Troubled Waters
Dear Reader,
Happy weekend. Here’s a news digest on the world’s most pressing health and environmental disparities:
🧓 NEW from The Xylom: Lake Victoria's Peatland Conundrum
The vulnerable peatlands that protect Kenyan communities on the edge of Lake Victoria from floods are also among the Earth’s richest carbon stores. Identifying them is easier said than done; conserving them, even harder.
This story is produced by The Xylom and copublished 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
THOMASVILLE, Ga. — Public Health Improvements Stall Amid Trump’s DEI Crackdown (Briah Lumpkins, KFF Health News)
“I unfortunately believe we’re going to see a reversal in the health profile of this country,” said Jalonne White-Newsome, an associate professor at the University of Michigan who served in the Biden administration as the first federal chief environmental justice officer.
“This current federal regime has decided that humanity and public health and justice don’t mean anything.”
ALDIE, Va. — Crops and solar power? Virginia farms are ripe for the combo. (Elizabeth McGowan, Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism)
“I tend to be skeptical of change,” [Roundabout Community Farm manager Teddy] Pitsiokos said. “But when offered the opportunity to do something new like this, I was super-excited. The results have been great.”
OKLAHOMA — 'Build it in Mar-a-Lago!' Trump's aluminum smelter upends Oklahoma governor's race (Ernest Scheyder, Reuters)
VERMILION PARISH, La. — Louisiana bets on rockets as Trump targets environmental reviews (Miranda Willson, E&E News)
TEXAS — Trump calls Texas’ data center opposition a “mistake” (Taylor Goldenstein, The Texas Tribune)
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🗺️ WHAT ELSE WE'RE READING
NEW YORK — U.S. news jobs are more than 3× more likely to be based in Manhattan than they were 25 years ago (Joshua Benton, Nieman Lab)
Having looked into the centralization of media employment a decade ago, I was inspired to revisit the data by an online complaint (from Minneapolis) about “the New York-ification of Democratic politics.” What I found is that New York-ification of media has for the most part continued to grow even as media industries have continued to struggle.
PALMYRA ATOLL — Trump is lifting protections in America’s largest marine protected areas (Lauren Sommer and Claire Harbage, NPR)
“It’s not just about the ecology and the plants and animals, but the living systems of human communities that evolved with those resources are just as important,” says Kekuewa Kikiloi, associate professor at the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
“With this new administration, we’re probably under the biggest threat we’ve ever faced in terms of trying to hold the line of defense for this place,” he says.
KARAK, Malaysia — China can’t get enough of this smelly fruit as farmers fight extreme weather to feed the craving (Kanis Leung, The Associated Press)
Still, global warming remains a threat, fueling the proliferation of once-rare pests and forcing Ooi to use pesticides more frequently, which he said have jumped some 30% in price from three years ago.
For the first time, Ooi didn’t see fruit bats, a main pollinator, at his orchard during this year’s flowering season. He said it could be a result of extreme heat or the widespread use of pesticides for pest and disease control.
SUMATRA, Indonesia — How rescued orangutans are rebuilding a new wild population in Sumatra (Nanang Sujana, Sandy Watt, Mongabay)
Returning orangutans to the wild is never simple: Some rescued apes spend years relearning the skills they would normally acquire from their mothers, while others must adapt to unfamiliar forests after being relocated. Not every reintroduction succeeds, but efforts in Jantho are proving remarkably successful.
The first Black woman to lead the CDC will face an uphill battle in restoring trust (Barbara Rodriguez, The 19th)
‘A Textbook Example of How Not to Cover Climate Propaganda’ (Phil Eil, ecoRI News)
Opinion: Biologists Should Articulate Their Position on AI (C Brandon Ogbunu, Undark)
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