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Primaries expose America’s drift toward political extremism
Opinion: The greatest casualty of this primary season was the political center, writes Bobby Zirkin.
Don't break the tech tools small businesses use to compete
Forcing companies to split up their integrated services would increase costs and headaches for businesses like mine, writes Andrea Ramker.
Recent rulings show that SCOTUS has ditched reason for politics
'The flurry of 6-3 decisions shows how SCOTUS has become a political body, not the judicial one the founders of our Constitution sorely aspired to,' writes an L.A. Times reader.
Supreme Court ruling on Roundup points to a confusing difference between the law and science
The Supreme Court’s ruling on Roundup shows science and law use the same word — causation — while asking different questions, writes epidemiologist.
Walker Buehler delivers statement win for the Padres over Dodgers
The Sporting Tribune's Fernando Ramirez writes about Walker Buehler throwing a solid game against his former team.
California is in for a summer of wild billionaire spending
OPINION: With competing tax measures on the ballot, California billionaires will be spending like... billionaires, political columnist Joe Garofoli writes.
KXNO layoffs leave Iowa sports community too quiet
This week's layoffs of local sports radio talkers leaves our sports community worse off, columnist Travis Hines writes.
‘The Hot Zone’ led me to work with Ebola patients. Now I have mixed feelings about the book
“The reality of Ebola is simultaneously less sensational and far more challenging than most people imagine,” writes Krutika Kuppalli.
Why Vrancken marks fresh start at data-driven Hearts
As Belgian head coach Wouter Vranckin takes charge at Hearts, it marks a strengthening of the club's data-driven vision, writes Thomas Duncan.
Earthquakes Have Often Shaken Latin American Politics
How governments respond to natural disasters can shape their political trajectories, an expert writes.
CC Biz Buzz: A busy business is not always a healthy one
Columbia College Business faculty member Gina Singleton writes about lessons of cash versus revenue.
Opinion | What high schoolers get about politics that adults don’t
In high school debate, we can disagree about an issue without devolving into caricatures and misrepresentations of the other side, Eagan High School's debate captain writes.
Machado homers, King dominates as Padres shutout Braves
The Sporting Tribune's Fernando Ramirez writes that pitcher Michael King has a bounce back outing while Manny Machado homers to beat a talented Atlanta Braves team.
We must support 'strange' science, RNA biologist Jeff Coller writes in The New York Times
Without federal funding, American researchers can't chase scientific questions that may lead to lifesaving cures, Hopkins RNA biologist Jeff Coller writes in 'The New York Times'
Commentary: Chicago budget includes abstract goals that don’t come with built-in accountability
City government's identity is getting lost in a growing list of expenses without a clear definition of success, writes a municipal finance expert.
The core life skill we all need to be ready for
Most of us spend our lives trying to avoid experiencing grief to avoid the pain of loss. But avoiding grief doesn’t make our loss hurt less, Megan Shen writes.
The Democratic Party Is Weak. This May Be a Good Thing Ahead of 2028
The Democratic Party is weaker than ever, and it's inability to force through a 2028 presidential nominee may be a good thing, writes Matt Bai.
Joe Tirio: The most dishonest thing in American politics isn’t a candidate. It’s a map.
"The argument that 'the other side does it too' is the weakest possible defense of a bad practice," McHenry County Clerk Joe Tirio writes of gerrymandering in a guest opinion.
The real reason Trump wants to crack down on California's elections
California has had the second-highest voter turnout of any state so far this year, and mail voting is a big reason why, political columnist Joe Garofoli writes.
Wyndham Clark rewrites US Open record book at Shinnecock Hills
Wyndham Clark achieved history with his first two rounds of golf during the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills.
Guest opinion: Rural Wisconsin workers lose health insurance twice as fast as before the pandemic
Wisconsin should expand Medicaid, invest in renewal pathways that don’t assume broadband internet access and revamp the renewal system so eligible people do not lose coverage, Jiyue Wang writes.
When Art Rescues Politics: Dismantling the “Walls Between Us”
Chukwudi Ukonne speaks with the 2026 Indibano Art Residency cohort & writes about the need to build connections between Africans & the global Black diaspora.
Coffee shop confession: California must regulate paid political influencers
“It was more than a little ironic to overhear a shoptalk about transparency in politics discussed so openly in public,” writes columnist Robin Epley.
Viewpoint: Our wild places aren't worth sacrificing to politics
Frank Vitale writes, These wildlands are the source of our clean water, clean air, abundant fish and wildlife. They’re a place where we can experience wild nature and they make us better people.
With Trump, science and health in the US are in a horrifying place
'Albert Einstein said it best: "One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike — and yet it is the most precious thing we have,"' writes an L.A. Times reader.
With Trump, science and health in the US are in a horrifying place
'Albert Einstein said it best: "One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike — and yet it is the most precious thing we have,"' writes an L.A. Times reader.
Keeping Rhode Islanders covered requires a smart investment in our health and economy
Our state must expand and make permanent state-funded subsidies while finding strategies to keep Rhode Islanders insured, writes Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island president.
As a physician, I have never been more concerned about rates of congenital syphilis
“As a physician and former public health official, I have never been more concerned about those rates of congenital syphilis,” writes Jeffrey D. Klausner.
75% of fathers feel isolated. Let's talk about mental health for dads
"Many men, especially fathers, ignore their mental health struggles because of pressure to live up to their family’s and society’s expectations to appear in control, invulnerable," writes Andrew Reiner. "Ultimately, this hits men with a double gut punch: It compromises their mental health, and then their mental health symptoms go untreated."
Turkey's Erdogan Is Running Out of Tricks
"The latest maneuvers of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey signal that he has no plans to quietly exit the political stage," writes Ian Bremmer.
World Cup 2026: Iran v Iran in the stands as politics and football intertwine
The Iranian team may want to unite people but what the game with New Zealand revealed is just how divided many Iranians remain, writes BBC North America correspondent Shaimaa Khalil.
We're at a turning point for heading off Alzheimer's disease
We're learning about risk factors we can do something about, just as we did decades ago with heart disease, writes Dr. Yogesh Shah.
I'm a California judge, here's how to fix our mental health crisis
OPINION: For many, the courtroom has become just one more stop on a revolving door that cycles them between homelessness, hospitalization and incarceration, Michael Wendler writes.
30,000 Idahoans had to drop health insurance from the state exchange this year. Why don't we care?
America is the richest country in the world, and we are pushing millions onto the healthcare cliff, writes guest columnist Dan Schmidt.
I’ve spent 40 years in research. I have never seen a threat to science like the new grantmaking rule
“American science is too valuable to be turned into a political football,” writes David J. Skorton, president of the Association of American Medical Colleges.
I’ve spent 40 years in research. I have never seen a threat to science like the new grantmaking rule
“American science is too valuable to be turned into a political football,” writes David J. Skorton, president of the Association of American Medical Colleges.
New federal rule proposal threatens to reshape how U.S. science research is funded
A proposed White House rule would let political appointees override scientific peer review and control science funding decisions, writes Jeffrey Woytach of LaGrange in a letter to the editor.
A meaningful life is more important than politics.
Ben Sasse, former U.S. Senator from Nebraska, offers an important reminder about what's important in life, writes columnist Khale Lenhart.
You are witnessing an independent movement in Idaho politics
Because primary elections often nominate candidates who are either too extreme or unlikely to win, many voters are looking for a better option, writes Rod Gramer.
What Lyndon B. Johnson’s Toothbrushes Show Us About Public Health Today
The most effective public health tools are often small, writes Jean Paul Laurent.
What the Ebola crisis tells us about Trump's 'America First' approach to global health
"I've watched USAID help hold the line against epidemics," writes Monik Bhatta. "Gutting it was premature — and DRC's Ebola crisis is the proof."
We Need to Know More About How AI is Affecting Mental Health
The public, mental health practitioners, and policymakers don’t know enough about the impacts of AI use on the human psyche, writes Chris Mills Rodrigo.
$2 million gene therapy cures require a financing model
“We do not lack cures. We lack the infrastructure to pay for and deliver them,” writes William Padula.
The health tracker backlash is here – so ditch the data and set yourself free
A rebellion is rising against the dull, highly optimised lives big tech wants for us. It’s not a second too soon, writes Emma Beddington
Burcum: This small Minnesota hospital is charting its own path to financial health
As Minnesota health care consolidates, Northfield Hospital + Clinics is a bright spot in a health care landscape characterized by strain, columnist Jill Burcum writes.
What scientists just uncovered about Neanderthals rewrites everything we thought we knew - Futura-Sciences
How did Neanderthals appear—and disappear? “How did Neanderthals appear? And how did they disappear?” To this day, these remain two of the big, unanswered mysteries in human evolution. For both questions, scientists have long suspected that a drop in genetic diversity may have played a role. Thanks to the study...
Opinion: UFC is cutting corners
The Ultimate Fighting Championship's releases of Ketlen Vieira and Daniel Marcos show how much the UFC is struggling with finding a balance between entertainment and competition, writes Dayne Fox.
A district attorney’s job Is justice, not politics
Washoe DA Hicks writes: This summer, I will begin my 25th year as a prosecutor serving my hometown.
What Saikat Chakrabarti got wrong about S.F. in his bid for Congress
Saikat Chakrabarti did not account for the fact that San Francisco has its own set of rules when it comes to running for office, Joe Garofoli writes.
The medical-billing AI arms race between providers and insurance
“The financial side effects of care have become clinical ones,” writes Darshak Sanghavi.
How Science Works
The 2nd Weather and Climate Livestream is now underway. It is organized by a group of early-career researchers concerned about declining funding for the field and eager to demonstrate how weather and climate research makes a difference in our lives. Last year’s event was a great success, drawing terrific press coverage including a piece in the NY Times. This year features a strong lineup of talks aimed at a general audience — I highly recommend tuning in. Share I gave a talk yesterday about How Science Works in Three Steps. You can see the short presentation here (I’ve appended a transcript below): And please tune into the livestream here. It runs through tomorrow at 6 pm ET. Thanks for reading The Climate Brink! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. Subscribe Cleaned up transcript: Thank you, and thanks to everyone tuning in. I want to talk about something I think a lot of people don’t really understand: how science actually works. Arguments over any scientific topic — climate change, vaccines, you name it — revolve around competing claims. For climate change, the claims are: Is the Earth warming? Are humans to blame? What will the impacts be? Over the last 150 years, the scientific community has developed a remarkably robust method for sorting out which claims are true and which aren’t. That method is what I want to walk through. So how does science generate knowledge? If you ask a high schooler, they’ll give you the version they learned in ninth grade: an individual scientist forms a hypothesis, runs an experiment, and draws a conclusion. That’s more or less what happens at the individual level, though in practice it’s more iterative — you design, test, and refine all at once, landing on a slightly different idea each time until you reach a conclusion about whatever hypothesis you’ve ended up with. But this isn’t science. It’s only step one. Any individual scientist can make mistakes — scientists are human. Maybe there’s a bug in the code, maybe there’s an error in the experiment. Just because someone ran an experiment and reached a conclusion doesn’t mean it’s right, and scientists don’t treat a single result as settled truth. Step two is peer review, the first layer of quality control. The scientist writes up what they did and submits it to a journal, which sends the paper to other experts in the field. Those experts judge whether the methods are sound, whether it properly references prior work, and whether the conclusions actually follow from the data. Ask any scientist and they’ll tell you peer review is miserable — the comments come back brutal, often harsh, and you have to revise and resubmit, sometimes multiple times, before an editor finally accepts the paper. Peer review catches an immense amount of bad science, but it can’t catch all of it. Reviewers get sloppy or overworked, they miss obvious mistakes, and they can’t catch hidden errors — a bug in the code, a misread instrument. So a peer-reviewed paper making it into a journal doesn’t mean the paper is right. Nobody treats a single paper as the final word. That’s where step three comes in: the crucible of science. Important results get retested by the broader community. If you publish something interesting, it gets dissected. Sometimes people try to reproduce your work directly but more often they test its implications. If someone claims X is true, and that implies that Y is also true, then scientists will go check Y. If a claim survives this gauntlet long enough, it becomes accepted. That’s how we generate knowledge. Let me give an example: the ozone hole. In 1985 — and I doubt many people watching were around then, but I remember it well — Joe Farman and his colleagues published observations from Antarctica showing that a huge chunk of ozone was disappearing every year. This was shocking because most atmospheric chemists had expected ozone loss to occur at mid-latitudes and high altitudes, not over the South Pole. When scientists see something they don’t understand, they rush to explain it, and several competing hypotheses quickly appeared in the peer-reviewed literature. One pointed to chlorine chemistry from chlorofluorocarbons. A second blamed nitrogen chemistry, possibly driven by solar proton events — meaning the sun was responsible. A third argued it wasn’t chemistry at all but dynamics: winds were carrying naturally low-ozone air from the lower atmosphere up into the stratosphere. Then the community went to work testing which theory could survive the crucible. Aircraft flew into the ozone hole and found no nitrogen, ruling out the nitrogen theory. Measurements showed the air in the polar vortex was descending, not rising — which would bring high-ozone air down, eliminating the dynamics theory. Meanwhile, those same flights measured enormous amounts of chlorine, strongly correlated with exactly the regions where ozone was being destroyed. That became known as the “smoking gun” paper, and it established that chlorine chemistry was the cause. Through this process, a consensus emerged. And it’s worth being clear that this consensus is organic. There’s no vote, no poll, no meeting where it gets decided. Scientists go to conferences, talk to one another, and independently arrived at the same answer. It’s the ultimate free market of ideas. After the consensus was established, the peer-reviewed literature doesn’t even mention the rival theories — it simply takes chlorine chemistry as given. That’s what a consensus looks like. It doesn’t mean every single scientist agrees, but it does mean there’s no longer any legitimate debate. So where can you see what scientists actually think? It’s all in the peer-reviewed literature, which contains the entire historical record of the argument: the discovery, the competing theories, the debate, the testing, and finally the community coalescing around one answer. But there’s a lot of room for misrepresentation. You can dig up an old paper claiming the ozone hole was caused by dynamics and wave it around as if there still was a debate about the cause of the ozone hole — without mentioning that the idea was disproven long ago and that even its own authors no longer believe it. There’s a bigger problem, though: the peer-reviewed literature is written in a language I call “nerd.” It’s extremely hard to read — honestly, some of it is hard for me to follow. It takes graduate students years to work through the literature in a single field, so we can’t expect policymakers or ordinary people to do it. This is where scientific assessments come in. The most famous is the IPCC — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The job of an assessment is to read and summarize the peer-reviewed literature, synthesizing what’s settled, what’s been disproven, and what remains genuinely debated. To ensure the assessments accurately summarize the peer-reviewed literature, assessments are written by large teams, which are far less prone to bias than individuals and which dilute the influence of any one scientist with an axe to grind. The teams are deliberately assembled to avoid stacking the deck, and the reports themselves go through multiple rounds of peer review. That rigorous process is exactly why you can trust them and why people consider the IPCC to be the gold standard of what we know about the climate system. An assessment produced through a different process may well not be credible. You can even watch the consensus evolve across assessments. Take the attribution of warming. The 1990 IPCC report said the observed warming was broadly consistent with model predictions but also comparable to natural variability — in other words, we don’t know whether humans are responsible. By 1995, it concluded that the balance of evidence suggested a discernible human influence — a sentence only a committee could write, and one that barely commits to anything. By 2001, most of the warming over the previous 50 years was judged “likely” due to greenhouse gases; by 2007, “very likely”; by 2013, “extremely likely.” The 2023 report says essentially the same as 2013 — there’s not much stronger language available. So, to wrap up: science is our ultimate tool for deciphering the universe — the most successful method we’ve ever developed for determining what’s true and what isn’t. Our understanding is written into the peer-reviewed literature, so if you want to know what scientists think, that’s where to look. And for those of us who don’t speak nerd, scientific assessments are the Rosetta Stone — they translate nerd into English. Let me open the floor to questions. Thank you.
Gail Godwin writes through political anxiety
After a near-fatal fall, author Gail Godwin explores mortality and the turbulent political landscape in her memoir.
Enzo Le Fée Is Sunderland’s Orchestrator Supreme
“He’s a supreme on-field tactician; a plotter, a schemer, one of the men that makes us tick,” writes Phil West.
How to Rebuild US Science and Technology Policy From the Rubble of Trump 2.0
Policymakers are going to need tools to clear the rubble and build a better foundation for policy upon which the future can be built, writes Cole Donovan.
Apple's Smart Glasses Reportedly Delayed Until Late 2027
Still, the glasses are regarded by company leadership as a top priority, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman writes.
Texas Business Court Is a Powerhouse for Resolving Civil Disputes
The Texas Business Court reflects a recognition that a large and complex economy with a capital-intensive, technology-driven industry needs a forum designed for those cases, writes White & Case’s Sean Gorman.
After Years Of Mockery, Sunderland Finally Taste Regional Glory!
“Two games. Two wins. Six points. One memorable campaign and one thoroughly underwhelming one,” writes Phil West.
Apple's Smart Glasses Reportedly Delayed Until Late 2027
Still, the glasses are regarded by company leadership as a top priority, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman writes.
Armstrong Williams: How Trump changed campaigning, media and the politics of trust
Opinion: Donald Trump’s most enduring legacy may be in how he transformed campaign and political communication, writes Armstrong Williams.
Opinion | It’s time for a new business plan for Minneapolis
The City Council seems more focused on niche interests and short-term fixes right now than in addressing the significant long-term economic issues the city faces, Matt Hemsley writes.
Ebola at the World Cup? Here’s what we should actually worry about
“Infectious disease threats during the World Cup will almost certainly look much more familiar than frightening headlines suggest,” writes Krutika Kuppalli.
Huawei, scientists build 2D parallel computing chip that rewrites Moore’s Law
Marking a global first for 2D semiconductors, the new microprocessor overcomes silicon size limits to boost density and slash data delays.
MIT president: Why so many optimistic scientists are losing heart
“This erosion of our strength is a loss for the nation,” writes MIT President Sally Kornbluth.
Violence should never be part of the job in health care: Fawad Taj
The health care profession that has quietly endured violence for years is finally beginning to say, out loud, that this should never have been considered normal in the first place, writes guest columnist Dr. Fawad Taj, M.D., a psychiatrist, Cleveland resident, and community advocate.
It’s the end of science as we know it, and I feel fine
“Science itself is inherently resilient — that is, after all, why it’s science,” writes Jonathan Jackson.
Gordon Monson: A ranking of the 31 most important, most prominent athletes in the state of Utah
From AJ Dybantsa to Zavier Gozo, these are the state’s biggest stars, The Tribune columnist writes.
This New Bravo Series Faced Backlash Before It Premiered — But It's One Of The Best Reality TV Debuts In A Long Time
"I’m not looking for representation in every corner of reality television because I don’t believe it authentically exists," the author writes.
Rash: DEED ‘Choose Minnesota’ campaign to boost small businesses
The initiative comes as Operation Metro Surge, tariffs and the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran challenge this backbone of the state’s economy and society, columnist John Rash writes.
University commencement isn't the place for politics
The purpose of a commencement ceremony isn't political persuasion, writes Daniel Diermeier, chancellor of Vanderbilt University.
Garrison: These women couldn’t find the health products they wanted. So they did something about it.
Female founders of Minnesota companies like Womaness and Opal Cool are a part of a recent wave of entrepreneurs launching menopause-related businesses, Nicole Garrison writes.
Local View: What flies in pro wrestling too often flies in politics
From the column: "Pro wrestling only rewrites its storylines, not everyone else’s history."
I saw Ebola as both doctor and patient. I wish people cared more about the Africans I worked alongside
“As another Ebola outbreak unfolds, we cannot repeat the mistakes of the past,” writes Krutika Kuppalli.
Data center politics and Kirk Bangstad’s attention-seeking run for governor (with Emily Mills!)
Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle […]
Op-Ed: Student mental health program NJ4S must be preserved
Cutting funding would cause struggling youth to 'lose the very services that keep them safe, stable and ready to learn,' a principal writes
Texas politics has a bigger antisemitism problem than District C
Joe Panzarella’s runoff win came despite a late attack over a CAIR endorsement, but other Texas candidates deserve far more serious scrutiny over antisemitism, writes Opinion Editor Evan Mintz.
Burcum: Mental health lifeline becomes collateral damage
Two of Vail’s three metro Clubhouse locations could close as early as June 30 if a fixable state funding-renewal snag isn’t solved soon, columnist Jill Burcum writes.
Trump attacks Massie as Republican critic describes ‘desperate’ attempts to oust him from primary
US president writes ‘vote the bum out’ as congressman faces close race against Trump-endorsed Republican
Kids’ mental health - time to close the gap: Marissa Kiefer
Mental and behavioral health challenges among young people are not rare -- they’re part of life for many families. But at UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s, we’re dedicated to trying new approaches, writes guest columnist Marissa Kiefer, president of University Hospitals' Rainbow Babies & Children’s and MacDonald Women’s hospitals.
Stunning 150-million-year-old stegosaur skull rewrites dinosaur evolution
A spectacular dinosaur discovery in Spain is giving scientists a rare new look inside the world of stegosaurs. Paleontologists uncovered the best-preserved stegosaur skull ever found in Europe, belonging to the iconic plated dinosaur Dacentrurus armatus, which roamed Earth around 150 million years ago. Because stegosaur skulls are extremely fragile and almost never survive intact, the fossil is helping researchers uncover previously unknown details about how these armored giants evolved.
Now What? With Carbon Pricing Eroded and Pipeline Politics Advancing, Here Are the Pathways for Climate Success
At the end of a whirlwind week of news on carbon pricing and electricity strategy, capping a madcap year of pretty much non-stop, dramatic change, the word across much of Canada’s climate and energy transition community is that climate policy in this country has been shredded. Eviscerated. Hit with a sledgehammer by policy rollbacks that have pushed the country’s 2050 net zero target “well out of reach”. That means it’s never been more important to look for the rays of hope and glimmers of possibility. To glimpse the seeds of the next set of strategies to get Canada’s climate pollution under control and the country into the accelerating global dash away from fossil fuels. And then, once we’ve spotted those possibilities, get on with the hard, day-to-day slog of trying to make them a reality. Nothing takes away from the frustration and the deep disappointment so many climate and energy hawks are expressing, the sense of betrayal by the author of Value(s) and the former UN special envoy for climate action and finance. But we knew two things as the week drew to a close. We’re looking at the world as it most definitely is. And we don’t get to give up finding the pathways to confront climate change and deliver faster, deeper carbon cuts that leave no one else behind. So really, the first question we all have to ask ourselves is: What’s next? Subscribe All the Oxygen in the Room The outpouring of anger and grief over the carbon pricing deal between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been absolutely understandable. So much of the climate community poured years, more than a decade, into dragging the current federal pricing regime across the finish line, then defending it from a deluge of three-syllable rhymes after the Trudeau government proved utterly incapable of delivering its own message. The policy foisted on us by neo-classical economists took up all the oxygen in the room, burned through years of climate response time that we won’t get back, while cornering climate hawks into the position that the best response to the crisis of our lifetimes is a new tax…in an era of historic anti-tax sentiment. I mean, really—what could possibly have gone wrong? Against that history, let’s appreciate columnist Max Fawcett’s point that even a modest carbon pricing agreement with a government as off-the-wall libertarian/conspiracist as Danielle Smith’s—those adjectives are mine, not Max’s—is a win worth savouring (as long as Smith keeps her promises for a change). But part of living in the world as it is (no, I’m not letting that go) is to be clear-headed about what we can and can’t control. And one thing we get to decide, after seeing this week’s carbon price festivities take up all the oxygen yet again, is whether we want to keep letting that happen. Particularly when success down that road depends on a factor that no one with a climate agenda can control or influence—a provincial carbon pricing mechanism that has been manipulated and eroded beyond its lowest possible denominator. Thankfully, that’s not the way it has to go. Not when we have so many other powerful, practical tools at our disposal, including the ones still available to us through this abominable Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Canada and Alberta. Tools In Our Toolbox When I started roughing out this list, I didn’t expect it to grow to nearly a dozen bullet points. It’s probably still incomplete. Some of the greatest hits in today’s climate solutions toolbox include: • No Carbon Capture, No Pipeline: On Friday, Prime Minister Mark Carney explicitly stated that there’s been no change to the MOU provision that there will be no West Coast pipeline without an industry commitment to build its massive, $16.5-billion carbon capture and storage (CCUS) hub in Northern Alberta, and vice versa. The two megaprojects were joined at the hip when the MOU was signed Nov. 27, and the implementation agreement this week affirmed that they still are. A parade of independent analysts have spent years pointing to the economic and technical flaws in CCUS, while the industry kept postponing its investment decision until it could arm-twist the government for more “clarity” (by which it meant even more lavish taxpayer subsidies) on the project. Now the industry itself is running away from the CCUS hub and insisting the pipeline should proceed without it, but Carney doesn’t seem to be budging from a central tenet of the MOU to which Smith has signed on. • No Subsidies, No Investors: Climate analysts and advocates have quite rightly been hammering away at Carney and his team, insisting that any new capacity the industry wants to build must proceed without new subsidies. The government has responded with a growing collection of funding and financing mechanisms for the very wide menu of industrial development and nation-building projects they say they want to take on, and that menu always includes fossil fuel infrastructure. But it’s hard to see how even the combined fiscal clout of the federal and supportive provincial governments will deliver the financial backing private investors would need when the business case for new fossil fuel development is evaporating before their eyes. Particularly when… • No Market, No Demand, No Investors: As our friend Markham Hislop at Energi Media (our apparently sleepless friend, given the massive volume of great material he’s been churning out) points out this morning, the biggest vulnerability in any pipeline deal is the assumption that Asian buyers will want the oil or liquefied natural ga that our fossil industry is so keen to send them. Hislop writes in part: Ottawa and Alberta are effectively betting that countries like China and India will continue increasing oil imports for decades as their economies grow and energy consumption rises. That assumption underpins the entire economic rationale for expanding oil sands production and building billions of dollars in new export infrastructure. But Asian energy systems are changing rapidly… China, India, South Korea, and other major hydrocarbon importers are now investing hundreds of billions of dollars into electricity systems built around wind, solar, batteries, nuclear, hydro, and expanded transmission infrastructure. Domestic “energy sovereignty” is increasingly replacing the old energy-security model based on stable oil and gas imports. Those investments are expected to sharply slow oil demand growth and eventually reverse it, even as overall energy consumption continues rising. There are also refining constraints. Many Asian refineries and petrochemical complexes are already optimized to process discounted heavy crude from the Middle East and Latin America. That raises serious questions about how much additional Canadian bitumen Asian markets can absorb at profitable prices. Small wonder that there’s still no private sector investor for the project, despite Smith’s government desperately beating the bushes to put together a deal. For now, Alberta is acting as proponent and covering early start-up costs for a pitch to the federal Major Projects Office, which could actually turn into the next tough hurdle for Smith and her pipeline to jump. • Canada Day Looms: How ironic that Canada’s birthday this year could become a major chokepoint for the provincial premier who’s been working so diligently to tear the country apart! The July 1 target date for Alberta’s pipeline proposal is baked into the MOU, was reaffirmed by the implementation plan, but it hadn’t dawned on me that it cuts both ways. As one very smart colleague wrote in an email yesterday, “they’ve thrown the ball into Alberta’s court to get the project proposal on the table really quickly and to have to do a whole pile of work to put together a massive, complicated project that would typically take years to assemble, and they’ve given them weeks to do it.” That makes July 1 a looming deadline that Smith won’t be able to run away from politically, especially with the separatists in her party and her caucus breathing down her neck. (See previous ref to off-the-wall.) But if Alberta comes in with a sloppy, incomplete submission, even after Carney bent over backwards to simplify the application process and the rules that govern it, it may be harder for the province or the industry to blame Ottawa and insist on the faster process they claim their investors are demanding. (Oh, wait—which investors would those be??) • We’ll See You In Court (Then We’ll See You Again): If Carney did cave, that would be just one more reason for Indigenous and other affected communities to take the government and the process to court—Just as Alberta First Nations did, successfully, in response to Smith’s half-baked separation referendum. Veterans of the Harper era have been warning that a shoddy process around fossil fuel infrastructure or other major projects will be a recipe for the very delays that process seeks to avoid. And now more than ever, with renewable energy and energy storage eating fossil fuels’ lunch in import markets around the world, a delayed pipeline or LNG terminal may be as good as a cancelled one. • Charged Up, Ready to Go: With its goal of doubling Canada’s electricity supply to meet a doubling of demand by 2050, the national electricity strategy that Carney unveiled Thursday has a lot to like. With its explicit language about speeding the shift from fuels to more efficient and affordable electricity, global investment and deployment patterns that already favour that shift, an emerging bidirectional power grid, the role of front-line options like rooftop solar and heat pumps, the emergence of electric vehicles as behind-the-meter energy storage, and the domestic jobs and manufacturing to make it all happen, the document doubles down on the essential cornerstone of a faster shift off fossil fuels. The strategy envisions a more prominent role for gas and nuclear power. But some of those provisions were already in the Clean Electricity Regulations that climate hawks are now fighting so hard to defend, inserted as a compromise in a futile attempt to mollify the industry and its political representatives in Alberta and Saskatchewan. But once again, gas will be a tougher sell when it’s more expensive and now so much more unpredictable than the clean alternatives. The new nuclear technologies are still speculative and deeply vulnerable to cost overruns. Increasingly, utilities, developers, and investors know it. Carney declared Thursday that “it doesn’t do us good to be sitting in court all the time with provinces. It doesn’t do us good to be talking past each other. What does do us good is to come together with specific projects.” There are no guarantees, but so much of the language and narrative-building in the electricity strategy suggests the lion’s share of those projects will be renewable. • The Party Has Already Started: The electricity strategy only rarely digs down to specific projects, but provinces representing three-quarters of Canada’s population are already embracing a faster transition. Hydro-Québec is working on a 10-year, $185-billion renewable energy and grid buildout by 2035. Ontario recently brought 10 provinces and territories together in a National Energy Corridor Agreement to boost interprovincial and -territorial transmission infrastructure. And the MOU implementation agreement commits Alberta to facilitate investment in renewable energy projects, a big step back from its continuing, punitive restrictions on renewables development. The electricity strategy envisions much of the financing and infrastructure that will be needed to pull those advances together into an integrated whole. • Delivering on Affordability: The MOU implementation plan has little or nothing to say about affordability (are you surprised?), but the electricity strategy does, with a top-line pledge to reduce home energy costs for seven out of 10 Canadian households by 2050, a total saving of $15 billion across the board. It’s just a start, but it puts affordability on the government’s narrative map. If they’re serious and deliberate about patching together a least-cost energy strategy, it’ll have little if any room for oil, gas, or nuclear—not with powerful evidence, for example, that electricity prices are higher when those prices are set by gas. • Smith Proves that Canada Works: By signing a deal that makes it harder to claim the federal government is blocking a new pipeline, Smith has helped prove Carney’s constant anti-separatist refrain that “Canada works”—incurring the rage, no doubt, of her own political base. Canada also needs to work for anyone who depends on a clean environment, healthy and thriving ecosystems, and safe, stable climate. But with Smith and her separatist constituents setting up as a fifth column for annexation by Donald Trump’s United States, let’s set aside any notion that 51st state status for Canada is a recipe for anything other than climate disaster (and so much else). Resisting and withstanding Trump (just 170 more sleeps until mid-term elections, which is a damn sight better than the 730 we started with) doesn’t mean a free pass for a pipeline, but we can still appreciate it that keeping Canada whole and sovereign is still Carney’s Job One. • The Words Not Spoken: Apart from a commitment to export a million barrels of “low-emission” Alberta bitumen per day (memo to Smith and Carney: You realize that that’s less than the industry is already exporting??), the MOU implementation plan says nothing about the international trade and economic sovereignty deals that Carney has been travelling the world to negotiate. It didn’t have to. Carney doesn’t need permission from Danielle Smith, her American enablers, or her separatist allies to continue building the alliances that will ratchet down our economic dependency on our unstable, unreliable neighbour to the south. But every connection he builds with countries outside North America helps align our economy and our future with a faster shift off fossil fuels. Little if any of this was on our bingo cards a year or two ago. But it’s the pathway that has opened up to us. And if it gives Canada any climate or energy gains at all in an era still dominated by Trump and his increasingly ridiculous tariffs, his loutish trade negotiations and his continuing annexation threats, we have to take the wins. Not least because they’ll be the point of departure for what we can achieve in 2027, 2029, and beyond, as Trump’s grip and this era begin to loosen and then fade. What is Carney Doing? If this line of thought is right—and it’s a possibility, not a prediction—it means that Carney’s actions and decisions are largely about buying time. Time for Trump’s power to wane. Time for Alberta’s separatist/conspiracist virus to spread, mutate, die out, or at least die back, with help from a vaccine of federal steadiness and calm (appropriate enough, for a movement populated largely by vaccine deniers) that no conspiracy theory can dismiss. And time for the government’s trade and investment agenda to deliver results—even knowing that some of those results will bring impacts that front-line communities will not and should not accept. In the immediate moment, none of this changes the way the wider climate community has to respond, from campaigners to investors to front-line practitioners. All of our voices are still essential. But those voices will be stronger and more confident if we have a clearer sense of the brutal game we’ve been pulled into, and a plausible path (or two it three) for playing it to the win we need. This conversation also underscores our biggest task for the remaining years of what was supposed to be the “decisive” decade for climate response: if we can shift the energy narrative in Canada, make it a mainstream view that the country’s preoccupation with oil and gas has us falling farther behind a changing world, we’ll see far better results in the 2030s and beyond. For many veteran climate advocates, taking on that part of the fight will begin with recognizing that most of our friends and family, neighbours and colleagues already understand that climate change is real and right in front of us: they’re looking away and staying silent because they don’t have what climate communicator Katharine Hayhoe calls “efficacy”. As Hayhoe recently pointed out in a feature interview with The Energy Mix, it amounts to science denial to keep hammering away at the dire news about global warming without also helping audiences understand what they can do about it, with multiple studies telling us why that won’t work. Far better to open those conversations with the dominant crises like energy security, food security, emergency preparedness and business continuity, affordability, and financial security that have knocked climate change far lower on the list of public priorities, and will likely keep it there. We Knew This Would Happen Climate hawks have always known this day would come. For decades, we warned that everyone had to pay attention to climate change right now, because it would be much tougher to respond once the crisis itself started affecting our daily lives. We were right, and here we are. But now, thanks to decades of hard work, communities and countries have an alternative to doubling down on fossil fuels. “In 10 years everyone will have ‘always known’ that solar and batteries were going to win,” Morgan Solar Executive Chair Mike Andrade writes on LinkedIn. With the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz roiling energy priorities around the world, Canada and the United States are among the shrinking number of countries that are still very keen on fossil fuel development. Understanding that gap is a first, essential step in spotting the opportunities ahead, and averting the deep economic as well as environmental and social risk we face if we don’t seize them. Thanks for reading The Energy Mix Weekender! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. Subscribe Mitchell Beer traces his background in renewable energy and energy efficiency back to 1977, in climate change to 1997. Now he and the rest of the Energy Mix team scan 1,200 news headlines a week to pull together The Energy Mix and The Energy Mix Weekender. Chart of the Week BYD Eyes 20 Dealership Locations After Canada Greenlights Chinese EV Imports ‘Sledgehammer’ Carbon Price Deal Boosts Emissions by 230Mt, Aims for Fall 2027 Pipeline Approval ‘Worse Than Harper’: Regulatory Rollback Would Stop Canada from Assessing Project Impacts, Critics Warn Electricity Strategy Aims for Doubling by 2050, Allows ‘Flexibility’ for Gas Power Plants Opposition Mounts as O’Leary’s Data Centre Approved in Drought-Stricken Utah Diluted Carbon Price Misses ‘Reality of the World We’re In’, Could Impede Diversified Trade: Climate Institute $200B in Clean Energy Investment Will Need On-Time Delivery, Reliable Policies, Trade Association Says ‘Sovereign Pipeline’: CEO Pitches to Keep Trans Mountain in Government Hands What a Supercharged El Niño Could Mean for Canada Canada’s future is electric, and here’s how a power grid superhighway would get us there (Toronto Star) The Perilous Waters of Hecate Strait (Globe and Mail) Saudi Aramco profits jump despite conflict in Middle East (The Guardian) Farmers confront rising cost of fertilizer and fuel as spring seeding under way (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Clarkson forecasts 24% decline in offshore oil, gas capital expenditures (Oil & Gas Journal) Pipe Dreams: How Oil and Gas Fail to Deliver Economic Development in Africa (Oil Change International) Developing countries must hold the pen to script the fossil fuel transition (Climate Home News) Iran war threatens the dream of a post-oil economy in the Gulf (Washington Post) U.S. Oil, Gas Work Force Hits Lowest Level Since 2022 (Rigzone) Why Polestar Is Doubling Down on Net Zero as Rivals Pull Back on EVs (Bloomberg) Why this Michigan utility plans to sell its hydro dams for $13 (E&E News/Politico) Levees can no longer save New Orleans (Vox)
8 Books That Break the Silence Around Suicide for Mental Health Awareness Month (Exclusive)
"I wrote a story that centers suicide because I know what it feels like for tomorrow to not feel promised," writes 'A Breath Too Late' author and mental health advocate Rocky Callen
Stunning fossil discovery in Ethiopia rewrites human origins
A stunning fossil discovery in Ethiopia shows that early Homo and a previously unknown Australopithecus species lived together around 2.6 to 2.8 million years ago. The find overturns the classic “ape-to-human” progression and paints human evolution as a crowded, branching tree with multiple species coexisting. Scientists dated the fossils using volcanic ash deposits and are now investigating what these ancient relatives ate and whether they competed for resources.
UnitedHealth’s AI push now includes employee tracking
UnitedHealth Group is pushing deeper into artificial intelligence—and tracking whether some employees are actually using it, Bloomberg writes. The health care giant is monitoring AI engagement among some Optum workers, including whether they make at least one daily query using tools such as ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot. The effort is part of a broader companywide […]
Letters to the Editor: When AI comes for your job in entertainment, maybe then you’ll care
'According to one 2024 report, more than 200,000 jobs in the entertainment industry could be displaced by AI. Those most likely to be affected include background actors, crew members, production staff and positions such as grips and prop masters,' writes an L.A. Times reader.
Bickley: Cardinals face brutal schedule
No team with 14 losses the previous season has ever been gifted as brutal a schedule as the 2026 Arizona Cardinals, Dan Bickley writes.
As travel costs surge, companies are being forced to rethink business trips
Rising fuel and airfare costs are beginning to reshape how companies approach business travel, Fortune writes. Fuel transaction costs jumped 14% in a single month, while airfare, hotels and rental cars also moved higher, squeezing corporate travel budgets, according to new data from SAP Concur, which tracks expense activity for millions of business travelers worldwide. […]
Employee misconduct is becoming harder for companies to ignore
Rising workplace misconduct is becoming a growing concern for employers, with new research suggesting the problem may be rooted in shifting attitudes toward ethics and accountability, Inc. writes. A U.K. fraud prevention survey found notable tolerance for behaviors like expense fraud, moonlighting for competitors and even selling company login credentials, while a separate U.S. survey […]
We need to practice talking to people we disagree with. Here’s how
"I’ve spent my career as a mediator sitting across from people who are convinced the other side will never understand them," writes Seth Izen. "What I’ve learned, again and again, is that they’re usually wrong."
Who are the Japanese? Huge DNA discovery rewrites history
Scientists analyzing the genomes of thousands of people across Japan discovered evidence for a previously overlooked third ancestral group, challenging the long-accepted “dual origins” theory. The newly identified ancestry appears linked to the ancient Emishi people of northeastern Japan. Researchers also uncovered inherited Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA connected to conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.
Hospitals are silencing doctors online, and it’s fueling the health misinformation crisis
Hospitals and health systems need to loosen the reins and let physicians combat social media misinformation, writes Adam Goodcoff.
AI fears fuel demand for faster, cheaper business degrees
As applications soften and AI anxiety reshapes career planning, business schools are increasingly slashing tuition to lure students into specialized graduate programs, The Wall Street Journal writes. Institutions including Purdue, UC Irvine, Johns Hopkins and Washington University in St. Louis are offering steep discounts, scholarships and AI-focused degrees aimed at working professionals and recent graduates […]
Horseback politics
There's no replacement for traversing Wyoming's wide open in the saddle, writes columnist Rod Miller.
Why Psychological Flexibility is the Key to Good Health
People who can flexibly respond to stress have better outcomes, writes Joan M. Cook.
Baton Rouge entrepreneur rebuilds life one loaf at a time
After surviving three heart attacks and open-heart surgery, Baton Rouge entrepreneur Matt Bolton traded the industrial construction business for a slower—but no less demanding—second act in artisan breadmaking, 225 writes. What began as a sourdough hobby in retirement has grown into BlueRabbit Bakehouse, a Jefferson Highway bakery drawing weekend lines for its small-batch loaves, spreads […]
Column: America’s broken politics are dragging it down a fiscal black hole
Restoring fiscal control demands a comprehensive plan to raise taxes and cut entitlement spending substantially, Bloomberg Opinion columnist Clive Crook writes.
Doctor says: Close the doors, buckle up and put phones away to encourage car safety
"Parents must engage their brains. Put your kids in appropriate car seats," Dr. Scott Hamilton writes. "Teach children early, before the eye-rolling years, to buckle up before the car moves."
Eduardo Dominguez of VML Health on ‘Chasing the Miracles of Science’ for Sanofi
Eduardo is a global creative director with VML Health. His work includes the groundbreaking “Dogs Without Borders,” in which trained dogs detect cancer through scent, offering early diagnosis in remote regions such as the Amazon, the Sahara,and Los Pueblos Negros. Beyond his creative work, Eduardo regularly writes for medical sector magazines, sharing insights on enhancing Eduardo is a global creative director with VML Health. Over the course of his 10+ year career, he has worked with some of the industry's top talent, delivering projects that have helped improve the lives of thousands.His work includes the groundbreaking “Dogs Without Borders,” trained dogs to detect cancer through scent, offering early diagnosis in remote regions such as the Amazon, the Sahara, and Los Pueblos Negros.
New obesity discovery rewrites decades of fat science
Scientists have uncovered a surprising secret hidden inside fat cells that could reshape how we think about obesity and metabolic disease. A protein called HSL, long believed to simply release stored fat when the body needs energy, turns out to have a second job deep inside the nucleus of fat cells—helping keep those cells healthy and balanced. Even more surprising, people and mice missing this protein don’t become obese as expected; instead, they lose fat tissue in a dangerous condition called lipodystrophy.
Airbnb's CEO says AI writes 60% of the company's code
CEO Brian Chesky added that managers are also getting their hands dirty with coding or using Claude Code.
Is the FDA Really Suppressing Science? Plus. . .
It’s Thursday, May 7. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Aaron MacLean says Trump is poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the Iran war. Joe Klein on the life of CNN founder Ted Turner. Jillian Lederman on why cruise ships are here to stay. And much more. But first: Is the FDA suppressing science? On Tuesday, The New York Times published a story with an alarming takeaway. “FDA Blocked Publication of Research Finding Covid and Shingles Vaccines Were Safe,” read the headline. It is the latest in a string of stories that all have the same message: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and other agencies, are engaged in a cover-up—and silencing scientists trying to get the word out about the Covid vaccine. What all these stories suggest—some more subtly than others—is that the outsiders now running the public health establishment, officials such as Marty Makary at the FDA and Jay Bhattacharya at the National Institutes of Health, are on a revenge tour. That they are doing harm to the country to get back at the scientists and bureaucrats who ostracized them for deviating from the public-health consensus during the pandemic. It’s a seductive narrative. But is it true? That’s the question we address in our latest editorial. —The Editors Read [ Marty Makary's FDA Has All the Right Enemies ](https://www.thefp.com/p/marty-makary-vaccine-study-fda) [ Trump Blinks First ](https://www.thefp.com/p/iran-peace-deal-pakistan-trump-strait-of-hormuz) Aaron MacLean In return for no detectable concessions, President Trump this week gave up on forcing open the Strait of Hormuz. Now, the Trump administration looks desperate for a deal to end the war with Iran. It’s easy to understand the desire to end the war, but are they blowing the chance at victory? Aaron MacLean makes sense of the administration’s latest moves—and Iran’s response—in his column today. Read full story Aaron MacLean and Niall Ferguson: Live in New York City Join Aaron MacLean and Niall Ferguson on May 19 for a live recording of School of War at the iconic New York Historical. In a conversation as timely as it is wide-ranging, Aaron and Niall will explore the strategic stakes of the moment, including the Middle East, China, and the future of American leadership on the global stage. Get Tickets Now [ Ted Turner, the Optimist Who Built CNN ](https://www.thefp.com/p/ted-turner-cnn-tribute) Joe Klein The man who gave us CNN and the 24-hour news cycle, Ted Turner, died Wednesday at the age of 87. Today, political writer Joe Klein—who almost ghostwrote Turner’s autobiography—remembers his friend, the American media mogul who stood out for his idealism and lack of a filter—something that got Turner in trouble more than once. “His was not a traditional intelligence, but one of horizon: Ted saw things before other people did,” Joe writes. Read full story [ Nothing Can Sink the Cruise Ship ](https://www.thefp.com/p/cruise-ship-hantavirus) Jillian Lederman A viral outbreak on a cruise ship that left three passengers dead has left some people wondering: Are cruise ships on the way out? Not so fast, says Jillian Lederman, who has been on many a cruise herself. Read her piece on why 38 million people a year take a cruise—and aren’t about to stop. Read full story [ The Great Writers Who Were Terrible People ](https://www.thefp.com/p/the-great-writers-who-were-terrible) Shilo Brooks Throughout history, some of the greatest literary geniuses have also been immoral bigots. In the latest episode of Old School, Shilo Brooks is joined by Eli Lake for a conversation about those geniuses, from Voltaire to Norman Mailer and Roald Dahl—and why we should read their work despite their odious prejudices. Listen on MORE FROM THE FREE PRESS [ Inside the Digital Intifada ](https://www.thefp.com/p/digital-intifada-social-media-hamas-terror) Warren Kinsella Read full story [ This Week in American History: Trump’s Over-Arching Problem ](https://www.thefp.com/p/this-week-in-american-history-trumps-over-arching-problem) Jonathan Horn Read full story [ Humanity Is Still Evolving—and Fast ](https://www.thefp.com/p/humanity-is-still-evolvingand-fast) Razib Khan Read full story THE NEWS Thirteen D.C. Metropolitan Police officers have been placed on administrative leave and could face termination after an internal investigation found evidence that crime statistics were manipulated to make the city look safer. The Republican-led House Oversight Committee previously alleged that former D.C. police chief Pamela Smith pressured officers to skew data. Tennessee Republicans unveiled a redrawn U.S. House map yesterday that would split up Memphis’s black-majority Democratic district, the latest move in a nationwide push to redraw congressional boundaries ahead of the midterms. The effort follows a Supreme Court ruling last week on Louisiana’s districts, which Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton said gave states the green light to redraw maps along partisan lines. Israel struck Beirut for the first time since a ceasefire with Hezbollah took effect last month, saying it targeted a commander of the militant group’s elite Radwan force in the city’s southern suburbs. The strikes risk destabilizing that truce at a delicate moment, as Iran and the U.S. report progress toward a deal to resolve their own standoff. The U.S. Air Force is aiming for a Fourth of July delivery of a Boeing 747 gifted by Qatar, hoping to add it to the Air Force One fleet in time for the U.S.’s 250th anniversary, Reuters reported. (For more on the controversy surrounding the aircraft, read Jed Rubenfeld’s piece “It’s a Terrible Idea, but Trump Probably Can Accept a Free Jet from Qatar.”) Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testified privately before Congress that he has no memory of why he and his family dined on Jeffrey Epstein’s private island in 2012, according to Reuters. The admission contradicts Lutnick’s earlier claim that he had cut ties with the convicted sex offender well before that visit. Weeks before a former JPMorgan investment banker filed a lawsuit packed with explosive allegations, the bank reportedly offered him $1 million to settle his sexual assault and harassment claims, according to The Wall Street Journal. The suit, filed by Chirayu Rana, alleges he was sexually assaulted by a female colleague, subjected to racial discrimination, and forced into a degrading dynamic at work. JPMorgan says the claims lack merit, and the female colleague’s lawyers call the accusations fabricated. A new report from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research shows that, for the first time in roughly 20 years, church attendance is trending upward, with more people volunteering and clergy expressing renewed optimism. The study’s authors described the findings, based on a survey of more than 7,400 congregations, as showing signs of widespread recovery from low attendance numbers.