As Ukraine struggles to hold back Russian advances, the country’s officials say they are once again facing the formidable challenge of keeping electricity flowing as Moscow’s forces increasingly strike power plants.

To conserve energy, the government has ordered nationwide rolling blackouts for Monday night, broadening the smaller regional ones that have become the norm in recent weeks.

“This is another frontline in the war,” said Maxim Timchenko, the head of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private electricity company, on social media last week. He said the company’s workers were engaged in a “race against time” to restore power to consumers.

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SB 1497 cleared committee, which means that the whole state Senate will vote on it.

Getting it to pass means getting enough of them to actively vote for it. That means calling and telling them you want it to pass.

Look up your state Senator here, and find their phone number here

Then call their Sacramento office number, and say:

"My name is ______ and I live in _______. I am calling to urge the Senator to support behind SB 1497. This bill deserves to become law. Make oil companies pay for the damage they have caused to our state."

"Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash, sought to unite the Global South against Western imperialism. He joined BRICS, advocated de-dollarization, supported Palestine, promoted a "Look East" strategy toward China and Russia, and allied with Africa and Latin America. Ben Norton analyzes the late Iranian leader's anti-colonial foreign policy."

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin delivered the opening remarks at the 22nd Ramstein-format summit of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) on May 20, emphasizing that the new Russian offensive in Kharkiv Oblast has added to the urgency of the West's support for Ukraine.

. . .

Russia launched a new offensive on May 10 in northern Kharkiv Oblast. According to President Volodymyr Zelensky, Moscow's forces had managed to advance as far as 10 kilometers (6 miles) in the region but had been halted by the first line of defense.

While the specific results of the summit have yet to be announced, Austin said that the U.S. has "already delivered many of Ukraine's top priority requirements, and much more assistance is on the way."

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Haircut Practice by Adam Koford for May 20, 2024.

The United States and its allies in the Group of 7 nations set two goals in 2022 when they enacted a novel plan to cap the price of Russian oil: restrict Moscow’s ability to profit from its energy exports while allowing its oil to continue flowing on international markets to prevent a global price shock.

. . .

A variety of factors have allowed Russia to continue profiting from strong oil revenue, including lenient enforcement of the price cap. Russia’s development of an extensive “shadow” fleet of tankers has allowed it to largely circumvent that policy. That has allowed the Russian economy to be more resilient than expected, raising questions about the effectiveness of the coordinated sanctions campaign employed by the G7.

The Biden administration maintains that the strategy has been effective and that the price cap has imposed costs on Russia and forced it to redirect money that it would have used in Ukraine to finance an alternative oil ecosystem.

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I have on the host machine two network interfaces. One is lan and the other is a wlan. For libvirt I have created a nat network which is bound to the wlan. From the guest I can access other machines in the network host wlan is connected to. Also DNS lookup works. The problem is that there's no connection to the internet at all, e.g. pinging something gives "Destination network unreachable". This only happens when both network connection on the host are active. Running qemu/libvirt on OpenSuse Tumbleweed.

The nat network in question:

<network>
  <name>natToWlan</name>
  <uuid>a44c939c-e6bf-44d0-8f86-376056d418a4</uuid>
  <forward dev="wlp19s0f4u1u1" mode="nat">
    <nat>
      <port start="1024" end="65535"/>
    </nat>
    <interface dev="wlp19s0f4u1u1"/>
  </forward>
  <bridge name="virbr1" stp="on" delay="0"/>
  <mac address="52:54:00:1f:64:95"/>
  <ip address="192.168.100.1" netmask="255.255.255.0">
    <dhcp>
      <range start="192.168.100.128" end="192.168.100.254"/>
    </dhcp>
  </ip>
</network>

Mine is nostalgia. That's literally my copium drug and it really is strong some days. It's not that I sit here everyday and never move on to newer things, I do sometimes embrace new things and realize there's more out there than what I have.

It's just, there's an online radio show I still listen to, to this day and it's episodes are like 17 years old and been out of syndication for a good long while now with no hope of returning. It's like my time capsule that opens up so much in my mind, so many memories, so many what-ifs to think about, bringing me back to where things were in that time period .etc

And it's something I just don't think I'll ever let go because as much as I've tried to find a place in this awfully trashed world, I'm always winding back at square one because either I'm incompatible or it is incompatible with me.

I just want to go back to the 2000s and do it all over again and meet who I know now just to see how things could've gone if we've all met earlier.

I believe the artist is Svetoslav Petrov but I had trouble tracking down the actual source.

Hi guys,

Anyone old like me who still likes to buy music CDs, but young enough where I want to rip perfect flac files from them? My tool of choice has been exact audio copy for like, ever.

I realized this weekend it’s the only windows software left that I still boot into windows for. Used to be the odd game here and there that didn’t work in linux, but even that has stopped.

Anyways - I’m looking for all the bells and whistles. It handles gaps correctly, can create cue sheets, does error correction, and ultimately allows me to make a 100% backup of a music CD (I can take a blank CD and make a perfect copy of the original). Anything in the AUR that does this? Anyone have success running EAC with proton/wine etc and can offer some tips? Thanks.

Red Lobster, which brought affordable shrimp and lobster to middle-class America and grew to become the largest seafood restaurant chain in the world, has filed for bankruptcy.

The company said it had more than $1 billion in debt and less than $30 million in cash on hand. It plans to sell its business to its lenders, and in turn, it will receive financing to stay afloat. It expects to continue to close restaurants in the meantime.

Red Lobster, known for its cheddar bay biscuits, crab legs and shrimp dishes, spread around the country during the 1980s and 1990s. In 2016, Beyoncé mentioned Red Lobster in her song “Formation,” describing bringing a romantic partner to Red Lobster, causing sales to surge.

With 578 restaurants across 44 states and Canada, Red Lobster serves 64 million customers a year, and it brings in $2 billion in annual sales, the company said in its bankruptcy filing. One in five lobster tails purchased in North America is bought by Red Lobster.

But recent mismanagement, competition, inflation and other factors brought down Red Lobster, analysts and former Red Lobster employees say.

Years of underinvestment in Red Lobster’s marketing, food quality, service and restaurant upgrades hurt the chain’s ability to compete with growing fast-casual and quick-service chains.

C'est le printemps. C'est le moment.

La communauté n'est pas que pour les cueillettes qu'on mange. Une pâquerette cueillit en revenant de l'école ou une feuille d'arbre ramassé en allant au travail y ont toute les places.

In public, President Biden and corporate America appear to oppose each other’s interests and blame each other for the economy’s problems.

In private, Biden and the business community have been ramping up collaboration, especially on infrastructure goals.

Reactions ranged from welcoming the International Criminal Court’s decision to slamming it as “appalling” and “non comprehensible.”

While Israeli politicians of all stripes have sharply rebuked the International Criminal Court’s request for arrest warrants for its top officials, European leaders’ reactions are split.

ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan filed applications Monday for arrests of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, as well as the commander of Hamas’s military wing and Israel’s defense minister, citing allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Israel and the State of Palestine.

“Crimes committed in Gaza must be prosecuted at the highest level, regardless of the perpetrators,” Belgium’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Hadja Lahbib, wrote in a statement on X, emphasizing Belgium’s support for the work of the ICC. 

Slovenia’s foreign ministry issued a statement in a similar vein, stating that war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on Israeli and Palestinian territory “must be prosecuted independently and impartially regardless of the perpetrators.”

…

Other EU leaders saw the decision less favorably. 

“The ICC Chief Prosecutor’s proposal to issue an arrest warrant for the representatives of a democratically elected government together with the leaders of an Islamist terrorist organisation is appalling and completely unacceptable,” Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala wrote.

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer expressed similar reservations.

…

In London, the United Kingdom’s government distanced itself from the ICC’s move.

The ringleaders of a far-right network of "Reichsbürger" around Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss begins in Frankfurt on Tuesday. The group has been accused of planning to topple the government.

The most high-profile of three trials linked to a far-right coup plot begins on Tuesday in a newly erected courtroom on the outskirts of Frankfurt. The defendants are alleged to be the 10 ringleaders of a group led by German aristocrat Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss, and stand accused of preparing to commit high treason and of membership in a terrorist organization.

All the suspects, part of the so-called "Reichsbürger" movement, were allegedly plotting to overthrow the German government. They were allegedly planning to storm the German parliament and detain prominent politicians, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz.

The Reichsbürger, or "citizens of the Reich," reject Germany's postwar state, claiming it was installed and controlled by the Allied powers who won World War II.

Police uncovered the suspected plot in a series of nationwide raids on December 7, 2022. Some 25 people were arrested and are now in detention awaiting the upcoming trials. More than 380 firearms were confiscated, along with almost 150,000 pieces of ammunition.

The alleged military arm of this group has been facing court in Stuttgart since April 29. A further eight suspected members of the alleged association will have to stand trial in Munich from June 18.