The Disaster Economy

Despite California’s landmark heat safety laws, inadequate enforcement has farmworkers continuing to suffer and die from preventable heat illness (LA Times)

75% of FEMA’s flood maps are outdated and inaccurate, partly due to climate change impacts not being incorporated and possible reluctance to update maps that could trigger higher insurance costs (Gizmodo)

Why is NYC America’s only truly dense, walkable city with comprehensive public transit, and how can other major cities “Manhattanize” themselves? (Noahpinion)

🌎 Global negotiations for a plastic pollution treaty have collapsed, as oil-producing nations have opposed measures to limit plastic manufacturing (shocking, I know) (The New York Times)

Chicago has launched a new flood-warning system in partnership with Verizon and startup Hyfi, using a network of sensors to detect flooding in real-time (Bloomberg)

Lithium depletion in the brain may be an early sign and driver of Alzheimer’s disease, as lithium is crucial for the health of major brain cell types (The Washington Post)

An environmental justice activist in Alabama is running for mayor after federal programs and funding have vanished, forcing her to pivot from federal advocacy to local politics to address her community’s decades long water crisis (the 19th)

A top vaccine regulator has returned to the FDA as the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, less than 2 weeks after being dismissed (Politico)

🌍 The World Bank has raised its International Poverty line to $3/day to reflect higher national poverty lines adopted by low-income countries (Our World in Data)

There’s a new platform to support the 63 million family caregivers in the US by helping them coordinate care tasks, access local resources, and build support networks (MIT News)

Here’s a comprehensive guide to the cancellation and freezing of USDA food and farming programs, and resources for affected farmers and organizations (Grist)

🇧🇷 Brazil has become the world’s largest importer of shark meat, with 5400 metric tons procured for schools, hospitals, and prisons over two decades (Mongabay)

🇿🇲 The Zambian government says municipal drinking water is safe to consume, despite lab tests showing excessive heavy metal levels in some areas following a recent copper mine disaster (Bloomberg)

🇧🇯 Young farmers in Benin practice climate-resilient agroecological farming methods to achieve higher yields while protecting biodiversity (Mongabay)

While climate change reduces the quantity and quality of crops, the MAHA movement’s goals of promoting healthier food production are at odds with the administrations climate policies (Civil Eats)

Social media’s fundamental problems (echo chambers, attention inequality, amplification of extreme voices) are structurally embedded in the platform architecture itself, making them nearly impossible to fix (burn it down) (ars Technica)

Voiceover artists are being forced to choose between immediate financial gain and potentially undermining future employment to help create AI systems that could replace human voice work entirely (404 Media)

🇲🇽 🇲🇾 🇮🇳 Countries like Mexico, Malaysia and India are attempting to build their own semiconductor manufacturing capabilities to reduce reliance on expensive chip imports (Rest of World)

Backlash to the GPT-5 release has led to lessons like the need for advance warning before deprecating models, and providing user control and transparency (Platformer)

Big Tech’s AI-driven data centers are causing electricity bills to rise nationwide, leading to battles between tech companies and utilities over who should pay for grid upgrades (The New York Times)