As a new Biden administration prepares for office, WatchDog issues a call for restoring open government. The latest opinion column puts forward a list of 20 recommended actions that include outlawing assault on journalists, clearing FOIA backlogs and counteracting ag-gag laws. Plus, an updated reporter’s Bill of Rights for government press offices.
"Ancient forest advocates are weary of political promises that have so far been unable to slow the pace of clearcut logging in B.C. Here’s how visionaries think the province should move forward to protect beloved trees and critical habitat while making good on commitments to uphold Indigenous rights".
In New Mexico, the journalism community — as well as friends and the listening public — are mourning the death of KUNM interim news director, Hannah Colton. An SEJ member, Colton covered not only environmental issues, but also mental health, homelessness, COVID-19, elections, politics and protests that rocked the state over the past few years.
"Khaled Taleb steps out of his vehicle high on a mountainside in northern Lebanon, and surveys the charred remains of the cedar forest he fought to save. A black carpet of the trees' burned needles crunches underfoot."
"Vickie Hicks, who weaves intricate sweetgrass baskets in Charleston, South Carolina’s historic city market, remembers climbing onto the table at her grandmother’s booth downtown when the floodwaters rushed by."
"A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld a 2018 jury verdict that led to awarding monetary damages to neighbors of a North Carolina industrial hog operation for smells and noise they said made living nearby unbearable."
"House investigators are seeking records from the developers of the Pebble Mine project and the Army Corps of Engineers, to determine whether the company misrepresented its plans."
"A coalition of Democrats, Native Americans and liberal activists is urging President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. to nominate one of Congress’s first Native American women to head the Interior Department, putting an American Indian in control of vast swaths of the continent and the Bureau of Indian Affairs."
"No, we haven't reached a climate "point of no return." That's the overwhelming message from climate scientists in response to an alarming climate study that many experts described as flawed when it splashed across social media last week."
"When Category 5 Hurricane Iota roared over the small Colombian island of Providencia in the early hours of Monday morning, Yeisler Chamorro and his wife hunkered down underneath a mattress in their bedroom."
