Betsy Blaney 🎾

Former producer at Lubbock NPR affiliate. Former AP West Texas correspondent. Retweets, likes ≠ endorsements. Tennis, Pickleball nut. Retired. 🏳️‍🌈

[Atul Gawande @Atul_Gawande]

Independent analyses estimate that your actions to dismantle USAID and drastically reduce lifesaving foreign aid have already killed 700,000 people. Here are some of those people. 🧵https://t.co/aKdQpk9QTW

[Betsy Blaney 🎾 @betsyblaney]

@ChrissieEvert It’s a third set and you’re up a break. And you are a mental giant. You’ve shown that to yourself and the world. Let your grit and grace guide you and your heart as you eye closing out this match-and defeating the cancer.

[Betsy Blaney 🎾 @betsyblaney]

@andyturner Latte Art. Good idea for a coffee table book. See what I did there? ☕️

[Betsy Blaney 🎾 @betsyblaney]

@Theholisticpsyc Dysregulation is widespread.

[Amanda Carpenter @amandacarpenter]

Via WSJ

What Ellisons gave:
-$45M to a Trump-aligned '24 campaign group
-Millions to pro-Trump groups after elex
-Bought the Free Press and installed Bari Weiss
-$ to be corporate sponsor of Freedom 250

What Ellisons got:
-$500B Stargate Project
-TikTok
-Paramount merger

https://t.co/Li3d7Dvqxg

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

Cassidy on what he said to Trump: "You have not told the American people what's going on. It was supposed to last for four weeks, it's lasted four months. Our original objectives have not been achieved. And I want to know what's going on. He did not particularly care for my comments."

[Betsy Blaney 🎾 @betsyblaney]

@amandacarpenter @ninaburleigh Holy moly!

[Liberal Lisa in Oklahoma @lisa_liberal]

Whoever did this. Just know that I love you.

[Stephanie H. Murray @stephmurrayyyy]

I have a sort of tricky piece up @TheAtlantic today. One that I've been mulling for years now. 🧵

[David Frum @davidfrum]

Reflecting Pool story:

Under Obama, responsible people carefully studied the problem, sought best solutions - and failed.

Under Trump, irresponsible people imposed a hasty solution that enriched inept cronies - and failed even more spectacularly.
https://t.co/esjRocTGF5

[Hugo Lowell @hugolowell]

NEW @WIRED: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos sought to ingratiate themselves to Trump after the 2024 election — who in return mocked them behind their backs, per new book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan

— Zuckerberg sent Trump a photo of a letter one of his grade-school kids wrote that looked forward to the “golden age of america”

— Bezos denigrated The Washington Post to Trump and described the newspaper as one of his worst financial investments

— Trump showed off texts from Zuckerberg and Bezos to other guests, including to Elon Musk, who mocked them as “Firstclass groveling”

— Months after their dinner, Bezos tried to get a favor from Trump, telling him it was a risk for SpaceX to dominate govt space contracts

— Bezos suggested Trump tell Deputy Defense Secy Feinberg to ensure“contractor diversity,” opening the door for Blue Origin to get contracts

— But Trump ultimately screwed over Bezos after he reconciled with Musk, and instead expanded SpaceX’s access to US space launch sites

— WIRED obtained the details from “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump” by @maggieNYT and @jonathanvswan ahead of June 23 release

[Science girl @sciencegirl]

Aging may not be a steady downhill process it may happen in stages

A large study of over 4,000 people aged 18 to 95 analysed nearly 3,000 proteins in blood plasma to understand how the body changes over time. Because these proteins reflect key biological activity such as immune function metabolism tissue repair and cell communication they act as a snapshot of how the body is aging

Researchers expected gradual change across the lifespan. Instead they found something more complex many proteins linked to aging shifted in noticeable bursts rather than slowly over time

These changes appeared to cluster around roughly three key life periods around the mid 30s around 60 and again in the late 70s suggesting that aging may happen in waves rather than a straight line

The shifts were connected to systems like inflammation cardiovascular health immune response and energy metabolism hinting that the body may periodically reorganise itself biologically at certain stages of life

Using just a subset of around 373 proteins scientists were able to estimate a person’s age from a blood sample with an average error of about three years. Interestingly individuals whose biological profiles appeared younger than their chronological age also tended to show better overall health

The research also highlighted strong differences between males and females with a large proportion of age related proteins behaving differently in men and women suggesting that aging pathways may not be identical across genders

Overall the findings challenge the idea of aging as a smooth decline and instead point to a process that may unfold in distinct biological phases

[Mike Young @micyoung75]

The man running the agency responsible for 340 million Americans' health arrives at 10am, leaves by 4pm, skips his own division chief meetings, and when he does show up - scrolls his phone and gets described by colleagues as "checked out."

Ebola is spreading. Six Americans already exposed. He has not briefed himself with CDC scientists. His response to a reporter asking if he was worried: "Yeah, we're working on it."

The CDC is being run by a health economist with no public health experience who already has another full-time job running NIH. Half of the 27 NIH institutes have no permanent director. The top FDA drug regulator got fired in May - Kennedy found out after it happened.
When measles killed two children in Texas, the CDC official leading the response asked repeatedly to brief Kennedy. He was rebuffed every time.

The person actually running HHS operations is a longtime personal adviser whose policy spreadsheet - more than 50 items - is hidden from the department's own policy team. When Kennedy gets asked a question, his standing answer is "just run that by Stefanie."

This is not a management philosophy. This is a vacancy wearing a title.

[Claire Hao @clairehao_]

After almost 3 years @HoustonChron, I've published my last story today.

Here is the most detailed look yet at where large data centers flooding to Texas want to hook up to the state's power grid, based on exclusive ERCOT data. 🧵 https://t.co/FddmUqOR4t

[Grace Yarrow @YarrowGrace]

NEWS: Screwworm has been detected in Texas, USDA confirmed - marking a serious threat to US cattle and other animals

Larvae of the parasite were found in the umbilical cord of a 3 week old calf

Screwworm was eradicated from the US in 1966

[Brinda Adhikari @brindaadhikari]

I worked at CBS News for almost 6 years. It was a place that frequently drove me crazy bc of how resistant it was to change. How difficult it was to get things done bc you had to fight so many people and their “Cronkite and Murrow would roll over in their graves if they saw” mentality.

For those who think Scott Pelley was part of the problem, you are wrong. Yes he could be rigid and a stickler for certain traditions. But I will tell you now the Gen Z people I worked w all loved him. Like me, they forgave a lot of his boomer ways bc we were in awe of investigations he did using hidden cameras exposing snake oil salesmen hurting Americans; showing us how Assad was using chemical weapons on his own people; the pain of rural Americans waiting for half a day to get affordable healthcare in a parking lot of a mobile clinic; his searing interviews w survivors of mass shootings.

Yeah he was old fashioned in some ways. I used to tease him bc he always had trouble pronouncing Beyoncé’s name.

But he was willing to be pushed. He was open to new ideas. The fact that someone like me and someone like him got along so well is proof of that. The guy made me a better thinker and a better journalist.