Mod note: This is a voting community. Please give your opinions on if it's wise or unwise. Reasons behind it are welcome.

Is it:

“Mmm no very unwise”

or

“Mmm very wise”

"These cuts will significantly impact all of our stations, but will be especially devastating to smaller stations and those serving large rural areas."

We put together a map using Corporation of Public Broadcasting data of the rural stations most at risk. These are stations around the country where they depend on 40 percent or more of their funding from the federal government. These are the ones most at risk. You see a large number of them in Alaska, but they are all over the country, notably not on the Eastern Seaboard, really not in major cities.

I have both European Politico and US only Politico in my feed. The headlines are strikingly different.

From the EU version. WTF and why?

“Forgive my language but this story is complete and utter bullshit,” Vice President JD Vance wrote on X. “The WSJ should be ashamed for publishing it.”

“Where is this letter? Would you be shocked to learn they never showed it to us before publishing it? Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump?” Vance added.

Even Elon Musk, whose relationship with the president has recently appeared to sour, said the letter “really doesn’t sound like something Trump would say” and “sounds bogus.”

Other high-profile MAGA figures and far-right activists, including Charlie Kirk, Jack Posobiec and Laura Loomer, deemed the letter — which The Wall Street Journal did not publish in its entirety — a fabrication.

The Los Angeles Times newspaper, citing unnamed law enforcement sources, reported that three deputies were killed in the blast, which took place when a bomb squad moved some explosives.

U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to convert Alcatraz back into a maximum-security prison could cost roughly $2 billion, Axios reported on Friday citing administration sources.

Alcatraz was closed as a maximum-security prison in 1963 after 29 years of operation, because it was too expensive to continue operating. Trump previously said he would order the long-shuttered facility, now operated as a historical site in San Francisco Bay, to once again house violent criminals.

The high energy biscuits — used primarily to provide immediate nutritional needs for children in crisis situations — had been stored in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to respond to emergencies and could no longer be safely sent to potential recipients, so it was destroyed, department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters Thursday.

In the rush to open a detention camp in the Florida Everglades for “some of the most vicious” migrants illegally in the country, state and federal officers detained a 15-year-old boy with no criminal record and sent him in handcuffs to Alligator Alcatraz, the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times have learned.

The teenager, a Mexican national whose name is Alexis, was a passenger in a vehicle stopped in Tampa by Florida Highway Patrol troopers and later handed over to federal immigration authorities on July 1. His father spoke to the Herald/Times and said his son spent three days in the tents and chain-link pens at the pop-up detention center, making him one of the first immigrant detainees shuttled to site.

State and federal officials initially deflected questions or denied that Alexis had been locked up at the facility. But on Wednesday, the DeSantis administration acknowledged that they had in fact held the teenager at Alligator Alcatraz, and said that he lied about his age when stopped by law enforcement.

“Donald and Jeffrey had come into the casino in the wee hours of Sunday morning, 1:00, 1:30 in the morning,” O’Donnell told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “You know, two buddies, they had three women with them, and the commission was waiting for me because they had determined that the women that they brought down were underage to be in the casino.”

The former casino boss said that he asked the inspectors how they knew the young woman’s age. “One of them was the number three-ranked tennis player in the world,” O’Donnell explained. “And this guy happened to be a tennis fan and he said, ‘Jack, I know she’s 19 years old.’”

He added: “To get on a helicopter with a friend and three other people and fly down to Atlantic City, I mean, you can connect those dots. They were pretty good buddies.”

It is illegal for anyone under 21 to gamble on the casino floor in New Jersey, a law enforced with strict penalties.

Tens of thousands of people are expected to march and rally at more than 1,500 sites across all 50 US states on Thursday to protest against the Trump administration and honor the legacy of the late congressman John Lewis, an advocate for voting rights and civil disobedience.

The “Good Trouble Lives On” day of action coincides with the fifth anniversary of Lewis’s death. Lewis was a longtime congressman from Georgia who participated in iconic civil rights actions, including the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 when police attacked Lewis and other protesters on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

In the early hours of Thursday morning, Senate Republicans passed legislation that would claw back $9 billion in previously approved congressional funding for public broadcasting and foreign aid programs targeted by President Donald Trump's White House.

The final vote count was 51 to 48, with Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) joining Democrats in opposing the package, which now heads back to the GOP-controlled House for final passage. The legislation would cement some of the Trump administration's lawless, unilateral attacks on programs approved by Congress with bipartisan support.

For 25 years, the TIP Office has worked to combat human sex and labor trafficking around the world. Its remit includes producing an annual report, as required by Congress, that grades every country on the issue. Those that fail can face economic repercussions from the US, putting teeth into the government’s efforts to end trafficking. This year’s report was due on June 30, but has not been released.

The TIP Office also works with local partners around the world to strengthen civil society groups, train prosecutors, and help other countries combat trafficking. The office’s mission, including managing tens of millions of dollars for these programs, has always had bipartisan support.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio submitted his reorganization plan for the State Department to Congress in April, but stopped its implementation after a federal judge in California halted such plans across 22 agencies. Last Tuesday, the Supreme Court lifted that injunction, and State rushed ahead with its reduction in force (RIF) on Friday.