Money, a member of the Wiradjuri community, has been recognized for her exceptional poetry, including the esteemed 2025 Kate Challis RAKA Award, which honors Indigenous artists. Additionally, she has been awarded the First Nations Emerging Career Award by the Australia Council for the Arts.
A collection of presents noted in the documents led us to another residence. Information about yet another, leased in 2018 and 2019, was hidden within a 10,000-page credit card statement. It also detailed the daily expenditures of the woman residing there, who possessed her own card under Epstein’s account with a $2,000 (£1,477) monthly budget.
Vast created the Astronaut Flight Suit with its customers at the center of the design, from the cut to the functional elements.
Configurable as a single-piece or a two-piece outfit by zipping (or unzipping) the jacket from the trousers, the flight suit is customized for each crew member while delivering greater comfort and range of motion through rear vents and shoulder gussets. The garment also includes pockets and hook-and-loop fasteners (Velcro) so tools can be stowed and accessed with ease.
Credit:
Vast
Focusing on practicality, Vast aimed to produce a highly functional flight suit suitable for both Earth-based training and everyday use aboard Haven-1 in orbit.
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Vast
“When you’re in microgravity, you need your hands free and your tools nearby at all times,” said former NASA astronaut Megan McArthur, who is advising Vast. “You’re constantly threading through tight spaces and positioning your body in ways we don’t encounter on Earth.”
Though the suit is a clean white with a unified appearance, it still allows personal touches. Each crew’s suits will bear a mission patch, and there’s a spot for each member’s flight badge — the “wings” they’ll earn from Vast “by launching, living on orbit and performing mission operations in space,” the company said.
Alongside the flight suit, every Vast crew member will also wear the Pilot’s Venturer Vertical Drive, a watch crafted by Swiss luxury maker IWC Schaffhausen and tested in partnership with Vast. IWC designed the timepiece to handle the demands of human spaceflight, substituting the crown for a more glove-friendly rotating bezel. Vast confirmed the watch can tolerate vibrations and pressure shifts and is compatible with the Haven-1 on-board environment.
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IWC Schaffhausen
IWC Schaffhausen worked with Vast to validate its Pilot’s Venturer Vertical Drive, a wristwatch engineered for use in space.
Credit:
IWC Schaffhausen
(IWC Schaffhausen is selling the Pilot’s Venturer Vertical Drive to the public for $28,200.)
“It’s a watch astronauts can actually use,” said Feustel. “This is the flight suit for the commercial, crewed spaceflight era, and it’s really just the beginning.”
In particular, the committee urged the State Department to determine whether distillation attacks violate statutes such as the Economic Espionage Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. It also recommended that “adversarial distillation” be precisely defined and formally classified as a controlled technology transfer, which would simplify efforts to block illicit Chinese access to models.
The committee’s report said that if those measures were implemented, the US could pursue prosecutions and levy substantial fines likely to deter Chinese companies from viewing “serious violations as a tolerable cost of doing business.”
Kratsios’s memo warning of a clampdown arrives ahead of Donald Trump’s much-anticipated meeting with China’s president Xi Jinping next month.
Trump has described the meeting as “special” and said “much will be accomplished.” Still, an analyst told the South China Morning Post that the war in Iran has left Trump “with almost all his bargaining chips gone” just as the US and China try to steady a trade relationship that has been strained since he took office.
China appears unlikely to accept Kratsios’s allegations. Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC, told FT that the White House’s claims were “pure slander.”
“China has always been committed to advancing science and technology through cooperation and healthy competition,” Pengyu said. “China places great importance on the protection of intellectual property rights.”
Whether Trump will side with AI companies seeking to cut China off from their models and punish distillation attacks remains to be seen. Trump has previously been accused of making major concessions to China on export controls that experts say threatened US national security and the economy, the same kind of risks US firms say distillation attacks pose.
Some of those concessions might need to be reversed to counter the alleged “industrial espionage.”
Chris McGuire, a technology security expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, told FT that “Chinese AI firms are relying on distillation attacks to compensate for shortfalls in AI computing power and to illicitly reproduce the core capabilities of US models.” To prevent that, the US may have to tighten export controls loosened by Trump — for example, the policy permitting Nvidia chip sales to China so long as the US gets a 25 percent cut. Experts called that odd deal “no sense,” warning it could have opened the door for China to demand access to America’s most advanced AI chips.
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At Laredo Taqueria, steam rises from a hot skillet as the fragrance of jalapeño, cumin, and fresh lime blends with the nutty aroma of tortillas cooking in the vicinity. Residents of Houston queue outside before dawn for the restaurant’s famous breakfast tacos. Behind the glass counter, a line of women operates with calm efficiency, filling warm tortillas with refried beans, spicy chorizo, and fresh toppings before sending them back to the cooks for final touches on the griddle. When mine is served, the tortilla is tender and blistered, the chorizo smoky and vibrant with chile, and the beans creamy enough to absorb every bite.
This city thrives on movement and migration, and nowhere is this more apparent than on its plates. Vietnamese, Mexican, West African, and Central American communities have shared their culinary heritages and modified them to incorporate Texas ingredients. Following Hurricane Katrina’s devastation in Louisiana, storm refugees introduced Big Easy flavors that inspired Viet-Cajun cuisine. Pakistani chef Kaiser Lashkari’s beloved establishment Himalaya offers aromatic curries and masala marinated fried chicken that attract diners from all over the state, while barbecue spots like Khói reinterpret the Texas smokehouse tradition through diverse cultural perspectives.
With over 13,000 eateries, food trucks, and pop-ups spread throughout its vast neighborhoods, Houston stands out not only as a prime American food destination but as one of the most globally diverse. In a single day here, one might enjoy smoky brisket, Vietnamese dumplings, West African suya, and tacos that are worth the pre-dawn line.
Look for freshly prepared tortillas or overflowing pastry displays
In Houston, the day starts with a kolache, a pastry introduced by Czech immigrants in the 1800s, and today it’s as crucial to breakfast as coffee. At The Original Kolache Shoppe, a family-owned bakery that has been operating since 1956, the trays are filled early with fruit kolaches and savory klobásníky. I go straight for a soft, mildly sweet bun encasing smoky sausage and molten cheddar, with the pickled tang of jalapeño balancing the richness. For a more leisurely start, settle into a table at Cucharita, where vibrant Lele dolls dangle from the ceiling and lucky sheep are lined up by the register. The longaniza breakfast taco arrives steaming in my hands, the tortilla still warm, wrapped around spicy sausage and eggs with a salsa rich in tomatoes that gradually reveals its heat.
For a day of remote work, I check in at Casaema, where the pastry display tempts with horchata berlinesas, guava-and-queso empanadas, large sugar-dusted conchas, and pomegranate-hibiscus corn cake donuts. I choose the jalapeño, ham, and potato quiche—its crust breaking into buttery flakes—accompanied by a small salad sprinkled with Cotija and pepitas. On my way out, I slip a peanut butter–chocolate mole cookie into my bag for my afternoon paddle on Buffalo Bayou, its cocoa and spice providing a much-needed boost after a day on the water.
Producers of oil and gas in the Middle East continue to hurriedly seek and widen alternative export pathways, nearly two months subsequent to the vital Strait of Hormuz being virtually closed to commercial navigation.
There remains scarce clarity on the timeline or manner in which the U.S.-Iran tensions could resolve, with both parties utilizing the Strait of Hormuz — a crucial channel through which approximately 20% of global oil was transported prior to the conflict — as a leverage point in intermittent peace discussions.
The ongoing double blockade of the channel has drastically elevated global energy prices and exposed the fragility of the global energy market, especially when essential maritime routes and “chokepoints” — like the Strait of Hormuz, Panama Canal, or Suez Canal — face blockages, whether deliberately or inadvertently.
Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the IEA, expressed to CNBC on Thursday that he felt like a “record on repeat” urging nations to diversify their energy transport routes long before the current crisis erupted.
“The $110 trillion global economy can be held hostage by just a handful of armed individuals over a mere 50-kilometer stretch of water — this is utterly irrational. We need to create alternative pathways, alternative solutions,” he relayed to CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick.
Concerns regarding the Strait of Hormuz “were thoroughly recognized” for years, according to Maisoon Kafafy, senior adviser to the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs, yet the conflict has illuminated the depth of those vulnerabilities — and the pressing need for transformation.
“Hormuz has been recognized as the world’s most documented energy chokepoint for decades, and its risks were analyzed, modeled, and factored into the infrastructure investments throughout the region,” she stated.
“Before the closure in February 2026, while costs were substantial, they did not reach a level that warranted the extensive investment alternative infrastructure would require. The existing deterrent framework and economic ties surrounding the strait made a complete closure seem excessively costly for any party to consider seriously. The closure has shown that those perceptions were vulnerable,” Kafafy remarked.
The Iran conflict is altering that cost-benefit calculus, as Gulf oil exporters — now acutely cautious of the dangers posed by the Islamic Republic and apprehensive about future dependence on forces beyond their control — are decisively expanding their gaze beyond the Strait of Hormuz for their exports.
“The conflict has also expedited investments in alternate routes. Consequently, other nations are rerouting. This implies that Iran, along with its primary strategic influence, is diminishing,” Lucila Bonilla, lead emerging markets economist at Oxford Economics, informed CNBC on Tuesday.
Tehran’s efforts to obstruct the crucial maritime route seemed to yield benefits during the initial stages of the conflict. By managing access in and out of the strait, Iran effectively became the sole exporter of hydrocarbons for several weeks as oil prices surged towards $120 a barrel.
The naval blockade imposed by the U.S. on Iranian ports, which commenced in mid-April, has “neutralized” that strategic edge, Bonilla indicated. Yet Gulf exporters remain in the same plight, hindered from sending oil and LNG through the strait.
While Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) possess some oil export routes that do not traverse the strait, other nations, including Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain, depend on the passage to transport a large percentage of their oil exports, according to the International Energy Agency.
Most of these exports are directed towards Asia, with China, India, and Japan serving as the primary importers, the IEA notes. The majority of LNG exports from the UAE and Qatar also utilize this passage.
The enormous volume of oil that is exported via the Strait of Hormuz, alongside the limited alternatives to circumvent it, indicates that any interruption to these flows would have significant repercussions for global oil markets.The International Energy Agency
Iran has further alienated its Gulf neighbors and fellow OPEC members by striking their energy infrastructure with missiles and drones.
Gulf countries expressed to CNBC that Iran’s actions have fostered a significant trust deficit that may never be fully addressed, signaling their intention to seek lasting methods to redirect their supplies and avoid the Strait of Hormuz.
Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE have oil pipelines designed to bypass the strait — the East-West pipeline and the UAE’s Habshan–Fujairah (or ADCOP) pipeline — but neither pipeline can accommodate as much oil as is transported through the Strait of Hormuz.
The East-West pipeline, which connects processing facilities near the Persian Gulf to an export terminal on the Red Sea, alongside the UAE pipeline that leads to Fujairah, has a combined projected capacity of 3.5 – 5.5 million barrels per day (mb/d), according to the IEA, although Saudi Arabia claimed it was transporting 7 mb/d in March.
However, these amounts pale in comparison to the roughly 20 million barrels of oil and petroleum products that flowed through the Strait of Hormuz daily before the onset of the war.
Establishing alternative export routes necessitates not just substantial investment in infrastructure, but also time. Frequently, international agreements are essential if pipelines traverse multiple regions, and security becomes a concern — particularly when Iran has shown no hesitance to attack neighboring energy facilities.
“Enhancing existing infrastructure … can occur within a fairly compressed timeframe if there is sufficient political will,” Kafafy conveyed to CNBC.
“The more challenging task is to develop a truly interconnected, multi-corridor system that provides genuine resilience,” including “route diversity” — ensuring that ample exit terminals are available in various sea basins to prevent a single blockage from impairing most of the export capacity simultaneously — and “exit-point security,” Kafafy elaborated.
This translates to “the capability to safeguard terminal infrastructure against the same adversarial pressures that shut down the primary chokepoint,” she added.
The conflict has demonstrated that the current alternative routes are vulnerable; Saudi’s East-West pipeline was struck by Iran in April, reducing throughput by 700,000 barrels per day. The Fujairah port (the terminus of the UAE pipeline) also faced assaults from Iranian drones, disrupting oil loading activities at its crude export terminal.
The IEA also highlights that an LNG pipeline runs in parallel to Saudi’s East-West pipeline, the Abqaiq-Yanbu NGL pipeline, which has a capacity of 300 kb/d, but is presently “fully utilized” with no available capacity.
There are a few “alternative alternatives” to the principal pipelines, although their capacity remains limited.
Regardless, several Middle Eastern nations are investigating proposed new routes or reviving previously shelved projects, as they seek to diversify their supply routes away from the Strait of Hormuz.
For instance, Iraq possesses a nearly 600-mile pipeline to Turkey, which has an estimated capacity of around 1.6 mb/d. The pipeline, which had been inactive, is set to reopen soon due to the disruptions in Hormuz, reportedly starting with a capacity of 250,000 barrels per day.
Iraq is also contemplating long-considered pipelines to Oman, Jordan, and Egypt, despite these initiatives being previously set aside owing to financial, conflict, and security concerns.
Short-term expansion buys time and showcases political commitment, while long-term network development is the sole configuration providing resilience that is structural rather than situational.Maisoon KafafySenior advisor, Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs
Iran might consider utilizing the Jask oil terminal to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. The pipeline can convey crude from the Goreh-Jask pipeline to the Gulf of Oman and reports a capacity of 1 mb/d, but the IEA indicates that both the pipeline and terminal “effectively remain non-operational.”
“A test load was exported from Jask in late 2024, but no additional oil has been shipped from Jask since. The terminal is currently not viewed as a feasible export option for Iranian crude,” the IEA indicated in February.
Fusion energy has the potential to deliver a reliable, zero-emissions electricity source in the future—if companies can successfully construct and operate the facilities. However, a recent study indicates that even if this future materializes, it may not be affordable.
Typically, technologies become less costly over time. Lithium-ion batteries are currently approximately 90% cheaper compared to their prices in 2013. Nevertheless, historically, various technologies tend to follow this trend at different speeds. The expenses associated with fusion may not decrease as rapidly as those for batteries or solar energy.
Making forecasts about the expenses of a technology that is not yet developed is challenging. However, when billions of dollars in public and private investments are at stake, it is important to reflect on the assumptions we hold concerning our future energy portfolio and its expenses.
A vital metric is known as experience rate—the percentage by which the cost of an energy technology decreases every time capacity doubles. A higher rate indicates a quicker drop in pricing and improved economic benefits with scaling.
Traditionally, the experience rates are 12% for onshore wind energy, 20% for lithium-ion batteries, and 23% for solar panels. Other energy technologies have not decreased in price quite as swiftly—fission holds at merely 2%.
In the new study, published in Nature Energy, the researchers sought to refine predictions about fusion’s future costs by estimating the technology’s experience rate. The team analyzed three crucial factors correlated with experience rate: unit size, design intricacy, and customization requirements. The greater the size and complexity of a technology and/or the more it needs to be tailored for various applications, the lower the experience rate.
The study involved interviews with fusion specialists, including public-sector researchers and individuals from private companies. They asked the experts to assess fusion power plants based on those characteristics and utilized that data to forecast the experience rate. (A note here: The study addressed only magnetic confinement and laser inertial confinement, two of the foremost fusion strategies, which collectively are the primary recipients of current funding. Other methods might offer different cost advantages.)
Fusion facilities are likely to be relatively large, akin to other types of plants (such as those for coal and fission power) that depend on generating heat. They may require less customization compared to fission plants—primarily because regulations and safety considerations should be more straightforward—but more than technologies such as solar panels. Regarding complexity, “there was almost unanimous consensus that fusion is exceedingly complex,” remarks Lingxi Tang, a PhD candidate in the energy and technology policy group at ETH Zurich in Switzerland and one of the study’s authors. (Some experts suggested it was literally beyond the scale the researchers provided.)
The final estimate the researchers propose for fusion’s experience rate falls between 2% and 8%, indicating it will experience a quicker price decline than nuclear power but not as dramatic an enhancement as many standard energy technologies currently being utilized.
This suggests that significant deployment—and probably a considerable amount of time—will be needed for the costs of constructing a fusion reactor to decrease substantially, leading to potentially high electricity prices from fusion plants for a while. Additionally, this rate is much slower than the 8% to 20% that numerous modeling studies currently assume.
“Overall, I believe we should question the current levels of investment in fusion,” Tang states. (The US has committed over $1 billion to fusion for the 2024 fiscal year, while private funding reached $2.2 billion between July 2024 and July 2025.) “When considering the decarbonization of the energy system, is this truly the most effective utilization of public funds?”
Nonetheless, some experts argue that examining past trends to make sense of future energy prices might be misleading. “It’s a constructive exercise, but we must remain humble about the extent of our ignorance,” asserts Egemen Kolemen, a professor at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.
In 2000, many analysts anticipated that solar energy would stay expensive—but then production surged and costs plummeted, largely due to China’s extensive investment, he notes. “People weren’t exactly incorrect then,” he adds. “They were merely projecting what they witnessed into the future.”
How rapidly prices diminish depends on regulations, geopolitical factors, and labor expenses, he states: “We haven’t built the technology yet, so we can’t be certain.”
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.
Looking for an iPhone 17 Pro* at a lower price?
Looking for an iPhone 17 Pro* at a lower price?
Honor has unveiled the 600 and 600 Pro, termed as “affordable flagships,” and they appear… familiar. Particularly in that orange hue.
The Pro makes the iPhone resemblance particularly evident due to its triple rear camera — it even mirrors the same flash arrangement — while the 600 is slightly more discreet as it forgoes the Pro’s 3.5x telephoto lens. Honor previously employed the same strategy with last year’s iPhone Air-inspired Honor 500, but that device was launched solely in Asia.
Both devices boast IP69K water-resistance ratings (a more rigorous rating that includes tests with water jets directed at the phone), mid-sized 6.57-inch OLED displays, and substantial 6,400mAh batteries (with even larger 7,000mAh options available in Asia). They support 80W wired charging, but only the Pro has wireless charging capabilities. Additionally, it features a more powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, the previous year’s Qualcomm flagship, while the budget model has the midrange 7 Gen 4.
The two models launch in Europe today, starting at €649.90 (approximately $760) for the Honor 600, and €999.90 ($1,170) for the 600 Pro. This positions the Pro at a similar price point to a base iPhone 17 in the region, and several hundred Euros less than the 17 Pro models that have evidently inspired it.
Hochman also pointed out problems in the case that postponed the filing of charges. When questioned by the BBC regarding these issues, he described the challenges of interviewing several individuals, some of whom were “cooperative” while others were not, in addition to reviewing all the evidence.
On Wednesday, Jim Cramer of CNBC provided investors with a mental framework to make purchasing high-flying stocks more palatable.
“In a vibrant market … you had to have the discipline to pay up for exceptional stocks to prevent missing out,'” stated the “Mad Money” host.
Cramer shared an experience from earlier in his career when a trader he collaborated with would “divide stocks by 10” to reframe their prices, facilitating commitment to high-momentum names. He pointed out that considering Bloom Energy as an example, a $230 stock can be viewed as $23, making it psychologically simpler to spend a bit more to ensure entry.
“Would it actually hurt you to pay $24 for a $23 stock?” he asked. “The answer is no.”
This insight emerged as Cramer reflected on a surge of stocks linked to artificial intelligence and data center demand that he favored early in their rallies but didn’t add to the Charitable Trust, the portfolio managed by the CNBC Investing Club.
The shares of chip manufacturers Micron , Advanced Micro Devices, and server manufacturer Dell Technologies have skyrocketed as wealthy investors eagerly bid for shares. Cramer remarked that these stocks are “the ones that escaped,” highlighting that persistent demand and sizable buy orders have kept many of these stocks advancing without significant pullbacks.
At the essence of his frustration lies his investing approach. Cramer characterized himself as a “price-sensitive buyer” who prefers to wait for more favorable entry points — a strategy that has benefitted him over decades but can be challenging in fast-paced, momentum-driven markets like the current one.
“I don’t prefer to purchase stocks that are soaring,” he mentioned. “Almost all these stocks surge daily because the demand is unquenchable. Unlike me, there is no price they won’t accept.”
Cramer emphasized that he is not entirely discarding discipline, nor is he advising investors to create a portfolio composed solely of momentum stocks. Instead, he proposed a more adaptable strategy of selectively adopting this “must-own” mindset for a limited number of high-conviction stocks, especially when a stable interest rate environment is backing the bull market.
“Here’s the key takeaway: if you’re inclined to buy these hot stocks, don’t hesitate. As long as the bond market remains stable and you’re diversified, I believe these hot stocks can continue to generate profits for you.”
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