The speedy demolition of the East Wing of the White House last week has health advocates and Democratic lawmakers seeking answers about what efforts were taken, if any, to keep workers and passersby safe from potential plumes of asbestos that could arise from the destruction, according to a report by The Washington Post.
The East Wing was originally constructed in 1902 and was renovated in 1942, and asbestos was used extensively in government buildings during this period, according to the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO), a nonprofit focused on preventing asbestos exposure. Anyone who inadvertently breathes in asbestos fibers launched into the air by construction work could be at heightened risk of lung diseases and cancer.
“Every building of this age must undergo full asbestos inspection and abatement before any demolition begins,” Linda Reinstein, president and cofounder of ADAO, said in a press statement.
The Trump administration is refusing to give broadband-deployment grants to states that enforce net neutrality rules or price regulations, a Commerce Department official said.
The administration claims that net neutrality rules are a form of rate regulation and thus not allowed under the US law that created the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. Commerce Department official Arielle Roth said that any state accepting BEAD funds must exempt Internet service providers from net neutrality and price regulations in all parts of the state, not only in areas where the ISP is given funds to deploy broadband service.
States could object to the NTIA decisions and sue the US government. But even a successful lawsuit could take years and leave unserved homes without broadband for the foreseeable future.
President Donald Trump and the Republican Party have spent the better part of the president’s second term radically reshaping the federal government. But in recent weeks, the GOP has set its sights on taking another run at an old target: the US census.
Since the first Trump administration, the right has sought to add a question to the census that captures a respondent’s immigration status and to exclude noncitizens from the tallies that determine how seats in Congress are distributed. In 2019, the Supreme Court struck down an attempt by the first Trump administration to add a citizenship question to the census.
But now, a little-known algorithmic process called “differential privacy,” created to keep census data from being used to identify individual respondents, has become the right’s latest focus. WIRED spoke to six experts about the GOP’s ongoing effort to falsely allege that a system created to protect people’s privacy has made the data from the 2020 census inaccurate.
Research & Developments is a blog for brief updates that provide context for the flurry of news regarding law and policy changes that impact science and scientists today.
A large swath of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) will soon open for drilling, the Trump administration announced today.
“For too long, many politicians and policymakers in DC treated Alaska like it was some kind of zoo or reserve, and that, somehow, by not empowering the people or having even the slightest ability to tap into the vast resources was somehow good for the country or good for Alaska,” Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said during an Alaska Day event.
As of July 2025, Alaska ranked sixth in the nation for crude oil production.
The news is the latest in a saga involving the ANWR, which in total spans 19.6 million acres. The 1.5 million acres to be opened for drilling represent the coastal plain of the refuge.
The 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which created most of the state’s national park lands, included a provision that no exploratory drilling or production could occur without congressional action.
Trump first opened the 1.5 million-acre coastal plain region for drilling in 2020, but the sale of drilling leases in early 2021 generated just $14.4 million in bids, rather than the $1.8 billion his administration had estimated.
On his first day in office, Biden placed a temporary moratorium on oil and gas drilling in the refuge, later going on to cancel the existing leases.
Trump resumed his efforts to allow drilling in ANWR early in his second term, though in January 2025, a lease sale attracted zero bidders. Previously, major banks had ruled out financing such drilling efforts, some citing environmental concerns. Cost is also likely a factor, as the area currently has no roads or facilities.
In addition to opening drilling, the Department of Interior also announced today the reissuing of permits to build a road through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge and a plan to greenlight another road.
“Today’s Arctic Refuge announcement puts America — and Alaska — last,” said Erik Grafe, an attorney for the environmental law nonprofit Earthjustice, ina statement. “The Gwich’in people, most Americans, and even major banks and insurance companies know the Arctic Refuge is no place to drill.”
The Department of the Interior said it plans to reinstate the 2021 leases that were cancelled by the Biden administration, as well as to hold a new lease sale sometime this winter.
These updates are made possible through information from the scientific community. Do you have a story about how changes in law or policy are affecting scientists or research? Send us a tip at eos@agu.org.
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
Three women become choked up as they deliver news in a video posted to social media. “We did it, everybody,” says Leslie Manookian, the woman in the middle. She is a driving force in a campaign that has chipped away at the foundations of modern public health in Idaho. The group had just gotten lawmakers to pass what she called the first true “medical freedom” bill in the nation. “It’s literally landmark,” Manookian said. “It is changing everything.”
With Manookian in the video are two of her allies, the leaders of Health Freedom Idaho. It was April 4, hours after the governor signed the Idaho Medical Freedom Act into law.
Log in
