Today in AI: -General rebellion against it; -Someone is dreaming up a big new data center for Alaska's North Slope; -Mark Zuckerberg goes colossal on rural Louisiana; -Raising the temperature 4 degrees in Arizona neighborhoods. www.wsj.com/tech/ai/the-...

BIG STORY: ICE arrested, shackled and separated Israel and Max Makoka as they were about to board their school bus in Diamondhead, Miss. While one brother endured confinement and pressure to self-deport in a Louisiana prison, the other was sent to a youth home in Texas. Now, they tell their story.

Tennessee’s Republican House speaker has barred all 24 House Democrats from standing committees and subcommittees as punishment for decorum violations, including locking arms on the floor in protest of a redrawn congressional map, writes Sam Stockard: tennesseelookout.com/2026/05/13/t...

An updated lawsuit from the NAACP sites voter confusion and campaign chaos as reasons to halt the use of Tennessee’s redrawn congressional map in the 2026 U.S. House election, @cstephenson.bsky.social reports: tennesseelookout.com/2026/05/13/v...

This chart says "Alert! Alert!" >The last 30-year Treasury to carry a 5% interest rate was sold in 2007, on the brink of the global financial crisis and US economic recession. Gift link from Bloomberg: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Data centers, Washington State: The "transmission lines over Quintero’s front yard will be ... on 100-foot-tall thick, steel poles, carrying enough electricity to produce an audible crackle." www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

Commentary: "I love my home state fiercely, but years of witnessing discrimination and a lack of willingness by lawmakers focus on basic necessities like healthcare and education has broken my heart," writes @jhollymc.bsky.social. tennesseelookout.com/2026/05/11/e...

OMB updated one of ICE’s detention-related funding accounts on April 30. The overall amount of money did not change. Instead, OMB shifted more than $26 million into 3rd quarter availability while reducing both expected carryover balances and 4th quarter authority.

South Carolina elections director on new maps: “We can start sending out a notice, but at this point, a large number of people will have voted in good faith on the congressional ballot. . . . Just the fact that we’re here today will cause voter confusion.” scdailygazette.com/2026/05/08/s...

Biden-era funds to prop up public transit that floundered during Covid is running out and some cities have cut back on bus service. For people without cars, that puts them at even greater risk for food insecurity. My latest for @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Since Reconstruction, Louisiana has elected four Black members of Congress. All of them are seated at this table. www.nola.com/news/politic...

Autopen much, DOGE? “McDonald’s signature appeared on the letter that canceled grants, but it was placed there by DOGE.” www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

"We thought we were rebuilding, however haltingly and imperfectly, the multiracial regime lost after Reconstruction. But Alabama is still Alabama. And self-serving, self-justifying power is the state’s only civic virtue." alabamareflector.com/2026/05/04/w...

National Guard deployed in D.C., still happening. alaskabeacon.com/briefs/alask...

Love your neighbor: >>About 45,000 Haitians in Ohio are waiting nervously as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs a Trump-admin move to force them back to their homeland. A new assessment says that conditions in Haiti are about as bad as anywhere in the world. ohiocapitaljournal.com/2026/05/05/c...

An excellent edition, throughout. Two thumbs up.

Holy guacamole, this @mwhitler.bsky.social @minnesotareformer.com chronology of how long the Minneapolis Public Schools finance department irregularities have been known and how little the district has been willing to say about them is... just wow. 1/

Proposed data center could swallow sun. www.texastribune.org/2026/04/30/e...

Watching Republicans like Steve Scalise rewrite recent history on gas prices is exasperating. Watching Republicans like Tim Scott rewrite the present is worse. I mean, really, who looks at this and decides to tell a national audience, “Gas prices continue to come down”? www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

Who's paying for the border wall? Oh. "In AZ, construction crews ran heavy machinery through and destroyed a roughly 60-to-70-foot swath of an intaglio, a more than 200-foot-long ground etching that looks like a fish and is thought to be at least 1,000 years old" wapo.st/49jZ7M2

BREAKING: Israel and Max Makoka, the brothers ICE arrested on April 21 while they were getting on their school bus, are free after their community rallied to their defense. Mississippi's Republican U.S. senators, Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker, helped secure their release. Nick Judin reports:

Amazing. In Paris, school streets "with the full treatment — trees, gardens, light-colored pavement — were on average, an astonishing 9 degrees (Fahrenheit) cooler than nearby non-school streets."

Great 🧵of responses, by state, to the Supreme Court ruling yesterday on the Voting Rights Act and congressional districts.

Two major Tennessee gubernatorial candidates are pushing for a special legislative session to redraw congressional maps just over three months before the primary. At least one legislative leader says that's a no for him. @friedmanadam5.bsky.social reports.

Update on these flights: The first continued on to Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon--both "host" third-country nationals (ie, detain them until they are pressured to return to the home countries they fled). The second turned out to be the regular Wed. Venezuela deportation taking an unusual route.

Fascinating fight playing out in GOP politics right now, over gerrymandered congressional maps. Call it "Trump vs Indiana Republicans Who Said No." indianacapitalchronicle.com/2026/04/30/t...

Following Supreme Court decision, La. Republicans weigh canceling US House primary elections #lalege #lagov

University of Texas poll for April: Talarico 40, Cornyn 33 Talaracio 42, Paxton 34 The Trump approval numbers are also striking, especially among independents and Republicans. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

I can't believe this. @normcharlatan.bsky.social you're a Minnesota Legend, my man.

Noticing a push for local government to enforce local law in ICE prison camps. In Mesa, AZ, Rep. Grijalva is asking about firecodes: “If that were any other facility in Mesa, they would have the authority to close it down. Why don’t we push on that?” azmirror.com/2026/04/27/m...

Federal and state agents have left the daycare on 13th Ave S. and 28th in Minneapolis. About two dozen carried boxes out of the building, loaded them up and drove away with minimal heckling by a couple vocal observers. Uniforms included BCA, lots of FBI and Homeland Security Investigations.

Federal agents outside the Metro Learning Center daycare in south Minneapolis. It's pretty quiet but they referred me to the FBI for questions. They've been here for an hour, observers say.

I didn't get the opportunity to say it on air, but so much of the amazing work being done at gtfoice.org is thanks to the team at @saveamericamvmt.bsky.social. Thank you endlessly.

Israel and Max Makoka were about to board their Hancock County High School bus on April 21 when 10 unmarked cars suddenly surrounded them. ICE agents ziptied the teen brothers, whose only offense was a clerical error they knew nothing about, and hauled them away. buff.ly/7EZI5KU

Republicans applaud immigrant detention — until it’s in their back yards minnesotareformer.com/2026/04/24/r...

It does help if @darthbluesky.bsky.social takes an interest in your miserable baseball team. I might need this same kind of assistance with the Knicks please.

Then, all of a sudden, some good happens in government. www.pressherald.com?p=7630385&uu...

A Republican lawmaker who watched as Trump supporters broke into and ransacked the U.S. Capitol in 2021 wants to send Arizona protesters to prison for rioting if they damage property, report @azmirror.com and @statesnewsroom.com

AI reaches the forest. www.wsj.com/tech/ai/amer...

All adults and some children on ICE flights—some 50 flights a day now—are shackled at the wrists and ankles attached to a chain around their waists. I have spoken to migrants and their attorneys who report being shackled for 50, 75, and 82 hours while being deported. Flight data backs this up.

As divided as Americans are, it’s nice to see there’s one thing that 86% of the country can agree on: This Republican-led Congress sure is awful. All things considered, though, that number should arguably be higher. www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

The drop in *Republican* support for Congress (while it has been Republican-led) is quite something.

America doesn’t depend on the Strait of Hormuz — but rural Alaska does, write energy researcher Gwen Holdmann and Alaska Federation of Natives President Benjamin Mallott in a commentary for the @alaskabeacon.com alaskabeacon.com/2026/04/23/a...

Between volatile prices and cuts in federal aid for heating, communities in Alaska are raising the alarm about a fuel crisis caused by the war against Iran. Watching for this to become an acute local issue in the big Senate race in Alaska this year. alaskabeacon.com/2026/04/23/a...

Disaster movie title: "Educated Guess." "To access Mythos, the group of users made an educated guess about the model’s online location based on knowledge about the format Anthropic has used for other models..." www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The Mississippi gov again declared Confederate Heritage Month. He doesn't post the proclamation for the public to see. The Mississippi Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans takes care of that. @mississippifreepress.org finds it every year. www.mississippifreepress.org/gov-tate-ree...