Reading archive 2026-05-15

Metro lost $50M in bus fare evasion alone in just 9 months Nearly 70% of bus riders don't pay, Metro said.

Metro wants to double Stadium-Armory station's capacity for new RFK site: WMATA's board met Thursday about improvements to the Stadium-Armory Metro station they say are necessary before the new Washington Commanders stadium opens in 2030 at the old RFK site.

Emails show FBI Director Kash Patel’s Hawaii trip included ‘VIP snorkel’ at a Pearl Harbor memorial

Trump administration aims to roll back limits on toxic wastewater from coal-fired power plants - "In 2024, the EPA strengthened wastewater rules over coal-fired power plants that keep coal ash — a byproduct of burning coal — in unlined, uncovered dumps that leach toxic heavy metals such as mercury, arsenic and selenium into groundwater. 

"In the rule, the EPA required plant owners to report whether the groundwater was contaminated and, if so, pump and treat the contaminated groundwater before discharging it into streams and rivers, Thom Cmar, an attorney for environmental advocacy group Earthjustice, said."

Serious. Has a spine. No wonder he’s leaving Congress.: Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) isn't seeking reelection. That’s a loss for the country.

The Smithsonian’s most contested exhibition is back on view, mostly intact: National Portrait Gallery curators have found a way to counter the Trump administration: with facts.

In northern Ukraine, it was boy vs. Russian drone. The boy won.: A soldier taught a 12-year-old how to disable the fiber-optic drones that Russia has been using to hunt Ukrainian civilians in a campaign the U.N. has labeled a war crime.

Tumultuous, bloody week unfolds in Ukraine and Russia after brief ceasefire: A Russian airstrike on a Kyiv apartment complex that killed at least 24 people and a Ukrainian strike on residential buildings and an oil refinery in Ryazan, Russia, suggested no end is in sight to the war.

Parents of teens who break curfew in D.C. will be prosecuted, DOJ says: The Justice Department’s crackdown on crime comes ahead of 250th anniversary events in the nation’s capital.

A golden statue of Trump draws mixed reactions at his golf course: Online, the glittering statue has become a flash point. In real life, golfers seem less excited.

Reality check: AI-generated images have left us questioning what is real. But the godfather of digital forensics, Hany Farid, is not giving up - "Of course, even the most thorough and well-reasoned investigation may not always persuade doubters. Farid learnt this the hard way in 2009, when he analyzed a 1963 photo of Lee Harvey Oswald holding the rifle he would later use to kill President John F. Kennedy. Conspiracy theorists—and Oswald himself—had long claimed the photo was faked, pointing to unusual features like the shadows on Oswald’s face. But Farid’s analysis found nothing wrong. 'I wrote this little paper, and I thought, all right, this will be the end of this,' he says. Instead, people invested in the conspiracy theory turned on Farid, suspecting he was part of the cover-up. They claimed that his father’s job at Eastman Kodak—which had made the film on which Kennedy’s assassination was captured—somehow implicated him, and even wrote to Dartmouth asking for him to be fired. 'This is how batshit crazy it was,' he says."

The Election Deniers Are Winning: The universe of people pressing debunked theories is so broad that it’s a feature of the system.

Too Much Is Happening Too Fast: The AI boom is meant to overwhelm you.