A decades-long peace vigil outside the White House is dismantled after Trump's order

PABLO MONSIVAIS and FARNOUSH AMIRI
Sun, September 7, 2025 


Philipos Melaku-Bello talks to people during Peace Vigil in Lafayette Park across from the White House in Washington, Sunday, Sept. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Law enforcement officials on Sunday removed a peace vigil that had stood outside the White House for more than four decades after President Donald Trump ordered it to be taken down as part of the clearing of homeless encampments in the nation’s capital.

Philipos Melaku-Bello, a volunteer who has manned the vigil for years, told The Associated Press that the Park Police removed it early Sunday morning. He said officials justified the removal by mislabeling the memorial as a shelter.

“The difference between an encampment and a vigil is that an encampment is where homeless people live,” Melaku-Bello said. “As you can see, I don't have a bed. I have signs and it is covered by the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression.”

The White House confirmed the removal, telling AP in a statement that the vigil was a "hazard to those visiting the White House and the surrounding areas.”

Taking down the vigil is the latest in a series of actions the Trump administration has ordered as part of its federal takeover of policing in the city, which began last month. The White House has defended the intervention as needed to fulfill Trump's executive order on the “beautification” of D.C.

Melaku-Bello said he's in touch with attorneys about what he sees as a civil rights violation. “They’re choosing to call a place that is not an encampment an encampment just to fit what is in Trump’s agenda of removing the encampments,” he said.

The vigil was started in 1981 by activist William Thomas to promote nuclear disarmament and an end to global conflicts. It is believed to be the longest continuous anti-war protest in U.S. history. When Thomas died in 2009, other protesters like Melaku-Bello manned the tiny tent and the banner, which read “Live by the bomb, die by the bomb," around the clock to avoid it being dismantled by authorities

The small but persistent act of protest was brought to Trump's attention during an event at the While House on Friday.

Brian Glenn, a correspondent for the conservative network Real America’s Voice, told Trump the blue tent was an “eyesore” for those who come to the White House.

“Just out front of the White House is a blue tent that originally was put there to be an anti-nuclear tent for nuclear arms,” Glenn said. “It’s kind of morphed into more of an anti-American, sometimes anti-Trump at many times.”

Trump, who said he was not aware of it, told his staff: “Take it down. Take it down today, right now."

Melaku-Bello said that Glenn spread misinformation when he told the president that the tent had rats and “could be a national security risk" because people could hide weapons in there.

“No weapons were found," he told AP. He said that it was rat-infested. Not a single rat came out as they took down the cinder blocks."

___

Amiri reported from New York. Will Weissert in New York contributed to this report.

Maryland leaders tell Trump they don't need the National Guard to curb gun violence

Homicides and shootings have fallen in Baltimore

LEA SKENE
Fri, September 5, 2025 


Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, center left, addresses the crowd, joined by Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, ahead of a Community Walk in northwest Baltimore, Md., on Friday, Sept. 5, 2025. (Ulysses Muñoz/The Baltimore Banner via AP)

BALTIMORE (AP) — In a pointed show of solidarity against President Donald Trump, state and local leaders walked through one of Baltimore’s most historically underserved neighborhoods Friday evening amid ongoing efforts to curb gun violence.

Those efforts are working, Gov. Wes Moore said. Homicides in Baltimore have reached historic lows with sustained declines starting in 2023. He said the last thing Baltimore needs is the National Guard presence Trump has threatened.

“We do not need occupiers,” Moore said to a crowd of law enforcement officers, anti-violence advocates, local clergy and other community leaders who gathered in northwest Baltimore’s Park Heights neighborhood

Moore wrote a letter to the president last month inviting him to visit Baltimore and see its recent success firsthand. Officials attribute the progress to their crime-fighting strategies, which include social services meant to address the root causes of violence.

In an escalating feud over public safety, Trump responded to the invitation by calling Baltimore “a horrible, horrible deathbed” and insulting Maryland leaders.

“I’m not walking in Baltimore right now,” he said.

His refusal prompted state and local leaders to present a strongly united front.

Moore, a U.S. Army veteran, criticized Trump for using National Guard members to send a political message in a “purely theatrical” show of force.

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott joined the governor Friday in his childhood home of Park Heights. The sprawling majority-Black community in northwest Baltimore has suffered from decades of disinvestment, but Scott has made a point of investing in its future. Park Heights once boasted a thriving economy and picturesque tree-lined streets surrounding the historic Pimlico Race Course. But white flight and other factors led to increased rates of poverty, violence and economic decline.

As the group started walking, they chanted: “We all we got, we all we need.” They passed a dollar store and other rundown businesses. They turned down a residential street where people waved from the porches of brick row homes

Kevin Myers, a longtime Park Heights resident, was climbing into his truck when the group passed. He said Baltimore leaders are making him proud.

“Let Trump know you can handle Baltimore,” he yelled to the mayor, who smiled widely in response.

Another man briefly heckled the group, saying the event was just a media stunt, not proof that elected officials are truly committed to helping the community.

Trump has previously targeted Baltimore

Scott has repeatedly accused Trump of using racist rhetoric and targeting Black-led cities with his promises to deploy National Guard troops. In remarks after the walk, he urged Baltimore residents to push back against that rhetoric.

“Do not shrink. Stand up in the moment,” he said. “So a hundred years from now … they will know that you stood up to fascism, that you stood up to racism, that you stood up to folks who were trying to destroy your democracy.”

Earlier this week, the president renewed his threats to send National Guard troops to Baltimore, though he appeared more focused on Chicago. He has already sent troops into Los Angeles and Washington, where he has also federalized the police force. He has said he plans similar moves in other Democrat-run cities even as a federal judge on Tuesday deemed the California deployment illegal.

This isn’t the first time Trump has taken aim at Baltimore. He previously called the city a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.” Those comments came amid the president’s attacks on Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, whose district included Baltimore until his death in 2019.

In his letter to the president, Maryland’s governor noted recent cuts to federal funding for violence intervention programs. He asked Trump to “be part of the solution, not the problem.”

Homicides and shootings have fallen in Baltimore

Homicides and shootings in Baltimore have plummeted over the past two years. The city recorded 201 homicides in 2024, the lowest annual total in over a decade and a 23% drop from the previous year. The downward trend has continued throughout 2025, including the lowest number of homicides on record for the month of August. It is a relief for Baltimore, where violence surged following the 2015 in-custody death of Freddie Gray and subsequent protests against police brutality.

While Baltimore’s numbers are especially dramatic, other cities are also seeing post-pandemic declines in violence.

Baltimore officials say that is because they are taking a holistic approach to public safety, instead of relying solely on law enforcement. The city is investing in historically neglected communities to help address the myriad factors that perpetuate cycles of gun violence: hopelessness, joblessness, poverty, mental health, substance abuse, housing instability, poor conflict resolution and more.

Analysis: What's behind Putin's uncompromising stance on Ukraine war?

Steve Rosenberg - BBC Russia editor, in Vladivostok
Fri, September 5, 2025 at 8:34 PM MDT


Sometimes it's not what's said that makes the biggest impression.

It's the reaction.

In the Russian Far East, Vladimir Putin delivered a warning to the West: don't even think about sending soldiers - and that includes peacekeepers - to Ukraine.

"If some troops appear there," the Russian president said, "especially now while the fighting's going on, we proceed from the premise that these will be legitimate targets for destruction."

Then the reaction.

The audience at the economic forum in Vladivostok burst into applause, with Russian officials and business leaders apparently welcoming the threat to "destroy" Western troops.

Observing the scene in the hall, I found the applause quite chilling.

And this came just a day after Kyiv's allies, the so-called Coalition of the Willing, had pledged a post-war "reassurance force" for Ukraine.

Putin said he would only meet Zelensky in Moscow - a proposal dismissed outside Russia as a non-starter [SPUTNIK/KREMLIN POOL/EPA/Shutterstock]

The audience applauded again when the Kremlin leader suggested that he would be prepared to meet Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky - but only on home soil.

"The best place for this is the Russian capital, in Hero City Moscow," said Putin.

Outside Russia, Putin's proposal has been dismissed as unserious, a complete non-starter. 

But in many ways it encapsulates the Kremlin's current position on the war in Ukraine: "Yes, we want peace, but only on our terms. You reject our terms? No peace then."

This uncompromising stance is being fuelled by a combination of factors.

First, by the Kremlin's belief that, in Ukraine, Russian forces have the initiative on the battlefield.

Second, by diplomatic success. In China this week, Putin shook hands and shared smiles with a string of world leaders. The optics were all about demonstrating that Russia has powerful friends, such as China, India and North Korea.

And then there's America. Last month US President Donald Trump invited Putin to Alaska for a summit meeting. Back home pro-Kremlin commentators hailed the event as evidence that Western efforts to isolate Russia over the war in Ukraine had failed.

To convince the Kremlin to end the fighting Trump has previously set ultimatums and deadlines; he's threatened further sanctions if Russia won't make peace.

But Trump hasn't followed through on his threats - and that's another reason for Russia's confidence.

Putin publicly praises Trump's peace efforts. And yet he has rejected Trump's ceasefire proposals and shown no desire to make concessions over the war in Ukraine.

So where does that leave prospects for peace?

Putin said recently that he could see "light at the end of the tunnel".

It seems to me that right now Russia on the one hand, and Ukraine and Europe (and to some extent America) on the other are in different tunnels, on different roads, with different destinations.

Ukraine and Europe are focused on ending the fighting, shaping security guarantees for Kyiv and making sure that the Ukrainian army is strong enough post-war to prevent another invasion.

When Putin talks about "light at the end of the tunnel", I believe he imagines a path that leads to a Russian victory in Ukraine, and more widely, to the construction of a new global order that benefits Russia.

In terms of peace, it's hard to see where and when these two very different highways will converge.

US yet to approve any help following Afghanistan earthquake, sources say

MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS

Jonathan Landay
Fri, September 5, 2025 

REUTERS


FILE PHOTO: Aftermath of deadly earthquake in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Nearly a week after an earthquake killed more than 2,200 people in Afghanistan and left tens of thousands homeless, the United States has not taken the first step to authorize emergency aid, and it was unclear if it plans to help at all, two former senior U.S. officials and a source familiar with the situation told Reuters.

The lack of response by Washington to one of Afghanistan's deadliest quakes in years underscores how President Donald Trump has forfeited decades of U.S. leadership of global disaster relief with his deep foreign aid cuts and closure of the main U.S. foreign assistance agency, said the source and the former officials

The U.S. Agency for International Development was officially shuttered on Tuesday.

The State Department on Monday extended its "heartfelt condolences" to Afghanistan in an X post.

As of Friday, however, the State Department had not approved a declaration of humanitarian need, the first step in authorizing U.S. emergency relief, said the former officials, both of whom worked at USAID, and the third source, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Such a declaration is usually issued within 24 hours of a major disaster.

The sources said State Department officials had considered recommendations for U.S. disaster aid for Afghanistan. One former senior official said the White House also has considered the issue, but decided against reversing a policy of ending aid to Afghanistan.

When asked if the U.S. would provide any emergency aid to Afghanistan following the magnitude 6 quake on Sunday, which was followed by powerful aftershocks on Thursday and Friday, a State Department spokesperson said: "We have nothing further to announce at this time."

The United States was, until this year, the largest aid donor to Afghanistan, where it fought a 20-year war that ended with a chaotic U.S. withdrawal and the Taliban's seizure of Kabul in 2021.

But in April, the Trump administration ended virtually all aid - totaling $562 million - to Afghanistan, citing a U.S. watchdog report that humanitarian groups receiving U.S. funds had paid $10.9 million in taxes, fees, and duties to the Taliban.

Asked whether the U.S. would provide emergency relief for earthquake survivors, a White House official said, "President Trump has been consistent in ensuring aid does not land in the hands of the Taliban regime, which continues to wrongfully detain U.S. citizens.”

'STUCK IN STORAGE'

United Nations aid chief Tom Fletcher said the Afghan earthquake was “the latest crisis to expose the cost of shrinking resources on vital humanitarian work.”

“Massive funding cuts have already brought essential health and nutrition services for millions to a halt; grounded aircraft, which are often the only lifeline to remote communities; and forced aid agencies to reduce their footprint,” he said in a statement on Thursday.

The Trump administration also has yet to respond to a request by the International Rescue Committee humanitarian organization to send $105,000 worth of U.S.-funded medical supplies following the first earthquake.

The materials include stethoscopes, first aid supplies, stretchers, and other essentials, said Kelly Razzouk, vice president of policy and advocacy for the IRC.

"The stocks are stuck in storage," said Razzouk, who served on former U.S. President Joe Biden’s National Security Council. "In recent memory, I can't remember a time when the U.S. did not respond to a crisis like this."

The IRC needs Washington’s permission to send the equipment to Afghanistan because it had been funded by an unrelated U.S. grant that the Trump administration had since canceled.

"Beyond the loss of life, we have also seen basic infrastructure and livelihoods destroyed," Stephen Rodriguez, the representative in Afghanistan for the U.N. Development Programme, told reporters on Friday.

He said donations of money, goods, and services have come from Britain, South Korea, Australia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, and other countries.

"Far more is needed."

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay; additional reporting by Michelle Nichols and Charlotte Greenfield;Editing by Rod Nickel)



Virginia nonprofit STEP aids earthquake victims in Afghanistan

John Eldridge
Sat, September 6, 2025

WAVY



SPRINGFIELD, Va. (WAVY) – After a devastating 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck Afghanistan on Sunday, a Virginia-based nonprofit has been on the scene to help.

The Society to Empower People, otherwise known as STEP, is based out of Springfield, Virginia, and their staff and survey teams have been on location to ensure aid is delivered to those affected by this disaster.

The organization recently launched a GoFundMe to help with the costs of food, water and aid for the people of Afghanistan. Per GoFundMe:

$25 can provide a family with a hygiene kit and clean water.


$50 can supply emergency food parcels to a family for one week.


$100 can provide temporary shelter and blankets for a family who has lost their home.


$250 can help with urgent medical supplies and first aid for the injured.

Amy Coney Barrett, conservative panelists discuss overturning marriage equality

Trudy Ring
Sat, September 6, 2025

THE ADVOCATE


Amy Coney Barrett Katy Faust John Eastman

Conservative Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett doesn’t appear inclined to overturn marriage equality — but can she be trusted?

Barrett calls the right to marry “fundamental” in her new book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution, which comes out Tuesday. However, she has previously said the matter should be up to each state. And in her confirmation hearings in 2020, she was cagey about whether she would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed the right to abortion nationwide, but in 2022 she voted to overturn it.

Meanwhile, panelists at the National Conservatism Conference, held this week in Washington, D.C., discussed the possible reversal of Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court ruling that established marriage equality in every state

In her book, Barrett writes, "The court has held that the rights to marry, engage in sexual intimacy, use birth control, and raise children are fundamental, but the rights to do business, commit suicide, and obtain abortion are not."

Barrett recently told Norah O’Donnell of CBS News that she hopes to help readers “understand the law.” It’s not just an opinion poll,” she said.

“You know, what the court is trying to do is see what the American people have decided. And sometimes the American people have expressed themselves in the Constitution itself, which is our fundamental law. Sometimes in statutes,” she said. “But the court should not be imposing its own values on the American people. That’s for the democratic process.”

Barrett was evasive about her views on marriage equality during her confirmation hearings. But she had previously suggested it should be decided state by state.

Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton recently said she expects the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, to overturn Obergefell. “It took 50 years to overturn Roe v. Wade,” she told Jessica Tarlov of The Five in a podcast interview. “The Supreme Court will hear a case about gay marriage. My prediction is they will do to gay marriage what they did to abortion. They will send it back to the states.”

Last month, Kim Davis, the former clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, asked the Supreme Court to hear her case challenging Obergefell. Davis, a conservative Christian, quit issuing marriage licenses altogether after the ruling so she wouldn’t have to issue them to same-sex couples. The high court justices haven’t said if they’ll take the case.

Some political observers disagree with Clinton, saying the Supreme Court likely doesn’t want to revisit marriage equality, even though two ultraconservative members — Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito — have said they’d like to overturn it.

Gene Rossi, a former federal prosecutor, told Newsweek that Barrett’s comments in her book and to CBS indicate she’s “not inclined to overturn the right to same-sex marriage.” She has sometimes gone against other conservative justices.

“As to whether other justices share her apparent view, I would further guess that at least Justice Thomas would not agree with her,” Rossi added. “In the end, my prediction is that a majority of the court will stand firm and preserve the right to same-sex marriage.”

O'Donnell's interview on with Barrett will air on CBS Sunday Morning at 9 a.m. Sunday and at 11 a.m. on CBS News 24/7.

If the court did overturn Obergefell, there would be some protection from the Respect for Marriage Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022. It requires federal recognition of same-sex and interracial marriages, and requires states to recognize those performed in other states. However, no state would have to offer equal marriage rights.

In addition to Davis, there are other right-wing forces who would like to see the ruling reversed. At the National Conservatism Conference’s “Overturn Obergefell” panel Thursday, participants portrayed marriage equality as the source of many societal ills, including harm to children — something debunked by many studies.

“The last 10 years have made one thing unmistakably clear: We can either recognize gay marriage, or we can recognize a child’s right to the mother and father. We can't do both,” anti-LGBTQ+ activist Katy Faust said at the event, according to The Washington Times. “If we are to retake legal marriage, we highlight the real victims, the children starved of maternal or paternal love, acquired by predators, mass produced, trafficked across borders, struggling with identity confusion, subjected to risky households.”

“If an adult can assemble sperm, egg, and womb — and ‘intend’ to parent the child —they get the baby,” she said. “Biologically related or not. Pedophile or not. Retiree or not. Foreign national or not. Intent-based parentage is child trafficking disguised as constitutional rights. Gay marriage did that.”

“The moment the state has the power to assign parenthood to strangers, it can unassign it from you,” she added. “Your legal relationship to the children you’ve begotten is weaker than it was a decade ago. Make no mistake. Gay marriage did that.”

Jeff Shafer, director of the Hale Institute, a conservative think tank, said that “Obergefell requires the gender neutralization of indelibly sexed legal standards. The whole point of Obergefell’s audacity was to knock over a cultural pillar that defines and orients a whole legal framework.”

Orthodox Rabbi Ilan Feldman put in, “Marriage is not for us to redefine. It’s God’s plan for the world,” ignoring that the U.S. is not a theocracy and that different faiths have different ideas about marriage.

Another on the panel was longtime anti-LGBTQ+ activist John Eastman, a close ally of Donald Trump. He was forced to resign as a law professor at Chapman University because of his role in the rally that preceded the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection, and he has been disbarred. But he’s still out there trying to end marriage equality.

He said he’s encouraged by the fact that after Davis filed her request with the Supreme Court, the court asked for a response from the gay couple who sued her over her denial of their marriage license. She wants to avoid paying damages to them as well as having the court overturn Obergefell.

The request for a response indicates the high court is interested in the case, he said at the conference, according to The Washington Times, although he thinks the court may limit itself to religious freedom concerns. “We should be very clear in the Kim Davis case, this wasn't about the couple being able to get a marriage certificate under the auspices of Obergefell — they got one,” he added. “It was getting it from her despite her religious objection. It was an Orwellian bend-the-knee move.”

This article originally appeared on Advocate: Amy Coney Barrett, conservative panelists discuss overturning marriage equality

Ex-CDC Vaccine Chief Scorches 'Bigoted Bully' Rand Paul For Saying ‘Lifestyle’ Disqualified Him From Job

Pocharapon Neammanee
Sat, September 6, 2025 

Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, a former top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, completely unloaded on Kentucky Senator Rand Paul Saturday morning after the Republican lawmaker criticized his “lifestyle.”

“You know, he doesn’t know me,” Daskalakis told CNN’s Victor Blackwell. “He doesn’t know my husband, and he doesn’t know my family. So I’m not sure why he feels willing to comment on my personal life.”

Dr. Demetre Daskalakis slammed Republican Paul Rand as a "bully." John Lamparski via Getty Images

Daskalakis, a gay man and advocate for LGBTQ+ health, defended himself from a barrage of MAGA fury this week following his recent resignation from the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R), who was once the center of online mockery for liking a hardcore porn video on Twitter, flew over to X to repost photos that showed Daskalakis scantily clad or wearing leather gear. Cruz asked his followers, “Would you trust this guy to make sensitive medical decisions for your family???”

Daskalakis responded to Cruz’s comments on X, writing, “I guess you can’t argue against the fact that public health is being destroyed… so instead you repost my instagram.”

Related: Republican Senators Grill RFK Jr. Over Chaos At CDC

The former vaccine chief called the attack “so 2022,” a reference to when right-wing critics called him a Satanist after they spotted a pentagram tattoo in one of his shirtless pictures. He noted at the time that the tattoo included the words, “I believe there’s a light even in the darkest place.”



Paul’s longer form attack on Daskalakis came Tuesday in an interview with The Hill. The senator expressed opposition to infant vaccinations against hepatitis B, and said that Daskalakis was the “biggest proponent of doing all this.”

“A guy that is so far … out of the mainstream, I think most people in America would discount his opinion because of the things he said in the past. He does not represent the mainstream of anything in America,” Paul said.

The Kentucky lawmaker and licensed ophthalmologist went on to say Daskalakis “should have never had a position in government,” adding that he “brags about his lifestyle.”

“You know, this whole idea of bondage and, you know, multiple partners and all that stuff,” Paul told the outlet. “He brags about that stuff, but he’s got no business being in government. It’s good riddance.” 

Daskalakis told Blackwell on Saturday, “I don’t care what the senator says about my personal life.”

“My record of public service, ending outbreaks and protecting the public health stands for itself,” he continued.

Daskalakis then took aim at Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr., saying Paul has “adequate evidence” that Kennedy is “hazardous to the health of American children and other vulnerable people.”

“So, I mean, I think that really he should take that up rather than being a bigoted bully toward me or others. I mean, I think he’s a doctor, right? Doctors aren’t supposed to do that,” Daskalakis said.

Related...

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Ex-CDC Vaccine Chief Accuses RFK Jr. Of Lying To Congress: 'Just Continually Making Things Up'


'MADMAN!': Lawrence O’Donnell Goes Scorched Earth On 'Dangerous Nepo Baby' RFK Jr.

Whoops, Humans Made a Space Barrier Around Earth

Caroline Delbert
Sat, September 6, 2025 
POP MECH

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:

Earth is surrounded by a radio field caused by very low-frequency waves.


This field pushes away the Van Allen Belts, a radiation swim-floaty that surrounds Earth's middle.


Van Allen radiation hinders and complicates spaceflight, magnetic instruments, and more.


Forget the Kármán line—there’s a human-made space barrier to wonder about, first observed by NASA in 2017. The mysterious zone of anthropogenic space weather is caused by specific kinds of radio waves that we’ve been blasting into the atmosphere for decades, but experts say the expanding band actually helps protect humankind from dangerous space radiation.

ScienceAlert reports that NASA first observed this belt in 2012. The agency sends probes to explore different parts of our solar system, including the Van Allen Belts: a huge, torus-shaped area of radiation that surrounds Earth. The donut shape follows the equator, leaving the North and South Poles free.

A cross section of Van Allen radiation belts. NASA/Public Domain

The Van Allen Belts are related to and affected by the magnetosphere induced by the nonstop bombardment of the sun’s radiation. They affect benign-seeming magnetic effects like the Northern Lights, as well as more destructive ones like magnetic storms.

People planning spaceflight through areas affected by the Van Allen Belts, for example, must develop radiation shielding to protect crew as well as equipment—and most spacecraft launch from as near to the equator as possible, right in the Van Allen zone.

So, what’s our new protective barrier? The same probes that launched in 2012 to help us understand the Belts better in the first place detected this phenomenon, and in 2017, the probes gave us the first evidence of the radio-wave barrier emanating from Earth. ScienceAlert explains:


“A certain type of transmission, called very low frequency (VLF) radio communications, have become far more common now than in the 60s, and the team at NASA confirmed that they can influence how and where certain particles in space move about.”

Why is this? Well, the very low frequency (VLF) waves are exactly right to cancel out and repel the radiative advances of the Van Allen Belts as a matter of total coincidence. In fact, NASA initially considered this a true coincidence, saying that a radio wave area happened to match exactly with the edge of the Van Allen Belts. But in 2017, the agency published findings revealing that one has caused the other after all.

Typically, services like the military have dibs on very low frequencies. These were the first frequencies to be discovered and used for broadcasting, but successive discoveries pushed private and recreational users further up the spectrum. At the very lowest point is the simplest broadcast, things like Morse code, where only binary values need to be received. After that, VLF used by military equipment, for example, occupies a chunk of wavelengths.

From there, AM is still pretty low, and FM is farther up. Some “regular” bandwidths of civilian-type radio are off limits because they’re used for more traditional radio communications by people like pilots and ship captains for different purposes. Any physical communication like this must be negotiated—remember the government has objected to some 5G ideas because of the conflict with GPS satellite signals.

Isn’t it interesting that VLF blankets the Earth without interfering with literally any other radio signal, for example, or the many other kinds of waves that flow around us all the time, but makes it into space far enough to push away harmful radiation?

This means that, for example, space programs could develop VLF technology to punch holes for spacecraft to travel through. As always, truth is stranger than fiction.

Archaeologists Uncovered a Mysterious Ancient Tablet With Major Historical Implications

Connor Lagore
Sat, September 6, 2025 

POP MECH


Ancient Clay Tablet Holds Bronze Age Shopping List 

Homo Cosmicos - Getty Images


Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:

Archaeologists discovered a small, clay tablet covered in cuneiform in the ancient ruins of Alalah, a major Bronze Age-era city located in present-day Turkey.


Researchers have deciphered parts of the Akkadian cuneiform and determined the tablet to be, essentially, a receipt for a major furniture purchase.


Continued study of the tablet should help to shed light on the economic and administrative processes of the time period.


Most of us can do all of our shopping with the click of a few buttons, and while that’s certainly convenient, it can make it difficult to keep track when exactly that new armoire or bookshelf will show up at your doorstep. If you’re really struggling, it might help to take a page out of ancient Turkey’s proverbial book and keep the details written down—on a palm-sized piece of clay.

An excavation at the Aççana Mound—the site of the ancient Anatolian city of Alalah, which served as the capital of the Mukis Kingdom and lives on in ruins that date as far back as 4,000 years ago—recently unearthed a small clay tablet covered in inscribed cuneiform, according to a statement by Mehmet Ersoy, Turkey’s minister of culture and tourism. Researchers studying the tablet have narrowed its origins to some time in the 15th century B.C., during the Late Bronze Age.

Representatives from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism are conducting the research on the find, along with Johns Hopkins University associate professor Jacob Lauinger and doctoral student Zeynep Türker.

The initial readings of the tablet’s Akkadian cuneiform include details of a major furniture purchase. Linguists are still working through the writing, according to the ministry’s statement, but the deciphered lines detail purchases of an ample number of wooden tables, chairs, and stools. The experts are slowly putting together more information about the buyers and sellers involved with the exchange, making headway towards deciphering a window into the city’s economic processes.

The small piece of clay measures only 4.2 centimeters by 3.5 centimeters, it’s just 1.6 centimeters thick, and it weighs 28 grams. But despite its diminutive size, the tablet will help paint a much larger picture of Bronze Age Turkey as it undergoes more study, providing helpful insight into “the economic structure and state system of the Late Bronze Age,” according to Ersoy


Alalah was located along a trade route at the time, which would have given it the distinction of being a center of commerce in addition to its capital status. There have been other similar discoveries in the region, including another cuneiform tablet that details the purchase of an entire city (and, presumably, the furniture in it), which was uncovered in 2023.

The area—which contains ruins that date to as far back as 4,000 years ago—was first excavated by British archaeologist Leonard Wooley in the 1930s. But, as exemplified by the clay list furniture, there’s still plenty to discover about these truly ancient ruins.

And, if nothing else, perhaps the tablet’s itemized details will provide a bit of home-decor inspiration.

US CONGRESS

Stock trading ban supporters hope fight has reached 'tipping point'


Ben Werschkul · Washington Correspondent

YAHOO FINANCE
Updated Sun, September 7, 2025 


Lawmakers this week renewed a push to ban lawmaker stock trading, as previously competing proposals were merged and a new 10-page Restore Trust in Congress Act was unveiled to fanfare.

The hope: The stars might finally be aligning around the issue.

That optimism rests on widespread public support — one survey found 86% of Americans backed a ban — and a trio of policy choices that could help the bill navigate coming political attacks and the pocketbook concerns of some skeptical lawmakers.

These three provisions, for one thing, sidestep President Trump and his White House. (They are excluded from the ban.) They also include tax breaks for lawmakers as they divest and ban certain types of blind trusts.

Advocates hope these changes could help the bill navigate tricky politics as lawmakers decide whether to police themselves.

"We have reached a tipping point where pressure from outside the building is becoming too much for leadership to deny," Rep. Seth Magaziner, a Rhode Island Democrat, said during the formal unveiling Wednesday.

Pressure increasing: Representatives Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.) and Chip Roy (R-Texas) are leading a bipartisan group of House members to say they are prepared to force a vote on legislation to ban members of Congress and their families from trading stocks. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst) · REUTERS / Reuters

Magaziner is leading the new effort alongside Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican. Both are promising to force a full vote on the House floor one way or another.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, is also pushing the effort. She set a deadline of the end of this month, when she says she'll seek to force a vote through the discharge petition process to bypass leadership.

The renewed push comes with lawmaker trading in new focus after a series of reports have highlighted an elevated number of stock transactions around tariff-fueled market fluctuations earlier this year.

"Having a compromise bill that has the leads of all of these major bills on it is a huge step forward," said Aaron Stephens, a senior legislative strategist at Progressive Change Campaign Committee, one of several groups that have been prodding this issue for years.

He added that the previously somewhat scattered effort has "always been a barrier to getting this done [but] now that this compromise text is out, we actually have something to push forward with."

A push to keep Trump out of it

The concept of a ban has also been getting some tentative support from leaders. Last month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he is in favor of a ban.

Just this week, House Speaker Mike Johnson reiterated to Punchbowl News his personal support for a ban, but added, "I respect the views of other people on the subject," calling it "a tough issue."

The strategy for the bill's proponents — which includes supporters from liberals like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York to Trump allies like Tim Burchett of Tennessee — appears to be to get quick momentum behind it and overcome financial concerns and any leadership slow-walking.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shares a fist bump with Representative Tim Burchett at the news conference. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst) · REUTERS / Reuters

One step is removing the political roadblocks that have stopped efforts before.

In 2022, an effort to pass a ban floundered when Democrats said that the White House, Supreme Court, and Federal Reserve officials should be included in a ban.

Partisan objections quickly sank the effort.

This time around, advocates are focused solely on lawmakers, even as amendments to include more officials remain possible.

"I would likely support going in that direction," Rep. Roy noted this week of the idea of banning trading among more Washington officials. But he defended the more limited approach, saying, "I think we need to focus right now on one very clear message."

Trump himself has sent a series of mixed messages on the issue.

This spring, Trump said he would "absolutely" sign a bill banning members of Congress from trading stocks.

But then this summer, Trump attacked a GOP lawmaker who was pushing a plan that would include the office of the president, saying it plays into Democratic hands and that his opponents "have been trying to 'Target' me for a long period of time."

Excluding Trump is a detail sure to make some Democrats uneasy, but even some of Trump's biggest adversaries, like Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, remain on board

"I think we are doing the simplest thing that we can do, in many ways," she said this week.

President Trump is seen in the Oval Office of the White House on Sept. 3. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images) · The Washington Post via Getty Images

Other provisions to mollify persistent worries

In addition, two other provisions are sure to be closely chewed over in the weeks ahead and may impact lawmakers' pocketbooks more directly.

The first is an exclusion of so-called qualified blind trusts.

Allowing this more limited version of the blind trust has raised worries as a potential loophole — especially if lawmakers use the process to put their assets into a trust that does not require that the underlying assets necessarily be sold.

A more comprehensive blind trust — one that requires the underlying asset to be sold off and replaced without the owner's knowledge — remains allowed. But it is a more complicated procedure, generally open only to those with the biggest bank accounts.

Fewer options on blind trusts may be unappealing to lawmakers, but there is also one key carrot in the bill: tax rule provisions that would limit the short-term tax hit if the bill passes and lawmakers are forced to divest.

The bill would give existing members — and their spouses and dependent children — 180 days to sell individual stocks (widely held mutual funds and ETFs will remain allowed) and then impose fines and force lawmakers to disgorge any profits if they break the rules.

Newly elected members of Congress will have 90 days from their swearing-in to divest their individual stocks.

And when they do? This bill would allow what is called a certificate of divestiture to delay any mammoth tax bill that might come with selling assets all at once

Capital gains on profits would be deferred for those who divest until potentially years later. For example, when a member later sells a mutual fund that they moved their funds into.

"We won't make you have a big tax bill," Roy noted this week, "but you are going to have to divest of all of these individual equities and put them into broadly held funds so you're not able to day trade."

Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.

 

Europe's electric car industry urges EU not to delay CO2 emission targets

Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto · Reuters

Reuters

Sun, September 7, 2025

(Reuters) -Over 150 bosses from Europe's electric car industry signed a letter on Monday urging the European Union to stick to its 2035 zero emission target for cars and vans.

The electric car industry's signatories, including Volvo Cars and Polestar, warned against any delays to the targets, saying in the letter that would mean stalling Europe's EV market, handing an advantage to global competitors and eroding investor confidence.

It follows a separate letter at the end of August from heads of the European automobile manufacturers' and automotive suppliers' associations to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stressing that a 100% reduction for cars by 2035 was no longer feasible.

That letter included the signature of Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Kaellenius.

On September 12, von der Leyen is set to discuss the future of the automotive sector automotive with industry players, which are facing the dual threat of increased competition from Chinese rivals and U.S. tariffs.

Weakening targets now would send a signal that Europe can be talked out of its own commitments, Michael Lohscheller, CEO of Polestar, said in a statement.

"That would not only harm the climate. It would harm Europe's ability to compete," he said.

Michiel Langzaal, chief executive of EU charging company Fastned, cited the clarity the 2035 target had provided and investments already made in areas like charging infrastructure and software development.

"Those investments can only create returns if we get to this goal," he said.

All European carmakers except Mercedes-Benz were on track to comply to CO₂ regulation for cars and vans over 2025-2027, according to a report on Monday from transport research and campaign group T&E.

Mercedes, it said, would need to pool its emissions with Volvo Cars and Polestar to avoid fines for missing the targets.

(Reporting by Marleen Kaesebier and Nick Carey; Editing by Matt Scuffham)

EU carmakers close in on emission goals, but Mercedes lags, says report

T&E said expected Mercedes to keep trailing other EU automakers on the targets as it was focussing on more profitable internal combustion engine models.

Reuters
Sun, September 7, 2025 

Volvo Cars’ new electric sedan, the ES90, is displayed at an launch event in Stockholm

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -All European carmakers except Mercedes-Benz are on track to meet the European Union's 2025-2027 carbon emission targets thanks to an expected surge in sales of new electric vehicles, according to a report published on Monday.

Research and campaign group Transport & Environment forecast a marked improvement from first-half sales in 2025, when only Geely-owned Volvo Cars and BMW were on course while Stellantis, Renault, Volkswagen and Mercedes were lagging.

The report said increased launches of more affordable models thanks to declining battery prices and sharp growth of charging infrastructure were fuelling demand. It forecast battery electric vehicle sales would surpass a 30% share of the EU car market in 2027 from 18% this year.

T&E said this was a sign that targets were working and said that any weakening of the next set of targets for 2030 and 2035 would dismantle investments in EVs and allow China to extend its lead.

"Europe now faces a decisive choice: to either lead the global BEV race and confidently enter the electric age or risk falling behind in the fossil fuel era," it said.

Auto groups have said that future CO2 emission targets, including a 100% reduction by 2035, are no longer feasible. Executives are due to meet European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on September 12 to discuss the EU sector's future.

The European Commission yielded in March to pressure from European automakers to give them three years, rather than one, to meet CO2 emission targets for new cars and vans.

T&E said expected Mercedes to keep trailing other EU automakers on the targets as it was focussing on more profitable internal combustion engine models.

Failure to meet the targets results in fines, which carmakers had said would run into billions of euros if 2025 was the target year. Compliance is now based on average emissions over the period 2025 to 2027.

Mercedes is expected to avoid fines by pooling its emissions with those of Volvo Cars and Polestar, for which Mercedes would pay its rivals. Sweden's Volvo is majority-owned by China's Geely Holding, whose chairman controls a company with a 9.69% stake in Mercedes.

(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)