4B to the left, #tradwives to the right

... plus curiosities from a resurrected "morality" police, Pharrell William's "wave" theory, and more

Welcome back to another edition of The Detour! My name is Kelly, and I’m the newsletter’s founding writer. With every issue of The Detour, I hope to deliver you an honest, dynamic, and engaging newsletter that cuts through the noise of the internet and sparks curiosity from all around the world.

If you've enjoyed reading, I would be grateful if you supported The Detour with a paid subscription. Every dollar you put toward this newsletter goes directly to me (hi!), an independent journalist who is passionate about nuanced, underreported stories centered on U.S. and global affairs.

Thank you for reading,

Kelly

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In this issue:

🌐 The women-led internet phenomena defining political divisions

📒 The resurrection of Libya’s morality police

🌊  Pharrell Williams on what makes cultural waves

✍️ My new gig

Kelly Kimball for Frame Media. // Source: Wikimedia Commons, Canva

$22.63 billion — The amount of annual funding NASA received in 2020, at the end of Donald Trump’s first term, an ~8% increase from the beginning of his first term in 2016.

What might NASA look like during Trump's second term?

“I would think that this next [Trump] Administration is going to be a continuation of the success in the first administration,” Sean O’Keefe, who was a NASA administrator from 2001 to 2005, told TIME magazine on Wednesday.

What NASA projects will Trump inherit? There’s the Artemis lunar program, a crewed lunar landing ambitiously aimed for 2026, and a Space Launch System moon rocket totaling $2 billion, to name a few. It’s still unclear who Trump will tap as the Administrator of NASA, and how that choice will impact these plans. Stay tuned for developments. (Get up to speed with who Trump is picking for his cabinet here.

9 — The number of members of Haiti's Transitional Presidential Council, a temporary body established in April to carry out presidential duties as the country is roiled by gang violence and instability. On Monday, after the council voted to oust then-Prime Minister Garry Conille, Haiti welcomed its new prime minister, the entrepreneur Alix Didier Fils-Aimé. The Council had Conille on its hit list for quite some time, and despite outcry from some government sectors that ousting Conille would effectively be a coup, council members put their thumbs down anyway. (The main argument of nay-sayers is that Haiti has neither a president nor parliament and according to its constitution, only the parliament can oust a sitting prime minister.)

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