Category Assorted Links

• The Executive Order Freezing Federal Spending
• DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learning - The DeepSeek Research Paper
• Does Trump Have the Power to Block Spending That Congress Has Authorized? (NYT)
• The ancient discovery that put a Silk Road city back on the map
• Sweden seizes vessel after new cable breach in Baltic Sea (Wash Post)

• What is DeepSeek, the Chinese AI company upending the stock market? (AP)
• Germany's Economic Model Is Broken, and No One Has a Plan B (WSJ)
• China's economic performance: New numbers, same overstatement
• U.S. Employee Engagement Sinks to 10-Year Low
• News Aggregators and Competition among Newspapers on the Internet
• United States-China Multilateralism in the Age of Military AI
• Chinese AI lab DeepSeek rattles Silicon Valley

NOTE: These are NOT recommendations. For more information see About Book Deals.

• The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett ($2.99)
• The Case of the Dubois Bridegroom by Erle Stanley Gardner ($2.99 or available thru Kindle Unlimited)
• The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic by Chalmers Johnson ($2.99)
• Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins by Andrew Cockburn ($2.99)
• Conquest: The English Kingdon of France, 1417-1450 by Juliet Barker ($2.99 or available thru Kindle Unlimited)
• The Lost World of Byzantium by Jonathan Harris ($2.99)
• The Long Road Home: One Step at a Time (Doonesbury) by G. B. Trudeau ($2.99 or available thru Kindle Unlimited)

• Yes, reshoring American industry is possible (Noah Smith substack)
• Planetary Solvency - finding our balance with nature by Sandy Trust, et al.
• Lasers reveal hidden patterns in tattoos of 1,200-year-old Peru mummies
• CIA Now Favors Lab Leak Theory on Origins of Covid-19 (WSJ) - But agency says it has 'low confidence' in its finding.
• The Egyptian pyramid chain was built along the now abandoned Ahramat Nile Branch
• State capacity, mining and community relations in Peru
• What Is ASEAN?
• Why China-Taiwan Relations Are So Tense
• Why China Would Struggle to Invade Taiwan

• The Most Detailed Map of US Waters That You've Ever Seen
• The 7 Most Influential Papers in Computer Science History
• Why cold weather is no longer an EV battery killer (Wash Post)
• Adam Ozimek on high skilled immigration
• Insurers are the climate change canary in the coal mine
• NBA greats think this D-II coach is a basketball genius. So why don't you know who he is? (NYT/The Athletic)

• A Spy Satellite You've Never Heard of Helped Win the Cold War
• MIT spinout Commonwealth Fusion Systems unveils plans for the world's first fusion power plant
• Pension Funds Want Private Equity to Open Up About Fees and Returns (WSJ)
• Global Economic Prospects
• IMF - Real GDP growth

• When Do Parties Lie? Misinformation and Radical Right Populism Across 26 Countries. If you don't want to read the entire paper, you can read this article.
• DeepSeek R1 vs. OpenAI 01 for Finance
• Everyone Who Has Ever Been to Space, Charted
• Why America is in an alcohol recession
• Hamas Is Effectively Back in Control in Gaza (WSJ)
• Fed Seaweed, Grazing Cattle Produced 40% Less Methane (The seeweed is a supplement.)

• Global Risks Report 2025
• Where Russia, Ukraine, and Trump Stand as Possible Peach Talks Loom
• Solar-charging backpacks are helping children read after dark
• Article II and the federal Reserve
• Invasive green crabs threaten West Coast ecosystems. One solution? Otters
• In Art We Trust
• Opinion - 2025's Gas Crisis in the Russia-Ukraine Conflict

• Why Ukraine Shouldn't Negotiate with Putin - Totally agree.
• Tiktok is back online after Trump pledged to restore it (hat tip to Hacker News)
• The Evolution of Computer Science at the University Level
• The Making of Toy Story - The Paper.
• Canada threatens 'single largest trade blow' to U.S. if Trump follows through on tariffs
• The Man Who Tried to Redeem the World with Logic (hat tip to Hacker News)