- Nick Nurse supports Kelly Oubre Jr. as questions swirl around hit-and-run incident: ‘I’m going to believe him at his word’ The Philadelphia Inquirer
- I Directed Traffic on the Street Where Kelly Oubre was Hit Crossing Broad
- Kelly Oubre Jr. crash: No video of 76ers player being hit by car, Philadelphia police say The Philadelphia Inquirer
- Kelly Oubre hit-and-run: Philly advocates press for traffic safety solutions WHYY
- Kelly Oubre Jr. ‘in good spirits’ as he returns to 76ers’ facility days after being struck by motor vehicle Yahoo Sports
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: swirl
Lukashenko health rumours swirl amid claim he was hospitalised after meeting Putin – The Independent
- Lukashenko health rumours swirl amid claim he was hospitalised after meeting Putin The Independent
- Belarus President Lukashenko critically ill after meeting with Russia’s Putin | Russia-Ukraine War WION
- Putin Poisoning? Belarus dictator Luakashenko in critical condition in Moscow hospital, says opposition figure Yahoo News
- Lukashenko ‘collapses,’ hospitalised minutes after meeting Putin; Belarus leader poisoned? Hindustan Times
- Lukashenko in Hospital After Meeting With Putin, Opposition Leader Says Newsweek
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Microsoft to expand ChatGPT access as OpenAI investment rumors swirl
Jan 16 (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) on Monday said it is widening access to hugely popular software from OpenAI, a startup it is backing whose futuristic ChatGPT chatbot has captivated Silicon Valley.
Microsoft said the startup’s tech, which it so far has previewed to its cloud-computing customers in a program it called the Azure OpenAI Service, was now generally available, a distinction that’s expected to bring a flood of new usage.
The news comes as Microsoft has looked at adding to the $1 billion stake in OpenAI it announced in 2019, two people familiar with the matter previously told Reuters. The news site Semafor reported earlier this month that Microsoft might invest $10 billion; Microsoft declined to comment on any potential deal.
Public interest in OpenAI surged following its November release of ChatGPT, a text-based chatbot that can draft prose, poetry or even computer code on command. ChatGPT is powered by generative artificial intelligence, which conjures new content after training on vast amounts of data — tech that Microsoft is letting more customers apply to use.
ChatGPT itself, not just its underlying tech, will soon be available via Microsoft’s cloud, it said in a blog post.
Microsoft said it is vetting customers’ applications to mitigate potential abuse of the software, and its filters can screen for harmful content users might input or the tech might produce.
The business potential of such software has garnered massive venture-capital investment in startups producing it, at a time funding has otherwise dried up. Already, some companies have used the tech to create marketing content or demonstrate how it could negotiate a cable bill.
Microsoft said CarMax, KPMG and others were using its Azure OpenAI service. Its press release quoted an Al Jazeera vice president as saying the service could help the news organization summarize and translate content.
Reporting By Jeffrey Dastin; Editing by Leslie Adler
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Rumors swirl that Donald Trump may announce campaign tonight in Ohio
Former President Donald Trump is speaking in Ohio tonight to stump for author and venture capitalist J.D. Vance in the final hours of the state’s contentious U.S. Senate race, but he may steal the show from Tuesday’s election.
More:Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine says he will attend Trump rally near Dayton
Trump is addressing a crowd at Dayton International Airport in Vandalia. The visit comes on the eve of midterm elections that will decide which party controls Congress, as well as governors’ offices and state legislatures across the country.
Trump kicked off his remarks by urging people to vote for Vance and the DeWine-Husted ticket for governor.
“J.D., you have some very good polls. What the hell am I doing here?” Trump said.
Trump’s visit is billed as an effort to energize voters for Tuesday’s election and get Vance across the finish line of a tight Senate race against Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan. It could also have implications for the 2024 presidential race: The former president is widely expected to announce a reelection bid this month, and some reports have suggested he could break the news as early as Monday night.
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., added to the speculation of Trump running again.
“When we reelect him, he’ll put an end to the Obama-Biden dynasty,” Greene said Monday night.
Republicans from Ohio’s congressional delegation, along with newcomers running for office, took the stage Monday ahead of Trump’s remarks to warm up the crowd. One of the most-watched races is the 9th Congressional District near Toledo, where longtime Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur is running against Republican newcomer J.R. Majewski.
“I hope we hear the announcement we’ve been waiting for, Trump 2024!” Majewski told the crowd.
National news outlets say Trump close on announcement
On Monday, The Hill and the Washington Post reported that Trump was talking with aides about making the announcement during his Ohio rally. Axios reported that the event will be closely watched by Republicans who are “anticipating (an) accelerated announcement” from Trump.
“Trump should announce tonight,” tweeted U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who has campaigned for Vance. “His candidates won the primaries. Biden’s central message was the ‘ULTRA MAGA’ scare. And we are going to win BIGLY! Trump deserves all the credit for this wave election & announcing tonight he will seize it.”
Ohio Senate campaigns react
Trump won the Buckeye State by 8 percentage points in 2016 and 2020, making Ohio a friendly setting for a potential reelection announcement. But the former president is known for being unpredictable, and it’s not yet clear what the crowd in Vandalia can expect from him Monday night.
“It would be very fitting and very funny if J.D. Vance, who has spent his entire campaign relying on help from out of state and humiliating himself to get on Trump’s good side, spent the last night of this election getting upstaged in truly spectacular fashion,” Ryan spokeswoman Izzi Levy said.
Vance’s campaign, meanwhile, said they weren’t concerned about how a potential announcement could affect the Senate race.
“Donald Trump being here is a huge advantage to juice up the GOP base,” campaign adviser Jai Chabria said. “Perhaps we would be worried if Tim Ryan brought in yet another celebrity who could really solidify his faux working man image.”
Vance told the crowd Monday night he expects to win on Tuesday.
“It’s going to be fun to beat Tim Ryan tomorrow,” Vance said. “I’m going to enjoy it.”
Voters weigh in on Vance, DeWine
Ohioans who attended the rally were unsurprisingly ready to vote for Republicans up and down the ticket on Tuesday, saying Democrats are taking the country in the wrong direction.
But some of them weren’t thrilled about their options.
“I don’t think he’s run a great campaign,” Julie Matheny said of Vance. “Just hasn’t been visible enough. He’s kind of boring.”
Vance faced some backlash among Trump’s supporters for his critical remarks of the former president during the 2016 campaign. Vance admitted he was wrong about Trump and ultimately secured his support during the GOP primary.
Trump’s supporters have been less forgiving of DeWine, who fended off a primary challenge largely driven by frustration over his response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Several who attended Monday’s event said they would vote for the governor in Tuesday’s election to keep the seat in Republican hands, even though they weren’t happy with him.
When asked why some Ohioans are casting ballots for DeWine and Ryan, Debbie Burnam attributed it to Vance’s past comments of Trump.
“I think what it is is because J.D Vance didn’t support Trump at the beginning, and also we have so many union workers that are probably for Tim Ryan,” Burnam said. “But I think it’s because he didn’t support Trump at the very beginning, and I think that people just don’t forget that, especially Republicans.”
This story will be updated.
Haley BeMiller is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.
Nolan Simmons is a fellow in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism’s Statehouse News Bureau.
Strange molecules swirl around supermassive black holes, JWST finds
NASA’s iconic new observatory has spotted surprising compounds around supermassive black holes.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has detected carbon-bearing molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the centers of three active galaxies, where scientists had expected these molecules couldn’t survive. Intriguingly, the observations also suggest that the radiation in the vicinity of the supermassive black holes in these galaxies has altered the overall properties of the PAHs, which could complicate a key technique astronomers use to evaluate star formation, and could also affect their usefulness as biological building blocks.
Ismael García-Bernete, an astrophysicist at Oxford University in the U.K., led a group of astronomers who have analyzed observations of three active galaxies gathered by JWST’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). The three galaxies are NGC 6552, which is 370 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Draco; NGC 7319, that is one of the five galaxies in the famous Stephan’s Quintet some 311 million light-years away in Pegasus; and NGC 7469, which is also in Pegasus at a distance of about 200 million light-years.
Gallery: James Webb Space Telescope’s 1st photos
PAHs are molecules characterized by rings of carbon atoms. These molecules are very common in the universe, found everywhere from distant galaxies to comets in our own solar system. Their ubiquity is what makes them useful potential building blocks for life, but it also makes them important tracers for star-formation. PAHs emit strongly at infrared wavelengths detectable by MIRI when they are illuminated by the ultraviolet radiation in starlight, so usually, where astronomers detect PAHs this way they can be sure there are hot, young stars nearby.
García-Bernete’s aim was to determine whether PAH emission in the dense, ultraviolet-rich environment at the center of an active galaxy was the same as PAH emissions in calmer star-forming regions in the spiral arms of galaxies. While stars can form in the cores of active galaxies, the process of gas falling onto a supermassive black hole can also release torrents of ultraviolet light that cause the PAHs to glow.
Previous models had predicted that the harsh radiation around the supermassive black hole at the core of an active galaxy would actually destroy all PAH molecules. Instead, MIRI discovered that PAHs were plentiful in the central regions of all three galaxies studied. However, the observations showed that the emission was coming from larger and electrically neutral PAH molecules, indicating that radiation had indeed eradicated smaller, electrically charged PAHs. The larger PAH molecules may have survived because they were protected by dense, enveloping clouds of molecular gas, the team speculated.
The loss of the smaller, electrically charged PAHs is a problem for astronomers using these compounds to trace star formation, because star-forming regions are typically richer in electrically charged PAHs. But if these are destroyed in the cores of active galaxies, astronomers cannot track where stars might be forming.
“The next step is to analyze a larger sample of active galaxies with different properties,” García-Bernete said in a statement. “This will enable us to better understand how PAH molecules survive and which are their specific properties in the nuclear region [of galaxies]. Such knowledge is key to using PAHs as an accurate tool for characterizing the amount of star formation in galaxies, and how galaxies evolve over time.”
The research was published Sept. 30 in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Follow Keith Cooper on Twitter @21stCenturySETI. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
Questions, tensions swirl as U.N. mission heads to Ukraine nuclear plant
KYIV, Aug 31 (Reuters) – U.N. nuclear inspectors set off in convoy for Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant on Wednesday after weeks of shelling nearby sparked fears of a Chornobyl-style radiation disaster, with tensions rising between Kyiv and Moscow over the visit.
A Reuters reporter following the team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, said it was likely the inspectors would overnight in the nearby city of Zaporizhzhia before visiting the plant, which is on territory controlled by Russia, on Thursday.
Russian-installed officials in the area suggested the visit might last only one day, while IAEA and Ukrainian officials suggested it would last longer.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
“We are now finally moving after six months of strenuous efforts,” IAEA chief Rafael Grossi told reporters before the convoy set off, adding that the mission planned to spend “a few days” at the site.
“We have a very important task there to perform – to assess the real situation there, to help stabilise the situation as much as we can. We are going to a war zone, we are going to occupied territory and this requires explicit guarantees, not only from the Russian Federation but also from Ukraine. We have been able to secure that,” said Grossi.
Russia captured the plant, Europe’s largest, in early March as part of what Moscow calls its “special military operation”, something Kyiv and the West have described as an unprovoked invasion designed to grab land and erase Ukrainian identity.
A Russian military force has been at the plant ever since, as has most of the Ukrainian workforce who have toiled to keep the facility, which traditionally supplied Ukraine with 20 percent of its electricity needs, running.
For weeks now, Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of endangering the plant’s safety with artillery or drone strikes.
Kyiv says Russia has been using the plant as a shield to strike towns and cities, knowing it will be hard for Ukraine to return fire. It has also accused Russian forces of shelling the plant.
“The situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and in Enerhodar and surrounding areas remains extremely dangerous,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said late on Tuesday. “The risk of a radiation disaster due to Russian actions does not decrease for an hour.”
The Russian defence ministry has said that radiation levels at the plant are normal.
Moscow has denied Ukrainian assertions of reckless behaviour, questioning why it would shell a facility where its own troops are garrisoned as what it describes as a security detail.
Moscow has in turn accused the Ukrainians of shelling the plant to try to generate international outrage that Kyiv hopes will result in a demilitarised zone. Russia has said it has no intention of withdrawing its forces for now.
Kyiv and Moscow both claimed battlefield successes on Wednesday as Ukraine mounted a counter-offensive to recapture territory in the south. Reuters could not independently verify such reports. read more
Away from Ukraine, Russia halted gas supplies through the biggest pipeline to its top customer Germany, raising the prospect of recession and energy rationing in some of Europe’s richest countries going into winter. read more
Members of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission stand by UN vehicles at hotel as they depart for visit to Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in central Kyiv, Ukraine August 31, 2022. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
Ukraine’s allies have accused Russia of using energy as a weapon in retaliation for Western sanctions. Moscow denies doing so and cites technical reasons for supply cuts.
QUESTIONS AND DOUBTS
Grossi said one of his priorities was to talk to the Ukrainian technicians running the plant.
“That’s one of the most important things I want to do and I will do it,” he said.
It was not immediately clear how long the inspectors would be able to remain at the power station however.
Russia said it welcomed the IAEA’s stated intention to set up a permanent mission at the plant.
But Yevgeny Balitsky, head of the Russian-installed administration in the area, told the Interfax news agency that the IAEA inspectors “must see the work of the station in one day”.
The United States has urged a complete shutdown of the plant and called for a demilitarised zone around it.
The Interfax news agency quoted a Russian-appointed local official as saying on Wednesday that two of the plant’s six reactors were running.
The plant is close to the front lines and Ukraine’s armed forces on Wednesday accused Russia of shelling a contact line in the area and of preparing to resume an offensive there.
There was no immediate comment from Moscow.
Zelenskiy in a late night address on Tuesday said Ukrainian forces were attacking Russian positions in Ukraine along the entire frontline after Kyiv announced on Monday it had launched an offensive to try to retake the south. Zelenskiy said his forces were also on the offensive in the east.
Russia captured large tracts of southern Ukraine near the Black Sea coast in the early weeks of the six-month-old war, including in the Kherson region, which lies north of the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Ukraine sees recapturing the region as crucial to prevent Russian attempts to seize more territory further west that could eventually cut off its access to the Black Sea.
Britain, an ally of Ukraine, said Ukrainian formations in the south had pushed Russian front-line forces back some distance in places, exploiting relatively thin Russian defences. read more . Ukraine said it had “successes” in three areas of the region but declined to give details.
Russia’s defence ministry has denied reports of Ukrainian progress and said its troops had routed Ukrainian forces.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Andrew Osborn and Matthias Williams; Editing by Philippa Fletcher, William Maclean
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope casually reveals terrifying purple galactic swirl in our universe
Looking more like a horrifying psychedelic swirl from a Marvel movie than the spiral galaxy shape familiar from visual telescopes, the new James Webb Space Telescope image shows the dusty skeleton of the distant galaxy NGC 628.
“This is a galaxy that probably looks a lot like what we think our own Milky Way looks like,” Gabriel Brammer, an astronomer at the Cosmic Dawn Center in the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, who shared the image on Twitter Monday, told The Independent in an interview. “You can see all these knots of individual stars forming, individual supernovae have gone off and really study that in detail.”
The spiral arms of NGC 628 have been imaged before, but the images of the galaxy taken in visible light by the Hubble Space Telescope don’t look anything like the purple spiral structure seen in Webb’s mid-infrared image.
A Hubble Space Telescope image of the spiral galaxy NGC 628, which may resemble our own Milky Way galaxy.
(Nasa)
“You look at this galaxy with Hubble or with ground based telescopes,” Dr Brammer said, “you see blue stars, you see red stars, you see spiral arms, you see dust lanes.”
Those dust lanes, he said, reddish brown filaments in the spiral arms tend to block stars in the visible images taken by Webb and other telescopes.
“In the mid-infrared, what you’re actually kind of seeing is the inverse of that, where that dust is no longer absorbing; we’re actually observing directly that dust itself that’s now glowing, because the dust itself is emitting,” Dr Brammer said. “We’re actually seeing an image of the gas and the dust in this galaxy, rather than the stars.”
A mid-infrared image of the galaxy NGC 628 taken by the James Webb Space Telescope on 17 July
(Color composite, Gabriel Brammer (Cosmic Dawn Center, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen); raw data, Janice Lee et al. and the PHANGS-JWST collaboration.)
Webb took the image of NGC 628 on 17 July and transmitted it back to Earth where it was logged in the Barbara Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes, (MAST), where the data is available to anyone, including the public. Dr Brammer actually studies very distant galaxies in his own work rather than relatively nearby galaxies like NGC 628, but when he saw the raw image in the data Monday morning, he knew he wanted to colour process the image and share it.
“It was really the first thing that popped out,” he said. “It really just blew me away the second I had it open on my screen.”
While Nasa made a big showpiece out of revealing the first five, full-colour Webb images on 12 July, the telescope has hardly stood idle since, and is continually taking images and placing them in the MAST archive, according to Dr Brammer. For astronomers who have waited more than 20 years for a chance to see what Webb can do, it’s extremely exciting times.“
“We’ve been waiting for Webb for in some cases for decades now and we’ve all been, not sleeping very much for the last week looking and kind of looking at as many different Webb images we can,” Dr Brammer said. “It’s all just truly spectacular.”
Bungie Sues Troll Amid Swirl Of Destiny 2 Dev Harassment
Bungie is taking a Destiny 2 troll to court. The freshly minted PlayStation studio filed a lawsuit last Friday accusing one of the loot shooter’s players of serially cheating and harassing its developers. The complaint comes as toxic elements within the Destiny fanbase have led Bungie to be more tight-lipped about its decision making and future plans in the popular live service game.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. Western District Court of Washington, and the lastest in a spree of recent legal action by the studio, names Luca Leone as the sole defendant and accuses him of habitually violating Destiny 2’s Limited Software License Agreement (LSLA). According to Bungie, Leone was banned over a dozen times for livestreaming the game while using cheat software and was also involved in allegedly selling Destiny 2 emblems, including ones that were possibly from stolen accounts. Leone also threatened Bungie’s community manager.
“#NewProfilePic,” tweeted the account inkcel on May 18 alongside an image of Destiny 2 community manager dmg04’s employee badge (Bungie traced the account back to Leone via a shared email address with the one he used to order merchandise with). “i just realized i’ll be moving to a place that’s 30 minutes away from dmg,” Leone wrote in a follow-up tweet. And then in a third: “he is not safe.
Then on July 4 a Twitter user asked if anyone in the Seattle area was available to commit arson in the next 72 hours. Leone responded by volunteering. “If it’s Bungie HQ you get a discount btw,” he wrote. On July 5 Leone tweeted for Bungie to “keep [its] doors locked.”
G/O Media may get a commission
41% Off
LG Oled 55″ Smart TV
Pretty
Aside from being 55″ in size, this OLED TV has over 8 million pixels for truly stunning images, incredibly depth of blacks, and vibrant colors, uses an a7 Gen 4 AI Processor for 4K imaging, has low latency if you’re after a good gaming TV, and even has integrated Google Assistant and Alexa.
Leone did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but did begin deleting the past tweets.
While the studio is asking the court for $150,000 in damages, it’s also requesting the court block Leone from “harassing, stalking, or otherwise engaging in unwanted or unsolicited contact with Bungie, its employees, or Destiny 2 players.” It’s not clear how the case will unfold, but it’s already underlining ongoing discussions over how the people who play Destiny 2 interact with the people who make it.
Destiny 2’s genre-defining success has made it the envy of others in the gaming industry, but it’s also created a very unique relationship with the player-base. A seasonal model encourages fans to routinely check back for new content and updates, and Bungie publishes a blog post every week updating the community on recent changes and future plans. At times the player-developer collaboration is very vibrant. Other times it can be incredibly harsh as loud voices rail against particularly polarizing design decisions.
And occasionally it can be downright toxic. That’s what happened at the end of May when sandbox design lead Kevin Yanes wrote on Twitter that fan-favorite Titan Exotic armor Twilight Garrison would never reprise its role from the first game in Destiny 2. “Titans will never get air dodge back my guy, it’s part of the warlock identity,” he responded to one player. “Sorry but I want to rip that bandaid off.”
The comment became a lightning rod for vitriol, and Yanes was forced to temporarily shut down his account. Those at Bungie and in the community rallied around Yanes to call out the behavior. “It’s a game designer’s job to weigh the needs of the many over the wants of the few,” wrote senior design lead Tom Farnsworth. “Of course, constructive feedback is part of this process, but we don’t put up with abuse.”
As Forbes’ Paul Tassi points out, Yanes was one of a number of “chatty” Bungie developers willing to discuss the game on social media. Now Yanes exclusively retweets posts about non-gaming subjects, and anecdotally it feels like others at Bungie have pulled back as well. Community manager dmg04 said as much over the weekend.
One player tweeted that Destiny 2’s PVP modes, long a sore spot for the game and also believed to be the source of some of its more toxic players, would prosper if Bungie included weekly chats on the topic in its blog posts. “I’m not sayin I don’t want udpates,” responded Twitch streamer Falloutplays. “But we’ve bitten the hand that feeds us too hard, too often.”
Community manager Dmg04 agreed. “I dream of a day where videogame developers (from any studio) can openly discuss their work without being harassed,” he wrote in a reply to Falloutplay’s comment. “Cases of harassment against our developers have actively made it harder for us to communicate with the broader community. It has impacted more studios than just ours.”
While lots of games deal with toxicity issues, few remain as vocal with their communities as Bungie historically has. This was part of what made it extra notable in recent seasons when the studio tried to keep hints of new reveals in The Witch Queen and “Season of the Haunted” to a minimum before they finally went live in the game.
“Can we just fucking nuke the idea that Bungie doesn’t communicate enough from orbit already?,” wrote one player. “They could just be like 90% of other devs and not communicate outside of patch notes ever.”
And as dmg04 and others have pointed out, fan harassment is not exclusive to Bungie. Last year, Naught Dog devs were attacked after some players took issue with elements of The Last Of Us Part II revealed in pre-release leaks. More recently, developers at Sony Santa Monica were threatened over God of War: Ragnarök still not having an official release date at the end of June (it got one a week later). 2022 also marks the 10-year anniversary of Mass Effect 3 and the abuse heaped on its creators over the ending.
“Many in the comments say they do not condone harassment,” dmg04 wrote over the weekend. “I hope they also stand against it when they find that friends or family are engaging in it.”
Sergei Shoigu: Questions swirl over whereabouts of Russia’s defense minister
Shoigu, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, has kept a low profile recently despite having a leading role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The independent investigative Russian outlet Agentstvo reported Wednesday that Shoigu was in poor health, citing anonymous sources in the ministry.
Peskov dodged questions on Thursday about the health of Shoigu. “The Defense Minister has a lot on his plate at the moment,” he said when CNN asked about Shoigu’s reported absence. “The special military operation is going on. Naturally, now is not exactly the time for media activity, this is quite understandable.”
The Kremlin spokesperson declined to disprove the report by Agentstvo when asked by CNN. “I can’t. You shouldn’t listen to the Agenstvo media outlet. Please address [these questions to] the Ministry of Defense.”
Shoigu appeared in a Channel One broadcast on March 18 that the Russian outlet said was from that day, but Russian journalists have speculated that the event being broadcast was from March 11.
State-owned TV channel Russia 24 broadcast footage on Thursday of a virtual meeting attended by Shoigu, but did not say when the meeting took place.
The anchor quoted Peskov suggesting Shoigu was giving a report to the National Security Council on the military operation in Ukraine remotely. The broadcast footage, which interrupted a live interview, did not show Shoigu speak, but his image appeared on screen among other video call participants reporting to Putin.
During a televised Security Council Meeting in Russia on March 11, Shoigu told Putin that its invasion of Ukraine was being carried out successfully, despite evidence to the contrary.
Western leaders said at the time that Russia’s military had encountered unplanned obstacles and resistance.
“All is going according to the plan, we report to you here every day this week,” Shoigu said.
He also claimed that the Russian army had received more than 16,000 applications from volunteers in the Middle East wanting to join the war in Ukraine.
The defense minister also asked Putin for more weapons to arm the separatist regions in Ukraine’s Donbas.
Russian military leaders, including Shoigu, have been stonewalling their US counterparts, declining calls since the invasion began, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in a statement Thursday. He added that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark A. Milley, “have sought, and continue to seek, calls with their Russian counterparts. Minister Shoigu and General (Valery) Gerasimov have so far declined to engage.”
“We continue to believe that engagement between U.S. and Russian defense leaders is critically important at this time,” Kirby added.
CNN has previously reported that the last known time Austin last spoke with Shoigu was on February 18. Milley last spoke to Gerasimov on February 11.
Envoy quits
The speculation over Shoigu’s health comes as a longstanding Russian government insider, Anatoly Chubais, became the highest-profile Kremlin figure to resign since the war began a month ago.
Peskov confirmed that Chubais quit his job as Putin’s climate envoy, but denied any knowledge of Chubais’ reported opposition to the invasion of Ukraine.
“No, the Kremlin doesn’t know anything about it,” Peskov told CNN when asked to comment on reports suggesting Chubais quit his job over disapproval of Putin’s decision to launch the war in Ukraine.
Peskov also confirmed his resignation letter would have to be sent to Putin himself.
“Those who are appointed by presidential decree write (resignation letters) addressed to Putin,” he added.
Peskov said Chubais had not been a full-time government employee and was working on a voluntary basis.
Chubais first rose to prominence as Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s finance minister in the 1990s before going on to hold powerful posts in the Russian energy industry.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported the last time Milley last spoke to Gerasimov. It was February 11.
Miami Dolphins coach reiterates support for Tua Tagovailoa as Deshaun Watson rumors swirl
MIAMI — Dolphins coach Brian Flores gave a public endorsement Friday of Tua Tagovailoa, after rumors of a potential trade for Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson again flared earlier this week.
“I don’t really get into rumors — Tua is our quarterback,” Flores said when asked about Watson. “We’re happy with the quarterback, our quarterback situation. I’ll leave it at that, which I’ve said multiple times.”
The Houston Chronicle reported Wednesday that a trade between Miami and Houston could be finalized this week involving Watson, who is facing 22 active lawsuits alleging sexual assault and inappropriate behavior. He requested a trade in January before the first such lawsuit was levied against him, and he has not played in or been active for any game this season.
Tagovailoa, who missed three games with fractured ribs, led the Dolphins to their lone win of the season in Week 1; they’re currently on a five-game losing streak.
Flores previously backed Tagovailoa during a team meeting the week leading up to Miami’s win over the Patriots. He publicly called Tagovailoa “our quarterback” later that week, saying it was important for players and coaches to feel as if they have their organization’s support.
“I think it means a lot with it coming from the head coach,” Tagovailoa said in September. “The support that I have from him and from the team, it means a lot.”
The No. 5 pick in 2020 has thrown for 544 yards, 3 touchdowns and 2 interceptions in three games this season, although he played only six snaps against the Buffalo Bills in Week 2 before leaving with fractured ribs. He returned from injured reserve for Miami’s loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, completing 33 of 47 passes for 329 yards, 2 touchdowns and an interception.
Flores praised Tagovailoa’s play this season, as well as the way he conducts himself throughout the week.
“I think his preparation, the way he practices and the way he performs has been good. I thought he played very well last week,” Flores said. “I think his psyche is in a good place. He’s a confident kid, he’s a tough kid and really, he’s played in two games this year, so he should have a lot of confidence in the way he’s played. We have a lot of confidence in him because of the way he’s played.
“He’s developing. I think this kid is smart, I think he’s, I think he’s talented. I think he’s accurate, I think he definitely has the opportunity to be a very good NFL player. … There’s always bumps in the road for anyone in any career, any profession. You have to work through those and you become better for it.”
Rumors about the Dolphins trading for Watson have swirled for months, with Miami reportedly being the quarterback’s preferred destination. However, Watson has yet to face punishment from the NFL while the investigations into the allegations about his behavior continue. Houston has made clear its intentions to keep Watson sidelined, but it is unclear whether he would be allowed to play this season if he were traded to a different team.
Flores said his players are blocking out things that are “going on outside of our building” as they prepare to host the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday
“Some of us have probably heard about it, but as of right now — it’s just a distraction at the end of the day,” rookie tackle Liam Eichenberg said. “The most important thing this week is we’re playing the Falcons and we need a win. I think that’s everybody’s thought right now is to focus on the Falcons.”