David Armstrong has been a health reporter for decades, so he thought he was prepared for the cost of being sick in America when he was diagnosed with cancer at the beginning of 2023. But even he was shocked to find that Revlimid, the drug that keeps his incurable multiple myeloma somewhat at bay, costs almost $1,000 for a daily pill. Here’s his story for @ProPublica about how it came to cost so much and why the price keeps being hiked. When Mark Alles, president of the drug’s manufacturer Celgene, appeared before the House Oversight Committee in 2020, he was quizzed by then-Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.). She concluded: “The drug didn’t get any better. The cancer patients didn’t get any better. You just got better at making money. You just refined your skills at price gouging.”

https://www.propublica.org/article/revlimid-price-cancer-celgene-drugs-fda-multiple-myeloma

#Health #Pharma #PharmaceuticalCompanies #Medication #Drugs #Cancer #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

The wellness to right-wing pipeline is a real thing. For @nybooks,
Hari Kunzru writes about “Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat,” by @derekberes, @matthewremski and Julian Walker, and “Fascist Yoga: Grifters, Occultists, White Supremacists and the New Order in Wellness” by Stewart Home. Both books lay bare the ascendancy of paranoia and pseudoscience [story may be paywalled].

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2025/05/29/doing-their-own-research-conspirituality-fascist-yoga/

#Science #Pseudoscience #Wellness #Conspirituality #ConspiracyTheories #Health #MAHA #RFK #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

How can humans live peacefully near grizzly bears? @KnowableMag looks at how they adjust their behavior to coexist with us, but we need to change as well. “Historically, grizzlies were shot, trapped and poisoned across much of the continent,” writes Lesley Evans Ogden. “Today, attitudes are shifting from human domination of nature toward mutualism — and that means learning to get along with our neighbors.”

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/food-environment/2025/conflicts-between-people-and-grizzly-bears

#Nature #Biology #Ecology #Bears #Conservation #Canada #BritishColumbia #USA #Alaska #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

There’s a new genre of TV shows, comics and board games in Taiwan. Inspired by what happened when Russia invaded Ukraine, producers, writers and artists are imagining a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Elaine Lin and Clara Preve wrote about this for @timkmak’s Counteroffensive.

https://www.counteroffensive.news/p/taiwan-imagines-what-happens-the

#Russia #Ukraine #China #Taiwan #Television #Culture #PopCulture #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Applause, please, for the companies that have managed to make jobhunting even worse, thanks to AI. @404mediaco’s Samantha Cole reports on the experiences of a woman named Ken, who was interviewed by an AI avatar that said “vertical bar pilates” 14 times in a row. She related her experiences on TikTok and received more than 3,000 comments, many sharing similar stories. “A company tried to send me to an AI interview for an HR position… Why would I want to work HUMAN resources for a company that won’t even dignify me with human interaction???” one person wrote.

https://www.404media.co/ai-recruiter-apriora-tiktok/

#JobSeeking #Recruitment #Unemployment #Technology #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Tech #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

This week, @thecontinent celebrates the work of award-winning photographers based in Africa, including Temiloluwa Johnson and Cinzia Canneri, both of whom won World Press Photo Awards recently.

https://continent.substack.com/p/photo-essay-lenses-on-africa-global

#Photography #Photo #Culture #Art #Africa #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Zambia has a long history of mining, since it’s the second biggest copper producer in Africa. But things have kicked up a notch in the past couple of years as a result of the metal’s critical role in wind and solar power. @thexylom’s Kang-Chun Cheng looks at Zambia’s relationship with China, a huge investor since the 1970s, and what happened when she tried to visit the Copperbelt area of the country.

https://www.thexylom.com/post/six-decades-later-zambians-ask-were-chinese-mining-infrastructure-investments-worth-it/

#Africa #Zambia #China #EnergyProduction #Mining #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Something heartwarming from Utah and Idaho, where Salt Lake City and Boise have managed to circumvent bans that were meant to prevent the flying of pride flags by declaring that the flags are official city emblems. Here’s more from @AssociatedPress (our @CultureDesk shared this yesterday).

https://apnews.com/article/boise-salt-lake-city-pride-flags-law-13c8f9f7269d1b33daaa7ef041c6c497

#Pride #LGBTQ #LGBTQRights #TransRights #Utah #Idaho #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Elmo hasn’t been laid off, but the Trump administration is threatening his employer, PBS, and other public service broadcasters. @TheConversationUS reports on the shifting landscape of media as a result of cutbacks and closures of commercial and community outlets, and how public and nonprofit organizations are filling the gap.

https://theconversation.com/trump-targets-npr-and-pbs-as-public-and-nonprofit-media-account-for-a-growing-share-of-local-news-coverage-255740

#TrumpAdministration #News #Media #Journalism #MediaIndustry #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Finally, big congratulations to all this week’s Pulitzer Prize winners. Here’s a Flipboard Storyboard featuring some of their award-winning journalism.

https://flipboard.com/@theculturedesk/the-pulitzer-prize-winners-have-been-announced-bgb7u60ona1ohk6h

#News #Media #Journalism #MediaIndustry #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday