Biodiversity

"The House-passed National Defense Authorization Act would spur an investigation of whether the U.S. military bioengineered Lyme disease."

"For ecologists, the Covid-19 pandemic has presented a remarkable natural experiment in what can happen to wild animals when humans stay home."

"Costa Rica’s fuel subsidies are funding widespread poaching and overfishing in supposedly protected waters."

"Ice blocks drift past Tristen Pattee’s boat as he scans the banks of Northwest Alaska’s Kobuk River for caribou. His great uncle Ernest steadies a rifle on his lap. It’s the last day of September, and by every measure of history and memory, thousands should have crossed by now. But the tundra is empty, save for the mountains looming on the horizon — the Gates of the Arctic National Park."

"A federal lawsuit filed Thursday challenges an oil company’s new permit to explore for oil in a remote region of the Arctic in Alaska, arguing that such activity threatens the tundra’s ecosystem and the caribou herds that Native communities rely on for sustenance."

"Lawmakers’ bid to slow the closure of the department’s largest research facility rests on iffy legal ground but waves a yellow flag at the Trump administration."

"In a new letter to U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is warning that  Jeffrey Clark’s role as “Acting Administrator” of the Office of information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) is in violation of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA) and actions he has taken could be in legal jeopardy."

"Corn dominates U.S. farmland and fuels the ethanol industry. But the fertilizer it relies on drives emissions and fouls drinking water."