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Life and death aboard cargo ships stranded near the Strait of Hormuz

Life and death aboard cargo ships stranded near the Strait of Hormuz

The Wall Street Journal reports: On the 19th day that the oil tanker ASP Avana was stuck in the Persian Gulf, its 47-year-old captain, Rakesh Ranjan Singh, died. ​Singh had boarded the vessel in early February and sailed to the Persian Gulf to load crude. But his journey back to Asia ground to a halt Feb. 28 when U.S. and Israeli forces struck Iran. With no ships allowed to cross the Strait of Hormuz, under threat of attack, his ship…

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Gulf funds reconsider American investments, including backing for Paramount merger, as Iran war rages On

Gulf funds reconsider American investments, including backing for Paramount merger, as Iran war rages On

Ryan Grim reports: Gulf sovereign wealth funds are undertaking a sweeping review of American investments, driven by a combination of commercial necessity and political recalibration driven by the Iran war, according to sources familiar with deliberations around the high-level financing deals. In particular, the planned merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Brothers Discovery, made possible as a result of Gulf financing, is getting a new look. A postponed meeting of the board of the Qatar Investment Authority will reconvene within…

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Trump’s life in peril if he doesn’t get his ballroom without delay, DOJ claims

Trump’s life in peril if he doesn’t get his ballroom without delay, DOJ claims

The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration has appealed a federal judge’s order to halt the construction of President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom, arguing in an emergency motion that pausing the $400 million project would raise national security risks. The motion, which was filed Friday night in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, argues that U.S. District Judge Richard Leon’s “shocking, unprecedented, and improper injunction” to stop construction would imperil Trump, his family and White House…

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Holocaust Memorial Museum removed content on American racism after Trump returned to office

Holocaust Memorial Museum removed content on American racism after Trump returned to office

Politico reports: In the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington quietly removed from its website educational resources about American racism and canceled a workshop about the “fragility of democracy.” The changes, which have not been previously reported, came as Trump cracked down on what he called “corrosive ideology” at the Smithsonian Institution, demanding a slew of alterations at the world’s largest museum network to more closely align its content with his…

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AI’s fluency in other languages hides a Western worldview that can mislead users − a scholar of Indonesian society explains

AI’s fluency in other languages hides a Western worldview that can mislead users − a scholar of Indonesian society explains

AI models derive their assumptions from English-language sources based in the United States. Weiquan Lin/Moment via Getty Images By Gareth Barkin, University of Puget Sound A friend in Indonesia recently told me about a conversation he had with ChatGPT. He had typed a question in Indonesian – Bahasa Indonesia – about how to handle a difficult family dispute. The chatbot responded fluently, in perfect Indonesian, with advice about communication strategies and conflict resolution. The grammar was flawless. The tone was…

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Control over Strait of Hormuz will determine who wins the war with Iran

Control over Strait of Hormuz will determine who wins the war with Iran

The Wall Street Journal reports: Oil tankers, container ships and bulk carriers shimmer all over the horizon to the left of the windswept beach here at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz. They have been bottled up in the Persian Gulf ever since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Iran more than a month ago. To the right, with the Iranian coast only 40 miles away, the dark-blue sea is completely empty. Only a handful of vessels…

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U.S. success in destroying Iran’s missile capability is being overstated, intelligence indicates

U.S. success in destroying Iran’s missile capability is being overstated, intelligence indicates

The New York Times reports: Iranian operatives have been digging out underground missile bunkers and silos struck by American and Israeli bombs, returning them to operation hours after an attack, according to U.S. intelligence reports. Iran has also retained a significant amount of its missiles and mobile launchers, the reports say. The Pentagon and White House this week claimed to have made substantial progress against Iran. At a briefing this week, the Pentagon said it had struck 11,000 targets in…

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Iranian drone strike on U.S. embassy in Riyadh caused more damage than disclosed

Iranian drone strike on U.S. embassy in Riyadh caused more damage than disclosed

The Wall Street Journal reports: An Iranian drone attack last month on the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia did more extensive damage than previously disclosed, current and former American officials said, showing Iran’s ability to hit Washington’s assets in the kingdom. The attack happened March 3, when an Iranian drone evaded the air defenses guarding Riyadh’s gated Diplomatic Quarter and slammed into the American compound. A minute later, a second drone flew into the hole made by the first one…

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The next coup attempt — and how to stop it

The next coup attempt — and how to stop it

Timothy Snyder writes: We are seven months away from the most consequential midterm election in the history of the United States. Meanwhile, we are fighting a war. These are the structural conditions for a coup attempt in which a president tries to nullify elections and take permanent power as a dictator. If we see this, we can stop it, overcome the movement that brought us to this point, and make a turn towards something better. President Donald Trump and Secretary…

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My citizenship, up for debate

My citizenship, up for debate

Pablo Andreu writes: I was born in the wee hours of Dec.15, 1980 at St. Mary’s Hospital, now Hoboken University Medical, the same hospital where Frank Sinatra was born. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I learned my family was undocumented at my birth and on through my early childhood. I was an adult by the time I realized I had gained U.S. citizenship through birthright, which the Trump administration is now attempting to strike down. On Wednesday…

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‘Feels like history is being made’: Will young Hungarian voters oust Orbán?

‘Feels like history is being made’: Will young Hungarian voters oust Orbán?

The Guardian reports: As he rushed to finish off his cigarette before heading to class, Ákos, 20, confessed that he has more at stake than most as Hungarians prepare to head to the polls in the coming days. “If things remain the same, or get even worse, I can’t see a future here,” said the aspiring teacher. “There are many people who want to try living elsewhere, and that’s totally fine, but I’m not one of them. For so long…

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Does exposure to nature really help reduce negative emotions?

Does exposure to nature really help reduce negative emotions?

Neuroscience News reports: You probably heard it from your mom a thousand times – fresh air and sunshine; it’s the cure for most anything. Now scientists at the University of Houston concur, measuring the impact of mother’s advice on mother nature to find that exposure to nature is associated with reductions in negative emotions. Given that nearly 90% of the U.S. population is projected to reside in urban areas by 2050, researchers say integrating nature into urban design and public…

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Fertilizer blockade: Record numbers of people could face acute hunger if Hormuz remains closed

Fertilizer blockade: Record numbers of people could face acute hunger if Hormuz remains closed

The Guardian reports: The world has become well versed in the importance of the strait of Hormuz to the world’s energy flows, but attention is increasingly turning to its vital role in another market – the fertiliser on which harvests depend. A third of the global trade in raw materials for fertiliser passes through the maritime choke point, which is also the route for 20% of shipments of natural gas, which is required to make it. The waterway’s near-total shipping…

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Two U.S. warplanes shot down; search ongoing in Iran for one missing crew member

Two U.S. warplanes shot down; search ongoing in Iran for one missing crew member

The Washington Post reports: Two U.S. military aircraft were shot down in separate incidents Friday while conducting combat operations against Iran, setting off a frantic search-and-rescue effort that remains ongoing for one missing crew member, U.S. officials said. The F-15E fighter jet and the A-10 attack plane both were hit by incoming fire, U.S. officials said. One of two crew members aboard the F-15, which crashed inside Iran, was rescued, though their condition was not immediately clear, the officials said….

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