curated news excerpts & citations
Annie Linskey, Alexander Ward, Gavin Bade @ WSJ:
Iran War Hangs Over China Summit
As the heads of the world’s two superpowers meet in Beijing this week, President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will have another nation looming over their summit: Iran.
The long anticipated meeting has already been delayed once due to the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran, which has led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Trump is eager to move on from the Middle East war that is sapping his domestic power and straining the global economy.
(Annie Linskey, Alexander Ward, Gavin Bade @ WSJ more …)
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – May 10, 2026
There were two very different celebrations in Russia and in Hungary yesterday.
… The Russians celebrate victory over the Nazis on May 9, for by the time the Germans surrendered to the Soviets in Berlin, the time difference meant it was already May 9 in Moscow.
…… Putin followed his usual pattern of equating the troops fighting in Ukraine with those who fought in World War II. As he has often framed the war as a struggle against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), he claimed today’s soldiers for Russia are “standing up to an aggressive force armed and supported by the entire NATO bloc.”
But the similarities between past celebrations and yesterday’s ended there. …
…Putin’s scaled-back celebration reflects fear of Ukrainian drone strikes, which are hitting deep inside Russia. It also reflects growing discontent over the war and its devastation of the economy, and anger at the increasing repression with which Putin is trying to control opposition.
…In Hungary, a different kind of celebration was underway as Péter Magyar took the oath of office as prime minister after winning a landslide victory over Putin ally Viktor Orbán.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Corey Mitchell, Phil McKenna, Peter Aldhous @ Inside Climate News: $370 Million Payout
Liquefied natural gas vessels are fueled by their cargo—they’re built specifically to make use of the gas boiling off from their tanks.
But Cheniere Energy, the largest U.S. exporter of LNG, requested “alternative fuel” tax credits for that. The claim baffled shipping experts, because what Cheniere Energy is doing isn’t, in any real sense, an alternative. It also provides little climate benefit over fueling the vessels with diesel and uses the credit in a way that tax specialists say was never intended.
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Sam Levine, Will Craft, Andrew Witherspoon @ Guardian: Samuel Alito’s Voting Rights Act ruling cited misleading data from DoJ
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“[The DoJ approach] is misleading because they’re including ineligible voters in the denominator,” said Michael McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida who is one of the nation’s leading experts on voter turnout.
(Sam Levine, Will Craft, Andrew Witherspoon @ Guardian more…)
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Peter Smith @ LA Times: For Trump’s commission on religion, ‘there is no separation of church and state’
- Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission is pushing recommendations that would eliminate the constitutional separation of church and state.
- The panel seeks expanded prayer and religious symbols in public schools, increased federal funding for faith-based organizations and religious exemptions from healthcare and labor mandates.
- Critics say the commission lacks religious and ideological diversity, violates federal law requiring balanced viewpoints, and threatens long-standing constitutional church-state protections.
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And the chair of the Religious Liberty Commission is calling for a federal hotline with this automated recording: “There is no separation of church and state.”(Peter Smith @ LA Times more…)
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Christina Jewett @ NY Times: With Commissioner Under Pressure, F.D.A. Opens Door to Flavored Vapes
The Trump administration issued a new policy Friday that could allow major tobacco and vape companies to begin selling flavored e-cigarettes, delivering a win to top donors after a year of paring back federal tobacco-control efforts.
The policy was announced hours after President Trump reportedly signed off on a plan to fire Dr. Marty Makary, the Food and Drug Administration commissioner, who has resisted allowing sales of flavored vapes for months over concerns about their appeal to young people. Mr. Trump later said he was not aware of plans to oust Dr. Makary.
(Christina Jewett @ NY Times more…)
resources tracking the “Andes” hantavirus outbreak
Apocalypse Early Warning System
Al Jazeera Death toll and injuries live tracker
ICE Accountability Project
Sergio Martínez-Beltrán, Ximena Bustillo, Jasmine Garsd @ NPR: Deaths of migrants in ICE custody hit record high under Trump
- April 16: Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt
- March 25: Jose Guadalupe Ramos-Solano
- March 16: Royer Perez-Jimenez
- March 14: Naseer Paktiawil
- February 25: Nurul Amin Shah Alam
April 1 – Jennifer Peltz and Jake Offenhartz @ AP: Death of a refugee left at a Buffalo doughnut shop by Border Patrol is ruled a homicide - January 24: Alex Pretti
- January 14: Heber Sanchaz Dominguez
- January 14: Victor Manuel Diaz
- January 9: Parady La
- January 7: Renée Good
- January 6: Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz
- January 5: Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres
- January 3: Geraldo Lunas Campos
- December 31, 2025: Keith Porter
Suffering Under President Obama
NACDL Criminal Case Tracker
Texas Tribune: A Walk for Peace: photos of Fort Worth monks’ journey to Washington
Walk for Peace – Dhammacetiya – The Ancient Sacred Buddhist Scripture Stupas
Margaret Chase Smith: Declaration of Conscience
NPR: January 6, 2021: A visual archive
Accountability Initiative ICE List
GriftMatrix
Trump Action Tracker
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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