MassLive: ‘Victory for justice’: Mass. pols praise Tufts grad student Rümeysa Öztürk’s release
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Öztürk was detained because of an op-ed she co-authored in the Tufts student newspaper about the war in Gaza, but has not been charged with any crimes.
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Öztürk was released Friday on her own recognizance with no travel restrictions, Sessions said. He said she is not a danger to the community or a flight risk, but that he might amend his release order to consider any specific conditions by ICE.
(MassLive more…)
LAWdork: Federal judge in Vermont orders Rumeysa Ozturk be released “immediately”
Judge Sessions has found that Ozturk has raised “a very substantial First Amendment claim” and a “substantial” due process claim.
Al Jazeera: Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk ordered released from ICE detention
The doctoral student, targeted for pro-Palestine article, recounts being ‘afraid’ and ‘crying’ during her detention.
Steve Vladeck: Suspending Habeas Corpus
In response to adverse rulings in numerous immigration cases, Stephen Miller is raising the specter of suspending habeas. His argument is factually and legally nuts, but it’s worth explaining *why.*
NY Times: Trump Officials Consider Suspending Habeas Corpus for Detained Migrants
Stephen Miller, a top aide, repeated a justification used in the immigration crackdown: that the country is fighting an invasion. But it is unclear the president has the power to take such a step.
AP: Mayor Baraka of Newark, New Jersey, arrested at immigration detention center he has been protesting
Politico: Judges have a warning about Trump’s rapid deportations: Americans could be next
Alternet: ‘Absolutely alarming’: Critics say Trump building ‘surveillance weapon’ for poor Americans
Bo Forbes: Afrikaners To Arrive on U.S. Soil
Trump Imports “Endangered” White South Africans
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Guardian: Gregg Popovich: the NBA truth teller who held Trump, and the US, to account
The coach is stepping away from a role in which he won five championships with the Spurs. He will be hard to replace, on and off the court
Popovich wasn’t just the NBA’s backbone. He was, perhaps, the most fearless truth teller in all of sport. Certainly no one was bolder when it came to taking on Donald Trump – whom Popovich has described as a “soulless coward,” a “pathological liar” and a “deranged idiot”.
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Whenever the stakes were highest culturally and politically, Popovich was the coach you could most count on not to stick to sports. During the NBA’s celebration of Black History Month in 2018, Popovich held forth on the subject of systemic racism and acknowledged his own white privilege. “If you were born white, you automatically have a monstrous advantage – educationally, economically, culturally, in this society,” he said. “It’s a tough one because people don’t really want to face it.”
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Popovich follows in a rich NBA coaching tradition of speaking out that started when Boston’s Red Auerbach used his considerable power to knock down barriers for Black players. And when Popovich began speaking out against Trump, he didn’t lack support from his peers. Stan Van Gundy, the former Detroit Pistons coach turned broadcaster, called out Trump’s “misleading” anthem protest attacks in a Time Magazine op-ed. Golden State’s Steve Kerr, a key player on two of Pop’s championship teams, echoes Popovich’s outrage on all things Trump and Trump-adjacent. Mike Budenholzer supported a player-led decision to boycott a 2020 playoff game in protest at the police shooting of Jacob Blake while coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, sparking a wave of walkoffs across US sports.But where Van Gundy and Budenholzer are respected for their opinions outside the game because of their stature in it, and Kerr – whose father was murdered while serving as president of the American University of Beirut – is blood-bound to rebuke immorality in all its forms, it hits different when Popovich enters the chat because he comes from a background that chimes with many conservatives in America. Popovich played college basketball at the Air Force Academy in the 1960s and was the team’s captain and leading scorer his senior year. After graduating with a degree in Soviet studies and serving his required five years, he considered a career in the CIA before starting his coaching journey as an Air Force assistant in the early 1970s
(Guardian more…)
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NY Times: This Is the Trade Conflict Xi Jinping Has Been Waiting For
For years, the leader of China has planned to make the world dependent on its exports and know-how. But the strategy has costs for his own country.
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Put simply: China should dominate supplies of things the world needs, to make its adversaries think twice about using tariffs or trying to cut China off.
(NY Times more…)Crooks & Liars: Trump Admin Pressures Tariff Countries For Starlink Contracts
Trump’s tariffs are fattening the wallet of his billionaire benfactor while the rest of us face empty shelves and huge prices increases.
Raw Story: ‘Who holds the power?’ Defenders of Trump in criminal cases turn on him in court filing
A group of conservative legal heavyweights — including some who once defended Donald Trump against his criminal prosecutions — are now urging a federal judge to strike down the former president’s sweeping tariff policy.
Business Insider: DOJ lawyer has no idea if Trump has written agreements with Big Law firms beyond his Truth Social posts
- A DOJ lawyer said he doesn’t know anything about written agreements between Trump and Big Law firms.
- Nine firms reached deals with Trump, which he announced on Truth Social.
- The posts are light on details and don’t explain how the deals would be enforced.
Bulwark: Some Hollywood Tariff Game Theory
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Washington Post: Trump promised U.S. dominance. Instead, energy companies are faltering.
President Donald Trump promised to unleash an energy renaissance that would lock in U.S. dominance over oil and gas. …
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Three months into the new administration, the price of U.S. oil has plunged to below the drilling profitability threshold of about $65 per barrel and the industry is ailing. At the same time, the U.S. energy economy is being further destabilized by White House attacks on clean power. It is a stark reversal from last year, when the United States was rocketing ahead on clean energy projects, pushed by government, and oil industry executives were brimming with optimism amid record production.Companies are opting not to add new wells out of fear they will lose money. The number of active rigs in Texas is lower now than it has been since the nation was climbing out of the pandemic. The president’s tariffs are meanwhile driving up costs in U.S. oilfields, leaving firms hesitant to invest in expanding production.
(Washington Post more…)
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Australian Broadcasting: Renewable energy companies eyeing off abandoned mines in Queensland
In short:Renewable energy companies want to repurpose disused mines for energy storage and other applications.
A deal has been struck between one such company and Glencore, which is set to shut down its Mount Isa copper mine.
What’s next?
Companies say there is vast potential for mines to be repurposed in Queensland.
(Australian Broadcasting more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – May 9, 2025
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The administration appears not to be able to attract the caliber of federal officials to which Americans have become accustomed.
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(Heather Cox Richardson more…)Adam Mockler: Trump Is Swapping Experts for Fox News Hosts While My Generation Drowns
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Gil Duran: The Nerd Reich vs. Catholic Right in Trump’s Circle
‘At some stage a civil war is coming to the Trump movement. And I think Musk and Vance will be on two very different sides of that civil war.’
The Wall Street Journal just published an insightful essay on ideological tensions within the Trump regime. From the piece by Joshua Chaffin and Zusha Elinson:On one side are tech bros racing to create a new future; on the other, a resurgent band of conservative Catholics who yearn for an imagined past. Both groups agree that the status quo has failed America and must be torn down to make way for a new “postliberal” world. This conviction explains much of the revolutionary fervor of Trump’s second term, especially the aggressive bludgeoning of elite universities and the federal workforce.
But the two camps disagree sharply on why liberalism should be junked and what should replace it. The techies envision a libertarian world in which great men like Musk can build a utopian future unfettered by government bureaucrats and regulation. Their dark prince is Curtis Yarvin, a blogger-philosopher who has called for American democracy to be replaced by a king who would run the nation like a tech CEO.
Click here for a gift link to read “The Ideological Gurus Battling for the Soul of Trump World.”
Mediaite: MAGA Civil War Breaks Out After Mark Levin Calls Top Trump Official a Traitor
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Daily: Democrats Storm Into Red District Where The Republican Is Too Scared To Show Up
Rep. Maxwell Frost and Sen. Chris Murphy held a town hall in Sarasota, FL on Saturday. Rep. Frost talked to all voters about their anger and why Republicans are too scared to show up and talk to them.
(Daily more…)
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OAN: VP Vance Says India-Pakistan Conflict Is ‘None Of Our Business’ Following Trump’s Offer Of Assistance
USA Today: India and Pakistan agree to ‘full and immediate ceasefire’ to end hostilities, Trump says.
India Times: From India-Pak tensions ‘none of our business’ to ‘mediated talks’: US’s big flip
NY Times: India-Pakistan Conflict Escalates Sharply With Attacks on Military Bases
Pakistan said it had fired missiles at military sites in India after accusing India of targeting at least three of its air bases. India said it had targeted the bases in response to a wave of Pakistani attacks.
President Trump announced Saturday that India and Pakistan had agreed to a cease-fire.Guardian: India and Pakistan ceasefire agreement in jeopardy after cross-border shelling
NY Times: Reluctant at First, Trump Officials Intervened in South Asia as Nuclear Fears Grew
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One former American official long familiar with Pakistan’s nuclear program noted on Saturday that Pakistan’s deepest fear is of its nuclear command authority being decapitated. The missile strike on Noor Khan could have been interpreted, the former official said, as a warning that India could do just that.
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Above the Law: Here’s Everything Trump Is Doing To Protect Bad Cops, Make Things Worse For Crime Victims
from the unlawfulness-and-disorder dept
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Fox: Shingles vaccine has unexpected effect on heart health
The list of potential benefits of the shingles vaccine continues to grow.
Beyond protecting against the viral infection and resulting painful rash, the shot has also been linked to a reduced risk of dementia, as Fox News Digital previously reported.
And now, a new study has found that the vaccine could lower the risk of heart disease for up to eight years.
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Wired: Trump’s Surgeon General Pick Is Tearing the MAHA Movement Apart
Casey Means isn’t currently licensed as a doctor. But that’s not why anti-vaxxers and conspiracists think she’s unsuited to be surgeon general—to them, her anti-vaccine opinions aren’t extreme enough.
Atlantic: DOGE Is Bringing Back a Deadly Disease
Cuts to agencies that protect workers’ lungs are going to result in the resurgence of a preventable illness.
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Evan Hurst: Is It ‘Anti-Christian Bias’ To Point Out How Often Conservative Christians Abuse Kids?
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Lucian K. Truscott IV: Fascism’s follies
There is a crisis at West Point. This one is not self-invented, as other crises at the U.S. Military Academy have been previously, but rather invented at the White House by Donald Trump.The crisis is familiar. Trump has ordered that all “quotas, objectives, and goals” in admissions, promotions and career fields be ended at the service academies, that teaching things called “gender ideology,” “critical race theory,” and “DEI,” (presumably as an academic subject that no one has ever heard of) be ended forthwith, and that “lethal force be promoted” by teaching that “our founding documents remain the most powerful force for human good in history.”
This has caused something of a panic at the academy. They’re tossing out history courses on “Topics in Gender History” and “Race, Ethnicity, Nation,” according to an op-ed in the New York Times written by Graham Parsons, a tenured professor of philosophy at West Point who is resigning from the faculty at the end of the term in protest against the changes forced on the academy by Trump’s gender and race warriors at the Pentagon and White House. “West Point seems to believe that by submitting to the Trump administration, it can save itself in the long run,” Parsons opined in the Times, writing without permission or having submitted his manuscript for clearance by the academy leadership.
(Lucian K. Truscott IV more…)NewsMax: Pentagon Orders Military to Remove All DEI Books
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In the process, books on the Holocaust, the history of feminism, and Maya Angelou’s autobiography, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” have been removed.
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Hill: Mexico sues Google over ‘Gulf of America’ label change
Project 2025 Tracker
DOGE Tracker
ProPublica: Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew