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#takedowns

2 posts2 participants0 posts today

As Commerce Secretary, #HowardLutnick controls the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (#NOAA) and the National Weather Service (#NWS). As he dismantles them, note that he and his sons run a firm that invests in for-profit, private-sector firms that hope to replace NOAA and NWS.
newrepublic.com/post/197750/do

The New Republic · Trump’s Commerce Secretary Will Get Rich Off These Budget CutsHoward Lutnick has ties to companies that gather weather data.

"Trust and Integrity: A Research Imperative." A joint statement from the Association of Research Libraries (#ARL), International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (#STM), Association of College and Research Libraries (#ACRL), Society for Scholarly Publishing (#SSP), and Association of University Presses (#AUPresses).
scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/20

(Yes, it's rare to see #libraries and #publishers issue joint statements.)

"This year has brought unprecedented challenges to the U.S. research enterprise – sweeping federal funding cuts, capricious reductions in the federal workforce, and destabilizing attacks on universities, laboratories, and federal research agencies…In response to these challenges, we believe in and support: Public investment in basic science and the humanities…The need for broad access to validated, trusted information…Protecting and advancing freedom of speech…and ensuring research and scholarship remain free from political interference."

The Scholarly Kitchen · Trust and Integrity: A Research Imperative - The Scholarly KitchenLibraries and publishers represent the interests of thousands of authors, readers, scientists, researchers, students, and lifelong learners. Today, we stand united to face the mounting risks to public trust and the social benefit that research delivers. 

"The White House took down the nation's top #climate report. You can still find it here."
npr.org/2025/07/01/nx-s1-54535

"The website that hosts the most recent edition of the National Climate Assessment has gone dark. The sprawling report is the most influential source of information about how climate change affects the United States....On Monday (June 30), the government website that hosts all of that information stopped working. The Trump administration had already halted work on the next edition of the report, and fired all the staff who worked on it…An archived version of the most recent edition is available through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [#NOAA]. All five editions of the National Climate Assessment that have been published over the years will also be available on #NASA's website."

(Click through to the article for working links.)

"Hurricane Science Was Great While It Lasted."
theatlantic.com/science/archiv
(#paywalled)

"For years, the National Hurricane Center has been improving the accuracy of its forecasts, and one short year ago, the United States was better at predicting storms’ tracks than it had ever been. But the Trump administration has been cutting the forecasting staff and budgets. And now these satellite data will be missing too. The U.S. is rapidly losing state-of-the-art hurricane forecasting, just in time for hurricane season’s busiest months…What’s easy to see coming now are the possible consequences: at best, a needless evacuation. But just as easily: a rushed evacuation, a surprise landfall, a flattened house."

The Atlantic · Hurricane Science Was Great While It LastedBy Zoë Schlanger

"New #NOAA document spells out further deep Trump cuts."
axios.com/2025/07/01/noaa-docu

"A new NOAA document sheds further light on the Trump administration's proposed cuts and changes for the #weather and #climate agency…The proposal would eliminate NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (#OAR), which performs and coordinates climate research."

Illustration of a broken weather vane with an eagle instead of a rooster.
Axios · New NOAA document spells out further deep Trump cutsBy Alex Fitzpatrick

"EPA employees sign ‘declaration of dissent’ over agency moves under Trump."
theguardian.com/us-news/2025/j

"A group of Environmental Protection Agency employees on Monday published a declaration of dissent from the agency’s policies under the Trump administration, saying they “undermine the EPA mission of protecting human health and the environment”. More than 170 EPA employees put their names to the document, with about 100 more signing anonymously out of fear of retaliation, according to Jeremy Berg, a former editor-in-chief of Science magazine who is not an EPA employee but was among non-EPA scientists or academics to also sign. The latter figure includes 20 Nobel laureates."

Here's the letter itself (h/t @AAKL).
standupforscience.net/epa-decl

It's open to signatures from non-employees as well. I just signed and hope you will too.
act.standupforscience.net/form

The Guardian · EPA employees sign ‘declaration of dissent’ over agency moves under TrumpBy Guardian staff reporter

The tussle for control over federal research grants

Three months ago #DOGE seized control of <grants.gov> and "changed the website’s permissions to give themselves power to review and approve all grants across the government." That part of the pillaging of federal science funding is over. DOGE has apparently lost control over the site, thanks in part to the departure of #Musk and weakening of DOGE, and thanks in part to agency infighting. But don't celebrate too soon. Despite the DOGE defeat on that front, "political appointees will still be involved in reviewing grants."
washingtonpost.com/politics/20

The Washington Post · DOGE loses control over government grants website, freeing up billionsBy Dan Diamond
Continued thread

12/ I'm still tracking news on #Trump admin actions that affect #research, #universities, and #OpenAccess. But on May 7, 2025, I stopped tracking this news in long Mastodon threads and switched to tags instead.
fediscience.org/@petersuber/11

To follow this news on Mastodon, please follow one or both of these tags: #DefendResearch and #TrumpVResearch.

If you post on these topics yourself, please consider using the same tags, to help crowdsource this project.

#Academia #Censorship #Funding #Takedowns #USPol #USPolitics
@academicchatter

FediScience.orgpetersuber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)𝗨𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱. I've been tracking the impact of #Trump actions on US research, primarily in this Mastodon thread. But the thread is becoming long and unwieldy, and this problem will only get worse. I'll continue to track this news but I want to stop doing it primarily in threads. Once I depend less on threads, I'll depend more on #tags to help readers find the posts in this collection. I already use #DefendResearch and will to continue to do so. It comes from the Declaration To Defend Research Against US Government Censorship. https://www.defendresearch.org/ But I want to supplement it with a more Trump-specific tag. After mulling over a few possibilities — like TrumpAdminOnResearch and ResearchUnderTrump — I've decided to go with #TrumpVResearch. Thanks to Alice Meadows and Suze Kundu for the suggestion. https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/04/30/trump-v-research-how-we-could-turn-the-threats-into-opportunities/ I won't add this tag retroactively to (many) past posts. But going forward I'll use both #DefendResearch and #TrumpVResearch for posts in this collection. To follow these topics, consider following these tags. I encourage others to use these tags too, in posts on the same topics. It's one way to #crowdsource this tracking project. Here's more on this tracking project and the need to crowdsource it. https://fediscience.org/@petersuber/114031943643988590 #USPol #USPolitics

"Suspension of All Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (#DMSP) #Data by June 30, 2025."
ospo.noaa.gov/data/messages/20

"Due to recent service changes, the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) and Navy’s Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC) will discontinue ingest, processing and distribution of all DMSP data no later than June 30, 2025. ESPC interfaces will not receive DMSP data and all data products will be suspended. Users should expect…data from Operational Linescan System (OLS), Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder (SSMIS), and all Near-Earth Space Weather instruments to be terminated. This service change and termination will be permanent."

"Data Rescue Project Launches New Portal."
datarescueproject.org/data-res

The Data Rescue Project (#DRP) just launched the DRP Portal to supersede its spreadsheet-based Data Rescue Tracker.

"As of June 2025, DRP volunteers and other organizations have rescued over 1,100 public datasets from 80+ government offices…Built by volunteers with support from New America and using JKAN, a lightweight, backend-free open data portal, the DRP Portal is a centralized, searchable hub, integrating datasets from multiple rescue efforts such as Public Environmental Data Partners, Safe Guarding Research & Culture, ICPSR, and more. The Portal makes it easy to discover rescued datasets by government offices sharing the data, topic, and more."

Here's the portal itself.
portal.datarescueproject.org/

Data Rescue Project · Data Rescue Project Launches New PortalThe Data Rescue Project (DRP) is excited to announce the launch of the DRP Portal—a milestone in our collective effort to protect and preserve at-risk public information. As of June 2025, DRP volunteers and other organizations have rescued over 1,100 public datasets from 80+ government offices. Started as

"Major US climate website likely to be shut down after almost all staff fired."
theguardian.com/us-news/2025/j

"Climate.gov, the gateway website for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (#NOAA)’s Climate Program Office, will imminently no longer publish new content, according to multiple former staff responsible for the site’s content whose contracts were recently terminated…The purge spared two web developers, which [a contractor] says is a concerning sign. The contractor said: 'My bigger worry, long-term, is I would hate to see it turn into a propaganda website for this administration, because that’s not at all what it was.'"

The Guardian · Major US climate website likely to be shut down after almost all staff firedBy Eric Holthaus

#Universities carrying water for the #Trump admin without apparently receiving any direct demands from the Trump admin. Obeying in advance:

"A #Tulane University researcher resigned Wednesday, citing #censorship from university leaders who had warned that her advocacy and research exposing the Louisiana petrochemical industry’s health impacts and racial disparities in hiring had triggered blowback from donors and elected officials."
apnews.com/article/cancer-alle

#Academia #Censorship #DefendResearch #Takedowns #TrumpVResearch #USPol #USPolitics
@academicchatter

"Preserving the Federal Data Trump Is Trying to Purge."
insidehighered.com/news/govern

"For months, the research community has been racing to download and store thousands of demographic data sets the government wants to delete because they don’t align with the Trump administration’s ideological views…Over the past five months, more than 3,000 taxpayer-funded data sets —many congressionally mandated— collected by federal agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Center for Education Statistics, and the Census Bureau, have been caught in the cross fire."

Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and JobsPreserving the Federal Data Trump Is Trying to PurgeFor months, the research community has been racing to download and store thousands of demographic data sets the government wants to delete because they don’t align with the Trump administration’s ideological views.

"Do you remember the Human Genome Project? I’m not sure the Trump administration wants you to."
statnews.com/2025/06/05/nih-na
(#paywalled)

"My job was to preserve and provide access to the records of the Human Genome Project [#HGP]...All of that work, like so much else at #NIH, is currently being dismantled...The digital archival records my colleagues and I maintained are currently inaccessible. I worry that they might be gone altogether, either now or sometime in the future."

STAT · Do you remember the Human Genome Project? I’m not sure the Trump administration wants you toThe NIH archives of the Human Genome Project could fall victim to Trump administration cuts, writes a former archivist.

"Germany Plans Global Alternative to PubMed."
medpagetoday.com/special-repor

"ZB Med, or the German Library of Medicine, has launched an effort to create an #OpenSource global literature infrastructure which its developers are calling a #PubMed "alternative." They say there's a need to create such a service in case U.S. funding is curtailed or the quantity or quality of its 37 million citations fall victim to politicization, or a DOGE-like chain saw attack of its trained personnel."

www.medpagetoday.comGermany Plans Global Alternative to PubMedIn the wake of a brief PubMed outage, team launches project to ensure uninterrupted access

"UChicago Data Mirror Website Launched to Protect Access to Public Datasets."
datascience.uchicago.edu/news/

"In response to the withdrawal of multiple public datasets and websites, the Data Science Institute and the University of Chicago Library have partnered to launch the UChicago Data Mirror website to protect access to at-risk datasets. The website will preserve backups of these resources within UChicago’s infrastructure and reflect exact copies onto a publicly accessible repository."

54 higher-ed organizations just issued a "Call to Reforge the Historic Compact Between Higher Education and the Federal Government."
acenet.edu/Documents/Statement

"The longstanding partnership between the federal government and colleges and universities has made American higher education the envy of the world and an engine of national progress and prosperity. All Americans, whether they went to college or not, have benefited from this compact…The undersigned associations represent those colleges and universities and the communities they serve. On behalf of tens of millions of students, educators, researchers, and administrators nationwide, we oppose recent government actions that jeopardize this partnership…This balance is dangerously disrupted when billions of dollars in funding for education and competitively awarded research grants are held hostage for political reasons…Release of funds obligated to institutions should not be conditioned on which students universities admit, what kinds of academic programs they offer, and how they organize and oversee their faculty. Campuses should not be attacked for building communities that reflect their missions and the broad diversity of this country. Students and scholars should not fear deportation just for exercising their right to speak freely."

#Academia #DefendResearch #Takedowns #Trump #TrumpVResearch #Universities #USPol #USPolitics
@academicchatter

"TIB builds Dark Archive for arXiv."
blog.tib.eu/2025/05/14/protect

"What we [German National Library of Science and Technology, or Technische Informationsbibliothek, #TIB] have implemented over the last few weeks, is to build a Dark Archive of #arXiv contents…The data are being stored, but if push comes to shove it would need some more steps to make them publicly available."

TIB-Blog · Protecting Science: TIB builds Dark Archive for arXiv - TIB-Blog
More from Esther Tobschall