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Druse Leader Aims to Secure Place for Syrian Minorities

As Western diplomats discover establishing ties with the rebels who took energy in Syria, a spiritual minority has been conducting its personal diplomatic push to make sure protections for its members because the nation rebuilds.
A consultant of the group, the Druse, lately went to Washington to satisfy with lawmakers, members of the Biden and Trump administrations and diplomats to plead their case.
“We’re very anxious concerning the future,” Sheikh Muwafaq Tarif stated in an interview in Washington, the place he urged U.S. officers to prioritize protections for Syria’s 1.2 million Druse as a part of their engagement with the nation’s new authorities.
In December, after an extended civil warfare, a coalition of Syrian rebels toppled President Bashar al-Assad and established an interim authorities. The insurrection put an finish to a brutal regime, however for Western nations there remained an issue: The Islamist group that led the rebellion as soon as had ties to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, and because of this was formally designated as a terrorist group.
The insurgent leaders have forsworn their previous alliances and have pledged to construct a Syria that’s tolerant of different beliefs. And Western officers, anticipating reconstruction to start, have expressed their openness to working with the Islamist group now in energy, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
However members of Syrian minority teams just like the Druse, who apply an offshoot of Shiite Islam and can be present in Lebanon, Israel and Jordan, stay skeptical. The religious chief of the Druse in Syria, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajari, expressed wariness in a current interview with a German broadcaster over the guarantees of tolerance provided by Syria’s de facto chief, Ahmad al-Shara.
Sheikh Tarif, his counterpart in Israel, advised that Mr. al-Shara was not transferring shortly sufficient.
“He’s talking properly,” Sheikh Tarif stated. “What I hear is that the West is worked up and so they like what he says. However there’s numerous worry amongst minorities. We would like the statements to be borne out by actions.”
Mr. al-Shara has sought to distance himself from his group’s jihadist roots, promising to draft a brand new structure, expressing comparatively average political positions and in search of to reassure Syria’s minorities. Within the Sweida district within the south, for instance, a Druse lady was recently appointed governor.
However some observers have advised that Mr. al-Shara could also be engaged in mere posturing to open the move of international assist. Already, some strikes his new authorities has made — like sweeping changes to textbooks — have raised considerations inside Syria about his professed dedication to spiritual variety.
Sheikh Tarif stated that in his conferences with Western officers, he was urgent for much-needed financial help for Syria, and for sanctions imposed on the nation to be lifted — however solely conditioned on proof that the brand new authorities is holding its commitments. He stated he has additionally been making an attempt to place the Druse group in Syria and all through the Center East as key companions for Western nations aiming to affect outcomes within the nation and area.
For hundreds of years, the Druse have survived throughout the Center East partially by integrating politically within the international locations the place they stay, even whereas holding their spiritual practices distinct. In Syria, they’ve performed a major historic position, main a revolt against French rule in 1925 that got here to be seen because the nation’s first nationalist rebellion.
“The Druse paid a excessive worth for Syria’s independence,” Sheikh Tarif stated.
When the rebellion in opposition to the Assad regime started in 2011, some Druse aligned with the insurgent teams, although the group’s assist was combined, with concern that jihadist teams combating the regime would show hostile to their beliefs. Druse fighters did participate within the insurgent offensive that deposed Mr. al-Assad.
In Israel, the Druse group of about 150,000 people who Mr. Tarif leads has in recent times protested the far-right authorities’s adoption of a legislation that marginalizes minorities. “There’s a lot to enhance,” he stated. However Mr. Tarif dismissed criticism of the Israeli navy’s current strikes to grab territory in Syria close to its border, saying Israel was appearing to make sure it personal safety.
He famous that Druse commanders and troopers had misplaced their lives combating as members of the Israeli navy within the conflicts set off by the Hamas-led assault on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and recalled the deaths final summer time of 12 younger Druse within the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights who had been killed by a Hezbollah rocket from Lebanon.
Given their presence in a number of nations, Sheikh Tarif stated, the Druse take into account themselves a possible bridge. “We will present stay in peace,” he stated.

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Spring-loaded Robot Could Explore the Asteroid Belt Almost Indefinitely

The asteroid belt beckons – it incorporates sufficient sources for people to increase into the whole remainder of the photo voltaic system and has no biosphere to talk of. Basically, it’s a large mine simply ready to be exploited. So, a scholar workforce from the College of Texas at Austin has devised a plan to use it as a part of the Revolutionary Aerospace System Ideas – Educational Linkage (RASC-AL), a contest sponsored by NASA to encourage undergraduate and graduate college students to develop modern concepts to unravel a few of area exploration’s challenges. UT Austin’s submission to the competitors final yr, often known as the Autonomous Exploration By Extraterrestrial Areas (AETHER) undertaking, definitely matches that invoice.
AETHER was submitted to the AI-Powered Self-Replicating Probes sub-section of RASC-AL 2024, which solicited concepts that might advance John von Neumann’s thought of a self-replicating area probe. AETHER addresses these challenges in two distinct methods.
First, it combines a spring-loaded touchdown system and a metal-burning rocket engine to hop between totally different asteroids within the belt. To gasoline its rocket, it makes use of a system to reap water and metallic (particularly aluminum) from the floor of the asteroid it’s at the moment on, splits it into its parts, after which dumps them right into a gasoline tank that can be utilized to energy its subsequent journey to a unique asteroid. All of that is powered by a Kilowatt Reactor Utilizing Stirling TechnoloY (KRUSTY) nuclear reactor that has been present process NASA and DoE testing for over a decade.
The springs in AETHER’s legs have a two-fold goal. First, they permit for a tender touchdown on the floor of the gravitationally weak asteroid and might switch a number of the vitality created by that touchdown into saved vitality, which can be utilized to launch the system from its touchdown place later. It additionally has a set of wheels to navigate across the asteroid’s floor. When it’s time to leap off once more, it replants its legs and is derived again into area – with slightly assist from its rocket engine.
The rocket engine designed as a part of AETHER can burn metallic, corresponding to aluminum, that the craft harvests from the asteroid to make use of as gasoline. It’s the major system designed to take the craft from asteroid to asteroid, and it’s meant to be a high-delta-v choice for doing so rapidly.
AETHER additionally tries to imitate a von Neumann probe by utilizing a machine-learning algorithm to enhance its resource-harvesting efforts. It could take knowledge from varied sensors, together with artificial aperture radar and a spectrometer, and estimate the place the perfect spot could be to land to refuel. Whereas accumulating that extra gasoline materials, it will talk again with Earth by way of a high-speed optical communication hyperlink, permitting an Earth-based server to replace the machine studying parameters and enhance the algorithm’s consequence for the following hop.
Credit score – HeroX YouTuBe Channel
The unique mission design for AETHER has it stopping at two particular asteroids earlier than shifting on to as-yet-unnamed ones. The primary, which might be no shock, is Psyche, the large metallic asteroid that’s about to be visited by its personal devoted probe. Information from that probe will assist inform the primary iteration of AETHER’s studying algorithm, and the enter the sensors present from its go to will replace it earlier than its subsequent step – Themis. That asteroid, although smaller, is predicted to comprise a considerable amount of water ice, which is a mandatory element for AETHER’s rocket engines.
After visiting the primary two asteroids, the mission strikes on to locations unknown, as finishing these steps could be thought of a hit. However given the longevity of the KRUSTY reactor and the craft’s capability to refill its personal gasoline tank, it’s potential, and even possible, that AETHER would contemplate working effectively previous its rendezvous with Themis.
The UT Austin workforce was comprised solely of undergraduate college students, although it’s unclear what yr of research they had been in. However, given their expertise with the 2024 model of RASC-AL, they would appear well-placed to submit a undertaking proposal for the just lately introduced 2025 model. In the event that they do, hopefully, their thought shall be simply as modern as AETHER’s.
Be taught Extra:
Flores et al – AETHER
UT – Miniaturized Jumping Robots Could Study An Asteroid’s Gravity
UT – NASA Funds the Development of a Nuclear Reactor on the Moon That Would Last for 10 Years
UT – Engineers Design a Robot That Can Stick To, Crawl Along, and Sail Around Rubble Pile Asteroids
Lead Picture:
Touchdown and take-off depiction of AETHER.
Credit score – Flores et al.
News
Two earthquakes near Malibu, one in Inland Empire rattle L.A. region

Two small earthquakes rattled the Malibu space Friday and Saturday, adopted by one other one within the Inland Empire.
The primary Malibu quake was reported round 11:44 p.m. Friday and was registered as a magnitude 3.7, with an epicenter about 6.8 miles northwest of Malibu, in line with the U.S. Geological Survey. It was felt throughout the Westside, San Fernando Valley and Ventura County in addition to within the Los Angeles Basin and South Bay.
A second quake, which was measured as a magnitude 3.5, struck in roughly the identical space at 6:30 a.m. Saturday. Residents in Ventura County reported feeling a pointy jolt, and the shaking triggered some automobile alarms.
A 3rd quake, measured at magnitude 3.5, was recorded close to the San Jacinto Mountains in Riverside County at 2:16 p.m. Saturday, with an epicenter a number of miles south of Idyllwild.
There have been no reviews of harm from any of the quakes.

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Heavy Rain Strikes Kentucky and Tennessee

Uncommon downpours in February started to pound a broad swath of the Decrease Mississippi Valley, from western parts of Kentucky and Tennessee and increasing to southwestern Virginia, officers and residents reported on Saturday.
Flooding in these areas could possibly be “life-threatening,” the Nationwide Climate Service stated on Saturday. It additionally stated that widespread flash flooding was anticipated over components of the decrease Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee Valleys.
“That is unprecedented for mid-February, at the least within the final 20 years,” stated Phil Baker, a meteorologist with the Nationwide Climate Service in Memphis, of the rain in Kentucky and Tennessee.
Whereas there have been no fast stories of deaths or catastrophic property harm, officers warned residents to be ready for the heavy rain, and not to drive by way of floodwaters as a result of the water can change into electrified.
Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky said on Saturday afternoon {that a} landslide would preserve Freeway 160 in Knott County closed for a number of hours. Mr. Beshear additionally stated that the water in Elizabethtown, a metropolis of 33,000 residents, was reaching document ranges. Some houses in Perry County had been evacuated, he stated.
In Tennessee, officers stated that some roads, principally within the western a part of the state, had been flooding, together with State Route 210 in Lauderdale County.
For the remainder of the jap United States, frost, ice or snow was anticipated to coat a lot of the jap United States on Saturday into Sunday. However the uncommon springlike surge of hotter, wetter climate into Sunday morning might imply that components of the area will even face flooding rains, extreme storms, freezing rain and, within the far north, heavy snow.
Listed here are the hazards to observe for.
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Flooding rain: From northeastern Arkansas to southwestern West Virginia, there’s a average threat of extreme rainfall that would trigger rivers to rise or result in flash flooding. One to a few inches of rain fell over northwest Arkansas to northwest Tennessee on Friday evening.
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Extreme storms: Within the Deep South, primarily in northern Louisiana and Mississippi, an outbreak of extreme storms that would embrace tornadoes and damaging winds is feasible from Saturday afternoon into the night.
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Heavy snow: Average to heavy snow has been hitting the Midwest, which might stand up to 13 inches of snow by Sunday. It was anticipated on Saturday to maneuver towards the Nice Lakes by way of New England. Maine might see as much as 19 inches of snow by Monday.
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Wintry combine: New York and different cities alongside the Northeast coast will see snow first on Saturday afternoon, earlier than heat air strikes in, turning the precipitation to a large number of sleet, freezing rain after which rain. Some areas, particularly near the coast, will transition shortly from snow to rain. Some average snow might fall throughout the upper elevations of the Appalachians.
The rainfall is the rarity of this mid-February storm.
The area most susceptible to flooding — together with Tennessee and Kentucky — is already soaking wet, with some rivers close to or at flood stage after having seen weeks of latest rainfall.
This uncommon quantity of moisture surging north is extra intense than the rain that has already fallen. And a few locations, like Lexington, Ky., the place three to 5 inches of rain is forecast, might break their February document for each day rainfall. (Over three inches of rain was measured there on Feb. 13, 1989.)
“A part of the issue is earlier than this rain occasion even began this morning, the grounds have already been saturated from earlier rainfall,” stated Mr. Baker, the forecaster. “There’s going to be river flooding that’s going to persist for days.”
As of Saturday, the heaviest rainfall was anticipated over northwest Tennessee and western Kentucky, Mr. Baker stated, with 4 to 6 inches of rain anticipated. As much as eight inches of rain might fall in some remoted areas, he stated.
With the bottom already saturated, forecasters in locations like Paducah, Ky., are particularly involved by a few of the outlier rainfall quantities of as much as seven inches.
“It received’t take a lot to provide flooding,” one forecaster there wrote, warning that the area “could have a major flooding occasion on our fingers.”
Forecasters within the mountainous areas within the jap areas of the locations most in danger for flooding warned that the bottom had produced situations ripe for landslides and particles flows on steep slopes across the space.
Forecasters in Charleston, W.Va., reminded residents who stay on or on the base of hillsides to observe for indicators of potential floor motion: timber leaning in uncommon orientations, or water and dust seeping in the place they aren’t anticipated.
The hotter, springlike storm is predicted to maneuver off the Atlantic seaboard by Sunday night, and winter will return on Monday.
Temperatures will plunge to under common throughout the jap United States. Snow is prone to return on Tuesday and Wednesday, coating the identical areas that will probably flood this weekend in Tennessee and Kentucky — all as a coastal storm presumably returns heavy snow again to northeast coastal cities.
Adeel Hassan contributed reporting.

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