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With North Korea warning of a “big event”—presumably another nuclear weapons test this Saturday on the anniversary of its founder’s birth—NBC is reporting that the U.S. may launch a conventional preemptive strike on the country. Meanwhile, China is threatening to cut off oil shipments to North Korea if it tests another nuke. Wednesday, a top North Korean official said it would launch a preemptive nuclear attack on the United States first if it feels the U.S. is about to strike. Have a nice weekend!
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The U.S. dropped the “Mother of all Bombs”—a GBU-43/B Massive Ordinance Air Blast Bomb—on a remote part of Afghanistan yesterday. As Madeline Conway of Politico reports, Trump told reporters in the White House, “I don’t know if this sends a message. It doesn’t make any difference if it does or not. North Korea is a problem. The problem will be taken care of.”
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Speaking of Korea, in South Korea, voters can use the Nude President service to help figure out which presidential candidate’s views are closest to theirs, Lee Seung-jun reports for the Hankyoreh, a Korean news service. The country’s next election is May 9. Nude President has been used by 320,000 people as of April 12. (Nude President is safe for work.)
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Taking care of business: Buried deep in a Washington Post profile of the declining fortunes of White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon are these three sentences: “Trump’s three oldest children—Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric—and Kushner have been frustrated by the impression of chaos inside the White House and feel that their father has not always been served well by his senior staff, according to people with knowledge of their sentiments. The Trump heirs are interested in any changes that might help resuscitate the presidency and preserve the family’s name at a time when they are trying to expand the Trump Organization’s portfolio of hotels. ‘The fundamental assessment is that if they want to win the White House in 2020, they’re not going to do it the way they did in 2016, because the family brand would not sustain the collateral damage,’ said one well-connected Republican operative.”
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Spy vs. spy: The new CIA director Mike Pompeo denounced WikiLeaks as a “hostile intelligence service” run by a “narcissist” and “a fraud,” The New York Times’ Matthew Rosenberg reports.
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Seven foreign intelligence services from countries allied with the United States noticed contacts between Donald Trump’s inner circle and Russian agents starting in late 2015, and they alerted their American counterparts, The Guardian’s Luke Harding, Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Nick Hopkins report.
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Opposition watch: “Women have been flocking in record numbers to political training sessions run by universities, political groups, and nonprofits with names like Ignite, Running Start, She Should Run, and VoteRunLead,” reports Eliza Newline Carney for The American Prospect. She adds, “Interviews with organizers training female candidates around the country suggest that a staggering 16,000 women have sought professional advice on how to run for office since Donald Trump’s was elected president.”
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More than 500 employees of Amazon have signed an email to CEO Jeff Bezos titled “Amazon Must Stop Advertising on Breitbart News,” Charlie Warzel reports for BuzzFeed.
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We’ve announced eleven more great speakers for Personal Democracy Forum 2017. Buy your tickets now!
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For the deep thinkers: Our old friend Mark Pesce on the evolution of knowledge, before and after the invention of the World Wide Web. He explains why the next phase of the web’s development—triggered by the rise of Pokemon Go—is the development of Mixed Reality Service, DNS for the real world.
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What sharing economy? The gig economy is immigrating people all over the world, according to a new study focused on Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines, conducted by researchers at the University of Oxford and University of Pretoria, Annie Lowrey reports for The Atlantic.
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Apply: UrbanUS is looking to hire an associate for operations and marketing.
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Smile: The MIT Online Humor Conversation Series spring schedule of events starts next Wednesday with Matt Nelson of @dog_rates in conversation with internet comedian Jonny Sun to discuss, among other things, “the universal appeal of dogs, remix culture, the legitimacy of creative work on the internet, humor’s role in political discourse, [and] countering negative speech.” (h/t Ethan Zuckerman)
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Your moment of zen: We’ll meet again!
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