Reading archive 2026-07-09

90 percent of U.S. adults have this syndrome — but most have never heard of it: New guidelines may soon make the disorder known as CKM syndrome a common diagnosis.

How Mitch McConnell’s absence complicates the Senate’s business and war funding: The 84-year-old’s health issues are affecting the business of Congress, which returns from recess Monday and faces a Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government for fiscal 2027.

Graham Platner’s small hometown in Maine will never see him the same way: Residents of Sullivan, Maine, are left to ponder what it means to enter the maelstrom of national politics, and what might be exposed along the way.

Democratic Party fissures are shaping Michigan’s crucial Senate primary: The race is the next, and perhaps biggest, battle between the Democrats’ warring factions. - "[Absul El-Sayed's] answer to almost every policy question was a promise to blow up a political system in which he says corporate and special interests call the shots."

Multistate outbreak of foodborne parasitic illness reaches Virginia and Maryland

Alexandria's former power plant site set for waterfront transformation

Democrats Became Great by Fighting the Left: In the DSA era, liberals need to remember their history and fight for their values. - "All of this has centrist Democrats feeling a tad nervous. Some of their concerns are political. Working-class voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania may not go for the faculty-lounge notions swirling around the keffiyeh-sphere: open borders, defund the police, defund the Pentagon, punish Israel, oppose support for Ukraine, tear down prisons. One successful DSA candidate, Darializa Avila Chevalier, refused to answer when asked repeatedly whether murderers should serve prison time, a question most voters would not find hard to answer.

...

"When I am listening to the progressive wing, I'm always reminded of a sentence in Richard Weaver's 1948 book, Ideas Have Consequences: 'The trouble with the contemporary generation is that it has not read the minutes of the last meeting.' Everything the progressives are proposing has been tried before again and again, with terrible results. Rent control? Tried. Nationalizing industry? Tried. Concentrating power in order to pursue one faction's idea of justice? Tried."

What Trump Has in Common With the Far Left: If the president fears communism, maybe he should stop mimicking its worst elements.

What Is the Point of Patriot Front?: The masked men who were in Washington on July 4 are both unserious and threatening. - "Cross-pollination between Patriot Front and even more extreme neo-Nazi organizations has already happened. Before going to Patriot Front, Kieran Patrick Morris had attempted to join the Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi accelerationist group whose members have been accused of several murders and terrorist plots. Another member, Ian Michael Elliott, once trained at a jiu-jitsu gym affiliated with the Wolves of Vinland, a Virginia-based white-nationalist group. 

"Having several hundred members is tiny in the grand scheme of politics, but it's still notable on the extremist fringes. If nothing else, Patriot Front offers sympathetic groups intent on violence a valuable pool of potential recruits."

The Foreign-Policy Debate Democrats Need to Have: The Biden administration focused on adapting American power to a dangerous new world. Progressives are calling that vision into question. - "Biden's approach to Russia and China was more confrontational and competitive than those of his Democratic predecessors. His administration armed Ukraine, through the largest American security-assistance effort since the World War II-era Lend-Lease Act, and provided Ukraine with extensive intelligence to help it fight Russia. At the same time, the Biden administration pursued a policy of managed competition with China. This meant that Washington limited the export of advanced semiconductor chips, regulated U.S. investment in Chinese firms, pushed diplomatically to limit the number of military bases China maintained globally, and deepened its alliances-even as it pursued high-level diplomacy to prevent this competition from escalating into conflict."

Lab-Leak Payback Has Begun: Indictments, subpoenas, and debarments are hitting American scientists embroiled in the controversy over COVID’s origins. - "A better, more comprehensive system remains a worthy goal. Shortly after President Trump took office, his administration took a few half steps in that direction. Last May, the president issued an executive order meant to limit and track all research that involves the potential enhancement of dangerous pathogens. 'This is an historic day-the end of gain-of-function-research funding by the federal government,' HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told reporters at the signing ceremony; NIH director Jay Bhattacharya said gain-of-function work would 'go away forever.' Yet Ebright and others told me that this project has stalled out. The Office of Science and Technology Policy had been placed in charge of revising the rules on this research by the end of last summer and implementing a national strategy for tracking all gain-of-function research before the end of last year. Those deadlines came and went. No such policies were put in place. (In response to a request for comment on this delay, the White House said that the administration 'continues to implement our updated framework to govern, limit, and track dangerous gain-of-function research across the United States.')"

Nigel Farage’s ‘I Have a Crooked Dream’ Speech: The British populist leader makes a Trumpian gamble.

Reading archive 2026-07-01

DC's fireworks supershow this year could be a smoke-filled mess: Disrupted views are a common part of the DC fireworks show, even before it gets supersized like in 2026.

Two Teens Shot While Attending Gun Violence Prevention Program: The teens were attending their first day of a six-week violence prevention training in Northeast D.C. as part of the city's summer youth employment program.

Virginia law will put speed-limiting devices on reckless drivers' cars: Proponents of intelligent speed assistance device (ISA) laws include the mother of a 5-year-old who was hit and killed in D.C. The District allows them, and they're coming to Maryland.

D.C. unveils sweeping master plan for Commanders stadium and RFK campus

ICE’s arrest of nun heading to church fuels bipartisan backlash in South Texas: The president’s deportation drive has riled border areas that supported him in 2024, and a GOP congresswoman joined Democrats calling for the sister’s release.

There’s a new way to treat sprains and strains. Hint: Ice is out.: If you think you need rest, ice and ibuprofen, think again.

Beyond Denial How Oil Execs Shaped a Landmark Climate Study - "For a generation, people learning how to address global warming were taught the ideas in the 'Wedges' paper. 

"What they didn’t learn was this: 'Wedges' was significantly shaped by the British oil giant BP — one of the single global entities most responsible for causing climate change."

A False Pretense of Judicial Modesty: The Supreme Court is remaking the law while claiming to preserve the status quo. - "When the Court does overrule precedent, it is a big deal, as in yesterday's decision in Trump v Slaughter. The opinion officially overturned Humphrey's Executor, a 90-year-old case. But the separation-of-powers practice formalized in Humphrey's Executor goes back at least 50 years before the Court decided it. Relying on Humphrey's allowed Congress to build the modern federal government, insulating agencies from the whiplash of electoral politics and channeling bipartisanship, expertise, and continuity into technical policy making. These agencies will now be upended in ways their creators never anticipated. 

"Precedent, of course, is not a magical constraint that produces mechanical results. A better way to think of it, as the philosopher Ronald Dworkin put it, is as a 'gravitational pull' on judicial reasoning. Respecting it grounds judges in traditions larger than themselves and guards against overreach. If following Humphrey's Executor served those values faithfully, its overturning reflects the triumph of something else: faddish theories of the moment-here, the theory of the unitary executive-and the hubris of a Court that thinks it knows best. The Court has replaced the gravitational pull of accumulated wisdom with the gravitational pull of itself."

Ukraine’s Plan to Unnerve Putin: Recent drone attacks in the Moscow area reveal a multifaceted strategy.

Reading archive 2026-04-24

The Post Tries to Regroup: After announcing major cuts, the paper is delaying layoffs and attempting to hire back former staffers.

Trump Started a War With D.C.'s Cyclists. It’s Part of a Bigger Car-Centric Agenda.: The portion of the bike lane is safe for now thanks to court intervention, but it’s emblematic of a broader push against bike infrastructure across the country.

After a GOP loss in Virginia, a push to make D.C. square again: On the heels of a redistricting referendum, a Georgia congressman proposed a bill to return parts of Northern Virginia to the District.

Elon Musk’s near-daily online posts about race are turning off some fans: The billionaire posted 850 times on the topic in recent months, almost triple the rate for the previous two years.

What the Michael Jackson movie leaves out: “Michael” was reshot to exclude scenes that would have addressed the 1993 sexual abuse allegations against Jackson.

Reading archive 2026-04-20

The AI people have been right a lot: Try to keep an open mind as the world gets increasingly wild.

Amazon is behind on jobs promised for funding to build Virginia headquarters: The company expected to be nearly halfway to its goal of 25,000 new jobs in the area by 2038. It has created a little more than 7,000. - "The company should have added 11,643 jobs at the site in Crystal City it refers to as HQ2 by the end of 2025, according to the incentive agreement with the state. Instead, it has created 7,159 jobs as of Dec. 31 — which is 28.6 percent of the total goal, instead of the 46.5 percent mark the company expected."

D.C. police sought to arrest Rep. Cory Mills after assault call, records show: The Florida Republican is the focus of a House ethics probe stemming, in part, from the alleged assault.

Woman dead after being struck in DC crosswalk, driver flees - "DC Police say Dawn Ciccone of Northwest DC was in a crosswalk when a 2026 Jeep Wrangler passed drivers in a designated left turn lane, made an illegal turn from the middle lane, and struck her."

‘It’s pissing people off’: Centrist Democrats are livid with AIPAC after primary fiasco: AIPAC spent $2 million attacking moderate-leaning Tom Malinowski in a House special election — and may have handed the race to progressive Analilia Mejia.

How Silicon Valley Humiliated the Democrats: When will they learn? The party remains far too solicitous of an industry that’s rewarded their fealty with four years of Trump and untold damage to democracy.

Outrage over Israeli soldier's vandalism of Jesus statue in Lebanon - "A 2025 report by the Rossing Center, a Jerusalem-based organisation which aims to foster better inter-faith relations in the Holy Land, describes a 'recent surge in overt animosity towards Christianity', putting this down to 'a continued deepening of polarisation and ultra-nationalist political trends'."

As D.C. police search for dirt biker who struck boy, his family seeks change: D.C. police are looking for a dirt bike driver who they say is responsible for striking two children, critically injuring one, in Northwest Washington.

U.S. companies don’t have to take this: China's new rules for businesses send America a message: Be our friend — or else.

These relatives of foreign thugs called America home. No more.: Revoking visas from authoritarians’ kin is overdue.

D.C. curfews are not enough to curb crime. Arrest data shows why.: Youth violence in the District happens on the move. So should prevention.

Here’s what the stock market might have gotten wrong about the Iran war: The surge in optimism contrasts starkly with continued energy supply challenges that threaten long-lasting economic harm — and a market reckoning. - "'There is a disconnect between what the markets look like and what is actually happening in the world,' said Tibor Besedes, a professor of economics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. 'The markets seem to be pricing this as a temporary shock even though people in the oil sector say this will be long term. It is not as simple as opening the faucet to get oil flowing again. I don’t understand why every time news comes out that we might have a ceasefire, the markets react this way. It is like investors do not realize we are still in a war.'"

Gas prices threaten GOP in race that could help determine House control: Gas prices pose a challenge for Republicans in competitive midterm races, even as the president promises an end to the war in Iran soon.

A new foothold for Moscow in Europe after Bulgaria election: After the defeat of Hungary’s Viktor Orban, the victory in Bulgaria by Rumen Radev will install a new pro-Russian voice within the European Union.

Democrat in key race defended guns after mass shooting and insulted Kaepernick: Bob Brooks, a firefighter who appeals to the White working class, engaged with right-wing content. His endorsers in the Pennsylvania House race stand by him.

FBI Director Kash Patel sues the Atlantic for $250M, alleging defamation: The magazine published a report alleging Patel engaged in “excessive drinking" in work settings and had “unexplained absences.”

‘I am a Democrat’: Will Pennsylvania turn on John Fetterman?: The senator bets his career on an independent streak and working with Republicans.

Reading archive 2026-04-14

America Looks Like a Paper Tiger: The U.S. showed great tactical capabilities in the Iran war, but Iran emerged the winner at a strategic level.

The Forgotten War That Iran Already Won: Tehran fought for decades to prevent Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Only Losers Play the Madman: Does Trump seem crazy? Sure. Credible, not so much. - "Nobody executes a madman strategy when he feels that he's winning. Strong and successful powers emphasize consistency and predictability. So do powers that hope to be seen as strong and successful. When China's foreign minister speaks to the world, he uses language such as 'China will be a reliable force for stability' and China 'is providing the greatest certainty in this uncertain world.' He understands that true power does not need to boast or yell."

This detox may erase 10 years of social media brain damage, researchers say: Studies show that taking even short breaks could reverse measures of cognitive decline.

Metro hair toucher arrested again for stalking: A DC judge has ordered Bryan Betancur to be held without bond following his stalking charges.

Gov. Spanberger signs bill to end the renewal of Robert E. Lee license plates in Virginia

Record animal sacrifice attempts at Al-Aqsa prompt status quo fears: Record number of attempts by Israeli settlers to smuggle Passover sacrifices into the holy site since 1967 leads to takeover fears.

Trump Desperately Tries to Spin His Massive Surrender in Iran as a Win: Iran has retained control of the Strait of Hormuz—and Donald Trump insists that’s a good thing.

Why high oil prices are good for oil companies — until they aren't - "When oil prices stay consistently above that $90 mark, 'the economy suffers and inflation rises,' Crooks, of research group Wood MacKenzie, says. 'Growth falls. Interest rates may go up. People in the wider economy lose their jobs.'"

These Chimps Began the Bloodiest ‘War’ on Record. No One Knows Why.: A long-running conflict in a Ugandan park may provide clues to the origins of human warfare, and how to avoid it.

Not Even Noise-Cancelling Headphones Can Block This Bicycle Bell: Skoda designed a new bike bell that slips through active noise cancellation using a specific frequency gap that most headphones cannot suppress

'America's Main Street' in DC could get a massive overhaul; here's what leaders propose

A new map is fueling a debate on housing and displacement in D.C.: Critics of the proposed Future Land Use Map say it isn't thinking big enough.

Ye Wants Your Forgiveness. So What?: The former Kanye West is making his bid to rejoin mainstream culture—with mixed results.

How Did Samuel Alito Become This Angry?: A quiet, bookish justice’s personal leanings have become ever more overt.

In Praise of ‘Difficult’ Kids: Feisty children can be exhausting. They also possess a moral fire that deserves cultivating.

Reading archive 2026-03-25

People Who Love Corporate BS Are Bad at Their Jobs, New Cornell Research Confirms: The psychologist behind a new study confirming the link between dumb jargon and dumb decisions explains how to fight corporate BS. - "Here’s how Cornell Chronicle summed up the results: 'Essentially, the employees most excited and inspired by 'visionary' corporate jargon may be the least equipped to make effective, practical business decisions for their companies.'"

Trump showed classified map to passengers on his plane in 2022, memo says: The document offers a snapshot of an early moment in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation and adds new shading to the public understanding of Smith’s probes.

At a Virginia vineyard, volunteers are fighting to eliminate this invasive pest: The invasive insects, which one winery owner called “vampires,” have wreaked havoc across the D.C. region.

Conservative activist convicted in voter-fraud case: In Wisconsin, Harry Wait said he set out to expose the potential for voter fraud. He ordered mail ballots in the names of others — and got charged with felonies.

Partisan brawl in Virginia muddles Spanberger’s message of moderation: The congressional redistricting fight is tainting the governor’s image, one Democrat said: “This should be a flashing red light for Democrats everywhere.” - "Spanberger, who uses saltier language in private meetings than during her carefully controlled public appearances, said in the interview that she told Wittman and the other Republicans they should have spoken up when Trump urged Texas, North Carolina and other red states to rig their districts for the GOP. 'You didn’t give a s--- about fairness,' she said she told the GOP delegation, '… until your singular seat was potentially the one' affected."

'They did not have a chance' | Trial begins for convicted DUI driver who killed three men on Rock Creek Parkway in 2023: Nakita Walker is facing three second-degree murder charges for the deaths of Mohammed Kamara, Jonathan Cabrera, and Olvin Velasquez.

Treason in the Futures: Markets People close to Trump are trading based on national secrets - "But in any case, Trump’s sudden climb-down was startling. Who could have seen this coming? 

"The answer is, the person or people who bought large quantities of stock market futures and sold large quantities of oil futures around 15 minutes before Trump’s announcement."

The Situation: The Enduring Truths of the Mueller Report: There are four of them. - "Mueller made mistakes. There is no doubt about that. That said, the Mueller Report remains the single best account we have of the relationship between Trump and the Russians and the manner in which Trump will deploy power within and from the executive branch. Little that has happened since its release should surprise those who read it carefully."

Canada’s Polite Pogrom: Is a national tolerance for zealotry purging Jews from public life? - "The awkward reality is that a main driver of these incidents is a very Canadian aversion to causing offense: The deference of many politicians and institutions to the views of a rapidly growing minority community is too often leading them to reject another minority community. Although relatively few Canadians hold negative views of Jews, opinion polls have found that such views find greater levels of support within the Canadian Muslim community. From 2001 to 2021, the Muslim population of Canada more than tripled, to about 5 percent of the population. Just 4 percent of non-Jewish Canadians agree that Jews are largely to blame for the negative consequences of globalization, but that figure rises to 28 percent among Canadian Muslims, according to a survey conducted by the University of Toronto sociologist Robert Brym. Similarly, only 16 percent of Canadians believe that it is appropriate for opponents of Israel's policies to boycott Jewish-owned businesses in Canada, but that claim finds support among 41 percent of Canadian Muslims."

‘You Want to Leave Us Alone With Mojtaba?’: I’ve spoken with more than a dozen Iranians since the start of the war. Most are terrified, and some are losing faith in America.

Reading archive 2026-02-17

Something Big Is Happening - "Start using AI seriously, not just as a search engine. Sign up for the paid version of Claude or ChatGPT. It's $20 a month. But two things matter right away. First: make sure you're using the best model available, not just the default. These apps often default to a faster, dumber model. Dig into the settings or the model picker and select the most capable option. Right now that's GPT-5.2 on ChatGPT or Claude Opus 4.6 on Claude, but it changes every couple of months. If you want to stay current on which model is best at any given time, you can follow me on X (@mattshumer_). I test every major release and share what's actually worth using."

Stephen Colbert says CBS blocked interview with Texas Democrat over FCC concerns: The on-air condemnation comes before Colbert’s “Late Show” goes off the air in May, a decision the network previously called “purely a financial decision.”

Another government sop to an ailing industry: An executive order requiring the military to purchase coal puts politics over the free market.

Researcher skeptical of ‘Havana syndrome’ tested secret weapon on himself: In 2024, a Norwegian researcher skeptical that pulsed-energy weapons could do damage to human brains built a device and tested it on himself. It didn’t go well.

A relationship on the rocks: Europe and America need each other, but trust is gone:  This year’s Munich Security Conference was milder than last year’s, but Donald Trump has fundamentally changed transatlantic ties.

D.C. mayoral hopeful pledges more affordable child care amid shrinking budgets: A proposal from Janeese Lewis George aims to make child care more accessible for families. But the city would have to fund it during an economic downturn.

‘Us versus them’: The battle that’s tearing a small Virginia town apart: “We are a microcosm of how politics are in this country right now,” said one resident of Purcellville.

Ukraine detains ex-energy minister as high-level corruption case widens: German Galushchenko’s arrest is connected to a $100 million corruption probe that has ensnared senior officials and shaken President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office.

Rubio lends hand to Hungary’s Orban as he faces tough election: “We want this country to do well,” Marco Rubio said during a visit to Budapest, “especially as long as you’re the prime minister.”

Mitch McConnell is taking a beating in the race to replace him: Three GOP candidates, all former McConnell interns, are keeping their distance as they seek to align with President Donald Trump.

Matt Lauer’s Accuser Complicates Her Story: Brooke Nevils’s memoir is also a reckoning with many misconceptions about #MeToo narratives.

Why MAGA Wants You to Think Slavery Wasn’t That Bad: Both the left and the right try to co-opt it, but the real story of American slavery doesn’t serve any one faction. - "'The destruction of slavery is one of the great American achievements,' Sean Wilentz, a historian at Princeton and critic of 'The 1619 Project,' told me. 'Taking slavery seriously in American history is not anti-American. The story of slavery in the U.S. is about an ancient institution that was planted here, thrived here, and then was confronted and ultimately attacked in the 19th century through enormous sacrifice, including military conflict. That's an extraordinary American story.'"

Putin Didn’t Know How Good He Had It: The Russian leader has gotten the world he wished for—and it’s threatening to crush him.

Reading archive 2026-02-10

Trump Has Betrayed the People of Coal Country. They Love Him Anyway.: "He thinks our people are idiots."

A Raid in a Small Town Brings Trump's Deportations to Deep-Red Idaho: Wilder, Idaho, prided itself on comity. Then federal agents stormed a racetrack outside of town in October, and the reverberations are still shaking the community.

Trump is making voters uneasy. Democrats are pushing them away.: Punishing the wealthy might make Democrats feel good, but it won’t convince many voters. [ed. note: shill from libertarian think tank]

Don’t Let Climate Fatalism Become a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The idea that it’s “too late” to reduce emissions fuels cynicism and despair, putting us on an even worse trajectory. - "And finally, stress less about the small stuff — recycling, plastic bags and food wrappers, food miles, turning the lights off, leaving devices on standby — especially if it comes at the expense of the big things listed above. This is a concept called 'moral licensing,' in which people feel they’ve contributed to the small stuff and therefore ignore their more carbon-intensive behaviors. People will often feel proud about bringing their plastic bag to a supermarket (which has a tiny carbon footprint) and then fill it with meat and dairy (which has a much bigger impact)."

Should you feed a cold and starve a fever? Here’s what experts say.: What nutrients do you need to help your body as it fights an infection?

Buy-it-for-life coffee makers can save money, reduce waste, brew better: That new $50 drip coffee maker on your counter? Destined for the landfill after a few years of dispensing mediocre coffee.

Student injured, another arrested in shooting at Wootton High in Maryland: Police in Montgomery County arrested the suspect near the school in Rockville.

The history of figure skating’s most controversial trick — the backflip: This is the first Olympics to feature backflips in over 25 years.

Two men were paid by D.C. to stop violence. Both are charged with homicide.: Frank Johnson is the second violence interrupter in the city to face charges in the fatal shooting of a former college basketball star. - "Johnson previously worked for Life Deeds, according to documents The Post obtained through a records request. He was terminated from Life Deeds in December 2023, three months after the fatal shooting of Bozeman, after he was charged with an unrelated felony gun possession offense. Johnson was convicted — only to be rehired as a violence interrupter last year for a different organization receiving D.C. government grant funds. Now, he has been fired again following the murder charge, according to the Rev. Judie Shepherd-Gore, the executive director of InnerCity Collaborative Community Development Corporation, where Johnson had worked as a violence interrupter since last year.

...

"It was the second time in five years that Wynn, who was well known in the violence intervention space, was charged with murder. He was also accused of committing a homicide in 2020. Prosecutors dropped that case for lack of evidence, and Wynn was allowed to continue working as a violence interrupter."

How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism: Moderation used to help Democrats win, but its advantages now have been greatly exaggerated. - "This brings us back to a crucial point: successful anti-authoritarian movements don’t win by moderating their positions on a traditional left-right axis but by creating an entirely new one. They mobilize previously disengaged citizens by framing the struggle not as a contest over policy, but as a fight for the fundamental fairness of the system itself.

...

"Scholars of democratic breakdown know that moments like this demand institutional coordination, civil society mobilization, and the political courage to name and confront the authoritarian threat on its weakest flank. Every democracy facing this challenge has learned you don’t defeat authoritarians by being more reasonable. You defeat them by being more determined and by uniting the country against their most visible vulnerability: their corruption."

Forum How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism: Moderation helps when margins are small. - "But, of course, [an ideologically dogmatic party] runs the risk of empowering fascists, threatening the foundations of American electoral democracy, costing millions of people their health insurance, subjecting the country to a terrifying new regime of internal immigration enforcement, making less-than-zero progress on climate change, and depriving millions of women of their basic rights. To me, that makes “shoot the moon” a bad bet—Democrats have been trying a version of shoot-the-moon since Obama’s reelection, it has hurt, and the solution is to stop doing it. But it would be an intellectually stimulating debate. Highly ideological leftists are aware, I think, that the mood in the Democratic Party is very alarmed by Trump and Trumpism and that if we had square argument about the benefits and risks of shooting the moon, their side would lose."

How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism: Trans rights aren’t tanking the Democrats.

How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism: We need reconstruction, not restoration—as FDR knew.

How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism: Democrats must rebuild in rural America. - "Each of the last six times Republicans won majority control of the Senate, they were elected by a group of states in which less than half the county’s population resides. Moreover, because the Senate is tasked with confirming nominees to the Supreme Court, this electoral bias translates into outsized power to shape the judiciary and, in turn, the rulings it hands down. Four of the six sitting conservative justices were confirmed by senators from states that are home to less than 50 percent of the U.S. population. In short, the rural-urban divide helps facilitate minoritarian rule."

How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism: Macroeconomics is the driver, not median voters. - "Unless Democrats offer a message far stronger than anything they have in a long time—unless, in Warren’s words, they 'aggressively challenge the status quo' and 'chart a clear path for big, structural change,' especially on the economic front—they will remain easy targets for caricature. Promoting a Whig revival around democracy and Obamacare tweaks, supply-side tinkering and free trade, or abundance-by-deregulation, jobs, AI wonders, and all the rest risks cementing their status as a permanent minority party."

How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism: The focus should be fighting plutocracy.

How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism: The antidote to cynicism is going big. - "The notion that moderation would serve as a corrective to this perception is wildly off base. The millions of Biden voters who sat out crave more differentiation, not less, and a grander vision of an economic and political system that they could thrive within. None of them were in the mood to tinker around the edges. The antidote to cynicism isn’t to get small but to go big."

How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism: Jesse Jackson’s campaigns point the way. - "The path is clear: seek out an authentic candidate with an agenda that expands our ideas of what is politically possible, someone who can lead a diverse coalition united by a renewed sense of justice and collective purpose."

How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism: Public opinion is only partly malleable.

How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism: We have no choice but to fight.

How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism: Voters don’t think like strategists. - "Bonica and Grumbach are correct that the empirical case for moderation has largely collapsed. But the more significant lesson from our collective work is that the entire moderate-progressive debate constitutes an elite construction—one that projects the strategist’s hyperideological conception of politics onto an electorate that predominantly does not reason in those terms. When one abandons the pretense of optimizing one’s way to electoral victory, something clarifying emerges: the necessity of determining what one actually believes, and campaigning accordingly. That, after all, is what democratic politics is supposed to entail."

How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism: Democrats can’t simply react to polls. They must lead.

Reading archive 2026-01-30

Don Lemon arrested by federal officials in connection with church protest: The former CNN host was taken into custody in Los Angeles.

As ‘Heated Rivalry’ takes off, the NHL faces questions about inclusion: The hit show about a romance between two professional hockey players has brought new fans to a sport that has struggled to welcome the LGBTQ+ community.

Virginia Democrats seek emergency halt to ruling that blocks redistricting: A motion filed with the Virginia Court of Appeals on behalf of House Speaker Don Scott argues that a circuit court judge is interfering with the democratic process.

Tulsi Gabbard’s appearance at Fulton County FBI raid raises questions: Lawmakers called for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to explain the presence of the country’s top spy agency official at a domestic law enforcement action in Georgia.

Attending a Protest

The New Shadowbanning Panic: Is TikTok censoring users on behalf of the Trump administration?

What Tearing Down Housing Projects Did for Kids: Bringing rich and poor together has major benefits. - "There is another process that improves neighborhoods around poor children, both by bringing higher-income peers nearer to them and by reducing the violence they are exposed to. This process often occurs without explicit governmental intervention or cost. The problem is that it is regularly dismissed as gentrification, a phenomenon that is not usually cheered. The most common objection to gentrification is that it results in displacement of incumbent residents. The empirical evidence for this is weaker than conventionally assumed. One paper examining children who received Medicaid benefits in New York City from 2009 to 2015 found no elevated rates of moving for those in gentrifying neighborhoods. The HOPE VI study suggests that gentrification should improve outcomes for kids, so long as it actually improves social integration."

America Can Have the Oil: Venezuela’s riches were squandered, souring many on national stewardship.

Battles Are Raging Inside the Department of Homeland Security: Officials overseeing Trump’s mass-deportation campaign are fighting one another for power.

Why the moral corruption of MAGA is so deadly

Heartwarming: Miserable Man Frustrated In Ultimately Insignificant Way

Pluralistic: Sorry, eh (13 Jan 2026) - "I'm sorry. As a technology writer, I'm supposed to be telling you that this bet will some day pay off, because one day we will have shoveled so many words into the word-guessing program that it wakes up and learns how to actually do the jobs it is failing spectacularly at today. This is a proposition akin to the idea that if we keep breeding horses to run faster and faster, one of them will give birth to a locomotive. Humans possess intelligence, and machines do not. The difference between a human and a word-guessing program isn't how many words the human knows."

At Yosemite, Rangers Are Scarce and Visitors Have Gone Wild: After the Trump administration’s cuts, workers at the national park are spread too thin to stop people from littering, flying drones and cliff-diving.

A cloud of fear hangs over Minnesota immigrant communities: Even citizens are afraid to go outside

Gingrich: Time for ‘national conversation’ about immigrants living in country illegally who ‘obey the law’

Reading archive 2026-01-21 pt 1

Trump’s Golden Age of Culture Seems Pretty Sad So Far: The president’s party has total control of government—but not what Americans care about.

The Levers Trump Isn’t Using: He is dominating a lot of news cycles but failing to advance lasting policy change. - "Perhaps Trump's most lasting influence will be opening the door for future presidents to approach the executive as he has, pursuing governing strategies rooted in capricious personalism. Still, for all the action of the past year, Trump has not been acting like a president. That has not only undermined the character of our constitutional system; it has also meant that he is getting less done than all the sound and fury might suggest."

America’s Would-Be Surgeon General Says to Trust Your ‘Heart Intelligence’: Casey Means thinks improving health is a spiritual project.

Trump Exhaustion Syndrome Americans can’t seem to keep up. - "At least for now, a year into Trump's second term, the country seems to have settled for the illusory safety of the fetal crouch."

Trump’s Letter to Norway Should Be the Last Straw: Will Republicans in Congress ever step in?

The Military Is Being Forced to Plan for an Unthinkable Betrayal: Attacking an ally would be a perversion of everything the armed forces have been trained to do.

‘Looksmaxxing’ Reveals the Depth of the Crisis Facing Young Men: The most narcissistic corner of the internet is having a moment.

Something Is Wrong With Russia’s Children: As violence has come to surround Russian youth, many seem to have become more violent themselves. - "For years, children in Russia have watched their country massacre Ukrainians and condemn hundreds of thousands of its own citizens to injury and death at the front. As violence has come to surround Russian youth, many seem to have become more violent themselves. Last year, the number of juvenile crimes in the country surged by 18 percent. Authorities also reported an uptick in 'serious and especially serious' crime. 'There is no positive ideology for children in a country fighting a murderous war,' Ilya Barabanov, a Russian journalist, told me. Instead, the war has amplified worldviews that encourage brutality."

Europe Has a Bazooka. Time to Use It. - "This is exactly the kind of situation that the instrument was designed for. Europe, however, seems too timid to use it. Mr. Bessent has scoffed that Europe’s most forceful weapon is the 'dreaded European working group,' suggesting it will never get around to using the instrument. Europe seems in no hurry to prove him wrong."

Trump takes aim at Canada after Carney’s Davos speech: Mark Carney said middle powers such as Canada could build a new order in an era of unfettered great powers, without directly mentioning Trump or the U.S.

At Davos, a European backlash to Trump: The surreal clamor over Greenland provoked by Trump has shadowed proceedings in Davos, heightening fears of an emerging rupture between the U.S. and Europe. - "A few years ago, Europeans in Davos would muse about “decoupling” from China. Now, von der Leyen spoke of 'de-risking' in an environment made volatile by the continent’s most important ally and partner. Trump’s Greenland gambit, analysts say, threatens the integrity of the NATO alliance and many of the underpinnings of the transatlantic relationship. E.U. leaders are expected to meet this week to mull consider a response, including invoking an 'anti-coercion' mechanism that could lead to sweeping reprisals against the U.S. and U.S. companies. Even European far-right leaders in countries like France and Germany — figures who have found plenty of common ground with Trump and the MAGA movement — have denounced the White House’s Greenland rhetoric."

ICE targeted off-duty police officers in Twin Cities, local police say: The police chief of one Minneapolis suburb said all of the officers who had been stopped there by Immigration and Customs Enforcement were people of color.

Trump administration admits DOGE accessed personal Social Security data: A DOGE employee signed an agreement to share Social Security data with the aim of overturning election results in certain states, according to a new court filing.

Lindsey Halligan out as U.S. attorney following pressure from judges: One federal judge in Virginia sought applications for her replacement. Another called her use of the U.S. attorney title a “charade.”

Message to Trump and the GOP: Pro-life voters are watching: A “flexible” approach to reducing abortion will have a cost in the midterms.

Trump team touts a coming economic revolution as voters fear job losses: President Donald Trump wants America to lead on artificial intelligence at almost any cost, but he must contend with a skeptical public.

Federal officials launch ICE operation in Maine and begin arrests: “Everyone is on high alert,” Portland Mayor Mark Dion said. His city and nearby Lewiston have seen an influx of migrants and asylum seekers in recent years.

Pentagon moves to cut U.S. participation in some NATO groups: The planned reductions to parts of the alliance’s force structure and some advisory groups mark the Trump administration’s latest move to scale back military investment in Europe’s defense.

Reading archive 2025-12-12

House votes to repeal Trump order ending union rights at federal agencies: The March order restricted union rights in more than two dozen federal agencies. The bill to repeal it is likely to stall in the Senate. - "Federal workers already have limited union rights compared with other employees. They can’t strike or bargain over pay. But they are allowed to join unions and bargain collectively — protections that are meant to ensure workers are treated fairly, while preventing activity that could be disruptive to public services or threaten national security."

George Washington’s living quarters back on display after restoration: Mount Vernon, the first U.S. president’s estate along the Potomac River in Virginia, is undergoing the most extensive renovation in its history.

The minority voters who powered Trump to a second term are drifting away: Extended conversations with Black, Latino and Asian American voters who cast ballots for Trump in 2024 showed mixed feelings about the president and their votes.

MyPillow founder and conspiracist Mike Lindell announces Minnesota gubernatorial bid: Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow and a 2020 election denier, joins a crowded race in his unlikely Republican bid against two-term incumbent Gov. Tim Walz (D).

Oklahoma Black Lives Matter leader indicted on alleged misuse of donations: Tashella Sheri Amore Dickerson deposited at least several million dollars into personal accounts instead of the organization’s accounts, authorities said.

Trump asserts he has pardoned county clerk convicted in Colorado case: The impact of Trump’s claim is unclear since Tina Peters was convicted in state, not federal, court.

House Democrats release photos of Epstein with Trump, other public figures: Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released 19 images, many of them previously published, showing the disgraced financier with Bill Clinton, Woody Allen, Steve Bannon and others.

The Silent Treatment Is Quietly Ruining Your Relationships: Many of us have done it, but that doesn’t make it right, experts say.

Trump wants Bagram back. Satellite images show how the Taliban are using it.

Secret meetings between FBI and Ukraine negotiator spark concern: FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino, met with Kyiv’s top peace negotiator amid a U.S. pressure campaign to end the war.

Russia could attack Nato within five years, says alliance chief in stark new warning

Let’s take a closer look at MIT, one target of Trump’s blunderbuss: It’s alarming to see such a complex, important institution subject to the whims of today’s politics. - "The 8 percent tax on MIT’s endowment will cost the university $240 million annually that will not be available to make up for reductions in government research grants. Universities’ endowments fuel upward mobility and combat the stagnation of elites. Taxing endowments mocks conservatism by enfeebling private sector alternatives to government’s domination of social resources."

The deeply personal reasons why many Indiana Senate Republicans said no to Trump

Reading archive 2025-10-16

We need to talk about Russell Vought – But Properly: Why certain mainstream outlets insist on sanitizing Vought as a devout “small government” conservative – and what actually animates his war against pluralistic democracy - "Russell Vought embodies the radicalization of the conservative movement; his example captures how far removed from democratic politics the Trumpist Right is. Vought is convinced to be fighting a noble war against a vast leftist conspiracy that has supposedly taken over the country and is destroying the nation. He dreams of a comprehensive 'counter-revolution' and believes that any measure, regardless of how extreme, is justified in this struggle against the 'leftist' enemy. But if you only listened to The Daily, you wouldn’t get any of that."

Engineers turn fish biology into a breakthrough microplastic laundry filter:  Inspired by the filter feeding mechanisms of basking sharks and manta rays, a startup called Cleanr has developed a filter that traps over 90% of microplastics released in each wash cycle.

Inside billionaire Peter Thiel’s private lectures: Warnings of ‘the Antichrist’ and U.S. destruction: The Washington Post reviewed leaked audio from four off-the-record lectures the tech investor delivered in San Francisco over the past month that fused beliefs about religion and technology.

Trump’s new foreign aid plan eyes $50 million for Greenland’s polar bears: Documents reviewed by The Post show the administration may invest significantly in protecting vulnerable wildlife, proposals that stunned critics of its moves to gut foreign assistance.

8 takeaways from the Spanberger and Earle-Sears debate in Virginia: Republican Winsome Earle-Sears talked over Democrat Abigail Spanberger in a chaotic debate in the Virginia governor’s race that touched on trans students, Trump and more.

Trump pledged to make D.C. ‘safe and beautiful.’ His administration cut $40M in homeland security funds. The Trump administration cuts to grants in D.C. and 11 states geared toward anti-terrorism and other emergency responses has been paused by a federal judge while they are being challenged in court. - "'You complain about public safety in the District of Columbia, and what are you doing? Defunding their police,' said Richard S. Madaleno Jr., who is the chair-elect of the region’s Homeland Security Executive Committee, an arm of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments that helps local jurisdictions prepare for emergency situations."

Under pressure to curb crime, D.C. Council examines school absences: New legislation would direct D.C.’s Department of Human Services to investigate thousands of truancy reports.

Smithsonian visitors arrive to locked doors as federal shutdown continues: Across the National Mall on Sunday, tourists hastily rearranged plans as they realized D.C.'s downtown attractions had run out of money to operate.

Is it America’s fate to decline and fall? Here’s what history says.: The American experiment will soon turn 250. Is its time running out? - "Broadly speaking, the Athenian spirit is associated with golden ages. When civilizations were open to influences from merchants and migrants, and when they let people experiment with new ideas and innovations, they prospered. This required tolerance of pluralism and surprise, as well as institutions and norms to restrain rulers’ arbitrary use of power."

Reading archive 2025-09-25

Trump, Kimmel and the upside of ignoring big-government coercion: Progressives untroubled when the Biden administration was throwing its weight around might be having an epiphany. [ed. note: embarrassing, it's not the same thing]

Russia hits back at Trump after his abrupt swing toward Ukraine: Trump’s statement that Ukraine could retake all of its territory lost to Russia with NATO’s help was a dramatic change in U.S. rhetoric on the war.

Virginia governor’s race puts ‘they/them’ back on the ballot: Republican Earle-Sears’s campaign sees votes in transgender issues. But have voters moved on?

A frustrated Sen. Van Hollen urges Democrats to take bigger risks: Finding Democrats’ response to Trump’s presidency lacking, the Maryland senator has emerged as a surprising advocate for stronger stands on politically risky issues like the war in Gaza and illegal immigration.

This therapy for chronic back pain can be surprisingly effective A personalized approach that uses physical and psychological coaching may help some people manage their chronic, disabling pain. [ed. note: "cognitive functional therapy"]

Wall Street bets against Trump on tariff refunds, while importers suffer: Some investment firms are so confident that the Supreme Court will strike down some of Trump’s tariffs that they are buying the rights to refunds.

Trump administration rehires hundreds of federal employees laid off by DOGE - "The General Services Administration has given the employees — who managed government workspaces — until the end of the week to accept or decline reinstatement, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press. Those who accept must report for duty on Oct. 6 after what amounts to a seven-month paid vacation, during which time the GSA in some cases racked up high costs — passed along to taxpayers — to stay in dozens of properties whose leases it had slated for termination or were allowed to expire."

US border patrol collected DNA from thousands of US citizens for years, data shows: CBP officers took DNA samples from about 2,000 citizens, some as young as 14 and many who never faced criminal charges, new analysis shows

Reading archive 2025-08-14

Police group endorses Spanberger, Democrat running for Virginia governor: The Virginia Police Benevolent Association, which four years ago supported all Republicans, is backing Abigail Spanberger (D) over Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R).

D.C.’s homeless begin to see the effects of Trump’s crackdown: Many interviewed by The Post expressed confusion over where they would go. “What are they going to do?” said one D.C. man living on the street. “Arrest us all?”

Man who hurled sandwich at law enforcement in D.C. charged with felony: “I did it. I threw a sandwich,” the man allegedly said to police after his arrest.

Reading archive 2025-07-17

Earle-Sears shakes up campaign for Va. governor as fundraising, polls lag: Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R) has asked her campaign manager — a pastor with no political experience — to step away from that role.

A developer promised a supermarket for a new neighborhood. Now it can’t deliver.: Developer Jair Lynch wants city to sign off on a smaller store after it says delays sunk deal with larger, full-service grocer. - "Kirby Vining, a Stronghold resident who helped lead Friends of McMillan Park’s opposition to the project, argues that Jair Lynch could have avoided overpromising and under-delivering. 'Be careful what you ask for and what you promise,' he said in a phone interview. If Jair Lynch had built flexibility into its original proposal, he argued, the developer 'could have building permits right now.'" [ed. note: counterpoint - if FoMP hadn't held up the process for years, Harris Teeter would never have pulled out of the project in the first place]

Democrats try a new tone: Less scripted, more cursing, Trumpier insults: Party leaders are swearing more, recording more direct-to-camera videos and trying to project an authenticity many voters have come to associate with Trump.

Why the Gen Z stare has every generation talking A deadpan look is drawing comparisons to the boomer ‘lead paint’ stare and the millennial pause.

With Epstein conspiracy theories, Trump faces a crisis of his own making

Maurene Comey, daughter of James Comey and prosecutor of Jeffrey Epstein, is fired: Comey, who had worked in the U.S. attorney’s office for nearly a decade, prosecuted both Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

The world is choking on screens. Just as this book foretold. Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death” at 40 is truer than ever.

Human Stigmergy: The world is my task list

An etymological knockout

China Is Putting Data Centers in the Ocean to Keep Them Cool China is pulling ahead of the rest of the world in sinking data centers that power AI into the ocean as an alternate way to keep them cool - "Many companies have sited their data centers in some of the driest regions of the world, including Arizona, parts of Spain, and the Middle East, because dry air reduces the risks of damage to the equipment from humidity, according to an investigation by the nonprofit journalist organization SourceMaterial and the Guardian. Partly to address water concerns, China is now putting a data center in the wettest place there is: the ocean. This June construction began on a wind-powered underwater data center about six miles off the coast of Shanghai, one of China’s AI hubs."

Reading archive 2025-06-25

Abandoned by Trump, a farmer and a migrant search for a better future

As Trump shuts out migrants, Spain opens its doors and fuels economic growth: Defying the anti-immigrant trend in the U.S., Spain is reaping economic benefits by granting citizenship to tens of thousands of newly-arrived workers.

Was this Revolutionary War hero America’s first openly gay general?: The LGBTQ veterans who put rainbow ribbons near Baron von Steuben’s statue in D.C. think so.

RIP, MAHA: Robert F. Kennedy promised to improve nutrition and reduce environmental toxins. How’s that going? - "Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda has a simple premise: Americans don’t need more access to medical care. Instead, the best way to improve our country’s health is through better nutrition and exposure to fewer environmental toxins. 

"Alas, as was evident from the health and human services secretary’s congressional testimony Tuesday about the administration’s budget requests, his boss is currently A) taking away nutritional assistance and B) expanding use of environmental toxins."

Trump administration is preparing to challenge budget law, U.S. officials say: Internal dissent among federal employees is coming to the surface as President Donald Trump’s budget chief aims to rebalance spending authority.

The RFK megaproject promises just empty gloom. Let’s try this instead.: Rather than an expensive megaproject, D.C. should focus on an organic approach to city-building. - "If football stadiums drove economic activity, Landover would be at least an above-average suburban destination for shopping and entertainment. Instead, the old Landover Mall site decays behind chain-link fencing roughly a mile from Northwest Stadium, the Commanders’ current home. Alternatively, if football stadiums made cities interesting and engaging, the Ravens’ M&T Bank Stadium would link together bustling neighborhoods. Instead, its gloomy emptiness extends across the adjacent blocks except on a handful of days each year."

Kevin Durant’s lonely basketball journey trudges on to the next stop: NBA stars can become hometown heroes forever. Then there’s Kevin Durant.

As an oncologist, here’s what I wish people knew about endocrine disruptors: What to know about everyday exposures to BPA, PFAS and phthalates.

D.C. elected these noncitizens to office. Congress could oust them.: Three green-card holders have nonpartisan, unpaid positions in D.C.’s Advisory Neighborhood Commissions. That could soon change.

Trump’s tax bill has become a battlefield for tobacco giants: Tobacco firms have spent millions of dollars in a fight over a tax rebate for cigarette importers in Republicans’ massive tax and spending package.

A Jeep drove onto the National Mall, weaving around a summer crowd U.S. Park Police said the driver was later arrested. No injuries were reported.

How Israel deceived the United States about its nuclear weapons program: Israel is attacking Iran’s nuclear sites, but Tehran’s secret path was blazed by the Israelis.

Bees are collapsing in the U.S. A key to their secrets might vanish.: The top federal lab on native bees is set to close under President Trump’s budget. - "Native bees pollinate an estimated 80 percent of flowering plants around the world, and understanding the pollinators’ behavior helps us sustain the production of our food."

No one has made fusion power viable yet. Why is Big Tech investing billions?: Breakthroughs in fusion have triggered a frenzied race to harness a clean energy source that has eluded scientists for decades.

Brazil's soy farmers raze Amazon rainforest despite deforestation pact

The plan to vaccinate all Americans, despite RFK Jr.: The effort comes as the Trump administration has replaced members of the key federal vaccine advisory panel.

Maryland driver sued by D.C. over 414 unpaid traffic tickets: Soon, it could be easier for D.C. to seize drivers’ cars over dangerous driving caught on camera.

D.C. attorney general alleges violence intervention nonprofit misused funds: Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb filed a lawsuit alleging Women in H.E.E.L.S. Inc. improperly diverted money to a personal account. The group’s founder called the allegations “misleading.”

D.C. lawmaker walks back cuts to violence prevention agency after criticism: Brooke Pinto had proposed dissolving the mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, leaving a program in the attorney general’s office as the sole home for violence interruption.

Reading archive 2025-05-12 pt 1

Ruben Gallego’s tough talk in Pennsylvania visit adds to 2028 chatter: Democrats are hoping to tap into the Arizona senator’s playbook to win back working-class voters far beyond his home state.

More alternatives to knee replacement surgery are emerging: Physicians caution that the treatments aren’t permanent fixes, but they may work well for some.

RIP American innovation: Why destroy the funding that made the United States a leader in technology and invention? - "Giving out grants for what might look frivolous or wasteful on the surface is a feature, not a bug, of publicly funded research. Consider that Agriculture Department and NIH grants to study chemicals in wild yams led to cortisone and medical steroids becoming widely affordable. Or that knowing more about the fruit fly has aided discoveries related to human aging, Parkinson’s disease and cancer."

Democrat Spanberger: No right-to-work repeal in Virginia, but maybe ‘reform’: Gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger (D) told a Richmond TV station she would not sign a repeal of right-to-work; GOP rival Winsome Earle-Sears doesn’t believe her.

Attorney general’s brother vies to lead D.C. Bar, upending contest: Bar elections have drawn triple the turnout of a typical cycle with weeks left to vote, animated by the candidacies of two lawyers connected to Trump appointees.

Trump claims prices are down. Here’s what the data actually shows.: While prices for certain goods have declined, inflation remained elevated even before tariffs show up in the data.

There are big, ugly problems at the center of the House budget bill: Republicans have created impossible restraints on their tax-and-budget package.

Biden goes public in attacking Trump — and defending himself: His appearances come amid Trump’s attacks, critical books and residual anger from Democrats.

This is the view from Kyiv: President Donald Trump’s turn toward Moscow hasn’t changed the moral calculus for Ukraine.

Plagiarizing Independent Journalists Is Part of Mainstream Media’s Business - "Plagiarism is shockingly common in mainstream media, especially at the New York Times."

Japan Threatens Their Nuclear Option in Trump’s Trade War - "America’s largest foreign holder of US Treasuries has always been loath to even consider the notion of selling the immense amount of US debt they hold, but Trump has upended every kind of precedent imaginable, and now the financial world’s nuclear option has firmly been put on the table."

The Conclave Just Did the Unthinkable: What an American pope means for the Catholic Church and the world

Trump’s Inevitable Betrayal of His Supporters: Trump never meant to keep his promises. His voters are starting to notice.

Just Don’t Call Her Unqualified: Jeanine Pirro, Trump’s nominee for U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., is a real prosecutor. She’s also a real MAGA partisan.

Reading archive 2025-05-05

10 ducklings hatch in rooftop nest at D.C.’s Planet Word museum: A live webcam captured the moments they emerged from their eggs. All are fine.

Wild stats about America’s place in the world, plus what people actually ask AI: This week, we dive deep into new datasets from the World Bank and artificial intelligence researchers at Anthropic. - "Anthropic might dispute this, but the queries paint a disorienting picture of a world where teachers turn to chatbots to churn out educational materials, students press-gang those same bots into answering those same materials, and then teachers go back to the chatbots to create academic scoring systems and rubrics and to 'evaluate and score academic writing.'"

These 6 Republican ‘red lines’ could complicate Trump’s policy plans: “Some of these are clearly in conflict,” one former Republican aide said.

Prosecutors decline to charge officer who fatally shot man in February: Authorities say Surafel Zerihun was brandishing a knife when he tried to carjack a woman in D.C. after ramming his vehicle into a police cruiser.

Teen killed, another wounded in Petworth shooting, D.C. police say: The shooting left Laverne Wright, 64, mourning her grandson, who turned 18 in January, and stunned residents in the Petworth neighborhood.

Robbers are taking more headphones, D.C. police say: Three teenagers were arrested in bike trail cases, according to police.

Youngkin trims $900 million from Virginia budget to hedge Trump actions: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) made clear he supports President Trump’s tariffs and cuts to federal jobs and spending, but took money from colleges to cushion impact.

Spat over gay nominee aims Virginia GOP ire at unusual target: Youngkin: Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) faces criticism within his party for a messy week-long drama over John Reid, the GOP nominee for lieutenant governor who has refused to drop out.

Bowser urges action to prevent D.C. Medicaid cuts: ‘This is a real threat’: D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser, city officials and healthcare providers Friday outside Children’s National Hospital in Northwest D.C. to amplify the voices of those who would most acutely feel cuts and to urge residents to take action. - "'If we want a cleaner, safer and stronger city,' Bowser said, 'we cannot undercut the safety net services that help us support public safety.'"

D.C. pushes Park Service to keep Rock Creek Parkway’s rush hour lanes: The District is siding with commuters who say the reversible system is necessary and against those who deem the nearly century-old arrangement unsafe.

How to get a good night’s rest, according to NASA sleep scientists: “Is it easier to fall asleep in low gravity?” and other spaceflight questions, answered by two NASA sleep scientists.

This billionaire could unify the Democrats against Trump: JB Pritzker might not be the party’s choice in 2028, but he’s crucial for the Trump resistance. - "'Do-nothing Democrats want to blame our losses on our defense of Black people, of trans kids, of immigrants — instead of their own lack of guts and gumption,' Pritzker said in his New Hampshire speech. 

"Similarly, in a March speech to activists with the Human Rights Campaign, a group that advocates LGBTQ+ rights, the governor said, 'I know that there are transgender children right now looking out at this world and wondering if anyone is going to stand up for them and for their simple right to exist.'

"He continued: 'Well, I am. We are. We will.'"

Weren’t F-16s supposed to change things for Ukraine? I answered your questions.: David’s live chat with readers started at 12 p.m. ET on Monday. Submit your questions now.

Trump envoy praises fraudulent Russian referendums as real: A possible Trump-backed Ukraine-Russia deal, pushed by Steve Witkoff, hinges on letting Russia keep territory it seized.

‘At this point, we are a liberal democracy in decline’: A conversation with scholar Larry Diamond about the state of U.S. democracy.

Who’s Afraid of Gen Z’s Squeaky-Clean, Backflipping Bro?: Benson Boone has charmed his way to the top—and that really seems to bother some people.

Inside Mike Waltz’s White House Exit: Signalgate was the national security adviser’s most glaring mistake. But his problems ran deeper.

Fox and Frenemy: Trump may lash out at the network. But the two will always make up.

The Missing Part of Trump’s Minerals Math: Without demand from clean energy, the U.S. market for rare earth, graphite, and lithium will falter. - "Under the Biden administration, the Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office put up a $102 million loan to back the facility. The State Department, intent on competing with China to court mineral-rich African countries, had laid out a 10-year strategy for strengthening U.S. ties with Mozambique, from which Syrah obtains ore to refine. (The plan included improving transportation infrastructure, for instance, which would help get those rocks to port.) And the nation's landmark climate-infrastructure law, the Inflation Reduction Act, was set up to redirect mineral supply chains away from China: Its electric-vehicle tax credit gave a major bonus for cars with batteries composed of American-made minerals.

...

"Already this year, companies have scrapped plans for nearly $8 billion worth of clean-energy projects, most of which were factories for batteries and electric vehicles, according to a Canary Media analysis of data from the research group E2. In his attempt to fulfill his campaign pledge to 'terminate' what he called the 'Green New Scam,' Trump appears to be jeopardizing the domestic supply of minerals for the military and industries he supports.

"'The administration is clearly worried about rare earths from a defense and aerospace perspective, and I've seen battery-industry players that are, in their rhetoric and advocacy in Washington, distancing themselves from EVs and selling themselves as strategic technology for grid resiliency and defense,' Seaver Wang, a researcher at the Breakthrough Institute, a think tank focused on policy around climate technology, told me. 'But we know EVs are like 80 percent of the demand.' (According to the International Energy Agency, electric-vehicles will account for 80 percent of global battery capacity in the future.)

''Meanwhile, China is following its own logic, in which it controls more variables. In March, the Financial Times reported that "at least half of China's 34 provincial-level governments, including those of top resource-producing regions such as Xinjiang, have announced increased subsidies or expanded access for mineral exploration" over the past year. Even outside China, Beijing sets the prices for global contracts. When financiers determine the price for a ton of lithium, they turn to where those prices are set, which thanks to China's dominance is typically in Asia. That means the price of a deal between a Tesla factory in Texas and a lithium mine in Quebec is ultimately determined by how much of the metal China is selling in a place like Vietnam. 

"The U.S. could find a way around that, Datta told me, by building an alliance with other producers and establishing an integrated market for contracts, with countries such as Australia, Brazil, and Canada, that could set prices for selling materials to battery makers in Europe, South Korea, and Japan. That's what the Biden administration aimed to do; the electric-vehicle tax credits treated allies that had free-trade agreements with the United States as domestic sources. For those countries, U.S. minerals were supposed to offer a less risky alternative to China. But now, Datta said, 'we've pissed everyone off, and all these countries are looking to hedge away from the U.S.'" [ed. note: devastating]

Reading archive 2025-04-30 pt 1

Federal workers required to report their daily location, email says “Unlike the ‘5 bullets’ this is not a strong encouragement. All employees are required to submit this daily information,” read an email to election commission staff.

Republican Medicaid cuts could mean ‘Armageddon’ in D.C., official says: House Republican proposals to slash government spending on Medicaid could devastate the insurance program that covers 40 percent of District residents. - "Federal Medicaid payments for states are based on a formula that considers average per capita income, but in D.C., the rate was fixed in 1997 when the District teetered on the edge of financial collapse. Then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Thomas M. Davis III, a GOP congressman from Northern Virginia, brokered a deal that said the federal government would pay 70 percent of Medicaid costs and the District 30 percent.

...

"The arrangement recognized that the District’s tax revenue is limited by the amount of tax-exempt federal property within its borders and the inability to levy a commuter tax on people who work in the District but live elsewhere, said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District’s nonvoting representative."

Is brown rice actually healthier than white rice?: Recent concerns over the health risks of eating brown rice are mostly overblown. - "Christian Scott, the lead author of the Michigan State study and a postdoctoral research associate at the university, said the average American adult would need to eat more than three servings of brown rice — one-and-a-half cups — 'every day for years' to be at an increased risk of developing health problems from the arsenic in rice."

In Virginia, a gay GOP candidate is proving difficult for MAGA to accept: John Reid, set to be the GOP’s candidate for lieutenant governor, has been spurned by members of his own party.

Pass the D.C. budget fix: House GOP leaders should stop stalling and see that the District gets its money back.

How to get more of a nutrient that might help your memory: A deficiency of choline, which is related to B vitamins, might increase the risk of Alzheimer’s and cognitive decline.

Read The Atlantic’s Interview With Donald Trump: A conversation with the president about executive power, Signalgate, and 24-karat gold [ed. note: I mean, the guy thinks he sent Javelins to Ukraine. It's nuts.]

DOGE Was Bad. Schedule F Will Be Worse.: An executive order will convert 50,000 government employees into de facto political appointees who serve only at the president’s pleasure.

American Panopticon: The Trump administration is pooling data on Americans. Experts fear what comes next. - "A worst-case scenario is easy to imagine. Some of this information could be useful simply for blackmail - medical diagnoses and notes, federal taxes paid, cancellation of debt. In a kleptocracy, such data could be used against members of Congress and governors, or anyone disfavored by the state. Think of it as a domesticated, systemetized version of kompromat - like opposition research on steroids: Hey, Wisconsin is considering legislation that would be harmful to us. There are four legislators on the fence. Query the database; tell me what we've got on them."

Russia Is in Demographic Free Fall. Putin Isn’t Helping.: The Russian president is enacting one of the world’s most extreme natalism programs—and one of the weirdest.

The Liberals Who Can’t Stop Winning: Trump isn’t the only reason Canada’s center-left has stayed in power.

Trump Is Paving the Way for Another ‘China Shock’: The MIT economist David Autor helped fracture the old free-trade consensus. But he thinks that what’s replacing it is even worse. - "Autor: Absolutely not. I think the Trump folks are asking the right question. But they've come up with just about the worst answer. It's a classic case of fighting the last war. They're looking over their shoulder, wishing we hadn't made the mistakes we made 20 years ago. But what they are doing now is just compounding the errors. 

"The jobs that we lost to China 20 years ago: We're not getting those back. China doesn't even want those jobs anymore. They are losing them to Vietnam, and they aren't upset about it. They don't want to be making commodity furniture and tube socks. They want to make semiconductors and electric vehicles and airplanes and robots and drones. They want those frontier sectors. 

"As it happens, those are the sectors we've actually held on to. But we could lose those too. We could lose Boeing. We could lose GM and Ford. We could lose Apple. We could lose the AI sector. These are the parts of manufacturing that generate good jobs but also so much more than that. They are where innovation occurs, where the big profits are, where technology and military leadership come from. And those are the sectors that we stand to lose next."

Why China Won’t Give In to Trump Xi Jinping, like his American counterpart, needs to be the top dog.

Can You Really Fight Populism With Populism?: The American left’s favorite double act hopes it has the key to rallying the anti-Trump resistance—and timid Democrats.

Why My Firm Is Standing Up for the Constitution: Big Law should remain independent rather than have the government dictate who it represents.

Republicans Are Right About Soda: Public-health groups are tying themselves in knots over a GOP crackdown on the sugary drink. - "Nowhere is the Republican Party's about-face on soda more stark than in West Virginia. In July, the state removed its soda tax. And now, less than a year later, it is pushing forward with a SNAP soda ban as part of an effort to decrease consumption of 'ultra-processed crap that barely qualifies as food,' Republican Governor Patrick Morrisey said late last month. Banning the use of SNAP funds to purchase soda has become so popular because it combines the 'Make America healthy again' focus on America's diet problems with the conservative desire to reform the welfare state."

What Jonathan Haidt Thought When He Watched Adolescence: “The internet is just not a good place to let your child roam free 24/7.” - "Direct one-to-one communication is great. It's very important to separate the internet from social media. One-to-one synchronous interaction is great. What's not healthy is any sort of one-to-many performance, especially when it's asynchronous, because that's where the girls in particular get sucked into perfectionism and careful editing and carefully thinking through every word. It's posting that seems to especially have a bad effect on teen girls."

Iran’s Negotiating Position Gets Worse and Worse: Events have forced the Islamic Republic to negotiate with the United States.

The Roman Way to Trash a Republic: When you’re the emperor Augustus, they let you do it. - "He took control of the government gradually but completely, with the support of those wealthy aristocrats who valued fortune above principle and with the complaisance of a population exhausted by conflict and disillusioned by a system that favored the rich and connected. Perhaps most salient for us today, Augustus consolidated his power with the institutional blessing of the Senate."

Grover Norquist Can’t Believe What He’s Hearing: Is the GOP about to raise taxes?

The Force That Holds Trump’s Coalition Together: Traditional Republican elites tolerate the authoritarianism because they want the tax cuts. - "Randy Barnett, a right-leaning libertarian law professor at Georgetown, posted on X a few days ago a list of 'bullets we dodged' by avoiding a Democratic-run government that, he believes, would abolish the filibuster, establish single-payer health care, and fulfill other liberal goals. The president might be claiming the power to whisk any person he chooses to a Central American Gulag without due process, but at least he isn't doing something as horrific as Medicare for All."