Watch it.

Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

The Telegraph (UK).

Director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele have been found dead in their Los Angeles home, according to local media and police.

Investigators believe they suffered stab wounds. A family member is being questioned.

The Los Angeles Fire Department said it responded to a medical aid request shortly after 3:30pm on Sunday and found a 78-year-old man and 68-year-old woman dead inside. Reiner turned 78 in March.

Detectives were investigating an “apparent homicide” at Reiner’s home, said police.

Rob Reiner was also one of the most dependable Woke whiners in the U.S. When the police ask “Did he have any enemies?’, the pool includes millions.

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After years of market swings, regulatory uncertainty, and deep staffing cuts, America’s energy workforce is overdue for a stabilizing signal. December 10th provides exactly that: the first federal Gulf of America lease sale in nearly two years, offering long-awaited certainty for the companies and workers that power America’s offshore energy engine.

In 2024, Gulf of America oil and gas activity supported approximately 428,000 jobs across all 50 states, contributed $35.9 billion in spending, and generated $7 billion in federal revenues. Few industries deliver that scale of widespread economic impact.

Mandated by President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, this sale is the first of 30 over the next 15 years, with additional sales offshore Alaska. After an unprecedented 24-month leasing gap, the door to America’s offshore future, anchored by Texan expertise, is reopening.

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The Trump administration said on Dec. 10 that it would transfer roughly 760 acres of public land along the U.S.-Mexico border in California to the Navy for three years to support border security operations.

While announcing the decision Wednesday, the Interior Department said the land would become part of a “National Defense Area,” or militarized zone, to bolster immigration enforcement.

The land stretches from roughly a mile west of the California-Arizona state line to the western edge of the Otay Mountain Wilderness Area in San Diego and Imperial counties, according to the Interior Department.

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Uruguay is one of Latin America’s safest and most prosperous countries. It is known for its political stability, tax-friendly policies, and high quality of life. This South American gem has become a haven for multiple expats, including digital nomads, investors, and retirees.

With its healthcare system and robust infrastructure, Uruguay is a country where expats can comfortably and rewardingly live full-time. What’s more, obtaining citizenship in Uruguay is straightforward!

That said, while many people choose Uruguay for residency or citizenship, this isn’t a recommendation to relocate there. The goal here is to outline how the process works so you can make your own informed decision.

After a few years of residency in Uruguay, you can obtain one of the strongest passports in the world, with visa-free and visa-on-arrival access to over 150 countries. This article will walk you through the timeline and steps to acquire Uruguayan citizenship.

If, of course, that’s what you want to do. It seems preferable to California.

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$2.90 per gallon on average as of Monday, according to data from GasBuddy, a company that tracks gas prices.

My wife filled up yesterday at $2.17.

Read it.

President Donald Trump’s approval rating edged up to 41% in the past week as Republicans warmed to his handling of the cost of living, a sign the administration’s new focus on affordability might be supporting his popularity, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.

The six-day poll, which closed on Monday, showed approval of the president rising from 38% late last month, which was the lowest since Trump returned to the White House in January. Trump started his second term with a 47% rating.

Republicans performed poorly in a handful of state elections in November as Democrats hammered the Trump administration over persistently high inflation. But in recent weeks Trump has engaged more forcefully on the topic, scaling back some of his tariff increases and pledging to combat high food prices.

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Well, I’ve always thought so.

Read it.

Just in case you were wondering.

The Foundry.

In a huge win for Republicans that could help keep them in control of the House, the Supreme Court allowed Texas’ GOP-friendly redistricting maps to remain in place for the 2026 midterms.

The maps could grant Republicans up to five additional seats in the House of Representatives.

Thursday’s ruling, a 6-3 unsigned opinion, comes after a lower court recently tossed out the maps. Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott appealed that decision.

The Supreme Court decision was an ideological split, with the six conservative justices ruling in favor of pausing the ruling from a lower court, thereby allowing the maps to stand. Three liberal justices dissented.

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The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) has been renamed in honor of President Donald Trump on the eve of a peace agreement signing ceremony between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda.

The War Zone.

The Chinese trimaran craft is seen in what is the first widely circulated image of the vessel, but it leaves many questions unanswered. Not least, what is the actual purpose of this vessel? At the same time, details point to this craft being fully or nearly fully submersible, making it something of a hybrid design.

The photo, which began to circulate recently on social media and is republished at the top of this story, provides a profile view of the vessel in the water. While the date of the photo is unknown, the location is likely the Huangpu shipyard in Guangzhou province, where the vessel has reportedly been noted in satellite imagery over the last few months. Our previous understanding of the vessel’s appearance comes apparently exclusively from naval analyst H. I. Sutton, who looked at that imagery, in which the vessel was still covered with tarpaulins.

As had been apparent in the satellite imagery, the black-painted vessel incorporates features of both surface ships and submarines. The vessel’s slender shape had also previously been noted, pointing toward high efficiency. However, seen from this angle, the roughly 210-foot-long vessel doesn’t appear to have been necessarily tailored for high performance, at least not as an overarching priority.

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American military personnel have installed a high-tech radar system in Tobago, a move Trinidad and Tobago officials say is intended to strengthen surveillance of drug-trafficking activity in the southern Caribbean.

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar confirmed that U.S. Marines set up the unit on the eastern end of the Crown Point runway at ANR Robinson International Airport, as reported by USA Today.

Tobago lies about 70 miles from Venezuela’s Paria Peninsula.

I’m sure the hose of U.S. taxpayer money they’re undoubtedly getting is very welcome too.

I’d love to have that duty station….

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President Donald Trump on Tuesday followed through on a pledge he made last week, announcing that he has “completely terminated” every action signed by former President Joe Biden using the autopen, declaring those measures null and void.

“Any and all Documents, Proclamations, Executive Orders, Memorandums, or Contracts, signed by Order of the now infamous and unauthorized ‘AUTOPEN,’ within the Administration of Joseph R. Biden Jr., are hereby null, void, and of no further force or effect,” Trump said in a post to Truth Social.

“Anyone receiving ‘Pardons,’ ‘Commutations,’ or any other Legal Document so signed, please be advised that said Document has been fully and completely terminated, and is of no Legal effect,” he added.

Newsbusters.

My, what a surprise.

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President Donald Trump said Sunday his administration intends to maintain a pause on asylum decisions for “a long time” after an Afghan national allegedly shot two National Guard members near the White House, killing one of them.

When asked to specify how long it would last, Trump said he had “no time limit” in mind for the measure, which the Department of Homeland Security says is linked to a list of 19 countries already facing US travel restrictions.

“We don’t want those people,” Trump continued. “You know why we don’t want them? Because many have been no good, and they shouldn’t be in our country.”

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President Donald Trump on Friday intensified his challenge to the legitimacy of former President Joe Biden’s official actions, declaring on Truth Social that “[a]ny document signed by Sleepy Joe Biden with the Autopen, which was approximately 92% of them, is hereby canceling and of no further force or effect.”

Trump claimed Biden didn’t even know what was being authorized in many cases, saying staff pushed documents through the signing machine without Biden’s awareness.

He warned that if Biden now claims he personally approved those documents, “he will be brought up on charges of perjury.”

Ah, ah, ah, ah, yankin’ their chains, yankin’ their chains….

UPDATE: Trump Moves To “Terminate” All Of Biden’s Autopen’d Orders

Watch it.

Having two rotors increases the amount of surface area between stator and rotor and gives you a lot more torque.

We live in amazing times.

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party that has surged from obscurity to become one of the most consequential forces in the region. A party that only recently entered parliament with two seats is now projected, according to the Catalan government’s Centre for Opinion Studies (CEO), to win 19 to 20 seats—putting it level with one of the region’s traditional pro-independence heavyweights.

For years, Catalan politics has revolved around a familiar trio. The PSC is the centre-left party aligned with Spain’s central government. ERC is a left-leaning separatist party. And Junts is a liberal-nationalist separatist party once led by Carles Puigdemont, the chief political figure of the 2017 independence crisis. It is Junts—formerly the standard-bearer of Catalonia’s independence cause—that is now suffering a dramatic collapse, falling from 35 seats to roughly the same level as Aliança. ERC would stay slightly ahead on 22 to 23, while the PSC would still win the election but shows clear signs of voter weariness.

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The Pentagon reported that it is preparing to end its partnership with Scouting America — formerly the Boy Scouts.

War Secretary Pete Hegseth said there are concerns that the group has shifted toward gender-neutral policies and DEI initiatives.

NPR first reported the possible break, citing draft Pentagon documents it reviewed.

Baden-Powell’s original vision was of Scouting as a sort of ‘farm team’ for military service.

Nowadays: Not so much.

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South Africa is back in the news yet again, and facing embarrassment yet again. South Africa’s far-left government was hoping that the G20 Summit held this week in Johannesburg would elevate the country’s global position and garner them international attention (and funding). It is the first time in history that the G20 has been held in South Africa.

However, the Trump Administration has made it clear that the South African event is a nothing-burger and the real G20 will be held in the US (in Florida) in 2026. The meeting was not only snubbed by Trump; China, Russia, Argentina, Mexico and Indonesia did not send representatives either, likely because the summit had no momentum without US participation.

Confusion arose when SA President Cyril Ramaphosa spread rumors that the US was actually participating in the talks, leading the media to suggest Trump had flip-flopped.

But he lied. As he does.

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Whether called homeschooling or DIY education, family-directed learning has been growing in popularity for years in the U.S. alongside disappointment in the rigidity, politicization, and flat-out poor results of traditional public schools. That growth was supercharged during the COVID-19 pandemic when extended closures and bumbled remote learning drove many families to experiment with teaching their own kids. The big question was whether the end of public health controls would also curtail interest in homeschooling. We know now that it didn’t. Americans’ taste for DIY education is on the rise.

 

Politico, a Voice of the Crust.

Justice Samuel Alito temporarily restored the state’s new map — expected to net Republicans up to five seats in the 2026 midterms — while the Supreme Court weighs a lower court’s decision to toss that map altogether.

Alito’s move allowing Texas officials to continue to prepare for primary elections under the new map came just after the state asked the Supreme Court for an urgent ruling to revive the redistricting plan adopted at the urging of President Donald Trump.

,,,

The emergency application went to Alito in the first instance because he oversees urgent matters arising in the 5th Circuit, which includes Texas. Alito, who is expected to refer the stay request to the full court, appeared to put it on a fast-track by giving the civil rights groups that sued to block the new map a deadline of 5 P.M. eastern time Monday to file a response.

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To test whether humans still use auricular muscles — which once helped move our primate ancestors’ ears to funnel sound — scientists attached electrodes to the sides of people’s heads, and asked them to listen closely to an audiobook. Different challenge modes were imposed, with the sound coming from different angles, and other competing sounds. The scientists found that, the more difficult it was for participants to hear the audiobook, the more the superior auricular muscles activated, as if participants were trying to prick up their ears like a dog or cat. When sounds came from behind a participant, the posterior auricular muscles contracted as if attempting to point the ears in that direction.

If you can wiggle your ears, you can use muscles that helped our distant ancestors listen closely. These auricular muscles helped change the shape of the pinna, or the shell of the ear, funneling sound to the eardrums. Millions of years ago, our ancestors stopped using them, so humans’ auricular muscles are only vestigial. But now scientists examining the function of these muscles have discovered that they activate when we’re trying to listen to competing sounds.

“There are three large muscles which connect the auricle to the skull and scalp and are important for ear wiggling,” explained Andreas Schröer of Saarland University, first author of the study in Frontiers in Neuroscience. “These muscles, particularly the superior auricular muscle, exhibit increased activity during effortful listening tasks. This suggests that these muscles are engaged not merely as a reflex but potentially as part of an attentional effort mechanism, especially in challenging auditory environments.”

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While former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock calls for a fight against climate-driven global apocalypse at COP30, Brussels is being forced into political restraint by pressure from the US and Qatar. On the horizon, the end of the EU’s grand climate machinations is becoming visible.

November 13, 2025, could mark a turning point in European Union history. We may have witnessed the beginning of the end of European climate socialism.

Media coverage of the day in Parliament downplayed its significance, focusing instead on the reform of the supply chain law, while fundamental changes unfolded at a different level.

Politically, the event cannot be overstated; perhaps it should even be called a singularity in recent EU policy: The European Parliament paved the way for a dramatic dilution of corporate reporting obligations under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the so-called due diligence rules (CSDDD). The unstoppable march toward a climate dictatorship has been abruptly halted.

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Three more Republican members of the Indiana Senate reported this week that they were targeted in swatting incidents, as national GOP leaders continue urging Republican holdouts to reconsider their stance on redistricting, Fox59 in Indiana reported Thursday.

GOP state Sens. Dan Dernulc, Spencer Deery, and Rick Niemeyer each said they were targeted in separate swatting attempts, which Indiana State Police confirmed they are investigating.

Sen. Gregory Goode also reported a swatting incident over the past weekend.

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Five years after Boston Dynamics introduced the cute but creepy “Spot” robot dog, the 5-pound German Shepherd-sized robot dog is finding work.

With its ability to climb stairs, open doors, and dazzle inebriated suspects, police are now using it in situations including armed standoffs, hostage rescues, and hazardous materials incidents – things where sending in a human or a real dog could be life-threatening.

According to Bloomberg, over 60 bomb squads and SWAT teams in the US and Canada are now using Spot, Boston Dynamics has revealed.

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Secretary of Education Linda McMahon is talking to “dozens” of Congress members about codifying the Education Department’s biggest step toward extinction.

The Daily Signal asked McMahon at Thursday’s press briefing if she was talking to members of Congress about her Tuesday announcement regarding moving certain functions of the department to other executive agencies.

“We’ve been talking to talk to dozens of members of Congress to explain to them exactly what we’re doing, to bring them up to speed,” she said in response to a question from The Daily Signal, “and to say to them, ‘look, when we have completed some of these transfers that we that are working incredibly well, then we will be looking for Congress to codify those.’”

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Iodized salt is so commonplace in the U.S. today that you may never have given the additive a second thought. But new research finds that humble iodine has played a substantial role in cognitive improvements seen across the American population in the 20th century.

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The Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday it is redefining the scope of the nation’s bedrock clean water law to limit the wetlands it covers, building on a Supreme Court decision two years ago that removed federal protections for significant areas.

When finalized, the new “Waters of the United States” rule will ensure that federal jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act is focused on relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water, such as streams, oceans, rivers and lakes, along with wetlands that are connected to such bodies of water, the EPA said.

The new rule will help accelerate economic prosperity while protecting vital water resources, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said at a news conference at agency headquarters. The rule will fully implement the direction provided by the Supreme Court in a case known as Sackett v. EPA, he said. The 2023 ruling sharply limited the federal government’s authority to police water pollution into certain wetlands, and boosted property rights over concerns about clean water in a ruling in favor of an Idaho couple who sought to build a house near a lake.

Long time coming,  but glad to see it.

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One of Jimmy Carter’s famous failures.

majority of registered voters support closing the Department of Education after learning more about what President Donald Trump’s proposal entails, according to a new poll commissioned by the Yes Every Kid Foundation.

When asked about terminating the Education Department, 51% opposed the plan in the absence of other details, while 38% supported it.

But when provided with more information about the proposal, such as folding important elements of the department into other federal agencies and preserving K-12 funding, the numbers flipped — 56% said they were in favor of shuttering the department, compared to 30% who were opposed.

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UBS Chair Colm Kelleher has discussed a potential U.S. headquarters move with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent if Switzerland presses ahead with tougher capital rules, the Financial Times reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the report.

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Austria is heading for a heated debate this week as the right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ) pushes a motion to declare in the constitution that only two genders exist.

The FPÖ argues that the measure is necessary to “return to biological reality.” However, left-wing parties have accused the FPÖ of fuelling “societal polarization,” signalling tense debates ahead.

Austria is not alone in having this debate. Several other European countries have already taken steps to legally reaffirm the existence of only two sexes.

DHS.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the removal of Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico who was arrested in April, despite a judge attempting to help him evade arrest.

On April 18, 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), assisted by deputized FBI law enforcement officials, carried out a targeted operation to arrest Flores-Ruiz, a violent criminal illegal alien at the Milwaukee County Courthouse. His laundry list of violent criminal charges includes strangulation and suffocation, battery, and domestic abuse.

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested for obstructing the arrest of Flores-Ruiz. Judge Dugan intentionally directed ICE agents away from this criminal illegal alien to obstruct the arrest and try to help him evade arrest. Thankfully, our law enforcement chased down this violent illegal alien and arrested him. ICE removed this criminal on November 13, 2025.

Ars Technica.

It has been a few years since AI began successfully tackling the challenge of predicting the three-dimensional structure of proteins, complex molecules that are essential for all life. Next-generation tools are now available, and the Nobel Prizes have been handed out. But people not involved in biology can be forgiven for asking whether any of it can actually make a difference.

A nice example of how the tools can be put to use is being released in Nature on Wednesday. A team that includes the University of Washington’s David Baker, who picked up his Nobel in Stockholm last month, used software tools to design completely new proteins that are able to inhibit some of the toxins in snake venom. While not entirely successful, the work shows how the new software tools can let researchers tackle challenges that would otherwise be difficult or impossible.

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And who could blame them?

Staten Island lawmakers are reviving a long-running effort to have the borough secede from New York City, arguing that Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s win earlier this month has deepened the political divide between the so-called “forgotten borough” and the rest of the city.

State Sen. Andrew Lanza, a Staten Island Republican who has pushed secession legislation since 2008, said the political climate is now aligning with Staten Island’s longstanding frustrations.

“The Democratic Socialist could not be further out of sync with the values of communities on Staten Island,” Lanza told The New York Post, adding that Democrats may be less motivated to block the effort because losing Staten Island could make it even harder for the city to elect a Republican mayor.

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The Trump administration will require millions of food aid recipients to recertify their information to receive benefits, part of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ effort to overhaul the program, she told Newsmax on Thursday.

On “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” Rollins said she plans to “have everyone reapply for their benefits, make sure that everyone that’s taking a taxpayer-funded benefit through … food stamps, that they literally are vulnerable and they can’t survive without it.”

Rollins was discussing fraud in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and said after receiving data on recipients from 29 red states that “186,000 deceased men and women and children in this country are receiving a check.”

Cue Democrat outrage.

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Indiana’s Republican-controlled Senate on Friday shut down a special-session redistricting push sought by President Donald Trump, an unexpected setback for the White House as Republicans try to secure a stronger House majority heading into a complex 2026 midterm cycle.

Indiana Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray said Republicans in the chamber do not have enough support to reconvene next month to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries, ending months of internal lobbying by state and national GOP leaders.

In a statement, Bray said lawmakers had given “very serious and thoughtful consideration” to revisiting the map but ultimately lacked the votes to advance the proposal.

Would Democrats have done that? I think not.

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China’s newest supercarrier is sending shock waves through the Pacific and underscoring how urgently the U.S. must rebuild its own naval edge.

Beijing this month officially launched and commissioned the Fujian, its third and by far most advanced aircraft carrier, an 80,000-ton flat-deck ship able to carry roughly 60 aircraft and sail with up to 10 escort warships.

Analysts say the ship dramatically narrows the naval capability gap with the U.S. and gives China a far more formidable tool to threaten Taiwan and bully neighbors in the South China Sea, The Washington Post reported.

Richard Hanania.

A Democratic organization called Deciding to Win just put out a report on the popularity of dozens of policy positions.

[interesting chart}

There’s not much surprising here for anyone who has looked at polling data before. People love Social Security and Medicare, dislike immigration, and want tough on crime policies. They are skeptical of government creating new programs (free universal childcare, free public college), but like ideas that raise costs and burdens on employers in favor of workers (increase minimum wage, protect the right to strike).

One thing the chart captures is just how much people support giveaways to old people over other forms of welfare. Below is a figure that simply extracts policies that are aimed either at helping the old or helping families with young children.

Read the Whole Thing.

The War Zone.

Recent imagery indicates that China is progressing with work on a new aircraft carrier, its fourth, which is expected by many sources to introduce nuclear propulsion. A new detail that is now visible of the makings of the ship’s hull structure would appear to directly support this. The development comes just a week after the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) commissioned its first domestically produced carrier, the Fujian. Meanwhile, there are increasing reports that Beijing may also still be working on at least one more conventionally powered carrier, too.

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When the future King of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) visits the White House on November 18th, he will bring with him a number of major agreements and business deals. Among these may be the long-awaited US-Saudi Nuclear Energy Cooperation Agreement (referred to as a “123 Agreement”, the section of the Atomic Energy Act that governs US technology transfer to international partners). That agreement, under discussion for over a decade, appears to be close to finalization and may lead to significant business for US nuclear companies.This pact would enable the transfer of US nuclear technology, materials, and expertise to Saudi Arabia, facilitating Riyadh’s civil nuclear program that aims to build at least two large pressurized water reactors (PWRs) on the Arabian Gulf under a new holding company, the Duwayhin Nuclear Energy Company (DNEC).

DNEC submitted a site license application to the Saudi Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Commission (NRRC) in May 2022 for its flagship Duwaiheen Nuclear Power Plant on the Gulf coast, targeting an initial capacity of 2.8 GW. Observers note that 2.8 GW matches the output of two of KEPCO’s AP-1400 reactors, the same built across the border in UAE, leading many to speculate that the Koreans have been in the lead for supplying the Saudi’s nuclear plant technology.

The associated tender for the two Duwaiheen plants, launched in 2022, has faced multiple delays. Initially slated for bids in April 2024, the deadline shifted repeatedly and still remains pending. Analysts have understood it to be the Saudi’s intention to delay selection until after a 123 Agreement is signed in order to enable US companies to bid on the project and to ensure that the Saudi program has a nod of approval from the US.

The Foundry.

President Donald Trump has threatened to punish New York City for electing the Democrat mayoral candidate, socialist Muslim Zohran Mamdani.

Though the action a president can legally take against a city is limited, Trump can use the Foreign Agents Registration Act to prevent foreign influence wielded by Mamdani in New York City, according to Nicole Kelly, senior counsel at Lex Politica, the law firm that represents Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and other key Republicans.

“Zohran Mamdani’s election is the foreign influence story we’ve been sounding the alarm on for years, playing out in real time,” Kelly told The Daily Signal. “His election could be the open door for foreign actors to shape our politics from the inside.”

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The US War Department has begun sending conventional ground forces to Panama for training in jungle warfare for the first time in more than two decades, ABC News reported on Monday.

News of the training in Panama comes amid a major US military buildup in the Caribbean and a push toward a potential war with Venezuela, a country with vast jungles. A US military official told ABC that the training in Panama is not intended to prepare troops for a potential mission in Venezuela, but President Trump has reportedly been reviewing options for attacking the country.

While the US hasn’t sent enough forces to the Caribbean for a full-scale invasion of Venezuela, US military planners reportedly do believe it has a sufficient force to seize strategic ports and airfields in Venezuela.

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The International Olympic Committee appears to be moving toward declaring a complete ban on male-born competing in female categories across all sports — a policy likely to take effect by the 2028 Summer Olympics, the Daily Mail reported on Monday.

Olympic sources confirmed that such a measure is very much the “direction” of the IOC, but it is highly unlikely the rule will be in force before the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy in February.

A rule change could be announced by February, according to a source, but insiders said it would take between six months and a year for it to be approved and cleared.

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Markets always soar when Democrats cave. I wonder if there could be a connection there….

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Medical interest in venom has long centered, reasonably enough, on snakebites. As many as five and a half million people per year — usually agricultural workers and children in Africa, Asia and Latin America — are bitten by venomous snakes. Those bites are responsible for more than 100,000 deaths, along with many more amputations, leading the World Health Organization to declare them “a neglected public health issue.”

But most venomous interactions take place outside our awareness, among invertebrates that we are liable to squish without a second thought. Now that researchers can, with the tiniest venom sample, identify every constituent molecule down to the last amino acid, they are discovering substances of extraordinary complexity. Tarantula venoms, for example, contain more than a hundred molecules. In the venoms of some spiders and snails, that number runs into the thousands.

Venom is generally considered distinct from poison. Whereas poison is passive — a substance, like a laundry-detergent pod or berries from a black nightshade plant, that can be lethal if ingested — venom must be actively administered by an animal, often via fangs, teeth or barbs, usually to capture prey or defend against predators. Nature has engineered this capacity surprisingly often. There are at least 1,250 species of venomous catfish alone, each with its own venom formula. Venomous creatures include insects, spiders, corals, mollusks, snakes, lizards and a few mammals (platypuses, shrews). Many of them, such as marine species, are difficult to observe in their natural habitats, and so we know next to nothing about how and why they use their toxins.

…

Other applications being investigated in other labs include a scorpion peptide that binds precisely to malignant tumors, including those in the brain. This peptide is engineered to be fluorescent so that during surgery to remove a tumor, doctors can see whether they have cut it all out. Eventually, similar molecules may be programmed to kill cancer cells outright, without chemotherapy or radiation, says Jim Olson, a professor at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute and the University of Washington, who initiated the project. A peptide from sea-anemone venom is in clinical trials as a treatment for some autoimmune diseases, according to Christine Beeton, the immunologist leading the investigations at the Baylor College of Medicine. In Brazil, a biochemist and neuroscientist, Maria Elena de Lima, is developing a peptide derived from the venom of a banana spider to treat erectile dysfunction.

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I used to be an avid reader of the Weekly Standard until it ceased publication in 2018. Since then you have Bill Kristol who is sympathetic to Zohran Mamdani migrating to one end of the political spectrum. Tucker Carlson has moved in an opposing direction and gave a softball interview to Nicholas J. Fuentes, a white nationalist. In between, you have people like John Podhoretz and Matthew Continetti who might be considered not pro-Trump but “Trump Curious.”

Where would you all place the these former Weekly Standard staff is the following categories: Crazy left (CL) , Never Trump (NT), Trump Curious (TC), Pro-Trump (PT), Crazy-right (CR). You can use the abbreviations. Are these categories sufficient? I have added some of my observations

Bill Kristol (CL)
Stephen Hayes (NT)
Fred Barnes, (TC)
Johnthan Last (NT)
Philip Terzian (PT)
Max Boot (CL)
Joseph Bottum
Tucker Carlson (CR)
Matthew Continetti (TC)
Joseph Epstein (TC)
David Frum (NT)
David Gelernter
Reuel Marc Gerecht
Michael Goldfarb
John Podhoretz (TC)
Mary Katharine Ham (TC)
Brit Hume (PT)
Frederick Kagan
Robert Kagan
Tod Lindberg
Irwin Stelzer

The Times (UK).

When Kathryn Sargent, the first female master tailor in Britain, meets a new client in her London atelier she needs to “get to know their body”. So she asks: what’s your daily diet? Is your weight stable? Do you work out? These days she is toying with adding a new question. Does she mean: do you dress to the left or the right, sir? “No, I never ask that! It’s the pen. Are you on the pen?”

Caroline Andrew, who, like Sargent, is one of a growing breed of female British tailors who make bespoke suits for both men and women, wrestles with the same issue at her Mayfair studio. “American customers are happy to admit they’re taking weight-loss drugs like Ozempic or Mounjaro. But the Brits aren’t so open. If they suddenly drop three sizes, they tend to say, ‘I’m just eating really healthily.’ ”

Read it.

Federal prosecutors in Washington are conducting a corruption investigation into Mayor Muriel E. Bowser, examining a foreign trip she took with staff that was paid for by Qatar, according to people familiar with the inquiry, The New York Times reports.

The investigation is being overseen by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington and has been underway for months.

Bowser, who has served as Washington’s mayor since 2015 and is a Democrat, has not been formally notified of the investigation.