August 31, 2025

Underworld - Boiler Room: London - Premiered on 28 Aug 2025

The long-awaited Boiler Room debut from UK rave legends, Underworld, live from London.

Few acts in electronic music hold the weight of history in the same way Underworld do.

Surging from the late 80s synthpop into the UK rave scene, Underworld reimagined the tangibility of the genre, with an undeniable legacy that lives on to this day.

August 31, 2025

Free-Floating Hostility - George Carlin - Back in Town (1996)

Legendary comedian George Carlin gets a few things off his chest in this bit from his HBO stand-up special Back in Town. Carlin never holds back, and in this piece in particular he unleashes on all things that bore him, tire him or just plain piss him off from air quotes to water bottles and men's earrings to politicians.

Growing up in New York City, George Carlin was always the class clown. He went on to become one of the greatest comedians of all time, with appeal that spans generations. Carlin was the first-ever host of NBC’s Saturday Night Live. Back in Town aired as a live broadcast from New York City’s Beacon Theater and features Carlin’s trademark acerbic observations on topics such as abortion, capital punishment, familiar expressions and bodily functions. Classic routines “Sanctity of Life,” “State Prison Farms,” “Free-Floating Hostility” and more are included in this hysterical stand-up comedy performance.

George Carlin described his comedy as focusing on 3 things: love of language and how we use it; the small things, moments we all share as humans; and the big topics of our culture—war, death, children, religion, etc. A social commentator, he challenged conventional wisdom and brought us face-to-face with our ingrained hypocrisies. There was no topic off limits to his keen observation, wordplay, goofy jabs and rants, whether it was drugs, war, politics, the accumulation of stuff or the way in which we use words.

August 30, 2025

Trump Heads Off Death Rumors by Finally Appearing in Public

The president had not been seen since Tuesday, fueling speculation about his mortality as he exhibits signs of declining health.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-heads-off-death-rumors-by-finally-appearing-in-public/

https://archive.ph/U2RuZ



President Donald Trump has shown signs of life after going missing for four days as evidence mounts of his declining health. As the president’s swollen cankles, bruising on his hands, problems walking straight, and mental gaffes fuel speculation about his mortality, Trump went four days without a public appearance this week.

However, Trump, 79, was spotted by reporters on Saturday morning on his way to a golf outing. Dressed in a white polo and MAGA hat, he shook supporters’ hands on his way to the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia. His granddaughter, Kai Trump, accompanied him.

The death-watch fervor hit a fever pitch on Friday when journalist Laura Rozen posted a screenshot of the president’s schedule for the weekend, showing that he had no public events scheduled for Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. That came after the president was nowhere to be found on Wednesday or Thursday. His last public sighting before the golf outing was his cabinet meeting on Tuesday, where bruising was visible on his right hand after he unsuccessfully tried to hide his hands on Monday.

Trump has been seen with heavy concealer on both hands in the previous month, adding to the concern generated by his swollen cankles—which are likely a result of the circulation disorder he was diagnosed with in July. On Thursday, Vice President J.D. Vance inadvertently added fuel to the “Trump’s dead” fire by giving an interview in which he said that he was ready to step into the role of president if needed.

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August 30, 2025

London's Best Late-Night Eats, According to Michelin-Starred Chef Angelo Sato

Chef / Owner of London’s two Michelin-starred Humble Chicken, Angelo Sato, reveals some of the best late night dining spots in the city. From the bustling Speedboat Bar that transports diners to the late-night canteens of Bangkok’s Chinatown, to the sleek New York Italian inspired The Dover, and even Michelin-starred bar food at Hide’s The Bar Below, this is where chefs really eat after dark.

In Chef’s Guide, Deputy Food Editor of The Times and The Sunday Times, Hannah Evans, is on a mission to find out the tastiest places to eat from the people who know best. In each episode, she meets with a local chef who guides her to some of their favourite places in their city.

August 30, 2025

Golden hasselback salmon

Serves 6
Prep 12 minutes
Cook 30 minutes

Ingredients
• 1 x 1kg side of salmon from sustainable sources, skin on, scaled, pin-boned
• 1 lemon
• 1 bunch of basil (30g)
• 1 x 50g tin of anchovy fillets in oil from sustainable sources
• 500g ripe tomatoes, on the vine
• 2 tbsp harissa paste
• 300g wholewheat couscous
• 1 x 700g jar of queen chickpeas
• 1kg frozen mixed Mediterranean veg
• 100g natural yoghurt

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 220C/gas 9. Use a sharp knife to score through the salmon flesh at 1cm intervals, slicing most of the way through towards the skin.
2. Finely grate the lemon zest onto a board. Pick over most of the basil leaves, reserving some nice ones in a bowl of cold water, and place the stalks in a blender. Add the anchovies to the board with a drizzle of oil from their tin and a pinch of sea salt and black pepper, finely chop together, then rub into all the cuts in the salmon.
3. Add the tomatoes, 1 tablespoon of harissa and 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar to the blender. Blitz until smooth, season to perfection, then pour into a deep 30cm x 40cm roasting tray and stir in the couscous and chickpeas, juice and all. Sit the prepped salmon on top in the centre, then scatter the frozen veg around it. Cook on the top shelf of the oven for 30 minutes, or until golden and cooked through.
4. Sprinkle over the reserved basil leaves. Use fish slices to move the salmon to a board and portion up, then mix everything left in the tray. Mix the remaining harissa into the yoghurt. Serve with lemon wedges.

August 30, 2025

AI Has Broken High School and College

A conversation between Ian Bogost and Lila Shroff about how school has turned into a free-for-all

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2025/08/ai-high-school-college/684057/

https://archive.ph/jzbUs



Another school year is beginning—which means another year of AI-written essays, AI-completed problem sets, and, for teachers, AI-generated curricula. For the first time, seniors in high school have had their entire high-school careers defined to some extent by chatbots. The same applies for seniors in college: ChatGPT released in November 2022, meaning unlike last year’s graduating class, this year’s crop has had generative AI at its fingertips the whole time.

My colleagues Ian Bogost and Lila Shroff both recently wrote articles about these students and the state of AI in education. (Ian, a university professor himself, wrote about college, while Lila wrote about high school.) Their articles were striking: It is clear that AI has been widely adopted, by students and faculty alike, yet the technology has also turned school into a kind of free-for-all. I asked Lila and Ian to have a brief conversation about their work—and about where AI in education goes from here.

Lila Shroff: We’re a few years into AI in schools. Is the conversation maturing or changing in some way at universities?

Ian Bogost: Professors are less surprised that it exists, but there is maybe a bit of a blind spot to the state of adoption among students. I saw a panic in 2022, 2023—like, Oh my God, this can do anything. Or at least there were questions. Can this do everything? How much is my class at risk? Now I think there’s more of a sense of, Well, this thing still exists, but we have time. We don’t have to worry about it right away. And that might actually be a worse reaction than the original.

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August 30, 2025

In Budget Logs It Tried to Hide, White House Wrests More Control Over Spending

Deep within obscure footnotes, the Trump administration is claiming more of Congress’s constitutional power of the purse by threatening to block funding.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/upshot/trump-congress-federal-budget.html

https://archive.ph/cUi6b



For decades, career civil servants at the White House budget office have held a quiet but essential role in doling out trillions of dollars in the federal budget. Throughout the year, they parceled out money appropriated by Congress to agencies meant to spend it. Today that job is held by loyalists to President Trump who have turned a routine task of financial management into a potent policymaking tool — and one that has set the White House on a collision course with Congress over its constitutional power of the purse.

In more than 100 cases this year, Office of Management and Budget officials who sign off on funds for federal agencies have attached unusual conditions to the money, including requirements that funds meant to reflect Congress’s priorities be spent only if they align with the president’s views. The moves lay the groundwork for the Trump administration to choke off billions of dollars budgeted by Congress for education, health, housing and research programs.

In some cases, the administration has clearly blocked funding for specific programs. In others, the threat lurks in footnotes tucked in detailed budget logs that congressional appropriators are racing to decipher as their conflict with the budget office grows. The administration’s efforts to tighten control over spending are apparent in a trove of newly released records, which the White House budget director Russell T. Vought had pulled from public view in March and fought in court to keep secret. The administration only began to publish those documents earlier this month under court order.

A New York Times analysis of thousands of these records posted online through Friday morning shows that the White House has targeted spending at three agencies in particular: the Departments of Health and Human Services; State; and Education. The administration has sought to restrict funding for programs that help families reduce their home energy bills, mothers buy food for young children and laid-off workers find training. Indeed, the list of accounts over which the White House has exerted new control — each one tied to a single program or operational expense — maps closely onto the parts of government where the White House has proposed cutting funding for the coming fiscal year:



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August 29, 2025

US denies visas to Palestinian Authority leaders for UN general assembly

Step comes when France is leading a push to recognise Palestinian state after Israel’s unyielding bombing of Gaza

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/29/us-denies-palestinian-authority-visa-general-assembly



The US has begun denying and revoking visas from members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) ahead of the United Nations general assembly meeting in September, the state department said on Friday. “The Trump administration has been clear: it is in our national security interests to hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace,” it said in a statement.

The new measure further aligns Donald Trump’s administration with Israel’s rightwing government which adamantly rejects a Palestinian state. Israeli officials have repeatedly equated the broadly secular PA, which exercises partial authority in the occupied West Bank, with its bitter Islamist rival Hamas. Using a term favoured by Trump to deride his legal troubles while out of office, the state department accused the Palestinians of “lawfare” by raising grievances against Israel at the international criminal court and international court of justice.

It called on the PA to drop “efforts to secure the unilateral recognition of a conjectural Palestinian state”. The Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, thanked the Trump administration “for this bold step and for standing by Israel once again” in a post on X. It is unclear whether Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, was included in the restrictions. Abbas is planning to travel to New York to deliver an address to United Nations general assembly.

The PA’s ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, told reporters that they were seeking details on what the new US measure means “and how it applies to any of our delegation, and we will respond accordingly”. Stéphane Dujarric, a UN spokesperson, said it was “important” for all states and observers, which includes the Palestinians, to be represented at a summit scheduled for the day before the general assembly begins. “We obviously hope that this will be resolved,” Dujarric said.

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August 29, 2025

In Trump's D.C., the Swamp Runneth Over - This is by far the most corrupt administration in American history.

https://prospect.org/power/2025-08-29-in-trumps-dc-swamp-runneth-over-corruption-lobbying/



The Ringer’s Press Box podcast regularly features something they call the “Media Piss Test.” The joke is that it has become a political cliché to say something new is like something old, but “on steroids.” It might be a cliché to describe the corruption saturating the Trump administration as steroidal, but it is simply true that every tool of corruption in our politics, from self-dealing to gerrymandering to outright bribery, has become vastly stronger under Donald Trump. (It also bears mentioning that some figures in the administration display the telltale signs of hitting the gear.)

So perhaps it suffices to say that in 2025, the revolving door between the federal government and the corporations that encircle it has been “Trump-sized.” Even before his inauguration, it was glaringly obvious that the influence industry would have enormous sway in Trump’s Washington. While loyalty and obsequiousness are defining characteristics of multiple White House staff, corporate lobbying experience seems to be valued just as highly.

Even Politico is being direct about the president’s embrace of the swamp, noting that “Trump has abandoned any pretense of cleaning up the age-old ways of Washington,” and that a rash of spins through the revolving door “illustrate the ways in which his administration continues to push the bounds of ethics norms and guardrails designed to prevent government officials from profiting off their time in public service.” Politico’s reporting further reveals the individuals who are already exploiting this erosion of ethics guardrails, swinging from federal government work to influence-peddling in this boom time for Washington’s quintessential venal operatives.

Republican lobbying firm CGCN Group announced its hiring of White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields last Wednesday. His colleague Trent Morse is set to wrap up his stint in government this week before moving on to his newly founded Morse Strategies. Morse will also advise K Street behemoth Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. Fields and Morse are joined by May Davis Mailman, a former strategist who shaped Trump’s intimidation of universities, and former crypto adviser Bo Hines, who’s decamped to Tether.

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August 29, 2025

The CDC Crisis and Republican Complicity

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-08-29-cdc-crisis-republican-complicity-vaccines/



Sometimes, events turn on the bravery of ordinary people. On Thursday, hundreds of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) demonstrated outside their agency, all risking their jobs, to give a grateful send-off to three senior officials who had finally had enough and resigned in protest. The three were Dr. Daniel Jernigan, who headed the center that oversees new diseases and vaccine safety; Dr. Debra Houry, the agency’s chief medical officer; and Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, an infectious disease specialist who led the center that reviews respiratory illnesses such as COVID and issues vaccine recommendations.

These senior scientists were the heart of the CDC. All objected to statements by new members of the agency’s vaccine advisory panel, which made clear that they would try to reduce access to several vaccines. “It really is transparent that these decisions have all been predestined,” Dr. Daskalakis said. The advisory panel, which includes several science deniers newly appointed by anti-vax Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is scheduled to meet in mid-September. Its agenda includes votes on recommendations for COVID, hepatitis B, RSV vaccines, and the combined measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella vaccine. The administration has already set back vaccine science by withdrawing funding for new mRNA vaccine development.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved new COVID vaccines for people over age 65, or younger people who have an underlying medical condition that puts them at risk. This makes COVID vaccines less available for the first time since the outbreak. But the CDC advisory panel must add its recommendations, and could roll access back even further. On Thursday, anticipating the shifts and proving the point, CVS, the nation’s largest drug chain, announced that it was temporarily not offering COVID vaccines, even to elderly people and others at special risk, in 16 states and the District of Columbia, citing “the current regulatory environment.” In some states, pharmacists may not administer vaccines not approved by the CDC.

For the three who resigned, the last straw was the firing of CDC director Susan Monarez, a government scientist confirmed by the Senate only in July. She served barely a month. She was fired after she resisted RFK Jr.’s pressure to change vaccine policy and to fire senior staff. Her attorneys have challenged the legality of her firing. In a public letter of resignation, Dr. Daskalakis wrote: “I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health. The recent change in the adult and children’s immunization schedule threaten the lives of the youngest Americans and pregnant people … My grandfather, who I am named after, stood up to fascist forces in Greece and lost his life doing so. I am resigning to make him and his legacy proud.”

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