Remembering

Yesterday I wrote about breaking things. I could just as well have written about forgetting things, which is another of those irritations that often accompanies aging.

But instead I think I’ll focus on all the things we remember. People my age can summon images from the 1950s, when rock ‘n roll was young and so were we. We remember the 1970s, when our careers took off and we started having kids of our own.

We remember the 1990s, when many of us saw our lives blow up and we tried to start over. 

After that has been 30 years, frankly, of chaos. Personally, I was excited by the coming of the Internet. For an information junkie, it seemed like a dream come true.

But with the arrival of social media in the 2000s, that dream started to turn into a nightmare, in the worst-case scenario with the emergence of Donald Trump. He is the man who is breaking things and who wants us to forget all that is dear to us.

But we old folks, we remember.

We remember what matters.

(Note: Painting can help with stress. Maybe it can help with memory?)

HEADLINES:

• Is Donald Trump Creating the Conditions for Another World War? (New Yorker)

• ICE and Border Patrol shootings spark hundreds of weekend vigils and protests (Axios)

• Cell phone footage raises new questions about ICE agent’s tactics before fatal shooting (CNN)

• ICE Agent Jonathan Ross and the Killing of Renée Good: A Legal Breakdown of Potential Crimes (Substack)

• An ICE Killing Puts Minneapolis on the Brink (New Yorker)

• Judge Bars Trump From Withholding Election Funds to States (NYT)

• How the US could take over Greenland and the potential challenges (AP)

• Greenlanders ‘don’t want to be Americans’, say political leaders amid Trump threats (Guardian)

• Trump’s Venezuela attack was a message for the rest of the world. (Reveal)

• Venezuela looks risky to Republicans (Reuters)

• Big Oil Knows That Trump’s Venezuela Plans Are Delusional (Atlantic)

• Exxon CEO calls Venezuela ‘uninvestable’ without significant changes (WP)

• Trump, Venezuela and the doctrine that wouldn’t die (Financial Times)

• Iran protests flare, Revolutionary Guards try to quell unrest (Reuters)

• Why the once loyal bazaar merchants are now protesting in Iran (Al Jazeera)

• How Trump’s tariffs are hitting business owners (Reuters)

• South Carolina reports 99 new measles cases (ABC)

• “We’re Too Close to the Debris” (ProPublica)

• Total legal immunity for dangerous pesticides? Stop Big Ag’s scheme now. (The Hill)

• We tried to get humanoid robots to do the laundry (Verge)

• AI models were given four weeks of therapy: the results worried researchers (Nature)

• Elon Musk’s A.I. Is Generating Sexualized Images of Real People, Fueling Outrage (NYT)

• Kristi Noem Calls Fatal Minneapolis Shooting Cathartic (Onion)

 

Broken Things

 

Note: The above is from 18 years ago, when I used to try and water paint if I was upset.

***

Yesterday afternoon, I broke something. I knocked it over and it cracked.

That’s the third time in a month that I’ve done something like that, which is extremely unusual for me. It’s disconcerting.

I told my daughter and she said, “That’s the sort of thing you’re supposed to keep track of. You know, being butter-fingered.”

She meant to write it down. She meant the Parkinson’s.

As I looked online for how much replacements for these three items would cost, it occurred to me that maybe I’ll just try to live without replacing them for a while. Maybe until next month at least.

Then I realized that I was much more upset than I should be. Why the deep sense of angst?

It’s not being butter-fingered, whatever that is. It’s not about the Parkinson’s. It’s not really about me at all. You only need to scan the following set of headlines to understand the root of my discontent and why it goes way beyond the things I have broken. 

As usual, Bob Dylan said it best.

Broken lines, broken strings
Broken threads, broken springs
Broken idols, broken heads
People sleeping in broken beds
Ain’t no use jiving, ain’t no use joking
Everything is broken.

HEADLINES:

• Why Donald Trump Wants Greenland (and Everything Else) (New Yorker)

• Trumps says US must own Greenland or China or Russia will (BBC)

• More than 1,000 events planned in US after ICE shootings in Minneapolis and Portland (Guardian)

• First the Shooting. Then the Lies. (Atlantic)

• How Renee Good ended up in a fatal encounter with ICE in Minneapolis (WP)

• Agents in Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Have Fired at Vehicles at Least 10 Times (NYT)

• Trump administration lashes out at Minn. officials, takes over ICE shooting probe (WP)

• Hennepin County prosecutor calls on the public to share Renee Good shooting evidence with her office (AP)

• Federal Agents Are Violating the Rights of Americans (Atlantic)

• The U.S. Senate advanced a resolution blocking President Donald Trump's ability to use further military force against Venezuela without the approval of Congress, while the GOP-controlled House voted to pass a Democratic bill extending Obamacare subsidies. Both results indicate that President Donald Trump may be losing his mojo on Capitol Hill. [HuffPost]

• Trump Lays Out a Vision of Power Restrained Only by ‘My Own Morality’ (NYT)

• Inside the frantic global race to find an escape route for Maduro (WP)

• US intercepts fifth sanctioned tanker as it exerts control over Venezuelan oil distribution (AP)

• Russia fired a powerful hypersonic missile at Ukraine near the EU border, in what Kyiv called a new threat to European security that demanded a global response. (Reuters)

• House votes to subpoena journalist over report on Delta Force commander (WP)

• In Address, Newsom Lays Out a Vision for California and the Nation (NYT)

• I Tried to Be the Government. It Did Not Go Well. (Atlantic)

• Growing protests sweep Iran as state TV warns of casualties (AP)

• Iran Is Cut Off From Internet as Protests Calling for Regime Change Intensify (NYT)

• As protests surge, the Iranian regime’s options are narrowing (Economist)

• Is Life a Game? (New Yorker)

• The Tastiest Meat Americans Can’t Buy (Atlantic)

• South Carolina measles outbreak surges past 300 cases (NBC)

• Dogs can rival toddlers when it comes to learning words, a new study found. (WP)

• Is Craigslist the Last Real Place on the Internet? (Wired)

• DeepSeek is reportedly close to releasing a flagship AI model that outperforms Claude and ChatGPT in coding. (Verge)

• ‘I rarely get outside’: scientists ditch fieldwork in the age of AI (Nature)

• JD Vance Claims Renée Good Had No Authority To Be Alive In First Place (Onion)

The Rest of Us

Trump’s authoritarian playbook contains two chapters — domestic and international. His goal is to achieve and maintain as much power as he can for as long as he can. His chief articulator is Stephen Miller.

But things keep getting in Trump’s way. Things like the 37-year-old woman, Renee Nicole Good, who had just dropped her six-year-old off at school, only to run into an ICE operation on a snowy Minnesota street, perhaps by design. (I’m speculating here.)

Trump and Miller and the rest would have us believe that this woman was a left-wing terrorist wielding her car as a weapon when armed ICE agents blocked her way. But there is nothing radical about monitoring ICE raids — this is activity protected under the First Amendment.

Whatever brought Good to that place at that time, the video evidence contradicts the government’s story. In the videos, she looked like a frightened driver trying to extradite herself from the confrontation.

We have a free press. Now is the time for it to investigate this in full and demand accountability.

Trump will forge his path forward no matter what any of us say. He is an aggressor at home and an aggressor overseas. Aided by his henchman Miller, he will take this as far as he can.

The only thing that can stop him is a counter-force in the form of a broad-based resistance movement. Renee Nicole Gooddeserves to be remembered as a martyr for that movement.

HEADLINES:

• Federal agents shoot 2 in Portland, Ore. (NYT)

• JD Vance just sharply undercut the Trump team’s ICE shooting narrative (CNN)

• Minneapolis protesters vent their outrage after an ICE officer kills a woman (AP)

• Star Tribune identifies ICE agent who fatally shot woman in Minneapolis (MST)

• Walz Declares ‘Day Of Unity’ To Honor ICE Shooting Victim—More Federal Agents Head To Minnesota (Forbes)

• A Deadly Shooting in Minnesota (Atlantic)

• Transcript: Trump’s Agents Kill Citizen—Then Damning New Info Emerges (TNR)

• Videos contradict Trump administration account of ICE shooting in Minneapolis (NYT)

• The woman who was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on Wednesday in Minneapolis seemed "obviously scared" and was trying to leave, an eyewitness to the killing told HuffPost's Jessica Schulberg, undercutting President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's accounts of the incident. (HuffPost)

• Judge disqualifies US attorney in New York, tosses Letitia James subpoenas (Politico)

• Project 2025 creators pitch marriage bootcamp, two-children families (Axios)

• House takes step toward extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, overpowering GOP leadership (AP)

• Inside Donald Trump’s Attack on NASA’s Science Missions (Atlantic)

• Germany's president says the US is destroying the world order (Reuters)

• Senate votes to block Trump from future military strikes on Venezuela (CNBC)

• China’s massive oil-for-loan debts at risk in post-Maduro Venezuela (SCMP)

• Europe draws red line on Greenland after a year of trying to pacify Trump (WP)

• Senator Mark Kelly says that taking Greenland “would probably be the biggest mistake any president has made in the history of this country.” (Atlantic)

• Vance criticises Denmark and Europe’s handling of ‘critical’ Greenland (BBC)

• Shortages, cash handouts and killings: How Iran’s protests spread (CNN)

• Protests Spread in Iran, and Crackdowns Escalate (NYT)

• Trump said that the US would withdraw from dozens of international and U.N. entities, including a key climate treaty and a U.N. body that promotes gender equality and women's empowerment, because they "operate contrary to US national interests." (Reuters)

• Tech titans divided over whether to pay billionaire tax or flee California (Guardian)

• Defossilize our chemical world (Nature)

• Widely used pesticide linked to more than doubled Parkinson’s risk (MedicalXpress)

• How the internet changed politics — and our lives — forever (WP)

• The AI Power List (Business Insider)

• Google announces AI Overviews in Gmail search, experimental AI-organized inbox (ArsTechnica)

• The AI Shift: Agentic AI is coming for quantitative research (Financial Times)

• AI layoffs are looking more and more like corporate fiction that’s masking a darker reality, Oxford Economics suggests (Fortune)

• DHS Warns Any Action By Americans Will Be Treated As Domestic Terrorism (Onion)

A Shooting in Minneapolis

While we’ve lived through these types of incidents before —the George Floyd murder happened just four blocks away — yesterday’s shooting of a 37-year-old woman by an ICE agent feels like a turning point.

Almost immediately after the shooting, two completely opposite narratives about the tragedy emerged. Homeland Security Chief Kristi Noem claimed it was an act of self-defense in the face of domestic terrorism, while the city’s mayor called that “bullshit” and described an innocent victim gunned down by the federal agent as she was attempting to leave the scene.

The Trump Administration’s massive crackdown on undocumented immigrants is leading to confrontations like these in cities across the country. Wednesday’s tragedy is a result of that crackdown. The reason that two opposing narratives emerged is because that is our political reality in Trump’s America.

Meanwhile, ICE agents are being deployed all over the country to round up our colleagues, neighbors and friends. They are armed and dangerous. Sometimes they kill people, like the mother of three who sang and loved poetry who had just dropped her six-year-old at school.

There are two opposing versions of what happened yesterday. Which one prevails portends the future of American democracy.

HEADLINES:

• Mother of 3 who loved to sing and write poetry shot and killed by ICE in Minneapolis (CNN)

• Minnesota Officials Dispute Federal Account of Fatal ICE Shooting (NYT)

• A Familiar Story (Atlantic)

• Europe draws red line on Greenland after a year of trying to pacify Trump (WP)

• US seizes two ‘shadow fleet’ tankers linked to Venezuelan oil (BBC)

• Do Russia and China pose a national security threat to the US in Greenland? (Al Jazeera)

• Annexing Greenland Would Be a Strategic Catastrophe (Foreign Policy)

• As Venezuela buckles under Trump, Iran sees an uncomfortable parallel (CNN)

• Gabbard MIA on Venezuela operation amid tensions over Trump policy (WP)

• The Wrath of Stephen Miller (Atlantic)

• Trump tells Republicans: ‘You gotta win the midterms’ or ‘I’ll get impeached’ (AP)

• NATO ambassador: ‘We could be on the cusp’ of peace deal between Russia, Ukraine (The Hill)

• Iran army chief threatens preemptive attack over ‘rhetoric’ targeting country after Trump’s comments (AP)

• Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Announces It Will Cease Operations (NYT)

• Synthetic skin based on octopus biology promises uses in robotics (Financial Times)

• Venture Capitalists Predict Many AI Startups Will Get Weeded Out in 2026 (WSJ)

• RFK Jr. Scales Back Childhood Mortality Schedule (Onion)

Memory, Collective and Personal

We memorialize special events by the date on which they occurred and so our major holidays are predictable year after year. In the news business, this helps with something called the editorial calendar.

Editors assign stories based on this calendar, which lists historical events, both good and bad. The anniversary of, say, a war or a riot or a major storm is an opportunity to provide audiences with an update, which is one way we can provide context for the current state of affairs.

Running parallel to this calendar of public matters is our personal and family calendar. Births, graduations, weddings and other events are reasons for celebrations, both large and small.

Of course, there is another item that could be called the heartbreak calendar, which marks personal and family tragedies, including breakups, job losses, diseases and injuries and deaths. These are rarely cause for celebration, but they roll around every year just like the rest.

Take yesterday, for example, January 6th. In the Christian faith, it is celebrated as “Three Kings Day,” marking the arrival of the three Magi (wise men: Melchior, Caspar, Balthazar) to bring gifts (gold, frankincense, myrrh) to baby Jesus.

It also was the fifth anniversary of one of the worst days in the history of American democracy, the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol incited by Donald Trump. There is a concerted effort by Trump and his allies to whitewash this riot while erasing it from our collective memory.

It was also my sweet granddaughter Daisy’s 12th birthday.

As for me, I don’t really celebrate religious holidays, and I’m not going to forget that riot, but when it came to celebrating something, I chose Daisy’s birthday

.HEADLINES:

• Donald Trump Wants You to Forget This Happened (Atlantic)

• Lawmakers battle over how — and whether — Jan. 6 should be remembered (WP)

• January 6, five years on: sustained effort by Trump to rewrite history (Guardian)

• US seizes Russian-flagged tanker in Atlantic as UK confirms it gave support to operation (BBC)

• Miller says no one would stop U.S. from seizing Greenland (Axios)

• After Venezuela raid, Trump team puts a target on Cuba (WP)

• Trump says his Greenland fixation is about national security. Europeans are skeptical. (Politico)

• Trump Seizing Greenland Could Set Off a Chain Reaction (Atlantic)

• Trump’s Foray Into Venezuela Could Embolden Russia’s and China’s Own Aggression (NYT)

• What Americans think about the situation in Venezuela, according to recent polls (AP)

• Trump boasts about abduction of Venezuela’s Maduro amid global outcry (Al Jazeera)

• Supreme Court Increasingly Favors the Rich, Economists Say (NYT)

• 2 GOP senators caution Hegseth on punishing Kelly (The Hill)

• China studying U.S. strike for lessons and opportunities, analysts say (WP)

• ‘Neither Gaza nor Lebanon!’ Iranian unrest is about more than the economy − protesters reject the Islamic Republic’s whole rationale (The Conversation)

• Corporation for Public Broadcasting votes itself out of existence (AP)

• The data center rebellion is here, and it’s reshaping the political landscape (WP)

• The Robot Cars Have Come for the Kids (NYT)

• Chevron CEO Sure In Good Mood This Week (Onion)

Tuesday Mix

HEADLINES:

• European allies back Denmark over Trump’s threat to annex Greenland (BBC)

• 5 years after Jan. 6 attack, Senate Democrats seek to ban taxpayer-funded payouts to Capitol rioters (CBS)

• 5 Years After Jan. 6, Lawlessness Has Triumphed (NYT)

• Trump admin makes deep cuts in child vaccine schedule (Axios)

• How right-wing media inspired Trump’s ‘Donroe Doctrine’ (CNN)

• Maduro says ‘I was kidnapped’ as he pleads not guilty to drug trafficking charges (AP)

• Trump Threatens Venezuela’s New Leader With a Fate Worse Than Maduro’s (Atlantic)

• ‘The power of the law must prevail’ amid Venezuela crisis, says Guterres (UN)

• Trump said Venezuela stole America’s oil. Here’s what really happened (CNN)

• China’s top diplomat accused the US of acting like a “world judge” by arresting Venezuela’s leader. Beijing is set to confront Washington at the United Nations over the move’s legality. (Reuters)

• US intervention in Venezuela could test Trump’s ability to hold GOP together in an election year (AP)

• Pentagon to cut Sen. Mark Kelly’s military retirement pay over ‘seditious’ video: Hegseth (CNBC)

• Sen. Mark Kelly fires back after Hegseth threatens his rank and retirement pay (NPR)

• Military Injustice (Atlantic)

• Jan. 6 plaque made to honor law enforcement nowhere to be found at the Capitol (ABC)

• How Does the American Dream Differ by Generation? (AOL)

• Men’s college basketball Top 25: Michigan’s dominance is breaking Vegas (Athletic)

• Lego announces Smart Brick, the ‘most significant evolution’ in 50 years (Verge)

• The ‘Godfather of SaaS’ says he replaced most of his sales team with AI agents: ‘We’re done with hiring humans’ (Business Insider)

• What’s next for AI in 2026 (Technology Review)

• ‘Intelition’ changes everything: AI is no longer a tool you invoke (VentureBeat)

• Nicolás Maduro Charged With Felony Oil Possession (Onion)

Road Show

So while many of us were still worrying about what authoritarianism would look like domestically, Trump was already turning his eyes abroad.

His undeclared, unauthorized, illegal war against Venezuela is just the start.

Now he is threatening similar action against Colombia and Cuba and once again he is eyeing the seizure of Greenland.

Imperialism abroad is every bit the mark of a dictator as is unilateral rule at home. In this case, an impatient Trmp has hit up against too many roadblocks, primarily in the courts, to fully implement his domestic agenda.

So he is taking his show on the road.

HEADLINES:

• NPR investigation shows how the government tried to erase information about January 6 (NPR)

• After Venezuela, Trump Offers Hints About What Could Be Next — Trump’s comments about Greenland, Colombia and Cuba offered a glimpse of how emboldened he feels after the quick capture of Nicolás Maduro. (NYT)

• How the operation to take out Venezuela’s Maduro unfolded (Axios)

• Trump Plunges the U.S. Into a New Era of Risk in Venezuela (NYT)

• Rubio Suggests U.S. Won’t Run Venezuela’s Government After Capturing Maduro (Forbes)

• Trump’s Attack on Venezuela Could Change the World. Here’s How. (Politico Mag)

• Trump wants Venezuela’s oil. Will his plan work? (BBC)

• Trump’s Audacious Success (Atlantic)

• Rubio takes on most challenging role yet: Viceroy of Venezuela (WP)

• Somebody Needs to Tell Trump Everybody Is Laughing at Him (Bulwark)

• Saudi-backed government forces retake multiple cities in southern Yemen (Al Jazeera)

• What to know about the protests now shaking Iran as tensions remain high over its nuclear program (AP)

• Scientists report surprising results following pesticide ban: 'It's extremely difficult to study this' (CoolDown)

• The Last Days of the Southern Drawl (Atlantic)

• The surprising benefits of a glass of orange juice (BBC)

• AI scientist Ling Haibin, father of world’s first plant ID app, leaves US for China (South China Morning Post)

• Computer scientist Yann LeCun: ‘Intelligence really is about learning’ (Financial Times)

• Recovering from AI delusions means learning to chat to humans again (WP)