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Developing
Multiple tornadoes touched down in Indiana and western Ohio overnight. No deaths were reported, although there were scattered reports of injuries.
After two years spent unraveling the environmental policies of his predecessors, President Trump and his appointees are preparing a new assault.
Since the release of the National Climate Assessment in November, the administration has pushed to alter the results of some science reports, several officials said. Government scientists projected in the most recent climate assessment that the atmosphere could warm as much as eight degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century if fossil fuel emissions continue unchecked, leading to higher sea levels, more devastating storms and droughts, and severe health consequences. But officials said that such worst-case projections won’t automatically be included in some government reports, including the next National Climate Assessment, which is to be released in 2021 or 2022.
Response: James Hewitt, a spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency, said of the proposed changes: “The previous use of inaccurate modeling that focuses on worst-case emissions scenarios, that does not reflect real-world conditions, needs to be thoroughly re-examined and tested if such information is going to serve as the scientific foundation of nationwide decision-making now and in the future.”
Another angle: The Trump administration wants to create a new climate review panel, led by a Princeton physicist who has attacked the science of man-made climate change and defended the virtues of carbon dioxide.
After four days of voting, populist and nationalist parties that oppose what they see as an overreaching bureaucracy in Brussels increased their share of seats in the European Parliament. But the populists were denied the sort of Continentwide victory that they had predicted — and that their critics had feared.
While nationalist parties in Hungary, Italy and Poland made gains, some 75 percent of voters backed parties that support Europe.
Why it matters: The 751-seat Parliament is the only directly elected institution within the 28-nation European Union, so the election was seen by many as a referendum on the institution itself. Here are five takeaways from the voting, which ended Sunday.
Related: The party of France’s far-right leader, Marine Le Pen, who lost decisively to President Emmanuel Macron two years ago, defeated his party in the voting.
With a historically large field of Democratic presidential candidates apparently set, interviews with party leaders and strategists revealed a far more fluid race than Joe Biden’s double-digit polling advantage would indicate.
Democrats say that’s in part because much of the party’s energy is coming from younger, female and progressive activists, making it unlikely that the 76-year-old former vice president will march to the nomination.
