and the natural warming

"Fortunately we put a stop to it," he says, noting that all but one Bitcoin mining operation left the city.Resistance to Bitcoin mines extends to places with the biggest Trump support.

Cyndie Roberson was retired and unaware of the crypto industry until a Bitcoin mining operation moved to her small town in North Carolina in 2021. The locals banded together and managed to ban new Bitcoin developments in their area - but the existing one was allowed to stay and the bitterness of the fight made her decide to move south, to Gilmer County in Georgia.There, Ms Roberson has campaigned against crypto mining in a region that is solidly pro-Republican. In the county where she lives, she says that around 1,000 people came to a public meeting to oppose a mine, which then wasn't allowed to operate.Just north of Gilmer, the Fannin County Commission has enacted a ban on crypto mining, while a Georgian commission representing 18 primarily rural counties has published advice on how to restrict the development of Bitcoin mines.

"When you're in my backyard, when you're in my town, trying to wreck our property and our peace, people will tell you, it's a hard 'no'," says Ms Roberson.Although 80% of local people backed Trump last November, that support doesn't appear to stop people opposing one of his key crypto goals.

The Trump administration is not planning to do away with all regulations around crypto mining - but it is ready to actively help companies open power plants next to the mines.

In an interview with Bitcoin Magazine in April, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick said: "We're going to make it so that if you want to mine Bitcoin, and you find the right place to do it, you can build your own power plant next to it," going on to argue that such projects would stop "these stories about 'You're taking too much power and now the cost of operating my refrigerator is higher'."But there appears to be little appetite for conscription among the British public. A YouGov poll in September 2023 found that just 28% of the British public would support a one year military service. Younger people were particularly opposed.

The government wants to get people interested from a young age, by expanding cadet forces in secondary schools. The MoD is also trying to keep better records of those troops who have left, and who could be recalled in a crisis.An MoD spokesperson said: "We are committed to fixing Armed Forces recruitment and have already given personnel the largest pay rise in decades, scrapped 100 outdated recruitment policies, and passed legislation through the Commons to introduce a new Armed Forces Commissioner to improve service life."

Whatever comes out of the defence review, there is no expectation that troop numbers will increase in the near future.Analysts are, however, looking at radical solutions - including the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the battlefield. The most obvious example is AI-enabled drones, which are already being used in Ukraine to identify targets on their own, to deadly effect. But some also envisage a future in which machines could collect data on adversaries.