mathematics and coding, and is a cheaper rival to tools developed by US technology firms. As an ‘open weight’ model, it is available for anyone to download and is the most popular such model on the AI community platform Hugging Face to date, having been downloaded 10.9 million times.

The paper updates a preprint released in January, which describes how DeepSeek augmented a standard large language model (LLM) to tackle reasoning tasks. Its supplementary material reveals for the first time how much R1 cost to train: the equivalent of just US$294,000. This comes on top of the $6 million or so that the company, based in Hangzhou, spent to make the base LLM that R1 is built on, but the total amount is still substantially less than the tens of millions of dollars that rival models are thought to have cost. DeepSeek says R1 was trained mainly on Nvidia’s H800 chips, which in 2023 became forbidden from being sold to China under US export controls.

Sweden raises defence budget by 18% for 2026– www.army-technology.com

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

Sweden raises defence budget by 18% for 2026– www.army-technology.com
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The Swedish Government has unveiled plans to significantly increase its defence budget in the 2026 budget bill, allocating an additional Skr26.6bn ($2.87bn).

This funding surge represents an 18% hike from 2025. It is the largest boost to the nation’s defence capabilities since the Cold War era, the country’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said…

Projections based on current gross domestic product (GDP) forecasts and the proposed allocations in the Budget Bill indicate that defence spending will rise to 2.8% of GDP in 2026, aligning with NATO’s benchmark.

By 2028, this figure is expected to reach 3.1% of GDP.

Elon Musk announces SpaceX’s new watership ‘You’ll Thank Me Later’: The bizarre name and the mission behind it |– timesofindia.indiatimes.com

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

Elon Musk announces SpaceX’s new watership ‘You’ll Thank Me Later’: The bizarre name and the mission behind it |– timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk confirmed on September 16, 2025, that the company is developing a new watership designed to transport its massive Starship rockets from Starbase, Texas, to Cape Canaveral, Florida. Musk first teased the vessel with a cryptic “You’ll Thank Me Later” post on September 8, which sparked speculation across social media. The watership is intended to move Starships horizontally, a strategic step ahead of SpaceX’s ambitious goal of 25 Starship launches per year from Florida. The name appears to nod to science fiction, following SpaceX’s tradition of naming vessels after Iain M. Banks’ Culture series, reflecting Musk’s playful approach to blending technology and imagination.

Why Elon Musk named the Watership ‘You’ll Thank Me Later’

The watership’s unusual name continues SpaceX’s trend of quirky, science-fiction-inspired naming conventions. Previous drone ships like A Shortfall of Gravitas and Just Read the Instructions were named after fictional spaceships in Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels. Musk’s choice of “You’ll Thank Me Later” may reflect both humor and confidence in the vessel’s importance for Starship logistics. While the name is unconventional, it highlights SpaceX’s culture of creativity and its willingness to blend technical innovation with pop culture references, a hallmark that has captured global attention.

Ukraine may soon add warheads, interceptor drones to digital marketplace– www.army-technology.com

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

Ukraine may soon add warheads, interceptor drones to digital marketplace– www.army-technology.com
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Excerpt:

Arsen Zhumadilov, director of Ukraine’s Defence Procurement Agency (DPA), revealed that the Ministry of Defence plan to introduce a new range of systems to the Ukrainian military’s digital marketplace, the DOT-Chain Defence platform, in 2026.

Last week, during DSEI 2025 in London, Zhumadilov revealed that the online marketplace may soon offer interceptor drones and warheads to Ukrainian military units for the first time.

What is the DOT-Chain Defence digital platform?

DOT-Chain Defence was launched in pilot mode only two months ago. Access to the IT system has only been granted to 12 brigades (deployed in Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Kharkiv regions) out of more than a hundred.

Commanders can independently select and acquire systems using funds from the DPA.

The platform operates much like an online store but instead of civilian commodities it offers a range of weapons systems. Initially, DPA focused on supplying first-person view (FPV) uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), but this soon expanded to include other autonomous systems and radio electronic warfare (EW) devices. Currently, the marketplace offers products from 25 companies.

Batteries are vital for The Pentagon’s drone roll-out– www.army-technology.com

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

Batteries are vital for The Pentagon’s drone roll-out– www.army-technology.com
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Excerpt:

As the US military looks to expand its drone capabilities, another important consideration is the batteries that will power these devices. Bruce Parkinson, Applications Engineering and Inside Sales Manager at Ultralife Corporation, explores how modern-day drone manufacturers now have more choice when selecting a power solution.

Single-use drones are typically treated as expendable and may not return from their first mission; therefore, they do not require a rechargeable battery. In the 1940s, when early versions of single-use drones were first developed, non-rechargeable battery technology was still in its infancy and alkaline chemistry had just been invented.

Alkaline batteries have a lower energy density compared to modern lithium alternatives, and, in single-use drones, the energy required for power-intensive systems like guidance, navigation and communications must be compact and efficient, so low energy density was a significant disadvantage. Alkaline batteries also did not perform as well in extreme temperatures, which was problematic for drones that operated in hot or cold climates or at high altitudes.

Today’s lithium-based non-rechargeable batteries not only address these issues, they can even power the propulsion systems of single-use drones, but this is still very rare. As in the 1940s, non-rechargeable batteries are mainly used to power radio control systems and flight stabilizers, but modern drones also feature additional sensors that require more power.

Trump asks Supreme Court to allow him to fire Lisa Cook from Fed Board of Governors– www.cbsnews.com

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

Trump asks Supreme Court to allow him to fire Lisa Cook from Fed Board of Governors– www.cbsnews.com
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Excerpt:

Washington — The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to allow President Trump to remove Lisa Cook from her position on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors while a legal challenge to her firing moves forward.

In its request for emergency relief from the high court, the Justice Department said that the justices should freeze a lower court decision that ordered Cook to be reinstated to her post on the Fed Board.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled earlier this week that Cook could remain in her role while a legal challenge to her firing moves forward.

In a filing to the Supreme Court, Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that the dispute involves “improper judicial interference with the President’s removal authority — here, interference with the President’s authority to remove members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors for cause.”

We may soon witness a black hole explosion with over 90% probability– www.techexplorist.com

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

We may soon witness a black hole explosion with over 90% probability– www.techexplorist.com
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Excerpt:

For decades, physicists believed black hole explosions were rare cosmic events, happening maybe once every 100,000 years. But a groundbreaking study from the University of Massachusetts Amherst flips that assumption on its head, with a bold prediction: there’s a more than 90% chance we’ll witness one within the next ten years.

And not just any black hole. This would be the first-ever observed explosion of a primordial black hole (PBH), a theoretical type born less than a second after the Big Bang. If spotted, it could unlock the deepest secrets of the universe.

“We believe that there is up to a 90% chance of witnessing an exploding PBH in the next 10 years,” says Aidan Symons, co-author and graduate student in physics at UMass Amherst.

Unlike the black holes formed from dying stars, PBHs are thought to have emerged from the chaotic energy of the early universe. They’re incredibly dense, yet much lighter than their stellar cousins. And thanks to Stephen Hawking’s 1970 prediction, we know they can emit particles through Hawking radiation, a slow leak that gets faster as the black hole gets hotter, until it explodes.

“The lighter a black hole is, the hotter it should be and the more particles it will emit. As PBHs evaporate, they become ever lighter and hotter, emitting even more radiation in a runaway process until they explode. It’s that Hawking radiation that our telescopes can detect,” says Andrea Thamm, assistant professor of physics at UMass Amherst.