DOGE, the incoming Trump administration advisory panel headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, has been posting about the federal government’s spending on X, the social media platform owned by Musk. The posts have featured a mix of facts and figures, including those drawn from a USA Facts chart and a Reader’s Digest article on “11 Bizarre Things the U.S. Government Actually Spent Money On.” Musk has spoken of trimming $2 trillion from the federal budget. The 2024 fiscal...

Former congressman Matt Gaetz’s withdrawal from consideration for attorney general prompted much debate about whether President-elect Donald Trump had overreached and underestimated the spine of Senate Republicans. It is not unusual for presidents to feel invincible and claim broad mandates after victory. However, voters choose the president for an array of reasons, so a mandate is a political fiction. In Trump’s case, many picked him specifically because they disbelieved his...

The U.K. announced plans to build a new laboratory for artificial intelligence (AI) security research as part of its aim to compete with Russia in the "new AI arms race." The announcement was made on Monday at the NATO Cyber Defence Conference at Lancaster House in London, the second conference of its kind. Warning that NATO needed to stay ahead in the "AI arms race," government minister Pat McFadden, whose brief includes national security matters, said that the Laboratory for...

Walmart is making a slate of changes to its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, becoming the latest in a growing list of major corporations to halt the so-called "woke" initiatives. Anti-woke activist and filmmaker Robby Starbuck, who has been leading a campaign exposing major corporations' woke policies, said on X on Monday that he warned Walmart executives last week that he would be doing a story on "wokeness" at the retail giant. "Instead," Starbuck shared, "...

Supporters seeking the release of imprisoned Pakistani former premier Imran Khan on Tuesday broke through a ring of shipping containers locking down the capital Islamabad, while at least six people have died in protest-related violence. Protesters battled security forces and ignored a government threat to respond with gunfire. The dead included four members of the security services and one civilian who were killed when a vehicle rammed them on a street. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif...

The United Nations' mission to Afghanistan said on Tuesday the ruling Taliban had arbitrarily detained journalists 256 times since their takeover three years ago, and urged authorities there to protect the media. In a reply accompanying the report, the Taliban-led foreign ministry denied having arrested that number of journalists and added that those arrested had committed a crime. Journalists in Afghanistan worked under "challenging conditions", the U.N. mission (UNAMA) and the U.N. Human...

About the apocalypse... The post The Police song Sting wrote as a joke: “I had my tongue firmly in my cheek” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

A real earworm. The post The “most infectious song” of all time, according to Sparks first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Turning up the voice. The post “The most important musical force”: Bono on the genre that was the greatest since The Beatles first appeared on Far Out Magazine.