It’s not as difficult as you think to shout upwind (press release) NewsWise
Keeping beaches dark still priority through turtle nesting season Observer
The global economy’s slow-motion reset Axios
Schizophrenia at the IMF Project Syndicate
Climate
Supreme Court Rejects Big Oil’s Bid to Derail Climate Liability Lawsuits DeSmog
Suburbs are a climate disaster, but they can be redeemed Nature
Water
Lack of snow condemns Italy’s Po to a desperately dry summer AP
#COVID19
What’s Going On With Covid Right Now? NYT. The deck: “Cases, hospitalizations and deaths are lower than they’ve been in years. We asked experts how to think about personal risk….” In years, I’m tellin’ ya! Commentary:
Dr. Fauci Looks Back: ‘Something Clearly Went Wrong’ (interview) NYT. Interviewer: David Wallace-Wells. Fauci: “I mean, we tried. David, we’re playing a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking here. This is some really serious Monday-morning quarterbacking.” Fair. You move the goalposts on game day, not Monday.
Why long COVID could be a ticking time bomb for public health Salon
The enigma of the SARS-CoV-2 microcirculation dysfunction: evidence for modified endothelial junctions (preprint) bioRxiv. From the Discussion: “SARS-CoV-2 infection causes vascular inflammation in different organs. It is important to note that SARS-CoV-2 infects human cells mainly by binding to the protease called ACE2. Our central hypothesis is that ACE2 can lead to the cleavage of the extracellular domain of [Vascular endothelial (VE)-cadherin] at specific ACE2 target sequences, which then destabilizes the [Endothelial junctions (EJ)] and causes microcirculation dysfunction. This hypothesis has never been considered previously.” Sounds intriguing but above my paygrade. Readers?
China?
China urges jobless graduates to ‘roll up their sleeves’ and try manual work FT
AI developers must ‘learn to dance with shackles on’ as China makes new rules in a post-ChatGPT world South China Morning Post. That’s a damn shame.
Pentagon No. 2 says US is drawing lessons from Ukraine as it eyes possible China combat Bloomberg
European Policy Chief Advocates For Warship Patrols Of Taiwan Strait gCaptain
1MDB settlement: What’s threatening the multi-billion dollar deal between Malaysia and Goldman Sachs? Channel News Asia
Myanmar
Myanmar’s trade relations with China Observer Research Foundation
Dear Old Blighty
Researchers Find Hidden Markings on the Stone of Destiny, Sacred Slab Used in British Coronations Smithsonian
Britons ‘need to accept’ they’re poorer, says Bank of England economist Guardian
New Not-So-Cold War
Biden Prepares To Give Up On Ukraine Moon of Alabama
Is This Ukraine’s Last Chance to Defeat Russia? New York Magazine. “Ideally, what the Ukrainian general staff wants to do is create some form of paralysis in the Russian command and control and then paralysis of Russian military leadership, which creates panic among the rank and file of the Russian forces with the Russians skedaddling in the end.” Let me know how that works out.
Ukraine Plans for World War III The American Conservative
Russian official claims Poland intends to ‘absorb remnants’ of Ukraine Anadolu Agency
We Don’t Know What Kind Of Ammo Ukraine Is Getting for Its Leopard 1 And M-55S Tanks. It Matters A Lot. Forbes
Iran Ships Ammunition to Russia by Caspian Sea to Aid Invasion of Ukraine WSJ
Weapons Makers Can’t Hire Enough Workers as Ukraine War Drives Demand WSJ
Romanians Crowdfund ‘Mad Max’ Armored Vehicles For Ukraine Radio Free Europe
New Defenses Show Russia On Defensive In Sevastopol As Ukraine Attacks Naval News
China benefits from prolonging the war in Ukraine, Czech president says New Voice of Ukraine
Biden Administration
The Biden White House Is Better Off Without Susan Rice Slate
Lawmakers Trade Bank Stocks While Working on U.S. Bank-Failure Fallout WSJ. From earlier this month, still germane.
Hunter Biden may be living at the White House to evade legal papers from his baby mama NY Post
The controversial article Matthew Kacsmaryk did not disclose to the Senate WaPo
The Supremes
Law firm head bought Gorsuch-owned property Politico. Greenberg Traurig.
Chief Justice Roberts declines to testify at Senate’s Supreme Court ethics hearing NBC
B-a-a-a-a-d Banks
Sharp sell-off in First Republic shares causes alarm in Washington FT
Senior Citi banker departs after report of Jeffrey Epstein meetings FT
Spook Country
Quite a salvo from Racket News. All must-reads:
Report on the Censorship-Industrial Complex Matt Taibbi, Racket News
An Insider’s Guide to “Anti-Disinformation” Andrew Lowenthal, Racket News A new #TwitterFiles from Lowenthal:
2. My name is Andrew Lowenthal. For almost 18 years, I was Executive Director of @EngageMedia, an NGO devoted to protecting digital rights and freedoms. In recent years, I watched with concern and then despair as a dramatic change swept through my field.
— NetworkAffects (@NAffects) April 25, 2023
Eleven Minutes of Media Falsehoods, Just On One Subject, Just On One Station Matt Orfalea and Matt Taibbi, Racket News. A new #TwitterFiles from Orfalea:
1/ #TWITTERFILES 21
How to Find Russians AnywherePt.1 – PROJECT OSPREY –
After the 2016 election, the Senate Intel Committee asked Twitter to identify accounts from Russia’s Internet Research Agency. But both Twitter and 3rd party researchers struggled to find Russian agents. pic.twitter.com/MZHGnIV157
— Matt Orfalea (@0rf) April 25, 2023
Interesting, Project Osprey was a genetic engineering project to breed super-soldiers in Richard Morgan’s Thirteen (2008).
Our Famously Free Press
Fox Has a Secret ‘Oppo File’ to Keep Tucker Carlson in Check, Sources Say Rolling Stone
‘Good riddance’: Pentagon officials cheer Tucker Carlson’s ouster Politico
Tech
On Artifice and Intelligence Shlomi Sher (Dave). Dave: “It’s just a complicated autocomplete…”
German magazine under fire for AI-generated Schumacher interview Anadolu Agency
Boeing
Paper Airplane Designed by Boeing Engineers Breaks World Record–Nearly Flying Length of Football Field Good News Network
Healthcare
Mexico’s allure for medical tourism Axios
Review suggests fecal transplant more effective than antibiotics for recurrent C diff Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy
Gunz
Why do mass shooters kill? It’s about more than having a grievance Kentucky Lantern
Supply Chain
Splash Extra: Who’s to blame for shipping’s slow innovation towards decarbonisation? Splash 24/7
Class Warfare
Amazon Delivery Drivers in California Join Teamsters PortSide
An Interview with Michael A. Lebowitz on Capital, “Real Socialism,” and Venezuela Monthly Review
US rejects UFOs as breaking the rules of physics, cites ‘lack of evidence’ Interesting Engineering
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
