In the Image of God: John Comenius and the First Children’s Picture Book Public Domain Review
‘Deeply concerning’: reading for fun in the US has fallen by 40%, new study says The Guardian
It-girl literary heroines are all cannibals now The New Statesmen. Quite the lede.
Climate/Environment
Enormous Erin Growing Larger: Violent Seas, Dangerous Waves, and Treacherous Surf Expected Along the U.S. East Coast Eye on the Tropics
Major heatwave to bring increased wildfire risk, and (finally!) a substantive monsoonal surge to California & Southwest Weather West
Melting on the Arctic’s Svalbard Islands Shows the Climate Future Is Now Inside Climate News
Europe’s record mosquito-borne disease activity could signal new normal CIDRAP
NJ resident infected with malaria, possibly from local mosquito, a rarity here Northjersey.com
Pandemics
Brainstem Reduction and Deformation in the 4th Ventricle Cerebellar Peduncles in Long COVID Patients: Insights into Neuroinflammatory Sequelae and “Broken Bridge Syndrome” medRiv (preprint). Breakdown:
🔬Interesting new brainstem and cerebellum study in Long COVID – new imaging findings from 2025
A new brain imaging study of Long COVID patients reveals major damage in key parts of the brain responsible for movement, balance, and automatic body functions like heart rate and… pic.twitter.com/vl8kA6MvJL
— Jack | amatica health (@JackHadfield14) August 19, 2025
A Remedial Class in Basic Leadership Pandemic Accountability Index
Japan
Defense Ministry to seek record 8.8 trillion yen for fiscal 2026 Asahi Shimbun
Okinawan rights ignored as military crimes persist East Asia Forum
Fire Breaks Out on USS New Orleans Off Okinawa gCaptain
India
Press release on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s upcoming talks with Foreign Minister of India Subrahmanyam Jaishankar The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. “The meeting’s agenda will focus on facilitating the emergence of transport, logistics, banking and financial links and chains that would be immune to any adverse pressures from unfriendly countries, while also increasing the use of national currencies in their mutual settlements.”
India test-fires nuclear-capable ballistic missile, with eye on China Straits Times
China?
Why is the US sparing China, but not India, for importing Russian oil? Al Jazeera
As US tariffs bite, China and India need each other more than ever Think China
China turns against Nvidia’s AI chip after ‘insulting’ Howard Lutnick remarks FT
Africa
US Bombs al-Shabaab, Marking 58th Airstrike in Somalia of the Year Antiwar
Syraqistan
Inside the IDF’s plan to relocate 1 million Gazans Israel Hayoum
Director-General of Gaza’s Health Ministry: “The occupancy rate of hospital beds has reached 300% — an unprecedented figure that reflects the scale of the health and humanitarian catastrophe we are experiencing today.” https://t.co/HCRUHtH7cx pic.twitter.com/kQVXP9YGG1
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) August 20, 2025
Israel is deliberately preventing ICU beds from entering Gaza so that the thousands of malnourished children in Gaza cannot be saved & instead face a slow, painful and miserable death pic.twitter.com/hjdVF5wkr4
— Zachary Foster (@_ZachFoster) August 19, 2025
🇮🇱🇵🇸 Israel’s minister of national security Ben Gvir placed a photo of the large scale destruction of Gaza in a prison so Palestinian prisoners see it every time they pass by pic.twitter.com/l860EaBxFW
— HOT SPOT (@HotSpotHotSpot) August 20, 2025
Israel approves E1 settlement to ‘erase’ Palestinian state with ‘actions not slogans’ Middle East Eye
MAGA erupts after Israeli official charged in child sex ring flees U.S. Axios
A leak within a leak: extradition requests with Israel as of May 2022 All-Source Intelligence
US To Fund $500 Million Boeing KC-46 Tanker Aircraft Deal for Israel Antiwar
Pentagon Eyes $3.5 Billion Restock Costs From Israel Operations Bloomberg
Old Blighty
The police pulled over my car. The lack of a reason should worry us all Jonathan Cook
Sally Rooney: I support Palestine Action. If this makes me a ‘supporter of terror’ under UK law, so be it Irish Times
UK warns Sally Rooney after novelist pledges to fund Palestine Act Al Jazeera
Concern as MoD reportedly poised to hand £2bn training deal to Elbit, Israel’s largest arms firm Action on Armed Violence
European Disunion
The controversial ‘wine queen’ who rules Germany’s parliament Euractiv
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia says it must be included in any Ukraine security guarantees FT
Pentagon says US will play a minimal role in Ukraine’s security guarantee Politico
Alaska was entertaining, now back to the war… Mark Sleboda (video)
🇷🇺⚔️🇺🇦 Ukraine’s Military Losses Exposed: 1.7 Million Dead and Missing
Russian hackers have reportedly breached the Ukrainian General Staff’s database, revealing catastrophic losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
According to the compromised digital registry, if the data is… pic.twitter.com/dq2G9QNYEv
— DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) August 20, 2025
Alastair Crooke: Trump’s Bold Gamble Dialogue Works (video)
Trump’s Gambit to Weaken BRICS Backfires… Is He Still Trying to Woo Russia in a Bid to Defeat China? Larry Johnson
Trump Has No Idea How to Do Diplomacy Stephen Walt, Foreign Policy. Does anyone in the US?
We didn’t ask for Stalin’s permission to create NATO in 1949. We didn’t ask Khrushchev’s permission to bring West Germany into NATO in 1955. We didn’t ask for Yeltsin’s permission to expand NATO in the 1990s or Putin’s permission in the 2000s. & after these events, Moscow did…
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) August 18, 2025
Beyond Ukraine: The Alaska Summit of Shadows Signals Hidden Economic Agenda Between Washington & Moscow Fiorella Isabel and Vanessa Beeley. A different take. Helpful summary below video.
Power as Translation Warwick Powell
“Liberation Day”
Tariffs Don’t Fix Trade – Capital Flows Do Andre Chelhot
Trump 2.0
Military Preparing Attacks on Mexican Cartels Ken Klippenstein
Selling Freddie and Fannie – What’s the Real Point? Racket News
GOP Funhouse
Texas House approves GOP congressional map after two-week delay from Democrats’ walkout Texas Tribune
Democrats en déshabillé
Obama applauds Newsom’s California redistricting plan as ‘responsible’ as Texas GOP pushes new maps AP
Second Whistleblower: Receipts Attached. The NSA Audited the 2024 Election. Kamala Won. This Will Hold. Commentary:
If you hated the idea of Trump in office this much you should have spent your energy telling her to stop supporting genocide. She lost because she armed and funded an unpopular genocide. It’s really not much more complicated than that.
— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) August 20, 2025
The Uniparty
The mirage of the antiwar right The Anti Empire Project
Antitrust
Data Centers Aren’t the Main Villain Behind Higher Electric Bills BIG by Matt Stoller
BlackRock’s bid for Minnesota Power worries consumer advocates Minnesota Reformer
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins Takes Steps to “Protect Farmland”. . . From Farmer-owned Solar Panels??? The Cocklebur
Healthcare?
New Senate Report Details How Private Equity ‘Devastates’ Hospital Systems Common Dreams
Immigration
Trump administration vows to ‘come after’ sanctuary states and cities, despite court setbacks Ohio Capital Journal
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
New zero-day startup offers $20 million for tools that can hack any smartphone TechCrunch
AI
Is this the moment when the Generative AI bubble finally deflates? Gary Marcus
Report: States like Michigan ‘simply not prepared’ for data center water demand Bridge Michigan
Police State Watch
Military vehicle crashes into car in DC as states send more national guard troops The Guardian
‘Psychological warfare’: Internal data shows true nature of Alligator Alcatraz Miami Herald
CoreCivic, Leavenworth await appellate court hearings on prison reopening Kansas Reflector
Imperial Collapse Watch
The twilight of tech unilateralism Programmable Mutter
The End of International Relations As We Know It… Un-Diplomatic
Accelerationists
Technofeudalism versus Total Capitalism American Affairs Journal
Our Famously Free Press
Influencerism is the highest form of capitalist realism Yasha Levine
Shari Redstone hoped Trump’s ‘60 Minutes’ suit would root out anti-Israel bias at CBS News — and she sold Paramount partly over Oct. 7 New York Post
Now confirmed that this episode led to 60 Minutes to be stripped of its editorial independence, and led to the selling of CBS to David Ellison, who now plans to merge the company with Bari Weiss and The Free Press https://t.co/dBC6n5S0Lw pic.twitter.com/BAhaEbwbCN
— Hamid Bendaas 🇩🇿🇵🇸🇮🇷 (@HBendaas) August 19, 2025
Bari Weiss’s Free Press Wants You to Know Some Kids Being Starved by Israel Were Already Sick The Intercept
Groves of Academe
Race Over Numbers, Donors Fuel K-12 Blitz to Remake Math Education Lee Fang
Class Warfare
Three Crises of Labor Hamilton Nolan
Appeals court says NLRB structure unconstitutional, in a win for SpaceX TechCrunch
Thelonious Monk turned wrong notes into the right ones. pic.twitter.com/YfZLuv5y3q
— Melodies & Masterpieces (@SVG__Collection) August 19, 2025
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
