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"The Trump administration this week threatened to pull the United States out of the world’s leading energy agency unless it abandoned its focus on tackling climate change."
"Residents and elected officials are speaking out against a proposed border barrier through Texas’ biggest state park and one of the jewels of the national park system."
"In a stretch of Louisiana with about 170 fossil fuel and petrochemical plants, premature death is a fact of life for people living nearby. The air is so polluted and the cancer rates so high it is known as Cancer Alley."
"National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya will also temporarily become acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an administration official said Wednesday."
"President Donald Trump plans to nominate a former senior aide to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to serve as director of the National Science Foundation."
"Environmental group Extinction Rebellion said on Wednesday it was under federal US investigation and that some of its members had been visited by FBI agents, including from the agency’s taskforce on extremism, in the last year."
"One year ago, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was an independent agency, setting safety standards without White House interference. Those days are over."
"The Food and Drug Administration has reversed course and agreed to review Moderna’s application for the first mRNA-based flu vaccine under a revised approach, company and federal officials said Wednesday."
"A coalition of scientific, preservation and historical groups on Tuesday sued the Trump administration, arguing that the removal of information about civil rights, climate change and other topics at multiple national parks amounts to illegal censorship."
"In a bold bid to put costly US Roundup litigation behind it, Bayer on Tuesday announced a $7.25 billion proposed class action settlement for users of its glyphosate-based weed killing products who have cancer now or develop cancer in the next several years, with average awards ranging from $10,000 to $165,000."
"Polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, haven’t been produced since 1979, after studies found that exposure to them could cause a variety of harmful health effects, including cancer. But they were so widely used before then and so long-lasting that they still impair water quality in much of the tidal Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries."
"The legislation would make oil and gas firms pay for climate damages from burning their products. Trump has referred to such laws as 'extortion.'"
"Ozone and particulate matter air pollutants cause over 100,000 premature deaths per year and affect the health of millions of Americans. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said last month that his agency would stop considering those costs when drafting new regulations."
"Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee on Friday released text for the farm bill and announced they will mark up the bill on Feb. 23 — with the framework drawing immediate criticism from the top Democrat on the panel who accused Republicans of filling the package with poison pills."
"More than three dozen Democratic senators have begun an independent inquiry into the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) following a huge change in how the agency measures the health benefits of reducing air pollution that is widely seen as a major setback to US efforts to combat the climate crisis."
