New York Times gift articles

Financial regulators said the Biden-era policy was superfluous. Democrats said it protected financial stability in an era of unpredictable weather.

The disgraced Republican had been sentenced to prison, after his credentials and career unraveled. He was the sixth member of the House to be expelled.

Under threats of tariffs and other sanctions from the U.S., nations postponed a vote on whether to charge fees on emissions from ships.

The capture of prisoners presents a major new set of legal and policy problems for the Trump administration in its escalating campaign.

More than 700,000 federal employees have been sidelined and thousands more are at risk of being fired as the government shutdown drags on.

But the workers responsible for carrying out the president’s plans for more fossil fuels and less wind and solar power are still hard at work. Some are approving permits for companies that want to extract metals, coal, oil and gas from public lands and federal waters. Others are rolling back limits on the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change.

On Thursday the Bureau of Land Management approved the expansion of a copper mine on public land in Utah. Earlier this week the Interior Department prepared to open more than 250,000 acres of land in Wyoming and Nebraska to oil drilling, and held a coal lease sale for access to Montana’s Powder River Basin. And at the Environmental Protection Agency, employees are finalizing a plan to allow more mercury emissions from coal plants, according to two people familiar with the work underway.

Surging emissions from wildfires may have been behind the increase, which was the largest since modern measurements began more than half a century ago.

Note that it's fossil fuel use that is responsible for the bulk of the added CO2; it's just the year-to-year variation that might be due to wildfires.

Federal workers who issue permits for oil, gas and mining operations are on the job, along with those working to repeal pollution limits.

State party leaders are expected to eliminate the charter of the Young Republicans group, allowing them to reconstitute the organization with new leaders.

So new faces doing the same old hate

The San Francisco-based firm has told ICE that it could use A.I. to help the agency nearly triple its staff. The company’s C.E.O., once a progressive tech titan, has embraced President Trump.

Adm. Alvin Holsey is leaving less than a year into his tenure, and as the Pentagon escalates attacks against boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The Seventh Circuit rejected an attempt by the Trump administration to remove an order by a trial court judge. But legal wrangling is expected to continue.

Ron Conway stepped down from the board of Salesforce’s philanthropic arm after the company’s chief executive, Marc Benioff, said he supported President Trump and wanted the National Guard to come to San Francisco.

This kind of social rejection of fascism is important

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/28892445

It's called Jim Crow

The group had challenged the president’s executive orders as unconstitutional. A judge “reluctantly” said the suit was too broad in scope.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/28864641

While it’s difficult to draw a connection between any specific downpour and climate change in real time, studies suggest that, as global temperatures rise, storms produce more extreme rain because warm air holds more moisture than cool air.

Four years after a global pledge to end deforestation, the amount of money going toward conserving and restoring forests is not enough, the analysis found.