curated news excerpts & citations
… trying to ‘unbury the lede’
Rebecca Solnit:
The Worshippers of Machines Versus Human Beings
This is the week that someone pulled the fire alarm on AI. It began with industry employee Jacob Coxon issuing a dire warning: “I resigned from Anthropic today,” he wrote on Twitter/X. …
It says a lot about the status of Silicon Valley corporations in general and AI’s lead corporations in particular that some suggested that this was a PR stunt, destructive power being a form of power and power being exciting to lots of individuals. …
Meanwhile, my climate associates pointed out that we don’t have to wonder if AI might try to destroy the world. With its huge fossil fuel consumption for data centers, on a scale that could make AI equivalent to a big new nation with a big new carbon footprint appearing, AI-invested corporations are doing their damnedest to destroy the earth right now. That is: rather than look ahead to potential dangers, we should look at the destruction afoot right now. …
Climate journalist Michael Thomas reports, “Amazon is backing what could be the largest natural gas power plant ever built in the United States. The company confirmed to Cleanview that it has acquired a site in Pecos County, Texas, where it plans to build an AI data center campus powered by on-site natural gas generation. Permits for the gas plant reveal that it would use 35 turbines to generate 7.65 gigawatts of power. It would be entirely disconnected from the Texas electricity grid — at least initially.” Elon Musk’s Grok, Microsoft, Meta, Google: they’re all in a race to burn the most carbon to power these energy-intensive systems whose uses are for the most part questionable to disturbing. Sometimes the glib excuse is that while AI will make the climate worse it will somehow down the road generate climate solutions (but we already have the climate solutions we need; we just need to act on them).
(Rebecca Solnit more…)
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Jake Bolster, Peter Aldhous @ Inside Climate News:
Trump Targets Big Bad Wolves, but Ranchers Say Other Administration Actions Drive Their WoesWhile ranchers support eliminating federal protections for wolves, data shows the predators kill few cattle. Trump’s lifting of tariffs on foreign beef, however, is hitting cattlemen’s wallets.
(Jake Bolster, Peter Aldhous @ Inside Climate News more…)
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Katie Rogers @ NY Times:
What the War in Iran Has Cost One Gold Star FamilyFirst Lt. Tyler James Feehan, who was 25, had been deployed to an air base in Jordan when enemy missiles and drones lit up the sky. He is among the 18 Americans who have died since the war began.
(Katie Rogers @ NY Times more…)Timothy Snyder:
On Total War and Individual Responsibility
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Dylan Tokar, Kevin T. Dugan, Vicky Ge Huang @ WSJ:
Crypto Blew Its Big Moment—and the Blame Game Has BegunThe Clarity Act, a landmark bill meant to usher digital assets into wider use, collapsed after U.S. senators officially voted it down.
(Dylan Tokar, Kevin T. Dugan, Vicky Ge Huang @ WSJ more…)
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Rebecca Hersher, Ryan Kellman @ NPR:
People’s houses are collapsing into the ocean. FEMA gives them no other option
(Rebecca Hersher, Ryan Kellman @ NPR more…)
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Vax PAC:
RFK Jr. caught tampering with 33 CDC databases87% of the affected databases were focused on vaccines. They’re destroying proof of vaccine safety!
Jeremy W. Jacobs MD, Garrett S. Booth MD MS, Noel T. Brewer PhD, Janet Freilich JD @ Annals of Internal Medicine:
Unexplained Pauses in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Surveillance: Erosion of the Public Evidence Base for Health Policy
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Spencer Neale @ American Conservative:
Can Hinojosa Win Texas?Outspent and lacking a big profile, Gina Hinojosa has made the Texas governor race unexpectedly competitive.
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Farrah Tomazin @ Daily Beast:
MAGA Turns on Trump Over His Wild Media Ban
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Mitch Jackson:
Boebert Is Accused of Sleeping With Three Staffers She Supervised.The allegations are part of a sworn complaint. In this case, consent is not a defense.
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Becky Ferreira @ 404 Media:
‘Supermountains’ Buried Under Antarctica Fueled Explosion of Life, Scientists DiscoverSome 600 million years ago, the supercontinent Gondwana produced a colossal mountain range that helped set the stage for all modern complex life, according to a new examination of tiny ancient rocks.
(Becky Ferreira @ 404 Media more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson:
Letters from an American – September 19, 2026On September 19, 1676, three hundred and fifty years ago today, Nathaniel Bacon and his followers burned Jamestown, the capital of the Virginia Colony. The destruction of the seat of government was the culmination of a year of conflict between Governor Sir William Berkeley and poor settlers in the colony. Fears of another such uprising in the future led Virginia lawmakers to make sure poor men would not make common cause, passing laws to divide them along racial lines.
(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 31: Pierre Damas Bel
- 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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