They don't care

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Gotta wonder how much they paid Trump

Trump declares climate change-causing gasses do not endanger public health and welfare

One giant leap backwards

Gary W. Yohe, Wesleyan University

In 2009 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency formally declared that greenhouse gas emissions, including from vehicles and industry, endanger public health and welfare. The decision, known as the endangerment finding, was based on years of evidence, and it has underpinned EPA actions on climate change ever since.

The Trump administration is now tearing up that finding as it tries to roll back climate regulations on everything from vehicles to industries.

“This is a big deal,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in announcing with Donald Trump on Feb. 12, 2026, that the administration had “terminated” the endangerment finding. 

Zeldin argued that the finding had “no basis in law.” Trump, smiling next to him, talked about the benefits of fossil fuels and said the finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare “had no basis in fact. None whatsoever.”

There’s no question that the EPA’s decision will be challenged in court. The legal question over the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases will be debated, just as it was in 2009. The administration’s claim that the finding was scientifically wrong, however, has no basis in fact.

The world just experienced its three hottest years on record, evidence of worsening climate change is stronger now than ever before, and people across the U.S. are increasingly experiencing the harm firsthand.

Several legal issues have already surfaced that could get in the EPA’s way. They include evidence from emails submitted in a court case that suggest political appointees sought to direct the scientific review that the administration has used to defend its plan, at the exclusion of respected scientific sources. On Jan. 30 a federal judge ruled that the Department of Energy violated the law when it handpicked five researchers to write the climate science review. The ruling doesn’t necessarily stop the EPA, but it raises questions.

To understand what happens now, it helps to look back at history for some context.

Air fryers emit fewer VOCs and ultra-fine particles than other forms of frying

But keep them clean

By University of Birmingham

Edited by Stephanie Baum, reviewed by Robert Egan

Cooking even very fatty food in an air fryer produces fewer airborne particles than other forms of frying, according to a new study from the University of Birmingham. The work is one of the first studies detailing the spectrum of pollutants emitted from air frying, which consumer surveys suggest is quickly becoming one of the most used appliances in UK homes.

The research found that air-frying different foods produces fewer volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and ultra-fine particles than typical cooking alternatives such as shallow or deep-fat frying.

The findings appear in ACS ES&T Air.

Following a previous paper showing that air frying contributed significantly fewer VOCs when cooking chicken breast, the team looked at whether there were differences based on fat content found in foods. VOCs and ultra-fine particles are both linked to human health concerns, yet only a few studies have looked at the link between household pollutants such as VOCs and health compared to outdoor pollutants.

The research team used custom-made air quality chambers to more sensitively measure VOCs and other airborne particles emitted during cooking. A commercially available 4.7l air fryer was used for the experiments, and the team cooked batches of frozen fried, fresh low-fat, and fresh high-fat foods to compare emissions.

Among the foods cooked in the air fryer, frozen onion rings (possibly due to pre-fried oil coating), smoked bacon and unsmoked bacon (both of which contain cured fat and their thin shape leading to near-instantaneous frying of fats) produced the highest levels of cooking-related emissions.

However, cooking high fat foods in a deep fat fryer produces 10–100 times higher levels of VOCs. This is consistent with the pollutant levels found in earlier work by the team in a research kitchen cooking lean chicken breast in oil with different methods.

Cancer is becoming a global crisis shaped less by biology than by inequality, risk exposure, and access to care.

“Impending Disaster”: Scientists Warn That Cancer Deaths Are Surging Worldwide

By The Lancet

Global cancer diagnoses and deaths rose sharply between 1990 and 2023, even as treatments improved and prevention efforts expanded. Without swift action and focused investment, projections indicate that 30.5 million people will be newly diagnosed with cancer and 18.6 million will die from the disease in 2050, with more than half of new cases and nearly two thirds of deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), according to a major analysis by the Global Burden of Disease Study Cancer Collaborators published in The Lancet.

Although the total number of cancer cases and deaths is expected to climb significantly from 2024 to 2050, there is a more nuanced picture beneath those totals. When cancer incidence and mortality are adjusted for age, global rates are not projected to rise. This indicates that much of the increase is being driven by population growth and the expanding proportion of older adults worldwide.

Even so, this trend falls well short of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of cutting premature deaths from non-communicable diseases, including cancer, by one third by 2030.

We are all passengers in Trump’s death cab

The nihilism of the regime is its most terrifying attribute.

David R. Lurie

Nearly 13 months into Trump’s second term, the most terrifying attribute of his regime is its utter contempt for the United States, and how blithely willing they are to destroy our nation and its people (let alone other nations).

With most of the Trump Show — which began in 2015 — now in the rearview mirror, and his mind and body rapidly decaying before our eyes, one might think Trump would be thinking about the “legacy” he will be leaving behind in a few years. 

Other presidents have been consumed with the idea of building institutions that survive their presidency — such as Wilson’s League of Nations, FDR’s New Deal, and LBJ’s Great Society — but Trump’s singular focus has been on tearing down the government, even as he sucks the nation dry with his corruption.

And while Trump rushes to place his name on monuments throughout DC before he leaves office, he’s given every indication he’s fine leaving behind a trail of utter and complete destruction.

In short, Donald J. Trump is a nihilist.

Over the past 13 months, Trump has waged a multi-front war on the United States. The kinetic part of that war, consisting of literal invasions of American cities, is the most open and notorious element of that assault. But the scope of it is far broader and includes schemes to make children more malnourished and sick, Americans far more insecure, and the American economy systemically weakened while our place in the world is diminished.

The war within

We are all familiar with the invasions of municipalities across the nation, including Washington DC, LA County, Chicago, and now the Twin Cities.

In each case, under the pretense of apprehending what Trumpers talismanically describe as the “worst of the worst,” phalanxes of masked, pot-bellied militiamen bearing assault rifles and chemical weapons have invaded what they perceive as “enemy territory.” It’s now clear that disruption and the creation of an atmosphere of fear and disorder is not merely a byproduct of these massive invasions, but their purpose.

In cities invaded by DHS agents, the lifeblood of society is being drained in the wholly pretensive name of ridding the nation of criminal undocumented immigrants. Children are now afraid to attend school because their classmates have been kidnapped. Restaurants are shuttering because employees are afraid to leave their homes.

Furthermore, while Trump and his cronies make vague promises of deescalation, DHS has been spending upwards of $1 billion to acquire a network of warehouses for the purpose of storing thousands upon thousands of new captives across the nation, thus indicating that the scope and frequency of the invasions will increase.

Trump’s assault on the nation’s municipalities is part and parcel of a set of economic “policies” that, in part by design and in part as a result of sheer recklessness, are undermining the foundations of America’s economic success.

This week, Trump’s “economic” advisor Peter Navarro celebrated one of the starkest negative impacts of the regime’s full-bore assault on immigration. Trumpers’ mass deportation campaign has been calculated to induce immigrants who escape the dragnet to withdraw from the workforce, and in many cases leave the country, out of fear. This will inevitably lead to a medium- and long-term loss of productivity in an economy that has long relied on younger, immigrant workers to grow at rates that other Western countries have envied.

But for Navarro, the inevitable damage to the economy due to the loss of productive immigrant workers is a good thing, because Americans should be willing to sacrifice prosperity in the cause of expelling the foreign-born. As Paul Krugman put it, “it’s not about jobs, it’s about: They want fewer brown people in America.”

This celebration of destruction and decay epitomizes the regime’s nihilism.

The old days are here

Lying Lutnick, Trump's Commerce Secretary

Sleeping less than 7 hours could cut years off your life

Sleep more or die young?

Oregon Health & Science University

Sleep isn’t just about feeling rested—it may be one of the strongest predictors of how long you live. Researchers analyzing nationwide data found that insufficient sleep was more closely tied to shorter life expectancy than diet, exercise, or loneliness. 

The connection was consistent year after year and across most U.S. states. The takeaway is simple but powerful: getting seven to nine hours of sleep may be one of the best things you can do for long-term health.

A nationwide analysis found that not getting enough sleep is strongly linked to shorter life expectancy—more so than poor diet or lack of exercise. Researchers say this makes sleep one of the most overlooked pillars of long-term health. Credit: Shutterstock

Getting a full night of sleep may play a larger role in longevity than many people realize. New research from Oregon Health & Science University indicates that regularly getting too little sleep is linked to a shorter lifespan.

The findings were recently published in the journal SLEEP Advances.

Study finds no link between COVID-19 vaccines and autism

Guy who brags about snorting cocaine off a toilet seat showed to be wrong AGAIN

Liz Szabo, MA

A new study finds no increase in autism rates in babies born to mothers who received COVID-19 vaccines just before or during pregnancy, compared with children of unvaccinated moms.

The authors of the study, who presented their findings at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine 2026 Pregnancy Meeting, told CIDRAP News they hope the research will help dispel myths about COVID-19 vaccines, which multiple studies have found to be safe and effective during pregnancy.

Half of the 434 children in the study, conducted at 14 medical facilities from May 2024 to March 2025, were born to mothers who received at least one dose of an mRNA vaccine during or within 30 days before pregnancy. The other half of the children in the study were born to mothers who weren’t vaccinated before or during pregnancy.

Researchers evaluated toddlers between the ages of 18 months and 30 months for signs of autism using four standard screenings: the Ages and Stages Questionnaire Version 3 (ASQ-3), the Child Behavior Checklist, the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers, and the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire. None of these measures are used to make a definitive diagnosis of autism, but they can indicate a need for further testing.

When the researchers compared the scores on all four screening assessments, they found no significant differences between the children born to vaccinated mothers and those born to unvaccinated mothers. 

Real and Fake Solutions to Inflated Drug Prices

Save more by busting Big Pharma crooks

By Philip Mattera, director of the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First for the Dirt Diggers Digest 

High prescription drug prices are one of the main components of the affordability problem that continues to afflict all but the most affluent Americans. 

Public officials are addressing the issue, but in two very different ways. One is a gimmick that will do little good; the other is a meaningful attack on pharmaceutical abuses.

On one side we have Trump’s approach, which is to create a web platform—named after himself, of course—that claims it will provide access to the lowest prices. 

TrumpRx, which at this point contains only a large photograph of its namesake in the Oval Office along with grandiose promises, is designed to inform consumers about special deals that will be available through purchases directly from drug manufacturers.

Like many of Trump’s initiatives, TrumpRx is characterized by misleading claims, conflicts of interest, and potential illegality. 

In many cases, the promised savings are illusory. The prices consumers pay when buying directly from the drug companies will be higher than what they would pay using insurance. Those without insurance may benefit, but the amount of the benefit is declining as the companies which signed up for TrumpRx have been raising their prices.

Concerns about a conflict of interest stem from the fact that the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., sits on the board of BlinkRx, a company which is positioning itself to profit from TrumpRx by helping drug companies set up direct-to-consumer systems linked to the program.

And concerns about illegality are linked to the possibility that TrumpRx may run afoul of the Anti-Kickback Statute by steering patients to higher-cost medications that they may end up receiving through Medicare and Medicaid.

It’s Too Late, Trump. You Cannot Undo the Multi-Racial, Multi-National Real America

Our nation’s true history is one of diversity

Mitchell Zimmerman in Common Dreams

Notice to Donald Trump and his MAGA myrmidons: It’s too late by centuries to turn the United States of American “back” into the ethnically homogenous nation for white people which it never was. And that’s nothing to be disappointed about.

Most Americans aren’t swallowing your so-called jokes depicting African-Americans as apes, your white supremacist lies about Haitians “eating the pets,” your slanders of law-abiding farmworkers as the “worst of the worst,” your creepy wails about immigrants “poisoning the blood” of America, your demand we exclude refugees who come from what you term “shit-hole countries.”

Fear and hatred are all you offer, and relief from an imaginary conspiracy of Jews and elites which you claim are plotting to “replace” white Americans with invaders from abroad.

The reality: Americans have always been a polyglot people of multiple races and ethnicities. We did not become a multi-national, multi-ethnic people because of a scheme to open our borders. Rather, our nation and its leaders—through ambition to expand the United States—incorporated other peoples into the American mix from our earliest days. Our true history is one of diversity, even if equity and inclusion have been aspirational.

If the Anglo-Saxon whites who first colonized North America wanted it to be an exclusive homeland for white people, they should not have brought half a million enchained Africans to American shores. By the time the Constitution was adopted, the result was that one in five residents of the new nation were enslaved or free Black people.

If whites wanted North America to be an exclusive home for Anglo-Saxon white people, President Thomas Jefferson should not have made the Louisiana Purchase, bringing people of French, Spanish and African ancestry and still more Native American tribal nations into the territory of the United States.

If Anglo-Saxon whites wanted North America to be an exclusive home for white people, pro-slavery forces should not have launched the Mexican-American War of 1846-48 to seize almost half of what had been Mexico, and incorporate its Mexican population into the enlarged United States.

If Anglo-Saxon whites wanted North America to be an exclusive home for white people, we shouldn’t have employed tens of thousands of Chinese immigrant workers to build the Transcontinental Railroad, man the mines, and perform the other dangerous and dirty work that helped build the West.

And for that matter, if Anglo-Saxon whites wanted North America to be an exclusive home for “pure-bred” white people, they should not have encouraged the immigration of millions of Europeans who, at the turn of the Twentieth Century, weren’t really regarded as “white”: Irish, Italians, Poles and Slavs, eastern European Jews and others—“the wretched refuse of [Europe’s] teeming shores”—to work the mills and mines, the factories and farms of America.

Today desperate, hopeful and hardworking immigrants come from the lands south of our border, from India, from China, from the Dominican Republic. Many are fleeing horrific gang violence, persecution, or the impacts of climate change on their native lands. Undocumented immigrants—the so-called “invaders”—commonly do work native-born Americans won’t do.

My grandfather immigrated from Quebec to work in a Rhode Island Mill like this.  Will Collette

Those without documentation provide most of the farm labor force. Trump’s own Labor Department has acknowledged that “agricultural work requires a distinct set of skills and is among the most physically demanding and hazardous occupations in the U.S. labor market.” “Such jobs are still not viewed as viable alternatives for many [U.S.-born] workers.”

Similarly, the labor of undocumented immigrants is critical to the meatpacking industry, food processing, construction, and elder care. Immigrants are not “replacing” American citizens—they are filling needs and struggling for a good life for themselves and their children. That’s what immigrants have always done.

Trump's grandparents, his mother and two of his three
wives were all immigrants

It’s too late, Mr. Trump, for your sleazy appeals to racial hatred. Most Americans know that seeking to degrade others because of their race or ethnicity is deeply wrong—a violation of the values of fairness and decency we struggle to live up to but seldom spurn entirely.

Our nation and the world have real problems—climate change, shrinking opportunity, inequality and poverty, violence and unnecessary suffering. But it has become clear to more and more Americans that your program of meanness, malice, and spleen are not the solution. It is time for you to get out of the way.

Mitchell Zimmerman an attorney, longtime social activist, and author of the anti-racism thriller "Mississippi Reckoning" (2019). His columns have run in Progressive Charlestown for years.

Give us answers, not b.s.

Free Tree Registration is Open!

 

Neighborhood Forest is a nonprofit organization that provides free trees for kids to plant in celebration of Earth Day. Since 2020, they have facilitated the planting of over 280,000 trees! Neighborhood Forest’s mission is to inspire children to plant trees, care for nature, and help create greener, healthier neighborhoods.

Click here to register your child(ren) for this year’s program. An email will be sent out when they arrive, around April 22nd. Those who are interested may also purchase trees to plant.

The deadline for registration is March 15th.