"Interior Department staffers were optimistic after Doug Burgum was confirmed to lead the agency in 2025... . But since he took over at Interior last year, that hope has been replaced by confusion and concern that the agency is poorly run, has devolved into secrecy and has lost thousands of the staff needed to manage the national park systems and millions of acres of public lands."
"The Trump administration plans to rescind an EPA rule requiring states to consider tribes’ rights to fish, hunt and gather wild plants when establishing water quality protections — a policy the administration argues went beyond the agency’s authority."
"President Trump has nominated a former White House official and Project 2025 author to be the Interior Department’s internal watchdog, a move that critics say could hurt the integrity of the office’s investigations."
"A proposed expansion of an Elk Valley Resources’ coal mine in southeast British Columbia is moving through the environmental assessment process despite concerns over pollution. Decades of coal mining in the valley has led to harmful selenium concentrations and loads downstream, in British Columbia and the U.S. states of Montana and Idaho."
"The state is a major importer of fracking wastewater, which gets pumped underground but doesn’t always stay there. The city of Marietta is fighting back."
"The Trump administration is repurposing large chunks of federal land to host enormous data centers and the power plants needed to run them as officials seek to accelerate the development of artificial intelligence and overcome growing local opposition to the facilities."
"A record wave of brown, smelly seaweed is washing up on beaches along Mexico's Caribbean coast, forcing closures in top tourist destinations and inflicting mounting economic damage on hotels, restaurants and shops."
"Pediatric asthma is common in Calipatria, where young athletes compete despite extreme heat and air pollution. Some worry a lithium boom could make things worse."
"The Okefenokee Swamp is regarded as one of the world’s largest freshwater ecosystems, encompassing a vast network of wetlands that supports exceptional biodiversity and serves as the source of two major rivers. Its largely undisturbed peat beds preserve a 5,000-year record of environmental change, making the swamp both a globally significant natural habitat and a valuable source of information on long-term environmental change, according to a UNESCO description."
"In San Francisco Bay, new AI-powered technology aims to help ships dodge whales whose long-haul migration is being disrupted by climate change."
