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In a perhaps unprecedented dark time for America and the world, let us take solace in our indomitable Dear Stable Genius, who remains unwaveringly focused on taking care of shiny business: Gold social security cards like Elvis, a $400 million, lopsided shed/ballroom with gaudy columns but no main entrance, and of course gold toilets - which all keeps him so busy he hardly has time to threaten Iran with war crimes. What a time to be alive, barely.
In actual good news, No Kings Day 3.0 drew between 8 and 12 million people, thus hovering tantalizingly close to the 3.5% of a nation's populace historically required to overthrow an authoritarian regime. So good work, patriots. The over 3,000 protests, aka per Mike Johnson "Hate America rallies," ranged from Alaska's Utqiaġvik, the country's northernmost city (7 people) to Ele'ele, Kaua'i, the westernmost, from over 100,000 in New York City to nine stalwarts on Maine's Monhegan Island. Thousands of Trump's neighbors in Palm Beach turned out, ending with a twilight march to Mar-A-Lago, or as close as they could get.
Their signs were brutal: "Elect A Rapist, Expect To Get Fucked. How Many Deaths For the Epstein War? Worst President Since Trump. Criminals Belong Behind Bars, Free Balls for Members of Congress Who Lost Them, Trump Rapes Kids, Impeach Pedolf Shitler, Putin's Bitch, The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived. According to The Borowitz Report, Trump, furious about the large protests, argued they'd be much smaller if you subtract all Elon Musk's kids there because they hate him: "People are saying their number (was) much higher than 400, thousands, maybe millions. You take away Elon’s kids and almost no one was there."
There were also "half-dozens to dozens of Americans" at One King co unter-protests, reports The Fucking News, who put the number at "many-ish...Organizers say there were barely any organizers," with attendees ranging from "a tiny number of young people to a die-hard faction of dying people." In Palm Beach, one man carried a heavy sign that read, "Deport the white liberals"; masked to protect himself "against the vindictive left," he said he left soon after he was "attacked" by a woman who denied touching him; her comrades said the guy just dropped his sign "because he was too weak to carry it."
Their small numbers did face competition from "the incredible shrinking CPAC," also meeting that day in Grapevine, Texas with a turnout of "barely thousands." Once a MAGA "center of political gravity," this year's event drew neither Trumps nor presidential candidates. One possible ick factor: MC was (still) CPAC chair Matt Schlapp, who in 2024 settled a pricey sexual misconduct lawsuit from a guy working on Hershel Walker’s (LOL) Senate campaign, who charged Schlapp groped him. The event did boast Todd Chrisley, a reality TV star doing 12 years in prison for massive fraud till Trump pardoned him. Here’s his welcome.
There was also a big contingent of South Korean “stop the steal” activists and supporters of former president Yoon Suk Yeol, impeached last year and now serving life in prison for insurrection. Still, the whole thing was a bit of a slog. Organizers tried to jazz up session subjects - a panel titled "Fraud" became “Ilhan Omar ‘Family’ Values"; Mercedes Schlapp beseeched factions not to "divide from within," which is how you divide; and when Schlapp asked them, the clueless CPAC "crowdette" mistakenly, hilariously cheered the prospect of impeachment proceedings by what could be a newly-Democratic-controlled House. SAD!
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Poor deplorable MAGA. Maybe they're disheartened by Trump's well-deserved plunging approval rating, now at barely 33%. Maybe it's because their regime is such a half-assed shitshow and their people are such self-serving, hypocritical dickwads. As in: Amidst a government shutdown that's seen TSA agents (starting salary $34,454) compelled to work without pay as Congress takes a two-week recess (pay over $170,000) on the taxpayers' dime, TMZ urged readers to send in photos of vacationing pols, and here comes Lindsey Graham at Disney World, “The Most Magical Place On Earth," gaily twirling a Little Mermaid bubble wand yet. America and Megyn Kelly: WTF.
Or maybe it's because Commander-In-Chief Private Bonespurs started another forever quagmire without legal or political justification, and it turns out wars in the Middle East are hard and complex and above his pay grade - like health care! - to solve, and now with no good options he's spewing up only staggering incoherence for strategy, like hailing "great progress" in imaginary "serious discussions" while pivoting to rabidly threatening to "conclude our lovely 'stay’ in Iran" by "obliterating" their civilian infrastructure, electricity, energy and drinking water, which is a war crime. But talks are going “unbelievably well."

Anyway, his true passion is turning every crass, stupid thing he or Elvis can think of fake gold like the Oval bordello and even Social Security cards, and slathering his repulsive name on structures, coins, currency, and building trashy, illegal monuments to himself like an obscene, unapproved, un-permitted, $400 million ballroom twice the size of the White House, because, "They’ve always wanted a ballroom," except now it's suddenly, "essentially a shed for what goes under it," a massive military complex, presumably a bunker where, as merciful history would have it, he'll finally free us of him, "and we're doing it very well."
He's so ballroom-enraptured that on Air Force One he just pulled out a swath of drawings to show reporters, explaining, "I thought I’d do this now because it’s easier. I’m so busy...fighting wars and other things." Quick mindless pivot to "hand-carved, beautiful, Corinthian columns" - "Corinthian wut" - he's also reportedly re-imagining for the White House facade, a change deemed "at odds with universally held historic preservation standards." Same, experts say of "barely scrutinized" ballroom plans, "riddled with design flaws" - disproportionate, pillars block windows, grand staircase to nowhere. WH lackey on "the best builder in the world": "The American people can rest well knowing this project is in his hands.” We feel better already.

And then there's his new gold toilet, mounted on a 10-foot throne near the Lincoln Memorial. The new masterwork of Secret Handshake (Best Friends Forever), it celebrates the renovation of the White House Lincoln Bedroom bathroom, all in gold, and "what this President has actually accomplished." The toilet's plaque reads, “In a time of unprecedented division, escalating conflict, and economic turmoil, President Trump focused on what truly mattered: remodeling the Lincoln Bathroom....This, his crowning achievement, is a bold reminder that (he) isn’t just a businessman, he’s taking care of business. It stands as a tribute to an unwavering visionary who looked down, saw a problem, and painted it gold.”

Spring has not yet even begun, but as science journalist Rebecca Boyle wrote Thursday for The Atlantic, "it feels like we skipped right to summer" across the Western United States, which is facing record temperatures this week.
As of Monday, 39 million people across California, Nevada, and Arizona were under heat alerts. Temperatures in Los Angeles are reaching "25-35 degrees above normal," records are being "rewritten" in Las Vegas, and Phoenix is facing temperatures of 105°F two months earlier than usual, according to warnings issued by the National Weather Service (NWS) this week.
"This is not normal. Or at least it wasn’t normal in the past," said Boyle, who explained that it was the result of hot air being trapped by "a bizarrely strong ridge of high pressure in Earth’s atmosphere," the kind that would be uncommonly strong even in the summer.
Citing a model created by the nonprofit group Climate Central, she said that human-caused climate change had made these extreme temperatures five times more likely.
The NWS warned that a heatwave in March is "very dangerous, particularly for those not acclimated to the heat and/or traveling from cooler climates.”
Counts by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that 1,600-2,400 Americans die each year from heat-related causes, and they've more than doubled since 1999.
Meanwhile, a report from the Federation of American Scientists last year found that "the combined effects of extreme heat cost [the US] over $162 billion in 2024—equivalent to nearly 1% of the US GDP."
The Western United States has recently experienced its warmest winter on in recorded history, leading to a record snow drought. Scientists say this has depleted water supplies and will make the region more vulnerable to wildfires and drought later this year.
Climate scientist Daniel Swain told ABC News 10 of Northern California that this is only the beginning of how the climate crisis will impact the state in the coming decades.
"The hottest hots are already getting hotter, and they will continue to get hotter. We haven't seen the hottest temperatures that we're going to see in the next 20 or 30 years," Swain said. "We'll see an increasing number of years with severe wildfire conditions... We will also see increased risk of major flood events, either as snowmelt becomes more rapid in the spring or as winter storms drop even more rainfall more quickly."
The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen said heatwaves like this one are unfolding "just as Big Oil predicted."
"A relatively small number of major fossil fuel companies are responsible for the majority of all greenhouse gas emissions generated by humanity. Just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of all global greenhouse gas emissions generated since 1854, and just 57 companies are responsible for 80% of the emissions generated since 2016," explained a report published by the group Thursday.
"These companies didn’t just contribute to this heatwave—they did so knowingly," the report said. "For decades, Big Oil companies were internally forecasting exactly these kinds of climate disasters."
However, the report explains, the industry "developed and orchestrated a multidecade, coordinated campaign to defraud the public about the dangers of climate change, and blocked solutions that could have prevented these disasters."
A study published earlier this month by Geophysical Research Letters showed that as more carbon has been pumped into the atmosphere over the past 10 years, the rate at which the climate is warming has doubled.
Following this trend, it may be as soon as 2030 that the globe surpasses 1.5°C above preindustrial averages, at which point many climate risks, such as heatwaves, biodiversity loss, and food insecurity, are expected to be dramatically amplified, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
"Big Oil companies have, indeed, cost this country and the world," Public Citizen said. "Extreme heatwaves like the one impacting the Western US this month are one of the catastrophic disasters these companies predicted their conduct would bring about. They should be made to pay."
After axing a Biden-era student loan repayment program, the Trump administration is threatening to kick its millions of mostly low-income beneficiaries onto the government's most expensive plan unless they switch to a new one quickly.
The Washington Post reported on Friday that the Department of Education was beginning to email the more than 7 million people enrolled in the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) program, telling them they needed to change their plan within the next 90 days.
Around 4.5 million of those borrowers earn incomes between 150% and 225%, allowing them to qualify for zero-dollar monthly payments under SAVE, which the Trump administration effectively killed in December after settling with Republican states who'd brought lawsuits against the program under former President Joe Biden.
Anonymous officials told The Post that those who do not switch plans within three months of receiving the email will automatically be re-enrolled in the Standard Plan. Unlike SAVE, which is income-based, the Standard plan has borrowers pay a fixed rate over 10 years.
Standard typically carries the highest monthly payments, and those transitioning to it from SAVE could pay more than $300 extra per month in some cases, with the poorest borrowers seeing the sharpest increases.
While 90 days may seem like plenty of time to switch to a less expensive repayment plan, it's not nearly that simple.
Due to the large exodus of borrowers, the Department of Education has struggled to process all the forms, processing only about 250,000 per month. Many borrowers who have tried to transition have found themselves waiting months for a reply.
To make matters more confusing, many of these borrowers will have to switch programs again soon, since all but one repayment program will be dissolved on July 1, 2028 as a result of last year's Republican budget law. The remaining plan will also be income-driven, though it is still expected to cost borrowers more each month.
According to a report released last month by the Century Foundation and Protect Borrowers, two groups that support loan forgiveness, nearly 9 million student loan borrowers are in default. During Trump's first year back in office, the student loan delinquency rate jumped from roughly zero to 25%, which it called "precedent-shattering."
"Much of the rise in delinquencies can be linked to the Trump administration’s actions aimed at increasing student loan payments," the report said. “The US Department of Education blocked borrowers from accessing more affordable payments through income-driven plans, having ordered a stoppage in application processing for three months and mass-denying 328,000 applications in August 2025. As of December 31, 2025, a warehouse’s worth of 734,000 applications sat unprocessed.”
Being in default has major ramifications for borrowers' finances. Those with delinquent loans saw their credit scores decrease by an average of 57 points during the first three quarters of 2025, dragging around 2 million of them into "subprime" territory, which forces them to pay thousands of dollars more for auto and personal loans and makes them more likely to have difficulty finding housing and employment.
The report estimated that if those booted from SAVE defaulted at the same rate as other borrowers, the number of student loan borrowers in distress could rise as high as 17 million.
According to Protect Borrowers, the typical family will pay more than $3,000 per year in additional costs as a result of the end of SAVE.
The end of SAVE comes as oil shocks caused by Trump's war in Iran have spiked gas prices and threaten to raise them throughout the economy, adding to the already elevated costs of food, housing, and transportation resulting from the president's aggressive tariff regime.
"In the middle of an affordability crisis driven by Donald Trump," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), "Trump is killing a plan that lowers student loan costs. It's shameful."
Millions of American across all 50 states on Saturday rallied against President Donald Trump and his authoritarian agenda during nationwide No Kings protests.
The flagship No Kings rally in Saint Paul, which organizers Indivisible estimated drew over 200,000 demonstrators, featured speeches from Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and actress Jane Fonda, as well as a special performance from rock icon Bruce Springsteen, who performed "Streets of Minneapolis," a song he wrote in tribute of slain protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Organizers called it "the largest single-day nationwide demonstrations in US history," with an estimate 8 million people coming out for events in communities and cities nationwide.
From major cities to rural towns that have never seen mobilizations like this before, protesters made clear that in America, we don’t do kings," the No Kings coalition said in a statement.
"This is what it looks like when a movement grows—not just in size, but in reach, in courage, and in more people who see themselves as part of this movement," the organizers said. "The American people are fed up with this administration’s power grabs, an illegal war that Congress and the public haven’t approved, and the continued attempts to stifle our freedoms. We’re not waiting for change; we’re making it."
The rally in Minneapolis was one of more than 3,300 No Kings events across the US and internationally, and aerial video footage showed massive crowds gathered for demonstrations in cities including Washington, DC, New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Diego.
Congratulations to all Americans who dared to take to the streets today and publicly expressed their stance and disagreement with the actions and policies of their president. #WeSayNoKings 👍👍👍 pic.twitter.com/f3UDpmsj3m
— Dominik Hasek (@hasek_dominik) March 28, 2026
In San Francisco, thousands of anti-Trump activists gathered on a local beach to form a human sign that read, "Trump must go now! No ICE, no wars, no lies, no kings."
WOW! Protesters in San Francisco, CA formed a MASSIVE human sign on Ocean Beach reading “Trump Must Go Now!” for No Kings Day (Video: Ryan Curry / S.F. Chronicle) pic.twitter.com/ItF7c7gvke
— Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) March 28, 2026
However, No Kings rallies weren't just held in major US cities. In a series of social media posts, Indivisible co-founder Leah Greenberg collected photos and videos of No Kings events in communities including Arvada, Colorado, Madison, New Jersey, and St. Augustine, Florida, as well as international No Kings events held in London and Madrid.
Attendance estimates for Saturday's No Kings protests were not available as of this writing. Polling analyst G. Elliott Morris estimated that the previous No Kings event, held in October, drew at least 5 million people nationwide, making it likely “the largest single-day political protest ever.”
This article has been updated to reflect that the flagship rally was held in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
The US Environmental Protection Agency has repeatedly failed to warn consumers of the cancer risks posed by pesticides—even when its own research has found those products to be carcinogenic, a pair of green groups said Monday.
The Center for Food Safety studied the EPA's permitted risk level in active components of both currently approved and legacy pesticides. CFS researchers found that the EPA allowed pesticides with a cancer risk "as high as 1 in every 100 people exposed, a far greater level than the EPA’s benchmark of a 1-in-a-million chance of developing cancer."
"Of the 570 unique pesticide chemicals that EPA’s Office of Pesticide program has classified for carcinogenic potential since 1985, over one-third (200, or 35%) are either possible human carcinogens (127) or likely to be carcinogenic to humans (73)," the CFS report notes. "The status of 62 others (11%) is uncertain, because EPA lacks sufficient data to make a determination.
A second report, from the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), shows that of the 200 pesticides that are possible or likely human carcinogens, 125 are still registered for use.
CBD analyzed the labels of every pesticide currently approved by the EPA and found that the agency has placed cancer warnings on just 69 of 4,919 pesticide labels (1.4%) "containing an active ingredient that the agency has designated a 'likely' human carcinogen." Additionally, the EPA has put cancer warnings on just 242 of the 22,147 pesticide labels (1.1%) that "contain an ingredient the agency has designated as a 'possible' human carcinogen."
CFS science director Bill Freeses said in a statement Monday: “It’s bad enough that the EPA approves cancer-causing pesticides. But if the agency is going to allow such chemicals to be freely sold at Home Depot, Walmart, and farm supply stores, the very least the EPA must do is require a clear cancer warning on the label. Warnings save lives by incentivizing users to wear protective equipment that reduces risk."
Lori Ann Burd, director of environmental health at the CBD, said on Monday that “it's dumbfounding that the EPA has failed to require any cancer warning on thousands of pesticide products sold to the public that the agency itself has linked to cancer."
“Why should anyone have confidence in the EPA’s ability to keep tabs on the pesticide industry and protect us all from harmful poisons when it won’t even compel companies to put long-term health warnings on pesticides it knows are really dangerous?" she added.
Last month, CFS, CBD, and others denounced the EPA's reapproval of the pesticide dicamba—which scientific studies have linked to increased risk of cancer and hypothyroidism in high-dose exposure—for certain cotton and soybean crops.
The new CFS and CBD analyses come ahead of next month's oral arguments in Monsanto Company v. John L. Durnell, a case before the US Supreme Court in which Bayer, the Germany-based pharma giant that bought Monsanto in 2018, is seeking substantial immunity from future lawsuits filed by people in the United States who used glyphosate-based products like Roundup weedkiller and were then diagnosed with rare pesticide-linked cancers. The company has paid out billions of dollars to settle such suits.
CBD and other advocacy groups have also warned that the industry-backed Farm Bill currently advancing in the Republican-controlled Congress weakens or delays pesticide safety regulation, preempts state-level cancer warning rules, and shields chemical companies from lawsuits.
Alarm mounted Monday over the Trump administration's "Greater North America" plan, a geopolitical blueprint for US imperial hegemony from Greenland to Guyana that's drawing comparisons with a messianic project being pushed by President Donald Trump's far-right allies and war partners in Israel.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth first unveiled the plan earlier this month, telling reporters: "Trump has drawn a new strategic map, from Greenland to the Gulf of America to the Panama Canal and its surrounding countries. At the Department of War we call this strategic map the Greater North America."
"Why? Because every sovereign nation and territory north of the Equator, from Greenland to Ecuador and from Alaska to Guyana, is not part of the 'Global South,'" Hegseth added. "It is our immediate security perimeter in this great neighborhood that we all live in."
Graeme Garrard, a Canadian professor at Cardiff University in Wales, said Monday on social media in response to Hegseth's comments: "By 'Greater North America' he means 'Greater United States. The US is now and has long been a menace and threat to the sovereignty and independence of its hemispheric neighbors."
Numerous observers have compared Trump's "Greater America" with the "Greater Israel" movement, whose most zealous proponents want to conquer everything between the Nile and Euphrates rivers—that is, all of Palestine, Lebanon, and Jordan; most of Syria and Kuwait; large parts of Egypt and Iraq; and some of Turkey—for Israel.
"Hesgeth's 'Greater North America' should be taken VERY seriously as a real threat," University of Lausanne professor Julia Steinberger, who is Swiss-American, said on social media. "Right now the US and Israel are realizing 'Greater Israel' by attacking-invading Lebanon and Iran. Hegseth is saying it's Greenland, Cuba, Canada, and Mexico next."
Based on the biblical boundaries of ancient Jewish kingdoms, Greater Israel is rooted in the supremacist supposition that the Abrahamic deity figure God promised the Jews all of the lands between the Nile and Euphrates.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza—and other prominent right-wing Israelis support the Greater Israel vision and are working to make it a reality by accelerating the illegal settler colonization and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, preparing to annex the dwindling Palestinian territories, and planning to occupy—perhaps permanently—parts of Syria and Lebanon.
For nearly two centuries, claims of divine favor have also underpinned US expansionism, most famously expressed in Manifest Destiny and mid-19th century plans to annex lands "from the Arctic to the Tropic." This notion drove the US conquest of half of Mexico, as well as later takeovers of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti. The US also took control over the Panama Canal, which it built at the cost of thousands of laborers' lives, most of them from Barbados and other West Indies isles.
"It is part of the great law of progress that the weak should give way to the strong, and that the superior should displace the inferior races," one New Orleans newspaper opined in 1848.
Nearly 178 years later, Hegseth echoed this supremacist ideology, telling Latin American leaders that the region must remain "Christian nations under God" and stand united in the face of "radical narco-communism."
Like the 19th century US imperialists, Trump has also repeatedly expressed his goal of "taking Cuba"—an objective that goes back over 200 years, when Thomas Jefferson, then a former president, called the island “the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of states."
"Unless and until Congress blesses this project through statutory authorization, construction has to stop!" wrote US District Judge Richard Leon.
President Donald Trump was left fuming after a federal judge blocked construction of his planned White House ballroom.
In a ruling delivered Tuesday, US District Judge Richard Leon granted a preliminary injunction requested by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States, which had sued to stop the ballroom from being built.
While handing down the injunction, Leon reminded Trump that "the president of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations," then emphasized "he is not, however, the owner" of the building.
The judge—appointed by former President George W. Bush—found that Trump's ballroom was the first time that a proposed major addition to the White House went forward without any kind of congressional approval, and he recommended that the president seek input from the legislative branch before moving forward with the project.
"Unless and until Congress blesses this project through statutory authorization, construction has to stop!" Leon wrote in his conclusion. "But here is the good news. It is not too late for Congress to authorize the continued construction of the ballroom project."
The judge granted a two-week delay for his order to go into effect, but he warned any above-ground construction of the ballroom done in that time will be "at risk of being taken down depending on the outcome of this case."
In a Truth Social post delivered after the ruling, the president angrily lashed out at National Trust for Historic Preservation, which he described as "a Radical Left Group of Lunatics."
The president also claimed that his ballroom and the renovated John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts—which Trump shut down less than two months after illegally slapping his own name on the side of the building—"will be among the most magnificent Buildings of their kind anywhere in the World."
Trump last year tore down the entire East Wing of the White House in preparation for the ballroom's construction, which was set to begin this week.
The cost of the ballroom is estimated at $400 million, and Trump is financing it by soliciting donations from some of America’s wealthiest corporations—including several with government contracts and interests in deregulation—such as Apple, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Meta, Google, Amazon, and Palantir.
The president held an exclusive White House dinner for some of the largest donors to the ballroom in October, in a move that many critics decried as a “cash-for-access” event.
“This is not just a policy shift—it’s a wholesale abandonment of government commitments to the American public," said one advocate.
The so-called "Make America Healthy Again" movement encapsulated a key campaign promise ahead of President Donald Trump's second term in office, with Trump telling one Pennsylvania crowd in 2024, "We’re going to get toxic chemicals out of our environment, and we’re going to get them out of our food supply."
But the Trump administration has gradually announced a slew of public health-related policies and proposals since the president took office—pushing to loosen emissions rules for the cancer-causing gas ethylene oxide; suggesting the polio vaccine should be optional; and mandating the production of carcinogenic glyphosate—and a peer-reviewed study has now cataloged the "grave threat to America's health" that Trump's policies present.
"During the first administration of President Donald Trump, nearly 100 environmental and occupational protections, including air-quality safeguards, were rescinded," reads the study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on March 25. "Although many of those rescissions were delayed by litigation or reversed by President Joe Biden, they inflicted considerable harm on Americans’ health. The second Trump administration’s actions have been even more aggressive, portending greater harm."
Weeks after the US Senate confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy in February 2025—a confirmation that he secured after making the baseless claim that Americans would prefer the for-profit insurance system over universal healthcare and refusing to reject debunked claims about vaccines—the administration appeared to make clear its true views on public health when it announced 31 climate regulation rollbacks.
"Those initiatives and other administration actions are set to reverse progress on pollution, make workplaces more dangerous, and (in Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin’s words) drive 'a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion,'" reads the study.
The proposals swiftly introduced by the administration included:
Ken Cook, co-founder of the Environmental Working Group (EWG), said the study described "a deliberate dismantling of safeguards that protect the air, water, and health of nearly every person in this country—all in the service of polluters."
“This is not just a policy shift—it’s a wholesale abandonment of government commitments to the American public and the MAHA movement that helped propel Trump into office,” said Cook, who did not contribute to the study.
Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician and public health physician who directs the Global Observatory on Planetary Health at Boston College and is the lead author of the paper, told EWG that the “impacts of these rollbacks will fall most heavily on the most vulnerable among us—including infants—resulting in brain injury, neurodevelopmental disorders, increased preterm births, and elevated lifelong risk of chronic disease.”
Children and other vulnerable populations, including those in low-income communities situated close to petrochemical industrial areas, are likely to have increased mercury, benzene, and arsenic exposures—raising their risk of developing cancers and other diseases—due to the Trump administration's rollbacks, according to the study.
"Several proposed policies would weaken water-quality standards, reducing drinking-water safety for millions of people," reads the paper. "For example, the EPA seeks to weaken regulations governing effluent discharges from coal-fired power plants. The resulting increase in waterborne lead, mercury, and arsenic will increase the incidence of bladder cancers and adversely affect children’s cognitive function."
The study's authors emphasized that "statistics and documentation are not enough" to protect the public from the White House's harmfiul policies.
"Unless health professionals speak up, and unless we put a human face on the tragic consequences of these environmental rollbacks, the connection between these seemingly abstract policy changes and the real health harms they cause may remain invisible," reads the study. "We health professionals must call urgent attention to this silent but deadly assault on Americans’ health, work with broad coalitions to halt it, and ultimately rebuild the agencies, protections, and shared sense of trust and responsibility that have given us clean air and water and enabled us and our children to live longer, healthier lives."
Cook noted that the NEJM itself has been a target of the administration, with Kennedy calling highly respected, science-based journals "corrupt" and the Department of Justice questioning the publication's editorial integrity.
“No amount of political pressure or intimidation should silence independent science or the experts working to protect public health,” Cook said. “The NEJM and the study’s authors rightly ignore those threats and lay bare the real-world consequences of the Trump administration’s actions—and the American people deserve to hear it.”
"Hiring was ice cold in February," said one economist.
New data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released on Tuesday continued to show weakness in the American jobs market.
The latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) shows that the number of new hires in February decreased to 4.8 million, which was roughly 400,000 fewer hires than were recorded in February 2025.
The report also shows that the US hiring rate in February fell to just 3.1%, which is the lowest rate since April 2020, when the economy was shut down due to the global Covid-19 pandemic.
The good news in the report is that the number of quits and layoffs remained relatively steady, meaning that people who already have jobs are retaining them at a healthy clip.
But Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, noted that these bad hiring numbers came before President Donald Trump launched an illegal war with Iran, which has since destabilized global energy markets and raised prices for oil, gasoline, and diesel fuel.
"This is a hiring recession," Long wrote in a social media post. "And Americans are feeling it. There were notable hiring pullbacks in February in hospitality and construction. Bottom line: The job market was already frozen before the war in Iran began. It's worrying that a 'no hire, no fire' situation could turn into a 'no hire, start to fire' job market quickly if there isn't a resolution soon."
Long's analysis was echoed by Laura Ullrich, director of economic research at hiring site Indeed, who wrote in a research note flagged by Axios that hiring in the US "was stuck in neutral going into this [Iran] conflict," and "getting it into gear just got harder" thanks to the war.
Guy Berger, director of economic research at the Burning Glass Institute, noted that hiring rates in the US hit 3.1% or lower the last two times the country was in a severe recession.
"3.1% is not only comparable to the Covid low point—it's also comparable to late 2009 and early 2010, when the unemployment rate was around 10%," Berger explained. "Hiring was ice cold in February."
Scott Lincicome, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute who has been a harsh critic of Trump's tariffs, found that the February JOLTS report wiped out an unexpected January increase in manufacturing job openings that the president's allies attributed to his trade policies.
"Alas, the perils of cherry-picking," Lincicome commented.
The new data on hiring in the US job market comes weeks after a BLS report estimated that the economy lost 92,000 jobs in February. On the whole, the American economy has posted a net loss of jobs since Trump announced his “liberation day” global tariffs in April 2025.