Clashing egos, logistical nightmares, political chaos. This is the story of how scientists and Washington power players overcame staggering odds to develop a historic shot.
Bob Kadlec was standing in his Washington, D.C., office holding a dry-erase marker, the words Manhattan Project scribbled across the top of a whiteboard. Kadlec, who was known on Capitol Hill as Dr. Bob, was the former Air Force doctor and intelligence officer who ran an obscure division of the nation's health department called the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response. It was the afternoon of Friday, April 10, 2020, and Kadlec was surrounded by four of his most trusted associates—and a very large stack of pizza boxes. The novel coronavirus had overwhelmed hospitals in New York City to such a degree that the dead were piling up in refrigerated trailers in the parking lots. Recognizing that the country couldn't shut down forever, Kadlec's crew had assembled for a brainstorming session here inside the Hubert H. Humphrey Building, a blocky, eight-story structure that houses the Department of Health and Human Services. The ultimate throw-and-go option for chilly weather. Celebrate style, taste, and disposable income with one brilliant gift idea. Featuring, but not limited to, a field watch from Columbia you can only get in this drop. A new story at the Washington Post concerns the closing of a FEMA trailer camp in California that was built to house the refugees from the massive Camp wildfire in 2018. But it's about so much more than that. It's about the lives of people hanging off the edge of the cliff by their fingernails, about a economic safety net that is coming apart. And ultimately, it is a story about how catastrophic climate change already is causing unmanageable refugee crises within our own borders. The wildfires will get worse. The crises will deepen. These are the mathematical certainties that bolster the reporting—and the mathematical certainties that Senator Joe Manchin and his merry band of conservative Democrats choose to ignore while speaking to the Beltway reporters who hang on their every word. You're aware America is under siege, fighting an opioid crisis that has exploded into a public-health emergency. You've heard of OxyContin, the pain medication to which countless patients have become addicted. But do you know that the company that makes Oxy and reaps the billions of dollars in profits it generates is owned by one family? |
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