California to sue Trump over cancelled high-speed rail funds
'Trump's termination of federal grants for California high-speed rail reeks of politics. It's yet another political stunt to punish California,' Newsom said. He added that the lawsuit aims to prevent further disruption to the project, which is expected to create 15,000 jobs.
The rail line, intended to connect Los Angeles and San Francisco in under three hours, has faced repeated delays and budget overruns since its launch in 2008. Trump's latest decision follows a Federal Railroad Administration report indicating the initial phase would miss its 2033 deadline.
'Not a SINGLE penny in Federal Dollars will go towards this Newscum SCAM ever again,' Trump posted on social media, using a derogatory nickname for Newsom. This marks the second time federal funding has been withdrawn, after Biden reinstated it in 2021.
Legal experts suggest that even if California wins the lawsuit, the funding loss will cause further delays. The US lags behind Europe and Asia in high-speed rail development, with the first fully operational line—connecting Los Angeles and Las Vegas—expected by 2028. - AFP
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Malay Mail
an hour ago
- Malay Mail
Europe is breaking its reliance on US climate data amid Trump-era science cuts
EU governments prepare to go it alone on some data after Trump cuts Data on sea-level rise and extreme weather events put at risk by cuts to NOAA Efforts builds on 'guerrilla archiving' — a dash by independent scientists to preserve US data BRUSSELS, August 3 — European governments are taking steps to break their dependence on critical scientific data the United States historically made freely available to the world, and are ramping up their own data collection systems to monitor climate change and weather extremes, according to Reuters interviews. The effort — which has not been previously reported — marks the most concrete response from the European Union and other European governments so far to the US government's retreat from scientific research under President Donald Trump's administration. Since his return to the White House, Trump has initiated sweeping budget cuts to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centres for Disease Control and other agencies, dismantling programmes conducting climate, weather, geospatial and health research, and taking some public databases offline. As those cuts take effect, European officials have expressed increasing alarm that — without continued access to US-supported weather and climate data — governments and businesses will face challenges in planning for extreme weather events and long-term infrastructure investment, according to Reuters interviews. In March, more than a dozen European countries urged the EU Commission to move fast to recruit American scientists who lose their jobs to those cuts. Asked for comment on NOAA cuts and the EU's moves to expand its own collection of scientific data, the White House Office of Management and Budget said Trump's proposed cuts to the agency's 2026 budget were aimed at programmes that spread 'fake Green New Scam 'science,'' a reference to climate change research and policy. 'Under President Trump's leadership, the US is funding real science again,' Rachel Cauley, an OMB spokesperson, said via email. European officials told Reuters that — beyond the risk of losing access to data that is bedrock to the world's understanding of climate change and marine systems — they were concerned by the general US pullback from research. 'The current situation is much worse than we could have expected,' Sweden's State Secretary for Education and Research Maria Nilsson, told Reuters. 'My reaction is, quite frankly, shock.' The Danish Meteorological Institute described the US government data as 'absolutely vital' — and said it relied on several data sets to measure including sea ice in the Arctic and sea surface temperatures. 'This isn't just a technical issue, reliable data underpins extreme weather warnings, climate projections, protecting communities and ultimately saves lives,' said Adrian Lema, director of the DMI's National Centre for Climate Research. Reuters interviewed officials from eight European countries who said their governments were undertaking reviews of their reliance on US marine, climate and weather data. Officials from seven countries — Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden — described joint efforts now in the early stages to safeguard key health and climate data and research programmes. Leaning on the US As a priority, the EU is expanding its access to ocean observation data, a senior European Commission official told Reuters. Those data sets are seen as critical to the shipping and energy industries as well as early storm warning systems. Over the next two years, the senior official said, the EU plans to expand its own European Marine Observation and Data Network which collects and hosts data on shipping routes, seabed habitats, marine litter and other concerns. The initiative was aimed at 'mirroring and possibly replacing US-based services,' the senior European Commission official told Reuters. Europe is particularly concerned about its vulnerability to US funding cuts to NOAA's research arm that would affect the Global Ocean Observing System, a network of ocean observation programmes that supports navigation services, shipping routes and storm forecasting, a second EU official told Reuters. The insurance industry relies on the Global Ocean Observing System's disaster records for risk modelling. Coastal planners use shoreline, sea-level, and hazard data to guide infrastructure investments. The energy industry uses oceanic and seismic datasets to assess offshore drilling or wind farm viability. In addition, the senior EU Commission official said, the EU is considering increasing its funding of the Argo programme, a part of the Global Ocean Observing System which operates a global system of floats to monitor the world's oceans and track global warming, extreme weather events and sea-level rise. NOAA last year described the programme, in operation for over 25 years, as the 'crown jewel' of ocean science. It makes its data freely available to the oil and gas industry, marine tourism and other industries. The United States funds 57 per cent of Argo's US$40 million annual operating expenses, while the EU funds 23 per cent. The White House and NOAA did not respond to questions about future support for that programme. The European moves to establish independent data collection and play a bigger role in Argo represent a historic break with decades of US leadership in ocean science, said Craig McLean, who retired in 2022 after four decades at the agency. He said US leadership of weather, climate and marine data collection was unmatched, and that through NOAA the US has paid for more than half of the world's ocean measurements. European scientists acknowledge the outsized role the US government has played in global scientific research and data collection — and that European countries have grown overly dependent on that work. 'It's a bit like defence: we rely heavily on the US in that area, too. They're trailblazers and role models-but that also makes us dependent on them,' Katrin Boehning-Gaese, scientific director of Germany's Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, told Reuters. 'Guerrilla archivists' A number of European governments are now taking measures to reduce that dependence. Nordic countries met to coordinate data storage efforts in the Spring, Norwegian Minister of Research and Higher Education Sigrun Aasland told Reuters. European science ministers also discussed the US science budget cuts at a meeting in Paris in May. Aasland said Norway was setting aside US$2 million to back up and store US data to ensure stable access. The Danish Meteorological Institute in February started downloading historical US climate data in case it is deleted by the US It is also preparing to switch from American observations to alternatives, Christina Egelund, Minister of Higher Education and Science of Denmark, said in an interview. 'The potentially critical issue is when new observations data stop coming in,' the Institute's Lema said. While weather models could continue to operate without US data, he said the quality would suffer. Meanwhile, the German government has commissioned scientific organisations, including the center, to review its reliance on US databases. Since Trump returned to the White House, scientists and citizens worldwide have been downloading US databases related to climate, public health or the environment that are slated for decommissioning — calling it 'guerrilla archiving.' 'We actually received requests-or let's say emergency calls-from our colleagues in the US, who said, 'We have a problem here... and we will have to abandon some datasets', said Frank Oliver Gloeckner, head of the digital archive PANGAEA, which is operated by publicly funded German research institutions. About 800 of NOAA's 12,000-strong workforce have been terminated or taken financial incentives to resign as part of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency cuts. The White House 2026 budget plan seeks to shrink NOAA even further, proposing a US$1.8 billion cut, or 27 per cent of the agency's budget, and a near-20 per cent reduction in staffing, bringing down the NOAA workforce to 10,000. The budget proposal would eliminate the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, NOAA's main research arm, which is responsible for ocean observatory systems including Argo, coastal observing networks, satellite sensors and climate model labs. It is also reducing its data products. Between April and June, NOAA announced on its website the decommissioning of 20 datasets or products related to earthquakes and marine science. NOAA did not respond to requests for comment. Gloeckner said there were no legal hurdles to storing the US government data as it was already in the public domain. But without significant funds and infrastructure, there are limits to what private scientists can save, said Denice Ross, a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, a nonprofit science policy group and the US government's chief data officer during Joe Biden's administration. Databases need regular updating — which requires the funding and infrastructure that only governments can provide, Ross said. Over the last few months, the Federation and EU officials have held a series of talks with European researchers, US philanthropies and health and environment advocacy groups to discuss how to prioritise what data to save. 'There is an opportunity for other nations and institutions and philanthropies to fill in the gaps if US quality starts to falter,' she said. — Reuters
The Star
2 hours ago
- The Star
Israeli writer David Grossman denounces Gaza 'genocide'
Award-winning Israeli author David Grossman called his country's campaign in Gaza "genocide" and said he was using the term with a "broken heart". This came days after a major Israeli rights group also used the same term, amid growing global alarm over starvation in the besieged territory. "For many years, I refused to use that term: 'genocide'," the prominent writer and peace activist told Italian daily La Repubblica in an interview published on Friday. "But now, after the images I have seen and after talking to people who were there, I can't help using it." Grossman told the paper he was using the word "with immense pain and with a broken heart." "This word is an avalanche: once you say it, it just gets bigger, like an avalanche. And it adds even more destruction and suffering," he said. Grossman's works, which have been translated into dozens of languages, have won many international prizes. He also won Israel's top literary prize in 2018, the Israel Prize for Literature, for his work spanning more than three decades. He said it was "devastating" to "put the words 'Israel' and 'famine' together" because of the Holocaust and our "supposed sensitivity to the suffering of humanity." The celebrated author has long been a critic of the Israeli government. - AFP
New Straits Times
3 hours ago
- New Straits Times
China and Russia start joint drills in Sea of Japan
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