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☆ Biden Pays Silent Tribute to Victims of Hiroshima Bomb
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Peter Baker | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

President Biden was 2 years old when the nuclear era opened with a blast of devastation unlike any the world had ever seen. Seventy-eight years later, he came on Friday to ground zero of the first atomic bomb used in warfare to pay tribute to the dead. Mr. Biden and other world leaders met privately with a survivor, toured a museum, laid wreaths at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and planted a tree. The president stared solemnly at the Cenotaph for the Atomic Bomb Victims as the city’s mayor described the monument. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has hinted ominously that he may yet unleash nuclear weapons to salvage his flailing invasion of Ukraine.

☆ Amazon Is Everywhere. That’s What Makes It So Vulnerable.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Noam Scheiber | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Is there a more familiar sign of corporate dominance than the Amazon delivery van? Today, the Amazon vans are almost inescapable. But this seeming monument to Amazon’s strength is in some ways closer to the opposite: a symbol of its vulnerability. The vans are just the most visible piece of ‌the company’s vast delivery network. It has also made Amazon susceptible to a potent form of labor organizing — choke point organizing — in which workers threaten to hobble a company’s operations by shutting down key sites, known as choke points.

It was against that backdrop that Biden and his fellow leaders entered three days of talks. Biden faces his fellow world leaders Friday in Japan under the shadow of a looming default on US debt, a scenario his advisers said risks subverting American leadership and sending the global economy into tailspin. The risk appears particularly acute as Biden works to rally fellow G7 officials behind a shared approach toward Russia and China. The conflict will be a key topic of discussion for world leaders Friday. Biden and fellow leaders were planning to discuss how much progress has been made on the battlefield, with an eye toward helping Ukraine regain territory and assume leverage in potential peace talks.

☆ Hegra has been inhabited for 12,000 years -- but has only had tourists for four
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Lilit Marcus | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Now, increased investment in archeology from the Saudi government means that more and more information is coming out of Hegra and other Nabatean sites. I think they just get absorbed in the story of the growth of the Roman Empire.”"Hinat" greets travelers at the Hegra visitor's center. Now, travelers can see her in the Hegra visitors’ center. Expand your searchMany visitors combine their Hegra trip with visits to the smaller nearby historic sites of Dadan and Jabal Ikmah. Don’t miss the covered outdoor station near the Hegra visitor’s center, where you can practice using a small chisel to carve your name or initials into pieces of stone.

☆ How to explore Greece's lesser-known islands like a local
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( Karen Gilchrist | Morgan Awyong | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

But now it wants tourists to get to know lesser-known locations across its thousands of sprawling islands. Currently, Germany and the U.K. represent Greece's largest inbound tourism markets by revenue, followed by the United States, France and Italy. An eco-paradise surrounded by 24 islets, Lipsi forms part of the Dodecanese island collection in the southeastern Aegean Sea. Alonissos, SporadesDivers' delight Alonissos, part of the Sporades group of islands, is a diver's paradise and the site of Greece's first underwater museum. Alonissos, part of the Sporades archipelago in the northwest Aegean Sea, is known for its diving spots, including Greece's first underwater museum, the "Parthenon of the Wrecks."

☆ There Are No Universal Salves
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( Heather Havrilesky | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

My children and I were visiting New York City’s most important landmarks, so naturally we began our journey at the Glossier flagship store in SoHo. Ever since 2014, those loyal to dewiness and glossiness have sought a consecrated place to pay homage to Balm Dotcom universal salve and Boy Brow grooming pomade. We believe beauty is about having fun, celebrating freedom, and being present, because no matter where you are in your beauty journey — YOU LOOK GOOD. The mirror in the Glossier flagship store would like a word. I expect to be miraculously transformed into a fresh-faced teenager, but in the mirror I discover a creased old crone with inexplicably neon-orange lips.

☆ Why missing one $2 expense could derail your whole national park trip
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Greg Iacurci | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

What this means: Travelers can't necessarily bank on showing up spontaneously to a national park and getting the experience they desire. Record park visitation spurred reservationsTourists crowd into the Midway Geyser Basin on July 14, 2021 at Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. One — Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas — saw record visitors last year. Overall visits to national parks jumped by 5% in 2022 versus the year prior, to 312 million recreation visits. These national parks require vehicle reservationsTraffic heading into Yosemite Village on Oct. 6, 2019, in Yosemite National Park, California.

[1/5] Teacher Inese Rudzite stands in front of Russian citizens during the Latvian language learning class in Riga, Latvia May 2, 2023. Speaking Russian instead of Latvian has not been a problem until now, but the war in Ukraine changed the picture. He said the test was needed because Russian authorities justified their invasion of Ukraine by the need to protect Russian nationals abroad. "I think that learning Latvian is right, but this pressure is wrong," Sevastjanova said. But now I end up learning Latvian instead.

“Difficult years await us but if we don’t reach zero emissions immediately they will be terrible.”Photos showed activists, wearing orange vests, standing waist deep in the fountain. They unfolded orange banners bearing the words in Italian: “Our future is as black as this water” as crowds of onlookers snapped pictures. It is believed to be the same group of climate activists that led protests at other Italian historical sites including the Barcaccia fountain at the base of the Spanish Steps in central Rome, where they poured black liquid into the fountain on April 1. Similar protests saw activists glue themselves to Italian art masterpieces in locations like the Vatican museums and Uffizi galleries in Florence. ‘Iconic’ work of artLocated in the famed Piazza Navona square in Rome, the Fiumi Fountain was designed by Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1651.

☆ Russia’s battered wartime economy is still chugging along as it taps its wealth fund, raises taxes, and ramps up imports
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Shares of First Republic dropped more than 40% in pre-market trading today, while JPMorgan stock ticked 2.9% higher. Let's check in on Russia's wartime economy. To the surprise of many forecasters, Russia's economy has held up better than expected as it carries on into the second year of its war on Ukraine. And leaked documents, first reported by the Washington Post, suggest that Russia can fund its war for at least another year. Specifically, US intelligence says Moscow can rely on its sovereign wealth fund to help pay for its war efforts, as well as higher corporate taxes and ramped-up imports.

☆ Right-wing organizers built a giant statue of a Russian propagandist in Minecraft for a digital rally that saw over 10,000 people show up — and then the server crashed
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Chris Panella | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Russian right-wing organizers built a monument to a dead Russian propagandist in Minecraft. The rally, held ahead of Russia's May Day, last week garnered 12,000 digital visitors. The event, held ahead of Russia's May Day, was organized by the right-wing populist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, according to Meduza. Zhirinovsky, who died last year, was an ultranationalist politician and propagandist considered to be close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. He baselessly told BCC in 2018 that Ukraine was Russian territory: "It's our territory; it's our people.

Just days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with Moscow’s forces massing on the border, officials in the medieval town of Lützen, Germany, afforded landmark status to a Soviet-era World War II memorial standing outside a kindergarten in the town center. “Glory to the great Russian people — the nation of victors,” reads an inscription that was repainted by local officials in June on one side of the 10-foot, pyramidal monument. Inscribed on another side in bright red is a quote from Joseph Stalin commemorating 12 Soviet prisoners of war who died at German hands while working at the local sugar factory. A bright red star with gold-colored hammer and sickle adorns the pyramid’s peak. Scattered across Germany, but primarily in what was once the Soviet-dominated German Democratic Republic in the east, are more than 4,000 protected monuments commemorating the sacrifices of Soviet soldiers in the struggle against Nazism.

☆ Spare the bear: Sculpture of Spain's rifle-wielding ex-king puzzles onlookers
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Once revered for his role in Spain's transition to democracy, he is now seen as a liability for his son, King Felipe. After eight minutes standing next to the bronze bear figure, Miranda removed his unauthorised statue - 170 cm (67 inches) tall and made of polyurethane and modelling clay covered with metallic paint resembling patina on bronze. The Bear and Strawberry Tree - the official symbols of Madrid - are photographed by thousands of tourists daily in the middle of the Puerta del Sol square. Miranda will have an exhibition in Madrid next month which will include images of the performance in Puerta del Sol. Reporting by Emma Pinedo, editing by Andrei Khalip and Mark HeinrichOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Thirty years on, Zambia mourns national team killed in plane crash
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Mark Gleeson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The bulk of the team were experienced internationals, fancied to emerge top of their final round qualifying group and secure a first-ever World Cup final appearance at the 1994 tournament in the United States. Engine failure after takeoff from Libreville caused the plane to crash into the sea, killing all on board including the coaches, support staff and crew. A year after the crash, the team were surprise finalists at the 1994 Africa Cup of Nations in Tunisia, losing 2-1 to Nigeria. Twenty years after the disaster, Zambia finally won the African title - in Gabon, site of the crash. Just days before the final, players threw flowers into the sea at the beach where the bodies had washed up.

☆ A new bill in Florida would allow citizens to sue for damage to or removal of Confederate statues
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Hannah Getahun | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A new bill in Florida would allow citizens to sue for damage to or removal of historical monuments. The bill doesn't mention Confederate statues, but opponents say it is a response to it. The newly-elected state senator, endorsed by Ron DeSantis during his 2022 campaign, previously served on the Florida Southwestern State College Board of Trustees. Before being elected, the state senator had been investigated for battery but was cleared by prosecutors in August. Over the past few years, a national movement to remove Confederate statues took hold in the US, with proponents of these removals pointing to the statues' ties to slavery.

☆ Spain to exhume fascist movement founder's body from Madrid mausoleum
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Charlie Devereux | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

REUTERS/Juan MedinaMADRID, April 24 (Reuters) - Spain on Monday will dig up the body of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the fascist Falange movement that supported the Francoist regime, and remove it from a mausoleum carved into a mountainside near Madrid. Last year, the Valley of the Fallen was renamed Valley of Cuelgamuros - the original name of the site - under Spain's new Democratic Memory law. "It's another step in the resignification of the valley," Presidency Minister Felix Bolanos told reporters in Barcelona on Friday. The son of dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera, who governed Spain from 1923-1930, Jose Antonio was shot by firing squad in November 1936 by left-wing Republican forces in Alicante. Franco, a conservative general, and Primo de Rivera, a flamboyant playboy, had little love for each other, according to Francos's biographer Paul Preston.

☆ To my son, born in the climate crisis: I see signs of hope
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-23 | by ( Bill Weir | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

The first looked at the twin crises of Covid and climate change as River was born; the second introduced him to Earth Day and what he could do. Watch Weir investigate “How to Unscrew a Planet,” on CNN’s “The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper,” Sunday at 8 p.m. Energy from clean sources, like this windmill in Texas, is heating and cooling more homes in America than ever before. “We call it climate intervention,” Kelly Wanser told me as we sat under bluebird skies and the Washington Monument. So far, it feels like your future will be marked in new stories to frame our wants and needs, and new tools to build Life As We Know It Could Be.

☆ A Village Cemetery Bears Witness to Russia’s Centuries-Long Efforts to Subjugate Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( James Marson | Photographs Joseph Sywenkyj For The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

STARIY SAMBIR, Ukraine—Russia’s attempts to stamp its control on this nation have killed millions of Ukrainians over centuries. Dozens of them are buried in a cemetery clinging to a hillside in this western village. Here, under a monument, lie the remains of some 80 partisans who died in battles with Soviet security forces. In the shade of a red-berry bush lies Bohdan Solchanyk, a university lecturer killed by police during protests in Kyiv against a Russian-backed president in 2014. Near the gate stands a more recent grave, that of Vasyl Pelysh, who suffered a fatal wound in September while driving supplies to the front lines in the east.

☆ Opinion | Harlan Crow Is Not a Nazi, but That’s Beside the Point
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Jamelle Bouie | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Ben Shapiro is a right-wing media personality who does not appear to have any direct ties to Crow, but he defended him all the same. Harlan Crow, by his own testimony and according to his defenders, goes to get angry. I don’t think Crow is a Nazi or an admirer of dictators and authoritarians. But I don’t think we should take his explanation for his collection at face value either. A monument to Robert E. Lee stood for Robert E. Lee.

☆ Seeking Visibility, Pope’s Commission on Sex Abuse Gets a New Home
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Jason Horowitz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Far from an exile, Father Small characterized the move as an expansion to a global headquarters in Rome that can serve as a monument to “the silent massacre of people’s childhoods” and make clear to survivors that they “have a right to be somewhere beautiful.”“It’s very significant,” Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston and the president of the commission, said in an interview. Despite it being “nifty” to have been in offices a stone’s throw from the pope, he said, “We have come to realize that it’s not as accessible as we would like to be.” Survivors of clerical sex abuse, he said, often feel uncomfortable coming into a Catholic church: “To have to come into the Vatican and go through the Swiss Guards and the gendarmes and everything else can be pretty daunting.”Location is far from the commission’s only problem. For decades, the church has been divided over the accountability of its hierarchy when it comes to covering up abuse, how much of a voice to give victims inside an insular institution and whether to take a more incremental or uncompromising approach to reform.

☆ A Utah miner blasted his own cave home with dynamite and now rents it out on Airbnb for $1,000 per night: 'Nothing has been in this space since the dinosaurs'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( Dan Latu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

In 1995, Grant Johnson purchased 40 acres of land and used dynamite to blast a cave in a boulder. Now he rents out a room in the cave for $350 or the whole space for $1,000 a night on Airbnb. The living room is "E."You can rent the property on Airbnb for $1,000 per nightThe cave now even welcomes visitors on Airbnb. The "west end" room, with its own staircase leading up to a private balcony, rents out for $350 per night. He recommends every guest climbs out to the patio on the west end at night, and watch the still, desert night.

[1/6] Pope Francis presides over the Good Friday Passion of the Lord service in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, April 7, 2023. Vatican Media/Handout via REUTERSROME, April 7 (Reuters) - Pope Francis presided at one indoor service on Good Friday, but doctors ordered him to skip an outdoor evening "Way of the Cross" procession at Rome's Colosseum after being hospitalised last week for bronchitis. Friday marked the first time since his election in 2013 that Francis missed a Way of the Cross event. The last pope to skip a Good Friday Way of the Cross service was Pope John Paul II. He is due to preside at an Easter vigil Mass on Saturday night in St. Peter's Basilica, and on Easter Sunday he is due to say Mass in St. Peter's Square and then deliver his twice-annual "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) blessing and message in St. Peter's Square.

Wednesday's talks were the first high-stakes meeting between the government of President Emmanuel Macron and union bosses since nationwide protests and strikes against the legislation started in mid-January. The talks, ahead of a new day of walkouts and marches planned for Thursday, lasted about an hour. Borne told reporters that she was open to further talks but that she would not backdown on the retirement age. Labour representatives complain they are not being listened to despite weeks of protest marches and unrest against the pension overhaul. Chabanier said the unions told Borne the only way out of the deadlock was for the government to withdraw the reform.

☆ MLB roundup: Aaron Judge homers in Yankees' opening win
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

Houston had its modern-day record of 10 consecutive Opening Day wins snapped. Orioles 10, Red Sox 9Adley Rutschman's 5-for-5 Opening Day helped Baltimore to a win over host Boston. Mets 5, Marlins 3Brandon Nimmo's three RBIs backed Max Scherzer's quality start, leading New York to an Opening Day victory over Miami. Twins 2, Royals 0Pablo Lopez and four relievers combined on an Opening Day two-hitter as visiting Minnesota blanked Kansas City. It was O'Neill's fourth consecutive Opening Day with a homer, tying a major league record.

[1/2] The White House is seen from the top of the Washington Monument April 3, 2003. REUTERS/Molly RileyWASHINGTON, March 29 (Reuters) - The White House made an emotional plea on Wednesday for Republican action to curb mass shootings, criticizing conservative lawmakers for saying nothing can be done after the nation's latest high-profile mass shooting at a school in Tennessee this week. "It's unacceptable that Republicans are saying there is nothing that we can do," White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday. He told reporters this week he has done what he could through executive action but needs Congress to step up. Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who has often been a harsh critic of his administration, according to the White House.

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