Forests

"The Trump administration’s new wildfire agency is taking shape at the Interior Department, coalescing around a mission to prioritize swiftly putting out fires on public lands, even as some experts question that strategy."

"Four doses of an experimental vaccine to protect against Lyme disease reduced the number of tick-borne infections by more than 70 percent, according to Pfizer and Valneva, the pharmaceutical companies developing the shot." "If approved by regulators, it could become the only Lyme disease vaccine available for people — although it would not be the first."

"At first glance, it looks like nothing more than a charming Spanish-revival, quintessentially Californian home — but this Pacific Palisades rebuild is constructed like a tank."

"President Donald Trump’s sweeping changes at the National Park Service have destabilized the agency and its core missions, critics say."

"The US Forest Service is proposing a massive project in a national forest in Michigan that would log land roughly the size of Detroit, expand gravel mining and build roads."

"Political gridlock has allowed the situation to worsen for decades"

"Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee on Friday released text for the farm bill and announced they will mark up the bill on Feb. 23 — with the framework drawing immediate criticism from the top Democrat on the panel who accused Republicans of filling the package with poison pills."

"Across the calm waters behind a pumping station near Lake Borgne, hundreds of saplings stand out in the mist, wrapped in white plastic cylinders. To get there and to other sites like it, organizers have ferried dozens of volunteers week after week in airboats. They have a trailer equipped with supplies. Rubber boots in all different sizes. Bins full of snacks for the end of a hard day’s work."

"Brought to the United States as an ornamental porch decoration, the kudzu vine has reshaped itself into ladder fuel for wildfires."