Reading archive 2026-06-18

20 arrested in alleged drug trafficking operation near DC elementary school

All the Sad Hawks: Neoconservatives are struggling to reconcile their hopes for Trump with the failure of his Iran war. - "The defining trait of neoconservative thought is a near-boundless faith in the efficacy of U.S. military power. This faith caused the neocons to recoil in from the Obama administration's 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. A tougher president, they believed, would have used the threat of American might to make Iran accept much stricter terms.

...

"Meanwhile, the administration is attempting to make its supporters forget a decade of claims that Obama betrayed the country by handing 'pallets of cash' to Iran as it permits the country to recover billions immediately, by suspending sanctions, and possibly far more in 'reconstruction' funds that Iran views, not inaccurately, as reparations. The dread pallets seen in endless Fox News clips transferred $1.7 billion to Tehran, a minuscule figure compared with the $12 billion in unfrozen assets, not to mention the potential $300 billion reparations."

The feral hogs ravaging America could come to your home next: Money alone won’t win this bipartisan war. - "The federal government can regulate invasive plants, livestock disease and imported wildlife, yet it lacks jurisdiction over an invasive animal already established in the U.S. Current laws might curb interstate transport, but they cannot regulate in-state markets for feral hogs. 

"These markets exist because while some see the hogs as a problem, others see a revenue stream. Texas law allows people to sell live hogs by the pound at USDA holding facilities. Hog hunting occurs on game ranches in multiple states. These activities provide income on land that’s not productive for crops. It’s hard to coordinate eradication when some folks have incentives to keep the swine alive."

What Color Is the Reflecting Pool? An Investigation.: President Trump wanted an American-flag-blue Reflecting Pool. Instead, he got a swamp.

The Pentagon Might Win the Lottery: But even $1.5 trillion won’t solve its problems.

The Feel-Good Story of the World Cup Is Too Good to Be True: Some of the people celebrating American excess are not what they seem.

The Apotheosis of Donald Trump: On the president’s 80th birthday, it became clear that he has entered his decline.

Reading archive 2026-06-17

Late Stage Groceries the groceryslop is endless

D.C. police fatally shoot man on Metro bus after he allegedly killed a woman: Officials say the man fled on the bus after shooting the woman on a sidewalk.

Reading archive 2026-06-16

14-Year-Old Is Charged With Armed Robbery of Boston Lemonade Stand: A cash box containing about $80 was stolen from two siblings in Boston during the robbery, which occurred in broad daylight, the police and family members said.

Trump claims victory over Iran, but deal is silent on nuclear weapons: The president promised oil would resume flowing through the Strait of Hormuz, though U.S. and Iranian officials differed on the initial agreement’s terms. - "A spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Esmaeil Baqaei, said Monday that Iran intended to keep charging fees for passage through the strait that would cover navigation services, environmental protection and ship insurance."

Covid vaccine linked to broad protections against heart conditions, study finds: A new study finds the vaccine was linked with nearly 40 percent lower risk of events like heart attack and stroke

He’s studied procrastination for 40 years. Here’s what he’s learned.: After so many years studying procrastination, Joseph Ferrari has some thoughts about why you can’t seem to get anything done — and how to fix that. - "'In our culture, we punish for being late,' Ferrari said. 'We need to reward for being early.' He believes incentives could transform the collective tendency to put things off. What if, for example, the government gave people a discount if they filed their taxes early, or stores offered their biggest holiday sales on the day after Thanksgiving rather than Christmas Eve?"

Good luck, JD Vance. I sense a setup.: The vice president is tasked with helping the Iran regime “learn the ways of peace.”

Algae forms in the Reflecting Pool. It’s ‘residual,’ Trump officials say.: A few days after the $14 million renovation was completed, along came the algae in the D.C. heat. It’s being removed, an Interior spokeswoman said, and measures are in place to prevent it in the future.

Planned forest fires have wider benefits than previously thought: The new research found managing low-severity fires across 1 million acres a year could reduce the amount of land that burned from severe fires by about 25 percent, protection that lasts for years.

The Milkman: Mark McAfee Promotes the Wonders of Raw Milk. It Has Sickened M Hundreds, Regulators Say - "'We have a red-flag system here, where if there’s anything that gets really out of whack, they can immediately tag the milk, and it doesn’t go to anything but cheese,' McAfee told me. 'Because, you know, cheese is resistant to pathogens.'

"Research has shown that raw cheese is not, in fact, resistant to pathogens; while aging can mitigate some risk, harmful bacteria can still survive the usual 60-day maturation process."

Reading archive 2026-06-15

Washington Post Slapped With Massive Class Action Lawsuit for Alleged Price Gouging of Its Most Loyal Subscribers via ‘Surveillance Pricing’

‘Virtual power plants’ will launch soon in Virginia. Here’s what that means.

DOE head says agency didn’t punish blue states. His lawyers admit it did.: A federal judge ordered the Energy Department to restore another 11 grants after its lawyers acknowledged it aimed to punish Democrats.

Here’s how I got rid of mosquitoes when nothing else worked: This neighborhood plan mimics ones used to eradicate the insects on islands. Could it work for my house?

Pirro’s tough-on-crime approach is undercut by acquittals and mistrials: D.C. juries have declined to convict defendants accused of bribing a top Navy admiral and funding North Korea’s nuclear program.

On the cusp of change, D.C. voters fret as race to succeed Bowser nears end: With the Democratic primary days away, there’s a mountain of challenges to face, the magnitude of which the city has not seen in more than a generation.

The White House UFC fights showed us the America we needed to see: I guess this is what we’re doing now. - "What do we make of any of this other than that this is America? Bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses advertising Bud Light and trucks. 'In Loud We Trust.' Bring me your ring girls dressed skimpily in sequined stars and stripes, and your men with cauliflower ears, and a bunch of sailors dancing to 'YMCA.'"

This city is getting homes built twice as fast — and others want to copy it: Should every new house require a new permit for its design? Claremore, Oklahoma, does not think so.

Public financing meets ‘dark money’ in D.C. mayoral election: Super PAC-style groups with no donation caps have worked alongside the public campaign financing system to raise millions in support of candidates. - "Apart from [Maryland businessman Emmanuel] Bailey, the sports betting industry has spent more than $400,000 to boost preferred candidates in council races, according to representatives of American Future, an independent expenditure committee backed by DraftKings, FanDuel and Fanatics. The bulk of that money — nearly $300,000 — has been spent on mailers backing Doni Crawford, who is running against Elissa Silverman and Jacque Patterson in the special election to fill the at-large council seat vacated by McDuffie. The group has also spent money on materials supporting Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, who is running for reelection unopposed, and council members Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) and Charles Allen (D-Ward 6)."

D.C. fines Lewis George campaign, finding coordination with labor groups: Janeese Lewis George’s campaign vowed to overturn the agency’s order, calling it a “last-ditch effort to derail a campaign.”

Soccer is truly spectacular, in spite of itself: The world's greatest sport isn't that great of a sport - "The more general issue with soccer, to me, is that it’s structurally a continuous sport but often functionally operates like the discrete sports. It’s sort of caught in the middle, and in my view ends up with the worst of both worlds. The core continuous team sports—like hockey, basketball, and rugby—are entertaining because the exciting action is so non-stop you barely have time to think. The discrete team sports—like baseball and American football—are objectively boring 95% of the literal time you are watching, but build their tension and excitement on the contemplative expectation of the next action."

After White House bout, UFC fighter disparages Michelle Obama as ‘a man’: The former first lady and her husband, former president Barack Obama, have frequently been the targets of racist insults.

Israelis denounce Trump’s deal with Iran: Prime Minister Netanyahu did not issue an immediate statement, but other Israelis disparaged the peace deal and said the fight against Hezbollah would go on. - "In the end, it was those who are close to Netanyahu who lashed out with a bitterness and sense of betrayal rarely seen directed by Israelis toward Trump. In a stunning social media tirade early Monday, Yinon Magal, a former lawmaker and anchor on Channel 14 television who is often described as Netanyahu’s most prominent mouthpiece, lashed out at Trump as a 'loser,' Vance as a 'lowlife,' and Trump’s special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff as 'two little Jews … whom Qatar bought for a lot of money and who sold out their brothers in Israel.'"

Congress has lost its grip on funding the government: The legislature showed again this week it is really struggling to follow its own normal budget-making process, and programs Americans love could be at stake.

A ‘forgotten world war’ helped forge America: The Revolutionary War succeeded because of allies at home and abroad. - "America’s improbable victory over British forces is full of stories of bravery from her allies. Victory at Yorktown was aided by the gallantry and tenacity of the French and Spanish fleets — the largest sea battle of the Revolutionary War, the Battle of the Capes, didn’t involve any American ships. Irish-born naval captain John Barry commanded the first ship commissioned by the Continental Congress. The Haitian-born Chasseurs Volontaires de Saint-Domingue, under French command, participated in numerous campaigns in the South, including the ill-fated Siege of Savannah in 1779." [ed. note: and on and on - Cuban silver, American Indians, the Kingdom of Mysore in India, etc.]

The DOGE Bros Want Another Shot: Two former staffers have created a new, perplexing company. - "It's worth pausing here to examine the fundamental premise of Special as DOGE for the private sector. You might have a few questions, including but not limited to: Wait, I thought DOGE was supposed to be about taking private-sector business acumen and bringing it to the bloated public sector? Isn't the private sector already run like the private sector? How is Special going to run the DOGE playbook inside these companies? Isn't this essentially just what a consulting firm does? Or private equity? And then, of course: Wasn't DOGE a deeply unpopular, failed experiment that saved a small fraction of its claimed savings while cutting more than 10,000 government contracts, including lifesaving international aid?

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"It's not just that DOGE was a failure or that its participants refuse to reckon with their role. It's that the DOGE "builder" ethos is built on a foundational lie. DOGE was not a generative project; it was a destructive one - a smash-and-grab attempt, led by an unelected official who happened to be the world's richest man, to seize control and precious data, and to turn the federal government into a political weapon. But for all its turmoil, DOGE helpfully illustrated how the term building can also be a euphemism for something else entirely: extraction."

American Christians Face a Choice: The faithful can still repair the wreckage they have wrought. - "But this needs to be acknowledged too: Christianity has often betrayed its commitment to the Imago Dei, the belief that people are made in the image of God and therefore have inherent, equal dignity and worth. The moral failures of Christianity make for a long and horrifying list: the Inquisition, the Crusades, and the witch trials; the persecution of Jews, Indigenous peoples, and gay people; the defense of slavery on biblical grounds by major figures such as Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield; the role of the Reich Church in Nazi Germany and the Dutch Reformed Church in apartheid South Africa; the complicity of Christian churches in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda; the role of the Russian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Kirill, who has called Vladimir Putin's leadership 'a miracle of God'; and the cover-up of sexual abuse by the Catholic Church and Protestant denominations. Christianity has an awful lot to answer for, lament over, and learn from."

Americans Are Already Paying Dearly for the National Debt: A spendthrift government is raising borrowing costs for everyone. - "Politicians respond to electoral consequences. Right now there is nothing stopping them from doling out tax cuts and spending promises while also driving up interest rates. Voters may complain that their lives are becoming unaffordable, but hardly anyone seems to appreciate that federal deficits are partly to blame. If we want to see lawmakers actually address this problem, economists need to do a better job explaining the stakes. This means that instead of talking about the fact that our national debt could fill all 32 NFL stadiums with two tiers of construction pallets filled with $100 bills, we should be talking about how deficit spending is making it harder to pay our own bills."

The World’s Leading Deepfake Expert No Longer Trusts His Own Eyes In the age of A.I., Hany Farid is struggling to prove what’s real before the internet decides for itself.

AIPAC Wants Democrats to Back Israel. Instead, They’re Turning on AIPAC.: Once the guardian of the bipartisan pro-Israel consensus, it is now a polarizing force in the party.

Reading archive 2026-06-12

Three teens arrested in connection with Chipotle brawl: MPD announced they have charged a 15-year-old and two 16-year-olds in connection with the crazy brawl that took place at the Chipotle in Navy Yard.

Parents are ‘going broke on berries’: The berry habit of the tiny humans in our households is breaking the bank.

Trump threatens new D.C. takeover if mayoral candidate Lewis George wins: Trump is legally barred from unilaterally revoking the city’s right to self-government, a step that would require an act of Congress.

The World Cup Is a Cash Grab. Fans Will Pay the Bill.: FIFA has built an $11 billion event that is too big to fail. But off the pitch, someone will win, and many others will lose. - "The organization’s relationship with the Trump administration has provided it with unfettered access to soccer’s largest untapped growth market and set it up to generate roughly $11 billion in total revenue for the upcoming tournament. It’s also put FIFA in a position of relative strength in negotiating with U.S. host cities. As part of its World Cup contract, the governing body maintains a full monopoly on not only broadcast and ticket rights but also concessions and sponsorships over the course of the tournament. The case FIFA made to host municipalities was, chiefly, that the residual economic benefits of accommodating the tournament—from tax revenue to increased business profits—would justify the costs attached to it. But this rationale was predicated on selling the World Cup to a full and open international marketplace—to say nothing of avoiding environmental pitfalls like economic slowdowns or widespread immigration enforcement–related fears. Now, with each of these one-time givens eroded, the arithmetic for host cities has been altered. Even more crucially, the math has been altered in ways that don’t apply to FIFA’s own accounting."

Reading archive 2026-06-11

How D.C. lawmakers avoided deep cuts to child care and social services: The outstanding deficits in popular programs have led some advocates and lawmakers to suggest raising taxes on the wealthy — a move opposed by the mayor.

A majority of D.C. residents are unhappy about the city’s direction. We asked them why.: Some of the most common concerns are crime, the cost of living, the economy and concern about federal control.

An obscure race to control the D.C. Democratic Party comes with high stakes and controversy

Oil executives warn White House that gas prices will get worse: Grim predictions add to the problems of a president already facing a sharp rise in inflation.

How Joyce Beatty Saved the Kennedy Center: The Ohio congresswoman tells us why she's hopeful about a judge's ruling that zapped Trump's name from the building—and what she expects to happen next.

Solo dissents are uncommon. Justice Kagan just made her first.: Justice Elena Kagan’s first solo dissent came nearly 16 years after she joined the Supreme Court bench.

Musk’s Starlink hooked rural customers. Then came the price increases.: The billionaire’s satellite internet service is a lifeline to many, but some users who face higher prices say Starlink has amassed too much power.

Reading archive 2026-06-10

A new wave of anti-immigrant violence hits U.K. as riots convulse Belfast: Attackers torched neighborhoods across Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, after a Sudanese asylum seeker was arrested and accused of stabbing a man.

Restaurants add World Cup service charges, fearing tourists won’t tip: Visitors to U.S. host cities may not know about tipping customs, so operators want to ensure that their workers share in the tournament’s financial benefits.

How to let go of things you don’t use and declutter your life: Hanging on to items that you aren’t actively using contributes to a chaotic existence.

Actually, the SAT Was Necessary After All: University of California faculty are in open revolt over the lack of standardized test scores.

Driving in America Is Headlight Hell: Car bulbs don’t have to be this blinding.

Eat More Deer: America is letting good meat go to waste.

Inside the White House Freakout Over the Epstein Files: The president’s top advisers gathered in a series of Situation Room meetings as they struggled to contain a scandal engulfing Donald Trump himself.

Reading archive 2026-06-09

I know firsthand why Graham Platner shouldn’t be a U.S. senator: I quit the campaign last fall, disturbed by what I'd learned about the Maine Democratic Senate primary candidate.

The White Identitarians Are Having a Moment: Now that DEI and anti-racism are in retreat, they’re moving on to a more ambitious goal. - "The white identitarians' ultimate goal seems to be the moral and institutional power that comes with victimhood status, which is now anyone's prize in post-woke America. So-called heritage Americans would like their own 'standpoint' to howl from. Whipping up racial consciousness to beget incessant complaint: This is the rule that Trump has campaigned and governed on, that Elon Musk has tapped into with his preposterous grumbling about 'white genocide,' and that Vance has constructed most of his public persona around."

Ukraine Is Not Losing. Russia Is Not Winning.: A momentum shift that changes everything

Why Republicans Aren’t Condemning Trump’s Meet the Press Walkout: Denying the legitimacy of vote-counting has become party doctrine. - "That Democrats carried out a massive criminal conspiracy, leaving no trace of concrete evidence behind, to spare the incumbent mayor from online ads is the kind of conspiracy theory that no sane figure would touch. And for a period of time, many Republicans resisted these kinds of absurdities. But Trump has driven most of those dissidents out of the party, and has either drawn the remainder to his side through the gravitational force of partisanship or intimidated them into silence."

Reading archive 2026-06-08

Trump’s plan for golf course threatens pillar of D.C. cycling culture: For more than three decades, an eclectic mix of bikers has been gathering daily for the “Noon Ride.” Now they worry it could end.

Yet More Damning Revelations About Graham Platner: Voters may be questioning the Senate candidate’s claims that he is a changed man.

Maine Has a Graham Platner Problem: Are we really going to do this again?

Reading archive 2026-06-07

Democrats’ midterm ‘blue wave’ dreams face an icy challenge: Negative partisanship rules as voters mildly like their own party but detest the opposition.

Flesh-eating screwworm found in Texas, sparking fears for U.S. cattle: The parasite was found in a 3-week-old calf decades after it was largely eradicated in the U.S. Authorities said the risk to humans is low.

The four Republicans who broke with Trump on Iran and now face his wrath: There are still hurdles before Congress could force the president to end hostilities, but the House resolution reflects lawmakers' growing impatience, including within Trump's own party.

Archbishop removes D.C. priest as exorcist for saying UFOs are demons: Monsignor Stephen Rossetti had been an archdiocesan exorcist in Washington for nearly two decades.

China’s Economy Is Taking Everyone Down: American and Chinese workers are paying a high price for all the cheap goods.

Political dynasties carry new baggage as voters vilify the elite: Family names have long given candidates a boost. In the era of No Kings, they can also make for an easy attack.

The Left Needs to Rediscover Its Patriotism: A left that rejects a hopeful, empathetic love of the United States can never win the country to its side.

The Real Problem With the Democrats’ Ground Game: Democratic organizers are hesitant to admit when get-out-the-vote efforts don’t work. One group is trying to change that.

Red Tape Isn’t the Only Reason America Can’t Build: The failure to deploy rural broadband has become synonymous with excessive bureaucracy. The real story is more complicated. - "The lesson of rural broadband is that some government failures are due not to procedural excess, but to giving up on regulatory tools that might antagonize Big Business. ... It's tempting to think that America can learn how to build again without having to wage difficult battles against powerful corporate interests, simply by eliminating bureaucratic red tape. But if efficient building were really so easy, we'd already be doing it."

The FBI’s Leaders ‘Have No Idea What They’re Doing’: A casualty of Trump’s purge speaks out.

Can San Francisco Be Saved?: Introducing No Easy Fix, a new three-part miniseries from Radio Atlantic, about the widespread addiction and homelessness that threaten the city’s future

Why South Park Did an About-Face on Mocking Trump: The show’s creators once said they had nothing more to say about the president. What changed their minds?

Reading archive 2026-06-05

A Shocking Betrayal of Black Americans - "The attack on democracy and Black political power in the South was made possible by justices in Washington, a president from Queens and a Democratic Party that has so far failed to stop them." ed. note: fuck you

As scandals follow Graham Platner, Democrats are losing patience: The Maine race is considered crucial to Democrats’ hopes of flipping the Senate, but Platner’s web of controversies is overshadowing other issues.

A surging liberal gives Democrats anxiety over Senate chances: Abdul El-Sayed, who is leading in many polls, is unapologetically progressive. Democratic leaders fear he could cost the party in November.

Reading archive 2026-06-03

The National Debt’s Unforgiving Math: If you’re not worried about this country’s fiscal outlook, you’re not paying attention.

Condemning a Nazi Tattoo Shouldn’t Be This Hard: Why aren’t more Democrats calling out Graham Platner? - "Platner has a unique personal story, having reinvented himself from high-born prep-school student to blue-collar oyster farmer, and from willing Marine who talked about wanting to go to war to kill people (and who later worked for a military contractor) to a victim of Collins's vote to authorize the Iraq War. Although Platner is by no means the first politician to reshape his personal narrative during a campaign, he is likely the first to attempt an innocent explanation for having had, for 18 years, a tattoo of a Totenkopf, the insignia of the Schutzstaffel, or SS - the most dedicated and fanatical component of the Third Reich, whose members were the architects and executioners of the Final Solution."

The Spanish Exception: The country’s leaders avoided a populist backlash by engineering an economic boom. Now the boom is creating problems of its own. - "The new arrivals injected life into the Spanish economy. By filling labor shortages, they allowed existing businesses to expand to serve more customers, which, in turn, created the need for even more workers. The migrants were also, of course, consumers, who bought goods and services. Many also started their own businesses. Rather than harming native-born workers, the immigration surge seems to have helped them. The unemployment rate for native-born Spaniards has plummeted while incomes have risen by double digits; the poorest workers experienced the largest increase. A report from the Bank of Spain estimates that a quarter of the rise in the country's per capita GDP from 2022 to 2024 could be attributed to immigrants. "I've been writing about Spain for 50 years at this point, and I've never seen its economy perform quite like this," William Chislett, a senior fellow at the Elcano Royal Institute, in Madrid, told me. 'And there's little doubt in my mind that immigration is the most important factor.'" [ed. note: but housing costs skyrocketed]

D.C. Progressives’ Great Socialist Hope: The bitter contest for Washington’s mayor has replicated the Democrats’ central ideological struggle. - "Her second pledge is to build 72,000 homes in five years. While Lewis George is pledging to liberalize zoning laws and reduce permitting times - a nod to the yes-in-my-backyard urbanism that has gained force among wonky D.C. Democrats - her pledge would be extraordinarily difficult for private developers to deliver amid the deep recession that the D.C. housing market is in. House prices peaked in May 2021. Since then, they have fallen 26 percent in inflation-adjusted terms, making investments in new-home construction less likely to pay off. 

"'A couple of years from now, we're looking at almost no housing production going forward,' Emilia Calma, the director of housing studies at the D.C. Policy Center, told me. Calma attributed the problem to high interest rates, high rates of rent nonpayment, and an extremely slow eviction process. D.C. has also just come off an incredible construction boom: From 2019 to 2026, the District added 45,000 new homes. As a result, real rental prices dropped by nearly 11 percent (even as rents rose across the country). Already discouraged developers will not exactly be lured back by the new tenant protections and expanded rent-stabilization laws that Lewis George is proposing."

Democrats Must Learn to Talk Sports: Politicians need as much attention as possible, as frequently as possible, while seeming as relatable as possible. A cheat code exists to hit all three objectives. - "Indeed, the sports world offers fertile terrain for class politics. Progressive Democrats have been trying, with limited success, to convince Americans that billionaires are their true enemy. Well, guess who loves to hate billionaires: aggrieved sports fans. Why not take a break from complaining that billionaires don't pay their fair share of income taxes to focus instead on team owners' obsession with avoiding the luxury tax by trading away their best players? Perhaps AOC could earn some support in Staten Island if she hammered Hal Steinbrenner, the owner of the New York Yankees, for letting Juan Soto go to the crosstown Mets to save on his tax bill."

The Ordinary Miracle of Existing: Being alive at all is the most extraordinary stroke of good luck any of us will ever experience. - "Being alive at all is the most extraordinary stroke of good luck we will ever experience. Yet it is the easiest to overlook, to take for granted. We wake up in the morning, have our coffee, make breakfast, send the kids off to school, go to our jobs, move through our routines, worry about deadlines, check off items on our to-do list. And we forget that beneath all of it lies something profoundly rare: existence itself. The simple fact that we are here, conscious and aware, is so unlikely that it borders on the miraculous. Because we experience that miracle every day, we treat it as ordinary, even guaranteed, mostly unnoticed at all. We postpone joy, assuming there will always be more time. We don't see the beauty in small moments. We simply go about the business of life, without taking a second to notice life itself. In making this comment, I am aware that in the time-driven, frantic pace of our world today, many people do not have the luxury of pausing to take stock of such moments."

Reading archive 2026-06-2

Wild Blueberry Farms Across Maine Suffer as Climate Change Upends Growing Seasons: Like lobster rolls, wild blueberries are iconic in Maine. But heat and drought have set the plants back to a point where many small farmers are struggling against reduced yields and increased costs for mulch and irrigation. - "Wild blueberries are smaller and have a stronger flavor than their cultivated counterparts.

...

"One of the few native North American fruits, wild blueberry patches have often existed in the same spot for longer than the farms that now harvest them.

...

"Wild blueberries are smaller and have a stronger flavor compared to cultivated blueberries."

[ed. note: "Wild Blueberry" refers to Vaccinium angustifolium; there are tons of native North American fruits; this very article depicts "wild blueberries" as cultivated]

Tiny Footprints, a Blue Blanket: What I Can’t Forget About the Babies Who Died of Vitamin K Deficiency: The deaths of these babies likely could have been prevented with a long-standard vitamin shot. For reporter Duaa Eldeib, their autopsy reports painted the clearest picture of the tragedy of their short lives.

The Case for Impeaching and Removing Every Federal Judge and Supreme Court Justice Who Has Ever Been a Member of the Federalist Society or Endorsed Unitary Executive Theory.: A serious claim requiring serious consideration. - "This brings us to the load-bearing claim of the entire argument. Unitary executive theory is a different constitution. The doctrine claims constitutional authority that the text does not grant, that the framers explicitly rejected, that the first Congress did not exercise, and that no court recognized until the conservative legal movement invented the doctrine in the 1980s. The text of Article II vests executive power in the president and requires the president to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, language that imposes obligations rather than granting unilateral control. The framers, as Hamilton’s Federalist 77 makes explicit and as the rejected Pinckney motion confirms, did not grant the executive the unaccountable authority the doctrine claims. The first Congress built executive offices with mixed structures and independent components. No court endorsed the strong version of unitary executive theory until the conservative legal movement built the doctrine in the 1980s and spent forty years credentialing the judges who would convert academic argument into binding law. The doctrine functions as a replacement for the Constitution rather than an interpretation of it, offered by a political movement that could not amend the document through Article V and decided to install its preferred version through judicial appointments instead."

Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

Restoring the Flow: A Milestone in the Revival of the Everglades: The campaign to restore the Everglades has received a boost with completion of a key project that returns the flow of water to 55,000 acres that had once been drained for development. Experts see it as a major step forward in bringing back South Florida’s River of Grass.

The missing ingredient in plant-based food isn’t taste or nutrition: It takes more than flavor and texture to win a culture war.

Poland’s steely response to Russia’s hybrid warfare: Eastern European countries are keeping out Russia’s “weaponized migrants.” Reporters got a look.

What Colbert’s show ending means for the rest of late-night TV: “The Late Show,” an American television institution, goes off the air this week. It almost certainly portends changes to come for the classic television format.

Dozens of victims in Loudoun County rental scheme as woman accused of taking $100K+

Parking lots get hot and are bad for storm runoff. These groups are testing other options

Russian Position Weakening in Central Asia

5 ideas for how we survive the possible AI jobs apocalypse: Elon Musk, Elizabeth Warren and lots of policy wonks have suggestions to help workers hit by automation. Which would you bet your future on?

As Russia fails to achieve war aims in Ukraine, Putin needs a way out: European officials say Moscow's escalating aggression is a result of increasing difficulties that Russia is facing militarily and economically.

Utility bills in D.C. are rising. Here’s what to know.: Pepco and D.C. Water plan to raise monthly utility costs for customers in D.C., citing inflationary costs and supply chain strain.

‘It was cruel’: Scott Pelley confronts new ‘60 Minutes’ boss in fiery meeting: The veteran correspondent demanded answers on fired staff and the new executive producer’s qualifications for the job.

The rise of Janeese Lewis George, who could be D.C.’s first democratic socialist mayor: Focusing on workers’ and tenants’ rights, the council member would represent a drastic shift in the status quo if elected to the city’s highest office.

There are no Supreme Court vacancies, but some judges are acting like there might be: Speculation is swirling over potential departures at the high court, and firebrand conservative judges might be using flashy rulings to audition for the president.

As Ukraine’s fortunes improve, it’s ‘zugzwang’ time for Putin: Drone warfare has produced a bloody battlefield stasis reminiscent of World War I.

With Smithsonian under scrutiny, its leader curates a complex history show: Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III has co-curated “American Aspirations” as the Smithsonian faces federal pressure. “Nobody has told us what to do,” he said, “and to be honest, I won’t let anybody tell us what to do.”

After a brutal winter, Ukraine’s drones are breaking Russian defenses: Russia’s advance has suddenly stalled, and Ukraine is fighting on its own terms — a comeback credited to Kyiv’s efforts to steadily strengthen the capabilities of its UAVs.

Child’s Play: Tech’s new generation and the end of thinking

If you let AI do your writing, I will come to your house and kill you: Did you think I wouldn’t be able to tell? I can tell. - "The reason it’s so hard to get AI to stop hallucinating is that it’s permanently hallucinating. Its whole existence is one long lurid trip. Most of the time, the AI’s hallucinations bear a spooky resemblance to reality. But what they speak is the language of angels, in which, like the chirping of birds, there is neither truth nor lies."