There is virtually no way I could have resisted Sylvie McNamara’s dispatch from her journey to a disreputable McDonald’s in Stafford, Virginia. I’ve listened to my share of the Doughboys podcast, and regularly debate burger rankings with my son. What’s more, I went to high school just two miles down the road from this particular location, whose aggregated Google reviews won it dubious distinction in a nation of interchangeable fast-food franchises. Thankfully, McNamara’s lighthearted investigation, which invites readers to consider Robert Caro and teenage commitments to the social contract, will satisfy you no matter your relationship with the Golden Arches. It reminded me of tongue-in-cheek alt-weekly features, a few pleasurable Paris Review web essays, and that episode of Mystery Show where Starlee Kine goes deep with a Ticketmaster employee. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba, I loved it.
I asked the employee for an explanation. “I think I can give you real insight,” he said. “It be the certain workers we got.” He himself is a high schooler, but he said that “we’re starting to get more younger managers. As soon as they turn 18, they’re getting a manager spot. I think my general manager’s 20. It’s a lot of kids getting these manager titles and positions, but they’re not really managers.”
I told him that to be honest, that environment sounded kind of fun.
Wednesday’s European Parliament debate on the October EU summit brought that contradiction into focus. The dispute over the 2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework is becoming a test of whether Europe can translate geopolitical urgency into durable financial commitments.
According to Parliament’s account of the debate, European Council President António Costa wants agreement before the year’s end. He advocated an ambitious budget while keeping national contributions reasonable, alongside progress on new EU revenue sources.
Those objectives are politically attractive. Reconciling them will require difficult choices over spending, taxation and the distribution of authority.
MEPs challenged the assumption that the Union can keep expanding its responsibilities without providing additional resources. Speakers identified support for Ukraine, industrial competitiveness, agriculture, regional development and household living costs among competing priorities.
Their argument has force. A budget negotiated around yesterday’s compromises risks leaving Europe poorly equipped for tomorrow’s threats. Yet calls for ambition become less persuasive when they avoid specifying which programmes deliver measurable European benefits.
The emerging distribution of cuts illustrates the problem. As EU Today previously reported, the Irish presidency’s compromise proposed reducing the Commission’s plans by approximately €141 billion, with competitiveness and security facing proportionately deeper reductions than agriculture and cohesion spending.
That creates an uncomfortable possibility: the policies most closely associated with Europe’s strategic renewal could become bargaining chips in negotiations dominated by established beneficiaries.
Protecting farmers and poorer regions has clear economic and political justification. Nevertheless, preserving familiar allocations while squeezing newer priorities would undermine leaders’ repeated promises to strengthen European independence.
Energy offers perhaps the clearest example of why spending decisions and structural reform must advance together.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told MEPs that dependence on imported fossil fuels and the absence of a genuine European energy union were weakening Europe. Costa emphasised affordable production and modernised electricity grids.
The implication is significant. Industrial subsidies cannot indefinitely compensate for an energy system that leaves European manufacturers facing persistently high costs. Cross-border connections, infrastructure investment and better market integration therefore belong at the centre of competitiveness policy.
Von der Leyen also pressed governments to complete the single market and avoid making European rules more complicated through national implementation. Her argument highlights a limitation of the budget debate: additional money cannot, by itself, remove regulatory fragmentation.
The same distinction applies to China. The Commission president described heavily subsidised Chinese competitors and promised action on dependencies, supply chains and market access. Such measures require coherent enforcement and political resolve alongside investment.
Ukraine adds a security imperative that cannot readily be postponed. Costa linked Ukrainian and European security, while MEPs warned about the consequences of weakening support. Long-term commitments require predictable financing rather than recurring emergency bargains.
But the budget dispute also concerns who controls the money.
As EU Today’s reporting on regional concerns explained, local leaders fear that restructuring could concentrate investment decisions in national capitals, weakening regional influence and potentially widening disparities.
That warning deserves attention. A larger European budget would not automatically produce more balanced development. Allocation rules, accountability and local participation will help determine whether spending strengthens cohesion or reinforces existing advantages.
New revenue sources could ease pressure on national contributions, but they cannot make financing politically painless. Costs ultimately fall somewhere, and governments must explain the distribution honestly.
The central challenge is therefore broader than securing agreement on a headline figure. Europe needs a settlement that protects essential commitments, finances credible common priorities and demonstrates results.
MEPs are right to demand resources consistent with Europe’s responsibilities. Governments are entitled to demand discipline. The failure would be a compromise that satisfies neither requirement: expensive enough to provoke domestic opposition, yet too fragmented to provide the strategic capacity Europe’s leaders insist is indispensable.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Samarkand on October 19 with nearly 300 American business leaders, seeking to deepen US commercial ties with Central Asia. Washington’s renewed interest will matter less for how many agreements it produces than for whether American investment helps the region move beyond being merely a supplier of raw […]
The post Rubio’s Central Asia pitch is about more than minerals appeared first on Asia Times.
In the first round of Brazil’s elections on Oct. 4, 2026, Flávio Bolsonaro, of the right wing Liberal Party (PL), came in first with 47.03% of the valid votes, compared with 45.16% for the current leftist president and Workers’ Party (PT) candidate, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The margin was just over 2.2 million votes, […]
The post JD Vance-founded, Korea-tied firm now influencing Brazil election appeared first on Asia Times.
The Parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Development committees approved their negotiating position on the Global Europe Instrument on Monday, 19 October, by 63 votes to 27, with five abstentions. The proposed allocation represents an increase of €25 billion over the European Commission’s original €200 billion proposal.
The decision comes as negotiations over the wider 2028–2034 EU budget have become increasingly contentious, with Germany and several other net contributors opposing higher expenditure while Brussels faces mounting demands for defence, industrial investment, enlargement and support for Ukraine.
Under the position adopted by the parliamentary committees, at least €25 billion would be reserved for humanitarian assistance. MEPs also want dedicated funding for reconstruction in Gaza and financial support for countries seeking EU membership.
The committees are proposing that 20 per cent of official development assistance should be directed towards human development, alongside stronger provisions covering democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
Global Europe is intended to consolidate several existing financing instruments into a single framework governing much of the Union’s external expenditure. The programme would finance activities ranging from development cooperation and humanitarian assistance to economic partnerships and support for countries preparing to join the EU.
The Commission introduced the original €200 billion proposal in July 2025. However, subsequent negotiations among member states have raised the prospect of substantial reductions.
Germany, the Netherlands and several Nordic countries have argued that the next budget must reflect the financial constraints facing national governments. Their objections have complicated efforts to accommodate additional spending on European security and economic competitiveness.
The European Parliament has taken a different position, maintaining that reducing external expenditure would restrict the Union’s ability to operate internationally when European security and economic interests increasingly depend on developments beyond its borders.
The parliamentary proposal would preserve support for Ukraine while seeking to prevent assistance connected with Russia’s invasion from reducing resources available to other partner countries.
Ukraine’s reconstruction, institutional reforms and integration with European markets will require substantial financing over the coming years. However, the precise allocation will depend on negotiations over the wider budget and the financing arrangements eventually approved.
For candidate countries, MEPs want clearer incentives linking EU assistance to progress on political and economic reforms. The proposed framework would also provide Brussels with greater powers to suspend funding where democratic standards, human rights or judicial independence deteriorate.
A separate provision would permit the Commission to suspend payments where partner countries seriously fail to meet obligations concerning the readmission of their nationals.
That measure reflects the growing connection between the EU’s development policy and its migration objectives. Brussels has increasingly sought cooperation on returns and border management as part of agreements with countries receiving European assistance.
The committees have also called for stronger parliamentary supervision of Global Europe, including more detailed reporting by the Commission and regular discussions with the commissioners responsible for implementation.
The financial disagreement extends well beyond external policy. The overall seven-year budget remains contested, particularly over agricultural subsidies, regional development funds, defence investment and repayment of borrowing undertaken during the coronavirus pandemic.
As EU Today previously reported, a group of 17 member states has opposed reductions in agricultural and cohesion spending, adding further pressure to negotiations.
The Parliament’s proposed €225 billion allocation has not been agreed by governments and does not constitute an approved spending commitment.
The committees also approved a mandate for negotiations with the Council, although their position still requires endorsement by the full Parliament, provisionally expected in November.
Meanwhile, member states must settle their own negotiating position, including the financial ceilings governing the programme.
The eventual settlement will determine how much Brussels can spend on development cooperation, humanitarian operations and international partnerships after 2027, and how those commitments can be reconciled with the EU’s expanding domestic financial obligations.
Matt Gaetz resigned from the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2024, shortly before the House Ethics Committee released a report accusing him of having sex with a 17-year-old girl in 2017, when he was 35, and "regularly pa[ying] women for engaging in sexual activity with him." The probe was widely discussed as a sex trafficking probe, but the ethics committee "did not find sufficient evidence to conclude that Representative Gaetz violated the federal sex trafficking statute," per its report.
Now two women have filed a civil lawsuit accusing Gaetz of sex trafficking.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, says that Gaetz and two other men (Joel Micah Greenberg and Christopher Dorworth) broke federal anti-trafficking laws by using "their public office, power, and wealth to prey on the economic vulnerability" of Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2.
Gaetz, who now hosts The Matt Gaetz Show on One America News Network, said many of the suit's allegations against him are false. "The lawsuit relies almost exclusively on a Congressional Committee report that didn't allow me to confront my accusers," he said. "Now I will finally have that chance."
On X, Gaetz posted an image of three women in bikinis seated next to bottles of beer and looking at the ocean and wrote "Jane Doe Strikes Again! Two adult women sued me today alleging they were sex trafficked to the Bahamas. I'm shocked nobody responded to their repeated cries for help, posted to instagram."
Jane Doe Strikes Again! Two adult women sued me today alleging they were sex trafficked to the Bahamas. I'm shocked nobody responded to their repeated cries for help, posted to instagram. https://t.co/HPvX2xypzs
— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) October 15, 2026
This does not seem like especially helpful behavior from a public relations perspective, to say nothing of whether it's legally wise to for Gaetz to be posting to social media about the suit against him.
But Gaetz's point isn't entirely off base. The actions described in the suit against him are hardly what most people would consider sex trafficking.
Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 were adult women willingly advertising on Seeking Arrangement, a site aimed at connecting young women with rich men for mutually beneficial relationships. And by their own account, that is what went down. They were taken on trips and paid thousands of dollars while hanging out, partying, and having sex with Gaetz and his friends.
Needless to say, advertising on a sugar baby website does not make you fair game for forced prostitution or sexual assault. But nowhere in the lawsuit are forced prostitution or sexual assault alleged.
Instead, we get sentences like this: Gaetz and the other defendents "led [Jane Doe 1] to believe they could solve her financial problems as long as she kept performing sexual acts for them and their associates," states the suit. But "the money never came as a single payment that would have solved Jane Doe 1's financial issues."
So…it's sex trafficking because he didn't pay her enough at one time? I don't think that's how the law works.
Overall, it's a stretch to say that Gaetz's actions as described in this suit fall under the scope of the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. Under federal law, sex trafficking must involve an element of force, fraud, or coercion, and/or must involve commercial sex involving someone who is under age 18.
In this case, both alleged victims were in their 20s at the time of the alleged trafficking. No element of force or fraud is claimed. And the type of "coercion" alleged seems more appropriate for a college debate than a courtroom.
There was no suggestion that harm would come to the women or their families, that a job or housing would be lost, or that failure to engage in sexual activity with Gaetz and his friends would result in some sort of other (physical, reputational, legal, etc.) harm befalling them. There was nothing on Gaetz's end that would seem to arise to "coercion" under federal trafficking statute, which defines it as involving "threats of serious harm to or physical restraint against any person," a scheme to make someone believe that serious harm will befall them if they don't comply, or abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.
The suit contains a lot about Greenberg—a former tax collector who is in prison after pleading guilty to charges that include sex trafficking—and comparatively little about Gaetz. It seemingly attempts to make up for the lack of direct allegations against him by noting findings from the Ethics Committee, even though that committee specifically said it could not find evidence of sex trafficking.
Gaetz is accused of having sex with Jane Doe 1 at a party while Jane Done 1 was on MDMA. But the suit does not accuse Gaetz of foisting drugs on her, simply saying "controlled substances circulated at the party, and Jane Doe 1 took MDMA during the evening." Nor does it say that anyone forced Jane Doe 1 to be at the party or to have sex with Gaetz.
Gaetz is also accused of paying Jane Doe thousands of dollars—never directly after sex or as a direct quid pro quo, but during the same time period during which he was having sex with her. The payments were labeled things like "Being my friend," "Being awesome," "Here," and "Just because," the suit says.
And Gaetz is accused, along with the other defendants, of paying to fly Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2—whom Greenberg met through the sugar baby website and introduced to Gaetz—"to Venice Beach, Miami, Las Vegas, the Florida Keys, the Bahamas, and New York City" and paying for their hotel rooms. The suit does not say that they were forced or coerced on these trips, merely that the trips exposed them to "men they would never otherwise have met, and every part of that access, from the flights to the hotel rooms, was paid for by men, including the Defendants, who expected sex in return."
The women's lawyer told the Associated Press that there was "an exploitative power imbalance," because on one side you had a congressman and some other powerful men and on the other "young financially vulnerable women in their early twenties."
Morally speaking, that might be relevant. And for a congressman, it may have been grounds for sanction. But the fact that these women were younger and less financially successful does not make a relationship between them and Gaetz de facto "coercive" or illegal.
Age gaps in relationships—even substantial ones—are not outlawed. And relationships in which an older man is attractive precisely because he has more money and power than the younger female involved, and offers to spend it lavishly, are not uncommon. The idea that this violates federal criminal law simply showcases how distorted our ideas of sex trafficking have become.
Children have a fundamental right to access the internet, says India's Supreme Court. The Free Press Journal reports:
"The safety of our children and their freedom are not at odds with each other. Our children are entitled to both," the court observed.
The bench explicitly recognised the right to access and use the internet as a fundamental right under Article 21, which protects life and personal liberty, read with Article 19(1)(a), which guarantees freedom of speech and expression.
Meanwhile, in the U.S.: "A federal appeals court panel has ruled that Florida's 2024 law restricting access to social media for teens is likely constitutional and can continued to be enforced while the legal challenge continues," notes the Florida Phoenix.
We were promised REPEATEDLY that age-verification law was narrow, and would ONLY apply to porn. But— as we warned —it was always a ruse.Since conservatives got their ruling in FSC v Paxton, they've pushed to age-gate anything and everything. It's not going to stop with social media or chatbots.
— Mike Stabile (@mikestabile.bsky.social) 2026-10-15T18:24:17.874Z
Florida isn't just using legislation to go after young people's internet freedom more broadly:
Florida is using litigation to implement digital ID through universal age verification - one platform at a time.
Florida's lawsuit against Discord is so far, the most aggressive, in pursuing age verification and surveillance under the guise of "protecting kids."
— Protecting Kids Online (@PKOproject) October 18, 2026
'Appropriate safeguards.' A small change in the language of the Apple App Store's app review guidelines could portend big changes. Via 9to5Mac:
Under Section 1.2, which covers user-generated content, the guidelines now read (changes in bold):
Apps that enable users to create, generate, upload, share, or otherwise contribute content present particular challenges, including intellectual property infringement, nonconsensual intimate imagery, and anonymous bullying.
Apple's new terms add that "Developers who fail to implement appropriate safeguards or fail to remediate identified violations after notice may be considered in violation of the Developer Code of Conduct."
The change is being reported as a crackdown on "nudification" apps, and that certainly seems to be part of it. But the language about going after "developers who fail to implement appropriate safeguards"—combined with the broad warning about user-generated content—could signal a broader intent to crack down on social media platforms and other types of apps that don't implement ID verification or engage in more intense content moderation.
Don't sacrifice due process to outrage. We can't let anger over allegations of gang rape at Cornell convince us to re-implement old Title IV policies that disregard due process, writes Robert Shipley of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression:
There's a groundswell of demand to "do something" in the wake of the sexual assault claims at Cornell. But amid the outrage and concern over the incident, it's critical to remember that one attempted remedy we actually know will not work is to return to a campus justice system in which the burden of proof is on the accused and basic civil liberties are cast aside. That social experiment has already been run. It failed.
Title IX, the law against sex discrimination in federally funded education programs, was passed in 1972. Debates at the time focused on how it would affect single-sex colleges and college athletics. Explicitly aimed at sex discrimination, the text of the law itself mentions neither sexual assault nor sexual harassment. Those became matters for Title IX gradually over the next couple of decades, as courts determined that sexual assault and sexual harassment were both forms of sex discrimination, and therefore covered under Title IX.
The Jane Doe lawsuit against Cornell and the accused students (as well as a fraternity, a sorority, and a local bar) hit national news at nearly the same time that the Trump administration officially removed the Biden-era regulations from the Federal Register. While almost certainly not related, some have connected the two, citing the Cornell incident to argue that regulations surrounding Title IX need to be changed again to reduce due process protections for the accused.
More here.
Not to pick on Sam here, but this is a useful point to highlight some of the impossibility of trust & safety work. Meta actually used to have a program *exactly* like this, BUT it became a central feature of Frances Haugen's Facebook Files as an example of Meta being evil.I'll explain…
• A new pair of high-tech sunglasses from Meta "can read your mail, describe the person in front of you, tell you what is on a restaurant menu, and help you find your way home," writes Reason's Reem Ibrahim. "For the approximately 700,000 Americans who are blind, it is potentially life-changing."
• "The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld a decision ordering new trials for two people facing human trafficking and sexual services offences, after concluding they should have been able to cross-examine a complainant about the commercial aspect of her prior sex work," reports The Canadian Press. "The case looked at the application of section 276 of the Criminal Code, known as the rape shield law, which limits use of evidence about a complainant's sexual history in court proceedings."
• Markets in everything:
This website lets you attend the wedding of complete strangers
Couples list their weddings and users can buy a ticket to attend https://t.co/8b7EawyFod
— Dexerto (@Dexerto) October 18, 2026
• Reclaim the Net explains Germany's new digital ID.
• The People First Transportation Alliance has been campaigning against robot taxis in D.C. "But just who is behind the group remains unclear, even as it has sought to sway the outcome of a contentious issue with vast sums of money and thousands of jobs at stake across the country," reports The Washington Post.
• From Reason's Meagan O'Rourke: In a race that could flip the U.S. House of Representatives, nobody wants to be the pro-tech candidate.
• A proposed App Store Accountability Act in Idaho "is a de facto digital ID," warns Julie Barrett.
The post Matt Gaetz Lawsuit Shows How Twisted the Term 'Sex Trafficking' Has Become appeared first on Reason Magazine.
Seven Tory MPs who skipped a vote on leaving the ECHR also belong to the pro-Net Zero 'Conservative Environment Network'. Coincidence? Paul Homewood thinks not and reckons Kemi Badenoch has a serious problem on her hands.
The post Tory Wets Come Out Into the Open appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
AlgarExperience renova a certificação Great Place To Work e reforça o compromisso com o bem-estar das suas pessoas. A AlgarExperience voltou a ser distinguida com a certificação Great Place To Work®, renovando este reconhecimento pelo segundo ano consecutivo e reforçando o seu compromisso com a construção de um ambiente de trabalho positivo, assente na confiança, […]
Ask a chatbot why something happened in the war, and the answer may be written by Russia. Russia is poisoning AI chatbots with millions of fake articles so they repeat Kremlin narratives as fact, a cognitive weapon with strategic impact, Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces commander Robert “Madiar” Brovdi warns on Telegram.
Russia has waged a cognitive war against Ukraine for years, and it intensified sharply with the full-scale invasion. This war goes beyond fake news and disinformation: it aims to shape the deeply ingrained beliefs that drive people’s attitudes, decisions and behavior, and its newest weapon is artificial intelligence.
Brovdi calls it a cognitive operation with strategic impact, one his forces studied among the technological risks of 2027. People increasingly ask a chatbot “why did X happen?” and take the instant answer, he explains, without asking where it comes from.
“Artificial intelligence does not know the truth. It retells the internet, literally,” Brovdi claims.
Brovdi lays out a chain that turns a single lie into something a machine will repeat as fact:
The attack runs on volume. Russia floods the web through the “Pravda” network, close to 200 sites in dozens of languages posting 4 to 6 million near-identical articles a year, Brovdi claims, written for machines, not people.
It works, by his account. Of the ten most popular chatbots studied, about a third of the time they reproduce Russian fakes, he noted, and four of ten in a 2024 test affirmed that Azov fighters had burned an effigy of Trump, a fabrication, and cited sources for it.
Brovdi is blunt about the balance. Ukraine is losing this fight to Russia’s troll farms, he concedes, even as a layer of homegrown trolls has sprung up too.
His closing advice was aimed at readers.
“Critical thinking should not be delegated. Not even to the smartest machine. Switch on your own judgment and always check the source and the information,” Brovdi states.
The revised proposal, circulated ahead of the European Council meeting scheduled for 15–16 October, would reduce the planned 2028–2034 financial framework by approximately eight per cent to around €1.6 trillion, calculated in constant prices.
Despite the reduction, the proposed budget remains approximately 30 per cent larger than the current seven-year framework. Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and other governments concerned about national contributions have nevertheless argued that further restraint is necessary.
The compromise, detailed in negotiations over the EU’s next financial framework, reduces proposed spending across several areas while largely protecting the Union’s established agricultural and regional development programmes. The distribution of those cuts is becoming as contentious as the overall size of the budget.
Under the Irish proposal, agricultural and regional development allocations would decline by approximately three per cent compared with the Commission’s initial plans. By contrast, funding intended for competitiveness and security would be reduced by around 13 per cent, while external action and development cooperation face cuts of approximately 17 per cent.
The difference raises questions about whether the next EU budget can support the strategic ambitions repeatedly endorsed by European leaders.
The Commission has presented industrial competitiveness, technological development, defence readiness and economic resilience as central priorities for the remainder of the decade. Yet these sectors would absorb proportionately larger reductions under the revised framework than agricultural and cohesion programmes.
The consequences could extend to investments in advanced technologies, European industrial supply chains, research programmes and cross-border defence cooperation. They could also constrain the Union’s capacity to fund external partnerships and development initiatives.
The debate is particularly sensitive because the EU’s responsibilities have changed considerably since the previous budget was negotiated. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has increased defence requirements, while competition with China and the United States has intensified demands for industrial investment.
The central disagreement concerns how much additional expenditure European governments are willing to finance through the common budget. Germany and other major net contributors face domestic fiscal constraints, rising borrowing costs and demands to increase national defence spending.
For these governments, accepting a substantially larger EU budget would add to financial commitments already being made through national budgets.
The Irish compromise therefore faces opposition from two directions. Some governments consider the reductions insufficient, while others fear that the remaining cuts will weaken programmes essential to their national economies.
Traditional recipients of agricultural and regional funding have an interest in protecting established expenditure. Governments seeking stronger European investment in defence, innovation and industrial competitiveness have different priorities.
The European Parliament is another obstacle. Its consent will be required before the final financial framework can enter into force, giving MEPs considerable leverage in negotiations with national governments.
The proposal also envisages approximately €55 billion in additional annual financing through new or revised EU revenue sources, including customs revenues, emissions-related income and corporate contributions.
The Commission’s framework for the next long-term budget reflects a broader debate over the extent to which the Union should develop independent financing mechanisms rather than rely predominantly on national contributions.
Such mechanisms would potentially give Brussels a more predictable revenue base. However, they also raise questions about fiscal sovereignty, the distribution of costs among member states and the political accountability of European taxation.
National governments remain reluctant to surrender substantial authority over revenue collection, particularly when proposed resources could impose costs on domestic industries or consumers.
The negotiations will influence the Union’s ability to respond to future enlargement. Ukraine and several Western Balkan countries are pursuing accession, but the financial implications of bringing additional members into the Union remain substantial.
Existing arrangements for agricultural subsidies and regional development assistance would require reconsideration if large new beneficiaries entered the budgetary system.
At the same time, the EU faces pressure to support Ukraine financially and strengthen defence production without depending indefinitely on extraordinary borrowing or ad hoc national contributions. These responsibilities cannot be addressed simply by preserving the structure of earlier budgets.
European Council President António Costa will seek to narrow the divisions among the 27 leaders, but agreement on the financial framework requires unanimity. Any government can withhold its consent if it considers the final distribution of costs unacceptable.
The forthcoming summit is therefore likely to establish the parameters of further negotiations rather than eliminate the underlying disagreements. The immediate political question is whether member states can reconcile their commitment to greater European strategic capacity with their reluctance to finance it collectively.
One day in 2016, paleontologist David DeMar got very lucky. While examining the ground at Hell Creek in the U.S. state of Montana, he found a fossil the size of a golf ball. It was a coprolite — fossilized feces — from a theropod (probably a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex or a Nanotyrannus). Inside the coprolite was a feather from an aquatic bird (not related to modern birds). With a high degree of confidence, researchers believe the bird spent the final moments of its life in the digestive tract of a teenage T. rex.
© Andrey Atuchin
The wildfire in eastern Attica on Monday, August 10, that broke out on Monday morning in Kouvaras, eastern Attica, is being attributed to sparks caused by contact between low-voltage cables belonging to the Hellenic Electricity Distribution Network Operator (DEDDIE/HEDNO). This are the findings of the Fire Brigade’s investigative authorities so far, state-run news agency amna.gr […]
The post Wildfire in eastern Attica caused by sparks in electricity poles appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.
Holbrook Mohr and Mitch Weiss | The Atavist Magazine | July 2026 | 2,284 words (8 minutes)
This is an excerpt from issue no. 178, “Toxic Lies.”
In the isolation ward of a hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, a nurse approaches Ron Fowler’s bed, cell phone extended in her hand.
“You have a call,” she says.
Fowler’s eyes flutter open. He tugs off his oxygen tube and, with trembling fingers, accepts the phone.
“Thanks,” he whispers, before turning his attention to us—the callers.
From his voice it’s clear that something is very wrong; he sounds nothing like his usual self. He’s due the next day to meet us for an interview in Paducah, Kentucky, where he and his friend Chuck Deuschle worked at a uranium-enrichment plant that helped fuel America’s nuclear arsenal. Years ago they blew the whistle on the government and its contractors for poisoning thousands of atomic workers. “Can’t make it,” Fowler chokes out. “Blood clots. Hospital. They may have to remove some toes—if those clots don’t reach my heart first. If they do…” He trails off, the terrible ending hanging in the air.
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Fowler, soon to turn 77, is desperate to talk before it’s too late—to pull up the memories one more time and commit them to the historical record. He and Deuschle had both moved to Kentucky to work at the nuclear plant, only to discover a grim secret: The facility was exposing people to dangerously high levels of radiation and toxic chemicals, and had concealed the truth about it from employees and the surrounding community. This went on for decades. Faced with a choice—either walk away or stay and sound the alarm—Fowler and Deuschle returned to work, day after day.
More than thirty years later, lying in the hospital with cancer, Fowler is certain that the plant doomed him to a slow, painful death. At 83, Deuschle is also fighting a serious health issue: an unexplained autoimmune disease. They believe their fellow whistleblowers—Deuschle’s wife, Kay, and their friend Garland “Bud” Jenkins—succumbed to illnesses caused by the plant. Still, they’d do it all again. Someone had to reveal the callous disregard the government and the plant’s operators had shown their own people.
Fowler and Deuschle have never shared their story in full—the details of what it was like to live, breathe, and possibly die from their commitment to the truth. But they want people to know, particularly in light of recent news reports: In August 2025, more than a decade after the plant was shut down, a private firm announced that it planned to revive uranium-enrichment operations there. To Fowler and Deuschle, it seems wrong to begin a new chapter in Paducah’s nuclear story. Many former employees are still seeking compensation for their exposure to radiation. Will future generations of workers be any safer?
Fowler struggles for each breath.
“Time’s up,” the nurse says gently, reaching for the phone. “You need to rest.”
Fowler grips the device tighter.
“Call tomorrow when you meet with Chuck,” he implores. “I’m staying alive until then.” He pauses for a moment. “Just make sure Chuck’s with you. Promise me.”
We promise.
One morning in late 1991, Ron Fowler stood in front of the bathroom mirror, parting his hair to the side and noting the first strands of gray at his temples. His beard was neatly trimmed, his black slacks and white dress shirt crisply pressed. He was ready. Today would be his first day at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, a uranium-enrichment facility about ten miles outside Paducah, Kentucky. This was more than just a job—it was the start of a new life.
Fowler was a health physicist, an expert in the science of radiation protection. For years he’d traveled the country to train workers at nuclear plants in safety protocols. The pay was great, but being on the road weeks at a time had worn him down. When he moved to Paducah in his early forties, Fowler had already lived in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Arkansas. Paducah promised stability: the perfect place to settle through retirement. His wife’s parents even moved from Illinois to be nearby.
After eating breakfast—a sausage patty and a scrambled egg—he kissed his wife, Sandi, goodbye and slipped out the door. He steered his green Oldsmobile Delta 88 through the country roads outside Paducah and let his mind drift back to his childhood in Florence, South Carolina. Life there had been simple. His father, who dropped out of school in the fourth grade, supported the family by working on the railroad. Florence was a place where men had jobs, women tended to the home and children, everyone went to church, and neighbors helped neighbors who fell on hard times. Paducah felt just as close-knit. Folks looked out for one another, and honest labor was rewarded.
Situated on the Ohio River where it meets the Tennessee, Paducah owes its origins to trade; it was founded in 1827 by William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition and named for a powerful Native American tribe. The area is naturally beautiful—the city is surrounded by rolling hills and sprawling plains dotted with ponds. For Fowler, a keen fisherman, it was paradise. Paducah had about 27,000 residents when he arrived. It was big enough to have all the right shops, yet small enough that restaurant owners knew whether regulars preferred barbecue or fried catfish, the local staples.
As Fowler drove, the plant appeared in the distance. It spread over some 3,500 acres—750 of them secured by fences and gates—and sat amid modest homes and farms. The community was proud of this place because of its long history supporting the military. Originally, it was a TNT munitions factory, built during World War II. Later, as Cold War tensions escalated, officials scouted locations for a uranium feed facility to supply weapons-production sites in Piketon, Ohio, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, with the material required to make nuclear bombs. Paducah native Alben Barkley leveraged his position as Harry S. Truman’s vice president, campaigning aggressively to repurpose the munitions factory in his hometown. He recognized that the project likely would inject billions into the local economy and transform living standards for the region’s blue-collar workforce.
Construction of the nuclear plant began in 1951. By the following year, it was enriching uranium for atomic bombs and the Navy’s nuclear fleet. Rising from the countryside, the gleaming buildings looked like modern marvels, and the economic windfall lifted Paducah residents’ spirits. Meanwhile, employees at the plant—everyone from nuclear technicians to welders, cooks, and janitors—were united in patriotic pride. Their jobs paid well, and the workers believed that they were helping fend off communism. It was no wonder Life magazine printed a photo spread of the site.
As the Cold War thawed, the mission changed but the jobs remained. The plant began recycling materials—gold, among other things—extracted from dismantled atomic weapons while continuing to enrich uranium, now for nuclear power plants instead of bombs. Wages allowed families to buy homes and cars and afford vacations—the American middle-class dream. The plant operated like a self-contained town for its 1,700 employees: It had its own security force, fire department, library, post office, and health clinic. A shuttle service ferried employees around the plant’s grounds. Workers participated in golf leagues and fishing tournaments. The Uranium Enrichment News kept everyone informed about goings-on at the site.
Though the plant was owned by the Department of Energy, it was run by contractors. Union Carbide initially oversaw operations, followed by Martin Marietta, which later merged with Lockheed to become Lockheed Martin. Management changed, but to employees that just meant a different name on their paychecks. The people on the ground were like family—fiercely loyal to one another and to the plant they called the Atomic City.
Fowler smiled as he drove through a security gate into a sprawling lot. He parked by the administrative building and checked in with a secretary, who called someone to escort him to his department. From there he would lead health and safety training sessions. The federal government had known as early as 1944 that radiation was hazardous and had issued policies to limit worker exposure. It was Fowler’s job to help ensure that regulations were enforced, to protect both employees and the surrounding community from contamination.
He had barely settled in when a coworker poked his head in.
“Want to see the place?”
The complex was huge—more than five hundred buildings connected by nearly twenty miles of access roads. Fowler was impressed until, as he rounded a corner on his tour, a yellow triangular sign with the radiation symbol caught his eye. There was no step-off pad in sight. In a nuclear facility, a step-off pad is a buffer zone between a hazardous area and a clean one. Workers at the Paducah site were supposed to remove radiation-tainted clothing and footwear before crossing through these zones to ensure they didn’t unwittingly transfer dangerous materials to other parts of the plant or transport it home with them.
Fowler flagged down a worker leaving the building where the warning sign was posted. “You don’t have a step-off pad down here,” Fowler said. The worker shrugged and said there was nothing to worry about.
“That sign says otherwise,” Fowler said. He explained that protocol required a pad and training for workers so they knew how to use it.
The worker’s expression was unchanged as he walked away.
Fowler’s pulse quickened as he imagined invisible particles on boot soles spreading throughout the plant or, worse, tracking onto kitchen floors or into rooms where children played. He hurried to his division manager’s office. The supervisor listened, then leaned back in his chair and tapped a pen on his desk calendar. He said he’d call a meeting about the issue.
That night at home, Fowler sat at the kitchen table watching Sandi cook. Normally, he’d have been joking with his wife about her limited culinary range—she often made breakfast for dinner—but tonight his mind was elsewhere. The sizzle from the stove filled the silence between them.
Sandi knew something was wrong. In the years since they first met at a bar in Joliet, Illinois, she’d become attuned to her husband’s moods. Despite his imposing frame—six foot two, 245 pounds—Fowler had always been the gentle sort and quick to laugh. Their courtship progressed quickly, and within four months of meeting Fowler had moved in to her family’s home in Aurora. They married there so her father, a former school principal paralyzed from a stroke, could attend.
“What is it, Ron?” Sandi asked, spatula in hand.
He sighed. “Something’s not right at work.”
“What do you mean?”
“The way they treat radiation—like it can’t hurt them. No precautions,” Fowler said.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Sandi replied, frowning.
“I know.” Fowler shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Uranium is a silvery-white radioactive metal. More than 99 percent of it found in nature is U-238, and the rest is U-235, an isotope that can sustain the chain reactions needed to fuel nuclear power production and atomic weapons. Enrichment is the process of increasing the concentration of U-235 in a supply of uranium. At different points, enrichment produces one powder Paducah workers called black oxide—not to be confused with the coating of the same name applied to some metals to improve corrosion resistance—and another, uranium tetraflouride, that’s known as green salt. Eventually, uranium hexafluoride, a colorless crystalline solid, is heated into a gas that’s pushed through microscopic porous barriers. This process, called gaseous diffusion, separates U-235 from U-238; at plants like the one in Paducah, it’s done hundreds of times in a cascade until the desired enrichment level is reached.
Uranium enrichment is hazardous business. Fowler knew that any leak, spill, or accident at the Paducah plant could damage kidneys and lungs, irritate skin, and increase cancer risk. More insidiously, simple mistakes or oversights by workers could have that same result. During his first few weeks on the job, Fowler explored the plant on his own, and what he found unsettled him. Employees worked in radioactive areas without protective suits or masks. Some couldn’t read and might not understand warning signs. People left the site after their shifts without changing clothes or showering, likely conveying radioactive dust home to their families. Some workers even warmed their lunch on top of machines in hazardous areas.
Fowler knew that things needed to change, and quickly. He took his concerns to the plant manager, Steve Polston, who heard him out and then called a meeting about step-off pads—the very issue Fowler had flagged on his first day. At the meeting, Fowler outlined the safety gaps he’d observed at the plant, but it seemed to him as though the senior managers in the room could barely feign interest. He heard what would become something of a refrain: “We’ve been doing it this way for years.” He was also told that Department of Energy officials visited the site regularly and hadn’t raised concerns.
More worried than ever, Fowler spent the next several months developing new safety protocols. He beamed with satisfaction as he handed the plan to Polston. In the period that followed, however, he became frustrated with how officials implemented the measures. Even when company-issued safety equipment was made available, Fowler noticed that much of it was obsolete. And he watched in disbelief as employees poked holes in respirator masks to smoke while working.
“I’m not making progress,” he told Sandi one night between sips from a can of Miller Lite. “No one is listening.” He likened his work to “scooping water out of the ocean.”
Sandi, who had studied his training manual to understand his work, gently touched his arm. “Be patient,” she suggested. “Maybe you just have to get to know the people better.”
Fowler’s shoulders dropped. “It seems like more than that,” he said.
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