#JOURNALISM:

OPEN THREAD: Make it special.

AND AGAIN: Puerto Rico plunged into darkness again as island-wide blackout hits.

Related: “Why is Puerto Rico’s power grid in such bad shape?”

For decades, Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority did not carry out the maintenance and investments the grid required.

It began crumbling over the years, and then on Sept. 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria hit the U.S. territory as a powerful Category 4 storm. It snapped power lines, toppled transmission towers and broke flimsy wooden light posts, leaving some people without power for nearly a year.

In the months that followed, crews focused on emergency repairs. It wasn’t until a couple years after the hurricane that actual reconstruction began.

In June 2021, the Electric Power Authority contracted Luma as it struggled to restructure its more than $9 billion debt, with negotiations still ongoing.

In January 2023, the authority contracted Genera PR to oversee power generation on the island as part of another public-private partnership.

Puerto Rico has been plagued by chronic power outages since Maria, with photographs and videos of transmission lines on fire becoming increasingly common.

González has said that providing consistent energy is a priority and distanced herself from renewable energy goals set by the previous governor. Her administration recently extended the operations of Puerto Rico’s lone coal-fired plant.

Curiously, despite at least five visits to the island, the previous administration’s energy secretary accomplished little in modernizing its electrical grid: Energy Secretary Granholm Takes Fifth Trip to Puerto Rico After Republicans Question Travel Spending.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE:

GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT:

BREAKING: Google holds illegal monopolies in ad tech, US judge finds.

Alphabet’s Google illegally dominates two markets for online advertising technology, a judge ruled on Thursday, dealing another blow to the tech giant and paving the way for U.S. antitrust prosecutors to seek a breakup of its ad products.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, found Google liable for “willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power” in markets for publisher ad servers and the market for ad exchanges which sit between buyers and sellers.

The decision, opens new tab clears the way for another hearing to determine what Google must do to restore competition in those markets, such as sell off parts of its business at another trial that has yet to be scheduled. It is the second court ruling that Google holds an illegal monopoly, following a similar judgment in a case over online search.

Whatever the remedy is, it will be slow in coming.

I MISSED THIS EARLIER BUT IT’S KIND OF A BIG DEAL:

School choice coming to the second-largest state in the union — and unlike California, still growing — is a very big deal.

DROUGHT LEFT BRITAIN TOO HOT TO HANDLE FOR THE ROMANS:

The researchers also expanded their climate-conflict analysis to the entire Roman Empire for the period 350 to 476 AD.

They reconstructed the climate conditions immediately before and after 106 battles, finding that a statistically significant number of battles were fought following dry years.

Tatiana Bebchuk, also from Cambridge’s Department of Geography, said: “The relationship between climate and conflict is becoming increasingly clear in our own time so these findings aren’t just important for historians.

“Extreme climate conditions lead to hunger, which can lead to societal challenges, which eventually lead to outright conflict.”

I blame the massive horsepower of hemi-powered Roman SUVs.

DON’T TOUCH OUR SHIPS IS THE THEME OF THIS WEEK’S THURSDAY ESSAY [VIP]: Houthis, China, and Us: The Great Game on the High Seas. “Most Thursdays, I take readers on a deep dive into a topic I hope you’ll find interesting, important, or at least amusing in its absurdity. These essays are made possible by — and are exclusive to — our VIP supporters. If you’d like to join us, take advantage of our 60% off promotion.”

DISNEY ACTORS SURE MAKE AUDIENCES WANT TO FLOCK TO THE BIG SCREEN THESE DAYS: Kelly Marie Tran on How Wedding Banquet Empowered Her to Come Out as Queer and Why Star Wars Racism Is a ‘Microcosm for the Social Climate.’

A lot has changed for Tran since “Star Wars.” But as she looks back on her experience with that fandom, she knows that the racism she faced was symptomatic of a larger, continuing issue. When considering what she wants to see change for actors of color who might not receive the support they need when they appear in major franchises, she replies: “The world?!”

“It’s interesting how it seems to be happening pretty consistently to actors of color who find themselves in these spaces,” Tran explains. “And I think these occurrences are a microcosm for the social climate that we’re living in. And it’s really unfortunate.”

Tran points out that people of color are often at “the forefront of storytelling” now and that audiences could perhaps begin to evolve, too. “The hope is that people who are not afforded the ability, maybe, to have access to these communities of queer people or people of color, are able to see through the art that people of color and queer people are also human, and they have hopes and dreams,” she says.

“We live in a world where those identities have been weaponized so that people are not able to see the bigger picture,” Tran continues. “I really just want people to recognize, it’s the system that’s the problem. Stop scapegoating people of color or queer people or anyone who’s different.”

Earlier: John Boyega Says Star Wars Is ‘So White That a Black Person Existing in It’ Is a Big Deal: Toxic Fans Are ‘Okay With Us Playing the Friend’ but We ‘Cant Touch Their Heroes.’

Evergreen: The Critical Drinker: Why Modern Movies Suck — They Hate Their Own Fans (Video; NSFW language):

VDH: Will Harvard Go Full Hillsdale?

Harvard University has rejected various demands of a presidential commission on anti-Semitism.

The task force wants to persuade Harvard to ensure Jewish students on its campus are no longer harassed, or else lose its federal funding.

Harvard retorts that it won’t be bullied by Washington.

Among its other requirements, the Trump administration also warned Harvard to cease using race as a criterion in its admissions, hiring, and promotion, contrary to law.

And it also directed the campus to ban the use of masks that, in the post-COVID era of protests, have emboldened violent demonstrators with anonymity.

The administration’s order to stop race-based bias was in accordance with civil rights statutes, and a recent Supreme Court decision specifically banning affirmative action at Harvard and elsewhere.

No matter. Harvard claimed that the Trump administration infringed upon its First Amendment rights.

So, it has temporarily rejected the administration’s orders. At least for now, Harvard has lost its annual $2.2 billion grant of federal funds.

Former President Barack Obama, among others, lauded Harvard’s rejection of the demands of the administration’s anti-Semitism task force. He claimed the Trump administration’s efforts were ham-handed.

But what academic freedom are Harvard and Obama talking about? The freedom to discriminate and segregate by race in hiring, admissions, dorms, and graduations?

Hillsdale does not take federal money, period—whether doled out by either a Democrat or Republican administration.

If Harvard cares for its principles, such as they are, more than your money, they’ll have to go Full Hillsdale.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Why the Left Self-Censors in Trump 2.0 Era. “Stars are either censoring their own work or finding their voices silenced by fellow progressives. This time, it’s all tied to President Donald Trump. The Commander in Chief, they fear, might punish them for speaking up.”

Everybody wants to believe they’re Trump’s Enemy #1.

CALIFORNIA: It’s Detroits All the Way Down.

● Shot: San Francisco Does Detroit.

—The Discovery Institute, May 6th, 2023.

● Chaser: Why Silicon Valley could become tomorrow’s Detroit.

—The Politico, December 18th, 2020.

● Hangover: Hollywood At Risk of Becoming the “Next Detroit Auto.” L.A. Production Insiders Voice Alarm.

The specter of Los Angeles becoming another Detroit, a city built on a specific industry that became a shell of its former self when that business moved out, loomed over a compelling film and TV industry town hall that tackled not only the calamitous drop in production in Hollywood and California, but also the fight to get the state to increase its entertainment production tax incentive.

The event on Monday night drilled down into a later stage of the entertainment production pipeline that is also currently in crisis: scoring and postproduction.

“This is not hyperbole to say that if we don’t act, the California film and TV industry will become the next Detroit auto,” said Noelle Stehman, a member of the “Stay in LA” campaign who spoke at the event.

The push for a proposed increase in tax incentives is hitting a critical phase in the legislative process, and California State Senator Ben Allen and State Assemblyman Rick Zbur were on hand to make an effort to get the necessary votes in.

—The Hollywood Reporter, Tuesday.

How odd — Joe Biden, until last summer the favorite of all Hollywood leftists, said in 2008 that paying higher taxes is a patriotic act. But then, as Conquest’s first Law of Politics states, “Everybody is conservative about what he knows best.”