NEW RISKSAmerica’s Whole Reputation Is Shot | Inside Elon Musk’s “Digital Coup” | DOGE Cuts Could Cause Meteorologists to Miss the Next “nightmare” Storm, and more

It Isn’t Just Trump. America’s Whole Reputation Is Shot.  (David Brooks, New York Times)
President Trump does not seem to notice or care that if you betray people, or jerk them around, they will revile you. Over the last few weeks, the Europeans have gone from shock to bewilderment to revulsion. This period was for them what 9/11 was for us — the stripping away of illusions, the exposure of an existential threat. The Europeans have realized that America, the nation they thought was their friend, is actually a rogue superpower.
In Canada and Mexico you now win popularity by treating America as your foe. Over the next few years, I predict, Trump will cut a deal with China, doing to Taiwan some version of what he has already done to Ukraine — betray the little guy to suck up to the big guy. Nations across Asia will come to the same conclusion the Europeans have already reached: America is a Judas.

Trump’s Affinity for Putin Grows More Consequential Than Ever  (Mark Mazzetti, New York Times)
President Trump’s admiration for President Vladimir Putin of Russia has been endlessly dissected, but the American leader’s policy shifts since taking office again could have profound effects.

Inside Elon Musk’s “Digital Coup”  (Makena Kelly et al., Wired)
Musk’s loyalists at DOGE have infiltrated dozens of federal agencies, pushed out tens of thousands of workers, and siphoned millions of people’s most sensitive data. The next step: Unleash the AI.

What Does Dan Bongino Believe?  (Jonathan Chait, The Atlantic)
The new FBI deputy director has written that his own agency perpetrated “the greatest scandal in American political history.”

Donald Trump Deploys New Tactics to Manage the Media  (Economist)
Free-speech groups worry how far he will go.

Atomic Detectives Who Inspect Iran Sites Are Affected by Trump’s Aid Freeze  (William J. Broad, New York Times)
The president’s halt of foreign aid upended two U.S. programs that help the International Atomic Energy Agency find clues about Iran’s drive to build atomic bombs.

Hurricane Elon: DOGE Cuts Could Cause Meteorologists to Miss the Next “nightmare” Storm  (John Morales, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)
This isn’t what I had in mind when I studied Edward Lorenz’s chaos theory.
Lorenz was a mathematician and meteorologist perhaps most famous for his description of the “butterfly effect,” which poses that small changes in initial conditions can produce large changes in long-term results. This became evident to him when running numerical weather forecasting models, in which even the rounding of a variable from six digits to three digits would lead to vastly different predicted outcomes in the atmosphere. His work led to great leaps in weather forecasting, and today’s era of ensemble forecasting in which multiple weather predictions are generated from the same set of different yet similar initial meteorological conditions.
The butterfly effect came to mind when I read that upper air weather observations were being temporarily halted by the National Weather Service (NWS) in parts of Alaska, New York, and Maine due to staffing shortages. The Trump regime’s chaotic approach to so-called efficiency in the federal workforce has wreaked havoc upon civil service, including at NWS and its parent agency, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).
NWS was already short-staffed before the new administration came into power. I have first-hand knowledge of Meteorologists in Charge, the title for the director at each NWS office, forced to cover operational shifts (including overnights) several weeks a year to be able to keep their offices functioning.
Now hundreds more NOAA and NWS employees have been fired.