Music: Eivind Aarset — ‘Manta Ray’
Trump’s stunning power grab on elections
Barton Gellman writes: At first glance, President Trump’s Truth Social post alleging voting fraud did not look especially alarming — not, anyway, by this president’s singular standards. Mr. Trump’s long-debunked lies about stolen elections are no less malignant in 2025 than they were in 2020 and 2021, during his concerted effort to overturn his loss at the polls. Still, by now, persistent repetition has diminished the power of those lies to shock. And yet something quite shocking did emerge from…
Supreme Court could give immigration agents broad power to indiscriminately stop and question Latinos
The Los Angeles Times reports: This year’s most far-reaching immigration case is likely to decide if immigration agents in Los Angeles are free to stop, question and arrest Latinos they suspect are here illegally. President Trump promised the “largest mass deportation operation” in American history, and he chose to begin aggressive street sweeps in Los Angeles in early June. The Greater Los Angeles area is “ground zero for the effects of the border crisis,” his lawyers told the Supreme Court…
Maine oyster farmer’s bid to unseat Sen. Susan Collins gains national attention
The Guardian reports: One of Graham Platner’s high school yearbooks shows him babyfaced with a buzzcut, holding a sign proclaiming, in part: “Free Palestine.” The image is accompanied by a superlative his classmates bestowed upon him: “Most Likely To Start A Revolution.” “We’ll see!” Platner wrote on X Thursday, posting a photo of the yearbook page, in a post that’s been viewed 4.5m times. Now bearded, burly and tattooed, with a sweep of dirty blond hair above a sunburnt…
Trump regime orders work halted on wind farm that is close to completion
The New York Times reports: The Trump administration on Friday ordered that all construction stop on Revolution Wind, a $4 billion wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island that is already mostly built. The 65-turbine project had obtained all necessary permits from the Biden administration, and nearly 70 percent of the turbines have been installed. The developers behind the project had said it was on track to produce enough electricity for more than 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and…
Israel’s iron grip on the American right is slipping away
Ben Lorber writes: On Oct. 12, 2017, then Congressmember Matt Gaetz spoke on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to introduce a resolution condemning the United Nations for ostensible anti-Israel bias. “I rise today to support our friend and ally, Israel,” the representative from Florida announced, claiming that the UN was trying to “rewrite history, to condemn Israel and call it an occupying power in Jerusalem.” Gaetz slammed the international body’s “antisemitism” and “attempts to punish and delegitimize…
Dutch foreign minister resigns over failure to secure sanctions against Israel
The Guardian reports: The Dutch foreign minister, Caspar Veldkamp, has resigned after a cabinet meeting failed to secure sanctions against Israel, weakening the Netherlands’ already fragile caretaker government. Veldkamp’s colleagues from the centrist New Social Contract (NSC) party also walked out after the cabinet debate late on Friday reached an impasse over adopting harsher measures against Israel. The discussions about taking further steps against Israel came after the Netherlands joined 20 other countries in signing a joint declaration on Thursday…
Neuroscientists find evidence of an internal brain rhythm that orchestrates memory
PsyPost reports: A new study sheds light on how our brains rhythmically organize memories at the level of individual nerve cells. Researchers in Germany have found that single neurons in the human medial temporal lobe tend to synchronize their activity with slow brain waves, particularly during memory formation and retrieval. These patterns, known as theta-phase locking, appear to reflect an internal rhythm that helps structure cognitive processes. The findings were published in Nature Communications. The study, led by neuroscientists at…
Music: Trygve Seim & Frode Haltli — ‘Du, mi tid’
After Gaza famine report, U.S. is mostly silent while Israel is defiant
The New York Times reports: A report by a panel of food security experts that found there was famine in parts of Gaza prompted outrage from many European countries, but not from the United States — Israel’s main backer — and the Trump administration. Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, echoed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel’s arguments against the report in posts on social media, saying that Hamas was to blame for any hunger in Gaza. “Tons of…
Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, gives away the game
Adam Klasfeld writes: For two days of meandering questioning in Tallahassee, Fla., Donald Trump’s former criminal defense attorney turned Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche gave convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell ample opportunity to rehabilitate herself at the expense of victims like Virginia Giuffre. Giuffre’s lawyer Sigrid McCawley, who represents hundreds of Jeffrey Epstein survivors, said that Maxwell “repeatedly and brazenly lied on the record to the government” in these transcripts. “Maxwell ruined countless young lives with impunity for too long,”…
Wajahat Ali and Zev Shalev discuss the Ghislaine Maxwell transcripts
Ghislaine Maxwell’s interview transcripts reveal a cover-up in real time, attempting to help Donald Trump distract America from his shady relationship with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. I joined Zev Shalev to discuss what we learned from today’s transcripts, Maxwell’s endgame, and the financial trail and characters that corporate media are still missing when it comes to the Epstein story.
MAGA influencers express confidence in testimony of convicted sex trafficker who hopes to be pardoned
Politico reports: President Trump’s close allies are welcoming convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell telling top Justice Department officials she never witnessed him “in any inappropriate setting” with young girls in his history of dealings with Jeffrey Epstein. MAGA loyalists quickly began circulating passages of Maxwell’s interview transcript released by DOJ on Friday in which Epstein’s former girlfriend says she never witnessed the president committing any wrongdoing. The DOJ’s announcement earlier this year that it would not release files connected to…
Far-right extremists have nothing to complain about as Trump has embraced their agenda
The New York Times reports: During President Trump’s first turn in the White House, right-wing extremists like the Proud Boys were on the streets, weekend after weekend, raising their voices — and oftentimes their fists — about issues such as immigration, the squelching of conservative speech and the removal of Confederate-era statues. But in the first seven months of Mr. Trump’s second term, there has been a conspicuous absence of far-right demonstrations. And that, some leaders of the movement say,…
The new American inequality separating those who can or cannot escape from insufferable heat
Jeff Goodell writes: Summer is not what it used to be. On a hot August day, an outdoor concert can feel like a picnic in Death Valley. A trip to Disney World is a roller-coaster ride through unshaded hell. The Beach Boys’ “All Summer Long” sounds like a love letter from another planet. In the hottest regions of the country, such as Texas, where I live, the climate crisis is not only changing our world; it is also dividing it….
From sea ice to ocean currents, Antarctica is now undergoing abrupt changes – and we will all feel them
By Nerilie Abram, Australian National University; Ariaan Purich, Monash University; Felicity McCormack, Monash University; Jan Strugnell, James Cook University, and Matthew England, UNSW Sydney Antarctica has long been seen as a remote, unchanging environment. Not any more. The ice-covered continent and the surrounding Southern Ocean are undergoing abrupt and alarming changes. Sea ice is shrinking rapidly, the floating glaciers known as ice shelves are melting faster, the ice sheets carpeting the continent are approaching tipping points and vital ocean currents…