Badger tunnels halt traffic on Dutch railways BBC (Furzy Mouse).
Watch Angry Moose Attack Speeding Snowmobilers Field and Stream
Net Climate Effects of Moose Browsing in Early Successional Boreal Forests by Integrating Carbon and Albedo Dynamics JGR Biogeosciences. From the Abstract: “In a region with intensive forestry operations and high moose density, CO2 emissions from moose browsing in post-harvested sites can be equal to about 40% of the annual emissions of fossil fuels from that region. Cooling effects from increased albedo can offset about two thirds of this impact.”
Climate
Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Working Group III Contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. Thread:
Second, every bit of warming matters. The warmer the planet gets, the more widespread and pronounced the changes in both average climate and climate and weather extremes become. pic.twitter.com/CoFGV77yGa
— Prof. Katharine Hayhoe (@KHayhoe) March 20, 2023
World on ‘thin ice’ as UN climate report gives stark warning AP
#COVID19
A pan-variant mRNA-LNP T cell vaccine protects HLA transgenic mice from mortality after infection with SARS-CoV-2 Beta Frontiers in Immunology. More here. Big if true. But monkeys exaggerate, and mice lie.
CDC reports dramatic increase in US Candida auris cases Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy
China?
Thick sandstorms shroud Beijing and several provinces in China Reuters
China’s Communist Party wants to be everything everywhere all at once: but will centralised social control work? South China Morning Post
US Hegemony and Its Perils Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China (Expat2Uruguay; Rev Kev). From February, still germane.
Chinese delegation masks up in Moscow, via Alex Christoforou (the whole video is worth a listen):
Elites — globally — know how to protect themselves from an airborne pathogen, whether in Moscow, Davos, or Newton, MA. They just don’t want you to protect yourself (or those near and dear to you).
AUKUS a hard nuke sale in next door SE Asia Asia Times (Rev Kev).
India
Indian data reveals Adani empire’s reliance on offshore funding FT
‘I don’t know how much I owe’ People’s Archive of Rural India
Mask up, say experts, as Covid cases double in UP Times of India. “Experts” always lag. The time to mask up is before the virus exhibits doubling behavior, not after. “Now,” in other words, is always a good time.
Southeast Asia’s power dynamic is not quite ‘Game of Thrones’ Globe_
The East Asian Package Richard Hanania. Plot twist.
Vietnam: leadership turnover and foreign-policy implications (abstract only) Strategic Comments
Fallen forest: Cambodia’s political reforestation unlikely to survive Globe_
European Disunion
Euro pushes higher as ECB chief Lagarde says inflation is still too high CNBC. And speaking of Lagarde, via alert reader Revenant:
[embedded content]
Quelle extase!
Bundesbank chief says rate-setters must be ‘more stubborn’ in inflation fight FT
French government survives no-confidence votes over pensions AP
Former Greek Finance Minister Varoufakis attacked in central Athens Politico. Video (ambrit). Subtitled:
[embedded content]
Dear Old Blighty
Boris Johnson news – live: Ex-PM ‘looking forward’ to televised Partygate hearing Independent. Meanwhile, either Google has a time machine or they put an AI in charge of writing their headlines:
New Not-So-Cold War
Britain Supplying Depleted Uranium Rounds to Ukraine Declassified UK (which broke the story).
US speeds up Abrams tank delivery to Ukraine war zone AP
Can Russia Get Used to Being China’s Little Brother? Foreign Policy. Is it literally impossible for us to conceptualize foreign policy without personalizing everything?
Meet China’s ‘junior partner’ Politico. “Xi’s visit underscored Putin’s reliance on China at a time of isolation.” Fog in the Channel; Continent Isolated….
The Caribbean
CITGO: A Multi-billion Dollar Heist? (infographic) Venezuelanalysis
Exclusive: Middlemen have left Venezuela’s PDVSA with $21.2 billion in unpaid bills Reuters
Biden Administration
Judge approves $600 million settlement over Flint water crisis The Hill
Fed’s Powell faces political storm, policy minefield over SVB oversight Reuters
B-a-a-a-d Banks
Small banks, big reach FT
SVB’s loans to insiders tripled to $219m before it failed Bloomberg (BC).
Swedish pension fund Alecta sells its stake in First Republic Bank at a loss of $728 Business Today
Total Wipeout of $17 billion in Credit Suisse AT1 CoCo Bonds Shocked Because No One Reads Clauses Anymore? Wolf Street
America’s banks are missing hundreds of billions of dollars The Economist (Furzy Mouse).
2024
What to know about Alvin Bragg, Manhattan district attorney AP
Bragg wrestling with whether to allow Trump to avoid ‘perp walk’ Micheal Isikkoff, Yahoo News. Most WWF thing ever, if it happens.
The Bezzle
Coinbase Heads to the Supreme Court in First Crypto Case Gizmodo (Rev Kev).
Tech
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew Promises Firewall to Shield User Data WSJ. Commentary:
TikTok Is Pushing Incel and Suicide Videos to 13-Year-Olds Vice (Furzy Mouse).
GPT-4 and professional benchmarks: the wrong answer to the wrong question AI Snake Oil
The case for slowing down AI Vox. Has anybody tried to automate bank runs yet?
It’s Game Over on Vocal Deepfakes Daring Fireball
Healthcare
The Maternal Health Crisis Is A Consequence Of Design Health Affairs
How a Group of Health Executives Transformed the Liver Transplant System The Markup
Supply Chain
The Time to Prevent Shortfalls in Critical Materials Is Now RAND
Iraq War Post Mortem
Massive Archive of Iraq War Lies Disappeared from “Center for Public Integrity” Censored News. Yep. Will Winston Smith please pick up the nearest white courtesy phone?
What I Got Right About The Iraq War Dick Cheney, The Onion
Class Warfare
65,000 school workers begin three-day strike in Los Angeles WSWS
Labor Tensions Rise in Stalled West Coast Port Contract Talks Hellenic Shipping News
Club-Wielding Ancestors: Myth or Reality? Sapiens
Antidote du jour (via):
Bonus antidote: