Young, humpback whale launching itself into the sky: #AGoodPlace

Source: www.reddit.com/r/NatureIsFu...

Our efforts to halt global forest loss aren't working: New research The loss of our forests is one of the biggest environmental challenges of our time. Forests are key to curbing carbon emissions and protecting the plants, animals, and humans that call Earth home.

Our efforts to halt global forest loss aren't working: New research
phys.org/news/2026-04...

DOJ Opens Criminal Probe Into Hate-Watch Group Until recently, the civil rights group was a partner to the FBI, providing critical information about extremists, including white supremacists, operating in the U.S.

"For 55 years, the Southern Poverty Law Center has stood as a beacon of hope fighting white supremacy and various forms of injustice to create a multi-racial democracy where we can all live and thrive,” Fair said. (cont.)

This so gross.

www.huffpost.com/entry/doj-op...

Congratulations, Virginia! Republicans are trying to tilt the midterm elections in their favor, but they haven’t done it yet. Thanks for showing us what it looks like to stand up for our democracy and fight back.

ICE charter lands in Congo carrying 15 Latin American migrants The Democratic Republic of Congo becomes the eighth African nation known to have taken third-country nationals from the Trump administration.

Trump’s ICE started DRC third-country removals last week with 15 people from Latin American countries.

And we sent an Iraqi interpreter who had helped US military to Rwanda last year.

There is no bottom.
gillianbrockell.com/breaking-ice...

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

This is monstrous. Just profoundly shameful behavior by our government.

www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/w...

The new money from the Senate reconciliation plan could be used better by directly helping Americans instead of providing more funding for the Department of Homeland Security Select services and how many people could receive any of them through the end of fiscal year 2029 with funding equivalent to what is called for in the Senate Republican budget resolution Table with 6 columns and 2 rows. (column headers with buttons are sortable) People covered by Medicaid Children receiving free school lunch People housed in Section 8 Children given free child care Adults with free community college tuition (two-year degree) Senate stated deficit increase target ($70B) 2,188,000 22,702,000 2,412,000 1,364,000 2,196,000 Maximum allowable deficit increase ($140B) 4,375,000 45,403,000 4,824,000 2,729,000 4,392,000 Notes: Funding could be used for any of these individually, not all in combination. See Methodology for more details. Figures in the $140-billion deficit increase line may not appear to be double the $70-billion line due to rounding. Source: Author’s calculations from U.S. Senate Committee on the Budget, “Concurrent Resolution setting forth the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2026 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2027 through 2035” (Washington: 2026); Congressional Budget Office, “The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2026 to 2036” (Washington: 2026); Elizabeth Williams and others, “Medicaid Enrollment & Spending Growth: FY 2025 & 2026” (Washington: KFF, 2025); Food and Nutrition Service, “National School Lunch, Special Milk, and School Breakfast Programs, National Average Payments/Maximum Reimbursement Rates,” Federal Register 90 (140) (2025): 34827–34830; U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “Assisted Housing: National and Local” (last accessed March 2026); U.S. House of Representatives, “Division — Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 20…

New from me: Trump's plan to pump more money into ICE and CBP is a missed opportunity to help Americans.

Republicans want to give $70 bn to ICE/CBP, funding them through the end of Trump. Here's what we could do with that money instead.

Read more here: www.americanprogress.org/article/trum...

💖 She's living her best life
🌿💚💚💖💖💚💖💖💚💚🌿

Kevin Warsh just lost me. He argues he's going to be an independent Fed Chair, but refuses to acknowledge that Trump lost the 2020 election. If you can't state simple facts when you're in the political spotlight, you aren't independent. You're a coward.

In February 1777, General George Washington ordered the first mass immunization campaign in American history by mandating that his troops be inoculated against smallpox. He protected the Continental Army from an epidemic that was deadlier than British forces.

249 years later, we have this idiot.

Lovely Bird Songs 🎶

The insider trading suspicions looming over Trump's presidency The BBC has found a pattern of spikes in trades ahead of public announcements by the US president.

The insider trading suspicions looming over Trump's presidency

Join me LIVE on Wednesday with @ruthbenghiat.bsky.social!

A large white waterfowl with orange feet stands in front of a door. On the door is a cardboard sign secured with tape that reads, "DO NOT LET THE DUCK IN." Adding insult to injury, I think the duck might be a goose.

Whatever you do,

A ‘Cloud Jaguar’ Was Spotted for the First Time in Honduras in 10 Years. Here's What It Means A rare 'cloud jaguar' was photographed in Honduras’ Sierra del Merendón mountains, marking the first such sighting in the region in a decade. 'Cloud jaguars' are jaguars that live in cloud forests, a ...

“Cloud jaguars” are jaguars that live in cloud forests, a type of rainforest found high in the mountains where clouds sit low among the trees.

people.com/a-cloud-jagu...

Amazon, which saved $4B in taxes under Trump's Big Ugly Bill, has cut 30,000 jobs since last October.

Verizon, which saved $2B, plans to cut 15,000 jobs this year.

Meta, which saved $3B, plans to lay off 20% or more of its workforce.

Trickle-down economics is a cruel joke.

Close up photo of my cat’s paws with his head tucked next to them.

This cuddly, squishy creature. I adore him.

Mervyn Peake’s illustration of tower in front of castle, landscape.

‘This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.’ ~
Mervyn Peake. #BookWormSat

U.S. Installs a Trump Loyalist to Lead ‘Grand Conspiracy’ Case Into Trump Foes

Worth adding that Russia did as a matter of fact intervene for Trump in 2016 and that the evidence is widely known, abundant, and collected in various forms (🧵 1/3)
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/u...

ABSTRACT Viral pandemics continue to threaten global health and economic stability. Despite medical advances, the absence of broad-spectrum antivirals (BSAs) prevents rapid responses to emerging viral threats. This is largely due to the lack of universal drug targets across diverse viral families and high variability among viral proteins. In this study, we evaluated 57 synthetic carbohydrate receptors (SCRs) for antiviral activity in cellulo using pseudotyped virus particles (PVPs) from six high-risk viruses across three families: Paramyxoviridae, Filoviridae, and Coronaviridae. Four SCRs inhibited all tested PVPs, and their efficacy was confirmed against live viruses including SARS-CoV-2, MERS-COV, EBOV, MARV, NiV, and HeV. Notably, SCR005 and SCR007, which exhibited minimal toxicity, significantly reduced SARS-CoV-2 infection in a severe animal model with a single dose. Mechanistic studies suggested that SCRs bind viral envelope N-glycans, blocking viral attachment and/or fusion. These results identify conserved viral N-glycans as promising BSA targets and establish SCRs as candidate prophylactic agents against enveloped viruses with pandemic potential.

Their efficacy was confirmed against LIVE viruses including Ebola, Marburg, Nipah, Hendra, SARS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), AND Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).

The study has been published in Science Advances. YES, it is PEER-REVIEWED.
• www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🧪🧵⬇️

GOOD NEWS! Researchers have made a HUGE breakthrough towards a UNIVERSAL antiviral. By targeting sugar molecules found on the surface of many viruses that SHARE structural similarities, they identified FOUR compounds that successfully BLOCKED infections from SEVEN different viruses.

Another normal weekend in Third World America

www.newsweek.com The most dangerous states for drivers

The Most Dangerous States for Drivers
#Newsweek

Extremely normal and fine for a company to put this in a public statement

Khanna: "You have the pope lecturing America about possible war crimes. You have the president threatening to destroy all power plants. What have we achieved? We've created devastation."

According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump was in such a volatile state after Iran shot down a U.S. jet that he spent hours screaming at aides in the West Wing, obsessing over the political fallout and invoking Jimmy Carter and the 1979 hostage crisis. 2/

WOW: A stunning new report in the WSJ reveals that military advisers intentionally excluded Donald Trump from the command room during the recent high-stakes operation to extract a downed U.S. airman in Iran, because they feared his erratic behavior could jeopardize the mission. 1/

The brown and black striped tail of a tabby cat emerges from a pile of laundry.

Laundry day 😻

#Cats

Why we aren't throwing money at this research instead of AI farms boggles my mind.