"At separate congressional hearings on Tuesday, two Trump administration officials insisted that the violent police crackdown against protesters at Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C., on June 1 was about erecting a fence rather than making way for President Donald Trump to pose for photos outside a nearby church."
"In a backyard in the Bronx in the mid-1980s, a vine laden with sweet-smelling tomatoes came as a revelation to urban gardening guru Karen Washington. 'It was tomatoes that really got me hooked on growing food, because I hated tomatoes,' she said, laughing at the memory."
As Democratic New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland prepares to possibly become the first Native American Interior secretary, it's becoming clearer than ever that environmental concerns are deeply intertwined with Native American life. But news media often ignore the connections, missing important stories as a result. Our new Backgrounder helps set that to rights by spotlighting 10 key environmental issues affecting Native American communities and offering a dozen-and-a-half reporting resources.
"President Trump made two nominations to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Monday, bowing to pressure from Democratic lawmakers who have pushed to maintain the bipartisan split in the commission."
"Big corporations accused of driving environmental and health inequalities in black and brown communities through toxic and climate-changing pollution are also funding powerful police groups in major US cities, according to a new investigation."
"The Environmental Protection Agency’s internal watchdog said Monday it had opened an investigation into the agency’s weakening of Obama-era regulations that would have limited automobile emissions by significantly raising fuel economy standards."
As hurricane season gets into full swing, a perpetual paradox reemerges — does disaster aid help or harm? Government financial assistance in a disaster’s wake may seem a boon, but could it just encourage communities to repeat the mistakes of the past? The latest TipSheet explores the question and provides context, reporting resources and story ideas.
"Three Democratic senators are criticizing Interior Secretary David Bernhardt over reports that he refused to wear a mask in a meeting with tribes in Oregon earlier this month."
"The destruction of critically-important wetlands by politically-connected developers in Cambodia threatens to flood more than one million Phnom Penh residents, ruin the city’s wastewater system, force hundreds of families from their homes, and trigger environmental devastation, a new report has warned."
"As the COVID-19 pandemic accelerates King Coal’s decline, Virginia could be on the hook for millions in cleanup costs if an anticipated wave of bankruptcies destabilizes its bond pool system for managing the risks of company failures."
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