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Clear It With Sidney

The best of the week’s news by Lindsay Beyerstein

Clear It with Sidney

October 2, 2026

Sidney's Picks: ID Faith-Healing Family Lost Four Kids and Authorities Could Do Nothing

Photo credit: 

Brecht Bug, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • An Idaho family that believes in faith-healing over medical care lost four children to untreated diabetes, and authorities were powerless to intervene. (ProPublica)
     

  • Prosecutors say Andrea Shaw smothered her twin babies, she blames vaccines. (NYT)
     

  • Heat stroke killed one man and left another paralyzed, but their employer is still sending workers on H-2A visas into the fields. (Prism)
     

  • Rideshare drivers want a fair hearing before being kicked off the apps. (Capital & Main)
     

  • Tennessee authorities claim they followed their protocol for the botched execution of Christa Pike, but that may not be true. (NewsChannel 5)

September 25, 2026

Trump Saved Susan Collins from a Bribery Probe

Photo credit: 

Donkey Hotey, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News
 

  • Amazon drones besiege a Texas town. (NYT)
     

  • Trump saved Susan Collins from a bribery probe. (ProPublica)
     

  • Mamdani secures $131 million settlement for underpaid DoorDash drivers. (Guardian)
     

  • Anti-union consultant posed as organizer to lure workers at the Golden Krust restaurant away from their union. (DocumentedNY)
     

  • ICE officer was not wearing a body cam when he shot an Austin man last week. (Texas Tribune)
     

  • The White House banned Politico for reporting on an official background briefing. (WaPo)

September 18, 2026

Sidney's Picks: 52 Babies Were Hospitalized For Botulism

Photo credit: 

Nerissa’s Ring, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News
 

  • Employees of Microsoft and OpenAI knew they were committing “the largest theft of labor in human history,” court documents show. (NYT)
     

  • Trump is sending Somali immigrants with no criminal records to Guantanamo. (Mother Jones)
     

  • 52 babies were hospitalized for botulism linked to formula, but the FDA insists the formula supply is safe. (ABC News 7)
     

  • A Russian oligarch with ties to Vladimir Putin paid for Donald Trump, Jr.’s tropical wedding celebrations. (ProPublica)
     

  • Why does New York City’s police commissioner keep putting the most compromised cops on the most problematic units? (HellGate)
     

  • Republican who marched with the Nazis in Charlottesville is expected to win a seat in Florida’s state legislature. (TPM)

September 11, 2026

Sidney's Picks: Trump-a-Palooza Fizzles

Photo credit: 

Internet Archive Book Image, medical illustration of an ectopic pregnancy, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News
 

  • The bathos of Trump’s fake convention. (Nation)
     

  • Despite warnings, child sexual abuse images persist on Elon Musk’s X. (NYT)
     

  • Deaths from ectopic pregnancies have doubled and abortion bans are largely to blame. (ProPublica) 
     

  • Trump’s Venezuela deal helps his rich friends and nobody else. (MoJo)
     

  • Mayor Zohran Mamdani creates an office of worker rights to build union power in New York City. (NYT)
     

  • The quixotic fight to leak-proof the New York City subway system. (NYT)

September 4, 2026

Happy Labor Day!

Photo credit: 

Brent Moore, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • The labor movement bids a fond farewell to union sister Dolly Parton. (Nation)
     

  • Maria Bartiromo was fired from Fox News, allegedly for leaking to the White House details of the network’s policy of not discussing Trump’s outlandish election conspiracy theories (Daily Beast)
     

  • Democrats warn that the Pentagon is so broke that it’s siphoning moneyfrom the National Institutes of Health. (TNR)
     

  • Trump’s bribe jet lacks the critical security features needed to fly it outside the U.S., but he wants to take it to Ireland next week. (WaPo)
     

  • One of Elon Musk’s DOGE kids applied for college credit for trashing the government. (Wired)

     

  • Former Kentucky governor Matt Bevin arrested for contempt of court while working as an extra on a Christian film. (LPM)

August 28, 2026

Sidney's Picks: Letter Proves RFKjr Lied in His Senate Confirmation Hearings

Photo credit: 

Pamela Drew, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

 

  • A newly-obtained letter proves RFK jr. lied in his Senate confirmation hearings when he claimed his 2019 trip to Samoa had nothing to do with vaccines. (Guardian)
     

  • Washington Post ordered to reinstate columnist Karen Attiah after she was fired for calling out white men who espouse hatred and violence in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. (NYT)
     

  • Were your blueberries picked by exploited workers? It’s maidenly difficult to tell. (ProPublica)
     

  • The Pentagon has a secret media blacklist. (Intercept)
     

  • Can an obscene YouTube gun nut win a GOP House seat? (MoJo)

August 21, 2026

Sidney's Picks: White House Fury Made Natalie Harp National News

Photo credit: 

Natalie Harp, Donkey Hote, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • A few well-placed attacks could destroy the entire US power grid. (NYT)
     

  • The Natalie Harp blunder. (The Atlantic)
     

  • MAGA Rep. Max Miller is bleeding union support as he faces serious allegations of child abuse. (Politico, WaPo)

     

  • Unions remain defiant in the face of federal surveillance in the wake of anti-ICE protests. (MN Reformer)

     

  • DOGE broke the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and fishermen, farmers, insurers, and consumers are paying the price. (Forbes)

August 14, 2026

Sidney's Picks: Trump's War on Wind Farms is Killing Jobs

Photo credit: 

Offshore wind farm, Fernando Butcher, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • Trump’s bizarre war on wind farms is killing jobs and hurting workers. (MoJo)
     

  • A Cuban immigrant has been deported to an obscure African country because Cuba won’t take him back, he may never go free. (NYT)
     

  • A million immigrants came here legally but now their status is being stripped away. (New Yorker)
     

  • ICE officers may soon have gloves that deliver electric shocks. (AP)
     

  • Fiasco at General Dynamics: How a half-billion dollar artillery plant ended up producing nothing (ProPublica) 
     

  • The government is monitoring social media accounts critical of Flock cameras. (404media)

August 7, 2026

Sidney's Picks: IRS Union Sues to Stop Trump's $100 Million Tax Immunity Deal

Photo credit: 

Alyson Hurt, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • Union representing IRS workers sues to stop Trump’s $100 million tax immunity deal, arguing that it would force them to break the law. (AP)
     

  • What’s the deal with Trump’s “Freedom Fuel” gas stations? (WaPo)
     

  • Climate change dropped the water level in the Danube, now Romania is sinking barges of rocks to bring it back up to keep a nuclear reactor running. (AP)
     

  • A St. Louis woman self-deported to Guatemala, weeks later she and her husband were found shot to death in a field. (MoJo)
     

  • Trump’s boat strikes in the Caribbean have killed innocent people (ABC)

July 31, 2026

Sidney's Picks: Tish James Sues Kalshi

Photo credit: 

Russ Seidel, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News 
 

  • New York AG Tish James sues the Kalshi prediction market for allegedly being an illegal gambling operation. (CNN)
     

  • Coast guard rescuers save lives, but many suffer brain damage from years of piloting small boats amid the crashing waves. (NYT)
     

  • Breaking Monticello: How a right wing smear campaign tried to censor the brutality and the brilliance that defined Thomas Jefferson. (Prospect)
     

  • More than 1400 unaccompanied migrant children in New York State will lose access to a lawyer on Monday because a federal contract has not been renewed. (Gothamist)
     

  • Public defender org accused of illegally offering cash bonuses to disrupt a strike. (Queens Eagle)

Pages

Recent Posts

October 2, 2026
Sidney's Picks: ID Faith-Healing Family Lost Four Kids and Authorities Could Do Nothing
September 25, 2026
Trump Saved Susan Collins from a Bribery Probe
September 18, 2026
Sidney's Picks: 52 Babies Were Hospitalized For Botulism
September 11, 2026
Sidney's Picks: Trump-a-Palooza Fizzles
September 4, 2026
Happy Labor Day!

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