Hurricanes, A Volcano, Nuclear Subs, & Brain Implants

June 3, 2025

Hello, readers – happy Tuesday! Today, we’ll be talking about hurricanes, volcanoes, nuclear submarines, the peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, a media firing, celebrities supporting LGBTQ+ resources, and brain implants.

Here’s some good news: The U.K. has officially banned disposable vapes in a win for the environment and for preventing kids from smoking. Along those same lines, France will ban smoking in all outdoor places that can be frequented by children, including beaches, parks, public gardens, outside schools, bus stops, and sports venues.

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” – William Shakespeare

A Disaster Brews At FEMA

(Hurricane prep by Joe Raedle via Getty Images)

On Monday, in an agency-wide briefing yesterday, FEMA head David Richardson announced to all of his staff that he was unaware that the U.S. has a hurricane season. The season officially began on Sunday and will last until November.

While a White House spokesperson promised the press that Richardson’s statement was just a silly little joke, FEMA workers expressed genuine concern about their boss, a former Marine who was appointed to his position just two weeks ago. Staffers are reportedly waiting for an updated disaster response plan from their new leader, who promised on May 15 that he would provide it by May 23. Obviously, that date has come and gone without even a single-page PDF. Instead, he’s instructed FEMA workers to stick to last year’s plan, even though the agency has lost over 2,000 full-time staff (one-third of its workforce). Adding to the anxiety are forecasts that this year’s hurricane season will be unusually strong…and the Trump White House’s promise to consider fully eliminating the entirety of FEMA.

Making things worse, National Weather Service (NWS) forecast offices situated along the Gulf of Mexico are facing severe staffing shortages. Those offices serve the states that are the most damaged by hurricanes, and a lack of staff could harm their ability to forecast serious weather events. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami – the nation’s main hub for hurricane tracking – still needs to hire at least five more hurricane tracking specialists despite a Trump promise that it’s still fully staffed heading into hurricane season.

Getting Smoky Over Sicily

Yesterday was a relatively quiet news day, but things were anything but quiet in the skies over the Italian island of Sicily. On Monday, Mount Etna, the massive volcano that looms over the island, sent a plume of ash and smoke miles into the atmosphere, making it loom even larger for a while. Luckily, officials said the smoke cloud posed no danger to locals, and it quickly dissipated by the afternoon.

According to Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, the smoky display started when part of Mount Etna’s southeast crater collapsed, resulting in tremors along the volcano’s slopes and hot lava flows at the mountain’s summit, which were contained before they could reach any populated areas. While nobody was reported injured by the eruption, groups of hikers climbing the mountain were forced to scramble back down the slope, and multiple flights to the island were canceled.

We All Live In The Royal Nuclear Submarines

(Keir Starmer by Andy Buchanan via Getty Images)

Britain is reinvesting in its navy…should we be worried? Yesterday, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that his country would be spending money to build up its navy and army, with a focus on a new generation of nuclear submarines. Starmer justified the buildup by claiming that Britain “cannot ignore the threat that Russia poses,” adding, “We have to recognize the world has changed. With greater instability than there has been for many, many years, and greater threats.”
Defense Secretary John Healey said that the increased defense spending would send “a message to Moscow,” adding that the U.K. is “on track” to bring defense spending up to 2.5% of national GDP by 2027. Britain wants to bring that number up to 3% of GDP by 2034, though Starmer said that he didn’t want to promise that number until he knows “precisely where the money is coming from.”

No Peace Deal, But A Tiny Sliver Of Hope

Another round of direct peace talks between Russia and Ukraine has wrapped up without a conclusion. Luckily, both sides were able to head home with a little consolation prize – a prisoner swap that will see Kyiv and Moscow exchange all of their sick and heavily wounded prisoners of war, as well as those under 25 years old. Additionally, both sides will also exchange 6,000 bodies.
Russian state media released Moscow’s terms following the negotiations: Putin wants Ukraine’s military to withdraw from the country’s contested southeastern regions, as well as international recognition of those areas as Russian territory. Moscow also apparently asked for a ban on Ukraine’s involvement in wider military alliances, the implementation of Russian as the country’s official language, and the removal of international sanctions on Russia.

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A Sacking For Some Substacking

Gabrielle Cuccia, the former chief Pentagon correspondent for the far-right, Trump-friendly media outlet One America News (OAN), says she was terminated shortly after she published a Substack post accusing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Defense Department of clamping down on press access. She pointed out that Hegseth hasn’t held a formal press conference since taking office, and questioned the motives behind the agency’s restrictions.
“Let’s be honest – since January, the real leaks from the Pentagon haven’t come from the press. They’ve come from Hegseth’s own team and other senior officials,” she wrote, referring to Signalgate, the incident in which Hegseth texted out war plans to a journalist. Most of her Substack post was about how committed to MAGA she is, but Cuccia told CNN that she was asked to turn in her Pentagon badge to her bureau chief anyway.

The Celebs Celebrate Pride

In collaboration with nonprofit organization The Trevor Project and in honor of the beginning of Pride Month, multiple celebrities have signed an open letter advocating for protecting the federal funding that goes to LGBTQ+ suicide prevention. It comes in response to reports of a proposal to eliminate funding for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s LGBTQ+ youth specialized services.
“As artists, creators, and public figures, our platforms come with responsibility,” the letter reads. “And today, that responsibility is clear: we must speak out to protect the mental health and lives of LGBTQ+ youth. We will not stay silent.” Among the big names who signed the letter are Pedro Pascal, Ariana Grande, Dua Lipa, Daniel Radcliffe, Troye Sivan, Sabrina Carpenter, and Nathan Lane.

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A Chip In The Ol’ Brain

We wouldn’t blame you for forgetting that Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain implant startup, exists. But yesterday, we were briefly reminded of its existence when a rival company, Paradromics, announced that it had successfully inserted and removed one of its brain implants into a patient.
Paradromics is working on a brain-computer interface similar to Neuralink’s, and the successful test on May 14 marked its first time implanting its device in a human brain. During the procedure, the company’s implant – a dime-sized device featuring 420 tiny needles that poke into the patient’s brain tissue to track its electrical impulses – was inserted in a patient undergoing a separate brain surgery, successfully tested, and safely removed within 10 minutes before the surgery was wrapped up.
“There’s a very unique opportunity when someone is undergoing a major neurosurgical procedure,” said Paradromics’ CEO. “They’re going to have their skull opened up, and there’s going to be a piece of brain that will be imminently removed. Under these conditions, the marginal risk of testing out a brain implant is actually very low.”

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