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‘The old politics are gone’: Steve Bannon on the democratic socialist wave

‘The old politics are gone’: Steve Bannon on the democratic socialist wave

Politico reports: Steve Bannon isn’t gloating about being right about politics’ ongoing transformation. He’s worried Republicans haven’t figured out how to respond. Last fall, the former White House chief strategist told POLITICO that Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral win should be “flashing red lights” for the right, a warning Republicans flirted with and then waved off as mostly a New York story. Even after three Mamdani-backed candidates won Democratic primaries in the city last week, the argument still held: New York is…

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Israelis plotted to kill Iran’s top negotiators and derail peace talks, U.S. officials believe

Israelis plotted to kill Iran’s top negotiators and derail peace talks, U.S. officials believe

The New York Times reports: U.S. officials believed that Israel might have been plotting to kill Iran’s top negotiators while Washington was engaged with Tehran in delicate talks this spring to reach an interim peace deal, according to current and former American officials. Killing senior Iranian leaders had been part of Israel’s strategy from the start of the war. But American concerns about the targeting of two particular Iranian officials — Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf,…

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How Trump cheated the American people out of the nation’s 250th birthday

How Trump cheated the American people out of the nation’s 250th birthday

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump staged a hostile takeover of the US’s 250th anniversary celebration to enrich political allies, harvest voter data and promote Christian nationalist ideology, according to a congressional investigation released on Thursday. The interim report, “From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People Out of Their 250th Birthday”, outlines a web of alleged corruption, wire fraud and pay-to-play schemes orchestrated through a shadow corporation embedded within the National Park Foundation (NPF). The document…

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‘We are screwed’: People near data centers dread heat wave pollution

‘We are screwed’: People near data centers dread heat wave pollution

Politico reports: Data Center Alley is facing a climate test. Searing temperatures this week could push energy demand to record levels on the mid-Atlantic’s electric grid, which fuels the country’s data center boom in Virginia. To relieve some of the pressure, the Department of Energy granted permission Tuesday to the region’s grid operator, PJM Interconnection, to potentially force data centers to use backup diesel generators. The move highlights the growing challenge of meeting rising electricity demand from data centers as…

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Proposed new satellite fleets may destroy the night sky

Proposed new satellite fleets may destroy the night sky

Science reports: Two new proposals for fleets of orbiting data centers and reflective satellites could pose an unprecedented threat to ground-based astronomy, astronomers warn in a new study. The spacecraft would not only leave destructive trails across telescope images, the analysis finds, but also brighten the night sky by as much as 300%, leaving observatories to peer through a haze of scattered light that would veil stars. “Essentially, we lose all the faint stuff for which we built the telescopes…

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Democratic socialists ride wave of momentum in primaries from New York to Colorado

Democratic socialists ride wave of momentum in primaries from New York to Colorado

The Guardian reports: Inside a Brooklyn industrial garage turned underground event venue, local leaders of the Democratic Socialists of America urged hundreds of mostly young people last month to avoid complacency. Sure, New York City had a socialist representative in the US Congress, and just elected a socialist mayor. But they had so much more to do. “If we only elect Zohran, we only elect AOC, our project will have been a failure,” Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair of the city’s DSA…

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Stephen Miller and fellow ethnonationalist bigots melt down after birthright citizenship ruling

Stephen Miller and fellow ethnonationalist bigots melt down after birthright citizenship ruling

Rolling Stone reports: The Supreme Court affirmed on Tuesday that the right to citizenship that has been in place since the abolishment of slavery more than 150 years ago is still, in fact, a right. If you are born on American soil — regardless of your parentage, race, creed, or any other potentially differentiating factor — you are an American citizen. It’s one of the foundational principles of the post-Civil War republic, and Republicans despise it. In the aftermath of…

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Trump accused of ‘disgusting’ greed after earning over $2 billion since return to office

Trump accused of ‘disgusting’ greed after earning over $2 billion since return to office

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump has again been accused of “brazen crypto corruption” after financial disclosures revealed his family’s cryptocurrency ventures generated more than $1bn in his first year back in the White House. A 927-page disclosure, released on Tuesday by the US Office of Government Ethics, showed that the US president had earned more than $2.2bn last year in total, from real estate, golf resorts, branded merchandise, licensing deals and court settlements. But a set of extraordinary crypto takings…

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A troubling milestone: Most Supreme Court rulings are secretive votes with little justification

A troubling milestone: Most Supreme Court rulings are secretive votes with little justification

By Ken B. Morales This story was originally published by ProPublica In its term that ended last October, the Supreme Court passed an important milestone that went unnoticed: For the first time, it decided more cases by secret ballot, and with few signed opinions, than it did for cases argued in open court. These decisions, which make up the court’s “shadow docket,” are a fast-track way to get a decision from the top court. They rarely include arguments, have limited…

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The United States of contradictions, fears, and hopes

The United States of contradictions, fears, and hopes

Rebecca Solnit writes: The United States of America is a truck that has driven into a ditch. The United States of America is a program that has been hacked. The United States of America is … so many things, horrific and magnificent, good and evil, promising and cursed, as it approaches its quarter-millennium mark. I say it as though the US was one thing, but it is a thousand things. It is the masked ICE agent shooting Renee Good as…

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Here’s why weather forecasts have seemed so inaccurate lately

Here’s why weather forecasts have seemed so inaccurate lately

Gizmodo reports: Is there anything more annoying than leaving the house in shorts and flip flops, only to get caught in an unexpected downpour? The weather report is rarely spot-on, but if forecasts have seemed particularly inaccurate recently, it’s because they have been. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was among several agencies gutted by the Trump Administration’s Department of Government Efficiency in 2025. That February, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management abruptly fired 880 NOAA employees. Two months…

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It doesn’t have to be humanity versus nature

It doesn’t have to be humanity versus nature

Yadvinder Malhi writes: For much of the modern era, the global narrative of economic development has been imagined as a human story unfolding against a backdrop of nature as an externality to be exploited. Forests, rivers, soils and species appear as resources to be managed, inputs to be optimised, or constraints to be overcome. Human wellbeing advances; nature reduces. In some ways, this narrative has delivered. The condition and welfare of billions of humans have been improved beyond recognition. Yet…

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The Supreme Court just handed the GOP a major midterm financial boost

The Supreme Court just handed the GOP a major midterm financial boost

Shane Goldmacher reports: Just days before the 2022 midterm elections, as Democratic candidates were drastically outspending JD Vance and other Republicans running for the Senate, the future vice president and the Senate G.O.P. campaign arm filed a lawsuit to try to change the rules of the game. They knew it was too late to affect that year’s elections. The lawsuit was part of a longer-term gambit to tilt the financial playing field in future elections in the Republican Party’s favor….

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The justices had a simple task in Trump v. Barbara: uphold their oaths. Only five were willing to do so

The justices had a simple task in Trump v. Barbara: uphold their oaths. Only five were willing to do so

Madiba K. Dennie writes: A razor-thin majority of the Supreme Court confirmed today that the Fourteenth Amendment means what it says: “All persons” born in the United States and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens of the United States. In January 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that attempted to unilaterally revoke that guarantee, limiting citizenship at birth to only U.S.-born children with at least one parent who is a citizen or legal permanent resident. If implemented,…

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