Please let me or Linda Marcuse know if you can bring washed, clam shells from Skyline to the Women’s shelter in the Presbyterian Church on Spring St. It is a 5 minute walk on 8th Av. Proceed to Marion, Madison, then Spring. Make a left turn; entrance is a few feet away. If you can have clam shells dropped at your door once a week for delivery, that would be great. Your effort will be greatly appreciated by the shelter as well as Skyline. Diana Caplow Linda Marcuse
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Today President Donald J. Trump made it clear that the provocations he and his administration are escalating in Los Angeles and now elsewhere are using the issue of immigration to suppress dissent entirely.
In the Oval Office today, Trump said of the military parade scheduled for this Saturday: “If there’s any protester wants to come out, they will be met with very big force…. For those people that want to protest, they’re going to be met with very big force.”
His statement comes after the administration instituted aggressive immigration sweeps in Los Angeles during which Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) met the few hundred protesters with violence.
Then, over the protests of both Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass and California governor Gavin Newsom, Trump federalized 4,000 members of California’s National Guard and ordered 700 Marines to Los Angeles. He and his advisors have repeatedly threatened to arrest anyone who does not cooperate with ICE, including Mayor Bass and Governor Newsom.
Trump has said he based his decision to federalize the National Guard on his insistence that Los Angeles is staggering under violent riots, but in fact the protests are largely peaceful and local officials maintain they can handle the situation.
Still, Trump described Los Angeles as “invaded and occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals,” and said “violent insurrectionist mobs are swarming and attacking our Federal Agents to try and stop our deportation operations.” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem called Los Angeles a “city of criminals,” and other MAGA lawmakers have gotten into the act. Will Sommer of The Bulwark pointed out today that MAGA influencers are also pushing for more crackdowns and more cruelty in a feedback loop as they and White House officials push each other toward more and more cruelty toward immigrants.
But the narrative that L.A. is under siege is hard to make stick. Protesters have been filming the bands playing and people dancing at the protests, which remain small. They have also filmed the ICE agents shooting less-lethal bullets at individuals, including an Australian journalist who was speaking to a camera when she was shot from behind. The complaint against SEIU leader David Huerta, who has been charged with conspiring to impede an officer, says that he walked and sat on a public sidewalk in such a way that he blocked an ICE van before an officer pushed him to the ground and arrested him.
Economist Paul Krugman notes that “Los Angeles right now is probably as safe as it has ever been,” and Newsom has been meeting the claims of MAGA politicians that the city is a hellscape with actual statistics showing that California is safer than their own states. He reminded Oklahoma senator Markwayne Mullin that Oklahoma’s murder rate is 40% higher than California’s and, after Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville called for Newsom to be arrested, retorted: “Alabama has 3X the homicide rate of California. Its murder rate is ranked third in the entire country. Stick to football, bro.”
As Maria Sacchetti of the Washington Post noted today, California recently became the fourth largest economy in the world. It has the highest number of immigrants in the country—although many have moved in the past few years to more affordable states—and unemployment numbers are close to the national average.
But Trump has always managed his public affairs by projecting dominance in a fake world; his political instincts for keeping attention on himself have been compared to the kayfabe of professional wrestling. (continued on Page 2 at www.skyline725.com)
This afternoon he upped the ante again. In a speech at the Army base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Trump delivered a fiercely partisan speech that sounded like it was written by White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. In front of a crowd of enlisted personnel who journalist Jane Coaston reported had been carefully selected to be Trump supporters and “to be fit and not look fat,” Trump claimed the U.S. was under a “foreign invasion” because of “stupid people or radical Left people or sick people.” He goaded the personnel into booing Newsom and Bass.
Since the days of George Washington, the American armed forces have been strictly nonpartisan, declaring their allegiance to the U.S. Constitution itself rather than to any leader.
Simon Rosenberg of Hopium Chronicles noted that Trump is “turning the world’s powerful military away from its focus on Russia and China toward a new enemy—the American people themselves.” He mused: “I’ve been saying that I felt Trump’s dramatic escalation in recent days was driven in part by Musk’s emasculation of him last week. I also wonder whether it’s being driven by Zelensky’s profound humiliation of Putin, and Putin lashing out at Trump for not delivering Ukraine to him.”
Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times reported today that right-wing bots, trolls, conspiracy theorists, and MAGA influencers are flooding social media with messages designed to attack immigrants and Democrats and defend Trump. Many of those accounts are linked to Russia and Russian disinformation.
It certainly feels as if administration officials are going for broke in ways that benefit Russia. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard today released a video warning that the world is close to a nuclear war caused by a political elite that expects it can survive one in special bunkers. Gabbard has a history of parroting Russian propaganda, and famously, Russian president Vladimir Putin has used the threat of nuclear war to press his demands against Ukraine.
A YouGov poll out today shows that only 34% of American adults approve of Trump’s deployment of Marines to the Los Angeles area to respond to protests over the enforcement of immigration laws while 47% do not approve. Only 38% of American adults approve of Trump’s deployment of National Guard soldiers to L.A., while 45% disapprove. A strong majority—56%—of Americans think state and local officials should take the lead in responding to the L.A. protests, while only 25% think the federal government should.
Strikingly, 50% of adults disapprove of the administration’s handling of deportations, while only 39% approve.
Those numbers were gathered before Pentagon comptroller Bryn MacDonnell told the House Defense Appropriations Committee today that the Pentagon estimates the cost of federalizing the National Guard and deploying the Marines to Los Angeles at $134 million.
Today the Department of Justice announced it was indicting Representative LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) on three counts of “forcibly impeding and interfering with federal law enforcement officers” after a May 19 event in front of a Newark, New Jersey, ICE detention center. McIver was at the detention center with others as part of her oversight responsibilities, and a video shows her being jostled with a crowd that includes an ICE officer, but no one breaks stride. McIver called the charges “a brazen attempt at political intimidation.”
Tonight Governor Newsom delivered a prime-time address about the events of the past few days. He outlined the story of the ICE raids and Trump’s escalation of conflict. He urged protesters to exercise their First Amendment rights peacefully and warned that anyone participating in violence would be held accountable.
Then the governor launched into a wholesale condemnation of the Trump regime. He warned that “[i]f some of us can be snatched off the streets without a warrant, based only on suspicion or skin color, then none of us are safe. Authoritarian regimes begin by targeting people who are least able to defend themselves. But they do not stop there.”
Newsom called Trump out for firing the government watchdogs that could hold him accountable for fraud, and for declaring war “on culture, on history, on science, on knowledge itself. Databases quite literally are vanishing. He’s delegitimizing news organizations and he’s assaulting the First Amendment…. [H]e’s dictating what universities themselves can teach. He’s targeting law firms and the judicial branch that are the foundations of an orderly and civil society. He’s calling for a sitting governor to be arrested for no other reason than…, in his own words, ‘for getting elected.’”
“[T]his isn’t just about protests here in Los Angeles,” Newsom said. “When Donald Trump sought blanket authority to commandeer the National Guard, he made that order apply to every state in this nation. This is about all of us. This is about you. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next.”
“Democracy is under assault right before our eyes,” Newsom said. “This moment we have feared has arrived. He’s taking a wrecking ball…to our founding fathers’ historic project: three coequal branches of independent government.”
Newsom urged Americans to stand up for the country. “I know many of you are feeling deep anxiety, stress, and fear,” he said. “But I want you to know that you are the antidote to that fear and that anxiety. What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty, your silence, to be complicit in this moment,” Newsom said.
“Do not give in to him.”
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The proposed limits on federal loans fall well below the costs of medical school. Critics say this could deter students from pursuing medicine.
Patients awaiting treatment at the University of New Mexico hospital in Albuquerque last year. The United States is expecting to face a shortage of nearly 200,000 physicians by 2037, according to a federal health agency.Credit…Ramsay de Give for The New York Times
President Trump’s policy agenda would make deep cuts in government health plans and medical research, and, critics say, could also make finding a doctor more difficult. The Republicans’ major domestic policy bill restricts loans that students rely on to pursue professional graduate degrees, making the path to becoming a physician harder even as doctor shortages loom and the American population is graying.
The bill, which passed in the House last month and carries the president’s support, would cap direct federal unsubsidized loans at $150,000 — far less than the cost of obtaining a medical education — and phase out the Grad PLUS loans that help many students make up the difference.
Medicine, dentistry and osteopathic medicine are among the most expensive graduate programs.
The price of a four-year program in osteopathic medicine is $297,881 at a public school, on average, and $371,403 at a private school, according to the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine. The average indebtedness of their graduates is $259,196.
The proposed loan caps, which would affect students who begin their studies in 2026, “will either push students and families into the private loan market, where they take on more risk and have less consumer protection, or simply push people out of higher education altogether,” said Aissa Canchola Bañez, policy director at the Student Borrower Protection Center, a nonprofit advocacy group.
Private student loans are also not eligible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness programs, which many students rely on to manage their debt. Students from low-income families may have difficulty qualifying for private loans.
In a letter to congressional leaders, the American Medical Association asked lawmakers to carve out exceptions in the law for medical education, saying that the current bill would deter good candidates from applying to medical school, discourage physicians from working in underserved areas and make medical school unaffordable for all but the very wealthy. Critics said it could also drive more doctors away from lower-paying primary care fields, an area of acute need, and into more lucrative specialties. (continue page 2 on www.skyline725.com)
Conservatives have argued for decades that the availability of federal student loans allowed tuition costs to balloon — a proposition rejected by the Association of American Medical Colleges, which instead blames the rising cost of living. Studies examining the relationship between loans and tuition have varied in their conclusions.
Sara Robertson, the press secretary for the Republicans on the House Education and Workforce Committee, said the proposed loan limits “will drive down the cost of medical school and thus reduce the need for students to borrow in the first place.”
She said private lenders would offer students lower interest rates than the government’s Grad PLUS program would. The private market, though, has shrunk markedly since the Great Recession, according to Lesley Turner, an associate professor of public policy at the University of Chicago and an author of an unpublished paper that linked loans to rising tuition.
In an email, Dr. Turner said it wasn’t clear that “the same level of nonfederal funding would be available today.” Because of inflation, she noted, the $150,000 limit for medical students is “substantially reducing the amount these students can borrow, even compared to the status quo before the Grad PLUS program.” The program was started in 2006.
Ms. Robertson said schools could also help close the gap. “Nothing in the bill prevents colleges from providing additional financial aid to low-income students pursuing medical school,” she said.
That is not an option for schools of osteopathic medicine, most of which are private and not attached to universities with foundations, and which currently enroll almost one-third of the nation’s future doctors, said David Bergman, senior vice president of government relations and health affairs for the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine. And many academic medical centers, which have lost millions of dollars in research grants abruptly pulled by the Trump administration, are facing severe financial strain.
A vast majority of medical students rely on loans, not just those from low-income backgrounds, Mr. Bergman noted.
Ending federal involvement in administering and subsidizing student loans was one of the goals laid out in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s conservative blueprint for overhauling the government. It argued that leaving student loans to private lenders and ending federal loan forgiveness programs would “allow for market prices and signals to influence educational borrowing.”
President Trump’s policy bill would allow medical residents to defer not only their loan payments but also the interest on those payments, a provision that many medical professionals have supported. But the legislation would prohibit residents from counting those low-paid years of training as public service, limiting their eligibility for a popular loan forgiveness program that encourages young doctors to work in underserved areas.
As a result, “access to much-needed medical care for patients in rural and underserved communities will be diminished,” the American Medical Association’s chief executive, Dr. James L. Madara, wrote in the letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson and the House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries.
The changes will disproportionately affect low-income students with backgrounds that are underrepresented in medicine, who may face more difficulty obtaining private loans, said Dr. Virginia Caine, president of the National Medical Association, which represents Black physicians and which advocates health equity. In turn, she said, it will limit those students’ ability to return to serve in their communities.
“Only rich students will survive,” she said, noting that, on average, Black medical students already graduate with more educational debt than their peers.
A higher debt burden and inability to secure loan forgiveness may also drive students away from lower-paying specialties like primary care, despite an anticipated shortage of primary care physicians, Dr. Caine said.
By 2037, the United States is expected to face a shortage of 187,130 physicians, including 87,150 primary care physicians like internists and pediatricians who play a pivotal role in the early detection and management of chronic disease, according to the federal Health Resources and Services Administration. (There are currently 933,788 professionally active physicians.)
Already, some 75 million Americans live in areas where it is difficult to get access to primary care. The ratio of primary care providers is projected to decline to 76.8 per 100,000 people by 2037, from 81.6 per 100,000 in 2022.
At the same time, President Trump’s recent budget proposal would cut off funds used to train new pediatricians, who are already in short supply: It entirely eliminates funding for graduate medical education at 59 of the nation’s children’s hospitals, where more than half of all pediatricians and pediatric specialists are trained. The program trained 15,860 medical residents and fellows in 2022-23, according to the Children’s Hospital Association.
The irony of slashing loans for medical school, many officials said, is that medical students are more likely than many other graduates to be able to repay them.
“We have a default rate that ranges from 1.1 percent to 1.4 percent,” Mr. Bergman said. “This is not a problem that needs to be fixed.”
Roni Caryn Rabin is a Times health reporter focused on maternal and child health, racial and economic disparities in health care, and the influence of money on medicine.
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Flatbed train cars carrying thousands of tanks rolled into Washington, D.C., yesterday in preparation for the military parade planned for June 14. On the other side of the country, protesters near Los Angeles filmed officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) throwing flash-bang grenades into a crowd of protesters. The two images make a disturbing portrait of the United States of America under the Donald J. Trump regime as Trump tries to use the issue of immigration to establish a police state.
In January 2024, Trump pressured Republican lawmakers to kill a bipartisan immigration measure that would have beefed up border security and funding immigration courts because he wanted to campaign on the issue of immigration. During that campaign, Trump made much of the high immigration numbers in the United States after the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, when the booming U.S. economy attracted migrants. He went so far as to claim that migrants were eating people’s pets.
Many Trump supporters apparently believed officials in a Trump administration would only deport violent criminals, although Trump’s team had made it clear in his first term that they considered anyone who had broken immigration laws a criminal. Crackdowns began as soon as Trump took office, sweeping in individuals who had no criminal records in the U.S. and who were in the U.S. legally. The administration worked to define those individuals as criminals and insisted they had no right to the due process guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
Anna Giaritelli of the Washington Examiner reported that at a meeting in late May,White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who appears to be leading the administration’s immigration efforts, “eviscerated” federal immigration officials for numbers of deportations and renditions that, at around 600 people per day, he considered far too low. “Stephen Miller wants everybody arrested,” one of the officials at the meeting told Giaritelli. “‘‘Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?’” Miller said.
After the meeting, Miller told Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity that the administration wanted “a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day, and President Trump is going to keep pushing to get that number up higher each and every single day.” Thomas Homan, Trump’s border czar, took the message to heart. “You’re going to see more work site enforcement than you’ve ever seen in the history of this nation,” he told reporters. “We’re going to flood the zone.”
According to a recent report by Goldman Sachs, undocumented immigrants made up more than 4% of the nation’s workforce in 2023 and are concentrated in landscaping, farm work, and construction work. Sweeps of workplaces where immigrants are concentrated are an easy way to meet quotas. (continued on page 2 at www.skyline725.com)
From HCR’s newsletter: “Those who cannot remember the past accurately are condemned to repeat its worst moments.
The hard lessons of history seem to be repeating themselves in the U.S. these days, and with the nation’s 250th anniversary approaching, some friends and I got to talking about how we could make our real history more accessible.
After a lot of brainstorming and a lot of help—and an incredibly well timed message from a former student who has become a videographer—we have come up with Journey to American Democracy: a series of short videos about American history that we will release on my YouTube channel, Facebook, and Instagram. They will be either short explainers about something in the news or what we are releasing tonight: a set of videos that can be viewed individually or can be watched together to simulate a survey course about an important event or issue in American history.
Journey to American Democracy explores how democracy has always required blood and sweat and inspiration to overcome the efforts of those who would deny equality to their neighbors. It examines how, for more than two centuries, ordinary people have worked to make the principles the founders articulated in the Declaration of Independence the law of the land.
Those principles establish that we have a right to be treated equally before the law, to have a say in our government, and to have equal access to resources.
In late April, in an interview with Terry Moran of ABC News, Trump showed Moran that he had had a copy of the Declaration of Independence hung in the Oval Office. The interview had been thorny, and Moran used Trump’s calling attention to the Declaration to ask a softball question. He asked Trump what the document that he had gone out of his way to hang in the Oval Office meant to him.
Trump answered: “Well, it means exactly what it says, it’s a declaration. A declaration of unity and love and respect, and it means a lot. And it’s something very special to our country.”
The Declaration of Independence is indeed very special to our country. But it is not a declaration of love and unity. It is the radical declaration of Americans that human beings have the right to throw off a king in order to govern themselves. That story is here, in the first video series of Journey to American Democracy called “Ten Steps to Revolution.”
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Here’s a link to a Facebook podcast by historian and author Heath Cox Richardson. John notes, “You might want to digest it in pieces as she covers a lot of topics.”
Addendum: Or you can watch on YouTube below:
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Dear Friends, In support of the June 14, No Kings Day, there are retirement communities that are gathering, not far from their residence to show their solidarity with the national march. We, at Skyline, could gather on 9th and Madison at 11 am with or without signs expressing our agreement with SCAT, senior citizens against tyranny.
“SCAT is a group of concerned citizens who protest Trump’s cuts and attempts to destroy our democracy. We support the Rule of Law, the Constitution, the protection of human civil and legal rights for all Americans and healthy economic policies that promote opportunity and prosperity for all.”
Please ask others to join. Everyone is invited. It would be great if we had a large turn out.
NEW YORK – (May 15, 2025) – CNN announced today that Good Night, and Good Luck, the critically-acclaimed new play by George Clooney and Grant Heslov that has shattered box office records and is now nominated for five 2025 Tony Awards, will air its penultimate performance at Broadway’s Winter Garden Theatre live on Saturday, June 7 at 7pm ET across CNN, CNN International and streaming on CNN.com. This announcement marks a historic Broadway first: never before has a live play ever been televised.
Mr. Clooney commented, “I can’t tell you how exciting it is to do something that’s never been done. CNN is the perfect place to bring this story of courage to so many more people than we could have ever hoped. Live TV. No net. Buckle up everyone.”
In this landmark theatrical and live television event, two-time Academy Award® winner and Tony Award®nominated George Clooney makes his Broadway debut as Edward R. Murrow, showcasing his legendary, history-altering, on-air showdown with Senator Joseph McCarthy. As McCarthyism casts a shadow over America, Murrow and his news team choose to confront the growing tide of paranoia and propaganda, even if it means turning the federal government and a worried nation against them. Good Night, and Good Luck closes its theatrical run with a matinee performance on Sunday, June 8 in New York City.
“Good Night, and Good Luck is not just a celebration of a golden age in TV journalism,” said Chairman and CEO of CNN, Mark Thompson. “It’s also about the importance of the free press and the need for strong news organizations to report the facts in a fair-minded way. That’s something we still care deeply about.”
Before the play’s Broadway closing, CNN will bring this timely production to audiences around the world, beginning with special pre-show coverage outside of the theater. Following the production, CNN will host an exclusive Good Night, and Good Luck special to discuss the Tony Award® nominated production and state of global journalism.
Good Night, and Good Luck will stream live, without requiring a cable log-in, via CNN.com, CNN connected TV and mobile apps on Saturday, June 7.
“It is an honor to be teaming with George and Grant once again to bring this important story to audiences on Broadway and across the globe on CNN,” said Todd Wagner, CEO and co-founder of 2929 Entertainment. “This groundbreaking production taking place live on simultaneous platforms aligns with our vision to drive innovation in the media space and seek new ways to reach viewers where they are.”
Nominated for five Tony Awards, Good Night, and Good Luck, directed by Tony winner David Cromer, recently made history by becoming the highest-grossing play in Broadway history, and the first play to surpass a gross of $4 million in a single week. In partnership with TodayTix, the production also recently subsidized 2,000 tickets for New York City high school students – including those studying journalism – to attend the show.
Good Night, and Good Luck, co-written by Clooney and Heslov, is directed by Tony Award winner David Cromer. Producers are Seaview, Sue Wagner, John Johnson, Jean Doumanian and Robert Fox.
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Dr. Hope Wechkin is the medical director of Evergreen Health Home Health and Hospice Care, based in Kirkland, WA. A graduate of Yale College, the University of Washington School of Medicine, and a family physician by training, she has devoted herself full-time to the practice of Hospice and Palliative Medicine since 2007 and is a fellow of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.
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By Ken Jennings, the host of “Jeopardy!” – in the NYT (thanks to Marilyn W.)
When I first stepped behind the host lectern on the quiz show “Jeopardy!,” I was intimidated for two reasons. Most obviously, I had the hopeless task of filling the very large shoes of Alex Trebek, the legendary broadcaster and pitch-perfect host who’d been synonymous with the show since 1984.
But I was also keenly aware that the show was one of TV’s great institutions, almost a public trust. Since I was 10 years old, I’d watched Alex Trebek carve out a safe space for people to know things, where viewers get a steady diet of 61 accurate (and hopefully even interesting) facts every game. And I wondered: Even if “Jeopardy!” could survive the loss in 2020 of its peerless host, could it survive the conspiracy theories and fake news of our post-fact era?
Facts may seem faintly old-timey in the 21st century, remnants of the rote learning style that went out of fashion in classrooms (and that the internet search made obsolete) decades ago. But societies are built on facts, as we can see more clearly when institutions built on knowledge teeter. Inaccurate facts make for less informed decisions. Less informed decisions make for bad policy. Garbage in, garbage out.
I’ve always hated the fact that “trivia,” really our only word in English for general-knowledge facts and games, is the same word we use to mean “things of no importance.” So unfair! Etymologically, the word is linked to the trivium of medieval universities, the three fundamental courses of grammar, rhetoric and logic. And much of today’s so-called trivia still deals with subjects that are fundamentally academic.
Watch a game of “Jeopardy!” tonight or head down to your local pub quiz, and you’re sure to be asked about scientific breakthroughs, milestones of history and masterpieces of art. Trivia, maybe — but far from trivial.
There might also be questions about pop lyrics and sports statistics, but even those are markers of cultural literacy, the kind of shared knowledge that used to tie society together: the proposition that factual questions could be answered correctly or not, that those answers matter and that we largely agreed on the authorities and experts who could confirm them.
But trust in authority is not exactly at an all-time high, as you’ve probably heard. It’s been more than eight years since Kellyanne Conway’s coinage of the phrase “alternative facts” on “Meet the Press,” an Orwellian way to soft-pedal the outright falsehoods being told by powerful institutions. You don’t hear much about alternative facts anymore, but only because so many of them are no longer the alternative to anything. They have moved to the mainstream.
Scientific consensus in fields like climate change and vaccine efficacy is no longer the official position of American government. Ditto for legal facts (birthright citizenship), political facts (the winner of the 2020 election) and historical facts (too many examples to list). Inconvenient experts who push back can be removed by executive order; inconvenient books that disagree can be removed from libraries. (continued on www.skyline725.com)
A Trump administration report outlining the potential factors related to the rise in chronic diseases in US children cites several studies that don’t exist, according to media reports.
The Make Our Children Healthy Again report, issued last week by the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission—led by Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—focuses on addressing four potential drivers behind the rise in childhood chronic disease: ultra-processed foods, environmental chemicals, lack of physical activity and chronic stress, and overmedicalization. The claims made in the report are backed by 522 footnotes.
“By examining the root causes of deteriorating child health, this assessment establishes a clear, evidence-based foundation for the policy interventions, institutional reforms, and societal shifts needed to reverse course,” the report states.
Non-existent studies, other errors
But the footnotes contain multiple errors. The false citations, first reported yesterday by the news site NOTUS, include non-existent studies on anxiety in adolescents, the impact of direct-to-consumer advertising on the prescribing of ADHD and antidepression medication for children, and overprescribing of oral corticosteroids in children with asthma. Additional reporting by the New York Times and the Washington Postfound citations listing the wrong author, published papers with the wrong journal listed, and inaccurate summaries of correctly cited papers.
The Post also found that several citations appear to have been generated by artificial intelligence
“This is not an evidence-based report, and for all practical purposes, it should be junked at this point,” American Public Health Association Executive Director Georges Benjamin, MD, told the Post. “It cannot be used for any policymaking. It cannot even be used for any serious discussion, because you can’t believe what’s in it.”
At a press conference yesterday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the errors “formatting issues” that don’t negate the substance of the report, and said the document would be updated. NOTUS later updated its story to note that the seven references it found to non-existent studies had been removed
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On May 30, the Trump administration released further details about its proposed Fiscal Year 2026 budget request, including a request to preserve the current $430.5 million Peace Corps appropriation in the coming year.
NPCA would like to congratulate the tens of thousands of Peace Corps supporters who worked with us to express your support for the agency and its volunteers, and to demonstrate how they make our country stronger, safer, and better. Our combined efforts helped preserve Peace Corps’ current funding levels in the President’s budget request to Congress. Our continued compassionate outreach—both at home and abroad—is what truly makes America great.
“Every afternoon, 68-year-old Kathy set up two folding chairs and a chalkboard on her porch. Rain or shine, she’d write, “Homework help. Free. All ages.” Her neighbors in the quiet town of Cedar Hills thought she was wasting her retirement. “Kids today have tutors and iPads,” muttered Mrs. Jenny, watering her roses. But Kathy had a reason. Her husband, a former principal, had passed last year, leaving her his favorite quote “A mind left untaught is a door left unlocked.”
The first visitor was Manny, a 9-year-old who’d missed three weeks of school after his dad lost his job. “I don’t get fractions,” he mumbled, kicking a pebble. Kathy handed him a cookie and drew a pizza on the chalkboard.. “Let’s split it into slices. Your turn.” By sunset, Manny was grinning. “So that’s how it works!”
Word spread slowly. A single mom, working nights at the hospital, left her daughter Lily with Kathy. A shy teenager, Jake, slunk over to “borrow notes” but stayed to learn poetry. Kathy’s porch became a mosaic of mismatched chairs, dog-eared textbooks, and laughter. Retired engineers taught algebra. A former librarian read stories aloud. Even Manny’s dad joined, brushing up on Excel for job interviews.
The town council called it a “safety hazard.” Kathy’s son begged her to quit. “You’re risking fines!”
The next morning, 30 kids and parents crowded Kathy’s lawn, holding protest signs, “Our brains need her!” “Where’s the harm in kindness?” A local reporter filmed Jake reciting a poem he’d written, “Her porch is our castle. Her chalkboard, our shield.”
The council caved. Sort of.
“You can use the old rec center. But no budget. Fix it yourself.”
Volunteers transformed the crumbling building. Teens painted murals of books. Carpenters built desks from donated wood. A grandmother knitted cushions. They called it “The Open Door Learning Center.” Teachers donated supplies. Parents traded shifts for snacks.
Last week, Lily won a statewide essay contest. Her topic? “The lady who unlocked my world.”
Kathy still sits on her porch some days, sipping tea. The chalkboard now reads, “Knowledge is a seed. Plant it anywhere.”
Team Singapore 4-Way Dynamic Free Routine at the World Indoor Skydiving Championships
Thanks to Bob P.
Routine in the grand final against Switzerland. The championship winning Singapore team of Kai Minejima-Lee, Kyra Poh, Vera Poh, and Choo Yi Xuan’s viral 4-Way Dynamic routine that stunned the competition and the world.
So it can be really comforting to go back to the things that brought us joy and calm from our childhood. For me, one of my favorite childhood books that never failed to make me smile was the Winnie-the-Pooh series.
A.A. Milne’s beloved Winnie-the-Pooh series was initially published almost 100 years ago, but its wisdom and values of curiosity and caring for one another are still so relevant today.
And even though the stories were written for children, I still find their lessons and observations to be entirely relevant in adulthood. The books showcase themes of self-acceptance, of taking the bad with the good, of friendship, and so much more.
So CLICK HERE for 50 quotes from Winnie, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, Rabbit, and all of their other pals from the Hundred Acre Woods.
Dear friends, Skyline should be proud! I don’t have permission [now obtained], but I’m sending this anyway. (hoping she’ll forgive me 🤞) Your very own Barbara Rait (Olympic Tower) was the oldest (94) participant to finish the entire 5K yesterday. And won a prize; a Brooks backpack, as well as a big megaphone announcement. Barb has been part of our downtown walking group since it started, 23 years ago. Sadly, I didn’t get a photo of her, walking with our 40 year old youngest member. But you may recognize some of the others. Drs Hugh Straley and John Ryan took time off for the Big Swings; Trish Bostrom and I rested on the Buster Simpson sculpture. We were watched over by the Fire Department’s finest. Over 2000 registered, and many more just showed up. A great time on our beautiful waterfront! Join us next year. Xo Jody Foster
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“I would like to speak briefly and simply about a serious national condition,” Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine told her colleagues on June 1, 1950. “It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear…. I speak as a Republican, I speak as a woman. I speak as a United States senator. I speak as an American.”
“Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism,” she pointed out. Americans have the right to criticize, to hold unpopular beliefs, to protest, and to think for themselves. But attacks that cost people their reputations and jobs were stifling these basic American principles, and the ones making those attacks were in her own party.
Wisconsin senator Joe McCarthy, who was sitting two rows behind her, led a faction that had cowed almost all of the Republican Party into silence by accusing their opponents of “communism.” Smith recognized the damage McCarthy and his ilk were doing to the nation. She had seen the effects of his behavior up close in Maine, where the faction of the Republican Party that supported McCarthy had supported the state’s Ku Klux Klan.
“Freedom of speech is not what it used to be in America,” Senator Smith said. “It has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by others.”
Senator Smith wanted a Republican administration, she explained, but to replace President Harry Truman’s Democratic administration—for which she had plenty of harsh words—with a Republican regime “that lacks political integrity or intellectual honesty would prove equally disastrous to this nation.”
“I do not want to see the Republican party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear.”
“I doubt if the Republican party could do so,” she added, “simply because I do not believe the American people will uphold any political party that puts political exploitation above national interest. Surely we Republicans are not that desperate for victory.”
“I do not want to see the Republican party win that way,” she said. “While it might be a fleeting victory for the Republican party, it would be a more lasting defeat for the American people. Surely it would ultimately be suicide for the Republican party and the two-party system that has protected our American liberties from the dictatorship of a one-party system.”
“As an American, I condemn a Republican Fascist just as much as I condemn a Democrat Communist,” she said. “They are equally dangerous to you and me and to our country. As an American, I want to see our nation recapture the strength and unity it once had when we fought the enemy instead of ourselves.”
Smith presented a “Declaration of Conscience,” listing five principles she hoped her party would adopt. It ended with a warning: “It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques—techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.” (continued)
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If you’ve seen old folks’ homes with a certain Cheesecake Factory aesthetic popping up around Washington, you know Aegis Living. A private pay assisted living chain that does not accept Medicare, Aegis owns $2.5 billion in property across Washington, California, and Nevada, including 23 “luxury” senior living centers in the Seattle area. Aegis’ CEO claims that the company brings in nearly $250 million in annual operating revenues from resident costs that can climb into the tens of thousands of dollars per month. Living at Aegis appears to be worth it, though: in March, their Greenwood facility was named the number one senior living facility in the country.
With Medicaid cuts threatening to shut down many of our elder care facilities in the Pacific Northwest, there’s never been a better time to get to know our local retirement home landlord.
To understand Aegis Living, you need to know about Dwayne J. Clark, the charismatic CEO driving the company’s vision. Clark has done a good job of building his mythology. In puff pieces like his most recent in Seattle Magazine, he talks about a childhood marked by hardship: His father left when he was five, and Clark’s mother raised him and his three siblings in Lewiston, ID, before relocating to Spokane, WA. He and his three siblings didn’t have much. In a story Clark recounts often, his family struggled so badly once that his mother, a line cook at the Elks Lodge in Lewiston, smuggled home a handful of potatoes from work and turned them into soup that sustained the family for a week.
If you believe his PR efforts, Dwayne J. Clark was a bootstrappin’ young kid who was so inspired by his mother’s hardships that he made it his life’s mission to give our aging seniors more dignified lives—a serious and noble endeavor.
But the truth is uglier. And weirder.
It appears Clark is another classic American huckster who repeats half-truths and outright fabrications, never letting the truth get in the way of a good story while he does the opposite of what he claims: making elder care less accessible and making a fortune on the backs of underpaid workers.
Inside Clark’s gaudy Aegis facilities are vulnerable elderly folks paying exorbitant costs to be treated by a constantly revolving team of low-paid workers and third-party contractors, causing dangerous conditions that have led to multimillion-dollar lawsuits, hundreds of complaints to the state, felony criminal charges—and questions about who will take care of us when we get old. (continued)
