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A tech billionaire is quietly buying up land in Hawaii. No one knows why

A tech billionaire is quietly buying up land in Hawaii. No one knows why

Dara Kerr reports: A life-size bronze statue of a cowboy sits at the center of Waimea. The cowboy is riding a horse, lasso in hand, pursuing a wild bull. It’s a monument to Ikua Purdy, a hometown hero, who was the first Hawaiian to become a hall-of-fame rodeo roper. This statue is meant to represent the spirit of the place here on Hawaii’s Big Island, which is wholly different from the tourist-laden beaches of Waikiki. Waimea is primarily an agricultural…

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Inside the Democratic rebellion against Biden over the Gaza war

Inside the Democratic rebellion against Biden over the Gaza war

Reuters reports: The depth of Democratic Party anger over President Joe Biden’s handling of the Gaza war has caught his campaign off guard and could depress support in November’s election, according to Reuters interviews with more than a dozen senior party and campaign officials and five dozen voters and activists. The White House had expected Democratic unrest over Gaza to fade as Biden picked up his campaigning against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, the officials said. Nine months before the…

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Israeli director receives death threats after officials call Berlin film festival ‘antisemitic’

Israeli director receives death threats after officials call Berlin film festival ‘antisemitic’

Our film “No Other Land” on occupied Masafer Yatta’s brutal expulsion won best documentary in Berlinale. Israel’s channel 11 aired this 30 second segment from my speech, insanely called it “anti semitic” – and I’ve been receiving death threats since. I stand behind every word. pic.twitter.com/2burPfZeKO — Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם (@yuval_abraham) February 25, 2024 The Guardian reports: An Israeli film-maker who won one of the top prizes at the Berlin film festival has said German officials’ description of the…

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Yellen urges world leaders to ‘unlock’ frozen Russian Central Bank assets and send them to Ukraine

Yellen urges world leaders to ‘unlock’ frozen Russian Central Bank assets and send them to Ukraine

The Associated Press reports: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday offered her strongest public support yet for the idea of liquidating roughly $300 billion in frozen Russian Central Bank assets and using them for Ukraine’s long-term reconstruction. “It is necessary and urgent for our coalition to find a way to unlock the value of these immobilized assets to support Ukraine’s continued resistance and long-term reconstruction,” Yellen said in remarks in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where Group of 20 finance ministers and…

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The economy is roaring. Immigration is a key reason

The economy is roaring. Immigration is a key reason

The Washington Post reports: Immigration has propelled the U.S. job market further than just about anyone expected, helping cement the country’s economic rebound from the pandemic as the most robust in the world. That momentum picked up aggressively over the past year. About 50 percent of the labor market’s extraordinary recent growth came from foreign-born workers between January 2023 and January 2024, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of federal data. And even before that, by the middle of…

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If we can learn to speak the language of whales, what should we say?

If we can learn to speak the language of whales, what should we say?

Ross Andersen writes: One night last winter, over drinks in downtown Los Angeles, the biologist David Gruber told me that human beings might someday talk to sperm whales. In 2020, Gruber founded Project CETI with some of the world’s leading artificial-intelligence researchers, and they have so far raised $33 million for a high-tech effort to learn the whales’ language. Gruber said that they hope to record billions of the animals’ clicking sounds with floating hydrophones, and then to decipher the…

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A quantum trick implied eternal stability. Now the idea may be falling apart

A quantum trick implied eternal stability. Now the idea may be falling apart

Charlie Wood writes: It is a truth of both physics and everyday experience that things fall apart. Ice melts. Buildings crumble. Any object, if you wait long enough, gets mixed up with itself and its surroundings beyond recognition. But beginning in 2005, a series of breakthroughs made this death march seem optional. In just the right quantum setting, any arrangement of electrons or atoms would stay put for all eternity — even uneven arrangements thrumming with activity. The finding flew…

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‘What would I do if my country was committing genocide? The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now’

‘What would I do if my country was committing genocide? The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now’

US serviceman Aaron Bushnell, who set fire to himself outside the Israeli embassy in Washington DC saying he was protesting against the genocide of Palestinians, has died in hospital from his injuries ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/oGXEjDVdB9 — Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) February 26, 2024 I can't believing I'm saying this, but Aaron Bushnell's last words were just read live on CNN. pic.twitter.com/wdbbBsTHgW — Read Let This Radicalize You (@JoshuaPHilll) February 26, 2024 Aaron Bushnell. We see you. We know your name. We…

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The trauma experienced in Gaza is beyond PTSD

The trauma experienced in Gaza is beyond PTSD

Yara M. Asi writes: “We will die. All of us. Hopefully soon enough to stop the suffering that we are living through every single second.” Those words were sent in a text last week by a physician working for Doctors Without Borders in the southern Gaza Strip. And it is far from an uncommon feeling shared by those struggling to survive and care for one another in Gaza these days. What would we call this feeling from the perspective of…

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Western troops on the ground in Ukraine is not ‘ruled out’ in the future, Macron says

Western troops on the ground in Ukraine is not ‘ruled out’ in the future, Macron says

The Associated Press reports: French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that sending Western troops on the ground in Ukraine is not “ruled out” in the future after the issue was debated at a gathering of European leaders in Paris, as Russia’s full-scale invasion grinds into a third year. The French leader said that “we will do everything needed so Russia cannot win the war” after the meeting of over 20 European heads of state and government and other Western officials….

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Blow to Putin as Europe breaks free of Russian oil for good

Blow to Putin as Europe breaks free of Russian oil for good

The Telegraph reports: Western Europe has broken free of direct Russian oil imports for good in a blow to Vladimir Putin, research by the European energy consultancy Rystad suggests. Analysts found that the UK and much of Europe have reversed a years-long rise in reliance on Russian oil and gas before the Ukraine conflict, shifting instead to other suppliers such as the US and Canada. Jorge Leon, Rystad’s senior vice president for oil markets, said: “I think people underestimated how…

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I went to CPAC as an anthropologist to understand Trump’s base − they believe, more than ever, he is a savior

I went to CPAC as an anthropologist to understand Trump’s base − they believe, more than ever, he is a savior

A person signs a bus wrapped with an image of former President Donald Trump during the Conservative Political Action Conference on Feb. 22, 2024. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images By Alexander Hinton, Rutgers University – Newark What is happening in the hearts of former President Donald Trump’s supporters? As an anthropologist who studies peace and conflict, I went to the annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, to find out. I wanted to better understand the Make…

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Trump’s plan to use Judge Cannon to block Judge Chutkan and avoid trial

Trump’s plan to use Judge Cannon to block Judge Chutkan and avoid trial

CNN reports: Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers see a major opportunity this week to use his criminal document mishandling case in Florida to create an impasse on his calendar for the two federal judges overseeing his major criminal cases. Juggling his campaign and court calendar and playing his cases off one another is a key part of Trump’s legal strategy. The ultimate goal, his team has said openly, is to prevent Trump from being tried in federal court before voters…

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