Money

Housing decline

Newsweek - U.S. homebuilders are pulling back just when America remains in desperate need of new, affordable homes to lower the rising cost of housing, as the latest data shows that new construction projects fell for the fourth straight month in July. Single-family housing starts, which account for the biggest share of homebuilding in the nation, plunged 9.9 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 808,000 units, according to the Census Bureau’s latest report. That was the lowest rate in more than three and a half years, since November 2022

Trump plans to cut protections for 44 million acres of forest

The Hill  - The U.S. Forest Service has proposed to rescind the 2001 “Roadless Rule,” which prohibits road construction and logging in pristine parts of national forests that don’t currently have roads.  By blocking roads, the rule targeted by the administration also inhibits activity like mining and oil and gas drilling in these areas.   Officials said Tuesday that 44 million acres of the 193-million-acre National Forest System are subject to these protections.  In a press release, the administration argued the rule also impedes forest management and could exacerbate wildfires

Word

Kim Sikoryak - For billions of years I did not exist on earth until I was born, yet I suffered not the slightest discomfort. And for billions of years after my death I will be just as unaware and oblivious of the world. So the only thing that matters to me is the life I have in the here and now, which is why we should all make the best of it while we still can.

Money

Shotlysts - This week, the U.S. national debt will surpass forty trillion dollars. The federal government is borrowing enormous amounts even outside a recession, while higher interest rates are making that accumulated debt increasingly expensive to maintain. The debt is the accumulated result of decades in which federal spending exceeded federal revenue.

Top contributors to the soaring national debt include Social Security, Medicare, and national defense spending. Costs associated with an aging population and other government programs, tax cuts, economic downturns, pandemic relief, and, increasingly, interest on previously accumulated debt are also driving up the total. In just the first ten months of fiscal 2026, the federal government ran an estimated $1.8 trillion deficit, $169 billion larger than during the comparable period a year earlier.

Meanwhile. . .

Inside Climate News - A new Inside Climate News analysis shows at least a dozen proposed data center developments across [Alabama], from Bessemer to the Black Belt. If built to full capacity, these data center campuses would consume more energy than all of the homes in Alabama combined. 

NPR - The Trump administration on Tuesday moved to repeal an environmental regulation that prohibits road construction and most logging and mining activities on tens of millions of acres of public forest.

CBS -  Miami officially hit 100 degrees on Tuesday afternoon, which tied the hottest temperature ever recorded in Miami.

Student visas

Harvard Magazine - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has issued new nationwide rules limiting the length of visas issued to foreign students and visiting scholars from abroad. Prior rules stated that such visas would be valid for the “duration of study,” while the new rules require an application for an “extension of study” after four years. Most Ph.D. degrees entail at least five to six years of study. The new rules, subject to congressional review, are slated to take effect in September. President Alan M. Garber noted that the visa restrictions make it “less and less attractive for international students to come to the United States,” which is already competing for top candidates with nations including China.

Elections

Blue Book - Major upset in the Florida Democratic Senate primary, where self-described democratic socialist Angie Nixon thumped the more mainstream favored candidate Alexander Vindman. We mean thumped—12 points. He outspent her massively, as much as 20 to 1. And she didn’t just win the cities and college towns. Look at this map of results; her biggest percentages came from the small rural counties bordering Georgia. 

Another right wing health appointee

NY Times -   President Trump plans to nominate Dr. Heidi Overton, a White House domestic policy official and a proponent of the administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda, to serve as the next commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, an agency that has had significant staff turnover and political interference in recent months, according to two senior administration officials.

Last week, she stood alongside President Trump as he signed a third executive order calling for fewer childhood vaccinations, which has no legal power and has been broadly criticized by public health experts.

During the event, Dr. Overton said the order could help states recognize “gold standard” recommendations and take steps to limit vaccines required for school entry.

“We are going to be working directly with states so that we’re not reliant on the court case to resolve,” Dr. Overton said, referring to ongoing litigation over pared-down vaccine recommendations. “We are doing it right away so that parents get the benefit from state laws changing.”

Dr. Overton, a physician, is currently deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy. A former chief policy officer at the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank, she has also written articles that denounced abortion as “corrosive” to women and called for more controls over the prescribing of abortion pills. She has called the pills “far more dangerous to women,” aligning with conservatives who have urged the F.D.A. to take steps to restrict access to abortion medication.

30-40 inches of rain in Hawaii

Newswothy News - Hawaii’s Big Island absorbed up to 30 to 40 inches of rain as Lala drenched communities and triggered flash flooding, landslides, and power problems. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported extreme rain totals up to 30–40 inches on windward Big Island. Heavy rain and strong gusts kept flash flooding and mudslide risks high even as Lala weakened. Officials urged caution after the storm because flooded areas and downed power lines remained dangerous. State alerts and local reports detailed flooded roads, debris, and closures across the island.

Pentagon threatens cut in funding if universities don't cut foreign partnerships

The Guardian - Thirty US universities could lose federal funding unless they review and cut foreign academic partnerships the Pentagon considers a national security risk within the next two weeks, under a Pentagon directive aimed largely at ties to Chinese institutions.

Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown and Cornell are among the institutions ordered to conduct and report the reviews – and end partnerships deemed problematic – by 31 August, according to a US official who provided the full list to the Guardian.

“The ‘Department of War’ has zero tolerance for academic partnerships that compromise our national security,” Emil Michael, the Pentagon’s chief technology officer, said in a news release.

Canadian tariff paused by Trump

The Guardian - Donald Trump has paused his threatened punitive tariff on Canada just hours before it was due to come into effect. After Trump’s announcement, the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, said “substantial progress” had been made towards a trade deal, but more work was needed.

Tuesday’s 11th-hour backdown comes after a contentious year for the two countries, with the longstanding alliance strained by tit-for-tat tariffs and online broadsides in which Trump has mused about wanting to turn Canada into a US state.

In February 2025, the White House hit Canada with a 25% tariff, citing what it regarded as inadequate progress in curbing cross-border illegal immigration and drug trafficking. In retaliation, Canada announced a reciprocal levy, calling the US’s actions “unwarranted and unreasonable”.

Historically, Canada and the US have been strong trading partners. In 2024, trade between the countries was estimated to be roughly $909bn, according to the office of the US trade representative.

ICE

Congressional Insider - Airport ID checks are now fueling immigration arrests that have led to more than 800 apprehensions, turning routine travel into a high-stakes status screen for millions of flyers. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is making more airport arrests using Transportation Security Administration screening tips. Homeland Security says it aims to stop undocumented travelers from flying domestically….Reports show many detainees include people with expired visas or pending immigration cases, not just criminal defendants.

Religion in public school classrooms

Congressional Insider- The Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether Texas can force every public-school classroom to post the Ten Commandments, reviving a church-state fight with national stakes.  Texas law orders a Ten Commandments display in every public-school classroom, with fixed size and text rules. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told districts the mandate is lawful and must be followed. Families sued, and a federal judge later said classroom postings under the law violate the Establishment Clause. A divided appeals court ruling in Texas set up a likely Supreme Court review that could reset school-religion rules.

Bringing history and humanities together

Sam Smith - The DC History Center and Humanities DC have entered into an agreement to merge and become a new organization. This may seem like insignificant news to many but for my wife and I it’s quite startling because my wife Kathy ran the history center and I helped to start the DC Humanities Council. As the two groups put it, “Together, we are creating a unified nonprofit dedicated to preserving the District's history, celebrating its culture, funding the humanities, and helping Washingtonians better understand our city and one another.”

Abortions

Prime Chronicle - Massachusetts erased its 24-week abortion limit and handed late-pregnancy decisions to a doctor’s professional judgment, igniting a national fight over how far the state should go. The governor’s office says the change ensures timely care for serious pregnancy complications. Opponents argue the law permits abortion until birth and say it endangers women’s safety. State data show very late abortions are rare, but the details behind cases are limited.

Federal judge supports FBI's planned move

Alternet - A federal judge dealt a crushing blow to Donald Trump on Monday, permanently blocking his administration's "unlawful" attempt to hijack over $1 billion and cancel the FBI’s planned move to Maryland.

The ruling is a major victory for Maryland and Prince George’s County officials. They fought the administration’s July 2025 plot to scrap a decade-old plan to build a massive new FBI headquarters in Greenbelt, Maryland. Trump had instead tried to squeeze the law enforcement agency into a smaller footprint at the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown D.C.

In a scathing opinion, the federal judge struck down the Trump administration’s relocation plan and blocked the FBI from redirecting the half-billion dollars in funds. The judge ruled that Trump did not have the authority to unilaterally alter the plan, stating he legally needed congressional approval to shift the money away.

"Maryland and Prince George’s County committed more than a decade of work to earn the FBI headquarters and pledged hundreds of millions of dollars," Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said in a statement celebrating the decision. "By blocking the Trump Administration’s unlawful attempt to move the FBI to the Reagan Building and divert the funds Congress set aside for this project, the Court has cleared the path back to Greenbelt."

Debate over the aging J. Edgar Hoover Building has continued since 2011. The Greenbelt site was selected because it met strict Senate requirements, including proximity to a Metro station.

ABC files suit against Federal Communications Commission

 Axios -  ABC on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission, arguing the agency has violated its First Amendment rights by retaliating against the broadcaster for its editorial decisions… It's a major escalation of ABC's fight with the FCC, which it argues is motivated by broader efforts to silence a free and independent press.

The lawsuit, filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, argues that in ordering an accelerated review of ABC's local station broadcast licenses, the administration "has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts."

It points to statements made by FCC chairman Brendan Carr that suggest the administration has not been shy about openly coercing ABC into changing its programming.

It cites an incident last month in which Carr said ABC's decision not to broadcast the president's Oval Office address was likely to be raised during its early review of ABC's broadcast licenses.

The network is seeking an injunction, asking the court for a temporary restraining order to stop the FCC from moving forward with its early license-renewal proceedings.

 

Trump regime altering or killing significant data

The Guardian - A database of federal law enforcement officer misconduct records. A survey measuring physical, sexual and emotional violence against children and youth. Real-time pollution readings collected by air quality monitors from US embassies around the world.

These are among the hundreds of federal datasets that the Trump administration has taken down or altered as part of its aggressive campaign to wipe all mentions of data findings that do not align with the administration’s priorities.

Over the past year and a half, at least 28 federal datasets have been deleted and another 338 data collections have been modified, according to an online tracker released last week from dataindex.us, a group of data policy experts, researchers and developers that formed last year to monitor changes to government data.

“We’re at a very vulnerable point as a nation,” said Denice Ross, former US chief data scientist under the Biden administration and a co-founder of dataindex.us. “We’re facing a future where we are not going to have the information that we need to make decisions that will save lives and benefit American communities.”

The tracker includes detailed information about deleted or altered datasets from more than 60 federal agencies that span the environment, labor, law enforcement and other topics. But datasets on health appear to be the most affected by the Trump administration’s crackdown, comprising about 40% of the total number of terminated or altered data collections tracked by dataindex.us.

Trump and North Korea

MS Now - With no intelligence, data or proof provided to back up his assertion, Trump appears to be blindly trusting that North Korea’s murderous, prison-state regime has turned a page toward global peace. With that choice, Trump is unilaterally rejecting American intelligence threat assessments, military preparedness and history. He’s also getting nothing in return for it….

Indeed, this isn’t the first time. Trump is resurfacing an old issue and gambit from his first term. The president has long wanted South Korea and other allies to pay a greater share for their defense, including the military exercises required to ensure it. In 2018, after meeting Kim, Trump surprised the Pentagon by halting regular military exercises with South Korea. After much global criticism and criticism inside and out of the Pentagon, the exercises resumed, but they were scaled back.

At best, Trump is playing with fire. At worst, he is willfully endangering American lives, interests and influence for the chance at saving money, based on nothing but a gut feeling.

NOTE

Your editor has a doctor’s appointment this morning so there will be a gap in news service.

Recovering real values - from those we learned on TV

 Sam Smith - Every day I finish my national online newsletter and then turn to life in my small Maine town. This used to be just a shift in work but increasingly it has become life in two contrary societies, one  an increasingly collapsing and corrupt nation and the other a vigorous and enjoyable community.

I look forward to early afternoon because I feel like I’m retrieving my real life. Yet I am also aware that this shift is shared with millions of other Americans and hardly ranks as a solution since tomorrow morning I will be back in hell.

Scholars and journalists are rightfully confronting the collapse of an America now defined in no small part by the rich and powerful. The fact that there is another more decent and useful place gets little attention.

Yet I find myself regularly involved with decent people, kind groups, and warming spirits. And increasingly my mind is suggesting that the real conflict is between a good America and a destructive one. Both involve us.

As I ponder the hidden conflict that defines us these days, I have come to credit television with deserving much the blame. Although TV  has done some positive things, like introducing white America to blacks, it has also  taken time away from neighbors, communities, groups and other forces that create positive change.

I go back far enough to have experienced movements and coalitions of real people helping other real people even if we were quite different.  For example this white guy worked with black activists in the 1960s and I was a seventh day agnostic who joined with ministers who had common goals. You don’t have such experiences just watching a screen in your bedroom.

Donald Trump is a  creation of television politics and a clear example of the dangers involved. We need to go back to seeing, talking and thinking about life from a community rather than a televised creation. On average, we are still far better than Donald Trump. We need to win back our real America and define ourselves and our goals by our community, good groups, religion, local politics  and anything else more valuable than what we we just saw on Channel 8.

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Weather

Bloomberg - At least six people died in Indiana after severe storms and floods inundated the Midwestern state, prompting Trump to approve a federal emergency aid request. In Hawaii, one person was killed as Lala battered the islands with heavy rain. The storm weakened from a hurricane yesterday but is still expected to bring more rain to the Big Island and windward Maui.

Severe storms and flooding across Indiana Saturday have caused at least seven deaths as of this writing. President Donald Trump issued an emergency declaration to provide resources and aid relief. 

1440 - Portions of southeast Indiana are underwater due to the White River rising to record-breaking levels (see drone footage of flooding). The river crested at nearly 25 feet Saturday, surpassing the previous record set in 1913 by over a foot. Rainfall exceeding 11 inches drenched parts of Indiana east of Indianapolis over two days last week, sending water rushing into the White River and its tributaries. About 300,000 people across the state experienced power outages. Warnings remain in effect, but floodwaters are expected to recede in some areas. 

Separately, a tropical storm that began as Hurricane Lala brought strong winds and rain to multiple Hawaiian islands Saturday. Roughly 70% of the Big Island lost electricity, and at least one person died in a storm-related car accident. 

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Supreme Court rejects Trump's E Jean Carroll case again

New Republic -  President Trump’s last desperate attempt to avoid paying E. Jean Carroll has just been shut down by the Supreme Court.  Trump sought to overturn a 2023 jury verdict awarding $5 million to Carroll for defamation and alleged sexual abuse. The Supreme Court rejected an earlier appeal from Trump in June, and Trump wanted them to take the rare step of rehearing the case, which the court unceremoniously denied Monday.

Meanwhile....

NPR - Italian police said on Friday that they had recovered paintings stolen from a museum in March. The next day, thieves in Sicily managed to nab four more masterpieces. 

Republican finances

The Hartmann Report - There’s a reason everything is getting so expensive and inflation seems intractable, and it goes way beyond just Trump’s stupid war-of-choice in Iran. It explains why the morbidly rich keep getting richer while the rest of America struggles, and why people are paying absurd interest rates on everything from credit cards to home mortgages to car loans, and it all rolls back to a wild conspiracy Republicans hatched in the late 1970s and Reagan put into place in 1981.

It starts with — thanks to three mind-bogglingly corrupt and illegitimate Republican presidents (Reagan, W. Bush, and Trump) — our national debt rolling past $40 trillion in the next few days, probably before Labor Day. That’s more than our entire nation’s total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — the sum of all goods and services produced in the last year, which came in just a whisker over $32 trillion.

And we’re paying over a trillion dollars a year on that debt that was intentionally run up by those 3 Republican presidents and their buddies in Congress, which is a large part of why we’re the only developed country in the world where families can go bankrupt because somebody got sick and kids graduate from college with debt that will take them decades (if ever) to pay off.

As if to shove it in our faces, last week Trump proposed a new cut in the capital gains tax that is pretty much exclusively paid by rich people … To add insult to injury he just raised taxes on working class people’s wages by an average of $900 this year via the GOP’s Big Beautiful Bill that passed without a single Democratic vote.