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On warm summer evenings, the groundhog who lives beneath my deck likes to climb atop a bench and look across the field. As I watch, I sometimes wonder what is on her mind while she surveys her domain. The simple explanation is that she is scanning for predators, and given the realities of groundhog life, this is quite likely. But is that all there is to it? Might she also enjoy the sight of grasses swaying in the breeze and the sound of rustling leaves? Might she even find them beautiful?

Such sensibilities are an essential, everyday part of human experience. They have also been largely denied to other animals. ‘Sensitivity to beauty and making or doing things that are perceived as “beautiful” are among the traits that elevate man above the brutes,’ wrote the great evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky in 1962. It’s a statement emblematic of scientific attitudes past and present. Even though research on animal intelligence has flourished, the aesthetic capacities of other species have received little attention. Today, we are comfortable describing these animals as having self-awareness, complex emotions, language-like communication, and even culture, but we hesitate to say they have a sense of beauty.

This is one of those classic weeks in a Trump presidency where too many stories are moving too fast for an individual writer to keep up. There are new tariffs, expansion of deportation operations, a will-he-or-won't-he dance about firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell, and, of course, the sudden about-face on the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein's many crimes, personal connections, and sudden death in 2019.

The news is moving so fast that I've had to write this intro four times now to update the following sentence: The latest news, per the Wall Street Journal, is that Trump sent Epstein a birthday card in 2003 with a drawing of a naked woman with the words "we have certain things in common" and wishing him "may every day be another wonderful secret." Yikes!

Earlier this week, Trump said he was done with the Epstein issue and no longer wanted the support of people who voted for him because they thought he would release more information about the sex offender’s crimes and his conspirators. The president said his administration would not be releasing any more information about the investigation into Epstein. Currently on Polymarket, you can buy p(Jeffrey Epstein is actually alive) for 3% and p(Trump will appoint a special prosecutor) at 1%.

In the background of all this, polls show Trump's position plummeting. For this week's Chart of the Week, let's take a quick look at Trump's approval overall, and on tariffs, deportations, and Epstein. The size of the hole he is in on the Epstein case is maybe the worst number I’ve ever seen for a president.

When the government of Sri Lanka published the National Red List of threatened plants in 2020, my eyebrows shot up. We’ve all become accustomed, after all, to the grim news these reports periodically bring us. But here it was, in black and white: 128 species, not having been recorded in surveys conducted during the past century, were assessed as “possibly extinct,” while a further two each were assessed as “extinct” and “extinct in the wild.” This was good news indeed.

Just eight years earlier, the 2012 National Red List had assessed fully 177 species as possibly extinct, together with five extinct and two others extinct in the wild. Had 49 extinct species — species no one had recorded in more than a century — really been rediscovered since 2012? Clearly, someone had blundered. Not stopping to put the book down, I called up Siril Wijesundara at the National Institute of Fundamental Studies (NIFS) in Kandy and the chairman of the committee of experts who conducted the assessment.

“Siril,” I said, “there’s a mistake in the number of extinct flowering plants in the new Red List.”

He laughed. “I thought that would get your attention,” he said. “But there’s no mistake. Himesh has rediscovered three of the officially extinct ones as well.”

“What’s Himesh?” I asked, thinking it to be the acronym of the institution that had magically rediscovered these species, which, after all, all previous surveys had missed.

“Himesh is an amazing guy,” Wijesundara said. “He spends his life searching for plants.”

To date, [Himesh] Jayasinghe has rediscovered more than 100 of the 177 possibly extinct species as well as three of the five extinct species and both species previously considered extinct in the wild. And the good news doesn’t stop there. He has up to now found some 210 species that have never been reported from Sri Lanka. About 50 of these were already known from India, while a further 20, though named in the historical literature, can now be added to the national floral inventory because they are supported by hard evidence: newly collected specimens as well as photographs.

And then there are the 150 species that appear to be entirely new to science. All these records are supported by specimens Jayasinghe has deposited in the National Herbarium, as well as thousands of photographs. Returning to an interesting plant again and again until he finds it in flush, in fruit and in flower, he has accumulated a photo library representing some 2,600 of the 2,850 species of flowering plants then known from Sri Lanka, and that’s omitting the grasses and bamboos, which he hasn’t begun working on yet. The 210 new records will now get added to those tallies.

Assisted dying is now lawful under some circumstances, in jurisdictions affecting at least 300 million people, a remarkable shift given that it was unlawful virtually everywhere in the world only a generation ago. Lively legislative debates about assisted dying are taking place in many societies, including France, Italy, Germany, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Typically, the question at hand for these legislatures is whether to allow medical professionals to help individuals to die, and, if so, under what conditions. The laws under debate remove legal or professional penalties for those medical professionals who help individuals to die.

Having conducted research into the ethics of death and dying for more than a quarter of a century, I am rarely surprised by how the debates unfold.

On one side, advocates for legalised assisted dying invoke patients’ rights to make their own medical choices. Making it possible for doctors to assist their patients to die, they propose, allows us to avoid pointless suffering and to die ‘with dignity’. While assisted dying represents a departure from recent medical practice, it accords with values that the medical community holds dear, including compassion and beneficence.

On the other side, much of the opposition to assisted dying has historically been motivated by religion (though support for it among religious groups appears to be growing), but today’s opponents rarely reference religious claims. Instead, they argue that assisted dying crosses a moral Rubicon, whether it takes the form of doctors prescribing lethal medications that patients administer to themselves (which we might classify as assisted suicide) or their administering those medications to patients (usually designated ‘active euthanasia’). Doctors, they say, may not knowingly and intentionally contribute to patients’ deaths. Increasingly, assisted dying opponents also express worries about the effects of legalisation on ‘vulnerable populations’ such as the disabled, the poor or those without access to adequate end-of-life palliative care.

The question today is about how to make progress in a debate where both sides are both deeply dug in and all too predictable. We must take a different approach, one that spotlights the central values at stake. To my eye, freedom is the neglected value in these debates.

Freedom is a notoriously complex and contested philosophical notion, and I won’t pretend to settle any of the big controversies it raises. But I believe that a type of freedom we can call freedom over death – that is, a freedom in which we shape the timing and circumstances of how we die – should be central to this conversation. Developments both technological and sociocultural have afforded us far greater freedom over death than we had in the past, and while we are still adapting ourselves to that freedom, we now appreciate the moral importance of this freedom. Legalising assisted dying is but a further step in realising this freedom over death.

The biggest ride-hailing companies globally are struggling to keep their electric vehicle promises.

In 2020, Uber, the world’s largest ride-hailing company, set a target for all its rides and deliveries to be zero-emission by 2040. As of 2025, only a few hundred thousand out of its 7.1 million drivers have adopted green rides.

Grab, Southeast Asia’s biggest ride-hailing company, is targeting carbon neutrality by 2040. Last year, 7% of all Grab rides and deliveries used low- or zero-emission modes of transport, including electric and hybrid vehicles, cyclists, and walkers.

While Uber, Lyft, and Grab don’t disclose the precise number of EVs in their fleets, each platform has less than 1% EVs globally, research and advisory firm Gartner estimates.

“Even though we have seen immense growth in EV adoption by these companies, it is highly unlikely they will achieve 100% EV adoption in the next decade,” Shivani Palepu, transport tech analyst at Gartner, told Rest of World. Palepu expects the shift to electric to vary “drastically” by region.

In the spring of 2020, as the gravity and extent of the pandemic’s disruptions sank in, the chorus began. “New York City is dead forever,” one prominent commentator wrote. “San Francisco is the next Detroit — the handwriting is on the wall,” another declared. Urban office towers stood empty, downtown streets were deserted and doomsday forecasts abounded. With the rise of work-from-home, the cynics insisted, we were witnessing the beginning of the end of America’s dense, vibrant, economically essential cities.

Without a doubt, the pandemic and its aftermath have brought serious challenges to America’s cities. Yet these dramatic exhortations of impending urban doom, so confidently asserted at the time by so many, turned out to be completely wrong.

Five years on, American cities have bounced back dramatically. According to newly released Census data, nearly 95% of America’s largest cities — 68 out of 72 — experienced population growth between July 2023 and June 2024, reversing downward trends from earlier in the decade. Los Angeles added more than 30,000 residents; Chicago gained more than 20,000; Seattle added more than 16,000; and Washington, DC, gained 15,000. Even Detroit — a city that was portrayed as the veritable poster child of urban decline — added more than 6,500 new residents.

New York City led the resurgence, adding more than 85,000 residents — the largest numeric increase nationwide — though the city is still down around 300,000 residents from its pre-pandemic peak.

Let me be clear: I am not arguing that America’s big cities writ large are beyond their many challenges — far from it. Crime may be down, but it is still too high, and urban disorder plagues many cities. Urban schools may be improving, but they still have a long way to go. Downtowns continue to face high office vacancies, and many will never recover. Housing is less affordable than ever, not just for the truly disadvantaged but for the middle and professional classes. Government spending is inefficient and taxes are too high. Families with children continue to decamp to the suburbs, leaving too many cities as playgrounds for the affluent, the young and the childless — and as places for the disadvantaged to find services.

Yet none of this has added up to an irrevocable downward spiral or an urban doom loop.

The newly established Native Playwrights PDX, co-organized by director Amber Kay Ball, Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, is providing Native theater makers a platform to accurately and respectfully tell the stories of modern Indigenous people. Support from this community funded arts project will combat the lack of Indigenous representation in media while amplifying the work of up-and-coming playwrights and directors.

Native Playwrights PDX was co-organized by Ball in 2024. After hosting a staged reading for their self-written play “Finding Bigfoot” in collaboration with the Fertile Ground Festival at Barbie’s Village last year, Ball, who uses the pronouns she/they, felt that it was more impactful and accessible to showcase work in a community space rather than a major theater.

“It felt more significant than presenting it in a theater to me at the moment when I could just showcase it with community,” Ball recalled.

Since that first staged reading, the idea has only grown.

In order to address gaps in women’s healthcare in rural parts of Southeast Texas, the Hope Women’s Resource Clinic uses a “mobile medical unit” – an RV converted into a clinic that provides various prenatal care – free of charge.

The mobile medical unit provides pregnancy testing, ultrasounds and STI testing, and treatment. It parks in Port Arthur, Silsbee, Orange, and Crystal Beach, Texas. The company has been operating for 27 years and also has a brick-and-mortar clinic building in Beaumont, Texas. They are planning to open another clinic building in Port Arthur.

“We saw the need to reach out to the community for those who can’t get here,” said Jeanette Harvey, Executive Director of Hope Clinic.

The mobile medical unit was created because while patients in Beaumont could use public transportation to access the clinic building, patients in surrounding rural areas had trouble getting to it. Harvey and her team conducted research by visiting a handful of other small towns in the area with their smaller mobile medical unit at the time to gauge community need and location convenience, and narrow it down.

Shas, an ultra-Orthodox party that has long served as kingmaker in Israeli politics, announced that it would bolt the government over disagreements surrounding a proposed law that would enshrine broad military draft exemptions for its constituents — the second ultra-Orthodox governing party to do so this week.

“In this current situation, it’s impossible to sit in the government and to be a partner in it,” Shas Cabinet minister Michael Malkieli said in announcing the party’s decision.

But Shas said it would not undermine Netanyahu’s coalition from the outside and could vote with it on some legislation, granting Netanyahu a lifeline in what would otherwise make governing almost impossible and put his lengthy rule at risk.

Once their resignations come into effect, Netanyahu’s coalition will have 50 seats in the 120-seat parliament.

Councilor Angelita Morillo asserts that a better Portland is possible.

It’s a catchphrase used often by the Portland chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, to which Morillo belongs. By “better,” this is what the DSA means:

Free garbage pickup. Fareless buses and trains. Government-run grocery stores with price control. A downtown where some of the office towers are replaced by subsidized housing. If anybody in those apartments faces eviction, they’re provided an attorney. The residents of those buildings drop their kids off at tuition-free preschools and go to work at jobs with a higher starting wage.

Who pays for all this? Any resident with a high income. What’s high? The DSA won’t put a number on it, but judging by recent ballot initiatives they’ve crafted, it could start at $200,000 a year.

“We essentially have to redesign our entire economy right now,” says Morillo, who represents District 3, which covers Southeast Portland, on the Portland City Council.

Whether they realize it or not, this is the future many Portlanders voted for last fall.

Mycopunk is full of clutch plays, chaotic fights, and good old-fashioned train-ing enemies. It's probably the most fun I've had in a shooter for a long time, primarily because it manages to straddle the line of being difficult but not punishing.

When selecting one of the various mission types, you can also customise the difficulty. There are three swarm intensities to choose from, which'll alter how likely enemies are to overrun you. Then there are six different difficulty levels to pick from, Difficulty 1 is the easiest, providing the least amount of resources, and Difficulty 6 is the hardest, giving players the most resources and XP.

Being able to change swarm intensities and difficulty separately from each other lets you experience all the different missions at your own pace, in circumstances that let you enjoy Mycopunk to the fullest. Like having to deal with mountains of enemies piling onto you at every second, but don't want them to pack too much of a punch? Pick a high swarm intensity at a low level, and so on.

Outside of difficulty, smart design choices (like removing the need to hunt for ammo or getting rid of the dreaded stamina bar) also make a world of difference. Instead of worrying about where I could find the next ammo cache like in other games, all I need to do to get more bullets is damage enemies with my other weapon.

This lets you focus on pulling off sick trickshots or clutch plays, rather than chaining you to a reload animation. It's also a great way to encourage players to diversify and upgrade all their weapons, not just focus on one favourite, which is something I'm guilty of in my FPS games.

I'm a huge fan of there being no stamina system, too. The enemy bots are also pretty fast, so having the ability to keep on running is vital. But it's not like you zip around whenever you feel like it. Instead, three of the four characters all have movement-based abilities which are on cooldown.

On July 2, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1518 in British Columbia announced that more than 500 Uber drivers in Greater Victoria have unionized.

This historic decision follows months of organizing among drivers and marks the first ever union certification of app-based drivers in Canada.

Uber only began operating in Victoria in June 2023 and recently expanded its service across B.C.

UFCW 1518 is the province’s largest private sector union local, representing more than 28,000 workers in the retail, grocery, health care and cannabis industries.

The mega-local has made significant organizing breakthroughs over the past several years. After successfully unionizing the B.C. cannabis sector, 1518 also secured representation for nearly 400 temporary foreign agricultural workers at Highline Mushrooms farms in Langley and Abbotsford. This was the largest group of agricultural workers ever to organize in Canadian history and a major development in the struggle for temporary foreign worker rights.