"The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will now require disaster survivors to register for federal aid using an email address—a departure from previous policy where email addresses were optional. The move, FEMA employees tell WIRED, puts people across the US with little to no access to internet services at risk of losing out on crucial federal financial assistance after disasters."

"The Interior Department is deputizing federal border agents and sending them to National Park Service sites amid the federal law enforcement takeover of Washington, D.C., Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Wednesday."

"If a major hurricane approaches Central Florida this season, Maria knows it’s dangerous to stay inside her wooden, trailer-like home. In past storms, she evacuated to her sister’s sturdier house. If she couldn’t get there, a shelter set up at the local high school served as a refuge if needed. But with accelerating detentions and deportations of immigrants across her community of Apopka, 20 miles (32 kilometers) northwest of Orlando, Maria, an agricultural worker from Mexico without permanent U.S. legal status, doesn’t know if those options are safe."

"The Agriculture Department is curtailing its support for solar and wind energy on farmlands."

"The Trump administration's plan to undo a landmark finding that climate pollution threatens public health and welfare poses lots of risks for corporate America."

"China has been installing solar panels at a blistering pace, far faster than anywhere else in the world, and the investment is starting to pay off. A study released Thursday found that the country’s carbon emissions edged down 1% in the first six months of the year compared to a year earlier, extending a trend that began in March 2024."

"Hayden, a long-established coal community, is pitching companies to come take advantage of “reliable, cost-effective heating and cooling” at its light industrial park once its new geothermal network is complete."

"A decades-long battle to transform a Southeast Chicago lakefront property into a public park is starting to bear fruit. But where the new toxic sludge will go has yet to be determined."

"A train derails and spills at least 1,000 gallons of hazardous materials in the U.S. about once every two months. Nearly half of those derailments resulted in evacuations; more than a quarter resulted in a fire or explosion since 2015, an analysis of federal derailment data showed. And many communities along the rail lines aren’t prepared to keep people safe when it happens."

"While touting a $50 million initiative to identify the causes of autism, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is helping lead an administration that is rolling back protections against pollution and toxic chemicals, including some linked to the condition."