Growing Famine In Gaza As U.S. Submits Immediate Ceasefire Resolution [Full News Memo]
More Students Get A’s Than Ever Before Amid Grade Inflation, First Neuralink Patient Plays Chess With Mind, Real Estate Commissions for Homes Set to Change, Trump Unable to Secure $454M Bond
P.S. In this week’s memo:
Growing Famine In Gaza As U.S. Submits Proposal for Immediate Ceasefire
TRENDS: More Students Get A’s Than Ever Before Amid Grade Inflation
Real Estate Commissions for Selling/Buying Homes Set to Change
+ GetSmart: 🏂 “Sandboarding” Down The World’s Largest Sand Dunes
Newsbites
Neuralink Patient Plays Chess: Noland Arbaugh, the first human to receive Neuralink’s brain chip, is showing the ability to control a cursor on his computer using his mind. Arbaugh, who is paralyzed below the shoulders from a diving accident, is shown moving chess pieces on the computer while talking. The company’s initial aim is to allow an individual to control a computer through their thoughts. Eventually, the goal is for Neuralink to help treat diseases of the brain, along with restoring motor functions, such as the movement of limbs. Arbaugh, 29, said the surgery went well and he was out of the hospital the next day.
More: Video posted on X from Elon Musk showing Arbaugh playing chess.Trump Unable to Secure $454M Bond: Lawyers for Donald Trump said he is unable to secure the $454M bond to satisfy the massive fine imposed by Justice Arthur Engoron, who ruled Trump falsely inflated his wealth during his real-estate days to obtain more favorable loans. In recent weeks, Trump has failed to raise enough money from banks and wealthy friends to come close to securing the bond. According to the New York Post, people close to Trump say he is seriously considering doing nothing and letting NY AG Letitia James begin seizing his famous Manhattan properties, including Trump Tower, instead of filing for bankruptcy. The fine is due Monday, Mar. 25.
Texas Border Chaos: On Tuesday, the Supreme Court voted (6-3) to allow Texas to enforce its state immigration law, SB4, which makes it a state crime to illegally enter Texas through the southern border. SB4 allows immediate deportation upon illegal entry and punishments of up to 6 months in prison. The law has been in legal jeopardy since it was passed in 2023, seesawing because of lawsuits from the Biden Administration and advocacy groups that argue immigration law falls under federal jurisdiction, not the state. Following the Supreme Court’s ruling allowing SB4 to resume, a Federal Circuit Court of Appeals immediately blocked it again on Wednesday. Texas has had roughly 450,000 border encounters in 2024.
More: Amid the legal back and forth, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said his country will not receive migrants that are deported from Texas.“Too Big to Rig”: A new slogan was handed out to Trump supporters at a rally in Greensboro, N.C., two weeks ago: “Too Big to Rig.” The phrase has become a rallying cry for Trump, who claims the 2020 election was ripe with fraud and expects the same thing to happen in 2024. “We want a landslide,” Trump said at a rally. “We have to win so that it’s too big to rig.” Trump has argued that Republican-controlled states should pass laws to return to single-day in-person voting and voter ID requirements. Some question whether Trump’s claims of fraud would discourage moderate voters, while Trump’s team hopes they can rally the conservative base across the country to turn out on election day.
Apple has been sued by the Department of Justice and 16 AGs for alleged monopolistic practices in the smartphone market, which they claim “have allowed Apple to extract higher prices from consumers” and developers. Broadly at issue is Apple’s bundling of its products and services together, which the lawsuit claims locks users into their ecosystem and makes it difficult for users to switch to an alternative smartphone.
More: One service specifically mentioned is iMessage, which displays “blue bubble” messages between iPhone users but green messages with non-iPhone users, which the lawsuit claims makes the “quality of cross-platform messaging worse, less innovative, and less secure for users so that its customers have to keep buying iPhones.”
Growing Famine in Gaza as U.S. Submits Draft Proposal for Immediate Ceasefire
Some context
On October 7, 2023, the foreign terrorist group Hamas launched a coordinated attack along Israel's southern border killing at least 1,139 people, most of whom were civilians. Israel subsequently responded with a full-scale attack that has continued until today.
Israel's main goal is to eradicate Hamas altogether. Since the beginning of the war, an estimated 31,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, which has aims of launching more attacks on the southern region of Rafah near the Egyptian border where more than 1.5M Palestinians are sheltering.
Israel wants to advance in Rafah because a substantial Hamas military presence remains there. “If you leave four battalions in Rafah, you’ve lost the war, and Israel is not going to lose the war,” Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer said.
Meanwhile, the Biden Administration and many western leaders are privately and publicly urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to invade.
Here are three important updates on the war:
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