“People perceive climate change as more impactful when shown binary data rather than continuous data, because binary data creates an illusion of sudden change.”

“‘More people could have died in the past week in El Fasher, and this is without hyperbole, than died in the past two years in Gaza,’ says Nathaniel Raymond, Executive Director at Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab.” open.substack.com/pub/zeteo/p/...

According to this (extremely informed) projection, Zohran Mamdani will win more votes than any mayoral candidate in New York since 1969.

This quote continues to rattle me to my core: "So what you’re telling us is you need less evidence to kill somebody than you do to hold them." That's Rep Adam Smith to Pentagon officials in a briefing on Trump's illegal boat bombings. As he told me in this piece, they didn't answer his objection:

A reminder that less than two months ago, the Trump administration abruptly ended the federal government's 27-year practice of collecting data on hunger and food insecurity.

O'DONNELL: Why did you pardon Changpeng Zhao? TRUMP: Are you ready? I don't know who he is O'DONNELL: His crypto exchange Binance helped facilitate a $2b purchase of World Liberty Financial's stablecoin. And they you pardoned him. TRUMP: Here's the thing -- I know nothing about it

“Among the 861 children whose mothers were SARS-CoV-2–positive during pregnancy, 140 (16.3%) received a neurodevelopmental diagnosis by 3 years of age, compared with 1,680 (9.7%) of the 17,263 remaining children from SARS-CoV-2–negative pregnancies.” www.massgeneralbrigham.org/en/about/new...

A major shift in where L.A. gets water: The city will double the size of a project to transform wastewater into purified drinking water, producing enough for 500,000 people. The recycled water will allow L.A. to stop taking water from creeks that feed Mono Lake. www.latimes.com/environment/...

Melissa was one of the strongest storms on record. NOAA’s Hurricane Hunters flew into it without pay. Crews are asked “To be fully mentally present, especially in this environment, and it’s hard to do that when you know you can’t potentially make ends meet.” www.cnn.com/2025/10/31/w...

“Since we began measuring trust 20 years ago, economic growth has fostered rising trust. This continues in Asia and the Middle East but not in developed markets, where national income inequality is now the more important factor.” reuternews.online/gen-z-no-lon...

Wednesday's paid subway ridership was 4,585,493, a new post-pandemic high.

“Timothy Martin, along with fellow activist Joanna Smith, staged the climate protest at the Washington DC gallery in April 2023, smearing washable red and black paint on the protective glass covering Edgar Degas’s Little Dancer Aged Fourteen Years sculpture.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

In 2019, 75% of US adults believed that same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt children. In 2025, that’s down to 61%.

Hideous flooding in Vietnam, where five feet of rain in 24 hours nears world-record Life and death on an overheated planet www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

After Hurricane Beryl devastated Jamaica’s grid last year, officials at the island’s sole utility vowed to fortify it. But the company’s initiatives were only in the planning + early implementation stages when Hurricane Melissa hit. Story @bloomberg.com, gift link: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

“In 2019, 75% of US adults believed that same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt children. In 2025, that’s down to 61%.”

“It may take many days for the full damage assessment to be completed. However, based on expert analysis by AccuWeather, the preliminary damage and economic loss estimate for Jamaica is $22 billion.” The island’s GDP is under $20 billion. www.accuweather.com/en/hurricane...

New incredible detail here: ICE says a match in its facial recognition app Mobile Fortify is a "definitive" determination of a person's status, and that this overrides birth certificates. This is an app ICE is using in the field to scan people www.404media.co/ice-and-cbp-...

New AP-NORC poll: – 25% of Hispanic adults have a favorable view of Trump, down from 44% in January – It's Trump's lowest favorability with Hispanic voters since 2019. – "About two-thirds of Hispanic adults under age 45 and Hispanic men now view Trump unfavorably." apnews.com/article/hisp...

Nothing to worry about, just dead bodies washing ashore in a region where the US is carrying out extrajudicial killings of boats at sea

SCOOP from me: I uncovered that the Interior Department just quietly defunded *two* multimillion dollar research programs studying how whales move and behave near U.S. wind farms actively being built. Trump blames wind turbines for whale deaths, then cuts vital research on the topic. 🧵

Whenever I see these charts, I think they cast an interesting light on the “struggles of men” discourse. Black men, Asian men, and Hispanic men are all graduating at higher rates than ever. White men have pleateaued but aren’t falling back in absolute terms, only relative ones.

Whenever I see these charts, I think they cast an interesting light on the discourse the struggles of men. Black men, Asian men, and Hispanic men are all graduating at higher rates than ever. White men have pleateaued but aren’t falling back in absolute terms, only relative ones.

Trump is illegally killing people in the Pacific now.

“The loss of U.S. bilateral health aid is projected to result in an additional 2.5 million pediatric TB cases and 340,000 pediatric TB deaths in LMICs between 2025 and 2034, compared to pre-2025 funding levels.” hsph.harvard.edu/news/u-s-fun...

“The Faculty of Arts and Sciences slashed the number of Ph.D. student admissions slots for the Science division by more than 75 percent and for the Arts & Humanities division by about 60 percent for the next two years.” www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Iceland, one of the last places on Earth to be mosquito-free, recorded its first sighting this month. Scientists say warming is making the country more hospitable to the insects.

“A year after Hurricane Helene, North Carolina communities that exhausted their budgets on storm cleanup and recovery are still waiting for FEMA reimbursement.” www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025...

“‘If he ever had us, he lost us,’ one current Army general told The Washington Times.” x.com/mikerglenn/s...

13. By 2030 most countries will have spot power prices of zero in sunny hours. This will be passed on to end consumers, to encourage them to shift power demand to sunny periods by electric vehicle and battery charging, preheating, precooling, etc.

“Faced with this reality, Democratic governors need more than legal complaints and rhetorical protest. They need fiscal strategies of resistance commensurate with the scale of the attack.“ www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

In the 2025 State of Wildfires report, the authors suggest that climate change made southern California wildfires much more expansive in 2025, increasing burned area 25-fold. And also that, in decades ahead, fire risk may *decrease* in the region, despite warming. essd.copernicus.org/articles/17/...

“A new study suggests that these vaccines might boost the effects of immunotherapy drugs, perhaps by alerting the immune system and helping direct immune cells to attack tumors. That’s in addition to helping protect against Covid.” www.statnews.com/2025/10/19/m...

Murder is falling at the fastest rate ever recorded this year, according to Jeff Asher’s Real Time Crime Index. The previous record drop was last year (2024). The record prior to that was set the prior year (2023). Three straight years of record murder decline, and this year’s drop is twice as fast.

“Our meta-estimate suggests that, from the beginning of the invasion to January of this year, Russian casualties amounted to 640k–877k soldiers, of whom 137k–228k have died. By October, those totals had risen to 984k–1,438k casualties, including 190k–480k dead.” www.economist.com/interactive/...

“What these creeps have managed to do over the past decade is almost exactly what McCarthy believed was happening to the United States, except it’s Browns instead of Reds.” open.substack.com/pub/johnganz...

The fact that not only is the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is still increasing, but the *rate of CO2 increasing* in the atmosphere is still increasing is true nightmare stuff.

“Now I’m just going to level set here and put my cards on the table. I think we’re committing murder. I don’t even think it’s that close a call…” podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...

“They referred to Black people as monkeys and ‘the watermelon people’ and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.” www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

In the years from 1962 to 1973, global G.D.P. growth averaged 5.4 percent. From 1977 to 1988, it averaged 3.3 percent. From 1991 to 2000, it averaged 3 percent. In the aftermath of the Great Recession, it has grown even more slowly. www.nytimes.com/2023/08/23/o...

“The earth has reached its first catastrophic tipping point linked to greenhouse gas emissions, with warm water coral reefs now facing a long-term decline and risking the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people, according to a new report.” www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Terribly sad news about one of the greats. Diane Keaton has died at 79. people.com/diane-keaton...

“Planet-heating methane is escaping from cracks in the Antarctic seabed as the region warms, with new seeps being discovered at an ‘astonishing rate,’ scientists have found.” www.cnn.com/2025/10/10/c...

Among many others at the CDC, the Trump regime laid off the staff of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. “The publication’s storied history includes a June 1981 report that five previously healthy gay men were treated for an unusual pneumonia — the first hint of the AIDS epidemic.”

“Health-related absences from work continued to track COVID-19 circulation and were 12.9% higher in the postpandemic period compared with before the pandemic.” jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Huh: TikTok took down my 8-second video featuring this image of Debbie Brockman — the news producer just detained by Trump’s CBP agents — saying it violates the “joy of TikTok”

This spring, the E.P.A announced it would roll back regulations limiting the amount of lead and mercury and PFAS in American drinking water. This fall, they’re trying to figure out how to surveil our water systems for evidence that women are taking abortion pills.