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Black lawmakers in South Carolina say they were left out of writing anti-discrimination bill

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina House has passed a bill to restrict diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at public colleges and universities over the objections of Black lawmakers who said they weren’t included in crafting the proposal.

The House’s most conservative wing celebrated the bill passing 84-30 on Wednesday after Republicans voted to limit debate and prevent lawmakers from proposing any more changes.

Democrats said the initiatives commonly called DEI are necessary to make sure schools meet the needs of increasingly diverse student populations — and they called the bill another stand-in for fears of a woke bogeyman. Republicans said DEI programs try to solve problems caused by discrimination with more discrimination.

“Everyone can be treated equally regardless of their background or their beliefs in the state of South Carolina,” said the primary sponsor of the bill Republican Rep. Tim McGinnis of Myrtle Beach.

But Black House members like Rep. Leon Howard said it’s absurd to develop a bill that says everyone will be treated equally without including representation from the people it targets.

“We had no Black people involved in crafting this legislation so y’all don’t know how we feel today. We feel some kind of way about that. We feel offended about that,” said Howard, who has been in the House since 1995.

The Democrat owns his family’s 70-year-old towing business and said he knows racism firsthand as bankers didn’t mind financing a car but balked at signing loans for tow trucks because that could take money out of white businessmen’s pockets.

Howard rose to speak after a speech from Republican Rep. Adam Morgan of Taylors, whose highly conservative Freedom Caucus of about 16 members pushed for the bill after failing to remove state funding for what his group said were DEI projects.

“Discrimination was wrong in the past and it’s wrong in the present,” said Morgan, who is running for a U.S. House seat.

The bill bans colleges from considering DEI factors when deciding which students to accept or which people to hire. The bill does not define DEI.

The proposal allows universities to keep their DEI programs, but they will have to report to the General Assembly on how much they cost and how they resolved any complaints about them. It promises not to interfere with a school’s applications for grants or accreditation, which sometimes require statements of compliance with federal anti-discrimination laws.

But just the idea of this bill will likely stifle discussions of diverse viewpoints and the continuing discrimination that shapes life in the U.S. today, said Democratic Rep. Kambrell Garvin of Blythewood, who is a lawyer and a former teacher.

“What this bill does is strangle any concept of diversity. It strangles the freedom to learn and teach. We refuse to stand by and simply accept that,” Garvin said.

The proposal faces an uncertain future in the Senate. There are only six weeks left in the General Assembly’s session and two of them will be taken up debating the state’s $13.2 billion budget.

In statehouses across the U.S., Republicans and Democrats have been pushing opposing definitions of fairness and opportunity in education and state workplaces.

Democratic lawmakers in more than a dozen states are promoting more than 30 measures this year to require greater consideration of diversity, equity and inclusion. Republican state lawmakers have countered with more than 60 measures to prohibit or restrict it, according to an Associated Press analysis using the bill tracking software Plural.


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Joe Lieberman’s death leaves a hole at No Labels as it tries to recruit a 2024 third-party candidate

NEW YORK (AP) — When No Labels’ critics got the loudest, it was Joe Lieberman who came to the group’s defense.

The former Connecticut senator was a founding chairman of the centrist organization that focused, above all, on promoting bipartisanship in national politics. Despite its benign stated mission, No Labels inflamed many people across politics by working to recruit a third-party presidential candidate that some fear might tilt the 2024 election in Donald Trump’s favor.

At almost every major turn, Lieberman served as the group’s chief public defender. He was also a private force in No Labels’ presidential recruitment push. He insisted repeatedly in interviews, as recently as last week, that the nation is craving an alternative to Trump and President Joe Biden.

“This is the moment for a bipartisan unity ticket,” Lieberman told Bloomberg Television last Thursday. “Now, we’ve just got to find a strong bipartisan ticket to recommend to the No Labels delegates in the next couple of weeks. That’s not easy.”

Now, Lieberman is gone. He died on Wednesday due to complications from a fall. He was 82.

Lieberman’s death not only marks an irreplaceable loss for No Labels, it injects a new level of uncertainty into the organization’s 2024 ambitions.

Just hours before news of his death was reported this week, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who twice ran unsuccessfully for the GOP nomination, announced his decision not to join No Labels’ presidential ticket. It was the latest in a string of high-profile rejections for the group, which has nonetheless secured a spot on presidential ballots in more than a dozen states.

Already, No Labels had courted and been denied by would-be White House contenders in both parties including Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

On Thursday, a fresh wave of critics called on No Labels to abandon its 2024 plans.

“At this point I’m not sure what else the No Labels crowd needs to hear. Every serious person who has taken a look at this gambit immediately sees they would just be helping to elect Donald Trump,” Sarah Longwell, who founded Republican Voters Against Trump, wrote on X. “Time for No Labels and its donors to pull the plug.”

No Labels’ leadership declined to address its 2024 plans on Thursday given Lieberman’s passing. His funeral was scheduled for Friday.

But new details emerged in the group’s struggle to peesuade strong candidates to join its presidential ticket.

Lieberman was intimately involved in recruitment conversations with potential candidates. He participated in introductory Zoom calls and maintained regular contact with top prospects, including Christie.

The former New Jersey governor’s team looked seriously at a potential No Labels’ bid. His advisers did polling, modeling and studied the fundraising challenges, according to a person familiar with Christie’s thinking, granted anonymity to disclose private conversations.

Ultimately, Christie determined that a No Labels’ ticket was not viable, despite the organization’s insistence to the contrary.

“While I believe this is a conversation that needs to be had with the American people, I also believe that if there is not a pathway to win and if my candidacy in any way, shape or form would help Donald Trump become president again, then it is not the way forward,” Christie said Wednesday in a statement.

Another high-profile Republican Trump critic, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, was also in regular contact with No Labels in recent months. Sununu, who briefly considered a Republican White House bid, has announced he will not seek reelection this fall.

Sensing opportunity, No Labels repeatedly reached out to Sununu and indicated that he was one of their top choices based on focus group data, according to a Sununu adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose private discussions.

Sununu repeatedly told No Labels advisers that he wasn’t interested, the adviser said. No Labels reached out again in early March to gauge Sununu’s interest, and the New Hampshire governor again said no.

Still, No Labels appears to be pushing forward.

The group announced on Wednesday, just before news of Lieberman’s death emerged, that it had secured ballot access in Wyoming. That makes 19 states, including swing states Arizona and Nevada, in which No Labels says it has officially qualified for the presidential ballot.

While that’s more than third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has confirmed so far, it’s far from the number of states a candidate will need to have a legitimate chance to win the presidency.

Yet it was Lieberman himself who penned a message earlier in the month outlining a path forward.

He wrote that he was part of a No Labels committee dubbed, “Country Over Party,” which was in charge of identifying candidates for the unity ticket.

“If we find two candidates that meet our high threshold, we will recommend that ticket to No Labels’ delegates for a nomination vote at a National Nominating Convention that will be held later this spring,” Lieberman said just two weeks ago. “If No Labels is unable to find candidates who meet this high threshold, then we simply will not offer our ballot line to anyone.”

“We remain undeterred and confident in our mission,” Lieberman continued, “because we know we have America’s vast commonsense majority behind us.”

___

Associated Press writers Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix and Jill Colvin in New York contributed.


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As Kansas nears gender care ban, students push university to advocate for trans youth

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — With Kansas poised to ban gender-affirming care for minors, college students are trying counter Republican efforts to roll back transgender rights by pushing the state’s largest university to declare itself a haven for trans youth.

The GOP-controlled Legislature approved its proposed ban on puberty blockers, hormone treatments and surgeries for minors Wednesday, apparently with the two-thirds majorities in both chambers needed to override an expected veto from Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly. Kansas would join 24 other states in banning or restricting gender-affirming care for minors, the latest being Wyoming last week.

But the week before — when a ban already appeared likely — the Student Senate on the University of Kansas’ main campus overwhelmingly approved a proposal to add transgender rights policies to the school’s code of student rights. The proposal asks administrators to affirm the students’ right “to determine their own identities,” direct staff to use their preferred names and pronouns and commit to updating student records to reflect their gender identities. Administrators have not formally responded.

The university’s hometown of Lawrence, between Kansas City and the state capital of Topeka, already has a reputation for being more liberal than the rest of the Republican-leaning state. But students involved with the transgender rights proposal said it’s urgent now to show that the university will advocate for LGBTQ youth despite a Legislature they see as hostile.

“The people in charge have made the decision to support some things that are really cruel and unnecessary and unjustifiable,” Jenna Bellemere, a 21-year-old transgender senior, said of lawmakers. “It’s students and the younger generation who have to kind of step up and say, no, we don’t think that that’s OK and fight back against it.”

Republicans in Kansas have been part of a multi-year and nationwide push by GOP lawmakers to roll back transgender rights. Last year, they overrode Kelly vetoes of measures ending the state’s legal recognition of transgender residents’ gender identities and banning transgender women and girls from female K-12 and college sports.

Six months ago, lawsuits by conservative GOP Attorney General Kris Kobach forced Kelly’s administration to stop changing the listing for “sex” on transgender people’s birth certificates and driver’s licenses.

Chris Raithel, a non-binary University of Kansas junior, was among those who worked on drafting the Student Senate proposal since last fall. Their goal wasn’t to create a confrontation between the university and the Legislature that could fuel a budget-cutting backlash, they said, “but we do think it would be a great service to the trans students at the university if these protections were in university policy and students would see that they are understood and that they’re protected.”

Republicans have pushed for a ban even though trans youth, families and medical providers in Kansas opposed it. The move also goes against the recommendation of major American medical groups, though the National Health Service of England recently said it no longer would routinely cover puberty blockers and hormone treatment for minors.

Senate President Ty Masterson, a Wichita-area Republican, described his chamber’s approval as a firm stand against “radical transgender ideology.”

Several doctors are among the legislators backing the Kansas measure, arguing that they’re protecting children from potentially irreversible medical treatments with long-term health effects.

“The bias, as some people call it, is predicated on fear — fear of the unknown — and there is still a lot that we don’t know about what we’re embarking on, particularly with minors,” said state Republican state Rep. John Eplee, a doctor from the state’s northeastern corner. “This is not meant to be hateful or hurtful.”

Republican Sen. Mark Steffen, a central Kansas anesthesiologist and pain-management doctor, suggested the proposed ban would protect “troubled children” from “wayward parents and a wayward health care system.”

GOP legislators approved a proposed ban last year but couldn’t override Kelly’s veto. This year, supporters saw a net gain of 12 votes in the House to reach the necessary two-thirds majority there.

In the state Senate, supporters were one vote shy last year but picked it up Wednesday from Republican Sen. Brenda Dietrich, of Topeka, a former local school superintendent. She switched because this year backers added a provision that would give doctors until the end of the year to move patients off puberty blockers or hormone treatments.

Dietrich’s voice shook as she explained her decision to colleagues Wednesday evening, saying it was a difficult vote. She said she’d worried about the potential harm of cutting off treatments suddenly but has always agreed with people in her GOP-leaning district, who “overwhelmingly” oppose gender-affirming surgeries for minors.

“Their anger regarding physicians and parents allowing surgeries on children is palpable,” she said.

Even supporters of the ban have acknowledged that Kansas doctors do few gender-affirming surgeries for minors. Young transgender adults have said in interviews that they’ve gone through months — sometimes several years — of therapy, puberty blockers and hormone treatments first.

And critics of a ban said the provision allowing a gradual withdrawal of treatments that reduce the risk of suicide, while potentially better medically than an abrupt end, doesn’t prevent harm to the physical and mental health of transgender youth.

“Minors and their families are already facing significant emotional turmoil from facing these hateful bills year after year,” Amanda Mogoi, an advanced practice registered nurse from Wichita who’s provided such treatments for eight years, said in an email. “They will not want to stop their life-saving medications.”

While the measure would ban treatments only for people under 18 years old, the college students behind the University of Kansas proposal still see it as a threat to them, in part because they don’t expect GOP lawmakers to stop there. During the House debate Wednesday, health committee Chair Brenda Landwehr suggested that Kansas should consider extending the ban to people in their early 20s.

“If I could ban this until a child’s brain fully developed, I would do that in a heartbeat,” said Landwehr, a Wichita Republican.

Bellemere said that even without a broader ban, doctors might stop treating young transgender adults, fearing lawsuits or other legal problems.

Another transgender University of Kansas student, Raine Flores-Peña, a junior and LGBTQ+ rights activist working at the school’s Center for Sexuality & Gender Diversity, said some friends transferred to other universities after Kansas legislators ended the state’s legal recognition of their gender identities. But he began his transition after moving to Lawrence in 2018, and describes himself as very stubborn.

“I don’t want to get kicked out of my own home,” he said.


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Ex-Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura says he will sell cannabis edibles

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura has announced he is entering the cannabis market as a seller, as the state still figures out retail sales of the drug on the heels of legalizing marijuana for adults last year.

Ventura is launching his own brand of cannabis edibles in partnership with Retro Bakery, which is based in suburban Minneapolis and producing hemp-derived THC edibles under the Jesse Ventura Farms brand, Minnesota Public Radio reported.

“Ventura Farms is my foray into the world of cannabis,” Ventura said in a Wednesday video with rock music playing in the background.

He added, “I’m a huge supporter of the cannabis industry. Cannabis saved my family’s life. And now it’s time for me to return to the cannabis world. And you can join me — Jesse Ventura and Ventura Farms — any time you want. We’re in the game.”

Ventura has said the drug helped his wife get her seizures under control, MPR reported. Retro Bakery said the Ventura-branded edibles will be available for pre-order on April 1, according to MPR.

A former professional wrestler and actor, Ventura shocked the public when he won the race for Minnesota governor as an independent candidate in 1998. He served as governor from 1999 to 2003.

Ventura was one of the first governors in the U.S. to openly support marijuana legalization.

Last year, Minnesota became the 23rd state to legalize recreational marijuana for adults.

This month, the state’s top cannabis regulator said Minnesota probably won’t meet its goal of launching full-scale retail marijuana sales in the first quarter of 2025 because of the time it will take to draft regulations and issue licenses.

Using, possessing and growing marijuana for personal use, within limits, became legal last August. But sales are still a legal gray area.

Currently, only a few tribally owned on-reservation shops are legally allowed to sell recreational marijuana in Minnesota because tribal sovereignty exempts them from state regulation.


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Punxsutawney Phil, the spring-predicting groundhog, and wife Phyliss are parents of 2 babies

Now we know what Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog who predicts whether an early spring will arrive each Feb. 2, does on the other 364 days.

The Pennsylvania group that handles Phil, and his groundhog wife, Phyliss, says the couple have become parents.

The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club said in a Facebook post Wednesday that Phyliss recently gave birth to two healthy babies. It did not specify their sex or give names for either one.

“We’re pleased to announce that Punxsutawney Phil has had his first children; we believe there are two baby groundhogs and that Phil and Phyllis have started a family,” said Thomas Dunkel, president of a tuxedo-clad group called The Inner Circle that carries on the groundhog tradition each year. “We’re pleased about it, and I talked to Phil with my cane, which lets me speak Groundhogese, and Phil could not be more excited that he started a family.”

Dunkel said a club member discovered the babies Saturday when he came to feed their parents fruit and vegetables.

Phil emerges from his burrow each year the morning of Feb. 2. If he sees his shadow, tradition holds, there will be six more weeks of winter. This year, he did not see his shadow, heralding an early spring.

Although the best known, Phil is far from the only groundhog to try his hand at meteorology. There have been weather-predicting groundhogs in at least 28 U.S. states and Canadian provinces, and less formal celebrations far and wide.

Phil and Phyliss live in climate-controlled quarters at the Punxsutawney Memorial Library.

But like most growing families, they now need larger digs. The club plans to move them to a larger home on the library’s grounds.

Like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, Punxsutawney Phil comes with his own mythology, including the claim that he will live forever, due to imbibing some magic juice called “The Elixir Of Life.” (His wife is not allowed to partake of the elixir, and thus, is not immortal. Where are groundhog suffragettes when they’re truly needed?)

Given that the annual Groundhog Day ritual has been performed since 1887, that would place Phil in his late 130s, a procreational feat that puts Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro and Mick Jagger to shame.

And what about the kids? Will they someday inherit the responsibility of predicting whether there will be six more weeks of winter? Will they have to spend their lives waiting for dad to shuffle off to that big burrow in the sky before they can inherit the throne?

Alas, no, Dunkel says. Because their father is immortal, there will always be only one of him.

___

Follow Wayne Parry on X at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC


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Russian veto brings end to UN panel monitoring enforcement of North Korea nuclear sanctions

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia vetoed a U.N. resolution Thursday in a move that effectively abolishes the monitoring by United Nations experts of U.N. sanctions against North Korea aimed at reining in its nuclear program, though the sanctions themselves remain in place.

Russia’s vote sparked Western accusations that Moscow was acting to shield its weapons purchases from North Korea for use in its war against Ukraine, which violate U.N. sanctions.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have heightened with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un threatening nuclear conflict and escalating tests of nuclear-capable missiles designed to target South Korea, the United States and Japan. The three countries have responded by strengthening their combined military exercises and updating their deterrence plans.

The vote in the 15-member council was 13 in favor, Russia against, and China abstaining. The Security Council resolution would have extended the mandate of the panel of experts for a year, but Russia’s veto will halt its operation when its current mandate expires at the end of April.

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the council before the vote that Western nations are trying to “strangle” North Korea and that sanctions are losing their “relevance” and “detached from reality” in preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the country.

He accused the panel of experts of “increasingly being reduced to playing into the hands of Western approaches, reprinting biased information and analyzing newspaper headlines and poor quality photos.” Therefore, he said, it is “essentially conceding its inability to come up with sober assessments of the status of the sanctions regime.”

But U.S. Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood called the panel’s work essential and accused Russia of attempting to silence its “independent objective investigations” because it “began reporting in the last year on Russia’s blatant violations of the U.N. Security Council resolutions.”

He warned that Russia’s veto will embolden North Korea to continue jeopardizing global security through development “of long-range ballistic missiles and sanctions evasion efforts.”

White House national security spokesman John Kirby condemned Russia’s veto as a “reckless action” that undermines sanctions imposed on North Korea, while warning against the deepening cooperation between North Korea and Russia, particularly as North Korea continues to supply Russia with weapons as it wages its war in Ukraine.

“The international community should resolutely uphold the global nonproliferation regime and support the people of Ukraine as they defend their freedom and independence against Russia’s brutal aggression,” Kirby told reporters.

Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward said Russia’s veto follows arms deals between Russia and North Korea in violation of U.N. sanctions, including “the transfer of ballistic missiles, which Russia has then used in its illegal invasion of Ukraine since the early part of this year.”

“This veto does not demonstrate concern for the North Korean people or the efficacy of sanctions,” she said. “It is about Russia gaining the freedom to evade and breach sanctions in pursuit of weapons to be used against Ukraine.”

“This panel, through its word to expose sanctions non-compliance, was an inconvenience for Russia,” Woodward said.

France’s U.N. Ambassador Nicolas de Riviere added that “North Korea has been providing Russia with military material in support of its aggression against Ukraine, in violation of many resolutions which Russia voted in favor of.”

The Security Council imposed sanctions after North Korea’s first nuclear test explosion in 2006 and tightened them over the years in a total of 10 resolutions seeking — so far unsuccessfully — to cut funds and curb its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The last sanctions resolution was adopted by the council in December 2017. China and Russia vetoed a U.S.-sponsored resolution in May 2022 that would have imposed new sanctions over a spate of intercontinental ballistic missile launches.

The Security Council established a committee to monitor sanctions and the mandate for its panel of experts to investigate violations had been renewed for 14 years until Thursday.

In its most recent report circulated last month, the panel of experts said it is investigating 58 suspected North Korean cyberattacks between 2017 and 2023 valued at approximately $3 billion, with the money reportedly being used to help fund its development of weapons of mass destruction.

The experts said North Korea continues to flout sanctions, including by further developing its nuclear weapons, and producing nuclear fissile materials — the weapons’ key ingredients. It also continues to import refined petroleum products in violation of council resolutions.


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Aerial surveys show US landfills are major source of methane emissions

By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Over half of U.S. landfills observed by aerial surveys are super-emitting sources of methane, according to a new study in the journal Science published on Thursday.

The study is the largest assessment to date of methane from landfills, the third-largest source of U.S. methane emissions, and suggests an opportunity to tackle climate change by targeting a prevalent and potent greenhouse gas.

It was led by research group Carbon Mapper, with researchers from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Arizona State University, University of Arizona, Scientific Aviation, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Around 52% of landfills had observable methane emission point sources compared to the 0.2% to 1% of “super-emitter” sites in the oil and gas sector, the largest U.S. source of methane.

Super emitters are sources that spew at least 100 kilograms (100 lbs) of methane per hour, according to the EPA.

At large emitting landfills, 60% had methane leaks that persisted over months or years while the majority of leaks at super-emitting sites in the oil and gas sector were “short-duration events,” the study said.

Dan Cusworth, scientist at Carbon Mapper and lead author of the study, said that pinpointing these leaks offers a quick way to target emissions.

“Addressing these high methane sources and mitigating persistent landfill emissions offers a strong potential for climate benefit,” he said in a statement.

So far, oil and gas has been the main target of emerging regulations and voluntary programs in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.

But as more aerial and satellite surveys are launched, regulators will be able to measure, quantify and act on methane from landfills.

To date, companies and regulators have relied on model-based estimates of landfill emissions, as well as surveys with handheld methane sensors, which provide a less complete picture, the study said.

The EPA’s own greenhouse gas reporting system has underestimated the scale of methane leaks in landfills, according to the study. Aerial surveys showed emission rates were 1.4 times higher than the EPA’s estimates.

The EPA said that in 2021, 12% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from human activities came from methane.

(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Stephen Coates)


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Biden administration restores threatened species protections dropped by Trump

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Biden administration on Thursday restored rules to protect imperiled plants and animals that had been rolled back back under former President Donald Trump.

Among the changes announced, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will reinstate a decades-old regulation that mandates blanket protections for species newly classified as threatened. That means officials won’t have to craft time-intensive plans to shield each individual species while protections are pending, as has been done recently with North American wolverines and alligator snapping turtles in the southeastern U.S. and spotted owls in California.

The blanket protections regulation was dropped in 2019 as part of a suite of changes to the application of the species law under Trump that were encouraged by industry. Those changes came as extinctions accelerate globally due to habitat loss and other pressures.

Officials also will not consider economic impacts when deciding if animals and plants need protection. And the rules from the wildlife service and National Marine Fisheries Service make it easier to designate areas as critical for a species’ survival, even if it is no longer found in those locations.

Species that could benefit from the rules include imperiled fish and freshwater mussels in the Southeast, where the aquatic animals in many cases are absent from portions of their historical range, officials have said.

Details on the rules were obtained by The Associated Press in advance of their public release.

Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams said the rule changes underscored the agency’s commitment to using the best available science to halt population declines as “climate change, degraded and fragmented habitat, invasive species, and wildlife disease” threaten many species.

Environmentalists had expressed frustration that it’s taken years for Democratic President Joe Biden to act on some of the Trump-era rollbacks. Stoking their urgency is the prospect of a new Republican administration following the 2024 election that could yet again ease protections.

Jamie Rappaport Clark, a former Fish and Wildlife Service director and now president at Defenders of Wildlife, characterized Thursday’s announcement as a “marginal win” that restores some essential protections for wildlife, but leaves in place some of the changes made in 2019 under Trump. The environmental group said the retained provisions would open the door to the destruction of habitat critical for some species to survive.

The rules have gotten strong pushback from Republican lawmakers, who say Biden’s Democratic administration has hampered oil, gas and coal development, and favors conservation over development.

“We know the Endangered Species Act is an outdated piece of legislation that has repeatedly failed its primary goal of recovering listed species, yet Biden is now undoing crucial reforms and issuing new regulations that will not benefit listed species,” said House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman, a Republican from Arkansas.

Many energy companies, ranchers, developers and representatives of other industries have long viewed the 1973 Endangered Species Act as an impediment. Under Trump, they successfully lobbied to weaken the law’s regulations as part of a broad dismantling of environmental safeguards.

Trump officials also rolled back endangered species rules and protections for the northern spotted owl, gray wolves and other species.

The spotted owl decision was reversed in 2021 after officials said Trump’s political appointees used faulty science to justify opening millions of acres of West Coast forest to potential logging. Protections for wolves across most of the U.S. were restored by a federal court in 2021.

The Endangered Species Act is credited with helping save the bald eagle, California condor and scores more animals and plants from extinction since President Richard Nixon signed it into law. It currently protects more than 1,600 species in the United States and its territories.


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US Senator Warren renews call for gun sale code regulation

By Ross Kerber

(Reuters) – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren and other Democratic lawmakers renewed calls for financial regulators to direct the use of a payment code for firearms retailers, citing conflicting new state laws on the matter, a March 27 letter seen by Reuters shows.

A total of 33 U.S. senators and representatives urged regulators including U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to issue guidance for banks and payment networks to implement a new “merchant category code,” or MCC, approved by an international standards body in 2022.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

New federal guidance could resolve what, if any, new information payment networks should collect from firearms retailers.

Payment card companies including Visa and Mastercard have paused much of their work to implement the new code, citing regulatory uncertainty.

CONTEXT

Laws passed by U.S. Republicans in at least seven states limit the use of the new code over concerns that it could be used to infringe upon gun rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. Meanwhile, California has passed a law to promote its use and a similar bill is pending in Colorado.

The new code will not show specific items purchased but will identify where a person shopped by adding gun stores to a list of hundreds of existing retail categories. Proponents say the codes would help banks to flag suspicious purchases to reduce gun violence.

KEY QUOTES

“The need for uniform, clear federal guidance on this interstate commerce issue is becoming increasingly clear as states adopt differing and confusing rules about the gun store MCC,” states the letter sent late on Wednesday led by Warren, of Massachusetts, and by U.S. Representative Madeleine Dean, of Pennsylvania. Warren urged similar action a year ago.

A U.S. Treasury Department representative referred questions about the letter to independent regulators including the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. An OCC representative declined to comment.

(Reporting by Ross Kerber, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)


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Baltimore radio dispatch to stop bridge traffic may have saved lives

BALTIMORE (Reuters) – Less than a minute before Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed from the impact of a colliding cargo ship, a first responder on emergency radio answered the crew’s mayday call by sending officers to halt traffic onto the bridge.

Without their swift response, the scale of the disaster, which took the lives of six bridge repairmen, may have been far greater, even during the early morning hours when the crash occurred and vehicular traffic is relatively light.

“There’s a ship approaching that just lost their steering,” an unidentified responder said, according to a recording of Maryland Transportation Authority Police posted by the website Broadcastify. “So until they get that under control, we’ve got to stop all traffic.”

The police radio recording sheds light on how officers managed to keep traffic off the bridge just before it fell down, but were unable to reach the construction crew fixing potholes on the bridge in time to evacuate them.

Federal safety officials on Wednesday revealed that the freighter’s pilot had radioed for tugboat help and reported a power loss minutes before the 1:27 a.m (0527 GMT) collision on Tuesday, citing audio from the ship’s “black box” data recorder.

About a minute and a half after the crash, the responder mentioned the construction workers on the bridge. 

“I’m not sure where – there’s a crew out there,” he said. “You might want to notify whoever the foreman is, see if we can get him off the bridge temporarily.”

Another unidentified responder replied that once another official arrived to hold traffic, he would go “grab the workers” on the bridge.

But a second later, a third responder urgently alerted the group that the bridge was gone.

“The whole bridge just fell down,” that officer said. “The whole bridge just collapsed.”    

Divers on Wednesday recovered the remains of two of the six workers missing since the crumbling bridge tossed them into the water. The other four are presumed dead.

Maryland State Police Colonel Roland Butler said a red pickup truck with the bodies of the two men was found in about 25 feet (7.62 meters) of water near the midsection of the fallen bridge.

(Reporting by Julia Harte and Ted Hesson; Editing by Howard Goller)


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