Happy Thursday! Billy McFarland recently announced the dates of Fyre 2, a reboot of the disastrous “luxury” music festival that landed him in federal prison for fraud after attendees paid thousands of dollars to sleep in FEMA tents and eat cold cheese sandwiches. Tickets ranging from $1,400 to $1.1 million went on sale last week.
There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to back future Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip if Hamas does not immediately release its remaining hostages. “‘Shalom Hamas’ means Hello and Goodbye - You can choose. Release all of the Hostages now, not later,” he wrote on Truth Social, warning that he would send Israel “everything it needs to finish the job” barring the abductees’ release. The ultimatum followed Trump’s meeting with eight freed hostages at the White House on Wednesday. It also came amid revelations, first reported by Axios on Wednesday, that the Trump administration has been engaging in direct negotiations with Hamas aimed at freeing the remaining American captives. Fifty-nine hostages, five of whom have U.S. citizenship, remain in terrorist captivity.
- The U.S. has suspended intelligence sharing with Ukraine, CIA Director John Ratcliffe confirmed Wednesday. Speaking to Fox Business, Ratcliffe indicated that the pause would be reversed when a date for future ceasefire negotiations with Russia is set. The decision came amid the White House’s order to halt military aid to Ukraine earlier this week, in the aftermath of Friday’s contentious White House meeting between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “President Trump had a real question about whether President Zelensky is committed to a peace process. He said let’s pause,” Ratcliffe said, adding that both the hold on weapons shipments and intelligence sharing “will go away” when there’s progress toward peace talks.
- The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Wednesday to reject the Trump administration’s effort to keep billions of dollars in foreign aid frozen, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the court’s three liberal justices in the majority. The decision upheld U.S. District Judge Amir Ali’s order requiring the Trump administration to continue the disbursement of $2 billion in payments to contractors for work that has already been completed. In a searing dissent, Justice Samuel Alito wrote: “Does a single district court judge … have unchecked power to compel the government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) 2 billion taxpayer dollars? The answer to that question should be an emphatic ‘No,’ but a majority of this court apparently thinks otherwise. I am stunned.”
- The Justice Department on Wednesday unveiled charges against 12 Chinese nationals it accused of contributing to a hacking ring that targets dissidents, news outlets, defense contractors, and government agencies on behalf of the Chinese government. Announcing the two indictments, which were filed in New York and Washington, U.S. officials accused the “cyber mercenaries” of stealing data to sell to Beijing and other buyers. One of the implicated hacking companies charges the Chinese government between $10,000 and $75,000 for each email inbox it breached, the DOJ alleged.
- A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to suspend planned cuts to billions of dollars in research funding to universities and medical research institutes across the country. The ruling effectively halts the administration’s effort to impose a 15 percent cap on “indirect costs”—research overhead like facilities and administrative expenses—across all NIH grants. U.S. District Court Judge Angel Kelley’s preliminary injunction extended her February 10 order temporarily preventing the proposed changes from taking effect.
- The Trump administration must temporarily reinstate thousands of probationary employees at the Department of Agriculture who were fired last month, the Merit Systems Protection Board ruled Wednesday. The board, an independent administrative body that handles federal labor disputes, found that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe the sweeping layoffs had violated federal law. The ruling followed the mass dismissal of employees who were recently hired or promoted to new positions as the administration seeks to to drastically reduce the federal workforce, and it could signal future rulings in favor of dismissed probationary workers.
- The Senate voted 52-46 Wednesday to confirm Todd Blanche as deputy attorney general. Blanche, a former federal prosecutor in New York and President Trump’s former criminal defense attorney, will now assume the No. 2 position at the Justice Department. During his confirmation hearing, Blanche criticized what he described as the department’s “partisan lawfare” against his former client.
- U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner, a Texas Democrat, died on Wednesday at the age of 70. Turner, the former mayor of Houston, had joined Congress just two months before his death. “He died at his home from enduring health complications,” his family said in a statement. “Congressman Turner was the consummate public servant. But to us, he was our beloved father, grandfather, sibling and relative. Thank you for your prayer.”
Under the Sea (Cables)
In a world of mass smartphone usage and internet access, wired communications infrastructure can seem like a forgotten relic of a bygone era. But despite the perception of a “wireless” world, the luxuries of modernity still very much rely on lines and cables: An estimated 99 percent of all communications—phone calls, emails, internet traffic, etc.—between the continents travel through hundreds of thousands of miles of undersea fiber optic cables. As Google’s former undersea cable project manager, Jayne Stowell, noted in 2019: “People think that data is in the cloud, but it’s not. It’s in the ocean.”
Undersea cables could soon see unprecedented levels of data flow, particularly as the development of artificial intelligence accelerates. But they may also represent a major vulnerability. Amid recent incidents in which the connections have been damaged or destroyed, Western countries increasingly believe that the critical infrastructure is falling victim to acts of deliberate sabotage by bad actors—namely, Russia and China.
There are currently 570 operational undersea cable systems, with an additional 81 in development, according to the telecoms research firm TeleGeography. These cables, which are typically the size of a garden hose, are laid along the ocean floor and buried as they approach land. Almost all ...
As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. You can read our 1,237-word item on acts of sabotage targeting undersea cables in the members-only version of TMD.
Today’s Must-Read
What might surprise the Trump administration is the reaction not just from liberal European powers but backlash from populist leaders such as Nigel Farage, who said the spat would “make Putin feel like the winner” and added that Ukraine needed security guarantees. … What most Americans don’t realize, however, is that Europe can and will make the United States regret the Trump administration’s actions.
Toeing the Company Line
Keep ’Em Guessing
Trump’s politics of uncertainty.
Tulsi Gabbard’s Claims Questioning the Legitimacy of Ukrainian Democracy Are Misleading
In a video from June 2024, Gabbard aired false claims and elided important context.
Sufficient Opposition
Well, actually…
The $2 Billion Case
Is this judicial hubris?
Worth Your Time
- Writing for Law and Liberty, Frederick M. Hess chronicled Americans’ declining trust in teachers unions in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. “By early 2021, the medical rationale for school closures had dissipated. It was clear that schools were not a significant source of community spread; that students were generally not at risk; and that school closures were having devastating effects on youth learning, well-being, and mental health. … Yet union and district leaders kept moving the goalposts on reopening,” he wrote. “The experience scarred communities across the land. It broke the longstanding compact between schools and families. Even beyond the grim consequences of closure, the pandemic revealed ugly truths about self-serving adult interests and bureaucratic inertia. Over the decades, parents have learned to regard schools as reliable custodians of their kids. … The pandemic upended that relationship. It taught millions of parents that distrust should be the norm. That’s why masking and vaccine mandates became so contentious. It’s why examples of DEI excess and videos of irate parents upbraiding school boards went viral. For wary parents wondering if their trust had been misplaced, each new example served as confirmation.”
Presented Without Comment
National Review: China Declares It’s Ready for ‘Any Kind of War’ with U.S. as Increased Trump Tariffs Take Effect
China is escalating its rhetoric towards the U.S. following President Donald Trump’s latest round of tariffs that increased taxes on Chinese imports from 10 to 20 percent.
“Intimidation does not scare us. Bullying does not work on us. Pressuring, coercion or threats are not the right way of dealing with China. Anyone using maximum pressure on China is picking the wrong guy and miscalculating. If the U.S. truly wants to solve the fentanyl issue, then the right thing to do is to consult with China by treating each other as equals,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said Tuesday.
“If war is what the US wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end,” the embassy said on X.
In the Zeitgeist
Exactly 55 years ago today, The Beatles released Let it Be as a single. The ballad would go on to enter the Billboard Hot 100 Singles at No. 6—the chart’s highest debut at the time—before climbing to No. 1.
