China has been making unexpected large strides away from fossil fuels and has become the largest investor in wind and solar technology. Credit: | VCG/Getty

Call it the China climate paradox.

Often considered the bogeyman of global climate diplomacy, China is making greater and faster strides than expected away from fossil fuels — becoming the world’s largest investor in solar and wind technology and boasting more jobs in solar energy than in coal-mining. It’s all part of a longterm economic strategy to dominate in critical technologies.

The torrid pace and unprecedented scale of China’s investments in clean energy are driven in part by local concerns about toxic air quality. China remains the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for roughly 30 percent of global carbon dioxide pollution.

But the moves are giving China a growing leadership role on the world stage — precisely at a time when Washington’s voice is becoming less relevant thanks to President Donald Trump’s announced plan to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate […]

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The Department of Labor proposed a new rule this week that would make it easier for employers to discriminate against workers who they say violate their religious beliefs, including members of the LGBTQ community, pregnant women who are not married, and others.

The proposed rule, published Thursday in the Federal Register, purports to “clarify the scope and application of the religious exemption” in the Equal Opportunity Clause, making it easier for employers who contract with the federal government to claim religious exemptions in their hiring and firing decisions.

The ACLU says that the rule would persecute marginalized workers under the guise of religious freedom.

Leila Abolfazli, the director of federal reproductive rights for the National Women’s Law Center, notes the Trump administration has repeatedly supported the expansion of religious exemptions to the law. In 2017, for example, the administration issued a rule allowing any employer—not just religious ones—to deny insurance coverage for birth control if contraception violated its religious beliefs. The administration has also often used the guise of religious belief to remove protections for 

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WASHINGTON — The science division of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) was unstaffed as of Friday as the three remaining employees departed this week, sources tell CBS News.

All three employees were holdovers from the Obama administration. The departures from the division — one of four subdivisions within the OSTP — highlight the different commitment to scientific research under Presidents Obama and Trump.

Under Mr. Obama, the science division was staffed with nine employees who led the charge on policy issues such as STEM education, biotechnology and crisis response. It’s possible that the White House will handle these issues through staff in other divisions within the OSTP.

On Friday afternoon, Eleanor Celeste, the assistant director for biomedical and forensic sciences at the OSTP, tweeted, “Science division out. Mic drop” before leaving the office for the last time.

Kumar Garg, a former OSTP staffer under Mr. Obama, also tweeted, “By COB today, number of staffers in White House OSTP’s Science Division = 0.”

“All of the work that we have been doing is […]

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West Virginia has some slimming down to do.

According to the Consumer Protect organization, which recently analyzed data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine the unhealthiest states in the United States, the state had about 38 percent of adults with obesity in 2017, the highest in the nation. It was followed closely behind by Mississippi (37.3 percent) and Oklahoma (36.5 percent).

The state with the least obesity? Colorado, with about 22.6 percent of adults in the state characterized as obese in the same year, according to Consumer Protect. It edged out the District of Columbia (23 percent).

According to the analysis, about 31.6 percent of adults in Pennsylvania were obese, just higher than the national rate of 30.1 percent. New Jersey was a bit leaner, with about 27.3 percent of obese adults.

Obesity, one of country’s most serious health issues, is linked to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, strokes and cancer, according to the CDC, which says it affected 93.3 million U.S. adults from 2015 to 2016.

Here’s […]

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