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"On Wednesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration finalized a new rule making it easier for companies to apply for the right to mine the deep ocean floor."
"A highly toxic pesticide that was banned in California more than two decades ago is still widely used across the state, potentially endangering communities near farm fields and bustling shipyards, according to a new study."
"The deep rift between Democrats and Republicans over the future of the nation’s premier chemical safety law was on full display on Thursday in a hearing designed to kickstart legislation that would allow faster federal approvals for new chemicals. "
"New federal decisions remove health protections as Black communities face rising pollution and asthma rates."
"The Trump administration says the regulation will ease permitting expenses. Utilities say costs could shift to them and their customers."
"Neither the House nor the Senate included funding for the U.S. Wildland Fire Service in new spending bills. The Interior Department is still forging ahead."
"Police and prosecutors from Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana and Suriname have arrested nearly 200 people in their first-ever joint cross-border operation targeting illegal gold mining in the Amazon region, authorities said Thursday."
"The historic site, on an island in South Carolina, could be inundated by rising seas in decades to come. A display on the threat has been removed."
"With many Americans still recovering from multiple blasts of snow and unrelenting freezing temperatures in the nation’s northern tier, a new storm is set to emerge this weekend that could coat roads, trees and power lines with devastating ice across a wide expanse of the South."
"Government officials may not examine electronic devices seized from a Washington Post reporter until litigation stemming from the search of her home is settled, a federal judge in Virginia ruled Wednesday."
"States have spent only 2 percent of the billions of dollars that the federal government set aside four years ago to build electric vehicle charging stations on U.S. highways." "President Donald Trump’s spending freeze added a speed bump to the slow rollout of a Biden program to build a nationwide network of EV chargers."
"The trial is due to start Tuesday for five men over the killing of an Indigenous Amazon leader, in a rare legal case that prosecutors and advocates say could test whether Peru can hold perpetrators accountable for violence linked to illegal logging and drug trafficking in one of the world’s most dangerous regions for environmental defenders."
"Though a direct cause is unknown, the jump renews concerns over antibiotic resistance and cuts to the federal agencies that work to reduce it."
"The House of Representatives voted 214 to 208 Wednesday to open up hundreds of thousands of federal acres to mining near the border of Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness."
"The U.S. Department of the Interior announced on Friday that it is revoking grazing permits in Phillips County [Montana] that American Prairie had been using to sustain its herd of bison."
