On an early summer day in 1876 near Druid Hill Park in Baltimore, a middle-aged woman carrying three large, putrid mushrooms repulsed fellow travelers riding a horse-drawn trolley car. Even wrapped in paper, the stench of the aptly named stinkhorn mushrooms was overpowering, but the woman stifled a laugh upon overhearing two other passengers gripe … Read more
President Trump has selected Susan Monarez, the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to lead the agency permanently. The president withdrew his first nominee, Dr. Dave Weldon, just hours before his confirmation hearing. If confirmed by the Senate, Dr. Monarez, an infectious-disease researcher, will be the first nonphysician to lead the … Read more
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal in a landmark climate case brought by 21 young people against the federal government, ending its 10-year journey through the courts. But the case provided a blueprint for numerous other climate-related lawsuits that have had greater success. Juliana v. United States argued that the government … Read more
When the biotech company Humacyte designed a study to see if its lab-grown blood vessel worked, it decided to measure whether blood was flowing freely through the high-tech tube 30 days after it was implanted in a person. As those days passed, some of the 54 patients in the study ran into trouble. Doctors lost … Read more
In 1996, Kat Albrecht was a police officer and bloodhound handler in Santa Cruz, Calif. Her dog, A.J., had been a part of many search and rescue efforts, sniffing out and locating lost people in the woods. But when A.J. escaped Ms. Albrecht’s yard, there was no team of expert animal rescuers to turn to. … Read more
Within the Trump administration’s Defense Department, Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocketry is being trumpeted as the nifty new way the Pentagon could move military cargo rapidly around the globe. In the Commerce Department, SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service will now be fully eligible for the federal government’s $42 billion rural broadband push, after being largely shut … Read more
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, on Saturday instructed leaders of the nonprofit he founded to take down a web page that mimicked the design of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s site but laid out a case that vaccines cause autism. The page had been published on a site apparently registered … Read more
Late in February, as the Trump administration ramped up its quest to transform the federal government, a psychiatrist who treats veterans was directed to her new workstation — and was incredulous. She was required, under a new return-to-office policy, to conduct virtual psychotherapy with her patients from one of 13 cubicles in a large open … Read more
A refinery in New Mexico that the federal government has accused of some of the worst air pollution in the country. A chemical plant in Louisiana being investigated for leaking gas from storage tanks. Idaho ranchers accused of polluting wetlands. Under President Biden, the Environmental Protection Agency took a tough approach on environmental enforcement by … Read more
