Hottest Job in the World
It's Free for All Friday!
It’s Free for ALL Friday! Each week I keep track of some of the off-the-path things I've found, and work extra-hard to make sure you never hit a paywall, using my own subscriptions, gift links, and other (legal) hocus-pocus.
Also: just be forewarned. The first story today is about … well, it shouldn’t be political but I guess it is, since it’s about deportations. It’s been on repeat in my head all week since I first read it, and I felt compelled to share it.
As Trump ‘Exports’ Deportees, Hundreds Are Trapped in Panama Hotel
I read this article Tuesday morning and I have not been able to get it out of my head since. There are caveats: While we have the immigrants' first person accounts, there's no way to confirm their stories -- or to know if they had any kind of due process before being deported. But I think it’s worth knowing about.
They arrived at the United States border from around the world, hoping to seek asylum. Instead, they were detained, shackled and flown by the U.S. military to a faraway country, Panama.
They were stripped of their passports and most of their cellphones, they said, and then locked in a hotel, barred from seeing lawyers and told they would soon be sent to a makeshift camp near the Panamanian jungle.
“Not a single one of these aliens asserted fear of returning to their home country at any point during processing or custody,” said a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman. “They were properly removed from the country.”
But The New York Times managed to interview several people inside the hotel, all of whom said they were asylum seekers being held against their will.
On the military plane ride from California to Panama, Mona, a 32-year-old Iranian Christian convert, said her 8-year-old son cried, terrified to see his parents shackled. To calm him down, she told him that this was like overcoming the challenges in a video game, and that once the plane landed they would be free.
…
Her husband, Mohammad, 33, said that throughout the flight, when his wife and son cried, he reminded them about a Christian teaching they often recited.
“Jesus has said, ‘If you don’t take your eyes off me, I won’t take mine off you.’ So I was constantly signaling that to my wife, saying, keep your eyes on him,” he said.
(New York Times; Update: Panama says about 200 migrants agreed to be deported to their home countries; another 97 were sent to a remote camp in the Darien Gap, NPR)
They Asked for Help to Escape the Nazis. Their Pleas Went Unanswered
A new book focuses on the desperate letters written by many Jews seeking refuge in the Netherlands but who were denied entry after it closed its border in 1938.
In late November 1938, when life for many Jews in Europe was dissolving, Jakob Aufrichtig in Paris penned a letter to the Committee for Jewish Refugees in Amsterdam.
He was gravely concerned about his mother, Rachela, who was in her 50s and living alone in Vienna.
German officials had ordered her to vacate her apartment, threatening to deport her to Dachau, a Nazi concentration camp, if she didn’t. Aufrichtig asked the committee for its help in relocating her to the Netherlands.
“Although it is my greatest wish, I cannot bring her here,” Aufrichtig explained. “I am totally desperate, and if I can’t save my mother, I will take my own life.
Aufrichtig’s letter is one of some 200 anguished, and ultimately unsuccessful, requests for help that were found in an Amsterdam attic more than four decades ago by a Dutch-Israeli documentary filmmaker, Willy Lindwer.
The letters depict a landscape of despair as the depths of Nazi depravity began to become clearer, but the options for escape had dwindled.
A Crash, An Alert, Then The Hardest Days For Hundreds Of First Responders
After American Eagle Flight 5342 and an Army helicopter collided, firefighters, boat operators, divers and others from D.C., Maryland and Virginia jumped into action. This is what they experienced.
As American Eagle Flight 5342 headed from Wichita to Reagan National Airport on Jan. 29, Asra Hussain texted her husband, Hamaad Raza.
“We’re landing in 20,” the 26-year-old wrote at 8:17 p.m.
Raza left their apartment in the District to pick her up.
At Fire Station 204 in Alexandria, 2½ miles from the airport, the night had been quiet. Crew members on duty washed dishes and swept the kitchen after a pot roast dinner. The firehouse doors were locked and most lights turned off. Capt. Nathan Krause, 43, finished up paperwork and got ready to turn in for the night.
Everything, everywhere, appeared normal.
But in the next moments, Krause and hundreds of other emergency responders would rush through the dark night to a sliver of the icy Potomac River, now the scene of the nation’s deadliest aviation disaster in more than two decades.
Few emergency responders have spoken publicly about what they experienced that night and during the days that followed. This account is based on dozens of interviews, along with a review of air traffic control and emergency radio communications.
The American Who Went Undercover in Ukraine—for Moscow
Daniel Martindale’s decision to become a spy comes amid a growing ultraconservative embrace of Russian values.
As Russian troops poured across Ukraine’s border in the opening hours of the February 2022 invasion, Daniel Martindale pedaled through Kyiv, weighted down with supplies—and a secret.
Riding a scavenged mountain bike, the red-bearded 31-year-old from Indiana was planning to offer his services to Russian troops on the front line.
At first, he didn’t get far. Ukrainian security agents on high alert in Kyiv detained the unusual visitor, letting him continue his ride east the next morning only after deciding he was no saboteur.
It was the beginning of a high-risk descent into espionage and betrayal for the self-described Christian missionary. The journey would land Martindale in Moscow after he worked undercover in eastern Ukraine for more than two years, secretly calling in Russian attacks on Ukrainian troops and border towns.
To Martindale, Russia symbolized the traditional values that he believed his own country had forsaken. “I realized that I want to be in Russia if World War III starts,” he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “I did not want there to be any chance that I would be fighting on the wrong side.”
The Hottest Job in a World at War: Gun-for-Hire
A new breed of veterans from Latin America and Asia patrols front lines for a salary, idealism or the thrill of combat
“I had no idea if I was going to live or die,” recalled the 40-year-old.
Add to that not just a foreign language but a strange alphabet, and subzero temperatures replacing his accustomed tropical heat. Yet Pinilla sees no alternative to a life of combat. “War is the only trade I know,” he said while resting in another country.
Fighters such as Pinilla are part of a burgeoning market for veterans from poorer countries chasing a paycheck. These days, it is truly combat pay. Most war dogs cut their teeth in low-intensity or sporadic fights, such as chasing drug runners and human traffickers.
Battles in Ukraine, the Middle East and Africa, in contrast, now rage with lethality not seen for decades. Colombian fighters hired last year by intermediaries in the United Arab Emirates have died fighting for rebel forces against the Sudanese government.
Yet the danger hasn’t stopped them from signing up.
The Tipping Point
America’s newest gun owners are upending preconceptions about who buys a gun and why.
In hours of conversations with New York Times journalists, five Americans shared deeply individual reasons for their leaps into gun ownership. But there were also common threads: new fears about political violence and hate crimes, and a diminished trust in law enforcement.
Most said they had been surprised by how much they enjoyed learning to shoot, and improving their skills.
While a majority of gun owners are white, conservative, male and from rural areas, some surveys have detected an uptick in those who are not. One by Harvard researchers found that among people who purchased their first gun between 2019 and 2021, 20 percent were Black, 20 percent were Hispanic and approximately half were women.
Behind the data, the stories of individual Americans who have bought guns in the past five years offer clues about how the country is changing — as the definitions of liberal and conservative evolve, and angst about our divisions runs high.
This Could Be Major League Baseball’s Last Season Without Robot Umpires
The spring training trial could determine if the technology is finally ready for the big leagues.
This fall, my husband Brian and I found ourselves at loose ends. Two children had launched to college and beyond, and the third landed a restaurant job that kept her working most evenings. Suddenly, our nest felt empty. Every night could be date night, potentially. Scary!
This shift in the dynamics of our home life—after two decades centering around children—gave us an opportunity to shake up our relationship. But you don’t have to experience a transition in order to breathe new life into your relationships.
These intentional strategies can make something old feel new again—and increase your feelings of connectedness, appreciation, and joy. Whether a romantic partnership or even a longstanding friendship, there’s always an opportunity to renew. What better time than Valentine’s Day to give it a whirl?
I just read this in the NYT. Since I’m not on twitter does anyone know if it is true?
“After a judge blocked a Trump executive order, Elon Musk shared a post with his more than 200 million followers on X that included the judge’s daughter’s name, photo and job, allegedly at the Department of Education. There’s no indication he got access to government databases about her, but how would we know if he had, or if he does so in the future?“
Passing this on from Steven Beschloss from his Substack, “America America”
https://open.substack.com/pub/america/p/rooting-against-trumps-america?r=np4n&utm_medium=ios