The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has become the most popular party in the country, according to a striking new poll published Tuesday. If a national election were now held, 26 percent of Germans would vote for the AfD, according to a poll carried out by the Forsa Institute for Social Research and Statistical Analysis. That result puts the far-right party ahead of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s mainstream conservative bloc, which slid to second with 24 percent support...

Artificial-intelligence startup Perplexity on Tuesday offered to purchase Google’s Chrome browser for $34.5 billion as it works to challenge the tech giant’s web-search dominance. Perplexity’s offer is significantly more than its own valuation, which is estimated at $18 billion. The company told The Wall Street Journal that several investors including large venture-capital funds had agreed to back the transaction in full. A spokesperson for Google declined to comment on the...

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said Goldman Sachs boss David Solomon should go back to “being a DJ” and teed off on the investment bank after it warned that US consumers will soon pay the brunt of tariff-related price hikes. Trump fumed over a revised analysis released Monday by Goldman’s chief economist Jan Hatzius forecasting that households will soon cover 64% of tariff costs — after absorbing 22% through June.

The Republican-controlled Pennsylvania Senate passed a bill on Tuesday that would fund SEPTA and avoid major service cuts at the end of the month, but it's expected to face challenges from Democrats in the state House. Senators first passed an amendment to the bill, introduced by Republican state Sen. Joe Picozzi of Northeast Philadelphia, with a 27-22 vote along party lines.  The bill will now go back to the Pennsylvania House.

The Trump administration has significantly rewritten and downscaled the US government's annual report on global human rights abuses. The state department document, previously seen as the most comprehensive study of its kind by any government, significantly reduces criticism of some US allies such as Israel and El Salvador while escalating disapproval of perceived foes such as Brazil and South Africa. Entire sections included in reports from previous years are also eliminated, dramatically...

New population statistics show that President Donald Trump has been successful so far in reversing the inflow of immigrants, both legal and illegal. The current population survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the foreign-born population dropped by an unprecedented 2.2 million people between January and July, the first few months of Trump's second term.

Moscow troops made one of their most dramatic advancements of the year Tuesday when they pushed deeper into the Donetsk region of Ukraine — just three days before President Trump is set to meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Russia’s invasion forces marched some six miles past the frontlines in Donetsk to encircle the towns of Kostyantynivka, Dobropillia and Pokrovsk, advancing Moscow’s goal of taking full control of the region, according to Ukraine’s authoritative...

from The National Pulse: WHAT HAPPENED: Russian forces have achieved a significant breakthrough in eastern Ukraine, advancing past Ukrainian defensive lines near the frontline city of Pokrovsk. ?WHO WAS INVOLVED: Russian forces, Ukrainian forces, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald J. Trump are set to meet in Alaska soon. ?WHEN & WHERE: The […]

Welcome back to our weekly behind-the-scenes glimpse at what’s getting our team talking. Let us know what you think at info@reasonstobecheerful.world. Building better The New York City area is known for being a wildly expensive place to live. But there are pockets of affordability — one of which is the commuter town of New Rochelle, as the Wall Street Journal reports in a story shared by RTBC Executive Editor Will Doig. Thanks to “developer-friendly politics” that streamline the process, more than 4,500 new housing units have been built there over the last decade, and thousands more are on the way. Will says:   New Rochelle is all in on YIMBYism, and it’s one of the few places in the New York City area where rents are going down. Flower power Kyle Lybarger, a social media influencer in Alabama, raised over $100,000 selling t-shirts that featured the leafy prairie clover, a little-known endangered plant. According to a New York Times story shared by Contributing Editor Geetanjali Krishna, he used the money to purchase 24 acres of the land where the plant grows in the wild. But his biggest impact is on social media, where he’s inspiring his followers (nearly half a million on TikTok!) to grow native plants that support pollinators and other insects. Geetanjali says:   Who would have ever thought that a nerdy program on native plants that many dismiss as “weeds” could go so viral? I especially love how he talks about the power of the individual, and of small steps, at a time when so many of us are simply paralyzed by the scale of the environmental crisis: “One person, one yard, one-tenth of an acre can make a bigger difference than you think,” he says. What else we’re reading Audio of Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson arguments from Marriage Story used to scare off wolves in the US — shared by Editorial Director Rebecca Worby from the Guardian After a Six-Year Struggle, Tenants in Boston’s Mattapan Neighborhood Win Permanent Affordability — shared by Will Doig from Shelterforce Kulture City maps safe spaces for neurodivergent New Yorkers — shared by Rebecca Worby from WNYC In other news… Next week, RTBC is taking our annual summer publishing break. But keep an eye on our social media (find us on Facebook, Bluesky and Instagram), where we’ll be unearthing plenty of fun stuff from our archives all week. The post What We’re Reading: How a New York Suburb Is Bringing Down Rents appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.