CEOs getting older

Axios -  The average American CEO now 61, up from around 51 in 2000, Axios' Emily Peck writes. A new study finds that older leaders tend to manage businesses that grow more slowly and are less likely to radically innovate. But they also appear to be more sought after in uncertain economic times. One finding from the database of more than 50,000 leaders: Smaller, privately held companies are more likely to hire older leaders.

Meanwhile...

The Guardian - Since 2014, the numbers of US citizens renouncing their citizenship each year have been in the thousands, hitting a record of 6,705 in 2020. With the Trump administration slashing the fees to renounce citizenship from $2,350 to $450, this year is expected to reach similar heights.

Public school teachers

NPR - The average salary for public school teachers in the U.S. is up 3.5% from the previous year. However, when adjusted for inflation, today's teachers are estimated to earn less than they did in 2017, according to a new review of school-related data from the National Education Association. Here are some key findings:

🧑‍🏫 The average salary for new teachers in the U.S. is $46,112. Among the locations with the highest salaries are the District of Columbia ($64,640), and Washington ($60,658). The states with the lowest starting salaries are Montana ($36,682) and Nebraska ($39,561). 
🧑‍🏫 The beginning of the 2024-25 school year saw a 0.3% drop in student enrollment from the previous fall. Since 2016, schools have experienced a roughly 3.6% decline in enrollment.
🧑‍🏫 States with collective bargaining laws have higher average starting salaries and top salaries than states without them.
🧑‍🏫 Washington stands out among the 11 states that have seen an inflation-adjusted increase in teacher pay since 2017. Teacher pay in the state has increased 36%. The rise came after the state’s supreme court put the state on notice and imposed a $100,000-a-day fine to ensure better funding and support for public schools.

Middle East

The Guardian -Amid a patchy ceasefire, Lebanon’s minister for the environment has accused Israel’s military of committing “an act of ecocide” in its operations against Hezbollah in the southern region of the country. In just 2023 and 2024, the Israeli military has damaged 12,350 acres of forest cover and destroyed 5,320 acres of orchards, including more than 2,000 acres of olive groves, according to a 106-page report.

NBC News - Peace talks between U.S. and Iranian officials have stalled, sending oil prices higher while a standoff in the Strait of Hormuz remains. Without a clear resolution to the war in sight, those high prices are here to stay indefinitely, experts say. Now, three emerging forces are at work and will likely lead to what one analyst is calling an “extended stagflationary shock” both for the U.S. and for the world. 

First, the world’s backup supply of crude oil products is rapidly being depleted. The ongoing supply deficit means the market will ration remaining oil supplies by increasing their price — and that will lead to the second factor: demand destruction. Finally, alternative sources of fuel production outside the Middle East are not going to make up for the shortage. 

.... In the meantime, the U.S. appeared skeptical about a new Iranian proposal that would end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz without resolving the impasse over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. Tehran’s latest offer looked “better” than past pitches, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last night, after it was discussed by Trump and his national security team. But there was little sign that Washington might be willing to abandon its naval blockade and accept the offer.

NPR - Diplomatically, the ceasefire agreement is holding steady, meaning none of the involved parties — Israel, Lebanon or Hezbollah — have officially declared it over, NPR’s Kat Lonsdorf says. But Israel is conducting multiple airstrikes daily against what it identifies as Hezbollah targets, primarily in the south. Lonsdorf was in southern Lebanon speaking to residents, and says the region does not feel like it's under a ceasefire. The sporadic air strikes taking place while she was there a few days ago have since intensified. Israel has also issued new evacuation orders for several communities beyond the zone it occupies. Many people are reevacuating after trying to go back to their homes. Abed Ammar, 35, said to Lonsdorf in a voice note, “If this was a ceasefire, we could be at home. This is not a ceasefire.”

Donald Trump

Bloomberg - Jimmy Kimmel defended a joke he made last week about Melania Trump having “a glow like an expectant widow,” prompting Trump to call for his firing. The late-night host cited his First Amendment right to free speech.

Artificial Intelligence

Bloomberg - OpenAI failed to meet its own goals for new users and sales, raising internal concerns about its ability to sustain spending on AI infrastructure, the Wall Street Journal reported. Shares of partners including SoftBank Group and Oracle fell on the report, adding to scrutiny of the sector ahead of earnings from Alphabet and other Big Tech firms.

Children

SmileHub - With nearly 330,000 children in the U.S. in foster care, the non-profit organization SmileHub today released new reports on the States with the Best Foster Care Systems in 2026 and the Best Charities for Children to highlight the needs of these disadvantaged youth and the states doing their best to support them.

To highlight the states with the best foster care systems and the ones that need to improve the most, SmileHub compared each of the 50 states based on 19 key metrics. The data set ranges from the share of children in foster care to the share of children who re-entered the foster care system after adoption to equality laws and regulations for children in foster care.

Best States		States in Need of Improvement
1. New Jersey		41. South Dakota
2. Virginia		42. Alabama
3. Connecticut		43. Arizona
4. Iowa		44. Montana
5. Colorado		45. Indiana
6. Delaware		46. Kansas
7. California		47. Vermont
8. New York		48. Florida
9. Minnesota		49. New Mexico
10. Louisiana		50. Alaska

Key Stats

• New Jersey has the lowest share of children in foster care – 13.9 times lower than West Virginia, which has the highest share.
• California has the most children’s charities per capita  – 12.6 times more than Rhode Island, which has the fewest charities.
• Delaware has the largest share of children adopted within 3 years – 2.9 times larger than Illinois, which has the smallest share of children adopted.

 To view the full report and your state’s rank

Farming

Alternet -  President Donald Trump’s tariffs and Iran war are raising prices on farmers, eliminating key markets from them and making scarce materials on which they rely to survive. Despite these facts, most farmers still refuse to retract their support for the Republican leader.

“A recent Economist/YouGov poll suggests such troubles are now commonplace,” wrote The Economist on Monday, referring to farmers who struggle to make ends meet thanks to Trump’s policies. “27 percent of rural respondents said it would be ‘impossible’ to cover an unexpected $1,000 bill. It would be easy to blame Mr Trump for the downturn. After all, he campaigned on promises to bring down prices and revive the heartland. But rural America does not.”

The article added, “The president’s favourability rating is higher among rural voters than among any other group in our survey. Most still think he is doing a good job. In interview after interview with The Economist, farmers said they trust the administration—but that they need help to recoup the losses its foreign policy is causing them.”

Despite the fact that Trump does not seem to plan on major modifications to his tariffs, his Iran war or his antagonism of countries on which farmers rely for markets, The 

....“Donald Trump has waged various literal and metaphorical wars in his second term, but two have been especially bad for Americans: his trade war with the world and his actual war with Iran,” The Economist wrote. “Every American industry that makes things—from chemicals to cars to crops—suffered at least a little when Mr Trump slapped tariffs on other countries and some of them retaliated. Now, with the conflict in Iran unresolved and the Strait of Hormuz still blocked, those same businesses face higher costs. Few have suffered more than American farmers.”

The rise of AH as well as AI

Sam Smith – This summer it will be 69 years since  I covered my first Washington story. Since then I have never seen a political administration as corrupt and dishonest as Donald Trump’s.

But perhaps because I was an anthropology major in college I don’t see this as strictly a political matter. Other aspects of our culture have also changed, such as the size of corporations, our standards of financial decency, and the growth of  business schools and broadcasting corporations, TV and the Internet. These have dramatically altered the way we live. And one of the effects of this, although rarely discussed, is that our society is now split between old human based communities with traditional values and an increasing population absorbed mainly with power, money, corporatism and social status.

In short, we are facing not only AI – artificial intelligence – but AH - artificial humanity. As with AI, AH is a model of what it means to turn the moral, communal and decent into a system in which only technology, personal power and money are what really matter.

Although I have decades of experience covering corrupt politicians I have never had to face values that are so indifferent to classic human standards. People like Trump and his gang are not just politically off the charts they have rewritten what it means to be corrupt…. And human.

I spent my high school years in Philadelphia and went to college at Harvard next to Boston so I early had plenty of experience with the nature of corruption. I was introduced to politics at age 12, stuffing envelopes in a Philly campaign that ended over six decades of Republican rule. And in four decades later, as a Washington reporter, I saw plenty of local corruption but not only was it balanced by the decent, even many of  the corrupt had more virtue then you find today.

What is missing from the way we handle today’s problems is the lack of a loud spirit of decency and community. Even ordinary honest friends seem more scared of our Trumpist society than active as their earlier likes were, say, in the fight for civil rights. We have not only changed our politics but are losing the energy and courage to restore a decent America.

I  learned a lot about my hometown DC covering the real city and not just national politics. For example, back in 1971 71% of its population was black. And Washington’s neighborhoods were important enough that we even had elected advisory neighborhood commissions. This was a totally different place than the Washington you saw on TV or read in the morning paper.

Aside from a few things like the Martin Luther King riots, Washington got along with itself pretty well. In part this was not only because it elected black officials but whites and blacks joined on a number of important matters including fighting some freeways and supporting home rule and statehood. One of the best cures for ethnic division is finding agreement on key issues.

With a father who worked for President Roosevelt and my later decades as a journalist, recent history is not just an academic matter, it is also a story I covered each day.

For me, for example, the big change in America came in the 1980s not juste with Ronald Reagan, but also the rise of television and viewers who lowered community activity and the frequency of gathering with their neighbors.  And as the media played a significantly larger role in our lives there was  a greater emphasis reporting on those with power and money and less on what was happening in real life around us. 

In short, as a society we moved from traditional human habits and values to the new AH and  our social significance and relationships were increasingly turned over to artificial humanity.

Virginia's governor

FactPost

Today marks Governor Abigail Spanberger's 100th day in office. Her accomplishments include: —Passing paid family and medical leave —Raising the minimum wage to $15 —Reducing prescription drug costs —Supporting development of affordable housing —Guaranteeing access to contraception —Creating a free tax-filing program —Making corporate wage theft a felony —Strengthening bans on ghost guns —Ending tax breaks for Confederate groups

Trump fires all members of the National Science Board

The Guardian -  Trump just fired all 24 members of the National Science Board. Every single one. By email. No warning. No reason given. The board has existed since 1950.

The National Science Board is the independent body that oversees the National Science Foundation, the agency that distributes $9 billion in research grants every year. 

Its members are scientists and engineers from universities and industry. They serve six-year staggered terms specifically so they cross presidential administrations and stay independent of whoever is in power.

On Friday, every single one of them got the same boilerplate email from Mary Sprowls of the Presidential Personnel Office: "On behalf of President Donald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as a member of the National Science Board is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service."

....The NSF funds the basic science behind MRIs. Cellphones. LASIK eye surgery. GPS. The internet itself. The Antarctic research stations. The deep-space telescopes. The research vessels mapping the ocean floor. Every breakthrough that made America the world's leader in science for the better part of a century traces back through grants this agency made and this board approved.

The board chair, Victor McCrary, was actively advising Congress on Trump's proposed 55% cut to NSF's budget. The board was helping fight back. So Trump fired the board.

....Keivan Stassun, a physicist at Vanderbilt, said NSF's leadership had already stopped responding to board oversight requests months ago. "We would ask them, 'Are you following board governance directives?' And their answer would be, in effect, 'We don't listen to you anymore.'"

Now there's no board to answer to.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, the top Democrat on the House Science Committee, called it "the latest stupid move made by a president who continues to harm science and American innovation. Will the president fill the NSB with MAGA loyalists who won't stand up to him as he hands over our leadership in science to our adversaries?"

That's the actual question. 

Because while Trump is firing American scientists, China is building research universities at a rate we cannot match. The CDC just buried a study showing vaccines work.

 RFK Jr. runs HHS. The EPA is gutted. The Forest Service is being broken. Half of American children are breathing dangerous air. And now the people who decide what gets researched in the United States have all been fired by email on a Friday afternoon.

Voting

The Guardian -   California voters will decide in November whether to require photo identification to cast a ballot, making California the latest battleground in a long-running effort by conservatives to push voter ID laws that have been bolstered in recent years by Donald Trump’s repeated and unfounded accusations of widespread voter fraud.  Nearly 1 million Californians signed on to support the ballot measure championed by Carl DeMaio, a Republican state representative from San Diego.

...Democrats have historically opposed voter ID laws, viewing them as unnecessary obstacles to casting a ballot that are likely to disproportionately affect voters who are low-income and people of color.

If the ballot measure passes, California voters would be required to present a photo identification when voting at a polling place, or submit a four-digit pin when sending a mail-in ballot.

 

Climate

NY Times -   Global warming is accelerating — the last three years have been the warmest on record — and future heat waves are projected to be longer, as well as more frequent and severe. In New York City, where it’s hotter than the rest of the state and more than a quarter of residents live in poverty, extreme heat can expose a trifecta of crises: housing, energy affordability and climate change.

For low-income residents with health conditions, heat waves can be especially dangerous, said Earle Chambers, an epidemiologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx.

“Extreme heat can affect people with cardiovascular health issues, chronic kidney disease or anything that is exacerbated by dehydration,” Dr. Chambers said. And heat-related health care costs, such as emergency room visits, can leave people with less to spend on essentials like child care or rent, worsening an already precarious situation, he said.

Inside Climate News -   Close to 20 percent of Americans are exposed to water polluted with high levels of potentially cancer-causing nitrates, known to come mostly from agricultural runoff, according to new research published this month.   In a first-ever review of nitrate levels in public water systems across the country, the Environmental Working Group found that 6,114 of them—from heavily agricultural rural areas to major cities, including Los Angeles, Phoenix and Philadelphia—have elevated levels of nitrates, affecting 18 percent of the country’s population, or roughly one in five people, between 2021 and 2023. 

“We wanted to get a full national picture,” said Anne Weir Schechinger, the report’s author. “And the sheer size of the numbers—there are over 62 million people impacted by this—I was not expecting that.”

The government set the legal limit of nitrate in water at 10 milligrams per liter in the early 1960s to help prevent cases of “blue baby” syndrome, a condition in which infants have low levels of blood oxygen. But research has since found that concentrations at 5 milligrams per liter and even lower are linked to colorectal and other cancers, thyroid disease and birth defects. Health advocates have pushed for lowering the limit, but the Environmental Protection Agency has yet to do so. The Trump administration gutted the division that would continue a review process started under the Biden administration, Schechinger noted.

Meanwhile. . .

Newsweek -   French Broad Chocolates PBC has recalled various boxes of chocolate bonbons after discovering they may contain undeclared walnuts, potentially posing a “serious or life-threatening allergic reaction” for consumers with tree nut allergies, according to the announcement, published by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

California voters will decide in November whether to require photo identification to cast a ballot, making the state the latest battleground in a long-running effort by conservatives to push voter ID laws

Deep State Tribunal - A St. Louis nonprofit leader stole $2.3 million meant for feeding hungry children, buying luxury cars and homes instead.

Woman Goes into Labor on Delta Flight with 2 Passengers Helping Deliver the Baby Midair

China

NY Times -  A research arm of the Chinese government said it had published an atlas of deep-sea mineral deposits, highlighting Beijing’s ambitions to mine the ocean floor and underscoring its disputed claims to waters that neighboring nations consider theirs.

Experts say the maps, in addition to pinpointing mineral deposits found in the deep ocean, give China’s military a thorough understanding of the seafloor in strategically important waters, providing an advantage if submarine warfare were to break out.

The announcement this month by the China Geological Survey puts pressure on other countries that have been ramping up their own seabed mining efforts, in part to reduce their dependence on China for critical minerals and rare earth elements. Ocean sediments are rich in valuable resources including cobalt, nickel, and manganese.

“China is pouring enormous resources in an effort to emerge as a world-leading oceanographic power,” said Bruce Jones, a naval affairs and foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution. The United States historically dominated in ocean-science fields, he said. Now, China is closing the gap, increasing China’s military capabilities and equipping it with the knowledge needed to fight underwater, Dr. Jones said.

Israel

The Atlantic  - The relationship between the United States and Israel is in crisis. Six in 10 Americans have a negative view of Israel, and a majority of those under 50 in both major parties view Israel as well as its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, negatively. After the brutal Gaza war, a large percentage of liberal-leaning Generation Z considers Israel a pariah state. Democratic candidates are scrambling to distance themselves from Israel and its controversial leader; earlier this month, 40 of the 47 Democratic senators voted against a military aid package for the country. And hostility toward Israel is spilling over into hostility toward Jews. Liberal influencers, activists, podcasters, and even politicians are invoking age-old anti-Semitic tropes with frightening regularity.

Health

Axios - Hospitals that treat patients who require extended stays have been closing at a rapid clip, driving up demand for the remaining beds and prompting health systems to appeal to the Trump administration and Congress for relief.The  industry says it's unable to discharge certain patients who need long-term intensive care, which is adding to hospital overcrowding and stressing a system that's already experiencing a shortage of beds. It's also stoking a debate over the cost of caring for patients with serious wounds or organ failure, or who are on ventilators once they're stabilized.

More than 25% of long-term care hospitals have closed over the past 10 years, according to the American Hospital Association. Hospital groups blame Medicare policies dating to the Obama administration that they say shortchange long-term care hospitals. The issue is that they only give full payments for patients who've spent at least three days in an ICU or been on a ventilator for at least 96 hours.

.... Long-term care hospitals have long been blamed for driving up the cost of post-acute care and accounted for $5.5 billion in annual spending, according to one 2019 study.

• In 202, Stanford and MIT health economists estimated that Medicare could save about $4.6 billion annually without harming patients by sending them to skilled nursing facilities or home, instead of long-term care hospitals. More

Workers

NY Times -   In a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, Niklas Engbom, Aniket Baksy and Daniele Caratelli analyzed Current Population Survey federal data from 1982 to 2023 to try to figure out why wage growth has been weak over four decades. They estimate that “employed workers today are about half as likely to receive a better-paying outside offer as they were in the 1980s,” and major salary jumps often happen when you move to another company.

.... Engbom and his colleagues offer two main arguments for why American workers are less likely than they used to be 40 years ago to receive competitive offers. The first is “increased employer concentration.....” 

The media industry is a great example of this. There used to be a thriving network of local newspapers and TV and radio stations to work for, but more and more of those outlets have shut down or are owned by a handful of conglomerates. Consolidation has also gone up in the tech and health care industries....

The other reason Engbom and his co-authors offer for the broken job ladder is the rise of noncompete agreements that prevent employees from working for a competitor, often in a defined geographic region and for a specific amount of time. While state laws concerning noncompete clauses vary, Engbom said that in the 1980s, courts started siding with employers more and allowing these agreements to be enforced. The Federal Trade Commission issued a rule banning their use in 2024, but business groups sued to get the rule overturned, and later that year the ban was blocked by the courts.

Overfishing

NPR  - Southeast Asia is facing a critical environmental crisis, fueled by overfishing. The region produces over half of the world's fish. Since the 1950s, the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that 70-95% of fish stocks in the region have been depleted and are at risk of collapse. The trend is exacerbated by the rise of industrial-scale fishing, much of which is illegal. But legal overfishing also factors in the crisis. The U.S. imports about 50% of its seafood from Asia, with China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and India accounting for nearly $6.3 billion in trade, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This activity harms unique ecosystems and significantly impacts artisanal and small-scale fishers in the region. Check out these photos from three countries showing the complex issues associated with overfishing.

Pete Hegseth

The Hill -   A growing group of Senate Republicans are losing confidence in Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s leadership of the Defense Department and some GOP lawmakers would like to see him “move on,” though they say it’s President Trump’s call. Senate Republicans who spoke to The Hill on the condition of anonymity say Hegseth wouldn’t be confirmed to head the Pentagon if he were renominated by Trump today and they say senior staff turmoil at the Defense Department under Hegseth’s leadership is a major concern.

Republican defense hawks in the Senate aren’t happy about media reports that Hegseth pushed popular Army Chief of Staff Randy George to resign in early April, and they were surprised and disappointed to hear that Hegseth fired Navy Secretary John Phelan this past week.  One Republican senator who requested anonymity said there have long been questions within the Senate GOP conference over Hegseth’s lack of experience managing a large and complex bureaucracy, as well as leeriness about his unconventional and often brash leadership style.

Donald Trump

Journalist — Why does such attacks keep
happening to you?

Trump — The people who make the biggest impacts,
like Abraham Lincoln, are the one they go after.
I hate to say it but I’m honored to be one.