Salon.com
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description: In-depth news, politics, business, technology & culture
date: 2026-05-14T04:42:09Z
update period: hourly
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update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
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items: Florida’s new history course whitewashes the founders on slavery
items: Massie’s primary isn’t really a test of Trump’s power
items: “After Neverland,” R. Kelly’s CBS meltdown, and the insidious patterns we refuse to see
items: A noncitizen says she was told she could vote. Then CBP detained her at the airport
items: How Keith Lee, a TikTok food critic for the new economy, guides us to eat well – and good
items: How “The View” could put an end to Trump’s war on the media
items: Assassination conspiracy theories? Blame Trump
items: FDA exit could threaten abortion access nationwide
items: Suspending federal gas tax wouldn’t save drivers as much as they might hope
items: Paul McCartney’s “The Boys of Dungeon Lane” turns memory into melody
items: Keir Starmer looks doomed. But does anyone really want his job?
items: Can rural-urban dialogue fix America’s broken democracy?
items: What’s a bored Donald Trump to do? Apparently, target Cuba
items: Five meals, one fridge clean-out
items: AI can lead to false arrests and wrongful convictions
items: Bob Dylan’s baffling social media experiment
items: Trump’s $12B farm aid was meant as relief. The Iran war is wiping it out
items: Trump’s latest science purge could bring major risks, experts say
items: The rising toll of Florida’s abortion ban
items: A 40-year-old Iran tariff quietly built America’s pistachio empire
items: Hantavirus is a warning. The Trump admin isn’t listening
items: Gerrymandering can’t fix the GOP’s voter problem
items: Medical epidemiologist breaks down cruise ship hantavirus outbreak
items: Trump’s pick for science director: a Silicon Valley investor with no science background
items: RFK Jr. pushes “personal choice” over teen tanning bed ban
items: “Much smaller shots”: Trump thinks vaccines are too “big” for babies
items: When Canvas crashed, colleges had no backup plan
items: Influencers are turning baby bumps into business models
items: The American workforce is a matriarchy
items: Neil Gorsuch’s right-wing book tour blows up in his face

Florida’s new history course whitewashes the founders on slavery
type: item
creator: Chauncey DeVega
date: 2026-05-14T10:45:18Z
subject: All Salon
subject: News & Politics
subject: advanced placement
subject: American History
subject: commentary
subject: constitution
subject: Education
subject: Florida
subject: High School
subject: History
subject: Ron DeSantis
subject: slavery
description: A rival Advanced Placement curriculum is offering a dangerous view of the Constitution and America's founders
encoded: Florida has long been a laboratory for autocracy. Several of the Trump administration’s most extreme policies were piloted there, including aggressive immigration enforcement, the systematic rollback of civil rights and voter suppression. Now the Sunshine State is offering a new experiment: a high school history course offering a conservative interpretation of American history and a corrective to the official Advanced Placement U.S. History curriculum, which more than half a million students took last year, and that most historians and educators consider to be ideologically well-balanced. Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis and the state’s education department have attacked the AP course as “woke” and unpatriotic because it examines the complexities of American history including White on Black chattel slavery, the genocide of First Nations peoples and other realities that puncture sacred civic myths such as American exceptionalism and the fantasy that America is, and has always been, the greatest country in the world. The scope of Florida’s latest right-wing project is ambitious, and part of a three-year campaign, according to a recent report by Dana Goldstein of the New York Times. The course, she revealed, “focuses on the Protestant faith of the Founders, argues that the U.S. Constitution is an antislavery document and recommends a textbook written explicitly to build patriotism.” The story quotes Frederick Hess, director of education policy at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, as praising the new curriculum’s use of primary sources. But even he acknowledged that the new course leans not on criticism but explicitly on how America is a “good, special place.” This is a polite way of saying that the curriculum is nothing more than right-wing propaganda. The American right has long targeted classrooms as political spaces where the country’s future can be won by socializing and indoctrinating young people into simplistic notions of “patriotism” and…

Massie’s primary isn’t really a test of Trump’s power
type: item
creator: Russell Payne
date: 2026-05-14T10:30:37Z
subject: All Salon
subject: News & Politics
subject: 2026
subject: Donald Trump
subject: Ed Gallrein
subject: GOP primaries
subject: Kentucky
subject: Politics
subject: Thomas Massie
description: A Massie victory, Republican strategists say, would speak more to the district than to Trump’s influence
encoded: The primary in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District, between Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ed Gallrein, his Trump-backed challenger, is not the test of President Donald Trump’s sway over Republicans some are billing it as. While a Gallrein victory would serve as proof of the president’s influence over the GOP and its voters, a victory for Massie might not be the generalizable sign of MAGA’s crackup that Trump’s opponents are hoping for. On May 19, voters in Kentucky’s 4th District will choose between two conservative Republicans, Massie and Gallrein, who are, on the surface, not all that different. Both are supporters of the president, and both agree with the vast majority of the president’s agenda. The key difference between them is the president’s personal disposition towards them. Massie has been a thorn in Trump’s side for much of his second term, first over the release of files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and more recently over his criticism of the president’s decision to join Israel and launch a new war against Iran. The fight has escalated into becoming the most expensive House primary race in U.S. history, with national Trump-aligned groups dropping millions against Massie, who himself has been a distinguished fundraiser, spending some $5.6 million of his own campaign money on ads, with Massie-aligned committees spending roughly $5.5 million. Using bizarre AI videos in some cases, the campaign ads have largely featured the candidates attempting to one-up each other, proving their conservative bona fides, while questioning the other’s authenticity. Related Gerrymandering can’t fix the GOP’s voter problem At the core of the race, however, is the question of whether Trump gets voters to abandon their longtime congressman in favor of his hand-picked challenger. Notably, by backing a challenge to Massie, Trump is also highlighting two of his major 2024 campaign promises: releasing the Epstein files and not starting new wars abroad. Massie …

“After Neverland,” R. Kelly’s CBS meltdown, and the insidious patterns we refuse to see
type: item
creator: Melanie McFarland
date: 2019-03-07T22:00:46Z
subject: All Salon
subject: Culture
subject: CBS
subject: Editor’s Picks
subject: gayle king
subject: HBO
subject: leaving neverland
subject: Michael Jackson
subject: Oprah Winfrey
subject: OWN
subject: r kelly
subject: Robert Kelly
subject: surviving r kelly
subject: TV
description: The two specials hosted by Oprah and Gayle King are accidental companion pieces showing how abuse and abusers work
encoded: Minutes before the closing credits roll on “Oprah Winfrey Presents: After Neverland,” the host quotes Maureen Dowd’s recent New York Times piece concerning “Leaving Neverland,” the four-hour documentary detailing two men’s allegations of being sexually abused as children by Michael Jackson, which inspired Oprah’s special. “Celebrity supersedes criminality,” Dowd writes, and when Oprah repeats those words before an audience composed primarily of rape and sexual abuse survivors, a hushed “ooh” ripples the air in Manhattan’s Times Center auditorium. Oprah nods knowingly. “Mmm-hmm. If you love that line,” she adds, “You’ll love this one: ‘How can you see clearly when you’re looking into the sun? How can an icon be a con?'” Some may be asking themselves that very same question with regard to R. Kelly, in spite of the pile of testimony against him, much of it provided in the court of public opinion by way of Lifetime’s docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly.” On Wednesday Kelly’s unhinged explosion during an interview with Gayle King aired on “CBS This Morning,” revealed a man so out of touch with public perception and so in denial about his alleged behavior that one had to wonder what possessed him to go on national TV in the first place. (Then again, see: Jussie Smollett. Seems that yet-to-be-named “itis” going around these days.) King interviewed Kelly at his home in Chicago’s Trump Tower — where else could he live but Trump Tower? — where, at the time, he was free on bond and awaiting trial on 10 charges of aggravated criminal sexual abuse involving four victims, three of whom were minors at the time they allege that they had sex with him. Hours after the interview first aired Kelly was taken into police custody due to a failure to pay more than $161,000 in child support. King’s cool comportment during the interview has earned her high praise among her peers. As Kelly leaps out of his chair in a rage gesticulating wildly and cursing, King stares straight ahead throughout her …

A noncitizen says she was told she could vote. Then CBP detained her at the airport
type: item
creator: Jen Fifield
date: 2026-05-14T10:00:08Z
subject: All Salon
subject: News & Politics
subject: dhs
subject: Elections
subject: ICE
subject: ProPublica
subject: U.S. Customs and Border Protection
subject: voting
description: The permanent resident told authorities that a DMV worker said she could vote
encoded: Estelle, who’s long held permanent resident status in the U.S., is a veteran at navigating the reentry process when she returns from visiting relatives in her native France. But on her most recent trip through customs in mid-March, officers detained the 57-year-old Lawrence, Kansas, resident for 30 hours, forced her to spend the night in a holding cell on a concrete slab and threatened her with deportation. Why? Because she acknowledged under questioning by customs officers that she’d once voted in a local election, despite not being a U.S. citizen. A small number of cities in the U.S. allow noncitizens to vote in local elections, but Lawrence is not one of them. Kansas and federal law both require U.S. citizenship to register to vote. Immigration and election experts say her case, which hasn’t previously been reported, marks a new escalation in the Trump administration’s efforts to find and prosecute instances of noncitizen voting, despite voluminous evidence showing it is rare. (Estelle asked that her last name not be used because of safety concerns.) Historically, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has played no part in election-fraud investigations. But the transcript of Estelle’s interview, which was provided to ProPublica by her attorney, makes clear that the agency had flagged her for special scrutiny and that officers knew her voting history. Estelle told the officer during questioning that she thought she could vote in local elections because a state motor vehicles department employee had told her when she renewed her driver’s license that she was eligible. Kerry Doyle, a deputy general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security in the Biden administration, said she’d never heard of someone being detained at a port of entry on suspicion of voting illegally. “It took them a whole lot of energy and effort to sift through all these things to find this needle in the haystack,” said Doyle, a longtime immigration attorney. “And it is a needle in the haystack…

How Keith Lee, a TikTok food critic for the new economy, guides us to eat well – and good
type: item
creator: Melanie McFarland
date: 2023-11-01T16:02:02Z
subject: All Salon
subject: Culture
subject: atlanta
subject: Cardi B
subject: commentary
subject: Criticism
subject: Critics
subject: Dining
subject: Food Critic
subject: Kandi Burruss
subject: Keith Lee
subject: Ratatouille
subject: Restaurants
subject: Roger Ebert
description: Lee has a critic's ethos, just like the late Roger Ebert and the misunderstood Anton Ego from "Ratatouille"
encoded: To hear some Atlantans talk about Keith Lee’s recent visit, you would think he burned the city’s restaurant scene to the ground. The TikTok creator embarked on a recent culinary tour of Georgia’s cultural mecca, hitting lesser-known joints along with higher profile places like Old Lady Gang, partly owned by “Real Housewives of Atlanta” star Kandi Burruss. Since Lee primarily focuses on small businesses, many of them Black-owned, he might not have visited Burruss’ place if not for the insistence of someone imploring him to swing by. That’s what Lee did, employing his usual secret shopper-style methods. Every few years . . . a prominent publication shares a deep-dive analysis of the critic’s role. Lee rarely dines in-person at the places he reviews because most of the places he highlights are independently owned takeout joints that are rarely, if ever, reviewed by major newspapers or magazines or epicurean-focused sites like Eater. Most don’t have a connection in the culinary world – i.e. they aren’t the so-called “secret” place where a notable chef, writer, or other celebrity eats. They’re spots opened by ordinary people who are confident cooks but lack a promotional budget and therefore, a steady clientele. Old Lady Gang doesn’t suffer from this problem, as Lee discovered when he sent his family into the restaurant while he waited curbside. Under normal circumstances, they would bring food to his car, where he films many of his “taste tests.” This time they were informed that the restaurant didn’t fill takeout orders on weekends and worse, there was an hour-plus wait to be seated. Upon hearing this, Lee walked into the place to see if he would be treated any differently – and lo and behold, suddenly a table was available in five minutes. “As always, I don’t want any special treatment. I want to be treated like everybody else,” he says in his video review, explaining why it didn’t feature the usual gustatory theater. “I pay for my food like everybody else. I’m a norm…

How “The View” could put an end to Trump’s war on the media
type: item
creator: Sophia Tesfaye
date: 2026-05-13T13:00:08Z
subject: All Salon
subject: News & Politics
subject: "60 Minutes"
subject: "The View"
subject: ABC
subject: analysis
subject: Brendan Carr
subject: CBS
subject: Disney
subject: Donald Trump
subject: Federal Communications Commission
subject: Jimmy Kimmel
subject: Media
subject: paramount
description: ABC is finally fighting back against censorship and pressure from the Federal Communications Commission
encoded: ABC’s entry into the media’s ongoing era of corporate capitulation under Donald Trump was not promising. In December 2024, just one day after a judge ordered both Trump and network anchor George Stephanopoulos to sit for depositions in a defamation suit legal observers widely considered frivolous, the network’s parent company Disney folded. ABC paid Trump $15 million for his presidential foundation, covered another million in his legal fees and published an editor’s note in which ABC News and Stephanopoulos declared they regretted past statements about the president-elect. Now the network may finally end Trump’s one-sided war against the media with a declaration that at least one major American media company has looked down the road of endless appeasement and understands where it leads: Nowhere that resembles a free press in a functioning democracy. The pattern that emerges from all of this submission is ugly and familiar. You pay once, and the demands come back. Blackmailers always come back for more. Brendan Carr, the co-author of Project 2025’s communications chapter who Trump installed as Federal Communications Commission chairman, has revived complaints against ABC, NBC and CBS that previous commissioners dismissed as obvious abuses of regulatory authority. He has threatened broadcasters over coverage Trump disliked. He investigated “60 Minutes” while Paramount was seeking merger approval, so Paramount settled Trump’s CBS lawsuit — centered on a routine edit of an October 2024 interview with Kamala Harris that TV networks perform every day — for $16 million, money that went to Trump’s presidential library. Rather than sign off on the deal, both the show’s executive producer and CBS News’ CEO resigned. Related Assassination conspiracy theories? Blame Trump In perhaps the clearest example yet of how Trumpism weaponizes the administrative state against political enemies, one day after ABC signaled in September 2025 it would not fire late-night host Jimmy Kimmel ov…

Assassination conspiracy theories? Blame Trump
type: item
creator: Amanda Marcotte
date: 2026-05-13T10:45:29Z
subject: All Salon
subject: News & Politics
subject: Assassination Attempt
subject: commentary
subject: conspiracy theories
subject: Democrats
subject: Donald Trump
subject: Republicans
subject: White House Correspondents’ Dinner
description: False flag stories reveal a deeper truth about Trump’s failing presidency
encoded: Let’s be clear up front: There is no evidence that Donald Trump has staged any of the three high-profile attempts on his life in the past two years. I’ll likely get some angry reader feedback to that assertion because a lot of people believe at least one of the would-be assassinations — and quite possibly all three — were false flag operations. A new survey from NewsGuard shows that 54% of Americans are open to the theory that at least one of the attacks was staged, with only 38% saying definitively they believe all three were real. When asked about each separate assault — the 2024 shooting that grazed Trump’s ear at a Pennsylvania campaign stop, the arrest of the armed man at the president’s West Palm Beach golf course later that year and the recent incident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner — fewer than half said these events were authentic. Once in a while, a conspiracy theory may be wrong but still manages to channel authentic frustrations. This particular one is false, but its underlying assumptions about the president — that he’s a liar, and that he’s manipulative, corrupt and politically desperate — are all too real. No one deserves more blame for this state of affairs than Trump himself, and not just because he’s spent a decade lying and sowing his own conspiracy theories, giving permission to both his allies and his opponents to take a looser approach to the truth. Once in a while, a conspiracy theory may be wrong but still manages to channel authentic frustrations. This particular one is false, but its underlying assumptions about the president — that he’s a liar, and that he’s manipulative, corrupt and politically desperate — are all too real. There’s an obvious explanation for why this conspiracy theory is so popular: Trump would fake such a thing if he thought he could get away with it. Anyone who doubts that has been asleep for the past decade, which have been marked by one Trump conspiracy after another. In 2019 he tried to blackmail Ukrainian…

FDA exit could threaten abortion access nationwide
type: item
creator: Shefali Luthra
date: 2026-05-13T10:30:17Z
subject: All Salon
subject: News & Politics
subject: Donald Trump
subject: FDA
subject: Marty Makary
subject: The 19th
subject: U.S. Food and Drug Administration
description: Marty Makary plans to resign from his post as FDA commissioner
encoded: Food and Drug Commissioner Marty Makary’s planned resignation creates a new opening for anti-abortion activists to push for national restrictions on the procedure — and in particular, limit the availability of a key abortion drug. The move comes as anti-abortion groups became angry over what they viewed as his agency’s failure to curb access to the drug. Makary’s planned resignation, which multiple outlets reported Tuesday, followed reports of Trump’s growing dissatisfaction with the commissioner. According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump was frustrated by an FDA decision not to approve multiple flavored vape products, which Makary worried might particularly appeal to children. Trump pressed Makary to approve the products, calling flavored vape availability a key issue for younger supporters. After Trump’s intervention, those products received federal approval. But Makary had drawn ire from other corners of the conservative movement. Abortion opponents have been pressing the FDA for months to rescind a decision approving the drug mifepristone, which is used in most abortions, to be dispensed without an in-person visit. The Supreme Court is now reviewing a case concerning that same FDA approval, which was issued in 2023. The high court has said it will decide by 5 p.m. ET on Thursday how to handle a case seeking to block the drug’s telehealth approval immediately. Research shows that it is safe to dispense without an in-person visit. Abortion opponents say the federal agency should still act regardless of whether or how the court might intervene. Related RFK Jr. wants to completely remove the FDA’s food additive program as part of MAHA campaign Reports that Makary could be fired from his post emerged Friday, the day Trump was scheduled to meet with anti-abortion activists including Marjorie Dannenfelser, who heads SBA Pro-Life America. When asked to comment on Makary’s possible exit from the administration, Kelsey Pritchard, a spokesperson for the organization, res…

Suspending federal gas tax wouldn’t save drivers as much as they might hope
type: item
creator: Robert I. Harris
date: 2026-05-13T10:00:06Z
subject: All Salon
subject: News & Politics
subject: Gas
subject: Gasoline
subject: Inflation
subject: iran war
subject: Taxes
subject: The Conversation
description: Here’s what goes into the price of a gallon of gas
encoded: With gasoline prices still high – averaging over US$4.50 a gallon in mid-May 2026 – President Donald Trump said he wanted Congress to suspend the federal gas tax, which is 18.4 cents a gallon for gasoline and 24.3 cents a gallon for diesel. A bill has been introduced in the Senate, and one is expected to follow in the House, according to Politico, but their fate is unclear. States also charge their own taxes, ranging from 70.9 cents a gallon for gas in California to 8.95 cents in Alaska. Indiana, Georgia and Utah have suspended their gas taxes for at least some of 2026, and other states are considering similar measures. As an energy economist, I have seen how suspending those taxes does reduce prices, but not as much as politicians – or drivers – might hope. Research on past gas tax holidays has found that consumers get about 79% of the reduction in gas taxes. That means oil companies and fuel retailers keep about one-fifth of the tax cut for themselves rather than passing that savings to the public. Suspending the federal gas tax, which would require Congress to pass a law, wouldn’t help consumers much anyway. Even if oil companies passed on the whole savings to consumers, national average gas and diesel prices would drop only about 4%. The percentage reduction in high-cost states such as California would be even smaller. Gas taxes are just one part of what drives gas prices. Overall, the price of a retail gallon of gas is the sum of four things: the cost of crude oil, refining, distribution and marketing, and taxes. In nationwide figures from January 2026, crude oil accounted for about 51% of the pump price, refining roughly 20%, distribution and marketing about 11% and taxes about 18%. That mix shifts with conditions: When crude oil prices spike, that can drive more than 60% of the price; when the price drops, taxes and logistics are larger shares of the cost. Crude oil is the biggest ingredient Because the price of crude oil is the largest element, most of the p…

Paul McCartney’s “The Boys of Dungeon Lane” turns memory into melody
type: item
creator: Kenneth Womack
date: 2026-05-12T20:05:30Z
subject: All Salon
subject: Culture
subject: Music
subject: Paul McCartney
description: "This was a lot of memories of Liverpool for me," he remarked in a recent Abbey Road Studios listening session
encoded: “The Boys of Dungeon Lane,” Paul McCartney’s twenty-seventh post-Beatles studio album, is the portrait of an artist in his twilight, a rich assortment of storytelling and nostalgia befitting the world’s greatest living songwriter. “The Boys of Dungeon Lane” rests easily alongside McCartney’s finest twenty-first-century LPs, especially “Chaos and Creation in the Backyard” (2005) and “McCartney III” (2020). As with “McCartney III,” the former Beatle plays most of the instruments on the new album, a clear signal that his virtuosic musical talents remain in top form. Indeed, his playing is as supple and inventive as ever. But in an unusual twist, the real star of the show here is McCartney’s heartfelt lyrics. This is, to put it plainly, the stuff of well-considered emotional rawness, painstaking portraiture of our collective pasts. Related The risky reinvention of Paul McCartney Produced by Andrew Watt, whose credits include The Rolling Stones’ superb late-period “Hackney Diamonds” (2023), “The Boys of Dungeon Lane” takes listeners on an aural journey into the recesses of McCartney’s Liverpool childhood. The LP’s lead single, “Days We Left Behind,” pulls no punches when it comes to confronting time’s relentless forward momentum. “Looking back at white and black, reminders of my past,” McCartney sings. “Smoky bars and cheap guitars, but nothing built to last.” McCartney’s sober reflections about the awesome power of the past take many forms on “The Boys of Dungeon Lane.” “This was a lot of memories of Liverpool for me,” he remarked in a recent Abbey Road Studios listening session, “but also any days we’ve left behind. Everyone’s got them — school, old mates.” For McCartney, “Days We Left Behind” holds special significance. It’s “a bit of a favorite,” he admits, about “John, and George and Ringo too.” Want more from culture than just the latest trend? The Swell highlights art made to last. Sign up here While much of the album feels appropriately bittersweet, McCartney fin…

Keir Starmer looks doomed. But does anyone really want his job?
type: item
creator: Andrew O'Hehir
date: 2026-05-12T19:10:55Z
subject: All Salon
subject: News & Politics
subject: analysis
subject: Andy Burnham
subject: Angela Rayner
subject: Britain
subject: british politics
subject: Keir Starmer
subject: Labour Party
subject: U.K.
subject: Wes Streeting
description: Britain’s PM can't contain the damage after disastrous election. But ousting him will create a huge mess
encoded: Britain’s embattled prime minister, Keir Starmer, faces a worsening political crisis that may force him from power, days after his ruling Labour Party suffered crushing losses in local and regional elections throughout England, Scotland and Wales. You could call this a startling reversal, given that Labour won an enormous parliamentary majority in the British general election less than two years ago. But Starmer’s popularity cratered almost as soon as he took office, and he has looked doomed, haunted and fatally indecisive for at least the past year. As I wrote a few days ago, the inevitable comparisons to Joe Biden are deeply unfair (to Biden). While there’s no way to match the worldwide chaos created by Donald Trump’s second presidency, Britain’s domestic political turmoil is, if anything, worse than America’s. If Starmer leaves office before the middle of July, the U.K. will have had seven prime ministers within the last 10 years. Related UK politics descends into chaos: Is there a lesson for Democrats? Late last week, it appeared likely that Starmer might survive in the medium term, not least because no plausible challenger seemed ready to tangle with Labour’s complicated rules for ousting a party leader. That remains true for the moment, but while pleasant spring weather has arrived in London (by all accounts), the political climate has grown increasingly stormy. At least 90 of Labour’s 400-odd members of Parliament have called for Starmer either to resign immediately or begin planning an “orderly transition,” and four junior members of his Cabinet have resigned. At this writing, at least 90 of Labour’s 400-odd members of Parliament have called for Starmer either to resign immediately or begin planning an “orderly transition” — the phrasing is politically significant — and four junior members of his Cabinet have resigned. More damaging still, several of his closest advisers have reportedly urged him to announce a timeline for his departure, including Home Secre…

Can rural-urban dialogue fix America’s broken democracy?
type: item
creator: Chauncey DeVega
date: 2026-05-12T10:45:22Z
subject: All Salon
subject: News & Politics
subject: American democracy
subject: Bipartisanship
subject: commentary
subject: Democrats
subject: Donald Trump
subject: maga
subject: Oregon
subject: partisanship
subject: political polarization
subject: Republicans
description: The U.S. seems hopelessly divided. These Americans think otherwise
encoded: America is a broken political family. On the ground, this means that Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, do not live in the same neighborhoods or belong to the same organizations. They do not pray or worship together. They do not date or marry each other. They are not friends. Technical terms like “negative partisanship” and “polarization” are just fancy ways of saying that the American people do not like each other very much right now. In America’s political imagination, Democrats live in big cities, are racially and ethnically diverse, and college-educated. Republicans live in rural America and are working class. Red State America has been fully MAGA-fied; big cities and blue states are dominated by “out of touch liberals,” “the radical left” and “wokeness.” But this is a flat, stereotypical picture of the country’s political and social life. Polls and other research consistently show that, from healthcare to the economy, rural and urban Americans actually agree on a wide range of public policy issues. Conflict entrepreneurs and extremists like Donald Trump have little incentive to unify the American people in service to the common good, which makes the task of healing the nation’s dysfunctional politics and successfully navigating its democracy crisis especially challenging. Conflict entrepreneurs and extremists like Donald Trump have little incentive to unify the American people in service to the common good, which makes the task of healing the nation’s dysfunctional politics and successfully navigating its democracy crisis especially challenging. It will require convincing urban and rural Americans alike that they have more in common than what divides them. The Washington Post’s Casey Parks recently profiled a small group of activists in Oregon doing this work by hosting informal town halls and small gatherings where they model respectful conversation, civility, shared problem-solving and a healthy civic life. The effort is led by Steve Radcl…

What’s a bored Donald Trump to do? Apparently, target Cuba
type: item
creator: Heather Digby Parton
date: 2026-05-12T13:40:40Z
subject: All Salon
subject: News & Politics
subject: commentary
subject: Cuba
subject: Donald Trump
subject: Foreign policy
subject: Iran
subject: iran war
subject: Marco Rubio
subject: Military
subject: State DEpartment
subject: Venezuela
description: As U.S. surveillance flights over the island increase, the president could be betting on action to regain his mojo
encoded: Donald Trump is “bored” with his war of choice in Iran. That’s according to the Atlantic’s Jonathan Lemire, who recently reported that after operations “proved far more difficult and lasted far longer than he expected,” the president wants to “move on.” Ending America’s war with the Islamic Republic has turned out to be beyond Trump’s skills as an allegedly brilliant negotiator, whose only strategy is to bully and sue if he doesn’t get his way, and his two “peace envoys,” Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, have also come up short. Trump wants quick “victories” and the Nobel Peace Prize, so he’s trying to manifest a victory by simply saying there is one. But Iran has Trump backed into a corner, and there’s no way out. The central problem is that Trump thought the Iranians would, in his words, “cry uncle” after he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the first air assault on Feb. 28, apparently not realizing that the Islamic Republican Guard Corps would double their resolve to fight back. To use another of Trump’s terms, they had no idea how many cards Iran had to play. Most analysts of the region did understand, which is why the U.S. never succumbed to the entreaties over the past 47 years by the likes of Netanyahu and war hawks in Congress, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to attack the country. They understood that Iran could strangle the global oil supply by closing the Strait of Hormuz, and it’s been clear for some time that Iran had the capability of endangering oil production facilities all over the region with their drones and missiles. This is one reason why American allies like Saudi Arabia are starting to panic that the U.S. is opening them up to even more destruction. Related Trump lost badly in Iran. How does he spin that as a win? Iran still has that card up its sleeve, but everyone knows it’s there because they showed it back on March 18, when Israel pushed the envelope and bombed one of Iran’s biggest gas fields and Iran retaliated …

Five meals, one fridge clean-out
type: item
creator: Ashlie D. Stevens
date: 2026-05-12T14:30:36Z
subject: All Salon
subject: Food
subject: Budget
subject: Cooking
subject: meal planning
subject: The Bite
description: A no-spend week of pastina, shakshuka and pantry alchemy
encoded: I spend a lot of time thinking about how to tweak everyday foods until they feel like slightly better versions of themselves. To that end, we just wrapped our “Basics Made Better” series over on “The Bite,” which focused on exactly that: taking dishes that have quietly become part of many of our de facto repertoires and shifting them, ever so slightly, into new territory. Augmenting a humble cinnamon coffee cake with plush ricotta and floral cardamom. Coaxing extra fudginess out of brownies with coffee, without sacrificing the requisite crinkle top. Turning stovetop pasta into a spicy, creamy Cajun version that tastes like if the average Rainforest Cafe were suddenly staffed entirely by people with experience on the line at French bistros. And yes, sometimes that means recommending specialty ingredients genuinely worthy of a relative splurge: the good vanilla, candied citrus, Kewpie over the bottom-shelf mayonnaise. But that’s exactly what those are: little luxuries. Related 26 tiny ways to be a better cook in 2026 Most meals, though, are less decadent than that. Which is why I was thrilled when a handful of “Bite” readers landed in my inbox requesting a short-run series focused on budget-friendly recipes and cooking tips. Because unless you occupy a very specific income bracket — one I certainly don’t belong to — you’ve probably noticed things feeling tighter lately. Grocery prices remain stubbornly high. For millions of Americans, SNAP and WIC benefits have been throttled or remain under threat. Gas prices leave people feeling squeezed from another direction entirely. And somehow, impossibly, $20 at the supermarket feels like it buys less and less every month. Still, I believe there are ways to find indulgence in the space between scarcity and abundance. More than that, I believe it’s a teachable skill — one built on generations of ingenuity, adaptation and care. We have different names for it depending on the culture and era: Italy’s cucina povera, Depression-era…

AI can lead to false arrests and wrongful convictions
type: item
creator: Maria Lungu
date: 2026-05-12T10:00:52Z
subject: All Salon
subject: News & Politics
subject: AI
subject: Artificial Intelligence
subject: Police
subject: Policing
subject: Surveillance
subject: The Conversation
description: AI algorithms such as facial recognition systems produce probabilities, not facts
encoded: In Baltimore on Oct. 20, 2025, a 17-year-old student named Taki Allen was sitting outside his high school after football practice when an artificial intelligence-enhanced surveillance camera falsely identified the Doritos bag in his pocket as a gun. Within moments police cars arrived, officers drew their weapons and Allen was forced to his knees and handcuffed while they searched him. All they found was a crumpled bag of chips. The AI’s misidentification and the human decisions that followed turned a normal evening into a traumatic confrontation. On Dec. 24, 2025, Angela Lipps, a Tennessee grandmother, was released after spending five months in jail because facial recognition software had incorrectly connected her to fraud crimes in North Dakota, a state she had never visited. Police had arrested her at gunpoint while she was babysitting her four grandchildren. These are unfortunate examples of how AI can lead to mistreatment of people because of technical flaws as well as misplaced human faith in the technology’s supposed objectivity. These cases involve different tools, but the underlying issue is the same. AI systems produce probabilities, and people treat them as certainties. We are researchers who study the intersection of technology, law and public administration. In researching how police departments use AI and how digital technologies operate in a democratic society, we have seen how quickly the shift from probabilistic prediction to operational certainty happens in practice. AI policing tools are used in dozens of U.S. cities, although no public registry tracks the full footprint. The tools ingest historical crime data and score neighborhoods on predicted risk so officers can be routed toward the resulting hot spots. The mechanism is straightforward, but its consequence is not. Once a system signals a possible threat, the question is no longer how certain the prediction is but what to do about it. A statistical output turns into a deployment decision, and t…

Bob Dylan’s baffling social media experiment
type: item
creator: Caryn Rose
date: 2026-05-12T16:00:24Z
subject: All Salon
subject: Culture
subject: Bob Dylan
subject: Music
subject: Social Media
description: Dylan's cryptic content has turned his Instagram and Patreon into a captivating puzzle, fueling endless speculation
encoded: Bob Dylan’s Instagram account used to feature the type of bland, standard content you’d expect from a legacy artist: “On this date” historical posts, tour announcements, box set advertisements. That was how things were until January 25, 2025, when the account uploaded a grainy video of Les Paul and Eddie Van Halen, taken from a 1988 special called “Les Paul & Friends.” But to know that, you’d have to know that, do a web search, or read the comments, because there was no caption on the post. Was this an error on the part of whoever manages Dylan’s social media? Was it a hint? Some kind of clue? No idea, but shortly thereafter another post appeared: A clip of Ricky Nelson singing and playing guitar, taken from an episode of “Ozzie & Harriet.” Eagle-eyed observers would note that the great James Burton, probably best known for his work with Elvis Presley, Emmylou Harris, and as part of the Wrecking Crew, was in the band. Once again, the clip appeared with no context or caption, and it was left to the commentariat to provide the details. Related Bob Dylan can do whatever he wants Two more clips would be posted to the account that day: An excerpt of the 1952 film “Clash By Night,” which features Marilyn Monroe, and film footage of legendary jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt and his band performing a tune called “J’attendrai.” Once again, the details were supplied by random commenters, who were beginning to work themselves into a fever pitch: Were these clues? Was Dylan hinting at future work? Was he making a statement about influences? WHAT DID IT ALL MEAN???!! You could write a dissertation exploring all of the possibilities of why Dylan posted each item, and some people probably did. This seemed like it could have been an interesting experiment, or Dylan trying to direct people in a certain direction, but when you break it down into its component parts, one by one, it isn’t any more complex than your uncle or your older sister who likes to send you interesting things the…

Trump’s $12B farm aid was meant as relief. The Iran war is wiping it out
type: item
creator: Garrett Owen
date: 2026-04-25T10:30:14Z
subject: All Salon
subject: Money
subject: News & Politics
subject: Agriculture
subject: Donald Trump
subject: Farmers
subject: iran war
subject: Kansas
subject: sharice davids
subject: USDA
description: With rising costs of fuel and fertilizer, and tariffs still in place, the outlook for 2026 is bleak
encoded: An agricultural relief package meant to counterattack President Donald Trump‘s tariffs on the nation’s farmers and producers met with mixed success and has been offset by rising costs from Trump’s Iran war, farmers and advocates say. The Trump administration announced a $12 billion relief package last December, following months of trade wars and hardline tariff policies by the president, including a crippling economic stare down with China over buying American-grown soybeans. The United States Department of Agriculture said the one-time bridge payments were in response to “temporary trade market disruptions” and policies under President Joe Biden. “President Trump will not let our farmers be left behind, so he directed our team to build a bridge program to see quick relief while the president’s dozens of new trade deals and new market access take effect,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a December statement, adding that the plan “ensures American farmers can continue to plan for the next crop year.” The relief package allocated $11 billion to row-crop farmers who produce crops such as corn, rice and wheat. The remaining $1 billion was set to go to specialty growers who produce fruits, vegetables, tree nuts and sugar, among other products, and are in a separate federal program from row-crop farms. A report released Wednesday by the American Farm Bureau Federation found that roughly $9.6 billion has already been distributed, with corn, wheat, and soybean producers accounting for 80% of payments. The report notes that the payments provided “some much-needed financial support to row crop farmers,” but that significant financial stressors remain. At the same time, it stressed the need to help specialty producers, who “continue to face significant uncovered losses.” Related Why the Iran war could make everything, not just oil, more expensive Those growers are still waiting to receive their payments, with the final filing day pushed back to April 24, and no cl…

Trump’s latest science purge could bring major risks, experts say
type: item
creator: Garrett Owen
date: 2026-05-02T13:00:50Z
subject: All Salon
subject: News & Politics
subject: Science & Health
subject: Budget
subject: Climate Change
subject: Donald Trump
subject: Jim O'Neill
subject: National Science Foundation
subject: Russ Vought
subject: Russell Vought
subject: Science
description: The abrupt firing of the board comes at a time of climate crisis and international competition
encoded: The Trump administration’s recent firing of the entire 22-person board of the National Science Foundation has drawn condemnation from lawmakers, scientists and their advocates across the country, who say the decision is irresponsible and based on political control. Members of the National Science Board, made up mostly of scientists, reportedly received emails last Friday informing them that they would be removed from their positions effective immediately. “No reason was given,” former board member, Yolanda Gill, an employee at the Information ‌Sciences ⁠Institute of the University of Southern California, told Reuters. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., a ranking member of the House Science Committee, blasted the decision as “a real Bozo the Clown move” by President Donald Trump. “The NSB is apolitical. It advises the president on the future of NSF,” Lofgren said in a statement on Saturday. “It unfortunately is no surprise a president who has attacked NSF from day one would seek to destroy the board that helps guide the foundation.” “I am deeply disappointed, though I cannot say I am entirely surprised,” former board member Willie May, vice president of research and economic development at Morgan State University, told Inside Higher Ed. He called the NSB “the latest casualty” in what said is the “systemic dismantling of science advisory” under the Trump administration. Related Trump admin’s fertility plan prioritizes ideology over science The White House later clarified its rationale behind the firing, citing a 2021 Supreme Court case. “The Supreme Court’s reasoning in U.S. v. Arthrex in 2021 raised constitutional questions about whether non-Senate confirmed appointees can exercise the authorities that Congress gave the National Science Board,” a White House official told Salon in an email. “We look forward to working with the Hill to update the statute and ensure the NSB can perform its duties as Congress intended. The National Science Foundation’s work continues uninterru…

The rising toll of Florida’s abortion ban
type: item
creator: Nicole Karlis
date: 2026-05-05T10:30:28Z
subject: All Salon
subject: News & Politics
subject: Science & Health
subject: Abortion
subject: Florida
subject: healthcare
subject: reproductive health
description: The number of Florida residents who traveled out of state nearly tripled between 2023 and 2024
encoded: Nearly two years ago, Florida’s six-week abortion ban went into effect, forcing most people to travel out of state if they need an abortion. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned the constitutional right to an abortion and essentially made access a state issue, Florida became one of the top three states to see a rise in out-of-state abortions. In other words, it became an unlikely surge state. The new law made it a penalty to perform or actively participate in an abortion six weeks after gestation, with limited exceptions. Before the new law went into effect, the state allowed for abortions up to 15 weeks of gestation. Not only has the law been severely restrictive to Floridians needing to access abortion care, but it has been devastating to people in the South who live in states that have similarly strict laws. New data from Guttmacher’s Monthly Abortion Provision Study shows just how dramatically restricting access in Florida has affected reproductive care in the state and throughout the Southeast region, forcing thousands of people to travel long distances for out-of-state care. Related Healthy Florida First’s toxic baby formula dilemma “In the nearly two years since Florida’s six-week ban took effect, the number of abortions provided in the state has dropped significantly,” Candace Gibson, director of state policy at the Guttmacher Institute, said in a statement. “However, the need for care has not decreased.” According to the new data, in 2023, the year before the six-week ban took place, there were close to 88,000 abortions provided in the state of Florida. In 2025, a year after the ban, this decreased by 25% to 65,800. This data includes in-clinic care before six weeks and telehealth care from providers living in shield law states. “A major driver of the decline was a drop in the number of people traveling from out of state into Florida to access care,” Isaac Maddow-Zimet, a data scientist at the Guttmacher Institute, told Salon.…

A 40-year-old Iran tariff quietly built America’s pistachio empire
type: item
creator: Jelinda Montes
date: 2026-05-06T10:30:26Z
subject: All Salon
subject: Money
subject: News & Politics
subject: Agriculture
subject: Dubai Chocolate
subject: Iran
subject: iran war
subject: Pistachio
subject: tariffs
subject: TikTok
description: Benefiting off viral trends, like Dubai chocolate, has been actually decades in the making
encoded: From Dubai chocolate to lattes, pistachios are having a moment. Of course, the nut itself has been cultivated for thousands of years in Persia, modern day Iran, where pistachios are still the country’s number one commodity crop. But the United States has only grown them commercially for 50 years. The U.S. now produces the lion’s share of pistachios globally — despite their relative newness for American farmers. The tagline on a bag of salt and pepper pistachios in my cabinet reads, “300-year-old recipe — reborn in California.” That short phrase aptly describes how one U.S. state overtook hundreds of years of Iranian market power in a matter of decades. Pistachio’s ubiquity is also new as the nut trickles down from TikTok virality to mass market explosion. What was once an occasional snack and ice cream flavor choice became a typical presence in coffee shops, bakeries and grocery stores all over the world. Pistachio cold foam now perches atop iced coffees from nationwide chains, Dubai chocolate knock-offs sit at every grocery checkout stand and boutique patisseries fill croissants with pistachio butters and creams. Mentions of pistachios on non-alcoholic drink menus has increased 189% in the last four years and further growth is expected over the next four years, according to Andrew Chen a senior marketing manager at Dataessential, a food and beverage market insights firm. Related Trump’s $12B farm aid was meant as relief. The Iran war is wiping it out It’s hardly a coincidence that the nut is blowing up just as the U.S. hit its stride in global pistachio dominance. Though the pistachio filling and flavor craze has just taken off in the past few years, “viral” food trends like these are really decades in the making. Within those decades, there wasn’t just deft marketing campaigns and organic interest growth that raised American pistachio’s profile — there was punitive foreign policy on the world’s then-top pistachio producer. The first commercial crop of pistachios i…

Hantavirus is a warning. The Trump admin isn’t listening
type: item
creator: Troy Farah
date: 2026-05-11T10:30:35Z
subject: All Salon
subject: News & Politics
subject: Science & Health
subject: commentary
subject: COVID-19
subject: hantavirus
subject: pandemics
subject: public health
subject: Trump Admin
description: The Dutch cruise ship incident probably isn’t the next pandemic. That doesn’t mean we’re risk-free from outbreaks
encoded: A week ago, most people had probably never heard of hantavirus. Now, millions of people are likely wishing they hadn’t. Judging from a slew of panicked social media posts and endless versions of the same explainers on “how worried should you be?” there is a genuine fear that we could be in for another pandemic. It’s not hard to understand why people freaking out. Even the virus name sounds scary, haunting. An outbreak aboard a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean has so far infected eight people, killing three of them: a German woman and a Dutch couple. They were traveling via the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, a cruise ship sailing from Argentina to Cape Verde when passengers became ill with high fever and gastrointestinal symptoms. The boat was anchored off the African coast as the World Health Organization stepped in to investigate and passengers were slowly screened and sent home. Of the 17 Americans returning home, two tested positive — one “mildly” and the other with light symptoms. The culprit, known as hantavirus, causes a severe and deadly disease that can result in heart and kidney failure. A recent autopsy report found that hantavirus (in an unrelated 2025 case) is what killed Betsy Arakawa, the concert pianist and wife of late actor Gene Hackman. Indeed, approximately 35% of people who catch it end up dying, depending on the region. The strain on the cruise ship is mostly spread by long-tailed pygmy rice rats via their saliva, feces or urine. It is presumed that the cruise ship patients encountered rodents in Argentina. Related Masks off: The lessons we didn’t learn from COVID The fact that the outbreak was on a cruise ship, one of the first places COVID-19 started to spread back in early 2020, is giving tons of people déjà vu. But besides both being viruses, the similarities between SARS-CoV-2 and hantavirus actually aren’t close. They infect in different ways and are classed in entirely different phylums, meaning they are not remotely related. Furthermore, han…

Gerrymandering can’t fix the GOP’s voter problem
type: item
creator: Russell Payne
date: 2026-05-12T10:30:57Z
subject: All Salon
subject: News & Politics
subject: 2026
subject: Callais
subject: Elections
subject: Gerrymandering
subject: Midterms
subject: Politics
subject: Redistricting
subject: voting
description: Legal wins won’t matter if Republicans can’t get people to vote for them
encoded: In the past two weeks, Republicans have racked up major legal wins that stand to benefit the party in its quest to insulate itself from a midterm cycle that’s expected to wipe out their House majority. The problem for Republicans is that, even in favorably drawn districts, they still need to convince people to vote for them — and that task is getting harder by the day. In late April, the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais ushered in the worst-case scenario for Democrats in the midterms, as well as for minority voters in the South, who could see their representation wiped out in 2026. The decision paved the way for states like Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina to redraw their congressional districts to be more favorable for Republicans, potentially wiping out every Democratic leaning seat in these states and delivering Republicans as many as six new seats before the midterms. Related Trump is bleeding his 2024 voters, but not fast enough for the midterms On April 21, Virginia voters approved a proposed redistricting plan. But last Friday, a decision from the Virginia Supreme Court overrode voters and wiped that decision out, siding four to three with Republicans who sued to block the maps, making the scenario even worse for Democrats. The combination of the Callais decision and the Virginia Supreme Court ruling have, in the course of a few weeks, dramatically darkened the midterm picture for Democrats, who are aiming to retake the House and Senate in November. Prior to these two decisions, Democrats had more or less fought Republicans to a draw in the mid-decade redistricting battle, which was kicked off by President Donald Trump last August after his numbers began to slip in the polls near the beginning of his term. Between last August and the beginning of May, Republicans have already delivered gerrymanders in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Florida. Republicans in Louisiana and Alabama have already suspended their ongoing pri…

Medical epidemiologist breaks down cruise ship hantavirus outbreak
type: item
creator: Daniel Pastula
date: 2026-05-09T10:00:27Z
subject: All Salon
subject: News & Politics
subject: Science & Health
subject: hantavirus
description: The worry on the cruise ship is human-to-human transmission
encoded: The MV Hondius, a Dutch cruise ship with a deadly outbreak of hantavirus, was on its way to the Canary Islands on May 7, 2026, after evacuating three ill passengers for treatment. The World Health Organization confirmed the outbreak on May 4, noting a total of seven infections, with three deaths since the outbreak began in early April. An eighth case was confirmed on May 6. Because of the illness’s one- to eight-week incubation period, additional cases may still be identified. Health officials around the world are monitoring passengers who disembarked from the ship in the early days of the outbreak in late April. Health officials emphasize, however, that the risk to the public from the outbreak is low. I’m a medical epidemiologist – here’s what you need to know about the virus and how the outbreak is playing out. What is hantavirus? Hantavirus isn’t just one virus but a group of closely related viruses found throughout the world. Their natural reservoir is rodents, such as wild mice, rats and moles. Infected rodents don’t get symptoms, but the virus replicates in their cells. It sometimes spills over into other animals, including humans, and can cause severe disease and even death. There are two general types of hantaviruses. Old World hantaviruses, typically found in Europe and Asia, generally affect the kidneys. Their mortality rate in people is 15% or less. New World hantaviruses, such as the one causing the outbreak on the Hondius, occur in North and South America. The best-known strains of this type are the Andes virus, the strain that was confirmed in the cruise ship outbreak, and the Sin Nombre virus, which likely caused the death of Betsy Arakawa, Gene Hackman’s wife, in March 2025. These viruses generally affect the lungs and are fatal in about 40% of cases. Symptoms start with a flu-like illness and can progress quickly to intense inflammation in the lungs that leads to lung and heart failure. A person with a hantavirus infection may experience symptoms an…

Trump’s pick for science director: a Silicon Valley investor with no science background
type: item
creator: Garrett Owen
date: 2026-05-07T17:44:14Z
subject: All Salon
subject: News & Politics
subject: Science & Health
subject: cdC
subject: Donald Trump
subject: HHS
subject: Jim O'Neill
subject: Longevity
subject: RFK Jr
subject: Robert F Kennedy Jr.
subject: Science
description: Jim O'Neill, a longevity enthusiast and vaccine skeptic, is Trump's pick to head the National Science Foundation
encoded: President Donald Trump‘s nominee for director of the National Science Foundation is Jim O’Neill, a polarizing Silicon Valley tech investor with prior roles in the Trump administration and a proponent of ideas and practices that live on the fringes of modern science. His nomination has drawn praise from contemporaries and withering criticism from scientists and advocates alike. The position of NSF Director has been vacant since April 2025, when former director Sethuraman Panchanathan resigned amid orders from the Trump administration to drastically cut the NSF’s budget and personnel. O’Neill was selected by Trump for the role in late February. A date for his senatorial confirmation hearing has not been set. Previously, O’Neill was Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s deputy secretary at Health and Human Services, as well as the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from August 2025. During his double tenure, he contended with the worst measles outbreak in decades, with over 1,800 cases so far this year, with outbreaks still ongoing across the country. Related Trump’s latest science purge could bring major risks, experts say O’Neill also authored a memo from HHS that called for a highly controversial change to childhood vaccination recommendations, sparking outrage in the scientific community. The move was in line with Kennedy’s long-time stance against vaccines, including running an anti-vaccine non-profit and earning money from vaccine injury lawsuits. For his part, O’Neill has expressed skepticism about vaccines and has publicly opposed vaccine mandates. At the same time, he has insisted that he is “strongly pro-vaccine” and previously advised Rational Vaccines, a controversial organization dedicated to combating the herpes virus. Kennedy called him “a critical piece” in HHS and highlighted O’Neill’s time spent as a Silicon Valley investor. “It will allow us to transform HHS into a superpower of technological innovation,” Kennedy said in June. The Wh…

RFK Jr. pushes “personal choice” over teen tanning bed ban
type: item
creator: CK Smith
date: 2026-05-09T17:30:10Z
subject: All Salon
subject: News & Politics
subject: Science & Health
subject: FDA
subject: Health and Human Services
subject: Robert F Kennedy Jr.
description: Public health officials warn the decision fits a growing pattern of deregulation across youth health policy
encoded: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is facing renewed criticism after withdrawing a proposed federal rule that would have banned minors from using tanning beds, a move public health experts say comes amid a broader pattern of weakening regulatory safeguards in youth health policy. Kennedy halted the FDA-backed proposal that would have restricted sunlamp products to users 18 and older and required warning acknowledgments about cancer risks. In a statement cited by multiple outlets, Kennedy framed the decision around “personal choice” and parental decision-making, even as regulators continue to warn that ultraviolet exposure from tanning beds significantly increases melanoma risk, particularly for teens. The move was confirmed alongside updates from federal health communications that the FDA is continuing to review policy options, but is no longer pursuing an outright youth ban at this time. Public health advocates say the decision fits into a broader ideological approach that prioritizes skepticism of regulatory health interventions over precautionary guidance — a pattern they argue is increasingly visible across Kennedy’s health agenda. Kennedy has long promoted views that challenge mainstream public health consensus, including support for expanded access to raw milk. The Food and Drug Administration has repeatedly warned that unpasteurized dairy products can carry dangerous bacteria such as salmonella, listeria, and E. coli. Despite this, Kennedy has previously been associated with the “health freedom” movement that frames such restrictions as government overreach. A Wall Street Journal report noted that Kennedy “hasn’t taken steps to expand raw-milk access” since taking office, but also described a noticeable retreat from earlier public advocacy for the product amid ongoing regulatory scrutiny. Kennedy has also drawn sustained criticism for vaccine-related positions that have alarmed public health officials. He has previously questioned wheth…

“Much smaller shots”: Trump thinks vaccines are too “big” for babies
type: item
creator: Alex Galbraith
date: 2026-05-10T17:51:49Z
subject: All Salon
subject: News & Politics
subject: Science & Health
subject: Autism
subject: Donald Trump
subject: Fox News
subject: measles
subject: RFK Jr
subject: Robert F Kennedy Jr.
subject: vaccines
description: The president thinks "smaller shots" will tamp down anti-vax paranoia and offer "much better results with autism"
encoded: Donald Trump defended childhood vaccinations during a stop by “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson” on Sunday, saying only that he wished vaccines for infants and toddlers were smaller. Operating on the same principle as a Cuties ad campaign, the president argued that babies are small and their shots should be, too. “I look at these beautiful little babies and they get a vat, I mean, like a big glass of stuff pumped into their bodies. And I think it’s a very negative thing to do,” he said. “I would love to see much smaller shots, like four visits to the doctor. And I think you would have a much better result with the autism.” Trump did say that he “believe[s] in vaccines” but worried that young children are receiving too many. “The polio vaccine’s amazing. It’s, you know, wiped it out,” he said. Related America isn’t prepared for what comes after the measles crisis Vaccines are not administered all at once or in large quantities to infants. There is no known link between childhood vaccines and autism. It was one of several exaggerations throughout the wide-ranging interview. In another, he claimed that the NFL was charging viewers $1000 per game to view games that were previously broadcast on network television. Start your day with essential news from Salon. Sign up for our free morning newsletter, Crash Course. “There’s something very sad when they take football away from many, many people. Very sad. I don’t like it,” he said. “They’re making a lot of money. They could make a little bit less. They could let the people see… All of a sudden they’re going to have to pay a thousand dollars a game. It’s crazy.” Watch the interview below via YouTube: Read more about this topic A judge shot down RFK Jr.’s vaccine overhaul. The fight is far from over “People are choosing this fate”: Measles will get worse before it gets better Babies are bleeding to death as parents reject vitamin shot given at birth The post “Much smaller shots”: Trump thinks vaccines are too “big” for bab…

When Canvas crashed, colleges had no backup plan
type: item
creator: CK Smith
date: 2026-05-09T15:10:05Z
subject: All Salon
subject: Money
subject: News & Politics
subject: Canvas
subject: columbia university
subject: cyber hacking
subject: Princeton University
subject: rutgers university
subject: ShinyHunters
subject: the new school
subject: The University of Tampa
subject: University of California
description: The nationwide cybersecurity incident exposed how fragile our increasingly digital campuses are during finals week
encoded: The nationwide Canvas outage that disrupted colleges and universities during finals week forced campuses across the country to improvise as faculty and students suddenly lost access to exams, assignments, grades and other course materials. Canvas is the online learning platform used by over 8,000 schools districts and universities, including all eight “Ivy League” schools. It is the central hub for each course, connecting teachers and students through course materials like discussion groups, assignments, grades, class files and an internal email system. Canvas parent company Instructure confirmed this week that it was responding to a “security incident” affecting the platform, which is used by thousands of schools and universities nationwide. On its public status page, the company acknowledged that “Canvas is currently unavailable for some users” while teams worked to investigate and restore service. The outage affected major institutions including Columbia University, Princeton University, Rutgers University and the University of California network, according to reporting from multiple university statements. At The University of Tampa, administrators told faculty the outage was disrupting “final exams, paper submissions, and grading at a critical point in the semester,” while encouraging professors to consider alternatives including email submissions, in-person testing and assignment extensions. Faculty were instructed to “exercise flexibility and good judgment” as the university worked through the disruption. In some cases, professors were told they could adjust grading approaches if students could no longer adequately prepare for exams without access to Canvas materials. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-895545" src="https://www.salon.com/app/uploads/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-09-at-10.40.51 AM-300x162.png" alt="" width="682" height="368" class=" wp-image-895545" srcset="https://www.salon.com/app/uploads/2026/05/Screenshot-…

Influencers are turning baby bumps into business models
type: item
creator: Jasmine Mithani, The 19th
date: 2026-05-10T10:30:49Z
subject: All Salon
subject: Money
subject: News & Politics
description: They've transformed motherhood into lucrative professions, but what happens to the kids who grow up online?
encoded: This story was originally reported by Jasmine Mithani of The 19th. Meet Jasmine and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy. There’s only one career where having a baby can boost a woman’s career: influencing. Other women in the workforce have to contend with the motherhood penalty, but moms-to-be making a living on social media can rake in cash with sponsorships that continue well past their due dates. Individual brand deals can go for $25,000, while the most popular family vlogging YouTube channels earn an estimated $200,000 a month. It’s no wonder young mothers are clamoring toward the profession. “Influencerdom is the new American dream,” journalist Fortesa Latifi proclaimed earlier this month at the launch of her book “Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online.” Latifi’s book delves into the world of family vlogging, the vein of internet fame centered around the daily lives of parents and their kids. The most popular accounts post videos of their kids on platforms like YouTube that can pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. She interviews kids whose parents cut brand deals tied to their first menstrual period, asking them about what it is like growing up in front of an audience of millions. But there’s no way to examine this ecosystem without exploring the impossible standards mothers are held to — and forces like religion that shape those expectations. The influencer economy is booming to a tune of $250 billion, and it’s dominated by women. Latifi says social media algorithms favor momfluencers because audiences love watching young, beautiful people online, especially if they are mothers with impossibly cherubic children. But these influencers are often dismissed as frivolous, Latifi says — and the gender breakdown has a lot to do with it. “Misogyny leaks into every conversation that we have about mom influencers and family bloggers,” Latifi said. She pointed out the relative scarcity of dad blog…

The American workforce is a matriarchy
type: item
creator: Sara Estep
date: 2026-05-10T13:00:35Z
subject: All Salon
subject: Money
subject: News & Politics
subject: affordability
subject: affordable childcare
subject: Childcare
subject: commentary
subject: COVID-19
subject: job growth
subject: Labor Market
subject: matriarchy
subject: women in the workplace
description: As moms are driving the growth in America's labor market, it's time for major investments in early childcare
encoded: This year, for only the third time in American history, employed women outnumbered employed men. That shift has been beneficial for women, especially — and surprisingly — for mothers of young children. To maintain that momentum, it’s more important than ever to ensure quality childcare is readily available and accessibly priced. Women with young kids are more likely to be in the workforce than ever before, a shift due in part to the country’s cost-of-living crisis. This phenomenon of having more employed women than men also reflects a gradual shift in the labor market: The industry composition is moving away from traditionally male-dominated blue-collar occupations and more toward healthcare work. Many experts are also pointing to childcare access and telework options as important factors for women’s labor force participation. But despite what some may suggest, I don’t think telework plays a significant factor in the current labor market story. As a labor economist who spends most of my time crunching numbers about how gender interacts with the labor market, I think the data suggests that women are charging ahead in part thanks to childcare support that became more readily available during the Covid-19 pandemic. Related Candidates win when they run on affordable family care We have to look at this trend in rising female employment through the lens of that time and experience. Mothers were hit hard by the pandemic shutdown, and their participation in the labor force plummeted in the spring of 2020. Many moms didn’t recover until nearly two years later, and their maternal scream still echoed across the media landscape long after the world first ground to a halt. School closures put parents — mostly women — in a bind. Moms were more likely than dads and non-parents to leave the workforce to care for their kids who were stuck at home studying remotely. But pandemic-era stimulus packages that funded childcare helped ensure early educators kept their roles, and that thous…

Neil Gorsuch’s right-wing book tour blows up in his face
type: item
creator: Sophia Tesfaye
date: 2026-05-11T16:00:04Z
subject: All Salon
subject: News & Politics
subject: analysis
subject: birthright citizenship
subject: george w bush
subject: maga
subject: Neil Gorsuch
subject: Right-wing media
subject: Ronald Reagan
subject: SCOTUS
subject: Supreme Court
description: Supreme Court justice’s interviews with friendly media get a cold reception from conservatives
encoded: Neil Gorsuch is on a book tour, and his itinerary reads less like a publicity schedule than a pilgrimage route through the modern right-wing media ecosystem. The conservative Supreme Court justice’s rollout for his new children’s book, “Heroes of 1776: The Story of the Declaration,” includes “Fox & Friends,” Hugh Hewitt’s radio show, Megyn Kelly’s podcast, National Review and stops at the presidential libraries of Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. But Gorsuch’s interviews have not been confined to “the stories of ordinary people willing to do extraordinary things,” as the book jacket reads. Throughout the tour, he has repeatedly insisted the Supreme Court is not a partisan institution. So there is something almost darkly ironic about watching Gorsuch embark on one of the friendliest media tours imaginable — one carefully routed through the movement that elevated him and celebrated his confirmation to the Supreme Court as one of the signal achievements of the modern conservative project — only to discover that even this is no longer enough for today’s right. Although Gorsuch’s insistence that disagreements on the Court stem merely from differing “interpretive methodologies” rather than ideology landed especially awkwardly just days after the Court further weakened the Voting Rights Act, the backlash currently consuming Gorsuch is not primarily coming from the left. It’s coming from the same right-wing world his book tour was designed to court. Related My citizenship, up for debate It all stems from Gorsuch’s third book and his first for children, which was co-written with a former law clerk and released in early May ahead of the nation’s 250th birthday. In interview after interview, he has described the United States as a “creedal nation” rooted not on race, ancestry or religion but on the ideals laid out in the Declaration of Independence: equality, natural rights and self-government. “Our nation is not founded on a religion,” Gorsuch told Reason. “It…