Elon Musk had DOGE defund USAID, the largest humanitarian organization in the world, causing HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of deaths from starvation and disease - and Trump GLEEFULLY approved it. It’s the single most evil act in US history. Cartoon by Mike Luckovich

The pain that consumers are feeling from the Iran war is real, and likely to get worse. But those short-term costs are only the tip of the economic iceberg, writes CI editor-in-chief @eamonka.bsky.social in a new commentary.

@centuryintl.bsky.social colleague @eamonka.bsky.social lays out how Trump's war on Iran – in addition to being monstrous and wrong – will also incur all kinds of second-order economic costs, making Americans' lives materially worse: tcf.org/content/comm...

Got to stretch my econ muscles and explain just how bad the Iran war is for the US economy—and it goes way beyond inflation. New commentary for @centuryintl.bsky.social tcf.org/content/comm...

Runaway war spending disfigures every aspect of the economy. Americans will be paying the costs of Trump’s reckless war on Iran for generations. @eamonka.bsky.social for @centuryintl.bsky.social tcf.org/content/comm...

The @cssl.bsky.social is reporting zero snow water equivalent this morning, with just a little snow left around the property. It’s the earliest melt out of the lab’s snowpack since 2015. Median March 30 snow water equivalent is 34 inches. #CAwx

I think often of a New York Times photo of a little Iraqi girl tending to her parakeets in a bombed house, probably from 20 years ago now. I will think of this man and his sweet dog often now too. People just want to love what they love, care for their little beings, and instead we do this to them

probably nothing

Unless there's a sudden shift in weather conditions, preliminary estimates show that 2026 set another new record low maximum extent for #Arctic sea ice. This follows very closely with last year, which previously set the record. Not good! Download graphic at zacklabe.com/arctic-sea-i...

There are so many ways in which this war can still escalate much further.

“Bike lanes that greatly reduced crashes on National Mall set for removal” 10/10 hed, no notes. #bikedc

I dunno, man. I really just do not know what to say at this point.

...And, again today, a huge swath of the continental United States clear across from the Pacific Coast to Mississippi River is experiencing all-time March monthly record heat. Some locations are so hot that they are actually exceeding *April* all-time record highs. Incredible.

I've interviewed more than a dozen hydrologists and climatologists across the West the past 10 days. A sense of panic is starting to set in. Wildfires and water shortages will start mounting this summer. Adverse impacts are expected from not only this heat wave, but the historically warm winter.

This is true but also a very problematic framing that has been adopted by too many. The issue isn’t simply a lack of strategy, it is a lack of justification for launching the war in the first place.

I knew that the Department of War shot a missile into a school & killed 175 civilians, mostly children. This is learned today: Secretary of War Hegseth had cut the teams assigned to prevent such tragedies by 90%. www.npr.org/2026/03/11/n...

A rebooted global version of the neoconservative fervor of March 2003.

The U.S. and Israel – whose war of aggression you co-signed – are working to turn a vast swathe of the region into an ungoverned waste, from which millions of new refugees will flee to Europe You absolute doofus x.com/clashreport/...

The "forever war" paradigm doesn't really describe the Iran war, writes @abujamajem.com. This U.S.–Israeli attack is something more acute, and immediate—this is a war of aggression, chaotic and wild.

Hezbollah escalated a war with Israel that had never ended, despite a nominal ceasefire. Renewed fighting will punish Lebanese civilians, but will probably also further weaken Hezbollah. @abujamajem.com in new roundtable tcf.org/content/comm...

Hegseth: "The dumb, politically correct wars of the past were the opposite of what we're doing here. They had vague objections with restrictive, minimalist rules of engagement. No more."

NO! Wednesday or Thursday is too late. You do not need to be briefed before voting on this. Troops should stop all military action now.

They are trying to drag us into war now. We needed a vote on @rokhanna.bsky.social’s War Powers Resolution last week. Instead the war hawk caucus of the Dem Party delayed it, and now it may be too late.

This allows the Trump administration to literally condition citizenship on what it defines as acceptable speech

“This first independent population survey of mortality in the Gaza Strip shows that violent deaths have substantially exceeded official figures... women, children, and older people together comprised 56·2% of violent deaths” - Lancet www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Bloomberg says we've spent $3B on Trump's invasion of Venezuela. Which is 6X more than the cancer, Alzheimer, diabetes, and heart disease cures they've cut to pay for it. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Anyone currently involved in federal immigration enforcement, every officer, every bureaucrat, every lawyer, every judge, is a member of the most evil group of people this country has seen since Reconstruction. Darkness personified, every one. Doing this to children is beyond depraved.

I am so tired

You can't... repeal... a scientific finding. At that point it's just called lying about it.

Breaking News: Tom Malinowski conceded to Analilia Mejia, the top progressive in a New Jersey race to fill Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s House seat.

The settlement enterprise is not separate from the Israeli state—it is the Israeli state. So argues @yaelmiz.bsky.social in a new commentary. (1/5)

The erosion of democracy in the US is clear even if you don't use intl comparisons. From the Century Foundation: "In the first year of Trump 2.0, the United States went from being a passing if imperfect democracy to behaving like an authoritarian state." donmoynihan.substack.com/publish/post...

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

Today, we are launching the U.S. Democracy Meter, a new tool that deploys a 100-point scale across twenty-three subquestions to evaluate the quality of American democracy: go.tcf.org/DemocracyMeter

Syria’s new president, former rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, is big on inclusive rhetoric. But when it comes to his reconstruction agenda, the reality is falling far short of the marketing—new commentary from @freddydeknatel.bsky.social tcf.org/content/comm... (1/3)

This rhetoric is depressingly familiar after focusing for many years on authoritarian contexts elsewhere.

The day after risks highlighted here are well worth revisiting.

New year’s gift: Tonight at midnight, when your friends wander off to gape at the fireworks, you will finally have a quiet moment to check out the amazing best-of-2025 list in Century International’s year-end newsletter. mailchi.mp/tcf/ip-econo... @centuryintl.bsky.social @tcfdotorg.bsky.social

Unbelievable. This would be a terrible blow to American science, writ large. It would decimate not only climate research, but also the kind of weather, wildfire, and disaster research that has underpinned half a century of progress in prediction, early warning, and increased resilience.

It appears that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has, within the past week, scrubbed a large amount of climate change content from its official website, as well as *removed human-caused warming* from the discussion on its "causes of climate change" page.

I heard from a bunch of federal employees last night and this morning. They aren't happy. "I would rather be an actual pawn. At least pawn sacrifices are calculated and achieve something. All this for a fucking meaningless vote."

American interest in Iraq’s November 11 parliamentary elections is mostly focused on whether Iraqis will choose pro-Iran representatives. That’s a mistake, @sajadjiyad.bsky.social argues in a new commentary. (1/3)

Glad to see @centuryintl.bsky.social publish @anasjoudeh.bsky.social, on post-Assad Syria’s debilitating lack of trust – trust in authorities, and among Syrians themselves: tcf.org/content/comm...

The article talks about opening up central California to oil and gas development.. Looking at Bureau of Ocean Energy Management maps, this could include a large swath of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, including the Bodega and Año Nuevo basins, and Partington basin off Big Sur.

The @nytimes.com completely embarrasses itself by not putting #NoKings on the banner. The Gray Lady's head hangs in shame. #DoBetter #MediaFail

Redwood canopy recovery, five years after a crown fire. 🌲🔥 #CZULightningComplex

In foreign policy as in domestic, Trump’s opponents have so far failed to do much more than chase at his heels with reactive objections as he plows ahead with reckless gambits. (1/5)

In a new commentary, CI’s @eamonka.bsky.social and @tcambanis.bsky.social argue that progressives need a radical change in their approach on foreign policy. tcf.org/content/comm... (2/5)

Indeed. Earlier this summer, the White House did this to me, as a scientific expert source in media, and issued a formal statement regarding my personal campaign contribution history in an attempt to discredit my commentary on wildfire, climate, and federal policy. Yet more alarm bells ringing...

Lebanon finally has a viable plan for Syrian refugees to safely return to their country. But can the plan survive Lebanon’s anti-Syrian politics and the realities of ongoing violence and economic crisis in Syria? 1/3