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With its powerful camera, the French Navy surveillance plane scouring the Baltic Sea zoomed in on a cargo ship plowing the waters belowcloser, closer, and closer still until the camera operator could make out details on the vessel’s front deck and smoke pouring from its chimney.The long-range Atlantique 2 aircraft on a new mission for NATO then shifted its high-tech gaze onto another target, and another after that until, after more than five hours on patrol, the plane’s array of sensors had scoped out the bulk of the Balticfrom Germany in the west to Estonia in the northeast, bordering Russia.The flight’s mere presence in the skies above the strategic sea last week, combined with military ships patrolling on the waters, also sent an unmistakable message: The NATO alliance is ratcheting up its guard against suspected attempts to sabotage underwater energy and data cables and pipelines that crisscross the Baltic, prompted by a growing catalogue of incidents that have damaged them.“We will do everything in our power to make sure that we fight back, that we are able to see what is happening and then take the next steps to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. And our adversaries should know this,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said this month in announcing a new alliance mission, dubbed “Baltic Sentry,” to protect the underwater infrastructure vital to the economic well-being of Baltic-region nations. What’s under the Baltic? Power and communications cables and gas pipelines stitch together the nine countries with shores on the Baltic, a relatively shallow and nearly landlocked sea. A few examples are the 152-kilometer (94-mile) Balticconnector pipeline that carries gas between Finland and Estonia, the high-voltage Baltic Cable connecting the power grids of Sweden and Germany, and the 1,173-kilometer (729-mile) C-Lion1 telecommunications cable between Finland and Germany. Why are cables important? Undersea pipes and cables help power economies, keep houses warm, and connect billions of people. More than 1.3 million kilometers (807,800 miles) of fiber optic cablesmore than enough to stretch to the moon and backspan the world’s oceans and seas, according to TeleGeography, which tracks and maps the vital communication networks. The cables are typically the width of a garden hose. But 97% of the world’s communications, including trillions of dollars of financial transactions, pass through them each day.“In the last two months alone, we have seen damage to a cable connecting Lithuania and Sweden, another connecting Germany and Finland, and most recently, a number of cables linking Estonia and Finland. Investigations of all of these cases are still ongoing. But there is reason for grave concern,” Rutte said on January 14. What’s causing alarm? At least 11 Baltic cables have been damaged since October 2023the most recent being a fiber optic cable connecting Latvia and the Swedish island of Gotland, reported to have ruptured on Sunday. Although cable operators note that subsea cable damage is commonplace, the frequency and concentration of incidents in the Baltic heightened suspicions that damage might have been deliberate.There also are fears that Russia could target cables as part of a wider campaign of so-called “hybrid warfare” to destabilize European nations helping Ukraine defend itself against the full-scale invasion that Moscow has been pursuing since 2022.Without specifically blaming Russia, Rutte said: “Hybrid means sabotage. Hybrid means cyberattacks. Hybrid means sometimes even assassination attacks, attempts, and in this case, it means hitting on our critical undersea infrastructure.”Finnish police suspect that the Eagle S, an oil tanker that damaged the Estlink 2 power cable and two other communications cables linking Finland and Estonia on Dec. 25th, is part of Moscow’s “shadow fleet” used to avoid war-related sanctions on Russian oil exports.Finnish authorities seized the tanker shortly after it left a Russian port and apparently cut the cables by dragging its anchor. Finnish investigators allege the ship left an almost 100-kilometer (62-mile) long anchor trail on the seabed. Intelligence agencies’ doubts Several Western intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of their work, told the Associated Press that recent damage was most likely accidental, seemingly caused by anchors being dragged by ships that were poorly maintained and poorly crewed.One senior intelligence official told AP that ships’ logs and mechanical failures with ships’ anchors were among “multiple indications” pointing away from Russian sabotage. The official said Russian cables were also severed. Another Western official, also speaking anonymously to discuss intelligence matters, said Russia sent an intelligence-gathering vessel to the site of one cable rupture to investigate the damage.The Washington Post first reported on the emerging consensus among U.S. and European security services that maritime accidents likely caused recent damage. Cable operators advise caution The European Subsea Cables Association, representing cable owners and operators, noted in November after faults were reported on two Baltic links that, on average, a subsea cable is damaged somewhere in the world every three days. In northern European waters, the main causes of damage are commercial fishing or ship anchors, it said.In the fiber-optic cable rupture on Sunday connecting Latvia and Sweden, Swedish authorities detained a Maltese-flagged ship bound for South America with a cargo of fertilizer.Navibulgar, a Bulgarian company that owns the Vezhen, said any damage was unintentional and that the ship’s crew discovered while navigating in extremely bad weather that its left anchor appeared to have dragged on the seabed. NATO’s ‘Baltic Sentry’ mission The alliance is deploying warships, maritime patrol aircraft and naval drones for the mission to provide “enhanced surveillance and deterrence.”Aboard the French Navy surveillance flight, the 14-member crew cross-checked ships they spotted from the air against lists of vessels they had been ordered to watch for.“If we witness some suspicious activities from ships as seafor example, ships at very low speed or at anchorage in a position that they shouldn’t be at this timeso this is something we can see,” said the flight commander, Lt. Alban, whose surname was withheld by the French military for security reasons.“We can have a very close look with our sensors to see what is happening.” Burrows reported from London. AP journalists Jill Lawless in London, David Klepper in Washington and Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Bulgaria, contributed to this report. John Leicester and Emma Burrows, Associated Press
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If youre an egg lover, you know that the cost of a dozen has skyrocketed in recent months. As Fast Company previously reported, depending on where youre located in America, you could be paying anywhere from around $5 per carton to nearly $9. Gone are the days of cheap eggs. But just how bad have things gotten, and where will egg prices likely go in the coming year? Two online egg price tracking tools help crack those answers. Egg price tracking tools The first online egg price tracking tool comes from TradingEconomics.com. Its Eggs US tracker is updated daily and shows how the price of eggs has changed from 2012 to today. Its prices represent the price of futures contracts for eggs. As the site states, Prices for Eggs displayed in Trading Economics are based on over-the-counter (OTC) and contract for difference (CFD) financial instruments. The trackers most recent update shows that the price of a dozen eggs reached $7.09 in January 2025. Thats an increase of over 22%, or $1.28 per dozen, since the beginning of the year. But the chart also reveals some good newsand bad news. If you click on its forecast tab, it will reveal that it expects the price of a dozen eggs to drop to $6.28 by the end of this quarter. However, by the end of 2025, it expects a dozen eggs to surpass even todays high pricetopping out at $7.95 per dozen by the end of December. A second online tool that tracks the price of eggs is from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The tool tracks the average cost of a dozen large Grade A eggs in U.S. cities. While this egg tracking tool will reveal egg prices going back to 1980, the tool is also only updated monthly, so its egg prices are only current until December 2024, when, it reveals, the average cost of a dozen eggs was just $4.146. But those who miss the heyday of cheap eggs might want to avoid this tool, lest they are reminded that, with a few exceptions, up until 2021, the price of a dozen eggs rarely broke the $2 barrier. Why are egg prices skyrocketing? Both charts reveal that egg prices have skyrocketed since around September 2023. But why? As Fast Company previously reported, three main factors are affecting the cost of eggs. The first is inflation: Since 2023, the cost of nearly everything has been going up for American consumers. The second reason is supply chain issues that are partially a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The egg industry continues to suffer from a labor shortage, which hurts production. The third reason is the ongoing bird flu outbreak, which has led to the demise of tens of millions of the creatures we rely on to lay our eggs. President Trump has previously promised on the campaign trail to bring down the prices of eggs, but given the challenges the industry faces, it seems like that is easier said than done.
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The Grammy Awards will look a little bit different this week.Each year, the Recording Academy hosts a multitude of events to welcome the music industry during Grammy week and record labels do the same. However, many institutions have canceled their plansUniversal Music Group, Sony, Spotify, BMG, and Warner Music Group among themand instead are allocating resources to help those affected by the devastating Los Angeles-area wildfires.The Grammys will still take place on Sunday at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles but now will focus its attention on helping wildfire victims. How will Grammy week differ in 2025? Within days of fires ravaging the Pacific Palisades and Altadena neighborhoods, the Recording Academy and its affiliated MusiCares charity launched the Los Angeles Fire Relief Effort with a $1 million dollar donation. According to a letter sent to members on January 13, thanks to additional contributions, they’ve already distributed $2 million in emergency aid.Once the fund was set up, Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr. said they began focusing on reformatting what Grammy week would look likemany conversations conducted “on the road, mobile-y, virtually” as staffers had evacuated their homes.“That process has really consisted of reaching out to just listen and learn from a lot of peoplestate officials, local officials, the governor’s office, the mayor’s office, the fire department. We talked to hotel managers, just really trying to get a grasp on what was happening currently. What did they project was going to happen in the next week to 10 days? Would be safe to have a show?”Ultimately, the Recording Academy decided to condense its pre-Grammy week plans to just four events, each featuring a fundraising element.On Friday, MusiCares, an organization that helps music professionals who need financial, personal, or medical assistance, will hold its annual Persons of the Year benefit gala celebrating the Grateful Dead.On Saturday, the Special Merit Awards Ceremony and Grammy nominees’ reception will still take place, followed by Clive Davis’ pre-Grammy fundraising event. Then the Grammys take the stage on Sunday.Events like the annual pre-Grammy Black Music Collective event, Grammy advocacy brunch, and others scheduled to take place at the immersive pop-up Grammy house have been canceled.“We thought consolidating the events would allow us to have more impact,” Mason explains. “And we just don’t feel it was the right time to have social gatherings or places to party or schmooze and just hang out. We wanted to have our events be places that could be purposeful and impactful. Some of the party settings, we decided to fold down into our fundraising efforts.” How has the Grammy award show been reformatted? “Obviously, we can’t have a normal show in the midst of people’s belongings being burned or loss of life or other things like that. At the same time, canceling would not have helped,” Mason says.“We needed to raise money. We needed to show unity and come together around music. We need to support the city of L.A. (Over) 6,500 people work on our shows and ancillary gatherings. So, once we decided to move forward, it was really a conversation with (Grammy producers) Ben Winston, Raj Kapoor, and Jesse Collins and myself. And we started to think about, ‘How do we make the show have the greatest impact?'”They decided the path forward was to still give out awards and host performances to give viewers and attendees a bespoke concert experience. But most importantly, the show could raise awareness, drive donations and resources to funds that benefit people in need.And the conversations are ongoing. “We have some great things in the show that will definitely help to raise funds,” he assures. “It will honor some of the heroes that have been protecting our lives and our homes. It will hopefully shine a light on some people that need more help and more services.”Don’t expect a traditional telethon, but he says the show will feature announcements and activations in the arena.“Hopefully we’ll be talking about things that have been pledged from the sponsors or from the community,” he adds. How many Recording Academy members were affected by the fires? “We know right off the bat that we’ve got almost 3,000 requests for help from our members or people in the music community,” Mason says. “So that was just in the first few days.”The immediate needs have been “the basics,” as he explains. “Food, water, shelter, the bare necessities to live.”“The next phase will involve, you know, where they’re going to live, how are they going to replace maybe damaged or destroyed instruments, studios. How will they make a living? I’m sure there’ll be some mental health component that people may need assistance with. But it’s really across the board. But the early, immediate relief is around just the bare necessities.” Has anything like this happened before? There’s no shortage of natural disasters, and they affect the music community too. Mason brings up the COVID-19 pandemic as a recent example. With MusiCares, they were able to contribute “over $40 million to people who needed help.” They have the infrastructure to provide assistance quickly.However, he notes, the Grammys are the first major award show taking place after the wildfires, which means “there’s no playbook for this.”“But I’ve always said it all changes if the fires were to continue, or possibly got worse, or the winds changed. So, I always want to reserve that right. We’re not going to go blindly forward if things are unsafe or if it feels inappropriate,” he says.But consider the fundraising, the economic and financial impacts, and the possibility of unity, “It all makes sense for us to move forward.” For more coverage of this year’s Grammy Awards, visit: www.apnews.com/GrammyAwards Maria Sherman, AP Music Writer
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