the return of drake + ICE agents in disguise

Culture

The rollout of Drakes next album has begun, and unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that he has a lot of material to work with…. and a ton of ground to cover. Over the last two years, the Toronto rapper saw many of his closest friends and industry allies turn on him – from snubs by athlete amigos like Lebron James and DeMar DeRozan to diss tracks penned by Drake’s past collaborators Kendrick Lamar, Future, The Weeknd, Rick Ross, and A$AP Rocky. Major shots were fired, the worst being accusations of paedopohilia on Lamar’s smash hit ‘Not Like Us’. While Drake has proven before that he can rise above the drama and come out on top (and starting pretty strong with his single ‘What Did I Miss’) it’s true that the release of ICEMAN could prove underwhelming if he isn’t inventive with his style, candour, and source material. So far, the response from fans has been good, but we’ll have to wait for the ultimate release to find out just how diverse and triumphant the next addition to Drake’s ever-growing catalogue will be.

Grimes delivers scathing rant aimed at Elon Musk, calls X ‘a prison’ – euronews
Canadian singer-songwriter Grimes, who shares three children with Elon Musk (yeah, the ones with the confusing names) returned to the platform he owns, X, with a savage message. She labelled the platform ‘a prison’ and ‘a shitty pale simulacra of a life.’ The post has had millions of views so far, prompting mixed reactions from X users. Since Musk acquired the platform, public perception of it has shifted drastically. Many have raised concerns about the platform’s content moderation policies and the overall user experience of the platform, which allows far-right ideologies and fake news to run rampant.

Politics

Brandon del Pozo, former commander of the New York City Police Department’s 6th Precinct, has made an appeal for ICE to stop conducting operations in plain clothes – and perhaps more importantly – to stop covering their faces. Under orders from Donald Trump’s presidency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement aims to deport 1 million immigrants a year, and to make 3,000 arrests a day. Social media is flooded with images of masked men forcing people into unmarked cars. ‘In a free society, people should know who is policing them,’ del Pozo writes. Hoping to uphold these values, New York legislators have proposed a ban on mask wearing by ICE agents, and California legislators have put forward a bill that would ban federal, state, and local police from wearing masks when interacting with the public.

Trump-proposed Palestinian expulsion ‘integrated into Israeli war plan’ – al jazeera
Earlier this year, US President Donald Trump floated the idea of ‘clearing Gaza’ and transforming it into ‘the Riviera of the Middle East’. While most of the world felt disgusted by his words, it was music to the ears of Israel’s right-wing government leaders, who have since made forcibly relocating Palestinians in Gaza part of their policy. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz describes current operations in the Strip as a move towards voluntary emigration. Katz has since told journalists that Israel plans to concentrate all of the population of Gaza – starting with 600,000 – on the ruins of Rafah and build a tent city. Anyone who enters the ‘tent city’ will be screened, barred from re-entering other parts of Gaza, and ‘deradicalised’. They will then be ‘allowed, pushed, encouraged, or nudged to leave the Gaza Strip, in implementation of the Trump plan.’ This strategy has been part of Israeli war plan ever since February, and is not a new development, though it is now being made public knowledge.

World

Does the title of this article piss you off? Good. It should. This is a short documentary by Ludwig Berger, available to watch on the New York Times website. It features audio recordings of a melting glacier, one of the world’s icy structures formed millions of years ago. Named Crying Glacier, the documentary explores what we can learn by listening to the sounds of nature as it changes… and disappears.

Fewer people doesn’t always mean better outcomes for nature… just look at Japan – conversation
Japan’s population has been on a steady decline since 2010, followed closely by South Korea, China, and Taiwan. Most people would be of the mind that with less people around, nature would thrive – but this study shows otherwise. Since 2003, hundreds of citizen scientists have been collecting biodiversity data for the Japanese government’s Monitoring Sites 1,000 project. Looking at data on 1.5 million recorded species observations from 158 sites, it became clear that biodiversity decreased in most areas, irrespective of population increase or decrease. In places where the population remained steady, biodiversity thrived because of local communities who engage in activities that support the surrounding ecosystem. These include traditional farming and seasonal livelihood practices such as flooding, planting and harvesting of rice fields, orchard and coppice management. In these special circumstances, it is clear that depopulation, or an ageing population even, can actually be destructive to nature.

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