Missiles, Protests, BuzzFeed, & Another Trip To The Ocean Floor
May 29, 2024
Hello, readers – happy Wednesday! Today, we’ll be talking about French missiles, antisemitism as a campaign talking point, Taiwan’s protests, the U.S. aid pier in Gaza, carbon offsets, Ramaswamy’s plan to save BuzzFeed, and another submarine’s trip to the Titanic wreckage.
Here’s some good news: The Biden administration is opening up U.S. online payment systems to Cuban private business owners, which will allow independent private sector entrepreneurs in Cuba to import food, equipment, and other goods. Also, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his husband signed the Giving Pledge, a charity that encourages the ultra-rich to donate their wealth to philanthropic causes.
“There are no lines in nature, only areas of colour, one against another.” – Édouard Manet
Macron Makes A Move
Yesterday, French President Emmanuel Macron said he would allow Ukraine to use French missiles to strike military targets within Russia. The announcement marks a turning point in the E.U.’s military support for Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also appeared beside Macron during the announcement to endorse the position.
“We must allow them to neutralize military sites from which missiles are being fired, military sites from which Ukraine is being attacked,” Macron said in his speech. He specified that French-supplied Scalp cruise missiles, which have a range of over 300 miles, would only be allowed to attack Russian military sites used to strike Ukraine.
Meanwhile, other E.U. support for Kyiv came out of the woodwork this week. On Tuesday, Ukraine and Belgium signed a security agreement that will see the Western European nation send “at least €977 million in Belgian military aid” and 30 U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to Kyiv to help the country defend against Russia. “Our aim is to be able to provide first aircraft before the end of this year, 2024,” said Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo at a press conference.
The Grand Old Party Finds A Big Old Wedge
College campuses across America are still divided over the Israel-Hamas conflict even as finals season looms. Meanwhile, Republicans are licking their chops as they use the allegations of antisemitism at campus protests to drag college administrators into Congressional hearings, sowing division within the Democratic Party ahead of a hotly-contested presidential election.
“Watching the first hearing [in December], you knew – wow, this is a political gift for Republicans,” said Doug Heye, the former communications director for the Republican National Committee. “This is a way for Republicans to campaign to Jewish voters in a way they haven’t before, and then it also fits into the larger chaos narrative that Republicans have been pushing … The colleges and universities are fundamentally unprepared to explain what’s happened and or defend it. What that also meant for Republicans was a huge political and fundraising bonanza.”
New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the fourth-most powerful Republican in the House, pulled in a record $7 million in the first quarter of this year thanks to her role in the hearings. Heye expects that the Democrats’ split on Israel might make a small numerical difference in the larger picture, but added that just a few thousand flipped votes in key battleground areas could change the course of an election.
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Tearing Apart Taiwan
- Taiwan’s parliament has passed a controversial reform bill in the face of mass protests and literal fistfights within the legislature. The bill was pushed by the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) and populist Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), which together hold a majority in the country’s parliament despite the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) controlling the presidency.
- The new bill will expand parliament’s ability to question and demand documents from Taiwanese officials, military figures, and citizens, and will also allow the legislature to hold individuals in “contempt of congress.” While critics aligned with the DPP say that the legislation gives parliament too much power and the ability to undermine the country’s executive branch, its proponents say the new powers are necessary to keep people accountable, and that the DPP had tried to pass a similar law when it held a parliamentary majority.
The Pier Appears To Be In Peril
- Remember that pier the U.S. built off the coast of Gaza? It’s been temporarily taken out of action after suffering weather-related damage. According to multiple U.S. spokespeople, the storms tore the moorings of four small U.S. military boats and scattered them across the region. Footage taken and posted online by an IDF soldier in Gaza also appeared to show a piece of the pier floating by in the Mediterranean Sea.
- U.S. officials say that the pier will take about a week to repair before aid deliveries resume. American aid has been used to relieve Gaza’s population of its food shortages caused by Israel’s siege of the area. Land deliveries of aid through Israel and Egypt were not enough to keep some parts of Gaza from experiencing famine before the pier was set up, but Israeli aid inspections have ramped up since the pier’s construction.
More Mixed Nuts
- American in Turks and Caicos sentenced to time served and $9,000 fine over ammo found in bag (CBS)
- Pope apologizes after being quoted using vulgar term about gay men in talk about ban on gay priests (AP)
- Donor fatigue persists as nations commit around $8.1 billion for conflict-hit Syrians (AP)
- Georgia parliament overrides president to pass Kremlin-style ‘foreign agents’ bill, defying Western pressure (CNN)
- A missile attack damages a ship in the Red Sea off Yemen’s coast near previous Houthi rebel assaults (AP)
Curbing Carbon Offsets (Kind Of)
- Carbon offsets are purchased by major corporations in an attempt to cancel out the climate effects of some activities by funding projects that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Companies and individuals spent $1.7 billion last year on carbon offsets, but studies argue that they aren’t all that effective and that the focus should instead be on cutting emissions in-house.
- Yesterday, the Biden administration released a set of broad government guidelines around the use of carbon offsets to help boost their image. They lay out guidelines for what will count as “high-integrity” offsets – those that deliver real and quantifiable emissions reductions that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. They also encourage businesses to reduce emissions before resorting to carbon offset purchases.
10 Things I Hate About You, BuzzFeed
- Last week, failed presidential candidate and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy revealed that he now owns 8.4% of BuzzFeed. The news comes after the company laid off hundreds of staff and shuttered its news division last year. In a letter to the company’s board, he argued the business had “lost its way”, called for a “major shift” in its strategy, and vowed to buy more shares.
- Ramaswamy suggested the company apologize for “past journalistic failures” and encouraged them to go in a new direction…by hiring commentators like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Bill Maher, Aaron Rodgers, and Charles Barkley. Jonah Peretti, BuzzFeed’s co-founder and CEO, said that Ramaswamy has “some fundamental misunderstandings” about the business. “I’m very skeptical it makes business sense to turn BuzzFeed into a creator platform for inflammatory political pundits,” he replied. “And we’re definitely not going to issue an apology for our Pulitzer prize-winning journalism.”
More Nuts In America
- SCOTUS leaves in place Avenatti conviction for plot to extort up to $25M from Nike (ABC)
- Louisiana police searching for 2 escaped prisoners after 4 slipped through fence (USA Today)
- Teen survives 400-foot fall from canyon in Washington state (NBC)
- Texas weather: More than 750,000 customers are without power in the tornado-ravaged state as Dallas gets slammed with storms (CNN)
- MAGA firebrand tries to boot moderate GOP congressman in Texas primary runoff (NBC
Twenty Million Dollars Under The Sea
- You don’t become a billionaire with some combination of luck, money, business acumen, and perseverance. Ohio-based billionaire real-estate investor Larry Connor and Patrick Lahey, the co-founder and CEO of Triton Submarines, are looking to put that perseverance to the test to prove a point (though Lahey isn’t a billionaire by any means). The two men are planning to prove that private submarines are still safe following last year’s OceanGate disaster, which saw five people die when their submarine attempted to explore the Titanic’s wreckage.
- The two will make their journey into the depths in the Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer, a sub that’s listed on Triton Submarines’ website for $20 million. The two-man submersible “is designed” for repeated trips into the deep ocean down to about 4,000 meters – the Titanic’s wreckage sits at about 3,800 meters below sea level. According to Connor, the sub was constructed using cutting-edge materials and technology, adding, “Patrick has been thinking about and designing this for over a decade. But we didn’t have the materials and technology. You couldn’t have built this sub five years ago.”
More Loose Nuts
- Popular California beach closed for the holiday after shark bumped surfer off his board (ABC)
- ‘Serial slingshot shooter’ accused of terrorizing California neighborhood for a decade (USA Today)
- WATCH: Cheese rolling contestants take on Cooper’s Hill (BBC)
- Veterans who served at secret base say it made them sick, but they can’t get aid because the government won’t acknowledge they were there (CBS)
- Passenger accused of running naked through Virgin Australia airliner mid-flight, knocking down crew member (CBS)
