Consumer

"Dodge will stop making gas-powered Chargers and Challengers next year, ending an era for a brand that helped define the muscle car, as it and other carmakers shift toward more climate-friendly offerings."

"Two-thirds of pledges to go greener on plastic fail or are dropped, a DW investigation has found. Here's how European food and drink companies break their own commitments, and how legislation might hold them accountable."

"When the Federal Emergency Management Agency overhauled its flood insurance program last year, it wanted to encourage homeowners to buy coverage by showing them more precisely the risk that each property faces of being flooded. But instead, hundreds of thousands of people have dropped the flood policies they were buying through FEMA, raising concerns that an unprecedented number of households are financially exposed to flood damage."

"The future of Texas’ troubled electric grid is being decided in the dark, with zero public input, by a group of people with deep connections to the fossil fuel industry."

"The national average price for a gallon of gas fell below $4 on Thursday for the first time since early March, according to AAA data. The milestone was reached after more than 55 consecutive days of declining prices at the pump."

"Congress is spending billions to save communities from Western megafires by thinning large swaths of forests even as scientists say climate change-driven drought and heat are too extreme for it to work. The money would be better spent thinning woods closest to homes and shoring up houses against embers raining down from firestorms, according to academics, former agency officials, and others who study wildfires."

"Twenty years after first suggesting it, federal regulators on Monday proposed adding a group of plastic additives common in toys, flooring and fabric coatings to its list of toxic chemicals, concluding that it can "reasonably be anticipated to cause cancer and serious or irreversible chronic health effects in humans.""

"Policymakers in Washington are promoting electric vehicles as a solution to climate change. But an uncomfortable truth remains: Battery-powered cars are much too expensive for a vast majority of Americans."

"The nation added a right to water to its constitution a decade ago, but has never created the policies that would ensure it’s met, leaving twice as many people thirsty today."

"Automakers including Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. are making a last-ditch lobbying push to change Democrats’ proposed new spending bill over concern that they stand to lose out from strict new limits on electric-vehicle credits."