Trump killed the National Nature Assessment but volunteer scientists finished it anyway

The government canceled this nature study. Scientists kept going anyway.

By Neha Pathak, Yale Climate Connections

Most of us sense it without being told why: A walk in the woods or an hour in the park leaves us calmer, clearer, and restored. Increasingly, modern science agrees. A growing body of evidence links time in nature to better physical and mental health – and a major new effort is working to document exactly what that evidence shows.

That effort is called the Nature Record, and its survival is a story in itself. It began as the National Nature Assessment, a federal undertaking modeled on the long-running National Climate Assessment and mandated by a Biden-era executive order. 

Roughly 180 scientists volunteered to develop about a dozen chapters. The project had reached an early public-comment draft when the Trump administration canceled it. 

Rather than abandon the work, the authors decided to finish it independently under a new name, with foundation funding and National Academy of Sciences review. The report is now under revision, with the final release slated for December 2026.* 

Howard Frumkin, a physician-epidemiologist and a professor emeritus at the University of Washington, led the assessment’s chapter on human health. Yale Climate Connections spoke with him about how the report survived, what the science says about nature’s health benefits, why those benefits aren’t shared equally, and what it all means for communities and the healthcare system.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Avoid explosive diarrhea - buy local

 From the Rhode Island Health Department:

Other Taylor Farms products to watch for:

And, of course, Taylor paid off Trump:

Mathematicians prove perfectly fair elections are impossible

Prediction: Trump will use this as the pretext to cancel the 2026 elections

University of Cambridge

Mathematicians have concluded that a perfectly fair election system is impossible in a specific mathematical sense. 

No voting method can always ensure that local victories produce local seats, national seat totals accurately reflect overall vote shares, and the size of parliament remains fixed.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University of Copenhagen examined proportional representation and first-past-the-post systems. 

Their analysis found that every method for electing a national legislature involves compromises, usually among local representation, national proportionality, and the total number of parliamentary seats.

What YOU pay for Trump's corruption

On top of his self-dealing, taxpayers are spending billions on his vanity projects.

Justin Glawe and Ava Shook

Trump keeps giving Musk contracts. He'll
probably tell DOD to buy these pieces of junk

On the same day his company won a $1.6 billion contract with the US military, Elon Musk’s political action committee announced it would spend $100 million to help Republicans win the November midterms.

In previous eras of American politics, such a development might have caused even some Republicans to question whether the billion dollar taxpayer payout to Musk’s SpaceX and the surge of campaign cash to help their party win an election was a quid pro quo. In the waning years of the Trump era, however, it was simply a Wednesday.

Musk needs government money to keep his company afloat. Donald Trump needs Republicans to win in November so they can retain power in Congress and stop Democrats from impeaching him. This is the very simple anatomy of how government operates under Trump: give him money and he will help you. Don’t give him money and he will harm you.

The nation’s largest companies are dumping cash into Trump’s various political action committees and helping to fund his ever-increasing portfolio of renovation projects in and around Washington DC. In return, those companies are benefitting from massive government contracts, favorable policy decisions from the Trump administration and the federal agencies it controls, and even Trump’s public pumping of stocks that he himself is invested in.

The line from giving Trump money to receiving favorable treatment from his administration is straight and short, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“If a company encounters an issue with the federal government that comes to Trump’s attention, he will want to know how much money the company gave, according to a person familiar with the matter,” the Journal reported on July 30.

The private sector money flowing into Trump’s vanity projects is also costing taxpayers. His ballroom is funded by hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars as well as private donations. In this way, we’re all forced to fund Trump’s corruption.

A Public Notice-American Doom analysis shows that Trump is spending nearly $1.8 billion in taxpayer dollars to fund his many renovation projects. Meanwhile, Trump and his family’s digital currency companies have raked in more than $2.25 billion during Trump’s second term, including as much as $600 million from foreign interests, according to Democrats. 

Trump’s foreign licensing business has also exploded, bringing in $61 million last year alone. Another $50 billion in taxpayer dollars has gone to government contractors who are helping to fund Trump’s ballroom, Sen. Chris Murphy said last month when he took to the Senate floor to detail Trump administration corruption.

But the true cost to taxpayers for Trump’s construction projects — as well as the historic profiting off his presidency — are likely much higher than is currently known.

The values of mining deals tied to Trump family companies in Kazakhstan and North Carolina could be massive, if not entirely known.

Taxpayers are helping to fund a mining operation in North Carolina benefitting a company tied to Donald Trump Jr., thanks to a $1.4 billion loan and contract with the Defense Department. Companies tied to Trump’s sons are also benefitting from roughly $1.6 billion in loans for a Kazakh mining operation that the sons of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick are also profiting from.

Booga booga!

Support Rep. Tina Spears in the September 9 Democratic Primary

 

NEWS FROM THE RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN FOR TINA SPEARS AUGUST 2026 Delivering for Older Rhode Islanders I’ve listened for seniors across our district who are concerned about access to primary care doctors, affording medications, staying in their own homes, and protecting their savings from scammers. Their experiences have shaped my work at the State House and how I responded:   I met seniors struggling to find a doctor nearby or facing long waits for care. I voted to increase funding for primary care, hospitals, and community health cen-ters; pushed higher Medicaid reimbursement for EMS to keep ambulance service reliable in rural areas   I talked with families wanting aging parents to stay safely at home, with limited options to help. I voted to expand home- and community-based care, giving seniors more ways to age independently.   I saw retirees losing too much fixed income to state taxes and insurance gaps. I voted to support exempting Social Security from RI income tax, expanding Medigap/Medicare access, and protecting Medicaid funding for seniors and people with disabilities.   I saw scammers targeting seniors through deed fraud and Bitcoin ATMs, while drug costs kept climbing. I voted to create stronger deed fraud protections, crack down on Bitcoin ATM scams, increase AI safeguards in healthcare, and supported Pharmacy Benefit Manager reform to lower drug costs.   What’s next I’ll keep listening and working toward a Rhode Island where every older adult can live with dignity, security, and independence. Get your yard sign! Contact Tina at tina@tinaspearsri.com or call Kathleen 401 439 4469 to get yours! If you'd like to donate to Tina's re-eelction campaign, please make personal checks payable to: The Friends of Tina Spears 82 Hillside Drive Charlestown, RI 02813   Or click HERE to contribute online or scan the QR code Want to volunteer on Tina's re-election campaign? Contact us here. We have lots of fun and we'll keep Tina in the State House! Get our latest updates! Add your email... Subscribe State law prohibits the acceptance of any corporate or business checks. Only individuals and RI registered PACs may contribute. RI law requires contributors to note place of employment. Contributions are limited to $2,000 per person per calendar year, and are not tax-deductible. Visit our social accounts tinaspearsri.com

If you went to parochial school back in the day, this will conjure up memories

Sitting up straight may improve your mood and decision-making

McGill University

A person's posture may subtly affect both emotional state and decision-making, according to new research from McGill University. 

In a laboratory study, participants who sat upright reported more positive feelings and performed better during a task involving risk and reward than participants who slouched or sat in the control condition.

The effects were relatively small and were observed under controlled conditions. Still, the findings offer new evidence that physical position can influence mood and behavior, said Jorge Armony, a professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology at McGill and the study's senior author.

Drug safety policies often driven by disasters

How Tragedy Changed the FDA

By Sara Talpos

For decades, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has served as a gatekeeper, tasked with preventing dangerous, ineffective, and under-studied pharmaceuticals from being placed on the market. 

If you take Wegovy to help treat obesity, Lipitor to manage high cholesterol, or Xanax to quell anxiety, you’re taking a medication that the agency has decided provides more benefits, on net, than harms. Where does its authority come from — and why was it granted?

Mikkael A. Sekeres, a clinical scientist and author, explored these questions in his 2022 book, “Drugs and the FDA: Safety, Efficacy, and the Public’s Trust.” Although Sekeres drew on his experiences as a member of a government advisory committee in 2011, the themes in his book continue to be timely today, particularly the question of how much evidence — and what kind — the government should require for a medicine to be prescribed to patients.

An FDA advisory committee met to weigh whether specialized pharmacies should be allowed to dispense seven unapproved peptides and approved them. These substances, with robot-like names such as MOTs-C and BPC-157, have not completed the rigorous testing required for drug approval. Still, they are relatively easy to obtain on the gray market, and they’re popular among the public and key figures in the Make America Healthy Again movement.

Against that backdrop, Sekeres, who is chief of the Division of Hematology at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, spoke with Undark about the history and nuances of FDA oversight, including its process for screening advisory committee members for conflicts of interest. The interview was conducted by Zoom and edited for length and clarity.