curated news excerpts & citations
… trying to ‘unbury the lede’
James Eagle: Wind and solar are passing coal in more power grids
Energy transition debates often get stuck in forecasts. This chart marks countries where wind and solar have already overtaken coal in electricity generation. It gives readers a concrete before-and-after, not another distant target.
That changes the argument. In places such as the UK and the US, the clean-power crossover is no longer just a target or campaign line; it is part of the historical record. Coal still matters globally, but the direction of travel is visible.
Observed transitions are harder to dismiss than promises. They shape investment, grid planning and political expectations. A national crossover does not mean the grid is easy to run, or that coal has disappeared elsewhere, but it moves part of the debate from aspiration to fact.
Sharon Chen, Akshat Rathi, Hayley Warren, Neil Jerome Morales, Stephen Stapczynski @ Bloomberg: How the Iran War Is Boosting Clean Energy in Asia and Europe
The conflict is Asia’s “Ukraine moment”
-
Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – June 4, 2026
The wheels are wobbling on the Trump administration bus.
The administration has always been an alliance of groups and people that oppose the so-called liberal consensus: the idea that the U.S. government should regulate business, provide social welfare programs, promote infrastructure projects, protect civil rights, and support a rules-based international order.
…Now the effects of his plans on the American people are filtering through to those who weren’t paying close attention. Trump’s initial tariffs of April 2025—his so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs—destroyed the foreign markets for U.S. agricultural products, while Trump’s war on Iran has sent the price of the diesel fuel farmers need skyrocketing and put the cost of fertilizer out of reach. …
…And now New World screwworm, a parasitic fly larva that had been eradicated in the U.S. since the 1960s, is back. In March 2025 the Trump administration cut funding for disease control and prevention, including that of New World screwworm. Today, news broke that the New World screwworm has been found in Texas for the first time since 1966.
…Meanwhile, Jamie Smyth of the Financial Times reported yesterday that U.S. oil reserves are at their lowest level in twenty-two years. …
…Today President Donald J. Trump appeared to fall asleep again at a meeting in the Oval Office.
But Trump’s interest in profiting off the presidency remains clear. Jonathan Edwards of the Washington Post reported today that 14 of the 27 known donors to Trump’s $400 million ballroom project have won new or expanded federal contracts totaling over $50 billion since they made their donations.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
-
Sasha Abramsky @ truthout: As Ebola Virus Spreads, We See the Terrifying Effects of Trump Dismantling USAID
Trump slashed more than 30 CDC experts and 140 USAID staff who managed the 2018 Ebola outbreak on the ground in the DRC.
In 2018, when the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) experienced a severe Ebola outbreak, more than 30 experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), close to 20 disaster-response specialists from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and 120 additional USAID staff were on the ground attempting to manage the outbreak, according to estimates from Friends of USAID, an advocacy organization mainly made up of ex-USAID staffers. With that level of staffing in 2018, by and large, they succeeded in limiting the extent to which the disease spread.
(Sasha Abramsky @ truthout more…)Shanley Hurt: The Price Comes Due at the Bedside
The diseases we forgot are returning, and children are paying the price.
…… physicians seeing more children hospitalized with rotavirus, whooping cough, bacterial infections that can cause pneumonia or meningitis, and other illnesses that routine childhood vaccination had pushed to the margins of American life. …
This is what happens when public health becomes a culture war before it becomes a crisis.
-
Michael Fanone: Trump Put a Guy Who Broke Into the Capitol in Charge of Counterterrorism. Read That Again.
January 6th Is Now a Job Credential at the Pentagon.
…The Trump administration just hired a man who crawled through a broken window into the United States Capitol on January 6th and gave him a job in the Pentagon’s counterterrorism office.
(Michael Fanone more…)Matt Naham @ Law & Crime: Jack Smith’s receipts about Trump’s ‘state of mind’ on Jan. 6 should rip apart defamation lawsuit in discovery: Court filing
-
Chance Meeting @ Closer to the Edge: DELANEY HALL AND THE DEATH OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT
The people imprisoned inside of Delaney Hall Concentration Camp are on a hunger and labor strike — innocent people kidnapped by ICE and kept in inhumane conditions all for the profit of private prison company GEO group and at the behest of the fascist Trump regime.
For days, ICE brutalized peaceful protesters, beating them, spraying them directly in the eyes with pepper spray, pushing them under the tires of oncoming semis. Detaining and severely injuring civilians who are exercising their first amendment rights.
(Chance Meeting @ Closer to the Edge more…)
-
Joe Patrice @ Above the Law: New SPLC Indictment Has Us Wondering If The DOJ Is Trying To Lose
…
Back in April, the Department of Justice indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center, asserting that the civil rights organization misappropriated donations to secretly fund hate groups. The fraud theory of the case never made much sense since every genuine donor knew that the SPLC gathers information on hate groups through informants. On top of that, the indictment failed to even properly plead the elements of one of its core charges. Just an all-around clown show.But this week, the DOJ took another stab at the SPLC case, securing a superseding indictment. And then they appear to have promptly leaked it to right-wing media because this case is more about winning points on Twitter than in court. Did the DOJ fix the deficiencies in the original indictment?
Friends, they did not.
But they did manage to make it worse, forcing us to ask the question: are the prosecutors on this case trying to lose or just stupid?
(Joe Patrice @ Above the Law more…)Marcy Wheeler: Emily Covington Breaks the Rules to Brag that DOJ Doesn’t Have the Goods against SPLC
-
Jay Kuo: You’re About To Own Part Of SpaceX, Like It Or Not
Catherine Rampell @ Bulwark: SpaceX is IPOing next week. And there’s a good chance you’re gonna own a portion of it—whether you like it or not.
…
That’s because Musk’s SpaceX is IPOing next week, and it’s getting special treatment that allows it to enter many of the major stock indices without meeting the usual requirements to do so. What that means is that if you hold an index fund—which you probably do, if you have a 401(k)—you may be forced to transfer some of your wealth to this money-losing rocket company and, by extension, its megalomaniacal CEO. And you won’t really be able to complain if he screws up.
-
Jess Piper: I’m Not Crying
(Jess Piper more…)
-
Borowitz: Paxton Blasts Talarico’s Lack of Criminal Record
-
Decoding Fox News: Fox News: Spencer Pratt is the Second Coming of the Glorious Leader!
A condensed overview of 23 hours of Fox News for the week ending 5/31/26
Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting
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
Leave a Reply