By PATRICK WHITTLE

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Sharks are the most feared predators in the sea, and their survival hinges on fearsome teeth that regrow throughout their lives. But changes in the ocean’s chemistry could put those weapons at risk.

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That is the takeaway from a study performed by a group of German scientists who tested the effects of a more acidic ocean on sharks’ teeth. Scientists have linked human activities including the burning of coal, oil and gas to the ongoing acidification of the ocean.

As oceans become increasingly acidic, sharks’ teeth could become structurally weaker and more likely to break, the scientists found. That could change the big fishes’ status at the top of the ocean’s food chain, they wrote.

The ocean will not become populated with toothless sharks overnight, said the study’s lead author, Maximilian Baum, a marine biologist at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. But the possibility of weaker teeth is a new hazard to sharks that already face pollution, overfishing, climate change and other threats, Baum said.

“We found there is a corrosion effect on sharks’ teeth,” Baum said. “Their whole ecological success in the ocean as the rulers of other populations could be in danger.”

Changes could come gradually

The researchers, who published their work in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, performed their study as ocean acidification has become an increasing focus of conservation scientists.

Acidification occurs when oceans absorb more carbon dioxide from the air, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said. The ocean is expected to become almost 10 times more acidic than it currently is by the year 2300, the German scientists wrote.

The scientists performed their study by collecting more than 600 discarded teeth from an aquarium that houses blacktip reef sharks, a species of shark that lives in the Pacific and Indian oceans and typically grows to about 5.5 feet long. They then exposed the teeth to water with the acidity of today and the projected acidity of 2300.

In this undated handout image provided by Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf in January 2026, shows teeth from a blacktip reef shark, seen in Germany. (Steffen Koehler/Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf via AP)

The teeth exposed to the more acidic water became much more damaged, with cracks and holes, root corrosion and degradation to the structure of the tooth itself, the scientists wrote.

The results “show that ocean acidification will have significant effects on the morphological properties of teeth,” the scientists wrote.

Still the ocean’s top predator

Shark teeth are “highly developed weapons built for cutting flesh, not resisting ocean acid,” Baum said. Sharks will go through thousands of teeth in a lifetime, and the teeth are critical for allowing sharks to regulate populations of fish and marine mammals in the oceans.

Many sharks are also facing extinction jeopardy, as more than a third of shark species are currently threatened with extinction according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Thankfully, sharks have a number of factors that can help them stave off the negative effects of ocean acidification, said Nick Whitney, senior scientist at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium.

In this undated handout photo provided by Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf in January 2026, a blacktip reef shark swims at Sealife Oberhausen in Oberhausen, Germany. (Maximilian Baum/Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf via AP)

Whitney, who was not involved in the study, said the scientists’ work on the shark teeth was sound. However, because shark teeth develop inside the mouth tissue of sharks, they will be shielded from changes in ocean chemistry for a time, he said.

And history has taught us that sharks are survivors, Whitney said.

“They’ve been around for 400 million years and have evolved and adapted to all kinds of changing conditions,” he said.

Ocean acidification could be a concern, but overfishing remains the biggest threat to sharks, said Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Acidification will bring many changes

In this undated handout photo provided by Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf in January 2026, a blacktip reef shark swims at Sealife Oberhausen in Oberhausen, Germany. (Maximilian Baum/Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf via AP)

Naylor and others cautioned that ocean acidification is indeed going to pose many threats to the ocean beyond just sharks. Ocean acidification is expected to be especially harmful to shellfish such as oysters and clams because it will make it more difficult for them to build shells, NOAA has said.

It could also make fish scales weaker and more brittle. It’s tough to say now whether that could ultimately benefit the sharks that feed on them, Naylor said.

For now, ocean acidification can’t be disregarded as a threat facing sharks, Baum said. Some shark species could come close to extinction in the coming years and ocean acidification could be one of the factors causing that to happen, he said.

“The evolutionary success of sharks is dependent on their perfectly developed teeth,” Baum said.

By MICHAEL CASEY

BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge should order the Trump administration to come up with a plan to return a Babson College student mistakenly deported to Honduras just before Thanksgiving, her lawyer said in a court document filed Friday.

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Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, a 19-year-old freshman, was detained at Boston’s airport on Nov. 20 as she was preparing to fly to surprise her family in Texas for the holidays. She was flown to Honduras two days later. This happened despite an emergency court order to keep her in the U.S. for at least 72 hours. Government lawyers in court admitted they violated the judge’s order, but they argued the court lacks jurisdiction.

“Petitioner is not asking this court to micromanage foreign affairs or dictate outcomes beyond the Government’s power,” her lawyer Todd Pomerleau wrote. “Instead, the petition asks for a bounded, transparent and practical process: require the Government to identify and pursue steps available to it — across DHS components and, if necessary in coordination with the Department of State — to return petitioner to the United States.”

Pomerleau is asking the judge to order the government to come up with a plan within 14 days.

Among the proposed scenarios is returning Belloza to the U.S. “for the limited and urgent purpose of restoring the status quo ante and allowing Petitioner to pursue appropriate immigration proceedings.” She also could be allowed to continue to pursue a pending T visa, granted to those who were subject to human trafficking. Another option would be a student visa, though Pomerleau noted that “typically requires consular processing and will be complicated by the existence of a final order of removal and related inadmissibility issues.”

A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lopez Belloza, whose family emigrated from Honduras to the U.S. in 2014, is currently staying with grandparents and studying remotely. She is not detained and was recently visiting an aunt in El Salvador.

Her case is the latest involving a deportation carried out despite a court order. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador even though there was a ruling that should have prevented it. The Trump administration initially fought efforts to bring him back to the U.S. but eventually complied after the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in. And last June, a Guatemalan man identified as O.C.G. was returned to the U.S. after a judge found his removal from Mexico likely “lacked any semblance of due process.”

Pomerleau referenced both cases in Friday’s court filing.

At a federal court hearing Tuesday in Boston, the government argued the court lacks jurisdiction because lawyers for Lopez Belloza filed their action several hours after she arrived in Texas while en route out of the country. But the government also acknowledged it violated the judge’s order.

The government maintains her deportation was lawful because an immigration judge ordered the removal of Lopez Belloza and her mother in 2016, and the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed their appeal in 2017. Prosecutors said she could have pursued additional appeals or sought a stay of removal.

Pomerleau countered that she was deported in clear violation of the Nov. 21 order and said the government’s actions deprived her of due process. “I was hoping the government would show some leniency and bring her back,” he said. “They violated a court order.”

U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns said he appreciated the government acknowledging the error, calling it a “tragic” bureaucratic mistake. But he appeared to rule out holding the government in contempt, noting the violation did not appear intentional. He also questioned whether he has jurisdiction over the case, appearing to side with the government in concluding the court order had been filed several hours after she had been sent to Texas.

Gov. Tim Walz has introduced his $907 million infrastructure plan for the 2026 legislative session.

The plan dedicates 35% of the total funding to preserving existing state infrastructure, 19% to water and transportation projects, 16% public safety projects and 11% in affordable housing and local projects.

The Minnesota Legislature passed a $700 million bonding bill in the 2025 session. Lawmakers typically pass budgets in odd years and bonding bills in even years, but the Legislature has been off track for several years.

Walz’s proposal is a starting point. Caucuses will be able to introduce their own infrastructure plans during the session, and the proposals will then be negotiated by Walz and other state leaders.

A “bonding bill” refers to legislation that allows the state to borrow money by issuing bonds to fund public infrastructure projects. Bonding bills require a 60% supermajority vote, a higher threshold than the simple majority needed for most bills in the Minnesota Legislature.

No bonding bill in 2024

Last year, several labor unions and construction workers said projects and jobs were suffering due to a lack of a bonding bill in 2024. They also urged a focus on clean water investments, specifically those targeting phosphorus, manganese and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as “forever chemicals.”

A 2023 study by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency said it would cost between $14 billion and $28 billion over 20 years to remove and destroy PFAS from wastewater streams across the state.

Joel Smith, the president and business manager of Laborers’ International Union of North America, Minnesota and North Dakota, released a statement shortly after the governor’s plan was released Thursday.

“Every year is the year to keep up our infrastructure. Governor Walz’s bonding proposal will continue to fix our crumbling roads, bridges, water infrastructure and public buildings. With more than $7 billion in local community and state agency requests, we urge the Legislature to pass a $1 billion bipartisan infrastructure jobs bill this Spring,” Smith said.

Details of Walz’s plan

Walz recommends $316 million for preserving state infrastructure for state agency and higher education facilities, including $150 million for improvements across the Minnesota State and the University of Minnesota campuses.

The plan recommends $149 million in investments for public safety. They include $41 million for security upgrades in and around the Capitol Complex, as well as two “priority projects” allocating $61 million for the Department of Corrections’ Rush City facility and $47 million for the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension’s Bemidji Regional Office.

It also recommends $172 million for water and transportation infrastructure, including $113 million for water infrastructure grants and low interest loans as well as $50 million for high-priority highway pavement projects.

Other proposals

Other investment proposals the governor’s office included:

• $50 million for Rural Finance Authority loans.

• $99 million for affordable housing and economic development.

• $52 million for outdoor recreation and environmental protection.

• $5 million for infrastructure upgrades to the Department of Natural Resources’ aviation facilities at the Brainerd Regional Airport.

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“By centering broader, more accessible forms of participation and tying engagement to real outcomes, the city has an opportunity to align civic conversation with civic reality.”

Mayor Zohran Mamdani announcing the Mayor’s Office of Mass Engagement (OME) on Friday, January 2, 2026. (Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

On his second day in office, Mayor Mamdani signed an executive order establishing an Office of Mass Engagement. It is both a policy shift and the creation of a new agency for a new mayor.

The order names a problem that anyone who has spent time in civic life recognizes. Too often, “community” is defined by the few who repeatedly show up or happen to be in the room. That is not because they care more, but because they have the time, flexibility, and familiarity with civic processes that many New Yorkers do not. When those voices are treated as synonymous with an entire district, our understanding of the public and consensus becomes distorted.

The Office of Mass Engagement is designed to build consensus and inform policy decisions through mass engagement, not just by listening to whoever shows up to meetings. There are degrees of consensus. One rare area of broad agreement in New York City is the need to make the city more affordable, with housing being the biggest driver of cost. How to fix that problem has less consensus, but the 2025 election gave us real insight and a real opportunity for this new mayor.

After millions were poured into campaigns both supporting and opposing the pro-housing ballot measures, voters approved them decisively. These measures removed a councilmember’s ability to veto housing in their district, a power that has been used repeatedly to block housing. The evidence is overwhelming that building housing at the right scale makes a city more affordable, and New Yorkers demonstrated they understand this. Had the ballot measures been defeated, I would have been disappointed, but I would have had to acknowledge that voters do not want to build housing faster. That is not what happened. Voters chose affordability through housing.

If you rely on the old methods, listening to the same folks at the same meetings, you will not achieve this. New York City has over 8 million people. Brooklyn Community Board 6, my district, has over 120,000 residents. Even if 200 people pack a meeting room, that represents a decimal point, not a majority.

The last few months in my neck of the woods have illustrated this dynamic with unusual clarity. I offer this example not because it is unique, but because it is familiar, a micro version of a broader and recurring pattern in civic life.

As is often the case after elections, attendance at community board meetings increased. The most consistent and unifying theme among many of the new attendees was opposition to the Court Street bike lane. Alongside that opposition came a recurring claim: that the community board does not represent the district, and that “the people” oppose bike lanes, new housing, and the broader policy direction reflected in the most recent election.

Showing up matters. But it does not confer ownership over the word “community.” As Roger Ebert famously reminded movie critics inclined to universalize their reactions, you saw this movie. The same applies here. Attendance and volume reflect a point of view and a style, not a consensus.

In an election-district-level analysis I completed last November, I examined how residents in the district actually voted, not just for candidates, but on the ballot itself. During the campaign, several social media accounts that explicitly claimed to speak for entire neighborhoods, some literally named after the neighborhoods they purported to represent, dedicated multiple posts and local media appearances to opposing the charter changes intended to speed housing development. Coverage often treated these voices as representative of neighborhood sentiment.

Guess what happened? The entities that claimed to speak for a neighborhood did not even win their own blocks, and every single election district in Brooklyn Community Board 6 approved the pro-housing ballot measures. And before the assumption creeps in that voters checked “yes” across the board, it is worth noting that there were six ballot questions, and they were not treated equally. Questions 1 and 6 failed. Questions 2, 3, and 4, the housing measures, passed overwhelmingly. Voters were discerning, not disengaged.

I will admit I was surprised by the margins. Sitting in community board meetings and other civic spaces, the loudest voices were often opposed to both the bike lane and the housing measures. But elections have a way of clarifying reality. When it comes time to count votes, decibels do not count twice.

What the last few months have shown, in my neck of the woods, is how easily the loudest or most organized voices can come to be treated as the neighborhood’s definitive voice, even when the data tells a different story. The specifics may vary by neighborhood, but the structure of the disconnect is consistent.

That divide between rhetoric and results mirrors other civic fights. In the Court Street bike lane dispute, opponents sued to stop the project. The case was dismissed. Check out crashcountnyc.com to get a sense of why we need protected bike lanes.

As reported by Streetsblog, Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Inga O’Neale ruled that the New York City Department of Transportation acted on a rational basis, with the goal of safety, under state law, and made clear that decisions about how city streets are used are policy questions for elected and accountable officials, not the courts. If opponents want different outcomes, the remedy is not litigation; it is electoral change. Street safety and housing are connected. Building more housing increases density, which in turn requires better, more environmentally sound forms of transportation. This is why pro-housing and safe streets coalitions usually align. 

The judge’s reasoning echoes the same principle that underlies the Office of Mass Engagement: decisions about our shared infrastructure belong to those accountable to the electorate, not to whoever can dominate a meeting room or a courtroom. Brooklyn Community Board 6 approved the Court Street bike lane unanimously. At some point, the question answers itself. 

Mamdani received more votes than any mayoral candidate in decades, in part because his campaign reached new and different voters. The Office of Mass Engagement reflects that same understanding: governing requires meeting people where they are, not just engaging those already in the room.

This disconnect is not abstract to me. In my position, as is clear in the executive order itself, I regularly work with the offices it consolidates and oversees. The challenges it describes are the same ones I encounter in practice: fragmented engagement, feedback that is passionate but not representative, and systems that reward persistence and availability rather than broad participation.

The executive order acknowledges that our current civic structures privilege those with the most time and resources, and that engagement is too often disconnected and ad hoc. It also recognizes an essential truth: participation only builds trust when people can see how their involvement shapes outcomes. When election results are ignored or minimized in favor of whoever shows up most often, that trust erodes.

None of this is an argument against community board meetings or public testimony. Those forums matter. They surface concerns, refine policy, and provide accountability. But they are not, on their own, a representative sample of a community, especially when ballot-box turnout exceeds meeting attendance by several orders of magnitude.

This is precisely why the Office of Mass Engagement matters. By centering broader, more accessible forms of participation and tying engagement to real outcomes, the city has an opportunity to align civic conversation with civic reality.

The Mamdani administration has demonstrated in its first two weeks that it is serious about this approach. Earlier this month, the administration announced Rental Ripoff hearings in every borough, combined with tools to protect tenants and a call for residents to share their experiences with abusive landlords. Beyond City Hall, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s move to modernize the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) signals that the political environment is shifting toward actually building the housing New Yorkers need. Even Jacobin has acknowledged the urgency, a recognition that now spans the political spectrum.

The goal is clear: make the city more affordable. Mamdani has committed to building 200,000 affordable housing units. You cannot achieve that with neighborhood vetoes, which is precisely why voters removed them. You also cannot achieve it by treating the preferences of whoever dominates a meeting room as representative of an entire community.

The Office of Mass Engagement is essential to this effort. Engagement should support governing, not paralyze it.

Mike Racioppo is the district manager of Brooklyn Community Board 6 and a commissioner on the Charter Revision Commission.

The post Opinion: Why Mamdani’s New ‘Office of Mass Engagement’ Matters appeared first on City Limits.