Disasters

"America’s cancer research system, which has helped save millions of lives, is under threat in one of its most productive moments."

"USDA’s staffing cuts, scuttled conservation programs, and misdirected crop insurance are hitting farmers hard."

"Both House and Senate lawmakers have advanced bills rejecting the Trump administration’s proposal to eliminate climate research at the weather agency."

"A billion-dollar seawall may shield the city’s wealthy core — but not the vulnerable communities beyond it. Who will be forced to move?"

"Researching air quality is key to improving kids’ health, according to a new strategy from the Make America Healthy Again Commission unveiled Tuesday by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. There’s just one problem: EPA, under Zeldin’s leadership, has shuttered the preeminent laboratory in the country studying air pollution’s impact on people."

"For decades, scientists believed Prochlorococcus, the smallest and most abundant phytoplankton on Earth, would thrive in a warmer world. But new research suggests the microscopic bacterium, which forms the foundation of the marine food web and helps regulate the planet’s climate, will decline sharply as seas heat up."

"Fifty-five heat waves over the past quarter-century would not have happened without human-caused climate change, according to a study published Wednesday."

"An online disaster management tool that U.S. emergency managers use to communicate may no longer be supported Wednesday, according to a notice posted and later deleted from a federal government website."

"Disaster survivors are having to wait longer to get aid from the federal government, according to a new Associated Press analysis of decades of data. On average, it took less than two weeks for a governor’s request for a presidential disaster declaration to be granted in the 1990s and early 2000s. ... It’s taking more than a month, on average, so far during Trump’s current term, the AP found."

"The smoke from the wildfires that burned through Los Angeles in January smelled like plastic and was so thick that it hid the ocean. Firefighters who responded developed instant migraines, coughed up black goo and dropped to their knees, vomiting and dizzy."