Amy Cook

run, bike, kayak, dive, travel, eat, drink, sleep and repeat.

[Amy Cook @AmyCookOC]

I was interviewed for this article. Another bill not covered by insurance came from UCI Long COVID Clinic since. “Others may not be so lucky and may be forced to pay for most of their care out of pocket. That's what happened to Amy Cook, 51, of Orange County, California.”

[Billy Hanlon @bhanlon15]

NBC News: 'Long Covid patients face medical debt after insurance denies claims'

'Millions in the U.S. are out of work because of severe long Covid symptoms, and many are struggling to pay their medical bills. Here's how to navigate insurance coverage.'

https://t.co/RBLodbPPJy

[Amy Cook @AmyCookOC]

“The report states that cuts to benefit checks would directly affect over 15% of the population in 47 states” Why Social Security checks could be $500 less each month by 2032 | KTLA https://t.co/ETjFhmBIqo

[Amy Cook @AmyCookOC]

“Police departments across the United States, including in Southern California, are increasingly turning to drones to fight crime.” New Anaheim police drone could beat officers to calls | KTLA https://t.co/oEVzOQTb0o

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

One of the most heroic things I've seen recently is one little town in northern Michigan that kept a bird from going extinct.

The town is Mio, population of about 1800. The bird is the Kirtland's warbler, a small gray-and-yellow songbird that breeds in exactly one kind of habitat, mostly in a single corner of Michigan.

In 1974, the entire global population dropped to 167 singing males. The bird was one of the first species listed under the original 1966 Endangered Species Preservation Act, and it looked like the species was going to be extinct within a generation.

The problem was the habitat. Kirtland's warblers need fire-disturbed jack pine. Their entire breeding range is one specific successional stage of a fire-adapted forest. Decades of fire suppression had let the jack pine grow up past the age the birds could use. The birds had nowhere left to nest.

Mio became the staging point for the recovery. They built a forest management program: clear-cut, replant, burn, repeat. About 76,000 hectares are now managed on roughly six-year rotations to keep a continuous supply of young pine in the bird's preferred age range.

The work has paid off with the total population estimated at over 4,500 birds. The Kirtland's warbler was removed from the endangered species list in 2019, a rare full delisting.

The bird still requires active management. If the work stopped, the jack pine would age out within 20 years and the species would collapse again.

[unusual_whales @unusual_whales]

New York officially has become the first US state to mandate disclosures for AI-generated people in commercial advertisements, effective June 9, per ABC

[Amy Cook @AmyCookOC]

@LauraMiers @kananaskinyeti @chantz_y @tryna_do_rite https://t.co/KtT6i45CbM

[NYTPitchbot @DougJBalloon]

I’m Kid Rock.”
“I’m Naomi Wolf.”
“I’m Kanye West.”
“I’m Matt Taibbi.”
“I’m Catturd. Those stories, plus Rob Schneider, tonight on 60 Minutes.”

[Amy Cook @AmyCookOC]

@CovidSolidarit1 On an airplane I am torn between trying to enter cabin vs open door. Impulsive decision trap.

[Amy Cook @AmyCookOC]

@__Granuaile__ Steve was getting ready to attack my hair. Pre-attack pupils. Take care, appreciate update.

[Amy Cook @AmyCookOC]

“the line between visionary investment and ruinous excess is invisible until after you have crossed it. We may have already crossed it” I won a Pulitzer for explaining the Great Depression. The AI spending boom terrifies me | Fortune https://t.co/M2IaGpitUI

[Amy Cook @AmyCookOC]

@LauraMiers @BirdieBittern @DailyMail 👋

[TheRealThelmaJohnson @TheRealThelmaJ1]

When it comes to the midterms, vote like you don't want to be imprisoned in a former Amazon Warehouse for criticizing Donald Trump.

[Amy Cook @AmyCookOC]

@wpinvestigates @JasonLeopold @FOIANate https://t.co/njhDhZR0wU

[Amy Cook @AmyCookOC]

@davidjlynch https://t.co/njhDhZR0wU

[Amy Cook @AmyCookOC]

See also climate science. Policy is deny facts. https://t.co/XmAYFi57ii

[BirdieBittern @BirdieBittern]

2020 Trump: “If you don’t test, you don’t have any cases”

“If we stopped testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any”

2026 Trump's budget: National Wastewater Surveillance System will see its funding cut from around $125M a year to about $25M

https://t.co/KUpzYLdgjS

[Annmarie Hordern @annmarie]

Ten officials ranging from special envoy Steve Witkoff to Small Business Administration head Kelly Loeffler reported financial interests in Elon Musk’s rocket company or in xAI, the artificial intelligence and social media firm it merged with in February, according to their most recent public financial disclosures.

[Jeremiah Johnson 🌐 @JeremiahDJohns]

Reporting from the Financial Times on Xinjiang remains incredibly grim:

* In some areas, 90% of children are taken from parents to be educated in boarding schools where they aren't allowed to speak Uyghur
* Officials monitor who eats during Ramadan and report those who skip meals
* Basic items like prayer mats and religious text are considered illegal contraband
* Adult Uyghur women are pressured to marry Han Chinese men, and there are official goals to sterilize a certain % of them.
* Xinjiang has the largest prison capacity in the world relative to population
* Huge numbers of Uyghur prisoners are now being shipped across the country in forced labor schemes, as a way to dodge Xinjiang sanctions/boycotts
* The CCP shut down all 10 existing Uyghur-language publishers, none remain. They fed one university's book collection into a shredder.

There's a lot going on the world, but it's worth remembering that China is still actively engaged in cultural genocide. They're barely even hiding it, they openly talk about the need to 'correct' Uyghur culture and create 'ethnic unity'. They are openly destroying an entire culture as efficiently as they can, cutting children off from parents, restricting language, restricting religious practice, forcing sterilizations and intermarriage, imprisoning anyone who resists the tiniest amount and shipping them out to forced labor factories. That is what the CCP is.

https://t.co/gHK9ZS38Vx

[Juliet Eilperin @eilperin]

SCOOP: Trump officials are diverting roughly $90 million in national parks entry fees to pay for the president’s July 4th plans, including a massive fireworks display. By @jakespring @ddiamond and @NaemaAhmed https://t.co/Oy1OqmYdZO

[Paolo Mossetti @paolomossetti]

Leen Hijaz, valedictorian at her high school in North Carolina, said the following in her graduation speech:

"Before I leave the stage, I have one last thing to say. Every single person here has a voice; we have the privilege to use it when millions around the world are struggling and suffering to be heard. Whether it’s the millions suffering in Palestine, Sudan, Congo, Afghanistan and so many other countries around the world, or families being torn apart by ICE. These are not just an issue here; they are happening there, they’re happening right here as I speak. My point is, we’re not given a voice to stay silent."

Corey Robin, a political theorist at Brooklyn College, writes: "The mere mention of Palestine—maybe ICE, too—sent the high school principal, Melissa Moore, hurtling across the stage to seize the microphone from Hijaz, and stop her from saying these unapproved words.

Just look at this photograph: A young Muslim woman, speaking out, and a desperate, terrified principal trying to shut her down, lest the student say something unauthorized, disapproved, discordant with the views of an increasingly small clique of government officials and voters.

It's so pathetic. It reads like a comic play by Václav Havel. It looks like the desperate last days of the Soviet Union. I can only hope Hijaz speaks for a generation that will, one day, sweep all this garbage into the dustbin of history".

[Neera Tanden🌻 @neeratanden]

Cancel your Paramount stream
Cancel Showtime
End watching CBS
It's the least you can do

[Amy Cook @AmyCookOC]

Not The Onion

[The Associated Press @AP]

Prediction market Kalshi has reported former Rep. George Santos to prosecutors over a bet he made on himself, a person familiar with the investigation says. https://t.co/26MdbxO8yq