Ex-FDA Official Is Worried About the FDA’s New “Anti-Vaccine Tone”

Dr. Peter Marks is the kind of health official both Democrats and Republicans used to admire. He served in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for 13 years, most of them as director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. There, Marks oversaw the critical process of reviewing and approving vaccines—like those against COVID-19—and biologic therapies, including gene- and cell-based treatments.

Marks earned trust and respect from academic and industry scientists as well for his emphasis on requesting the strongest evidence in evaluating new therapies, and for his willingness to support new technologies and approaches.

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But he did not last long in the new Trump Administration. On March 28, Marks resigned after he says he was pressed by Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials to come in line with skepticism about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines or be fired. He says his team was also asked by HHS to turn over sensitive health information from the database the FDA maintains with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to track adverse reactions to vaccines. Concerned about how the data would be used, Marks refused and resigned. (HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.)

Now, he is warning of a fundamental change at HHS and the FDA—one he believes is already proving to be very dangerous. “What I saw at the agency was an increasing anti-vaccine tone,” he told TIME On April 8. “I was hoping to work through it, but it was very clear to me that they just didn’t want to work through it.”

A clash about vaccines

Since Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-time vaccine skeptic, was appointed to head HHS, the agency has removed pro-vaccination public service ads made by the CDC, and it missed a deadline to decide whether or not to approve a COVID-19 vaccine from Novavax.

Marks, aware of Kennedy’s position on vaccines, began in November to draft a “package of things we could do to hopefully try to address some of the issues” that anti-vaccine groups have. “I’ve been trying to reach out and say ‘I’m willing to meet you halfway,’” says Marks.

He came up with a four-point proposal on how the FDA could accomplish that. First, the agency would reassess how vaccines are labeled. “Vaccine labeling over the course of several decades has gotten very messy,” he says. “And the information for the patient is not as clear as it could be. That is a fact, and a legitimate criticism. We would look at ways to clean up labels and make them more transparent.”

The FDA would also hold listening meetings to hear from people about their concerns about the components that go into vaccines—such as thimerosal, which was removed from the MMR (measles) vaccine and other childhood vaccines in 2001 but is still used in some flu shots—along with vaccine safety and efficacy. The FDA already uses this practice while it reviews any major drug and vaccine, inviting the public to provide comments to its advisory committee of independent experts before the group votes on whether to approve a product.

Read More: Food Safety Was Slipping in the U.S. Then Came Mass Layoffs

Marks offered to have the FDA ask the National Academy of Medicine—a nonprofit, independent group that evaluates scientific questions to inform policy and improve the health of Americans—to study any of Kennedy’s concerns about vaccines, such as the role of adjuvants, which are ingredients to boost the body’s immune response.

And the FDA proposed revising the current system for reporting side effects or adverse events related to vaccines, so that the process of evaluating them and determining if they are reasonably linked to vaccines could become more transparent.

But Marks says he didn’t receive any response or feedback on these proposals before he left the organization. Dr. Marty Makary, nominated by President Trump, was sworn in as the new FDA director on the day Marks submitted his resignation and signed off on Marks’ departure shortly after taking office.

The measles fallout

The change in tone among the top U.S. health agencies has coincided with an ongoing measles outbreak, which has killed two children and caused hundreds of infections. “I was so disturbed when I heard about the second measles death in a child that I used profanity with a reporter without realizing it,” Marks says. “Anyone who knows me would know that’s something I never do. I was so disturbed, and remain disturbed, because this is absolutely needless.”

As head of the FDA section that was responsible for reviewing data submitted by vaccine makers to approve their vaccines, Marks reiterates that the data supporting the safety and effectiveness of the measles vaccine is both clear and robust. “Measles vaccine is one of the safest, most effective vaccines we have,” he says. “Unlike other vaccines, which you might be able to argue about whether people should take them or not, the measles vaccine that has been given to children saves lives. It saves lives because one in 1,000 children who get measles die up front. Another one in 10,000 to 20,000 children die a few years later from persistent measles infection in the brain. So it saves lives. The measles vaccine is not associated with death, encephalitis, autism, or long-term adverse effects.”

Still, Kennedy has reportedly appointed vaccine critic David Geier, whose research on vaccines and autism has been discredited by judges and medical professionals alike, to study data on the safety of the MMR vaccine and a link to autism—despite the fact that scientists say any connection has been debunked for decades.

source https://time.com/7276023/peter-marks-fda-anti-vaccine-tone/

The Pitt’s Dr. Mel King Is a Small but Meaningful Step Forward for Neurodivergence Onscreen

When resident Dr. Melissa “Mel” King (Taylor Dearden) first appeared in The Pitt with her atypical body language and her enthusiastic if not entirely appropriate “I’m so happy to be here,” I thought I knew exactly where her character was going. 

She’d be brusque but brilliant, filled with just enough savant-like insight to make up for her lack of bedside manner. We’d never get confirmation of an actual diagnosis, but she’d exhibit a number of behaviors and mannerisms that the average viewer might recognize as autism, ADHD, or a combination of the two that many people in neurodivergent circles have taken to calling AuDHD. These traits would probably be used for drama or comedic relief as necessary. A mix of House, Sherlock, Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon and countless other autistic-coded or “autistish” characters who came before her. 

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I’ve never been more delighted to eat my words. As the real-time ER drama’s 15-hour shift progresses, Mel evolves into a nuanced person with strengths, weaknesses, charms, and foibles. Every development in her story adds a new layer to her complex character. In the second episode, she mentions that she has an autistic sister. She performs well under pressure, but can struggle to pick up on hints and humor. Her thorough explanations of medical situations comfort some patients, but unsettle others. Her enthusiasm for her work and moments of success are met with a similar mix of reactions. She sometimes moves her fingers in repetitive patterns and hums or recites lyrics to herself. The prospect of picking countless pieces of gravel out of a patient’s skin excites her. She’s exceptionally empathetic, and can have an intense emotional response to what her patients are going through. She can also be exceptionally aware and proactive about her needs and issues, whether that involves taking a time out to regulate herself with an app, or explaining a thought pattern that’s tripping her up to a colleague.

Mel is still very much an autistic and/or ADHD-coded character. All of the above characteristics are things I’ve experienced as an autistic person, or something I’ve learned about from my fellow autists and AuDHDers. There’s increasing evidence to suggest that there can be a genetic component to autism, and many autistic people end up discovering that they also have parents or siblings on the spectrum. A number of autistic people excel in some areas and struggle in others, or have a “spiky skills profile.” Some people, regardless of neurology, can be quite receptive to our styles of communication while others are less so. A lot of autistic people stim both physically and vocally. We can find repetitive tasks soothing and rewarding. Some of us might even break out the hyperfocus for them. Many of us experience intense emotions that aren’t always easy to manage in the moment, or even hyper-empathy. And some of us wind up very self-aware as a result of the lifetime we’ve spent figuring ourselves out and trying to explain that to other people. 

What makes Dr. King such a refreshing change from the old autistic-coded tropes, though, are the range of characteristics she embodies, how they’re integrated into her character, and how she’s incorporated into the show.

First, a number of the above mentioned traits have rarely if ever appeared in a character of this nature before. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Mel comes closer to being a true portrayal of autism. There are many autistic people who do identify with parts of the Sheldons and Sherlocks of the entertainment world. Plenty of us do speak and move rigidly or “awkwardly” for lack of a better word. Many of us have had a moment or 20 where we’ve been exasperated at others’ inability to keep up with our train of thought. And some of us have probably come across as condescending, whether we intended it or not. But there are just as many or more who don’t see themselves in these portrayals, and it’s heartening to see different autistic attributes and experiences make their way to the screen. (Of course, it would be even better to see a wider range in film and television. Outside of a few beloved outliers like Abed from Community and Moss from The IT Crowd, the majority of autistic-coded characters are still very, very white.)

It’s even more encouraging to see these traits as part of such a fully realized character. This is still all too rare among explicitly identified autistic characters, let alone ones who only hint at it. Autistic activist Lydia Brown once described The Good Doctor’s Dr. Shaun Murphy as a “cardboard cutout of what people believe an autistic person should be like,” and I often get the sense that autistic and autistish characters are more of a collection of random traits shoehorned into a vaguely human-shaped cog in a story than a fully realized component of a series or film. Mel, on the other hand, strikes me as a complete person whose traits are a part of a greater whole.

This is a strength of The Pitt in general. Its diverse cast of characters are all given a truly impressive amount of space to grow into rich and multi-dimensional human beings who excel in some ways, struggle in others, and bring their unique perspectives and experiences to their work. While I can’t speak to how well all of these identities are represented on the show, I will say that Mel and her sister Becca (Tal Anderson), who we meet in the Season 1 finale after Mel finally leaves her neverending shift, are written and realized with a notable degree of care and knowledge.

For example, there’s a brief but comprehensive scene in the seventh episode in which Mel is far better able to address an autistic patient’s needs than the more experienced senior resident Dr. Langdon (Patrick Ball). In just a couple of minutes, this interaction manages to touch on a number of common autistic supports, including reducing sensory stimuli, being receptive to the patient’s use of formal and technical language, reframing questions in a way that made more sense to his way of thinking, clearly and directly explaining his prognosis, and providing a simple social story for what would come next. There’s a lot of genuine understanding of autistic people packed into that moment. There’s at least one person in that writing room who knows what they’re talking about, and is able to weave it into something deeper than a hacky laundry list of traits. 

Actor Taylor Dearden was also able to bring her personal experience as a person with ADHD to the role. “I’m neurodivergent so I think it’s really coming from me,” she recently told Decider when asked about her character’s neurodivergent qualities. “I have severe ADHD. So we’re on the same spectrum now as autism, which was I think for all ADHD people was like, ‘Ohhhhh.’ And then all autistic people are like, ‘That’s why we got along with them.’ I’ve never really seen a character, especially with ADHD, but being on the same spectrum, it just feels, it felt right anyway.”

The absence of any clear diagnosis for Mel throughout the season also feels perfectly natural. One of my issues with spectrumy characters in general is that the lack of confirmation about their neurology appears to be less of a creative choice than a convenience. As autistic activist and advocate Mallory Thomas once put it, “I also think that a lot of the time writers are looking for an easy out if they mess up the portrayal of an autistic character. It’s a lot easier to sort of crib certain traits and when questioned about it say that the intention wasn’t to create an autistic character even though as an audience, we know autistic characters when we see them.” (Novelist David Mitchell basically confirmed our suspicions when he told Macleans that a scriptwriter for The Big Bang Theory confessed to him that Sheldon is autistic, “but we don’t mention it because, a) it’s not relevant, and b) it then takes the show into a political dimension that we might not want to take it in.”)

In Mel’s case, the writers have no need to avoid criticism or accountability. She’s a great character, regardless of what labels may or may not officially apply to her. But it also makes sense that it hasn’t come up over the course of The Pitt’s day, for a number of reasons. An autistic person might not feel like there was a safe or pertinent time to bring up her own diagnosis in the situations we’ve seen Mel navigate. The fast pace and life-or-death nature of the ER means there’s not much time for icebreakers for the new faces on staff. It’s also perfectly possible that a woman in her situation wouldn’t actually know she’s autistic or has ADHD yet. Many women her age and older are still slipping through the cracks. It’s equally possible that she could have a number of neurodivergent traits but not qualify for any specific diagnosis. That happens in the real world, too. 

Regardless of what exactly Mel might be and whether that’s ever addressed in future seasons of The Pitt, though, I believe her existence in the pantheon of autistic-coded characters is a small but meaningful step forward for autistic people. No autistic character is ever going to fix all of the problems we face as flesh and blood people trying to survive in this world. It can’t even address the somewhat less pressing concerns that some autistic people have about representation and inclusion on both sides of the camera. But the fact that a creative team could write and portray a character like this who could be considered autistic—and that audiences can recognize her as such—does suggest that there’s been some shift in what the general population sees and understands about autism. 

At a time when people in power are perfectly happy to treat us as boogeymen or a looming specter, it’s encouraging to know that some people out there can see us as human. 

[video id=TFwG6UZv autostart="viewable"]

source https://time.com/7275814/the-pitt-mel-neurodivergence-autism-adhd/

AI-designed antimicrobial peptides show promise for treating citrus greening disease

In a study published in Science, a research team led by Prof. Ye Jian from the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has identified the first mechanism of citrus resistance to citrus greening disease, or huanglongbing (HLB).

source https://phys.org/news/2025-04-ai-antimicrobial-peptides-citrus-greening.html

This federal rule helped clear air over America's most beloved parks. Trump's EPA wants to kill it

During a hike in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1995, Don Barger climbed Chilhowee Mountain hoping to gaze across the valley below. All he saw was a wall of gray haze.

source https://phys.org/news/2025-04-federal-air-america-beloved-trump.html

What’s Keeping Us From Fixing the Homelessness Crisis

Looking back, Evelyn freely admits that she made some rash decisions.

In the late summer of 2018, this working mother left a violent, stagnating neighborhood in Southern California’s high desert region. She moved with her husband and five children to a community just outside Los Angeles that was known for its well-rated public schools. They had almost $5,000 in savings and a modest vision for how the next passage of life would unfold but no true understanding of the real estate landscape they were entering. The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles was nearly double a full-time minimum wage salary. Even with her job as a server at Applebee’s, she was overwhelmed by the city’s punishing disparity. Her husband’s subsequent descent into alcoholism and domestic abuse drained her bank account and cast her and her children into the urban wilderness. Less than three months deep in that school year, Evelyn (whose name is a pseudonym to protect her privacy) found herself to be a homeless single mother.

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From Los Angeles to New York, Portland to Phoenix, Seattle to Washington, D.C., the broad arc of Evelyn’s story is a prevalent narrative in urban America: an aspirant working family pinned down by economic weights from which far more than resilience is required to rise. Homeless families in this nation—almost 260,000 total individuals and 145,000 children in 2024, according to HUD’s annual assessment—often require all manner of medical, educational, and housing support merely to survive. They also tend to possess virtually no assets to give back in return.

As a society, we carry a real aversion to this stark mathematical imbalance of poverty, including when it encompasses children, most likely because it contradicts national values of upward mobility based on work and merit. Such values are easy to oversimplify in our own personal narratives as well as in those of prominent figures ranging from Oprah Winfrey to JD Vance. We do so and risk losing the ability to imagine the obstacles for those hundreds of thousands of anonymous individuals in circumstances of pure economic helplessness. Our generational failure to meaningfully address the housing crisis is rooted in this inertness.

Read More: America’s Laws Make Us Bystanders to the Homeless Crisis

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Evelyn’s absolute priority throughout her long and brutal homeless saga was to keep her kids stably situated in the same public school that had originally drawn her to the city. They were thriving there. A corollary to this imperative meant ensuring that the people most capable and invested in helping them—employers, teachers, even family—remained ignorant of their homelessness lest they would be obligated to initiate agency interventions with the potential to uproot the kids from their school, place them in the foster system, and shunt them to the city’s physical and educational periphery. Instead, the family slept in motels or in their 2009 Toyota Highlander. They lived this way for five years.

In Evelyn’s Los Angeles and almost all American cities, the majority of homeless services are concentrated in marginalized areas far from healthy residential districts, as they have been nationwide for centuries Both common sense and academic research show that such an approach places hardships upon hardships for families striving to land a foothold. Long and costly commutes, lack of quality schools and safe play spaces, and exploitative landlords are just a few. 

Yet leaders who promote more inclusive housing options for homeless families seem to be faced with disruption from many members of the housed, voting public. At least part of this antagonism is due to a psychology of conflation, by which a typical homeowner reflexively associates the notion of any homeless neighbor with the most dangerous depictions of the unsheltered: the addict desperate for a fix, the lunatic raging at unseen demons. This mental trickery accompanies the broader truth that most homeowners work hard for their properties and take pride in their neighborhoods and schools, all of which together represent status and asset value in the world. Homeless people—including those who are gracious and family-oriented—do not easily situate within this order.

Even in the context of vast government spending on housing and services nationwide (over $900 million per year in Los Angeles County, nearly $4 billion in New York City for the fiscal year 2025), the path of least resistance for city governments is to leave the most basic supportive provisions in poor, far-flung areas of rich cities. This is not so much a matter of managing resources so much as a passive, effective strategy to remove those who are in great need from the daily loops of those who are not.

In many cities, shelter capacity is maxed out and voucher systems are closed. The edgy status quo will worsen as continuing natural disasters, government layoffs, and tariff wars push more working families toward the precipice where stability drops into the abyss. We are living through an iteration of a very old cycle in America in which political leaders scramble for actual solutions long after the numbers have crossed the tipping point into humanitarian disaster. 

The result, as in any true health crisis, is the kind of triage with which Evelyn and her children contended daily, for years, so that they could stay in school. While bedding down in her SUV on so many nights because the vehicle felt safer than any available alternatives, the kids designated the front seat of the SUV their dining room and the middle row of seats the living room. The storage space in the way back is made for the bedroom. Evelyn herself slept in the driver’s seat in case she needed to peel away quickly from a threat. Imagine what those nights looked and felt like for that family and for many thousands of others forced into the same set of decisions.

Then, try to imagine this: in one neighborhood that is close to decent schools and jobs, a compassionate group of residents chooses generosity over fear by approving the conversion of an empty home into a transitional housing facility that serves about six families at a time. These families are thoroughly vetted as mentally sound, safe neighbors and permitted to live there for up to a year. The parents receive counseling and job training while children attend local schools. Instead of doing what most homeowners in America currently tend to do and protesting the shelter’s existence, members of the surrounding neighborhood contribute to potluck dinners, provide childcare during adult education sessions, maybe help with school tutoring and job placement. This one location provides a platform by which a dozen or so families each year graduate into stable homes. 

Imagine that another neighborhood follows the same model, and another after that, until this pathway of socioeconomic ascent becomes a part of the fabric of a city, then a region, then a state. Imagine the current and future poverty ameliorated by such a movement.

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The details of this whole process—particularly the vetting aspect—would raise valid concerns for many. The great emotional, imaginative, and moral leap here involves understanding that although the causes of family homelessness are nuanced, the strategies for maintaining a safe residential space are simple. The intake process in such a facility begins with multiple reference points that measure a family’s desire and capability to be there. A rotation of staff ensures 24-hour onsite care of the shelter and its inhabitants while enforcing visitation rules and in-house policies. Those who can’t abide are placed elsewhere. The apparatus is ideally managed by local non-profits and faith-based organizations possessing some knowledge of the community and its rhythms rather than city or state agencies.

On a daily basis, this form of transitional housing carries per person costs comparable to emergency shelters, which are more expensive for families. Over time and taking into account the success rates for transitional housing graduates—up to 91% according to HUD’s most recent comprehensive study of regional factors—long-term costs for families who find permanent housing stability are almost certainly far lower.  These structures can also be readied much faster since a house can be converted into apartments in a few months versus the years of zoning decisions and construction delays inherent to larger facilities. Most importantly, families who have already been traumatized and marginalized will be nurtured by communities rather than pressed farther away from them, deeper into despair. 

While homeless, Evelyn’s children achieved a 98% attendance rate at their school. On weekends when she wasn’t working restaurant shifts, she took them to museums, the beach, the library—any nourishing place where they could be safe together. Through profound good luck, they eventually found transitional housing, job training, and school tutoring within a small shelter in a residential area. Most of their neighbors received them with grace. Evelyn now works at an accounting firm. Her oldest son is a freshman in college.

The proliferation of narratives like Evelyn’s could come to pass if stably housed Americans on a widespread scale begin to frame the incorporation of homeless families as an opportunity for absolutely altruistic largesse. If a movement to allot physical structures and school placements within communities were to become a new ethos, then many tens of thousands of working parents who possess neither assets nor hope would be furnished with roofs overhead as well as the gift of knowing that they are welcome here.

source https://time.com/7276394/fixing-the-homelessness-crisis-essay/

Why some storms brew up to extreme dimensions in the middle of America—and why it's happening more often

A powerful storm system that stalled over states from Texas to Ohio for several days in early April 2025 wreaked havoc across the region, with deadly tornadoes, mudslides and flooding as rivers rose. More than a foot of rain fell in several areas.

source https://phys.org/news/2025-04-storms-brew-extreme-dimensions-middle.html

Life recovered rapidly at site of dino-killing asteroid. A hydrothermal system may have helped

About 66 million years ago, an asteroid slammed into the planet, wiping out all non-avian dinosaurs and about 70% of all marine species.

source https://phys.org/news/2025-04-life-recovered-rapidly-site-dino.html

China plans to build the world's largest dam. But what of India and Bangladesh downstream?

China recently approved the construction of the world's largest hydropower dam, across the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet. When fully up and running, it will be the world's largest power plant—by some distance.

source https://phys.org/news/2025-04-china-world-largest-india-bangladesh.html

How Trump’s Tariffs Could Make AI Development More Expensive

Stocks in AI companies were among the biggest losers after President Trump announced sweeping tariffs on foreign trading partners last week, in a sign that those tariffs could be bad news for the industry.

The companies at the forefront of the AI industry are currently spending hundreds of billions of dollars on building new datacenters to train AI models. Tariffs will increase the already gargantuan costs of those efforts, analysts say.

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“The tariffs will make building AI datacenters much more expensive, both because AI servers are largely imported and will face tariffs, at least until supply chains can be rejigged, and because much of the other equipment in datacenters, like the cooling and power infrastructure, is imported as well,” says Chris Miller, author of Chip War.

Chips themselves, the key computing hardware inside AI datacenters, are exempt from Trump’s tariffs—but only if they are imported to the U.S. as standalone products. However, most chips are not imported into the U.S. as raw materials; instead, they arrive already-packaged inside products like servers, which are subject to tariffs. 

Worried AI investors received good news on Monday in a note circulated by analyst Stacy Rasgon, who pointed out that most Nvidia servers are likely to escape the bite of Trump’s tariffs. That’s because most appear to be assembled in Mexico, and therefore benefit from a tariff exemption under a free trade agreement. That’s a “silver lining” to the news, says Rasgon, a semiconductor industry analyst at Bernstein Research. (Nvidia declined to comment.)

“I think there are some workarounds to avoid massive tariffs on AI infrastructure in the U.S., which is good because otherwise what’s the whole point of this?” says Rasgon. “We’d be making the U.S. the most expensive place in the world to build out AI infrastructure—that doesn’t sound like a great thing.”

But construction materials, computer parts, cooling infrastructure, and power supplies are just some of the costs that are likely to increase as a result of the tariffs. The costs could be so great that companies might consider building datacenters abroad instead of in the U.S., says Lucas Hansen of the Civic AI Security Program, a nonprofit. Datacenters already tend to congregate where power is cheap, he says. “It’s possible that tariffs are one more additional incentive for building those datacenters abroad.”

The increased costs of datacenter construction create a “real risk,” Miller says, that the U.S. might begin losing ground to China in the AI race—victory in which is a key foreign policy goal of the Trump Administration. “It has already been a major challenge to build all the datacenter capacity we need” in the U.S. to stay ahead of China, Miller says. “Now datacenter construction will get meaningfully more expensive.”

“The short term impact will be significant, and the long term impact is unclear—and companies can’t plan for the long term because tariff rates will likely keep changing,” Miller adds.

Even if Trump creates more carveouts to ease the pain on the datacenter industry, the changes to the macroeconomic climate wrought by Trump’s trade war might create new headwinds for AI companies. “My bigger worry is more macro now: we go into recession, ad spending falls off, and the hyperscalers in general have less money,” says Rasgon, referring to the tech companies spending heavily on AI. Collapse in demand for AI and datacenters, plus supply chain chaos, might follow, he adds. “This doesn’t feel like a strategy,” Rasgon says of the tariffs. “This is just a grenade.”

The increases in datacenter costs will probably make it more expensive for companies to train AI systems in future. But this is unlikely to mean that using AI gets more expensive for consumers. The cost of using an AI of a given level of intelligence is falling at a rate of around 40x per year, according to recent research by Epoch AI, as a result of algorithmic efficiencies, hardware improvements, and pricing competition. In other words, a year from now, using a given model will probably require significantly less computing power (and therefore money) than it does today.

So even if Trump’s tariffs do add to the cost of datacenter components, researchers say AI usage is likely to continue to get cheaper over time.

source https://time.com/7275771/trump-tariffs-ai-development-china/

A day at Uranus just got 28 seconds longer

A day at Uranus just got a little longer.

source https://phys.org/news/2025-04-day-uranus-seconds-longer.html

Chelsea Manager Maresca Slams "Unfair" Scheduling After Premier League Draw

Enzo Maresca's side had 24 hours less than Brentford to prepare for the west London derby after beating Tottenham 1-0 on Thursday

source https://sports.ndtv.com/football/chelsea-manager-enzo-maresca-slams-unfair-scheduling-after-premier-league-draw-vs-brentford-8102748

Atletico Snatch 93rd-Minute Winner, Stay Alive In La Liga Title Race

Pablo Barrios scored a dramatic late winner to help Atletico Madrid beat Sevilla in La Liga.

source https://sports.ndtv.com/football/atletico-madrid-snatch-93rd-minute-winner-vs-sevilla-stay-alive-in-la-liga-title-race-8102735

Apple Keeps TikTok on Its Store After Assurances from AG Bondi

Apple Inc., following assurances from the Trump administration, is keeping TikTok and other apps from ByteDance Ltd. on its US App Store for at least another 75 days.

source https://www.livemint.com/technology/tech-news/apple-keeps-tiktok-on-its-store-after-assurances-from-ag-bondi-11743961303061.html

Karnataka High Court Urges Parliament, States To Enact Uniform Civil Code

The Karnataka High Court has urged both the Parliament and State Legislatures to make a concerted effort to enact a law that would bring about a Uniform Civil Code (UCC).

source https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/country-needs-uniform-civil-code-karnataka-high-court-urges-its-implementation-8095999

How Trump’s Latest Tariffs Could Affect Your Wallet

NEW YORK — President Donald Trump has unveiled his latest tariffs, and they could have significant implications for your wallet.

Trump’s sweeping new tariffs, on top of previous levies and retaliation worldwide, are expected to increase prices for everyday items. The trade wars have already roiled financial markets and plunged businesses into uncertainty — all while economists warn of potentially weakened economic growth and heightened inequality.

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Which impacts will be felt by consumers and workers first? And what can households do in the face of so much uncertainty? Here’s what you need to know:

What are tariffs and how will they affect me?

Tariffs are taxes on goods imported from other countries. Companies buying foreign products pay the tariffs imposed on them — and, as a result, face higher costs that are typically passed on to customers.

Trump has argued tariffs will protect U.S. industries from unfair foreign competition and raise money for the federal government. But since so much of what we buy today relies on a global supply chain, steeper tariffs mean you’ll likely see more expensive prices from the grocery aisle to your next car repair.

“It is going to affect everything in the economy,” said Josh Stillwagon, an associate professor of economics and chair of the Economics Division at Babson College. “There’s this immediate price increase that’s going to be passed on to consumers here, basically as soon as the retailers have to buy new product.”

Will the tariffs affect everyone equally?

No. Experts warn that these tariffs could escalate inequities. Low-income families in particular will feel the costs of key necessities, like food and energy, rise with fewer savings to draw on — significantly straining budgets.

Low-income households often “spend a larger share of their income on essential goods — whether it’s food or other basic products … (like) soap or toothpaste,” said Gustavo Flores-Macías, a professor of government and public policy at Cornell University whose research focuses on economic development. Because of this, he said, “even relatively small price increases” will have disproportionate impacts.

Evidence of that disparity will only mount for big-ticket items. Dipanjan Chatterjee, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, points to now-imposed auto tariffs, explaining that projected price hikes of thousands of dollars for a new imported car will be easier for those with larger salaries to absorb.

“That tax is more severe for people who earn less money,” said Chatterjee. “So it’s a regressive tax.”

What about jobs?

Beyond more immediate price pressures, experts also warn that tariffs could contribute to unemployment or lower incomes down the road. Trump has argued that tariffs will bring manufacturing back to the U.S., but if businesses take profit hits or change their supply sources, there could be layoffs worldwide.

“It’s not just the price aspect and purchasing power decreasing,” said Flores-Macías. “As tariffs start to work their way through the economy …. low-income families’ jobs often will be the first to go. And those sectors of the population are most vulnerable.”

Economist Susan Helper, former senior adviser for industrial strategy at the White House Office of Management and Budget, said that there are some cases where tariffs could raise wages, but this doesn’t look likely to be one of them.

“There isn’t enough certainty for businesses to invest and create new and better jobs,” she said. “It takes a few years at minimum to profit off a new facility or factory, and I don’t think people have the confidence that the tariffs will be stable enough that they will have a return on that investment.”

Which consumer goods will be affected?

The tariffs announced by Trump Wednesday, on top of other levies that are already in effect, tax imports from nearly all of America’s trading partners. And U.S. shoppers currently rely on a lot of goods made abroad.

Fruits and vegetables, your next phone purchase, a pharmacy order, new clothes, or a trip to a mechanic who uses auto parts made outside of the U.S. could all be impacted.

The timing of when prices will go up comes down to inventory, Stillwagon said. Much of that will also depend on how businesses prepare and respond to the new levies. While companies may have stocked up on goods in anticipation of these tariffs, he expects some stores to see more immediate price increases.

Prices on perishable groceries will likely increase first, because supermarket inventories need to be replenished more frequently. But a range of other items — like electronics, household appliances, clothing and footwear — could also be affected in the coming weeks and months.

“Annual losses for households at the bottom of the income distribution are estimated to be $980 under the April 2 policy alone,” according to John Breyault, vice president of public policy, telecom and fraud at the National Consumers League, who cited an analysis from the Budget Lab at Yale. He said that tariffs will disproportionately affect clothing and textiles, with apparel prices predicted to rise 17%.

Consumers are also likely to feel the pinch of tariffs in home buying, Breyault said. The new taxes on building materials are estimated to increase the average costs of a new home by $9,200, according to an analysis by the National Association of Home Builders.

Rerouting supply chains to reemphasize domestic production is also very complex — and could take years. Stillwagon said there are some products, like bananas and coffee, that the U.S. simply can’t substitute to the same scale of production other countries provide. And even for goods that can be made in the U.S., there will still likely be inflation.

“A real worry here is that this won’t just be a one-time price jump,” he said.

For products like coffee, Helper predicts people will likely absorb costs, while changing their shopping choices when it comes to other products.

“I guess you could switch to Coca-Cola if all you want is the caffeine,” she said, lightly. “It will probably be good for California wines.”

Can I do anything to prepare?

Stocking up on what you know you need is a start — but with limits.

“If there are things that you’re buying on a consistent basis — week to week, month to month — I think it’s not a bad idea to try to stock up in advance,” Stillwagon said. But it’s important to avoid panic buying like that seen at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, he and others added. That could cause shortages to emerge sooner and prices to go up faster.

You also don’t want to buy a bunch of items that will eventually go to waste.

“If you do plan stock up on consumables, make sure you have a plan on how to store them properly so you don’t end up having to throw out that 20-pound bag of shrimp, for example, in a few weeks,” said Breyault.

It may also be time to look for substitutes. From electronics to clothing, Flores-Macías says that there could be more affordable secondhand or refurbished options to turn to. And Chatterjee noted consumers may want to start comparing prices of name-brands versus “private,” or generic, labels in major retailers. Others may turn to at-home solutions, he said, such as growing their own vegetables.

Overall, experts say you’ll need to evaluate your budget and consumption habits for the road ahead.

“This is not a hurricane that’s going to be around for seven days and everything goes back to normal afterward. And you stock up on toilet paper (temporarily),” said Chatterjee. “For all you know, this thing could be around until a different administration comes in and changes trade policy.”

Is there anything to watch out for in the coming months?

Consumers should be on the lookout for even greater use of so-called “shrinkflation” on the grocery aisle, according to Breyault. Shrinkflation is a tactic consumer goods manufacturers use to hide cost increases by changing the design of packaging.

“Consumers can prepare for the inflation that the tariffs are likely to exacerbate by getting into the habit of checking the unit price of items on the grocery shelf,” said Breyault. “While not all states require it, where it is required, consumers can more easily compare the per unit price of one item — cereal, for example — to another item.”

—The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.

source https://time.com/7275194/how-trump-tariffs-could-affect-your-wallet/

Senate GOP Approves Framework for Trump’s Tax Breaks and Spending Cuts After Late-Night Session

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans plugged away overnight and into early Saturday morning to approve their multitrillion-dollar tax breaks and spending cuts framework, hurtling past Democratic opposition toward what President Donald Trump calls the “big, beautiful bill” that’s central to his agenda.

The vote, 51-48, fell along mostly party lines, but with sharp dissent from two prominent Republicans. It could not have come at a more difficult political moment, with the economy churning after Trump’s new tariffs sent stocks plummeting and experts warning of soaring costs for consumers and threats of a potential recession. Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky both voted against the measure.

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But with a nod from Trump, GOP leaders held on. Approval paves the way for Republicans in the months ahead to try to power a tax cut bill through both chambers of Congress over the objections of Democrats, just as they did in Trump’s first term with unified party control in Washington.

“Let the voting begin,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Friday night.

Democrats were intent on making the effort as politically painful as possible, with action on some two dozen amendments to the package that GOP senators will have to defend before next year’s midterm elections.

Among them were proposals to ban tax breaks for the super-wealthy, end Trump’s tariffs, clip his efforts to shrink the federal government, and protect Medicaid, Social Security and other services. One, in response to the Trump national security team’s use of Signal, sought to prohibit military officials from using any commercial messaging application to transmit war plans. They all failed, though a GOP amendment to protect Medicare and Medicaid was accepted.

Democrats accused Republicans of laying the groundwork for cutting key safety net programs to help pay for more than $5 trillion tax cuts they say disproportionately benefit the rich.

“Trump’s policies are a disaster,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York, as is Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, he added. “Republicans could snuff it out tonight, if they wanted.”

The Republicans framed their work as preventing a tax increase for most American families, arguing that unless Congress acts, the individual and estate tax cuts that GOP lawmakers passed in 2017 will expire at the end of this year.

The Senate package pulls in other GOP priorities, including $175 billion to bolster Trump’s mass deportation effort, which is running short of cash, and an additional $175 billion for the Pentagon to build up the military, from an earlier budget effort.

Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the No. 2 ranking Republican, said voters gave his party a mission in November, and the Senate’s budget plan delivers.

“It fulfills our promises to secure the border, to rebuild our economy and to restore peace through strength,” Barrasso said.

The framework now goes to the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., could bring it up for a vote as soon as next week as he works toward a final product by Memorial Day.

The House and Senate need to resolve their differences. The House’s version has $4.5 trillion in tax breaks over 10 years and some $2 trillion in budget cuts, and pointed at changes to Medicaid, food stamps and other programs. Some House Republicans have panned the Senate’s approach.

Republican senators used their majority to swat back Democratic amendments, often in rambunctious voice votes.

Among the more than two dozen amendments offered were several to protect safety net programs. Several Republicans, including Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, joined Democrats in voting to preserve some of those programs, particularly regarding health care. Collins opposed the entire package in a warning against steep Medicaid cuts.

Collins said the potential reductions for that health program in the House bill “would be very detrimental to a lot of families and disabled individuals and seniors in my state.”

Paul questioned the math being used by his colleagues that he said would pile on the debt load. “Something’s fishy,” he said.

One Republican, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, expressed his own misgivings about tax breaks adding to the federal deficits and said he has assurances that Trump officials would seek the cuts elsewhere.

“This vote isn’t taking place in a vacuum,” he said, a nod to the turmoil over Trump’s tariffs.

One crucial challenge ahead will be for the House to accept the way the Senate’s budget plan allows for extending the tax cuts under a scoring method that treats them as not adding to future deficits, something many House Republicans reject. A new estimate from the Joint Committee on Taxation projects the tax breaks will add $5.5 trillion over the next decade when including interest, and $4.6 trillion not including interest.

On top of that, the senators added an additional $1.5 trillion that would allow some of Trump’s campaign promises, such as no taxes on tips, Social Security benefits and overtime, swelling the overall the price tag to $7 trillion.

Republicans are also looking to increase the $10,000 deduction for state and local taxes, something that lawmakers from states such as New York, California and New Jersey say is necessary for their support.

The House and Senate are also at odds over increasing the debt limit to allow more borrowing. The House had boosted the debt limit by $4 trillion in its plan, but the Senate upped it to $5 trillion to push any further votes on the matter until after next year’s midterm elections.

The Senate calls for just $4 billion in spending cuts, but GOP leadership emphasizes that’s a low floor and that committees will be on the hunt for far more.

Already, the GOP leaders are confronting concerns from fiscal hawks who want trillions of dollars in spending cuts to help pay for the tax breaks. At the same time, dozens of lawmakers in swing districts and states are worried about what those cuts will mean for their constituents, and for their reelection chances.

The GOP leadership has encouraged members to just get a budget plan over the finish line, saying they have time to work out the tough questions of which tax breaks and spending cuts to include.

Extending the the 2017 breaks would cut taxes for about three-quarters of households but raise them for about 10%. In 2027, about 45% of the benefit of all the tax cuts would go to those making roughly $450,000 or more, according to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, which analyzes tax issues.

source https://time.com/7275183/senate-gop-approves-framework-for-trumps-tax-breaks-and-spending-cuts/

Social Media Platforms Shouldn’t Own Your Identity

Access to online services is as fundamental to modern life as electricity or water. And just as we expect our electricity to be reliable and our water to be clean, we should have high expectations for the internet. Today, our data represents our personhood; it encompasses our relationships, our thoughts, our interests, and the memories we create each day. That information should be controlled by us—not by Big Tech. Utah’s groundbreaking new Digital Choice Act will help make that goal possible by finally giving people agency over their data on social media platforms.

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When the law takes effect on July 1, 2026, it will mark a bold step toward giving people—not social media platforms—control of their personal information. Under the Digital Choice Act, individuals will be able to use open-source protocols to seamlessly move their content and relationships to new apps if they are unhappy with the experience on a social media site. This portability and interoperability will give people the freedom to manage their digital lives without losing years of personal history. The law also gives people the power to delete all of their data when they decide to leave a platform.

For years, it has been common wisdom that social media is not the product—we are. Indeed, users do not pay for access to social media platforms, social media platforms sell our attention to advertisers. The Digital Choice Act flips that relationship around to put users back in control.

Today’s social media giants use addictive algorithms to hook users, harvest data, and manipulate behavior for profit. Research has exposed how these practices harm society, especially young people. Americans are demanding action.

Laws like the Digital Choice Act put people first. They lower barriers to competition and open the door for new social media platforms. History shows that interoperability works: the Telecommunications Act of 1996 spurred innovation in mobile services and broadband, driving over $2 trillion in private investment into the telecom sector. The UK’s open banking reforms of 2018 unlocked a wave of fintech startups.

As it stands today, people’s livelihoods and digital personhood are continually at risk because companies control their data. We see this lesson playing out far too often. On January 19, when TikTok temporarily shut down, millions of Americans lost access to the relationships and content they had created over many years. The Digital Choice Act would have allowed users to take their data, content, and communities from TikTok and move these valuable assets to the alternative platform of their choice.

Many others fall victim to arbitrary decisions by platforms that have no meaningful oversight and provide little recourse, appeal, or ability to leave. Laws like the Digital Choice Act allow creators and everyday people on social media to migrate their content and communities to other platforms that are better positioned to meet their needs. The law also enables people to share posts across other platforms in real time in order to reach their friends and communities wherever they are.  

The underlying problem of platforms effectively holding our data captive—and using it against us—is emerging as a defining challenge of our time. It is at the root of a business model that is harming our children, polarizing our neighborhoods, and undermining our national security. The Digital Choice Act starts by addressing these issues with social media where the harms are arguably most acute. However, the recent bankruptcy of 23andme, which put the DNA of the company’s 15 million customers at risk, is a reminder that these questions have far broader implications. The consequences will only become more extreme as artificial intelligence drives larger portions of the economy and the internet. It is urgent that we fix this before it’s too late.

Utah has long been a leader in digital privacy. In 2024, Utah passed two laws (S.B. 194 and H.B. 464) to safeguard minors, enhance parental controls, and hold social media companies accountable for mental health harms. As policymakers and parents, we have a duty to go further.

We urge other states, other countries, and the federal government to follow Utah’s lead. Data rights are human rights. They should be protected by law.  

If people have the power to move their information across platforms, it will permanently change a broken system that is hurting our kids, communities, and country. Data interoperability is possible: social media platforms already have access to open-source protocols that make our information portable. Millions of people are set to benefit as better laws and better tech facilitate data portability and app interoperability.

We can no longer accept a status quo where corporations hold the keys to our online lives. It’s time to build a future where individuals own and control their digital identities. Shouldn’t you own you?

Spencer Cox is the Governor of Utah and outgoing chair of the National Governors Association.

Frank H. McCourt Jr. is the executive chairman of McCourt Global, founder of Project Liberty, and author of “Our Biggest Fight.”

source https://time.com/7274854/social-media-platforms-own-your-identity/

Antibiotic resistance among key bacterial species plateaus over time, study shows

Antibiotic resistance tends to stabilize over time, according to a study published in the open-access journal PLOS Pathogens by Sonja Lehtinen from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and colleagues.

source https://phys.org/news/2025-04-antibiotic-resistance-key-bacterial-species.html

Some insects are declining, but what's happening to the other 99%?

Insects are the dominant form of animal life on our planet, providing humans and wildlife with pollination, food, and recycling services but, despite concerns about population declines, little is known about how 99% of species globally are faring.

source https://phys.org/news/2025-04-insects-declining.html

Pulse Just Doesn’t Know What to Do With Its #MeToo Storyline

Netflix is finally getting into the world of medical procedurals with Pulse, a Miami-set hospital drama from creator Zoe Robyn (The Equalizer). Like most medical shows, it’s full of intriguing cases, a host of complicated practitioners, and plenty of drama. The series opens with a school bus careening off a bridge and plunging into the water below and only gets wilder from there. While all of that is fairly typical of a hospital show, there is one element of Pulse that hits different, and doesn’t always land well: its inclusion of a #MeToo storyline that manages to be incisive, as a damning statement on how institutions fail those who come forward, and simultaneously a woefully underdeveloped exercise in schlock. Let’s try and figure it out.

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In the first episode of Pulse, all anyone can talk about is the scandal of Dr. Xander Phillips’ (Colin Woodell) suspension and the temporary promotion of Dr. Danny Simms (Willa Fitzgerald) to Chief Resident Phillips’ old job. It’s a hell of a first day in this new role for Simms—the school bus incident brings an influx of patients in urgent need, and a hurricane is on the way. Because they’re short-staffed and Phillips just finished a shift, he’s asked to stay on for the next shift, even though he’s suspended. Here’s the rub: it was Simms who reported Phillips for what’s implied to be sexual harassment, and everyone at the hospital knows it.

Phillips is far from a seedy creep who draws the ire of everyone around him. In fact, the show presents him as quite the opposite. “The guy’s a saint,” surgical resident Tom Cole (Jack Bannon) says of Phillips, and that’s a sentiment shared by most of the staff at Maguire Medical Center. He’s warm, helpful, a strong leader, and an excellent doctor.  

Read more: Netflix’s First Big Medical Procedural, Pulse, Is DOA

Throughout Pulse, flashbacks shed light on Simms and Phillips’ relationship before the complaint was filed. Given that Phillips is Simms’ superior, there’s a clear power dynamic at play. We see how Phillips is flirtatious with Simms, trying to kiss her in the hospital, which she swiftly rejects. But a first-episode cliffhanger reveals that the reason Simms rejected his advances was not because she didn’t want him, but because it happened at work—the pair are actually in a relationship, and even living together now. To turn this reveal into a twisty shock throws everything we’ve seen about Simms into question: If she’s lying about her relationship with Phillips, her entire character is called into question.

Over the season’s 10 episodes, it becomes increasingly clear that she’s not lying: Phillips used his power to pressure her into a relationship. Even though she eventually fell for him, he coerced her into something she didn’t want. While falling in love with him makes things appear like they may be improved now, it doesn’t excuse the way he abused his power at the outset. We see that he purposefully pushed against having their relationship reported to HR so he could ultimately protect himself professionally and secure what he wanted personally without consideration for her career or how she’d be perceived. The problem with this is that slyly revealing that they’re sleeping together consensually frames Simms as a villain who’s out to take down a more powerful man, which is deeply dishonest. And even if she were lying, telling a story about sexual misconduct for pure shock value is distasteful at best.

The storyline’s most effective moments come when Simms is roaming through the hallways of the hospital, only to hear people talking about her, calling her manipulative, a liar, someone willing to throw good people under the bus for her own gain. Simms never interrupts these conversations with the kind of quippy retort you’d typically hear on television. Instead, she just keeps going. If there’s one thing that’s abundantly clear about Simms, it’s that she’s extremely dedicated to her work. It’s everything to her. And she won’t waste a second admonishing people for gossiping when there’s work to do and lives to be saved. Simms has to absorb the vitriol and move on.

Read more: This Is Going to Hurt Is the Best Medical Drama in Years

There are a few people in Simms’ corner. In an Episode 7 flashback, Cass (Jessica Rothe), a senior ER nurse, finds the pair kissing, and Simms begs her not to tell anyone. Simms expresses her fears that she may be perceived as someone using a relationship to get ahead at work. But Cass sees things as they are: “Maybe I think he’s using chief to get you,” she responds, referring to Phillips’ position of power. The show understands that all women aren’t a monolith. 

At the end of the same episode, Chair of Surgery and Emergency Medicine Natalie Cruz (Justina Machado), who’s been supportive of Simms, warns her that what she’s up against will be difficult to overcome. Referring to her upcoming HR meeting, Cruz says, “I know you want it to make everything better. And I hope it does for you. But it’s complicated. And you need to know that this could also make everything a whole lot worse.” It’s not exactly the kind of pep talk you want to hear from a superior, and especially the person who’s had your back. 

But Pulse’s problem is that these words ring hollow. The entire harassment subplot is underdeveloped, taking a back seat to typical medical drama. When this pivotal moment arrives for Simms, there’s little for audiences to grasp onto. The dialogue is overly general to the point that we don’t really understand the complications Cruz is referring to. Is Simms’ job at risk? Or her reputation? Her chances of victory? There’s an earlier scene in the same episode where Phillips’ wealthy and influential mother comes to Cruz about the complaint, but even she doesn’t lay out what she wants. Everything’s only implied or suggested, as if the show is unwilling to make a direct statement regarding Simms and Phillips’ relationship. It sure seems like Phillips’ mother is suggesting Simms be fired, but we never come to understand just how powerful their family is, or how exactly they can manipulate things. The next day, Simms goes to HR ahead of the meeting and drops her complaint.

One of Simms’ justifications for her complaint against Phillips is rumors of previous sexual impropriety at his old hospital, and that those problems led him to transfer hospitals. It’s regularly teased through the season that the truth will be revealed. That mystery is solved in the final episode, wherein it’s revealed that Phillips had no claims of sexual misconduct against him. Instead, he signed an NDA because a mistake he made resulted in the death of a patient. Once again, this reads as a sensitive subject being used as a cheap plot device rather than giving it proper attention.

Perhaps the most damning aspect of the plotline is the way it handles the outcomes for each character. Its ultimate message—that even if you do the right thing and come forward, there’s nothing close to a guarantee that that choice will have a positive impact—is unfortunately often true to life. But Pulse is so unwilling to take sides, keen to instead observe that people are complex and capable of flaws. This upends the power imbalance the show is trying to critique. It purports that Simms and Phillips are equally flawed when Phillips is clearly, to this viewer at least, in the wrong.

The end of Season 1 is surprisingly upbeat, despite Phillips getting what he wants, while Simms faces a major setback in what matters most to her. Yet it’s played off as some sort of victory for Simms, as she floats in the ocean, happy and free. Free from the relationship that brought her so much unpleasantness—and yes, so much love—for the last year. But her career, her number one focus, has taken a hit, and it’s all because she tried to advocate for herself in a system designed to maintain the status quo at all costs, even the human ones.

The first season of Pulse is interested in the ways lies can spread and how rumors percolate throughout a work environment. Once they are thrown into the world, they linger and fester in ways impossible to predict. It’s not inherently problematic to be invested in the gray areas of workplace relationships; not everything in life is black and white, and the show is true to that. But Pulse is so stuck in the gray that it’s unwilling to make definitive statements about its characters’ behavior. Pulse spends so much time in the gray that it ends up entirely lacking in color.

source https://time.com/7274510/pulse-netflix-danny-simms-xander-phillips-metoo/

Ancient amphibians as big as alligators died in mass mortality event in Triassic Wyoming

Dozens of amphibians perished together on an ancient floodplain around 230 million years ago, according to a study published in the open-access journal PLOS One by Aaron M. Kufner of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, U.S., and colleagues.

source https://phys.org/news/2025-04-ancient-amphibians-big-alligators-died.html

Trump Administration Freezes Critical Title X Funding for 16 Organizations

The Trump Administration is withholding millions of dollars allocated for family planning services from more than a dozen organizations.

Enacted in 1970, the federal family planning program known as Title X makes millions of dollars available to clinics that provide health care services like birth control, cancer screenings, and STI testing for people from low-income households. On March 31, Planned Parenthood—one of the largest Title X providers—said in a press release that nine of its affiliates received notices from the federal government that their Title X funding would be withheld starting April 1.

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According to Planned Parenthood, more than three-quarters of its affiliates receive Title X funding, and in 2023, there were more than 1.5 million visits to Planned Parenthood health centers that received Title X funding.

One of the nine affiliates affected is Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai’i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky (PPGNHAIK), which serves those four states as well as Idaho and western Washington. Its CEO, Rebecca Gibron, estimates that, as a result of the freeze, about $3 million a year will now be withheld from five of the six states PPGNHAIK serves: Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Alaska, and Hawaii. Gibron says that over half of PPGNHAIK’s health centers across six states serve more than 40,000 patients a year through Title X.

“In our states, we are a safety net provider providing affordable birth control, cancer screenings, STI testing, and treatment,” Gibron says. “These patients rely on Title X for their health care, and without this program, patients may have no access to this care at all.” Planned Parenthood Action Fund President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson said in a press release that if people aren’t able to access this care, cancers could go undetected, access to birth control could be reduced, and sexually transmitted infections could increase.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told TIME in an email that the department is withholding Title X funds from 16 organizations “pending an evaluation of possible violations of their grant terms, including based on Federal civil rights laws and the President’s Executive Order 14218, ‘Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders,’” which Trump signed on Feb. 19. The Executive Order declares that undocumented immigrants are prohibited “from obtaining most taxpayer-funded benefits.”

“HHS is conducting this evaluation to ensure these entities are in full compliance with Federal law and applicable grant terms, and to ensure responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars,” the spokesperson said. They did not respond to questions about the details of the “possible violations,” how much money was being withheld from the affected organizations, and which organizations were being impacted by the funding freeze.

On March 25, the Wall Street Journal reported that HHS was considering freezing $27.5 million out of the more than $200 million allocated for Title X’s annual budget.

Gibron calls the withholding of funds “politically motivated.” She accuses the Trump Administration of wanting to “shut down Planned Parenthood health centers to appease their anti-abortion backers,” saying that the Title X freeze is the “latest attempt” by the Administration to defund Planned Parenthood.

“The fact is that Planned Parenthood health centers across the country serve millions of patients every year, regardless of their immigration status, political affiliation, race, or gender—everyone is welcome in a Planned Parenthood health center,” Gibron says. “Access to fundamental reproductive and sexual health services is health care that everyone needs.”

In 2019, during the first Trump Administration, the federal government implemented a new restriction on Title X recipients, barring them from providing abortion referrals (Title X dollars don’t fund abortion services). The Guttmacher Institute, which researches and supports sexual and reproductive health and rights, found that that the restriction—often referred to as the“domestic gag rule”—combined with the COVID-19 pandemic, led to the loss of 981 health care centers from the Title X program and resulted in about 2.4 million fewer patients receiving care through the federal program in 2020 compared with 2018. The Biden Administration rescinded the domestic gag rule in 2021.

Read More: South Carolina Wants to End Medicaid for Planned Parenthood

Essential Access Health, which distributes Title X funds to clinics in California and Hawaii, said in a press release shared with TIME that it also received a notice that its Title X funds were being temporarily withheld while the group responds to “an inquiry regarding compliance with federal policy and practices related to civil rights and Executive Orders focused on DEI activities within 10 days.” The day he took office, Trump signed an Executive Order aimed at dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts.

“This unprecedented, arbitrary, and immediate pause in distribution of critical resources is harmful to patients and providers,” Essential Access Health said in a press release shared with TIME. “Any funding delay is detrimental, and an extended delay would devastate our family planning safety net.”

Reproductive rights experts have condemned the Trump Administration’s move to freeze Title X funds. Amy Friedrich-Karnik, director of federal policy at the Guttmacher Institute, says she wasn’t shocked by the move, but that it is “absolutely devastating.” According to Friedrich-Karnik, early estimates from Guttmacher Institute experts indicate that between 600,000 and 1.25 million people could be impacted by this funding freeze annually, based on the most recently available data on Title X from 2023.

“The impact of that program on people’s access to needed reproductive health care services is so clear—how people have benefitted from that access and how it is a program that fills a very important gap for folks who can’t get health care elsewhere,” Friedrich-Karnik says. “Not only are reproductive health care services like contraception, STI testing, cancer screenings at risk, [but] for many people, this is their only touchpoint with the health care system at all.”

According to data from the HHS Office of Population Affairs, about 83% of patients who received care from clinics that received Title X funding in 2023 had family incomes at or below 250% of the federal poverty level. Friedrich-Karnik says data also shows that people of color are disproportionately likely to access Title X services. She calls the freeze “a direct attack on health equity,” adding that Title X was established “to ensure that historically underserved communities were able to access health care and reproductive health care,” and the Trump Administration’s actions are penalizing Title X recipients “for doing exactly what the program is set up to do.”

Friedrich-Karnik says that the freeze is “definitely an attack” on people from low-income households, “who already have the most barriers to accessing health care services.”

source https://time.com/7273838/trump-administration-freezes-title-x-funding-impact/

Giving up on photosynthesis: How a borrowed bacterial gene allows some marine diatoms to live on a seaweed diet

A group of diatom species belonging to the Nitzschia genus gave up on photosynthesis and now get their carbon straight from their environment, thanks to a bacterial gene picked up by an ancestor. Gregory Jedd of Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, Singapore, and colleagues report these findings in a study published in the open-access journal PLOS Biology.

source https://phys.org/news/2025-04-photosynthesis-bacterial-gene-marine-diatoms.html

ICE Admits ‘Administrative Error’ In Deporting Maryland Man to El Salvador

President Donald Trump’s administration has acknowledged mistakenly deporting a Maryland man with protected legal status to a notorious El Salvador prison but is arguing against returning him to federal custody in the United States because of alleged gang ties.

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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials admitted in a court filing on Monday night to an “administrative error” in deporting the 29-year-old man, generating immediate uproar from immigration advocates.

Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was arrested on March 12 after completing a shift as a sheet metal worker apprentice at a construction site in Baltimore, according to a complaint filed in federal court by his lawyers.

Abrego Garcia was then sent to a notorious prison in his home country, the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, which activists say is rife with abuses and where inmates are packed into cells and never allowed outside.

He was placed at CECOT despite an immigration judge’s ruling in 2019 that he not be deported to El Salvador because he had established it was “more likely than not that he would be persecuted by gangs,” according to his lawyer’s complaint.

Abrego Garcia “left El Salvador when he was around sixteen years old, fleeing gang violence,” according to the complaint. “Beginning around 2006, gang members had stalked, hit, and threatened to kidnap and kill him in order to coerce his parents to succumb to their increasing demands for extortion.”

“Although he has been accused of general ‘gang affiliation,’ the U.S. government has never produced an iota of evidence to support this unfounded accusation,” the complaint stated, adding that Abrego Garcia is neither a member of nor affiliated with MS-13 or any other criminal or street gang.

Abrego Garcia’s wife later saw him in photos and video of him at the prison, identifying her husband through his distinctive tattoos and two scars on his head, the complaint stated.

The Trump administration said in its court filing that ICE “was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador,” but still deported Abrego Garcia “because of an administrative error.”

The administration argued against his return to the U.S., citing alleged gang ties and claiming that he is a danger to the community. The administration stated that his gang ties were confirmed at a 2019 bond proceeding and upheld by the Board of Immigration Appeals.

“This was an oversight, and the removal was carried out in good faith based on the existence of a final order of removal and Abrego-Garcia’s purported membership in MS-13,” Robert Cerna, ICE’s acting field office director of enforcement and removal operations, wrote in a statement to the court.

source https://time.com/7273409/ice-administrative-error-deporting-maryland-man-el-salvador/

Three-site Kitaev chain enhances stability of Majorana zero modes

An international research team led by QuTech has realized a three-site Kitaev chain using semiconducting quantum dots coupled by superconducting segments in a hybrid InSb/Al nanowire. When comparing two-and three-site chains within the same device, they observed that extending the chain to three sites increased the stability of the zero-energy modes. This work demonstrates the scalability of quantum-dot-based Kitaev chains and their potential to host stable Majorana zero modes. The researchers published their results in Nature Nanotechnology.

source https://phys.org/news/2025-03-site-kitaev-chain-stability-majorana.html

We Must Stop Blaming Law Firms Attacked by President Donald Trump

This past month, President Donald Trump issued executive orders targeting the business of several big law firms and launched investigations into the human resource practices of many more. Some have rushed to condemn the law firms that were the victims of the President’s recent threats for giving in to his demands. However, not enough focus has been placed on the real actor behind this vindictive act: Trump.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Three of the targeted firms—Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Perkins Coie—challenged the President in court and won, obtaining restraining orders against their respective executive orders. Another firm, Covington & Burling, took no action in response to a more limited executive order, while two others, Paul, Weiss and Skadden Arps, reached cosmetic settlements with the President, allowing Trump to back down from his threats. As Paul Weiss chairman Brad Karp outlined to his colleagues, the firm’s deal resolved an existential threat to the firm without compromising its policies or cultural principles. This letter also revealed that Paul Weiss became a target after Brad Karp had tried to rally the other major firms to support the early targeted peer firms. In fact, some rival firms responded just the opposite way trying to poach Paul Weiss attorneys and clients sensing vulnerability.

Paul Weiss’ and Skadden Arps’ agreements with the President have included offers of substantial pro bono legal work on causes such as veterans’ rights, anti-Semitism, and promoting fairness in the legal system. These are causes the firms have long supported and in dollar amounts that are a fraction of what the firms already dedicate to pro bono work. Plus, Karp maintains that Paul Weiss’ settlements did not include condemnation of previous firm engagements or HR practices, nor does it impose any formal limits on future representations, including representations against the Trump Administration. Such a deal seems like a great way to calm anxious major clients and potentially poached top attorneys.

In our legal system, conflict resolution balances protracted, expensive litigation against faster negotiated settlements. The choice depends on the strategic positions of each party. The President is unlikely to prevail in litigation challenging his executive orders. Thus, he is motivated to settle with face-saving ways of backing down, which Paul, Weiss and Skadden Arps realized. Plus, as my Yale colleague John Morley wrote in the Wall Street Journal, the firms that quickly settled had much larger corporate transaction practices, with a higher propensity of flight risk, than those firms that have larger litigation practices. It is understandable that law firms with different business models would approach this same crisis differently. With the perishable quality of law-firm assets and firms’ fiduciary duties to their clients and employees, firms can make different business choices while still securing their futures with honor.

The continuing complex situation at Wilmer Hale shows further why the settlements of Paul Weiss and Skadden Arps are attractive. Wilmer Hale was granted partial relief, but the judge expressly denied relief on seeing security clearance block seeing that discretion of the purview of President Trump’s executive authority requiring ongoing litigation. Clients who require their lawyers to have security clearances may not be comfortable if there is some urgency in representation.

Attacks on the actions of Paul Weiss and Skadden Arps have missed the real story. The President’s motive was to attack virtually every leading law firm that has represented or hired those who challenged the President’s actions in court. It is noteworthy that not among the firms he attacked were such Trump-friendly firms as Jones Day, Quinn Emanuel, and Sullivan & Cromwell. In fact, one of the most disturbing aspects of this saga was that the President sought advice from the co-chairman of Paul Weiss rival, Sullivan & Cromwell, Trump’s personal attorney in his appeal of his conviction on 34 counts for falsifying business records, as he was negotiating with Karp, the Wall Street Journal and others reported. It is extraordinary that this involvement has not been the subject of greater scrutiny and criticism.

The leaders in the legal profession could take a page from their peers in other fields. After financial firms were devastated by the loss of their colleagues in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, their competitors rushed to offer assistance. Clients were not stolen and talent was not poached from the firms most affected by the attacks.

Similarly, during the 2008 financial collapse, leaders of top financial firms worked together to develop support for the TARP program, even though those firms were in competitively healthy positions to take advantage of their fallen rivals. Rivals such as UPS or FedEx routinely do not try to benefit from each other’s misfortunes but instead offer assistance to one another in the face of operational failures, labor strife, and other interruptions.

When in 2021, Delta Airlines expressed concern for the restrictive new voting laws, the President called for a boycott of Delta. I called the chief executives of American and United, who instantly expressed public support for Delta and joined a virtual forum of 100 CEOs hastily called for that purpose.

Collective action by chief executives in the business world has had a profound impact on blunting unchallenged authoritarian erosion of American democratic institutions. The legal industry stands apart—and the resulting spotlight is not flattering. The hypocritical chest pounding of attorneys condemning those law firms who settled is noteworthy, because many of those same attorneys previously failed to join the efforts to support those firms from the President’s attacks. Instead, they blame the victim here.

Hopefully, the leaders in the legal world can learn from bolder leaders in other fields. Already 80 deans of law schools have spoken out in unison in denouncing the President’s attack on law firms, while smaller firms such as Munger, Tolles & Olson and Keker, Van Nest & Peters have spoken out in defense of their larger rivals, suggesting “friend of the court” briefs.

Monday, the American College of Trial Lawyers joined the condemnation of President Trump’s coercive partisan executive orders attacking these law firms, while the American Bar Association has condemned this attack on the rule of law. Perhaps the big firms can join with the scrappy little firms out of enlightened self-interest. It wouldn’t hurt to hear from their clients now, either. It is not too late for the legal industry to redeem itself in this perilous moment.

source https://time.com/7273100/stop-blaming-law-firms-attacked-by-president-donald-trump/