Biden’s Increasingly Contradictory Israel Policy - A former State Department official explains the Administration’s sharpening public critique of Israel’s war and simultaneous refusal to “impose a single cost or consequence.” - link
How Chinese Students Experience America - COVID, guns, anti-Asian violence, and diplomatic relations have complicated the ambitions of the some three hundred thousand college students who come to the U.S. each year. - link
The Hottest Restaurant in France Is an All-You-Can-Eat Buffet - Les Grands Buffets features a seven-tiered lobster tower, a chocolate fountain, and only what it considers traditional French food. Gourmands are willing to wait months for a table. - link
So You Think You’ve Been Gaslit - What happens when a niche clinical concept becomes a ubiquitous cultural diagnosis. - link
The Brazilian Special-Forces Unit Fighting to Save the Amazon - As miners ravage Yanomami lands, combat-trained environmentalists work to root them out. - link
From Vox
“Equivalent to having 50 Super Bowls”: The staggering — and lucrative — scale of eclipse tourism -
The upcoming solar eclipse on April 8 should be viewed through eclipse glasses, no matter where you’re watching it from. | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
More people will travel for this event than for one of the country’s biggest games.
Instead, it could well be the upcoming solar eclipse on April 8, which could see as many as 4 million people in the US journeying to view it. This year’s total solar eclipse is particularly special for the US: Although the phenomenon happens globally every 18 months, this one will be visible across a huge swath of the country, making witnessing it more accessible. Plus, the eclipse is expected to last longer than the prior one did in 2017, adding to its allure.
When it comes to the scale of travel we can expect, it’s “equivalent to having 50 Super Bowls simultaneously from Texas to Maine,” says Michael Zeiler, who helps run the Great American Eclipse website. Such tourism is set to generate upward of $1 billion in revenue across numerous cities, from Austin, Texas, to Rochester, New York. These cities will all be prime places to see the eclipse, which will be fully visible in parts of the southern US, the Midwest, and New England.
NASA’s interactive map shows best times, places to watch total solar eclipse https://t.co/KMh6vmdvdM
Hotels and campgrounds in places where the full eclipse will be visible have long been sold out, with tens of thousands of visitors expected to flock to these cities. “This is likely going to be the single biggest tourism event we’ve ever had,” Michael Pakko, a University of Arkansas economist, tells the Washington Post, regarding the more than $100 million in revenue the state is expecting. Towns and businesses are also going all out by investing in eclipse music festivals, theme park rides, and viewing parties.
Those traveling for this year’s eclipse join a long tradition of eclipse-chasers, who’ve been in awe of these events and who revel in sharing this communal experience. The rarity of such phenomena and the opportunity to enjoy them simultaneously with others bolsters their draw, experts say. The interest in eclipse tourism also comes as people’s willingness to travel has rebounded following the pandemic.
“The simple now-or-never of an eclipse is extremely motivating,” Jaime Kurtz, a psychology professor at James Madison University, told Vox. “The collective enthusiasm for the eclipse might also be a driving force. It’s unifying.”
There’s something about eclipses
Eclipse-chasers, or people who seek out eclipses when they happen, are drawn to this phenomena because of how unique it is, how infrequently it happens, and how much wonder it inspires. Some also have a specific interest in astronomy and space, and see eclipses as a way to explore that.
“It lifts you out of your everyday experience, and is such a remarkable feeling to be suddenly enveloped by a wave of darkness for a few minutes; it’s like standing on the surface of an alien planet,” said Zeiler, who has seen 11 eclipses on six continents. Zeiler traces a growing trend of eclipse tourism to the 1970s, when a group of astronomy enthusiasts first organized a cruise off the coast of Nova Scotia to see a solar eclipse. Since then, traveling to see eclipses has only become more popular as fascination with the phenomena has grown.
“No matter what I do, no matter how much I describe it, no matter how many videos you watch, they all fall short of being able to witness this for yourself,” Fred Espenak, an astrophysicist and eclipse-chaser, told Vox’s Brian Resnick and Joss Fong.
The event is also rarely visible to this degree in the US. In 2017, the eclipse had a narrower “path of totality,” or a smaller area where it could be seen in full from start to finish. This year, 31.6 million people already live in that larger path, making it easier for people to travel to it. And the next total solar eclipse to be visible in the US isn’t expected until the 2040s, which makes the upcoming one a prized experience.
“One of the reasons that we get value from experiences is because we think of them as less interchangeable than other ways that we could spend our money,“ Amit Kumar, a marketing and psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin, told Vox.
Eclipses are also a singular event because so many people across the country — and world — are witnessing the same thing at the same time, fueling a feeling of connectivity and community that can be particularly powerful, Kumar said.
The desire to share in that feeling is just one factor that helps explain the high numbers of people willing to travel for this phenomenon, with local economies reaping benefits in the process. “Each eclipse is different. And that’s why we keep going again and again,” says Zeiler.
Trump has set up a perfect avenue for potential corruption -
Truth Social’s big shareholders pose potential conflicts of interest for Trump. | Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
With Truth Social going public, big investors could easily buy influence in a second Trump term.
Truth Social, Donald Trump’s social media platform, has not exactly been a resounding business success story, but it recently made the former president a whole lot richer.
That’s because Trump Media, the network’s parent company, went public last week and catapulted Trump’s net worth to an estimated $7.5 billion.
Now you might be wondering how Trump’s social media company is worth that much money. And the short answer is: It isn’t.
The long answer, however, is that while Trump Media’s valuation is entirely illogical from a financial perspective — as one finance professor told CNN, “The stock is pretty much divorced from fundamentals” — its early success in trading can be boiled down to one simple fact: Donald Trump is running for president, and there’s a decent chance that he’ll be back in the White House this time next year.
Truth Social, in other words, is a way for Trump’s supporters to personally offer him financial support at a time when he desperately needs it. That might be why the company’s volatility looks similar to meme stocks for now. As one analyst told my colleague Nicole Narea, people might buy up Trump Media stock so “they can express their beliefs and commitment.”
For those with deep pockets, it’s also an opportunity to curry favor with the former president.
Why does any of this matter?
Before becoming one of the world’s richest 500 people on Bloomberg’s billionaires index for the first time last week, Trump was in financial trouble.
He was cash-strapped and on the hook for nearly half a billion dollars because of two civil suit verdicts, and the attorney general of New York was preparing to seize some of his assets. He has since averted that outcome — at least for now — after the court reduced his required bond and he secured an 11th-hour bond agreement.
As I’ve written before, Trump’s financial problems are not just worrisome for him but for the whole country. His enormous debts would be a serious liability for any candidate for public office, let alone the presidency.
It’s hard to know how worried to be, however: Trump’s finances are quite opaque.
But read another way, that means that not only do his businesses — which he refused to divest from when he was president and which continued to work with other countries during his time in the White House — present potential conflicts of interest, but the public also has few ways of knowing the extent of those conflicts, or what they might even be.
On the plus side, that Trump Media is publicly traded makes Trump’s finances slightly more transparent because we can keep track of who the major shareholders might be. But that alone isn’t enough because when Trump Media went public, it became an avenue for exactly the kind of corruption I was writing about.
“It puts him in a position where he could be subjected to outside influence by foreign entities and other special interests at the cost, perhaps, of US national security or other interests,” Virginia Canter, the chief ethics counsel at the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told Vox.
Daniel Steinle/Bloomberg via Getty Images
But if buying stocks is legal, how could it lead to corruption?
Imagine, for example, you were a wealthy lobbyist looking to influence a second Trump administration.
Or, you could turn to his public company and buy up a bunch of stock to help it stay afloat. Should he become president again, you could have leverage over him because if you decide to dump your shares, you could put a dent in Trump’s overall net worth.
Now here’s a more tangible example: As Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington pointed out on X, the biggest institutional investor in the shell company that merged with Truth Social was GOP megadonor Jeffrey Yass, who also happens to be a major investor in TikTok’s parent company.
While there’s no proof that Yass played a direct role in Trump changing his stance on whether or not TikTok should be banned, Trump did only change his tune after building up his business relationship with Yass. It’s unclear how much stock Yass still owns in Trump Media after the merger, but that’s just one example of how messy these potential conflicts of interest can be.
That’s not to mention the possibility of foreign businesses, governments, or oligarchs flocking to buy up shares in Trump’s company, putting him in direct violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause should he win in November. That’s an accusation that plagued his presidency, when foreign governments spent millions of dollars renting out rooms at his hotels or leasing office space in his buildings.
“It’s not good for the country if we were to elect a president who, again, is really in business to enrich himself and [Trump Media] provides a direct vehicle for those seeking his favor to do so,” Canter said.
And that, in the end, is why Trump’s potential return to the White House is so dangerous: In addition to having plenty of bad and reckless ideas, his presidency could be up for sale.
She’s been chasing solar eclipses for three decades. What’s she after? -
A total solar eclipse in Belitung, Indonesia, on March 9, 2016. | Donal Husni/NurPhoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images
This scientist has seen nearly 20 solar eclipses. She’s trying to solve a mystery that could help protect Earth.
On Monday, April 8, millions of people will get to see the Great North American Eclipse. Most people on the continent will see a partial solar eclipse, the sun gradually getting smaller as the moon passes in front of it.
But if you’re in exactly the right place — along the narrow path of totality that runs from Mexico to Indianapolis to Montreal — the moon is going to line up directly in front of the sun and completely block it out.
“When it happens, it feels like magic. It feels supernatural,” says Shadia Habbal, a professor of solar physics at the University of Hawaii. “It hits you in every part of your body. You just feel like something is surrounding you. Something is taking you to a place you’ve never been before.”
When the moon fully blocks the sun, it’s the only time you can see the sun’s atmosphere, the corona, which is made up of particles constantly shooting away from the sun. “Sometimes they’re streaming away happily,” says Habbal. “But sometimes you have what we call a storm or an explosion at the sun.”
Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
The sun’s corona is visible as the moon obscures the sun during the 2017 total solar eclipse.
Radiation from solar storms often ends up hitting Earth, which can lead to beautiful phenomena like the northern lights. But it can also cause massive problems, like energy grid disruptions, major blackouts, or even taking down satellites.
Despite how much damage solar storms can do to our tech on Earth, scientists are still struggling to predict them. And that’s because they don’t understand that much about how the corona works.
Even though it extends millions of miles away from the surface of the sun into freezing cold space, the corona is still a million degrees hotter than the surface of the sun. And scientists aren’t sure why. Which is why Habbal became an eclipse chaser.
I recently spoke with Habbal for an episode of Unexplainable, Vox’s podcast that explores scientific mysteries, unanswered questions, and all the things we learn by diving into the unknown. This conversation has been lightly edited and adapted for the website.
Noam Hassenfeld
You’ve been chasing solar eclipses for almost 30 years. You even founded a group, Solar Wind Sherpas, whose mission is to chase eclipses. How did you first get interested in studying these phenomena?
Shadia Habbal
I was doing models of the corona, trying to figure out what processes heat the corona. And I realized that the temperature was a critical piece of information I needed to have. But the data that was available at the time wasn’t giving me the answer I was looking for. So, I knew that eclipses were the key observations to get to that answer.
Noam Hassenfeld
So the first eclipse you saw was when you were already researching the corona?
Shadia Habbal
Yes, the first solar eclipse I saw was in 1995 in India, and it was a very, very short eclipse. It was 42 seconds long, but it was probably the most spectacular one I saw. The eclipse happened around 8 in the morning. And when it happened, I saw the corona, these rays upon rays just expanding from the sun, extending all the way to infinity, visually. But we only had 42 seconds, so I couldn’t spend too much time looking around or anything. We had to really pay attention to operating the cameras that we had. I thought, “Okay, one measurement and that’s it.” But we realized that one wasn’t enough. We had to keep trying.
Noam Hassenfeld
Where have you and your team been since then?
Shadia Habbal
We’ve been to Mongolia. We’ve been to Antarctica. We’ve been to Libya. We’ve been to Tatakoto in French Polynesia. To Svalbard, you know, northern Norway, beyond the Arctic Circle. We’ve been to Syria, Chile, Argentina, Zambia, and South Africa. And this one will be my 20th.
Noam Hassenfeld
Why do you need an eclipse to study the corona? Can’t you do this artificially, put something up to block out most of the sun?
Shadia Habbal
Well, because that doesn’t do as good a job as a natural eclipse.
Noam Hassenfeld
Why doesn’t it do as good of a job?
Shadia Habbal
It’s a very small blocker whereas the moon is huge. So it dims the light to the point where the sky is like nighttime.
Noam Hassenfeld
Ah, okay. Let’s say I go outside and I want to study the corona. If I hold up a quarter in front of the sun and block the sun, I still wouldn’t see the corona, because the coin is so close to my eye. Everything would be filled up with sunlight.
Shadia Habbal
Yes. With an eclipse, you get the very intricate structures very, very close to the sun, and you get everything that’s streaming away as you look farther away. So, you see this continuous transition from the surface outward that you don’t get with any other instruments at the moment.
Noam Hassenfeld
What are the instruments you use when you study the eclipse?
Shadia Habbal
Our optical systems are like very small telescopes. But the key element is something we call a spectrometer, which is like a prism when you let the light go through a prism and it splits the colors, and so we capture these different colors. And each color corresponds to a different temperature in the corona.
Noam Hassenfeld
Is it fair to say you’re creating a temperature map of the corona?
Shadia Habbal
Of the corona, yes, exactly.
Noam Hassenfeld
And that map is going to help make these models of how the corona works more accurate?
Shadia Habbal
Yes, exactly.
Noam Hassenfeld
Are we close at all to being able to use some of these models to be like, “Okay, we’ve got to prepare the electrical grid, we’ve got to prepare the satellites for a solar storm?”
Shadia Habbal
Not yet. We have some clues. We know what’s causing them, but we can’t predict when they will happen. And that’s one of the things we’re trying to gather some more information from our eclipse observations.
Noam Hassenfeld
Are we any closer than we were 30 years ago?
Shadia Habbal
Yes, but we still don’t have a full … we don’t have a reliable answer.
Noam Hassenfeld
I like that you can laugh about that. What would you say is the biggest obstacle in eclipse observations or chasing eclipses?
Shadia Habbal
The weather.
Noam Hassenfeld
Ok, now I’m laughing.
Shadia Habbal
It’s true! We lost 40 percent of our observations to clouds.
Noam Hassenfeld
Wow, 40 percent?
Shadia Habbal
Mmhm.
Noam Hassenfeld
So out of how many eclipses?
Shadia Habbal
For example, this would be my 20th. We lost 40 percent. We lost eight.
Noam Hassenfeld
I imagine that’s got to be really disappointing.
Shadia Habbal
Well, it’s heartbreaking, yes. Because, so, many times what happens during, just a little bit before totality, the temperature drops and you have atmospheric conditions that happen suddenly. Once in South Africa, it was perfectly crystal clear skies and a cloud formed smack in front of the sun just before totality. Here was a cloud, it just decided to be right in front of the sun and then it dispersed the moment the eclipse was over.
Yulii Zozulia/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images
The moon partially eclipses the sun as clouds largely obscure the sky in Odesa, Ukraine, on October 25, 2022.
Noam Hassenfeld
So you’re set up, you have your equipment, a cloud shows up, and then you’re just done? You can’t do anything?
Shadia Habbal
Yeah, you lost everything. You have no data. And another time we were in Kenya, we had a sandstorm just 15 minutes before the eclipse. We were close to a lake and basically the wind pattern shifted. And then all of a sudden we were looking toward the sun and a colleague of mine turned around and he said, “Oh! S… H—” [Habbal begins to spell the word — you know which one — and then stops herself] I said, “What’s the matter?” We looked back and this huge cloud was coming barreling toward us.
Noam Hassenfeld
What did you do?
Shadia Habbal
We covered the equipment. We had to. It was very, very fast. And we were totally clouded out.
Noam Hassenfeld
It just seems like there must be a better way to do this.
Shadia Habbal
Well, there are ways. Recently we were in Antarctica and unfortunately we were clouded out. It was really heartbreaking because the sky was crystal clear the day before. And crystal clear two hours after totality. One of my colleagues, he just came up with the idea and said, “why don’t we fly a kite?”
Noam Hassenfeld
Fly a kite?
Shadia Habbal
Well, it’s not just any type of kite. It’s quite large, it has a wingspan of about 6 and a half meters. We attached a spectrometer to it. The idea is that if it’s cloudy with a kite, you can go up to 4–5,000 meters and you can get above the clouds, and we tried it last year in Australia.
Noam Hassenfeld
What was it like testing something like this? Were you nervous?
Shadia Habbal
Yes, we were very nervous, but it was the most exhilarating experience. It was like watching the Sputnik. And the other option we’re trying this year is [working with] NASA’s research aircraft called the WB-57. Now that airplane flies up to 60,000 feet where there are no clouds.
Noam Hassenfeld
And that airplane, is it flying along the path of totality?
Shadia Habbal
Exactly. The engineers and the pilots of this NASA project can follow the path of totality.
Noam Hassenfeld
How close are we to being able to predict the corona? Are all these measurements helping these predictions?
Shadia Habbal
Yes, but like any scientific research, you discover something and then you discover that there’s a lot more to discover. This is the beauty of scientific research is you’re never done.
Noam Hassenfeld
So, you’re just gonna keep on chasing eclipses for the rest of your career?
Shadia Habbal
I’ll keep on chasing eclipses until I can’t chase them anymore, and then somebody else has to do it.
From The Hindu: Sports
Juliette, Santissimo, Celestial and Mojito show out -
IPL-17, DC vs KKR | Rishabh Pant fined ₹24 lakh for second over rate offence - Delhi Capitals captain Rishabh Pant fined ₹24 lakh for slow over rate in IPL 2024 match against Kolkata Knight Riders
Bayer Leverkusen on the verge of historic double after reaching German Cup final - Xabi Alonso’s team, which also leads the Bundesliga by 13 points, marked its 40th game of the season unbeaten in all competitions.
Morning Digest | BJP got 75% of ₹582 crore worth electoral bonds bought by loss making firms; Sanjay Nirupam expelled from Congress, and more - Here is a select list of stories to start the day
ISL | East Bengal punishes nine-man Kerala Blasters -
From The Hindu: National News
Demand for tankers only from west part of Hyderabad: Telangana Govt -
Here are the big stories from Karnataka today - Welcome to the Karnataka Today newsletter, your guide from The Hindu on the major news stories to follow today. Curated and written by Nalme Nachiyar.
Development economist Suresh Babu is the new director of MIDS -
PM Modi in Cooch Behar, says Opposition spreading rumours about CAA - I am saying remove corruption; the Opposition is saying ‘save the corrupt’, the Prime Minister alleged
Sandeshkhali violence | Calcutta High Court reserves judgement on petitions - In High Court, the West Bengal Government questions conviction rate of Central agencies; ED accuses State of non-cooperation
From BBC: Europe
Russia’s neighbours urge Nato allies to bring back military service - Following Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, conscription is being rebooted and expanded across Europe.
Italian island offers rampant goats up for adoption - A remote Italian island where goats outnumber humans six to one is trying to give them away.
Air passengers face extra year of 100ml liquid rule - Major airports will not have new scanners at all security lanes by the summer, the BBC understands.
School shooting brings up tough questions for Finland - Finland’s age of criminal responsibility, gun laws and children’s mental health are in the spotlight following the Vantaa shooting.
Finnish school shooting motivated by bullying - police - The suspect is accused of killing a boy aged 12 and wounding two girls in Vantaa.
From Ars Technica
Pentagon calls for tighter integration between military and commercial space - “I would have never written the requirements for Starship.” - link
Google might make users pay for AI features in search results - Plan would represent a first for what has been a completely ad-funded search engine. - link
Bird flu flare: Cattle in 5 states now positive as Texas egg farm shuts down - The risk to the general public remains low, federal officials say. - link
Spotify’s second price hike in 9 months will target audiobook listeners - Bloomberg report claims price hike coming to Australia, Pakistan, and the UK first. - link
How to hack the Jacksonville Jaguars’ jumbotron (and end up in jail for 220 years) - The story that just keeps getting worse. - link
From Jokes Subreddit
I finally found the jackass and honeycomb joke from GOT by Tyrion Lannister -
I once brought a jackass and a honeycomb into a brothel. The Madame asked, “what can we do for you?” I said, “I need a woman to lay with, for mine has left me.” The Madame asked “You poor thing; whatever for? And why do you have a jackass and a honeycomb?” “Well,” I answered, “my woman stumbled upon a genie in a bottle, and he granted her 3 wishes. The first was to have the nicest ass in the land, so he gave her this jackass. Her second wish was for a ‘house fit for a queen’, so he gave her this beehive.” The Madame asked, “And what of the third wish?” “For her third wish, my woman asked the genie to make my cock hang down past my knee.” “Well, that one’s not so bad!” the Madame exclaimed. “‘Not so bad!?’, I replied,”I used to be 6 feet tall!"
.. when one of them asks the other two how they died.
“I came home early from work. When I walked in the door I could smell cigar smoke and my wife was half naked. I knew she was cheating and sure enough when I looked out the window there was the mailman smoking a cigar and smiling! I was so enraged that I grabbed the fridge and threw it out the window. I immediately passed out. I must have had a heart attack!” says the first man.
The second replies “Wow, I was having a great day, walking my regular postal route and smoking a cigar like I always do when I heard a window smash and suddenly I was here!”
The two men look at each other in realization. Then then look to the third man who asked the question. “So there I was, naked in the fridge…”
A young boy says to his father “Dad, our maths teacher is asking to see you.” -
“What happened?” The father asks.
"Well, she asked me, ‘how much is 7 * 9?’ I answered ‘63’ , then she asked, ‘and 9 * 7?’ So I asked ‘what’s the fucking difference?’
“Indeed, what is the difference?” asks the father. ‘’Sure, I’ll go.’’
The next day, the boy comes home from school and says, “Dad, have you gone by the school?”
“Not yet.”
“Well when you do, come and see the gym teacher also.”
“Why?” asks the father.
“Well we had a gym class today, and he asked me to raise my left arm, I did. Then my right arm, I also raised it. Then he asked me to lift my right leg, so I did. ‘Now,’ he says, ‘lift your left leg,’ so I asked, ‘What, am I suppose to stand on…. my cock??’”
“Exactly,” says the father. “Alright, I’ll come.”
The next day, the boy asks his father “Did you go to the school?” “No, not yet.”
“Don’t bother, I got expelled.”
Surprised, the father asks “Why did you get expelled?”
“Well, they summoned me to the principal’s office, and sitting there were the math teacher, the gym teacher, and the art teacher.”
“The fuck was the art teacher doing there!?” asks the father.
To the irritation of the judge, a man was trying to be excused jury service. “Tell me,” rapped the judge, “is there any good reason why you cannot serve as a juror in this trial?” The man replied: “I don’t want to be away from my job that long.” “Can’t they do without you at work?” -
An elderly man in Florida had owned a large farm for several years. -
He had a large pond in the back, fixed up nice: picnic tables, horseshoe courts, a volleyball court, and so me apple and peach trees. The pond was properly shaped and fixed up for swimming. One evening the old farmer decided to go down to the pond and look it over, as he hadn’t been there for a while. He grabbed a five gallon bucket to bring back some fruit. As he neared the pond, he heard voices shouting and laughing with glee. As he came closer he saw it was a bunch of young women skinny-dipping in his pond. He made the women aware of his presence and they all went to the deep end. One of the women shouted to him, “We’re not coming out until you leave!” The old man frowned, “I didn’t come down here to watch you ladies swim naked or make you get out of the pond naked.” Holding the bucket up he said, “I’m here to feed the alligator.”
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25369843/GettyImages_2128588467.jpg)
Daniel Steinle/Bloomberg via Getty Images
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25369094/1409000218.jpg)
Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25369098/1244231401.jpg)
Yulii Zozulia/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images