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PICKS are stories from many sources, selected by our editors or recommended by our readers because they are important, surprising, troubling, enlightening, inspiring, or amusing. They appear on our site and in our daily newsletter. Please send suggested articles, videos, podcasts, etc. to picks@whowhatwhy.org.
The First Nationwide Geological Survey in a Generation Could Reveal Critical Minerals (Maria)
The author writes, “From the air, Maine is a uniform sea of green: Forests cover 90% of the state. But beneath the foliage and the dirt lies an array of geological terrains that is far more diverse, built from the relics of volcanic islands that collided with North America hundreds of millions of years ago. Two years ago, sensor-laden aircraft began to survey these geochemically rich terrains for precious minerals. . … They eventually uncovered deposits containing billions of dollars’ worth of zirconium, niobium, and other elements that are critical in electronics, defense, and renewable energy technologies.”
The Character Assassination of San Francisco (Gerry)
From FAIR: “The narrative of San Francisco’s demise has been building for some time. In the corporate press, the closure of a Whole Foods (Newsweek, 4/11/23; ABC, 4/12/23; New York Times, 4/30/23) is like the moment Afghans clung to a US Air Force plane as the nation fell to the Taliban. The story of this store’s exit is more complicated than criminal activity (48Hills, 4/11/23) — but no matter, the narrative holds that permissive policies protecting the homeless have allowed a zombie army of criminals to exert control over the city, countered only by a police force that can do nothing, Democratic politicians fearful to act and tech bosses cowering in fear.”
GOP Revenue Sharing Plan Penalizes Cities (Al)
From Urban Milwaukee: “Under the new system proposed by Republicans to share state funding with local governments, some smaller Wisconsin communities would receive increases of several hundred percent, while the cash-strapped city of Milwaukee would see its state funding grow by 10 percent.”
The US Left Them Behind. They Crossed a Jungle to Get Here Anyway. (Roshni)
From The New York Times: “For thousands of Afghans, the American withdrawal from Kabul was just the beginning of a long, dangerous search for safety.”
The Scientist and the Bats (Mili)
The author writes, “Global health organizations and governments have long focused on responding to outbreaks rather than predicting and preventing them. Billions of dollars pour into developing treatments and vaccines for infectious diseases, but only a small fraction goes to understanding why contagions spread from animals to humans in the first place.”
Wildfire’s Toxic Legacy Leaves Children Gasping for Air Years Later (Reader Andrew)
From Bloomberg: “More than three years after one of Australia’s worst wildfire seasons on record, its toxic legacy is becoming clearer — and exposing the potential health risks that lie ahead for increasingly fire-prone regions from America and Europe to Asia and Africa.”
In Middle Age, They Realized They Were Trans: ‘A Lightbulb Went Off’ (Russ)
The author writes, “For people with gender dysphoria, 20th-century America was a lonely place to grow up. Terms like ‘transgender’ and ‘nonbinary’ had not entered the common lexicon, and if transgender people appeared in popular culture at all, they were often portrayed as murderers, sex workers or homicide victims. There was no internet where people could seek out expertise or find community. The local library was the main source of information, and it often came up short. … Only later in life, as awareness about transgender identity increased, did some recognize that what they were hearing from younger generations also fit them.”
A Map of 1,001 Novels to Show Us Where to Find the Real America (Michaela)
The author writes, “Over the last five years, I’ve read or reread 1,001 books of fiction in my project to create a literary map of this country. The idea for this ‘library of America’ was born in 2016, when the news and the elections told of a country being irrevocably divided by politics, by ideas of red and blue, by arguments over who is American and who is not. For me, those arguments ignored the vast geography of our stories and novels, the ways people search for belonging, leave home or stay, and how every state is really many places. Those arguments also ignored our common dreams, fears, challenges, hopes and everyday experiences, which unite us, regardless of where we live. I wanted to show that the places of American fiction can’t be divided into blue or red states.”
