"Bobbi Stevenson Bauer loves her flowers. The Arlington, Virginia, resident often travels to downtown Washington, D.C., to visit the Enid A. Haupt Garden at the Smithsonian and the U.S. Botanic Garden, two of the many tourist destinations that are situated along the National Mall. ... “I haven’t seen it this empty since Covid,” she reported during a recent visit."
"The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s past recovery efforts have been impeded by staffing shortages, and officials are facing an ongoing hurricane season with even fewer employees, according to a Government Accountability Office report released on Tuesday."
"The EPA on Friday terminated at least five of the roughly 140 employees who signed a public letter in June critical of the agency’s political leadership, according to the staffers’ union. At least 10 other tenured employees have gotten a notice of proposed removal, said Nicole Cantello, an EPA lawyer and president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 704."
"Unions representing employees of the National Weather Service and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office sued President Trump on Tuesday over an executive order that sought to end employee rights to collectively bargain with the government."
If you’re thinking of reporting on major greenhouse gas emitters in your coverage area by using long-standing U.S. government data, better act fast — a key source of that information may soon disappear, warns the latest TipSheet. Find out who’s working to save the numbers, plus get more than a dozen story ideas and reporting resources.
"About two dozen investigators patrol neighborhoods throughout Las Vegas every day searching for signs of wasted water. They're known as water waste investigators who are part of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. For more than 20 years, they have been helping conserve water in the growing desert city."
"Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Jim O’Neill is expected to serve as acting director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to an administration official and another person familiar with the matter."
A war on the facts behind climate change — and on the actions to address it — is well underway in the second Trump administration. The new WatchDog Opinion column takes the measure of the battlefront, eyeing key examples of the political onslaught, including a concerted effort to eradicate the very term itself. Regulations killed, research discredited, speech censored and more.
"In the 20 years since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, hurricane scientists have made great strides toward understanding how climate change influences tropical cyclones, at the same time as they have vastly improved hurricane forecasting. Better forecasts, in turn, save the country billions every time a storm makes landfall, according to a 2024 analysis published in the National Bureau of Economic Research."
"The Trump administration placed more than 30 Federal Emergency Management Agency employees on leave Tuesday after they signed an open letter of dissent about the agency’s leadership, according to people familiar with the situation and documents reviewed by The Washington Post."
