“Look around, take stock of where you are, and know this: Today, right now—and I mean right this second—you have the most power you’ll ever have in the current fight against authoritarianism in America. If this sounds dramatic to you, it should. Over the past five months, in many hours of many conversations with multiple people who have lived under dictators and autocrats, one message came through loud and clear: America, you are running out of time. People sometimes call the descent into authoritarianism a ‘slide,’ but that makes it sound gradual and gentle. Maria Ressa, the journalist who earned the Nobel Peace Prize for her attempts to save freedom of expression in the Philippines, told me that what she experienced during the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte is now, with startling speed and remarkable similarity, playing out in the United States under Donald Trump. Her country’s democratic struggles are highly instructive. And her message to me was this: Authoritarian leaders topple democracy faster than you can imagine. If you wait to speak out against them, you have already lost.” (Adrienne LaFrance/The Atlantic)
“World Liberty Financial: The Trump-backed crypto venture, where founders include Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and his sons, has raised more than $550 million by selling tokens to buyers around the world. Trump himself serves as the company's ‘chief crypto advocate,’ while his administration pursues policies — including a federal crypto reserve — that have boosted the value of assets held by the firm.
OFFICIAL TRUMP: The president's meme coin surged more than 60% last week after its website advertised an ‘intimate private dinner’ with Trump for the top 220 coin-holders — plus a ‘special VIP’ reception and White House tour for the top 25. The website later scrubbed references to the ‘White House.’
The Executive Branch: Donald Trump Jr. and his business partners — including Witkoff's sons, Zach and Alex — are launching an exclusive D.C. club with a $500,000 membership fee, pitched as a private hangout for donors and business moguls to rub shoulders with top Trump officials.
Foreign deals: At least 19 foreign Trump-branded projects will be in development over the next four years, according to ethics watchdog CREW. Just this week, the Trump Organization announced a deal to build a luxury golf resort in Qatar. Trump, whose first foreign visit will be to Saudi Arabia, also hosted a Saudi-backed LIV golf tournament at his Doral club in Florida last month.
Merchandise: The Trump Organization is selling ‘Trump 2028’ hats, a nod to the president's musings about an unconstitutional third term. Trump hawked Bibles, sneakers, perfume and trading cards during the 2024 campaign, and his political operation continues to rely on MAGA merchandise to raise funds.
Corporate boards: Dominari Holdings, a small public financial services company with headquarters in New York's Trump Tower, saw its stock price surge more than 1,200% in about six weeks after Trump Jr. and Eric Trump joined its advisory board and took equity stakes worth millions. Trump Jr. also has been named to the board of a digital firearms retailer, called GrabAGun, that's due to go public this summer.” (Zachary Bonsu/Axios)
“I sat up all night, glued to the stomach-turning pages, and wrote about the documents for Rolling Stone a few days later. In 2020, I worked as executive producer on a three-part series about Ghislaine Maxwell, still streaming on Peacock. That’s all to say: I never met Virginia Giuffre, but I knew a lot about her. As does most of the informed public and the legion of Epstein conspiracy theorists. I know enough to recognize that the MAGA cult belief that Donald Trump was put on this Earth to vanquish “pedophile”* sex trafficker Epstein and his ilk ought to go down in history as one of the greatest branding psy ops in recorded history. Trump and Epstein were close pals, sleazeball, greasy, handsy Manhattan modelizer running buddies in the 1980s, a fact easily ascertained in pictures, and if you don’t want to believe your eyes, listen to recorded tapes of Jeffrey Epstein that Michael Wolff released last fall. I might have liked to talk to Virginia someday, but now she’s dead, reportedly by suicide, after long battles with physical ailments and depression. Virginia, like many girls lured into the sex trade, had already endured a difficult childhood: she was from a poor family, abused by a family friend at age 11, and in and out of foster care. Maxwell, always cruising for fresh teen flesh for her sometime boyfriend Epstein, found Giuffre (then Virginia Roberts) at age 17, working as a ‘spa attendant’ at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. Maxwell and Epstein soon groomed Giuffre into a plaything under their control, a young woman without agency. And that is not good for any woman’s mental or physical health.” (Nina Burleigh/American Freakshow)
“Live Science reports that archaeologists believe they have found evidence of a forgotten and grim event of the Civil War. On January 25, 1865, a company of Black Union Soldiers were driving 900 head of cattle towards Louisville, Kentucky, when they were ambushed and attacked. Kentucky was technically neutral during the war but had roving bands of guerillas who were sympathetic to the Confederate cause. The state was also home to the Union supply depot Camp Nelson, where thousands of free African Americans enlisted and were trained. During the attack, almost two dozen soldiers from Company E of the United States Colored Cavalry stationed at Camp Nelson were ruthlessly slaughtered. ‘Most of the 22 men were shot in the back while fleeing, despite wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army,’ said Philip Mink, an archaeologist at the University of Kentucky. ‘Guerrillas definitely targeted them because they were Black.’ The whereabouts of the mass grave in which these men were buried had been lost and forgotten until a recent geophysical survey, when researchers appeared to have located the soldiers' final resting place on the property of a current soybean farm. Surprisingly, the study revealed not one but two large buried anomalies, likely representing two mass graves. It is believed that one was used to immediately bury the bodies of those who died during the ambush, while the other held the remains of those who were wounded and succumbed to their injuries shortly thereafter. Excavations, which may definitely confirm the graves’ location, are slated to take place later in the year after the soybean crop has been harvested.” (Archaeology magazine)
“As ‘60 Minutes’ stares down White House pressure, and Paramount boss Shari Redstone reportedly tries to broker a payoff, ‘60’ will devote the top of this Sunday's show to ‘The Rule of Law.’ That's the title of Scott Pelley's upcoming report ‘on the law firms picked out by the President and the different ways they're responding to White House pressure.’ >> Context: The NYT reported on Tuesday that this law firms-focused segment was in the works, and said some ‘60’ producers were concerned that CBS bosses might ‘interfere’ with it. Speaking of ‘60 Minutes,’ the newsmag picked up *13* News and Documentary Emmy nominations yesterday, including an Outstanding Edited Interview nod for the Kamala Harris segment that caused Trump to sue CBS. Trump falsely says the editing was a ‘crime’; TV news pros say it was award-worthy.” (Brian Stelter/Reliable Sources)
“A global race to recruit US scientists is heating up as President Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts to research funding and federal agencies trigger an exodus from the country’s research institutions. Canada, France, Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Australia are among nations offering incentives — including funding, streamlined immigration pathways and competitive relocation packages — to entice scientists facing mounting uncertainty at home. The turmoil has left many American researchers rethinking their futures. In a Nature poll conducted in March, more than 1,200 scientists — 75% of respondents — said they were considering leaving the US. Europe and Canada were among the top relocation choices. ‘Academic freedom is under pressure in the United States, and it is an unpredictable situation for many researchers in what has been the world’s leading research nation for many decades,’ Sigrun Aasland, Norway’s Minister of Research and Higher Education, said in a statement Friday. The Trump administration has halted large swaths of federally funded research and embarked on mass layoffs under a government-wide cost-cutting initiative led by billionaire Elon Musk.” (Jason Gale/Bloomberg)
“My dad rarely talked about the Vietnam War, except when April 30 rolled around. It was always the same setting: We’d sit crossed legged on the living room floor sharing dinner in front of our one television. On old newspapers you’d find the usual spread of soup, protein and stir-fried vegetables. My three siblings and I would be scooping rice from our bowls as our parents set down their chopsticks when the news turned to anniversary coverage of the fall of Saigon. The scenes flashing across the screen from that day — April 30, 1975 — are familiar. There’s the chaos of Vietnamese citizens, some who had been waiting for days, crowding the gates of the U.S. embassy. Mothers begging American soldiers to take their babies. The last helicopter drifting away as it left people stranded on a rooftop. ‘We lost Vietnam that day,’ said my dad, a member of the South Vietnamese military. He never said much more. I have questions about how the U.S. army flew him to Guam in 1975 before coming to America. I want to know how he recovered from a bullet ripping off the tip of his left nostril, about which he’s still self conscious nearly 50 years later. My mom, who was living in Saigon, wasn’t able to leave Vietnam until a few years later. She shares little about being one of the ‘boat people’ stuck in a Malaysian refugee camp for eight months. Twenty years ago, I started searching for more answers when I visited Vietnam for the first time. I’m still trying to learn more about my parents’ past. My heritage. The journey of starting a new life in America.” (Bao Ong/Houston Chronicle)
“Patrimonialism is when the government is run as the personal property and family business of the head of state … He's decided this morning that he wants to raise tariffs. Tomorrow he'll decide to lower tariffs … Patrimonialism is everywhere and always corrupt because it substitutes the good of the leader for the good of the public." (Jonathan Rauch/The Bullwark)
“On Thursday, Eric Trump appeared onstage in Dubai at the crypto conference Token2049. Alongside him sat Zachary Witkoff, cofounder of World Liberty Financial and son of the White House envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff. Together, the pair announced that USD1, a crypto coin unveiled by World Liberty Financial in March, would be used by MGX, an investment firm funded by the United Arab Emirates, to make a $2 billion investment in Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange. As a sort-of intermediary in the deal, World Liberty Financial stands to earn tens of millions of dollars. ‘We thank MGX and Binance for their trust in us,’ Witkoff told the crowd at Token2049, The New York Times reported. ‘It’s only the beginning.’ USD1 is what’s known in industry circles as a stablecoin, a type of crypto coin tied to a $1 valuation by a reserve of cash and other assets. A stablecoin holds a steady valuation by way of the understanding that, if ever somebody wants to redeem a coin for the dollar it represents, the issuer can draw from the reserve. The model is simple: World Liberty Financial receives US dollars in exchange for coins that customers can trade freely in the crypto market. It keeps some of those dollars in cash and cash-equivalents, and invests the rest into US government bonds—also called Treasuries—which yield interest. The profits of stablecoin issuers depend partly on the going interest rate—right now, short-term Treasuries yield a little over 4 percent—but otherwise scale in a linear fashion with supply. The larger the amount of a stablecoin in circulation, the heftier the underlying reserve of assets from which the issuer can generate income. Therefore, the deal between MGX and Binance, which will increase the USD1 supply by up to 2 billion units, stands to be immensely lucrative for World Liberty Financial—and by extension, Trump and his family. If the company were to invest the entire $2 billion in short-term US Treasuries, it would earn approximately $85 million in interest each year at current market rates.” (Joel Khalili/WIRED)
“During Wednesday’s meeting for Trump’s cabinet, Mike Waltz checked the app on his phone, using what appeared to be Signal. As news broke that Waltz had lost his job as National Security Advisor, images from the cabinet meeting circulated widely online on Thursday. Upon closer inspection of the photos, it turned out that Waltz was not using the traditional Signal app. He appeared to be using an archiving app made by Israeli firm TeleMessage, which sells companion apps meant to enable archiving messages. In one of the Reuters photos of Waltz’s phone, a pop up appears with the text ‘Verify your TM SGNL PIN,’ just below a message from Vice President JD Vance. TM SGNL is an aspect of TeleMessage’s software called ‘Signal Capture’ that it sells to governments and corporations to enable archiving … It’s unclear how the White House would implement a TeleMessage archive system. The company offers governments and businesses the option to exfiltrate data that automatically sends copies of messages to servers on-site or in the cloud. Compared against the traditional Signal app, this additional element introduces a greater risk whereby the secondary archival device could be accessed and rendered insecure. The personal smartphones of U.S. national security officials are liable to be prime targets of spyware by foreign adversaries, including U.S. allies. When the revelations of widespread Signal usage were first published, many speculated about the endpoint security of senior Trump official’s smartphones. Although Signal’s end-to-end encryption technology works, it’s only as secure as the device. If a device is infected with spyware, the messages displayed on the user’s screen would be vulnerable to a foreign government’s hackers. This Signal Capture app, made by TeleMessage, would appear to only increase the vulnerability of the information by automatically copying messages to other servers or devices.” (Jason Paladino/Dropsite News)
“Much of the best reporting on the impact of Trump’s immigration policies has come from independent reporters. Add Radley Balko, Judd Legum, and Rebecca Crosby to that list. Last week, Balko told the story of Clay Jackson, a Texas lawyer who heard that a local immigrant family needed legal help. Jackson went to the family’s home, advised them of their rights, and offered assistance with getting pro bono counsel, since immigration law is outside his wheelhouse. A few days later, two men showed up at Jackson’s door. Neither showed a badge, but they told him they had ‘information that you are obstructing an ongoing immigration investigation.’ His Wi-Fi had also been mysteriously interrupted during the visit, rendering his door camera useless. About six weeks later, on April 23, Balko’s story ran. Later that same day, according to Legum and Crosby, Jackson was fired from his job as an attorney at a Fortune 500 insurance company, Fidelity National Financial. The company cited ‘unsatisfactory performance and violations of company policy.’ It didn’t respond to a request for comment. Local journalists are also on the ground, tracking immigration-enforcement stories.” (Bill Grueskin/CJR)
“For as long as our species has lived in settled communities, we have struggled to provide ourselves with water. If modern agriculture, the subject of the previous article in this series, is a story of innovation and progress, the water supply has all too often been the opposite: a tale of stagnation and apathy. Even today, about two billion people, most of them in poor, rural areas, do not have a reliable supply of clean water — potable water, in the jargon of water engineers. Bad water leads to the death every year of about a million people. In terms of its immediate impact on human lives, water is the world’s biggest environmental problem and its worst public health problem — as it has been for centuries. On top of that, fresh water is surprisingly scarce. A globe shows blue water covering our world. But that picture is misleading: 97.5 percent of the Earth’s water is salt water — corrosive, even toxic. The remaining 2.5 percent is fresh, but the great bulk of that is unreachable, either because it is locked into the polar ice caps, or because it is diffused in porous rock deep beneath the surface. If we could somehow collect the total world supply of rivers, lakes, and other fresh surface water in a single place — all the water that is easily available for the eight billion men, women, and children on Earth — it would form a sphere just 35 miles in diameter. Adding in reachable groundwater would add some miles to that sphere, but not enough to dramatically alter the fact that our water-covered globe just doesn’t have that much fresh water we can readily get our hands on.” (Charles C. Mann/The New Atlantis)