Clear It With Sidney

The best of the week’s news by Lindsay Beyerstein

December 2025

December 19, 2025

Sidney's Picks: How Epstein Made His Money

Photo credit:

Victoria Pickering, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

Trump administration poised to destroy one of the world’s most criticalclimate research centers. (WaPo)
General testifies that he might kill suspected drug traffickers on American soil if Pete Hegseth ordered him to. (Intercept)
Jeffrey Epstein got rich from simple fraud, not financial wizardry or international espionage. (NYT)
Trump’s cuts cripple the National Labor Relations Board. (NYT)
Few farms participate in programs that might protect farmworkers from exploitation. (ProPublica)
U.S. will pay $450,000 to compensate each wildfire fighter who develops smoke-related cancer. (NYT)

December 12, 2025

Sidney's Picks: Sen. Ron Johnson Hypes Bleach as a Health Elixir

Photo credit:

Don’t Drink Me. Allen, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

How the Trump administration freed accused rapist and human trafficker and self-proclaimed misogynist pornographer Andrew Tate. (NYT)
This journalist asked about Pete Hegseth’s mentor, then the threats started. (MoJo)
NYC Subway drivers witness deaths on the job, struggle to get help. (NYT)
Texas warehouses disabled people in boarding houses where abuse and neglect run rampant. (ITT)
“It’s all lunacy”: Sen. Ron Johnson hypes bleach as a health elixir . (ProPublica)
Workers at the renowned British Library go on strike. (LRB)

December 5, 2025

Sidney's Picks: Are All Trump's Boat Strikes Murder?

Photo credit:

A fishing boat in the Caribbean, 16:19 Clue, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

Are all the boat strikes murder? (NYT)
January 6th pipe bomb suspect believed stolen election conspiracy theories. (NBC)
Starbucks agrees to pay $38 million for systemic violations of NYC’s scheduling laws. (The City)
Trump admin plans to end prison rape protections for trans and intersex inmates. (Prism Reports)
After 1,132 days, 4,017 stories, and a contract, the Pittsburgh Union Progress (PUP), the first strike paper of the digital age, calls it quits as the journalists go back to work. (PUP)