Trump is accusing foes with multiple mortgages of fraud. Records show 3 of his cabinet members have them

Trump is accusing foes with multiple mortgages of fraud. Records show 3 of his cabinet members have them

By Robert Faturechi, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski This story was originally published by ProPublica The Trump administration has vowed to go after anyone who got lower mortgage rates by claiming more than one primary residence on their loan papers. President Donald Trump has used it as a justification to target political foes, including a governor on the Federal Reserve Board, a Democratic U.S. senator and a state attorney general. Real estate experts say claiming primary residences on different mortgages…

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Trump’s military deployment in LA cost taxpayers $120 million, Newsom says

Trump’s military deployment in LA cost taxpayers $120 million, Newsom says

The Los Angeles Times reports: California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that President Trump’s decision to deploy National Guard troops to Los Angeles amounted to costly political theater, saddling taxpayers with a nearly $120-million bill. Newsom’s office said the newly revealed price tag was tallied from estimates provided by the California National Guard about costs incurred since June, when Trump sent more than 4,200 National Guard members and 700 Marines to Los Angeles. That included $71 million for food and…

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Why we should tune into the orchestra of the animal world

Why we should tune into the orchestra of the animal world

Jay Griffiths writes: Sound is life. The sound of God’s voice created life, in Christian understanding. In the womb, sound is the first of the senses to apprehend the world beyond the body: a fetus is able to hear their mother’s voice, while a chick in the egg hears the song of its parent birds. Hearing is thought to be the last sense to leave us in our dying, and we speak of the silence of the grave. Healing has…

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The Trump regime’s fake transparency on Epstein

The Trump regime’s fake transparency on Epstein

Aaron Blake writes: We don’t know why the Trump administration suddenly reversed itself this summer on its promises to release extensive new documents about the Jeffrey Epstein case. What we do know is that the administration has responded to a bipartisan outcry over its handling of the matter by repeatedly doing things that might seem on paper like significant steps toward transparency, but have proven to be far less than meets the eye. Many of them point to what a…

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The MAGA influencers who are rehabilitating Hitler

The MAGA influencers who are rehabilitating Hitler

Yair Rosenberg writes: “The story we got about World War II is all wrong,” a guest told Tucker Carlson on his podcast two weeks ago. “I think that’s right,” replied Carlson. The guest, a Cornell chemistry professor named David Collum, then spelled out what he meant: “One can make the argument we should have sided with Hitler and fought Stalin.” Such sentiments might sound shocking to the uninitiated, but they are not to Carlson’s audience. In fact, the notion that…

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Project 2025 group wants women to get married, stay at home and have lots of babies

Project 2025 group wants women to get married, stay at home and have lots of babies

The Independent reports: The right-wing think tank behind Project 2025 is now crafting new policy suggestions, including an incentive for married couples to have more children, according to a report. Following its controversial 900-page blueprint for President Donald Trump’s second term, the Heritage Foundation is now drafting a new position paper that includes calls for a “Manhattan Project to restore the nuclear family,” referring to the program to develop the first nuclear weapons, the Washington Post reported. The forthcoming paper,…

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Graham Platner’s campaign to unseat Sen. Susan Collins is off to a strong start

Graham Platner’s campaign to unseat Sen. Susan Collins is off to a strong start

Eoin Higgins writes: Speaking to a crowd of over 6,500 in Portland, Maine, on Labor Day, Democratic Senate hopeful Graham Platner offered his assessment of the American political system. “We do not live in a system that is broken,” said Platner, a 40-year-old oyster farmer and combat veteran who aims to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins in 2026. “We live in a system that is functioning exactly as it is intended.” Platner was appearing alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., as…

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Climate experts extensively debunk the Department of Energy’s recent report

Climate experts extensively debunk the Department of Energy’s recent report

Bill McKibben writes: As I watch the Trump White House and its orbiting debris field of oddballs and charlatans, a single long-ago movie scene keeps returning to my mind. In “Annie Hall,” waiting in line in a movie theatre, Woody Allen’s character becomes irritated by a guy behind him, an academic blowhard pontificating to his date about the culture. When he mentions the Canadian media guru Marshall McLuhan, Allen erupts and then, in a delightful spectacle of comeuppance, produces McLuhan…

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Sidelining RFK Jr., states announce plans to coordinate on vaccines

Sidelining RFK Jr., states announce plans to coordinate on vaccines

The New York Times reports: California, Oregon and Washington announced plans on Wednesday to form a “health alliance” that would coordinate vaccine recommendations for the three states. The alliance is intended to provide residents with scientific data about vaccine safety and efficacy, and to issue guidance on vaccines for respiratory illnesses like Covid and the flu, as well as an array of childhood immunizations. The move comes at a time of unparalleled turmoil at the Centers for Disease Control and…

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AI has a hidden water cost − here’s how to calculate yours

AI has a hidden water cost − here’s how to calculate yours

How many AI queries does it take to use up a regular plastic water bottle’s worth of water? kieferpix/iStock/Getty Images Plus By Leo S. Lo, University of Virginia Artificial intelligence systems are thirsty, consuming as much as 500 milliliters of water – a single-serving water bottle – for each short conversation a user has with the GPT-3 version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT system. They use roughly the same amount of water to draft a 100-word email message. That figure includes the…

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International Association of Genocide Scholars: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza

International Association of Genocide Scholars: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza

The Associated Press reports: The largest professional organization of scholars studying genocide said Monday that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The determination by the International Association of Genocide Scholars — which has around 500 members worldwide, including a number of Holocaust experts — could serve to further isolate Israel in global public opinion and adds to a growing chorus of organizations that have used the term for Israel’s actions in Gaza. Israel rejects the accusation and called the resolution…

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Federal judge rules Trump can’t act as national police chief

Federal judge rules Trump can’t act as national police chief

Politico reports: A federal judge has declared President Donald Trump’s use of military troops in Los Angeles illegal, barring the Pentagon from using National Guard members and Marines from performing police functions, like arrests and crowd control. In a 52-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer warned that Trump appears intent on “creating a national police force with the President as its chief.” Trump billed his deployment of troops to Los Angeles, starting in early June, as a way of…

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The anti-Trump strategy that’s showing results

The anti-Trump strategy that’s showing results

Michael Scherer writes: Days after Attorney General Pam Bondi tried to put an end to the Justice Department’s revelations about Jeffrey Epstein, captains of the legal resistance gathered by Zoom. Norm Eisen, a former attorney for Barack Obama’s White House, had convened lawyers, Democratic communications strategists, a neoconservative Trump critic, and a former chair of the Michigan Democratic Party. This one was big, Eisen said from his parked car in Baltimore, where he had traveled for a lawsuit to overturn…

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Trump team’s contentious climate report ‘makes a mockery of science’, leading experts agree

Trump team’s contentious climate report ‘makes a mockery of science’, leading experts agree

The Guardian reports: A group of the US’s leading climate scientists have compiled a withering review of a controversial Trump administration report that downplays the risks of the climate crisis, finding that the document is biased, riddled with errors and fails basic scientific credibility. More than 85 climate experts have contributed to a comprehensive 434-page report that excoriates a US Department of Energy (DOE) document written by five hand-picked fringe researchers that argues that global heating and its resulting consequences…

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