curated news excerpts & citations
Inside Climate News: Ocean Damage Nearly Doubles the Cost of Climate Change
The global cost of greenhouse gas emissions are nearly double what scientists previously thought, according to a study published Thursday by researchers at the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
It is the first time a social cost of carbon (SCC) assessment—a key measure of economic harm caused by climate change—has included damages to the ocean. Global coral loss, fisheries disruption and coastal infrastructure destruction are estimated to cost nearly $2 trillion annually, fundamentally changing how we measure climate finance.
“For decades, we’ve been estimating the economic cost of climate change while effectively assigning a value of zero to the ocean,” said Bernardo Bastien-Olvera, who led the study during his postdoctoral fellowship at Scripps. “Ocean loss is not just an environmental issue, but a central part of the economic story of climate change.”
(Inside Climate News more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – January 18, 2026
You hear sometimes, now that we know the sordid details of the lives of some of our leading figures, that America has no heroes left.
…People are wrong to say that we have no heroes left.
Just as they have always been, they are all around us, choosing to do the right thing, no matter what.
Wishing us all a day of peace for Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2026.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…) -
Allison Gill: Transcripts Prove ICE Officer Jonathan Ross Was Not Injured
The transcripts also show that he was not taken to the hospital from the scene where he murdered Renee Nicole Good, and that she had a pulse when ICE blocked a doctor from starting CPR.
(Allison Gill more…)Sarah Jones: MAGA Goes After Renee Good’s 6-Year-Old Child
NY Times: Noem Denies Use of Chemical Agents in Minnesota, Then Backtracks
Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, said officers had not used pepper spray and similar measures limited by a judge’s order, then was confronted with a video that showed chemical agents deployed.
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BBC Mundo: The U.S. Virgin Islands, the Caribbean territory that Denmark agreed to sell to Washington (and what they have to do with Greenland)
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More than 100 years ago, far from the polar cold of Greenland, in the warmth of the Caribbean, some small islands were going to go from belonging to Denmark to becoming a possession of the United States.Washington also cited strategic and self-defense reasons back then. But unlike now, the Danes agreed and a purchase agreement was reached.
More than 100 years ago, far from the polar cold of Greenland, in the warmth of the Caribbean, some small islands were going to go from belonging to Denmark to becoming a possession of the United States.
Washington also cited strategic and self-defense reasons back then. But unlike now, the Danes agreed and a purchase agreement was reached.
(BBC Mundo more…)
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ProPublica: Trump Administration Orders USDA Employees to Investigate Foreign Researchers They Work With
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Bulwark: Trump’s ‘Great Healthcare Plan’ Is Not Great. It’s Not Even a Plan.
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A real plan would have details and numbers, plus experts on standby to explain and defend it. It would reflect weeks of behind-the-scenes work, and represent the beginning of a serious, persistent effort to get a bill through Congress. That is not what the White House produced.The online summary is just 350 words and fits on a single printed page. The extended “fact sheet” clocks in at just 825 words. There are days Trump writes more than that in his posts on Truth Social.
And it’s not like those 825 words are dense with policy substance. About a third is a summary of some modest—er, “historic”—executive actions Trump has already taken. The rest is a list of ideas either Trump or Republicans in Congress have endorsed before, with no guidance on the specifics that it would take to turn them into legislation.
(Bulwark more…)
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Ruth Ann Crystal MD: COVID, Flu & Health News, 1/18/26
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Thom Hartmann: Chapter 9: America Ungoverned
Your weekly excerpt from one of my books. This week: “The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party, and a World on the Brink”
(Thom Hartmann more…)
Margaret Chase Smith: Declaration of Conscience
NPR: January 6, 2021: A visual archive
Accountability Initiative ICE List
GriftMatrix
Trump Action Tracker
Timeline: Tracking the Trump Justice Department’s Anti-Voting Shift
Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda
Trump Pardons Database
Project 2025 Tracker
DOGE Tracker
ProPublica: Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew
Wired: 6 Tools for Tracking the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Civil Liberties
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