People & Population

"Risks from cancer and other diseases could be hidden with little accountability if justices favor big firms, critics warn"

"Despite hours of impassioned arguments from Sen. Tina Smith, the U.S. Senate ended a Biden-era moratorium on mining in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness watershed."

"CONGAREE NATIONAL PARK, S.C. — Rising possibly 175 feet above the floodplain, propped up by a trunk 15 feet around at its base, America’s tallest loblolly pine dwarfed the veteran state biologist standing beneath it."

"A new Gallup survey found that a record-low 35 percent of American respondents rated the quality of their country’s environment positively, just more than a week before Earth Day."

"The Trump administration is considering Houman Hemmati, an ophthalmologist, entrepreneur and frequent Fox News guest, to serve as the nation’s next top regulator of vaccines and treatments for complex diseases, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal conversations."

"Public health officials in Omaha, Nebraska, say not enough kids who live near the country’s largest residential lead cleanup site are tested for the metal. Faced with similar crises or concerns, 13 states have passed laws requiring all kids to get a blood test for lead early in life."

"Public health experts in California are pushing to ban engineered quartz in an effort to protect countertop fabrication workers from a growing epidemic of a deadly lung disease, but Republicans in Congress are trying to protect the industry with a bill that would ban lawsuits against manufacturers."

"Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee’s committee consulted with the Trump administration the day before Lee introduced his wildly unpopular bill to force a sell-off of up to 3.2 million acres of federal public lands across the West, Public Domain has learned."

"Winter's disastrously low snowfall could further complicate an already audacious plan to refill the dying Great Salt Lake in time for the 2034 Winter Olympics in Utah."

"After Canadian wildfires brought extremely poor air quality to Detroit in the summers of 2023 and 2025, Michigan is updating how it communicates air quality risks to residents this year."