Monday Mix

HEADLINES:

• How the US right wing is taking over news media and choking press freedom (Guardian)

• Charlie Kirk’s murder and its aftermath are symptoms of a fragile democracy (WP)

• In an Era of Deep Polarization, Unity Is Not Trump’s Mission (NYT)

• Lankford: ‘Just believing differently than some other American is not illegal’ (The Hill)

• Kirk’s assassination is forcing politicians to make difficult choices about their safety (CNN)

• How Charlie Kirk’s social media machine rewired a generation’s politics (WP)

• Patel faces congressional hearings after missteps in Kirk assassination probe and turmoil at FBI (AP)

• Authorities uncover new details about Charlie Kirk shooting suspect (WP)

• Chicago area residents mourn immigrant fatally shot after injuring ICE agent (Reuters)

• After Trump’s Cuts, ‘Crippled’ NPR and PBS Stations Must Transform (NYT)

• Rubio and Netanyahu meet in Israel to discuss Hamas war, Gaza City operation (ABC)

• On the Supreme Court’s Emergency Docket, Sharp Partisan Divides (NYT)

• NY Giants Players Horrified To Learn Uniforms Have Names On Back (Onion)

What Is and Isn't

“One way of thinking about science is that it’s a check against the natural human tendency to see patterns that might not be there. It’s a way of knowing when a pattern is real and when it’s a trick of your mind.” — Jason Fagone, The Woman Who Smashed Codes

In science, when we learn something new and useful in one field, it sometimes proves useful in other fields. 

That’s one lesson from the remarkable life and accomplishments of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, probably the greatest, yet least-known American codebreaker in history.

As a self-taught cryptanalyst, she deciphered enemy codes during World Wars I and II; in between, she helped the Treasury Department take down gangsters including Al Capone.

Journalist Jason Fagone’s book quoted above is an entertaining and informative biography of this extraordinary woman’s story, and there also is a PBS documentary series,  The Codebreaker, that is excellent.

Understanding the difference between patterns, real and imagined, can be applied to thinking about an entirely different matter than cryptology — and that is the endless conspiracy theories that pollute so much of our current public life.

From the claims by Laura Loomer and her ilk that immigrants were eating our pets to the anti-vaccination pronouncements by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to the utter nonsense fostered by many of the others around Donald Trump, a sizable portion of the public has been buying into baseless theories that are demonstrably false. The Kirk assassination has set off a whole new round of noise pollution.

And that is precisely what sets real journalism apart from the junk too many consume on Fox News and social media.

"So little was known in this country of codes and ciphers when the United States entered World War I, that we ourselves had to be the learners, the workers and the teachers all at one and the same time," Friedman once said of her work.

That is an accurate summation of the state of the ill-informed American public today. So little is broadly known of the facts in our society that we all need to become learners, workers and teachers at the same time. That’s why we desperately need to bring back as many real, honest journalism as possible to help us do what the codebreakers did — save our democracy from an unacceptable alternative — authoritarianism.

(This essay is heavily edited and updated from when I first published it two years ago.)

HEADLINES:

• Trump says he's ready to put 'major sanctions' on Russia if NATO nations do the same (NBC)

• NATO to bolster eastern flank after Poland downs drones (Reuters)

• 'We escaped certain death': Israel intensifies Gaza City bombardment, forcing families to flee (BBC)

• UN endorses two-state solution declaration that condemns Hamas (Reuters)

• People are losing jobs due to social media posts about Charlie Kirk (NPR)

• The New McCarthyism: Kirk Disciples Warn Critics to Mourn Him Properly or Else (Daily Kos)

• Workers are getting fired, placed on leave over Charlie Kirk posts (WP)

• ‘It’s unacceptable’: Inside growing concerns about Patel’s FBI leadership (CNN)

• FBI director draws criticism from the right over handling of shooting (WP)

• Patel faces congressional hearings after missteps in Kirk assassination probe and turmoil at FBI (AP)

• You don’t have to say something about every terrible thing (Silver Bulletin)

• E.P.A. To Stop Collecting Emissions Data From Polluters (NYT)

• Taliban claim an agreement reached with U.S. envoys on a prisoner swap as they seek better ties (CBS)

• Protesters demand release of former Berkeley worker, 73, detained by ICE (Berkeleside)

• Octopuses prefer to use different arms for different tasks, scientists find (Guardian)

• What a street-style photographer sees when she goes out in San Francisco (SF Standard)

• Outsiders Love Mocking Marin County. Now, It’s Laughing at Itself. (NYT)

• Pete Hegseth Buys Bar Round Of F-22 Fighter Jets (The Onion)

From a Train Window

Whenever I travel the length of the East Bay via Bart to the last station on the line, which is in San Jose., along the route I see homeless encampments here and there, little clusters of tents with clotheslines, shopping carts, bicycles, and people cooking over campfires.

There have been many attempts to explain homelessness. There have been many ideas about what to do about it. But it persists and in some places seems to be getting worse. 

Some write it off to a combination of mental illness, drug addiction and other pathologies, but I can’t help considering the uncomfortable possibility that it may be a logical outcome of the American way of life. What economists might call an externality, a social cost of doing business as usual.

Here in the heart of Silicon Valley, the competitive pressures for housing and jobs are as severe as anywhere in the land. You can see and feel it when you're around young people, even pre-high-school students in moderately well-off families.

These kids are well aware that there are billionaires in the neighborhood who live in mansions, drive cars almost as expensive as mansions, and ride private rockets into space for fun.

The average 12-year-old could be forgiven for assuming that these guys (they are almost all guys) aren’t like them. They probably out-performed everyone else in school or anything else they tried. They probably never stumbled, screwed up, or made a mistake — they must have been supermen, close to perfect.

These myths are just that — myths, of course — but that fact rarely penetrates the insular worlds of youth culture. In fact, if the homeless can be written off as externalities, I’d argue that billionaires should be as well. They are a social cost of business as usual, plus a few billionaires can do far more harm to the planet than all the homeless people in history have done collectively. 

(To be fair, some billionaires do a lot of good things by giving away some of their money, but it is the process by which they acquire such extreme wealth that is the problem.)

In our time, these extreme outcomes are inextricably linked. A few people can only become absurdly rich if many people become absurdly poor. So what kind of social reforms could be implemented that help us avoid this fate? 

The answer is a society that strives for a reasonable balance, for an equitable distribution of resources, a society committed to its middle class. And that's the kind of society I'd like my grandchildren to inherit, not one of such extremes.

As of 2024, there were an estimated 1,135 billionaires and over 770,000 homeless people in the U.S.

(This one is from a year ago.)

HEADLINES:

• Death of Charlie Kirk lays bare deep US political divisions (Reuters)

• A Call for Peace, Half in Vain (Atlantic)

• Did Trump Just Declare War on the American Left? (New Yorker)

• Why MAGA’s Canonization of Charlie Kirk Is Truly Monstrous( (Daily Beast))

• Trump’s Dangerous Response to the Kirk Assassination (Atlantic)

• The Unbearable Mourning for Charlie Kirk (Coop Scoop)

• Trump vows sweeping effort against critics after slaying (WP)

• Gov. Cox Calls Social Media ‘a Cancer’ (WSJ)

• America’s Greatest Threat Comes From Within (Atlantic)

• Tyler Robinson’s Descent From Promising Student to Murder Suspect (WSJ)

• California Lawmakers Pass Bill That Would Ban Masks for ICE Agents (NYT)

• Missouri passes Trump-backed redistricting plan to help the GOP in the midterms (NPR)

• NATO to beef up defence of Europe's eastern flank after Poland shot down drones (Reuters)

• US joins UN Security Council condemnation of Israeli strikes on Qatar (BBC)

• Israeli intelligence agency balked at Netanyahu’s strike in Qatar (WP)

• Nepal’s hugely popular army restored order after deadly violence. Its real challenge begins now (AP)

• Albania appoints AI bot as minister to tackle corruption (Reuters)

• How thousands of ‘overworked, underpaid’ humans train Google’s AI to seem smart (Guardian)

• Claude AI just became the ultimate work companion, and it might tempt me to switch from ChatGPT (TechRadar)

• Trump Renames White House Fridge Department Of Ham (The Onion)

Story Pollution

All story-tellers, including journalists, have to figure out how to meet their audience at mutual points of agreement. There has to be at least a rough consensus of what the facts are if your story has any chance of resonating with those listening, reading or watching.

This is one reason conspiracy theories and those who spread them do so much damage in a civil society. They pollute the public square with half-truths, misconceptions and outright lies. They inflame partisans.

That results in a portion of the audience with a twisted sense of reality and barely capable of recognizing the truth when it is presented to them.

Inevitably, in our current political environment, an event like the Kirk assassination feeds those conspiracy fires, making it less likely that a general societal consensus can be forged about what happened and why.

But the survival of our democracy depends on reaching such a consensus, so at this time, we need leaders wise enough to help shut down the conspiracists, reject their harmful theories, and focus on the facts as we discover them.

In short, we need everybody to think like an investigative reporter, a juror or anyone free enough of bias to accept the arrival of truth, however messy, inconvenient and unpleasant that truth may turn out to be.

HEADLINES:

• Suspect in Charlie Kirk killing in custody (CNN)

• False Tips and Chicken Coops: The Chaotic Hunt for Charlie Kirk’s Killer (NYT)

• U.S. authorities find rifle, release photos in hunt for killer of Charlie Kirk (Reuters)

• The Tragedy of Charlie Kirk’s Killing (Atlantic)

• America enters a new age of political violence (WP)

• In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination on a college campus in Utah on Wednesday, MAGA commentators and activists pledged to avenge the act of violence and called for payback in explicit statements, baselessly blaming "the left." [HuffPost]

• In the US, experts warn of a “vicious spiral" in political violence after Charlie Kirk killing. (Reuters)

• Trump & Conservative Supporters Weaponizing Kirk’s Murder; Dems "Have Blood on Their Hands" (Daily Kos)

• Trump announces National Guard will be deployed in Memphis to fight crime (WP)

• Bolsonaro sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting Brazil coup (BBC)

• The Beginning of the End of NATO (Atlantic)

• South Korea’s president says Georgia ICE raid could have ‘considerable impact’ on direct US investment from his country (CNN)

• In South Korea and Japan, Fury at U.S. Fuels Backlash Over Trade Deals (NYT)

• Trump’s emergency order for DC is expiring, but House moves to place new limits on the city (AP)

• Trump’s expansion of executive power, including his unprecedented push to send troops into US cities to combat crime and his attempt to seize control of aspects of the economy, has left Americans uneasy, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found. (Reuters)

• Federal judge curbs DHS force against journalists in L.A. (WP)

• The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits last week hits 263,000, most in nearly 4 years (AP)

• Young America faces an economic crisis (Axios)

• NPR names Thomas Evans as top editor amid cash crunch (WP)

• UK fires ambassador to US Peter Mandelson over Epstein links (CNN)

• So many birds are migrating that they’re appearing on weather radar (WP)

• Shark Teeth Are Crumbling (Yahoo)

• NASA discovers ‘clearest sign of life that we’ve ever found on Mars’ (WP)

• OpenAI Signs $300 Billion Data Center Pact With Tech Giant Oracle (NYT)

• Jack Daniel’s Unveils New Whiskey For Operating Heavy Machinery (The Onion)

MUSIC: TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS : US TV 1999 

Trump's America

As news of Charlie Kirk’s assassination in Utah broke yesterday, I was having lunch with three former colleagues. Collectively, we have over 200 years of experience as investigative reporters, authors and teachers, but not one of us was interested in speculating as to the identity or motive of the shooter.

In cases like this, speculation is for amateurs.

The initial reactions by public officials were predictable. Calls for unity and to “tone down the rhetoric” were drowned out by declarations of “war” by right-wing extremists including Steve Bannon.

Trump himself spoiled what might otherwise been a perfectly good statement by wandering off into the wilderness of blaming, once again, the “radical left.”

Who is this radical left he keeps talking about? Bernie Sanders?

Of course it’s ridiculous. There is no discernible radical left political movement in this country and there hasn’t been for a very long tine.

So what Trump means by the term is anyone who opposes him. And that is one hell of a lot of people.

Meanwhile, back to the investigation. Law enforcement officials announced this morning that they believe they have video of the suspect, that they have a weapon, and that they have tracked his movements before and after the shooting.

They are using AI to help identify him.

It’s likely only a matter of time before they apprehend him. Then, and only then will a motive possibly be discovered, assuming the suspect survives his arrest.

But none of that will end the speculation, blame, and conspiracy thinking that overwhelms the facts — whatever they may be — in Donald Trump’s America.

The real danger here is that one way or another this heinous act will play into Trump’s quest for authoritarian power. And that is something worth speculating about.

HEADLINES: 

• The Horrifying Assassination of Charlie Kirk (Atlantic)

• Charlie Kirk, Right-Wing Activist, Is Fatally Shot at Utah College (NYT)

• 3 fired FBI officials sue Patel, saying he bowed to Trump administration's 'campaign of retribution' (AP)

• Supreme Court to weigh legality of Trump’s tariffs in key economic case (WP)

• Poland dismisses Russia’s claim drone incursion was unintentional as Ukraine calls for joint European air defence system (Guardian)

• French police clash with ‘Block Everything’ protesters while Macron installs a new prime minister (AP)

• Venezuelan Boat Is Said to Have Turned Before U.S. Attacked It (NYT)

• How Originalism Killed the Constitution (Atlantic)

• Activists protested President Donald Trump while he was dining out in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, marking the second time this week that he's been openly jeered in a public place. [HuffPost]

• Israel will kill Hamas leaders next time if they survived Qatar attack, Israeli official says (Reuters)

• Trump appears sidelined as the US caught unawares by Israel’s unprecedented strikes on Qatar (Guardian)

• ‘We All Thought the Raids Were Over’: Fears Return for Immigrants in L.A. (NYT)

• Kamala Harris opens up on the 'recklessness' of Biden's re-election bid (NBC)

• A federal judge temporarily blocked Trump from removing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, an early setback for the White House in an unprecedented legal battle that could upend the central bank's long-held independence. (Reuters)

• Europe’s economy at last shows signs of a recovery (Economist)

• Only one in four Americans believe that recent recommendations for fewer vaccines from President Donald Trump's administration were based on scientific evidence and facts, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll. (Reuters)

• It’s eerily quiet during peak Atlantic hurricane season. (WP)

• Grove of giant sequoia trees burns in California's Sierra National Forest (NBC)

• I Hate My AI Friend (Wired)

• Two Leading European Tech Firms Strike an A.I. Partnership (NYT)

• U.S. Citizenship Test To Include 4-Year Imprisonment Section (The Onion)

 

Circle of Parkinson's

In a piece in the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof reports on the link between Parkinson’s Disease and environmental pollutants, specifically pesticides like paraquat.

According to Kristof:

• Some 90,000 cases of Parkinson’s are now diagnosed each year in the United States, about one every six minutes.

• It is the world’s fastest-growing neurodegenerative disease, causing tremors, stiffness and balance problems.

• (T)here’s growing evidence linking it to a range of pesticides and industrial chemicals, including paraquat and substances used in dry cleaning.

• The Environmental Protection Agency continues to allow paraquat to be used in the United States — even as dozens of other countries have banned it.

• Just this year, a study found that living within a mile of a golf course more than doubles a person’s odds of developing Parkinson’s. One theory is that it is because golf courses use pesticides.

• Paradoxically, most of the paraquat used in the United States is manufactured in Britain and China — where it cannot legally be used. But it’s fine to produce it there and sell it to America, where regulation is more lax.

There’s a lot more relevant information in this article. Because I’ve written extensively on pesticides and I also have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, people sometimes ask me what I think about this link.

Well, I’m not a scientist but from the evidence I’ve reviewed paraquat should have banned decades ago. If our government had decided to err on the side of caution, paraquat would have been out of lives — and our central nervous systems a long, long time ago.

For more information on this topic, there’s a new book, “The Parkinson’s Plan.”

Thanks to Doug for alerting me to this piece and to Leslie for access to Times content. Thanks to my subscribers!

HEADLINES: 

• The Clue to Unlocking Parkinson’s May Be All Around Us (NYT)

• Israel conducts airstrike in Qatar to assassinate Hamas officials (Axios)

• JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon says the economy ‘is weakening’ (CNBC)

• US economy added 911,000 fewer jobs than previously reported in largest-ever revision (ABC)

• The US labour market is still pretty warm (Financial Times)

• Department of Homeland Security launches new immigration operation in Chicago (AP)

• Senators ramp up pressure on Trump to abandon threats to send troops into U.S. cities (WP)

• US border shutdown forces other countries to deal with migrants (Border Report)

• US immigration officers ramp up sweeps in LA after raid restrictions are lifted (Guardian)

• The Untold Saga of What Happened When DOGE Stormed Social Security (ProPublica)

• Supreme Court’s scant explanations in Trump emergency cases draw friction (The Hill)

• Michigan judge tosses case against 15 accused fake electors for President Donald Trump in 2020 (AP)

• The Epstein Letter Is Real, and It’s Bad (Atlantic)

• How JPMorgan Enabled the Crimes of Jeffrey Epstein (NYT Mag)

• For Trump, latest Epstein disclosures bring continued political pain (WP)

• Nepal's prime minister resigns as protesters defy curfew to set fire to leaders' homes (NBC)

• US companies designed technology that China used to spy on and detain hundreds of thousands (AP)

• Macron under pressure to name new PM as France simmers ahead of protests (BBC)

• Student test scores are sliding, reaching new lows (WP)

• Anna Wintour admits Meryl Streep’s portrayal of her in The Devil Wears Prada was a ‘fair shot’ (Independent)

• The United Arab Emirates Releases a Tiny But Powerful AI Model (Wired)

• Playing the Field with My A.I. Boyfriends (New Yorker)

• Amid AI boom, San Francisco rents are up. So are eviction notices. (Mission Local)

• A.I. Could Make the Smartphone Passé. What Comes Next? (NYT)

• DOGE Employees Dig Up Arlington National Cemetery (The Onion)

 

Small Mysteries

Well, it wasn’t exactly investigative reporting, but I discovered that I had a small mystery on my hands Monday evening.

As I checked my plants in the garden, a new item caught my eye. It was a whitish globe on a plant with leaves shaped like elongated Isosceles triangles and clusters of small purple flowers.

The fruit peeking out from behind the leaves was white, as I said, with several faint purple stripes.

I’m pretty sure we had gotten this particular plant from a neighbor a year ago;, and at the time my daughter thought it might be a pepper of some kind.

As I felt the surface of the fruit, it reminded me of an onion, but only sort of.

So I started my investigation. I snapped a photo and sent it to my daughter-in-law, an avid gardener.

“Eggplant?” She offered.

My son-in-law and granddaughters thought it might be a pear apple.

At this point I took the case online and after a bit of searching, found myself inside a very helpful Reddit group devoted to identifying unknown plants.

There, an answer came quickly, without ambiguity.

“It’s a pepino, a small melon. When it turns gold it’s ripe and tastes like a tropical fruit, when unripe it’s unremarkable and like a tasteless cucumber.”

Another member clarified: “Yes but it's not a melon, it's a nightshade (Solanaceae), but it's also called pepino-melon.”

Okay, I’m going with pepino, for now. Let’s let it ripen.

HEADLINES:

• ICE launches ‘Operation Midway Blitz’ targeting immigrants in Chicago (WP)

• Supreme Court lifts restrictions on Trump immigration tactics in California (ABC)

• Democrats in Congress release alleged Trump birthday note to Epstein (BBC)

• Lumber Prices Are Flashing a Warning Sign for the U.S. Economy (WSJ)

• Hegseth visits Puerto Rico as Pentagon eyes island for military usage (WP)

• Warming seas threaten key phytoplankton species that fuels the food web, study finds (AP)

• French government collapses after PM Bayrou ousted in confidence vote (Al Jazeera)

• In Ukraine, the blast waves are so strong, they leave you asking if you are still alive (WP)

• Can America thrive in an economy without fossil fuels? Of course! (The Hill)

• China’s Exports to Africa Are Soaring as Trade to U.S. Plunges (NYT)

• Police open fire on protests of Nepal's social media policy, killing at least 17 (AP)

• NYT debuts family subscription plans (Axios)

• Murdochs Reach Deal to Resolve Succession Fight (NYT)

• Meta suppressed research on child safety, employees say (WP)

• Google admits the open web is in ‘rapid decline’ (Verge)

• 5 hidden ChatGPT-5 settings you should enable right now (Tom’s Guide)

• Faith in God-like large language models is waning (Economist)

• How the AI Boom Is Leaving Consultants Behind (WSJ)

• The Job Market Is Hell — Young people are using ChatGPT to write their applications; HR is using AI to read them; no one is getting hired. (Atlantic)

• AI is supercharging Gen Z workers — if they can land a job (WP)

• Congress Plays Keep-Away With Child’s School Lunch (The Onion)