Environmental Health

"In places like Indonesia, plastic refuse is often burned in unregulated low-tech furnaces that pose grave health risks."

"Trump administration rolled back clean-air rules to support AI-driven electricity demand. St. Louis faces poor air quality and high health costs as coal plants remain online."

"The Trump administration is tightening its grip over EPA’s scientific enterprise as it prepares to relocate employees from its once esteemed research arm."

"The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations is struggling to bring a new wave of nuclear startups into their system." "Several nuclear power startups are balking at joining the industry’s voluntary regulatory body in what could become a major shakeup to plant safety oversight."

"Colorado State University’s hurricane forecasting team is expecting El Niño to bring a slightly below-average season with 13 named storms, six hurricanes, and two major hurricanes."

The job of the E.P.A. chief is to protect human health by safeguarding “the air we breathe, the water we drink and land that grows our food,” as the agency’s founding charter puts it, and most administrators have talked about their work in those terms. Mr. Zeldin, though, speaks more about supporting industry and exporting fossil fuels than about protecting the environment."

"The acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has delayed publication of a CDC report showing the covid-19 vaccine cut the likelihood of emergency department visits and hospitalizations for healthy adults last winter by about half, according to two scientists familiar with the decision. The scientists spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation."

"A proposal to build a mega-manure digester in a small Washington state community is sparking uproar among citizens who say the project to convert waste from dairy cows into fuel will add to the region’s already significant pollution problems."

"March’s persistent unseasonable heat was so intense that the continental United States registered its most abnormally hot month in 132 years of records, according to federal weather data. And the next year or so looks to turn the dial up on global warmth even more, as some forecasts predict a brewing El Niño will reach superstrength."