Every week, Meals Tank is rounding up a couple of information tales that encourage pleasure, infuriation, or curiosity.
Ocean Temperatures Hit Alarming New Report in 2025
The world’s oceans absorbed a document quantity of warmth in 2025, marking the best degree ever recorded, in line with a brand new study revealed in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.
Oceans take in about 90 percent of the surplus warmth trapped by rising greenhouse fuel emissions, in line with NASA, making ocean warmth content material a key indicator of the altering local weather. “International warming is ocean warming,” says Professor John Abraham of the College of St. Thomas, a co-author of the examine.
Rising ocean temperatures can intensify excessive occasions like hurricanes, cyclones, and heavy rainfall, whereas additionally driving longer marine heatwaves that injury marine ecosystems. Hotter water expands because it heats, contributing on to sea degree rise and rising dangers for coastal communities worldwide.
The researchers conclude that ocean warming will proceed till world greenhouse fuel emissions attain internet‑zero, warning that delaying emissions reductions will lock in additional impacts on oceans and local weather programs.
U.S. Withdraws from 66 Worldwide Organizations
The US has formally withdrawn from 66 international organizations, practically half of that are affiliated with the United Nations, in line with a Presidential Memorandum signed by President Donald Trump. The affected our bodies work across sectors including public well being, local weather change, migration, peacebuilding, and training.
The memorandum states that these organizations “undermine America’s independence” and “promote radical local weather insurance policies” that battle with U.S. sovereignty and financial priorities. The administration claims the withdrawal will stop taxpayer {dollars} from funding “ineffective or hostile agendas.”
Specialists say the transfer marks a significant shift in U.S. world engagement. Nina Schwalbe of Georgetown College’s Middle for International Well being Coverage and Politics calls the choice “ridiculous and harmful,” including that if exiting the World Well being Group in 2024 was like “reducing down a tree,” this broader withdrawal is akin to “reducing down the entire forest.”
Will 2026 See a New Farm Invoice?
Congress has not handed a brand new five-year Farm Invoice because the final one expired in 2023, as an alternative choosing non permanent one-year extensions. A brand new essay by Kathleen Merrigan and Christopher Neubert of the Swette Middle for Sustainable Meals Techniques at Arizona State College questions whether or not complete five-year laws will return in any respect.
Historically, Merrigan and Neubert clarify, Congress has been in a position to move Farm Payments as a result of farmers in assist of subsidies and anti-hunger advocates see the benefit in working collectively to construct the bipartisan assist wanted to move the laws.
However the Trump administration’s “One Large Stunning Invoice Act,” signed in July 2025, altered that dynamic, reducing Supplemental Diet Help Program funding by US$186 billion over ten years whereas rising farm subsidies by US$60 billion. On account of these modifications and present divisions in Congress, the authors consider an everyday five-year Farm Invoice could also be out of attain, writing that it’s extra seemingly the stalemate in Congress “will proceed indefinitely.”
As a substitute, Congress could proceed to increase packages by way of smaller payments reasonably than try a full Farm Invoice overhaul. With out new laws, they conclude, meals and agriculture advocates might want to reassess methods for advancing their coverage priorities.
Carson and Oz Reward Trump-Vance Administration’s Deal with “Actual Meals”
Dr. Ben Carson, U.S. Division of Agriculture (USDA) Nationwide Advisor for Diet, Well being, and Housing, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator for the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Companies, say the Trump-Vance Administration is “Making America Wholesome Once more” by shifting diet coverage towards entire meals. In a joint op-ed, they argue that the 2025–2030 Dietary Tips lastly prioritize the well-being of People after many years of ultra-processed diets.
Carson and Oz cite the USDA Plan for American Ranchers and Customers and the US$700 million Regenerative Agriculture Pilot Program as steps to assist native farmers and scale back long-term manufacturing prices. “By making milk, elevating cattle, and rising healthful fruits, greens, and grains, they maintain the important thing to fixing our nationwide well being disaster,” they write.
Organizations like Buddies of the Earth applaud the intent of those packages, however be aware that these measures may fall short until latest cuts to funding and workers wanted to assist farmers design and implement regenerative practices are reversed. The Trump-Vance Administration has additionally not addressed how millions of U.S. households will entry entire meals following the biggest cuts to the Supplemental Diet Help Program (SNAP) in historical past.
Sudan Marks 1,000 Days of Battle
Sudan has now endured 1,000 days of conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Fast Help Forces, a civil warfare that started in April 2023. The violence has triggered one of many world’s largest humanitarian crises: an estimated 33.7 million individuals, two-thirds of the nation’s inhabitants, will want help in 2026, and 21 million are anticipated to face acute meals insecurity, UNICEF reports.
Youngsters make up half of these affected, with round 5,000 displaced each day as a consequence of ongoing violence. Starvation can also be changing into “more and more gendered,” in line with Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the U.N. Workplace for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Feminine-headed households are 3 times extra prone to expertise meals insecurity, with 75 % missing adequate meals.
The U.N. is asking for urgent humanitarian access to hard-hit areas, together with the cities of al-Fashir and Kadugli, the place famine situations are escalating beneath continued siege by armed teams. Officers warn that with out instant help, situations will additional deteriorate.
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Photograph courtesy of Cody Mclain, Unsplash
