‘US president Donald Trump’s endless attacks on his predecessor Barack Obama may soon come back to bite him, as a proposal to rename part of the street in Chicago where Trump International Hotel and Tower can be found to “Barack Hussein Obama Way” was introduced at the city council last week.

Not only that, but a Change.org petition calling for a similar change currently stands at more than 33,000 signatures at the time of writing.

The building is located on North Wabash Avenue, and according to NBC 5 Chicago, the proposal introduced by 42nd ward alderman Brendan Reilly – if approved – would see the east side of the avenue between East Kinzie Street and East Wacker Drive renamed to honour the 44th president….’ (Liam O’Dell via indy100)

‘In a new study, researchers successfully developed the first non-toxic animal model of Parkinson’s disease using a naturally occurring mouse pathogen called Theiler’s murine encephalomyelitis virus (TMEV).

The pilot study proves that a simple, transient viral infection can trigger the exact long-term brain damage, dopamine depletion, and physical walking disabilities observed in human Parkinson’s patients. The breakthrough provides structural proof for the long-held scientific theory that everyday viruses can serve as the hidden environmental fuse for late-life neurodegenerative diseases….’ (Neuroscience News via Neuroscience News)

‘I have long had a hypothesis about one potential reason why Donald does not want the Epstein files released.

Yes, allegedly there is evidence in those files of his abuse of women and girls. However, I suspect that Trump would not suffer any consequences from the revelations of his actions with females. In fact, I suspect such a revelation would be defended and even admired by the MAGA cultists.

However, I’ve long had a hypothesis that the thing he does not want revealed is something that even the MAGAist of MAGAs would not forgive.

Suppose, hypothetically, the Epstein files include proof, even photos or videos, of Trump with other Men or even Boys? Suppose it’s not just recieving, but giving. What if the references to Don “Blowing Bubba” was not just a random insulting talk by Epstein?…’ (#jtg via Daily Kos)

‘President Donald Trump’s failing Great American State Fair has suffered another public embarrassment.

The 16-day event on the National Mall was designed to kick off America’s 250th anniversary celebrations. However, Trump’s celebration continues to be plagued by bad luck, bad weather and bad attendance numbers.

Power cuts on day one of the State Fair saw ice cream in the food hall melt, while the Ferris wheel was also briefly out of action due to generator problems.

The drab weather has also made for a dreary spectacle. 

On Friday, Vanilla Ice, the last artist standing among the string of musicians who axed playing concerts at the State Fair, had his show canceled due to “inclement weather.”

The elements also saw the State Fair temporarily closed on Sunday afternoon at around 2.00 p.m. However, a digital billboard alerting attendees featured an embarrassing typo in the name of the taxpayer-funded organization staging the event, adding bad spelling to their problems.

Stating that the fair had been postponed due to “severe weather” in reference to the extreme heat and rain in Washington, the billboard then told people to head to “Freeedom 250″ social media for more updates….’ (Cameron Adams via Yahoo News)

‘A massive structure detected in the distant Universe is defying our understanding of how the Universe evolved.

In 2024, astronomers found a giant, almost perfect ring of galaxies, some 1.3 billion light-years in diameter.

Yes, you read that right. BILLION light-years.

It doesn’t match any known structure or formation mechanism.

The discovery, led by astronomer Alexia Lopez of the University of Central Lancashire, was presented at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in 2024, and was published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.

The signal was picked up in light that has traveled for 6.9 billion years to reach us.

The existence of ‘The Big Ring’, as the structure has been named, could mean that we need to amend the standard model of cosmology….’ (Michelle Starr via ScienceAlert)

‘Once Russian soldiers reach certain parts of the front lines of the war in Ukraine, they can expect to live an average of just 20 to 35 minutes, according to a grim estimate by Russian military bloggers, cited by Oxford historian Peter Frankopan in a Foreign Policy report. CBS News has not independently verified the claim. But similar accounts are becoming increasingly common on Russian military channels, suggesting that more Russians are becoming aware of the war and its toll on their side — a toll Kremlin officials have long sought to shield from view….’ (Aidan Stretch via CBS News)

‘Public service announcement for anyone planning to visit Washington in the immediate term: Steer clear of President Trump’s hot mess of a reflecting pool. Don’t dip a digit in its emerald water. Don’t play with its “American flag blue” strips of peeling paint. Don’t get too close to the federal workers struggling to repair this refurbishment from hell. In fact, maybe skip the landmark altogether, lest you, too, get cuffed and hauled off by the park police for allegedly desecrating the president’s most half-baked vanity project to date….’ (Michelle Cottle via The New York Times)

‘I’m choosing to travel with what’s known as a burner phone because my personal device contains sensitive data that I don’t want others, particularly U.S. border protection officers, to search….’ (Brian X. Chen via The New York Times)

‘Much like human languages, the vocalizations of sperm whales evolve over time, as disparate populations of whales develop distinct dialects. A new study shows how an isolated population of sperm whales in the eastern Mediterranean developed its own dialect based on vocalizations used by other whales….’ (via Yale E360)

‘“A Sudden Flicker of Light” is subtitled “A Revisionist History of Movies,” and in it he describes himself as “someone who feels more than regret that over the decades he has given time to wondering which film was the greatest ever made, to distinguishing the auteurs and artists … and to treating the enterprise of darkness and light as if it honored society and history.”

From the vantage point of a dystopian present in which “attention has become infernal, hopeless, yet unstoppable,” he chronicles how, under the spell of movies, “we let the lifelike distract us from life.” This isn’t an abstract, philosophical predicament; it’s a political crisis….’ (A.O. Scott via The New York Times)

‘In 1971, Ron Morehead and Al Berry set up camp in the Sierra Nevada mountains to record evidence of Bigfoot. Morehead was a believer. Berry was a skeptic looking to debunk a hoax. On the tape, the two can be heard whispering to each other before distant howls begin. They call back. More sounds follow — grunts, knocking, and a rapid-fire vocalization that Bigfoot enthusiasts have dubbed “samurai chatter” because it sounds like dialogue from old Japanese samurai films. The Sierra Sounds have been circulating among cryptozoology communities ever since.

Retired U.S. Navy cryptographic linguist Scott Nelson analyzed the recordings and concluded: “It is definitely a language, it is definitely not human in origin, and it could not have been faked.” No formal scientific study has ever been conducted on the tapes….’ (Ellsworth Toohey via Boing Boing)

‘The asteroid will be visible for several nights from different parts of the world. We’ll tell you when and where to look, and what equipment you’ll need to spot it….’ (Jorge Garay via WIRED)

‘From star‑forming pillars to colliding galaxies, Hubble’s most iconic images reveal how the universe is built, evolves and continues to surprise…’ (Lily Watts via BBC Science Focus Magazine)

‘The Orange Menace’s newly renovated Reflecting Pool turned green, peeled apart, and became a national monument to contractor-grade grift, so naturally, Trump has identified the real villain: an alleged Hillary-Biden-ActBlue pool saboteur.

This is the thing Donholio does when reality is too small for him. The Reflecting Pool did not merely have a botched renovation. It could not simply be a blue-painted algae slurry brought to you by haste, vanity, and some extremely lucky “no-bid” contractors. No, it needed lore. It needed a motive. It needed a Democratic NPC with a backstory, a donation history, and presumably dramatic underwater knife skills that undermine patriotism itself.

The simplest explanation is usually correct, unless you are Trump, in which case the simplest explanation is that Joe Biden personally radicalized a canoeist….’ (Jason Weisberger via Boing Boing)

‘Were you thrumming with anticipation for last night’s big Freedom 250 rally, checking your local TV listings to make sure you wouldn’t miss a moment of FBI Director Kash Patel’s pretend country star girlfriend bellowing out the national anthem?

Of course not, because no one watched this thing. Hell, no one even attended this thing. Even The Washington Post, which keeps kissing President Donald Trump’s ass, couldn’t spin this.

“The crowd thinly covered an area about the length of the National Museum of American History, smaller than some summer outdoor movie screenings,” it reported….’ (Lisa Needham via Daily Kos)

‘Adesultory, grievance-filled speech on what should have been a joyous occasion. The last-minute cancellation of a rare bipartisan bill signing in favor of yet another push for doomed, unpopular legislation. A loud confrontation with members of his own party followed by sneering remarks about some of the nation’s oldest allies. And a nonsensical accusation that, if we have it right, blames the algae-filled Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool not on his rushed renovations but on knife-wielding vandals … and maybe Barack Obama.

And that was just yesterday….’ (Jonathan Lemire via The Atlantic)

‘“We’re done being treated like shit.”…’ (Will Sommer via The Bulwark)

‘There is a quietly shocking idea emerging from modern neuroscience: the end of consciousness might not be a slow fade to black, but a sharply timed neurological event. Not just a vague moment when “the lights go out,” but a measurable shift in brain activity that marks the final instant when subjective experience is still happening. It sounds almost sci‑fi, yet it is grounded in real operating rooms, EEG traces, and patients hovering at the edge of anesthesia or even death.

What makes this even more gripping is what appears to happen right before that cutoff: brief surges of highly organized brain activity, strange patterns that look less like shutdown and more like an intense last burst. Are these patterns connected to the final fragments of awareness, or are they just the nervous system’s last mechanical twitches? Scientists are not all in agreement, but the clues they are uncovering are starting to narrow down both the timing and the texture of our final conscious moments….’ (Sameen David via discoverwildscience)

‘People Are Convinced These 30 Catastrophic Events Could Reshape Society Over The Next 10 Years, And Their Reasoning Is Terrifyingly Valid. “Society is absolutely not psychologically or legally prepared for that level of epistemic chaos.”…’ (Lily Grossinger via BuzzFeed)

‘The former director of national intelligence — and MAGA member — allegedly took orders on politics from her guru…’ (Heather Digby Parton via Salon.com)

‘“Instead of letting this administration’s bizarre boondoggle keep killing innocent ducks, I hope the Fish and Wildlife Service steps in to do its job,” said one critic….’ (brad-reed via Common Dreams)

‘Life-forms made of stuff we couldn’t imagine may still be as conscious as we are….’ (Elizabeth Rayne via Popular Mechanics)

‘As President Donald Trump prepares to launch his big America 250 celebration, the Supreme Court is about to unfurl its own annual fireworks barrage: the fusillade of decisions the justices fire off in late June before they head out of town for the summer.

Trump’s relationship with the high court has been strained in recent months, particularly in the wake of the court’s 6-3 ruling knocking out the central pillar of Trump’s signature tariff policy.

Now, Trump is staring down a high likelihood of defeat on another issue key to his political agenda: his attempt to end the nation’s century-long tradition of granting citizenship to almost everyone born on U.S. soil. Trump, who underscored his interest in the birthright issue by taking the unprecedented step of showing up in-person for the high court’s arguments on it in April, seems resigned to losing. He said on Truth Social last month that the justices would “probably” rule against his policy because the court system is “rigged.”

It seems wise to expect a presidential outburst against the justices if that case goes as he expects.

The justices are also expected to hand down a ruling on another issue near and dear to Trump: whether mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day can be counted. Trump has, without proof, repeatedly tied the practice to fraud, most recently in California’s primary contests. It’s not clear where the justices will come out on this case, which Trump initiated and could result in late-arriving ballots being thrown out in about 30 states that currently count them….’ (Josh Gerstein via POLITICO)

‘Summer is prime for dog-friendly outdoor adventures, from hiking scenic trails to spending evenings along the river. But warmer weather also brings with it a less adorable companion: mosquitoes. Just like humans need bug spray before heading out into skeeter country, our furry friends can also benefit from using insect repellent.

Itchy bites aside, these pesky insects also pose a threat to dogs by transmitting heartworm disease—a potentially serious, even deadly, condition….

“Never apply human insect repellent products like DEET on your dogs; these products can be toxic if ingested, and it’s no secret that most dogs like to lick their fur and paws,” Montgomery said…’ (Madison Dapcevich via Outside)

‘Long before smartphones or even the printing press, our cognitive architecture was shaped by a single problem: stay alive long enough to reproduce. Our ancestors whose attention drifted past the rustle in the grass left fewer descendants than those who froze, looked and listened.

The brain that paid attention to threats was the brain that survived.

This is the foundation of what psychologists call the negativity bias, one of the most replicated findings in cognitive science. Across decades of research, the human mind has been shown to weigh negative information more heavily than positive, attend to it faster and remember it longer.

A predator nearby mattered more than a beautiful sunset. The cost of missing a real threat was death, while the cost of overreacting was a few minutes of wasted vigilance. The asymmetry made this bias adaptive.

Here is the problem: the human brain has not changed since then. We are the same species as we were thousands of years ago. What’s changed is the size of the world it’s asked to scan for threats….’ (Ali Jasemi via The Conversation)

‘The Senate adopted a resolution on Tuesday directing the president to remove military forces from the conflict with Iran, a significant rebuke to Donald Trump and a strong message that the war lacks support in Congress….’ (Morgan Rimmer via CNN)

‘In an extremely odd case, a single 79-year-old patient was granted early access to Eli Lilly’s powerful, still-experimental obesity drug retatrutide through the Food and Drug Administration’s “compassionate use” program—raising immediate questions if that sole patient is President Donald Trump, according to a report by Stat News.

Lilly’s retatrutide is a highly anticipated next-generation obesity drug that targets GIP and glucagon hormones in addition to GLP-1. It is currently in late-stage trials to treat obesity, diabetes, sleep apnea, and other conditions. Data from a Phase 3 trial that Lilly released in May indicates that patients with obesity (but without diabetes) who took the drug for 80 weeks lost 28 percent of their weight, an amount comparable to bariatric surgery….’ (Beth Mole via Ars Technica)

‘Andreas Schellenberg and Suryansh Agnivanshi of Everything Explainer compiled a rather chilling list of effective propaganda tricks used to keep people in line and quell resistance. Included in this sadly familiar list are fear, dehumanization, scapegoating, whataboutism, name-calling, emotional appeal, and glittering generalities….’ (Lori Dorn via Laughing Squid)

‘What kind of justice will Donald Trump face for vandalizing the White House by demolishing an entire wing for a ballroom and using the front lawn for white trash backyard brawls?” as another wrote, “And yet not a single pedophile from the Epstein files has been charged. Priorities are monuments not people.”…’ (Ayeesha Walsh via The Mirror US)

‘Litha is a pagan holiday; one of their eight sabbats during the year. Litha (also known as Midsummer) occurs on the summer solstice, and celebrates the beginning of summer. The traditions of Litha appear to be borrowed from many cultures. Most ancient cultures celebrated the summer solstice in some way. The Celts celebrated Litha with hilltop bonfires and dancing. Many people attempted to jump over or through the bonfires for good luck.

Other European traditions included setting large wheels on fire, and rolling them down a hill into a body of water. The summer solstice is the longest day of the year, and in some traditions, Litha is when a battle between light and dark takes place. In this battle, the Oak King and the Holly King battle for control. During each solstice, they battle for power, and the balance shifts. The Oak King, who represents daylight, rules from the winter solstice (Yule) to Litha. During this time, the days steadily get longer. However, during Litha, the Holly King wins this battle, and the days get steadily darker until Yule.

For modern day pagans, Litha is a day of inner power and brightness. Some people find a quiet spot and meditate about the light and dark forces in their world. Some other observers, particularly those with children, celebrate this holiday outside. Lastly, some observers choose to observe Litha more traditionally, and they would hold a fire ritual. This might include a large bonfire, or a small fire in a fire-safe pot in one’s house. Litha is also considered a good time to practice love magic or get married. The pagan version of this ceremony is called handfasting, and it includes many of the same practices one might find at a wedding….’ (Dhruti Bhagat via bpl.org)

‘What is the Summer Solstice?

The Summer Solstice takes place between June 20-23 in the Northern Hemisphere. It is the longest day of the year, occurring when the sun reaches the highest point in the sky. This day marks the beginning of summer with the sun at its fullest power. After the solstice, the days will begin to grow shorter.

What is Litha?

Litha, also known as Midsummer, is the pagan holiday honoring the sun and fire. Pagan celebrations during this holiday have themes of strength, growth, success and wealth. Litha also celebrates the abundance of nature and honors sacred bodies of water. The symbols of Litha are the sun, roses, sunflowers, honeybees, lightning bugs, sand and water. The colors of this holiday include yellow, green, gold and red.

Ways to Celebrate

Greet the Dawn

Many traditions greet the rising sun the morning of the summer solstice. Set your alarm to wake up with the sunrise. If possible, spend a few moments outside to soak up the sun. Take in the energy of Litha while reading or repeating these affirmations:

“I am as strong and energetic as the summer sun. I believe in myself and what I am capable of doing.”

“I deserve to feel happiness, contentment and joy in what I have and what I have done.”

“I am filled with light, moving in the direction I need to move, and following the path I am meant to walk.”

Bonfire Gathering

Traditional celebrations included large bonfires, usually on the sundown of Midsummer’s Eve. Bonfires are a great activity to gather friends or family. You can tell stories, roast marshmallows, or dance around the fire. Write down an obstacle or problem on a piece of paper and surrender your problem to the flames.

If you don’t have a safe place to make a bonfire, you can substitute with candles, sparklers, battery-powered candles, or even an image of a fire. Remember to practice fire safety—never leave a fire or candle unattended, keep water nearby, and make sure to keep a safe distance from the flames.

Day at the Beach

Some pagan traditions included traveling to sacred wells or other bodies of water on the day of the solstice. This was a time for healing and to honor the gift of water.

We are lucky in Michigan to be surrounded by lakes. Honor the gift of water by taking a day trip to a beach with friends or family. Pack a lunch with fresh fruits and vegetables. Play beach games including ring toss, volleyball or frisbee. Cool off by jumping and swimming in the water. Take time to relax by soaking up the sun or reading a book.

If you can’t make it to the beach, bring the beach to your home. Soak up the sun outside and cool off in a sprinkler or with a water balloon fight. Listen to summer-themed music while playing traditional beach games. No matter what you choose to do, take this time to have fun with family or friends.

Faerie Magic

Litha is the perfect time for faerie magic, as the veil between our world and the faerie world is thin. Faeries or the Fae Folk are mythical beings that exist in a variety of different cultures. There are many different types of faeries including brownies, pixies, leprechauns, elves, devas and gnomes. Faeries are typically tricksters, so be careful what you ask for.

Firefly Wish: Fireflies are a symbol of faeries and fire. Gently catch a firefly on your finger. Make a wish and gently blow the firefly away into the night.

Faerie Picnic: Faeries are said to be drawn to sweet things, including food. Pack a picnic with faerie-themed treats including honey, milk, cake, cookies or bread. Find a quiet spot in nature to enjoy your faerie treats.

Daisy Fortune: Use a daisy to determine if your crush loves you or not. Pick a flower, preferably a daisy, and hold it in one hand. Pull off one petal at a time, saying “they love me” or “they love me not,” with each petal. The last petal pulled off will determine if your crush loves you….’ (CPL Teens via cantonpl.org)

In an 1855 oil painting from Gunby Hall, Lincolnshire, Scottish painter William Bell Scott depicts pixies dancing by firelight. In a letter that Scott wrote in 1886, he described the painting as showing ‘fairies dancing before a great dying kitchen fire…at a Haunted House on Midsummer’s Eve.’

Origins of the summer solstice

In Northern and Central European Neolithic cultures, the summer solstice may have been related to timings of crop cycles. It was typically marked by Celtic, Slavic and Germanic people by lighting bonfires, intended to boost the sun’s strength for the remainder of the crop season and ensure a healthy harvest.

The solstice sits within a wider celestial framework, complemented by seasonal equinoxes marking spring and autumn as well as daily, monthly and annual cycles.

Stone circles

Many Neolithic stone circles appear to have been built around the movement of the sun at solstices. Because there are no written accounts from the time, it’s difficult to be definitive about their exact purpose. However, stones appear to be carefully positioned to align with the sun’s movements, framing solar motion on summer and winter solstices. Stones that were placed at the axis of a particular solstice were even shaped with hammerstones to frame the sunrise for those standing in the centre of the circle.

Summer solstice and Midsummer’s Day

Though it might seem that the middle of summer would naturally fall on the longest day of the year, the summer solstice and Midsummer’s Day are distinct events, normally a few days apart between 20 and 24 June. The difference is thought to stem from variations in the Julian and Gregorian calendars.

Midsummer traditions

The longest day has been marked in different ways over the years and has its own set of customs. Some are based on practical needs. Others originate from spiritual and superstitious beliefs.

Bonfires

Lighting and jumping over bonfires on Midsummer’s Eve dates back to pre-Christian pagan customs. It was thought to keep demons away and bring good luck to lovers.

Viking customs

The solstice was particularly important in Nordic communities, where seasonal changes in sunlight are dramatic. The Vikings used the long days to maximise their productivity by hunting, settling disputes and conducting raids.

Christian festivals

After the Christian Church was established, solstice celebrations were combined with St John’s Day, commemorating St John the Baptist. In the 19th century, Christians used St John’s Day to act out the baptisms of children who had died as ‘pagans’.

Pixies dancing in a Ring by the Firelight painting by William Bell Scott at Gunby Hall, Lincolnshire | © National Trust Images

Depictions of midsummer magic

Mysticism and magic are a common theme in midsummer folklore across the world as well as in the UK. Magic was thought to be strongest during the summer solstice and myths told of the world turning upside down or the sun standing still at midsummer…’ (via National Trust)

‘Comprehensive new research has emerged with much more archaeological data on violence in prehistory. Analysis indicates that prehistoric hunter gatherers were considerably less violent than is commonly believed. This finding also seems to be borne out by ethnographic data on modern hunter gatherers with lifestyles relatively similar to their prehistoric ancestors.

Hunter gatherers were not non-violent noble savages by any stretch of the imagination. They were relatively violent when compared with modern standards and even when compared with rates of violence experienced by other primates and mammals in general. However, we think this is primarily because human conflict is so lethal, not because it happens so often. On the contrary, hunter gatherers typically exhibit non-violent norms, with amoral and atypical sociopaths accounting for a disproportionate share of violence, just as in our own societies today.

Understanding this matters. Our extraordinary capacity to inflict lethal violence on each other is normally held in restraint by the natural aversion most people have to violence. If we fail to cooperate, we are vulnerable to falling into vicious cycles of violence that don’t benefit anyone. But we should be more optimistic about our capacity for peacemaking; our ‘better angels’ as Pinker puts it. Despite living in states of political anarchy, hunter gatherers were normally able to cooperate and exist peacefully together.

For the first 290,000 years of our species’ approximately 300,000 year history, everyone was a hunter gatherer.  In The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker argued that hunter gatherers suffered from extremely high rates of violence. Better Angels claims that at least 14 percent of prehistoric hunter gatherers died violently. This equates to a violent death rate of at least 420 per 100,000 people per year, using data on typical hunter gatherer mortality rates.

This is a much higher rate of violence than almost anywhere in the modern world in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. To put it in perspective, global deaths from all types of violence between 2004–21 were around 8 per 100,000 people per year. Even the most violent cities in the world today, in Northern Brazil, South Africa, and on the Mexican side of the US-Mexico border, have murder rates of only around 100 per 100,000 per year.

The implication in Better Angels is that the human mind evolved and developed in a world plagued by constant, endemic violence.

Our 2022 study examined both the ethnographic data – contemporary studies of groups that existed until some modern contact – and archeological data on hunter gatherer violence, much of which comes from data gathered after the publication of Better Angels. We reviewed quantitative estimates of rates of violence in ethnographies, filtering for groups that are most representative of our pre-agricultural ancestors. Our archeological estimates are based on reanalyzing a dataset developed by Gomez et al. (which was released after Better Angels was published and has dozens of extra samples), which attempts to measure rates of violent death by looking for evidence of trauma to skeletal remains. Our study produced estimates for lethal violence around four times lower than Pinker’s figures.

Prehistoric hunter gatherers seem to have been somewhat more violent than the twentieth-century average, but not dramatically so. And this is despite these societies lacking any of the modern state’s apparatus for managing violence: no code of law, no judges, no police, and no sophisticated healthcare….’ (John Halstead via worksinprogress.co)

‘Ornithologists Tracked 89 Cases and Found This Pattern…’ (Gargi Chakravorty via Animals Around The Globe)

‘David Hearn told The Washington Post in an interview Saturday that he stopped at the Lincoln Memorial to see the reflecting pool after finishing a loop at Hains Point during a 52-mile bike ride.

Hearn explained he reached in to feel a piece of the liner that was detached from the bottom of the pool and was arrested just moments later by park police. He was charged with destruction of government property and is scheduled to appear in court July 9, according to the report.

“I didn’t vandalize anything,” the 67-year-old told the newspaper. “I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.”

A peeling section of blue coating is seen in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on June 20 in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

The arrest marks a visible escalation in security presence following President Donald Trump’s claims that the newly renovated pool has been targeted by vandalism….’ (Sam Stevenson via Yahoo News)

‘A little girl wanders out of the New Mexico desert, mute with shock, her face frozen in absolute terror. That’s the opening of one of the most iconic sci-fi films of the 1950s, Them!, in which a team of local police, officials, and scientists discovers that a rampaging colony of ants, mutated to the size of elephants by atomic testing, is on the march to Los Angeles. Scream Factory has just released a new 4K UHD Blu-ray of the film, making this a great opportunity to explore why Them! remains an enduring genre classic.…’ (Don Kaye via Inverse)

‘You like to think of yourself as the author of your actions. You decide, you act, and the story feels seamless and continuous, as if your experience and your brain’s activity are one and the same thing, happening in perfect sync. But modern consciousness research quietly challenges that comforting picture. A growing body of experiments suggests your brain may be getting a tiny head start on you, committing to actions milliseconds or even seconds before you feel that you made a choice.

This does not mean you are a robot or that free will is an illusion in any simple sense. Instead, you are looking at a far stranger possibility: your conscious feeling of deciding might be the last step in a chain, not the first. The gap is thin, but measurable, and it forces you to rethink what it really means when you say, “I chose that.” Once you see how this plays out in your everyday life, you may never look at a simple decision the same way again….’ (Sameen David via discoverwildscience)

As an avid consumer of outdoor activity coverage I hae been struck by what seems a drastic explosion of bear attack reports. Are they surging or is there a shift in reporting attention?

Research shows that the evidence does not yet support a drastic continent-wide increase in North American bear attacks in 2026. The apparent surge more likely reflects a genuine early-season cluster, longer-term regional increases in human–bear encounters, and substantial amplification by the news ecosystem.

Several notable incidents occurred in rapid succession this spring. Two hikers were injured near Mystic Falls in Yellowstone in early May—the park’s first bear-related injuries of 2026. A hiker’s death in Glacier National Park was provisionally attributed to a bear encounter, potentially the park’s first fatal attack since 1998; another Glacier hiker sustained severe arm injuries in a grizzly attack on May 28. On June 16, a black bear with cubs caused minor injuries to a teenager on Mount Si in Washington, a state that has recorded only about 20 nonfatal bear injuries since 1970.

This is an unusually concentrated sequence, particularly because several incidents occurred in prominent national parks. Bear attacks remain rare, however, so a few additional cases can produce a dramatic percentage increase without establishing a meaningful trend. Interpretation is further limited by the absence of a comprehensive, continuously updated North American registry analogous to the International Shark Attack File. Definitions also vary: some datasets include defensive contacts, attacks directed primarily at dogs, home entries, stalking behavior, or injuries sustained while fleeing; others count only direct physical attacks.

Media dynamics magnify the impression. A single incident may generate an initial report, a trail-closure story, a survivor interview, an investigative update, and numerous syndicated rewrites. Recommendation algorithms then infer an interest in bear stories and present more of them. Outdoor publications have an additional incentive: bear encounters combine dramatic narrative, practical safety information, and high reader engagement. The cluster therefore behaves like a bright constellation—the individual stars are real, but attention supplies much of the perceived pattern.

There are nevertheless genuine background forces increasing encounters, although encounters are not equivalent to attacks. Black and grizzly bear populations have recovered or expanded in some regions, while residential development and outdoor recreation increasingly overlap bear habitat. Some jurisdictions are reporting more sightings, home entries, and nuisance calls. Food conditioning from garbage, bird feeders, livestock feed, grills, and pet food can produce increasingly bold behavior. Natural-food failures, drought, heat, and altered seasonal patterns may also generate unusually bad local years, although these effects vary substantially by region and species.

Reports from Japan create an additional distortion because the increase there appears to be real rather than merely journalistic. Japan has experienced record or near-record numbers of attacks, expanding bear populations, rural depopulation, and more bears entering settled areas. These stories circulate heavily in English-language outdoor media and may contribute to a generalized impression of a worldwide surge.

The most defensible conclusion is that 2026 has produced a conspicuous early cluster in North America, but not yet evidence of a drastic generalized increase. A modest long-term rise in exposure and conflict may be occurring in particular regions, superimposed on considerable year-to-year statistical noise. The perceived surge is probably being driven at least as much by repeated, syndicated, and algorithmically concentrated reporting as by a major change in personal risk. A reliable comparison will require complete summer and autumn data, preferably compiled from state and provincial wildlife agencies rather than headline counts.

‘In Silicon Valley, many believe that AI systems can already think and feel. Geoffrey Hinton, the pioneering computer scientist and “godfather” of modern artificial intelligence, thinks that today’s large language models (LLMs) are conscious. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is “open to the idea” that Claude has a subjective experience — while his company’s in-house philosopher Amanda Askell is concerned that the model might be “getting anxious when people are mean to it on the internet and stuff.” OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever similarly wonders whether ChatGPT has attained sentience.

Their case rests on a theory called “computational functionalism” — or the idea that sentience emerges from information processing.

But skeptics insist that there is more to consciousness than computation.

Still, a much larger group of technologists, neuroscientists, and philosophers argue that even if AI isn’t yet conscious, it could be in the not-too-distant future….’ (Eric Levitz via Vox)

‘The health divide emerged over the last decade and has widened since 2020, according to research that links ideology to outcomes from heart disease, cancer, stroke, and other internal causes.…’ (Eve Upton-Clark via Fast Company)

‘The relationship between President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans neared a breaking point this week as he upended their efforts to speedily confirm one of his own nominees and said he would not sign the renewal of a key surveillance law unless they agree to new terms.

Trump’s overnight social media post Wednesday that he was delaying Jay Clayton’s nomination to become national intelligence director, just hours before the U.S. attorney’s confirmation hearing, further strained relations between the Senate and White House that have been worsening for weeks. Later that day, some Republican senators who have been hesitant to challenge the president directly on the Iran war were blunt in their criticism of his deal to end it….’ (Mary Clare Jalonick via AP News)

‘Clearly irked at President Donald Trump’s suggestion that she had had “begged” him for a photo at the Group of Seven summit earlier this week, the Italian prime minister said this was “totally fabricated.”

The dispute erupted after Trump told Italian broadcaster La7 that Meloni had pleaded with him for a photo at the meeting of leading industrialized nations in the French resort of Evian-les-Bains earlier this week.

“She begged me to take a photo with her. She wanted a photo with me so badly — I could have skipped it, but I felt sorry for her,” Trump said in the brief interview, which was posted by the channel to its website Friday.

In her response, the diminutive Italian leader said she was “stunned” by Trump’s comments, before taking aim at Trump’s broader approach to international relations, suggesting he treats longtime Western allies with less respect than he shows their adversaries….’ (Claudio Lavanga via NBC News)

‘The lining of the Reflecting Pool at Washington D.C.’s Lincoln Memorial was painted blue to please Trump: a no-bid $14.7m contract that went to a company that had worked on one of his swimming pools. Within days of the pool being refilled, it was full of algae. And two weeks on, the blue paint is peeling….’ (Rob Beschizza via Boing Boing)

‘Researchers are discovering that when we experience profound awe, especially in response to grand natural scenes like a star-filled sky, key brain networks involved in self-focus and internal chatter actually quiet down. It is as if the brain turns down the volume on the “me channel” to make room for something larger. This article explores how that works, why awe feels the way it does, and what it might mean for our mental health, creativity, and sense of meaning in a world that rarely slows down.…’ (Sameen David via discoverwildscience)

‘Einstein’s equations have withstood every experimental test for more than a century. However, according to one philosopher, they have not withstood careful scrutiny of the language used to describe them.

Daryl Janzen, an astronomer and instructor at the University of Saskatchewan, recently published a philosophical challenge in The Conversation. Janzen’s critique does not question the mathematics but instead focuses on how physicists and philosophers describe the nature of space-time itself. He argues that over the past century, the language used to describe space-time has gradually merged two separate concepts into one….’ (Austin Burgess via The Debrief)

‘The Trump administration came dangerously close to getting rid of habeas corpus….’ (Hafiz Rashid via The New Republic)

‘A scientific study out of Russia shows us what we already know- the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, and the french fries we steal from someone else’s plate taste better. An experiment involving 120 people had them eat french fries under several different conditions, one in which the subject owned the fries, another in which they were given to them as a gift, and two in which they were instructed to steal them from someone else, either in a high-risk or low-risk situation. The fries themselves were prepared exactly the same way for each scenario. After each session, subjects rated the french fries on range of qualities. The fries taken in the high-risk thievery scenario were judged nearly 40% tastier than when the subject ate their own fries. The subjects also reported both guilt and excitement over it.      …’ (Miss Cellania via Neatorama)

‘On Wednesday morning, workers poured hydrogen peroxide into the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC.

The treatment is the latest attempt by the Interior Department to control an algae bloom that has turned the pool bright green, despite President Donald Trump’s costly renovation to make it “American flag blue” in time for the nation’s 250th anniversary. Hot temperatures and climate change are among the risk factors that could be driving the outbreak.…’ (Molly Taft via WIRED)

‘Democrats are approaching what could be their most wide-open presidential primary in decades, but I’d venture a confident prediction today: one of the two Georgia senators will be on the party’s ticket in 2028. Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, the two Democrats who delivered their party a majority with their twin victories at the end of the first Trump term, could bookend the outgoing president eight years later.

Ossoff, 39, embodies the sort of articulate, next-generation candidate — straddling the ideological divide and wielding a mix of outsider and insider credentials — that encompasses the model with which Democrats historically win. And Warnock, 56, would be the pastor-healer who could unify a fractious party and help cleanse a country crying out for a purge. Each also benefits by comparison to the last two presidents — which is a nicer way of saying it has been a decade since the country had a leader who could leverage the bully pulpit by speaking coherently.

Neither senator is aggressively positioning themselves to run, at least not in the unsubtle fashion of some of their Democratic contemporaries. But both are making the most of that most precious gift in politics: timing. Ossoff’s seat just happens to be up this year — the election cycle before the presidential election — and that re-election bid has become the vehicle by which he’s becoming a sensation in his party. Capitalizing on the dominant medium of the era, Ossoff has harnessed short-form videos criticizing Trump from his campaign rallies to immediately reach the social media feeds of millions of Democrats, who with each click prompt the algorithm to feed them more of his footage….’ (Jonathan Martin via Politico)

‘It’s really important to not trigger the traps to close for no reason. A Venus flytrap uses a tremendous amount of energy to close its traps, so if it happens too many times your plant could die.…’ ( via Kew)

‘In a story that will make your beak drop, a Canadian woman has received a series of ‘thank you’ presents from a whole murder of crows after she took the time to rescue one from a gutter.

As Leah Wilson walks down the street, the superstitious among the neighbors might draw their blinds. Her steps herald the beating of black wings, as the carrion birds follow her every move.

But Wilson is no witch, she’s a hero to their clan after she came to the rescue of a young crow who was stuck inside the roof gutter of a nearby house.

Wilson, a member of the Métis indigenous peoples, knew she had to do something, and as it just so happened there was a fire truck parked nearby.

“I was like, ‘Hey! You look like you want to save a crow today,’” Leah recalls to CTV with a laugh. The firefighters agreed, and brought the ladder over to reach the crow. Once the animal was free, they left it up to Wilson to take it to the wildlife veterinarian.

That’s just what she did, and the crow assured her it would never forget.

“He latched on to my finger and held on, that was life-changing,” she said, without knowing just how life-changing it would be. “I was going for a walk with my dog, [and] a crow flew down and dropped this beautiful, feathered bundle at my feet.”

That was the first of several little “thank you gifts” she received from the local murder.

Today, she is as described above: a crow-friend, and every time she goes out for a walk, the animals circle around her in what she described as the “highlight” of her day.

The best part is when the crow she rescued comes to say hi. He’s easy enough to spot thanks to the band on his leg from when he was released back into the wild….’ (Andy Corbley via Good News Network)

‘Trump’s name has been removed from the Kennedy Center after a court ruling, but adorns many other things and places….’ (via Flipboard)

‘Coming nearly half a century after “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Disclosure Day” is a grand bookend for one of the most cosmically-minded moviemakers of our time, whose dreams of extraterrestrial life have shaped all of ours. It’s a distant answer to the final notes of “Close Encounters.” But while Spielberg grants his 1977 film was “speculative,” “Disclosure Day,” he insists, is the real deal.

“It’s my first film that will be considered science fiction that I do not consider to be science fiction,” Spielberg said in a recent interview. “It’s much more reflective of the world as it is evolving and discoveries that are being made as we speak.”

Spielberg, at 79, is trying to revive and reconsider the alien wonder that’s long lingered in his mind, from “E.T.” to “War of the Worlds.” “Disclosure Day,” Spielberg’s first summer movie in a decade, is already being hailed as one of his best in years. But this time, Spielberg is testing whether he can conjure some of his trademark movie magic less with imagination than with conviction.

“I’ve been a believer since I made ‘Close Encounters’ 50 years ago,” Spielberg says. “But I would always say: Until I’ve seen a UAP or a UFO with my own eyes, I’m not going to categorically state that life from out there has come here.

“But I’ve changed that,” he adds. “I’m now willing to change my mind because of the circumstantial evidence which is overwhelming.”…’ (Jake Coyle  via ABC News)

‘Dr. Iñaki Echeverría-Huarte is a professor of applied physics at the University of Navarra in Spain. He asked 573 people assembled in a schoolyard to roam randomly through the space. Within a few seconds, 80% of them were moving in a counterclockwise direction.

Was this because of a perceived group preference? No. Dr. Echeverría-Huarte performed the test on solitary participants, and about 75% of them moved counterclockwise. This trend persisted across 40 experiments.

A recent article in the New York Times explores the phenomenon and its potential causes. It’s clear that left or right-handedness does not correlate with this movement. Nor is it socially conditioned, as young children strongly exhibit counterclockwise movement as well as adults.

Whatever might be the root cause the movement, it will be helpful for architects and other professions that make use of crowd dynamics. I occasionally visit the largest convenience store in the world, which is a masterpiece of architecture designed for crowd movement. An awareness of the counterclockwise tendency could optimize such designs….’ (John Farrier via Neatorama)

‘A Biden-appointed federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore exhibits and other materials at national parks that highlighted slavery, climate change and other leftist ideology after they were removed under a directive targeting displays deemed disparaging to America.

U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley in Massachusetts, appointed to the federal bench by former President Joe Biden in 2021, issued a preliminary injunction Friday requiring the administration to reverse the changes and pause any further removals amid legal challenges.

The move comes amid the America 250 celebrations that will crescendo on July 4.

The Interior Department in a statement called Kelley a “liberal activist judge” and said it was reviewing its options to appeal its removal of what Secretary Doug Burgum rebuked as “improper partisan ideology.”…’ (Eric Mack via Fox News)

‘”We’re afraid some of our most sensitive conversations were being recorded,” an administration source told us. “And we have no idea which ones.” Verbatim accounts of several Situation Room meetings were included in excerpts about the Iran war and the Epstein files that The Times posted ahead of the book’s June 23 publication.

The authors conducted more than 1,000 interviews for “Regime Change,” which covers Trump’s second term. Tellingly, White House officials haven’t disputed verbatim dialogue from the top-secret Sit Room talks, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying about Bibi’s regime-change scenarios for Iran: “In other words, it’s bullshit.”

We hear President Trump is furious about the blow-by-blow accounts. Haberman and Swan refused to comment.

Reality check: Haberman and Swan didn’t need audio recordings. Bob Woodward pioneered contemporary historical political journalism by including dialogue in his books that was reconstructed from the memories of people in the rooms where things happened….’ (Jim VandeHei via Axios)

‘Sometimes it feels like a glaring design flaw that we have to power down for six to nine hours a day just to keep the brain from frying. Now, according to a new study published in Nature Neuroscience, scientists may have found a way to give us all the benefits of sleep without actually going to sleep….’ ([object Object] via Vice)

Researchers recreated a deep-sleep brain rhythm in mice that remained fully awake and mobile. Mice that stayed awake while receiving the artificial sleep rhythm performed as well as fully rested mice, and molecular markers in their brains mirrored changes typically seen after natural sleep.

The investigators emphasized that this is not a practical shortcut for avoiding sleep. The method required genetic engineering and implanted brain electrodes, and natural sleep appears to restore the brain more evenly across regions.

Even so, the findings strikingly identify a specific electrical signal associated with restorative sleep and show that at least some benefits of sleep can be approximated by artificially reproducing that rhythm.

‘What if some black holes aren’t black holes at all? A new theoretical study suggests that when a massive star collapses, it might not form a singularity hidden behind an event horizon. Instead, the collapse could trigger the birth of a tiny new universe inside the dying star. Driven by dark energy, this miniature cosmos would expand and push back against gravity, preventing complete collapse and creating an exotic object known as a gravastar….’ (via ScienceDaily)

‘What Trump and his “manosphere” are trying to tell us with their public displays of testosterone…’ (Robert Reich)

‘In a scene that could have easily featured in an episode of the US television sitcom The Big Bang Theory, the late US physicist Richard Feynman once turned a visit to a Thai restaurant he often dined at into a mathematical riddle: how adventurous should we be in trying new dishes? Feynman promptly solved this on a sheet of paper.

Now, behavioural scientists have revisited Feynman’s solution — some of which had been obscured by his inscrutable handwriting — and found that his was indeed the optimal strategy….’ (S. Abbas Raza via 3 Quarks Daily)

‘In a forest north of Prague, in the Czech Republic, sits a beautiful castle that attracts thousands of visitors every single year, for it combines medieval history, supernatural tales and even Nazis.

With stories of a gateway into hell itself and occult experiments by occupying Nazis, Houska Castle has a place in European folklore, which raises the question about the truth behind this scenic old building….’ (Sam Farley via Far Out Magazine)

 

‘Ötzi the Iceman, Europe’s most famous mummy, hosts microbes—some ancient, some still alive after millennia, and some modern.

After dying in the Ötztal Alps, the Copper Age man lay frozen and forgotten for 5,300 years, until hikers found his freeze-dried remains in 1991. Since then, scientists have sequenced his DNA, studied his last meal and gut microbes, and examined his clothes and broken tools. Today, Ötzi rests in a high-tech chamber at Italy’s South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology, where his body still shelters cold-adapted yeasts likely present since soon after his death….’ (Kiona N. Smith via Ars Technica)

‘There are several things to keep in mind when watching the surge of robot demonstration videos and even livestreams. First, such robotic demonstrations are not necessarily indicative of robots operating autonomously without human control or oversight, said Dipam Patel, a PhD candidate in computer science at Purdue University and a research assistant at the US Army DevCom Army Research Lab. Many demonstrations still rely on human operators directly controlling the robots’ actions through teleoperation.

“Unless a research paper or a company is explicitly mentioning that [the robot] is completely autonomous, you should take it with a very big pinch of salt,” Patel, also an IEEE Graduate Student Member, told Ars.

Another question to consider is whether the demonstration shows robots tackling a completely new test environment for the first time, or whether the robots are simply repeating a task they had already learned to do in that specific training environment. The new test environment would be significantly more impressive at showcasing robots capable of doing tasks autonomously in a generalized way, Patel said.

It is also worth checking the video playback speed for any robot demonstration, because “usually the robots are very slow” for safety and other reasons, Patel said. Companies may sometimes disclose that a robot demonstration video is running at two times or four times normal speed—meaning the robot could be taking twice as long or four times as long as a human to do the same task.

Robot demonstration videos can also vary wildly in their informative value and transparency. Some are clearly intended to be performative entertainment clips that can go viral on social media, or polished promotional videos from companies seeking new clients and investors. Others may provide more of a behind-the-scenes look at the robot training process while acknowledging robot mistakes along the way….’ (Jeremy Hsu via Ars Technica)

‘Institutions like The Late Show and 60 Minutes are no longer untouchable. That should frighten every single American. If scale and profit can’t save our most powerful voices, what happens to the rest of us?…’ (TC Sottek via The Verge)

‘CBP is conducting “systematic” searches of activists’ devices, using the language and tools of counterterrorism to target left-wing critics and activists, in keeping with President Donald Trump’s efforts to go after those he calls “Violent Left-Wing Extremists, including Anarchists and Anti-Fascists.”…’ (Gaby Del Valle via The Verge)

‘IN RECENT DAYS, a fantastical question has captured the attention of New Yorkers and local tabloids: Who is popping in and out of manholes across the city, and what are they doing in the sewer system?…’ (Caroline Haskins via WIRED)

‘…[H]ow long does it take protagonists in an existential crisis to embrace war of all against all, to start murdering their way towards refuge—or, having refuge at hand, to aggressively prevent others from joining them?…’ (James Davis Nicoll via Reactor)

‘Parents and caregivers have long reported that when some autistic people run a fever from an infection, their autism-related symptoms ease for a while.

MIT and Harvard Medical School researchers , backed by $2.1 million in grants from the Marcus Foundation, want to work out the biology behind this “fever effect” and eventually mimic it as a therapy.

A decade of work in mice by neuroscientist Gloria Choi and immunologist Jun Huh points away from the heat itself. They traced the improvement to an immune-signaling molecule called IL-17a, which appears to calm overactive brain circuits during infection. Injecting it directly into the brains of affected mice improved their symptoms even without any fever.

“Although it isn’t actually triggered by the fever, per se, the ‘fever effect’ is real, and it provides us with an opportunity to develop therapies to mitigate symptoms of autism spectrum disorders,” said Choi. The team now plans a “biobank” of blood and stool samples from volunteers to hunt for the same markers in people.…’ (Ellsworth Toohey via Boing Boing)

‘There are no atheists in foxholes. Soon, there won’t be any Wiccans, Rosicrucianism, shamanic faiths, Troth, Unitarian Universalists, Humanists, Heathens, or Astaru and a whole lotta Protestant denominations, either. According to Military.com, Whiskey Pete Hegseth has ordered the number of religions recognized by the Department of War brutally slashed from just over 200 to 31. This theocratic bullshit reverses changes made to the DoW’s religious affiliation codes. In 2017, the Chaplaincy’s recognized religions were massively expanded as an exercise of the rights the United States once stood for: if you’re willing to serve and potentially die for your country, you should be able to practice the freedom of belief enshrined in its constitution. I guess that was too much to ask for from an ass with a $300 haircut and Deus Volt tattooed on his chest….’ (Séamus Bellamy via Boing Boing)

‘The president has turned a solemn occasion into a Day of Trump….’ (David Frum via The Atlantic)

‘In his 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell argued that bad writers “are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones.” Today, artificial intelligence chatbots have fallen victim to the same blunder.

The idea that Latin-derived terms like “exhibit,” “triumph” and “consume” sound fancier than Germanic words like “show,” “win” and “eat” traces back to at least the Norman Conquest, when the previous Old English-speaking elites were suddenly replaced by a new French-speaking aristocracy. As Romance vocabulary became associated with the educated upper class, it increasingly took on a feeling of cultural prestige — a feeling that compounded as English borrowed additional waves of Latin loanwords during and after the Renaissance.

Even in the 21st century, this bias continues to permeate our social interactions. We’ll use more Latin terms when we want to speak formally or authoritatively; we’ll use Germanic words to sound crass or casual. I’m writing this article using Romance words like “permeate” and “authoritatively” because they make it sound like I know what I’m talking about. A new study from a group of researchers at Florida State University suggests that AI chatbots have also inherited this proclivity. After testing six AI models, the researchers found consistent favoritism for words coming from Latin and French over those with Germanic etymologies — even more than you would typically encounter in the English language….’ (Adam Aleksic via The Washington Post)

‘In Alan Watts’ book “The Wisdom of Insecurity” he points out that many people believe there are benefits to believing in God, but that is not nearly the same as actually believing in God. The mere fact we understand a belief would be beneficial to us doesn’t automatically make us sincerely believe it. Far from it! As Watts says:

It may be necessary for man to have a myth, but he cannot self-consciously prescribe one… man cannot for long knowingly and intentionally “kid” himself. Even the… most forceful arguments for some sort of return to orthodoxy are those which show the social and moral advantages of belief in God. But this does not prove that God is a reality. It proves, at most, that believing in God is useful… if the public has any suspicion that he does not exist, the invention is in vain.

That is: a belief isn’t a mere choice, something which can be adopted when it seems beneficial. Rather, it is something associated to a genuine, sincere, durable felt conviction. Indeed, that conviction may even be held despite it being inconvenient or even disadvantageous. If it is not possible to hold in the face of such challenges, then arguably it was not a belief. This lack of volition in either choice or rejection helps beliefs serve as durable glue binding communities.

So how do people come to believe? Tanya M. Luhrmann has written a beautiful book exploring this question, “How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others”. The book explores the idea that much of the purpose of religious practice is to help practitioners believe. This inverts conventional wisdom, with Luhrmann taking seriously the possibility that sometimes people aren’t worshipping because they believe, but rather believing because they worship. More generally: Luhrmann makes a compelling case that there is a much more complex relationship between belief and religious practice than you might naively suppose, and she explores some of that relationship….’ (Michael Nielsen via Michaelnotebook)

‘The bugs, broken apps, and nightmare customer-service bots we can’t escape, presented as a blessed and sacred addendum to Pope Leo XIV’s new encyclical on AI…’ (Brian Phillips via Theringer)

‘Illustrator  John Rooney has teamed up with the Middle East Children’s Alliance to produce and sell this Birds of Palestine print . Rooney on Instagram : “All profits will be going towards providing emergency assistance to children and families in what is still a dire situation in Palestine.”…’ (Jason Kottke via kottke.org )

‘As per Yahoo, as pockets of the crowd began to exit the venue in response to his comment, he added, “For those of you fucking booing us, some of us are not afraid. And we most assuredly are not fucking ignorant.” …

Recently, during a conversation with Mojo in March 2026, Robinson surprisingly commented: “I’m not interested in politics”. However, he followed it up, adding: “[But] I know what’s right and wrong – and this shit going on right now is wrong. Look man, I’m almost 60, all right. I don’t tell anyone what to do, because I don’t like to be told what to do. But I know right and wrong. The world’s teetering on the edge with all this bullshit, but if there’s a street fighting man out there, he’d got to be a young man, right? But these kids don’t seem to give a fuck.”…’ (Rachael Pimblett via Far Out Magazine)

‘Imagine Donald Trump receiving a Nobel Prize—not for championing peace, democracy, or global unity, but for inadvertently reminding the world just how vital those ideals truly are. This is the daring idea from veteran Italian journalist and media innovator Roberto Savio, founder of Inter Press Service (IPS) and publisher of Other News. In a widely shared personal appeal, Savio proposes an “Alternative Nobel Prize” for U.S. President Donald Trump—not as an honour, but as a sharp piece of political irony meant to spotlight the unintended consequences of Trump’s actions and words. The proposal walks a fine line between satire and seriousness. Beneath its humour pulses a deep worry about democracy’s health, the unravelling of international cooperation, and what Savio calls a rising tide of political subservience to a leader he sees as narcissistic, impulsive, and antagonistic to democratic values….’ (Ramesh Jaura via Eurasia Review)

‘A bear has injured four people near Fukushima city in Japan. Wildlife is surging in areas evacuated following the 2011 nuclear disaster.…’ (via Flipboard)

‘Don’t look now, but it appears that Congress is actually doing its constitutionally prescribed job: checking presidential power.

 

On Monday multiple outlets reported that President Donald Trump was backing off of his so-called anti-weaponization fund: the $1.776 billion discretionary account Trump functionally awarded himself as a result of his lawsuit against the IRS.

While it’s unclear whether this decision is permanent or final, the reporting all suggests that it is the direct result of an unusual revolt by Senate Republicans, who have openly defied Trump over the fund…’ (Zack Beauchamp via Vox)

Trump’s mortgage fraud czar is about to be overseeing America’s spy agencies. …’ (Cameron Peters via Vox)

‘Bill Pulte has no national-security experience, but he does have one qualification that might appeal to the president… Donald Trump’s pick to lead the intelligence community has no national-security experience, but he does have a history of clashing with colleagues and doggedly using his position to go after the president’s enemies.…’ (David A. Graham via The Atlantic)

‘Why Trump’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund is on the rocks…’ (Cameron Peters via Vox)

‘Trump’s Freedom 250 fest crashout proves he’s the only true MAGA celebrity

Trump loves stars. Too bad they all hate him.…’ (Constance Grady via Vox)

‘Pessimism is probably “a bigger problem than climate change”, said the novelist Ian McEwan on Monday afternoon, as temperatures broke May records in the UK.

McEwan “constantly” hears people say that they don’t “expect their children to have as good a life as they did”, but suggested that optimism is a “moral duty”.

McEwan’s latest book, What We Can Know, is partly set in 2119, in a Britain submerged by seas. He spoke at the Hay festival on a panel alongside the former NFU president Minette Batters and Sandi Toksvig, on a day that saw temperatures in London reach 34.8C, beating a May record set in 1922.

McEwan went on to say that optimism is an “exercise in rationality”, because it’s “quite possible” – given that “the world is big, cultures are diverse” – that “there could be a revolution happening and we don’t even know about it”.…’ (Ella Creamer via The Guardian)