David Sherfinski profile image

David Sherfinski

U.S. Correspondent

Thomson Reuters Foundation

David Sherfinski is a U.S. Correspondent at the Thomson Reuters Foundation based in the United States. Before joining the Thomson Reuters Foundation, David covered the White House and Congress in Washington, D.C.

14 hours and 17 mins ago

After Saint Ann and the St. Louis area in Missouri suffered major flooding in 2022, Beth Gutzler got assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) – something that sticks in her mind to this day.

"Basements were flooded. I hate to say that that's normal, but it is," she said.

July 04, 2025

President Donald Trump's 'big, beautiful' budget bill, which seeks to roll back climate and clean energy-related provisions, was passed by the U.S. Congress this week.

The Trump administration has called the measure "transformative" and said it will head off looming tax hikes and unleash "clean, American-made energy."

June 30, 2025

Extreme heat across the United States has left millions of Americans struggling to stay cool amid dangerously high temperatures reaching as far north as New England and the Pacific Northwest.

Not only is extreme heat the nation's leading weather-related killer, but the rise in global temperatures also contributes to worsening climate-related disasters like wildfires.

April 24, 2025

The United States has suffered a record run of hurricanes and devastating wildfires this past year, and President Donald Trump has now ordered a review of the federal department that is tasked with handling ever more natural disasters.

Trump issued an executive order dated Jan. 24 calling for a review of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is challenged by disasters that strike more frequently and powerfully in a fast-changing climate.

April 15, 2025

As climate-fuelled disasters become more frequent and intense, companies, countries and aid workers are experimenting with new models of insurance and financial help to manage growing risks and losses - among them, parametric insurance.

Parametric policies pay out a pre-agreed amount of money if certain criteria - such as an amount of rainfall or wind speed - are met, the assumption being that damage will have occurred under those conditions.

February 21, 2025

The U.S. Labour Department has moved to fast-track firefighter workers’ compensation claims involving a handful of cancers specific to women, but the policy may face an uncertain fate as President Donald Trump cuts government jobs and quashes diversity policies.

Trump is rapidly reducing the federal workforce, moving to fire thousands of employees last week from various government agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service.

February 13, 2025

Climate change is fast upending home insurance rates in the United States – almost regardless of where one lives.

In the aftermath of the Los Angeles area wildfires, California's largest private insurer requested significantly higher rates for homeowners from May as it dealt with costly claims, while there were widespread reports that insurers were dropping customers before the disaster first struck in early January.

February 12, 2025

As artificial intelligence rapidly changes the way people live, work and even think, it is the daily job of Cansu Canca to ponder the big philosophical and ethical questions surrounding the expanding deployment of AI.

To Canca's thinking, philosophy helps strengthen and steer her quest.

February 10, 2025

Climate change is quickly upending the home insurance market in the United States as well as globally and is projected to bring sweeping change in U.S. real estate values over the next 30 years, new research shows.

Although Americans still flock to climate-risky areas, the longtime trend could start to change, according to a novel report from First Street Foundation, a climate risk mapping group.

February 03, 2025

In Dima Ghawi's early career in finance and tech, she recalls companies having some form of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies that tried to increase the number of women working in certain fields.

"That was before DEI was the cool thing to do, like a few years ago," said Ghawi, who is now a leadership coach and considers herself a DEI success story.