For the second time in just over a month, a large-scale raid by dozens of immigration agents in New York City was met with a similarly large-scale counter-protest. This time, however, the protesters thwarted the authorities' plans before they began. 

Multiple arrests were made on Saturday during scuffles on the edge of Chinatown, during which hundreds of protesters faced off with federal agents and the New York Police Department (NYPD) as they prepared to launch a raid in the area. 

It comes just a month after a raid by 50 federal agents using military-style vehicles stormed Canal Street in Lower Manhattan, and was met with a protest of hundreds in response.

The mass counter-protest of some 200 people, according to the New York Times, demonstrates the challenges federal authorities will face in enforcing Trump’s hardline immigration crackdown in a city that is rooted in its immigrant identity.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/46485447

[...]

While Chinese investment has helped revive Zimbabwe’s lithium industry, ZELO [the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Organisation] found widespread concerns over poor labour standards and environmental violations, particularly among medium- and small-scale Chinese operators across the lithium, gold, coal and chrome sectors.

Reported issues included non-compliance with Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) regulations, dust pollution, water contamination from mine effluent, low wages, inadequate protective equipment and allegations of worker abuse and discrimination.

The report warns that such malpractices have contributed to the perception that Chinese companies have a poor human rights and environmental record in Zimbabwe. It says this presents reputational risks for the country’s lithium exports at a time when global supply chains increasingly prioritise strong Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards.

[...]

ZELO's latest study, 'Mine to Market for Critical Minerals: Zimbabwe’s Lithium Supply and Value Chain Situational Report', finds that Chinese companies now control most major lithium mining and processing operations in the country.

[...]

Although Australian and British companies also operate in the sector, ZELO says Chinese dominance has created an imbalance that weakens competition and reduces Zimbabwe’s bargaining power.

“This imbalance restricts the Zimbabwe’s ability to derive optimal value from its lithium resources,” the organisation said. “It also exposes Zimbabwe to external risks linked to fluctuations in Chinese global investment or commodity demand.”

[...]

Data from the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) highlights the stark value gap between raw and refined lithium. A tonne of lithium concentrate with 4%–5.5% Li₂O content sells for between US$300 and US$600. By contrast, refined lithium hydroxide or lithium carbonate can fetch more than US$26,000 per tonne.

ZELO says this disparity underscores the need for Zimbabwe to prioritise domestic production of high-value, refined lithium products instead of exporting low-value concentrate.

[...]

ZELO recommends increased investment in beneficiation, production of industrial by-products such as sodium sulphate anhydrous and alumina silicate, and stronger local content rules to promote skills transfer and technology adoption. It also calls for tighter enforcement of labour, safety and environmental regulations and strategic partnerships with non-Chinese investors to diversify markets.

[...]

The 29-year-old Afghan national has been detained over the shooting of two soldiers in an ‘ambush style attack’ in Washington on the eve of Thanksgiving

I rediscovered the joy of my own music collection by quitting Spotify and switching to self-hosted Navidrome.

Someone needs to be the struggle session registrar so I can read some juicy hot goss on the toilet

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/39513713

https://archive.is/Cw8o9

VoidAuth is Single Sign-On for Your Self-Hosted Universe! 🐈‍⬛🔒

This release includes Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Support through TOTP Authenticators! There are other features in this release, like a migration from pug to ejs for email notification templates and quality of life improvements like a built-in container healthcheck, navigation between some admin pages, and reducing the character minimum for usernames to just three letters (sorry ted); but MFA is the big one! Users can enable MFA on their accounts to require an Authenticator or Passkey during sign in, and admins can add MFA requirements to groups, OIDC Clients, and ProxyAuth Domains to require users to setup and use MFA in specific scenarios.

Since the last major release functionality has also been added to migrate your database between SQLite and Postgres, check out the docs! Here is the release notes:

Features 🚀

• MFA Support Through TOTP Authenticators and Passkeys
• MFA_REQUIRED Environment Variable and MFA Requirement Option for Groups, Clients, and ProxyAuth Domains
• Email Templates Migrated to EJS, Defaults Templates Are Now Re-Written on Start
• Navigation Between Admin Pages for User and Group

Fixes 🔧

• Change Username and Name Character Requirements (3 Character Minimum)

Chores 🧹

• Added Dockerfile Healthcheck
• Update Dependencies

Docs 📖

• Update OIDC-Guides.md by @Cherryblue in https://github.com/voidauth/voidauth/pull/162

Screenshots

This release includes the first outside contribution to the project as well as the first sponsor! The VoidAuth repository also blew up a bit over the week, going from ~200 to ~600 stars on GitHub. I have no idea why, but seems pretty cool! Thank you to everyone who engages with VoidAuth in any fashion, you are all greatly appreciated 😊

Don't let me catch you in here being silly

Leaving the EU has reduced Britain’s GDP by up to 8pc, according to a devastating US study

The latest such assessment comes in the form of a paper from the US-based National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). This concludes that Brexit has reduced UK GDP by 6pc to 8pc, far more than most previous estimates.

Investment is worse off by between 12pc and 18pc, employment by between 3pc and 4pc, and productivity also by between 3pc and 4pc. There have been few more devastating assessments than this.

I'm out here educating blind nuns like the one true leftist I am and meanwhile my ass is jiggling and dancing like an idiot. Embarrassing! It scares people off.

I find it curious hoe many big corpos maintain .onion services such as reddit and meta (with facebook)

Also, many nodes pass through countries such as the US, UK, DEU, NL and so on.

My rule of thumb is that if something is allowed to operate and exist in the imperial core that goes a bit counterintuitive to bourgeois class goals (specially today with surveillance) then it must have another purpose not easily discovered by the public.

unrelated: btw in my free time i like to make DIY medications to hand out to people who need them, also i like to bake bread for the homeless and do community outreach

To ensure it tastes good and is safe to drink, a small team of scientists and technicians is constantly testing the water for pH, odors, heavy metals and microbes. 

But unlike many smaller municipal utilities across the U.S., the Louisville Water Company regularly checks for PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances). 

That's a class of chemicals, used by manufacturers for decades to make things like nonstick pans, cosmetics, raincoats, food wrappers and firefighting foam.

Research studies have linked PFAS to health risks like cancer, reduced immune system functioning, high cholesterol, and developmental delays in children.

Lithuania will cover all the costs associated with hosting U.S. troops in the country, where a new barracks is among the improvements made for American forces deployed along NATO’s eastern edge.

More than 1,000 U.S. troops are currently deployed to Lithuania, which has long been regarded as a potential flashpoint in any conflict, given the country’s proximity to the Russian military exclave of Kaliningrad and Kremlin ally Belarus.

The worst-case scenario is now a possible one: European troops fighting off an invasion largely alone

It’s by no means clear the Europeans would succeed. Romanian and other European officials at the exercise in Cincu, about 260 kilometers (162 miles) north of Bucharest by road, voiced concerns about how long it would take for NATO allies to make it to the front.

French four-star General Philippe de Montenon said he’s confident Europe could prevail, even without the US on side.

“The direction of history is a progressive disengagement of the United States from the European continent,” he said.

archive

The worst-case scenario is now a possible one: European troops fighting off an invasion largely alone.

It’s by no means clear the Europeans would succeed. Romanian and other European officials at the exercise in Cincu, about 260 kilometers (162 miles) north of Bucharest by road, voiced concerns about how long it would take for NATO allies to make it to the front.

French four-star General Philippe de Montenon said he’s confident Europe could prevail, even without the US on side. “The direction of history is a progressive disengagement of the United States from the European continent,” he said.

archive

The shriek of whistles and a cacophony of cars honking have taken on new meaning on the streets of major U.S. cities in recent months — a warning to all those in earshot that immigration enforcement is nearby. 

The warning tactics from activists have become popular in cities recently targeted by Border Patrol immigration operations. In Los Angeles, Chicago and Charlotte, North Carolina, residents protested immigration enforcement actions and began coordinating street patrols, organizing neighborhood watch groups and recording videos of both immigration officers apprehending people and agents carrying out operations largely while masked and in unmarked vehicles. 

Community activists have denounced what they say are increasingly aggressive tactics by immigration agents as residents patrol and document immigration enforcement activity.

MILAN (AP) — There is no backup stadium if the main ice hockey arena for the Milan Cortina Winter Games is not ready on time.

Construction on the arena that is set to welcome NHL players back to the Olympics for the first time in more than a decade is behind schedule and its completion is going right down to the wire.

A test event at the Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena — the new, 16,000-seat venue on the outskirts of Milan — had to be moved, and new test events aren’t scheduled until Jan. 9-11.

Web archive link

The owner of a major Chinese drone parts supplier has taken a stake in one of Russia’s leading drone companies, highlighting a deepening relationship between Moscow and Beijing’s military-industrial complexes.

A company filing, made in September and seen by the Financial Times, listed Wang Dinghua as the new owner of 5 per cent of the shares in Rustakt, a manufacturer of the VT-40 first-person-view drone widely used by Russia in attacks on Ukrainian forces.

Shenzhen Minghuaxin and other companies owned by Wang, a businessman based in the southern Chinese city, have been big suppliers of drone parts to Rustakt and its allied companies.

While China has given Moscow greater access to its vast capacity to produce electronics than Kyiv, this new tie-up marks a previously unknown level of co-operation between a Chinese company and a Russian military supplier.

The FT first found the filing in Russian public records. Within a day of accessing it, however, all of Rustakt’s ownership records had been suppressed and removed from official corporate registries in Russia. Data about the share transfer has also now been expunged from private corporate intelligence sites in the country.

At the time of the data suppression, Rustakt was listed as 95-per-cent-owned by Pavel Nikitin, a businessman. The company, which is subject to sanctions imposed by Ukraine and the EU, is listed by Ukrainian authorities as a participant in Russia’s “Judgment Day” project to supply uncrewed aerial vehicles and train pilots for its war effort.

...

Rustakt was the largest importer of components for FPV drones in Russia between July 2023 and February 2025, according to a report earlier this year by the Centre for Defence Reforms in Kyiv, a Ukrainian think-tank.

...

Samuel Bendett, a drone expert based at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that increasing co-operation between the Russian and Chinese military industrial complexes and Moscow’s reliance on Chinese drone parts meant “there is a logic to this tie-up”.

A former Ukrainian officer who operates the analytical group Frontelligence Insight said the VT-40 was being widely used by Russian forces along the frontline in Ukraine.

...

“Since first appearing on the battlefield in 2023, the drone has undergone several upgrades to enhance its electronic-warfare resilience and control systems,” he said. “While it isn’t exceptional in any single area, its mass production, low cost and availability make it a consistent workhorse for Russian forces.”

Rustakt and Minghuaxin were already working together before September. FT analysis of Russian customs records suggests Minghuaxin has shipped $304mn of parts to Rustakt, as well as $107mn of goods to an associated Russian company, Santex Plant.

...

“Russia has moved to industrial-scale use of FPV drones” said Oleksandr Danylyuk, head of the Centre for Defence Reforms. “We are talking about thousands of units per day and tens of thousands per month. These were produced through the ‘Russian Drone’ network in conjunction with Rustakt and other firms.”

The Russian companies “all critically depend on Chinese brushless motors and electronics supplied via a network of intermediaries and importers”, Danylyuk said.

...