CNN (March 7)
“February was 1.77 degrees Celsius warmer than the average February in pre-industrial times… and it capped off the hottest 12-month period in recorded history, at 1.56 degrees above pre-industrial levels.” The recent data from the EU’s Copernicus climate monitoring service also confirmed that February was “the ninth month in a row that global records tumbled” and “global ocean temperatures were also off the charts,” especially the North Atlantic, which “has set a new daily temperature record every day since March 5 last year.”
Tags: 1.77 degrees, Climate, Copernicus, EU’s, February, Global records, History, Hottest, North Atlantic, Ocean temperatures, Pre-industrial times, Warmer
Washington Post (November 29)
“Henry A. Kissinger, who died on Wednesday at 100, was one of the most consequential statesmen in U.S. history. Though his greatest triumphs occurred a half-century ago, his legacy is complex and contested and contains lessons that should inform Americans facing complicated foreign policy challenges now.”
Tags: 100, Challenges, Complex, Complicated, Consequential, Contested, Died, Foreign policy, History, Kissinger, Legacy, Lessons, Statesmen, Triumphs, U.S.
New York Times (March 31)
“For the first time in American history, a grand jury has indicted a former president of the United States.” Former President Trump “spent years… ignoring democratic and legal norms and precedents, trying to bend the Justice Department and the judiciary to his whims and behaving as if rules didn’t apply to him.” His indictment shows the rules do apply and, with it, these “institutions have proved to be strong enough to hold him accountable for that harm.”
Tags: Accountable, Democratic, Grand jury, History, Indicted, Institutions, Judiciary, Justice Department, Legal norms, Precedents, President, Rules, Strong, Trump, U.S., Whims
Gizmodo (January 12)
“Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk has broken the world record for the person to lose the largest amount of personal wealth in history.” After losing an estimated $182 billion since November 2021, Musk has displaced the previous record “set in 2000 by Japanese tech investor Masayoshi Son.” Nevertheless, “Musk still remains the second-richest person in the world, falling right behind LVMH’s CEO Bernard Arnault.”
Tags: $182 billion, Arnault, CEO, History, Japan, Lose, LVMH, Musk, Personal wealth, Richest, Son, Tech investor, Tesla, Twitter, World record
Wall Street Journal (December 17)
“History is on speed-dial these days, and the latest seismic shift is Japan’s announcement Friday of a new defense strategy and the spending to implement it.” Credit for this historic change goes to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida “for taking the political risk to educate his country about the growing threats from China and North Korea and how to deter them.”
Tags: China, Defense strategy, Educate, Historic change, History, Japan, Kishida, North Korea, Political risk, Seismic shift, Spending, Threats
New York Times (July 9)
“Japan’s longest-serving prime minister became perhaps the most transformational politician in the country’s post-World War II history,” even though he “never achieved his goal of revising Japan’s Constitution to transform his country into what the Japanese call a ‘normal nation,’ able to employ its military to back up its national interests like any other.”
Tags: Abe, Constitution, History, Japan, Longest-serving, Military, National interests, Normal nation, Politician, Prime minister, Revising, Transformational
Moscow Times (August 9)
“Smoke from wildfires burning across Russia’s largest and coldest region has reached the North Pole for what is believed to be the first time in known history.” The forest fires have been “fueled by hot weather and a 150-year record drought” and “already emitted a record 505 megatons of carbon dioxide.”
Tags: Burning, CO2, Drought, First time, Forest fires, Fueled, History, Hot, North Pole, Record, Russia, Smoke, Weather, Wildfires
Financial Times (August 7)
“As Japan and the US square-off tonight for the gold medal match in Olympic baseball, the Yokohama air will be equal parts thick with history, humidity and the rich possibility of humiliation.” Drastically important, both countries will be competing in what is “a cherished national sport, a national obsession, a mirror to the national soul and a century-old metaphor for the swash and backwash of the two nations’ relationship. A Japanese win in Yokohama will settle and old, old score.”
Tags: Baseball, Cherished, Gold medal, History, Humidity, Humiliation, Japan, Olympic, U.S., Yokohama
Chicago Tribune (December 27)
“But a new year is upon us. Let us allow a sliver of optimism to carry us into 2021, a year that deserves its own chance — and perspective. Because whatever challenges it has in store, this moment in history can still be embraced as a best time to be alive.”
Tags: 2021, Challenges, Chance, Embraced, History, Optimism, Perspective
The Guardian (October 11)
Weekly new Covid cases rose alarmingly in the UK from 116,000 to 224,000 leaving the UK perched “at a ‘tipping point’ in the Covid-19 crisis.” Only swift action will “avoid history ‘repeating itself’” according to deputy chief medical officer, Jonathan Van-Tam” whose “stark warning” emphasized that “the worst is yet to come if we do not ‘all act now’… and that the approach of winter made the situation even more grave.”
Tags: 000, 224, Alarmingly, Cases, COVID-19, Crisis, Grave, History, Swift action, Tipping point, UK, Warning, Weekly, Winter