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January 26, 2026 – Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts) filed a discharge petition last week to force a House vote on a bill to extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians for three years.

TPS allows immigrants from countries where living conditions are dangerous to live and work legally in the U.S. As we reported earlier this month, Haitians and other immigrants with this protected status make up significant parts of the workforce in meatpacking plants—from Maryland to Colorado.

The Trump administration’s decision to end the program for 350,000 Haitians is set to go into effect next week, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has also moved to end TPS for immigrants from Venezuela, Nepal, Somalia, Burma, South Sudan, and Ethiopia.

House Democrats emphasized Haitians’ contributions to the economy at a Capitol Hill press conference Thursday announcing the petition. And earlier in the week, Pressley hosted an event with Senator Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) in their home state, where union representatives, business leaders, and community advocates explained how local businesses and families will likely be harmed by the end of TPS.

Jen Ziskin, the executive director of Massachusetts Restaurants United, said that independent restaurants are struggling because employees are afraid to come to work. “Haitian TPS holders are not abstract policy debates,” she said. “They are cooks, dishwashers, servers, managers, and owners. They’re experienced, reliable, legally authorized workers, and they’ve become our family.”

“If TPS is terminated, the damage will be immediate,” she added. “Restaurants will lose staff they cannot replace. Hours will be cut, prices will rise, and closures will follow. And because Haitians work throughout the food system in farming, processing, distribution, and delivery, the consequences spread far beyond restaurants.”

The discharge petition currently has 27 signatures and will need 218 in total to force a vote on the measure. At the same time, a federal judge has promised to rule by Feb. 2 on a case challenging the Trump administration’s termination of TPS for Haitians.

Yesterday, a federal judge in a separate case stopped the administration from ending TPS for Burmese immigrants. DHS’s termination of TPS for nearly all immigrant groups, he said, was evidence of decisions made based on a broader goal of stopping immigration, not on a factual evaluation of changed conditions in each of the countries. (Link to this post.)

The post Lawmakers Seek to Extend Temporary Protected Status for Haitian Immigrants appeared first on Civil Eats.

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The packed-earth trail winds through the dense and tangled forest of Vanuatu, the ocean crashing just meters to our right. Richard Rojo’s feet don’t mind the stones and stumps, and he carries a bush knife and a repurposed rice sack. It’s a path well-trodden for Rojo, who’s lived here in the village of Tasmate on Vanuatu’s remote west coast of Espiritu Santo Island as a subsistence farmer and fisher all his 40-ish years. I walk-jog to keep up with him as he talks to me over his shoulder, idly whacking at an occasional vine with his knife. We’ve been traveling together a few days now in his open boat up and down this coast, on a reporting trip with the Sunset Santo Environmental Network (SSEN) team so I can see for myself the way villages here are threatened by climate change. We walk for about 10 minutes as I pepper Rojo with questions. We pass towering trees covered with epiphytic plants and wade across a river before popping out into a clearing the size of a few soccer pitches. Coconut palms edge the far side and, in front of us, earthen berms enclose a shallow rectangular pool maybe 5 by 50 meters (roughly 16 by 164 feet). Inside are rows and rows of chest-high plants with heart-shaped leaves: Colocasia esculenta, or water taro. Rojo sets down his knife and bag and wades into the pool. “I will go replace some that are dying like this one,” he says, finding his…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Nearly 3.8 billion people could face extreme heat by 2050 and while tropical countries will bear the brunt cooler regions will also need to adapt, scientists said Monday.

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Millions of Americans were facing dangerously cold temperatures Monday in the wake of a massive winter storm that whipped snow and ice across the country, knocking out power and paralyzing transportation.

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A new study reveals a simple and fast, label-free way to distinguish aggressive cancer cells by how they physically behave. Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed this novel way to identify aggressive cancer cells, not by analyzing their genes or chemical markers, but by observing how they physically interact with their environment.

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The hometown hero has become the winningest musher in the history of the Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race, pulling through the finish line in Bethel at 10:40 a.m. on Sunday, Jan. 25.

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Researchers built a living biosensor made of bacteria that lights up when it detects acetic acid, the main chemical signal that wine is starting to spoil. It works in real time, even in high-alcohol conditions, so wineries can catch problems early, before flavor and quality are damaged. The approach could offer a simpler, lower-cost alternative to lab testing and strengthen quality control across fermentation-based industries.

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Metabolic diseases such as obesity, fatty liver, and insulin resistance are rapidly increasing worldwide, but fundamental methods to regulate the process of fat formation remain limited. In particular, once adipocytes (fat cells) are formed, they are difficult to reduce, making treatment challenging. A research team from KAIST has discovered the existence of a switch that prevents fat formation. This discovery elucidates how an epigenetic switch, which regulates gene activity without altering the DNA sequence itself, functions during the process of adipogenesis, presenting new possibilities for the precise control of obesity and metabolic diseases in the future.

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Starfish, also known as sea stars, are equipped with an almost alien-like anatomy. Despite lacking a brain, blood, and central nervous system, these odd creatures still have locomotive abilities. The structure of their many flexible tube feet has been well-studied, but it is still unclear exactly how they function without a brain and central nervous system. But a new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that starfish seem to employ a local mechanical feedback system to get around.

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Last Updated on January 26, 2026 “It was so beautiful. Little did we know it was so toxic”, declared Karen (Pungowiyi) Nguyen, a former Indigenous resident of Sivuqaq Island (more commonly known as St. Lawrence Island) in the Northern Bering Sea, when we interviewed her in Alaska in early 2024. She recalled how, as children […]

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A severe winter storm that brought crippling freezing rain, sleet and snow to a large part of the U.S. in late January 2026 left a mess in states from New Mexico to New England. Hundreds of thousands of people lost power across the South as ice pulled down tree branches and power lines, more than a foot of snow fell in parts of the Midwest and Northeast, and many states faced bitter cold that was expected to linger for days.

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Gold is generally associated with pyrite (iron disulfide, FeS2), and pyrite-induced gold precipitation is critical to the formation of high-grade gold deposits. However, the role of pyrite in precipitating gold from fluids has not been well understood. Now, using in situ liquid-phase transmission electron microscopy under conditions that excluded the influence of dissolved oxygen and electron beams, scientists have achieved the first nanoscale, real-time observation of the reaction between pyrite and gold-bearing solutions, providing critical insights into gold enrichment by pyrite.

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SILIMA PUNGGA-PUNGGA DISTRICT, Indonesia — Rainim Purba first heard the rumor in 1996. Back then, in her mid-30s, villagers were saying a zinc mining company was going to operate near their village of Pandiangan, northeast of Indonesia’s North Sumatra province. It would also be near other villages like Longkotan. When rumor became reality, the company promised some residents jobs delivering logistics to workers in the hills, and others were promised to be employed in the mine. Little did Rainim know at the time that she was going to spend two decades of her life joining women farmers to challenge the mine and set a legal precedent in the country. Along with 11 villagers, women led a lawsuit that ultimately won in court. When the environment ministry followed through with the ruling by revoking the company’s environmental permit in May 2025, it marked a legal first: confirmation that an environmental permit of its kind, created through a controversial 2020 law, can in fact be challenged in court. Women were at the forefront of the legal challenge against PT DPM’s mine. Image courtesy of YDPK. According to community activists, when the mining company PT Dairi Prima Mineral (PT DPM) first came to speak to villagers, they were never properly informed of the potential threats the mine could pose. Notably, this consisted of the plan to build a tailings dam in an area with frequent earthquakes, landslide risks and unstable volcanic ash. “They just gave us a verbal notification, no outreach,” she said.…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Phosphorus is crucial for crop growth. But too little can lower crop yields, and too much can lead to pollution downstream. Studies show that some soils are losing phosphorus, while others are accumulating and leaking into waterways, says watershed researcher Monireh Faramarzi. "This creates confusion about what is actually happening in farm landscapes," she says, especially in areas with frequent freeze/thaw cycles.

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Across the world, water scarcity is emerging as one of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century. Climate change is pushing rivers and aquifers into unprecedented extremes, droughts and floods are intensifying, and demand for freshwater is rising with population growth and economic development.

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A research team from Munich has identified a previously unknown communication mechanism in harvestmen. Five closely related species show species-specific, strongly fluorescent structures on their backs that become especially visible under ultraviolet light. The results suggest that these patterns serve for species recognition—particularly at dusk and in moonlight. The study has been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

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Scientists at the Broad Institute and Mass General Brigham have built a generative AI model that creates short DNA segments that can control gene activity in specific cells. These sequences, called cis-regulatory elements (CREs), make up a large part of the human genome, and synthetic versions of these bits of DNA could one day be part of gene therapies that tune gene activity to treat disease.

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Incidents that make us consider the relationship between humans and wild animals are happening all over Japan, from bear attacks to crop damage by wild animals. How should we interpret the current situation, and how should we respond? Kiyono Mieko, associate professor at the Graduate School of Human Development and Environment, primarily performs research on the ecology of the Japanese macaque, a species of monkey, via surveys and practical activity in agricultural regions. She spoke about coexistence between humans and wild animals with

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In 2022, when William Ruto was elected president of Kenya, he pledged that his government would plant 15 billion trees by 2032. Many observers saw it as a bold and ambitious promise — one that would require coordinated planning, reliable monitoring, sustained financing, and long-term stewardship on a massive scale. According to estimates from the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Forestry, about 1.5 billion trees have been planted so far. In a recent interview with Mongabay’s David Akana in Nairobi, Kenya’s environment minister, Deborah Barasa, said the country can still meet the 15 billion target. But recent media reporting on the tree-planting campaign has highlighted significant hurdles, including funding gaps, labor and seedling shortages, persistent drought conditions, and other challenges. Some conservation scientists point out that planting trees is not a cure-all and that without stronger monitoring systems and clearer accountability, the initiative risks becoming more about counting seedlings than restoring ecosystems. Barasa acknowledged the scale of the task, but argued that strong political backing at the highest levels of government, combined with genuine community ownership, can turn the pledge into lasting gains. Barasa made these remarks during a commemoration ceremony to honor the legacy of Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan environmentalist whose work with communities helped reshape environmental stewardship in the country and earned her a Nobel Peace Prize. On Dec. 10, 2025, government officials joined representatives of the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Resources Institute Africa to celebrate Maathai’s legacy. In recent decades, a move toward…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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In recent years, Nepal has been heralded as a global leader in community-based forest conservation. By handing over nearly a third of its nationally owned forest to local villagers in the 1980s, the country reversed years of deforestation and effectively doubled its forest cover between 1992 and 2016. For many in rural Nepal, these forests are a lifeline, providing essential subsistence resources such as firewood for cooking and fodder for livestock.

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The development of humans and other animals unfolds gradually over time, with cells taking on specific roles and functions via a process called cell fate determination. The fate of individual cells, or in other words, what type of cells they will become, is influenced both by predictable biological signals and random physiological fluctuations.

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Nitrogen pollution is a serious concern for the agriculture industry. Agricultural fertilizers contain nitrogen, an essential nutrient for plant health. However, these fertilizers also produce nitrogen runoff, which occurs when excess nitrogen seeps into the surrounding environment, like waterways. This causes toxic algal blooms, which disrupt aquatic ecosystems and pollute drinking water. Further, nitrogen from agricultural processes can pollute the air in the form of nitrous oxide (N2O), a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

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When you turn on the tap, you can typically expect clean, safe water to flow out. But behind that simple action lies a complex system of pipes, pumps, governance, and financials that, for millions of Americans, is at risk in the face of climate change.

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An interdisciplinary study confirms, for the first time, the oceanographic pathways that transport floating macroalgae from the coastal waters of Southwest Greenland to deep-sea carbon reservoirs, potentially playing a previously underappreciated role in global carbon storage. The work is published in the journal Science of The Total Environment.

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Even some 200 years after his death, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's scientific curiosity continues to yield new insights. This has now been demonstrated by biologists at Friedrich Schiller University Jena while closely examining the amber collection of the Weimar poet and polymath. In one of the pieces, they discovered a fossilized ant approximately 40 million years old which, thanks to its excellent state of preservation and extensive analyses, provides valuable information about the insect species. The researchers report their findings in the journal Scientific Reports.

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