So you want to repossess a yacht. The first step is pretty hard. Find the yacht. The second part is a lot harder. Prove which oligarch owns the yacht. To do that you'll need to dig through a global economy very much distinct from the one most of us operate in (or are even aware of). It's where drug cartels launder money. It's where authoritarian regimes move their ill-begotten gains. It's where arms dealers and terrorists work around pesky international laws and sanctions. "Though it’s often called a system, the offshore world is really more of an archipelago — a constellation of territories and nations operating with the same general aim of helping wealthy people move and hide their money. This world encompasses places as diverse as Hong Kong, Dubai, the Isle of Man, South Dakota and Curaçao and includes not only notorious tax havens like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands but also institutions and jurisdictions in the hearts of the countries that usually rank highest in global transparency indexes." NYT Mag (Gift Article) with a very interesting glimpse into that other economy. How to Hide a 350-Foot Megayacht. And spoiler-alert. The other economy has a new participant and proponent. He's in America's Oval Office. "Amid the fracas, it would have been easy to miss two lines, buried on the fourth page of a Justice Department memo, circulated two weeks into Trump’s second term: An interagency task force, colorfully named KleptoCapture, would be disbanded. Though KleptoCapture was hardly a household name, its demise was portentous — it indicated the administration’s unwillingness to fight the financial systems that not only allow Kremlin allies to disguise their wealth but also enable international drug cartels to operate with impunity, corrupt officials to launder money from bribes into luxury real estate and the ultrawealthy to avoid paying taxes."
2
Habit Forming
In recent years, journalists and others who have warned of impending dangers in America were written off as being overly hysterical. In retrospect, they could rightly be criticized for having understated the threat. So these days, when I see a headline that includes the word Beware, I beware. M. Gessen in the NYT (Gift Article): Beware: We Are Entering a New Phase of the Trump Era. And it's not his phase. It's ours. "Once you’ve absorbed the shock of deportations to El Salvador, plans to deport people to South Sudan aren’t that remarkable. Once you’ve wrapped your mind around the Trump administration’s revoking the legal status of individual international students, a blanket ban on international enrollment at Harvard isn’t entirely unexpected. Once you’ve realized that the administration is intent on driving thousands of trans people out of the U.S. military, a ban on Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care, which could have devastating effects for hundreds of thousands, just becomes more of the same. As in a country at war, reports of human tragedy and extreme cruelty have become routine — not news."
3
Less Slow, More Jam
"More than three-quarters of Americans (77%) want companies to create AI slowly and get it right the first time, even if that delays breakthroughs." Well, as Mick and Keith suggested, you can't always get what you want. The AI arms race is on, it will make other tech advances of the internet age seem sluggish and quaint, and it could dramatically change the way our workforce looks. Quartz: The age of AI layoffs is already here. The reckoning is just beginning.
4
Trading Aidism for Sadism
"'We’re going to be doing foreign aid. We’re going to be doing humanitarian relief, disaster relief,' Rubio told his former Senate Foreign Relations Committee colleagues ... There’s just one problem: They’re not doing it. Despite months of assurances by Rubio that the administration planned to maintain “lifesaving” aid, there has been a catastrophic halt to programs that — by any reasonable definition — prevent people from dying or being brutally harmed." WaPo (Gift Article): The White House keeps promising ‘lifesaving’ aid that’s not coming.
+ A B.U. professor has developed a tool for Tracking Anticipated Deaths from USAID Funding Cuts. It's not pretty. As Bono explained to Jimmy Kimmel during an interview in which he defended Bruce Springsteen, we're demolishing "instruments of mercy and compassion." Even musicians like Bono and Springsteen know those are the most important instruments we have.
5
Extra, Extra
Med Dread: "We’re probably going to stop publishing in the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and those other journals because they’re all corrupt." That's RFK Jr on plans to stop publishing in the world's most trusted medical journals. The new plan? In-house publications. RFK Jr. says he may bar scientists from publishing in top medical journals.
+ Forecast of Hundreds: "The projections come from more than 200 forecasts using computer simulations run by 10 global centers of scientists." And what's the consensus? Heat. Get ready for several years of killer heat, top weather forecasters warn. (Don't worry. It's a dry heat.)
+ Partners in Crime: "President Trump will fully pardon the reality television stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were convicted three years ago of evading taxes and defrauding banks of more than $30 million to support their luxurious lifestyle." (In fairness, they were on reality TV, they didn't pay their taxes, they duped people into giving them money, they lied to banks, and they celebrated faux religiosity. How could Trump not pardon them?) NYT (Gift Article): Trump to Pardon Reality-Show Couple Convicted of $36 Million Fraud.
+ Cost Overrun: Netanyahu says Israel killed elusive Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar in a recent Gaza strike. Hamas is a murderous organization and its leaders deserve their fate. But at this point, even Israel's staunchest allies are suggesting the price of the ongoing war is too high. Tom Friedman in the NYT (Gift Article): The Flashing Signals That I Just Saw in Israel. "I did see signals flashing that more Israelis, from the left to the center and to even parts of the right, are concluding that continuing this war is a disaster for Israel: morally, diplomatically or strategically."
+ FIFA Fo Fum: "Their case quickly erupted into the biggest corruption scandal in modern sports history. It eventually led to 31 guilty pleas and multiple trial convictions. It recovered hundreds of millions of dollars. It triggered a reckoning at FIFA, the global soccer governing body at the center of the storm, and led to a raft of promised reforms." But ten years later, has anything at FIFA changed? How FIFAgate, soccer’s biggest scandal, became ‘a missed opportunity’ for reform. "FIFA, meanwhile, now boasts of 'excellent relations with President Trump [and] the Trump administration.'"
+ Teaching the Big Lie: "Starting with the next academic year, Oklahoma students in U.S. history classes will be asked to 'identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results by looking at graphs and other information,' including on 'sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of ‘bellwether county’ trends.'" ‘Stop the Steal’ in U.S. History Class.
+ Meth Odd Actor: "Early on Memorial Day, a Florida man was bitten by an alligator as he swam across a lake. Bleeding from a bite to his right arm but undeterred, he climbed out, grabbed a pair of garden shears and walked into a gated neighborhood, alarming residents, according to local authorities. Within minutes, the man, Timothy Schulz, 42, of Mulberry, Fla., was dead — shot by sheriff’s deputies after, they say, he charged at them with the shears, failed to be subdued by a stun gun and tried to grab either a shotgun or rifle from their cruiser." NYT (Gift Article): Bitten by Alligator, Man Is Killed After Charging at Deputies, Sheriff Says. "Sheriff Judd also said that Mr. Schulz had a lengthy criminal history, which he described as 'meth arrest, meth arrest, meth arrest, meth arrest, meth arrest.'" (Seems like a decent starting point to begin to piece together a theory of the case.)
6
Bottom of the News
"'All the people at the top said they were going to steal my title but this is mine,' a shirtless Kopke declared as he clutched his prize — the 7-pound circle of cheese. 'I risked my life for this. It’s my cheese. Back to back.'" Runners trip, stumble and roll their way to victory in annual downhill cheese chase. And the photos are as great as you'd imagine.