Friday's Jobs Report Looks Grim
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The US employment data released today is worrying. Bloomberg News' US economy reporter and editor Matthew Boesler writes that even the silver lining in the data may be cause for concern. Plus: AI comes to climate science, and seaside cycling is our path to peace. If this email was forwarded to you, click here to sign up.
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12 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump revives presidential fitness test – will US students run a mile?
Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he is re-establishing the presidential fitness test, a way of assessing the fitness level of American students. The test was administered in public middle and high schools in the United States from 1966 to 2013, when the Obama administration replaced it with the presidential youth fitness program – a similar physical assessment program, but with more focus on health education. Related: Let them, creatine and fibermaxxing: the biggest wellness trends of 2025 (so far) The health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr – vaccine skeptic and key figure in the 'Make America Healthy Again' movement – will be in charge of administering the test. In a statement reported by the AP, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said the president 'wants to ensure America's future generations are strong, healthy, and successful' and that young Americans 'have the opportunity to emphasize health, active lifestyles – creating a culture of strength and excellence for years to come'. Below, what you need to know about the presidential fitness test. What is the test? Initiated by Dwight D Eisenhower in 1956, the test changed over the years, but generally consisted of five parts: a one-mile run, a shuttle run (moving as quickly as possible back and forth between two points), pull-ups or push-ups, sit-ups and the sit-and-reach (sitting on the ground with your legs outstretched and seeing how far down your legs your hands can reach). According to the Harvard Health blog, the aim of the test was to 'assess cardiovascular fitness, upper-body and core strength, endurance, flexibility, and agility'. Why did the government start testing children's fitness? The test derives from the Kraus-Weber test for muscular fitness, an assessment developed by Dr Hans Kraus and Dr Sonja Weber. The test was administered to thousands of students across the US and Europe. Researchers found that European students performed significantly better than their American counterparts: 57.9% of US students failed at least one of the test's six exercises, compared with only 8.7% of European students. According to a 1955 Sports Illustrated article, when Kraus presented his findings at the White House, President Eisenhower declared the problem 'a serious one'. The president seemed less worried about children's health and wellbeing than he did their combat preparedness. According to the Department of Health and Human Service's 50th anniversary booklet about the test, 'his chief concern seemed to be the vulnerability to the red army'. 'Our growing softness, our increasing lack of physical fitness, is a menace to our security,' Eisenhower said. Did the presidential fitness test make kids healthier? It doesn't seem so. A 2025 report in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that from 2007 to 2023, trends had 'significantly worsened' for 'child mortality; chronic physical, developmental and mental health conditions; obesity; sleep health; early puberty; limitations in activity; and physical and emotional symptoms'. And when it comes to competition with Europe, the US is faring even worse than it did before. Dr Christopher Forrest, one of the study's authors, told NPR that back in the 1960s, 'the chance that a child was going to die in the United States was the same as European nations'. But from 2010 to 2023, 'kids in the United States were 80% more likely to die', than those in Europe. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
13 minutes ago
- Yahoo
‘Shooting ourselves in the foot': how Trump is fumbling geothermal energy
Geothermal is one of the most promising clean energy sources in the US, providing 24/7 renewable power that could meet rising energy demand from AI datacentres. But former Department of Energy officials are alarmed that Donald Trump is fumbling its potential. Compared with other clean energy sources such as solar and wind, geothermal enjoys rare bipartisan support. The US energy secretary, Chris Wright, has praised the technology, calling it 'an awesome resource that's under our feet'. And Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act preserved tax credits for geothermal. But the administration's slashing of Department of Energy staff, delays in issuing low-interest loans, and tariffs are together creating uncertainty for the industry and investors. The US has an advantage on geothermal over China and must move urgently, said David Turk, who served as the deputy secretary of energy under former president Joe Biden. 'Anything that stops our ability to execute on a plan – staffing, other funding – I think, is shooting ourselves in the foot,' Turk said. The White House and Department of Energy did not respond to questions about how their policies are affecting enhanced geothermal. Related: US renewable energy has tripled in a decade – but almost $8bn in projects now face cuts The potential of geothermal Geothermal energy uses the heat from the Earth's crust to transform water into steam that turns turbines and generates electricity. It has been used for more than a century, but has been limited to places where hot water reached the Earth's surface, including hot springs. Now there's a new technique that can generate energy anywhere, known as enhanced geothermal. The same horizontal drilling approach used in fracking can reach hot rock deep below the surface. 'It opens up enhanced geothermal all over the country, all over the world,' Turk said. 'That's just tremendous.' So far, enhanced geothermal systems are located in the Western US. One of the most promising geothermal projects by Fervo Energy can be found in Utah. But the technology can also work in the east. The US is ahead of other countries on enhanced geothermal because of its shale gas boom over the past 15 years, said Eva Schill, a staff scientist who leads the Geothermal Systems Program at Berkeley Lab. 'The reason is that we have a lot of experience here from oil and gas fracking,' she said. The enhanced geothermal industry is nascent, generating only 1% of the US's electricity. And it's still too expensive to compete with coal and natural gas. But under the right conditions, it could evolve into a cheap source of power. A January article in the journal Nature Reviews found that it could be cost competitive with the national average cost of electricity generation by 2030. The US is the world's second-largest greenhouse gas emitter after China, and although US emissions have trended downward for the past two decades, the country is still not on track to meet its climate targets. The rapid growth of AI datacentres is further threatening those targets by fueling rising energy demand; datacentres need to run 24/7, so they tend to rely on fossil fuels. We have the technology, we have the tools … and I think now what we really need to do is establish the confidence Jigar Shah, clean energy entrepreneur Geothermal can potentially solve that problem. It could create 80,000 megawatts of new power, according to a liftoff report published by the Department of Energy. 'To put that in perspective, that could meet 100% of all of the AI datacenter load growth for the next 10 years,' said Jigar Shah, a clean energy entrepreneur who served as the director of the loan programs office at the Department of Energy under Joe Biden. 'That's pretty impressive.' Already, Google and Meta have signed deals that would see geothermal companies power their datacentres. How the Trump administration is fumbling geothermal Enhanced geothermal accelerated under Biden-era policies. But several former energy department officials say the Trump administration is failing to provide the business certainty needed to get the fledgling industry off the ground. 'The whole ball game right now is bringing down those costs, proving it for investors,' Turk said. 'This is really about feelings,' Shah said. 'Do the investors feel like this administration really has their back when it comes to investing in these new technologies? They felt like we actually had their back when I was running the loan programs office, and when secretary [Jennifer] Granholm was running energy. They're unsure whether this administration has their back on these technologies.' Under the Biden administration, the loan programs office was working on closing a low-interest loan for geothermal. Similar loans previously boosted Tesla and utility-scale solar. However, the Trump administration has yet to close a low-interest loan for geothermal, Shah said. The gutting of energy department staff has lowered its capacity to support geothermal, several former energy department officials said. Thousands of scientists, analysts, engineers and procurement officers took deferred resignation offers or were fired. Politico reported that the administration was considering cutting loan programs office staff by half. The Department of Energy has lost 'absolutely indispensable' experts on geothermal and loans, Turk said. 'So I would worry about, have we lost some of that capacity to actually execute?' Trump's zeal for tariffs is adding to the industry's anxiety. Steel tariffs, now at 50%, are hurting companies that use steel in wells. Enhanced geothermal wells require installing miles of steel pipes. Behind the scenes, geothermal companies are 'freaking out' about the steel tariffs, Shah said. 'They don't want to say anything negative, lest the Eye of Sauron find them,' he added. The survival of the Inflation Reduction Act tax credits for geothermal provides some certainty. Geothermal can still access the full tax credit, as long as they begin construction by 2033, when the value of the credit will begin phasing down. But geothermal projects now face strict restrictions on the involvement of 'foreign entities of concern,' such as Chinese companies and individuals, known as FEOC requirements. Geothermal projects use rare earth elements in their drill bits, and China dominates the rare earth minerals market, said a former energy department official who requested anonymity. What Trump officials can do to boost geothermal 'This is a good enough market opportunity that somewhere in the world is going to come true, and we are really well set up for it, if we're not stupid,' the official said, talking generally about the industry. 'But we've unfortunately been pretty stupid, and we're making it harder on ourselves to win in an area that should be pretty easy to win.' There are actions the Trump administration can take immediately to bring down costs and boost the industry. The government can speed things along by 'doing a lot of mapping of resources to make it cheaper and less risky for drilling in this area versus that area', Turk said. 'Close a loan,' Shah said, explaining that it would send a strong signal to investors. 'We have the technology, we have the tools – the loan programs office and other tools – and I think now what we really need to do is establish the confidence,' Shah said. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
13 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump bids to scrap almost all pollution regulations – can anything stop this?
The Trump administration is attempting to unmake virtually all climate US regulations in one fell swoop. At an Indiana truck dealership on Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled a proposal to rescind the 16-year-old landmark legal finding which allows the agency to limit planet-heating pollution from cars and trucks, power plants and other industrial sources. Related: The renewable energy revolution is a feat of technology | Rebecca Solnit 'The proposal would, if finalized, amount to the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States,' said the EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin. The agency's primary argument for reversing the so-called 'endangerment finding' claims the Clean Air Act gives the EPA the authority to regulate only emissions that locally threaten health. Department of Energy officials also laid out another justification for the move, which experts say relies heavily on climate denialism. Once the proposal is published in the Federal Register, the EPA will open a public comment period. Once it finalizes the rule, it will face an array of legal challenges. But if the rollback prevails, it would leave the EPA without any authority to regulate greenhouse gas pollution amid ever-compounding evidence that a swift reduction in these emissions is needed to avert catastrophic global warming. 'The importance of the endangerment finding can't be overstated,' said the renowned climate scientist Michael Mann. 'It's been the primary tool that we have had to actually regulate carbon emissions and meet our obligations under various global agreements to address the climate crisis.' What is the administration doing? The endangerment finding, enshrined in 2009, found that greenhouse gases pose a threat to human health. It followed a 2007 supreme court ruling which found such gases were pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act. The finding has long been a target for elimination by climate deniers. Democratic administrations used it and 'twisted the law, ignored precedent, and warped science to achieve their preferred ends and stick American families with hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden taxes every single year', according to Zeldin. The proposed undoing of the finding followed Trump's January executive order on 'Unleashing American Energy', which directed the agency to submit a report 'on the legality and continuing applicability' of the endangerment finding. It comes as part of Trump's 'drill, baby, drill' agenda, which aims to boost already booming fossil-fuel production. Along with the scrapping of the endangerment finding, the EPA said it will kill off regulations limiting pollution coming from cars and will stymie a rule that curbs the amount of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, spewing from oil and gas drilling operations. Officials have laid out an array of legal justifications for the rollback. The main one rests on the idea that the Clean Air Act provides authority to regulate 'air pollution that endangers public health or welfare through local or regional exposure' – but not emissions that warm the planet. Zealan Hoover, former senior adviser to the EPA administrator, said that argument does not pass muster. 'The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to regulate any air pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare,' he said. 'The Trump administration is staking out the extreme position that climate pollution does not harm the physical or financial health of Americans. That flies in the face of decades of scientific research and the firsthand experience of millions facing sea level rise, extreme heat, floods and fires.' The EPA is also using the so-called 'major questions doctrine' as an argument for the rollback, said Michael Gerrard, a professor of environmental and energy law at Columbia Law School and faculty chair of Columbia's Earth Institute. Embraced by conservative justices, it says congressional authorization is needed for action on issues of broad importance and societal impact. 'They're saying that, regardless of what the text of the Clean Air Act may say, the endangerment finding is so economically and politically significant that the EPA can't issue it without explicit congressional authorization,' said Gerrard. In a 150-page report also published on Tuesday, the Department of Energy (DoE) also laid out a separate argument for the move, which attempts to undercut the scientific consensus on the climate crisis. Experts say it relies on misleading scientific claims, such as the idea that carbon is beneficial for agriculture, which downplays research suggesting climate-driven extreme weather damages crop yields, and the debunked idea that extreme cold is more dangerous than extreme heat. Reached for comment, a Department of Energy spokesperson, Ben Dietderich, said: 'This report critically assesses many areas of ongoing scientific inquiry that are frequently assigned high levels of confidence – not by the scientists themselves but by the political bodies involved, such as the United Nations or previous presidential administrations.' The UN and the US have regularly convened top scientists to produce scientific climate reports, which warn that urgent action to curb emissions is needed. Last week, the secretary general of the UN, António Guterres, gave a speech in which he said the world is on the brink of a breakthrough in the climate fight and fossil fuels are running out of road. What could the impact of the Trump administration's move be? In its proposal, the EPA claimed eliminating US carbon pollution 'would not have a scientifically measurable impact' on the global climate or on public health. But by warming the planet and increasing the likelihood of extreme weather events like wildfires and floods, greenhouse gas emissions pose grave threats to society, said Mann. 'It isn't remotely credible to argue that carbon pollution isn't a major, if not the greatest, threat now to human health,' he said. With the proposed change, 'the EPA is telling us in no uncertain terms that US efforts to address climate change are over', said Abigail Dillen, president of the environmental legal non-profit Earthjustice. 'For the industries that contribute most to climate change, the message is: pollute more,' she said. 'For everyone feeling the pain of climate disasters, the message is: you're on your own.' Though the rollback aims to create a regulatory environment friendly to fossil fuels, it could, ironically, also threaten oil companies' attempts to fend off lawsuits aiming to hold them accountable for the climate crisis. To fight some challenges by cities and states, companies have argued that because the EPA regulates greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, those suits should be void. Throwing out EPA's ability to regulate those emissions could leave energy companies open to further challenges. 'I know that industry groups have been asking the Trump folks not to reverse the endangerment finding,' Jeff Holmstead, of the oil and gas law firm Bracewell, told E&E News in February. What happens next? Zeldin's proposed rulemaking on the endangerment finding initiated a 45-day comment period, when the public will be able to weigh in on the proposed change. 'EPA will then have to respond to the comments, make any necessary changes, and issue the rule in final form,' said Gerrard, of Columbia. The final rule is expected to be met with an onslaught of lawsuits, which will go to the DC federal appeals court. The losers of those cases – either the government or the challengers – are expected to take them to the supreme court. Shaun Goho, legal director at the pollution-focused nonprofit Clean Air Task Force, said the proposal was 'unlawful'. 'Greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and the climate, and the Clean Air Act mandates that EPA regulates harmful air pollution,' he said. Some experts are confident the challenges will be successful. But Gerrard says he is not so sure. 'The US supreme court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, has issued a series of decisions in the past three years cutting back on federal environmental regulations,' he said. 'So I'm concerned.' Asked about experts concerns about the health-harming impacts of greenhouse gases, the EPA said its proposal 'is primarily legal and procedural'. 'The endangerment finding is the legal prerequisite used by the Obama and Biden administrations to regulate emissions from new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines,' a spokesperson said. 'Absent this finding, EPA would lack statutory authority under [the Clean Air Act] to prescribe standards for greenhouse gas emissions.' The spokesperson said 'many of the predictions made and assumptions used' for the endangerment finding 'did not materialize'. However, scientists have in recent decades produced many new findings showing greenhouse gases are dangerous.
