Reading archive 2025-10-15

She won her election, but the House speaker still has not sworn her in: Congresswoman-in-limbo Adelita Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat, has mounted a media campaign meant to shame House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Can tourism be respectful? Native Hawaiians have a plan.: Hawaii wants visitors to appreciate Native culture. But larger economic forces pose a threat to the “regenerative” revolution.

Professor who teaches about antifascism moves to Europe after death threats: A Rutgers University professor who wrote a book about antifa received the death threats after he commented on President Donald Trump designating the movement a “domestic terrorist organization.” - Several far-right activists and other social media users homed in on Bray in late September, after he was quoted in news stories about President Donald Trump’s executive order designating antifa as a 'domestic terrorist organization.' Bray described antifa — a far-left decentralized global movement whose proponents oppose fascism — to The Washington Post at the time as 'a kind of coalition politics of all kinds of radicals' and 'not a group.'

...

"One online activist called Bray a 'domestic terrorist professor,' and another shared the address of his home in New Jersey. The campus’s chapter of the conservative student group Turning Point USA then launched a petition Thursday to demand that the university fire him, referencing Trump’s executive order and claiming Bray is a risk to their safety."

A quarter of FBI agents are assigned to immigration enforcement, per FBI data: The large number of reassignments — about 3,000 agents — reflect a vast reshaping of the agency and could put other priorities at risk. - "Agents have been pulled from duties related to cybercrimes, drug trafficking, terrorism, counterintelligence and more, the statistics show. Agents assigned to immigration enforcement are working with ICE to locate and arrest people in the country illegally."

Why this one area of cities is usually the poorest: The Department of Data went looking for geographic patterns in poverty, and stumbled upon a surprising culprit.

Katie Porter’s bid for governor is getting noticed – but not how she wants: Two viral videos have brought unwelcome attention to the former congresswoman, who has been leading polls in the 2026 California governor’s race.

Reading archive 2024-12-08

Return-to-work mandates are an invisible pay cut: They also might signal a weakening economy.

A Michigan roofer’s smart plan to end the housing crisis: “Trump Towers” across America could help solve the problem.

Federal employees scramble to insulate themselves from Trump’s purge: Career civil servants are scrubbing social media, changing job titles and looking for private sector work over fear that Trump might fire them

Amid Syria’s upheaval, a wariness over the rebels’ Islamist roots: Western governments long worried about a “catastrophic success” in Syria if Islamist fighters gained control. But experts say the rebels have changed.

How scientists are giving these rare, brainy birds a second chance: After years in captivity, five members of a rare bird species called the ʻalala, or Hawaiian crow, are flying free in the wild, officials announced Wednesday.

Reading archive 2024-07-11

Butterflies at wedding moved bride to tears. Soon strangers were weeping too.: “It was just the craziest thing to watch,” said photographer Brit Perkins. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

Kenyan police begin patrols, but Haiti’s gangs are unperturbed: Haitians are growing frustrated at the lack of action or an apparent plan to take on the heavily armed criminals.

Inflation eased further in June, helping cement path to rate cuts: Fed watchers increasingly think a first cut could come in September -- as long as the data continues to cooperate.

Is a hazy 2-point shift enough to warrant dumping Biden?: Baked-in views and incremental shifts add to uncertainty about November — and give the president cover.

Most Democrats want Biden to drop out, but overall race is static, poll finds: More than half of Democrats say Biden should end his candidacy. Overall, 2 in 3 adults say the president should step aside, including more than 7 in 10 independents.

From burn scar to wetland: After wildfires destroyed Lahaina, the battle to restore an ancient ecosystem will shape the town’s future.

Outrage in China after reports of fuel tankers transporting cooking oil: Multiple investigations are underway after revelations that tanker trucks used for carrying chemicals and waste then carried edible oil — without being cleaned.

Reading archive 2024-02-22

How everything became a ‘psyop’ for conservative media: It’s not just Taylor Swift. Right-wing pundits are branding everything from climate change to the Hunter Biden case a ‘psyop,’ though the conspiracy-tinged phrase is losing grip on an actual definition

Recall effort targets D.C. Council member Brianne Nadeau over crime surge: Like a separate effort to recall council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), the effort to recall Nadeau centers on public safety concerns.

Mike Lindell must pay man $5M in ‘Prove Mike Wrong’ challenge, judge says - "Robert Zeidman, a computer forensics expert who voted for Trump twice, did just that, a federal judge in Minnesota determined Wednesday, upholding a previous ruling from a private arbitration panel. Zeidman is owed the $5 million payout plus interest, Judge John Tunheim wrote in his Wednesday ruling. The decision is the latest development in a years-long effort to claim the prize, after Zeidman found that the data was not related to the 2020 election."

What the Pentagon has learned from two years of war in Ukraine: With hundreds of thousands dead or wounded and still no end in sight, the conflict has revealed that U.S. battlefield calculations must evolve - "Taylor told the story of an Apache helicopter pilot who successfully avoided air defense systems during a simulated attack. Personnel portraying the enemy forces were unable to determine the path the helicopter took, but after examining commercially available cellphone data, they were able to map the journey of a device traveling across the desert at 120 miles per hour. It revealed where the Apache flew to evade the defenses."

The American citizens fighting and dying for Israel in the Gaza war - "The Washington Post talked to three families of U.S. citizens killed while fighting for Israel. They were united in their fierce commitment to the Jewish state, having found in their adoptive country an identity that largely transcended their American passport."

What might happen after another inauguration of Donald Trump

Why Viagra has been linked with better brain health

Another GOP Biden ‘informant.’ Another indictment and link to Russia.: It’s been the story of many of those from whom Republicans have sought information

Biden’s dog bit Secret Service agents about 24 times, new records show: One biting incident involving Commander, the presidential dog, briefly shut down White House tours due to blood on the floor

Tiny homes meant for displaced Maui fire survivors are sitting empty

Leaked files from Chinese firm show vast international hacking effort

They committed crimes when they were young. Do we owe them a second chance? A film examining three cases in D.C. makes the argument for mercy - "'These guys, we went to prison, we did multiple decades and came home,' said Downing, now 42. 'Now that you see how we are, are you telling me that we had to do multiple decades in prison to come home?'" [ed. note: he and three accomplices kidnapped a woman, put her in the trunk of her own car, used her ATM card, took her to the woods, and shot her to death when she ran. I bet they were going to rape her. So, yeah.]

Reading archive 2023-08-24

A terrifying fire struck Maui in 2018. Officials were warned of a repeat.: Maui officials promised to improve fire safety following the near-deadly blaze, but didn’t broadly act, according to an investigation by The Post

Reading archive 2023-08-21

‘I am evil,’ wrote British nurse found guilty of murdering seven babies in her care

This french-fry boomtown is a climate change winner. But for how long?: Climate change has helped a small town become the world capital of french-fry production. But a dwindling water supply could reverse its progress entirely.

How Ukraine is exploiting Biden’s cluster bomb gamble

A tiny Hawaiian bird was nearing extinction. Then the Maui fires came.: With only five left in the wild, a Hawaiian bird called the 'akikiki is the country’s most endangered bird, with the Maui fires posing a new and unexpected threat - "When people — first Polynesians, then Europeans — arrived, they didn’t come alone. A cavalcade of cattle, pigs and goats trampled and devoured native vegetation. Feral cats, rats and mongooses, meanwhile, ate unsuspecting ground-nesting birds."

Trump touts authoritarian vision for second term: ‘I am your justice’: The former president is proposing deploying the military domestically, purging the federal workforce and building futuristic cities from scratch - "Trump’s emerging platform marks a sharp departure from traditional conservative orthodoxy emphasizing small government, which was famously summed up in Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address: 'Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.' Trump, by contrast, is proposing to apply government power, centralized under his authority, toward a vast range of issues that have long remained outside the scope of federal control."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/08/22/belarus-us-citizens-leave-embassy/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2023/china-fiji-police-mou-pacific-islands

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/22/wuhan-doctors-pandemic-china-coverup

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/22/foxconn-wisconsin-trump/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/22/trump-trade-tariffs/

Reading archive 2023-08-16

Increase in ‘subway surfing’ deaths prompts calls for safeguards: Metro officials said the agency made no changes after a 15-year-old died this summer. Accidents and deaths have also spiked in New York City.

U.S. exempts Baylor University from Title IX sexual harassment rules: The private Baptist school had asked the U.S. Education Department to dismiss discrimination complaints filed by LGBTQ+ students that the university said were “inconsistent” with the institution’s religious values

How 10,000 years of plagues left their mark on our DNA

Power lines likely caused Maui’s first reported fire, video and data show: The finding adds to evidence that the island’s electric utility was the source of at least some fires reported on Aug. 7 and 8

What happened when an Ohio school district rushed to integrate classrooms: Shaker Heights sorted students by ability level, and the top classes always had more White students. In the pandemic, it unraveled this ‘tracking.’

Reading archive 2023-08-14

‘Fully expected the downfall’: Inside DeSantis’s brawls with Fla. Republicans: Some who knew the Florida governor in Tallahassee say they expected him to have trouble translating his governance of the state into a coalition that could win him the presidency

How Invasive Plants Caused the Maui Fires to Rage: A sweeping series of plantation closures in Hawaii allowed highly flammable nonnative grasses to spread on idled lands, providing the fuel for huge blazes.

After a police raid on a Kansas newspaper, questions mount: Law enforcement seized computers and other records from the Marion County Record on Friday, raising concerns about press freedom

Reading archive 2022-06-09

Opinion  Chickens have gone crazy in Hawaiʻi. But there’s a way bigger problem. - "The animals — moa, as we Native Hawaiians know them — had been domesticated and transported in the voyagers’ double-hulled vessels, along with pigs, dogs and canoe crops such as kalo (taro), ʻulu (breadfruit) and ʻuala (sweet potato).

"Over the following centuries, the Native Hawaiians, or kanaka maoli, developed a complex, regenerative and self-sufficient agricultural system in their new home, and the moa proliferated.

...

"Besides, how else will we cook our huli huli chicken? The word means “to turn,” as in the turning of the chicken over burning kiawe wood — but also as in the turning of old systems into new ones, of shifting and rejecting the status quo." [ed. note: lolllllll "native" Hawaiians are humans like any other who have brought and embraced ecological destruction at every turn - introducing chickens, pigs, dogs, and invasive Prosopis pallida trees ("kiawe") but lamenting always the newcomer]

Opinion  As climate catastrophes multiply, Republicans rethink denialism

Opinion  How NIMBYism chokes off affordable housing even in Big Sky Country

D.C. chiropractor who stormed Capitol arrested on Jan. 6 charges: David Walls-Kaufman, who was seen on video in the Capitol, was arrested by the FBI just hours before the first public hearing by the Jan. 6 committee was set to begin.

Reading archive 2022-04-16

In Johnson County, biologists are poisoning trees to save birds and butterflies

Can getting dunked on online win an election? Long-shot candidates build social media clout, and donor lists, by “running against villains.” - "In one recent TikTok video Walker says he’s not interested in adopting a platform 'designed to placate your over-woke Twitter temper tantrum pipe dream.' His website urges people to watch his launch video 'on the corrupt Big Tech platform of your choice!'"

How ‘Wilderness’ Was Invented Without Indigenous Peoples - "Many 'wild,' highly biodiverse landscapes are strongly linked to past human land use.

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"Another point of contention is whether traditional and Indigenous management practices are truly sustainable for local species, or simply sustainable because they are being used to support relatively small human populations. Given the size of the Homo sapiens population globally today, perhaps it is not realistic to imagine that people can be trusted to preserve nature if some of it isn’t set aside."

Feral Honey Bees Pose a New Threat to Endangered Seabirds: On the Hawaiian island of Kaua‘i, the invasive insects can cause nest abandonment and even kill chicks when they invade burrows.

Reading archive 2021-11-18

They bought houses in Italy for 1 euro — and are using them to give back to the community: Meet the people turning the crumbling homes into businesses and social projects in aging towns

Trump’s move of Bureau of Land Management HQ dramatically worsened diversity, report says: Government Accountability Office report also finds headquarters move to Colorado led to ‘confusion and inefficiency’ at BLM

In Charlottesville trial, jurors learn to decode the secret slang of white supremacists

Belarus’s Lukashenko tried to use migrants as a weapon. That’s now turned against him.

It’s hailed as the clean energy of the future. But hydrogen produces ‘substantial’ emissions, study shows.: New research casts doubt on the environmental credentials of ‘blue’ hydrogen produced using fossils fuels

Exclusive: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing "political neutrality"

A hiker stumbled across a stream that reeked of beer. The alcohol content was 1.2%, tests found.

Reading archive 2018-02-02

Leaks, feasts and sex parties: How ‘Fat Leonard’ infiltrated the Navy’s floating headquarters in Asia

A Texas man vowed to forgive whoever killed most of his family. Then he learned it was his son.

Trump has picked a fight with the FBI. He’ll be sorry.

'Weasels and liars': Comey tweets about FBI speaking up amid controversy over memo

Don’t Believe the Liberal F.B.I. - "The most dangerous thing about the release of the Nunes memo is not the memo itself, but Republicans’ shamelessness in using national security processes to deceive the people they’re supposed to serve."

House Republicans Release Secret Memo Accusing Russia Investigators of Bias

Read the Nunes Memo, Annotated

The missile employee messed up because Hawaii rewards incompetence