Here it is: The @wired.com Politics Issue is now live, with more stories rolling out all week. We're so proud of this one. Behold this cover; truly a work of art. And we're treating it that way: Starting today, you can find it on murals, billboards, and posters across in five U.S. cities.

A startup is using AI to churn out more than 3,000 podcasts a week, needing only 20 listeners per podcast to be profitable. www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/dig...

United States vetoes another draft ceasefire resolution in the United Nations Security Council. Vote count of UNSC members: For 14, against 1.

New from 404 Media: airlines are selling *5 billion* ticketing records to the government for warrantless searching, per new docs we obtained. ARC is a data broker owned by United, American, Delta, etc. Then sells peoples' travel info to ICE, Secret Service, FBI etc www.404media.co/airlines-sel...

"Trump – a convicted felon who has pardoned around 1,500 people involved in the 2021 US Capitol riot in Washington – complained that police and prosecutors aren't tough enough." www.france24.com/en/live-news...

Here's the relevant section of law under which Trump is taking over DC's Metropolitan Police. It appears as though it will require an act of Congress (a joint resolution) for the takeover to extend beyond 30 days. dccouncil.gov/wp-content/u...

Welcome to the boring dystopia

"The uncanny thing about these models isn’t just their speed but the way they imitate human interiority without embodying any of its values. That may be, from the humanist’s perspective, the most pernicious thing about A.I." nytimes.com/2025/07/18/opinion/ai-chatgpt-school.html

"Ever since Trump retook office in January, in fact, rapid enshittification has become the organizing principle of US statecraft." www.wired.com/story/enshit...

Just a normal headline from a healthy society

I mostly took a break from posting on social media for the first year of my son's life, and I have no regrets!

@osviz-jarrett.bsky.social 👋

I'm glad police are getting the tools they need to solve the most serious crimes

Trump’s vow to shrink the federal government appears to rely, at least in part, on top officials doing multiple -- sometimes completely unrelated -- jobs simultaneously. By @azipaybarah.bsky.social @kevinschaul.bsky.social and @alvarovalino.bsky.social: www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

I … worked on this story for a year and she just … said it from the bench

Always inspiring to message a French colleague in mid-July and get an out-of-office stating they'll be back at the end of August

"As Texas rescue crews raced to save lives, FEMA officials realized they needed Noem’s approval before sending those additional assets. Noem didn’t authorize FEMA’s deployment of Urban Search and Rescue teams until Monday, more than 72 hours after the flooding began" www.cnn.com/2025/07/09/p...

I want to be charitable and not insult anyone's intelligence, but I have questions about how it's possible that half of Americans are still unaware of OBBB. Are people really so tuned out, so totally detached from political decisions that shape their lives?

the new york times got rid of its public editor some time ago, so I took the position out for a spin www.theverge.com/culture/7000...

Data from Flightradar24 shows inbound planes to Dubai being diverted as UAE airspace is closed

Here's a longer video of Brad Lander's detention just now inside 26 Federal Plaza as he tried to walk a man out of immigration court, by masked federal agents.

Reading about the Marine Corps "warfighting philosophy", wondering whether these are the kind of people you send to de-escalate a protest

😬

Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho didn't hold back when expressing his anger and "contempt" after agents with Homeland Security attempted to gain access to two elementary schools earlier this week.

TIL that the LAPD lists the number of active duty officers in MALE, FEMALE and NONBINARY categories

UPDATE The organisers of a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid ship carrying activists including Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg say Israeli forces have boarded the vessel. "Connection has been lost on the 'Madleen'. Israeli army have boarded the vessel," the Freedom Flotilla Coalition posted on Telegram

you really need to read the article yourself and post the paragraph that makes your jaw hit the floor, but i'll share a few

As the United States vetoes another Israel-Palestine ceasefire resolution at the UN Security Council, here's a graphic I made for @afp.com showing every veto on a similar resolution since 1970.

placing.technology/media-archae... I blogged about vintage trucking route planning software I bought on eBay

I fixed some code today by applying a binary search algorithm and I'm feeling *very* accomplished.

Canada goes to the polls today with the liberal party heavily predicted to win. According to CBC polling, the conservative party was projected a *97-99% chance of winning* throughout 2024 and the start of 2025 (see chart). Then Trump's tariff impositions completely realigned Canadian politics...

From tomorrow a 25% tariff on all cars and light-duty trucks take effect. Of all car manufactures in the US, Tesla is the least affected – because its vehicles are overwhelmingly manufactured and assembled here.

The NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER added the EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC to a PRINCIPALS COMMITTEE TEXT CHAIN set up for the DEFENSE SECRETARY about PLANNED MILITARY STRIKES. Here's a thread of involved parties talking about the need for secure communications (when Dems are involved):

This seems to be the most flagrant refusal to comply with a court order I’ve seen so far – this could well escalate…

Work crews are starting to remove the Black Lives Matter mural in D.C. this morning. Photos via @afpnews.bsky.social.

Someone made a thread of Oscar winners as charts by the French National Institute of Statistics. Perfect dataviz content, no notes. 👌

I've walked past this plaque many times, but somehow today it hits different.

New post on my @beautifulpublicdata.com newsletter: I dig into @sambiddle.com's amazing treasure trove of Department of Defense slides from the 1970s and 1980s depicting data from missile systems, Soviet capabilities and America’s nuclear arsenal. www.beautifulpublicdata.com/cold-war-mil...

The military deportation flight that landed in India yesterday cost US taxpayers more than $1 million (to return 104 migrants) sg.news.yahoo.com/india-deport...

The ICE[.]gov website has added new timestamps to old press releases, flooding Google with results that make it seem like mass deportations are happening everywhere. Story by @darakerr.bsky.social in @theguardian.com ⬇️ www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

EXCLUSIVE: The Bureau of the Fiscal Service is a sleepy part of the Treasury Department. It’s also where, sources say, a 25-year-old engineer tied to Elon Musk has admin privileges over the code that controls Social Security payments, tax returns, and more.

opensource.gov is currently unreachable :(

For thos reporting on federal domain disappearance: I did a (very) quick probe into which domains were available at 11am ET this morning. Here's a snapshot of the results from that time. Total domains: 1374 Unreachable: 350 Full list: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Trump threatens to cut aid to South Africa because of SA govt's plan to rectify land ownership disparity. The latest audit found that Black South Africans owned just 4% of the country's land. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

NEW: Sources tell my office that Treasury Secretary Bessent has granted DOGE *full* access to this system. Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk's own companies. All of it.

I spent the weekend in Pasadena with immigrant day laborers who mobilized hundreds of volunteers to help LA wildfire victims ❤️‍🔥

The plan is for a cohort of unpaid, unofficial volunteers to live within federal agencies for six months, working 80 hours per week on undefined tasks, conspire with one another on Signal, and get nearly everyone around them fired. It doesn’t sound fully baked to me. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/12/u...