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Daniel Knowles

@dlknowles.bsky.social
30K followers 1.8K following 1K posts

Midwest correspondent at The Economist, in Chicago. Before that, in London, Mumbai, Nairobi and DC. Buy my book: shorturl.at/BJOUV

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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 8h
Undoubtedly true except for Shakespeare, Defoe, Swift, Plato, Herodotus, Homer, Defoe, de Cervantes, etc etc etc
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Matt Steinglass @mattsteinglass.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Trump, MAGA and the New Right intellectuals don’t *simply* hat Europe; it’s much more complicated. I wrote about MAGA’s weird “love-hate relationship” with Europe, as Laura K Field put it to me. Gift link
economist.com
Why MAGA hates and loves Europe
Three big reasons explain the New Right’s hostility to Europeans
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Ben McKenzie @benmckenzie.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
There’s that crypto company Tether in the news again 🤔 apple.news/ATZI2jCK5THy...
apple.news
Senate Investigation Finds Rampant Use of Tether’s Stablecoin by Iranian Regime — The Wall Street Journal
Wallets sanctioned over Iran ties overwhelmingly dealt in Tether’s USDT stablecoin, according to Senate Democrats
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I struggled to finish reading this important and horrifying reporting www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
theatlantic.com
The Babies Left Behind in America
The United States is deporting parents without their children, creating a whole new family-separation crisis.
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Christopher Hale @christopherjhale.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
“When our government laid siege to the city of Minneapolis with wanton violence and the killing of those who had spoken up in resistance, we were outraged.” “We could not believe that the mask had become the new symbol of American justice.” — Cardinal Robert McElroy
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Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 28/09/2026
Funny bit to get upset about a lack of alt text on an Instagram post by a bar located down a literal flight of stairs
Last Ditch, a basement bar down a set of concrete steps, beneath a Mexican restaurant, drew news coverage in Europe and the United States this week after a Boston Globe story about the bar's plan to lift its Covid mask requirement on Saturday
nights went viral.
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Horrifying
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
My latest story - on Adam Hamilton, the United Methodist pastor apparently making Kansas a competitive Senate race: www.economist.com/united-state...
economist.com
Can Jesus Christ sell moderates on Democrats?
Donald Trump’s faltering support among Christians creates an opportunity
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Incredible headline/photo combo from the NYT today
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Ronyo the Windfox @wndfx.link · 27/09/2026
Re: gigs: Phoebe Bridgers did a tour of surprise shows at small venues this summer: each show was announced day-of and with in-person ticketing only. She came to my city, and by the time the box office opened the line was multiple blocks long in the direct sunlight.
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The trains will probably come out of this still running, with the debt gone
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Ryan Hassett @ryanhassett.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The inevitable is now official.
ft.com
Private equity-backed Florida railway company Brightline files for bankruptcy
Orlando-to-Miami route seeking to popularise high-speed rail in US has filed for Chapter 11 to cut nearly $6bn in debt
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Shout out to investors
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
There are already a few examples of this happening, which is why I said it (postaltimes.com/this-maine-r...
postaltimes.com
This Maine restaurant only takes reservations through the mail
A restaurant in Freedom, ME, has such a high demand for seating that it does not take reservations over the phone or online.
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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Universities abandoning essays and switching to oral or off-line, hand-written exams, even for grad courses. 🙋
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John Springford @johnspringford.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Institutional decay in the US means no one is even talking about fiscal tightening, despite it being so obviously needed. www.ft.com/content/bcf0...
ft.com
Soaring bond yields ‘not even close’ to cooling red-hot US economy, investors say
Rising borrowing costs so far show no sign of putting a brake on activity in world’s biggest economy
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Some unintended consequences I suspect the rise of AI agents will create: 1. Restaurants that only take reservations by hand written letter, or more likely, don't take them at all. 2. Gigs where you can only buy tickets in person. 3. Businesses that operate without websites.
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
It's very good for skiing if you don't want to rent a car
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Brianinja @brianinja.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
People want to talk about trains but are missing out on the transformative power of a well-organized bus network. Colorado's Bustang has knocked intercity bus service out of the park and added 18 new routes since launching Bustang in 2015. Illinois should directly copy Colorado's success.
en.wikipedia.org
Bustang - Wikipedia
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Dan McCrum @mccrum.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
New story from me begs a pretty big question - why does the world's largest issuer of stablecoins Tether still struggle to open basic bank accounts? Tether's CIO Zachary Lyons enlisted the help of a tiny Caribbean bank to approach Singapore's DBS for an account, but then the FBI stepped in...
ft.com
US seizes bank accounts of payments group linked to Tether
Prosecutors allege Capstone illegally moved hundreds of millions of dollars for the crypto companies at the direction of a Caribbean bank
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This feels like a time capsule from 2020
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Almost every customer announcement - on flights, in airports, at train stations, anywhere else near enough - is pointless and jarring
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James Ball @jamesrball.com · 23/09/2026
A lot of the British productivity mystery – why do we get so much less output per hour than other European nations – appears to be boiling down to a collective delusion about how many hours we work. We seem to exaggerate it substantially, I suspect even to ourselves.
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
God autumn in Chicago is so lovely when it arrives suddenly after the seemingly endless sweat of summer
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The video shows the agents literally just leaving the guy in the street and driving off.
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Stephen Collins @stephencollins.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

1
Wide shot of the BRITISH MUSEUM. There are suggestions of fascism around the streets - tanks, barricades, an Orwellian 'Big Brother'-style poster on a wall. A voice of a TOUR GUIDE emanates from the museum:

TOUR GUIDE:
So the Tapestry tells acrucial chapter of our nation's history...

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[Cut to interior of museum. A long Bayeaux-style TAPESTRY is on display, and the Tour Guide is speaking to a tour group]

TOUR GUIDE [smiling]:
How modern fascist Britain was created. 

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TOUR GUIDE:
The Tapestry begins here with the 2008 Crash, then austerity, then the AI Crash...

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TOUR GUIDE:
...and by the end of the room it's just full-on fash. 

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CHILD IN TOUR GROUP [gesturing to the tapestry]:
What's this middle bit?

TOUR GUIDE:
This is the 2026 Battle of Legitimate Concerns 

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TOUR GUIDE:
[show a reporter standing next to the Dover protests]
Here's the media saying the government have got to do something about the legitimate concerns...

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CHILD:
...About the failure of capitalism?

TOUR GUIDE:
No about brown people on boats

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CHILD:
[pointing at boats crossing the sea on the tapestry]
Are these boats the mega-dinghies?

TOUR GUIDE:
Not all of them

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[we see one of the boats  is a giant yacht]
TOUR GUIDE:
That one's a superyacht,
carrying money from the American fascists to the British ones.

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TOUR GUIDE:
You see really it's as much a story of convergence as it is of conflict.

[An alarm sounds in the museum]
DING DING DING DING 

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TOUR GUIDE:
Ok, tour over everyone 

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TOUR GUIDE:
It's time for the Two Minute Hate!

[They all leave the museum]

[ends]
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Bring back waving lighters I say. Also bring back it being 2004
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I really hate the framing of these stories as "an AI agent broke out and hacked something." No, an inadequate sandbox meant that a powerful and unpredictable computer program was set loose on the open internet by the company that designed it. The agency isn't with the "AI agent", it's with the firm
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Jim Waterson @jim.londoncentric.media · 18/09/2026
I spend my week crossing london on a bike and increasingly that means cycling alongside Wayve/Waymo robotaxis. it’s uncomfortable. they give you so much space, don’t do a close pass while accelerating as lights go red. So unnerving if you cycle on assumption everyone’s mental and wants to kill you.
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Nationalism, George Orwell wrote, "does not necessarily mean loyalty to a government or a country, still less to one’s own country." He was talking about Communists being loyal to Russia but it applies just as well to the European far right politicians embracing America these days
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 16/09/2026
yeah, this stuff is far from my area of expertise, but i have yet to see anyone convincingly explain how the causal chain is supposed to operate here. it feels like the "AI will kill us all people" spent too much time watching Terminator 2 and the Animatrix.
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Emma Yeomans @yeomans.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
The RNLI has said the abuse of volunteers in Portsmouth has forced it to close the lifeboat station there and stop operating since September 10. Nearby stations have been providing cover to the area instead. One of the UK's largest coastal cities without a lifeboat because of the far-right.
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Amanda is doing reporting that almost nobody else is, as a freelancer without the support of a big publication behind her. Read her stuff
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
This is APPALLING. The Trump administration is detaining multiple random Somali immigrants with no criminal record at Guantanamo Bay, seemingly because the White House ordered ICE specifically to detain Somalis at Gitmo as part of its effort to punish an ethnic group Trump has attacked.
According to Mohamed, guards at Guantanamo have said they are being held there because that's what officials in Washington, DC, want. "There's no other nation, only Somali people in Guantanamo Bay, in the prison," he told me. "And when we ask them why we are here, they tell us... Washington...ordered to keep Somali people in the Guantanamo Bay."
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CBS News @cbsnews.com · 15/09/2026
CBS News Exclusive: New photos reveal widespread damage at multiple U.S. positions across the Middle East caused by Iranian attacks.
cbsn.ws
New photos show widespread damage at U.S. positions caused by Iranian missile, drone attacks
The images were sent to CBS News by active service members under condition of anonymity.
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
This is something you cannot repeat enough: what makes America so much more unequal than European countries isn't the wealth held by billionaires (Europe has those too). It is the wealth held by the upper echelon of the professional classes. Lawyers, doctors, even some journalists...
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Matt Darling @besttrousers.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
"These billionaires’ total estimated wealth is $8.4 trillion...An enormous number, but it’s less than five percent of total U.S. household wealth. By comparison, households in the 90th to 99th percentile of wealth (from $2 million to $11.5 million) have total wealth of $63.2 trillion! "
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Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 14/09/2026
Glad folks are appalled by photos of the "phone booth" cage under an awning, but pls understand: This IG report is likely part of a cover-up. Amnesty Int'l interviewed detainees EIGHT MONTHS AGO who said the cage was half this size (couldn't stand up), had no awning, w feet chained to the bottom.
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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 14/09/2026
Some details: Kremlev, the Russian who sponsored Don Jr's wedding, is a former member of the Night Wolves biker gang, went to China with Putin and is personally sanctioned by Ukraine for his role in abducting children www.propublica.org/article/dona...
propublica.org
Donald Trump Jr.’s Wedding Bankrolled by Putin-Linked Russian Oligarch
The oligarch, Umar Kremlev, spent hundreds of thousands on expenses like renting out a private island. He appears to have met Trump Jr. only recently, but he attended the intimate wedding with a large...
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amanda moore 🐢 @noturtlesoup17.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
"ICE arrested 50,000 people in July, and another 50,000 in August, eclipsing the monthly arrests made during the peak of Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago, Operation Catahoula Crunch in New Orleans, and Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota." www.turtlediaries.net/p/ice-is-sti...
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
This piece really hit on something I've been trying to articulate for years about why I hate most modern TV. *Everything* now is high-budget drama with lengthy story arcs, and there's nothing you can just watch for half an hour without having to engage with it all: www.nytimes.com/2026/09/13/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | What’s Happening to TV Comedies Is Not Funny
The demands of streaming, which is now how most viewers watch TV, are not suited to just plain old comedy.
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Molly Jong-Fast @mollyjongfast.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Oh boy www.propublica.org/article/dona...
propublica.org
Donald Trump Jr.’s Wedding Bankrolled by Putin-Linked Russian Oligarch
The oligarch, Umar Kremlev, spent hundreds of thousands on expenses like renting out a private island. He appears to have met Trump Jr. only recently, but he attended the intimate wedding with a large...
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Alex Hern @hern.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
continually maddening that people blame "the water companies" for hosepipe bans when "the water companies" have been begging to build new reservoirs but a few retired QCs in Oxfordshire have used the entire weight of the british planning system to prevent it www.theguardian.com/business/202...
theguardian.com
Thames Water redraws mega-reservoir plan amid local opposition
A new public consultation has opened on the 150bn-litre above-ground White Horse project in Abingdon, Oxfordshire
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I am very much not making predictions, but a tip for politicos: if you're not already, watch the Kansas Senate race
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
"ELLO MATE! GET OVER. YOU'RE FUCKING NICKED" British coppers still unmatched www.reddit.com/r/londoncycl...
reddit.com
From the londoncycling community on Reddit: Borrowing a bike to catch a bike thief (Twickenham)
Explore this post and more from the londoncycling community
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amanda moore 🐢 @noturtlesoup17.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Wrote about documenting ICE arrests during a surge in southwest Florida -- and how no one wanted any of the footage.
turtlediaries.net
ICE is Still Surging
Dispatch from an immigration surge in southwest Florida
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
What @spignal.bsky.social started with a tongue-in-cheek column is now a real proposal
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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 12/09/2026
The unstoppable @mhackman.bsky.social of @wsj.com reported on this over the summer, when most of us had only heard disturbing rumors.
wsj.com
Exclusive | U.S. Weighs $100,000 Fee for Foreign Students Wanting to Work After Graduation
The proposed policy would particularly affect Silicon Valley, Wall Street and universities.
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Owen Winter @owenwntr.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
In our polling with YouGov, Donald Trump's net approval is underwater on every single issue www.economist.com/interactive/...
Horizontal bar chart titled “Catalogue of errors” showing net approval of Donald Trump’s handling of 15 issues in August 2026. Approval is negative on every issue, ranging from -10 points on crime and -13 on immigration to -30 on foreign policy, -32 on Iran, -34 on the economy, tariffs and government spending, and -41 on inflation, his worst-rated issue. Source: The Economist/YouGov.
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Around the corner from me there's a mini strip mall where half of the units are empty. The entrance to the car park has a giant sign saying your car will be clamped (booted) if you park in the empty spots. There's a super visible parking officer. And yet every day I see a clamped car
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