James' World 2

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On November 23, 1903, the Iroquois Theatre opened in Chicago to rave reviews. “Few theaters in America can rival its architectural perfections,” applauded one commentator. The venue was “absolutely fireproof,” its playbills boasted.

Five weeks later, during a December 30 holiday matinee performance with 1,800 people in the audience, the Iroquois was engulfed in flames. Until the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, it was the worst building disaster in the U.S.

Underwriters Laboratories, founded in 1894 to promote safety, joined the investigation into what went wrong at the Iroquois. The building didn’t have a single fire alarm. Crucial escape routes were barred with locked doors. And the one safety tool that could have stopped the fire at its initial spark, when an ​​electric light ignited a curtain backstage, didn’t work: the fire extinguisher.

“A man put 10 cents’ worth of baking soda in a 5-cent tin tube. He sold it for $3 as a fire extinguisher,” fumed UL founder William Henry Merrill, Jr., likening the contraption to a phony magic wand. “Unfortunately, there was nothing ‘make-believe’ about the fire, and the result was very real to the families and the friends of over 600 women and children, whose lives were sacrificed that a man might make a profit of $2.”

Determined to prevent such pointless tragedies in the future, Merrill created a certification operation to assure the public that products with its distinctive mark had been scientifically tested and could be used safely. More than a century later, UL is still at the forefront of fire prevention.

“What made us relevant in the late 1800s is the same thing that has us relevant today, if not more,” says Steve Kerber, vice president and executive director of the Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI), a part of UL Research Institutes (ULRI). “We’re trying to understand these new products or behaviors or technologies when they’re a concept … to understand the impact they have before people die.”

Danger at the Edge of Town

FSRI and its partners among ULRI’s other research institutes are focused on two main issues, both born of new technological and societal developments: fires caused by lithium-ion batteries and fires that ignite where wildland and urban development meet.

Wildland-urban interface fires, as they’re called, are especially hazardous. Not only do they threaten homes and businesses but “the fuel that can burn includes many things of human origin: plastics, fuels, energy-storage systems, solar panels and more,” says Christopher J. Cramer, ULRI’s interim president and chief research officer. “The gases and particulates that are produced under these circumstances are likely to be much more dangerous.”

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With graduation season just a few days away, it’s almost the time to throw up those caps and gowns, but unfortunately, that’s not the only thing being thrown around. So are the anxieties of a younger generation that is graduating into what might be the harshest economy in more than ten years. 

Not only did these kids start college during a pandemic, but now they’re finishing with inflation through the roof, a housing market that seems unattainable, and a job market that’s arguably even worse than 2008 (and for the millennials, if you know, you know). Throw in student loans, and you’ve got a perfect storm of financial stress.

Intuit released their Prosperity Index for 2025 graduates, and the findings are… well, they’re pretty much what you’d expect given everything we’ve been seeing discussed surrounding the economy as of late. But the numbers put some real perspective on what we’re seeing.

About 42% of new grads say they’re “cautiously optimistic” about their financial future as they tiptoe into adulthood. And the way these young adults define success looks nothing like what their parents were chasing at the same age. Almost 60% say having a decent savings account equals success in 2025. And 43% just want to make rent without having a panic attack every month. That’s not exactly “corner office and vacation home” territory, is it?

What’s really telling is that most of these young people are avoiding long-term goals altogether. The economy’s so unpredictable that three-quarters of gen-z graduates argue what’s the point of planning? Nearly half say they’re even more hesitant to plan long-term than they were last year.

What’s keeping them up at night? Cost of living tops the list for practically everyone (97%). Job security isn’t far behind at 87%. Then there’s saving money (47%), paying bills (31%), debt (31%), budgeting (29%), building credit (28%), and housing costs (25%). Basically, everything about money is stressing them out.

But there’s something weird happening with all this stress. Instead of doubling down on the traditional get-a-good-job path, the Class of 2025 is going in a completely different direction. They’re becoming entrepreneurs by necessity.

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Young adults in graduation gowns joyfully tossing caps into the sky, celebrating achievement and new beginnings against a clear backdrop

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CLIMATEWIRE | When EPA announced its intent to roll back more than two dozen regulations last month, Administrator Lee Zeldin said it was necessary because pollution limits were “suffocating” the nation’s economy.

But 12 of the 31 rules on the chopping block protect Americans’ ability to breathe by curtailing air pollutants like fine particulate matter and ozone. According to one review of EPA’s analyses, those rules would collectively prevent more than 100 million asthma attacks through 2050.

The regulatory rollback isn’t the Trump administration’s only move that will affect American lungs. Just this month, the Department of Health and Human Services completely eliminated the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s asthma office, which provides funding and advice to state and local health officials on how to prevent the the inflammatory lung condition.

“I don’t say this lightly, but these are programs that were keeping people alive,” said Laura Kate Bender of the American Lung Association. “And now we have this double whammy where on the one hand, we are seeing the threat of a slew of air pollution rollbacks and lax enforcement at EPA, and on the other hand, they are cutting programs that were helping people manage their lung disease.”

The rollbacks and cuts contradict the Trump administration’s stated goals of reducing childhood chronic diseases, including asthma. Asthma was mentioned twice in President Donald Trump’s February executive order that directed federal agencies to act “urgently” to end chronic childhood diseases through “fresh thinking” on “environmental impacts” to health, among other things.

Asked how EPA reconciles its directive to tackle asthma with rolling back regulations that prevent the disease, EPA spokesperson Molly Vaseliou said only that “the Trump Administration is taking steps in the right direction to ensure EPA adheres to the agency’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment and powering the great American comeback.”

The costs of a regulatory rollback

Elizabeth Hauptman remembers the joy she felt two years ago when EPA finalized a carbon rule meant to reduce pollution from fossil fuels.

Now a field consultant for Moms Clean Air Force, Hauptman started paying attention to air pollution regulations when her then-toddler son, Oscar, started having difficulty breathing. In the years since he was diagnosed with asthma, Oscar, now 15, has been to the intensive care unit twice and had to sit out sports practices more times than Hauptman can count on poor air quality days.

She had been hoping the carbon rule would save more kids like Oscar from struggling to breathe. But now the rule is one of 12 air pollution limits EPA announced it would reconsider in March on its “biggest deregulation action in U.S. History.”

Hauptman worries EPA’s actions will only make asthma attacks more common — for her son and others.

“My son is growing up in a world where he has to check the air quality index like some kids check their favorite sports scores, and that should not be normal,” she said. “This is not just about policy — it’s about playgrounds and bedtime stories without wheezing.”

In 2035 alone, EPA estimated, the rule would prevent 1,200 premature deaths, 870 hospital and emergency room visits, 1,900 new asthma diagnoses and 360,000 asthma attacks severe enough to require an inhaler.

Those calculations are part of the cost-benefit analysis EPA is required by law to conduct whenever it issues new regulations. They often measure the benefits of reducing air pollution in terms of avoided asthma symptoms,

emergency room visits and hospitalizations.

“My son is growing up in a world where he has to check the air quality index like some kids check their favorite sports scores, and that should not be normal. This is not just about policy — it’s about playgrounds and bedtime stories without wheezing.” —Elizabeth Hauptman, field consultant

For example, EPA estimated that another regulation targeted in Zeldin’s rollback — the “good neighbor” rule — would prevent 179,000 asthma attacks and 5,000 new diagnoses of the disease in 2026. The rule limits smokestack emissions from power plants that create ozone pollution and smog in downwind, neighboring states.

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What is a job that is going to teach you something where you will learn, you will grow, and it feels like the kind of environment that you can personally thrive in?

Christine Cruzvergara, Chief Education Strategy Officer, Handshake

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