Exclusive: RFK Jr. and the White House buried a major study on alcohol and cancer. Here’s what it shows.
Senior correspondent Dylan Scott had a hell of a scoop this week, reporting that Trump administration officials decided to bury a new analysis that offers fresh evidence of the negative health effects of alcohol, including heightened risk of many cancers.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., of course, has promised to Make America Healthy Again, while enacting a series of maneuvers that demonstrably weaken public health. Dylan spoke to the authors of the unpublished analysis. Their findings are sobering: The health risks from alcohol start at low levels of drinking and ratchet up for heavier drinkers. For instance, a man having one drink per day has roughly a one in 1,000 chance of dying from any alcohol-related cause. If he has two drinks per day, the odds increase to one in 25. It’s no wonder that many Americans are reconsidering their own alcohol consumption habits.
How Trump lost the podcast bros
Donald Trump cruised to reelection last year in part based on his success with young men, many of whose views are informed by the “manosphere” — an ecosystem of right-leaning podcasts and YouTube channels with legions of fans and listeners. Some of these podcast bros now seem to be cooling on Trump. Correspondent Christian Paz checks in on some of the biggest names in the manosphere to see why some of them are regretting their past support — and what it might mean for the future of the MAGA coalition.
This counterintuitive advice about kids and phones makes a lot of sense
I was extremely skeptical when senior technology correspondent Adam Clark Estes told me that even as schools and parents grow increasingly worried about kids and smartphones, some technology experts actually recommend introducing them at an even earlier age. How young? One Oxford professor says that he gave his kids smartphones at 3 years old. Three!! No, he didn’t unbox an iPhone, connect it to the internet, and let them have at it.
Instead, it was an incredibly intentional process — first, the phone only functioned as a digital photo album; gradually over time, his kids got access to the camera, audiobooks, music, and ultimately texting. Am I 100 percent convinced? Not quite yet, but this piece gave me a lot to think about.
🎧 Mark Zuckerberg is burning billions to chase the holy grail of AI
I’ve read reports of Mark Zuckerberg offering AI researchers $250 million pay packages to build superintelligence with a mixture of horror, fascination, and okay, maybe the slightest little twitch of envy. What I’ve been less clear on is what superintelligence is really about, and what Meta AI is actually trying to do. This episode of the Today, Explained podcast breaks down Meta’s grandest ambitions when it comes to AI — besides, you know, making chatbots that sound like Snoop Dogg.
Human bodies aren’t ready to travel to Mars. Space medicine can help.
I loved Future Perfect fellow Shayna Korol’s deep dive into the emerging field of space medicine. With the current state of things on earth, humans are increasingly dreaming of colonizing Mars. To do that, we are going to have to prepare our bodies for massive physiological challenges involving radiation poisoning, muscle loss and even cognitive changes. The field is still young, but the breakthroughs could not only make a Mars mission possible. It could lead to advances here on earth.
