Reading archive 2025-07-16 pt 1

My health and my politics walk into a doctor’s office …: My palliative care doctor and I have almost nothing in common. We’re still learning from each other. - "Her response included a touch of humor. 'I appreciate hearing more about how you were raised and how you view our standing in this life and beyond. But I guess it leaves me wondering, how is this working out for the world? And what happens to moral people when they die? If nothing happens after we die, what’s the point of striving for justice and caring about others in this life? Might as well be selfish, greedy, live the good life and then die.'" [ed. note: what are the morals of someone who strives for justice and cares for others in expectation of heavenly rewards? That makes the moral atheist a significantly greater person.]

Airplanes are loud and may damage your hearing. Here’s what helps.: Even if you are on a flight free of crying babies, the engine noise can be substantial.

Are a few people ruining the internet for the rest of us?: Why does the online world seem so toxic compared with normal life? Our research shows that a small number of divisive accounts could be responsible – and offers a way out

Nursing homes struggle with Trump’s immigration crackdown

From Food Aid to Dog Chow? How Trump’s Cuts Hurt Kansas Farmers.: Kansans created Food for Peace, for 70 years a font of rural income and pride. Now at least one grain broker is trying to sell grain that once fed the world as dog food.

Trump’s Vietnam Agreement Bodes Poorly for Future Trade Deals

The Ruthless Ambition of Stephen Miller

FEMA removed dozens of Camp Mystic buildings from 100-year flood map before expansion, records show

How the rightwing sports bro conquered America

For Hard-Right Lawmakers, Trump’s Shift on Epstein Is Just the Latest Breach: Right-wing Republicans have also criticized the president’s stances on Iran and Ukraine, hinting at a broader fraying of his political coalition.

WHY MANY AMERICAN GARDENS ARE FULL OF MULCH?

American Father and Vlogger Tricked Into Front Line Combat by Russia: The Texas man is the latest in a string of Americans lured to Russia by propaganda, yet confronting a reality that is altogether different than the utopia they were sold.

Human Collapse: Russia Moves to Conceal Severe Demographic Crisis: Russia has begun to restrict access to data relating to demographic statistics in a sign that they are likely to reveal a deteriorating population situation.

D.C. Ward 8 voters return indicted Trayon White to office after expulsion White beat opponents ANC Chair Salim Adofo, attorney Mike Austin and public servant Sheila Bunn for the seat.

Democrats have only one escape route Unifying behind platitudes isn’t the way out of irrelevance. Making voters choose is.

Inside the Silicon Valley push to breed super-babies: Investors say genetic prediction services for embryos, used by Elon Musk and others, are a trust fund for future children. Many scientists are skeptical. - "But the paper laying out that breakthrough, published last year in the peer-reviewed journal F&S Reports, is fundamentally flawed, according to Stanford’s Yatsenko and Aleks Rajkovic, chief genomics officer at the University of California at San Francisco Health Center for Clinical Genetics and Genomics. It excluded results that didn’t fit its thesis, Yatsenko said, and both scientists said that by using Orchid’s own lab to check those results, its authors didn’t adhere to ideal scientific practice. Orchid said that the paper’s findings had been verified by independent labs and that there were 'zero discrepancies' in the results."

You might be fooling yourself about peanut butter, plus 5 other protein mistakes: Are you eating enough protein at breakfast? Most people aren’t.

DOJ hits states with broad requests for voter rolls, election data: Election clerks in both parties, already facing harassment and lawsuits over Trump’s false 2020 election claims, worry about efforts to examine voting machines.