Back home after a remarkable several days in Mexico City, I’m assembling my notes to bring you the inside story on what’s been learned so far about the mysterious otherworldly Buga Sphere. Over morning coffee, beyond the crisis in the Middle East what caught my eye in the day’s other news seemed worthy of a briefing.
OUR PUBLIC HEALTH:
FROM THE WASHINGTON POST: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed sweeping legislation Sunday to slap warning labels on potentially tens of thousands of food and beverage packages — a move that could have ripple effects across the country.
The first-of-its-kind legislation requires labels on foods containing 44 dyes or additives commonly found in the country’s food supply, such as in baked goods, candy and drinks. The new mandate will set off a scramble within the food industry, which must decide whether to reformulate its products to avoid warning labels, add the newly mandated language, stop selling certain products in Texas or file lawsuits against the measure.
FROM THE EPOCH TIMES: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke positively about Starbucks after meeting with the national coffee chain’s CEO Brian Niccol.
Kennedy said in a June 18 social media post that he met the day prior with Niccol, “who shared the company’s plans to further MAHA its menu.”
MAHA refers to Make America Healthy Again, an agenda promoted by Kennedy while he was running for president and forwarded by him after he became health secretary earlier this year.
The agenda includes removing artificial ingredients from foods and beverages. “I was pleased to learn that Starbucks’s food and beverages already avoid artificial dyes, artificial flavors, high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, and other additives,” Kennedy wrote this week.
OUR ENVIRONMENT
FROM GRIST: For weeks, smoke from Canadian wildfires has poured down into the United States, drifting clear across the Atlantic into Europe. Pulmonologist Vivek Balasubramaniam, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, noticed more people calling in with asthma symptoms and asking for advice when smoke doused the region in early June.
Monitoring air quality is key to forecasting and assessing wildfire smoke. Right now, that’s a coordinated effort between federal, state, tribal, and local entities. Federally approved and privately operated monitors feed data into tools like the Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow tool, and help forecast air quality and issue public health guidance. But air quality scientists worry that EPA budget and job cuts will make it difficult to get air quality information to people, endangering public health. And when it comes to longer-term research, some experts say community monitors won’t fill in the gap.
The Trump administration announced plans last month to reorganize the agency and cut staff back to levels last seen in the Reagan era, which could mean the elimination of thousands of jobs. The EPA’s proposed budget for 2026 would halve its funding, from $9.14 billion to $4.16 billion.
FROM ALTERNET: The Trump administration announced plans Monday to roll back a conservation rule that has protected nearly 60 million acres of undeveloped national forest land for over 20 years — a decision that has triggered strong opposition from environmental advocates and conservationists.
The proposed changes would pave the way for expanded logging and road construction in some of the country’s most pristine wilderness, The Washington Post reported Monday.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins revealed that the administration is initiating efforts to repeal protections covering approximately 59 million acres of roadless forest, including a significant portion of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest — a nearly 9-million-acre expanse of old-growth wilderness, per the Post. Rollins made these remarks while speaking before a gathering of Western governors in New Mexico.
Meanwhile, environmental advocates have swiftly denounced the move and vowed legal action against it.
Oh yeah, Kennedy endorsing a zionist company funding illegal settlements and sadistic ethnic cleansing. Well, there's a shocker.