Reading archive 2026-06-24

‘It’s PR, not the ER’: Gen Z is resisting the workplace emergency: As the workforce evolves, younger generations are rejecting a frenetic approach to work that can create undue stress and cross work-life balance boundaries. - "It’s a little morbid, Jiles said, but she thinks of something her mother told her: 'At the end of the day, if you pass away, they’re just going to post your position and talk about how nice you were,' Jiles said. 'Do what you can. Do it well, but that’s it.'"

With Cuba, Trump had better beware of what he wishes for: What obligation does the U.S. bear toward the impoverished island prison?

Rocked by the Iran war, the UAE sours on Trump: ‘We got played’: Across the Persian Gulf region, the president was viewed as a pro-business ally, but his decision to wage war on Iran and his erratic conduct have tarnished his image.

Another Top General Is Out at the Pentagon: C. D. Donahue, the last American soldier to leave Afghanistan, is the latest in a long line of military departures. - "Donahue would be at least the sixth three- or four-star Army general to depart unexpectedly, out of the roughly 60 generals in the service who hold those ranks. They include the well-regarded General James Mingus, a former Army vice chief of staff. 'It's interesting that the guy who says he wants to bring back the warrior culture is expunging the biggest warriors in the Army ranks,' one retired Army officer told us. 'This is not a war on woke. This is a war on warriors.'"

SpaceX Just Needs the Money: What this year of humongous IPOs says about the tech industry - "Historically, this combination of a wave of IPOs and a rise in existing companies issuing more stock has not boded well for stocks in the long term. In many cases, a big surge in stock supply overwhelms demand-and raises questions about whether markets are properly reflecting value or inflating a bubble. As the economist and hedge-fund manager Owen Lamont has written, 'When firms are selling, you should generally sell as well.' The volatility of SpaceX stock, which has tumbled for days, erasing nearly all of the gains enjoyed by the average investor, shows just how much uncertainty attends even the most hyped stock offerings in a risky industry."

Inside the Dirty, Dystopian World of AI Data Centers: The race to power AI is already remaking the physical world. - "For now, using existing power sources more wisely, rather than building new ones, may be all the AI industry needs. Electrical grids are designed for periods of peak demand - cooling on summer afternoons, heating on winter mornings - but mostly they run well below maximum capacity. Researchers at Duke University have shown that if data centers reduced their electricity consumption during some of those peaks, it would free up enough electricity to accommodate the country's planned data centers for years. Google and xAI have already entered agreements to do so."

Reading archive 2026-03-27

How Reverse Game Theory Could Solve The Housing Shortage: Our hardest problems — from housing shortages to climate retreat to democratic trust and technology — aren’t failures of politics; they’re failures of incentives.  "This is the promise of mechanism design: It suggests our hardest problems — from housing shortages to climate retreat to democratic trust and technology — won’t be solved by better attitudes or more flexible positions. They will be solved by better architectures, by structures that treat division not as an obstacle to eliminate but as material to consider when building." [ed. note: mechanism design; Transferable Development Rights]

Where Are All the Campus Protests?: Two years ago, students occupied buildings and colonized the quad. Now the same places are strangely silent.

The Deep Risk That Republican Hawks Overlooked: If the Iran war goes badly, the isolationist, anti-Israel wing of the party is likely to steer the GOP’s future. - "Trump has held [America First and Neocons] in place through personalist rule. Anybody who supports Trump - however disreputable or criminal they might be - can be in the party, nobody in the party can oppose Trump, and the party's platform consists of whatever Trump has said at any given moment, even if it contradicts what he claimed to stand for yesterday. The holdover Republicans who have remained attached to the party's old identity (hawkish, pro-Israel, anti-Russia, opposed to anti-Semitism) have squabbled with its newer entrants. But those disputes could be settled by Trump, who has repeatedly declared, 'I am MAGA.'"

Infamous DC squatter sues homeowner, claims $500K in designer goods are missing

US newspaper circulations 2025: Washington Post print declines 21% in a year: Some 24 out of top 25 US newspapers saw print circulation decline in 2025.

Education Department headquarters will relocate as part of Trump’s dismantling

What gladiatorial politics will bury in the midterms: Never underestimate the Democrats’ ability to make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse. - "Trump, himself a highly caffeinated creature, has been caffeine for the electorate: a stimulant, who in 2024 upended the axiom that higher voter turnout is better for Democrats. Last spring, David Shor, a data scientist, calculated that if more people had voted, Kamala Harris would have fared even worse. Trump would have won the popular vote by almost five points instead of 1.4 points, and in doing so would have won five states he lost (Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Virginia). The electoral vote outcome would have been 355-183 instead of 312-226."

FBI probe of 2020 election count in Georgia faces crucial court hearing: A federal judge Friday will consider Fulton County’s request for the return of thousands of ballots seized by President Donald Trump’s Justice Department.

House Democrat violated ethics rules, panel finds, putting her seat in jeopardy: The Ethics Committee panel cited a years-long inquiry into whether Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick misused covid pandemic money. She has maintained her innocence. - "The Justice Department brought its charges against Cherfilus-McCormick and several others, including her brother and tax preparer, in November, concluding an investigation that began during the Biden administration."

U.S. uses hundreds of Tomahawk missiles on Iran, alarming some at Pentagon: More than 850 have been fired in just four weeks, people familiar with the matter said, raising concerns about the weapon’s limited supply.

Is The End of NATO Near?: The alliance has been battered by Trump’s threats.

A Turning Point in the Iran War: The president is discovering the high stakes of an escalation that damages energy facilities.

The Countdown to a Ground War: The president wants to avoid a long, messy entanglement, but all of the ground options promise to be just that.

The Immigration Restriction Trump Won’t Try: Focusing enforcement on employers might be the easiest choice in immigration policy—after all the hard ones are made. - "For these reasons, the Democrats proposing employer-focused enforcement all offer the same important caveat: Yes to E-Verify, but only after most of the undocumented people already in the country are given a path to legal status. 'Once we have immigration reform,' Gallego told me, 'and once we have actually legalized' most undocumented immigrants without a criminal record, then strict enforcement of E-Verify is the natural next step. Last August, the New Democrat Coalition, a caucus of 115 congresspeople, released an immigration plan embodying the same logic. It proposes beefing up border security, creating new visa categories and expanding existing ones, giving Dreamers a path to citizenship, and granting legal status to noncriminal undocumented immigrants who arrived more than five years ago and pay a fine."

Welcome to a Multidimensional Economic Disaster: The AI boom wasn’t built for the polycrisis. - "The way the money moves is concerning, but so is the AI industry's underlying business model. At every layer, the technology appears to decrease the value of its assets. The advanced AI chips that make up the majority of the cost of a data center? Their value rapidly decreases as they are superseded by the next generation of chips, meaning that the ultimate backstop for all of the data-center debt - selling the data center itself - is not actually a backstop. The way that AI companies make money when people use their products is also deflationary. OpenAI, Anthropic, and others charge users for using 'tokens,' the components of words processed by their bots. This means that tokens are an industrial commodity akin to, say, crude oil or steel. But unlike other commodities, the cost of each token is rapidly decreasing owing to advancements in AI's capabilities. Kedrosky called this 'a death spiral to zero.' As the value of a token plummets, the value of what data centers can produce also falls.

...

"Even if Iran and the Strait of Hormuz don't directly trigger an AI-driven financial crisis, the odds are decent that another vector could. (Remember tariffs?) Energy prices could stay elevated for years, because the targeted fossil-fuel facilities in the Persian Gulf will take a long time to restore. As the U.S. directs huge amounts of attention and military resources toward Iran, it's easy to imagine China launching an invasion of Taiwan - a scenario that terrifies Silicon Valley, because it would halt the production of chips needed to train frontier models. That's not even considering the single Dutch company that makes the high-tech lithography machines used to print virtually all AI chips, or the German company that makes the mirrors used in those machines. 'There are too many ways for it to fail for it not to fail,' Kedrosky said of the AI industry's web of risk. 'All you can say for sure is this is a fragile and overdetermined system that must break, so it will.'"

OpenAI Is Doing Everything … Poorly: The company’s sudden decision to pull the plug on Sora is a sign of deeper trouble.

What Was Clavicular?: The internet’s most famous looks-maxxer is far more pernicious than he may seem.

Reading archive 2025-04-29

How Gen Z Became the Most Gullible Generation: The almighty algorithm is fueling conspiracy theories among young people and ruining their ability to tell fact from fiction on the internet.

Trump complained to Bezos over report Amazon would show tariff impact: Amazon said staff had considered listing tariff costs on its low-cost Temu competitor, Amazon Haul, but it won’t proceed with the move. The Trump administration had condemned the idea after a news report.

let's FART girls 💩💨: On a rising flatulent trend that could be political while exploring what we lose in the loss of process. - "Become unscammable, an anti-con artist. Foster the life of a plant by growing plants, by taking the time to watch something grow in real time, to remind yourself of the work that only you can do alone with a little sun and a little water. Can you do that? Or will you buy one of those planters or plant people to do the job for you?"

The End of Chicken-Breast Dominance: The price of boneless chicken thighs is finally catching up with the price of white meat.

Radio Atlantic: In the Oval Office With Donald Trump: A conversation with Jeffrey Goldberg, Ashley Parker, and Michael Scherer about their recent interview with the president of the United States

Reading archive 2025-02-21

Trump is emulating Putin and Xi. Watch it end in an ‘own goal.’: The president’s approach to foreign policy helps Russia and China supersede America.

Why Gen Z men love Trump’s reign of destruction: Trump’s appeal to the demographic might not have to do with his policies.

Letters to the Editor: Canada’s quiet patriotism is on fire

The Trump Backers Who Have Buyer’s Remorse: With every new policy and offhand remark, Trump belies the imaginary versions of himself that inspired many of his supporters. - "Frankly, those who fell for these mirages should have known better. Trump is no conventional politician. He relies on instincts forged in the worlds of show business and real estate [and is] an entirely transactional actor with an unparalleled penchant for self-promotion and flimflam. Attempts to fit him into a traditional ideological box will always fail, because he has never met a box he couldn't sell for parts to the highest bidder."

The Secret That Colleges Should Stop Keeping: Despite ever-higher sticker prices, the real cost of getting a degree has been going down.

Musk’s blitzkrieg is unnerving many of Trump’s senior advisers Officials have been blindsided by DOGE’s actions. But the president’s strong support of the group means other advisers have limited options.

With multiple tariffs looming, farmers who support: Trump grow nervous They fear losing foreign customers for American crops - "For now, the Shirbrouns are prepared to give the president the benefit of the doubt. The tariffs could be just what’s needed to pry open markets in places like Europe, India and Southeast Asia, Suzanne said. It will be at least April before the president decides whether to go forward with the tariff escalation or not. Until then, farmers like the Shirbrouns hope that Trump’s tariffs are part of a savvy negotiating strategy, not an end in themselves." [ed. note: lol]

Reading archive 2025-02-19

Gen Z teens tell us why they stopped trusting experts in favor of influencers on TikTok - "It’s not that Gen Z doesn’t believe in experts. Rather, it’s that social media has rewired the way they think about credibility. TikTok influencers are now our 'friends.' The algorithm repeats and reinforces what we already believe. And a well-edited, engaging video is much more convincing than a long, complicated explanation from a professional. Credibility today isn’t about expertise but about who tells the most compelling story. This change is slowly reshaping how an entire generation decides what is true and what is not—sometimes with demonstrably negative results."

Crossroads of conflict: Ominous forces are converging in Africa. The stakes are high, and the reverberations could be felt well beyond its borders.

Jennifer Lopez, Troye Sivan lead lineup at WorldPride festival in D.C.: The 2025 WorldPride festival, which has celebrated LGBTQ+ communities for more than two decades, will honor the 50th anniversary of Pride celebrations.

After ceding power of the purse, GOP lawmakers beg Trump team for funds: Republican senators are asking Cabinet secretaries and other Trump officials to let money flow back into their states. - "'I think it’s very indicative of why the impoundment power is so dangerous,' said Matt Glassman, a former Capitol Hill staffer who worked for the Congressional Research Service for years. 'It creates a sort of favor-factory atmosphere where you’ve got to beg the president for your funding.'"

We may be able to trap climate pollution in ordinary rocks: Scientists say they have figured out how to transform rocks into something extraordinary: a high-tech, low-cost substance that can bend geological time and help stall — or even reverse — planetary warming.

Reading archive 2024-06-16

Here’s what the Christian right wants from a second Trump term: Religious conservatives see opportunities for fresh gains after a series of victories during Trump’s first term. Rights advocates see a dangerous blurring of church and state. - "Trump has said he will create a special Justice Department task force for investigating anti-Christian discrimination cases. He has vowed to halt federal programs deemed to promote gender transition and has threatened to pull federal funding from schools that do so. He has also told evangelicals that he would enable them to wield 'power at a level that you’ve never used it before.'"

Gen Z influencers who supported Biden in 2020 turn against him The Gaza war, lack of progress on climate change and a potential TikTok ban are spawning anti-Biden content — even among former supporters.

Opinion Tesla is now Musk’s dream factory: Its shareholders approved $50 billion for its CEO and wasted a final shot at dominating the EV market.

Fed’s higher interest rates do not get all the credit for lower inflation: Improvements in supply chains and availability of labor have helped, even though the economy didn’t respond as expected to rate hikes.

This city just made it illegal to advertise SUVs. Here’s why.: Edinburgh became the latest European capital city to ban ads for aviation, SUVs and more.

Leaked documents reveal patient safety issues at Amazon’s One Medical: Patient safety issues have increased since One Medical shifted care to a call center staffed by contractors, employees say.

Opinion The Hunter Biden and Trump trials were a litmus test. Only the Bidens passed.: The president’s family rallied in support of one of their own. Trump family members were conspicuously absent.

Opinion Biden should assume the polls are right, not wrong: The president’s approval rating hovers around 38 percent, and the picture is worse in swing states.

Incoming Post editor tied to self-described ‘thief’ who claimed role in his reporting: Unpublished book drafts and other documents raise questions about Robert Winnett’s journalistic record just months before he is to assume a top newsroom role.

Opinion You have no idea how hard it is to be Donald Trump: Decapitation, electrocution and expectoration are just a few of the emerging hazards.

D.C. Council votes on 2025 budget, opening mobile sports betting market: While lawmakers made some last-minute changes, much of the budget remained intact from the council’s first vote on its budget proposal in May.