Reading archive 2026-06-29 pt 1

Why resisting Trump has galvanized Black Democrats as the midterms approach: High primary turnout among Black voters in the South has given some in the party hope for upset wins in the region.

Pete Hegseth’s purges claim one of the military’s superstars: Gen. Christopher Donahue heads into early retirement as the defense secretary seeks to root out MAGA disloyalty.

Organizers remove Confederate flag image from N.C. booth at fair on the Mall: One sponsor said it was withdrawing its participation in the state’s pavilion at the Great American State Fair.

The Great American State Fair feels rushed, simulated and oddly sterile: The Trump administration’s signature 250th celebration is strangely short on nostalgia — and long on defense contractors and “Fox & Friends.”

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee investigating tax noncompliance among feds: The probe comes after a May report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found rising rates of tax delinquency in the federal workforce.

The Trump Pentagon appointee who has divided top Republicans: Elbridge Colby has become the central figure in a battle to define the future of “America First” foreign policy.

What a gastroenterologist wants you to know about bidets: I’ve received so many questions from people who are bidet-curious but not yet bidet-ready.

Cassidy, fresh off a blowup with Trump, blasts RFK Jr.’s policies: The GOP senator said a “foundation of lies” had shaped Kennedy’s health policies. He also accused Trump of treating Congress as an “appendage.”

How Poland’s fate drove the Declaration

Unease deepens in Russia as Ukraine steps up long-range strikes: Experts said Vladimir Putin was unlikely to change course despite worsening fuel shortages and a sharp decline in the stock market.

Pete Buttigieg recounts being separated from his children after bogus complaint: The high-profile Democrat said he was unable to see his twins for 24 hours as police investigated the false report to child protective services. Michigan State Police confirmed they deemed the complaint unfounded. - "Buttigieg said investigators said the anonymous allegation came from a caller who said he spoke to a woman 'who claimed to have met me at a conference several years ago in Alabama, where she said I told her that I had committed unspeakable violent crimes and the caller believed my children were still at risk.'"

Is Florida Finally Tiring of Toxic Republican Politics?

On the Midterms Trail, Andy Beshear Eyes a Bigger Prize: The two-term Democratic governor of deep-red Kentucky, in demand as a surrogate in key 2026 races, talks horses, faith and family politics as he considers a run for the White House

How the Biden Administration ‘Radicalized’ Pete Buttigieg: The former — and potentially future — presidential candidate laid out his vision for a post-Trump Democratic Party in an interview with NOTUS.

Democrats Are Drafting Plans to Govern Like Trump in 2029: He may have inadvertently sown the seeds of a new progressive age.

Trump Cut a Billion-Dollar Mining Deal. His Sons Stand to Profit.: An agreement between the U.S. and Kazakhstan has given a group of American investors with ties to the president and the commerce secretary access to one of the world’s largest untapped reserves of tungsten.

Reading archive 2026-06-22

Pro-Israel and crypto money become central issue in Democratic primary Dark money — and complaints about it — have become the central issue in the 24-candidate field to replace Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland).

Tulsi Gabbard, her guru and the mysterious messages that helped shape her political career: I obtained hundreds of confidential memos detailing politics and policy guidance for Gabbard from her years in Congress, then embarked on a quest to identify who was behind them.

Could There Be a Third Party for Moderates?: It turns out, Americans agree on an awful lot.

World Cup visitors marvel at American food, from cheesesteaks to cheese slices: After going broke on tickets, there’s only one way for these fans to save a buck: cheap (and greasy) eats.

Who Is Andy Burnham, the Man Who Could Be Britain’s Next Prime Minister?: Charismatic, northern and exuding a relaxed optimism, Mr. Burnham is a contrast to Keir Starmer. His allies hope he could mend Labour’s relationship with voters. - "In 2022, after the last soccer World Cup, Mr. Starmer himself poked fun at his former colleague. In a speech to reporters, Mr. Starmer joked that Mr. Burnham 'got to see his boyhood team Argentina win the World Cup' but that 'it was a mixed bag because he also got to see his boyhood team France lose the final and his boyhood teams Morocco and Croatia lose in the semis.'"

The Deadly Rise of Giant Trucks and S.U.V.s: For decades, American roads were steadily getting safer for pedestrians. But around 2009, the trend reversed. Since then, the number of pedestrians killed each year has risen by about 75 percent.

Why cyclists don't stop at stop signs and shouldn't have to: Stop signs in Toronto were designed to control cars, and don't work for bikes. Cities with balanced transportation systems don't have them. - "I learned in design school that The User is Always Right. It doesn't matter what you think you have designed, the user's behaviour tells you what your product or system actually IS.... A great example is how roads are designed for 70 km/h, but then signed for 30 km/h – and then we wag our fingers at the speeders. These drivers are behaving perfectly normally for the system. If you wanted people to drive 30 km/h, then YOU FAILED. The people are not broken, YOUR SYSTEM IS BROKEN.

...

"'Nearly everyone has jaywalked, rolled through a stop sign, or driven a few miles per hour over the speed limit, but most such offences face no legal consequences. Society also tends to see these relatively minor infractions that almost all people make—though they are unmistakably illegal—as normal and even rational. Bicyclists who break the law, however, seem to attract a higher level of scorn and scrutiny.'"

Boomer caregiving will wreck our politics We have maybe five years to escape gerontocratic capture - "We are not prepared — emotionally, politically, financially — for what it means to care for tens of millions of aging boomers while also trying to invest in the future for our children. 

"Consider the demographic trends. In five years, America will have more people over 65 than under 18. Americans over 75 are the fastest-growing age group in the country. The worker-to-retiree ratio has collapsed from five-to-one in 1960 to about 2.5 today. Nearly 70% of people over 65 will need long-term care.

...

"Even if you were willing to make the hard decisions, political incentives won’t allow it. Older Americans are growing in number and vote at much higher rates than the young. Many of us want to invest more in children, families, and fertility, but the boomer caregiving wave will pull spending and incentives further toward the old. Politicians will follow their most reliable and expanding voting bloc."

The Butlerian Jihad Has Begun: Do we need a 'Holy War' against the Thinking Machines? - "Magnifica Humanitas is valuable precisely because it does not make the vulgar mistake now being projected onto the fictional Butlerian Jihad. It treats the thinking machine neither as a demon nor a consciousness hiding inside the circuitry. Nor does it see AI as some rival species whose emergence must be met with holy violence. 

It simply asks whose vision of the human person is being elevated through the thinking machine. And it warns against the very concentrations of power and structures of domination that haunted Frank Herbert’s writing.

...

"The burning question regarding AI is not whether the machines are evil. It is whether human beings will allow the machines to become instruments through which other human beings will concentrate power. A properly conceived Butlerian Jihad must target technocracy, not technology."

If Only Trump Knew What Vance Is Doing: If the president is infallible, there must be some other explanation for his Iran defeat.

The Democratic Base Is Angry: Is the party paying attention?

‘You Slap Me in the Face, I’ll Slap You Right Back’: Nancy Pelosi on gerrymandering, the midterms, and her 39 years in Congress

A ‘Death Train’ Is Haunting South Florida: The Brightline has been hailed as the future of high-speed rail in the United States, but it has one big, unignorable problem. - "What the Brightline is best known for is not that it reflects the gleam of the future but the fact that it keeps hitting people. According to Federal Railroad Administration data, the Brightline has been involved in at least 185 fatalities, 148 of which were believed not to be suicides, since it began operating, in December 2017. Last year, the train hit and killed 41 people-none of whom, as best as authorities could determine, was attempting to harm themselves. By comparison, the Long Island Rail Road, the busiest commuter line in the country, hit and killed six people last year while running 947 trains a day. Brightline was running 32.

...

"'Fast trains and grade crossings are always a deadly combination,' the historian Richard White, whose 2011 book about American railroads was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, told me. He put it the most succinctly, but I did not talk with anybody who disagreed with that conclusion."

The Warrior-Witches of Ukraine’s Resistance: An underground intelligence network uses subterfuge and honey traps to direct drone strikes deep inside Russian-occupied territory. - "I asked the partisans why they would talk with me at all, sharing intimate details of the war's most dangerous operations. In part, they are sending a message to the occupier: You are hated here. Sestra put a finer point on this: 'I want every Russian soldier who has set foot on our land to carry that paranoia with him - suffocating, relentless, every second of every day. I want him to look at the grandmother at the market, at the bus driver, at the doctor in the clinic, at the ordinary passerby on the street-and to see in each of them his own potential destruction.'"

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."

Reading archive 2026-03-24

Cesar Chavez, a Civil Rights Icon, Is Accused of Abusing Girls for Years: An investigation by The New York Times found extensive evidence that the United Farm Workers co-founder groomed and sexually abused girls who worked in the movement.

Exercise can lower Alzheimer’s risk. Scientists may have discovered why.: In an ambitious study, memory and learning abilities improved substantially after exercise among mice with a form of Alzheimer’s disease.

How Trump Killed Conservatism: The president has cultivated and encouraged the ugliest passions within the GOP, dousing the embers of hate with kerosene. [ed. note: a conservative write a paean to conservatism, yawn]

How the Midwest Became the Place to Move: It’s (mostly) about affordability.

The Strategic Follies of the Islamic Republic: The past half century reveals a record not of constant brilliance, but of consistent folly.

The Death of Millennial Feminism: Lindy West has unwittingly written the obituary for an era. - "Adult Braces is many things: a paean to the varied landscapes of America, an advert for #vanlife, a reminder to be grateful that your partner hasn't talked you into a throuple with a much thinner woman. It is also the tombstone for Millennial Feminism - that swirling brew of Media Twitter, blog snark, the Great Awokening, whaling on Lena Dunham, fat positivity, and boring straight people identifying as queer through accounting tricks."

Why I Stopped Forcing My Kid to Share: True generosity can’t be coerced.

Why is everyone hating on runfluencers now?" Instagram’s running influencers are facing backlash over an influx of injuries, falsified marathon times, AI-generated training plans and debates about privilege

Suicidal Bootlicking as a Method of Governance: Education and extraction in the cannibal South. - "Ken Griffin goes to Harvard, makes a fortune, builds his business in New York and Chicago, and then finally deigns to move his hedge fund down to Florida in order to not pay taxes, builds a private school, and then watches the kids of all his associates go back to Harvard. Do you think these masters of the universe are going to send their kids to the University of Florida or the University of Texas to learn some halfhearted religious bullshit? Hell no! They want the best educations for their kids. They will not be utilizing the educational systems that have been degraded in order to redirect more wealth into their own bank accounts. Harvard and Yale will educate a crop of imperial capitalists, grow their fortunes, deploy them down to desperate Southern states that they can plunder, and then accept their children back again in order to repeat the process. Notice what the Southern states themselves get out of this process: Less than nothing. They are making the ambient education levels of their own residents lower in order to be better exploited by out-of-state wealth. They are ensuring that their own residents will be less competitive with the Harvard cutthroats of the future. They are locking themselves into a perpetual cycle of having to offer ever more extravagant enticements for out-of-state rich people to come on down, because they robbed themselves of the ability to build their own ladder upwards by giving it all away to attract the last generation of out-of-state wealth. This deranged and suicidal cycle, at least, explains how this stupid system has gone on for so long. The way it is able to extract from the normal residents of a state in exchange for absolutely no positive return is a marvel to perceive."

2028 Dem hopefuls scramble for distance from AIPAC Democrats eyeing: White House bids are distancing themselves from the powerful pro-Israel group amid slumping support for Israel within the party’s base. - "'There are Iranian Americans that bundle money. There are Turkish Americans that bundle money. There are a lot of ethnic groups that bundle money, and often for things that I don’t agree with. But somehow AIPAC seems to be drawing a lot of attention, and that’s problematic to me,' Booker said. '[AIPAC] is not the problem in America. The problem in America is money in politics.'"

Decades after a Florida canal project was abandoned, advocates are trying to reunite 3 rivers

American Aviation Is Near Collapse: Fatal crashes, overstressed controllers, and endless security lines reveal a system teetering on the brink of failure.

How to get Big Tech to pay your energy bills: The most overlooked U.S. power plant isn’t a gas turbine or solar farm. It’s your house (and thousands of others), and firms are paying to use them to power data centers. - "Your home offers another solution to the energy shortage. The concept is simple. When thousands of homes are coordinated together by software into what are known as distributed or virtual power plants (VPPs), they can deliver or free up a power plant’s worth of electricity for the grid by dialing down consumption from smart appliances like electric water heaters or dispatching electricity from home batteries. This approach can bring hundreds of megawatts online in months, not the years it can take to build a new power plant."

Europe’s Far Right Is Turning on Trump: The president’s attempt to influence elections across the Atlantic is backfiring.

Reading archive 2026-03-14

They came to build China’s EV future. Investigators found conditions akin to ‘slavery.’: The electric carmaker BYD was hailed as a job creator in a struggling Brazilian city. Then authorities started investigating an improbable tip.

Florida Is Trying to Ignore Measles Until It Can’t: The state is in the midst of an outbreak, but its health department has been mostly silent.

The Great American Condo Crisis: If the U.S. wants to remain a nation of homeowners, it has no choice but to start building condos again. - "Condos also encounter discriminatory treatment in the federal tax code. If an investor finances an apartment and retains ownership, she pays capital-gains taxes, which top out at 20 percent. But if she finances a condo and sells it off, she pays income taxes, which top out at 37 percent. "

Why Trump Didn’t Plan for the Strait of Hormuz: In wartime, the enemy always gets a vote.

D.C. officials say new Commanders stadium project remains on schedule as council raises questions about redevelopment promises: The RFK Stadium redevelopment in D.C. is on track, with stormwater work set for spring, but council members demand clarity on community benefits.

Reading archive 2026-03-13

AP Exclusive: Smithsonian museum will revamp its slavery exhibit after artifact loan runs out

Suspect in synagogue crash lost family in Israeli attack on Lebanon, official says: The FBI is investigating the Michigan attack as a “targeted act of violence against the Jewish community.”

Why China could emerge a winner from Trump’s global energy shock: China’s evolution into an “electrostate” may help insulate it from spiking oil prices.

Economy was shakier than it appeared heading into Iran conflict: Inflation remained elevated in January, and economic growth from October through December was sharply lower than initially reported.

Can Florida save Trump’s plan to keep GOP in power?: Republicans in Florida say they may not be able to deliver the type of redistricting bonanza that would give the party breathing room in the midterms.

He’s 27. She’s 54. Somehow ‘Age of Attraction’ thinks no one can tell.: The show’s gimmick: Nobody has any idea how old the others really are! However: They all look exactly the age they are.

‘Some parents said they’d break my knees’: the teacher who exposed Putin’s primary school propaganda

Palantir CEO Makes Shocking Confession on Disrupting Democratic Power: They’re saying the quiet part out loud now. - "'This technology disrupts humanities-trained—largely Democratic—voters, and makes their economic power less. And increases the economic power of vocationally trained, working-class, often male, working-class voters,' Karp said in a CNBC interview Thursday. 'And so these disruptions are gonna disrupt every aspect of our society. And to make this work, we have to come to an agreement of what it is we’re going to do with the technology; how are we gonna explain to people who are likely gonna have less good, and less interesting jobs.'"

Why right-wing media can’t stop Candace Owens: Erika Kirk’s defense of herself gets drowned out by “Bride of Charlie” documentary - "For decades, conservative media has thrived on a business model that monetizes outrage and distrust. The more outrageous the claim, the greater the engagement. The more distrust sowed toward institutions — universities, media, elections, public health, the FBI — the more loyal the audience becomes. In December, even as Owens was deep into Charlie Kirk assassination trutherism, Erika Kirk was urging TPUSA audiences to be tolerant of disagreeable views. By the time the right decided Owens had gone too far, she had already built a fully independent operation. The movement that once shielded Owens is now discovering that monsters raised on grievance do not recognize fences. The conservative movement no longer has credible gatekeepers. Right-wing media’s fragmentation means that condemnation from established outlets often strengthens, rather than weakens, insurgent figures like Owens.

...

"For all its focus on Erika Kirk, “Bride of Charlie” is not really about her. Nor is it even really about Charlie Kirk. It is about an identity crisis on the American right —  what happens when a media movement decides that the thrill of the conspiracy, the pleasure of the accusation, the dopamine of the “truth bomb” matters more than the actual truth. Right-wing media cannot stop Candace Owens because they cannot renounce the incentives that made her powerful."

Trump administration allows for Russian oil sales as energy prices soar: The move is likely to be a boon to Russia as the United States tries to stem the economic fallout from its war on Iran. - "The move will provide a huge financial boost to Russia, which experts say has already been receiving about $150 million per day from increased oil sales since the U.S. attacked Iran two weeks ago."

Reading archive 2026-02-04

Stephen King’s The Shining, If the Hotel Had Possessed Wendy Instead of Jack

The Evolutionary Brilliance of the Baby Giggle - "Indeed, this idea — that laughter is primarily social, less about comedy and more about connection — holds true for adults as well, and has been underscored by research showing that laughter overwhelmingly occurs in the company of others and typically follows banal remarks in conversation, rather than in response to jokes or punchlines. 

"The signature belly laughs seen in the video above are involuntary, bursting forth during genuine, uncontrollable amusement. This type of laughter is driven by the brain’s limbic system, structures crucial for emotion, memory and motivation. But by 6 months, our lab has found, infants can intentionally produce a laugh. This ability comes not from the limbic system but from the brain’s language areas and emerges at the same time as babbling. Six-month-olds will deploy laughter to prolong a game of peekaboo or to signal a desire to join in."

Texas Democrats taste victory, then turn on each other: Days after their win in a state Senate race, reports of a racially charged comment roil the U.S. Senate primary contest.

As cold-stunned invasive iguanas fall from trees, Floridians scoop them up for killing: These cold-blooded reptiles’ nervous systems shut down when temperatures dip into the 40s and below. This time, that meant killing season.

Choose your crisis, Congress: Six paths to fiscal disaster: The national debt is nearing $39 trillion. Dire consequences are coming.

Trump, in an Escalation, Calls for Republicans to 'Nationalize' Elections: The comments, made on a conservative podcast, follow a string of moves from his administration to try to exert more control over American elections.

What a swing House district in Colorado shows about Republicans’ immigration fallout in the midterms

Kansas Legislature Passes Trans Bathroom Bounty, Drivers License Revocations: “They're using very overtly anti-democratic measures to pass all this stuff because they know that it's unpopular.”

These Trump voters 'formed a suicide pact' and Republicans are panicking: ex-GOP operative

‘They Voted For Trump, And Now They’re In Tears’—Now Rural Farmers Say Tariffs & Costs Are Pushing Them Toward Bankruptcy

St. Peter police chief intervened and got federal agents to release resident, sources say

Donald Trump vowed to unleash U.S. oil. A year later, low prices are squeezing Texas producers.

Reading archive 2026-01-20

To Their Shock, Cubans in Florida Are Being Deported in Record Numbers: Cubans had long benefited from legal privileges unavailable to immigrants from other countries. President Trump has changed that.

Americans Are Turning Against Gay People

Trump says U.K. ‘stupidity’ on Chagos Islands justifies Greenland demands: The United Kingdom agreed to grant Mauritius sovereignty over the archipelago, one of whose islands hosts a U.K.-U.S. military base.

Would Trump abandon Taiwan? This deal is slightly alarming.: The announcement of a U.S.-Taiwan trade agreement had a potentially ominous undercurrent.

Indiana judge and his wife injured in shooting at their home, police say: Lafayette police said Judge Steven P. Meyer of Tippecanoe County Superior Court and his wife, Kimberly, are in stable condition. The shooter remains at large.

She helped him flee a rally, then learned he was a right-wing provocateur: Jake Lang, a pardoned Jan. 6 rioter, jumped into a stranger’s car after he was driven from his anti-immigrant march in Minneapolis by a large counterprotest.

The White House wanted an ICE spectacle. It backfired.: The shooting of Renée Good in Minneapolis may mark a turning point in public opinion.

I found the most complete protein. It’s not meat.: The most “complete” protein is probably one you’re already eating.

Officials showed off a robo-bus in D.C. It got hit by a Tesla driver.: The automated vehicle display was part of a push from the White House to advance automated driving.

These prophets of economic doom are worried about another collapse" The current investment boom is triggering déjà vu for some economists and traders who successfully predicted past economic crashes.

This company says it has produced the Holy Grail of batteries: New batteries in electric vehicles could store more energy, charge faster and last longer, while lowering fire risk

Colorado’s wolves in the political crosshairs as Trump targets the state: A program to reintroduce the predators is essentially blocked, with Colorado leaders saying the state is being punished for jailing election denier Tina Peters.

"What Is Going to Happen?": How to reject a new normal.

Reading archive 2026-01-06

Disgust Over Jan. 6 Is No Longer Bipartisan

Officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 say their struggles linger, 5 years after the riot

This is Europe’s secret weapon against Trump: it could burst his AI bubble - "First, Dutch company ASML commands a global monopoly on the microchip-etching machines that use light to carve patterns on silicon. These machines are essential for Nvidia, the AI microchip giant that is now the world’s most valuable company. ASML is one of Europe’s most valuable companies, and European banks and private equity are also invested in AI. Withholding these silicon-etching machines would be difficult for Europe, and extremely painful for the Dutch economy. But it would be far more painful for Trump. 

"The US’s feverish investment in AI and the datacentres it relies on will hit a wall if European export controls slow or stop exports to the US – and to Taiwan, where Nvidia produces its most advanced chips. Via this lever, Europe has the means to decide whether and by how much the US economy expands or contracts. 

"Second, and much easier for Europe, is the enforcement of the EU’s long-neglected data rules against big US tech companies. Confidential corporate documents made public in US litigation show how vulnerable companies such as Google can be to the enforcement of basic data rules. Meanwhile, Meta has been unable to tell a US court what its internal systems do with your data, or who can access it, or for what purpose."

How Walmart And Pepsico Rigged Prices And Supercharged Food Inflation

‘Their first instinct was to loot’: how Trump’s acolytes are plundering the Kennedy Center - "Democrats on the committee said they obtained documents that suggest the national cultural centre is being operated as a 'slush fund and private club for Trump’s friends and political allies', resulting in millions of dollars in losses and a significant deviation from its statutory mission."

A Horseshoe Theory of Trump: His economic approach combines libertarianism and authoritarianism. - "Trump's economic management combines two theoretically incompatible tendencies. It is at once libertarian, because the state is doing less to protect consumers and workers, and authoritarian, because the government sometimes lawlessly interrupts the workings of the free market in service of the personal and ideological interests of Trump and his allies. This makes MAGA economics a seemingly impossible hybrid: libertarian authoritarianism.

...

"Authoritarianism and libertarianism are commonly thought of as opposites-two poles on a political spectrum. It is a sign of Trump's distinctive political genius that he has managed to combine the two concepts. By tearing down generally applicable restraints on corporate behavior while selectively exerting direct influence to reward his allies and punish his critics, he has managed to preserve all the flaws of the old Republican economic approach while introducing new ones that are even worse."

Trump Seizing Greenland Could Set Off a Chain Reaction: After Venezuela, Europeans are taking the president’s threats seriously. - "A Danish lawmaker, who spoke with us on the condition of anonymity to address the security situation candidly, said that the very notion of the U.S. invading Greenland-both mounting an invasion and defending against it-is absurd. The island is nearly four times the size of France and is mostly ice. The lawmaker told us that Danes are particularly baffled by Trump's designs on Greenland because he could accomplish all of his security objectives by working with Denmark, a committed U.S. ally. During the Cold War, there was even a nuclear-powered U.S. base built under Greenlandic ice. 'If the Americans want another military base, just say where,' the lawmaker said. 'If you want a radar, you can put it up.'"

Trump’s ‘American Dominance’ May Leave Us With Nothing: The president’s moves in Venezuela foretell a new global system. - "If America is just a regional bully, after all, then our former allies in Europe and Asia will close their doors and their markets to us. Sooner or later, 'our' Western Hemisphere will organize against us and fight back. Far from making us more powerful, the pursuit of American dominance will make us weaker, eventually leaving us with no sphere, and no influence, at all."

You Won’t Believe Who Trump Told About Venezuela Attack Ahead of Time: Here’s a hint: it wasn’t Congress.

The data center rebellion is here, and it’s reshaping the political landscape As the buildout of AI infrastructure alarms communities, it is fast emerging as a potent electoral issue across the political divide - "Many of the neighbors fighting the project in Sand Springs voted for Trump three times and also backed Republican Gov. J. Kevin Stitt, who implores tech firms to build in his state."

Emails outline potential cuts affecting thousands of FEMA disaster responders: DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has said she wants to reduce FEMA’s staff by half. Drafted plans show how it can happen.

Mamdani’s new tenant advocate wants to seize private property: Socialists keep dreaming of collectivism, as New Yorkers suffer from unserious housing policy. [ed. note: the WaPo editorial board continues to spiral out]

Corporation for Public Broadcasting, gutted of federal funds, votes to dissolve: President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans succeeded this summer in stripping federal funds from public media. Now the 58-year-old organization is gone.

George Conway, critical of Trump, enters crowded Democratic House primary: In an interview, the newly registered Democrat emphasized his opposition to the president, as he seeks to stand out in a packed open race in New York.

Congress has four weeks to dodge another shutdown: Appropriators are rushing to complete full-year spending bills before the Jan. 30 deadline.

Lawmakers battle over how — and whether — Jan. 6 should be remembered: A hidden plaque honoring the police who defended the Capitol during the 2021 insurrection has sparked new fights between Democrats and Republicans.

He was attacked on Jan. 6. Can he make sense of it for the kids he teaches?: Nathan Tate was a D.C. police officer defending the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Now he’s trying to find the lesson in it.

Humans May Be Able to Grow New Teeth Within Just 4 Years: Scientists are on the verge of a dental miracle.

Debunking the AI food delivery hoax that fooled Reddit: A “whistleblower” tried to corroborate his viral post with AI-generated evidence. This is how I caught him. PLUS: Grok's image-generation crisis, and the rapture over Claude Opus 4.5 - "While AI systems are notoriously unreliable at identifying their own outputs, Google Gemini can detect SynthID watermarks embedded in images that it produces."

15 Scenarios That Could Stun the World in 2026: Futurists, political analysts and other forecasters on the possible “Black Swan” events of the new year.

Call Trump's power grab in Venezuela what it is: Corporate media must recognize they're being openly lied to—and report accordingly. - "From a journalist's perspective, however, it’s much more challenging to figure out how to cover a president who you know is actively lying to you. But it’s a challenge we reject at our own peril."

This once iconic oyster industry crashed. Soon, harvesting will begin again.: Florida’s Apalachicola Bay once supplied more than 90 percent of the state’s oysters. But it has been off-limits to harvesting for five years. That changes Jan. 1.

Why smaller houses can lead to happier lives: It turns out asking “Are you happy with your home?” yields a very different answer than “Are you happy with your life?”

Republican Rep. LaMalfa dies, further narrowing GOP’s House majority: The death of the seven-term congressman, coupled with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s vacating her seat Tuesday, means Republicans are likely to face trouble advancing partisan legislation.

Do wind turbines kill birds?: Yes—but only a fraction as many as are killed by house cats, buildings, or even the fossil fuel operations that wind farms replace.

U.S. State That Abandoned Canadian Tourists Tries Again As Canada’s Travel Boycott Hits The Holidays

Reading archive 2025-12-30

Byron Donalds faces racist attacks in Florida’s ugly GOP gubernatorial primary

How a landlord responded when tenants formed a union, stopped paying rent: In Kansas City, Missouri, where housing costs are rising at twice the national average, a successful rent strike at one building inspired another across town in what is poised to become a national movement.

As Russia’s war grinds on, its society is fraying: The Kremlin presents the country as strong, united and on an inevitable path to victory, but as peace negotiations drag on, Russian society is deteriorating. - "'Everyone still wants to take Odesa. It’s a common opinion: People want to go to Odesa on vacation again,' Gribova said. 'For us, this is a civil war between Russians and Russians who have forgotten a bit that they are Russians, that’s all.'"

The U.S. may have a secret weapon against rising electricity prices: Most of the year, grid utilization is around 50 percent. Could that be used to lower prices? - "When utilities build more infrastructure — more poles, more wires, more power plants — they also get to profit from those investments. They can’t make a profit from their operating expenses, the cost to keep the existing system running. 'If they were in the apple business, they get paid for planting more trees, not growing more apples,' said Amit Narayan, the co-founder and CEO of GridCARE."

Black-footed ferrets born in Virginia in cloning-research milestone: Eleven kits born this summer at a National Zoo facility are the descendants of ferrets cloned from decades-old frozen cells.

As rumors swirl after political killings, this GOP lawmaker draws a line: Minnesota state senator Julia Coleman knew both Charlie Kirk and Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman. She is fed up with the conspiracy theories around their deaths. - "Coleman sees conspiracies and misinformation trending more on her own side, the political right, but believes the problem transcends partisan loyalties. In Minnesota, traumatized legislators have stayed away from Hortman and Kirk conspiracy theories, and many have been speaking out against them, Coleman said."

I fed my dog vegan kibble for a year. Why the switch is now permanent.: Vegan pet food is gaining human and animal fans alike, as people look to reduce their household’s environmental impact and enhance their pets’ health. - "'As long as you’re feeding your pet a commercial food, you are doing right by your pet,' says Fox. 'This has been researched to death. All that research says that dog food is what’s best for dogs. It’s almost worse for cats, who have very specific needs.'"

Homeland Security seeks emergency demolition of historic buildings in D.C.: DHS Secretary Kristi L. Noem, in a memo obtained by The Washington Post, said the buildings “constitute a present risk to life and property.” Preservationists contend no evidence of an emergency exists.

The Truth About Immigration That MAGA Doesn’t Acknowledge: American families rely on immigrants to take care of their children. - "In the first half of this year, Trump's ICE agency made twice as many arrests as it did under the Biden administration during the same period last year. These efforts seem to have created a chilling effect, making many female immigrants scared to show up for work. According to a report from the New America Foundation published earlier this month, the arrests were associated with a loss of about 39,000 foreign-born child-care workers. Meanwhile, 77,000 U.S.-born mothers of kids under 5 dropped out of the workforce."

Conservatives Want the Antebellum Constitution Back: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments are in trouble. - "The Constitution of the Roberts Court is not color-blind. It is a Constitution that permits discrimination on the basis of race, but forbids alleviating discrimination on the basis of race. And over the next year, the Court will face more cases that could further erode both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, pushing America back toward what some on the right believe is the true, Antebellum Constitution.

...

"The blood of Confederate soldiers who would never own a slave watered southern fields because they saw slavery as the cornerstone of their social and economic order. The Populists failed to ameliorate the deprivation of the Gilded Age because white laborers who had more in common with their Black counterparts chose the psychological wage offered by Jim Crow over the literal wages that might be earned through brotherhood. The MAGA elite offers a similar fantasy today, though the number of Trump voters who will see a loved one deported or their paycheck dwindle will eclipse by orders of magnitude those who rub shoulders with donors in his new ballroom. 

MAGA's ruling caste will not be as overtly racially circumscribed as in the past. But we can trace its contours in the Trump administration's policy decisions and legal victories, and the Roberts Court's resurrection of the Antebellum Constitution. The path the justices are walking leads to Calhoun's paradise: an America where a class of stateless children can be denied education and medical care; where people of color must carry identification papers if they don't want to be harassed, detained, imprisoned, or worse; where workers can be subject to invidious discrimination without recourse; where the military points guns at the taxpayers who fund it; and where the official ideology of the state is vindicated by elections the ruling party cannot lose. It will be a society of the dominators and the dominated. But it will not be a democracy worthy of the name.

‘It’s Very Controversial, but I Love Nick Fuentes’ The white-supremacist influencer cast a shadow over Turning Point USA’s annual gathering. - "Young anti-Fuentes attendees I spoke with also repeated the same sentiment about him to me: The Boomers don't get how much of a problem he is for the future of the right. 'It's true the Groypers are here,' Dimas Guaico, a 29-year-old advocate with Generation Zion, told me. 'I feel like a lot of the leadership here, including TPUSA leadership, haven't done enough to call Groypers out. Now I feel like it's too late.'"

There Were Two Charlie Kirks: A new book by the right-wing activist, who was murdered in September, has moments of seriousness, beauty, and cross-partisan appeal.

CBS and CNN Are Being Sacrificed to Trump: Media conglomerates want the president’s permission for mergers—and control of news outlets is at stake. - "The fate of Warner Bros. Discovery is no longer a regulatory matter. It is a medieval tournament, in which the king invites rival bidders to compete for his approval. To acquire the media company, the aspirants - Paramount and Netflix - will have to offer a sacrifice: Whoever can damage CNN the most stands to walk away with the prize. 

This is one of those moments in Donald Trump's presidency when an event that would otherwise be recognized as a death knell for democracy somehow fails to elicit the outrage it deserves. Warner Bros. Discovery owns CNN, whose coverage Trump views as hostile to his administration. So he is abusing the government's merger-approval power in order to insist that the next owner of the venerable outlet mold its journalism to his liking.

...

"The whole system, including the courts, can no longer be counted on to provide a buffer against Trump. Over the past several months, Trump has transformed once-independent agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission into extensions of his will. (And the Supreme Court is likely to lend its imprimatur to this power grab in the Trump v. Slaughter decision it will hand down next year.) Those agencies were created, exuding the ethos of the Progressive era, with a simple mandate: to make technocratic decisions that transcend partisanship. That is why they were required to be bipartisan in composition. Strip them of that independence, and regulatory approval becomes something closer to royal favor."

The Other Way the ‘Super Woke’ Left Discriminates Race and gender aren’t the only categories that determine who gets special treatment. [ed. note: this poor sad fucker]

Get Ready to Start Hearing About Aileen Cannon Again: The Florida-based judge is likely to once again play a central role in politics in the new year.

Reading archive 2025-12-11

Hundreds quarantined as South Carolina measles outbreak accelerates: A state epidemiologist said the spike in cases came in the wake of Thanksgiving travel and a lack of vaccinations. At least 16 cases were traced to a church.

Democrats face a mess in Texas: A late shuffle in the primary race could cost the party a Senate seat.

Tim Walz is crumbling, along with his 2028 hopes: The Minnesota governor tries to answer for social services fraud on his watch.

How antisemitism is entering mainstream culture: Celebrities demanding the release of a convicted Palestinian terrorist signals a deep problem.

Republicans will regret ceding this issue to the left: New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani explained due process in a video. Kristi Noem didn’t like that.

Why these red state Republicans are resisting Trump’s efforts to expand GOP power: Republicans hold a 40-10 advantage in the state Senate but may still reject Trump’s pressure. ‘Hoosiers are very independent.’

Lawmakers launch bipartisan, last-minute bids to force vote on ACA subsidies: Either of the efforts would need the support of nearly all House Democrats to succeed.

Military admits ‘mistake’ in viral arrest of U.S. civilian in Japan: Kareem El, a civilian from Washington, D.C., visiting Okinawa, was held by U.S. military police for declining to provide identification.

D.C.’s Anita Bonds won’t run again, further shaking up 2026 elections: D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At Large), 80, says it’s time for “new energy” as the 2026 election cycle promises to bring change to the city’s leadership.

Why a Democratic upset in Miami should worry Trump: How a Democrat won the mayor’s race for the first time since 1997.

Texas midterms point to ideological corners, not swing-state issues: Next year’s contests seem destined to produce a congressional delegation of staunch conservatives and liberals, as determined by primary voters.

At the first stop on his affordability tour, Trump mocks affordability: What was supposed to be a speaking tour to connect with Americans struggling with higher prices and stagnant wages was instead a greatest-hits campaign speech. - "'Let me tell you, Black people love Trump,' he said, and then added: 'They know a scam better than anybody.'"

Trump order to keep Michigan power plant open costs taxpayers $113m: Critics say JH Campbell coal-fired plant in western Michigan is expensive and emits high levels of toxic pollution

A Kansas town chose cruelty. Now it mourns as the mayor faces voter fraud charge and deportation.

‘Deeply demoralizing’: how Trump derailed coal country’s clean-energy revival - "The cuts have deepened existing mistrust in government, known colloquially as Appalachian fatalism, yet many of those interviewed by the Guardian blame Washington politics generally rather than Trump.

"'This party has taken away that funding from Appalachia illegally: that’s the stone-cold fact. But by the time those facts reach communities on the ground, it’s just so muddy. I think some are asking questions about why training is being shut down and why they didn’t get their Snap [food assistance] benefits, but where they’ll find the answers is the big issue,' said Hannah." [ed. note: they'll blame everyone but themselves]

Church displays Nativity scene with baby Jesus in zip ties, ICE agents

Reagan judges surface as unfiltered assessors of Trump

Reading archive 2025-12-08

Pssst. Even a healthy Jayden Daniels hasn’t been very good.: The second-year quarterback’s regression from a starry rookie season goes beyond the fact that he has struggled to stay on the field for the Commanders.

The ACC broke the College Football Playoff, and Notre Dame paid the price: The trickle-down effects of a bloated conference crowning an illogical champion led to the Fighting Irish missing the 12-team playoff field.

Ask a Vet: Is it cruel to neuter my dog?: The debate over a common procedure — and why some countries view it as a form of mutilation.

Donald Trump’s Kennedy Center is showier, emptier and more political: In 10 months, the president has transformed Washington’s cultural hub. Now comes his biggest night yet: the Kennedy Center Honors.

A show of Australian Indigenous art should have inspired awe. It’s a mess.: “The Stars We Do Not See” at the National Gallery of Art tells — and muddies — one of the most fascinating stories in 20th-century art.

Glyphosate safety article retracted eight years after Monsanto ghostwriting revealed in court - "This is how man created Astrology, which is effectively a random collection of lights in a 2-D view of a 3-D universe from Earth, correlated with some human affair."

I was a red state governor. What I saw at Harvard surprised me. The spirit of association remains alive in unexpected places. - "What I’ve experienced may be a natural return to Harvard’s more moderate bearings, following noisy displays of intolerance by campus agitators in recent years. Or it may be due to the Trump administration’s forceful executive orders and fiscal pressure. Either way (and it’s probably both), let’s take the win and learn the broader lesson." [ed. note: he wasn't there, so how would he know it has changed at all?]

How Florida lost track of 30,000 students, a ‘cautionary tale’ for vouchers: The state’s auditor general found “a myriad of accountability problems” in the nation’s largest voucher program.

Trump announces $11 billion tariff relief for farmers: Farmers — particularly those who produce soybeans — have felt the effect of the president’s trade policies.

GOP bill to overhaul D.C. bail system could balloon jail population: Republicans in Congress want to end cashless bail in D.C. and hold more suspects in jail before trial. Watchdogs say it could push the jail system to the brink. - "Data shows that such instances are rare. In D.C., in the first three quarters of fiscal year 2025, 90 percent of people did not reoffend while released, according to the federal Pretrial Services Agency; about 1.2 percent committed a violent offense while released."

Suspect in Jan. 6 pipe bomb case appears in court as probe continues: News of Brian Cole Jr.’s arrest came as a shock to a person who has been in regular contact with him for more than a decade.

D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith is stepping down: D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser praised Smith for her service but did not offer a reason for her departure. Smith said she resigned to spend more time with family.

The quest to slow aging leads scientists into the powerhouse of cells: Texas A&M researchers create mini mitochondria factories using tiny nanoflowers.

Democrats, who once lambasted Trump on immigration, have grown quiet: The lack of a unified voice comes as the crackdown on minority communities, including legal residents, has grown more aggressive.

Why Miami’s Trump backers are clashing with the ‘America First’ wing over Venezuela: As Trump threatens strongman Nicolás Maduro, Venezuelan and Cuban American supporters are urging the president to do whatever it takes to oust him. - "The Trump administration has said it is targeting Venezuela as part of a crackdown on drug trafficking, though the country is not one of the main suppliers of illicit drugs to the United States. Most fentanyl in the United States comes from Mexico, and most cocaine from Colombia. Very little of Venezuela’s drug production flows into U.S. borders, current and former U.S. officials say."

The tech fix that can clear the Western range of its barbed wire: GPS-based virtual fences clear migration corridors for wildlife while cutting costs for ranchers. - "This technology holds promise in part because ranchers themselves are not fence-lovers. Range fencing requires frequent repair, robbing ranchers of time they would prefer to invest in managing their herds. At upwards of $15,000 a mile, range fencing is also expensive, both to ranchers and to taxpayers. In 2018, the U.S. Agriculture Department subsidized more than $300 million of fencing on private ranch land.

"With virtual fencing, a cow is adorned with a solar-powered collar that communicates with a mapping app via satellite, cell or local reception tower to warn it — by an increasingly loud tone, followed by a mild electric shock — as it approaches a virtual fence line. Cows are not terribly smart, but they can be trained with the technology within a practice pasture in a few days. The current collars are a bit clunky. Cornell University scientists are developing an ear tag that does the same thing as the bulky collar."

The College Football Playoff Chose Outrage Notre Dame is out. Alabama and Miami are in. And the College Football Playoff committee just did what it does best. - "The conference title games exist to make money. To continue making money, they need teams to want to play in them. Telling the SEC runner-up that it would have made the playoff had it just stayed at home on Saturday, but now it’s been eliminated because it showed up and got its ass kicked, would undermine the entire point of college football: making people rich."

Reading archive 2025-10-31

As Hong Kong waged shadow war in Britain, ex-Royal Marine became a casualty: U.K. officials have tracked what they describe as an escalating campaign of surveillance and intimidation against Hong Kong exiles living in Britain.

He’s cleared 35,000 pounds of trash from Miami’s mangroves and isn’t done yet

Judge says she’ll likely order Trump administration to send SNAP funds to states: The move could keep food assistance flowing despite the federal government shutdown.

D.C. police chief wants to make juvenile curfew zone policy permanent: Lawmakers declined to extend the temporary measure enacted in the summer because, they said, the public hadn’t weighed in.

Teen charged with killing girlfriend, shooting congressional intern: Naqwan Lucas, 18, is the third teen arrested in the slaying of Eric Tarpinian-Jachym on a D.C. sidewalk this summer.

Trump now plays by China’s rules: The U.S. wins through openness and innovation, not tariffs and centralized planning. - "President Donald Trump loves playing by China Rules. He seems to admire Xi Jinping’s power — personal, discretionary, centralized. In his second term he has threatened blanket tariffs, personally intervened in the semiconductor supply chain, demanded a government stake in Intel, carved out special permissions for selling Nvidia chips in China (while taking a 15 percent cut for the U.S.) and acted as the banker on TikTok’s sale."

Presidential power and the Supreme Court’s own stature ride on this case: The momentous tariffs case will undermine or buttress the Constitution’s separation of powers.

Ohio approves new House map giving Republicans a leg up in two more seats: The new map received rare bipartisan agreement because Republicans who control the state legislature did not want to risk an election challenge from Democrats.

As U.S. ramps up the pressure, Venezuela pleads with Moscow, Beijing for help: Documents show Maduro drafted letter asking Russia for missiles, radars and upgraded aircraft as U.S. forces amass in the Caribbean.

In Trump’s GOP, the once-mighty tea party is hard to find: Since the movement upended politics 15 years ago, Republicans have moved in a sharply different direction under MAGA — with many tea party veterans along for the ride. - "'We feared government tyranny. We feared a strong executive. We feared oppressive government, any president who would take a flamethrower to the Constitution,' said former congressman Joe Walsh of Illinois, a tea party Republican who has since become a podcaster and anti-Trump Democrat. 'Now, the very thing we feared is in office.'"

Reading archive 2025-08-07

As hunger spread in Gaza, Israeli media began to focus on Palestinians: Amid reports of starvation in Gaza and growing international outrage, news of the worsening crisis began to break through into mainstream Israeli media.

These nuclear reactors fit on a flatbed truck. How safe are they?: The nuclear industry aims to miniaturize, looking to place hundreds of small power plants across the nation. - "Walker said a billionaire approached Nano inquiring whether the microreactor could be used to power a self-sustaining island community. 'They asked if it was possible to have a project where this could power their own vertical farm and their own desalination plant on an island that is completely self-sufficient,' Walker said. 'We communicated back that it is certainly possible.'"

What the fall of Florida’s oranges tells us about the future: Orange juice was once a national obsession. Disease and the beverage’s high sugar content are turning consumers away.

He could have been the GOP’s voice on crime, but his faith intervened: Phillip Todd, a staffer for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), was nearly killed in a random attack in D.C. He took two years to figure out what he wanted to say.

What’s really depressing America’s young men: The U.S. has two overlapping problems: the housing crisis and despondency in young men.

Millennials went wild for Outdoor Voices. Can it become cool again?: The beloved brand redefined athleisure. Its founder has returned with plans to shake it up.

We analyzed the research on 5 sleep supplements. Here’s what actually works.: No supplement is going to dramatically improve your sleep, but some may offer modest benefits with minimal side effects.

The economy is cracking. This trend is most alarming. The U.S. economy is growing ever more reliant on top earners. It’s risky — and tough for the middle class.

Radioactive wasp nests found near nuclear storage site in South Carolina: One of the nests found near the Savannah River Site had a radiation level 10 times what is allowed by federal regulations, according to a federal report.

The Democrats Are Blowing a Big Opportunity Right Now: What Trump understands about the Texas gerrymandering war that national Democrats do not

Reading archive 2025-08-05

D.C.’s Zoning Commission approves developer’s reworked McMillan site plan Jair Lynch’s plan to scale back the size of a grocery store in the new Reservoir District neighborhood is given the green light.

Momentum builds toward Netanyahu’s plan to occupy all of Gaza: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to discuss the move with top defense officials today, and Defense Minister Israel Katz is promising to “professionally implement” whatever the government decides.

Scientists say they’ve solved the mystery of starfish that turn to goo: Sea star wasting disease has killed billions of starfish and destroyed kelp ecosystems. In a study published Monday, researchers say they found the culprit.

One gene reveals clues to why humans thrived and Neanderthals didn’t: Humans and Neanderthals are virtually identical at the genetic level. Scientists are probing the differences to understand why we are here, and they aren’t.

Woman who ran over children in crosswalk on their way to school given 4 months: The judge in the case called the punishment ‘woefully inadequate.’

China is winning the trade war Trump started: On many fronts, Trump is inadvertently aiding China’s anti-American dictatorship. - "The countries that have done trade deals with Trump can breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that their situation could be much worse. But Trump’s bullying is leaving hard feelings in its wake. One former Japanese trade official called the U.S. deal “humiliating,” while a Japanese economist called it 'completely unacceptable for Japan.' That’s an odd way to treat allies that the United States needs to contain China."

The AI spending boom could have real consequences for the U.S. economy: As revisions to U.S. jobs numbers call into question economic growth, Big Tech is becoming an even more important part of American prosperity.

This isn’t the same Democratic Party as Trump’s first term: Polls show a base of voters who are growing more liberal and less trusting of leaders in both parties.

D.C. area is feeling toll of federal spending cuts. These charts show how.: Amid signs of a broader economic slowdown, unemployment is up, spending is slowing and signs of strain are emerging across key sectors that once helped prop up the national capital region.

Latino GOP lawmakers voice worry about Trump’s mass deportation campaign: They expressed fears that the inroads Trump and the GOP made with Latino voters in 2024 could erode.

Smithsonian to restore Trump to impeachment exhibit ‘in the coming weeks’: A placard referring to Trump’s two impeachments was removed from the National Museum of American History in July, after the Smithsonian agreed to perform a “content review.”

Reeling over alleged child sex ring, Alabama community asks: ‘Did no one know?’: At prayer meetings and other gatherings, Bibb County residents have grappled with the realization that horrific crimes may have been happening in their town.

The simple way Democrats should talk about Trump and Epstein

Texas Democrats decamp to Illinois to deny Republicans a quorum on redistricting: In response, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to try to remove the Democrats from the state Legislature and said some of them may even be "felons."

Supreme Court tees up Louisiana redistricting case that could undercut Voting Rights Act

The Billionaire Behind Mysterious Immigration Ads Targeting Miami Republicans: “Deporting immigrants is cruel,” some of the ads against Cuban Americans in Congress read. Michael B. Fernández wanted to “wake up” Miami’s conscience.

Sneaking Into the Spy Museum’s New Vault

Reading archive 2025-06-18

Bill Cassidy Blew It The senator failed America on vaccines.

The Democratic Party Slides Into Irrelevance: Why aren’t these boom times for America’s opposition party?

Hear the different ways EVs are reinventing the sound of a car

These centrist women on a group chat are leading Democrats in 2025: Abigail Spanberger, Mikie Sherrill and Elissa Slotkin, who ascended during President Donald Trump’s first term in 2018, are playing major roles for their party this year, in governor’s races and beyond.

I was worried about Trump’s Army parade — until I saw it For the army, this was mission accomplished.

D.C. mayor pushes youth curfew as council advances public safety bills: The D.C. Council also debated a separate public safety bill introduced by Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) that would permanently expand pretrial detention and relax college credit requirements for police officers.

The entire D.C. bus network is changing June 29. Here’s what to know.: Hundreds of stops are disappearing, routes are being added and eliminated, and every route name will change.

The Jumping Frenchmen of Maine

Florida attorney general held in civil contempt over immigration law: A federal judge ruled that James Uthmeier violated an order halting the enforcement of a law, which makes it a crime for adults living in the U.S. illegally to enter Florida.

Industry leaders plead with White House on relief from raids after setback: The calls for a reprieve come after the Trump administration reversed a pause on immigration actions at farms, meatpacking plants, hotels and restaurants.

The Curse of Ayn Rand’s Heir: Leonard Peikoff dedicated his life to promoting the author’s vision of freedom and self-determination. But at what cost?

The Perilous Spread of the Wellness Craze: A new book reveals how health-care inequality fueled the spread of anti-science conspiracy theories.

It’s the End of the World (And It’s Their Fault): The tech bros have ascended to movie-villain status.

The Nobel Prize Winner Who Thinks We Have the Universe All Wrong: Cosmologists are fighting over everything. - "If dark energy continues to fade, as the DESI results suggest is happening, it may indeed go all the way to zero, and then turn negative. Instead of repelling galaxies, a negative dark energy would bring them together into a hot, dense singularity, much like the one that existed during the Big Bang. This could perhaps be part of some larger eternal cycle of creation and re-creation. Or maybe not. The point is that the deep future of the universe is wide open."

The Secret History of Trump’s Private Cellphone: “Who’s calling?” the president asks as he answers call after call from numbers he doesn’t know.

Ukraine’s Warning to the World’s Other Military Forces: Expensive planes, tanks, and ships can be destroyed on the cheap.

MAHA Has a Pizza Problem: Functionally banning school pizza is a tough sell.

Baby Boomers’ Luck Is Running Out: After a lifetime of good fortune, the generation has become vulnerable at exactly the wrong moment.

Reading archive 2025-06-13

Secret Russian Intelligence Document Shows Deep Suspicion of China: Russia’s spy hunters are increasingly worried about China’s espionage, even as the two countries grow closer.

Southern Baptists to Vote on Effort to Overturn Same-Sex Marriage: Motivated by their success in reversing Roe v. Wade, conservative Christian activists have a new target in Obergefell v. Hodges. They see early signs of promise. [ed. note: the voted overwhelmingly to do just that]

Former DOGE engineer says federal waste and fraud were 'relatively nonexistent'

D.C. pest control company exposed people to toxic chemicals, lawsuit says: The D.C. attorney general’s office also alleges the company operated without and submitted fake licensing credentials.

Deputy U.S. marshal shoots man near convention center in downtown D.C.: The wounded man was in surgery Thursday, according to authorities, who said the deputy “perceived a threat” before firing. The incident is under investigation.

Florida farmers now plowing over perfectly good tomatoes as Trump’s tariff policies cause prices to plummet

Why Chinese Fans Are Hiring Detectives for a Dead Kenyan Lion: When their favorite wild lion was killed, a tight-knit group of Chinese fans half a world away launched a global campaign for justice — via billboards in New York to private investigators in Kenya. [ed. note: left unmentioned is that the campaigns were in New York City and London because nothing of the sort is allowed in China]

D.C. is removing bike lane barriers for the first time, calling them ugly: Local officials say they spent hundreds of hours on a project that was unraveled in a few days.

Teen convicted in D.C. killing is not receiving court-ordered therapy: A judge last year ruled that the girl, 16, should be placed in a long-term treatment facility, but so far the city’s youth agency has not complied, her lawyer says.

Reading archive 2025-02-23

The Teacher in Room 1214: When a gunman killed two of her students, Ivy Schamis was the only adult in the room. Her journey through guilt and healing sheds light on the impossible role of American teachers.

Reading archive 2025-02-18

At forum, Bowser won’t rule out public funds for NFL stadium at RFK: The mayor’s vision is likely to face intense scrutiny from a divided D.C. Council and their constituents, who are not all convinced that it would be good for city taxpayers. - "Several focused on parking. How much space would NFL stadium parking requirements actually eat up? While Bowser estimated a stadium would take up 20 to 25 acres, she would not provide an estimate for parking space."

Special election set to fill former D.C. Council member Trayon White’s seat: The election is set for July 15, with early voting from July 11 to July 14, according to a spokesperson for D.C.’s Board of Elections.

Man charged in Florida shooting thought victims were Palestinians, police say: Mordechai Brafman is accused of firing 17 bullets at a car in Miami Beach, injuring two. An Israeli man later identified himself and his father as the victims.

How to keep your eyes healthy and your vision sharp: Cataracts, dry eyes, glaucoma and other eye problems become more common with age. Knowing the early signs and acting fast can make a difference.

High-ranking D.C. federal prosecutor resigns after order to investigate EPA grants: The leader of the criminal division stepped down saying there was basis to freeze Biden-era environmental grants but not yet evidence to open a criminal probe.