Thousands of US counties have increased their tree cover
Between 2000 and 2020, data found a mean increase of 8.15 percent tree cover across 1,836 counties, which experts say will help the country beat the heat and breathe cleaner air. The Midwest region saw the highest increase, but counties home to some of the most populated metro areas, like Brooklyn, N.Y., and Detroit, also saw small gains.
Lea County, N.M., is one of the 25 largest counties in the U.S. by land area, and it experienced a 1,600 percent increase in forest canopy. Other places with a significant increase in forest canopy include Florida's Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.
Tree cover performs many functions in the environment and increases biodiversity in wooded areas. A new study also shows it may help detect volcano eruptions.
With human development being a major cause of tree loss across the U.S., many states have committed to planting more trees to make up for it, including Wisconsin, Hawaii and Maryland.
But it comes after the Trump administration announced plans last month to strip protections that prevent logging on nearly 59 million acres of National Forest System lands.
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Politico
an hour ago
- Politico
NIAID acting director's view of ‘risky research'
THE LAB Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, acting director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says conducting so-called gain-of-function research shouldn't be dismissed. He discussed the controversial topic with his boss, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, on the latter's 'Director's Desk' podcast this week. What is it? Gain-of-function involves genetically altering pathogens to make them deadlier or more transmissible to better study them. But the research is a lightning rod issue for President Donald Trump and many Republicans in Congress who believe the Covid-19 pandemic was caused by a lab leak stemming from gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, where the virus first emerged. That thinking puts them at odds with most of the scientific community who believe the virus most likely spilled over from animals into humans. In May, Trump signed an executive order banning all 'present and all future' federal funding for gain-of-function research in countries like China,which Trump said has insufficient research oversight. He also ordered the National Institutes of Health to review and possibly halt experiments the administration believes could endanger Americans' lives. In Congress, Sen. Rand Paul's (R-Ky.) Risky Research Review Act, which hasn't yet been taken up by the full Senate, would create a panel to review funding for gain-of-function research. Not black and white: During the podcast, Bhattacharya asked Taubenberger how the institute should approach gain-of-function research. 'It's not a simple black-and-white issue,' replied Taubenberger, a senior investigator in virology who's a leading expert on the 1918 flu pandemic and sequenced the virus that caused it. He's also co-leading the effort to develop a universal flu vaccine, backed with $500 million from the Trump administration. 'Very reasonable, very well-informed people could fall on opposite sides of the line, wherever you draw the line,' he said. 'Having a wide variety of people with different levels of expertise — not just logic expertise, but safety, national security, all sorts of other questions — having them weigh in on this is really important.' Regardless of where people fall, gain-of-function work shouldn't be shut down, he said. 'Work on nasty bugs that have the potential to kill people, for which we want to develop better therapeutics, diagnostics, prognostics, treatments and preventatives, needs to happen. That's important for global health. It's important for U.S. health,' Taubenberger said. But that research has to be done very carefully, with oversight and should be evaluated on a risk-benefit basis, he warned. While the pandemic turbocharged the issue, the controversy over gain-of-function predates Covid-19. The government paused funding for the research roughly a decade ago, Taubenberger pointed out, while they put stronger oversight mechanisms in place. 'I favor this kind of work being done, where possible, in U.S. government labs, by U.S. government scientists, monitored by U.S. government safety officials and regulators — with openness and transparency.' What didn't come up in conversation: The implementation of Trump's executive order hasn't gone as smoothly as the podcast discussion might have suggested. A July post on the NIH's X account implied that staff at the NIAID had acted inappropriately by omitting certain grants while compiling a list of potentially dangerous gain-of-function research experiments in compliance with the order. Contacted by POLITICO at the time, an official at HHS described the behavior as 'malicious compliance' and said the administration wouldn't tolerate it. NIH Principal Deputy Director Matt Memoli, according to The Washington Post, overrode staff by classifying tuberculosis studies NIH reviewers deemed safe as potentially dangerous gain-of-function research. WELCOME TO FUTURE PULSE Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) described undergoing mental health treatment with the psychedelic drug ibogaine to the New York Times. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Ruth Reader at rreader@ or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@ Want to share a tip securely? Message us on Signal: RuthReader.02 or ErinSchumaker.01. TECH MAZE Under Gov. Gavin Newsom, California has moved faster than other states to regulate artificial intelligence, including signing a bill last year barring health insurers in the state from using AI to deny claims. Now, a prominent AI company is urging the Democratic governor to consider a less rigid regulatory approach. In a letter to Newsom, obtained by our POLITICO colleagues at California Decoded, OpenAI suggests that California should consider AI companies that sign onto national and international AI agreements as compliant with state AI rules. The letter, dated Monday, from OpenAI's Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane, comes as Sacramento continues to debate key AI legislation, including Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener's bill SB 53, which would require large AI developers to publish safety and security protocols on their websites. Lehane recommended that 'California take the lead in harmonizing state-based AI regulation with emerging global standards' when it comes to the technology, dubbing it the California Approach. World view: OpenAI and other developers have already signed, or plan to sign, onto the EU's AI code of practice and have committed to conducting national security-related assessments of their programs. Lehane said that 'we encourage the state to consider frontier model developers compliant with its state requirements when they sign onto a parallel regulatory framework like the [European Union's] CoP or enter into a safety-oriented agreement with a relevant US federal government agency.' Newsom spokesperson Tara Gallegos said, 'We have received the letter. We don't typically comment on pending legislation.' Worth noting: The EU code is a voluntary way for companies to comply with the bloc's AI Act and is nonbinding in the U.S., which has no equivalent. Commitments to work with federal regulators don't necessarily cover all the areas, like deepfakes or chatbots, where Sacramento wants to regulate AI. But the letter offers Newsom something of an off-ramp, after he vetoed Wiener's broader AI safety bill last year that would have required programs to complete prerelease safety testing. Last week, Newsom spoke with cautious positivity about Wiener's effort this year, saying it was in the spirit of an expert report on AI regulation he commissioned. But SB 53 — which would establish whistleblower protections for AI workers and require companies to publish their own internal safety testing — still faces opposition from the tech industry. Lehane's letter puts an industry-sponsored solution on the governor's desk. He framed the simplified California Approach as a way to give 'democratic AI' an edge in the race with Chinese-built programs by removing unnecessary regulation, a key priority for the Trump administration. 'Imagine how hard it would have been during the Space Race had California's aerospace and technology industries been encumbered by regulations that impeded rapid innovation,' Lehane wrote.
Politico
5 hours ago
- Politico
Long Covid's lingering financial side effects
LONG COVID'S TOLL — More than five years after the Covid-19 pandemic first ravaged the nation, many Americans are still dealing with the social and economic fallout of having contracted the disease. People with long Covid — those who have new or persistent symptoms lasting three months past infection — have experienced worse financial and employment outcomes, lasting up to three years after their initial infection, compared with people who haven't had the disease, according to a study published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open from researchers at Rush University Medical Center, Yale School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and other research institutions. Long Covid patients reported worse work impairment, missed work and financial distress compared with those who never had Long Covid, the study found. Vaccination against Covid was associated with improved work and economic outcomes. Not just physical: 'While much of the focus in Long COVID research has been on the medical impact, we must also consider the sustained financial burden faced by those whose symptoms persist,' lead author Michael Gottlieb, an emergency medicine doctor and vice chair of research at Rush, said in a statement. Addressing the financial burden of long Covid might 'require policy interventions, such as expanded disability benefits or workplace accommodations to help combat the work and financial impact of this condition,' the authors wrote. The researchers analyzed self-reported data from more than 3,600 participants in the Innovative Support for Patients with SARS-CoV-2 Infections Registry, a CDC-funded initiative aimed at better understanding Covid's long-term effects. Why it matters: About 6 percent of U.S. adults suffer from some form of long Covid, according to CDC estimates. The National Institutes of Health believes that as many as 23 million people have the illness, which can range in severity from mild to debilitating. The symptoms, which can include fatigue, headaches and brain fog, can be life-disrupting for many patients. Some treatments, like Paxlovid, have shown promise in reducing symptoms, but being diagnosed and finding suitable treatment can be difficult because of the disease's wide range of symptoms that often overlap with other conditions. HHS recently shut down its long Covid office, a casualty of the Trump administration's sweeping reorganization of the agency. At the time the closure was announced, an HHS employee who worked on long Covid and who was granted anonymity to share details of the move told POLITICO that abandoning work that could have cured the disease means the country's health care system will have to provide years, if not decades, of costly care for tens of millions of chronically ill people. In March, the Trump administration also canceled dozens of grants for long Covid projects, but some funding was restored after advocates fought back. WELCOME TO WEDNESDAY PULSE. I'm still reeling from Taylor Swift announcing her new album. Send your Swiftie theories, scoops and feedback to khooper@ and sgardner@ and follow along @kelhoops and @sophie_gardnerj. At the Agencies LOOMER'S LATEST PREY — After successfully ousting several members of Trump's administration for alleged insufficient loyalty, far-right activist and MAGA influencer Laura Loomer tells our colleagues at Playbook that she has her next target: Stefanie Spear, the principal deputy chief of staff and senior counselor to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The reason why, in part: 'I think that there's a clear intention by Stefanie Spear to utilize her position to try to lay the groundwork for a 2028 RFK presidential run,' Loomer alleges. Asked for comment by Playbook, a senior HHS official did not deny that Kennedy is weighing a presidential bid. Read the full story in this morning's Playbook. CDC LATEST — CDC officials held a tense all-hands meeting Tuesday in the aftermath of last week's shooting at the agency's Atlanta headquarters, Sophie reports with POLITICO's Amanda Friedman and Lauren Gardner. The meeting came as law enforcement officials revealed early Tuesday additional information about the nature of the shooting: The man who opened fire at the agency on Friday died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound and was motivated by his distrust of Covid-19 vaccines. Agency update: At the CDC's all-hands meeting, Director Susan Monarez thanked employees for their work and acknowledged that 'misinformation can be dangerous,' according to a live transcript obtained by POLITICO. 'In moments like this, we must meet the challenges with rational, evidence-based discourse spoken with compassion and understanding,' she said. 'That is how we will lead.' CDC employees were closely watching Monarez at the meeting to see how she would respond to the shooting and the news that the suspected shooter had expressed distrust of the Covid vaccine. Two CDC employees, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told POLITICO that Monarez's speech was not what they'd hoped. '[Twenty minutes] of reading off a teleprompter,' one of the employees said in a text, adding that Monarez's remarks prompted an 'overwhelmingly negative response from folks in my immediate orbit.' Another agency employee said the meeting was in stark contrast to a separate meeting held for the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases staff on Saturday, where employees could ask Monarez questions. What's next: HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said that staff would have 'continued opportunities' to voice their perspectives to CDC leadership in the days ahead. 'Friday's shooting was a traumatic event for the agency, and leadership is working to provide continued updates along with resources for healing and recovery,' Nixon said in a statement. DOGE SAVINGS — The Trump administration has drastically exaggerated how much money it has saved through DOGE-related cuts to federal contracts, including at health agencies, according to an analysis of public data and federal spending records from POLITICO's Jessie Blaeser. Through July, DOGE said it had saved taxpayers $52.8 billion by canceling contracts, but of the $32.7 billion in actual claimed contract savings that POLITICO could verify, DOGE's savings over that period were closer to $1.4 billion. Despite the administration's claims, none of that $1.4 billion will lower the federal deficit unless Congress steps in. Instead, the money has been returned to agencies mandated by law to spend it. The health claims: Under the VA, DOGE's wall of receipts reported savings of $932 million from contracts canceled through June, including awards for a cancer registry, suicide-prevention services and other health care support. Federal records show the VA recovered just $132 million from the awards, or less than 15 percent of what DOGE claimed, and that the VA reinstated the contract for suicide-prevention support. One of DOGE's largest savings claims is from a canceled contract for a shelter in Pecos, Texas, to house unaccompanied migrant children. In a post on social media platform X in February, DOGE said HHS 'paid ~$18M/month' to keep the now-empty center open. Canceling the agreement, it said, would translate to more than $215 million in annual savings for taxpayers. By the time the contract was added to the DOGE termination list, that savings claim skyrocketed to $2.9 billion. But HHS and its Office of Refugee Resettlement were not on track to spend anywhere close to the contract's $3.3 billion ceiling. WHAT WE'RE READING POLITICO's Tyler Katzenberger reports on a federal judge blocking the Trump administration from using Medicaid beneficiaries' personal data for immigration enforcement purposes. Bloomberg Law's Celine Castronuovo reports on Texas' attorney general accusing Eli Lilly of unlawfully pushing providers to prescribe its blockbuster obesity drugs and other treatments to receive Medicaid payments.
CNN
8 hours ago
- CNN
The perfectly fine, already-paid-for satellites Trump wants to destroy in a fiery atmospheric reentry
NASA is planning to decommission premier satellite missions that gather information on planet-warming pollution and other climate vital signs beginning as soon as October, sources inside and outside of the agency told CNN. The destruction of the satellites — which will be abandoned and allowed to eventually burn up in a fiery descent into Earth's atmosphere — marks the latest step by the Trump administration to scale back federal climate science. President Donald Trump's budget proposal takes a hatchet to NASA's Earth science spending for fiscal year 2026, which begins in October. The greenhouse gas monitoring missions, known collectively as the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, are some of the many Earth science casualties in the proposal. Other satellites and instruments on the chopping block include the long-lived Aqua satellite, which carries a high-resolution Earth imaging instrument called MODIS, that among other uses, helps detect wildfires worldwide. Also at risk are the Terra and Aura missions, each of which have climate science applications, and planned satellites that would precisely measure solar radiation, heavy precipitation and clouds. While the Trump administration says it is looking to end the OCO and other missions to cut costs, scientists involved in the projects see an anti-climate science pattern at work. Congress is still considering Trump's budget request and may reject some, or all, of the Earth science cuts, but NASA is proceeding as if the White House spending blueprint will be implemented as-written. David Crisp, a former NASA scientist who worked on the OCO missions and managed them until he retired in 2022, confirmed the decommissioning planning for OCO-2 and OCO-3. Other sources, including one NASA employee, also confirmed this plan, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't approved to discuss the issue. NASA calls a mission's closeout phase — the period when the program team works out how to end it — 'Phase F.' The Phase F state of planning for the OCO missions was first reported by NPR. In response to questions from CNN, a NASA spokesperson pointed to Trump's budget request. 'It would not be appropriate for us to comment at this time as the budget process is still happening. Should the budget pass as proposed — it still needs to make its way through Congress — this will be implemented upon the start of the next fiscal year.' Together, the OCO-2, a freestanding satellite, and OCO-3, which is mounted on the International Space Station, measure the composition of the Earth's atmosphere, specifically sniffing out climate pollution. The OCO missions are particularly useful for tracking fossil fuel and ecosystem-related emissions, scientists told CNN. The instruments also help scientists monitor plant productivity — critical for farmers and the researchers studying forest loss. While OCO-3 could be switched off and remain attached to the ISS, perhaps to be turned on again in the future, the decommissioning process for OCO-2 is far more complicated — and fiery. The satellite would be moved into a much lower orbit and exist there as space junk for years until it burns up in the Earth's atmosphere. The purposeful abandonment or destruction of multimillion-dollar satellites and instruments is essentially unprecedented, scientists told CNN. They are particularly baffled by the decision to destroy OCO-2, given it already has enough fuel on it to last through 2040. The OCO missions are still functioning and are thought to have many years left of data-gathering, in addition to the fuel onboard, which has already been bought by American taxpayers. It is not business as usual to shut off working satellites without conducting a comprehensive review, sources told CNN, nor is it typical to kill functional spacecraft that can cost billions to put into space in the first place. 'The reality is that as long as these instruments are producing high-quality data, it's essentially unheard of to decommission the satellites, because keeping them going is so cheap compared to building them and launching them in the first place,' Anna Michalak, a climate researcher at Carnegie Science and Stanford University who works with greenhouse gas emissions data, told CNN. The OCO missions are important for other countries, too, since they also use the data, Michalak said: 'It's not just that these are the only two NASA-funded missions. It's that these have been the most impactful missions in this space, globally, period.' Losing the OCO missions would hurt US leadership in climate science and create a multiyear gap in space-based climate pollution measurements, said Ben Poulter of Spark Climate Solutions, a nonprofit focused on climate risks and innovative fixes. Poulter was previously a NASA scientist and helped lead greenhouse gas monitoring efforts for the Biden administration. 'Losing these satellites prematurely gives away the leadership to Europe and to China in terms of monitoring CO2 concentrations and emissions,' Poulter said. Prematurely ending the OCO missions is consistent with the perception that the Trump administration 'doesn't want to do anything related to climate science and climate services,' he added. Crisp, the former NASA scientist, also told CNN that decommissioning so many Earth science missions at the same time fits a pattern. 'My guess is that they perceive these missions as missions that were designed for climate, for reinforcing climate hysteria or something,' Crisp said of the Trump administration. 'They think these missions were designed for a regulatory reason, for example. But I want to point out NASA is not a regulatory agency.' There are at least two possibilities for saving the carbon observatory mission, though researchers are not optimistic about either one coming to fruition. The first is Congress. Lawmakers could reject Trump's proposal and offer NASA the budget it needs to maintain US climate and Earth science status quo. Trump would also have to sign such a bill. The second possibility is to create a public-private partnership that pays the expenses for maintaining these instruments and processing the data back on Earth. This could take the form of a philanthropic organization, a wealthy individual or perhaps a university taking over OCO-2 or OCO-3, or perhaps both, for a period of time. The space agency has already issued a call for partnerships for OCO-3, and it is expected to put out a similar call for operating OCO-2 at some point this week, multiple researchers who work with OCO data said. 'There's this scramble to see what can be done before any sort of decommissioning or Phase F protocols go into effect later this year,' Poulter said. However, involving the private sector in operating OCO or other Earth-observing satellites can present complications, Michalak said, as it could diminish NASA's role in providing an accurate backbone of Earth observations. As the search for a partnership to save OCO-2 and OCO-3 begins, NASA only has less than two months to figure out how to keep the missions going.
