Russia wants role in Ukraine’s security Kyiv, supporters dismiss the idea given Moscow’s military interventions. By ANTON TROIANOVSKI The New York Times DANYLO ATONIUK: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS UKRAINIAN SOLDIERS FIRE A SELF-PROPELLED HOWITAER TOWARD RUSSIAN POSITIONS ON THE FRONT LINE IN UKRAINES ZAPORIZHZHIA REGION ON WEDNESDAY

​BERLIN - Russia's top diplomat Wednesday said the country would insist on being a part of any future security guarantees for Ukraine, a condition that European and Ukrainian officials widely see as absurd.

It was the clearest sign yet that enormous gaps remain in the negotiations over a possible end to Russia's invasion. And it added to the uncertainty over how a European effort to rally a "coalition of the willing" to protect a postwar Ukraine, possibly with Western soldiers stationed inside the country, would fit into President Donald Trump's plans for a peace deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Seriously discussing issues of ensuring security without the Russian Federation is a utopia, a road to nowhere," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in Moscow after a meeting with his Jordanian counterpart.

Kyiv's supporters largely dismiss the idea that Russia could be a part of ensuring Ukraine's future security, given that it launched its military intervention there in 2014 and its full-scale invasion in 2022. But Lavrov signaled that Putin had not budged from his insistence on having a decisive say over Ukraine's future sovereignty as part of any peace deal.

"We cannot agree that now it is proposed that security issues, collective security, be resolved without the Russian Federation," Lavrov said. "This will not work."

The Trump administration has trumpeted a breakthrough in talks with Russia this month, claiming Putin had accepted a proposal for the West to provide security guarantees for Ukraine as strong as Article 5 of the NATO charter, which stipulates that an attack on one alliance member is considered an attack on all.

Trump said Monday that Putin had "agreed that Russia would accept security guarantees for Ukraine," calling it a "very significant step." Steve Witkoff, a special envoy for Trump, said that Putin had made the "gamechanging" concession of letting the United States and Europe offer "Article 5-like protection" to Ukraine.

The Kremlin has long said it is open to offers of such guarantees for Ukraine from foreign countries.

But with a catch: Russia, the Russian government says, should be one of the guarantors, and no Western troops should be based in Ukraine.
Those caveats remain in place, Lavrov indicated Wednesday.

He said that the kind of security guarantee for Ukraine that Russia would accept was of the sort that Russia and Ukraine were negotiating when they held peace talks in the early months of the war in 2022.

The draft peace treaty that Russia and Ukraine negotiated at the time, which they never finalized before talks fell apart, would have banned Ukraine from entering into military alliances like NATO or allowing foreign troops to be based on its territory.

It stipulated that a group of "guarantor states" — including Britain, China, the United States, France and Russia — would come to Ukraine's defense if it were attacked again.

Russia's negotiators wanted to go even further, seeking a clause that would have required all guarantor countries, including Russia, to agree on military intervention in response to a future attack on Ukraine. In effect, that condition would have allowed Moscow to invade Ukraine again and then veto any military intervention on Kyiv's behalf.

"If Russia is offering what it offered in 2022, it's hard to see how we've moved," said Samuel Charap, a Russia analyst at Rand Corp. who has studied the 2022 talks. "It does not seem that there has been much of a shift in the Russian position."

Some analysts say that Western countries could deploy troops to Ukraine after the fighting ends without Russia's approval. Others argue that Russia wouldn't agree to a peace deal in the first place if that possibility remained on the table, given Putin's fierce opposition to the presence of NATO troops in Ukraine.
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"It would be unsurprising if that prospect were to disincentivize Russia from agreeing to end the war," Charap said.

​Some states rethinking how they set speed limits Critics say rules based on how drivers travel encourage speeding. By JEFF McMURRAY The Associated Press

Rose Hammond pushed authorities for years to lower the 55 mph speed limit on a two-lane road that passes her assisted living community, a church, two schools and a busy park that hosts numerous youth sports leagues.

"What are you waiting for, somebody to get killed?" the 85-year-old chided officials in northwestern Ohio, complaining that nothing was being done about the motorcycles that race by almost daily.

Amid growing public pressure, Sylvania Township asked county engineers in March to analyze whether Mitchaw Road's posted speed is too high.

The surprising answer: Technically, it's 5 mph too low.

The reason dates back to studies on rural roads from the 1930s and 1940s that still play an outsized role in the way speed limits are set across the U.S. — even in urban areas.

Born from that research was a widely accepted concept known as the 85% rule, which suggests a road's posted speed should be tied to the 15th-fastest vehicle out of every 100 traveling it in free-flowing traffic, rounded to the nearest 5 mph increment.

But after decades of closely following the rule, some states — with a nudge from the federal government — are seeking to modify if not replace it when setting guidelines for how local engineers should decide what speed limit to post.

Drivers set the speed

The concept assumes that a road's safest speed is the one most vehicles travel — neither too high nor too low. If drivers think the speed limit should be raised, they can simply step on the gas and "vote with their feet," as an old brochure from the Institute of Transportation Engineers once put it.

"The problem with this approach is it creates this feedback loop," said Jenny O'Connell, director of member programs for the National Association of City Transportation Officials. "People speed, and then the speed limits will be ratcheted up to match that speed."

The association developed an alternative to the 85% rule known as "City Limits," which aims to minimize the risk of injuries for all road users by setting the speed limit based on a formula that factors in a street's activity level and the likelihood of conflicts, such as collisions.

The report points out the 85% rule is based on dated research and that "these historic roads are a far cry from the vibrant streets and arterials that typify city streets today."

Amid a recent spike in road deaths across the country, the Federal Highway Administration sent a subtle but important message to states that the 85% rule isn't actually a rule at all and was carrying too much weight in determining local speed limits.

In its first update since 2009 to a manual that establishes national guidelines for traffic signs, the agency clarified that communities should also consider such things as how the road is used, the risk to pedestrians, and the frequency of crashes.

Leah Shahum, who directs the Vision Zero Network, a nonprofit advocating for street safety, said she wishes the manual had gone further in downplaying the 85% rule but acknowledges the change has already affected the way some states set speed limits. Others, however, are still clinging to the simplicity and familiarity of the longstanding approach, she said.

Communities rethinking the need for speed

Under its "20 is Plenty" campaign, Madison, Wis., has been changing signs across the city this summer, lowering the speed limit from 25 mph to 20 mph on local residential streets.

When Seattle took a similar step in a pilot program seven years ago, not only did it see a noticeable decline in serious injury crashes but also a 7% drop in the 85th percentile speed, according to the Vision Zero Network.

California embraces the 85% rule even more than most states as its basis for setting speed limits.

But legislators have loosened the restrictions on local governments a bit in recent years, allowing them to depart from the guidelines if they can cite a proven safety need. Advocates for pedestrians and bicyclists say the change helps, but is not enough.

"We still have a long way to go in California in terms of putting value on all road users," said Kendra Ramsey, executive director of the California Bicycle Coalition. "There's still a very heavy mindset that automobiles are the primary method of travel and they should be given priority and reverence."

But Jay Beeber, executive director for policy at the National Motorists Association, an advocacy organization for drivers, said following the 85% rule is usually the safest way to minimize the variation in speed between drivers who abide by the posted limit and those who far exceed it.

"It doesn't really matter what number you put on a sign," Beeber said. "The average driver drives the nature of the roadway. It would be patently unfair for a government to build a road to encourage people to drive 45 mph, put a 30 mph speed limit on it, and then ticket everyone for doing what they built the road to do."

80 is the new 55

Fears about oil prices prompted Congress in the 1970s to set a 55 mph national maximum speed limit, which it later relaxed to 65 mph before repealing the law in 1995 and handing the authority to states. Since then, speed limits have kept climbing, with North Dakota this summer becoming the ninth state to allow drivers to go 80 mph on some stretches of highway. There's even a 40-mile segment in Texas between Austin and San Antonio where 85 mph is allowed.

Although high-speed freeways outside major population centers aren't the focus of most efforts to ease the 85% rule, a 2019 study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety — a research arm funded by auto insurers — illustrates the risks.

Every 5 mph increase to a state's maximum speed limit increases the chance of fatalities by 8.5% on interstate highways and 2.8% on other roads, the study found.

"Maybe back when you were driving a Model T you had a real feel for how fast you were going, but in modern vehicles you don't have a sense of what 80 mph is. You're in a cocoon," said Chuck Farmer, the institute's vice president for research, who conducted the study.
A town's attempt at change

If elected officials in Sylvania Township, Ohio, got their way, Mitchaw Road's posted speed limit would be cut dramatically — from 55 mph to 40 mph or lower. The county's finding that the 85% rule actually calls for raising it to 60 mph surprised the town's leaders, but not the engineers who ran the study.

For now, the speed limit will remain as it is. That's because Ohio law sets maximum speeds for 15 different types of roadways, regardless of what the 85% rule suggests.

And Ohio's guidelines are evolving. It now gives more consideration to roadway context and allows cities to reduce speed limits based on the lower standard of the 50th percentile speed when there's a large presence of pedestrians and bicyclists.

Authorities there recently hired a consultant to consider additional modifications based on what other states are doing.

It's unclear whether any of these changes will ultimately impact the posted speed on Mitchaw Road. After years of futile calls and emails to state, county and township officials, Hammond says she isn't holding her breath.
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"I just get so discouraged," she said.

BADGER'S SHIP WHEEL

SS BADGER

BADGER'S ANCHOR - OVER 2000 LBS

SS Badger 
Powering across Lake Michigan 

The historic SS Badger, a coal-fired car ferry on Lake Michigan, relies on a combination of traditional and powerful methods to navigate the waters. While the ship's wheel plays a crucial role, the vessel's primary steering mechanism lies in the sophisticated control of its twin propellers, a system that renders the ancient technique of kedging - (using the anchor to position the ship in tight manuvers) unnecessary for this maritime giant.

Steering the Badger: A Dance of Engines
The SS Badger is equipped with two large propellers, each driven by its own powerful Skinner Unaflow steam engine.This independent propulsion system is the key to the ship's maneuverability. The captain, from the bridge, utilizes a telegraph system to relay commands to the engine room. By adjusting the speed and direction (forward or reverse) of each propeller independently, the vessel can be turned, steered, and even moved sideways with remarkable precision for its size. This method is particularly effective for docking and navigating in the sometimes-tight confines of its ports in Ludington, Michigan, and Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

The iconic ship's wheel is not directly connected to the rudders in the way one might imagine on a smaller vessel. Instead, it is part of the telegraph system that communicates the desired rudder angle to the steering gear in the stern of the ship, which then hydraulically moves the massive rudder.

The Role of the Anchors
The SS Badger is outfitted with two formidable 7,000-pound Stockless anchors. However, these anchors are not used for steering under normal circumstances. Their primary function is to hold the vessel in place in open water, particularly in situations of engine failure or while waiting for a berth to become available. Dropping and weighing these massive anchors is a time-consuming process and would be an impractical and inefficient method for routine maneuvering.

Kedging: A Technique of a Different Era and Scale
Kedging is a traditional maritime technique where a smaller, secondary anchor, known as a "kedge anchor," is carried out from a vessel by a small boat, dropped, and then the vessel is hauled towards the anchor by pulling on the anchor line.This method was historically used by sailing ships to move against the wind or current, or to free themselves after running aground.

For a vessel the size and power of the SS Badger, kedging is not a viable or necessary method of propulsion or steering. The ship's powerful engines and twin-screw propulsion system provide all the necessary control for maneuvering in various conditions. The scale of the SS Badger and the forces involved would make any attempt at kedging with a secondary anchor an immense and impractical undertaking. 

​The historic car ferry relies on the raw power of steam and the skilled coordination of its engine and bridge crews to navigate the waters of Lake Michigan.