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What if planting a tree wasn’t a CSR activity, a school punishment, or a presidential photo op, but a national obligation?

Imagine if, like filing taxes or renewing your ID, every Kenyan was required by law or culture to plant a tree each year. Not as a suggestion. Not as a campaign. As a basic act of citizenship. You turn 18? Plant a tree. Want a business permit? Show us your sapling. Run for office? Let’s see your forest.

Wild? Maybe. But is it wilder than pretending we can survive ten more years of erratic rains, poisoned rivers, and cities that choke more than they breathe?

We have turned sustainability into an option. A luxury. A side show. But what if it became a rite of passage? A shared ritual that cuts across tribe, class, and county?

Developing nations are challenging Big Tech’s decades-long hold on global data by demanding that their citizens’ information be stored locally. The move is driven by the realization that countries have been giving away their most valuable resource for tech giants to build a trillion-dollar market capitalization.

In April, Nigeria asked Google, Microsoft, and Amazon to set concrete deadlines for opening data centers in the country. Nigeria has been making this demand for about four years, but the companies have so far failed to fulfill their promises. Now, Nigeria has set up a working group with the companies to ensure that data is stored within its shores.

“We told them no more waivers — that we need a road map for when they are coming to Nigeria,” Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, director-general of Nigeria’s technology regulator, the National Information Technology Development Agency, told Rest of World.

Other developing countries, including India, South Africa, and Vietnam, have also implemented similar rules demanding that companies store data locally. India’s central bank requires payment companies to host financial data within the country, while Vietnam mandates that foreign telecommunications, e-commerce, and online payments providers establish local offices and keep user data within its shores for at least 24 months.

A great city is typified by character and the character of great cities is often built on the bedrock of small businesses. Conversely: Chain shops smooth over the character of cities into anodyne nothingness. Think about a city you love — it’s likely because of walkability, greenery, great architecture, and fun local shops and restaurants. Only psychopaths love Manhattan because of Duane Reade. If you’ve ever wondered why overtourism can be a kind of death for parts of a city (the parts that involve: living there, commuting there, creating a life there) it’s because it paradoxically disincentivizes building small businesses.1 Nobody opens a tiny restaurant or café to be popular on a grand, viral scale. Nor do they open them to become rich.2

So why do people open small shops? For any number of reasons, but my favorite is: They have a strong opinion about how some aspect of a business should be run, and they want to double down on it. For example, forty years ago Terui-san, the owner of jazz kissa Kaiunbashi-no-Johnny’s up in Morioka, was like: Hmm, nobody is spinning wa-jyazu (Japanese jazz),3 so I’m only going to rock it. That led to a bunch of cool knock-on connections, not the least of which was a lifelong friendship with the incredible Akiyoshi Toshiko. That singular thing can drive an initial impulse, but small business purpose quickly shifts into: Being a community hub for a core group of regulars. That — community — is probably the biggest asset of small business ownership. And the quickest way to kill community (perhaps the most valuable gift for running a small business) is to go viral in a damaging way.

Slovenia’s liberal Prime Minister Robert Golob said on Friday that he intends to call a consultative referendum on the country’s NATO membership, following a surprise defeat in parliament over a related measure on defence spending.

"There are only two ways: either we remain in NATO and pay membership, or we leave the alliance – everything else is populist deceit of the citizens of Slovenia," Golob said, according to a government statement.

His referendum is expected to be formally tabled next week.

Golob’s gambit comes as part of a damage control effort in response to a successful initiative by The Left party, a junior partner in his centre-left coalition, pushing for a consultative referendum on increasing defence expenditure.

If you took a straw poll of the general public, chances are that few people would have any idea what space weather is, if they’ve ever heard the term at all. In contrast to terrestrial weather, space weather cannot be felt. It doesn’t warm your skin, drench your clothes or blow down your fence. Unlike the floods, droughts and hurricanes that have beset human civilizations since ancient times, it is not an age-old threat. For the first 10,000 years of human civilization, the sun’s flares and CMEs would have had no impact on life at all.

It is only since humanity constructed a planet-scale network of electromagnetic technologies, and subsequently grew to depend on that network for just about everything, that the sun’s activity became a potential hazard. In basic terms, the primary danger of space weather is its capacity to produce an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). Upon making contact with the upper reaches of the atmosphere (the ionosphere), charged particles thrown out by the sun can instigate a “geomagnetic storm”, inducing currents in the Earth’s crust that overwhelm electrical equipment and its infrastructure, resulting in cascading malfunctions, power surges and blackouts. Anything that relies on electricity is vulnerable. Satellites, power grids, aviation, railways, communications, farming, heavy industry, military installations, global trade, financial transactions — the categories of vital systems that could be impacted by a sun-borne EMP are endless and interconnected, affecting every facet of our networked society.

The United Kingdom-based MOSWOC is one of only three institutions worldwide tasked with assessing and forecasting that risk. (The other two are in Boulder, Colorado, and Adelaide, Australia.) Each monitors solar activity 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Low-severity space weather, like the expulsions Waite was scrutinizing during my visit, occurs all the time. During the solar maximum, MOSWOC usually records around 1,000 such events per year.

But playing at the back of every forecaster’s mind is the hypothetical centennial event, the moment when a sunspot might dispatch a solar storm at a scale that we know has happened historically, but never in our modern, technological age.

The curious paradox at the heart of space forecasting is that the satellites and supercomputers that empower the observations are themselves vectors of vulnerability. The more umbilical our relationship to technology becomes — the more our lives and livelihoods become governed by algorithms and automation — the greater the risk of disaster.

Inside the guarded bubble of the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, there are signs of a problem. Next to the security carousels, a large sign, replicated all over the hallways, says: “In response to the ongoing UN budget crisis, we have had to reduce operating hours. We apologize for the inconvenience.” During the past two years, corridors and meeting rooms of the Palais des Nations have been occasionally kept in the dark, central heating and elevators cut to save on the very inflated Swiss electricity bills. Back in December 2023, the UN’s liquidity crisis got so dire that the Palais was shut down for three whole weeks. Ahead of a security meeting, a source told me a Russian delegate once joked in front of a dead elevator that they should turn the power off for Americans but not for him: His country had already paid its yearly contribution to the UN.

The much delayed, years-long renovation of the UN buildings, which has overrun its budget by as much as 118 million CHF ($144 million), adds a layer of uncertainty to the otherwise neatly sophisticated decor. Construction gear lies in the grass. A sign about Building E, the building where the main conference rooms are, states, nostalgically, that it was once the world’s largest glass window. (The world’s largest glass window is now in China, according to the Guinness Book of World Records). Behind the rain-soaked foliage of the gardens, a peacock wails. Peacocks were offered as a gift to the UN by India’s permanent mission in the 1980s and, as a result, the UN gardens are full of them. They are still being fed by Geneva’s municipal staff.

The World Health Assembly brings together the representatives of 194 states every year in May. It is one of the year’s highlights for the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN agency dedicated to health. Inside Building E, the atmosphere is busy, focused, even expectant. It is May 20, the second day of the assembly, and a much anticipated-session is taking place in Room XX — also known as the Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations Room. Member states are discussing whether or not they will approve measures proposed by the WHO’s director, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to shrink down its core budget for 2026-27 to $4.2 billion from $5.3 billion and to increase membership fees by 20 percent to try to fill the anticipated budget gap of more than $1.7 billion due in part to a lack of U.S. contributions. The fees vary from one country to another, proportional to GDP. In a drastic move aimed at showing member states the reforms will not spare anyone, the WHO would reduce the number of its departments from 76 to 34 and, in June 2025, the senior leadership team in Geneva from 12 to seven directors. “The hard truth is that we need to reduce salary expenditures by 25 percent,” Ghebreyesus said at a member state briefing in late April.

Under the colorful stalactites dripping from the round ceiling of Room XX, a sculpture by Spanish artist Miquel Barceló representing multiculturalism and tolerance, the room was full and attentive. First Qatar, then Senegal, Togo, Spain, Colombia, Brazil, China, Lebanon and the U.K. spoke for three minutes each, the time allotted to member states. Member states unanimously agreed on the budget cuts.

The UN has been knee-deep in a liquidity crisis since 2023, with more member states paying late each year and some of them not paying at all, leaving the organization’s cash reserves exhausted. China regularly pays late. Afghanistan, Bolivia and Venezuela are in arrears. In 2023 only 82.3 percent of the budget had been collected, leaving $859 million in unpaid contributions. So when the United States, which owes the UN approximately $1.5 billion in arrears for the regular UN budget and about $1.2 billion for the peacekeeping budget, announced in January that it was cutting nearly all its foreign aid, the effect was devastating. The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) scaled back its operations in nine countries. The World Food Program had to cut back food assistance for tens of millions of people. The UN’s Population Fund (UNFPA) terminated 48 grants, halting maternal health care, protection from violence and other lifesaving services for women and girls. In Afghanistan alone, the WHO closed 200 health facilities, meaning that 1.84 million people lost access to essential health care and vaccination programs. Twenty-seven countries in Africa and Asia face crippling breakdowns in tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment. The global network of 700 measles and rubella labs is at risk of collapse, malaria diagnoses and deliveries of bed nets and medicines have been delayed, the polio and mpox programs are unable to function as before.

While the visit of the deputy chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP) left its mark on Regina in 1969, over 50 years later, his memory was mobilized by brothers Tiro and Thabo Mthembu through their Black-owned restaurant and gathering space, the Hampton Hub.

Tiro explains it was an opportunity for him and Thabo to assert an alternative narrative to that of Saskatchewan’s right-wing political landscape. Regina is often referred to as the “Queen City,” and noting the abundance of bars named after colonial figures, Tiro says, “We live in a place where we celebrate British monarchy on a very absurd and disgusting level […] So [there was] a need to uplift heroes of ours – Fred Hampton was one of my heroes.” As Tiro explains, the brothers wanted to “encourage [the local Black] community to recognize that, yes, under this current neo-fascist regime it can feel like we don't have any deep, progressive roots. But these prairies are built on fighting oppression.”

So, in 2022, the vegan restaurant opened in Regina’s Heritage neighbourhood. In an industry dominated by white restaurant ownership, the Hampton Hub was a site of Black agency and autonomy. The brothers created “a space that is ours,” Thabo proudly recalls.

The Hampton Hub welcomed the community in, clearly displaying their convictions. The cardinal red walls were covered in BPP memorabilia: the classic image of Huey Newton in a rattan chair; the ten-point BPP platform; images of BPP comrade Angela Davis; a poster from Hampton’s 1969 Regina campus talk; and other newspaper clippings. Across from the till, a community food board, with crayon-coloured pre-paid food items using a pay-it-forward system, invited patrons to dine without the pressure of a purchase. Any time I went there, the Hub was filled with neighbours, activists, and artists sitting on the diner chairs, discussing the Saskatchewan Party’s latest blunder over vegan pizza and beer from nearby brewery Malty National. The backdrop to the hum of laughter, music, and scheming was a large black and white mural of Fred Hampton, a visual cue aligning the Hub’s values with the BPP as well as the easily recognizable aesthetics of resistance, locating their restaurant within a history and lineage of Black power.

A friend messaged me the other day. I saw it. I didn’t reply. A week later, I finally responded with the classic: Sorry for the late reply, just got to this.

She called me out. You didn’t just get to this, she said. I saw the double ticks.

Damn. She was right. I’d opened it. I’d registered it. But I’d also shelved it. It needed a proper reply, and at that moment, I wasn’t equipped.

Maybe it got lost between revisiting pictures from 2016 and the reminder I set to cancel my Nibble app 7-day trial on day 6. Maybe I got a call? Perhaps I’d wanted to sink back into that Substack article about reclaiming attention, ironically while still on social media. Maybe I was working one of the four jobs I need to survive under capitalism’s boot heel. Maybe I was doing nothing?

Does free time now equal availability?

I get a ping from the family group chat, which doubles as an IT helpdesk for my mum. My best friend just FaceTimed me about a White Lotus episode, and another left a voice note crying about a possible diagnosis. All this, lodged between videos of cats and genocide.

The boundaries between reception and response have collapsed.

Every design choice that social media platforms make nudges users toward certain actions, values, and emotional states.

It is a design choice to offer a news feed that combines verified news sources with conspiracy blogs — interspersed with photos of a family picnic — with no distinction between these very different types of information. It is a design choice to use algorithms that find the most emotional or outrageous content to show users, hoping it keeps them online. And it is a design choice to send bright red notifications, keeping people in a state of expectation for the next photo or juicy piece of gossip.

Platform design is a silent pilot steering human behavior.

Social media platforms are bringing massive changes to how people get their news and how they communicate and behave. For example, the “endless scroll” is a design feature that aims to keep users scrolling and never reaching the bottom of a page where they might decide to pause.

I’m a political scientist who researches aspects of technology that support democracy and social cohesion, and I’ve observed how the design of social media platforms affects them.

Democracy is in crisis globally, and technology is playing a role. Most large platforms optimize their designs for profit, not community or democracy. Increasingly, Big Tech is siding with autocrats, and the platforms’ designs help keep society under control.

There are alternatives, however. Some companies design online platforms to defend democratic values.

Corpus Christi will run out of water if it does not find new water sources outside of the western watershed. That’s according to new research from 3NEWS, interviews with leading experts and scientists, as well as data from the city and state.

Over the past 15 years, our consumption averages 153% of the available water coming into our western watershed—Choke Canyon Reservoir and Lake Corpus Christi. Anything over 100% that's not offset from our eastern supplies drains our lakes.

The following is the most comprehensive look at our current water situation. Research from 3NEWS Weather Impact meteorologists and reporters will show the following:

• At current consumption levels and without new water sources, Corpus Christi risks running out of water
• Evaporation is a far bigger problem than previously reported since 96% of Nueces County’s water comes from surface water
• Mandatory water releases stopped in March 2024, but prior to that they averaged nearly 80,000 ac-ft/yr (acre-feet per year)
• Drought is far from the lone cause of our current water situation, and the 2011 drought was significantly worse than our current drought
• Despite water scarcity concerns following the 2011 drought, Corpus Christi agreed to new water contracts with large-scale industrial water consumers
• Industrial consumption continues to rise even as municipal consumption falls

The City of Corpus Christi's own projections indicate our area will fall below 10% combined lake levels by November and both Choke Canyon and Lake Corpus Christi will be without water by April 2027.

At that time, Corpus Christi would not be able to meet the city's water needs.

For years, I had been building what technologists and lifehackers call a “second brain.” The premise: capture everything, forget nothing. Store your thinking in a networked archive so vast and recursive it can answer questions before you know to ask them. It promises clarity. Control. Mental leverage.

But over time, my second brain became a mausoleum. A dusty collection of old selves, old interests, old compulsions, piled on top of each other like geological strata. Instead of accelerating my thinking, it began to replace it. Instead of aiding memory, it froze my curiosity into static categories.

And so…

Well, I killed the whole thing.