curated citations to news sources
Ancient Origins UNLEASHED: The Lost Knowledge of the Ancients: Were Humans the First?
Much of modern science was known in ancient times. Robots and computers were a reality long before the 1940s. The early Bronze Age inhabitants of the Levant used computers in stone, the Greeks in the 2nd century BC invented an analogue computer known as the Antikythera mechanism. An ancient Hindu book gives detailed instructions for the construction of an aircraft –ages before the Wright brothers. Where did such knowledge come from?
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One of the greatest handicaps archaeologists and historians are confronted with is a lack of evidence. If it were not for burning libraries in antiquity, mankind’s history would not have so many missing pages.
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Heron, an Alexandrian engineer, built a steam engine which embodied the principle of both the turbine and jet propulsion. If the library had not been burned, we might have had a plan for a steam-chariot in Egypt. At least we know Heron invented an odometer registering the distance travelled by a vehicle. Such achievements were not surpassed, only copied. The source of modern science lies hidden far back in time.
(Ancient Origins UNLEASHED more…)
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NY Times: Alaska produces a ton of gas. Soon, its biggest city might not have enough
The feared energy crisis in Anchorage offers a lesson in the downsides of relying on fossil fuels.
(NY Times more…)Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – August 30, 2025
Just days before Labor Day, a holiday designed to celebrate the importance and power of American workers in the United States, the Transportation Department cancelled $679 million in funding for offshore wind projects, and the Department of Energy announced it is withdrawing a $716 million loan guarantee to complete infrastructure for an offshore wind project in New Jersey.
…Reversing the shift toward renewable energy not only attacks attempts to address the crisis of climate change and boosts the fossil fuel industry on which some of Trump’s apparent allies depend, but also undermines a society based on the independence of American workers. In 2023, about 3.5 million Americans worked in jobs related to the renewable energy sector, and jobs in that sector grew at more than twice the rate of those in other sectors in what was a strong U.S. labor market. …
…As president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO Chrissy Lynch said in July after the Republicans passed the budget reconciliation bill cutting clean energy tax credits: “Working families shouldn’t have to purchase energy from billionaire oil tycoons and foreign governments or let them set the price of our energy bills.”
Her observation hit home earlier this week, when Joe Wallace, Costas Paris, Alex Leary, and Collin Eaton of the Wall Street Journal reported that the comments of Russian president Vladimir Putin and Trump at their meeting in Alaska on August 15 in which they talked about doing more business together were not vague goodwill. ExxonMobil and Russia’s biggest energy company, Rosneft, have been in secret talks to resume a partnership to extract Russian oil, including in the Arctic, that had been severed by Russia’s attack on Ukraine in 2022.
Lou Antonellis, the business manager of the Massachusetts International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 103, added that the cuts to renewable energy projects in the U.S. were not just cuts to funding. “[Y]ou’re pulling paychecks from working families, you’re pulling apprentices out of training facilities, you’re pulling opportunity straight out of our communities. Every solar panel installed, every wind turbine wired, every EV charger connected, that’s a job with wages, healthcare, and a pension that stands for dignity for the American worker. You don’t kill that kind of progress: you build on it.”
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)WSJ: The Failing Political Lords of Lordstown
That auto plant Trump saved? Foxconn will soon use it to make data center equipment.
While the second Trump Administration dives headlong into industrial policy, here’s a story from the first term about what happens when it fails.
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Sarah Jones: Workers Over Billionaires Have 1,000+ Events Planned on Labor Day
This Labor Day is more than a barbecue, they say. It’s a chance to raise your voice and be heard as part of the unified resistance to billionaires taking over the U.S.A.
(Sarah Jones more…)Closer to the Edge: Three days in D.C.
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Forget hot dogs and parades—on September 1, Washington, D.C. will be a staging ground for the Workers Over Billionaires movement. …
…The very next morning, as Congress stumbles back from vacation, protesters will be there to greet them at Columbus Circle. …
…By Wednesday the energy doesn’t die down—it mutates. The day promises a Capitol rally against clean-energy rollbacks, a “Remove the Regime” demonstration, Palestine vigils outside the White House, and rush-hour protests designed to snarl traffic just as every congressional aide tries to get home. …
(Closer to the Edge more…)
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Fortune: Rural America is suffering an economic crisis as crop prices plunge — ‘U.S. soybean farmers cannot survive a prolonged trade dispute’
Agricultural trade groups have sounded the alarm recently on the state of farmers, who are grappling with a continued slump in prices for their crops and worsening credit conditions. They have asked lawmakers to help increase access to export markets, including China, which is still locked in a trade war with the U.S.
U.S. producers of corn and soybeans have sent dire warnings as prices for their crops have crashed in recent years while President Donald Trump’s trade war whipsaws farmers.
(Fortune more…)
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James Eagle: Is our data being manipulated?
My English teacher Mr Cairncross would’ve hated this title. “It’s are data being manipulated, dear boy,” he’d snap.Somewhere along the way, primarily in American English, we decided data is singular. Once you accept that collective agreements can change fundamental rules, you realise how malleable our “facts” might actually be.
The same is true with data.
(James Eagle more…)
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Marlon Weems: Target Corporation: A Cautionary Tale
A case study of what happens when dogma overrides data
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In its earnings report for the first quarter, Target became the first major retailer to acknowledge that ending its DEI initiatives was a material factor negatively impacting its financial performance.
(Marlon Weems more…)
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Sarah Jones & Jason Easley: States Explore Fighting Back Against RFK Jr. And Trump By Buying Vaccines Themselves
Several states are looking at fighting back against Trump and RFK Jr.’s limiting of vaccines by buying the vaccines and distributing them themselves.
(Sarah Jones & Jason Easley more…)Bulwark: This Is What—and Who—We’re Losing in RFK’s Purge
The story of one scientist, a career in public health, and the crisis at the CDC.
AXIOS: we dive deep into Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA movement
Morgaan Sinclair, Ph.D.: RFK, Jr. Says If You Die, It’s Your Bad Genes. That’s Eugenics, Folks!
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Marisa Kabas & Jacqueline Sweet: Officer repeatedly seen on camera in DC crackdown shows Trump agents’ impunity
US Park Police officer Patrick O’Hanlon isn’t unique in his behavior. He just got caught.
(Marisa Kabas & Jacqueline Sweet more…)
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Guardian: What the Cracker Barrel backlash shows about Maga’s influence on US culture
What likely started as a routine refresh spiraled into a political storm that went all the way to the US president
Timeline: Tracking the Trump Justice Department’s Anti-Voting Shift
Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda
Trump Pardons Database
Project 2025 Tracker
DOGE Tracker
ProPublica: Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew
Wired: 6 Tools for Tracking the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Civil Liberties
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