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The crackdown comes from a committee led by Vice Premier Liu He, who announced the crackdown late Friday as part of an effort to fend off financial risks. It also comes as part of China’s efforts to meet a goal of carbon neutrality. According to a recent study published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, without regulations or intervention, China’s cryptocurrency energy consumption would peak in 2024 at 296.59 terrawatt-hours and generate 130....

Three astronauts will spend three months conducting spacewalks, science experiments and performing maintenance on the Tianhe, or Heavenly Harmony, space station that launched into orbit on April 29, the Associated Press reported. The Chinese space agency plans for 11 launches through the end of next year to expand the station. Once Tianhe is complete, it will allow for stays up to six months. The station is reportedly intended to be used for 15 years and may outlast the International Space Station, which is approaching the end of its functional lifespan....

Antiaircraft defenses now in use are cued by radars that detect and track incoming aircraft. But the radars are vulnerable: their signals can be jammed or missiles can be launched to ride back down the radar beams and destroy the transmitters. Instead of transmitting its own signals, China’s new Passive Coherent Location system tracks the signals of civilian radio and TV broadcasts and picks up aircraft by analyzing the minute turbulence their flight causes in the commercial wavelengths....

The rocket carried China’s core space station module named Tianhe, or Heavenly Harmony, into orbit on April 29. “As far as I understand, this type of rocket adopts a special technical design, and the vast majority of the devices will be burnt up and destructed during the re-entry process, which has a very low probability of causing harm to aviation activities and the ground,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said during a briefing....

Despite netting a new stream of cash flow through this deal, Evergrande could not come up with the funds in time to meet payment on $47.5 million worth of bond interest by the close of the Chinese business day on Wednesday. It remains unknown whether the payment can be settled during U.S. business hours. Evergrande faces over $300 billion worth of debts, $88.5 billion of which bear interest. Earlier this month, uncertainty surrounded the status of Evergrande’s ability to afford an $83 million payment by a September 23 deadline....

Senior defense officials in Taipei told a parliamentary hearing on Wednesday that China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was approaching the capability to impose a full blockade of Taiwan, a scenario that would pose “a serious challenge and threat” to Taiwan’s defenses. Taiwan Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said China hasn’t renounced the use of force as an option to achieve its goal of seizing the democratic island, which has been autonomous from Beijing for more than seven decades....

Matt Korda and Hans Kristensen, who study the global arms buildup for the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) in Washington, D.C., said the newly discovered missile field in Hami, Xinjiang, is spread across an area of about 308 square miles. It is located 240 miles northwest of Yumen, Gansu province, where around 120 under-construction missile bases were found just a month earlier by researchers at the Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) in California....

The footage, filmed inside a police station, was released during the trial of constable Alex Dunn, who is accused of causing bodily harm after arresting Dalia Kafi in 2017. The video shows Dunn escorting Kafi into the station on December 13 of that year. He is seen pointing to the spot where the handcuffed suspect should wait to have her photo taken. She stands on the spot, with her back against the wall....

Newsom made the announcement during a news conference on Monday. The governor said that sports could resume with preventative measures in place in early June. All major U.S. sports leagues have been shuttered since March due to the pandemic. “Sporting events, pro sports, in that first week or so of June, without spectators and [with] modifications and very prescriptive conditions, also can begin to move forward,” Newsom said. “We’ve been talking with league representatives from all the major league sports,” added Newsom....

Gender dysphoria is a feeling of alienation between one’s internal sense of “gender” and one’s biological sex. Such feelings tend to resolve in 80 to 95 percent of kids if they are allowed to go through puberty unimpeded. But now, many kids are being fast-tracked to permanent body alterations called “gender affirming care.” This epidemic of the mind and spirit is not spread by contact or close quarters but by social media “influencers” and ideologues who have captured schools, medical groups, and state legislatures....

The willful ignorance of the climate crisis exhibited by one of our two major political parties is jarring, and it was on full display this week. It might almost seem like a joke. But it’s not funny. It’s a tragedy. And it’s not an accident. It’s a deliberate strategy. The strategy was perhaps best exemplified by the acceptance speeches of the Vice Presidential and Presidential nominees. On Wednesday, the third night of the convention, Mike Pence became the first speaker to actually mention climate change at the RNC....

He just hasn't done it in 59 years. In 1955, Sherman was an 18-year-old exercise rider for Swaps, a California-bred chestnut colt who beat Nashua to wear the garland of roses on the first Saturday in May. "I was just a kid then and just glad to be learning," he said. Now he's 77 and bringing his own California-bred chestnut to Churchill Downs, where California Chrome is the likely favorite....

An account, under the name Shan, reportedly uploaded a selfie video from her car, explaining what she allegedly had just seen occur. “If you’re the cop with the SRPD who was over by Menchie’s Frozen Yoghurt using your loudspeaker to tell people to take off their masks because they were acting like slaves, I spoke with your office and they would like to speak with you. So I would head back if I were you,” said Shan in the now-deleted video, which captured her reaction, but not the actual event....

“California approved the city and county’s request to deploy members of the National Guard to assist Los Angeles and neighboring communities,” Newsom’s office said in a news release on Saturday night. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said on Saturday he had asked Newsom to send 500 to 700 members of the National Guard to help local law enforcement deal with the worsening looting and vandalism in the county’s second-largest city....

“We believe that our social and economic well-being are best served by a more phased approach that allows activities to resume in a manner that allows people to actually be relatively safe while engaging in the newly open activity,” Dr. Sara Cody, health officer for Santa Clara County—home to Silicon Valley, said during a County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday. The Los Angeles Times first reported Cody’s remarks....

According to a press release from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, the man was identified as Wesley Charles Martines, 32, of Los Gatos, Calif. Martines was arrested by officers from the Campbell Police Department on July 9 after a business owner reported seeing Martines “prowling in the area of East Sunny Oaks Avenue and looking into cars and a storage shed,” on his security camera. The district attorney’s office said that police responded to the scene immediately after the call and were able to stop Martines while he was driving a truck away from the scene....

Maricela Magana Ruiz, 47, of Santa Paula, has been charged with felony child endangerment and arson after authorities were called to a blaze at her home in Bahia Circle at around 6:10 p.m. on Sunday, December 1. Firefighters from the Ventura County Fire Department managed to extinguish the fire and rescue Ruiz, along with her young son. The pair were both taken to Santa Paula Hospital and treated for smoke inhalation....

“My hope is that, you know, by the time we get to February, we’re on the downside of seeing that massive amount of community transmission,” Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Thursday, according to the Associated Press. Close contact among family members, especially those who are unvaccinated, likely contributed to the spread of the variant first detected in the state in November, health officials said. Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore, who said that over 800 officers and firefighters were unavailable because of positive tests or exposure to someone who tested positive, was one of many officials repeating the state’s hope that vaccines and boosters will help soften the impact of the wave....

The case—National Pork Producers Council v. Ross—involves a pork industry challenge to California’s Proposition 12, an animal welfare law adopted in 2018 via ballot initiative requiring that certain meat products and eggs sold in the state meet minimum humane, health and safety standards. Prop 12 requires that “farmed animals raised in California be provided cage-free housing and more living space, specifically applying to mother pigs, egg-laying hens, and calves raised for veal,” Maha Bazzi, farming campaign manager from nonprofit World Animal Protection, told Newsweek....

A clip of the attack was posted on social media by Torrance woman Itzel Lopez on Thursday. The footage begins with a female making an obscene gesture with her hands and telling Lopez “white lives matter, b***h” while she records her. The camera then turns to the other side of the car, where a white male gives a Nazi salute to the pair. The man then retrieves something from the back of the truck he was driving and attempts to smash it against the couple’s car before they manage to drive away....