With the White House in murky waters due to ongoing changes to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool that have caused unmitigated algae growth and peeling paint, many liberals claim President Donald Trump’s obsession with the pool encapsulates the mayhem of his administration. Many conservatives, conversely, say liberals are obsessed with the minute details of the presidential pond.

‘Another story typical of the Trump era’
When the renovations began, they “resembled a common Trump narrative: hubris and corruption combining to leave things worse than when he started,” and the “symbolism of Trump creating a real-life swamp was almost too perfect,” said James Downie at MS NOW. The situation has, in time, become “another story typical of the Trump era: the abuse of state prosecutorial power,” a reference to several people who have been arrested for allegedly vandalizing the pool. (Trump has not provided evidence for these allegations.)

Trump has “fully embraced the dubious proposition that left-wing vandalism is at fault” for the pool’s problems, said Dion Lefler at The Wichita Eagle. To say that Trump’s “explanation is implausible is an insult to implausibility,” especially because the “only ones ever spotted pouring corrosive chemicals into the pool were federal workers” in an attempt to kill the algae. 

‘Far more important stories unfolding’
The president’s “attempt to revive the faltering” pool has “become the left’s newest obsession,” even when there are “far more important stories unfolding,” said Nicole Russell at USA Today. The Democratic focus on the pool is the “perfect metaphor for the way the left and much of the media have handled” the Trump administration.

The Reflecting Pool has been problematic long before Trump. It’s “almost impossible to maintain the water level that’s required to make the pool reflective,” said Kym Hall, a former National Capital Area director for the National Park Service, to The New York Times. It’s like “pouring water into a colander.” There are “many, many things to criticize about our 45th and 47th president, said the National Review editors, but it cannot be the case that literally everything the man does is wrong.”

The Department of Health and Human Services is moving to make adjustments to testosterone-therapy labels, reversing changes made over a decade ago that restricted availability for some men. But with hormone drugs being hailed as yet another wellness solution, experts worry the requested adjustments by the HHS could trigger a testosterone free-for-all.

Why is the HHS asking for revisions?
Since 2015, the Food and Drug ​Administration has required testosterone therapy labels to state that the “safety and effectiveness of the treatment had not been ​established” in men with symptoms associated with idiopathic hypogonadism, an age-related condition “involving low testosterone levels without a known underlying cause,” said Reuters. Now, the HHS is requesting that labels be revised to remove that statement. And after reviewing new data and evidence on the safety and benefits of hormone therapy, the department also wants to update information related to prostate cancer risk and revise warnings regarding enlarged prostates. 

These updates could “pave the way for easier access to testosterone replacement therapy” for a wider subset of men, said CNN. During Men’s Health Month, the HHS is “putting science back at the center of men’s healthcare,” said HHS Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a press release.

Is testosterone therapy for everyone?
No matter the outcome of the suggested revisions, experts warn that patients should still have “in-depth talks with their doctors about whether testosterone therapy could be helpful for them,” and doctors should “complete thorough evaluations,” said CNN. Besides, taking a warning off a label “isn’t the same as saying every man should be on the medication,” said Jamin Brahmbhatt, a urologist and men’s health expert at Orlando Health, to the outlet.

People have always “wanted a fountain of youth,” said Landon Trost, a urologist, to the Houston Chronicle. “Since really the 1970s or even earlier,” hormones have been considered the magical pills to achieve that goal. And today, the hormone is “widely prescribed in ways that aren’t covered by insurance,” said the outlet, and that don’t “always align with mainstream medical guidance.”

Over 60 million stars appear in a new image of the Milky Way from the Euclid Space Telescope. To date, this is the most detailed image of the central region of our galaxy called the galactic bulge. Euclid can image an area about 270 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope.
European Space Agency

Summer is a sleepy season for new cookbooks. But the coming months do star a (smaller) collection of exciting new releases.

‘Cooking from Scratch’ 
Native New Orleanian Toya Boudy draws the thread from the Black past to the Black present, using the first known cookbook published by a Black woman, Malinda Russell’s 1866 text, “A Domestic Cook Book,” as a model. Practicality and lineage, with recipes that capture south Louisiana, like mini crawfish pies, and those that honor the homeland, like African spinach stew, anchor Boudy’s story. (out now, Countryman Press)

‘Great Bakes from the Midwest’ 
The debut cookbook from Martin Sorge, the winner of “The Great American Baking Show” in 2023, sprints across a variety of baking topics. There’s often a Midwestern bent to the recipes — proper for someone whose home base is Chicago — and the recipes are both homey and precise. Focaccia, for instance, bursts with the flavors of a Chicago hot dog. And a Michigan Forest Cake employs the state’s famed sour cherries. (Aug. 4, Agate)

‘Cooking Thai’ 
Plenty of chefs have Michelin-starred restaurants across different continents. But it’s rare to see a Thai American woman juggling that kind of constellation. Pim Techamuanvivit, the Bangkok-born chef of San Francisco’s one-starred Kin Khao and Nari and Bangkok’s one-star Nahm, looks at one of the world’s great cuisines from a bird’s-eye view and through a personal lens, with an able assist from her co-author, Andrea Nguyen. (Aug. 25, Ten Speed Press)