“Residents and politicians in Armenia and Azerbaijan responded Saturday with cautious hope — and skepticism in some cases — after their leaders signed a U.S.-brokered agreement at the White House aimed at ending decades of hostilities. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed the agreement on Friday in the presence of U.S. President Donald Trump, who stood between the leaders as they shook hands — a gesture Trump reinforced by clasping their hands together. While the agreement does not constitute a formal peace treaty, it represents a significant diplomatic step toward normalization of relations. The two countries remain technically at war, and the deal does not resolve the longstanding dispute over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. It does, however, reflect the shifting power dynamics following Azerbaijan’s 2023 military victory, which forced the withdrawal of Armenian forces and ethnic Armenians from the region.” (08/09/25)
“President Donald Trump wants a new census. If by this he means a snap-census before the scheduled 2030 survey, he’s demanding that the federal government undertake a gargantuan task with minimal planning and no discernible source of funding. In statistical terms, it’d be like launching D-Day with a month’s lead time. If the White Queen believes six impossible things before breakfast, that the Census Bureau could pull this off would qualify as one of them. The agency couldn’t even competently conduct the last, regularly scheduled census in 2020. Given that conducting the census is a core function of the federal government — indeed, mandated by the Constitution — it is outrageous that the last survey missed so badly. It undercounted Florida and other red states (as well as Illinois) and overcounted New York and a number of blue states (plus, Ohio and Utah).” (08/08/25)
“President Vladimir Putin has presented US President Donald Trump’s special envoy with an award to pass on to a senior CIA official whose son was killed fighting with Russia in Ukraine. Putin gave the Order of Lenin to Steve Witkoff during his trip to Moscow this week to discuss a plan to end the Ukraine war, sources familiar with the matter told the BBC’s US partner CBS. Michael Gloss, 21, who was killed in Ukraine last year, was the son of Juliane Gallina, who is the CIA’s deputy director for digital innovation. Reports of the award emerged as it was confirmed that Trump and Putin will meet in Alaska next Friday to discuss the future of the war in Ukraine. Neither the Kremlin nor Russian foreign ministry has publicly acknowledged posthumously bestowing the Order of Lenin, a Soviet-era award recognising outstanding civilian service, on Gloss.” (08/09/25)
“An executive order signed by President Donald Trump late Thursday aims to give political appointees power over the billions of dollars in grants awarded by federal agencies. Scientists say it threatens to undermine the process that has helped make the U.S. the world leader in research and development. The order requires all federal agencies, including FEMA, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, to appoint officials responsible for reviewing federal funding opportunities and grants, so that they ‘are consistent with agency priorities and the national interest’. It also requires agencies to make it so that current and future federal grants can be terminated at any time — including during the grant period itself. Agencies cannot announce new funding opportunities until the new protocols are in place, according to the order.” (08/08/25)
“For decades, Republicans have promoted the stereotype of the shiftless and unscrupulous poor person — along with its quasi-mythical counterpart, the self-made businessman who bootstrapped his way out of poverty — to justify their reactionary economic project. That project, which is driven by the dual aims of dismantling the ’welfare state’ and slashing taxes for the rich, has never been particularly popular with voters on its own terms. So conservatives have long cloaked it in populist rhetoric and presented it in terms that obscure class lines and turn working people against one another.” (08/07/25)
“I check the Washington Post every day for work purposes (though I do so through a website that bypasses their paywall because screw the left-wing media) because, while the paper is marinated in left-wing bias, they generally get the basic facts correct as far as the ‘who, what, where and when’ of a story. And while they cover the unintentionally absurd more often than is likely healthy, sometimes they have stories that make you wonder what the hell is happening with our own side. One great example of a ‘what the hell is happening here’ story run just the other day that opened with, ‘Orange juice, known for its tangy, sweet taste, could be made with slightly less sugary oranges under a regulation proposed Tuesday by the Trump administration.’ Orange juice is an issue now?” (08/07/25)
“It’s not every day a state manages to burn through billions and still ask for more. But California’s high-speed rail project has always been exceptional in that way. Last month, the federal government finally said enough, scrapping $4 billion in funding after years of missed deadlines, ballooning budgets and political theatrics. You’d think that would halt the train. Instead, the state celebrated by tweeting about construction jobs and posting photos of rebar. Ten years ago, I did the math and showed that for the price of California’s high-speed rail project, we could fly every Californian roundtrip to Tokyo, buy them a bullet train ticket to Kyoto and put them up for two nights at the Ritz-Carlton. And we’d still have money left over for sushi. A decade later, the bullet train still hasn’t arrived. But the fantasy rolls on, powered by taxpayer dollars and bureaucratic inertia.” (08/07/25)
“The Zambian government has dismissed claims of dangerous pollution in the Copperbelt mining region, following safety concerns raised by the US embassy. On Wednesday, the US embassy issued a health alert, ordering the immediate withdrawal of its personnel in Kitwe town and nearby areas due to concerns of ‘widespread contamination of water and soil’ linked to a February spill at the Sino-Metals mine. … Zambia’s government spokesperson Cornelius Mweetwa hit back, saying the ‘laboratory results show that PH levels have returned to normal’ in the area and the water was safe to drink.” (08/07/25)
“Mexico is reportedly on the cusp of signing a new security agreement with the United States. This comes in the wake of a near stop in illegal border crossings and a temporary reprieve on higher trade tariffs. According to President Claudia Sheinbaum, the pact would address intelligence sharing, the outflow of fentanyl from Mexico, and the inflow of smuggled guns from the U.S. The tariff pause and security deal highlight Mexico’s measurable, if incremental, progress in tackling organized crime and violence. These efforts don’t just placate the country’s largest trading partner; they respond to citizen demands. Mexicans want the economic progress fostered by safety and rule of law. Last month, Mexico announced a new strategy to combat extortion, which cost the economy an estimated $1.3 billion a year in 2023. The plan includes a reporting hotline and better investigations of suspicious cash flows.” (08/06/25)
“Harvard University professor Alberto Ascherio’s research is literally frozen. Collected from millions of U.S. soldiers over two decades using millions of dollars from taxpayers, the epidemiology and nutrition scientist has blood samples stored in liquid nitrogen freezers within the university’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The samples are key to his award-winning research, which seeks a cure to multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases. But for months, Ascherio has been unable to work with the samples because he lost $7 million in federal research funding, a casualty of Harvard’s fight with the Trump administration. ‘It’s like we have been creating a state-of-the-art telescope to explore the universe, and now we don’t have money to launch it,’ said Ascherio. ‘We built everything and now we are ready to use it to make a new discovery that could impact millions of people in the world and then ‘Poof. You’re being cut off!”” (08/07/25)
