The Economic Web of Life

“Around 300 million companies worldwide connected by an estimated 13 billion supply links now face unprecedented uncertainty.” — Foreign Affairs

***

Maybe the best way to make sense of the modern global economy is by thinking of it in ecological terms. Almost every good or service we consume or produce is connected one way or another with almost every other good or service worldwide through a complex web of interrelated technologies, supply chains and trade policies.

Therefore, there really are no ”national” economies any longer — that’s just one of the fantasies Trump sells to his MAGA crowd. 

But it is a dangerous fantasy because it leads to jingoistic policies like Trump’s trade wars, which undermine global security and economic stability.

The full extent of globalization became apparent during the Covid pandemic, when shortages of necessities illustrated how utterly dependent we all are on each other across space and time. Of course, Trump doesn’t see that interdependence as a strength but a weakness, so he is trying to reverse engineer our economy.

That will fail. Globalization can’t be reversed; all he can do is inflict unnecessary damage here and overseas by his antagonistic tariff policies lifted from the first decade of the 1900s.

Maybe Trump and his advisers are beginning to realize that they can’t fight the future with the past and that this isn’t going to end well for them. Then again, Trump can always ride off over the horizon on Qatari Air Force One.

HEADLINES:

• Conservatives block Trump agenda bill from advancing in major setback for GOP leaders (NBC)

• DHS Is Considering Reality Show Where Immigrants Compete for Citizenship (Wall Street Journal)

• Producer Swears ICE Reality Show for Citizenship Won't Be a Complete Dystopian Nightmare (The Daily Beast)

• A Reality Show Where Immigrants Compete for U.S. Citizenship? D.H.S. Is Considering It. (NYT)

• Chaos is what could reign for untold thousands of children and their parents if the U.S. Supreme Court allows the Trump administration's latest executive order to go into effect, even on a limited basis. [HuffPost]

• The ‘Modest’ Ruling That Could Kneecap Our Legal System (NYT)

• Trump is taking credit for Middle East deals that predate his presidency (WP)

• 9 Federally Funded Scientific Breakthroughs That Changed Everything (NYT)

• Sudden fees. No warning. Welcome to shopping with tariffs in 2025. (WP)

• Russia and Ukraine agree prisoner swap but peace talks fail to make progress (Guardian)

• How DOGE’s grand plan to remake Social Security is backfiring (WP)

• Nearly 100 people killed in Israeli attack on north Gaza, rescuers say (BBC)

• UN aid chief defends using ‘genocide’ in Gaza remarks to the Security Council that Israel rejects (AP)

• How India and Pakistan share one of the world's most dangerous borders (BBC)

• The World Needs Better Balance Sheets (Foreign Affairs)

• On a remote Australian island, the birds are so full of plastic they crunch (WP)

• Outsourcer in Chief: Is Trump Trading Away America’s Tech Future? (NYT)

• OpenAI Takes on Google, Anthropic With New AI Agent for Coders (Bloomberg)

• ‘We’re Definitely Going to Build a Bunker Before We Release AGI’ (Atlantic)

• U.S. Unveils Sweeping A.I. Project in Abu Dhabi (NYT)

• Trump Casts Cabinet In ‘Les Misérables’ Amid Kennedy Center Boycott (The Onion)

Go For It

I've been thinking a lot about careers lately, even though I no longer have one, because many of the people I care about still do. I don't know that much about other professions, but in my field, it usually goes like this.

First you're a rookie, maybe doing research or serving as an intern.

Then, at some point, you get to do a story and people discover you can report, you can write.

After you do this for a while, you become a much better reporter, reducing your mistakes and learning to better trust your instincts.

Somewhere along the way, you play a part in breaking a really big story -- the kind that makes the world sit up and pay attention.

Now you have started to make a name for yourself, so you win some awards, get some job offers, and discover that you had many more friends than you previously seemed to have.

If you're good, you start repeating the whole process, breaking more stories, getting scoops and even occasionally having a notable impact on society. Now you have lots of friends.

Just about when this starts sinking in, you turn some age or another, say 40, and your whole world blows up -- personally and professionally. Maybe your marriage breaks up, maybe you change jobs, probably both, but people start treating you differently. You notice some of your friends have drifted away.

It's not subtle. Employers are telling you it's time to transition from worker to management. "Time to grow up, kid." In journalism you go from reporter to editor, from telling stories to facilitating other people telling stories. Now you have fewer friends for sure but a new level of respect.

If you're reasonably good at managing, that new track of editor carries you higher in your field, you earn more money and they add more titles to your job description -- senior editor of this or that. Now you have a new set of friends (frenemies), and a growing list of outright enemies.

This second stage of your career probably will carry you straight through to retirement unless you mess up big time (which does happen) or you're the type driven to rise higher in management to the point you actually run things somewhere.

God forbid you become the boss, the person everyone talks about behind your back. Lots and lots of enemies and absolutely not a friend in the entire world

At this stage anything might happen, for better or worse. If you're a good boss, you really impact some group of people somewhere, and they're truly grateful for that. You may not exactly be able to be friends with your employees, but something pretty close to that comes into play.

Then one way or another, the day approaches when you will retire, perhaps voluntarily or circumstances (other people) make the decision for you.

And then it's over. Completely. You are officially retired. Nobody controls your time, you no longer have to dance to anybody's tune. And people start having trouble remembering whether you are alive still or maybe you have passed on. They're just not sure.

But assuming you remain very much alive, you finally may change direction altogether, and try doing something you always wanted to do, but never quite got around to when you were on somebody else’s clock. And at this stage you discover you really did have a few real friends all the way along, because they show up in your new life.

And now younger people ask your advice as they hit the various turning point stages of their careers. "You've been there, what do you think I should do next?"

So you hear them out and then answer something like this, "You already know what you want to do, my friend. Otherwise you wouldn't be asking me."

"Just go for it."

(From 2021.)

HEADLINES: 

• ‘A Moral, Ethical, Legal, Constitutional Travesty’ (Politico Mag)

• Has the United States Gone Rogue? (Foreign Affairs)

• US Supreme Court hears arguments on Trump's order to end birthright citizenship (BBC)

• Supreme Court justices appear divided in birthright citizenship arguments (NPR)

• GOP tax bill on track to add more than $2.5 trillion to U.S. deficit (WP)

• Conservative Republicans Revolt Over Domestic Policy Bill, Threatening Its Path (NYT)

• Walmart warns it will raise prices within weeks because of tariffs (WP)

• Unprecedented cuts to the National Science Foundation endanger research that improves economic growth, national security and your life (The Conversation)

• Democrats rattled again by fresh claims that Biden aides hid his frailty (WP)

• How China caught up with Silicon Valley (Financial Times)

• U.S. presented Iran with nuclear deal proposal (Axios)

• Peace breakthrough unlikely as Putin declines to meet Zelenskiy in Turkey (Reuters)

• Israel ramps up strikes in Gaza, killing dozens, as Trump floats ‘freedom zone’ (CNN)

• Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) reintroduced a bill that would broadly redefine what content can be classified as “obscenity” in an attempt to make pornography a federal crime. It's a move directly out of the Project 2025 playbook. [HuffPost]

• Chimpanzees care for each other’s wounds with healing plants. (WP)

• Dolly Parton’s Quietly Inspiring Defense of Marriage (New Yorker)

• Of Course Some Will Cheat (Slate)

• Don’t be fooled. This is the calm before the AI storm. (WP)

• Scientists use AI to encrypt secret messages that are invisible to cybersecurity systems (LiveScience)

• White House announces AI data center campus partnership with the UAE (CNBC)

• China Tightens Control Over AI Data Centers (The Information)

• How AI shaped your favorite NFL team’s schedule (WP)

• Trump Grants Refugee Status To Former SS Guards (The Onion)

 

How It Ends

This week’s top story is in the Atlantic, entitled “The End of Rule of Law in America,” by former federal judge J. Michael Luttig. 

Judge Luttig makes the following points:

• Thus far, Trump’s presidency has been a reign of lawless aggression by a tyrannical wannabe king, a rampage of presidential lawlessness in which Trump has proudly wielded the powers of the office and the federal government to persecute his enemies, while at the same time pardoning, glorifying, and favoring his political allies and friend.

• For the almost 250 years since the founding of this nation, America has been the beacon of freedom to the world because of its democracy and rule of law. Our system of checks and balances has been strained before, but democracy—government by the people—and the rule of law have always won the day. Until now, that is. America will never again be that same beacon to the world, because the president of the United States has subverted America’s democracy and corrupted its rule of law.

• Order after order issued by this tyrannical president has been blatantly unconstitutional or otherwise illegal. Trump has provoked a global economic crisis with his usurious tariffs, for which he does not have authority under the Constitution and laws of the United States, and he has provoked a constitutional crisis with his defiance of a direct order from the Supreme Court—to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to America—and orders from other lower federal courts that he is bound by the Constitution to follow and enforce. 

• He has viciously attacked judges, putting their safety and that of their families at risk, and he has already called for the impeachment of a federal judge who ruled against him and his administration, drawing rebuke from the chief justice of the United States (Trump’s sidekick, Elon Musk, has called for the impeachment of many more).

• Only the Supreme Court is left now to rein in this president’s lawlessness, and although the Court is making some limited efforts in that direction, it is already apparent that not even that institution can stop Donald Trump. He will ignore even the Supreme Court whenever he wants.

• From across the ages, Frederick Douglass is crying out that we Americans never forget: “The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

There is much, much more in this important article, but that’s the gist.

The question now is what can be done to stop Trump from destroying our nation?

HEADLINES:

• The End of Rule of Law in America (Atlantic)

• Trump’s Crypto Dealings Push the Bounds of Corruption (New Yorker)

• Trump meets Syrian president, urges him to establish ties with Israel (Reuters)

• Trump’s Middle East visit comes as his family deepens its business, crypto ties in the region (AP)

• Oklahoma education standards say students must identify 2020 election 'discrepancies' (NPR)

• Tech titans join president in Saudi Arabia seeking investments (WP)

• What’s in Trump’s big bill? Trillions in tax cuts, changes to Medicaid and more (AP)

• White House eased China tariffs after warnings of harm to ‘Trump’s people’ (WP)

• What has Elon Musk’s Doge actually achieved? (Financial Times)

• Hegseth’s plan to cut senior military jobs could hit more than 120 high-ranking officers (AP)

• NOAA scrambles to fill forecasting jobs as hurricane season looms (WP)

• President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he would attend peace talks this week only if Vladimir Putin was also there, and goaded him by saying the Russian leader was scared to meet him face-to-face. (Reuters)

• Poland prepares for war (NPR)

• Iran Proposes Novel Path to Nuclear Deal With U.S. (NYT)

• The wild, comic, self-deflating, volcanic genius of Mark Twain (WP)

• Qatar Airways signs deal for 160 Boeing jets during Trump visit (Reuters)

• The EPA plans to weaken a rule curbing “forever chemicals” in drinking water. (WP)

• Chan Zuckerberg Is Reportedly Killing Funding for Non-Profits Associated With ‘DEI’ (Gizmodo)

• Democrats are deeply pessimistic about the future of their party, an AP-NORC poll finds (AP)

• MLB reinstates Pete Rose and others, paving way for Hall of Fame consideration (WP)

• Guardian agents: New approach could reduce AI hallucinations to below 1% (VentureBeat)

• DeepMind claims its newest AI tool is a whiz at math and science problems (TechCrunch)

• Texas Bans Being Different Around Children (The Onion)

LESLIE’s LINKS:

We Study Fascism, and We're Leaving the U.S.

Due Process Is a Right, Not a Privilege You Get for Being Good

This is Trump’s ‘most crass, inexplicable and senseless firing’

Planned Russia-Ukraine talks upend European push for U.S. sanctions on Moscow

‘What the holy hell?’ MAGA has a meltdown over House GOP post written in Spanish

Due Process Is a Right, Not a Privilege You Get for Being Good

Mike Johnson Has Bonkers Defense of Trump’s Open Corruption

Trump’s Third-Term Ambitions Are Very Revealing

This program should make a DOGE bro swoon. It’s imperiled instead.

Mexican security chief confirms cartel family members entered US in a deal with Trump administration 

What You Give Away

Recently, Bill Gates announced that the Gates Foundation will be giving away all of its money by 2045. That decision by one of the world’s leading philanthropists prompted me to pull up the following essay from my archives. I originally published it in 2022. The title of this essay comes from a lovely Vince Gill song about the giving spirit.)

***

The other day I was exchanging a few messages with an old college friend about how to evaluate charities when I remembered some reporting I had done back in 2005.

On Thanksgiving weekend that year, I was visiting my girlfriend who was volunteering on the Mississippi Gulf Coast after hurricane Katrina and not intending to do any work at all. But as I went along on her rounds, I was so shocked by the situation that I spontaneously decided to interview residents, volunteers, politicians and experts and produce a freelance report.

The result was “Everything’s Broken,” published in Salon that December.

I drafted the piece straight-out start-to-finish during a one-night stay in a hotel in Mobile, Alabama. After seeing the devastation caused by the mega-storm, I couldn’t sleep so I got out my laptop and got to work. These many years later, I still think it was one of the best articles I ever wrote.

Here are a few excerpts:

• More than three months after Hurricane Katrina's jagged front edge tore into Mississippi's Gulf Coast like a runaway chainsaw, East Biloxi remains a shattered community of poor people living amid their ruins, facing an uncertain future.

• Stark remainders of death are still on display everywhere. On warm days, the stench of undiscovered pet carcasses still seeps out from under the ruins, and mud litters the landscape like dried lava flows. Sheets of plywood buckle over gashes in homes that stand split and crushed, their contents splayed about like guts from rotting bodies.

• Bits of dried cloth, their colors faded and coated with dried muck, hang rigidly over the trees, acting as sentinels guarding the ruins below. Birds don't land here anymore.

• At first glance, East Biloxi looks like a ghost town. But poke around a bit and people start emerging from inside their crushed houses, from tents pitched out back, or from some of the new FEMA trailers that have recently arrived. Most of the survivors still seem to be trying to just grasp the scope of what has happened to them. They are confused as to why so little help has yet arrived.

• East Biloxi, and the other small towns of the Gulf Coast, as well as the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, are places where the poor are poor in so many ways. They can't read or write well, and don't have the skills or clout to get what they need out of government bureaucracies or private insurance companies. They can't see a way out of their traps. Lacking much effective political leadership or advocates, they are dependent on the good people still showing up, willing to help.

• Katrina laid bare a dirty secret in America -- a secret with many names. We know it's about race and class but it's about other things as well, things less easily labeled. The storm provided a visible reminder that progress in this country for some always comes at a cost to others. One thing about living in a society that regularly scrubs itself of its collective memory is we keep having to relearn the lessons of the past.

I reported that the big charities like Red Cross and Salvation Army, which had raised many millions of dollars during the initial phase of the storm relief, were nowhere to be seen by the time of my visit, leaving small grassroots groups and church congregations to do the hard work of getting residents the help they still badly needed.

This had an immediate impact.

My former colleague from the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Perla Ni read it and decided to start a new organization, GreatNonprofits, that would rate the efficiency of charitable organizations by soliciting reviews by clients, staffers, board members, funders and other stakeholders.

Ever since, GNP has been a go-to source for people trying to determine which groups to donate money to, not only after disasters but for all kinds of charitable purposes.

Anyway, all of this came up in the course of my conversation with my friend. One of the things I told him, based on what I learned from my reporting and followup work in 2010 with GNP, is that you cannot necessarily conclude that a particular nonprofit organization is inefficient simply by looking at the amount of administrative expenses it has versus its charitable expenditures.

This is because in order to remain competitive, NPOs have to pay their top executives enough money to at least be within competitive shouting distance of what they could earn in comparable private sector jobs.

It takes great skill and management expertise to efficiently and successfully run a non-profit. It also takes top-flight development work to raise the money not only to help clients but also to retain staff. This requires networking and fundraising skills, including good proposal writing and effective meetings with major donors and foundation executives.

That said, there are most definitely cases where charities raise lots of money but distribute very little to the people they are supposed to be helping. See “St. Jude’s Unspent Billions,” a great job of investigative reporting by Pro Publica.

It is understandable for a donor to want to see as much of his or her donation go straight to the intended recipient, perhaps a storm victim or an underpaid teacher, as possible. But we have to keep in kind that the charitable donations we make, which are tax-deductible, are in most cases distributed by staff members working in jobs that are underpaid with poor benefit packages. This is a prescription for burnout, which plagues the nonprofit sector.

It’s been said that the nonprofit sector accounts for only 5 percent of the U.S. GNP but 95 percent of the socially-responsible GNP. Understanding how the sector works, how best to both keep it accountable and ensure that it can be sustained is a worthy goal for journalists like those at CIR and Pro Publica aiming to make a difference.

My conversation about giving was with Doug Heller, a friend from The Michigan Daily in Ann Arbor in the 1960s.

HEADLINES:

• Trump Says Gifted Qatari Plane Will Be Temporary Air Force One (Bloomberg)

• Schumer announces blanket hold on DOJ political nominees as he demands answers on Qatari plane (CNN)

• Republicans Raise Concerns Over Trump’s Plane Gift as He Heads to Qatar (WSJ)

• Trump lauds Saudi Arabia as he unveils AI and defence deals (Financial Times)

• Trump’s Middle East trip marked by potential private business conflicts (WP)

• How Donald Trump Jr. is cashing in on his dad’s presidency (Business Insider)

• GOP heavyweights join bipartisan bashing of Trump Qatar jet deal (Politico)

• Trump announces U.S. will remove sanctions on Syria (Axios)

• Trump trade war faces legal challenge as businesses, states argue his tariffs exceeded his power (AP)

• China Called Trump’s Bluff (Atlantic)

• I was surgeon general — Trump’s nominee is not fit for my old job (The Hill)

• FDA and RFK Jr. aim to remove fluoride supplements used to protect kids’ teeth (AP)

• CBO: 7.6 million would go uninsured under GOP Medicaid bill (Politico)

• Iran proposes partnership with UAE and Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium (Guardian)

• WHO warns of permanent impact of hunger on a generation of Gazans (Reuters)

• Harvard loses an additional $450 million in grants in escalating battle with Trump administration (AP)

• How Joe Biden Handed the Presidency to Donald Trump (New Yorker)

• Intelligence on Earth Evolved Independently at Least Twice (Wired)

• ChatGPT may be polite, but it’s not cooperating with you (Guardian)

• AI therapy is a surveillance machine in a police state (Verge)

• A new AI tool can predict your biological age from a selfie. (WP)

• Experts Agree Giant, Bioengineered Crabs Pose No Threat (The Onion)

 

Interludes

At dawn here in Northern California, a soft rain greeted those of us who rose early. Not long afterward, the clouds passed and the sun quickly dried the moisture on the leaves of the trees outside my window.

In the garden, the rain helped the newly germinated carrot and tomato plants push enough grains of soil aside to emerge into view, adding faint lines of green against the jet-black earth.

The mature plants benefited too — peppers, cucumbers, artichokes and raspberries, as well as the rosemary lavender, jasmine, golden poppies and pink, white and blue wildflowers dotting the hillside. Everything glistened in the bright sunlight.

I sighed. Before turning back inside to process the news, the world briefly seemed like a beautiful place.

***

Hours later, at day’s end, I returned from an early dinner with a friend. She wanted to see the garden so I took her back there, now in the dusky hour before sunset.

The poppies had closed up for the night but everything else looked the same. I showed her the plum, olive and lemon trees. Before heading back inside, I sighed.

The world once again seemed like a beautiful place.

HEADLINES:

• Pope Leo XIV urges release of imprisoned journalists, affirms gift of free speech and press (AP)

• China sees the U.S. trade deal as a huge win for Beijing (CNBC)

• Trump says US-China relations 'reset' as markets surge on tariff pause (BBC)

• America has given China a strangely good tariff deal (Economist)

• Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander returns to Israel after Hamas release (CNN)

• Trump feels the heat from MAGA over ‘great gesture’ of a luxury jet from Qatar (Politico)

• Trump defends Qatar jumbo jet offer, says it would be 'stupid' to turn away free plane (ABC)

• ‘We’re living in two separate economies’ — why young Americans feel stuck, financially (CNBC)

• Unpacking RFK Jr.’s ‘doublespeak’ on vaccines (WP)

• House Republicans unveil Medicaid cuts that Democrats warn will leave millions without care (AP)

• Josh Hawley warns against Medicaid cuts and says Republicans are in ‘identity crisis’ (Guardian)

• White South Africans arrive at Dulles as refugees under Trump order (WP)

• Episcopal Church says it won’t help resettle white South Africans granted refugee status in US (AP)

• The US Library of Congress is under attack (Financial Times)

• Deputy attorney general who defended Trump in hush money trial named acting librarian of Congress (AP)

• Is Jeff Bezos Selling Out the Washington Post? (New Yorker)

• New Report Finds Vacationing Sources Habla Un Poquito De Español (The Onion)

His Voice; Our Lives

I finally saw “A Complete Unknown” this past weekend. I liked it, for the most part, and it inspired me to pull up and reprint the following essay from 2022, which I’ve edited lightly.

***

Rewatching “No Direction Home,” Martin Scorsese’s epic 2005 documentary about Bob Dylan’s early career, requires stamina but is worth it. Not only does it contain dozens and dozens of tracks from his concerts in the early sixties, it contains the most extensive interviews he has ever given as well.

If you love Dylan’s music, which I do, the live footage of his performances is priceless. But whether you like it or not, the way he talks about his life and career bring us as close to an understanding of what we as a generation tried to do collectively as we are ever likely to get.

The question is how and why this skinny, scruffy, raspy-voiced poet from Hibbing, MN, emerged at exactly the right place, Greenwich Village and right time, 1961, to issue a series of clarion calls for an entire generation.

He was and is by far our most authentic voice. He wrote and sang like a man possessed of some supernatural ability to channel the emerging spirit of the largest generation of humans to ever crowd our way onto the planet.

Meanwhile, just like many of the rest of us, Dylan has lived out his personal life and his career as a series of acts, changing and adapting to a world that’s never seemed quite as stable as the one our parents envisioned for us. Through multiple marriages and relationships, he’s somehow raised six kids, just like me, while stubbornly staying as far out of the limelight as his superstardom has allowed.

To this day, Dylan’s greatest songs give me chills and make the hair stand up on the back of my neck. His music, more than any other, helps me in tough times remember who I am.

Somehow he became us — or we became him — I’m not sure which. 

So you can be in my song if I can be in yours.

I said that.

HEADLINES:

1. Dow soars 1,000 points after Trump team and China dramatically lower tariffs (CNN)

2. Zelensky challenges Putin to meet him after Trump demands Ukraine-Russia talks (BBC)

3. Kremlin focuses on draft 2022 deal for proposed peace talks (Reuters)

4. Qatar to donate a jumbo jet for Trump's exclusive use as a presidential plane, sources say (CBS)

5. As Truce Seems to Hold, India and Pakistan Both Claim Victory (NYT)

6. How India’s partition in 1947 led to the strife over Kashmir today (WP)

7. U.S. "encouraged" by progress in fourth round of nuclear talks with Iran, official says (Axios)

8. The hidden ways Trump, DOGE are shutting down parts of the U.S. government (WP)

9. Without Musk, Maybe DOGE Will Start Saving Money (Bloomberg)

10. Trump Seeks to Strip Away Legal Tool Key to Civil Rights Enforcement (NYT)

11. Trump promised U.S. dominance. Instead, energy companies are faltering. (WP)

12. Jasmine Crockett says Democrats want ‘the safest white boy’ for 2028 ticket and have a specific candidate in mind (Independent)

13. Pope’s Childhood in a Changing Chicago Tells a Story of Catholic America (NYT)

14. What the Press Got Wrong About Hitler (Atlantic)

15. Amazon offers peek at new human jobs in an AI bot world (TechCrunch)

16. Trump Vows To Reopen Joann Fabrics As Prison (The Onion)

 

The Deportees Are Us

“If due process is of no moment, what is stopping the Government from removing and refusing to return a lawful permanent resident or even a natural born citizen?” — U.S. Judge Stephanie Thacker, 4th District.

It may be of comfort to some that Trump’s mass deportations will not affect those of us who are citizens with our full rights to due process under the law. But as Politico reports in this weekend’s top story, “ Judges across the country continue to note that if courts don’t protect the rights of the least popular and most vulnerable, everyone is at risk.”

Authoritarian regimes always start their extralegal grad for power much like a predator stalking a herd of grazing wildlife — by picking off the weakest members in a society. Invariably, the tyranny begins with oppressive actions against the young, poor, minorities, immigrants — those least able to defend themselves.

But once the most vulnerable have been subdued or eliminated, the predator comes for the rest of us. So it is and will be with Trump. Today’s non-citizen ICE detainee tomorrow it could be you or me.

That is why all people of good conscience need to stand up against these illegal, immoral and racist deportations. The people caught up in Trump’s raids, whether they are actually guilty of any serious crime or not, have a right to their day in court.

We have to insist on that as a matter of principle, of course, but there also is the practical side of all this.

Today it is “them.” Tomorrow, those having to fear that next knock at the door will be us.

HEADLINES:

• Judges warn Trump’s mass deportations could lay groundwork to ensnare Americans (Politico)

• ICE raids have 'overwhelmed' coastal California communities (SFGate)

• What Pope Leo XIV means for the U.S. Catholic church and Trump (WP)

• LGBTQ Catholics hope Pope Leo XIV continues Francis' legacy of acceptance (NBC)

• Australia: Trade-war hideout offers refuge from U.S. freak-out (Reuters)

• A nerve-wracking ceasefire holds between India and Pakistan—for now (Economist)

• India and Pakistan step up military strikes (Reuters)

• Pakistan strikes sites inside India, bringing nuclear rivals nearer to war (WP)

• After banning abortion, Alabama threatened to prosecute the helpers (Reveal)

• DOGE is bringing back a deadly disease (Atlantic)

• Hegseth escalates targeting of race, gender in military’s academic settings (WP)

• This Mother’s Day, lets talk about why birth rates are really declining (Guardian)

• Zelensky, European leaders tell Trump they are ready for 30-day ceasefire (Axios)

• Another ceasefire proposal for Ukraine (Reuters)

• Trump Says U.S. Will Impose More Sanctions on Russia if It Does Not Agree to an Extended Truce (NYT)

• China, US hold talks on tariffs in first bid to de-escalate trade war (Al Jazeera)

• Chinese exports, aided by tariff dodging, defy Trump’s trade pressure (WP)

• What’s going on in Mali? (Reuters)

• AI firms warned to calculate threat of super intelligence or risk it escaping human control (Guardian)

• Singapore’s Vision for AI Safety Bridges the US-China Divide (Wired)

• OpenAI’s enterprise adoption appears to be accelerating, at the expense of rivals (TechCrunch)

• 12 Year Old Boy Scouts Offer To Give Breast Exams (The Onion)

ADDITIONAL LINKS (Thanks, Leslie):

• Stephen Miller Threatens to Suspend Habeas Corpus because He Got Caught Lying (EmptyWheel)

• ‘Tone deaf’: US tech company responsible for global IT outage to cut jobs and use AI (Guardian)

• Elizabeth Holmes’s Partner Has a New Blood-Testing Start-Up (NYT)

• Ye song glorifying Hitler gets millions of views on X while other platforms struggle to remove it (NBC)

• Trump Media Warns Of ‘Material Weakness’ In Financial Controls (Forbes)

• Putin Proposes Direct Russia-Ukraine Talks in Istanbul Next Week (Moscow Times)

• What’s the Cost to Society of Pollution? Trump Says Zero. (NYT)