We're Covering Protest as a Science
Here's how you can help us cover pro-science protests
Dear Reader,
Happy Labor Day to those who celebrate!
Today, "Workers over Billionaires” mass protests are being held in nearly 1,000 cities and towns across the United States and its territories (see the full list here).)As an extension of our ongoing coverage of how Americans are responding to the Trump administration's assault on environmental health research, evidence-based policy, and democracy (protests work!), The Xylom is leading the charge to conduct a national unofficial rally attendance estimate.
We are using a methodology first developed by G Elliott Morris, formerly of FiveThirtyEight, and the Crowd Counting Consortium.
If you or someone you know is organizing or attending a rally today:
Check out this “How to Protest Safely: What to Bring, What to Do, and What to Avoid” guide developed by our colleagues at WIRED.
Submit details to our spreadsheet. You can reply to this email or message me on social media/ Signal @alexip.718 with any photographic or video evidence, or to volunteer as an authorized user who helps verify the flood of data coming in.
Sign up for our first-ever free news event, “Protest as a Science: How Americans are Responding to Trump 2.0”, on Wednesday, 11 am EDT. I will lead a discussion of the topline numbers from Labor Day and share our reporting team’s observations covering various protests.
The Xylom is ready to meet the moment and be a witness to Americans building healthy, interconnected communities, whether inside the lab, in the courts, or on the streets. Thank you for trusting us as your resource on environmental health issues and democracy.
Yours sincerely,
Alex Ip
Publisher and Editor
THINGS YOU SHOULD READ
✨ NEWS BEHIND THE NEWS
✍️ Tuesday is the first day for our next Managing Editor, Laasya Shekhar! Thank you to all of you who attended our Meet-and-Greet on August 27th, and the seven of you who gave to our fundraising campaign to hire Laasya full-time!
There is still time to give before the fundraiser closes September 8th; every dollar counts!📸 Our Editor-at-Large KC Cheng was featured in a "Behind the Story" update by the Pulitzer Center! She talked about how unforeseen circumstances forced her to pivot her planned project of covering Chinese miners in Zambia on the fly.
📱 ICYMI: We’re piloting a WhatsApp channel, which would help reach users who stay off social media, and curb misinformation at the source (share it with your immigrant parents, aunties, or uncles!)
Like this newsletter? Share it with a friend and subscribe below!
🍑 A SOUTHERN FLAIR
NEW ORLEANS — How Hurricane Katrina's Horrors Created a Generation of Climate Activists (Siri Chilukuri, Teen Vogue)
Alex Epstein, then a teen volunteer for a cleanup effort after the storm, heard it in the voices of residents he spoke to 19 years ago to survey what post-Katrina life was like and how they got there. The neglect, for many, seemed intentional and deadly. “Many of the people in the community believe[d] at the bottom of their hearts that their government was out to kill them,” he recalled of his conversations at the time.
MISSISSIPPI — They Kindled Froggy Romance and Rescued Eggs to Save a Species in Mississippi (Catrin Einhorn, The New York Times)
“I tell my prospective employees to think of the worst time to have to be at the breeding pond all night — for example, your partner’s birthday — and expect the frogs to breed then,” said Joseph Pechmann, a population ecologist at Western Carolina University who has studied and helped conserve the species for more than 20 years. “Dusky gopher frogs often breed on Valentine’s Day!”
MIAMI — Increased medical emergencies at Krome as immigrant detention swells (Anna-Catherine Brigida, The Tributary)
From January to July, 911 calls made from the detention center doubled compared to the same time period the year before, according to records released from the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office. More than 170 calls were made this year until July 15, compared to 86 in the same time period the year before. This year, about half of the calls have been related to a sick or injured person, compared to just 25% of the calls last year. Other common reasons for the calls were an arrest or investigation.
🗺️ WHAT ELSE WE'RE READING
RFK Jr. Vowed to Find the Environmental Causes of Autism. Then He Shut Down Research Trying to Do Just That. (Sharon Lerner, ProPublica)
“We’re talking about probably decades of delays and setbacks,” said Alycia Halladay, chief science officer at the Autism Science Foundation. “To take money away from all these areas of need to focus on a question that the HHS director considers high priority seems not scientific and not the way that science is done.”
Climate Change Likely to Expand the Range of an Asian Bat and the Deadly Disease it Carries (Chad Small, Inside Climate News)
“If a Nipah-like virus emerged that was as deadly as Nipah but also as contagious as Measles, this could be very worrying indeed,” [Rick Jarman, Nipah disease program lead at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations,] wrote to Inside Climate News.
In Gaza, children eat frozen antibiotic syrups for the lie of something sweet (Logain Hamdan, Prism)
The boy took a bite, then looked at me, eyes half-shut. “It tastes like sickness,” he said. “But if I close my eyes, I can pretend it’s mango.”
TWIN FALLS, Idaho — Idaho poisoned Snake River for invasive mussels. Was it worth ‘heartbreaking’ loss? (Alex Music, The Idaho Statesman)
“We understood the terrible gravity of what we had to undertake, but we also know ultimately what’s at stake,” Chanel Tewalt, Idaho State Department of Agriculture director, told the Idaho Statesman. “So we can’t shy away from making these hard decisions just because there’s difficult collateral. There is collateral either way.”
SOME OF OUR RECENT STORIES
Last week, Ukraine celebrated its Independence Day. The Xylom’s Kang-Chun Cheng received support from the International Women's Media Foundation’s Women on the Ground: Reporting from Ukraine’s Unseen Frontlines program, in partnership with the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, to do two important photo stories:
☢️ ‘We Are Writing From The Basement’: How Two Ukrainian Radiobiologists Persist Amidst Conflict
Amidst the Russian invasion, Ukrainian scientists who have been researching in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone are forced to rethink their work and their purpose.
🏥 Exclusive: Inside A Ukrainian Burn Unit
Despite being the biggest casualty of USAID cuts, doctors in Ukraine are still providing lifesaving treatment to burn injury victims of the Russian invasion.