curated citations to news sources
Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – September 14, 2025
At 10:22 on the morning of Sunday, September 15, 1963, a bomb ripped through the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. It was Youth Day in the historic brick church, and five young girls dressed in their Sunday best were in the ladies’ lounge getting ready for their part in the Sunday service that was about to start. As Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins were chatting and adjusting their dresses, a charge of dynamite stashed under the steps that led to the church sanctuary blasted into the ladies’ lounge. It killed the four girls instantly. Standing at the sink in the back of the room, Addie’s sister Sarah survived with serious injuries.
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For white supremacists in Birmingham, the children and the 16th Street Baptist Church where they had organized were the symbols of the movement that had beaten them.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
John Einarson: September 14, 1961, Bob Dylan meets producer John Hammond at apartment shared by Carolyn Hester and her then-husband, Richard Fariña
Timothy Snyder: Always be kind
An unexpected wartime slogan
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Ruth Ann Crystal MD: COVID & Health News, 9/14/25
This week, the CDC removed key data from its website including Emergency Department visits for COVID broken down by age and by state. By replacing its full dashboard with a pared-down version showing fewer metrics, it appears that the CDC is trying to make widespread transmission appear less concerning. But, we are at the peak of a COVID wave now and transmission is HIGH, no matter how the new CDC tries to spin the data.
JP Weiland estimates that there are about 600,000 new COVID infections per day in the US and that every 1 in 55 is currently infected. Mike Hoerger’s modeling is higher and he estimates 1,000,000 new COVID cases per day in the US with 1 in 49 people currently infected. Hoerger estimates that every 1 in 21 people in California is infected now. With such high levels of COVID in California now, Mike estimates that in a group of 6 people, there is a 25.6% chance that someone is currently infectious. It is definitely time to mask up, test, and take precautions.
(Ruth Ann Crystal MD more…)Guardian: Florida vaccine mandate rollback falters after Trump criticism
WSJ: HHS Tries to Stifle Corporate Speech
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James Eagle: How America’s trade war is killing jobs
(James Eagle more…)
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Anne Applebaum: Russia Expands the Air War
Views from Warsaw and Kyiv
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There are a lot of misconceptions around, including the widespread belief that Ukraine is about to “collapse.” Actually, Kyiv is alive and well and brightly lit at night. This is a view of the city taken Saturday night from one side of the Dnieper River:
At the same time, many people outside of Ukraine also seem to believe that the diplomatic situation has changed or improved since the American president, Donald Trump, met his counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Alaska last month. But most Ukrainians believe that the past six months have simply wasted time. Instead of working with Europe to make a long-term plan to continue fighting, everyone waited for Trump and got nothing.For proof, they point to the Russian air campaign. Instead of stepping back or preparing for a ceasefire, the number of Russian drones and missiles used against Ukrainian civilians has expanded since the American presidential election. It is still growing. I was lucky, and no evening air raid alarms went off when I was there. But only a week earlier, on the night of September 7-8, the Russians launched the biggest air raid of the entire war, even managing to hit an important government building for the first time. The BBC has made a chart that shows the pattern:
How are these two stories compatible? In part, the Russian air war is expanding precisely because Ukraine refuses to collapse: The Russians can’t gain territory on the ground, and so they seek to demoralize Ukraine from the air. The Ukrainians also believe that Russia’s air war is designed to test the patience of the American president as well as the readiness of NATO, and to demonstrate, to the Ukrainians and to the Europeans, that Trump will not help them.The decision to send drones into Poland had the same purpose: to probe and test the alliance, and to demoralize Poles. In that latter aim they failed. …
(Anne Applebaum more…)BBC: Romania becomes second Nato country to report Russian drone in its airspace
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Bulwark: It’s Stephen Miller’s Show Now
The most powerful guy in Trump’s ear has a plan for how to respond to the death of Charlie Kirk. You’re not going to like it.
(Bulwark more…)Miles Taylor: Civil war? No. But the censorship war has begun.
Trump allies wield power to shut down Charlie Kirk critics.
Noah Berlatsky: It’s about repression, not free speech
The right’s response to Charlie Kirk’s death gives away the game.
NOTUS: What is free speech?
NOTUS: The Crackdown on Speech After Charlie Kirk’s Death Is Alarming First Amendment Groups
A campaign to identify and punish those who mocked or spoke out against Kirk after his death has swept up private-sector workers and government employees alike.
Reuters: Charlie Kirk’s allies warn Americans: Mourn him properly or else
Ken Klippenstein: Charlie Kirk Assassination Sparks Social Media Crackdown
How buying a T-shirt led to government monitoring
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Intercept: New Bill Would Give Marco Rubio “Thought Police” Power to Revoke U.S. Passports
Rubio has already sought to punish immigrants for speech. New legislation might let him do it for U.S. citizens.
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Boing Boing: Washington Post fires black woman who quoted what Charlie Kirk said about black women
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Post owner Jeff Bezos was content to be seen with Attiah when she was winning his newspaper awards for journalism. Now the last remaining full-time black opinion columnist there is gone.
(Boing Boing more…)Allison Gill: The Abject Failure of Corporate Media in the Wake of Charlie Kirk
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Jason Easley: The Problem Is Donald Trump, Not Social Media Or Lonely White Men
Everyone in politics seems to want to blame anything else for political violence, besides the current occupant of the White House.
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Jennifer Rubin: We Cannot Excuse Political Violence
And we must not whitewash abhorrent views
(Jennifer Rubin more…)
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NPR: Jazz head at Kennedy Center is the latest firing at the beleaguered arts institution
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Steven Beschloss: What a Real President Doesn’t Do
Yes, values and principles still matter. Let’s list them to help make sure that violence and hate don’t win.
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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