SunSeeker
SunSeeker's JournalThree-fourths of polled American scientists say they are considering leaving U.S.
Trump administration scientific research budget cuts appear to have prompted three-fourths of polled scientists to say they're considering leaving the United States for Europe or Canada.
The poll, published in the scientific journal Nature, revealed 75.3% of the responding scientists are considering leaving, while 24.7% are not.
...
One genomics and agriculture grad student responding to the poll said, "This is my home -- I really love my country. But a lot of my mentors have been telling me to get out, right now."
One example of research cuts is at the National Institutes of Health. At the NIH, all research on what Trump and Musk consider "equity" issues like Black maternal health and HIV research was cut.
https://l.smartnews.com/p-jUucDpL/hvARrM
States With the Biggest Gender Wage Gaps
Mind the gap – it’s more than $12,000 wide. That’s the difference between the annual median earnings of full-time male and female workers across the U.S., according to the latest data from the U.S. Census American Community Survey. Among civilians working full time in 2023, the year of the most recent data, women’s median earnings were $52,458, while men’s median earnings were $64,705. That means that for every dollar that the typical man earned, the typical woman earned about 81 cents.
Equal Pay Day attempts to put that gap into perspective. The symbolic day alludes to roughly how far into the next year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year. This year, Equal Pay Day falls on March 25, or 84 days into the year, according to the American Association of University Women.
These are the 10 states with the largest gender wage gaps, represented as cents made by women for every dollar made by a man:
STATE ----------------GENDER WAGE GAP
Louisiana-------------71 cents
Utah---------------------73 cents
Alabama--------------74 cents
Wyoming--------------74 cents
North Dakota--------75 cents
Idaho---------------------76 cents
New Hampshire-----76 cents
Montana-----------------76 cents
Mississippi-------------78 cents
Oklahoma---------------78 cents
These are the 10 states with the smallest gender wage gaps, represented as cents made by women for every dollar made by a man:
STATE ----‐‐------------- GENDER WAGE GAP
Rhode Island-----------89 cents
Vermont--------‐---------88 cents
New York-----------------87 cents
California-----------------87 cents
Hawaii----------------------87 cents
Delaware------------------87 cents
Maryland------------------86 cents
District of Columbia-86 cents
Massachusetts--------86 cents
Maine-----------------------85 cents
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/states-with-biggest-gender-wage-gaps
D.C. police investigating vandalism to Teslas as possible hate crimes
Source: Washington Post
The trouble began at Union Station, D.C. police said, when someone scrawled, “Ask me about my support of Nazis” across a Tesla’s rear window on March 2.
D.C. police say they are investigating the ‘Nazi’ comment, an apparent reference to a gesture criticized as a Nazi-style salute that Musk made on Inauguration Day, and one other, as potential hate crimes.
Prosecutors must prove a person was motivated by prejudice to secure a conviction in a bias-related crime. While targeting someone based on their political affiliation opens the door for such a charge, prosecutors ultimately decide after an arrest has been made and a motive developed. Police statistics show that until now they have not investigated a politically motived hate crime in the past four years in D.C. Through the end of February, police have investigated 17 crimes as hate-related this year, based on ethnicity, national origin, race, gender identity and religion.
The maximum penalty for defacing private property in the District is a $5,000 fine and up to a year in jail. A hate crime conviction would increase these penalties.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/03/26/tesla-dc-police-vandalism/
So now being against Nazis is a hate crime!
This is the same DC Police who, when called by US Institute of Peace staff to help them fend off DOGE trespassers on USIP private property, instead took DOGE's word and kicked the USIP staff out of the building!
Law firms refuse to represent Trump opponents in the wake of his attacks
Source: Washington Post
Trump on Friday ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to expand the campaign by sanctioning lawyers who “engage in frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation” against his administration.
Legal scholars say there is little precedent in modern U.S. history for Trump’s actions. But the president is following a playbook from other countries whose leaders have sought to undermine democratic systems and the rule of law, including Russia, Turkey and Hungary. Leaders in those countries have similarly attacked lawyers with the effect of hollowing out a pillar of justice systems to expand their power without violating existing laws. They have successfully used the strategy to blast away their political opposition and any effort to counter their actions through courts.
“The law firms have to behave themselves,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting on Monday. “They behave very badly, very wrongly.”
“It’s scary,” said a former official in the administration of Joe Biden who has been pulled into Trump-era litigation and needed a lawyer as a result. The former official had lined up one pro bono lawyer from a major law firm that, the day after an executive order this month against the heavyweight law firm Perkins Coie, said that it had discovered a conflict of interest and dropped the person as a client.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/03/25/trump-law-firms/
The U.S. has lifted bounties on Sirajuddin Haqqani and other senior Taliban officials, Kabul says
Source: NBC News
Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani said the U.S. government had revoked the bounties placed on Haqqani, Abdul Aziz Haqqani and Yahya Haqqani.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, who acknowledged planning a January 2008 attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul, which killed six people, including U.S. citizen Thor David Hesla, no longer appears on the State Department’s Rewards for Justice website. The FBI website still featured a wanted poster for him on Sunday.
The Haqqani network grew into one of the deadliest arms of the Taliban after the U.S.-led 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. The group employed roadside bombs, suicide bombings and other attacks, including on the Indian and U.S. embassies, the Afghan presidency, and other major targets. They also have been linked to extortion, kidnapping and other criminal activity.
“For the Taliban, the removal of sanctions is more important than (official) recognition. Sanctions bite. They inhibit your ability to do business, to travel. That’s why they would celebrate this as a victory. The transactional nature of this diplomacy suits both the Taliban and Trump.”
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/us-lifted-bounties-sirajuddin-haqqani-senior-taliban-officials-kabul-s-rcna197727
Look who's palling around with terrorists! And what did Trump get in return?
Canadians traveling to the U.S. reach COVID lows with nearly 500,000 fewer travellers in February
Nearly 500,000 fewer travellers crossed the land border from Canada into the U.S. in February compared to the same month last year, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the latest sign that President Donald Trump's taunts and tariffs have shaken bilateral relations.
The number of travellers entering the U.S. in a passenger vehicle — the most common way to make the trip — dropped from 2,696,512 in February 2024 to 2,223,408 last month, reaching levels not seen since cross-border travel normalized in the post-COVID-19 era.
In fact, the number of travellers driving over the U.S. land border is the lowest it's been since April 2022, according to CBP data. The Canadian government didn't lift all travel-related restrictions, like testing and quarantine measures, until October of that year. The fact that the current flow of travellers is at the same level as when travel was much more arduous is revealing, experts say.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cross-border-trips-decline-235k-february-1.7485695
National Association of Letter Carriers protest nationwide to protect USPS jobs
Source: News4JAX
Dozens of mail carriers and community members protested against proposed changes to the United States Postal Service at a Jacksonville post office on Sunday. They said their mission is to protect the jobs of 640,000 employees, which includes 73,000 veterans.
This comes after Elon Musk said he believes the postal service needs to be privatized during a conference. The postmaster general also told Congress the USPS plans to eliminate 10,000 jobs over the next 30 days. President Donald Trump has mentioned the possibility of moving the USPS under the United States Department of Commerce and its caused an uproar because it has been its own entity since 1970.
James Thigpenn, the current president of the Jacksonville National Association of Letter Carriers chapter said he fears what this could mean for everyone.
“It’s going to add a lot more fees and more taxes to the postal service and the price for getting the parcels delivered would not be regulated by federal law and it could go through the roof,” Thigpenn said.
Read more: https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2025/03/23/national-association-of-letter-carriers-protest-nationwide-to-protect-usps-jobs/
There were similar protests similar to Jacksonville's at various post offices across the country. More info at the National Association of Letter Carriers website: https://www.nalc.org/news/fight-like-hell
A reminder: the post office is a public SERVICE, like the fire department and police department.
Southern stand up comedian, Cliff Cash, hilariously makes fun of MAGA, racists and homophobes.
Great 10 minute stand up routine!
Cliff Cash has also been leading rallies in DC against Trump, like this one where he rips a few MAGA hecklers who tried to interrupt him:
Finland again ranked the happiest country in the world; US falls to its lowest-ever position
Finland is named the happiest country in the world for the eighth year in a row, according to the World Happiness Report 2025 published Thursday.
Other Nordic countries are also once again at the top of the happiness rankings in the annual report published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford. Besides Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden remain the top four and in the same order.
While European countries dominate the top 20 in the ranking, there were some exceptions. Despite the war with Hamas, Israel came in at 8th. Costa Rica and Mexico entered the top 10 for the first time, ranking at 6th and 10th respectively.
When it comes to decreasing happiness - or growing unhappiness -the United States has dropped to its lowest-ever position at 24, having previously peaked at 11th place in 2012. The report states that the number of people dining alone in the United States has increased 53% over the past two decades.
https://abc7ny.com/post/finland-is-ranked-happiest-country-world-us-falls-lowest-position/16056158/
Trump Gets Law Firm He Targeted With Executive Order to Do Free Work for Him
Source: Daily Beast
Donald Trump announced Thursday that he was rescinding his executive order against a law firm that sued alleged Jan. 6 rioters, but with several catches, among them that the firm must do $40 million of free work for the administration.
Last Friday, Trump’s order rescinded federal government contracts held by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. The order cited a pro bono suit against suspected Jan. 6 rioters and the re-hiring of Mark Pomerantz, who worked in the Manhattan’s district attorney’s office during its investigation of Trump, as cause for presidential action. The order also accused the Manhattan firm of race and gender discrimination.
In addition to revoking contracts, Trump ordered the same for firm members’ active security clearances.
It was amid those drastic measures that Trump announced that he was able to extract considerable value from the firm in exchange for dropping the order.He continued that it will “not adopt, use, or pursue any DEI policies,” and, most stunningly, “will dedicate the equivalent of $40 million in pro bono legal services over the course of President Trump’s term to support the Administration’s initiatives, including: assisting our Nation’s veterans, fairness in the Justice System, the President’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, and other mutually agreed projects.”
Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-gets-law-firm-he-targeted-with-executive-order-to-do-free-work-for-him/
This is a stunning $40 million shakedown of a top law firm.
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