"LA Wildfires: The Incarcerated Firefighters Battling Blazes"
"Here's how about a thousand people incarcerated by the state of California ended up on the frontlines battling the LA area wildfires"
Source: Thomson Reuters Fdn., 01/21/2025
EJToday: Top Headlines
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"Moss Landing, The World’s Biggest Grid Battery, Just Caught Fire Again"
"Vistra’s flagship energy-storage project in California turned into a towering inferno, forcing evacuations and raising fresh concerns about large battery installations."
Source: Canary Media, 01/21/2025"Mother of Missing U.S. Journalist Asks Syria’s New Leaders for Help"
"The mother of Austin Tice, an American journalist abducted in Syria, said on Monday that she had met with Syria’s new leader in Damascus and expressed hope that “a page will be turned” in the more than decade-long search for her son."
Source: NYTimes, 01/21/2025"MLK Jr.’s Fight for Civil Rights Was an Environmental Battle as Well"
"Terms like “environmental racism” or “environmental justice” were not yet part of the national lexicon when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis on April 4, 1968."
Source: Mother Jones, 01/21/2025"Biden Admin Offers Utilities $22.4B To Cut Energy Costs — And Emissions"
"The Biden administration announced $22.4 billion in loans for eight U.S. utilities across 12 states on Thursday, in what may be the swan song for an Inflation Reduction Act program aimed at cutting carbon emissions and energy bills by helping build and retrofit power plants and bolster the grid."
Source: Canary Media, 01/17/2025"Toyota Truck Unit Fined $1.6 Billion For Emissions Violations"
"Toyota’s heavy-duty trucking unit was fined $1.6 billion on Wednesday over fraudulent emissions testing and other violations."
Source: Washington Post, 01/17/2025"Zeldin Appears Poised To Carry Out Trump’s Deregulatory Agenda At EPA"
"President-elect Trump’s pick for Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator, Lee Zeldin, appears poised to be able to carry out the significant level of climate and environmental deregulation Trump has indicated he plans to pursue after a Thursday hearing moved him toward his likely confirmation."
Source: The Hill, 01/17/2025Doug Burgum, Trump Interior Pick, Questions Reliability Of Renewable Power
"President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for interior secretary told a Senate panel Thursday the U.S. can leverage development of fossil fuels and other energy sources to promote world peace and voiced concerns about the reliability of renewable power sources promoted under the Biden administration."
Source: AP, 01/17/2025"Indirect Death Toll From The L.A. Fires May End Up In The Thousands"
"The toxic smoke from the fires, combined with disruption to the economy, health care system, and mental health may lead to thousands of deaths over the coming years."
Source: Yale Climate Connections, 01/17/2025"As Bird Flu Affects More People And Animals, CDC Urges Faster Testing"
"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an advisory Thursday urging health-care workers treating patients hospitalized with the flu to perform an additional test for bird flu within 24 hours of admission."
Source: Washington Post, 01/17/2025"Texas Is Unprepared for Compound Climate Disasters"
"Sandra Edwards awoke on the morning of July 8 to the sounds of howling winds and gushing water. As she made her way from the bedroom to the living room, she stepped in a puddle. She turned on her phone’s flashlight and saw a hole in the roof, wooly insulation hanging off the ceiling and water pouring in. Hurricane Beryl had just made landfall in Houston."
Source: Public Health Watch, 01/17/2025House Bill Would Strip Presidents Of Authority Under Antiquities Act
"Legislation was introduced Thursday in the U.S. House of Representatives to strip presidents of their authority under The Antiquities Act to designate national monuments. The measure, introduced by Reps. Celeste Maloy, R-Utah, and Mark Amodei, R-Nevada, would rewrite the act to say only Congress has the authority to designate national monuments."
Source: National Parks Traveler, 01/17/2025Biden NMFS Withdraws Proposal to Expand Protections for Right Whales
"The Biden administration on Thursday withdrew a proposal to expand protections for an endangered whale species. The rules would have required some ships along the Eastern Seaboard to slow down." "The proposed rules would have slowed more ships to prevent collisions with endangered North Atlantic right whales."
Source: NYTimes, 01/17/2025"A Forgotten Farming Technique Is Making A Big Comeback – Here’s Why"
"Farmer Rafik Danwade had been pumping more pesticides on his acre-long field in Jambhali village in India’s Maharashtra state, but the chemicals were getting less effective at protecting his 3,200 chili plants from nematodes and other bugs. So Danwade, 56, turned to a practice his grandfather taught him in the 1970s: He planted 1,000 marigolds on the border and alternating rows of the field."
Source: Yale Climate Connections, 01/17/2025"FDA Bans Red Dye No. 3 From Foods"
"U.S. regulators on Wednesday banned the dye called Red 3 from the nation’s food supply, nearly 35 years after it was barred from cosmetics because of potential cancer risk."
Source: AP, 01/16/2025
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