Mar. 26, 2024 ❧ Elon Musk loses in court, the U.N. demands a ceasefire, and a Baltimore bridge is falling down
Plus updates on Julian Assange, pistol shrimp, and the latest from Moldova
It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this news.
BIG STORY
U.N. ORDERS RAMADAN CEASEFIRE
On Monday, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution that should have come into effect a long time ago. By a 14-0 vote, the international body demanded “an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire” in Gaza, along with “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.” (The full text of the order, known officially as Resolution 2728, is available here.)
Importantly, the resolution does not call for a “permanent” ceasefire. In its press release, the United Nations notes that representatives of Russia objected to this, saying that they “learned of a proposal to replace the word ‘permanent’ — in relation to a ceasefire in operative paragraph 1 — with weaker wording approximately an hour before today’s meeting.” This last-minute maneuvering has resulted in a compromised resolution, only marginally better than the “humanitarian pause” that was ordered back in November, since there’s nothing to prevent Israel from simply resuming its brutal assault on Gaza after Ramadan ends. It wouldn’t even be a very long reprieve, as we’re already more than halfway through the Islamic holy month, which began on March 10 and ends on April 9.
In previous months, the United States has used its status as a permanent member of the Security Council to veto every proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza, overriding the opinion of the rest of the world on three separate occasions. (Future historians will look on each of those vetoes as an unforgivable crime.) This time, the United States merely abstained from voting, allowing Resolution 2728 to pass. It’s a notable change in U.S. policy, and a sign that the efforts of pro-Palestinian protestors around the U.S.—who have hounded Biden at public events and organized a surprisingly effective “uncommitted” protest vote against him—may finally be breaking through. Notably, though, the U.S. has not said that it would actually enforce a ceasefire or stop providing weapons to Israel if it violates one, which robs the measure of a lot of its impact. Even worse, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller called Resolution 2728 a “non-binding resolution” soon after its passage, which is both factually untrue and undermines the authority of the United Nations as a whole.
Predictably, Israel itself has reacted badly. After learning of the United States’ abstention, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu abruptly canceled a delegation to Washington D.C., which had been scheduled for both nations to discuss Israel’s planned ground invasion of the city of Rafah. The U.S. officially opposes this plan, with Vice President Kamala Harris saying it would be a “huge mistake,” but Netanyahu has resisted all calls for restraint, saying that “we would do this with U.S. support but if necessary – we will do it alone.” This level of arrogance begs the question: if Israel continues to defy the United Nations’ call for a ceasefire and launches an assault on Rafah, when will the international community stop tolerating its brazen war crimes and start to treat it as a rogue state?
CROOKS vs. SICKOS (or, “What’s going on with our politicians?”)
❧ Representative Andy Kim is working to eliminate the “party line” in New Jersey politics. Kim, a Democrat, is currently running to replace the scandal-plagued Senator Bob Menendez, who’s been indicted for accepting bribes from Middle Eastern countries. Until recently, though, Kim was operating at a disadvantage thanks to New Jersey’s strange and archaic “party line” system. Under this system, influential “bosses” in the Democratic and Republican party branches of each county decide which candidate they prefer before primary elections are held, and those candidates are grouped together in a more prominent spot on the New Jersey ballot (literally, on the party’s line.) For Politico, Matt Friedman describes how it works:
Some county parties have a secret ballot in which dozens or hundreds of county committee candidates vote to award the line. In others, the decision is effectively driven by the county chair. Those out of favor with the party are elsewhere on the ballot, sometimes pushed into an obscure place that’s come to be known as “ballot Siberia.”
This is corruption and backroom dealing of the most blatant kind. “Party boss” is not a legitimate role in a democracy, and it makes sense how a state informally run by them would produce a guy like Senator Menendez. In the current race for Senator, the “county line” usually fell to Tammy Murphy, the First Lady of New Jersey, whose marital connection to Governor Phil Murphy gave her the insider’s advantage. But Kim was undeterred, and filed a lawsuit in late February to challenge the constitutionality of the whole “party line” concept. In the wake of the Menendez scandal, positioning himself as an anti-corruption reformer has turned out to be a winning move—and on Sunday, Murphy dropped out. Kim himself is a fairly run-of-the-mill Democrat, and certainly not a socialist. But if he can successfully uproot the party machine politics that have dominated New Jersey for decades, he’ll be doing everyone there a service.
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❧ As Cuba’s economy reels and protesters take to the streets, Donald Trump has signaled that he might attempt regime change in Cuba were he to return to power. In a speech delivered over Truth Social, the former president commended “the brave people of Cuba, who are standing up against the vile communist regime,” adding “It’s going to be changed.” It’s a bit unclear whether Trump was promising a general change in conditions for the people of Cuba, or if he’s promising to launch another Bay of Pigs. But given that he has also indicated a desire to invade Venezuela, it sure seems possible that this is his goal.
Even if he is merely promising to improve Cuba’s economic situation, which is indeed in its worst shape since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it’s hard to imagine that Trump’s approach to doing so would improve things for the country. When Trump was president, the U.S. introduced punishing new sanctions that crippled the Cuban economy and baselessly slapped it on the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, which makes it impossible for the nation to receive international loans. Cuba has already been under a trade embargo for more than 60 years that has isolated the nation from the rest of the globe and drawn regular condemnation from basically every nation in the United Nations save for the US and Israel (shock of all shocks!). Despite pledging to re-normalize relations with Cuba, as Obama began to do, under President Biden, the embargo and many Trump-era sanctions, including the terrorism designation remain.
AROUND THE STATES
❧ The Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore suddenly collapsed early Tuesday morning after being hit by a passing cargo ship bound from Singapore. According to Baltimore’s fire chief, per The New York Times, rescue workers are searching for anywhere from seven to 20 people. Two have been pulled from the frigid water, with one reportedly in critical condition.
The Key Bridge, named after “Star Spangled Banner” composer Francis Scott Key, was constructed in 1977. Ian Firth, a British architect, told the BBC “When a bridge is struck by a very large vessel like that, it’s not surprising that it has some problems…The ship has obviously struck the support of the bridge. Not surprisingly, the bridge collapses because the support is a relatively flimsy structure.” According to Governor Wes Moore, the bridge was “fully up to code” prior to Tuesday.
A disturbing report released last year by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association found that at least one in three bridges in America need repair or replacement. At the current rate of reconstruction, Dr. Alison Premo Black, the association's chief economist said, it would take 75 years for the US to make the proper repairs and more than $319 billion.
❧ Elon Musk just had a very bad day in court. Back in August, Musk sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit group that tracks the spread of hateful speech and ideologies on the internet. In the suit, his lawyers blasted the center’s reporting on Twitter, accusing it of running “a scare campaign to drive away advertisers.” On Monday, District Judge Charles Breyer of California dismissed the case as meritless, delivering a 52-page order that CNN describes as an “excoriating rebuke” to Musk:
Sometimes it is unclear what is driving a litigation, and only by reading between the lines of a complaint can one attempt to surmise a plaintiff’s true purpose. Other times, a complaint is so unabashedly and vociferously about one thing that there can be no mistaking that purpose. This case represents the latter circumstance. This case is about punishing the Defendants for their speech.
Elaborating, Judge Breyer noted that Musk and X Corp were careful not to accuse the CCDH of defamation—which requires a high standard of proof—but still wanted to impose “punishing damages,” showing a desire to “have it both ways.” He also found that the group’s reporting on Musk and Twitter “unquestionably constitutes an act ‘in furtherance of’ CCDH’s free speech rights,” as does “gathering the data used in its publications” from Twitter itself. Breyer’s order dismissing the case doesn’t include a factual judgment on whether Twitter really has more hateful content since Musk took over, but a quick look at the CCDH’s own reporting seems pretty convincing. In one September 2023 experiment, researchers at the Center reported 300 tweets containing “antisemitism, anti-Black racism, neo-Nazism, white supremacy and/or other racism,” only to find that roughly 86 percent were still online a week after being reported. Now, we have a judge’s order saying that it’s constitutionally protected to do that kind of research—which is bad news for Elon, but good for everyone else trying to use the internet.
❧ Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed a new batch of terrible laws. By now, DeSantis signing vile new legislation is hardly a surprise, but he’s really outdone himself this time. Among other bills on his desk, the Governor just approved HB 49, which rolls back restrictions on child labor in Florida. Under the new law, 16 and 17-year-olds can work more than 30 hours a week if their parents sign a waiver, a change labor activists say “will leave children vulnerable to exploitation by bad corporations who only have profits in their interests.” DeSantis has also signed HB 1365, which bans homeless people from sleeping in public spaces—an absurdly cruel measure that will effectively imprison anyone who can’t afford housing in government-designated areas, on pain of arrest if they try to sleep anywhere else. And most recently he’s signed HB 3, which bans anyone under the age of 14 from holding a social media account and requires “parental consent” for 14 and 15-year-olds. As Emma Camp points out in Reason, the social-media law is almost certainly unconstitutional, since it would restrict teenagers’ right to speak on certain platforms. Similar laws have already been struck down in Arkansas and Texas on First Amendment grounds. Constitutional or not, though, all of these laws are atrocious ideas. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that DeSantis is now in his second term, and isn’t eligible for another consecutive one; once January 2027 rolls around, the Florida constitution requires him to leave office. In the meantime, every local and regional election in the Sunshine State carries enormous importance. The more Florida Republicans can be kicked out of office this November, the less of a support base DeSantis will have to carry out his unhinged plans.
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❧ A new CDC report shows that despite ticking back upwards after drop during the pandemic, America’s life expectancy is still lower than it has been in 20 years. A baby born in 2022 would be expected to live to 77.5, up 1.1 years from 2021. It’s an improvement, to be sure, but one that feels hollow given that other wealthy nations have recovered from the pandemic much more substantially than the U.S., which already lagged behind pre-COVID. Some worrying trends, like rising deaths from opioids, continued.
Perhaps most frightening is that after two decades of steady decrease, deaths among children are suddenly spiking while death rates decline for people in other age cohorts. Research has pointed to suicide, drug overdoses, and car accidents as leading causes for adolescents. But this does not explain the large spike for younger children. A number of culprits seem possible, from an increase in firearm deaths to the more than twofold increase in child poverty after the pandemic era Child Tax Credit increase expired in 2021. But whatever the cause, we should expect more in the wealthiest country in the world.
❧ As water levels rise in Washington, D.C.’s Tidal Basin, just outside the Jefferson Memorial, nearly of its iconic cherry trees will have to be cut in order to repair its failing sea wall. Among the casualties will be the beloved “Stumpy,” a scrawny, withered, hollow tree that has miraculously managed to fill its single long branch with pink blossoms each year despite being deluged each year by the brackish waters of the Basin. “All of those trees that suffered the same inundation of water died, and were removed several years ago,” National Park Service spokesman Mike Litterst said.
Discovered in 2020, Stumpy has become a social media phenomenon. Upon the announcement that he would be cut down after this spring, fans left everything from flowers to full bottles of Maker’s Mark Whiskey in his trunk. He has become a sort of mascot for the people of Washington, perhaps best exemplified by this literal mascot created for the Cherry Blossom Credit Union’s 5K:
And while Stumpy may serve as a source of inspiration for many, his battle against the rising tides is a harrowing reminder of climate change. Though the area around the Basin has sunk more than five feet over the last century, the water in the Basin itself has also risen more than a foot as tides worldwide have done the same at an unprecedented rate. Stumpy’s removal will be necessary for a new seawall to be built that can withstand the next hundred years of predicted sea level rise.
We’ve known for a while, that dozens of islands around the world are slated to become submerged within our lifetimes if current sea level trends continue, but that has not spurred legislators to take anything resembling decisive action to halt the climate crisis. We can only hope that the annihilation of Stumpy and his brethren in their very own backyard will shock them out of their stupor.
AROUND THE WORLD
❧ Julian Assange has been given a temporary break in his extradition case. In a decision on the 26th, the High Court of Justice in London ruled that Assange could not be immediately extradited to the United States until U.S. officials give a series of “assurances”—including a stipulation that the journalist would not face the death penalty. As CNN reports, Assange would be granted a chance to appeal his extradition if the U.S. fails to make these assurances before the May 20 deadline. (In the past, U.S. officials have refused to provide a full guarantee against the death penalty in Assange’s case.) The High Court’s ruling is definitely a positive development, but it’s nowhere near enough. In recent months, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has called for Assange—who’s an Australian citizen—to simply be released and “brought home.” New evidence has also come out about the CIA’s plans to assassinate Assange, which were seriously discussed under the Trump administration—a serious international crime that should cast doubt on anything the U.S. government says in this case. And in the first place, the supposed crime the Wikileaks founder is imprisoned (without trial) for is simply exposing the crimes of the United States military, like in the notorious “Collateral Murder” video that shows a U.S. helicopter gunning down unarmed civilians in Iraq. If the United States is successful in prosecuting him for those actions, it’ll seriously endanger the safety of journalists around the world who speak the truth about war. That mustn’t be allowed to happen. Assange shouldn’t just be getting a stay of execution, although that’s welcome. In a just world, he’d be getting a formal apology and a Pulitzer.
❧ In Moldova, a Russian diplomat has been expelled over the increasingly contentious issue of Transnistria. Like Catalonia in Spain or Kashmir in India, Transnistria is a small separatist region of Moldova which has been agitating for its independence for decades. The issue first arose during the breakup of the USSR in the early 1990s, when Moldova was busy becoming an independent republic—and Transnistria, too, wanted national sovereignty of its own. As Al Jazeera puts it, the region “functions akin to a separate state” today, complete with its own President (Vadim Krasnoselsky) and its own flag (emblazoned with a prominent hammer-and-sickle.)
Despite this semi-autonomous status, no country—including Russia—officially recognizes Transnistria as an independent state. At least, not so far. That almost changed in 2006, when 92 percent of Transnistria’s population voted to declare independence and be integrated with Russia—something Russia declined to act on. Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the issue has resurfaced with new urgency. This February, officials from Transnistria made a formal request for Russia to “protect Transnistria in the face of increasing pressure” from Moldova, which it accuses of “violating human rights and freedoms in Transnistria.” Among other things, this was a reference to Moldova’s ongoing attempt to join the European Union, taking Transnistria along with it.
Transnistria has largely been excluded from the decision-making process, since Moldovan President Maia Sandu has announced there will be no polling stations for the upcoming referendum on EU membership in Transnistria itself (although Transnistrians can vote by going to a station in Moldova proper.) More recently, Transnistria participated in a completely different vote, getting six polling stations for the Russian Presidential election (where Vladimir Putin won by a landslide.) Defending the move, Russian ambassador Oleg Vatsnetsov said this was simply a way for Russian citizens who live in Moldova to vote—but Moldova didn’t see it that way, and has expelled an unnamed member of Vatsnetsov’s staff for their role in organizing the Russian polls.
Going forward, it seems like the Transnistria issue will continue to cause headaches for everyone involved. Still, there is an important principle to be observed here. If a majority of the people living there really do want Transnistria to be an independent nation allied with Russia, or even annexed by it, at some point their self-determination has to be respected. Like everyone else, the Transnistrians have a right to decide their own path—even if they choose one that seems like a bad idea from an outside perspective.
⚜ LONG READ: This weekend, a shooter affiliated with ISIS-K killed 139 at a Moscow concert hall, the deadliest act of mass murder in Russia since 2004. In The Guardian, Andrei Soldatov reviews how Russian leader Vladimir Putin has responded to terror attacks in the past with government repression that has failed to keep people safe:
When Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, he made one thing clear immediately: he would be different from his predecessors – Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union – in his response to terrorism.
That difference would be manifested in his declared determination never to wilt under pressure. Like many officers trained in the KGB and traumatised by the collapse of the Soviet Union, Putin was convinced the Russian state was so fragile that it could collapse at any moment if its enemies were given an inch. To Putin and his KGB friends, the famous phone call made in 1995 by Yeltsin’s prime minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin, to a terrorist leader to save the lives of hostages in a hospital in Budyonnovsk, was the worst possible way of dealing with terrorists.
In the years that have followed, he has responded to every new terrorist attack with more restrictions that have made it impossible to bring any public pressure to bear on him and his agencies during or after a terror attack.
Strict information censorship around terrorist attacks was introduced. I was investigated by the FSB (the federal security services) for the first time for publishing a critical account of an FSB operation in October 2002, when more than a thousand people were taken hostage in a Moscow theatre. The special operation ended with a horrible loss of more than 130 hostages, most killed by a gas used by the FSB.
Any criticism of the Russian security services’ response was ruled out and the idea of relying on the Duma to find the truth was completely compromised after its attempt to investigate the Beslan school hostage-taking and siege in 2004.
By 2006, Putin’s obsession about not giving an inch to his enemies had been formalised into a major piece of Russian anti-terror legislation “on countering terrorism”, which replaced Yeltsin’s 1998 law. It had a striking definition of terrorism: “Terrorism is an ideology of violence and practice of influence on decision-making by bodies of the government, institutions of local government, or international organisations, by means of intimidation of the population and (or) other forms of illegal violent actions.”
The FSB is also rather competent at investigating attacks after the event…But these are not the qualities that help to prevent attacks happening, and time and again, the FSB has failed as an intelligence collection agency because other things are needed: information-sharing capabilities between agencies, both domestic and foreign, and trust between those agencies and within those agencies. They also need to be trusted by the population, and they need to be ready to say very uncomfortable things to the generals – even to the country’s leader.
SHRIMP FACT OF THE WEEK
One of the loudest animals on earth is a three-inch shrimp!
The Tiger Pistol Shrimp, native to the Mediterranean, is capable of producing a sound louder than a gunshot. When the shrimp snaps its claws, it shoots a water bubble so fast and powerful that it can instantly kill any fish within two meters. The center of this bubble is hotter than the sun and produces a visible ray of light.
One species of pistol shrimp, Synalpheus pinkfloydi, has recorded snaps as loud as 210 db, which makes it the second loudest animal in the world, behind only the sperm whale. Fittingly, the species is named after the band Pink Floyd, who once played a concert so loud that it was rumored to have killed fish in a nearby pond. Pistol shrimp’s snaps are so powerful that nuclear engineers have even studied their snaps to develop new methods of nuclear fusion.
At Stanford University, Dr. Ronjon Nag (no relation to the owners of Ron Jon Surf Shop) has written an entire paper about “The Energy Physics of the Pistol Shrimp,” in which he spells out how the little crustaceans do their thing:
“With δP defined as the maximum pressure excursion, and B is the Bulk Modulus of water, and vs is the speed of sound in water, the energy density of the wave at a distance r = 4 cm from the shrimp is 1 2 (δp)2 B = (7.94 × 104 Pa)2 2 × 2.35 × 109 Pa = 1.35 Pa = 1.35 joules/m3.”
Well, that’s cleared THAT up.
Writing and research by Stephen Prager and Alex Skopic. Editing and additional material by Nathan J. Robinson and Lily Sánchez. Header graphic by Cali Traina Blume. Fact-checking by Justin Ward. This news briefing is a product of Current Affairs Magazine. Subscribe to our gorgeous and informative print edition here, and our delightful podcast here.
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