"For days, workers have been trying to rid the Reflecting Pool of algae after a more than $14 million renovation that President Donald Trump said was “done properly” and “could last for 100 years.” But now workers have another problem to contend with: peeling paint."
"Algae spread across the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool shortly after a multimillion-dollar renovation. The Interior Department says fixes are on the way."
"In the days after Hurricane Helene devastated the southern Appalachians in late September 2024, Blue Ridge Parkway Superintendent Tracy Swartout went up in a helicopter to survey the damage. What she saw was deeply troubling. 'When Helene happened, we ended up with 58 landslides spread across 200 linear miles of the parkway,' Swartout says."
“The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) replaced employee desk phones with calling software used on their laptops, something the union says poses safety issues, including during a recent medical emergency.”
“EPA and Justice Department officials were looking into potential criminal violations by the vast coal empire owned by Sen. Jim Justice. Then the Office of the Deputy Attorney General told them ‘pencils down.’”
"President Trump’s proposed budget eliminates funding for the Chemical Safety Board, the agency investigating last month’s deadly chemical leak in Kanawha County."
"The Defense Department has designated its press office a classified space and banned journalists from accessing it to meet with the public affairs officers who have traditionally answered their questions." "The change creates a new barrier compared with previous administrations, under which the office was an open room where reporters could stop by the desks of military public affairs officials without escorts."
"National Park Service officials repeatedly raised legal and environmental concerns over the Trump administration’s plan to lease public parkland, including the site of a professional tennis tournament, to a private operator widely expected to be the tournament’s operator, according to records reviewed by The Washington Post."
"As Staci Hartwell sees it, her community has much more to lose than to gain from the development of a massive data center."
"GOOCHLAND, Va.—Deborah Blackburn leaned on her cane in a line to enter the Central High Cultural and Educational Complex, angst-ridden over a giant transmission line proposal for reasons that are common refrains here: It’s all to benefit data centers in Northern Virginia, and it will disrupt the rural character here outside Richmond."
