For the last 25 years, the U.S. has exported about one-third of its recycling, the majority of it going to China. Yet most Americans recycle without realizing the complex process behind the waste management system.
This year, new regulations from the Chinese government are limiting how much recycling the U.S. can send them. That’s creating financial challenges, especially for local communities who are starting to see the consequences in their own backyards.
Silicon Valley startup accelerator Y Combinator, whose companies have included Airbnb and Dropbox, on Tuesday announced that it is expanding into China. YC also said the new effort will be led by Qi Lu, the former Microsoft executive who recently stepped down as COO at Baidu.
Why it matters: Chinese tech companies have long been accused of copying American peers, but Y Combinator's Sam Altman tells Axios that the paradigm has begun to reverse.
Israel has protested to the presidency of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague against the judges sitting in a pretrial chamber handling Palestinian lawsuits against Israel over the 2014 Gaza war and the construction of settlements in the West Bank.
Between the lines: Israeli officials told me the reason for the protest was an unprecedented decision by the judges to initiate a call for "victims of the situation in Palestine" to contact the court and submit information.
Iran’s Minister of Defense unveiled a new short-range ballistic missile called the Fateh Mobin, or “manifest conqueror,” on Monday. Initially designed for surface-to-surface combat, the Fateh missiles have been upgraded several times and include anti-ship variants. Select Iranian outlets carried video of the missile’s launch, but did not provide the launch date or the missile’s payload and range specifications.
The big picture: There has been a lull in highly publicized Iranian ballistic missile launches, and flight-testing of one particular category — nuclear-capable medium-range ballistic missiles — has fallen in the past year and half. But it would be a mistake to assume Iran’s recent risk aversion would last.