Donald Trump has a new nemesis, with a name worthy of a supervillain: Scenedesmus.
The Reflecting Pool on the National Mall has become the country’s most high-profile science experiment, with workers battling against nature. After a week of combat, they have essentially killed off one type of algae infesting the pool, only to create the conditions for a new type to take over. And Scenedesmus, a genus of green algae nicknamed “Skinny Dead Mouse” by scientists, is now flourishing, according to testing that was run at the request of The Atlantic.
The pool, at the moment, looks like a strange bit of modern art. As workers treat different sections, the areas where they succeed in reducing the algae turn lighter shades of green. In some places, the water is relatively clear. In others, it’s an oily sludge. A quick glance, though, is enough to confirm that this is not the American-flag blue it was supposed to be.
Over the past few days, I’ve seen baby ducks swim (update: and die) through the pool; National Park Service workers wading around as they try to clean it; small children bending over to touch it. But none of the NPS workers at the site have been able to definitively tell me whether despite all of the algae—some species of which can be toxic—the water remains safe.
When algae first began to flourish in the Reflecting Pool, it appeared to be a blue-green cyanobacterial bloom that had taken over. Photos showed the kind of greenish surface film that can be indicative of that algae, which in some instances may produce neurotoxins harmful to people and pets. When Hans W. Paerl, a professor of marine and environmental sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, opened the bottle of one of the samples I collected, he detected the distinctive earthy scents reminiscent of other cyanobacterial blooms he’d previously smelled. Under the microscope, he could see remnants of the previous bloom, but they were too degraded to identify. He attributed this, in part, to the endless jugs of hydrogen peroxide that workers had dumped into the pool to kill off the algae. “The guys dealing with peroxide treatment can pat themselves on the back,” he told me. “But it doesn’t really solve the overall problem.”
In fact, it’s created a new problem: The green algae, perhaps in the absence of the blue-green algae, are absolutely flourishing. “It is a pretty aggressive grower,” Paerl said. “What’s happened is they’ve just switched the players. And the green algae are just taking over.”
“I’ve never seen it bloom quite this thick,” Greg Boyer, a professor emeritus of biochemistry at the State University of New York, who analyzed our other samples, told me.
Yesterday evening, I saw several people in the center of the pool. They were dressed in the D.C. office uniform of khakis and a dress shirt, wearing waders as they vacuumed. As one of them ended a shift, handing his equipment back to NPS workers, he said he was “just doing my part.”
But another problem has also emerged: The sealant at the bottom of the pool, which was the bulk of the $16.4 million renovation project, is beginning to peel off. By yesterday evening, a whole chunk was gone. Tourists and locals were converging on the site where Martin Luther King Jr. spoke and where protesters denounced the Vietnam War, just to catch a glimpse of the wayward sealant—or perhaps even a souvenir.
“Taking a piece of paint is like taking a piece of the Berlin Wall,” one cyclist passing by told me. “It’s a piece of history.”
Thus giving Trump a chance to try to change the subject:
Trump: “Work will begin immediately on fixing the seriously vandalized Reflecting Pool. I just inspected it, and could only say to myself, and those gathered around me, WOW, who would do such a thing? SICK, DERANGED PEOPLE! We will fix it? President DJT”
Trump is a father. So it was unsurprising that, on the eve of Father’s Day, he posted a homage to one of his children. He wrote: Great daughter. My Honor!!! President DJT.Below the words, he posted a picture of a blond woman sitting on a sofa, legs crossed, with a phone to her ear. She is looking over at the photographer with a pleasing smile that projects warmth and familiarity. However, the subject of the photograph does not resemble either of the two known daughters, Ivanka and Tiffany.
This leaves three possibilities. One, it is one of them, and the photo does not do her justice. Two, he is confessing to having another heretofore unknown child. Three, he’s lost his marbles. Given his recent behavior, the odds strongly favor the third.
The reader can form their own opinion. However, some other features of the photo add to the absurdity. The phone is an old, button-push landline. The woman’s fashion skews retro. And the image’s tone appears dated. Why this photo is anyone’s guess. Although the internet’s detective division is scouring the record.
UPDATE: The sleuths have done their job. The picture appears to be of Margo Catsimatidis, the wife of John Catsimatidis, a New York billionaire and Trump backer. There is no word yet on why Trump has posted a 25ish-year-old photo of another man’s wife under the observation “Great daughter”.
Also confusing is why he would post a picture taken at Camp David around 2000, when Bill Clinton was president?
From left: Margo Catsimatidis, John Catsimatidis, Andrea Catsimatidis, and Andrea’s ex Anthony Marlowe attend the Angel Ball Summer Gala. Getty Images for Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation.British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced his resignation on Monday morning, nearly two years after his Labour Party’s historic victory in the 2024 U.K. general election.
In a speech outside Downing Street, Starmer acknowledged that he no longer has the backing of his party.
“The question my party is asking now is whether I am best placed to lead us into the next general election. I have heard the answer of my parliamentary party to that question, and I accept that answer with good grace,” Starmer said.
“Every decision I have taken has been about putting the country I love first. That is why I will resign as leader of the Labour Party,” Starmer continued, adding that he had notified King Charles of his decision earlier.
Andy Burnham, the former mayor of Greater Manchester who won a special election in Makerfield last week, is the clear favorite to succeed him as Labour Party leader and prime minister.
Starmer had been under intense pressure to step down following Burnham’s win. Burnham defeated a candidate from Reform UK, Nigel Farage’s right-wing party, which has been leading in the polls for over a year, sparking concern. Burnham is scheduled to be sworn in as a lawmaker later Monday.
For the record–while I wish I could claim credit for that headline, it was indeed crafted by some British tabloid when a tempestuous royal breakup occurred publicly at the fortnight of Wimbledon.
Trump Willfully Defies Congress On Foreign Aid. I think the Supreme Court has told Trump he’s well within his rights:
After the Trump administration upended the world’s largest foreign aid provider last year, terminating thousands of programs and firing nearly all of its staff, its plan for the agency was clear: Eliminate it entirely.
But because it is a congressionally created agency, President Donald Trump needed lawmakers’ permission to do so. So this year, Trump officials asked Congress for permission to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development and dramatically reduce federal spending on food, medicine and lifesaving work around the world.
Congress said no. Lawmakers, who hold the government’s purse strings and have oversight of federal agencies, wanted USAID to remain, even in its diminished form. They detailed precisely how much the State Department should spend on foreign aid and for what, including $9.4 billion on global health to treat and prevent maladies like HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, and more than $5 billion on emergency humanitarian aid. They also insisted on regular, detailed reports about how the administration was spending the money.
Trump signed the bill, enshrining their orders into law.
Now, eight months into the fiscal year, Trump officials are failing to follow many of those orders, ProPublica has found. Officials have delayed spending on global health, have not issued funds for some projects and have labeled money destined for humanitarian aid as “unallocated” to control how it can be spent, according to a ProPublica review of government records and interviews with legal experts, current and former government employees, and members of Congress. And when lawmakers have asked about their actions, officials often have not responded.
Sorry for the lack of local news coverage today. Just couldn’t find anything of interest.
What do you want to talk about?
Curious about the media blackout regarding some recent high profile incidents. Our neighbor was killed in Alapocas Run park back in late May and we have not heard anything since. Also, almost a week out from the hospital shooting and there is still no update (although word is getting around on socials that the alleged shooter was “off” in more ways than one). This follows a pattern of narrative control that has been going on since well before the DMV shooting, a combination of journalistic malpractice and intentional obfuscation by police agencies.
On a related note, funny how our Guv and Mayor both raced to the scene of the hospital shooting, ready with prepared remarks. Two kids were shot in a literal gun fight on west 3rd a few weeks ago, and it barely made a blip in the news. The difference, of course, is that the hospital is a “white space”
Intentional obfuscation by police agencies is a time-dishonored tradition in Delaware.
We’re not that far away from having a General Assembly that can pass meaningful police reform. More transparency from police agencies should be part of that reform.
As to the Governor and Mayor racing to the scene of the hospital shooting, I guess they’re both always ‘on-call’ for their ChristianaCare allies.
Another piece of the explanation for the “media blackout” is that Delaware media today is but a shadow of what it once was. More diverse, perhaps, with Spotlight, WHYY and Delaware Public Media having strong reporters but no one has the resources that the News Journal had a generation ago to mobilize a team to dig into every possible angle, as they did with the Capano and John du Pont stories. Lacking the staff to cast a wide net, media outlets wind up relying on their primary sources and producing similar reports. A weakened media presence makes it easier for the powerful to control the messaging.