WE MUST REMOVE THE SUPREME COURT!

 We must clean out the maggots from this court!

Coming... Meth Shark...

The urgent need for designing greener drugs

From Nature.com

The pervasive contamination of ecosystems with active pharmaceutical ingredients  poses a serious threat to biodiversity, ecosystem services and public health.  Urgent action is needed to design greener drugs that maintain efficacy but also minimize environmental impact.

We are living in an increasingly medicated world. Pharmaceuticals are indispensable in modern health care, having revolutionized the pre-vention and treatment of disease, and will remain crucial in the future. Nevertheless, our increasing dependency on pharmaceuticals comes at a major cost. Discharges to the environment during drug production, use and disposal have resulted in ecosystems around the globe being contaminated with mixtures of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), as well as their metabolites, additives, adjuvants, excipients and transformation products. The extent of API pollution was recently demonstrated in a large-scale geographical study that measured  61 different drugs in river water taken from 1,052 locations across  104 countries, spanning all continents. Around 43% of the sites  sampled had levels of at least one drug that exceeded what is  considered safe for ecological health. Furthermore, at the more- contaminated sites, complex mixtures of many APIs were detected (a maximum of 34), including a wide variety of human and veterinary medications. Given their pervasive spread in ecosystems, as well as in groundwater used for drinking-water supply, several APIs were recently added as priority substances in the new proposal of the European Water Framework Directive. Moreover, it has recently been proposed that contamination of ecosystems with novel chemicals, including drug residues, has caused humanity to exceed the safe operating space of the planetary boundary for novel entities.

The threat of API pollution to wildlife

Evidence has been growing for decades that exposure to trace concen-trations of APIs and their mixtures can cause severe developmental, physiological, morphological and behavioural alterations in wild-life2. For instance, male fish exposed to the contraceptive oestrogen 17α-ethinyloestradiol were feminized and had associated reproduc-tive impairment, which precipitated a severe population collapse in a whole-lake experiment. Any such changes to the survival and repro-duction of API-exposed species will inevitably have cascading effects on the ecology and evolution of wildlife populations and communities, potentially driving population declines and local extinctions6. Even unexposed species may be impacted due to indirect effects such as reduced prey availability (for example, if prey reproduction is disrupted by APIs) or increased competition (for example, if APIs increase the feeding and/or aggressiveness of competitors)6. Furthermore, API pollution poses a threat to humans and wildlife alike, as seen in the case of antibiotics released into the environment that can act as a selection pressure promoting the mobilization and horizontal transfer of a wide range of antibiotic resistance genes.

API pollution in context

The problem of API pollution is occurring against a backdrop of mul-tiple other anthropogenic pressures on biodiversity and ecosystem services. These include a changing climate, habitat destruction and fragmentation, overexploitation of natural resources, and invasive species, together with the contamination of ecosystems with other pollutant classes, particularly in rapidly urbanizing areas. Interac-tions among chemical pollutants and secondary stressors can often be additive or even synergistic, where the combined effects are greater than the sum of individual effects. Some of this is due to the energetic cost of detoxification — that is, energy expended to metabolize and eliminate toxins from the body — which results in aquatic and terrestrial wildlife being more vulnerable to secondary stressors. In addition, APIs and their breakdown products pose a particular threat to biodiversity given that many have effects at extremely low exposures (for example, parts per billion to parts per trillion) and challenge existing regulatory determinations of chemical persistence, bioaccumulation and toxic-ity. Consequently, wildlife may not sense API residues and, therefore, may be unable to actively avoid contaminated habitats. Indeed, many aquatic species are attracted to wastewater outflows due to increased nutrient (and, hence, prey) availability and heightened temperatures, resulting in prolonged exposure to diverse cocktails of APIs, their break-down products and other contaminants.

Reforming the drug life cycle

To reduce drug pollution, the pharmaceutical industry and its custom-ers need to evaluate and reform many aspects of the complex life cycle of drugs. 

First, we need more informed and sustainable prescribing practices and usage, given that the most environmentally sustain-able pharmaceutical is one that is not required and not prescribed. This will necessitate training for health-care professionals, including pharmacists, physicians, nurses and veterinarians, and prescribing guidelines should be produced that consider the environmental impact of medicines.

Second, public awareness campaigns will be vital given that there is currently limited awareness of how prescribed and over-the-counter medicines can negatively impact the environment (for example, through incorrect disposal). Educational and sociological approaches intended to promote more informed and responsible purchasing and use of medicines are clearly a crucial component of an overall strategy but will not entirely eliminate the issue of API pollution.

Third, and key to reforming the drug life cycle, greener pharma-ceuticals need to be designed that are more easily and completely degraded in the environment, which is in alignment with the tenth prin-ciple of green chemistry (that is, design for degradation). In this regard, environmental persistence can be assessed according to standardized cut-off values set by regulatory agencies (for example, the European Chemicals Agency and the United States Environmental Protection Agency). Pharmaceutical manufacturing should also be optimized for greenness, including reducing waste generation and energy consump-tion. Embracing the production of green drugs is expected to have benefits for pharmaceutical manufacturers, both reputationally and economically, including by attracting more environmentally conscious customers and investors. However, stronger regulation and increased oversight are also needed to underpin and enforce these changes, such as through the polluter pays principle, where the polluter should bear the costs of pollution prevention and control measures.

Fourth, we need to improve and expand wastewater treatment pro-cesses to ideally prevent APIs entering the environment. In this regard, at least 48% of all wastewater globally currently flows into ecosystems without any treatment, underscoring the urgent need to increase the geographical extent of wastewater treatment infrastructure. Further, it is crucial to improve the efficacy of wastewater treatment, considering that conventional treatment plants are not designed to remove APIs and therefore commonly release these contaminants at trace levels. Technical solutions to remove APIs from wastewater exist (for exam-ple, activated carbon and ozonation) but, to date, only Switzerland has implemented advanced tertiary treatment of wastewater at the national level. Moreover, even advanced wastewater treatment is not capable of removing the majority of APIs and can even result in the formation of incompletely degraded by-products that are more toxic than the parent compounds. On top of these limitations, due to the relatively high price tag, trade-offs associated with energy use and resulting carbon emissions, and lack of regulatory implementation and enforcement, advanced treatment of wastewater is expected to remain uncommon on a global scale and is unlikely to solve the issue of API pollution without substantial additional innovation — for example, continued development of latest-generation catalysts for purifying micropollutants in wastewater.

More broadly, in seeking to reform the drug life cycle, it is impor-tant that we incorporate the One Health approach — that is, recogniz-ing the interconnection between humans, animals and their shared environment — within the rational use of all medicines, not only antimicrobials.

The key role of sustainable molecular design

Although the various sociological and technological interventions discussed above are important components of an overall strategy, molecular design of greener drugs is fundamental to reducing pollu-tion. Because drug design is the first step in the pharmaceutical pro-duction and consumption cycle, greener drugs lessen the potential for pollution throughout the entire cycle, reducing the need for other downstream mitigation measures. As such, pharmaceuticals — as well as their additives, adjuvants and excipients — should be designed not only to be efficacious and safe, but also to be quickly and fully miner-alized to carbon dioxide and water after excretion (for example, by environmental biodegradation). This approach, known as ‘benign by design’, is a key aspect of green pharmacy and has been successfully conducted with persistent APIs such as fluoroquinolone antibiotics14. Various benign-by-design workflows have already been developed to implement sustainable molecular design within the drug-design process15. Patent extensions or faster authorizations for more easily degradable pharmaceuticals might also be explored as incentives to design more easily environmentally biodegradable and mineralizing drugs. Furthermore, results of environmental risk assessments, par-ticularly when informed by mechanistic information that plausibly links to adverse outcomes, should be considered in the design and the risk–benefit analysis of medicines, considering the severity of the disease and the existing available alternatives.

Importantly, barriers exist along the path to designing greener drugs. This includes increased economic and time investment into research, development and manufacturing processes, although these costs will diminish over time due to technological advancements, increasing experience and expertise, and economies of scale. Fur-ther, some drug classes may be particularly challenging candidates for green redesign, such as those with especially high environmental persistence, bioaccumulation and/or toxicity attributes of concern. It is also important to appreciate that pharmaceuticals can challenge existing persistence, bioaccumulation and toxicity cut-off values, which were developed for conventional contaminants by regulatory agencies as part of common chemicals management strategies around the world. However, many pharmaceuticals are already on the market that have not been intentionally designed with environmental sus-tainability in mind but are nevertheless readily biodegradable in the environment (for example, β-lactams such as penicillin V, valproic acid and acetylsalicylic acid), and it is well established that adding various molecular elements (for example, esters) to drugs can reduce their environmental persistence.

The evidence is clear that APIs in the environment pose a major and escalating risk to biodiversity, ecosystem services and public health. The same trait that makes these drugs so effective in human and animal patients makes them particularly concerning as environ-mental pollutants: rationally and intrinsically designed attributes to exert a range of biological effects even at low dosages. Moreover, API contamination of ecosystems is co-occurring with other widespread environmental changes, which can magnify the detrimental effects of drugs. While various sociological and technological approaches exist to reduce the environmental burden of APIs, all of which should be leveraged, development of greener drugs that fully degrade in the environment is critical to a truly sustainable solution. Appreciating that patient access to pharmaceuticals will remain vital into the future, we urge drug designers and manufacturers, scientists and policymakers to recognize the growing environmental threat posed by APIs and to urgently prioritize the sustainable molecular design of greener drugs to prevent further environmental harm.

Absurdly out of the realm of normal..........

Trump’s company is valued ‘absurdly out of the realm of normal,’ LinkedIn billionaire says

By Matt Egan

Reid Hoffman knows firsthand that riches can be made building a social media empire. But the LinkedIn co-founder is dumbfounded by the size of the social media fortune former President Donald Trump is sitting on.

Trump’s conservative social media company, Truth Social owner Trump Media & Technology Group, is valued by Wall Street at a whopping $6 billion — even after a recent plunge in its share price.

“That is wildly high,” Hoffman, a Biden donor who is now a director at Microsoft and a venture capital investor, told CNN. “The Truth Social numbers are so absurdly out of the realm of normal business.”

Shares of Trump Media (DJT) spiked more than 20% on Monday, its second-best day since it started trading on the Nasdaq in late March. Trump Media shares jumped another 9% on Tuesday.

Unlike social media site LinkedIn, which reached a deal to be sold to Microsoft in 2016 for $26 billion, Trump Media generates little revenue and remains a tiny player in the industry.

Truth Social’s user count is dwarfed by Reddit, Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) and even Instagram’s Threads.

In 2023, Trump Media brought in just $4.1 million in revenue. That means Wall Street is assigning an astronomical price-to-sales ratio of more than 1,400 based on trailing revenue.

By comparison, Wall Street values social media leader Meta Platforms, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, at just nine times trailing revenue.

Hoffman, who has been a vocal critic of Trump, noted that if Meta sported a price-to-sales ratio like Trump Media’s, it would be valued at more than $150 trillion (instead of its current market value of $1.3 trillion).

“Trump Media is probably more appropriately valued close to $40 million rather than several billion,” Hoffman said. “Truth Social is burning through hundreds of millions of dollars with nothing to show for it in user engagement, user growth or even potential revenue.”

Trump Media did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

Trump Media’s share price started to fall sharply after May 30 when Trump — the company’s chairman and leading shareholder — was convicted of 34 felony counts in a hush money trial. The company’s market value crumbled by half between May 30 and last week before bouncing back Monday.

In an SEC filing, Trump Media disclosed Monday it expects to raise more than $69 million in proceeds from investors exercising warrants to buy common stock.

Trump’s stake is worth nearly $4 billion

Hoffman is hardly the first to express disbelief at the valuation of Trump Media.

Some experts have described Trump Media as a “meme stock,” like GameStop and AMC. (Meme stocks typically trade more on hype and social media sentiment than fundamentals.)

Jay Ritter, a finance professor at the University of Florida who has studied capital markets for four decades, told CNN last week that Trump Media’s share price is still “wildly overpriced.”

Billionaire media mogul Barry Diller, who sits on the boards of Expedia, Coca-Cola and MGM Resorts International, told CNBC that Trump Media is a “scam” and people buying its shares are “dopes.”

And yet the market has consistently been valuing Trump Media in the billions of dollars.

That lofty valuation has catapulted the net worth of Trump, the company’s dominant shareholder.

Based on Monday’s share price, Trump’s 114.75 million shares in Trump Media are valued at nearly $4 billion. That’s down from $6 billion as recently as May 30 but up from $3 billion late last week.

Why Trump Media is worth so much

Hoffman has some theories as to why some investors are “holding on to the stock in spite of the underlying business’s very glaring deficiencies.”

He told CNN that Trump Media’s share price is likely being propped up by “gullible money from day traders who support Trump personally” and by a “bet that Trump will win the White House, causing the stock to spike.”

Indeed, analysts have previously told CNN that Trump Media has become a way to bet on Trump’s political fortunes and the idea that early next year Truth Social could be the main platform for presidential communication.

Hoffman speculated that “deep pockets” such as wealthy individuals or even governments are holding onto their Trump Media shares to “artificially prop up” the value of Trump’s stake.

More bull-shit from maggots'...

Special counsel defends investigators’ handling of Mar-a-Lago documents kept in ‘haphazard manner’ by Trump

By Tierney Sneed and Holmes Lybrand

Prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith in a filing late Monday night pushed back on former President Donald Trump’s effort to toss the classified documents case against him over how materials found in boxes during the FBI’s 2022 Mar-a-Lago search were handled by investigators.

Prosecutors, with several never-before-seen images and a 30-page filing, detailed the search process and ridiculed Trump’s legal arguments.

“Trump personally chose to keep documents containing some of the nation’s most highly guarded secrets in cardboard boxes,” prosecutors wrote, “along with a collection of other personally chosen keepsakes of various sizes and shapes from his presidency—newspapers, thank you notes, Christmas ornaments, magazines, clothing, and photographs of himself and others.”

The latest Trump bid to toss the case came after prosecutors acknowledged that some of the documents fell out of order within their individual boxes after they were seized by the government.  

 

Trump’s attorneys have previously argued that because the order of contents in boxes was changed, it impacts their ability to build a defense around when certain classified material was placed in each box, given where it was inside Mar-a-Lago and what documents – including news articles – were beside it.

The new filing from Smith’s team goes into granular detail about how the search was conducted, the protocols FBI agents followed, and how certain documents were taken out of the boxes and by whom.

The prosecutors highlighted how investigators found boxes with their contents spilled on the floor, which they also illustrated with photos taken by investigators and by one of Trump’s co-defendants.

“Against this backdrop of the haphazard manner in which Trump chose to maintain his boxes” Trump argues that the precise order of the contents “was critical to his defense,” prosecutors said, ridiculing the argument.

To bolster their arguments, the prosecutors attached several new photos of the boxes, some of which were taken during the search. Two photos were taken by Trump co-defendant and valet Walt Nauta in December 2021, when he was moving boxes into Trump’s residence for review and found that some of the boxes had fallen. Other photos were taken during the search and prosecutors included some photos to show the news clippings, personal effects, and mementos that were found mixed in with sensitive government materials.

Prosecutors also say that the “integrity of each container in which the evidence was found, that is, box-to-box integrity” has been maintained.  

 

 “Nothing has been lost, much less destroyed, and there has been no bad faith,” they added.

To push back on defense attorneys’ claim that internal FBI emails suggested that the agents long knew there was an issue with how the boxes were seized, the prosecutors revealed what the emails actually concerned: that a witness discovered additional classified material at Mar-a-Lago the day after the August 2022 search.

Prosecutors argued that Trump’s previous remarks about the documents – including that he designated them his personal documents and declassified them – contradict the defense that the order of the documents would help prove that he was ignorant of the boxes’ contents.

“The Court should see Trump’s newly invented explanations and his motion for what they are—his latest unfounded accusations against law enforcement professionals doing their jobs,” they wrote.

Midwest flooding

At least 2 are dead from catastrophic Midwest flooding and a Minnesota dam is at risk of collapse

By Andy Rose, Lauren Mascarenhas, Amanda Musa and Christina Zdanowicz

At least two people are dead after severe storms and major flooding hit the Midwest, according to officials, and a dam in southern Minnesota built in the early 1900s is at risk of collapse.

The Blue Earth County government announced Rapidan Dam near Mankato was in “imminent failure condition,” in a Monday Facebook post.

“We do not know if it will totally fail or if it will remain in place, however we determined it was necessary to issue this notification to advise downstream residents and the correct regulatory agencies and other local agencies,” the county said.

The dam – which has been in a “state of disrepair,” according to a 2021 study – was still standing Tuesday morning, and the county said there are no current plans for mass evacuations.

The flooding in Blue Earth County is also threatening the family home of resident Jenny Barnes and their nearby business The Dam Store, CNN affiliate KARE reported.

“It’ll happen. We don’t know when but it’s going to be inevitable that the house is going to go,” Barnes told KARE.

The Dam Store, known for its homemade pies, has been in business since 1910 and owned by Barnes’ family since 1972.

“That’s our life, as well. That’s our business; that’s our livelihood. It’s everything to us,” Barnes told KARE. “There’s no stopping it. It’s going to go where it wants to go. It’s going to take what it wants to take. And everybody pray that it doesn’t take The Dam Store.”

Severe flooding has wreaked havoc across the Midwest for several days, leaving at least two people dead. A man died in Clay County, Iowa, while trying to drive across rapid floodwaters on Saturday, according to the county sheriff’s office. The same day, an 87-year-old man died in a flood-related crash in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, according to South Dakota Highway Patrol.

In Iowa, days of catastrophic flooding and severe storms prompted President Joe Biden to approve a disaster declaration for some areas, freeing up federal funding for relief efforts.

A levee failure on the Little Sioux River Tuesday morning prompted the evacuation of several Iowa communities along the river.

The city of Rodney in northern Monona County has been evacuated, with roads closed off to the public, the Monona County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post Tuesday morning, noting water had breached the levee in several spots.

Authorities reported the levee failure just south of the city of Smithland at about 5:00 a.m. Tuesday, the National Weather Service said.

A flash flood warning was issued for Rodney, the nearby city of Smithland and other rural areas near the river, officials said.

About 30 miles north, significant flooding left the city of Correctionville closed to non-residents, according to Woodbury County Emergency Management.

Further north in Sioux City, homes along the Big Sioux River were evacuated after water levels reached nearly 45 feet on Monday, officials said.

“All homes in the area that have been evacuated have been checked by first responders,” the city said in a Facebook post Monday. “17 people were assisted by boat from the flooded area.”

In Minnesota, Blue Earth County officials were first notified of “accumulating debris” at the Rapidan Dam on Sunday. Workers from Blue Earth County Public Works, the emergency management agency, and the sheriff’s office are actively monitoring the dam, according to the Facebook post.

The Blue Earth River has cut around the west side of the dam, emergency management said, carrying damaging debris in its wake and causing power outages.

In a Monday evening update, the county noted that although there was a “partial failure on the west abutment,” the “dam is still intact.”

“Our agencies are in close contact with Blue Earth County and other local officials regarding the Rapidan Dam near Mankato,” Gov. Tim Walz said in a statement Monday. “Emergency management is on the ground and acting quickly to ensure the safety of Minnesotans as the situation develops.”

The dam, which was completed in 1910, is owned by the county and is capable of generating 6 million watts of hydroelectric power. It’s about 70 miles southwest of Minneapolis.

Dams can break for a number of reasons, including overtopping due to flooding and structural failure, according to FEMA.

A 2021 report from Blue Earth County noted that regular flooding over the years, along with the “toll of time,” have caused significant damage to the dam. The report identified two solutions: repair or remove the dam. The county noted that both options have significant costs.

Simulations track 12 billion years of growth.

Combined X-ray surveys and supercomputer simulations track 12 billion years of cosmic black-hole growth

by Pennsylvania State University

By combining forefront X-ray observations with state-of-the-art supercomputer simulations of the buildup of galaxies over cosmic history, researchers have provided the best modeling to date of the growth of the supermassive black holes found in the centers of galaxies. Using this hybrid approach, a research team led by Penn State astronomers has derived a complete picture of black-hole growth over 12 billion years, from the universe's infancy at around 1.8 billion years old to now at 13.8 billion years old.

Two papers comprise the research, one published in The Astrophysical Journal, and one as yet unpublished that will be submitted to the same journal. The results will be presented at the 244th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, held June 9 through June 13 at the Monona Terrace Convention Center in Madison, Wisconsin.

"Supermassive black holes in galaxy centers have millions-to-billions of times the mass of the sun," said Fan Zou, a graduate student at Penn State and first author of the papers. "How do they become such monsters? This is a question that astronomers have been studying for decades, but it has been difficult to track all the ways black holes can grow reliably."

Supermassive black holes grow through a combination of two main channels. They consume cold gas from their host galaxy—a process called accretion—and they can merge with other supermassive black holes when galaxies collide.

"During the process of consuming gas from their hosting galaxies, black holes radiate strong X-rays, and this is the key to tracking their growth by accretion," said W. Niel Brandt, Eberly Family Chair Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics and professor of physics at Penn State and a leader of the research team. "We measured the accretion-driven growth using X-ray sky survey data accumulated over more than 20 years from three of the most powerful X-ray facilities ever launched into space."

The research team used complementary data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, the European Space Agency's X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission-Newton (XMM-Newton), and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics' eROSITA telescope. In total, they measured the accretion-driven growth in a sample of 1.3 million galaxies that contained over 8,000 rapidly growing black holes.

"All of the galaxies and black holes in our sample are very well characterized at multiple wavelengths, with superb measurements in the infrared, optical, ultraviolet, and X-ray bands," Zou said. "This allows for robust conclusions, and the data show that, at all cosmic epochs, more massive galaxies grew their black holes by accretion faster. With the quality of the data, we were able to quantify this important phenomenon much better than in past works."

The second way that supermassive black holes grow is through mergers, where two supermassive black holes collide and merge together to form a single, even more massive, black hole. To track growth by mergers, the team used IllustrisTNG, a set of supercomputer simulations that model galaxy formation, evolution, and merging from shortly after the Big Bang until the present.

"In our hybrid approach, we combine the observed growth by accretion with the simulated growth through mergers to reproduce the growth history of supermassive black holes," Brandt said. "With this new approach, we believe we have produced the most realistic picture of the growth of supermassive black holes up to the present day."

The researchers found that in most cases, accretion dominated black-hole growth. Mergers made notable secondary contributions, especially over the past 5 billion years of cosmic time for the most-massive black holes. Overall, supermassive black holes of all masses grew much more rapidly when the universe was younger. Because of this, the total number of supermassive black holes was almost settled by 7 billion years ago, while earlier in the universe many new ones kept emerging.

"With our approach, we can track how central black holes in the local universe most likely grew over cosmic time," Zou said. "As an example, we considered the growth of the supermassive black hole in the center of our Milky Way galaxy, which has a mass of 4 million solar masses. Our results indicate that our galaxy's black hole most likely grew relatively late in cosmic time."

In addition to Zou and Brandt, the research team includes Zhibo Yu, graduate student at Penn State; Hyungsuk Tak, assistant professor of statistics and of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State; Elena Gallo at the University of Michigan; Bin Luo at Nanjing University in China; Qingling Ni at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany; Yongquan Xue at the University of Science and Technology of China; and Guang Yang at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

Could signal alien activity

Detecting intelligent life that's light years away: Greenhouse gases could signal alien activity

by University of California - Riverside

If aliens modified a planet in their solar system to make it warmer, we'd be able to tell. A new UC Riverside study identifies the artificial greenhouse gases that would be giveaways of a terraformed planet.

A terraformed planet has been artificially made hospitable for life. The gases described in the study would be detectable even at relatively low concentrations in the atmospheres of planets outside our solar system using existing technology. This could include the James Webb Space Telescope, or a future European-led space telescope concept.

And while such pollutant gases must be controlled on Earth to prevent harmful climate effects, there are reasons they might be used intentionally on an exoplanet.

"For us, these gases are bad because we don't want to increase warming. But they'd be good for a civilization that perhaps wanted to forestall an impending ice age or terraform an otherwise-uninhabitable planet in their system, as humans have proposed for Mars," said UCR astrobiologist and lead study author Edward Schwieterman.

Since these gases are not known to occur in significant quantities in nature, they must be manufactured. Finding them, therefore, would be a sign of intelligent, technology-using life forms. Such signs are called technosignatures.

The five gases proposed by the researchers are used on Earth in industrial applications such as making computer chips. They include fluorinated versions of methane, ethane, and propane, along with gases made of nitrogen and fluorine or sulfur and fluorine. A new Astrophysical Journal paper details their merits as terraforming gases.

One advantage is that they are incredibly effective greenhouse gases. Sulfur hexafluoride, for example, has 23,500 times the warming power of carbon dioxide. A relatively small amount could heat a freezing planet to the point where liquid water could persist on its surface.

Another advantage of the proposed gases—at least from an alien point of view—is that they are exceptionally long-lived and would persist in an Earth-like atmosphere for up to 50,000 years. "They wouldn't need to be replenished too often for a hospitable climate to be maintained," Schwieterman said.

Others have proposed refrigerant chemicals, like CFCs, as technosignature gases because they are almost exclusively artificial and visible in Earth's atmosphere. However, CFCs may not be advantageous because they destroy the ozone layer, unlike the fully fluorinated gases discussed in the new paper, which are chemically inert.

"If another civilization had an oxygen-rich atmosphere, they'd also have an ozone layer they'd want to protect," Schwieterman said. "CFCs would be broken apart in the ozone layer even as they catalyzed its destruction."

As they're more easily broken apart, CFCs are also short-lived, making them harder to detect.

Finally, the fluorinated gases have to absorb infrared radiation to have an impact on the climate. That absorption produces a corresponding infrared signature that could be detectable with space-based telescopes. With current or planned technology, scientists could detect these chemicals in certain nearby exoplanetary systems.

"With an atmosphere like Earth's, only one out of every million molecules could be one of these gases, and it would be potentially detectable," Schwieterman said. "That gas concentration would also be sufficient to modify the climate."

To arrive at this calculation, the researchers simulated a planet in the TRAPPIST-1 system, about 40 light-years away from Earth. They chose this system, which contains seven known rocky planets, because it is one of the most studied planetary systems aside from our own. It is also a realistic target for existing space-based telescopes to examine.

The group also considered the European LIFE mission's ability to detect the fluorinated gases. The LIFE mission would be able to directly image planets using infrared light, allowing it to target more exoplanets than the Webb telescope, which looks at planets as they pass in front of their stars.

This work was done in collaboration with Daniel Angerhausen at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology/PlanetS, and with researchers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, and Paris University.

While the researchers cannot quantify the likelihood of finding these gases in the near future, they are confident that — if they are present — it is entirely possible to detect them during currently planned missions to characterize planetary atmospheres.

"You wouldn't need extra effort to look for these technosignatures, if your telescope is already characterizing the planet for other reasons," said Schwieterman. "And it would be jaw-droppingly amazing to find them."

Other members of the research team echo not only enthusiasm for the potential of finding signs of intelligent life, but also for how much closer current technology has brought us to that goal.

"Our thought experiment shows how powerful our next-generation telescopes will be. We are the first generation in history that has the technology to systematically look for life and intelligence in our galactic neighborhood," added Angerhausen.

Land of milk and honey? No, land of food stamps and inequality...

The Surprising Poverty Levels Across the U.S.

BY JEREMY NEY

The U.S. poverty rate saw its largest one-year increase in history. 12.4% of Americans now live in poverty according to new 2022 data from the U.S. census, an increase from 7.4% in 2021. Child poverty also more than doubled last year to 12.4% from 5.2% the year before.

The U.S. poverty level is now $13,590 for individuals and $23,030 for a family of three. The new data shows that 37.9 million people lived in poverty in 2022.

America had previously experienced tremendous improvements in poverty reduction over the last two years. Safety net programs including expanded child tax credit lifted millions out of poverty and provided direct aid to low-income households. However, as programs like this were allowed to expire, the data shows that those programs were a short-lived lifeline. The Supplement Poverty Measure (SPM), which has now largely replaced the “official” poverty rate, calculates the poverty rate after accounting for many of the governments’ most important anti-poverty programs as well as differences in the cost of living.

The expiration of government support wasn’t the only reason poverty rose dramatically. Inflation and an overall increased cost of living created new financial challenges for families. SPM is based on the cost of essential items like food and housing, which rose sharply last year. In 2021, a family of four was considered poor if their income was $31,453. In 2022 though, that number increased nearly 10% to $34,518, capturing more households under this higher bar. 

While low-income households struggled disproportionately, the average American household took hits as well. Median household income adjusted for inflation fell 2.3% last year to $74,580, The fastest rising inflation rate since 1981 dominated the gains of increased employment and rising wages.

California, Florida, and Mississippi are the three states with the highest percent of residents living in poverty. These represent an interesting mix of regions that economists don’t typically see together.

Much of California’s poverty occurs in Northern counties which are home to farming, mining, and manufacturing communities. High costs across the state have also led to higher poverty rates as often seen in San Francisco and Los Angeles, with 4.5 million living in poverty.

Florida’s higher poverty rates largely occur across the state’s panhandle. In Gadsden County, for example, one in four people live in poverty while two in five children do as well. Residents of Gadsden graduate high school at only half the rate as their peers in the rest of Florida. For decades, these low levels of educational attainment have plagued the region with high levels of unemployment and corresponding higher rates of poverty.

Poverty in Mississippi is not concentrated in one area but spreads far across the state. The regions with the highest poverty rates are concentrated around the Mississippi River, which are also the regions with the highest Black populations. Mississippi’s Black residents are three-times more likely to live in poverty than White residents, one of the worst ratios of any state in America. In Tunica County, right where the Mississippi river meets Tennessee, 68% of Black families live in poverty and 23.8% are unemployed according to a US Commission on Civil Rights, versus 12% of White families in poverty and 2% unemployed.

The highest increases in poverty occurred in the South, where research has shown the Child Tax Credit had the greatest effect in helping low-income families get the support they needed.

The White House was quick to jump in after the Census data release, blaming the rise in child poverty on congressional Republicans. President Biden derided “Republicans’ refusal to extend the enhanced Child Tax Credit” and went further to say that “The rise reported today in child poverty is no accident.” Economists found that child poverty would have been nearly 50% lower in 2022 if the expanded Child Tax Credit had remained in place.

Researchers at American Inequality have also found that the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has had a profound impact in poverty reduction. The number of children living below the poverty line would have been 25% higher without the EITC and the program also decreased poverty severity for another 17 million people. President Biden’s 2024 budget proposed expanding this tax credit, though Republicans remain opposed. 

Current poverty rates though are still below historic levels, and look most similar to rates seen in 2019. While financial hardship has decreased for Black and Hispanic Americans, poverty rates have now returned to pre-pandemic levels. A tremendous influx of funds to low-income households during the pandemic actually improved poverty in America. 

For Americans over 65, support has not arrived. The poverty rate rose to 14.1% for these older Americans, reaching levels not seen since 2016. This happened despite the 8.7% cost-of-living adjustment in social security payments, largely because labor force participation among older people has remained low as pandemic job losses have made it harder for this group to re-enter the workforce. 

Poverty in America reflects the inequality that plagues U.S. households. While certain regions have endured this pain much more than others, this new rising trend may spell ongoing challenges for even more communities. The federal support over the last 3 years showed just how much progress communities can make to reduce poverty, but the data now reveals what happens when those resources dry up.

Poverty....

Official poverty measure

Poverty rate (OPM) 1: 11.5%: 37.9 million people

Percentage of people who fell below the poverty threshold—$29,678 for a family of four—in 2022

Double the poverty threshold (OPM) 2: 27.5%

Percentage of people who fell below twice the poverty threshold—$59,356 for a family of four—in 2022

Half the poverty threshold (OPM) 3: 5.5%

Percentage of people who fell below half the poverty threshold—$14,839 for a family of four—in 2022

Child poverty rate (OPM) 4: 15%: 10.8 million people

Percentage of children under age 18 who fell below the poverty threshold in 2022

Women's poverty rate (OPM) 5: 12.5%: 20.8 million people

Percentage of women who fell below the poverty threshold in 2022

Men's poverty rate (OPM) 6: 10.5%: 17.1 million people

Percentage of men who fell below the poverty threshold in 2022

African-American poverty rate (OPM) 7: 17.1%: 7.6 million people

Percentage of African-Americans who fell below the poverty threshold in 2022

Hispanic or Latino poverty rate (OPM) 8: 16.9%: 10.8 million people

Percentage of Hispanics or Latinos who fell below the poverty threshold in 2022

Asian-American poverty rate (OPM) 9: 8.6%: 1.9 million people

Percentage of Asian-Americans who fell below the poverty threshold in 2022

White poverty rate (OPM) 10: 8.6%: 16.7 million people

Percentage of non-Hispanic or Latino Whites who fell below the poverty threshold in 2022

Native American poverty rate (OPM) 11: 25%: 1 million people

Percentage of Native Americans who fell below the poverty threshold in 2022

People with disabilities poverty rate (OPM) 12: 24%: 3.8 million people

Percentage of people with disabilities ages 18-64 who fell below the poverty threshold in 2022

Supplemental Poverty Measure

Poverty rate (SPM) 13: 12.4%: 40.9 million people

Percentage of people who fell below the poverty thresholds adjusted for housing costs—$34,235 for a family of four with a mortgage, $28,909 for a family of four without a mortgage, and $34,518 for a family of four that pays rent—in 2022

Double the poverty threshold (SPM) 14: 41.1%

Percentage of people who fell below twice the poverty thresholds adjusted for housing costs—$68,470 for a family of four with a mortgage, $57,818 for a family of four without a mortgage, and $69,036 for a family of four that pays rent—in 2022

Half the poverty threshold (SPM) 15: 4.4%

Percentage of people who fell below half the poverty thresholds adjusted for housing costs—$17,118 for a family of four with a mortgage, $14,455 for a family of four without a mortgage, and $17,259 for a family of four that pays rent—in 2022

Child poverty rate (SPM) 16: 12.4%: 9 million people

Percentage of children under age 18 who fell below the poverty threshold in 2022

Women's poverty rate (SPM) 17: 12.8%: 21.5 million people

Percentage of women who fell below the poverty threshold in 2022

Men's poverty rate (SPM) 18: 11.9%: 19.5 million people

Percentage of men who fell below the poverty threshold in 2022

African-American poverty rate (SPM) 19: 17.2%: 7.7 million people: 

Percentage of African-Americans who fell below the poverty threshold in 2022

Hispanic or Latino poverty rate (SPM) 20: 19.3%: 12.4 million people

Percentage of Hispanics or Latinos who fell below the poverty threshold in 2022

Asian-American poverty rate (SPM) 21: 11.6%: 2.5 million people

Percentage of Asian-Americans who fell below the poverty threshold in 2022

White poverty rate (SPM) 22: 9.1%: 17.7 million people

Percentage of non-Hispanic or Latino whites who fell below the poverty threshold in 2022

Native American poverty rate (SPM) 23: 23.2%: 0.9 million people

Percentage of Native Americans who fell below the poverty threshold in 2022

People with disabilities poverty rate (SPM) 24: 23%: 3.6 million people

Percentage of people with disabilities ages 18-64 who fell below the poverty threshold in 2022

Didn’t Just Cut Off Access

Overturning Roe Didn’t Just Cut Off Access. It Sabotaged Science, Too.

After Dobbs, scientists say their research has been delayed, limited, and blocked.

JACKIE FLYNN MOGENSEN

In early May 2022, reproductive health researcher Liz Mosley was at a dinner celebrating her first day as an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine when the news broke: A leaked draft of the Dobbs decision revealed the Supreme Court’s plan to gut abortion rights in the United States—the “worst-case scenario,” as one dinner guest put it.

Mosley also worried the ruling would upend her work as a scientist. She and her colleagues were in the process of conducting a study of Americans’ attitudes toward pregnancy, which included interviews and a survey asking 550 pregnant people ages 15 to 49 from around the country about options they’d considered. Some reproductive health clinics in Texas, from which she’d hoped to recruit—and where SB 8, an especially restrictive state law, was already making providers jittery—were spooked. “We lost Texas as a research site,” she told me. “The clinics just said the risk to their patients, legally, is too high.”

The decimation of reproductive health care has been predictably brutal in the two years since the Dobbs ruling. Abortion is now banned (or nearly so) in at least 17 states, dozens of providers have stopped offering abortions, and an untold number of clinicians have fled red states. You can add to that yet another post-Roe ripple: the challenges public health researchers like Mosley now face. Studies related to abortion have been delayed, limited, and blocked at a time when understanding the landscape couldn’t be more critical.

“The clinics just said the risk to their patients, legally, is too high.”

Some of the research holdups are the result of legitimate concern for participants. In Pennsylvania, where abortion is legal but restricted, Pitt’s Institutional Review Board (IRB), an ethics committee overseeing research at the university, asked Mosley to alter her study design, citing data privacy fears and the prospect of meddling by law enforcement. She agreed to some big changes, which mostly included eliminating minors from the interviews. “You can imagine that was a real loss,” she says. Research suggests that financial and logistical obstacles may cause teens to discover their pregnancies later than adults and encounter more challenges accessing care. Now, Mosley says, it’s harder for her team to identify how to best support pregnant minors, and to determine the “long-term health and social impacts” of their life path, whether it involves abortion, adoption, or parenting.

In 2023, Mosley conducted another survey, this time of her peers: In a questionnaire, some two dozen reproductive health researchers shared their experiences with their own institutional review boards. Most reported some kind of challenge, like confusion over state laws, increased scrutiny of abortion-related work, and at least one researcher’s total inability to get studies greenlit. Even projects not obviously associated with abortion, Mosley says, were affected by Dobbs. Some universities, for instance, are now requiring “full board review” for any study involving pregnancy.

What’s more, previously available stats—the number of abortions per Georgia county, for example­­—have been stripped from government websites, and accurate granular data is “much harder to get our hands on,” Mosley says. (A spokesperson from the Georgia Department of Public Health confirms that local abortion data was removed last year after “a legal review,” but said state-level data is still public.) 

Sociologist Tracy Weitz, who studies reproductive health at American University in Washington, DC, tells me that some of the best data for understanding health inequities, such as patients’ race, ethnicity, and zip code, was once provided by states hostile to abortion, where anti-choice lawmakers instituted data collection as a regulatory hoop for abortion providers to jump through. But with abortion now banned in those places, much of the data is gone.

Even in blue states, providers are more hesitant to share certain demographic data, or even collect it—Illinois and Maine, for example, have stopped gathering some information. “That data becomes important when we’re trying to figure out who in the post-Dobbs environment is getting abortions and who isn’t,” Weitz says. (It’s also critical to helping policymakers understand the consequences of their actions.)

One solution is anonymous surveys,but those present their own challenges. During a 2023 workshop held by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, University of Wisconsin reproductive health researcher Jenny Higgins reported that fake individuals, or “bots,” had submitted about 3,000 responses to one of her surveys one weekend. Her team then had to spend hours on data quality checks and hire a data scientist to “weed out” ineligible participants.

Researchers also say it’s gotten harder to secure a “certificate of confidentiality” from the National Institutes of Health—a designation that can prevent sensitive information collected as part of a study from being subpoenaed. The agency has started asking researchers whether they have ­privacy agreements with third-party companies like Zoom and Microsoft stating that the companies will not share participant data. But tech companies have little incentive to make that promise. (The NIH insists there have been “no changes” to its certification policy since it took effect in 2017.)

One silver lining: Dobbs has brought about an “all hands on deck” moment and more interest in the field.

The work environment “hasn’t all been bad,” says Diana Greene Foster, a demographer and professor at the University of California, San Francisco, whose institutional review board has actually expedited abortion-related research. Dobbs, in her experience, has brought about an “all hands on deck” moment and more interest in the field. In anticipation of the ruling, Foster launched an effort to study the last people to terminate their pregnancies in states where bans were to take effect, comparing their experiences to those who sought abortions afterward. The initial results, she says, appear to show that the number of people who failed to obtain an abortion is “much lower” than she expected, perhaps because they were able to obtain abortion pills online.

But the overall sentiment I heard from researchers is that they want more support from the federal government. Mosley says universities need “unifying” guidance that directs institutional review boards to fast-track abortion studies and helps researchers assess the legal and social risks for participants from different states. Especially needed, Weitz says, is protection from subpoenas. There are no federal laws that automatically protect the privacy of abortion seekers whom researchers question remotely by phone, email, or video chat.

More fundamentally, the researchers want the government to normalize the study of abortion, which is historically underfunded due to stigma. This year, the White House called on Congress to fund a $12 billion initiative to support “women’s health research”—but it’s unclear which studies will be eligible. In the meantime, Weitz says, the work has been left largely to privately funded academics and journalists. Abortion is health care, and the government has “an obligation,” she insists, “to study it the way they study any other major public health issue in the United States.”

Tax Policy

Will Congress’ Power Over Tax Policy Survive This Supreme Court?

The 16th Amendment was crafted to fix a bad ruling by a court not so different from this one.

MICHAEL MECHANIC

In December, I published an interview with the tax policy expert and attorney Steve Rosenthal titled, “The Supreme Court Case That Could Upend a Century of Tax Law.” Dropped last week, the high court’s ruling in that case, Moore v. United States, was narrow and thus relatively inconsequential on the real issue—whether Congress has the power to tax unrealized wealth. But that dangling determination will come back to haunt us.

The tl;dr is that the Moore case was bankrolled by a conservative group whose agenda wasn’t to save petitioners Charles and Kathleen Moore $15,000 in taxes. Rather, it was to solicit a ruling that would render a whole bunch of proposed wealth taxes unconstitutional.

Nearly all of the wealth of super-rich Americans is tied up in “unrealized” gains, paper profits on unsold assets like stock or fine art or vintage Ferraris that have appreciated in value. Those gains are currently taxed as income only when the assets are sold (or “realized”). Even then, the maximum tax is 23.8 percent, as opposed to the 37 percent rate that high earners pay on work income in excess of $609,351 a year.

That difference in rates, favoring capital over labor, is a huge and poorly justified perk for investors—who, it is worth pointing out, are not middle-class Americans. At last count, nearly 93 percent of all stock owned by US households was owned by the wealthiest 10 percent, and a whopping 54 percent was owned by the richest 1 percent of households. ProPublica famously revealed how billionaires with vast stock holdings have reduced their income taxes to practically zero; instead of selling stock for income, they borrow money to fund their lavish lifestyles, using the unsold stock as collateral. An interest rate of 3 to 5 percent is a pittance when you’re avoiding a 23.8 percent capital gains tax.

In Pollock, Justice Harlan dissented, noting it was wrong for the court “to create a special class of privileged people who, alone among Americans, would be constitutionally immune from seeing their fortunes taxed.”

That’s a good enough justification for taxing unrealized wealth, but so far, every congressional effort to do so has failed to get the votes. As Rosenthal points out in a recent Tax Policy Center article, “Congress generally waits to tax income until it’s received—because Congress views that as an “administrative convenience” (it’s easier to count that way), not a constitutional requirement.” 

But the people behind Moore wanted, well, more.

They didn’t get it, at least for now. As Rosenthal writes, Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s majority opinion “upheld Congress’s authority to tax undistributed profits…But Kavanaugh refrained from holding that the practice of delaying taxation until realization is founded on administrative convenience rather than a Constitutional demand, notwithstanding prior Court pronouncements.”

The majority, in other words, sidestepped the issue. Rosenthal goes on…

But four Justices (Amy Coney Barrett, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch) expressly declared that realization is a constitutional requirement. President Biden and Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR) have proposed taxes on the unrealized gains of the nation’s wealthiest households. Based on their opinions, these four Justices would find taxing the unrealized gains of billionaires unconstitutional. So, if either Roberts or Kavanaugh (the most likely candidates) joined them in a case challenging a billionaires’ tax, the tax would fail. 

Given the value of this prize to the upper crust, it’s inevitable that wealth industry lawyers will mount fresh efforts to get the constitutional question back in front of the court—and more broadly seek rulings that chip away at Congress’ power to levy taxes as it sees fit.

It’s worth noting that the 16th Amendment, which codified that power, was enacted in response to a regrettable 1895 Supreme Court ruling known as Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co. Here’s the snapshot:

The Constitution requires that “direct” taxes must be apportioned among the states based on their population. In Pollock, a 5-4 majority busted precedent by redefining income taxes—which then applied only to incomes north of $4,000, a lot back then—as direct taxes. This, as legal scholars Bruce Ackerman, Joseph Fishkin, and William E. Forbath explained in an amicus brief in the Moore case, “precluded Congress from enacting them at all, since they were not, and could not practically be, apportioned by population.”

The primary dissenter, Justice John Marshall Harlan, they wrote, “argued that it was wrong for the Court to create a special class of privileged people who, alone among Americans, would be constitutionally immune from seeing their fortunes taxed.” The majority, the scholars elaborated, was “imposing on the Constitution its own specific and highly controversial view of political economy,” and at the core of this view “was a profound opposition to redistributionist politics.”

Sound familiar?

The public was shocked and outraged by the Pollock ruling, according to Ackerman, Fishkin, and Forbath. Fifteen years later, in a unanimous 1900 ruling that upheld a progressive inheritance tax, the Supreme Court repudiated its earlier reasoning. Meanwhile, the widespread popular opposition “led a bipartisan supermajority in Congress to frame the Sixteenth Amendment in the specific terms necessary to reverse Pollock.”

The text of the new amendment was straightforward: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

Incomes, from whatever source derived. That seems to cover the gamut. “Far from imposing a realization requirement,” Ackerman, Fishkin, and Forbath wrote in a footnote, “the Sixteenth Amendment was framed and ratified to halt once and for all judicial misuse of the direct tax clauses.”

But if you imagine that centuries of precedent, proven congressional intent, popular outcry, or some silly amendment will thwart America’s dynasties in their relentless quest to hoard more resources, you would be mistaken. Especially now, when they’ve got a court that’s prone to agree with them.

Hajj Pajj.....

Why this year’s Hajj was so deadly

More than 1,300 people died during the pilgrimage to Muslim's holiest site — but it’s not just because of heat.

by Ellen Ioanes

More than 1,300 people have died in Saudi Arabia during this year’s Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to some of Islam’s holiest sites, succumbing to the brutal temperatures in the Gulf region. 

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia has always had hot summers, but temperatures reached 125 degrees Fahrenheit during this year’s pilgrimage, conditions that may become routine for the country as the world struggles with the effects of climate change. That reality raises the question of how the kingdom can better mitigate extreme heat to limit Hajj deaths in future — and likely hotter — years. 

This year’s tragic deaths were caused by the heat, but were exacerbated by a visa system many attempt to circumvent. 

For Muslims, Hajj is one of the five most sacred professions of faith and many adherents view making the journey to Mecca, the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad, as a requirement for all believers able to do so. To control the flow of Muslims wishing to complete the journey, Saudi Arabia limits the number of Hajj visas it offers per year. 

To get around that requirement, some companies provide would-be pilgrims with tourist visas to Saudi Arabia that do not include permission to make Hajj — or accommodations at the holy sites where people can shelter from the heat. Left without any official government aid or oversight, many of these unauthorized pilgrims suffered from exposure — and it is they who make up the largest proportion of the dead, according to Saudi authorities.

How Saudi Arabia will manage these pilgrims, and the coming extreme temperatures, in the future isn’t clear; though if the government does not, people are likely to continue to die in large numbers.

What is Hajj?

Hajj consists of visits to multiple holy sites in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, where the Prophet Muhammad was born. During Hajj, Muslims visit the Kaaba, a shrine within the Great Mosque which they are to walk around seven times. Over the five days, they also visit other sites outside Mecca, including Mount Ararat, the site of Muhammad’s last sermon according to tradition. 

This journey is very expensive, running anywhere between $3,000 and $17,000 depending on the package they choose and their country of origin (some countries, like Indonesia, subsidize parts of Hajj travel). It requires a special visa that’s obtained ahead of time through a government portal — where people can also choose their Hajj packages, including accommodations, transportation, and even add-ons like SIM cards and additional tours. 

It’s estimated that hundreds of thousands of pilgrims unable to access the official visas complete Hajj through alternative methods each year. 

Why was it so deadly this year?

Many pilgrims come to the kingdom under tourist visas, which technically don’t allow access to Hajj sites. Though these pilgrims are allowed in Saudi Arabia and visit the Hajj sites without official paperwork, those sites are not set up to accommodate them. That means they don’t have air-conditioned transportation to and from the sites, or government reserved air-conditioned lodging where they can rest or escape the heat. According to government officials, 141,000 of these unauthorized pilgrims were treated for heatstroke. Many more are believed to have suffered without treatment. 

Muslims from poor countries are likeliest to come without the necessary accommodations — and likeliest to suffer from heat-related injury and death, especially as the journey becomes increasingly costly. "It's beyond the reach of so many pilgrims from Egypt, Bangladesh and Morocco and other countries, even though they save for a lifetime to come once,” Madawi al-Rasheed, a visiting professor at the London School of Economics Middle East Centre, told Bloomberg. 

All told, the government says it treated roughly half a million of the 1.8 million people who made Hajj this year for heat-related conditions.

This year’s Hajj is not the deadliest on record. A 2015 stampede killed approximately 2,400 people though the Saudi government put that number much lower, at 769. The royal family, as the New York Times reported in the aftermath, had been accused of negligence and mismanagement in its oversight of the Hajj — primarily by regional rival Iran, which lost hundreds of citizens in the stampede — but has implemented huge infrastructure projects over the years meant to help make the Hajj less perilous. And there have been other mass casualties due to heat as well, like in 1985 when 1,012 people died in temperatures reaching 129 degrees, Bloomberg reported. And from 2002 to 2015, more than 90,000 pilgrims died on Hajj or Umrah, another pilgrimage to Mecca that does not need to be performed during the time of Hajj.

Islam operates according to the lunar calendar, so the timing of holy periods like Hajj shift from year to year. Next year, for instance, it will come earlier in June — which still may mean high heat. But often the Hajj doesn’t take place in the sweltering summer, so over the next several years travelers may not be subject to these dangerous conditions. However, that also means that by the next Hajj period, temperatures could be even higher than this year.

Is anything being done to make these events safer?

Thus far, many governments are putting much of the blame on travel brokers who got pilgrims into Saudi Arabia without the correct travel provisions and visas to actually complete the Hajj safely. Egyptian brokers have come under particular scrutiny: Of the 650 Egyptians who reportedly died during the Hajj, 638 were so-called unregistered pilgrims. The Egyptian government has already sanctioned 16 travel brokers, stripping them of their licenses and recommending them for prosecution.

Figuring out how to prevent such unauthorized visits will be important for Saudi Arabia in the long term, especially as it continues its ongoing tourism push; according to Bloomberg, the tourism industry plans to add up to 200,000 new hotel rooms in the kingdom over the next two years, and hopes to have 150 million tourists by the year 2030. 

But another significant concern is climate change — and the Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, are at particular risk. Regional temperatures are already significantly higher than global averages, and the majority of the population of the Gulf countries will be exposed to extreme heat by 2070 — even if global temperatures rise by only 1.5 degrees Celsius per global climate targets. 

The government has tried to to mitigate some of the risks of conducting Hajj in such weather, including sending texts to pilgrims asking them not to go outdoors during the hottest parts of the day; misting and fanning walkways; and providing free water, in addition to training medical responders to deal with heat-induced illnesses. But that’s just not enough; improved medical infrastructure, flexible or staggered schedules for conducting different ceremonies; and more shading or pavilions for worshipers are just some of the simple ways the kingdom could address the problem.

The most effective ways to ensure reduced heat deaths, however, will have to come from policy changes. Though the government said it turned away 155,000 people who did not have the proper Hajj visas this year, nearly that number managed to subvert the system and suffered some form of heat injury. The kingdom will need a better system to reduce the number of unauthorized pilgrims — which could include helping subsidize the journey or encouraging other governments to do so, or changing the Hajj calendar and otherwise improving infrastructure. 

And though Saudi Arabia has pledged to try to attack the root of the problem by releasing net zero carbon emissions by 2050, it remains one of the world’s largest producers of oil. And although the kingdom is diversifying its economy, it is still heavily dependent on oil and seems to be intent on staying that way in the future. And that — along with the relative inaction of other large polluting countries — suggests it will have to reckon with extreme heat, and find ways to avoid unnecessary deaths, in future years.

Transgender health care

The Supreme Court will decide if the government can ban transgender health care

Given the Court’s Republican supermajority, this case is unlikely to end well for trans people.

by Ian Millhiser

The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will hear United States v. Skrmetti, a case asking whether laws restricting many forms of gender-affirming care for transgender patients are permissible under the Constitution and federal law. Many red states have already enacted restrictions on who may obtain such care.

The plaintiffs in the Skrmetti case have very strong legal arguments under the Court’s existing precedents. The Court has long held that laws that discriminate on the basis of “sex,” meaning sex assigned at birth, are invalid unless the government can offer an “exceedingly persuasive justification” for the law. And a bipartisan majority of the justices held in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020) that “it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.”

So state laws that deny health care to trans people, while allowing cisgender patients to receive similar care, should not be upheld under existing law.

That said, the legality of these bans have divided lower courts, with some Republican judges relying on the Court’s decision overruling Roe v. Wade to support the proposition that state legislatures have broad authority to ban medical procedures they deem harmful, even if their judgment is at odds with the consensus within the medical profession.

In April, moreover, a majority of the justices voted to temporarily reinstate Idaho’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors — though the Court’s order Labrador v. Poe also prohibits Idaho from enforcing its ban against the two trans children who actually sued in that case. 

Though the confusing web of concurring and dissenting opinions in the Labrador case largely focused on a procedural issue that is tangential to the question of whether trans health bans are legal, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote an opinion, joined by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, which suggests that the state is likely to succeed in its defense of its anti-trans law. While Kavanaugh and Barrett are conservative Republicans, they are ideologically in the middle of this lopsided Court.

All of which is a long way of saying that, while it is possible that the Supreme Court will strike down — or, at least, place limits upon — state laws banning transgender health care, the most likely outcome is a significant defeat for trans people.

The legal arguments against trans health bans, briefly explained

There are several strong arguments against permitting the government to ban gender-affirming care. One is that all laws that discriminate against transgender people are dubious under the Constitution. The left-leaning United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has embraced this position.

The Supreme Court has long held that groups that have experienced a “history of purposeful unequal treatment” which “frequently bears no relation to ability to perform or contribute to society,” should enjoy enhanced protections against discrimination. These enhanced protections are known as “heightened scrutiny.”

Yet, while there are strong arguments that trans people have experienced such discrimination, it’s also been a long time since the Court recognized that a new class of individuals are entitled to the protections of heightened scrutiny. Before former President Donald Trump remade the Court, the justices danced around applying heightened scrutiny to laws that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, but ultimately they never did it.

So, if a much more liberal Court shied away from giving heightened protection to gay and bisexual Americans, it’s hard to imagine the current Court extending such protection to transgender people. Notably, this question is not before the Court in the Skrmetti case, although it could arise in a future case.

A second argument that could justify striking down bans on trans health care is that these bans violate the constitutional “right to privacy,” a right that allows Americans to make certain medical choices without interference from the government, and also to make certain decisions about how they want to raise their children.

But it’s also very difficult to imagine the current Court’s Republican majority embracing this argument. The most famous right-to-privacy case is, of course, Roe v. Wade, a case that this Court recently overruled and that most Republican judges believe to be anathema. The justices also say that they won't consider this right-to-privacy argument in Skrmetti.

Then there’s a third argument in favor of allowing trans people to make their own health care choices, and this one has actually won some support from the Court’s current Republican members.

Bostock held, in a 6-3 decision authored by Republican Justice Neil Gorsuch and joined by Republican Chief Justice John Roberts, that a federal law that forbids “sex” discrimination in employment also prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. 

The Court reasoned that discrimination against an LGBTQ employee necessarily requires the employer to discriminate on the basis of sex. If Tom is allowed to date Lily, for example, but Anesha is not, that’s just ordinary sex discrimination because Anesha is being treated differently than Tom because she is a woman.

Similarly, Bostock reasoned that if an employer penalizes an “employee who was identified as female at birth” for identifying as a man or for exhibiting stereotypical male behavior, but does not apply a similar sanction to “a person identified as male at birth,” then that’s just ordinary discrimination on the basis of sex.

Federal law also bans sex discrimination in health care. So Bostock’s reasoning should also prevent many attempts to ban gender-affirming care. 

As the Fourth Circuit explained in its recent decision in Kadel v. Folwell, holding that state-provided health insurance could not refuse to cover certain treatments for trans people, these refusals were illegal because they applied only to people of one sex. The state’s Medicaid program, for example, covered “breast-reduction surgery to treat excess breast tissue in cisgender men, but not to treat gender dysphoria in transgender men; and chest-reconstruction surgery for cisgender women post-mastectomy, but not for gender dysphoria in transgender women.”

Again, this is just ordinary sex discrimination. A state could potentially refuse to cover breast-reduction surgery altogether. But it cannot cover this treatment when a man (or someone assigned the male sex at birth) seeks it, but refuse to cover it when a woman (or someone assigned the female sex at birth) seeks the same treatment.

This said, there may be limits to the Bostock framework. Suppose that a treatment exists that is used solely to treat transgender women, for example. Because this treatment would be used exclusively on people assigned the male sex at birth, a ban on it would not engage in traditional sex discrimination because it would not allow people assigned the female sex at birth to obtain care that others cannot receive.

But it’s far from clear whether any such treatment exists. And, even if it does, the Bostock framework should give trans people broad access to many forms of gender-affirming care.

The strongest legal argument in favor of transgender health bans

While the legal arguments against trans health bans are exceptionally strong, some lower court judges have articulated another argument that is likely to appeal to the justices who joined Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), the Court’s decision holding that abortion policy should be set by elected lawmakers and is not determined by the Constitution.

The best articulation of this alternative theory is Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson’s dissenting opinion in the Kadel case, which argues that a pro-trans reading of the Constitution or anti-discrimination law “would encroach on a State’s prerogative under its basic police power to safeguard the health and welfare of its citizens.”

Wilkinson claims that the medical treatments at issue in cases like Kadel, “puberty blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones, and gender reassignment surgery,” are all “matters of significant scientific debate and uncertainty.” And these debates should be resolved by elected officials and not by unelected judges.

Wilkinson is correct that states must have some authority to restrict or ban medical treatments that may be harmful — no one questions the government’s authority to prohibit doctors from prescribing heroin, for example. Similarly, a state may prohibit doctors from providing a treatment that is widely accepted as inappropriate for a certain medical condition. While breast reduction surgery is the right treatment for some patients diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a state should be allowed to prevent doctors from using it to treat the common cold.

Of course, the Fourth Circuit majority has a good response to Wilkinson. Physicians who provide gender-affirming care are not akin to quacks who write prescriptions for heroin, so long as they make treatment decisions that align with prevailing medical standards. As the Kadel majority explains, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health recommends “assessment, counseling, and, as appropriate, social transition, hormone therapy, and surgical interventions to bring the body into alignment with one’s gender identity.”

Will that argument convince a majority of the justices? Probably not. The Supreme Court’s Republican majority is notoriously allergic to expertise. Two of the biggest cases this term are expected to transfer a simply extraordinary amount of policymaking authority from experts in federal agencies to the judiciary — rejecting a seminal 1984 Supreme Court decision that held that courts should defer to agencies in large part because “judges are not experts” on matters of policy.

Still, the fact remains that two of the Court’s Republicans — Roberts and Gorsuch — joined the majority in Bostock. So there is, at least, some hope for trans patients that those two justices will apply Bostock to bans on gender-affirming care.

A crime......

Pregnancy in America is starting to feel like a crime

The ripple effects of the fall of Roe extend far beyond abortion.

by Anna North

Imagine you’re eight months pregnant, and you wake up in the middle of the night to a bolt of pain across your belly. 

Terrified you might be losing your pregnancy, you rush to the emergency room — only to be told that no one there will care for you, because they’re worried they could be accused of participating in an abortion. The staff tells you to drive to another hospital, but that will take hours, by which time, it might be too late.

Such frightening experiences are growing more common in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision, as doctors and other medical staff, fearful of the far-reaching effects of state abortion bans, are simply refusing to treat pregnant people at all. 

It’s part of what some reproductive health activists see as a disturbing progression from bans on abortion to a climate of suspicion around all pregnant patients. “People are increasingly scared even to be pregnant,” said Elizabeth Ling, senior helpline counsel at the reproductive justice legal group If/When/How.

The fall of Roe has led to an ever-widening net of criminalization that can ensnare doctors, nurses, and pregnant people alike, leading to devastating consequences for patients’ health, experts say. 

Complaints of pregnant women turned away from emergency rooms doubled in the months after Dobbs, the Associated Press reported earlier this year. Concerns about such treatment, combined with stories of people like Kate Cox, who was denied an abortion despite the risks her pregnancy posed to her health, have made some Americans afraid of conceiving: In one recent poll, 34 percent of women 18 to 39 said they or someone they knew had “decided not to get pregnant due to concerns about managing pregnancy-related medical emergencies.” 

Such surveys, along with ER records and calls to helplines, reveal a sense that in a post-Dobbs America, any pregnancy can be dangerous — to patients, to doctors, or both. “The fact that people are viewing the condition of pregnancy as something that makes them vulnerable to state violence is just so heartbreaking,” Ling said.

Americans are facing prosecution after miscarriage

The Dobbs decision has created an environment in which people experiencing miscarriage are treated as criminals or crimes waiting to happen, advocates say — or sometimes both. 

In October 2023, an Ohio woman named Brittany Watts visited a hospital, 21 weeks pregnant and bleeding. Doctors determined that her water had broken early and her fetus would not survive, but since her pregnancy was approaching the point at which Ohio bans abortions, a hospital ethics panel kept her waiting for eight hours while they debated what to do. She eventually returned home, miscarried, tried to dispose of the fetal remains herself, and was charged with felony abuse of a corpse. 

The charges were ultimately dropped, but experts say her case is part of a larger pattern. “There has become this hypersurveillance, hyperpolicing, hyperinterrogation” of pregnant people in America, said Michele Goodwin, a professor of constitutional law and global health policy at Georgetown and the author of Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood.

That surveillance isn’t entirely new, advocates and scholars say. Black pregnant women, especially, have been targets of suspicion for generations, stereotyped as drug users or “welfare queens” and even arrested when they tried to seek maternity care, said Goodwin. “There are cases of Black women having been dragged out of hospitals, literally in shackles and chains,” Goodwin said.

Black women and other women and girls of color have also been disproportionately targeted for arrest or investigation following miscarriages or stillbirths. In 1999, Regina McKnight, a 22-year-old Black woman in South Carolina, became the first person prosecuted for homicide after experiencing a stillbirth, according to Capital B. She was convicted and sentenced to 12 years in prison for endangering her pregnancy through drug use, but her conviction was eventually overturned.

But now, the atmosphere of criminalization around pregnancy is “spreading into wider and wider groups of people,” said Karen Thompson, legal director of the group Pregnancy Justice, which tracks the criminalization of pregnant people.

Black advocates have long cautioned that while the criminalization of pregnancy might affect Black and brown women today, “tomorrow it’s everybody,” Goodwin said. “Dobbs brought us into the tomorrow.”

Dobbs is making doctors scared to treat pregnant patients

In the tomorrow of post-Dobbs America, doctors and hospital staff now fear criminal charges if they are found to have performed an abortion in violation of their state’s bans. These bans have exceptions for saving the life, or sometimes the health, of the pregnant person, but the exceptions are often extremely narrow or unclear, forcing medical professionals to choose between refusing to treat a severely ill patient and losing their license or going to jail. 

“The way the states write their statutes, there’s no deference to the medical judgment of the doctor,” said Sara Rosenbaum, an emerita professor of health law and policy at George Washington University. “It has had a profound chilling effect on any care in emergency departments, because physicians and hospitals are in a panic.”

That chilling effect is leading some doctors to refuse not just to perform abortions, but also to provide any care for pregnant people in crisis, lest their care draw scrutiny in a restrictive and uncertain legal environment. A week after the Dobbs ruling, a woman arrived at Falls Community Hospital in Marlin, Texas, nine months pregnant and having contractions, according to a federal investigation of ER visits. The doctor on duty refused to treat her, instead sending her to another hospital in Waco, the AP reported. The outcome of her pregnancy — and the impact on her health of delayed maternal care — are unknown.

In another case, a pregnant woman arrived at a North Carolina hospital complaining of stomach pain. Staff told her they could not perform an ultrasound, and she eventually gave birth in a car on the way to another facility 45 minutes away, the AP reported. The baby did not survive.

“We’re talking a level of outlandishness that is up there with The Handmaid’s Tale,” Rosenbaum said.

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) requires all hospitals that accept Medicare to stabilize the medical condition of anyone who arrives at an emergency room, including pregnant people. But the medical interventions allowed under new state abortion laws are often less than what EMTALA requires, Rosenbaum said. 

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court in the coming days will decide a case that could gut EMTALA, giving hospitals even more leeway to turn away pregnant patients. “I don’t think it’s an understatement to say that the loss of EMTALA, or even just weakening of EMTALA, puts pregnant people’s lives at risk,” Ling said.

Even people who are not yet pregnant feel the widening effects of Dobbs. The If/When/How helpline has received calls from people who want to become pregnant, but are terrified that “they might experience an unexpected loss like a miscarriage, and still somehow be punished for experiencing that loss,” Ling said.

In recent months, she has heard herself say the words, “it is not a crime to be pregnant,” she told Vox. And yet, more and more, it feels like it is.

Annihilation

What nuclear annihilation could look like

“The survivors would envy the dead.”

by Sean Illing

How often do you think about all the ways the world could end?

As the host of The Gray Area, I find myself engaged in this macabre exercise more than most. We’ve done episodes on runaway AI and climate change and extinction panics. One of the few topics we haven’t covered, however, is nuclear war. Which is surprising because this scenario is near the top of basically every list of existential threats — and now feels newly salient with recent news involving North Korea, Iran, and China.

Annie Jacobsen is a reporter and the author of a new book called Nuclear War: A Scenario. I read a lot of books for the show and this one stuck with me longer than any I can recall. It’s a book that clearly wants to startle the reader, and it succeeds.

Jacobsen walks you through all the ways a nuclear catastrophe might unfold, and she gives a play-by-play breakdown of the terrifying choreography that would ensue in the minutes immediately after a nuclear missile launch.

So I invited Jacobsen on The Gray Area to talk about what a nuclear exchange would really look like and how perilously close we are to that reality. As always, there’s much more in the full podcast, so listen and follow The Gray Area on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever you find podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Sean Illing

I suspect the image most of us still have of nuclear bombs is the image of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but that was a long time ago. How much more powerful are the thermonuclear weapons we’re talking about today?

Annie Jacobsen

To give you an idea of a thermonuclear weapon, I went to one of the ultimate sources, a 93-year-old nuclear weapons engineer named Richard Garwin, probably the most famous nuclear weapons engineer, physicist, presidential adviser, still alive. Garwin drew the plans for the very first thermonuclear weapon. Its code name was Ivy Mike; it’s on the cover of my book. It was 10.4 megatons. 

So consider that the Hiroshima bomb that you referenced was 15 kilotons and then think about 10.4 megatons. It’s about 1,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs detonating at the same time from the same center point. Garwin explained it to me in the simplest of terms when he asked me to visualize this fact: A thermonuclear weapon uses an atomic bomb as its fuse inside of the weapon. That’s how powerful it is.

Sean Illing

Paint the picture for me, as you do in the opening pages of the book, where you imagine a nuke is dropped on Washington, DC. What happens next?

Annie Jacobsen

So with a 1-megaton bomb on Washington, DC, what happens in the very first millisecond is that this thermonuclear flash expands into a ball of fire that is one mile of pure fire. It’s 19 football fields of fire. 

Then the fireball’s edges compress into what is called a steeply fronted blast wave — as dense wall of air pushing out, mowing down everything in its path three miles out, in every direction, because it is accompanied by several-hundred-mile-an-hour winds. 

It’s like Washington, DC, just got hit by an asteroid and the accompanying wave. When you think about this initial 9-mile diameter ring, imagine every single engineered structure — buildings, bridges, etc. — collapsing.

There’s also a thermonuclear flash that sets everything on fire and melts lead, steel, and titanium. Streets nine miles out transform into molten asphalt lava. The details are so horrific; it’s important to keep in mind these are not from my imagination. These are sourced from Defense Department documents because the Atomic Energy Commission and the Defense Department have been keeping track of what nuclear bombs do to people and to things ever since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings of 1945.

Sean Illing

When all that happens, we’re in what you call “Day Zero,” and then the nuclear winter begins. What does that look like?

Annie Jacobsen

One of the big premises of the book was to take readers from nuclear launch to nuclear winter and the nuclear launch up to Day Zero takes place over this horrifying 72-minute period. As STRATCOM Commander General [C. Robert] Kehler said to me in an interview when we were talking about a nuclear exchange between Russia and the United States: "Yes, Annie, the world could end in the next couple of hours." 

So nuclear winter begins in essence after the bombs stop falling and there is a process of mega-fires. The area around every nuclear detonation is going to ultimately result in what is known now as a mega-fire. You’re talking about 100 to 300 square miles of fire per bomb where everything in that area is burning until it doesn’t exist anymore. This is because, of course, there are no first responders anymore. There are no fire trucks, there’s no way to put anything out. 

With all of these explosions, 330 billion pounds of soot gets lofted into the troposphere. That is enough soot to block out 70 percent of the sun, creating a dramatic temperature plunge up to 40 degrees Fahrenheit, certainly in the mid-latitudes. 

Those areas, for example, from Iowa to Ukraine, that whole band of the mid-latitudes, the bodies of water in those areas become frozen over in sheets of ice. With that temperature drop, you have the death of agriculture and that is why nuclear winter after nuclear war will result in what is now estimated to be 5 billion dead.

Sean Illing

And if I remember correctly, those models also estimated that in places like Iowa and Ukraine temperatures basically wouldn’t go above freezing for something like six years at least. Is that right?

Annie Jacobsen

That’s right. 

I was reading Carl Sagan, who was one of the original five authors of the nuclear winter theory, who wrote about how after these bodies of water that get frozen over for years, after they thaw out and expose all the dead people, you then have to deal with the pathogens and the plague. Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier during the Kennedy administration, once said to Kennedy when the two of them talked about this, that “after a nuclear war, the survivors would envy the dead.”

Sean Illing

After all the reporting you did, are you confident that there are enough checks and guardrails in place to ensure that we’ll avoid a nuclear exchange if it’s at all possible?

Annie Jacobsen

Let me answer that question with a quote from the current secretary-general of the United Nations, António Guterres, who said, “The world is one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away, from nuclear annihilation.”

Sean Illing

What does that really mean?

Annie Jacobsen

What it means is exactly what he said: that we could just have a mishap. We could have a mishap caused by a misinterpretation. A miscalculation would be one nuclear-armed nation thinking another nuclear-armed nation was doing something that maybe it wasn’t doing. 

This gets us into some of the crazy policies that exist on the books, things like “launch on warning” whereby once the United States learns that it is being attacked by an ICBM or a sub-launched ballistic missile, the president then has six minutes to decide how he should respond, with nuclear weapons. That’s what Guterres is talking about when he talks about a miscalculation. 

Sean Illing

How much room is there for human agency in these command and control protocols? You always hear people say in presidential elections, “Do we really trust that guy with the nukes?” But is that the right way to think about this? 

Annie Jacobsen

You’re raising an existential question that everyone should be raising. 

We’ve been living in what some call a 79-year experiment. Yes, you could say, “Deterrence has held all these years.” Never mind the fact that there used to be two nuclear-armed nations, and there are now nine; never mind the fact that you have new technology factors coming into the mix. 

Never mind the fact that nuclear saber-rattling has suddenly become acceptable among world leaders. This is astonishing. If you look at history, this was never part of the rhetoric, particularly out of the mouth of a US president, as happened with the former President Trump.

When I began reporting this book, the fundamental question that I was trying to answer was not, "Is deterrence great?" but rather what if deterrence fails? The Defense Department predicates its nuclear arsenal on this idea that deterrence will hold. That is the fundamental assumption. It's written everywhere. "Deterrence will hold." 

Well, I also found a discussion with the deputy general of STRATCOM talking to his colleagues, not in a classified setting but in a somewhat rarified setting. What he said was this: "If deterrence fails, it all unravels." 

Sean Illing

I think it was former CIA Director Michael Hayden who told you explicitly that this process is designed for speed and decisiveness. It is not designed to debate the decision. On some level, I get that. But the automaticity of the whole process, given the stakes, is more than a little terrifying.

Annie Jacobsen

You better believe it is. And Hayden actually told that to members of Congress. And by the way, I believe that with the rhetoric from the former president, Donald Trump, all that talk about “fire and fury” with North Korea, it worried Congress to such a degree that they issued a number of reports that drilled down on a couple concepts that the public was not clear on. 

One of them had to do with what’s called sole presidential authority. So when Trump was saying, “I have a bigger button,” and that kind of rhetoric, Congress released a couple reports making clear that the president of the United States does have sole presidential authority. That means he needs to ask permission of no one to launch a nuclear war — not the secretary of defense, not the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and not Congress.

Sean Illing

You write something near the end of the book imagining that the secretary of defense, who’s the acting president in this hypothetical situation, what if this person has a crisis of conscience and wonders, "Is there really any point in firing these bombs and wiping out the other half of humanity?" 

And it’s pretty clear that there really isn’t any room for that because the whole logic of deterrence is predicated on the absolute promise that the process is fixed and automatic. That’s what makes it a deterrent. But then again, it imprisons the actors in this process so that they don’t really have any control over it.

Annie Jacobsen

Let me add something because Dr. Glen McDuff of the Los Alamos Laboratory, who is both a nuclear weapons engineer who worked on the Star Wars program during the Reagan administration and has served as the historian at the classified library at the lab. I asked him, “Do you think anyone would defy orders?” And he said, “Annie, you have a better chance at winning Powerball.”

Sean Illing

Is there some near-future where in order to further reinforce the automaticity of this process, we just have AI controlling the whole thing from start to finish? 

Annie Jacobsen

I can’t imagine a worse nightmare scenario than bringing AI, or more machine-learning technology, into the mix. There’s an incredible amount of machine learning that is built into the system. For example, the satellite detects the launch and then that data is processed in space. About one-tenth of the way to the moon is where a geosync satellite sits and that data is processed and streamed down to the nuclear command and control bunkers in the United States. This is happening in seconds. But to the idea of putting an “AI” into the mix on the human decision-making level or identifying level, that seems like a recipe for disaster and is a reason why so many of the systems within the triad are still analog, not digital. In other words, they continue to be similar systems to when they were invented decades ago so that they can’t be hacked.