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Members of Wagner Group stand on the balcony of the circus building in the city of Rostov-on-Don. | AFP/Getty Images

U.S. officials suspect the rebellion by a Russian warlord against the Kremlin’s military leadership could provide Ukraine with a much-needed opportunity to reverse the fortunes of its sputtering counteroffensive.

The Biden administration has yet to draw up a formal assessment and officials cautioned it was too early for definitive conclusions. But multiple interagency meetings Friday night and Saturday morning arrived at a preliminary consensus that the Wagner mercenary group’s insurrection will occupy the Kremlin’s attention.

“I don’t see how it could hurt them,” said one of the senior administration officials. Others said it was likely to help, especially since Wagner overtook the Southern Military District headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, the epicenter of Russia’s operational management for its invasion of Ukraine.

The officials, granted permission to speak anonymously about the greatest challenge to Putin in more than 20 years, said they were tracking Wagner forces into Rostov and now as they make their way northward toward the Russian capital. The local governor of the Lipetsk region, roughly six hours from Moscow, said Wagner troops drove through the oblast with armored vehicles Saturday morning. Russian military bloggers indicated that a Wagner advance reached the Moscow region.

Even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy conceded his country’s counteroffensive hasn’t gone to plan as Russian airpower and dormant mines stalled Kyiv’s advances on multiple fronts. The Biden administration feared that a lack of clear success heading into next month’s NATO summit would erode alliance unity and complicate the politics of continued support for Ukraine. But Prigozhin’s play could change the calculus.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were briefed Saturday by Cabinet-level officials — including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines — about Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s armed march toward Moscow.

Gen. Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs, spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart, Gen. Valery Zaluzhnyy Saturday.

“I told him about the offensive and offensive actions of our units,” Zaluzhnyy said, according to a readout of the conversation. “I informed him that the operation is going in accordance with the plan.”

Biden also spoke Saturday about the situation in Russia with President Emmanuel Macron of France, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of the United Kingdom.

Further, Blinken chatted with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. “Ukraine remains focused on achieving the goals of its counteroffensive in the territory of Ukraine with the steadfast support of our American allies,” Kuleba said in a Saturday tweet.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin plans to speak to Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov later on Saturday.

A U.S. official said phone calls to European counterparts are focused on the effort to “reassure them” and also reinforce the need to message neutrality. “No one should be spiking the football.”

The general agreement on the calls between the U.S. and its European allies is that Kyiv now has an unprecedented opportunity to advance while a key mercenary force shifts its attention from holding Ukrainian positions to attacking points inside Russia.

Biden was scheduled to travel Saturday to Camp David — which is equipped with resources with which he could monitor the unfolding situation — but his departure for the presidential retreat in the Maryland woods was delayed until early Saturday afternoon.

Even if Putin quashes the rebellion, it could occupy the resources of the Russian military and would likely eliminate the use of the Wagner Group at the front, where it had proven successful against Ukrainian forces.

“Cracks in the Putin regime are wide and bright now. The Kremlin has to put the Prigozhin rebellion down with force to avoid it from threatening regime legitimacy,” said Alina Polyakova, president and CEO of the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis.

NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu said the military bloc is “monitoring the situation.” One early complication for NATO is that Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, a NATO ally, already pledged his “full support” in a call with Putin Saturday.

But the open rebellion — and the ease with which Wagner took the military command center in Rostov, where the Kremlin controls its war on Ukraine — also vividly displayed the weakness of Russia’s military.

Officials cautioned that events over the next few hours and days were difficult to predict, from Vladimir Putin swiftly putting down the insurrection to his grip on power slipping, as the myth of his total control over Russia shatters in real time. Administration figures said they couldn’t confirm Putin’s whereabouts.

And while U.S. officials currently believe Putin will remain in charge, there’s quiet fear inside the administration that the Russian leader could reach for the most catastrophic options available to him if he sniffs a challenge to his power.

No one in the White House would miss Putin, but there’s no evidence that Prigozhin — or at least someone aligned with him — would be any less dangerous. Any sort of tumult or coup in the country with the world’s largest nuclear arsenal would be an inherently deep concern, the officials said.

“This sort of instability is dangerous, no matter what the outcome,” said one U.S. official.

Paul McLeary and Myah Ward contributed to this report.

For nearly three years, Roscoe Rike has been picking up his hormone-replacement therapy prescriptions at the same Walgreens in Oakland without a hitch.

That changed on Monday when the 30-year transgender man said he was denied his medication because of the pharmacist’s religious beliefs.

“It was just really surreal,” said Rike, who recorded part of the exchange at the pharmacy. “I know that transphobia and transphobic people exist, but that was my first experience of a perfect stranger doing something like that to my face.”

The exchange occurred Monday morning at the Walgreens in the 5000 block of Telegraph Avenue.

In a statement, a Walgreens spokesperson said the company was unable to discuss specific patients but said policies were in place to assure all patients are helped even in the “very rare” situation when employees have a religious belief that prevents them from helping the customer.

“In an instance where a team member has a religious or moral conviction that prevents them from meeting a patient’s need, we require the team member to refer the patient to another employee or manager on duty who can complete the transaction,” the statement read. “These instances, however, are very rare.”

The spokesperson confirmed that the company was reviewing the Oakland incident.

On Monday, Rike said he’d spoken to a Walgreens employee earlier that day to make sure his medication was ready for pickup but sensed something was awry when the pharmacist behind the counter unexpectedly asked him why he was taking the medication.

“I was like, ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business, really,’” Rike said. “I was initially confused for a second, but right away I could sense that, OK, we’re doing this.”

The pharmacist then told Rike he would have to call his doctor to find out what the medication was for. When Rike pushed back, the pharmacist told him that he wouldn’t give him the prescription because of his religious beliefs.

That’s when Rike said he decided to record the encounter on his phone.

“So right now, you’re going to tell me you’re going to deny me my medication because of your personal religion?” Rike is heard saying in the video. “You’re not my [expletive] doctor.”

The pharmacists is seen looking at a computer screen and clicking on a mouse silently for a few seconds.

“So you think you know better than my doctor? Is that what’s going on?” Rike asked.

“I just need to know your diagnosis,” the pharmacist responded.

“Why? That’s none of your [expletive] business!” Rike said. “It’s always the religious people that have the most [expletive] hate in their hearts. You’re disgusting.”

During the incident, Rike said the pharmacist told him he could return to the store after noon, but that seemed unfair to him.

“Why should I have to wait two hours for something that’s ready?” he said. “Only thing that is keeping me from getting my medicine, that my doctor prescribed me, is this dude not doing his job.”

When Rike asked to speak with the manager, he said, the pharmacist ignored him.

Another employee contacted a manager, who apologized for the incident and gave Rike his medication.

Rike said he’s aware that pharmacists are allowed to refer patients to someone else if they have a religious objection but that doesn’t make sense.

“If you follow a religion that is going to prevent you from doing your job and provide medical care to people, then you need to not be in the medical profession dealing with the public,” he said.

Since Monday, Rike has considered changing pharmacies, or signing up for a home delivery service. He said he doesn’t want to deal with a similar situation again.

He hesitates to make any changes just yet, though.

“There’s a part of me that’s like, why do I have to change how I do things? I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. “I should just be able to go to my local pharmacy and get my medication like everyone else.”

The increasingly public feud between Russian military leaders and the head of a Russian paramilitary group escalated dramatically on Friday, when Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the paramilitary Wagner Group, accused Russian armed forces of attacking his soldiers and vowed retaliation. It was a shocking accusation, one with unpredictable consequences for Prigozhin, Russia, and the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

“The evil that the military leadership of the country brings forward must be stopped. They have forgotten the word ‘justice,’ and we will return it,” Prigozhin said in a recording published Friday on Wagner’s social media, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Russian Ministry of Defense denied Prigozhin’s allegations that the military had launched a strike on Wagner fighters, calling it a “provocation.” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said late Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “aware” of Prigozhin’s claims, and that the Kremlin was taking “all necessary measures.”

Shortly after, Russian law enforcement said that in response to Prigozhin’s statements, Russia’s security services, the FSB, have launched a criminal case over calls for an armed uprising. “We demand to stop these unlawful actions at once.”

Russia’s deputy head of military intelligence went as far as to call it a “coup” attempt in a video urging Wagner fighters to stand down. Russia’s prosecutor general also announced that Prigozhin was now being investigated “on suspicion of organizing an armed rebellion,” reports the New York Times. Prigozhin himself, for what it’s worth, denied he was carrying out a coup, calling it a “march of justice.”

Videos and images posted to social media late Friday showed Russian security forces patrolling the streets of Moscow and another Russian city, reportedly close to where Wagner troops are deployed in Ukraine.

Prigozhin, whose Wagner forces helped take the city of Bakhmut, has been increasingly vocal in his attacks against the Russian military’s leaders, posting more and more scathing criticism of the top brass over the war effort and accusing generals of denying Wagner the ammunition and support needed to fight effectively.

Prigozhin has generally avoided direct criticism of Putin himself, but earlier on Friday he had posted a video on Telegram with a stunning assessment of Russia’s war effort. In it, he attacked the Russian military’s — and, by extension, Putin’s — rationale for the war, basically saying the threat of NATO aggression through Ukraine was made up by Russia’s top brass and corrupt elites. The war, Prigozhin said, was “needed for a bunch of scumbags to triumph and show how strong of an army they are.” He included a diatribe against Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who Prigozhin claimed pushed for war to secure a promotion, and whose decisions led to the deaths of thousands of Russian soldiers.

Prigozhin has taken a very public — and very risky — part in the war in Ukraine, and he may have finally crossed a line that he has been butting up against for many weeks. Yet this story is very much still developing, and both the Russian government and Prigozhin have an interest in pushing their own propaganda at this moment.

Prigozhin is a Putin ally and a political survivor, but those often have limits in Putin’s Russia. Still, whatever is unfolding is yet another crack in Russia’s war machine, and a window into some of the dysfunction of the Russian state — dysfunction, in part, of Putin’s own making. Who is this Prigozhin character, and what does he want?

Prigozhin, the man at the center of this, is an unlikely, and imperfect, challenger of Russia’s war effort.

Known as “Putin’s chef,” he has been something of a fixer for Putin’s regime. He isn’t exactly in Putin’s inner circle but has the skills and connections to make himself useful and needed. This may be setting up a troll farm to sow political discord abroad, including in the 2016 US elections, or acting as the frontman for Wagner, a private mercenary-like force to do the Kremlin’s bidding. In both cases, Prigozhin fulfilled the interests of the Russian state, but with just enough distance to offer Putin a measure of plausible deniability.

Prigozhin has claimed to be the founder of the Wagner Group, but the reality is likely much more complicated. He is more likely the convenient figurehead of the group, which Russia has relied on for years to do its bidding around the world in places where it did not want to openly commit troops or resources, and where it could operate in a kind of gray zone. That again granted Moscow a degree of plausible deniability as it exerted its influence and interests in other corners of the globe, from Syria to Mali to Venezuela. It also gave Putin a kind of independent power center, a paramilitary outside of the formal military structures.

That all started changing in Ukraine, where Wagner, and Prigozhin himself, took on an increasingly public role in the war.

Wagner filled a specific operational and public relations need for Russia. The group’s fighters — a portion of them convicts recruited from Russian prisons — bogged down and attrited Ukrainian forces at a time Russia’s military was in disarray. The group achieved its most substantial victory in Bakhmut, one of Russia’s main territorial gains since last summer. But that victory took months, and came at an astounding casualty rate.

But as the battle for Bakhmut ground on, Prigozhin got more and more outspoken about what he saw as the failures of the Russian military and its leaders. In one video Prigozhin posted in May, he stands in a field, apparently surrounded by corpses of dead Wagner fighters. “Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where are the fucking shells!” Prigozhin says, referring to the minister of defense and the military’s chief of the general staff. “They came here as volunteers and died so you could gorge yourselves in your offices.”

These kinds of critiques are frankly shocking for a guy who is largely dependent on Putin’s largesse; in a country where open criticism of the government, and especially the war, is often brutally crushed; and within a military apparatus where insubordination of this magnitude is rarely tolerated.

Some have interpreted Prigozhin’s braggadocio as an oligarch feeling himself, and seizing on the incompetence of the Russian military to create his own power center — maybe even playing the long game to challenge Putin.

But even before Prigozhin escalated his rivalry with the Russian military this week, experts I’ve spoken to really doubted Prigozhin was actually a Putin rival and could build his own power center in the Russian state. Instead, then, it made sense to look as Prigozhin as a functionary who was seizing an opportunity in an otherwise dicey environment.

There is a place — even within Russia’s controlled media environment — for a convenient foil, a guy to get out front and complain about Russian military incompetence. It focuses and puts pressure on the war’s generals, but not on the war’s mission or its necessity. It is not necessarily a permanent or stable spot to be in, and becomes even more precarious when Prigozhin outruns his usefulness.

Experts told me this spring that the worst thing for Prigozhin is for the Ukraine war to end. “Prigozhin clearly understands that there will be no safe retirement for him,” Sergey Sukhankin, a senior research fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, told Vox earlier this year. “He knows that if the current regime, or if his Wagner Group, goes down, he goes down with them.”

There were signs then, as now, that Prigozhin might overstep his ambitions. How that will play out for him — and for Russia right now — is extremely unclear, although the view from where Prigozhin sits looks pretty bleak. If the Russian military is launching attacks against him and his fighters, and if the security services are really investigating him, then any serious challenge to the Russian state or military looks pretty doomed right about now. But the fact that Russia had to rely on Wagner, and Prigozhin, to wage its war helps explain why Russia has struggled militarily since invading Ukraine, and that is unlikely to change, no matter what’s next for Prigozhin.

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Diabetes cases are likely to skyrocket over the next few decades, new research out this week has found. The study estimates that more than a billion people worldwide will be living with the chronic condition by 2050—roughly double the amount of cases seen today. The prevalence of diabetes is expected to be especially high in parts of Africa and the Middle East, but dozens of countries could experience substantial increases.

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In the simplest terms, diabetes is defined as having chronically high levels of blood sugar. This usually happens due to a breakdown in our production of or response to insulin, a hormone that helps move sugar from the bloodstream to our cells. People with type 1 diabetes, for instance, have an overzealous immune system that attacks the cells responsible for making insulin. And those with type 2 diabetes develop a resistance to insulin’s effects and can eventually stop producing it altogether.

Thanks to medications and better blood sugar monitoring, diabetes is no longer the death sentence it once was. But it can still lead to serious complications like nerve damage and chronic kidney disease, especially if not managed probably. It also often raises the odds of many other health conditions, including heart attacks, stroke, and dementia. And according to the authors of a study published Thursday in the Lancet, the burden of diabetes will only go up from here.

The research comes from scientists at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), based at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine. To come up with their predictions, the team used the latest data from the Global Burden of Diseases study, a long-running research project also managed by the IHME that tries to track the prevalence of and harm caused by many health conditions and illnesses.

Based on the GBD data, there were about 529 million people living with diabetes worldwide in 2021. After adjusting for age, the current global prevalence was around 6.1%. But by 2050, 1.31 billion people will have some form of diabetes, the authors found. The highest age-standardized prevalence rate for a large region is projected to be in North Africa and the Middle East, at 16.8%, but nearly half of the world’s over 200 countries and territories will have rates higher than 10%.

“The rapid rate at which diabetes is growing is not only alarming but also challenging for every health system in the world, especially given how the disease also increases the risk for ischemic heart disease and stroke,” said lead author Liane Ong, a lead research scientist at the IHME, in a statement released by the organization.

Over 95% of these cases are expected to be type 2 diabetes. And the single most significant risk factor associated with type 2 was high body mass index. But the authors note that many other important factors, including low levels of exercise, poor diet, and a person’s genetics, can influence the risk of developing diabetes and the potential harm or death it can cause. So preventing or managing diabetes cases now and in the future will require widespread improvements in our environment and availability of health care, the authors say.

“Some people might be quick to focus on one or a few risk factors, but that approach doesn’t take into account the conditions in which people are born and live that create disparities worldwide,” said study author Lauryn Stafford, a research fellow at IHME. “Those inequities ultimately impact people’s access to screening and treatment and the availability of health services. That’s precisely why we need a more complete picture of how diabetes has been impacting populations at a granular level.”

A vast and barren lakebed in eastern Nevada has become an unexpected battleground in a spaceflight vs. battery tech showdown. A portion of land slated for lithium mining in the state is no longer free for development after federal forces intervened. But extraction companies and Republican lawmakers want to reverse the decision.

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Railroad Valley Playa is a dried-up, preternaturally flat expanse of land encompassing about 90 square miles of Nevada’s Tonopah Basin. Rich mineral deposits mean lithium mining companies have laid claim to large sections of it for resource extraction, through the purchase of federal leases. However, at NASA’s behest, the Bureau of Land Management recently withdrew more than 35 square miles of the playa from mining or other development for at least the next 20 years.

By the agency’s own account, NASA has relied on the ancient lakebed since 1993 to calibrate its satellites. “Railroad Valley is the best location in the United States (and one of the best in the world) for satellite calibration,” NASA writes in a factsheet about the region. The area is apparently ideal for fine-tuning space sensors because of its size, pancake-esque topography, consistent surface color and makeup, mostly cloudless weather, good air quality, utter lack of plant life, and a long history of going undisturbed by humans.

NASA and other federal agencies use the unique land in Railroad Valley to calculate the timing and accuracy of satellite signals transmitting between Earth and orbit. Much of the data verified through this process comes from instruments that track greenhouse gas emissions, climate trends, and weather— making the satellites in question critical for keeping tabs on human-caused climate change and its consequences.

In April 2021, NASA requested that BLM set aside nearly 23,000 acres of the valley for this continued purpose. After two years of review and assessment, BLM abided by the ask, issuing Public Land Order No. 7291, which reserves the land for NASA and thwarts the prospect of mining any time soon.

Environmental advocates, ranchers, and other stakeholders have been fighting against certain lithium mining proposals in Nevada for years—often to no avail. But NASA is an outlier opponent and victor in the ongoing extraction debate.

In response to the agency’s win, mining company 3 Proton Lithium Inc. claims it will lose out on one-third of its claimed land and the chance to extract about 60% of the Railroad Valley site’s lithium and value, as reported by the Associated Press. Though lithium mining development hasn’t begun in the Railroad Valley, and 3PL hadn’t yet submitted any formal plans, the company says it has already spent millions of dollars exploring and researching extraction there. Moreover, the corporation has characterized BLM’s decision as “a sad irony” because “NASA studies carbon dioxide, but 3PL eliminates carbon dioxide.”

“This project is a vital part of transitioning to a green economy, creating good-paying American jobs, combating climate change, ending America’s over-reliance on foreign adversaries and securing a domestic supply chain for critical and rare earth minerals,” Kevin Moore, a 3PL executive, said during a congressional subcommittee meeting on mining last week.

Lithium is a central metal in battery manufacturing, making it an important resource in electrifying transport and the energy grid. But, despite its potential role in pivoting humanity to more sustainable power sources, it comes with its own suite of environmental issues—from endangering rare plants to harming wildlife populations and degrading and depleting groundwater.

Advocates for extraction assert that mining more lithium, fast, is key to moving away from fossil fuels. To some extent, they’re correct. An electric future will undoubtedly require more lithium and other scarce materials. However, the amount and intensity of mining activity that will be required is unresolved and could be far less than companies claim. Simple steps like improving public transit and urban walkability could reduce demand for lithium by up to 90%, according to one 2023 analysis from UC Davis researchers.

Meanwhile, NASA says Railroad Valley Playa is an indispensable and irreplaceable site for space-based research. “Protecting the RRV’s surface integrity is an important goal for NASA,” the agency wrote. Keeping the area un-mined is “crucial to the viability of several important Earth Science missions.”

Obviously, the mining company disagrees. In 2021, 3PL proposed that 41 other sites (with less lithium) could be used by NASA instead of the playa. The agency says this isn’t true. “The Railroad Valley playa is a one-of-a-kind national asset that is the only suitable location in the United States for ground-based satellite calibration,” Jeremy Eggers, a NASA spokesperson, told Gizmodo in an email. “We evaluated the 41 sites recommended by 3PL during the notice and comment process last year and none met the standards for satellite calibration.”

“Nearly every sector of the U.S. economy, including weather forecasting, food production and agriculture, air quality monitoring, aviation safety, climate prediction, disaster response and recovery, and water resource monitoring rely on the information provided by satellites that use RRV for calibration,” Eggers further wrote. “Ensuring the accuracy of this free and openly available data is critical. Activities that stand to disrupt the surface integrity of Railroad Valley would risk making the site unusable.” Though, 3PL has also said that its activities at RRV wouldn’t disturb the surface—a claim which NASA additionally disputes.

Now, it’s not just mining companies and federal agencies getting involved. Lawmakers, too, are beginning to weigh in. Earlier this month, Republican Nevada congressman, Mark Amodei, introduced legislation intended to reverse the BLM’s recent land order. The legislator described NASA’s stake in the Railroad Valley as an “unreasonable demand” that “goes directly against America’s economic and national security needs,” in a press statement on his proposed bill. So far, the legislation has yet to progress beyond the subcommittee. Likely, it won’t pass and the BLM’s decision will stand.

Yet the back and forth is indicative of just how complicated lithium mining and other non-fossil resource extraction discussions can get—especially when there are scientific and sustainability arguments to be made on both sides. We need resources, but we also need undisturbed, undeveloped land. In this case, space science beat out private mineral interests. In the future, the best way forward may not always be clear-cut.