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Dear Reader,

I am in Nepal right now, where, as you may have heard, a Gen-Z–led revolt toppled a government. (My colleague tanka dhakal also reported for The Xylom about the long-term health effects caused by the protests.) Within six months, the same country then held its nerve under the solid leadership of the first-ever woman interim prime minister, Hon. Sushila Karki, to organize one of the most peaceful elections I have ever witnessed in this Himalayan nation.

As the results have come in, they have surprised everyone. People quietly expressed their anger over decades of mismanagement of the country at the ballot box, essentially wiping out an entire generation of old leaders. There are barely four people above the age of 70 left in parliament, with most older political figures suffering heavy defeats. The average age of elected members of the parliament is below 45!

A 34-year-old rapper, engineer, and former mayor of Kathmandu, Mr. Balendra Shah, is set to become the youngest prime minister the country has ever seen. His party has secured not just a majority but nearly a two-thirds landslide in parliament.

This fills me with both excitement and caution. The country has swung its mood from the experienced old guard to a new generation of mavericks. But the young can be reckless too. Nepal sits in a highly sensitive geopolitical space where the interests of many powers intersect. How do you think the country should tread this uncharted territory of new political waves?

I’m also thinking about the start-ups, working professionals, and major companies.

The new prime minister and his team have brought in working professionals from many fields and industries — actors, singers, doctors, activists, you name it. Now they will be in the driver’s seat of the country, discussing things like laws, tax policy, the national budget, and rebuilding the capital.

While I’m excited, it also feels a bit nerve-racking.

Yours sincerely,
Saugat Bolakhe
2025 Ferriss – UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellow

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✨ NEWS BEHIND THE NEWS

• 🌍 Our Editor-at-Large KC Cheng will be sharing her experiences reporting for us from Ukraine to South Sudan in the #SEJ2026 panel session, “Making Global Environmental Stories Matter to U.S. Audiences in the Trump Era”. If you are in Chicago between April 15th and 18th, please say hi!

• 📚 We just updated our bookshop with new staff picks and featured reads! Grab your favorite books and e-books from an Amazon-free alternative that gives back to local bookstores.

🍑 A SOUTHERN FLAIR

• MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama Is Threatening to Ban Utility-Scale Solar (Jael Holzman, Heatmap News)

  “What I’ve done with this bill — what I’m doing here, at this point — is I’m asking we pass this, a moratorium on construction of any new ones until we can get answers on any policies and procedures,” State Senator Greg Albritton, who represents Stockton, told the committee.

• TAMPA, Fla. — Florida program promised more hurricane-hardy homes. Has the state delivered?
  (Michaela Mulligan, Tampa Bay Times)

  “They (the state) want to try to chew through a thousand houses in a year, which is impossible,” says Jeff Trosclair, CEO of JAS Builders in Pinellas County, a contractor involved in Elevate Florida.

  “It’s going to have to be a drip of like, OK, 10 houses here ... 10 more houses next week, and 10 more.”

• ALBANY, Ga. — He Promised His Dying Mother He’d Protect the Family’s Health. In This Georgia Town, It Isn’t Easy. (Katie Campbell, Almudena Toral and Mauricio Rodríguez Pons, ProPublica)

  “But I asked the nurse, well, will y’all allow me to get to her belongings? Well, the nurse tell me this one didn’t have any belongings. She said this one. What you mean this one? You could have said this patient,” Clifford Thomas, who lost his mother, beverly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

🗺️ WHAT ELSE WE'RE READING

• FUKUSHIMA, Japan — Fukushima at 15: The Fallout Continues (Thomas A. Bass, Mother Jones)

  Some of Japan’s efforts to revive the area have been successful. Other measures have created injustices and stigma. The lived experience of people resettling the evacuation zone reveals an ongoing disaster at Fukushima—a disaster that is not well known in Japan or the rest of the world.

• ‘Sound Science’ Bills Limiting State Environmental Regulations Set ‘Insurmountable Burden of Proof,’ Scientists Say (Dennis Pillion, Inside Climate News)

  “It makes it even harder for agencies to create protective standards, because they have to show actual bodily harm,” says Sarah Stokes, a senior attorney in the Alabama office of the Southern Environmental Law Center.

  “People have to be dying or hurt by a certain amount of a certain pollutant before they step in.”

• The War on Poaching Has Gone Full Tech Dystopia—and It May Not Be Working (Sam Schramski, Benon Oluka and Tulani Ngwenya, Gizmodo)

  “Despite the scale of the wildlife economy in the region, local communities, especially those in Mozambique and near Kruger’s western boundary, remain largely excluded from meaningful, long-term economic opportunities. Current conservation models largely limit local communities to low-wage roles in anti-poaching units, maintenance, and tourism services,” writes sustainability researcher Taylor Marie Oulette. 

• HONG KONG — ‘A silent killer’: How Hong Kong’s elderly face deadly heat inside cramped cage homes (Raquel Carvalho, Hong Kong Free Press)

  “There are nights when I cannot fall asleep,” she said. “It’s very hot, and it’s getting worse every summer,” says Coco Au, who lives in one of 14 coffin homes, partitioned from a flat in Mong Kok, known as one of the world’s densest places.