SCIENCE: Why our waistlines expand in middle age—aging stem cells shift into overdrive.

MICROBIOME NEWS: Short-term antibiotic use linked to long-lasting resistance in gut bacteria.

THEY’RE HAPPENING CONSTANTLY: SpaceX plans Thursday evening? Another Starlink satellite launch.

EAT MORE RED MEAT: Anemia in pregnancy raises risk of heart defects, study indicates.

LOL: Muslim group wants Biden ‘war criminals’ canceled from academic gigs. Loving the blue-on-blue warfare.

ALL FOREIGN MONEY COMING IN TO US UNIVERSITIES SHOULD BE SCRUTINIZED, IF NOT BLOCKED: Education Department demands Harvard University release more records on its foreign funding.

THE RADAR IS FINE, THE FIRE-CONTROL NEEDS WORK: 9 People Killed After SUV Rams Into Vancouver Street Festival UPDATE: ON Their Radar.

LET’S FACE IT, THE PLACE IS A CESSPIT OF BIGOTRY: Racism At Harvard. “In thinking about the current battle between the Trump administration and Harvard University, fought over anti-Semitism and DEI, I recalled an earlier controversy in which Harvard–specifically, its law school–pled guilty to racism.”

NOW TRUMP AND MODI CAN GET TOGETHER AND CRUSH THEM: A Communist-Islamist Axis Puts India and America in Its Crosshairs.

DEMOCRATS: PEOPLE WHO MADE THINGS NOT NORMAL COMPLAINING ABOUT THE NOT-NORMAL RESPONSE TO THEIR NOT-NORMALITY:

In fairness, she’s right that something here “is not normal.” Democrat judges who facilitate a defendant’s escape is like Democrat prosecutors who won’t prosecute criminals. Key pillars of the legal system are being destroyed. This is not normal. https://t.co/scT781caT2

— Randy Barnett (@RandyEBarnett) April 26, 2025

THE IVY EXILE: Public Health’s Sacrificial Lambs.

In trying to wrap my mind around the self-inflicted catastrophe that was America’s COVID-19 lockdown regime, imposed five years ago this spring, I’ve been inclined to assume that public health leaders deserved something close to a free pass for those surreal first few months — that given the panic and the fog of war, people such as Anthony Fauci were entitled to some measure of grace as they adapted to a fluid situation. But in his harrowing and revelatory new book, An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions, journalist David Zweig details how swiftly national COVID-19 policies diverged from the broadly accepted protocols enshrined in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s pandemic playbook toward an indefinite lockdown model seemingly inspired by China’s heavy-handed mitigation efforts. “The arrival of a new infectious virus was not unprecedented,” he writes. “But the response to it was.”

Nor was it conducted in good faith.

Plus:

Though public health was no doubt a historically noble calling that had saved and improved countless lives over many decades of rigorous empirical and quantitative work, by the 1970s things had begun to go wobbly: More and more activists were tilting the field away from empirical rigor and toward lacquering a questionable scientific patina atop their political priorities. There were still top-flight epidemiologists and others working on challenges such as clean water and infant mortality, but more and more of the field consisted of laundering activism on issues such as gun control or gender norms into pseudoscientific “scholarship.”

Indeed.

OPEN THREAD: Party on.

THIS IS COOL: Mars orbiter snaps 1st image of Curiosity rover driving on the Red Planet (photo).

FASTER, PLEASE: Newly Discovered Antibiotic Could Fight One of The Nastiest Superbugs.

VULCANISM: Icelandic Volcano Sends Toxic Shockwave 1,250 Miles to Arctic.

FLASHBACK: Who are You? Voter ID law and election integrity should be top priority in new Congress. Still true. Still waiting.

WHY THEY HATE HIM: Trump Speaks Truth to Power.

HAHA: Montana Governor Calls on Colorado Gun Makers to ‘Move Back to America.’

AS WITH HUMANS, DIFFERENT STRATEGIES: Some male mice fiercely guard females within their territories, while others seek out quick flings.

I’M NO EXPERT BUT THAT SEEMS LIKE BAD POLITICS TO ME:

When you call Trump Hitler, you're calling the majority of Americans making under $100K a year Nazis—for the crime of refusing to cosign their disinheritance. Multi-millionaire liberals sneer at and smear the working class for wanting a future for their kids. It's disgusting. pic.twitter.com/qduGTBygYp

— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) April 25, 2025

UNDER THE RADAR, SIGNIFICANT CHANGE:

For the past 7 weeks, @SocialSecurity has been executing a major cleanup of their records. Approximately 11 million numberholders, all listed age 120+, have now been marked deceased. Another ~1.4 million to go with expected completion in 2 weeks. https://t.co/wtfYvYNg4u pic.twitter.com/LBWRge9pzu

— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) April 24, 2025

THIS IS NOT A RANDOM CONSEQUENCE, BUT THE PREDICTABLE — AND PREDICTED — RESULT OF TERRIBLE POLICIES: Cancer prevention not fully recovered from pandemic era declines, study says.

BRING THE LAWSUITS: University suspects big tech Google and Meta censoring ads just because it’s Catholic.

HAHA: Trump to speak at Alabama commencement, sparks outrage from College Democrats.

SETH BARRETT TILLMAN: How Soon They Forget: Arresting State Judges. With the left, history always began three weeks ago. “What is described above happened under President Obama Trump-45 and under President Lincoln. Judges are not above the law; judges cannot interpose their courthouse and personal rules and policies against federal officers. And when state judges violate the law, they must be arrested . . . like you and me and anyone else. We all know that—or, at least, we should.”

No one is above the law, as everyone was saying until, well, yesterday.