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399 lines
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<meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes" name="viewport"/>
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<title>20 February, 2023</title>
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<title>Daily-Dose</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><style>*{overflow-x:hidden;}</style><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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<body>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A National Experiment in Refugee Resettlement</strong> - The Biden Administration’s Welcome Corps will allow Americans to sponsor newcomers to their home towns—and will test how exposure to refugees changes people’s lives. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/a-national-experiment-in-refugee-resettlement">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Is a Woman Ever Going to Win the White House?</strong> - Trump’s performative macho is scaring voters in both parties away from women candidates. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/is-a-woman-ever-going-to-win-the-white-house">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Bernie Sanders’s New Campaign: Taking On Big Pharma and Starbucks</strong> - As the new chair of a powerful Senate committee, the reënergized progressive leader is once again targeting the corporate plutocracy. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/bernie-sanderss-new-campaign-taking-on-big-pharma-and-starbucks">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Why Is Nikki Haley Running for President?</strong> - The announcement from Trump’s U.N. Ambassador that she is challenging her former boss in the Republican primary was met with some derision, but it would be a mistake to underestimate her. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/why-is-nikki-haley-running-for-president">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What’s Behind the Chinese Spy Balloon</strong> - President Xi Jinping has modernized and expanded his military, but the balloon incident may indicate the challenges he faces in consolidating its power. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/whats-behind-the-chinese-spy-balloon">link</a></p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><strong>A retro hobby for the end times</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="illustration of two tiny people standing on ladders putting tomatoes and salt into a huge glass jar." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/idvr6OuKyB57odsLtYDK0Mi1iQw=/0x318:4000x3318/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71994409/GettyImages_1214070656.0.jpg"/>
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Getty Images/iStockphoto
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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The delicious, divisive, and surprisingly political world of contemporary home canning.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9LwRfZ">
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Like a lot of Americans right now, Jennifer Gomes says she is doing whatever she can to spend less money on groceries. So on a recent Sunday, instead of heading to the store, she pulled some ham shoulder out of the freezer and some dried split peas off the pantry shelf and decided to can some soup.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VFtFEU">
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She boiled a batch on the stove in her Northern California kitchen, ladled it into clean jars, and then put the jars in her <a href="https://www.bhg.com/recipes/how-to/preserving-canning/pressure-canning-basics/">pressure canner</a>, a device with a locking lid similar to an Instant Pot. While they were processing (it takes about 75 minutes), she made a second batch to can. Eventually, she had eight pint jars of soup ready to eat, at a cost of only about $3 a jar — less than the price of a Big Mac.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YLjLZf">
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Gomes, 39, is a longtime canning expert who teaches food preservation classes and co-hosts a podcast called <a href="https://thedomesticwildflower.com/perfectly-preserved-podcast/"><em>Perfectly Preserved</em></a>. But her strategy for getting dinner on the table (and tomorrow’s dinner in the cupboard) is becoming an increasingly common one. A growing number of Americans have taken up home canning in recent years, in what’s become a trend, a hobby, a political movement, and a response to the various bleak and bewildering conditions of life in the early 21st century.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zhRp1l">
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Interest in canning started to spike in 2020 when a combination of <a href="https://slate.com/business/2020/04/yeast-shortage-supermarkets-coronavirus.html">supply chain disruptions</a>, extra time at home, and unrelenting anxiety got locked-down Americans into <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2020/5/19/21221008/how-to-bake-bread-pandemic-yeast-flour-baking-ken-forkish-claire-saffitz">DIY food</a>. Marisa McClellan, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Food-Jars-Preserving-Batches-Year-Round-ebook/dp/B007ZDDGS8"><em>Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round</em></a>, started noticing an upswing that summer, when the arrival of seasonal produce coincided with the waning of the early-pandemic <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/16/877479936/the-great-pandemic-bake-off-may-be-over">sourdough trend</a>. Google searches for<a href="https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=canning,ball%20jar"> “canning” and “Ball jar”</a> — by far the most popular vessel for home preserving — shot up in August 2020 to far above their pre-pandemic levels. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/voraciously/wp/2020/08/21/pandemic-canning-is-so-popular-stores-are-running-out-of-jars-and-other-supplies/">Sales of the All-American Pressure Cooker</a>, a popular pressure canner, skyrocketed as more consumers learned to preserve soups and stews at home.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NCmVwM">
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Now, long after lockdowns have ended, a combination of high inflation, extreme weather, and, maybe, a general sense of impending doom has been motivating Americans to try canning their own food. Sales of <a href="https://setp.uga.edu/"><em>So Easy to Preserve</em></a>, a cookbook first published by the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension <a href="https://setp.uga.edu/about.html">in 1983</a>, have spiked 175 percent since the pandemic began, according to a spokesperson for the National Center for Home Food Preservation.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BS6NAO">
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Meanwhile, content creators like <a href="https://www.instagram.com/gracewalkfarm/?hl=en">gracewalkfarm</a> and <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@fiveacrefarm?lang=en">fiveacrefarm</a> have amassed follower counts in the hundreds of thousands on Instagram and TikTok with how-to videos and photos of immaculate pantries full of jewel-toned Ball jars. Some of these accounts just focus on recipes; some situate canning as part of an additive-free, <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/tiktok-reallyverycrunchy-crunchy-mom-conspiracy">“crunchy”</a> lifestyle; and some are more overtly political, run by preppers and homesteaders who aspire to an off-grid life, or so-called <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/CanningRebels/">“rebel canners”</a> who believe food safety guidelines are just the government trying to control them.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JB5zxb">
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The resurgence in canning is, like everything in the post-2020 landscape, a little bit inflected with fear of the end times: of the next pandemic, the next superstorm, whatever disaster will lead to the breakdown of society as we know it. Some canners, however, insist that putting food in jars doesn’t have to be about stocking a doomsday bunker. “My perspective has always been that we can out of a sense of hope and not out of a sense of fear,” said McClellan. “I’m preserving food for another day because I expect to be around to enjoy it.”
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</p>
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<h3 id="dsLcra">
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This is just the latest canning renaissance
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="R8ChSs">
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Preserving food for another day is pretty much as old as food itself. Indigenous Americans had their own methods of processing and storing food, geared toward their particular traditions and the ecosystems in which they lived. Members of the Hoopa tribe in Northern California, for example, gathered acorns and dried them for six months, then ground them into a flour to make soup, said Meagen Baldy, the executive director of the Klamath Trinity Resource Conservation District and a member of the Hoopa tribe.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8cNqq9">
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Storing produce in a vessel for later consumption is, likewise, centuries old. “I have a 1770 recipe for how to preserve tomatoes in a crock,” said Leni Sorensen, a food historian featured on the Netflix series <a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81034518"><em>High on the Hog</em></a>. But canning as we know it today didn’t take off in the United States until the Civil War<strong> </strong>and in the years after, with food companies packaging vegetables like tomatoes and peas in tin cans. Campbell’s condensed tomato soup, for example, <a href="https://www.campbellsoupcompany.com/about-us/our-story/campbell-history/">made its debut</a> in 1897.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ny0Rqk">
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Home canning came later, in the 20th century, with the <a href="https://www.foodingredientfacts.org/apperttotheballbrothers/#:~:text=The%20Home%20Front,on%20the%20Farm%E2%80%9D%20in%201910.">invention of screw-on lids</a> that allowed home cooks to preserve food in glass jars. At first, Sorensen said, it was largely well-to-do farm women who canned in their own kitchens (or hired local women to do the canning for them); they were the ones who could afford the equipment required. Less well-off or working-class women might go to a <a href="https://www.nal.usda.gov/exhibits/ipd/canning/exhibits/show/equipment/item/41">community cannery</a> where they could work with neighbors to package their produce. These canneries could become important cultural and economic engines within rural communities; in Texas between the wars, for example, canning was a way for Black farmers in particular to protect their financial independence by eating homegrown food rather than more expensive, store-bought products. The canneries also “provided a new gathering place for functions such as picnics and festivals, further strengthening community identity,” historian Debra Ann Reid wrote in <a href="https://thekeep.eiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=localities">a 2000 paper</a>.
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/X2YDqjs0inQVgd_5q1uoyrcJHpE=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24434937/GettyImages_1366640015.jpg"/> <cite>Prairie View A&M University/Historically Black Colleges and Universities via Getty Images</cite>
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<figcaption>
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Women preparing pork products to be put into cans during the meat canning demonstration in this photo from Texas dated 1918.
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Rg06Hm42UGc7MzHRBSOlco8bpOs=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24435022/GettyImages_626938174.jpg"/> <cite>Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images</cite>
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<figcaption>
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This 1946 photo, from a campaign to encourage Americans to preserve their foods during World War II, features a home canner showing off her pantry stocked with preserved foods in glass jars.
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</figcaption>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4aVIDH">
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Community canneries <a href="https://modernfarmer.com/2014/10/one-last-wwii-era-community-canneries-hangs-rural-virginia/">began to close after World War II</a>, thanks to the rise of supermarkets and home freezers. Home canning, too, started to fall out of favor in the 1950s. Young women of means who had been through war and the Great Depression decided, “Fuck it, they didn’t want to do all that stuff. They wanted brand new electric stoves,” Sorensen said.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DsmqmU">
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Since then, canning has had several renaissances — <a href="https://www.nal.usda.gov/exhibits/ipd/canning/timeline">one in the 1970s</a> with the rise of counterculture and back-to-the-land movements, and one in 2008, after the arrival of the Great Recession. At that time, fears about the economy combined with an ascendant DIY movement and growing concern about BPA — a chemical found in some industrially produced can linings that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/plastics-to-avoid.html#link-2b2ce44f">may be linked</a> to health problems — to create “a perfect moment for a canning resurgence,” McClellan said.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XciPLx">
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That resurgence leveled out a bit when people started raising concerns about the sugar in canned foods, and when foodies got into <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/fashion/25Tea.html">fermentation</a> instead.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="n2YOtt">
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Then came Covid-19 lockdowns and bare grocery store shelves, and a whole new generation of people suddenly got very interested in making — and preserving — food at home. For Gomes, it was the first time in her adult life that there was “a sense of genuine food insecurity for the middle class.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fJ5q4Y">
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Storing food for the future may have felt novel to the middle-class Americans who were able to shelter in place while working from home and who found themselves with time on their hands. As they <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2020/5/19/21221008/how-to-bake-bread-pandemic-yeast-flour-baking-ken-forkish-claire-saffitz">fed their sourdough starters</a> and tended to their <a href="https://www.eater.com/2020/4/16/21224012/quarantine-trend-growing-scallions-vegetables-jars-water-kitchen-scraps">windowsill scallion gardens</a>, they also started buying canning supplies. <a href="https://www.bhg.com/recipes/how-to/preserving-canning/canning-supplies-shortage-coronavirus/">Sales for Newell Brands</a>, the company that makes Ball jars and other canning supplies, tripled between April and June 2020, and a shortage of jar lids led to skyrocketing prices. Newell eventually had to ramp up production to meet demand.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WCORkk">
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Today, the Covid lockdowns are over, but getting food remains fraught, even for people who technically have enough money to buy groceries. The accelerating march of weather disasters across the country routinely leads to <a href="https://www.wishtv.com/news/local-news/mad-dash-to-buy-groceries-leaves-some-shelves-empty-before-winter-storm/">bare grocery store shelves</a> as Americans stock up on bread and milk and Cheetos before the next episode of the climate apocalypse. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.vox.com/even-better/23465536/cooking-food-inflation-grocery-prices">inflation has wreaked havoc</a> on Americans’ grocery budgets, and while some food prices are <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/12/23551782/inflation-cpi-consumer-price-index-federal-reserve">finally dropping</a>, a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/1/17/23559013/egg-prices-bird-flu-inflation-avian-influenza">carton of eggs</a> still costs four times as much as it did before the pandemic began.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eyzgBj">
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Before Covid, a lot of people gravitated to Gomes’s website out of a sense of nostalgia, she said — a feeling that “I want to learn to do what my grandmother did.” Today, however, more people want to can for “the general sense of empowerment,” she said. The hope is that, by preserving foods at home, “I won’t have that feeling of when I was trying to go to the grocery store during Covid and there was nothing on the shelf.”
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<h3 id="p7R6g7">
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Canning is about being prepared. Not everyone agrees on what that means.
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZNRqNp">
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For some people, the desire to stock a pantry in case of emergencies becomes something bigger and more political: a rejection of anything that smacks of “the system,” whether that’s corporate food producers, government agencies, or mainstream scientific research. Self-described <a href="http://rootedmag.net/make/an-inside-look-at-home-canners-who-preserve-by-their-own-rules/">rebel canners</a>, for example, proudly go against food-safety guidelines, sometimes labeling them a form of government intrusion. They’ll can foods not considered to be safe to can, like milk or butter, or use practices that aren’t recommended, like reusing jar lids or canning food in <a href="http://rootedmag.net/make/an-inside-look-at-home-canners-who-preserve-by-their-own-rules/">an oven or dishwasher</a>.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HImztV">
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There’s a lot of overlap between rebel canners and preppers, who stock up on everything from toilet paper to guns in anticipation of the coming apocalypse. A big subset of canning influencers — whether they identify as rebel canners or not — cite a distrust of the government and the conventional food system as a reason why they can. Many also express skepticism around vaccines and conventional medicine. Rebel canners are often the same people “who didn’t want to be told to wear a mask, or didn’t want to be told to get a vaccine,” Gomes said.
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Home food preservation can become, for some in the canning world, an expression of radical self-sufficiency bordering on isolationism: They’re not going to rely on anyone else, be it the government, a grocery store, or a food scientist telling them what is or isn’t safe. It’s an ethos that encourages people to fill their basements with food in jars because the systems of society are not to be trusted. As Instagram user our_off_grid_life, a farmer and canner with more than 150,000 followers, puts it, “our ability to thrive in any situation is our responsibility alone!”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4PaKKv">
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Such attitudes trouble canners who don’t share the “rebel” ethos. “The food preservation conversation is resting more heavily on the prepper, right-wing fundamentalist crowd, which is unsettling for me,” McClellan said. “I think it’s something that should be more universal.”
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<figure class="e-image">
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<img alt="Boxes of Ball canning lids on a shelf." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2QYjhIQgzsgWf2wfm8RgcL8vKw8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24435032/GettyImages_1321621590.jpg"/> <cite>Liz Hafalia/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images</cite>
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<figcaption>
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|
Ball jars, the gold standard for canning, are produced by Newell Brands, which saw its sales triple between April and June 2020 and was forced to ramp up production as new canners started “putting up” amid worries about supply chain and food shortages.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EDXGwy">
|
|||
|
|
Canning content on social media, however, remains far from universal. The most popular content creators are typically white women, and the kind of work they showcase requires a certain level of economic freedom. “Who has the privilege and the time and the money to spend their whole day canning by choice?” asks Sara Petersen, author of the upcoming book <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/717406/momfluenced-by-sara-petersen/"><em>Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture</em></a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DWLQhf">
|
|||
|
|
It’s typically the same group of women who have always been celebrated for doing domestic tasks in America, even when they weren’t the ones doing most of the hard labor. A lot of today’s canning content recalls the “cult of domesticity” of the late 19th century, when “white, upper-class women were sort of ensconced in the home as the moral center” and “women of color and women from lower socioeconomic classes were the ones doing the canning and scrubbing the floors,” Petersen said.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Nwddc8">
|
|||
|
|
Online conversations about canning can also feel exclusionary for people of color because of a lack of understanding of food history among white participants. In 2020, some Black canners encountered dismissal or abuse in mainstream canning groups on Facebook “if they offered anything that was political or seemed to reflect on what was happening at the time, everything from George Floyd to Black Lives Matter,” Sorensen said. But for many Americans of color, it’s impossible to separate food from politics — you can’t talk about pound cake, for example, without calling to mind “all those cooks in the Civil Rights Movement who made cakes and sold them to support the civil rights workers,” Sorensen said. “All of it is part of this larger discussion.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1btWO2">
|
|||
|
|
In response to feeling ostracized in white-dominated groups, Black home cooks and preservers have created their own Facebook communities, including <a href="https://www.facebook.com/BlackGirlCan/">Black Girls Can</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/blackfolkslovecanningtoo/">Black Folks Love Canning Too</a>, Sorensen said.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RKQJfL">
|
|||
|
|
Canning is always going to be a little bit about self-reliance; it allows people to make food in their own homes that’s usually produced in a factory far away. But there’s also a more communal way to look at it. Sorensen tells the story of a canner whose community recently flooded, causing many of her neighbors to lose their houses. Because of her canning, “she had a whole pantry that she could share.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jZUoV4">
|
|||
|
|
For Sorensen, food preservation isn’t about hoarding or “zombie apocalypse prepping,” she said. It’s about having enough staples in your pantry that when there’s a storm, a pandemic, or another crisis, you can feed not just your own family but maybe your neighbors, too. It’s about making sure that whatever disasters hit us next, “we’re part of the solution.” That cooperative spirit feels of a piece with the community canneries of decades past.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3wBqIq">
|
|||
|
|
Indeed, preserving food can also be a way of getting back in touch with ancestral food traditions. Interest in canning spiked on the Hoopa reservation when lockdowns started, said Baldy, who runs the tribe’s community garden. Partly, it was practical — the local farmer’s market felt safer than a store, and people needed a way to store all those fresh vegetables. But canning also brought back childhood memories for a lot of people on the reservation, like a grandmother or aunt making preserves or stocking a root cellar, Baldy said.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D79MsL">
|
|||
|
|
Today, Baldy teaches classes on canning and processing traditional Hoopa foods, including acorns, huckleberries, and salmon. For her, teaching her children about these food traditions is a way to keep them alive. “If I didn’t teach them how to gather and how to preserve foods and all these different things,” she said, “then when I’m gone, they’re not going to be here to protect it.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VWXro4">
|
|||
|
|
It’s a common theme in conversations about canning — a connection to a more tactile and embodied way of life that, while less visible today, doesn’t have to disappear entirely. “We used to have to make things to survive,” McClellan, the <em>Food in Jars</em> author, said. “And then suddenly, in the last 150 years, that has not been necessary. And you can’t get rid of those urges in that short amount of time.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Fia69V">
|
|||
|
|
Preserving food in your kitchen to eat another day, she said, satisfies a very real “desire to make and use your hands and be connected to something that is going to nourish you.”
|
|||
|
|
</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>After Munich meeting, the US-China relationship is still a mess</strong> -
|
|||
|
|
<figure>
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="Photo of Antony Blinken, seated and wearing a black suit and tie. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/T2BxVTcN_hI206-O6_zixOTCW9E=/169x0:3678x2632/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71993321/1247252734.0.jpg"/>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at the 2023 Munich Security Conference. | Johannes Simon via Getty Images
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Antony Blinken and Wang Yi’s conversation didn’t cool friction over Taiwan and Russia.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PNyQnm">
|
|||
|
|
Chinese Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Wang Yi and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, weeks after Blinken’s planned trip to Beijing was canceled due to what the US says was a Chinese surveillance balloon shot down on February 4. Relations between the two nations are at the lowest point in decades, and Saturday’s meeting didn’t do much to improve the situation.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mE4M4O">
|
|||
|
|
The primary focus of the conference was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the one-year anniversary of which is approaching, but Wang and Blinken’s meeting was a critical and much-watched sideshow to the main event given recent tensions over the Chinese balloon. Wang took the opportunity to paint the US response to the device, which China maintains was a civilian weather balloon that was blown off course, as “hysterical” and “absurd.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NunuSF">
|
|||
|
|
Though European nations and the US expressed solidarity with Ukraine and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-can-move-mountains-supply-ammunition-kyiv-says-von-der-leyen-2023-02-18/">a commitment to providing the country with weapons</a>, Wang was more circumspect, saying only that China supported dialogue and an end to the war. Blinken, for his part, told <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/video/full-interview-secretary-of-state-antony-blinken-on-face-the-nation-1/">CBS’s Face the Nation</a> Sunday that he was concerned China might provide material weapons support to Russia. “We have seen [Chinese companies] provide non-lethal support to Russia for use in Ukraine,” Blinken said, though he did not specify what that support entails. “The concern that we have now is based on information we have that they’re considering providing lethal support, and we’ve made very clear to them that that would cause a serious problem for us and in our relationship.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Df9bk7">
|
|||
|
|
According to<a href="https://www.stimson.org/2023/ukraine-at-one-year-has-china-supported-russia/"> a February 13 report</a> by the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan think tank, China has not thus far provided military support to Russia, at least as far as publicly available information shows, despite providing economic support in the form of increased trade.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yPitKi">
|
|||
|
|
But China’s “<a href="https://www.cna.org/our-media/indepth/2022/10/the-china-russia-no-limits-partnership-is-still-going-strong">no limits</a>” relationship with Russia and the surveillance balloon are just the latest points of tension between the two major world powers; long-standing issues over trade, US presence in the Pacific, and the opposing world views of the West and Xi Jinping have laid the groundwork for the present tension.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="9zXMOD">
|
|||
|
|
China sees the world differently
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UQ1d6G">
|
|||
|
|
As <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2023/2/3/23584947/china-spy-surveillance-balloon-blinken-xi">Vox’s Jen Kirby</a> wrote earlier this month, the crisis over the alleged Chinese spy balloon demonstrates “just how unstable the current relationship is between these two countries.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="022VG8">
|
|||
|
|
A primary cause of tension is the US presence in the East and South Pacific; strong US military relationships with <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2023/1/15/23555805/japans-military-buildup-us-china-north-korea">Japan</a>, South Korea, Taiwan, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/01/world/asia/philippines-united-states-military-bases.html#:~:text=The%20five%20existing%20sites%20where,Air%20Base%20in%20the%20south.">the Philippines</a> threaten Chinese power in the region, particularly over disputed areas like Taiwan and the Senkaku Islands, which China also claims.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dd85wk">
|
|||
|
|
“Beijing has been warning against what they see as US plans for containment and perhaps encirclement,” Ja Ian Chong, associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore and nonresident scholar at Carnegie China, told Vox in an interview Saturday. “An important component of this criticism is a claim that Japan is reverting to its militarist pre-World War II past. Taiwan, along with the East and South China Seas, are important access routes for the PRC and are in positions to affect the PRC’s ease of reach into the Pacific,” and play key military and nationalistic roles, too.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zSdoUg">
|
|||
|
|
Concerning Taiwan, China has presented an increasingly bellicose posture toward the island and US military support for it since at least the 1995-1996 <a href="https://theasiadialogue.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Scobell.pdf">Taiwan Strait </a>crisis. Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui, who Beijing’s leadership perceived as pursuing Taiwanese independence, made an unofficial visit to the US in June of 1995, sparking Chinese military exercises and missile tests within range of Taiwan over several months; Washington responded by sending two aircraft carrier groups, one to the East China Sea and one to the Taiwan Strait, in a show of support for Taiwan.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="N8Powi">
|
|||
|
|
That incident helped precipitate increased defense spending and development in China, which has in turn precipitated an increasingly antagonistic military presence. “On the PRC side, as they become more capable, they appear more willing to adjust the world to their preferences — which is something major powers tend to do,” Chong said. “Beijing became more willing to assert its claims over areas it believes it ought to own, such as large areas of the East and South China Seas, and Taiwan.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ef3Dh1">
|
|||
|
|
Although there are key historical and political differences between China’s relationship to Taiwan and Russia’s relationship to Ukraine, there are parallels, too, especially in the present moment as leadership in China insists that Taiwan is part of mainland China.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div id="HZj4hC">
|
|||
|
|
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
|
|||
|
|
My key <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MSC2023?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MSC2023</a> moment. <br/>Asked by <a href="https://twitter.com/ischinger?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"><span class="citation" data-cites="ischinger">@ischinger</span></a> to reassure audience military escalation over Taiwan not imminent Wang Yi chose to reassure audience that Taiwan is part of territory while launching diatribe against Taiwan „separatists“. <br/>No word on preference for peace. <a href="https://t.co/cYvXEL00QG">pic.twitter.com/cYvXEL00QG</a>
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
— Thorsten Benner (<span class="citation" data-cites="thorstenbenner">@thorstenbenner</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/thorstenbenner/status/1627354521599979520?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 19, 2023</a>
|
|||
|
|
</blockquote></div></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CcsKh6">
|
|||
|
|
More recent incidents, such as former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s August visit to Taiwan and trade disputes during the Trump administration, have played into the friction — all of which came to a head over China’s support for Russia and now the balloon incident.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="JU0wi4">
|
|||
|
|
Can the US and China come back from the brink?
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eGiacA">
|
|||
|
|
Though it seems that the tension between the US and China is at a peak right now, it’s worth remembering that Chinese President Xi Jinping has been in power for 10 years already, coinciding with three different US administrations.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vMqcon">
|
|||
|
|
Core ideological differences underpin the hostilities between China and the US, Chong said. “The PRC is fundamentally distrustful of the US system and ideas, believing that their spread into China could present a threat to CCP rule,” while “Washington increasingly [sees] PRC support of authoritarian regimes as destabilizing and inimical to its own interests.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uoTypj">
|
|||
|
|
Though the meeting between Wang and Blinken opens up direct communication between the two countries, Blinken’s Sunday interview indicates that the dialogue was less than productive; Wang didn’t apologize for the balloon incident, nor did he reassure his US counterpart that China wouldn’t provide weapons to Russia.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZeWRmH">
|
|||
|
|
That’s not surprising, Chong said, given Wang’s adherence to “<a href="https://www.nbr.org/publication/understanding-chinese-wolf-warrior-diplomacy/">wolf warrior diplomacy,</a>” a term for the belligerent and coercive foreign policy strategy employed under Xi. “Wang did not previously have a reputation of being particularly harsh or strident before the Xi leadership,” Chong said, but “as the Xi leadership undertook a more strident and forceful tone on the global stage, Wang became a faithful implementer of ‘wolf warrior diplomacy.’ Indeed, he seems to have become emblematic of that PRC brand of approach to foreign policy.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2Q80fQ">
|
|||
|
|
Without clear communication lines, both diplomatically and militarily — China’s defense minister has reportedly refused calls with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin — there’s no path to dial down the tension and steer forward a path. As Kirby wrote:
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iBltIQ">
|
|||
|
|
Neither Washington nor Beijing have a clear sense of how to communicate or deconflict, and don’t even have many channels to regularly practice doing so. That ambiguity makes a miscalculation or an escalation more likely. As China seeks to build its power abroad, and the US seeks to contain or restrain it, the possibility of close calls or misunderstandings will build with it.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rd3jDL">
|
|||
|
|
Nonetheless, in his Sunday interview, Blinken called for communication with the Chinese government. “We have to manage this relationship responsibly,” he said. “We have to make sure that the competition that we’re clearly engaged in, does not veer into conflict, into a new Cold War.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>Prestige TV can’t beat the experience of playing Last of Us</strong> -
|
|||
|
|
<figure>
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="A man and a teenage girl survey the wreckage of a plane in a field, from afar." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/lUGNL6rZBvXK9tsjkFdfOLKo89Q=/143x0:1887x1308/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71992519/Screen_Shot_2023_02_13_at_1.22.42_PM.0.png"/>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Joel and Ellie’s relationship is the cornerstone of <em>The Last of Us.</em> | WarnerMedia
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
What The Last of Us on HBO misses — that the video game gets right.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="51afQY">
|
|||
|
|
Prestige TV has finally come for video games. On paper, this is good news. The prestige TV treatment boils down to a rubric of extravagant thoughtfulness — more money for more considered details and more A-list performances — and shows like <em>Severance</em>, <em>Andor</em>, and <em>Succession </em>have served up some of the most gripping and provocative mass-market storytelling as a result.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lVU0Ne">
|
|||
|
|
So why not be jazzed about HBO’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23601327/last-of-us-hbo-max-game-pedro-pascal-zombies-infection"><em>The Last of Us</em></a>, right? A beloved video game gets adapted by the only television network most would trust to do it justice. And it looks like great TV. The first several episodes positively sprout with craft. Much of the chatter surrounding the show has evaluated it according to those precepts, creating a kind of circular logic in which it seems self-evident that showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann managed to coax a tropey video game premise to its fullest expression.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dzqKbk">
|
|||
|
|
Because <em>The Last of Us</em> harbored prestige aspirations as a game, the thinking goes, it must benefit from further prestigification. Our obsession with well-produced episodic TV has tuned our aesthetic antennae to a cluster of frequencies the format can reliably deliver: deep characterization, ambiguous moral concerns, and plots that don’t pander or shrink away from their consequences. Those are fine qualities, literary and probing, but they’re not the end-all be-all. The problem is, millions of newcomers will watch <em>The Last of Us</em> under the assumption that it’s the best, richest version of its source material.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UYfOk6">
|
|||
|
|
But the show is missing something — the thing that took root in me like a cordyceps when I played the game for the first time. I want that for you. I’m not asking that you experience <em>The Last of Us</em> as I did, late at night in my friend Bram’s one-bedroom apartment, stoned out of my gourd, mashing buttons and shrieking falsettoes. But I do think you should play it, if you haven’t already, and I pity the viewers for whom <em>The Last of Us</em> will amount to, at most, a beautiful version of something they’ve already seen.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="c-float-right">
|
|||
|
|
<aside id="ONFABK">
|
|||
|
|
<q>The game’s special trick is that it doesn’t need to convince you of their relationship, because it gives you custody over it</q>
|
|||
|
|
</aside>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5xZKid">
|
|||
|
|
Both show and game concern a simple, mythic story: some 20 years after a <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2023/1/21/23561106/last-of-us-fungus-cordyceps-zombie-infect-humans">fungal parasite has zombified most of the globe</a>, hardened survivor Joel must deliver Ellie, a young teenager blessed (or cursed) with immunity, to a rebel outfit called the Fireflies, who may or may not possess the knowhow to harvest a cure. Needless to say, allies die, the goalposts keep shifting, and the plan’s very validity remains in question throughout. Against that backdrop, Joel and Ellie (played on TV by <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23594371/last-of-us-pedro-pascal-daddy">Pedro Pascal</a> and Bella Ramsey) form a bond stronger than blood.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6foJk3">
|
|||
|
|
The strength of the story is wholly dependent on how you feel about its two main characters. The game’s special trick is that it doesn’t need to convince you of their relationship, because it gives you custody over it.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="g36LSu">
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Take the events at Bill’s compound, which highlight two very different approaches. The show, operating from the prestige TV owner’s manual, must imagine Bill (Nick Offerman) as a fully realized human person, and basically succeeds. The only caveats are that Joel and Ellie are relegated to the episode’s margins and that Bill’s most colorful characteristic — his practical knowledge of shockingly sophisticated booby traps — is presented as a funny quirk, on par with his capable wine pairings.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3v3ZkV">
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In the game, Bill and his traps are part of the same bravura set piece: a series of close calls in which Joel increasingly relies on Ellie. On your way to meet Bill you stumble, as Joel, into a snare trap that hoists you 10 feet into the air upside down, your POV flipped. As Ellie attempts to cut you loose, a wave of infected appear. You’re out of reach — but she’s not. They sprint to her. Your heart in your ears, you force yourself to adjust to this new position and dispatch the fungified threats to your surrogate daughter with a wobbly 9mm.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YbeBoN">
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Those five minutes make a masterclass of the game’s major modes: improvisation, disorientation, and dread. They also hint at an advantage inherent to the medium. In the game, Ellie’s survival is structural: you literally can’t go on without her. In the show, you merely expect her not to die. Death is the hallmark of any honest tour through post-apocalyptic America, and the game knows how to leverage it in ways the show cannot. There are, to be sure, dozens of deftly written and consistently grim cutscenes over the game’s roughly 15-hour runtime. But so much of its lingering power transmits through lightly scripted gameplay, and the constant low-grade suspense elicited any time you point Joel’s flashlight or pull his trigger. Even moments of relative peace or boredom feel freighted with anticipation, like when you rummage through a drawer for supplies and find a letter instead, or when you gingerly step through the rubble of a bombed-out metro station.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3Sn0JE">
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The game engages your brain, but it’s more interested in working your spinal cord. It uses story as scaffolding, building Potemkin villages of characters that offer just enough context to get buy-in from your viscera. The friends and enemies you encounter do have backstories, abridged versions of which are written in notes, memos, and ephemera scattered across the wreckage. You can search, if you care to, for shards of evidence from the shattered “why” of a given level — and Joel and Ellie’s frequent chitchat, which veers from witty to expository, helps fill in the blanks. But explanation and justification are not among the game’s top priorities. Early on, before her immunity is revealed, Ellie tells Joel not to inquire about her situation. “Honestly,” he replies, “the best part of my job is I don’t gotta know why.” The game’s mechanics make that true.
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</p>
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<div class="c-float-left">
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<aside id="2GIm7t">
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<q>Death is the hallmark of any honest tour through post-apocalyptic America, and the game knows how to leverage it in ways the show cannot</q>
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</aside>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ojh1hm">
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It’s no small feat. In 2007 the video game designer Clint Hocking coined the term “ludonarrative dissonance” to describe the friction, found in most blockbuster titles, between the mechanics of minute-to-minute gameplay and the guiding structure of a game’s story — say, the way other characters seem completely unaffected by the number of runaway murders you commit between cutscenes.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Xdon3M">
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By rendering cordyceps-ridden America as properly Hobbesian, the game<em> </em>skirts the brunt of that charge. And by anchoring the experience in Joel’s protection of Ellie at all costs, it gives thematic cover to an extremely pessimistic story. Unlike some video games, you do not get to choose how <em>The Last of Us </em>plays out. Joel’s increasingly reckless amorality — and the bodies he leaves in his wake — is your only destination. Your complicity is the game’s most immersive element: when Ellie is the only thing that matters, it’s only right that you should compromise everything else.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="waB9zf">
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Prestige TV, on the other hand, requires a good-faith exploration of every nook and cranny. Its basic instinct is to color in. So when we watch Melanie Lynskey as show-created resistance leader Kathleen execute an OB-GYN, for instance, we expect some further shading. But the world of <em>The Last of Us</em> can only bear so much scrutiny, and killing doctors, however useful a shorthand for character development, seems ill-advised in zombieland, even when you’re trying to dismantle the remains of the US military. When Kathleen directs her commandos to abandon their posts and converge on Henry (Lamar Johnson)’s location, it undermines the presumptive discipline required to overthrow FEDRA in the first place. (In the chaotic sequence that follows, Joel’s clutch sniper fire feels a lot more triumphant when you’re the one taking the shots.)
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Hzv8ic">
|
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The TV adaptation will continue to pile this kind of weight on the game’s narrative buttresses — earnest investigations into systems and motives that strain the whole premise. It may well lead to rollicking, heartbreaking TV whose busted seams and flyaway threads are easy to ignore — but it likely won’t achieve the compositional harmony of the game.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Xp40Zz">
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The show does enjoy one big advantage over the game: accessibility. For $15.99 per month, the show is available on every screen with an internet connection; for now, the game is restricted to PlayStation consoles at a cost of $69.99. As passive entertainment, the show invites a more inclusive audience; as interactive software, the game is built atop a higher barrier to entry. But a recent remake, <a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/the-last-of-us-part-i/"><em>The Last of Us Part I</em></a>, added new features to support disabled players, and a PC version is projected for release in March. If you’re not a video game person, it may just change your mind.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mc6Uvn">
|
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As the player, you’ll fight to preserve Joel and Ellie chapter after chapter, killing after killing, each failure providing a clue to a possible future in which you both endure. <em>The Last of Us </em>proves what gameplay can do in the service of characters, premise, and plot: its gauntlet of death will make you feel more alive.
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</p></li>
|
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
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<ul>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Destroyer and Portofino Bay catch the eye</strong> -</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Fire Power, Double Scotch and Yukan excel</strong> -</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Kamali, the 13-year-old surfer from Mammallapuram, has been selected as the top three upcoming surf stars of the world</strong> - Kamali has been selected by eight-time world champion Stephanie Gilmore, in collaboration with iconic surf gear and accessory brand Roxy</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Border-Gavaskar Trophy | Back to the drawing board for panicky Australia after another India failure</strong> - After a dominant home summer, Australia had ambitions of emulating the great 2004 team that beat India 2-1 away to cement their status as global champions. The tour has instead been little short of a disaster</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Border-Gavaskar Trophy | We failed the examination of India, says Australia coach McDonald</strong> - Andrew McDonald said that some players diverted from their time-tested game plan, which resulted in the second humiliating defeat</p></li>
|
|||
|
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</ul>
|
|||
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
|
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<ul>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>UDF holds onto power in Kottayam municipality as Opposition fails to move no-trust motion</strong> - Only 22 councillors turned up for the meeting when the LDF required the support of 27 councillors to pass the motion against UDF’s municipal chairperson Bincy Sebastian</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>JIH was a part of Muslim group that held talks with RSS: Assistant Amir</strong> - Assistant Amir of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind P. Mujeeb Rahman accuses CPI-M of spreading Islamobhobia</p></li>
|
|||
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Funds deposited for NPS cannot be transferred to State governments: Centre</strong> - Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Finance Secretary Vivek Joshi said that if any State is expecting that the funds deposited for NPS can be returned to them then it is impossible</p></li>
|
|||
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Tourism Minister directed to pay fine for failing to appear before court in Ooty</strong> -</p></li>
|
|||
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>M.P. man in Pakistan jail since 2019 handed back to Indian authorities</strong> - Raju Pindare has been handed back to Indian authorities and a four member team comprising policemen and a medical professional has been sent to Amritsar to bring him</p></li>
|
|||
|
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</ul>
|
|||
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: Blinken says China might give weapons to Russia</strong> - The US said China was considering “lethal support” for Russia in Ukraine - a claim denied by Beijing.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Turkey earthquake: Rescue effort ends in all but two areas</strong> - Searches will only continue in Kahramanmaras and Hatay, the country’s disaster agency said.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Footballer Christian Atsu’s body returned to Ghana</strong> - The 31-year-old was found dead under the rubble of his home in Turkey two weeks after the earthquake.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>BFM journalist Rachid M’Barki suspended in scandal linked to disinformation firm</strong> - Veteran presenter Rachid M’Barki accused of running stories planted by an Israel-based organisation.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: Russia must be defeated but not crushed, Macron says</strong> - The French president reaffirms support for Kyiv but hints that talks with Russia are a final goal.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Hope and doubt collide in an eventful episode 6 of The Last of Us</strong> - Plus, Kyle and Andrew use any excuse to talk about post-apocalyptic energy politics. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1918786">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Man beats machine at Go in human victory over AI</strong> - Amateur exploited weakness in systems that have otherwise dominated grandmasters. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1918743">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Germany raises red flags about Palantir’s big data dragnet</strong> - A court put strict limits on pulling innocent bystanders into big data investigations. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1918581">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>TNG reunion injects a little fun into Star Trek: Picard’s uneven final season</strong> - <em>Picard</em> adds familiar faces while addressing few of the show’s other problems. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1915766">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The US plan to become the world’s cleantech superpower</strong> - Biden’s revolution in industrial policy is a gamble with geopolitical ramifications. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1918239">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What does going down on an old woman taste like?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
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<div class="md">
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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Depends.
|
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</p>
|
|||
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</div>
|
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<!-- SC_ON -->
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/app257"> /u/app257 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/116tfmi/what_does_going_down_on_an_old_woman_taste_like/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/116tfmi/what_does_going_down_on_an_old_woman_taste_like/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>I was hit by a truck carrying a bunch of Omega 3 capsules</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
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<div class="md">
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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It’s okay, I only sustained super fish oil injuries
|
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</p>
|
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</div>
|
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<!-- SC_ON -->
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/PrinceJustice237"> /u/PrinceJustice237 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/116vxnk/i_was_hit_by_a_truck_carrying_a_bunch_of_omega_3/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/116vxnk/i_was_hit_by_a_truck_carrying_a_bunch_of_omega_3/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
|||
|
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What starts with W, ends with T and has two letters in between.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
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<div class="md">
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Just stating the obvious.
|
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</p>
|
|||
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</div>
|
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<!-- SC_ON -->
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/LUKADIA89"> /u/LUKADIA89 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/116gvs4/what_starts_with_w_ends_with_t_and_has_two/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/116gvs4/what_starts_with_w_ends_with_t_and_has_two/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
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|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A man walks into a bar and asks for the bill</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
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<div class="md">
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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The bartender looks confused and tells the man he didn’t order anything.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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The man says I know, but I own the zoo down the street. I heard about the time a grizzly bear, elephant, monkey, tiger, alligator,… walked into a bar. I’m here to pay for the damages.
|
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</p>
|
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</div>
|
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<!-- SC_ON -->
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Queasy_Doughnut7507"> /u/Queasy_Doughnut7507 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/116kf8e/a_man_walks_into_a_bar_and_asks_for_the_bill/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/116kf8e/a_man_walks_into_a_bar_and_asks_for_the_bill/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>I heard the grim reaper is bisexual…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
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<div class="md">
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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Apparently, Death comes for us all.
|
|||
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</p>
|
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</div>
|
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<!-- SC_ON -->
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/JohnMarkParker"> /u/JohnMarkParker </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/116dxhu/i_heard_the_grim_reaper_is_bisexual/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/116dxhu/i_heard_the_grim_reaper_is_bisexual/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
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</ul>
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