Alexa Olesen
@ouleishan.bsky.social
China-focused researcher & consultant. China Leaks & Panama Papers for ICIJ. Ex-AP China.
Why Xi Jinping brought a ‘star team’ of top officials for talks with Kim Jong Un; Large delegation featuring Xi’s confidants suggest China wants to arrest North Korea’s drift toward Russia, experts say | NK News www.nknews.org/2026/06/why-...
Why Xi Jinping brought a ‘star team’ of top officials for talks with Kim Jong Un | NK News
Chinese leader Xi Jinping brought a “star team” of top economic, party and military officials on his second state visit to North Korea, experts say, a move that suggests Beijing is placing greater pri...
nknews.org
Welcome to the greatest city on Earth. Here are some tips and tricks for how to get around and make the most of your time here. Learn more at nyctourism.com.
The Smile mission is a testament to global cooperation. It marks the first time ESA and China have jointly selected, designed, implemented, launched, and operated a mission together, showcasing 25 years of partnership. 🤝🌍 #InternationalSpace #Innovation #ESA 3/4
Absolutely not surprising but a limited leak of a Chinese local surveillance platform drawing off an apparently large national one has a special drop down for tracking for tracking foreign journalists in China… including me. @netaskari.bsky.social found the data open.substack.com/pub/netaskar...
Keelung-Ishigaki ferry starts 5/28. Yay! Been wanting this for years. www.taiwannews.com.tw/news/6361577
Keelung-Ishigaki ferry service to launch May 28 | Taiwan News | May. 13, 2026 19:27
Service to double to 2 weekly sailings in July | May. 13, 2026 19:27
taiwannews.com.tw
Always close the door behind you in a fire to protect yourself and your neighbors. @fdny.bsky.social works hard to keep us safe, let's do our best to keep each other safe.
The controversial weed killer Roundup is now being deployed in private and public forests at record rates. We go inside the secret plan that helped make it possible.
We are bombarding America’s forests with Roundup
Scientists are wary of glyphosate. MAHA loathes it. And our investigation shows California is spraying it everywhere.
motherjones.com
The United States now has the most government restrictions on academic freedom of any high-income country. www.chemistryworld.com/news/academi... Raw data from @vdeminstitute.bsky.social —> academic-freedom-index.net/research/Aca...
Fifteen minutes before the President announced he was pausing strikes on Iran, somebody moved $500 million in oil futures. Somebody knew. Somebody told them. Or somebody is them. New piece ↓ open.substack.com/pub/adamkinz...
This Isn't Trading. It's Theft from Your Retirement.
Someone keeps making perfectly-timed bets right before the President speaks. The victims are your pension, your 401(k), and the country I took an oath to defend.
open.substack.com
BREAKING The four Artemis astronauts have fired up their spacecraft's engine to break away from Earth orbit and zoom towards the Moon, a milestone that commits NASA to the first crewed lunar flyby in more than half-a-century
A few people have replied to my Artemis posts with links to Gil Scott-Heron's "Whitey on the Moon." Here's a story from Space.com about Artemis II pilot Victor Glover, currently en route to fly around the Moon, and his connection to that piece. www.space.com/space-explor...
NASA's Artemis 2 pilot Victor Glover listens to 'Whitey on the Moon' every Monday. This is why.
"It ain't about racism. It's about the human condition."
space.com
I went back to capture what the astronauts said in full when the clock was stopped at T-10 minutes and they were asked if they were go for launch: This is Victor. We are going for our families. This is Christina. We are going for our teammates. This is Jeremy. We are going for all humanity.
Dr. Jessie Christiansen@aussiastronomer.bsky.social · 5mo ago"OUTSTANDING."
This is my favorite climate change chart. Japanese monks, aristocrats, and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years and accidentally built the world's longest climate dataset.
NEW: Dozens of robotaxis by Baidu stopped on the road in Wuhan, China, causing crashes on highways and trapping passengers in the cars—some for more than an hour. One passenger told me it took her 30 minutes to even connect to a customer representative. Here’s a dash cam video of one crash.
The universe is a glorious, stunningly beautiful place, and it’s offensive & gross when people produce or share fake space imagery. There’s a video floating around on here pretending to be the night sky viewed from Mars. It’s extremely fake, has been polluting the internet for years. Don’t share it
No, This Isn't What the Night Sky Looks Like on Mars
Fake news.
petapixel.com
Solar system bound exploration appears in a draft of China's new 15th five-year plan. Recent proposal: - Launches in 2032 & 2033 - CZ-5 rockets + Jupiter gravity assists - Would study head & tail of heliosphere - Powered by nuclear reactors - Possible Neptune/Uranus/Saturn flybys
SpaceNews @spacenewsinc.bsky.social · 8mo agoChina advances plans for dual solar system boundary missions China has published coordinated papers outlining dual missions to the solar system’s edge, suggesting the long-studied project is nearing formal approval.
Surprise! The Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post is against my 5% billionaire wealth tax. I wonder why? If enacted, Bezos would owe $12 billion in taxes, and an average family of 4 would receive a $12,000 direct payment. Poor Jeff would be left with just $224 billion to survive.
1/9. In 2020 Iran did try to interfere with the presidential election.
While cruelty has always been the point of Trump's whole Administration, nothing highlights that more than dropping a nearly blind elderly man 5 miles from nowhere in freezing weather so that he die alone, afraid, and abandoned. This is Trump's America. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
Nearly blind refugee abandoned by US border patrol found dead in Buffalo
Investigation under way after man was dropped off five miles from home but family wasn’t notified, officials say
theguardian.com
Trump’s language is dangerous beyond any of Biden’s gaffes. It infers Xi has a say in the nature of US arm sales to Taiwan at best, and violates the Six Assurances at worst. If Trump does not release a clarifying statement as soon as possible, then we should be deeply concerned.
Lev Nachman@lnachman32.bsky.social · 7mo agoIf weapon sales to Taiwan are openly on the table for US-China talks, then we are truly entering a new era of uncertainty. Even just Trump saying this out loud is trouble for the Lai administration and cannon fodder for American skepticism here in Taiwan. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
@barackobama.bsky.social: "When I was POTUS, I suppose I could have simply unilaterally ordered the military to go into some red state and harass and intimidate a governor or cut off funding for states that didn't vote for me... but that is contrary to how I think our democracy is supposed to work."
“…this is something to keep in mind if you’re using a Google camera. Even if you aren’t paying for storage, every event recorded by the camera is going to Google’s servers, and it’s probably recoverable long past the deletion timeline stipulated in the company’s policy.”
Google recovers "deleted" Nest video in high-profile abduction case
Users only get three hours of free Nest video storage, but Google can retrieve videos much later.
arstechnica.com
RIP Bud Cort. How else would you even pay tribute to him.
The largest federal prison in the nation is Fort Dix, which has a rated capacity of 4,600 people. The largest of these warehouse camps may hold more than twice that number of people. The federal government hasn't operated a prison camp inside the United States that large since Japanese Internment.
Right now Rikers Island, the physically largest jail in the entire United States, is holding under 7,000 people. ICE's warehouse plans include detention camps which will hold between 8,500-10,000 people in buildings not designed for human habitation.