"FEMA has been significantly weakened and will likely struggle to respond to a large-scale disaster this summer. Sources say it will likely take years to undo the damage that's been done." Hurricane season starts tomorrow.

"This document really is showing who he deems to be a political foe more so than a threat to the homeland." Trump's 2026 counterterrorism strategy doesn't mention white supremacists, neo-Nazis, or far-right extremism. @nytimes.com WH correspondent Zolan Kanno-Youngs explains what it means.

“There is understandable concern that this is a dry run for going after ballot seizures in an ongoing election...the concern is you now have highly placed election denialists within the federal government who have the ability to use the enormous power the federal government has, and to abuse it.”

A network of research centers that was well-positioned to respond to the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo had its funding canceled last year by the Trump administration. My latest for @wired.com: www.wired.com/story/us-res...

With 900+ suspected cases and 223 deaths, a former White House global health security coordinator says this Ebola outbreak is on track to be as bad as 2014 if not worse. That outbreak killed 11,000. "We are on our back foot already, much more than the world was at the beginning of that outbreak."

With 900+ suspected cases and 223 deaths, a former White House global health security coordinator says this Ebola outbreak is on track to be as bad as 2014 if not worse. That outbreak killed 11,000. "We are on our back foot already, much more than the world was at the beginning of that outbreak."

Most Pope Leo AI coverage is focused on what technology can't replace about humanity. Worth discussing for sure. But the document also talks about the democracy element and most articles are missing that... 1/2

A warning from the president of MIT: “the nation’s research enterprise is shrinking. Scientific funding is drying up. And the funds Congress recently allocated for science are not actually flowing”

Trump turns 80 next month. There has also been recent public scrutiny about visible bruising, leg swelling, and other questions about his health. The bigger issue today isn’t speculation. The real question is transparency.

The San Diego mosque manifesto listed Jews as enemy #1. Women as enemy #2. Then Muslims. Trump's recent counterterrorism strategy doesn't mention far-right extremism, white supremacy, or neo-Nazis at all. "Far-right terrorism is alive and well, but you wouldn't know it from reading this document."

"You cannot build community resilience in a population that has been systematically cut off from shared reality, structurally blocked from meaningful participation, and conditioned to stay quiet."

Yesterday, Pope Leo warned that AI is blurring the line between truth and falsehood. Researchers call it Truth Decay. AI, cyberattacks on elections, and domestic surveillance are impacting our democratic agency. The systems being built depend on your exhaustion and silence. Don't give them either.

Deploying ICE to polling places is illegal. Election officials know that. They're preparing anyway because this administration has shown it doesn't care what's legal. One official is running tabletop exercises that include a scenario where he gets arrested.

"This is the first time in history that an Ebola outbreak has reached such scale before detection." 600+ cases. 139 deaths. Six weeks of undetected spread. Three former NSC officials say dismantling USAID, CDC, and WHO partnerships made this inevitable. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

1 reason ppl are concerned about the Ebola outbreak: “It was just over a year ago that Elon Musk gleefully declared that they were throwing USAID into the wood chipper. And you may recall that Elon Musk also sheepishly said at his first Cabinet meeting that he mistakenly canceled Ebola prevention…”

Every summer I repost this article on how to spot drowning. Please read it and pass on. In the last few years I’ve had SIX messages from people who saved a kid’s life after clicking on the link from my feed. slate.com/technology/2...

Erasing history www.nbcnews.com/politics/jus...

In my opinion, the dismantling of USAID by the current US administration is a large part of why the current Ebola outbreak was not detected earlier. There are likely people dead and dying right now who would otherwise not have been. Politics is the greatest biological risk.

The Trump counterterrorism strategy released earlier this month makes zero mention of right-wing extremism. 2 days later, San Diego happened. "We deserve a counterterrorism strategy that responds thoughtfully to trends that endanger not only religious minorities but the country as a whole."

Think about the message this sends to extremists. MAGA White House rewarding past (and potential future?) violence."They can get money, they can get guns...And right now they have the endorsement of the president showing that they will be financially rewarded for their violence."

The Trump counterterrorism strategy released earlier this month makes zero mention of right-wing extremism. 2 days later, San Diego happened. "We deserve a counterterrorism strategy that responds thoughtfully to trends that endanger not only religious minorities but the country as a whole."

Two simultaneous outbreaks. A hollowed out CDC. A public that doesn't trust what it's being told. And an administration that dismantled the infrastructure built specifically for moments like this.🧵

Two simultaneous outbreaks. A hollowed out CDC. A public that doesn't trust what it's being told. And an administration that dismantled the infrastructure built specifically for moments like this.🧵

75% of the 100,000+ children separated from parents during Trump's deportation push are US citizens. That's more than 20 times the scale of the 2018 "zero tolerance" crisis. DHS says 60,000. Brookings says at least 145,000. "This is my American child being harmed."

“RFK Jr.’s HHS Orders Lab Studying Deadly Infectious Diseases to Stop Research NIAID’s Integrated Research Facility is one of the few federal facilities charged with studying Ebola. Tuesday afternoon, all of its work was put on indefinite pause by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s department.”

75% of the 100,000+ children separated from parents during Trump's deportation push are US citizens. That's more than 20 times the scale of the 2018 "zero tolerance" crisis. DHS says 60,000. Brookings says at least 145,000. "This is my American child being harmed."

Tina Peters tampered with voting systems, got convicted, and just got clemency from a Democratic governor because she said "I made a mistake." Jan 6 rioters who beat cops got pardoned. Election deniers walk free. And we wonder why they keep trying.

"The reassignment of career scientists... is highly unusual for the NIH. Career scientists are typically not replaced when presidential administrations change, and the forced reassignments worry some scientists, who fear a growing political influence over science at the institute..."

Wtf. On a podcast this guy questioned the 2020 election and compared the Biden administration to Nazi Germany. He also claimed Covid vaccines didn't prevent disease or transmission, and said he opposed abortion (even after rape/incest. Shocked but not surprised. Par for the course with this regime.

The Nebraska biocontainment network worked exactly as designed. That's the good news. The bad news: CDC staff now need approval to talk to WHO. A quarter of CDC staff is gone. NIH cut funding for one of the few labs studying Andes hantavirus. This outbreak was manageable. The next one may not be.

The Nebraska biocontainment network worked exactly as designed. That's the good news. The bad news: CDC staff now need approval to talk to WHO. A quarter of CDC staff is gone. NIH cut funding for one of the few labs studying Andes hantavirus. This outbreak was manageable. The next one may not be.

RFK has gone quiet on vaccines publicly. White House orders, midterms coming. But behind the scenes he's running a $40-50 million operation to prove vaccines cause chronic disease. He's already decided they do. Now he's paying government scientists to manufacture the evidence.

53 days to the 250th anniversary. It should be a celebratory moment but that's not where we are. Winning elections isn't enough. The corruption has to be dismantled, voting rights restored, redistricting fixed. The republic needs to be rebuilt. That's the scope of what's ahead.

Still not over this. It's obvious to most ppl but never trust a word out of this regime's mouth. They suppressed studies showing COVID and shingles vaccines are safe and released unvetted claims they're dangerous. Just the latest example of lies, but certainly not the last.

DHS called it "a disgusting pepper spray hoax." A local pastor testified under oath it happened. Video existed. ProPublica found 79 children harmed nationwide. One infant briefly stopped breathing. A CBP officer on body cam: "Fuck yeah." www.propublica.org/article/kids...

🚨Democracy Watch: Virginia voters had their votes thrown out today. The rules apply differently depending on who's drawing the lines. That's not new. What's new is how openly they've stopped pretending otherwise.

The CDC didn't set up a response team until nearly a month after the first patient died. 6 Americans are back on US soil and that information came from a medical news outlet, not the CDC or State Department. The White House pandemic preparedness office is unstaffed..🧵 www.nytimes.com/2026/05/07/h...

Not the next pandemic, experts say. But the Andes strain behind this outbreak can spread person to person and is poorly understood. As one virologist put it: "Three days ago, nobody knew what a hantavirus was." The scientific significance here is real even if the pandemic risk isn't.

One takeaway from the FEMA Review Council meeting today: the members backed off of some of their most controversial recommendations, including renaming the agency and halving the staff levels. My latest @bloomberg.com: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

137 people died in the July Texas floods. Most were in areas already flagged as high-risk. @propublica.org found lawmakers rejected over five dozen flood safety bills in 60 years. With FEMA being dismantled and disaster aid repeatedly delayed/denied, states are more on their own than ever.

Blue states are waiting 63 days on average for disaster aid decisions. Their requests are being denied at more than twice the usual rate. Vermont waited 7 months and still got rejected despite damage exceeding normal thresholds. Trump on Alaska: 'ALASKA, I WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN! (Gift Article)👇

Hantavirus isn't typically associated with cruises. It spreads through aerosolized rodent droppings, not person-to-person, w/ 1 exception: the Andes strain (South America) which has shown signs of person-to-person spread. The ship originated in Argentina. That's what investigators are looking at.

Hantavirus isn't typically associated with cruises. It spreads through aerosolized rodent droppings, not person-to-person, w/ 1 exception: the Andes strain (South America) which has shown signs of person-to-person spread. The ship originated in Argentina. That's what investigators are looking at.

"Electricity is perhaps the most underrated issue of our time." Great breakdown of our aging grid. AI data centers are exposing a system that foundationally wasn't ready for surging demand.

The anti-science COVID culture war continues. A 78-year-old retired scientist had his door pounded down by armed agents in bulletproof vests over email violations. Weird... Epstein's clients don't seem to get this treatment. Neither do the people who beat cops on January 6.

AI and biotechnology are the definition of dual-use. The same tools accelerating drug discovery and fighting antibiotic resistance can walk someone through assembling a pathogen. Do I trust Congress to navigate that balance? No. States are going to have to lead, like they have on everything else.🧵

The White House fired the entire board overseeing the National Science Foundation. "I have watched the systematic dismantling of the scientific advisory infrastructure of this government with growing alarm, and the National Science Board is simply the latest casualty." www.npr.org/2026/04/28/n...

“If you believe in political violence as a necessary or tolerable means to an end, you are not a Democrat or a Republican or an independent; you are—first and foremost—an extremist whose views are in direct conflict with the American system of self-governance...”

"They've turned what was previously the crown jewel of the Civil Rights Division into a weapon against voters." 30 attorneys in the DOJ Voting Section on inauguration day. Three months later, all but two were gone. Yesterday the Supreme Court gutted the VRA...

"This was purely a political decision." The CDC blocked a COVID vaccine effectiveness paper from publication. That's not new. What's new: a source close to the study just made it public. 53-55% effective against hospitalization. Standard science that doesn't fit their anti-vax narrative.