Dan Charles

A photograph of a long row of parking spaces inside a concrete parking garage, with a single lonely car sitting in one space.

Owners of even the cheapest fleabag motels know they must keep track of how many rooms they have and whether they are empty or full.

But today, the year’s busiest shopping day, most retail areas won’t be tracking how many parking spots they have and whether they are empty or full. 🧵/1

If anyone is friends with any Georgian air traffic controllers, buy them a nice bottle of wine. As guardians of pretty much the only narrow gap still available between Europe and Asia that avoids both Iran, the Gulf, Ukraine and Russia, they are under some substantial pressure.

For months now, I’ve been watching heavy equipment hammering and hauling rock at a residential construction project down the street from my house. Huge expense. All to provide a home for cars!

Macron opens door to deploying French nuclear forces to European allies The plan is a “major evolution” of France’s deterrence posture, the president said in a long-awaited speech at the Île Longue naval base in Brittany.

In any normal week this would be a huge story. France moves toward extending a nuclear umbrella over European allies-- a major sign of declining credibility of US extended deterrence.
www.defensenews.com/global/europ...

Colman McCarthy, who preached peace as a Post columnist and teacher, dies at 87 After training as a monk, he left the monastery to go into journalism, writing a syndicated Post column that made him a prominent voice in the peace movement.

Here's an antidote to the news today. Colman McCarthy's life. For years, I'd see Colman in the neighborhood, puttering along on his ancient bike. Always lifted my spirits.
www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2...

wapo breaking news banner: "Neanderthal males and human females had babies together, ancient DNA reveals"

hall of fame for breaking news alert abuse

Why farmers in California are backing a giant solar farm Many farmers have had to fallow land as a state law comes into effect limiting their access to water. There's now a push to develop some of that land … into solar farms.

This is solar on a scale that actually moves the needle on climate change. www.npr.org/2026/02/26/n...

Paper out today in PNAS!

Transmission build-out could bring electricity generation cost reductions.

But market integration saves costs *because* it pushes out high-cost suppliers, so:

generators in some regions have incentives to block or delay transmission.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Norwegian club Bodø/Glimt up on Inter Milan in the San Siro

People in Milan have to be absolutely SICK of Norwegians at this point

Inside Form Energy’s Big Google Data Center Deal The long-duration energy storage startup is scaling up fast, but as Form CEO Mateo Jaramillo told Heatmap, “There aren’t any shortcuts.”

form energy, the iron-air battery unicorn, has been pretty quiet this past year. but today, the company dropped a banger: it’s building a 30 gigawatt-hour battery to power a google data center in minnesota, set to be the largest battery in the world by energy capacity 🤯

You can help build billionaire-free local news.

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Let's fight misinformation, help good journalists to make a decent living, and stick a big ol' finger in Jeff Bezos' eye.

GitHub - hausfath/SimMod: Python Simple Climate Model Python Simple Climate Model. Contribute to hausfath/SimMod development by creating an account on GitHub.

I remember back in grad school spending weeks creating my own version of a simple climate model you and Nathan Myhrvold developed: github.com/hausfath/Sim...

It would be trivial to do with AI today, but you'd miss any understanding of "how" that (for me at least) was the most important outcome.

Opinion | One Man Stole $660 Million. He’ll Never Pay It Back.

Important piece on the brazen corruption of Trump’s elite, and how we can fight it even when the Justice Department is sidelined.
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/o...

The Car World Is Going Electric, Without America After $50 billion in squandered investments, will U.S. auto companies finally get serious—or just watch while China wins, asks Michael Dunne.

"There is also an awkward truth Detroit executives will only whisper: Many dealers actively sabotaged EV sales. Car dealerships make most of their money on parts and service. EVs need far less maintenance...For a dealer, every EV sold represents years of lost...income." www.thefp.com/p/the-car-wo...

Oh, this an interesting legal argument

A Trump ‘Blockade’ Is Stalling Hundreds of Wind and Solar Projects Nationwide

A giant wind farm in Wyoming died after facing permitting delays. In Indiana, a solar project stalled after the Trump administration blocked it from using a taxpayer-funded database.

A federal permitting ‘blockade’ is hitting renewables projects hard. Story with @bradplumer.bsky.social:

He Was Laid Off at The Washington Post After Working There 60 Years

Sweet story about the man behind a byline I've noticed for years -- and the charm of local reporting. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/b...

The 51st is a good alternative to the corpse of Bezos' Washington Post if you want local DC news.
@51st.news

Here @dancharles.bsky.social covers how it costs more to replace a DC home's gas pipes than to electrify the home

If I'm reading this correctly, the Baltimore Banner now has way more reporters covering local news than the Washington Post does.

Washington Post Begins Laying Off More Than 300 Journalists

I’d like to report a murder. Trying to fix a legacy media company is hard — we all know the economics — but Jeff Bezos just killed the @washingtonpost.com in the most cowardly & inept way possible. He would never entertain others who wanted to fix it too like me www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/b...

The @washingtonpost.com layoffs are a five-alarm fire for governance and community in this city. A metro desk of a dozen people for a major metro area? No sports reporting? Will Lewis has no idea what he's doing.

A staggering statement from former Washington Post editor Marty Baron: "This ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the world's greatest news organizations."

This sounds familiar... 🤔 But growing a newsroom from the ground up takes time and money — and frankly, we need way more resources than we have now to fill this massive gap.
You can help us build the newsroom D.C. deserves: 51st.news/signup

I'm standing on a porch holding a long steel tool, with snow in the background.

I knew there was a reason I took this steel digging iron with me from the farm. Turns out it's the perfect tool for clearing snowcrete from DC sidewalks and streets

D.C. is battling Washington Gas over its pipelines D.C. and Washington Gas are at odds over the future of the city's pipeline network.

Washington Gas wants to spend $215M replacing gas pipes in D.C.

Critics say that locks the city into fossil fuels (and higher bills) just as electrification gets cheaper.

The decision is in the hands of D.C.'s Public Service Commission. Read more: 51st.news/inside-the-b...

St. Peter police chief intervenes, prevents federal agents from arresting resident The police chief of St. Peter intervened to prevent federal agents from taking a local resident who was observing ICE enforcement actions into custody. It is believed to the first time local police in...

"MPR News has learned that the police chief in the small southern Minnesota city of St. Peter intervened Thursday afternoon to prevent federal immigration agents from arresting a local resident" who had been observing federal agents. www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...

D.C. is battling Washington Gas over its pipelines D.C. and Washington Gas are at odds over the future of the city's pipeline network.

Can cities actually get off gas? DC is a case study. 51st.news/inside-the-b...

I mean, it's not like the Lakota haven't been fighting illegal immigration for 400 years.