Biden Brings The Sass & Pandas Come Back To America
February 23, 2024
Hello, readers – happy Friday! Today, we’re talking about Ukraine’s woes, Biden’s sass, House of Commons commotion, Japan’s stock market, the CROWN Act, OpenAI’s threat to Tinseltown, and panda bears.
This week, we shared a story about how Neuralink’s first human patient is doing. We were curious how many of our Daily Pnut readers would consider getting a chip in their brain, so, we thought we’d ask! Go ahead and fill out our survey, and feel free to share with your family and friends. We’ll share the results on Wednesday, 2/28.
“Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.” – St. Francis de Sales
Left Out To Dry Before April Showers
As the weather gets warmer in Eastern Europe, Ukraine’s prospects in its war with Russia seem to be melting. Kyiv is facing two key shortages heading into spring – it is struggling to preserve ammunition stocks and facing a shortage of soldiers, prompting Kyiv to consider expanding the draft.
According to two anonymous U.S. officials, Ukraine will start to feel the full effects of a supply shortage as soon as “late March” if Congress doesn’t pass an international defense aid bill soon. Kyiv needs resupplies of both small and large ammunition, especially the guided rockets fired by the Western-supplied HIMARS launchers.
Things aren’t going very well on the manpower side of things, either – more and more Ukrainian men are reportedly dodging the draft, prompting Parliament to consider legislation widening the draft to relieve pressure on Ukraine’s strained soldiers. Many Ukrainian brigades are apparently fighting at just 75% of their full strength (with some operating with just 25% of their men) as injuries and fatigue force soldiers out of the war. The new legislation would lower the enlistment age from 27 to 25, growing the pool of recruits by about 400,000.
Dark Brandon’s Real-Life Debut
According to sources, U.S. President Joe Biden is using his “bully pulpit” to call out GOP lawmakers and former President Donald Trump, focusing on the conflict in Ukraine and Russia’s influence. Unfortunately for anyone hoping to see footage of the president going wild on his haters, the president is mainly turning up the heat at private fundraising events, where he’s known to be a bit looser with his words.
At a fundraising event in San Francisco on Wednesday, Biden reportedly called Putin a “crazy SOB” and ranted about Trump’s comments on the death of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny. “He’s comparing himself to Navalny and saying that because our country’s become a communist country, he was persecuted, just like Navalny was persecuted,” Biden said. “Where the hell does this come from? If I stood here 10 to 15 years ago and said all this, you’d all think I should be committed.”
He also fired on GOP lawmakers’ stonewalling of an international defense aid package at an event in Los Angeles, saying they’re dragging their feet “because that’s what Donald Trump tells them to do.” He then went on to call current House Republicans “worse” than Strom Thurmond, a past GOP lawmaker notorious for his staunchly racist views.
Chaos Hits The House Of Commons
- The U.K.’s House of Commons is no stranger to some spicy moments, with shouting matches and jeers from opposing parties being the norm in the lower house of Parliament. Mix that rowdy atmosphere with the incredibly divisive nature of the Israel-Hamas war, and you get the pandemonium that hit the Commons floor on Thursday, when Speaker Lindsay Hoyle allowed voting on a Labour motion calling for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza.
- The vote on the Labour motion interrupted debate over a Scottish National Party (SNP) motion for an “immediate ceasefire,” prompting SNP and Tory MPs to walk out of the chamber. While the Labour motion was met with shouts of “aye” from the crowd, the proposal did not result in a binding vote, meaning the Tory government does not have to adopt the Labour position. SNP lawmakers said their party was “treated with complete and utter contempt,” and Commons leader Penny Mordaunt said that Lindsay had “undermined the confidence” of the House.
Stocks Rise In The Land Of The Rising Sun
- While the yen has struggled quite a bit in recent years, the Japanese stock market reached a new peak on Thursday, breaking a record set 34 years ago. Yesterday, the Nikkei 225 (an index that measures the overall Japanese stock market) rose 2.1% to 39,098 JPY, breaking its previous high of 38,915.87 yen. Japanese stocks have seen a slow resurgence over the past 10 years following two decades of decline, and 2024 has been especially good to the country’s stock market so far – the Nikkei has risen 17% since the start of January.
- There are a couple of reasons why Japanese stocks have seen a recent spike in growth. First, the country has begun giving stockholders more rights, meaning investors can push companies to make changes that favor increasing stock values. Japan is also seeing rising inflation, which investors see as a healthy sign for the country’s economy. Finally, China’s stock market is currently struggling, making investment in Japan a more enticing prospect for international investors. However, it’s not clear that the good times will last – Japan’s economy unexpectedly shrank in the fourth quarter of 2023, pushing the country into a recession and dropping it down to the world’s fourth-largest economy.
Additional World News
- Alexei Navalny’s mother says she has seen the Russian opposition activist’s body (NBC)
- Container ship knocks out section of China bridge, killing 2 (NBC)
- The Taliban carry out a double public execution at a stadium in Afghanistan (ABC)
- US will support Taiwan regardless of election results, Rep. Gallagher says on visit to island (CNN)
- UK joins US in backing Rutte to lead NATO (Politico)
- X takes down accounts that media say are linked to Indian farmer protests (NBC)
Middle East News
- US intelligence casts doubt on Israeli claims of UNRWA-Hamas links, report says (Guardian)
- War and Illness Could Kill 85,000 Gazans in 6 Months (NYT, $)
- Israeli Eurovision song under ‘scrutiny’ for alleged Hamas attack reference (Guardian)
Barbers Hill Sounds Like A Barber’s Hell
- Darryl George, a junior at Barbers Hill High School in Texas, has been in in-school suspension or at an off-site disciplinary program since August after school officials determined his locs violated a district dress code regulating the length of boys’ hair. George argued that the school’s punishment violates the state’s newly implemented CROWN Act, which prohibits race-based hair discrimination at work or school.
- According to the student handbook, male students’ hair cannot extend past the eyebrows or earlobes. The George family’s attorney argued that protective hairstyles often require length, and that under Barbers Hill’s policy, it would be impossible for students to wear protective styles. State District Judge Chap Cain III determined yesterday afternoon that the district’s policy does not violate the CROWN Act, a decision that earned shocked responses from those gathered in the courtroom.
Will This Tech Make Hollywood Bleed?
- Late last week, OpenAI announced Sora, a new AI that can generate videos based on a prompt. The technology, though not entirely flawless, is rather impressive, and many were quick to wonder if Sora’s creation would mark the end of Hollywood. While people are, understandably, concerned about the technology’s capabilities, those who work in Hollywood seem content that they’re safe for now.
- “A lot of people are saying Hollywood’s over, Hollywood’s done,” said Reid Southen, a film concept artist and illustrator. “I don’t really think that’s the case for a lot of reasons. Production pipelines are too complicated. And these videos are a little too sloppy with too many issues, especially with temporal consistency and artifacts like extra limbs and things like that.”
- Of course, technology gets better, and it’s not hard to imagine that Sora will improve within years (or even months). “It’s become clear that we live in a culture of good enough, in a lot of ways, and so if there’s a dollar to be shaved off, people and companies are going to jump on it,” Southen added.
Additional USA Reads
- Oklahoma nonbinary student’s death after in-school fight ‘not a result of trauma,’ police say (ABC)
- Arizona prosecutor refuses to extradite SoHo hotel murder suspect to New York (Guardian)
- Families of Gabby Petito, Brian Laundrie reach settlement in emotional distress suit (USA Today)
- Yakuza boss charged with conspiring to traffic nuclear materials (ABC)
- Lara Trump suggests GOP voters would support the RNC paying Trump’s legal bills (NBC)
- About 42% of US adults know someone who died by overdose, new survey finds (CNN)
What’s Black And White And Loaned Out All Over?
- Panda diplomacy is back on the menu, folks. Last year, China’s panda loan agreements with multiple U.S. zoos expired without renewal, leaving Americans worried that they wouldn’t be able to see the at-risk animals in real life. On Thursday, Beijing announced that pandas would be returning to America (and Spain).
- The China Wildlife Conservation Association has apparently reached agreements with the San Diego Zoo and the Madrid Zoo to provide them each with a pair of pandas, and is reportedly in talks with the National Zoo in Washington and the Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna to get them some of the bears as well.
- China is the endemic home of panda bears, and Beijing loans out pairs of the bears for about $1 million per year. The money is then spent on conservation research, which will hopefully allow the notoriously lazy (and kind of dumb, really) bears to repopulate China’s bamboo forests. So far, Chinese officials say that conservation efforts have helped save pandas from remaining an endangered species – there are now approximately 1,800 bears in the wild and 600 in captivity, according to estimates.
Additional Reads
- Massive fireball lights up night sky across large swath of U.S. (CBS)
- Bidens’ dog, Commander, bit Secret Service personnel in at least 24 incidents, records show (CNN)
- Former world’s oldest dog stripped of title (BBC)
- Google apologizes for ‘missing the mark’ after Gemini generated racially diverse Nazis (The Verge)
- First there were AI chatbots. Now AI assistants can order Ubers and book vacations (NPR)
- Federal judge affirms MyPillow’s Mike Lindell must pay $5M in election data dispute (AP)
- Neanderthal glue points to complex thinking (CNN)