A seismic shift in the press landscape came in the first week of February 2026, with mass layoffs at the Washington Post. The storied broadsheet, bought by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos in 2013, terminated roughly one third of its staff, shuttering its sports desk, ending its book section, and decimating its international reporting. Continue reading at Just Security.

I spoke about why the Trump administration’s attack on Venezuela violates international law, why self-defense claims fail under the UN Charter, and what it indicates about the constraints of international law.

I’m officially the 34th person (and 10th woman) to complete Maui Nui!!

When I started this, I said that completing all three channels in three days lay beyond my imagination. It still kind of does. Indeed I might believe I dreamt it, were it not for the hundreds (literally) of jellyfish stings that are giving me grief right now (turns out I am very allergic so I couldn’t actually get to sleep through the pain last night and I’m really hoping the welts will have subsided before I meet my new 1L class on Tuesday). Still, but for the stings, I don’t know my body would have any way of telling me that I have done the equivalent of six swim marathons in three days—my muscles at the end of Day 1 were as sore as they got throughout the entire thing. As soon as I hit the water on Day 2, nothing was sore—and it has stayed that way through to this moment. I truly don’t understand it.

The day began somewhat inauspiciously with a jellyfish sting right in the middle of my lip a couple of hours in, followed by a group across one side of my face. It felt like my face was on fire—which is an especially odd sensation when your face is covered in water. (Needless to say, at that point I gave up on my multi-day effort at negotiating with jellyfish.)

But other sea-dwellers then came through in ways that more than made up for it. A mama and baby whale that came right near the boat—incredible! And then, at the very end of the swim, two enormous sea turtles came right up to me—I could have touched them—to welcome me to shore. I could see my landing spot at that point so I knew I was going to make it and decided to just swim gently with them for a bit before coming in to finish. 

On top of all of this we’re very close to having raised $10K for Pono Legal—sincere thanks to each and every one of you who has helped to achieve that.

I owe much gratitude also to the crew, and to Steve who organized the whole thing, and most of all to Robyn who not only kept me fed on the water, but also kept me safe back on land when my brain was still lagging behind me somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. 

Mahalo,
Bec