Capital & Main

1 day ago | capitalandmain.com | Audrey Carleton

Zulene Mayfield took a seat in front of a panel of legislators. Behind her, audience members were dressed in purple t-shirts and hoisted signs above their heads. On an overcast day in early March, she was there to urge members of the Pennsylvania House Environmental and Natural Resource Protection Committee to pass HB 109, a bill that would establish protections for communities overburdened by industrial pollution — communities like hers.

1 week ago | capitalandmain.com | Jack Ross

This article was produced in partnership with KCRW. In the neighborhoods surrounding the Santa Monica Airport, homeowners know little peace. Every few minutes, the whine of a jet engine intrudes on the suburban soundscape. But relief is coming. In 2017, locals won a more than seven-decade fight to close the airport. It is scheduled to shutter once and for all on Dec. 31, 2028. Santa Monica residents voted in 2014 to build a park on the site of the airport.

1 week ago | capitalandmain.com | Marcus Baram

DOGE budget cuts are hurting the Hancock County Food Pantry in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, reports WLOX:The Hancock County Food Pantry is a source that many people in the area rely on during hard times. Now that summer has begun, it’s seeing more people than usual. “I think it has something to do with the job market,” claims pantry treasurer Jan Vest.

1 week ago | capitalandmain.com | Jennifer Oldham

Remember the banana peels, apple cores and leftover pizza you recently threw in the garbage? Today, your food waste, and your neighbors’, is emitting climate-warming greenhouse gases as it decomposes in a nearby municipal landfill. Buried food scraps and yard waste at 51 dumps across Colorado generate an amount of methane equivalent to driving 1 million gasoline-powered cars for a year.

1 week ago | capitalandmain.com | Marcus Baram

DOGE cuts to AmeriCorps, FEMA, the Environmental Protection Agency , the Army Corps of Engineers and the Small Business Administration have impacted wildfire recovery efforts in Los Angeles, reports The Guardian:On 13 April, Tess McGinley was working in her Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) cubicle in Los Angeles, calling people who had lost their homes in the January wildfires, when her team was told to stop what they were doing and leave the office immediately.