: Michael Riojas and Chris McDermott, Reporter and Editorial Assistant for EcoWatch - EcoWatch
Stephan:
I think this is the beginning of an important trend, and I think we should pay close attention. The fossil fuel industries have been pouring tens of millions of dollars, maybe hundreds of millions in total over the last few years, into the coffers of corrupt politicians and governmental officials at every level from local to Federal. Criminal Trump made it as clear as it could be. He told the petroleum oligarchs when they came to Mar-a-Lago, “give me a billion dollars” and I will do what you want. The Supreme Court is also in their pocket, but lower level courts still have honorable people on the bench. It will be interesting to see how this develops.
Activists deliver a letter from thousands of climate disaster survivors urging the DOJ to investigate Big Oil for climate crimes, in Washington, DC on Aug. 15, 2024. Credit: Kevin Wolf / AP Content Services for Chesapeake Climate Action Network / Public Citizen
More than 10,000 survivors and loved ones of survivors of “climate-driven disasters” have signed an open letter to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) urging an investigation into fossil fuel companies for “climate-related crimes.”
Of the signatories, more than 1,000 were survivors of these disasters and more than 9,000 were loved ones. Public Citizen said they, along with Chesapeake Climate Action Network, delivered the letter to the DOJ.
The letter comes at a time of increased public pressure against the fossil fuel industry and during which climate-related civil lawsuits have increased at an unprecedented pace, and have been mostly successful.
“The burning of fossil fuels has racked up enormous profits for fossil fuel companies while stoking the fire of climate change and driving increasingly lethal extreme weather events that have destroyed […]
Day after day the stories come out about what criminal Trump plans to do with the military to assure his authoritarian rule. Like his corruption he makes what he intends very clear. What amazes me is that millions of Americans are still willing to vote for this cretin. They don’t seem to understand what he is about, or maybe they do, and this is what they want. What is certain is that we need to have a election that is so overwhelming for Democrats that there is no way for the MAGAt Republicans to cheat.
Criminal Trump standing in front of military personnel. Credit: AP
Painting a grim portrait if Donald Trump is re-elected, the New York Times is reporting there is every reason to believe the former president will make use of the Insurrection Act to deploy the U.S. military against American citizens during protests he finds objectionable.
In a deep dive from the Times’ Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan and Charlie Savage, they write that close associates of the former president have been hard at work bolstering their case that the newly elected president can trample civil liberties without regard for the Posse Comitatus Act that “generally makes it a crime to use regular federal troops for domestic policing purposes.”
As they wrote, during his one term, the former president argued on multiple occasions to deploy military personnel to shut down protests and take control of the border. During a second term, he is not expected to have […]
And here we see what the Chevron decision of the corrupt MAGAt majority on the Supreme Court is doing to ordinary Americans. This is the world the corrupt justices have in mind. What I do not understand is why Biden has not stepped in? Why the Secretary of Defense is silent? Also, why isn’t this getting more media coverage?
Several air force bases are largely responsible for trichloroethylene (TCE) – volatile organic compounds – and PFAS contaminating drinking water sources in Tucson. Credit: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP / Getty
The US Air Force is refusing to comply with an order to clean drinking water it polluted in Tucson, Arizona, claiming federal regulators lack authority after the conservative-dominated US supreme court overturned the “Chevron doctrine”. Air force bases contaminated the water with toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” and other dangerous compounds.
Though former US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials and legal experts who reviewed the Air Force’s claim say the Chevron doctrine ruling probably would not apply to the order, the military’s claim that it would represents an early indication of how polluters will wield the controversial court decision to evade responsibility.
It appears the Air Force is essentially attempting to expand the scope of the court’s ruling to thwart regulatory orders not covered by the decision, said Deborah Ann Sivas, director of the Stanford University Environmental Law Clinic.
“It’s very odd,” she added. “It feels almost like an intimidation tactic, but it will be interesting to […]
The endless vomiting of lies by criminal Trump and his Frankenstein Vance about the rising crime rate under Biden are, in my view not only completely untrue, these lies are also dangerous to the social wellbeing of America society. Here is the actual data, and crime is going down.
Illustration: Maura Losch / Axios
New preliminary data from major U.S. cities shows a sharp drop in violent crime in the first half of the year — more than 25% in some communities — as the COVID-era crime wave recedes.
Why it matters: The drop in violent crime puts a serious dent in one of the most frequently used lines of attack by former President Trump and his allies, who have sought to tie Democrats to the issue since 2020.
It also gives Vice President Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor in San Francisco and California attorney general, a potent defense against attacks from the right on crime.
By the numbers: An Axios analysis of data from the Major Cities Chiefs Association found an overall 6% decline in violent crime among 69 cities during the first six months of 2024 compared to the same period last year.
54 of the 69 major cities in the report saw drops in violent crime — defined as […]
As a research scientist who has published several hundred papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, I take this article quite personally. If AI, and personal corruption of scientists, destroys the integrity of scientific publications where does truth and integrity go? What kind of world would we have if facts no longer matter? Neo-medievalism would reign.
Scientific sleuth Elisabeth Bik fears that a flood of AI-generated images and text in academic papers could weaken trust in science Credit: Amy Osborne / AFP
An infographic of a rat with a preposterously large penis. Another showing human legs with way too many bones. An introduction that starts: “Certainly, here is a possible introduction for your topic”.
These are a few of the most egregious examples of artificial intelligence that have recently made their way into scientific journals, shining a light on the wave of AI-generated text and images washing over the academic publishing industry.
Several experts who track down problems in studies told AFP that the rise of AI has turbocharged the existing problems in the multi-billion-dollar sector.
All the experts emphasised that AI programmes such as ChatGPT can be a helpful tool for writing or translating papers — if thoroughly checked and disclosed.
But that was not the case for several recent cases that somehow snuck […]
