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UK bank bosses plan to set up Visa and Mastercard alternative amid Trump fears

UK bank bosses plan to set up Visa and Mastercard alternative amid Trump fears

The Guardian reports: UK bank bosses will hold their first meeting to establish a national alternative to Visa and Mastercard, amid growing fears over Donald Trump’s ability to turn off US-owned payment systems. The meeting, chaired by Barclays’ UK chief executive, Vim Maru, will take place this Thursday and bring together a group of City funders that will front the costs of a new payments company to keep the UK economy running if problems were to occur. The City-funded, but…

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How the harsh icy world of Snowball Earth shaped life today

How the harsh icy world of Snowball Earth shaped life today

Graham Shields writes: As Scotland’s west coast recedes from view, the ocean resembles a mirror, broken only by the swash of the boat and the dolphins chasing us. We’re headed to the craggy, uninhabited islands known as the Garvellachs. Only reachable during Scotland’s short summer, there is nothing between here and North America, and so landing – or rather jumping hopefully onto slippery rocks – is dependent on the kindness of the Atlantic swell. We’ve come to see a globally…

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‘South Texas will never be red again’: Home builders warn GOP over Trump’s immigration raids

‘South Texas will never be red again’: Home builders warn GOP over Trump’s immigration raids

Politico reports: Home builders are warning President Donald Trump that his aggressive immigration enforcement efforts are hurting their industry. They’re cautioning that Republican candidates could soon be hurt, too. Construction executives have held multiple meetings over the last month with the White House and Congress to discuss how immigration busts on job sites and in communities are scaring away employees, making it more expensive to build homes in a market desperate for new supply. Beyond the affordability issue, the executives…

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Trump’s campaign of violence using ‘less lethal’ weapons against protesters

Trump’s campaign of violence using ‘less lethal’ weapons against protesters

NBC News reports: They batter bodies with rubber bullets and sear eyes with pepper spray. They lob tear gas and explosive flash-bangs at chanting crowds. They smash car windows. They shove people to the ground. They ram vehicles and point their guns. Federal officers carrying out President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in cities across the country have shot 13 people with guns. But far more often, they have used harsh tactics to scare or repel those they see as getting…

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Demanding loyalty to Trump, Justice Dept. struggles to recruit prosecutors

Demanding loyalty to Trump, Justice Dept. struggles to recruit prosecutors

The New York Times reports: Chad Mizelle, a former chief of staff to Attorney General Pam Bondi, hung an online help wanted sign for federal prosecutors last weekend that perhaps explained why so many valuable Justice Department staff members have left, and why so few candidates want in. Assistant U.S. attorneys are not typically recruited, as Mr. Mizelle sought to do, by a former federal employee who asks potential candidates to send a private message to his X account. Nor…

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A U.S. Army plant in Missouri is a leading source of powerful ammunition used by Mexican cartels

A U.S. Army plant in Missouri is a leading source of powerful ammunition used by Mexican cartels

The New York Times reports: On the morning of Nov. 30, 2019, a convoy of pickup trucks carrying men armed with a heavy machine gun and powerful .50-caliber rifles entered the Mexican town of Villa Unión and opened fire. The men had been sent on a mission of intimidation: They planned to set fire to the town hall. Their superior firepower pinned down state and local police officers as they waited for military reinforcements. Terrorized residents scrambled to take cover…

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Deep in China’s mountains, a nuclear weapons revival takes shape

Deep in China’s mountains, a nuclear weapons revival takes shape

The New York Times reports: In the lush, misty valleys of southwest China, satellite imagery reveals the country’s accelerating nuclear buildup, a force designed for a new age of superpower rivalry. One such valley is known as Zitong, in Sichuan Province, where engineers have been building new bunkers and ramparts. A new complex bristles with pipes, suggesting the facility handles highly hazardous materials. Another valley is home to a double-fenced facility known as Pingtong, where experts believe China is making…

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Is Google using AI to engage in identity theft?

Is Google using AI to engage in identity theft?

The Washington Post reports: David Greene had never heard of NotebookLM, Google’s buzzy artificial intelligence tool that spins up podcasts on demand, until a former colleague emailed him to ask if he’d lent it his voice. “So… I’m probably the 148th person to ask this, but did you license your voice to Google?” the former co-worker asked in a fall 2024 email. “It sounds very much like you!” Greene, a public radio veteran who has hosted NPR’s “Morning Edition” and…

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Nihilism is now the lingua franca on social media

Nihilism is now the lingua franca on social media

Charlie Warzel writes: More and more, it seems, I pull to refresh a feed or open up a new browser tab and encounter something that makes me feel as if I’ve sustained a head injury. Recently, the culprit has often been the federal government. The Department of Homeland Security is putting out white-nationalist dog whistles on X. President Trump posted a video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. The subtext of every egregious shitpost from the administration is the…

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Steve Bannon encouraged Epstein to join his effort to ‘take down’ Pope Francis

Steve Bannon encouraged Epstein to join his effort to ‘take down’ Pope Francis

CNN reports: Steve Bannon, a former White House adviser to US President Donald Trump, discussed opposition strategies with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein against Pope Francis, with Bannon saying he hoped to “take down” the pontiff, according to newly released files from the US Department of Justice. Messages sent between the pair in 2019, released in the massive document dump last month, reveal Bannon courted the late financier in his attempts to undermine the former pontiff after leaving the first…

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UK confirms Russia poisoned Navalny in prison with the rare toxin, epibatidine

UK confirms Russia poisoned Navalny in prison with the rare toxin, epibatidine

  GOV.UK: The UK is today exposing the brutal and barbaric circumstances surrounding the death of Alexei Navalny in a Russian prison. Two years after the Munich Security Conference was shocked by the news of the leading Russian opposition figure’s death, consistent, collaborative work has confirmed through laboratory testing that the deadly toxin found in the skin of Ecuador dart frogs (epibatidine) was found in samples from Alexei Navalny’s body and highly likely resulted in his death.  Only the Russian state had…

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Courts have ruled 4,400 times that ICE jailed people illegally. It continues to do so

Courts have ruled 4,400 times that ICE jailed people illegally. It continues to do so

Reuters reports: Hundreds of judges around the country have ruled more than 4,400 times since October that President Donald Trump’s administration is detaining immigrants unlawfully, a Reuters review of court records found. The decisions amount to a sweeping legal rebuke of Trump’s immigration crackdown. Yet the administration has continued jailing people indefinitely even after courts ruled the policy was illegal. “It is appalling that the Government insists that this Court should redefine or completely disregard the current law as it…

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Beyond the major cities, ICE is rattling small-town and exurban America

Beyond the major cities, ICE is rattling small-town and exurban America

The New York Times reports: President Trump may be ending the surge of immigration agents in the Twin Cities, but his mass deportation effort has already extended well past large, liberal cities like Minneapolis, to small communities where the national spotlight does not exist but the impact can be at least as acute. In places like Cornelius, Ore., Danbury, Conn., Biddeford, Maine, and Coon Rapids, Minn., where moderation, not partisanship, might predominate, the arrival of Immigration and Customs Enforcement —…

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ICE tried to justify a Minneapolis shooting. Then its story unraveled

ICE tried to justify a Minneapolis shooting. Then its story unraveled

The New York Times reports: When an immigration agent shot Julio C. Sosa-Celis in the leg last month in Minneapolis, touching off hours of tense protests, the Trump administration rushed to sell a version of events that demonized the wounded man and defended the agent. About two hours after the gunfire, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman claimed that three people had attacked an agent with a broom and snow shovel. She said the agent “fired a defensive shot to…

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