Bethany @bethgraced

A brand new bridge between Detroit and Canada is finished and ready to open. It would speed up traffic for millions of trucks, cut delays for American businesses, and help the auto industry that employs people in every state. There is just one problem. Donald Trump won’t let it open. Here is why. The family that owns the old bridge stands to lose business when the new one opens. So in January, they gave one million dollars to a pro-Trump super PAC. Weeks later they met with Trump’s Commerce Secretary. He called Trump. Hours after that, Trump announced he would block the new bridge. The opening was set for June 12. It got canceled the day before. The bridge sits there finished and empty. Now here is the part that should make every taxpayer angry. Canada paid for the entire bridge. Every dollar. And the United States already owns half of it for free. Trump is holding up a bridge we got for nothing, to protect a donor who wrote him a check, while picking a fight with our closest ally and biggest trading partner. This is corruption in plain sight. A billionaire pays, and the President delivers. American workers and businesses pay the price. Open the bridge. A government should work for the people, not for whoever writes the biggest check. nytimes.com/2026/02/20/us/…

A Japanese immunologist spent 20 years proving that the chemicals trees release into the air walk into your bloodstream, hunt down your stress hormones, and arm your immune system in ways no therapist or pharmaceutical has ever matched, and most of the data has been sitting in Japanese medical journals for two decades waiting to be translated. His name is Qing Li. He is a clinical professor at Nippon Medical School in Tokyo and the president of the Japanese Society of Forest Medicine. The Japanese government has been funding his research since 2004, and the body of work he has produced is the reason forest bathing is now an officially prescribed clinical therapy in Japan and Korea. The story actually starts in 1982, when the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries coined the term shinrin-yoku to describe the practice of slow, mindful walking in a forest. They did it for a practical reason. Japan was urbanizing fast, stress-related illness was climbing, and the country had thousands of square kilometers of forest sitting unused. The idea was to give people a reason to walk into the trees... They had no idea what was actually happening to the human body during those walks until Qing Li ran the first proper experiment in 2005. He took twelve healthy adult men on a three-day, two-night trip to a forest park. They walked for a few hours each day. Nothing strenuous. No prescribed routes or breathing exercises. They simply walked slowly through the trees, breathing the air, looking at the forest. Li drew blood and urine samples before the trip, on the second day, on the third day, on day seven after returning home, and again on day thirty. The numbers that came back from the lab were not what anyone expected. The activity of a specific type of immune cell called the natural killer cell, which is the cell your body uses to hunt down cancer cells and virus-infected cells before they can spread, had jumped by roughly 50 percent during the forest trip. The actual number of natural killer cells circulating in the bloodstream had increased significantly. Three different anti-cancer proteins that those cells produce, called perforin, granzymes, and granulysin, had all risen sharply. And the effect did not disappear when the men went home. The immune boost was still measurable on day seven and was still partially present on day thirty. Two hours a day in a forest had upgraded the immune system for a full month. Li ran the same experiment with women a year later and found nearly identical results. Then he ran it with a control group who took a three-day trip through an urban area with the same amount of walking, the same hotel quality, and the same diet. The urban group showed no measurable change in natural killer cell activity at all. The forest was doing the work, not the vacation. The mechanism turned out to be a class of airborne molecules called phytoncides. Trees produce these compounds to defend themselves against insects, bacteria, and fungi. Pine, cedar, oak, and cypress trees release them in particularly large amounts, especially in warmer weather and after rainfall. When you walk through a forest, you are inhaling those molecules into your lungs and absorbing them through your skin, and once inside your body they appear to directly stimulate the production and activity of the very immune cells Li was measuring in his lab. Roughly 50 percent of the health benefit of a forest walk, according to Li's data, comes from the chemistry of the air itself. The other half comes from what the forest is doing to your nervous system. This is where it stops being only about the immune system and starts being about stress. A separate Japanese research team measured cortisol, the body's main stress hormone, in 84 participants across 35 different forest sites. They drew samples before and after a 30-minute walk in each forest and compared them to control walks in matched urban environments. The cortisol levels of the people who walked in the forest were lower than the cortisol levels of the people who walked in the city by a significant margin. Their heart rates were lower. Their blood pressure was lower. The activity of their parasympathetic nervous system, which is the part responsible for rest and recovery, had gone up. The activity of their sympathetic nervous system, which is the part that drives fight or flight, had gone down. Then a researcher at the University of Michigan named MaryCarol Hunter ran the cleanest version of this experiment ever done. She recruited participants from a city and told them to take a nature pill three times a week for eight weeks. They were free to choose the time, the place, and the duration of the nature experience, as long as it was outside, in daylight, and free of phones, conversations, and aerobic exercise. They sent her saliva samples before and after each session so she could measure cortisol changes accurately and rule out the normal daily drop in stress hormones that happens to everyone. The result was that participants experienced a 21.3 percent drop in cortisol per hour spent in nature, with the biggest payoff happening between minutes 20 and 30 of the walk. After that, the cortisol kept dropping, but more slowly. The threshold dose for measurable stress relief was just 20 minutes outside in something that looked and felt like nature. What none of this means is that nature is a substitute for therapy or for medication when someone genuinely needs them. Therapy treats different things than a walk does, and Li himself has been careful in interviews to call forest bathing a complementary intervention rather than a replacement for clinical care. But what the research has settled is that the human body has a physiological response to being among trees that operates on the same biological systems modern medicine is trying to reach with drugs and clinical protocols, and that response is fast, measurable, and free. The strangest part of Li's work is the implication he keeps repeating in interviews. The average person now spends more than 90 percent of their life indoors. Their cortisol stays elevated. Their natural killer cells stay sluggish. Their parasympathetic nervous system rarely gets a chance to take over. The system that was tuned by millions of years of life under a canopy of trees is being asked to run permanently inside a box made of drywall and screens. Your body has not forgotten what it is supposed to do in a forest. It is waiting for you to walk into one.

This is Trump donor and Mar-a-Lago neighbor John Cafaro who got the no-bid contract to install a water purification system for the reflecting pool. He has 2 prior convictions, one for bribing a member of Congress and another for an illegal loan that violated campaign finance laws.

Tennessee is sending letters to immigrant parents of disabled and terminally ill children enrolled in a last-resort public health program — kids on ventilators, kids with cancer, kids in wheelchairs - telling them that if their child keeps receiving medical care after June 30, the state will report them to ICE. This program has existed for over 50 years. It has never required immigration status. Until now. Children's Special Services is Tennessee's last-resort public health insurance program for low-income kids with the most severe disabilities and life-threatening illnesses - kids with no other coverage, no other options. The state just sent letters to at least 90 Nashville families giving them an impossible choice: keep your child alive, or stay invisible. One mother, Gabriella, has a 10-year-old son born with spina bifida who requires near-monthly emergency care. They're six months from a final ruling on their asylum case. She said if they're sent back to Honduras, "he's not going to make it." Here's the part that should make your head explode: the law Tennessee is using to justify this explicitly applies only to people 18 and older. These are children. Pediatricians, advocates, and lawmakers are all saying the state is misapplying its own law to reach kids it was never meant to cover. The Tennessee Justice Center says the directive is unlawful and is preparing a legal challenge. But families are afraid to come forward as plaintiffs. Because coming forward means being seen. The state health department has not responded to a single press request for comment. What kind of government sends a letter to the mother of a child on a ventilator and calls it immigration enforcement? 📷 Jose Carlos Cerdeno/Getty #DemsUnited

“Dear migrants, before I say any other word to you, I want to bow before your dignity. “You are not numbers or case files. “You are people — with a family and a home left behind, with dreams that no one has the right to scorn.” — Pope Leo XIV

Buttigieg: We didn't know it, but we've all been trusting our lives to the restraint of whoever the president might be. And now we have a president who is completely unrestrained. And so the only answer to that is a functioning Congress. It turns out we do not have a functioning Congress. The House of Representatives is not representative. One of the most important organs of our democracy is not democratic. They say, "Oh, no. We're not manipulating the map to disempower black people. We're manipulating the map to disempower Democrats who happen to be black people.” So, the time has come to make it impossible to manipulate the map for any reason and just have fair maps.

So all of you guys who were in my comments last month talking about how food assistance should not include candy and soda but actual healthy foods, I suppose you’re going to call your members of Congress and the White House about this?

Staggering levels of corruption. They’re using every possible lever of power to enrich themselves and their friends and families. And the “party of fiscal responsibility” simply doesn’t care.

unusual_whales @unusual_whales

2 weeks ago

BREAKING: More than half of the publicly identified donors to President Trump’s White House ballroom project have won new or expanded federal contracts worth more than $50 billion, per WaPo

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Republicans in North Carolina just proposed a bill that says if a woman is caught with an IUD or attempts to get an abortion then men are allowed to use DEADLY FORCE to try and stop her. They are proposing a bill that will allow men to kill women for using birth control. It’s House Bill 1232. Keith Kidwell is the Republican who proposed the bill. He claims it counts as self defense to use deadly force to stop abortion. This is a man who claims to be pro life. Feel free to give his office a call and let him know how you feel about his opinion. And for anyone who says “obviously this will never get passed” that’s not the point. The point is it’s fucking insanity that a government official would even try to make a law like this. It’s insanity that there are men out there who are trying to make it legal to kill women for making decisions for their own bodies. This is real and it’s happening right now in front of our eyes.

🚨BREAKING: ICE agents were filmed shoving U.S. citizens into a MOVING TRUCK during protests outside Newark’s Delaney Hall detention facility… while one protester’s foot looks to be run over by the vehicle. These are Americans standing in solidarity with detainees… who are currently on a hunger and labor strike… over reports of abuse, medical neglect, inedible food, overcrowding, and retaliation inside the facility. A woman reportedly miscarried while detained, and was denied proper medical treatment. Families and advocates have reported detainees being beaten and pepper sprayed. Lawmakers attempting oversight have been blocked from access. And now women involved in the strike are reportedly being transferred out of state, to Louisiana, as of this morning… A move Rep. Rob Menendez believes is retaliation for demanding basic human decency. And when Americans show up to protest it… ICE agents responded with extreme violence. (Now imagine what they are doing IN the facility, without cameras everywhere.) So, it’s time to stop pretending this is “normal immigration enforcement.” You do not build detention systems, like this, unless cruelty is the point. You do not transfer hunger strikers across the country, to a facility known for quick deportations, unless intimidation is the point. You do not attack protesters and block oversight unless you know the public would be horrified by what’s happening inside. And the government is doing this openly now… because they no longer believe there will be consequences.

🚨This is one of the most disturbing ICE brutality videos I’ve seen in a long time… Another angle of this incident shows ICE agents suddenly rushing protesters outside the Newark ICE Facility, then continuously shoving U.S. citizens toward the wheels of a MOVING TRUCK… until an activist’s LEG is run over. And the most disturbing part? The protesters are not charging the agents… The agents are the ones creating the escalation. And not only that, they are forcing civilians backward toward a MOVING VEHICLE, escalating a situation that was not violent until THEY made it violent. That is reckless, dangerous force. So, let’s go over the obvious constitutional violations happening in this video… 1. First Amendment violations, because Americans have the constitutional right to peacefully protest the government. 2. Fourth Amendment violations, because federal agents cannot use excessive or objectively unreasonable force against nonviolent civilians. 3. Fifth Amendment due process concerns, because the government cannot arbitrarily target, intimidate, or assault citizens exercising protected rights. 4. Federal officers can also face liability under 18 U.S. Code § 242 for depriving people of constitutional rights “under color of law.” When armed federal agents create chaos themselves, then use that chaos to justify violence against civilians, that is an abuse of power. Call your representatives. Demand accountability.

🚨BREAKING: An ICE agent just assaulted a TEENAGER in St. Charles, IL. In the video, ICE agents are seen running to their car while trying to cover their faces from U.S. citizens filming them in a parking lot. A teenager is calmly filming them, exercising his First Amendment right to record federal agents in public… when one of the agents suddenly shoves him into a car for absolutely no reason. The teenager immediately backs away. But instead of getting into the car, like the agent was originally about to do, he walks PAST his own car door, TOWARD the teenager, points his finger at him, and starts threatening him while the teen continues filming. The agent keeps screaming at the teenager to “get out of the way”… Except the teenager is literally standing BEHIND the vehicle, not blocking anything whatsoever. Then, while the agent himself is the one aggressively moving toward the teenager, he points his finger inches from the teen’s phone and says, “Do not step closer.” The teenager calmly responds, “I’m not in your way.” Because he wasn’t. Federal agents do not get to shove people because they’re uncomfortable being filmed. And contrary to what ICE seems to believe lately, the Constitution does not disappear the second they step in public. The agent violated the teenager’s First Amendment rights, by retaliating against him for filming law enforcement in public… something courts have repeatedly ruled is constitutionally protected. And the physical shove could also constitute unlawful battery and excessive force under color of law, because officers cannot legally use force against someone who is not threatening them, resisting, or obstructing anything. This teenager wasn’t attacking anyone, wasn’t blocking anyone, and he wasn’t resisting anything. He was filming. That’s it. ICE agents are now openly assaulting and trying to intimidate teenagers for recording them in public… and everyone should not be okay with that.

My grandmother: Why are young people always tired now? Me: Because life is expensive. My grandmother: Life was expensive before too. Me: Yeah but now everybody also has emails. My grandmother: suspicious pause What is an email exactly? Me: Like a letter except people expect answers immediately. My grandmother: Horrifying. Me: Correct. My grandmother: When your grandfather was angry at work he had to physically carry his anger home first. Me: That's actually a really good point. My grandmother: Now sadness arrives instantly. long pause Me: You ever think technology made everybody emotionally available all the time? My grandmother: Of course. Me: That seems bad. My grandmother: It is terrible for soup. Me: What does that mean? My grandmother: People do not sit quietly while cooking anymore. Honestly old women really will explain modern society through soup metaphors.

The Hilton donated the ~2600 dinners that went unserved at WHCD. They freeze dried the steak and lobster for longer shelf life before giving them to 2 shelters for abused women and children. HUGE thank you to the staff that worked through the night under terrible circumstances.

We need to talk about “case by case.” Alicia learned she was pregnant in ICE detention in Louisiana. She reported malnutrition and medical neglect, miscarried after a procedure she says was done without consent, and was kept for two more months. Lucia showed up for her regular ICE check-in. Two months pregnant. They detained her. That night she started bleeding — heavy. She begged for a doctor. For hours. When they finally moved her, it was to a room. Alone. No food. No water. No pain meds. Just blood. Hours later they shackled her — arms and legs — and drove her to the ER while she was actively miscarrying. She needed a blood transfusion when she got there. Jenny was visibly pregnant when ICE detained her in February. They restrained her for transport. She started vomiting, had diarrhea, started bleeding. They limited her water. This is what the ACLU documented on 10/22/25 after interviewing more than a dozen women. Six stories made it into their letter to ICE. The attorney who worked on it said these cases are “just the tip of the iceberg.” ICE ended the presumption of release for pregnant people in 2017. Now it’s “case by case.” These are the cases. So when you hear “we don’t detain pregnant women” or “they get adequate care,” remember Lucia’s shackles, Marie’s vitamins, and Jenny’s water bottle. These are the cases. Is this acceptable to you? #DemsUnited #Immigration

BREAKING🚨 A man was choked to death by ICE guards and DHS hid his body at a military base to block the autopsy. His name was Geraldo Lunas Campos. When the county medical examiner finally performed an autopsy, the conclusion was devastatingly clear: his death was ruled a homicide. But here is the detail that should make your blood run cold. When another man recently died at that exact same ICE facility, DHS didn't call the local medical examiner. Instead, they moved his body to a nearby U.S. Army base. And that Army base is now flat-out refusing to release the results of the autopsy. This was revealed by Senator Dick Durbin in a horrifying congressional hearing about the explosion of deaths in ICE custody under the Trump administration. At least 17 people have already died in ICE custody in just the first three months of this year alone. Many of them died from easily treatable illnesses. 911 logs show ICE facilities are completely overwhelmed, ignoring basic human rights. But moving a body to a military installation to dodge a local homicide investigation? That isn't just negligence. That is a coordinated, state-sponsored cover-up. They are operating mass detention facilities with zero accountability. They are treating human beings like they are disposable. And when their guards cross the line, they use the full weight of the federal military apparatus to hide the evidence. We are watching human rights abuses happen on American soil, funded by our tax dollars. We must demand the autopsy report. Share this. Do not let them sweep these deaths under the rug.

BREAKINGNEWS: The Alantic Reporter that broke open the story regarding FBI Director Kash Patel @S_Fitzpatrick says her reporting is accurate and the Alantic has excellent attorneys. 🚨

@Matt_Pinner Kangaroo

In 1930, rural Virginia, a Black girl born into sharecropping poverty wasn't supposed to leave the tobacco fields. But Gladys Mae Brown had other plans.... Her hands picked crops. Her mind solved equations no one asked her to solve. Her parents, despite barely scraping by, made a choice that defied every expectation placed on them. They kept her in school. She became valedictorian at a segregated high school with torn textbooks and broken windows. She earned a scholarship to Virginia State College in an era when being Black, female, and intellectually brilliant meant the world tried to crush you three different ways. In 1956, she walked through the doors of the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren as the second Black woman they'd ever hired. Four Black employees. Hundreds of white men. Most didn't think she'd survive the week. They were catastrophically wrong. Gladys calculated weapons trajectories by hand. Complex differential equations that consumed hours of meticulous work. Her accuracy became legendary. When computers arrived, she didn't resist the future. She learned Fortran. She mastered programming languages. She transformed weeks of calculations into hours. Then came Seasat in the 1970s. The first satellite studying Earth's oceans from orbit. She became project manager. But her true contribution remained hidden in the mathematics. For GPS to function, you need Earth's exact shape. Not close. Exact. Earth isn't a smooth sphere. It's an asymmetrical, gravity-distorted, irregular mass of mountains and ocean trenches. Gladys spent years constructing mathematical models describing every deviation, every curve, every gravitational anomaly of our planet's true form. She analyzed satellite data. She built geoid models. Tedious, invisible, revolutionary work. That mathematics became the foundation of GPS. Every navigation app. Every emergency rescue. Every autonomous vehicle. Every precision farming system. Her equations make it possible. Forty-two years at Dahlgren. Retirement in 1998. GPS fully operational worldwide. Billions of users. Almost nobody knew her name. She raised three children. Earned her PhD at seventy after surviving a stroke. Lived quietly. Until 2018, when someone at a sorority event read her biography aloud. The room went silent. The story exploded. At eighty-eight, Gladys West was inducted into the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame. The world finally learned her name. She mapped the entire planet. Then everyone forgot. Until they remembered. Gladys West worked alongside her husband Ira West, who was also a mathematician at the Naval Proving Ground. They met at Dahlgren and built both a family and parallel careers in an environment that actively discriminated against them. After retirement, she didn't stop. She earned her PhD from Virginia Tech at age 70, proving that intellectual curiosity doesn't have an expiration date. The GPS system relies on something called the geoid, a mathematical model of Earth's shape that accounts for gravitational variations. Gladys West's calculations helped create these models by analyzing millions of data points from satellite altimetry. Without accurate geoid models, GPS coordinates would be off by hundreds of meters, making the technology essentially useless. Her story remained hidden partly because classified military work doesn't generate headlines. Many pioneers of satellite and navigation technology worked in obscurity for national security reasons. The sorority member who recognized her contribution was reading through Alpha Kappa Alpha biographies when she noticed the GPS connection and brought it to public attention. © Women Stories #drthehistories