Reading archive 2025-11-21

FBI fired veteran employee for displaying Pride flag, lawsuit says: David Maltinsky, who worked at the bureau for 16 years and was training to become a special agent, says he was fired for displaying a Pride flag given to him by the FBI.

Tensions between renters and homeowners challenge Mamdani housing plan: The incoming New York City mayor’s plan relies on higher density in places where some neighbors oppose it. He is scheduled to meet Friday with the president.

Defuse political tension in your family with one simple question: A common misperception is fueling political arguments. But new research shows it’s possible to correct it, in ourselves and our political foes.

U.S. pushing Ukraine to sign peace deal by Thanksgiving or lose support: The U.S. is sending “signals” that everything could be off the table if Kyiv does not quickly sign a proposal, which was drawn up by special envoy Witkoff.

Former GOP staffer charged with fabricating anti-MAGA assault

Corruption probe close to Zelensky stokes E.U. unease over Ukraine aid: A scandal, involving kickbacks at Ukraine’s state nuclear power company, has revived concerns about European money being siphoned off by graft instead of helping fight Russia.

These salacious affairs are great for gossip and terrible for America: Olivia Nuzzi’s sordid tale of infidelity is a bad look for journalism ethics.

A New Era of Crony Capitalism: Washington hasn’t seen graft like this for at least a century.

Famous writers at New Yorker are up in arms after fact-checker’s firing: The media company dismissed four employees, including a fact-checker at the 100-year-old magazine, for “extreme misconduct.” Many of its famous writers are outraged.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves About the American Revolution: Ken Burns unpacks the Revolutionary War—and explains why history doesn’t repeat, even if human nature never changes

Reading archive 2025-01-17

In Greenland, a cold shoulder for Trump, but curiosity about U.S. ties - "As a self-governing territory of distant Denmark, Greenland has limited self-rule but is also a welfare state. A third of the gross domestic product and half the state budget are supplied by Denmark, about $500 million a year."

Where Biden Turned the Battleship: The outgoing president’s legacy of revived antitrust enforcement won’t be easy to undo.

As L.A. considers rebuilding, here’s what people say they’re willing to change: For those who plan to rebuild, a natural question has emerged: What can be done differently to prevent the sort of destruction that has killed at least 24 people, leveled thousands of structures and inflicted untold billions in damage?

Ukraine hawk removed from House intelligence role, reportedly at Trump’s request: The move by Speaker Mike Johnson provides the latest evidence of a changing posture more favorable to Russia under Donald Trump.

Trump’s soft touch on China and Russia rears its head again: His maneuvers to “save TikTok” and the ouster of the hawkish chairman of the House Intelligence Committee evoke a familiar dynamic. - "'We won young people,' Trump said of the 2024 election. 'And I think that’s a big credit to TikTok. So I’m not opposed to TikTok.'"

Influencers Are Using the Los Angeles Fires to Hawk Wellness Products: Essential oils, detox regimens, and the booming disaster economy.

For L.A.’s homeless population, the fires upend hard-earned stability: Los Angeles County had started to curb homelessness. Will the fires undo it?

How resistance to Trump may look different in his second administration: Inauguration protests are expected to draw fewer people than in 2017, but activists say they are gearing up to oppose the new president with a movement that goes beyond marches.

‘I’m terrified’: TikTok’s looming ban sends creators scrambling: As the clock counts down, creators on the app that changed the online economy are hoping for a miracle. - "Dozens mobilized this week via live-stream 'phone-a-thons,' explaining to audiences of hundreds of thousands on TikTok what would be lost if the popular video app used by roughly 170 million U.S. users disappears." [ed. note: nothing. Nothing would be lost.]

The education of Elon and Vivek: For decades, reformers have laid siege to the bureaucracy and failed. DOGE could be different. - "The initial reaction to DOGE has been largely skeptical. There have been myriad attempts to reform federal spending in the 44 years between Stockman’s endeavor and this one. Each time, like Stockman before them, policymakers have come up against the intractable math: You can’t meaningfully reduce federal deficits without slashing the entitlement programs voters cherish or the military spending that members of Congress covet for their districts."

Lions playoff game puts Tom Brady’s conflict under brighter spotlight: Brady is set to call a postseason game for Fox involving two Lions coordinators who are head coaching candidates for the Raiders, partially owned by Brady.

Gay couples race to the altar before Trump takes office: Panicked about the incoming administration, some LGBTQ couples are rushing to say “I do” before Inauguration Day.

Starting Monday: The Trump administration’s days of blunder: Talk of tattoos, Jesus, enemies lists and a war with California mark the week before inauguration. - "On the same day Bannon spoke about Days of Thunder, I was in a hearing room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, watching the most extravagantly unqualified nominee I have ever seen. Pete Hegseth makes the closest runner-up, Harriet Miers, George W. Bush’s ill-fated Supreme Court nominee, look like Oliver Wendell Holmes."

D.C. Council bill would allow bottles and cans to be recycled for cash: The bill would add a refundable 10-cent deposit to the price of beverage containers sold in D.C. stores and create a system for people to return empty bottles and cans.

Distinctive Jordan sneakers help ID suspect in Md. Lyft shooting: Brandon Leonard, 21, is accused of fatally shooting 36-year-old Oluwatosin Adetula after requesting a ride on New Year’s Day.

The Case for Letting Malibu Burn: Many of California’s native ecosystems evolved to burn. Modern fire suppression creates fuels that lead to catastrophic fires. So why do people insist on rebuilding in the firebelt? - "'Total fire suppression,' the official policy in the Southern California mountains since 1919, has been a tragic error because it creates enormous stockpiles of fuel. The extreme fires that eventually occur can transform the chemical structure of the soil itself. The volatilization of certain plant chemicals creates a water-repellent layer in the upper soil, and this layer, by preventing percolation, dramatically accelerates subsequent sheet flooding and erosion. A monomaniacal obsession with managing ignition rather than chaparral accumulation simply makes doomsday-like firestorms and the great floods that follow them virtually inevitable." [ed. note: from 1998 with postscript from 2018]

Catching Up with a Guy Who Had His Legs Surgically Lengthened by Three Inches: Checking in with "Alan," who is all healed up after going from 5'6" to 5'9".

‘I’m literally Joan Baez right now’: gen Z women relate to Bob Dylan’s toxic situationship: The film A Complete Unknown has sparked interest in the folk singers’ doomed romance, and with it the realization that a similar dynamic is ‘happening to girls everywhere’

Looting Season in America: The oligarchy blooms. - "This is simply the logic of capitalism at work. The strongman president demands the loyalty of the oligarchs, and the oligarchs in turn are granted the blessing of the state to loot an ever greater share of the nation’s wealth. Why would you assume that America is any different from the many nations around the world that already practice this political method in earnest? This is the system most conducive to the perpetuation of the oligarchs’ interests. They financially support the political revenge and repression that will flow forth from the strongman, and they themselves are insulated from its consequences, and granted license to get as rich as they want, however they want. The arrangement works for both sides. This is gangster capitalism in full flower."

On First Looking into Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog: Are we in the present that the past envisioned… or just the one they invested in?

The Future Of West Coast Wildfire Is Whiplash - "In some cases, fires can also makes soil hydrophobic, so kind of water-repellent, because the heat changes the chemical properties of the soil. So the dry state caused some physical changes in the landscape that led to the mudslides occurring. [It might have] just been a flood and not a mudslide if there hadn't been a wildfire."

Reading archive 2024-06-24

The mysterious tyranny of trendy baby names

Opinion I went to trade school during law school. It left me stunned.: I believe in the untapped potential of skilled trades.

Opinion A closer look at Harris shows how effective she’s become: As the election nears, the vice president is connecting policy to lived experience.

Opinion Trump’s school vaccination policies could be a serious political liability: Democrats would be wise to blast the former president for it.

Opinion Don’t waste the Biden-Trump debate. Make them answer this question.: It’s not the elephant in the room. It’s the herd of elephants plus a barnful of braying donkeys. [ed. note: the debt]

Opinion MAGA justices already gave Trump de facto immunity — and disgraced the court: All Trump ever wanted was a delay. - "'It didn’t have to be this way: had the Republican majority on the Court not intervened at the last minute, we would already have a verdict in the case,' Podhorzer writes. 'We would also have a verdict if they had not rejected Jack Smith when he asked them to decide the same issues last December.'"

Sotomayor Issues Dire Warning on Supreme Court Ruling on Noncitizens: Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented in the Supreme Court’s latest marriage ruling—and warned that same-sex marriage will be next on the chopping block.

Opinion Are the justices re-examining same-sex marriage?: Majority’s ruling in an immigration case could signal an appetite to revisit marriage equality.

Judge Cannon Brutally Roasted for “Partisan Prima Donna” Behavior: Donald Trump’s former ally Ty Cobb slammed the judge’s “petty” behavior.

She spent 23 years asking who killed her mom. Then her phone rang.: Lauren Preer’s mother, Leslie Preer, was killed in her house in May 2001. On Tuesday, police made an arrest.

Discarded bottle at Dulles helps solve 2001 cold case, police say: Eugene T. Gligor, charged in the decades-old homicide of Leslie J. Preer, made a brief appearance in Montgomery County, Md., court Monday.

Opinion How a long, debt-loving bipartisan consensus has warped U.S. business: Ruchir Sharma’s new book reveals the ill effects from the government’s cheap-money policies. - "Conservatives’ faith that tax cuts will pay for themselves is mirrored by progressives’ faith that their “investments” pay for themselves. The result is the same: debt."

Opinion A memorial for the lives lost to Dobbs: It’s not just the loss of life we mourn. It’s the loss of personhood.

Antidandruff shampoo may help combat some types of hair loss: Some over-the-counter and prescription antidandruff shampoos contain ketoconazole, an ingredient that may help with certain types of hair loss.

As climate change imperils Taliban’s shift from opium, impact could be felt worldwide

AI is exhausting the power grid. Tech firms are seeking a miracle solution.: As power needs of AI push emissions up and put big tech in a bind, companies put their faith in elusive — some say improbable — technologies. - "The tech giants say they buy enough wind, solar or geothermal power every time a big data center comes online to cancel out its emissions. But critics see a shell game with these contracts: The companies are operating off the same power grid as everyone else, while claiming for themselves much of the finite amount of green energy. Utilities are then backfilling those purchases with fossil fuel expansions, regulatory filings show."

Weapons of choice in China’s territorial disputes? Axes, knives, ‘jostling.’: Experts say that China’s use of simple weapons rather than firearms has been a tactical choice, but it may not always prevent escalation.

Trump campaign seeks to head off convention revolt from its right flank: Aides scrambled to foil a plot to throw the nominating process into chaos as suspicions abound about potentially disloyal delegates.

The GOP’s sudden turn away from gay rights — and acceptance: The right wing of the party has reinjected LGBTQ+ rights and issues into our political discussion in recent years. There are real signs it’s having an effect.

Meet the ‘double haters’ who could decide the election: Many voters express resignation, dismay and anger over being asked to choose between Biden and Trump again in November

Public memories. Private struggles.: With civil rights education under threat, a preservationist helps Black families save key sites in the South.

A U.S. Army veteran, deported almost 20 years ago, finds home: After President Biden took office, his administration created a program that allows deported veterans to apply to return to the United States for humanitarian reasons.

Millennials had it bad financially, but Gen Z may have it worse: Today’s young adults are spending more on housing and car insurance than millennials did. They’re also more likely to be in debt, despite higher wages and more jobs.

Va. proposed changes to African American history course, documents show: The elective course was reviewed to see if it complied with Youngkin executive order banning ‘inherently divisive concepts’

A peek inside San Francisco’s AI boom: These photos offer an intimate look at the community powering the artificial-intelligence revolution.

Reading archive 2023-11-07

Joe Lieberman will not leave his fellow Democrats alone: With No Labels, the Democratic maverick is still trying to foil liberals and challenge the party — even if that means threatening to throw a wrench into the 2024 campaign - "When Lieberman endorsed Republican John McCain in 2008, Connecticut Democrats had stuffed his portrait into a closet at party headquarters. For his final act, he helped kill the public option in President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, closing the door on government-provided insurance." [ed. note: he says the party has moved too far left but fails to cite specifics because he's a self-important POS who simply craves limelight]

Speaker Johnson on GOP plan to avert government shutdown: ‘Trust us’: House Republicans have not decided on a strategy to keep the government funded with 11 days until federal funds lapse

These Miami-Dade voters want Ron DeSantis as governor, but not president - "As for DeSantis, he said the governor supported his campaign for city council and has been very involved in helping Hialeah prosper. But he said he felt a DeSantis win would divide the country more, whereas Trump could unite more people." [ed. note: these people are terminally stupid]

Trump as Jesus? Why he casts himself as a martyr, and why fans go along.: The former president has been saying for decades that he’s a victim and portrayed himself as a martyr. But Trump’s messianic rhetoric is mainly about feeling sorry for himself, analysts say.

Some Democrats worry Biden’s team is ignoring political warning signs: A series of recent polls shows Trump running even or ahead of Biden. His team says they don’t mean much a year before the election.

Opinion  What’s up with Speaker Johnson not reporting a bank account?

Why you should buy clothes to last (almost) forever

Police arrest man carrying long gun near Capitol

Can we solve homelessness? A program at Union Station is a huge step.: The Amtrak police chief and a program for homelessness are teaming up to help the unhoused at Union Station

The hidden power of China’s pandas — and why the U.S. is losing them all: The pandas’ imminent departure after more than 50 years in D.C. has diplomats and zoo-going children asking when — if ever — America will get them back

D.C. students will no longer need to vaccinate against coronavirus: The vote ends a long-running debate over whether students need to get shots or be barred from school

A month into devastating Gaza war, Israel’s endgame is no clearer

Reading archive 2022-07-13

Claims that Biden is ‘secretly’ flying immigrants into U.S. cities ignore key facts

Claims of ‘ghost flights’ of ‘illegal immigrants’ don’t add up

Republicans threaten Wall Street over climate positions: BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase and other asset managers face complaints from the left — and threats from the right - "'One of the other things we’re hearing is that the attorneys general are really betraying the GOP’s long-standing belief in free markets,' said the Rev. Kirsten Snow Spalding, senior program director of Ceres’s investor network, which advocates for shareholder resolutions. 'It is no longer furthering free capitalism but stifling it. It is interfering with free capital markets, and those on the right are putting their thumbs on market investments.'"

Charges: Man lit his camper on fire, defaced own garage to appear targeted due to Trump flag

Shitposting Shiba Inu Accounts Chased a Russian Diplomat Offline: The Fellas, or NAFO, are a loose cadre of extremely online shitposters who are raising money for Ukraine and fighting Russian disinformation.

Trump supporter at center of a Jan. 6 conspiracy theory: "It's just been hell"

Reading archive 2022-04-18

McDuffie ineligible to run for D.C. attorney general, elections board says

The nuclear missile next door: What it’s like to live with a bomb stronger than 20 Hiroshimas in a time of rising worldwide tensions.

China tries to cover lockdown strains on Shanghai’s front-line workers

Elon Musk wants a free speech utopia. Technologists clap back.: Musk’s vision of the Internet is outdated and doesn’t take into account the real world, they say - "Fast forward and the Internet is indeed a different place. Russian trolls sowed disinformation on social platforms in the 2016 U.S. election and President Donald Trump used a network of followers as a misinformation megaphone in the lead up to the last election. Anti-vaccine activists have used social media to spread health conspiracies to millions of people. Even now, amid the conflict in Ukraine, researchers and Facebook have identified disinformation networks trying to tilt public opinion toward Russia."

A Democrat in gym shorts tries to rally blue votes in Trump country: John Fetterman believes his road to the U.S. Senate runs through Pennsylvania’s red, rural areas

The mindfulness conspiracy: It is sold as a force that can help us cope with the ravages of capitalism, but with its inward focus, mindful meditation may be the enemy of activism. - "Instead of encouraging radical action, mindfulness says the causes of suffering are disproportionately inside us, not in the political and economic frameworks that shape how we live. And yet mindfulness zealots believe that paying closer attention to the present moment without passing judgment has the revolutionary power to transform the whole world. It’s magical thinking on steroids."

Thich Nhat Hanh: is mindfulness being corrupted by business and finance?

The Trouble with Mindfulness Be mindful of three compelling problems with mindfulness. - "Thus, these studies basically find that mindfulness is better than nothing. Those that do use established interventions as comparison groups in randomized trials generally find that mindfulness works about as well as the other interventions such as exercise, prayer, pleasant activities (including watching television), and so forth."

Mindfulness is a capitalist grift: How faux enlightenment maintains our status quo: The meditative practice favored by America's titans of industry bears no relation to its anti-materialist origins

Reading archive 2021-11-18

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reading archive 2021-04-22

Foxconn's giant factory in Wisconsin sounded too good to be true. Turns out it was

Ma’Khia Bryant: Columbus police release body camera footage in shooting of 16-year-old

Police kill Ma'Khia Bryant, 16, who attacked 2 with knife

Fatal police shooting of Black teenager in Columbus sparks new outcry - "Hazel Bryant, who said she is Bryant’s aunt, told The Washington Post in a brief interview Wednesday that 'the body cam doesn’t show the truth of what occurred.' She said she didn’t personally witness the incident but arrived at the scene soon after. She described her niece as 'so loving and kind.'

...

"Another teenager, 13-year-old Adam Toledo, was shot and killed by police in Chicago last month, sparking protests and calls for an overhaul of policing. Authorities say Toledo had a firearm, and body camera footage released last week shows him tossing an object over a fence and raising his hands in the split-second before he was fatally wounded."

In Columbus, police killed a Black teenage girl. That fits a rarely discussed pattern.: Most White Americans think Black girls are older and more dangerous than their peers, new research finds. Police behave accordingly. - "On the same day that a Minneapolis jury declared police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of murdering George Floyd, a police officer shot and killed 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant in Columbus, Ohio. Ma’Khia had called the police for help." [ed. note: cannot confirm that last in WaPo reporting]

A Hong Kong journalist exposed police failures. A court found her guilty of a crime.

Beijing won total control over Hong Kong. Now, the ‘brainwashing’ begins.

Conservatives have long embraced ‘cancel culture’: The right supports free enterprise, but only when businesses toe the line on its other political priorities

Opinion: The Big Lie has gotten so bad that even some Republicans are running from it

Opinion: We should soon stop catering to the vaccine holdouts

A new way of putting private money where the forests are: Western investors join governments to come up with a way to pay countries to protect forests

As Biden convenes world leaders, U.S. pledges to cut emissions up to 52 percent by 2030: ‘The stakes could not be higher,’ said one top administration official, as the White House presses other countries to make their own bold promises

Humanity’s greatest ally against climate change is the Earth itself: Ecosystems can draw down carbon and buffer us from the worst effects of climate change — but only if we protect them

Officers grabbed a Black librarian by her hair and tore her shoulder during traffic stop, lawsuit alleges: ‘That’s good police work, baby’

Ma’Khia Bryant’s family remember her as loving, affectionate: ‘She didn’t even have a chance to live her life’: Bryant’s family and others are mourning the loss of the 16-year-old, killed by police this week

Mormon sex therapist has been expelled from the LDS Church - "She said she will stop using “colorful” language when church leaders stop. 

"'When will they stop calling homosexual people degenerate and perverse and unholy?' Helfer said. 'They’re upset that I called them patriarchal pricks. If they want me to stop saying bad words, they need to stop calling other people bad words.'

"Helfer said she and other Mormon therapists are often left to 'pick up the pieces' when Mormons are impacted by church teaching that contradicts evidence-based mental health recommendations."

Reading archive 2020-03-31

Taxpayers Paid Millions to Design a Low-Cost Ventilator for a Pandemic. Instead, the Company Is Selling Versions of It Overseas.: As coronavirus sweeps the globe, there is not a single Trilogy Evo Universal ventilator — developed with government funds — in the U.S. stockpile. Meanwhile, Royal Philips N.V. has sold higher-priced versions to clients around the world.

Problems with FBI surveillance extended far beyond probe of Trump campaign, Justice Dept. inspector general says

Reading archive 2019-06-23

Elizabeth Warren, saviour of capitalism: The senator from Massachusetts’s strong primary campaign suggests that ideas still matter

A match made in heaven: Gay-rights activists advanced radical aims by marrying them to a traditional institution.

PRIDE FOR SALE: As more corporations celebrate LGBTQ people each June, pride and profit are mixed — and so are the consequences