Good news on forest rebound, clean energy, blood infections
Among the items behind the paywall in this edition of Fix the News:
— “The regrowth of forest in the Northeast U.S., particularly New England, is the greatest forest recovery in the history of the world,” Bill Moomaw, a Tufts University emeritus professor and distinguished visiting scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, tells Inside Climate News.
Massachusetts probably was more than 90 percent wooded when Europeans arrived, but 80 to 90 percent of the forest was removed. Now the state is 60 percent wooded. Moomaw credits “benign neglect”: when farmers abandoned rocky New England fields for the fertile Ohio territories after 1850, trees reclaimed the land.
“Northeast temperature rise with global warming is significantly less because we are so heavily forested,” Moomaw says. “Boston, for example, is probably three or four degrees cooler than it has any right to be.”
— Even after last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill rescinded or restricted the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean-energy policies, the U.S. power sector still is on track for 74 percent of the new clean capacity and 67 percent of the emissions cuts the IRA would have delivered through 2035, says a new MIT and Columbia University analysis.
— A landmark international clinical trial has identified the optimal antibiotics for staph blood infection, a breakthrough that’s expected to reshape treatment for the life-threatening condition, reports University College London.
Also in the news
India youth-led movement angry over education system and lack of jobs is posing rare challenge to government
UNESCO adds West Bank site and Lebanese castles to its World Heritage List despite Israel objections
What an AP reporter learned covering the impact of USAID cuts on aid workers-turned-sex workers in Nepal
How Haitians, Hondurans, Salvadorans are coping with end of Temporary Protected Status
Trump imposing new tariffs on countries accounting for 99 percent of U.S. imports, as his current levies expire Friday
Saudi Arabia nuclear deal in doubt after Trump adds new condition: It must establish diplomatic relations with Israel
House again passes resolution seeking to halt military action in Iran as the conflict escalates, Senate narrowly rejects similar resolution
Education Department scraps decades-old rules that allowed statistical disparities to be used as proof of racial discrimination
Trump administration drops demands for list of Jewish employees at University of Pennsylvania
Government withdraws subpoenas of NYTimes reporters after admitting legal errors
Trump expands voluntary pledge to protect consumers from high utility bills from AI data centers
Democratic candidates seizing on AI data center backlash that’s dividing rural Republicans in places like Texas
Comparison of Trump’s revenue from his businesses in 2017 and 2025
More than 24 states sue Trump administration for requiring them to comply with election, immigration conditions to get disaster funding
Nearly 150,000 mail ballots were rejected in California primary, possibly because of Postal Service changes
Black members of Oklahoma Native American tribe file federal lawsuit to gain tribal citizenship rights
Supreme Court isn’t a rubber stamp for Trump, Justice Kagan says
Heather Cox Richardson on taxes, war and what the government should do for its people
Robert Reich: At Friday press corps dinner, NYTimes reporter Tyler Pager, subpoenaed over Qatar jet, will receive award for most objective reporting
Could AI do an office job?
FDA advisory panel narrowly backs unapproved peptide drugs favored by RFK Jr. and wellness influencers
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