Jen Kirby

1 month ago | devex.com | Jen Kirby

In the last weeks of the Biden administration, the U.S. committed $20 billion to a fund for Ukraine. $16 billion has already been disbursed, as part of a G7 plan to use frozen Russian assets to pay for the reconstruction of Ukraine. In October 2024, the World Bank approved a new fund for Ukraine. On Dec. 10, just weeks before the Trump administration took office, the United States transferred a $20 billion loan in support of Ukraine into this fund.

2 months ago | vanityfair.com | Jen Kirby

European officials were bracing for a more adversarial America ahead of the Munich Security Conference, a diplomatic gathering that has traditionally been a showcase for the Western alliance. Still, they approached meetings this past weekend with a tentative hope of being able to to talk it out, face-to-face, with Donald Trump’s envoys, a kind of emergency couples therapy for a transatlantic marriage on the rocks.

2 months ago | greeneuropeanjournal.eu | Konrad Bleyer-Simon |Peter Unfried |Inge Jooris |Jen Kirby

The German green movement, historically one of the most successful in Europe, has lost momentum in recent years amid a succession of economic and security crises. But as the country sees the far right’s popularity rise, the green forces have an opportunity to thrive again as part of an “alliance of the reasonable” by aligning climate action with social justice.  Last year, Katharina Kewitz, a 26-year-old from Lübeck, northern Germany, joined fellow climate activists for a meeting with bus drivers.

2 months ago | aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org | Jen Kirby

Hegseth, in confirmation hearing, signaled the transformation will be a priorityThe B-21 Raider looks like a cross between an airplane and an alien spacecraft. Maybe that’s fitting for the U.S. Air Force’s next stealth bomber, built to evade detection and designed through digital engineering — that is, engineers developed the bomber with computer models, and analyzed and tested its capabilities in simulations before the B-21 ever took flight. As of late 2024, three prototypes were in testing.

2 months ago | aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org | Jen Kirby

Hegseth, in confirmation hearing, signaled the transformation will be a priorityThe B-21 Raider looks like a cross between an airplane and an alien spacecraft. Maybe that’s fitting for the U.S. Air Force’s next stealth bomber, built to evade detection and designed through digital engineering — that is, engineers developed the bomber with computer models, and analyzed and tested its capabilities in simulations before the B-21 ever took flight. As of late 2024, three prototypes were in testing.