Author name: Connie Stokes

Interstate 45 is getting a $13-billion makeover in Houston. The project aims to reduce congestion by adding new lanes—a common story for the many highway expansions that are constantly happening across the U.S. In nearby Austin, Tex., I-35 is being widened as part of a $4.5-billion project, for example, and near Sacramento, Calif., an expansion […]

February 25, 2025 5 min read Transgender Youth Have Better Emotional Health After Taking Hormones, New Study Finds Hormone therapy improves transgender young people’s well-being and social relationships, but Trump’s recent executive order and state bans threaten to take it away By Tyler Santora edited by Tanya Lewis A demonstrator at the Rise Up for Trans Youth

Among the slew of actions that President Donald Trump has taken during his first weeks back in office has been a barrage of attacks on federal scientists and scientific funding. The administration’s science agencies have fired thousands of employees, attempted to freeze research disbursements and proposed new policies that would reduce funding into the future.

February 25, 2025 5 min read Politics, Not Biology, Is Driving Legal Efforts to Classify Sex Sex is not one single, simple, uniform biological reality, so biology cannot be invoked as a basis for “immutable” legal classifications By Agustín Fuentes edited by Dan Vergano Amid the legal theater in the U.S. over sex and gender

February 24, 2025 2 min read Why Temperatures Swung by 90 Degrees F in Parts of U.S. Much of the U.S. has swung from temperatures in the –30s and –40s Fahrenheit to balmy weather in the 60s and 70s F By Andrea Thompson edited by Dean Visser Ice collects along the shore of Lake Michigan

Few voters likely expected President Donald Trump in the first weeks of his administration to slash billions of dollars from the nation’s premier federal cancer research agency. But funding cuts to the National Institutes of Health were presaged in Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership,” a conservative plan for governing that Trump said he knew nothing

February 24, 2025 3 min read A Derecho Damaged Skyscrapers More Than A Hurricane Did A powerful derecho last year caused more damage to Houston’s tallest buildings than Hurricane Beryl. Scientists wanted to know why By Chelsea Harvey & E&E News Shattered and boarded up windows are seen on the side of the Wells Fargo