Campus protests over the war in Gaza have been going on for months at American universities. Now that they're at an all-time high, protests been getting a lot more attention— and tons of disinformation and conspiracies are spreading. Today on WIRED Politics Lab, we talk about some of that disinformation and what student journalists on the ground are doing to report the facts. Plus, we look at how foreign actors are exploiting the dissent.
Leah Feiger is @LeahFeiger. David Gilbert is @DaithaiGilbert. Makena Kelly is @kellymakena. Vittoria Elliot is @telliotter. Write to us at politicslab@WIRED.com. Be sure to subscribe to the WIRED Politics Lab newsletter here.
China’s rise to global prominence is a pretty good contender for the most important world development in the past 30 years. But now the question is how Beijing managed to be successful on the international stage–let alone how large that success is—with fierce debates between hawks and doves in the West and elsewhere.
Jeremy is an associate professor in the Department of International and Diplomatic Studies at the Prague University of Economics and Business and the director of the Jan Masaryk Centre for International Studies. His first book is The Impact of China’s Belt and Road Initiative: From Asia to Europe (Routledge: 2019), and his second is Reconfiguring the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (Routledge: 2022)
We are all familiar with camping, and many of us go camping or camp regularly. Enjoying the great outdoors with friends and family can be an enjoyable experience.
However, camping has a history that is unlike most things in humanity. The path from the ancient world to luxury glamping was not straight.
Despite having very ancient roots, what we know today as camping is a relatively modern phenomenon.
Learn more about the history of camping and how we went from the rugged outdoors to luxury experiences on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
We're telling you about President Biden's most direct warning to Israel since the war in Gaza began.
Also, it was another tense day on Capitol Hill. American school leaders were grilled, and a congresswoman got booed on the House floor.
Plus, we'll explain the debate about fluoride in the drinking water, why Miss USA and Miss Teen USA resigned from their roles, and how a feud between two well-known rappers is breaking streaming records.
Those stories and more news to know in about 10 minutes!
President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that the U.S. would not supply Israel with some weapons if it moved forward with a ground invasion of Rafah. The announcement came hours after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed that the government had already paused a shipment of bombs to Israel over fears of an imminent offensive in the southern Gaza city where more than a million Palestinians are sheltering. Israel has been ramping up its attacks on Rafah over the last few days, all while negotiators frantically try to reach a ceasefire deal in Cairo. Ben Rhodes, former Deputy U.S. national security advisor to President Obama and co-host of Pod Save The World, talks about how much leverage Biden really has over Israel's military operations.
And in headlines: A Georgia court agreed to hear an appeal over whether the Fulton County District Attorney can continue to lead former President Donald Trump's state election interference case, Republican and Democratic House Lawmakers blocked Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene from ousting Speaker Mike Johnson, and third-party presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says a parasite ate part of his brain.
Rushan Abbas, a Muslim Uyghur living in America, delivered remarks at the Hudson Institute in 2018 about China’s persecution of Uyghurs. Six days later, her sister was arrested by the Chinese government.
“My freedom of speech in America as an American citizen, my First Amendment right, cost my own sister's freedom,” Abbas, founder and executive director of Campaign for Uyghurs, says.
Abbas describes her sister as someone who was living an “ordinary life.”
“She's not famous. She's not an educator. She never traveled to any of the Muslim-majority countries. But yet, [the] last five years and nine months, that she's in jail now,” says Abbas, who was born in China but moved to America 35 years ago.
The Chinese Communist Party views “anything that's different as a threat,” Abbas says. “So, the Uyghurs believing in religion and speaking a different language and … having completely unique cultural differences—all this the Chinese government is taking as a threat.”
Since her sister was imprisoned in China, Abbas quit her job and began advocating full time for the freedom of Uyghurs just like her sister.
She joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain why the Chinese Communist Party is persecuting Uyghurs and what Americans can do to help.
Paris Marx is joined by Ed Niedermeyer to discuss Tesla's stagnation as an electric vehicle manufacturer and what that could mean for its future as competitors cut into their market share.
Ed Niedermeyer is the author of Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors and co-host of the Autonocast.
Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:
Paris wrote about the problems facing Tesla, written before Musk began the mass layoffs.
Ed wrote at the end of last year about the lies that underpinned Tesla’s story being exposed.
The Cybertruck is facing significant manufacturing issues in Austin, and recently they all had to be recalled for issues with the accelerator pedal, which caused the company to reveal that only 3,878 vehicles had been delivered to customers.
Tesla is laying off a large number of staff, including the Supercharger and new vehicle teams.
Elon Musk is doing mass layoffs to reestablish his power over the company, but it’s destabilizing the actual business.
Reuters reported that Musk cancelled plans for a low-cost car in favor of robotaxis.
Automakers were warning they couldn’t phase out Chinese minerals from the battery supply chain by 2025. After recording, the Biden administration announced some rules would be delayed until 2027.
Neutrogena has lost its crown as the #1 dermatologist-recommended skincare… and #1 in sales — Because CeraVe did 3 things Neutrogena was too afraid to do.
The New York Times just passed a wild milestone — The NYT has more gaming & cooking subscribers than news subscribers.
And FTX just announced the perfect bankruptcy — All FTX customers are will be repaid in full, despite Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud. We’ll explain how.
Plus, NYC is officially the millionaire capital of the world — 1 out of every 24 New Yorkers is a millionaire (which means there are 3 millionaires on every block in this city).
Spare a thought for the judge in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial. Justice Juan Merchan has gone from holding the former president in contempt of court… to telling Trump’s defense they probably should have objected more during Stormy Daniels’ testimony.
Guest: Jeremy Stahl, Slate’s jurisprudence editor.
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