By Conor Finnegan 9 May 2019 (ABC News) – Two days after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cut a stop from his trip to Germany, his office announced that he was canceling another visit — this time to Greenland, where Pompeo was to see melting glaciers at the forefront of climate change. Pompeo had to […]
By Shirin Jaafari 29 April 2019 (PRI) – Since March, Iran has been ravaged by record rainfall and unprecedented flash flooding. At least 26 of 31 provinces have been impacted by the deadly floods. One city received 70% of its annual rainfall in a single day. Dozens of people have died. “This is the largest disaster to hit Iran in more than 15 years,” […]
By Lena H. Sun 25 April 2019 (The Washington Post) – Measles cases in the United States have now exceeded the highest number on record in a single year since the disease was eliminated in 2000. Nationwide, 695 cases of the vaccine-preventable illness had been reported in 22 states this year, as of 3 p.m. Wednesday […]
By Joel Connelly 11 April 2019 (SeattlePI) – President Donald Trump has signed an executive order designed to block states from using a provision of the Clean Water Act to delay or prevent big oil and coal projects such as a proposed coal export terminal in Longview on the Columbia River. The states of Washington […]
Rebecca Hersher28 March 2019 (NPR) – Several members of a powerful science panel for the Environmental Protection Agency expressed doubt at a hearing Thursday about the long-established scientific consensus that air pollution can cause premature death. The panel was meeting to consider recommendations that would fundamentally change how the agency analyzes the public health dangers […]
By Robert Kagan 14 March 2019 (The Washington Post) – Of all the geopolitical transformations confronting the liberal democratic world these days, the one for which we are least prepared is the ideological and strategic resurgence of authoritarianism. We are not used to thinking of authoritarianism as a distinct worldview that offers a real alternative […]
19 February 2019 (Silencing Science Tracker) – On 19 February 2019, a bill (House File 428) was introduced in the Iowa legislature that would, if enacted, reinstate “the science standards utilized by school districts in this state during the 2014-2015 school year.” This would effectively prevent use of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), which were […]
By Lauran Neergaard 27 February 2019 WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. has counted more measles cases in the first two months of this year than in all of 2017 — and part of the rising threat is misinformation that makes some parents balk at a crucial vaccine, federal health officials told Congress Wednesday. Yet the […]
By Michael J. Abramowitz and Arch Puddington25 February 2019 (The Diplomat) – Ethnic cleansing, a staple of geopolitical crises in the 1990s, is making a comeback. According to Freedom in the World, the annual report on political rights and civil liberties published by Freedom House, the number of countries earning a score deduction for some […]
By Lena H. Sun and Maureen O’Hagan 6 February 2019 VANCOUVER, Washington (The Washington Post) – Amber Gorrow is afraid to leave her house with her infant son because she lives at the epicenter of Washington state’s worst measles outbreak in more than two decades. Born eight weeks ago, Leon is too young to get […]
