Flooding in Winfield, Missouri this month. Jonathan Rehg / Getty Images
President Donald Trump has agreed to sign a $19.1 billion disaster relief bill that will help Americans still recovering from the flooding, hurricanes and wildfires that have devastated parts of the country in the past two years. Senate Republicans said they struck a deal with the president to approve the measure, despite the fact that it did not include the funding he wanted for the U.S.-Mexican border, CNN reported.
"The U.S. Senate has just approved a 19 Billion Dollar Disaster Relief Bill, with my total approval. Great!" the president tweeted Thursday.
Luz Hernandez with her niece, Noemi Quinones, who was the first of Hernandez's relatives to ask for help. Nexus Media
By Jeremy Deaton
Every morning, Luz Hernandez goes to work at her hair salon on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, a neighborhood fixture without a website or a Facebook page, where a trim costs $40 and customers can get a cup of coffee while they wait. Every night, she returns to a full fridge in an air-conditioned home in the Bronx. Income from the salon allows her to live comfortably, though not lavishly — but compared to her family in Puerto Rico, who were devastated by Hurricane Maria, she feels like royalty.
On May 3 New York City students joined their counterparts from around the world demanding that elected officials, including NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio put on end to the climate crisis. Gabriele Holtermann-Gorden / Pacific Press / LightRocket / Getty Images
Awareness of climate change is growing in the U.S., but the country still has some catching up to do when compared to other wealthy nations.
The Trump administration announced Thursday it was rolling back offshore oil drilling regulations put in place after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the largest ocean spill in U.S. history.
Officials announced changes to the Well Control Rule on the Louisiana coast, not far from where the 2010 oil rig explosion killed 11 workers and poured around 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, The Washington Post reported.
Ethics investigations have been opened into the conduct of senior Trump appointees at the nation's top environmental agencies.
The two investigations focus on Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler and six high-ranking officials in the Department of Interior (DOI), The Hill reported Tuesday. Both of them involve the officials' former clients or employers.
"This is demonstrative of the failures at the very top of this administration to set an ethical tone," Campaign Legal Center Ethics Counsel Delaney Marsco told The Washington Post of the DOI investigation. "When people come to work for government, they're supposed to work on behalf of the public. It's a betrayal of the public trust when senior political appointees seem to give privileged access to their former employers or former clients."
A child playing with a ball from planet earth during Extinction Rebellion rally on April 18 in London, England. Brais G. Rouco / Barcroft Media / Getty Images
Earth Day 2019 just passed, but planning has already begun for Earth Day 2020, and it's going to be a big deal.
The interview came a day after President Donald Trump signed two executive orders designed to speed up pipeline approvals and other fossil fuel projects. Wheeler told Reuters that the EPA was working on proposals to speed state approvals, focusing on clarifying section 401 of the Clean Water Act that lets states block projects, Reuters reported.
President Trump signed an order greenlighting the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline Friday, a move that circumvents a court's decision to block a previous federal permit on the long-delayed project.
Climate change is shaping up to be a major issue going into the 2020 presidential primary. A February poll found that climate action was a top issue for Democratic voters in early voting states, rivaled only by universal health care. Many candidates have promised to make the issue a priority if elected, but how to they compare to each other on the details?
