curated news excerpts & citations
… trying to ‘unbury the lede’
James Eagle: African life expectancy has risen sharply
A chart like this is worth pausing over because it pushes against the easiest story about Africa. The long-run picture is not only crisis. It is millions of lives extended year by year.
The upward movement reflects vaccination, malaria control, lower child mortality, better food security, urbanisation, basic medicine and public-health systems reaching more people than before. Some countries still lag badly, but the direction is unmistakable.
Life expectancy is an average, not a guarantee of good lives. War, poverty and weak healthcare still matter enormously. The point is not to soften reality. It is to remember that African development has also produced one of the great human gains of the modern era.
(James Eagle more…)
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Thom Hartmann: Thought Crimes: The Knock on the Door Has Arrived
The pre-crime apparatus is no longer theoretical. Americans are now being prosecuted for meetings, messages, and protest activity…
Back in April I wrote here about what I called the Department of Thought Crimes, the pre-crime apparatus the Trump regime had quietly stood up inside the FBI and DOJ to hunt for Americans who might someday break a law because of what they believe.
Ken Klippenstein first identified the GOP’s hit list in Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, often referred to as “NSPM-7,” which is apparently the basis for these arrests. It identified as potential “domestic terrorist” threats those Americans who espouse:
“[A]nti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity, … extremism on migration, extremism on race, extremism on gender, hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion, and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on morality.”
Klippenstein then, three months later, discovered that the Trump regime — specifically, Bondi’s DOJ and Patel’s FBI — was already busily compiling lists of such potential terrorists, sharing the responsibility with some 200 FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) working collaboratively with local police departments across America.
And Bondi had instructed them to go back as far as five years in their scrubbing of social media and searching out our thoughts and opinions to find Americans who presumably may oppose Christianity, billionaires, or tradwives.
(Thom Hartmann more…)
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Brian Allen: The FBI Interview Trump’s Own Justice Department Buried in the Epstein Files
A woman told federal agents that men operating out of Trump Tower recruited her for sex with Trump, and that the invitation carried Jeffrey Epstein’s address. The document sat inside the files the administration released.
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What those quotations describe, if accurate, is not a rumor. It is not an allegation passed through a handler or a partisan attorney. It is a woman sitting across from federal agents and giving a sworn account, knowing that lying to those agents is a crime, describing a recruitment operation for sex with the sitting president of the United States, operating out of his signature property, tied to his long-documented associate Jeffrey Epstein.
(Brian Allen more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – June 18, 2026
Overnight, Ukraine launched its biggest attack on Moscow, the capital of Russia, since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Ukraine’s waves of drone strikes on a major Moscow oil refinery have shrouded the city in flames and black smoke. Last week, Russia struck one of Ukraine’s most important religious and cultural landmarks, the thousand-year-old Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. The ancient monastery, with its churches and bell towers, is a UNESCO World Heritage site, described by the United Nations agency as a “masterpiece of Ukrainian art.”
Russia denied responsibility for the strike. After the Moscow strikes, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky released a video saying: “If Ukraine burns, your Moscow will burn too.”
In the U.S., President Donald J. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance are trying hard to sell the administration’s memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran …
The leaders trying to dictate a new global order seem brittle and breaking, while in the United States the crowds jamming the streets in New York City in a ticker tape parade for the NBA Championship winners, the New York Knicks, suggested the momentum has shifted back to the American people. …
The theme farther west, in Chicago’s Jackson Park, was the same: community, hope, and the power of individuals to create change. For the opening of the Obama Presidential Center, former first lady Michelle Obama and former president Barack Obama welcomed living presidents and first ladies, except the Trumps, who were not invited: President Bill Clinton and Secretary Hillary Clinton, President George W. Bush and Mrs. Laura Bush, and President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden.
…Mrs. Obama urged Americans to make a choice to change the future. …
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)Small Wars Journal: “If Ukraine burns, then your Moscow will burn as well”
Heather Delaney Reese: Trump’s wildly erratic G7 speech shows a man in steep decline
John Amato @ Crooks&Liars: Michelle Obama’s Incredible Speech Opening Obama’s Presidential Library
Can you imagine Melania giving a speech like this?
John Pavlovitz: Thanks, Obamas.
Al Jazeera: Obama opens presidential centre with call for unity
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Deuce Davis: What if we are reading the Iran deal wrong?
The deal is bad. That may not be the story.
Jennifer Rubin: The Iran Deal is Worse Than the War
Decoding Fox News: The War in Iran – When You’ve Lost Fox News
A condensed overview of 28 hours of Fox News for the week ending 6/14/26
Brian Allen: The Deal Is Signed. The President Made Analysts Cringe Saying So.
… because in nuclear diplomacy, words at a microphone are not separate from the deal.
Shelby Erdman @ Atlanta Black Star: Donald Trump Falls for a Reporter’s Trap, But Doesn’t Realize It Until It’s Too Late.
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Steve Balestrieri @ National Security Journal: Goldman Sachs Says the Strait of Hormuz May Never Fully Recover — and the Gulf Is Already Building Around It
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Asawin Suebsaeng, Andrew Perez @ zeteo: ‘Just Do It Anyway’: Inside Trump’s Plans to Pay His Allies, Slush Fund or Not
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Beth Mole @ arsTECHNICA: FDA advisors unanimously vote to approve Moderna’s mRNA after agency drama
In February, a Trump official refused to review the vaccine.
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John Timmer @ arsTECHNICA: After Senate vote, Trump admin backs off plans to kill ocean monitoring
It’s unclear whether the system is currently intact.
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Andrew Weber, Neena Satija @ KUT: Records challenge UT Austin’s allegations against former KUT leader Debbie Hiott
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Vangelisti spoke to KUT and KUTX staff Tuesday, a day after she fired Hiott. While the purpose of the meeting was to introduce Hiott’s interim replacement, members of the station’s staff also asked Vangelisti directly if Hiott’s termination was the result of larger political forces. She repeatedly declined to answer.
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
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