DOGE is driving crucial plant disease research into the ground

Scoops from the Trump-poisoned heartland

Mar 04, 2025

Welcome to a Tuesday edition of Progress Report.

I’m writing to you from London, the first of three cities that my wife and I will be visiting on our first vacation in three years. Having a child was somehow the least demanding thing that happened to us since we last traveled in early 2022, and with our fifth wedding anniversary (though Covid canceled the actual event!) just around the corner, this felt like the right time to get away.

Between the red-eye flight and a day wandering around the city, I hardly spent any time yesterday actively thinking about Donald Trump, Elon Musk, or the pain and chaos they’re inflicting on the world. It was liberating, though the thaw also meant that I was less numb to the onslaught of headline alerts and emails that had inundated my phone. Sometimes you need to feel that sting, because there is no vacation from chaos when you’re a reporter and your neighbors at home are suffering.

Update on the newsletter:

With so much happening, my plan is to do quicker newsletters, especially now that I’m working to make Progress Report something of an ongoing hub for protests and actions around the country. I’m also going to start channeling interviews into videos, live for paid subscribers and recorded for everyone else, so that people can hear the little details that get left out of write-ups and we can put more out during these urgent times. There’s too much to cover right now otherwise, especially in a newsletter run entirely by a single reporter.

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Scoop: Department of Agriculture administrators were able to hire back scientists at the critical wheat lab in Minnesota, which aims to prevent the diseases that attack the nation’s critical wheat cereal crop. But all is not well in St. Paul, where the actual functions of the government-funded work are being hobbled by the tumult happening in Washington.

While the scientists were hired back, administrative and tech support staff is still out of work, and the team is unable to recruit or hire grad students, post-docs, or even undergrads to help perform critical functions. Travel and purchase cards are frozen, and the actual science has ground to a halt.

“At this point we're winding down experiments and putting what we can in stasis in preparation for a lapse in government funding,” one source told me.

Some of this is down to the DOGE purges, while other elements are results of the grant freezes. Still other aspects always happen as government shutdowns draw near, once-extraordinary events that have now become commonplace. Changes in administrations also tend to bring about temporary pauses in spending and charge cards, but there are typically avenues for obtaining exemptions so that critical work can continue during the short pauses.

Those avenues h been either preemptively closed off or so flooded with requests that they’ve been rendered dead ends anyway.

While behind-the-scenes politicking and subtle media work (recall what we published here a few weeks ago, for instance) were able to salvage the wheat scientists in Minnesota, another source tells me that the Department of Agriculture has not been able to rehire scientists involved in some other parts of the research, not to mention other critical fields.

Included among the victims were the related teams in Fargo, ND and Peoria, IL that were studying and doing the work necessary to contain mycotoxins, or poisonous fungus that can quickly overtake crops and forests. There’s no better time to critically weaken the American food supply than when the country is being plunged into a trade war with major suppliers.

Yesterday

Maryland and Colorado: Hundreds of workers and even more supporters turned out to protest the mass illegal firing of hundreds of employees of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, creating scenes in both Silver Spring and Boulder.

Reports say that anywhere between 650 and 1300 NOAA workers have been fired, while the leases of two major research centers have been canceled. One houses the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, which produces critical weather forecast and climate information for other federal agencies. DOGE wants to eventually cut the entire NOAA in half (and privatize many of its functions).

Today

Nationwide: The #50501 movement will hold its third day of national protests and rallies. They’re taking place all over the country, in state capitals, big cities, and small towns alike. You can find your local event here.

Maine: Hundreds of childcare workers in Maine will rally at the state capitol in Augusta in protest of proposed budget cuts that includes a small monthly stipend to help daycare centers compensate staffers. Gov. Janet Mills has proposed cutting the stipend in half despite its critical impact and minuscule cost.

Upcoming

Minnesota: The Immigrant Defense Network and COPAL will hold a protest and press availability in St. Louis Park on March 5th to spread awareness of a secretive ICE raid on a local manufacturing company. Done without a heads up to town or even county officials, the raid led to seven arrests, and the immigrants taken from the scene are still in ICE custody. There will be witnesses who saw the raid available to speak to the press. For more info, contact WendyZ@copalmn.org.

Nationwide: On March 7th, a new organization called Stand Up For Science will hold rallies nationwide to protest the massive cuts being made to medical research, the NIH, CDC, NOAA, university medical centers, and climate change mitigation.

Michigan: Constituents in Holland, MI have been visiting the office of GOP Rep. Bill Huizenga on a daily basis for weeks now, demanding that he meet with them or hold a townhall to discuss the battering of the federal government and the growing impact back home. But Huizenga, evidently not interested in confronting the scenes that his Republican colleagues have faced in their own events, has insisted on sticking to virtual meetings that are far easier to mute and control. If you’re in the area, head down to his office and make sure they experience the frustration IRL.

Boycotts: Various online organizers are seeking to inflict pain on corporate retailers and consumer goods companies that have backed off diversity programs or otherwise kowtowed to the Trump administration. They have scheduled aspirational boycotts with the following dates:

Amazon, Whole Foods, Prime (March 7-14)
Nestlé (March 21-28)
Economic Blackout #2 (March 28)
Walmart (April 7-13)
Economic Blackout #3 (April 18)
General Mills (April 21-27)

Ohio: On March 20th, activists will gather at the capital in Columbus for Cannabis Lobby Day, which aims to stop the GOP bill that would gut marijuana legalization that has been in place for more than a year.

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