“Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested Ukraine could be placed under a form of temporary administration to allow for new elections and the signature of key accords with the aim of reaching a settlement in the war, Russian news agencies reported early on Friday. … Putin’s comments on temporary administration appeared to address his long-held complaint that Ukraine’s authorities are not a legitimate negotiating partner as President Volodymyr Zelensky has remained in power beyond the end of his mandate in May 2024. … ‘In principle, of course, a temporary administration could be introduced in Ukraine under the auspices of the UN, the United States, European countries and our partners,’ Putin was quoted as saying in talks with seamen at [Murmansk].” [editor’s note: Is he willing to accept the same setup for Russia? – TLK] (03/28/25)
“Yes, many auto workers had to find new jobs once imported vehicles were allowed to compete with American-built vehicles [under NAFTA]. Yes, that made some of their lives harder and left some of them worse off, at least temporarily and sometimes long-term. Welcome to the real world, where auto workers aren’t unique and special snowflakes who never have to change careers like the rest of us. The average American changes jobs 12 times in his or her lifetime … and the average American, including one who worked on a Ford assembly line at some point, is more prosperous now than he or she was in 1993. Trump’s cockamamie tariff schemes might well have been intentionally tailored to undo all that.” (03/27/25)
“South Sudan’s opposition has said that the overnight arrest of First Vice President Riek Machar, longtime rival to President Salva Kiir, has invalidated their 2018 peace deal and risked plunging the country back into war. A convoy of 20 heavily armed vehicles entered Machar’s residence in the capital, Juba, late on Wednesday and arrested him, according to a statement issued by a member of his party – a dramatic escalation of a conflict that has been building for weeks in the world’s youngest country. … A power-sharing deal between Kiir and Machar has been gradually unravelling, threatening a return of the civil war that killed around 400,000 people between 2013 and 2018.” (03/27/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jennie Jones
“In our interest-led learning environment, we foster collaboration by holding monthly brainstorming sessions to decide how to use our monthly budget. The kids have access to a set amount each month, and when they have things they want to do that exceed that amount, they plan fundraisers. Twice this year, that has meant lemonade stands. The first lemonade stand was somewhat on a whim. One of the oldest students had the idea, and basically ran it with two friends. They made the lemonade and the signs, set it up, and after the stand had been operating for fifteen minutes, the rest of the students got wind of the event and showed up to help. This group of ‘helpers’ had been playing Minecraft while the three girls had done all the work of creating the stand. I thought we were about to have a real-life Little Red Hen lesson.” (03/27/25)
“A Turkish national and doctoral student at Tufts University has been detained by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents without explanation, her lawyer said Wednesday. Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, had just left her home in Somerville on Tuesday night when she was stopped, lawyer Mahsa Khanbabai said in a petition filed in Boston federal court. Video obtained by The Associated Press appears to show six people, their faces covered, taking away Ozturk’s phone as she yells and is handcuffed. ‘We’re the police,’ members of the group are heard saying in the video. A man is heard asking, ‘Why are you hiding your faces?'” (03/27/25)
“I wonder how Christians who favor the current US government’s war on immigrants can reconcile their stance with Leviticus 19:34, which reads (King James version): ‘But the stranger who dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.’ Would they reply that the Bible is merely epic poetry? Or are they CINOs — Christians In Name Only? One endearing characteristic of the Catholic Church, which was the only Christian church for 15 centuries, was its universalism — globalism as we would say today. This feature, as well as its spiritual message, provided multitudes of poor and exploited people, the bulk of the population on earth, with the ability to feel that they were elsewhere, just as culture in its learned sense is a way to be elsewhere.” (03/27/25)
“President Donald Trump on Thursday withdrew his nomination of Rep. Elise Stefanik as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Trump cited the razor-thin majority that Republicans hold in the House of Representatives for his decision to pull Stefanik’s name from consideration by the Senate for the U.N. post. The vote of Stefanik, a New York Republican, has repeatedly been crucial in helping the GOP caucus pass key legislation since the beginning of Trump’s term in January. … ‘With a very tight Majority, I don’t want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat.’ If Stefanik left the House, her seat would be filled by a special election in New York. Trump did not say who he would now nominate for the U.N. ambassador slot.” (03/27/25)
“When the Signalgate story broke, we thought to ourselves: Okay, that’s the most politically self-destructive thing the White House will do for a while. But we were wrong. Somehow, the White House’s political response to the story has been even dumber. Yesterday, JVL took stock of the administration’s clown car of flailing responses: the inexplicable attempt to paint the release of authentic internal screenshots as a ‘hoax,’ the bizarre assertions that the information in the chat wouldn’t have been classified, the attempts to turn the whole thing into a ‘Jeffrey Goldberg sucks and can’t be trusted’ media story. Since then, things have gotten sillier still.” (03/27/25)
