"The state with the most data centers is struggling to enact laws to protect electric customers and limit the energy and environmental impacts of their explosive growth."
"More than 680 volunteers, including some from as far away as Japan, descended on the Appalachian Trail in the past year to help recover a landscape forever scarred by Hurricane Helene."
"The Energy Department has added “climate change,” “green” and “decarbonization” to its growing “list of words to avoid” at its Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, according to an email issued Friday and obtained by POLITICO."
"A federal judge this week blocked the Trump administration from conditioning disaster and security funds for states on their immigration policies."
"An Indigenous land defender was shot and killed on Sunday in Cotacachi, Ecuador, where he was marching in protest of high costs of living and government crackdowns on Indigenous and environmental activists."
"Environmental Protection Agency employees are being told not to participate in events hosted by one of the nation’s premier environmental legal associations, according to a letter reviewed by Bloomberg Law."
"An Indonesian archipelago that’s home to three-fourths of Earth’s coral species, a stretch of Icelandic coast with 70% of the country’s plant life and an area along Angola’s Atlantic coast featuring savannahs, forests and estuaries are among 26 new UNESCO-designated biosphere reserves. The United Nations cultural agency says the reserves — 785 sites in 142 countries, designated since 1971 — are home to some of the planet’s richest and most fragile ecosystems."
"President Donald Trump’s transportation department has been pulling back grants already announced for recreational trails and bicycle lanes, telling local officials their projects fail to promote road capacity or are “hostile to motor vehicles.”"
"The state’s first climate deception case unfurled Thursday in North Carolina Business Court, where attorneys for the town of Carrboro and Duke Energy spent six hours sparring over legal arcana to answer a single question: Should a jury hear a case alleging that Duke Energy is responsible for lying about the link between climate change and extreme weather that has inflicted millions of dollars of property damage on the town? "
"One Year After Helene: People who lost their homes turned to FEMA for aid. Some are still slogging through red tape. Wealthier Getting More: We found that in some North Carolina counties, homeowners with the highest incomes received two to three times as much FEMA housing assistance as lower-income ones."
"Slogging through a thick slop of mud and rock, Brian Hill passed the roof that Hurricane Helene’s floodwaters had just ripped off someone’s barn and dumped into his yard. Then he peered into the unrecognizable chaos inside what had been his family’s dream home.
