Author: Reporter

About four decades ago, when the Environmental Protection Agency was first trying to figure out what to do about lead in drinking water, Ronnie Levin quantified its damage: Roughly 40 million people drank water with dangerous levels of lead, degrading the intelligence of thousands of kids. But new regulations were going to be costly and complicated. So, “instead of trying to deal with it substantively, they just tabled it,” Levin, a former EPA researcher, said of some of her colleagues at the agency in the 1980s. One co-worker, though, leaked Levin’s analysis to the press, igniting a public outcry...

Most U.S. cities would have to replace lead water pipes within 10 years under strict new rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency as the Biden administration moves to reduce lead in drinking water and prevent public health crises like the ones in Flint, Michigan, and Washington DC. Millions of people consume drinking water from lead pipes and the agency said tighter standards would improve IQ scores in children and reduce high blood pressure and heart disease in adults. It is the strongest overhaul of lead rules in more than three decades, and will cost billions of dollars. Pulling...

Hundreds of journalists were given a preview of the 2024 RNC setup in Milwaukee on November 30 at the Fiserv Forum. But missing from the highly choreographed political presentation was the Republican National Committee’s rules for next year’s nominating contest. The GOP did not address the obvious elephant in the room, regarding Donald Trump. By July of 2024, the disgraced ex-president could be convicted of any number of the multiple criminal charges he faces. Questions remain about if the party’s delegates can vote for a different candidate if the presumptive nominee is convicted of a felony. Trump is under...

Lawsuits against Donald Trump over the U.S. Capitol riot can move forward, a federal appeals court ruled on December 1, rejecting the former president’s bid to dismiss the cases accusing him of inciting the violent mob on January 6, 2021. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit court knocked down Trump’s sweeping claims that presidential immunity shields him from liability in the lawsuits brought by Democratic lawmakers and police officers. But the three-judge panel said the 2024 Republican presidential primary frontrunner can continue to fight, as the cases proceed, to try to prove that his actions were...

Billionaire Elon Musk said on November 27 that advertisers who have halted spending on his declining social media platform X in response to antisemitic and other hateful material were engaging in “blackmail.” The controversial South African-born entrepreneur unleashed a profanity-laced tirade, telling detractors to “Go f@ck yourself.” “Don’t advertise,” Musk said. He appeared to specifically call out Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger, saying, “Hey Bob, if you’re in the audience … that’s how I feel.” In an on-stage interview at The New York Times DealBook Summit, Musk also apologized for endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory in response to...