Access to quality teachers is critical for all students—it was critical for me growing up in Laredo, Texas, and it’s central to the goals of the National Math and Science Initiative. Every day we ask so much of our teachers to ensure that all students have a chance like I did. So it’s proper that today, National Teacher Appreciation Day, we offer them our sincere, heartfelt and unqualified thanks.

It’s been a little more than a month since the breach of the Pegasus Pipeline that spilled oil in the Mayflower community, and a lot of progress has been made. All of the freestanding oil has been recovered. We have protected nearby Lake Conway from the spill. And we are transitioning activities from emergency response and cleanup to remediation while working to get residents back into their homes.

In Africa, one child dies every minute from malaria. What makes this particularly tragic is that deaths from malaria are preventable. We have the tools and the knowledge to protect people from this disease, even in regions where it is still highly endemic. Building on its efforts to raise awareness of malaria-related issues, Harvard has launched an initiative to enable the school’s students, faculty and alumni to work across a number of fields and sectors to combat malaria worldwide.

ExxonMobil had $22.5 billion in worldwide tax expenses during the first quarter. In the United States, ExxonMobil’s tax expenses of $2.8 billion for the past three months exceeded our U.S. earnings, which were $2.6 billion. If that sounds like a lot, that’s because it is. According to Forbes magazine, ExxonMobil pays more in taxes than any other corporation. Three of the top 10 largest corporate tax payers are energy industry companies.