David Lidsky's Blog, page 85

GOP defends Medicaid cuts in Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ with weird talking points about basement dwellers

To justify a broadly unpopular policy, Republicans seem to have gotten the same memo about a video game-playing parasite who lives with his mom.

President Trump’s tax and spending bill just passed in the House of Representatives and is now on its way to his desk to become law. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the legislation (aka the One Big Beautiful Bill Act) will cause 11.8 million Americans to lose their health insurance by 2034, thanks to $1.1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and Obamacare.

Looking for a summer read? Barnes & Noble is on track to open more than 60 new bookstores this year. Here’s where

The bookseller is enjoying a renaissance, as it’s already opened 23 new locations in 2025. Here’s the full list.

Nothing says summer more than a trip to the beach. And for many people, that includes the perfect summer read.

Rural hospitals brace for crisis as GOP bill slashes Medicaid funding

A Republican megabill cuts $1 trillion from Medicaid, risking closures for hospitals that serve some of America’s most vulnerable.

Rural hospitals in the U.S. already operate on a razor’s edge, but new cuts to Medicaid in the Republican appropriations bill could tip many of them into failure.

An interstellar object is passing through our solar system right now, and you can stream it live online

It’s only the third interstellar object ever detected. You can track its progress online and maybe even see it from a telescope.

An interstellar object called 3I/ATLAS is passing through our solar system this year, NASA announced yesterday. Today at 6 p.m. ET, you can see it for yourself, thanks to a livestream from the Virtual Telescope Project.

This ‘Elden Ring’ book costs nearly $300. Fans say it’s worth it

The cult video game by FromSoftware goes high literature with a collector’s item book that expands the world into print.

The $297 collector’s edition of Grace Given has shimmering gilded edges, a simulated white antique leather cover, lush full-color illustrations on heavy coated stock, and a flocked slipcase with extensive gold-foil detailing. 

House passes Trump’s big budget bill

The bill would add $3.4 trillion to the nation’s $36.2 trillion debt.

President Donald Trump’s tax-cut package cleared its final hurdle in the U.S. Congress on Thursday, as the Republican-controlled House of Representatives narrowly approved the massive bill and sent it to him to sign into law.

New AI outlines lung tumors better and faster than doctors, study finds

The iSeg system tracks tumors as they move with each breath, offering unprecedented precision for radiation therapy.

Scientists have developed a revolutionary new AI tool which, according to a new study, may become crucial in lung cancer screening and treatment.

The study, published in the journal npj Precision Oncology, explored the capabilities of a new device, developed by a team at Northwestern Medicine. The device is called iSeg, which comes from its ability to perform tumor segmentation (online or mapping tumors). The traditional process of tumor segmentation is complex and poses challenges for doctors. It can also take multiple doctors visits, several scans, and a great deal of time. In one study, manual segmentation required 12 scans and took doctors seven hours to complete the manual tumor mapping. 

Average long-term U.S. mortgage rate drops to lowest level since April

The long-term rate fell to 6.67% from 6.77% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said.

The average rate on a 30-year U.S. mortgage fell for the fifth straight week to its lowest level since early April, an encouraging sign for potential buyers who have wrestled with rising home prices.

How gig economy thinking is transforming rental investing

Accidental operators can run their businesses with the ease of app-based technology.

Many real estate investors don’t set out to build rental businesses. Rather, they stumble into them. Think of the Gen Xer who just inherited their parent’s home, the professional who’s moving out of state for a new job but is reluctant to sell their current home, or the empty nester who bought a townhome for their college student to live in and is renting extra rooms out to other students.

Critical minerals are in the U.S., not in far-off mines

Lithium and other critical minerals are in often-overlooked water sources like geothermal brines and oilfield produced water.

The clean energy transition is accelerating—but it’s running into a critical roadblock: the mineral supply chain. Lithium, cobalt, and other critical minerals power everything from electric vehicles to grid-scale batteries. But the world cannot mine these minerals fast enough to keep up.