STORIES TO READ 8-5-25

Hello. It's Tuesday, and here you are. You're doing great. Don't forget to drink some water today, and maybe eat a piece of fruit. Here are some interesting stories from independent and nonprofit media sources. Be well.

The Problem With Screening the Mail in Prisons (The Marshall Project) – The Marshall Project examines the ongoing debate in prison systems across the country between the need for security measures and respect for incarcerated people’s access to mail as a vital avenue to connect with families and legal help.

Why Did National Geographic Disappear Its Own Documentary About A Queer Climate Scientist? (Defector) – The film For Winter is about Dr. Alison Criscitiello, an ice core scientist, mountaineer and National Geographic Explorer, as she attempted to lead a team up Canada’s highest peak. Writer Eva Holland says the mountaineering documentary film from the National Geographic Society’s acclaimed Impact Story Lab is "stunning." Then why was it suddenly scrubbed for a tour of screenings and the National Geographic website?

‘Not just a number’; Nevada’s disability community fears backslide amid funding cuts (The Nevada Independent) – There are many worried about the pending federal health care cuts to Medicaid passed as part of President Trump's “One Big Beautiful Bill” and separate budget changes to disability services that federal lawmakers are considering. "We are actual human beings trying to be a functioning citizen and a productive member of society, and we use those benefits every day of our life," says Shelby Benzing, a 21-year-old UNR student who lives with cerebral palsy.

Locals fought for details about a planned data center complex. Lawmakers took away their power to do anything about it. (Mountain State Spotlight) – While residents in the small West Virginia towns of Thomas and Davis struggled to uncover details about a data center complex planned for their community, the Legislature passed a bill eliminating local authority to regulate projects like the one going up in their backyard.

The space station is the ultimate industrial environment—cut off from the natural world. And that’s not healthy. (Anthropocene Magazine) – Is the International Space Station too clean and sterile. A report from March found that the ISS contained just 6% of the spectrum of microbial life. "If we really want life to thrive outside Earth, we can’t just take a small branch of the tree of life and launch it into space and hope that it will work out," said Rodolfo Salido, a bioengineer at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), who helped lead the survey of the space station’s microbiome.

There you have it. I hope you found one or all of these pieces of independent journalism interesting. To read more news from independent and nonprofit news sources, follow my feed on Bluesky. Until next time, have a good day.