In my first piece for The Baffler, I traveled to Ukraine to report on the growing power of agribusiness. More than four years into Russia's full-scale invasion, farmers, activists & academics are raising the alarm about the transformation of farmland, which is flying largely under the radar:

Joan Semmel Is Doing Her Best Work at 93 “You say, ‘Fuck you. I'm good and you're wrong,’” she told Hyperallergic. “This is who I am, this is what I do, and this is what I care about.”

Joan Semmel's boldly colorful, intimate paintings have radically shifted perspective from the male gaze toward a woman’s view. At age 93, after more than 60 years as an artist, she believes her most recent paintings are among the best she has ever made.

Black-and-white chest X-ray image overlaid with the headline, “After Decades of Quiet Rumbling, an Epidemic Is Erupting Among California Stoneworkers.” Smaller text reads: “The engineered stone industry is worth nearly $30 billion. But the workers at its core are falling sick and dying from an illness called silicosis. Now these workers—most of whom are young immigrants—are suing manufacturers.” The byline reads “By Kayla Yup,” with the In These Times logo at the bottom.

"The California Department of Public Health has described silicosis as an epidemic, one primarily plaguing young Latino immigrants like Hernandez who work in shops that fabricate engineered stone."

@kaylayup.bsky.social reports on the dangers of stoneworking.

inthesetimes.com/article/deca...

Sperm whales’ communication closely parallels human language, study finds Analysis shows whales’ coda vocalizations are ‘highly complex’ and remarkably similar to our own

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Deep-sea wildernesses are more important than the promise of seafloor mining (analysis) When I set sail on the MV NorSky in the summer of 2008 to probe the depths of Manus Basin off the coast of Papua New Guinea, I believed in the promise of deep-sea mining. As an early-career deep-sea e...

"When I set sail on the MV NorSky in the summer of 2008 to probe the depths of Manus Basin off the coast of Papua New Guinea, I believed in the promise of deep-sea mining..."

news.mongabay.com/2026/04/deep...

The Profession That Does Not Exist | Baffler Symposium A partial history of the hidden labor that makes possible the poems, stories, essays, and books you read.

“To choose meanings out of the wild and waste of experience is the assaying work of poems. What the World Pear Collection job, or my life of scrappy jobs more generally, meant to the writing of poems—that, however, is an open question.”

The Profession That Does Not Exist | Baffler Symposium A partial history of the hidden labor that makes possible the poems, stories, essays, and books you read.

When Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Rose took a job waiting tables in his home city of New Orleans, some former readers recognized him—but he wasn’t serving for a story. He’d taken the job to feed his family.

First Photos From NASA Moon Flyby Show Setting Earth and Eclipse

Our rare and beautiful planet. (gift article from The New York Times.)

How do I work through this unprecedented time I mutter to myself for the 20th time this year.

Fast and Free Buses Could Make New York More Affordable— and Green - 100 DAYS of ZOHRAN Making the environmental justice case for Mamdani’s campaign promise

Opponents of fast-and-free buses argue that there is little to no evidence that free transit does much for reducing air pollution or carbon emissions. But is this a case of carbon tunnel vision?

I explore the climate & environmental justice implications of free buses @thepolisproject.bsky.social

‘Permanent scar’: Iran minister on US-Israeli attacks on monuments Iran’s cultural heritage minister tells Al Jazeera damage to 56 sites is a ‘deliberate war' on the country's identity.

“We are not talking about stone and mortar,” Amiri said, gesturing to a mangled chandelier. “We are talking about the memory and history of a people. This stone represents who we are.”

www.aljazeera.com/features/202...

Dedicated to the mercenary and the freelancer, Baffler no. 83 contemplates the gigification of American life and privatization of conflict around the world, with stories on private militaries, foreign capital, and the impossibility of making a living as a writer.
thebaffler.com/issues/no-83

A black-and-white comic strip featuring a child asking his dad for a traffic safety poster slogan. The dad enthusiastically suggests a slogan promoting cyclists' rights and criticizing motorists, saying "I hope gas goes p to $8 a gallon". The child responds by deciding to ask his mom instead.

It's finally happening!

Mamdani Announces Free Child Care Program for City Workers - The American Prospect The provider will be on the ground floor of the Dinkins Municipal Building, and is another step on the road to a free, universal program citywide.

Some news: @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social is opening an on-site child care facility inside the Dinkins Municipal Building that will be free to city workers. It's a model for the universal child care program that is on track to hit full capacity by the end of his first term.
prospect.org/2026/03/30/m...

Why New York’s Governor Is Sinking Her Own Climate Policy Kathy Hochul seeks to hook the state on fossil fuels while forgoing cheaper renewable energy

Just as most democratic governors are trying to lower utility bills by scaling cheap, renewable energy, NYs gov, Kathy Hochul, is trying to extend the life of oil and gas, which will lock New Yorker in the the most expensive fuel for years to come.

Scientists Discover a New Branch of Life in the Deep Sea - Inside Climate News Researchers identified 24 new creatures and an entire superfamily of species in the Pacific, all while NOAA moves to fast-track deep-sea mining permits there.

Scientists just discovered a new superfamily of species in the depths of the Pacific Ocean—an evolutionary leap they compare to “finding dogs” for the first time. But the U.S. is fast-tracking deep-sea mining permits in the very same waters.

Hunted and Banned Efforts to control Black mobility—from early passports to the Fugitive Slave Act—laid much of the groundwork for today’s border regimes.

I have a new essay in @bostonreview.bsky.social, a transnational look at how slavery and the policing of Black mobilities across Atlantic empires shapes contemporary border regimes, and how this informs how we conceive of abolition www.bostonreview.net/articles/hun...

I'm thrilled to share that l've successfully completed the consumption of a high-fiber organic nutrient delivery system (commonly known as an apple). This experience reinforced the importance of consistent daily habits and proactive health management in maintaining peak professional performance. Grateful for the opportunity to fuel my growth and stay sharp for the challenges ahead. #HealthAndWellness #PersonalGrowth #Consistency #FuelingSuccess #Optimization

You want to know about this app that turns normal words into LinkedIn speak.

“I ate an apple.”

translate.kagi.com?from=en&to=l...

Environment Subcommittee Hearing - Beneath the Waves: The Science and Technology of Deep-Sea Mining

The US Congress House Science Committee is holding a hearing on #DeepSeaMining this Thursday. You can watch the livestream from the website. More info here: science.house.gov/2026/3/envir...

In Staten Island’s ‘Little Mexico,' ICE Presence Rattles a Community - Documented The raids have changed the lives of immigrants in the area, from how they work to how they acquire food and clothing.

I took a momentary break from science writing to write about how ICE raids are affecting my home neighborhood back in Staten Island for @documentedny.bsky.social

documentedny.com/2026/03/23/i...

“…we travel enormous distances only to discover that the place we are searching for has never stopped living inside us. Perhaps the journey was never meant to bring us somewhere new. Perhaps it only reveals how deeply we remain bound to the landscapes that first taught us how to see the sky.”

Flying Back With the Birds to My Hometown of Tehran Since the war began, I feel as if I am living inside a shadow. It has no physical form, yet it follows me everywhere.

Utterly wrecked by this beautiful meditation by @leilastudiony.bsky.social for @hyperallergic.com:

hyperallergic.com/flying-back-...

‘The saddest day for Muslim worshippers in Jerusalem’: al-Aqsa mosque closed at Eid Palestinians say the move is part of a wider Israeli strategy to leverage security tensions to tighten restrictions

“Behind the subdued celebrations lies a landscape of loss: mothers mourning children killed in recent strikes, and others marking the holiday in silence, stripped of its rituals, navigating Eid with little more than memory.”

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

What Happened to the Black Women Trump Purged From the Federal Work Force? Over a year later, they are struggling to find financial footing and make sense of the racist backlash that displaced them.

"I talked to four Black women...They are still unemployed and emotionally distraught from the chaos of the past year. Savings accounts are depleted, student loans languish, and their sense of self-worth crumbles."

hammerandhope.org/article/trum...

Toxic Pollution From Iran War Will Spread and Last for Decades Exploding fuel infrastructure and missiles have released contaminants that put the health of millions of people at risk.

NEW: Fossil fuel pollution and other toxic chemicals from the war in Iran will spread across the region and last for decades just as smoke from burning oil wells went as far as the Himalayas following the Gulf War 35 years ago

FREE read on @bloomberg.com
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

A new UN climate resolution is a ‘credibility test’ of the global rule of law In a world characterized by increasing violence, instability and disrespect for international law, the UN General Assembly’s ability to pass a resolution welcoming and affirming the ICJ advisory opini...

International law is being tested in dozens of ways at the moment. @isabellakaminski.bsky.social shines a light on one: whether the UN will adopt a resolution welcoming the ICJ advisory opinion on climate or break under pressure from polluting countries drilled.media/news/un-icj

How elephants experience time, and what this tells us about protecting them Khatijah Rahmat, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Germany, says she’s trying to build legitimacy around the concept of animal temporality — the…

How do elephants experience time? Researcher Khatijah Rahmat argues that recognizing "animal temporality" could transform the field of conservation.

In this week’s episode of the #Mongabay Newscast, @mikedigirolamo.bsky.social explores how animals’ “time” can reshape protection efforts.

Bumblebee Queens Can Breathe Underwater

NEW: for @nytimes.com, I wrote about a new study showing that queen bumblebees can breathe underwater, surviving submerged for a week

the “remarkable” study stems from a lab snafu, when a co-author thought she accidentally drowned several bees—but later found that they were alive 🧪

gift link 🎁

Guam objects to Trump administration plan to allow deep-sea mining in western Pacific The Trump administration wants to allow deep-sea mining for critical minerals near the American territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Residents are worried about environmental impacts.

www.npr.org/2026/03/10/n...

In Tehran, Iranians Struggle to Breathe After Israeli Oil Facility Strikes "By the time we finally packed our bags and locked the door, our fingernails were caked in chemical grime, and our lungs were burning just from breathing inside our own living room."

The spectre of dark, unbreathable, toxic skies above Tehran should haunt our humanity. What a world we've created where the whims of madmen can destroy a people's innate right to breathe.

Devastating read by @dropsitenews.com : www.dropsitenews.com/p/tehran-ira...