Today is the day the story There Will Come Soft Rain is set. An amazing and heartbreaking work of fiction for our modern age. Read it here:

a wooly man without a face@jojororo.bsky.social · yesterday

archive.org/details/brad...

My episode with Sahrawi activist Mohamedsalem Werad, on Africa's last colony and American complicity in Moroccan occupation, is out now open.spotify.com/episode/4GcG...

Morocco’s US-Backed Occupation of Western Sahara

It Could Happen Here · Episode

open.spotify.com

Today marks 6 years since the Beirut Port Explosion, one of history's largest non-nuclear explosions. It killed +218 people, injured +7,000, and displaced+300,000 from their homes. Holding in my heart those whose lives were never the same and uplifting their calls for justice.🤍

The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy@timep.bsky.social · yesterday

Six years since the Beirut Port Explosion, we stand with the people of Lebanon and remember the lives lost, the thousands injured, and the families impacted. Today, we amplify the calls of those gathering on the ground to renew their calls for accountability and justice.

How much of today's oil price is based on Trump admin insiders needing volatility, and finding it was easier to make oil briefly fall (requires a simple leak to Axios) than spike (requires the Pentagon to act)?

Scott Horton@robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 2d ago

Stories about Kushner, Witkoff and inside trading relating to the Iran War have been abounding for months now.

„I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.“ Ernest Hemingway

Ceuta leader is almost certainly right about Morocco engineering the migrant influx. But it's hard to hold the moral high ground when you are the governor of a 600-year-old colony carved out of someone else's country.

Melissa Chemam@melissaontheroad.bsky.social · 2d ago

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a... A growing chorus of voices has accused Morocco of helping to fuel the crisis in Ceuta

But they will be

Steffen Rayburn-Maarup@rayburnmaarup.bsky.social · 3d ago

I don't think people are ready for this kind of joke yet.

"Kew Gardens has had a weather station since 1871. This July was, based on third party analysis of Met Office data collected at the site, the first calendar month on record where no rainfall was measured at Kew."

London's first month without rain

Plus: There's nowhere to bury the dead • London wants to keep its money • When will it stop being so damn hot • Who is to blame for turning off the air conditioning in the tower block?

londoncentric.media

This absolutely will not happen, and is why we are where we are.

Why is Trump's approach to the Iran war so erratic? Like Putin in Ukraine, Trump decided to surround himself with "yes men" on Iran. But reality keeps puncturing the praise. Each time it does, his policy choices veer in a new direction. As he flails, he's dragging the world down with him.

Dean Obeidallah@deanobeidallah.bsky.social · 2d ago

NEW: Iran Denies It’s in Talks with US--Hours After Trump Teased ‘Imminent’ Deal. Trump lost the war on all fronts. The reason Trump can't make a deal is because he believes the lies of Pete Hegseth who tell him he won. As a result he won't compromise to make a deal www.mediaite.com/media/news/i...

This explanation for the Ceuta migrant surge is not wrong, but misses a key element: timing. Why did this happen now? Morocco orchestrated the campaign just days after Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez's visit to Algeria, where the two counties patched up a rift that erupted in 2022 over Western Sahara.

Sven-Erik Volberg@volberg.bsky.social · 4d ago

Few days ago a massive and well coordinated campaign started in Moroccan Facebook/Instagram with message "Spain opened the borders, they let everyone in" The one responsible is unknown and even if we find the bot networks they might be 3rd world hires, a standard practice for many governments 🧵 1/6

Anyone think he'll be saying the same (but replace "Mediterranean" with "Siberian") when the AMOC current collapses?

Roland Smith@rolandmcs.bsky.social · 7d ago

Nighty night.

"In energy, the boring stuff matters most."

Five infuriating energy transition fumbles

The good news about the global energy transition is that most of the key technologies now work.

reuters.com

christ if that’s not a metaphor for our times

It turns out insurance companies believe in climate change whether you do or not

FinTwitter@fintwitter.bsky.social · 6d ago

MIAMI'S COST OF LIVING SURPASSES NYC FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER

Half the planet is having a massive fight about how to correctly interpret an Ancient Greek poem but go ahead, close some more humanities departments.

Eventually, we'll find out what bribe Chad got, or what punishment they avoided in return for this

Wagatwe Wanjuki@wagatwe.bsky.social · last wk.

oh my god

In France & Spain, the current wildfire outbreak has already necessitated the largest evacuation since WWII (since Dunkirk)--& largest ever in peacetime--of over 300,000 people. Widespread, though yet untold, structure loss appears to have occurred (including in suburban areas).

Fareed Zakaria zooming out to illuminate the big picture: "Voters everywhere are furious" because we're undergoing a society-redefining technology revolution, one which democracies are ultimately better placed to adapt to - if they can survive. archive.is/rWaKd

Don't despair. Let him spend months teasing the blatantly unconstitutional "Trump 2028" and driving a wedge back in between MAGA and the conservatives. Resist the urge to ascribe strategy ("He's providing cover for a stealth Vance/Rubio run") where there is, as always, none whatsoever.

Aaron Grote@aarongrote.com · last wk.

Trump has posted about Trump 2028 at least 8 times in the last few hours, including this:

“For those of us who lost friends bringing democracy to other countries, it’s incredibly noxious seeing this secretary using American power to undermine credible elections in other countries for ideological purposes.” Quite the quote from a senior State Department official.

Matthew Hay Brown@matthewhaybrown.bsky.social · 2w ago

UPDATE Brazil has denied visas to the two State Department officials Trump planned to send to undermine confidence in the country’s electoral system

Absolutely heartbreaking letter from the mother of Alex Pretti, six months after his murder by ICE agents. How is it possible that we still haven’t seen even a hint of justice for such a heinous crime?

Can't get numb to this: The United States is stuck in a war it started, cannot end, and may further escalate to no avail, having dismantled its diplomatic apparatus, depleted its military stockpile, and destroyed its credibility. A historic strategic mistake harming millions in many different ways.

“I feel it’s like trying to get an Algerian visa.” lol giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

How I got into Berghain, Berlin’s notoriously selective club

The mystique of its intimidating door policy still convinces people to fly in from all around the world

giftarticle.ft.com

If you ever want to give an author whose book you've loved a magical free gift, recommend their book to someone.

Juliet E McKenna@julietemckenna.bsky.social · 2w ago

Word of mouth, personal recommendation, was the first and remains the best way for authors to reach new readers long-term. New readers helps us carry on writing new books for everyone.

Brutal photo caption from The Guardian: “Gianni Infantino carefully explains to Donald Trump that he is not part of the Spanish national team.”

Jevons paradox or jobs apocalypse? AI's impact will vary industry by industry, job by job based on price elasticity of demand. In other words, as AI makes a given worker more productive, how much do prices for their output fall and how much more consumption does that drive?

MIT Technology Review@technologyreview.com · 3w ago

We don’t currently have this data across the economy. But we could.

“Everybody knows” is an anti-democratic, anti-liberationist phrase that paralyzes political action and imagination under cover of sophistication to satisfy a desire to be in the know—knowingness—greater than a desire for knowledge or action or hope.

Stupid Tax just went national

Steve Rattner@steverattner.bsky.social · 3w ago

President Trump used to brag about all the money we were making from tariff revenue. Last month, that trend flipped to a $26 billion loss as the government started paying back the tariffs the Supreme Court ruled illegal. The refund bill is just getting started.

NYT doubling down on its Ahmedinajad story from May with lots more detail about Israel's years-long effort to cultivate a disgruntled former leader frustrated that insiders were blocking his return to power. Mossad stole him away on 28 Feb but apparently he balked, now looks to be in IRGC control.

Inside Israel’s Secret Operation to Cultivate Ahmadinejad (Gift Article)

The yearslong effort to groom the former Iranian president as an intelligence asset culminated in a dramatic effort to take him to an Israeli safe house in the early days of the war. But the plan fell...

nytimes.com