Source: Town Hall
by Steve Forbes
“The Biden-era climate-activist class may be the last to accept that there’s no clean energy future without nuclear power. At least some politicians — even in the bluest corridors — are conceding. Reliably progressive New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has instructed the state’s public power authority to build no less than one gigawatt of advanced nuclear power. Her announcement came just weeks after President Donald Trump issued a series of executive orders to bring back America’s nuclear-energy dominance. Site assessments, private-sector partnerships and labor support are already in motion. Hochul and Trump come from opposite political universes, but both understand that nuclear delivers what wind and solar never will. It’s the only zero-emission energy source that can power today’s energy requirements reliably at scale. Modern life depends on uninterrupted electricity — AI computing, chip manufacturing, electric vehicles and data centers can’t run on ‘weather permitting’ power.” (07/20/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/07/20/opinion/democrats-bow-to-nuclear-reality-leaving-the-left-behind/
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“A 61-year-old man has died after he was sucked into a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine at a medical centre while he was wearing a heavy metal necklace. The man entered a room at Nassau Open MRI in Westbury, on New York’s Long Island, without permission as the MRI machine was running, Nassau County Police Department said. His wife told local media she had called him into the MRI room after her scan and his chain necklace caused him to be hurled towards the machine when he walked in. Officials say the incident ‘resulted in a medical episode’ and the man was later pronounced dead. MRI machines use a strong magnetic field to produce detailed images. Patients are typically asked to remove metal items and change out of their clothes before undergoing MRI scans or going near the machine.” [editor’s note: So Darwin’s waiting room lost another one – SAT] (07/21/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2n39dvp0po
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Lauren Kim
“Anyone who has been on a subway during rush hour knows the challenges that it can bring. In spite of that, I have always viewed it as the best way for commuters in major cities. Although not all cities have the qualities that make DC’s so great, subways are generally cheap, fast, and relatively efficient. But when I was in Bern, Switzerland’s capital, I witnessed a commute unlike any I had seen before. Next to the Parliament Building, I came to a set of stairs that led down to the Aare River. There, I saw commuters floating downstream in their swimsuits, carrying waterproof bags that held their work clothes. They let the current carry them to their destinations.” (07/20/25)
https://fee.org/articles/flowing-downstream/
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Iran, France, Germany and the United Kingdom will hold nuclear talks in Istanbul following warnings by the three European countries that failure to resume negotiations would lead to international sanctions being reimposed on Tehran. The talks scheduled for Friday come after foreign ministers of the E3 nations, as those European countries are known, as well as the European Union’s foreign policy chief, held their first call on Thursday with Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi since Israel and the United States attacked Iranian nuclear facilities a month ago.” (07/20/25)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/20/iran-to-hold-nuclear-talks-with-3-european-powers-on-friday
Source: The Bulwark
“The Epstein Testimony Trump Fears Most.” (07/20/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgTLAI5ZWE4
Source: Washington Monthly
by Jonathan Alter
“I wanted to know more about [Michael] Wolff’s many interviews with Jeffrey Epstein, who we just learned from The Wall Street Journal got a special birthday gift in 2003 from Donald Trump. (The story prompted another of Trump’s ridiculous lawsuits, this one against Rupert Murdoch). So far, Wolff has released only snippets of his tapes, which establish for certain that Trump and Epstein were close for ten years. We agreed that Epstein’s death is now becoming like the Kennedy assassination, with a cottage industry of conspiracy theories. What follows is a transcript of the hour-long interview, edited for length and clarity.” (07/20/25)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2025/07/20/the-wolff-epstein-tapes/
Source: SFGate
“A Bangladesh Air Force training aircraft crashed into a school campus in the capital, Dhaka, shortly after takeoff on Monday, killing at least 19 people including the pilot and injuring more than 100, officials said. According to the military and a fire official, the Chinese-made F-7 BGI aircraft crashed into the campus of Milestone School and College, in the Uttara neighborhood, in the afternoon as students were attending classes. The Fire Service and Civil Defense said that at least 19 people, mostly students, died and another 116 were rescued with injuries. A significant number sustained burn injuries. The government announced a national day of mourning on Tuesday, with flags to fly at half-staff across the country. The military said the jet took off from Bangladesh Air Force Base A.K. Khandaker in Dhaka’s Kurmitola neighborhood at 1:06 p.m. local time and crashed soon after, catching fire immediately.” (07/21/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/bangladesh-air-force-training-jet-crashes-into-20778022.php
Source: EconLog
by Jon Murphy
“Tariffs, like any tax, will generate deadweight loss in the economy. The deadweight loss is broken down into two categories: the consumption effect of the tariff and the protective effect of the tariff. The consumption effect of the tariff is the lost gains from trade that were occurring before the tariff but are now not because the tariff raised the price of the good. Under the tariff, people pay more and buy fewer units (or pay more for the same amount). We here at EconLog spend a lot of time focusing on the consumption effect of tariffs. Indeed, a lot of reporting (and claims) have been about the consumption effect: in other words, they focus on the prices consumers pay. Here, however, I want to highlight the protective effect.” (07/20/25)
https://www.econlib.org/the-protective-effect-of-a-tariff
Source: In These Times
by Kim Kelly
“A seemingly unlikely coalition of oil and gas workers and environmentalists have joined forces to ask the federal government for help. On June 4, the driver advocacy group Truckers Movement for Justice and Ohio Valley Allies, Earthjustice, Oilfield Witness and several other environmental groups sent a letter to Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and top officials at the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. They made a simple request: that regulations around the transportation of hazardous materials be enforced. It’s not the kind of thing one should need to ask, really, but these particular regulations concern oil and gas waste. The industry generates both an enormous amount of toxic byproducts and the kind of money (and therefore, power) that both boggles the mind and rules nations.” (07/21/25)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/oil-and-gas-exploitation-truckers-trasportation-hazardous-materials
Source: US News & World Report
“U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Sunday to interfere with a deal to build a new football stadium in Washington, D.C., unless the local NFL team, now known as the Commanders, changes its name back to Redskins. The American football team dropped the name Redskins in 2020 after decades of criticism that it was a racial slur with links to the U.S. genocide of the Indigenous population. Trump had called for a return to the name Redskins — and for the Cleveland Guardians baseball team to once again adopt the name Indians — on other occasions, but on Sunday he added that he may take official action. … Representatives of the Commanders did not immediately respond to a request for comment.” (07/20/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2025-07-20/trump-threatens-washington-stadium-deal-unless-nfl-team-readopts-redskins-name
