"A jury in Georgia has ordered Monsanto parent Bayer to pay nearly $2.1 billion in damages to a man who says the company’s Roundup weed killer caused his cancer, according to attorneys representing the plaintiff."
Hazardous sites around the United States are supposed to have disaster plans, which make for a localizable story environmental journalists can tell to help protect their communities. The problem, reports TipSheet, is that a key federal database of these plans may be shut down by the Trump administration. More on the Risk Management Program, efforts to protect the data and how reporters can use it.
When a pair of journalists reported on a degraded Colombian mangrove swamp, they turned to two local fishermen to help tell the story, tapping into their experience as they worked to repair the ecosystem that fed their community. In the latest Inside Story Q&A, reporter Jacobo Patiño Giraldo explains their successful use of primary source solutions journalism.
"The agency will no longer shut down “any stage of energy production,” absent an imminent threat, a new memo says, and will curtail efforts to cut pollution in poorer areas."
"Federal agencies will need fully-staffed teams to implement President Donald Trump’s order for the Interior Department and other agencies to expedite mining on federal lands, natural resources lawyers say. But massive staffing cuts could get in the way of Trump’s demand to mine more minerals domestically, and it could take years for agencies and companies to mobilize and begin digging rock."
"Hundreds of bicycle advocates were at an annual summit this month in Washington, D.C., when their cellphones lit up over breakfast with an urgent email warning that President Donald Trump’s transportation department had just halted federal grant funding for bike lanes."
"Sardines in the Mediterranean struggling for a decent bite of shrinking plankton are accidentally ingesting more and more microplastics and microfibres, scientists have found. And the root cause of all their problems? Well, it's climate change - of course."
"Styrofoam coffee cups, plates, clamshell takeout containers and other food service items made with expanded polystyrene plastic can still be found in restaurants and on store shelves, despite a ban that went into effect on Jan. 1."
"Retreating glaciers threaten the food and water supply of 2 billion people around the world, the UN has warned, as current “unprecedented” rates of melting will have unpredictable consequences."
"With massive job cuts, the National Weather Service is eliminating or reducing vital weather balloon launches in eight northern locations, which meteorologists and former agency leaders said will degrade the accuracy of forecasts just as severe weather season kicks in."
