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North Carolina and 22 States Sue EPA for Canceled Solar Energy Grants Worth $7B (Maria)
The author writes, “North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, along with lawmakers of 22 other states, filed lawsuits against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The lawsuits seek to restore more than $7B in ‘Solar for All’ grants that were canceled this year. The ‘Solar for All’ program sought to install rooftop solar panels for low and medium-income families.”
People Targeted by the Justice Department Face Steep Costs, Even if They Win in Court (Reader Jim)
From NPR: “Some Justice Department officials are following President Trump’s directive to prosecute his perceived enemies. For those targeted, mounting a criminal defense against the government can be expensive.”
Opus Dei ‘On the Cusp of Ceasing To Exist’ (DonkeyHotey)
The author writes, “Opus Dei is braced for an imminent intervention from the Vatican, with Pope Leo set to sign off on potentially devastating reforms designed at killing off many of the group’s abusive practices — and reining in its power both within the Church and across wider society. That’s according to the Spanish Catholic website InfoVaticana, which is considered close to the group, and which cites sources both within the Vatican and inside Opus Dei.”
What Is Going On in the Grocery Industry? (Dana)
From Jacobin: “Will Amazon disrupt groceries? How did Walmart take over food sales? Is Zohran Mamdani’s public grocery plan too small? Why is the market increasingly polarized between Erewhons and dollar stores? An ex–Whole Foods vice president gives us an industry tour.”
Political Whiplash Is Terrible for Wolves’ Future. But More Is Coming. (Laura)
The authors write, “After a judge lamented the ‘political yo-yo’ process embroiling wolf management in the Northern Rockies, no one appears to know how to deescalate the debate.”
Read What a Chinese Officer Wrote of D-Day in His Diary Salvaged in Hong Kong (Reader Steve)
The authors write, “The captain of the giant Royal Navy battleship called his officers together to give them a first morsel of one of World War II’s most closely guarded secrets: Prepare yourselves, he said, for ‘an extremely important task.’ ‘Speculations abound,’ one of the officers wrote in his diary that day — June 2, 1944. … The secret was D-Day — the June 6, 1944, invasion of Nazi-occupied France with the world’s largest-ever sea, land and air armada. … The diary writer was Lam Ping-yu — a Chinese officer who crossed the world with two dozen comrades-in-arms from China to train and serve with Allied forces in Europe.”
Quasicrystals Spill Secrets of Their Formation (Sean)
From Quanta Magazine: “Since their discovery in 1982, exotic materials known as quasicrystals have bedeviled physicists and chemists. Their atoms arrange themselves into chains of pentagons, decagons and other shapes to form patterns that never quite repeat. These patterns seem to defy physical laws and intuition. How can atoms possibly ‘know’ how to form elaborate nonrepeating arrangements without an advanced understanding of mathematics?”
