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Just When We Think We Have Mother Nature Figured Out, She Throws Us a Bright Orange Shark (Maria)

The author writes, “A nurse shark caught and released off Costa Rica has stunned scientists with blazing orange skin and white eyes, signaling two rare pigment conditions in one animal. A new study formally documents the first case of xanthism in this species and notes signs of albinism. The adult, about 6.6 feet long, was hooked by sport fishers in 2024 and photographed at roughly 120 feet below the surface before being released. The research team describes the find as the first scientifically verified xanthic nurse shark.”

The Many Ways in Which the September 2 Caribbean Strike was Unlawful … and the Grave Line the Military Has Crossed (Dana)

The author writes, “Now that the President has submitted the required War Powers Resolution report to Congress, we can begin to take stock of just how extraordinary and significant last Tuesday’s lethal strike in the Caribbean Sea was. As I will try to explain below, it’s likely that the President lacked any affirmative domestic authority to order the strike, and the strike itself appears to have violated several legal prohibitions. Those legal transgressions, however, aren’t necessarily the most significant thing about the strike. As I’ll discuss at the end of this piece, regardless of which laws might have been broken, what’s more alarming, and of greater long-term concern, is that US military personnel crossed a fundamental line the Department of Defense has been resolutely committed to upholding for many decades — namely, that the military must not use lethal force against civilians.”

The Gaza Family Torn Apart by IDF Snipers From Chicago and Munich (Russ)

From The Guardian: “Daniel Raab shows no hesitation as he watches footage of 19-year-old Salem Doghmosh crumpling to the ground beside his brother in a street in northern Gaza. ‘That was my first elimination,’ he says. The video, shot by a drone, lasts just a few seconds. The Palestinian teenager appears to be unarmed when he is shot in the head. Raab, a former varsity basketball player from a Chicago suburb who became an Israeli sniper, concedes he knew that. He says he shot Salem simply because he tried to retrieve the body of his beloved older brother Mohammed.”

Trump’s Chicago Occupation Could Cost Four Times More Than Housing City Homeless (Laura)

From The Intercept: “President Donald Trump’s plan to add Chicago to the list of American cities under US military occupation could cost almost $1.6 million per day, according to an expert estimate furnished exclusively to The Intercept. … An analysis by Hanna Homestead of the National Priorities Project, a nonpartisan research group, found that if Trump deployed 3,000 National Guard troops to Chicago it would cost taxpayers around $1,590,000 per day. It’s the latest runaway expense — expected to climb into the hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars — connected to Trump’s efforts to turn the US into a genuine police state.”

Vile Grifters Are Taking Over Establishment Media (Sean)

From The Nation: “Bari Weiss has been making the world worse for a long time. Twenty years ago, as a student at Columbia, she led a racist smear campaign against Arab professors who had the audacity to criticize Israel. As a New York Times columnist, she constantly hawked right-wing bile while posing as a liberal who was just tired of all the extremism and censorship on the left—a tedious bait-and-switch that nevertheless sent her media profile soaring. And, as founder and editor of The Free Press, she has pushed genocide denial, transphobia, and the freedom to make Nazi salutes. If we lived in a less terrible time and place, Weiss would be dismissed as a crank and a bigot, and never heard from again. But we live in the waking nightmare that is the United States in 2025. So instead Weiss is being rewarded with a prize that even she must think is kind of wild. That prize? CBS News.”

NASA Discovers ‘Clearest Sign of Life That We’ve Ever Found on Mars’ (Gerry)

The author writes, “Rolling across the rugged, rusty red terrain on Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover came upon some rocks with peculiar green, blue, black, and white dots. After detailed image analysis, scientists have come to a potentially encouraging conclusion: If those speckled rocks were formed like they are on Earth, they might be evidence of past life on the dusty planet. … The rocks, or mudstones, are composed of finely packed sediment and covered in specks resembling poppy seeds and leopard spots. The colorful features, the study found, are minerals that — on Earth — have traditionally been created from microbial activity.”