EFF: Congress Takes Another Step Toward Enabling Broad Internet Censorship
The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday advanced the TAKE IT DOWN Act (S. 146) , a bill that seeks to speed up the removal of certain kinds of troubling online content. While the bill is meant to address a serious problem—the distribution of non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII)—the notice-and-takedown system it creates is an open invitation for powerful people to pressure websites into removing content they dislike.
As we’ve written before, while protecting victims of these heinous privacy invasions is a legitimate goal, good intentions alone are not enough to make good policy.
…Lawful content—including satire, journalism, and political speech—could be wrongly censored.
…Trump has shown just how the bill can be abused, saying earlier this year that he would personally use the takedown provisions to censor speech critical of the president.
(EFF more…)
EFF: Judge Rejects Government’s Attempt to Dismiss EFF Lawsuit Against OPM, DOGE, and Musk
EFF: Site-Blocking Legislation Is Back. It’s Still a Terrible Idea.
Ken Klippenstein: Trump’s Counterterror Czar Proposes Terror Charges for Political Opponents
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Register: California sues President Tariff
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Emily Atkin: Climate science isn’t giving your kid anxiety
Trump’s newest argument for defunding climate science is that it’s giving kids anxiety. But that’s not really why kids are upset.
(Emily Atkin more…)NY Times: Trump Administration Halts Building of Giant Wind Farm Off N.Y. Coast
Gov. Kathy Hochul quickly responded that she would “fight this decision every step of the way.”
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On the first day of his new term in office, President Trump signed an executive order that limited the approval of offshore wind farms. But Empire Wind had already received all of the permits it needed to get underway.
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NY Times: Trump Waved Off Israeli Strike After Divisions Emerged in His Administration
Israel developed plans for attacking Iranian nuclear facilities that would have required U.S. assistance. But some administration officials had doubts.
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[Denver] 9News: Air Force erases first female Thunderbird pilot’s achievements from websites
A spokesperson for the Air Force said the decision follows President Trump’s directives.
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BBC: Trump administration threatens Harvard with foreign student ban
(BBC more…)
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Dean Blundell: Trump’s Slave Trade: El Salvador Admits They’re Being Paid to Keep Innocent Men Like Abrego Garcia in Gulags
Trump is trying to make the slave trade great again…
(Dean Blundell more…)CNN: Abrego Garcia’s wife responds to Trump administration publicizing civil protective order filing from 2021
(CNN more…)Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – April 16, 2025
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Evidently, President Donald Trump thinks what he is doing to Abrego Garcia and the optics of CECOT play well to his base. Jordain Carney and Nicholas Wu of Politico reported today that the White House has “heavily encouraged” Republican lawmakers to lean into the idea of Abrego Garcia—who has no criminal record—as an example of the dangerous criminals they insist Democrats want to bring to the U.S. Yesterday, out of the blue and with absolutely no evidence, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that Abrego Garcia engaged in human trafficking.
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Trump is likely pushing his narrative about criminal undocumented immigrants—although Bloomberg has reported that 90% of the men he has sent to El Salvador have no criminal record—in part because that rendition is stirring up opposition. In addition to popular protests, judges are pushing back.
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Trump is also likely playing to his base because Americans are terribly concerned about what’s happening to the economy on his watch.
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(Heather Cox Richardson more…)Daily Beast: Pam Bondi Insists Wrongly Deported Dad’s Wife and Child Are Better Off With Him Gone
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Politico: ‘Parkinson’s is a man-made disease’
Europe’s flawed oversight of pesticides may be fueling a silent epidemic, warns Dutch neurologist Bas Bloem. His fight for reform pits him against industry, regulators — and time.
(Politico more…)
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NY Times: Tesla U.S. sales plunge as GM and others make gains
Tesla’s sales in the United States fell almost 9% in the first three months of the year even as the overall market for electric vehicles grew, according to data compiled by a research firm.
EEAGLI: Tesla’s second-hand troubles
Used Tesla prices are falling faster than those of most other electric vehicles in the US and Britain. Some speculate that Elon Musk’s foray into politics is souring the brand’s image, but there’s a simpler explanation: a glut of off-lease cars returning to dealerships at once.That extra supply means competition among sellers. If you have too many used Model 3s on the lot, you cut prices to shift them. Meanwhile, Tesla has also discounted new vehicles in the past year. That can erode second-hand values further.
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Robert Reich: Trump’s Three Unwinnable Wars: China, Harvard, and the Supreme Court
Encouraged by the ease with which many big American institutions have caved in to their demands, the Trump regime — that is, the small cadre of bottom-feeding fanatics around Trump (Vance, Musk, Vought, Miller, and RFK Jr.) along with the child king himself — have overreached.
They’ve dared China, Harvard, and the Supreme Court to blink.
But guess what? They’ve met their matches. None of them has blinked — and they won’t.
(Robert Reich more…)
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Wired: Trump’s Tariffs Could Hit You in an Unexpected Place: Your Vinyl Collection
Volatility and anti-American resentment are already hurting the niche vinyl industry, but a little-known law could help it survive.
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There’s an absurd irony here, which is perhaps not all that shocking given the overwhelming erraticism of Trump’s economic schemes. Because the import and export of vinyl records is exempted from tariffs, US brokers can still get their product pressed abroad in Central Europe and shipped back Stateside, with little in the way of additional cost beyond the usual duties. Meanwhile, brick-and-mortar US-based manufacturers face potential increases in their bottom line, as they have little option but to import their raw materials from across the globe. “It’s a consistent problem that has stifled the vinyl record-pressing industry in the US,” says Echo Base’s Thomas. “The bigger companies are kind of like an oligarchy, and most of those companies are external to the US.”
(Wired more…)
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YLE: What’s happening in U.S. vaccine policy?
The ACIP meeting was mostly business as usual—with a few notable exceptions.
(YLE more…)
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BBC: Scientists find ‘strongest evidence yet’ of life on distant planet
Scientists have found new but tentative evidence that a faraway world orbiting another star may be home to life.
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“This is the strongest evidence yet there is possibly life out there. I can realistically say that we can confirm this signal within one to two years.”
(BBC more…)
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BBC Mundo: El paraíso de los contrabandistas: cómo miles de armas llegan a Haití desde EE.UU. y acaban en manos de las pandillas que controlan gran parte del país
(BBC Mundo more…)
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Sarah Jones: Upcoming Fight on April 19th: The People Dissent
After millions of Americans joined the peaceful Hands Off action on April 5th, organizers held a virtual event to discuss upcoming events including 50501’s April 19th action.
(Sarah Jones more…)
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NY Times: Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez Electrify Democrats Who Want to Fight Trump
Bernie Sanders and his apparent heir, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have drawn enormous crowds on their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, energizing a beaten-down Democratic Party.
