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goddessofthedawn · 1 year

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I posted 1,157 times in 2022

1 post created (0%)

1,156 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@elytrians

@whyisthisfrenchguymasturbating

@nitewrighter

@conjinkies

@4lph4kidz

I tagged 533 of my posts in 2022

#homestuck - 118 posts

#dangan ronpa - 48 posts

#south park - 37 posts

#michael wood - 29 posts

#i should make a happy things tag - 25 posts

#dirk strider - 20 posts

#metallica - 19 posts

#kenny mccormick - 17 posts

#kiyotaka ishimaru - 15 posts

#gnr - 14 posts

Longest Tag: 103 characters

#it's getting more common but most of the people with my name are literal children and i am 25 years old

My Top Posts in 2022:

reminder that i am a self-published author and have... several... books out, all available on amazon. kindle is 99c and always will be as cheap as amazon will let me make them. but! let's describe these books. all of them unless otherwise stated have lgbtqia+ characters, often main characters

first there's the pentalogy of hell series. first book is iscariot. the whole main part of the series, not counting novellas and companions, is out. this series is available in hardcover as well as paperback and kindle. it is not as religious as it sounds. mostly it's me co-opting christian mythology?? it's about kids who go to hell and they have a lot of fun there. beyr is also a part of this series as like a companion.

abnormal murders series. first book is serial killers with cookies. second book is coming out SOON. follows justine after her parents are murdered by uh. serial killers with cookies. she gets pretty morally gray as the series goes on. she just loves vigilante justice.

next is columbiner. which is just a little novella about the dangers of those columbine fangirls, essentially. idk how popular it is anymore but when i was in college they were everywhere on tumblr. no lgbt+ rep but then again there's no romance total.

vendettic trilogy! first book is spahn. follows the stupidest bisexual alive as he and his heavy metal band in the early 80s try to navigate "all this demon shit." it's not fanfiction no matter how much it might look like it. first two books are out.

like hell. kinda experimental. follows this kid brendan and his relationship with drew, who is coming from an extremely abusive home. i always describe this one was being about "friendship, revenge, and killing your mom's boyfriend". except they might not actually be just friends.

the crucifixion of craig knox! this is my west memphis 3 book. if you are familiar with the case this will be very familiar. if not, this is about a kid who, through his association with the town goth in the early 90s, is implicated for the murder of a couple of little boys. btw if we're talking about wm3 the trial for the possibility of dna testing is uh. comin up here. let's get those boys exonerated.

next is the aughts boys series which is more of a set of companion novels. the "first" book is one more sad song, which follows zeke in 2004 as he navigates his crush on his best friend after his best friend gets a girlfriend. also he likes skateboarding and hates his dad. the second one is the horror at camp new woods and takes place the summer before omss. it follows elliot at murder camp. the third one is right or wrong and it takes place the year before omss. it follows luke, who's new best friend bullies a kid to suicide and that's a lot. you don't have to read them in order. or all of them. if you just wanna read about murder camp you can do that. there will be more books in the series. like. a lot more.

tinon trilogy! only one book right now, circus wings. an actual fantasy series. follows environmentally-conscious lesbian princess and her guard who is just fed up with her shit.

i have two short story/essay collections. first is rewind, which is just short stories. second is life in anachronism, which also has some creative nonfiction essays.

aaand finally. carl & jimmy. which is just. it's weird. maybe don't read carl & jimmy.

3 notes - Posted June 18, 2022

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#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #we really just do use tumblr to relive our homestuck years huh

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deathlessathanasia · 1 year

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“If the father/family chose to keep the baby, it was brought into the family through religious rituals. As ever, our best information comes from Athens. Here, the father carried the child around the household hearth, thus putting the child under the protection of Hestia, the goddess of hearth and stability. This not only “humanized” the infant, but also inducted him/her formally into the household. A similar ritual was conducted when admitting new slaves or brides. . . . The literary evidence suggests that newborns were wrapped in swaddling clothes. The Archaic Homeric Hymn to Apollo notes that right after bathing the baby, the attending goddesses “swaddled you in a soft, new cloth and wrapped gold bands around you” (ll. 120–122). The Spartans, by contrast (because the Spartans did everything by contrast) reared their children without swaddling bands, believing that the limbs developed better when they could move freely. Nevertheless, a terracotta from Taras, a Spartan colony in southern Italy, shows a swaddled child lying in a cradle, which gives some archaeological evidence for this practice (Garland 1990, 103).

Around the tenth day after birth (the dekatê), the child was named. This involved a party to which relatives were invited and brought gifts for the baby, something like a postnatal baby shower. According to the comic playwright Ephippos, the celebration could be quite considerable, with a feast where one would: “toast hunks of Chersonese cheese, boil cabbages gleaming in olive oil, bake fat breasts of lamb, pluck the feathers of doves and thrushes and finches all at the same time, nibble squid with cuttlefish, tenderize the tentacles of many octopodes, and drink many goblets of minimally diluted wine” (Garland 1990, 94). Meat-eating was comparatively rare in ancient Greece and usually associated with religious rituals, so to consume so many animals at once was quite the social event. Provided the child did not die (and infant mortality could be very high, up to 20 to 25%), the lives of infants appear to have been peaceful and enjoyable. Most babies were breastfed for the first two years of life, either by their own mother or by a wet-nurse. Using a wet-nurse could be highly desirable for a number of reasons, including allowing the mother to deal with domestic chores with minimal interruption. Based on the discovery of baby bottles with nipples in some Greek communities, it would seem that in some instances, infants could be bottle-fed. A recipe from the much later medical author Soranus (second century CE) contains water, flour, honey, milk, and wine, suggesting that the Greeks understood the concept of baby formula, which was probably what went into the bottles. A fragmentary treatise in the Hippokratic corpus entitled Peri Odontophyies (“On Growing Teeth” = teething) indicates that the teething process was just as painful and annoying in ancient times as it is now. The milk that went in, by whatever means, had to come out again, and potty training was another constant in the lives of infants. Potties were ceramic and were something like a combination of potty and highchair).

The overall messiness of babies and their various orifices was a subject appropriate even to the finest works of literature. In Homer’s Iliad, Akhilleus’ foster father Phoinix lays claim to the affections of the greatest of the Akhaians by reminding him (Bk. 9. 485–491): And I made you this way, god-like Akhilleus, Loving you from my heart. When you did not wish To go to dinner with any other, or to eat in the halls, Until indeed I sat you upon my knees And gave you your fill of meat, having cut it up for you, and pouring wine. Often you wet the robes on my chest Spitting up wine in irksome childishness. Likewise, the playwright Aeschylus has Orestes’s nurse recount the trials of her duties to the future king of Mycenae (Libation Bearers ll. 749–762): Dear Orestes, the care of my heart, Whom I cared for, receiving him from his mother. Woken at night by his shrill cries, And so many pointless troubles I suffered, For it was necessary to care for him as for a dumb beasty— How couldn’t you? A mind like that— For a child cannot yet verbalize, being in his nappies, If he’s hungry, or thirsty, or needs to tinkle. The young belly of children is autonomous! Of these things I was prophetess, but I often got it wrong, I think, And was laundress to the child’s nappies, Laundress and feeder with the same goal, I was mistress of both tasks, Having Orestes, receiving him from his father. And, okay, sometimes spewing infants were just plain funny, especially in the hands of an awkward daddy, as in Aristophanes’ Clouds (ll. 1380–1385): Who the heck raised you, shameless one, Taking note of all your lispings, whatever you were thinking. If you said “drink,” I knew and gave you something to drink; And having asked for “mamma” I came bringing you bread; And hardly had you said “kakka” but I seized you and doorwards Carried you and held you WAY forward!

Toys were prevalent in the lives of children, and one can imagine that even the poorest children had carved animals and rag dollies. Vase paintings show that popular toys for infants were rattles, push-carts with handles, model animals, dolls (often with movable limbs), and spinning tops. Toys for slightly older children included hoops, balls, rocking horses, and knucklebones—an early form of dice. Children also had pets, typically birds of different types, puppies, farm animals, possibly rabbits, and even monkeys. The poet Anytê captured an especially endearing moment of child-animal play: The children put purple reins on you, Mr. Billy-Goat and a bridle on your bearded throat, and teach you horse-racing round the god’s temple so he may watch them having fun as children do. (trans. Plant 2004, 58) Small children shown on grave reliefs usually hold such animals, little girls with small birds and boys often with dogs.”

- Intimate Lives of the Ancient Greeks, by Stephanie Lynn Budin

#ancient greece #children #infants #excerpts #quotes

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novemberhush · 2 years

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I posted 4,930 times in 2022

173 posts created (4%)

4,757 posts reblogged (96%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@imwritesometimes

@sterekdrabbles

@maddieandchimney

@octobertulip

@jmeelee

I tagged 4,151 of my posts in 2022

Only 16% of my posts had no tags

#lol - 525 posts

#art - 465 posts

#sterek - 364 posts

#buddie - 291 posts

#cats - 257 posts

#dincobb - 217 posts

#cute - 149 posts

#awww - 103 posts

#stucky - 99 posts

#aww - 98 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#‘okay clyde calm down! we’re coming’ ‘hurry! i’m drowning!’ ‘you’re not drowning! stop flapping about & let us turn you over. there you go’

My Top Posts in 2022:

I know I shouldn’t find it cute that Luke blocked his friend Phil’s attempts to date Garcia (and even lied straight to her face when she asked if Phil had asked about her), just because he himself was into her and didn’t want her dating anyone else (I mean, why else did he do it??), even though he was already in a relationship with Lisa, I know I shouldn’t. But, God help me, I do. It’s just so... human.

Like, yeah, he’s already dating someone so he should either end it and ask Garcia out himself or stand aside and let Phil shoot his shot and let Garcia make up her own mind as to whether or not she wants to give him a chance, but he doesn’t do either. He just does his best to discourage Phil’s interest in Garcia and hers in Phil, and sabotage any potential relationship between them before it’s even had a chance to start. It’s not a great thing to do, but it’s so human and real to life because real people aren’t always as selfless and self-sacrificing as the picture perfect characters we’re often fed on TV. And, yeah, I love it.

32 notes - Posted August 3, 2022

This or That

Thanks for tagging me, @smowkie 😘

coffee or tea • canon or fanfiction • batman or superman • hot or cold • meadows or forests • lakes or the sea • water w/ ice or water w/ no ice • baths or showers • black or white • soup or salad • gold or silver • jewellery or no jewellery • money or power • kindness or respect • apples or oranges • flowers or succulents • digital notes or handwritten notes • science or history • ancient greece or ancient rome • jeans or sweats

I tag @talespinner230 @mistmarauder @imwritesometimes @fireladybuckley @meisterdani @prettyboyandthekid @oneawkwardcookie @firstdegreefangirl @firemedicdiaz @witchlydiaz and anyone else who wants to play. No pressure on anyone who doesn’t!❤️

44 notes - Posted October 1, 2022

48 notes - Posted September 1, 2022

Apple News joining some dots, I see.

75 notes - Posted July 9, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

No cheating: You’re starring in a movie with the last person saved in your camera roll and the last song you listened to is the title. Who/what is it?

Thanks for tagging me, @meisterdani ! I started a new post as the last one was getting quite long, hope you don’t mind. 😘

So, my co-star is…

… the gorgeous and talented Timothy Olyphant!! Yes!! *fist pumps the air in celebration* Very nice.

And the title of our movie would be Like a River Runs. Interesting…

See the full post

76 notes - Posted March 30, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#well that was pretty boring #apart from the peeps I reblogged from of course #year in review #tumblr2022

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selflessanatta · 5 months

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Just Say No to Pharmaceutical Drugs, https://selflessanatta.com/just-say-no-to-pharmaceutical-drugs/

New Post has been published on https://selflessanatta.com/just-say-no-to-pharmaceutical-drugs/

Just Say No to Pharmaceutical Drugs

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Nancy and Ronald Reagan felt strongly about eliminating the scourge of drugs from our society.

They were mistaken that only the defined illegal drugs of the era were bad. Further, the policies they advocated were an abject failure that has since been abandoned.

However, their hearts were in the right place.

We need to defeat the enemy: The Pharmaceutical industry.

Cory Doctorow documented how We Paid to Develop Merck’s Covid Pill, and now they’re charging us a 4,000% markup on it.

Merck really sucks.

But they are hardly the worst.

That honor goes to Purdue Pharma.

Purdue Pharma is majority owned by the Sacklers, a multigenerational billionaire crime family of mass-murdering dope-peddlers, who basically invented modern, legal dope peddling.

Cory Doctorow documented how The Sacklers woulda gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those darned meddling feds.

Purdue Pharma really sucks.

What respectable killers look like.

Just Say No to Drugs — All of Them

I’ve never taken a prescription drug longer than a few weeks.

I’ve never taken over-the-counter drugs for more than a few months, and those were antihistamines.

I have taken illegal drugs for extended periods; at least they were illegal. Cannabis was my drug of choice.

I liked to smoke small amounts of Sativa leaf to “take the edge off.” I avoided Indicas when possible due to the mental blanking side effect.

I found that Sativa Cannabis was effective at getting me out of my head and into my heart.

I take no drugs today.

My 103-year-old grandfather

My grandfather lived to be 103 years old. The only medication he ever took was niacin for his high cholesterol.

He only took that briefly because the flushing was an unwelcome side effect.

Also, it runs in the family, and the high levels do not result in artery buildup; at least, that’s what my Cardiac Computed Tomography (CT) Scan revealed to me.

In my opinion, my grandfather lived to be 103 and sustained mental clarity for nearly all of that time because he didn’t take Pharmaceutical Drugs.

Pharmacists just say No

One of my closest friends from High School is a pharmacist. So is his wife.

They occasionally take ibuprofen, but nothing else.

I’ve known other pharmacists who have told me the same thing.

The reason they give is that these drugs are very powerful and they have many deleterious side effects.

Unless they really, really needed them, they would never consider taking them.

Senior Citizens just say Yes

I recently spoke to an 82-year old gentleman who told me that he is on about 15 different medications. He says he just does what the doctor tells him.

Apparently, that means taking a multitude of prescription drugs.

Have you ever spent time talking with retired people?

What do most of their conversations revolve around?

Seniors discuss their ailments, the meds they are on, their difficulties with insurance, and their need for these drugs for their survival. I’ve witnessed and participated in those conversations.

These talks are not uplifting.

The mindset that must die

Western culture believes that all diseases have a physical cause. It’s the nasty extension of materialism.

Physical causes must have physical remedies.

Therefore, some drug is the fix or the cure for disease.

Perhaps we haven’t discovered the magic drug yet, but we have a panoply of existing drugs to address ailments both big and small.

Apparently, we are all born with drug deficiencies.

We lack sufficient caffeine, so we must consume coffee, soda, or various powders to correct this problem.

Apparently, countless years of evolution did not provide us with a body capable of sustaining itself without infusions of exotic chemicals.

Our natural immune system requires constant infusions of drugs to sustain its operation.

It’s a miracle we made it this far.

Thank goodness for pharmaceuticals, right?

The Slippery Slope to Polypharmacy

Polypharmacy is taking many drugs at the same time.

The Pharmaceutical industry thrives on polypharmacy, so to them, it’s a necessary condition to be managed, preferably with even more drugs.

Polypharmacy happens for a simple reason.

When a single drug is prescribed, it will often have side effects.

A second drug will be prescribed to deal with the side effects.

That will induce even more prescriptions.

Eventually, the cocktail of these drugs interact and produce even more side effects, resulting in even more prescriptions.

A completely clean person like me can devolve into Polypharmacy in a matter of weeks.

Photo by Myriam Zilles on Unsplash

Special Needs Polypharmacy

I am particularly close to the Special Needs community.

I have a 22-year-old son diagnosed with autism.

He is the only one I know who is not on a Polypharmacy regimen.

Special Needs people often don’t have the capacity to make decisions for themselves. My son doesn’t.

Thus, they are subject to the whims of their caregivers, who generally load them up with drugs.

It makes me sad to see so many drugged without their understanding or consent.

Photo by Matteo Badini on Unsplash

Drugs have their place

I am not completely against all Pharmaceutical Drugs.

As I documented in (Some) Schizophrenics are Enlightened, Minus Proper Body Anchoring, Schizophrenics often need drugs to remain safe.

But the need for drugs and the applications that drugs are applied to is a chasm so vast that a trillion-dollar industry of leaches and murders exists there.

If I were convinced a particular drug was essential to my survival — a really tough sell — I would take it.

Although, I would explore every possible natural remedy first.

Just Say No

When in doubt, just say no.

Pharmaceutical Drugs do more harm than good.

~~wink~~

Anatta

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pashterlengkap · 6 months

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Right-wingers freak out because Miss France has “woke” short hair

Look up the original definition of “woke” circa 2020 and you’ll find “alert to racial prejudice, discrimination and white supremacy.” Now, for muckraking tabloids and probably Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R), “woke” apparently just means “short hair.” Related: Far-right Republicans are now calling Mike Johnson “woke” over LGBTQ+ military provisions Mike Johnson’s views are extreme, but some Republicans don’t think he’s extreme enough. The newest definition comes in the wake of 20-year-old Eve Gilles taking the title of Miss France last Saturday night. The French beauty representing Nord-Pas-de-Calais snatched the crown sporting a pixie cut straight out of a 1990s supermodel lookbook. Never Miss a Beat Subscribe to our daily newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights. Promotions (occasional) * Week in Good News (one on the Weekend) * Week in Review (one on the Weekend) * Daily Brief (one each weekday) * Sign Up It was the first win for a Miss France contestant with short hair in the competition’s 103-year history. Eve Gilles, a woman with short hair wins miss france and the tabloids get angry saying the judges have gone ‘woke’ as her hair isn’t long. i feel they’ve gone with a fabulous 80/90 vibe and a look that is strikingly different from the other woman. #MissFrance pic.twitter.com/ho9AcKTPzR— emma woodcock (@Green_Yogi) December 18, 2023 “We’re used to seeing beautiful Misses with long hair, but I chose an androgynous look with short hair,” explained Gilles after the contest. It was a win for “diversity”, she said, adding that “no one should dictate who you are.” The model-thin beauty queen, who grew up wanting to be an equestrian, shared during the contest, “I would like to show that the competition is evolving and society, too. That the representation of women is diverse. In my opinion, beauty is not limited to a haircut or shapes that we have — or not.” “Every woman is different,” she added. “We are all unique.” But not according to the right-wing outrage machine ginning up a controversy that doesn’t really exist. Leading the charge: the UK’s far right-leaning Daily Mail. “Critics said the kind of long hair favored by previous winners – and Gallic female icons such as Brigitte Bardot and Catherine Deneuve – would have been far more appropriate than a short pixie bob,” snarked the British tabloid, without quoting those critics in particular. The Franco-phobic Telegraph jumped on the scrum as well, describing Miss France as “boyish” and “androgynous”. And according to more than one post on Elon Musk’s X, Gilles’s triumph for “diversity” is just another rigged result of the left’s obsession with “woke”. “Miss France is no longer a beauty contest but a woke contest which is based on inclusiveness,” read one tired take. “We don’t care about her haircut, but the androgynous body is obviously there to serve as woke,” read another. It was left to French-American actress Beatrice Rosen of 2012 fame, and no “woke” fan herself, to disarm fellow right-wing critics with a spirited defense of Gilles. “I understand that there is a real element fed up with the wokism that they are trying to make us swallow 24/7, BUT, in the same way that we can criticize a religion but NOT the faithful, I find the sometimes nasty criticisms regarding Eve unfair and counterproductive. “Attacking the physical is an attack below the belt, and putting the weight of the total ideological criticism of Wokism on a young woman of 20 is unfair. “This young woman is pretty, and feminine ‘despite’ her short hair. I was and still am an admirer of the singular beauty of Audrey Hepburn, Linda Evangelista, or Jean Seberg, all 3 very thin with short hair, and who nevertheless are female icons who have been adored in the whole world.” Bravo à Ève Gilles pour son élection à Miss France 2024. J'ai lu les critiques et voici mon… http://dlvr.it/T0ZVJ1

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newstfionline · 1 year

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Saturday, April 15, 2023

Warmly welcomed, ‘Cousin Joe’ jokes of staying in Ireland (AP) In Ireland this week, well-wishers have lined the streets to catch a mere glimpse of President Joe Biden. Photos of his smiling face are plastered on shop windows and one admirer held a sign that read: “2024—Make Joe President Again.” No wonder Biden keeps joking about sticking around. Back home, Biden’s approval rating is near the lowest point of his presidency. And even some Democrats have suggested he shouldn’t run for reelection. On trips within the U.S. to discuss his economic and social policies, Biden often gets a smattering of admirers waving as he drives by, and friendly crowds applaud his speeches. But the reception doesn’t compare with the overwhelming adoration he’s getting here in the old sod. It’s a dynamic that most of Biden’s predecessors also have faced: The world abroad tends to love American presidents. Back home, not always. Not so much.

Tired of waiting, Arnold Schwarzenegger fills a pothole in his LA neighborhood (NPR) Fed up by an enormous pothole in his Los Angeles neighborhood, Arnold Schwarzenegger picked up a shovel and filled it himself. The actor and former California governor tweeted a video Tuesday of him and a helper using packaged concrete to repair the road in the Brentwood area. “Today, after the whole neighborhood has been upset about this giant pothole that’s been screwing up cars and bicycles for weeks, I went out with my team and fixed it,” he wrote on Twitter. “I always say, let’s not complain, let’s do something about it. Here you go.”

Obituaries for Nuremberg prosecutor erase his beliefs about the U.S. (The Intercept) Benjamin Ferencz died last week at the age of 103. Ferencz was the last surviving member of the team of prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials after World War II, which led to the convictions of many top Nazi officials and since been understood as the exemplar of justice for war crimes. Ferencz served in the U.S. Army during the war and in its aftermath investigated the conditions at the Buchenwald, Mauthausen, and Dachau concentration camps. He spent the rest of his life advocating for the creation of an international criminal court and accountability for war criminals generally. These facts appear in his obituaries. What’s missing from all of them in major outlets is Ferencz’s belief that top members of the George W. Bush administration, including Bush himself, should have been tried for war crimes for the Iraq War.

UN: As many as 400,000 migrants may cross Darien Gap in 2023 (AP) Two U.N. groups said Thursday that the number of migrants crossing the dangerous Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama could soar to as many as 400,000 this year. That would represent a huge increase from the 250,000 migrants estimated to have crossed the roadless, jungle-clad route in 2022. The U.N. agencies for refugees and migration said in a report that nearly 100,000 people may have already made the crossing so far this year, six times more than in the similar period of last year. If that trend keeps up, it could mean many more migrants seeking to reach the United States through Central America and Mexico. The groups called it “an unprecedented movement (of people) through the Americas.”

Brazil calls for alternative to dollar in foreign trade (Bloomberg) Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called on BRICS nations to come up with an alternative to replace the dollar in foreign trade, supporting China’s crusade against US global dominance just as he prepares to meet with Xi Jinping in Beijing. Lula’s remarks were made on Thursday during a visit to the Shanghai-based New Development Bank, an institution created by BRICS countries, which, along with Brazil and China, include Russia, India and South Africa. Former Brazil President Dilma Rousseff is the bank’s new chief executive.

Macron’s Pension Reform Victory (Foreign Policy) After almost three months of mass protests, France’s Constitutional Council on Friday approved the majority of President Emmanuel Macron’s highly unpopular pension reform bill. The now-approved legislation will increase the country’s retirement age from 62 to 64 by 2030, starting in September with incremental increases. Six parts of the pension bill were rejected, and a referendum on the decision—requested by 252 parliamentarians—was denied. Macron is expected to sign the bill into law within the next 48 hours. Protests are expected to continue.

Cash-loving Germans fret over exploding ATMs as cross-border crime wave hits (Reuters) In the German town of Ratingen, exploding cash machines are a hot-button topic. Two got blown up early on the same morning last month, at branches of Santander and Deutsche Bank across the street from each other close to the Duesseldorf suburb’s main square. In Germany, thieves are blowing ATMs up at the rate of more than one a day. Attacks are up more than 40% since 2019, according to the interior ministry, and investigators say two factors are driving the increase. Europe’s largest economy has 53,000 ATM machines, a disproportionately high number that reflects Germans’ preference for cash rather than bank cards. The country also boasts an extensive network of highways, or Autobahns, on much of which no speed limit is enforced. Ratingen lies just 70km (40 miles) from the Dutch border, and investigators say gangs from the Netherlands are the prime culprits for the attacks, which send glass flying, cause building facades to crumble and money cartridges to crack open.

Is Russia’s Defense Ministry using Bakhmut to eliminate the Wagner Group? (Worldcrunch) The infamous Wagner Group, whose fighters are accused of some of Russia’s most horrific war crimes, has been engaged over the past two months in some of the fiercest fighting in the besieged Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. Wagner fighters, many of whom were recruited from Russian prisons, are facing colossal losses in Bakhmut, and are increasingly short on ammunition and supplies. Some experts now believe the official Russian military may be deliberately under-supplying the mercenaries, hoping they will be wiped out. Wagner owner Yevgeny Prigozhin, once a close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been left out in the cold, reduced to complaining on social media that his fighters are dying en masse, starved of ammunition. The Washington, D.C.-based Institute for the Study of War suggested in March that the Russian military is “prioritizing eliminating Wagner on the battlefields in Bakhmut.”

New Leaked Documents Show Broad Infighting Among Russian Officials (NYT) The depth of the infighting inside the Russian government appears broader and deeper than previously understood, judging from a newly discovered cache of classified intelligence documents that has been leaked online. The documents paint a picture of the Russian government feuding over the count of the dead and wounded in the Ukraine war, with the domestic intelligence agency accusing the military of obscuring the scale of casualties that Russia has suffered. In one document, American intelligence officials say that Russia’s main domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., has “accused” the country’s Defense Ministry “of obfuscating Russian casualties in Ukraine.” The finding highlights “the continuing reluctance of military officials to convey bad news up the chain of command,” they say. The F.S.B. “calculated the actual number of Russians wounded and killed in action was closer to 110,000,” the document says. The last time that the ministry publicly disclosed a death toll was in September, when the defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, said that 5,937 Russian troops had been killed since the war started.

South Korea Tries $500 Handouts to Help Reclusive Kids Get Out (Bloomberg) The South Korean government wants shut-in kids to leave the house and go outside. The country’s Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said the cabinet passed a measure Tuesday to provide potentially thousands of dollars a year in education, job counseling and health support to those between the ages of 9 and 24 living as recluses. The program, which expands a November announcement, is targeted at so-called “hikikomori”—a term coined in Japan to describe severe social withdrawal, likely worsened by the pandemic. Qualifying South Korean youth get funds through several categories, including 650,000 won ($490) per month for general living costs. The policy’s main goal is to help disadvantaged youth, but it’s also a way for the country to address its shrinking working-age population amid alarmingly low birthrates and tight immigration policies.

Cyclone Ilsa hits Australia’s northwest, misses iron ore export hub (Reuters) A tropical cyclone smashed into Australia’s northwest coast as a category 5 storm, setting new wind speed records, but has largely spared populated regions including the world’s largest iron ore export hub at Port Hedland, authorities said on Friday. Cyclone Ilsa made landfall early Friday morning with the highest intensity rating on a 1-to 5 scale and then moved inland. Ilsa set a new preliminary Australian ten-minute sustained wind speed record of 218 km per hour (135 mph) at Bedout Island, about 40 km offshore, eclipsing cyclone George’s 194 km at the same location in 2007, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

After Shunning Assad for Years, the Arab World Is Returning Him to the Fold (NYT) Saudi Arabia, like many other Arab states, had refused to engage with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria for more than a decade after he violently crushed his country’s Arab Spring uprising—bombing, gassing and torturing his own people in a conflict that morphed into a long-running war that is still in progress. So when Syria’s foreign minister arrived in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, it seemed to put to rest any notion that Mr. al-Assad’s regime would remain isolated in the Middle East. The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, welcomed Mr. al-Assad’s emissary, Faisal Mekdad, with a smile. In a joint statement, the countries said they had discussed steps to facilitate “the return of Syria to its Arab fold,” and would start procedures to resume consular services and flights. Also this week, Tunisia formally re-established diplomatic relations with Syria, naming an ambassador to Damascus. “Assad remaining in power and Arab normalization with Damascus seems to be a foregone conclusion at this point,” said Anna Jacobs, a senior Gulf analyst for the International Crisis Group. “The U.S. and Europe have made it clear that they do not agree with Arab states normalizing with the Assad regime, but there doesn’t seem to be much they can do about it.”

New malaria vaccine (Foreign Policy) Ghana on Wednesday became the first country to approve a new malaria vaccine (called R21) described by its creators as a “world-changer”—igniting celebrations across the medical community. The new vaccine appeared to be “hugely effective” in local trials in Burkina Faso. Widespread use of the vaccine as well as possible approval by the World Health Organization (WHO) will depend on the results of a larger trial whose results have yet to be published. In 2021, Africa was home to 95 percent of malaria cases and 96 percent of malaria deaths, according to the WHO. Nearly half of the world’s population was at risk for malaria that year.

Cash (Quartz) De La Rue is a British company that prints money; literally, they’re the ones who produce banknotes on behalf of government clients and is responsible for a third of banknotes made globally. The company has warned that profits are going to miss expectations because demand for cash is way down, with cash falling from making up 27 percent of spending at point-of-sale transactions in 2018 down to 16 percent of transaction value as of 2022, with the projection for 2026 being that cash drops to 10 percent of value.

Virginia Fifth Grader Is Celebrated for Spotting Textbook’s Error (NYT) Liam Squires, like many students, usually answers the question “How was school today?” with an evasive answer along the lines of “I don’t know.” This is why weeks passed before his mother, Megan Squires, learned that he had spotted an error in a science textbook that the publisher, dozens of students and his own teacher had missed. Liam, 10, had noticed that two rocks were misplaced in a diagram of the rock cycle. The significance of his discovery was not clear to his mother until months later in March, when Liam was praised by the school district superintendent and received a letter from the textbook’s publisher. In the review section of the “Exploring Science All Around Us” textbook that Liam’s class used, the sedimentary rock and igneous rock were swapped into the wrong spots in the rock cycle. He immediately told his teacher, Serena Porter, who at first thought that there could not be an error in the textbook. Then, she looked more closely at the diagram. “No one saw that,” Ms. Porter said. “I was just blown away that he had found it.”

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