The acting head of the CDC has canceled the publication of a study that found that the Covid vaccine sharply cut the odds of hospitalizations and emergency visits last winter
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/22/u...
"Benches are where optimistic visions of civic life meet reality. To remove them, or to curate who gets to sit, is to abandon the work of defining a civic ideal and determining, together, how to live up to it."
NEW: Why benches are slowly disappearing from public spaces — and why we need them back:
For all of the interest in pretending that inequalities are a function of will or that structural racism is in the distant past: 12 million people were born in Jim Crow states before Jim Crow ended — and still live there today. Gift link:
The rise in climate pollution from the US is 2025 canceled out the reductions from China, India, Japan, and the EU combined.
Not only do sperm whale have a form of “alphabet” and form vowels within their vocalizations but the structure of these vowels behaves in the same way as human speech, the new study has found.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
"The rise of extreme wealth is one of the clearest signs of this imbalance. In 1987, billionaires held wealth equal to 3% of global GDP. Today this tiny elite, just 0.0001% of the world population, owns the equivalent of *16%* of world GDP in wealth."
The Senate just voted to allow mining upstream from a pristine wilderness area in Minnesota, the Boundary Waters. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/16/c...
Every major oil shock, put on the same timeline. The 1973 embargo was the longest lasting. The 1990 Gulf War was the biggest reversal. The 2026 Hormuz crisis is the steepest climb and drop. But the line isn't finished yet.
America's oil execs have pocketed $1.4 billion selling stock during the Iran war, the WSJ reports
This cash windfall won’t go primarily toward yachts and private jets, but toward political campaigns and lobbying orgs dedicated to blocking climate policy and fueling authoritarianism
My alma mater taught me how to ask questions, and how to care more about the work than grades and quantitative metrics. I'm mourning Hampshire already, and the failures that have gotten us to the point where a school that values thinking and world-repair over capitalism can no longer keep going.
New paper in PNAS just out: Measles cases in the US in 2025 imposed a societal financial cost of $244.2 million.
A scenario where vaccination rates in young kids falls by 1% per year for 5 years would cost us all $7.77 billion over those years, while hospitalizing 4k+ people and killing dozens.
These NY Times oral histories—of what the Trump administration is doing to federal agencies—are a public service. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
My big takeaway from reporting this story is that it's not JUST about the Forest Service.
The closure of these stations threatens to upend a delicate system of mutually beneficial collaboration and resource sharing, and the impacts will ripple out far beyond the Forest Service itself.
Hampshire is so wonderful. This is so sad.
Disappointed, though not surprised, I began to describe various life- saving components of USAID’s global health portfolio, highlighting how we prepare for and respond to emerging pandemic threats; support the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV; and immunize millions of children from the deadliest childhood diseases. I spoke for about five minutes, focusing primarily on our infectious diseases work and hoping to keep the attention of people who seemed to have no experience—or interest—in global health. When I finished, the room was silent, the political appointees looking at one another in what appeared to be disbelief. The silence was broken by Ken Jackson, who chuckled softly and shook his head. “Wow, there really is so much that USAID does that we never knew,” he said. “This is the story that needs to get out there.” Joel, also smiling, chimed in next, echoing Jackson’s amazement. “I had no idea you did all this,” he said. “As a Republican, when I think of what USAID does in global health, I assumed it was just, you know, abortions.”
This is NUTS
www.thehandbasket.co/p/trump-usai...
New, from me: American taxpayers will spend billions of hours and hundreds of billions of dollars — not to pay their taxes, but to report them to the government.
Thank Trump, who killed Direct File, a free tax high-quality reporting tool that IRS had built. 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/what-the-d...
herbalism uses roots, which contain berberine
Tragically, the consequences of the OBBA's repeal of the IRA's tax credits are reflected in utility planning that extends decades:
subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eene...
Breaking: Trump orders the dismantling of the US Forest Service.
All regional offices are being shut down and the research program destroyed.
📊 Our colleague Veronika Samborska recently updated our chart with the latest data from the US Census Bureau. We do this quarterly, so our next update will be around June 2026.
Explore the interactive version of this chart: ourworldindata.org/grapher/mont...
Impossible to disagree with a single word that Ben Rhodes (Obama era NSC official) is saying here:
A Baltimore-based thread to explain one singular, overriding reason why American journalism is incapable of compassing and explaining the astonishing misrule and the implosion of all our governing norms. To wit:
A few decades ago, as a police reporter covering the Baltimore department, a new...
My one-hour special “Rick Steves Iran: Yesterday and Today,” which helps humanize 90 million Iranian people, is streaming free and ad-free at www.ricksteves.com/watch-iran.
Ahead of what is predicted to be a dangerous wildfire season, the Trump Administration gutted the Forest Service by closing its regional headquarters along with most research facilities and experimental forests. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/QDMl4y
Long-term studies are vital to understanding how species and ecosystems are responding to climate change and other environmental stressors, but difficult to sustain under typical short-term grant cycles. LTER has been funding these since 1980.
This is breaking something that can’t be replaced.
CBS News is laying off national environmental correspondent David Schechter, reportedly leaving no one at the network dedicated to covering climate change.
Don't look up!
Historians: The Trump administration wants to issue oil and gas leases across the greater Chaco landscape. They've given the public ONE WEEK (till 4/7) to weigh in on the future of this immensely important place. Please tell them what you think: eplanning.blm.gov/Participate-...
It's hard not to think of Paxton's definition of fascism when considering the extent to which the federal government under Trump has been reduced to a) a rogue murder state outside the nation's boundaries and b) a rogue, ethnic cleansing/mass deportation operation *inside* the nation's boundaries.
Two of the officers targeted by Mr. Hegseth are Black and two are women on a promotion list that consisted of 29 other officers, most of whom are white men. Mr. Hegseth’s highly unusual decision to remove the officers prompted some senior military officials to question whether they were being singled out because of their race or gender, officials said. Mr. Hegseth had been pressing Mr. Driscoll and General George for months to remove the officers from the promotion list. But Mr. Driscoll and General George refused, citing the officers’ long records of exemplary service.
Hegseth firing Generals who wouldn't go along with his purge of Black and female officers
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/02/u...
