Department cites Trump’s ‘energy emergency’ declaration to expedite permissions from multiple years to 28 days
US politics live – latest updates
The US interior department has announced plans to radically fast track permitting for projects involving fossil fuels and mining citing Donald Trump’s ‘energy emergency’ declaration that many experts say does not exist.
The move would reduce to a maximum of 28 days permitting procedures that previously could take multiple years, the department said late Wednesday.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
04/24/2025 - 08:45
04/24/2025 - 08:00
Decision will affect mostly low-income Alabama residents as DoJ dismisses agreement over untreated sewage as DEI
The Trump administration has killed a landmark civil rights settlement requiring Alabama to address raw sewage pollution in majority-Black, residential areas south-west of Montgomery, dismissing it as an “illegal” diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) agreement.
The decision could condemn low-income people in Lowndes county, about 40 miles south-west of Montgomery, to indefinitely continue living with no or failing sanitation infrastructure.
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04/24/2025 - 07:04
Birds in their 40s wintering on mudflats of the Wash received leg rings in early 1980s
If your ears are assaulted by the shrill piping calls of an excitable bird on the east coast of England, fear not: it’s probably an oystercatcher experiencing a midlife crisis.
Two of the handsome black and white birds with bright red-orange bills have been found to be the oldest known oystercatchers ever recorded in Britain, clocking up at least 41 and 43 years on the mudflats of the Wash.
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04/24/2025 - 06:11
Campaigners condemn decision amid growing evidence of harm to health and climate from heating appliances
UK politics live – latest updates
Wood-burning stoves will be allowed to heat new-build homes in England despite growing evidence showing their significant contribution to air pollution and carbon emissions.
The government is writing its future homes standard, a set of rules for developers, aimed at decarbonising England’s housing stock. Heating the UK’s 28m homes accounts for about 18% of greenhouse gas emissions.
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04/24/2025 - 04:00
Discovery could provide valuable clues as to how the climate crisis might affect Antarctica, says study
Giant, flat-topped icebergs the size of the city of Cambridge drifted off the coast of Britain during the last ice age, according to a study that has uncovered evidence of their existence for the first time.
A series of distinctive, comb-like grooves found preserved in sediment near Aberdeen in Scotland were left behind by the underside of huge “tabular” icebergs that dragged across the North Sea floor between 18,000 and 20,000 years ago, the researchers said.
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04/24/2025 - 03:00
Americans have often moved between states for opportunities. Now they’re being forced to uproot themselves to escape hostile forces under Trump
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04/24/2025 - 01:00
The horrifying planning bill, which rips up environmental protections, was drafted with CEOs in mind. We know because Keir Starmer told us
Those of us who try to defend wildlife are horribly familiar with bad laws. But we’ve never seen anything like this. The government’s planning and infrastructure bill is the worst assault on England’s ecosystems in living memory. It erases decades of environmental protections, including legislation we inherited from the EU, which even the Tories promised to uphold.
The rules defending wildlife and habitats from unscrupulous developers are weak enough already, which is partly why, as Labour reminded us in its manifesto, Britain is “one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world”. But this bill will make it much, much worse.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
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EVs to cost more under a Coalition government, after Dutton’s apparent backflip on popular tax break
04/24/2025 - 00:26
Polestar says Dutton’s move shows ‘a complete lack of understanding of the significant cost-of-living, climate and health benefits of EVs’
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Electric vehicles would cost more under a Coalition government, after Peter Dutton confirmed he would scrap a popular tax break for EV drivers in an apparent backflip that has caused confusion and anger among clean car advocates.
The initiative, which was introduced by the Albanese government in 2022, has meant if a person buys an EV priced under $91,387 through a novated lease program via their employer (when a lease is paid off through pre-taxed salary deductions) they do not have to pay fringe benefits tax (FBT) – even if the car is only for personal use.
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04/23/2025 - 23:00
Two Belgian 19-year-olds have pleaded guilty to wildlife piracy – part of a growing trend of trafficking ‘less conspicuous’ creatures for sale as exotic pets
Poaching busts are familiar territory for the officers of Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), an armed force tasked with protecting the country’s iconic creatures. But what awaited guards when they descended in early April on a guesthouse in the west of the country was both larger and smaller in scale than the smuggling operations they typically encounter. There were more than 5,000 smuggled animals, caged in their own enclosures. Each one, however, was about the size of a little fingernail: 18-25mm.
The cargo, which two Belgian teenagers had apparently intended to ship to exotic pet markets in Europe and Asia, was ants. Their enclosures were a mixture of test tubes and syringes containing cotton wool – environments that authorities say would keep the insects alive for weeks.
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04/23/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 24 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00120-x
Towards inclusive global collaborations in coral reef science
