Photo: Trump turns $500M grant for clean steel into funding for coal furnace
Totality, then the furnace
The sun’s outer air, and a 500 million dollar turn back to coal
On August 12 a total solar eclipse darkened skies over Greenland, Iceland, and Spain. NASA has now shared the views from ground, air, and space. The moon covered the sun. For a short time the corona, the wispy outer atmosphere, became visible to those in the path of totality.
On Friday, August 21, 2026, we hold that covering to one pressure: what we hide, and what only then comes into view.
A 500 million dollar Biden era grant meant to decarbonize steelmaking has been refashioned by the Trump administration to upgrade a coal furnace in southern Ohio. Cleveland-Cliffs confirmed the turn. The money was written for a cleaner mill. The mill keeps coal.
Rooms change their use. MoMA PS1 in Long Island City will open Symone in early October, a cafe by Chef DeVonn Francis. Blank Forms will leave Clinton Hill for an eight thousand square foot loft at 151 Lafayette Street in SoHo. A museum feeds. A nonprofit takes a larger floor. The furnace does not convert.
Apple is cutting staff on Vision Pro and Siri, including a gaming team largely shut down. Anthropic could aim to raise 100 billion dollars in an IPO that bankers have told investors might value the company at 2 trillion, above SpaceX. The visor thins. The valuation thickens.
An HHS document offers new clues to Kennedy’s vaccine plans, asking for feedback on recommendation categories and how shots are tested. StarRF, a Chinese startup, has closed a funding round for a constellation that would detect radio emissions from orbit. The sky keeps listening. Care keeps being rewritten.
Convergence is not a brighter corona. It is whether the covering we make, of a sun or a grant, still leaves a living hold in view.