Reading archive 2026-04-13

Car with more than $260K in unpaid tickets towed in DC: The Maryland car had racked up nearly 900 unpaid tickets.

Menace on the Streets: E-bikes and e-scooters are remaking the rules of the road. Canada’s cities aren’t ready.

In 1990, a bipartisan Congress passed historic bills. Then it cracked apart.: 36 years ago, a Republican president and Democratic lawmakers produced monumental laws. Now a broken Congress has enabled Trump to undo key parts of that legacy.

A new poll shows the political risk to Israel from the war in Iran: Launching the attack was a big gamble with American opinion that isn’t paying off.

After record highs, Colorado’s legal pot market hits a harsh comedown: Oversupply and competition from other states have helped upend the nation’s first legal cannabis market.

On Africa trip, Pope Leo will face debate over polygamy as Catholicism booms: Leo’s early papacy has been defined largely by his response to President Donald Trump but a 10-day trip, starting Monday, will let the pope focus on spreading the faith. - "In recent years, Africa’s Catholic bishops have become increasingly assertive. They rebelled in 2023 when Francis explicitly allowed priests to offer brief blessings to people in same-sex couples, issuing an official rejection of his ruling on a continent where homosexuality in some nations is punishable by death.

"Now, they are pushing for their own dispensation, pressing the Vatican to embrace pastoral outreach for polygamists — more prevalent in some African nations than anywhere else."

D.C. mayoral candidates want to build more housing — but investors don’t: Plans by Janeese Lewis George and Kenyan R. McDuffie to increase the housing supply and lower costs for renters are different in scope, but they face the same hurdles.

Bowser’s final D.C. budget includes $469M in cuts amid tough fiscal picture: Mayor Muriel Bowser’s $21.2 billion budget proposal would put off pay raises for firefighters and cut a program that boosts early childhood educator pay.

Claude Mythos Is Everyone’s Problem: What happens when AI can hack everything?

What China Just Learned From the Iran War: A blockade of Taiwan would hurt the global economy more than Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. - "The war in Iran has flipped this argument on its head. As seems clear from Tuesday night's truce, an authoritarian regime far weaker than China can use global supply chains as leverage and, in the process, force the U.S. to back away from its threats. By closing the Strait of Hormuz, Iran caused the average price of gas in the U.S. to shoot up by nearly 40 percent, piling political pressure on Trump to end the war as soon as possible. A Pew Research Center poll conducted at the end of March found that gas prices were the biggest concern among Americans when it came to the war in Iran, well above the chance of 'large numbers of U.S. military casualties.'"

A Cancer Treatment That Does More Than Scientists Thought: CAR-T cell therapy, originally developed for cancer, is showing ever more promise as a treatment for autoimmune diseases.