"What's News: The secret U.S.-Israel intelligence-sharing agreement."
Views expressed in this U.S., World, and Geopolitical News update are those of the reporters and correspondents. Accessed on 31 March 2024, 2147 UTC.
Content and Source: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=rm&ogbl#inbox/FMfcgzGxSbhhTXsBVdbWJsqNFbWPZZMP/The Wall Street Journal.
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Russ Roberts (https://trendsingeopolitics.blogspot.com).
Good afternoon. Here’s what you should know today, March 31:
| - Supersize ships, vulnerable bridges
- Turkey's succession race
- A fatal fall turns into a trans-Atlantic saga
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| Thanks for reading What’s News! Look for the  to enjoy a free article on us—and share the link with a friend (or forward the whole newsletter!). |
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What to Watch
|  | Israel's military operation in Gaza has destroyed swaths of civilian infrastructure. PHOTO: MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/GETTY IMAGES |
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1. Questions are mounting over whether ‘unprecedented’ U.S.-Israel intel sharing is contributing to civilian deaths in Gaza.
| A secret memorandum (read for free) that expanded U.S. intelligence sharing with Israel after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack has sparked concerns in Washington, according to people familiar with the issue. Among the worries is that there is little independent oversight to confirm that U.S.-supplied intelligence isn’t used in strikes that unnecessarily kill civilians or damage infrastructure. The intelligence-sharing agreement has received less public scrutiny than U.S. weapons sales to Israel. But it is prompting increasing questions from Democratic lawmakers and human-rights groups, even as alarm mounts within the Biden administration over Israel’s war conduct. |
| In Gaza, Festive Ramadan Rituals Give Way to Grim Wartime Reality (Read) |
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2. Bridges that let giant ships sail under them are vulnerable to a repeat of the Baltimore crash.
| Fewer than 10 bridges in the U.S. have the clearance of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, the 1,200-foot span that collapsed after a supersize containership slammed into one of its vertical supports. All of them have a vulnerability where the failure of even a single steel component in tension along the span could cause a collapse. The fact that a vessel the size of the Dali—a 984-foot containership weighing 95,000 tons when empty—brought down a mighty bridge with satisfactory inspection records highlights a vulnerability in U.S. commerce. Ships have grown bigger and bigger, especially after 2016 when the Panama Canal was widened, allowing them to enter East Coast ports from Asia. |
| Wreckage Removal Gets Under Way, Days After Baltimore Bridge Collapse (Read) |
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3. Trump is putting his legal woes at the center of his campaign strategy.
| With his hush-money trial on 34 state felony charges scheduled to begin on April 15, Donald Trump will soon be spending four days a week in a New York courtoom. The former president hopes to use that to his advantage by firing up supporters, raising money and casting himself as a victim. His campaign has been preparing its strategy for months, and Trump has already put it into practice, turning his courtroom arrivals and departures into cable news spectacles. Meanwhile, he is tantalizingly close to tapping a multibillion-dollar windfall from his social-media company. It's a development almost no one saw coming, and one that could ease the financial squeeze from his legal bills and boost his presidential campaign, which at the moment trails President Biden's in fundraising. |
| Democrats Get Personal on IVF, Putting Republicans on Defensive (Read)  Chasing the Base: How the Border Surge Changed Immigration Politics (Listen)
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4. A drone engineer has emerged as a potential heir to Turkey's leader.
| Selcuk Bayraktar’s TB2 drones have played a pivotal role in stalling Russia’s invasion on the plains of Ukraine. In Turkey, they have made the 42-year-old MIT-trained aerospace engineer—who is married to one of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s daughters—something of a folk hero. Polling data shows he is one of the country’s most popular public figures. After more than 20 years in power, the 70-year-old Erdogan is facing a term limit in 2028 and speculation is beginning to build about who will follow him. One potential challenger, Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, faces an important test in this weekend's local elections as he tries to fend off a candidate from Erdogan’s party. Results are expected tonight. |
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5. Questions about a fatal fall tore apart a storied British family.
| After British defense official Robert Walmsley was found dead at the bottom of a staircase in Cape Cod, his children had questions. Their stepmother had to testify 19 months later at a London inquest. By then, her relationship with the children—including the CEO of GlaxoSmithKline—had become so toxic that screens were erected in the hearing room to prevent eye contact between her and her stepson, Benjamin Katz and Jon Kamp report. |
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Follow coverage of detained WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich
| The WSJ’s Evan Gershkovich is being wrongfully detained in Russia after he was arrested while on a reporting trip and accused of espionage—a charge the Journal and the U.S. government vehemently deny. Follow the latest coverage, sign up for an email alert, and learn how you can use social media to support Evan. |
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| MEMBER MESSAGE: DELOITTE | | The Cryptocurrency Transformation |  | With many countries setting regulatory frameworks to permit the use of digital assets within their financial system, and consumers already having the option to use them for a variety of retail purchases outside of tapping a traditional bank account, credit card or cash, the velocity of blockchain, cryptocurrency and digital assets is speeding up. Learn More | |
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The Numbers
| 73 million | AT&T accounts that had personal information leaked on the dark web in a recently discovered data breach, including current and former customers. The data set appeared on the dark web about two weeks ago but appears to have come from 2019 or earlier, the company said, and includes information such as names and Social Security numbers. |
| $7,000 | Amount an Iranian businessman owed to an employee in China, making him unable to leave the country for months. Foreign executives can be stuck in China for years, subject to exit bans due to small business disputes. |
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1,000 Words
|  | Siena Juhlin, who hit the road after a breakup, says living in a van is harder but also rewarding. PHOTO: SIENA JUHLIN |
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Van life isn’t as cool as Instagram makes it seem.
| The idea of #VanLife offers a range of promises: affordable housing, minimalist living, Instagrammable beach and mountain vistas. With rent prices high and the cost of buying a home even higher, living on wheels seems, to many, a reasonable route. But the ups and downs of gas prices are hard to budget for, and return-to-office mandates have made roaming, for many, impossible. Finding a place to park each night is no picnic. Dating can be a stretch. And daily showers? Forget it. |
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Quoted
“Shame on me for looking at what’s publicized and making assumptions.”
| —John Furlong, 62-year-old construction manager, who was surprised to find his high-yield certificate of deposit was only paying him 0.05% after it automatically rolled over. |
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“The oil-and-gas industry has a track record of trying to trash the reputations of scientists whose results they do not like.”
| —Robert Howarth, a climate scientist at Cornell University, whose research influenced President Biden's decision in January to pause new approvals of LNG exports. The turn of events riled executives throughout the fracking industry—especially at Pittsburgh-based EQT, which put together a presentation for Washington policymakers that raised questions about Howarth’s methods and his ties to anti-fracking groups, according to people familiar with the matter. |
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Catch Up
| - China’s Recovery Picks Up as Stimulus Measures Sink In (Read)
- A Peter Thiel-Backed AI Startup, Cognition Labs, Seeks $2 Billion Valuation (Read)
- Early Clues Emerge on Senate’s Plans for TikTok (Read)
- A Hit Brand’s ‘One Size Fits Most’ Clothing Is Dividing America’s Teens (Read)
- WSJ's Take on the Week: Is the AI Boom Real? And Will We See It in This Week’s Jobs Report? (Listen)
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Live Better
|  | A total solar eclipse as seen from Cerulean, Ky., in 2017. PHOTO: TIMOTHY D. EASLEY/ASSOCIATED PRESS |
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Find a cloud-free viewing spot for the solar eclipse.
| Millions will glimpse a solar eclipse on April 8 in North America, with the best views occurring in a roughly 115-mile-wide swath of the continent where the moon will completely block out the sun. Clouds, however, can scuttle views of the eclipse. Figuring out what places on the continent are most likely to be cloud-free can be challenging for the average skywatcher. Eclipse chasers often rely on complex weather models and historical climate data. We harnessed similar data to create a tool that can help explore sky conditions across the U.S., so you can choose wisely where you want to be when you witness the eclipse. |
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Weekend Reads
| - He Turned 55. Then He Started the World’s Most Important Company. (Read)
- With Elon Musk, Does the Good Outweigh the Bad? (Read)
- More Fashion Cachet For Less Cash: Why the 1% Are Favoring These Under-the-Radar Labels (Read)
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Take a Break
| | America’s drivers agree. LED headlights are just too bright. |
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Welcome to my geopolitics blog site. This is a Hawaii Island news site focusing on geopolitical news, analysis, information, and commentary. I will cite a variety of sources, ranging from all sides of the political spectrum.