As the Trump administration sets its plans in motion to reallocate the responsibilities of the Education Department, the initial steps are illuminating how President Donald Trump could fulfill his campaign pledge to bulldoze the department entirely. Education Secretary Linda McMahon has launched a public campaign to argue that states and other federal agencies could better handle the department’s work.

How will the administration break it up?
American schools are funded mainly by state and local money. Still, the Education Department “serves as a conduit for billions of dollars of federal aid going to state and local education agencies,” said The Associated Press. Agency officials said the money will continue to be distributed as outlined by Congress, but under the newly signed agreements, much of it will come from a different agency.

The Department of Labor will take over some of the largest federal funding sources for schools and colleges, including Title I money for schools serving low-income communities. Adult education programs were already moved to Labor in June. Some of the department's roles remain unchanged, such as managing the $1.6 trillion federal student loan portfolio. While student aid is unaffected, both McMahon and Trump have suggested a different federal department could better handle it.

Is this the end of the Department of Education?​​
Not necessarily. McMahon has acknowledged that “only Congress can eliminate the department,” but she has “vowed to work to dismantle it from within,” said The Washington Post. The Trump administration is “taking bold action to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states,” McMahon said in a statement. 

The proposed changes have elicited pushback. The administration is acting as if the constitutional separation of powers is a “mere suggestion,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) in a statement. This is an “outright illegal effort.” Students and families will “suffer the consequences as key programs that help students learn to read or that strengthen ties between schools and families are spun off to agencies with little to no relevant expertise.”

Others praised the administration’s plans. The shutdown of the federal government “made one thing clear: students and teachers can go to class without heavy-handed federal intervention,” said House Education and Workforce Chair Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) in a statement. 

Blotting out the sun might not fix climate change, but it could pause the warming process. The idea of using planes to “geoengineer” the climate by spreading sunlight-reflecting aerosols throughout the earth’s atmosphere is controversial. It is also becoming closer to reality.

Stardust Solutions, an Israel-based company, wants to “do nothing less than dim the sun” with a plan “modeled on volcanoes,” said The New Yorker. Average global temperatures dropped in the aftermath of the Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines in 1991. Stardust wants to “market eruptions of its own” using “highly reflective particles” sprayed across the stratosphere.

Can geoengineering work?
Maybe. Until now, the idea of geoengineering the climate has been the province of “research papers, backyard debates and science fiction novels,” said Politico. Stardust’s pitch now means the idea is “effectively for sale.” 

Using aerosols to dim the sun would be a “painkiller, not cure, for the climate crisis,” Lara Williams said at Bloomberg. But the temptation for a quick fix may win. Two-thirds of climate scientists said in a recent poll they expect “large-scale” geoengineering efforts by 2100, and more than half believe it will be the result of a “private company, billionaire or nation state going it alone.” Some say it is time for governments to get involved because Stardust “won’t be the last” company to offer a solution.

Why is geoengineering controversial?
“The political opposition in the U.S. is growing” just as geoengineering looks to become a reality, Alexander C. Kaufman said at The Atlantic. If the U.S. does not act, different countries might.

“Other powers may forge ahead” with geoengineering and additional climate mitigation efforts, said the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The European Union is taking a close look at the “social, engineering and climatological challenges” posed by such technologies. EU scientists, however, are “pessimistic about its potential” to pause climate change without adverse effects. Despite that, geoengineering could proceed, and America “could end up watching from the sidelines.”

A giant panda rolls in snow at Chongqing Zoo in China. The country’s panda population is increasing by two today, as Huan Huan and Yuan Zi return after living at France’s Beauval Zoo for 13 years as part of Beijing’s “panda diplomacy” program.
CFOTO / Future Publishing via Getty Images

A generation ago, sci-fi aficionados were lucky if there were one or two remotely watchable shows released a year. Today, the streaming economy serves up a reliable supply of lavishly produced, inventive science fiction. This includes many shows, like the tremendous new Apple TV+ release “Pluribus,” that carry on the tradition of great speculative storytelling. 

‘The Twilight Zone’ (1959-1964)
Rod Serling’s sci-fi anthology series is one of a few shows from the early television era that maintains a lasting cultural footprint. A show that “belongs in some ways to a golden age of its own,” it is “still available and watched and loved for its stories and characters and insights into human nature,” said Brian Murray at The New Atlantis. (Paramount+)

‘Black Mirror’ (2011-)
Over the course of seven superb seasons, “Black Mirror” (pictured above) has shown us the dark side of many existing or speculative technologies. Yet the series’ occasional lighter moments “suggest that there may be hope for us yet if we’re willing to learn from the mistakes we’re on the verge of making,” said Jenna Scherer at The AV Club. (Netflix)

‘The Expanse’ (2015-2022)
This series offered a novel twist on science fiction storytelling by asking “what if we reached the stars, and brought all of our problems — xenophobia, class inequities, our innate knack for self-destruction — along with us?” said Clint Worthington at Roger Ebert. The show was cancelled by SyFy after three seasons but then picked up by Amazon for another three. (Prime)