FlaglerLive

As of Aug. 20, 2025, the National Institutes of Health has terminated over 5,100 grants totaling over US$4.4 billion in research funding. Likewise, the National Science Foundation, which seeks among other things to advance the nation’s health, has rescinded over 1,700 research grants totaling over $1 billion in funding. These terminations have disproportionately affected projects that study the experiences of marginalized groups and funding to scientists from social groups that are underrepresented in academia.

Recent moves by Washington, such as taking a 10% share of semiconductor maker Intel, point to a shift in that direction. For decades, Washington has supported free-market capitalism. Today, the government appears to be supporting a new direction – state-directed capitalism.

President Donald Trump’s relentless and escalating drive to acquire Greenland from Denmark could affect the functioning and even existence of NATO, the post-World War II alliance of Western nations that “won the Cold War and led the globe,” as a recent Wall Street Journal story put it.

For years, when the Environmental Protection Agency assessed the economic impact of new regulations, it weighed both the health costs for Americans and the compliance costs for businesses. The Trump administration is now planning to drop half of that calculation – the monetary health benefits of reducing both ozone and PM2.5 – when weighing the economic impact of regulating sources of air pollution.

A single, medium-sized data center here on Earth can consume enough electricity to power about 16,500 homes, with even larger facilities using as much as a small city. Over the past few years, tech leaders have increasingly advocated for space-based AI infrastructure as a way to address the power requirements of data centers. Google unveiled Project Suncatcher, a bold proposal to launch an 81-satellite constellation into low Earth orbit. The company will soon have to reckon with a growing problem: space debris.

U.S. military intervention in Latin America has largely been covert. And when the U.S. orchestrated the coup that ousted Guatemala’s democratically elected president in 1954, the U.S. covered up the role that economic considerations played in that operation. By the early 1950s, Guatemala had become a top source for the bananas Americans consumed, as it remains today. The United Fruit Company owned over 550,000 acres of Guatemalan land, largely thanks to its deals with previous dictatorships.

In 2018, high-speed passenger trains branded as Brightline started running along the formerly freight-only Florida East Coast Railway. Initial service from Miami to West Palm Beach was extended to Orlando in 2023. Unfortunately, the southern end of the line is in the spotlight because of collisions with pedestrians and motor vehicles. Over the past decade, an average of 900 pedestrians lost their lives each year in the U.S., and another 150 motor vehicle occupants died in collisions at highway-rail grade crossings.