Thursday, August 28, 2025

Thursday Mix

HEADLINES:

  • C.D.C. Director Resists Ouster as Other Officials Resign (NYT)

  • Denmark summons top US diplomat over alleged Greenland influence operation (BBC)

  • Trump extends control over Washington by taking management of Union Station away from Amtrak (AP)

  • National Guard called in to deal with ‘crime emergency’ in DC are now picking up trash outside the White House (Independent)

  • D.C. judges and grand jurors push back on Trump policing surge (DC)

  • Judge blocks administration from deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia until at least October (ABC)

  • Immigration advocates alarmed over detention of Daca recipient: ‘No legal basis’ (Guardian)

  • DHS moves to bar aid groups from serving undocumented immigrants (WP)

  • US deportation flights hit record highs as carriers try to hide the planes, advocates say (AP)

  • How to End Gerrymandering (Slate)

  • Trump imposes 50% tariff on India as punishment for buying Russian oil (Guardian)

  • Trump’s Coercion Is Not the Way to Deal With India (Foreign Policy)

  • Flag burning has a long history in the U.S. — and legal protections from the Supreme Court (NPR)

  • Top Florida official says ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ will likely be empty within days, email shows (AP)

  • The US Is Unprepared for the Next War (Military.com)

  • FEMA employees put on leave after criticizing Trump administration in open letter (WP)

  • UN official says 'all hope is gone' if Israeli offensive on famine-stricken Gaza City goes ahead (AP)

    Protesters occupy Microsoft office as company reviews its work with Israel's military (NPR)

  • At least 2 children killed and 17 people injured in shooting at Minneapolis Catholic school Mass (CNN)

  • Young people can't find jobs. What should they do? (BBC)

  • Simple chemistry helps explain the origin of life, new study suggests (WP)

  • The A.I. Spending Frenzy Is Propping Up the Real Economy, Too (NYT)

  • AI’s Big Leaps Are Slowing. That Could Be a Good Thing. (WSJ)

  • We tested which AI gave the best answers without making stuff up. One beat ChatGPT. (WP)

  • “The discoloration on the president’s hand is superficial and no cause for worry—in fact, it is probably one of his healthiest anatomical regions,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt (The Onion)

 

Wednesday, August 27, 2025

Big City Crime Is Personal

NOTE: The following events took place in 2011 in the Mission District of San Francisco. With big-city crime becoming such a political hot button again, and Trump sending the National Guard into our cities, it’s worth remembering that each violet crime is a tragedy — for everyone involved.

***

August 31, 2011

Life & Death

Last night, after I had dropped my kids off at their Mom's and parked my car and walked home, something awful happened.

I was writing, as usual, in the front room of my apartment when I heard five gun blasts from a pistol right out front. The blasts were so loud, I knew they were from a serious weapon, probably a 45 caliber.

The explosions set off the automated alarm at the corner store. As I ran out front to see what had happened I first glanced left, toward the store, because of the alarm. Not long before, one of my kids had walked there to buy some treats for himself and his siblings, as all three of them have done countless times over the years.

As I watched, a neighbor from across the street who works at the store ran out of his front door and headed there on the run.

But then I looked right. And there on the sidewalk lay a man face down. I immediately dialed 911, and told the operator that a man has been shot, please get here fast, come right away, it's bad, really bad.

As she took down my name and address, I saw his body heave its final sigh and collapse into an awful flatness. 

"He's dead!" I screamed. 

Within seconds, the first responders arrived. I watched as they tried to revive the man. Meanwhile, another neighbor, a young man, distraught and hysterical, ran up and down the street yelling: "No! Oh no!" 

Yet another neighbor, much older, with hair as white as mine, also was on the scene, and looked disoriented and very disturbed. He approached the body as the emergency workers tried to revive it and had to be told to back away.

Soon the area was covered in cops, firemen, all sorts of responders. A woman ran out of her house nearby and screamed "He is my son. Can you save him? CAN YOU SAVE HIM?!" She had to be restrained, sobbing and wailing into the night, one of the most awful sounds I have ever heard. 

As I watched, they gave up and laid a piece of plastic over the man’s body. Then the crying spread as other family members rushed to the street and realized what had happened.

The dead man had been walking his dog. Over the years, I got to know him due to his friendly manner. He was a striking figure -- tall, lean, black, with a fancy hat and the kind of attitude that revealed a sense of humor and an ability to connect with others around him.

He always had a knowing smile, a greeting, a certain way of connecting. "How are the kids?" He'd ask. "They're gettin' big."

He made me feel oriented, in that way, recognized as a part of the neighborhood.

Today, I went down to his relatives' houses, took off my baseball cap and held it over my heart, and told them how sorry I was that he has died. 

Tonight, a memorial is growing outside of my front window. There are many candles, flowers, and lots of empty beer and liquor bottles. I don't understand the empty bottle gestures but pretty clearly all the men around here are getting drunk, and I fear there may soon be more incidents. 

There also have been many people gathering here all day long. And reporters and photographers and undercover police, perhaps thinking that the killers may revisit the scene.

I've read the press reports and talked to the neighbors. I know what the conventional wisdom is. He was a drug dealer — marijuana, perhaps others. He had some problems at home. He was supposedly affiliated with one of the gangs that fight over territory around here, the Norteños and the Sureños.

But I also know he was a friendly man in what at times can seem like a pretty unfriendly place, a place that can be lonely and alienating and scary at times, but the place I also call home.

And I'm going to miss him.

END NOTE: So far as I know, no one was ever charged for this murder. Some people said they saw two teenaged boys running from the scene.

HEADLINES:

  • Denmark summons U.S. envoy over report people linked to Trump trying to foment dissent in Greenland (CBS)

  • India, US to lose from Trump tariffs as Russia wins (Reuters)

  • Fast Times at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Atlantic)

  • Reuters and AP demand answers from Israeli officials after airstrikes kill journalists (Axios)

  • Trump Orders Major Expansion of National Guard’s Role in Law Enforcement (NYT)

  • Judge tosses Trump administration lawsuit against Maryland judges over immigration order (CBS)

  • The Natural Endpoint of Trump’s Falsehoods (Atlantic)

  • America’s leading physician groups are now openly defying RFK Jr. (Vox)

  • Seeking to Control the Fed, Trump Risks Upending a Pillar of the Global Economy (NYT)

  • Trump just did the one thing the Supreme Court said he can’t do (Vox)

  • Trump says he hopes to meet Kim Jong-un and raises prospect of US taking over some South Korean land (Guardian)

  • Scotland's birth rate falls to lowest level since 1855 (BBC)

  • Scientists give harsh grades to Trump administration work aimed at undoing a key climate finding (AP)

  • Towering dust storm known as a haboob plunges Phoenix into darkness (WP)

  • Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce announce engagement (BBC)

  • Can AIs suffer? Big tech and users grapple with one of most unsettling questions of our times (Guardian)

  • Apple’s Aversion to Big Deals Could Thwart Its AI Push (The Conversation)

  • For $65,000 a year, a teacher-less AI private school comes to Virginia (WP)

  • Taylor Swift Hints New Album Could Be About Her (The Onion)

 

Tuesday, August 26, 2025

Getting Dirty

When it comes to politics or poker, Nate Silver has a pretty good track record. so his latest post here on Substack definitely caught my eye: “Democrats can win the redistricting war.”

I looked through his math at the bottom of the post, but I’m sure enough of my data analysis skills to comment on that, so I’m going to take his word on the numbers.

The main point he makes is for Democrats to effectively compete with the Trump-led Republican gerrymandering efforts, they’re going to have to play hardball.

That’s exactly what Gavin Newsom is doing with the proposition he has put on the November ballot in California. His move is in direct response to the GOP’s effort to squeeze up to five more House seats out of Texas.

Moral purists will argue Newsom should not sink to Trump’s level in the dirty business of redrawing district maps, but that would be, IMHO, the equivalent of giving into a bully on the playground.

If Silver’s math is right, and I bet it is, the Democrats have more to gain from a fight to the bottom in the House than Republicans.

Taking the high ground is my preferred choice under normal circumstances but nothing about this moment is normal.

In Trump we have a tyrant, a man who will take the all the power he can get unless he is stopped. The California proposition is one way we can put up a roadblock to Trump’s push for an authoritarian state.

HEADLINES:

 

Monday, August 25, 2025

Up Through the Cracks

High-schoolers now take the SATs on tablets, like iPads or Chromebooks. No more of that old problem of trying to fill in those little bubbles with a pen or pencil. Kids still use pens and pencils at school, although perhaps for not much longer.

Every generation before us dealt with technological change. It must have been disorienting to older members of tribes when fire was first harnessed, stones became tools and agriculture sprang out of dung heaps.

So it’s probably pointless to complain about screen time, self-driving cars, or even AI. Humans seem doomed to experiment with new technologies that act as extensions of our physical bodies.

They incorporate the useful ones and move on.

It just would be nice if we learned to apply these powerful new technologies in ways that reduced inequalities and disparities rather than increasing them.

Speaking of that, I recently worked with a young journalist who, as part of an after school project, gave cheap, disposable cameras to immigrant kids in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

When the kids turned in their photos, they were not about poverty, sadness or deprivation.

They were about beauty, smiling and hope.

It is that most stubbornly positive human emotion — hope — that is worth remembering at times like these. Somehow, like a flower pushing up through a crack in a sidewalk, it always breaks through.

HEADLINES:

  • Kilmar Abrego Garcia detained at ICE office in Maryland (ABC)

  • Richmond rallies around Rosie the Riveter as Trump cracks down on ‘inappropriate’ memorials (SFC)

  • Five journalists among 20 killed in Israeli strike on hospital, Gaza officials say (BBC)

  • In Trump’s Second Term, Far-Right Agenda Enters the Mainstream (NYT)

  • Trump's redistricting push could bring decades of Republican rule to the US House (Reuters)

  • The gerrymandering wars is a flashing warning light for US democracy (The Hill)

  • Red vs. Blue: Who’s Next in the Redistricting Fight (WSJ)

  • Pentagon plans military deployment in Chicago as Trump eyes crackdown (WP)

  • Trump ‘manufactured crisis’ to justify plan to send national guard to Chicago, leading Democrat says (Guardian)

  • Chicago leaders denounce Pentagon plans for military deployment in city as unlawful, unnecessary (WP)

  • "No authority": Dems flame Trump's proposed Chicago crackdown (Axios)

  • New GOP bill is latest push to extend federal control of D.C. police (WP)

  • ‘It’s like one day everyone left’: How immigration crackdowns are reshaping America (CNN)

  • As Trump Targets the Smithsonian, Museums Across the U.S. Feel a Chill (NYT)

  • How to save the American university (Guardian)

  • Ukraine and Russia trade drone strikes on Kyiv’s independence day (Politico)

  • 8 Women, 4 Bedrooms and 1 Cause: Breaking A.I.’s Glass Ceiling (NYT)

  • Salt Lake City Hoping To Boost Tourism By Reminding Visitors They’re Free To Leave At Any Time (The Onion)

 

Sunday, August 24, 2025

Sunday Rising


If you’re anything like me, and I suspect you are, you’re having some version of my interlocking nightmare of a future dominated by climate change, AI and authoritarianism. 

Increasingly, these three seem to be converging into a doom scenario we may be powerless to prevent.

At times like this, I try to remember the basics. Be kind. Be hopeful. Be nice — but not to power. This is a time to find ways to stand up to the depredations of the Trump regime. Its power is based on fear-mongering, bullying and exploitation.

Trump is trying to crush hope. One friend lamented recently, “Trump is destroying everything.”

The list is endless: the rule of law, public service, environmental protection, corporate regulation, public broadcasting, foreign aid, public health and much more.

This is not what those critical voters in the swing stakes voted for in the 2024 election when they handed Trump his victory. Those voters can swing back. And Democrats, led by Gavin Newsom and the members of the Texas House delegation, are trying to fight back against Trump’s plan to steal next year’s midterm elections.

Remember that after a sleep-starved night, the sun still comes up, like always. It brings hope. Hope that resistance will build and ultimately bring down the tyrant. You can find and support local points of that resistance.

Then we can get to work again on the existential challenges — mitigating climate change and regulating AGI — that will remain after Trump. 

For starters, anyone can contact their Congressional representatives; click links here for the House or the Senate. Text Gavin Newsom at 916-347-0274.

HEADLINES:

 

Saturday, August 23, 2025

Near Misses

One of the early joys of the Internet in the 1990s was the ability to uncover just how closely connected we all are. We previously had no easy way of visualizing how only six degrees of separation were all that separated each of us from presidents, actors, athletes, billionaires and far less savory characters as well.

Online and off, we run across new people all the time, and it’s only natural to wonder how closely we may have been to meeting each other sometime in the past, but didn’t.

Perhaps we passed within a block of each other in some random city years ago -- one of us going one direction, one in another.

We just missed.

The opposite is also true. We may meet someone in some consequential way that sticks in our memory but never encounter them again. We didn’t get to know them and we never will. But that one meeting mattered.

An example for me is a guy currently in the Senate, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, was a 40ish chair of a House agricultural committee when he questioned a 30ish journalist rather harshly half a lifetime ago. 

He had an untamed Midwestern twang and probably assumed the reporter was some city slicker from San Francisco who cared only about the environmental issue he termed the "Circle of Poison," and didn’t care about the plight of farmers like those in Grassley’s district.

They sparred over pesticides but the Congressman seemed shocked when the journalist described the plight of the small farmers who were among the primary victims of the multinational agrochemical companies he'd exposed in his book.

That was many years ago now, probably forty. I doubt Grassley even remembers the encounter or knew that the guy he grilled that day was the son of a man who grew up on a very small farm in Canada.

***

A decade after I appeared before Grassley’s committee, the most significant legislative attempt to date to address the issues I testified about was introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy and it was called “Circle of Poison Prevention Act." 

It would have “prohibited the export of pesticides that were not registered for domestic use; were not registered for food use and would not be exported for use on food; or had had the majority of registration canceled.”

The legislation was co-sponsored in the House by Leon Panetta, but it died in committee.

It was a near miss.

HEADLINES:

  • John Bolton raid shows weaponization of FBI against Patel’s ‘gangsters’ list (Guardian)

  • The Retribution Phase of Trump’s Presidency Has Begun (New Yorker)

  • The Gerrymander Race to the Bottom (WSJ)

  • Justice Department releases transcripts from Ghislaine Maxwell’s interview (CNN)

  • Hegseth authorizes National Guard to carry weapons in D.C. deployment (WP)

  • Two Big Signs That ICE Has Way Too Much Money (New York)

  • Kilmar Abrego García set free after illegal deportation, smuggling charges (WP)

  • AP analysis shows Texas and California redistricting efforts could mess with rare partisan balance (AP)

  • Newsom Signs California Redistricting Plan to Counter Texas Republicans (NYT)

  • The Supreme Court hands down some incomprehensible gobbledygook about canceled federal grants (Vox)

  • Putin demands Ukraine cede the Donbas region (Reuters)

  • Famine grips Gaza’s largest city and is likely to spread, authority on food crises says (AP)

  • Gaza City could be destroyed if Hamas does not agree to terms to end war, Israel's defense minister says (ABC)

  • Extra illumination from streetlights, store signs and skyscrapers are prompting birds to tweet for nearly an extra hour a day on average, a new study found. (WP)

  • The AI Doomers Are Getting Doomier (Atlantic)

  • Police test robot dog for potential UK rollout (BBC)

  • Bank Fires Workers in Favor of AI Chatbot, Rehires Them After Chatbot Is Terrible at the Job (Gizmodo)

  • Family Members Locked In Heated Bidding War To Convince Cat To Sleep In Their Bed (The Onion)

 

Friday, August 22, 2025

Friday's News

HEADLINES: