Jess Michaels lives with the PTSD from her 1991 assault by the serial sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. She is part of a national chorus of voices calling on the Trump administration to release files related to the federal case against Epstein, who reportedly died by suicide while awaiting trial in 2019.
In a major victory for environmental advocates, chemical giant DuPont and its related companies have agreed to pay $2 billion to clean up four industrial sites in New Jersey that are contaminated with “forever chemicals,” or PFAS, which have been found to persist in everything from rainwater to human breast milk.
Israel’s security cabinet has announced the approval of a plan to occupy Gaza City, moving its ongoing military offensive north and displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians to camps in central Gaza. Middle East analyst Mouin Rabbani emphasizes that the new strategy is simply “the first phase of a larger plan” for the permanent displacement, occupation and annexation of the entire Gaza Strip, as confirmed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a recent interview with Fox News.
Negotiations are underway in Geneva on a legally binding Global Plastics Treaty that has been in the works for several years, as the crisis of pollution from plastics worldwide has grown more acute. An estimated 8 billion metric tons of plastic waste now pollute the planet. Without changes, the production of plastic is expected to triple by 2060 — much of it driven by single-use plastics.
When gunfire pelted the Atlanta-based headquarters of the CDC yesterday, hundreds of employees were inside the campus’s buildings. The experience was terrifying. But some of the employees were not particularly shocked. “I’m actually surprised it didn’t happen sooner,” a nearly 20-year veteran of the agency told me. (She, like others I spoke with for this article, requested anonymity out of fear of losing her job.)
This was, in one sense, the first attack of its kind on the CDC.
The schools won a reprieve in court, but they’re still offering the president a compromise.
Vinay Prasad had been dismissed less than two weeks ago.
The shooting comes amid an already tumultuous time for CDC staff.
If still-life painting is the art of arresting decay, then it makes a lot of sense that Rachel Ruysch grew up to become one of the greatest still-life painters in the history of art. In the 17th century, Frederik Ruysch, her father, was an internationally famous embalmer. His job was to make a natural object seem permanently alive and pleasing to the eye. He could transform the corpse of a bullet-pierced admiral into the “fresh carcase of an infant,” Samuel Johnson once said.
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This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
Conventional wisdom says that a beach read ought to be light and fun—a book with a pastel cover. But the beach read can be anything you want it to be. Vacation might feel like the perfect moment to escape into frivolity, or to dive into something dense that you finally have the mental space for.
Last month, a small company in San Francisco announced that it had a plan to manufacture gold—not merely a flake or a nugget, but tons of the stuff. According to a paper written by one of Marathon Fusion’s co-founders (and not yet peer reviewed), the alchemist’s dream could be achieved not by mixing powders in a crucible but by tweaking atoms that were superheated during the process of nuclear fusion. The gold wouldn’t be the end game, more like a side hustle.
The president is trying to bring a taste of Mar-a-Lago to D.C.—but it’s not as unprecedented as some people think.
Cheyna Roth joins Emily Peck to dissect the money on display in And Just Like That…
Should you check your bag or carry-on? A discussion.
The move ends investments in projects involving mRNA technology.
The president overruled his HHS secretary and FDA chief, four people with knowledge of the decision tell POLITICO.
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary has taken a personal interest in addressing hormone therapy treatment for menopause.
The Waves also discusses the Riverside Church controversy and the case of Sarah Milov.
What we say matters, especially depending on whom we say it to.
The Waves also discusses the case against Jeffrey Epstein and Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman Is in Trouble.
Bill Beach said the president’s suggestions that the jobs report was rigged betrayed a misunderstanding in how those numbers are assembled.
The monthly jobs report showed just 73,000 jobs in July, with big reductions to May’s and June’s numbers
The president’s approval rating had been ticking upward since its biggest drop in April.
Negotiations are underway in Geneva on a legally binding Global Plastics Treaty that has been in the works for several years, as the crisis of pollution from plastics worldwide has grown more acute. An estimated 8 billion metric tons of plastic waste now pollute the planet. Without changes, the production of plastic is expected to triple by 2060 — much of it driven by single-use plastics.
Photos shared with POLITICO show bullet holes in windows of a building on the agency’s main campus near Emory University.
