Author: Ellen Knickmeyer
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Pentagon says Poland’s jet offer for Ukraine ‘not tenable’
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WARSAW, Poland • The Pentagon said Tuesday that Poland’s offer to give its MiG-29 fighter jets to the U.S. so they can be passed to Ukraine raises serious concerns for the NATO alliance and the plan is not “a tenable one.” Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said in a statement that the prospect of jets…
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A look at US steps taken, and not, against Russia
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WASHINGTON • President Joe Biden hit Russia with some of the broadest and toughest financial penalties that the world’s biggest economy can muster on Thursday, hours after President Vladimir Putin launched his military’s invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. sanctions and penalties announced so far appear to spare Putin himself from sanctions. They also forgo an…
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Evacuees plead for action: ‘We are in some kind of jail’
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WASHINGTON • American veterans groups and others are pleading for U.S. and Taliban action on a weeklong standoff that has left hundreds of would-be evacuees from Afghanistan desperate to board waiting charter flights out of a northern Afghan airport. These groups say several dozen Americans, along with a much larger number of U.S. green card…
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No ‘provoking’: Israeli official vows quieter tone with U.S.
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WASHINGTON • Israel’s visiting defense minister said Thursday that Israel will stay engaged on the terms as the U.S. tries to return to a nuclear deal with Iran, sidestepping what’s long been an area of open disagreement between the United States and the now-jeopardized government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Benny Gantz said before a…
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Ties with Saudis at stake as U.S. releases findings on killing
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WASHINGTON • The United States has pledged to tell the world its conclusions on what role Saudi Arabia’s crown prince played in the brutal killing and carving up of a U.S.-based journalist, but as important is what comes next — what the Biden administration plans to do about it. Ahead of the release of the…
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Key air monitors offline after Laura hits Louisiana gas hub
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NEW ORLEANS • Hazardous emissions from a chlorine plant fire, abruptly shuttered oil and gas refineries and still-to-be assessed plant damage are seeping into the air after Hurricane Laura, regulators say, but some key state and federal monitors to alert the public of air dangers remain offline in Louisiana. While the chlorine fire was being…
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U.S. government weakens application of Endangered Species Act
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WASHINGTON • The Trump administration moved on Monday to weaken how it applies the 45-year-old Endangered Species Act, ordering changes that critics said will speed the loss of animals and plants at a time of record global extinctions. The action, which expands the administration’s rewrite of U.S. environmental laws, is the latest that targets protections,…
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Trump overhauls endangered species protections; some states say they’ll sue
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Monday rolled out some of the broadest changes in decades to enforcement of the landmark Endangered Species Act, allowing the government to put an economic cost on saving a species and other changes critics contend could speed extinction for some struggling plants and animals. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and…
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Opponent of nation’s public lands is picked to oversee them
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WASHINGTON • An ardent critic of the federal government who has argued for selling off almost all public lands has been named the Trump administration’s top steward over nearly a quarter-million federally controlled acres, raising questions about the administration’s intentions for vast Western ranges and other lands roamed by hunters, hikers and wildlife. Interior Secretary…
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Trump EPA defies climate warnings, gives coal plants a reprieve
WASHINGTON — Despite scientists’ increasingly urgent warnings, the Trump administration ordered a sweeping about-face Wednesday on Obama-era efforts to fight climate change, easing restrictions on coal-fired power plants in a move it predicted would revitalize America’s sagging coal industry. As miners in hard hats and coal-country lawmakers applauded, Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler signed…