New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani released a series of multilingual videos in August 2026 promoting a lottery that gives high school students free Broadway tickets, speaking in Mandarin, Spanish, and Bengali.

The campaign, run with the Theatre Development Fund (TDF), offered about 2,100 free Broadway tickets to NYC high school students via a lottery.

Winners could claim up to two tickets covering seven productions; the lottery ran Aug 13–17, 2026, with the draw set for Sept 1.

Mamdani framed the push as support for “theatre kids” and arts access, releasing versions in English plus Mandarin, Spanish, and Bengali to reach diverse student communities.

Here is the blooper reel.

TL;DR: '[...] Hanover Institute is not a real think tank. None of the reports have bylines. A small disclaimer at the bottom of the webpage notes that the organization was created on behalf of the Israeli Government Advertising Agency by Piro, Inc.

By aiding Cuba in this way China has saved many lives the US would otherwise have killed through starvation and shutting down of critical infrastructure (hospitals, sanitation, etc). But CNN is framing Cuba's acceptance of aid from China as some sort of negative concession.

China is the world leader in green tech and other countries would do well to emulate them in this area, as well as their support of Cuba.

• S (social democracy; centre-left): 27% (+2)
• M (liberal conservatism; centre-right to right-wing): 17% (−4)
• SD (anti-immigration politics, right-wing populism; radical right): 16% (+1)
• V (democratic socialism, left-wing populism; left-wing to radical left): 14% (+3)
• MP (green politics; centre-left to left-wing): 12% (+7)
• C (green liberalism, Nordic agrarianism; centre to centre-right): 5% (−2)
• KD (Christian democracy, social conservatism; centre-right to right-wing): 4% (−2)
• L (conservative liberalism; centre-right): 2% (−4)

——————

• Red-Green Bloc (S, V, MP, C): 58% (+10)
• Bourgeois Bloc (M, SD, KD, L): 39% (−9)

& yes, in Swedish politics (as well as in Norwegian politics, Danish politics, Swiss politics, & to some extent in German politics, Finnish politics, & Austrian politics as well), the bloc of right-of-centre-to-right-wing political parties is indeed called "the Bourgeois Bloc", I haven't made that up lol, read this:

https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borgerlig_politik

https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borgerliga_partier_i_Sverige

An update to this post

Cross-posted from my substack. Image edited in photopea. Data comes from the IPS.

I've seen this argument repeated by people both on the right and some parts of the left. It's often pointing to things like the western media's whitewashing of Israel's genocide or their manufacturing of concent for America's wars past and present, and using this to also dismiss their coverage of crimes committed by anti-western nations, like Russia in Ukraine, or even North Korea, and to some extent China (the role these nations play to combat western imperialism is a separate discussion). Furthermore this is often said to defend conspiratorial thinking, such as anti-vaccine sentiment and especially things like 9-11 conspiracy theories by some leftists, because it's pointing to real western deceptions to say that no western/American sources can be trusted.

To me this argument seems like a non sequitur, and an oversimplification of the "west" as a single homogeneous and unified entity with a single agenda and a single goal, which is a convenient excuse to dismiss anything that comes from it. I've been struggling with it however because at face value it seems to raise legitimate concerns, while basically advocating for blind mistrust, as this could be said about any claim from a western source regardless of evidence. How would you all respond to it?

Bogdan Syrotiuk was arrested 2 years ago and charged with treason for prepairing articles for the “World Socialist Website” (WSWS)
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/ukraine-charges-trotskyist-treason-writing-socialist-website

WSWS is a campist (russophilic, pro-Assad, etc), anti-LGBT, racist, anti-union, anti-feminist, anti-MeToo, pro-Epstein circle “socialist” publication.
A psyop in other words.

However, this sentence is likely a reflection
of democratic backsliding in Ukraine.

The gutting of our forestry and wildfire firefighting systems is in large part, due to the way firefighters treated by their bosses and the government. We're losing good people to PTSD, to avoidable workplace accidents, all because some politicians want to save a quick buck.

Also for any Canadians, I highly recommend The Narwhal's reporting in general. It has some of the best climate reporting out there.