R. Sikoryak is a cartooning mimic of incredible ability, drawing in the style of any other cartoonist with absolute precision. Boing Boing has written about his previous projects taking legal documents and illustrating them using various famous cartoonist styles and comics characters. β Read the rest
For multiple years, the hottest toy in the United States was a book. But not just any book: a smart book that could play sounds and respond to taps and help kids learn to read. It was the kind of gadget seemingly any parent could get behind, but it came with a high price - and some unexpected parenting questions.
On this episode of Version History, David Pierce is joined by The Verge's Andru Marino and Jennifer Pattison Tuohy to explain how the LeapPad worked, why it was so enticing to both kids and adults, and why the company that made it could never quite follow it up.
We're almost finished with our fifth season of Version History, all β¦
As whispers circulate of plague in faraway Siberia, itβs worth remembering that Russian obfuscation is so ingrained that itβs become a meme.
In HBOβs dramatized 2019 series about the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, a Russian atomic scientist scoffs at a radiation reading that suggests a major calamity is taking place.Β
βNot great, not terrible,β says the fictionalized version of Anatoly Dyatlov, the real-life deputy chief engineer at Chernobyl in April 1986, as he looks at a dosimeter noting 3.6 roentgen per hour, just below a critical radiation level.Β
Except that reading was not accurate. Not even close. The nuclear reactor had already exploded and unleashed catastrophic levels of radiation that would go on to cause thousands of cancer-related deaths in the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history.
While dramatized, the scene is emblematic of a long-standing Soviet and Russian desire to downplay critical incidents β and even cover them up. That pattern has flared this week, with senior world health officials, the European Union and U.S. President Donald Trump demanding that Moscow be more transparent about a suspected outbreak of plague in far eastern Russia.
In dark comedic twist in the face of the potential plague, Dyatlovβs dismissive remark is now ubiquitous. Not great, not terrible.Β
Into the unknown
The death of a 28-year-old employee at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East last week triggered unease across the globe due to her laboratory work β and a local Russian official linking her death to a case of plague.
Russia was quick to clamp down. Rospotrebnadzor, the countryβs national public health agency, said that the employee died from βpneumonia of unknown etiologyβ and that no microorganisms associated with her work were identified in the patient sample.
Still, Russian health authorities placed nearly 200 people under supervision and local media reported that several hospitals were placed under quarantine. Rospotrebnadzor said Thursday these measures were taken due to βthe patientβs professional activities.β
The World Health Organization, which leads global response to international health threats, got in touch with Russian health authorities on Oct. 3. It requested more information using one of the tools laid out in the International Health Regulations, which Russia is signed up to. Under the IHR, countries have 24 hours to respond to the WHO β though Russia sent its response on Oct. 6.
Russian authorities said that βno case of plague had recently been registered in Irkutskβ and βno pathogens of dangerous infectious diseases were detected among any of the contacts.β
World Health Organization epidemic and pandemic management head Maria Van Kerkhove, who said βwe still donβt know exactly how this person died, at a press briefing in Geneva on Oct. 7, 2026. | Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images
As of Thursday, Russian health authorities maintain that there is no βepidemic riskβ in the region. Rospotrebnadzor said that it had concluded health inspections and found βno emergency situations involving pathogenic microorganisms.β It had also completed monitoring of 90% of the contacts, without identifying any infections, the agency added. Simultaneously, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov slammed media reports about the case as false and said Russia has been communicating with global health authorities.
Yet the WHO insists thereβs still much left unknown about the events inside Russia.
βWe donβt know exactly how this person died,β said Maria Van Kerkhove, director of epidemic and pandemic management, during a press briefing Wednesday. βWe know that she had pneumonia. We know it was a fatal case. We understand that some laboratory tests have been done. They havenβt found the causative agent. This is why we need more information.β
The WHO said it requested further details on what laboratory tests were conducted, which pathogens were evaluated, which further analyses are being done to determine the patientβs cause of death β if not plague β along with more details on any potential lab incident and the 200 contacts.
Until those questions are answered, itβs impossible for the WHO to conduct a risk assessment.
βWe donβt yet have the full picture of this event, and we are not able to conduct a full risk assessment,β said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the organizationβs director-general. βTimely, complete, and transparent information sharing under the international regulations is essential to clarify conflicting reports and enable an accurate assessment of potential public health risks.β
OmertΓ in Russian
It might be that the cause of death of the 28-year-old lab worker is not, in fact, plague.Β
But Russiaβs incomplete, late and hazy communication about the case is fomenting fears and uncertainty from Geneva to Brussels to Washington. It would also not be the first time the Kremlin has downplayed or attempted to cover up public health threats.Β Β
That goes beyond the Soviet-era Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster, in what is now northern Ukraine, where the Kremlin was slow to take action and effectively denied the cause of the incident.
In 1979, according to an investigation by U.S. scientists, the Soviet Union covered up a deadly anthrax outbreak in the city of Sverdlovsk, now Yekaterinburg, which killed at least 66 people. Officials said the victims had fallen ill from eating contaminated meat, when in reality they had been exposed to anthrax because of an accident at a secret biological weapons lab.
Russia was also accused of covering up a mysterious 1988 alopecia outbreak in Chernivtsi region, in which more than 175 children lost their hair. Soviet authorities said the children suffered from thallium food poisoning, but later studies raised questions about that, with some suggesting the cause was hydrazine, or acid rain.
Over the years, the Kremlin has also dismissed, downplayed and underreported HIV cases, even while in the middle of a deadly epidemic. And, more recently, during the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia was accused of downplaying coronavirus deaths, particularly at the beginning.Β
An image taken from a helicopter in April 1986 shows a general view of the destroyed fourth power block of Chernobylβs nuclear plant a few days after the catastrophe, which was downplayed at the time by Soviet authorities. | Vladimir Repik/AFP via Getty Images
The tradition extends beyond public health. The 1999 apartment block bombings, the 2000 sinking of the Kursk submarine and the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 by Kremlin-backed separatists all raised questions over Russiaβs public messaging and commitment to transparency.
Talks with Putin
The EU and the U.S. are monitoring the Irkutsk situation closely, with both seemingly growing impatient with Russiaβs communication.Β
βThe whole world is waiting for the information from Russia,β said European Commission spokesperson Eva Hrncirova on Thursday.
βRussia should make information about the plague available as soon as possible,β she told reporters. βWe need information from Russia. Itβs linked to the Russian membership in the WHO Europe, sharing timely, precise, exact information so that the experts can assess the situation, because [it] can have cross-border implications.β
The European Commissionβs directorate-general for health and food safety is planning to send a technical letter to Russia asking for more information, a Commission spokesperson confirmed.
In the meantime, Russiaβs βpatchyβ communication is dangerous, said a Commission official, granted anonymity to speak candidly on the matter.
βThis fuels speculation into all directions. It also renders preventive [and] precautionary action difficult, if not even meaningless,β the official said. These types of events happen all the time, but there is usually an exchange with the WHO and health authorities, the person added. βThe lack of precise [and] reliable info is logically reducing adequate good preparedness.β
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday urged Russia to share more information, adding that it would be βirresponsibleβ to speculate until then. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the U.S. sent a formal diplomatic message to Russia requesting more information about the womanβs death and reminding the Kremlin that it has obligations under international law to share information about disease outbreaks in a timely manner.
U.S. President Donald Trump even said Tuesday he had a βcall scheduledβ with Russian President Vladimir Putin βvery soonβ to discuss the situation.Β
But, by Thursday, the two leaders were yet to talk, with Trump noting that Russia was βnot saying much.βΒ
Romanian President NicuΘor Dan faces demands from allies and adversaries alike to call a snap election, the first in the countryβs modern history, if his latest attempt to end five months of political paralysis fails.Β
The key NATO and EU member has lacked a fully functioning government since the coalition collapsed in May, and lawmakers have rejected a succession of Danβs prime ministerial nominees.Β
Political parties are now weighing up whether to support Danβs latest prime ministerial candidate, the diplomat Luca Niculescu, who must win a confidence vote in parliament within the next nine days to be confirmed in the role.Β
In an interview, Danβs arch-rival on Romaniaβs hard right, George Simion, warned that no stable government can form without an election and accused the president of mounting a βblockadeβ against democracy because he is βafraid of us coming to power.βΒ
Speaking separately to POLITICO, Danβs most recently defeated candidate for prime minister, Member of the European Parliament Siegfried MureΘan, warned the country was already paying an economic price, with investment decisions being delayed. βPostponing early elections and staying in this stalemate situation would, at some point, also have economic negative consequences,β he said.Β
Bordering Ukraine, Romania has the sixth-largest population in the EU and plays a critical role in NATOβs defense of the region as home to a major military base and a U.S. missile shield site. The country has been plagued by political instability, corruption and a ballooning budget deficit in recent years, conditions that have fueled a surge in support for hard-right nationalist politics.Β
Since the coalition fell apart amid infighting over budget cuts in the spring, Romaniaβs deadlocked parliament has been unable to agree on a new government.Β
Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) leader Simion, a staunch euroskeptic who has called for a halt to aid for Ukraine, told POLITICO the president must face his duty and give voters a chance to end the stalemate with a fresh election, or face being ousted.Β His party has been leading Romaniaβs opinion polls for almost two years.
Simion has been building support in parliament to censure the president, which he believes will gain momentum if Niculescu fails and Dan again refuses to call fresh elections.
βEverybody says, βOK, if this wonβt pass, we will go to snap elections,β but they do not know NicuΘor Dan as I do,β Simion said. The president is βvery stubbornβ and could defy calls for elections even if all parties want them, he said. βIn that case we will have the numbers of signatures and votes to suspend him at least, if not sack him.βΒ
Dan has refused to contemplate handing AUR a role in government. He defeated Simion for the presidency last year and regards his rivalβs politics as a threat to Romaniaβs pro-Western, pro-European direction. The president says he opposes a snap election because the campaign period would delay budget reforms and healthcare funding.Β
βA new Greeceβ
The Romanian leu has weakened against the euro in the months since the crisis blew up. Simion urged international investors to remain patient and sought to reassure them that AUR would be fiscally responsible if it won power. βNobody wants a new Greece,β he said. βWe will do everything it takes to respect our commitments to our international partners and for them to recover the debts.βΒ
The call for an early election is gaining traction in Bucharest.
So far, the leader of Danβs former party, the Save Romania Union, has joined politicians from the National Liberal Party, and the leader of the Social Democratic Party and AUR, in suggesting an unprecedented emergency election could be required.Β
George Simion has been building support in parliament to censure the president. | Robert Ghement/EPA
Danβs latest plan still has time to work, but political feuding between parties remains a problem. The Liberals say they could support Niculescu as prime minister if the Social Democrats do not get too much influence, while the Social Democrats say they want the PM-designate to take the country in a new direction β away from the austerity policies of the outgoing Liberal premier, Ilie Bolojan.Β
MureΘan, a pro-EU Liberal and European Peopleβs Party vice-president, said the economic risks of prolonging the crisis were real. He told POLITICO a snap election could be inevitable, though this is not his βpreferredβ option. βThe political uncertainty which exists now in the country can easily transform into economic uncertainty,β MureΘan warned. βWe are already now seeing investors holding back on their investments, waiting with major investment decisions before they have more certainty.βΒ
While MureΘan said he wants Dan to succeed, he criticized the delays in resolving the longest-running crisis since the fall of communism in 1989. βHad the president moved fast in appointing a prime minister in May and not delayed the nominations, we might even have had early elections [by] now, and we would be in a situation with a new parliament, and with a stable government with the four-year agenda,β he said.
βSo, clearly, the options are narrowing down and are not getting better, following the prolongation of the political crisis.β
For the first 15 years or so of this century, subscription satellite TV was available in Latin America with a one-time purchase of a pirate box. The channel operators tried to stop it, and the pirates nimbly worked around the locks. β Read the rest
BIRMINGHAM, England β βVile,β βhorrible,β βbetrayal,β βbastards.β For Conservative aides and politicians gathering at their annual conference this week, the hatred of Nigel Farageβs rival right-wing party Reform UK is real.
Since the opposition partyβs last gathering, an already icy relationship with Reformβs national leadership has entered deep freeze. The defections of high-profile Tory politicians, including Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman in January this year, added a personal animus to the battle for votes on the British right.Β
And yet, Tory Leader Kemi Badenoch has not categorically ruled out some kind of tie-up with Reform after a general election. Politically, she cannot afford to take it off the table.
Senior Conservatives at lunches and receptions this week were quick to aim invective and mockery at Reform β privately and sometimes in public, fueled by a row that Braverman triggered last week when she said that, as a British-born woman of British-Asian origin, she was βnot an English person.βΒ
βTheyβre just not our kind of people,β Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch, the first black leader of a major political party, told the BBC about Reform on Tuesday.
Badenochβs most senior aides put it even more bluntly. βTheyβre just nasty people,β said one top Conservative official, granted anonymity to speak frankly. βThese people [Reform] have spent two years viciously attacking the exact people they would have to meet about any deal,β said another. βIf Kemi and Rob go into a room, what are they going to fucking talk about?βΒ
Badenoch told broadcasters Tuesday that she would rather force a second general election than strike a deal with Reform. That may be the only practical option left to her.
POLITICO spoke to more than a dozen senior Conservative politicians and aides at the party conference. Almost all indicated that a deal with Reform is not only undesirable, but the hostility is now so bad that it would fail if Badenoch ever tried to enact it.Β
A senior Reform official responded to this story by saying: βTwo years of being hammered at the local elections has finally made the Tories crack. Quite clearly theyβre obsessed with us whilst their own party crumbles around them. We look forward to consigning them to the dustbin of history.β
βCold day in hellβ
If the U.K. held a general election now, almost all polling suggests Britainβs right-leaning vote would be deeply split between these two parties and further undercut by a third β the hard-right Restore Britain. That could allow Labour to squeeze through and win the most seats under the first-past-the-post electoral system, like it did in 2024.
If there was a real deadlock, even after a second election, Badenoch would be left with an unenviable choice: team up with Farage, or let Labour β perhaps with a rainbow coalition of Liberal Democrats, nationalists and Greens β run the show?
The relationship between the Conservatives and Farage, who left the party in 1992, has long been fractious and worsened after the 2019 election β when Farage stepped aside to aid a pro-Brexit majority for Boris Johnson, but received no thanks.
Since last year the defections (and the fighting talk they attracted) have sent the relationship nosediving further. Most of the opprobrium is saved for Jenrick. A year ago he was the guest speaker at a lunch with Tory donors and mayors, holding forth in private about the changes his party needed to make. Three months later he was gone. The defection of Danny Kruger, who was more respected by many on the Tory right, added hurt to insult.
The Conservatives produced an AI-assisted βtapestryβ at this yearβs conference that contained several mocking references to a crying Jenrick. Tory politicians repeatedly bring up the questions surrounding Reformβs finances.
Badenoch told broadcasters Tuesday that βthe people in Reform are neck deep in scandalβ and any tie-up βwould just be one problem after another.β Her aides believe the public are no longer viewing Reform as a blank slate.
Β βI canβt imagine it being a nice coalition,β said a shadow cabinet minister. They added: βI think that Reform in power would go to pieces very quickly, theyβre a very brittle top team. I wouldnβt want to be tied to that. I wouldnβt want to become responsible in any way for their mistakes or all the crazy ass money theyβve taken.β
Many of those most opposed to a Reform tie-up have been attending Tory conferences for decades. One center-right veteran of past Cabinets said: βItβll be a cold day in hell when we get into bed with those bastards β¦ The only way we could [enter government] is with a governing partner. If thatβs the choice, Iβd rather that we were a strong opposition.β
A second Conservative former Cabinet minister predicted: βThereβs no way [Badenoch] will do a coalition. She just canβt trust them.β But they suggested Badenoch has other, less formal options that would still see a tie-up with Reform. βIt depends how big the margin is,β they said. βIf itβs anything, I think it would be a confidence and supply [agreement].β
βEthnicity is differentβ
Political tactics are one thing. Tory officials believe someone linked to Reform UK leaked a meeting 11 months ago between Katie Lam β a Conservative frontbencher β and Reform donor Nick Candy, to damage the Tories just as their conference was getting under way. (The meeting happened at a time of intense defection chatter.) A person with knowledge of the meeting insisted Lam had ignored a series of messages from Candy afterward.
But things have gone further in recent weeks. Bravermanβs comments about Englishness, on an episode of the BBCβs Question Time debate program, struck a nerve for Badenoch personally while also providing her with a chance to differentiate herself from Reform.
Badenoch, who has campaigned for gender-specific toilets, told ITVβs Good Morning Britain on Tuesday: βMen and men and women are women, Iβm very strict on that. But ethnicity is different. My children are half white and half black. We are a multiracial country. I think we should be proud of that.β
Hostility from Tory aides extends to Reformβs home affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf and his pronouncements on social media. Yusuf said last month that Labourβs candidate in a special election was βborn in Somalia. Do you understand whatβs happening?β (The candidate, Sagal Abdi-Wali, moved to London as a child refugee in the 1990s.) Raheem Kassam, an ally of Farage in the U.S., posted on X last month calling Badenoch a βNigerian scammerβ (she was born in the U.K., moved to Nigeria and returned aged 16.)
A second shadow cabinet minister said: βWe canβt allow the right to turn into this horrible, ugly thing. Letβs talk about the ideas.β James Cleverly, one of the Conservatives bidding to run for mayor of London in 2028, accused Braverman, Yusuf and other unnamed figures around Reform of amplifying βreally quite vile positionsβ on race, ethnicity and nationality.
βHow it plays out β¦ I donβt knowβ
The opprobrium is real β but so too is the Toriesβ electoral plight.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has insisted he wonβt call an early election, with the next not due until mid-2029. But it remains in his power to pull the plug when an opportunity arises.Β
All evidence points towards the Conservatives doing dismally if that happens any time soon. Kevin Hollinrake, the party chairman, admitted on Monday that it βdoesnβt look winnable outright by anybody.β
A third shadow cabinet minister sounded softer in their opposition to a deal with Reform. They argued that while the Tories would not want to be shackled to Farageβs party, they did not want to see a βmonsterβ coalition either between Labour and the Greens, Liberal Democrats and nationalist parties.
βHow the world plays out when you actually live it, I donβt know,β they added. βWeβll just have to make whatever decision we think is in the best interests of the country at the time.β
Tiny changes to vote share would mean big changes to seat numbers in the multi-party world: β1% is the new 5%,β as a fourth shadow cabinet minister put it. A poll of 15,765 people by the firm More in Common suggests the balance of seats will be highly volatile depending on how badly the vote splits between parties of the right.
The self-funded survey, dated Aug. 21 to Sept. 21, projected Labour would be the largest party by far on 250 seats β ahead of Reform UK on 147 and the Tories on 125. A mere three- to four-point swing from the Conservatives to Reform or vice versa, however, would put either of those parties ahead of Labour.
The Conservatives and Reform attract different demographics of voter, though; a More in Common poll of 2,041 people on Sept. 25-29 found that those on the lowest incomes were more likely to back Reform than the Tories (23% to 20%), and for those on the highest incomes it was the other way round (23% to 13%).
This suggests there will be many seats where Labour comes through the middle and wins on a low vote share, like it did in 2024, said More in Common Executive Director Luke Tryl. Tryl added: βWeβll especially see this if Burnham manages to recreate Jeremy Corbynβs 2017 coalition of Labour and Green supporters, tapping into that 40% of voters. It wasnβt enough for Corbyn to win a majority, but with a split right, itβd definitely be enough for Burnham.β
Hence both the Tories and Reform β wary of a tactical voting stampede β are arguing they are the best choice to win outright. Yusuf told GB News Tuesday: βIt is clear the only party of the right that has a serious chance of a majority in parliament is Reform.β
But most of all, the Conservatives just donβt want to talk about it. A fifth shadow cabinet minister said βvoters on the right really hate blue-on-blueβ and want the Tories to focus on attacking the Labour government.
Here come the think tanks
This dilemma means some outriders are now caught in the middle, unable to choose firmly between the Tories and Reform.
Hosting its reception across the canal from the conference center on Monday night was the Centre for Government Reform think tank, run by former civil servant Ameer Kotecha. The group was at Reformβs conference too; it appears to have the blessing of senior figures in both parties.
Kotecha took a deliberate decision to have politicians from both parties on its board βΒ the right-wing Tory peers Theodore Agnew and John Nash alongside Reform UKβs Scottish Leader Malcolm Offord. It is working on cuts to civil service headcount and getting more private sector expertise into government, which Kotecha calls the βplumbingβ of the state.
βItβs important that we speak to both sides,β he told POLITICO. βWe need to keep the hopper wide; if youβre talking about the really elite business talent for example, theyβre quite often not yet willing to pin their colors to any one party mast.β
Others would prefer to see any sense of a deal closed off. Also hosting events on the conference fringe was Prosper UK, a center-right group led by figures including the former Scottish Conservative Leader Ruth Davidson. It will push for the party to win back liberal-minded voters who once backed the party and now support the Liberal Democrats in the south of England. It is a tricky electoral coalition.
βWe honestly believe nowβ
The mood at this weekβs Birmingham jamboree can only be understood by looking to the political horizon.Β
The Conservatives are still trailing Reform in national polls, but unlike last year, members and aides have some confidence that β even if they cannot win an election now β the polls may be reaching an inflection point that would restore their status as the main challengers to the Labour Party.
The Tories hope to paint themselves as the voices of economic competence; a party that sees itself as having become more united as their rivals march further to the right, while facing pressure from the hard-right Restore.
βItβs not just bad blood, is it? I think we honestly believe now,β said a sixth shadow cabinet minister. βWe do get a lot of support back from people who went to Lib Dems and if we did a deal with Reform, all that goes out the window.β
The first shadow cabinet minister quoted in this story said that local Conservative associations, which they visit regularly, used to ask constantly about a coalition. βAnd now nobody does,β they argued. βThere are a lot of people who, having seen another year of Reform, donβt like what they see.β
The realities are still there, and grim for the Conservatives. But they are simply less stark than they were a year ago.
As the fifth shadow cabinet minister quoted in this story put it: βIβm not worried that weβre going to get wiped off the face of the map any more.β
LONDON β Britain and the U.S. sought to ease friction Monday after American bombers were suddenly moved amid major security concerns at the base that hosted U.S. aircraft used to strike Iran.
The U.S. move is the latest stumbling block in the special relationship between the allies and underscores reservations in Donald Trumpβs administration about how the U.K. is handling its defense and security commitments.
The Pentagon confirmed on Sunday that it had removed all B-1 bombers from the RAF Fairford air base β where they were deployed to conduct what have been termed as βdefensiveβ strikes against Iran β and sent them back to their home stations in America.
Trump went further, telling journalists Monday evening: βWe had an idea that there might be a threat, and why would I leave them there? β¦ If weβre going to be threatened weβre just going to move them, and that sort of alleviates that.β
It comes as Britainβs counter-terrorism agencies investigate a suspected terror plot against the air base, which the U.K. government believes involves Tehran.
Trump on Monday added: βWe actually know the people that made the threat, and theyβve got themselves a big problem,β adding in response to a follow-up question: βThey would be linked to Iran.β
He later said that he believes the U.K. is still a safe place for U.S. forces.
Downing Street had earlier insisted that the base was safe, but refused to comment directly on Americaβs decision to remove the bombers from the area.
The move comes as the Trump administration has grown increasingly frustrated with the U.K.βs defense spending and the White Houseβs continuing anger that the U.K. didnβt send warships to the Middle East to help with the American blockade of Iranian shipping.
Something deeper is wrong
London has yet to outline a path to meet the NATO standard of spending 3.5% of GDP on defense by 2035 β up from its current level of around 2.7%. It has also been shut out of a subgroup within the alliance convened by Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby. The group is slated to meet again in Poland some time later this month.
Late last month, Colby hinted at that frustration with London, saying the countriesβ long history will continue to bind them, but the British government needs to make the case to its people for spending more on defense.
βThereβs this incredible legacy, and thatβs what we want to rekindle,β Colby said. βExactly how you convince the British people [to spend more on defense] I would not presume to say, but β¦ thereβs probably sort of a degree of reconciliation between what the U.K. wants to be doing, what it spends, and what it spends on, because you know a modern military is not cheap.β
The U.S. is also conducting a sweeping review of its posture in European NATO countries β including the U.K. β which will determine the number of American troops and military assets on the continent.
Sophia Gaston, a senior national security researcher at Kingβs College London, said: βThe Trump administration is undeniably sensitive to the costs of the Iran conflict as they head into the midterms next month, so their caution is understandable.
An armored vehicle is seen at RAF Fairford on Sept. 28, 2026. | Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images
βItβs also hard not to, at some level, perceive a degree of uncertainty about the capacity of the British services to currently prevent such an attack. That partly reflects the innate challenge drones and other aspects of modern warfare pose to the sitting ducks of expensive kit.
βBut it also speaks to the American wariness towards the pressured state of Britainβs military capabilities. Not only does Washington no longer wish to be solely responsible for alliesβ protection, its expectations for the security allies offer its bases has also increased.β
Trump on Monday praised his relationship with new U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham. He said: βHeβs liberal, very liberal, but I hear heβs going to open up North Sea oil if he does that in Aberdeen. If he does that, youβre going to have a rich country. If he doesnβt, youβre going to have a bankrupt country.β
Britainβs security concerns
In May, the U.K. raised its terrorism threat level to βsevereβ β meaning a terrorist attack is highly likely β after its MI5 security service said the U.K. had been βexperiencing a gradual increase in terrorist threats for some timeβ including from hostile states like Iran.
In Britain, police and the security services are dealing with a three-fold threat from Iran-backed groups: attacks against Iranian dissidents, attacks against the countryβs Jewish population, and the targeting of U.S. assets such as those used for strikes against Tehran.
Counter Terrorism Policing is currently investigating potential Iranian state involvement in a major incident at RAF Fairford on Sept. 27, when police were alerted to three suspicious vehicles near the base.
Six men β including a British-Iranian national β have so far been arrested on suspicion of terror offenses. All have subsequently been released on bail while police continue their investigation.
US strike capability
Though the Pentagon stressed that bombers remain βready to deliver precision global strike capabilitiesβ β including from the U.S. mainland β removing them would make any further American strikes on Iran more complex, since the bombers would have to double their flight path from the continental U.S. to the Middle East.
There is a fresh U.S. buildup in the region, with a third aircraft carrier currently steaming across the Pacific along with several large amphibious ships carrying 2,500 Marines, joining the 2,500 already at sea in the Middle East, giving President Donald Trump more options should he restart the bombing campaign after the U.S. midterm elections in early November.
Christoph Bergs, a research analyst at the RUSI defense think tank, said: βThe basing of US B-1 bombers at RAF Fairford for operational employment against Iran was based on the UK stipulation that these were only used for defensive strikes. This likely included a more modest targeting list. Their withdrawal reduces the capacity to quickly surge sorties against Iran, reducing the threat level somewhat.β
The Pentagon declined to comment on whether it will, or is considering, the removal of other aircraft from British bases used to support operations against Iran.
This article has been updated with comments from Donald Trump.
My cousin Laura had a divaβs charisma and a sirenβs voice. She also had a mysterious past. When she died, she left me to tell the story of her defiant reinvention.
In November 2021, the Smithsonianβs National Museum of American History opened an exhibit called βThe Electric Dr. Franklin,β describing βBenjamin Franklinβs pioneering contributions to electrical science.β The exhibit explained that, prior to becoming an abolitionist, he had enslaved people in his household. βBenjamin Franklinβs remarkable scientific accomplishments were, in part, enabled by slavery,β it declared.Β
The exhibit speculated that Franklin may have used enslaved people in his electrical research. βFranklin wrote about experiments in which he took shocks and used family and friends in these ways, although he seldom identified who in particular assisted him,β stated the exhibit, which closed in 2025 but can still be found online. βIndentured servants and enslaved people in his household could also have been used, although we may never know for certain.β
It was an eye-catching conjecture: one of the most revered of the Founding Fathers subjecting people held against their will to possibly painful shocks. And it was one of many details singled out for criticism in a blistering 162-page White House report released in July that argued that the museum had fallen victim to an βideological captureβ that βmoved the Museumβs mission away from straightforward historical education and scholarship toward an extreme political activism that seeks to transform our country.β
For decades, the Smithsonian Institution, which draws some 15 million visitors every year to its assemblage of 21 museums β bounty that has no real global peer β has managed to stay mostly above the political fray. There have been occasional exceptions, such as the uproar over the National Air and Space Museumβs planned 1995 exhibit of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. By and large, though, the institution maintained bipartisan support as the guardian of Americaβs history, ingenuity and natural heritage, even as political polarization spread and culture wars raged.Β
But that institutional exceptionalism is now imperiled as never before. In March 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that the Smithsonian had succumbed to βdivisive, race-centered ideology.β This July 4, timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, came the White House report. Later in July, two House committees held back-to-back hearings on the report, where Republican members took turns lambasting the museumβs director, Anthea Hartig, and forcing her to answer questions about exhibit items such as a βchrome and rubber crotch harnessβ designed for sadomasochistic sex. That week, Trump signed an executive order instructing the Department of the Interior to erect signs outside the museum βwarning visitors about the ideological captureβ on display there. The signs have yet to go up, but in late August, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum sent a letter to the Smithsonianβs Board of Regents declaring that other federal agencies βcannot in good conscience continue to support the Smithsonian under current leadership.β
The Smithsonian is independent of the executive branch, governed by a 17-member board led by the chief justice of the Supreme Court and with six members of Congress, three from each party, serving with nine private citizens and the vice president. But it depends on the federal government for 62% of its funding, receiving more than $1 billion per year, and warnings of deep budget cuts have grown ever louder. Finally, on Sept. 8, Smithsonian secretary Lonnie Bunch, the first African American person to lead the institution, announced he was stepping down at age 73, saying βit has been stressful.β
Seen from one vantage, the battle over the Smithsonian is but another example of Trump attempting with characteristic bombast to put his stamp on Washington institutions, alongside shuttering the Kennedy Center, replacing the East Wing of the White House with a huge ballroom and planning a 250-foot arch near Arlington National Cemetery.Β
But unlike some conflicts initiated by Trump, this one has been festering for years, independent of him, with complaints lodged by board members before he returned to office. The American history museum, the main focus of the administrationβs ire, has wrestled for years with how, or even whether, it should present a unifying national narrative, an ambivalence that left it susceptible to the administrationβs broadside. Meanwhile, the Smithsonian underwent a political awakening during the 2020 upheaval over the COVID-19 pandemic and murder of George Floyd that echoed responses in academia and other progressive realms.
This left it exposed to a new administration that viewed itself as a corrective against perceived woke excesses. βI said over and over again that thereβs going to be a day of reckoning,β recalled Garret Graves, a Republican former congressman from Louisiana who served on the Smithsonian board in 2023 and 2024, in an interview. βYou can either participate in it, help guide the Smithsonian back to something that makes more sense, or you can have an abrupt shift. I didnβt realize my words would ring as true as quickly as they did.βΒ
Now, in the year that was supposed to be a crowning celebration of the nationβs 250th anniversary, the Smithsonian is instead in Trumpβs crosshairs. And the question of how the countryβs premier history museum should tell the nationβs story is suddenly up for grabs.
The National Museum of History and Technology opened on the National Mall in 1964. Its mission, said former assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Remington Kellogg that year, was to βawakenβ a βclear understanding of the inspiring story of the United States β its origins, struggles, development, traditions, strength.β As the name reflected, the museum contained duelling missions from the start, showcasing American technological advances and telling a more general historical story.
In 1980, it was renamed the National Museum of American History, but the tension lingered. βIt started out as a technology museum, and even now it has a lot of equipment, and to move from that to American history, thatβs a huge change,β said Ivan Selin, a former chair of the museumβs board. βUnless youβre going to throw everything out and start over again, youβre going to have a very incoherent thing. Unless you have a clear strategy, youβre going to have some apples and oranges.β
Two decades after the name change, the lack of a unified approach had become an issue. In 1999, David Brooks wrote a scathing critique in the Weekly Standard, lamenting that the museum had so little on display about the nationβs defining moments (the Constitutional Convention, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the Great Depression, etc.) and prominent figures who shaped them (Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., etc.). βIt ignores or virtually ignores most of the major events in American history,β he wrote. βThis is a museum of multicultural grievance, which simply passes over any subject, individual, or idea, no matter how vital to American history, that does not have to do with the oppression of some ethnic outgroup or disfavored gender.βΒ
In 2001, in response to such critiques, the Smithsonian convened a blue-ribbon commission of historians and others led by Richard Darman, a former top aide in Republican White Houses. In 2002, the commission released its report, declaring that the museum βrequires what its own leadership has described as a βtransformation.β It lacks aesthetic appeal, organizational coherence, and the perception of substantive balance.β The report recommended, among other things, a chronological introductory exhibit that contains βcentral theme lines for the examination and interpretation of American historyβ and that βshould celebrate Americaβs remarkable strengths and achievements while also treating fairly and responsibly the ways in which America may have failed to meet the high standards it has proclaimed for itself.βΒ Β
This would prove easier said than done. For one thing, the museumβs physical structure itself has never been coherent β βan awkward attempt to marry the classical and the modern, the building is legitimately neither,β wrote New York Times architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable at its opening. βItβs a challenging space,β Brent Glass, who became director shortly after the blue-ribbon report in 2002, told ProPublica.
Above all, though, the commissionβs recommendations faced resistance among the museumβs curators to the sort of great-man-of-history approach that Brooks and others were hankering for. There had been a trend in museum scienceaway from this, and away from straight chronology. βThere was this whole museum movement to get away from a march through time, to a more episodic or specific sort of story,β John Gray, who succeeded Glass in 2012, told ProPublica. βIt wasnβt done to get away from the story; it was finding a way to get people interested.β
In addition, the museumβs curators tended to be specialized in material culture β collecting and studying the museumβs several million objects and artifacts β rather than in conceptual storytelling. To make up for this, Grayβs team tried to enlist several leading academic historians to instill more of an overarching narrative structure. But they declined, saying they were concerned that such an approach could seem triumphalist and provide fodder for an America-first agenda. βWe tried to organize [the museum] around ideas and ideals, ideals that were aspirational,β Gray said. βAnd we failed many times.βΒ
The museumβs eventual solution was to divide the national story into subject areas, each represented by a standing exhibit: βAmerican Enterpriseβ on business and innovation, βAmerican Democracyβ on politics,β βMany Voices, One Nationβ on immigration, βThe American Presidency,β βThe Price of Freedomβ on the nationβs wars, βEntertainment Nationβ on culture, βAmerica on the Moveβ on transportation.
Developing these required extensive debate, said the former directors. Some donors supporting the enterprise exhibit were upset that it devoted so much space to the role of slavery in American business. In crafting βThe Price of Freedom,β the museum consulted with veteransβ groups to try to avoid a backlash like the one that arose on the Enola Gay. This effort succeeded, Glass said, despite the exhibitβs candor about the darker elements of the nationβs military history. βPeople can handle complexity,β he said. βThey donβt feel bad about the country when told the whole story, and theyβre grateful that they have access to the information.β
Scattered throughout the museum are countless highlights: the desk on which Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence; the top hat Lincoln wore to Fordβs Theatre on the last night of his life; the actual lunch counter from the 1960 Greensboro, North Carolina, Civil Rights sit-in; and, in a recent addition, a gunboat sunk during the Revolutionary War that is being restored on-site. But the overall effect can be disjointed and disorienting. And, with the museumβs dim lighting, dated technology and underutilized areas, it can feel at times as if one is wandering in a past-its-prime shopping mall or in the forgotten corner of an airport terminal.
Itβs a stark contrast to the National Museum of African American History & Culture, which opened in 2016 under the direction of Bunch and, notably, has a clear chronological design. Of course, said Selin, the former American history museum board chair, the African American museum and the National Museum of the American Indian, which opened in 2004, have the advantage of a more focused subject, leaving it even less clear what remains for the American history museum, where attendance has declined in recent years. βYou can find nowhere in any Smithsonian document a theory of what should be in the American history museum or the more particular museums or how many of these particular museums there should be,β Selin said. βThereβs no charter whatsoever that says how they fit together.β
In March 2020, the Smithsonian shuttered its museums for the pandemic. A few months after that, Washington and other cities erupted in protests over Floydβs murder in Minneapolis. Bunch, who became secretary of the Smithsonian in 2019, and other top officials embarked on a push to rethink the institutionβs priorities, as reflected in the minutes of the Board of Regents meetings, which were now being held online. Bunch βbriefed the Regents on his efforts to navigate the dual pandemics caused by the Coronavirus and issues surrounding race, racism, and racial identity,β the minutes of the June 2020 meeting stated. He announced the launch of βSmithsonian Cares,β a digital resource that would βprovide tools and guidance to empower and inspire conversations about diversity, equity, access and inclusion.βΒ
That October, the board discussed βthe potential creation of a Chief Diversity Officer position, a review of organizational processes and policies that may have inadvertently created barriers to inclusivity, integrating and standardizing DEAI training across the organization, strengthening supervisory DEAI skillsets, increasing senior leadershipβs focus on inclusivity, and identifying funding and resourcing strategies to implement DEAI efforts across the Institutionβs functions and operations.β In February 2021, Bunch told the board that the Smithsonianβs five strategic priorities would include positioning it as a βtrusted source for critical conversations and helping the nation grapple with important issues like race and identity.β
As the meeting minutes show, the institutionβs elevation of identity was being encouraged by the newly installed Biden administration. In October 2021, the Smithsonianβs Office of Government Relations reported that the Smithsonian had βbrought objects from the National Museum of American History to the White House for a temporary display recognizing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Pride Month.β Three months later, the office stated that it βcontinues to work closelyβ with the White House on βdiversity, accessibility, access and inclusion efforts.β The Smithsonian noted plans for exhibits at the White House to mark βBlack History Month in February, Womenβs History Month in March, Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May, LGBTQ in June and Hispanic History Heritage Month in September.β
The post-2020 shift extended to the various museums, which started to reopen to visitors in spring 2021. To cite just one example, the National Portrait Gallery revised the signage for a portrait of Henry Laurens, South Carolinaβs delegate to the Continental Congress, to reflect that he had made his wealth through chattel slavery. βWhen Floyd was killed, everyone acknowledged that now is the time to ask: What are the stories that weβre telling and were we being honest and fair in recounting those stories? We all looked at it through this lens,β Kim Sajet, who became the director of the Portrait Gallery in 2013, told ProPublica. βEveryone felt energized by that. We canβt change the past, but we need to acknowledge what happened in order not to repeat it in the future.β
But the new direction caused misgivings for some conservative supporters of the institution, such as Graves, who joined the regents as one of the three Republican congressional appointees in 2023. Graves told ProPublica that he had high regard for Bunch β βhis accomplishment with the African American museum was remarkableβ β but that he became worried that the Smithsonian was operating within a bubble. Its staff were living in a metro area that had voted overwhelmingly against Trump (and museum employees are generally among the most left-leaning of any profession), yet they were charged with presenting exhibits to visitors from all over the country and the world, a disconnect that the institution seemed insufficiently aware of.Β
Many board meetings would kick off with tours of a certain museum, and Graves and a fellow Republican appointee, Adrian Smith of Nebraska, would often be taken aback by what they saw. βSeventy-five percent of the time Adrian and I would be walking around and say, βAre you kidding me?ββ Graves said. βIt wasnβt interpreting science or history. It seemed to have an agenda, and thatβs not what a museum should be.β What was missing, he said, was a sense of the nationβs achievements. βThis country is a remarkable experiment,β he said. βWeβve had some grave sins, but my gosh, America is a net victory for the world. Itβs unbelievable what happened here in 250 years and itβs worth celebrating.β
Graves retired from Congress at the end of 2024. In his farewell address to the regents that October, he warned against allowing the Smithsonian to become seen as affiliated with one party or ideological bent. βI felt like they were causing sustainability problems for the institution,β he said. βPoliticizing the Smithsonian is an awful, awful idea, because then you only receive funds when thereβs a Democratic majority. This is Americaβs museum and there should not be anything partisan about it.βΒ
One week later, Trump won the election to return to the White House.
In his first term, Trump largely ignored the Smithsonian. In 2017, Bunch gave him a tour of the new African American museum, which Bunch recounted later in his memoir: βThe president paused in front of the exhibit that discussed the role of the Dutch in the slave trade. As he pondered the label I felt that maybe he was paying attention to the work of the museum. He quickly proved me wrong. As he turned from the display he said to me, βYou know, they love me in the Netherlands.β All I could say was letβs continue walking.β
It took little time for Trump to make clear that, as on other fronts in his second term, things would be different this time around. First came the March 2025 executive order, which directed Vice President J.D. Vance to rid the Smithsonian of βimproper ideology.β Two months later, Trump said that he was firing Sajet at the Portrait Gallery, calling her βa highly partisan person, and a strong supporter of DEI, which is totally inappropriate for her position.β The Smithsonian noted that Trump did not have the authority to remove Sajet, but she left anyway, hoping to spare the institution.
In August 2025, the White House issued a 120-day ultimatum to replace βdivisive or ideologically driven language with unifying, historically accurate and constructive descriptions,β but with little follow-up, and for nearly a year, it looked as if the storm may in fact have passed. Then came the White House report on the American history museum, with such an exhaustive litany against Hartig, its director since 2018, and Bunch that it made plain the authors had been scouring their public statements and the museum. (Through a spokesperson, Bunch declined to be interviewed. Museum representatives did not respond to requests to speak to Hartig.)Β
In addition to citing the Franklin exhibit, the report noted that an exhibit called βGirlhood (Itβs Complicated)β had included βthe pages of a 6-year-old girlβs diary where she expresses fear about βgetting boobsβ and wishes for her nonexistent βpenis to grow.ββ Another exhibit, on gay history, had βincluded a two-piece chrome and rubber crotch harness designed for sadomasochism.β
It criticized the museum for having trained staff using the βMuseums as a Site for Social Action Toolkit,β a 200-plus-page roadmap on how to βtruly transform the museum space,β which is linked βwith white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, abuse of labor, colonization, imperialist theft of art and artifacts, destruction or absencing of alternative ways of interpreting or representing art and artifacts, structural racism and other oppressions.βΒ
Above all, though, the report criticized the museum on grounds that echoed Brooks and the 2002 blue-ribbon commission, saying that it failed to offer visitors a unified narrative of the nationβs history. βThat story should be a basic consensus view that is not ideological or politicized, but presents the facts of history β what actually happened β as accurately as possible with minimal present-day bias,β the report stated. βIt should tell the whole story of a nation, including the good and the bad, so Museum visitors can understand the development that led our nation to where it is today.β
For years, the Smithsonian had avoided major conflagrations partly by engaging in what one former official called the βcare and feedingβ of members of Congress on the two committees with purview over it, Appropriations and House Administration. If there was a potentially controversial exhibit, the museum would bring members over for a preview tour, so they had some context for complaints they might receive. But these efforts were on hold for a while because of the pandemic closures, and the Smithsonianβs government relations office experienced heavy turnover, as one of its directors had cancer and another died suddenly.
This context, combined with the fuel provided by the White House report, helped explain the level of vitriol that Hartig faced when she appeared at the two hearings in late July. Even by the standards of todayβs decorum-less Congress, the hearings were wild affairs. At the first, held by the House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, Chair Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, kicked things off by playing a lengthy string of video clips of Hartig offering tribal land acknowledgements at the start of her speeches. βIβm wondering, have you ever planned on deeding any of your personal property or property of the Smithsonian to any of these tribes?β he asked Hartig.
She adopted a conciliatory tone, saying the Smithsonian βtakes the concerns raised in the White House Domestic Policy Councilβs report seriouslyβ but that βit does not fairly or accurately characterize the full body of work at the museum.β She assured the committee, βI love the United States of America. I consider it the privilege of my career to help preserve its treasures and serve the American people.β
This did not assuage committee Republicans. Burchett displayed museum images including the crotch harness and the diary mention of the 6-year-old girl wishing for a penis. βMaβam, I mean, you have pictures of bondage. You have some overtly sexual things up there,β he said. βIβm not a fan.β Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, pressed the point: βAre images of sexual fetishes appropriate for children? Yes or no?β Rep. Brandon Gill, a Texas Republican, noted that the toolkit that the museum used for staff training had referred to βpolitenessβ as a feature of βwhite supremacy culture.β
Those defending Hartig were hardly less outspoken. David Blight, a Yale historian also testifying, compared the White Houseβs attacks on the Smithsonian to the German Third Reich, saying βtheir model may indeed be Joseph Goebbelsβ committee on enlightenment, which is what the Nazis called their committee that tried to control museums.β Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Texas Democrat, opened her remarks by saying, βWelcome to the White Pride Committee.β Rep. Kweisi Mfume, a Maryland Democrat, vowed to sacrifice his life for the Smithsonian. βWe will not let you destroy that museum,β he said. βNo matter how long it takes, how many battles are required, how much effort is needed, we will not allow that to happen unless you find a way to kill all of us and walk over our bodies to change history.β
The next dayβs hearing, before the House Administration Committee, was more of the same. The bipartisan consensus around the Smithsonian appeared to lie in tatters.
On a recent Sunday, a group of visitors made their way into the centerpiece exhibit at the National Mall entry to the history museum, the giant Star-Spangled Banner that was flying over Fort McHenry in 1814 and inspired Francis Scott Key to write what became the national anthem. For safe-keeping, the flag is displayed in very low light, giving the chamber a sacred feel, like a cathedral crypt. βOh my god, itβs huge,β said one woman. βI am shivering,β said another. βItβs insane,β said a third.
Every day, the museum, for all its imperfections, still makes a strong impression on many visitors. But its longstanding search for identity helped make it a target for an administration looking for weak spots, and now its future and that of the entire Smithsonian hangs in the balance. Three of the nine citizen slots on the Board of Regents are vacant, and three more will be next month. Whoever the remaining members of the board β which include Vance β select to fill those slots will help determine who is chosen to replace Bunch as secretary, and the institutionβs future course. Much will depend on how much Chief Justice John Roberts, at the head of the board, decides to engage.
Any large institution can benefit from reassessment, and the Smithsonian and the American history museum in particular may well be overdue, especially as yet another focus area is about to be cleaved off, for the National Museum of the American Latino, scheduled to open early next decade. What gives so many supporters pause is for that reevaluation to happen under Trump, who hasnβt shown a lot of interest in how the various museums interact, much less in the nuances and subtleties of history.
βThere will be a moment,β Sajet said, βwhen the American people will have to stand up and decide, is this what they want?β
In the early days of computer game development, Star Trek was a popular topic for young programmers with access to mainframes. Players could hunt Klingon ships across the galaxy's numbered sectors while conserving their dilithium crystals and photon torpedoes. The programs were copied, edited and expanded by those who played themβor just made over from scratch. β Read the rest
This week on the popular theme park podcast Disney Dish with Len Testa and Jim Hill, Disney historian Jim Hill tells the story of The Walt Disney Transportation Company and its one achievement: installing a PeopleMover in what was then called The Houston Intercontinental Airport (now The George Bush Intercontinental Airport). β Read the rest
My friend, illustrator Drew Friedman, drew the cover art for Your Time Is Now: The Sammy Petrillo Story, a new biography of legendary Jerry Lewis impersonator Sammy Petrillo (star of Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla). It came out today. β Read the rest
In 1973 a French journalist named Anne-France Dautheville became the first known woman to complete a motorcycle trip around the world all by herself. She was born in Paris in 1944 and began riding motorcycles in the late 1960s.
Object permanence: Major AI breakthrough; Disney v Pooh tombstone; Vancouver riot kiss; Farage admits Brexit lies; Protecting the web from its founders; Sanders x Hillary; Surveillance pricing v your dollars.
It's not often that someone on a panel says something that makes my jaw drop, but that's what happened earlier this week when the moderator of a panel I was on in Toronto described jailbreaking an iPhone as "rampant theft of IP."
Some context: the panel was in Toronto, and the nominal subject was "digital sovereignty," though all the panelists (except me) interpreted that to mean "sovereign AI." All of their interventions were focused on how Canada could build and operate its own AI, which I found very weird, since there is no AI-related threat to Canadian sovereignty. If Donald Trump ordered OpenAI and Anthropic to turn off all of Canada's chatbots tomorrow, nothing would change: every firm, ministry and household would operate as per normal:
Now, that's not to say that Canada doesn't have a digital sovereignty problem β it really does! Donald Trump and US Big Tech have fused into a single entity and Trump now orders US tech giants to terminate the online accounts of foreign officials who displease him. When Microsoft turns off your Office365 account, you lose your working files, your calendar, your address book, your email archives, and the Outlook email address you use to log in to every online service:
So while turning off Canada's chatbots would not inflict any real harm on Canada, M365 terminations could paralyse any federal or provincial ministry, any structurally important firm, and most Canadian households.
The threat doesn't stop there: Trump can also order Apple and Google to brick any of Canada's iPhones or Android devices β terminating individual officials' mobile access, or terminating whole provinces. It's not just iPhones either β Trump can also brick any tractor in Canada:
This is the real digital sovereignty risk, and Canada needs to address it now. But Canada can't β our hands are tiedβ¦by us. In 2012, we passed a law, The Copyright Modernization Act, that criminalizes "jailbreaking," meaning that Canadian companies can't go into business figuring out how to install different app stores on phones and consoles, or change the firmware in tractors to enable independent repair, or reliably export their cloud data to rival Canadian services:
Why did we pass this law? Because the Americans promised us free trade and no tariffs on our exports if we agreed to it. That's a promise Trump tore up, but we're still holding up our end of the bargain. That's crazy. It means that American companies can use Canada's courts to destroy Canadian businesses that offer the Canadian people tools to help them escape Big Tech's sleazy ripoffs of their data and cash.
And boy do those US tech companies take in a lot of cash. The US ad-tech duopoly of Google/Meta rig the advertising market, taking 51% out of every ad dollar through an illegal, collusive arrangement called "Jedi Blue":
The US mobile tech duopoly takes 30 cents out of every dollar spent via an app, by forcing every app vendor to use their payment processors, which charge 1,000% more than any other payment processor in Canada. That means that every time a subscriber to a Canadian news site signs up through an app, 30% of the lifetime subscription revenue for that Canadian subscriber is funneled to one of two California companies.
The corollary, of course, is that if Canadian businesses were free to compete with US companies β if Canada stopped foolishly holding up its end of the bargain that Trump has dishonoured β then it would be as though every Canadian news outlet increased its subscriber base by 25% overnight! What's more, the Canadian companies that sell those jailbreaking tools would make billions out of US Big Tech's billions.
And that's where the moderator of this week's panel comes in. When I finished making this pitch, they turned to the rest of the panel and said something like, "Well, apart from rampant theft of IP, what else could Canada do to secure its digital sovereignty?"
That's when my jaw dropped. Making it possible for, say, a Canadian company to sell its own Canadian game to a Canadian customer, in Canada, without giving Apple or Xbox 30% of the purchase price, is not "theft of IP." It's not "theft of IP" for a rightsholder to sell their own products to their customers. It's not "theft of IP" for a Canadian owner of a device to decide for themselves which software they want to run on it. If buying software from the company that made it and installing it on a device you own is "theft of IP," then so is putting non-Nike shoelaces in your Air Jordans.
It's not "theft of IP." It's just good business. Moreover, it's the kind of good business that created America's tech giants in the first place. As Jeff Bezos tells his suppliers: "Your margin is my opportunity." US tech giants make whopping margins around the world, thanks to the anticircumvention laws that the US Trade Rep crammed down every US trading partner's throats, laws that allow US companies to use other countries' legal system to destroy their competitors.
I've been mulling this "rampant theft of IP" remark for a couple of days now, but it wasn't until a reader wrote to me to remind me about Apple's origin story that I realised what the punchline is. Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak financed their first product launch by selling "Blue Boxes" (devices that let you make free long distance calls by cheating the phone company) door to door in the UC Berkeley dorms:
Now, I'm not going to weep for the lost revenues that Jobs and Woz denied to AT&T. After all, AT&T was stealing that money from its customers, which is why, just a few years later, a federal court convicted AT&T of monopolistic practices and broke the company up:
But the legal term for what a Blue Box does is "toll theft," which is to say, Apple β a company literally founded on theft β now makes the majority of its profits by convincing people that making a competing product is literally stealing. A company whose founders got their seed capital by marketing illegal circumvention devices now markets products designed to make it a crime for a rightsholder to sell their own work to you.
I've long said that "every pirate wants to be an admiral":
But this is just a little too on the nose. When Apple went into business selling products to rip off the phone company, that wasn't progress. When Canadians go into business selling devices that let iPhone owners use their own property to do legal things β like buying copyrighted works directly from their creators β that is not piracy.
Canada has a real digital sovereignty problem, and it's not AI. Canada will not mitigate its digital sovereignty risk by successfully launching a Made in Canada version of the money-losingest venture in the history of the human species:
Canada's real digital sovereignty problem is its reliance on the apps, cloud services and devices that are tethered to the American cloud, access to which Donald Trump could β and does β terminate whenever he feels grumpy. Trump has repeatedly threatened to annex Canada and turn us into "the 51st state." He's trying to steal Alberta right now. Our digital sovereignty risk is the risk of Trump paralysing our country in order to steal Alberta β or the entire shop.
We can address that digital sovereignty risk β and make billions at the same time β by legalising jailbreaking and becoming the world's "disenshittification nation." Unlike a program to build Canadian AI, this will make billions, not lose them β and unlike Canadian AI, this will make our country more resilient and safer, by delivering products that Canadians β and the world β want to buy and will pay us a fortune for.
#15yrsago Rochester police use selective enforcement of parking laws to harass attendees at a meeting in support of Emily Good https://rochester.indymedia.org/node/7516
"Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.
"Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com
Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Fourth draft completed. Submitted to editor.
"The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.
"The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.
A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING
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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla
READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.
Object permanence: Home chemistry sets in danger; Every pirate wants to be an admiral; Painful computer workarounds; JPEG patent invalidated; UBS whistleblower v USA (x USA); David Foster Wallace x tennis; Who cares about "bandwidth hogs?"
Upcoming appearances: London, Kansas City, LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Edinburgh, South Bend.
Molly Crabapple's 'Here Where We Live Is Our Country' (permalink)
Molly Crabapple's Here Where We Live Is Our Country is one of the most important, timely and salient works of history I've ever read. It's a history of the Jewish Labor Bund, a socialist, internationalist organization that once dominated Jewish political identity:
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were hundreds of thousands of Bund members, both in the Pale of Settlement (the rural regions of the Russian empire that the Tsar confined most Jews to) and in diasporic centers like New York City. The Bund played an important role in the Russian Revolution and in the resistance to the rise of European fascism, and fought valiantly in the antifascist underground guerrilla bands in Nazi-occupied territories.
Despite this faded prominence, the Bund is all but unknown today. I was only vaguely aware of it, even though I attended seven years' worth of Yiddish classes at the Workmen's Circle, a Bund-originated socialist fraternal organization, and was bar-mitzvahed at a Workmen's Circle hall. It wasn't until I read about the Bund in Naomi Klein's essential 2023 book Doppelganger that I first caught a glimmer of its significance:
The thesis of Doppelganger is that the world is full of "mirror world" pairs with opposite political valences. For example, the mirror world version of the health justice movement is MAHA. Both MAHA and health justice share many commonalities (such as a skepticism of Big Pharma and its captured regulators), but arrive at totally different conclusions. Health justice demands universal access to medical care, compulsory licenses and patent reform for life-saving medicines, and systemic interventions to address discrimination against gender minorities, women, and racialized people. MAHA starts from the same diagnosis, but arrives at a totally different prescription: "eating clean," buying unregulated supplements from grifters, rejecting vaccines, attributing chronic health problems to personal moral failings, along with a conspiratorial rejection of life-saving medication.
Mirror worlds are everywhere. One chapter of Klein's work deals with the "mirror worlds" of Jewish identity and what radical Jews once called "the Jewish question":
In the 19th century, antisemitism was often described as "the socialism of fools." In the real world, we observe the dominance of parasitic finance capital over productive labor and embark upon a great class struggle to seize the means of production. In the mirror world, antisemites observe this same fact, combine it with the fact that some of these bankers are Jewish, and embark on a genocidal program of antisemitic violence.
But antisemites weren't the only mirror-world pairing with a view on "the Jewish question." Early 20th century Jews also lived on either side of the political looking-glass. On one side, you had the Bundists, whose motto (and the title of Crabapple's book) was "Here, where we live, is our country." For Bundists, Jews belonged everywhere Jews were. As the Jewish socialist Meyer London wrote, "Thousands of Jewish boys and girls pray to God not to lead them again out of Egypt, but to help them free Egypt."
The Bund saw its struggle as just one aspect of the universal struggle for liberation. They understood that persecuted minorities everywhere labored under the double bind of racist and class oppression (and further, that women labored under gender oppression), but they also understood that these identity markers were tactical facts about how these workers should set about freeing themselves.
They didn't mistake identity for a strategic difference: the goal was always universal liberation, and the reason to consider identity-based oppression was to ensure that every comrade was brought along in the struggle. As Crabapple writes, the Bund more-or-less invented intersectional analysis, and they practiced it with an eye to all the struggles of the world. Bund newspapers (even those published by the Bund underground in the Warsaw Ghetto) closely tracked the struggles of Black workers in the Jim Crow south, just as the Black radical press of the day reported closely on antisemitic lynchings in Europe. The Bund underground even managed to send telegrams of support to Gandhi from Nazi-occupied Poland.
On the other side of the Jewish mirror was (of course) Zionism. Zionism and the Bund were founded in the same year, in response to the same events. The Bund was founded in secret by exiled radical Jews in Vilna whom the Tsar had banished for their resistance activities. Zionism was founded in Geneva by Theodor Herzl, who sheltered Jews who had fled Tsarist Russia to escape antisemitic violence.
Where the Bund called for universalism and solidarity with all workers to keep Jews safe in every place where Jews lived, Zionists dreamed of a Jewish homeland, a stronghold to which Jews could retreat from the world. Where the Bund fought antisemites who would banish or exterminate Jews, Zionist leaders were willing to align themselves with antisemites, finding common cause in the idea that European Jewry should abandon Europe in favor of Palestine.
Indeed, the Balfour Declaration β which established a plan for the UK handing over its occupied territories in Palestine to create a Jewish homeland β was fomented by vicious antisemites as part of a plan to ethnically cleanse the UK of all Jews:
As Crabapple documents in detail, in the ensuing decades of struggle that followed, Zionist leaders repeatedly entered into alliances with antisemitic politicians, even those who presided over (and sometimes directed) campaigns of racist terror against Jews. Despite their mutual hatred, they shared a common goal: terrorizing Europe's Jews out of Europe and into Palestine.
Meanwhile, Bundists never wavered from their rejection of antisemites. In the Bundists' socialist, internationalist program, the pursuit of a Jewish homeland merely dangled the possibility of Jewish liberation β at the expense of Palestinians, and without having anything to offer to all the other oppressed peoples of the world.
While I discovered the Bund through reading Naomi Klein, many others learned about it from Crabapple's widely circulated 2018 New York Review of Books article, "My Great-Grandfather the Bundist":
Predictably, Crabapple's article provoked attacks from Zionists who told Crabapple they blamed the Bund for its own extermination. In their telling, the Bund's stubborn refusal to confront antisemitism as "history's oldest hatred" was a suicidal delusion that led their members into the Nazis' mass graves.
But for many Jews, Crabapple's article was a revelation about a different way to be Jewish, an identity that rejected the Apartheid state of Israel (South African Apartheid and the state of Israel share a birth year, and Apartheid South Africa and Israel carried on a robust program of mutual trade in arms and surveillance tools):
This revelation only gained salience and prominence after October 7, 2023, when Israel responded to a massacre perpetrated by Hamas by embarking on a years-long program of genocide and extraterritorial aggression. Zionists have defended these crimes against humanity as inseparable from Jewish identity and the only plausible answer to "the Jewish question."
Israel's defenders insist that even naming the genocide in Palestine (let alone opposing it) is inherently antisemitic. Ironically, Israel's loudest cheerleaders are the millions of antisemitic evangelical Christian Zionists who vastly outnumber Jewish Zionists, who support Israel in hopes of bringing about a Biblical prophecy in which Christ returns and every Jew is cast down to Hell.
In the years since, Crabapple's work to revive the Bund has only gained adherents, especially among Jews who refuse to accept that their safety can only be secured through mass slaughter and imperial conquest. Crabapple's response to this burgeoning movement is this book, a massive, heroic, brilliant, and pitiless history of the Bund that proposes its own answer to "the Jewish question."
Beyond its political importance, Here Where We Live Is Our Country is a remarkable scholarly and artistic achievement. Crabapple taught herself to speak and read Yiddish so that she could consume primary sources, and she crisscrossed the globe to see and research the key sites of Jewish oppression and the Jewish liberation struggle.
It's a monumental book. Thanks to Crabapple's voluminous research, Here Where We Live delivers a blow-by-blow look at the Bund's rise and its triumphs, but even more importantly, the tactical disagreements, factional disputes, and personal animus that too often snatched defeat from the jaws of victory for these committed revolutionaries.
At times, Crabapple's tick-tock of these fights seems to embody the wry maxim: "Two Jews, three arguments." But the point of all this nuanced, textured detail isn't to rehash the tittle-tattle of the previous century, nor is it to show off Crabapple's prowess as a researcher. Rather, in rehearsing these fights, Crabapple shows how reasonable these disputes seemed at the time, and how terrible the consequences were for all concerned.
In this mode, Crabapple manages the admirable achievement of being both sympathetic and pitiless. Crabapple, after all, is a veteran political activist who has traveled extensively to active war-zones to document atrocities and offer mutual aid to those fighting for justice. She's endured every failure that radical politics can manifest, sat through every kind of bad meeting, and she recognizes in these disputes the same personalities and personal failings that have broken her heart a hundred times. She understands why these people are this way β but she can also see, with perfect hindsight, the ghastly horrors that followed, which swamp any matter of principle these people might have stood on.
There's plenty of this sympathetic pitilessness to go around, and it's not just the Bund or Jews who come in for it. Every factionalist blunder in pre-Revolutionary Russia, in the Soviet Union, in interwar Poland, and in occupied Poland comes in for examination β as do every imprisonment, maiming, rape and death that these blunders opened the door to. Crabapple's heroes are principled, but they are imperfect, and sometimes foolish, and sometimes self-deluding (for example, the Palestinian leader who insists that his rank-and-file fighters want to establish a multi-ethnic democracy, despite the undeniable presence in their number of people who want to banish all Jews from Palestine).
The twentieth century was a charnel house, and so the cost of these mistakes is high. Often, these mistakes lead to mass graves, with these mistake-makers tangled among the bodies. They never had the chance to learn from their mistakes. But, through Crabapple's work, we might.
It is in the postscript to this book that its true message lands. After 480 pages, we arrive at Crabapple's conclusion. In reflecting on these people, who died in their millions and whose memory was all but erased, she asks, "Did the Bund fail?"
Her answer is a resounding no. The Bund lost, but it did not fail. The Bund was failed, as were the Zionists, the Roma, European socialists, disabled and queer people β everyone the Nazis burned, gassed, or buried alive. These people cried out to the rest of the world β to America, to Canada, to the UK, to all the places that were not under Nazi occupation β and begged for help, for safe passage, for rescue.
The world slammed its doors. Even after they joined the war, they refused to admit Jews and other victims of Nazi genocide. They refused visas, closed borders, turned back boats of escapees, sometimes sending them back to occupied Europe to be slaughtered.
In his review in the New York Review of Books, historian Adam Hochschild writes:
Imagine that the United States had not passed the Immigration Act of 1924, which essentially slammed the door on almost all newcomers for more than forty years. Without it, Jewish immigration to the US would surely have soared during the 1920s and 1930s. Some 2.5 million Jews, most of them hoping for a better life than they had in tsarist Russia, had already come here between 1880 and 1924. Then, even in the decade before Hitler took power, Jews still had many reasons to leave Europe. Poland, whose Jewish population of 2.8 million was the continentβs largest, was a cauldron of antisemitism between the wars, with outbreaks of deadly violence, segregated seating and de facto quotas in many universities, and numerous other humiliations.
No one who's paid attention during this century's xenophobic policies and attacks on refugees can fail to see the parallels. And no one who's paid attention to the genocide in Gaza and the official response in the "free" world to Palestinian solidarity movements can fail to see those parallels, either.
For the Jews who are told β by Zionists, including the millions of American gentile Zionists who outnumber Jewish Zionists 30:1 β that all this is being done for us, that our continued existence requires it, Crabapple's history of the Bund shows us what's on the other side of the mirror. As NYT editor Max Strasser writes in his review of Here Where We Live:
[The Bund was] the kind of movement leftists today dream about β political party, social movement, mutual aid group β with tens of thousands of members. The Bund published newspapers and ran soup kitchens and summer camps; its athletes competed in a socialist version of the Olympics. Bund activists organized across Eastern Europe and beyond β they helped elect a congressman on the Lower East Side.
The politics we dream of isn't a fantasy. It's the politics our grandparents lived β a politics that wasn't lost, but rather, erased. Erased by Nazis and Stalinists, who committed wholesale slaughter of Bundists. But that politics was also erased by Zionists, who swept through the Displaced Persons' camps of post-war Europe, imposing a draft on the Jews who'd been penned in those stinking camps by a world that refused to welcome Jews, even after the horrors of the death-camps were widely known. Zionists bullied and coerced these Jews β including Bundists who rejected their cause β to serve as foot-soldiers in the Israeli army, even beating elderly parents until their sons and daughters agreed to fight.
Bundists always rejected all forms of ethno-nationalism. As Jews, they had lived in the violence and oppression that always attended every ethno-nationalist program. They never imagined that Israel would escape this fate. As the Bundist leader Henryk Erlich wrote in 1933: "We are not a chosen people. Our nationalism is just as ugly, just as harmful as the nationalisms of all the other nations."
Crabapple has done heroic and important work in excavating this history. She has vindicated the sacrifices made by the Bundist archivists who smuggled their papers out of Nazi occupation and gave their lives to ensure that some day their story could be told.
In so doing, she has also vindicated her own great-grandfather, Sam Rothbort, a Bundist who fled the Pale of Settlement for New York City, whose art-practice traveled to Crabapple through her mother, who is also a painter. It wasn't just the art-practices that traveled β it was also the art, and it was one of Rothbort's paintings ("Itka, the Bundist," depicting a girl throwing a rock through a window) that set her on this journey.
This volume is also graced by Crabapple's own art, stark monochrome ink-washes in her characteristic style, which bring these long-dead people to vivid life. They're a reminder of the role that culture plays in every radical movement, of the ways that the Bund welcomed its members to live a radical life through sport and song and picnics, and not just meetings and street-demonstrations.
Even before this book, Crabapple had made a mark through her paintings and writings. But with Here Where We Live Is Our Country, Crabapple has given us a magnum opus, a book that might help us turn the tide of history.
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"The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.
"The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.
A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING
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