It's Slipping Away

There won’t be a press conference announcing that democracy has ended in America and there won’t be tanks rolling through the streets or foreign invaders telling us to shelter in place over loudspeakers.

It won’t be that dramatic when our democracy slips away.

And in fact it’s already doing so, week by week under the Trump regime. As Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way and Daniel Ziblatt explain in a guest essay in The New York Times: “today’s autocrats convert public institutions into political weapons, using law enforcement, tax and regulatory agencies to punish opponents and bully the media and civil society onto the sidelines.”

The authors point out that a fundamental right in a democracy is the right to oppose the government.

“Under authoritarianism, by contrast, opposition comes with a price. Citizens and organizations that run afoul of the government become targets of a range of punitive measures: Politicians may be investigated and prosecuted on baseless or petty charges, media outlets may be hit with frivolous defamation suits or adverse regulatory rulings, businesses may face tax audits or be denied critical contracts or licenses, universities and other civic institutions may lose essential funding or tax-exempt status, and journalists, activists and other critics may be harassed, threatened or physically attacked by government supporters.”

The authors go on to document that all of these things are happening under the Trump administration.

“The administration’s authoritarian offensive has had a clear impact. It has changed how Americans behave, forcing them to think twice about engaging in what should be constitutionally protected opposition. Consequently, many of the politicians and societal organizations that should serve as watchdogs and checks on the executive are silencing themselves or retreating to the sidelines.”

The authors continue: 

“So far, American society’s response to this authoritarian offensive has been underwhelming — alarmingly so….The acquiescence of our most prominent civic leaders sends a profoundly demoralizing message to society. It tells Americans that democracy is not worth defending — or that resistance is futile. If America’s most privileged individuals and organizations are unwilling or unable to defend democracy, what are ordinary citizens supposed to do?”

But the authors end on a hopeful note.

“There are signs of an awakening. Harvard has refused to acquiesce to administration demands that would undermine academic freedom, Microsoft dropped a law firm that settled with the administration and hired one that defied it, and a new law firm based in Washington, D.C., announced plans to represent those wrongfully targeted by the government. When the most influential members of civil society fight back, it provides political cover for others. It also galvanizes ordinary citizens to join the fight.”

Finally, there is this:

“America’s slide into authoritarianism is reversible. But no one has ever defeated autocracy from the sidelines.”

HEADLINES: 

• India, Pakistan Agree to Cease-Fire After U.S.-Mediated Talks (WSJ)

• Federal judge in Vermont orders immediate release of Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk after 6 weeks in detention (CNN)

• Trump named Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, a former county prosecutor and elected judge, as his pick to be the top federal prosecutor for the nation’s capital after dropping his original nominee. [AP]

• Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem openly flouted a Supreme Court order to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the U.S., insisting that there is "no scenario" in which the Maryland man will be in the country again. [HuffPost]

• Ahead of trade talks, Trump says an 80% tariff on China 'seems right' (NPR)

• Detroit automakers fuming after Trump’s first trade deal gives preferential treatment to imported U.K. cars over their own (Fortune)

• Trump’s Supposed U.K. Trade Deal Gets Trashed by Surprising Person (TNR)

• Poll shows big problem for Trump’s trade deal: It’s Trump (Politico)

• Up to 1,000 transgender troops are being moved out of the military in new Pentagon order (AP)

• How Will We Know When We Have Lost Our Democracy? (NYT)

• Pope Leo Warns Against Spread of ‘De Facto Atheism’ (WSJ)

• Pope Leo's stance on key issues, from climate change to LGBTQ+ rights to U.S. politics (NPR)

• An American Pope Emerges as a Potential Contrast to Trump on the World Stage (NYT)

• Things Are About to Get Complicated for the Fed (Bloomberg)

• Mexico sues Google over changing Gulf of Mexico’s name for US users (Guardian)

• Fog of war thickens as India and Pakistan trade blame and accusations (WP)

• Trump floats raising taxes on the rich to pay for his sweeping tax and spending cuts package (CNN)

• Uproar over surgeon general pick exposes MAHA factions among RFK Jr. allies (WP)

• US senator introduces bill calling for location-tracking on AI chips to limit China access (Reuters)

• AI is not your friend (Atlantic)

• AI execs used to beg for regulation. Not anymore. (WP)

• Study: Most Millennials Will Never Own Swanky Undersea Apartment Where Fish Swim Past Windows (The Onion)

 

A Writer's 'Fingerprint"

Those of us working at sites like HotWired and Salon in the early days of the web realized that we were sitting atop a technology that would profoundly change virtually everything about society.

With my background in investigative reporting, I was curious about how the process of solving mysteries might be affected by the arrival of massive searchable databases of networked information. One case that caught my attention was that of the Unabomber, who’d been carrying on his one-man reign of terror since 1978, eluding a massive FBI manhunt in the process.

What I discussed specifically with colleagues was whether the Unabomber’s manifesto published by the Washington Post might somehow be analyzed for tell-tale word patterns that could uncover his identify.

The engineers I consulted said that the answer was “probably yes” in the future, but “not quite yet.” As it turned out, before this technology evolved, the brother of the man who wrote the manifesto recognized certain tell-tale word choices himself and alerted the FBI.

And that is how Theodore Kaczynski was finally identified and caught.

When Kaczynski died recently, I was reminded of all this and was pleased to see a summary of the case recounted in The Conversation.

Over the decades since Kaczynski’s arrest, the field of forensic linguistics has become far more developed, and now includes a number of tools to uncover plagiarism, strip away anonymity and solve crimes based on notes, letters and manifestoes.

The basic concept is that people’s writing voices can be as unique an identifier as their fingerprints. From the perspective of one who teaches writing, this is critical because many students start from more of a place of standardization, largely due to the way they learned to write in grade school.

Some were taught essentially to muffle their own voices.

My job, later on the down the road when they finally got to me, was to draw out their individuality, helping them diversify their word choices and rediscover their own unique style.

Most of my students probably will never go on to make a living as writers — that is an exceptionally difficult thing to do in our time — but at least I can console myself that if one should turn out to be a terrorist, and use their improved writing skills to communicate their aims, they should now be much easier to track down and capture!

(This is originally from June 2023.)

HEADLINES:

• Bill Gates accuses Elon Musk of ‘killing’ children with USAID cuts (Financial Times)

• The Actual Math Behind DOGE’s Cuts (Atlantic)

• DOGE May Leave Behind Nothing But Stupidity and Chaos (New York)

• A federal judge warned Trump against carrying out deportations to Libya. (WP)

• Lawrence Hall of Science has lost 9 grants worth $6M to Trump’s funding cuts (Berkeleyside)

• House GOP backing off some Medicaid cuts as nonpartisan report shows millions would lose health care (AP)

• Every arts director at the NEA exits federal culture agency (WP)

• Trump unveils new UK trade deal, calls it 'incredible day for America' (Fox)

• The Impending Doom of Trump’s Trade War (Atlantic)

• Pakistani drone attacks ‘neutralised’, says India, as skirmishes escalate (Financial Times)

• Head of FEMA removed after saying the agency should not be abolished (WP)

• American cardinal Prevost elected pope, takes name Leo (Reuters)

• Land under the country’s largest cities is sinking. Here’s where — and why. (WP)

• Humans Have Never Seen 99.999% of the Seafloor, Study Finds, as Trump Greenlights Deep-Sea Mining (Gizmodo)

• Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was meeting last week with representatives from a teachers union in his home state when things quickly devolved, adding to questions around his mental health and behavior. [AP]

• Special report on Russia building a major new explosives facility as the Ukraine war drags on. (Reuters)

• Is the US economy about to collapse? (Yahoo)

• RFK Jr. Takes Aim at Covid Shots for Kids, Worrying Vaccine Experts (Bloomberg)

• AI’s Threat to Google Just Got Real (Wired)

• OpenAI launches a data residency program in Asia (TechCrunch)

• How to Use the A.I.-Powered Writing Tools on Your Phone (NYT)

• Archaeologists Uncover Embarrassing Egyptian Rockabilly Dynasty (The Onion)

MUSIC:

The Band - Long Black Veil - 12/31/1983 - San Francisco Civic Auditorium Those of us working at sites like HotWired and Salon in the early days of the web realized that we were sitting atop a technology that would profoundly change virtually everything about society.

With my background in investigative reporting, I was curious about how the process of solving mysteries might be affected by the arrival of massive searchable databases of networked information. One case that caught my attention was that of the Unabomber, who’d been carrying on his one-man reign of terror since 1978, eluding a massive FBI manhunt in the process.

What I discussed specifically with colleagues was whether the Unabomber’s manifesto published by the Washington Post might somehow be analyzed for tell-tale word patterns that could uncover his identify.

The engineers I consulted said that the answer was “probably yes” in the future, but “not quite yet.” As it turned out, before this technology evolved, the brother of the man who wrote the manifesto recognized certain tell-tale word choices himself and alerted the FBI.

And that is how Theodore Kaczynski was finally identified and caught.

When Kaczynski died recently, I was reminded of all this and was pleased to see a summary of the case recounted in The Conversation.

Over the decades since Kaczynski’s arrest, the field of forensic linguistics has become far more developed, and now includes a number of tools to uncover plagiarism, strip away anonymity and solve crimes based on notes, letters and manifestoes.

The basic concept is that people’s writing voices can be as unique an identifier as their fingerprints. From the perspective of one who teaches writing, this is critical because many students start from more of a place of standardization, largely due to the way they learned to write in grade school.

Some were taught essentially to muffle their own voices.

My job, later on the down the road when they finally got to me, was to draw out their individuality, helping them diversify their word choices and rediscover their own unique style.

Most of my students probably will never go on to make a living as writers — that is an exceptionally difficult thing to do in our time — but at least I can console myself that if one should turn out to be a terrorist, and use their improved writing skills to communicate their aims, they should now be much easier to track down and capture!

(This is originally from June 2023.)

HEADLINES:

• Bill Gates accuses Elon Musk of ‘killing’ children with USAID cuts (Financial Times)

• The Actual Math Behind DOGE’s Cuts (Atlantic)

• DOGE May Leave Behind Nothing But Stupidity and Chaos (New York)

• A federal judge warned Trump against carrying out deportations to Libya. (WP)

• Lawrence Hall of Science has lost 9 grants worth $6M to Trump’s funding cuts (Berkeleyside)

• House GOP backing off some Medicaid cuts as nonpartisan report shows millions would lose health care (AP)

• Every arts director at the NEA exits federal culture agency (WP)

• Trump unveils new UK trade deal, calls it 'incredible day for America' (Fox)

• The Impending Doom of Trump’s Trade War (Atlantic)

• Pakistani drone attacks ‘neutralised’, says India, as skirmishes escalate (Financial Times)

• Head of FEMA removed after saying the agency should not be abolished (WP)

• American cardinal Prevost elected pope, takes name Leo (Reuters)

• Land under the country’s largest cities is sinking. Here’s where — and why. (WP)

• Humans Have Never Seen 99.999% of the Seafloor, Study Finds, as Trump Greenlights Deep-Sea Mining (Gizmodo)

• Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was meeting last week with representatives from a teachers union in his home state when things quickly devolved, adding to questions around his mental health and behavior. [AP]

• Special report on Russia building a major new explosives facility as the Ukraine war drags on. (Reuters)

• Is the US economy about to collapse? (Yahoo)

• RFK Jr. Takes Aim at Covid Shots for Kids, Worrying Vaccine Experts (Bloomberg)

• AI’s Threat to Google Just Got Real (Wired)

• OpenAI launches a data residency program in Asia (TechCrunch)

• How to Use the A.I.-Powered Writing Tools on Your Phone (NYT)

• Archaeologists Uncover Embarrassing Egyptian Rockabilly Dynasty (The Onion)

MUSIC:

The Band - Long Black Veil - 12/31/1983 - San Francisco Civic Auditorium 

A President Who Cared

While rustling through a box of old papers last night looking for something else, up popped a surprise — a copy of “The White House Magazine Summary” for Feb. 4, 1977. And there on the third page was a summary of my article in Rolling Stone that week called “For Export Only: Poisons and Dangerous Drugs.”

I’m fairly certain this was the only time something I wrote made it onto a reading list in the Oval Office. Of course, those were very different times. Jimmy Carter was President, a man with moral fiber who cared about issues like the export of banned and restricted products.

And while he was in office he tried to do something about it.

The article in question was one of my last in the magazine but only one of many on the topic I wrote over the course of several years. Most were short wire service pieces for Pacific News Service, a small independent operation headquartered in San Francisco.

The reporting in all of these articles fed into a longer article we eventually produced at the Center for Investigative Reporting as part of a package called “The Corporate Crime of the Century” in Mother Jones. That package won the National Magazine Award.

Finally, a decade of work by me and others culminated in a book, “Circle of Poison,” I co-authored with CIR colleague Mark Schapiro.

By then, activists the world over were working on the issue of banned substances exported by rich countries to the underdeveloped parts of the planet. There were policies being developed by governments all over the place following Jimmy Carter’s example.

In the eyes of many overseas we were the good guys.

I miss those days.

See also: “A President Who Rocked”

HEADLINES:

• U.S. pushes nations facing tariffs to approve Musk’s Starlink (WP)

• Trump announces trade deal with the U.K., first since his tariffs sent markets reeling (NPR)

• India-Pakistan latest: Pakistan warns India must ‘suffer the consequences’ after Kashmir airstrikes kill dozens (Independent)

• US Treasury's Bessent says China 'negotiations' to start Saturday without Navarro (Reuters)

• Main-Streeting Hate and Bigotry in Trump’s America (Daily Kos)

• Declassified US intelligence memo contradicts Trump’s claims linking gang to Venezuelan government (AP)

• Lawyers scramble to prevent Trump from deporting migrants to Libya (WP)

• Fed leaves rates on hold, warns of "higher risks" to U.S. economy in tariff shock (Axios)

• Fed holds rates steady, warns of stagflation risks (CNN)

• Elon Musk’s Most Alarming Power Grab (Atlantic)

• DOGE aims to pool federal data, putting personal information at risk (WP)

• Genetic Study Retraces the Origins of Coronaviruses in Bats (NYT)

• Are there more autistic people now? (BBC)

• US Health department will analyze data from autistic Medicare, Medicaid enrollees, RFK Jr. says (AP)

• Millions of people could lose coverage under Trump-backed GOP plans to cut Medicaid: CBO (USA Today)

• Here's what it'd actually take for Trump to revive Alcatraz (Axios)

• A Most Sensitive Subject in the White House: Where Is Melania? (NYT)

• Zuckerberg’s Grand Vision: Most of Your Friends Will Be AI (WSJ)

• Increasingly Powerful Trans Person Capable Of Using Every Single Bathroom At Once (The Onion)

 

Public Media's Last Stand (2)

One point that needs to be made absolutely clear about Trump’s attempt to defund PBS and NPR is that it has nothing to do with money. The amount of federal funding that goes to public media represents an infinitesimal percentage of the national budget yet it is vital to the public broadcasting in ways I will explain in a moment.

But first, the war Trump is waging here is ideological. He thinks public broadcasting is biased against him and the right-wing MAGA ideology he represents.

From his perspective, PBS and NPR are aligned with the leading universities, the mainstream press, Hollywood and the liberal elites he believes control the state governments in New York, California, Illinois and the rest of “blue” America.

Trump is determined to destroy as much of this “left-wing” infrastructure as he can, whether by legal or illegal means and at whatever human cost in damage to the vitality and sustainability of these institutions going forward.

That brings us to his executive order to defund public broadcasting. Why do the federal funds matter? While it is true that the large public radio and TV stations get the majority of their funding from other sources, the many small outlets serving the rural parts of the country are much more dependent on Uncle Sam.

Even for the larger operations, like Northern California’s KQED, the federal money represents a significant input — about 8 percent — of its annual budget. So its sudden loss would be like losing one part of the ecology that sustains the overall operation. Other sources — foundation grants, underwriting (advertising) revenue, individual donations and and membership fees, with membership being the largest — fill out the budget.

If Trump gets his way, the primary impacts will be on small stations in rural areas that already are news deserts, making a bad situation worse. But the stability of the entire network will also be compromised because the network is only as strong as its weakest links.

And Trump is gunning for the network. 

This is part two of an ongoing series. Read part one.

To contact your Congressional representatives about funding NPR and PBS, click on these links for the House or the Senate. Enter your zip code to get direct contact information.

Note: In 1994-5 and from 2013-9, I worked at KQED.

HEADLINES:

• India’s Modi faces pressure as strikes on Pakistan ignite nationalism, global concern (South China Morning Post)

• Trump team urged Ukraine to take U.S. deportees amid war, documents show (WP)

• Supreme Court allows Trump to implement transgender military ban (NBC)

• U.S. to end bombings of Houthi rebels in Yemen, Trump says (WP)

• Trump says nothing Carney says will stop tariffs after PM insists Canada ‘will never be for sale’ (Guardian)

• Elon Musk’s painful departure (Financial Times)

• From prosperity to austerity: Trump’s tone shifts ahead of tariff impacts (WP)

• America’s trading partners have a massive bazooka in the trade war. They may never use it (CNN)

• Pete Hegseth is purging both weapons and generals (Economist)

• Administration’s altered Signal chats pose new cyber risks, experts say (WP)

• N.I.H. Bans New Funding From U.S. Scientists to Partners Abroad (NYT)

• Newsom asks Trump to work together on $7.5 billion Hollywood tax credit (WP)

• Key Republican says he won't back Trump's pick for top DC prosecutor because of Jan. 6 ties (AP)

• Americans used to be steadfast in their support for Israel. Those days are gone (BBC)

• Israel Is Heading for a Full Occupation of Gaza—and All the Risks It Entails (WSJ)

• Cardinals enter seclusion ahead of secret conclave to elect new pope (Reuters)

• Why Zelensky – not Trump – may have ‘won’ the US-Ukraine minerals deal (The Conversation)

• Department of Education Eliminates Grant for PBS Children’s Shows (NYT)

• US DOJ wants Google to sell two of its ad products (TechCrunch)

• AI is coming for jobs. Here’s how to keep yourself employed. (WP)

• ‘AI is already eating its own’: Prompt engineering is quickly going extinct (FastCompany)

• US losing edge in AI talent pool (Semafor)

• OpenAI Backtracks on Plans to Drop Nonprofit Control (NYT)

• Meta’s new artificial intelligence app gets very personal — and creepy. (WP)

• U.S. Offers Semiconductors To China In Exchange For Holographic Charizard (The Onion)

 

Guardrails For AI

Trying to follow AI researcher Steve Omohundro as he described the best and perhaps only way to address the existential threat AI poses to our survival made my brain hurt.

But what he said — that we need to build the necessary guardrails into the technology itself — makes a lot of sense.

Meanwhile, The New York Times reports that “The newest and most powerful technologies — so-called reasoning systemsfrom companies like OpenAI, Google and the Chinese start-up DeepSeek — are generating more errors, not fewer. As their math skills have notably improved, their handle on facts has gotten shakier…

“Today’s A.I. bots are based on complex mathematical systems that learn their skills by analyzing enormous amounts of digital data. They do not — and cannot — decide what is true and what is false. Sometimes, they just make stuff up, a phenomenon some A.I. researchers call hallucinations. On one test, the hallucination rates of newer A.I. systems were as high as 79 percent.”

What is obvious is that AI literally has a mind of its own and that is what makes it so scary. Omohundro describes a scenario whereby an AI system might decide to invent, manufacture and distribute by drone a toxic virus that would be fatal to every human being on earth. Thus, his focus is on the guardrails we need to protect ourselves.

Merely comprehending AI, let alone the nature of its threat potential, can be a strain, but we really have no choice. That’s why I have been providing links every day not only to news stories but also to in-depth discussions.

To date I’ve listed around 1,000 references.

If you’re struggling to keep up, don’t feel bad. I’m struggling too. But it is vital that we try.

To contact your Congressional representatives about regulating AI, click on these links for your contact information in the House or the Senate. 

(Thanks to John and Leslie.)

HEADLINES:

• Hollywood is shaken by Trump’s tariff plan for the movie industry (CNN)

• Here’s Where Trump Got His Idiotic Idea to Tariff Foreign Movies (TNR)

• India Offers Zero-for-Zero Tariffs on Auto Parts, Steel From US (Bloomberg)

• The U.S. Threat Looming Over Canada (Atlantic)

• National Endowment for the Arts rescinds grants, dazing publishers and theaters (WP)

• Trump administration offers $1,000 to undocumented immigrants to leave US (Guardian)

• Cambridge's Harvard Square braces for Trump's war on higher ed (Axios)

• Trump touts 'very strong' Alcatraz as Bureau of Prisons assessing reopening prison (ABC)

• ‘A slippery slope to eugenics’: advocates reject RFK Jr’s national autism database (Guardian)

• Netanyahu vows to relocate Gaza’s population after security cabinet approves plan to ‘conquer’ the enclave (CNN)

• India and Pakistan have significantly upgraded their military capabilities since the nuclear-armed neighbors clashed in 2019, posing increased risks of escalation even in a limited conflict, former military officers and experts say. (Reuters)

• OpenAI reverses course, says its nonprofit will remain in control of its business operations (TechCrunch)

• Zuckerberg’s new Meta AI app gets personal in a very creepy way (WP)

• How China is still getting its hands on Nvidia’s gear (Economist)

• Is It Too Late to Slow China’s AI Development? (FP)

• A.I. Is Getting More Powerful, but Its Hallucinations Are Getting Worse (NYT)

• Steve Omohundro on Provably Safe AGI (Future of Life Institute)

• CDC Officials Announce Free Ice Cream For Everyone, Delicious Tasty Ice Cream, And Also There Is An Ebola Outbreak (The Onion)

 

Monday Mix

 

HEADLINES:

• Trump says he's unsure whether people in the US are entitled to due process (Reuters)

• Trump orders reopening of notorious Alcatraz prison (BBC)

• Trump’s 48-hour scramble to fly migrants to a Salvadoran prison (WP)

• Trump says he isn't defying the Supreme Court over Ábrego García case (Axios)

• LA’s bustling ports hit by Trump tariffs: ‘Everyone in the US will feel this’ (Guardian)

• Trump says non-US movies to be hit with 100% tariffs (BBC)

• Fears Trump’s foreign film tariffs could ‘wipe out’ UK movie industry(Guardian)

• Trump Cancels NEA Grants for Many Bay Area Arts Nonprofits (KQED)

• The Economy Is Slowing. That Doesn’t Mean a Recession Is Coming. (Barron’s)

• Before a new pope, a tug-of-war for the soul of the Catholic Church(WP)

• A mineral deal with America points to a path ahead for Ukraine (Economist)

• Children face starvation in Gaza as food and supplies dwindle under Israel's blockade (AP)

• Chips aren’t improving like they used to, and it’s killing game console price cuts (ArsTechnica)

• The Phony Physics of Star Wars Are a Blast (Wired)

• How one viral trend created the internet as we know it (WP)

• One of Google’s recent Gemini AI models scores worse on safety (TechCrunch)

• Trump’s Support Surges After He Points Gun At Nation (The Onion)

The Age of Rumors

For many years, when driving to and from vacation spots in the Sierra, I would stop for lunch in the tiny, picturesque town of Oakdale. It sits at the intersection of various routes criss-crossing California’s Central Valley, has a population of 20,000, and some of the best fruit stands in that part of the state.

It also is a news desert. as The New York Times reports, and very few residents of Oakdale rely on traditional news sources any longer:

“Now, in place of longtime TV pundits and radio hosts, residents turn to a new sphere of podcasters and online influencers to get their political news. Facebook groups for local events run by residents have replaced the role of local newspapers, elevating the county’s “keyboard warriors” to roles akin to editors in chief.”

And:

“Of the 80 Oakdale residents The New York Times spoke to for this article, not a single one subscribed to a regional news site, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal or The Washington Post.”

The report continues:

“Oakdale is not alone: Between news deserts expanding in rural areas and a growing distrust of national outlets, the town’s shift toward new sources of information is becoming commonplace in small communities across the country. That trend is almost certain to accelerate, with the Trump administration moving to claw back funding for NPR and PBS, which would slash local broadcasting stations’ budgets, and prioritizing hyperpartisan “new media” in the White House press briefings.”

***

Thinking back over the years I passed through Oakdale, I remember romanticizing the place and what it might be like to live there when I retired. What I would never have guessed is that this idyllic-seeming place could be the site of a local armed militia dressed in camouflage and crouching on rooftops with rifles awaiting a rumored invasion of Black Lives Matter protestors.

They never came, of course, because it was just a rumor spread by a local bar owner. But such is the power of conspiracy thinking in a news desert. Read the chilling Times report here.

(Thanks to a friend for this one.)

HEADLINES:

• Houthi missile hits near Israel's main airport (BBC)

• It Was Just a Rumor on Facebook. Then a Militia Showed Up. (NYT)

• How Trump’s threats to sanctuary cities could affect Berkeley and Alameda County (Berkeleyside)

• Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s wrongful deportation case is more about individual rights than the Trump administration’s foreign policy (The Conversation)

• Car Prices Expected to Rise as Tariffs on Parts Kick In (NYT)

• Judge strikes down Trump order punishing law firm Perkins Coie (WP)

• Scientists reel as turmoil roils National Science Foundation (NPR)

• In setback for Trump, Voice of America employees get return-to-work messages (CNN)

• Trump’s budget proposal slashes domestic spending (Reuters)

• Republicans Wrestle With Trump’s Demands for Tax Cuts(NYT)

• Trump administration plans major downsizing at U.S. spy agencies (WP)

• Right wing loses Australian election with Labor’s Albanese set to remain PM (Politico)

• Kashmiris prepare for war (Reuters)

• Fears of global instability drive Singapore voters into ruling party's arms (BBC)

• Peace for land: Ukrainians face a painful dilemma (Reuters)

• Warren Buffett announces retirement from leading Berkshire Hathaway (Guardian)

• How warning signs hinted at Spain's unprecedented power outage (Reuters)

• Could DNA testing shed new light on 93-year mystery of Lindbergh baby case? (Guardian)

• Can Journalism (the horse) give a boost to journalism (the industry)? (WP)

• Google Plans to Roll Out Its A.I. Chatbot to Children Under 13 (NYT)

• Trump Threatens To Defund Beauty Schools That Don’t Comply With MAGA Standards (The Onion)