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"Southeast Asia is being pummeled by unusually severe floods this year, as late-arriving storms and relentless rains wreak havoc that has caught many places off guard."
"After a long delay, the Interior Department’s Office of Government Ethics last week provided Public Domain the financial disclosure of Karen Budd-Falen, a high-ranking Trump appointee at DOI." "Karen Budd-Falen, a self-described “cowboy lawyer," owns ranch operations and real estate rentals. Her family has also had sizable investments in oil companies."
"Dozens of farmers drove their tractors in a caravan to Mexico City and blocked an entrance to Mexico’s Congress on Wednesday to protest a new national water law that imposes stricter controls on water use."
"A geothermal startup said Thursday that it has hit gold in Nevada — metaphorically speaking. Zanskar, which uses AI to find hidden geothermal resources deep underground, says that it has identified a new commercially viable site for a potential power plant. The discovery, the company claims, is the first of its kind made by the industry in decades."
"On a jagged coastline in Central California, brown pelicans gather on rock promontories, packed in like edgy commuters as they take flight to feed on a vast school of fish just offshore. The water churns in whitecaps as the big-billed birds plunge beneath the surface in search of northern anchovies, Pacific sardines and mackerel."
"President Trump on Wednesday threw the weight of the federal government behind vehicles that burn gasoline rather than electric cars, gutting one of the country’s most significant efforts to address climate change and thrusting the automobile industry into greater uncertainty."
"Whether people realize it or not, traces of the global wildlife trade are ubiquitous, from expensive reptile-skin boots in department stores to the colorful fish swimming around a tank in your dentist’s office."
"Visiting a freshly logged forest in western Oregon earlier this fall, retired federal wildlife surveyor Erich Reeder stepped over mangled tree roots and dead limbs scattered across a denuded slope that was once an evergreen forest. He squatted over a foot-tall Douglas fir stump to count its rings: 120 years old."
"The Trump administration is scrambling to ensure there’s enough electricity to power new data centers and stem rising utility bills — even as it dismantles some critical programs designed to help solve the problem."
"Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer last week joined governors from six other states signing onto a petition demanding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency add microplastics to its program collecting data on contaminants not currently covered by the Safe Drinking Water Act."
"A new bill proposed in the New York city council would ban the use of toxic Pfas “forever chemicals” in protective gear worn by the city’s 11,000 firefighters." "Approval of legislation to ban Pfas would be major win for advocates pushing for safer gear alternatives across US"
"In landmark rulings last month, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio ordered FirstEnergy’s three regulated companies to pay roughly $250 million for violations linked to the state’s largest-ever utility corruption scandal. More than $186 million of that will be refunded or credited to consumers."
"The U.S. Department of Energy has approved an $8.6 million grant that will allow the nation’s first utility-led geothermal heating and cooling network to double in size."
"Six staffers who the Trump administration fired after they signed a “Declaration of Dissent” letter have filed claims with the Merit Systems Protection Board, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), which is helping to represent the ex-employees."
"How far back in evolutionary history does kissing go? Through phylogenetic analysis, an international team of scientists found that kissing was likely present in the ancestor of all apes – which lived 21 million years ago."
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