Last Tuesday, Senator Mitch McConnell returned to Congress after a three-month absence and promptly cast a deciding vote in the Republican-led agricultural committee. Back in August, Democrats on the committee blocked the Senate’s version of the farm bill from progressing to a full vote. But even after McConnell’s vote, the...
Federal court rules there is no constitutional right to safe drinking water
A federal appeals court has used a decades-long water crisis in one of the Blackest cities in America to rule that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee Americans the right to clean and safe drinking water. The September 4 ruling came even after Jackson, Mississippi, residents alleged officials knew the...
In Savannah, Georgia’s utility regulators faced public wrath over data centers
Georgia’s Public Service Commission, or PSC — the group that has final say over how the state’s largest electric utility generates electricity and how much it charges customers — regularly hears from members of the public during its meetings. But because those meetings are almost always in Atlanta, many of the...
Federal transit cuts could hit rural America hardest
As the executive director of the Living Independent Network Corp, Jeremy Maxand does what he can to help people who don’t drive get around in southern Idaho. As in most of rural America, public transit options are limited. The nonprofit organization, which serves those with disabilities, receives $100,000 annually from...
A trip down the road that will determine the fate of the Amazon
For much of his career, Carlos Santos’ job involved being stranded in the middle of the Amazon. Santos is a truck driver on the BR-319, a hazardous dirt highway in Brazil that cuts through a critical part of the rainforest. “You knew when you were going in,” he said of...
Juneau can’t stop the floods, but it’s learning to see them coming
Two years ago, John Lowrey woke to the roar of water surging into his home. The 65-year-old retiree and father of five rushed toward his basement just as a 3-foot wave slammed through the door, tearing it from its hinges. Water crashed through his bay windows, drowning the family’s piano...
The fate of the Endangered Species Act rests on 2 simple words
The Endangered Species Act has stood as a pillar of conservation in the United States since 1973, bringing animals like bald eagles, manatees, and humpback whales back from the brink of extinction. But now, the Trump administration has taken its boldest step yet in an effort to strip legal protections...
As Russia attacks Ukraine’s grid, solar offers a path to resilience
On a spring day earlier this year, 10 men stood on the rooftop of a door manufacturing facility in the central Ukrainian town of Bila Tserkva, surveying the rows of solar panels that surrounded them. Since Russia invaded in 2022, the town has endured repeated attacks, triggering mass power outages....
She governs a US territory. But she has no say in who mines its waters.
Lou Leon Guerrero, the governor of Guam, learned about the government’s plan to mine her people’s waters the same way everyone else did: by reading the news. It was November 12, and her advisor had sent her an article link — apparently, a journalist had inquired about it. She opened...
Gray whales are starving as the Arctic warms. Will the US protect them?
Several hundred scientists, government officials, and environmentalists gathered for an unusual two-day conference in Newport, Oregon, last week, entirely focused on a single species: gray whales. It was an urgent meeting. The number of gray whales along the U.S. West Coast has recently plummeted by the thousands, falling by half...