Music: Dhafer Youssef — ‘Zakir Bhai Eternal Longing (Pt. 2)’
‘Don’s best friend’: How Epstein and Trump bonded over chasing and dominating women
The New York Times reports: Jeffrey Epstein was a “terrific guy” and “a lot of fun to be with.” He and Donald J. Trump also had “no formal relationship.” They went to a lot of the same parties. But they “did not socialize together.” They were never really friends, just business acquaintances. Or “there was no relationship” at all. “I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.” For nearly a quarter-century, Mr. Trump and his representatives…
Trump regime prepares sweeping crackdown on political dissent
The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration is embarking on an expansive effort to root out what it sees as rampant left-wing domestic terrorism, raising concerns among some security experts and lawmakers that broad categories of Americans’ political speech could come under surveillance. Thursday marks a first deadline, set this month in a memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi, for all federal law enforcement agencies to “coordinate delivery” of their intelligence files on “Antifa” and “Antifa-related” activities to the FBI….
Cover-up: Hegseth showcased every deadly boat strike — except for one
David E. Sanger writes: One of the many oddities of the huge buildup of American forces off Venezuela is the speed at which the Pentagon has released short clips of what it has identified as drug boats being struck and destroyed by American missiles — part deterrence, part bravado, and, to the many legal scholars questioning the legality of the operation, part evidence of extrajudicial killings. So it was striking that on Tuesday, just as the Pentagon released three more…
Threats to judges could lead to a judicial system crisis
“The Domino’s pizzas arrived at the homes of federal judges without explanation,” the Times editorial board wrote earlier this year. “The message was clear: We know where you live.” In the Opinion Video above, Esther Salas, a federal district judge in New Jersey, describes the stakes of increasingly frequent threats against members of the judiciary, which, in Judge Salas’s view, are fueled by today’s sharply divisive political rhetoric. If a judge is forced “to think about a safer choice”…
The people — once dismissed as alarmists — who smelled the fascism all over Trump right from the start
Toby Buckle writes: Imagine I sent you back in time to July 2015 with the goal of saving liberal democracy in America. Donald Trump announced his candidacy a month ago, the polls are showing him with a narrow lead, and the media—while noting his extreme rhetoric—are mostly treating this as a fun diversion. You can’t prove you’re from the future, and you’re limited to broadly legal means. Can you persuade enough people to take it more seriously? After all, you…
Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup hacked, exposing phone farm
WebProNews reports: In the shadowy underbelly of social media’s content machine, a recent hack has pulled back the curtain on a sophisticated operation blending artificial intelligence, venture capital muscle, and old-school automation tactics. A hacker, operating under the pseudonym “Kira,” infiltrated the systems of Doublespeed, a startup backed by powerhouse investor Andreessen Horowitz, known as a16z. What they uncovered was a sprawling network of over 1,100 mobile phones housed in a nondescript warehouse, all programmed to churn out AI-generated influencer…
The discovery of aeonophiles expands our definition of life
Karen G Lloyd writes: If you had to nominate the slowest, longest-living organisms on Earth, what would you picture? Among the vertebrates, some people might think of tortoises, whales or perhaps more obscure creatures like the Greenland shark, which can live for centuries. Others might imagine coral colonies, or perhaps an ancient tree: there are oaks in England that could be more than 1,000 years old, whereas in California, a few Bristlecone pines have been around for millennia, dating to…
Music: Dhafer Youssef — ‘Zakir Bhai Eternal Longing (Pt. 1)’
Trump regime plans to break up ‘global mothership’ of climate science
Nature reports: The administration of US President Donald Trump intends to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), a world-leading Earth-science centre in Boulder, Colorado. The centre’s modelling and Earth observations underpin a wide range of US and global research, especially on climate. “This facility is one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country,” wrote Russell Vought, Trump’s budget director, announcing the planned closure in a post yesterday on the social-media platform X. In a statement,…
How Jeffrey Epstein got rich — as a prodigious manipulator and liar
The New York Times reports: One evening in early 1976, a bushy-haired Jeffrey Epstein showed up for an event at an art gallery in Midtown Manhattan. Epstein was a math and physics teacher at the city’s prestigious Dalton School, and the father of one of his students had invited him. Epstein initially demurred, saying he didn’t go out much, but eventually relented. It would turn out to be one of the best decisions he ever made. At the gallery,…
The most powerful politics influencers don’t typically speak about politics
Wired reports: Donald Trump’s appearances on the podcasts of Joe Rogan and Theo Von, among others, were seen by many as a key part of securing his second term in office. But while Trump was speculating about alien life on Mars with Rogan, he had a team of acolytes appearing on dozens, if not hundreds, of much smaller niche podcasts hosted by right-wing content creators who typically don’t talk about politics. This is how, just six days before the election,…
Jack Smith tells Congress he found ‘proof’ Trump engaged in ‘criminal scheme’ to overturn election
NBC News reports: Former special counsel Jack Smith told a congressional committee Wednesday that his team found “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that President Donald Trump engaged in a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election, according to parts of his opening statement obtained by NBC News. Trump also “repeatedly tried to obstruct justice” to keep secret his retention of classified documents found during an FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Smith told members of…
Trump regime aims to strip more foreign-born Americans of citizenship
The New York Times reports: The Trump administration plans to ramp up efforts to strip some naturalized Americans of their citizenship, according to internal guidance obtained by The New York Times, marking an aggressive new phase in the president’s campaign to make the country less friendly to immigrants. The guidance, issued on Tuesday to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services field offices, asks that they “supply Office of Immigration Litigation with 100-200 denaturalization cases per month” in the 2026 fiscal year….
Europe could burst Trump’s AI bubble
Johnny Ryan writes: Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, has two cards to play that might pop the AI bubble. If she does so, Trump’s presidency will be thrown into crisis. First, Dutch company ASML commands a global monopoly on the microchip-etching machines that use light to carve patterns on silicon. These machines are essential for Nvidia, the AI microchip giant that is now the world’s most valuable company. ASML is one of Europe’s most valuable…
The truth that physics can no longer ignore
Adam Frank writes: On October 8, 2024, the field of physics was plunged into controversy. That day, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for discoveries not involving black holes, cosmology, or strange new subatomic particles, but about AI. How could the discipline’s highest award go to research about machines designed to mimic human brains? Where was the physics in that? For most of the 20th century, physicists largely ignored living systems. They understood living things as machines, albeit ones…