I’m in Spain. Travelled to Gran Canaria on Thursday. I’m here for a week. Went off grind when Shabbat began. So, today, when I went online again, I’m hit in the face with Trump’s latest outburst. This one is extreme even for Trump. From The Times:

President Zelensky was asked to leave the White House after a disastrous public argument with President Trump and his vice-president, JD Vance, that left the US-led push for peace in Ukraine in grave doubt.

A meeting in the Oval Office descended into bitter recriminations as Trump accused Zelensky of “gambling with World War Three” and called off a ceremony to sign an economic partnership deal to bind the two countries in perpetuity.

Zelensky’s emotional responses to an antagonistic Vance riled the US ­president, who repeatedly rebuked the Ukrainian leader, telling him in a raised voice that “you gotta be more thankful” and concluding: “The problem is, I’ve empowered you to be a tough guy. And i don’t think you’d be a tough guy without the United States.”

The Pope’s condition is obviously getting worse. The Vatican, as always, is as good as ever at spin. Read it at the Guardian.

The IAEA warns the world. Read it at the Jerusalem Post.

Nothing bats the feeling of leaving the car in the garage knowing that Shabbat is only hours away.

“Less than two months after returning to the White House, Donald Trump has reportedly played golf on 13 of the 48 days he has been back in office—and the cost of those trips to Florida has been mounting.” Read it at the Independent.

“Latest attacks came hours after Donald Trump said Vladimir Putin was ‘doing what anybody would do’.” Read it at the Guardian.

“Donald Trump has ‘gone cool’ on Britain since King Charles welcomed Volodymyr Zelensky to Sandringham.” Read it at the Daily Mail.

Putin’s puppets in Europe are doing what their master in Kremlin tells them. Read it at the Kyiv Independent.

From the Guardian:

Trump and Vance’s wild, erratic and at times insulting comments about European governments, had left politicians on this side of the Atlantic facing two dawning realities: first, that they had, somehow, to find ways to push back against Trump and Vance without stoking tensions to even more dangerous levels. And second that for the long-term they had to formulate a real plan for a world in which the US would no longer be the cornerstone of western security.

As one European diplomat put it: “It has become clear that Trump is not saying what he is saying just to shake us up, but he is saying it because he means it.”

And:

Signs that Europe was undergoing a historic shift could be heard everywhere, from the rhetoric of French President Emmanuel Macron, to the hugely ambitious ideas for collective defence being voiced by the European Commission, to the announcement on Friday by the Polish prime minister Donald Tusk for all men in his country to undergo military training.

But it was in Germany that the change was seismic. After months campaigning in defence of his country’s strict “debt brake”, incoming chancellor Friedrich Merz struck a deal with his likely coalition partners, the SPD, to raise hundreds of billions of euros for defence and infrastructure. Strict rules on debt underpinned post-war Germany’s entire economic structure. But now needs must.

“Given the threat to our freedom and to peace on our continent, the mantra for our defence has to be—whatever it takes,” Merz said.

Macron, who has made the case for Europe’s “strategic autonomy” since coming to office in 2017 could feel a sense of vindication.

“Our wish is to be a power of peace and balance,” he told reporters after the EU’s emergency summit. “To arm ourselves to avoid the war of tomorrow.”

The risk of developing Parkinson’s disease is twice as high in men as in women, and new research points to a normally benign protein in the brain. Read the study at the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

The hypertension drug rilmenidine has been shown to slow down aging in worms, an effect that in humans could hypothetically help us live longer and keep us healthier in our latter years. Read the study at Aging Cell.

According to the Institute for Economics and Peace, lone-wolf attacks in the West increased from 32 to 52 in 2024, many of them carried out by youths with no formal terrorism ties. One in five people arrested in Europe for terrorism are minors. Read it at the Jerusalem Post.

Apparently, in their minds, Jews and Arabs should not be allowed to share the same platform unless the Jew denounces the Jewish people’s right to its homeland. It’s hard to find anything more anti-Semitic than that. Imagine what would be the reaction had an organisation argued that no Arab should be allowed to cooperate with an Europeans unless he or she condemns the many terror attack in Europe conducted by Muslim immigrants. That would, rightfully, be seen as Islamophobia. Read it at Ynetnews.

The first generation of stars in the universe could have produced significant amounts of water upon their deaths. Read the study at Nature Astronomy.

“The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped over a thousand points Monday and closed at −890 points amid fears fueled by Trump’s repeated refusal to rule out the possibility of an impending recession over the weekend. The freefall continued Tuesday as Trump ratcheted up his trade blood feud with Canada.” Read it at Mediaite.

I can’t help it, but I love her. She’ll be a great monarch. Read it at Expressen.

CNBC’s Steve Liesman has had it with President Donald Trump’s ever-changing trade policies. Read it at Mediaite.

“Hamas provided me with no medical treatment except for an expired bottle of iodine and some bandages,” released hostage Emily Damari says. She was shot at close range in her left hand and right leg at Kfar Aza before being kidnapped on 7 October 2023. Read it at the Jerusalem Post.

“New York Governor Kathy Hochul recently told the City University of New York that it must remove a job offer for a professorship in Palestinian Studies at Hunter College because of its anti-Semitic language.” Good! Read it at Campus Reform.

The oppression of gay and trans people in Russia is government policy. The police and intelligence agencies are collection personal details to further humiliate and harass people. Read it Swedish at QX, or in Russian at Meduza.

The European Union will raise tariffs on American beef, poultry, motorcycles, bourbon, peanut butter, and jeans. Read it at the Associated Press.

“A new four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest is being built for the COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém.” Read it at the BBC.

Why is it so, so, so quiet when it comes to Hamas’s crimes? Where are all those who have spent two years accusing Israel of every crime imaginable? Now there are no rallies, no outcries—only silence. Read about Omer Wenkert at the Guardian.

“In early February, an Australian man in his 40s became the first person in the world to leave hospital with a virtually unbreakable heart made of metal.” Read it at Science Alert and CNN.

“The European Union, one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World, which was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States, has just put a nasty 50% tariff on Whisky,” Trump writes on his own platform Truth Social.

“American consumers have had a lot to fret about so far this year, between never-ending tariff headlines, stubborn inflation and most recently, fresh fears about a recession. These concerns seem to be hitting spending by both rich and poor, across necessities and luxuries, all at once.” Read it at the Wall Street Journal.

I understand the good intention, but this isn’t a matter for the government to decide. It should be up to every school. Read it at The Local.

Talks on the rollover of the EU’s Russia blacklist will continue today, as Poland tries to get Hungary and Slovakia to back down on delisting high-level oligarchs. It’s absurd that Viktor Orbán puts Putin before Europe. Read it at the EU Observer.

It’s Friday afternoon and Shabbat is nearly here.

Researchers suggest a new scenario for a quantum transition of a black hole to a white hole. Read it at Physical Review Letters.

“On several occasions, the French president proposed talks with Germany on nuclear deterrence in Europe with the help France’s nuclear weapons.” Read it at Deutsche Welle.

The best way to handle fanatics is to mock them. 😀

Not really surprising, but still worrying.

From the New York Times:

The growing trade war and rapid policy shifts are expected to drag down economic growth in the United States and around the world, according to projections released on Monday.

The resilience that was evident last year is slipping, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in its latest interim economic report, which estimated that global growth would dip to 3.1 percent in 2025 and to 3 percent in 2026, from 3.2 percent last year. The United States is likely to see a sharper drop, falling to 2.2 percent this year and to 1.6 percent next year, from the 2.8 percent growth in 2024.

Canada is the “most European of the non-European countries”, the new prime minister Mark Carney has said during his first overseas trip as prime minister to France and Britain, where he is seeking stronger alliances to deal with Donald Trump’s attacks on his country’s sovereignty and economy. Read it at the Guardian.

“Syria’s new government has been forced to confront Hezbollah in Lebanon after several members of the Syrian security forces were killed. The killings happened just across the border from northern Lebanon.” Read it at the Jerusalem Post.

This won’t end well. Read it at the Kyiv Independent.

“The Wilhelmina Tower collapsed at around 5.30am on Sunday, leaving just a stump where the building had stood since 1906.” Read it at Dutch News.

Read about the good and the bad in the report here (PDF).

Europe has lost a royal prince to a rare genetic disorder known as POLG mitochondrial disease.

Apparently, the little dictator in Moscow likes to keep world leaders waiting. Read it at the US Sun.

Bad news for the racist in the racist BDS Movement, good news for everyone else. Read it at Ynetnews.

I took a walk in the harbour today. Spring has arrived in Malmö.

Israeli tanks entered the Netzarim Corridor in the Gaza Strip today. Read it at the Jerusalem Post.

According to Iran’s state media, Hamas has called for “mass demonstrations and a global siege on Israeli and American embassies around the globe”. Read it at the Jerusalem Post.

It’s @aqurette.blog and will work from now onwards. Welcome to follow me and my diary on Bluesky.

Cosmologists says that dark energy, the mysterious force powering the expansion of the universe, appears to be weakening. Read it at the Guardian.

Yes, the war in Gaza is horrible. Innocent people are dying. But it all began when Hamas and other terror organisations from Gaza entered Israel and killed 1,200 Jews.

This according to the British Ministry of Defence. Read it at Aftonbladet.

Very good! Read it at the Jerusalem Post.

A survey by Gallup International found that 38% of respondents would opt for temporary relocation, 14% would move permanently, and 4% would send family members abroad. Read it at the Jerusalem Post.

If we’re lucky, this is the end of Erdoğan. Read it at the Guardian.

“Bypassing Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s veto, via a separate statement on Ukraine on behalf of the other 26 EU leaders, is set to become the new norm in European Council summits.” Read it at the EU Observer.

Good inactive, but people waving Palestinian flags contradict the purpose in a city poisoned by anti-Semitism. Read it at Dutch News.

The EU is getting more popular among Europeans, which is very good in face of the unreliability of the US.

“In an astonishing breach of national security, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that he was mistakenly added to a private Signal group chat where top Trump administration officials openly discussed imminent US military strikes on the Houthis in Yemen.” Read it at the Yeshiva World.

“Privacy, it turns out, may have been a vanishingly brief phenomenon in human history.” Read it at Robert Graboyes.

The similarities between human and parrot brains may reflect two species solving a problem in a similar way. Read the study at Nature.

A chat full of insults and classified information. Read Jeffrey Goldberg’s article at The Atlantic.

Avi Mayer:

According to an analysis by @levanonisrael, of the 50,021 individuals Hamas claims have been killed during the war, some 16,229—or almost exactly a third—were likely combatants.

Taking into account the possibility of female combatants or terror operatives, inaccuracies in age reporting (of which the ministry has been proven guilty in the past), and likely exaggerations (of which the ministry has also been proven guilty), the number may well be closer to 20,000.

In any event, the civilian casualty ratio in Gaza appears to be somewhere between 2:1 and 1:1 – a far cry from the 9:1 ratio reported by the UN for conflicts around the world over the past 40 years.

Not exactly the most informed man on the planet. 😂 Read it at New York Post.

Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister says Russia cannot be trusted and must be held accountable for its war crimes and ongoing genocide. She’s right. Read it at the Kyiv Independent.

The Israeli army has located the remains of hostage Meny Godard, who had been kidnapped from Kibbutz Be’eri on 7 October 2023 by Palestinian terrorists. Read it at the Jerusalem Post.

This is truly absurd. Israel needs a new government. Read it at the Jerusalem Post.

A mass rally organised by the main opposition party in Turkey, the Republican People’s Party, kicked off in Istanbul earlier today. Read it at France24.

Medin was arrested immediately when he landed at the airport in Istanbul at noon on Thursday. The Turkish authorities have yet to give a reason for the arrest. Read it at Dagens ETC.

Military expert John Spencer writes that in his long career studying and advising on urban warfare, he has never known an army to take such measures to attend to the enemy’s civilian population. Read it at Newsweek.

“No one knows what the fuck is going on,” said one White House ally close to Trump’s inner circle. Read it at Politico.

Tariffs are always a bad idea. Full stop.

Well, being an infidel shouldn’t be such a big deal. It’s silly to put the word on your body, but so what? Read it at the Jerusalem Post.

“The EU’s steel and car industries are already counting the costs of president Donald Trump’s 25 per cent trade tariffs, but they are not the only ones. Many of the world’s developing countries will also be working out the likely economic damage from the US president’s new tariffs.” Read it at EU Observer.

“A French court on Monday, March 31, convicted far-right leader Marine Le Pen on charges of embezzlement of public funds over a fake jobs scam at the EU parliament, a ruling which could derail her 2027 presidential hopes. The judge has yet to issue a sentence.” Read it at Le monde.

Erdoğan deserved mockery. Read it at Dagens ETC.