Even though Gulf states are not siding with Israel against Iran, they are not lining up against Israel either. The UAE has maintained its diplomatic and commercial ties with Israel, to the point of keeping regular flights to Tel Aviv from Dubai and Abu Dhabi—even in the early days of the war, when the planes were nearly empty. (“Business as usual,” one Israeli businessman put it to me in January.) When I spoke off the record with an Emirati official, his talking points could have come from a hawkish Israeli. Bahrain has seen anti-Israeli protests, and its toothless parliament passed a symbolic resolution about severing ties with Israel, but its regime has ignored all that. The Saudis are still in a hurry to do their own normalization deal with Israel before the November election. The Palestinian cause is back on the agenda, at a cost of tens of thousands of dead, but it hardly seems to have advanced.

The region finds itself in an interregnum. Forget talk of unipolarity or multipolarity: the Middle East is nonpolar. No one is in charge. The United States is an uninterested, ineffective hegemon, and its great-power rivals even more so. Fragile Gulf states cannot fill the void; Israel cannot, either; and Iran can only play spoiler and troublemaker. Everyone else is a spectator beset by economic problems and crises of legitimacy. That was the reality even before October 7. The war has merely swept away illusions.

Read it all.

“Even when the United States is a more active power in the Middle East, it is a feckless one, playing whack-a-mole with Iranian proxies and pleading with a recalcitrant Israeli government,” writes @glcarlstrom. https://t.co/g9NFD6WOBs

— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) March 6, 2024

An urgent care chain in Ohio may be forced to stop paying rent and other bills to cover salaries. In Florida, a cancer center is racing to find money for chemotherapy drugs to avoid delaying critical treatments for its patients. And in Pennsylvania, a primary care doctor is slashing expenses and pooling all of her cash — including her personal bank stash — in the hopes of staying afloat for the next two months.

These are just a few examples of the severe cash squeeze facing medical care providers — from large hospital networks to the smallest of clinics — in the aftermath of a cyberattack two weeks ago that paralyzed the largest U.S. billing and payment system in the country. The attack forced the shutdown of parts of the electronic system operated by Change Healthcare, a sizable unit of UnitedHealth Group, leaving hundreds, if not thousands, of providers without the ability to obtain insurance approval for services ranging from a drug prescription to a mastectomy — or to be paid for those services.

In recent days, the chaotic nature of this sprawling breakdown in daily, often invisible transactions led top lawmakers, powerful hospital industry executives and patient groups to pressure the U.S. government for relief. On Tuesday, the Health and Human Services Department announced that it would take steps to try to alleviate the financial pressures on some of those affected: Hospitals and doctors who receive Medicare reimbursements would mainly benefit from the new measures.

Read it all.

The hacking shut down the nation’s biggest health care payment system, causing financial chaos that affected a broad spectrum ranging from large hospitals to single-doctor practices. https://t.co/f5JZcFToFy

— NYT Science (@NYTScience) March 6, 2024

In 2020, Virginia Martin lived two and a half miles from her office. Today, the distance between her work and home is 156.

Ms. Martin, 37, used to live in Durham, N.C., and drove about 10 minutes to her job as a librarian at Duke. After the onset of remote work, Ms. Martin got her boss’s blessing to return to her hometown, Richmond, Va., in March 2022, so she could raise her two young children with help from family.

As an ’80s-born “child of AIM,” Ms. Martin said of AOL instant messaging, it hadn’t been hard for her to maintain co-worker friendships online. She drives back to the office several times a year for events, most recently for the December holiday party.

Ms. Martin is part of today’s growing ZIP code shift: She is one of the millions of Americans who, thanks to remote and hybrid work, no longer lives close to where she works.

Read it all.

"The economists studied employee and employer address data from nearly 6,000 employers across the country and found that the average distance between people’s homes and workplaces rose to 27 miles in 2023 from 10 miles in 2019." (via @nytimes) https://t.co/MqgQkbgsij

— John Gramlich (@johngramlich) March 4, 2024

Betsy Sumner always knew she wanted to be a teacher. She came from a family of educators and took a class in high school for aspiring teachers. She began teaching straight out of college in 2009 and loved it.

But last summer she left her job teaching family and consumer sciences, the subject previously known as home economics, at a high school in northern Virginia. With four children of her own, juggling the demanding workload was no longer worth it for the pay.

“It’s almost like preparing for a circus or a theater performance—every day you have to show up and do a show,” she said of preparing for class each day. “It’s just not really sustainable.”

Public-school teachers like Sumner are still leaving the profession in higher numbers than before the pandemic, a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from 10 states show, though departures have fallen since their peak in 2022. The elevated rate is likely due to a combination of factors and adds one more challenge to schools battling learning loss and frequent student absences.

Read it all.

Teachers are still quitting the profession in high numbers, as schools continue to be shaken by political discord, learning loss and chronic absenteeism https://t.co/ckIsXq00Ij https://t.co/ckIsXq00Ij

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) March 4, 2024

Some 170 people including women and children have been “executed” in attacks on three villages in Burkina Faso, a public prosecutor has said.

Aly Benjamin Coulibaly appealed for witnesses to help find those who attacked Komsilga, Nordin and Soro.

Separately, the army warned of the increased risk of attacks by Islamists, “including attacks on urban centres”.

The country’s army seized power in 2022, but more than a third of Burkina Faso is controlled by insurgents.

Read it all.

Burkina Faso says 170 dead in village 'executions' https://t.co/Dl2MTc1Zuk

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) March 3, 2024

The debt load of the U.S. is growing at a quicker clip in recent months, increasing about $1 trillion nearly every 100 days.

The nation’s debt permanently crossed over to $34 trillion on Jan. 4, after briefly crossing the mark on Dec. 29, according to data from the U.S. Department of the Treasury. It reached $33 trillion on Sept. 15, 2023, and $32 trillion on June 15, 2023, hitting this accelerated pace. Before that, the $1 trillion move higher from $31 trillion took about eight months.

U.S. debt, which is the amount of money the federal government borrows to cover operating expenses, now stands at nearly $34.4 trillion, as of Wednesday. Bank of America investment strategist Michael Hartnett believes the 100-day pattern will remain intact with the move from $34 trillion to $35 trillion.

Read it all.

US national debt is rising at a rate of $1 trillion every 100 days. That is long-term unsustainable. https://t.co/7krjwWFfqL

— Anders Corr, Ph.D. (@anderscorr) March 2, 2024

In a statement, the Roman Catholic lead bishop for life issues, the Rt Revd John Sherrington, an auxiliary bishop in the archdiocese of Westminster, welcomed the committee’s decision “not to recommend the legalisation of assisted suicide”.

He continued: “As highlighted in the Committee’s report, experts have noted that there have been major problems in safeguarding the vulnerable and those without full mental capacity when assisted suicide and/or euthanasia has been introduced in other jurisdictions.

“Recognising the distress and suffering of those who are sick and vulnerable, I welcome the Committee’s recommendation that the accessibility and provision of palliative and end of life care needs to be improved — something the Catholic Church has consistently called for.”

Read it all (registration or subscription).

The Bishop of London @bishopSarahM has welcomed a report by MPs which calls for palliative and end-of-life care to be made more widely available https://t.co/5liE9iClCh

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 1, 2024

The world’s carbon dioxide emissions from energy rose yet again to a new high in 2023 despite fossil fuel use falling in the advanced economies of the EU and US, the latest International Energy Agency report shows.

Emissions reached a record 37.4bn tonnes as droughts and rising energy demand pushed up fossil fuel use, a rise of 1.1 per cent, or 410mn tonnes, compared to the year before.

This runs counter to the need for emissions to be cut by almost 45 per cent by 2030 to limit long-term global warming to no more than 1.5C since the pre-industrial era. Already the rise in temperatures is at least 1.1C, and last year was the hottest on record.

Higher emissions from India and China helped offset reductions in the EU and the US, as the developing economies remained heavily reliant on coal to meet energy demand even as they also develop cleaner energy. 

Read it all (subscription).

Emissions reach record high despite growth in clean energy, IEA says https://t.co/Z4yLX1GjCA

— Financial Times (@FT) March 1, 2024

The figures for the persecution of Christians in Nigeria have reached unprecedented heights.

The organisation Open Doors reports 4,565 murders in 2023 alone, covering practically all of the 4,998 people who were killed worldwide for their faith in Christ last year. However, are “the absolute lowest of what could happen”, they said.

Now, the International Society for Liberties and Rule of Law (known as Intersociety) states that the number of Christians killed in Nigeria in 2023 exceeds 8,000.

“The combined forces of the government protected Islamic Jihadists and the country’s Security Forces are directly and vicariously accountable for hacking to death of no fewer than 8,222 defenseless Christians, from January 2023 to January 2024”, says the report of the entity based in Onitsha, Eastern Nigeria.

Read it all.

Nigeria: “There is an effort of the jihad and the Fulani to scare Christians out of their land and stop gospel preaching” https://t.co/iMhK1RKOIM

— വൈശാഖ് (@yshaq) March 1, 2024

The General Synod has renewed its call for a just peace in Ukraine, after a debate to mark the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion, which fell on Saturday.

The motion, which was carried almost unanimously on Tuesday at the end of a five-day meeting in Westminster, referred to the “ongoing suffering and terror” experienced by Ukrainians two years into the war, and called on churches and politicians to work for an end to the conflict and a restoration of the international order.

During the debate, the motion was amended to include a further call to UK politicians to “affirm their continued support for Ukraine until such time as a just and lasting peace is secured”.

First to speak was the Archbishop of Canterbury, recently returned from his second visit to Ukraine (News, 23 February). He had also spoken, directly but remotely, with Patriarch Kirill. “But I am not neutral on this,” he said. “Ukraine is paying for our security with blood.”

Read it all.

Ukraine is paying for our security in blood, Archbishop Welby tells Synod https://t.co/vz6s408Ovc

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 29, 2024

Ukrainian officials are concerned that Russian advances could gain significant momentum by the summer unless their allies can increase the supply of ammunition, according to a person familiar with their analysis.

Internal assessments of the situation on the battlefield from Kyiv are growing increasingly bleak as Ukrainian forces struggle to hold off Russian attacks while rationing the number of shells they can fire.

Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said Thursday that mistakes by frontline commanders had compounded the problems facing Ukraine’s defenses around Avdiivka, which was captured by Russian forces this month. Syrskyi said he’d sent in more troops and ammunition to bolster Ukrainian positions.

Read it all (registration).

Ukrainian officials say there is a risk of Russia breaking through its defenses by summer unless allies can supply more ammunition https://t.co/rw47Nhtngn

— Bloomberg Economics (@economics) February 29, 2024

After losing at the appellate level, state officials turned to the U.S. Supreme Court. They asked the justices to consider the dismissals and determine whether they amounted to religious discrimination.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court declined to get involved, but Justice Samuel Alito published a statement emphasizing the importance of the issues involved.

Whether jurors can be dismissed based on their religious beliefs about sexuality is a “very serious and important question,” he wrote, one that he anticipated when the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.

“In this case, the court below reasoned that a person who still holds traditional religious views on questions of sexual morality is presumptively unfit to serve on a jury in a case involving a party who is a lesbian. That holding exemplifies the danger that I anticipated in Obergefell v. Hodges, namely, that Americans who do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct will be ‘labeled as bigots and treated as such’ by the government,” Alito said.

Read it all.

The Supreme Court won’t yet consider whether potential jurors can be dismissed based on their religious beliefs. | By @kelsey_dallas https://t.co/8yVvoH8BE8

— Deseret News (@Deseret) February 28, 2024

So extensive is Moscow’s network of informants and agents that it is impossible to eradicate Russian interference, Danilov said. “Students, wives, tourists ― all of them are used by Russia to do their bidding abroad.”

The FSB, Russia’s security service, was also issuing contracts to European criminal gangs, a relationship that had been made easier by the advent of cryptocurrencies, he said.

“It was the modus operandi of the KGB, and it is the case again today where they are using a combination of European criminal gangs to do their work in conjunction with trained officers.

“There are criminals sitting in the Kremlin and they use criminals to do their work for them. The country is run on criminality.”

Read it all (subscription).

Russian spies have developed an artificial intelligence tool that Moscow is using to meddle in elections in Britain and the United States on a scale “exponentially greater” than ever before, Ukraine’s national security adviser has warned ⬇️https://t.co/sOHGAOpU7a

— The Times and The Sunday Times (@thetimes) February 27, 2024

Six days before Christmas, the US Department of Justice loudly announced a win in the ongoing fight against the scourge of ransomware: An FBI-led, international operation had targeted the notorious hacking group known as BlackCat or AlphV, releasing decryption keys to foil its ransom attempts against hundreds of victims and seizing the dark web sites it had used to threaten and extort them. “In disrupting the BlackCat ransomware group, the Justice Department has once again hacked the hackers,” deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco declared in a statement.

Two months and one week later, however, those hackers don’t appear particularly “disrupted.” For the last seven days and counting, BlackCat has held hostage the medical firm Change Healthcare, crippling its software in hospitals and pharmacies across the United States, leading to delays in drug prescriptions for an untold number of patients.

The ongoing outage at Change Healthcare, first reported to be a BlackCat attack by Reuters, represents a particularly grim incident in the ransomware epidemic not just due to its severity, its length, and the potential toll on victims’ health. Ransomware-tracking analysts say it also illustrates how even law enforcement’s wins against ransomware groups appear to be increasingly short-lived, as the hackers that law enforcement target in carefully coordinated busts simply rebuild and restart their attacks with impunity.

“Because we can’t arrest the core operators that are in Russia or in areas that are uncooperative with law enforcement, we can’t stop them,” says Allan Liska, a ransomware-focused researcher for cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.

Read it all.

Two months ago, the FBI “disrupted” the BlackCat ransomware group. They're already back—and their latest attack is causing delays at pharmacies across the US. https://t.co/iowdfRdtXY

— WIRED (@WIRED) February 28, 2024

Medicaid payments are “the lifeblood of our health centers and their ability to serve,” said Dr. Kyu Rhee, the president and chief executive of the National Association of Community Health Centers, which treat roughly one in 11 people in the United States and rely on Medicaid and federal grants to provide a financial cushion for the uncompensated care they give uninsured patients.

Since last spring, Medicaid enrollment has dropped by almost ten million, including around four million children, according to researchers at Georgetown University. States have removed people for a variety of reasons, including for changes in income and age. Some people have been dropped because they did not return paperwork. Others have lost coverage because of technical errors, including computer glitches.

The loss of reimbursements for millions of patients has contributed to an already difficult financial picture for facilities that treat the poor: Unless Congress reaches a funding agreement, nearly $6 billion for federally financed health clinics, which serve over 30 million people, most of them low-income, could lapse in early March.

Read it all.

“Jessica Tucker, a single mother, broke into tears after receiving a $90 bill for her 3-year-old son Raylan’s primary care visit and tetanus vaccine at Bethesda, pleading with her mother by phone for help paying it.” https://t.co/M3r48C3Voy

— Leah Libresco Sargeant (@LeahLibresco) February 26, 2024

Pharmacies warned of long waits for customers and U.S. military clinics worldwide have been affected after a cyberattack against one of the country’s largest prescription processors rolled into a third day of downtime.

Health industry experts said that a cyberattack against Change Healthcare, part of insurer UnitedHealth Group’s Optum business, could have severe and lasting consequences should outages continue past the weekend.

“It’s a mess, and I believe it’s our Colonial Pipeline moment in healthcare,” said Carter Groome, chief executive of healthcare-focused consulting firm First Health Advisory, referring to a 2021 cyberattack that forced the major fuel artery for the U.S. East Coast to shut down for six days, causing long lines at gas stations.

Change Healthcare was merged with Optum, a healthcare provider, in 2022 by UnitedHealth. Change Healthcare provides prescription processing services through Optum, which supplies technology services for more than 67,000 pharmacies and care to 129 million individual customers.

Read it all.

📰via @WSJ:
Pharmacies warned of long waits for customers and U.S. military clinics worldwide have been affected after a cyberattack against one of the country’s largest prescription processors rolled into a third day of downtime. https://t.co/vc337OVkmS

— FDD's Center on Cyber & Technology Innovation (@FDD_CCTI) February 26, 2024

Since we celebrated Presidents’ Day recently, I thought it might be interesting to reflect on the faith of the first six men who held that office.

Most of them were believers in Jesus and were not ashamed to say so. Several of these instances are not politically correct, but they are historically accurate.

In 1779, ten years before he became the first president under the Constitution, George Washington was asked by Delaware Indian chiefs for advice on the education of three of their sons.

Washington told them, “You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are.”

Read it all.

22 February 1732. George Washington was born in Westmoreland, Virginia, USA. He served as the 1st President of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Previously, he led Patriot forces to victory in the War for Independence and was a key figure in creating the US Constitution. pic.twitter.com/rLlKPa5a5f

— Prof. Frank McDonough (@FXMC1957) February 22, 2024

For decades, privacy experts have been wary of snooping from space. They feared satellites powerful enough to zoom in on individuals, capturing close-ups that might differentiate adults from children or suited sunbathers from those in a state of nature.

Now, quite suddenly, analysts say, a startup is building a new class of satellite whose cameras would, for the first time, do just that.

“We’re acutely aware of the privacy implications,” Topher Haddad, head of Albedo Space, the company making the new satellites, said in an interview. His company’s technology will image people but not be able to identify them, he said. Albedo, Mr. Haddad added, was nonetheless taking administrative steps to address a wide range of privacy concerns.

Anyone living in the modern world has grown familiar with diminishing privacy amid a surge security cameras, trackers built into smartphones, facial recognition systems, drones and other forms of digital monitoring. But what makes the overhead surveillance potentially scary, experts say, is its ability to invade areas once seen as intrinsically off limits.

Read it all.

For decades, privacy experts have been wary of snooping from space. They feared satellites powerful enough to zoom in on individuals, capturing close-ups. Now, analysts say, a startup is building a new class of satellite whose cameras would do just that. https://t.co/fDxPpUWTZZ

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 21, 2024

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it – It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?

In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim.

So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

Read it all.

Thomas Sully’s “The Passage of the Delaware” (1819) depicts a turning point of the Revolutionary War. #FourthofJuly pic.twitter.com/n5Xy9YNbTg

— Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (@mfaboston) July 3, 2016

Throughout its history, citizens of the United States have gathered to commemorate George Washington’s birthday in honor of his service to the nation. See how these celebrations have changed in the more than 280 years since Washington’s birth.

Check it all out.

George Washington, 1792 by Ceracchi in morning light contemplating this great country of ours. Happy 4th! #america pic.twitter.com/Z00nbcwUQf

— Gibbes Museum of Art (@theGibbesmuseum) July 2, 2016

I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection; that he would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government; to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the field; and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation.

I have the honor to be, with much esteem and respect, Sir, your Excellency’s most obedient and most humble servant.

–George Washington
Head-Quarters, Newburg,
8 June, 1783.

Read it all.

April 11, 1796, Washington writes artist Gilbert Stuart agreeing to sit for the famous Lansdowne Portrait. #OTD pic.twitter.com/kyHsVcPWNH

— Mount Vernon (@MountVernon) April 11, 2016

Washington went on to express his gratitude for the support of “my countrymen” and the “army in general.” This reference to his soldiers ignited feelings so intense, he had to grip the speech with both hands to keep it steady. He continued: “I consider it an indispensable duty to close this last solemn act of my official life by commending the interests of our dearest country to the protection of Almighty God and those who have the superintendence of them [Congress] to his holy keeping.”

For a long moment, Washington could not say another word. Tears streamed down his cheeks. The words touched a vein of religious faith in his inmost soul, born of battlefield experiences that had convinced him of the existence of a caring God who had protected him and his country again and again during the war. Without this faith he might never have been able to endure the frustrations and rage he had experienced in the previous eight months.

Washington then drew from his coat a parchment copy of his appointment as commander in chief. “Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theater of action and bidding farewell to this august body under whom I have long acted, I here offer my commission and take leave of all the employments of public life.” Stepping forward, he handed the document to Mifflin.

This was — is — the most important moment in American history.

The man who could have dispersed this feckless Congress and obtained for himself and his soldiers rewards worthy of their courage was renouncing absolute power. By this visible, incontrovertible act, Washington did more to affirm America’s government of the people than a thousand declarations by legislatures and treatises by philosophers.

Thomas Jefferson, author of the greatest of these declarations, witnessed this drama as a delegate from Virginia. Intuitively, he understood its historic dimension. “The moderation. . . . of a single character,” he later wrote, “probably prevented this revolution from being closed, as most others have been, by a subversion of that liberty it was intended to establish.”

Read it all (emphasis mine).

1/On December 23, 1783, George Washington addressed the Congress of the Confederation at the State House in Annapolis, Maryland, to resign his commission as commander-in-chief of the Continental army. Fresh off the victory of the Revolutionary War, Washington was… pic.twitter.com/7gj6uzRaHI

— Dave Troy (@davetroy) February 19, 2024

Every February, Americans take a day off of work to celebrate the presidents — the chief executives whose ideas, policies and foibles have helped to shape our history. So it’s only fitting that you take a moment to test your knowledge about these 44 prominent Americans with a 20-question quiz from “Presidential,” the Washington Post podcast that explores the presidents’ lives and legacies….

Who was the only president to be elected to more than two terms in office?

Theodore Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt

John Adams

John Quincy Adams….

Read it all.

Extremely large and awesome statue of George Washington kneeling – NJ pic.twitter.com/0vy2wKSeZO

— Sue M. LaShomb (@Lavendar77) February 19, 2024

By the article establishing the executive department it is made the duty of the President “to recommend to your consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” The circumstances under which I now meet you will acquit me from entering into that subject further than to refer to the great constitutional charter under which you are assembled, and which, in defining your powers, designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications I behold the surest pledges that as on one side no local prejudices or attachments, no separate views nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests, so, on another, that the foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world. I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my country can inspire, since there is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained; and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

Read it all.

Happy birthday (observed) George Washington! The park is open today. pic.twitter.com/YiAc4mP1H5

— IndependenceNPS 🇺🇸 (@INDEPENDENCENHP) February 19, 2024

Washington’s Birthday was celebrated on February 22nd until well into the 20th Century. However, in 1968 Congress passed the Monday Holiday Law to “provide uniform annual observances of certain legal public holidays on Mondays.” By creating more 3-day weekends, Congress hoped to “bring substantial benefits to both the spiritual and economic life of the Nation.”

One of the provisions of this act changed the observance of Washington’s Birthday from February 22nd to the third Monday in February. Ironically, this guaranteed that the holiday would never be celebrated on Washington’s actual birthday, as the third Monday in February cannot fall any later than February 21.

Contrary to popular belief, neither Congress nor the President has ever stipulated that the name of the holiday observed as Washington’s Birthday be changed to “President’s Day.”

Read it all.

Portrait of George Washington by Charles Wilson Peale, 1779. #July4 #Independanceday pic.twitter.com/v42bckYPOE

— Dr. Peter Paul Rubens (@PP_Rubens) July 4, 2017

The Archbishop of Canterbury, concluding his five-day visit to Ukraine on Friday, said: “We must long for peace — but not peace that increases the likelihood of more war.”

The UK, he said, “needs to show that we are committed as a nation to justice, to peace, to reconciliation on the basis of security, and respect for international law”, but he was “not capable of trotting out an answer that would probably be wrong” about exactly how this could be achieved.

Asked whether he thought the trip had been worth the time, expense, and risk, he said that he saw it as a “biblical and theological imperative to stand — as much as one is able — with those who are oppressed” and to say: “You’re not forgotten: we love you.”

Read it all.

Our reporter @PhrancisMartin joined the Archbishop of Canterbury @JustinWelby on his pastoral visit to Ukraine last week https://t.co/eE5vplLG7P

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 14, 2024

Why is the global economy so oblivious to the new world disorder? High interest rates have managed to bring down inflation from a peak of more than 10% across the rich world to about 6%. This not only raises households’ purchasing power; it also raises their spirits. Indeed, having hit an all-time low in 2022, rich-world consumer confidence has risen sharply. Higher borrowing costs have been muted by the fact that a lot of household and corporate debt is on fixed interest rates.

There is also a more intriguing possibility: after so many shocking global developments, the world no longer minds chaos as much as it once did. This is consistent with academic evidence, including a recent paper by two researchers at the Federal Reserve, which suggests that the hit to output from a spike in economic uncertainty fades after a few months.

Good economists remain vigilant. Higher interest rates may have a delayed impact on growth. Escalation in the Russia-Ukraine war or the Red Sea could provoke another round of shocks to energy supply, feeding into inflation. All bets are off if Xi Jinping decides to move on Taiwan. Yet on the flipside, falling inflation and a potential boost to productivity from generative artificial intelligence could prompt gdp to accelerate. Moreover, the global economy has already demonstrated its resilience. Polycrisis, what polycrisis?

Read it all (registration or subscription).

Why is the global economy so oblivious to the new world disorder? https://t.co/EWpg2dGdg4 ⬇️

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) February 13, 2024

The United States has informed Congress and its allies in Europe about Russian advances on a new, space-based nuclear weapon designed to threaten America’s extensive satellite network, according to current and former officials briefed on the matter.

Such a satellite-killing weapon, if deployed, could destroy civilian communications, surveillance from space and military command-and control operations by the United States and its allies. At the moment, the United States does not have the ability to counter such a weapon and defend its satellites, a former official said.

Officials said that the new intelligence, which they did not describe in detail, raised serious questions about whether Russia was preparing to abandon the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which bans all orbital nuclear weapons. But since Russia does not appear close to deploying the weapon, they said, it is not considered an urgent threat.

The intelligence was made public, in part, in a cryptic announcement on Wednesday by Representative Michael R. Turner, Republican of Ohio and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He called on the Biden administration to declassify the information without saying specifically what it was.

Read it all.

Such a satellite-killing weapon could destroy civilian communications, surveillance from space and military command-and control operations by the United States and its allies. At the moment, the USA does not have the ability to defend its satelliteshttps://t.co/y4MKjFV6Kk

— Lucia Alessi (@lucialessi) February 15, 2024

Russia, China and other U.S. adversaries are using the newest wave of artificial intelligence tools to improve their hacking abilities and find new targets for online espionage, according to a report Wednesday from Microsoft and its close business partner OpenAI.

While computer users of all stripes have been experimenting with large language models to help with programming tasks, translate phishing emails and assemble attack plans, the new report is the first to associate top-tier government hacking teams with specific uses of LLM. It’s also the first report on countermeasures and comes amid a continuing debate about the risks of the rapidly developing technology and efforts by many countries to put some limits on its use.

The document attributes various uses of AI to two Chinese government-affiliated hacking groups and to one group from each of Russia, Iran and North Korea, comprising the four countries of foremost concern to Western cyber defenders.

Read it all.

"#Russia, #China & other U.S. adversaries .. using .. #ArtificialIntelligence tools to improve their #Hacking abilities & find new targets for online espionage, according to a report Wednesday from @Microsoft .. close business partner @OpenAI." @josephmenn https://t.co/V06CVI0Mvw

— Christina Ayiotis, Esq., CRM, CIPP/E (@christinayiotis) February 15, 2024

The number of farms in America is shrinking as growers get older and producing crops gets a lot more expensive.

The US had 1.9 million farms in 2022, a 6.9% drop from five years ago and the lowest since at least 1992, according to data from the US Department of Agriculture’s Census of Agriculture released on Tuesday. The total acreage used in farms dropped about 2.2%.

The survey, conducted every five years, shows an increasingly challenging outlook for food production in the US as the population grows. The high cost of land and equipment has raised the bar of entry into agriculture, making it more expensive for the next generation to produce crops.

Meanwhile, the average age of producers continued to climb, reaching 58.1 years in 2022.

Read it all.

The number of farms in America is shrinking as growers get older and producing crops gets a lot more expensive, according to the USDA’s Census of Agriculture https://t.co/DZgnTtvkdr

— Bloomberg (@business) February 13, 2024