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If you pull way back and take the historical perspective, a lot of stories, aren’t.

I stand second to few in my abhorrence of the Israeli project to ethnic cleanse and genocide Palestine, but it’s been ongoing for a long time and involves about five million Palestinians plus various supporters of genocide and people trying to stop genocide. It’s moving towards the end-game, as Israel loses deterrence because of its military’s sheer incompetence and changing military technology, but it’s playing out more or less as expected: the tiny colonial enclave surrounded by hostile natives is in decline as its super power sponsor is in decline.

The relentless wail of Donald Trump How dare Nikki Haley use his own strategy to beat him: Former President Donald Trump might owe Sen. Ted Cruz an apology. And no, it’s not about the long list of things Trump has said about Cruz and his family. Rather, it’s about how Cruz and his allies complained in 2016 about how non-Republican voters helped hand the nomination to Trump. They even tried to formally change the party’s rules to incentivize states to move away from elections that allowed independent and possibly even Democratic voters to weigh in on the Republican presidential race. Trump ran away with the 2016 Republican presidential nomination in part due to his sheer dominance in these so-called “open primaries.” While at the same time, Cruz struggled to keep up by winning in closed primaries and caucuses. Now, Trump is sounding the alarm at the possibility that former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley could use his old playbook against him.

Nabanita Sircar examines the fanfare surrounding the opening of what is being called the 'Hindu Vatican', the new Rama temple in Ayodhya and how the ruling BJP are using it to garner votes

Biden bridges it in N.C. President Joe Biden visited North Carolina on Thursday to remind Tar Heel State citizens what his infrastructure plan has already delivered: Who remembers, you know, during the pandemic when schools were shut down and … the kids weren’t able to attend schools. They had to go online. How many of you spent time in McDonald parking lots tapping into their Internet so you could do the homework with your kid? Look, think of all the workers who need Internet to do their jobs when they’re working from home. So many are working from home — have to work. Small businesses need Internet to reach more customers here at home and literally around the world. And our seniors who need it in connection with their doctors through telemedicine because they can’t make it to the doctors in person. High-speed Internet isn’t a luxury anymore, it’s an absolute necessity. It’s an absolute — (applause) — no, it really is. And yet, when I became president, around 24 million Americans didn’t have access to affordable high-speed Internet. And for millions more, their Internet connection was limited or unreliable.

Mai Tran began catsitting in 2021 while Tran was on pandemic unemployment, often staying overnight in people’s homes. Tran has now cared for twenty-two cats and traveled to ten apartments all over New York City, observing the interior lives of cat owners and appeasing their neuroses. From home vet visits to black eyes to refugee cats, Chronicles of a Catsitter documents the most memorable days on the job.

It’s late August, and I’m lugging a duffel bag to the Bronx to stay with my friend M. for a week. She’s recovering from a breast augmentation, and I’ll be taking care of her cats and helping out with the groceries and household chores until she can lift things.

I arrive at night, the same day of the surgery. M.’s friend E., a beautiful actress on strike, lets me in and takes me up to see M. She’s groggy but has enough energy to show me her new boobs, which look great, as all boobs do. We order delivery from a chain burrito place, and E. explains UFO conspiracy theories to us until she has to leave, which is when M. gets up to explain her house to me.

MAGA Republicans don’t want to fix the border Republicans no longer have abortion to run on in 2024 thanks to Donald Trump and his SCOTUS appointments. They’re running away from abortion. With good cause. They have lost everywhere abortion rights have been on the ballot in election after election since SCOTUS overturned Roe in June of 2022. So they’ve latched onto scare-mongering about brown-skinned immigrants, the real ones at the southern border and the even scarier Others they can conjure in the minds of their voters. Immigration is too good a campaign weapon to lose before November. Laura Ingraham claimed on her show Wednesday that she’d spoken with Trump and he’s adamant that House Republicans reject the bipartisan immigration bill passed by the U.S. Senate. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is on board (Meidas Touch): Republican Speaker Mike Johnson admitted to Laura Ingraham on Fox News Wednesday night that he has been talking to Donald Trump “pretty frequently” about a possible deal being negotiated to fix problems at the border.

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde launched a stinging attack on the economics profession on Wednesday (17 January), accusing analysts of having “blind faith” in their models, which often bear little connection to reality. Speaking at an event entitled “How to Trust Economics” at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the ECB chief also suggested […]

Dear Mister Poe,

At the end of this month, we will be reaching the conclusion of your one-year lease. I wish I could say that I am sorry to see you go.

I’ll admit that I was initially impressed by your literary credentials and surprisingly fine taste in furniture. Due to your patterns of negligent and disruptive behavior, however, I am unable to return your security deposit.

Within the past three months alone, the violations of your lease and our community standards have included:

Rather than adapting to a new political landscape, leaders are laying roadblocks in place, writes Emma DeSouza

An award-winning investigative journalist contextualizes The Lever’s critical reporting on Boeing.

Eight out of ten voters want a shift in direction but fear there is little difference between the two major parties, according to a new poll for Byline Times.

Beauty emerges from patience and care across four seasons with a flower farmer on her working garden in rural Pennsylvania

- by Psyche Film

Watch at Psyche

The documentary “Israelism” explores Israel’s centrality in American Judaism.

The post The Jewish Community Rupture Over Israel–Palestine appeared first on The Intercept.

The genome is the starting point for a performance we enact over a lifetime, not a blueprint we’ve got to follow

- by Richard O Prum

Read at Aeon

An award-winning investigative journalist contextualizes The Lever’s critical reporting on Boeing.

Evaluation research tends to be method-driven. Everything needs to be apportioned as an ‘input’ or ‘output’, so that the programme itself becomes a ‘variable’, and the chief research interest in it is to inspect the dosage in order to see that a good proper spoonful has been applied … The quasi-exprimental conception is again deficient. […]

John Mitchinson explores why the dark and mysterious yew tree is a symbol of both life and death

The Prime Minister's belated rush to clear his legacy asylum backlog is forcing refugees into destitution on Glasgow's freezing streets, reports Nicola Kelly

An interesting paper: researchers inserted a gene for photosynthesis* into ordinary brewer’s yeast. It worked! The yeast began to photosynthesize, tapping energy from the sun. I’m not generally alarmist about this sort of thing. But this is… maybe very slightly alarming. Why? 1) Baker’s yeast is a single-celled fungus. A fungus, like a mushroom. You […]

When a care home for vulnerable children funded by billionaire West Ham United Chairman David Sullivan, and run by his OnlyFans model reality TV star partner Ampika Pickston, had its registration suspended over safeguarding issues, it led to a strange chain of events and legal threats to this newspaper

If one takes off the dustjacket of the first edition of Alasdair Gray’s Poor Things, the clothbound cover bears the foil legend ‘WORK AS IF YOU LIVE IN THE EARLY DAYS OF A BETTER NATION.’ Such is the reverence his work receives in his homeland of Scotland, this slogan went on to be chiselled into […]

Fred Wright was a cartoonist for the United Electrical Workers of America (UE), from 1949 until 1984. Wright’s cartoons reflected the daily routines experienced by the working men and women: layoffs, discrimination, income inequality, industrial accidents, union-busting, etc. These realities of the class structure of capitalism were the basis for his artistic and activist work. […]