Ladies Leaving a Lasting Legacy

“When a man’s partner is killed, he’s supposed to do something about it. It doesn’t make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you’re supposed to do something about it. And it happens we’re in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed, it’s-it’s bad business to let the killer get away with it, bad all around, bad for every detective everywhere.” – Humphrey Bogart (Sam Spade) from The Maltese Falcon

The Maltese Falcon With Corruption at its Core: Yesterday’s Pnut told a story about lawyers worthy of a John Grisham novel. Today we report on a grisly murder worthy of retelling by the Queen of True Crime, Ann Rule. It’s about Malta’s anti-corruption journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia, killed in a car bombing last October. Her family is convinced the three men awaiting trial for the crime were acting on orders from inside the Maltese government. Widower Peter Caruana Galizia fears the mastermind will never be caught and the family may never know the truth. The 62-year-old lives alone and is under 24-hour police protection. It is too dangerous for his three sons to remain living with their dad on the island where they grew up.

Daphne made many enemies in her quest to reveal the shady dealings of Malta’s power brokers. Her family believes political interests blocked the police investigation in order to protect whoever commissioned the killing. As a result, a collaboration of 18 news organizations from 15 countries has been brought in to continue the investigations Daphne was pursuing when she died. The Daphne Project includes The Guardian, The New York Times, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Reuters, and Le Monde.

Peter’s first full interview since his wife’s death launched the project on Tuesday.Exclusive details of the murder inquiry were revealed, along with a previously unheard recording the journalist made six days before her murder. In it she details what she says was a villainous government-sanctioned smear campaign against her, and decades of threats on her life. As the investigation continues, the project will also address the dangers posed to law enforcement in Europe by alleged political corruption, and the lack of controls on money laundering in Malta.  

– British Prime Minister Theresa May publicly apologized Tuesday for a crisis situation partly of her own making. While Home Secretary in 2012, May supported tough new rules meant to crackdown on illegal immigration. But the so-called Windrush generation, the first large group of Caribbean migrants to arrive in the UK after World War II, inadvertently got caught in the crosshairs. Most couldn’t produce the necessary “documentation” of legal immigration status after decades of living in the UK, resulting in health care and job losses, home evictions, and threats of deportation. (CNN)

– An ethnic Pashtun minority is openly defying the powerful and popular Pakistani military establishment. A young activist, Manzoor Pashteen, leads the new “civil rights” movement which has already garnered hundreds of thousands of supporters. Pashteen says that Pashtuns, who represent about 15% of Pakistan’s 204 million population, have endured countless human rights violations, from disappearances to forced evictions. But he worries how long security forces will tolerate the movement before cracking down. (NYT)  

– If you booked your upcoming getaway on the popular tropical “holiday island” ofBoracay in the Philippines, you’re probably out of luck. President Rodrigo Duterte says it’s a “cesspool” and sent the riot police in to shut everything down for six months. (The Guardian)

– Remember those global Russian cyberattacks the UK and US warned big organizations, businesses, and governments about on Monday? Well, now they’re warning private homes and offices about it too. It seems a digital Red Dawn has happened. (NYT)

– On Tuesday, President Trump’s Supreme Court appointee Neil Gorsuch joined the four left-leaning members of the Court to strike down a law that allowed the government to deport some immigrants who had committed serious crimes. Gorsuch said the law had crossed a constitutional line, writing in a concurring opinion: “Vague laws invite arbitrary power.” (NYT)

– Chinese electronics giant Huawei, the world’s “biggest supplier of the equipment that powers the wireless age,” has not been able to enter the US market. Last week, the company laid off five American employees and curtailed its political outreach efforts. The company has spent a decade trying to convince Washington that it is not beholden to the Chinese government. (NYT)

– The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that at 3.9%, 2018 will be the strongest year for global growth since 2011. However, it also warned that growth could be stalled because of trade barriers. (BBC)

More News Reads:

–CIA Director Mike Pompeo secretly met with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un (CNN)

–Trump and Abe Talk Trade as Well as Relations With NKorea (NYT)

–Sanctions Flap Erupts Into Open Conflict Between Haley and White House (NYT)

–McConnell says he will not allow vote on bill protecting Mueller from firing (The Guardian)

–China opens car market after US tensions (BBC)

–Far more than 87m Facebook users had data compromised (The Guardian)

–Sandy Hook parents sue radio host Alex Jones for defamation (BBC)

–Starbucks is shutting 8,000 US stores on May 29 to conduct bias training (Quartz)

–Matthew Mellon: US billionaire dies in Mexico (BBC)

A Fabulous First Lady Leaves a Legacy: Barbara Bush passed away Tuesday at the ripe old age of 92. She was the second woman in American history who was both the wife of a US president (George H.W. Bush #41), and the mother of one (George W. Bush, #43). (Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams #2, and mother of John Quincy Adams #6, was the first.) She was also the mother of Jeb Bush, who was the governor of Florida from 1999-2007.

The former First Lady was born Barbara Pierce on June 8, 1925, the third child in an affluent and socially prominent New York family. She met her future husband George in 1941 at a Christmas dance at the Round Hill Country Club in Greenwich, CT. They married in January 1945 when George was on leave from the Navy in WWII. During their marriage, Barbara gave birth to 6 children, one of whom died at age 3 from leukemia. The couple had moved 26 times, living in states including Michigan, Maine, Virginia, California, and Texas, before moving into the White House in 1988.

Barbara was down-to-earth, out-spoken, and wickedly witty, as famous for her undyed hair and fake pearls as she was for her self-deprecating humor. After learning she would be the country’s next First Lady, she quipped: “My mail tells me that a lot of fat, white-haired, wrinkled ladies are tickled pink.” Her son, Bush 43 as he’s known, said in a statement Tuesday: “Barbara Bush was a fabulous First Lady and a woman unlike any other who brought levity, love, and literacy to millions. To us, she was so much more. Mom kept us on our toes and kept us laughing until the end. I’m a lucky man that Barbara Bush was my mother.”

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– Five of the six winners of the prestigious Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship in 2018 are women, including the granddaughter of Barbara Bush (and daughter of Bush 43), who co-founded Global Health Corps in 2009. Looks like grandma was a good influence. (NPR)

– Speaking of wonder women, the runner-up in the women’s race of the Boston Marathon is making headlines. The 26-year-old nurse, Sarah Sellers, is not a professional runner and did not have a sponsor or agent, but finished second in the world’s oldest annual marathon and one of the world’s best-known road racing events. Monday’s race was only the second marathon she has run. (BBC)   

– Is there really an online echo chamber? “Contrary to popular belief, we now hear more diverse voices than ever before – studies suggest that most people do not live in Facebook or Twitter echo chambers and ‘filter bubbles’. So why is global politics still so divided?” (BBC)

– On Tuesday, many Americans who filed their taxes on the due date found that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) website had crashed. The website malfunction began early Tuesday morning and was not resolved until early evening. The site advised taxpayers to “come back on Dec. 31, 9999.” Benjamin Franklin said that “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Well, for this year’s late filers, they may actually be able to avoid the latter because they have undergone the former. (NYT)

More Loose Nuts:

–Unit 731: Japan discloses details of notorious chemical warfare division. National archives lists members of army branch that conducted lethal experiments on Chinese civilians in 30s and 40s (The Guardian)

–The Infinity Stones in the new Avengers film have real-life inspirations – as does Harry Potter’s Philosopher Stone (BBC)

–In Switzerland, the soup quarrelling politicians share. Milchsuppe is a meal infused with folklore, not least because of its association with Switzerland’s very formation (BBC)

-White Supremacy Is the Achilles Heel of American Democracy. Even in a high-tech era, fears about minority political agency are the most reliable way to destabilize the U.S. political system (The Atlantic)

–San Francisco’s Big Seismic Gamble (NYT)

–Scientists accidentally create mutant enzyme that eats plastic bottles (The Guardian)

–New York City Mice Carry Bacteria That Can Make People Sick (NPR)

“We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” – David Brower

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