The Trump administration isn’t just pushing to dramatically shrink the Environmental Protection Agency, chop a third of its budget and hobble its regulatory powers. It’s also trying to permanently limit the EPA’s mission — while portraying doing so as a return to the agency's roots.
What Administrator Scott Pruitt calls his “Back to Basics” agenda would refocus the agency on narrow goals such as cleaning up toxic waste and providing safe drinking water — the kinds of issues that inspired the EPA’s creation in 1970 amid a public outcry about burning rivers and smog-filled skies. But it would abandon the Obama administration’s climate regulations, along with other efforts that Pruitt argues exceed the agency’s legal authority.
The radical idea behind Trump’s EPA rollbacks
9/11 still killing as retired cop and firefighter die of cancers
Two more first responders have died of 9/11-related cancers, officials said Friday. Retired FDNY Firefighter and Brooklyn native William Gormley, 53, died following a short battle with lung cancer Wednesday, his family said.
A day earlier, retired NYPD Detective William Kinane, 60, of Breezy Point, Queens, died of a 9/11-related illness.
The two deaths threatened to overwhelm the Marine Park Funeral Home — which serves both Marine Park and the Rockaways — so Gormley’s family was asked to move the service to another location, family members said.
It could hit 120 degrees in the Southwest this weekend
The heat will be on "high" in the Desert Southwest the next several days.
Temperatures are expected to soar well over 110 degrees in portions of Arizona, Nevada and California by the weekend and into early next week, the National Weather Service warned.
Many desert locations, including Phoenix, could climb as high as 115 to 120 degrees Sunday through Wednesday, the weather service said. That could rival the all-time high temperature of 122 degrees set at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport in 1990.
Special counsel is investigating Trump for possible obstruction of justice, officials say
The special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election is interviewing senior intelligence officials as part of a widening probe that now includes an examination of whether President Trump attempted to obstruct justice, officials said.
The move by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to investigate Trump’s conduct marks a major turning point in the nearly year-old FBI investigation, which until recently focused on Russian meddling during the presidential campaign and on whether there was any coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Investigators have also been looking for any evidence of possible financial crimes among Trump associates, officials said.
UN: 'Staggering' civilian deaths in Raqqa offensive
Intensified coalition air strikes supporting an assault by US-backed rebel forces on Syria’s Raqqa are causing a "staggering loss of civilian life", United Nations war crimes investigators have said.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group of Kurdish and Arab militias supported by a US-led coalition, began attacking Raqqa a week ago to take it from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).
Emirati ambassador to Trump: Remove US airbase from Qatar
The United Arab Emirates' ambassador to the United States wants President Trump to use the U.S. airbase in Qatar as a political tool to press the country's government on supporting extremism.
“The air base is a very nice insurance policy against any additional pressure,” Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba said Tuesday. “Maybe someone in Congress should have a hearing and just say, you know, ’Should we consider moving it?’”
Revealed: reality of life working in an Ivanka Trump clothing factory
The reality of working in a factory making clothes for Ivanka Trump’s label has been laid bare, with employees speaking of being paid so little they cannot live with their children, anti-union intimidation and women being offered a bonus if they don’t take time off while menstruating.
The Guardian has spoken to more than a dozen workers at the fashion label’s factory in Subang, Indonesia, where employees describe being paid one of the lowest minimum wages in Asia and there are claims of impossibly high production targets and sporadically compensated overtime.
Trump's personal lawyer asked to testify at House panel September 5
President Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer said he’s been summoned to appear before the House Intelligence Committee in September, as multiple investigations into possible Russian contacts by the president’s associates accelerate in Congress.
Michael Cohen said he’s been asked to testify Sept. 5 in front of the House panel, which got sidetracked in its Russia investigation after Chairman Devin Nunes, a California Republican, was forced to recuse himself because of a controversy over his handling of classified material related to the probe.
Fish dying and people ailing as California's largest lake shrinks
The Salton Sea has been shrinking for years, and fish and birds have been dying. The dry lakebed already spews toxic dust into the air, threatening a region with hundreds of thousands of people. And the crisis is about to get much worse.
The water flowing into the Salton Sea will be cut dramatically at the end of this year, causing the lake to shrink faster than ever and sending more dust blowing through low-income, largely Latino farming communities.
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