May 3 2024
Students gone wild
1 Student protests lead to 2100 arrests
2 US v Google monopoly trial ends today
3 ELECTION 2024 Biden long-time politician but inexperienced with close races
4 Russian troops enter base housing US military in Niger
5 Chinese naval fleet grows as US fleet struggles
5/3/1978 First spam e-mail received
see ad astra on x @greg_loving
1 Student protests lead to 2100 arrests
Police have arrested more than 2,100 people during pro-Palestinian protests at college campuses across the United States in recent weeks, sometimes using riot gear, tactical vehicles and flash-bang devices to clear tent encampments and occupied buildings. One officer accidentally discharged his gun inside a Columbia University administration building while clearing out protesters camped inside, authorities disclosed Thursday.
AP
There were at least 30 arrests at Oregon’s Portland State University on Thursday, where police cleared a days-long occupation of a university library only to have protesters break back in. House Republicans have launched multiple investigations into the pro-Palestinian protests spreading at universities across the country, and President Biden on Thursday forcefully urged campus protesters to refrain from violence and intimidation.
WaPo
2 US v Google monopoly trial ends today
The biggest U.S. challenge so far to the vast power of today’s tech giants is nearing its conclusion. Starting Thursday, lawyers for the Justice Department, state attorneys general and Google delivered their final arguments in a yearslong case — U.S. et al. v. Google — over whether the tech giant broke federal antitrust laws to maintain its online search dominance. Arguments are scheduled to conclude Friday. The government claims that Google competed unfairly when it paid Apple and other companies billions of dollars to automatically handle searches on smartphones and web browsers. Google insists that consumers use its search engine because it is the best product. In the coming weeks or months, the judge who has overseen the trial in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Amit P. Mehta, will deliver a ruling that could change the way Google does business or even break up the company — or absolve the tech giant completely. Many antitrust experts expect he will land somewhere in the middle, ruling only some of Google’s tactics out of bounds.
NYT
nearly 6 months will have passed since the conclusion of those headline-stealing proceedings. It’s the litigation equivalent of an ice bath, enough time to forget what the case was about or why it mattered, and part of a larger pattern of frustrating litigation delays. The Federal Trade Commission is pushing for a 2024 trial date in a case filed in December 2020 against Meta’s alleged social media monopoly. The FTC’s case against Amazon is expected to go to trial in 2026, three years after the filing of the FTC’s long-awaited case against the multinational conglomerate. Compare these timelines to the Justice Department’s landmark antitrust case against Microsoft in 1998. The case against Microsoft was filed on May 18, 1998. On May 22, a trial date was set, and trial commenced 5 months later on October 18, 1998. If you put the timeline of the Microsoft case against that of the current case against Google Search, the Microsoft case had already been appealed to the DC Circuit, remanded to the lower court, and almost completely resolved before trial would have begun in the Google Search case.
BIG
3 ELECTION 2024 Biden long-time politician but inexperienced with close races
In 30 years, Mr. Biden never encountered a serious threat to his office. His Republican opponents were underfunded, little-known, inexperienced or some combination of the three. None of them took more than 41 percent of the vote against him. His re-election fight against former President Donald J. Trump — his 13th bid for federal office, all told — is shaping up to be the opposite of those long-ago Senate campaigns: travel-intensive, nasty and close. A rival is, for the first time with him atop the ticket, forcing him to make a compelling case for his return. Before his 2020 presidential campaign, which in the general election was light on in-person events because of the coronavirus pandemic, Mr. Biden had never had a harshly negative advertisement about his record in office or his character broadcast against him on television, according to the archive of congressional television and radio advertisements at the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center at the University of Oklahoma. None of his Senate rivals attacked him on TV, and he ended his two prior presidential campaigns before opponents got around to attacking him. The Republicans who ran against Mr. Biden in Delaware described him as a strong incumbent who was widely liked, and much quicker on his feet during debates and candidate forums than the president they see today. Mr. Biden has ramped up his travel schedule with a flurry of carefully managed visits to battleground states in recent weeks, and the 81-year-old president will be expected to keep up the pace while avoiding the sort of verbal flubs that often dog his public appearances.
In Delaware, Mr. Biden was so well known and, in his early years in office, had such a wellspring of sympathy from voters after the tragic crash that killed his first wife and daughter, that no rival ever mounted a sustained case that he should not be re-elected. For years, bumper stickers promoting his re-election just said “Joe,” while opponents lost with an array of long-forgotten slogans. “I don’t think he ever broke a sweat once he was an incumbent,” said Jane Brady, a Republican who lost to Mr. Biden by 27 points in 1990.
NYT
4 Russian troops enter base housing US military in Niger
Russian military personnel have entered an air base in Niger that is hosting U.S. troops, a senior U.S. defense official told Reuters, a move that follows a decision by Niger's junta to expel U.S. forces. The military officers ruling the West African nation have told the U.S. to withdraw its nearly 1,000 military personnel from the country, which until a coup last year had been a key partner for Washington's fight against insurgents who have killed thousands of people and displaced millions more.
Reuters
5 Chinese naval fleet grows as US fleet struggles
The Chinese navy has begun sea trials of its largest and first fully domestically designed aircraft carrier, intended to counter American naval superiority in the Pacific. The Fujian sailed from Jiangnan shipyard in Shanghai, where it was built, at 8am on Wednesday, state media said. The preliminary trials are to test its electrical and propulsion systems. Military drills will follow. No timeline was given but it is expected to be commissioned into service next year.
Thetimes.co.uk.com
The end is in sight for the US Navy’s long-serving Ticonderoga-class cruisers, icons of the US fleet since the 1980s. A new plan anticipates that the last of the 12 active cruisers – remaining from 27 built between 1980 and 1994 – will decommission in 2027. Warships come and go, and the 567-foot Ticonderogas with their distinctive blocky superstructures were never going to last forever. But losing the cruisers is especially painful for the US fleet as it struggles to keep pace with the fast-growing Chinese one. As the Ticonderogas age out and leave service, they take their missile cells with them – decreasing the overall firepower of what is, for now, the world’s most powerful navy. Worse for the Americans, the ship class that should replace the Ticonderoga class – a new large destroyer the US Navy calls the DDG-X – has been stuck in developmental and budgetary limbo for decades, and won’t produce an actual working warship until the mid-2030s, at the earliest.
Telegraph.co.uk
5/3/1978 Users of ARPANET received an ad that was believed to be the first spam e-mail
Sources
[1] https://apnews.com/article/ec3f62c51c08599f8fcecd99f7cf9e33
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/02/university-protests-columbia-ucla-live-news/
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/02/technology/google-antitrust-trial-closing-arguments.html
https://substack.com/inbox/post/144203592
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/02/us/politics/biden-election-campaign-opponents.html
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