Sarah Laskow

Staff Writer The Atlantic is hiring a Staff Writer to cover extreme weather and natural disasters. This is a position for a journalist of the highest ambition who is eager to report from the ground on the realitie...

Come work with me

atlanticmedia.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/Careers/job/...

Climate Realism Is a Delusion By shooting for 3 degrees Celsius of warming, the world could slide toward a more cataclysmic 4 degrees.

Wrote about how climate change is bad www.theatlantic.com/science/2025...

The HHS Officials Being Paid Six Figures to Do Nothing The Trump administration hasn’t fired them but won’t let them do their jobs.

HHS put dozens of high ranking officials on administrative leave and then just ignored them www.theatlantic.com/health/2025/...

What an Undervaccinated America Would Look Like At first, much the same. But inevitably, dangerous diseases would resurge in a country that isn’t prepared for them.

Seems like a good time to re-up this one www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

NOAA was developing a way to predict extreme rainfall — until Trump officials stopped it The tool would have projected how climate change could affect rainfall frequency and intensity in communities across the nation.

NOAA Atlas 15 Vol 2, which would have focused on downscaled precip projections, is being held up, @sarahkaplan48.bsky.social reports.

Come on out NYC!

We'll talk deep time and, indeed, MUD.

Trump’s Ultimatum for America’s Largest Public-Energy Provider Earlier this week, the White House told the board of the Tennessee Valley Authority to fire the CEO, or be fired.

The nine-person board was already down to three members. Then, on Monday, the White House sent them an ultimatum: Fire the CEO, or be fired. www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

I will be hanging out with the excellent @laurapoppick.bsky.social next Monday at Books Are Magic to talk about the stories found in the ground. And also MUD.

Come by! Tickets here: www.eventbrite.com/e/in-store-l...

The Trump Administration Is About to Incinerate 500 Tons of Emergency Food Federal workers warned for months that the high-energy biscuits would go to waste.

"Five months into its unprecedented dismantling of foreign-aid programs, the Trump administration has given the order to incinerate food instead of sending it to people who need it"
@hana-kiros.bsky.social, on spending $130,000 to burn food worth $800,000
www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

Very much looking forward to being in conversation with the brilliant @slaskow.bsky.social at Books are Magic in Brooklyn a week from today! 🌏🪨🎉

Come on out and join our conversation about deep time + ancient stories in rock.

More info + tickets here:

www.eventbrite.com/e/in-store-l...

The Reality My Medicaid Patients Face With work requirements in place, many will be removed from Medicaid even though they should qualify.

As a doctor in a hospital that serves the urban poor, Lindsay Ryan's patients already face such a gantlet of obstacles that modest barriers to accessing government programs can effectively screen them out.

What RFK Jr. Told Grieving Texas Families About the Measles Vaccine The nation’s top public-health official has been promoting suspicions of the shot even as he offers comfort.

“He never said anything about the vaccine being helpful..."

Important stuff from @tombartlett.bsky.social

www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

The Hottest Thing in Clean Energy Little of America’s energy comes from geothermal sources, but that could change quickly.

My first piece in @theatlantic.com!

I wrote about the looming boom in geothermal energy, one of the few renewables generating as lots of excitement among both Republicans and Democrats.

www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

good guess but no

Texas Never Wanted RFK Jr.’s Unproven Measles Treatment Kennedy made a show of shipping vitamin A to measles-stricken communities. The state’s public-health department didn’t take up the offer.

HHS can make ineffective resources available to states but… no one has to take them www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

An ‘Impossible’ Disease Outbreak in the Alps In one tiny town, more than a dozen people were diagnosed with the rare neurodegenerative disease ALS. Why?

Who needs a good medical mystery for Friday? www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

The NIH’s Most Reckless Cuts Yet Ending clinical trials with no warning can put patients at risk.

www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

“Why are people going to be willing to contribute to science and enroll in these studies if they feel like the rug can be pulled out from under them at any time?” Fernandez Lynch told me.

Answer: They won't.

A Decade of Cuts in a Matter of Days The Trump administration’s rapid terminations of NIH grants is its most aggressive attempt yet to control American science.

NIH officials were told this morning that approximately 1,000 more grants would be targeted for termination www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

Inside the Collapse at NIH Administration officials pressured NIH to avoid clear advice from the agency’s own lawyers to restart grant funding now.

I talked to NIH officials, current and former, about what's been happening inside the agency since the Trump administration shut down their grantmaking pipeline in January. Their stories showed just how willing our new leaders are to break the law: www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

Inside the Collapse at the NIH Administration officials pressured the NIH to avoid clear advice from the agency’s own lawyers to restart grant funding now.

www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

Trump and his administration are now deciding how deep a rift to make in America’s scientific firmament. How long it takes to repair the damage, or whether that will be possible at all, depends on the extent of the damage they inflict now.

The Erasing of American Science How far can the Trump administration bend U.S. research before it breaks?

Read this one by the great @katherinejwu.com www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

CDC Data Are Disappearing The agency has already removed scientific data from public view. More could follow.

CDC data’s “explicit purpose” is to guide researchers toward the places and people who most need attention, Patrick Sullivan, a former CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service officer, said. “It’s hard to understand how this benefits health.”
www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

What an Undervaccinated America Would Look Like At first, much the same. But inevitably dangerous diseases would resurge in a country that isn’t prepared for them.

What is the Senate going to ask RFK Jr. tomorrow and is it “how will you handle the outbreaks of disease that will follow a drop in vaccination rates?” www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

related: EV batteries complicate debris removal after wildfires

finance.yahoo.com/news/ev-batt...

What Happens When a Plastic City Burns Most modern couches are basically blocks of gasoline.

LA is breathing in burnt plastic www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

The LA fires are sadly an example of what @mikecaulfield.bsky.social and I wrote about in our Justification Machine piece earlier this week. It's not an opportunity to learn anything about how to help people or what needs to be done. it's an opportunity to blame. www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

this line from Ethan has been stuck in my head all day. And I felt it most reading my friend and colleague @nancywalecki.bsky.social's beautiful and heartbreaking dispatch from LA this evening. Here's a gift link, I urge you to read it www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

Ozempic Killed Diet and Exercise Doctors might be slow to admit it, but Ozempic and other GLP-1s drugs are making diet and exercise obsolete.

No one totally knows how GLP1 drugs make people lose weight but it is clear that (unlike with older drugs) prescriptions for diet and exercise don’t add much of any additional effect.

www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

What 4 Years of Delay Means to an Offshore Wind Project New York’s Attentive Energy is now on pause, meaning more pollution, stalled plans, and a tighter margin for error.

“Any of these projects faltering is just going to keep New York City reliant on an aging and dirty fossil fleet,” @dzarrilli.bsky.social tells @emilypont.bsky.social.

How Attentive Energy's offshore wind pause could derail New York's climate plans: