Environmental Health

"Cases of monkeypox are on the rise in the U.S., with about 67,600 global cases, including about 25,500 in the U.S. Simultaneously, the world is still facing a COVID-19 pandemic, despite the number of cases tapering off. Researchers say these types of viruses, known as zoonotic diseases, or ones that spread between humans and animals, will become increasingly commonplace as factors such as the destruction of animal habitats and human expansion into previously uninhabited areas intensify."

"Hundreds of visitors to the Grand Canyon over the summer were sickened by a norovirus, which prompted the CDC to take a look at it."

"At military bases across the country, the Department of Defense (DoD) has for decades relied on a practice known as open burn/open detonation (OB/OD) to destroy excess, unserviceable, or obsolete military munitions, including small arms cartridges, rockets, mortars, missiles, and other items."

"President Biden pushed for Congress to permanently extend the child tax credit, raise the minimum wage and expand nutrition assistance programs to help reduce hunger rates as he opened the second-ever conference on food insecurity and diet-related diseases. But the administration faces a sharp uphill battle."

"Texas is a notably easy place to set up shop for industrial projects with lots of liquid waste and nowhere good to put it. The state’s waterways are open for business, an analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data shows, to send large volumes of discarded chemicals and industrial discharge downstream and out to sea."

"Hundreds of people are in the process of suing the government over illness and disruption to their lives they attribute to water contamination from Navy fuel spills in Hawaii last year, according their attorney."

"Sprawling industrial complexes line the drive east along the Mississippi River to the majority-Black town of Reserve, Louisiana. In the last seven miles the road passes a massive, rust-colored aluminum-oxide refinery, then the Evonik chemical plant, then rows of white tanks at the Marathon oil refinery."

"As large parts of the planet struggle with climate-inflicted woes, from floods in Pakistan to forest fires in the United States, the thorny issue of how to address "loss and damage" driven by global warming has risen up the political agenda."