"Hours after becoming the first House speaker in history to be ousted from the job, California Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy announced Tuesday night he would not try to retake the gavel."
How did the Lahaina wildfire spark an AI-driven influence campaign out of China? Perhaps a technological leap. Or perhaps, the new WatchDog Opinion column suggests, a natural evolution of a decades-old disinformation playbook with roots in a war against science and culminating in climate denial. A look at the disturbing prospects and a plea for journalists not to sidestep the phenomenon but to cover it.
"It’s the most wonderful time of the year — Fat Bear Week 2023 is here. The annual competition, hosted by the Katmai National Park and Preserve, pits brown bears against each other in a virtual bracket as they stock up for hibernation."
"A coalition of environmental groups is calling on the federal government to enact emergency rules to protect a vanishing species of whale from lethal collisions with large ships. The groups filed their petition with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Sept. 28 in an effort to protect the North Atlantic right whale."
"More than 20 firms across the oil and gas sector and heavy industry have agreed to commit to curb emissions at the UN's COP28 climate summit, with more expected to join the group before the conference, its president said on Monday."
"The Onondaga Nation has protested for centuries that illegal land grabs shrank its territory from what was once thousands of square miles in upstate New York to a relatively paltry patch of land south of Syracuse. ... So now the nation is presenting its case to an international panel."
In the Coachella Valley east of Los Angeles, the massive Salton Sea is rapidly drying up, threatening vulnerable immigrant communities in a growing toxic environment. The Living Downstream podcast reported extensively on these hazards, winning third place in the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Awards for Reporting on the Environment’s explanatory reporting, small, category, in 2022. Inside Story spoke with one of the prizewinners.
"After dodging surprisingly pointed questions about climate change at the first debate Fox News hosted last month, the contenders hoping to take on President Joe Biden next November battled each other over who would do most to ramp up production of the fossil fuels destabilizing the planet’s weather systems."
"Emails show David Bernhardt of interior department overrode superintendent of California park, causing ‘chaos and destruction’"
"The Biden administration is charting plans to sell offshore oil-drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico over the next five years, while trimming the program to its smallest level ever.
The oil leasing plan being released by the Interior Department on Friday will contain only a low number of sales, according to people familiar with the deliberations who declined to be named because the blueprint isn’t yet public. That’s far from the 11 sales the agency proposed last year, and it would be the lowest in history.
Advertisement 
