Eyal Press

“No Tax on Tips” Is an Industry Plant Trump’s “populist” policy is backed by the National Restaurant Association—probably because it won’t stop establishments from paying servers below the minimum wage.

I can’t say I’m shocked: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

My wife got me a chicken sandwich at Popeyes on the PA turnpike. The cashier mentioned that they were now allowed to take tips! But they also had a pay cut.

Is this what "no tax on tips" is? Workers get a pay cut and customers are supposed to make it up by tipping (and subsidizing the company)?

OSHA says it is meeting employers "where they are" on their safety journey. But what if "where they are" is nowhere?

Breaking: Texas House redistricting committee passes Trump’s egregiously gerrymandered US House map giving GOP 5 new seats & 80% of congressional delegation in state Trump won with 56% of vote. Increases # of seats Trump won by 10+ points from 25 to 30 & reduces # of competitive seats from 2 to zero

‘His volatile side,’ reducing unhinged autocratic behavior to a personality trait.

Facts are so disloyal.

Liane Avarim & Louis Hollis, in conjunction w/ @theguardian.com, have made a powerful short film, “The Oath,” about Lina Qasem Hassan, the board chair of Physicians for Human Rights Israel, who I profiled in The New Yorker earlier this year. Watch it here: m.youtube.com/watch?v=KI8u...

Anticipatory obedience in action

Far-right minister says hostages aren't main war goal, while lawmakers request Gaza tour ***

While children starve to death, ministers in the governing coalition request permission to tour Gaza and “explore settlement possibilities.” www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

eye-popping quote on the absolute fury from Dem legislative staff toward Bernie when he tried to force through a vote on a bill to raise the subminimum wage

E.P.A. Plans to Revoke the Legal Basis for Tackling Climate Change

I remember when Jill Stein told me there was no difference between the GOP and the Dems on climate change. 🤷🏽‍♂️
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/29/c...

“No Tax on Tips” Is an Industry Plant Trump’s “populist” policy is backed by the National Restaurant Association—probably because it won’t stop establishments from paying servers below the minimum wage.

Although raising the minimum wage is popular even in red states, raising the subminimum wage for tipped workers has proved challenging. This is partly owing to the power of the National Restaurant Association, a lobby that some call “the other N.R.A.”

“No Tax on Tips” Is an Industry Plant Trump’s “populist” policy is backed by the National Restaurant Association—probably because it won’t stop establishments from paying servers below the minimum wage.

Trump’s “populist” policy is backed by the National Restaurant Association—probably because it won’t stop establishments from paying servers below the minimum wage.

Puffin Foundation fellow @epress.bsky.social for @newyorker.com: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

“No Tax on Tips” Is an Industry Plant Trump’s “populist” policy is backed by the National Restaurant Association—probably because it won’t stop establishments from paying servers below the minimum wage.

Despite its populist trappings, Trump’s proposal to end taxes on tips won’t help the lowest-paid tipped workers. In this week’s @newyorker.com, I report on the industry lobby that has prevented a policy that could help them — raising wages — from gaining traction. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

ICE Took Half Their Work Force. What Do They Do Now?

Who does the dirty work in America’s industrial slaughterhouses? The people ICE is now rounding up and deporting, upending lives, businesses and communities. “There are some jobs Americans don’t want to do.” www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/u...

‘We faced hunger before, but never like this’: skeletal children fill hospital wards as starvation grips Gaza For months Israel kept food shipments to Gaza far below starvation rations. Now the death toll is rising rapidly

This, not Epstein, is the moral scandal everyone in Washington should be talking about. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

From KGB Cells to Alligator Alcatraz: How Authoritarians Normalize the Grotesque During a recent trip to Tallinn, I visited the horrific manifestations of an unredeemable totalitarian regime. A similar system is unfolding in Trump's America.

Sasha Abramsky visits a former KGB interrogation cell in Estonia, where an authoritarian regime ‘normalized the grotesque,’ and reflects on how another authoritarian regime is repeating the pattern, in America. www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Ending Crime and Disorder on America's Streets By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1.  Purpose and

Predictable, but no less shocking or reprehensible: Trump just signed an executive order urging states to forcibly institutionalize homeless people, defund Housing First, criminalize encampments, and cut aid to cities that don't comply.

Opinion | Obama Won Record Numbers of Nonwhite Voters. This Is How the Democrats Lost Them. One in five voters who cast a ballot for Donald Trump in 2024 was a person of color. Why?

A powerful, sobering look at the forces that have pulled multiracial voters away from the Democratic Party. The most important, by far, has been the party’s failure to address the economic vulnerabilities of these voters. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Excited to read the Democratic National Committee’s searching examination of the 2024 election, an autopsy that “will avoid addressing the likeliest or leading causes of death.”

Migrants at Ice jail in Miami made to kneel to eat ‘like dogs’, report alleges Incident in which migrants were shackled with hands tied of one succession of alleged abuses at jails in Florida

“The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Commentary: She looked like a pro-worker Trump cabinet appointee. But now she's gutting the Labor Department Unions were optimistic about the appointment of Lori Chavez-DeRemer as Labor Secretary, but her actions have dashed their hopes.

Lori Chavez-DeRoma: Pro-labor congressional Republican turned anti-labor Trump labor secretary. Excellent Michael Hiltzik column.

www.latimes.com/business/sto...

Trump survived many scandals, but the Epstein story poses a new test Trump faces political risk from the Epstein story. So far, however, his MAGA base has largely rallied around him.

He’ll survive. “Prominent conservatives were quick to mock the allegations raised against Trump, posting their own stick-figure drawings of women as a nod to the Journal’s reporting that Trump’s 50th birthday card to Epstein included [a handdrawn naked woman].” www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

In these dark times, a glimmer of good news.

In our 2016 NYC atlas there's a map titled "What Is a Jew? From Emma Goldman to Goldman Sachs," made in part to point out that "Jewish" is not a homogenous anything. Lots of Jews are enthused about Mamdani. Lots of goys should stop pretending they speak for "the Jewish community."

Alligator Alcatraz isn’t meant for minors. A 15 year old ended up there anyway “Immediate action was taken to separate and remove the detainee in accordance with federal protocols,” said Stephanie Hartman, a spokeswoman for the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which ove...

In the rush to open a detention camp in the Florida Everglades for “some of the most vicious” migrants illegally in the country, state and federal officers detained a 15-year-old boy with no criminal record and sent him in handcuffs to Alligator Alcatraz, the Miami Herald has learned.

Thanks so much, Will.

The Dial is a super mag, which I've had the pleasure of contributing to a couple of times.

For its summer reading list I recommended one book I can't stop thinking about – Dirty Work by @epress.bsky.social

Check out the full list and donate to support unique and independent journalism :)

A reader responds to the patronizing ‘incredibly disingenuous’ advice Thomas Friedman gives Mamdani on Israel.

DOJ hits states with broad requests for voter rolls, election data Election clerks in both parties, who have been subject to harassment and lawsuits over Trump’s 2020 false election claims, worry about efforts to examine their voting machines.

The playbook for 2026: