"EPA’s core workforce would shrink to its smallest size since the mid-1980s, while funding for numerous grant programs would be zeroed out, according to new documents released Friday."
It’s not just scientists who are being lost to the new administration’s extensive firings of federal workers. A Backgrounder Analysis argues it’s the science itself. It’s happening at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but also across agencies that conduct research to protect health and the environment, whether around toxic chemicals or on the battleground of climate change science. A frank look at the reality and what’s being lost for journalists and the communities they serve.
"The Department of Health and Human Services is pulling millions of dollars it had committed to give Moderna to aid the effort to develop a vaccine to combat the bird flu in humans, the company announced Wednesday.
"Advocates are ramping up pressure on the Maryland Public Service Commission to penalize Washington Gas Light Company following a March ruling which found that the company misled millions of customers by claiming methane gas was better for the environment than electricity."
"HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. threatened to stop government scientists from publishing their work in major medical journals on a podcast Tuesday as part of his escalating war on institutions he says are influenced by pharmaceutical companies."
"President Donald Trump on Friday ordered a sweeping overhaul of federal agencies’ handling of scientific research, coupled with a requirement to revisit all Biden-era regulations to ensure that they mesh with the new policy."
"Exposures to pesticides and other chemicals, ultra-processed foods and over-prescription of medications are among the factors contributing to an epidemic of chronic disease in America’s children, according to a government report issued Thursday by the Trump administration’s controversial “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) Commission.'
"Community groups are fighting an unusual Louisiana law that restricts how they use data from air-quality monitors, saying it violates free speech."
When an ecologist and a cartoonist team up to explore the realities of colonizing Mars, the result is a humorous and highly informative book on whether humans are truly up to settling space. They detour into the intimacies of zero-gravity intimacy and the challenges of ensuring a food supply. From BookShelf contributing editor Melody Kemp, a review of “A City on Mars.”
As the Trump administration rolls back Biden-era rules limiting the presence of “forever chemicals” in drinking water, an updated data mapping tool helps pinpoint local angles on the PFAS story. The latest TipSheet outlines the basics on this class of widely used chemicals, their risks to humans and the challenges of regulating them, plus provides a half-dozen story ideas and questions to ask.
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