Kate Beaton captured the aesthetic of a late-aughts internet. Her new memoir is a monumental synthesis of politics, history, and her own life.

A former Patreon security engineer says she, and the rest of Patreon's security team, were laid off.

Reactionary panics about what children learn in school are about as old as time. And they won’t ever go away. So if you want to fight bans of LBGT books, Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis’s lunatic crusade against math texts supposedly pushing social-emotional learning, or panics about the teaching of America’s true history that somehow supposedly teach white children to “hate themselves,” you really have no choice. You have to put Twitter or the TV aside. You have to start at the very beginning. For as long as there have been villages, there have been young people who chafed at their confines. They strike out for the wider world. Having seen something of elsewhere and its strange ways, rejecting some, embracing others, the prodigal returns, and perhaps evangelizes: Instead of hunting and/or gathering this way, why don’t we try it like that? The panics have unfolded like clockwork, in just about every decade of the twentieth and twenty-first century. You can see it in the titles of books and pamphlets going back a hundred years: Hell and the High School (1923); They Want Your Child! (1948); Brainwashing in the High Schools: An Examination of Eleven American History Textbooks (1958); What They Are Doing to Your Children (1964); Is the Schoolhouse the Proper Place to Teach Raw Sex? (1968). Even the dry bureaucratic version propounded by Ronald Reagan’s most conservative cabinet member, Education Secretary William Bennett, sounded the same high-pitched culture alarms when it declared in a report on school performance that the United States was A Nation at Risk (1983). Really, the only thing mysterious about this long tradition of backlash is why, every time it has happened in our own lifetimes, does it feel as though liberals are responding like it’s the very first time, with no effective playbook to draw on to fight back? They tend to respond, well, like liberals, with open minds: maybe these conservatives sort of have a point? So perhaps some good-faith negotiations are in order: maybe if we accept certain of their proposed reforms that seem sound, society and its schools will emerge even stronger, and then some of the acrid divisions will abate?

Astronomers are concerned that the BlueWalker 3 satellite, which will use an antenna the size of a squash court to beam internet to mobile phones, could outshine everything in the night sky except for the moon

A “pedo database” where some Davisville Middle School students documented how their teacher harassed girls in their class is now part of an investigation into the North Kingstown teacher.

A former Patreon employee told CyberScoop that after the layoffs "there are no qualified security personnel" at the company.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell insists he won’t cause a deep recession but that “pain” is necessary to fight inflation. On Thursday, following reports that the Federal Reserve would likely soon jack up the federal interest rate again — this time by 0.75 percentage points — Chair Jerome Powell tried to allay fears that the Fed’s strategy would cause an economic downturn, insisting that another rate hike was unlikely to cause a deep recession. The interest rate hikes, which nominally serve as a way for the Federal Reserve to tamp down inflation, are also a way to put economic power back in the hands of the very rich by driving up unemployment, since higher interest rates make it more expensive for banks to loan people money, leading to scarcer investment and therefore fewer jobs. Powell downplayed the effect the Federal Reserve’s moves were likely to have on working people. “We think we can avoid the very high social costs that Paul Volcker and the Fed had to bring into play to get inflation back down,” Powell said, referring to the period in the 1980s when the Fed similarly hiked interest rates and engineered a recession. The Fed’s own research suggests otherwise. Powell’s remarks reflect an attitude common among financial elites that the Fed can execute a “soft landing” in which enough pain can be inflicted on the economy to reduce inflation but not so much that the economy slides into recession. But an extraordinary yet little-noticed Federal Reserve study undercuts the exact case Powell is trying to make — published while he was making it. The study warns that the Fed’s aggressive interest rate hikes this year echo a strategy it undertook a century ago that led to a depression because the Fed did not account for how quickly unemployment can spike in response to rate hikes. “Strong (tight) labor markets can become weak (slack) faster than policymakers may anticipate,” the authors write. “Indeed, our results demonstrate that labor demand reacted sharply and quickly to the tightening of monetary policy, at a speed which can outpace policymakers’ abilities to track current economic conditions.”

Boise Pride Festival organizers have dropped a Drag Kids event from this weekend’s annual celebration after at least three sponsors announced they were withdrawing support. Zions Bank withdrew its sponsorship on Wednesday, and on Thursday both Idaho Power and the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare followed suit. In a statement Thursday afternoon, Pride organizers said the decision was made because of safety concerns for the children and their parents. “The kids who were going to perform have the enthusiastic support of their community and support and consent of their parents,” organizers said in the statement. “We support the kids 1000% and their choice to be themselves, stand their truth and express themselves. They are brave, beautiful and deserve their chance to be in the spotlight, and we want to give that to them at a later date.”

A British woman shared an image of a cloud formation resembling Queen Elizabeth floating over an English town, captured just an hour after the monarch passed away. Leanne Bethell, who lives in Telford in England's west Midlands, shared the photo on Facebook, pointing out that it looked remarkably similar to the Queen wearing her signature hat. 'Driving home and Lacey starts shouting OMG! I panicked. Then she pointed this image out in the clouds,' Ms Bethell said on Facebook. 'You only see it if you look for it. Maybe it is a sign or maybe we are just looking for a sign from above, who really knows,' one wrote. 'All I do know is this lady devoted her life to us so with the utmost respect. R.I.P Queen Elizabeth II,' one user commented. 'My girly Liz always watching over us,' wrote another.

Global Dream II was slated to carry 9,000 passengers and was built by German-Hong Kong shipbuilding firm MV Werften to the tune of nearly $1.4 billion, according to the Daily Mail. It was nearly finished when the company went bankrupt at the start of this year. Since that happened, no buyer has stepped up to buy the 20-deck, 1,122-foot-long monstrosity. That means it’s now destined for the scrap heap. The Mail says that Global Dream II also features an outdoor waterpark and a movie theater. Man, I really don’t get cruises.

Exactly what we need; another device to strap to our bodies.

The queen is dead. A historically wild day on the internet transpired after the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Calls for decency were mocked, brands tweeted and then deleted (notably, the Les Miserables official account deleted its memorial paean to monarchy), white Twitter and Black Twitter rubbed shoulders, Irish Twitter rallied then went to the pub. In the end, if she brought nothing to those of us who weren’t her subjects or had our lives and countries ruined by her cursed family, at least today the queen brought us the kind of joy you can experience only by still being alive.

"We're extremely disappointed with the result," said Pamela Buffone, the girl's mother, in a statement. "Our daughter continues to recall that the lessons were very upsetting." The tribunal's decision noted several times that neither Buffone nor her husband were able to explain how they came to the conclusion that their daughter was upset by the lessons.

A southwest Missouri judge signed an order late Wednesday to close the embattled Agape Boarding School, but early Thursday said he wanted more information before the order is carried out. Attorney General Eric Schmitt and the Department of Social Services filed a petition in Cedar County Circuit Court asking the judge to shut down the school, citing concerns about the safety of students. The request for the court injunction Wednesday came after an Agape staff member was placed on the state’s Central Registry for physical abuse, The Star has learned. Judge David Munton signed the order calling for the immediate shutdown, but early Thursday instructed the Cedar County Sheriff to go to the Agape campus near Stockton to verify that the employee still works there. If the employee does, the order will be executed, Munton said in a court docket entry Thursday morning. The unlicensed Christian school has been under state and local investigation for child abuse since early 2021.

Come for the laptop tale, stay for the sex workers, drugs and poorly written dialogue.

An astonishing report from CNN: “I went and talked to my son and I told him, ‘They’re gonna have more cops. They’re gonna have higher fencing. And he wasn’t having it,…

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Las Vegas-area elected public official was arrested Wednesday and identified by police as the suspect in the fatal stabbing of a veteran newspaper reporter whose investigations of the official’s work preceded his primary loss in June. Clark County Public Administrator Robert “Rob” Telles, a Democrat, was taken into custody at his home by a police SWAT unit hours after investigators served a search warrant and confiscated vehicles in the criminal probe of the killing of Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German. “The suspect in the homicide that occurred on September 2, 2022, has been taken into custody,” Las Vegas Metropolitan Police tweeted shortly before 7 p.m. Telles, 45, had been a focus of German’s reporting about turmoil including complaints of administrative bullying, favoritism and Telles’ relationship with a subordinate staffer in the county office that handles property of people who die without a will or family contacts. Telles did not immediately respond Wednesday to telephone messages at his county office, and it was not immediately clear following his arrest if he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf. The county administrator office was closed.

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Electronic cigarette maker Juul Labs has agreed to pay nearly $440 million to settle a two-year investigation by 33 states into the marketing of its high-nicotine vaping products, which have long been blamed for sparking a national surge in teen vaping. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong announced the deal Tuesday on behalf of the states plus Puerto Rico, which joined together in 2020 to probe Juul’s early promotions and claims about the benefits of its technology as a smoking alternative. The settlement, which includes numerous restrictions on how Juul can market its products, resolves one of the biggest legal threats facing the beleaguered company, which still faces nine separate lawsuits from other states. Additionally, Juul faces hundreds of personal lawsuits brought on behalf of teenagers and others who say they became addicted to the company’s vaping products. The states’ investigation found that Juul marketed its e-cigarettes to underage teens with launch parties, product giveaways and ads and social media posts using youthful models, according to a statement.

ROSTHERN, Saskatchewan (AP) — The final suspect in a stabbing rampage that killed 10 people in and around a Canadian Indigenous reserve died of self-inflicted wounds after his car was run off the road by police Wednesday following a three-day manhunt, officials said. Myles Sanderson, 32, was found near the town of Rosthern in the province of Saskatchewan as officers responded to a report of a stolen vehicle being driven by a man armed with a knife, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said. Officers rammed Sanderson’s vehicle off the road, said an official who was familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to talk publicly. The official said the fugitive’s injuries were self-inflicted, but he didn’t have further details on when the injuries were inflicted or when he died. Video and photos from the scene showed a white SUV off to the side of the road with police cars all around. Air bags had deployed in the SUV. Some photos and video taken from a distance appeared to show Myles Sanderson being frisked. His death comes two days after the body of his brother, 30-year-old Damien Sanderson, was found in a field near the scene of their rampage, which also wounded 18 people. Police are investigating whether Myles Sanderson killed his brother.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A federal judge ruled Wednesday that required coverage of an HIV prevention drug under the Affordable Care Act violates a Texas employer's religious beliefs and undercut the broader system that determines which preventive drugs are covered in the U.S.