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Nick Lewis twirls gem, Cougs advance to semi-finals
The three runs the Washington State Cougars tacked on in the first inning proved to be plenty of run support for left-handed starter Nick Lewis who mowed down the Air Force Falcons en route to a 5-1 victory. Lewis was simply brilliant for WSU. He took a shutout in the ninth inning and was an […]
Inside Meta's effort to draft 7,000 workers into its AI task force
Meta reassigned thousands of employees to a new AI task force during this week's layoffs. Some are anxious and confused about what comes next.
FINN Partners and WifOR Institute Launch Global Initiative to Show Health Spending as an Economic Investment
For decades, ministries of health, finance leaders and policymakers have needed to defend health spending as a necessary cost to be managed. FINN Partners and WifOR Institute believe this framing is fundamentally outdated and increasingly harmful to public health in a world confronting aging populations, workforce shortages, rising chronic disease and widening health inequities.
Mass. pols issue report on possible effects of Haiti TPS termination on local health care
The lawmakers' investigation found that terminating TPS would "exacerbate" shortages in the health care workforce, limit high-quality care, and "endanger patients," the report says.
Reno council advances live entertainment ordinance amid noise and enforcement concerns
Reno's independent, online news and events source. Established in 2009.
Mental Health Is Another Unfortunate ICE Casualty
Hundreds of immigrants, community members, and allies gathered in Washington DC on May 20 for a peaceful march from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) headquarters to the Capitol.
World Health Assembly endorses resolution on precision medicine
At the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly, Member States endorsed a new resolution on Precision medicine: a path towards targeted, personalized and equitable care, taking an important step towards advancing precision medicine as part of efforts to strengthen equitable, effective and sustainable health systems. Precision medicine refers to the use of clinical, molecular, genomic and other health data to inform prevention, diagnosis and treatment, taking into account variability while applying appropriate ethical and legal safeguards. When integrated responsibly into health systems, precision approaches can improve outcomes across different disease areas and across the life course – from cancer and rare diseases to infectious diseases, maternal, newborn and child health, mental health and noncommunicable diseases. The resolution reflects rapid advances in genomics, diagnostics, data science and digital health, alongside widening global inequities in access to these innovations. Many populations – particularly in low- and middle-income countries – remain underrepresented in data and research, limiting the public health impact of precision medicine and risking the widening of health disparities if action is not taken now. "Precision medicine is not an aspirational idea for health delivery in the future – it is already transforming lives across the world. But its benefits remain out of reach for too many and the research driving progress is concentrated in high income countries. This WHA resolution gives global health leaders, ministries of health, and WHO a clear mandate: to act. From infant screening to setting up genomic databases WHO will work with countries to bring about the power of these innovations." Dr Meg Doherty, Director Science for HealthThrough the resolution, Member States commit to developing and strengthening national policies, infrastructure, workforce capacity and governance frameworks to support the safe, ethical and equitable integration of precision medicine into health systems, aligned with universal health coverage. This includes promoting affordability, ensuring inclusive research and data systems, strengthening regulation and data governance, and fostering collaboration across sectors and regions.WHO is requested to provide technical and normative support, review and coordinate existing guidance, facilitate global and regional collaboration, and develop a Global Strategy on Precision Medicine to guide equitable and context‑appropriate implementation. WHO stands ready to support Member States through tools such as a country maturity model for countries to self-assess capacity in implementing precision medicine depending on their context. In the immediate term WHO will map all existing guidance and frameworks and host extensive consultations with interest holders globally.By placing equity, inclusion and public value at the centre of precision medicine, the resolution reinforces WHO’s commitment to ensuring that scientific advances benefit all people, everywhere, and that no one is left behind in the next era of health innovation."By uniting people-centered healthcare with innovation, precision medicine has the potential to transform lives. This resolution helps ensure those advances serve the shared goal of health for all." Dr Sylvie Briand, Chief Scientist For further information please visit the Health Topic: Genomics
Judges in Maine and Wisconsin dismiss attempts to force turnover of voter rolls
Federal judges in Maine and Wisconsin have dismissed lawsuits filed by the U.S. Department of Justice seeking to compel the states to hand over voter registration information to the federal government.
Employer health spending is still going up
Business leaders could be the most potent market and political force to push back on rising health costs.
UK weather: Heat health alerts about to come into force as temperatures to soar
Many areas will enter into the official heatwave thresholds across the next few days, with temperatures widely in the high 20s and low 30s into next week.
Over 20 Aspen businesses plan to shut down in some capacity for 2027 airport closure
Aspen Chamber Resort Association presented to the Aspen/Pitkin County Housing Authority Board Wednesday on potential impacts to the workforce during the 2027 Aspen/Pitkin County Airport closure to help guide initial conversations about waiving required work hours for employee housing.
GOP immigration enforcement bill stalls amid backlash to $1.8 billion 'anti-weaponization' fund
Senate Republicans abruptly left Washington on Thursday without voting on a roughly $70 billion bill to fund immigration enforcement agencies, frustrated with the White House and at an impasse over whether to try to block a new $1.776 billion settlement fund to compensate Trump allies who believe they have been politically prosecuted.
Maine, Wisconsin judges dismiss attempts to force turnover of voter rolls
Federal judges in Maine and Wisconsin on Thursday dismissed lawsuits filed by the U.S. Department of Justice seeking to compel the states to hand over detailed voter registration information.
GOP senators balk at Trump's $1.8-billion 'anti-weaponization' fund, force delay in key vote
The discord marked a potential turning point for Congress, which has been largely sidelined under the second Trump administration on the war in Iran and other issues.
Elkhart business receives bomb threat Thursday morning
An Elkhart business was forced to evacuate after a bomb threat Thursday morning.Police say employees at Elkhart Indian Motorcycle on Brittany Court received the
CEO of NIL enforcement reminds schools: These are your rules
Bryan Seeley, the CEO of the 11-month-old College Sports Commission, has a simple reminder to schools frustrated by NIL: These are the rules you wrote.
Yankees Cam Schlittler joins elite company in MLB history
Cam Schlittler, a former 7th-round selection for the Yankees in the MLB draft, has been a force this season. Many baseball fans saw his dominance against the Red Sox in the 2026 Wildcard round, but they didn’t get a taste…
Business leaders learn how to stay alert to fraud
Local law enforcement and fraud experts spoke with business owners on how the landscape is ever-changing when it comes to fraud.
Michigan business leaders launch statewide alliance to boost startup ecosystem
Nearly 100 organizations from across Michigan are joining forces to establish a statewide innovation alliance.
Republicans expected to abandon $1B security proposal for White House and Trump's ballroom
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republican leaders on Thursday are expected to abandon a proposal for $1 billion in security money for the White House complex and President Donald Trump’s ballroom amid backlash from members of their own party. Pressured by the White House, Republicans tried to add the money to a roughly $70 billion bill to restore funding to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. But the security proposal met with opposition
007 First Light just got a second Nvidia promotion, as it now comes free with GeForce Now Ultimate
After launching its 007 First Light bundle for RTX 50 series GPUs, Nvidia is now giving away the game for free with GeForce Now.
Republicans expected to abandon $1B security plan for White House and ballroom
Republicans have tried to add the money to a roughly $70 billion bill to restore funding to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol
SGMC Health Honors Student Engagement and Workforce Development Teams as Health System Heroes
SGMC Health has recognized its student engagement and workforce development teams as its latest Health System Heroes for their leadership in developing future healthcare professionals. The honorees—Rachel Dillard, Deb Baker, […]
Col. Patrick Madigan: Pioneer in connecting mental health to combat effectiveness
Col. Patrick Madigan, was known as the “Father of Army Neuropsychiatry,” strengthening how U.S. Army medicine provided mental health support for the force
NVIDIA bundles 007 First Light with 12-month GeForce NOW Ultimate membership
GeForce NOW adds Forza Horizon 6, Luna Abyss and six more games NVIDIA is adding eight games to GeForce NOW this week, with Forza Horizon 6 now available
Colorado Charts Its Own Course on Vaccines Amid Federal Pullback
Doctors, lawmakers, and other advocates are joining forces to promote recommended childhood vaccines.
Legal expert unleashes on Spanberger's new executive order targeting ICE: 'Political theater'
Gov. Abigail Spanberger signs executive order citing concerns that Trump administration could use immigration enforcement to intimidate Virginia voters.
How Atlantic Health makes workforce experience a priority
Achieving data-driven, workflow efficiencies through five strategic pillars, New Jersey not-for-profit makes daily work easier for physicians.
Brendan Sorsby Faces Long Odds In Fight Against Permanent NCAA Gambling Ban
A former arbitrator of NCAA infractions cases says Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby faces an uphill fight trying to force the NCAA to stand down on enforcing the policy that permanently bans athletes who are found to have wagered on their own team.
Senate G.O.P. Ready to Drop Ballroom Funds From ICE Bill
Several Republicans had balked at including the money in an immigration enforcement measure that the party plans to push through on a party-line vote.
Google Advances AI for Science with New Tools and Tech
Google is launching a series of new tools to help scientists leverage AI technology as a force multiplier to accelerate the pursuit of scientific knowledge and discovery. In addition to the collection of tools under the Gemini for Science banner, it is also launching Science Skills, which centralizes data from more than 30 life science […]
Nate Nickerson, force behind southern Maine public health programs, dies at 69
Nickerson influenced several programs for homeless Portland residents and led an organization for healthcare in Haiti. Friends and former colleagues say they will most remember his passion and humility.
Democratic senators will test GOP unity with votes on Trump's 'anti-weaponization' fund
As Republicans move forward on immigration enforcement legislation, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Democrats plan to force a vote on Trump’s proposed settlement fund.
RFK Jr. terminates heads of preventive services task force amid overhaul
US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. quietly removed the two top leaders of a key preventive services panel last week as he seeks to overhaul its membership.
RFK Jr. fires leaders in charge of your health screenings
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, or USPSTF, has a major role in choosing what preventive health services are covered by insurance.
US Health Secretary Kennedy fires heads of key preventive health panel
US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earlier this month fired the chair and vice chair of the influential task force that decides which preventive medical care is provided at no cost to patients.
US Health Secretary Kennedy Fires Heads of Key Preventive Health Panel
NEW YORK, May 20 (Reuters) - US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earlier this month fired the chair and vice chair of the influential task force that decides which preventive medical care is provided at no cost to patients. The Preventive Services Task Force, which typically has 16 ...
RFK Jr. Fires Leaders of Key Health Task Force
The health secretary has undermined the work of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force over the past year.
Democratic governor candidate Ethan Corson joins forces with Salina business director
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ethan Corson will run with Salina Chamber of Commerce president Renee Duxler as his running mate.
Inside the fight to force Vizio to share Linux-based source code for its TVs’ OS
Access to TV OS's source code could allow users to limit ads, tracking.
Hollywood’s new political agenda: Save Hollywood
Long a force in presidential politics, the industry is entering the midterms with a more urgent and self-interested agenda.
Massie's loss leaves no doubt about Trump's power over the GOP. 6 takeaways from Tuesday's primaries
While President Donald Trump has racked up several wins this primary season, this one perhaps sends an even more forceful message to the president's Republican critics.
Georgia mayor who fired town’s entire police force resigns, citing family ‘health concerns’
Ron Shinnick did not mention the firing of the Cohutta police force, which was later rehired, in resignation letter
Iran war hits small business hard
Small business profits are sinking as entrepreneurs deal with a confluence of forces ranging from rising labor costs to higher energy prices.
Start of Elland Road redevelopment 'unbelievably exciting'
No sooner had the empty beer bottles and wine glasses been swept up by the catering staff after ushering the corporate ticket holders from the Norman Hunter, Lucas Radebe and Billy Bremner Suites after heartily celebrating Dominic Calvert-Lewin's late winner against Brighton on Sunday, work began on Elland Road's John Charles Stand. It served as a reminder that Leeds are already a competitive force in a Premier League in which they are assured of another campaign. Vital to the project is the provision of either a light rail or tram from Leeds city centre with a stop at Elland Road and then on to the White Rose area.
Taiwan’s president says future will not be decided by ‘external forces’
President Lai says Taiwan's future is up to its people as the island faces Chinese and US headwinds.
Layoff day at Meta has arrived
Meta has begun sending layoff emails to roughly 10% of its workforce. The cuts are expected to eliminate around 8,000 roles.
Big Ten explores self-governance as College Sports Commission sputters, Congress action stalls
As frustration grows with stalled federal action and a shaky NIL enforcement system, Big Ten leaders are exploring a future where the conference sets and polices its own rules
Stephen Yancey wins Democratic primary for Jefferson County sheriff
Stephen Yancey won the Democratic primary for Jefferson County sheriff on Tuesday night, securing the nomination in the race to lead one of the county’s key law enforcement offices.
Senate advances bill aimed at ending Iran war as Cassidy, after primary loss, flips to support it
The Senate advanced legislation Tuesday that seeks to force President Donald Trump to withdraw from the Iran war, as a growing number of Republicans defied the president's wishes.
2026 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship Award
Undergraduate senior biochemistry student Lillian Ott (Mohanty group) has been awarded the 2026 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship, one of the country’s most prestigious honors for graduate students in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). The program, jointly sponsored by the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force, supports doctoral students across a broad range of scientific and technological fields of strategic importance. This highly competitive fellowship provides full tuition, fees, and a monthly stipend for three years. In 2026, only 102 fellowships were awarded nationwide. Lillian also received an honorable mention for the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). Studying biochemistry at UCLA, Lillian became excited about how her physical science background could be applied to solve environmental issues. She joined the Subsurface Engineering Analysis Laboratory (SEA Lab) led by Professor Sanjay Mohanty in the Samueli’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. In the SEA lab, she has studied the fate and transport of per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). PFAS are ubiquitous “forever chemicals” and known carcinogens that impact water quality worldwide. This fall, she will begin her Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University with Professor Nina Zhao. Her research will be focused on metabolomics and the discovery of unrecognized chemical determinants of environmental and human health. “I have seen the serious and unforeseen environmental and health consequences from man-made chemicals like PFAS and microplastics, which are often only appreciated after the damage has been done. I hope that my research can lead to more sustainable chemical design and inform policy and solutions-based innovation in public health and water quality engineering,” Lillian said. Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penjen@g.ucla.edu.
Chiefs WR Rashee Rice Ordered To Jail After Violating Terms Of Probation
Rashee Rice has been ordered to serve 30 days in jail after violating his probation agreement, which will force him to miss the rest of the Chiefs' offseason program.
Legal, business groups push back on arbitration-reform bill now before Polis | The Sum and Substance
The bill seeks to limit consumer and employee costs with arbitration, disqualify some arbitrators and force losing parties to pay up.
Illinois joins suit arguing Trump grad loan caps threaten healthcare workforce
Illinois joined 25 Democratic-led states suing the Trump administration over new graduate student loan caps they say could worsen healthcare worker shortages.
Inside the trans athlete podium controversy sending political shockwaves in California ahead of elections
California's CIF forced co-podium placements with trans athlete AB Hernandez, igniting a firestorm in the national debate over girls' sports.
PAHO and Google join forces to expand access to trusted health information across the Americas
New agreement prioritizes accurate, evidence-based information, with a focus on public health messaging and mental health promotion. Washington, D.C., 19 May 2026 — The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and Google LLC signed a five-year framework agreement to collaborate on strategic health communication and mental health promotion across the Region of the Americas.
KPMG integrates Claude across its core business and workforce of more than 276,000 in strategic alliance
Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.
Scientists were wrong about this “rule-breaking” particle
Scientists spent decades chasing signs of a mysterious new force hidden inside the muon, one of nature’s strangest particles. But after years of supercomputer calculations, researchers discovered the apparent anomaly was likely a calculation error — and the Standard Model still reigns supreme.
Northwestern professors navigate politics, pedagogy in Trump-era classrooms
As history Prof. Michael Allen lectured about the Vietnam War in his American Wars class this quarter, he drew a connection between South Vietnamese police tactics and present-day immigration enforcement in the U.S.: that police force can alienate civilians rather than winning them over. He said this comparison was not meant to tell students what...
Bay Area first responders graduate from mental health program aimed at helping their own: 'It's a new tool'
Law enforcement officers across the country are facing a growing mental health crisis, with suicides continuing to outpace line-of-duty deaths in many years.
Mark Cuban forced to play nice with President Trump after agreeing to be business partners
Billionaire Mark Cuban stood beside Trump at the White House to promote TrumpRx.gov after spending months campaigning against him for Kamala Harris.
Schiff proposes legislation to force data centers to bring their own energy
A California senator is introducing legislation to shield utility customers from footing the bill for power grid upgrades required to power the growing number of electricity-guzzling data centers.
New suit would force Missouri ruling on redistricting referendum
There is a new legal fight underway over Missouri’s newly-drawn congressional maps, less than a week after a pair of unanimous state supreme court rulings on the issue.
New MatterChat Model Helps AI to ‘See’ the Language of Science
From writing emails to generating computer code, much of the artificial intelligence prevalent in our daily lives has succeeded by mastering one domain: text. However, this leaves a major blind spot in the physical sciences, where models depend on the high-resolution, three-dimensional data of the physical world, like the intricate lattice of atoms in a crystal. Delivering on the promise of using AI for science requires teaching these data-driven text models to seamlessly “talk to” physics-based models. Now, a new AI framework from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), called MatterChat, solves this problem by creating a specialized “bridge.” It connects the conversational power of a Large Language Model (LLM) with a physics-based AI that models “interatomic potentials”: the complex physical forces between atoms. The resulting system already significantly outperforms general-purpose AI tools like GPT-4 at predicting material properties, and the team hopes it can accelerate scientific discovery by serving as a robust research partner that provides grounded insights and generates step-by-step instructions for synthesizing novel materials. A paper describing this work was recently published in Nature Machine Intelligence. “Traditional simulations can provide the physical rigor required for materials science, yet their computational cost remains prohibitive for high-throughput screening. Conversely, while LLMs excel at rapid knowledge synthesis, they inherently lack the ‘structural vision’ to interpret materials directly from their underlying atomic coordinates,” said Yingheng Tang, a postdoctoral researcher in Berkeley Lab’s Applied Math and Computational Research Division (AMCR) and lead author on the paper. “MatterChat was built to solve this dilemma, empowering LLMs with a structural ‘vision’ that allows researchers to leverage their full potential for solving complex, real-world materials challenges.” Empowering language models to solve complex challenges in materials science To build MatterChat, the Berkeley Lab team drew inspiration from technologies like Vision Question Answering (VQA) and Text-to-Image (T2I) generation. In these tasks, AI must translate high-level text concepts into visual images, or vice versa. Doing so requires developers to build tools that “bridge” two fundamentally different forms of data. The researchers adapted this concept to the physical sciences. With MatterChat, they created a “bridge model” that successfully connects an LLM’s general knowledge with the deep understanding of the atomic-scale world encoded in scientific interatomic potentials. Until now, researchers using LLMs to solve materials problems usually had to feed them raw data files as if they were just strings of text. It’s like asking an AI to understand a complex 3D engine based only on a parts list: the LLM can read the names, but it can’t “see” how the atoms fit together in space. MatterChat solves this by training a specialized AI bridge model, pre-trained on millions of crystal structures and an LLM, to align the LLM’s representation of the world with the interatomic potential’s representation of the world. The bridge model can translate physical insights into a format the LLM can actually understand. By giving the LLM these “scientific eyes”— a scientific “inductive bias” in the terminology of AI — the Berkeley Lab team has transformed it into a robust research tool capable of providing grounded scientific insights into complex materials challenges, such as predicting thermal stability or analyzing electronic band gaps. “We think of atoms as living in a physical space, but from a machine learning perspective, they are just vectors living in some very non-trivially structured manifold in a high-dimensional Euclidean space; and, of course, the same is true for the sentences and paragraphs that we use to express our ideas about those atoms,” said co-author Michael Mahoney, Berkeley Lab’s Scientific Data Division (SDD) AI Initiative Research Lead. “The bridge model basically gets those two structures to ‘talk with’ each other.” As a proof-of-concept of this general approach, the team trained their bridge model on a dataset curated by pairing nearly 143,000 stable atomic structures from the Materials Project with their corresponding physical properties. This training data was automatically assembled using the Materials Project’s API and deliberately enriched with properties fundamental to microelectronics design — like formation energy and bandgap — allowing MatterChat to learn the complex patterns connecting a material’s atomic blueprint to its functional performance. To validate their model, the researchers benchmarked MatterChat against a suite of other AI systems, from general-purpose LLMs to other specialized scientific AI methods. The results show that MatterChat consistently outperformed its competitors across a range of tasks. The model was more accurate in classifying material types and demonstrated superior precision in predicting numerical properties. For example, it excelled at predicting a material’s bandgap, a property critical for designing new electronics from high-capacity energy storage to next-generation computer chips. “Our design is significantly more efficient because we don’t have to build a massive AI model from the ground up,” said co-author Zhi (Jackie) Yao, a research scientist in Berkeley Lab’s AMCR. “Instead, we take two powerful, pre-trained models — a structural encoder for materials physics and an open-source LLM — and use them off-the-shelf. The only component we actually train is the lightweight ‘bridge model’ that translates between them. It’s the difference between building an entire car factory and simply designing a smart adapter that connects a world-class engine to a world-class navigation system. This approach is not only computationally efficient, but also makes the system modular, so we can easily upgrade components or adapt the bridge for other scientific domains in the future.” Crucially, this modular design highlights exactly how institutions like Berkeley Lab and the Department of Energy are carving out a highly valuable niche in the booming AI landscape. Rather than competing with Silicon Valley tech giants to build ever-larger language models from scratch, the lab is focusing on the specialized connective tissue that makes commercial AI useful for hardcore science. Because the bridge model approach underlying MatterChat is forward-compatible, it is perfectly positioned to leverage these parallel tracks of innovation. As Mahoney pointed out, “We expect that industry will continue to develop improved LLMs, and we expect domain scientists and facilities will continue to generate new data. An important part of scientific machine learning is not simply to solve problems on today’s data, but instead to develop general methods that will be forward-compatible with orders of magnitude more data, whether from scientific domains or from LLMs.” According to Yao, the MatterChat project, which was initially developed and enhanced with funding from a Berkeley Lab Laboratory Directed Research & Development (LDRD) Program, will now expand its capabilities. In a collaboration with Fermilab, MatterChat is already contributing to a U.S. Department of Energy Genesis Mission project — called Accelerating eXtreme Environment Specs-to-Silicon (AXESS) — that aims to speed up the development of next-generation, high-speed, radiation-hardened detectors for challenging particle physics experiments by using advanced 3D integrated circuits (chiplets) and AI-driven data analysis. In addition to the LDRD support, the team also credits supercomputing resources at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), located at Berkeley Lab, with MatterChat’s success. “We are incredibly grateful to NERSC; this research simply would not have happened without access to the Perlmutter supercomputer through their AI for Science program,” said Tang. Wenbin Xu, a NERSC postdoctoral fellow at the time, was also a major co-author of the work, as was Benjamin Erichson, a research scientist in Berkeley Lab’s SDD, highlighting the benefits of AMCR-SDD collaboration on AI for science. ### Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is committed to groundbreaking research focused on discovery science and solutions for abundant and reliable energy supplies. The lab’s expertise spans materials, chemistry, physics, biology, earth and environmental science, mathematics, and computing. Researchers from around the world rely on the lab’s world-class scientific facilities for their own pioneering research. Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest problems are best addressed by teams, Berkeley Lab and its scientists have been recognized with 17 Nobel Prizes. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.
Business News: Royal Pop Sales Resume After Launch Rush For Audemars Piguet X Swatch Collaboration Forced Store Closures
This weekend's Royal Pop launch ends in disappointment and frustration at more than a dozen Swatch boutiques globally.
Trump admin rolls out Workforce Pell Grants to fast-track workers into high-demand jobs
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the new Workforce Pell Grant program will help Americans train quickly for in-demand jobs.
Maryland ballot blunder triggers GOP push for federal review of blue state's voter rolls
Republicans call for a federal review of Maryland's voter rolls after a ballot vendor error forced the state to resend thousands of primary ballots.
Reimagining mental health: Stanford Medicine experts chosen to lead precision task force
Stanford Medicine’s Leanne Williams was chosen to lead the Precision Mental Health Commission to redefine and streamline how psychiatric conditions are diagnosed and treated. She’s pushing for a data-driven approach that begins with brain imaging.
Scientists Created a Subatomic Particle That Defies Our Understanding of Physics
The eta prime meson held together without one of the fundamental forces of the universe.
How "Alligator Alcatraz" fit into DeSantis' political playbook
DeSantis has funneled tens of millions of dollars into high-profile — and often controversial — immigration enforcement efforts before.
Illinois infrastructure investment strengthens economy and workforce
U of I professor Rober Bruno on how public infrastructure spending fuels job creation and long-term growth in Illinois.
America wrestles with its ‘Leaving MAGA’ phase
For those Americans who glance at President Donald Trump and only see a raving lunatic, little is more confounding than the millions of MAGA adherents who discern a force for good. Reconciling these differing viewpoints feels nearly impossible. Dismissing this conflict as just politics misses the visceral intensity of the emotions embraced on each side […]
CeB₆ surface reconstructions force a rethink of bulk electronic behavior
Surface reconstructions complicate the separation of structural effects from intrinsic electronic physics in CeB6.
Next Canes playoff game set for Thursday in Raleigh
The Eastern Conference Finals schedule was fixed after Buffalo forced a seventh game in its series with Montreal.
One clinic tracks the heavy toll Trump's immigration crackdown takes on mental health
Zocalo Health, a clinic in Los Angeles, screens all its patients for depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. It documented a marked increase in those conditions since ICE enforcement actions began.
PAID POST: Connecticut fined every major insurer for blocking mental health care. Now what?
Connecticut fined all five major health insurers for mental health parity violations. Here's what the enforcement action means and what still has to change.
Opinion | ‘Ghost networks’ make finding mental health care harder
State should enforce law requiring insurers to maintain accurate provider directories
Sunday Preview – Mighty war machines in the Age of Darkness
Tracked reinforcements arrive for the Legiones Astartes in next week’s pre-orders.
Hundreds show up to support Rehovot businesses fined for opening on Shabbat
Ice cream parlor Otello and cafe Nook are cited after operating on Saturdays for over a year, leading residents to complain about uneven enforcement of Shabbat policy
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)
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