Bad News, Bears

The Pounds Just Melt Off

Humans are notorious for trying out new diets. Polar Bears are less prone to feeding fads, but they are in the process of having what could be the most limiting diet plan thrust upon them. Cutting carbs? Limiting sugar? Decreasing portion size? The secret is actually limiting ice. Do that and the pounds just melt away. It turns out that the Ursus Maritimus is bearing the brunt of human-caused climate change. Less ice means a less extensive feeding season, so Polar Bears need to find ways to adapt, from eating new foods to expending less energy. "Scientists tracking 20 polar bears in Manitoba, below the Arctic Circle at the southern end of the animals’ range, found that the option the polar bears chose didn’t make much difference. Bears who foraged generally got just enough calories from their small meals to replenish the energy they spent finding them, but not enough to maintain their body mass." NYT (Gift Article): Is That Polar Bear Getting Enough to Eat? "Scientists collected video from 20 bears during ice-free months to understand whether the animals can survive longer periods on land in a warming world." (If people are behind the problem causing bears to be hungry, there's a pretty obvious solution. But it's less than appetizing for humans...)

+ Vox: Scientists strapped cameras to a bunch of polar bears. The footage is breathtaking — and alarming.

+ In the short term, Polar Bears looking for ice can always head towards the Northeast, where 46 million people are under winter alerts, schools have closed, flights have been delayed, and a key election is being challenged. But the eatin' is good. Here's the latest from NBC.

+ Note: Today's header art is from a painting by Annie Galvin of 3 Fish Studios.

2

For Goodness Sake

"A bipartisan majority in the U.S. Senate voted 70-to-29 to advance a $95 billion foreign aid package" to support Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. But it's in serious danger of getting blocked by Mike Johnson and the House GOP, who are kowtowing to the demands of a 91-time indictee who just invited Russia to attack our NATO allies. The excuse is that the bill doesn't include any border funding ... which was rejected by Mike Johnson and the House GOP. Sad times.

+ Many GOP senators teamed with Dems to get the Senate deal done. But the House is more rabid. Who will win? David Frum calls this The Good Republicans’ Last Stand. (Lately, the Good Republicans winning percentage is about as high as the Washington Generals.)

+ Biden on the stakes: "The stakes were already high for American security before this bill was passed in the Senate last night. But in recent days, those stakes have risen. That’s because the former president has set a dangerous and shockingly, frankly, un-American signal to the world. Just a few days ago, Trump gave an invitation to Putin to invade some of our allies, Nato allies. He said if an ally didn’t spend enough money on defence, he would encourage Russia to quote, ‘Do whatever the hell they want’. Can you imagine a former president of the United States saying that? The whole world heard it. The worst thing is, he means it. No other president in our history has ever bowed down to a Russian dictator.'" (At any other time in history, the anti-NATO comment would doom a presidential candidate. But this is this time in history, and we've got big problems.)

3

Big Sky High

"It boiled down to money. He could make so much more profit from drugs he sold here than in any other place." What do downtown San Francisco and rural Montana have in common? Fentanyl. Mexican drug cartels are targeting America’s ‘last best place.' "Cracking down on the drug trade is especially challenging in a state as vast as Montana where law enforcement struggles to police the wide-open spaces and Indian reservations rely on under-funded and short-staffed tribal police forces. On at least one reservation, tribe members formed a vigilante group in a desperate bid to fight drug-related crime."

4

Ill Informed

"We have a Bill of Rights that constrains what the state can do ... We have statutory codes that constrain what people can be convicted and punished for, and codes that say how much punishment is appropriate. And then we suspend nearly all those rules when it comes to informants." The New Yorker's Charles Bethea: What Do We Owe a Prison Informant? "A man in Georgia says he risked his life for years and was abandoned. But there are very few rules protecting those who provide law enforcement with information."

5

Extra, Extra

Someone's Gonna Get Hurt: "Serious threats to U.S. federal judges have more than doubled over the past three years, part of a growing wave of politically driven violence."

+ Records SM*A*S*H*ED: The Super Bowl was the most-watched program ever in the US, averaging 123.4 million viewers. "Nielsen also said a record 202.4 million watched at least part of the game across all networks." (I was hoping I could experience my personal pain in private.)

+ Crane Drain: More of you are working from home. Many companies have been laying people off. Interest rates have gone up. All that adds up to one key thing: Fewer Cranes. Bloomberg (Gift Article): Office Towers Reshaped US Skylines. Now Construction Cranes Are Vanishing.

+ Fat Chat: ChatGPT's parent company has entered an exclusive club that includes Amazon and Google. OpenAI is set to hit $2 billion in revenue — and fast.

+ Modi Operandi: "Move over, YouTube comedians and Instagram models. The OG of social media influencers in India is now the country’s prime minister, Narendra Modi. At 73, his deft handling of message and medium underscores his online domination." How Narendra Modi became India’s influencer-in-chief.

+ Moatus Operandi: "On the heels of Sam Esmail’s apocalyptic thriller Leave the World Behind and December news reports that Mark Zuckerberg is constructing a 5,000-square-foot bunker under his ranch on the island of Kauai, the business of fortified shelters is booming." Billionaires’ Survivalist Bunkers Go Absolutely Bonkers With Fiery Moats and Water Cannons.

+ Not Toying Around: Squishmallows has filed a lawsuit against Build-A-Bear.

6

Bottom of the News

"About a third of the staff at Waltham work in its research labs. The other two-thirds are dedicated to feeding, training, exercising and maintaining the living spaces of the real stars of the show: the 200 dogs and 200 cats that live at Waltham and test the products developed there." 200 cats, 200 dogs, one lab: the secrets of the pet food industry.

Dave Pell, Managing Editor, Internet