My first use of Ferox Defender.

Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, and Debt:

An Ode to LocalBitcoins (and a Lesson About Maintaining Bitcoin’s Public Goods)

When It’s Easy to Be a Landlord, No One Wants to Sell

Locked in at historically low interest rates. Platforms that make managing rentals a breeze. Homeowners have little incentive to put a house on the market.

Visa’s crypto strategy targets stablecoin settlements

Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:

Extracts From Two Wild Plants Inhibit COVID-19 Virus

Study: No new COVID variants from China since zero-COVID policy lifted

Politics:

Trump Paid Researchers to Prove Fraud

Former president Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign commissioned an outside research firm in a bid to prove electoral fraud claims but never released the findings because the firm disputed many of his theories and could not offer any proof that he was the rightful winner of the election, according to four people familiar with the matter.
The campaign paid researchers from Berkeley Research Group, the people said, to study 2020 election results in six states, looking for fraud and irregularities to highlight in public and in the courts. Among the areas examined were voter machine malfunctions, instances of dead people voting and any evidence that could help Trump show he won, the people said. None of the findings were presented to the public or in court.

Trudeau: US fighter shot down object over northern Canada

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday that on his order a U.S. fighter jet shot down an unidentified object that was flying high over the Yukon, acting a day after the U.S. took similar action over Alaska.

Republicans Have Wanted To Cut Medicare And Social Security For Decades

Biden Could Face Primary Challenge in New Hampshire

With recent news that fringe 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson is headed to New Hampshire in the coming weeks, and with word this week that environmental lawyer and anti-COVID vaccine crusader Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will hold an event in the state early next month, the possibility of potential primary challenges to Biden is moving a bit closer to reality.

Pregnant Russian women flying to Argentina for citizenship

Argentina’s Political Force Looks Into the Electoral Abyss

Argentina’s dominant political force of the past half century or more has long been defined by personalities over policies. Now, the Peronists can’t rally behind a candidate for this year’s election — not even the president himself.
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the two-term former president and now second-in-command who maintains tight control over the movement, has said she won’t be a contender and openly opposes a run by President Alberto Fernandez, whom she picked to lead the ticket in 2019.

The End of Israeli Democracy?

Netanyahu’s Latest Reforms Come Straight From the Autocrat’s Playbook

What Life is Like in Crisis-Hit Pakistan

As Pakistan lurches from one crisis to another, citizens are taking to the streets to protest a dual economic and political meltdown with little precedent in the nation’s post-independence history.
For months, the world’s fifth most populous country has edged closer to a debt default, echoing the cautionary tales of other developing economies, including Sri Lanka and Venezuela. Inflation is at a 48-year high. Foreign currency reserves cover less than a month of imports. The bill for billions in damage from last year’s devastating floods continues to sting, highlighting the financial consequences of a warming planet.

Who needs facts when you have assertions?

I’ve recently seen a couple of Hive posts claiming that we’re headed for a new ice age, based on the assertion that growing seasons are getting shorter. Um, yeah, whatever:

^(source)

Serendipity:

Oops: $276 million was spent on 31 Spanish trains before it was realized they were too big to fit in the tunnels

Invisible solar panels “finally allow cultural heritage to access solar energy”

Italian company Dyaqua, which has developed a way to produce solar panels so that they resemble the barrel clay tiles common on the roofs of buildings in Italy, has said the technology is important for the sustainable redevelopment of historical sites.
Called Invisible Solar, the panels were developed by lighting company Dyaqua and have seen growing interest due to growing concerns with heritage buildings.

^{Badge thanks to @arcange}

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