Browsed by
Author: From elsewhere

The Columbia deal with Trump is a blueprint. All of higher education should fear what comes next

The Columbia deal with Trump is a blueprint. All of higher education should fear what comes next

Vox reports: One by one, elite universities are signing away some of their autonomy to the Trump administration after it has accused them of civil rights violations and withheld federal funding. The University of Pennsylvania banned transgender women from participating in women’s college sports as part of an agreement with the Trump administration earlier this month. Columbia University agreed last week to pay $200 million in penalties and fulfill a laundry list of other demands, from slashing diversity, equity, and…

Read More Read More

How Trump’s crackdown on law firms is undermining legal defenses for the vulnerable

How Trump’s crackdown on law firms is undermining legal defenses for the vulnerable

Reuters reports: When the Texas Civil Rights Project needed lawyers to help dozens of people arrested during U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, legal director Dustin Rynders turned to a familiar strategy. He contacted major law firms that for decades had provided free legal services to nonprofits like his. On that April day in Houston, he called his usual contacts, many at firms that had previously handled challenges to Trump’s immigration policies. Before Trump’s return to the White House, they…

Read More Read More

Trump is turning the White House into Mar-a-Lago with a private $200 million ballroom

Trump is turning the White House into Mar-a-Lago with a private $200 million ballroom

The New Republic reports: Donald Trump is finally getting his wish to turn the White House into the gaudy resort he calls home by adding a $200 million ballroom. The White House announced that it would begin construction in September on a 90,000 square foot ballroom that can seat 650 people. Yes, Trump is laser focused on the issues that matter most to Americans: Replacing the “large and unsightly” tent that typically hosts guests just 100 yards away from the…

Read More Read More

What does a cell know of itself? Much more than you think

What does a cell know of itself? Much more than you think

Claire L. Evans writes: In 1983, the octogenarian geneticist Barbara McClintock stood at the lectern of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. She was famously publicity averse — nearly a hermit — but it’s customary for people to speak when they’re awarded a Nobel Prize, so she delivered a halting account of the experiments that had led to her discovery, in the early 1950s, of how DNA sequences can relocate across the genome. Near the end of the speech, blinking through…

Read More Read More

For Israel’s warfare-based economy, peace isn’t an option

For Israel’s warfare-based economy, peace isn’t an option

The Financial Times reports: Since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, the best-performing major stock market in the world is … Israel. After taking an initial hit, the market recovered fully in four weeks, and since then is up around 80 per cent in dollar terms. This ascent continued through the recent 12-day war with Iran, when most geopolitical experts thought their worst fears of a wider conflict were coming to pass. The stock market, in contrast, kept signalling…

Read More Read More

Emil Bove’s confirmation was only possible because of the cowardice of Democrats

Emil Bove’s confirmation was only possible because of the cowardice of Democrats

Jay Willis writes: On Tuesday evening, the Senate voted to confirm Emil Bove, President Donald Trump’s criminal defense attorney-turned-Justice Department hatchetman, to a life-tenured judgeship on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Bove first made headlines for firing dozens of January 6 prosecutors shortly after Trump took office, parroting the president’s description of these cases as a “grave national injustice.” According to multiple whistleblowers, in March, Bove told his Justice Department subordinates that they might need to say “fuck you” to judges who were…

Read More Read More

Venezuelan men sent to CECOT on what they endured and reuniting with their families

Venezuelan men sent to CECOT on what they endured and reuniting with their families

By Perla Trevizo, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, Melissa Sanchez and Mica Rosenberg, ProPublica, Ronna Rísquez, Alianza Rebelde Investiga, and Adrián González, Cazadores de Fake News, photography and additional reporting by Adriana Loureiro Fernández for ProPublica and The Texas Tribune This story was originally published by ProPublica Now that he’s free, Leonardo José Colmenares Solórzano, a 31-year-old Venezuelan, wants the world to know that he was tortured over four months in a Salvadoran prison. He said guards stomped on his…

Read More Read More

Senate Democrats are using a 1928 law to pressure Trump to release the Epstein files

Senate Democrats are using a 1928 law to pressure Trump to release the Epstein files

Greg Sargent writes: Desperate times may call for desperate measures, but they also call for creative ones. Faced with a criminal president and a GOP congressional majority that’s wholly devoted to shutting down any and all transparency and accountability for him, Democrats will have to get increasingly resourceful in their efforts to crack through that facade. The very tentative good news is: They actually have options to do just that. This is why you should pay attention to the news…

Read More Read More

The clowns leading the FBI ‘have no idea what they’re doing’

The clowns leading the FBI ‘have no idea what they’re doing’

Quinta Jurecic writes: Michael Feinberg had not been planning to leave the FBI. But on May 31, he received a phone call from his boss asking him about a personal friendship with a former FBI agent who was known for criticizing President Donald Trump. Feinberg, an assistant special agent in charge at the FBI’s field office in Norfolk, Virginia, realized right away that he was in the crosshairs of the bureau’s leadership at an unusually chaotic time. If his 15-year…

Read More Read More

In the AI goldrush, Meta is now using tents to house giant data centers

In the AI goldrush, Meta is now using tents to house giant data centers

Fast Company reports: When Mark Zuckerberg announced on July 14 that his company Meta was embarking on a project to build massively power-hungry data centers to support its ambitions for advancing artificial intelligence, the imagery that accompanied his posts on Facebook and Threads was stark. The data centers he was announcing would have power requirements upwards of five gigawatts and, to show just how big that would be, Zuckerberg’s post included a visual of a gigantic rectilinear block covering a…

Read More Read More

Musk pushes the view that women are ‘anti-white’ because they’re ‘weak’

Musk pushes the view that women are ‘anti-white’ because they’re ‘weak’

Gizmodo reports: Elon Musk has long shared extremist views on X, the social media platform he purchased in late 2022. But every once in a while, his activity on the platform is so extreme that it can still manage to shock even the most jaded Musk observer. That’s what happened Wednesday when the billionaire Tesla CEO retweeted an account that insisted women are “built to be traded” and are “anti-white” because they’re physically weak. The social media exchange started on…

Read More Read More

Peter Beinart: Why do some American Jews believe equality is good for us but not for Israelis and Palestinians?

Peter Beinart: Why do some American Jews believe equality is good for us but not for Israelis and Palestinians?

  Editor-at-large of “Jewish Currents,” who writes “The Beinart Notebook” on Substack, Peter Beinart sits down with Jon Stewart to discuss his book, “Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning,” and speaking out against Israel. They talk about learning from Jewish history to be the saviors rather than the oppressors, America and the U.N.’s failure to hold Benjamin Netanyahu accountable, the urgency of engaging in critical discourse with other Jews, and how listening to Palestinian stories can illuminate…

Read More Read More

Gallup: Twice as many Americans oppose Israel’s destruction of Gaza as those who approve of it

Gallup: Twice as many Americans oppose Israel’s destruction of Gaza as those who approve of it

Gallop reports: Americans’ approval of Israel’s military action in Gaza has fallen 10 percentage points since the prior measurement in September, and it is now at 32%, the lowest reading since Gallup first asked the question in November 2023. Disapproval of the military action has now reached 60%. These findings are from a July 7-21, 2025, Gallup poll, as Israel’s campaign against Hamas stretched into its 21st month. Americans supported Israel’s actions in Gaza in its initial reading in 2023,…

Read More Read More

Poll: New York Democrats support Mamdani and want to see Netanyahu arrested

Poll: New York Democrats support Mamdani and want to see Netanyahu arrested

Semafor reports: New York City’s Democratic primary voters overwhelmingly believe that Israel is “committing genocide” in Gaza and that the United States should stop arming the Jewish state, according to new polling from a pro-Palestinian group and shared first with Semafor. Asked if the city should “enforce the arrest warrant” against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani supports, 63% of primary voters said yes. “The dam has broken,” said Margaret DeReus, the executive director of…

Read More Read More