Macron Offers Aid For Greenland Security Amid Trump Threats

President Emmanuel Macron said France would be available to conduct joint exercises to improve security in Greenland, the Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump.
'Greenland is subject to preying ambitions,' Macron told reporters in Nuuk, Greenland, Sunday alongside Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. 'Everyone thinks — in France and in the EU — that Greenland shall neither be sold nor taken.'

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San Francisco Chronicle​

35 minutes ago

• San Francisco Chronicle​

How Trump's trade war has forced me to rediscover my hidden superpower

Like many Americans, I've struggled with the whiplash of President Donald Trump's trade war. Amid the gut punch of Liberation Day, I worried whether to dip into savings to panic-buy bananas, avocados and Parmesan Reggiano. (Ultimately, I resisted, but did stock up on coffee — I'm only human). Since then, each head-spinning tariff update has reopened wounds of childhood material deprivation and pandemic scarcity. As a child, I skipped meals for lack of resources. I have since crafted my life to avoid ever worrying again about another bounced check or missed electric bill. But it's hard to feel empowered in the face of chronic economic chaos. Tariffs are already increasing the prices and availability of essential goods. The situation could become dire when tariffs start to impact access to medications that many Americans with chronic illnesses like me rely on. With my partner recently unemployed, I'm our household's sole earner. We're tracking every penny to make ends meet. To cope, the religious side of me recites the Serenity Prayer: 'God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference.' As a sociologist, however, I search for opportunities for individual resistance, no matter how modest, to counter immense social forces. Yes, there's much we can't control. But we can always do something. And lately, I'm discovering that something may be nothing. I've resisted ransacking stores like a doomsday prepper, realizing that I possess a greater power than stuffing my shopping cart: my lifelong frugality. I refuse to let the world's most powerful bully — our president — drive my behavior, nor let billionaires like Mark Cuban or media commentators dictate what I 'should' do, advising me to buy more and buy now. I don't fault anyone's urgency to purchase that new phone, car or early Christmas gifts. But I'm buying as little as possible. And I invite you to join me. In the spirit of never letting a serious crisis go to waste, as former Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel once wisely counseled, we shouldn't squander this crucial opportunity to modify our consumption habits and reassess what we need compared to what we want. We're overdue for a cultural reset when it comes to our dependence on cheap products and trends like fast fashion that pollute our environment by wasting huge amounts of water and energy while emitting greenhouse gases and leaving us choking on plastic. Those TikTok 'haul' videos come with a steep price. Younger me rolled my eyes at calls to dial back consumerism, such as when a decades-older college classmate lamented the difficulty of finding her son sneakers made without overseas exploited labor. But I grew up. Now I'm that older woman worried about the human and environmental cost of inexpensive goods flooding our marketplace. The truth is that some things shouldn't be so cheap. Years ago, I remember feeling mildly horrified at the mountains of toys in my sister's home. I surmised she'd bought her kids everything we lacked growing up. But visiting friends with young children has confirmed that drowning in toys is now the hallmark of a typical middle-class American childhood. Trump has made repeated statements about the number of dolls he thinks girls should have, saying, 'I don't think a beautiful baby girl that's 11 years old needs to have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls or four dolls.' Putting aside the ick factor of his patronizing language about gender, morally and logistically, I agree with reducing excess. But that's the only nod I'll give him. Kids will survive with fewer toys. But higher toy prices are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to China, or 'the country that makes all our stuff,' as comedian Stephen Colbert quipped. Imagine the absurd cruelty of telling older adults to survive on only a few of their prescription pills, which are also increasingly manufactured in China. As for the nonessential stuff, I'm proud of my working-class family's survival strategies that I still employ. Growing up, we stretched, scrimped, repaired and saved. Dad scavenged furniture and books from the trash. Mom scoured supermarket sales to feed our family of six, creating a complex shopping list organized around deals from weekly loss leaders. She made everything from after-school snacks to Barbie's outfits. I clumsily sewed my own dresses to wear. Neighborhood mothers donated bags bursting with clothes their kids had outgrown. Thrift stores supplied everything else. I have come to appreciate how this childhood spurred my imagination and creativity. Though we struggled financially, I still learned to be a magician. Thinking and dreaming cost nothing. I conjured images out of thin air and changed reality with the power of my mind. Library books taught me how to be an escape artist, whisking me to faraway worlds. Spending less, not due to necessity but choice, is a quiet yet powerful form of protest. The BuyNothing project, which aims to foster community through a gift economy, promotes a different form of wealth in the connections cultivated among neighbors. Right to repair laws and tool lending libraries can help protect us from obsolescence and forced replacement purchases. We gain more collectively by sharing and giving than accumulating things that clutter our homes and clog our landfills. One of my heroes, photographer Bill Cunningham, famously declined food and drink while working events, explaining, 'Money is the cheapest thing. Liberty is the most expensive.'

Yahoo

35 minutes ago

• Yahoo

Even after US strikes, Iran may still have the ability to make a nuclear bomb

It would be sensible to wait until the dust has settled before judging whether the US strikes on Iran were, in Donald Trump's, words, "a spectacular military success". And when dropping bombs that weigh more than 13 tonnes each, there's going to be a lot of dust. The US claims to have struck Iran's three largest nuclear facilities. Follow latest: Perhaps the most important is the Fordow complex, buried deep in a mountain near the city of Qom - it was the only one not previously damaged by Israeli strikes over the last few days. The claim by the US that it dropped at least six of its largest GBU-57 bunker buster bombs on Fordow is telling. Despite their size, it was known that one of them would be insufficient to penetrate 80+ metres of solid rock believed to shelter Iran's most sophisticated uranium enrichment technology deep within Fordow. Read more: It seems the US used their bombs to target the mountain stronghold's three entrances - at least that is what Iranian state media appears to be claiming. The idea is to rely on the significant shockwaves generated by the blasts to destroy infrastructure within and, at the very least, entomb the facility, rendering it useless. For now, at least. If nuclear facilities at Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow were "obliterated" as Donald Trump has claimed, or even crippled, it would certainly halt Iran's ability to enrich the uranium needed to make a viable nuclear weapon. But that's not the same as preventing Iran's ability to make a nuclear bomb. To do that, they need "weapons-grade" uranium; the necessary metal-shaping, explosives and timing technology needed to trigger nuclear fission in the bomb; and a mechanism for delivering it. The facilities targeted in the US raid are dedicated to achieving the first objective. Taking naturally occurring uranium ore, which contains around 0.7% uranium 235 - the isotope needed for nuclear fission - and concentrating it. The centrifuges you hear about are the tools needed to enrich U-235 to the 90% purity needed for a compact "implosion"-type warhead that can be delivered by a missile. And the reality is Iran's centrifuges have been spinning for a long time. United Nations nuclear inspectors warned in May that Iran had at least 408kg of uranium "enriched" to 60%. Getting to that level represents 90% of the time and effort to get to 90% U-235. And those 400kg would yield enough of that weapons-grade uranium to make nine nuclear weapons, the inspectors concluded. The second element is something Iran has also been working on for two decades. Precisely shaping uranium metal and making shaped explosive charges to crush it in the right way to achieve "criticality", the spark for the sub-atomic chain reaction that releases the terrifying energy in a nuclear explosion. In its recent bombing campaign, Israel is thought to have targeted facilities where Iranian nuclear scientists were doing some of that work. Analysis on the US strikes:For Trump, the performative presidency just got real But unlike the industrial processes needed to enrich uranium, these later steps can be carried out in laboratory-sized facilities. Easier to pack up and move, and easier to hide from prying eyes. Given that it's understood Iran already moved enriched uranium out of Fordow ahead of the US strike, it's far from certain that Iran has, in fact, lost its ability to make a bomb. And while the strikes may have delayed the logistics, it's possible they've emboldened a threatened Iran to intensify its warhead-making capability if it does still have one. Making a more compact implosion-based warhead is not easy. There is debate among experts about how advanced Iran is along that road. But if it felt sufficiently motivated, it does have other, less sophisticated nuclear options. Even 60% enriched uranium, of which - remember - it has a lot, can be coaxed to criticality in a much larger, cruder nuclear device. This wouldn't pose as much threat to its enemies, as it would be too heavy to fit on even the best of Iran's long-range missiles. But it would, nonetheless, elevate Iran to the status of a nuclear power.

USA Today

40 minutes ago

• USA Today

'Perilous hour': World reacts after US bombs Iranian nuclear sites

Israel hailed President Donald Trump's decision to bomb three Iranian nuclear sites as an action that would "deny the world's most dangerous regime the world's most dangerous weapons," but the United Nations and many countries around the world called for swift de-escalation while others criticized the attacks. Trump said the strikes on June 22 "totally obliterated" Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities and that Iran had to "make peace" or face more, "far greater" attacks. In response, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi warned of "everlasting consequences." However, a recorded statement Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Trump for taking what he described as a "bold decision" that "will change history." The reaction from other world quarters was more restrained and called for Iran to return to the negotiating table. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer acknowledged that Iran's nuclear program was a "grave threat to international security." He also said a "diplomatic solution" was needed to "end the crisis." Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said it was "crucial" there be "a quick de-escalation of the conflict." The European Union's top foreign policy official Kaja Kallas urged "all sides to step back, return to the negotiating table and prevent further escalation." Still, there were stronger words from longtime U.S. adversaries Venezuela and Cuba. Cuba's President Miguel Díaz-Canel characterized the U.S. bombing as a "dangerous escalation" that "seriously violates the UN charter and international law and plunges humanity into a crisis with irreversible consequences." Yvan Gil, Venezuela's foreign minister, said his country "firmly and categorically condemns the bombing." U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was "gravely alarmed" by the use of U.S. force on Iran. "There is a growing risk that this conflict could rapidly get out of control − with catastrophic consequences for civilians, the region, and the world," Guterres said in a statement. "At this perilous hour, it is critical to avoid a spiral of chaos. There is no military solution. The only path forward is diplomacy. The only hope is peace." Trump's decision to directly attack Iran alongside Israel comes more than a week after Israel started attacking Iran with a view to destroying its nuclear enrichment facilities. He did so without congressional authorization. 40,000 reasons to worry: U.S. troops in Middle East vulnerable to counterattack There has been so far been no independent assessment of Trump's claim that U.S. bombers "totally obliterated" Iran's three major nuclear sites at complexes in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. "Now that the strikes have come, Tehran faces a stark dilemma: retaliate and risk a wider war, or pause to consolidate at home," said Burcu Ozcelik, a senior research fellow in Middle East security at the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank that specializes in military affairs.