NASA’s Curiosity rover finds major clue that Mars was once habitable Space.com
Study explores the impact of growing up without siblings on the brain and behavior of adults Medical Xpress
Could the Pope’s Death Mean the Demise of Liberal Catholicism? European Conservative
SUBARU IS BRINGING BACK PHYSICAL KNOBS AND BUTTONS IN ITS CARS Futurism
Climate/Environment
Climate Change Kills Capitalism Counterpunch
Nuclear Underpants Gnomes Breakthrough Journal
Pandemics
Vietnam reports H5N1 avian flu case with encephalitis CIDRAP
Scientists Discover Drug That Could Finally End Long COVID Suffering SciTech Daily
David Zweig Doesn’t Care About Children Pandemic Accountability Index
China?
This is interesting: Justin Yifu Lin, former Chief Economist of the World Bank and a China’s State Council Counsellor, explaining why in the trade war “the losses for the United States will be greater than those of China”.
He essentially frames a trade war as an economic war of… https://t.co/27y9mO3ajC
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) April 22, 2025
US and Philippines launch ‘Super Bowl’ of military exercises around South China Sea The Independent
European Disunion
Patrick Lawrence: Germany in Crisis Part 2: A Short History of Exploding Gas Pipelines Scheerpost
Germany blocks Eurofighter jet sale to Turkey over mayor’s arrest: report Turkish Minute
Why Germany’s “value-based” foreign policy is insane ⬇️
🇩🇪 Berlin vetoed a Eurofighter sale to Turkey after it jailed Istanbul’s mayor @ekrem_imamoglu
🇹🇷 His reaction: Turkey’s national interests are more valuable than Erdoğan or İmamoğlu. I demand you to reverse this decision. https://t.co/21AahvwTHc
— Ozan Demircan (@ozmuhabir) April 21, 2025
Old Blighty
Unfair Judgments: Lethal Cuts at the DWP London Review of Books
Syraqistan
Israeli army stopped designating Gaza ‘safe zones’ after restart of genocide The Cradle
Israel bans protesters from carrying images of Gaza’s dead childrenThe New Arab
Trump’s NSC Director for Israel and Iran Previously Worked for Israeli Ministry of Defense Drop Site
No Joke: US considering nuclear power for Saudi in grand bargain Responsible Statecraft
Pentagon to ‘relocate’ hundreds of troops to two new bases in Syria: Report The Cradle
Chinese HQ-9B Long Range Air Defence Systems Now Guard Egyptian Skies Military Watch
Africa
World Bank’s investment arm targets rise in African equity investments Semafor
New Not-So-Cold War
In case of a nuclear event, Ukraine to use Israeli placenta-based emergency treatment Times of Israel
***
🇷🇺⚔️🇺🇦 “Real hell is about to begin!” – The ‘Brave Ones’ are pushing hard toward Dnipropetrovsk region
▪️On the Novopavlivka axis, units of the “Center” group recently captured Preobrazhenka, are attacking near Kotlyarivka, and are entrenching themselves in the grey zone near… pic.twitter.com/9qM3KcO0Ps
— Zlatti71 (@Zlatti_71) April 21, 2025
Nazi Is As Nazi Does Julian Macfarlane
Ratio for exchanges of KIA soldiers over time. Red is Russian bodies returned to Russia at each exchange, blue is Ukrainian bodies returned to Ukraine. Graphic by @lostarmour pic.twitter.com/G8SspdU5je
— Russians With Attitude (@RWApodcast) April 21, 2025
‘MOVE ON’ TO MOVE BACK, MR PRESIDENT: Trump Can and Perhaps Should ‘Move On’ from Mediating the NATO-Russia Ukrainian Conflict, But Be Ready to ‘Move Back’ Gordon Hahn, Russian & Eurasian Politics
“Liberation Day(s)”
Trump hosts Walmart, Target and Home Depot CEOs for tariff meeting CNBC
Sellers of secondhand clothes prepare for tariffs to give their businesses a boost AP
US imposes new duties on solar imports from South-east Asia Business Times
Trump 2.0
Trump’s Inauguration Donor Pool Includes $50 Million in Contributions from Corporations Under Investigation or Facing Federal Enforcement Public Citizen. “Cases against 11 of these corporations have already been dismissed or withdrawn, and six have been halted.”
Corporate Lawlessness Comes Next How Things Work
Trump Laid Off Nearly All the Federal Workers Who Investigate Firefighter Deaths ProPublica
Scoop: Thousands of fired federal probationary workers have complaints rejected Axios
Trump Admin Will Garnish Struggling Borrowers’ Wages as Student Loan Payments Resume Common Dreams
DOGE
Musk accused of polluting impoverished community with illegal gas turbines Musk Watch
SignalGate
Exclusive: The White House is looking to replace Pete Hegseth as defense secretary NPR
Trump says Hegseth is ‘doing a great job’ despite reports of second Signal chat The Guardian
. @PressSec “The President stands strongly behind @SecDef, who is doing a phenomenal job leading the Pentagon.
This is what happens when the ENTIRE Pentagon is working against you and against the MONUMENTAL change that you are trying to implement.” pic.twitter.com/0N45bQc1h5
— DOD Rapid Response (@DODResponse) April 21, 2025
Immigration
Mahmoud Khalil’s wife gives birth after ICE denied his request to attend delivery ABC News
Trump blasts Supreme Court while arguing trials for migrants ‘not possible’ The Hill
This has to be one of the craziest admissions from A JUDGE that I’ve ever seen in a court transcript. What the hell are we doing here?! https://t.co/FTTx3mq9Dr pic.twitter.com/LJZOI1Z2lE
— Sasha Gusev (@SashaGusevPosts) April 21, 2025
The Supremes
Court appears to back legality of HHS preventative care task force SCOTUSblog
Police State Watch
Crime and Punishment #1 Don’t Worry About the Vase
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
The FBI Can’t Find ‘Missing’ Records of Its Hacking Tools 404 Media
The Friendly Skies
Delta airlines flight 1213 catches fire at Orlando international airport 😳 pic.twitter.com/8qL54dQRkT
— 🌸 DigiGal (@DigitalGal_) April 21, 2025
AI
AI hallucinations lead to a new cyber threat: Slopsquatting CSO
In Defense of Cluely.com jonstokes.com
Supply Chain
Supply Chain Disintermediation: Another Unintended Consequence of Trump’s Tariffs Warwick Powell’s Substack
WD launches HDD recycling process that reclaims rare earth elements, cuts out China Tom’s Hardware
Mr. Market Has Another Sad
US: S&P 500 ends down 2.4% after Trump slams Fed chief again Business Times
LIQUIDITY, VOLATILITY AND MARKET CRAZINESS: PAUL KRUGMAN INTERVIEWS NATHAN TANKUS AGAIN Crises Notes
Healthcare?
State-By-State, America is Taking on Big Insurance’s Pharmacy Middlemen HEALTH CARE un-covered
Our Famously Free Press
THREAD. This is one of the more remarkable stories I have seen in my time studying state violence and working in law. But it’s also an exercise in propaganda. And it’s unbelievable how terrible the U.S. media coverage is. One thing in particular is important to see. pic.twitter.com/zk3iI4R3ir
— Alec Karakatsanis (@equalityAlec) April 21, 2025
Zeitgeist Watch
Columbia student suspended over interview cheating tool raises $5.3M to ‘cheat on everything’ Tech Crunch
Class Warfare
Deconstructing Housing Democracy Journal
Transient Homemaking e-flux
Ordo Amoris Hauntologies by Elia Ayoub
We Could Have Been Warthogs Nautilus
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
Re: Study explores the impact of growing up without siblings on the brain and behavior of adults.
People with siblings have better survival skills, they have experience with physical combat, psychological warfare and sensing suspicious activity.
“Exclusive: The White House is looking to replace Pete Hegseth as defense secretary”
I somehow doubt it. To do so means that he would have to admit that he made a mistake in choosing Hegseth which he will not admit. In addition, it would mean letting the Democrats get up a win on the board when they have hardly done anything. He must remember when he had to let Michael Flynn go right at the start of his Presidency which signaled that his picks were vulnerable. I don’t think that he wants to go there again.
Of course they are looking for replacements. They are nasty not stupid. If Pete steps on his thing one more time he will be peat.
“Trump Laid Off Nearly All the Federal Workers Who Investigate Firefighter Deaths”
I would guess that this has all to do with the National Firefighter Registry for Cancer mentioned in that article. More than 23,000 firefighters have signed up to it but by firing those Federal investigators, that Registry is dead in the water and those firefighters will find it much, much harder to go for compensation.
Wildfires are drenched with a pink fluid that, I believe, is a forever chemical (chlofluorocarbon?). Not nice stuff to be exposed to when you’re working hard and have to be there.
No, it’s ammonium phosphate.
Coroners standard autopsy of any firefighter death in 2026:
‘he was shot down, while trying to escape’
I got an especially bad feeling in regards to fuego this summer and into the fall, too many odd locations at the wrong time of year have had conflagrations as of late.
Doing my last burns for the year, and from now on any dead wood will collect in a 10 foot wide and 2 foot high burn pile for December ignition.
Much better to burn it off slowly on your terms, than all at once with everything else on Hephaestus’s whims~
Some readers may need to understand that we have two classes of firefighters here in the USA. Urban firefighters wear uniforms as they do in other countries. Here, wildfirefighters (the class I believe Wuk references) frequently,if not usually, wear jailsuits.
Upon reading the title of one of the linked articles, “Supply Chain Disintermediation: Another Unintended Consequence of Trump’s Tariffs”, it just occurred to me: could another unintended consequence be the emergence of a vibrant contraband economy?
The USA has positively enormous land and sea borders to monitor, and multiple organizations in neighbouring countries (such as the various narco networks in Mexico) have acquired quite some experience in smuggling drugs, weapons, and human beings. So why not rare earths, precision machinery, or basic pharmaceuticals?
When talking about the history of Prohibition, a widely-accepted premise is that by making bootleg booze profitable, Prohibition catalyzed the rise and spread of organized crime, the Mafia, etc.
There was a very recent linked article here that pointed to research that drug enforcement led to increased violence!
Who coulda knode?
This is a year of magnificent discoveries. Brits realized that a man is not a woman, and Germans that a car is not a phone: I can’t wait to see the next big breaktrough that these interesting times will bestow upon humankind.
I have friend who test drove a Tesla and said it was like driving an iPad! Very strange, while also welcome, to see some common sense prevailing here and there amidst the insanity.
re: AI; slopsquatting
The hits keep coming. The use cases all involve fraud and/or different types of cheating.
Cheating on exams, cheating on interviews, cheating at your job by pretending to write a bunch of code, except it makes up BS dependencies that don’t exist (not sure how that compiles, but in a JavaScript world, I guess runtime errors don’t matter.)
Maybe it is perfect for our lying world full of liars. A lying government. We lie to ourselves too … fake ceasefires, fake rumors of trade deals to jack-job the stonks.
What could possibly go wrong?
One of the commenters in a Reddit thread about this phenomenon notes that the vulnerability isn’t just that AI makes up fake dependencies, it’s that even without AI people rely sight unseen on dependencies in the first place.
I have noticed you can instruct AI to NOT to include any dependencies and it will repeatedly fail to, even if you eliminate dependencies by name, which I find curious. For most AI queries you can adjust the parameters and it will, but not for code it seems. To the point where I wondered if the creators wanted to deliberately insure code generated by AI cannot work (without considerable knowledge and effort).
There is an X entry above by Sasha Gustev regarding a district court judge calling an immigration case “Kafkaesque.” In case anyone else is interested in the source material, which is quite interesting, here it is.
https://theintercept.com/2025/04/17/international-student-visas-deport-dhs-ice/
I have a choice, and I choose not to give Elon Musk clicks.
Thanks for the link. I too am having my own general strike against the oligarchs.
We need more Generals- at least one more. We have General Malaise.
We need General Strike! May Day!!! May Day?
Let the great wealth transfer from the Nordic & Baltic citizens to aerospace & defence share-holders begin!
https://www-svt-se.translate.goog/nyheter/inrikes/nordisk-baltiskt-kop-av-flera-hundra-stridsfordon?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Free-float: 94% https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/BAE-SYSTEMS-PLC-9583545/
Largest share-holders: https://hk.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/BAE-SYSTEMS-PLC-129389906/company-shareholders/
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/85-ownership-bae-systems-plc-070433564.html
Thank you.
Today’s business news on the BBC, 04:30 GMT, featured an interview with the CEO of Tekever, a drone manufacturer. The bigger segment was about the business opportunities to be had from European rearmament. The CEO, live from Lisbon, talked about how, from soon after the invasion, his firm’s drones had been tested in Ukraine.
As I watched over breakfast, I wondered whether business or security would drive technical developments and what programmes would be prioritised. Methinks it will be the former, i.e. a hand out to big business.
One hopes that Aurelien who has wcompared the Russian defence industry and its western peers and their set ups and objectives pipes up.
Re: “Subaru is bringing back knobs and buttons…”
I have a pre-touch screen Subaru with over 250k miles which I haven’t replaced because I’ve hated the experience of the touch screen models when I’ve had one on loan. It’s a tremendous plus for safety and positive driver experience that touch screens are being phased out. Now they should get to work clearing out the junk information that’s been added around the speedometer.
Indeed. I’ve seen videos about the next generation electric car – built by Toyota in conjunction with one of the top 3 Chinese manufacturers. They have enough cash to sell it wayyyyyy below cost so tariffs won’t work very well…..
My first thought was “yes it has the potential to be very popular but to dominate the market it’s gonna have to also bring back knobs and buttons”. Curious to see if the final product does this. The rumours on YT videos are that whilst it had the inevitable touchscreen, this is really an add-on and the physical buttons etc are there.
Admittedly my Hyundai is a few years old now but the touchscreen is only for the music player and cell phone interaction. If newer cars are making everything touchscreen then they are merely imitating Tesla with its outside the box ideas which oh by the way save Tesla on manufacturing costs. Given how much vehicles cost now such chintziness is inexcusable.
Of course in Musk world your Tesla is theoretically driving itself giving the driver the opportunity to play with the computer. Given how highly regulated cars are now you wonder how Tesla has gotten away with so much.
Crank windows are on my wish list, too. Doing everything I can to keep my no-screen buttons and knobs ’98 Volvo going.
I have a 2017 car (Chevy Bolt) with a touchscreen.
After the car is started it frequently pops up a paragraph ON THE TOUCHSCREEN that mentions taking one’s eyes of the road to look at the touchscreen can be hazardous.
And the notice must be touched to clear.
An audible message would be far better than one that truly demonstrates the problem.
I sometimes try to help other elderly with technology and sometimes will pose a question after a time consuming fix is complete.
They usually smile when I ask, “how often do you hear someone say “could you please complicate that?””
Bringing back knobs could be a good idea.
He was borne SecDef on the Trump Trail
At 44 years old he’d done three months entailed
He tried to change the military culture in his diapers
Stamping his tiny little feet
All he said was “Folks my name is Outlaw Pete”
I’m Outlaw Pete, I’m Outlaw Pete, can you hear me?
At 23 an Army National Guard commission
And he rode her ’round and ’round on heaven’s mission
Father Jesus I’m an outlaw, tv commentator and thinker
And I slow down only to sow my grief with occasional liquor
I’m Outlaw Pete, I’m Outlaw Pete, can you hear me?
He cut his trail of tears across the Gitmo countryside
And where he went inmates wept and some detainees cried
One night he awoke from a vision of his life after death
Saddled his country with revelations of a tattooed chest
Married many times and settled down on the 3rd bequest
And as a dry hard rain fell he held out and did his best
I’m Outlaw Pete, I’m Outlaw Pete, can you hear me?
Can you hear me? Can you hear me?
Out of the east in Humordor, they sacked Dan
His heart quickened and burdened by the need to get his man
They found Pete peacefully denying by the Potomac river
Pulled his usual stunts and for now got the drop
Everybody said “Pete you think you’ve changed the MIC but you have not”
Some say Pete and his posse vanished over the edge
And some say they remain frozen out high up on that far right ledge
Outlaw Pete, Outlaw Pete, can you hear me?
Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear me?
Can you hear me? Can you hear me?
Outlaw Pete, by Bruce Springsteen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRA6lWzCpCQ
‘Alec Karakatsanis
@equalityAlec
THREAD. This is one of the more remarkable stories I have seen in my time studying state violence and working in law. But it’s also an exercise in propaganda. And it’s unbelievable how terrible the U.S. media coverage is. One thing in particular is important to see.
Now to today’s article. I want to pause on how remarkable this is: El Salvador is now offering to trade the people illegally trafficked for cash and sent to its torture chamber to Venezuela if that country releases people on lists created by the far right.’
I wouldn’t be so sure that that list was compiled by El Salvador. More likely it was compiled by the White House and the spooks to get activists released so that they can do more dirty work in Venezuela. A lot would depend on who exactly was on those lists.
My morning coffee was the Super Bowl of all coffees in this part of the kitchen this morning.
Ratio for exchanges of KIA soldiers over time
This graph shows exchanges of Ukraine dead soldiers to Russian soldiers about equal up until March 2024. Only after March 2024 does Russian exchanges of dead Ukraine soldiers start climbing dramatically. If this is an accurate reflection of dying Russian soldiers, it suggests Putin has relied upon a weak strategy in prosecution of the war and sacrificed Russians in favor of this weak approach militarily. I wounder if these numbers can be relied upon to extrapolate overall casualties.
For a long time the amount of land that Russia took was quite small. Therefore the dead were mostly collected on the same side, meaning little to no exchanged bodies.
In the last year, Russia has been taking a lot of land meaning the dead are now collected by the advancing side, Russia.
While the numbers are interesting, I dont’ think they can be used as an accurate way to calculate the dead.
There are people who count graves and graveyards in Ukraine and Russia along with all sort of other metrics and it seems clear Ukraine has lost way more people than Russia.
“‘MOVE ON’ TO MOVE BACK, MR PRESIDENT: Trump Can and Perhaps Should ‘Move On’ from Mediating the NATO-Russia Ukrainian Conflict, But Be Ready to ‘Move Back’ ”
As The Duran pointed out, how can you mediate a conflict that, as the New York Times shows, that the US has been running all along. That’s like asking your mother-in-law to mediate a fight between yourself and your wife. And it looks like that Trump is siding with the Neocons by adopting Kellog’s plan which has always been a no-go with the Russians. It’s like he never heard a word that the Russians told him over the past three months. I can only assume that these plan have been negotiated by the different DC factions and that the result would be given to the Russians to sign as it is such a great deal for them. One bit really stood out was where the Russians would agree to hand over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the surrounding territories for the Americans to run, I kid you not. That is now sovereign Russian territory and the Russian Constitution would say ‘Nope.’ Maybe Russia should agree to that – so long as Russia gets to run America’s biggest nuclear power plant. Think that they will bite? Trump won’t move on as he will let the Russians win the war but then through his efforts lose the peace. Not only because he does not want to be known as the President that lost the Ukraine but because DC policy is always to press down hard on Russia.
Re: Liquidity, Volatility, and Market Craziness
Nathan Tankus is usually over my head, but in this interview he explains things so that even Paul Krugman can understand. Thanks for posting!
(Also lots of linky goodness added.)
Climate Change Kills Capitalism- Counterpunch
So the way I read it is- that we must save capitalsm because, if we don’t, capitalism won’t be able to save us…. just a little hickup – in my view – is that the capitalism spoken of here is the reason we need saving in the first instance
I think that you may be right. Capitalism only works when you have spare capital that is used for investing but the world that Capitalism is making will have precious little spare capital.
American Student Loans – a scam that made payday lenders and furniture rental companies seethe with envy!
“US and Philippines launch ‘Super Bowl’ of military exercises around South China Sea”
Can you imagine a headline in a few years saying “China and Venezuela launch ‘Super Bowl’ of military exercises around Caribbean”? Can you imagine the hissy fit that DC would have? But it could very well happen.