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H5N1 is a human creation

The post The Unnatural History of Bird Flu appeared first on Nautilus.

Trump used to say on the campaign trail that the markets were going up and inflation was coming down in anticipation of his arrival to save the country. Guess what? Inflation heated up more than expected in January, as prices for groceries, housing and energy all picked up for Americans in early 2025, potentially complicating President Donald Trump’s agenda. A key gauge of inflation — the consumer price index — showed Wednesday morning that prices rose by 3.0 percent in January from a year earlier, according to the Labor Department. That’s hotter than the 2.9 percent annual gain reported in December, underscoring economic concerns of Americans who voted out incumbents in federal elections last fall… Wednesday’s data showed that consumer prices rose 0.5 percent on a monthly basis from December, the biggest increase since August 2023. Shelter costs, which grew 0.4 percent, accounted for nearly 30 percent of the monthly gain. I’m going to guess that all this talk of tariffs has prices going up in anticipation of whatever daft declaration he’s going to make next.

He’s giving Ukraine to Vlad as we knew he would. Here’s Hegseth (after he got booed by middle schoolers) today: I think we all expected this but watching the cable newsers like Dana Bash excitedly announce this as a “historic” moment that will change the world, as if that’s a good thing. But then I suppose they said the same thing when Neville Chamberlain declared “peace in our time” too…

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is trying to eliminate all Defense Department DEI efforts. It hasn’t been entirely successful.

The post Pentagon Official: Hegseth’s Campaign to Scrub DEI History Is a “Dumb” Distraction appeared first on The Intercept.

Australian Opposition leader, Peter Dutton, will today mark the anniversary of Kevin Rudd’s apology to the stolen generation by reenacting his infamous walk out and boycott of the initial apology. ”I stand by my boycott of the initial apology and... Read More ›

Let me count the ways First, put up or shut up. (Musk will do neither.) The hypocrisy dials at the West Wing propaganda office are turned up to 11. Donald Trump, our first convicted-felon president, and his Muskovite DOGEes mean to screw Americans while promising to root out corruption and improve “efficiency” they have yet to properly define or document. Look Elon Musk and Trump in the eyes. Have you ever seen men more trustworthy? What was it Michael Douglas said in Black Rain (1989)? “I usually get kissed before I get fucked.” Here’s just some of what Musk-Trump’s torching government agencies will cost you without kissing you first. Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum could cost consumers “an extra $8 billion per year.” That’s just for warm-ups. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that Musk-Trump means to close returned to consumers over $21 billion in corporate rip-offs, junk fees, overdraft fees, and credit card late fees over its dozen-year history. It’s a net money-maker for taxpayers, returning far more than it costs. Trump is killing it off to satisfy his billionaire pals.

Committee to Protect Journalists More journalists were killed in 2024 than in any other year since the Committee to Protect Journalists began collecting data more than three decades ago. At least 124 journalists and media workers were killed last year, nearly two-thirds of them Palestinians killed by Israel.

Jonathan McKernan, Trump’s choice to run the nation’s financial watchdog, pushed for bank megamergers that his predecessor fought to prevent in the name of consumer protection.

Even Republicans are trying to tell their representatives something. (Have some pride and dignity fergawdsakes) Yes, it’s true that members of that 40% may threaten to kill you if you cross Dear Leader but again, have some pride and dignity… I read yesterday that Hakeem Jeffries and others in the leadership are angry at “the Groups” for rallying their members to call Congress. “People are pissed,” a senior House Democrat who was at the meeting said of lawmakers’ reaction to the calls. The Democrat said Jeffries himself is “very frustrated” at the groups, who are trying to stir up a more confrontational opposition to Trump. A Jeffries spokesperson disputed that characterization and noted to Axios that their office regularly engages with dozens of stakeholder groups, including MoveOn and Indivisible, including as recently as Monday “There were a lot of people who were like, ‘We’ve got to stop the groups from doing this.’ … People are concerned that they’re saying we’re not doing enough, but we’re not in the majority,” said one member.

“…all of our actions are maximally transparent. I don’t know of a case where an organization has been more transparent than the Doge organization.” — Elon Musk, in a statement from the Oval Office

“In reality, Mr. Musk’s team is operating in deep secrecy… his financial disclosure filing will not be made public.” — New York Times

Here at the Department of Government Efficiency, we’ve been accused of operating in the dark—surprising agencies, creating turmoil, gaining access to classified information, and providing very little detail about all of it. This couldn’t be further from the truth. We’re all about transparency. For instance, we [REDACTED], which is why we stopped funding cancer research. See? Everything is out in the open. Here’s a few more for you:

Grant Stern explains the origin of the Byline Times exclusive that ended in another conviction for the Breitbart/Cambridge Analytica boss

On earnings calls, corporate leaders at for-profit detention companies are predicting a jackpot off Trump’s agenda.

In response to’ the flurry of cases being brought against the Trump administration for its radical attempts to slash and burn all aspects of the federal government without constitutional authority, we’re seeing some arguments from Republicans that lead to the conclusion that there is at least some consideration being given to simply ignoring the courts orders. Some have evoked the likely apocryphal statement attributed to President Andrew Jackson in which he was said to have declared “[Chief Justice] “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it” which raises the question if Trump is planning to abide by Court rulings he doesn’t agree with. The NY Times described the famous quote as “potent” because it does perfectly illustrate perhaps the most important “norm” in our system of government, the acknowledgement and acceptance of the idea set forth by The Marshall Court in the 1803 case Marbury v. Madison that “it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.

Delirium exposes the gap between the ideal and the reality

The post The Hallucinatory Thoughts of the Dying Mind appeared first on Nautilus.

If at first you don’t succeed…. “North Carolina will be the first and only state where elections oversight is within the state auditor’s office,” explains Ren Larson at The Assembly. Why is that and how did it happen? Therein lies a tale. Let’s skip the odd bio of Dave Boliek, North Carolina’s newly elected Republican state auditor, and review the subhead, “Eight Years, Six Tries.” It started when Republicans lost the governor’s mansion in 2016 to Democrat Roy Cooper. The Republican-controlled legislature in a lame-duck session attempted a brazen power-grab aimed at transferring to the legislature some of Cooper’s appointment powers, including over the state Board of Elections: In January 2018, the state Supreme Court ruled that the state legislature’s transfer of appointment powers from the executive branch to the legislature was unconstitutional. Yet again Republican legislators struck back, passing a bill in June 2018 to allow voters to decide whether to amend the constitution and allow the legislature to make all eight appointments.

It follows reports that the billionaire Trump backer could donate up to £80m to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK

As pro-Palestine journalists face arrest, raids, and terror charges in Europe, the case of Richard Medhurst reveals how far Western governments are willing to go to silence dissent.

The post Richard Medhurst, Leading Gaza Reporter, Arrested and Charged with ‘Terrorism’ in European Crackdown appeared first on MintPress News.

SNL’s contemporary standing as an established institution has somewhat obscures its initial trailblazing daring.

How cute is the cover of this early 1960s cocktail booklet? It never really occurred to me to see if “Cuervo,” as in “JOSE CUERVO” was a word in Spanish. I took high school Spanish (the minimum 2 years required for graduation) and we never got to types of birds. Jose Cuervo literally translates toContinue reading Sangrita Cuervo (early 60s-ish) →

Katharine Halls won the 2024 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for her work as translator of Ahmed Naji’s Rotten Evidence, published in 2023 by McSweeney’s (and currently available for 20 percent off in our store). Publishers Weekly called the book “a moving testament to the power of free expression,” and the Banipal judges called the translation “a brilliant feat” and “a masterclass.” We spoke to Ahmed and Katharine about their work.

Assassination by innuendo By now you’ve seen Tuesday’s bizarre press event in the Oval Office. The leader of the free world expounded at length on rooting out fraud and waste in the U.S. government while Donald Trump, his lieutenant, sat inert behind a large desk. REPORTER: If you have received billions of dollars in contracts from the Pentagon and the president is directing you to look into the DoD, does that present a conflicts of interest? MUSK: First of all, I'm not the filing the contract. It's people at SpaceX pic.twitter.com/JFQKHAQDvZ — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 11, 2025 I don’t know what they teach in journalism schools these days, but insisting that political figures back up wild claims with checkable data and facts seems to have fallen out of the curriculum.