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"The federal judge rejected the California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s request to dismiss Exxon Mobil’s lawsuit accusing Bonta of defamation for criticizing Exxon Mobil’s advanced plastics recycling initiatives."
"A bill banning the pesticide paraquat died last week in the Virginia House of Delegates after the chamber’s Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources Committee voted 22-0, with little explanation, to carry the measure over to next year for consideration."
"At least one Republican lawmaker is formally pushing back on President Trump’s effort to boost a controversial herbicide, glyphosate, that’s reviled by supporters of the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement."
"President Trump, who has eyes on the nation’s 250th birthday this summer, says historical sites focus too much on the issue of slavery instead of the “success” of the country. His administration has been accused of whitewashing the history of slavery at Smithsonian Institution facilities and National Park Service sites, including recently the President’s House in Philadelphia."
"Monarch butterflies that hatch in the spring and early summer live fast and die young at only two to six weeks. But those that emerge in late summer can survive six to nine months. That’s long enough to migrate thousands of miles south for the winter and start the return north the following spring to breed."
"A massive snowstorm pummeled the northeastern United States from Maryland to Maine on Monday, forcing millions of people to stay home amid strong wind and blizzard warnings, transportation shutdowns, and school and business closures."
"The Trump administration is reopening a loophole to allow more mercury emissions from some coal-fired power plants, provoking swift denunciations from public health advocates who said the rollback will leave children at further risk of exposure to the brain-damaging element."
"The Supreme Court has [agreed to hear] green-lighted the fossil fuel industry’s latest attempt to quash a swath of lawsuits seeking to hold oil companies accountable for the costs of climate change."
"The Department of the Interior issued a final rule that curbs and streamlines its environmental reviews. Critics say the move is illegal."
"The International Energy Agency downplayed global warming this week amid U.S. pressure."
"Federal regulators have a range of solutions available to tackle the widespread contamination of farmland with toxic chemicals, according to a new report by US academics."
"While the average lifespan of a wastewater system is 40 to 50 years, many of the plants and pipes across the nation could be twice that old or more."
"Following a ProPublica article revealing that the U.S. Forest Service had for years issued clothing to wildland firefighters that it knew contained potentially dangerous “forever chemicals,” the agency has stopped distributing those garments."
"President Donald Trump’s Interior Department is withholding key ethics disclosure information for Karen Budd-Falen, a high-ranking agency appointee who is facing calls for an investigation into her financial ties to a massive lithium mining project, Public Domain has learned."
"The Virginia Senate’s Finance and Appropriations Committee approved budget legislation for the coming fiscal year that ends a tax exemption for data centers on January 1."
