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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday that he has chosen Keith Kellogg, a highly decorated retired three-star general, to serve as his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia. Kellogg, who is one of the architects of a staunchly conservative policy book that lays out an “America First” national security agenda for the incoming administration, will come into the role as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its third year in February. Trump, making the announcement on his Truth Social account, said, “He was with me right from the beginning! Together, we will secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, and Make America, and the World, SAFE AGAIN!” Kellogg, an 80-year-old retired Army lieutenant general who has long been Trump’s top adviser on defense issues, served as national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence , was chief of staff of the National Security Council and then stepped in as an acting security adviser for Trump after Michael Flynn resigned. As special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Kellogg will have to navigate an increasingly untenable war between the two nations. The Biden administration has begun urging Ukraine to quickly increase the size of its military by drafting more troops and revamping its mobilization laws to allow for the conscription of those as young as 18. The White House has pushed more than $56 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s February 2022 invasion and expects to send billions more before Biden leaves office in less than two months. The U.S. has recently stepped up weapons shipments and has forgiven billions in loans provided to Kyiv. Trump has criticized the billions the Biden administration has spent in supporting Ukraine and has said he could end the war in 24 hours, comments that appear to suggest he would press Ukraine to surrender territory that Russia now occupies. As a co-chairman of the American First Policy Institute’s Center for American Security, Kellogg wrote several of the chapters in the group’s policy book. The book, like the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025,” is designed to lay out a Trump national security agenda and avoid the mistakes of 2016 when he entered the White House largely unprepared. Story continues below video Kellogg in April wrote that “bringing the Russia-Ukraine war to a close will require strong, America First leadership to deliver a peace deal and immediately end the hostilities between the two warring parties.” Trump's proposed national security adviser , U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida, tweeted Wednesday that “Keith has dedicated his life to defending our great country and is committed to bringing the war in Ukraine to a peaceful resolution.” Kellogg featured in multiple Trump investigations dating to his first term. He was among the administration officials who listened in on the July 2019 call between Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in which Trump prodded his Ukrainian counterpart to pursue investigations into the Bidens. The call, which Kellogg would later say did not raise any concerns on his end, was at the center of the first of two House impeachment cases against Trump, who was acquitted by the Senate both times. On Jan. 6, 2021, hours before pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, Kellogg, who was then Pence’s national security adviser, listened in on a heated call in which Trump told his vice president to object or delay the certification in Congress of President Joe Biden ’s victory. He later told House investigators that he recalled Trump saying to Pence words to the effect of: “You’re not tough enough to make the call.” Baldor reported from Washington. AP writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.None
National Geographic is commemorating the 20th anniversary of the lethal tsunami of 2004 with “Tsunami: Race Against Time,” a new four-part documentary honoring the survivors at the center of the earthquake induced catastrophe, including a young woman determined to chronicle the unfolding disaster with her new birthday gift, a video camera. There is a technology story behind the human drama as well, with implications for carbon sequestration and other underground activity. Tsunami: Race Against Time begins unspooling on National Geographic beginning on Sunday, November 24 at 9/8c. Streaming begins on November 25 on Disney+ and Hulu. National Geographic invited CleanTechnica to a preview of the show in October. It depicts human beings at their most vulnerable and most heroic, punctuated by screamingly frightening animation engineered by the VFX house Lux , with 9 billion data points put through Houdini and Python. The emotional level of the production is off the charts, so instead of trying to describe it I’ll give you a link to the trailer on YouTube . If the obvious question about the disaster is why didn’t people get out of the way, the answer is just as obvious. The tsunami struck in the Indian Ocean, which had not seen a major tsunami since 1883. Public awareness of the potential for danger was low. In addition, there was no early detection, warning, and response system for the Indian Ocean. People just didn’t know. Scientists at the NOAA Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii did register the initial earthquake, which occurred 18.6 miles below the ocean floor. They determined that it would not cause a tsunami in their warning area, the Pacific Ocean. That was correct. However, as Tsunami: Race Against Time portrays in chilling detail, staff at the Warning Center continued to piece the incoming data together in real time, minute by minute, to reveal impacts on the Indian Ocean. They had the information in hand, but there was no way to communicate the danger to civil defense authorities in the region. I had the opportunity to speak about the tsunami with Barry Hirshorn, a researcher at the Scripps Center for Oceanography geophysicist who worked at the Warning Center when the earthquake struck. He and his colleagues are featured in the documentary as they race assemble data about the expanding impact of the earthquake, and try to warn officials in the Indian Ocean about the coming tsunami. Hirshorn described the experience of working with the data, knowing that many thousands of people are in harm’s way: “I remember that I was very very obsessively focused on trying to be as efficient and calm as possible. I felt the most valuable thing I could do was think, study the data, and process the information... I was pushing aside the other feelings, I was getting a surge of shock and that kept getting worse as the number of casualties went up and up... the magnitude of the disaster just kept growing... I was pushing everything aside and trying to concentrate on how we could save people ahead of the wave....” Hirshorn’s work at Scripps involves developing new ways to characterize an earthquake as quickly and accurately as possible. Still, he emphasized that public communication is the essential ingredient. “I would argue that education may turn out to be more important than anything else,” he remarked, referring to organized public awareness campaigns and response preparedness. He also underscored the value of indigenous knowledge. The receding shoreline and other indications of danger were clearly obvious to coastal residents who knew the signs and safely evacuated. The risk of catastrophic damage from an earthquake or tsunami is low in many parts of the US. However, human-induced seismic activity is becoming more common. Fracking is one cause. Short for hydrofracturing, fracking is a method of bringing up oil and natural gas from shale formations by pumping vast quantities of fluid underground. Though much of the traceable activity is linked to the disposal of fracking fluid , some evidence also points to the fracking operation itself. Texas, for example, has experienced a dramatic increase in earthquake activity over the past five years, with fracking fluid disposal suspected as the cause. The impacts have been limited so far, but when a building experiences repeated shaking it can be more vulnerable to damage, and concerns have been rising. Last summer officials declared a state of emergency after 61 earthquakes hit Scurry County over a period of seven days, including one that registered as the 5th-strongest in Texas history. Carbon sequestration is another risk area. The idea of capturing carbon emissions from a power station or other industrial site and shunting it by pipeline to an underground disposal site was trialed in the US as the FutureGen project, which failed miserably. Stakeholders have been persistent, though earthquake risk among the questions to be resolved. An earthquake link has also surfaced in the practice of injecting carbon underground to stimulate oil and gas production, though so far the evidence is slim. Some of the answers could be forthcoming under a research project at the University of California–Santa Cruz, where professor Emily Brodsky is working on a $1.1 million Department of Energy grant aimed at studying the potential to induce earthquakes from different kinds of human activity including geothermal wells and groundwater management systems as well as fracking and carbon sequestration. “Induced earthquakes could be the Achilles heel of carbon sequestration. If the rocks fail you no longer have sequestration—it breaks the confinement of the carbon dioxide, and you’ve just wasted time and money while getting no closer to a climate change solution,” Brodsky remarked back in 2022, when the grant was awarded. Nevertheless, the study is expected to produce more accurate methods for assessing and predicting the conditions that cause rocks to fail, potentially enabling developers to avoid at-risk sites. The outcome should benefit the geothermal industry as well. Industry stakeholders are counting on new enhanced geothermal systems to extend the range of potential sites. Unlike conventional geothermal technology, enhanced systems don’t rely on existing rock formations. Instead, they deploy human-made underground reservoirs, consisting of fractured rock. Follow me via LinkTree , or @tinamcasey on Threads, LinkedIn, and Bluesky. Image (screenshot): A new National Geographic documentary depicts the human struggle following the killer tsunami of 2004, including footage from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii (courtesy of National Geographic). CleanTechnica's Comment Policy LinkedIn WhatsApp Facebook X Email Mastodon RedditHiggins added eight rebounds for the Mountain Hawks (5-6). Tyler Whitney-Sidney shot 7 for 12 (2 for 5 from 3-point range) and 3 of 3 from the free-throw line to add 19 points. Cam Gillus scored 10. Mike Smith III led the Knights with 15 points. Gary Francis added 12 points and DJ Earl had 12 points and three steals. Led by 13 points from Higgins before the break, Lehigh entered halftime tied with Neumann 42-42. Lehigh pulled away with a 9-0 run in the second half to extend a nine-point lead to 18 points. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .
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Canada stocks higher at close of trade; S&P/TSX Composite up 0.33%Two people were rescued when a California pier partially collapsed and fell into the ocean Monday as the state’s central coast was pounded by heavy surf from a major storm expected to bring hurricane-force winds to the seas off the Pacific Northwest. Residents were warned to stay away from low-lying areas near the beaches around the Santa Cruz Wharf, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of San Francisco. “You are risking your life, and those of the people that would need to try and save you by getting in or too close to the water,” the National Weather Service’s Bay Area office said on the social platform X. Lifeguards rescued two people from the water and a third person was able to swim to safety, the Santa Cruz Fire Department said on Instagram. Their conditions were unknown. Coastal roads in Santa Cruz were closed following the pier’s partial collapse, city officials said. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s has been briefed and the state’s Office of Emergency Services is coordinating with local officials, his office said. Ocean swells along California’s central coast could reach 26 feet (8 meters) as the Pacific storm gains strength through Monday, the weather service said. “A rapidly developing storm will bring hurricane force winds to the areas well offshore of the Pacific Northwest tonight,” the weather service’s Ocean Prediction Center said on X. Winds off Oregon and Washington could peak near 80 mph (130 kph) and seas will build over 30 feet (9.1 meters), forecasters said. The Santa Cruz Wharf collapse Monday came about a year after the Seacliff State Beach pier just down the coast was battered beyond repair by a heavy winter storm. Two people were rescued when a California pier partially collapsed Shohei Ohtani is keeping elite company. The Japanese superstar caps A five-day strike by Starbucks baristas had closed 59 stores Netflix is planning to provide plenty of gifts for viewers
《TAIPEI TIMES》 Taiwan developing new hypersonic missile: source