Eating Bats is Still A Public Health Risk
Dear Reader,
Happy Hump Day! We will be taking a break this Saturday to observe Labor Day weekend (and so I can recover from what will be an excruciatingly unnerving wisdom teeth extraction). We shall meet again for The Roots on Sunday with an update from our Editor-at-Large KC Cheng. Stay tuned!
Here are the top stories on the world’s most pressing health and environmental disparities:
Best regards,
Alex Ip
Publisher and Editor
🦇 ICYMI: Bats Traded for Traditional Medicine Put Nigeria at Risk of Zoonotic Disease Transmission
As Nigerian locals trade in dead bats for traditional healers to prepare concoctions for women battling infertility, researchers remain concerned about potential transmission risks.
This story is produced by The Xylom and co-published by Sayansi Magazine, a Kenya-based science magazine published by the Media for Environment, Science, Health and Agriculture (MESHA). Read more here.
🍑 A SOUTHERN FLAIR
LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. — Is This the Future of America? (Lauren Finer and Stephen Ross, The Verge)
Within the past few years, data centers have been elevated from an unremarkable part of daily life in Loudoun to something that many residents now think about every day. For some, it’s the constant hum they hear from their decks; for others, it’s the transmission towers that loom over their favorite green space, or the surprise call from their energy utility that one of those towers could go up in their own backyard. While residents recognize that data centers have brought a lot of prosperity to the county, they’re beginning to wonder how much more they can take.
How North Carolina Wasted the Chance To Fix Hog Pollution (Lisa Sorg, Inside Climate News)
“It’s mind-boggling that in 2026, when we can get internet from satellites, the main way the hog industry stores and disposes of waste is a pit in the ground. I mean, that is just unacceptable at this stage,” [said Blakely Hildebrand, who works on agricultural issues as a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.]
Texas hospitals expect to lose $27 million a day in Medicaid funding starting Tuesday (Terri Langford, The Texas Tribune)
“It is impossible for a hospital to take a huge loss on a Medicaid side of their portfolio and not have that impact services across the board, regardless of what type of insurance a patient has,” said Sara González, a THA vice president of advocacy, public policy and political strategy.
HARMONY, N.C. — Four baby goats at mobile petting zoo in North Carolina test positive for rabies (Dennis Romero, NBC News)
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Scientist Trying to Keep Kratom Legal Has Not Disclosed Longstanding Ties to Kratom Lobbyists (Anjeanette Damon, ProPublica)
🟠 TRACKING TRUMP
Secretive deals may cut billions from U.S. global health spending, analysis shows (Adam Taylor, The Washington Post)
The analysis by Public Citizen and Partners in Health shows that across 17 countries whose full agreements were reviewed, and an 18th where just the top-line figures have been revealed, the Trump administration is seeking to reduce global health funding by 59 percent from 2024 levels by 2030.
Trump’s Quietly Working to Give Part of Yosemite to a Private Developer (Anna Kramer, NOTUS)
Interior’s advocacy for the deal is a significant reversal of a pledge Secretary Doug Burgum made in his 2025 confirmation hearing: “The national parks, absolutely we need to support and protect every single inch of those,” he said.
It also contravenes the presidential message Trump shared on Aug. 24 of this year, to announce the beginning of National Park Week: “My Administration is committed to protecting every acre of our lands and preserving the cleanest air and water in the world.”
And it goes against the agency’s past position on this specific piece of land. The Park Service has received this privatization request before, and it has rejected it repeatedly for over two decades.
USDA cyclospora research projects shelved amid funding cuts and relocations (Marcia Brown and Rachel Shin, POLITICO)
“We know so little, and I think that that’s been very frustrating to consumers,” said Kalmia Kniel, who studied with the BARC parasite scientists before becoming a professor researching cyclospora at the University of Delaware.
CDC Scrubs Two Pennsylvania Measles Deaths From Its Website (Angie Orellana Hernandez, NOTUS)
‘A New Form of U.S. Colonialism’: Venezuelans Bristle at U.S. Oil Takeover (Julie Turkewitz, The New York Times)
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🗺️ WHAT ELSE WE'RE READING
Pe’ Sla, S.D. — A rare win in Indian country: how tribes drove out a mining company in one week (Shilpi Chhotray, The Guardian)
“We’re just not used to winning,” said Dr Valeriah Big Eagle, who directs the Black Hills work of NDN Collective, an Indigenous-led advocacy nonprofit based in Rapid City. “We’re people used to being screwed over by the government at every level.”
LAS VEGAS — A fatal forecast (Katelyn Newberg and Alan Halaly, Las Vegas Review-Journal)
But in Las Vegas’ urban core, the survey estimates that some neighborhoods have up to 5 percent of households without AC. Those areas can overlap with ZIP codes that have seen higher numbers of heat-related deaths in recent summers, as well as pockets of the valley considered “heat islands,” with hotter afternoon temperatures, according to a 2022 study from the Regional Transportation Commission.
Read more: NPR spent 2 years tracking deaths from heat. We found a staggering hidden toll (Alejandra Borunda, NPR)
SARAWAK, Malaysia — Malaysia’s air quality turns hazardous as Indonesian wildfires burn (Ushar Daniele, South China Morning Post)
Climate scientists have linked the fires to El Nino, the climate pattern associated with reduced rainfall across much of Southeast Asia.
Fredolin Tanggang, professor emeritus of climatology and climate change at the National University of Malaysia, said the phenomenon should be understood as triggering a chain of interconnected, and partly foreseeable, risks that could be anticipated and, at least to some extent, prevented.
KIGALI, Rwanda — Rwandans love their milk bars. The health minister wishes they'd drink a little less (Fatma Tanis, NPR)
"I can't drink milk in a box. No way," says JP Sagahutu, who consumes about four 8-ounce glasses of milk a day.
He tries to think of the best adjective to describe the beverage. "I don't know the wording in English, but it's something sacré," he says — using the French word for sacred. Many Rwandans speak the language because the country was a Belgian colony until 1962.
Other customers nod in agreement: Milk is holy. In fact, as a sign of respect you must only drink it while sitting down.
‘Breakthrough’ as Turkmenistan starts fixing ‘mindboggling’ methane mega-leaks (Damian Carrington, The Guardian)
“Stemming methane emissions from oil and gas operations is the quickest and most cost-effective method to reduce climate pollution available today,” said [Dan Grossman, the vice-president at the Environmental Defense Fund]. “Alerts only matter if they lead to action, and governments and industry must do a better job.”
NUWAKOT, Nepal — A Principal Saved 900 Students Before His School Was Washed Away in Nepal (paywalled) (Binod Ghimire and Claire Moses, The New York Times)
YORK, Maine — Invasive green crabs are bad for the environment, so New Englanders are starting to eat more of them (Michael Casey, AP)
Read more: Japan is using AI, drones and wolf robots to keep bears at bay (Salome Grouard, CNN)
Read even more: Costa Rica to require wildlife crossings for roads when they impact fauna (Bobby Bascomb, Mongabay)
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