Reading archive 2026-05-14

Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ comes to an ironic end: The host who coined "truthiness" never found his footing in the world it predicted.

Ad wars ramp up in D.C. mayoral race as primary enters final month: Deep-pocketed political groups are seizing on potential vulnerabilities of the top Democrats in the race, Janeese Lewis George and Kenyan McDuffie.

Here’s Another Way America Will Choke at the World Cup: The nation’s railway system is destined to lose.

The Democrats Can’t Let Go of Racial Preferences: How to persuade skeptical voters to take a fresh look at the party - "In a recent study, the political scientists David Broockman of UC Berkeley and Joshua Kalla of Yale tested potential policy shifts in 29 different issue areas-including immigration, transgender athletes in women's sports, and Israel and Gaza-in an attempt to discern what might make skeptical voters consider choosing Democratic candidates. They found that moving to the center on racial preferences in college admissions was the most electorally fruitful move Democrats could make and that doing so on racial preferences in government contracting was the second most important."

The AI Backlash Could Get Very Ugly: Imagine what happens if jobs actually start disappearing.

The Trump Counterterrorism Strategy Makes America More Vulnerable: The policy is unfocused, run by amateurs, and concerned more with the president’s many grievances than with the security of the United States. - "The security analyst Kabir Taneja wrote on X that the document'"looks like something written by an intern,' and Kayyem told me that the report is so badly done that it 'mocks the American public' rather than informs it. The terrorism scholar Colin P. Clarke posted that 'competent career CT professionals must be aghast at this slop' and that he 'would give this a solid D+ grade.' I'm a former professor, and I might have given it something a smidge higher, but only if it had come from a clueless undergraduate who was encountering all of the concepts related to terrorism and counterterrorism for the first time. But it didn't. Instead, this jumble was apparently the brainchild of Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism.

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"A document that should have explained the president's plan to keep the American people safe during wartime is now on global display as a pathetic-and dangerous-joke. More than anything, it is a faithful reflection of the Trump administration itself: To judge from this report, America's counterterrorism policy is unfocused, run by amateurs, and concerned more with Donald Trump's many grievances than the security of the United States."

Why Did Bill Cassidy Do It?: The senator from Louisiana offered an olive branch to MAHA and got nothing in return.

The Mystery of the Golden Coffin: How did $65 million of allegedly stolen antiquities wind up in two of the world’s greatest museums?