The United States and Canada endured the planet’s biggest air pollution surge in 2023 — an upswing driven by the northern neighbor’s worst wildfire season on record, a new report has found.

Canada alone experienced its highest levels of fine particulate pollution (PM 2.5) in at least 26 years, with more than half of residents exposed to contaminant concentrations that surpassed national standards, according to the report.

The data, released as an annual update to the University of Chicago’s Air Quality Life Index, showed that if these levels persist, people’s lives could be cut short by more than two years, relative to air quality conditions that met World Health Organization guidelines.

“When fossil fuels are burned, they cause particulate air pollution right away,” Michael Greenstone, an economics professor at the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute and co-creator of the index, said in a statement. 

“There are more wildfires because fossil fuels also lead to higher temperatures, and the result is a second wave of air pollution,” he added.

As for the U.S., Greenstone and his colleagues determined that the fires contributed amounts of air pollution that the country had not seen in more than a decade. Compared to just the year before, particulate pollution levels rose nationwide by an average of 20 percent, per the data.

The resultant pollution from the Canadian blazes spread across Wisconsin, Illinois, Indian and Ohio and even reached as far as Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Mississippi, the report showed. Counties in these states, the authors found, replaced many in California as the top-10 national pollution hotspots for the first time in five years. 

“We are now stuck living with air pollution concentrations that are the dangerous ghost of the fossil fuels burned since the Industrial Revolution,” Greenstone said.

Worldwide, the index determined that air pollution exhibited a slight increase in 2023. If the planet was to permanently reduce particulate pollution to meet global health guidelines, the average person could count on an additional 1.9 years in life expectancy, according to the report.

“Even countries that have earnestly spent decades cleaning up their air can’t escape these ghosts and the shorter and sicker lives that they deliver,” Greenstone added.

Characterizing particulate pollution as “the world’s greatest external risk to human health,” the authors stressed that its impacts on life expectancy are comparable to those of smoking, more than four times those of high alcohol consumption, five times those of transport injuries and six times those of HIV/AIDS.

But the researchers also said that not all hope is lost, and that people can benefit from gaining awareness about the quality of the air they breathe via increasingly available data sources. And yet, almost 70 percent of the global populations lives in areas that lack sufficient access to such information, the authors said.

Tanushree Ganguly, director of the Air Quality Life Index, recognized in a statement air pollution’s role as “a top reason why people are living shorter lives throughout the world.” As such, he stressed the importance of embracing tools that enable better policymaking and provide more information about the pollutants people are breathing. 

“Throughout history, countries have both grown and developed and improved their air quality,” Ganguly said. “Targeting fossil fuels at their sources will improve local air, as well as help confront climate change.”

The Trump administration is planning a new four-year time limit for foreign students in the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Wednesday.

According to the release, a proposed rule was unveiled by the administration on Wednesday “that, if finalized, would limit the length of time certain visa holders – including foreign students– are allowed to stay in the United States.” 

“For too long, past Administrations have allowed foreign students and other visa holders to remain in the U.S. virtually indefinitely, posing safety risks, costing untold amount of taxpayer dollars, and disadvantaging U.S. citizens,” a spokesperson for the DHS said in the release.

“This new proposed rule would end that abuse once and for all by limiting the amount of time certain visa holders are allowed to remain in the U.S., easing the burden on the federal government to properly oversee foreign students and their history,” the spokesperson added.

The statement also says that the U.S. government, via the proposed rule, would limit foreign students’ time allowed in the country to four years or less. 

“Since 1978, foreign students (F visa holders) have been admitted into the U.S. for an unspecified period known as ‘duration of status.’ Unlike other visas issued, those with a ‘duration of status’ designation are allowed to remain in the U.S. for an indefinite amount of time without further screening and vetting,” the DHS said in its press release.

“In turn, foreign students have taken advantage of U.S. generosity and have become ‘forever’ students, perpetually enrolled in higher education courses to remain in the U.S.,” the DHS added.

Throughout the first few months of his administration, President Trump and his administration have intensely cracked down on immigration.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last Thursday that the administration was pausing all issuance of worker visas for foreign truck drivers.

“Effective immediately we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers. The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers,” Rubio said on the social platform X.

Susan Monarez, who was apparently ousted as CDC director on Wednesday afternoon after only weeks on the job, said hours later that she had not been fired and would not resign.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) posted a statement on X around 5:30 p.m. EST saying “Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

Less than two hours later, DC attorney Mark Zaid released a defiant statement on Monarez’s behalf.

“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted,” the statement said.

“Dr. Monarez has neither resigned nor received notification from the White House that she has been fired, and as a person of integrity and devoted to science, she will not resign.”

According to The New York Times, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Monarez to resign or be fired on Monday over tensions around vaccine policy.

Instead, Monarez reached out to Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), chair of the Senate health committee, further infuriating Kennedy, according to the Times.

A source familiar with the situation confirmed to The Hill earlier on Wednesday that Monarez had been ousted as CDC director. The Senate confirmed her on July 29 after President Trump nominated her for the role.

Monarez was the first CDC director to require Senate confirmation, after the role became increasingly politicized during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Washington Post was first to report Monarez’s firing.

Hours after the news dropped, four senior CDC officials announced their resignations in emails to colleagues, citing the weaponization of public health agencies under Kennedy.

“For the good of the nation and the world, the science at CDC should never be censored or subject to political paused or interpretations. Vaccines save lives — this is an indisputable, well-established, scientific fact,” wrote CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry in her resignation letter.

“Recently, the overstating of risks and the rise of misinformation have cost lives, as demonstrated by the highest number of U.S. measles cases in 30 years and the violent attack on our agency.”

Prior to being nominated to lead the CDC, Monarez served as acting CDC director shortly after the start of the second Trump administration. She previously served as deputy director at the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health.

President Trump chose Monarez as his second choice after his first choice, former Florida Rep. David Weldon (R), failed to garner enough GOP support.

Monarez’s nomination was rather drawn out, being confirmed four months after Trump announced he had picked on her Truth Social.

She came to the role with glowing commendations from former colleagues who described her to The Hill as “data-driven,” nonpartisan and an excellent coordinator of public-private partnerships. During her time as acting CDC director, however, it was reported that Monarez did not push back on the White House’s directive to remove CDC pages containing the terms  “LGBTQ” and “transgender” and did not seek to preserve crucial data that was taken down.

One former colleague said Monarez was not someone who would seek to aid in dismantling the CDC and speculated she was acting pragmatically to mitigate broader attacks on existing data.

Former U.S. assistant secretary for health and former acting Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Brett Giroir said Monarez was likely picked for her ability to provide “an objective, data and science-driven assessment of prospective policy and operational changes that are currently being considered.”

During her Senate confirmation hearing, Monarez trod lightly, at times putting distance between herself and Kennedy’s views. She stated her belief that “vaccines save lives,” and said she did not see a causal link between autism and vaccinations, something Kennedy has long speculated on.

She gave tacit approval of water fluoridation when pressed by Democratic Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (Md.), saying she believed the fluoridated water in her own Maryland community was safe to drink. Prior to his confirmation, Kennedy said the Trump administration would advise that water systems remove the cavity-preventing mineral.

But when pressed by senators on whether she would break with Kennedy on any issues, Monarez avoided directly answering, instead saying at the time, “If I’m confirmed as CDC director, I look forward to supporting the secretary with science and evidence and making sure that I am giving him the best information possible to help support some of these critical decisions.”

Updated at 7:55 p.m.

Some members of the National Guard deployed to Washington, D.C., are picking up trash and working on the “beautification” of the nation’s capital as part of President Trump’s federalization of the city’s law enforcement to crack down on crime. 

Over the weekend, the D.C. National Guard shared a video of troops hauling garbage bags and cleaning up benches. 

“This week, Soldiers and Airmen conducted site surveys in coordination with federal and local partners to begin community restoration projects,” the D.C. National Guard said in a Saturday post on the social platform X. 

Since Trump ordered the National Guard to aid law enforcement and local police in curbing crime in Washington, officials have arrested nearly 1,200 people and seized more than 120 firearms, according to Attorney General Pam Bondi. 

In recent days, National Guard members have been photographed picking up leaves around the Tidal Basin and discarding soda bottles. 

“I think it’s nice, as a D.C. resident. But there are different things we could be doing,” one National Guard member told The Washington Post in a piece published Wednesday morning.

More than 2,200 National Guard troops from various states, including Mississippi and West Virginia, have been deployed to the nation’s capital in recent days to help tackle crime. It is unclear how many National Guard troops in Washington have been performing custodial work. 

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Wednesday that the administration would take over the management of Union Station. 

“Instead of being a point of pride, Washington’s Union Station has fallen into disrepair,” Duffy said. “By reclaiming station management, we will help make this city safe and beautiful at a fraction of the cost.”