An American oil company connected to Donald Trump is preparing to sink wells in remote Greenland despite not having received permission from the local authorities.

As the US president renews his threats to claim the vast Arctic territory, materials to prepare for drilling were brought ashore in recent days on Greenland’s eastern coast.

That has prompted Greenland’s government to issue a “strong warning” that no approval had been granted to land the kit. “All future logistical matters must be advised and approved by the mineral resources authority – before they are carried out,” the government said in a statement.

Two days later, Trump made his latest menacing post on Truth Social, showing himself looming over a Greenlandic village.

Netherlands-based Alfen and China-based CATL have signed an agreement to deploy 5 GWh of sodium-ion battery energy storage systems in Europe, building on an existing partnership focused on lithium-ion battery storage projects.

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/34894282

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/65164

In a set of fascistic speeches on Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House power broker Stephen Miller, and other top Trump administration officials labelled the political left as a “terrorist” threat and vowed to use all of the tools at their disposal to systematically destroy left-wing groups. Representatives from 67 countries gathered in the U.S. on Thursday for a meeting…

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The state of New York has reached 8GW of cumulative installed distributed solar PV, putting it ahead of its 10GW target by 2030.

(Alternative article)

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/movies/p/1982727/the-amazing-digital-circus-finale-movie-makes-5-million-in-presales-a-record-for-fathom

This past January, fans of the veteran YouTuber Markiplier turned his feature film debut “Iron Lung” into a global box office hit, convincing thousands of theaters to bring the movie to their screens. Now, that’s happening again with “The Amazing Digital Circus,” the hit YouTube animated series that is bringing its ninth and final episode to the big screen.

This past Friday, indie animation distributor Glitch, which produces “The Amazing Digital Circus,” announced that Episode 8 and the soon-to-be-released finale would be combined into a theatrical event distributed by Fathom in theaters in the U.S., Canada, Latin America and Japan on June 5, two weeks before the finale’s YouTube release.

In the four days since the trailer’s release, Fathom tells TheWrap that “The Amazing Digital Circus” has shattered the company’s presale records, with $5 million in tickets already sold more than seven weeks before the release date. Fathom’s previous presale record holder, “Christmas With The Chosen,” earned $3 million in presales in 2023.

But that alone wouldn’t be enough to make “Circus” an “Iron Lung”-esque phenomenon. Fathom CEO Ray Nutt told TheWrap that over the weekend, theater owners have called his company asking to book the film for their screens. The demand has been fueled by a wave of outreach from fans who want to see the final episode with others and support the series, as well as a fear of being spoiled on what happens in the episode before its YouTube release.

Now, instead of a four-day limited engagement in 900 theaters, Fathom will be screening “The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act” for two weeks right up to the YouTube release on a minimum of 1,800 theaters. With theater owners gathered in Las Vegas for CinemaCon this week, at least two exhibitors have told TheWrap they are looking into adding “Circus” to their summer schedule for their screens, so that theater count will only grow in the weeks ahead.

“We’ve had new people calling us to add the film to their circuits, and the ones who already had it are asking to book more showtimes,” said Nutt. “I give so much credit to Glitch for taking a chance on the theatrical environment and to our team for recognizing, as they did with ‘The Chosen,’ that there is a real audience for this series.”

The pilot episode of “The Amazing Digital Circus” hit YouTube in October 2023 and has since racked up more than 425 million views. Created by British-American animator, artist and composer Gooseworx, the series is a psychological dark comedy inspired by Harlan Ellison’s famed sci-fi horror short story “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.”

The series follows six people who have been transformed into abstract, cartoonish characters in a virtual world run by a manic AI ringmaster named Caine. The latest addition to the group, an accountant-turned-cartoon jester named Pomni, must find a way to keep her companions together even as she finds herself trapped in a world full of absurdity and horror.

The series’ eighth episode (which has 81 million views) ended in a cliffhanger as the humans’ attempts to rebel against Caine led to him being accidentally deleted, turning the Digital Circus into a wasteland. Stuck on their own and now even further trapped in their endless nightmare, the group faces a potentially hopeless situation in the coming finale.

“The Amazing Digital Circus” will be released the same weekend as Amazon MGM’s “Masters of the Universe,” Paramount’s “Scary Movie” revival, and Lionsgate’s “Power Ballad” starring Nick Jonas. Its second week of play will be alongside the new Steven Spielberg sci-fi film “Disclosure Day.”

But the fact that this indie animated series with a budget a fraction of these major studio films is getting a wide theatrical release alongside the likes of Steven Spielberg speaks to how significantly the industry has changed, and exhibitors see hope in more of these kinds of specialty releases fueled by online fandoms.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/45098195

From AP

The order signed Tuesday calls on the Department of Homeland Security, working in conjunction with the Social Security Administration, to make the list of eligible voters in each state. It also seeks to bar the U.S. Postal Service from sending absentee ballots to those not on each state’s approved list.

Trump is also calling for ballots to have secure envelopes with unique barcodes for tracking, according to the executive order, which was first reported by the Daily Caller. Federal funding could be withheld from states and localities that don’t comply.