Western analysts say Russia is losing 50,000 soldiers a month. A Meduza investigation suggests those estimates are based on manipulated data.

The Kremlin spent years building a messenger to replace Telegram. Now it is reportedly telling soldiers the substitute is too insecure to use at the front.

USS Gerald Ford Carrier Hit By ‘Sewage Crisis’ As Record Deployment Endures

The Hidden Imran. The cricketing legend is Pakistan’s most famous man. Can the state make him vanish?

A software engineer’s earnest effort to steer his new DJI robot vacuum with a video game controller inadvertently granted him a sneak peak into thousands of people’s homes.

I recently tried refine, an AI tool for refining academic articles. The results are stunning. The comments it offered were on the par of the best comments I’ve received on a paper in my entire academic career.

SMART PEOPLE SURE CAN ACT DUMB SOMETIMES:

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 23, 2026

Russia’s military recruitment numbers remain steady, but how long can the regions foot the bill?

Iran Signals Possible “Fast Deal” To Be Made In Nuclear Talks As U.S. Military Build-Up Grinds On

U.S. Gave Mexico Intelligence for Operation That Killed Drug Cartel Leader. The State Department also expanded the “shelter in place” declaration for Americans in Mexico.

The Great Cocoa Unwind

Home health care is going to get increasingly political as money gets short. Medicaid Data Dump: Billing Codes Explode Up to 10,000%, LA Mental Health Dept. Highest Biller in the Nation

Popular Sugar Substitutes Linked to Faster Cognitive Decline

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 22, 2026

A major article. A war foretold: How the CIA and MI6 got hold of Putin’s Ukraine plans and why nobody believed them

Commentary on the above. The First- (and the Next-) Four Years

This is so new not a lot of good long form sources on this story. Mexican Resort Towns Burn As Special Forces Kill Jalisco New Generation Cartel Boss “El Mencho”

This was more interesting then expected. Why Are American Passenger Trains Slow?

Men Lose Their Y Chromosome With Age. We Finally Know The Cost.

Autism, Vaccines, and the Diagnostic Empire

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 21, 2026

Kremlin spokesman admits Putin’s press service uses a VPN to bypass Russia’s Telegram restrictions

I is skeptical of this story but Oman is for a sure a different place for the time being then its neighbors in a very good way. Reflections on Oman

The conclusion of Justice Gorsuch’s concurrence in the tariff case.

‘Unprofessional behavior’: NASA report rips into astronaut-stranding Starliner mission

From chickens to humans, animals think “bouba” sounds round. There seems to be a deep-seated association between sounds and shapes.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 20, 2026

Supercarrier USS Gerald R. Ford Has Crossed Into The Mediterranean. The carrier’s rush to the Middle East comes as the military build-up in the region appears to be approaching its crescendo.

Pensions cost the government 10% of GDP. If no reforms are made by 2050, Brazil will spend more on pensions as a share of GDP than many richer and greyer countries… Though Brazil’s share of young people is similar to that in Chile or Mexico, its pension spending is already at Japan’s level. That is despite a modest reform in 2019 that introduced a minimum retirement age. The population is ageing rapidly. Without reform, its social-security deficit, or the shortfall between contributions and payments, is set to rise from 2% of GDP today to over 16% by 2060.

Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump’s Tariffs

With today’s Supreme Court ruling affirming the illegality of President Trump’s emergency tariffs, the country will now be about $2 trillion deeper in the hole. With the national debt already the size of the entire U.S. economy and interest on the debt costing more than $1 trillion this year, this is very bad news. Congress should work quickly to fill that hole. Whatever one feels about the tariffs themselves, the country needs that $2 trillion in fiscal improvements.

Past: CFT clearly met those criteria, Isaacman said today. But NASA did not classify the mission as a Type A mishap during and shortly after CFT, apparently because agency officials were too focused on getting Starliner certified to fly operational astronaut missions to the ISS. “Concern for the Starliner program’s reputation influenced that decision,” Isaacman said today. “Programmatic advocacy exceeded reasonable balance and placed the mission, the crew and America’s space program at risk in ways that were not fully understood at the time decisions were being contemplated. This created a culture of mistrust that can never happen again, and there will be leadership accountability.”

Current: Just to be clear here, NASA declared its recent test a “successful wet dress rehearsal” despite missing its T-30s target by almost five minutes, botching the dreaded Orion hatch close out procedure, and managing to achieve up to 16% H2 due to copious leakage at the fueling interface. For reference, the lower flammability limit, and system requirement, is just 4%, beyond which this nightmare fuel can burn and detonate in air. The “wet dress” was so successful, in fact, that they have to do it all over again in the unspecified near future. But before that, the same team ran a “(no) confidence test” on the leaky fueling interface which failed badly enough that they buried it until 8pm on the following Friday.

On Thursday, the Center for American Progress, a prominent left-leaning think tank that often cultivates policy ideas later adopted by the Democratic Party, proposed a two-year freeze on the prices of 24 food items, such as strawberries and ground beef.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 19, 2026

U.K. Denying U.S. Use Of Key Bases Would Impact Bombers’ Role In Iran Air Campaign

China Now Finds Itself in al-Qaeda’s Crosshairs

Ultramarathons might push red blood cells past their limits—accelerating their aging in the process.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 17, 2026

Final Pieces Moving Into Place For Potential Attack On Iran

Super Tanker Rates Soar Amid Sanctions, Supply Shifts, and Strategic Hoarding

California Bringing Gasoline From Bahamas, Raising Fears of Higher Prices. Gas has risen 40 cents in California over the last two weeks, averaging $4.58 a gallon.

NYC mayor unveils record $127B budget, up whopping $11 from this year. The socialist city leader’s plan includes a whopping 9.5% proposed property tax hike on New Yorkers, which he claims would be a “last resort” — while allocating another $1.2 billion for migrants.

99% of adults over 40 have shoulder “abnormalities” on an MRI. The trouble is, the vast majority of people in the study had no shoulder problems. The finding calls into question the growing use of MRIs to try to diagnose shoulder pain—and, in turn, the growing problem of overtreatment of rotator cuff (RC) abnormalities, which includes partial- and full-thickness tears as well as signs of tendinopathy (tendon swelling and thickening).

The Bacon Paradox