curated news excerpts & citations
… trying to ‘unbury the lede’
Timothy Snyder:
How was Mass Killing Possible?
At the center of the history of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were their policies of mass killing. The Soviets began first with terror during and after the revolution, the construction of a huge system of concentration camps, and then mass starvation. An organized political terror followed in the late 1930s. The Germans, after Hitler came to power in 1933, were most able to repress and then murder people defined as enemies, Jews above all, after they destroyed the states around them. Their greatest crime was the Holocaust, the deliberate murder of almost six million Jews; they also starved about three million Soviet prisoners of war to death, killed around a million people in “anti-partisan” operations, and murdered hundreds of thousands of Sinti and Roma and perhaps a quarter of a million people deemed to be disabled. These crimes were committed by human beings, often at very close range, so they raise questions about the political conditions that are necessary for mass atrocity, but also about how people did and can react to those conditions.
(Timothy Snyder more…)
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Miles Taylor:
DHS said it had “no plans” to send agents to the polls. But they’re already meddling — remotely.The administration spent months assuring Congress it would keep immigration officers away from the vote. Yet it had already reassigned hundreds of them secretly to comb through voter rolls.
(Miles Taylor more…)
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Paul Kedrosky:
The Data Center Buildout Just Hit an InflectionThree things are changing at once in the AI data center outlook …
- Execution risk is rising sharply. There are new estimates that as much as half of planned U.S. data-center capacity may be delayed or never built. Requiring deposits is causing projects to drop out of the queue in large numbers.
- Financing is becoming less forgiving. …
- Political risk has increased sharply. …
Paul Kedrosky:
Data Centers are Making the U.S. Grid Run BackwardsTwo rules have shaped U,S. electricity planning for a century.
- Power flows in a known direction.
- When something fails, it is the supply side that fails.
AI data centers have broken both.
(Paul Kedrosky more…)Kyle Stock @ Bloomberg:
Utah Lab Tests Oil Fracking Techniques for Geothermal EnergyMichael Thomas:
Why Amazon Is Building One of the Largest Solar Projects in AmericaEmanuel Maiberg @ 404 Media:
Inside the Warehouse Where Amazon Scans and Destroys Books for AI Training
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Katelyn Jetelina, Edward Nirenberg @ Your Local Epidemiologist:
Your guide to fall 2026 vaccines
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Marcy Wheeler:
A Shoddy Analysis Was Written by Peter Baker
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Adam Lynch @ AlterNet:
Trump deals deathblow to 100-year-old manufacturer
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Dean Blundell:
Carney’s Tariffs? Designed To Do One Thing – Kill Desperate Republican Chances In Swing States.Ottawa swears it didn’t draw up the counter-tariffs with an American electoral map on the desk.
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David Gelles @ NY Times:
Dolly Parton’s Other Legacy: A Fortune Given Away, Dollar by DollarThe country star supported early childhood literacy, disaster relief, the development of the Covid-19 vaccine and more.
Heather Cox Richardson:
Letters from an American – August 26, 2026…
When children age out of Dolly’s Imagination Library, they receive a final letter from her hoping they would “have a great time” in school and urging them to keep reading.The letter ends: “You and all of your friends are very special. There is no limit to what you can do or how far you can go. Just remember the lessons my family taught me—dream big dreams; learn everything you can learn; and care for all those who care for you. You do all of these things and you can be anyone you want to be.
“You are terrific, and remember…
“I Will Always Love You,
“Dolly.”
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
Last Days in Two Nations
Climate.us
formerly Climate.gov
Climate Solutions Explorer
Have I Been Flocked?
Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting
resources tracking the “Andes” hantavirus outbreak
Apocalypse Early Warning System
Al Jazeera Death toll and injuries live tracker
Mike Ludwig @ truthout: ICE Says 51 People Died in Custody Under Trump. Experts Say That’s an Undercount.
ICE Accountability Project
Sergio Martínez-Beltrán, Ximena Bustillo, Jasmine Garsd @ NPR: Deaths of migrants in ICE custody hit record high under Trump
- August 1: Edwin Lopez-Cornejo
- July 19: Jose Chajon-Raxon
- July 14: Juan Jairo Coronilla Duran
- July 13: Joan Sebastian Guerrero
- July 7: Lorenzo Salgado Araujo
- June 4: Mamuka Artmeladze
- 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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