“In the 1990s, America watched tobacco executives raise their right hands before Congress and swear nicotine was not addictive. We now know they were lying through their teeth. Internal documents later proved cigarettes were chemically engineered to maximize dependency and deliberately marketed to children to create ‘replacement smokers’ for a dying customer base. Today, we are watching the same lie unfold in real time. Only now, the product is not Marlboro. It is the algorithm. A new class of titans – Meta, TikTok, Snap and Google – have built digital machines designed to addict our kids. The damage is not in their lungs. It is in the wiring of their developing brains. On Feb. 9, a landmark jury trial began in California Superior Court that could fundamentally reshape how social media is regulated.” (02/16/26)
“Garbage has begun to pile up on street corners in the Cuban capital of Havana, attracting hordes of flies and reeking of rotten food, in one of the most visible impacts of the U.S. bid to prevent oil from reaching the Caribbean’s largest island. State-run news outlet Cubadebate reported this month that Havana only 44 of 106 of its rubbish trucks were able to keep operating due to fuel shortages, slowing garbage collection.” (02/16/26)
“When President Donald Trump convened his so-called Board of Peace in Davos, Switzerland, a key item on the agenda was to endorse his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s extravagant (and, I might add, detached from reality) plan for a ‘New Gaza’. The rendering of Kushner’s scheme shows it to be more of a luxury resort for wealthy tourists than the foundation of a just future for the Palestinian victims of Israel’s genocide. But since the raison d’être of the Board of Peace was supposed to be dealing with the aftermath of Israel’s war on Gaza, the conversation, by necessity, had to address the needs of hundreds of thousands of now-homeless Palestinians. Thus, Kushner presented a proposal for a model Palestinian community (the ‘New Rafah’) he intends to build to house Palestinians in Gaza. The plans for this New Rafah have been circulated since the meeting.” (02/16/26)
“It is Carnival season in New Orleans. That means gazillions of green, gold and purple Mardi Gras beads. Once made of glass and cherished by parade spectators who were lucky enough to catch them, today cheap plastic beaded necklaces from overseas are tossed from floats by the handful. Spectators sometimes pile dozens around their necks, but many are trashed or left on the ground. A few years ago after heavy flooding, the city found more than 46 tons of them clogging its storm drains. The beads are increasingly viewed as a problem, but a Mardi Gras without beads also seems unfathomable. That is why it was a radical step when the Krewe of Freret made the decision last year to ban plastic beads from their parade.” (02/16/26)
“An American statesman was born on a German stage over the weekend. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s impressive performance at the Munich Security Conference gives us an alluring glimpse of the president he could be one day. Rubio drew a standing ovation from the assembled European heads of state, intelligence chiefs, and military leaders for a speech that was no less forceful or frank than VP JD Vance’s address that jarred the same forum last year, but was delivered with a mellifluous voice and calm humility that disarmed even the most arch Euro-socialist. Rubio was warm and reassuring rather than sneering and contemptuous. But that was no accident. He was playing ‘good cop’ to Vance’s ‘bad cop’, a strategy that paid off with the collective ‘sigh of relief’ that conference chairman Wolfgang Ischinger expressed afterward, as he motioned to the audience to sit and praised Rubio’s ‘message of reassurance’.” (02/15/26)
“Intermittent fasting may not help people who are overweight or obese lose weight, a large review suggests. The researchers say the popular practice of fasting on some days of the week and eating normally on others ‘may make little to no difference to weight loss and quality of life’. But they say intermittent fasting could still improve overall health through helpful changes to some body functions, though more evidence is needed. Examples of intermittent fasting include the 5:2 diet and restricting eating to a short window – often about eight hours – every day. The research team looked at the results of 22 previous studies involving nearly 2,000 adults to find out if short-term intermittent fasting (over a period up to 12 months) was better at helping adults lose weight than standard dietary advice, or no advice at all.” (02/16/26)
“Deep in the coastal mountains above the sparkling Pacific resort of Mazatlan, towns spaced along a twisting road appear nearly deserted, the quiet broken only by the occasional passing truck. It was near one of these towns, Panuco, that 10 employees of a Canadian-owned silver and gold mine were abducted in late January. The bodies of five were located nearby and five more await identification. Most residents of these towns have fled out of fear as two factions of the Sinaloa Cartel have been locked in battle since September 2024, said Fermín Labrador, a 68-year-old from the nearby village of Chirimoyos. Others, he said, were ‘invited’ to leave. The abduction of the mine workers under still unclear circumstances has raised fears locally and more widely generated questions about the security improvements touted by President Claudia Sheinbaum.” (02/16/26)
“I released a story last Thursday about MAGA lobbyists pushing the Justice Department to settle its monopolization case against Ticketmaster. By the middle of that day, Gail Slater, who was the head of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, resigned, and it was clear that her choice was either to resign or be fired. A lot of reporting about this situation dropped almost immediately after the resignation (CBS, The Guardian, The Free Press, the Financial Times) regarding tensions between Slater and Attorney General Pam Bondi, internal insubordination, whether Vice President JD Vance would act as a shield for his former staffer Slater, what this means for the populist right, and more. As you might expect, I’m not wired into the inner workings of the Trump White House enough to generate one of these palace intrigue articles. But I don’t think they have as much value as the basic facts.” (02/16/26)
“As early voting began for the state primaries, North Carolina college students found themselves walking more than a mile to cast their ballots after the Republican-controlled State Board of Elections closed polling places on their campuses. The board, which shifted to a 3-2 GOP majority, voted last month to close a polling site at Western Carolina University and to reject the creation of polling sites at two other colleges: the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNC Greensboro), and the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NC A&T), the largest historically [b]lack college in the nation. Each of these schools had polling places available on campus during the 2024 election. The decision, which came just weeks before early voting was scheduled to begin, left many of the 40,000 students who attend these schools more than a mile away from the nearest polling place.” (02/14/26)
“With Vladimir Putin’s war machine sputtering, it’s time to push the Kremlin even harder to force an end to his war on Ukraine. President Donald Trump’s moves such as seizing ‘shadow fleet’ tankers and piling on new tariffs on importers of Moscow’s oil are plainly hitting hard: You can tell because Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is whining that Washington won’t make Kyiv agree to de facto surrender (e.g., Russian control over Ukraine’s post-war government) as he claims President Donald Trump had agreed to do. Why does Russia need America’s intervention, if it’s winning on the battlefield? ‘The United States has effectively declared a goal of economic domination,’ Lavrov cries — a clear sign that Putin’s feeling squeezed.” (02/14/26)
