Browsed by
Author: From elsewhere

The billionaires’ billions are increasing faster than ever

The billionaires’ billions are increasing faster than ever

The New York Times reports: Fifteen years ago, the world’s billionaires collectively had $4.5 trillion. By 2024, their wealth had more than tripled to $14.2 trillion. Now, their combined wealth totals $20.1 trillion — an amount that is equivalent to nearly a fifth of the entire world’s total yearly output. The stunning figures — calculated by the French economist Gabriel Zucman, director of the International Tax Observatory, a research organization funded by the European Union — reveal more than a…

Read More Read More

Inside the White House freakout over the Epstein files

Inside the White House freakout over the Epstein files

The New York Times reports: On July 17, 2025, at around 6 o’clock in the evening, President Trump’s top officials filed into the White House Situation Room — the secure bunker where classified and high-stakes national security matters are discussed and decided. This was where President Barack Obama, along with Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the president’s national security team, watched the raid that ended with the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011. Now,…

Read More Read More

Top Pentagon official admits boat strike may have killed victims of human trafficking

Top Pentagon official admits boat strike may have killed victims of human trafficking

The Intercept reports: Nine months into the Trump administration’s deadly campaign against so-called drug boats, there is a pattern to the strikes. And a glaring anomaly. The U.S. military has conducted more than 60 attacks, resulting in over 200 extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. In almost all the strikes, between one and four people lost their lives. In only one strike did the death toll of a single boat reach double digits: the first attack on…

Read More Read More

Solar now provides more power than coal in the U.S., despite Trump’s efforts to boost dirty energy

Solar now provides more power than coal in the U.S., despite Trump’s efforts to boost dirty energy

The Associated Press reports: Even as President Donald Trump boosts coal over clean energy, solar power is hitting new milestones in the U.S. and remains the leading source of new power. Data released Wednesday by global energy think tank Ember, along with a report by the Solar Energy Industries Association and analytics firm Wood Mackenzie, show the continued growth of solar and decline of coal in the United States despite federal policy. In May, for the first time, solar supplied…

Read More Read More

Cells have a secret power line: Scientists discover how the nucleus gets its own direct energy supply

Cells have a secret power line: Scientists discover how the nucleus gets its own direct energy supply

Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares: For decades, biologists assumed a cell’s energy simply diffused to wherever it was needed. It turns out the most important destination of all has a private delivery line An international team of scientists led by Dr. Ivan Menendez-Montes, Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona, and Dr. Hesham A. Sadek, Director of the Sarver Heart Center at the University of Arizona and Group Leader at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (CNIC), has…

Read More Read More

Trump’s grip on the GOP leaves Netanyahu with few places to turn

Trump’s grip on the GOP leaves Netanyahu with few places to turn

The Washington Post reports: When previous U.S. presidents sought to tie the hands of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli leader often exploited rifts in U.S. politics to find a friendlier ear in Washington and wriggle free from constraints placed on him. But Netanyahu is finding that there is no higher court of appeals in his face-off with President Donald Trump, who has a viselike grip over his party — at a time when Democrats have little or no sympathy…

Read More Read More

An Indian billionaire was targeted by Trump. Then he poured money into a startup secretly backed by Don Jr.

An Indian billionaire was targeted by Trump. Then he poured money into a startup secretly backed by Don Jr.

By Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski This story was originally published by ProPublica In late November in Jamnagar, India, the scions of two of the most powerful families in the world stood face-to-face. On one side was 30-year-old Anant Ambani, son of one the richest men in Asia. On the other was Donald Trump Jr. For months, the Trump administration had been on the offensive against the sprawling Ambani energy empire, placing it at the center of an…

Read More Read More

Trump family got about $500M from crypto venture. Investors saw steep losses

Trump family got about $500M from crypto venture. Investors saw steep losses

CNBC reports: Back in August, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. were all smiles. They showed up at the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York to celebrate a new business partnership with a little-known publicly traded company, then called Alt5 Sigma, to give investors easier access to a cryptocurrency backed by the Trump family. Less than 10 months later, the company has warned investors it may not be able to stay in business much longer. Its share price has fallen…

Read More Read More

Being Black and unwelcome in Pete Hegseth’s military

Being Black and unwelcome in Pete Hegseth’s military

Clint Smith writes: Daniel “Chappie” James Jr. became commander of the Wheelus Air Base, near Tripoli, just after rebels under Muammar Qaddafi took control of Libya in a coup in 1969. In the midst of the insurgency, Qaddafi led an effort to break into the U.S. air base, but James managed to close the gate in time to prevent the young rebel from entering. The incident, which James recounted in a 1978 interview, would come to be the stuff of…

Read More Read More

Drop in immigration and Trump’s tax cuts accelerate expected shortfall in Social Security

Drop in immigration and Trump’s tax cuts accelerate expected shortfall in Social Security

The Washington Post reports: Social Security’s trust fund is now due to run low on money beginning in 2032. And in announcing that new date Tuesday, the government acknowledged that the Trump administration’s immigration policies and tax cuts are expected to contribute to the insolvency. The trust fund that pays retiree and survivor benefits is expected to reach depletion by the fourth quarter of 2032, one quarter earlier than projected in last year’s annual report. Social Security’s trustees said notable…

Read More Read More

Largest ICE detention facility wasted millions and put detainees at risk, report finds

Largest ICE detention facility wasted millions and put detainees at risk, report finds

The Associated Press reports: Mismanagement at a massive Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Texas created unsafe conditions that contributed to detainee deaths and suffering even as millions of wasted tax dollars enriched contractors, according to a federal report released Tuesday. The Government Accountability Office report documents serious problems at Camp East Montana, a sprawling tent facility at Fort Bliss in El Paso where three detainees have died in little more than six months. Evidence in one of those deaths,…

Read More Read More

What people regret most as death approaches

What people regret most as death approaches

Science Norway reports: Few people regret something they did. Many regret what they did not do. When researchers speak with people nearing the end of their lives, the answers they receive are surprisingly similar. The dreams I never pursued. The talents I never got to use. The journeys I never took. The relationships with other people that I let fade away. The decisions I was too afraid to make. When death draws near and people are asked what they regret…

Read More Read More

With waning influence, Trump struggles to rein in Netanyahu’s strikes on Iran and Lebanon

With waning influence, Trump struggles to rein in Netanyahu’s strikes on Iran and Lebanon

The Wall Street Journal reports: As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu weighed how to respond to waves of Iranian missile attacks Sunday night, President Trump called with a message: Stand down. But as it became clear the Israeli leader wouldn’t ignore a direct attack, Trump shifted his tone. Keep it limited, and don’t let it escalate, he said according to people familiar with the conversation. Trump had hoped to contain the flare-up in fighting to keep it from disrupting work…

Read More Read More

Israeli aggression threatens to fray its financial and diplomatic lifeline to the United States

Israeli aggression threatens to fray its financial and diplomatic lifeline to the United States

Megan K. Stack writes: Emboldened by unstinting U.S. support during its devastation of Gaza, and with American forces by its side in attacking Iran, Israel is moving with disorienting speed on multiple fronts. Mr. Netanyahu attributes his country’s aggression to the bloody lessons of Oct. 7, which he insists was an attack not just by Hamas but “by the Iran axis, to try to annihilate us through a noose of death.” “I said, ‘We’re going to change the Middle East,’”…

Read More Read More