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The Vatican announced Friday it was banning retired West Virginia Bishop Michael Bransfield from public ministry following allegations of sexual and financial misconduct.

But the Vatican stopped short of defrocking Bransfield.

The sanctions, which included a ban on Bransfield residing in his former diocese, were ordered by Pope Francis and posted on the website for the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston.

The Vatican, which conducted an investigation into the allegations against Bransfield after he resigned in 2018, went on to say the former bishop had an “obligation to make personal amends for some of the harm he caused,” adding that the “nature and extent of the amends” would be decided “in consultation with the future Bishop of Wheeling-Charleston.”

The statement detailing the sanctions against Bransfield said the Vatican’s inquiry centered around “allegations of sexual harassment of adults and of financial improprieties.”

Bransfield resigned in September 2018 after an aide unearthed years of sexual and financial misconduct, including allegations he spent millions of dollars on himself and sent expensive gifts to clergy members who accused him of harassment.

Records obtained by The Washington […]

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Orville Dam collapse

It is a telling illustration of the precarious state of United States dams that the near-collapse in February 2017 of Oroville Dam, the nation’s tallest, occurred in California, considered one of the nation’s leading states in dam safety management.

The incident at the half-century-old, 770-foot-high Oroville Dam, which involved partial disintegration of its two spillways⁠ during a heavy but not unprecedented rainstorm, signaled the inadequacy of methods customarily used throughout the country to assess dam safety and carry out repairs. It occurred as federal dam safety officials have made substantial progress in updating methods of dam assessment, in the process […]

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LOS ANGELES, Nov. 22, 2018 — A haze of smoke blankets the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles, the United States, on Nov. 21, 2018. According to the South Coast Air Quality Management District, smoke from the Northern California fire has begun to move into parts of Southern California, leading to potentially unhealthy air quality. Credit: Xinhua/Zhao Hanrong via Getty

More than 30,000 deaths have been linked to poor air quality in the United States, according to new research funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). And even at levels considered to be safe, researchers argue that air pollution can increase mortality rates.

The study, released Tuesday, was also supported by the research charity Wellcome Trust, and reinforces long-running concerns over microscopic pollution particles in the air and their impact on human health. It also widens the gap between the Trump administration’s efforts to rollback clean air rules and the government’s own findings on the importance of air quality.

Researchers from Imperial College London and Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Air, […]

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