With apologies, this is a long post for any night, let alone a Saturday, but Trump’s abuse of the power of the prosecutor and efforts to directly control the work of the Justice Department make it essential. In a world that has become a constant barrage of horribles from this president, know that what I’m writing to you about tonight is exceptionally serious and dangerous.

A wind turbine generating electricity at a wind farm in Rhode Island in July 2022. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

WITH HIS BROAD SHOULDERS, thick arms, and even thicker New England accent, ironworker David Langlais is exactly the sort of American who is supposed to love Donald Trump’s policies. But Langlais says he is dumbfounded by some of the president’s recent decisions, especially the one that halted work on an energy project off the coast of Rhode Island.

Jimmy Kimmel should have stuck to acceptable comments, like suggesting that homeless people be executed. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

"Cancel culture," "intimidation" and reminiscent of the Red Scare. That's how three First Amendment advocates described Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita's desire to publicly document and shame the controversial speech of some teachers following conservative activist Charlie Kirk's assassination.

International medical professionals who volunteered in Gaza hospitals said they treated more than 100 Palestinian children who were shot in the head or chest by Israeli forces in what appears to be a pattern of deliberate targeting, according to an investigation published Saturday by a Dutch newspaper.

Hoosiers protest potential mid-cycle redistricting outside the Indiana Statehouse on Tuesday, August 26, 2025. (Leslie Bonilla Muñiz/Indiana Capital Chronicle)

The stakes of the current redistricting debate threaten the health of our representative democracy. This is not hyperbole. Most elementary definitions of democracy indicate that free and fair elections are a prerequisite for government responsiveness. Voters get to choose their elected officials. It should not work the other way around.

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade is facing calls to resign after suggesting earlier this week that the state should execute homeless people who decline help during a live broadcast.

Free speech advocates are sounding the alarm about a bill in the US House of Representatives that they fear could allow Secretary of State Marco Rubio to strip US citizens of their passports based purely on political speech.

The bill, introduced by Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), will come up for a hearing on Wednesday. According to The Intercept:

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller vowed Friday that he and President Donald Trump would use this week’s assassination of Charlie Kirk to “dismantle” the organized left using state power.

Demonstrators in Chicago protest against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies on Sept. 6. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

When 30-year-old American journalist William L. Shirer arrived in Germany in 1934, he was puzzled by why the vast majority of everyday Germans had accommodated themselves to living in a totalitarian state.

As a direct result of Republicans’ controversial HEA 1447 (2023) and SEA 442 (2025), one Indiana school corporation has just banned 6 books:

Purdue University researcher Danzhou Yang is exploring a natural check on cancer that could be used to stop the disease. Yang’s work is partly funded by a current grant from the National Institutes of Health. She is not on the list of recipients with canceled grants. (Charles Jischke/Purdue University)

The nation’s largest scientific research funder abruptly canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in grants earlier this year, specifically targeting projects that addressed diversity, inclusion or vaccines.

— What if Tyler Robinson isn’t a leftie? Increasingly, as Joy Reid reports, it appears that Kirk’s alleged assassin is a rightwing “Groyper” gamer, not a leftie. This is a hard right hate-driven group/gamer-subculture that disdained Kirk as a Republican establishment sellout.

President Donald Trump speaking in the Oval Office on Wednesday. White House video

There are an estimated 500 million civilian-owned guns in the United States. There are 340.1 million people in America. It only takes 0.00000029 percent of the population—one person—with one of those half-billion guns to change our world.

Dear Fellow Vermonter,