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"Construction on — or at least preparations for — a border wall through Texas’s Big Bend National Park and the larger Big Bend region have been halted through Sept. 15, and possibly longer, a federal judge said from the bench Friday."
"The Trump administration announced an agreement with the Venezuelan government on Friday to develop a vast amount of Venezuela's oil reserves.
The U.S. government says it is entering into a joint venture with a private Venezuelan company, according to an official who spoke to NPR on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the deal. The Trump administration says the U.S. would get 55% of the oil from the joint venture. That's equivalent to about 65 billion barrels of oil that's under the ground.
"Yellowstone National Park and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks have announced the easing of fishing restrictions on rivers as water temperatures drop."
"The EPA still has unfinished business on a handful of major air rules, which environmentalists fear will endanger Americans’ health and worsen the climate crisis."
"A Kentucky farmer, he railed against agribusiness and championed small family farms and the environment, winning widespread acclaim."
"For more than a year, the National Park Service has been quietly working to fulfill an unprecedented directive from Trump officials: Parcel off a corner of Yosemite National Park to give to a private developer."
"Many Venezuelans suspected that there was going to be a price to pay for President Trump’s brazen capture of their autocratic leader, Nicolás Maduro, who was arrested by U.S. forces in January. On Friday, that cost became clear when Mr. Trump announced that the U.S. would be taking majority control of a vast part of Venezuela’s oil reserves — national resources long considered by many in the country to be a birthright."
"The Trump administration’s latest deal to cancel offshore wind projects and boost fossil fuel energy development instead is generating a huge payday for one of the president’s million-dollar donors."
"Undersecretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment Michael Boren, who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, asked agency staff last month to escalate the amount of aircraft at a seven-acre fire that had started near his mega-ranch in Idaho’s Sawtooth National Forest, according to two Forest Service officials familiar with the matter."
"The Tr ump administration is looking to change a portion of a 2023 federal climate report." "The administration proposed to reframe how the Fifth National Climate Assessment sees its worst-case scenarios after U.N. scientists said earlier this year that a worst-case scenario was not plausible."
"The Trump administration on Friday moved to relax fuel efficiency standards for medium- and heavy-duty commercial trucks."
"The regional board overseeing menhaden management along the Atlantic coast on Wednesday advanced a measure to implement new restrictions on Virginia’s only reduction fishery that harvests the oily forage fish within the Chesapeake Bay."
"Southern mountain caribou are a type of caribou found in mature forests of western Canada, where they subsist on lichen as a winter food. Habitat loss — primarily driven by logging — has transformed their mature forest habitat, upsetting the predator-prey balance and leading to caribou declines."
"Amid a busy season of summer food recalls and illnesses, sustainable farming advocates are warning that salmonella bacteria found in poultry is increasing strains most likely to cause illness, hospitalization and death, and that such bacteria are also increasingly resistant to antibiotic medicine."
"Around 70,000 are expected be at the Nevada desert festival, with it urging attendees to treat “everyone affected by this emergency with patience and care.”"
