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The World’s Unpopular Leaders
Why Biden isn’t alone with his low approval ratings.
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nytimes.com
Internet in Love With Dad Taking Daughter's Boldly Decorated Car to Mechanic
Social media users adored the father in the latest viral clip, with one saying "this is so cute."
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newsweek.com
King Charles New Message Hints at Health Woes
King Charles III has recorded an Easter message ahead of missing a key royal event.
newsweek.com
Riley Strain’s family ordered second autopsy after college student was found without pants, boots and wallet
The heartbroken family of Riley Strain had a second, private autopsy completed on their son as new details in his devastating discovery cast a shadow over his mysterious disappearance and death.
nypost.com
Social Security Shares Update on Benefit Access
Changes to reporting rules for Supplemental Security Income benefits are set to begin in September, the agency announced.
newsweek.com
What We Know About Palestinians Detained in Israel
Since Oct. 7, Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians suspected of militant activity. Rights groups allege that Israel has abused some detainees or held them without charges.
nytimes.com
Los Angeles bill seeks reparations for families of people displaced due to building of Dodger Stadium
A bill has been introduced that will seek reparations for the families of people who lived in Chavez Ravine before they were displaced because of Dodger Stadium.
foxnews.com
California bill seeks to provide reparations for families displaced from land where Dodgers Stadium was built
A California lawmaker "aims to address the historical injustice faced by those living in the Chavez Ravine in Los Angeles" after an unfulfilled promise of public housing by city officials.
foxnews.com
How Sam Bankman-Fried’s possible sentence stacks up against the century’s biggest fraudsters
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried arrives for a bail hearing at Manhattan Federal Court on August 11, 2023, in New York City. | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images SBF vs. Bernie Madoff, Elizabeth Holmes, Allen Stanford, and Jeffrey Skilling. Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the defunct crypto exchange FTX who was convicted on fraud and conspiracy charges last year, will be sentenced Thursday in New York court. Prosecutors are seeking a 40- to 50-year sentence for his role in defrauding investors of billions of dollars. Yes, billions. That sentence would still be well below the maximum statutory sentence of 115 years, but his attorneys are arguing that it should be no longer than six-and-a-half years and that he also should not be ordered to pay any restitution or forfeit any assets. His trio of co-conspirators Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang, and Nishad Singh — all members of SBF’s inner circle and executives at FTX or Alameda Research (its sister hedge fund also co-founded by Bankman-Fried) — cooperated with prosecutors to testify against Bankman-Fried at trial. They may face minimal, if any, prison time. The judge in the case, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, is likely to consider a few factors in determining Bankman-Fried’s sentence, including his age, the scale of the losses, and the government’s interest in deterring him and anyone else from committing similar crimes. That last point is a big one, said Jennifer Taub, a professor at Western New England University School of Law focusing on white-collar crime. “The white, wealthy, and well-connected tend to wiggle their way out of facing the criminal consequences for their predatory behavior,” she said. “It’s high time that we actually hold white-collar criminals accountable.” While Bankman-Fried’s lawyers have sought to downplay the harm caused by the scheme that led to FTX and Alameda’s downfall, prosecutors have likened his crimes to that of Bernie Madoff, the infamous Wall Street financier who orchestrated history’s largest Ponzi scheme. “No scheme to defraud since Madoff can be compared to this one in terms of its size, scope, and amount of loss,” prosecutors argued in court filings. So how does SBF’s possible sentence likely stack up against other big fraud cases this century? Let’s take a look. But first, a recap of what went down with FTX SBF’s fall from grace was excruciatingly abrupt. As my colleague Sean Illing wrote, “Before he was charged, SBF was widely seen as a benevolent genius, some kind of digital-era Robin Hood, who was going to make obscene amounts of money and then give it all away to worthy causes.” (Disclosure: In August 2022, Bankman-Fried’s philanthropic family foundation, Building a Stronger Future, awarded Vox’s Future Perfect a grant for a 2023 reporting project. That project was canceled.) To back up: In 2019, Bankman-Fried founded FTX, at one point the third largest crypto exchange, and rode a crypto boom for a few years. Through the next few years, he went around espousing a particular version of effective altruism — a utilitarian movement that describes itself as “using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible” — that entailed earning as much as possible to purportedly give away as much as possible. He also grew his political influence, becoming one of President Joe Biden’s biggest donors in 2020. But in 2022, a balance sheet for Alameda was leaked that implied his whole crypto empire was built on double-dipping. Without getting too in the weeds, essentially the balance sheet showed that Alameda had large holdings of FTX’s proprietary digital currency FTT, which had questionable value at a time when crypto prices were spiraling downward. If those digital tokens’ value plummeted, FTX’s financial solvency would be severely in doubt. Investors withdrew their holdings in FTT in large numbers, revealing an $8 billion gap in what FTX could pay out and what it owed customers. It then became apparent that FTX had transferred customer funds to Alameda and that the two firms were far more entangled than Bankman-Fried had previously disclosed or that was allowed under their terms of service. Both FTX and Alameda declared bankruptcy that fall. Prosecutors alleged that Bankman-Fried’s failure to disclose the transfers, FTX’s relationship with Alameda, FTX’s exposure to Alameda’s risky FTT holdings, and the use of commingled funds to make “undisclosed venture investments, lavish real estate purchases, and large political donations” was in fact fraud. In November, after a much-watched trial filled with jarring testimony — including from SBF himself — he was convicted of all seven criminal counts against him. Those included two counts of wire fraud, two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Now, he’s facing potentially decades in prison. The factors that could influence his sentencing Bankman-Fried is only 32 years old, which means he would likely still be alive (and able to commit another crime) by the time he gets out of prison if the sentence is on the shorter end of the spectrum. He’s proved to have “gone up to the line over and over again,” as Kaplan said when revoking his bail ahead of trial, accusing him of trying to influence key witnesses. But he also has a lot of life left to live, this is his first offense, and his lawyers cite his neurodiversity and charity work as potential mitigating factors, which may make the court more lenient. Kaplan is “going to have to figure out whether he thinks there is an opportunity for this guy to be rehabilitated,” Taub said. “I think it’s a big deal, even though you’re trying to deter him from hurting other people, you’re trying to deter other young crypto people.” Prosecutors argue that the losses in the case are enormous, conservatively estimated at $8 billion for FTX customers, $1.7 billion for FTX investors, and $1.3 billion for Alameda lenders. Those total customer losses represent the amount by which their account balances exceeded the amount of assets that FTX had available to disburse to them when it went bankrupt in November 2022. However, Ellen Podgor, a professor at Stetson University focused on white-collar crime, said that the fact that Bankman-Fried’s fraud could cause such harm represented a regulatory failure and that the sentence sought by prosecutors is therefore too high. “The thing that bothers me the most about this case is that if [Bankman-Fried] had been caught earlier, the fraud would not be as great and the sentence lower,” she said. “I question whether a fraud that goes on for a longer period of time, because it was not stopped by a government agency, should place the defendant in receiving a higher sentence.” And Bankman-Fried’s lawyers say that the customer losses should actually be calculated as “zero.” The Financial Times reported that customers are slated to receive up to two-fifths more than the value of their holdings on the day FTX went bankrupt due in part to the recent crypto surge. However, prosecutors argue that any potential recovery of funds after FTX filed for bankruptcy shouldn’t be considered in the sentencing decision. In other fraud cases, the government was able to recover a large portion of victims’ funds — in large part becauseof the justice system. In Madoff’s case, victims have been repaid 91 percent of their losses and there are ongoing efforts to make them whole; he still received what was a life sentence and died in prison. “The question is whether Judge Kaplan is going to consider the fact that the victims will are going to receive all their money back,” Taub said. “Will that affect the sentencing? I don’t think it’s going to be persuasive.” How SBF compares to this century’s biggest convicted fraudsters Bernie Madoff Prosecutors argue that the scale of Bankman-Fried’s fraud has no recent parallel but Madoff’s. Madoff orchestrated the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, with losses totaling $64.8 billion. He was convicted in 2008 after confessing to his two sons who reported him to law enforcement, and sentenced to 150 years in prison. He was once a respected name on Wall Street who embraced computing innovations in trading. But he lured in, at first, friends and acquaintances from Manhattan and Long Island to invest in his fund and later, large institutional investors, universities, and major charities. He used funds from new investors to pay “returns” to existing ones, and he did so undetected for decades. He promised steady returns, rather than big payouts. And that’s what he appeared to deliver through a recession in the early ’90s, the dot-com bust in the late ’90s, and after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. The global financial crisis in 2008, however, brought about his undoing. Institutional investors withdrew hundreds of millions from his fund and he didn’t have enough new investors to pay them out. He died at age 82 in 2021 from kidney disease in a prison hospital. He was denied early release when he was given 18 months to live. At that point, he had served 11 years of his sentence. Elizabeth Holmes Elizabeth Holmes may not have been sentenced for nearly as long as Madoff, but the downfall of her failed blood testing company Theranos is just as notorious. Holmes founded Theranos in 2003 after dropping out of Stanford University. She claimed that the company had developed technology that could perform a wide range of blood tests by collecting blood through just a finger prick. She signed on to a partnership with Walgreens to bring the technology to their stores. At one point, Theranos was valued at $9 billion, making Holmes, given her 50 percent stake in the company, one of only a few female billionaires in Silicon Valley. She was on the covers of Fortune, Forbes, and Inc. She drew in investors including media mogul Rupert Murdoch and Oracle executive chairman and founder Larry Ellison, as well as credentialed board members including former US Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz. But the device, known as the Edison, never worked as described, as was uncovered by a Wall Street Journal investigation. In November 2022, she was convicted of four counts of defrauding investors and later sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison. However, her sentence has since been quietly reduced by about two years for good behavior. Allen Stanford Allen Stanford was sentenced to 110 years in prison in 2012 for orchestrating a $7 billion Ponzi scheme through his financial firm, Stanford Financial Group. Once a billionaire who managed $50 billion in customer funds, he sold fraudulent certificates of deposit — which allows consumers to deposit funds for a specific period of time and at an interest rate usually higher than normal savings accounts — from his offshore bank in Antigua to some 50,000 investors. Many of them were retirees seeking safe investments. He used the proceeds to subsidize a lavish lifestyle in Antigua, whose economy suffered in the wake of his prosecution given that he had become its largest employer. As of 2019, his victims had not been able to recover nearly as much of their funds as Madoff’s. Jeffrey Skilling Jeffrey Skilling was the CEO of Enron Corporation, once one of the largest energy companies worldwide, during its collapse in 2001 in what became one of the most infamous cases of corporate fraud in history. Enron’s downfall came about when it came to light that the company had covered up major debts and losses through complex accounting techniques and entities that were not reported on its balance sheets. This inflated Enron’s perceived financial health and therefore its stock price. Skilling had a hand in promoting these accounting practices and became a symbol of Enron’s corporate greed. The stock price dropped after the revelations, causing investors to incur billions in losses, and the company filed for bankruptcy in December 2001. Thousands of employees lost their jobs. It led to the passage of a landmark federal law in 2002 aimed at improving corporate governance and financial reporting standards. In 2006, Skilling was convicted of 19 criminal counts including fraud, conspiracy, and insider trading. Though several other executives were also prosecuted, he received one of the longest sentences: 24 years in prison. However, he only ended up serving 12 after demonstrating good behavior; after his release, he went to work for an energy startup, Veld Applied Analytics, which is developing tools to monitor oil and gas assets.
vox.com
MLB opening day: 2024 schedule, rule changes and everything you need to know about the upcoming season
MLB opening day marks the start of a long baseball season. Take a look at the 2024 matchups, rule changes and more about the professional league.
foxnews.com
Schools across US embrace rare teaching opportunity offered by 2024 solar eclipse
Schools across the path of the April 8 total solar eclipse are leveraging the event as a rich teaching opportunity by incorporating hands-on activities and lessons.
foxnews.com
Denmark’s King Frederik, Queen Mary’s impressive ‘earnings’ revealed — and they’re set for a huge pay rise
An official finance report published by the Danish Palace shows the whopping sum the Danish royals cashed in on in 2023.
nypost.com
Bear that injured 5 shot dead, but critics say wrong bear killed
Opposition politicians say a 67-kilogram female bear was killed, which "cannot be in any way related to the 100-kilogram male they were looking for."
cbsnews.com
Putin Issues F-16 Warning
The Russian president said "we will destroy their planes" when asked about the delivery of NATO aircraft to Ukraine.
newsweek.com
On Holy Thursday at the Last Supper, Jesus gave us the gift of himself, says Minnesota priest
At the Last Supper, Jesus not only instituted the Eucharist, he also displayed servitude toward the disciples in washing their feet, said a Minnesota priest to Fox News Digital.
foxnews.com
Putin Vows to Blast the West’s F-16s Out of the Sky in Ukraine
Mikhail Metzel/Sputnik via ReutersRussian President Vladimir Putin says his forces will shoot down any Western-supplied F-16 fighter jets given to Ukraine, claiming that the nuclear-capable aircraft wouldn’t change the situation on the battlefield.Speaking to Russian air force pilots late Wednesday, Putin said Moscow has no intention of attacking any countries in NATO but that F-16s could be targeted wherever they’re located if they’re being used against Russian forces. “Of course, if they will be used from airfields in third countries, they become for us legitimate targets, wherever they might be located,” Putin said, according to Reuters.Earlier in the day, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said F-16s were on schedule to be in the skies over Ukraine by mid-summer. He added that “pilot training is going well” but acknowledged that much more training for both pilots and engineers would be required “because the transition from Soviet-type aircraft to Western-type aircraft... requires major changes in everything.”Read more at The Daily Beast.
thedailybeast.com
Inside the Scramble to Evacuate the Bridge, and an Investigation Into Boeing’s Safety Record
Plus, the man who was nearly vice president.
nytimes.com
Tax Return Deadlines Extended for Some Americans
Individuals and businesses impacted by 2023's wildfire in Hawaii are among those granted a deadline extension on their tax return.
newsweek.com
Donald Trump's Mental Acuity Test Questioned on Fox News
The former president has sometimes cited the fact that he "aced" a cognitive test that was administered while he was in office.
newsweek.com
California has to conserve water. Why is Sacramento dragging its heels?
The state water board knows California is facing a hotter, drier future, but it's letting urban utilities ignore appropriate 'water budgets' for a decade or longer.
latimes.com
New York’s fanciest 'Korean wave' restaurants go where L.A. doesn’t: caviar and kimchi
Being a student of Korean foodways is essentially written in my job description as a Los Angeles critic. A visit to New York is showing where a new frontier might be heading.
latimes.com
Bring buttons and dials back to new cars. Touch screens distract drivers
Good for European safety ratings group for pushing carmakers to return to manual controls for some car functions. U.S. should do the same. That seems to be what customers want and it's safer too.
latimes.com
The mysterious life — and questionable claims — of Shohei Ohtani's interpreter
Now that Ippei Mizuhara is under a microscope following allegations he stole millions of dollars from Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani to cover gambling debts, key aspects of his biography have proved difficult to confirm or turned out to be false.
latimes.com
Is this the worst Congress ever? Let's count the ways
The 118th Congress is on track to pass the least amount of U.S. legislation in modern times, all because of the self-defeating GOP House majority.
latimes.com
American happiness just hit a new low. Don't blame your parents.
The United States dropped out of the top 20 happiest nations. It's the under 30s that are dragging us down.
latimes.com
Another casualty of escalating clashes in the West Bank: The Palestinian olive harvest
As Israeli settlers use the war in Gaza as a pretext for a land grab in Palestinians' other territory, olive farmers fear their way of life may be on the verge of extinction.
latimes.com
There will be no Hippie Hill 420 festival. Some San Francisco weed gurus say, so what?
This year's 420 festival at San Francisco’s Hippie Hill was canceled by organizers. Some cannabis advocates say it needs to get back to its activist roots.
latimes.com
When Martin Luther King Jr. came to L.A., only one white politician was willing to greet him
The moment between King and L.A. County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn remains important in the minds of many Black residents. It is now memorialized with a bronze statue.
latimes.com
Hollywood made friendship another unrealistic ideal. A Broadway hit finally smacks it down
Movies and TV shows have fetishized close friendship to the point that the real, often fraught rhythms of such relationships have been lost. Not so in 'Merrily We Roll Along.'
latimes.com
Keep the party going with the best late-night hangouts in Koreatown
From karaoke clubs to wine bars to long-running restaurants with kitchens that stay open late, Koreatown will keep you entertained.
latimes.com
In Hulu's 'We Were the Lucky Ones,' an engrossing family drama with the Holocaust as backdrop
Based on Georgia Hunter's novel, 'We Were the Lucky Ones' succeeds because it never leaves its characters' sides to take in the bigger picture.
latimes.com
Hollywood said 'nobody cared' about women's sports. Luckily, Sue Bird didn't listen
With a new documentary out Friday, during the NCAA tournament she once ruled, the former WNBA great wants you to know she has no plans to stop holding court.
latimes.com
Anti-squatting 'professional' celebrates Florida ban, as other state laws frustrate homeowners
Flash Shelton, founder of Squatter Hunters, praised Florida's passage of its squatter law and offered tips to "America Reports" on how to handle squatters.
foxnews.com
What the Supreme Court’s abortion pill case could mean for California
The high court is weighing a case that could rewrite the rules of care in more than two-thirds of U.S. abortions, limiting access to a popular drug even in states where it remains legal.
latimes.com
A question both Republican job applicants and potential Trump jurors must answer
Prosecutors pursuing a Trump conviction and Republican leaders have little in common except this question, which both are using to sift through jurors and applicants.
cbsnews.com
Graffiti tower debate shows Los Angeles' contradictory relationship with street culture
Graffiti in Los Angeles is a contentious subject. Artists and academics say focusing on the crime is missing the point.
latimes.com
Best New Vehicles to See at the 2024 New York International Auto Show
Big SUVs made a big showing, as did EVs and loads of new technology.
newsweek.com
Inside the raids at Diddy's homes: Emptied safes, dismantled electronics, many questions
Legal experts said investigators would likely seek authorization to “search for videos or photographs on any devices connected to the target ... anywhere where digital images can be found in connection to sexual conduct that would have been recorded."
latimes.com
How to boil — and devil — an egg
The hunt for deviled eggs leads to the best way to make hard-boiled eggs — it's a method from our archives.
latimes.com
A Koreatown State of Mind
Embrace the extremes of Koreatown with barbecue, speakeasies, karaoke and more. Explore a tri-level mecca for Korean culture in Buena Park and a modern Korean wave of fine dining in New York.
latimes.com
I Could Make All My Student Loan Debt Vanish Right Now. But It Might Backfire.
No choice feels right.
slate.com
The Outdated Tests Far Too Many Schools Still Use to Judge a Kid’s Ability
The damage done can be difficult to reverse.
slate.com
There’s a shadow fleet sneaking Russian oil around the world. It’s an ecological disaster waiting to happen.
The oil tanker Nobel waiting to transfer crude oil from Russia, on March 5, 2023, near Ceuta, Spain. | Antonio Sempere/Europa Press via Getty Images The world’s next big maritime catastrophe could involve sanctions-dodging rustbuckets. On March 2, just as it was rounding the northern tip of Denmark, an oil tanker called the Andromeda Star collided with another ship. Thankfully, the 700,000-barrel capacity Andromeda Star was empty at the time, as it was making its way to Russia to pick up oil for export. If it had been on its way back, its cargo hold full of crude, a little-noticed maritime incident might have become a much bigger story, one that connects to both the ongoing war in Ukraine and the world’s unbroken dependence on oil. The Andromeda Star is part of what has been called the “shadow fleet” transporting Russian oil to world markets. This fleet emerged in response to the international sanctions slapped on Russia’s oil industry in the wake of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, to reduce the profits from its most valuable international commodity. The commodities trading company Trafigura has estimated the size of the fleet at around 600 ships, though some estimates are much higher. The shadow fleet is of growing concern not only because of the revenue that these oil shipments bring to Moscow, which fuels its more than two-year-old war, but because of the nature of the ships themselves. “They tend to be older, they may also be less well maintained, they are run by less experienced crews, and they carry less insurance than they should,” Erik Broekhuizen, head of tanker research at Poten & Partners, an oil and gas consulting firm, told Vox. The 15-year-old Andromeda Star was a relative spring chicken by shadow fleet standards. “The lifespan of a ship is typically 20- to 25-year range, but most reputable ship owners typically sell ships around 15 years,” said Broekhuizen. “In a normal market, they’d then be recycled.” But the shadow fleet has created a booming market for old tankers, including many that are over 20 years old. The average age of tankers departing the Russian Baltic Sea port of Kaliningrad is now close to 30 years old. That makes it more likely that the ships have fallen into poor conditions and makes them more prone to accidents. Another shadowy aspect of Russia’s new fleet: Often no one is quite sure who the ships belong to. The Andromeda Star’s owner is not listed on public databases. It is managed by Margao Marine Solutions, a “one-person company” based in Goa, India, which did not return an email from Vox seeking comment. And as with many shadow fleet ships, it’s not clear what if any insurance it was carrying. As this week’s disaster in Baltimore — where a Singapore-flagged cargo ship caused the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge — showed, the question of liability and responsibility can be messy even in maritime accidents involving one of the world’s largest and most reputable shipping companies. The nightmare scenario many governments are now contemplating is that one of these shadily owned tankers could be involved in a major oil spill and there would be no one — or at least no one authorities can track down — liable for the clean-up. “There is an ecological disaster waiting to happen. That’s just the reality,” David O’Sullivan, the European Union’s sanctions envoy, told Vox during a meeting with reporters in Washington last week. “This is something the international community needs to worry about.” Unfortunately, given the often murky multinational structure of the shipping world, it’s also something that the international community has few good options to address. The Russian oil compromise The emergence of the shadow fleet is one result of the dueling prerogatives of the international sanctions response to Russia’s war in Ukraine: One, cut the money flowing to Russia’s government and military; two, avoid major disruptions to a world economy that still relies hugely on the flow of oil. Shortly after the invasion in 2022, the US banned imports of Russian oil, which the US already wasn’t buying much of. But the EU has also slashed its purchases of Russian oil, which is a lot more significant: Before the war, the bloc accounted for about 45 percent of Russia’s oil exports. Now, it’s about 5 percent. Initially, the EU had planned to also enact a ban on European companies trading and shipping Russian oil, in order to prevent othercountries from buying it, but the US government was concerned about the effect this would have on global oil prices. (A similar dynamic has emerged in recent weeks with reports that the US has pressured Ukraine to dial back its aerial attacks on Russia’s oil refineries, which are also having an impact on global prices by reducing supply.) According to one analysis from just after the invasion, disrupting Russia’s seaborne exports with the kind of strict sanctions that, for instance, the US has applied to Iran in the past, could have pushed global oil prices to over $200 a barrel, more than twice their current level. So, a workaround was found. A coalition of Western countries including the EU and the G7 implemented a “price cap” which allowed Russian oil sold below $60 a barrel — about $20 below the current market price — to use Western shipping infrastructure and insurance. The goal, as the US Treasury Department defined it, is to “limit Kremlin profits while maintaining stable energy markets.” To some extent, this system has worked. Russia’s oil exports, by volume, are back to where they were before the war. New customers in China, India, and Turkey have made up for the loss of the European market. (Thanks to some creative accounting, some oil has even reportedly found its way into the US military’s supply chain.) Russia’s oil revenues, though, have declined significantly. A recent analysis by the American Enterprise Institute estimated that the discounts may have cost Russia around $50 billion in lost revenue in 2022 and 2023. That’s almost a quarter of what Russia has spent on its military operations in Ukraine according to a recent US estimate. The thing is, experts say only a small fraction of Russia’s oil exports — maybe 20-30 percent, Broekhuizen estimates — are complying with the price cap. Russian oil is currently trading around $72 a barrel, which is below global averages but above the cap. This is where the shadow fleet comes in. These types of shadily registered ships meant specifically to skirt oil sanctions aren’t new, said Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who has written extensively on the fleet, but the involvement of the world’s second-largest oil exporter was a game changer. ​​”This was a strategy that was initiated long before Ukraine for other sanctioned countries,” Braw told Vox. “North Korea has been conducting a shadow economy using vessels that don’t officially exist for years. Venezuela and Iran have as well. But Russia’s involvement was a sort of quantum leap that brought this economy out of the shadows.” Trouble at sea “For the first time in many decades, safety at sea is becoming worse, not better, and it’s really because of the shadow fleet,” Jan Stockbruegger, a political scientist specializing in maritime security at the University of Copenhagen, told Vox. The Andromeda Starincident was far from the first or the most troubling incident involving shadow tankers. The most dramatic and deadly took place in May of last year, when the Pablo, a 26-year-old tanker, exploded in Malaysian waters, killing three crew. Thankfully, the Pablo had already offloaded its cargo in China, but with no apparent insurance and no reachable owner, the wreckage of the ship remained stranded until Malaysian authorities finally towed it to a scrapyard. As documented in a recent Atlantic Council report, shadow fleet ships have had to be rescued in the Bay of Gibraltar, have run aground near the Chinese port of Qingdao, and have drifted for days after losing power in Indonesia. Last August, when an Indian seafarer disappeared from the tanker where he was working, transporting Russian oil to India and Turkey, his family complained they couldn’t get basic information about his disappearance from the ship’s Dubai-based manager. In a confluence of two geopolitical crises, a Panama-flagged, India-affiliated ship carrying oil from Russia was attacked by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea in January. The Houthis have vowed not to attack Russian or Chinese ships as part of their ongoing campaign to disrupt trade between countries linked to Israel, but in this case may have been thrown off by the fact that the ship had a UK owner until a few months prior. Troubling as all these incidents are, they pale in comparison to what would happen if one of these ships, most of which carry insurance that, as the Financial Times has put it, would be “impossible to claim against,” was involved in a major oil spill. A combination of the country where the spill takes place and an international organization known as the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds, which reimburses victims of oil spills when the damage exceeds what the shipowner or insurer is able or willing to pay, could be left with responsibility for the mess. Other factors compound the risks. Last September, Bloomberg reported that two aging shadow fleet tankers had carried out a risky ship-to-ship oil transfer off the coast of Greece, having turned off their transponders to conceal their location. The majority of the ships transporting oil through the Danish Strait, a narrow and often tricky waterway as the Andromeda Star learned, have been refusing to take on the specialized Danish navigators that often assist ships making the journey. Often these ships refuse any contact with Danish authorities, a break from what was common practice pre-war. Russia has been keen to increase the use of its Northern Sea Route through the Arctic to China, including authorizing shipments by tankers that don’t have the reinforced “ice-class” hulls normally required for the trip. Even in summer, in the era of global warming, Arctic ice can be unpredictable, and using these thin-hulled tankers only increases the risk of accidents that could devastate a vulnerable ecology. Out of the shadows What can be done to crack down on the shadow fleet? “We are trying to shut off the supply of these tankers to make it more difficult for people to sell end-of-life tankers to the Russians,” said O’Sullivan, the EU sanctions envoy. “We’re also trying to be tougher in the enforcement of the documentation which needs to go with [these sales.]” In February, the US slapped sanctions on Sovcomflot, Russia’s largest shipping company and a leading operator of oil tankers, which prompted India to halt oil shipments from the company. But many of Sovcomflot’s tankers have already been transferred to offshore companies. Dubai, famed for its political neutrality and lack of income taxes, has been a particularly popular location for these companies. The US has also been sanctioning these companies and individual companies for violating the price cap. The US government has also been ramping up pressure on the countries where these ships are registered, which are responsible for ensuring safety and maintenance standards on the vessels that fly their flag. As a result, Russia’s oil fleet has been shifting away from popular flag countries like Liberia and the Marshall Islands. The number of ships flying the flag of the West African nation of Gabon, on the other hand, has surged dramatically since the beginning of this year. (The ill-fated Pablo was among the shadow fleet tankers flying the Gabon flag.) Mongolia, more than 400 miles from the nearest ocean, has also become a popular flag of convenience. The Financial Times also reported last fall that the EU was considering plans under which Denmark, which controls the straits at the entrance to the Baltic Sea through which 60 percent of Russia’s oil exports pass, could be given the task of inspecting or even blocking ships that were not found to be carrying recognized insurance. “The most practical step would be for coastal states to essentially assess every vessel planning to sail through their waters,” said the Atlantic Council’s Braw. “It would be extreme and very time-consuming.” It could also prompt retaliation or legal challenge from Russia. The plan has not yet been implemented, though the incident with the Andromeda Star may give it some new momentum. Stockbruegger suggests that another strategy would be to make it more appealing for officially registered and insured global shippers to participate in the Russian oil trade, under the price cap. But given the risks involved and the arcane nature of sanctions laws, which could leave them exposed to legal difficulties, “It would take a lot of convincing for these companies.” Assuming that countries like India and China won’t stop buying discounted oil — and given that the US doesn’t actually want them to, particularly heading into an election year — the continued existence of the shadow fleet in some form may be inevitable, even as these ships bounce around from flag to flag and owner to owner and port to port. A world that is rapidly dividing politically, even as it remains economically interconnected, has created some murky backwaters, including one that a fleet of mysteriously owned, aging rustbuckets has rushed in to fill. For now, Russian oil continues to course through the world’s economies, just as Russia’s adversaries intended. Hopefully, it will stay out of the world’s oceans.
vox.com
March Madness predictions: Picks against the spread for Thursday’s Sweet 16 action
Howie Kussoy makes his predictions for Thursday's college basketball slate.
nypost.com
This Brooklyn 13-year-old gets scoops that grown-up journalists can only dream of, from Cardi B to Michelle Obama
Jazlyn “Jazzy” Guerra, has landed interviews with Jay Z, Shaq, Michelle Obama — and scooped North West's first one ever.
nypost.com
NBC News staff reportedly fear Republican backlash after Ronna McDaniel firing: 'Angry GOP sources'
Anonymous NBC journalists reported they are worried their GOP sources will revolt after the network abruptly fired former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel on Tuesday.
foxnews.com
Photographing Black Self-Creation in the American South
Photos by Rahim FortuneContemporary rural places are rendered all but invisible in the American public imagination; we are a nation that celebrates big cities and suburbs. But rural towns are not only an integral part of the national fabric; they are often key to understanding our story. Hardtack, a new book from the photographer Rahim Fortune, is a case in point.Fortune’s portraiture captures the work of Black self-creation in the thick of a humid, hard-earned history. In these images—all shot in the South, many in East Texas—the land is a character, and its people are authors. Depicting a place is always complex, but in this region, it is especially so. Some of the greatest biodiversity in the world is here, which is why people call much of southeastern Texas the “Big Thicket.” And in Ark-La-Tex (a portmanteau-crossroads, because nature doesn’t respect the lines of statecraft), the intertwined stories of the haves and the have-nots—Black, white, Indigenous, settlers and captives, driven out and ground down—are a thicket that cannot be disentangled.Beginning after the Civil War, freedpeople founded and ran Black towns throughout the South and the Midwest. In Texas, these were aptly named “freedom colonies.” Establishing these towns provided Black people with the opportunity for self-governance and independence. The towns were also protection from the backbreaking realities of debt peonage and sharecropping. The people were no longer chattel; they were citizens. Some of these colonies flourished for a time. But they suffered, too, falling prey to common patterns—the centuries-long dispossession of small homesteads by the wealthy; the depopulation of rural places in favor of the allure of bigger cities, better-paying jobs, a life outside the reach of Jim Crow.[Read: Eight books that explain the South]As King Cotton receded in prominence, the sawmills stepped in, making a big business of felling pines and hardwood trees. Then, in 1930, the East Texas Oil Field was discovered. With bread lines spreading across America, the jockeying for oil was fast and furious. Oilmen were global players in politics and business, cutting deals in international negotiations to power the world.In Black churches, oil is a term of art, used to describe a vocalization that is lush with spirit; singers are told to “put some oil on it”—to anoint their voice. It might be that the hazards of the oil industry—a business of fires and explosions as well as boom and bust—facilitate an ever more passionate faith in God. Hardscrabble living will do that.Poverty persists in East Texas today, and folks still must scuffle to stay free. In this state, you find some of the highest incarceration rates in the world. And the work has stayed hard: working cattle for milk and meat, harvesting big bunches of roses for other people’s beloveds in far-flung places, laboring over cotton and oil. Sacrifice is built into living. Residents must be prepared for tornadoes and floods that can feel biblical.Words sit humbly alongside the clarion beauty in Fortune’s photographs. Look to see evidence of the imagination made real through human hands everywhere: in the land that is cleared; in the architecture that endures; in the quilts and elegant coiffures, the pressed and stitched shirts, the felted cowboy hats. There is a lot to be proud of. Yet the working hands raised in thanksgiving and supplication are offered in humility before God. Nature encroaches, seemingly stronger than mere muscle and faith. In person, there is so much green and blue, gold and brown—the colors of plants, water, people. Yet shot in black and white, much of what it means to be human is made crystal clear. The deliberation of a swooped bang, a diaphanous skirt cut and sewn on the bias, a thick knuckle—it is more than beauty; it is elegance in endurance. Windmill House, Hutto, Texas, 2022 (Rahim Fortune / Loose Joints) Praise Dancers, Edna, Texas, 2022 (Rahim Fortune / Loose Joints) Grandma’s Hands, Houston, Texas, 2020 (Rahim Fortune / Loose Joints) Sam’s BBQ, Austin, Texas, 2016 (Rahim Fortune / Loose Joints) Praying Cowboy, Gladewater, Texas, 2021 (Rahim Fortune / Loose Joints) Mother & Daughters, Austin, Texas, 2021 (Rahim Fortune / Loose Joints) Northside Home, Houston, Texas, 2020 (Rahim Fortune / Loose Joints) Ace (Miss Juneteenth), Galveston, Texas, 2022 (Rahim Fortune / Loose Joints) AME Church Interior, Tucker, Texas, 2022 (Rahim Fortune / Loose Joints) Demolished School, Edna, Texas, 2022 (Rahim Fortune / Loose Joints) Deonte, New Sweden, Texas, 2022 (Rahim Fortune / Loose Joints) Brothers at Parade, Houston, Texas, 2023 (Rahim Fortune / Loose Joints) Brackish Water, Otter Creek, Florida, 2020 (Rahim Fortune / Loose Joints) This article is adapted from “Good Fortune,” an essay by Imani Perry that appears in Rahim Fortune’s new book, Hardtack.
theatlantic.com
The Challenge and Necessity of a Shared Reality
"Can we ever really know whether our whole system of knowledge is solid," ask Saul Perlmutter, Robert MacCoun, and John Campbell.
time.com