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☆ The creator of the viral Dubai chocolate bar says it's changed her life. After tracking down 3 different versions in NYC, I understand why.
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-07 | by ( Priyanka Rajput | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

UAE-based creator Maria Vehera filmed a 1 1/2-minute clip in which she opened a chocolate bar, broke it in half, and dipped it in green pistachio cream before taking her first bite. This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Banking on the bar's virality and a growing global chocolate market, US-based businesses are creating and selling their own versions. In New York City, Nuts Factory, a specialty food store with six Manhattan locations and six others across the state, introduced the chocolate bar in July. Here's how the chocolate bars tasted, ranked from my least favorite to my favorite.

Persons: —, Maria Vehera, Sarah Hamouda, Hamouda, Din, it's Organizations: Service, Business, eBay, Nuts, Nuts Factory Locations: UAE, Hamouda, New York City, Manhattan, New York

The U.S. is in what may end up being its biggest summer wave of Covid, with no end yet in sight. This year’s summer wave also began earlier than last year’s, Jha said. “Besides that, there’s not much that we can sort of put our finger on to say this is what’s driving this summer surge," Pekosz said. Jha said that what happens this winter is impossible to predict but that there could be a silver lining to a large summer wave. “A big summer wave tends to lead to a little bit of a smaller winter wave and vice versa, just because there’s a little bit more immunity in the population,” he said.

Persons: ”, Ashish Jha, “ It’s, ” It's, There's, Maria Van Kerkhove, Van Kerkhove, Rosem Morton, Jha, Andrew Pekosz, “, there’s, Pekosz, Michael Phillips, epidemiologist, ” Phillips Organizations: Brown University School of Public Health, White, Covid, World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control, The Washington, Getty, Food and Drug Administration, CDC, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, didn't, NYU Langone Health Locations: U.S, Europe, Washington, Western U.S, Texas, California, Florida, North Carolina, Covid, New York City

After Russian forces took control of his village in 2022, Volodymyr Vakulenko, a well-known Ukrainian author, sensed he might soon be arrested. So he buried his new handwritten manuscript in his backyard, under a cherry tree. Best known in Ukraine for his cheerful and lyrical children’s books, Mr. Vakulenko was seething with anger at Moscow’s occupying forces. Soon enough, Russian soldiers indeed arrested Mr. Vakulenko, and his body later turned up in a mass grave. Six months later, a fellow Ukrainian author, Viktoria Amelina, learned of the buried book, dug it up, wrote a foreword and sent it to a publisher.

Persons: Volodymyr Vakulenko, Vakulenko, Viktoria Amelina Organizations: Russian Locations: Ukraine, Ukrainian

☆ Carlo Maria Viganò: Archbishop critical of Pope Francis excommunicated for schism
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-05 | by ( Christopher Lamb | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a former papal ambassador to the United States who became an ultra-conservative critic of Pope Francis, has been excommunicated for schism. As a Vatican diplomat, the archbishop was tasked with serving the pope, which makes his excommunication for schism highly unusual. The Vatican explained Friday that Viganò was excommunicated following an “extrajudicial penal process,” although the archbishop has said he did not “recognize the legitimacy” of the process. “I don’t know what happened,” Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See’s Secretary of State, said recently about the now-excommunicated archbishop. The Vatican said Viganò had been told of the excommunication and that only the Holy See could lift the sanction.

Persons: Carlo Maria Viganò, Pope Francis, Viganò, Francis, Theodore McCarrick, Francis ’, Kim Davis, “, ” Cardinal Pietro Parolin Organizations: CNN, Vatican, Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church, State Locations: United States, Washington, DC, Francis, Vatican, Kentucky

They first appeared as a cloud of dust on the horizon. A few seconds later, the motorcycles carrying Russian soldiers sped into view, zigzagging across a field, kicking up dust, attempting a noisy, dangerous run at a Ukrainian trench. “They moved fast, they spread out and they swerved,” said Lt. Mykhailo Hubitsky, describing the Russian motorcycle assault he witnessed. It’s a type of attack that has been proliferating along the frontline this spring, adding a wild new element to the already violent, chaotic fighting. These nonconventional vehicles have been turning up with such frequency that some Ukrainian trenches now overlook junk yards of abandoned, blown up off-road vehicles, videos from reconnaissance drones show.

Persons: ”, Mykhailo Hubitsky Locations: Ukrainian

☆ Meet the woman behind Dubai’s viral super-chunky chocolate bar
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-19 | by ( Rebecca Cairns | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —On TikTok, gooey, crunchy, loaded chocolate bars are going viral. Bursting with unusual fillings such as filo pastry, vanilla custard, or tea and biscuits, these chunky chocolate bars originate from Fix Dessert Chocolatier. It’s not just a chocolate bar, she says: “We want to create an experience.”The 38-year-old, who has been Dubai-based for nine years, launched the brand in 2021 as a side hustle. Inspired by her pregnancy cravings, the British Egyptian entrepreneur set out to create something more than the “typical” chocolate fix. The 200-gram chocolate bars, which retail for $20 each, are only available through food delivery service Deliveroo, with sales going live at 5pm daily.

Persons: ”, Sarah Hamouda, It’s, Maria Vehera, ingle, ike, ince, ideo, egan, hank Organizations: CNN, ust Locations: Dubai, British Egyptian, arak

A Ukrainian reporter who revealed that a state news agency tried to bar interviews with opposition politicians said he received a draft notification the next day. Ukraine’s domestic spy agency spied on staff members of an investigative news outlet through peepholes in their hotel rooms. Journalists and groups monitoring press freedoms are raising alarms over what they say are increasing restrictions and pressures on the media in Ukraine under the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky that go well beyond the country’s wartime needs. “It’s really disturbing,” said Oksana Romanyuk, director of the Institute of Mass Information, a nonprofit that monitors media freedoms. That is particularly true, she said, in a war where Ukraine is “fighting for democracy against the values of dictatorship embodied by Russia.”

Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky, “, ”, Oksana Romanyuk Organizations: of Mass Locations: Ukrainian, peepholes, Ukraine, Russia

A month into Russia’s push across the border in northern Ukraine, Western weapons and Ukrainian reinforcements have largely stalled the attack. But they came too late to save one town, Vovchansk, where the city hall, a cultural center, countless apartment blocks and several riverside hotels are all now in ruins. A small town divided by the Vovcha River, Vovchansk was once a regional tourist attraction — a pleasant base from which to explore the chalk hills nearby. But it is also three miles from the Russian border, and when Russia began a cross-border offensive on May 10, it became Ukrainian forces’ stand-your-ground position. And a month of fierce fighting and relentless bombing by Russia has decimated the town, forcing almost everyone left there to flee.

Persons: Vovchansk, ’, ”, Tetyana Polyakova Organizations: Russia Locations: Ukraine, Western, Vovchansk, Russian, Ukrainian, Russia

☆ Putin’s daughters make rare appearance at St. Petersburg economic forum
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-08 | by ( Radina Gigova | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —The daughters of Russian President Vladimir Putin rarely make public appearances, but this week they took part in panels at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Putin has said his daughters work in science and education and that he has grandchildren, but he has never confirmed their names. Katerina Tikhonova, Putin's daughter and the head of Innopraktika development initiative, virtually attended the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on Thursday. Olga Maltseva/AFP/Getty ImagesBoth of them have attended the annual St. Petersburg forum in the past, but only the younger daughter, Tikhonova, has been a speaker, according to the Russian independent outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe. Tikhonova, who is a tech executive, made a video appearance on Thursday at a forum about ensuring the “technological sovereignty” of the military-industrial complex.

Persons: Vladimir Putin, Maria Vorontsova, Katerina Tikhonova, Lyudmila, Putin, Olga Maltseva, Tikhonova, Vladimir Soloviev, Alexey Navalny, Vorontsova, Kirill Shamalov Organizations: CNN, St ., Economic, Saint Petersburg, Getty, Novaya Gazeta Europe, National Intellectual Development Foundation, US, Russian Association for, Science, Analysts Locations: St, St . Petersburg, Saint Petersburg, Russia, AFP, Petersburg, Russian, Ukraine, Dutch, Netherlands, Biarritz, France

☆ As Fighting Rages in Ukraine, a Struggle Is On for Artillery Supremacy
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-07 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Russia, though, still holds an artillery advantage, which has been key in the war in Ukraine. Lt. Denys Yaroslavsky, a commander in northeastern Ukraine, where Russian forces attacked across the border last month and threatened to advance toward Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, said on Thursday that Ukrainian artillery crews could now fire more frequently at Russian forces. The Russian advance has largely stalled. But to the south of Kharkiv, in Ukraine’s Donbas region, Russia has renewed assaults on Ukrainian lines. Overall, the front line has not shifted significantly in more than two weeks, despite fierce and bloody fighting, according to soldiers on the front, military reports and satellite maps of the battlefield compiled by independent monitoring groups.

Persons: Biden, Denys Yaroslavsky Organizations: Congress, Ukraine’s Locations: France, Russia, Ukraine, Kharkiv, Ukraine’s Donbas

☆ Putin and his Kremlin clique are rolling out their own kids at the 'Russian Davos'
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-06 | by ( Huileng Tan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Read previewIt's the time of the year for the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum — or the "Russian Davos," as it's sometimes called. This year, the biggest names attending the event include Bolivian President Luis Arce and Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Related VideoBut the four-day economic forum, which started on Wednesday, now also features the children of the Kremlin's top echelons, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. Advertisement"Now that this opportunity has become harder, the way to protect themselves is to appoint their children as bosses," Schulmann told Bloomberg. Putin is scheduled to address the economic forum on Friday.

Persons: —, Vladimir Putin's, Emmanuel Macron, Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi, Angela Merkel, Luis Arce, Emmerson Mnangagwa, Maria Vorontsova, Katerina Tikhonova, Anton Vaino's, Alexander, Ekaterina Schulmann, Schulmann, Putin Organizations: Service, St ., Economic, Indian, Business, Bolivian, Bloomberg, Russian Association for, Kremlin, Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center Locations: St, St . Petersburg, Russian Davos, Russian, Russia, Ukraine, Berlin

☆ Ukrainian Drone Strikes Target Russian Nuclear Radar Stations
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-30 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In recent days, Ukraine has conducted a series of drone attacks inside Russia, including one of the longest-range strikes of the war, that target radar stations used, at least partly, as early nuclear warning systems by Moscow. On Monday, Ukraine struck a radar station near the border with Kazakhstan that was more than 1,100 miles away, a Ukrainian intelligence official said. Ukrainian experts said the facility was used to detect missile threats from Asia. On Tuesday morning, the governor of the Krasnodar region of Russia reported that a Ukrainian drone was downed in the sky over the town of Armavir, which is home to two radar stations. Ukraine did not report any new strikes that day.

Persons: Biden Locations: Ukraine, Russia, Moscow, Kazakhstan, Ukrainian, Asia, Krasnodar, Armavir, Kyiv, United States, Kharkiv

☆ Onstage, Witches and Cossacks Strike a Chord With Ukrainians
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-27 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The lines for the show snake down the block, with people waiting for up to seven hours to buy tickets at the theater in downtown Kyiv. Videos of the performance have drawn millions of views online. The smash hit isn’t a popular Broadway musical or a series of concerts by a pop star — it’s a play based on a classic 19th-century Ukrainian novel, “The Witch of Konotop,” and the mood is anything but upbeat. Consider the opening line: “It is sad and gloomy.”Mykhailo Matiukhin, an actor in the production, said that is what has struck a chord with Ukrainians because it shows “what we are living through now.”

Persons: Mykhailo Matiukhin, ” Locations: Kyiv

As Ukraine struggles to hold back Russian advances, the country’s officials say they are once again facing the formidable challenge of keeping electricity flowing as Moscow’s forces increasingly strike power plants. To conserve energy, the government has ordered nationwide rolling blackouts for Monday night, broadening the smaller regional ones that have become the norm in recent weeks. “This is another frontline in the war,” said Maxim Timchenko, the head of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private electricity company, on social media last week. He said the company’s workers were engaged in a “race against time” to restore power to consumers. The nationwide blackout, scheduled from 6 p.m. to midnight, will affect the entire country for the first time this year, but it is unclear if it will continue past Monday.

Persons: ”, Maxim Timchenko Locations: Ukraine

Many Ukrainians were up in the early hours of Sunday morning, for once not to seek shelter from incoming Russian missiles, but to celebrate the Ukrainian boxer Oleksandr Usyk becoming the world’s undisputed heavyweight champion. Mr. Usyk’s victory over the British boxer Tyson Fury was a rare piece of good news for an embattled nation that is struggling to contain Russian advances, particularly in the northeast, where Moscow has opened a new front. President Volodymyr Zelensky lauded the victory as a symbol of Ukraine’s resilience. “Ukrainians hit hard!” Mr. Zelensky wrote in a Telegram post around 3 a.m. that included a photograph of Mr. Usyk delivering a punch to Mr. Fury. Russian troops recently advanced farther into Robotyne, a village in the south that was one of the rare successes of Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive last summer.

Persons: Oleksandr Usyk, Tyson Fury, Volodymyr Zelensky, Zelensky, Usyk, Fury, Ukraine’s Locations: British, Moscow, Robotyne

Russian troops punched across Ukraine’s northern border with such speed and force last week that Ukraine’s meager fortifications offered almost no obstacle. As she fled the village where she had spent her whole life, she said, not a single Ukrainian soldier was in sight. The stunning incursion into the Kharkiv Region lays bare the challenges facing Ukraine’s weary and thinly stretched forces as Russia ramps up its summer offensive. The Russian troops pouring over the border enjoyed a huge advantage in artillery shells and employed air power, including fighter jets and heavy glide bombs, to disastrous effect, unhindered by depleted Ukrainian air defenses. Once over the border, the Russian soldiers easily pushed past fortifications — like trenches, land mines and tank barriers — some of which, Ukrainian troops said, were insufficient or sloppily constructed.

Persons: ”, Tetiana Novikova Locations: Vovchansk, Ukrainian, Kharkiv Region, Russia

☆ Defending in Its North, Ukraine Faces Pressure All Along Front Line
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-16 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ukrainian forces said on Thursday that they were slowing the pace of an offensive push by Russia in their country’s northeast, even as they struggled to contain new Russian assaults at several other locations on the front line, with Moscow seeking to stretch Kyiv’s troops to break through their defenses. The Ukrainian military reported late Wednesday that it had repelled four ground attacks in the northeastern Kharkiv region, where Russian forces surged across the border last week and quickly captured a dozen or so villages and about 50 square miles of territory. “Over the course of the day, our Defense and Security Forces of Ukraine — all units involved — have managed to partially stabilize the situation,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address on Wednesday evening. “Our attention is constantly focused on the front line, on all combat zones.”Ukrainian civilians who were evacuated on Thursday said that Russian forces had been fighting in small units that slip through the forest and into villages. They have popped up unexpectedly on streets in the town of Vovchansk, a village a dozen miles to the east of Kharkiv city that is now contested between the two armies.

Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky Organizations: Russian, Defense and Security Forces Locations: Russia, Moscow, Kharkiv, Ukraine, Vovchansk

Ukraine rushed reinforcements to its northern border on Friday after Russian forces attempted to break through Ukrainian lines along several sections, applying new pressure on forces already stretched thin along a 600-mile front. The Russian assaults began at around 5 a.m. Friday with massive shelling and aerial bombardments of Ukrainian positions followed by armored columns trying to punch through at several points along the border, according to a statement from Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense. “As of now, these attacks have been repelled, and battles of varying intensity are ongoing,” the ministry said. “To strengthen the defense in this sector of the front, reserve units have been deployed.”The breadth and intent of the Russian border incursions remained unclear. Military analysts have said Russia may be trying to force Ukraine to expend valuable resources in defending the region just as Russian assaults in eastern Ukraine are intensifying.

Persons: “ Organizations: Russian, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, Military Locations: Ukraine, Russian, Russia

☆ DNA Tests and Stranded Bodies: Ukraine’s Struggle to Name Its Dead
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-05 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The bodies of the two Ukrainian soldiers lay motionless in a field for months. The soldiers’ relatives identified their bodies from aerial footage gathered by drone. Andriy Zaretsky — were dead. Yet more than four months later, the Ukrainian military still lists them as missing, even though subsequent drone footage provided by a fellow soldier weeks later showed them still lying there. This confusion, and the lengthy, difficult process of obtaining official declaration of the deaths, is far from isolated, and has emerged as another painful consequence of the two-year-old war.

Persons: Serhiy Matsiuk, Andriy Zaretsky —, ”, Zaretsky’s, Anastasia Locations: Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine’s

☆ Ukraine Is Denying Consular Services to Men Outside the Country
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-26 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Ukrainian officials have taken several steps in recent weeks to swell the ranks of an army depleted by more than two years of grueling combat. The government passed a new mobilization bill aimed at increasing troop numbers and has stepped up border patrols to catch draft dodgers. Now, officials are targeting men who have already left the country. This week the government announced that Ukrainian embassies had suspended issuing new passports and providing other consular services for military-age men living abroad. By suspending consular services, the government said, it was responding to demands for fairness in society.

Organizations: dodgers

☆ Russia Strikes Ukraine’s Railways and Vows to Slow Arrival of U.S. Aid
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-26 | by ( Maria Varenikova | More About Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

At least 31 civilians were injured and six killed in the attacks, according to the Ukrainian military and local officials. Three of the dead were railway workers killed by a strike in the Donetsk region. Russia also attacked a railway facility in the Cherkasy region but no casualties were reported. The latest attacks on the rail network came after Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, promised to target Western weapons as they arrived in Ukraine. “We will increase the intensity of strikes on logistics centers and storage bases of Western weapons,” he said in a speech Tuesday at the ministry.

Persons: Sergei Shoigu, “, ” Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Cherkasy, Ukrainian

Its towering smokestacks once puffed out clouds of steam. In gigantic machine rooms, turbines whirled around the clock. In the Soviet era, the Kurakhove Heating and Power Plant gave rise to the town around it in Ukraine’s east, driving the local economy and sustaining the community with wages and heating for homes. “Our plant is the heart of our city,” said Halyna Liubchenko, a retiree whose husband worked his entire career in nearby coal mines that fed the facility. That heart is barely beating now, partly destroyed by artillery.

Persons: ”, Halyna Liubchenko Organizations: Power Locations: Soviet, Ukraine’s, Ukraine’s Donbas

From the bloody trenches of the battlefield to crowded cities battered by Russian bombardments, millions of Ukrainians waited in nervous anticipation as the United States Congress prepared, after months of delay, to decide if America will resume providing their country with critical military support. Private Pavlo Kaliuk, who has been fighting to slow the Russian advance after the fall of the city of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine earlier this year, was on his way to the funeral for a fallen soldier when reached by phone on Friday. “I am walking and thinking that maybe it’s my friend who died at war, who is up in the sky now, who will help the world and United States to support Ukraine,” he said. Ukraine cannot rely on divine intervention; instead it is counting on the House of Representatives to approve a $60 billion aid package on Saturday.

Persons: Pavlo Kaliuk, “, ” Organizations: United States Congress Locations: America, Avdiivka, Ukraine, United States

☆ Russian Missile Strikes North of Kyiv Kill at Least 14, Ukraine Says
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-17 | by ( Maria Varenikova | Marc Santora | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

At least 14 people were killed and scores more injured when three Russian missiles struck a busy downtown district of Chernihiv, north of Kyiv, just before noon on Wednesday, Ukrainian officials said. President Volodymyr Zelensky said the death toll, reported by the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general, might rise and blamed Ukraine’s lack of air defenses for the loss of life. The prosecutor general said that 61 people were reported injured. “This would not have happened if Ukraine had received enough air defense equipment and if the world’s determination to counter Russian terror was also sufficient,” Mr. Zelensky said in a statement. Ukrainian officials did not comment on the apparent attack, but Russian military bloggers affiliated with the Kremlin reported that Ukrainian missiles had struck locations around the air base in Dzhankoi, Crimea.

Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s, Mr, Zelensky, ” Organizations: Kremlin, Ukrainian Locations: Russian, Chernihiv, Kyiv, Ukraine, Crimean, Ukrainian, Dzhankoi, Crimea

☆ Meteorites may be lost to Antarctic ice as climate warms, study says
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-10 | by ( Katie Hunt | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

Ice sampling occurs on a blue ice area during the 2022 Chilean Antarctic Institute field mission. “As the climate continues to warm, Antarctic rocks are sinking into the ice at an increasing rate. Meteorites are particularly plentiful in blue ice fields. Steven Goderis/Vrije Universiteit BrusselResearchers have identified areas of meteorite-rich blue ice mostly by luck. “The main worry is the logistical aspect of searching for Antarctica meteorites, which is already difficult today due to the remoteness of Antarctica.

Persons: Maria Valdes, ”, Valdes, Robert A, “, José, wasn’t, Balchenfjella, Steven Goderis, Veronica Tollenaar, ” Valdes, Tollenaar, ” Tollenaar, Harry Zekollari, Katherine Joy, Matthias van Ginneken, van Ginneken, Kevin Righter, Righter Organizations: CNN, Field, University of Chicago, Pritzker Center, Meteoritics, Polar Studies, Antarctic Institute, University of Santiago, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Université Libre de Bruxelles, University of Manchester, University of Kent’s, Astrophysics, NASA Johnson Space Center Locations: Antarctica, Chile, Vrije, Université, Belgium, Houston

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