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Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, issued an urgent alert about dengue fever, a painful and sometimes deadly mosquito-borne illness common in tropical and subtropical parts of the world. Some 3,500 travelers from the United States contracted dengue abroad in 2024, according to the CDC, an 84% increase over 2023. This trend is expected to continue, the agency said, noting that Florida, California, and New York, in that order, are likely to see the biggest surges this year. On Thursday, the United Kingdom Health Security Agency put out a similar warning, noting that there were 900 cases of travel-related dengue in the U.K. in 2024, almost 300 more infections than the preceding year. The two reports relayed a similar array of statistics about dengue, its symptoms, and rising caseloads. But the U.K. Health Security Agency included a crucial piece of information that the CDC omitted: It noted why cases are breaking records. The rise is driven by climate change, rising temperatures, and flooding, it said. In the past, the CDC has readily acknowledged the role climate change plays in the transmission of dengue feverbut the political conditions that influence scientific research and federal public health communications in the U.S. have undergone seismic shifts in the months since President Donald Trump took office. The new administration has purged federal agency websites of mentions of equity and climate change and sought to dismantle the scientific infrastructure that agencies like the CDC use to understand and respond to a range of health risksincluding those posed by global warming. Last week, ProPublica reported that the National Institutes of Health, or NIHthe largest source of funding for medical research in the worldwill shut down all future funding opportunities for climate and health research. It remains to be seen whether ongoing grants for research at this intersection will be allowed to continue. A few days later, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his agency plans to cull 10,000 people from its workforce, including new cuts at CDC, an agency that was established in 1946 in order to prevent a different mosquito-borne illness, malaria, from spreading across the U.S. Taken together, the suite of directives will prevent the U.S. and other nations whose scientists rely on NIH funding from preparing for and responding to dengue fever at the exact moment when climate change is causing cases of the disease to skyrocket. The abrupt subversion of the personnel and institutions tasked with responding to a threat like dengue bodes poorly for future health crises as climate change causes carriers of disease like mosquitoes, fungi, and ticks to expand their historical ranges and infiltrate new zones. The disease pressure in the last couple of years is very dramatic and its going in one directionup, said Scott ONeill, founder of the World Mosquito Program, a nonprofit organization that infects mosquitoes with a naturally occurring bacteria to fight disease in 14 countries. For example, Brazilthe country that consistently registers the highest number of dengue casesrecorded a historic 10 million cases last year. The country reported 1.7 million cases in 2023. The two types of mosquitoes that most often infect humans with dengue, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, thrive in the warm, moist conditions made more prevalent by rising atmospheric temperatures caused by fossil fuel combustion. The vast majority of annual dengue cases are asymptomatic, but about 25% of people infected, depending on the population, develop symptoms like fever, headache, and joint pain. A small percentage of those cases result in severe sickness, hospitalization, and even death. The number of severe dengue infections corresponds roughly to the size of the pool of people infected every year. In 2023, when there were 6 million total dengue infections, 6,000 people died. In 2024, a year when there were more than 13 million cases registered globally, over 8,000 people died. There is no cure for dengue. Patients in wealthier countries generally fare better than patients in developing regions with limited access to medical interventions like blood transfusions and places where waves of dengue patients overwhelm already-strained healthcare systems. Two dengue vaccines are available in some countries, but both have serious limitations in terms of efficacy and how long they confer immunity. The NIH began taking climate change and health research seriously in 2021, and the institutes have funded dozens of studies that probe every aspect of the climate-dengue connection since. NIH-funded researchers have sought to understand how warmer temperatures shift the geographic ranges of Aedes mosquitoes, which factors predict dengue outbreaks, and how communities can protect themselves from dengue following extreme weather events. These studies have taken place in the southeastern U.S., where dengue is becoming more prevalent, and internationally, in countries like Peru and Brazil, where dengue is a near-constant threat. The NIH has also funded studies that bring the world closer to finding medical and technological interventions: more effective vaccines and genetically engineered mosquitoes that cant develop dengue, among other solutions. Disease doesnt have national borders, said an American vector biologist who has received funding from the NIH in the past. She askednot to have her name or affiliated academic institution mentioned in this story out of fear of reprisal from the Trump administration. Im worried that if were not studying it, were just going to watch it continue to happen and we wont be prepared. Americans arent just bringing cases of dengue fever home with them from trips abroad; the disease is also spreading locally with more intensity in warmer regions of the country and its territories. Last March, Puerto Rico declared a public health emergency amid an explosion of cases on the island. By the end of 2024, Puerto Rico registered over 6,000 casespassing the threshold at which an outbreak officially becomes an epidemic. More than half of the known infections led to hospitalization. Close to 1,000 cases have been reported there so far this year, a 113% increase over the same period in 2024. California and Florida reported 18 and 91 locally-acquired cases of dengue, respectively, last year. California registered its first-ever locally-acquired case of dengue in 2023. Dengue is already found in many places in the U.S. that have never seen this disease before, said Renzo Guinto, a physician and head of the Planetary Health Initiative at the Duke-NUS medical school in Singapore. To combat this emerging climate-related health threat, U.S. scientists must collaborate with others working in dengue overseas. With no resources and capacity, how can such collaboration occur? There are limited non-government sources of funding for climate and health research. The money that is available to American researchers is primarily offered by private foundations like the Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust. The grants these philanthropies offer annually pale in comparison to the $40 million Congress made available annually through the NIH for climate and health research in the two years before Trump took office. Researchers will be forced to compete for a small pool of funding in the coming years, which will likely lead to fewer studies and less innovation in the years to come. The end result will be that much less of this work would be donewe would all tell you to the detriment of Americans long term, said the vector biologist. As dengue spreads with more intensity in the countries where it is already common and slips across borders into zones like North America where the disease is still comparatively rare, its clear countries need to expand their arsenals of disease-fighting weapons. But the U.S. appears to be leading a charge in the opposite direction, with thousands of lives at stake. Were at a time when we need acceleration of innovation and solutions to very pressing global problems, said ONeill, whose organization receives funding from governments around the world, including the U.S. Its not the time to let ideology drive science rather than let science drive itself. This article originally appeared in Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Sign up for its newsletter here.
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Most of us know the general (albeit simplified) story: Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov used a stimuluslike a metronomearound the dogs he was studying, and soon, the hounds would start to salivate. They had learned that the sound meant food was coming. The phenomenon, now known as classical conditioning, became one of modern psychologys foundational discoveries. It’s an unconscious process where a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a naturally occurring stimulus, eventually leading to a connection between the two. The dogs, seeing the researcher who often brings them food or hearing the noise of the cart on its way, would immediately know they were about to have a meal. Flash forward 120 years: my dog and I are riding through San Francisco in a self-driving car. Ive taken Waymos autonomous vehicles dozens of times, often with my 9-year-old chiweenie, Poppy, nestled on my lap. She usually naps peacefully, facing inward, oblivious to the world outside. Near the end of each ride, the car makes a familiar ding-dong chime, followed by a womans voice reminding me to take my phone, keys, and wallet. Poppy, unfazed, would remain in a deep sleep until the car stopped, I unbuckled my seatbelt, and picked her up to get out. Back to the world of smells and fresh air! Lately, Ive noticed something strange: As soon as the ding sounds, Poppy wakes up, turns around, and readies herself at the door without my helpevery single time. Is this . . . Pavlovs Waymo? As a serious journalist in pursuit of all the hard-hitting truths, I emailed the veterinary team at Bond Vet. The short answer to my not-so-serious question? Yes. “In practical terms, the sound acts as a cue, prompting her anticipation to leave. This behavior develops because the sound repeatedly coincides with the end of the ride, and the reward of getting out reinforces her response,” Dr. Lisa Lippman, director of virtual medicine at Bond Vet, said in an email. “Dogs are incredibly perceptive and often pick up on routines and environmental cues like this, its a great example of how they learn and adapt!” Researchers at the University of California, Davis, found in 2021 that common household noises, like a microwave beep or the chirp of a smoke detector, can cause a dog anxiety. Thankfully, Poppy doesn’t seem very anxious about the car’s noise (although humans are notoriously bad at sensing a dog’s stress or real emotions). But it made me think of the constant notifications and dings of our world. At the same time as our pets, we as humans are being classically conditioned. The microwave beep alerts us that we’re about to be rewarded with food, the “tudum” sound when you open the Netflix app prepares us for entertainment, the Waymo chime let’s us know it’s almost time to get out. Brands especially have utilized classical conditioning to associate their product with an emotion. “When we play sound feedback for Waymo riders, our guiding philosophy is to be friendly and helpful,” Waymo’s Head of Design and Customer Research Ryan Powell said over email. “That means playing sounds that feel connected and familiar, but not intrusive. We want to be thoughtful about how and when we play sound, so that riders can rely on these signals for their safety and comfort. Sometimes we’ll play sound followed by a voice explanation for more detail.”
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A crackdown on foreign students is alarming colleges, who say the Trump administration is using new tactics and vague justifications to push some students out of the country.College officials worry the new approach will keep foreigners from wanting to study in the U.S.Students stripped of their entry visas are receiving orders from the Department of Homeland Security to leave the country immediatelya break from past practice that often permitted them to stay and complete their studies.Some students have been targeted over pro-Palestinian activism or criminal infractionsor even traffic violations. Others have been left wondering how they ran afoul of the government.At Minnesota State University in Mankato, President Edward Inch told the campus Wednesday that visas had been revoked for five international students for unclear reasons.He said school officials learned about the revocations when they ran a status check in a database of international students after the detention of a Turkish student at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. The State Department said the detention was related to a drunken driving conviction.“These are troubling times, and this situation is unlike any we have navigated before,” Inch wrote in a letter to campus.President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to deport foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian protests, and federal agents started by detaining Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a green-card-holder and Palestinian activist who was prominent in protests at Columbia last year. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week students are being targeted for involvement in protests along with others tied to “potential criminal activity.”In the past two weeks, the government apparently has widened its crackdown. Officials from colleges around the country have discovered international students have had their entry visas revoked and, in many cases, their legal residency status terminated by authorities without noticeincluding students at Arizona State, Cornell, North Carolina State, the University of Oregon, the University of Texas, and the University of Colorado.Some of the students are working to leave the country on their own, but students at Tufts and the University of Alabama have been detained by immigration authoritiesin the Tufts case, even before the university knew the student’s legal status had changed. Feds bypass colleges to move against students In this new wave of enforcement, school officials say the federal government is quietly deleting foreigners’ student records instead of going through colleges, as was done in the past.Students are being ordered to leave the country with a suddenness that universities have rarely seen, said Miriam Feldblum, president and CEO of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.In the past, when international students have had entry visas revoked, they generally have been allowed to keep legal residency status. They could stay in the country to study, but would need to renew their visa if they left the U.S. and wanted to return. Now, increasing numbers of students are having their legal status terminated, exposing them to the risk of being arrested.“None of this is regular practice,” Feldblum said.At North Carolina State University, two students from Saudi Arabia left the U.S. after learning their legal status as students was terminated, the university said. N.C. State said it will work with the students to complete their semester from outside the country.Philip Vasto, who lived with one of the students, said his roommate, in graduate school for engineering management, was apolitical and did not attend protests against the war in Gaza. When the government told his roommate his student status had been terminated, it did not give a reason, Vasto said.Since returning to Saudi Arabia, Vasto said his former roommate’s top concern is getting into another university.“He’s made his peace with it,” he said. “He doesn’t want to allow it to steal his peace any further.” Database checks turn up students in jeopardy At the University of Texas at Austin, staff checking a federal database discovered two people on student visas had their permission to be in the U.S. terminated, a person familiar with the situation said. The person declined to be identified for fear of retaliation.One of the people, from India, had their legal status terminated April 3. The federal system indicated the person had been identified in a criminal records check “and/or has had their visa revoked.” The other person, from Lebanon, had their legal status terminated March 28 due to a criminal records check, according to the federal database.Both people were graduates remaining in the U.S. on student visas, using an option allowing people to gain professional experience after completing coursework. Both were employed full time and apparently had not violated requirements for pursuing work experience, the person familiar with the situation said.Some students have had visas revoked by the State Department under an obscure law barring noncitizens whose presence could have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” Trump invoked the law in a January order demanding action against campus anti-Semitism.But some students targeted in recent weeks have had no clear link to political activism. Some have been ordered to leave over misdemeanor crimes or traffic infractions, Feldblum said. In some cases, students were targeted for infractions that had been previously reported to the government.Some of the alleged infractions would not have drawn scrutiny in the past and will likely be a test of students’ First Amendment rights as cases work their way through court, said Michelle Mittelstadt, director of public affairs at the Migration Policy Institute.“In some ways, what the administration is doing is really retroactive,” she said. “Rather than saying, ‘This is going to be the standard that we’re applying going forward,’ they’re going back and vetting students based on past expressions or past behavior.”The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities is requesting a meeting with the State Department over the issue. It’s unclear whether more visas are being revoked than usual, but officials fear a chilling effect on international exchange.Many of the association’s members have recently seen at least one student have their visas revoked, said Bernie Burrola, a vice president at the group. With little information from the government, colleges have been interviewing students or searching social media for a connection to political activism.“The universities can’t seem to find anything that seems to be related to Gaza or social media posts or protests,” Burrola said. “Some of these are sponsored students by foreign governments, where they specifically are very hesitant to get involved in protests.”There’s no clear thread indicating which students are being targeted, but some have been from the Middle East and China, he said.America’s universities have long been seen as a top destination for the orld’s brightest mindsand they’ve brought important tuition revenue and research breakthroughs to U.S. colleges. But international students also have other options, said Fanta Aw, CEO of NAFSA, an association of international educators.“We should not take for granted that that’s just the way things are and will always be,” she said. The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Associated Press writers Steve Karnowski in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Angeliki Kastanis in Los Angeles contributed to this report. Collin Binkley, Annie Ma and Makiya Seminera, Associated Press
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