Politics

Nearly a year ago, I wrote that impending tariff policies seemed poised to turn American consumerism upside down. In the months since, many people have said that Donald Trump’s tariffs — and the higher costs passed on to shoppers — could force people to buy less stuff they didn’t need in the first place. But as the Wall Street Journal reports, even sky high tariffs might not be enough to break the habit for good.

Writer and disability advocate Alice Wong has died. She founded the Disability Visibility Project and participated in many other initiatives designed to amplify disabled voices in literature, journalism, politics, and more.

ProPublica writes that Paul “Nazi Streak” Ingrassia — the White House’s Department of Homeland Security liaison — told customs officials to return devices they’d seized from the influencer and alleged rapist and sex trafficker, possibly hindering an investigation and alarming DHS officials, who described the act as “handing out favors” to Tate.

Engineers at Google, Meta, and Microsoft have noticed less follow-up from federal officials about potentially illegal materials, The New York Times reports in a Department of Homeland Security deep dive. Newly public data confirms a drop in time spent on child exploitation cases early in the Trump administration, as The Verge has written.

After being fined $3.5 billion by the EU for ad tech abuse, the search giant is, begrudgingly, proposing changes:

In the trove of documents released this week, Epstein at times seems preoccupied with Google results related to him. In an email dated December 10th, 2010, Epstein complains that “the google page is not good,” and references what appears to be payments made to clean up search results. In other emails, associates give Epstein step by step instructions on searching in Incognito on Chrome.

A group of 40 lawmakers sent out letters today warning 19 Democratic governors that they might be unknowingly sharing DMV data with ICE and Homeland Security through a platform called Nlets, as reported by Reuters.

Not to get too self-referential by pointing you back to yesterday’s comment of the day, but commenter indignantgoat nails the more serious version of that same point:

Italian pasta companies are preparing to pull their products from US grocery stores as early as January, the Wall Street Journal reports — another downstream effect of the Trump administration’s sky-high tariffs and duties on imports. Some of the new taxes (which total 107 percent) come after a US Commerce Department review of several pasta companies, and the severity of the penalty has Italian producers worried.

Years of irate comments have hammered home that not all our readers want us to cover politics. And hey, I’m just a humble phone reviewer, so I should stick to what I know. Now, let’s see if there are any new players in the phone industry this year...

As the shutdown enters its second month, the FAA has decided to only allow commercial space launches and reentries from 10PM to 6AM, local time. The government has to clear significant swaths of airspace for SpaceX and others, and this is part of a broader order to ease stress on the air traffic control system.

The man accused of throwing a sandwich at a Border Patrol agent was found not guilty Thursday. The officer who was hit with the sandwich gave a testimony loaded with details, including that the sub “exploded all over” him and that he could smell mustard and onions. The jury apparently didn’t have a taste for it — perhaps it was a subpar case.

Only the finest sheets of copy paper held up with the best tape outside the Oval Office. Though judging from how mangled that piece with “The” printed on it, this might have been done by a 1st grader with a pair of safety scissors, so maybe we should cut them some slack.

“All these nuke bros who know nothing about operating a reactor, they just want a free pass,” Allison Macfarlane, former chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, tells Bloomberg. “They can have their free pass, but then they will have an accident.”

The former FTC head and antitrust watchdog was named alongside three others as transition co-chair today, following Mamdani’s victory last night. Khan praised Mamdani’s support for small businesses in a September New York Times editorial, describing their struggles in “a marketplace increasingly dominated by corporate giants and gatekeepers that use coercive and abusive tactics to squeeze them out.”

The government has been operating with just essential staff for 36 days, beating the 2019 record. Some senators are reportedly predicting the stalemate could break this week, but in the meantime, thousands have been furloughed, gadgets awaiting regulatory approval are stalled, and SNAP benefits are in jeopardy.

Just months after IRS Commissioner Billy Long said the free tax filing is “gone,” NextGov reports that the agency has sent an email to states, saying “IRS Direct File will not be available in Filing Season 2026.” The message reportedly adds that “no launch date has been set for the future.”