Browsed by
Author: From elsewhere

40 million Americans are about to lose food stamps

40 million Americans are about to lose food stamps

Paul Krugman writes: Here are four things you should know about the imminent hunger games. This is a political decision — specifically, a Republican decision Despite the government shutdown, the SNAP program isn’t out of money. In fact, it has $5 billion in contingency funds, intended as a reserve to be tapped in emergencies. And if the imminent cutoff of crucial food aid for 40 million people isn’t an emergency, what is? The Department of Agriculture, which runs the program,…

Read More Read More

The new strongman era

The new strongman era

Erica FrantzAndrea Kendall-Taylor and Joseph Wright write: When President Trump and President Xi Jinping of China meet this week the world will be watching to see if they can lock in a framework trade agreement and finally restore a sense of lasting stability and predictability to the world’s most consequential relationship. Don’t count on it. Whatever rhetoric or handshake deals come out of their planned encounter at a regional summit in South Korea, they are unlikely to signify more than…

Read More Read More

Heavy Russian cargo plane lands in Caracas during U.S.-Venezuela tensions

Heavy Russian cargo plane lands in Caracas during U.S.-Venezuela tensions

Defense News reports: A Russian transport aircraft of a type linked to the country’s military and former Wagner mercenary group has landed in the Venezuelan capital over the weekend, signaling heightened Russian interest in the Latin American country. The Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft with the registration RA-78765 arrived in Caracas on Sunday after a two-day journey that took it from Russia via Armenia, Algeria, Morocco, Senegal and Mauritania to Latin America, flight records show. It appears the aircraft embarked on…

Read More Read More

The evolving science of dietary restriction

The evolving science of dietary restriction

Andrew Steele writes: The idea that eating less might make us live longer has been around for thousands of years. Even Hippocrates, the Ancient Greek physician, argued that, “When a patient is fed too richly, the disease is fed as well. Any excess is against nature.” Scientists have now spent decades testing whether his advice holds true. The first striking evidence came in the 1930s, when American nutritionist Dr Clive McCay found that rats fed a restricted diet lived almost…

Read More Read More

ICE’s hiring surge is already a disaster

ICE’s hiring surge is already a disaster

Garrett Graff writes: [I]t turns out, if you’re hiring for a pariah agency using nakedly fascist and racist messaging and recruiting for a job where you get to be jeered by your neighbors and are so hated that you literally refuse to show your face, and trying to attract people who will get excited to cos-play as a Navy SEAL in full tactical gear to dress up like you’re taking Fallujah while facing down people in inflatable frog costumes and…

Read More Read More

Border Patrol’s Bovino seen as role model for ICE following leadership purge

Border Patrol’s Bovino seen as role model for ICE following leadership purge

Washington Examiner reports: The Trump administration has begun to purge Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in offices in five major U.S. cities and fill some of those top posts with senior Border Patrol agents who will take over interior immigration enforcement in those regions, according to five sources familiar with the plans. ICE leaders in Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and San Diego were relieved of their jobs and moved to other posts within the federal agency last Friday, the…

Read More Read More

‘Rubio’s ideological project’: What’s driving Trump’s military campaign against Venezuela?

‘Rubio’s ideological project’: What’s driving Trump’s military campaign against Venezuela?

  The Trump administration has now killed at least 43 people in 10 strikes against so-called drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean. The threat of war against Venezuela and the surrounding region is growing as the Pentagon deploys the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, to the Caribbean. Alejandro Velasco, associate professor at New York University, says the Latin American policy is “primarily Marco Rubio’s ideological project,” motivated by a desire to oust the government of…

Read More Read More

Trump and GOP join Big Oil’s all-out push to shut down climate liability efforts

Trump and GOP join Big Oil’s all-out push to shut down climate liability efforts

Inside Climate News reports: As efforts continue to hold some of the world’s largest fossil fuel corporations liable for destructive and deadly climate impacts, backlash from the politically powerful oil and gas industry and its allies in government is on the rise, bolstered by the Trump administration’s allegiance to fossil fuels. From lobbying Congress for liability protection to suing states over their climate liability laws and lawsuits, attempts to shield Big Oil from potential liability and to shut down climate…

Read More Read More

Chatbots are pushing sanctioned Russian propaganda about Ukraine

Chatbots are pushing sanctioned Russian propaganda about Ukraine

Wired reports: OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, DeepSeek, and xAI’s Grok are pushing Russian state propaganda from sanctioned entities—including citations from Russian state media, sites tied to Russian intelligence or pro-Kremlin narratives—when asked about the war against Ukraine, according to a new report. Researchers from the Institute of Strategic Dialogue (ISD) claim that Russian propaganda has targeted and exploited data voids—where searches for real-time data provide few results from legitimate sources—to promote false and misleading information. Almost one-fifth of responses to…

Read More Read More

The myth of Israeli innovation

The myth of Israeli innovation

Rhys Machold writes: On June 4th, The Times of Israel reported that in 2024, annual Israeli arms exports had reached an all-time high of $14.8 billion, with Europe buying 54% of the weapons. The article noted that Israeli officials had previously been concerned that Western European allies may cancel weapons deals or sanction Israeli manufacturers over the country’s war of extermination in Gaza. Once the record-breaking export figures came out, however, Israel’s war ministry publicly argued the opposite, claiming that the campaign in Gaza…

Read More Read More

Northern Hemisphere absorbing more sunlight than Southern, and clouds can no longer keep the balance

Northern Hemisphere absorbing more sunlight than Southern, and clouds can no longer keep the balance

Live Science reports: Years ago, scientists noted something odd: Earth’s Northern and Southern Hemispheres reflect nearly the same amount of sunlight back into space. The reason why this symmetry is odd is because the Northern Hemisphere has more land, cities, pollution, and industrial aerosols. All those things should lead to a higher albedo — more sunlight reflected than absorbed. The Southern Hemisphere is mostly ocean, which is darker and absorbs more sunlight. New satellite data, however, suggest that symmetry is…

Read More Read More

It’s Trump’s casino economy now and you will probably lose

It’s Trump’s casino economy now and you will probably lose

Kyla Scanlon writes: Step into the casino that now passes for the American economy. Donald Trump campaigned on bringing back American manufacturing and rebuilding what America once was — factories, workers in hard hats — from the ground up. But the investment needed to get there, in both the factories and the workers, hasn’t happened. What he has ushered in instead is a casino economy, built on speculation and risk. Across markets and policy, wagers on the future are being…

Read More Read More

The peril of a White House that flaunts its contempt for the law

The peril of a White House that flaunts its contempt for the law

Charlie Savage writes: Since he returned to office nine months ago, President Trump has sought to expand executive power across numerous fronts. But his claim that he can lawfully order the military to summarily kill people accused of smuggling drugs on boats off the coast of South America stands apart. A broad range of specialists in laws governing the use of lethal force have called Mr. Trump’s orders to the military patently illegal. They say the premeditated extrajudicial killings have…

Read More Read More

This county was the ‘model’ for local police carrying out immigration raids. It ended in civil rights violations

This county was the ‘model’ for local police carrying out immigration raids. It ended in civil rights violations

By Rafael Carranza, Arizona Luminaria This story was originally published by ProPublica Manuel Nieto Jr. and his sister had just pulled into a gas station to buy cigarettes and Gatorade when he noticed a sheriff’s deputy standing over two Latino men on the ground. Their north Phoenix neighborhood was on alert. Sheriff’s deputies had been targeting day-labor centers in the area and making traffic stops — arresting people who couldn’t prove their immigration status. They had one thing in common:…

Read More Read More