Author @gilduran.com was just banned from “free speech absolutist” twitter for criticizing the Palantir CEO’s manifesto— so here’s his upcoming book: www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Ne...

Pope Leo aboard flight to Equatorial Guinea: “On this first anniversary of his death, I would like to remember Pope Francis—who left behind, who gave so much to the Church through his life, his witness, his words, and his gestures.

Page One.

@wsj.com #Florida

ICYMI — new HUNGARY 🇭🇺 PM Magyar says Netanyahu will be arrested if he goes to Hungary

PowerLight’s laser power beaming system keeps a drone in the air for hours during Pentagon test flights PowerLight's wireless system could keep military drones flying indefinitely, or be adapted as a directed-energy system for countering drones.

A Seattle-area tech venture called PowerLight Technologies demonstrated to the Pentagon how it can keep a military drone flying with its power-beaming laser system. The system could also be adapted to fight off enemy drones. www.geekwire.com/2026/powerli...

InfoWars Let me tell you a story. When I was a child, I suffered from night terrors. It was always the same dream: I could hear my family and neighbors wailing…

Some timeline stuff:
— We expect to get InfoWars.com after the judge clears it in a couple of weeks.
— We'll build a world of characters on the site and across social media. Tim Heidecker is in charge, and we have grand designs.
— Visit theonion.info, buy a subscription, help us dominate the world.

Map: 7.4-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Near Japan View the location of the quake’s epicenter and shake area.

A major, 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck off the northeast coast of Japan on Monday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Here's a map of the quake and aftershocks.

In a first, Blue Origin uses a recycled rocket to send a satellite into orbit — unfortunately, it’s the wrong orbit Blue Origin used a previously flown rocket booster for a satellite launch and landed it again, but the satellite went into the wrong orbit.

UPDATE: After a good-looking launch and landing for Blue Origin's first twice-used New Glenn rocket booster, AST SpaceMobile reports that its satellite was put into an orbit that's too low to sustain operations. www.geekwire.com/2026/blue-or...

ASTS confirms unrecoverable failure but without any specific orbital parameters www.businesswire.com/news/home/20...

transits of planets in astrology graphic

"We don’t have too long to wait for the other shoe to drop," says an astrologer.

Tomorrow evening, Mercury, Saturn, and Mars will all be clustered together in a super-tight conjunction, with only 0 degrees 37 minutes separating them.

Last time the world saw something like this, Napoleon died.

The New Twin Fossil Shock | Ember How the energy crises of the 2020s speed up the electric age

Trust your common sense: yes, a series of massive fossil fuel supply shocks is, in fact, going to radically accelerate the process of electrification & decarbonization.

In a first, Blue Origin uses a recycled rocket to send a satellite into space — but it ends up in ‘off-nominal orbit’ Blue Origin used a previously flown rocket booster for a satellite launch and landed it again, but the satellite went into the wrong orbit.

Blue Origin was able to stick the landing at sea with a previously flown rocket booster - which is a first for the New Glenn launch system. However, the satellite that was launched didn't reach its intended orbit, and the company says it's assessing the situation. www.geekwire.com/2026/blue-or...

Not great news from Blue Origin after today's New Glenn launch: "We have confirmed payload separation. AST SpaceMobile has confirmed the satellite has powered on. The payload was placed into an off-nominal orbit. We are currently assessing and will update when we have more detailed information."

Physicists share the glory and the wealth after winning $3M for exploring muon mysteries A University of Washington professor and hundreds of others who measured the muon's magnetism have won a $3 million Breakthrough Prize.

Hundreds of researchers will share the $3 million Breakthrough Prize for Fundamental Physics, in recognition of their work on a project called the Muon g-2 Collaboration. The prize was awarded at a glitzy ceremony that the organizers call the "Oscars of Science." www.geekwire.com/2026/physici...

"there is only one majority in this country and that is the working class."

NASA Shuts Off Instrument on Voyager 1 to Keep Spacecraft Operating - NASA Science On April 17, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California sent commands to shut down an instrument aboard Voyager 1 called the

NASA turned off one of the instruments on Voyager 1. The decision is considered the best option to keep the 49 yo spacecraft operating while they finalize a plan -- the "Big Bang" -- to keep it going even longer.
science.nasa.gov/blogs/voyage...

Peter Schiff: The most likely explanation for Trump's Truth Social lies about Iran on Friday, is market manipulation. If so, Trump insiders must have made billions. The next likely possibility is that Trump is either delusional, incompetent, or a combination of both. Either way it's not good.

As Much as I Appreciate the Trenchant Commentary on the American Healthcare System, I’m Here at The Pitt Because My Appendix Burst “The Pitt is severely underfunded, and if nurses are dealing painkillers just to make rent, that says something troubling about economic instability. It also...

"I can plainly see the staff is so used to bending over backward, they won’t admit they’re broken. It’s a damning indictment of the status quo, and this place is a microcosm of our country’s messed-up healthcare system, and it’s not okay. But I’m here about my appendix."

"In public, Chief Justice John Roberts has cultivated a reputation for care & caution. The papers reveal a different side of him. At a critical moment for the country & the court, he acted as a bulldozer in pushing to stop Mr. Obama’s plan to address the global climate crisis."

The big upshot here is that you can’t assess the Pope Leo vs. Trump back-and-forth using a solely U.S.-centric political lens.

But you also can’t assume the Vatican doesn’t have a ton of geopolitical/geotheological subtext undergirding all of this as well.

Relatedly: hire more religion reporters.

In Our Glorious AI Future, There Will Be No Such Thing as Money (For You) “In the future, there is such a thing as money. But there’s no such thing as your money. All the money is our money.”

"Gather around, everyday working people, and allow me to lay out a grand vision for a brave new world. A world in which all economic functions are done by computers and robots. A world where the very concept of having money no longer exists (for all of you)."

“Leo has issued consistent calls for peace and dialogue, and has denounced the use of religious justification for war... The Vatican has stressed that when Leo preaches about peace, he is referring to all wars ravaging the planet, not just the Iran conflict.”

I'm frankly surprised it took this long after the US blockade started.

The author of this article refused to sign an NDA, giving up severance and healthcare benefits to tell this story.

If you didn't read it already, read it.

Because he refused, we may be able to stop the Kennedy Center from being sold for parts and turned into a gaudy MAGA fundraising warehouse.

Justice Roberts believes the Supreme Court should just call balls and strikes!
But also, when he feels like it: supervise groundskeeping, design stadiums, re-write the rulebook, and decide whether it's too expensive too keep the playing field from being destroyed by global warming.

Ukraine Has Written Off the United States Zelensky has stopped pretending that Trump might be an ally.

Latest in @theatlantic.com The Ukrainians are now longer pretending that Donald Trump's USA is their friend. Their honesty is important as they seem to understand how much Trump is helping Putin and how important it is that Europe stick together. Gift Link. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

The FBI Director Is MIA Kash Patel has alarmed colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences.

And here’s a gift link to the remarkable story about the FBI Director from @theatlantic.com.

www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

We Have Achieved Our Goal of Making Everything Worse Than It Was Before “Some people might argue that negotiating yourself out of a situation of your own making only to walk away with less than nothing is no cause for celebration...

"What’s the point in having elected leaders if they’re not going to start costly wars that nobody voted for? How else were we going to spend those billions of dollars we had lying around? Invest in public schools and healthcare? That's ridiculous."

AP: “Iranian gunboats fire on tanker in Strait of Hormuz as Tehran reimposes restrictions” apnews.com/live/iran-wa...

Iran Parliament Speaker: “Trump lied 7 times in an hour”

I wasn’t joking when I said that. I literally got called in to take a photo of a lunar lander in its shipping container.