🚛 Rivian and Mercedes are teaming up to build electric vans more quickly

The companies are teaming up with the aim of building large electric vans more quickly, the goal is to produce two vans on common assembly lines. 

Both companies have already been working on electric vans, with Rivian having an agreement to build 100,000 of them for Amazon.  The company is setting up a second EV factory in Georgia, but production won't start there until 2024.

From Mercedes' perspective, this is part of a broader strategy to accelerate the transition to electric vans, by the middle of this decade, all of its new vans will be entirely electric. 

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‼️Ukraine shells Kakhovka hydropower plant ➡️ LIVE UPDATES

Ukrainian troops fired a barrage of missiles at the Russia-held southern city of Novaya Kakhovka in Kherson region on Saturday, targeting a key hydropower plant, the district administration said.

"No visible hits by Ukrainian missiles were reported in the city. The Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant was one of the usual targets," the administration said on social media.

The power plant supplies the district with electricity and provides for the irrigation of large swathes of southern Ukraine and northern Crimea. District authorities said air defense fired 14 missiles at aerial targets.

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💰 US authorities recover $30 million of hacked crypto funds

US authorities, with help from blockchain analyst Chainalysis, have recovered $30 million worth of cryptocurrency stolen from Axie Infinity in March. It's but a fraction of the $625 million the play-to-earn game lost to the North Korean-linked hacking unit known as the Lazarus Group, but it's a significant achievement for law enforcement and the crypto community.

Apparently, most of the funds stolen from Axie Infinity remain in the blockchain, showing that the bad actors are having a tough time moving stolen assets around and converting them into fiat currency. 

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Zelensky vows to start power supplies to Poland in December, while his own people face uncertainty

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that his country intends to start supplying electricity to Poland in December from the Khmelnitsky Nuclear Power Plant.

🗯"I have ordered to accelerate the reconstruction of the power transmission line from the Khmelnitsky Nuclear Power Plant to the Polish city of Rzeszow ... We must complete this reconstruction by December 8 and provide Poland with the necessary amount of electricity," Zelensky said in a Saturday video address.

▪️The statement comes after Ukraine ceased to receive power from Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, which it continues to shell despite the IAEA's calls to "immediately" stop the bombings of the plant.

▪️Zaporozhye NPP had previously accounted for around 20% of all power used by Ukraine.

▪️With the move to cut off the electricity supply from Zaporozhye NPP in favor of bombings and to use the Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant to supply power to the Poles, priorities seem to be set for Zelensky: and Ukranian civilians are not among them.

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🎞 Leaked video from the Bedminster golf course shows former US President Donald Trump admit he wanted to bomb Mexico with rockets. The one-term president recalled that he “didn’t want to deny” the leak that he had wanted to fire rockets into Mexico and was gleeful “people loved it.”

🚀 In May, it was revealed that Trump asked at least twice about “quietly” shooting Patriot missiles - which are surface-to-air weapons - into Mexico and then denying responsibility. White House insiders previously detailed how the president was displeased by drug trafficking across the US-Mexico border.

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🏆 Iga Swiatek beats Ons Jabeur to win 1st US Open

The 21-year-old defeated Ons Jabeur in Saturday's US Open women's final, becoming the first Polish woman to win the tournament. This was the first US Open women's final featuring two top-10 players since 2013, as Świątek came in as the world No. 1 while Jabeur ranked fifth. Świątek has now cleared 10,000 WTA rankings points this year, the most since Serena Williams in 2013.

The loss was bittersweet for Jabeur, as the 28-year-old Tunisian still became the first Arab and African woman to reach a US Open final -- this coming two months after she became the first Arab and African woman to make any Grand Slam final at Wimbledon.

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🛰 FCC proposes ‘five-year rule’ for dead satellite disposal

The Federal Communications Commission wants to do something about space junk in low Earth orbit. The FCC wants to adopt a five-year rule that would require domestic satellite operators and companies that want access to the US market to dispose of their non-functioning satellites as soon as they can. 

The proposal comes as the number of satellites in low Earth orbit is expected to increase over the next few years dramatically. With contributions from companies like SpaceX, Amazon and OneWeb, as many as 18,000 new satellites could be floating above the planet by 2025. Those satellites will not only make it more challenging to observe the night sky, but the probability of a potential crash will increase too.

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📦 Amazon is buying a company that makes pallet-stacking robots

Amazon has agreed to buy Cloostermans, a company that makes robots capable of stacking pallets in its warehouses. After the acquisition closes, Cloostermans' 200 or so employees will join the Amazon Global Robotics division in Europe and likely dedicate their time to solely building tech that suits Amazon's needs.

While Amazon has been relying more on robots at its fulfillment centers for several years, the Cloostermans acquisition comes soon after employees at a Staten Island facility became the first Amazon warehouse workers to win a union election. The company said in 2019 that automation isn't expected to replace human workers at warehouses for at least a decade.

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‼️ Four civilians killed by Ukrainian mines in Kinburn spit reserve amid fires - Source

Thousands of hectares of forest are burning in the Kinburn Spit Reserve in the Russia-controlled part of Mykolaiv region as a result of Ukrainian shelling, at least four civilians died, a source in the emergency services of the neighboring Kherson region told Sputnik.

"With the outbreak of hostilities, a heavy blow was dealt to the ecosystem of the peninsula - the Kinburn Spit was covered with fires that arose due to artillery strikes carried out by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. To date, more than 11,000 hectares of forest have burned out and are irretrievably lost. The actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine led not only to the death of thousands of hectares of forest and to the impossibility of extinguishing fires due to the high risk of mine explosions, but also to the deaths of civilians," the source said.

He specified that two civilians were killed when their vehicle blew up on a Ukrainian mine on August 13. Another two civilians were killed on August 15, when their car hit a Ukrainian mine in the same area (between the villages of Vasylivka and Pokrovske).

"This stopped fire trucks from leaving the village of Vasylivka, and the fight against fires became impossible. All that local residents can do in this situation is to fight fires inside their villages and around power substations," the emergencies source told Sputnik.

💳 Visa, Mastercard, and AmEx to start categorizing gun shop sales

It’s a major win for gun control advocates who say it will help better track suspicious surges of gun sales that could be a prelude to a mass shooting. But gun rights advocates have argued that step would unfairly segregate legal gun sales when most sales do not lead to mass shootings.

Visa said it would adopt the International Organization for Standardization’s new merchant code for gun sales. Until Friday, gun store sales were considered “general merchandise.”  It joins Mastercard and American Express, which also said they plan to move forward with categorizing gun shop sales.

The cards acts as a middleman between merchants and banks, and it will be up to banks to decide whether they will allow sales at gun stores to happen on their issued cards.

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😳 📹 A former Central California elementary school head is facing charges of cruelty to a minor after a video appeared online showing how he shoved a student to the ground.

▪️ Brian Vollhardt, the former principal of Wolters Elementary School, was seen striking the student in the chest during breakfast time on June 7.

▪️ Superintendent Bob Nelson said the student, who has special needs, wasn't injured after the incident, and was provided with the necessary emotional support.

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📌 LIVE UPDATES: Four vessels set to leave Ukraine under Istanbul grain deal, JCC says

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📹 Thousands of people took to the streets in Vienna yesterday to protest against rising energy prices.

▪️ Protesters called for the resumption of the Nord Stream 2 project and the opening of Nord Stream, as well as the abolition of unilateral measures against Russia.

▪️ Demonstrations expressing dissatisfaction with the economic situation in Europe have been taking place in several EU countries in recent weeks.

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📹 Crews of T-90 tanks from the Southern Military District have neutralized and destroyed the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine who attempted to penetrate Russia's defenses.

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