The Amazon is shifting into a ‘hypertropical’ state unseen for millions of years

The Amazon is shifting into a ‘hypertropical’ state unseen for millions of years

Science Alert reports: A new study of the Amazon rainforest has found the region is shifting toward a ‘hypertropical’ state as droughts become longer, hotter, and more frequent. These conditions have “no current analogue” according to the international team of researchers behind the study. Trees are becoming exposed to whole new levels of stress, and the Amazon’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide is being reduced, too. So drastic are the contemporary and impending changes, based on data gathered across the…

Read More Read More

‘This year nearly broke me as a scientist’ – U.S. researchers reflect on how 2025’s science cuts have changed their lives

‘This year nearly broke me as a scientist’ – U.S. researchers reflect on how 2025’s science cuts have changed their lives

U.S. researchers are seeking the light at the end of a rough year for science. Westend61/Getty Images By Carrie McDonough, Carnegie Mellon University; Brian G. Henning, Gonzaga University; Cara Poland, Michigan State University; Nathaniel M. Tran, University of Illinois Chicago; Rachael Sirianni, UMass Chan Medical School, and Stephanie J. Nawyn, Michigan State University From beginning to end, 2025 was a year of devastation for scientists in the United States. January saw the abrupt suspension of key operations across the National…

Read More Read More

Trump will stop at nothing to ensure the political dominance of White people in America

Trump will stop at nothing to ensure the political dominance of White people in America

Regina Davis Moss writes: “We’ve dropped (the price of) the infertility drugs to make lots of Trump babies, I’m hoping by the midterms.” That bizarre remark was made recently by Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. After four years of the first Trump administration and nearly one year into the second, many of us have become desensitized to this kind of commentary – but not Black women. We know the quiet part spoken out…

Read More Read More

How the West taught Putin to stop worrying and love his bombs

How the West taught Putin to stop worrying and love his bombs

Andrew Chakhoyan writes: In Netflix’s House of Dynamite, a ballistic missile hurtles toward the United States, the nightmare scenario that keeps defense planners awake at night. Yet the West’s Russia policies, over the past decade, have done more to increase the odds of such a catastrophe than prevent it. Washington’s unwitting effort to teach Moscow that nuclear threats work and aggression pays has culminated in a 28-point dictator’s wishlist, bizarrely presented as a “peace plan.” The United States, the world’s…

Read More Read More

Much of what ICE is doing is not remotely constitutional

Much of what ICE is doing is not remotely constitutional

Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge, writes: Untold numbers of ICE agents have appeared on America’s streets in recent months, and many of them have committed acts of aggression with seeming impunity. ICE agents have detained suspected illegal immigrants without cause—including U.S. citizens and lawful residents. They have, in effect, kidnapped people, breaking into cars to make arrests. They have used tear gas and pepper spray on nonviolent protesters. They have refused to identify themselves, wearing masks, using unmarked cars,…

Read More Read More

The dollar is facing an end to its dominance as global alternatives are emerging

The dollar is facing an end to its dominance as global alternatives are emerging

Wired reports: 2026 will be the year when US dollar dilution—the quiet erosion of its global dominance as countries trade and pay in alternatives—starts to build momentum. The more Washington uses the dollar as a weapon, the more the world builds ways to circumvent it. America’s share of global trade has fallen from one-third in 2000 to just one-quarter today. As emerging economies trade more with each other, the dollar is less central to the flow of goods. Indian and…

Read More Read More

Billion-dollar data centers are colonizing the whole world

Billion-dollar data centers are colonizing the whole world

Lauren Goode reports: When Sam Altman said one year ago that OpenAI’s Roman Empire is the actual Roman Empire, he wasn’t kidding. In the same way that the Romans gradually amassed an empire of land spanning three continents and one-ninth of the Earth’s circumference, the CEO and his cohort are now dotting the planet with their own latifundia—not agricultural estates, but AI data centers. Tech executives like Altman, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and Oracle cofounder Larry…

Read More Read More

Trump triggered death threats against Marjorie Taylor Greene’s family. And then he blamed her

Trump triggered death threats against Marjorie Taylor Greene’s family. And then he blamed her

Robert Draper writes: I have covered Greene, who is 51, extensively over the past five years, and it was evident during this recent visit that on one level nothing had changed. Just outside the front door of her office stood the familiar placard blaring, “There are TWO genders: MALE & FEMALE.” One sign on the door warned visitors that “NO FOREIGN LOBBYING” was allowed; another featured the image of Charlie Kirk. Hanging on the wall inside the waiting area were…

Read More Read More

Flat Earth, spirits and conspiracy theories – experience can shape even extraordinary beliefs

Flat Earth, spirits and conspiracy theories – experience can shape even extraordinary beliefs

A belief in ghosts could be a way to explain a strange experience while asleep. ‘The Nightmare’ by Johann Heinrich Füssli/Wikimedia Commons By Eli Elster, University of California, Davis On Feb. 22, 2020, “Mad” Mike Hughes towed a homemade rocket to the Mojave Desert and launched himself into the sky. His goal? To view the flatness of the Earth from space. This was his third attempt, and tragically it was fatal. Hughes crashed shortly after takeoff and died. Hughes’ nickname…

Read More Read More

Americans hate AI — a massive, growing opportunity for Democrats to run with

Americans hate AI — a massive, growing opportunity for Democrats to run with

Calder McHugh writes: It’s become a common occurrence: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer posts a light-hearted video on social media. She’s Christmas shopping, or she’s talking about her Michigan accent or she’s touting her administration’s accomplishments. And immediately, the comments start rolling in, all demanding the same thing: Say no to data centers in the state. Stop construction. “All I want for Christmas is legislation banning data centers in Michigan.” National figures in the party are beginning to notice the anger….

Read More Read More

What America might look like with no immigration

What America might look like with no immigration

The New York Times reports: One year into President Trump’s immigration crackdown, construction firms in Louisiana are scrambling to find carpenters. Hospitals in West Virginia have lost out on doctors and nurses who were planning to come from overseas. A neighborhood soccer league in Memphis cannot field enough teams because immigrant children have stopped showing up. America is closing its doors to the world, sealing the border, squeezing the legal avenues to entry and sending new arrivals and longtime residents…

Read More Read More

How Stephen Miller and Marco Rubio’s agendas converged as Trump targeted Maduro

How Stephen Miller and Marco Rubio’s agendas converged as Trump targeted Maduro

The New York Times reports: On a spring night in the Oval Office, President Trump asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio how to get tougher on Venezuela. It was just before Memorial Day, and anti-leftist Cuban American lawmakers whose votes Mr. Trump needed for his signature domestic policy bill were urging him to tighten a vise on Venezuela by stopping Chevron’s oil operations there. But Mr. Trump did not want to lose the only U.S. foothold in Venezuela’s oil industry,…

Read More Read More

House Republican: ‘You cannot be America first and pro-Russia’

House Republican: ‘You cannot be America first and pro-Russia’

The Hill reports: Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said on Sunday that Russia’s strikes on civilian homes — including on Christmas — are a reminder to Americans that the war against Ukraine is at odds with America’s values. In an interview on ABC News’s “This Week,” the former House Intelligence Committee chair pointed to images of the destruction in Ukrainian cities and neighborhoods and said Russian President Vladimir Putin is “continuing to remind us that this is a war of aggression.”…

Read More Read More

A wealth tax proposed in California has billionaires thinking of leaving

A wealth tax proposed in California has billionaires thinking of leaving

The New York Times reports: Billionaires including Peter Thiel, the tech venture capitalist, and Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, are considering cutting or reducing their ties to California by the end of the year because of a proposed ballot measure that could tax the state’s wealthiest residents, according to five people familiar with their thinking. Mr. Thiel, 58, who owns a home in the Hollywood Hills and operates a personal investment firm from Los Angeles, has explored opening an…

Read More Read More