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“President Trump on Monday defended the US government’s plan to accept a $400 million luxury jet from the Qatari royal family to be used as Air Force One, describing it as a ‘great gesture’ and saying that it would be ‘stupid’ to turn down, despite growing ethical concerns over the gift.” — The Boston Globe, 5/12/25

Once again, Democrats are up in arms about a supposedly unethical thing President Trump has done. This time, they’re claiming that Qatar giving the president a $400 million plane to use as Air Force One violates the Emoluments Clause. But the truth is, the Founding Fathers would have wanted President Trump to accept a luxury airplane from a foreign royal family.

- by Eliane Glaser

Read at Aeon

The novelist and poet Ursula K Le Guin shows we can reject nihilism and naive optimism by practising our collective freedom

- by Alexis Shotwell

Read on Psyche

Despite the latest forecasting science, climate change threw a wrench into this writer's latest seafaring voyage

The post Sailing Weather Gets Weird appeared first on Nautilus.

The quest to map a costly weather phenomenon

The post Storm Chasers on the Hail Trail appeared first on Nautilus.

Chemical analysis of a bird’s feathers offers a reliable way to tell whether it was captive-born or wild-caught

The post Feather Forensics Could Help Nab Poachers appeared first on Nautilus.

The hitherto US-centric economic model has exhausted itself, and Trump’s government is pushing to restructure the international economic architecture to maintain US hegemony. China is the main rival in this new reality, while the Europeans are becoming an impoverished appendage to the US. The Europeans could chart a more favourable path forward, except that they […]

The post Our New Economic World Order & Europe’s Suicide: In discussion with Glenn Diesen appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

On the morning of 22 April 2025, the familiar sight of demolition machinery on the outskirts of Tuwani sent a wave of tension through the South Hebron Hills. Families froze, holding their breath as the destruction machinery slowly passed through the village. Children pressed against school windows, watching bulldozers drive by, their education interrupted by […]

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It would give the Trump administration the power to strip the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit it deems a “terrorist-supporting organization.”

The post Republicans Sneak Nonprofit Killer Bill Into the Tail End of Trump’s 389-Page Tax Plan appeared first on The Intercept.

I wish I’d lived a life truer to myself. If I could go back in time and throw out every fake mustache I owned, I would. Even the smart-mouthed sheriff one. They were no better at helping me express who I was than my prosthetic noses.

I didn’t stop to smell the roses enough. If I’m being honest with myself, there were other things I didn’t smell enough. If I’m really being honest, I could have licked more stuff too.

I regret not keeping in touch with old friends. Robbie O’Connor and I were thick as thieves back in grade school. You couldn’t tear us away from that sandbox. We drifted a bit in high school. I was into punk music; Robbie still loved the sandbox. Last time I saw him, we were home the summer after college—the cops were pulling Robbie out of the sandbox. We lost touch soon after. I regret that.

If only I’d been able to let myself laugh. Like, really laugh. When people said funny things, my mouth would open and my shoulders would shake, but no sound came out. I know now that sound was supposed to come out.