Keith Donald

Water Science Centers and Regions A list of all of the USGS Water Resources Mission Area Science Centers and regions, hubs for critical water science funded by Federal, State, and other partners and stakeholders located throughout the...

Want to see something really insane? Look at this website for USGS's Water Science Centers and Regions and see how many of their directors have "Former Employee" after their names. Everyone's gone! My best friend from grad school was one of them. Who's monitoring floods, droughts, etc?

The Merlin Bird ID app wouldn’t exist #WithoutNSF. 🪶

Tariffs are Already Stalling the Economy Tariff Front-Running is Already Showing Up as Reductions in US GDP Growth

Excellent breakdown of yesterday's GDP report from @josephpolitano.bsky.social, who goes through all the ins and outs of how tariffs showed up in the numbers. #NumbersDay #EconSky
www.apricitas.io/p/tariffs-ar...

While there's little sign of elevated UI continued claims in the national data, there is a significant uptick in UI claims for DC (four-week average). Regular state continued claims rose just 5.1% overall, but by 100.1% in DC. Federal funding cuts are already having an impact.
#EconSky #NumbersDay

Inspector General Probes Whether Trump, DOGE Sought Private Taxpayer Information or Sensitive IRS Material The request, spelled out in an email obtained by ProPublica, comes amid concerns that DOGE has overstepped its bounds in seeking highly restricted private information about taxpayers, public…

The request, spelled out in an email obtained by ProPublica, comes amid concerns that DOGE has overstepped its bounds in seeking highly restricted private information about taxpayers, public employees or federal agencies.

Nike Says Its Factory Workers Earn Nearly Double the Minimum Wage. At This Cambodian Factory, 1% Made That Much. Nike has made an expansive effort to convince consumers, investors and others that it is improving the lives of factory workers who make its products, not exploiting them. A rare view of wages at one ...

NEW: Nike says most of the 1.1M people making its products earn 1.9X their local minimum wage. We obtained a payroll ledger for a Cambodian factory that supplied Nike for two years.

1% of the workforce earned that much.

Team effort with @sbmaneyphoto.bsky.social. www.propublica.org/article/nike...

Why our planet (and not just its people) should have legal rights New books by Robert Macfarlane and Tony Juniper strengthen the case for granting the natural environment protection in law on par with personhood

Why our planet (and not just its people) should have legal rights

https://www.ft.com/content/9fb7e995-eba8-43ae-ab95-f85cfda0d126

The Crisis at Social Security Illustrates Elon Musk and DOGE’s Plan: Explode the Number and Severity of Improper Payments. Subscribe Over the past month I needed a break to deal with organizational issues, including getting the Notes on the Crises Manhattan office(!) set up and needed time to continue a number of investi...

NEW PIECE: I've been working for a while on a piece on social security death notices and payment finality. Just as I was finalizing it, including with a new legal memo!- it was reported that DOGE declared four MILLION people dead. Read all about the issues here

www.crisesnotes.com/the-crisis-a...

Is the deficit threat being overhyped? | J.P. Morgan Private Bank U.S. Actually, the U.S. fiscal deficit has been a crucial ingredient in recent economic growth. Here’s a framework for when the deficit may start to matter—for the economy and markets.

Helpful framework for thinking about the implications of the US’s current economic policies: privatebank.jpmorgan.com/nam/en/insig...

NEW: A SECOND story was released today of a Venezuelan man disappeared by the Trump admin. Neiyerver Leon is a barber who entered legally seeking asylum in June 2023. ICE arrested him on March 13 and accused him of being in TdA.

Days later, he vanished off the face of the earth.

Bill stripping child labor protections in Florida to allow minors to work without breaks and before 6am and after 11pm on school nights just passed its final House committee. Public testimony was limited to one minute. Same bill DeSantis said is meant to replace migrant workers.

"As leaders of America’s colleges, universities, and scholarly societies, we speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education. We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight. However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses. We will always seek effective and fair financial practices, but we must reject the coercive use of public research funding. America’s system of higher learning is as varied as the goals and dreams of the students it serves. It includes research universities and community colleges; comprehensive universities and liberal arts colleges; public institutions and private ones; freestanding and multi-site campuses. Some institutions are designed for all students, and others are dedicated to serving particular groups. Yet, American institutions of higher learning have in common the essential freedom to determine, on academic grounds, whom to admit and what is taught, how, and by whom. Our colleges and universities share a commitment to serve as centers of open inquiry where, in their pursuit of truth, faculty, students, and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation. Because of these freedoms, American institutions of higher learning are essential to American prosperity and serve as productive partners with government in promoting the common good. Colleges and universities are engines of opportunity and mobility, anchor institutions that contribute to economic and cultural vitality regionally and in our local communities. They foster creativity and innovation, provide human resources to meet the fast-changing demands of our dynamic workforce, and are themselves major employers. They nurture the scholarly pursuits that ensure America’s leadership in research, and many prov…

NEW— Nearly 200 US college presidents affirm their schools as places where "faculty, students, and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions…without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation."

Signers include Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, UPenn, Brown, Tufts

Notably absent: Columbia

Just Another Administrative Agency: Preserving Central Bank Discretion Without Illusions The extensive “Notes on the Crises Investigative Journalism Source Wish List” can be found here. All listed items are important to me. As always, Sources can contact me over email or over signal (a se...

NEW PIECE: I've decided to finally publish a piece from four years ago that is unfortunately very relevant today: defending the Federal Reserve's status as an independent agency doesn't require embracing the ideology of "central bank independence"

www.crisesnotes.com/just-another...

Hundreds of scholars say U.S. is swiftly heading toward authoritarianism Most — but not all — political scientists are deeply troubled by the president's attempts to expand executive power, according to a national survey.

New from @npr.org: Hundreds of scholars say U.S. is swiftly heading toward authoritarianism www.npr.org/2025/04/22/n... featuring our latest Bright Line Watch report brightlinewatch.org/accelerated-...

Global Growth Expected to Sputter Amid Trade War Fallout Fears The International Monetary Fund expects slower growth and higher inflation in the U.S. as a result of President Trump’s trade policies.

President Trump’s trade war will lead to slower economic growth around the world -- with the U.S. economy bearing the brunt of the damage.
Alan Rappeport reports on the latest IMF forecasts:
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/22/u...

From Nobel prize winning cancer researcher Bill Kaelin
Killing the Science Golden Goose - The American Journal of Medicine www.amjmed.com/article/S000...

Trump’s War on Measurement Means Losing Data on Drug Use, Maternal Mortality, Climate Change and More By slashing teams that gather critical data, the administration has left the federal government with no way of understanding if policies are working — and created a black hole of information whose con...

The CDC eviscerated divisions that oversee a database on accidental deaths and injuries AND the team that maintains a tool for tracking sexually transmitted diseases.

The EPA will stop requiring that industry measures greenhouse gas emissions.

If you don't measure, it's not a problem, right?

We've reached the point where Republicans are flying to El Salvador to visit one of the most vicious prisons in the world to have photo ops so they can prove their loyalty to the President of the United States.

Trump says end of Fed chair Powell’s tenure ‘cannot come fast enough’ Attack follows pressure from the US president for the central bank to cut interest rates

Trump says end of Fed chair Powell’s tenure ‘cannot come fast enough’

https://www.ft.com/content/8b8a6582-039d-4d56-b1cb-95e70badb4e5

Not the headline I want to post. But for everyone trying to understand what’s happening at UMass Chan, why things are so difficult, this is what’s happening. We are a service institution. We educate; we care; we give; we serve rural MA. We dont make money. Our own govt is crushing us. Link below

Congress Has Demanded Answers to ICE Detaining Americans. The Administration Has Responded With Silence. Amid increasing reports that U.S. citizens have been caught up in the Trump administration’s immigration dragnet, a dozen members of Congress have written to the government with pointed questions.…

NEW: Amid increasing reports that U.S. citizens have been caught up in the Trump administration’s immigration dragnet, a dozen members of Congress have written to the government with pointed questions. None has received a reply.

By @nicolefoy.bsky.social

Is the Trump Tariff Financial Crisis A Crisis of the Dollar? It Doesn’t Seem to Be … Yet SubscribeTip! For those just tuning in: I wrote a piece a day for the first three days of this week on what we should probably now term the “Trump Tariff Financial Crisis”. I am coming to you Sunday ...

It's finally out! Drink coffee, drink soda, take whatever stimulate you prefer. This is extremely long, even by my verbose standards. But its the absolute minimum word count I thought I could tell the "foreign exchange liquidity crisis" aspect of this with.

www.crisesnotes.com/is-the-trump...

“They Don’t Care About Civil Rights”: Trump’s Shuttering of DHS Oversight Arm Freezes 600 Cases, Imperils Human Rights The closure of the 150-person office, which protected the civil rights of both immigrants and U.S. citizens, strips Homeland Security of its internal guardrails as the Trump administration turns DHS…

Previously, the arrests of pro-Palestinian voices on university campuses would’ve drawn instant attention from the DHS civil rights office’s First Amendment watchdogs, attorneys in the compliance branch said. That guardrail is gone.

By @davidmcswane.bsky.social & @hannahallam.bsky.social

This is bullshit—of course the US could apply diplomatic pressure to have him returned—but if it is allowed to stand, the executive branch has the power to disappear people permanently without any sort of due process.

That in turn will be the end of all other constitutionally guaranteed rights.

Trump’s EPA Plans to Stop Collecting Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data From Most Polluters Climate experts expressed shock and dismay at the move. “It would be a bit like unplugging the equipment that monitors the vital signs of a patient that is critically ill,” one said.

Climate experts expressed shock and dismay at the move.

“It would be a bit like unplugging the equipment that monitors the vital signs of a patient that is critically ill,” one said.

By @fastlerner.bsky.social

Just watched @stephaniekelton.bsky.social and @weisenthal.bsky.social on @allinwithchris.bsky.social and yikes brothers and sisters if you aren’t worried you aren’t paying attention… Trump thinks his trade war is icing out China but what he’s actually doing is isolating the United States.

Economic uncertainty update:

The thing about veering wildly between policy positions, favouring and then discarding a new maverick advisor each week, and using contradictory justifications at every turn, is that even if one particular pivot is in the direction of sanity, chaos is the constant.

How Trump 2.0 is slashing NIH-backed research — in charts Nature analyses which fields of science and US states are being hit hardest by grant terminations.

NEW: Entire scientific fields have been wiped out by the nearly 800 grants cancelled at NIH, finds a @nature.com analysis of the unprecedented cuts.

About half of all 2024 NIH projects related to LGBT+ health or vaccine hesitancy — gone.

See the other topics and US states hardest hit here:

Why won’t Florida officials come to the phone? | Column Government in the Sunshine State often goes dark.

Column: The @tampabaytimes.bsky.social story on #Florida’s polluted waters included many remarkable things. But one line was more remarkable than most: “The Department of Environmental Protection declined to make its secretary or staff available for interviews.” www.tampabay.com/opinion/2025...