There are some great options too, from Tomb Raider to Saints Row.

Limited-time offer: Get more than 30% off a Vox Membership. Join today to support independent journalism. Federal civil servants are supposed to enjoy robust protections against being fired or demoted for political reasons. But President Donald Trump has effectively stripped them of these protections by neutralizing the federal agencies that implement these safeguards.An agency known as the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) hears civil servants’ claims that a “government employer discriminated against them, retaliated against them for whistleblowing, violated protections for veterans, or otherwise subjected them to an unlawful adverse employment action or prohibited personnel practice,” as a federal appeals court explained in an opinion on Tuesday. But the three-member board currently lacks the quorum it needs to operate because Trump fired two of the members.Trump also fired Hampton Dellinger, who until recently served as the special counsel of the United States, a role that investigates alleged violations of federal civil service protections and brings related cases to the MSPB. Trump recently nominated Paul Ingrassia, a far-right podcaster and recent law school graduate to replace Dellinger.The upshot of these firings is that no one in the government is able to enforce laws and regulations protecting civil servants. As Dellinger noted in an interview, the morning before a federal appeals court determined that Trump could fire him, he’d “been able to get 6,000 newly hired federal employees back on the job,” and was working to get “all probationary employees put back on the job [after] their unlawful firing” by the Department of Government Efficiency and other Trump administration efforts to cull the federal workforce. These and other efforts to reinstate illegally fired federal workers are on hold, and may not resume until Trump leaves office.Which brings us to the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit’s decision in National Association of Immigration Judges v. Owen, which proposes an innovative solution to this problem.As the Owen opinion notes, the Supreme Court has held that the MSPB process is the only process a federal worker can use if they believe they’ve been fired in violation of federal civil service laws. So if that process is shut down, the worker is out of luck.But the Fourth Circuit’s Owen opinion argues that this “conclusion can only be true…when the statute functions as Congress intended.” That is, if the MSPB and the special counsel are unable to “fulfill their roles prescribed by” federal law, then the courts should pick up the slack and start hearing cases brought by illegally fired civil servants.For procedural reasons, the Fourth Circuit’s decision will not take effect right away — the court sent the case back down to a trial judge to “conduct a factual inquiry” into whether the MSPB continues to function. And, even after that inquiry is complete, the Trump administration is likely to appeal the Fourth Circuit’s decision to the Supreme Court if it wants to keep civil service protections on ice.If the justices agree with the circuit court, however, that will close a legal loophole that has left federal civil servants unprotected by laws that are still very much on the books. And it will cure a problem that the Supreme Court bears much of the blame for creating.The “unitary executive,” or why the Supreme Court is to blame for the loss of civil service protectionsFederal law provides that Dellinger could “be removed by the President only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,” and members of the MSPB enjoy similar protections against being fired. Trump’s decision to fire these officials was illegal under these laws.But a federal appeals court nonetheless permitted Trump to fire Dellinger, and the Supreme Court recently backed Trump’s decision to fire the MSPB members as well. The reason is a legal theory known as the “unitary executive,” which is popular among Republican legal scholars, and especially among the six Republicans that control the Supreme Court.If you want to know all the details of this theory, I can point you to three different explainers I’ve written on the unitary executive. The short explanation is that the unitary executive theory claims that the president must have the power to fire top political appointees charged with executing federal laws – including officials who execute laws protecting civil servants from illegal firings.But the Supreme Court has never claimed that the unitary executive permits the president to fire any federal worker regardless of whether Congress has protected them or not. In a seminal opinion laying out the unitary executive theory, for example, Justice Antonin Scalia argued that the president must have the power to remove “principal officers” — high-ranking officials like Dellinger who must be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Under Scalia’s approach, lower-ranking government workers may still be given some protection.The Fourth Circuit cannot override the Supreme Court’s decision to embrace the unitary executive theory. But the Owen opinion essentially tries to police the line drawn by Scalia. The Supreme Court has given Trump the power to fire some high-ranking officials, but he shouldn’t be able to use that power as a back door to eliminate job protections for all civil servants.The Fourth Circuit suggests that the federal law which simultaneously gave the MSPB exclusive authority over civil service disputes, while also protecting MSPB members from being fired for political reasons, must be read as a package. Congress, this argument goes, would not have agreed to shunt all civil service disputes to the MSPB if it had known that the Supreme Court would strip the MSPB of its independence. And so, if the MSPB loses its independence, it must also lose its exclusive authority over civil service disputes — and federal courts must regain the power to hear those cases.It remains to be seen whether this argument persuades a Republican Supreme Court — all three of the Fourth Circuit judges who decided the Owen case are Democrats, and two are Biden appointees. But the Fourth Circuit’s reasoning closely resembles the kind of inquiry that courts frequently engage in when a federal law is struck down.When a court declares a provision of federal law unconstitutional, it often needs to ask whether other parts of the law should fall along with the unconstitutional provision, an inquiry known as “severability.” Often, this severability analysis asks which hypothetical law Congress would have enacted if it had known that the one provision is invalid.The Fourth Circuit’s decision in Owen is essentially a severability opinion. It takes as a given the Supreme Court’s conclusion that laws protecting Dellinger and the MSPB members from being fired are unconstitutional, then asks which law Congress would have enacted if it had known that it could not protect MSPB members from political reprisal. The Fourth Circuit’s conclusion is that, if Congress had known that MSPB members cannot be politically independent, then it would not have given them exclusive authority over civil service disputes.If the Supreme Court permits Trump to neutralize the MSPB, that would fundamentally change how the government functionsThe idea that civil servants should be hired based on merit and insulated from political pressure is hardly new. The first law protecting civil servants, the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, which President Chester A. Arthur signed into law in 1883.Laws like the Pendleton Act do more than protect civil servants who, say, resist pressure to deny government services to the president’s enemies. They also make it possible for top government officials to actually do their jobs.Before the Pendleton Act, federal jobs were typically awarded as patronage — so when a Democratic administration took office, the Republicans who occupied most federal jobs would be fired and replaced by Democrats. This was obviously quite disruptive, and it made it difficult for the government to hire highly specialized workers. Why would someone go to the trouble of earning an economics degree and becoming an expert on federal monetary policy, if they knew that their job in the Treasury Department would disappear the minute their party lost an election?Meanwhile, the task of filling all of these patronage jobs overwhelmed new presidents. As Candice Millard wrote in a 2011 biography of President James A. Garfield, the last president elected before the Pendleton Act, when Garfield took office, a line of job seekers began to form outside the White House “before he even sat down to breakfast.” By the time Garfield had eaten, this line “snaked down the front walk, out the gate, and onto Pennsylvania Avenue.” Garfield was assassinated by a disgruntled job seeker, a fact that likely helped build political support for the Pendleton Act.By neutralizing the MSPB, Trump is effectively undoing nearly 150 years worth of civil service reforms, and returning the federal government to a much more primitive state. At the very least, the Fourth Circuit’s decision in Owen is likely to force the Supreme Court to ask if it really wants a century and a half of work to unravel.See More:

June 3, 20258 min readWhite House Budget Plan Would Devastate U.S. Space ScienceScientists are rallying to reverse ruinous proposed cuts to both NASA and the National Science FoundationBy Nadia Drake edited by Lee BillingsFog shrouds the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in this photograph from February 25, 2025. Gregg Newton/AFP via GettyLate last week the Trump Administration released its detailed budget request for fiscal year 2026 —a request that, if enacted, would be the equivalent of carpet-bombing the national scientific enterprise.“This is a profound, generational threat to scientific leadership in the United States,” says Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at the Planetary Society, a science advocacy group. “If implemented, it would fundamentally undermine and potentially devastate the most unique capabilities that the U.S. has built up over a half-century.”The Trump administration’s proposal, which still needs to be approved by Congress, is sure to ignite fierce resistance from scientists and senators alike. Among other agencies, the budget deals staggering blows to NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF), which together fund the majority of U.S. research in astronomy, astrophysics, planetary science, heliophysics and Earth science —all space-related sciences that have typically mustered hearty bipartisan support.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.The NSF supports ground-based astronomy, including such facilities as the Nobel Prize–winning gravitational-wave detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), globe-spanning arrays of radio telescopes, and cutting-edge observatories that stretch from Hawaii to the South Pole. The agency faces a lethal 57 percent reduction to its $9-billion budget, with deep cuts to every program except those in President Trump’s priority areas, which include artificial intelligence and quantum information science. NASA, which funds space-based observatories, faces a 25 percent reduction, dropping the agency’s $24.9-billion budget to $18.8 billion. The proposal beefs up efforts to send humans to the moon and to Mars, but the agency’s Science Mission Directorate —home to Mars rovers, the Voyager interstellar probes, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the Hubble Space Telescope, and much more —is looking at a nearly 50 percent reduction, with dozens of missions canceled, turned off or operating on a starvation diet.“It’s an end-game scenario for science at NASA,” says Joel Parriott, director of external affairs and public policy at the American Astronomical Society. “It’s not just the facilities. You’re punching a generation-size hole, maybe a multigenerational hole, in the scientific and technical workforce. You don’t just Cryovac these people and pull them out when the money comes back. People are going to move on.”Adding to the chaos, on Saturday President Trump announced that billionaire entrepreneur and private astronaut Jared Isaacman was no longer his pick for NASA administrator—just days before the Senate was set to confirm Isaacman’s nomination. Initial reports—which have now been disputed—explained the president’s decision as stemming from his discovery that Isaacman recently donated money to Democratic candidates. Regardless of the true reason, the decision leaves both NASA and the NSF, whose director abruptly resigned in April, with respective placeholder “acting” leaders at the top. That leadership vacuum significantly weakens the agencies’ ability to fight the proposed budget cuts and advocate for themselves. “What’s more inefficient than a rudderless agency without an empowered leadership?” Dreier asks.Actions versus WordsDuring his second administration, President Trump has repeatedly celebrated U.S. leadership in space. When he nominated Isaacman last December, Trump noted “NASA’s mission of discovery and inspiration” and looked to a future of “groundbreaking achievements in space science, technology and exploration.” More recently, while celebrating Hubble’s 35th anniversary in April, Trump called the telescope “a symbol of America’s unmatched exploratory might” and declared that NASA would “continue to lead the way in fueling the pursuit of space discovery and exploration.” The administration’s budgetary actions speak louder than Trump’s words, however. Instead of ushering in a new golden age of space exploration—or even setting up the U.S. to stay atop the podium—the president’s budget “narrows down what the cosmos is to moon and Mars and pretty much nothing else,” Dreier says. “And the cosmos is a lot bigger, and there’s a lot more to learn out there.”Dreier notes that when corrected for inflation, the overall NASA budget would be the lowest it’s been since 1961. But in April of that year, the Soviet Union launched the first human into orbit, igniting a space race that swelled NASA’s budget and led to the Apollo program putting American astronauts on the moon. Today China’s rapidprogress and enormous ambitions in space would make the moment ripe for a 21st-century version of this competition, with the U.S. generously funding its own efforts to maintain pole position. Instead the White House’s budget would do the exact opposite.“The seesaw is sort of unbalanced,” says Tony Beasley, director of the NSF-funded National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). “On the one side, we’re saying, ‘Well, China’s kicking our ass, and we need to do something about that.’ But then we’re not going to give any money to anything that might actually do that.”How NASA will achieve a crewed return to the moon and send astronauts to Mars—goals that the agency now considers part of “winning the second space race”—while also maintaining its leadership in science is unclear.“This is Russ Vought’s budget,” Dreier says, referring to the director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), an unelected bureaucrat who has been notorious for his efforts to reshape the U.S. government by weaponizing federal funding. “This isn’t even Trump’s budget. Trump’s budget would be good for space. This one undermines the president’s own claims and ambitions when it comes to space.”“Low Expectations” at the High FrontierRumors began swirling about the demise of NASA science in April, when a leaked OMB document described some of the proposed cuts and cancellations. Those included both the beleaguered, bloated Mars Sample Return (MSR) program and the on-time, on-budget Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, the next astrophysics flagship mission.The top-line numbers in the more fleshed-out proposal are consistent with that document, and MSR would still be canceled. But Roman would be granted a stay of execution: rather than being zeroed out, it would be put on life support.“It’s a reprieve from outright termination, but it’s still a cut for functionally no reason,” Dreier says. “In some ways, [the budget] is slightly better than I was expecting. But I had very low expectations.”In the proposal, many of the deepest cuts would be made to NASA science, which would sink from $7.3 billion to $3.9 billion. Earth science missions focused on carbon monitoring and climate change, as well as programs aimed at education and workforce diversity, would be effectively erased by the cuts. But a slew of high-profile planetary science projects would suffer, too, with cancellations proposed for two future Venus missions, the Juno mission that is currently surveilling Jupiter, the New Horizons mission that flew by Pluto and two Mars orbiters. (The Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s moon Titan would survive, as would the flagship Europa Clipper spacecraft, which launched last October.) NASA’s international partnerships in planetary science fare poorly, too, as the budget rescinds the agency’s involvement with multiple European-led projects, including a Venus mission and Mars rover.The proposal is even worse for NASA astrophysics—the study of our cosmic home—which “really takes it to the chin,” Dreier says, with a roughly $1-billion drop to just $523 million. In the president’s proposal, only three big astrophysics missions would survive: the soon-to-launch Roman and the already-operational Hubble and JWST. The rest of NASA’s active astrophysics missions, which include the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), would be severely pared back or zeroed out. Additionally, the budget would nix NASA’s contributions to large European missions, such as a future space-based gravitational-wave observatory.“This is the most powerful fleet of missions in the history of the study of astrophysics from space,” says John O’Meara, chief scientist at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and co-chair of a recent senior review panel that evaluated NASA’s astrophysics missions. The report found that each reviewed mission “continues to be capable of producing important, impactful science.” This fleet, O’Meara adds, is more than the sum of its parts, with much of its power emerging from synergies among multiple telescopes that study the cosmos in many different types, or wavelengths, of light.By hollowing out NASA’s science to ruthlessly focus on crewed missions, the White House budget might be charitably viewed as seeking to rekindle a heroic age of spaceflight—with China’s burgeoning space program as the new archrival. But even for these supposedly high-priority initiatives, the proposed funding levels appear too anemic and meager to give the U.S. any competitive edge. For example, the budget directs about $1 billion to new technology investments to support crewed Mars missions while conservative estimates have projected that such voyages would cost hundreds of billions of dollars more.“It cedes U.S. leadership in space science at a time when other nations, particularly China, are increasing their ambitions,” Dreier says. “It completely flies in the face of the president’s own stated goals for American leadership in space.”Undermining the FoundationThe NSF’s situation, which one senior space scientist predicted would be “diabolical” when the NASA numbers leaked back in April, is also unsurprisingly dire. Unlike NASA, which is focused on space science and exploration, the NSF’s programs span the sweep of scientific disciplines, meaning that even small, isolated cuts—let alone the enormous ones that the budget has proposed—can have shockingly large effects on certain research domains.“Across the different parts of the NSF, the programs that are upvoted are the president’s strategic initiatives, but then everything else gets hit,” Beasley says.Several large-scale NSF-funded projects would escape more or less intact. Among these are the panoramic Vera C. Rubin Observatory, scheduled to unveil its first science images later this month, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope. The budget also moves the Giant Magellan Telescope, which would boast starlight-gathering mirrors totaling more than 25 meters across, into a final design phase. All three of those facilities take advantage of Chile’s pristine dark skies. Other large NSF-funded projects that would survive include the proposed Next Generation Very Large Array of radio telescopes in New Mexico and several facilities at the South Pole, such as the IceCube Neutrino Observatory.If this budget is enacted, however, NSF officials anticipate only funding a measly 7 percent of research proposals overall rather than 25 percent; the number of graduate research fellowships awarded would be cleaved in half, and postdoctoral fellowships in the physical sciences would drop to zero. NRAO’s Green Bank Observatory — home to the largest steerable single-dish radio telescope on the planet — would likely shut down. So would other, smaller observatories in Arizona and Chile. The Thirty Meter Telescope, a humongous, perennially embattled project with no clear site selection, would be canceled. And the budget proposes closing one of the two gravitational-wave detectors used by the LIGO collaboration—whose observations of colliding black holes earned the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics—even though both detectors need to be online for LIGO’s experiment to work. Even factoring in other operational detectors, such as Virgo in Europe and the Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector (KAGRA) in Japan, shutting down half of LIGO would leave a gaping blind spot in humanity’s gravitational-wave view of the heavens.“The consequences of this budget are that key scientific priorities, on the ground and in space, will take at least a decade longer—or not be realized at all,” O’Meara says. “The universe is telling its story at all wavelengths. It doesn’t care what you build, but if you want to hear that story, you must build many things.”Dreier, Parriott and others are anticipating fierce battles on Capitol Hill. And already both Democratic and Republican legislators have issued statement signaling that they won’t support the budget request as is. “This sick joke of a budget is a nonstarter,” said Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, ranking member of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, in a recent statement. And in an earlier statement, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, chair of the powerful Senate Committee on Appropriations, cautioned that “the President’s Budget Request is simply one step in the annual budget process.”The Trump administration has “thrown a huge punch here, and there will be a certain back-reaction, and we’ll end up in the middle somewhere,” Beasley says. “The mistake you can make right now is to assume that this represents finalized decisions and the future—because it doesn’t.”

Ookwemin Minising Aerial photo with project area outline. Credit: Waterfront Toronto Global professional services company, GHD, and Danish nature-based design studio, SLA, have been awarded the role of prime consultant by Waterfront Toronto for phase one of infrastructure and streetscape design for a new island community. Formerly known as Villiers Island, Ookwemin Minising is a new island born from an ambitious flood protection and river restoration project. The Don River, a historic gathering place, will be at the heart of this future community. The island, which is planned to be home to more than 15,000 people, will also be a destination where people will visit to relax and explore. The first new residents of this island community are expected to move in by 2031. For the project, GHD, the prime consultant and technical lead, and SLA, design lead for urban realm and landscape, will deliver a new urban environment that aims to honour the legacy of the Don River through an approach rooted in resilient infrastructure, cultural memory and deep ecological integration. Drawing inspiration from global precedents and local Indigenous knowledge, the team’s “Growing Streets” concept proposes streetscapes that evolve like living ecosystems. “This project represents a significant milestone for Toronto’s waterfront revitalization,” said Chris Hunter, GHD chief executive officer for the Americas. “By integrating innovative engineering with responsive design, our team will help create infrastructure that’s not just functional, but truly adaptive to community needs while honoring the ecological transformation nearing completion at the Don River mouth. This approach exemplifies our commitment to building resilient systems that evolve with the communities they serve.” The team, which includes architects Allies and Morrison, will integrate design for streetscapes and public realm with a review of the density and built form on the island, building on years of planning to realize this new neighbourhood. “Tri-government investment unlocked the potential of the Port Lands, allowing us to create a brand new island,” says Chris Glaisek, chief planning and design officer at Waterfront Toronto. “Now, renewed investment in waterfront revitalization means this new island is ready to launch. By integrating design for streets and public realm with a review of built form on the island, this team can build on the planning done by the City of Toronto, Waterfront Toronto and CreateTO to deliver as much new housing as possible, while building a truly world-class neighbourhood.” At the heart of the team’s vision for Ookwemin Minising lies a next-practice model for climate-adaptive urbanism. Guided by seven core principles, including surface-level rainwater management, soil repurposing, native vegetation and social spaces that foster mobility and interaction, the design will champion active mobility through integrated pedestrian and biodiversity corridors woven throughout the island. These corridors can provide optimal microclimates for outdoor comfort while managing storm water, linking and strengthening ecologies and connecting people with nature. Informed by leading examples from cities like Copenhagen, Oslo, and London, the design will seek to maximize sustainability without relying on future technologies. “We’re thrilled to bring our Growing Streets vision to life in Toronto,” said Rasmus Astrup, design principal and partner at SLA. “This is urban design at its most alive – where trees, water, wind, soil and people grow and flow together. The streetscape design of Ookwemin Minising is not just about infrastructure, it’s about creating a living cityscape that breathes with the seasons, nurtures biodiversity and supports everyday life in inspiring, joyful ways. In Ookwemin Minising, every street becomes a celebration – of the land, of the water, of our heritage and of all the life of Toronto.” The infrastructure designs for Ookwemin Minising will incorporate  plantings, nature-integrated public seating, and climate-buffering vegetation to create a vibrant and adaptive civic experience. The team envisions a design that would build public awareness of ecological processes while enhancing urban resilience and well-being. The vision embraces a holistic design approach that integrates street configurations, building scales, and public spaces to create a cohesive and sustainable community. Rooted in the values of the surrounding Port Lands and celebrating the area’s enduring industrial, maritime and Indigenous histories, the team’s design for Ookwemin Minising will aim to set a new benchmark for culturally and ecologically responsive waterfront development in North America. The project will be brought to life by a group of industry-leading consultants, including:  GHD (prime consultant): Engineering design services, planning services, environmental services and construction administration SLA: Design lead for urban realm and landscape Trophic Design: Co-designer with SLA for Indigenous landscape design and knowledge Transsolar: Sustainability and low-carbon infrastructure systems Monumental Projects: Public engagement and community outreach Level Playing Field: Accessibility services Allies and Morrison: Architectural lead   The post GHD and SLA teaming up to deliver major infrastructure design for Toronto’s newest island appeared first on Canadian Architect.

How Will Transportation Work in the Future? A Look at the Rise of Electric Mobility in CitiesSave this picture!Boise, United States. Image via Wikipedia user: Fæ. License under CC0 1.0. Image Author: Alden SkeieFrom greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution to deforestation, one of the leading contributors to global warming today is emissions from the transportation sector. Exploring its origins and evolution, as well as the major challenges it faces, the development of electric mobility in urban environments represents a global transition that requires a coordinated mix of policies and actions to achieve cleaner and more sustainable transportation systems. Designing safe and comfortable infrastructure for walking and cycling, promoting public transit and shared mobility, and designing more efficient streets that include electric vehicles, among other actions, are part of a growing worldwide effort to reduce carbon emissions.Although electric vehicles were invented before gasoline and diesel cars in the first half of the 19th century, they have undergone significant technological advances over the past 20 years, reducing their costs and their environmental impact, and increasing their utility. Around 1834, Thomas Davenport developed the first battery-powered electric vehicle, building a small train on a circular track and inventing the first direct current (DC) electric motor. Although there were numerous innovations in the years that followed, battery limitations were a major obstacle. The zinc consumption of a battery was four times more expensive than the coal consumption of a steam engine, so at that time it competed with the electric motor. Save this picture!By 1898, the first commercially available electric vehicles were operating in London and New York. As Francisco Martín Moreno explains in "Vehículos eléctricos. Historia, estado actual y retos futuros", in the early 1900s, several electric car models emerged, primarily accessible to wealthy consumers and designed for short distances. In contrast, the early gasoline-powered cars introduced in the 1920s were noisy, emitted strong gasoline odors, and were hard to drive due to complex gear systems. However, large quantities of oil were discovered between 1920 and 1930, making gasoline-powered cars cheaper in Texas and other US states. Highways began to be built connecting cities, allowing gasoline-powered vehicles to travel from one city to another, something beyond the reach of electric vehicles due to their short range. Mass production techniques like Henry Ford's assembly line further reduced costs, making gas-powered cars affordable to the middle class. Related Article Gas Stations and Electric Cars: How Do They Change Cities Save this picture!By the late 1920s, gasoline vehicles had overtaken electric vehicles, and electric car production largely ceased in the 1930s. However, as a result of the oil crisis in the 1970s and the Gulf War in the 1990s, along with the emergence of climate change as a priority, there was a renewed interest in electric cars. This resurgence led to new models of electric vehicles—from small cars to buses and even trucks. The energy crisis led to an increase in gasoline prices, and society in advanced countries began to become aware of the effects of greenhouse gas emissions from oil combustion, the greenhouse effect, and climate change. Concern about greenhouse gas emissions and climate change increased as oil prices rose, and society began to recognize and become more aware of the impact of the current transportation model on cities and the urgency of finding more environmentally friendly transportation alternatives.Save this picture!Save this picture!In developed countries during the 20th century, the growth of cities was largely due to private car use, allowing citizens to travel miles and miles daily from home to work. Suburban expansion shifted the cost of commuting to individuals. Some residential areas are developing far from the city center and industrial zones, where a large proportion of the population relies on cars. In 2010, the global population was around 7 billion, and it's expected to reach 10 billion by 2050. The number of vehicles, meanwhile, is projected to grow from 75 million in 2010 to 2.5 billion by 2050. Will there be enough fossil fuels to power this massive fleet? What will be the future of gas stations?Save this picture!To meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement and reduce growing air pollution, low- and middle-income countries should join the global transition to zero-emission electric transport. According to data from the International Energy Agency and the European Alternative Fuels Observatory, China led the world in 2024 with over 7 million electric vehicles (including cars and buses) in operation—an increase of over 3 million in just one year. The U.S. ranked second, followed by Germany, which leads in Europe with about 1.3 million EVs. The UK and France round out the top five.Save this picture!To support this transition, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has launched a global initiative alongside private sector partners, academic institutions, and financial organizations, helping low- and middle-income countries shift to electric mobility. In Latin America, transportation accounts for around one-third of CO₂ emissions. In Africa, Asia, and parts of Latin America, motorcycles and three-wheelers are essential for daily mobility, often covering over 100 km per day. However, these vehicles usually rely on outdated technologies, making them highly polluting and inefficient. Electrifying two- and three-wheelers presents a significant opportunity to reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. UNEP is assisting 17 countries in creating national strategies and running pilot projects to introduce these electric vehicles in regions like Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America.Save this picture!Given the rapid urbanization in many low- and middle-income countries, mass public transport remains a cornerstone of urban mobility. Cities across Africa, Asia, and Latin America are investing in better transportation systems, including high-capacity bus corridors and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems. Yet, with the average bus lifespan exceeding 12 years, it's essential to avoid locking cities into outdated technologies. Developing policies to support and incentivize the adoption of zero-emission vehicles is essential to achieving the electrification of public transport. The European Commission proposes promoting investment initiatives in charging infrastructure and emissions trading, to be implemented starting in 2026, by putting a carbon price on fossil-fuel vehicles. This measure seeks to boost the use of electric vehicles and the transformation of transport systems. Now, how could charging infrastructure be developed to support a potential massive growth in the electric vehicle fleet? What upgrades and innovations are needed to handle this future demand? What would happen if all transportation suddenly depended on the power grid?Save this picture!Save this picture!The UN emphasizes that using public transportation is critical to curbing climate change. Electrifying buses and trains could cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to two-thirds per passenger per kilometer compared to private vehicles. Still, private cars hold the greatest potential for emission reduction. In 2018, light-duty vehicles were responsible for nearly half of all transport emissions—including those from rail, sea, and air travel. Several major carmakers have announced ambitious plans to release new EV models in the next five years.Save this picture!According to a study by the McKinsey Center for Future Mobility (2019), roughly 60% of global car trips are under 8 kilometers, making them ideal for micromobility solutions. Electromicromobility refers to small, lightweight, and low-speed electric transportation options for short distances, such as electric skateboards, scooters, bikes, mopeds, and quadricycles. From a user perspective, electric vehicles still face hurdles like high costs, limited range, and long charging times. However, their broader societal benefits—particularly emissions reductions—are significant. Therefore, local and national governments are encouraged to implement supportive policies, such as vehicle purchase subsidies, tax breaks, free charging stations, parking benefits, access to city centers, and special electricity rates for nighttime charging, etc.Save this picture!Save this picture!Ultimately, we should ask: What lies ahead for modern transportation? How could new forms of natural, artificial, and collective intelligence be integrated into the design of today's transportation systems to improve resilience to environmental and growth challenges? What partnerships between countries, industries, and organizations are needed to ensure a sustainable and innovative supply of key materials? What will happen to used EV batteries and electronic components? Will be electric mobility in cities the only way to reduce carbon emissions?This article is part of the ArchDaily Topics: What Is Future Intelligence?, proudly presented by Gendo, an AI co-pilot for Architects. Our mission at Gendo is to help architects produce concept images 100X faster by focusing on the core of the design process. We have built a cutting edge AI tool in collaboration with architects from some of the most renowned firms such as Zaha Hadid, KPF and David Chipperfield.Every month we explore a topic in-depth through articles, interviews, news, and architecture projects. We invite you to learn more about our ArchDaily Topics. And, as always, at ArchDaily we welcome the contributions of our readers; if you want to submit an article or project, contact us. Image gallerySee allShow less About this authorAgustina IñiguezAuthor••• Cite: Agustina Iñiguez. "How Will Transportation Work in the Future? A Look at the Rise of Electric Mobility in Cities" 03 Jun 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1030500/how-will-transportation-work-in-the-future-a-look-at-the-rise-of-electric-mobility-in-cities&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save世界上最受欢迎的建筑网站现已推出你的母语版本!想浏览ArchDaily中国吗?是否 You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

In Rancho Palos Verde, California, the disassembled Wayfarers Chapel designed by Lloyd Wright, the son of Frank Lloyd Wright, has been stored away since last July, following damage from landslides. A potential site for the ecclesiastical structure has been found. The proposed site would expand the footprint of the serene property and protect its structures from further damage caused by land movement.  In the 1970s, a landslide at the site destroyed the chapel’s visitor center, and the geologic movement was inactive for a while. However, in the past few years activity began accelerating at an unprecedented rate. In February 2024, the Wayfarers Chapel announced that it would close its doors due to land movement in the area. The shuttering left a displaced congregation and devastated brides in its wake, but there was still hope of a return. Then, in May 2024, it was announced that the only way to maintain the structure was to disassemble it. Land movement had caused glass panels to shatter, the metal framing to warp, and cracks to form in the concrete. Though leadership initially wanted to rebuild on site, the worsening conditions proved this was no longer a viable option. In July 2024, with the help of Architectural Resources Group, the church was meticulously disassembled with each part numbered and labeled. Many of the irreplaceable materials used to construct the original chapel were salvaged. The pieces have since been kept in storage, waiting to be rebuilt.  The chapel was disassembled and stored for preservation. (Architectural Resources Group) The chapel’s new site must carry similar characteristics to the old one to uphold its National Historic Landmark designation. The prospective site, Battery Barnes, shares the original site’s coastal views of the Pacific, while situating the reassembled chapel outside the Portuguese Bend. Built in 1943 as part of the U.S. Army’s coastal fortification plan, the Battery Barnes’s connection to World War II could also be highlighted throughout the use of the land.  The glass chapel will be reconstructed using the salvaged original materials. (Architectural Resources Group/Courtesy Wayfarers Chapel) Wayfarers Chapel also plans to take advantage of the expanded footprint of the proposed site. During an episode of “RPV City Talk,” the chapel’s communications director Stephanie Cartozian shared that the organization hopes to rebuild the chapel along with the lost visitor center, as well as constructing a museum, archival center, and restaurant. The campus would also see the addition of public restrooms for hikers, expanding on its community accessibility.   Currently, Wayfarers Chapel is fundraising to cover the rebuild, with part of the funds going toward securing the site. Unlike wildfires, earthquakes, or flooding, landslides are not considered disasters in the State of California. Thus, along with fundraising efforts, local lobbying efforts are being made to add landslides to the list of covered emergencies, which could create a path to governmental assistance.

Long CoT reasoning improves large language models’ performance on complex tasks but comes with drawbacks. The typical “think-then-answer” method slows down response times, disrupting real-time interactions like those in chatbots. It also risks inaccuracies, as errors in earlier reasoning steps can lead to a misleading final answer. Unlike humans, who often share partial thoughts or conclusions during conversations, LLMs delay responses until all reasoning is complete. While RL is commonly used to train reasoning models, it mainly rewards final answers, overlooking useful intermediate insights. There is growing interest in teaching models that alternate between thinking and answering, but this remains a challenge.  RL has become a popular method to enhance reasoning in LLMs, building on its success in aligning models with human preferences. Two common reward types guide RL: outcome-based rewards (ORM), which focus on the final answer, and process-based rewards (PRM), which provide feedback on intermediate reasoning steps. While PRMs offer more detailed supervision, they often rely on human annotation and additional models, making them complex and prone to issues like reward hacking. Separately, efforts to improve LLM reasoning have explored prompting strategies, structured reasoning, tool integration, and methods to reduce latency and improve efficiency.  Researchers from Apple and Duke University introduce Interleaved Reasoning, a new RL approach that enables language models to alternate between thinking and answering when solving complex, multi-step questions. Instead of waiting until the end to respond, models provide informative intermediate answers, which improves feedback for users and guides their reasoning. Using a straightforward rule-based reward, the model is trained to produce helpful reasoning steps, leading to over 80% faster responses and up to 19.3% better accuracy. Trained only on QA and logic datasets, the method demonstrates strong generalization to more challenging benchmarks, such as MATH, GPQA, and MMLU.  The study proposes a reinforcement learning framework to train LLMs for Interleaved Reasoning, where models alternate between internal thinking and user-facing intermediate answers. Each intermediate step, or “sub-answer,” is shared once the model reaches a meaningful milestone in reasoning. A specialized training template with <think> and <answer> tags is used. The approach utilizes rule-based rewards—specifically, format, final accuracy, and conditional intermediate accuracy—to guide learning. Notably, intermediate rewards are applied only when specific criteria are met, ensuring the model prioritizes overall correctness. They also test different reward schemes, such as all-or-none, partial credit, and time-discounted rewards, to optimize the quality of reasoning.  The interleaved reasoning approach was evaluated on both familiar and unfamiliar datasets using Qwen2.5 models (1.5B and 7B). Unlike traditional methods that separate thinking and answering, the interleaved method provides answers incrementally, improving both speed and usefulness. When combined with intermediate rewards, it significantly enhances model performance while reducing response delays by over 80%. Even without exposure to new domains during training, the model adapts well, showing strong generalization. These results highlight the value of interleaved reasoning in making AI systems more responsive and effective in real-world, multi-step reasoning tasks.  In conclusion, the study explores how interleaved reasoning—where models alternate between reasoning and generating intermediate answers—can significantly improve performance and responsiveness. Using the Qwen2.5-1.5B model, the authors show that providing timely intermediate feedback during training boosts accuracy and accelerates response generation. Different RL strategies were tested, with PPO showing stable results, and conditional, time-discounted rewards proving to be the most effective. The method scales well to complex tasks and outperforms traditional think-then-answer baselines. Unlike token-level reward models, this approach employs simple rule-based rewards after completing full reasoning steps, thereby avoiding reward hacking. Ultimately, interleaved reasoning enhances reasoning quality and efficiency without relying on external tools.  Check out the Paper. All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also, feel free to follow us on Twitter and don’t forget to join our 95k+ ML SubReddit and Subscribe to our Newsletter. Sana HassanSana Hassan, a consulting intern at Marktechpost and dual-degree student at IIT Madras, is passionate about applying technology and AI to address real-world challenges. With a keen interest in solving practical problems, he brings a fresh perspective to the intersection of AI and real-life solutions.Sana Hassanhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sana-hassan/National University of Singapore Researchers Introduce Dimple: A Discrete Diffusion Multimodal Language Model for Efficient and Controllable Text GenerationSana Hassanhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sana-hassan/LLMs Can Now Reason Beyond Language: Researchers Introduce Soft Thinking to Replace Discrete Tokens with Continuous Concept EmbeddingsSana Hassanhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sana-hassan/Researchers at UT Austin Introduce Panda: A Foundation Model for Nonlinear Dynamics Pretrained on 20,000 Chaotic ODE Discovered via Evolutionary SearchSana Hassanhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sana-hassan/Microsoft Releases NLWeb: An Open Project that Allows Developers to Easily Turn Any Website into an AI-Powered App with Natural Language Interfaces