"U.S. officials proposed Monday to protect the pangolin, a small, nocturnal mammal covered in scales, under the Endangered Species Act. The pangolin is “the most trafficked mammal in the world” in large part for its scales, used in traditional Chinese medicine, and meat, according to the World Wildlife Fund."
"President Donald Trump has fired a Democratic commissioner for the federal agency that oversees nuclear safety as he continues to assert more control over independent regulatory agencies."
"The Ironbound neighborhood in Newark, N.J., has two distinct sections: an immigrant-rich area of rowhouses, ethnic restaurants and shops, and a clogged industrial zone with three power plants, the state’s largest incinerator and biggest sewage facility, a slew of factories and a near-constant parade of diesel trucks."
"The Trump administration plans to reconsider a ban on the last type of asbestos still used in the United States, according to a court filing on Monday."
"The Environmental Protection Agency has told staff overseeing the country’s industrialized Midwest — a region plagued by a legacy of pollution — to stop enforcing violations against fossil fuel companies, multiple sources told CNN."
Trump administration efforts to defund public media, now before Congress, are a misguided effort to harm a source of journalism that is highly trusted by audiences, argues the latest WatchDog Opinion column. And while public broadcasting’s diverse funding sources may insulate it from politics to some degree, the attacks do threaten to chill press freedom, including environmental reporting, more broadly. The latest Dog explains.
"Bord na Móna, which was once a peat extraction company, has now committed to one of the largest peatland restoration projects ever undertaken, targeting 33,000 hectares in over 80 bogs with the hope of reducing carbon emissions and increasing biodiversity. But many households still continue to cut turf, relying on it for heating as have previous generations."
"The UN Ocean Conference in the southern French city of Nice concludes this Friday with countries taking steps towards marine protection and declaring a battle over deep sea-mining, but slammed for leaving fossil fuels off the agenda – the key driver of ocean warming. Nations hoping for new financial pledges to help with battling rising sea levels and overfishing were also left disappointed."
"Red Feather, which works to improve housing on the Navajo and Hopi reservations, is just one of hundreds of groups that have had grants meant to help disadvantaged communities terminated by the Trump administration."
"President Donald Trump declared Thursday that the federal government must pull out of a settlement agreement that had halted the long-running legal battle over 14 dams in the Pacific Northwest, reopening a fight over the future of fish populations in the Columbia River Basin."
