Reading archive 2025-12-05

Police make arrest in fatal shooting at MGM National Harbor: Benjamin Williams, 22, was located by police less than 14 hours after he allegedly killed Darnell Hawkins Jr., 23, in what police said was a targeted shooting in the hotel and casino’s food court.

Trump’s closure of Voice of America is coming back to bite him: As the president threatens Venezuela, Russia and China are filling the information vacuum.

How volcanoes upend the story of what sparked the Black Death: Volcanic eruptions could have fueled the spread of the Black Death plague across medieval Europe, according to a new study that pieces together evidence from ice cores, rare blue tree rings from ancient trees in the Pyrenees Mountains, historical accounts of famine and the grain trade.

FBI arrests Virginia man in Jan. 6 pipe bomb case: Justice Department officials said investigators revisited reams of evidence this year and found the “needle in a haystack” that led to a suspect.

The f-word. No, the other one.: A gay slur is having something of a cultural renaissance. Is that ... okay?

Meet the billionaire pushing taxpayer-funded school vouchers: How Jeff Yass, one of the richest people on the planet, uses politics to press his pet issue: school choice. - "Yass rarely if ever interacts with people he disagrees with on this subject. He volunteered to The Post that in business, he advises his employees to seek out alternative points of view. 'I always say, 'Go find the smartest person who disagrees with you,'' he said. 

"But he said he has never had a personal conversation with a public education advocate to try to understand their point of view. 'I would love to do that,' he said.

...

"In a 2021 conversation sponsored by the Adam Smith Society, part of a free-market think tank, he said that the U.S. is almost to the point where 'no one' is hungry, cold or lacks basic health insurance.

"'What’s the difference between a billionaire and a guy who’s making $100,000 a year? They’re both at home watching Netflix. And they’re both on their iPhones,' he said then. 'The disparity between how rich people live and how poor people live in America has never been smaller.'

"Government data shows that in 2024, there were 27 million uninsured Americans and in 2023, 18 million households were uncertain if they would have enough food. Wealth inequality has been rising for decades, with the richest families increasing their wealth at a faster rate than everyone else."