Hana Kiros

Inside the USAID Fire Sale Around the world, defibrillators, motorbikes, and water towers are being donated, sold, or simply abandoned.

Around the world, defibrillators, motorbikes, and water towers from cancelled aid projects are being donated, sold, or simply abandoned. me for @theatlantic.com on what’s happened to the stuff taxpayers bought to help people.

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

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.

The administration will incinerate enough food to feed 1.5 million children for a week. When it burns, its label will read: THIS PRODUCT IS A GIFT FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 500 tons, from us, to no one.

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

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...

Grok, as Musk and xAI have designed it, is fertile ground for showcasing the worst that chatbots have to offer. Musk has made it no secret that he wants his large language model to parrot a specific, anti-woke ideological and rhetorical style that, while not always explicitly racist, is something of a gateway to the fringes. By asking Grok to use X posts as a primary source and rhetorical inspiration, xAI is sending the large language model into a toxic corpus where trolls, political propagandists, and outright racists are some of the loudest voices. Musk himself seems to abhor guardrails generally—except in cases where guardrails help him personally—preferring to hurriedly ship products, rapid unscheduled disassemblies be damned. That may be fine for an uncrewed rocket, but X has hundreds of millions of users aboard. For all its awfulness, the Grok debacle is also clarifying. It is a look into the beating heart of a platform that appears to be collapsing under the weight of its worst and loudest users. Musk and xAI have designed their chatbot to be a mascot of sorts for X—an anthropomorphic layer that reflects the platform’s ethos. They’ve communicated their values and given it clear instructions. That the machine has read them and responded by turning into a neo-Nazi speaks volumes.

the 🐐 @matteowong.bsky.social and i tried to explain some of technical reasons for why grok went nazi as well as some of the less technical ones (prompting Grok to use X posts as a primary source and rhetorical inspiration). It's all quite awful and illuminating www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

RFK Jr. Is Globalizing the Anti-Vaccine Agenda The Trump administration is ending U.S. support for immunizations abroad because of its opposition not only to foreign aid, but to vaccination itself.

RFK JR. has made the anti-vaxx agenda a part of American foreign policy. A lot of kids will probably die as a result.
www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

‘I’m Treating Guys Who Would Never Be Caught Dead in a Casino’ Sports betting seems to be spurring a rise in gambling addiction—one that the U.S. isn’t equipped to address.

My little brother’s friend—a 10th grader—lost big sports betting on Robinhood, of all places. Gambling has never been this easy or accepted! And the government allocates exactly zero dollars to help people being consumed by it.

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

‘I’m Treating Guys Who Would Never Be Caught Dead in a Casino’ Sports betting seems to be spurring a rise in gambling addiction—one that the U.S. isn’t equipped to address.

Some signs point to gambling problems increasing since sports betting was legalized. If addiction really is on the rise, the U.S. is unequipped to deal with it, @hana-kiros.bsky.social reports.

America’s Newest Gamblers Are Playing a Dangerous Game Sports betting could spur a rise in gambling addiction that the U.S. isn’t equipped to address.

Smart and thorough from @hana-kiros.bsky.social

"No centralized entity tracks gambling addiction, but if its scale comes even close to matching the new scale of sports betting, the United States is unequipped to deal with it."

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

‘In Three Months, Half of Them Will Be Dead’ Elon Musk promised to preserve lifesaving aid to foreign children. Then the Trump administration quietly canceled it.

Two American companies manufacture an emergency food product that can save starving children, even those who are days away from death by malnutrition. @hana-kiros.bsky.social spoke to those companies, who now have no way to get their product overseas www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

The Trump administration has quietly doubled down on its decision to stop sending emergency food to children starving in Bangladesh, Somalia, and other countries. Without urgent intervention, these children might die within months, @hana-kiros.bsky.social reports. https://theatln.tc/kQAZFJJw

Trump Is Ceding Ground to a Deadly Enemy By retracting foreign aid, the president could make tuberculosis untreatable again.

Trump Is Ceding Ground to a Deadly Enemy, an essay by me adapted from my book Everything Is Tuberculosis.

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

America Can’t Just Unpause USAID The speed with which the Trump administration took the agency apart will be felt for years to come.

Here's @hana-kiros.bsky.social on what dismantling USAID means. Mostly it means dead children. www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

What Is the Full Cost of Dismantling USAID? The speed with which the Trump administration took USAID apart will be felt for years to come.

A pause on saving live means exactly that. Me on USAID’s rapid destruction for @theatlantic.com

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

What Is the Full Cost of Dismantling USAID? The speed with which the Trump administration took USAID apart will be felt for years to come.

Good reporting by @hana-kiros.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

A Possible Substitute for Mifepristone Is Already on Pharmacy Shelves A higher dose of an emergency-contraception drug may open a back door for Americans seeking abortions in restrictive states.

My latest for @theatlantic.com looks at an important new study suggesting that ulipristal acetate could serve as a substitute for mifepristone in medication abortion. Big thanks to @rachgutman.bsky.social & @hana-kiros.bsky.social for superb edits.

The Internet Is TikTok Now Even LinkedIn copied it.

What other app will show me what it’d look like if Justin Bieber played Glinda the Good Witch. My latest @theatlantic.com
www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

The Internet Is TikTok Now Even LinkedIn copied it.

Love social media video fullscreening = 'the wormhole' @hana-kiros.bsky.social:

"clicking any video leads to the entry point of something common to all these platforms: the wormhole. The app expands into full-screen mode to serve me an infinite scroll of videos"

www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Hi! Are you an ex (or current) Spotify employee? Would love to chat for an @theatlantic.com story. DM!