Lydia Polgreen: “It might not yet be a civil war, but what the White House has called Operation Metro Surge is definitely not just—or even primarily—an immigration enforcement operation.” / The New York Times [$] Coinbase pretty much runs the Senate now, and isn’t hiding how much control it
We’ll be off Monday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and will see you again on Tuesday. More than two dozen times over the past year, ICE agents have drawn or pointed their guns at people, almost all of them US citizens. / Jacobin See also: A sourced
As America throws its weight around, it’s only a matter of time before other nations form new coalitions to rebalance power in ways the US won’t like. / Foreign Policy See also: Trump’s imperialist moves prove how authoritarianism is a response to climate change—it’s a race
The Minnesota US attorney’s office is in turmoil over the White House’s attempts to blame Renee Good for being murdered, with at least six federal prosecutors resigning. / NBC News See also: “You think you’re watching an ICE agent murder an innocent woman,” but what you’re watching
In its airstrikes on boats in the Caribbean, the US reportedly disguised its planes to resemble civilian aircraft—which constitutes a war crime. / The Guardian Trump’s invasion of Venezuela comes with the promise of cheaper oil, which is bad news to the residents of the petroleum capital of Midland,
Russian forces had been deeply embedded in Venezuela; but when the US showed up, they either showed no resistance or vanished entirely. / Euromaidan The Dept. of Justice has subpoenaed the Fed over building renovations, in what Jerome Powell says is actually an attempt to end the central bank’s independence.
Multiple videos show very clearly that DHS is lying to you about ICE shooting and killing a woman in Minneapolis. / 404 Media See also: The murder victim is Renee Nicole Good, who won the Academy of American Poets Prize in 2020 for her poem “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pgs.
“MAGA is me. MAGA loves everything I do, and I love everything I do, too” is something the president of the United States said in an interview where he declared the US is not at war with Venezuela. / NBC News Journalists must call Trump's power grab in Venezuela
Following his invasion of Venezuela, Trump suggests Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico could be next, and renews his intention to annex Greenland. / Axios, NPR For context, Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves, produces comparatively little, and “has a type the US needs.” / By the Numbers See also: “The world
The new US National Security Strategy contorts the Monroe Doctrine into the “Trump Corollary,” invoking imperialism in the Western Hemisphere. / Reuters, Foreign Policy Related: The security strategy checks off most everything on Russia’s wishlist, and overall it’s less a “strategy” and more a “statement of values.” / Bloomberg [$], Foreign
Even as a science journal retracts a study claiming Roundup is safe, the White House is trying to shield Bayer from lawsuits, illustrating the MAGA-MAHA schism. / Mother Jones Related: Monsanto employees coauthored the study that became a cornerstone of the company’s claims of glyphosate’s safety. / Retraction Watch In
Had Zelenskyy’s flight to Dublin not been ahead of schedule, it would have run into four unidentified military drones. / The Journal School budgets are feeling the pain of Amazon’s dynamic pricing, where the cost of supplies can swing from one extreme to another. / The Verge “Bell was in
Why did Trump pardon the former Honduran president? Very likely in order to preserve Thiel and Andreessen’s tech-right “freedom city” in the country. / Mother Jones Jamelle Bouie: “As venal and scandalous as the president’s pardons have been, they aren’t yet as bad as they could be.” / The
Responding to numerous public complaints, Illinois officials tell rental car companies it’s illegal for ICE agents to switch out license plates on vehicles. / NBC News Unrelated: “I’m in charge at this Hertz location, and buddy, you’re not getting a car today.” / McSweeney’s White paper: Congress members’
On Black Friday 2025, Americans spent more, got less, and opted to buy now, pay later 45% more often than last year. / The New Republic When buying items from abroad, US consumers are suddenly finding themselves stuck with paying hundreds extra in tariffs. / The New York Times [$] See also: Costco
In Gaza, where Israeli strikes have destroyed most banks and there are no working ATMs, some residents are now repairing damaged banknotes. / BBC News Sally Rooney’s support for Palestine Action, a nonviolent protest group proscribed under anti-terror laws, means she may not publish in the UK for publishers’ fear
In a California housing dispute, the plaintiff submitted an AI deepfake as real evidence—it’s unclear how often this has already happened, which is actually the bigger problem. / NBC News Reenactments are one thing in documentaries, but AI is an entirely different line to cross, and it threatens the
“While the trauma and terror that Bovino’s unit instills is certainly real and damaging, it’s remarkable to note how ineffective the force has turned out to be.” On ICE’s retreat from Chicago. / Doomsday Scenario Bovino is who E.B. White meant when he wrote, “I am deeply
Last week’s US elections showed voters may welcome an anti-AI message, as winning candidates pledged to curtail the boom in data centers. / The New Republic See also: Data centers are cropping up in the wrong places in the US, with some areas having far too many, and sometimes in
“I want you to understand that every issue you care about—any hope of participatory democracy—is downstream of this.” I want you to understand Chicago. / Aphyr One of DHS’s least-reported surveillance networks in the country is the one that operates every Saturday at college football games. / FOIAball Jeet
Dissecting the ways DHS’s propaganda paints agents as heroes—for example, by editing out the screams of children and families. / Chicago Sun-Times Elon Musk and DOGE’s destruction of USAID has, as of right now, caused the deaths of 400,000 children worldwide. / The New Yorker In the US
Mamdani’s win just turned politics upside down, and certainly within the Democratic Party itself, which now has a chance to reinvent itself. / Garbage Day See also: Following Pelosi’s announcement that she won’t seek reelection, some guesses as to who might fill her San Francisco-based House seat. / The
ICE and CBP agents are using facial recognition to “verify” people’s immigration status, in what is certainly a severe violation of the Constitution. / 404 Media, Ars Technica “What happens to the White House’s trash is secret,” and that also seems to be the case with the debris from
“None of this comports with either 18th century English practice, the 1787 Founders’ vision, or typical past practice.” A round-up of good things to read about the shutdown, ICE, and the construction of a presidential police force. / Matt’s Five Points See also: “How Trump is building a violent, shadowy
Doing its part to try and pin the government shutdown on Democrats, the USDA says it may withhold billions in SNAP benefits already approved by Congress. / The Hill How the threat of a colossal Buc-ee’s gas station—derided as “an invasive species from Texas”—tore at the fabric of
Attorneys, advocates, and abortion providers are organizing to protect legal abortion by increasing access to medication and providing legal services for clinicians. / The Washington Post [$] Trump killed a federal database tracking billion-dollar climate disasters; now, its lead scientist has collaborated with a nonprofit to relaunch the tool. / The Verge, Climate
Bird flu is back, and immigration raids along with the government shutdown are making it impossible to get a complete picture of outbreaks. / The New York Times [$] In the bankruptcy hearings for Claire’s, the judge and lawyers share their memories of ear piercings. / The Wall Street Journal [$] Cory Doctorow
A new eye implant proves remarkably effective in restoring sight for people with age-related macular degeneration. / The Guardian Researchers say there’s been an “alarming” rise in the number of pickleball-related eye injuries, and cite a need to standardize eye protection. / NPR A decade ago, new guidance in the US
Please note: We were unable to send yesterday’s newsletter due to an emergency in the TMN family. We’ll see you next week! The US government’s fiscal year has now ended, and it turns out DOGE didn’t make any real difference, since federal spending increased by 6%
Recent polls found many Americans support political violence—except they don’t, because they weren’t asked if they agree that “there’s no other alternative at this point.” / Strength in Numbers The Constitution is failing because those in power now ignore the will of the people. Repairing all this
The shutdown probably won’t trigger a nationwide recession, but “it could certainly worsen some smaller ones already gathering force.” / The Atlantic [$] “California, and the country, cannot await the outcome of the midterms to repel Trump’s siege on democracy.” An argument for California flexing its economic might at the
Analysts believe the AI bubble is 17 times the size of the dot-com bubble, and four times the size of the subprime bubble. / Morningstar See also: “We believe we’re closer to the seventh inning than the first, and several developments indicate we may be entering the later phases of
Apple removes ICEBlock from the App Store, along with other apps that allow users to report ICE sightings, at the behest of Pam Bondi. / TechCrunch Neighbors react to the aftermath of an ICE raid: “I’m pissed off… I feel defeated because the authorities aren’t doing anything.” / Chicago Sun-Times
This week a district judge ruled Rubio and Noem violated the First Amendment and federal law in their deportation efforts—and that it’s up to the American people to decide what happens next. / Lawdork See also: “Earlier this month, the Supreme Court rendered obsolete the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition
A troubling sign for the American economy: Hiring is falling, indicating the job market is essentially “frozen.” / The New Republic See also: The government shutdown means the economic data that fuels the jobs reports—and that businesses rely on—is now on hold. / Quartz Ahead of last night’s funding
As US lawmakers scramble to pin the looming government shutdown on the other party, the White House could use the opportunity to cut workers and do “what DOGE couldn’t do.” / CNBC, The Atlantic [$] James Comey was arguably the first major figure to comply in advance to Trump, and all
With a storm brewing that may threaten the Eastern US, the National Weather Service says staffing cuts have left it without the people it needs to do its job. / The Washington Post [$] Economic growth is slowing to a crawl in the US. “The trade war is in fact wreaking economic
As ocean acidification crosses into the danger zone, “7 of the 9 critical Earth system boundaries have now been breached.” / Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research According to a report from Senate Democrats, DOGE staffers moved a live copy of every American’s Social Security info to an unsecured cloud
Even as Meta rolls out teen accounts on Facebook and Messenger, researchers say Instagram teen accounts continue to show suicide content. / Engadget, BBC How the White House’s takedown of Tylenol is laying the groundwork for its next likely target: the MMR vaccine. / Rasmussen Retorts Roxane Gay: “Calling for civility…
The Dept. of Homeland Security has added DNA from thousands of US citizens, despite them not being charged with a crime, and added it to the FBI’s genetic database. / The Guardian ABC’s reinstatement of Kimmel may have had a lot to do with building goodwill ahead of a
Even after ABC/Disney reversed course on Kimmel, Sinclair says it will pre-empt the show’s return on its 38 ABC stations. / The Hollywood Reporter For Disney and other power players to survive the next three years, they’re going to have to understand just how unpopular Trump is. / Strength
Economists say rising food prices in the US are due to climate disasters, Trump’s tariffs, and a shortage of undocumented workers. / CNN Unable to tame grocery prices or sell Americans on tariffs, Trump is losing support among voters—and running out of time to consolidate his authoritarian powers. / The
Before he ran Trump’s FCC, Brendan Carr railed against perceived censorship—now he’s taking a victory lap: “PBS has been defunded. Colbert is retiring. Joy Reid is out at MSNBC.” / The Washington Post [$] See also: If Carr is to be believed, the FCC’s next target could be
Continuing its Gaza City invasion, Israel destroys at least 17 residential buildings, as well as a mosque built in the late 13th century. / Al Jazeera, Wikipedia New figures show Trump has now deployed roughly 35,000 federal troops on American soil—and yes, it’s illegal. Or at least used
Israeli officials say Netanyahu told Trump about the Qatar attack, contradicting the president’s claims he knew only once missiles were in the air. / Axios Investors are alarmed as the SEC, at Trump’s behest, looks at mandating public companies to report biannually rather than quarterly. / NPR An appeals court
South Korean workers are reluctant to come back to the US after ICE detainment: “It felt like our basic human rights weren’t being guaranteed.” / Time Before Trump’s return, diversity efforts were already in decline in many newsrooms, and at this point have practically collapsed. / Neiman Lab “For a
We are now at “the logical endpoint of 21st-century America: An influencer shot to death at a school in front of a crowd of smartphones.” / Garbage Day A giant interactive wall of the names of the 50,000 people killed in Israel’s attacks on Gaza is the winner of
On March 19, 2000, artists built a secret balcony on the 91st floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, spawning conspiracy theories years later that their stunt caused the attacks. / Rolling Stone According to American officials, the boat destroyed by the US military off the coast of
Israel has issued an evacuation order for all Gaza City residents—around one million people—as it prepares to invade the city. / The Guardian “On Monday the president said that domestic violence doesn't count as an actual crime.” / Welcome to Hell World US immigration is returning Russian dissidents
Takeaways from Kennedy’s senate hearing, where he brushed off accusations he’s “effectively” denying vaccines through misinformation, even as he sowed confusion over mRNA vaccine safety. / The Washington Post [$], Rolling Stone To combat Kennedy’s dismantling of the CDC, California, Oregon, and Washington are joining together to pursue evidence-based
As many as 1,000 people may have died in a landslide at a village in the Darfur region, according to local reports. / Reuters Addressing the needs of one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations, Vietnam’s architects respond with structures that accept—rather than resist—rising waters. / CNN
Please note, we’ll be off tomorrow and Monday for Labor Day, and we’ll see you on Tuesday! The CDC is plunged into chaos (again) after the White House ousted its director for refusing to support Kennedy’s vaccine policy changes. / The Guardian See also: “Eugenics plays prominently in
Continuing its attacks on heavily populated areas, Israel hits a Gaza hospital twice, killing at least 21 people, including five journalists. / Al Jazeera Related: Here are some of the final photos taken by the five Gaza journalists who were killed in the strikes. / Haaretz In China, emissions in the first
Once “at risk of extinction” from HIV at the turn of the century, when one in eight infants were born with infections, Botswana has now reduced HIV-positive births to fewer than 100 a year. / The Guardian See also: “The Trump administration is ignoring a directive from Congress and refusing to
Trump’s attacks on mail-in voting and threats to end it are setting the stage for claims of fraud should the GOP lose out in next year’s midterms. / Politico See also: Despite what Trump says, other countries have mail-in voting, and “The Constitution does not give the President any
Planning documents show ICE intends to open or expand to 125 facilities this year, for a capacity of 107,000 beds. / The Washington Post [$] “As the interrogation proceeded, it became apparent that it had never occurred to Rogers that he might be wrong about anything.” White, legally armed, and primed
The DoJ wants Texas to provide access to data on voters—and refuses to answer whether it’s breaking privacy laws in doing so. / Votebeat Texas See also: The White House keeps a scorecard tracking companies’ and trade associations’ public support of Trump’s tax bill. / Axios Unemployment numbers in
An Illinois judge rejects Texas’s demand to arrest Democratic lawmakers who fled the state to break quorum on Republicans’ redistricting scheme. / Democracy Docket See also: A love letter to the King of the Hill reboot, a hopeful reminder that Texas is about more than its politics. / The Barbed Wire
Over the past week, Russia has launched a record number of aerial attacks on Ukraine. / The Guardian “One humanitarian’s lament is another gun manufacturer’s selling point.” How the hollow point became the ammunition of choice for American police. / The Baffler Call of Duty, The Apprentice, and Justine Sacco’
According to internal documents, the Trump administration wants to allocate National Guards as part of a “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force” to deploy into American cities. / The Washington Post [$] OpenAI reverses course on its latest ChatGPT release, which left users who’d become obsessed with the previous model emotionally
Since 2022, in partnership with Microsoft, Israel has secretly collected recordings of millions of phone calls made by Palestinians. / +972 Magazine If you've driven to a Lowe’s or Home Depot recently, there’s a good chance your license plate was shared with law enforcement. / 404 Media Civil
California is seeking to reverse Trump’s move to “federalize” the state’s National Guard, arguing the act breaks the 10th Amendment. / Politico See also: “If the Trump-Hegseth threats have little purpose as law enforcement, they signify great purpose as political strategy.” For Trump, this is a dress rehearsal. / The
Welcome to the refreshed TMN! If you enjoy these headlines, please join us as a Sustaining Member to support what we do and unlock access to paywalled links. Subscribe Finding themselves unable to accomplish any of their essential tasks, federal officials are rushing to rehire many of the workers DOGE
Welcome to the new TMN! If you enjoy these headlines, please join us as a Sustaining Member to support what we do and unlock access to paywalled links. Subscribe The alarms are sounding for those worried about privacy and intent as the Trump administration begins combining detailed data on Americans
Welcome to the refreshed TMN! If you enjoy these headlines, please join us as a Sustaining Member to support what we do and unlock access to paywalled links. Subscribe The citations to the 500-plus studies referenced in RFK’s “Make America Healthy Again” report are riddled with errors and misstated
Thank you for reading The Morning News! If you enjoy this newsletter, please join us as a Sustaining Member to support what we do and unlock access to paywalled links. Subscribe Trump’s tax bill reduces incomes for the poorest households while enriching the wealthiest—and visualizing this economic redistribution
Welcome back to the refreshed TMN! As a reminder, we depend on your support. So if you enjoy what we do, please join us as a Sustaining Member to keep this newsletter running, plus unlock access to paywalled links. Subscribe Trump’s tax and spending legislation will potentially add $3.
Hello and welcome to the refreshed TMN! If you enjoy this newsletter, please join us as a Sustaining Member to support what we do and get unlocked access to paywalled links. Subscribe With this weekend’s presidential election, Romania joins 2025’s growing number of nations where a Trump-aligned candidate
“Some of what Trump calls good news, like the falling price of oil, is actually caused by bad news, which is the world expecting the possibility of a global recession.” / The Washington Post Already an ethical catastrophe, Trump’s private dinner for top memecoin holders is becoming even suspect, as
Israel has reportedly approved plans to seize control of the entire Gaza Strip and occupy the region for an indefinite period of time. / Associated Press One of Pope Francis’s final requests was to retrofit one of his popemobiles to provide frontline health care “for the children of Gaza.” / BBC
"At the heart of the 11-page agreement is a joint investment fund that is intended to help rebuild Ukraine once the Russian invasion...ends." What's in the US-Ukraine minerals agreement. / Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Experts cite a spike in postponed container ships previously set to
Pakistan may reach the global April heat record of 122 degrees Fahrenheit this week. / The Washington Post [+] India and Pakistan are said to be periously close to military conflict (once again). / Foreign Affairs India pushes mining groups to pursue reserves in the "lithium triangle" between Argentina, Bolivia, and
HHS says there won't be an autism registry, walking back NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya's controversial announcement from earlier this week. / STAT As government and fringe groups—kind of the same thing right now—promote the pseudoscience of eugenics, geneticists must take a stand. / Nature The Dept.
Pope Francis has died at 88, "the first [pope] in generations to make the Vatican feel less like a fortress and more like a field hospital." / Migrant Insider The Bush administration argued Guantanamo should be beyond the reach of the courts; CECOT is the Trump administration's
Staffing cuts at HHS will apparently force the FDA to suspend its network of labs that test food for pathogens and contaminants. / Reuters World Health Organization members agree on a treaty to prevent pandemic disorganization and competition for resources—"the US will not be bound by the pact when
The man arrested for breaking into and setting a fire in the Pennsylvania governor's mansion planned to beat Gov. Shapiro with a small sledgehammer. / AP The Trump administration is privately discussing how to "denaturalize American citizens and deport them to other countries, including El Salvador." / Rolling
"The Trump administration believes it has what game theorists call escalation dominance over China... [but] it is China that has escalation dominance in this trade war." / Foreign Affairs The EU and China are in talks to set minimum prices on Chinese-made EVs, six months after Brussels raised tariffs
Trump often blames popular resistance to his policies as bad polling, but the size and scope of the Hands Off protests were far too large to be the product of faulty data. / Strength in Numbers The Israeli military walks back its account of killing 15 Palestinian medics after video contradicts
Since Trump's inauguration, records show multiple incidents of violence have erupted at Tesla facilities in the US, including one person who tossed molotov cocktails at vehicles. / The Washington Post [+] See also: At a dealership in France, more than a dozen Teslas were ignited in an apparent act of
Economists say the DOGE purge of federal workers could trigger local recessions, and how bad it gets depends on the scale of the layoffs, which is still unknown. / CNBC An explainer on how the billions in cuts that DOGE's public ledger claims to have uncovered are riddled with
The White House and the Treasury will restrict DOGE's taxpayer access to read-only, anonymized data—the same as what academic researchers and IRS IT professionals can see. / The Washington Post [+] See also: Finally, my tax dollars are being used to uncover publicly available government information. / McSweeney's
Even as a decline in illegal border crossings is a gift for Trump, it makes it harder for ICE to put up the arrest and deportation numbers it wants. / The Washington Post [+] More journalists were killed in 2024 than ever before, and Israel was responsible for two-thirds of those deaths.
A central aspect of negotiations to end the Russia-Ukraine war is that the US would provide Ukraine with post-war security in exchange for access to rare earth minerals. / Reuters See also: "Even now, most Ukrainians see continuing to fight as incomparably better than the terror of Russian occupation."
It wasn't until 2021 that the US included domestic extremism in its counterterrorism scope; Trump's pardons of insurrectionists calls into question who counts as a terrorist now. / ProPublica How to access the full data.gov archive, which as of now contains 311,000 datasets harvested in
As Israel prepares to move ahead with Trump's plan to remove Palestinians from Gaza, Egypt says doing so may threaten its peace deal with Israel. / AP A leading climatologist says limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius by 2100 is no longer possible, calling that target from the
"Commentators should please stop using words such as 'digital' and 'progress' and 'efficiency' and 'vision' when describing this coup attempt." / Thinking about... Related: The engineers playing a key role in Elon Musk's attempt to dismantle federal infrastructure are
It's no longer enough to measure income gaps to depict inequality; now, wealth gaps paint a far bleaker picture of American prosperity. / The Conversation See also: The wildfires exposed a truth about how power operates in Los Angeles: "No city is more in need of its next
Something that's getting lost in yesterday's was-it-or-wasn't-it US-Colombia trade war: "Colombia accepted 475 deportation flights from the US from 2020 to 2024." / AP And also: Because Trump wants to use military—not civilian—flights to transport deportees, "American taxpayers are paying
With the inauguration of Trump's second term, the Doomsday Clock will move forward next week. / The Nation See also: A subreddit that provides "the perfect soundtrack for your personal apocalypse." / r/CollapseMusic Unrelated: When a scientist convinced members of the San Francisco 49ers to ingest radioactive
The CDC is urging labs to accelerate testing patients hospitalized with flu to determine whether they have seasonal influenza or bird flu. / NBC News The future of the West Coast is "hydroclimate whiplash," where, for example, mudslides are the result of wildfires followed by intense storms. / Defector See
There are now at least 24 dead in the Los Angeles wildfires, with increasing winds bringing the potential this week for "explosive fire growth." / Los Angeles Times "We're feeling the magnitude of shared suffering." TMN's Rosecrans Baldwin on the injustice of the
Even as calm winds are providing firefighters in Los Angeles a chance to get ahead of the wildfires, forecasts show more rounds of wind are on the way. / Accuweather As bad as the stress is right now for Angelenos, erroneous emergency alerts urging evacuations are only adding to the trauma.
"Technically, all pandemic flus start as bird flus." Everything you never wanted to know about H5N1. / Astral Codex Ten Following the user exodus from X, Russia's "Matryoshka" disinformation network heads to Bluesky, posting videos to undermine US support of Ukraine. / The Insider A violent
Diagrams suggest how extensive Hamas militants' underground passageways under Gaza could be, and how the tunnels are used. / The New York Times [+] An explainer of what's going on with the multiple investigations into NYC Mayor Eric Adams's campaign fundraising. / The City "I asked him
Hundreds have reportedly been killed in ethnic murders in the Sudanese region of West Darfur, forcing thousands of people to flee. / BBC News Related: Gaza has the world's attention—as it should—yet no one seems to have noticed the world's largest child displacement crisis is
Spain's Socialist Party secures the backing of Junts, a Catalan separatist party, to form a new government. / Reuters Guinea's former president, Moussa Dadis Camara, nearly broke out of prison last weekend. / Africa Is a Country An argument for Taiwan as China's "best province.
The European Commission recommends that formal talks should begin with Ukraine on joining the European Union. / BBC News At least 45 American service members may have been injured in Iran-linked attacks. / NBC News Five takeaways from last night's off-year elections, where abortion rights fueled big Democratic wins. / Politico,
US Marines with heavy artillery deployed to fight the Islamic State returned with a strange set of symptoms—which may have been caused by the very weapons they were using. / The New York Times [+] Around the US, cities are trying to enact laws to protect outdoor workers from extreme heat—
Iran, Russia, and China are mounting anti-Israel disinformation campaigns that are "larger than anything seen before." / The New York Times [+] Retail workers and thieves explain what's going on with all the shoplifting, a problem the businesses don't seem to care about enough to try
By 2050, one in four people on the planet will be African, "a seismic change that's already starting to register." / The New York Times [+] South Africa's rugby team, which recently won the World Cup, is said to be among the few things holding the
