Volt Typhoon uses malicious software that penetrates internet-connected systems by exploiting vulnerabilities such as weak administrator passwords, factory default logins and devices that haven’t been updated regularly. The hackers have targeted communications, energy, transportation, water and wastewater systems in the U.S. and its territories, such as Guam.
In many ways, Volt Typhoon functions similarly to traditional botnet operators that have plagued the internet for decades. It takes control of vulnerable internet devices such as routers and security cameras to hide and establish a beachhead in advance of using that system to launch future attacks.
Operating this way makes it difficult for cybersecurity defenders to accurately identify the source of an attack. Worse, defenders could accidentally retaliate against a third party who is unaware that they are caught up in Volt Typhoon’s botnet.
Disrupting critical infrastructure has the potential to cause economic harm around the world. Volt Typhoon’s operation also poses a threat to the U.S. military by potentially disrupting power and water to military facilities and critical supply chains.
Call me a conspiracist but..
To get around NATO's Article 5, it seems Putin is now dedicated to attacking European targets with deniable acts of sabotage.
Warsaw shopping mall last week is already blamed on Russia and now Copenhagen's Novo Nordisk headquarters, the largest… pic.twitter.com/RWe9qrl1vV
Wednesday was another day of severe weather across the country with more than 200 severe storm reports from New York to Texas.
Wednesday’s severe weather included three reported tornadoes in Texas, with some of the worst damage in Bell County between Austin and Waco.
So far, 2024 has been the most active tornado season to date since 2017 with 859 tornadoes reported so far.
On Friday, more severe weather is forecast for a huge part of the Heartland from the Dakotas all the way south to Texas, including the major cities of Dallas, Oklahoma City, Wichita, Kansas City, Omaha and Fargo.
Waters across the Atlantic’s tropical belt — extending from the coast of Africa through the Caribbean — are hotter now than in any other late May on record, with over 90% of the area’s sea surface engulfed in record or near-record warmth. The extent of marine heat has never been greater heading into a hurricane season, outpacing by wide margins the previous late May record-holder in 2005, a year remembered for one of the most active and destructive hurricane seasons in modern history.
Although record-setting sea surface temperatures alone don’t guarantee a busy hurricane season, they do strongly influence it, especially when the abnormal warmth coincides with the tropical belt known as the Main Development Region, or MDR, the area where 85% of Category 3, 4, and 5 hurricanes form. When considered alongside a developing La Niña — the periodic cooling of the equatorial Pacific that reduces storm-busting Atlantic wind shear — the unprecedented ocean heat is driving up seasonal hurricane outlooks higher than ever before.
Colorado State University — the group that pioneered seasonal hurricane forecasts in the 1980s — issued its most aggressive April forecast last month in almost 30 years of doing such preseason outlooks. NOAA, the parent agency of the National Weather Service, will release its first 2024 hurricane season outlook May 23, and expectations are for similarly bullish numbers.
The exceptional warm-up of the North Atlantic began in earnest last spring and continued through the 2023 hurricane season. Despite one of the strongest El Niño events on record, which would typically deter hurricane activity, the Atlantic churned out 20 named storms last season, the fourth-highest number since 1950, according to NOAA. Forecasters largely credited the record-warm tropical Atlantic for counteracting the heavy hand of El Niño.
Comparing Atlantic Basin Heat anomalies across the Main Development Region for Hurricanes – 2005 vs 2024
Get ready for what nearly all the experts think will be one of the busiest Atlantic hurricane seasons on record, thanks to unprecedented ocean heat and a brewing La Nina.
There’s an 85% chance that the Atlantic hurricane season that starts in June will be above average in storm activity, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday in its annual outlook. The weather agency predicted between 17 and 25 named storms will brew up this summer and fall, with 8 to 13 achieving hurricane status (at least 75 mph sustained winds) and four to seven of them becoming major hurricanes, with at least 111 mph winds.
An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms, seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes.
“This season is looking to be an extraordinary one in a number of ways,” NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said. He said this forecast is the busiest in the 25 years that NOAA has been issuing in May. The agency updates its forecasts each August.
New NOAA and CSU forecast side by side. Keep in mind the average is 14 named storms, 7 hurricanes and 3 majors. This NOAA forecast is ~50% above average season. pic.twitter.com/BlfaCqb2xR
About 20 other groups — universities, other governments, private weather companies — also have made seasonal forecasts. All but two expect a busier, nastier summer and fall for hurricanes. The average of those other forecasts is about 11 hurricanes, or about 50% more than in a normal year. La Nina usually reduces high-altitude winds that can decapitate hurricanes, and generally during a La Nina there’s more instability or storminess in the atmosphere, which can seed hurricane development. Storms get their energy from hot water. Ocean waters have been record warm for 13 months in a row and a La Nina is forecast to arrive by mid to late summer. The current El Nino is dwindling and is expected to be gone within a month or so.
“We’ve never had a La Nina combined with ocean temperatures this warm in recorded history so that’s a little ominous,” said University of Miami tropical meteorology researcher Brian McNoldy.
This May, ocean heat in the main area where hurricanes develop has been as high as it usually is in mid-August. “That’s crazy,” McNoldy said. It’s both record warm on the ocean surface and at depths, which “is looking a little scary.”
In yet another dire warning about the coming Atlantic hurricane season, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Thursday predicted that this year could see between 17 to 25 named tropical cyclones, the most it has ever forecast in May for the Atlantic Ocean.
The NOAA forecast joins more than a dozen other recent projections from experts at universities, private companies and other government agencies that have predicted a likelihood of 14 or more named storms this season; many were calling for well over 20.
Rick Spinrad, the NOAA administrator, said at a news conference on Thursday morning that the agency’s forecasters believed eight to 13 of the named storms could become hurricanes, meaning they would include winds of at least 74 miles per hour. Those could include four to seven major hurricanes — Category 3 or higher — with winds of at least 111 m.p.h.
Dozens of Alaska’s most remote streams and rivers are turning from a crystal clear blue into a cloudy orange, and the staining could be the result of minerals exposed by thawing permafrost, new research in the Nature journal Communications: Earth and Environment finds.
For the first time, a team of researchers from the National Park Service, U.S. Geological Survey, the University of California, Davis, and other institutions have documented and sampled some of the impaired waters, pinpointing 75 locations across a Texas-sized area of northern Alaska’s Brooks Range.
These degraded rivers and streams could have significant implications for drinking water and fisheries in Arctic watersheds as the climate changes, the researchers said.
“The more we flew around, we started noticing more and more orange rivers and streams,” said lead author Jon O’Donnell, an ecologist for the NPS’ Arctic Inventory and Monitoring Network. “There are certain sites that look almost like a milky orange juice.
Those orange streams can be problematic both in terms of being toxic but might also prevent migration of fish to spawning areas.”
That actually blew my mind. This is the CEO of CATL, the world's largest battery company, who says they're becoming so good at recycling (already at 99.6% for Nickel and Cobalt) that China will reach a point when it doesn't need to mine minerals anymore. pic.twitter.com/HaLixcvScG
Geopolitical tensions must be set aside as the world faces shortages of critical battery materials such as lithium, nickel and cobalt due to surging demand, said Robin Zeng Yuqun, founder of Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (CATL), the world’s largest manufacturer of batteries for electric vehicles (EVs).
Countries – from government leaders to businesses and non-governmental organisations – must collaborate to accelerate innovation in the EV battery industry to ensure a resilient supply chain, reduce dependency on critical metals and decarbonise the transport sector to tackle the climate crisis, Zeng told the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos.
“The demand for critical materials might increase by five times in the next 10 years, considering the fast growth of the industry. But at the end of the day, when we achieve 100 per cent electric cars, there will be very tiny amounts of new critical materials to be mined.”
China leads the world in battery recycling technologies, an important solution for addressing battery material shortages.
For instance, Zeng told the forum that CATL currently has the capacity to recycle as much as 99.6 per cent of precious metals such as nickel, cobalt and manganese, and up to 91 per cent of lithium, higher than Europe’s capacity of 70 per cent to 80 per cent. Last year, CATL recycled 100,000 tonnes of waste batteries through its subsidiary Brump to create 13,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate, he said.
The town of Bargersville, located just south of Indianapolis in Johnson County, is a leader in the electric vehicle revolution.
But officials here say swapping out gas-guzzling police cruisers for all-electric Teslas is more about saving green than going green.
“It’s all about the money,” Police Chief Todd Bertram said. “We started the program, because I needed two officers.”
The town bought its first Tesla police car in 2019 and has since added a dozen more.
Bertram says Bargersville’s fleet of 13 Tesla police cars saves taxpayers about $80,000 a year in fuel costs compared to gas-powered police vehicles.
“It was a risk in the very beginning but it’s proven now,” Bertram said.
The town is saving enough on fuel to pay for two additional officers. Bargersville is growing and has added about a half dozen officers since it bought its first Tesla.
Teslas cost more than a Dodge Charger or Ford Crown Victoria, but Clerk Treasurer Dustin Doyle said the money saved on fuel makes up the difference in less than three years.
“If it benefits the environment, fantastic,” Doyle said. “But this benefits our taxpayers in the sense that we’re saving money and we’re being fiscally responsible with their money.”
In 2018, Bargersville spent $54,000 on gas for police cars. By 2023, the town added six new police cars but spent about $31,000 on fuel, Doyle said.
“When we run those Chargers to the end of their life on a police force, we’re lucky to get $3,000 to $5,000 trade value for them,” he said.
“We just traded our first car in this year and we got $17,500 for a 2019 Tesla.”
It’s so hot in Mexico that howler monkeys are falling dead from the trees.
At least 138 of the midsize primates, who are known for their roaring vocal calls, were found dead in the Gulf Coast state of Tabasco since May 16, according to the Biodiversity Conservation of The Usumacinta group. Others were rescued by residents, including five that were rushed to a local veterinarian who battled to save them.
“They arrived in critical condition, with dehydration and fever,” said Dr. Sergio Valenzuela. “They were as limp as rags. It was heatstroke.”
While Mexico’s brutal heat wave has been linked to the deaths of at least 26 people since March, veterinarians and rescuers say it has killed dozens and perhaps hundreds of howler monkeys. Around a third of the country saw highs of 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) on Tuesday.
“They were falling out of the trees like apples,” Pozo said. “They were in a state of severe dehydration, and they died within a matter of minutes.” Already weakened, Pozo says, the falls from dozens of yards (meters) up inflict additional damage that often finishes the monkeys off. Pozo’s group has set up a special recovery stations for monkeys — it currently holds five monkeys, but birds and reptiles have also been affected — and is trying to organize a team of specialized veterinarians to give the primates the care they need.
