- Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is now over budget by as much as a billion dollars and could run out of funds as early as July. This would run afoul of the law and raises obvious concerns about the sustainability of the current crackdown. Trump's "big beautiful bill" includes an additional $75 billion for the agency over the next five years, and the current situation may add to the pressure on Republicans to pass the bill. In related news, Florida's Attorney General, James Uthmeier, has called for ICE to build a detention centre in the middle of the Everglades, so that escapees would have to contend with alligators. It sounds like something inspired by the children's prison in Jacob Two-Two Meets The Hooded Fang that's surrounded by a moat full of sharks and crocodiles.
- The American Chestnut was driven to near extinction over a century ago by a fungal disease. Now, selective breeding (including hybridizing with a Chinese species) has produced blight-resistant trees, giving some hope for the reintroduction of the species to the wild.
- A Dutch environmental consulting firm has concluded that a tax on air travel could raise over €100 billion a year, which would hopefully be allocated towards efforts to limit climate change and its effects. It might be a hard sell, though; even many people who are otherwise progressive and well-informed seem to be in a state of denial about just how bad air travel is for the climate.
- Elisa Morgera, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and climate change, has called for disinformation about climate change to be criminalized. Some might feel uncomfortable about this, but it's worth considering that Holocaust denial is already criminalized in many countries, and climate change has the potential to make the Holocaust look like a picnic in comparison, so it seems justifiable.
- Honda has successfully tested a reusable rocket. Given that SpaceX's latest efforts on this front have not gone so well, it's probably a good thing for the space industry that another player is entering the field.
- Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is accusing the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos Karekin II, of fathering a child, in contravention of his vows. Pashinyan has also accused one archbishop of having an affair with his uncle's wife. This is just the latest chapter in the feud between Pashinyan and the Church, who have been calling for his resignation since the country's defeat in the 2020 conflict with Azerbaijan. Things like this probably will not help restore unity to a deeply divided country.
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