Red States: We are canceling all programs that don't support our theology. Blue States: We're canceling all the same programs, but because they don't support our business school.

Media capture, gerrymandering, rule bending “Orbán’s Hungary demonstrates how autocrats can rig elections legally, using their parliamentary majorities to modify the law to neutralize whatever strategy the opposition adopts to try to beat them” www.politico.eu/article/hung...

While the world watches NASA Artemis launch, here are the launches Ukrainians are forced to watch. You are looking at the moment Russian Shahed drone hit a house caught on cameras, shared by local Kryvyi rih media Kr1

Goodnight. 🖼️ Kitty Crowther

Goodnight. ‘To go in the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight, and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings, and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.’ ~ Wendell Berry. 🖼️ Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket, James McNeill Whistler, 1875.

Lovely glow and almost full Pink Moon over Bath this evening.

Goodnight. ‘Leaves of poplars pick Japanese prints against the west. Moon sand on the canal doubles the changing pictures. The moon’s good-by ends pictures. The west is empty. All else is empty. No moon-talk at all now. Only dark listening to dark.’ ~ Carl Sandburg, Moonset.

🖼️ Johansen-Elli

Pigeon of the Day: Western-crowned Pigeon Vulnerable 📷 Phil Chaon

April, Edith Holden.

Pigeon of the Day: Sao Tome Pigeon Near Threatened 📷 Lars Petersson

Hare, The Flowering Tree, Catherine Hyde.

💥Fresh polls ahead of Hungary’s April 12 parliamentary elections show the opposition TISZA party’s lead over Orbán’s Fidesz is holding or widening. Under normal democratic conditions, it’s hard to see Orbán closing such a large gap. But it isn't a normal campaign at all. @europeelects.bsky.social

(He also assured me that, as far as filmmaking, AI is less likely to replace directors than, say, gaffers. I neglected to ask him if he had any idea what a gaffer does.)

And now another reason not to touch the stuff: the strong possibility that you will end up plagiarizing, whether you know it or not. But it was the "that is going to go away" attitude that rankled the most. That's the tech credo: anything that takes time or I don't understand must be obsolete.

When I told him about The New Yorker's very human fact-checking process, he crowed that "a lot of that is going to go away." To which I said, NO, AI means we need MORE fact-checking, because AI has flooded the web with bullshit. It certainly can't be trusted to fact-check itself, or anything. /

I don't need a summary of what's available online, in biographies, or even in my own notes. I need to comb through and find the great details, decide what interests ME. No, it's not efficient. It's slow and painstaking. But I don't believe in efficiency as an ultimate good, especially in writing. /

I told him that, for this piece, I went to the library and took out four or five books on Orson Welles. He balked, like I was from the Stone Age. I told him that not everything's online and I actually LIKE that part of the job. But more importantly - / www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

This is all reminding me of a conversation I had recently with an old friend who works in tech and extremely gung-ho about AI. When I told him about my process for writing a long New Yorker piece, he was absolutely sure that AI could make it more "efficient." / www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...

Eye of the Monkey by Krisztina Tóth (Hungary), translated from the Hungarian by Ottilie Mulzet @ottiliemulzet.bsky.social and published by @sevenstoriesuk.bsky.social #EBRDLiteraturePrize2026

It’s actually possible to write headlines that don’t obscure who did what. Thanks, AP.

There are almost 20,000 seafarers stranded in the Persian Gulf, as Iran has effectively blocked the exit through the Strait of Hormuz. Nearly 7,300 of those are Filipino.

Unless you’re using it to search for a cure for [insert hitherto incurable disease] “I asked ChatGPT…” is just a massive 🚩 #AI

“Bucha survived 33 days of russian occupation, terror, torture — 33 days of total evil. 600 murdered Ukrainian men and women. Russia called it staged. Russia always does this. Actually, all evil acts this way.” President Zelenskyy addressed the European leaders at the Bucha Summit.

Hungary’s election next week is likely to be the country’s most consequential since the fall of communism — but it won’t be a fair contest. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has seen to that.

Erst am Wochenende stürzten mehrere fehlgeleitete ukrainische Drohnen in Finnland ab. Jetzt haben Grenzschützer erneut eine unbekannte Drohne auf finnischem Boden entdeckt. Bisher ist nur bekannt, wo sie nicht herkommt.

multilingual Psalter, 12th-14th century, monastery of saint macarius, wadi al-Natrun, Egypt Ethiopic/Ge’ez, followed by Syriac, Coptic, Arabic, and ending with Armenian. www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/historical...

Say hello to the UK’s most successful growth industry: organised waste crime www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I know many of you will remember this photo from the spring of 2022 This’s Vlad,then 6.His mom Maryna was killed by Russians in Bucha on March 27,2022.She was 33yrs old Maryna was buried by their home in a coffin made from an old wardrobe Vlad visited her grave every day,bringing sweets RIP,Maryna

#April ‘…breeding lilacs out of the dead land…’ T.S.Eliot, The Waste Land

A lot of American defence intellectuals are kidding themselves if they think that after Trump there is a reset switch that takes relations between America and Europe back to 2014

When I first dealt with US defence analysts and officials in the early 2010s the withering contempt they often expressed about the military culture of European allies that America needs already seemed a terrible idea. Now that US elite arrogance is so misplaced that it is strategically suicidal

⚡ EU foreign ministers, except Hungary, joined Ukraine to announce a special tribunal for Russia’s aggression and an International Compensation Commission. The summit stressed full accountability for war crimes and honored the victims of Bucha.

Martha Stewart went to jail for covering up insider trading on stocks that didn’t kill anyone; Hegseth not only lies about insider trading but profits from war money and keeps the war going with complete impunity

Novinka v podobě tří hrazených návštěv porodní asistentky znovu ukazuje, jak obtížně český systém přijímá modely péče založené na důvěře a práci nelékařských profesí https://loom.ly/WLJNToc

This law is a straightforward case of apartheid. Apartheid is an international crime. Every legislator who voted for it, every military police office who prosecutes a crime under it, every judicial officer who applies it, is committing an international crime. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Lol fuck off

The Zoom link will be available on Tuesday afternoon -- see poster for how to access it ...

Never thought I’d see the President of the United States threatening to commit blatant war crimes on social media, but here we are.

⚡️Ukraine to help open Strait of Hormuz as part of Gulf weapons deals, Zelensky says. Ukraine will supply weapons and defense technology, including systems that can help unblock the Strait of Hormuz, to Gulf countries under new agreements, President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters on March 30.

“Simply removing the [Iranian] leader without any real plan afterwards is a recipe for chaos.” Journalist and author Anand Gopal explains to @mehdirhasan.bsky.social why the US learned nothing from previous military interventions. Watch the full conversation: zeteo.com/p/anand-gopa...

👇🍟

Monday, March 30, 2026, 1.5 days since the largest day of protest EVER in the history of the USA, and the right-leaning @npr.org has NO story on these events that attracted 8 millions. They are beyond broken. I am getting coverage from Democracy Now! Good coverage by them today like professionals.

"This is bad for kids. But for MAGA, an authoritarian movement that depends on people struggling to understand others’ points of view, it has an undeniable appeal."

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments about birthright citizenship. Here, for the NYTimes and with Kate Masur, I offer a view of what those of you who think historically should be listening for. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/o...

These are sisters Dasha, 20, and Yevheniia, 6. During a Russian strike on Ochkyne in Sumy region, Dasha covered Yevheniia with her body to protect her younger sister. Dasha was killed by the Russian strike, Yevheniia is in hospital in critical condition, doctors are fighting for her life.

One of the greatest Irish novels, unpacking the obligations of family & documenting an Ireland of stifling morality, thankfully long gone. McGahern excels at small-town claustrophobia and there is no better chronicler of Leitrim's green lanes. Honoured to write this foreword. @faberbooks.bsky.social

Your periodic reminder that there is a website that lets you listen to local radio stations anywhere in the world This is honestly one of the coolest inventions ever, imo. Global access to hyper-local imagined communities

Morning. Britain's birds and their nests Arthur Thomson, Sir Landsborough, John Arthur Thomson, George Rankin, 1910s.