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In April 1934, the U.S. recorded its highest wind speed ever, a gust of 231 miles per hour at Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire. The Mount Washington weather station, situated at the highest point in New England, continues to record high wind speeds, averaging 35.8 miles per hour between 1984 and 2020. Wind is […]

The Endangered Species Act is a landmark conservation law that has brought wildlife threatened by habitat destruction, climate change, and other issues back from the brink of extinction; the iconic Bald Eagle is one of the most well-known examples. In 2019, the Trump Administration rolled back several major protections outlined in the Endangered Species Act. […]

The COVID-19 pandemic has flipped our understanding of life on its head—especially when it comes to work. Though work-from-home at first seemed to be a temporary trend, employees are increasingly staying home by choice rather than necessity even as workplaces have reopened. In January 2022, Pew Research found 59% of employed adults reported working from […]

Many colleges and universities help prepare students for life after finals and dissertations by setting up virtual job fairs, providing online office hours for career development, and reaching out to companies to create co-op programs for potential student hires. And while finding high-paying jobs can sometimes be challenging, there are plenty of schools that have […]

After six decades of experiments, scientists from the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California announced an energy breakthrough in December 2022:  a nuclear fusion reactor had produced more energy than was used to run it. With nuclear fusion still years—and billions of dollars—away from being scalable,  the current landscape of […]

Several studies within the past year have shown just how detrimental remote learning has been to academic progress during the coronavirus pandemic, especially for students already disadvantaged by racial and economic achievement gaps. Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research, for example, looked at testing data from fall 2019 through fall 2021 of 2 million […]

College graduation rates vary widely from one state to another; while 60% of enrolled students graduate in New Hampshire, in South Dakota the same percentage of people drop out before earning a degree. There are several reasons why students may not complete their four-year education. Many experience social isolation, anxiety, or depression. These conditions are […]

On Feb. 22, the Biden administration announced the first auction of offshore wind leases in the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf Coast, which has been home to numerous offshore oil and gas wells, could provide clean power to 1.3 million homes by the end of this decade. It’s the latest in a recent expansion of […]

The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on the U.S. public education system, diminishing enrollment by unprecedented numbers. As a growing contingent of parents have enrolled their kids in private or charter schools or turned to home-schooling, a key consequence has been less money for public schools and districts, as public school funding is determined by […]

The top five oil companies based in the West set new earning records in 2022, all at least doubling their 2021 profits to achieve combined earnings of nearly $200 billion. ExxonMobil reported the highest profits of any single company at almost $56 billion. These earnings come in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The war has […]