Reading archive 2025-07-21

A Push for More Organ Transplants Is Putting Donors at Risk: People across the United States have endured rushed or premature attempts to remove their organs. Some were gasping, crying or showing other signs of life.

DC police commander suspended, accused of changing crime statistics Police union says directive to change offense classifications comes from command staff.

Trump exempts more than 100 polluters from environmental standards

‘The ghost of Epstein is haunting Trump’s presidency’: inside the ‘Maga’ revolt

Pregnant Mother in Tennessee Denied Care for Being Unmarried: The 2025 Medical Ethics Defense Act allows physicians to deny care to patients whose lifestyles they disagree with

Putin sticks to Ukraine war despite erosion of Russia’s global clout: Putin’s refusal to compromise on Ukraine, analysts say, is a colossal error costing Russia regional influence, lucrative energy markets and its place in the world.

Man dies after being pulled into MRI machine by chain necklace: The 61-year-old was wearing a large metallic chain around his neck when he was drawn into the machine, Nassau County police said. He later died of his injuries.

5 misunderstood foods and how to spot nutrition myths: Are raw milk, seed oils, uncured deli meat and more good for you?

Does red meat cause cancer? Here’s what the science says.: The data is concerning enough that the benefits of frequently eating red meat don’t outweigh the risks.

Four people have died from flesh-eating bacteria in Florida. Who's at risk?: The culprit, Vibrio vulnificus, thrives in warm seawater and can get into the body through open wounds in the skin.

Here’s the most baffling part of the Republican budget bill: A last-second budget deal spares states from cuts to food assistance if they make more mistakes. - "A few examples: Based on 2024 error rates (the closest we can get to the 2025 error rates upon which the initial carve-out will ultimately be based), Florida, which has a high error rate, would avoid nearly $1 billion in cuts in the first year alone. At the same time, Texas would get hit with a more than $700 million bill because its error rate is too low. Because of its higher error rate, New York would avoid roughly $1 billion in cuts — while California, which has a lower error rate, would pay almost $1.85 billion."

Former robber turned law professor in D.C. found guilty of assaulting wife: After nearly 11 years behind bars, Shon Hopwood became a lawyer and joined the Georgetown University faculty. Now, convicted again, he faces a return to prison.

‘Missing middle’ housing plan in Montgomery County faces backlash: A proposal to allow duplexes, triplexes and small apartments in certain corridors zoned for single-family homes is generating frustration and confusion among residents who fear how this will affect their neighborhoods.

Reading archive 2025-04-30 pt 2

The Maltese Falcon Poachers: How European hunters brought death and destruction to Egypt's migratory birds: 15-month-long investigation sheds light on how the EU is spending money to protect the same birds that are being gunned down in Egypt.

"I was shocked" by dominance of luxury brands in Milan says Philippe Starck

Which home energy upgrades will save you money? We did the math. Upgrades will cut carbon pollution, but even with tax credits, it can be difficult to save money.

These ferries speed commutes and cut pollution — and they fly: The battery-powered boats rise above the waves on hydrofoils, making them faster and better for the climate than traditional diesel ferries.

Trump is killing one of our strongest exports The president wants to balance U.S. trade deficits? He can’t do it without this industry he hates. - "Colleges and universities are among America’s most competitive international exporters. In dollar terms, last year, the United States sold more educational services to the rest of the world than it sold in natural gas and coal combined."

Colossal squid captured on video in deep sea for first time: The mysterious creature was filmed in the ocean near Antarctica. Scientists documented the juvenile, which could grow to more than 1,000 pounds.

Scientists work to save disappearing woodrats in eastern U.S.: Woodrats, which look like a cross between a rat and a hamster, are important to mountain ecosystems.

In a town inundated by flood water, one house remained dry: A family in western Tennessee built levees around their home -- and managed to keep floodwaters from deluging it earlier this month.

Trump’s D.C. U.S. attorney pick appeared on Russian state media over 150 times: Nominee Ed Martin did not initially disclose his RT and Sputnik appearances from 2016 to 2024 to the Senate. The State Department has said the networks act like arms of Russian intelligence. - "In early 2022, Martin told an interviewer on the same arm of RT’s global network that 'there’s no evidence' of a Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s borders, criticizing U.S. officials as warmongering and ignoring Russia’s security concerns. Russia invaded nine days later, igniting a war that continues today.

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"Martin has omitted far more from his nomination materials than other recent U.S. attorney nominees, two people familiar with the process said Monday, one of them estimating omissions of about 350 events, interviews and media appearances."

The Harem of Elon Musk: The DOGE leader is offering the Republican Party a very different vision of fatherhood.

America Is Watching the Rise of a Dual State: For most people, the courts will continue to operate as usual—until they don’t. - "The list of measures purpose-built to cleave off a domain in which the law does not apply grows by the day: the pardons that bless and invite insurrectionary violence; the purges of career lawyers at the Justice Department and in the Southern District of New York, inspectors general across the government, and senior FBI agents; the attorney general's command that lawyers obey the president over their own understanding of the Constitution; the appointment of people such as Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, who seem to view their loyalty to the president as more compelling than their constitutional oath; the president's declaration that he and the attorney general are the sole authoritative interpreters of federal law for the executive branch; the transformation of ordinary spending responsibilities into discretionary tools to punish partisan foes; the stripping of security clearances from perceived enemies and opponents; the threat of criminal prosecutions for speech deemed unfavorable by the president; and the verbal attacks on judges for enforcing the law."

‘This Is What We Were Always Scared of’: DOGE Is Building a Surveillance State - "Over the past 100 days, DOGE teams have grabbed personal data about U.S. residents from dozens of federal databases and are reportedly merging it all into a master database at the Department of Homeland Security. This month, House Democratic lawmakers reported that a whistle-blower had come forward to reveal that the master database will combine data from federal agencies including the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Health and Human Services. The whistle-blower also alleged that DOGE workers are filling backpacks with multiple laptops, each one loaded with purloined agency data."

Reading archive 2025-02-11

What the Democrats’ Musk Whisperer Thinks Now: “We need to make sure that Elon Musk has an allegiance to the Constitution,” Representative Ro Khanna says.

California’s smart and vocal farmers are silent about Trump as he wasted their water | Opinion

‘We’ll all have to go vegan’: Wisconsin dairy farmers fret over immigration crackdown: Business groups warn agriculture sector will collapse without foreign labour

Trumper Who Could Lose Farm Says He Had No 'Time To Research' Before Voting

‘Devastating to my state’: Why Trump’s newest tariff threats promise catastrophe for Kentucky bourbon: Canada is the No. 2 export market for U.S. distillers, after the European Union.

Trump Enrages Christian MAGA By Naming ‘Heretic’ Pastor to White House

Proposal To Stop Minting Pennies Hits Home In Greene County - "Americans for Common Cents, a pro-penny group with Artazn among its backers, stated in a January news release that eliminating the penny will not save the government money. 

"'In fact, such a move would have a significant negative impact on the U.S. Mint’s cost structure. Many overhead expenses at the Mint would remain and would need to be absorbed by other coins, increasing their per-unit costs. Additionally, without the penny, the demand for nickels would rise to fill the gap in small-value transactions,' the news release notes. 

"'Since each nickel costs nearly 14 cents to produce, this shift would drive up overall production expenses for the government. Rather than saving money, eliminating the penny would increase and redistribute financial burdens,' the news release states."

U.S. Travel Association Warns of Economic Tourism Disaster After Thousands of Canadian Tourists Cancel Trips in Protest

Trump’s Gaza proposal frustrates his new Arab American supporters: Whether Trump can keep these new supporters could have implications for key statewide races, but also on the fragile coalition the GOP assembled to gain ground.

Trump administration plans for federal contracts stir worries across Kentucky - "Payments for indirect costs cover items that make basic research possible, Capilouto said, such as building and outfitting labs; research equipment; ventilation, heat and lighting; technology, and graduate students who work in labs."

The Rise of the Selfish Plutocrats: Instead of pursuing philanthropy, many now seek to evade social responsibility. - "In 2021, The Wall Street Journal broke the news that [da Vinci's Salvator Mundi] priceless painting had been kept on private display aboard bin Salman's superyacht, Serene, a 439-foot-long, half-billion-dollar boat that had recently run aground in a navigational accident. A fragile, irreplaceable object of significance to the shared cultural history of all humanity was being kept in a hot, humid environment for the private enjoyment of one royal billionaire and his ultrarich guests. (In another room, Serene was also equipped with state-of-the-art snow machines that could produce four-inch-deep flurries on demand.)"

The Government’s Computing Experts Say They Are Terrified: Four IT professionals lay out just how destructive Elon Musk’s incursion into the U.S. government could be. - "DOGE is many things a dismantling of the federal government, a political project to flex power and punish perceived enemies but it is also the logical end point of a strain of thought that's become popular in Silicon Valley during the boom times of Big Tech and easy money: that building software and writing code aren't just dominant skills for the 21st century, but proof of competence in any realm. In a post on X this week, John Shedletsky, a developer and an early employee at the popular gaming platform Roblox, summed up the philosophy nicely: 'Silicon Valley built the modern world. Why shouldn't we run it?'"

‘A Very Christian Concept’: The faith’s mandate is more arduous than J. D. Vance’s account seems to allow.

Tech layoffs reveal the unintended consequences of mass job cuts: After mass layoffs, tech workers lost trust in their employers. Federal employees may soon face the same fate.

D.C. managed to avoid return-to-office chaos over Navy Yard parking shortage: Local and military officials had been sounding the alarm about a potential parking shortage.

An ICE raid gutted a town in Trump’s first term. Now, fear of a repeat.: Tiny O’Neill, Nebraska, is still recovering from the 2018 raid. It forced some businesses to close and left many residents, especially immigrants, reeling.

In the Trump era, renewable energy isn’t green — it’s ‘dominant’: Clean-energy executives are tailoring their pitches for the president and his political allies. - "One trend the groups are planning to emphasize is that congressional districts that favored Trump in the 2020 election have seen three times as much investment as a result of clean-energy tax credits, according to a Washington Post analysis. In addition, over half of all new clean-energy jobs are in Republican-led districts, according to a separate analysis by Climate Power, an environmental advocacy group.

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"Spokespeople for [Rep. Marjorie Taylor] Greene and 10 other Republican lawmakers with the most new clean-energy jobs in their districts did not respond to requests for comment."

19-year-old Musk surrogate takes on roles at State Department and DHS: The move illustrates that Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service aides are being asked to fulfill multiple posts at once.

The Chilling Consequences of Going Along With Trump

Trump’s NIH challenges the model that underlies U.S. scientific dominance: The 80-year-old partnership between the federal government and research institutions has made the U.S. the leader in scientific innovation. But now a proposed funding cut threatens the arrangement. - "'At a time of rapid strides in quantum computing, artificial intelligence, brain science, biological imaging, and regenerative biology, and when other nations are expanding their investment in science, America should not drop knowingly and willingly from her lead position on the endless frontier,' Harvard President Alan M. Garber said in a letter to the university community."

The Islamic State has regrouped in Somalia — and has global ambitions: The Post ventured to the front lines of an offensive against the Islamic State in northern Somalia, where foreign fighters are flowing in and cash is flowing out.

Reading archive 2024-03-30

Confronting introduced species: a form of xenophobia?

Half of senior staffers in Congress are so fed up that they may quit: Capitol Hill aides worry that lawmakers have increased their bombast so much that it makes it harder to do their jobs

GOP lawmakers replace trustees at historically Black college in Tennessee - "'Some years, the University of Tennessee even got more than its required funding levels,' Pearson said. 'But Tennessee State University was denied those resources, and because they were denied the resources, there were problems that occurred.'"

China is all in on green tech. The U.S. and Europe fear unfair competition.

Reading archive 2023-04-03

Friend who intervened to stop attack on Rand Paul staffer speaks out

No Labels group raises alarms with third-party presidential preparations: It has money, name-brand political backers and declines to describe either President Biden or Donald Trump as acceptable candidates

Tenn. drag queens feared it was their final hour — and gave it their all: Hours before a new state law was set to take effect, an enthusiastic crowd (and presidential long-shot Marianne Williamson) turns out to support their queens

Va. teacher files lawsuit over her shooting by 6-year-old student

Russia arrests woman in blast that killed pro-war blogger

Surging oil prices could again frustrate inflation fight: Saudi Arabia and other leading oil producers will slash output by more than 1 million barrels a day starting in May

Inside Colombia’s most powerful drug trafficking group — and its case for peace

Reading archive 2016-07-28

How Abigail Adams Proves Bill O'Reilly Wrong About Slavery

Donald Trump Calls on Russia to Find Hillary Clinton's Missing Emails

The Real Reason White People Say "All Lives Matter"

GOP Figures Disgusted By Trump Urging Russian Cyberattack

Why Trump Fails - and Clinton Passes - the Commander-in-Chief Test

Why Obama Will Go Down as One of the Greatest Presidents of All Time

Obama's Powerful Message: Donald Trump is Un-American

Democrats have stolen the GOP's best rhetoric - and Republicans have noticed

An Ode to the iPod Classic

Tennessee’s new official state rifle is so powerful it can ‘destroy commercial aircraft’