What civil engineers are reading this week

• Wired up: Broadband sector makes big splash in infrastructure report card debut

  Broadband’s inclusion in the 2025 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure reflects its importance. It checked in with a better grade than the overall report card and the best ever for an added sector. How can it improve?

• Slipping past filters: Microplastics are infiltrating drinking water worldwide

  Despite improvements in wastewater treatment technologies, microplastics are escaping into the environment, research from the University of Texas at Arlington finds.

• ASCE, fellow societies join forces to stand up for research, key federal agencies

  ASCE and fellow Founder Societies have sent a letter to congressional leadership calling funding for research “vital,” reflecting concerns raised in listening sessions with engineers.

• Trump administration rescinds Biden greenhouse gas rule for highways

  U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has repealed a Joe Biden-issued rule requiring states to monitor and report transportation-related emissions on interstate highways and other major roads.

• UW-Madison breaks ground on $420M engineering center

  The structure, which was at the center of a prolonged funding fight, will feature mass timber and sustainability components at the Wisconsin university.

• NASA probe’s close-up images of asteroid reveal ‘strikingly complicated geology’

  The Lucy spacecraft, currently journeying toward Jupiter's orbit on its asteroid-hopping mission, captured an impressive close-up of its second target: the main belt asteroid 52246 Donaldjohanson.