Music: Yusan — ‘Esoka Longuē’ ft. Ann Shirley
American, British forces escalate strikes on Houthis in Yemen in order to ‘de-escalate tensions’
Politico reports: The U.S. and U.K. conducted large-scale air and missile strikes on Houthi rebel facilities across Yemen on Monday, according to a joint statement, stepping up operations against the militant group as it vows to continue attacking ships in the Red Sea. The U.S. and U.K. militaries, with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands, hit eight Houthi targets in Yemen in response to the Houthis’ continued attacks, according to a joint statement from the countries involved. The…
Israel’s spy chief proposed Hamas leaders leave Gaza as part of broader ceasefire talks
CNN reports: Israel has proposed that Hamas senior leaders could leave Gaza as part of a broader ceasefire agreement, two officials familiar with the ongoing international discussions told CNN. The extraordinary proposal, which has not been previously reported, comes as Israel has struggled to achieve its stated goal of completely destroying Hamas. Despite its nearly four-month war in Gaza, Israel has failed to capture or kill any of Hamas’s most senior leaders in Gaza and left around 70% of Hamas’…
A Louisiana teen traveled to the West Bank to learn about his roots. He was shot dead
NBC News reports: Tawfic Hafeth Abdel Jabbar was born and raised in Louisiana, in the city of Gretna, across the Mississippi River from New Orleans. It’s a long way from the mountains of the occupied West Bank, but when Tawfic, 17, arrived in May, he was excited to properly explore the landscape of the village where his dad grew up, and to learn more about his roots as a Palestinian American. “He loved the outdoors,” his father, Hafeth Abdel Jabbar,…
Greenland losing 30 million tonnes of ice an hour, study reveals
The Guardian reports: The Greenland ice cap is losing an average of 30m tonnes of ice an hour due to the climate crisis, a study has revealed, which is 20% more than was previously thought. Some scientists are concerned that this additional source of freshwater pouring into the north Atlantic might mean a collapse of the ocean currents called the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is closer to being triggered, with severe consequences for humanity. Major ice loss from Greenland…
‘It’s not game over – it’s game on’: why 2024 is an inflection point for the climate crisis
By Wesley Morgan, Griffith University In 2024, global climate trends are cause for both deep alarm and cautious optimism. Last year was the hottest on record by a huge margin and this year will likely be hotter still. The annual global average temperature may, for the first time, exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels – a threshold crucial for stabilising the Earth’s climate. Without immediate action, we are at grave risk of crossing irreversible tipping points in the Earth’s climate system….
Pentagon says Ukrainian soldiers running out of ammunition without U.S. funds
Politico reports: Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines are running out of ammunition and other weapons needed to fight the Russian invaders, a Pentagon official said Tuesday, now that U.S. funding to support the war has lapsed. Since December, Washington has been unable to send urgently needed military aid to Ukraine at the same levels as the previous two years, Celeste Wallander, the Pentagon’s top official overseeing international security affairs, told reporters. That’s because the Pentagon has used all of…
AI-generated fake news is coming to an election near you
Sander van der Linden writes: Many years before ChatGPT was released, my research group, the University of Cambridge Social Decision-Making Laboratory, wondered whether it was possible to have neural networks generate misinformation. To achieve this, we trained ChatGPT’s predecessor, GPT-2, on examples of popular conspiracy theories and then asked it to generate fake news for us. It gave us thousands of misleading but plausible-sounding news stories. A few examples: “Certain Vaccines Are Loaded With Dangerous Chemicals and Toxins,” and “Government…
Music: Yusan — ‘Abanda’
Palestinians struggle to rebuild their lives after West Bank settler pogroms
Yuval Abraham reports: Naama Abiyat’s children are all she has left. I meet the 29-year-old mother of five inside a thinly-walled tent where she is living in the southern occupied West Bank; the tent is nearly empty, save for a blanket she received from passers-by and a few wooden logs. Her children interrupt our conversation from time to time, demanding her attention and letting her know that they are cold. Until two months ago, Abiyat had her own room, a…
Israeli plan to destroy Hamas not working, peace talks needed, says EU foreign policy chief
Reuters reports: Israel’s plan to destroy Islamist Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza is not working and the European Union must pursue efforts to create a “two-state solution” despite Israeli opposition, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday. Israeli Prime Minister had on Sunday reaffirmed a hard line against any Palestinian state as it would pose “an existential danger” to Israel. He said Israel would keep insisting on full security control over all territory west of the Jordan River,…
Furious families of Gaza hostages storm Israeli parliament
The Daily Beast reports: Relatives of Israelis still being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza stormed into a committee session in the Israeli parliament on Monday to demand that lawmakers take immediate action to bring their loved ones home. Around 20 people rushed into the Knesset Finance Committee hearing in Jerusalem carrying signs and chanting “release them now, now, now!” Around 130 of the 253 people abducted and taken to Gaza during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks in Israel are feared…
Wall Street opposition to Trump collapses, as ‘pipe dream’ of primary defeat ends
CNBC reports: As Donald Trump surges toward the Republican nomination, many Wall Street executives have made a calculated decision not to speak out against him, and in some cases they will consider supporting the Republican former president over Democratic President Joe Biden, according to more than a dozen people familiar with the matter. “A lot of people on Wall Street have been living in this pipe dream of Trump not getting the nomination. People were in the first stage of…
New Russian disinformation campaigns prove the past is prequel
Darren Linvill and Patrick Warren write: On Dec. 13, 2023, Lauren Witzke, a documented QAnon promoter and former Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Delaware, posted a barrage of criticism toward Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter. The post suggested Zelenskyy was preparing to retire to a $20 million home in Vero Beach, Florida, and claimed that “our leaders are buying mansions for elite leaches who facilitate their money laundering operations and crimes against the American people ……
‘America is under attack’: Inside the anti-DEI crusade
The New York Times reports: In late 2022, a group of conservative activists and academics set out to abolish the diversity, equity and inclusion programs at Texas’ public universities. They linked up with a former aide to the state’s powerful lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, who made banning D.E.I. initiatives one of his top priorities. Setting their sights on well-known schools like Texas A&M, they researched which offices and employees should be expunged. A well-connected alumnus conveyed their findings to the…
Firms churning out fake scientific papers have taken to bribing journal editors
Frederik Joelving, from Retraction Watch, writes: One evening in June 2023, Nicholas Wise, a fluid dynamics researcher at the University of Cambridge who moonlights as a scientific fraud buster, was digging around on shady Facebook groups when he came across something he had never seen before. Wise was all too familiar with offers to sell or buy author slots and reviews on scientific papers—the signs of a busy paper mill. Exploiting the growing pressure on scientists worldwide to amass publications…