The Full Belmonte, 3/16/2022
“Remember Sept. 11, a terrible day in 2001 when evil tried to turn your cities, independent territories, into battlefields. When innocent people were attacked from the air. Our country is experiencing the same every day, right now, at this moment,’ Zelensky said. ‘Every night for three weeks now ... Russia has turned the Ukrainian sky into a source of death for thousands of people.” - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressing the U.S. Congress
“President Biden announced he will activate $800 million more in security assistance ‘to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s assault.’ He outlined the new assistance package that will include anti-aircraft systems and drones to help fend off Russian attacks.
‘We're going to continue to have their backs as they fight for their freedom and democracy,’ Biden said.
Biden’s announcement came shortly after an address to U.S lawmakers from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In an insistent and emotional address, he made a plea for support to protect the skies over Ukraine and defend against Russia’s attacks, calling for a ‘humanitarian no-fly zone’ — a call that comes as suspected Russian munitions struck another apartment building in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, in an attack that has become part of a daily pattern.
Zelensky said he was ‘grateful’ to the United States for its support, but said: ‘I call on you to do more.’
He urged the creation of the no-fly zone that would protect evacuation corridors from besieged cities and allow food, medicines and other basic supplies to flow in. Zelensky, paused during his address to play a video showing graphic scenes of civilian casualties caused by the Russian assault. He appealed directly to Biden, calling on him to ‘be the leader of the world.’
He added: ‘Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.’
The Biden administration has resisted Kyiv’s call to establish a no-fly zone in Ukraine, a measure that has little bipartisan support in Congress and one that U.S. officials fear could inflame tensions and risk a broader global conflict with nuclear-armed Russia.
Here’s what to know
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that there is ‘hope for reaching a compromise’ with the Ukrainian delegation in peace talks, echoing comments by Ukrainian officials that progress has been made. Lavrov, speaking in an interview with the Russian television channel RBC, said he was basing his assessment on the view of the Russian negotiators.
Biden will travel to Europe next week for a NATO summit on the Russian invasion, the White House said Tuesday. Top officials in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia made a dramatic visit to Kyiv on Tuesday to demonstrate support for Ukraine.
After some successful evacuations from besieged cities in recent days, including Mariupol, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk on Wednesday accused Russian armed forces of compromising the flight of civilians by ‘firing at humanitarian columns of buses’ and ‘gathering points’ for evacuations, as well as taking people hostage.
The Washington Post has lifted its paywall in Russia and Ukraine, giving readers unlimited digital access to our comprehensive coverage.” Read more at Washington Post
A volunteer of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces in Kharkiv. Photo: Andrew Marienko/AP
“The U.S. will directly transfer the following equipment to the Ukrainian military, Axios' Zachary Basu reports.
100 tactical unmanned aerial systems (armed drones)
800 Stinger anti-aircraft systems
2,000 Javelin anti-armor missiles
1,000 light anti-armor weapons
6,000 AT-4 anti-armor systems
7,000 small arms and 20 million rounds of ammunition
25,000 sets of body armor and helmets” Read more at Axios
“BRUSSELS — NATO defense ministers on Wednesday directed military commanders to draw up detailed plans to reinforce deterrence in the alliance’s eastern flank in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Final decisions will be taken at a summit meeting in late June, according to the NATO secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg….
He said the “total new security reality” effectively rendered irrelevant a 1997 agreement with Russia, known as the NATO-Russia Founding Act, not to put substantial NATO forces in countries once part of the Soviet bloc.
“We will do what is necessary, and the NATO Russia Founding Act is not something that will create problems or a hindrance for NATO to make the necessary decisions,” he said.
The alliance already has reinforced its presence in member states near Russia and Ukraine with an extra 50,000 troops in addition to national armies, NATO officials said. That makes a total of nearly 180,000 troops on the eastern flank. There are about 100,000 American troops in Europe alone, Mr. Stoltenberg said. There has also been enhanced air policing and more ships at sea.
Leaders are widely expected to make these deployments permanent at the June meeting despite the NATO-Russia Founding Act, which the alliance likely will not abandon but simply ignore.
New deployments will require considerably more investment in military spending by member states, Mr. Stoltenberg noted, as well as more money for NATO’s own budget.
While some member states, like Poland and the Baltic nations, want to do more to help Ukraine defend itself, Mr. Stoltenberg insisted that the alliance was united in refusing to risk putting any NATO-country troops in Ukraine or trying to create a no-fly zone, which the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has been demanding.
But the defense ministers agreed to continue to support Ukraine with more military equipment, money and humanitarian aid, Mr. Stoltenberg said.
As for suggestions that Mr. Zelensky might be willing to abandon Ukraine’s desire to join NATO, Mr. Stoltenberg said that any such decision would be up to the democratically elected leaders of Ukraine.” Read more at New York Times
“Russia was ordered to halt its invasion of Ukraine by the United Nations’ top court Wednesday, in a preliminary decision that appeared to have largely symbolic significance.
Ukraine initiated the case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague to contest President Vladimir Putin’s official explanation for entering the country as an effort to end a ‘genocide’ of pro-Russian separatists.
The court voted 13 to 2 in favor of ordering Russia to ‘suspend’ military operations in Ukraine and to prevent armed units that are directed or supported by Russia from taking further action. Of the two judges in opposition, one was from Russia, the other from China.” Read more at Washington Post
“A fourth Russian major-general has been killed in Ukraine as military losses mount for Vladimir Putin. Oleg Mityaev, commander of the 150th Motorized Rifle Division, was killed in a failed attempt to storm Mariupol on Wednesday. His killing was claimed by the Azov Battalion, which posted a picture of his corpse—his face covered by his general’s epaulette—on social media before Ukrainian officials identified him. Mityaev was the former deputy commander of Russian forces in Syria. The Daily Mirror reported that he died alongside ‘seven elite special-operations fighters from the feared Dzerzhinsky Division of the country’s national guard,’ which it said was under Putin’s direct control. Around 20 Russian generals are thought to be leading the Ukraine invasion, and unexpected losses and communication problems have forced them into high-risk frontline positions. Ukraine claims to have killed 13,800 Russian servicemen since the invasion began Feb. 24.” [Daily Beast] Read more at Daily Mirror
“Simply ending the invasion of Ukraine may not be enough for the U.S. to roll back sanctions on Russia, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He says any pullback would have to be ‘in effect, irreversible,’ with a guarantee Russia will never invade Ukraine again. It's unlikely Putin will agree to these terms.
Russia has responded to sanctions from the U.S. and EU with sanctions of its own. The foreign ministry says Russia will enact a ‘stop list’ preventing members from the Biden administration from entering the country.
Meanwhile, nearly 3 million people have fled Ukraine, making the exodus one of the world's worst refugee crises.” Read more at NPR“Former President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday backpedaled on his previous support of Vladimir Putin, saying he was ‘surprised’ the Russian president would invade Ukraine and continue to narrow freedom within his own country. ‘I thought he was negotiating when he sent his troops to the border. I thought he was negotiating,’ Trump the Washington Examiner. ‘I thought it was a tough way to negotiate but a smart way to negotiate.’ Claiming that he had previously had success trading with Putin, Trump bemoaned the actions of his former ally: ‘I think he’s changed. I think he’s changed. It’s a very sad thing for the world. He’s very much changed.’ During his presidency, Trump had an unlikely alliance with and affinity for the Russian leader, incurring disapproval from both sides of the political aisle in the U.S.” [Daily Beast] Read more at Washington Examiner
“A Fox News cameraman and a Ukrainian journalist traveling with him were killed on Monday in Ukraine when their vehicle came under fire outside Kyiv, according to the network and Ukrainian authorities.
The cameraman, Pierre Zakrzewski, 55, and the Ukrainian journalist, Oleksandra Kuvshynova, 24, were traveling in the same vehicle as the Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall, who was also injured in the attack in the town of Horenka. Mr. Hall remained hospitalized in Ukraine; Fox News has not shared additional details about his condition.
Mr. Zakrzewski was a veteran reporter at Fox News who reported from many war zones. He had been reporting for the network in Ukraine since February. Ms. Kuvshynova was a local journalist working with the Fox News reporting team.” Read more at New York Times
“Brain drain | Hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled the country since President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, abandoning homes and careers to seek safe haven in nations ranging from Kyrgyzstan to Georgia and Israel. As Leonid Bershidsky reports, it’s a stampede for the exit by people who can’t imagine living under the Soviet-style autarky to which international sanctions have doomed Moscow.
Russia would be in default if it doesn’t pay the coupons on its dollar debt in the U.S. currency within a 30-day grace period, according to Fitch Ratings.” Read more at Bloomberg
“The Federal Reserve said it would lift interest rates and penciled in a series of further increases this year aimed at stopping the economy from overheating and reducing inflation that is running at its highest levels in four decades.
Fed officials said Wednesday they would raise their benchmark federal-funds rate by a quarter percentage point to a range between 0.25% and 0.5% from near zero, and most of them projected pushing it up to at least the level that prevailed before the pandemic hit the U.S. economy two years ago.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Pfizer and BioNTech have applied for emergency use authorization of a fourth booster dose of their Covid-19 vaccine. The additional dose is for adults 65 and older who have gotten a booster dose of any of the authorized or approved vaccines, the companies said yesterday. To date, more than 960,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the US since the pandemic began. In an effort to help, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has disbursed more than $2 billion in funeral assistance to those who have lost loved ones to the virus. The funds were distributed to more than 300,000 applicants, according to FEMA, with the average amount of assistance totaling roughly $6,500. Separately, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, tested positive for Covid-19 yesterday. It is the first known case of coronavirus among the first or second families since President Joe Biden and Harris took office in January 2021.” Read more at CNN
“A 30-year-old Washington man with a history of mental illness and assault charges was arrested early Tuesday in connection with a series of shootings that killed two homeless men in New York and Washington and wounded three others.
The suspect, identified by relatives and law enforcement officials as Gerald Brevard III, was arrested around 2:30 a.m. in southeast Washington following a brief but intense manhunt in two cities that officials said was aided by several tips from the public.
In a text message and subsequent interview, Mr. Brevard’s father, Gerald Brevard Jr., confirmed his son’s arrest and extended condolences to the victims and their families. Despite his son’s many encounters with the criminal justice and mental health systems, his mental illness had never been addressed, the elder Mr. Brevard said.
The attacks had rattled people living on the streets in Washington, where the shooting spree began, and in New York, where a charged debate about how to address homelessness and mental illness emerged following a series of random attacks in recent months. In the hours after Mr. Brevard’s arrest, his aunt Sheila Brevard revealed that he had himself been homeless off and on in Washington for years.” Read more at New York Times
“WASHINGTON — In 2020, a United States naval engineer and his wife made the fateful decision to try to sell some of America’s most closely guarded military secrets, the technology behind the nuclear reactors that power the U.S. submarine fleet.
Then the couple faced another important choice: To which foreign government should they try to peddle the stolen secrets?
The engineer appeared to believe that soliciting American adversaries like Russia or China was, morally, a bridge too far, according to text messages released in court. Instead, Jonathan and Diana Toebbe thought of a country that was rich enough to buy the secrets, not hostile to the United States and, most importantly, increasingly eager to acquire the very technology they were selling: Brazil.
The identity of the nation approached by the Toebbes has until now remained shielded by federal prosecutors and other government officials. But, according to a senior Brazilian official and other people briefed on the investigation, Mr. Toebbe approached Brazil nearly two years ago with an offer of thousands of pages of classified documents about nuclear reactors that he had stolen from the U.S. Navy Yard in Washington over the course of several years.” Read more at New York Times
President Biden will make a final decision about whether to seek re-election after November’s midterms, people close to him have suggested.
PHOTO: PATRICK SEMANSKY/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“More than half of Americans don’t think President Biden will run for reelection. A Wall Street Journal poll found that 29% do expect him to run again in 2024 and 19% aren’t sure. Biden and the White House have said he plans to, though people close to him have suggested he would make a final decision after November’s midterm elections. At 79, he’s the oldest president in U.S. history.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“The House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol is poised to receive data from the Republican Party's email communications platform Salesforce today. The Republican National Committee rushed to court last night to try to block the handover. The RNC has alleged that the House's subpoena to Salesforce seeking information about 2020 election communications, including those related to former President Donald Trump, would give the committee ‘unprecedented access to the RNC's internal political strategies and to private, personal information regarding its supporters.’ In addition, the committee and the Justice Department are also now in possession of hours of raw footage from a documentary film crew that followed Proud Boys leader Enriquo Tarrio on the day before the US Capitol riot, according to a source familiar with the matter.” Read more at CNN
“In hopes to eliminate confusion around changing clocks back and forth, the Senate passed a bill yesterday that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent across the United States. The potential law would mean no more falling back for Americans every fall. The legislation soared through the chamber by unanimous consent, but still needs to pass the House and be signed by President Joe Biden to become law. The bill has bipartisan backing, including several Republican and Democratic cosponsors. Once passed, the changes will not be implemented until November 2023, officials say, because the transportation industry has already built schedules based on the existing time and has asked for additional months to make the adjustment.” Read more at NPR
“A man in New York has been arrested and charged with attempted murder for attacking a 67-year-old Asian woman and punching her more than 125 times. Police commissioner John J. Mueller called it ‘one of the most appalling attacks’ he'd ever seen.” Read more at NPR
AAPI Rally Against Hate in New York last year. Photo: Amir Hamja/Bloomberg via Getty Images
“In the year since the shooting deaths of six Asian women in Atlanta-area spas, more people of Asian descent have been elevated in politics, sports and entertainment than ever before.
But the larger community continues to struggle with anti-Asian attacks, Axios' Hope King, Shawna Chen and Sophia Cai report.
Why it matters: The Atlanta shootings, which killed eight people in total, put a new spotlight on a historically overlooked and vilified group.
‘There was so much attention on the hate crimes [from this past year] … that it made Asian Americans [speak out to say] we are part of this racial landscape,’ Pawan Dhingra, incoming president of the Association for Asian American Studies, told Axios.
A snowball effect: Boston chose Michelle Wu as mayor ... Aftab Pureval became the first Asian American mayor of Cincinnati ... and Bruce Harrell became the first Asian American and second Black mayor of Seattle.
In New York City, five Asian Americans were elected to the city council, the most to date.
Media visibility rose to a new level with the box office success of Marvel's Asian-led ‘Shang-Chi’ and ‘Eternals,’ which were in the top 10 highest-grossing films in the U.S. last year.
Chloe Zhao, a Chinese filmmaker, became the first woman of color to win the Oscar for Best Director.
At last summer's Tokyo Olympics, Sunisa Lee became the first Asian American woman to take gold in the gymnastics all-around event.
Reality check: 83% of Asian adults say Asians faced more discrimination in the U.S., according to an April poll by Morning Consult.” Read more at Axios
“Oversight setback | The failure of Biden’s pick to become the top banking regulator gave Wall Street a major reprieve from tougher oversight. Progressives were counting on Sarah Bloom Raskin to help intensify scrutiny of the nation’s largest lenders and boost the Federal Reserve’s role in combating climate change, but stiff Republican opposition doomed her chances to become the Fed’s vice chair for supervision.” Read more at Bloomberg
Maya Yang in New York
“A new US Secret Service report details a rising threat from men who identify as ‘involuntary celibates’ or ‘incels’, due to their inability to form intimate relationships with women.
The report released on Tuesday and prepared by the National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) highlights behavioral threat assessment themes identified in years of research examining targeted violence.
Themes include concerning and threatening communications, concerning online content, chronic and acute stressors, elicited concern in others, interpersonal difficulties, history of being bullied, financial instability, failed life aspirations and lack of consequences.
As a case study, the Secret Service examined a 2018 shooting at a yoga class in Tallahassee, Florida, in which a man killed two women and wounded six.” Read more at The Guardian
“ATLANTA (AP) — During his two Senate campaigns, Republican David Perdue had little trouble raking in millions in campaign cash. But as he tries to unseat Georgia’s incumbent governor, fellow Republican Brian Kemp, Perdue is struggling to attract donors.
Perdue’s top 30 individual contributors pumped in nearly $450,000 to his Senate campaigns in 2014 and 2020, according to campaign finance disclosures. But that same group and their immediate family members have steered just $26,200 to his current run for governor. Kemp, meanwhile, has raised $81,450 from these previous Perdue backers.
Purdue’s difficulty winning back previous donors suggests a broader challenge for him ahead of Georgia’s May 24 primary, which is being closely watched for signals about the direction of the national Republican Party. Despite the backing of former President Donald Trump, Purdue is well behind Kemp in what is certain to be an expensive race, an Associated Press review of federal and state campaign finance records shows.” Read more at AP News
Graphic: Third Way
“With the GOP seizing on big-city crime as a top midterm issue, the Democratic think tank Third Way is trying to turn the tables with this provocative finding in a new report, ‘The Red State Murder Problem’:
The six states with the highest per-capita murder rates all voted for President Trump in 2020 — as did eight of the top 10.
‘Republicans seem to do a much better job of talking about stopping crime than stopping crime,’ said Jim Kessler, Third Way's EVP for policy, and an author of the report.
Third Way looked at the 2020 murder rates in the 25 states that voted for Donald Trump, compared to the 25 states that voted for Joe Biden:
In Trump states, the rate was 8.20 murders per 100,000 residents.
In Biden states, the rate was 5.78 murders per 100,000 residents.” Read more at Axios
“A container ship operated by the same company whose vessel blocked the Suez Canal last year, holding up billions of dollars in global trade for nearly a week, has been stuck in the Chesapeake Bay since Sunday night, according to officials in Maryland.
The 1,095-foot Ever Forward was on its way to Norfolk, Va., from Baltimore when it ran aground in the bay near the Craighill Channel, said Petty Officer Third Class Breanna Centeno, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Coast Guard.
A salvage team, Naval architects and divers were working to free the ship, William P. Doyle, executive director of the Maryland Port Administration, said in a statement. The Coast Guard is leading the salvage efforts, he said.
There were no injuries and no ‘pollution-related spills,’ Mr. Doyle said. Petty Officer Centeno said the ship was not carrying hazardous materials.” Read more at New York Times
“Thousands of U.S. diplomats, some in war zones, are having a hard time getting paid. A new accounting system introduced last year is the culprit; it’s hurting morale and forcing overseas State Department workers to spend time sorting out the problems—like missing paychecks, pay differentials and vacation or sick leave—instead of doing their jobs.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Intel Corp.’s decision to pump $36 billion into chip making in Europe is a bold corporate bet. It’s also a gamble by European governments on their future place in the world.
The announcement yesterday included almost $19 billion for a leading-edge semiconductor plant in Magdeburg, Germany, plus a research center in France and a packaging facility, probably in Italy.
That’s welcome news for the European Union, which aims to boost the bloc’s chip production fourfold. It’s backing that goal with some $50 billion in public and private funds: Intel is looking for something like 30% of its investment to be offset.
The EU isn’t alone. The U.S. has provided $52 billion for domestic chip production, while Japan and China are also spending big to build out their respective semiconductor industries.
Governments are more than willing to pay, not just for high-quality industry jobs, but the geopolitical significance they represent. Cutting-edge chips are the basic building blocks of future-oriented technologies. Yet they are almost exclusively made in Taiwan and South Korea.
That dependence was never an issue until U.S.-China tensions spiked during the Donald Trump administration, a competition that has deepened under President Joe Biden.
The pandemic’s supply-chain disruptions further highlighted the pinch points in a highly globalized industry. Politics prompted national moves to reshore production.
Russia’s war on Ukraine is another death knell to globalization: Already, the world’s long-established energy alliances are reshaping into new spheres of influence. Russia’s aggression also serves as a reminder that both Taiwan and South Korea are in potential future war zones.
Berlin and Brussels can celebrate their new-found chip capacity. But their success might be remembered as another stage in the passing of the globalized world we all came to know.” — Alan Crawford Read more at Bloomberg
“A British-Iranian charity worker arrested six years ago while on holiday in Tehran and accused of fomenting an anti-government plot, has been freed after the U.K. reportedly agreed to release $500 million in frozen Iranian assets. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained in April 2016 while visiting Iran to introduce her baby daughter to her parents in Tehran. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the U.K. news agency. But after Boris Johnson, then foreign secretary, casually told MPs that she was ‘simply teaching people journalism,’ which was not true, she was given a five-year prison term for engaging in anti-government propaganda, becoming a pawn in a wider diplomatic and financial conflict. Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release, after a further year under house arrest at her parents’ home, comes as part of a wider prisoner exchange—the Fars news agency said another dual British-Iranian citizen, Anousheh Ashouri, was also being freed—and will raise hopes for a revival of the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal torn up by Donald Trump.” [Daily Beast] Read more at Washington Post
“Tokyo schools have dropped their controversial dress code on students' hair and underwear color after decades of maintaining rules that were criticized as outdated. Under the public school system's dress code, all students had to dye their hair black, certain hairstyles were prohibited and even students' underwear had to be a designated color. A total of five rules will be dropped by nearly 200 public schools across the Japanese capital, and the policy changes are scheduled to go into effect at the start of the new academic year on April 1, the city's authorities said. Tokyo isn't the only Japanese city with a strict dress code -- similar rules are in effect around the country, with many schools requiring students to wear shoes and socks of a designated color.” Read more at CNN
“Saudi Arabia is contemplating accepting yuan instead of U.S. dollars for some oil sales to China. The switch would cut into the dollar’s dominance of the global petroleum market and mark another shift by the world’s top crude exporter toward Asia. The Saudis are unhappy with the U.S. over issues such as Yemen’s civil war, Iran’s nuclear program and the handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. China buys more than 25% of the oil Saudi Arabia exports.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Ballistic failure | North Korea’s missile program suffered a rare setback when a rocket fired from near Pyongyang’s main airport appeared to have exploded shortly after take-off. The launch came just days after Yonhap News Agency reported Kim Jong Un’s regime was preparing to test its first intercontinental ballistic missile in about five years.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Reporter deaths | The killing of Armando Linares Lopez yesterday brings the number of reporters murdered in Mexico this year to at least eight. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has lashed out against a growing number of journalists he says oppose him and criticized the U.S. and the European Parliament for joining opposition demands that he take action to stem the violence.” Read more at Bloomberg
“The woman who interrupted Russian state-TV news with a protest against the war in Ukraine received a small fine, but could face more legal trouble after a top legislator called for her to be prosecuted.” Read more at Bloomberg
“China blasted foreign media organizations’ use of Chinese staff to report on issues such as Covid-19 and Xinjiang, in an apparent escalation of Beijing’s efforts to restrict critical coverage.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Almost half of Sudan’s population will face hunger this year as the fallout from October’s coup and the war in Ukraine make it more difficult for the cash-strapped African nation to source food.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Russia said the U.S. provided guarantees that sanctions for the invasion of Ukraine wouldn’t hamper atomic-supply arrangements with Iran, potentially paving the way for the resumption of nuclear talks.” Read more at Bloomberg
“An accidental firing of a missile by India last week prompted Pakistan to prepare a retaliatory strike, people familiar with the matter told Sudhi Ranjan Sen and Faseeh Mangi, showing how close the nuclear-armed neighbors came to blows over a potentially disastrous mistake. Islamabad held back because an initial assessment indicated something was amiss, the people said.” Read more at Bloomberg
Photo: Michel Euler/AP
“The Eiffel Tower got about 20 feet taller yesterday — growing from 324 meters to 330 meters (1,100 feet) — with the addition, via chopper, of a new digital radio antenna.” Read more at Axios
“Truth Social, Donald Trump’s new social media network, was supposed to be ‘a major new platform’ where Republicans and Democrats alike could converse in an environment free from the ‘censorship’ of big tech, an environment with an ‘ironclad commitment to protecting vigorous debate’.
Instead, nearly a month after its launch, Truth Social has become a laughingstock, marked by a botched rollout, a share price collapse and, in Trump, a figurehead who doesn’t actually post much to his own social media platform.
The network, born out of Trump being banned from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube due to the risk of the former president inciting violence, was due to launch on 21 February, five months after Trump announced its creation in a typically hyperbolic statement.” Read more at The Guardian
Francis Kéré‘s Xylem pavilion (2019).Iwan Baan
The world’s top architect
“Growing up as the son of farmers in Burkina Faso, Francis Kéré went to school in classrooms so hot that they made him dream of building cooler buildings.
Kéré eventually won a scholarship to a vocational school for carpentry in Germany, before attending architecture school in Berlin. He then fulfilled his childhood dream by building an elementary school in his hometown, Gando. With an overhanging roof, it stayed cooler and lighter than most local buildings and allowed the school to expand to 700 students, from 120.
Yesterday, Kéré received the most prestigious prize in architecture, the Pritzker Prize. His work spans buildings across West Africa as well as a technology campus in Kenya, a pavilion in Montana and 12 colorful towers for the 2019 Coachella Festival.
Reached by telephone, Kéreen pushing this work in architecture to bring good quality architecture to my people,’ he said.
For more: You can see more photos of Kéré’s work with Robin’s article. Last year, T Magazine named the Gando school one of the 25 most significant buildings since World War II.” Read more at New York Times
“The women's NCAA tournament begins Wednesday with two play-in games: DePaul vs. Dayton and Howard vs. Incarnate Word. The first matchup of the evening is scheduled to tip off at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN U and features a pair of No. 16 seeds in Howard and Incarnate Word. The winner will face No. 1 overall seed South Carolina in the Round of 64. In the second game, scheduled to start at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN U, DePaul will square off against Dayton. DePaul is coming off of a loss in the quarterfinals Big East tournament, while Dayton most recently fell in the title game of the Atlantic 10 tournament. No. 6 seed Georgia awaits the winner of DePaul-Dayton next round.” Read more at USA Today
“NEW YORK (AP) — Labrador retrievers are still tugging hardest on U.S. dog lovers’ heartstrings, but poodles just strutted back into the American Kennel Club’s top five most popular dog breeds for the first time in nearly a quarter-century.
The club’s annual popularity rankings came out Tuesday, drawn from more than 800,000 purebred puppies and older pooches that joined the nation’s oldest canine registry last year.
With 197 recognized breeds, the list ranges from such familiar furry faces as Labs — No. 1 for an unprecedented 31 straight years — to the newly added Biewer terrier (making a strong debut at #82) and unusual pups like the hairless Xoloitzcuintli (#119).” Read more at AP News
“WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — When is a potato not a potato?
When it’s a tuber of a gourd, according to Guinness World Records.
A New Zealand couple who believed they had dug up the world’s largest potato in the garden of their small farm near Hamilton have had their dreams turned to mash after Guinness wrote to say that scientific testing had found it wasn’t, in fact, a potato after all.
Colin Craig-Brown, who first hit the tuber with a hoe last August when gardening with his wife Donna, said it sure looked and tasted like a potato. Mind you, he added, he’s never tasted a gourd tuber.
‘What can you say?’ said Craig-Brown. ‘We can’t say we don’t believe you, because we gave them the DNA stuff.’
After months of submitting photos and paperwork, the couple got the bad news from Guinness in an email last week.” Read more at AP News
“Lives Lived: Renny Cushing’s father was murdered. Yet Cushing crusaded against the death penalty in New Hampshire and eventually helped abolish it there. He died at 69.” Read more at New York Times