Source: The Intercept
by Liliana Segure & Jordan Smith
“[Charles] McCrory was 26 years old when he was accused of brutally killing his wife in the small town of Andalusia. … There was no evidence connecting McCrory to the crime; prosecutors seized on a supposed bite mark found on his wife’s body, which a state expert claimed to match to McCrory’s teeth. … In a September 21 ruling describing the case against McCrory as ‘thin,’ Trump-appointed Judge R. Austin Huffaker Jr., zeroed in on this junk forensic science. Not only would the alleged bite mark not be allowed into evidence today, Huffaker wrote, bite-mark analysis itself ‘is grossly unreliable and unsupported by relevant scientific bodies.’ … Unless the state moves to retry him within the next six months, Huffaker concluded, McCrory must be released from prison. … Yet more than a month after the decision, McCrory remains behind bars with no sense of when he might walk out.” (10/28/26)
“Where, exactly, does the new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham stand on the political spectrum? President Donald Trump recently called him ‘extremely liberal’—indeed, he might even be called a ‘social democrat.’ Both Burnham’s ideological position and his background in local and, more importantly, urban politics influence his politics. But Burnham’s ‘Manchesterism’ is a far cry from the classically liberal Manchester School in economics of Richard Cobden and John Bright, the Ron Pauls of their day, who argued for laissez-faire economics and free trade. Indeed, the Labour leader’s ideology is not liberalism at all, but a repudiation of it.” (10/28/26)
“Thomas F. Madden’s latest work is a needed primer on republican history and theory and an antidote to the democratic malaise dominating current discourse.” (10/28/26)
“El Salvador has sent about 1,000 troops to Haiti after four Salvadorean members of a UN-backed security mission went missing in a [rival] gang ambush on the outskirts of the capital on October 18, a security official in Haiti told Reuters on Tuesday. The troops’ arrival aboard flights in recent days dramatically expands the Central American nation’s role in Haiti’s long-standing gang conflict. Yet it remains unclear who will command the new Salvadorean contingent, how long it will stay in Haiti or whether more forces will follow. Neither the Haitian nor Salvadorean government immediately responded to requests for comment.” (10/28/26)
“With soaring healthcare costs and a plunge in coverage rates, there is growing interest in Medicare for all. Polls show that a large majority of the public now favors a universal Medicare system, with even a substantial share of Republicans now backing it. A universal Medicare system has a huge amount to recommend it. Of course, the main point is to ensure that people can get the healthcare that they need, but it also eliminates a vast amount of waste in the national healthcare system.” (10/28/26)
“To the tech accelerationists, a human is little more than a particularly inefficient machine. The drive towards infinite automated customization demonstrates a lack of understanding about the extent to which humans are shaped by shared experience as well as being interested in the views of other humans. Art is valued because it is human expression. However, with their shallow understanding of humanity, they do not see the inherent uniqueness of humans compared to the robots they are trying to give ‘consciousness.’ … Currently, it is Pope Leo who seems to be taking the lead against recognizing AI as some sort of artificial humanity, and he may be the only person with the gravitas and imperviousness to being bought off to lead this fight for humanity.” (10/28/26)
“A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Republican Bill Essayli is not legally serving as the top U.S. prosecutor in Los Angeles. The ruling is the latest roadblock to the Trump administration’s effort to extend handpicked acting U.S. attorneys beyond the 120-day limit set by federal law. The strategy was designed to bypass confirmation by the U.S. Senate — something that generally requires a degree of bipartisan support. Essayli ‘is unlawfully serving as a ‘de facto’ United States Attorney,’ U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright wrote. The order won’t take effect until the court rules on the government’s motion for a stay pending appeal.” (10/28/26)
