“At least five people died when an Amazon Prime Air cargo flight overran a runway and crashed while landing at Miami International Airport on Sunday, local officials said. Prime Air Flight 7598 overran the airport’s diagonal runway shortly before 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) and struck multiple vehicles on the ground, officials said during a news conference on Sunday afternoon. Five people were also injured in the crash, including three who are in critical condition, said Miami-Dade Fire Chief Ray Jadallah. At least two people were trapped in vehicles that were struck by the plane, and the pilot and co-pilot were trapped inside the plane by the crash, Jadallah said.” (09/06/26)
“I’ve argued elsewhere that ‘beautiful losers’ are people who don’t care about recognition or ‘victory’ in the culture wars. Instead, they’re active, with others, in intrinsically worthwhile pursuits, rejuvenating culture by actually doing things, not just talking about them. They’re certainly not yelling on social media about the way the pursuits have been corrupted, or loudly informing the world that they are the only ones who have things right. Still, this vision of life has a downside. In attempting to live well and do good where we are, we may begin to feel some self-doubt. Are our private activities really so meaningful? If nobody is talking about us, do we matter?” (09/04/26)
“President Trump is spending Labor Day flooding his Truth Social account with AI-generated images about conquering both the Earth and outer space alike. Trump on Monday posted a map of North America, where both Canada and Mexico are annexed to the United States — and shaded in stars and stripes. He dropped several posts suggesting the state of New Mexico be renamed ‘New America.’ The posts carried various maps bearing the new name. In another, Trump claimed the moon for the United States.” (09/07/26)
“[M]many of the right and many more of the left have attributed virtually every American ill since the Reagan administration to free trade and deregulation. Yet [JD] Vance argues for [Milton] Friedman’s obsolescence by contending that his ideas succeeded back then — but only due to ‘a very rich and powerful institutional Christianity’ that has become impoverished enough to require a ten-dollar substitute for its devaluated coinage. The usual demonization of Friedman posits Margaret Thatcher as a Wicked Witch East of the Atlantic to his Elphaba, ignoring his influence on Estonia and New Zealand. Vance would need to make a stretch to find the ‘powerful institutional Christianity’ responsible for the embrace of international markets in Israel, Singapore or even the India of Usha Vance’s ancestors.” (09/04/26)
“The current leadership in the Pentagon is quite fond of saying it is ‘the most transparent Department of Defense in history.’ Now, bald-faced misrepresentations by government officials are never healthy in a functioning republic, but one almost has to admire the chutzpah of blatantly lying about being honest. In fact, the Pentagon has endeavored to control, limit, and mislead when it comes to public information about the department, its operations, and facts affecting service members in the United States military. This effort takes multiple forms above and beyond lying to the public—firing officials based on insecure fears of unflattering whispers, putting onerous restrictions on the legacy Pentagon press corps, and, most recently, hiring a roster of propaganda artists.” (09/04/260
“Philippines Vice President Sara Duterte posted bail Saturday after an order was issued for her arrest the previous day on charges that she publicly threatened to arrange the assassination of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and two other people. … The vice president, who has denied the allegations, showed a court order lifting the arrest warrant issued by the court Friday and said her lawyers instructed her to keep a copy on hand. She urged journalists to surround her on the way to her car because she did not feel safe. … Paul Lawrence Lim, one of her attorneys, said court staff took Duterte’s fingerprints and she posted 360,000 pesos bail ($5,740) for three counts of grave threats. After the arrest order was issued Friday, he said Duterte would fight the charges.” (09/05/26)
“A jury narrowly deadlocked on Friday in the trial of Lindsay Clancy, the 36-year-old Massachusetts woman accused of killing her children. Accused is the correct word in a legal sense. But it feels like the wrong one in a general sense, because it is not in doubt that in January 2023 she killed Cora, Dawson, and Callan Clancy, her three young kids. She admits as much. The jurors instead were tasked with analyzing her state of mind. … Did she ultimately plunge into a state of psychosis? Or was she just deeply anxious and depressed? Absent clairvoyance, how on earth was a jury supposed to know which was more likely to be true? All the evidence in the world cannot transport a juror into Clancy’s mind during the moments she killed her children.” (09/04/26)
“Grindr has agreed to pay £26m to settle a lawsuit over allegations it shared users’ personal information – including their HIV status – with third parties. The world’s largest LGBTQ+ dating app was sued in the High Court in 2024 over claims it misused people’s personal information. The class action suit was later served in the US, with the law firm leading the case saying it had signed up more than 11,000 claimants. According to a US regulatory filing, Grindr will make two £13m payments to settle the claims. The firm said the settlement includes no admission of liability.” (09/07/26)
