1# Billy Plinko Enjoyer

Other things? Job, Food, Car, Home, Health, Money. Plus a request form.

Pseudoscorpions may lack the pointy, poisonous tail of their more famous desert-dwelling cousins, but their crab-like front pincers still make them look quite formidable. Now, these small, sometimes overlooked arachnids are getting a closer look. Four new species of these tiny arachnids have been uncovered in the dark caves of South Korea. They have jaws like dragons and are even completely blind, according to a study published July 9 in the journal PLOS One. 

Two years after being tasked with commissioning a review of medical evidence surrounding gender-affirming care for trans youth, Utah’s own state health department has concluded that trans healthcare bans “cannot be justified.” The Republicans who commissioned the study aren’t too happy about it.

Back in 2023, Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed a bill that placed an indefinite “moratorium” on doctors prescribing gender-affirming care like hormone therapy and puberty blockers to trans youth. That bill ordered the Utah Department of Health and Human Services to compile their report in order to produce recommendations for the state government on whether or not to lift the moratorium.

This week, the department delivered their long-awaited, over 1,000-page report — which is dated August 6, 2024 — to Utah lawmakers. The report’s authors found that “the consensus of the evidence supports that the treatments are effective in terms of mental health, psychosocial outcomes, and the induction of body changes consistent with the affirmed gender in pediatric GD [gender dysphoria] patients.”

The authors added that “the evidence also supports that the treatments are safe in terms of changes to bone density, cardiovascular risk factors, metabolic changes, and cancer.” Trans youth who had received gender-affirming care were within the bounds of normal, non-pathological ranges for these conditions.

Over 2.2 million people are facing acute food insecurity, with nearly half a million experiencing famine-like conditions (IPC Phase 5). The latest IPC report warns that 93% of Gaza’s population is now in crisis or worse. Entire communities are starving.

71,000 children are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition. Mothers can’t feed their babies. As Kate Phillips-Barrasso from Mercy Corps put it:

“This catastrophe did not unfold in the dark; it happened in plain sight. Gaza’s food system has collapsed, humanitarian operations are paralyzed, and people are starving.”

Since March 25, Israel’s blockade has cut off all food and aid. Over 80% of farmland is gone or unreachable. Gaza is being pushed into famine — and the world is watching.