"The Trump administration has paused all border barrier construction work at Big Bend National Park, after a flurry of videos showing bulldozers marring the protected landscape drove a furious backlash."
If you’ve been pondering what recent Cyclospora, Legionella and Ebola outbreaks tell us about the state of preparedness for future pandemics, Backgrounder has some sobering insights. A reminder of the uneven response to COVID-19 and a look forward at how current Trump administration policy has weakened public health structures and likely left us unready for what’s ahead.
"The Trump administration pushed out thousands of veteran U.S. Forest Service staff. An ‘extraordinary’ fire season is testing those who are left."
"The US government’s experimentation with AI in rulemaking carries the risk that actions associated with the technology may be overturned in court, former federal officials warn."
"As a pink-and-gold sunset faded over the waterside Ben Hotel, Republican state utility officials streamed out of a reception where they had been imbibing with executives from the industries they regulate."
"A new Aid to Negotiations document for the Global Plastics Treaty has been released a year after Geneva's collapse, but campaigners warn it dilutes key measures and retreats from the ambition needed to end plastic pollution."
"Disturbing news about our water resources is now constant and unrelenting. In just the past few weeks, media have reported that Puerto Rico is suffering a deep water crisis as severe drought has cut water supplies to thousands. The Rhine and Po rivers in Europe are at record low levels. The seven states sharing the Colorado River in the US are fighting over unprecedented shortages, while its major reservoirs have shrunk to their lowest levels since they were built."
"The Trump administration has pulled federal funding for an annual report chronicling the changing environment of the Arctic, where rapid warming is upending ecosystems, reconfiguring trade routes and scrambling Great Power strategy."
"House Democrats are investigating whether executives at a uranium company operating in Utah engaged in possible insider trading by making investments days before President Donald Trump opened a nearby national monument to mining."
"Interior Department staffers were optimistic after Doug Burgum was confirmed to lead the agency in 2025... . But since he took over at Interior last year, that hope has been replaced by confusion and concern that the agency is poorly run, has devolved into secrecy and has lost thousands of the staff needed to manage the national park systems and millions of acres of public lands."
