Descendants of enslaved people fighting pollution in Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ have been greenlit for a trial. Their lawsuit alleges the St. James Parish government discriminated against Black residents by repeatedly permitting industrial plants in predominantly Black districts while shielding mostly white districts from industry. Monique Harden, a longtime environmental justice attorney and advocate, joins Host Jenni Doering to explain how the 13th amendment outlawing slavery plays into the case.

President Trump has deemed glyphosate as essential for national security even though some 200,000 people have complained they have gotten cancer or other adverse health effects, while using it as directed. Meanwhile a Missouri state court has given preliminary approval to a class action settlement plan for people sickened by Roundup, which contains the herbicide glyphosate. Carey Gillam of The New Lede speaks with Host Steve Curwood about the latest developments in glyphosate lawsuits and why some in the Make America Healthy Again movement feel betrayed by the Trump Administration’s support for glyphosate.

If you’re one of the millions of city-dwelling Americans who saw over a foot of snow in recent weeks, you might have felt a bit buried by the endless snowbanks. But all that snow made traffic slow down and gave people a chance to see sidewalks and streets differently than before. Living on Earth’s Bella Smith has this report on the phenomenon of the “sneckdown.”

Living on Earth’s Don Lyman has been finding reptiles and amphibians since boyhood. This long winter took him back to a childhood memory of finding a bull frog swimming under the ice in what he calls “The Frozen Creek.”

Though the floating seaweed known as Sargassum provides critical habitat for many species in the Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic, it is now finding a fertile home in southern waters, where it’s wreaking havoc on coastal communities and ecosystems. Teresa Tomassoni, oceans correspondent with our media partner Inside Climate News, spoke with Living on Earth’s Aynsley O’Neill about impacts to respiratory health, tourism and sea turtles.

A “must-see” bird for anyone traveling in the West Indies, the Cuban Tody is a tiny bird with a lot of personality. In this week’s BirdNote®, Michael Stein introduces us to these striking Cuban natives.