Grid Pro Quo: “Forty states are experiencing longer outages — and the problem is most acute in regions seeing more extreme weather.” Storms batter aging power grid as climate disasters spread. (If you live in one of the affected regions, you don’t need to bother reading this article. And there’s a chance you can’t anyway because you’re power is out…)

+ Throwing Them a Loan: “The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it is again extending the moratorium on federal student loan payments, interest and collections, this time until summer’s end, Aug. 31. The U.S. Department of Education also unveiled a plan to reset the roughly 7 million borrowers who are in default, using the pandemic pause to restore their accounts to good standing.”

+ Plastic Surgery: “Samples were taken from tissue removed from 13 patients undergoing surgery and microplastics were found in 11 cases. The most common particles were polypropylene, used in plastic packaging and pipes, and PET, used in bottles. Two previous studies had found microplastics at similarly high rates in lung tissue taken during autopsies.” Microplastics found deep in lungs of living people for first time.