Coral reefs have long been losing their color due to bleaching, but a recent uptick has caused nearly all of the world's reefs to be damaged. A record-breaking amount of marine life fell victim to the most recent bleaching event, and scientists say the effects may be irreversible. 

How serious is the bleaching?
The bleaching event, which was declared in 2023, has "impacted 84% of the world's reefs, with 82 countries, territories and economies suffering damage," said the International Coral Reef Initiative. Coral reefs are bleached when "environmental stressors such as heat cause them to expel the colorful, energy-producing algae that live inside them, leaving them white." 

Higher ocean temperatures in recent decades have led to devastating bleaching, but the most recent event has "grown to be the most widespread on record," said Reuters. Areas from the "Indian Ocean to the Atlantic to the Pacific" have been "subjected to intense heat stress." Prior bleaching events in "1998, 2010 and 2014-17 saw 21%, 37% and 68% of reefs subjected to bleaching-level heat stress, respectively," said Reuters. 

Why is this a problem?
Reefs are crucial for biodiversity. This latest event "suggests that ocean warming has reached a level where there's no longer any safe harbor from coral bleaching and its ramifications," said Dr. Derek Manzello, the director of Coral Reef Watch, to The Guardian. 

Coral bleaching "raises new concerns about the precarious nature of a living network that sustains vibrant fisheries worldwide and helps protect vulnerable coastal communities from flooding," said The Washington Post. The bleaching is "threatening marine life from Fiji to the Florida Keys to Australia's Great Barrier Reef." 

The "loss of living corals" also "degrades the reef structure, leaving coastal communities along reef-lined coasts to face increasing risks from coastal flooding hazards," according to the U.S. Geological Survey. In Florida alone, the bleaching event "could increase the coastal flood risk to more than 7,300 people at the cost of $823.6 million annually." Coral reefs "act as a natural buffer," reducing damage from waves and storm surges, and their degradation means this buffer is being diminished.

Coral reefs "can recover from bleaching if temperatures are less extreme," said UPI. But recent analysis has "indicated a bleak picture of widespread global coral elimination." 

Last month, the Trump administration announced it had deported hundreds of alleged gang members to El Salvador. To accomplish this, President Donald Trump relied on El Salvador's young president, Nayib Bukele, to house the prisoners in the country's immense Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT. Bukele, now serving his second term as president, has since become both a darling of the U.S. far-right and a target of critics of the Trump administration's divisive deportation practices.

Campaigning on a 'tough-on-crime approach'
Bukele was first elected president of El Salvador in 2019 as a candidate of the center-right Grand Alliance for National Unity. At the time, El Salvador was "one of the most violent countries in the world," whose gang-driven bloodshed was a "key factor driving migration" to the U.S., said The Washington Post. Bukele campaigned on a "tough-on-crime approach" that he promised would deliver results, said Foreign Policy.

Homicides in El Salvador "fell over 50%" during Bukele's first year in office, said Reuters. A 2020 report in the Salvadoran publication El Faro claimed there had been "secret negotiations between the Bukele administration and leaders of the MS-13 gang" that helped lower street violence "in exchange for prison privileges" for gang members, said Mother Jones. In 2021, Bukele's Nuevas Ideas Party swept legislative elections, giving him further power.

Becoming the 'world's coolest dictator'
In 2022, Bukele declared a state of emergency that resulted in the "arbitrary arrest of more than 83,000 Salvadorans, harassment and violence against government critics and journalists, and mass firings of public servants," said political advocacy nonprofit Freedom House. The next year, Bukele's government opened CECOT. By 2024, El Salvador had the "highest incarceration rate on the planet," said the Brennan Center for Justice.

Despite his increasingly undemocratic rule, Bukele enjoys widespread popularity in El Salvador. He's a "millennial of the we-have-to-break-things mentality, and he shuns ideology," said The Associated Press. In 2021, he updated his then-Twitter bio to claim that he's the "world's coolest dictator," said The Guardian. He won reelection in 2024 with nearly 85% of the vote.