Here's an antidote to the news today. Colman McCarthy's life. For years, I'd see Colman in the neighborhood, puttering along on his ancient bike. Always lifted my spirits. www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2...

hall of fame for breaking news alert abuse

This is solar on a scale that actually moves the needle on climate change. www.npr.org/2026/02/26/n...

Paper out today in PNAS! Transmission build-out could bring electricity generation cost reductions. But market integration saves costs *because* it pushes out high-cost suppliers, so: generators in some regions have incentives to block or delay transmission. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

People in Milan have to be absolutely SICK of Norwegians at this point

form energy, the iron-air battery unicorn, has been pretty quiet this past year. but today, the company dropped a banger: it’s building a 30 gigawatt-hour battery to power a google data center in minnesota, set to be the largest battery in the world by energy capacity 🤯

You can help build billionaire-free local news. Repost this -> I give $1 Follow @51st.news -> I give $1 Follow me -> I give $1 Donate -> I match your gift Let's fight misinformation, help good journalists to make a decent living, and stick a big ol' finger in Jeff Bezos' eye.

I remember back in grad school spending weeks creating my own version of a simple climate model you and Nathan Myhrvold developed: github.com/hausfath/Sim... It would be trivial to do with AI today, but you'd miss any understanding of "how" that (for me at least) was the most important outcome.

Important piece on the brazen corruption of Trump’s elite, and how we can fight it even when the Justice Department is sidelined. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/o...

"There is also an awkward truth Detroit executives will only whisper: Many dealers actively sabotaged EV sales. Car dealerships make most of their money on parts and service. EVs need far less maintenance...For a dealer, every EV sold represents years of lost...income." www.thefp.com/p/the-car-wo...

Oh, this an interesting legal argument

A giant wind farm in Wyoming died after facing permitting delays. In Indiana, a solar project stalled after the Trump administration blocked it from using a taxpayer-funded database. A federal permitting ‘blockade’ is hitting renewables projects hard. Story with @bradplumer.bsky.social:

Sweet story about the man behind a byline I've noticed for years -- and the charm of local reporting. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/b...

The 51st is a good alternative to the corpse of Bezos' Washington Post if you want local DC news. @51st.news Here @dancharles.bsky.social covers how it costs more to replace a DC home's gas pipes than to electrify the home

If I'm reading this correctly, the Baltimore Banner now has way more reporters covering local news than the Washington Post does.

I’d like to report a murder. Trying to fix a legacy media company is hard — we all know the economics — but Jeff Bezos just killed the @washingtonpost.com in the most cowardly & inept way possible. He would never entertain others who wanted to fix it too like me www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/b...

The @washingtonpost.com layoffs are a five-alarm fire for governance and community in this city. A metro desk of a dozen people for a major metro area? No sports reporting? Will Lewis has no idea what he's doing.

A staggering statement from former Washington Post editor Marty Baron: "This ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the world's greatest news organizations."

This sounds familiar... 🤔 But growing a newsroom from the ground up takes time and money — and frankly, we need way more resources than we have now to fill this massive gap. You can help us build the newsroom D.C. deserves: 51st.news/signup

I knew there was a reason I took this steel digging iron with me from the farm. Turns out it's the perfect tool for clearing snowcrete from DC sidewalks and streets

Washington Gas wants to spend $215M replacing gas pipes in D.C. Critics say that locks the city into fossil fuels (and higher bills) just as electrification gets cheaper. The decision is in the hands of D.C.'s Public Service Commission. Read more: 51st.news/inside-the-b...

"MPR News has learned that the police chief in the small southern Minnesota city of St. Peter intervened Thursday afternoon to prevent federal immigration agents from arresting a local resident" who had been observing federal agents. www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...

Can cities actually get off gas? DC is a case study. 51st.news/inside-the-b...

I mean, it's not like the Lakota haven't been fighting illegal immigration for 400 years.

Mind-boggling stuff: ICE has detained 4 Oglala men and is apparently demanding the Lakota--a nation of the continent's original inhabitants--“enter into an immigration agreement with ICE." www.twincities.com/2026/01/13/i...

Habitat for Humanity Seattle-King & County is proving what’s possible with Olympic Ridge. With a single-stair design, they’ve managed to fit 17 dual-aspect affordable condos on a incredibly narrow 35-foot wide lot in Capitol Hill. This is a masterclass in urban infill and density done right.

This series builds on Kevin's latest Mercatus study: www.mercatus.org/research/res...

We can't talk about Americans' empty wallets without talking about our empty buses and sidewalks.

Hey here’s a policy from Denmark we (and others) SHOULD be emulating:

On every continent, food supplies have grown faster than the population— We just lived through the period with the fastest population growth in human history. Six decades ago, there were three billion people on our planet.

In the era of affordability politics, making clean energy cheaper may be a more viable emissions mitigation strategy than making dirty energy more expensive. My latest over at The Climate Brink digs into the debate:

Incredibly, not one of these milestones scores as a “win” using the traffic engineering metrics that quietly dictate city planning. Urban planning prof Jonathan Levine and I have one paper detailing why and another explaining why it has to change for any vision of abundance to succeed. Links below.

In the story of our house electrification and DIY solar install, we’ll include a chapter about Washington Gas dragging its feet to cap the gas line. Today is the fifth time this guys has assessed the line, but still hasn’t completed the task. We filed a gas service abandonment nine months ago. ⚡️⚡️

Gotta give big props to the Downtown D.C. Holiday Market. In the last few years it has gotten *way* better, and proves that people will absolutely come out for well-planned car-free spaces and events. More of this, D.C.!

📣 LOST: 51,000+ former DCist readers are out there — and we know we can find them. Do you know someone who loved DCist? Introduce them to The 51st. 👀 👉 51st.news/signup

Good description of one of the country’s most crippling problems. “One person’s health care cost is another person’s health care income.” www.nytimes.com/2025/12/10/o...

We spent a year investigating billionaires for @washingtonpost.com. We found: the wealthiest 100 Americans gave $1.1 billion to influence the 2024 elections — 140x more than they did in 2000. And almost all of that giving boosted Republicans. washingtonpost.com/politics/int...

Speaking of journalism needing more money... we need more money. But we also need readers! You can help us by subscribing (on a paid or free basis!) and telling your friends, family, and anyone who will listen to subscribe to @51st.news

You know, I would grumble but accept it if they said, "The science is controversial," because it obviously and unfortunately is. But to say it isn't "evidence-based" when there is so much evidence is utter horseshit. And the other studies haven't been "ignored"--they've been carefully refuted.

I’ve been in Toronto at the #astmh meeting these past few days and last night some very good news was presented here: A new malaria drug has proven efficacious in a large trial and could soon be approved.🧪 My story in @science.org (and 🧵on why it's important to come): www.science.org/content/arti...

Every month for the last 77 years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has estimated Americans' unemployment rate This streak dies tomorrow Govt staff could not survey Americans about whether they're working or looking for work in Oct, the 1st time in 934 months This blind spot will remain forever

Imperial College London and Earthwatch Europe are calling on the UK government to implement stricter regulations for environmental risk assessment of pet medications like imidacloprid and restrict blanket preventative use of flea and tick treatments in the UK.

There has been a lot of recent interest in mitigating "super pollutants", short-lived climate pollutants like methane and refrigerants. We should cut emissions, but using them as carbon offsets risks breaking the math of net zero: www.theclimatebrink....

"Progressive yimbys are firmly in charge" in Baltimore as mayor signs bills: No off-street parking required. Single-stair buildings up to 6 stories. Reduced setbacks. Still in process: Allowing 2- & 4-unit buildings in multifamily zones. www.thebanner.com/politics-pow...

Meanwhile, in the far-left progressive bastion of ... entire State of Utah: "The plan shows 3,100 miles of paths. The network would come within a mile of 95% of Utahns, connect to 33 school campuses, 31 state/national parks, and 74 high-capacity transit stations." www.sltrib.com/news/2025/10...

🚨🚨Things are just getting worse. 🧵 www.politico.eu/article/us-a...

The USDA sent an email to grocery stores telling them they are prohibited from offering special discounts to customers affected by the SNAP funding lapse. I'm aware of at least 2 stores that had offered struggling customers a discount, then withdrew it after receiving this email

Every single report to shareholders from a large REIT includes something about how it's great that market-rate multifamily housing isn't getting built in high-cost coastal cities because the shortage is what allows them to rent gouge.

Let's help Clay out here with some math. The $4200/yr. is for a household. Average SNAP household has 1.9 people. So that's $2210/person. $2210/year is $184/month, and that's a little over $6. per day. Clay, let's see you stockpile groceries on $6/day. Hell, let's see you eat on $6/day.