🐤 Take me for a glide

💸 Bailout Backlash: While many borrowers reacted positively to President Joe Biden’s plan to forgive up to $20,000 in student loan debt, many critics pointed out that it could exacerbate inflation or suggested that it was unfair to those Americans who either paid their debt or decided not to go to college at all. Now, a group of 22 GOP governors is expressing their opposition in a letter sent to the White House that states, in part, that Biden’s action “rewards the rich and punishes the poor.”

🍵 Cuomo Complaints: Former Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was forced to resign in disgrace after a series of complaints related to sexual harassment and misconduct. Now, a former assistant is taking him — and three of his then-top aides — to court for alleged discrimination. Charlotte Bennett claims that Cuomo joked about the way she breathed while wearing a mask, comparing her to a character in the “Predator” film. She claimed that he then said: “If I were investigated for sexual harassment, I would have to say I told her she looked like a monster.”

🤳 Drive-Thru Service: Mike Lindell, the pillow purveyor who gained notoriety for spreading conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, said FBI agents cornered him at a Hardee’s drive-thru this week to serve him with a subpoena and confiscate his phone. In a social media post, he asserted: “We pull ahead and a car comes perpendicular and parks a little ways in front of us, and I’ve been around the block, I said to my buddy, I said, uh, that’s either a bad guy or it’s FBI.”

🗳 Kremlin Connections: While the lion’s share of Russia-related news coverage hinges on its ongoing invasion of neighboring Ukraine, there’s also the pesky problem of Vladimir Putin’s bid to influence events in nations around the world. According to a recent U.S. intelligence report, Moscow has invested more than $300 million to achieve its goals, using the money to support specific parties or politicians. The Biden administration says it will share the incriminating info with more than 100 nations possibly impacted by this insidious plot.

There’s a lot of discussion about what type of vehicles are likely to take the place of traditional internal combustion engines. While electric-powered vehicles seem like the most obvious contender, researchers in China believe that magnets might be the best option available.

They’re already testing vehicles that are propelled by magnets in the road and report some encouraging early results. Here are a few of the intriguing details:

• These vehicles glide about an inch and a half above the street surface.
• A total of eight vehicles have gone through testing on a five-mile stretch of road.
• Cars reached an impressive 143 miles per hour.

It’s worth noting, however, that there are some important factors to address before magnet-powered cars can become a common sight on the highway. The test vehicles are loaded with equipment that would need to be streamlined in order to make these cars marketable.

Furthermore, there’s the issue of infrastructure, since the magnets would need to be available on a wide network of roadways to make this novel mode of transportation worthwhile.

Finally, there are some safety challenges that could come along with future testing. Self-driving and autonomous cars are already facing concerns about avoiding obstacles, and this type of transport is likely to compound those worries.

Archaeologists near the Caribbean coast of Mexico reported a historically significant discovery while diving in a cave where the government hopes to eventually construct a high-speed rail system.

Octavio Del Rio and Peter Broger said they found a broken skull alongside a skeleton buried underneath sediment deep in the cavern. Since it was so far from the cave’s entrance, experts say it must have been there since the end of the Ice Age, at which time the cave flooded.

As for why the prehistoric human ended up in that remote location, Del Rio said that’s one of the details that is still up for debate.

“There it is,” he said. “We don’t know if the body was deposited there or if that was where this person died.”

The remains were buried under about 26 feet of water and the discovery was roughly one-third of a mile away from the entrance. There have been several other incredible remains found in other caves throughout North America and in this region of Mexico, specifically.

Some critics of the proposed train project say it could threaten the untold historical artifacts still buried and hidden across the area.

For his part, Del Rio has a history of working with the National Institute of Anthropology and History and has made the organization aware of the recent find.

While fans of the United Kingdom’s monarch have spent the week mourning the death of Queen Elizabeth II, some critics have used the opportunity to call out Britain’s problematic history of colonialism and pillaging.

One of the most common complaints hinged on the 186-carat Kohinoor diamond that many people believe the British Empire obtained from India. The precious gem is believed to have been discovered in the 13th century and a number of social media users accuse the British Empire of stealing it.

Now, a growing number of people are putting pressure on the U.K. to return the diamond. History professor Danielle Kinsey explained the significance of the Kohinoor — which roughly translates to “Mountain of Light.”

She said that the diamond “has a history of being part of war booty or trophies taken as the result of war in South Asia,” adding that it has become “a symbol of plunder and represents the long history of plunder imperialism.”

Even though the late queen was widely beloved across the empire and around the world, many people have lamented the fact that she did little, if anything, to denounce Britain’s history of colonialization and imperialism. Of course, defenders of the U.K. typically argue that such policies actually served to enrich and modernize the nations and civilizations that it took into its global commonwealth.