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EPA unveils new coal pollution rules. In the fine print: more deaths

EPA unveils new coal pollution rules. In the fine print: more deaths

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The New York Times reports: The Trump administration has hailed its overhaul of federal pollution restrictions on coal-burning power plants as creating new jobs, eliminating burdensome government regulations and ending what President Trump has long described as a “war on coal.” The administration’s own analysis, however, revealed on Tuesday that the new rules could also lead to as many as 1,400 premature deaths annually by 2030 from an increase in the extremely fine particulate matter that is linked to heart…

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New Russian hacking targeted conservative American think tanks, Microsoft says

New Russian hacking targeted conservative American think tanks, Microsoft says

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The New York Times reports: The Russian military intelligence unit that sought to influence the 2016 election appears to have a new target: conservative American think tanks that have broken with President Trump and are seeking continued sanctions against Moscow, exposing oligarchs or pressing for human rights. In a report scheduled for release on Tuesday, Microsoft Corporation said that it detected and seized websites that were created in recent weeks by hackers linked to the Russian unit formerly known as…

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Veteran left-wing journalist and peace activist Uri Avnery dies at 94

Veteran left-wing journalist and peace activist Uri Avnery dies at 94

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+972 Magazine reports: Uri Avnery, one of Israel’s most prominent journalists and a seminal peace activist who was among the first Israelis to advocate for a sovereign Palestinian state, died in Tel Aviv on Monday morning. He was 94 years old. Born Helmut Ostermann to a bourgeois family in Beckum, Germany in 1923, Avnery’s family moved to Palestine in 1933, shortly after the Nazis came to power. They settled in Tel Aviv. Just a few years after their arrival, Avnery…

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Did Harappan civilization avoid war for 2,000 years?

Did Harappan civilization avoid war for 2,000 years?

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Annalee Newitz writes: The Harappan civilization dominated the Indus River valley beginning about five thousand years ago, many of its massive cities sprawling at the edges of rivers that still flow through Pakistan and India today. But its culture remains a mystery. Why did it leave behind no representations of great leaders, nor of warfare? Archaeologists have long wondered whether the Harappan civilization could actually have thrived for roughly 2,000 years without any major wars or leadership cults. Obviously people…

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Ice confirmed at the Moon’s poles

Ice confirmed at the Moon’s poles

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NBC News reports: For the first time, scientists have found what they say is definitive evidence of water ice on the surface of the moon. The discovery suggests that future lunar expeditions might have a readily available source of water that would make it easier “to explore and even stay on the moon,” officials at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement Tuesday about the discovery. The ice was detected at the darkest, coldest regions of the moon’s north…

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Science, and government scientists, suffer under Trump

Science, and government scientists, suffer under Trump

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Joe Davidson writes: In an administration skilled in myth making, science suffers. Consider findings from the Union of Concerned Scientists, a non-profit advocacy organization that surveyed thousands of scientific experts in the federal government. The first line of its new report paints a dismal picture of the place science holds under President Trump: “A year and a half into the Trump administration, its record on science policy in several agencies and departments is abysmal.” There are a couple of bright…

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The nastiest feud in science

The nastiest feud in science

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Bianca Bosker writes: While the majority of her peers embraced the Chicxulub asteroid as the cause of the [dinosaurs’] extinction, [Gerta] Keller [a 73-year-old paleontology and geology professor at Princeton] remained a maligned and, until recently, lonely voice contesting it. She argues that the mass extinction was caused not by a wrong-place-wrong-time asteroid collision but by a series of colossal volcanic eruptions in a part of western India known as the Deccan Traps—a theory that was first proposed in 1978…

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Catholics call for mass resignation of U.S. bishops

Catholics call for mass resignation of U.S. bishops

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Following the release of the Pennsylvania grand jury report on the sexual abuse of over 1,000 children by 301 priests, and following a similar scandal earlier this year in Chile that led to its Catholic bishops’ collective resignation, a statement by Catholic theologians, educators, parishioners, and lay leaders says: After years of suppressed truth, the unreserved decisiveness of the Chilean bishops’ resignations communicated to the faithful a message that Catholics in the United States have yet to hear, with an…

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Iraqis who helped U.S. military now face obstacles being granted refugee status

Iraqis who helped U.S. military now face obstacles being granted refugee status

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Reuters reports: Trump campaigned in 2016 promising tight restrictions on immigration, and in the past year and a half, his administration has sharply reduced refugee admissions through executive orders and closed-door decisions. The refugee ceiling Trump set last year of 45,000 is the lowest since 1980, when the modern refugee program was established. The United States is on track to admit about 22,000 refugees this year, approximately half of the maximum allowed. Advocates for Iraqis who worked for the U.S….

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Did dairying climates pave the way for the evolution of modern democracy?

Did dairying climates pave the way for the evolution of modern democracy?

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PsyPost reports: An analysis of 108 Old World countries found that cold/wet climates suitable for dairy farming were associated with lactose tolerance in the year 1500, which was in turn associated with higher child survival rates, greater per capita income, and fewer children per family in the year 1800. This enhanced production power was in turn associated with political freedom and civil liberties in the year 2000. The researchers believe that lactose tolerance led to longer life expectancy and postponed…

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As Trump dismantles clean air rules, an industry lawyer delivers for ex-clients

As Trump dismantles clean air rules, an industry lawyer delivers for ex-clients

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The New York Times reports: As a corporate lawyer, William L. Wehrum worked for the better part of a decade to weaken air pollution rules by fighting the Environmental Protection Agency in court on behalf of chemical manufacturers, refineries, oil drillers and coal-burning power plants. Now, Mr. Wehrum is about to deliver one of the biggest victories yet for his industry clients — this time from inside the Trump administration as the government’s top air pollution official. On Tuesday, President…

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EPA is set to roll back restrictions on coal-burning power plants

EPA is set to roll back restrictions on coal-burning power plants

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The Wall Street Journal reports: The Trump administration is escalating an effort to revive the flagging U.S. coal industry with a planned move next week to replace restrictive Obama-era climate policies with new rules designed to help coal-burning plants run harder and stay open longer. The proposed new rules, which the Environmental Protection Agency plans is expected to release within days, would be the latest in a series of reversals of policies the Obama administration adopted to slow climate change….

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Trump administration says conserving oil is no longer an economic imperative

Trump administration says conserving oil is no longer an economic imperative

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The Associated Press reports: Conserving oil is no longer an economic imperative for the U.S., the Trump administration declares in a major new policy statement that threatens to undermine decades of government campaigns for gas-thrifty cars and other conservation programs. The position was outlined in a memo released last month in support of the administration’s proposal to relax fuel mileage standards. The government released the memo online this month without fanfare. Growth of natural gas and other alternatives to petroleum…

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Interior secretary’s school friend crippling climate research, scientists say

Interior secretary’s school friend crippling climate research, scientists say

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The Guardian reports: Prominent US climate scientists have told the Guardian that the Trump administration is holding up research funding as their projects undergo an unprecedented political review by the high-school football teammate of the US interior secretary. The US interior department administers over $5.5bn in funding to external organizations, mostly for research, conservation and land acquisition. At the beginning of 2018, interior secretary Ryan Zinke instated a new requirement that scientific funding above $50,000 must undergo an additional review…

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