Credit: YouTube

Last Tuesday, we posted what we thought was a funny story from the weird fringes of the far-right media: An Indiana pastor named Paul Begley, appearing on a podcast hosted by bizarre conspiracy theorist Sheila Zilinksy, had claimed that First Lady Melania Trump refused to move into the White House until it had been “completely exorcised.”

There was no reason to believe that Begley’s story was true or that he was in any position to know about the first lady’s spiritual housecleaning practices. But then the far-right took the story at face value, and things got really weird. Begley’s story was picked up by CNS News and quickly made its way to the likes of American Family Radio and Infowars, who took it as yet another reason to celebrate the Trumps.

Infowars presenter Owen Shroyer suggested that Begley’s story somehow discredits the “pee tape” rumor and added that the whole thing symbolizes “that Donald Trump and Melania Trump understand that this is more than a political battle, more than an earthly battle, but a spiritual battle.”

AFR’s Bryan […]

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E-Golf electric cars hang in the assembly line of a Volkswagen factor in Dresden, Germany, which opened last year. Environmental advocates say the U.S. risks falling behind Europe and Asia in producing electric cars as the Trump administration eases pressure on automakers. (Jens Meyer / AP)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An intensifying clash between California and Washington over getting cleaner, more fuel-efficient vehicles on the road has put auto companies in a bind as they contemplate what cars they should be rolling onto showroom floors.

South Korea again took first place in the Bloomberg Innovation Index, while the U.S. dropped out of the top 10 for the first time since the gauge began.

Bloomberg has been publishing its innovation index for six years, scoring countries across seven equally weighted categories:

• Research and development intensity
• Manufacturing value-added
• Productivity
• High-tech density
• Tertiary efficiency
• Researcher concentration
• Patent activity

The U.S. dropped to 11th place this year, in part due to losses in the education-efficiency category, which measures the share of new science and engineering graduates in the labor force. And while American productivity increased, the U.S. was also docked points in value-added manufacturing, defined as the balance between inputs in the manufacturing process and the value of what results.

“I see no evidence to suggest that this trend will not continue,” said Robert D. Atkinson, president of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation in Washington, D.C., to Bloomberg. “Other nations have responded with smart, well-funded innovation policies like better R&D tax incentives, more government funding for research, more funding for technology commercialization initiatives.”

While […]

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 February 16th 2017: U.S. President Donald Trump signs H.J. Res. 38, disapproving the rule submitted by the US Department of the Interior known as the Stream Protection Rule
Credit: Ron Sachs

WASHINGTON, D.C. –Industry-friendly lawmakers are waging a coordinated campaign with the Trump administration to strip Americans of their legal rights to use the courts to hold polluting companies and the government itself accountable for violations of bedrock environmental laws and other important public protections.

Members of Congress have introduced more than 50 bills over the past year that would make it extremely difficult or impossible for people to seek justice in a court of law, according to an in-depth analysis by the Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law organization. The proposed bills are targeting laws related to environmental protection, public health, consumer rights, and civil liberties.

The number of bills introduced in the current 115th Congress that would strip individuals of their legal rights to seek justice in a court of law have doubled from the previous Congress and quadrupled since the […]

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The number of oil and gas rigs in the U.S. has increased an astonishing 38 percent over the past year. That’s according to S&P; Global Platts Analytics, which reported this week that the country had 1,070 rigs at the end of January, up from just 773 a year earlier.

Experts expressed fear that all of this new development does not bode well for the planet. “This will have a very significant climate impact,” said Romany Webb, climate law fellow with the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. “The oil and gas industry is a huge source of methane, which is a really potent greenhouse gas. And then on top of that you also have the carbon dioxide emissions from the combustion of this oil and gas. So this is very concerning from a climate perspective.”

Webb links the increase in drilling, in part, to the recent rise in prices for crude oil and natural gas. “Oil is now above $60 a barrel, which is what the industry always said that they needed to ramp up production,” she said.

Experts also connect the boom to […]

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