by David Armstrong, Eric Umansky and Vernal Coleman ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as theyre published. Veterans hospitals are struggling to replace hundreds of doctors and nurses who have left the health care system this year as the Trump administration pursues its pledge to simultaneously slash Department of Veterans Affairs staff and improve care.Many job applicants are turning down offers, worried that the positions are not stable and uneasy with the overall direction of the agency, according to internal documents examined by ProPublica. The records show nearly 4 in 10 of the roughly 2,000 doctors offered jobs from January through March of this year turned them down. That is quadruple the rate of doctors rejecting offers during the same time period last year.The VA in March said it intended to cut its workforce by at least 70,000 people. The news sparked alarm that the cuts would hurt patient care, prompting public reassurances from VA Secretary Doug Collins that front-line health care staff would be immune from the proposed layoffs.Last month, department officials updated their plans and said they would reduce the workforce by 30,000 by the end of the fiscal year, which is Sept. 30. So many staffers had left voluntarily, the agency said in a press release, that mass layoffs would not be necessary.VA is headed in the right direction, Collins said in a statement.But a review of hundreds of internal staffing records, along with interviews with veterans and employees, reveal a far less rosy picture of how staffing is affecting veterans care. After six years of adding medical staff, the VA this year is down more than 600 doctors and about 1,900 nurses. The number of doctors on staff has declined each month since President Donald Trump took office. The agency also lost twice as many nurses as it hired between January and June, records viewed by ProPublica show.In response to questions, a VA spokesperson did not dispute numbers about staff losses at centers across the country but accused ProPublica of bias and of cherry-picking issues that are mostly routine.Agency spokesperson Peter Kasperowicz said that the department is working to address the number of doctors declining job offers by speeding up the hiring process and that the agency has several strategies to navigate shortages, including referring veterans to private providers and telehealth appointments. A nationwide shortage of health care workers has made hiring and retention difficult, he said.Kasperowicz said that the recent changes at the agency have not compromised care and that wait times are getting better after worsening under President Joe Biden.While wait times for primary, mental health and specialty care for existing patients did increase during Bidens presidency, the VAs statistics show only slight reductions since Trump took office in January.However, appointment wait times for new patients seeking primary and specialty care have slightly increased, according to a report obtained by ProPublica.As of early July, the average wait time nationally to schedule outpatient surgery appointments for new patients was 41 days, which is 13 days higher than the goal set by the VA and nearly two days longer than a year ago.In some locations, the waits for appointments are even longer.At the Togus VA Medical Center in Augusta, Maine, internal records show that there is a two-month wait for primary care appointments, which is triple the VAs goal and 38 days longer than it was at this time last year. The wife of a disabled Marine veteran who receives care at the facility told ProPublica that it has become harder in recent months to schedule appointments and to get timely care.Her husband, she said, served in Somalia and is completely disabled. He has not had a primary care doctor assigned to him for months after his previous doctor left over the winter, she said.He has no person who is in charge of his health care, said the woman, who did not want to be named because of fears her comments might affect benefits for her husband. It was never like this before. Theres a lack of staff, empty rooms, locked doors. It feels like something thats not healthy.Kasperowicz said the VA is taking aggressive action to recruit primary care doctors in Maine and anticipates hiring two new doctors by the end of the year.Nationwide, records reviewed by ProPublica show, the vacancy rate for doctors at the VA was 13.7% in May, up from 12% in May of 2024. Kasperowicz said those rates are in line with historical averages for the agency. But while the vacancy rate decreased over the first five months of 2024, it has risen in 2025.Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who has been critical of Collins stewardship, has argued that the VA is heading in a dangerous new direction. He said that ProPublicas findings reinforce his concerns about damaging and dangerous impacts from cuts and staffing reductions.Dedicated professionals are fleeing and recruitment is flagging because of toxic work conditions and draconian funding cuts and firings, he told ProPublica. Weve warned repeatedly about these results shocking, but not surprising.In the VAs Texas region, which covers most of the state, officials reported in an internal presentation in June that approximately 90 people had turned down job offers due to the uncertainty of reorganization and noted that low morale was causing existing employees to not recommend working at the medical centers.Anthony Martinez, a retired Army captain who did tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he has witnessed a downgrade in care at the Temple, Texas, VA facility. He said that the hospital has lost records of his recent allergy shots, which he now has to repeat, and he has to wait longer for appointments.Problems have always existed but not to this degree, Martinez said.Martinez, who runs a local nonprofit for veterans, said hes heard similar frustrations from many of them. Its not just me. Many vets are having bad experiences, he said.Kasperowicz said the agency couldnt discuss Martinezs case without a patient privacy waiver, which Martinez declined to sign. He said wait times for primary care appointments for existing patients at Temple are unchanged over the past fiscal year. But internal records show an increase in wait times for new patients in specialties such as cardiology, gastroenterology and oncology.Administrators there have expressed concern about the impact of staff losses, warning in their June internal presentation about institutional knowledge leaving the Agency due to the increase of supervisors departing.It is not just the loss of doctors and nurses impacting care. Shortages in support staff, who have not been protected from cuts, are also adding to delays.In Dayton, Ohio, vacant positions for purchasing agents resulted in delays in acquiring hundreds of prosthetics, according to an internal VA report from May. Kasperowicz said the hospital has recently cut processing time for such orders by more than half.Some facilities are experiencing trouble hiring and keeping mental health staff.In February, a human resources official in the VA region covering much of Florida reported in an internal warning system that the area was having trouble hiring mental health professionals to treat patients in rural areas. The jobs had previously been entirely remote but now require providers to be on site at a clinic.When the region offered jobs to three mental health providers, all of them declined. The expected impact, according to the warning document, was longer delays for appointments. Kasperowicz said the VA is working to address the shortages.Yet even as the agency faces these challenges, the Trump administration has dramatically scaled back the use of a key tool designed to help the VA attract applicants and plug gaps in critical front-line care.The VA in recent years has used incentive payments to help recruit and keep doctors and other health care workers. In fiscal 2024, the agency paid nearly 20,000 staffers retention bonuses and over 6,000 new hires got signing bonuses. In the first nine months of this fiscal year, which started Oct. 1, only about 8,000 VA employees got retention bonuses and just over 1,000 received recruitment incentives. The VA has told lawmakers it has been able to fill jobs without using the incentive programs.Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., said during a congressional oversight hearing in July that the Trump administration is withholding the bonuses because it wants them to leave as part of a plan to privatize services.Its not that VA employees are less meritorious than they were under Biden, she said. They want every employee to be pushed out so they can decimate the VAs workforce. Do you have information about the VA that we should know about? Contact reporters David Armstrong on Signal, DavidArmstrong.55, or via email, david.armstrong@propublica.org; Eric Umansky on Signal, Ericumansky.04, or via email, eric.umansky@propublica.org; and Vernal Coleman on Signal, vcoleman91.99, or via email, vernal.coleman@propublica.org. Joel Jacobs contributed reporting.

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President Donald Trump has already achieved 69% of the anti-LGBTQ+ policy goals recommended by Project 2025, the blueprint for his second term created by the Christian Nationalist think-tank The Heritage Foundation, according to the website Project 2025 Tracker.The website, which describes itself as a comprehensive, community-driven initiative to track the implementation of Project 2025s policy proposals, lists 18 LGBTQ+-related goals. Of them, the tracker categorizes 11 of the blueprints goals as completed, three as in progress, and four as not started. Related Devastating: Air Force revokes early retirement offer for trans soldiers banned by president Many of the completed goals have dealt with eradicating any funding for gender-affirming healthcare, erasing any mentions of LGBTQ+-inclusive language from federally funded groups, and reinterpreting federal anti-discrimination laws to exclude any protections for trans and nonbinary individuals.But its worth noting that many of the goals that the tracker marked as completed were actually policy changes sought in Trumps executive orders. Though some of his orders have been pursued by various government agencies and upheld by court decisions, others remain partially blocked in court challenges. Never Miss a Beat Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights. Subscribe to our Newsletter today Very few of the completed policy goals were accomplished through actual laws passed by Congress. As such, many of Trumps orders could potentially be overturned by a future president who issues opposing executive orders upon taking office.The three in progress goals involve continuing to deny federal funds to woke groups and prioritizing heterosexual families and children in government policies. The four not started goals include protecting religious-based anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination, prosecuting any pro-trans educators and librarians as sex offenders, and ending any Medicare coverage for gender-affirming surgeries (even though most major medical associations recommend such care).A bar graph showing the completion of Project 2025s anti-LGBTQ+ policy goals overall and by individual federal departments. | Project 2025 Tracker Overall, Trump has completed 47% of Project 2025s goals, the tracker states, barely seven months into his second presidential term. Their completion has largely been aided by a Republican-led Congress that has not objected to his unconstitutional and illegal actions that supersede his constitutional authority, as well as by Republican-appointed judges, namely the six-member Supreme Court majority, which has largely allowed his policies to remain in effect without offering much (if any) legal reasoning.Trump has also achieved some of his goals by illegally denying congressionally authorized federal funding to numerous groups and organizations (both domestically and internationally) or by threatening investigations and prosecutions of groups that defy his orders. Many universities, law firms, broadcasters, and other companies have complied with his orders, even though they likely violate constitutional rights to free speech. Trump feigned ignorance about Project 2025 and its goals during his 2024 re-election campaign, commenting, Some of the things theyre saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal, and Anything they do, I wish them luck, but have nothing to do with them.But as the then-vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) said during the Democratic National Convention, I coached high school football long enough to know, and trust me on this: When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, theyre going to use it.CompletedDepartment of Labor Provide robust accommodations for religious employees. (Completed July 27)Department of Labor Rescind Biden-era Title VII and Title IX rules that strengthened the ability to prosecute sexual assault and discrimination cases. (Completed January 30)Department of Defense End all use of public monies for transgender surgeries. (Completed May 12)Department of Defense Reverse policies that allow transgender individuals to serve in the military. (Completed May 7)Centers for Disease Control and Prevention End all data collection on gender identity. (Completed February 25)White House Remove the words sexual orientation and gender identity, diversity, equity, and inclusion, abortion, reproductive health, and gender equality from every federal rule. (Completed January 30)Department of Health and Human Services Reverse prohibitions on healthcare discrimination based on gender identity. (Completed January 27)Department of Education Issue rules and guidance that sex is properly understood as a fixed biological fact. (Completed January 19)Department of Education Rescind Biden-era guidance that added a non-binary option in civil rights data collected from schools. (Completed January 19)Department of Education Abandon the redefinition of sex to sexual orientation and gender identity in Title IX. (Completed on January 19, but blocked by a court order)White House Revoke Bidens executive order 14020, which established the Gender Policy Council. (Completed January 19) In progressDepartment of Health and Human Services Revoke guidance that prohibited adoption/foster agencies from discriminating based on sexual orientation and gender identity.Department of Health and Human Services Prioritize traditional (heterosexual) marriage in its messaging, health, and welfare policies.White House Cut off government contracts to entities that enforce a woke agenda. Not startedDepartment of Health and Human Services Rescind Medicare coverage for gender reassignment surgery.Department of Justice Classify educators and public librarians who discuss transgender ideology with minors as sex offenders.Department of Labor Prohibit employee retirement plans from investing based on ESG (environmental, social, and governance) factors.Department of Labor Issue an order protecting religious employers and employees, clarify they may make employment decisions based on religion.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.

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This articlewas producedwith support from WIRED.A couple of years ago, a curious, then-16-year-old hacker named Reynaldo Vasquez-Garcia was on his laptop at his Portland-area high school, seeing what computer systems he could connect to via the Wifiusing the school network as a lab, as he puts itwhen he spotted a handful of mysterious devices with the identifier IPVideo Corporation.After a closer look and some googling, Garcia figured out that a company by that name was a subsidiary of Motorola, and the devices hed found in his school seemed to be something called the Halo 3C, a smart smoke and vape detection gadget. They look just like smoke detectors, but they have a whole bunch of features like sensors and stuff, Garcia says.As he read more, he was intrigued to learn that the Halo 3C goes beyond detecting smoke and vapingincluding a distinct feature for discerning THC vaping in particular. It also has a microphone for listening out for aggression, gunshots, and keywords such as someone calling for help, a feature that to Vasquez-Garcia immediately raised concerns of more intrusive surveillance.

I have always had serious problems with the adage that has come to be known as the Golden Rule: that virtually universal religious and humanist principle of treating others as one would want to be treated by them. While it appears as an admirable standard on which to base ones actions, I find that it lacks a certain efficiency or a morally high-minded specificity.For a simple example, there are some Christians who treat others the way they want to be treated by wishing other people Merry Christmas during the month of December, even to people who do not adhere to any Christian denomination and who do not celebrate Christmas. Related The nations founders would be horrified by the way todays politicians mix church & state Therefore, I try to practice while I hope others would practice as well what is known as the Platinum Rule, which asks us to treat other people howthose otherswould want to be treated.An example in this case would be to wish other people greetings on their important holidays during those holidays. Dive deeper every day Join our newsletter for thought-provoking commentary that goes beyond the surface of LGBTQ+ issues Subscribe to our Newsletter today I have been thinking of the Golden Rule as many nations across the globe have deviated from the course of liberal democracy of working toward a more perfect union as so eloquently phrased in the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution and increasingly have swayed onto the path of autocracy.And in witnessing this, I have been trying to address a critical question: What if autocrats such as Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, Viktor Orban, and strongmen before them like Benito Mussolini and Adolph Hitler had, in their way and in their minds, been performing the Golden Rule in their actions? All of these men valued strength, fortitude, and in consuming power over all else. Though they demanded loyalty from their subordinates and from the populace, they viewed what others might consider as virtues for example, compassion, selflessness, and mercy rather as weaknesses and as character flaws.These men treated others with ruthless contempt, lacking any sense of empathy, because this demonstrated their strength and power. For them to admire and respect othermen never women they expected others to respond as they would respond by treating others with strength and power, even in the way that they themselves would want to be treated.But, if one is to adhere to the Platinum Rule, the self must separate from the equation. One must, therefore, have a developed sense of empathy: being able to walk in the shoes of another, to understand what others may be feeling and how they would wish to be treated. On EmpathyI told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think Ive come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. Its the one characteristic that connects all the [Nazi] defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.Captain Gustav Mark Gilbert, a United States psychologist who was assigned to attend and closely watch the defendants at the Nuremberg Trials at the end of the Second World War, identified a common personality trait among all those who testified: the lack of feelings of empathy. As we understand in psychology, unless there is a developmental delay, infants demonstrate the rudimentary beginnings of empathy whenever they recognize that another is upset, and they show signs of being upset themselves. Very early in their lives, infants metaphorically develop the capacity to crawl in the diapers of others, even though their own diapers do not need changing.Though empathy is a human condition, through the process of socialization, others often teach us to inhibit our empathetic natures with messages like Dont cry, Youre too sensitive, Mind your own business, Its not your concern. We learn the stereotypes of the individuals and groups our society has minoritized and othered. We learn who to scapegoat for the problems within our neighborhoods, states, nations, and world.Through it all, that precious life-affirming flame of empathy can wither and flicker. For some, it dies entirely. And as the blaze recedes, the bullies, the demagogues, the tyrants take over, filling the void where our humanness once prevailed. And then we lost something very precious. The Nazi defendants at the Nuremberg Trials represent the termination of empathy on the individual micro level, resulting in the otherwise possibly preventable mass murders of Jews and other groups targeted by the Hitler regime. When the demise of empathy comes from powerful leaders, the consequences on the macro level become exponentially deeper, more toxic, and unimaginably catastrophic.People like Trump, Putin, Netanyahu, Orban, Mussolini, Hitler (and many ordinary people) have lost that empathetic impulse long before ascending the heights of power. They feel little or absolutely nothing for others. Clinically, they could be classified as narcissistic sociopaths who have or are currently leading their respective nations toward destruction and causing havoc and international instability.Donald Trump cares little for the residents of the United States or for any other nation. If he had, and if he had an inkling of self-knowledge, he would have been aware of his overarching limitations, and he would never have entered the political arena. How could anyone with the least modicum of empathy forcibly separate young children from the arms of their desperate parents and lock them away in wire cages, as some of these children still remain separated?Netanyahu has engaged in a devastating war an overreaction to the terrorist attacks on Israel that he could have ended in a peaceful settlement long ago if he had not been more concerned about losing political power and the possibility of being convicted of previous charges of corruption.Many people, however, possess a deep sense of empathy while practicing the Platinum Rule. One such individual was former Utah Republican Senator Bob Bennett. As he lay dying at George Washington University Hospital in May 2016 in his battle with pancreatic cancer and then partial paralysis from a stroke, he called his wife Joyce and son Jim over to his bed to express his last wish. Quietly and with a slight slur in his voice, hesaid: Are there any Muslims in the hospital? Id love to go up to every single one of them to thank them for being in this country and apologize to them on behalf of the Republican Party for Donald Trump.Earlier when he was in better health, as he moved through an airport traveling home from Washington, D.C., to Utah for Christmas, Bennett walked up to a woman wearing a hijab telling her he was glad she was in the United States, and he apologized on behalf of the Republican Party, especially for Trumps call to temporarilybanall Muslims from traveling to this country. Possibly for Bennett, his connection with members of minoritized and often vilified religious groups stemmed from his own Mormon background. For Bennett to put on the shoes of Muslim Americans may have been a fairly close fit since his faith, too, has come under constant attack since its founder,Joseph Smith, introduced Mormonism and the Latter-Day Saints Movement in the early 19thcentury. During the Republican presidential primaries in 2012, for example, members of his own Party referred to Mitt Romneys Mormonism as a cult, a belief inspired by the Devil, and something un-Christian.Bob Bennett made visible the noble and all-too-rarely expressed notion of deep and profound empathy. Though Bennett walked in comparable shoes down his own neighborhood streets, his courageous actions were no less laudable and certainly no less empathetic. He related to and connected with the feelings and experiences of Muslim Americans across his own parallel feelings and experiences.But what about for people who claim never to have experienced incidents of marginalization, of feelings of being, looking, or thinking differently from others in certain contexts in their lives? Would they find the empathy hill steeper and more difficult to climb?I believe and hope not!Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.

Nature, Published online: 08 August 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-02516-8Indigenous scholars set out eight steps to stop marginalization in academia and to enable a shared Indigenous agenda in science.

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Two members of Congress have launched a formal investigation into automatic license plate reader (ALPR) company Flock and demanded it turn over details of all searches of its national camera network concerning Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and abortions. The move comes after 404 Media revealed that local cops were performing lookups in Flock on behalf of ICE or for immigration enforcement, and that a Texas officer searched cameras nationwide looking for a woman who self-administered an abortion.The congressional investigation is just the latest impact from those investigations, which have resulted in a wave of similar coverage around the country and Flock making major changes to its platform. The letter announcing the investigation explicitly cites 404 Medias articles.Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, Ranking Member of the Oversight Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services, and Congressman Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee, are asking Flock for a briefing and answers to their questions To ensure that the public at large cannot be tracked without their knowledge or consent by potentially unaccountable and hostile officials, the letter reads.Part of that letter asks for an account of all National Lookup searches that contain any of the following words, including the date of the search, the location of the search, the collection location for data accessed as part of that search, and the originating entity of the search. It then specifies ICE, CBP, and abortion.Do you work at Flock or know anything else about its technology? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.The letter also asks for voluminous documents concerning Flocks policies on data access; how many times Flock has blocked a data request; any misuse of its system; and a mass of communications between Flock and law enforcement customers. In a press release, Krishnamoorthis office called it a formal investigation into Flock Group Inc. over its role in enabling invasive surveillance practices that threaten the privacy, safety, and civil liberties of women, immigrants, and other vulnerable Americans.404 Medias investigations were based on Network Audits which show what agency searched a set of Flock cameras and for what given reason. Flocks national lookup feature allows all law enforcement agencies across the country who are also opted-in to search an agencys cameras. For example, the Network Audit for the first ICE-related investigation came from the Danville Police Department in Illinois. This showed other police departments across the U.S. searching Danvilles cameras. The Network Audit was shared with 404 Media with researchers who asked to remain anonymous to avoid retaliation.The abortion-related investigation was based on Network Audits obtained by Rose Terse and others and shared with 404 Media. In that case, the sheriff from the agency that performed the search told 404 Media the subjects family was worried for her safety after she self-administered an abortion. Health surveillance experts said they still had concerns with the nationwide search. The reason for the search included in the Network Audit was had an abortion, search for female.In a statement on Thursday Flock told 404 Media We appreciate the Committee's interest in and attention to the important civil liberties issues surrounding law enforcement use of Flock Safetys technology to protect communities and make them safer and look forward to responding to this request. As a company founded to achieve those objectives while protecting constitutional rights, we at Flock take these issues extremely seriously and appreciate the opportunity to work with you.After 404 Medias investigations Flock removed a number of states from its national lookup tool. In July, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon announced an agreement by Flock to block any out-of-state police searches related to abortion or immigration.

Gubernatorial candidate, Proud transphobe, and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) doesnt appear totally ready to take hard questions as she raged at a reporter for asking why she took credit for a law that she voted against during the Biden administration, something that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has already called her out for.After her town hall event in Myrtle Beach earlier this week, the reporter, who was a woman, asked Mace why she was touting the new I-95/I-26 interchange that is being built in her district when its being funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the $1.2 trillion bill passed in 2021 with no Republican support in Congress. Mace herself spoke out against the bill at the time, saying that it is not about infrastructure. Related Nancy Mace falsely accused this doctor of child abuse & she lost her job. Shes running for Senate. Is that an accomplishment then? Thats something you can tout? the reporter asked after pointing out that Mace voted against the bill. Absolutely, I can tout that because I will often argue over how much money is spent, how much money is wasted, she responded. And the vast majority of the funding in that bill was completely wasted, particularly an infrastructure bill that was $1.2 trillion. Insights for the LGBTQ+ community Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more. Subscribe to our Newsletter today I think Im more asking if you think its okay for politicians who dont vote for themto take credit for the reporter asked before Mace interrupted. Youre very confused! she said. And youre a raging Democrat, a raging leftist with that kind of questioning!Then Mace accused the reporter of attacking women as a gender with the question about the highway spending. And I would say as a woman, like, you might wanna think about how you view other women and how you treat other women the way that you question them, because women are gonna lead this country off the brink, she said. And conservative women, the first female president of this country is going to be a conservative woman, not some liberal like you. WATCH: @NancyMace gets fact-checked by reporter and LOSES her mind. pic.twitter.com/UXBQ2cxqDD Kaivan Shroff (@KaivanShroff) August 7, 2025This is not the first time Mace has been questioned about taking credit for the highway project that she voted against. Last year, she posted to social media about it, saying, We hate traffic just as much as you do. We helped secure $195 millionthe largest grant in South Carolinas history from the U.S. Department of Transportationto kick off the Long Point Road Interchange Project!Buttigieg, who headed the Department of Transportation at the time, responded in just one word: Um. A community note appended to Maces X post explained that she voted against the funding that she said she helped secure. Um https://t.co/1956qu9Rzl Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) October 24, 2024Mace often uses her identity as a woman to argue against transgender rights, even though many transgender people are women and trans people dont pose a threat to cisgender women. At that same Myrtle Beach town hall event, Mace asked the president to put her name on a womens room, perhaps as a way to show her commitment to women.But I havent told the president this, but my one ask, I just want one ask, because the $15 million is supposed to be used to build his presidential library. I just want my name over a womens bathroom, she said, standing in front of a book with the titleMy Daddy is a Hero. I just like, just like, give me, just give me a plaque, just give me a plaque with my name on it and say Only women here. Mace on ABC settlement: I don't want a commission. It is supposed to help build his presidential library. I just want my name over a women's bathroom pic.twitter.com/QTrvcYipf8 Acyn (@Acyn) August 6, 2025Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.

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A man gave himself bromism, a psychiatric disorder that has not been common for many decades, after asking ChatGPT for advice and accidentally poisoning himself, according to a case study published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine.In this case, a man showed up in an ER experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations and claiming that his neighbor was poisoning him. After attempting to escape and being treated for dehydration with fluids and electrolytes, the study reports, he was able to explain that he had put himself on a super-restrictive diet in which he attempted to completely eliminate salt. He had been replacing all the salt in his food with sodium bromide, a controlled substance that is often used as a dog anticonvulsant.He said that this was based on information gathered from ChatGPT.After reading about the negative effects that sodium chloride, or table salt, has on one's health, he was surprised that he could only find literature related to reducing sodium from one's diet. Inspired by his history of studying nutrition in college, he decided to conduct a personal experiment to eliminate chloride from his diet, the case study reads. For 3 months, he had replaced sodium chloride with sodium bromide obtained from the internet after consultation with ChatGPT, in which he had read that chloride can be swapped with bromide, though likely for other purposes, such as cleaning.The case study was also reported on by Ars Technica.I was able to recreate a similar example interaction in one question on the morning of August 7th. I asked what can chloride be replaced with? and the bot replied if youre referring to replacing chloride ions (CI) in salts (like sodium chloride, NaCl), you can often substitute it with other halide ions such as: Sodium Bromide (NaBr): Replacing chloride with bromide.The 60-year-old man started doing just that. He spent three weeks in hospital as his psychotic symptoms slowly subsided.To be fair to the bot, it did go on to ask me do you have a specific context in mind? and when I added in food it gave me a list of other salty things including MSG and liquid aminos. On the other hand, it did not tell me not to eat sodium bromide.I tried ChatGPT again with another question that confirmed I was talking about sodium chloride specifically. The bot hedged its bets a bit by saying yes in some contexts. But it failed to point out up top that a big, no 1, primary use case for sodium chloride (table salt) is human consumption.The case study authors found similar, saying that when they tried to recreate the situation themselves, the bot did not inquire about why we wanted to know, as we presume a medical professional would do. There is both anecdotal and clinical evidence that AI can be helpful in a health context. However, this is a case of consulting an LLM for a health topic in a way that a human healthcare professional could have known to investigate further.Taking the ChatGPT output at face value, the man in the study bought sodium bromide (which, aside from being a dog epilepsy drug, is also a pool cleaner and pesticide) and poisoned himself over the course of three months to the point of paranoia and auditory and visual hallucinations.Bromism is pretty rare in 2025, but it was huge in the 1800s, and a 1930 study found that up to 8% of people admitted to a psychiatric hospital were suffering from it. Bromide began to be regulated by the FDA between 1975 and 1989, which led to a decline in cases of the syndrome.The case study says that, based on the timeline of this case, it appears that the patient either consulted ChatGPT 3.5 or 4.0 when considering how he might remove chloride from this diet.On Thursday, in a product launch livestream for ChatGPT 5, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced an update he called the best model ever for health," that could put users "more in control of [their] healthcare journey." They announced that the new models will use something called "safe completions" in cases where questions might be ambiguous or harmful. Altman also spoke with an employee of the company and his wife, whod been diagnosed with cancer, about how they had used ChatGPT to understand diagnostic letters, decide whether she would undergo radiation, and help her be "an active participant in her own care journey".

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