Daily-Dose

Contents

• From New Yorker
• From Vox
• From The Hindu: Sports
• From The Hindu: National News
• From BBC: Europe
• From Ars Technica
• From Jokes Subreddit

From New Yorker

• The Ukrainian Exodus at the Polish Border - The Russian invasion has forced hundreds of thousands to flee—while others are returning from across Europe to fight. - link

• “We Are Going to Be O.K.”: The World According to Biden - One State of the Union to address many crises. - link

• Europe’s Aggressive New Stance Toward Putin’s Regime - The defiance of Ukrainian citizens in the face of the Russian onslaught has inspired the European Union to action. - link

• Watching the World’s “First TikTok War” - Social media’s aesthetic norms are shaping how Ukrainians document the Russian invasion. Is it a new form of citizen war journalism or just an invitation to keep clicking? - link

• The End of Oil Drilling in L.A. - New legislation could locally kill off the dangerous, polluting industry that created the city. Is it merely NIMBYism, or the start of something bigger? - link

From Vox

• The corporate raider taking aim at McDonald’s over the treatment of pigs -

  

  Why Carl Icahn launched an animal welfare-focused proxy fight against the fast food giant.

  Carl Icahn, the billionaire activist investor, is known for spearheading hostile takeovers of underperforming companies on Wall Street, so it seemed odd when he bought a small stake in McDonald’s and last month nominated two new directors to its board, since the company has outperformed its fast food competitors in recent years.

  But Icahn’s rancor wasn’t directed at the company’s financial performance. Rather, it was directed at how pigs in the company’s supply chain are treated.

  The fight has made headlines in the business press in recent weeks, but its origins go back a decade. In 2012, after pressure from Icahn and the Humane Society of the US, McDonald’s pledged that it would end the use of gestation crates for pregnant pigs — which confine the animals so tightly they are unable to turn around for months at a time — throughout its supply chain by the end of 2022.

  Now that 2022 has arrived, Icahn argues the company is far from following through on its commitment, and he’s ready to take action. (Disclosure: I briefly worked with Icahn’s daughter at the Humane Society of the US in 2012 and 2013.)

  “Animals are one of the things I feel really emotional about,” Icahn told the Wall Street Journal, noting that he and his wife have three dogs and that he has a particular soft spot for pigs.

  In the US pork industry, a majority of the 6 million female breeding pigs, or sows, are confined in 7-by-2-foot gestation crates for the duration of their four-month pregnancies, which take a physical and mental toll on the animals. “It’s not life,” animal welfare scientist Temple Grandin told a reporter in 2012. “The way I look at [gestation crates] is: How would you like to live in an airline seat?” Notably, Grandin is a longtime adviser to McDonald’s on animal welfare.

  Harold Hoch/MediaNews Group via Getty Images

  The industry’s better alternative for sows is “group housing” — placing a couple dozen sows together in a large pen. Even in group housing systems, though, sows still spend a few weeks after each birth in a “farrowing crate” — a confined space slightly larger than a gestation crate — as they nurse their piglets.

  In response to Icahn’s campaign, McDonald’s told the Wall Street Journal that over 60 percent of its US pork is from “confirmed pregnant sows” not housed in gestation crates, and that by the end of the year, it’ll be at 85 to 90 percent.

  That makes it sound as though McDonald’s is falling just a little short of its goal and that Icahn is being petty. But according to Josh Balk of the Humane Society, McDonald’s neglects to make clear that this statement’s wording allows its suppliers to confine sows for the first four to six weeks of their 16-week pregnancies, at which point they’re confirmed pregnant.

  The practice is pervasive in what the industry calls “group housing” pork production, meaning that even sows supposedly raised in group environments are still individually confined in gestation crates for a little over three months of the year, since they average a little over two pregnancy cycles per year.

  In other words, most “crate-free” pork is in reality only partially crate-free. Icahn and the Humane Society want McDonald’s to go all the way by not allowing its suppliers to use gestation crates at all, which they argue was the company’s stated goal in 2012.

  “McDonald’s [policy] has gone from pigs ‘never being in a gestation crate,’” says Balk, “to now allowing explicitly more than three months every year, unable to turn around.”

  When reached for comment, McDonald’s referred me to its February 20 press release in response to Ichan’s campaign. The release states that McDonald’s is “sourcing U.S. pork from confirmed pregnant sows not housed in gestation crates.”

  In the pork industry, “confirmed pregnant” means the sows were kept in gestation crates for the first four-six weeks of their pregnancy.

  McDonald’s also reiterated to me that its policy was guided by the pork industry and the American Association of Swine Veterinarians, whose definition of group housing uses the “confirmed” language as well. The association’s definition doesn’t specify the number of weeks for pregnancy confirmation, though a spokesperson with the association told me, “Confirmation of pregnancy can typically occur between 35 and 45 days of gestation.”

  It’s an issue throughout the pork industry. Most “group housing” producers still confine sows in gestation crates for the first four-six weeks of their pregnancies because some studies have found that mixing newly pregnant sows together in large pens can increase rates of aggression, injury, and stress. However, researchers say findings are inconsistent, and have also found that these challenges could potentially be minimized through changes in flooring, environment, diet, and management.

  And these concerns about mixing newly pregnant sows together in their first few weeks have to be weighed against the immense suffering imposed by confining them in gestation crates instead: sores, foot and leg injuries from lying on concrete all day, reduced bone strength, and distress, boredom, and frustration, evidenced by the bite marks on the bars of their crates and the pigs swaying their heads side to side.

  Icahn’s objections relating to weeks and percentages might seem like splitting hairs, but what McDonald’s does next could have ripple effects for the entire food system, for as go the Golden Arches, so goes the fast food industry. Some in the animal welfare community credit McDonald’s with accelerating the broader shift toward cage-free eggs after it pledged in 2015 to source exclusively cage-free eggs by 2025 (the company is almost two-thirds of the way toward achieving its goal). If McDonald’s can eliminate gestation crates from its supply chain, its competitors might be forced to catch up, creating a domino effect in much the same way it did with cage-free eggs.

  But if the company stands firm against Icahn and his proxy fight, it could further entrench one of the cruelest devices in today’s food system — one that confines pigs in a way that would be criminal if done to a dog or cat.

  The complex crate-free bacon supply chain, explained

  When Icahn called on McDonald’s to eliminate gestation crates from its supply chain by the end of the year, the company defended itself by saying “the current pork supply in the U.S. would make this type of commitment impossible.”

  That could be true. A new California law bans the sale of pork from crated sows, but according to a March 2021 report by agribusiness financier Rabobank, less than 4 percent of the US pork supply at the time met California’s crate-free requirements, far from enough to meet the state’s demand, let alone McDonald’s too. However, the supply is now likely much higher than 4 percent, as some of the country’s biggest pork producers have stated in recent months that they’ll supply California with compliant pork.

  But McDonald’s statement also belies the leverage it has over its suppliers. I spoke with a former high-level decision-maker at Burger King’s purchasing cooperative, RSI, who spoke on condition of anonymity, about McDonald’s response to Icahn. In his opinion, “‘Impossible’ is a strong word. It’s difficult. It’s not easy for them to get this resolved.” Despite that, in his opinion, “[McDonald’s hasn’t] made the effort necessary” to reach its commitment.

  The company has used its leverage to force changes among its meat suppliers in the past, and according to Balk, it could’ve spent the last two decades using that leverage — it buys 1 percent of all US pork — to push its suppliers to meet its 100 percent crate-free goal. (The company listed “explore sow gestation housing alternatives” as a goal as early as 2002.)

  The “impossible” comment also contradicts what some of the nation’s largest pork producers say about the matter: Hormel, Clemens Food Group, Seaboard, and Tyson Foods have all publicly stated that they can supply California with crate-free pork, which requires even more space per sow than what is standard in the industry, though at least for the time being, McDonald’s would have to compete with California grocery stores for it.

  McDonald’s is far from alone in falling behind on its gestation crate pledge. Dozens of fast food chains, grocers, and food manufacturers have made similar promises too, winning praise from media and animal welfare groups when announced, only to have mixed success on follow-through. The exceptions are Chipotle, which achieved a gestation crate-free supply in 2020, and Whole Foods, which has prohibited gestation crates since 2003.

  But McDonald’s is doubling down on its insistence that its anti- gestation-crate policy doesn’t allow its suppliers to still use them when it sounds like it does, and even though some other big food companies, such as Burger King, have acknowledged this problem in their supply chain and at least say they’ll work to change it. Panera Bread has been more specific, noting that as of 2019, 41 percent of its pork came from farms that never use crates.

  “It would be one thing if McDonald’s said, ‘We pledge to get rid of gestation crates, we aren’t there yet but we’re going to keep going and here’s our plan to get there,’” Balk of the Humane Society says. “But that’s not what McDonald’s is doing. Instead, they’ve failed to meet their very public promise to get rid of gestation crates, and now they’re actively allowing gestation crates. That’s the real issue.”

  The animal rights movement changed how big business buys meat and eggs

  Ending the extreme confinement of farmed animals — sows in gestation crates, egg-laying hens in cages, calves in veal crates — became a flagship campaign for the animal protection movement in the early 2000s, which has seen significant success despite resistance by agribusiness. Fourteen states have passed laws to ban or restrict the use of cages and crates, some of which have forced animal agriculture to overhaul operations.

  Combined with the hundreds of food companies that have been pressured to phase out cages and crates from their supply chains, factory farming today looks a little less grim than it did 15 years ago. Today, nearly one-third of eggs are cage-free, a number that is expected to climb as state laws go into effect and the egg industry constructs new cage-free operations.

  The suffering in America’s animal agriculture system is still immense; extreme confinement is just the most viscerally disturbing practice on a long list of horrors one would find when they step inside any of America’s thousands of factory farms — cage- and crate- free farms included — where nearly all meat, milk, and eggs are produced.

  But progress is progress. If the effort to eliminate the worst cruelties prevalent in industrialized animal farming succeeds, it’ll likely take decades and a pluralistic approach, everything from grassroots activism to lobbying politicians and, yes, even proxy fights on Wall Street.

• The Ukrainian resistance isn’t just on the front lines -

  

  From feeding troops to answering hotlines, volunteers are mobilizing for the war effort.

  Tymofii Brik and his girlfriend spent Friday evening walking around their neighborhood in Kyiv, looking at the ground, at walls, and up at roofs. They were searching for special markings left behind by Russian saboteurs, who Ukrainian officials warned had infiltrated cities and may have been marking buildings to target for strikes.

  It is not clear Russian forces actually marked buildings, but Brik said the local government had asked civilians to go out and search, and they felt they had to do something, even a small thing like this. Brik’s girlfriend, a climber, wanted to scale the side of their nine-story apartment building to investigate. Brik talked her down from that idea, as did the climbing buddies she texted for advice. It wasn’t worth the risk, they said, and Brik and his girlfriend went inside without uncovering any signs of Russian saboteurs.

  Russia invaded Ukraine a week ago, beginning a war that, to some Ukrainians, felt improbable until the first explosions went off. When the attacks began, “the activation was immediate,” said Brik, a sociologist and researcher at the Kyiv School of Economics, who spoke Sunday evening from the shower in his apartment bathroom in Kyiv, where he and his girlfriend were sheltering.

  That activation happened all across Ukraine, drawing on some of the lessons of 2014, during the country’s Euromaidan uprising and, later, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and incursions into eastern Ukraine. Eight years later, civilians have signed up to fight, joining the Territorial Defense Forces to defend cities. But the resistance extends far beyond that. Citizens are using their skills and their contacts to fill in the gaps for the government and the armed forces, and are finding ways, many of them informal and improvised, to contribute to the war effort.

  “All the nation is involved, not only the army,” said Viktoriya (who is being referred to by a pseudonym for safety reasons), who helps supply medicines to Kyiv.

  Brik is relying on overlapping networks of colleagues, students, and friends who connected on social media, particularly on WhatsApp and Telegram and Viber, trying to figure out how to wage a war they never wanted. It’s like a snowball, Brik said: “I’m kind of in the bottom of this snowball.”

  Through these channels, Brik and his fellow Ukrainians debunk misinformation and share tips — how to make a Molotov cocktail, or where to donate your empty bottles so someone else can. Who has a car or an extra seat for a ride out of the city. Where to donate food and fuel and body armor.

  Laurent Van der Stockt for Le Monde/Getty Images

  It’s “very unorganized on the one side, but at the same time, quite organized in the sense that it delivers results very quickly,” said Nataliia Shapoval, head of the KSE Institute at the Kyiv School of Economics.

  They are trying to protect Ukraine from cyberattacks. They are monitoring damages to infrastructure, to eventually quantify the costs of war and what needs to be rebuilt. They are finding empty apartments for internally displaced people — and for captured Russian soldiers.

  Many of the people Vox spoke to, like Shapoval and Brik, are connected with the Kyiv School of Economics, and they are communicating with colleagues, students, and more contacts in academia or public policy and other fields — a reflection of how at least one of these networks is operating. Shapoval said because she and many of her colleagues have worked closely with government officials before, they sometimes consult with agencies. Other times, it’s a guessing game, trying to predict what the government might need. Many also have international connections, and they are upfront that they are using these to promote Ukraine and do public relations for the country’s war effort. Talking to foreign journalists, like me, is part of that process.

  “All my life, I’ve been pushing the buttons on the laptop,” Shapoval said Sunday afternoon, speaking from outside Kyiv. She left the city earlier in the week, reaching her destination with one sweater, one pair of jeans, and one pair of shoes. “I feel like I have to go to the territorial defense or something — but then I rationally understand that I will just create trouble for other, more serious people to protect me there. So I’m trying to do what I can, and everyone else, I think, in my community looks at this the same.”

  “We feel,” she added, “that we have to do something.”

  Ukraine’s non- soldier volunteers

  Last Friday, the first full day of Ukraine at war, Olena Starodubtseva, her 20-year-old daughter, and a friend went to one of the territorial defense units in Kyiv — not to enlist, but to see if they could help another way. Hundreds of people were trying to volunteer, and, it turns out, that means hundreds of applications to sort through.

  Starodubtseva, an administrator at the Kyiv School of Economics, and a handful of other mostly women volunteers instructed people on how to fill out the paper forms and checked over the information. “The pile of applications was just unimaginable,” she said.

  The applicants were mostly men, the youngest maybe 20, the oldest maybe 75. Some had military experience; some did not. Some asked about their patrolling schedules, how they would manage to fight and still go to their jobs.

  A day later, Starodubtseva walked around the district in Kyiv where she lives. “We remembered the faces of those people, and we could see them patrolling,” she said.

  Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images

  Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, long telegraphed, still shocked. Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and incursion into eastern Ukraine, where Moscow backed a separatist rebellion, had forced Ukraine to live with the ever-present threat of Russian aggression. But that also made it easier for people to mobilize, quickly, after Russia’s attack last week.

  In 2014, during the pro-Western Euromaidan protests, volunteers also built networks and connections to support the demonstrators, bringing them food and supplies and trying to get media coverage abroad. Russia’s moves into Crimea and eastern Ukraine, which happened soon after, also meant volunteers enlisted to fight. “It was like a template, like a framework used again,” Brik said. “It was so natural when everyone kind of knew what they’re doing.”

  “The experienced people went to the army,” he said. “The people who spoke English started to write texts in English.”

  Volodymyr Kadygrob, an art projects manager, helped start Artists Supporting Ukraine in 2014, to bring attention to Russia’s annexation of Crimea. He spoke from outside Lviv on Sunday, where he is trying to bring together artists to showcase work about Ukraine once again. “In organizing,” he said of Ukraine, “we’re, like, number one.” In his view, this activism has helped to galvanize society, something he and others said Putin hadn’t expected. “It seems that they are shocked with what is happening,” Kadygrob said.

Serhii Hudak/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged civilians to fight; the government has said it will give weapons to those who want them. But, as Shapoval said, it isn’t as simple as just picking up a weapon and going. Brik has never held a gun in his life; he recently signed up for someone to teach him to shoot. But it was too late. “It didn’t happen,” he said, “because the war actually happened.”

But pulling together an armed force overnight requires logistics and communication, record-keeping and application-taking — and all the tasks in between.

Oksana Syroyid, a former deputy speaker of Ukraine’s parliament from 2014 to 2019, said she had been saying for years that Russia would invade, so she was not surprised; she knew this would happen. She worked with the Territorial Defense Forces previously to help set up a hotline, and to develop the protocols and train the staff working the lines.

When the invasion started, Syroyid started answering the phones herself. People wanted to know where they could find the territorial defense units, what kind of documents they should take, what it all might look like. The average length of each call was about one minute and 40 seconds. “It was nonstop,” Syroyid said Monday afternoon from Kyiv. “Just answering, answering, answering.”

Starodubtseva said that once, during a shift, they had to stop and take shelter because of an air raid threat. After, they came back to work after. The more they worked, the better and faster they became at the process. But the people, she said, kept coming and coming and coming.

When she collected the forms, she looked at the addresses and they were all around her home. “We are all neighbors, actually,” she said.

The front lines are now everywhere

After nearly a week of war, the shape of the crisis in Ukraine is beginning to fill out. The United Nations has estimated that more than 200 civilians have been killed since the start of the invasion, on February 24, though that is likely an undercount. About 1 million have fled so far, estimates the United Nations. Major Ukrainian cities are under siege. The Russians are bombarding Kharkiv in the east, and are threatening Kyiv, the capital.

By the day, everything becomes more urgent.

Requests for assistance or supplies often come across Telegram and WhatsApp chats or channels, and through social media posts that get shared and reshared. Shapoval said she saw a post that some Ukrainian fighters were cold, needed some clothing and food in a certain part of Kyiv. A colleague of hers saw it, drove her car out there, and delivered to the fighters what they needed. There are some NGOs answering those requests, but much of this is word of mouth.

As Brik said, there is no shortage of volunteers, no shortage of people who are motivated. He is donating money. “But still, there is a shortage of resources here. That’s why [the] army always say[s], ‘We need more medicine, we need more warm stuff, we need more, even, notebooks, we need markers for hospitals — you know, sometimes they use markers to mark wounded people,” he said. “They need markers, they need insulin, they need whatever.”

And explaining this not just to neighbors but to the rest of the world is all part of this process. Ukraine, so far, has largely won the narrative over this war. With Russia launching a war of choice on Ukraine, it wasn’t hard, but Ukraine’s ability to capture the sympathies of large parts of the Western world has helped shape the global response — the continued military support; a standing ovation for Zelenskyy in the European Parliament. The West imposed punishing sanctions, which came faster and looked far tougher than anyone expected. Syroyid said communication can be a weapon, one that is even stronger if there’s fight behind it.

Kadygrob knows this international pressure is important. He is promoting artists who are supporting Ukraine and trying to work with networks of artists and influencers, including within Russian communities, to get them to speak out.

These are minor acts of resistance, but, as Starodubtseva said, it is better to do something. Otherwise, she said, “you can just go crazy with trawling the news and listening to the shelling everywhere around you.”

Brik is not a military expert. Russia, he thinks, has higher numbers of troops and better equipment than Ukraine. “So, you know, our babushkas provide food. Our volunteers provide medicine. Our workers provide money.”

“We are united,” he said. “But this is just the best we can do.”

• Does Ukraine really need Elon Musk’s help? -

  

  Ukraine’s appeals to Silicon Valley get mixed results.

  After Russia’s invasion, many feared Ukraine’s internet access would be cut off, either through cyberattacks or the destruction of internet infrastructure — or both. While there have been some temporary outages and attacks on government websites, for the most part, there hasn’t been an internet blackout yet. Even so, after Ukraine’s vice prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, tweeted an appeal to Elon Musk, the billionaire sent help.

  Earlier this week, a truckload of Starlink satellite dishes, also known as Dishys, showed up in Ukraine. Elon Musk also turned on Starlink’s space internet service in the country, ushering in a round of positive headlines about his world-saving generosity. It’s not clear if or when Ukraine will need an alternate internet service, but it can’t hurt to have the public support of the richest man in the world.

  Musk isn’t the only powerful and influential tech magnate that Fedorov, who is also Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, has appealed to for help during the invasion. Over the last several days, he’s tweeted sometimes emotional pleas to Apple and Tim Cook to block App Store access in Russia; to Google and its CEO Sundar Pichai, and YouTube and its CEO Susan Wojcicki to deplatform Russian state media; to Cloudflare and its CEO Matthew Prince to block Russia’s access to its services; and to Meta and Mark Zuckerberg to block access to Facebook and Instagram in Russia. Fedorov has also tweeted at payment processors and crypto exchanges to cut off Russia, and called for “cyber specialists” to join an “IT army.”

  It’s part of a seemingly effective strategy. Russia is known for using the internet to push its propaganda through coordinated social media campaigns. But Ukraine has come up with its own social media tactics, with its leaders making Ukraine’s case through personal, often heartfelt appeals on various channels. As Fedorov said in a tweet last week: Win the hearts of the world while cutting Russians off from technology that’s become essential to many aspects of their daily lives.

Fedorov hasn’t gotten everything he asked for from the other companies, but they have offered some help. Apple stopped selling products in Russia, cut off Apple Pay in the country, and removed Russian state-controlled news apps from its App Store outside Russia. YouTube is deplatforming Russian state-controlled media in Europe, while Google and YouTube have stopped monetizing ads on Russian state-controlled websites and channels. Meta is restricting access to Russian state-controlled media on Facebook and Instagram in the European Union, and demoting posts with links to Russian state-owned media globally.

With Musk, however, Fedorov got exactly what he asked for, from a CEO who loves attention and has a habit of jumping into well-publicized problems with his own novel, Musk- company-branded technological solutions. Musk has demonstrated a willingness to get involved in the Russia-Ukraine conflict in other ways, too: He tweeted SpaceX’s logo at a Russian official who threatened that the International Space Station would fall out of the sky if Russia was cut off from it.

While Musk usually collects accolades for his proposals, it’s worth pointing out that these efforts don’t always pan out in practice. In 2018, a random Twitter user asked him to save a group of teens trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand. Musk assembled a team of engineers to build an escape pod out of SpaceX rocket parts. It ultimately wasn’t used in the rescue, and unfortunately, the laudable effort ended with Musk tweeting that one of the divers who saved the children was a “pedo guy.” Musk won the subsequent defamation lawsuit.

Then, in March 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States and hospitals ran low on ventilators, Musk tweeted that Tesla would “make ventilators” in its Buffalo, New York, plant. It did not do this. Tesla built a ventilator prototype out of Tesla parts, which was never put into production, but the whole affair made for a nice publicity video. Musk’s promise to donate hundreds of ventilators to hospitals ended up being Tesla-branded BiPAP and CPAP machines, which are commonly used to treat sleep apnea. (Tesla didn’t actually make the machines, but someone did slap Tesla stickers on the boxes.) While at least some of those machines were helpful, they’re not ventilators.

Musk’s efforts have been more successful on other occasions. He tweeted in 2018 that he would fix the water in any Flint homes that had lead-contaminated water. Although that doesn’t appear to have happened, the Elon Musk Foundation did donate lead-filtering water fountains to several Flint schools last month. Musk also tweeted earlier this year that he wanted to send Starlink terminals to Tonga after a volcanic eruption severed the cables that provide the island’s internet. Starlink did in fact provide the island with 50 dishes and free service until its access is restored. The gift helped the people of Tonga and showed Starlink at its best: in remote locations that don’t have access to wired services or cellular networks.

As for Starlink in Ukraine, it does appear to be up and running, as Musk promised. A man named Oleg Kutkov, who lives in Kyiv, tweeted that his Dishy was working. Kutkov told Recode that he didn’t get the dish through Musk’s donation; he happened to buy it months ago through eBay. He couldn’t connect it to the internet then, nor did he expect to be able to do so. Kutkov is an engineer and said he got the dish to see how it worked, not to actually make it work. Then Russia invaded his country.

“I saw Elon’s tweet and decided to try to connect my Dishy,” he said. With a little help from SpaceX, he was able to transfer to his current location the US-based account to which the Dishy was originally registered.

“I was glad to test it and share my results,” Kutkov said. “A lot of people are waiting for this.”

While Ukraine seems pleased with Musk’s benevolence, it may not be necessary. There have been reports of intermittent internet outages in the country, but, as the Guardian points out, it’s no easy task for an invading army to cut a country off from the internet, which is provided by several companies through several mediums, including fiber-optic cables, cellular networks, and other satellite internet services. This isn’t Tonga, where one vulnerable cable supplies the internet to an entire nation. And it’s perhaps even harder to cut the internet off in a country like Ukraine, which for years has faced cyberattacks from Russia. By necessity, it has had to make its internet services as resistant to attacks as possible.

Even so, having Starlink is a good thing, even if it is as overhyped as everything else Musk does. Internet access has been an inextricable part of this invasion and a way for Ukrainians to stay connected to each other and the outside world. Ukrainians have been downloading communication and connectivity apps (offline and online) in increased numbers in the last several days, including Signal, Telegram, Zello, and, yes, Starlink. And Ukraine’s government, as demonstrated by Fedorov’s tweets, has used the internet to make its case to the rest of the world and counter pro-Russian disinformation from the country’s notorious internet propaganda arms. Ukraine has the support and sympathy of much of the world, while Russia is buried under economic sanctions and more companies are pulling their services and products from the country every day.

We don’t know how many dishes Musk sent over, nor do we know who will get them or how they’ll be used. Neither SpaceX nor Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation responded to requests for comment, but on Wednesday afternoon, Fedorov said in a tweet that Starlink “keeps our cities connected,” adding a photo of what appears to be a Dishy installed on the roof of a building (presumably in Ukraine). He then appealed to several companies for generators to keep Starlink and other services running if the electricity goes out.

One side note: Musk’s gift may have doubled as a way to get rid of old stock. The boxes appear to contain older Dishy models, which were used during Starlink’s year-long beta test. Several months ago, Starlink redesigned Dishy; it’s now smaller, lighter, and rectangular. It’s also possible that the older Dishys were all SpaceX had on hand to give out, as the company has struggled to produce dishes due to the worldwide chip shortage.

In any case, if the donated Dishys work, that’s all that will matter to the people in Ukraine who might need them. Kutkov said he has had to evacuate to bomb shelters multiple times a day and rockets have struck within six miles of his home. The situation, he says, is dangerous and exhausting. But his internet and cell service have stayed on so far.

“The situation is changing very quickly. I understand that Kyiv’s internet connectivity may be disrupted,” he said. “I will use this Dishy for emergencies.”

Update, March 2, 5 pm: This story was updated with a tweet from Fedorov.

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From The Hindu: Sports

• F1 terminates contract with Russia after Ukraine invasion - Formula One says “Russia will not have a race in the future”

• Credit goes to Virat for where India stands in Test cricket, want to take it forward, says Rohit Sharma - “It’s been one hell of a ride for him, and we definitely want to make it special for him,” the Indian captain said ahead of Virat Kohli’s 100th Test

• Ind vs SL | A ‘Testy Treat’: Rohit's Team India ready to dish out stellar show in King Kohli's 100th Test - A bowling attack that has the likes of Suranga Lakmal, Lahiru Kumara or Lasith Embuldeniya is perfect for a sumptuous ‘five course’ Kohli treat with cover drives, on drives, flicks and pulls on the menu

• Abramovich selling Chelsea in fallout from Russia's invasion - Chelsea’s Russian owner Roman Abramovich has confirmed he is trying to sell the Premier League club he turned into an elite trophy-winning machine with his lavish investment

• The Invitation Cup will bring back the glory of Madras horse racing, says MAMR Muthiah - Chennai gears up for a weekend of exciting horse racing

From The Hindu: National News

• I-T Dept. accuses multinational group of tax evasion - Group manipulated its books of account to reduce its taxable income, it says

• Three Hassan students have moved out of Kharkiv, says DC - They are in a safe place; another student hs reached Romania

• IIM-Calcutta registers 100% placement, average salary hits record ₹34 lakh - A total of 465 students took part in the final placement process, receiving 631 offers

• Plans to house Kannada classical language centre at Jayalakshmi Vilas Mansion - Mysuru MP Pratap Simha is pushing for it

• MEA briefs parliamentary panel on Russia-Ukraine crisis - Congress leader Rahul Gandhi asks how the conflict may impact tenuous India-China relations

From BBC: Europe

• Mariupol under siege: ‘We are being completely cut off’ - Residents of a key Ukrainian port city tell the BBC they are being cut off by relentless Russian shelling.

• Ukraine: Russian troops take control of key city of Kherson - mayor - The port of Kherson is the first major city to be taken by Russia since it launched its invasion.

• Ukraine maps: Russians take Kherson but Kyiv advance slows - Russia takes control of its first major city as the assault on the country intensifies.

• Ukraine: Russia faces war crimes investigation - The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor opens an inquiry, after Russia is accused of bombing civilians.

• RT: Russian-backed TV news channel disappears from UK screens - The TV news network disappears as a result of sanctions imposed by the European Union.

From Ars Technica

• Google Play app downloaded more than 10,000 times contained data-stealing RAT - Were you infected? Security firm has data that will let you know. - link

• Conti cybergang gloated when leaking victims’ data. Now the tables are turned - Almost two years worth of chat logs air the group’s dirty laundry. - link

• Carmakers shut factories and freeze sales as invasion fallout spreads - OEMs including Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Aston Martin hit by war in Ukraine. - link

• Astronomers: “Vampire” star stripped the atmosphere from its binary partner - New data resolves debate about nature of star system HR 6819, discovered in 2020. - link

• Ford reorg prioritizes EVs, keeps fossil fuel vehicles as “engines of cash” - Decision ends speculation that Ford would split into two companies, for now. - link

From Jokes Subreddit

• What’s the difference between Republicans and Ukrainians? -

  Ukrainians defend their Capitol.

  submitted by /u/16ouncesofsand
  [link] [comments]

• A Scottish woman visiting the U.S. walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a domestic beer. The bartender asks, “Anheuser Busch?” -

  The woman, a bit confused replies " It’s fine I guess…… Anheuser pecker?"

  submitted by /u/No-Control5487
  [link] [comments]

• A depressed man walks into a bar. -

  He approaches the bartender and says, “I’ll have six double brandy.” The bartender replies, “You must’ve had a really tough day!”

  “Yeah, I found out that my dad is gay”, the man replies.

  The following day, the man returns to the bar looking much sadder than before, ordering another six double brandy.

  “Why did you come back so soon?” asks the bartender. The man, in response, dejectedly said to him, “I found out that my son is also gay.”

  The third day comes, and the man returns looking glum as ever, again ordering six double brandy. The bartender exclaimed, “Wow! Doesn’t anyone in your family like women?”

  “Yeah, my wife…”

  submitted by /u/hidendra69
  [link] [comments]

• I told my daughter, “Go to bed, the cows are sleeping in the field.” Puzzled, she asked, “What’s that got to do with anything?” I chuckled, “Well, that means…” -

  “It’s pasture bedtime!”

  submitted by /u/808gecko808
  [link] [comments]

• 2 Russians are robbing a bank… -

  2 Russians are robbing a bank… Everything went successful, quickly and silently. However, before existing the bank, one Russian stops another one: “Hey, what kind of a robbery is it if no one got injured or killed?”

  Russian 2: “You’re right, kill that woman that’s sitting over there!”

  Russian 1 (to the woman): “What’s your name?”

  Woman: “Sofia”

  Russian 1 (to Russian 2): “I can’t kill her… My wife has the same name…”

  Russian 2: “Then kill that kid that’s sitting beside her.”

  Russian 1 (to the kid): “What’s your name?”

  Kid: “Billy, but everybody calls me Sofia”

  submitted by /u/Hrendik
  [link] [comments]