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Top headlines
Lead story
It’s hard to ignore climate change when you’re living with the consequences: rising temperatures that put lives at risk, intensifying storms that damage property, droughts that dry up farm fields and rangeland. As greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, studies show those harms are expected to worsen, leaving future generations facing even greater health risks.
The Trump administration sees things differently. On Thursday it moved to rescind the endangerment finding – a 2009 federal determination that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare. The finding underpins most U.S. climate policies. In announcing the move, President Donald Trump talked about the benefits of fossil fuels and claimed the endangerment finding had “no basis in fact. None whatsoever.”
We asked a team of physicians and environmental health scientists to take a closer look at the health risks linked to greenhouse gas emissions for our lead story today.
“Anybody who has fallen ill during a heat wave, struggled while breathing wildfire smoke or been injured cleaning up from a hurricane knows that climate change can threaten human health,” write Jonathan Levy of Boston University, Howard Frumkin of the University of Washington, and Jonathan Patz and Vijay Limaye of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The group writes about those and several other climate-related risks.
The administration’s move will be challenged in court. But as Wesleyan University economist Gary Yohe explains in a second story, rescinding the endangerment finding – no matter what the courts eventually rule – lets the administration start rolling back more U.S. climate policies now, stop collecting important emissions data and likely take more actions to defund science
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Stacy Morford
Senior Environment, Climate and Energy Editor
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Rising global temperatures are increasing the risk of heat stroke on hot days, among many other human harms.
Ronda Churchill/AFP via Getty Images
Jonathan Levy, Boston University; Howard Frumkin, University of Washington; Jonathan Patz, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Vijay Limaye, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Climate change is making people sicker and more vulnerable to disease, doctors and scientists explain. Erasing the federal endangerment finding increases the risk.
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Economy + Business
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Alnoor Ebrahim, Tufts University
OpenAI’s restructuring may serve as a test case for how society oversees the work of organizations with the potential to both provide benefits and harm humanity.
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Stephen J. Smulowitz, Wake Forest University
The effect of women board members on patent activity hinges on whether the company is meeting performance targets.
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Health + Medicine
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Christopher Lieu, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus; Andrea Dwyer, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Colon cancer symptoms can be subtle. While lifestyle changes can help reduce your risk, open communication with your family and doctor is essential.
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Ana Santos Rutschman, Villanova University
The move signals an escalation in the agency’s efforts to interfere with established procedures for testing and approving vaccines.
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Emily Hemendinger, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Athletes in sports where weight and body image come into play, such as figure skating and wrestling, can be particularly vulnerable.
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Science + Technology
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Jamey Jacob, Oklahoma State University
Companies are selling a range of anti-drone devices, from guns that fire nets to powerful laser weapons, but no one system is sufficient for defending airports, power plants and other critical sites.
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Carlo Rindi Nuzzolo, University of California, Los Angeles
Digital tools allow archaeologists to identify similarities between fragments and artifacts and potentially recover previously unknown parts of their stories.
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Politics + Society
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Charlie Hunt, Boise State University
Special election results have anticipated recent midterm outcomes. With Democrats now overperforming, that could spell trouble for the GOP in 2026.
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Environment + Energy
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Hannah Wiseman, Penn State; Seth Blumsack, Penn State
The Trump administration has made several efforts to support the coal industry, but even if coal were free, the economics aren’t in its favor.
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