Hemp advocates say raising annual licensing fees for retailers from $150 to $20,000 and for manufacturers from $250 to $25,000 would shutter small businesses.
Chinese hackers targeted the email inboxes of staff working in several House of Representatives committees, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
The people declined to disclose details of specific committees affected because an investigation into the intrusions is early and ongoing. They requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
The Financial Times first reported details of the hacking attempts and said committees including foreign affairs, intelligence and armed services were impacted. FT said Salt Typhoon, a Chinese state-aligned hacking group that gained infamy in 2024 for its hacks into telecom systems around the world, was responsible for the House breaches.
Nextgov/FCW could not independently confirm whether Salt Typhoon carried out the intrusions. China manages a swath of state-backed hacking collectives that have sought to access U.S. government systems, as well as organizations that have knowledge of U.S. government and legal affairs.
It’s also not clear who was targeted and whether their emails were successfully exfiltrated.
Congressional communications are a frequent target of foreign hackers because they can provide an unauthorized preview into legislative planning.
Last year, the Congressional Budget Office, Capitol Hill’s nonpartisan accounting service that delivers financial assessments for legislation, was accessed in an intrusion potentially tied to a foreign hacker group.
In late 2024, a foreign adversary also accessed the contents of email communications between congressional legislative staffers and staff in the Library of Congress’s Congressional Research Service.
China has regularly denied involvement in U.S. cyber intrusions.
“China opposes and fights all forms of hacking in accordance with the law. We do not encourage, support or connive at cyber attacks,” Chinese embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said in a statement when asked about the incident.
Jonathan Ross told a federal court in December about his professional background, including “hundreds” of encounters with drivers during enforcement actions, according to testimony obtained by WIRED.
NOAA officials said the buoy, which records wave height, wind speed and temperature, floated away from where it's normally stationed at the East Flower Garden Bank, about 119 miles south of the Texas and Louisiana border.
I went to an interview at an event planning company I have wanted to work at for a long time. The first interview was successful and I got along with the group of managers really well. They gave me an assignment to do and, after I did that, they happily invited me to return for a follow-up interview, this time with only one of the managers. We got along so well, and I was told I did very well on the assignment.
Near the end of the interview, the manager told me to wait a minute and she left and then came back and offered me the job. I was super ecstatic, and we started chatting about getting to know each other more when I start. She mentioned that she did a check of my socials and saw that I love dogs and she talked about her own dogs. We also talked about which concerts we had been to, as I had many pictures of me at concerts on my pages. At the end, she got a little too comfortable in my opinion and mentioned that she had done a boudoir shoot with the same company that I did mine with. At that point, I remembered that I had my boudoir pictures on social media.
After I left the interview, I was a tad bit embarrassed that my new manager saw me in such a state of undress. I’m obviously at fault for them seeing it, but I’m wondering if you think this is a major red flag for me working there? It seems as if she didn’t mean any offense by it and was just very friendly and chatting with me. She also didn’t say it was a bad thing and, hey, I got the job and at least I had a bra and underwear on and wasn’t nude! I’ve always wanted to work there and I am not sure if I am overthinking this or not?
Oh noooo. Yeah, “I saw your boudoir shots” is not what you want to hear from the person who just offered you job. But “I did my own with the same company” actually does make it less creepy … it’s still boundary-crossing, but it’s a different kind of boundary-crossing. It sounds like she thinks the two of you have a lot in common and maybe lost sight of appropriate professional boundaries in the moment. There’s no guarantee that she won’t continue to do that once you’re working there, but it’s also possible that she just got too comfortable with you.
“Too comfortable with you” can still be a bad thing, of course! But if everything else was good, I wouldn’t let this be the reason you don’t take the job (although I’d go into prepared to be thoughtful about what boundaries you want to keep up so that you can actively enforce them rather than going with the flow without thinking about it, and then realizing too late that conversation wandered into a play you’d rather it not have gone).
2. What to do about serious problems you never see firsthand
We are an educational institution, and I am in support/professional development. We have several classrooms where teachers are concerning, but when I or the directors or anybody is in for an observation, they are fine or good-enough, and I document they are doing what they are supposed to. But when I meet with other staff, they say it stops as soon as the observer is out of the room — and that if no one is in observing, the teacher is more abrupt with children, lets frustration show, doesn’t use the appropriate nurturing language, and lots of specific practices around interactions with children that we expect are not happening. A teacher said to me about another teacher we’ve been working with, “I guess it’s a little better, but they still have bad days, and I’ve heard from other teachers it’s worse when I’m not here (when it is just that staff and the assistant).” I asked the supervisor if those specific behaviors had been directly addressed with that teacher and their response was, “Well, we haven’t seen it.” The supervisors will also say, “The other staff need to let us know. We can’t do anything if we don’t know.” But there is a dynamic of staff going to leadership with concerns and feeling like they were not heard and nothing was done.
Morale is tanking in some of these rooms, and we’ve lost teachers. When people see that others are not held accountable, it is hard on everyone. I think staff don’t feel trusted, because their word that someone is problematic is not good enough. I understand the impulse to not go by rumor or hearsay; everyone needs due process, and we can’t really set up cameras to see what is going on when no one else is there, and lurking in the doorway and trying to watch when they don’t know isn’t going to do it either. What can I tell directors about how to deal with this? They acknowledge there is a problem, but act like they are helpless unless they see it themselves, but also don’t really go out of their way to see what is really happening.
Well, that’s wildly problematic! I don’t know how schools typically deal with these issues, but I can tell you how I’d deal with it as manager in a different environment and maybe something here will be applicable. If I was getting secondhand reports about serious concerns with an employee’s performance and that they were deliberately altering their behavior when I was observing, I’d do a few things. First, I’d find ways to observe for longer periods. For example, if I was hearing reports like this about a trainer — probably the closest comparable situation — I might even take a laptop into their training room and work from there for a few days. Second, I’d talk with people who were seeing it firsthand — which in this case presumably means teaching assistants and the students themselves. If enough people are reporting a behavior, and especially when you know those people to be generally credible, there’s a point where you don’t need to see it firsthand; the pattern of reports is enough in itself. Third, I’d talk directly with the employee questions, tell them forthrightly what concerns have been reported, and tell them that we need to work together to resolve those concerns, and that I was going to be spot-checking with others who observe their work — because at some point, the perception itself is a problem, totally aside from the rest of it.
I’m concerned that your colleagues are so willing to wash their hands of dealing with what sound like truly serious issues (and ones involving kids?!) just because they’re not witnessing the behavior firsthand. If they heard a teacher was, I don’t know, slapping kids, would they say they couldn’t do anything about it because they didn’t see it happen? Presumably not. They need to bring similar urgency to this too.
3. Foster care and parental leave
My workplace offers five weeks of parental leave, which includes birth of a baby, adoption, or the placement of a foster child.
I cannot have biological children, but I am about to be licensed to be a foster parent with the goal of caring for a teenager. When I receive my first foster placement, would it be unethical to take parental leave? I’d like to use the full benefits that are available to me as an employee, but I also don’t want to be unreasonable: I won’t have a baby at home, and for that reason won’t “need” the leave in the same way as others. But, it’s a big life transition. I almost wish I could split it up and use it for court dates, appointments, etc., but that’s not an option — the leave must be taken in one chunk and it can be taken a maximum of once per year.
Another consideration is that I won’t have months of pregnancy and a due date to tell my boss, make arrangements, etc. Once I’m licensed, I have no idea how long I’ll wait before getting a call, and I could find out hours before that a placement is happening. If I choose to take parental leave, how do I navigate this conversation with my manager and HR? What can I be doing now to prepare?
Yay to fostering teenagers! There is a massive, massive need.
You should absolutely use the leave when you get the placement. The policy explicitly allows it; you’re not doing anything wrong or anything that the policy didn’t explicitly envision. And there is a ton of work in the beginning of a placement, as well as just lots of connection-building to do (so even if you’re not actively caring for him or her every hour of the day like with a baby, being around and available is very helpful). You should also look into FMLA, because it also covers the placement of a foster child, and it can be taken intermittently and specifically includes court dates, appointments, etc.
As for what to say to your boss and HR: “I am in the process of being approved to foster a child. The timing is somewhat up in the air, but it could be any time after X. When I do get a placement, my plan is to take parental leave per our policy. So I wanted to talk with you about logistics and what I should be doing to prepare now, since I might not have a lot of advance notice when it happens.”
4. Can I ask if my department is going to be dissolved?
My department was just subsumed by a larger department, which has negative implications for our entire team’s titles. We are pretty niche, and I am worried the ultimate goal is to just slowly get rid of us completely, with our work being absorbed by the larger department. Can I just … ask? My manager’s manager reportedly made a comment to my manager at one point implying that our department might not need to exist forever.
I really love my job, and I have had a lot of professional success recently. I cannot help but worry that the recently merged organization no longer places much value in our work, so that success will not protect me if they don’t feel it serves their business needs. I am kicking myself for being too specialized at this point. I don’t know if they would be honest if I do ask, and I worry that asking makes it obvious I am going to be looking if I don’t get reassurance. Don’t ask, right?
You can ask, but if you hear “no, we’re not going anywhere,” you can’t place any real weight on it. For one thing, if there <are plans to cut your team, your manager may not even know that right now. For another if they do know, they might not be allowed to tell you (that’s highly likely, in fact). You can still ask, because you might hear something useful (like that she’s worried about that too) that confirms your worries, but you’ve got to go into knowing that you can’t take anything you hear as negating your worries (unless it’s something really clear and unusual, like they have specific plans to expand and support your work). In other words, either way you should probably be thinking about next steps.
AUSTIN, TX – World’s richest man Elon Musk has achieved another lifelong milestone goal, this time training his artificial intelligence program Grok to make it easier than ever for users to create images of illegal underage pornography. “Look, uh, we all know that advancement in internet computing is driven by porn, particularly really creepy porn,” […]
“Between the end of World War II and the decision in 1961 to locate the headquarters of NASA here, Houston transformed from Magnolia City into Space City. The population more than doubled, the economic and social realms altered radically and the city moved from regional hub to international metropolis. The influx of new people, new fortunes, and new influences had their impact on all aspects of the city including the arts.
Houston’s population grew by more than 150% from 1940-1960. The chemical and oil/gas industries grew exponentially. Houston transforming from a regional to an international city. The arts, building on the foundation of pre-WWII, exploded with activity, based on new participants coming in and ever-increasing exposure to the national and international art worlds. Racial integration of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), and some other Houston organizations. The Ludwig Mies van der Rohe addition to MFAH 1953. Federation of the Arts, April 1957 in Houston – where Marcel Duchamp delivered his lecture “The Creative Act.” In 1959, Houston gallerist Meredith Long took Texas artists (Jack Boynton, Paul Maxwell, Dan Wingren) all the way to Paris in an exhibition at Galerie du Colisee.
“Funeral for a Tree, Steve Parker’s second solo exhibition at Ivester Contemporary, is a requiem that a live oak performs for itself. When a 65-year-old tree in Parker’s front yard died of oak wilt, he cut the trunk into ‘wood cookies’ and transformed them into playable records, each encoded with migratory birdsong from species that roosted in the tree across its lifetime. Sheng virtuoso Jipo Yang interprets these songs on the sheng — a Chinese mouth organ associated with rebirth and the phoenix — which appears throughout the exhibition in multiple forms.
Across the gallery, the records spin on a custom wooden turntable, while ventilators and CPAP machines give breath to discarded shengs sourced from Taipei flea markets, sounding a slow memorial dirge. The project emerged from Parker’s recognition that his grief for the tree echoed the loss of his father to cancer — both slow, inevitable declines where care could not prevent loss. As the wood cookies dry and check, their audio fades and distorts, static and loss accumulating like a memory changing over time. The installation also includes abstracted turntables fitted with horn drivers, a live-oak branch driven by a camshaft that slowly unfurls to brush a wind chime, and a large bass drum heaped with wood shavings that tremble to birdsong.”
A work by Tyson Shepherd included in “Quiet and Secretly Afraid” at Ro2 Art
“In Tyson Shepherd’s exhibition Quiet and Secretly Afraid, a powerful series of acrylic paintings pulls together memory, personal myth, and pop iconography into charged, cinematic scenes. Saturated color, sharp contrast, and highly rendered figures create a visual language that feels both exuberant and uneasy. Youthful imagery collides with darker truths; cartoonish gestures share space with portraits that carry the weight of history and reputation. The paintings function as narratives unfolding in slow motion — part confession, part confrontation — as reflections of our inner child meet the realities of a fractured world. Viewers are asked to stay inside that discomfort long enough to recognize themselves.”
Sarah Fox, “You Are Not Alone”, 2025, ink, acrylic, oil, and embroidery on cotton and linen
“Sarah Fox’s multimedia narratives and characters emerge from embodied experiences of women and femme-read bodies. Her stories of life, loss, sex, and love are carried by archetypal hybrid beings that subvert and expand normative notions of femininity. Drawing from folklore, religion, film, pop culture, erotic art, and literature, the artist reveals feminist counter-narratives — figures who defy hegemonic gender systems and resist patriarchal modes of representation. These stories are often reinterpreted through puppets and animation, which serve as surrogate storytellers in her work.
At the core of her practice is the body — particularly the feminized body — as a political territory, a contested site of projection and rejection, of control and rebellion. Bodies that are read as “too much” — too old, too sexual, too beautiful, too powerful, too autonomous, or simply not functioning the way they are “supposed to” — are quickly cast as deviant, as monstrous in patriarchal narratives. Witches, sirens, fairies, harpies, banshees, monsters — these are not merely mythical figures but manifestations of a misogynistic fear of female autonomy and power. Through a visual language that spans diverse media, Fox explores the figure of the vilified, exiled, or subversive woman as a site of ambiguity, resistance, and transformative power. Her work stands as a reclamation of bodies and stories that have long been silenced, suppressed, or demonized.”
An installation view of “$#%& Show (Or, Stuff I Made Today)” at 5&J Gallery
“The $#%* Show (also known as Stuff I Made Today or the Shit Show LBK) returns for its 2026 edition at 5&J Gallery, the Charles Adams Studio Project (CASP), bringing together 30 artists for the time-constrained exhibition that has become a Lubbock tradition. Since 2014, the $#%* Show has challenged artists to create, install, and light new work based on a (surprise!) given material or theme within a 24-hour window before the exhibition opens. Past themes have included The Year 2050, cats and dogs, randomly selected objects in banker boxes, ring, leisure, found art, clothing, and cardboard.
This year’s participating artists include: Dirk Fowler, Ryder Richards, Carol Flueckiger, Jon Whitfill, Chad Plunket, Jesse Whitley, Maisie Alford, Nathalie Lawrence, Mallory Prucha, Brad Carlson, Zach Morriss, Jimmy Peterson, Miles Walker, Eli Ragland, Albert Hernandez, Avery Bonnette, Kegan Hollis, Oscar Cain, Megan Moore, Kara Speedy, Amanda Sneed, Jackson Fowler, John Chinn, Cody Arnall, Harrison Brooks, Ashley Busby, Dyson Fowler, Josue Galvan, Madison Hebert, and Scotty Hensler. Shit Show founder Hannah Dean and national Rabkin Prize for Art Criticism winner Christina Rees co-curated this show for their fourth annual collaboration.”
In brief: Today’s post discusses the possibility of thunderstorms with a front on Friday night, folllowed by a cooldown that will stick around for awhile. Winter, it seems, really might be here. Also, start line conditions for the Houston Marathon are the best I can recall.
Storms possible Friday night?
Houston’s weather has been mostly calm for awhile now, beyond the very warm conditions we have experienced since early December. However there is a slight chance of some severe weather on Friday night as a fairly robust cold front passes through. We will have a decent amount of shear available, but I just don’t think the overall background conditions will favor widespread, severe weather. So yes, some scattered thunderstorms are likely on Friday night (perhaps around midnight in central Houston), but I don’t expect much more than that.
Severe weather outlook for Friday and Friday night. (NOAA)
Thursday
We’re experiencing less fog this morning across the region, and that’s largely due to more pronounced southerly winds. They’re currently blowing at 10 to 15 mph, and we may see some stronger gusts up to 30 mph this afternoon. Skies will be mostly cloudy, but since the air mass moving in from the south will be warm and muggy, I still expect some parts of our area to hit 80 degrees. A few scattered, and light showers will also be possible today. Lows tonight will be very warm for January, in the upper 60s.
Friday
Rain chances improve on Friday, likely to about 60 percent for most locations. We will probably see scattered showers during the daytime. It is possible that a more organized line of showers and thunderstorms will develop later on Friday evening, and pass through Houston during the overnight hours. We’ll see. Regardless, temperatures on Friday will be warm and muggy, likely pushing 80 degrees. By Saturday morning we should be in the mid-50s, with much drier air moving in.
Saturday
This will be a breezy, and much cooler day with temperatures reaching only about 60 degrees during the afternoon. Skies will be mostly cloudy as well, adding to the chill feeling. A chance of showers may linger during the morning hours. Gusty winds from the north may reach 25 mph, or perhaps even a bit higher, before calming some Saturday night. Lows will drop into the mid-40s in Houston, with cooler conditions for outlying areas.
Air temperature forecast for the start of the Houston Marathon. (Weather Bell)
Sunday
I was chatting yesterday with a friend and fellow runner, and we agreed that conditions for the Houston Marathon are the best they’ve been in memory. Start-line temperatures will be in the 40s, with a modest northerly wind (probably 10 mph). Humidity will be very low, with partly to mostly cloudy skies. Rain should not be a factor. And temperatures by late morning likely will still only be in the 50s. So now is the time to go for those personal records!
Anyway, for non-runners, we can expect highs by Sunday afternoon to reach about 60 degrees. Sunday night will be quite cold, with lows in Houston dropping to 40 degrees, with mid- to upper-30s for outlying areas. Far inland locations, such as College Station, Huntsville, and elsewhere may see a light freeze.
Low temperature forecast for Monday morning. (Weather Bell)
Next week
Winter should stick around through next week, with highs mostly in the 60s, and lows in the 40s. We may see some rain chances on Tuesday or Wednesday as a reinforcing front moves through, and then again next weekend. The details, as always, are fuzzy at such a distance.
It seems that some of the apes have been saying, well, you haven’t actually made any law, per se. And, well, some of them are contending that perhaps you aren’t really the Lawgiver.
To Glenn, I am sure the UK’s passenger ferries seem as exotic as New Zealand’s eel café seems to we British. Have we discussed the eel café before? It is my hope that eventually Solver will visit NZ, but I fear I may have to bodily travel there to capture the “vibe”.
“Federal and local officials dispute the circumstances that led an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer to fatally shoot a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis on Wednesday.” — NPR
- - -
You think you’re watching a woman being shot in the face by an ICE agent, but what you’re really watching is a woman trying to run an ICE agent over and the agent firing at her in self-defense.
You think you’re watching an ICE agent walk up to a woman’s car asking her to leave, which she does, but what you’re really watching is a woman turn her car around and try to run the agent over.
You think you’re watching a woman drive away with an ICE agent following, then shooting her four times in the face, but what you’re really watching is an ICE agent in fear of his life and acting in self-defense.
You think you’re watching a video shot by a bystander who screams at the ICE agent, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh fuck, oh fuck, what did you do?!” But you’re really watching the bystander scream at the woman for trying to run over the ICE agent.
You think you’re watching a woman drive away when asked, but what you’re really watching is the woman attempting to run over all the ICE agents while they try to free their vehicles stuck in the snow.
You think you’re watching an ICE agent murder an innocent woman, but what you’re really watching is a federal agent being the victim of a domestic terrorist.
You think you’re watching a woman who’s been shot four times in the face lying dead on the front seat of her car, but what you’re really watching is the ICE agent alive and well after the “disorderly” woman hit him with her vehicle.
You think you’re watching an innocent woman being shot and killed by an ICE agent, but what you’re really watching is the radical left threatening, assaulting, and targeting law enforcement officers and ICE agents daily, who are just trying to do the job of making America safe.
You think you’re watching an innocent woman being shot and killed in cold blood by the federal government, but what you’re really watching is the death of the United States of America.
Renee Nicole Good was a 37-year-old award-winning poet, a mother of a six-year-old, and a wife who had recently moved to Minneapolis. That all ended yesterday when a masked ICE agent murdered her in broad daylight, shooting her multiple times at close range in the head. She had stuffed animal toys in the glove box of her SUV that rammed into another car after she’d been killed for no reason at all.
We have video of what happened. Multiple angles. The Trump administration is lying about every single detail anyway.
Donald Trump kicked off with a blatant lie, claiming that Good “viciously ran over the ICE officer.”
Known liar, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, called Good a “violent rioter” who “weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them—an act of domestic terrorism.”
Kristi Noem made up a complete fantasy:
It was an act of domestic terrorism. What happened was, our ICE officers were out in enforcement action, they got stuck in the snow because of the adverse weather that is in Minneapolis, they were attempting to push out their vehicle, and a woman attacked them and those surrounding them and attempted to run them over and ram them with her vehicle.
Not a single one of them is telling the truth. They are flat out lying.
Here’s what actually happened. The folks at Bellingcat put together a top down view showing the murder, pieced together from multiple videos:
Using imagery online of the shooting by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, we’ve created an animated sequence which highlights the approximate positioning of officers and vehicles at the scene. The red dot represents the agent who fired the shots. Yellow dots are other agents who arrived at the scene.
This morning (after equivocating all day yesterday, as I’ll discuss below), the NY Times put out a video using multiple bystander videos, showing that the ICE agent (1) was not hit (2) was not in the path of the vehicle and (3) was absolutely fine afterwards (contradicting claims from the administration that he was run over and in the hospital). See it here:
From all the evidence, it’s clear that Good had stopped and when ICE agents started demanding she move, she started to pull around the ICE vehicle in front of her. She paused to let another vehicle drive by her. As that happened (for no apparent reason) the ICE agent who eventually murdered her walked around the right side of her car to the front. As he does that two other ICE agents approach the car, with one telling her to exit the car while another yells for her to move. She then proceeds to try to drive away from the ICE agents. The one who had stepped in front of her car steps aside and then just starts madly firing at her head.
He murdered her. And Trump and his cronies are lying about it with video evidence directly contradicting every word.
This isn’t the first time ICE has killed someone. This is actually the ninth such shooting by an ICE agent since September, every single one of which involved an ICE agent blatantly violating policy by firing into a vehicle. This is at least the second outright murder, as opposed to attempted murder.
While ICE conveniently took down its page describing this (got something to hide?), the official policy is that “firearms shall not be discharged solely to disable moving vehicles.” Also, “discharging a firearm from a moving vehicle is prohibited.” There are some limited exceptions, but they appear to apply solely to a case where the car is driving directly at an ICE agent.
ICE shouldn’t even be in Minneapolis. It shouldn’t be anywhere. It shouldn’t exist. Nor should it ever have existed, as many of us have warned for many, many years. When we first started writing about ICE over 15 years ago, it was already a lawless organization.
This murder of an American citizen on a quiet street—someone who was just there to observe and monitor ICE agents kidnapping people—exemplifies why ICE is fundamentally incompatible with a free society. We’re talking about a masked federal police force, operating in secret, with no apparent limits, no meaningful rules, and no consequences for violence. They’re engaging in lethal force against anyone—citizens and non-citizens alike—because they’ve been given implicit permission by the White House to do whatever they want. MAGA folks mock the Gestapo comparison, but what else do you call an unaccountable secret police force that operates with impunity, murders citizens in broad daylight, and then lies about it with the full backing of the state?
Further, as detailed in the Court’s factual findings, agents have used excessive force in response to protesters’ and journalists’ exercise of their First Amendment rights, without justification, often without warning, and even at those who had begun to comply with agents’ orders…. While the Court acknowledges that some unruly individuals have been present during these gatherings, their presence among “peaceful protestors, journalists and legal observers does not give Defendants a blank check to employ unrestricted use of crowd control weapons,” and, in many of the instances in which agents deployed less lethal munitions, they did not direct the force anywhere near such bad actors…. Agents’ “use of indiscriminate weapons against all protesters—not just the violent ones—supports the inference that federal agents were substantially motivated by Plaintiffs’ protected First Amendment activity.”
Judge Ellis also called out DHS’s systematic lying—the same pattern we’re seeing now:
While Defendants may argue that the Court identifies only minor inconsistencies, every minor inconsistency adds up, and at some point, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to believe almost anything that Defendants represent
And yes, they will lie in the face of directly contradictory video evidence. Judge Ellis again:
Presumably, these portions of the videos would be Defendants’ best evidence to demonstrate that agents acted in line with the Constitution, federal laws, and the agencies’ own policies on use of force when engaging with protesters, the press, and religious practitioners. Buta review of them shows the opposite—supporting Plaintiffs’ claims and undermining all of Defendants’ claimsthat their actions toward protesters, the press, and religious practitioners have been, as Bovino has stated, “more than exemplary.”
A federal judge warned us six weeks ago that DHS and ICE would likely kill people and lie about it even when video proved them wrong. Yesterday proved her right. Again.
I had a few other stories I planned to write up on Wednesday, not to mention taking care of some other work, and I spent most of the day just unable to do anything, feeling sick to my stomach.
Yes, this happens in America (and elsewhere), but it shouldn’t. This is fucked up.
As 404 Media points out, this has become the standard course of action by the Trump admin these days.
This is a pattern. Some event happens as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign, DHS rushes out a misleading, wrong, or incendiary statement that does not reflect reality, and it becomes another piece of ammo for the X.com grifters, right wing media ecosystem, or people who just love the idea of others being hurt.
And, again, why the fuck is ICE even in Minneapolis anyway? Because a small-time MAGA grifter YouTuber made a misleading video a few weeks ago claiming day care centers in Minneapolis were running a scam. His “evidence”? The day cares had locked doors and wouldn’t let him in with his cameras—which is what day cares do when random people show up demanding entry.
Noem is claiming that ICE had to be in Minneapolis based on her lies that the city is “dangerous” and full of “criminals” who don’t belong there. But as multiple people have pointed out there has been only one murder in Minneapolis in 2026.
It was the one committed by this ICE agent yesterday.
The Trump MAGA DHS position is that if you don’t immediately submit in every possible way, they will frame you as a “threat” who they can kill with impunity. Defector’s summary is exactly right:
Now that the Trump administration has shown it will immediately make up a flagrant lie in an attempt to justify the summary execution of a U.S. citizen, on video, in broad daylight—and will outright valorize the ICE agent who drew his pistol and killed a civilian for the crime of moving her vehicle a few feet—the message is clear, to ICE agents and everyone else: Nothing constrains these agents except whatever inhibits any individual one of them, personally, from brutalizing and murdering any person who disobeys them….
In the eyes of the state and its agents, all of the rest of us are walking around with a standing presumption, not just of guilt, but of murderous intent. Anything but total and immediate submission is domestic terrorism. It’s punishable by whatever the masked and unidentified government agent pointing a gun at your face decides to dish out.
And, of course, the compliant media is playing its part. Both the NY Times and the Washington Post initially embraced the view-from-nowhere approach of claiming the events around the shooting are “disputed.”
Come the fuck on. Five hours later and the headline is still about a disputed shooting. Just a basic lack of courage to acknowledge the obvious.
The old journalism joke is that if one person tells you it’s sunny outside and the other says it’s raining, you don’t report that the weather is disputed. You go the fuck outside and check. We have the video here. Multiple angles. It shows exactly what happened. But the Times and Post were treating the administration’s obvious lies as equally valid to the documented evidence because… why? Because acknowledging that a federal agency will murder a citizen and then lie about it in the face of video evidence is too uncomfortable? This isn’t neutral journalism—it’s active complicity in state violence. When the media treats documented murder and transparent lies as a “dispute,” they’re telling every ICE agent that there will be no accountability, no matter how clear the evidence.
Yes, eventually, this morning, both the NY Times and the Washington Post published more thorough investigations, showing that the administration is lying. But they let the “dispute” stand for 24 hours, allowing the administration to set the narrative that will live on. And even now they’re using equivocal language. The Post’s story talks about how the video evidence “raises questions about” what the admin is saying, rather than just coming out and saying that they’re LYING.
And I won’t get into how state media like Fox News is reporting on this: focusing on whatever it could dig up about Good to mock her, as if anything in her personal life or views somehow justifies her being murdered. Or all the GOP elected officials going on TV trying to pretend that she might have deserved to have been murdered in the street.
Yes, I know that in these tribal times so many people are playing the team sports thing of just immediately defending their cult leader. Going on X and looking around, you see just an overwhelming flood of absolute bullshit from MAGA folks cracking jokes (remember when they wanted people fired for joking about Charlie Kirk’s murder?) and trying to spin the story, knowing full well it’s all bullshit.
But some are seeing through it. A neighbor near where the murder happened, who identified himself as “right leaning,” admitted that the situation shook him, as “this is not how we’re supposed to be doing things in America.”
Really worth watching this interview with a bystander who witnessed the ICE shooting in Minneapolis: "I'm pretty right-leaning. But seeing this, this is not how we're supposed to be doing things in America.”
He’s right. And it is beyond disgusting that so many powerful forces in our government and the media are trying to twist and manipulate the story to justify an out of control ICE.
The only appropriate response here is to shut down ICE. Shut down DHS. Yes, there are important and necessary roles in DHS, but they existed without DHS before it was formed two decades ago, and we can redistribute those roles elsewhere in the federal government. But we don’t need ICE. We don’t need a secret federal police that goes around in masks kidnapping and murdering people.
It’s about as un-American as you can imagine.
This murder has at least appeared to wake some politicians from their slumber. We’ve seen multiple Democratic politicians, especially in Minnesota, speak out as forcefully as I’ve seen politicians speak out in years, telling ICE to get the fuck out of Minneapolis and calling out the administration’s lies directly. That matters. When officials with actual power are willing to name the truth—that ICE murdered a citizen and the administration is lying about it—it creates space for others to do the same.
But also thousands came out to memorialize Renee Nicole Good, in the freezing cold in a Minneapolis January. Hundreds turned up at a training session for legal observers, even as hundreds more are already patrolling Minneapolis, observing ICE’s illegal actions, and doing so knowing that ICE and DHS won’t hesitate to shoot them dead.
That’s what a movement looks like when institutions fail. Not waiting for someone to save us, but showing up in the freezing cold to say: you will not do this in our name. You will not kill our neighbors without witness. You will not lie about it unchallenged.
I’m going to leave this post up for a while before we post anything else. This matters more than the usual tech policy stories right now.
There are plenty of things going on that are infuriating. Ever day this administration finds new ways to spit on the Constitution. We’re still dealing with the illegal invasion of Venezuela, and apparent plans to attack multiple other nations around the Western Hemisphere.
But Renee Nicole Good’s murder cuts through all of that noise. A masked federal agent murdered an American citizen in broad daylight for no reason at all. The administration lied about it with video evidence directly contradicting every word. The media called it “disputed.” And thousands of people said no.
The institutional guardrails have failed. The courts warned us this would happen and it happened anyway. The media won’t hold power accountable. So the work falls to us—to show up, to document, to refuse to accept the lies, to make the cost of this violence too high to sustain.
ICE must be abolished. This cannot stand. And anyone who makes excuses for what happened yesterday has chosen a side, and it’s not the side of America or freedom or anything resembling justice.
Renee Nicole Good was a poet, a mother, and a citizen murdered by her own government for the crime of existing near an ICE agent having a bad day. Remember her name. Remember what they did. And remember that they lied about it even with the cameras rolling.
With more choices for a quick bite, the market share for pizza in the United States has taken a hit over the past few years. Heather Haddon for the Wall Street Journal:
Americans still eat a lot of pizza. Pizza chains generated around $31 billion in sales from their restaurants in 2024, the market-research firm Technomic said. On any given day, around one in 10 Americans will partake of a slice, according to the Agriculture Department. Young people drive much of the consumption.
Pizza’s dominance in American restaurant fare is declining, however. Among different cuisines, it ranked sixth in terms of U.S. sales in 2024 among restaurant chains, down from second place during the 1990s, Technomic said.
WASHINGTON—Claiming that most people only get a fraction of the benefits the “nutritional gold mine” has to offer, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. issued new dietary guidelines this week encouraging Americans to drink anything that comes out of a cow. “While milk is already an established part of many American diets, it’s really only the tip of the iceberg where health-enhancing cow-based liquids are concerned,” said Kennedy, who remarked that substances ranging from cow pus and sweat to cow bile and amniotic fluid were all associated with better health outcomes in those who imbibed them. “Drinking these things straight from the cow means you’re not losing any of their beneficial properties to pasteurization, so I urge all Americans to get out in the field and start sucking ASAP. It can be the front of the cow, the back, the middle, doesn’t matter. Any opening you can get your lips around is going to leak something that does wonders for your body, be it an orifice or an open wound. And if it’s too thick to drink, just lick it, or try spreading it on toast.” At press time, Kennedy had reportedly been placed on an intravenous drip of bovine cerebrospinal fluid after unwittingly drinking from a cow that had been vaccinated.
WASHINGTON—Claiming that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who fatally shot 37-year-old Minneapolis resident Renee Good as she drove away from him was “fully justified,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem warned Thursday that any action taken by Americans would be treated as domestic terrorism. “Make no mistake: Anything and everything Americans do, from the second they wake up to the second they fall asleep, will be treated as a national security threat and dealt with accordingly,” said Noem, who added that even seemingly trivial activities like picking up groceries, calling friends on the phone, or sneezing would warrant the use of lethal force by a federal agent. “To any U.S. resident currently considering leaving your house, walking down the street, breathing, or hugging your loved ones, you have been warned. We will find you. And we will kill you.” Noem added that she had formally charged over 340 Americans with acts of domestic terrorism for engaging in the act of being born.
President Donald Trump has made a number of claims about the future of Venezuela since U.S. special forces raided the country and captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. The Onion assesses the veracity of the president’s statements.
Claim: The U.S. attacked Venezuela for its oil.
Partially True: Also for bloodlust.
Claim: Venezuela stole oil from the U.S.
False: The beauty of petrochemicals belongs to all of us.
Claim: Controlling Venezuela’s oil reserves will make the U.S. a lot of money.
True: The billionaires who will benefit from this are technically part of the U.S.
Claim: Venezuela is full of murderers and kidnappers.
False: All members of U.S. Delta Force have returned home.
Claim: Venezuela sent people to participate in gang violence in America.
False: Major League Baseball is not considered a gang.
Claim: Venezuela is solely responsible for America’s fentanyl crisis.
False: This erases decades of hard work and dedication by the Sackler family.
Claim: The strikes and Maduro’s capture are legal and justified under U.S. law.
False, but give the Supreme Court a few days.
Claim: Maduro will be given a fair and speedy trial.
The United Kingdom banned junk food advertisements on television before 9 p.m. and at any time online, part of a drive to tackle childhood obesity. What do you think?
“Please, the British word for childhood obesity is ‘totty flabbers.’”
Stefan Hach, Baby Swaddler
“British children need nourishing food like sausages and fried potatoes.”
Mathias Adler, Unemployed
“Sad to think an entire generation of children will never sexually imprint on Chester Cheetah.”
“Say what you want about Bush-Cheney, but they put some effort into tricking us.” Luke and the Panel (Ian MacIntyre, Clare Blackwood and Nile Seguin) dive into the chaos and confusion of Trump’s decision to attack Venezuela and kidnap its leader, including the “problematic” legal precedent it sets, what it means for other countries subject […]
MINNEAPOLIS, MN — While details surrounding the shooting death of Renee Nicole Good, 37, in Minneapolis yesterday are still emerging, one fact is certain: the ICE agent who pulled the trigger will face consequences, up to and including the jealousy of his coworkers. “Man, he’s so lucky! That was some straight-up GTA V shit,” said […]
The U.S. Postal Service changed when mail is postmarked as it's being processed – which could cause issues with time-sensitive mail like ballots and taxes. But, advocates worry the change could also lead to a loss of coverage and access to services, especially for people with disabilities.
by Jessica Priest, Texas Tribune, Sneha Dey, Texas Tribune
With the semester set to begin next week, professors have been directed to alter courses, and some classes have been removed or reassigned from the core curriculum at the College Station campus.
1. Employee doesn’t know I have access to her emails
I have a direct report that had to take a medical leave (two months) and during that time I needed access to her emails so I could assist customers who had pending issues, and the emails contained the information I needed. She is back now, but I am seeing some performance issues I need to address. She is not aware that I still have access to her email as IT never removed my access. I don’t want to micromanage, and I only look at it when there is an issue and I need to see what she actually said to a customer. I’m now seeing some things that are a bit concerning. At what point do I disclose the email access? When we have a corrective action meeting?
Well, first, you should not continue to have access to her emails without her knowing. If the issues are such that you’re reluctant to give up that access, you need to be up-front with her about it. That would mean saying something like, “I needed access to your email while you were on leave so that I could check history with customers when issues came up. I’m not actively using that access, but I did check it recently because of X and I am concerned about Y.” And then be up-front about whatever patterns you’re worried about in general and talk about what needs to change. You don’t need to wait for a formal corrective action meeting to do this; you can do it now so that she’s aware and doesn’t use her email for something highly personal (like medical stuff or divorce proceedings or whatever; ideally people wouldn’t do that with work email, but they do and she deserves to know you could see it if she does).
Ideally you’d also have IT remove your access (and then let her know when it’s done). But if you’re seeing the kind of issues that make it clear you need to be spot-checking what she’s sending to clients, etc., then be transparent that you’re doing that and why (and explain what needs to change before you will stop those spot checks).
2. People keep interrupting me for help with the copier
I am a high school assistant principal. I have a private office in the administrative suite, and the culture here is that administrators’ doors remain open unless there’s a sensitive meeting happening inside.
My office sits directly across from the copier. About nine billion times a day, I get teachers/staff/students asking for help with the machine. Sometimes they need help with basic functions like collating, sometimes it’s replacing the paper or toner, and sometimes it’s a legit jam that can take awhile to fix.
I’m not adverse to helping people (one of the reasons I went into school leadership is because I wanted to be the administrator who actually supports teachers), but it’s really not my job to have to drop everything for someone else’s copies, especially when it disrupts my own time-sensitive work. What is a gracious script for telling people to either figure it out for themselves or ask the administrative assistant?
“I’m sorry, I’m right in the middle of something, but Jane should be able to help.”
Or: “I’m sorry, I don’t use the copier much, but Jane should be able to help.”
My hunch is that these might not feel gracious enough to you or you’d already be saying them — because they’re pretty straightforward! — and the issue is less finding the right words and more than you feel awkward about the substance of the message, but these really are reasonable to say!
Also, though … would it make sense ask the assistant to put a sign up by the copier with solutions to the most common problems, including instructions to check with the assistant if those instructions don’t help?
3. Should I have told my boss a new hire sexually harassed me eight years ago?
20 years ago, I moved halfway across the country to start a job in a new state. We worked the second shift, so it was common for the group of coworkers and supervisors to go out for drinks and hang out after work. One night, as we were leaving the bar, a supervisor called Angus pulled me aside because he wanted my advice. He launched into his difficulties in the bedroom with his wife and asked what I thought about threesomes — did I think that would help? Shocked and confused, I gave a polite, general response and left as soon as I could.
A few days later, a colleague told when that she was out with Angus and the group for after-work drinks the night before (my night off so I wasn’t there), he recounted this embarrassing conversation, revealing that he and his wife wanted to invite me to join them in a threesome. Basically, he was saying I was flirting with them (!), so he tried inviting me but I was too oblivious to take the hint. They all had a good laugh at my expense. Though this is a clear case of sexual harassment, I didn’t report it. He had just given notice, as he had accepted a new role in a different state. And here I was, the new hire trying to make a good impression — why make waves?
Fast forward eight years. I get promoted and — surprise! — Angus was coming back to town to take his old role. Basically, we would each lead a department and we would be equals on the organizational chart. I considered telling our mutual boss about the sexual harassment years ago when I was a new employee. But I didn’t. I felt it was too long ago to be relevant, plus there was a chance it would backfire. (How would have my boss reacted? Flip a coin.) I kept quiet. But I was on Angus-watch, paying close attention to how he interacted with his staff.
For the next four years, we were coworkers. Nothing happened with his staff that I’m aware of that made me regret my choice. He seemed to have clearer professional boundaries, wasn’t socializing or going out for drinks with staff, etc. Eventually, I felt reasonably comfortable working with him, though I kept a polite distance. Still, I wonder if I had let down the women in my workplace, especially since I had moved into a leadership role. I’d appreciate your thoughts on how I handled this. As a manager, was I obligated to report the past harassment to my boss when that supervisor was rehired?
Managers are legally obligated to report harassment that they’re aware of — but that generally means things are currently happening in your workplace now, not something that happened to you eight years earlier. That said, it’s also true that as a manager, if you’re aware that someone may be a creep with a track record colleagues, ideally you’d share that. But were you obligated to share it, considering that it was eight years ago, you’re the one it happened to, and you were worried about repercussions for yourself? I don’t think so. This stuff is really hard to navigate though — it shouldn’t be! you should be able to be confident that if you share info like this, you won’t be the one who’s harmed by it, but that’s not the world we live in — and you shouldn’t beat yourself up second-guessing how you handled it.
4. My job is planning around me because they don’t know I’ll be leaving soon
I recently accepted a job offer that I’m extremely excited about. It is pending final HR approval, so I haven’t put in my notice or anything, but I have been given a start date almost two months ago. I was told that my new job was hoping to have the approval in place sooner, but, it sounds like there’s a batch of positions that HR is going to approve around the same time.
My concern is that I have a leadership role in my current job, and my office is going through some changes. My direct supervisor is very much planning on me taking an active role in training new people who are going to be brought on. I can’t give notice yet, but I’m feeling guilty about not being able to give any kind of heads up to him. Is there anything I can do, or do I just need to hope I’m able to let him know soon about my future plans?
You need to proceed as if you’re not leaving until the other job is completely finalized. While it probably won’t fall through, sometimes that does happen (or the start date gets pushed back further than you were anticipating). You don’t want to give notice until you’re actually ready to give notice, and while that can make things less convenient for your employer, it’s just the way this stuff goes because you can’t be expected to jeopardize your own financial security to mitigate that for them.
But that stuff happens! People leave jobs all the time when those jobs were planning around them for all sorts of things, and people figure it out. Your current job will too.
5. How can I ask why I need to attend these training exercises?
I’m new in a job, a sort of step back for me, removing all emergency response and 24/7 on-call status. It should help me have a better work life balance.
My boss knows me from my previous job where we were equals. Same job, different organizations. She knows why I needed to leave my job.
She has invited me to two intense, all-day table top emergency exercises. I thought I wasn’t going to have anything to do with emergencies anymore, so I’m confused on why I need to attend these, and as the only person representing our team.
It’s triggering some trauma for me; I’ve been involved in real-life, high-level emergencies, and I burned out. The table tops I used to attend always triggered me — always lots of talk about supposed death and destruction. They’re awful. How can I professionally ask my boss why I need to attend these exercises? I’m afraid I’m too emotional to come up with the words on my own.
“Is it necessary that I be the one to attend these? My understanding was that I wouldn’t be working on emergencies in this role, which was part of the appeal of the position to me. I have a strong preference for avoiding them if that’s feasible.”
