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Emma Bonino, leader of abortion and divorce battles that changed Italy, dies aged 78, her party says

Emma Bonino, a prominent Italian politician known for her work with the Radical Party, has died at 78

Sep 11 • 4:04 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Fact check: Trump, RFK Jr. and others make false claims on night 2 of GOP convention

(CNN) — President Donald Trump delivered another rapid-fire series of false claims on the second night of Republicans’ midterm convention on Thursday. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did his own barrage of wrongness. And various other speakers uttered statements that were untrue, misleading or missing critical context.Here is a fact check of some of the assertions from the final day of the convention. This is not intended as a comprehensive list of Thursday’s falsehoods.Trump’s many false claimsTrump made numerous false claims, some of which he also made in his longer speech Wednesday.Trump claimed that there were “no empty seats” in the Dallas arena as he spoke Thursday, which was visibly untrue. CNN White House correspondent Alayna Treene, who was there, wrote in a live chat right after Trump made the claim that “I’m looking at rows of empty seats” and that “the idea that there are ‘no empty seats’ is just laughably untrue,” though she also said the room was mostly full. Trump has for years made false claims about supposedly never having had an empty seat.Trump further inflated one of his favorite fictional figures, claiming Thursday that “$22 trillion” in investment has come into the US; on Wednesday, he had put it at “over $20 trillion,” and even that lower figure has no apparent basis in reality. As of the time he spoke Thursday, the White House’s own website claimed there had been “$11.2 trillion” in “major investment announcements” this term, not “over $20 trillion,” and the White House figure was itself a major exaggeration of actual investment.Trump, talking about elections, lied that “there’s never been bigger cheaters” than Democrats; there is no basis for broadly describing Democrats as election cheaters. For the second straight night, Trump falsely claimed that the Biden administration allowed “25 million people” to pour into the country, though that number is nowhere close to correct. Trump again falsely claimed that former President Joe Biden and other Democrats “created the worst inflation in American history,” though even peak Biden-era inflation, 9.1% in June 2022, was far from the all-time record of 23.7%; it was a 40-year high, but the rate then fell sharply before Trump returned to office.Trump also baselessly claimed that Democrats would “defund the police” and give “voting rights and welfare to 25 million illegal aliens” if they won the midterms. Republicans will still control the White House in 2027 and 2028 and the president would be in position to veto any such changes if a Democratic-controlled Congress sought to make them, but there is no indication that Democrats want to do so. Also, even groups favoring strict immigration policies estimate that the total undocumented population is far less than “25 million” or even 20 million.As he did Wednesday, Trump claimed the US now has the world’s lowest prescription drug prices. The assertion is so broad that it is unclear what exactly Trump is referencing. But experts told CNN they highly doubt that the prices for brand-name drugs in the US are generally less than they are in other countries, and the Trump administration has not provided details to prove the claim.“It’s tough to claim that you’re getting the lowest prices anywhere in the world and then also not have any evidence to support that,” said Andrew Mulcahy, a senior health economist at RAND, while Diederik Stadig, senior healthcare economist at financial institution ING, said, “To say that the US now has the lowest drug prices in the world is at this moment not true.”And as he did Wednesday, Trump said “more Americans are working today than ever before” – which is true but nearly meaningless, since the number of people working in the US generally rises over time simply because the population rises over time.“There are more Americans working because there are more Americans. That’s the entire analysis,” Justin Wolfers, a University of Michigan professor of public policy and economics, wrote in his newsletter in August.RFK Jr.’s false claims on the pandemic, Trump’s record and moreFalse claim about Democrats and the 2024 electionKennedy unsuccessfully ran for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination before withdrawing to run as an independent and then eventually endorsing Republican candidate Donald Trump. In Kennedy’s Thursday convention speech, he complained of how the Democrats handled the nomination race.At one point, he said, “For the first time in history, they cancelled their own convention. No voter ever cast a primary ballot for Kamala Harris, no elected delegate was ever consulted; the party of ‘No Kings’ simply anointed a queen.”Kennedy is entitled to express unhappiness about how quickly Democratic leaders coalesced around then-Vice President Harris after Biden unexpectedly dropped out of the race in July 2024, after the primaries were over and less than four months from Election Day. But it’s not true that the party canceled its convention or that delegates didn’t get any say.The convention was held; it was a four-day event in Chicago in August 2024. Democratic convention delegates officially nominated Harris in a virtual roll call vote in advance of the convention. It’s true that Harris was the only candidate on the roll call ballot, but that’s because she was the only candidate who gathered enough delegate signatures to appear on the ballot.It’s clear that party elites’ backing of Harris played a key role in the unusual nomination process. But Kennedy’s specific allegations that the convention was abandoned and delegates were cut out of the process are not true.False claim that Democrats closed ‘every church’ during the Covid-19 pandemicWhile attacking Democrats, Kennedy claimed that, during the Covid-19 pandemic, “They closed every church in our country for a year.”It’s not true that every church in the country was closed for a year, nor even that every church in a Democratic state was closed for a year.Every state issued some type of guidance or order about social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic, but many states – including some led by Democrats and some led by Republicans – incorporated religious exemptions into those limitations on social interactions.According to a Pew Research Center analysis from April 2020, 15 states allowed religious gatherings to continue without a limit on their size. That set of states included Colorado, Michigan and Pennsylvania, which all had Democratic governors. And at least two states with Republican governors, Alaska and Idaho, were among the states that prohibited religious gatherings at least briefly.False claim that Trump ‘ended nine wars’Trump has repeatedly claimed that he has ended “eight wars.” Kennedy went one higher on Thursday, declaring, “President Trump has ended nine wars.”That’s false. Trump hasn’t even ended eight wars.Trump’s list of eight includes two situations that were never actually wars during his tenure: a diplomatic dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia and a mysterious supposed situation between Serbia and Kosovo. The list also includes a war, involving Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, that hasn’t actually ended despite a peace agreement brokered by the Trump administration.In addition, the list includes the war between Israel and Hamas, but Israel continues to conduct frequent attacks in Gaza despite a US-brokered ceasefire agreement. And it includes the brief 2025 conflict between Israel and Iran, though Israel proceeded to join the US in starting another war against Iran in 2026.Claim about reversing a decline in longevityKennedy speaking of the Trump administration, claimed Thursday: “We have now reversed a 30-year decline in longevity. “Kennedy referenced preliminary data that he said he had received from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week, but it’s unclear what metric of longevity he’s referring to.CDC data shows that US life expectancy had been steadily increasing for decades before a sharp drop during the Covid-19 pandemic. Life expectancy had already started to rebound in 2022, under the Biden administration, and reached a new record high in 2024 before Trump’s second term began.Preliminary data shared by the CDC in July suggests that life expectancy probably hit another record high in 2025.CNN has reached out to HHS for clarification on Kennedy’s comments.Claim that Democrats ‘lost 360,000 children’Speaking about Democrats, Kennedy said: “They somehow lost 360,000 children and they turned our federal government into the biggest child trafficking operation in world history.”Trump and other Republicans have made similar claims. But there’s no basis for the assertion that Democrats “lost” so many children or that the federal government was engaged in human trafficking.A 2024 report from the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security said Immigration and Customs Enforcement had reported that more than 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children failed to appear as scheduled for immigration court hearings after being released or transferred out of custody between fiscal years 2019 and 2023 – a period that, notably, includes two years and four months under the first Trump administration. The report also said that 291,000 unaccompanied migrant children during this period were not given notices to appear in court.The report said that ICE had “no assurances” these children “are safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor.” But it did not say all the children were actually “lost” and did not definitively assert that any of them were trafficked – let alone that the government was somehow involved in a trafficking operation. And, again, the report spanned parts of both a Republican administration and a Democratic administration.Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, told CNN in 2024: “Long story short, no, there are not 320,000 kids missing. 32,000 kids missed court. That doesn’t mean they’re missing, it means they missed court (either because their sponsor didn’t bring them or they are teenagers who didn’t want to show up). The remaining 291,000 cases mentioned by the (Office of the Inspector General) are cases where ICE hasn’t filed the paperwork to start their immigration court cases.”Vance on inflation, crime and taxes on Social SecurityA false claim about the media and Biden-era inflationVice President JD Vance mocked the media during part of his speech on Thursday. But he made a false claim about Biden-era inflation while lampooning how the media supposedly challenged him over another false claim on that subject.Vance said: “The president and I would go during a campaign, we’d say, ‘You know, inflation is as high as it’s been in 100 years,’ and the fake news would say, ‘No, no, no, it’s as high as it’s been in 68 years.’ That ain’t good, ladies and gentlemen.”Mainstream journalists, at least, wouldn’t say that inflation under Biden was as high as it had been “in 68 years.” Rather, CNN and others noted that peak inflation under the Biden administration, 9.1% in June 2022, was the highest in about 40 years.Vance is entitled to make his general point that this correction still doesn’t make Biden-era inflation sound good, but his specific number was, again, wrong. And he didn’t acknowledge that inflation fell sharply under Biden after hitting the 40-year high, declining to 2.9% in Biden’s last full month in office, December 2024, and 3.0% in January 2025, when Trump and Vance were inaugurated.The rate was 3.4% in July 2026, the most recent month for which data is available.Trump didn’t end taxes on Social SecurityVance claimed, “We’ve ended taxes on Social Security.” Several other convention speakers, including Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan, Rep. Ryan Mackenzie of Pennsylvania and Ohio House candidate Derek Merrin, similarly said the administration has achieved “no tax on Social Security.”It hasn’t. The big domestic policy bill Trump signed in 2025 did create an additional, temporary $6,000-per-year tax deduction for individuals age 65 and older (which phases out for individuals earning $75,000 per year or more), but as the White House has implicitly acknowledged, millions of Social Security recipients will continue to pay taxes on their benefits even before the temporary new deduction expires after 2028.The Social Security Administration said in 2025 that “the bill ensures that nearly 90% of Social Security beneficiaries will no longer pay federal income taxes on their benefits.Claim about violent crime rate under BidenWhile criticizing the Biden administration, Vice President JD Vance claimed Thursday that the US “became a country where violent crime exploded, unless, of course, you could afford private security.”But violent crime did not explode under Biden. In fact, as FactCheck.org reported last month, data collected and published by the FBI shows that the national violent crime rate was at a lower level in 2023 and 2024, the last two full calendar years of Biden’s term, than it was in 2020, the last full calendar year of Trump’s first term. The year 2020 was highly unusual in many ways – violent crime jumped amid the Covid-19 pandemic – but Biden nonetheless left office with violent crime lower than it was when he took over. In fact, the 2024 violent crime rate was even lower than the 2019 rate under Trump before the pandemic.There was an increase in violent crime during the earlier part of Biden’s term. But given the subsequent decline, it’s misleading at best to claim violent crime “exploded” with no further context.Asked earlier this month about Trump’s similar previous claims to have reversed a Biden-era upswing in violence, crime data expert Jeff Asher said in an email: “No, crime began dropping significantly in 2023 during the Biden administration. Murder fell at record rates in 2023, 2024 and 2025 and, while 2026 may not feature a record decline nationally, it is still on track to see a sizable double-digit decline this year. Violent crime similarly fell nationally in 2023 and 2024, though the drops were more muted than the decline that was recorded by the FBI in 2025.”Other GOP speakersMike Johnson’s false claim about the inflation Republicans inherited from BidenSome other speakers at the convention took aim at inflation under Biden. House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed that “Republicans inherited from the Biden administration record-high inflation.”That’s not true. The inflation rate was 2.9% in Biden’s last full month in office, December 2024, and 3.0% in January 2025, when Trump took over. That’s lower than the most recent rate, 3.4% in July 2026, and nowhere close to the all-time record of 23.7%, which was reached in 1920, or the highest point of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, 14.8%, which was reached in 1980.Johnson correctly said moments later that inflation reached “a 40-year high of 9.1% inflation” under Biden. But a 40-year high is not an all-time record. More importantly, Johnson didn’t explain that 9.1% was much higher than the rate Trump inherited or that the 9.1% rate occurred in June 2022, with roughly two-and-a-half years left in Biden’s term.The cumulative increase in prices from the beginning of the Biden administration to the end was also not the highest in US history. Federal figures show that beginning-to-end inflation under Biden was less than half of that during Carter’s term.What Johnson left out of his claim about a congressional resolutionWhile attacking Democrats as extreme, Johnson said: “Just last week, nearly every Democrat in the House of Representatives voted against condemning socialism and Marxism. They voted against it.”But the resolution didn’t use the word “Marxism.” And Johnson didn’t mention that the resolution wasn’t only about condemning socialism. Rather, it contained other language that Democratic leadership said was the focus of the party’s opposition to the resolution.The resolution’s first provision said it “condemns and denounces socialism in all its forms, including the Democratic Socialists of America, and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States.” But its fifth provision said it “calls for enactment of the SAVE America Act,” Trump’s favored elections bill, which contains various provisions opposed by many Democrats.So while it’s very possible many Democrats would have opposed the resolution even without its expression of support for the SAVE America Act, the call to pass this elections bill served as a poison pill that ensured most Democrats wouldn’t support it.“House Resolution 1490 explicitly calls for enactment of the so-called SAVE America Act, which is the top legislative priority of far-right extremists,” Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement last week.A New Mexico candidate left out key context in an attack on his opponentGreg Cunningham, a Republican House candidate in New Mexico, used some of his Thursday speech to criticize his Democratic opponent, Rep. Gabe Vasquez. Cunningham said of Vasquez: “He even voted against a resolution honoring the sacrifices and service of the brave men and women in law enforcement who protect, every day, our communities.”But Cunningham left out important context about the resolution. While its focus was expressing support for law enforcement, its preamble contained statements praising the Trump administration and criticizing “leftist activists,” “progressive politicians” and “sanctuary city policies” for allegedly making law enforcement less safe.In other words, a House member might vote against such a resolution, as the vast majority of Democrats did, because they disagreed with conservative components of it, not the general expressions of support for law enforcement. (CNN has reached out to Vasquez’s campaign and House office for comment on his vote.) It’s common for parties to write resolutions in a way that would make it difficult for opponents to support but would open those opponents to campaign attacks if they voted “no.”An Ohio candidate’s misleading attack about Democrats and votingMerrin, the Republican candidate running against Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur for a House seat in Ohio, claimed in his speech, “While Democrats talk about letting illegal immigrants vote in our election, Republicans fight for proof of citizenship, photo ID and fair elections.”It’s a big country, so it’s possible some Democrat somewhere is talking about letting undocumented people vote in some election. But Merrin’s claim is misleading at best. There is no proposal from Democrats in Congress to let undocumented people vote in the 2026 midterms – the election Merrin appeared to be referring to when he said “our election” – or vote in future federal elections.CNN has reached out to Merrin’s campaign for an explanation of his claim.House Majority Leader Steve Scalise invoked a similar theme in his speech Wednesday, claiming that Democrats had voted last week “to allow illegals to vote in our federal elections.” But there was no congressional vote on letting undocumented immigrants vote in any elections.Rather, there was a vote on the non-binding Republican resolution that included multiple provisions, including one that “reiterates the notion that American elections are for American citizens only,” one supporting Trump’s favored elections bill and one denouncing socialism.Opposing that multi-clause resolution doesn’t necessarily mean someone supports voting by any non-citizens, let alone non-citizens in the country illegally.This article has been updated with additional items.CNN’s Deja Oliver contributed to this report.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

Sep 10 • 9:46 PM EDT • Politics • applevalleynewsnow.com

Shouts of ‘he should be shot’ heard during GOP midterm convention speech criticizing Democratic candidates

Shouts of “he should be shot” could be heard multiple times Thursday night at the Republican midterm convention as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was criticizing prominent Democratic politicians by name.

Sep 10 • 9:43 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com

$88,600 Pictures With Trump and A.I.-Sponsored Suites: Republicans Schmooze in Dallas

Republican politicians, donors and lobbyists have been busy networking and partying on the sidelines of a midterm convention that is partly a fund-raiser.

Sep 10 • 2:45 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com

$5.1M in business checks stolen in Twin Cities fraud scheme, feds say

Six people are facing federal charges after prosecutors say they ran a years-long scheme to steal millions of dollars in business checks from Twin Cities banks and credit unions.

Sep 10 • 12:17 PM EDT • Business • fox9.com

Tunisia: Authorities must immediately release Rached Ghannouchi amid severe fair trial violations and serious health concerns

Tunisian authorities must release prominent opposition politician Rached Ghannouchi, quash his convictions and end the politically motivated prosecutions against him marred by significant due process violations, Amnesty International said today. The organization is also urgently calling for him to receive access to adequate healthcare pending his release. The 84-year-old leader of the Ennahdha party and former Speaker of Parliament has been held in arbitrary detention since his arrest in April […]

Sep 10 • 6:00 AM EDT • Health • amnesty.org

Poll: Do Michigan voters support stricter political campaign finance rules?

Michigan voters were asked in a recent poll how they felt about the upcoming November general election. One question asked if Michigan voters supported prohibiting regulated utilities and government contractors from contributing to politicians, expanding campaign-finance disclosure rules and requiring disclosure for internet political ads.

Sep 9 • 5:00 PM EDT • Politics • clickondetroit.com

Will it kill off humanity? Computer scientists and politicians wrestle with risks of AI

Alarming warnings from industry insiders increase pressure for curbs on artificial superintelligence

Sep 9 • 9:46 AM EDT • Science • theguardian.com

Will it kill off humanity? Computer scientists and politicians wrestle with risks of AI

Alarming warnings from industry insiders increase pressure for curbs on artificial superintelligence

Sep 9 • 9:46 AM EDT • Politics • theguardian.com

Down with Politicians! A Reformed Critique of a Bad Idea

Calvin went so far as to characterize the work done by civic officials as a "sacred and noble calling."

Sep 9 • 3:15 AM EDT • Politics • reformedjournal.com

Alleged victim of Alan Jones looked ‘sunken and diminished’, politician tells court

Downing Centre court hears that the alleged victim was usually outgoing but his demeanour changed at a meeting with Jones at his apartment

Sep 9 • 2:00 AM EDT • Politics • theguardian.com

Ohio politicians keep promise to rebuke Les Wexner by donating $200K in campaign contributions

Freedom a la Cart, a downtown Columbus cafe that employs sex trafficking survivors, was one of several organizations that politicians donated to this year.

Sep 8 • 4:38 PM EDT • Politics • wosu.org

Court-appointed CHP leader says jailed Erdoğan rival is not a political prisoner

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, reinstated by a court as leader of Turkey’s Republican People’s Party (CHP), said Tuesday that jailed İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu was not a political prisoner but signaled that the two politicians’ parties could cooperate if İmamoğlu can run for president. “He is not a political prisoner. He was not jailed because of his […]

Sep 8 • 9:00 AM EDT • Politics • turkishminute.com

Tour industry protests over Taiwan’s new mainland China travel registration rules

KMT politicians accuse ruling DPP of turning cross-strait exchanges into an election issue ahead of year-end local polls.

Sep 8 • 8:00 AM EDT • Politics • scmp.com

Publish council changes legal advice, Surrey politicians say

The government says Surrey will not be affected by a review of plans to merge councils in England.

Sep 8 • 7:29 AM EDT • Politics • bbc.com

A Haredi political revolt is brewing – and it could shake up Israel's election

Veteran Haredi politicians are losing favor with top rabbis, shaking up party slates. Meanwhile, new parties are outflanking the establishment on its left and right. But will they really be any different?

Sep 8 • 6:43 AM EDT • Politics • haaretz.com

Trump's beef import plan draws criticism from Alabama organizations, politicians

The president's move, which he said aimed to reduce prices, drew rare rebukes from state organizations generally supportive of him.

Sep 8 • 6:01 AM EDT • Politics • alabamareflector.com

Washington: Despite fueling AI’s wrong answers, data centers are uniting Dems and the GOP

Politicians from both sides of the aisle are raising strikingly similar concerns about water, energy and costs. The question is how long the unity will last.

Sep 8 • 5:58 AM EDT • Politics • startribune.com

11 politicians changing their positions on AI data centers

As public backlash to AI data centers grows, 11 politicians are rethinking incentives, backing new guardrails, or calling for pauses on development.

Sep 8 • 4:43 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

11 politicians changing their positions on AI data centers

As public backlash to AI data centers grows, 11 politicians are rethinking incentives, backing new guardrails, or calling for pauses on development.

Sep 8 • 4:43 AM EDT • Politics • businessinsider.com

Lawmaker wrongly blamed for name-twin politician's hospital outburst

A Kaohsiung-based legislator spoke out late Monday to quell a wave of internet wrath, after netizens apparently confused him with a Taipei City councilor of the same name who was accused of an angry outburst at a hospital.

Sep 8 • 2:53 AM EDT • Politics • focustaiwan.tw

Politicians describe moments they detained man who rushed Amy Acton at Canfield Fair

Just one day after a man rushed Dr. Amy Acton during a campaign stop at the Canfield Fair, she continued campaigning in Cleveland on Labor Day amid the growing

Sep 7 • 7:38 PM EDT • Politics • abc6onyourside.com

GOP spends Labor Day touting August jobs, Dems lift up union workers

For politicians, Labor Day is still a midterm messaging moment, as Democrats celebrate union workers and Republicans tout August's job report numbers.

Sep 7 • 3:00 PM EDT • Politics • usatoday.com

Drumcree: Politicians clash at Stormont over parade dispute

TUV MLA Timothy Gaston called on the Secretary of State to remove the five remaining members of the Parades Commission.

Sep 7 • 11:15 AM EDT • Politics • bbc.com

Tom Still: True health care debate in Wisconsin would help people, economy

MADISON, Wis. — “Price transparency” is a phrase used by politicians right and left to oversimplify real problems with health-care costs, access and delivery in the United States. This fall’s

Sep 7 • 7:30 AM EDT • Health • antigojournal.com

A German politician with a MAGA touch lifts his nationalist party to victory

Ulrich Siegmund and his Alternative for Germany party sent tremors through establishment political circles in Berlin, Brussels and other capitals across Europe.

Sep 7 • 6:49 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Politics in NI: What are the possibilities for Stormont reform?

A growing question among local politicians concerns whether Stormont should be reformed. If rules or procedures are changed, can that make local politics more effective? Will it better serve the people who live here? Over the course of 2026 these conversations have grown louder and more frequent. It is one of the central topics of...

Sep 7 • 3:46 AM EDT • Politics • factcheckni.org

Reindeer and rare-earth minerals: Swedish politicians take aim at Indigenous Sami in mining dispute

Gabna community fear their traditional herding routes will be sacrificed as far-right rhetoric ramps up against them

Sep 7 • 12:00 AM EDT • Politics • theguardian.com

Poland’s anti-Ukrainian turn spills into violence

The number of crimes against Ukrainians in Poland is rising as right-wing Polish politicians ramp-up anti-Ukraine rhetoric.

Sep 6 • 10:01 PM EDT • Politics • politico.eu

The core anti-Pangram constituency is phony writers

Welcome to The Closing Argument, our verdict on the news, plus everything The Argument published and appeared in this week. The Verdict, by Kelsey Piper A lot of people hate AI for drowning the internet in slop and displacing human creatives. You might think that these people would be thrilled by a program that can identify and flag AI-generated work. But many people who hate AI also hate Pangram, an impressively accurate AI detector that produces very few false positives, according to high-quality independent research. This loathing found its most recent expression in a bizarre Wired article that amplifies a wide range of false arguments from Pangram skeptics: that AI detectors are racist (they’re not) or ableist (they’re not)1 or don’t work (this one does)2. Rather than starting from the premise that it would be really valuable to have a working AI detector and scrutinizing Pangram to make sure it lives up to that promise, the article starts from the premise that Pangram obviously has bad vibes and sets out to discover why. (One answer: The CEO microwaved lunch during an interview!) Why aren’t writers who resent Pangram more eager to distinguish themselves from posters who are having ChatGPT ghostwrite all their work? There are a few different things at play, but I think one key dynamic is this: These are often the same people. A core constituency for arguments like Wired’s is “writers” who are using AI to write their posts but resent this fact being made public. They stand to lose from AI detectors because AI detectors call them out. Share When Substack announced a partnership with Pangram, a sizable fraction of the platform’s authors rose up in outrage. Some people had experience with other AI detectors that didn’t work, and some felt that AI writing ought to be encouraged — both of which are fair enough. But the fury was fueled by authors passionately insisting that Pangram kept wrongly accusing them on almost every post they published. Pangram can be wrong, especially on short passages. But in the overwhelming majority of cases where Pangram looked at a whole blog post rather than a single paragraph, the program correctly detected work as AI. Even if we can’t be 100% sure in any individual case, we can notice the trend in the aggregate. Wired quotes Sam Illingworth, a professor of critical AI literacy at Edinburgh Napier University, who said, “I don’t think [AI detectors] work. … I think that detectors are prejudiced against certain people.” This spring, he said that he used AI for research and editing; this summer he acknowledged that in addition to research and editing, he also uses it “now and then for a turn of phrase I keep.” Pangram informs us that most of his posts are 100% AI-written (some are mixed AI-and-human) and that 100% AI-written posts started appearing last year. The favorable interpretation is that, as someone whose recent work Pangram consistently mistakes for AI, Illingworth sees Pangram’s flaws firsthand. The unfavorable interpretation is that the tool’s credibility trades off against his own, because its account of who writes his posts is not consistent with his. Illingworth is not alone in insisting the detector does not work. “It’s a Monday night in late July, and I’m pasting my own Substack draft into an AI detector for the first time. Not because I’m worried. Because I’m curious. I wrote every word of it myself, the way I write everything, out loud in my head first, in a rhythm that still carries the accent of a language I learned to think in before I learned to write in this one,” begins one Substack post by an author indignant that Pangram flags her writing as AI. “That’s the part I had to sit with before I could write this.” If you, like me, have worked with AIs a lot, you won’t even need Pangram there. The author of that piece is AI. It is obviously AI! I checked 10 other posts on the blog, and they were also obviously AI! “I have spent 22 years as an award-winning author and essayist. And now this bullshit tool that learned from MY writing is going to accuse me of plagiarism,” popular Substack writer Carlyn Beccia wrote in an anti-Pangram post. “For the last and final time, AI DETECTORS DO NOT WORK.” Here’s what her writing sounded like in 2020: “Most success stories revolve around one person who believed enough in you to say — give it a try. We call these people muses, but they are so much more than that. They are the strong man giants whose shoulders we stand on so we can see the horizon. Throughout the editing process, I am sure my editor felt less like a giant of greatness and more like Atlas with the world on her shoulders.” Pangram says it was 100% human-written. (So were other articles of hers in 2020.) And here’s what it sounds like now: “And then there is the reshuffling, which sounds like paperwork until you remember that empires have always loved paperwork. The Trump regime recently moved special education oversight from the Education Department to HHS. That is not a minor bureaucratic transfer. It changes the frame.”3 Pangram says this is mostly AI. I am not convinced that Pangram is wrong. In my own experience, Pangram is very effective on long texts — if it marks a long essay as AI, the essay was either written by AI or deliberately written to sound like AI. On tweet-length or paragraph-length texts, it’s not perfectly reliable. It seems to work just as well for non-native English speakers as for native speakers. While I have seen dozens of claims of pre-2022 text returning a positive result on Pangram, I have tried repeatedly to corroborate those and have never once succeeded. To be clear, I’m absolutely not saying that complaining about Pangram suggests a writer is a cheat. There are plenty of other concerns. Most are mistakenly premised, such as the false claim that Pangram trains on work you put into it, but others are reasonable: It’s unreliable on sufficiently short text segments; it creates an internet witch-hunt mentality when there are defensible uses of AI; people who are open about their AI use are sometimes blamed, when the only people really doing something wrong are the ones who hide it; and it isn’t perfect, so a single positive result shouldn’t be taken as decisive proof of misconduct. I’m happy to concede that Pangram is imperfect and possible to over-rely on. If an author’s posts are mostly non-AI and one scans as partially AI, this could be a mistake. It’s also possible to defeat Pangram with intentional effort. If you think we need something more robust and more reliable, fine! But if you don’t like AI and don’t like Pangram, your attitude really ought to be that it’s a shame that our existing tools for AI detection are imperfect, and it’s important to invent better ones. If your stance is instead that AI is evil and so is looking for AI, then ultimately you’re contributing to the sloppification of the internet. You’re making it harder for people who write their own text to distinguish themselves, and providing cover for authors who are definitely not writing their own text. Subscribe Top stories this week, by Kobe Yank-Jacobs Commentators often worry that the decline of reading could mean the decline of liberal democracy — but deliberative governance actually predated widespread literacy. This week, Maibritt Henkel pointed out that many liberal cultures thrive on a culture of raucous, interactive debate, which can happen in-person as easily, if not more so, than in text. Read on, dear reader, to learn more. It may actually cheer you up: [ ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/reading-wont-save-liberalism) [ Reading won’t save liberalism ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/reading-wont-save-liberalism) Maibritt Henkel · Sep 1 [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/reading-wont-save-liberalism) It used to be bad to downplay climate change (if we mean denying its reality). Today, it’s actually good to downplay climate change (if we mean keeping the issue out of political fights so we can make real progress). This counterintuitive view is called “climate hushing,” and contributor Alex Trembath argued that it’s the key to enacting good policy going forward. Get up to speed on the latest in climate politics: [ ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/we-wont-stop-climate-change-by-talking) [ We won’t stop climate change by talking about it ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/we-wont-stop-climate-change-by-talking) Alex Trembath · Sep 2 [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/we-wont-stop-climate-change-by-talking) Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney is standing up for the forces of liberalism against Donald Trump’s assault on our closest ally. So, why is one prominent left-wing commenter attacking Carney? Columnist Matthew Yglesias explains: [ ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/when-economic-liberty-means-central) [ When "economic liberty" means central planning ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/when-economic-liberty-means-central) Matthew Yglesias · Aug 31 [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/when-economic-liberty-means-central) 🌟Abundance Wins of the Week🌟 Shout out to my home state of California, whose legislature passed two housing bills this week. One requires a housing density minimum in transit-oriented areas of the state’s most transit-rich cities (Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, San Diego, and Long Beach). Another bill closes two common loopholes used by third parties to delay housing projects, including an opportunity to challenge maps of a given lot created by the developer after a project has been approved. Shout out to our big-state rival, Texas, where pro-housing SB 785 took effect this week. The new state law requires municipalities to have at least one district permitted for manufactured housing without a special permit. This will promote zoning changes in 44% of municipalities. The company Fervo Energy signed a deal with Google for what is set to be the world’s largest enhanced geothermal facility, proving a technology can work at a scale that could be crucial to a decarbonized, energy-abundant economy. Share Worth watching… This week, forecasting legend Nate Silver joined Jerusalem, Matt, and Jeremiah on a crowded episode of the pod. It was a party. And speaking of parties, our round table debated the factional lines within the Democratic Party: Is it possible to be center-left and also anti-establishment? Watch or listen to find out: The Rio Grande Valley in Texas is one of the areas that swung hardest toward Trump in 2024, but musician Bobby Pulido is running to flip it back. Right now, The Argument/Split Ticket’s model has him running 1.1 points behind his Republican opponent in a district Trump won by 18 points. Tune in to find out how he differs from national Democrats and what he thinks he can to do win this seat. On Thursday, Bernie Sanders was among the first politicians to call for a ban on superintelligence. My guest this week, Andrea Miotti, has been lobbying to ban superintelligence for several years, most recently in the U.K., U.S., and Canada. I asked him how he gets legislators to take speculative risks seriously, and we dug into what plans might look like to actually pass a ban. Listen to learn more: What’s News with The Argument The Argument recommends, by Kobe Yank-Jacobs If we ever lose track of Justin Zuckerman, I’ll have the team split up and check all the movie theaters in the city. I’m shocked (and a little jealous) at how often he gets out to see good cinema. This week, he brings us It Ends, a “horror-ish movie,” which he described as a “Gen Z Waiting for Godot.” I was intrigued before he added that it was “funny, dark and existential” — at which point I was fully locked in. I guess I also had existential themes on the mind this week. One morning, a single line from a poem I read long ago just came to me: “Is death a stretch of time in which a life is just a flash?” The poem is called “From 20,000 Feet” by Heather McHugh. I suggest the version in The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry, which, by tradition, my best friend and I always bring backpacking, extra weight be damned. We’ll stay thematically dark for just one more rec from senior editor John Robert Thomason, whose upcoming trip to Baltimore reminded him to suggest Michael Clune’s memoir White Out (about being addicted to heroin in Baltimore in the 1990s). Ben Lerner’s blurb called it _“_Disturbing, brilliant, hilarious—it’s as if Proust had written Jesus’ Son.” John told me this “seems accurate, with the caveat that I’ve never read Proust.” I, personally, have also shelved Proust until retirement. At this point, I was a little concerned for the team since all of us tossed out such psychologically grim material — maybe we’re all down about the end of summer — but thankfully, at least a few of us were into more upbeat selections. Milan Singh recommended Made In’s 5-quart stainless clad saucier, suggesting he had some fun in the kitchen. Jeremiah Johnson asked if he could recommend yet more Carly Rae Jepsen. Once denied, he offered up Game Changer instead_,_ calling it “the most wildly creative game show, maybe in the entire history of the genre.” Eli Richman mentioned _Lucky, “_a B-tier show with an A-tier cast and an S-tier theme song.” I suppose he was recommending the song, Horns of a Bull. Still, despite these cheerier recs, I couldn’t help but be concerned that we were subconsciously worried about racing toward summer’s end — the end of swim trunks and splashing around. Then a message landed reminding me of the three-day weekend to come. A whole extra day for sunshine. One more swim in the lake. I was grateful this called to mind yet another line from a poem, one by Mary Oliver, the patron saint of every gorgeous summer day (and about whom a documentary is now out). Speaking to God in the poem “Thirst,” she wrote: grant me, in your mercy,a little more time. Love for the earthand love for you are having such a longconversation in my heart. We have merch! We have quarter-zips, keychains, hats, and stickers. Each one is a great conversation starter in its own way. Buy them here. Subscribe More to read: [ The Opening Argument ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/seeing-like-an-elite)[ Seeing like an elite ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/seeing-like-an-elite) Kobe Yank-Jacobs · Sep 4 What do Americans hear when they watch Sen. Bernie Sanders or Vice President JD Vance rail against the elite? Are they thinking of right-wing tech billionaires? Imperious college professors? Liberal magazine writers? [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/seeing-like-an-elite) [ The Weekly Scroll ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/god-is-back-on-the-timeline)[ God is back on the timeline ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/god-is-back-on-the-timeline) Jeremiah Johnson · Sep 5 This week, we’re talking about Substack’s new religious debates, the continuing MAGA influencer scandal, how to retire from YouTube, and aura battles. [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/god-is-back-on-the-timeline) 1 This was a legitimate thing to worry about, but doesn’t seem to be a problem given the actual technology: Marijke Van Vlasselaer, Filip Van Droogenbroeck, and Bram Spruyt’s 2026 paper looks at whether Pangram is less accurate when evaluating the work of non-native speakers of English. It isn’t. That’s because Pangram isn’t really looking at how “unusual” a piece of writing is but whether it has the characteristic patterns of LLMs. The Wired article makes an odd gesture at a different Pangram-is-racist argument. There were several controversies this summer during which upcoming books were canceled after being discovered to be AI-written: “The three novels mentioned earlier — Shy Girl, Daggermouth, and Call Me, easily publishing’s biggest AI-detection scandals — were all written by writers of color.” But come on! As Zvi Mowshowitz put it: “They were not primarily written by people of color. They were primarily written by AIs.” That’s the whole problem! And as my colleague Jeremiah Johnson recently observed with respect to Cambridge’s Arday scandal, a community being unwilling to call out fraud if it’s perpetuated by people of color is not an anti-racist tendency; it is ultimately quite racist. 2 Many non-Pangram detectors don’t work, but many possible airplane designs also don’t work, and no one considers this a general argument against aviation; the thing that matters is whether any detection works. 3 The phrase “empires have always loved” mysteriously became all the rage in the last few years. See here, here, here, here and here. Before 2025, the only use of that phrase I have been able to find is a single Tweet. The logic of the sentence, too, is incoherent in an AI-characteristic way. “...sounds like paperwork, until you remember that empires have always loved paperwork”? Does remembering that make it sound less like paperwork? It’s a craft-ful sentence, but what is it actually saying??

Sep 6 • 6:05 PM EDT • Technology • theargumentmag.com

Weekly Briefing: Politicians confront genocide and democracy as elections loom in Palestine, Israel, and the U.S.

Gaza’s markets have food but no buyers, Lebanon’s camps lose critical aid, and Palestine, Israel, and the U.S. head toward elections.

Sep 6 • 1:14 PM EDT • Politics • mondoweiss.net

3 N.C. politicians to speak at GOP midterm convention in Dallas

U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson and candidates in key U.S. House and Senate races are set to address this coming week’s gathering.

Sep 6 • 11:42 AM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com

3 N.C. politicians to speak at GOP midterm convention in Dallas

U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson and candidates in key U.S. House and Senate races are set to address this coming week’s gathering.

Sep 6 • 11:42 AM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com

Sven Schulze: CDU's lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt election

Sven Schulze, the CDU’s lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, is seen as a pragmatic and low-profile conservative politician.

Sep 6 • 10:24 AM EDT • Politics • dw.com

Whose names are worth the effort in politics?

From Kamala Harris to Zohran Mamdani, politicians are using name mispronunciation to marginalize their opponents.

Sep 6 • 6:07 AM EDT • Politics • tennessean.com

Whose names are worth the effort in politics?

From Kamala Harris to Zohran Mamdani, politicians are using name mispronunciation to marginalize their opponents.

Sep 6 • 6:07 AM EDT • Politics • theleafchronicle.com

This Campaign Finance Whiz Helps Hawaiʻi Politicians Keep Their Books In Order

After 33 years with the state Campaign Spending Commission, Tony Baldomero is now working for candidates so they file “true and accurate” expense reports.

Sep 6 • 6:01 AM EDT • Politics • civilbeat.org

Wim Wenders stands by Berlin politics comments: “Filmmakers are ...

"Filmmakers are not working with the mindset of politicians," said Wenders.

Sep 6 • 5:30 AM EDT • Politics • screendaily.com

Make politicians pay renaming costs

The renaming of the former Palm Beach International Airport is back in the news, and that prompts some readers to vent about it.

Sep 6 • 5:00 AM EDT • Politics • sun-sentinel.com

Politicians call for bluetongue action in Cumbria

Farmers say they are having to wait to get vaccines for the disease affecting their livestock.

Sep 6 • 3:26 AM EDT • Politics • bbc.com

McKinley’s assassination and the growing distance between politicians and the public

At 4 p.m. on the afternoon of Sept. 6, 1901, the doors of the Temple of Music in Buffalo, N.Y., swung open and the public began filing past the president of the United States. An organist played Bach. William McKinley stood beneath a blue-and-gold dome, smiling and extending his hand to anyone who wished to take it.

Sep 6 • 3:15 AM EDT • Politics • arkansasonline.com

Are we seeing the end of Jewish politicians in the Democratic Party?

One might have thought that advocating for recognition of a Palestinian state and standing up for Islamophobia would have earned him a few brownie points, but when you’re Jewish, none of that matters

Sep 5 • 7:56 PM EDT • Politics • jpost.com

Italy's far-right Vannacci lashes EU in business summit address

Italy's rising ​far-right politician Roberto Vannacci told a high profile business forum on Saturday that the European ‌Union should halt political integration and start defending its cultural identity instead, prompting former Prime Minister Mario Monti to warn against his "fascist rhetoric."

Sep 5 • 10:40 AM EDT • Business • reuters.com

Italy’s far-right Vannacci lashes EU in business summit address

By Valentina Za, Elvira Pollina and Francesca Landini CERNOBBIO, Italy, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Italy's rising far-right politician Roberto Vannacci told a high profile business forum on Saturday that the European Union should halt political integration and...

Sep 5 • 10:40 AM EDT • Business • whbl.com

Italy’s far-right Vannacci lashes EU in business summit address

By Valentina Za, Elvira Pollina and Francesca Landini CERNOBBIO, Italy, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Italy's rising far-right politician Roberto Vannacci told a high profile business forum on Saturday that the European Union should halt political integration and...

Sep 5 • 10:40 AM EDT • Business • kfgo.com

Cut the cameras: Flock surveillance cameras spur rare bipartisan backlash

Politicians on the right and left are pushing back against Flock as more Americans voice opposition to the tech

Sep 5 • 10:00 AM EDT • Politics • theguardian.com

Turning Point is laying the groundwork to shape Republican presidential primary in 2028

Turning Point Action activists made waves at the Iowa State Fair by heckling Democratic politicians

Sep 5 • 7:25 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

The politicians who can fix America’s polarization problem will win (Opinion)

The elected officials who figure out how to govern across difference will dominate the next decade of American politics. With dysfunction and paralysis having become the status quo in Washington, elected officials who work together to get…

Sep 5 • 6:00 AM EDT • Politics • dailycamera.com

Local leaders reflect on life, legacy of longtime South Bend politician

Longtime South Bend politician John Voorde died Sept. 2. Local leaders said he'll be remembered for his dedicated public service and bipartisanship.

Sep 5 • 5:07 AM EDT • Politics • southbendtribune.com

New blood wanted: Israeli politics needs an infusion of unpolluted leaders

I eagerly await the day, perhaps in the 2028 or 2030 elections, when the current crop of politicians will have passed – and that means everybody from Netanyahu to Lapid and Gafni.

Sep 4 • 3:52 PM EDT • Politics • jpost.com

Gilchrist and Ann Arbor politicians discuss affordability and civic engagement at College Dems event

Students gathered at the Michigan Union Thursday evening to meet Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, Michigan secretary of state candidate, and other local political officials. The event, hosted by College Democrats at the University of Michigan, featured conversations about data centers, housing, and the importance of voting.

Sep 4 • 10:50 AM EDT • Politics • michigandaily.com

Maxwell: Remember the Florida politicians who cast cruel votes against heat safety

Maxwell: Two years ago, Florida lawmakers voted to ban counties from giving outdoor workers basic heat-safety protections, like guaranteed access to water and shade. You should remember who they are and how they voted.

Sep 4 • 6:00 AM EDT • Politics • orlandosentinel.com

Flock Donations to Local Politicians’ Groups Skyrocket as Protests Against AI Cameras Mount

As fed-up activists target Flock, the surveillance camera company is increasing donations to associations for mayors and other local officials.

Sep 4 • 5:00 AM EDT • Politics • theintercept.com

Gloversville politician arrested, accused of assault

Hernigle remains on paid administrative leave with the Gloversville police, according to Cpt. Bradley Schaffer, an agency spokesperson.

Sep 3 • 4:03 PM EDT • Politics • timesunion.com

Abdul El-Sayed is the latest Muslim candidate to labeled an anti-American extremist.

The bigoted rhetoric against Muslim American politicians is backfiring

Sep 3 • 3:22 PM EDT • Politics • latimes.com

Italy's Vannacci gains establishment platform at elite business forum

Italian far-right politician Roberto Vannacci will attend a key business forum this week, a sign of his growing mainstream acceptance as he climbs the ​polls on a platform that critics say disparages migrants, women and minority rights.

Sep 3 • 8:23 AM EDT • Business • reuters.com

The politics of AI data centers

Public opposition over data centers is uniting people of all political stripes and is forcing politicians to course correct.

Sep 2 • 12:00 PM EDT • Politics • whyy.org

Farewell Keir Starmer, a terrible politician whom we desperately wanted to be something more

‘U-turn’ doesn’t do justice to the myriad ways he found to break a pledge. Now the former PM is resigning as an MP, why did I have such high hopes? asks Guardian columnist Zoe Williams

Sep 2 • 10:02 AM EDT • Politics • theguardian.com

Don’t trade away our TABOR refunds

Here we go again — tax-and-spend politicians going in the wrong direction. Colorado families are being asked to believe a familiar lie: the only way to fund education is to let politicians keep more of your money — forever. Proposition NN is being sold as a solution for schools and teacher pay. But look past […]

Sep 2 • 3:00 AM EDT • Politics • coloradopolitics.com

Voters Are Rejecting Elderly Politicians. So What’s This 80-Year-Old Senator’s Secret?

Tonight’s big Senate primary is scrambling a national trend.

Sep 1 • 3:38 PM EDT • Politics • slate.com

Andy Burnham promises more devolution and public control of essential services

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said Burnham was offering "more government control, more taxes and more politicians", as he addressed MPs for the first time as PM.

Sep 1 • 3:18 PM EDT • Politics • bbc.com

Measles deaths reported in Pennsylvania spark feud among politicians and health officials

Medical experts say the brouhaha has diverted focus from an exploding public health threat.

Aug 31 • 12:47 PM EDT • Health • pbs.org

Measles deaths reported in Pennsylvania spark feud among politicians and health officials

Medical experts say the brouhaha has diverted focus from an exploding public health threat.

Aug 31 • 12:47 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

Minnesota State Fair: Political Hub, Always Center Stage

It's more than food on a stick, long lines and Grandstand shows. The Minnesota State Fair has always been a proving ground, outreach opportunity, and sometimes divisive stage for politicians, from local candidates up to the nation's highest office. Yes, politics is yet another State Fair tradition. | 830 WCCO

Aug 31 • 9:49 AM EDT • Politics • audacy.com

Politicians paying influencers for support — some without disclosing: Report

Unbiased Politics News

Aug 31 • 8:00 AM EDT • Politics • thehill.com

Missouri activists want fewer cameras on citizens and more on politicians

Missouri conservatives are pushing back on Flock cameras while demanding more transparency through livestreaming in the state Senate.

Aug 31 • 6:50 AM EDT • Politics • missouriindependent.com

Google is getting flak for changing Lake Ontario name to Lake America

Canadian politicians are also scrubbing government websites that embed Google Maps to ensure the lake is labeled Lake Ontario.

Aug 31 • 1:02 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Democratic congressional nominee Brad Lander faces anti-Israel hecklers at New York protest

Brad Lander, a Democratic congressional nominee in New York City, faced heckling Saturday over his stance on Israel as he protested a Hindu nationalist politician speaking at Madison Square Garden.

Aug 30 • 8:23 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com

These Democrats used to be Republicans — and hope that will help them win midterms

In races across the country, former GOP politicians are leaning into their pasts.

Aug 30 • 5:00 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Jelly Roll Slams Politicians On Both Sides For "Sh*t Job"

After Jelly Roll avoided discussing his politics at the Grammy Awards in February, he peeled off the band-aid this week with a heartfelt speech.

Aug 29 • 10:47 PM EDT • Politics • deadline.com

Gov. Abbott blocks funding in Texas for Flock cameras as bipartisan fury brews

The automated license plate readers aren’t popular with the public. Politicians are catching on.

Aug 29 • 2:02 PM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Measles deaths reported in Pennsylvania spark fight among politicians and health officials

NEW YORK — The recent announcement of Pennsylvania’s first measles-related deaths in decades has ignited a public feud among politicians and health officials who disagree over the role of the contagious disease in the fatalities.

Aug 28 • 9:51 PM EDT • Health • timesleader.com

Measles deaths reported in Pennsylvania spark fight among politicians and health officials

The recent announcement of Pennsylvania’s first measles-related deaths in decades has ignited a public feud among politicians and health officials who disagree over the role of the contagious disease in the fatalities

Aug 28 • 7:18 PM EDT • Health • washingtonpost.com

Senior German politicians call for ban on parts of far-right AfD

Boris Pistorius and Cem Özdemir say top court should consider outlawing Alternative for Germany’s most radical flank

Aug 28 • 4:58 PM EDT • Politics • ft.com

As public trust declines, Muslim politicians are rising to the occasion

Declining trust in institutions widens what political scientists call the representation gap.

Aug 28 • 11:00 AM EDT • Politics • thehill.com

Minnesota politicians take their campaigns to the ‘ultimate town hall’

Amy Klobuchar, Lisa Demuth and Peggy Flanagan grew up attending the Minnesota State Fair. They returned Thursday as they campaign for statewide office.

Aug 28 • 6:00 AM EDT • Politics • startribune.com

Is Germany benefitting yet from the crisis in US research?

Science|Business - Table.Media partnershipScience|Business has partnered with Table.Media, a leading source of news about higher education and research in Germany. Each week, we are publishing one of each other’s stories to give readers an even broader range of insight into R&D policy across Europe.Drawing over 500 participants, the German Academic International Network conference in San Francisco brings together researchers, universities, scientific organisations and policymakers in the US as part of an attempt to recruit international talent for Germany. It also serves as an annual barometer for the uncertainty triggered by the Trump administration’s science policies. As was the case last year, Germany’s political presence was unusually strong: federal lawmakers, nine state ministers of science and research, and federal research state secretary Marcus Pleyer all attended. Joybrato Mukherjee, president of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), has observed a marked shift at US universities a year after the Trump administration began sweeping interventions: the initial state of "shock and paralysis" has given way to a strategic approach to the situation. Universities are seeking new funding sources, mounting legal challenges against interventions and opening themselves up more to international collaborations, including with Germany, he said. Early-career international researchers with expiring visas are considered particularly vulnerable. Germany is benefiting from increased demand among this pool of young talent; the country’s 1,000 Minds Plus programme, designed in part to lure German academics back home, has already filled up around one-third of its capacity. Meanwhile, Markus Blume, Bavaria’s science minister and current chair of the federal Conference of Science Ministers, sees an "enormous outflow of talent from the US." An increasing number of international researchers want to leave. Applications to Canada have risen by 42% January, and those to Europe by 32%. Meanwhile, the number of people drawn to the US is plummeting. "In this context, Germany must position itself as a prime destination offering reliable conditions, institutional stability and academic freedom, including through smart collaborations," Blume told Table.Briefings.“Darkest hour”At the get-together in San Francisco, the former president of the US National Academy of Sciences, Marcia McNutt, highlighted the gravity of the situation on the ground in a keynote address. She described the present moment as the "darkest hour for the US scientific system." At the same time, she said that cooperation should be maintained, especially during a crisis. Established researchers in the US are less likely to leave. Ulrike Malmendier, a former member of the German Council of Economic Experts and an economist at Berkeley, explained why established researchers are not packing their bags and leaving the US in droves: working conditions and the concentration of talent at places like Berkeley and Stanford remain unparalleled. According to Peter-André Alt, managing director of the Wübben Foundation, which helps Germany attract international academics, political restrictions are not the only grievance voiced by US-based researchers. "There are evidently still many areas where, fortunately, unfettered research is possible," Alt told Table.Briefings. Instead, the primary complaint concerns the cost of living, which has "skyrocketed” to absurd levels. "Runaway inflation, like that currently seen in the US, is certainly no draw for young scientific talent,” he said. Return homeA growing number of early-career researchers from Germany appear to be considering a return home. Jörn Benzinger, who is responsible for recruiting early-career researchers from abroad at Ruhr University Bochum, reports numerous conversations with researchers who are taking a closer look at the German academic landscape."Germany has definitely moved more into the spotlight,” he said. States, university alliances and research organisations joined forces to recruit talent. Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia were prominently represented, as were alliances such as the Berlin University Alliance and the University Alliance Ruhr. Benzinger sums up Germany’s approach with a new formula: "collaboration is the new competition." He notes that it is becoming increasingly difficult for individual universities to gain international visibility, while regional research ecosystems and collaborations are growing in importance. Afraid to leaveThe crisis in the US academic sector is also straining transatlantic research relations. Benzinger reports that some US-based researchers had to decline brief invitations to Germany because they could not be certain of being allowed to re-enter the US afterward.He considers the simple poaching of researchers to be the wrong approach; what is needed, he says, are "reliable offers and long-term partnerships."However, Green Party politician Ayşe Asar, who also attended the conference, sees a significant need for improvement, particularly regarding career paths in Germany.While lifetime professorships and academic freedom certainly make Germany attractive, young researchers also require predictable career paths, tenure-track positions and flatter hierarchies.

Aug 27 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencebusiness.net

Politicians in both parties are sprinting away from data centers

In recent weeks, Democrats and Republicans alike have rushed to take a more skeptical tone to data centers as public sentiment continues to sour.

Aug 26 • 12:00 PM EDT • Politics • politico.com

Greg Gutfeld: Politicians love playing into imagined fears

Fox News host Greg Gutfeld and the ‘Gutfeld!’ panel examine the rise of artificial intelligence, the national debate over data centers and its political impacts.

Aug 25 • 10:51 PM EDT • Politics • foxnews.com

Enough with the podcasts. We elected politicians, not influencers.

From bikini pics to podcast launches, our elected officials are increasingly obsessed with becoming influencers – chasing followers while the actual job of governing gets left behind.

Aug 25 • 8:11 PM EDT • Politics • detroitnews.com

Every politician says they’re for the working man, so why are only 1% of elected officials from the working class?

Researchers tracking 97 democracies find working-class candidates are just as qualified and likely to win as white-collar rivals, but don't get recruited.

Aug 25 • 5:12 PM EDT • Politics • fortune.com

Actors, politicians react to Dolly Parton’s death at 80

"No matter how big her star got, she never stopped being one of us," said Rep. Diana Harshbarger, who represents Sevier County, Tennessee, where Parton was raised.

Aug 25 • 2:50 PM EDT • Politics • ms.now

Why politicians are punchlines at the Edinburgh Fringe

There was a time when satire had an easier gig. Politicians said something ridiculous, comedians made fun of them, audiences laughed, and everyone went home. Subscribe Now the joke is often the headline. In a world where the unbelievable regularly makes the news, where politics can veer into parody before the comedians have had time to write the punchline, you might reasonably wonder: is satire running out of material? Not in Edinburgh. At the Fringe, I can confirm satire has a pulse, even in a relentless and rapid news cycle. Politicians as punchlines Take NewsRevue, the world’s longest-running live sketch show, where politicians are turned into punchlines at industrial speed. Its latest target? Andy Burnham - or, more accurately, his doppelganger, pictured below in the middle. The joke, he tells us, is that there have been so many politicians coming and going that even satire risks suffering from political fatigue. But perhaps that revolving door is precisely why comedy matters. When the news cycle moves faster than our ability to process it, comedians can hold up a mirror - and make us think twice. Small talk Take Ayoade Bamgboye, the Saturday Night Live UK star who won the Best Newcomer prize at last year’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards. Her Fringe debut was critically acclaimed; this year she is turning her attention to one of Britain’s most baffling social rituals: small talk. Share It’s a reminder that satire doesn’t always need a politician in its sights. Sometimes the target is simply us civilians - the strange little rules and rituals we have collectively agreed to pretend are normal. Politics and Palestinian identity For British-Palestinian comedian Sami Abu Wardeh, pictured below, comedy has a more urgent job. His new show, Sami Abu Wardeh Hates You, asks who gets to hate, and whether anger belongs to everyone, not just the far right. His comedy confronts politics and Palestinian identity while refusing to surrender the simple business of making people laugh. Shakespeare meets climate crisis And then there is HAM: an “eco-hijacking” of Hamlet, which its creators describe as “a sordid wrestle between a vegan and a sausage-lover”. Shakespeare meets the climate crisis. Meat meets moral panic. The end result? You’ll leave promising to become vegan and swiftly bulk buying Linda McCartney sausages. HAM was created by theatre company Hotter Project, aka Ell Potter and Mary Higgins, pictured below. They say comedy helped them avoid the preachiness sometimes associated with climate activism - using Shakespeare as a vessel for uncomfortable questions about the planet, politics and the way we live. Perhaps that is satire’s secret weapon. It doesn’t necessarily make the world less absurd. It makes the absurdity crystal clear. And at a moment when reality increasingly feels like it has been written by a sketch writer, the Fringe is proving there is still plenty to laugh and cry at. Satire isn’t dead. It’s alive, subletting and having the time of its life at the Fringe. Subscribe Share Channel 4 News Leave a comment

Aug 24 • 12:02 PM EDT • Politics • channel4news.substack.com

French Politician Glucksmann Launches Presidential Bid Amid Fractured Left

By Michel Rose PARIS, Aug 23 (Reuters) - French centre-left politician ⁠Raphael ⁠Glucksmann launched a bid for ⁠the presidency on Sunday, seeking to challenge firebrand hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon for dominance of France's fractured left ahead of a campaign increasingly shaped by the far ...

Aug 23 • 3:12 PM EDT • Politics • usnews.com

Why every French politician is now a Gaullist

The revival of de Gaulle’s legendary role in the second world war coincides with an increasing number of claims to his legacy

Aug 23 • 1:58 PM EDT • Politics • ft.com

Taxpayers donate to tax increase campaign

Give the man his due. President Donald Trump has undeniable talents. Colorado politicians are learning. Chief among The Don’s skills is taking the self-serving, ethically dubious behavior of previous politicians and putting it on steroids. Or, to borrow from the only documentary that tells the whole truth about anything, “This Is Spinal Tap,” Trump turns […]

Aug 23 • 7:00 AM EDT • Politics • coloradopolitics.com

See the moment when Republican politicians turned against data centers

In the past six months, Republicans' public statements about data centers have turned sharply negative, according to a Washington Post analysis.

Aug 23 • 5:00 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Israeli politicians focus on foreign threats, ignoring spiralling debt

Aug 23 • 3:46 AM EDT • Politics • aljazeera.com

Iran’s Top Politicians Urge an End to the War

The country’s president and its parliamentary speaker say Tehran needs to negotiate an exit and shore up its economy while it has leverage.

Aug 22 • 5:15 AM EDT • Politics • wsj.com