The EU is imposing a ban on transactions involving 20 Russian banks, according to the statement

When Einstein developed general relativity the closest thing to a practical application that could even be imagined at the time was a slightly more precise description of where to look for the planet Mercury in the sky, and yet now we’d all be literally lost without it.

Anyway: fund basic research.

The Price of a Prolonged Standoff www.wsj.com/world/middle...

Imagine if we had just *wasted* the Artemis II space project.

We @climatesollab.bsky.social track the extra fuel costs the Iran war has imposed on American households. As of today, the total nationwide cost is $24.6 billion, more than the annual budget of NASA.

iranwarcost.watson.brown.edu

Technical but important step - for the first time since Croatia joined in 2013, the EU has today started drafting an accession treaty, with Montenegro:

Your Guide to NASA's Budget How big is NASA's budget right now? What was it like in the past? How does it compare to the rest of government spending? These answers, as well as…

While we're talking percentages, let's talk about the proposed cuts to NASA's science budget.

NASA is currently 0.36% of US federal spending. www.planetary.org/space-policy...

The proposed budget cuts NASA science by 47%.

NASA science is already on a shoestring, and that string is about to break

Just gonna leave this here

I used to be a civilian epidemiologist for the Army. The optional-flu-vaccine policy won't last.

The White House Intervened on Behalf of Accused Sex Trafficker Andrew Tate During a Federal Investigation Federal authorities were chided for seizing electronic devices from Tate and his brother, and told to return them, records and interviews show. Experts said the intervention was highly inappropriate.

Experts say it’s highly unusual for the White House to tell agents to give up custody of potential evidence in an investigation, as it did with the Tates.

“I’ve never heard of anything like that in my 30 years working,” an ex-DHS official said.

(Published Nov. 2025)

Smart guy wanted healthy troops.

Fisherman. We're blowing up fishing boats.

“procured through fraud”- dude it’s a Trump project, you can’t claim you didn’t know!

You ever try to code switch at work and fail? 😂

Trump extends ceasefire indefinitely as Iran says it won’t join talks now The announcement came as talks set to take place between U.S. and Iranian delegations in Pakistan were postponed amid uncertainty about the broad strokes of a deal.

Trump’s seems to have tired of pretending he has leverage www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/0...

Me: Isn't this great?

Democrats: Hell yeah. We didn't know we were supposed to fight back

Me: I know. I know...

If Texas hadn’t done it, California and Virginia wouldn’t have even pursued it.

Trump Is Said to Be in Talks to Send Afghans Who Aided U.S. Forces to Congo

America abandons these brave Afghans who risked their lives for America. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/w...

This GOP budget resolution also gives us a window into what kind of deficits Republicans expect from the 2027 budget and beyond. Their estimate is that the overall GOP budget would add $8.67 trillion to the deficit over 10 years: /fin

And the one of those with the most combat experience is Ukraine

Kallas: Ministers agreed to push ahead with new russia sanctions package

This was from my thread 2 weeks ago during the horrifying "civilization will die" waiting game. I'm maybe a smidge less terrified because Trump so desperately wants a deal (and Iran does too though they still have the leverage). But the choices are still humiliation or escalation.

Illustrating once again the extent to which the Venezuela raid emboldened Trump to engage in further military adventurism.

60 Minutes - Episodes, interviews, profiles, reports and 60 Minutes Overtime - CBS News Visit 60 Minutes on CBS News: Watch the most successful TV broadcast in history, offering investigative reports, interviews, feature segments, episodes and profiles.

excellent piece with great insights from my friends and colleagues @matthew-bunn.bsky.social @scottroecker.bsky.social and Andrew Weber.

www.cbsnews.com/60-minutes/

Bottom line - US could remove HEU from Iran easily if Iran agrees and maybe without. But no military solution to Iran nuclear issue.

Trump Library Saga Takes Dark Turn: Where Did Millions in Funding Go? Four huge media conglomerates forked over $63 million in “settlements” earmarked for Trump’s presidential library. Democrats are trying to track that money—and the latest developments don’t inspire co...

SCOOP --> Paramount, Meta, and X are refusing to say what happened to their huge contributions to Trump's presidential library after Sen Elizabeth Warren raised questions about its fund getting dissolved. Ds say tens of millions remain unaccounted for.

Details here:
newrepublic.com/article/2092...

A Stock Trader’s Guide to a Fractured Economic World Investors are set to pour more money into defense, energy and technology stocks as the Middle East war forces governments to prioritize security and become more self reliant.

Investors are set to pour more money into defense, energy and technology stocks as the Middle East war forces governments to prioritize security.

And then there was the correspondence between him and Tsar Nicholas. None of it ended well of course

Impact of Iran war will hurt US even after conflict ends, economists warn Wave of inflation will persist as higher fuel prices feed through into businesses

"Donald Trump’s war in Iran has unleashed a torrent of inflation in the US that economists warn will linger long after the conflict ends, squeezing Americans ahead of November’s midterm elections." www.ft.com/content/8043... via @ft

Where U.S. science has been hit hardest after Trump’s first year The Trump administration has slashed the number of grants from the National Institutes of Health, with far fewer focused on women, cancer and mental health.

Those of us doing research related to women’s health have been hit particularly hard by the govt’s sabotage of the NIH. I spoke to WaPo for this piece, as painful as it was to discuss the reality my lab is facing. www.washingtonpost.com/science/2026...

I have seriously lost track of how many times we've completely obliterated Iran's military and how many times Trump has reopened the Strait of Hormuz.