iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Zac Whittenburg

womensartbluesky.bsky.social @womensartbluesky.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

40th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, from Salmon Tower 11 West 42nd Street, Manhattan, 1935 by US photographer Berenice Abbott #WomensArt

Monochrome photograph featuring a New York cityscape with skyscrapers

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Born in Nicaragua and now active around Europe, Escarleth Romo Pozo performs with the force of a full ensemble and brought a new solo, “La Mala,” to Moderna Dansteatern over the weekend. For C-print Journal, I looked at the ways the work functions as a kind of triptych about being born and reborn.

c-print.se

Escarleth Romo Pozo offers three in one

La MalaEscarleth Romo Pozo September 24–25 and 27, 2026MDT Moderna Dansteatern, StockholmFollowing last year’s Yielding, a duet for Robert Malmborg and Victor Pérez Armero with an accompanying zine, E...

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

“The Education Department announced Monday it has formally rescinded the Biden-era Title IX interpretation that gave sex-based discrimination protections to students on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.”

thehill.com

Education Department formally rescinds Title IX protections for LGBTQ students

The Education Department announced Monday it has formally rescinded the Biden-era Title IX interpretation that gave sex-based discrimination protections to students on the basis of sexual orientati…

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I can only recall having seen one of these once in the wild. I remember thinking, “Wait: Bertone designed a Volvo?” only to be further surprised upon learning that *Volvo designed the car* and it was *produced in Italy* by Bertone. Only about 6,500 were manufactured, primarily for the US market.

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Shout out to “Rumble in the Jungle” at Botkyrka konsthall, artist Eric Magassa’s first solo exhibition in Stockholm. It’s complex and vibrant and covers every surface in the space, activated on Saturday by movement artist Freddy Houndekindo’s performance, “Prison / Prophet Fantasy” bit.ly/3VjMzjN

On a wall painted bright yellow and adjacent to a large window, three items are visible. At the top is an unframed color photograph of a white plastic armchair on a lush and vibrant green lawn. Below the photograph is a copy of the Angela Davis LP titled “Soul and Soledad” (1971) in a clear acrylic box mounted to the wall. Partially behind and below the box is a black and white photo of a woman mounted flush against the wall.

Movement artist Freddy Houndekindo performs within an art gallery filled with overlapping color and black-and-white imagery. Houndekindo wears black training pants and black sneakers with a heather-grey, sleeveless T-shirt partially soaked with sweat. Both of his hands are wrapped with white tape and he is engaged in boxing practice. To his right is a large sound system comprising multiple speakers with hand-built, plywood cases stacked on a wheeled platform. To his left is a partial view of a white spiral staircase. Assorted items are on the floor behind Houndekindo, next to the sound system.

This is a view into one corner of the exhibition “Rumble in the Jungle.” Two framed color photographs hang just a few inches apart, one in each direction away from the corner. At left is a photo of a person in a yellow and white striped caftan with a painted box on their head, who stands in a parking lot in front of a row of apartment buildings. At right is a photo of furniture and other objects at one side of a street. Additional images paper the walls behind the photographs. One shows frothy white waves breaking against rocks. Another shows multicolored tiles and an illustration of a person either falling or flying.

This is a photo of a framed photo on a wallpapered wall. The image on the wall is of a rocky shoreline. The frame is pale wood and surrounds a color print of a photo of a person wearing a black and white striped caftan with a painted box on their head. The box is painted white with two large, dark circles that look like eyes. The person stands on an asphalt court and in front of a long wall painted bright green with one horizontal white stripe. Behind the long wall are a metal fence and several trees.

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Reposted by Zac Whittenburg

Apoorva Mandavilli @apoorvanyt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I’ve been reporting on the CDC for years, and have written about many of its troubles over the past year. I was still shocked by the extent of the staff losses and political interference I found when reporting this one. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/26/h...

nytimes.com

‘Zombified’ C.D.C., Hobbled by Cuts, Struggles to Fulfill Scientific Mission (Gift Article)

The agency has lost its independence and nearly a third of its staff, as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and associates have tightened control.

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Reposted by Zac Whittenburg

Luke LeBrun @lukelebrun.ca · 26/09/2026

Tech companies suddenly decide they can, in fact, moderate content on their platforms after all

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

“The incident fits a broader pattern in the discourse around ‘free speech’ and ‘cancel culture’: whatever comes from the top down is freedom; whatever comes from the bottom up is bullying and censorship.”

lrb.co.uk

Lorna Finlayson | Public Positions

Given much of the coverage of the Ed Sheeran-Macklemore debacle, you could be forgiven for thinking that Sheeran had...

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

“In my experience, long-standing governance dynamics can become the greatest barrier to organizational health, yet boards are often reluctant to acknowledge or address their own role in recurring challenges.”

museumsmovingforward.com

Findings: Reasons for Leaving – Exit Interview from the Field: An MMF Report on Former Art Museum Workers – Museums Moving Forward

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Sure was fun to watch Gabriel Itkes-Sznap try to handle Álvaro Enrigue in conversation tonight at Kulturhuset

Writer Álvaro Enrigue, left, and Gabriel Itkes-Sznap sit facing each other on a stage. They sit in black armchairs with chrome frames on a square carpet of hot colors: red, orange, yellow, and brown. A table between them holds water glasses, a bottle, and a copy of “Om imperier drömde du,” the Swedish translation of Enrigue’s book “You Dreamed of Empires.” Behind them are a dark curtain and two zig-zags of red neon.

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Misty Copeland’s promotion to principal in 2015 prompted revealing conversations about racism and white supremacy culture in classical ballet. Guillaume Diop’s unprecedented promotion in Paris didn’t follow until 2023. The Australian Ballet just promoted Davi Ramos to principal artist in 2026.

danceaustralia.com.au

Davi Ramos: “I Love My Job and I Love My Life!” - Dance Australia

“I love my job and I love my life!” Davi Ramos speaks to Daniel Gaudiello about his journey from Brazil to principal artist with The Australian Ballet, and finding his feet in Australia.

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Had a blast with Toronto band TR / ST at Nalen, my new favorite venue in Stockholm. For a kick, read up on Gustaf “Topsy” Lindblom, the newspaper editor and record-breaking Olympian who bought and cleaned up the seedy dancehall in the mid-1930s, helping it become an epicenter for jazz bit.ly/4hjvJca

Robert Alfons of Toronto band TR / ST stands alone onstage, singing into a microphone held in both hands. The musician is spotlit and wears a long sleeved, black shirt. Two beams of light, one on either side of Alfons, shine diagonally upward and over the crowd. A tight cluster of audience members’ heads are in the foreground, bathed in red light. Behind Alfons is the base of a large, fluted column. Partially visible at the left edge of the image is a bandmate’s keyboard on its stand.

Romain Barry, left, and Robert Alfons of Toronto band TR / ST stand together onstage during their September 2026 concert at Nalen in Stockholm, Sweden. Two large, fluted columns with ornate, Ionic capitals rise high toward the ceiling behind them; an even taller, emerald green curtain hangs between the columns. Barry plays a keyboard while Alfons sings into a microphone, both hands over their ears. Theatrical haze is in the air.

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

While I don’t typically consume or recommend videos of podcast episodes, this @newyorker.com conversation between Grandmaster Flash and David Remnick must be seen to be fully enjoyed

youtu.be

Grandmaster Flash on “Birth of a Culture” | The New Yorker Radio Hour

YouTube video by The New Yorker

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I biked through Chicago for 20 years and never felt less safe doing so than in 2025 — the same year someone threw trash at me through the front passenger window while the driver cut me off, pinning me against the curb, got out of the car, and physically assaulted me.

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Pickle Jars and Modal Nodes: Pop Musicology and Pastiche, from “Chicken in the Pot” to “Mad About Me”

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Reposted by Zac Whittenburg

Chicago Tribune @chicagotribune.com · 23/09/2026

Art Institute will return painting looted during World War II to heirs of Jewish art collector

chicagotribune.com

Art Institute will return painting looted during World War II to heirs of Jewish art collector

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

“In a market environment that again proved supportive despite periodic volatility, average annual returns on foundation endowments landed in double-digit positive territory for the third consecutive year among the 285 foundations surveyed”

commonfund.org

Foundation Endowments Post Double-Digit Returns | 2025 CCSF Study

Foundation endowments posted double-digit returns for a third straight year in 2025, per the Council on Foundations–Commonfund Study.

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

“Ten years ago, I wrote a post called ‘We need to stop treating nonprofits the way society treats poor people.’ Reading it again is frustrating, because little has changed since a decade ago. If anything, it’s worsened.”

nonprofitaf.com

Let’s stop blaming individuals and organizations for systemic problems

Original title: We need to get off the gaslighting, victim-blaming hamster wheel of bullshit (GVBHWBS) A few weeks ago, I was listening to a panel of funders give advice for nonprofits on the best wa...

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Glad to catch artist Mattias Åkeson’s exhibition “Kom & Gå” (focused, among other things, on employee surveillance) and a wonderful performance by Trio Perenne (Sara Hammarström, Lisa Viguier Vallgårda, and Kim Hellgren, from left) at Galleri Duerr.

“Sändare / Mottagare No. 2” by Mattias Åkeson, 2026, hangs on a white wall in an art gallery. Sunlight falls across the artwork and wall in a diagonal grid delineated by the mullions of a large window out of frame. The artwork shows a cluster of plugs on various cables in the top left corner. The rest of the artwork is negative white space. It is a digital pigment print, Diasec® with matte acrylic.

Three seated musicians play “The City in the Sea,” a 2017 work by Canadian-Finnish composer Matthew Whittall, in a nearly all-white art gallery bathed in sunlight. One freestanding, diagonal wall behind them is painted sage green. Each musician reads her music from pages on a black stand. From left, they are playing a flute, a harp, and a viola.

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Shout out to the apartment buildings along Upplandsgatan

This is a centered, full-height view of a six-story apartment building on Upplandsgatan in Stockholm, Sweden. It has six metal balconies — two each on floors three, four, and five — and an intricately carved, stone archway over its double front doors. The building is perfectly symmetrical and painted a soft tint of peach-orange with dark green trim.

This is a centered, full-height view of a six-story apartment building on Upplandsgatan in Stockholm, Sweden. It has two gently projected window bays, each topped with a triangular gable with one small, circular window. The building is painted a soft tint of yellow with sage trim and has two small, metal balconies on the fourth and fifth floors, one directly above the other.

This is a centered, full-height view of a five-story apartment building on Upplandsgatan in Stockholm, Sweden. Each of its four rows of windows is articulated differently; all are heavily trimmed and ornamented in a Renaissance revival manner. The building is painted a soft tint of yellow and has two gently projected window bays, one on each side of its symmetrical façade. At street level are commercial spaces and a sign that reads FRANKLIN in white, capital letters above a striped awning.

This is a centered, full-height view of two matching, five-story apartment buildings on Upplandsgatan in Stockholm, Sweden. Each of its four rows of windows is articulated differently; all are heavily trimmed and ornamented in a Renaissance revival manner. The building on the left is painted a rich shade of red-orange; the building on the right is painted a lighter shade of yellow-orange.

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Over the summer, I read Megan Greenwell’s “Bad Company,” Patrick Radden Keefe’s “London Falling,” and Edward Niedermeyer’s “Ludicrous.” Now I’m halfway through William D. Cohan’s “Money to Burn.” It feels like I’m getting radicalized and an MBA at the same time.

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

“The museum and RAMSA are correct in wanting to create more free and accessible spaces and improve what is a cumbersome entry process. But the proposed design can’t be the only way to go about it.”

chicago.suntimes.com

Griffin MSI's new design must go back to the drawing board: 'Carbuncle in the park'

The two-story, 458-foot long entry pavilion threatens to visually overpower the landmark museum's historic entrance and great lawn.

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

“The decision reflects the legacy of [Wallace Global Fund] founder and former Vice President Henry A. Wallace, whose 1944 essay ‘The Danger of American Fascism’ warned about the threat posed when powerful economic interests seek to influence government and put profit ahead of people.”

prnewswire.com

Wallace Global Fund to Spend Itself to Zero, Putting Its Entire Endowment Behind Movements as It Challenges Philanthropy to Pay Out More to Meet This Moment

/PRNewswire/ -- Wallace Global Fund (WGF) announced today that it is spending its entire endowment down to zero, deploying every dollar toward frontline...

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

“One of [Brown Brothers Media’s] many unscrupulous practices, insiders confirmed to us, is that it has often invented entire fake personas for nonexistent writers…and published content under their names without revealing to readers that they weren’t real people.”

futurism.com

How Three Brothers Built an AI Slop Empire by Buying Legitimate News Sites and Turning Them Into Zombie Content Farms That They Say Get 50 Million Page Views per Month

Brown Brothers Media is a media empire raking in millions of clicks with AI, fake writers, and plagiarism.

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

“It’s often vulnerable people who are being targeted. Vulnerable people who need money and are willing to travel for money and are willing to not ask many questions about the purpose of what they’re carrying out.”

dw.com

Cuban dance teacher ordered EU sabotage attacks from Russia

In 2024, a Cuban man coordinated a series of arson attacks in four EU countries while operating on behalf of Russian intelligence services. DW Investigations tracked him back to a Latin dance studio i...

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

“Sofield’s brief was to keep as much of the original as possible and to use the wreckage itself for the homes’ raw material. The balustrade spindles from the old staircases, for example, have been sandblasted and turned into the legs of bathroom basins.”

bloomberg.com

The Next Life of an Iconic New York Skyscraper Is 37 Luxury Homes

The office-to-residential conversion of the Flatiron Building restored a symbol cherished by the public even as it changed its use.

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Inside Philanthropy’s Michael Kavate drops another insightful article about big giving and not giving: “For a nonagenarian with more money than the Ford Foundation, [Donald] Bren appears to have reduced his grantmaking to a trickle during a time of life when some donors open the spigots.”

insidephilanthropy.com

Will Any More of America’s Greatest Real Estate Fortune Go to Philanthropy?

Donald Bren has given away over $2 billion, but most of the billionaire developer’s major gifts came more than a decade ago.

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Philip Kennicott’s trenchant observation: “Before Trump, the Kennedy Center was family-friendly to a fault and anyone visiting from places where wealth and cultural snobbery are more unapologetically on display, from New York, or some places in Europe, would be baffled by the accusation of elitism.”

washingtonpost.com

Column | The Kennedy Center is empty and in peril. Its community is in anguish.

The fiasco of this week’s closure reveals the truth of President Trump’s motivations — and what the arts community stands to lose.

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The Audience Agency, “which established audience development as an evidence-led and data-informed discipline over 14 years, announced on its website [on September 11] it had entered voluntary liquidation after ‘sustained financial pressures and extensive efforts to identify a viable way forward.’”

artsprofessional.co.uk

Culture sector reacts to 'tremendous loss' of The Audience Agency - Arts Professional

Culture sector leaders have paid tribute to the "powerful legacy" left by The Audience Agency (TAA), following news the non-profit research and development

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Reposted by Zac Whittenburg

Jason Kint @kint.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Eye popping. Court just unsealed Summary Judgment motions in New York Times v OpenAI / Microsoft. Easy to see why the AI companies had so many redactions (pink). Their own people wrote the lede for NYT, the "largest theft of labor in human history"... "more and more substitutive..." /1

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Back home from a 26 hour excursion to Tallinn and already, I can’t wait to go back. I’m utterly charmed by its extremely well-cared-for historic city center, much of it medieval, and getting around is a piece of cake. From the airport to the waterfront is a 20 minute tram ride (and costs just 2 €).

This view down the center of a cobblestone street in the historic city center of Tallinn, Estonia features a variety of densely packed buildings three to five stories tall, each painted a lively combination of pastel colors. Some of the buildings have fanciful turrets and weathervanes atop them. The sky is overcast but some rays of sun are breaking through.

This photo of a historic building in Tallinn’s medieval district shows a large clock with a wooden face, painted with a sun and Roman numerals in gold. The clock sits about fifteen feet up a plain white wall. Below the clock you can see the top half of a wooden door with a Gothic-style pointed top. There is a plaque to the left of the door.

Located near the highest point in Tallinn’s historic district, Alexander Nevsky church (1894–1900) rises proudly into a cloudy sky. The Estonian Orthodox cathedral features a tight cluster of onion-domed cupolas and is heavily trimmed in off-white shades. A few cars are parked on the cobblestone streets around the building; at bottom left is a man wearing a yellow jacket and taking a photograph of something out of frame. At bottom right, in the distance, is a pink building with white trim.

The view from Patkuli vaateplats in old Tallinn is justly famous and dominated by the tall spire of Oleviste kirik (St. Olof’s Church). From this high terrace, you can see many of the city’s old stone defensive walls with cone-roofed towers and, in the distance, the waters of Tallinn Bay.

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Reposted by Zac Whittenburg

Aurelien Mondon @aurelmondon.com · 17/09/2026

It was confirmed yesterday that the centre left coalition won the election in Sweden As predicted, with the far right performing poorly, coverage has almost entirely vanished from international media

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Reposted by Zac Whittenburg

Andrea Basso @a4xrbj1.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

/5 You can’t hold a robotaxi to a mirror-adjustment or turn-signal rule built around a person who isn’t in the seat. The agency’s counter is blunt. Until those rules are formally rewritten, they still apply, and “inapplicable” isn’t a box a manufacturer gets to check for itself.

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

“I subpoenaed Leon Black for testimony and documents critical to our investigation. But he has refused to comply. Leon Black is legally required to appear for a deposition in front of the Oversight Committee and required to turn over all nondisclosure agreements to which he was a party.”

edition.cnn.com

House holds billionaire investor Leon Black in contempt over Epstein probe | CNN Politics

The House of Representatives held billionaire investor Leon Black in contempt of Congress on Wednesday for refusing to comply with subpoenas as part of the congressional investigation into Jeffrey Eps...

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

There’s an 11-day thread of emails between two Vimeo Support staff and me, which ends with my sincere thanks for their help with all the refunds. For it to continue now is just theft. I am not a Vimeo customer. Vimeo is reaching into my wallet and it is stealing my money.

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Reposted by Zac Whittenburg

Business Insider @businessinsider.com · 15/09/2026

Scoop: CFO Hilary Maxson assures Oracle employees that 'doing more with less' isn't the answer at an all-hands meeting as the tech giant cuts jobs to manage debt from its AI investments bit.ly/4xvuP2i

businessinsider.com

Oracle CFO says 'doing more with less' isn't the answer in all-hands after layoffs

The remarks came a day after Oracle began a new round of layoffs, following cuts earlier this year.

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Reposted by Zac Whittenburg

Christian Christensen @chrchristensen.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

"Left won in Sweden because immigrants not born in Sweden voted." Well, voter turnout estimated at 80.5%. So, 1.6 million people didn't vote. Gap between Left-Green-Center & Right-Nationalists? Just 30,000 votes. So, the right lost because they couldn't get 2% of that 1.6 million to vote for them.

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

“In August, for example, an American oil company called Greenland Energy began bringing equipment to drill for oil in a remote part of the island, although it had not received formal permission to do so. Greenland Energy’s investors include Ken Griffin, a major donor to the Republican Party.”

theatlantic.com

MAGA Is Making the World Safe for Corruption

Far-right ideologues have transformed American foreign policy into a tool of private gain and antidemocratic reaction.

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Zac Whittenburg @trailerpilot.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

“‘Notwithstanding the scale of the likely harm,’ Judge Saylor wrote, ‘the government’s proffered rationales for the rule are exceptionally weak,’ adding that the Trump administration’s claim ‘that the rule is necessary to safeguard national security borders on the absurd’”

nytimes.com

Judge Blocks Trump Rule Aimed at International Students and Journalists

Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV wrote that the administration’s reasons for a rule limiting the length of stay for academics and journalists were “exceptionally weak.”

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