New note on the status of PEPFAR from Ramona Godbole, formerly of USAID, for Center for Global Development. 24% by value of USAID’s PEPFAR awards have been reported terminated, including 16% lifesaving HIV programming. Thread and link below.

Building a nuclear reactor is complicated enough as it is. Requiring every single contractor to track and report on how they’re getting to gender equality by 2030 would be an absolutely massive effort. Public tenders are written by people who have no idea about industry.

The US is doing a new kind of state capitalism where it takes equity stakes in US lithium mining companies and then cancels grants to a company called American Battery Technology Co that got a special permit to build a lithium refinery

This is outrageous. I just don’t think there’s any way to justify it.

Back in 2023 we helped pass AB 835, a single stair reform study bill. That study is almost done, and we need your help to make sure the final report is grounded in sound evidence by emailing a public comment. It’ll only take a minute with our tool, and it makes a real difference!

Britain can build. Britain must build. We're building a new city. Sign the pledge to build the city of your dreams.

The government's Renters' Rights Bill looks like it will be a catastrophe, inadvertently introducing rent controls and reducing the supply of housing even more. It is the clearest evidence that the whole British state that has brought it about is completely broken: • Written

Germany used to be the core of science and engineering in Europe. Now they’re abandoning all reason and destroying all of their nuclear power plants only to go back to digging coal. What happened to Germany?

Gavin Newsom signed SB 357, the bill that made trafficking (minors in particular) worse. Abigail Shrier wrote about this two years ago. city-journal.org/article/predat…

In light of the IBC push to ban “windowless bedrooms” I’m reposting this survey & paper which found that Americans who wanted a baby *preferred* floorplans w an extra room, even if it didn’t have a window It’s a “Baby Maybe” apartment: space for desk, storage … or a crib!

NYT magazine story out today makes clear that this law Scott Wiener championed made it much easier for human traffickers to pimp out teen girls

Eros Morales Seth Berkley Yes, the event will be livestreamed on CGD's website.

We have private builders in Durham now delivering homes for $125,000/door. The government is paying three times that for what is supposedly "affordable housing."

ILLINOIS ELIMINATES PARKING MANDATES AROUND TRANSIT Early Friday morning, the Illinois house and senate passed the People Over Parking Act, which will eliminate parking mandates for property around transit hubs and corridors. This is an excellent move towards housing abundance.

After Anthony Barksdale became deputy police commissioner in Baltimore, homicides plummeted, falling under 200/year for the first time in decades in 2011. Arrests fell sharply too, as the dep't targeted the most violent offenders. He left the job for health reasons. After

The Medicis, Florence’s leading medieval family, turned a banking career into political power and paradigm shifts in art and science. Their methods hold lessons for philanthropy today. Read the new article by Stephen Pimentel (link below):

Two big questions here: 1) CIA almost certainly knew this was going on. Why are there no calls for CIA to release its Epstein files? 2) Why is Dropsite the only outlet covering this? Why isn't it in the NY Times, Washington Post, CNN, NBC, CBS etc.

Humanity directs 1% *of 1%* of Earth’s energy flows.

Hopes for further scaling computing power for AI currently all rely on a foundation-owned German firm that manufactures mirrors and lenses with atomic precision: Carl Zeiss. The higher the precision, the more powerful the chips. Read the new Bismarck Analysis Brief (link below):

I'm a simple man. If I see a field trial of genetically-engineered trees, I read it. A recent preprint reports the largest field trial to-date of American Chestnut trees engineered to resist a blight. And the results look promising. For context: The U.S. was once filled with