Music: Magnus Öström Group — ‘Oceans’
Claims that UNRWA is Hamas ‘proxy’ are ‘just flat-out lies,’ says Sen. Chris Van Holle
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, tells “Face the Nation” that claims by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others that the relief group UNRWA, which provides relief for Palestinian refugees, is a “proxy” for Hamas are “just flat-out lies.” The Hill reports: Funding for the United Nations (U.N.) agency that provides relief for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, has emerged as a serious obstacle as congressional negotiators race to prevent a partial government shutdown at the end…
Belgian PM warns Israel against using hunger as ‘weapon of war’ in Gaza
Politico reports: Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo warned Israel on Saturday against using hunger as a “weapon of war” in the Gaza Strip, urging the Israeli government to open more access points for humanitarian aid. “I see today there is a very large population [in Gaza] at risk of famine,” the Belgian leader told journalists in Amman, Jordan, during a whistle-stop tour of the Middle East. “It’s up to Israel to prove that famine won’t be used as a…
The strongman fantasy
Timothy Snyder writes: Quite a few Americans like the idea of strongman rule. Why not a dictator who will get things done? I lived in eastern Europe when memories of communism were fresh. I have visited regions in Ukraine where Russia imposed its occupation regime. I have spent decades reading testimonies of people who lived under Nazi or Stalinist rule. I have seen death pits, some old, some freshly dug. And I have friends who have lived under authoritarian regimes,…
How Trump’s allies are winning the war over disinformation
The New York Times reports: In the wake of the riot on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021, a groundswell built in Washington to rein in the onslaught of lies that had fueled the assault on the peaceful transfer of power. Social media companies suspended Donald J. Trump, then the president, and many of his allies from the platforms they had used to spread misinformation about his defeat and whip up the attempt to overturn it. The Biden administration, Democrats…
Musk’s SpaceX is building spy satellite network for U.S. intelligence agency, sources say
Reuters reports: SpaceX is building a network of hundreds of spy satellites under a classified contract with a U.S. intelligence agency, five sources familiar with the program said, demonstrating deepening ties between billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s space company and national security agencies. The network is being built by SpaceX’s Starshield business unit under a $1.8 billion contract signed in 2021 with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), an intelligence agency that manages spy satellites, the sources said. The plans show the…
The rising cost of the oil industry’s slow death
By Mark Olalde, ProPublica, and Nick Bowlin, Capital & Main This story was originally published by ProPublica. In the 165 years since the first American oil well struck black gold, the industry has punched millions of holes in the earth, seeking profits gushing from the ground. Now, those wells are running dry, and a generational bill is coming due. Until wells are properly plugged, many leak oil and brine onto farmland and into waterways and emit toxic and explosive gasses,…
Remembering Frans de Waal and the origins of war
John Horgan writes: I was scrolling through Twitter last night when I came across an RIP for primatologist Frans de Waal. The news caught me off guard. How could de Waal be dead? He was just out there promoting Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist, the latest of his 16 popular books. But a release from Emory University, de Waal’s long-time academic home, confirmed that he succumbed to stomach cancer on March 14. I interviewed de Waal…
Music: Magnus Öström Group — ‘FlowFly’
The political earthquake that could shatter Netanyahu’s coalition
Yair Rosenberg writes: The most controversial Israeli comedy sketch of the current war is just 88 seconds long. Aired in February on Eretz Nehederet, Israel’s equivalent of Saturday Night Live, it opens with two ashen-faced officers knocking on the door of a nondescript apartment, ready to deliver devastating news to the inhabitants. The officers are greeted by an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man who is similarly stricken when he sees them. “I’ve been terrified of this knock,” he says. “Ever since the…
Gaza: 23 million tonnes of debris ‘will take years to clear’; acute malnutrition doubles in a month
UN News reports: In a fresh alert about the disastrous humanitarian emergency still unfolding in the enclave, the UN agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, said on Friday that it will “take years” before the Strip is made safe again. The lives of more than two million Gazans have been devastated by daily Israeli bombardment, since Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel on 7 October, the UN agency noted in a post on X, formerly Twitter. As the largest relief agency in Gaza,…
Iran and U.S. held secret talks on proxy attacks and ceasefire
The New York Times reports: Iran and the United States held secret, indirect talks in Oman in January, addressing the escalating threat posed to Red Sea shipping by the Houthis in Yemen, as well as the attacks on American bases by Iran-backed militias in Iraq, according to Iranian and U.S. officials familiar with the discussions. The secret talks were held on Jan. 10 in Muscat, the capital of Oman, with Omani officials shuffling messages back and forth between delegations of…
The obscene energy demands of AI
Elizabeth Kolbert writes: In 2016, Alex de Vries read somewhere that a single bitcoin transaction consumes as much energy as the average American household uses in a day. At the time, de Vries, who is Dutch, was working at a consulting firm. In his spare time, he wrote a blog, called Digiconomist, about the risks of investing in cryptocurrency. He found the energy-use figure disturbing. “I was, like, O.K., that’s a massive amount, and why is no one talking about…
Who will succeed Russia’s longest ruling dictator since Stalin?
Anna Nemtsova writes: Not even the most passionate supporters of Vladimir Putin are pretending that the results of this weekend’s election are in doubt: Putin, Russia’s longest-serving leader since Joseph Stalin, is about to embark on his sixth term. And so, with no electoral politics to debate, both pro-Putin and liberal Kremlinologists in the Russian-language mediasphere have been focusing instead on changes at the very top of Russia’s power pyramid: the new elite that is coming to replace the old…
Urban humans have lost much of their ability to digest plants
John Timmer writes: Cellulose is the primary component of the cell walls of plants, making it the most common polymer on Earth. It’s responsible for the properties of materials like wood and cotton and is the primary component of dietary fiber, so it’s hard to overstate its importance to humanity. Given its ubiquity and the fact that it’s composed of a bunch of sugar molecules linked together, its toughness makes it very difficult to use as a food source. The…
Swirling forces, crushing pressures measured in the proton
Charlie Wood writes: Physicists have begun to explore the proton as if it were a subatomic planet. Cutaway maps display newfound details of the particle’s interior. The proton’s core features pressures more intense than in any other known form of matter. Halfway to the surface, clashing vortices of force push against each other. And the “planet” as a whole is smaller than previous experiments had suggested. The experimental investigations mark the next stage in the quest to understand the particle…