Reading archive 2026-02-25

A professor challenged the Smithsonian. Security shut the gallery.: As President Donald Trump seeks to reshape its museums and other cultural institutions, wall text has become a battleground and documentation a form of resistance.

Don’t save Social Security: Trying to fix the retirement program is infeasible. Better to find new ways of achieving its goals. - "As two experts on the program recently wrote, Social Security sends only 7 percent of its benefits to the poorest 20 percent of senior citizens. The richest 20 percent receive 29 percent.

"The rationale for the disparity is that there should be some connection between how much a worker puts in and how much he takes out. But that link is pretty loose, and nearly all current retirees receive more than they paid. A middle-class worker who retires in the next decade will, on average, receive 47 percent more than the sum of what the person paid in taxes and the interest on that money. The skewed benefit structure means that even though Social Security paid out $1.6 trillion last year, around 6 percent of seniors still live in poverty.

"To get a sense of how perverse that is, consider another recent finding of the CBO: If everyone older than 65 were given a flat annual benefit worth 150 percent of the poverty line — that would be about $32,500 for a couple this year — the program would no longer be insolvent and senior poverty would be abolished."

Electric buses are passing a brutal cold-weather test in Wisconsin: Madison is proving that electric buses can run through frightfully cold winters, providing a blueprint for zero-emissions transit in other frigid locales.

Ukraine: Still Standing: Years after Russia’s invasion, Ukraine’s endurance is the story

‘I Genuinely Am Upset That Your Kids Are Vaccinated’: Del Bigtree, a longtime ally of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., isn’t just anti-vaccine. He’s pro-infection.

Why covid-19 is “a vascular disease masquerading as a respiratory one”