Showing posts with label United Nations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label United Nations. Show all posts

Thursday, February 19, 2026

Reading archive 2026-02-19

Europe and Canada Are Like the Kids in an Ugly Divorce: Europe and Canada seek “strategic balance” between Washington and Beijing but often just get caught in the middle. - "'We are being bombarded with complaints, grievances, tariffs, more tariffs,' Giles Gherson, president and CEO of the Toronto Region Board of Trade, Canada's largest chamber of commerce, told us. 'As soon as the concessions are made and they're pocketed, new demands show up-and relentlessly.'"

When politics comes to the parenting group chat: A parents’ group tried to establish boundaries for discussion on their WhatsApp chat. It led to a schism. - "What happened in Peanuts, it seems, is not unique. Neighborhood group chats are, in some ways, like all social media, where all roads lead to the proverbial comments section. In 2023, Mother Jones reported on a parent group in liberal Ann Arbor, Michigan, that spiraled out of control after commentary about Gaza. Moderators of that group decided to ban all posts about Israel and Palestine to keep the peace. New York Magazine reported that a parent Facebook group on New York’s Upper East Side 'devolved into panic and infighting' after Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor."

The Atlantic’s essay about measles was gut-wrenching. Some readers feel deceived.: Some critics and physicians said Elizabeth Bruenig’s second-person account of a mother confronting a child’s death from measles felt misleading once they learned the story was reported fiction.

"Enormous structures tend to be built to last. Airport terminals are usually the reverse": Greater effort must be made to retain decommissioned airport terminal buildings, writes Anthony Paletta.

Trump Action Tracker: Documenting the actions, statements, and plans of President Trump and his administration that echo those of authoritarian regimes and may pose a threat to American democracy, since January 2025.

The Cult Deprogrammer Who Needed Deprogramming: For 20 years Rick Ross was in a ‘cult’ of his own. “I’ll tell you what kind of person joins a cult,” he says. “Every kind.”

The man who saves people from the world’s most dangerous cults: ‘Deprogrammer’ Rick Ross shares the lessons learnt from a career spent reuniting families with loved ones lost to destructive sects

I was raised in a cult that groomed me into a chess prodigy. I used it to escape: Danny Rensch was born into a life of indoctrination. But as ‘the Collective’ loosened its grip, he advanced

'Just push us into the sea': The frustration of an area failed by politics - "Pat, 64, says the village has been left to 'disintegrate' and believes the role of the EU was misunderstood. 'Everybody thought the EU was about people coming into the country. They didn't portray what benefits we were having.' 

"Denise sees investment in other nearby towns, like Seaham, and feels aggrieved that it hasn't been replicated in Horden. Her vote lies firmly with Reform UK. Brexit has failed due to the way it's been enacted, she says, and it's time to turn back to Nigel Farage."

A ‘smut renaissance’ has arrived: The success of “Ember and Ice,” starring Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams from “Heated Rivalry,” underscores the growing popularity of audio erotica.

Democrats revive a once-taboo idea: Capping grocery prices: Economists hate the idea of price controls. Democrats are exploring how they can address high food costs that have frustrated voters.

After leaving WHO, Trump officials propose more expensive replacement to duplicate it: HHS proposes spending $2 billion a year to re-create systems the U.S. accessed through the WHO at a fraction of the cost, according to officials briefed on the matter.

Inside the Hidden Network of Resistance in Minneapolis: Waves of federal agents forced countless Minnesota residents into hiding. Countless more responded with a movement unlike any other. A deeper look reveals the heartbeat of resistance—and the soul of the city.

5% of People Detained By ICE Have Violent Convictions, 73% No Convictions

Thursday, May 1, 2025

Reading archive 2025-05-01

House inaction leads D.C. mayor to order spending freezes, prepare furloughs: Cuts could include furloughs of government employees and the closure of certain government facilities — except for schools, homeless shelters or health care facilities.

A Trumpworld power struggle muscles Waltz out: Jockeying for influence in the administration, the national security adviser held a losing hand.

Metro officer stabbed ahead of transportation chief’s visit for safety talk: Incident occurred at Navy Yard station

In wake of assault, Metro’s leader tries to win over Trump appointee: The two had a “productive” meeting as feds focus on transit crime, an administration official said.

Man arrested in stabbing of D.C. transit officer at Navy Yard Metro station: The altercation occurred ahead of a visit to the station by U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to discuss safety on public transit.

GOP senators voice doubts over Trump D.C. U.S. attorney nominee Martin: Facing a May 20 deadline for Senate confirmation, Ed Martin met with Capitol Hill staffers Thursday as several Republican senators aired concerns.

A whistleblower's disclosure details how DOGE may have taken sensitive labor data - "An aide for the Democratic minority on the House Oversight Committee who was not authorized to speak publicly told NPR that the committee is in possession of multiple verifiable reports showing that DOGE has exfiltrated sensitive government data across agencies for unknown purposes, revealing that Berulis' disclosure is not an isolated incident." [ed. note: jfc]

What Parents of Boys Should Know: Daughters tend to receive higher levels of affection and patience at home than sons. But the sons might need it more. - "Whippman cites research by the UCLA psychology professor Allan N. Schore, whose work explains that the brain circuits regulating stress mature more slowly in the prenatal, perinatal, and postnatal periods for boys compared with girls. Schore's findings echo observations made by the British child-and-adolescent psychiatrist Sebastian Kraemer, who in 2000 published an article in The British Medical Journal in which he wrote that 'even from conception, before social effects come into play, males are more vulnerable than females.' From a physiological perspective, Kraemer wrote, boys are born about a month behind girls developmentally. They also tend to be less proficient at regulating their emotions and more affected when things go wrong - and things go wrong, in part, when parents feel overwhelmed by boys' behavior, or when they neglect, intentionally or not, sons' need for affection and attention.

...

"'A wide body of research shows that it is not masculinity itself that makes men violent, but the sense of shame that they are not masculine enough,' Whippman wrote. 'Men who score high on measures for what researchers call masculine discrepancy stress meaning, stress derived from a belief that they fall short of society's standards for manhood are significantly more likely to be violent in a variety of ways, including intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and gun violence.'"

Well, That’s One Way to Address America’s Vaping Problem: Millions of Americans are inhaling e-cigarettes illegally imported from China. Because of tariffs, they’re about to get a lot more expensive.

This Is the Way a World Order Ends: Americans once associated spheres of influence with a cynical, volatile European past. Now Washington is resurrecting them. - "We should never underestimate the power of example in human affairs. In our own time, we are seeing one country and then another flouting what had been a basic rule since the end of World War II: that ownership by one country of territory seized by force from another would not be recognized. President Vladimir Putin of Russia took parts of Georgia in 2008, and in 2014 invaded Ukraine to seize Crimea and part of the Donbas region to further his mission of rebuilding the czarist empire. The peace negotiations under way between Ukraine, which is being abandoned by the United States, and Russia seem almost certain to allow Russia to keep that territory and very likely acquire even more. Israel seems to be maneuvering toward annexing parts of Gaza and maybe even southern Lebanon, while in Africa, Rwandan troops are pushing into neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo. China can only be encouraged to think that the world will accept its bringing Taiwan under its rule. 

"A new world order with new rules is taking shape."

Something Alarming Is Happening to the Job Market: A new sign that AI is competing with college grads

Import, Immature. - "Bottled water is, incredibly, Fiji’s single biggest export by a factor of more than two. The United States is Fiji’s single biggest export destination by a factor of more than two. In 2024 we imported about a hundred and forty-two million dollars worth of bottled water from Fiji."

USA's robot building boom continues with first 3D-printed Starbucks

Kilmar Abrego García’s tattoos alone do not prove MS-13 membership, experts say: Several were skeptical of the claim that knuckle tattoos highlighted by President Trump suggest gang affiliation. - "... any discussion about the tattoos and their significance was missing the broader picture on Abrego García’s case, which is centered on his right to due process and the fact that the Trump administration has admitted that it mistakenly violated an immigration judge’s 2019 order that he not be deported to El Salvador."

The 35 definitive rules of train travel: From boarding to riding to getting around town, these are the essentials of train etiquette.

FBI reassigns agents who knelt during 2020 Black Lives Matter protests: Conservatives have pointed to the photo, taken during President Donald Trump’s first term in the White House, as proof that the FBI harbors a liberal agenda. - "The reassignments have angered current and former colleagues, who say that FBI agents are not trained for riot control and that these officers were unjustly punished for trying to defuse a tense situation. Some of those interviewed, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution, said they see it as another example of the Trump administration punishing personnel whom it considers part of the liberal 'deep state.'

...

"FBI leadership reviewed the matter and ultimately concluded that no disciplinary action was necessary 'because there was no violation of policy that they could point to,' the former official said."

Singer Michael Bolton has incurable brain cancer. What is glioblastoma?: The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter has been battling glioblastoma, an aggressive and often deadly brain cancer, since late 2023. He plans to keep fighting.

The Diddy allegations are shocking. Were they also business as usual?: Dominate. Intimidate. Silence. It’s a familiar playbook for powerful men in the music industry. The allegations against Sean “Diddy” Combs are a disturbing twist.

Friday, December 13, 2024

Reading archive 2024-12-12

D.C. Mayor Bowser says Maryland is holding up RFK stadium deal: Funding to replace the collapsed Key Bridge has now entered the complex, multi-party negotiations over federal bill that could pave the way for the Commanders’ next stadium to be in D.C.

With Bill Belichick, UNC signs on for an awkward, miserable experience: The Bill Belichick experience — dour, irritable and ruthless — is coming to Chapel Hill, and it promises to be a coarse yet gripping experiment.

North Carolina GOP changes election rules before losing supermajority: Republicans in the state legislature gave an ally control over the state’s elections board, rewrote ballot-counting rules and chipped away at the power of the incoming Democratic governor.

He thought he had escaped Beijing’s clutches only to vanish back into China - "Cambodian police documents obtained by The Post and business registration filings list the owner of the Thma Da compound as MDS Heng He Investment Co. Ltd. The filings show the company was formed through a joint venture between a Cambodian company controlled by Try Pheap — a Cambodian tycoon under U.S. sanctions and an adviser to the country’s former prime minister and strongman Hun Sen — and a Chinese company established in Cambodia in 2018. This arrangement, researchers and officials say, is typical of online scam operations, which are closely tied to Cambodia’s political elite and are estimated to exceed $12.5 billion annually in returns for Cambodia, according to the United States Institute of Peace."

Assad’s fall humiliated Putin and could dent his global ambitions: Assad’s fall nine years after Russia saved his regime is a stunning blow to Putin’s goal of forging Russia into a world power to compete with the United States.

The Postal Service’s electric mail trucks are way behind schedule: Defense contractor Oshkosh had only delivered 93 trucks by November — compared to 3,000 originally expected by now. The delays put Biden’s climate goals at risk.