May 25, 2025 at 9:32 AM EDT
The weird way that penguin poop might be cooling Antarctica

In December 2022, Matthew Boyer hopped on an Argentine military plane to one of the more remote habitations on Earth: Marambio Station at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, where the icy continent stretches toward South America. Months before that, Boyer had to ship expensive, delicate instruments that might get busted by the time he landed. "This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter here."

May 25, 2025 at 9:27 AM EDT
Kristi Noem fails to follow her own advice with taxpayer money

During her tenure as the governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem liked to remind legislators at budget time that the money they were dealing with was not their own. From a 2019 address to the Legislature: "I'm committed to maintaining the fiscal integrity for which our state is known. We won't spend money we don't have. We will not raise taxes."

May 25, 2025 at 8:46 AM EDT
'Unlawful': Ex-Rubio adviser blasts Trump 'propagandist' -- and warns he 'hurts the White House in court'

Prominent right-wing lawyer Gregg Nunziata on Sunday slammed White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller after the top advisor to President Donald Trump argued "the only process illegals are due is deportation." Miller was reacting to a federal judge's Friday ruling that ordered the Trump administration "to facilitate the return of a gay Guatemalan man who said he was deported to Mexico despite fearing he would be persecuted there, after officials acknowledged an error in his case," CNBC reported. The official X account for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, quoting the CNBC article on the judge's ruling, berated "this federal activist judge" who "order[ed] us to bring [a Guatemalan man] back, so he can have an opportunity to prove why he should be granted asylum to a country that he has had no past connection to." READ MORE: 'Penny-pinched by Captain Bone Spurs': Veterans rip Trump over proposed VA cuts That DHS post prompted Miller's attack on due process -- a common refrain from the top Trump aideTrump aide. As the Daily Beast reports, "Miller's influence on Trump was evident when, last month, he took to TruthSocial to mount a similar argument, claiming that there simply was not sufficient time or court capacity to afford every potential deportee due process." Responding to Miller, Nunziata, a Federalist Society contributor and former domestic policy adviser to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, bemoaned the deputy chief of staff as a "propagandist" who "hurts the [White House] in court." "The White House could have a lawyer pushing an aggressive message with a chance of moving the law in its direction, or it could have a propagandist saying one untrue and unlawful thing after another," Nunziata wrote. "It chose the latter, which hurts the [White House] in court and undermines public faith." Read the full report at the Daily Beast.

May 24, 2025 at 3:09 PM EDT
'Extremely upsetting': Republican vets leaving the GOP because of Trump policy

When U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the White House on January 20, one of the major policy changes from the Biden Administration involved the Ukraine-Russia War. Biden, a scathing critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, favored aggressive military aid to Ukraine. Trump, in contrast, says he is trying to negotiate a peace plan between Ukraine and Russia but angrily berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when he visited the White House.

May 24, 2025 at 2:19 PM EDT
Trump is 're-envisioning America' in a way that resembles North Korea: analysis

Many critics of President Donald Trump have been attacking his immigration policies -- from mass deportations to foreign students being detained in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities because of their political statements -- as a blatant assault on due process and the rule of law. One of those critics is attorney Dean Obeidallah, host of "The Dean Obeidallah Show" on SiriusXM and an opinion columnist for MSNBC's website. During a Saturday, May 24 appearance on MSNBC, Obeidallah warned that Trump's draconian immigration policies are not only a threat to immigrants -- they also have disturbing implications for lifelong U.S. citizens.

May 24, 2025 at 1:11 PM EDT
'Dear God': Trump ripped for 'trophy wives' rant during 'embarrassing' West Point speech

On Saturday, May 24, President Donald Trump gave a commencement speech for West Point Military Academy graduates. And he brought up a topic that is more typical of radio shock jocks and tabloid television than a presidential address: "trophy wives." During his speech, Trump referenced real estate developer William Levitt (who died in 1994) and told attendees, "He ended up getting a divorce, found a new wife -- could you say a trophy wife? I guess we can say a trophy wife -- it didn't work out too well. But that doesn't work out too well, I must tell you, a lot of trophy wives, it doesn't it work. But it made him happy for a little while, at least. But he found a new wife."

May 24, 2025 at 12:06 PM EDT
'We feel paralyzed': Expert details ow Trump 'disempowers' Americans with 'sadistic cruelty'

In an article published by The Bulwark on May 15, Never Trump conservative Bill Kristol laid out some reasons why he considers President Donald Trump "far more dangerous" than the late President Richard Nixon. While "Tricky Dick" acted in a "dodgy," corrupt fashion behind closed doors during the Watergate era, Kristol argued, Trump is openly authoritarian -- and is normalizing extremism in the process. Yale University history professor and author Marci Shore made a similar argument during a Saturday morning, May 24 appearance on MSNBC. Although Shore, unlike Kristol, didn't mention Nixon, she warned that Trump's open authoritarianism is making some Americans feel "paralyzed."

May 24, 2025 at 10:49 AM EDT
'Won't take his meds': Stroke survivor slams John Fetterman in scathing op-ed

When Democratic then-Lt. Gov. John Fetterman debated Dr. Mehmet Oz during Pennsylvania's 2022 gubernatorial race, he was recovering from the effects of a stroke. And some far-right MAGA Republicans mocked him just as they mocked then-President Joe Biden's speech impediment. But the October 25, 2022 debate arguably helped Fetterman with Pennsylvania voters, some of whom praised him as gutsy for debating Oz and staying in the race despite his stroke. And Fetterman won the election, flipping a U.S. Senate seat that was held by arch-conservative Republican Pat Toomey (who decided not to seek reelection) at the time and was held by the late Sen. Arlen Specter at the time.

May 24, 2025 at 9:34 AM EDT
'Everybody should be afraid': Former DOJ attorney details Trump's 'terrifying shift'

In a press release on January 31, 2025 -- roughly a week and a half into Donald Trump's second presidency -- attorney Stacey Young explained why she had left the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Young, who worked in the DOJ Civil Division and later the DOJ Civil Rights Division, declared, "Our democracy and the rule of law depend on a robust, apolitical civil service, above all at the Department of Justice. But the new administration is directing an all-out assault on the career public servants who are the Department's backbone."

May 24, 2025 at 8:42 AM EDT
'Moral dissonance': How MAGA Catholics flaunt their contradictions

The Vatican's announcement that 69-year-old Chicago native Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, would be replacing the late Pope Francis inspired a variety of reactions from American Catholics. While many moderate and liberal Catholics praised the choice as historic -- noting that Leo will be the first American pope ever -- MAGA Catholics attacked Leo as "woke," noting parallels between him Leo and Francis. Politically, Catholicism is complex in the United States, where practicing Catholics range from extreme social conservatives like Vice President JD Vance and "War Room" host Steve Bannon to former President Joe Biden and ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California). The U.S. Supreme Court is now dominated by right-wing Catholics, although liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor is a devout Catholic and a liberal Barack Obama appointee.

May 24, 2025 at 8:07 AM EDT
This isn't about race -- it's about responsibility

Anyone who has ever loved a dog intuits the unfathomable cruelty of isolating a dog and leaving him on a chain for his entire life. Anyone who has ever lived next door to a hopeful puppy brought home to its new life on a chain, or in a kennel, knows the heart wrenching sound of a puppy who cries, and cries, and cries, until it doesn't. This practice, cruel and inhumane as it is, still happens all over the country. My personal experience with animal abuse has been primarily in Gary, Indiana, a city I lived in and loved for 25 years. As an anti-cruelty advocate, I lobbied the city for several years to adopt tethering restrictions so that dogs would not be left outside 24 hours a day, and it was finally outlawed in 2019.

May 24, 2025 at 6:12 AM EDT
History shows Donald Trump is making a serious error

The policy of appeasement - strategic concessions to an aggressor that are designed to avoid war - is generally most closely associated in the UK with the Conservative leader Neville Chamberlain, prime minister between May 1937 and May 1940. When Chamberlain moved into 10 Downing Street, Adolf Hitler's willingness to ignore international agreements was already apparent, having broken the Versailles treaty with a massive expansion of Germany's armed forces, the occupation of the Rhineland.