"An independent government watchdog will investigate the Trump administration's alleged political interference with public health agencies, Democratic senators announced Monday."
"This fall, the Sipekne’katik First Nation has pressed ahead with off-season lobster fishing despite racist rhetoric and vigilantism that the RCMP has been criticized for failing to stop."
A forthcoming U.S. National Climate Assessment, due in 2022, faces delays, thanks to Trump administration foot-dragging, according to the new WatchDog Opinion column. And the Supreme Court, possibly with a new Justice Amy Coney Barrett aboard, is about to hear arguments on a freedom of information case involving the Endangered Species Act.
"Just south of the Galapagos’ Marchena Island, there’s a dive spot known by locals as the “fish arena.” There, within the choppy, cool waters of the Pacific, thousands of colorful fish swim in schools, lobsters poke their long antennae out of rocky outcrops, dolphins bear their young and moray eels gape menacingly at visitors who swim too close."
"The Trump administration will let some leaking or otherwise dangerous coal ash storage ponds stay in operation for years more and some unlined ponds stay open indefinitely under a rule change announced Friday."
"A bankruptcy court ruled Friday that Exide Technologies may abandon its shuttered battery recycling plant in Vernon, leaving a massive cleanup of lead and other toxic pollutants at the site and in surrounding neighborhoods to California taxpayers."
"Nearly 200 countries are nearing a legally-binding agreement to reduce pollution from the world’s cargo ships, a step forward after two years of talks on how the industry should clean up its emissions."
"A federal judge in Montana has once again handed the Bureau of Land Management and its embattled former de facto acting chief, William Perry Pendley, another major legal defeat. Chief Judge Brian Morris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana late yesterday [Friday] issued an order invalidating three major land-use plan revisions in Montana as a result of Pendley "unlawfully" leading BLM for more than a year."
"President Trump reversed himself on Friday, approving a package of wildfire disaster relief for California hours after officials from his administration had explained why the state should not receive the aid."
