Fri: Good News For Workers. Bad News for the Fed.

Are There Russians in Your CAR?

The Russian ambassador to the Central African Republic (CAR) has said that 1,890 “Russian instructors” were present in the country, a focus of operations for the Kremlin-linked Wagner Group mercenary outfit.

“Today, there are 1,890 Russian instructors in the C.A.R,” Russian state-owned news agency RIA quoted ambassador Alexander Bikantov as saying in an interview on Friday. The government is interested in increasing their number. Relatively recently, Bangui sent the relevant application to the UN Security Council.”

The Wagner Group, founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, has become a major player in CAR, largely displacing former colonial power France.

The mineral-rich Central African country is one of the poorest countries in the world. Wagner initially intervened on the side of the government to quell a civil war which has raged since 2012.

Western countries and the United Nations have accused the mercenaries of committing human rights abuses in the country and elsewhere in the Sahel.

“They essentially run the Central African Republic” and are a growing force in Mali, General Stephen Townsend, the commander of US armed forces in Africa, told a Senate hearing in March 2022.

No Need for the First Degree

I believe as fervently as anyone in the value of a four-year college degree not just as a path to professional opportunity but also as preparation for informed, thoughtful citizenship. I’ve written extensively about that, and I wouldn’t take back a word.

But I also believe that this particular credential has become too divisive an emblem in our culture wars, too bold a fault line. For that reason among others, I’m impressed and excited by what Josh Shapiro, the newly installed Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, just did.

On Jan. 18, his first full day in office, Shapiro signed an executive order that dispensed with the requirement of a four-year college degree for 92 percent of positions in state government, meaning roughly 65,000 jobs. His action rightly recognized that such a degree is no guarantee of competence, no exclusive proof of intelligence and often less relevant than work and life experiences that have nothing to do with lecture halls.

But it recognized, too, ways in which the Democratic Party is vulnerable, and it sent an important message to voters who feel that the party doesn’t see or have much regard for them.

Why Is It Called a "Degree"?

This Gets Dangerously Close to Buying Organs

Massachusetts lawmakers proposed a bill that would allow prisoners to donate their organs or bone marrow in exchange for reduced sentences.

The legislation would “establish a Bone Marrow and Organ Donation Program within the Department of Correction and a Bone Marrow and Organ Donation Committee.” Under this program, incarcerated individuals could reduce their sentence anywhere from 60 days to one year if they donate their bone marrow or organs.

The committee will be promoting standards of eligibility for prisoners as well as determining the number of donations that could earn an individual a reduced sentence. The bill also states that the Department of Correction will not receive commissions or monetary payments for bone marrow donated by inmates. (Paying for an organ is illegal in the U.S.)

According to the BBC, federal prisons in the U.S. allow for organ donations as long as the recipient is an immediate family member. But in Massachusetts, as well as at many other state prisons, there is no direct path for incarcerated people to donate organs or bone marrow, even to their relatives.

Too Much Monkey Business

Dallas police arrested a man in connection with the theft of two emperor tamarin monkeys from the Dallas Zoo. The two monkeys were found safe on Tuesday after they went missing a day prior.

Police arrested 24-year-old Davion Irvin and charged him with six counts of animal cruelty. He has been taken to the Dallas County jail, police said in a statement.

Authorities were able to identify Irvin as the man they were looking to speak with regarding the missing monkeys after releasing a photo of a person of interest and with help from the public, police said.

Our Ancestors Were Pretty Accepting of Domestic Abuse. Should That Really Be the Standard?

A U.S. appeals court on Thursday declared unconstitutional a federal law making it a crime for people under domestic violence restraining orders to own firearms.

The decision by a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is the latest victory for gun rights advocates since a Supreme Court decision last June granting a broad right for people to carry firearms outside the home.

That decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, announced a new test for assessing firearms laws, saying restrictions must be "consistent with this nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation," and not simply advance an important government interest.

In Thursday's decision, Circuit Judge Cory Wilson said banning people under domestic violence restraining orders from owning firearms "embodies salutory policy goals meant to protect vulnerable people in our society."

But the judge, appointed by Donald Trump, said Bruen made such a consideration irrelevant, and that from a historical perspective the ban was "an outlier that our ancestors would never have accepted."