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Greenland sharks are a biological anomaly. The animals can grow to more than 20 feet long, weigh more than a ton and can live for nearly 400 years, making the species the longest-living vertebrate on the planet—a fact that could help unlock secrets to enhancing longevity.

And now, in a study published this week in Nature Communications, scientists dial in to one of the Greenland shark’s more remarkable features: it has functioning eyes and, more remarkably, maintains its vision well into senescence.

Biologists have long believed these sharks to be practically blind, in part because of their tendency to attract parasites that attack and lodge themselves inside the sharks’ corneas. But this work challenges that belief, the researchers write, showing that even centuries-old Greenland sharks retain a visual system “well-adapted for life in dim light.”

“Evolutionarily speaking, you don’t keep the organ that you don’t need,” said Dorota Skowronska-Krawczyk, an associate professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of California, Irvine, and a co-author of the paper, in a statement. “After watching many videos, I realized this animal is moving its eyeball toward the light.”

Skowronska-Krawczyk and her colleagues analyzed samples taken from sharks that were more than a century old and found no obvious signs of retinal degeneration, which, she notes, is a “remarkable” finding, considering their advanced age.

The researchers say the work offers a jumping off point for future research into how the sharks preserve their vision over such long periods of time, work that could eventually inform studies of age-related vision loss in humans—and how it might be prevented.

“Not a lot of people are working on sharks, especially shark vision,” said Emily Tom, a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Irvine, who is also a co-author of the study, in the same statement.

“We can learn so much about vision and longevity from long-lived species like the Greenland shark,” Tom said.

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A federal judge ruled on Monday that the Trump administration’s cancellation of approximately $8 billion in energy grants violated the Constitution by targeting recipients primarily based in Democratic-leaning states.

U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta issued a 17-page opinion finding the Department of Energy’s (DOE) grant terminations unlawful under the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee. The ruling orders the department to restore seven specific grants worth $27.6 million that were part of a broader cancellation affecting more than 200 projects announced by Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought on October 1, 2025, the first day of the government shutdown.

Newsweek reached out to the White House and OMB via email on Monday for comment.

Why It Matters

Mehta concluded that “all the awardees (but one) were based in states whose majority of citizens casting votes did not support President Donald Trump in the 2024 election.” The ruling establishes constitutional boundaries on executive branch actions that discriminate based on state political affiliation.

According to NOTUS, the DOE’s decision targeted grantees based in blue states while red-state-based groups using federal funding for similar projects largely avoided termination, creating a pattern of disparate treatment across hundreds of projects nationwide.

What To Know

The DOE terminated grants following Vought’s October 1 announcement on X stating that “nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled.” He listed 16 states—California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington—none of which voted for Trump in 2024.

The next day, Trump posted on Truth Social that he had met with Vought to “determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut” during the shutdown.

The termination letters were initially sent without formal DOE letterhead and informed recipients their awards are “not consistent with this Administration’s goals, policies and priorities.” A week later, identical letters were sent on official agency letterhead. The grants supported environmental projects including electric vehicle development, updated building energy codes, and methane emissions reduction.

According to NOTUS, the administration canceled $460 million for Minnesota transmission lines while preserving $700 million for similar Montana projects, and cut Hawaii wildfire resilience funding while maintaining $160 million for Georgia Power’s grid resilience work. Of 17 battery recycling projects, only three were cut—all in blue states—while the remaining 14 in red states or at national labs continued, NOTUS reported. The disparate treatment extended to multi-state programs: for the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnership program, “only projects in states that voted for Vice President Harris were cancelled on October 2, 2025, while similar projects in states that voted for President Trump were not.”

The city of St. Paul, Minnesota, and environmental groups including Interstate Renewable Energy Council, Plug In America, ElevateEnergy, Southeast Community Organization, and Environmental Defense Fund filed suit. The DOE defended its decision by claiming it advanced Trump administration energy priorities.

However, Mehta found “no plausible rational connection” between the administration’s stated energy goals and selectively canceling blue-state grants. The court emphasized that defendants conceded Plaintiffs’ seven terminated grants are “comparable” to awards to grantees in red states that were not terminated, with the only identifiable difference being “the grant recipient’s state’s political identity.”

The defendants stipulated that “a primary reason for the selection of which DOE grant termination decisions were included in the October 2025 notice tranche was whether the grantee was located in a ‘Blue State.'” The court rejected the DOE’s argument that the Fifth Amendment does not apply to federal funding decisions, stating: “There’s no federal funding exception to the Equal Protection Clause.”

What People Are Saying

Judge Amit P. Mehta said in the ruling: “There is no reason to believe that terminating an award to a recipient located in a state whose citizens tend to vote for Democratic candidates—and, particularly, voted against President Trump—furthers the agency’s energy priorities any more than terminating a similar grant of a recipient in a state whose citizens tend to vote for Republican candidates or voted for President Trump.”

Mehta emphasized the narrowness of his ruling: “By no means does the court conclude that the mere presence of political considerations in an agency action runs afoul of the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection.”

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said October 2025, per NOTUS when asked why affected projects were in states that voted for presidential nominee Kamala Harris, Wright denied targeting Democrats and said: “More project announcements will come,” including in red states.

What Happens Next

The DOE must restore the seven grants specified in the ruling, however the administration could appeal Mehta’s decision to a higher court.

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President Donald Trump listens as acting director of the Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought speaks during an event at the White House on October 9, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

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Hmmmm … Be sure to follow Josiah, he has a lot of musical content you will enjoy! 

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Josiah Wade

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4. Salmon With Olive Oil-Braised Zucchini and Chickpeas

Slow-cooking zucchini in garlicky olive oil intensifies their natural sweetness and gives them a silky texture.

Recipe: Salmon With Olive Oil-Braised Zucchini and Chickpeas

5. Chimichurri Chicken

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Suzanne Saroff

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No one likes to do something they find unpleasant. Who among us hasn’t put off icky things such as a tedious work assignment, a fridge deep clean or a difficult conversation? The reason why someone just can’t seem to get started isn’t a mere failure of willpower: it is rooted in neurobiology.

In a new paper published in Current Biology, researchers describe a circuit in the brains of macaque monkeys that appears to function as a “motivation brake,” a finding that could offer clues to why people hesitate in making certain decisions.

“We were able to causally link a specific brain pathway to a ‘brake’ on motivation when individuals face unpleasant tasks in daily life,” says Ken-ichi Amemori, an associate professor at the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Biology at Kyoto University and a co-author of the study.

In the study, researchers presented macaques with tasks: the monkeys would either get a reward at the end of the task or a reward plus a puff of air on their face. As one might expect, the monkeys took longer to do the task when it meant getting the uncomfortable puff of air.

Then, using a technique called chemogenetics, whereby scientists can use drugs to control specific brain cells, the researchers suppressed a circuit between two brain regions called the ventral striatum and the ventral pallidum—both are known to be involved in motivation.

Once the circuit’s activity was tamped down, the monkeys were less hesitant to act on the task even if they knew the air puff was coming. In other words, the “brake” appeared to have been eased off.

“We hope that understanding this neural mechanism will help advance our understanding of motivation in stressful modern societies,” Amemori says.

He and his team hope the findings could one day inform treatments for psychiatric conditions that involve motivation such as schizophrenia and depression. He also notes, however, that interventions designed to weaken the “brake” should be approached with caution in case they might instead promote the opposite—unsafe risk-taking.

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Don’t sleep on your rice cooker: It just might be the most underrated tool in your kitchen. The countertop appliance is a foolproof way to make, well, rice, but it’s capable of so much more — from porridge to pancakes.

“In a rice cooker, you just set it and know it’s going to hold the right temperature the whole time,” says Joe Nierstedt, chef-owner of Katsubō in Charleston, South Carolina. “It keeps a steady heat, traps all the aroma, and makes even a small kitchen feel capable of big, slow-cooked flavor.” 

Though rice cookers run the gamut in terms of their built-in functions — our top pick comes with presets for “quick,” “porridge,” “sweet,” and more — you don’t need a premium, high-tech machine to reap the benefits of this versatility.

“I’ve been using an off-brand rice cooker with a simple steel base, and honestly, it cooks just as well as any of the fancy models I’ve tried,” says John Ho, chef and manager at FLIK Hospitality Group and chef with Resident, who calls rice cookers “an incredibly budget-friendly alternative to pressure cookers or slow cookers.”

If you’ve only cooked white rice in your appliance, these chef-approved hacks are a great way to branch out — and start giving your rice cooker the love (and counter space) it deserves.

Congee 

“Most people think rice cookers are just for rice, but that steady, gentle heat is perfect for congee,” says Nierstedt. “It holds the temperature perfectly, so you get that silky, spoon-coating texture without stirring for hours.”

To make chicken congee, Nierstedt adds jasmine rice, smashed ginger, scallions, broth or water, and a splash of soy sauce to a rice cooker and cooks the mixture on the porridge setting. 

No specialized porridge function? No problem. For his shrimp and lemongrass congee, Kevin Tien, chef-owner of Moon Rabbit in Washington, D.C., toasts aromatics in oil on the cook function, adds stock and rice, then simmers on warm for 45 minutes to one hour, stirring occasionally and tossing in the shrimp near the end of cooking.

Broth and soups 

“At Katsubō, we simmer broth all day, but at home I take a shortcut,” says Nierstedt. For his streamlined ramen broth, he combines chicken wings, kombu, onions, and water in the rice cooker and sets the mixture on slow cook for a few hours, which “quietly extracts all the gelatin and flavor without boiling the broth to death.” (No slow cook preset? You can also “cook” through two cycles, then keep on warm to mimic the function, Nierstedt says.) As he explains, “The sealed pot keeps moisture and aroma locked in, so the result tastes clean and rich — no cloudy stock, no babysitting the stove.” 

Ho is also an advocate of using the rice cooker for broth — and even soup. “The rice cooker is ideal for low-and-slow cooking, allowing the meat to become tender and infuse the broth with deep flavor,” he says.

For his one-pot pork and daikon udon soup, Ho cooks blanched pork spare ribs, chicken stock, daikon, and aromatics on the brown rice setting in 20-minute intervals until the meat is tender, then finishes with udon noodles on the white rice setting. “I’ve tested this recipe both in a rice cooker and on the stove and found no noticeable difference in texture or flavor.” 

Braised meats 

Anywhere you’re slow-cooking meat until fall-off-the-bone tender — from short ribs to chicken thighs — the steady, controlled heat of a rice cooker makes it a smart, handy alternative to traditional methods.

“For adobo, it keeps everything juicy without boiling it too hard,” says Cédric Vongerichten, executive chef-owner of Wayan and Ma•dé in New York City, who recalls making the classic Filipino dish with his college roommate in a kitchen-less dorm. 

“We would add the chicken or pork straight in the rice cooker with soy sauce, vinegar, bay leaves, garlic, and black peppercorns, press cook, [and] let it simmer. When it switched to warm, we would leave it for another 30 to 40 minutes to finish,” says Vongerichten. The space-saving machine turned out a flawless, hassle-free meal. “The meat came out super-tender, and the sauce got rich from cooking down slowly — the trick was not opening the lid too much and letting the steam do the work.” 

Fried rice 

Don’t limit your rice cooker to freshly steamed rice: It also excels at transforming leftover grains into a delicious day-after meal. “I use the rice cooker almost like a small wok,” Vongerichten says.

After toasting oil, garlic, and sambal on the “cook” function, he adds rice and kecap manis (an Indonesian sweet soy sauce) and cooks the mixture for about 10 minutes. “I half close the lid so it steams and fries at the same time,” he says. The result? “You get that little crispy layer at the bottom — [a rice cooker] gives just enough heat to toast it without burning.”   

Cheesecake 

“My favorite alternative uses for a rice cooker always tend to be desserts or sweet applications because there’s a bit of a ‘surprise’ factor there,” says Paul San Luis, chef de cuisine at Wild Common in Charleston, South Carolina. He particularly enjoys making cheesecake.

“I prepare the filling [like] any ordinary cheesecake and use the rice cooker in lieu of a water bath,” says San Luis, who notes that “the gentle, even heat of a rice cooker completely replaces the need for water.” Cook the cheesecake on the white rice setting for two cycles, then add a third cycle if necessary for about 70 to 80 minutes of total cook time, he instructs. “Checking it periodically will tell you when it’s done.”  

Puddings 

Because a “rice cooker doubles as a gentle steamer,” it also turns out beautifully set puddings, says Nierstedt.

Plus, “most rice cookers are non-stick, so you can easily pour [in] a batter and hit the on button until the pudding gets cooked the way you like it,” notes Sophina Uong, executive chef-owner of Mister Mao in New Orleans, who has utilized her no-frills rice cooker for corn pudding spoon bread.  

For his Thai-style pumpkin pudding, Saran “Peter” Kannasute, chef and cofounder of YUME Hospitality Group, which includes YUME Sushi in Arlington, Virginia, and KYOJIN Sushi in Washington, D.C., enhances the steam effect by adding an inch or two of water to the inner pot before setting a heat-safe bowl with his pudding mixture inside. He then cooks the pudding for half an hour on steam or cook mode. “It’s very convenient, less [messy], and [provides] steady control over heat,” says Kannasute.

Pancakes 

Skip the griddle and take advantage of a rice cooker’s “even, gentle heat distribution” to make “ultra-thick, eye-popping pancakes,” suggests San Luis. “You get this picture-perfect golden browning on the ‘show side’ of the pancake that’s hard to achieve with other cooking mediums,” he says. It’s as easy as pouring standard pancake batter right into the rice cooker, setting it to the white rice function, and checking intermittently to gauge doneness.

One downside of this method is the time it takes to cook the flapjacks — upwards of 50 minutes depending on the thickness. For both pancakes and cheesecake, San Luis advises using a rice cooker with at least a 5.5-cup capacity, as “the smaller, personal sized rice cookers don’t have enough bottom surface area for the amount of browning you want, let alone volume for the prepared batter.”

However, apart from the size, any rice cooker with cook and warm settings is fair game. 

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Hmmmm … This is interesting information!

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On Sunday evening, news broke that the Trump administration was targeting Jerome Powell — the Federal Reserve chair, whom President Trump has been raging about for months — with a highly dubious criminal investigation into supposed financial improprieties. Usually reserved in his public statements, Mr. Powell posted a video bluntly calling the allegations a dishonest attempt at revenge for the Fed’s refusal to simply follow the president’s wishes.

The episode is a shocking violation of the central bank’s historical independence, one that puts the United States in league with authoritarian nations careening toward financial ruin.

On Monday, markets reacted with something along the lines of “meh”: The dollar and stock prices edged down, while gold prices and interest rates rose.

Mr. Trump’s attack on the Fed is a breathtaking departure from precedent, a dangerous and scary power grab, but it’s already backfiring. If anything, this latest episode has weakened his ability to bend the institution to his will, at least in the short run. It definitely increases the chance that Mr. Powell, whose term as chair ends in May, but whose appointment as a board member does not, will remain at the Fed longer than he might otherwise have. It will also raise the hurdle for whoever Mr. Trump nominates as the next Fed chair. And it will make other members of that body a lot less likely to go along with the president’s agenda.

Mr. Trump’s attempt to tighten control of the central bank has many international precedents, all of them depressing. In 2010, Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, pressured the head of her country’s central bank to heed her orders. When he refused, she accused him of abuse of authority and dereliction of duty and forced him to defend his decisions in court. Economic disaster ensued.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has, like Mr. Trump, long been obsessed with low interest rates, and he once accused those who defend high rates of committing treason. He fired multiple central bank governors and initiated at least one criminal investigation. Duly intimidated, the central bank did what he wanted, helping to drive inflation as high as 85 percent.

Despite Mr. Trump’s efforts, the United States is not Argentina or Turkey.

Part of the reason is Jay Powell. In 2019, I was sitting just a few feet away from Mr. Powell at the Fed’s Jackson Hole conference when Mr. Trump tweeted, “who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?” While quaint by the standards of today’s White House, at the time it felt like an outrageous provocation. Mr. Powell did not take the bait.

As recently as November 2024, Mr. Powell was saying as little as possible, replying simply “no” when asked whether he would resign if requested to do so by Mr. Trump. That restraint is what made the video he released on Sunday night so powerful. This is not a man looking to become a resistance hero.

When Mr. Powell’s term as chair ends in May, he could stay on as a governor — and one of 12 voters on monetary policy — through January 2028. With threats intensifying, the case for his continued presence as a quiet but firm defender of Fed independence grows only stronger.

Mr. Trump has made it harder for his nominee as the next Fed chair to be confirmed. Almost immediately after news of the criminal investigation broke, Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican member of the Banking Committee, issued a striking statement: “If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none.” He added, “I will oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed — including the upcoming Fed chair vacancy — until this legal matter is fully resolved.” Another Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski, endorsed that view, as did several Democrats.

In 2024, Scott Bessent — now the Treasury secretary — floated the idea of confirming a “shadow Fed chair” well before the end of Mr. Powell’s term, to prematurely turn him into a lame duck. Today, we do not have a shadow chair, and the confirmation of a real one looks further away than ever. The Federal Open Market Committee, which sets monetary policy, could even choose to extend Mr. Powell’s tenure as chair until a successor is confirmed.

Further complicating matters, Mr. Trump’s attack on the Fed ensures that when a successor is eventually confirmed, he or she will have to do more to demonstrate independence, or else be remembered as the person who surrendered it. The Fed’s 11 other monetary-policy voters have increasingly been voting their own views. That is likely to accelerate if they feel that the new chair is just trying to please the president, rather than working in the best interests of the economy.

Mr. Trump’s overt assault on the Fed’s independence creates an inhospitable backdrop for the Supreme Court, which is preparing to hear a case next week involving the president’s attempted dismissal of a Federal Reserve governor. The justices will now be even more acutely aware of what is at stake.

Many political questions — the just distribution of wealth, the appropriate scope of regulation, who gets to live in this country — are fundamentally about values. Since we don’t all agree on those values, we have elections to sort out which should prevail. The work of the Fed is different. It’s not about navigating opposing values; it’s about achieving goals we pretty much all agree on, like lower inflation, higher employment, and a more stable economy.

That’s why it makes sense to let the Fed proceed outside the realm of politics and why it makes sense that presidents sometimes re-up the term of a chair who was appointed by a member of the opposing party (as Mr. Biden did with Mr. Powell, who Mr. Trump appointed chair during his first term as president). The Fed is neither omniscient nor omnipotent, but there is broad agreement that it performs better on all of these dimensions when it operates independently than when a president personally calls the shots.

Moreover, we have a relatively rapid feedback mechanism to measure the success of economic policy: Markets and business leaders react in real time, in a way they do not on issues like immigration enforcement and whether to invade Greenland.

The Fed is likely to win this battle. The broader war will probably continue as long as Mr. Trump remains president. One possible consequence is that the Fed becomes a victim of its own success, with people mistaking the markets’ mild initial response for proof that independence is no big deal. In reality, that calm reflects confidence in the defenses that were rapidly deployed: senators from both parties, former economic officials, the politically neutral judgment of markets themselves and ultimately the wisdom of the public.

The greater risk is time. Independence will not be lost overnight, but at least every two years, the president can nominate a new governor for the Fed. With sustained effort over six to eight years, an administration could gradually transform the institution. That would require patience from Mr. Trump and complacency from everyone else. So far, at least, on this issue, we are seeing neither.

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Stephen Voss/Redux

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king, the palace instead becomes a circus. — Turkish proverb,”

 

Hmmmmm…History is repeating itself yet again!

 

Isaiah 59:14

New Living Translation

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