Tracy Mumford

Over his time in office, President Trump has upended a lot of funding for medical research.

Sometimes it's been only temporary, but The Times has been looking at what even a short pause can mean for that work.

My colleague Simar Bajaj dug into one research project in particular, where a biomedical engineer named Dr. James Antaki at Cornell University is trying to create an artificial heart for babies.

So very, very tiny, like the size of a AA battery.

Last year, the project seemed close to a big step, starting a clinical trial.

The doctor had the right team, a manufacturer ready to make the device, and an animal study lined up with sheep just the right size to model a baby's circulatory system.

Everything stopped, though, when the Trump administration temporarily froze a billion dollars in funding to the school amid a civil rights investigation.

And while Cornell later settled with the White House, Simmer said getting things going again has been hard.

In Iran, the government has started restoring internet access for tens of millions of Iranians.

They've been largely cut off since the war began three months ago.

The government claimed it was for national security reasons, but many people argued it was imposed to suppress communications and help the regime maintain control of the population.

The blackout hit Iran's already shaky economy hard, crippling the tech sector.

And it made it incredibly difficult for people to reach their loved ones outside the country, as people tried to send messages in brief moments of connectivity.

One cybersecurity expert said traffic is going up now, but it's unclear how long that will last.

And finally, in Silicon Valley, AI startups are now everywhere, promising they can do just about everything.

And in that flood, it's become hard for companies to stand out.

So they've started making slickly produced hype videos to try and get attention, filling social media with some bizarre ads.

They're trying to catch the eye of talent they may want to recruit or funders who could back their latest project.

In some cases, companies are spending tens of thousands of dollars on production for these videos.

And notably, a lot of them are not using AI to make them.