“7 stories to know” is a new Monday series showcasing stories that may have been ignored in the crush of news over the past few weeks, and stories that have continued to evolve over the weekend. Expect to read coverage about health, science, and climate that frequently take second chair to what’s happening at the top of the page, plus information from local sources that the national media may have overlooked.
1. Trump to address group that calls abortion ‘child sacrifice’
Donald Trump is scheduled to make a virtual appearance on Monday at an event hosted by a Christian nationalist group that describes all abortions as “child sacrifice.”
The Danbury Institute was created in February 2024 to promote “a renewed engagement by Christians in national leadership roles to steer public policy.” It’s headed by evangelical radio host Richard Land, previously known not just for his opposition to both abortion and same-sex marriage, but for his complaints that the murder of Trayvon Martin was getting too much attention. The Washington, D.C., think tank insists that it stands for “defense of our Judeo-Christian foundations.”
“We believe that the greatest atrocity of our generation today is the practice of abortion—child sacrifice on the altar of self,” reads the Danbury website. “More than 60 million pre-born humans—each wonderfully made in the image of God—have been murdered on our watch. Abortion must be ended. We will not rest until it is eradicated entirely.”
Trump may claim that he intends to leave abortion to the states, but that’s not what Republicans in the House or Trump’s right-wing Christian supporters are planning. And that’s not all they are against.
The Danbury Institute also opposes “unbiblical ideologies such as Critical Race Theory, LGBTQ+ emphases, sex and slave trafficking, and rampant efforts to ‘trans’ our youngest generation,” according to its website.
Most of all, what the Danbury Institute means to do is establish evangelical Christian control of the nation and reverse a principle that has existed since the nation’s founding. The think tank draws its name from the Danbury Baptist Church. That’s the church that corresponded with Thomas Jefferson in 1801, resulting in what may be Jefferson’s best known letter, in which he describes the “building of a wall of separation between Church & State.”
The Danbury Institute is dedicated to tearing down that wall. And it’s holding a luncheon adjacent to the Southern Baptist Convention at which Trump is slated to be one of 15 speakers.
2. An incredible week in space
Even if you don’t pay much attention to the growing array of rockets and the increasing pace of space-related news, it’s hard to ignore what happened this week.
On Wednesday, Boeing broke a string of bad luck with the usually reliable Atlas-Centaur launch vehicle and ground control systems to finally loft a crewed flight of the long-delayed Starliner. The flight brings NASA closer to having an alternative to SpaceX for delivering crews to the International Space Station or other destinations in low Earth orbit.
The flight was definitely not without hiccups. Starliner continues to have issues with leaks from helium tanks used to pressurize thrusters, and docking with the International Space Station was made more difficult when some of those thrusters failed to operate properly during the final post. Still, astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams reached the station safely and seem to be happy about the ride.
A day after Starliner’s success, another “star” went up in the form of SpaceX’s fourth test flight of the massive StarShip from their launch site on the south Texas coast. Each test flight has come closer to successfully completing SpaceX’s goals and it’s hard to find much fault with the systems performance in this attempt.
The 397-foot-tall stainless steel rocket roared off the pad with 32 out of 33 engines blasting shockwaves across the coastline north of Brownsville. Minutes later, the huge “Super Heavy” booster separated from the upper stage (confusingly also known as StarShip) and dropped back to the Gulf of Mexico. On its way down, the booster restarted its engines and slowed to a halt, hovering above the waves. It was an important step toward SpaceX’s ultimate goal of catching the booster out of the air using two giant mechanical arms so it can be reused.
After a suborbital flight that carried it over the Indian Ocean, the upper stage streaked through the upper atmosphere, blasting the air into a stream of plasma at hypersonic velocity. As it neared the surface of the sea, protection around the ship’s steering fins broke down. Flames could be seen blasting through the heat shields and the underlying structure glowed cherry red as blobs of molten metal spattered the camera. Despite this, Starship still managed to flip around, restart its engines, and match the booster’s earlier feat by toppling into the sea after coming to a near halt above the water.
The progress represented in this flight shows how close SpaceX is to developing a workable heavy-lift rocket that can be used on multiple flights, which would completely disrupt an industry the company already dominates.
If all that’s not enough for a single week, China landed a probe on the far side of the moon that collected rocks from an area never visited by Apollo, blasted off the lunar surface, and is expected to deliver those samples to Earth before the end of the month.
3. Electric vehicles are becoming more affordable as options rise
Tesla is having an absolutely terrible year with missed sales targets, rising competition, and one giant jackass of a CEO all combining to make it the worst-performing stock in the S&P 500. The company captured that honor just one week before Tesla shareholders will be asked to give Elon Musk a $50 billion bonus and one day after Musk admitted to diverting computer chips meant for Tesla to one of his other companies.
Peachy.
But outside of Tesla, other EV makers are having a much better year. From Chevy to Kia to BMW, many automakers are now bringing their second generation of EVs to market. That means consumers are seeing a much wider variety of electric cars and trucks on dealer lots. It also means that larger numbers of used EVs are popping up, many of which are quite a bit less expensive than they were a few years ago. And many of those vehicles are being made even cheaper by federal tax credits.
From The New York Times:
Regarded by conservative politicians and other critics as playthings of the liberal elite, electric vehicles are fast becoming more accessible. Prices are falling because of increased competition, lower raw-material costs and more efficient manufacturing. Federal tax credits of up to $7,500 for new electric cars, often augmented by thousands of dollars in state incentives, push prices even lower.
4. Human trials begin on drug that regrows teeth
Researchers in Japan are preparing to begin human trials on a drug that regrows teeth. Animal trials concluded last July and showed favorable results, with no major side effects reported.
New Atlas reports that the first trial will begin this summer at Kyoto University and that researchers hope to recruit and “treat 30 males aged 30-64 who are missing at least one molar.” Why adult men? Because medicine trials everywhere badly underrepresent women.
In any case, the team believes that this intravenous treatment can help both people who are missing teeth from birth, as well as those who have lost a tooth through accident or disease. Compared to the discomfort and cost of dentures or implants, the idea of a shot that generates new teeth seems fantastic. It’s not quite Dr. McCoy’s grow-a-new-kidney pill from “Star Trek,” but it still seems pretty magical.
If everything goes well during upcoming trials, there are hopes that the drug could be available to the public by 2030.
5. What’s gone so wrong in Baraboo, Wisconsin?
Baraboo is a small town in the Wisconsin Dells, about 30 miles northwest of the liberal bastion of Madison. With a population under 13,000, it’s not the kind of place you might expect to make it into the national news twice in a handful of years. And for the residents of Baraboo, these can’t be the kind of stories they would hope to see associated with their town.
On May 31, the graduation ceremony at Baraboo High School was interrupted when the father of one of the graduates rushed the stage and assaulted School District of Baraboo Superintendent Rainey Briggs.
Briggs is Black. The man and daughter are white. Both the father’s actions and his words immediately made it appear that this was a story of blatant racism.
As more details were released, some tried to cast the story in a different light. The daughter had reportedly been disciplined for bad behavior at the school. According to reports, the father told the police that he had “past issues with Rainey and disliked him.” He also said he “wanted to prevent Rainey from having the satisfaction of shaking” his child’s hand.
Some outlets and social media commentators have rushed to paint this as bad blood between two men. However, Briggs made it clear to police that he had no interaction with the parents or the student before the incident on stage. The daughter was disciplined—apparently for her part in a bullying incident—Rainey doesn’t seem to have been directly involved. Still, when the father charged the stage, he ignored other administrators who had been more involved and came straight for the only Black man present.
Even then, the idea that this was not a racist incident might be more believable were it not for the other time that Baraboo made the national news, when a photo surfaced of a group of high school boys giving the Nazi salute.
The school investigated the photo, and, as The New York Times reported in 2018, “The Wisconsin students who appeared to make a Nazi salute in a widely criticized photo will not be punished, the school’s superintendent said this week in a letter to parents.”
6. A new tool spots communities most endangered by increasing heat
The first dangerous heat wave of the year swept across large areas of the United States last week, bringing triple-digit temperatures to much of the Southwest, accelerating fires, and ushering in another brutal summer following a year in which every month has been the record-hottest month.
But not every area and every community is affected by the heat equally. That’s why a new tool for tracking the effects of the climate crisis isn’t found where you might expect at NOAA or NASA. It’s the “Heat & Health Tracker,” and it’s hosted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This isn’t as odd as it may seem. Last year, 2,302 Americans died from issues caused by exposure to high temperatures. That’s far more heat-related deaths than from any other weather-related issues including blizzards, floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes. And with every month of 2024 until now being warmer than the equivalent month in 2023, prospects for this summer don’t look good.
7. Video: Why even learn things anymore?
Everything that anyone ever knew—or at least everything that anyone bothered to write down in the last few hundred years—is probably in your pocket right now. A quick Google search can find the answer to any question. Of course, that answer may be the hallucination of an AI model or so riddled with bias that it presents a completely warped result.
Still, with all that power at hand, why make students spend years mucking around with math and history and science? Teach them to read, hand them a phone, and walk away. With Republicans pushing to tear up child labor laws that date back more than a century, they’d certainly welcome a few million middle schoolers to the workforce.
The reasons why we shouldn’t do this (and why people who love the poorly educated might want it) may seem obvious. But there’s no guarantee that it will remain obvious. Here’s Joe Scott, who produces the first channel to make a repeat appearance in this series, looking at the future of education in a world where we already “know everything.”
