curated news excerpts & citations
Benjamin Katz @ WSJ: Flights Are Still Taking Off as Missiles Rain Down in the Middle East
Dozens of flights have arrived in and departed Dubai within minutes of strikes, a WSJ analysis found
Minutes before an Iranian drone smashed into a fuel tank, sending a fiery explosion into the skies above Dubai International Airport, the wheels of an Emirates passenger plane en route to Beijing had just lifted from the runway.
The blast in the early hours of Monday morning forced two planes on approach to quickly divert and take up holding patterns. Twelve other flights had taken off in the 30 minutes before the attack. By midday, the airport was back up and running.
(Benjamin Katz @ WSJ more…)
Olivia Ralph @ DailyBeast: Trump Makes U-Turn One Hour After Trying to Tout Bonkers War Victory
WAR OR PEACE?
Trump said the U.S. has wiped Iran “off the map”—then threatened new strikes.
Michael Ramsey @ NewsNation: Trump’s threat of more strikes met with promise of retaliation by Iran
CNN: Day 23 of Middle East conflict — Iran responds to Trump threat to bomb power plants, strikes on Israel
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Lucian K. Truscott IV: What “boots on the ground” really means
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It’s not boots on the ground. It’s blood on the ground. At the whim of one man, the blood of thousands has already been spilled. No matter who it belongs to, all blood is precious.
(Lucian K. Truscott IV more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – March 22, 2026
President Donald J. Trump‘s behavior is increasingly erratic as he lashes out at those he perceives to be enemies. …
The president is under enormous pressure, as his war with Iran sparked Iranian officials to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s oil flows. This outcome was expected by previous presidents, but Trump seemed to think he could avoid it and now is stuck without an easy solution. …
…In a frantic attempt to lower oil prices, the administration on Friday lifted sanctions on Iranian oil currently at sea. Iranian oil has been sanctioned since 1979. The lifting of sanctions will enable Iran to sell about 140 million barrels of oil, worth about $14 billion, including to the United States and to China.
National security scholar Phil Gordon, who served as the White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Persian Gulf Region during the Obama administration, posted: “When Obama sent Iran $400m + $1.3bn in interest in 2016 Trump called it ‘insane’ and he and others spent a decade mocking the idea of ‘pallets of cash’ even though it was Iran’s own money, American prisoners were released, courts were likely to require the U.S. payment, and Iran had just agreed to significant and verified reductions and restrictions on its nuclear program for 15+ years.
“Now Trump is giving Iran up to ten times that amount of revenue—one of the most significant measures of sanctions relief provided to the Islamic Republic since its founding—in exchange for marginal and temporary relief from the big increase in oil prices his actions have caused, without any concessions from Tehran, and even as Iran continues to target the United States, its allies, and world oil supplies. No way to read as anything other than desperate recognition of the situation Trump’s own actions have created and the lack of available alternatives for dealing with it.”
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Guardian: President says ICE agents at airports would ‘do security like no one has ever seen before’
Donald Trump threatened to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to US airports on Monday if congressional Democrats do not immediately agree to fund airport safety.
Transportation Security Administration personnel are set to miss a second full paycheck on 27 March amid a partial government shutdown in its 36th day as lawmakers clash over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency for TSA and ICE.
(Guardian more…)
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Laura Ungar @ AP: It’s not just vaccines — parents are refusing other routine preventive care for newborns
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Babies are born with low levels of vitamin K, leaving them vulnerable because their intestines can’t produce enough until they start eating solid foods at around 6 months old.“Vitamin K is important for helping the blood clot and preventing dangerous bleeding in babies, like bleeding into the brain,” said Dr. Kristan Scott of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, lead author of the JAMA study.
Before injections became routine, up to about 1 in 60 babies suffered vitamin K deficiency bleeding, which can also affect the gastrointestinal tract. Today the condition is rare, but research shows that newborns who don’t get a vitamin K shot are 81 times more likely to develop severe bleeding than those who do.
(Laura Ungar @ AP more…)
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Andrea Guzmán & Austin Sanders @ Austin American-Statesman: ‘Tesla held back the information’: Employee speaks out on incident with Austin mass shooting suspect
Lillian Brady wonders if March 1 mass shooting could have been avoided if the alleged shooter had been prosecuted for what she says he did at Gigafactory Texas.
(Andrea Guzmán & Austin Sanders @ Austin American-Statesman more…)
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Andrew Weissmann: Robert Mueller
A tribute
Heather Delaney Reese: The president can’t walk this one back
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Inside Climate News: Interior Department in Turmoil
One year into President Donald Trump’s second term, the Department of the Interior is in turmoil, hobbling many of the agencies overseeing the country’s public lands and waters.
Not only has Interior lost some 11,000 employees, it’s also reeling from a drastic centralization of personnel, moving large numbers of staff into the office of the Interior secretary, Doug Burgum.
(Inside Climate News more…)\
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ReligiousLiberty.TV: Separation of Church and State: What Jefferson’s Letter to the Danbury Baptists Actually Said
(ReligiousLiberty.TV more…)
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Shelby E @ Atlanta Black Star: ‘Unacceptable’: Trump and Pete Hegseth Turn an AI Standoff Into a National Security Showdown — Then an Email Surfaces and Suddenly the Whole Premise Starts to Fall Apart
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Allison Gill: Mountains of Documents Shredded at the Prison Where Epstein Died?
This week, the Miami Herald is out with an exclusive on a report to the FBI stating a Bureau of Prisons investigatory team shredded documents the week Epstein died in prison.
(Allison Gill more…)
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Megan Twohey, Shawn McCreesh and Hamed Aleaziz @ NY Times: Trump Friend Asked ICE to Detain the Mother of His Child
Paolo Zampolli, a former modeling agent and a longtime Trump ally, was in a custody battle over his son. An ICE official agreed to help.
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Ruth Ann Crystal MD: Dr. Ruth Report, 3/22/26
COVID is decreasing, RSV is unusually high for this time of year, and Flu B is high in some places in the U.S.
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Thom Hartmann: Remember: The Cost of Forgetting
Your weekly excerpt from one of my books. This week: “The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party, and a World on the Brink”
(Thom Hartmann more…)
Al Jazeera Death toll and injuries live tracker
ICE Accountability Project
ICE deaths 2026 – They deserve remembrance and justice.
- March 16: Royer Perez-Jimenez
- March 14: Naseer Paktiawil
- February 25: Nurul Amin Shah Alam
- 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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