Lindsay Dahl

Video: Trump’s Plan to Remake the Federal Work Force One of President Trump’s first executive orders claims the power to fire, and hire, tens of thousands of career civil servants across the government. Astead W. Herndon, a national politics reporter an...

One of the best videos I’ve seen come from the NYT, maybe ever: www.nytimes.com/video/us/pol...

Brilliantly distilled down and clear:
@astead-mirror.bluesky.bot

EPA Asks Court to Pause Lead Pipe Rule Challenge to Review Case The Environmental Protection Agency moved Thursday to hold in abeyance a legal challenge to the Biden administration’s mandate for drinking water systems to remove lead pipes.

WTAF
news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-...

If you are a federal employee working in anything related to climate, environment, or disasters, I'm @zoeschlanger.99 on Signal and would like to hear from you.

And updating that 168 workers in the EJ office were in fact out on leave yesterday, including several I spoke to for this story

EPA puts employees who tackle pollution in overburdened communities on leave The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has put more than 160 workers who tackle pollution in overburdened communities on leave. The employees were part of the agency’s Office of Environmental Ju…

EPA puts employees who tackle pollution in overburdened communities on leave

thehill.com/policy/energ...

"The goal in our water should be zero". Robert Billott, the lawyer made famous when he was played by @markruffalo.bsky.social in Dark Waters, has spent his career battling manufacturers of PFAS who've created a situation where we have to ask how many carcinogens are acceptable in drinking water.🧵

California fires destroyed or damaged nearly half of Black homes in Altadena Residents fear wildfires could erase a once-thriving community that nurtured Black artists, activists and writers

Nearly half of Black homes in Altadena were destroyed or severely damaged by the Eaton Canyon wildfire - threatening to erase a once-thriving community that nurtured Black artists, activists and writers
@loisbeckett.bsky.social
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

In a first, scientists find microplastics are building up deep in our brains A new study shows that microplastics are making their way into our brains, and that their numbers are rising.

Amid everything, a new study finds that microplastics are accumulating in human brains.

“Every time we scratch the surface, it uncovers a whole host of, ‘Oh, is this worse than we thought?’” lead author Matthew Campen told me last fall.

A short thread: 1/

www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

How are you holding people accountable and upholding our democracy? Would like to hear actions that are clear and fast and powerful.

Thank YOU. This is not the time to sit back and wait things out. We need action to protect our democracy.

If small flakes of plastic lodged in our brain isn’t a wake up call, what is?

Bioaccumulation of microplastics in decedent human brains - Nature Medicine Pyrolysis gas chromatography–mass spectrometry reveals the presence of microplastics and nanoplastics in human kidney, liver and brain tissue samples from 2016 and 2024, with higher proportions found ...

NEW RESEARCH: The amount of tiny, shard-like particles of plastic, especially polyethylene, is rising in human brain tissue in tandem with their rising concentration in the environment and is higher in the brains of people with dementia.

Maybe…let’s fund science? 🧪

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

3M knew firefighting foams containing PFAS were toxic, documents show Exclusive: Newly uncovered documents reveal chemicals giant was aware ‘environmentally neutral’ products did not biodegrade

Last month we wrote of growing evidence manufacturers knew about harms associated with PFAS in firefighting foam - a major source of groundwater contamination - but continued to produce it, without warning people of risks.
2/4
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Too Busy Blurbing Books to Write One For the novelist Rebecca Makkai, writing blurbs had become nearly a full-time job. She explains why blurbs matter — and why she’s taking a break.

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/b...

Graph shows microplastic levels in brain going from around 3300ug per gramme of brain tissue in 2016 to nearly 5000ug in 2024. No increase in kidney, although liver shows increase too

Why this wasn't front page news yesterday is beyond me.

We know microplastics can act as vectors for toxins, and further exposure and rises in brain plastic content are near certainty baked in

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Two years after Ohio train derailment, Vice President JD Vance visits East Palestine, OH - Toxic-Free Future Toxic-Free Future supports the East Palestine, Ohio community's request for the White House to issue an emergency declaration to safeguard residents.

Today marks the 2nd anniversary of the #vinylchloride train disaster in #EastPalestine, OH, and residents are still waiting for a federal emergency declaration.

Today Vice President JD Vance visited the community.

Our statement: toxicfreefuture.org/press-room/t...

Elon Musk's DOGE Is Still Blocking HIV/AIDS Relief Exempted From Foreign Aid Cuts The Trump Administration claims it is allowing "lifesaving" foreign aid to continue, but in reality, DOGE is preventing vital work on HIV and AIDS from saving lives.

NEW: Elon Musk’s attack on USAID has cut HIV/AIDS workers off from medicine and money.

The Trump Administration claims it is allowing “lifesaving” foreign aid to continue, but in reality, DOGE is preventing vital work on HIV and AIDS from saving lives. Read our scoop here:

Thousands of U.S. Government Web Pages Have Been Taken Down Since Friday Federal agencies moved to satisfy Trump’s orders to remove topics like diversity initiatives and “gender ideology.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/u...

New York Times front page February 1, 2025. On the left, the headline reads, "Trump's Tariffs Would Reverse Decades of Integration With Mexico." On the right, the title reads, "Buying a House Sight Unseen is Hard. They Did It From 10 Time Zones Away."

Washington Post front page, February 1, 2025. The headline on the left reads, "CDC removes gender, equity references in public health material."

I lived through a coup and its aftermath. The assault on democratic norms and institutions underway in the US goes far beyond what I witnessed. Yet, nothing in legacy media begins to convey the spiraling democratic crisis.

As we head into 2025, we know the road ahead will be challenging, but we remain determined to tackle this coming year’s challenges, and grateful for the strength of our communities. Together we will keep pushing for a safe, healthy, and just world. 🌟🌎

A look back at our highlights from 2024! ✨
THANK YOU for all your support this past year -- we couldn’t have done it without your contributions, whether through donations, volunteering, submitting public comments, or joining us at events.

I am one of these NSF postdocs. NSF has frozen everyone’s access to their salaries and research stipends (that were already awarded) with no information about when they might be expected to be unfrozen. It still appears like we are expected to continue doing our work though.

Op-ed: Black Producers Have Farmed Sustainably in Kansas for Generations. Let’s Not Erase Our Progress. Increased federal funding for Black farmers—not less—will help US agriculture become more resilient as our climate changes.

“American agriculture is fighting to survive problems of our own making, and it needs solutions. To help, Congress just has to support and heed the wisdom of Black farmers.”

Read the op-ed by Dr. JohnElla Holmes, the president and CEO of the Kansas Black Farmers Association.

Watchdog Groups Anticipate ‘an All-Out War on Science and Scientists’ by the Trump Administration - Inside Climate News Some federal websites, including the White House’s, have already deleted climate information, including reports on resilience and adaptation vital to U.S. communities.

Climate and environmental information is being purged from U.S. federal government websites. But there are several backup and data preservation efforts in progress. insideclimatenews.org/news/3101202...

Hey reporters who follow me: here’s an important victory for the relentless citizen activists living near the highly contaminated Santa Susana Field Lab (near LA) which tested rockets and nuclear stuff throughout the Cold War: accidents, spills, fires, open-air burning, toxic run off. Link in reply.

Notorious US chemical plant polluting water with toxic PFAS, lawsuit claims Complaint says Chemours factory dramatized in Hollywood movie Dark Waters continues to pollute West Virginia river

The former DuPont (now Chemours) plant that tipped the world off to the scope and harms of #PFAS contamination is *STILL* releasing PFAS into the Ohio River, kicking off another lawsuit. These communities have faced PFAS releases since the immediate post-WWII era.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

National Science Foundation cancels grant review panels, alarming scientists The foundation said it paused reviews to "ensure compliance" with President Donald Trump's executive orders.

Grateful to everyone who reached out and shared information/perspective with me yesterday. The federal aid freeze has added a lot of late-breaking context to this story, especially to folks' now very real concerns about the implications of a long-term grants pause. www.eenews.net/articles/nat...

Hiii! Nice to be connected. ❤️

LA community group wins suit against parish for open meeting violations A judge has ruled that elected officials in St. James Parish broke Louisiana's open meetings law by conferring secretly with a Chinese company seeking to build a chemical plant. The complaint, filed...

WIN! ⚖️ 👏 A judge has ruled that elected officials in #CancerAlley, an 85-mile petrochemical corridor, broke Louisiana's open meetings law by secretly meeting with a company seeking to build a chemical plant. #PlasticPollutes #BreakFreeFromPlastic

Hear me out: you take the hard-won products of journalism, science, art and creativity, you use vast amounts of electrical energy during a time-sensitive energy transition to re-jumble the words and sentences, and then you present the outputs as being better and more trustworthy than the original