I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is a Sunday story from Up First.
Way out in the Pacific Ocean, there are tiny islands known as atolls that few people have ever seen.
They're home to some of the most pristine ecosystems in the world.
These islands and atolls are U.S.
Territories, but no one lives there permanently.
Really, they belong to the wildlife, like big colonies of seabirds, diving coral reefs.
And farther offshore, pods of melon-headed whales.
Waters around these atolls are protected as U.S.
Marine National Monuments.
Together, they cover more than a million square miles of ocean.
They're the country's largest fully protected conservation areas.
Now the Trump administration is trying to change that.
President Trump is opening some of these protected waters to commercial fishing.
And this is reigniting a battle between the fishing industry and conservationists, as well as native Hawaiians.
NPR's Lauren Summer got some special permission to visit one of these atolls.
Today on the show, she takes us to this wild, remote place.
She reports on what's at stake and what it means for conservation across the U.S.
Stay with us.
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CEO Joanna Strober shares the mission behind working with women in midlife.