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NYC Utility Ramps Up Power Shut-Offs As It Seeks 11% Price Hike (Maria) 

The author writes, “An energy company seeking to hike utility bills in New York City by 11% disconnected more than 88,000 households during the first six months of 2025 even as the climate crisis drives extreme temperatures. Con Edison, the monopoly utility that provides electricity to 3.6M homes in the country’s largest city and Westchester County, disconnected almost 2.5% of all its customers between January and June this year — triple the total number of households left without power in 2024.”

Trump’s Domestic Use of Military Set To Get Worse, Leaked Memo Shows (Sean) 

From The New Republic: “The memo lays out the need to persuade top Pentagon officials to get much more serious about using the military to combat illegal immigration — and not just at the border. It suggests that DHS is anticipating many more uses of the military in urban centers, noting that LA-style operations may be needed ‘for years to come.’ And it likens the threat posed by transnational gangs and cartels to having ‘Al Qaeda or ISIS cells and fighters operating freely inside America,’ hinting at a ramped-up militarized posture inside the interior.”

Chronically Ill? In Kennedy’s View, It Might Be Your Own Fault (Reader Steve) 

The author writes, “Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and agency leaders have attributed a panoply of chronic diseases and other medical issues — such as autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, depression, diabetes, and obesity — to consumers and their lifestyle choices, according to a review of 15 hours of recorded interviews, social media statements, and federal reports. He said at a news conference on April 16 that autism is preventable and that rates are rising because of toxic substances in the environment, despite a lack of evidence there is any link.”

What Is a Pocket Rescission? (Dana) 

From the Center for American Progress: “Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Russ Vought has indicated his intent to implement one or more ‘pocket rescissions’ — an illegal budgetary maneuver that, ironically, misuses an aspect of the Impoundment Control Act (ICA) to permanently impound funds. This would irreversibly prevent funds that were appropriated by Congress and enacted by the president from being spent absent subsequent legislation. While there are many legal rescissions that happen every year, a pocket rescission is neither a rescission nor is it legal.”

Mark Zuckerberg’s Unbelievably Bleak AI Vision (Laryn) 

The author writes, “It’s also worth considering the possibility that Zuckerberg means exactly what he’s saying: that the AI systems his team is building are not meant to automate work but to provide a Meta-governed layer between individual human beings and the world outside of them. Facebook and Instagram are, in a sense, very crude versions of that layer, synthesizing and compressing the outside world into a digestible and addictive form people can consume throughout their days, and Zuckerberg’s earlier obsession with the metaverse seemed a logical continuation. This approach has been immensely profitable.”

Three-Person DNA IVF Stops Inherited Disease (Mili) 

From ScienceDaily: “In a groundbreaking UK first, eight healthy babies have been born using an IVF technique that includes DNA from three people — two parents and a female donor. The process, known as pronuclear transfer, was designed to prevent the inheritance of devastating mitochondrial diseases passed down through the mother’s DNA. The early results are highly promising: all the babies are developing normally, and the disease-causing mutations are undetectable or present at levels too low to cause harm. For families once haunted by genetic risk, this science offers more than treatment — it offers transformation.”