curated news excerpts & citations
Solomon Crenshaw Jr.: From Selma to Montgomery, Alabama marches for civil rights once again
Annie Pearl Avery, 82, sat in a wheelchair at the bottom of the church steps in Selma on Saturday. The former activist said “we dropped the ball” when it came to protecting the rights for which she and others fought.
“We stopped doing certain things that we needed to do to secure what we have,” she said. “You’ve got to watch this stuff. You’ve got to protect it, just like you’re protecting a baby. You’ve got to watch everything, because it’ll get away from you real quick.”
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Alastair Marsh, Ishika Mookerjee, Petra Sorge @ Bloomberg: Why Microsoft’s 24/7 Carbon-Free Pledge Matters for Emissions
When Microsoft Corp. announced a plan in 2021 to buy enough renewable energy to match all its electricity use on an hourly basis, it said the strategy would encourage more zero-carbon energy to be added to power grids, and do away with dirty sources over time.
Just how effective a tool for decarbonization it could be was revealed in a recent report from the Electric Power Research Institute. Matching electricity consumption with clean power in the same hour, on the same grid, can cut 42 times more carbon-dioxide emissions compared with only matching it on an annual basis.
(Alastair Marsh, Ishika Mookerjee, Petra Sorge @ Bloomberg more…)
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Fred Kaplan @ Slate: Trump Just Admitted There’s No Good Reason to Continue His War With Iran
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This seemed to startle Baier. “Why isn’t that good enough?” the host asked. “If your goal was to set back …”“It is good enough,” Trump replied, “but you know what, it isn’t good enough public-relations-wise.”
This wasn’t a one-time gaffe. In a separate Fox interview, aired on Thursday, Trump said, “We have nine cameras on that site, on those three sites, 24 hours a day. We know exactly what’s happening. Nobody’s even gotten close to it.” If the Iranians did try to dig out the material, Trump could bomb the sites again.
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Chris Buckley, Amy Chang Chien @ NY Times: Trump’s Taiwan Gambit is Already a Gift to China
President Trump’s open willingness to hold up a $14 billion Taiwan arms package is a win for Beijing. Now China could be weighing how to keep the weapons on ice for as long as it can.
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“In the view of Chinese people, Trump’s comments on the Taiwan issue are a massive breakthrough,” said Wang Wen, a former Chinese journalist in Beijing who is now a professor at Renmin University in Beijing.Beijing can gain some advantage simply if Mr. Trump puts off any approval for long enough, some analysts said.
Miles Taylor: The Senate is no longer a deliberative body. It’s a decorating committee.
As the Iran war enters its twelfth week and inflation hits new highs, the Senate is locked in a bitter parliamentary fight over how to fund Trump’s ballroom.
Jennifer Rubin @ Contrarian: The MAGA Supreme Court Is Incompatible with Democracy
“The question is whether the pending $14 billion sale is delayed for weeks, months, or longer,” said Craig Singleton, the China Program senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. “A prolonged hold, especially one shaped by Beijing’s objections, would raise much more serious concerns about the reliability of U.S. deterrence.”
(Chris Buckley, Amy Chang Chien @ NY Times more…)
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James Eagle: America’s deficit problem is no longer cyclical
The US deficit is no longer behaving like an emergency measure. The Congressional Budget Office expects the shortfall to rise from $1.9 trillion in 2026 to $3.1 trillion in 2036, even without a recession, war or pandemic. That is the uncomfortable shift: large deficits are becoming the baseline, not the exception.
(James Eagle more…)
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Norman Eisen, Gabriel Lezra @ Contrarian: Trump’s Illegal $1.7 Billion Cash Grab
Chris Geidner: Read Trump’s “settlement” with the Trump admin to create a nearly $2 billion slush fund that Trump ultimately controls
Will Sommer @ Bulwark: MAGA Lawyers Shiv Each Other Over Trump’s J6er Fund
Trump has created a $1.776 billion reparations pot for his “victimized” followers. The greedy maneuvering started quickly.
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Joseph Cox @ 404 Media: Researchers Wanted Preschool Teachers to Wear Cameras to Train AI
“With your permission, your child’s lead teacher may wear a small teacher-worn camera that captures the teacher’s approximate first-person perspective, and/or we may place a fixed video camera in the classroom,” a document given to parents and later shared with 404 Media reads.
(Joseph Cox @ 404 Media more…)
Borowitz: Xi and Putin Reach Agreement on Joint Ownership of Trump
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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