Trump Fires All 3 Democrats On The Consumer Product Safety Commission
May 9, 2025, NPR
President Donald Trump moved to fire the three Democratic commissioners on the five-person Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), his administration’s latest test to the limits of presidential power over independent agencies. Democratic Commissioners Alex Hoehn-Saric, Mary Boyle and Richard L. Trumka Jr., said in statements that they received emails from the White House notifying them of their firings. The firings come as consumer protection groups and lawmakers warn that Trump may be attempting to dismantle the entire CPSC. The three Democratic commissioners said in a statement that they planned to oppose their dismissals in court.
Commissioner Trumka: CPSC Protects Babies From Lethal Infant Pillow Suffocation Risk
May 5, 2025, cpsc.gov
Commissioner Trumka’s statement says, in part, “With CPSC’s new standard in place, these pillows must now be firm enough to prevent suffocation and flat enough to prevent the hazardous inclined positioning of a baby’s head and neck. The products must also pass tests for entrapment and fall hazards. This is a major piece of the safe infant sleep puzzle. When combined with CPSC’s recently effective rule to make nursing pillows safer, CPSC’s broad infant sleep products rule and CPSC’s bans on inclined sleepers and crib bumpers it closes one of the largest remaining product safety gaps contributing to unsafe sleep.
How To Prevent Strategy Fatigue
April 4, 2025, Harvard Business Review
Strategy fatigue is on the rise. But talented managers on the receiving end of multiple and frequent strategy shifts will lose motivation and energy—and they will leave. To reduce this danger, CEOs need to impose some discipline on the growing tendency to try out the strategy du jour. Before inflicting their shiny new ideas on their people, they should: (1) Use clear screening criteria to evaluate whether a new idea or project aligns with the company’s strategic direction; (2) Apply data-based scoring frameworks to rank ideas by impact and feasibility; (3) Set up proof-of-concept experiments; and (4) Maintain a single, visible pipeline.
Sens. Wyden, Merkley Join Call On Trump Administration To Reverse Plans To Eliminate CPSC
May 8, 2025, Sen. Ron Wyden
U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley (both D-Ore.) have joined dozens of lawmakers from the Senate and House in urging the Trump administration to reverse plans to eliminate the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). “Since its inception, the CPSC has played a vital role safeguarding American families, and in particular infants, children, and older Americans,” the lawmakers wrote Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought in a letter about the bipartisan, independent commission. “Thanks to the CPSC’s critical work, residential fires and fire-related deaths have decreased by over 40 percent. Crib deaths and child poisoning has dropped by 80 percent. The Commission’s work continues today, identifying emerging threats and protecting Americans from dangerous and banned imported products.”
Report: E-Scooters Perceived As Most Dangerous Form Of Transport In Ireland
May 9, 2025, The Irish Times
Nearly a quarter of regular e-scooter users have been involved in a collision, while one in three have experienced a near miss, research published by the Irish Road Safety Authority (RSA) has found. The report found that e-scooters were now perceived as the most dangerous form of transport in Ireland, surpassing motorcycles in terms of perceived risk. Of those surveyed, 80 per cent said they believed e-scooters were “not very safe” or “not at all safe”, compared with 70 per cent of participants who thought motorcycles were unsafe. Dr John Cronin, emergency medicine consultant and an RSA board member, said e-scooters “offer real mobility benefits”, but also “bring a high risk of injury.”
Experts Say New Trump Plans Targeting Forever Chemicals ‘Raise Serious Red Flags’
May 3, 2025, wrex.com
The Environmental Protection Agency has announced a new list of measures targeting PFAS. But public health experts have concerns about what that list doesn’t include. “There are a lot of vague promises in what was announced this week, but honestly, it really doesn’t treat the PFAS crisis as, frankly, the five-alarm fire for public health that it is,” said Dr. Erik Olson, senior strategic director for health in the environmental health program at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, DC. “The key decisions that they were supposed to be making on those two things, they’re completely silent on.”
Igloo Expands Recall Of 90 Qt. Rolling Coolers Due To Fingertip Amputation And Crushing Hazards: Total Recalled Now Nearly 1.2 Million
May 8, 2025, cpsc.gov
About 130,000 additional coolers have been recalled. This, in addition to about 20,000 in Canada and 5,900 in Mexico). More than one million Igloo coolers were previously recalled in February 2025. The tow handle can pinch consumers’ fingertips against the cooler, posing fingertip amputation and crushing hazards.
EPA To Dissolve Research Office
May 2, 2025, eenews
EPA will cut staffing to Reagan-era levels and gut its stand-alone Office of Research and Development, Administrator Lee Zeldin said. The agency will move some scientists in its research office to other divisions, with the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention set to gain “more than 130 scientific, bioinformatic, technical, and information technology experts,” the agency said in a news release. That office is charged with reviewing new chemicals and pesticides.
CPSC: Power Of Open Data
April 2025, cpsc.gov/data
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) believes in the power of open data and being accessible to the public. This is why the agency makes data, deliberations and decisions, accessible to consumers, developers and stakeholders, in accordance with the Open Government Initiative.
Everyone Wants Integrity, But No One Knows How To Measure It
May 2, 2025, Forbes
When it comes to leadership, few qualities are praised more universally—or more naively—than integrity. And for good reason. A meta-analysis of 665 correlations found that integrity isn’t just a “nice-to-have” trait—it’s one of the most reliable predictors of leadership effectiveness, employee satisfaction, and organizational performance. Teams led by honest, ethical leaders tend to outperform, trust more, and burn out less.
