Better Solution to Florida’s Hurricane Problem | Lethal Subcultures | Solar Power Stations in Space, and more

Solar Power Stations in Space “More Sensible Than Nuclear Energy”  (Rhys Blakely, The Times)
Solar power plants built in space could make more sense than nuclear plants on the ground as the world moves away from fossil fuels for generating electricity, experts have said.
The European Space Agency (ESA), of which the UK is a member, is assessing plans that would involve a satellite several miles long being assembled by robots in orbit.
It would carry a solar array that would be illuminated by the sun for more than 99 per cent of the time, allowing it to produce power day and night and no matter the weather on Earth.
The energy would be beamed back to the ground via high frequency radio waves. Advocates of the technology believe that a single plant could deliver 2GW of renewable power into the grid — roughly comparable to a nuclear power station.
The technology could offer “an alternative option to nuclear power”, said Dr Sanjay Vijendran, who has been studying it for ESA.

Report Calls Switzerland, US, Sweden World’s Most Innovative Economies  (Lisa Schlein, VOA News)
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) cites top-ranked Switzerland, followed by the United States and Sweden, as the world’s most innovative economies.
WIPO uses some 80 indicators to rank the innovative performance of 132 economies. These include measures on the political environment, education, infrastructure, business sophistication and knowledge creation of each economy.
The latest annual report shows some interesting moves in the rankings and the emergence of new powerhouses. Switzerland, once again, comes out on top. The United States moves up one position in the rankings to second place, followed by Sweden, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

Thousands of Cubans in Pipeline of US Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program  (Aline Barros, VOA News)
As U.S. border officials report high numbers of Cuban migrants hoping to enter the country at the U.S.-Mexico border, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) told VOA more than 10,000 people are in the pipeline of the Cuban Family Reunification Parole (CFRP) program.
CFRP provides a pathway to the United States for certain Cubans with approved family-based immigrant petitions.

Lethal Subcultures  (Ben LEE, CREST)
News reporting, legislation, policy, and investigations often contribute to the impression that violent extremists and terrorists are organized, disciplined, and strategic, luring vulnerable young people into distorted worldviews that prize atrocity, hatred, and malevolence. Despite the overt militancy of violent extremist spaces however, actual terror attacks remain rare, and those that do take place are often poorly planned and unaffiliated, or only partially affiliated, to groups. Although some terrorist spectaculars have caught headlines and policy attention, many more attacks and plots are largely ineffectual, never matching up to the violent rhetoric common in these spaces.

Analyzing Terrorgram Publications: A New Digital Zine  (Matthew Kriner and Bjørn Ihler, GNET)
On July 14, 2022, following a melodramatic advertisement campaign in neofascist Telegram channels, Telegram users issued the third instalment of a digital magazine series, called Hard Reset, to a muted reception. We examine the recent militant accelerationist publications, specifically the Hard Reset edition, and their context within the broader neofascist accelerationism community on Telegram, colloquially referred to as Terrorgram.