curated news excerpts & citations
Shannon Pettypiece @ NBC: The families going hungry because of Trump’s food stamp cuts
Under President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” food stamp applicants are fighting to prove eligibility and facing questions about birthday gifts sent over Zelle. A crisis in Arizona offers a warning for America.
PHOENIX — The line outside a suburban office building was already 15 people long when Tiffany Hudson showed up with her 7-year-old son cradling his blanket. It was 7 a.m. At the front of the line was a woman hooked up to an oxygen tank who had arrived 90 minutes before the building opened.
Like others there, Husdon had come to the Arizona Department of Economic Security office in Surprise, a Phoenix suburb, to find out why the food stamp benefits for her and her two children were cut off after the state began implementing new eligibility requirements under President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”
(Shannon Pettypiece @ NBC more…)
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Lili Pike, Gautam Naik @ Bloomberg: Iran War Is Triggering a New China Push on Clean Tech Exports
Manufacturers of electric vehicles, batteries, and solar panels are wooing new markets.
(Lili Pike, Gautam Naik @ Bloomberg more…)
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VoteVets: How Forever War in Iran handed Beijing the upper hand before Trump’s plane even touched down in China
Donald Trump arrives in Beijing this week for a state visit with Xi Jinping. Xi walks in holding cards he should not be holding, and there is one reason for it: the forever war Trump started in Iran in February. Trump’s favorite metaphor about international politics, the one about who holds the cards, is about to be turned on him.
Six months ago, this meeting would have looked very different. China was on the back foot. Its economy was sluggish. Xi was in the middle of a sweeping purge of his own military, firing senior generals he suddenly no longer trusted. A shrinking, aging population was eating into China’s long-term power. By Beijing’s own standards, things were grim.
In another universe, Xi walks into this summit holding the weaker hand. He needs stability and access to American markets, and he needs the United States not to do anything reckless.
Then Trump went to war with Iran.
What happened next is the story of how one administration’s choice in one theater handed our most serious adversary the leverage he could never have built on his own.
(VoteVets more…)
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Brad Lendon, Sylvie Zhuang, Wayne Chang @ CNN: US experience fighting Iran offers lessons for China, experts say
As the war in Iran enters its third month, it’s providing a window for China into how US military capabilities work under fire, and a useful reminder that, on any battlefield, the adversary always has a big say in the outcome.
(Brad Lendon, Sylvie Zhuang, Wayne Chang @ CNN more…)
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Anne Applebaum: Putin’s War Comes Home
Four years ago, President Vladimir Putin offered Moscow and its business elite a de facto deal: support my war in Ukraine, and in exchange you won’t have to think about it. In the past week, that deal was broken.
(Anne Applebaum more…)Jay Kuo: Is Russia Finally Losing Its War of Choice in Ukraine?
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Jennifer Rubin: Callais Is Not the Last Word
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Jake Johnson: Iranian Official Says Trump Rejected Peace Proposal That Was ‘Reasonable and Generous’
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Judd Legum: We were promised a gold-plated Trump phone
For 11 months, Trump Mobile has been collecting $100 deposits for a Trump phone. No phones have shipped to customers.
Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – May 11, 2026
The story of the Trump Mobile phone seems a microcosm of the Trump administration.
…Donald Trump has always ridden to power by projecting an image of dominance. He could maintain that image thanks to the people who covered for him: his father, Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, and in his first presidential term—as Sidney Blumenthal reminded readers in The Guardian today—Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who filtered the options Trump received; chief of staff General John Kelly, who made a pact with Mattis that one of them would always stay in the country to stand in the way of Trump’s impulses; and National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, who stopped Trump from signing disastrous executive orders, sometimes going so far as to steal them off his desk.
In Trump’s second term, though, those people who curbed his worst impulses have been replaced with yes-men, and there is no one to protect him from the fallout.
…… just as with Trump Mobile, the clock is running out and the advertising isn’t working.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Evan Hurst: If You Have To Say It’s Not A Golden Calf, It’s A Golden Calf
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James Eagle: Berkshire Hathaway’s cash pile is a warning
James Eagle: Big Tech is turning AI into America’s investment cycle
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Adam Kinzinger: Stephen Miller In The Hot Seat, Trump Fumes Over Cuba’s Resilience, Iran Ceasefire on the Brink, and more…
(Adam Kinzinger more…)
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Christina Jewett, Sheryl Gay Stolberg @ NY Times: Kennedy Is Driving a Vast Inquiry Into Vaccines, Despite His Public Silence
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Sadie Gurman, Josh Dawsey, Aruna Viswanatha @ WSJ: Trump’s Complaints About Iran War Leaks Prompt Aggressive DOJ Investigations
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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