[URBAN NOTE] Seven city links: Paris, Montréal, Ottawa, Berthierville, Chicago, Berlin, Saint-Louis

• The terrible destruction of Notre-Dame-de-Paris makes me very sad. I hope restoration is possible. The Daily Beast reports.
• CBC Montreal celebrates the 50th anniversary of the first Expos game.
• Anti-poverty activists claim Ottawa claim Airbnb is hurting local housing markets. Global News reports.
• La Presse notes how people in the small Québec town of Berthierville are trying to keep their old monastery.
• CityLab reports on the artistic and architectural contributions of Theaster Gates to a divided Chicago.
• Guardian Cities notes the radicalism of rental activists in Berlin.
• CityLab notes how sea level rise is already hurting people in the Senegal coastal city of Saint-Louis.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: New York City, Calgary, London, Amsterdam, Dakar

• In remembering Stan Lee, CityLab points to the evocative image of New York City that he and Marvel Comics created.
• Global News notes that Calgary is approaching the day of its referendum over the 2026 Winter Olympics. (Calgarians, vote against the idea.)
• Guardian Cities shares these images depicting what London would look like if any number of plans for new architectural wonders had come to pass.
• CityLab notes how community activity helped reclaim Zeedijk street in Amsterdam.
• Guardian Cities shares photos of the final days of the traditional fish market in the Senegalese capital of Dakar.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, Utrecht, Vilnius, Saint-Louis, Sydney

• For perhaps understandable political reason, Québec premier Philippine Couilllard wants Bombardier to get the Montreal metro renewal contract. Global News reports.
• Utrecht, Noisey notes, has a thriving black metal scene worthy of extended exploration.
• The bohemian enclave of Užupis, in the middle of the Lithunian capital of Vilnius, is starting to face pressure from gentrification. Politico Europe reports.
• Ciku Kimeria at Okay Africa makes the case for the old colonial capital of Saint-Louis, in Senegal, to become a major destination for international tourists.
• The Guardian profiles a serious proposal to split Sydney into three different cities, each with its own development needs, to better manage the wider conurbation.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• At Antipope, Charlie Stross examines the connections between bitcoin production and the alt-right. Could cryptocurrency have seriously bad political linkages?
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes GW170680, a recent gravitational wave detection that is both immense in its effect and surprising for its detection being normal.
• Centauri Dreams reports on a new study suggesting hot Jupiters are so large because they are heated by their local star.
• Crooked Timber counsels against an easy condemnation of baby boomers as uniquely politically malign.
• Daily JSTOR notes one paper that takes a look at how the surprisingly late introduction of the bed, as a piece of household technology, changed the way we sleep.
• Dangerous Minds shares a 1968 newspaper interview with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys, talking about Charlie Manson and his family and their influence on him.
• The Everyday Sociology Blog takes a look at the opioid epidemic and the way that it is perceived.
• At A Fistful of Euros, Alex Harrowell suggests that the unsolvable complexities of Northern Ireland may be enough to avoid a hard Brexit after all.
• The LRB Blog describes a visit to a seaside village in Costa Rica where locals and visitors try to save sea turtles.
• Lingua Franca reflects on the beauty of the Icelandic language.
• The Map Room Blog shares an awesome map depicting the locations of the stars around which we have detected exoplanets.
• Marginal Revolution notes the ill health of North Korean defectors, infected with parasites now unseen in South Korea.
• Roads and Kingdoms reports on the revival of fonio, a West African grain that is now starting to see successful marketing in Senegal.
• Spacing reviews a fascinating book examining the functioning of urban villages embedded in the metropoli of south China.
• Strange Company reports on the mysterious 1920 murder of famous bridge player Joseph Bowne Elwell.
• Towleroad reports on Larnelle Foster, a gay black man who was a close friend of Meghan Markle in their college years.
• Window on Eurasia notes that, although Ukraine suffered the largest number of premature dead in the Stalinist famines of the 1930s, Kazakhstan suffered the greatest proportion of dead.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell has a photo essay looking at the Berlin Brandenburg Airport, still years away from completion and beset by many complex failures of its advanced systems. What does the failure of this complex system say about others we may wish to build?

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Centauri Dreams considers the idea of dispatching a fleet of sail-equipped probes to map the asteroid belt.
• Crux considers the importance of the invention of zero for mathematics.
• D-Brief notes that Scotland’s oldest snow patch is set to melt imminently.
• The Dragon’s Gaze links to a paper looking at the stability of multiplanetary systems in star clusters.
• Imageo notes the modest recovery of icecaps in the Arctic this summer.
• Language Log notes the importance of Kazakhstan’s shift to using the Latin script for the Kazakh language.
• The LRB Blog reports on a writer’s visit to Helsinki.
• The Map Room Blog notes a giant relief map of Guatemala, built to reinforce claims to what is now Belize.
• The NYR Daily considers the continued salience of race in the fragile liberal-democratic world, in America and Europe.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer wonders if the heavy-handed Spanish government is trying to trigger Catalonian independence.
• Roads and Kingdoms considers the palm wine of Senegal, and its vendors.
• Understanding Society considers the Holocaust, as an experience sociological and otherwise.
• The Volokh Conspiracy makes a libertarian case for open borders.
• Whatever’s John Scalzi celebrates his meeting mutual fan Alison Moyet.
• Window on Eurasia notes how Belarus’ cautious Belarusianization is met by Russia’s pro-Soviet nostalgia.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Centauri Dreams analyzes the latest suggestive findings about water on potentially habitable exoplanets of TRAPPIST-1.
• A Game of Thrones-themed cat bed, as described by Dangerous Minds, is almost tempting. (Almost.)
• Hornet Stories takes a brief look at what the Nazis were like for, and did to, queers.
• Joe. My. God. notes that Texas’ secretary of state turned down an aid offer from Québec, asking only for prayers.
• Language Hat looks at the ways in which different African writers have glossed Africa in their works.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper looking at the effect that serious floods have on cities’ long-run economic growth.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw notes the discovery of sunken garum-exporting Neapolis off of the coast of Tunisia.
• The Planetary Society Blog looks at the latest ventures of the Opportunity rover as winter approaches on Mars.
• Roads and Kingdoms notes the Café Touba coffee of Senegal, sign of resistance to colonialism and globalization.
• Window on Eurasia notes a proposal in Russia to memorialize Muslims who resisted changing traditional value systems.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Charley Ross reports on an unexpected personal involvement in the disappearance of Kori Gossett. Did an informant know?
• Citizen Science Salon reports, in the time of #sharkweek, on the sevengill sharks.
• The Dragon’s Tales links to an article on the Chinese base in Sudan.
• Inkfish has a fascinating article describing how New Zealand’s giant black swans went extinct, and were replaced.
• Language Hat notes two obscure words of Senegalese French, “laptot” and “signare”. What do they mean? Go see.
• Language Log argues that the influx of English loanwords in Chinese is remarkable. Does it signal future changes in language?
• Lawyers, Guns Money notes how Los Angeles and southern California were, during the American Civil War, a stronghold of secessionist sentiment, and runs down some of the problems of Mexico, including the militarization of crime.
• Marginal Revolution reports on what books by which authors tend to get stolen from British bookstores.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer suggests that Donald Trump is not likely to be able to substantially reshape NAFTA.
• Roads and Kingdoms reports from the recent protests in Poland against changes to the Supreme Court.
• Understanding Society takes a look at the structure of the cities of medieval Europe, which apparently were dynamic and flexible.
• Unicorn Booty shares some classic gay board games.
• Window on Eurasia argues that Russia is going to try to wage a repeat of the Winter War on Ukraine.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• The Big Picture shares photos of the South Sudanese refugee exodus into Uganda.
• blogTO shares an ad for a condo rental on Dovercourt Road near me, only $1800 a month.
• Centauri Dreams reports on the idea of using waste heat to detect extraterrestrial civilizations.
• Crooked Timber uses the paradigm of Jane Jacobs’ challenge to expert in the context of Brexit.
• The LRB Blog reports on the fishers of Senegal and their involvement in that country’s history of emigration.
• The Planetary Society Blog shares an image comparing Saturn’s smaller moons.
• The Volokh Conspiracy comes out in support of taking down Confederate monuments.
• Window on Eurasia suggests Chechens are coming out ahead of Daghestanis in the North Caucasus’ religious hierarchies, and argues that Putin cannot risk letting Ukraine become a model for Russia.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at various bowdlerizations of Philip Larkin’s famous quote about what parents do to their children.

[LINK] “Long, winding road from Senegal to Canada and back home for accused terrorist”

The Toronto Star‘s Allan Woods reports on a Senegalese accused terrorist with Canadian connections and his personal history.

As the child of a Senegalese diplomat, Assane Kamara was accustomed to finding his place in unfamiliar lands. In his 24 years, he had lived in Ivory Coast, Haiti, Dominican Republic and Madagascar.

But his privileged upbringing veered off course in 2014, prompting his worried mother to launch a search for her son, and leading her from the family home in Dakar, the Senegalese capital, to Friday prayers in an Edmonton mosque.

As she forced him to return home, a member of the Kamara family said that the questions swirled. What had become of the young man sent for an education at Quebec’s Université de Sherbrooke? Why had he cut contact with his family and moved to western Canada? And who were the devout Canadian Muslims he now counted as his closest friends?

In the months following the intervention, three of those friends — Samir Halilovic, Zakria Habibi and Youssef Sakhir — would flee Canada to try and join Daesh, the Islamic terror group in Syria and Iraq.

Today, Kamara sits in a Dakar jail facing terrorism charges that were laid in February 2016, based on allegations he had planned to join a jihadist group, Henry Boumy Ciss, a spokesperson for Senegal’s National Police, told the Star.

[LINK] “Senegal to Add 200 Megawatts of Solar Through IFC Program”

Bloomberg’s Brian Eckhouse notes Senegal’s development of solar energy.

Senegal plans to build as much as 200 megawatts of solar power, with at least half of that up and running within two years, after joining an International Finance Corp. program designed to promote wider use of clean energy in sub-Saharan Africa.

Senegal is the second country to join the IFC’s Scaling Solar initiative, after Zambia signed on last year, the lender said in a statement Tuesday.

The effort will bring a needed injection of electricity to Senegal, where just over half the population has access to electricity, according to the World Bank. Under the program, the IFC helps organize competitive auctions, offers financing and provides some guarantees against risk.

The first auction, for at least 100 megawatts of capacity, is expected this year, according to Jamie Fergusson, chief investment officer and global renewables lead at the IFC.