Maine Is About to Become the First State to Ban New Data Centers Maine has some of the country’s highest residential electricity prices. Officials are concerned that more data centers could inflate costs. www.wsj.com/us-news/main...

Washington State creates new tax on incomes over $1 million. Other blue states are considering similar levies on the wealthy. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

When movies were shot on physical film, the film was measured in feet. This is why any recorded thing is now called ‘footage.'

Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers union, issues statement on Cesar Chavez raping her “I am nearly 96 yrs old, and for 60 yrs have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the movement I've spent my entire life fighting for" medium.com/@dolores_hue...

Cesar Chavez sexually abused young girls for years, and raped the co-founder of the UFW movement, NYT reports. “It makes you rethink in history all those heroes." www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/u...

Rita Hayworth and Fred Astaire in a publicity still for You Were Never Lovelier (1942)

Chicago wind gauge

‘Hey’ came before ‘hi,’ and ‘hi' came before ‘hello.’ ‘Hi’ is most likely a variant of ‘hey.’ ‘Hello’ is not related to either. Goodbye.

Today's weak jobs report underscores that the Iran war comes at a fragile time for the economy. Before the war, low gasoline prices were helping tame inflation, and mortgage rates were edging down. Now gas prices and mortgage rates are ticking up. www.wsj.com/economy/cons...

Russia is sharing location information on U.S. military forces in the Middle East with Iran, which Tehran could be using to guide its missile attacks, U.S. officials say www.wsj.com/livecoverage...

Pavilion, McDonald Park, Tower Grove South, St. Louis, Missouri #iphonephotography #mobilephotography #photographersofbluesky #photographersunited #b&w #blackandwhitephotography #monochrome #streetphotography #urbanphotography #nightphotography #stl #stlouis #TowerGroveSouth

Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a draft EO that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Gloucester Harbor - 1926 https://botfrens.com/collections/173/contents/3104451

Gov. Pritzker sent an invoice to the White House demanding a tariff refund of $8.6 billion for all of Illinois's 5.1 million households -- roughly $1,700 each. www.wsj.com/livecoverage...

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

In today's newsletter, about a week after Trump repeatedly said "Iceland" when he meant "Greenland" in his Davos speech, the Iceland amb. to the US hired a big K street firm to "provide strategic advice on navigating engagements with the United States government." www.thebulwark.com/p/so-you-lie...

A year into the Trump economy, Americans are still laser focused on prices. “A new set of tires now is $500 or $600. Who the hell has $500 to $600?” www.wsj.com/economy/cons...

The Sermon on the Mount, by Beryl Lewis, before 1965, 📸 by @ScottStrazzante

Jimmy Lai, an outspoken 78-year-old critic of China’s Communist Party, sentenced to 20 years in prison. China made Lai one of the main targets of its crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong after widespread pro-democracy protests in 2019 www.wsj.com/world/china/...

Volkswagen factory workers in Tenn. would receive raises totaling about 20% over four years under a tentative deal between the automaker & the UAW union. www.wsj.com/business/aut...

Among the batch of newly released emails from Jeffrey Epstein: Epstein telling Peter Thiel he would “gladly share…expenses for the Gawker suit.” This was sent the day after @rmac.bsky.social and @mattdrange.bsky.social reported in Forbes that Thiel was behind the lawsuit that would bankrupt Gawker

“.. In a blistering opinion, Judge Fred Biery .. condemned ‘the perfidious lust for unbridled power’ and ‘the imposition of cruelty.’” @nytimes.com #Ramos www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/u...

Highlight of my career, probably

Catherine O’Hara didn’t steal scenes she just showed up and ownership automatically defaulted to her

Tonight I watched Prime Minister Mark Carney take the actual Heated Rivalry Canada fleece from Hudson Williams, slip it on and say: “This is true soft power.”

Canada isn’t alone in taking steps to mend ties w China. British PM Keir Starmer will travel to Beijing this week to meet with Xi — the first visit by a U.K. PM in 8 ys. South Korea's president said recently he wants “full-scale restoration” of ties w China www.wsj.com/world/us-tra...

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara: "People have had enough. This is the third shooting in less than 3 weeks. The MPD went the entire year last year recovering about 900 guns from the street, arresting hundreds of violent offenders, and we didn't shoot anyone ... this is not sustainable."

In Maine, Sheriff Kevin Joyce was among local officials who met with border czar Tom Homan a year ago to hear the administration’s immigration-enforcement plan. But on Thurs, Joyce issued blistering criticism of federal agents, accusing ICE of “bush-league policing" www.wsj.com/us-news/poli...

Videos Contradict U.S. Account of Minneapolis Shooting by Federal Agents See how immigration officers escalated a fatal confrontation Saturday www.wsj.com/us-news/vide...

Stunning photos from Minneapolis, including this one by John Locher for the Associated Press. www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

Video message from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KckG... www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/s...

Everything has gone uphill for the Bears since this moment.

You might be thinking, "CPSC, does a dry Christmas tree really burn that much faster than a well-watered tree?" Friend, let's find out together by watching this PSA.

Karl Fredrik Nordström, Clear Evening in Late Winter (Winter Night), oil on canvas, 1907

Earlier this year, the United States deported 252 Venezuelans to El Salvador and paid its government to imprison them. Now two human-rights organizations have found that all of those men were physically abused, Conor Friedersdorf writes:

A snowy owl preening. November 22, 2025, Chicago.

We used to call the debut LP "Cars greatest hits." Somehow the 2nd LP, "Candy O," topped it, at least in my world. Can a band that sold 43 million albums still be underappreciated? Buffalo Tom's Bill Janovitz, the band's biographer, makes the case on @soundopinions.bsky.social: shorturl.at/hvsrQ

On Chicago’s South Side, students are bypassing traditional tips on job hunting in favor of lessons on getting rich. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

Burt Meyer, a Chicago toy designer behind classics like Lite-Brite, Mouse Trap, and Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots, died Oct. 30 at 99, leaving a joyful, generations-spanning legacy.

“This case, ladies and gentleman of the jury, is about a sandwich.” Closing arguments from the defense in the DC sandwich guy case are now underway.

New: The FBI is quietly urging ICE agents to properly ID themselves in the field. In a bulletin to law enforcement last month, it warned of criminals posing as ICE to rob, rape, kidnap—a problem it says now demands national coordination to confront. By me & @carolinehaskins.bsky.social:

Compotier, Glass and Apples, 1880 https://botfrens.com/collections/43/contents/12195

The economy that's great for parents, lousy for their grown-up kids. Ask many older Americans how they are faring financially and they’ll tell you they are comfortable. Yet many are pessimistic about the economy because they see how their children are struggling www.wsj.com/personal-fin...

Grocery price inflation is picking up again. www.wsj.com/economy/cons...

Pringle Theatre Glenmora, LA

“.. On closer inspection, however, it turned out that the image was not a photograph of a real event in Portland, but instead a fabrication created by combining two photographs of scenes that unfolded in South America nearly a decade apart ..” @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Pritzker is also furious: “Should National Governors Association leadership choose to remain silent, Illinois will have no choice but to withdraw from the organization.”

Gregory Bovino, commander-at-large of the U.S. #BorderPatrol, claims a @wbez.org/@chicago.suntimes.com report about his comments Sunday in downtown #Chicago was "grossly inaccurate" and taken out of context. So we've posted the interview's unedited AUDIO and TRANSCRIPT: www.wbez.org/immigration/...

YouTube removed a channel that was dedicated to posting AI-generated videos of women being shot in the head following 404 Media’s request for comment. The videos were clearly generated with Google’s new AI video generator tool. 🔗 www.404media.co/ai-generated...

Tom Homan was investigated last year for accepting $50,000 from undercover FBI agents. Trump's DOJ shut down the probe. By @carolleonnig.bsky.social @kendilanian-nbc.bsky.social www.msnbc.com/msnbc/news/t...