July 23, 2026
Elections
Workers
Independent
- The number of Americans who've left the labor force has
reached a new high under President Donald Trump - eclipsing spikes tied to the
Great Recession and the Covid-19 pandemic, stunning new government figures
show.
The Federal Reserve Bank of St.
Louis tallied 105.8 million people over 16 who were unemployed and not actively
seeking work in June, the New York Post reported Wednesday.
That number includes 832,000 who
dropped out of the labor force last month, according to the Post, and it came
after American businesses created just 57,000 jobs in June, less than half the
115,000 forecast by economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal
Climate crisis-driven heat sucking European soils dry
The
Guardian - Extreme heat
supercharged by the climate crisis is sucking Europe dry in summer and
intensifying the drought hitting the continent, a scientific analysis has
found. Record-breaking heatwaves meant the hot atmosphere strongly evaporated
water from rivers, lakes, soils and plants – conditions made 80 times more
likely by global heating in western Europe and 40 times more likely in eastern
Europe, the study showed. The level of soil dryness in the west was made five
times more likely by the pollution from fossil fuels in the west, and 11 times
more likely in the east.
Polls
Newsweek
- President Donald Trump's net
approval rating has hit its lowest level ever, according to a new poll. The survey, conducted by the American
Research Group between July 16 and 20, revealed that a total of 30 percent of
Americans approved of Trump's handling of his job as president, while 67
percent disapproved. This gave Trump a net approval rating of -37 percent, his
lowest rating yet.
Family wealth vs. the cost of aging
Washington
Post - Baby boomers — boosted by
decades of rising house prices, strong stock markets and economic growth —
control more than half of U.S. household wealth. When they die, a lot of that
wealth is expected to go to their descendants. Estimates have predicted that
$68 trillion to $84 trillion in money and assets will change hands over the
next two decades.
A Washington Post analysis of the finances of thousands of
seniors in the last decade of their lives found that, for many families, the
cost of care eats away much of what they had hoped to pass on. And within a
growing segment, elder care costs are not just diminishing their savings, but
obliterating them.
Adult children, rather than being the beneficiaries of
generational wealth, are in some cases spending down their own savings to pay
for their parents’ care.
Low water levels
CNN
- The combined water level in
two of the United States’ biggest reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, has
fallen to a historic low, in what experts are calling a significant moment in
the Colorado River crisis — threatening a water system that supplies tens of
millions. On July 12, Lake Powell was at
3,524 feet and Lake Mead was just under 1,043 feet, breaking a record set in
March 2023, according to an analysis published by five Colorado River experts
last week. Together, the two reservoirs haven’t been this low since 1957,
during the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam, before Lake Powell even
existed.
Meanwhile. . .
NPR - Irondale, Alabama’s
Mayor James D. Stewart sparked
a major backlash after he announced that the town's "I
Love Irondale Day" festival would be renamed "AI Love Irondale
Day." He has since assured the public that the festival is not about AI
and would return to its original name.
Oil prices
NBC
News - Oil prices rose Thursday to their highest level since early June
after the latest Iran war escalation threatened severe new disruption to global
supplies. Brent crude oil, one of two
key global benchmarks, rose more than 6% to more than $100 per barrel in early
Thursday trading. That is its highest level in eight weeks, since the end of
May. U.S. crude oil also jumped for a second straight day, rising more than 5%
to almost $92 per barrel — its highest level since June 11.
Wildfires
NY
Times - Particulates still hang
thick as soup over large parts of the Upper Midwest…. Already, they have burned
hundreds of thousands of acres, spewing plumes of hazardous air across the
Pacific Northwest and western Canada. So when the sky cleared over the
Meadowlands on Sunday, with billions of eyes turned toward the World Cup to be
played there, what future did we all see?
Per-person smoke exposure in the
United States has surged over the last decade, now four times as high as it was
between 2006 and 2019. And even before the apocalyptic Canadian wildfire summer
of 2023 — when Americans on the Eastern Seaboard were introduced to the eerie
orange skies they had previously believed only possible in fire-prone places
like California and Australia — more Americans were dying of wildfire
smoke-related deaths east of the Mississippi than west of it.
Those 2023 fires alone
contributed to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans, according to one
estimate. All told, the monetary damages from wildfire smoke deaths are now
expected to exceed those from all other climate impacts combined, as Robinson
Meyer noted last week, and yet until very recently climate scientists and
climate economists were not even counting them at all when projecting future
costs from warming. That wasn’t because nobody knew to expect more fire;
everyone knew to. It was just that we hadn’t really started to think about all
that smoke.
Smoke events like these aren’t
exactly unheard-of on the Eastern Seaboard, though there aren’t too many people
still alive to remember the “Great Smoke Pall” from the Chinchaga fire of 1950,
for instance.
Congress
Guardian - House Republicans have
agreed to begin the process of writing a $95bn bill to fund
the war with Iran as well as provide new aid to farmers, while making a
long-shot attempt to impose new restrictions on voting nationwide.
Middle East
The
Guardian - The US House of
Representatives on Thursday for the second time passed a war powers resolution
directing Donald Trump to withdraw the US military from the conflict with Iran,
amid renewed fighting in the Middle East that has driven oil prices to their highest
levels in weeks. The resolution proposed by Democrat Pramila Jayapal passed by
a 214-208 vote, with four Republicans joining all Democrats in attendance to
vote in favor.
The Hill - Senate Republicans are growing increasingly concerned about what they say is a lack of a clear plan to end the military conflict with Iran, warning that rising U.S. casualties and stubbornly high gas prices are going to hurt their party in the midterm election. GOP lawmakers came away dissatisfied from a hearing Tuesday at which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified in support of the administration’s request for another $80 billion in emergency funding for the Iran war.
Republicans want to provide the
Pentagon with more money to replenish its munitions but are frustrated the
administration hasn’t given them a clearer picture of how to end the conflict,
which has dragged on since Feb. 28.
“There’s got to be an off-ramp,
that’s all there is to it,” said Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.).
“Naturally all of us are
concerned because we’ve lost three wonderful, wonderful service people in the
last little while,” he said, referring to three U.S. service members killed in
recent days.
Justice also raised concern about
mounting civilian casualties in Iran, which are believed to range from 1,700 to
more than 3,000 people killed.
“Every last one of us is super
concerned about civilian casualties because first and foremost it’s terrible.
Secondarily, it’s generally not very popular in the world,” Justice said.
Despite its shifting objectives in its war with Iran, the Trump administration has consistently said a big goal is preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. In truth, the Islamic Republic was nowhere near the “breakout” point, where a quick rush could convert a civilian nuclear program into one capable of producing weapons-grade highly enriched uranium, but the ongoing attacks from the U.S. and a potentially nuclear Saudi Arabia could change the regime’s calculus. Even without Iran changing course on its nuclear program, the sudden announcement is poised to roil the geopolitics of a notoriously unstable region.
NPR's Emily Feng tells Up First that the announcement sent shockwaves through the Middle East because Saudi Arabia has sought nuclear cooperation with the U.S. for more than a decade. Concerns over the country's human rights abuses and potential ambitions for nuclear weapons previously stalled this collaboration. The agreement strengthens ties between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia at a time when Gulf states have faced heavy repercussions for aligning with the U.S. during the war in Iran. Israeli former defense and foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman has criticized this agreement, saying it could lead to a nuclear arms race in the region. Feng says Israel is widely believed to have nuclear weapons, but has never confirmed it. She adds that the agreement also raises worries in Israel about a growing rift with the U.S
Tales from the Attic: Covering DC in the 1960s and 1970s
Sam Smith - If you had come of age in the fifties you were
something of an anomaly in DC, especially if you were a big guy and white and
easily mistaken for a cop. Under a tree by the Lincoln Memorial's reflecting
pool during a big peace march in 1967, the tie-died, pony-tailed protester next
to me was quiet for a long time. Then he turned and asked softly,
"CIA?"
I puffed on my pipe.
"Nope"
"FBI?"
"Nope."
"Smoke?"
I took the pipe out of
my mouth. "Half & Half, all day long."
"Cool," he
said and gave me his love beads.
I did not get off as
easily at later demonstrations. At an early environmental protest, an
alternative video squad from upstate New York found me taking notes in a dark
blue T-shirt and baseball hat. With camera rolling, they quizzed me at length
as to my law enforcement affiliation, finding my answers profoundly
unconvincing. Later, I sent them some copies of the Gazette along with a note
saying that even 220-pound iron-pumpers might want to save the environment. I
never heard from them.
Once, a demonstration
against a proposed Potomac River bridge was joined by New York City radicals in
town for another, more macro-political protest. The New Yorkers' tactics
included throwing rocks at the police. There had not been much of that sort of thing
in Washington. As I wandered down Georgetown's M Street -- with helmeted cops
on one side and protesters on the other -- the prop wash of a rock lapped my
face and I decided it was time to leave the scene.
Others did likewise,
propelled by the constabulary. The whole protest reformed on the campus of
Georgetown University where I was soon accosted by several screaming,
camera-grabbing, visiting radicals absolutely convinced that I was an
undercover cop. This misapprehension annoyed me, since I was actually one of
the few anti-freeway journalists in town. I was about to express my annoyance
more firmly when a local demonstration leader stepped in and vouched for my
bona fides.
o
In truth, undercover
agents were all around. Throughout America, police were spying on, infiltrating
and disrupting movement groups. I therefore found it interesting but not unduly
alarming when a subscriber I suspected was with the CIA bought two subscriptions
year after year. I was somewhat flattered when this subscriber introduced
himself and invited my wife and me to dinner and then was somewhat disappointed
when nothing more was heard from him after the dinner except for his annual
renewals. Apparently my policy of non-conspiratorial openness was too boring to
pursue.
Similarly, I enjoyed my
conversations with a 9th Precinct police officer who would drop by the Gazette
office with his dour squad car partner. I may have been the only underground
newspaper editor in the country who was periodically visited by a uniformed cop
to discuss politics, both of us on company time.
To be sure, I had known
the officer over the years, mainly as his sister's brother. He had first come
around to my office shortly after graduating from Harvard to discuss what he
was going to do with his life. One of the options had been to join the police
department. I attempted to discourage him but to no avail. He took the job and
ended up in my own precinct and with my own office on his beat. Officer Don
Graham would continue to ignore my advice in his later employment as publisher
of the Washington Post.
I assumed Graham was
filing reports about me with someone, just as someone had filed a report on
another alternative paper in town, the Colonial Times, when it ran a cover
showing a fat lady protesting a local revenue proposal with a button reading, "Fuck
the food tax!" A postal inspector, apparently assuming that our papers
were locked in mortal commercial combat, came by my office one day to suggest I
file an obscenity complaint against the Colonial Times. Instead, I gave the man
a lecture on the First Amendment and called my friends at the Times to warn
them of the danger afoot.
On May Day in 1971 when
the police arrested 13,000 people in DC -- including reporters and bystanders
-- in what may have been the largest mass arrest in American history, I noticed
a prominent black militant trapped in one of the corrals the cops had improvised.
About a half hour later, he was out of the corral and talking to a top police
department official. Then, not long after, he was back inside the roped off
area. You learned to look for things like that just as I had learned to keep
looking behind me at demonstrations so I could see where the cops were moving.
Which is how I didn't get arrested on May Day 1971.
During the May Day
police riot, people were beaten and arrested illegally, locked up by the
thousands in makeshift holding pens with inadequate toilet facilities and food,
or stuffed into drastically overcrowded cells. People on their way to work,
patients going to see their doctor, students attending classes, reporters and
lawyers were all caught up in the sweep arrests. Most of those stashed in the
DC Jail exercise yard were without blankets throughout a night in which the
temperatures fell into the thirties. And in the most symbolic display of
contempt for the law, more than a thousand persons were arrested in front of
the Capitol where they had assembled to hear speeches, including several from
members of Congress. When Rep. Ronald Dellums tried to keep a policeman from
arresting a member of his staff, saying, "Hey, that's a member of my
staff. Get your hands off of him. I'm a United States Congressman," the
policeman replied, "I don't give a fuck who you are," then hit
Dellums in the side with his nightstick and pushed him down some stairs.
It was the grimmest
display of mass police power -- not just selective brutality against a few --
the city had seen. And it was a clear warning of the fearful danger inherent in
Washington's acceptance of police power as a form of government. The fact that
neither the black chief executive, Walter Washington, nor the white liberal
newspaper, the Washington Post, could summon up either the wisdom or the
courage to denounce what the DC police, acting under orders of the Justice
Department, had done made the affair all the more dismal. More and more the
city was listening to sirens luring liberty onto the rocks of repression.
A while later, an
activist called from Baltimore to borrow my office "as place for the press
to meet before an action." I asked what was up. "Don't ask," he
instructed. "I don't want you to know. That way you won't be liable."
I agreed to help. The reporters and the activists arrived at my office at the
scheduled time and within minutes departed on their still-unidentified mission.
Later that day I learned that nine protesters had broken into the offices of
the Dow Chemical Company and spilled blood over the files in an anti-war
protest.
The next morning my wife
woke me saying that I'd better look at what was in the Post. In the upper left
corner of the front page was a story de,scribing the attack. In the lead it
said that reporters had been told to meet at the offices of my paper the DC
Gazette, and gave the address, 109 8th Street NE.
July 22, 2026
Workers
NY
Post- The number of adults who are “not in the
labor force” (NILF) surged to an all-time high in June to 105.8 million,
according to figures from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The record
comes after a massive surge of 832,000 workers dropping out of the labor force
in June alone. The overall number of NILFs is higher than at the height of the
Great Recession or the COVID pandemic.
Leading labor economist Nicholas Eberstadt told The Post
that drilling down into the data reveals a startling pattern of dropouts,
particularly among men….
“We’ve got a big problem…with the flight from work of
prime-age men. And what’s been carrying the overall prime-age labor force
participation has been the strong involvement of women, not men,” said
Eberstadt, who holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy
Polls
Newsweek
- The Strength in Numbers/Verasight poll, conducted July 14-17, 2026,
among 1,514 U.S. adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage
points, found that 46 percent of Americans rate Trump's mental sharpness as
president as "poor."
Benjamin Netanyahu
NY
Times - Mayor Zohran Mamdani on
Tuesday night challenged the federal government to execute an international
arrest warrant against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, calling him
a “war criminal” and “the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian
people” in a striking video statement.
The mayor said the city Law Department explored whether the New York Police Department could arrest the Israeli prime minister during his expected visit to the city in September but that the city did not have “independent legal authority” to do so. The mayor’s announcement came days after he told Lulu Garcia-Navarro last week on “The Interview,” a New York Times show, that he had been in “active conversation” with the city’s lawyers about executing a warrant issued for Mr. Netanyahu in 2024 by the International Criminal Court.
Gates Foundation Met with Epstein About 30 Times
Headline
USA - Bill Gates and the staff
of his charitable foundation met with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein
more than two dozen times even as employees expressed concerns about the
reputational risk of working with him, an external review commissioned by the Gates
Foundation found.
The conversations appeared to
focus on a public health fund that never materialized and a grant to the
International Peace Institute, which was run by an associate of Epstein.
The roughly 30 meetings, which
took place from 2011 to 2014, included several visits to Epstein’s Manhattan
townhouse and one meeting on the Gates Foundation campus, according to the
review by law firm WilmerHale. The review found no evidence the foundation paid
Epstein or did anything illegal. The foundation released a three-page summary
of WilmerHale’s report Tuesday and did not say if it would release the full
version.
Most at risk youth
WalletHub - With 13% of
young Americans neither working nor in school, the personal-finance company
WalletHub today released its report on the States with the Most At-Risk Youth in 2026, to identify the places where more effort is needed to
help young adults succeed. WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of
Columbia across 15 key indicators of youth risk. The data set ranges from the
share of disconnected youth to the labor force participation rate among young
adults to the youth poverty rate.
|
States with the Most At-Risk Youth |
States with the Least At-Risk Youth |
|
1. Louisiana |
42. Minnesota |
|
2. Arkansas |
43. Nebraska |
|
3. Oklahoma |
44. Iowa |
|
4. New Mexico |
45. North Dakota |
|
5. West Virginia |
46. Hawaii |
|
6. Oregon |
47. Utah |
|
7. Nevada |
48. New Hampshire |
|
8. Mississippi |
49. Connecticut |
|
9. District of Columbia |
50. Massachusetts |
|
10. Alabama |
51. New Jersey |
Key Stats
- Louisiana, Mississippi and Nevada have the
highest share of disconnected youth, which is 2.9 times higher
than in New Hampshire, the lowest.
- New Mexico has the highest share of youth
without a high school diploma, which is two times higher than in
Hawaii, the lowest.
- Arkansas has the highest share of overweight
or obese youth, which is 1.7 times higher than in Massachusetts, the
lowest.
- Maine has the highest share of youth using
drugs in the past month, which is 2.7 times higher than in Alabama,
the lowest.
- Oregon has the highest share of homeless
youth, which is 29.5 times higher than in Mississippi, the lowest.
Women
Washington
Post - GLP-1s are racking up
health wins beyond weight loss: They show promise for helping with heart
disease, kidney disease, arthritis and sleep apnea, among other conditions. But
there’s one benefit nobody’s talking about. By finally putting weight loss within
reach, GLP-1s are a tool for upward mobility, especially for women. We live in
a world where a woman’s weight affects her life in ways that extend beyond
health. According to a new paper by Harvard economist Rebecca Diamond, “A large
economics literature documents that heavier women earn less, work less, and are
less likely to marry or cohabit.”
Ukraine
NBC
News - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fired his military
commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, days after his dismissal of Defense
Minister Mykhailo Fedorov led to rare wartime protests on the streets of Kyiv.
Fedorov’s firing last week came after public disagreements with Syrskyi, known
as “The Butcher,” over military strategy. Zelenskyy did not give a reason for
firing Fedorov, one of his closest allies, but said he was effectively left
with a choice between the two men.
After spending the weekend
speaking to other top commanders, Zelenskyy is now removing Syrskyi and
replacing him with Mykhailo Drapatyi. It remains unclear whether Fedorov will
remain in the government, though Zelenskyy met with him yesterday and offered a
government position aimed at unifying the country’s technology sector.
Rural life expectancy
Nautilus
- People who live in rural parts of the United States have
significantly shorter lifespans compared to those in urban areas. In fact,
rural working age adults (aged 25 to 54) are 43 percent more likely to die from
natural causes than those who live in cities, according to data from 2019. The
gap has widened from a 9 percent difference in mortality when the trend first
emerged three decades ago. Now a new study in
the journal Economics & Human Biology is attempting to
unravel the multifarious causes.
In the first-of-its-kind study,
researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign combined data from
a variety of sources to get a more complete picture of the problem…. They found
that chronic stress, nicotine use, obesity, and diet stood out as major
biological contributors to the trend.
Climate change
Time
- In a warming world, summer
camp is not what it used to be. The last 11 years have all been among the
warmest years observed in instrumental record and perhaps at no time is that
more apparent than in the summer. Summer camps around the U.S. are reckoning
with how to safely prioritize outdoor play amid extreme weather—from wildfires,
to record breaking temperatures, to stronger summer storms.
Most camps have always had plans
in place for extreme weather. “This is not new for camps that are typically
outdoors, in the summer, and in warmer climates,” says Henry DeHart, CEO of the
American Camp Association (ACA). “There have always been days where the heat
index has gotten high. Now, what’s happening is that the instances of this are
increasing. From a camp planning perspective, whether you're dealing with five
days of extreme heat in the summer or 8 or 10 days, you still have a plan to
deal with it.”
But after flooding killed 28
people, including 25 campers, last summer at Camp Mystic in Texas, more and
more parents are concerned about camp safety plans and security. “Every family
I talked to during the off season, that was the number one question,” says
Brooks Johnson, director of Brown Ledge Camp in Colchester, Vt.; over the past
few years the Green Mountain State has also seen its share of flooding.
Middle East
Newsworthy News -The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has told the Senate that the US-Israel war on Iran has cost $37.5bn so far, as he faced lawmakers furious over the conflict’s soaring price tag and the deaths last week of three American service members. He defended the Trump administration’s roughly $88bn supplemental funding request, calling it “urgent, necessary”. Patty Murray, a Democratic senator from Washington, demanded Hegseth explain what the war had actually achieved, accusing the administration of shifting its rationale by the week and warning that the conflict risked becoming “another forever war”.
NPR- The public disapproves of
U.S. citizens dying in what they potentially see as an unnecessary
war, NPR's Franco Ordoñez tells Up First. While the issue of
reduced munitions may feel abstract to many, flag-draped coffins are not,
Justin Logan from the Cato Institute tells Ordoñez. The death of the
19-year-old Gonzales in particular resonates deeply with people as it
underscores the loss of young lives at the hands of this conflict, Logan adds.
Politically, Trump is attempting to sell Americans on the idea that things are
going well, but the war's casualties tell a different story, Ordoñez says.
Drug overdose deaths
USA Facts -
In 2024, 79,384 people died from drug overdoses. That’s 23 deaths per
100,000 people. This is the fifth-highest drug overdose death rate since the
CDC started tracking this data in 1999
Tales from the Attic: Marion Barry
Sam
Smith, 2006
- Marion Barry and I split over a quarter century ago. I can't remember the
exact issue, but it was one time too many that Marion had promised one thing
and then done another.
I
first met Marion in 1966. We were both in our 20s and he was looking for a
white guy who would handle the press. He had just organized the largest local
protest movement in DC’s history - a bus boycott - and I had participated and
written about it. The typical twenty something doesn't help get over 100,000
people to stop doing something for a day. I gladly took on the assignment.
We
hit it off and remained allies even after the day Stokley Carmichael walked
into SNCC headquarters and said that we whites were no longer welcomed in the
civil rights movement. Barry would later describe me as one of the first whites
who would have anything to do with him. I backed him when he ran for school
board and in his first two mayoral bids. And in those days, I have to say, he
got pretty good press.
But
by the time of the second run for mayor I was feeling queasy. A couple of
friends and I held a fundraiser for Marion but our wives would have nothing to
do with it. I introduced him by listing the reasons why people might be
ambivalent about Barry and then add, "On the other hand. . ." Marion
pointedly wiped his brow.
I
was already becoming aware of Marion's addiction to that most dangerous, if
legal, drug called power. Later, I would be listening to a talk show discussing
a book about cocaine in the executive suite and suddenly realize how similar
the two addictions were and how I could no longer tell which was affecting
Barry more.
I
saw less and less of him. We had lunch one day but I told him some things he
didn't want to hear and he later told a reporter, "Sam's a cynical
cat." In 1986 I told the Philadelphia Inquirer, "He's basically done
to ethnicity what Ronald Reagan has done to patriotism. He's turned it into a
personal preserve." About the same time Marion told a reporter doing a
feature on me that "Sam and I go back a long way, and over the years he's
become more radical, and I've become more conservative."
But
I still saw that it was a complex story. At one point, Charles Peters, editor
of the Washington Monthly, asked me to do a piece on him. I told him that I
would be glad to but that I wasn't going to trash Barry. And I suggested a
headline, "Failing the Faith." A few days later, Peters cancelled the
lunch at which we were to discuss the article and never got back to me. The
next thing I knew, the Washington Monthly ran an article by Juan Williams
trashing Marion Barry and using a variety of the headline I had suggested.
When
Barry ran for mayoral reelection the last time, I took the position that I was
all in favor of redemption; I just didn't see why you had to do it in the
mayor's office. I broke up one talk show host by suggesting that Barry follow
the example of a recently disgraced Irish bishop and go help the Indians of
Guatemala.
On
another talk show, Barry said that the press was always blaming him for all the
city's problems. I said that wasn't fair; I only blamed him for 26.7% of the
city's problems. "I'll buy that," Marion replied. . .
Yet
I also knew that Barry - like other urban ethnic politicians - had far more to
blame than himself. Whatever his faults, he knew he had been granted
dispensation because - like a feudal lord - he provided significant favors in
return. Barry had lived in Memphis and I often suspected he had learned his
politics from Boss Crump. For he understood the quid pro quo of traditional
urban corruption that had helped the Irish, Italians, Jews, and Poles break
down the worst corruption of all - that of an elite unwilling to share its
power with others. It was far from a perfect deal but in the interim before the
"reformers" seized office again on behalf of their developer and
other business buddies, more people would get closer to power than they ever had
or would again. It happened in Chicago, in Boston and in Washington.
And
now the reformers are back. The young gentrifiers who think the greatest two
moments in the city's history is when Barry went to jail for his drug use and
when they arrived in town.
The
last time I saw Marion was at a public dinner. Earlier, he had run into my wife
and asked, "Where's that sonofabitch?" But when he saw me we hugged
because despite all our differences we both knew we are still kin in a too
tough world. I'd just lucked out better.
July 21, 2026
Humanities cuts at universities
Newsweek
- Millions of Social Security recipients
are facing longer waits to secure claim appointments as the agency struggles to
recover from historic staffing cuts. The delays affect how quickly retirees,
disabled Americans and low-income beneficiaries can access critical income and
identity services.
With appointment-scheduling rates
falling sharply and field-office access tightening, beneficiaries may see even
more disruptions as the agency shifts toward centralized scheduling and online
transactions.
Internal agency data show that
only 64.6 percent of initial claims were scheduled within 30 days as of July 6,
down from 78.1 percent a year earlier. In some regions, the rate recently fell
below 45 percent, underscoring how widespread the delays have become.
Social Security
Newsweek
- Millions of Social Security recipients
are facing longer waits to secure claim appointments as the agency struggles to
recover from historic staffing cuts. The delays affect how quickly retirees,
disabled Americans and low-income beneficiaries can access critical income and
identity services.
With appointment-scheduling rates
falling sharply and field-office access tightening, beneficiaries may see even
more disruptions as the agency shifts toward centralized scheduling and online
transactions.
Internal agency data show that
only 64.6 percent of initial claims were scheduled within 30 days as of July 6,
down from 78.1 percent a year earlier. In some regions, the rate recently fell
below 45 percent, underscoring how widespread the delays have become.
Netanyahu's challenger
Financial Times -
In his 30 years at the pinnacle of
Israeli politics, Benjamin Netanyahu has vanquished many rivals — but none
quite like his current main challenger. Gadi
Eisenkot, a former military chief, speaks halting English. He’s never run a
government ministry. And until a few months ago he had never helmed a political
party.
Yet the 66-year-old is now
leading Netanyahu in several polls, in the process becoming many Israelis’ best
hope of unseating the veteran incumbent in the general election on October 27.
The top ranks of Israeli politics
used to be dominated by former generals, including prime ministers Yitzhak
Rabin, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon. It was another former army chief, Benny
Gantz, who in 2019 rocketed from political novice to lead the anti-Netanyahu
opposition.
Yet, while his path to power is
still uncertain, the fact that Eisenkot — referred to by some analysts as the
“anti-Netanyahu” — has emerged as the prime minister’s most formidable
challenger surprises even those who know him.
Donald Trump
 |
| Via Fascist Hunter |
NY Times - The Trump administration sought the phone records of several New York Times journalists and their relatives — including one reporter’s mother — in its effort to unmask the confidential sources who had provided information for articles about the security capabilities of President Trump’s new Air Force One jet.
The Justice Department told The
Times late last week that it had issued subpoenas to third-party phone service
providers seeking several journalists’ phone and text messaging records. That
effort was in addition to the subpoenas issued on July 10 that sought to compel
reporters to testify before a federal grand jury.
The government’s actions amount
to an extraordinarily aggressive and unorthodox attempt by the Trump
administration to unearth the confidential sources of independent journalists
whose reporting had angered the president.
NBC -Trump announced 50% tariffs on
most Canadian goods, a move that risks pushing inflation higher and fraying
relations with one of Washington’s closest allies. The tariffs include goods
that had previously been protected from import taxes by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada
agreement but exclude energy products, potash, fish and critical
minerals.
In proclamations signed
yesterday, Trump claims that Canada discriminates against American autos,
alcohol and cheese relative to other nations. But his argument rests in large
part on retaliatory actions taken after he imposed tariffs last year. How ongoing wildfires factored into Trump’s decision.
Alternet - In 2024, one of the Trump campaign's most effective lines of attack against Democratic nominee Kamala Harris was, "Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you." The argument was that while Democrats were obsessed with language policing and pronouns, Donald Trump was focused on real issues like inflation, jobs and the high cost of living. And that messaging worked, enabling Trump to pull off a narrow victory.
But 18 months into his second
presidency, Trump is suffering from weak approval ratings in poll after poll.
Political scientists, interviewed by The New York Times' Thomas Edsall, laid
out some of the many reasons for Trump's unpopularity.
Trump's "kiss of
death," Edsall argues in a Tuesday column for the Times, ranges from
"job losses" and his "imposition of tariffs" to a
"record surge in the national debt" and "the economic havoc
resulting from his war against Iran."
Matthew Dallek, who teaches
political history at George Washington University in Washington, DC, told
Edsall, "Governing via conspiracy theories, personal whim and
wish-casting, Trump has taken his place as the most consistently inept
president of this century. At home and abroad, in many Cabinet and sub-Cabinet
agencies, the administration's culture is dominated by incompetence."
Polls
The
Guardian - Two in five Americans believe the stock market isn’t for them
and only benefits the top 1%, according to a new Harris Poll poll exclusive to
the Guardian that surveyed investing habits and knowledge about the economy.
The poll found a similar share of
Americans had incorrect assumptions about the relationship between the economy
and the stock market. Nearly 40% did not know that the economy and the stock
market were not the same thing. And two-thirds of Americans incorrectly
believed that a growing stock market means the overall economy is growing.
Improving living space
NPR - Interior designers have shared some creative strategies with Life Kit to help you develop the illusion of space — perfect for renters and those with a small budget.
🛋️ Free up your floor space by finding multipurpose furniture. For example, instead of having a table, a bench and a coat rack, look for a piece that can do all three.
🛋️ Leave 18 to 24 inches of walking space behind your couch, side table, or armchairs to create an illusion of depth.
🛋️ Hang your curtains slightly higher and wider than the window frame to make your room look taller and wider.
For additional guidance on how to make your small space feel bigger, listen to this episode of NPR's Life Kit. Subscribe to the Life Kit newsletter for expert advice on love, money, relationships and more.