Overall winner yet to be decided as Sydney to Hobart yacht race enters fourth day
The year the government broke
There were the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids on workplaces like Home Depot and the amped up deportation efforts that pulled law enforcement resources from areas like child exploitation investigations. And then there was the biggest full-on rupture to the government in 2025: Elon Musk’s pet project, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Shall we list the ways DOGE took a sledgehammer to the federal government?
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers had their jobs cut or left as the Trump administration eagerly pushed them out; it shuttered the group once considered to be the country’s greatest source of soft power, which delivered food and medicine to impoverished countries; it accessed a system containing millions of Americans’ most sensitive financial information, while all but dismantling a financial consumer protection watchdog; it pushed out tech talent across several agencies; saved taxpayers far less money than promised while decimating institutional knowledge; and cut medical research fundingperceived as promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. After all that, Musk has deemed the project only “somewhat successful” and said he probably wouldn’t do it again…”
There were the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids on workplaces like Home Depot and the amped up deportation efforts that pulled law enforcement resources from areas like child exploitation investigations. And then there was the biggest full-on rupture to the government in 2025: Elon Musk’s pet project, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Shall we list the ways DOGE took a sledgehammer to the federal government?
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers had their jobs cut or left as the Trump administration eagerly pushed them out; it shuttered the group once considered to be the country’s greatest source of soft power, which delivered food and medicine to impoverished countries; it accessed a system containing millions of Americans’ most sensitive financial information, while all but dismantling a financial consumer protection watchdog; it pushed out tech talent across several agencies; saved taxpayers far less money than promised while decimating institutional knowledge; and cut medical research fundingperceived as promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. After all that, Musk has deemed the project only “somewhat successful” and said he probably wouldn’t do it again…”
Trillions for War, Pennies for People: How Soaring Military Spending Fails Americans
Unpacking why the US military is so expensive and even if it were less pork-driven, would still be unduly costly for society at large.
Data Innovations: Researchers at IBM Europe and the European Space Agency have released ImpactMesh, a global, open dataset focused on measuring the impact of extreme floods and wildfires. The team collected satellite images from Europe’s Copernicus Sentinel satellites, which regularly observe the same areas using both optical imagery and radar, and paired images taken before and after each disaster.
CRS Report, Resources for Financial Market Data. R47379. 12/15/2025. Download PDF | PDF Version History. The U.S. financial system contains large and active markets for stocks, bonds, and commodities, as well as digital assets (e.g., cryptocurrencies) and other financial instruments. This report describes authoritative, open-access sources for current and historical information about major financial markets in the United States.
These sources include commercial businesses, industry groups, and government agencies. This report also provides links to federal financial regulatory agencies data, selected glossaries with background information about financial markets, and related CRS products. For information on nonfinancial economic indicators, see CRS Report R43295, Resources for Key Economic Indicators, by Ben Leubsdorf and Jennifer Teefy.
Trump, on Santa watch, tells children ‘coal is beautiful and clean’
British playwright, screenwriter Tom Stoppard (1937-2025): Dazzling, erudite, damaged by history WSWS
Origins and persistence of the Mafia in the United States
This paper provides evidence of the institutional continuity between the “old world” Sicilian mafia and the mafia in America. We examine the migration to the United States of mafiosi expelled from Sicily in the 1920s following Fascist repression lead by Cesare Mori, the so-called “Iron Prefect”. Using historical US administrative records and FBI reports from decades later, we provide evidence that expelled mafiosi settled in pre-existing Sicilian immigrant enclaves, contributing to the rise of the American La Cosa Nostra (LCN). Our analysis reveals that a significant share of future mafia leaders in the US originated from neighborhoods that had hosted immigrant communities originating in the 32 Sicilian municipalities targeted by anti-mafia Fascist raids decades earlier. Future mafia activity is also disproportionately concentrated in these same neighborhoods. We then explore the socio-economic impact of organized crime on these communities. In the short term, we observe increased violence in adjacent neighborhoods, heightened incarceration rates, and redlining practices that restricted access to the formal financial sector. However, in the long run, these same neighborhoods exhibited higher levels of education, employment, and social mobility, challenging prevailing narratives about the purely detrimental effects of organized crime. Our findings contribute to debates on the persistence of criminal organizations and their broader economic and social consequences.
That is a new paper in the works by Zachary Porreca, Paolo Pinotti, and Masismo Anelli, here is the abstract online.
