curated news excerpts & citations
… trying to ‘unbury the lede’
Thom Hartmann:
A Family’s Final Flight Exposes a Terrifying Question: Is Climate Change Outrunning Our Ability to Stay Safe?
In just 20 minutes, a Florida thunderstorm grew nearly three miles taller. Nine people died, and the coverage focused on a young woman in the cockpit instead of the warming world outside it…
…
While I’m not rated to fly jets, I’ve been a licensed pilot since I was 21 years old and one of the first things any flight instructor pounds into your head is that thunderstorms kill airplanes. The most dangerous ones aren’t the fully-formed ones you see on radar from 100 miles away, but the ones that are rapidly building.
That’s because a growing thunderhead is an engine converting moisture into vertical motion, and the faster it’s boiling up the more violent the air inside it is.
So far, with just that information, this might look like pilot error, until you look at what happened with this particular cell. It grew from 33,000 to 48,300 feet in about 20 minutes, which is so explosive — growing 3 miles taller in that short time — that it’s mind-boggling. I’ve never even heard of such a thing, although it’s unlikely this is entirely unique these days.
… the real question that the media should be pursuing is why this thunderstorm grew so high, so fast, and why the pilot wasn’t warned about it by Air Traffic Control and the National Weather Service.
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John Pavlovitz:
Empathy For The WinThe midterm election results were many things.
…But perhaps more important than anything else, the election was an unequivocal referendum on cruelty.
(John Pavlovitz more…)Heather Cox Richardson:
Letters from an American – November 6, 2026On Tuesday, Americans rejected the Trump administration. …
Trump initially appeared dazed by the rebuke, but today he woke up and threw their rejection of his agenda back in Americans’ teeth.
Ousting his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, Trump replaced her with the architect of some of his administration’s most extreme policies: Stephen Miller.
Miller is a fervent white nationalist who appears to believe in the racist “great replacement theory,” the idea that Black and Brown immigrants to Europe and the United States are destroying “Western culture.”
Miller’s elevation to chief of staff doesn’t necessarily change much; he already was a powerful force in the White House.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Jess Piper:
You fill a bathtub by starting at the bottom
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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar:
A Time for Hope“Hope is the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.”
― Barack Obama (born 1961), 44th President of the United States
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Mike Brock:
The Slave of the PassionsEconomics can tell a country what its choices will cost, and it has never been able to tell a country what to choose.
(Mike Brock more…)
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Shruti Srivastava, Krishna Karra, Lou Del Bello @ Bloomberg:
Mapping India’s $4.5 Billion Challenge to Clean Up the GangesIt’s one of the world’s most difficult, and important, environmental projects: India’s mission to clean up the Ganges, the nation’s holiest river and among its most vital economic arteries, sustaining more than 650 million people.
The boat pushes off from Kanpur’s riverfront promenade in the early hours, slipping onto the Ganges as the northern Indian city slowly gives way to a quieter, more industrial edge. The four-hour journey along the riverbank ends in Jajmau by early afternoon. The boatman, practiced and unhurried, steers through the current with ease. He has seen this before: The steady stream of officials, inspectors, and researchers who come to test the river, measure it, and leave.
As they move downstream, the river tells its own story. Small drains appear one after another, trickling straight into the Ganges, most carrying household sewage. Then, near the tannery belt of Gajju Purwa, the water darkens. A larger outflow carrying waste cuts into the river, turning the surface a murky black-blue streaked with acrid-smelling froth. The air thickens with a sharp, chemical stench. The water churns sluggishly, alive with insects.
(Shruti Srivastava, Krishna Karra, Lou Del Bello @ Bloomberg more…)
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James Eagle:
Young adults choose AI for support
(James Eagle more…)
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Dean Blundell:
VIDEO: Melania Just Put Putin’s Sanctioned Bagman at a White House Podium and Took a Gift From Him
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Michael Wriston, Mia Barragán, Em Chapin @ Project Salt Box:
ICE to pay $32 million for Roxbury, N.J. warehouse conversion
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SECDEF_Nice @ Duffel Blog:
Pentagon confident U.S. will be ready for 2027 war with China by 2035
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Christopher Hale:
Peter Thiel Recruits Nashville Against Pope Leo XIV
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Al Jazeera:
CDC reports more than 5,000 measles cases, highest number in 35 years
The January 6Memory Project
ICE Detention Expansion Tracker
A field guide to claims
Last Days in Two Nations
Climate.us
formerly Climate.gov
Climate Solutions Explorer
Have I Been Flocked?
Cleanview Data Center Traker
Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting
resources tracking the “Andes” hantavirus outbreak
Apocalypse Early Warning System
Al Jazeera Death toll and injuries live tracker
Mourning Those Who Have Died in ICE Custody
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
- October 17: Emiliano Andrade-Covarrubias
- September 18: Carlos Josue Marchena Marchena
- 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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