The screwworms are here, as we predicted they would be. More than half a century after the parasitic pest was declared eradicated, the insects have escaped containment in South America and made it all the way to Texas, where they have not been seen since 1966. There are now five cases of the flesh-eating parasite in the United States, all confirmed in under a week. The first two were in calves in Zavala County, followed soon after by a calf in La Salle County; a goat in Gillespie County; and a dog that lives in Lea County, N.M., but recently traveled through Texas. These five cases are alarming but expected, as Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins tweeted. On this fact, Rollins is correct.
But expected is different from inevitable. The screwworm's arrival was expected because over the past few years the insects have been wriggling toward our border with Mexico, somehow surging past the boundary of Panama's Darién Gap. This boundary was enforced by the Sterile Insect Technique, in which hordes of engineered and irradiated sterile males kept the flies at bay. Rollins blamed the screwworm's reappearance on "the open-border policies of the last administration," which is incorrect and obviously racist. There is no evidence that human migration has helped the screwworm's sprawl. If there is blame to assign, it should be directed at the Trump administration, which helped pave the screwworm's path up north. The DOGE cuts in the spring of 2025 terminated USAID funding for a program that monitored and contained the screwworm in Central America and USDA funding that supported screwworm outbreak investigations and responses in 22 countries. After Joe Biden closed southern ports of entry to live cattle from Mexico to box out the screwworm in 2024, Donald Trump reopened those ports in February 2025. (The ports were closed again later that May.)
The New World screwworm is a maggot, specifically the larvae of a parasitic blowfly that feeds on warm-blooded animals. But while most maggots feed on dead flesh, the screwworm only feeds on fresh wounds. So while other flies are content with carcasses, dung, and things of that nature, screwworms often seek out broken skin on living animals. But they'll also, horribly, lay their eggs on mucous membranes, including eyes, lips, or even an anus or vagina. Females lay their eggs inside the open flesh, eggs that hatch into larvae that gnaw and burrow into their host's skin.
After what feels like years of expectation, Nintendo finally announced an Ocarina of Time remake on Tuesday. I can see why it's big news: It is an all-time classic, many people's pick for the greatest video game of all time.
The original, first released back in 1998, is a game that despite its accolades also had its quirks, ranging from its famous water temple to its N64-based control scheme. In the words of my 13 year-old son, it also "looks like shit". So I can see, on the distant horizon, the arguments for why this remake is happening. That it'll allow a whole new generation to experience the game, or maybe that it'll let us all experience the Ocarina story the way its creators originally intended.
Which is fine, but also, I am growing tired of all these big, expensive remakes. On a conceptual, strategic level, I think the AAA (and AA!) end of the industry's growing obsession with them sucks. Video games are a miracle, the product of dozens or hundreds or even thousands of people working together, often at their limits, for years at a time, all working to turn an idea (or even a dream!) into something people can play.
The process by which that is achieved involves nothing but compromise. Allowances need to be made for the team, its size, their skills, their experience and their health. The amount of money the developers have at their disposal makes a huge impact. They're only given a certain amount of time. There are technical restrictions (memory, speed) imposed by the target platforms, and the layout of the controllers that will be used need to be considered. A video game's design needs to thread its way through all those factors, and more, before it comes close to getting in the hands of players.
So every game you've ever played and grown to love, including Ocarina of Time, is simply a product of its time, and a reflection of the limitations placed on its creators. That, as much as any napkin sketches or all-hands meetings, is what defines the game. Its size, its scope, how many characters there are, what they look like, what everything sounds like–it's all a result of compromise and limits.
Ocarina of Time is a Nintendo 64 game. They are inseparable, and they define each other. I have zero interest in playing the game outside of that context! To remake the game for the Switch 2 is to bring it somewhere it was not made for, and somewhere that already has newer, different Zelda games that define their own era, games that have built upon and diverged from that decades-old formula and found huge success of their own.
Of course big publishers like Nintendo don't give a shit about any of that. That stuff is a worry for people who write blogs for a living, not anyone who counts money. What Nintendo is thinking here is how effective the continued weaponisation of an ageing player base's nostalgia is, and how remaking Ocarina must be one of the surest bets this company has ever made.
Fans love the old shit! The good old days, the classics, the games for consoles that just played games, from those times where you weren't facing climate disaster and the rise of fascism and global job insecurity and a looming economic meltdown. What could sound more enticing to an adult Nintendo fan than the chance to play Ocarina of Time one more time (or one more time, if they played the now-15-year-old DS remake), only now with better graphics and a different menu?
I don't want to make it sound like I'm picking on Nintendo specifically here. This game is just at the front of my mind because it was both announced this week and is such a big deal for people. Nintendo are far from alone; loads of publishers are doing this, and have been doing it for years now, though it does feel like the pace of bringing the old stuff back has started to quicken. Case in point: this list of "new" games announced recently:
The lack of imagination and creative risk-taking here is simply staggering. We are being served reheated classics faster than anyone could ever stand to consume them. Consider this about every game announced above: Imagine that every cent and person and hour spent on these remakes could have been spent on telling new stories or creating new experiences. Instead, the tacit admission behind this craze is that there are holes in the release schedule that must be filled, and this is the cheapest and easiest way to fill them.
New games are expensive and risky! Old games with established Metacritic scores, Edge 10/10s and rabid fanbases are just sitting there, waiting to be remade and resold to millions of people all over again. As this excellent Inner Spiral blog elaborates:
It is much safer to sell a game to an audience that already loves it than it is to try and convince a new audience to fall in love with something they've never seen before. The publishers leverage the emotional connection you formed when you were 10, effectively weaponizing your own fondness for the past to guarantee their quarterly earnings. They are not selling you a game; they are selling you the safety of a known quantity, packaged in a prettier bow so it feels new enough to justify that 80 dollar price tag.
I find it especially frustrating when you look at that list of games above and realise that, even if you did think that games periodically require a fresh coat of paint (I don't), so many of them don't need a single piece of work done. Black Flag still looks great in 2026. Persona 4 remains perfect. The Wolf Among Us looks as wonderful as it did on the day it was released. And Halo has already been remade once already!
Because this is a subject where I don't think anyone can be truly wrong, by now you may be itching to hit the comment button and come at me with counter-points and exceptions to the rule, so let me try to head you off at the pass and anticipate some sample questions.
"But I never played this!"
Well, I think you should play it as it was originally intended, because that was the game. If you can buy a direct port of a classic game, do that. If you can't, well…
You may see a lot of 45-year-olds say this over the next few months, and if you do--or if you're one of them!--consider that as well-reviewed Ocarina of Time was at the time, as many 2000s GOTY lists it topped and as misty-eyed as you may remember it, you were also younger and more carefree then, and it was the bees knees because it came out in 1998. Those bees' knees are now as creaky as your own.
"What about remasters?"
I find pretty much every remake a waste, but remasters I think need to be assessed on more of a curve. Because I am both practical and imperfect, I can see plenty of scenarios--like an emulator or backwards-compatible console simply making some polygons look shinier--where it's mostly fine. I can watch Ben Hur on Blu-Ray; it's not the same as watching it on a shitty old cinema screen, but it's close enough. A remake, where an entire game is rebuilt from the ground up, is an entirely different proposition.
"What about stuff like Octopath Traveler 0?"
Look,that's a very weird outlier, please don't try to trip me up with niche cases, you're on your own there.
"Shut up man, I love remakes and I'm gonna buy this instantly."
Well, good for you! I'm a games critic, I write about this stuff in order to make a personal case and share some thoughts. You don't have to listen to me, do what you want, you're an adult!
Look, I'm not trying to force anyone to abandon your enthusiasm for remakes and remasters if you are genuinely excited to play altered versions of games you've already enjoyed, or if it's the first time you're getting to experience a title you've heard is good but has been difficult/impossible to play previously.
But maybe next time you do sit down with an expensive remake of an existing game, consider just why you're getting it and so many more of them, and what it says about the video game industry that some of its biggest announcements for today are for the games of yesterday.
"The lack of imagination and creative risk-taking here is simply staggering. We are being served reheated classics faster than anyone could ever stand to consume them. Consider this about every game announced above: Imagine that every cent and person and hour spent on these remakes could have been spent on telling new stories or creating new experiences. Instead, the tacit admission behind this craze is that there are holes in the release schedule that must be filled, and this is the cheapest and easiest way to fill them."
An interactive map tracks 2,400 eco-blocks across Georgetown, where researchers say the barriers may affect people living in RVs and expose a gap in public oversight.
In the middle of May, the Advocate, a national LGBTQ magazine, published a rare headline about Seattle. “Transgender Americans are fleeing hostile red states,” it read. “Seattle says it’s overwhelmed.”
The headline was posted to social media, picked up by other queer outlets, and pingponged around the internet, latching onto readers’ confirmation biases on every side of the political spectrum. The story eventually bounced back to Seattle, where TV reporters parroted the Advocate’s headline: Seattle is overwhelmed by trans people!
Let’s state the obvious first: We are a city that’s overwhelmed by many things. Our booming population? Sure. The tech sector? Maybe. High income earners inflating our cost of living? Most certainly. But our city of 800,000 people is not “overwhelmed” by trans people fleeing red states.
Unfortunately, that meme-able headline overshadowed what Seattle’s queer community was actually saying: The City isn’t overwhelmed, but our queer community organizations are. Seattle is witnessing the beginning of an internally displaced refugee crisis. And it’s time for the city government to step in and live up to its claims that it’s a “Welcoming City,” and be one.
The story started with an article in Seattle Gay News on May 12. Seattle’s LGBTQ Commission had sent a letter to the Mayor’s Office, City Council, and City Attorney’s Office, asking that they declare a civil emergency to address the increasing number of trans and queer people moving to Seattle from hostile states to escape anti-trans legislation, threats to personal safety, and a lack of health care and legal recognition.
Seattle is on a short list of US cities that are widely known to be especially safe for trans people. But moving here also means moving into one of the most expensive cities in the county—undoubtedly more expensive than the city they’re coming from—in the midst of a housing and affordability crisis.
Jessa Davis, co-chair of the Seattle LGBTQ Commission, tells The Stranger that new arrivals are struggling to find work and housing. “We have people who come here, and they sleep on a couch for two weeks, and then go to another couch for two weeks, and then maybe they have a car, maybe they choose to get a tent,” she says. “It’s really impossible to get the kind of money you need to rent a place on your own, and building a network fast enough where you can get a roommate or move in with someone long-term.”
There are no official (or even unofficial) numbers for how many trans people have moved here since the Trump administration poured fuel on the fire of the Repubican Party’s anti-trans campaigns took off, but local organizations have consistently reported increased demand. “In some cases, demand already exceeds available capacity,” the letter reads. And Seattle’s emergency response systems aren’t built to help people who are displaced in their own country. So they felt it was necessary to declare a civil emergency.
A “civil emergency” is largely a bureaucratic lever. Declaring one allows the mayor to throw money at a crisis without going through the time-consuming legislative process of allotting funds through City Council. And this wouldn’t be the first time the Trump administration cornered us into it: Mayor Bruce Harrell declared a civil emergency when SNAP benefits went unfunded last year.
In this case, the commission hopes that declaring a civil emergency could allow the city to financially support the organizations that are already serving trans refugees in the city with housing, behavioral health, food access, legal services, and violence prevention.
A civil emergency isn’t the only iron in the fire, and it might not be the best one. In the weeks before the commission sent the letter, City Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck had already been working with community groups on an early draft of a Trans Bill of Rights that would “shape the city’s approach to welcoming trans refugees.” She supported declaring a civil emergency when SNAP benefits were on the line, because there was a clear, single-step course of action ahead of them: Use emergency funds to fund the food banks. But in a nuanced situation like this refugee crisis, the demands on the executive branch aren’t as clear. “A civil emergency only works when the executive knows what they want to do,” she says.
Davis stands by their letter. “It’s a short-term solution,” she says. “We don’t have money [for those services] in the budget today. But we have emergency funds, and we need to do something today… If we start by just talking about the future, then we are dooming the people between now and that future budget cycle to being entirely on their own in the face of potentially collapsing social support.”
After the swirl of the headlines settled, the mayor didn’t declare an emergency. Instead, she announced a first step: an “interdepartmental team” that will figure out what the executive wants to do. They’ll work in “active partnership”—whatever that means—with the commission, community groups, and city council to recommend new legislation, including Rinck’s Trans Bill of Rights.
One of the City’s biggest challenges will be assessing just how many trans people have moved to Seattle—it’s hard to allocate resources when you don’t know how many people need them. Rinck says she’s been talking to the trans mutual aid groups like couch-surfing networks that have popped up all over the city, which have the most consistent, direct contact with trans people who have fled other states. They’re able to give her verbal estimates of the number of people they’re working with, but many of them are informal and decentralized by nature. “I can’t pull from a data system and say here are the exact numbers.”
Some of that is by design. “People are surviving by staying invisible,” says Rinck. It’s true of anyone experiencing homelessness, she says, “but there’s a tremendous amount of danger that is facing trans people.”
The letter did commit to work on an “accelerated timeline,” and they plan to finish in August. When it comes to funding, though, the letter committed to nothing. “Although our city is experiencing challenging budget constraints, we will proactively search for ways to meet urgent needs while planning for a stronger future,” Mayor Wilson wrote. But both Rinck and Davis have been heartened by the City’s quick responses so far. “It surpassed my expectations,” Davis says. “It’s been met with a level of seriousness and engagement that I’m frankly proud of.”
Despite not having much belief in any specific religious system, I want to believe that the cheese enchilada is a gift from some actually-real, benevolent god who wants us to be happy, and just decided one day that shoving cheese into a tortilla and slathering it with warm sauce was the best way to do that.
But I know the enchilada is actually rooted in more than a thousand thousand-plus years of culture, of hard work, of agricultural innovation, of perseverance. The dish’s origins date back to antiquity, and it starts appearing in literature in 1756, when Spanish conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo wrote down the first description of enchiladas. From there, the history gets a bit messy, with each region in Mexico boasting its own recipes for the dish, stuffing tortillas with everything from picadillo to huitlacoche. There are countless enchilada iterations, and I think that’s beautiful.
The version I first encountered at a Louisiana Tex-Mex restaurant in the 1980s was decidedly removed from the dish’s origins: bright yellow processed cheese stuffed inside an industrial corn tortilla and slathered in even more cheesy sauce. It was, in a word, perfect. Later, I would encounter more sophisticated versions of cheesy enchiladas, sometimes with roasted veggies tucked alongside the cheese for added texture, or bathed in tangy tomatillo salsa, and I devoured them all.
For 15 years, Sébastien Fontaine has been trying to kill dirt. The biochemist, who runs a lab at the French National Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment, wanted to know how much carbon is released by soil — just dirt alone, completely devoid of life. His team sealed dirt into jars and blasted them with sterilizing gamma radiation. Then they waited for the carbon dioxide released by…
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