"Interior Department ethics honcho Scott de la Vega needed to restore order when he took office in April 2018. Entering what he called the "land of Zinke," after the freewheeling then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, de la Vega told investigators last year he quickly identified the importance of "dramatically" improving the office meant to steer officials straight."
"Ten years after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig on April 20, 2010, Louisiana is one of five states reaping the benefits of a $20.8 billion settlement with BP PLC, the largest in U.S. history. If all goes as planned, the $200 million project will not only revive the Maurepas Swamp but provide a natural buffer from deadly hurricanes."
"The coronavirus has shut down most of Humboldt County, as it has the rest of the state, but some traditions of northwest California endure: Loggers keep felling redwoods, and eco-activists keep putting their bodies on the limbs to stop them."
"A vast region of the western United States, extending from California, Arizona and New Mexico north to Oregon and Idaho, is in the grips of the first climate change-induced megadrought observed in the past 1,200 years, a study shows. The finding means the phenomenon is no longer a threat for millions to worry about in the future, but is already here."
"The Trump administration on Thursday weakened regulations on the release of mercury and other toxic metals from oil and coal-fired power plants, another step toward rolling back health protections in the middle of a pandemic."
"A team of retirees that scours the remote ravines and windswept plains of the Pacific Northwest for long-forgotten pioneer orchards has rediscovered 10 apple varieties that were believed to be extinct — the largest number ever unearthed in a single season by the nonprofit Lost Apple Project."
"Federal and state officials are scrambling to develop plans for how to fight the West’s wildfires during a pandemic, before a fire season forecast to be worse than normal flares up next month."
"The coronavirus is scrambling Virginia's budget and economy, but it didn't prevent Gov. Ralph Northam (D) from signing legislation that makes it the first Southern state with a goal of going carbon-free by 2045."
"A decade of health disinformation promoted by President Vladimir Putin of Russia has sown wide confusion, hurt major institutions and encouraged the spread of deadly illnesses."
"On Feb. 3, soon after the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus to be a global health emergency, an obscure Twitter account in Moscow began retweeting an American blog. It said the pathogen was a germ weapon designed to incapacitate and kill. The headline called the evidence “irrefutable” even though top scientists had already debunked that claim and declared the novel virus to be natural.
"NASA rejected a formal request by a group that questions climate change to remove a statement on the space agency's website about the scientific consensus on global warming."
