🎧 How the Abrego Garcia standoff ends
Since a Maryland-based, Salvadoran-born immigrant went missing in mid-March, no one has heard from him. On this episode of Today, Explained, we hear the captivating and terrifying story of Kilmar Abrego Garcia through the eyes of the only American who has communicated with him since then, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who met him in El Salvador last week. Van Hollen describes his position starkly: “Put up or shut up in court. I'm not vouching for the man. I'm standing up for his rights because all of our rights are at risk if we don't.” The episode also gets a refreshing take on the question of whether or not we’re in a constitutional crisis, from former assistant US attorney Elie Honig.
American politics has poisoned how we think about the pope
When the news broke of Pope Francis’s death, the online political world jumped in to do what it does best: politicize the non-political. But between memes of evil puffy-faced JD Vance killing the Pope and Vance’s actually moving tribute to the Pope, Vox’s Christian Paz stepped in to remind us that papal politics do not match American politics. Despite the partisan political urges to extoll or refute Pope Francis’s positions, Paz points out that labels like “liberal” and “conservative” have very different meanings within the Church than they do outside of it. This piece helps us think through what the pope's positions mean in a Catholic context, and what to expect from the Pope who will follow him.
Silicon Valley got Trump completely wrong
This smart piece from Eric Levitz walks through the high-minded reasons the tech bros gave for turning away from the Democratic Party, and then systematically dismantles them. Powerful tech moguls like Marc Andreessen saw the US as suffering from foundering economic growth and productivity, and at great threat from China’s technological dominance. Levitz acknowledges that Trump 2.0 policies have met many of Silicon Valley’s specific interests and demands thus far. But he argues that the president’s trade war is much worse for the tech world because it is undermining America's high-minded goals, long-term economy, and geopolitical standing, in favor of what he describes as “the tech right’s narrow pecuniary [goals].” Most notably, President Donald Trump’s tariffs are forcing Europe and Asia to turn toward China as a potentially more stable and reliable economic partner than the US.
10 charts prove that clean energy is winning — even in the Trump era
This readable, straightforward article cuts to the chase of a newly-published series of stories on Vox, called Escape Velocity. The central idea is that in spite of Trump’s determined efforts to increase fossil fuels and limit environmental regulation, the global clean tech revolution is already well underway. In fact, its motion is unstoppable — it has already achieved escape velocity. From our energy grid to the job market, these charts make the case that the clean energy transition may slow a little under Trump, but it will not stutter to a halt due to politics.
🎧 Is climate progress doomed?
On the latest episode of Explain It to Me, we answer a caller’s question about whether to have hope that the US can make progress on climate change during this Trump administration. Correspondent Benji Jones helps provide the answer through his reporting on Iowa wind farms, which have massive public and official support in that red state. While Trump's disdain for climate change science and personal distaste for wind energy are well known, this episode makes the case that the economic march of the energy transition is already unstoppable. A Trump voter and livestock farmer in Iowa who relies on wind farming to supplement his income asks rhetorically, “Is Trump going to offset that because he don't want us to have renewables? I don't think so. I don't think he'll get that passed, even if he tried.”
That’s all for now. I hope these reads and listens will help you lean in to what we can learn and experience in the world, and worry less about the overwhelming nature of the news these days.
