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When Foreign Aid Gets Zeroed Out Overnight

Imagine waking up to discover that the United States has just pulled $35 billion out of foreign aid overnight, and that hundreds of HIV clinics, and child malnutrition programs, and poverty graduation trials will shut their d...

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June 23, 2025

When Foreign Aid Gets Zeroed Out Overnight

Imagine waking up to discover that the United States has just pulled $35 billion out of foreign aid overnight, and that hundreds of HIV clinics, and child malnutrition programs, and poverty graduation trials will shut their d...
June 16, 2025

Taking Care of Business (Sustainably)

Toilet paper. You use it. I use it. Sometimes, even my children use it. The point is, toilet paper is everywhere. Almost everyone needs it, and so much of it still comes from actual forests, and yet 2 billion people don't hav...
June 9, 2025

We Live In A World of Trees

You've heard people say it. It shouldn't have been called Earth. It should have been called Ocean, but it is simultaneously a planet of trees . As Richard Powers put it in The Overstory : We live in a world of trees. Once som...
May 26, 2025

Climate Solutions That Make Everything Better

Picture a city that beats brutal heat waves with cool tree-lined streets, slashes household energy bills, and cuts carbon pollution by as much as 80%, without waiting for these miracle technologies. That future-positive visio...
May 19, 2025

How Saving Salamanders Could Save Us All

In every flood scarred bend of an Appalachian river sits a chance to rebuild something stronger, cleaner water for people, and room for a 160 million-year salamander to thrive again. Hurricane-shaped chaos is unveiling a surp...
May 12, 2025

Essay: What's in a name?

This week: There are a million legitimate reasons why standing up to bullies may require a pseudonym (and a cowl), or even anonymity. As has been clear for centuries, and even more so in this moment of inescapable mass survei...
May 5, 2025

Changing the Abortion Conversation

63% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and yet here we are. So what can we do to make the language around abortion more positive? My guest today is Sophie Nir . Sophie is the CEO of the Abortion P...
April 14, 2025

Table To Farm

Sometimes you buy organic, sometimes you hit a restaurant that's plant-based, or at least you choose the veggie option. Maybe the fish option at the market or the restaurant is marketed as being sustainable. Maybe you compost...
April 7, 2025

History's "Viral" Lessons We Keep Ignoring

We've spent the last few years learning up close how a crisis like a global pandemic reveals and deepens all of our faults, inequalities, biases, and outright failures of empathy. But here's the kicker: it's not the first tim...
March 31, 2025

You Might Also Like: The Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women

The United States has long been the largest aid donor in the world, accounting for about 40 percent of humanitarian assistance globally last year, according to the United Nations . But that is quickly changing. Most U.S. fore...