MEANWHILE, BACK IN CENTRAL AMERICA:

The United Nations’ International Court of Justice on Monday began hearings over a maritime and land boundary dispute between Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

Costa Rica presented its case to the court in The Hague on Monday, while Nicaragua is set to present its case on Thursday.

There are two cases — Costa Rica vs. Nicaragua: Maritime Delimitation in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, as well as Costa Rica vs. Nicaragua: Land Boundary in the Northern Part of Isla Portillos.

Circa 1983, this might have sparked a super-power confrontation, with Sandinista Nicaragua bullying army-less Costa Rica. OK, the 82nd Airborne and U.S. Marines in the region are Costa Rica’s military protection corps, but we’re not supposed to say that out loud because, you know…because not having a military makes lefties feel self-righteous…

MORE:

The countries have been at odds for year over territorial disputes, particularly over a construction project near the remote mouth of the San Juan River that marks their shared border in the Caribbean.

In 2015, the court ruled Nicaragua violated Costa Rica’s territory by establishing a military camp in the area.

Stay tuned.

SOMEWHAT COMPARABLE, IF YOU’VE A NARROW DEFINITION OF COMPARABLE: A much more serious territorial clash between Greece and Turkey.

The captain of a Turkish cargo ship said it received warning shots from the Greek coast guard Monday in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Rhodes island.

The M/V ACT was about 3 miles off the coast of Rhodes and carrying steel from the southern port of İskenderun to İzmit in the northwest, Turkey-based Deniz Haber Ajansı reported.

The captain, Haluk Sami Kalkavan, said they use this route regularly and it’s in international waters.

The Greek coast guard warned the ship to divert its course to Rhodes. Kalkavan responded he would not follow the directive and informed Turkish officials.

MORE:

The Greek Coast Guard said the ship was in Greek waters and had reports that it was carrying narcotics.

Stay tuned.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, EVERGREEN STATE COLLEGE EDITION:

A faculty member who sat on the Equity Council explicitly called him a racist in two different faculty meetings. When Professor Weinstein asked for an opportunity to defend himself, he was told that a faculty meeting was not the appropriate venue for such a defense. When he asked what the appropriate venue was, he was told that no such venue existed because he was a racist. Neither the president nor the interim provost interceded to make it clear that leveling such charges against a fellow faculty member was unacceptable within the college community. When Professor Weinstein spoke privately with both of those administrators about these incidents, they both acknowledged the inappropriateness of the behavior but each said that it was the responsibility of the other to do something about it. Neither administrator took any public action in response.

Some people are arguing that folks on the right are cherry-picking stories to make higher education look bad. But there’s an awfully big basket of cherries here.

JAMES JAY CARAFANO: Top 5 Movies to Celebrate This 4th of July.

ANN ALTHOUSE VS. THE WASHINGTON POST: “Overwrought, jingoistic, self-righteousness, war-glorifying… really? Why does it make some people feel that’s what it says when that’s absolutely not in the words? Where does that extra-textualism come from?”

From the lefties’ need to feel that way, of course. Just like they need to feel that Donald Trump hates gays, when he’s objectively the most pro-gay president we’ve ever elected.

CHARLIE MARTIN: Trump Trolls the Pearl-Clutchers.

RETAIL BLUES: Amazon’s store of the future is delayed. Now what?

STEPPING UP: Trump: We stand ready to assist Charlie Gard — just like the Pope asked.

THIS SEEMS LIKE A NON-STARTER: Valerie Jarrett Says Trump Admin Should Spend More on Marketing Obamacare Benefits.

YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE POWERLINE GUYS: Lawyer Deploys Faulty Subpoena Demanding Evidence Preservation, Fails To Impress Lawyer Receiving It.

AT AMAZON, save big on Car Care.

Plus, fresh deals on Pet Supplies.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: A new dawn in Supersonic Transport and technological innovation. “Things were getting better at a breakneck pace for 25 years after World War II. Then it all just … slowed way down.”

IT LOOKED LIKE THEY WERE GOING TO DO THIS, THEN IT LOOKED LIKE THEY WEREN’T, BUT THEY DID. A CAMPAIGN PROMISE KEPT: President Trump Issues Executive Order on Reviving the National Space Council.

SOUNDS BOGUS: Therapy animals are everywhere. Proof that they help is not.

NINA TOTENBERG ON JUSTICE KENNEDY: “While he long ago hired his law clerks for the coming term, he has not done so for the following term (beginning Oct. 2018), and has let applicants for those positions know he is considering retirement.”

BUT I WAS TOLD THAT DEATH PANELS WERE MERELY A PRODUCT OF SARAH PALIN’S FERVID IMAGINATION: Yanking Life Support From UK Baby Demonstrates Dangers Of Socialized Medicine.

Related: Trump offers US help to UK baby on life support.

UPDATE: As one Twitter user adds, “Call me cynical, but I get the feeling the Gard story isn’t getting much attention because it’s a bit inconvenient during health care debate.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Thinking of Eating Your Placenta? Think Again.

VIDEO: Guy Drives Across the Country in a 1948 John Deere Tractor to Raise Awareness for Wounded Warriors.

FINALLY: Cornell researchers build American eels an ‘eelevator.’

FASTER, PLEASE: Carbon Nanotubes Found to Be a Safe Bet For Reconnecting Neurons: Best hope of repairing injured spines.

HMM: China Is About to Bury Elon Musk in Batteries.

Chinese companies have plans for additional factories with the capacity to pump out more than 120 gigawatt-hours a year by 2021, according to a report published this week by Bloomberg Intelligence. That’s enough to supply batteries for around 1.5 million Tesla Model S vehicles or 13.7 million Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrids per year, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

By comparison, when completed in 2018, Tesla Inc.’s Gigafactory will crank out up to 35 gigawatt-hours of battery cells annually.

Cheap energy storage is great, but it still requires cheap energy production.

HAVING GROWN UP AROUND A LOT OF VERY EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS, I DON’T THINK ANY IMPROVEMENT EXTENDS BEYOND THE NARROW CONFINES OF PHILOSOPHY: Study Philosophy to Improve Thinking—A Case of False Advertising?

HOMELAND SECURITY: Kelly ‘Fairly Confident Right Now’ That Terrorists Aren’t Using Border Smuggling Network.

FASCINATING: Hawaiian-Canadians and ‘Buffalo’ Canadians: The hidden history of confederation.

Canada is not a simple story of French, British and Indigenous nations. At the point when British Columbia became a colony in 1851, for example, the Pacific coast contained sizable populations of Indigenous nations, a thin scattering of British and U.S. trappers and miners and a well-established community of Hawaiian Canadians.

Indigenous Hawaiians, who crewed transpacific ships, had been settling the Vancouver and Victoria areas since the 1780s, jumping ship to take jobs in the burgeoning fur and later mining and timber industries; in the 19th century, they were recruited and imported by the Hudson’s Bay Company.

In the 1830s, Hawaiian Canadians were the single most populous ethnic group employed by the company on the West Coast. By 1851, half the working-age population in Fort Victoria was native Hawaiian. By 1867, according to Tom Koppel’s history of their community, the Hawaiians had become farmers, landowners and fishermen, and were known, sometimes derisively, as “Kanaka” (the Pacific Island word for “man”). There was a substantial “Kanaka Row” shack town in Victoria, and sizable districts in Vancouver and on Salt Spring Island. They had their own schools and preachers, and while they taught their children English, some subscribed to Hawaiian-language newspapers.

I had no idea.

OH, I THINK WE’RE NOWHERE NEAR PEAK YGLESIAS: ‘Hitting the crack pipe?’ Matt Yglesias achieves peak dumbassery with this take on minimum wage.