By Topher Sanders and Dan Schwartz – ProPublica – ProPublica learned of the policy after reviewing the rules of the company, which is engulfed in controversy after one of its trains derailed this month, releasing toxic flammable gas over East Palestine, Ohio. The policy applies specifically to the company’s Wayside Detector Help Desk, which monitors…
ECONOMY
Biden Administration Invests $2.7 Billion to Improve and Expand Rural Electric Infrastructure
EDITOR’S NOTE: There’s been much hand wringing and commentary on what’s wrong with America, democracy and why people don’t trust the federal government, which led in part to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. We submit that the reason is pretty obvious and right in front of everyone’s face. Republicans have been running for office for…
Big Tech’s Advertising Monopoly is Destroying the American Press and Damaging Democracy
By Ken Buck – Special to the New American Journal – The first brilliant idea Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page had was to “crawl” — and trawl — the World Wide Web. Using spiders, it would copy what it found, create vast databases of web content, and then “index” that content, evaluating it…
Senator Angus King of Maine Presses Biden Administration on ‘Inadequate’ Maintenance Budget and Staff Shortages at National Parks
Staff Report – WASHINGTON, D.C. – Anyone who works in national parks, volunteers with the National Park Service or visits the parks can attest to the fact that staff shortages and maintenance backlogs have plagued the parks for years, through the administrations of Republicans and Democrats. If there is any truth to documentary filmmaker Ken…
Lame Duck Congress Plays Government Shutdown Funding Games Again
ANALYSIS – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Funding the government of the United States used to be a fairly routine affair, and for most of its history, Congress went home in recess before Thanksgiving and members didn’t come back to Washington until the new year. Not anymore. For the past 40 years or…
Biden Administration Announces $981 Million in Spending for Rural Infrastructure Investments
Staff Report – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Back during the height of news covering during the midterm election campaign, mainstream media pundits and commentators often blamed Democrats for ineffective messaging and failing to get the word out on how President Joe Biden’s legislative successes would help suffering people even in rural America, where working class people…
F.B.I. Headquarters Move Could be a Legacy Project for Greenbelt’s Congressman, Steny Hoyer
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Some people say you shouldn’t talk about politics at family gatherings on holidays like Thanksgiving, as incendiary as that can be these days. But as power is shifting in the nation’s capital city and the Capitol building, and with juicy political plums to be plucked after Christmas, you…
The Story of Wild, Native Brook Trout and Why They Are So Ecologically Important Like the Canary in the Coal Mine for Climate Change
When the Brook Trout Leaps – By Anonymous – The slender dew-tipped grasses are trembling in the breeze, The east is blushing rosy red beneath the Sun’s caress, The wild rose bends to kiss the stream—but only Nature sees, And the reed-harps play weird music just above the water cress. The quail is calling loudly…
Biden Administration Announces New Vehicle Fuel Economy Standards to Require 49 MPG by 2026
Staff Report – WASHINGTON, D.C. – Spurred on by high gas prices and increasing evidence of climate change due to global warming from the burning of fossil fuels for transportation as well as energy, the Biden Administration moved quickly and aggressively to reverse Trump administration rollbacks in new car fuel economy standards and announced much…
The Stakes Could Not be Higher for Democracy as Congress Returns to Work
Biden EPA Issues Final Rule Cutting Climate-Damaging Greenhouse Gases from Chemicals Used in Air Conditioning and Refrigeration
By Glynn Wilson – The Biden administration issued a final regulation Thursday aimed at cutting emissions that lead to global warming and climate change by announcing the establishment of a program to cap and phase down the production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons in the United States by 85 percent over the next 15 years, according…
Hurricane Ida Expected to Rapidly Intensify Ahead of Landfall in Louisiana
Staff Report – Hurricane Ida is forecast to rapidly intensify into a major hurricane as it draws closer to the northern Gulf Coast this weekend, where it will bring life-threatening storm surge, dangerous rainfall and flooding, and potentially catastrophic winds and tornadoes on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Ida is currently centered 400 miles…
Biden EPA Bans Chemical Pesticide Linked to Psychological Health Disorders in Children
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Millions of children just in the United States have been diagnosed with some form of attention deficit disorder and/or hyperactivity disorder by psychiatrists and psychologists, and are often treated with pharmaceutical medication or behavioral therapy. But what if these problems are not genetic or cultural psychological issues, but…
FreightCar America Got a $10 Million PPP Loan, Then Closed Its Plant and Moved Manufacturing Jobs to Mexico
By Lydia DePillis – ProPublica – Late last summer, after churning along through the pandemic with only a two-week pause, managers at FreightCar America called hundreds of workers into the break area at the company’s factory near Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to tell them that the plant was closing for good. For some employees, the news…
The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax
By Jesse Eisinger, Jeff Ernsthausen and Paul Kiel – ProPublica – In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no…
President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2022 Budget Proposes Significant Investments in the National Park Service
Staff Report – WASHINGTON — The Biden-Harris administration submitted the President’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2022 to Congress on Friday, and it calls for a new investment of $3.5 billion in the National Park Service to help modernize the parks and park infrastructure. It calls for new investments in conservation efforts, expanding visitor access…
Biden Administration Outlines ‘America the Beautiful’ Initiative
Staff Report – WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a clean break from the anti-nature politics and policies of the previous administration, the Biden-Harris administration has begun to outline a different vision for how the United States can work collaboratively to conserve and restore public lands, waters and wildlife that in many ways support and sustain the…
Robert Reich: What if We Actually Taxed the Rich?
Relief On the Way: House Passes Senate Version of Biden’s $1.9 Trillion American Rescue Plan
By Glynn Wilson – Nanci Pelosi’s House approved the amended Senate version of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 Trillion American Rescue Plan on Wednesday by a vote of 220 to 211, sending the historic anti-poverty legislation to the president for his signature. It could be signed and become law by the weekend, with $1,400 coronavirus pandemic…
Toxic Coal Ash is Back on the Agenda as an Environmental Issue of Our Time
Editor’s Note: For the past five years, while the New American Journal has continued to keep up with some major stories related to the natural environment such as the latest news on global warming and climate change, our priorities have tended to focus largely on coverage of national science and public affairs, and some state…