“Drug cartels and human traffickers aren’t the only people dodging border patrol officers these days in southern New Mexico. The state’s cannabis businesses — which operate legally under state law — are also desperately trying to evade border checkpoints.
That’s because U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers have seized more than $300,000 of state-licensed cannabis in New Mexico in the last two months. These seizures occurred at border patrol checkpoints, some of which lie as far as 80 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.
The crackdown has created tension between the Biden administration and Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham — who championed marijuana legalization and touted it as an economic boon for the state. The enforcement actions are occurring as the Justice Department is preparing to loosen federal restrictions on marijuana, which would mark the biggest liberalization of drug policy in more than half a century.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/01/federal-crackdown-new-mexico-weed-farmers-00155624
How the US Is Destroying Young People’s Future | Scott Galloway | TED
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEJ4hkpQW8E
“After a student leader of the historic Tiananmen Square protests entered a 2022 congressional race in New York, a Chinese intelligence operative wasted little time enlisting a private investigator to hunt for any mistresses or tax problems that could upend the candidate’s bid, prosecutors say.
“In the end,” the operative ominously told his contact, “violence would be fine too.”
As an Iranian journalist and activist living in exile in the United States aired criticism of Iran’s human rights abuses, Tehran was listening too. Members of an Eastern European organized crime gang scouted her Brooklyn home and plotted to kill her in a murder-for-hire scheme directed from Iran, according to the Justice Department, which foiled the plan and brought criminal charges.
The episodes reflect the extreme measures taken by countries like China and Iran to intimidate, harass and sometimes plot attacks against political opponents and activists who live in the U.S. They show the frightening consequences that geopolitical tensions can have for ordinary citizens as governments historically intolerant of dissent inside their own borders are increasingly keeping a threatening watch on those who speak out thousands of miles away.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-iran-hunt-dissidents-us-041530098.html
“Sometime in the next few years — no one knows exactly when — three NASA satellites, each one as heavy as an elephant, will go dark.
Already they are drifting, losing height bit by bit. They have been gazing down at the planet for over two decades, far longer than anyone expected, helping us forecast the weather, manage wildfires, monitor oil spills and more. But age is catching up to them, and soon they will send their last transmissions and begin their slow, final fall to Earth.
It’s a moment scientists are dreading.
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When the three orbiters — Terra, Aqua and Aura — are powered down, much of the data they’ve been collecting will end with them, and newer satellites won’t pick up all of the slack. Researchers will either have to rely on alternate sources that might not meet their exact needs or seek workarounds to allow their records to continue.
With some of the data these satellites gather, the situation is even worse: No other instruments will keep collecting it. In a few short years, the fine features they reveal about our world will become much fuzzier.
“Losing this irreplaceable data is simply tragic,” said Susan Solomon, an atmospheric chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Just when the planet most needs for us to focus on understanding how we are affected by it, and how we are affecting it, we seem to be disastrously asleep at the wheel.”
The main area we’re losing eyes on is the stratosphere, the all-important home of the ozone layer.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/happens-nasa-loses-eyes-earth-122602124.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em98EioWeT4
Is Israel a “settler-colonial” state? The debate, explained.
https://www.vox.com/world-politics/24128715/israel-palestine-conflict-settler-colonialism-zionism-history-debate
“Experts and whistleblowers testified before Congress today. The upshot? “It was all about money.”
https://www.vox.com/money/2024/4/17/24133324/boeing-senate-hearings-whistleblower-sam-salehpour-congress
“Republicans argued that he did not properly enforce immigration laws, citing, in one case, the decision to release migrants after they arrived at the southern border. In fact, that’s an established practice followed by multiple administrations, in part because the US does not have sufficient space to detain people as they await immigration hearings.
Republicans also said that Mayorkas had made false statements to Congress because he testified that the border was “secure,” and that he blocked oversight by failing to respond to subpoenas and offer sufficient access to his office.
Mayorkas has pushed back against the charges, noting that his approach may differ from that of Republicans, but he’s been committed to immigration enforcement and has worked to comply with Congress’s oversight of the agency by providing testimony and documents.
Many Constitutional law experts also said Republicans had not shown that the charges reached a legal bar for impeachment, and that they instead seemed to be founded on policy disagreements. “If allegations like this were sufficient to justify impeachment, the separation of powers would be permanently destabilized,” wrote top scholars, including Harvard’s Laurence Tribe and Berkeley’s Erwin Chemerinsky, in a January letter.
The first phase of the Senate trial on Wednesday took place because the upper chamber needed to fulfill its constitutional duty. Following a House impeachment, the Senate’s job is to hear the charges and determine whether the person should be convicted. If an official is convicted — which requires a two-third majority vote — they would then be removed from their position. The Senate also has the option to dismiss, or table, the impeachment articles if a simple majority votes to do so.
Ultimately, that’s what happened on both articles against Mayorkas, though it wasn’t without some drama. During the process, Republicans were able to force additional votes on “points of order,” or procedural motions regarding how the impeachment should move forward. They used this platform to slam Democrats repeatedly for not holding a full trial like those seen during the impeachment proceedings of former Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton and to try to delay the trial to a later date. The GOP points of order all largely failed on party lines.”
https://www.vox.com/politics/24133356/mayorkas-impeachment-trial-senate-dismissed
“There’s a significant and persistent union premium, with unionized workers making more money. Additionally, there’s the spillover effects of this. If you have a high unionization rate in your locality, the other employers pay better as well, to remain competitive — a kind of “rising tides lifts all boats” situation. Without unionization, in the South, it depresses wages across the board, and then in turn it depresses wages across the country because there’s always this threat that auto companies could leave Detroit and go south.”
https://www.vox.com/money/2024/4/24/24138640/uaw-union-vote-volkswagen-tennessee
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24138291/do-vaccines-work-explained-study-efficacy-evidence