The election is over, and Biden/Harris made the cover of Time Magazine. COVID deaths are up and vaccines are being approved for rapid distribution. You know all this already; it’s not news. It’s olds.

So here’s a few things you might not have known:

– Azerbaijan is celebrating their swift victory over Armenian military forces in the Nagorno-Khabarakh conflict with a massive military parade. Oddly enough, the parade features Turkish military forces.

– The Netherlands has expelled two Russian diplomats who were plausibly accused of technological espionage. Russia denies the accusations, of course; they always seem to. This comes one day after the European Medical Authority reported a cyberattack aimed at stealing COVID vaccine and patient data.

– Pornhub has been abandoned by most major sources of electronic funding following a New York Times investigation into the site’s involvement in child abuse and rape pornography.

– The SpaceX Starship prototype crashed and burned following a deliberately high-risk test in Boca Chica, Texas. This follows an announcement by CEO Elon Musk that he’s relocating to Texas from California because of the superior climate for business. No word yet on whether Californian intelligence agents are suspected in sabotaging the test.

– There is a highly pathogenic H5N8 influenza outbreak in poultry farms around the world, with confirmed cases from Japan to France. Millions of birds, both wild and farmed, have been culled in efforts to prevent a pandemic.

– The UK and EU have arrived at an agreement in principle on Brexit. (Finally.) So, it seems, have Harry and Meghan, who have turned their living room into a broadcasting studio. God help us all; I thought the Kardashians were bad…

– Venezuela has held an election with historically low turnout, around 31%, in part due to a Guaido-led boycott. It has been declared a charade by both American and European diplomats. Unsurprisingly, dictator Maduro won.

– The International Olympics Committee has made two controversial decisions: first, to ban Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko and his son Viktor from all scheduled games; second, to admit competitive breakdancing as a sport. Viktor is reportedly crushed that he won’t be allowed to compete in Tokyo in 2024.

– The United Nations has removed cannabis from their Schedule IV of dangerous drugs, reclassifying it as a “less dangerous drug”. This makes it available for research and medical use in member countries around the world, subject to local and national law, and eliminates most of the international pressure requiring the United States to keep it illegal.

And that’s all the news we’ve noticed. If you’ve run across something we’ve missed, please do let us know.

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