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Detroit (AP) — China will soon see a massive expansion of electric vehicle battery swapping, as global battery maker CATL said Wednesday it is investing heavily in stations there next year. Battery swapping is not new — but it's had a challenging journey. Adoption of electric vehicles has varied in regions across the globe over the past several years, and that doesn't always bode well for building new infrastructure. While the technology could do well in China, it's uncertain whether it could work in other countries. Battery swapping allows EV drivers to pull into a station on a low battery and receive a swapped, fully-charged battery within minutes. An EV has to be equipped with the right technology to receive a swap — and not many models around the world currently have it. Automakers have to buy into the idea, and EV adoption among consumers also has to grow, so that investing in new infrastructure seems worthwhile. Consumers also have to be comfortable not owning their battery. China is much further along in adopting EVs than other countries. Not only is it the world's largest auto market, but in July, the country hit a milestone with 50% of new sales electric — and it accounts for most of this year's global EV sales. China supports EV growth through government subsidies and mandates. So it makes more sense for companies to invest in unique EV infrastructure there because that's more likely to be needed. The most notable example might be Israeli startup Better Place, which tried its hand at swapping in 2007. But the company shut down a few years later after investing a lot of money and coming up against roadblocks with logistics. EV adoption was especially low at the time. Startup Ample, for example, has a modular battery swapping station that it says can complete a swap in 5 minutes. That’s important as charging time remains a point of concern for prospective EV buyers. Even the fastest fast chargers could take at least 15 minutes for a decent charge. But in the U.S., pure EVs only accounted for 8% of new vehicle sales as of November. Meanwhile Nio, a rival Chinese EV brand, has about 60 swap stations in northern Europe, and the EV adoption is higher there than the U.S., but the same challenges remain. Different automakers put different batteries in their various EV models, so a station would need all of those available if the industry didn't agree to a standardized battery, and not all of those models are out yet in volume. This is something that really needs scale. Swapping could help with EV cost — currently a barrier to adoption for many — because a driver wouldn’t necessarily own the most expensive part of an EV: the battery. Greg Less, director of the University of Michigan Battery Lab, said with proper framing and education, people might like the idea of battery swapping. To him, it's not unlike buying a propane-fueled grill and purchasing a refilled tank every so often. But it would require a rethinking of car ownership. "Where I could see it working is if we went entirely away from vehicle ownership and we went to a use-on-demand model," Less added. “I don’t think we’re there yet.” Battery swapping might make most sense for ride-sharing or other fleet vehicles. Drivers of buses, taxis, Uber or Lyft vehicles want to spend as much time on the road as possible, transporting customers and making money. If battery swapping can shorten the time needed to charge EVs, that makes driving one less disruptive to their business. Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate solutions reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn . Reach her at ast.john@ap.org . Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org .Thousands have demonstrated in Tbilisi to demand new parliamentary elections and denounce Georgia's government as illegitimate ahead of a contested presidential inauguration. or signup to continue reading According to media reports, a human chain stretched through the entire capital before protesters gathered in front of the parliament building. Saturday's rally was initially peaceful, with protests also recorded in other cities, including Batumi, Kutaisi, Zugdidi, Poti, Rustavi and Gurjaani, local media reported. The inauguration of the disputed new president of Georgia, Mikheil Kavelashvili, is set for Sunday despite weeks of protests. The outgoing pro-Western head of state, Salome Zourabichvili, plans to prevent his inauguration as she does not recognise Kavelashvili's legitimacy. Zurabishvili called on her supporters to gather in front of the presidential palace on Sunday. "I am waiting for you in front of the Orbeliani Palace," she was quoted as saying by the NewsGeorgia agency. She said she would then decide with her supporters how to proceed over the next few days. For weeks, thousands of people have been demonstrating daily in Georgia for a return to the country's pro-EU policies and for a re-run of October's parliamentary election, which saw the nationalist ruling Georgian Dream party declare itself the winner. Protesters fear the party is too close to Russia and will bring the country further into Moscow's orbit, decades after it won independence from the Soviet Union. DAILY Today's top stories curated by our news team. WEEKDAYS Grab a quick bite of today's latest news from around the region and the nation. WEEKLY The latest news, results & expert analysis. WEEKDAYS Catch up on the news of the day and unwind with great reading for your evening. 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KEY QUESTIONS: What are the injury updates from Sunday's game? - detroitlions.comScorpio – (23rd October to 21st November) Weekly Horoscope Prediction says, Overcome the tremors with a smile A happy love life and a productive professional life are your takeaways. Wealth will come in but ensure you handle it with care. Your health is also good. Resolve the issues to spend more time with the lover. All professional targets will be met and financially you are stronger. Health will also be positive. Scorpio Love Horoscope This Week You need to have a little control of your anger and temperament as that would be helpful to drive you to lead a good relationship. This is also a good time to conceive and Scorpios can think about starting a new family. Single Scorpios will be happy to know that the chances of finding new love are high. Be practical in romance and also learn to be diplomatic in conversations. The lover may not be comfortable doing or hearing a few things and you need to be careful about this. Scorpio Career Horoscope This Week Be careful about the professional assignments and ensure you stay in the good book of the management. Some professionals, especially those who are into IT, healthcare, finance, sales, and civil engineering may relocate abroad for job purposes. This week is good to switch the job and you can confidently put down the paper and update the resume on a job portal. Businessmen will see new opportunities to augment the trade and some entrepreneurs will also venture to territories abroad. Scorpio Money Horoscope This Week Financial fortune will be at your side. You will buy a new property in the first part of the week. A bank loan will be approved and you will also be able to clear all pending dues. You may consider a foreign trip with the family as the financial stats permit that. You may invest in the stock for a better future. Scorpio Health Horoscope This Week Fortunately, your health will be absolutely fine this week. No major medical issue will disturb the normal life. Make exercise a part of the routine. While driving, keep the speed under the limit and always wear the seat belt. Athletes and sports persons may develop minor injuries in the second part of the week. Scorpio Sign Attributes Strength Mystic, Practical, Intelligent, Independent, Dedicated, Charming, Sensible Weakness: Suspicious, Complicated, Possessive, Arrogant, Extreme Symbol: Scorpion Element: Water Body Part: Sexual Organs Sign Ruler: Pluto, Mars Lucky Day: Tuesday Lucky Color: Purple, Black Lucky Number: 4 Lucky Stone: Red Coral Scorpio Sign Compatibility Chart Natural affinity: Cancer, Virgo, Capricorn, Pisces Good compatibility: Taurus, Scorpio Fair compatibility: Aries, Gemini, Libra, Sagittarius Less compatibility: Leo, Aquarius By: Dr. J. N. Pandey Vedic Astrology & Vastu Expert Website: www.astrologerjnpandey.com E-mail: djnpandey@gmail.com Phone: 91-9811107060 (WhatsApp Only)
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Jack Henry & Associates Inc. stock rises Monday, still underperforms marketGanghwa, South Korea: For seven years, Kim Seongmin has been facing a cancer that has spread to his lungs, brain and liver. Doctors recently gave him only months to live. He can’t sleep at night without painkillers. Still, Kim broadcasts into North Korea twice a day, bringing its people news and information they are cut off from because of strict censorship laws. “North Korea is keeping its people like frogs trapped in a deep well,” said Kim, 62, during an interview at his rural home on this island west of Seoul, where he records and edits shows for Free North Korea Radio. “We broadcast to help them realise that there is something wrong with their political system.” Kim Seongmin, president of Free North Korea Radio, edits content for the station at his home on Ganghwa Island, west of Seoul, South Korea. Credit: Chang W. Lee/The New York Times For two decades, North Korean defectors living in South Korea have been infiltrating the North with outside news and entertainment, through balloons floated across the border or broadcasts such as those from Kim’s radio station. But Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, has grown increasingly sensitive to “anti-socialist and non-socialist” influences that could threaten his totalitarian grip on power, and he is cracking down on such efforts like never before. Authorities are searching homes and pedestrians, meting out harsh punishments, including public executions, to people who consume news and TV dramas from South Korea, or even if they sing, speak, dress and text-message like South Koreans, according to North Korean documents and a South Korean government report. Bottles filled with rice and packages, each containing propaganda posters, a US dollar bill and a Bible, which Kim Seongmin’s group plans to send to North Korea. Credit: Chang W. Lee/The New York Times North Korea has been flexing its military muscle beyond the Korean Peninsula by sending troops and weapons to Russia to support its war against Ukraine. But at home, Kim Jong-un is reinforcing the country’s defences against foreign influences. He has built more walls along North Korea’s border with China, giving soldiers there a shoot-to-kill order to stop an outflow of refugees and an influx of people smuggling outside goods and information. He has destroyed his country’s few roads and railways linking to South Korea, after declaring that the North was no longer interested in reunification with the South. And he has introduced a slate of draconian new censorship laws. “We sense the fears of the Kim Jong-un regime,” Admiral Kim Myung-soo, the chair of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, told parliament recently. This year, the North called foreign content being sent across from the South “filth” and retaliated by sending balloons filled with rubbish and broadcasting eerie noises across the border. Defectors prepare to release balloons carrying leaflets and a banner denouncing Kim Jong-un in 2016. Such continued campaigns have enraged the Kim regime. Credit: AP Kim, the founder of Free North Korea Radio, was a captain and propaganda writer at a North Korean artillery unit when he fled to China in 1995. He wanted to defect to South Korea but was arrested at a Chinese port. He said he was on his way to Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, for certain execution when he jumped through the window of a train toilet booth while an armed guard waited outside. He fled back to China and arrived in Seoul in 1999. He launched Free North Korea Radio in 2004. “He was a pioneer, the first North Korean defector to start a radio broadcast into the North,” said Lee Min-bok, a fellow defector who began sending leaflet-filled balloons to the North around the time Kim started his radio broadcasts. “He spoke more closely to the North Korean heart, because he broadcast in North Korean dialects.” During recent broadcasts, Kim’s station reported international criticism of the North’s troop dispatch to Russia and invited North Korean female veterans to testify to any sexual violence they had endured in the North’s Korean People’s Army. It carried letters from Japanese people whose family members had been kidnapped to the North. North Korean defectors living in the South reported that there was hot water in every South Korean home while ordinary North Koreans had to take cold showers, even in the winter. Lee Si-young, director of Free North Korea Radio, at the recording studio where its content is recorded daily in Seoul, South Korea. Credit: Chang W. Lee/The New York Times Kim often gets information from informers inside the North who use mobile phones with prepaid Chinese SIM cards. With those phones, they can pick up Chinese signals from near the border and exchange calls, text messages and photos with Kim. With their help, he reported the execution of Jang Song-thaek, Kim Jong-un’s uncle, in 2013, days before the North’s state media announced it. Through his sources, Kim also monitored young North Koreans who grew up in the wake of a famine in the 1990s and have depended more on unofficial markets than on state rations to feed themselves. They trust their government less than the generations before them did and have an insatiable appetite for foreign entertainment and news, which they obtained through CDs, DVDs and computer memory sticks smuggled from China, as well as through balloons carrying USB drives and broadcasts such as Kim’s. Kim can’t tell how many North Koreans listen to his shortwave broadcasts, which are financed by US and South Korean human rights and religious groups. In the North, all radio and TV sets have their channels fixed to receive only government broadcasts, although defectors say people often manipulate their devices to receive South Korean broadcasts. Free North Korea Radio and other sources of outside news – such as Radio Free Asia, funded by the US Congress, and North Korea Reform Radio, which is run by another group of defectors – seek to chip away at the information blackout. The office of Free North Korea Radio in Seoul, South Korea. Credit: Chang W. Lee/The New York Times Efforts to exert influence from abroad have increasingly drawn Kim Jong-un’s ire as he seeks to control the country’s younger generations, according to internal North Korean government documents Kim received from his informers. “Anti-socialist and non-socialist practices” have become a malicious tumour that “penetrated deep into social life in general,” putting North Korea’s socialist system at a crossroads, said one of the North Korean documents that Kim shared with The New York Times . In an unnamed provincial city, 9000 high school students surrendered themselves for watching “impure” videos after authorities promised not to punish them. Under laws introduced recently by Kim Jong-un, those who watch, possess or distribute South Korean content face a punishment of five to 10 years in labour camps, according to the South’s National Intelligence Service. Even those who “speak, write or sing” in a South Korean style or publish texts using South Korean fonts face up to two years of hard labour. Loading Those who distribute them widely face the death penalty. A 22-year-old farmworker was killed by firing squad in 2022 for possessing 70 songs and three movies from South Korea and sharing them with seven other people, according to a human rights report from South Korea’s Unification Ministry. Last year, North Korea called for “random inspections” of electronic devices to ferret out those who consume South Korean videos and broadcasts. The crackdown has created a chilling effect, leading to an estimated 70 per cent drop in outside information reaching North Koreans, said Kang Shin-sam, head of the Seoul-based human rights group Unification Academy, during a recent forum. But some North Koreans find new ways to circumvent censorship, other analysts say. Kim Seongmin worked at a studio in Seoul with a staff of five other North Korean defectors until he moved months ago to his island house. Two police officers are assigned to guard him against possible terrorist attacks from North Korea. Loading Over the years, he has received numerous threats from South Koreans who accused him of raising tensions with the North, as well as anonymous packages that contained dead mice or dolls smeared with red paint, and with knives stuck in their chest. A North Korean secret police officer he had known in the North once called him from China, threatening to harm his sisters in the North, Kim said. But he persisted. In July, the South Korean government awarded him a citizen’s medal for his work. Lee Si-young, another defector who joined the station’s staff eight years ago, said she listened to Free North Korea Radio while in the North. “For North Koreans, our radio signals are like a lighthouse in the darkness, bringing hope that a better day will come,” she said. Kim said he would die knowing that the work he started would be continued by younger defectors he trained. “I will die a happy man,” he said. This article originally appeared in The New York Times . Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Dictators North Korea South Korea Kim Jong-un For subscribers Most Viewed in World Loading
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NoneMy problem is not being able to turn new relationships into meaningful friendships. I have met many wonderful people but have a problem getting close with anyone. Any suggestions? — Feeling Isolated Dear Isolated: I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you’re not alone. Many adults struggle to make the deep connections they want, especially later in life or in new communities. I turned to my friend and friendship expert Anna Goldfarb, author of “Modern Friendship: How to Nurture Our Most Valued Connections.” Here’s what she advises: “One of the best strategies for deepening a friendship is to provide what researchers call social identity support, which is seeing your friends for all the roles they play in their life: their race, class, gender and religion. This could look like asking to try their favorite dishes they grew up eating, including them in your cultural traditions and signaling that you’d like to be a part of theirs, too. “Another strategy is to recruit an accountability buddy. Identify a meaningful goal you both want to achieve — moving your body more, learning how to knit, watching every Matt Damon movie in chronological order — whatever floats your boat. Your friendship will deepen as you cheer on one another because you’re more invested in your successes.” Goldfarb told me, and I agree, that you’re off to a great start. So, you should congratulate yourself on making the effort and for continuing to try. It’s not always easy or as straightforward as we’d like, but you’re on the right path. Dear Eric: I enjoy your column and would like to make a comment regarding the letter from “Game Off” regarding her frustrations with her 10-year-old grandnephew who plays video games while on family vacation. I agree family time is important, and, in her own home, she should negotiate something with her niece so she can spend time with her grandnephew during visits. However, she’s completely out of touch regarding gaming. Many colleges now have competitive gaming teams supported by computing and graphic design faculty and they operate out of the athletics department just like other teams — it’s called “esports” and is becoming a big business. Her grandnephew may be headed to a successful career down the road through gaming. — Game Time Dear Game Time: You’re right, it’s all about balance. The letter writer can and should communicate her needs and wants regarding family visits. But she should also remain open to parenting choices that may not be what she would do in a similar circumstance. Additionally, while moderation is important when making decisions about gaming, you’re correct that it’s a growing and sometimes lucrative field of study and competition. The first esports college scholarship was given out in 2014 and there are currently more than 250 varsity-level esports programs across the United States and Canada, per the National Association of Collegiate Esports.
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