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Category: Politics

The Americans ignored by Trump: ‘Live in my shoes for one day. You wouldn’t be able to handle it’

The Americans ignored by Trump: ‘Live in my shoes for one day. You wouldn’t be able to handle it’

Nicholas Kristof writes: After a 1,000-mile road trip across a swath of America, I can’t get one person out of my mind: Trinity Goodman, a cheerful, chatty woman in Oklahoma City who had a bandage on her arm. The reason for the bandage? Goodman, 44, survives by selling blood plasma twice a week. She had $3.78 in her checking account, one cent in her savings account to keep it open, and six pennies in her piggy bank. “That’s my full…

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How Larry Ellison went from being the richest person in the world to the most vulnerable player in AI

How Larry Ellison went from being the richest person in the world to the most vulnerable player in AI

The New York Times reports: [Larry Ellison’s] big bet on A.I. was built on an astronomical amount of debt in every imaginable form — bonds, letters of credit, asset-backed securities — available in seemingly unlimited quantities, because the more you spent building A.I. infrastructure, the more you would earn, or so the logic went. Computer theorists called it the scaling hypothesis. It held that advancements in A.I. were directly tied to the generation of unprecedented amounts of computing power to…

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How Todd Blanche destroyed ‘the presumption of regularity’ and stripped the DOJ of its authority

How Todd Blanche destroyed ‘the presumption of regularity’ and stripped the DOJ of its authority

Ankush Khardori writes: “Todd Blanche is a STAR,” President Trump declared defiantly on social media on Thursday as he sought to clear resistance from two Senate Republicans to his nominee for attorney general. Instead of quickly acceding to the senators’ modest requests — for written guarantees confirming the elimination of a slush fund for Jan. 6 rioters and the limiting of a tax immunity deal for Mr. Trump — the president raised withdrawing Mr. Blanche’s nomination until next year, after…

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Iran targets strategic U.S. assets in Kuwait, Bahrain after Egypt drone attack

Iran targets strategic U.S. assets in Kuwait, Bahrain after Egypt drone attack

CNBC reports: Iran’s army said on Friday it had launched attacks on strategic U.S. assets and military bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, following the latest wave of U.S. strikes against the Islamic Republic. Tehran said that it targeted aircraft shelters, satellite communication systems and equipment storage facilities used by the U.S. military at Kuwait’s Ahmad al-Jaber Air Base in a drone strike, per state media. Iran’s army also claimed Thursday to have attacked U.S. facilities at Sheikh Isa Air Base…

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AI could end up too cheap to control

AI could end up too cheap to control

Eric Levitz writes: The AI industry’s investors and critics don’t agree on much. But many in each camp share at least one basic conviction: America’s top labs are about to make a killing. Capital markets have signaled their faith in Anthropic and OpenAI’s impending hyper-profitability, valuing each at nearly $1 trillion. Many of Silicon Valley’s progressive adversaries also expect the labs to grow filthy rich but fear the implications, warning that AI-induced automation could transfer vast sums of money from…

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U.S. government map of Africa, made with AI, mislabels every country at global conference

U.S. government map of Africa, made with AI, mislabels every country at global conference

Reuters reports: A US government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a state department presentation at a ⁠global conference in Brazil ⁠this week, ​causing a stir among attenders who took screenshots and posted them online. Reuters viewed a video of the presentation given at the Aids 2026 conference in ⁠Rio de Janeiro, which shows the errant map displayed halfway during a presentation about the state department’s new health agreements. A Reuters analysis found the image of the map included…

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Two more federal appeals courts reject ICE mass detention policy

Two more federal appeals courts reject ICE mass detention policy

Politico reports: The appeals court dam is breaking against ICE’s unprecedented mass detention policy. Two federal appeals courts on Thursday shot down the Trump administration’s bid to subject millions of immigrants — most of whom have lived in the U.S. for years without criminal records — to mandatory detention without bond. In a pair of 2-1 decisions, the California-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and the Illinois-based 7th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Trump administration had defied logic…

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A leaked memo ties cyberattacks on Minnesota water utilities to Iran

A leaked memo ties cyberattacks on Minnesota water utilities to Iran

Wired reports: Since the US launched its war against Iran in late February, the country’s hackers have struck back with retaliatory intrusions that have ranged from paralyzing medical supplies company Stryker to breaching the personal email of FBI director Kash Patel. Now, after an unprecedented wave of disruptive cyberattacks hit water utilities in Minnesota, a memo circulated within the water industry ties those attacks to Iran, too, in the widest and most disruptive strike yet inflicted by the country’s hackers…

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Ukraine starts providing the U.S. with military assistance

Ukraine starts providing the U.S. with military assistance

Thomas Nagorski writes: It is often hard to know who is winning the war in Ukraine. The front lines scarcely budge. The air war brings regular Russian missile strikes—the most recent ones have hit Kyiv—and Ukrainian attacks that have battered Russian oil refineries and reached as far as Siberia. Ukrainian officials say the tide is turning their way; the Kremlin insists it will win a war of attrition. In one significant way, Ukraine has already won. Some of the world’s…

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Ultra-rich buying $49 million London mansions. ‘Trump unease’ generates 10% rise in Americans investing in Britain

Ultra-rich buying $49 million London mansions. ‘Trump unease’ generates 10% rise in Americans investing in Britain

Fortune reports: Wealthy Americans are swapping U.S. ZIP codes for foreign postcodes, chasing stability as the U.S. grapples with a soaring cost-of-living, political polarization, and economic uncertainty. And now, they’re snapping up prime real estate in one of the world’s most expensive housing markets: London. The British capital has witnessed a staggering jump in the number of sales valued above £15 million ($20 million)—and it’s largely being driven by Americans with deep pockets, according to luxury real estate company Beauchamp…

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Trump administration is repurposing federal land for AI data centers

Trump administration is repurposing federal land for AI data centers

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration is repurposing large chunks of federal land to host enormous data centers and the power plants needed to run them as officials seek to accelerate the development of artificial intelligence and overcome growing local opposition to the facilities. The Energy Department announced on Wednesday that it would redevelop parts of a retired Cold War-era uranium enrichment facility in Paducah, Ky., to host a large new A.I. data center campus. The site is…

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Residents furious at plan to seize and destroy their homes for AI data centers

Residents furious at plan to seize and destroy their homes for AI data centers

Futurism reports: As dozens of cities across the US are forced to scrap their plans to build power-hungry data centers, some civic leaders are no longer asking. According to new reporting by Fortune, the state of Georgia’s for-profit utility company, Georgia Power, is looking to demolish and pave over some 30 homes — and 330 parcels of land — that currently block the route of a 1,000 mile transmission line. When it goes live, the line will distribute nearly 10,000…

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Musk plans a second campaign to poison U.S. democracy

Musk plans a second campaign to poison U.S. democracy

Axios reports: Tech billionaire Elon Musk is jumping into the midterms with a huge investment in a plan to boost Republican voter turnout, Axios has learned. Driving the news: Musk is resuscitating his dormant super PAC, America PAC, which spent more than $260 million to help get President Trump elected in 2024. America PAC will focus on door-knocking, digital advertising and direct mail aimed at turning out the conservative base, including voters who typically are less inclined to cast ballots in a non-presidential election year,…

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Why Iran chose to restart the fight after the U.S. stopped firing

Why Iran chose to restart the fight after the U.S. stopped firing

Abbas Al Lawati writes: Iran has brought days of relative calm in the Middle East to an end after launching what the US called a “surprise” attack in a striking change to the pattern of fighting. Rather than responding to a fresh American strike, Tehran chose to restart the fight itself, showing a growing willingness to use military force to shape the course of the war on its own terms. This in turn sets the stage for fresh escalation. “We…

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Blanche nomination at risk of delay as Cornyn seeks assurances on Trump settlement

Blanche nomination at risk of delay as Cornyn seeks assurances on Trump settlement

The Associated Press reports: A planned vote to move forward with Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general appeared in doubt Wednesday as a key Republican senator demanded more assurances from the Justice Department about the settlement of President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service. GOP Sen. John Cornyn, a crucial swing vote, told reporters he was not willing to support Blanche’s nomination until the Justice Department adequately addressed in writing his concerns about the settlement that afforded Trump…

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Data centers become the new frontlines of global power

Data centers become the new frontlines of global power

Henrique Schneider writes: Data centers have emerged as a crucial element in the realms of geopolitics, energy security and industrial strategy. On the morning of March 1, 2026, three coordinated Iranian drone strikes hit Amazon Web Services facilities in the Gulf, disrupting regional cloud services for days to weeks. The episode crystallized a transition that had been building for years: The quiet warehouses of the digital economy are now contested strategic assets. The scale of what is being built is…

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