TUNIS, Dec 17 (Reuters) – Around 2,500 Tunisians marched through the coastal city of Gabes on Wednesday, reviving protests over pollution from a state-owned phosphate complex amid rising anger over perceived failures to protect public health.
People chanted mainly “Gabes wants to live”, on the 15th anniversary of the start of the 2011 pro-democracy uprising that sparked the Arab Spring movement against autocracy.
The protest added to the pressure on President Kais Saied’s government, which is grappling with a deep financial crisis and growing street unrest, protests by doctors, journalists, banks and public transport systems.
The powerful UGTT union has called for a nationwide strike next month, signalling great tension in the country. The recent protests are widely seen as one of the biggest challenges facing Saied since he began ruling by decree in 2021.
Protesters chanted slogans such as “We want to live” and “People want to dismantle polluting units”, as they marched toward Chatt Essalam, a coastal suburb north of the city where the Chemical Group’s industrial units are located.
“The chemical plant is a fully fledged crime… We refuse to pass on an environmental disaster to our children, and we are determined to stick to our demand,” said Safouan Kbibieh, a local environmental activist.
Residents say toxic emissions from the phosphate complex have led to higher rates of respiratory illnesses, osteoporosis and cancer, while industrial waste continues to be discharged into the sea, damaging marine life and livelihoods.
The protests in Gabes were reignited after hundreds of schoolchildren suffered breathing difficulties in recent months, allegedly caused by toxic fumes from a plant converting phosphates into phosphoric acid and fertilisers.
In October, Saied described the situation in Gabes as an “environmental assassination”, blaming policy choices made by previous governments, and has called for urgent maintenance to prevent toxic leaks.
The protesters reject the temporary measures and are demanding the permanent closure and relocation of the plant.
A group of North Carolina health and science leaders is calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to release a long-awaited toxicity report on PFNA, a “forever chemical” found in drinking water systems in North Carolina and nationwide.
The request comes after a ProPublica investigation reported that EPA scientists completed the PFNA toxicity assessment in April and prepared it for public release, citing internal documents and two agency scientists familiar with the report. The assessment has still not been published.
In a letter sent last month to Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., researchers from UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke University, East Carolina University and several former EPA officials urged him to press the agency for transparency. The signatories wrote that without access to the findings, “families in North Carolina, and across the country, [cannot] know their water is safe.”
PFNA, part of the PFAS class of chemicals used in industrial and consumer products, has been linked in scientific studies to developmental effects, liver damage and reproductive harms. It has been detected in drinking water serving an estimated 26 million people, according to the Environmental Working Group.
Dr. Kathleen Shapley-Quinn, the executive director of Carolina Advocates for Climate, Health and Equity, is one of the dozens of North Carolina health experts who signed the letter.
“We know PFNA harms human health, and we need to understand where it is and how much of it is there,” Shapley-Quinn said. “Without that information, we’re swimming in a sea of unknowns.”
Shapley-Quinn, who is a family physician, says the lack of a public report leaves communities unsure whether their water poses a risk — and leaves health officials without the data needed to identify where cleanup or monitoring efforts should be focused.
“Communities that already know they’re affected are worried about what this means for their families,” Shapley-Quinn said. “And in places where we don’t have data, people don’t even know whether to be concerned.”
EPA did not answer specific questions from WRAL about the status of the assessment, when it would be released or what has contributed to the delay. In a statement, the agency said the “Trump EPA is committed to addressing PFAS to ensure that Americans have the cleanest air, land, and water,” and cited ongoing litigation over national PFAS drinking-water standards.
The agency said it intends to defend drinking-water limits for PFOA and PFOS, two of the most studied PFAS chemicals, but is asking a federal court to vacate limits for PFHxS, PFNA, GenX and several mixtures while it reconsiders how those regulations were issued.
The experts’ letter to Rep. Murphy notes that EPA scientists have already completed the work and argues that releasing the assessment is a basic matter of public transparency.
“We still don’t have the information that was rightfully asked for on behalf of the public, who funded this report,” Shapley-Quinn said.
PFAS contamination has been documented in hundreds of North Carolina communities, including extremely high levels in the lower Cape Fear region and areas near military installations. Researchers say the PFNA assessment would help determine whether additional protections are needed.
Rep. Murphy, who co-chairs the GOP Doctors Caucus and represents areas with known PFAS contamination, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
“In the absence of information, it’s unsettling,” Shapley-Quinn said. “But with accurate data, we can make informed choices and reduce risks. That’s what this report is supposed to provide.”
A new study by Colorado Parks and Wildlife researchers suggests man-made whitewater parks that create “play waves” for kayakers and other recreationists are having a negative impact on fish passage.
Colorado’s rivers are well-loved by both whitewater enthusiasts and anglers. Yet, as whitewater parks have been constructed throughout the state, researchers say the potential impacts on fish and anglers have not always been taken into consideration.
“Essentially, they’re kind of at odds,” said Eric Richer, an aquatic research scientist with the state wildlife agency and one of the lead authors of the study. “Fish want slow, deep water and whitewater parks, to create the hydraulic wave, are constricting water into a steep chute or drop, often over a surface that has been grouted to try to make it as smooth as possible to get those velocities elevated.”
The state wildlife agency first began looking into the impacts of white water parks on fish passage a number of years ago after one scientist who is an avid angler was fishing near the white water park on the Arkansas River near Buena Vista, Richer said. The researcher noticed that he was catching more fish downstream of the man-made structure than he was as he worked his way upstream through the structure.
Researchers identified more than 40 white water parks across Colorado that are either already built or are in the planning stages. There are whitewater parks on the Colorado River near Glenwood Springs, the Roaring Fork near Basalt, the Ten Mile Creek in Frisco, the Pumphouse in Gore Canyon near Kremmling and dozens of other locations.
Read the full story from our partner at vaildail.com.
The appointed Alameda County District Attorney, Ursula Jones Dickson, was the endorsed candidate of the Pamela Price recall committee, which promised to end the alleged coddling of criminals. Indeed, Jones Dickson promises justice by prosecuting more children as adults and sending them to adult prisons.
Now, though, she has finally found a judge to drop manslaughter charges against the killer of Steven Taylor, former San Leandro cop Jason Fletcher. This despite then-District Attorney Nancy O’Malley’s Probable Cause Declaration that when he was shot after being tased twice, “Mr. Taylor was struggling to remain standing as he pointed the bat at the ground …” and “posed no threat of imminent deadly force or serious bodily injury to defendant Fletcher or anyone else.” Jones Dickson considers dropping the charges justice.
I would like a district attorney who has only one standard of justice.
Anyone who truly cares about future generations and acknowledges the impacts of climate change and the health risks of coal-related particulate pollution can’t in their right mind want to locally handle, ship and ultimately facilitate the burning of several million tons of coal annually.
If Oakland Bulk & Oversized Terminal LLC and its partners intend to develop their export terminal for coal, then they should build the specialized, enclosed, dome-shaped terminal they had said they would build to address coal dust health concerns — dust that could harm port workers and nearby residents.
The best outcome would be building a bulk terminal to export hundreds of commodities, excluding coal. If there’s still an option to stop coal as an export commodity here by gathering additional environmental health information, then that pathway should be pursued.
Dan Kalb Oakland
Family history offers tips for good health
As your family gathers for the holidays, ask about your family’s health history. Knowing your family’s health history can be key to a longer, healthier life. And it can help your health care provider identify traits that may put you at risk for certain health conditions or diseases.
Talk to immediate family members. Include three generations. Grandparents, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews may all have helpful information. Gather information about major medical conditions, age of onset, and for deceased relatives, causes of death. If you have a family history of a condition, it’s important to know this. While you can’t change your genetic makeup, there may be steps you can take now that could help you stay healthy.
Felicia Ziomek Livermore
Root fraud and waste out of ACA program
Our Congress wants health care for all Americans. We all want health care for all Americans. But let’s do it the right way. The current Obamacare program is not sustainable. Replete with the fraud, waste and corruption that has been uncovered — finally — it is obvious that it is costing far more than it should. Extending the existing subsidies without improving the program and its controls is simply throwing good money after bad.
Let’s get control of the current program, drive out the fraud, waste and corruption, so we can see what the existing program would cost if managed properly. Then we can determine how much we can afford to spend and design a well-controlled program that meets our needs. Extending the current payouts without controlling whether the money is spent appropriately, although easier, is simply irresponsible.
John Griggs Danville
China, Russia watching South America gambit
Why has Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered our largest, most lethal aircraft carrier with supporting destroyers and guided missile ships to sail near Venezuela? Donald Trump says it’s to stop drug traffickers, yet, at the same time, he released from prison the Honduran ex-president, who was convicted of massive cocaine trafficking into our country.
The aircraft carrier was moved from the eastern Mediterranean, near the Ukraine conflict. Trump seems to be abandoning our allies in Europe, giving Russia the opportunity to expand its war-stolen territory in Ukraine, while at the same time, he’s picking a fight in our hemisphere with fishermen in small boats.
Is the “emperor” crazy? Are his true loyalties toward aggressive dictators like Vladimir Putin? Americans need to know.
China is watching us closely and assessing whether we would defend Taiwan, Japan and Korea if they pulled a “Putin” in the western Pacific.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife re-released a wolf into Grand County this week after it had traveled into New Mexico, according to a news release.
The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish captured gray wolf 2403 and returned the animal to Colorado.
Colorado wildlife officials decided to release the wolf in Grand County yesterday because of the proximity to “an unpaired female gray wolf,” nearby prey populations and distance from livestock, according to the release.
“Gray wolf 2403 has been returned to Colorado and released in a location where it can best contribute to CPW’s efforts to establish a self-sustaining wolf population while concurrently attempting to minimize potential wolf-related livestock conflicts,” said acting director of CPW Laura Clellan, according to the release.
A memorandum of understanding between Colorado and Arizona, New Mexico and Utah requires that any gray wolves that leave Colorado and enter those states be returned. That was created in part to maintain the integrity of a Mexican wolf recovery program.
“We recognized during the planning process that we would need to have consideration and plans to protect the genetic integrity of the Mexican wolf recovery program, while also establishing a gray wolf population in Colorado,” said CPW’s Wolf Conservation Program Manager Eric Odell, according to the release.
A new report from the National Retail Federation shows that Gen Z shoppers make the most returns out of any generation, despite the environmental harm it can cause. Taylor Hoit, head of product and technology at the online marketplace Rebel, joins CBS News to discuss.
Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) in Duplin County, NC. Hog farms can be identified by the lagoons located next to the long hog houses. The hog waste is washed from the houses into the lagoon, where it is liquified and then sprayed on nearby fields as fertilizer.
Hog lagoons have breached in flooding from storms, and lawsuits continue over the rights of farmers to spray waste on fields versus their neighbors’ right to clean air.
Jeremy M. Lange
Jeremy M. Lange
After years of staffing cuts, North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality likely doesn’t have the resources to take on the extra enforcement work it would need to do if the Trump administration keeps slashing the Environmental Protection Agency, a new report says.
The Environmental Integrity Project released findings Wednesday showing North Carolina cut the greatest percentage of jobs from its lead environmental agency of any state in the country from 2010 to 2024. The state cut 32% of employees at DEQ, formerly the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The 386 job losses came through firings and the elimination of unfilled positions and have left the protection of air, water and land quality in the state at risk, the report says.
Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) in Duplin County, NC. Hog farms can be identified by the lagoons located next to the long hog houses. The hog waste is washed from the houses into the lagoon, where it is liquified and then sprayed on nearby fields as fertilizer.Hog lagoons have breached in flooding from storms, and lawsuits continue over the rights of farmers to spray waste on fields versus their neighbors’ right to clean air. Jeremy M. Lange Jeremy M. Lange
The Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit watchdog group started by the former head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Civil Enforcement, said it looked at funding and staffing trends in environmental agencies in every state to see how they would be able to take on additional oversight work as President Donald Trump proposes additional severe cuts to the EPA.
“Because of budget cuts, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality is ill-positioned to confront the growing pollution footprint from the state’s rapidly expanding factory farming industry or the threat of climate-driven storms and flooding in its coastal communities,” the report says.
North Carolina cut staffing to the Department of Environmental Quality by 32% from 2010 to 2024, according to a report released Dec. 10, 2025, by the Environmental Integrity Project. That’s the highest percentage reduction of any state, and the group says it means N.C. is in no shape to take on the work of the EPA if that agency suffers further cuts. Environmental Integrity Project
The study looked at state budget documents from 2010 to 2024 and found that 27 states cut the budgets of their environmental agencies over the past 15 years and 31 states also have cut staffing.
Congress has not approved a 2026 budget, and it’s not clear how much of the White House’s request for an additional $4.2 billion in cuts to the EPA lawmakers will approve. Since the start of Trump’s current term, more than 3,000 EPA staffers have retired or been fired, according to reports.
The Environmental Integrity Project’s report argues that additional EPA cuts will combine with cuts at the state level to leave enforcement of environmental protections almost impossible.
“These deep reductions mean that the Trump administration’s proposed downsizing of the EPA would have an increased impact on pollution control efforts across the country,” the report says. “Not only will the federal pollution cop no longer be on the beat, state authorities may not show up either. Many states will not be able to shoulder more environmental oversight responsibilities because of years of their own cost-cutting, with a gradual erosion of their capacity for managing pollution often as bad or worse than the downsizing at the federal level.”
Following Hurricane Floyd in 1999, hogs wait for rescue on a hog barn near Trenton, NC as flood waters from the Neuse River inundated a farm. Mel Nathanson News & Observer file photo
North Carolina as a case study
A section of the report focuses on North Carolina’s DEQ, which was formed from DENR by the Regulatory Reform Act of 2015, signed by then-Gov. Pat McCrory. Lawmakers said at the time that the changes eliminated unnecessary regulation. Environmentalists said it eliminated rules designed to safeguard public health.
The report says the state agency lost more than 200 jobs under McCrory, a Republican, but that it also lost more than 200 jobs under Gov. Beverly Perdue, a Democrat. During Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s two terms, the report says, DEQ held relatively steady, losing jobs in some budget years and gaining them in others.
Republicans have held control of the legislature throughout the 15-year period.
Growing pains
Over those years, North Carolina’s population grew, along with its economy, its budget and, the report notes, its factory farming industry.
As of March 2025, the USDA reported there were 8.1 million hogs in North Carolina in concentrated animal feeding operations, also known as CAFOs, making N.C. the third largest hog-producer in the nation, behind Iowa and Minnesota. North Carolina’s broiler chicken industry is the fourth-largest in the country, producing nearly a billion birds for meat each year.
All those animals produce millions of tons of manure each year. Runoff from farms can send that and other agricultural waste into streams during heavy rain events such as hurricanes and tropical storms, which scientists say are likely to continue to be more intense as the climate warms.
‘A regulatory vacuum’
In the report, Drew Ball, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Southeast Campaigns team, said there’s “a regulatory vacuum” in the state where large hog and poultry farms are concerned.
“The unchecked expansion of hog and poultry farms has left the state environmental agency unable to even evaluate the cumulative impacts,” Ball said. “At this point, policy experts and advocates can’t even get the information they need to protect the public. You can’t respond if you don’t know what’s coming online.”
During an online press conference to announce the release of the report Wednesday, Ball said that with cuts to DEQ and EPA, North Carolina residents may find there is no one to call when their tap water is cloudy or smells like ammonia, or when flooding sends industrial chemicals or animal waste downstream to their neighborhood.
Environmental protections, he said, are seeing “shrinking staff, shrinking budgets and shrinking political support.”
This story is available free to all readers thanks to financial support from the Hartfield Foundation and Green South Foundation, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. If you would like to help support local journalism, please consider a digital subscription, which you can get here.
Martha Quillin writes about climate change and the environment. She has covered North Carolina news, culture, religion and the military since joining The News & Observer in 1987.
NAIROBI, Dec 11 – The United States threatened on Thursday to reduce its foreign assistance to South Sudan unless Juba lifts what it said were illicit fees on humanitarian shipments.
In an unusually pointed statement entitled “Time to Stop Taking Advantage of the United States,” the U.S. Bureau of African Affairs accused South Sudan’s government of “imposing exorbitant fees on humanitarian shipments” and “obstructing U.N. peacekeeping operations”.
South Sudan’s humanitarian affairs minister did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The U.S., which has carried out rapid and deep cuts to foreign aid this year, is the largest humanitarian donor to South Sudan. The country of 12 million has been ravaged by conflict since winning independence from Sudan in 2011.
Foreign donors have repeatedly objected to attempts by South Sudanese authorities to collect taxes on humanitarian imports.
“These actions constitute egregious violations of South Sudan’s international obligations,” the U.S. statement said.
“We call on the transitional government to halt these actions immediately. If it does not, the United States will initiate a comprehensive review of our foreign assistance in South Sudan with the likelihood of making significant reductions,” the statement added.
Armed conflict has persisted in much of South Sudan since the end in 2018 of a five-year civil war that killed an estimated 400,000 people.
U.N. investigators, however, said in a report in September that corruption by political elites was the biggest driver of a humanitarian crisis in which most South Sudanese are facing crisis levels of hunger.
Juba rejected that conclusion, attributing the country’s humanitarian problems to conflict, climate change and disruptions to oil exports caused by the war in neighbouring Sudan.
(Reporting by Ammu Kannampilly; Editing by Aaron Ross, Aidan Lewis)
PARIS, Dec 11 (Reuters) – Law enforcement agencies from 134 countries seized a record number of illegally traded live animals between September and October, underlining a growing demand for exotic pets, Interpol said in a statement on Thursday.
Nearly 30,000 live animals were seized in a month-long global sting by police, customs, border security, and forestry and wildlife authorities that was dubbed Operation Thunder 2025, the agency said.
A record amount of illegally traded wild animal meat was seized, as well as insects, plants and timber.
Interpol identified some 1,100 suspects, and arrested 24 people in South Africa, two in Vietnam and one in Qatar. It did not elaborate on the arrests.
“Operation Thunder once again exposes the sophistication and scale of the criminal networks driving the illegal wildlife and forestry trade – networks that increasingly intersect with all crime areas, from drug trafficking to human exploitation,” Interpol said.
Authorities globally seized a record 5.8 tonnes of so-called bushmeat, and noted an increase in cases of trafficking from Africa into Europe.
Kenyan officials seized more than 400 kg (881.85 pounds) of giraffe meat while Tanzanian law enforcement recovered zebra and antelope meat and skins valued at about $10,000.
Meanwhile, authorities seized nearly 10,500 butterflies, spiders and insects during the September 15 to October 15 operation, noting a sharp rise in trafficking of exotic arthropods.
“Though tiny in size, these creatures play vital ecological roles. Their removal destabilizes food chains and introduces invasive species or diseases, posing serious biosecurity and public health risks,” Interpol said.
The annual value of wildlife crime is estimated at $20 billion, but the real figure is probably much higher.
Most wildlife trafficking this year involved animal remains, parts and products, often for traditional medicine or foods, Interpol said. However, live animal seizures reached a record high, driven largely by demand for exotic pets, including birds, turtles or tortoises, reptiles and primates, it added.
The operation was coordinated by Interpol and the World Customs Organization.
(Reporting by Louise Breusch Rasmussen; Editing by Kate Mayberry)
Glow-in-the-dark stars feel like a staple of childhood. You may have stuck them to your bedroom ceiling in fifth grade and then discovered them, on a visit home decades later, still lighting up faithfully every evening. There are now glow-in-the-dark sheets, glow-in-the-dark pajamas, glow-in-the-dark paint, and so much more.
But what exactly is glowing inside of these objects? And is the eerie glow that makes them so alluring really safe?
Where the glow comes from
A number of minerals phosphoresce naturally; put them in the dark after they have been illuminated for a while, and they will glow. Zinc sulphide treated with copper is one substance commonly used in glow-in-the-dark toys, says Dean Campbell, a professor of chemistry at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill. Light striking it causes electrons to pop off and go for a wander. Along the way, they get trapped for a while by the copper sprinkled through the matrix.
Then, “when [an electron] returns home, it gives off a glow,” explains Campbell. When the energy added to the substance by the light has been dispersed, the material is dark again. All day long, electrons in the stars on the ceiling are performing this dance, although it’s only visible to us when night falls (or when all the doors are shut and the curtains are closed). Another commonly used substance in the glowing goods is strontium aluminate treated with the rare-earth metal europium.
This effect lasts only a little while, though, once the light is gone.
Why things that glow can make us uneasy
In 1902, the engineer William J. Hammer realized that if phosphorescent minerals were mixed with something that would keep feeding them energy indefinitely, they could also glow indefinitely. Radium was one such long-lasting energy source. Mixing radium and zinc sulfide with varnish produced a beautiful, constantly glowing paint.
Hammer experimented with painting all kinds of things with it, including light switches, toys, and push pins. The paint was eventually used to paint the numbers on watch faces, so they would glow in the dark. Starting in 1917, the Radium Dial Company, in Ottawa, Ill., employed young women to paint the numbers, and, having been assured the paint was harmless, they licked the brushes to bring them to a fine point. There were similar factories in New Jersey and Connecticut as well.
Ingesting the radioactive radium and getting it on their lips and teeth meant that their jaws and faces soon began to fall apart, and many died gruesome deaths of radiation-induced cancer. A memorial now stands to these “radium girls” in the town of Ottawa, Campbell says.
“It’s a bronze statue of a young girl,” he says. “She’s standing on a clock face, and she’s holding a wilted flower in one hand and paint brushes in the other hand.” Such paints are now no longer used in watches.
So glow-in-the-dark materials have not always been safe, which may be behind people’s worries about modern glowing objects.
Just don’t eat it
Despite their spectral glow, the phosphorescent substances used today are not more dangerous than many other substances used in daily life. That said, it’s not recommended that you, say, lick your stars or consume the paint, any more than you’d eat most non-food objects.
One of the oldest and most notorious rivalries in college football is between the University of Michigan and Ohio State. On Saturday afternoon, the Wolverines will take on the Buckeyes in Ann Arbor for their annual matchup. Behind the scenes, staffers at each school will compete for a totally different title.
JAKARTA, Nov 29 (Reuters) – The death toll from floods and landslides following cyclonic rains in the Indonesian island of Sumatra has risen to 303, the head of the country’s disaster mitigation agency said on Saturday, up from a previous figure of 174 dead.
Large parts of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have been stricken by cyclone-fuelled torrential rain for a week, with a rare tropical storm forming in the Malacca Strait.
At least 279 people are still missing even as about 80,000 people have been evacuated and hundreds are still stranded in three provinces across Sumatra island, Indonesia’s westernmost area, head of the agency Suharyanto told journalists.
Responders have used helicopters to deliver aid and for logistics in the northern part of the island, which was the hardest hit with roads cut off and communications infrastructure destroyed by landslides.
“We are trying to open the route from North Tapanuli to Sibolga (in North Sumatra province), which is the most severely cut off for a third day,” he said.
He added that rescue forces were trying to break through a road blockage caused by a landslide, and that people were trapped on a stretch of road and in need of supplies. The military presence will be enhanced on Sunday to help with relief efforts, he said.
There were attempts by those affected by the rain to ransack supplies in the Central Tapanuli area, which was badly affected, he further added.
Across the Malacca Strait in Thailand, the death toll from floods in the southern part of the country has risen to 162, government spokesperson Siripong Angkasakulkiat said on Saturday, up from the previous toll of 145.
(Reporting by Dewi Kurniawati in Jakarta; Writing by Gibran Peshimam; Editing by Toby Chopra)
It was shocking to read that a few neighbors are opposed to having a cricket field in the proposed Palm Avenue Community Park in Fremont. The main fear is that flying cricket balls could injure a child or elderly person or damage homes or cars. Do baseballs ever fly out of the field and cause personal injury? Balls flying over to the street or neighborhood will be rare and can easily be prevented in the design and construction of the stadium.
It is more likely the fear of the unknown. People here are not familiar with cricket. Both baseball and cricket trace their origins back to medieval European bat-and-ball games and are more like “cousins.” Cricket fields all over the world are in the middle of cities and residential neighborhoods, and they are safe. It is fun to play and or watch cricket, so let us go for it.
The New York Times article about Phil Tagami’s proposed Oakland coal terminal is very misleading.
The article says, “a state judge ruled in 2023 that the city had to uphold its deal with Tagami.” However, that ruling only provided Tagami with $320,000 in damages. The disappointed coal developers found a judge in Kentucky whose suggestion of hundreds of millions in damages was rejected by Kentucky’s district court on November 21.
The article quotes Tagami as denying that the project “makes a difference in the world.” But several mile-long trains every day would be spewing unhealthy coal dust from Utah to Oakland. And when burned, that much coal would cost the world tens of billions of dollars in damages (using the EPA’s social cost of carbon).
The article says, ”The coal project must now go forward.” Those of us who care about the livability of Oakland will continue to oppose this deadly project.
My attention was drawn to Abby McCloskey’s column.
As this article asserts, a strong foundation in spelling in a child’s early learning years leads to reading and literacy proficiency down the road. My personal academic experience bears this out.
In my elementary school years in the 1950s, I had a natural strength in spelling, which was nurtured by my teachers. I still have all of my certificates of achievement, which span local through regional spelling contests that I entered.
Further, this skill led me toward my love of writing — whether it be in the form of a school essay, poetry or, as you are reading now, my penchant for submitting letters to the editor.
While “spell check” is a helpful tool, our brains still rely on the visualization of words to connect the dots in our educational journey.
Sharon Brown Walnut Creek
Immigration judges’ principles cost them
As the season of gratitude, peace, joy and hope approaches, recently unbenched San Francisco Immigration Judges Patrick Savage, Amber George, Jeremiah Johnson, Shuting Chen and Louis Gordon have inspired this letter. Although no reason was given for their forced departures, I wasn’t surprised. Having seen several preside over mandatory immigration hearings restored my hope in this country’s future. Unfortunately, the very behaviors that gave me hope put them at risk of losing their jobs. Behaviors like being well-versed in immigration law, diligent in their efforts to fully understand cases from both immigrant and government perspectives, and exhibiting both kindness and respect to all present within their courtrooms.
The current administration has rendered these judges easily disposable obstacles to any campaign promises conflicting with this nation’s laws, Constitution and system of checks and balances. Fortunately, obstacles like integrity and allegiance to oaths of office can’t be as easily disposed of.
ZURICH (Reuters) -Switzerland will vote on a proposed wealth tax on Sunday that will be a litmus test of appetite for wealth redistribution in one of the world’s richest countries.
The proposal from the youth wing of the leftist Social Democrats, or JUSOs, is for a 50% tax to be levied on inherited fortunes of 50 million Swiss francs ($62 million) or more to fund projects to reduce the impact of climate change.
Around 2,500 taxpayers in Switzerland have assets worth more than 50 million francs, according to Swiss tax authorities, with a total wealth of about 500 billion francs.
With as many as two-thirds of respondents against the proposed tax in recent polls, the measure is widely expected to fail, turning attention to the level of support.
“I hope it doesn’t pass,” UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti said during a business event in Zurich last weekend. “But how it’s rejected, what the outcome is, that’s important. Because … it does give an indication of where Switzerland is heading.”
Switzerland is the world’s largest wealth management hub, but could lose that crown as early as this year, according to a forecast from Boston Consulting Group.
The country is home to some of the most expensive cities on the planet and anxiety about the cost of living has been gaining currency in local politics.
In 2024, Switzerland voted to introduce an additional month’s pension payments for the elderly as living-cost concerns trumped warnings about its affordability.
If enacted, the wealth tax initiative would theoretically boost the tax take by 4 billion francs.
JUSO leader Mirjam Hostetmann argues the very wealthy are damaging the climate most with their luxury consumption, and that the 10 richest families in Switzerland together cause as many emissions as the vast majority of the Swiss population.
Critics of the initiative say it could trigger an exodus of wealthy people from Switzerland, reducing overall tax revenues. The Swiss government has urged voters to reject it.
“The initiative would greatly reduce Switzerland’s attractiveness for wealthy individuals,” Swiss Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter said last month.
($1 = 0.8055 Swiss francs)
(Reporting by Ariane Luthi and Dave Graham; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
HOJIUA, Angola (Reuters) -Once a sea turtle hunter, Joaquim Avelino Fragoso now patrols Angola’s Longa estuary to protect the very creatures he once killed.
“I like to watch the turtles when they come out to lay their eggs on land, and then go back into the sea,” Fragoso told Reuters in Hojiua village, a place of lush mangroves, lagoons and stretches of sand interspersed with bush and forests.
“I no longer have that urge to hunt them,” said the 45-year-old, who used to kill sea turtles for their meat.
The father of seven is among around 70 villagers who have been trained in conservation as part of a project to protect the turtles that ply Angola’s 1,600 km (1,000 mile) coastline. The local Kitabanga Project covers some 25,000 turtle nests overall.
The message: that business as usual will mean there soon won’t be any turtles.
“We have to conserve them so that there will be more turtles tomorrow,” said Fragoso, whose coastal home is about 220 km (135 miles) south of Angola’s capital, Luanda.
All five species of eastern Atlantic sea turtle – which range from vulnerable to critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List – are found in Angolan waters.
Longa’s caramel-coloured beaches are the nesting areas for the olive ridley turtle and the jellyfish-munching leatherback.
The conservation project, funded by the private sector and implemented by non-governmental organisation Kissama Foundation and Universidade Agostinho Neto, Angola’s oldest university, trains communities to protect the endangered creatures.
Persuading people to stop hunting requires addressing the poverty that gives rise to it and showing the economic gains that can come from wildlife protection, says Debora Carvalho, regional coordinator of Kitabanga Project in Cuanza Sul, where Longa is located.
“The normal thing is that people say, no, we don’t care, …and then we need to talk, teach and show how this can be a very good thing for them, said Carvalho.
Fragoso now earns money from his turtle conservation work.
SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Brazilian federal prosecutors in Para state have filed a lawsuit to demand the removal of the hull and oily residues from the Haidar ship, which sank 10 years ago near Vila do Conde port, Brazil’s biggest for live cattle shipments.
In a statement on Wednesday, Para federal prosecutors recalled the Haidar wreck caused the death of 5,000 cattle and a spill of 700,000 liters of oily residues.
A subsequent spill from the Haidar wreck was reported in 2018, prosecutors said, showing that remaining residues inside the hull represent “a constant threat.”
Some 215,000 liters of oil, diesel, fuel, and lubricant could still be inside the ship, prosecutors added, warning of potentially “catastrophic water pollution” if new spills occur.
The sunken vessel still contains carcasses and skeletal remains of the cattle drowned in 2015, they said.
Prosecutors are seeking at least 5 million reais ($936,873) in compensation, in addition to 91,400 reais for environmental damages related to the 2018 spill.
Defendants include the federal infrastructure department DNIT, Para’s environment agency SEMAS, the Para Port Authority CDP, and the companies that owned the ship.
They did not immediately comment on the lawsuit.
Para, Brazil’s biggest live cattle-exporting state, shipped 370,000 head of cattle worth $344 million mainly to Egypt, Morocco, and Algeria in the year through July, according to trade data compiled by state authorities.
Beefpacker Minerva owned the cattle ferried on the Haidar in 2015, but it is not a defendant, according to court filings.
The use of pesticides in agriculture has always meant managing a tricky balance—protecting the harvest and making sure essential produce gets to market, while guarding against the possibility that at least some of that produce carries toxic chemicals. This month, things got more complicated —at least as environmentalists see it.
On Nov. 18, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the use of the pesticide isocycloseram on golf courses, institutional settings, and decorative lawns, as well as on a host of crops, including cereal grains, dozens of types of peas and beans, tomatoes, oranges, almonds, and more. The move comes just two weeks after the agency approved another pesticide, cyclobutrifluram, for similarly wide use.
The particular problem with these pesticides is that both of them contain toxic PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. PFAS are more colloquially known as “forever chemicals,” because that pretty much describes how long they linger in the environment. While they don’t remain in the body quite as persistently, according to a 2020 study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, PFAS are present in the blood serum of 98% of Americans tested. The chemicals do get purged, principally in urine, but continued environmental exposure can steadily replace what has been eliminated.
PFAS have been linked by the EPA itself to an increased risk of a host of health effects, including decreased fertility, hypertension in pregnant people, increased risk of certain cancers (especially kidney cancer), developmental delays in children, hormonal irregularities, elevated cholesterol, reduced effectiveness of the immune system, and more.
The approval of the two chemicals is part of a larger pattern by the Trump Administration to broaden the use of PFAS-containing pesticides on industrial and private farms across the country. Under the Biden Administration, the EPA approved just one such pesticide, late in the then-president’s single term—a chemical known as fluazaindolizine, which was cleared to be used on foods such as carrots, squash, tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes, oranges, peaches, almonds, and grapes. The Trump Administration has already doubled that approval rate in its first year in office, and is looking to give the thumbs-up to a total of five PFAS pesticides before the year is out. That could spell trouble.
“The problem for a lot of these chemicals is that they haven’t really been fully studied,” says Erik Olson, pesticide expert and senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We do know that some of these forever chemicals are carcinogens. Some of them interfere with reproduction, some of them interfere with the immune system. They tend to be exquisitely toxic at very low doses—at parts per quadrillion or parts per trillion. So the idea that we’re spraying these chemicals on our food is something we worry about.”
Worse, there is no firm definition of exactly what a PFAS is—at least in the United States. The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which works with 38 member nations including the U.S. to foster international cooperation and economic growth, defines PFAS as industrial chemicals that have at least one fully fluorinated carbon atom—which is a carbon atom with two or three fluorine atoms attached to it. There are about 15,000 species of chemicals that meet that standard. But the EPA has pushed back, broadening the definition to two fully fluorinated carbon atoms. “The final definition does not include substances that only have a single fluorinated carbon,” the agency wrote in its formal report in 2023—during Joe Biden’s presidency. That change is worrying.
“It’s an enormous decrease in the number of chemicals that are subject to regulation as PFAS,” says Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity. “We’re talking about defining away over 10,000 chemicals. The OECD definition was a definition agreed upon by scientists. Now, the EPA has come up with a regulatory definition that in my opinion, ignores the science and is more designed to make [the chemical industries’] lives easier.”
It’s no wonder industry is getting even more breaks on PFAS than it got during the Biden presidency, given that a small group of their own are now running the pesticide show at the EPA. As The New York Times and others have reported, in June President Trump appointed Kyle Kunkler, a former high ranking lobbyist for the soybean industry, as deputy assistant administrator of the EPA, in charge of formulating the agency’s policies on pesticides. Joining Kunkler are Nancy Beck and Lynn Dekleva, who were both once directors at the American Chemistry Council, a powerful trade group. Within a month of Kunkler’s taking charge, the EPA sought to lift restrictions on a problematic herbicide that worked against weeds in the field in which it was applied perfectly well, but also had a nasty tendency of drifting to neighboring farms, killing not weeds but crops.
“The pesticide office of the EPA right now is being run by the chemical industry,” says Donley. “They are in charge, and unfortunately, their priorities are what goes, and that puts people in danger.”
“What we’re starting to see is a clear indication that they are very friendly to their former employers and have swung the door open, allowing a lot of toxic chemicals [to be used],” says Olson.
The EPA declined to comment for this story and instead referred TIME to a post on X from EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin denying that single fluorinated compounds are PFAS, a position at odds with the scientific consensus.
For consumers who might be worried about what’s in their food, there are limited steps they can take to avoid PFAS from pesticides. Choosing organic fruits and vegetables can certainly help, but it’s not a panacea, since PFAS have seeped into soil and streamed into the water supply and are readily taken up by growing crops. The same is true if you choose to plant your own backyard garden. One study out of North Carolina State University found that PFAS were particularly high in water-rich fruits and vegetables like watermelon and tomatoes. You can’t see, smell, or taste PFAS, so short of having your food laboratory tested, there’s no way to tell what, if any, toxins you’re consuming.
According to the EPA, children are especially vulnerable because they drink more water, breathe more air, and eat more food per pound of body weight than adults do. Breast milk may carry PFAS and pass it onto nursing babies.
Whoever is running the EPA and whatever their decisions are, PFAS-tainted pesticides will remain a daunting challenge for any administration. Last year, Donley and his colleagues at the Center for Biological Diversity published a paper that sought to quantify the chemical load sprayed on crops in the U.S. over the course of a year, and came up with an astonishing number—on the order of 30 million pounds annually. In California alone, according to the Environmental Working Group, the figure is 2.5 million pounds.
“That is just an enormous amount of pollution that is not going away anytime soon,” Donley says. ”It’s not you or I who are going to be paying the price. It’s our kids and their kids who are going to be saddled with pollution that never goes away, and that’s the ultimate sin.”
In response to questions on its two-phase cooling products from WIRED, including whether or not the company planned to submit chemicals for fast-tracked consideration under the administration’s new data center exemption, Chemours spokesperson Cassie Olszewski said the company is “in the process of commercializing our two-phase immersion cooling fluid, which will require relevant regulatory approvals.”
“Our work in this area has been focused on developing more sustainable and efficient cooling solutions that would allow data centers to consume less energy, water, and footprint while effectively managing the increasing amount of heat generated by the next generation of chips with higher processing power,” Olszewski said.
These chips could also be a significant source of new chemicals. Both Schweer and Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, a lawyer at environmental nonprofit Earthjustice, say that the semiconductor industry, which produces the chips that provide the computing power in data centers, stands to gain significantly from the expedited review process. The semiconductor manufacturing process uses forever chemicals at multiple different points of production, including in the crucial photolithography process, which uses light to transfer patterns to the surface of silicon wafers.
Schweer says that in his last few years working at the EPA, this industry submitted a large number of applications for new chemicals. Kalmuss-Katz says that semiconductor manufacturers “are a main driver of new chemicals.”
“The administration has this kind of AI-at-all-costs mindset, where you’re rushing to build more and more data centers and chip fabs without any meaningful plan for dealing with their climate impacts, their natural resource impacts, and the toxic substances that are being used and released from these new facilities,” he says.
Lobbying documents show that the semiconductor industry has been asking for changes this year to the EPA’s new-chemicals program. In March, Nancy Beck, a former policy director for an industry lobbyist group who now leads the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, the office that oversees new chemical reviews, met with representatives from SEMI, a global advocacy organization for the industry. The meeting was initially organized to discuss the “EPA’s approach to regulations on PFAS and other chemicals that are essential to semiconductor manufacturing,” according to emails obtained by WIRED via a Freedom of Information Act request. Emails show that Beck suggested during the meeting that the lobbying group follow up with a public comment in support of changes to the new chemicals program, which the group sent over the next month in a letter. (“The Trump EPA encourages stakeholders to submit and document their comments on proposed rules so that we get a diverse array of perspectives,” says Hirsch, the EPA spokesperson.)
When you’re part of one of the greatest rivalries in sports, Michigan vs. Ohio State, you’ll talk trash about anything, including actual game day trash — and who cleans it up better.
Lately, that’s been Ohio State, where Mary Leciejewski is associate director of environmental sustainability.
“I mean, it just comes with the territory,” Leciejewski said.
In this competition, armies of volunteers collect and sort through mountains of trash, separating what’s recyclable from what’s compostable, like food scraps and cups, forks and plates that are made to decompose over time.
The annual challenge is organized by the Campus Race to Zero Waste program. Campuses nationwide compete each season to see who can recycle and compost the most waste generated at home football games.
Last season, Ohio State claimed two national titles: one in football and one in trash. The Buckeyes diverted 94% of game day waste away from the landfill, topping the Wolverines’ 79%.
Paul Dunlop, Michigan’s associate athletic director for facilities, is still proud of the message that stadium sustainability sends to fans.
“I think if we can do it for over 100,000 people, you can do it at your house,” Dunlop said.
At both schools, students play an important role.
Buckeye Meredith Butt studies ecology, but on the weekends, she’s at the stadium educating fans and making sure all the trash is properly sorted.
“So much of what we throw away doesn’t need to be thrown away, and it just feels really rewarding to be a part of that,” Butt said.
At Michigan’s campus farm, game day compost is turned back into soil that helps grow some of the produce served at the stadium.
“For me, waste is a very tangible part of sustainability. You don’t really see emissions, but you see waste, you see litter on the floor,” said Mia Terek, a Michigan graduate student studying sustainability.
Leciejewski said she is proud of what fans have accomplished.
“It’s nice to be champions on the field, but for us, it’s all about the diversion rate,” she said.
If brownfields are the forgotten stepchildren of infrastructure, carbon markets may soon become their redemption story.
Across the U.S., more than 450,000 brownfield sites, land that is potentially contaminated, sit idle. The land is too risky to redevelop yet too valuable to ignore. What if those same plots could not only be remediated but could also generate measurable carbon value?
That’s what’s unfolding in Connecticut, where public remediation dollars meet private soil-tech innovation.
Soil as a financial asset
An Inc.com Featured Presentation
In the past year, Connecticut has quietly emerged as one of the nation’s most proactive states in brownfield remediation. In June 2025, Governor Ned Lamont announced $18.8 million in state grants to assess and clean up 23 properties across 19 towns, totaling 227 acres of land slated for reuse. That followed $20 million in December 2024 awarded to 21 properties in 18 municipalities, and another $25 million in funding opportunities earlier that year.
Together, these initiatives demonstrate a state steadily reinvesting tens of millions of dollars to transform contaminated properties in cities such as Waterbury, Norwalk, and Bridgeport, turning long-idle land into engines of local resilience and economic growth.
“Soil is infrastructure,” Paul Bryzek, founder at Carbon Sustain, told me. “Every acre we restore strengthens the grid of climate resilience. It’s not abstract, it’s measurable, investable, and something cities can track.”
From remediation to regeneration
The core material is deceptively simple: Biochar is a carbon-rich charcoal produced by heating biomass in limited oxygen. But the real innovation lies in linking that material to a system of measurement, accountability, and value.
At Super Biochar, the team combines AI-designed biochar blends with independent soil diagnostics to create what they call a “soil intelligence layer,” essentially a digital audit trail that connects soil treatment to quantifiable outcomes.
Bluvin Ravindran, the CTO at Super Biochar told me, “We’ve treated soil as opaque for too long. Our platform monitors soil data before, during, and after treatment to calculate how much carbon stays in the ground and how contamination levels change.”
Why independent verification matters
In markets built on trust, verification is non-negotiable. That’s where independent expertise comes in.
At Ward Laboratories in Nebraska, Patrick Freeze, PhD, director of research and development, leads third-party testing for biochar and soil-remediation projects nationwide. Over coffee, he told me, “Our role is to ensure the data behind soil improvement or PFAS removal is robust, repeatable, and verified.” He added, “At Ward, we process hundreds of thousands of soil-carbon samples each year that feed directly into sequestration-verification efforts.”
Independent testing like this is what transforms soil data into credible climate data. By grounding ambition in evidence, Ward Laboratories helps bridge the gap between environmental science and investor confidence, which is the foundation of any carbon market built on transparency.
The carbon math beneath our feet
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change includes biochar among credible carbon-sequestration strategies, citing its ability to store carbon for centuries. Recent studies have reinforced that biochar stability and carbon residence time are among the highest in land-based removal pathways.
Meanwhile, Barclays predicts that the voluntary carbon market could reach $250 billion annually by 2030, driven by growing corporate demand for verifiable and data-rich carbon credits. This rapid growth highlights the urgent need for robust frameworks to ensure the quality and integrity of carbon offset projects amid increasing market scale.
That’s the niche Super Biochar is building toward: turning soil diagnostics into a financial instrument that makes carbon removal bankable.
From soil data to investable credits
Each treated site generates a digital soil record, documenting the carbon stored, the contaminants mitigated, and the before-and-after diagnostic data.
Investors, developers, and municipalities can use this record to issue verified carbon credits or other ESG-aligned financial instruments.
Brownfield remediation is increasingly viewed not as a cost center, but as a performance-driven process that measures accountability and rewards communities that get it right.
Super Biochar’s Connecticut pilot sites are part of a deliberate strategy: prove locally, scale globally.
Technology can scale quickly, but trust takes time. Demonstrating measurable results locally is the first step toward building credibility that can expand outward.
Why this matters now
Behind the technical language of PFAS binding and carbon sequestration lies a simple truth: The same soil that feeds us can also heal our planet.
But scaling that promise requires new systems of verification, new financing models, and new partnerships between the public and private sectors.
That’s the bet Super Biochar is making one acre at a time.
And if they’re right, the most valuable infrastructure of the next decade won’t be made of steel or concrete, but of carbon-enriched soil, verified by data and rooted in science.
