How a CIA-trained Afghan commando brought America’s shadow war to Washington

How a CIA-trained Afghan commando brought America’s shadow war to Washington

Tam Hussein writes: On the eve of Thanksgiving last year, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan who had once served alongside U.S. Special Forces, drove across the United States and opened fire on two National Guard members posted near the White House, killing one and critically wounding another. Authorities described the attack as an ambush. Lakanwal himself was injured during the shootout and taken to hospital. He is now facing a first-degree murder charge with the death penalty on the cards….

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Venting anger does more harm than good

Venting anger does more harm than good

Science Alert reports: Venting when angry seems sensible. Conventional wisdom suggests that expressing anger can help us quell it, like releasing steam from a pressure cooker. But this common metaphor is misleading, according to a 2024 meta-analytic review. Researchers at Ohio State University analyzed 154 studies on anger and found little evidence that venting helps. In some cases, it could increase anger. “I think it’s really important to bust the myth that if you’re angry you should blow off steam…

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Trump moves much closer to a major war against Iran

Trump moves much closer to a major war against Iran

Axios reports: The Trump administration is closer to a major war in the Middle East than most Americans realize. It could begin very soon. Why it matters: A U.S. military operation in Iran would likely be a massive, weeks-long campaign that would look more like full-fledged war than last month’s pinpoint operation in Venezuela, sources say. The sources noted it would likely be a joint U.S.-Israeli campaign that’s much broader in scope — and more existential for the regime — than the Israeli-led…

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A third of Americans now identify or sympathize with Christian nationalism, survey finds

A third of Americans now identify or sympathize with Christian nationalism, survey finds

Axios reports: Christian nationalism is now deeply entrenched inside today’s Republican Party, according to a sweeping 50-state survey. Why it matters: The once-fringe ideology holds that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation and should be governed according to strict Christian values, even as the country becomes less religious and more racially diverse. The divide reflects a broader clash over whether America’s future is pluralistic or rooted in a singular religious-national identity. By the numbers: About one-third of Americans qualify as Christian nationalism “adherents” or…

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Billionaires’ low taxes are becoming a problem for the economy

Billionaires’ low taxes are becoming a problem for the economy

In the Wall Street Journal, Carol Ryan writes: [D]ebate about how much tax billionaires pay is likely to grow as America’s fiscal situation deteriorates and its wealth gap widens. Data from the Federal Reserve shows that only the richest 1% of households have grown their share of overall U.S. wealth since 1990. Their share hit a record 32% in the third quarter of 2025, equivalent to $54.8 trillion. Gains made by the billionaire class, the very top 0.1% of households…

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Amid mass ICE arrests, Trump pardon recipient Juan Orlando Hernández treated like royalty

Amid mass ICE arrests, Trump pardon recipient Juan Orlando Hernández treated like royalty

By Keri Blakinger This story was originally published by ProPublica For months, President Donald Trump has railed against Latin American narcoterrorists flooding the United States with “lethal poison.” He has used the scourge of drug trafficking as a rationale for dozens of military strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, which have left more than 140 people dead. Last month, Trump cheered a military assault by U.S. forces that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and…

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The ‘most massive attack on free speech’ is happening right now, and the Twitter Files crew is mighty quiet

The ‘most massive attack on free speech’ is happening right now, and the Twitter Files crew is mighty quiet

Mike Masnick writes: For the last five years, we had to endure an endless, breathless parade of hyperbole regarding the so-called “censorship industrial complex.” We were told, repeatedly and at high volume, that the Biden administration flagging content for review by social media companies constituted a tyrannical overthrow of the First Amendment. In the Missouri v. Biden (later Murthy v. Missouri) case, Judge Terry Doughty—in a ruling that seemed to consist entirely of Twitter threads pasted into a judicial ruling—declared…

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Hassett says Fed staff should be ‘disciplined’ for revealing how much Trump’s tariffs cost Americans

Hassett says Fed staff should be ‘disciplined’ for revealing how much Trump’s tariffs cost Americans

Politico reports: White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett on Wednesday said staffers at the New York Federal Reserve should be punished for producing research that found most of President Donald Trump’s tariffs are being paid by U.S. firms and consumers. Hassett on CNBC called the paper, co-authored by four people including the New York Fed’s head of labor and product markets, “an embarrassment” and “the worst paper I’ve ever seen in the history of the Federal Reserve System.” “The people…

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As Trump retreats from climate goals, China is becoming a green superpower

As Trump retreats from climate goals, China is becoming a green superpower

BBC News reports: China has created a desert that no longer just reflects the Sun. It captures it. Aluminium soaks up the rays on the golden dunes of Inner Mongolia, transforming one of the harshest landscapes into one of the world’s largest solar farms. Xin Guiyi, who has lived here all his life, seems to welcome the change. “It used to be so dry and the desert was getting bigger,” he explains, as he mixes feed for his small flock…

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Trump wants to prosecute anti-fascists as domestic terrorists. This Texas trial will test his power

Trump wants to prosecute anti-fascists as domestic terrorists. This Texas trial will test his power

MS Now reports: On July 4 last year, a few hours after sundown, about a dozen left-wing activists gathered outside the Prairieland Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in North Texas. Some protesters set off fireworks while others spray-painted cars and a guard booth. As federal officers stepped outside to confront them, local police arrived, and shortly after, shots were fired. Investigators say an Alvarado police officer was hit in the neck by a bullet and released from the hospital…

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More than 600 people were fired or punished for posting about Charlie Kirk’s death. They want justice

More than 600 people were fired or punished for posting about Charlie Kirk’s death. They want justice

The Guardian reports: Julie Strebe, a 55-year-old sheriff’s deputy in the small Bible belt town of Salem, Missouri, was on a date with her husband at a Buffalo Wild Wings when her husband slid his phone across the table. On Facebook, people were demanding Strebe’s immediate termination, calling her a “wacko” with “extreme mental health issues”. It was the afternoon of 13 September 2025, just a few days after Charlie Kirk had been killed by a sniper’s bullet on a…

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ICE officials knew use of force was rising well before Minneapolis homicides

ICE officials knew use of force was rising well before Minneapolis homicides

Politico reports: Top Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials knew as early as March of last year that officers were using dramatically more force against civilians and the targets of their enforcement operations, months before ICE and Border Patrol officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. Internal emails obtained as part of a Freedom of Information Act request from the liberal-leaning watchdog nonprofit American Oversight show that top officials knew the amount of force — be it lethal force…

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Jesse Jackson: ‘My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised’

Jesse Jackson: ‘My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised’

Bishop William Barber II is the co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and was a friend and mentee of Jesse Jackson:   Peter Applebome writes: The Rev. Jesse Jackson, whose impassioned oratory and populist vision of a “rainbow coalition” of the poor and forgotten made him the nation’s most influential Black figure in the years between the civil rights crusades of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the election of Barack Obama, died on Tuesday at his home…

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Federal judge says Trump can’t ‘erase’ history, orders slavery exhibit restored

Federal judge says Trump can’t ‘erase’ history, orders slavery exhibit restored

The Washington Post reports: A federal judge in Pennsylvania on Monday ordered the Trump administration to restore displays discussing slavery at a site in Philadelphia where George Washington lived as president. In a 40-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania compared the displays’ removal last month to the government mind-control employed in George Orwell’s famous novel “1984.” “The government claims it alone has the power to erase, alter, remove and hide historical accounts…

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