Lois Norder

Furloughed feds pick up Seattle beach trash to keep serving the public Furloughed federal employees were out in the rain picking up cigarette butts, bottle caps, and other trash at Seattle’s Golden Gardens Park on Friday.

Here in Seattle, furloughed NOAA employees were out in the pouring rain cleaning up beaches yesterday, part of a national week of service organized by federal workers who can't do their jobs due to the shutdown.

Story by @heyjohnryan.bsky.social at KUOW, our federally defunded public radio station.

Donor Who Gave $130 Million to Pay Troops Is Reclusive Heir to Mellon Fortune Timothy Mellon is a billionaire and a major financial backer of President Trump.

NYT - Timothy Mellon, a reclusive billionaire and a major financial backer of President Trump, is the anonymous private donor who gave $130 million to the US government to help pay troops during the shutdown. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/25/us...

Coast Guard spent about $200M on private jets for Kristi Noem, other top officials. Here's the contract Publicly available government documents indicate the Coast Guard spent at least $172 million on two private jets.

Why two jets? Where is the money coming from? www.snopes.com/fact-check/k...

From Seat 1D to CNN: My Viral White House Photo What a last-minute upgrade and a quick instinct taught me about transparency, timing, and the power of noticing.

I didn’t plan to break news. I just looked out the window.

I was flying out of DCA and saw the East Wing being demolished. I took a photo, posted it, and by the time I landed, it was on CNN.

It's wild how fast one moment can move — and how something so ordinary can make the world pay attention.

In his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump promised to "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act. But that didn't happen even when the GOP controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency. Now Trump says he has a replacement plan; no details provided. www.msn.com/en-us/politi...

Highly contagious bird flu detected at Georgia commercial chicken facility The CDC has said the risk to humans from H5N1 is low, but public health officials fear the virus has the potential to morph into a pandemic.

strains of the virus have also infected mammals. www.ajc.com/business/202...

‘We’re behind’: Army commanders push for speedy drone innovation across formations Top Army officials warn that the service’s clunky weapons procurement process is insufficient to keep up with the rate of advancement in drone warfare.

"We're behind": Top generals are warning that the U.S. Army's adoption and development of drone systems is lagging behind the innovations other armies have made on current battlefields such as eastern Ukraine.

Air Force calls for proposals to build private AI centers at 5 bases The service calls for the “underutilized” base land to be used for AI data centers. More than two-thirds of the offered land is at Edwards AFB.

The U.S. Air Force is offering to lease about 3,000 acres of land across five bases to private companies for the construction of artificial intelligence data centers, in line with Donald Trump's executive order in July that called for using public lands to accelerate the development of AI centers.

A British court has sentenced six men to prison terms ranging from 7 to 23 years for torching a London warehouse storing humanitarian aid for Ukraine. They were working on orders from Russia's Wagner Group — The Guardian & Sky News.
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GOP lawmakers raise pressure on Smithsonian over space shuttle fight Texas legislators accused the Smithsonian of potentially violating anti-lobbying laws. The Smithsonian told Congress moving the shuttle would require breaking it apart.

A GOP-led plan to move the Discovery space shuttle from the National Air and Space Museum, which has housed the orbiter since 2012, has set off a fight for its future.
The Smithsonian said the Discovery cannot be moved without being taken apart.

Here in Georgia, where data centers have gone up left and right, there’s been scant public discussions of their water use. With parts of Georgia in a severe drought, that’s an essential discussion.

Amazon strategised about keeping its datacentres’ full water use secret, leaked document shows Executives at world’s biggest datacenter owner grappled with disclosing information about water used to help power facilities Amazon strategised about keeping the public in the dark over the true extent of its datacentres’ water use, a leaked internal document reveals. The biggest owner of datacentres in the world, Amazon dwarfs competitors Microsoft and Google and is planning a huge increase in capacity as part of a push into artificial intelligence. The Seattle firm operates hundreds of active facilities, with many more in development despite concerns over how much water is being used to cool their vast arrays of circuitry. Continue reading...

Amazon strategised about keeping its datacentres’ full water use secret, leaked document shows

This draft agreement reads that UCLA will pay the regime $1 billion.

Not $1 million.

$1 billion.

AI models may be developing their own ‘survival drive’, researchers say Like 2001: A Space Odyssey’s HAL 9000, some AIs seem to resist being turned off and will even sabotage shutdown

AI models are developing their own survival instinct, and try to sabotage shutdown protocols www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Syracuse University declines signing Trump's higher education compact Chancellor Kent Syverud left the door open to signing it if changes were made.

Syracuse University says no to Trump’s “compact.”
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Trump Crypto Partner Alt5 Sigma Suspends CEO With No Explanation After Stock Crashes 74% Alt5 Sigma suspended Peter Tassiopoulos just two months after the company announced a $1.5 billion deal involving the Trump-backed World Liberty Financial.

The company had tied its future to a Trump-connected crypto venture. flip.it/eCqdda

At least 2 historic magnolia trees, Kennedy Garden appear to have been removed to make way for Trump's White House ballroom Satellite images show that President Donald Trump's project to build a $300 million grand ballroom has appeared to take down at least six trees on the White House grounds

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Trump likely to name White House ballroom after himself, officials say Trump has not publicly said what he intends to name the ballroom, but officials say it's already being referred to as "The President Donald J. Trump Ballroom."

flip.it/6vctPn

Do you approve or disapprove of the decision to demolish the entire East Wing of the White House as part of the construction of a new ballroom? | Daily Question Do you approve or disapprove of the decision to demolish the entire East Wing of the White House as part of the construction of a new ballroom?

Survey shows majority of Americans disapprove of destruction of the East Wing for Trump's new ballroom: today.yougov.com/topics/trave...

When government websites become campaign tools: Blaming the shutdown on Democrats has legal and political risks When websites and email systems become partisan platforms, the line blurs between state and party, diluting public trust in the idea of impartial governance.

Among the federal government websites criticizing Democrats: The White House. What does the law say on this? theconversation.com/when-governm...

Pentagon said those approved represented a broad spectrum of the media, without naming them. But several pro-Trump, right-wing news organizations said they agreed to the rules. Now, state-run media will report from the Pentagon, where Hegseth and other officials will decide what is newsworthy.

Chauncey Billups' co-defendants include: Big Bruce, Pookie, Sugar, Albanian Bruce, Spook, The Wrestler, Flappy, and Spanish G.

I'm 100% serious

More bad news for supplement king: Judge orders $40 million penalty It has been a difficult month for Jared Wheat, the Atlanta-area dietary supplement entrepreneur. And that’s putting it mildly.

Wheat and his Norcross company also have been slapped with federal lawsuits, including this one that ended with an order to pay more than $40 million. www.ajc.com/blog/investi...

Money, drugs at core of Atlanta businessman’s fraud trial An Atlanta dietary supplement entrepreneur is on trial, accused by federal prosecutors of fraud, money laundering and selling misbranded drugs.

Eight years after he was indicted, Georgia dietary supplement "king" is about to face trial. Case has dragged out over arguments about qualifications of experts and other issues. Will Jared Wheat be convicted of selling supplements with a prescription medicine? www.ajc.com/news/2025/10...

Colorado woman found guilty of voter fraud for casting ballots for late ex-husband and son Prosecutors in Colorado say a woman has been found guilty of voter fraud for casting ballots for both her late ex-husband and son in the 2022 election.

Colorado voter fraud case: apnews.com/article/voti...

A Minnesota woman cast her dead mother's ballot for Trump. Now she must write an essay on voting. A Minnesota woman convicted of filling out and submitting a mail-in ballot for her deceased mother was ordered by a judge to write an essay and read a book about voting's importance to democracy.

This week’s voter fraud news: A woman in Colorado and a woman in Minnesota convicted. Guess which party they supported. Here’s Minnesota case: www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/ne...

Leavitt: "At this moment in time, of course, the ballroom is really the president's main priority."

Was Booz Allen Hamilton’s donation to make up for this? www.newstarget.com/2025-01-20-p...

The Last Days of the Pentagon Press Corps I’ve been evicted from a building I’ve covered for 18 years. I’ll keep doing my job anyway.

I’ve been evicted from the Pentagon, a building I’ve covered for 18 years, Nancy A. Youssef writes. I’ll keep doing my job anyway.