Trump’s EPA is ‘cooking the books’ to justify its attack on clean air rules

Trump’s EPA is ‘cooking the books’ to justify its attack on clean air rules

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Think Progress reports: Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is working to distort the way it measures the benefits of some of the agency’s most impactful policies, regulations that safeguard human health by limiting air pollution. The primary beneficiary of such distortion? The coal industry. When the government evaluates the health and financial benefits of clean air, the calculation typically incorporates the number of lives saved and the scale of reduced health impacts thanks to reducing pollution — also known as…

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Trump turns the full force of the government on perceived political enemies

Trump turns the full force of the government on perceived political enemies

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NBC News reports: President Donald Trump found four former federal officials guilty of “treason” Thursday — and then commissioned his intelligence agencies to help the Department of Justice prove it. At the same time, he is blocking Congress from executing its constitutional duty to execute oversight of his administration, not only with regard to his campaign’s ties to Russia and the interference detailed in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation but also on a host of other fronts. He’s wielding power…

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NSA cyberweapon, on the loose, now wreaks havoc across America

NSA cyberweapon, on the loose, now wreaks havoc across America

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The New York Times reports: For nearly three weeks, Baltimore has struggled with a cyberattack by digital extortionists that has frozen thousands of computers, shut down email and disrupted real estate sales, water bills, health alerts and many other services. But here is what frustrated city employees and residents do not know: A key component of the malware that cybercriminals used in the attack was developed at taxpayer expense a short drive down the Baltimore-Washington Parkway at the National Security…

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The spy case that made Adam Schiff a Russia hawk

The spy case that made Adam Schiff a Russia hawk

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Zach Dorfman writes: On September 25, 1984, three officials from the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco departed for San Francisco Airport to meet with their counterparts from Seattle and exchange confidential “pouched” diplomatic materials. This exchange happened every other Tuesday, and each time, the Soviets were tailed by a van full of San Francisco-based FBI counterintelligence officials. Although the FBI knew the Soviets were aware of this surveillance, the Bureau didn’t try to conceal it either, according to the Los…

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Like humans, ravens mirror the distress they witness in others, study suggests

Like humans, ravens mirror the distress they witness in others, study suggests

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Katherine J. Wu reports: Seeing someone else suffer a big disappointment can have a pretty damaging effect on your own morale. That’s definitely the case with people—and it might be true for ravens, too. New research suggests that, like humans and many other mammals, common ravens (Corvus corax) can read and internalize the emotional states of others. In the study, published today in the journal PNAS, ravens watch their friends grapple with a frustrating task in which they’re denied a…

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The U.S. media is in the crosshairs of the new Assange indictment

The U.S. media is in the crosshairs of the new Assange indictment

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Jack Goldsmith writes: I have written a lot on how hard it is to distinguish WikiLeaks from the New York Times when it comes to procuring and publishing classified information. One implication of the comparison is that any successful prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange would have adverse implications for mainstream U.S. news publications efforts to solicit, receive and publish classified information. The May 23 indictment of Assange makes clear that these concerns are real. As Susan Hennessey said, “[I]t…

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Trump’s drastic escalation of his yearslong assault on the intelligence community

Trump’s drastic escalation of his yearslong assault on the intelligence community

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The New York Times reports: President Trump tried somewhat clumsily last year to revoke the security clearance of the former C.I.A. director who played a role in opening the Russia investigation. He then wanted to release classified documents to prove he was the target of a “witch hunt.” Both attempts petered out, hampered by aides who slow-rolled the president and Justice Department officials who fought Mr. Trump, warning he was jeopardizing national security. But this week, Attorney General William P….

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Poisoning America: EPA wants to triple level of rocket fuel chemical allowed in drinking water

Poisoning America: EPA wants to triple level of rocket fuel chemical allowed in drinking water

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Think Progress reports: The Trump Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants to raise the threshold for a chemical found in rocket fuel to triple the previous limit allowed in drinking water supplies. This is the first new drinking water rule introduced by the agency since the George W. Bush administration. In the EPA’s latest move to weaken environmental and health protections, it released a notice on Thursday requesting public comment on its proposal to raise the maximum level allowed for the…

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Misreading the story of climate change and the Maya

Misreading the story of climate change and the Maya

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Stucco frieze from Placeres, Campeche, Mexico, Early Classic period, c. 250-600 AD. Wolfgang Sauber/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA By Kenneth Seligson, California State University, Dominguez Hills Carbon dioxide concentrations in Earth’s atmosphere have reached 415 parts per million – a level that last occurred more than three million years ago, long before the evolution of humans. This news adds to growing concern that climate change will likely wreak serious damage on our planet in the coming decades. While Earth has not been…

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The lure of Western Europe

The lure of Western Europe

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Anne Applebaum writes: By the spring of 1952, the “iron curtain” that Winston Churchill had described as descending on the eastern half of Europe—“from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic”—already felt impenetrable, even permanent. In that year, Czech courts condemned to death Rudolf Slansky, the secretary-general of the Czech Communist Party, for alleged participation in a “Trotskyite-Titoist-Zionist” conspiracy. The East German Communist Party adopted a new economic policy, the “Planned Construction of Socialism.” Harry Truman warned the…

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Steve Bannon’s populists, once a ‘movement,’ keep him at arm’s length

Steve Bannon’s populists, once a ‘movement,’ keep him at arm’s length

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The New York Times reports: Stephen K. Bannon, the millionaire former Trump adviser turned rabble rouser of European populists, settled into a plush set of rooms this week in Paris at the Bristol Hotel, where suites run up to $32,000 a night. An unopened bottle of champagne in front of him, he presented himself as a man of the people and promoted Europe’s right-wing and populist parties even as voting was underway for the European Parliament — “the most important”…

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The energy behind Farage and his Brexit party leaves his rivals in the shadows

The energy behind Farage and his Brexit party leaves his rivals in the shadows

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Paul Harris writes: Last Sunday, I went to a Brexit party rally in Frimley, Surrey. The venue was the Lakeside Hotel and Country Club complex, well known as the setting for international darts contests. Inside, 1,200 or so people had gathered to hear Nigel Farage and most of the party’s other would-be MEPs for the south-east region. The atmosphere was roughly as I had expected: highly charged, defiant, often strangely celebratory. But what was most striking was the slickness of…

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It’s not entirely up to school students to save the world

It’s not entirely up to school students to save the world

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Bill McKibben writes: In the past several months, people around the world have watched in awe as school students, led by the Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, have taken their concerns about the climate crisis to a new level, with a series of one-day strikes. The latest took place on Friday, and drew what is estimated as more than a million participants in a hundred and twenty-five countries. The strikes have been the biggest boost yet for the global climate movement,…

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The seeds of Trump, Brexit and Modi’s success were sown by endemic racism and unfairness

The seeds of Trump, Brexit and Modi’s success were sown by endemic racism and unfairness

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Gary Younge writes: The morning after both Donald Trump’s victory and the Brexit referendum, when a mood of paralysing shock and grief overcame progressives and liberals on both sides of the Atlantic, the two most common refrains I heard were: “I don’t recognise my country any more,” and “I feel like I’ve woken up in a different country.” This period of collective disorientation was promptly joined by oppositional activity, if not activism. People who had never marched before took to…

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