Her past criticisms included questioning Trump's reassurances about his health and his warnings to pregnant women against taking Tylenol. More recently, Saphier has also criticized Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. regarding vaccine schedules and the measles outbreak.
May 7, 2026
New Surgeon General
Independent, UK - Dr. Nicole Saphier, a radiologist and Fox News contributor, is Donald Trump's third nominee for surgeon general. She has been deleting social media posts that were critical of the Trump administration's handling of issues like autism and vaccines, according to a CNN report. The deleted posts, some from 2025 and earlier this year, are still viewable via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
Media
Alternet - The editor of the Wall Street Journal is sounding the alarm about a new trend with powerful people suing news outlets before anything is even published about them. The Journal was recently sued by President Donald Trump after it reported that he'd contributed a comment and drawing to the infamous "birthday book" made for trafficker Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday. Trump's lewd drawing of a nude woman outlined the text of a conversation between him and Epstein about the special "secrets" they share. Trump denied the drawing, and it was ultimately revealed publicly.
Last month, a federal judge dismissed Trump's $10 billion defamation suit against the Journal, its parent company and owner Rupert Murdoch.
The Guardian reported on Wednesday that these kinds of suits are becoming the norm as part of a public-relations strategy for powerful people ensnared in scandals. “One of the biggest challenges to us now isn’t so much what happens afterwards,” said Emma Tucker while speaking to the Truth Tellers journalism summit. “It’s what happens before you even publish. That is a massive challenge for us."
“Increasingly, it is the case that before you even get to publication, lawsuits come raining down on you – a whole torrent of legal letters comes your way," she continued. "Deep-pocketed people [are] doing this as a PR strategy, because then other journalists then write up ‘look, so-and-so is suing the Wall Street Journal for some reporting that they’re doing.'"
The Trump lawsuit "epitomized how difficult and expensive these stories are. But at least the defamation came after we’d published. These days, increasingly, we’re getting legally challenged before we even get to publication."
ICE
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons told a crowd at the 2026 Border Security Expo in Phoenix that his agency is “removing people to countries that I didn’t even know existed.” He said this proudly. He was describing the administration’s third-country deportation program, which has been sending immigrants to African nations they have no connection to. He called it “a huge game changer” in implementing Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
Meanwhile. . .
Brooke Lierman, Comptroller, Maryland - Elder financial fraud is affecting many Maryland families. In 2024, one in 20 older Marylanders reported being targeted, with losses totaling $47 million, nearly five times higher than just a few years ago. The average loss per victim is about $83,000.
Semafor - President Donald Trump’s administration unveiled a new counterterrorism plan on Wednesday that focuses in part on rooting out what it describes as left-wing extremist groups operating domestically and overseas. It’s the first counterterrorism proposal released by the president since 2018, reflecting many of his second-term priorities. Dr. Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s counterterrorism czar, told reporters that the administration would “use all the tools constitutionally available” to target various organizations, prioritizing “violent, secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American … or anarchist, such as antifa.”
Donald Trump
Washington City Paper - As convicted felon and President Donald Trump positions to take control of D.C.’s beloved public golf course, East Potomac Golf Links, another public course he ran in New York offers a potential view of what could come. Ferry Point, a municipal course with views of the East River and Manhattan skyline that Trump operated from about 2015 to 2021, is out of reach for most middle-income golfers—a round of 18 holes for a resident cost about $172 on weekends; nonresidents paid as much as $219. As prices increased there, usage declined under Trump’s management, dropping by about 18 percent in three years. An 18-hole round at East Potomac, meanwhile, is less than $50.
The difference in lawn care costs
Patricia Davis, Lawn Starter - Washington, D.C., homeowners pay $17.80 per 1,000 square feet for a mow — nearly 3X the national average. Less than 100 miles away, Richmond homeowners pay $5.70 per 1,000 square feet for the same service. We dove into LawnStarter’s historical data for our State of Lawn Care in America Industry Report — analyzing 2+ million mowing jobs across 2,000+ cities — to identify some lawn care industry trends across pricing, tipping, weather disruptions, and seasonal patterns.
Read the full story here
Mowing costs per 1,000 square feet increased more than the national average (+4.8%) between 2024 and 2025 in Maryland (+6.1%) and Virginia (+5.6%), but were not as dramatic in D.C. (+2.8%).
Mowing prices in D.C. are nearly 3X the national average at $17.80 per 1,000 square feet. Prices are much lower in Richmond at $5.70 per 1,000 square feet.
Virginia Beach spends almost $100 more per year on lawn mowing ($505) than the national average ($407). Baltimore spends almost $100 less on mowing ($309) than the national average.
Lawn care pros in Richmond are more likely to get lucky with a tip thanks to the city’s high average tip rate — 30.4% of mowing jobs receiving tips — and high average tip amount, $10.50. Richmond tips an average of 18% of the total job price.
Richmond has an above-average effective tip per mow, at $3.13 per mow, while D.C. pros have an effective tip of $2.10 per mow.
Read the full story here
Artificial Intelligence
The Hill - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has become a stark voice on AI in Washington warning of the technology’s more severe risks and calling for cooperation with China at a moment when the two superpowers are increasingly at odds over the technology.
The 84-year-old senator is one of the few federal lawmakers taking up the cause of the AI skeptics — or “doomers,” as some have labeled the group — who have voiced concerns about AI’s “existential risk to humanity.”
While both Democrats and Republicans alike have embraced the idea that the U.S. is locked in a fierce competition with China, Sanders is arguing the technology’s risks require the opposite approach.
“We’re building a runaway train here,” Sanders told reporters on a call last week. “It’s moving down the track at rapidly expanding acceleration, and we don’t know where it ends up. We don’t know what its impact will be.”
“Do I think Congress is prepared to deal with it? I do not,” he added. “So I’m going to do everything I can to try to generate support for action, bring people together and come up with some rational solutions.”
Sanders began ramping up his messaging on AI late last year, when he first called for a moratorium on data center construction as a means of giving “democracy a chance to catch up” amid the “unregulated sprint” to develop the technology.
He and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) introduced legislation in March that would bar construction of all new data centers until “strong national safeguards are in place,” such as measures preventing mass job displacement and limiting increases in consumer electricity prices.
This comes as data centers have increasingly encountered local pushback and Americans have become more wary about AI.
... “These technologies right now are of growing concern to the American people,” Sanders said on the press call, adding, “It’s not because the American people are Luddites. They see positive aspects of AI and robotics.”
“They worry very much that the people who are investing in this technology … the very richest people on Earth, really do not stay up nights worrying about working families, but simply want to get wealthier and more powerful, which is my view as well,” he continued.
His position on AI, particularly the call for a slowdown, stands in sharp contrast to much of the rest of Washington, which has been chiefly focused on ensuring that the U.S. remains ahead of China on the technology.
....While Democrats have largely opposed the preemption push and called for more guardrails on the technology, few have supported the idea of pumping the brakes on AI.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) dismissed the moratorium approach as “idiocy” at an Axios event in late March, warning this “simply means China’s going to move quicker” and arguing “this is one where we can’t lose.”
....Outside of the nation’s capital, Sanders enjoys more support among a contingent of researchers who have long warned of the risks from AI, particularly superintelligence, a form of the technology that surpasses human intelligence.
“If we just go ahead and do something that’s foolhardy before figuring out how to control this stuff, we’re in a worse position than the neanderthals,” said Max Tegmark, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
..... Sanders suggested that the AI race bears a resemblance to the nuclear arms race of the Cold War era, pointing to talks between then-President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on nuclear disarmament in the 1980s as instructive.
“One might think that, given the very real threat to humanity, countries might come together to regulate this technology through an international treaty, like we did with nuclear weapons at the height of the Cold War,” Sanders said.
Climate
1440 - A tsunami last year in southeastern Alaska was the second-largest in recorded history, a study published yesterday revealed. Waves reached 1,578 feet high, second only to a 1958 tsunami in Alaska that produced up to 1,720-foot waves.
At 5:26 am on Aug. 10, 2025, a mass of rock measuring 83 million cubic yards—24 times the volume of the Great Pyramid of Giza—fell into Alaska’s Tracy Arm fjord (what is a fjord?). The study’s authors blamed climate change, saying the melting glacier next to the mountain left the rock unsupported and vulnerable to collapse. Waves sloshed in the fjord for days and produced seismic activity equivalent to a 5.4-magnitude earthquake, shaking the planet.
🔥 Controlled burns improve forest health and give wildland firefighters a better chance of fighting forest fires in challenging conditions.
🔥 The Forest Service has long said that prescribed burns are a priority. In 2022, the agency set a goal to reduce flammable fuels on an additional 20 million acres over the next decade.
🔥 Prescribed burning fell to about 900,000 acres in 2025, according to an NPR analysis of agency data. In both 2023 and 2024, it reached over 1.6 million acres.
🔥 Forest Service chief Tom Schultz testified that the agency had hired approximately 9,700 firefighters as of early March, a slight increase from last year. Firefighting experts say these new hires don't necessarily replace key support staff that was lost.
🔥 As wildfires become more extreme, agency personnel have less time to reduce vegetation, setting the stage for even larger blazes, experts say.
The billion dollar ballroom budget item
The Hill - A Republican proposal to spend $1 billion in taxpayer money on security for the White House ballroom has become a political landmine in the Senate debate over funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol for the next three and a half years.
Before the Senate Judiciary Committee released its bill, Republican senators warned that using taxpayer money to pay for the ballroom would be a dumb move in an election year where GOP candidates are already facing headwinds over the issue of affordability. While the legislation clearly states that the money is for security enhancements and may not be spent on “non-security elements” of the construction project, that distinction is being lost in the media headlines and broader debate over the sensitive issue.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) says he supports the construction of the White House ballroom, but he wants it paid for by private donations, which President Trump originally pledged when he tore down the historic East Wing. “If the White House and Secret Service believe that they need money for construction beyond these private funds they’ve raised, I’m willing to hear them out. There are plenty of things that we can cut to pay for it, like wasteful earmarks or all the fraud we’re uncovering in states like California and Minnesota,” Scott said in a statement.
Kamala Harris
NBC News - As former Vice President Kamala Harris considers another run for president, she is also signaling that she has no problem with a public airing of what went wrong last time — telling donors she believes the Democratic National Committee should release its buried autopsy of her failed 2024 campaign, according to a person who has heard the conversations.
The push for the postmortem’s release is one way she’s staying involved in political affairs. She has also toured the country, given speeches to state parties, developed the framework for a policy platform and sounded out fellow Democrats about her next chapter. Publicly, Harris acknowledged that she is “thinking about” another presidential bid.
Interviews with more than a dozen people close to the former vice president paint the picture of a politician who is both moving forward in ways that would be helpful for setting up a run and also declining to view every decision she makes through the prism of how it affects her chances of electoral success.
Take a closer look at the case Harris is building for herself and her potential shortfalls.
Middle East
NPR
Iran is evaluating the Trump administration's latest proposal to end the war, Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said yesterday. President Trump says the U.S. is on the verge of a deal, and the Iranians are desperate to make one. But there has not yet been a definitive Iranian response to the U.S. proposal. Trump has said that the U.S. has won the war, but very few of his objectives in the conflict have been met, NPR’s Mara Liasson tells Up First. The U.S. has not pulled its military forces from the area. Trump has again said Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. But the president hasn't been happy with what Iran has told him on that matter so far, Liasson says. Many U.S. allies and adversaries are concluding that Trump is making up his talking points about the conflict as he goes, she adds. They believe that he wants to withdraw as soon as possible because the war in Iran is politically damaging him and his party during a midterm year. |
Trump surprised allies in the region on social media on Sunday by announcing “Project Freedom,” the U.S. military mission to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz to break Tehran’s chokehold on the critical waterway. The move angered the leadership in Saudi Arabia, which informed Washington it would not allow the U.S. military to fly aircraft from Prince Sultan Airbase, southeast of Riyadh, or fly through Saudi airspace to support the effort, the officials said. A call between Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did not resolve the issue, the two U.S. officials said, forcing the president to pause Project Freedom in order to restore U.S. military access to the critical airspace. Other close Gulf allies were also caught off guard.
Trump had announced the operation over the weekend, and his top national security leaders spent much of Tuesday talking up the effort in public briefings at the Pentagon and White House, onl y to have the president suddenly halt the operation roughly 36 hours after it began.Here’s where things stand in the U.S. and Iran’s efforts to reach a peace deal.
And these are the reasons why it could take more than a peace deal with Iran to resume shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, France’s aircraft carrier strike group is moving south of the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea in preparation for a potential French-British mission in the strait.
Urban transit
The Guardian - For major American cities to bring their public transit up to “world-class” status, it would cost an enormous $4.6tn, involving 7,500 miles of new dedicated infrastructure for trains and buses, over the next 20 years, a recent report found. American cities languish badly compared with global leaders such as Sydney, Hong Kong and Barcelona, based on the number of transit vehicles per 100,000 residents, according to the Transportation for America study.
May 6, 2026
Press freedom disappearing
The Guardian - he World Press Freedom Index, compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), for the first time placed more than half of all countries in the “difficult” or “very serious” categories for press freedom. It found that while in 2002 a fifth of the global population lived in a country where press freedom was categorised as “good”, that had now fallen to less than 1% of the world’s population.
Climate change
Inside Climate News - Colorado’s top wildfire officials said they expect a significantly increased risk of wildfire this summer—and while they’ll partner with neighboring states as much as they can, resources for fighting the blazes will be tested.
A dismal snowpack this winter is likely to leave a parched landscape and tinderbox conditions from Colorado’s thickly forested ski mountains to its grassy eastern plains. Officials here are anticipating an exceptionally dire next few months in their state and beyond.
“The increased fire risk extends to the multi-state region,” Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, said during the state’s annual wildfire outlook briefing in Broomfield on April 30, where officials laid out Colorado’s 2026 Wildfire Preparedness Plan.
The upcoming summer will be challenging across the West, he said, with an “elevated fire risk” threatening Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, alongside Colorado.
Inside Climate Change - In a little-noticed memo early last year, Illinois scientists made a dire prediction. “Bulletin 76,” a communication from University of Illinois researchers, warned that intense rain made worse by climate change was going to get a lot more severe in the next 25 years.
“What is considered safe and adequate today may not hold true in the future,” they wrote of the threat to homes, buildings and people.
The threat has been building for years. Over the past century in Chicago, the likelihood of heavy rainstorms has increased sevenfold. These storms can drop more than 8.5 inches of rain in 24 hours.
Designed decades ago, Chicago’s sewers can handle just 2 inches in that short period of time before flooding becomes likely.
That means every neighborhood in Chicago is at risk of flooding, and that threat rises with every big storm.
Why we need a wealth tax
Robert Reich - Google co-founder Sergey Brin, one of the three or four wealthiest people in the world, with a net worth hovering around $260 billion to $277 billion, is devoting some of his wealth to fighting California’s wealth tax on billionaires. So far, he’s spent $57 million trying to defeat the measure. Brin’s actions — along with Elon Musk’s $250 million “investment” in getting Trump reelected in 2024 — should be Exhibits A and B in why America needs a wealth tax.
Black voting rights
Jamell Bouie, NY Times - In the name of a colorblind Constitution and the equal protection of the laws, then, the Supreme Court has given the green light to a gleeful attempt to end Black political representation at the state and federal level. And as long as there isn’t clear evidence of intentional discrimination — a standard that would have been difficult to prove at the height of Jim Crow, which rested on the same fiction of facial neutrality — it passes constitutional muster. In fact, lawmakers in Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi are already planning special legislative sessions to apply the court’s ruling and erase the majority-minority districts in their states.
At a minimum, the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution were written, passed and ratified to end the subordination of Black Americans and ensure their representation in the political community. It is perverse that this Supreme Court has used both amendments to facilitate what might become the largest reduction in Black representation at the federal and state level since the end of Reconstruction and the “redemption” of the South. Words meant to secure the political equality of all Americans are being raised as weapons to deprive them of just that.
Here, we see the problem with conservative “colorblindness.” A constitution that doesn’t see color — a constitution that treats all classifications as one and the same in a country defined by its sordid history of racial subordination — is a constitution that cannot see group inequality. And worse, it is a constitution that reifies this inequality through its willful blindness to the plain realities of our society. Liberty for those who profit from the cruel legacies of our past, endless struggle for those crushed under their weight.
Speaking in 1883, after the Supreme Court nullified the Civil Rights Act of 1875, Frederick Douglass cried out for a court that would be as “true to the claims of humanity” as it “formerly was to the demands of slavery”: “I say again, fellow citizens, O for a Supreme Court which shall be as true, as vigilant, as active and exacting in maintaining laws enacted for the protection of human rights, as in other days was that court for the destruction of human rights!”
Middle East
The Hill - President Trump announced a pause on the U.S. operation “Project Freedom” on Tuesday evening based on a request from Pakistan and other countries, but he added that the U.S. Navy blockade of ships in the Strait of Hormuz will remain in place.
“Based on the request of Pakistan and other Countries, the tremendous Military Success that we have had during the Campaign against the Country of Iran and, additionally, the fact that Great Progress has been made toward a Complete and Final Agreement with Representatives of Iran, we have mutually agreed that, while the Blockade will remain in full force and effect, Project Freedom (The Movement of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz) will be paused for a short period of time to see whether or not the Agreement can be finalized and signed,” the president wrote in a post on Truth Social.
The halt of the U.S.-led effort to escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, which began early Monday, comes as Iranian armed forces have fired drones and missiles at U.S. military assets in the region and the U.S. military has retaliated, sinking six Iranian small boats.
Earlier on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the fragile U.S.-Iran ceasefire is holding, but he emphasized that Project Freedom is a temporary defense effort to restart shipping through the strait, which has been effectively choked off for weeks by Iran.
“This is separate and distinct from Operation Epic Fury,” Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon, while later in the day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told journalists at the White House that Operation Epic Fury is over.
Project Freedom was enforced by several U.S. Navy destroyers and air- and land-based U.S. military assets, along with about 15,000 sailors in the U.S. Central Command (Centcom) region
NY Times - President Trump keeps looking for the magic formula that will deliver him victory in Iran.
“Based on the request of Pakistan and other Countries, the tremendous Military Success that we have had during the Campaign against the Country of Iran and, additionally, the fact that Great Progress has been made toward a Complete and Final Agreement with Representatives of Iran, we have mutually agreed that, while the Blockade will remain in full force and effect, Project Freedom (The Movement of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz) will be paused for a short period of time to see whether or not the Agreement can be finalized and signed,” the president wrote in a post on Truth Social.
The halt of the U.S.-led effort to escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, which began early Monday, comes as Iranian armed forces have fired drones and missiles at U.S. military assets in the region and the U.S. military has retaliated, sinking six Iranian small boats.
Earlier on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the fragile U.S.-Iran ceasefire is holding, but he emphasized that Project Freedom is a temporary defense effort to restart shipping through the strait, which has been effectively choked off for weeks by Iran.
“This is separate and distinct from Operation Epic Fury,” Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon, while later in the day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told journalists at the White House that Operation Epic Fury is over.
Project Freedom was enforced by several U.S. Navy destroyers and air- and land-based U.S. military assets, along with about 15,000 sailors in the U.S. Central Command (Centcom) region
First was the airstrike last June intended, he said, to “obliterate” Iran’s nuclear program. Then came the intense February air campaign carried out with Israel and designed, he said, to deliver regime change and a popular uprising. Then he bet on a blockade of Iranian shipping to end the Iranian stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz.
Now, in a new effort to break Iran’s control over the strait, Mr. Trump has announced a plan with few details to help guide stranded ships out through it. Iran responded with missiles and drones, and given the risks, most tankers are unlikely to dare crossing the strait for now.
But Mr. Trump’s conviction that these tactics will bring about Iran’s capitulation is deeply flawed, officials and analysts say. They say it is a misreading of the Islamic Republic’s strategy, psychology and capability for adaptation. The Iranian government believes that it has the upper hand for now, and that it can withstand economic pressure, as it has in the past, longer than Mr. Trump can tolerate rising energy prices brought about by the halting of traffic through the strait.
Artificial Intelligence
Axios - AAI is helping make doctors the unwitting stars of deepfake videos that hawk questionable products or spread misinformation, prompting calls from clinicians for more privacy and transparency laws.
The profusion of AI content on social media platforms could further erode public trust in the medical establishment. It could also be used to fuel insurance fraud, steal data and put patients at risk.
The American Medical Association called on federal and state lawmakers last week to close legal gaps and modernize identity protections to address what its CEO John Whyte called a public health and safety crisis.
- The physicians group also wants a crackdown against deepfake creators and rules to force tech platforms to more quickly remove impersonations.
- California has already taken steps like requiring disclosures on AI-generated ads and is debating a measure that would explicitly ban doctor deepfakes.
- Pennsylvania's medical board addressed another form of AI impersonation yesterday, demanding that a tech company cease and desist after one of its chatbots posed as a doctor claiming to have a license to practice medicine in the state.
Physicians say they're increasingly discovering instances in which their identities are used to promote wellness and longevity supplements and unapproved medical devices.
- "It's becoming more mainstream. Everyone knows someone who this has impacted," said Whyte. "It's probably occurring more than we hear because people are embarrassed by it."
- Among the victims: CNN's Sanjay Gupta, who said fakes using his likeness to promote items like a breakthrough Alzheimer's cure have gotten so convincing they've even deceived some acquaintances.
Doctors could be sued if patients are harmed taking counterfeit products or following advice the real physician never actually gave, Whyte said.
- The AMA is seeking guidance on how targeted physicians should respond and how malpractice and cyber liability insurance can help. More
Pain at the pump
NPR - Travel advisers note that Americans are booking cheaper domestic trips rather than overseas travel to Europe. Jet fuel prices have roughly doubled since the start of the war in Iran, raising airfares and prompting some airlines to cut flights.
Polls
NPR - More than 80% of Americans say pain at the pump is straining their household budgets and a striking majority blames the president, according to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll. The poll found that President Trump faces his lowest popularity ever and is experiencing major declines with key demographics since being sworn in for his second term. Most Americans said the economy isn't working for them. The war in Iran — which has directly led to higher gas prices — is increasingly unpopular. Those challenges have given Democrats a distinct advantage in the midterm elections. When asked which party's candidate they'd vote for if congressional elections took place today, Democrats led by 10 points.
Health
Health - Utz recalled select Zapp’s and Dirty potato chips after seasoning powder was flagged for possible Salmonella contamination. Affected products were sold nationwide across multiple flavors, sizes, and batch codes, with best-by dates from late July through August 2026. Consumers should not eat recalled chips; discard them, request refunds, and monitor for Salmonella symptoms.
What we could have spent the GOP debt on
Thom Hartmann - This year, America will spend over a trillion dollars just to pay interest on the current $39 trillion national debt....
It’s the biggest scandal of the century and is almost never mentioned by the press, even when they noted last week that — for the first time since World War II — our debt is now larger than our entire economy. And by 2030, Fortune magazine reports, we’ll be paying $2 trillion in interest at the current rate of burn, as Republicans add more and more items to the national debt every day.
To put that in context, here’s the “lost opportunity cost” of what that trillion dollars a year we now pay in interest — roughly $3000 every year for every man, woman, and child in the country — on the GOP’s Debt could do for America:
— First, it could guarantee universal childcare and early childhood education nationwide that would free millions of parents to work or start businesses and would pay long-term dividends in better educational outcomes.
— Second, it could make all public colleges, universities, and trade schools tuition-free, while also wiping out existing federal student loan debt over time.
— Third, the U.S. could establish a universal healthcare system or at least a robust public option with zero premiums and minimal out-of-pocket costs, ending medical bankruptcies and improving public health outcomes.
— Fourth, it could fully fund a national infrastructure modernization program, repairing every deficient bridge in the country, rebuild highways, expand mass transit, and replace aging water systems, including lead pipe removal nationwide.
— Fifth, a trillion dollars a year could finance a rapid transition to clean energy: building out solar and wind at scale, modernizing the grid, subsidizing home electrification, and accelerating EV infrastructure to catch up with China.
— Sixth, it could end homelessness in America, with massive savings in healthcare and policing.
— Seventh, we could provide a guaranteed basic income (~$500 to $1,000 a month) to every adult American, or a more targeted version for lower- and middle-income households, dramatically reducing poverty.
— Eighth, it could expand Social Security and Medicare benefits significantly — raising monthly checks, lowering the retirement age, or both — while shoring up the system’s long-term solvency.
— Ninth, the U.S. could also fund universal paid family and medical leave, so no one ever again has to go to work sick or choose between a paycheck and caring for a newborn or a sick relative.
— Tenth, it could dramatically increase teacher pay, reducing class sizes, modernizing school facilities, and providing universal free school meals.
— Eleventh, it could launch a large-scale affordable housing initiative, building millions of units, stabilizing rents, and helping first-time homebuyers with down payments.
— Twelfth, it could rebuild and expand public health infrastructure, including pandemic preparedness, local health departments, research funding, and domestic manufacturing of critical medicines and supplies.
May 5, 2026
Polls
MSN- A recent survey by Generation Lab found that more than 8 in 10 young adults rate economic conditions in the U.S. as either bad or terrible. The survey, conducted April 26-29, found that 55 percent of 546 respondents ages 18-24 said they view the economy as bad, while 29 percent said it was terrible.
Health
StudyFinds - Eggs have spent decades bouncing between dietary hero and villain, praised for their protein one year and vilified for their cholesterol the next. A new study may tip the scales again. Researchers who tracked nearly 40,000 older adults for more than 15 years found that people who ate eggs regularly were far less likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease than those who never or rarely touched them. The most frequent egg eaters, those having five or more servings a week, showed a 27% lower risk.
Alzheimer’s disease casts a long shadow over American life. It is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, and the national costs of managing the disease are projected to exceed $600 billion annually by 2050. During the same period, the share of Americans aged 65 and older is expected to roughly double, from about 10% to 20%. With no cure available and current drug treatments offering limited help, researchers have turned increasing attention to prevention, and specifically to what people eat.
The study, published in The Journal of Nutrition, drew on data from the Adventist Health Study-2, a long-running research project that enrolled more than 96,000 members of the Seventh-day Adventist church across all 50 states between 2002 and 2007. That population is especially useful for studying diet because Adventists have a wide range of eating habits, from strict vegans who never touch an egg to omnivores who eat them daily. By linking participants’ dietary records with Medicare claims data, researchers could track who eventually received a clinical Alzheimer’s diagnosis through the medical system rather than relying on self-reported memory problems.
Governor Gavin Newsom
SFGate - Gov. Gavin Newsom is celebrating a win after a judge ruled last week that his $787 million defamation lawsuit against Fox News can move forward. Newsom filed the defamation lawsuit in June against the conservative-leaning news network, alleging it misled the public about a phone conversation that took place between the California governor and President Donald Trump during civil unrest that erupted in Los Angeles earlier that month.
Judge Sean P. Lugg said in an April 30 decision rejecting the network’s motion to dismiss that he found it “reasonably conceivable” that Fox knew the statements were false before making them.
“Looking forward to discovery,” Newsom wrote Thursday on X after the judge’s decision, alluding to the legal process where each side turns over documents, including private communications that could be embarrassing.
Donald Trump
The Guardian - Donald Trump has issued a fresh verbal attack against Pope Leo XIV, accusing the pontiff of “endangering a lot of Catholics” because “he thinks it’s fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon”. The remarks come two days before Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, meets Leo at the Vatican in an effort to ease the tensions sparked by Trump’s previous broadside against the Chicago-born pontiff over his condemnation of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
In a report published Tuesday, Australia's 9News spoke with Canadian neurologist Ziad Nasreddine, creator of the Montreal Cognitive Test, which Trump has been taking multiple times throughout his second term. As MS NOW's Steven Benen recently observed, Trump has touted his results on these tests as if passing them means that "he’d been declared the smartest person on Earth," but in reality, the questions and the requirements are intentionally rudimentary.
"Sample questions include drawing an analog clock with the correct time, with points given for correct numbering," 9News explained. "Another question is to name as many words as they can in a minute beginning with the letter B. A failing grade would be less than 11 words. The final questions are to know the date, day of the week, their location and what city they are in."
"It wasn't designed to be a test of IQ," Nasreddine told the outlet. "It was designed to assess normal cognitive performance."
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