Nearly 2,200 pulses of lightning strikes southern California coast

The record global warming streak of 2014-2016: a snowball’s chance in hell that this was natural – ImaGeo

The Greatest Heist You’ve Never Heard Of | Retro Report | The New York Times

The New York Times

Published on Jan 7, 2014

One night in 1971, files were stolen from an F.B.I. office near Philadelphia. They proved that the bureau was spying on thousands of Americans. The case was unsolved, until now.

Students Protest Yale’s Investments in Fossil Fuels, Puerto Rican Debt + Hampshi re College Students Stage Sit-In in Face of Closure Threat

Mar 06, 2019

At Yale University, 17 students were arrested by the school’s police Monday, after they occupied the investments office to demand Yale divest its nearly $30 billion endowment from fossil fuel companies and Puerto Rico’s debt. The student activists say that climate change worsens economic inequality, and that in the case of Puerto Rico, vulture funds holding the island’s debt are demanding repayment as many are still reeling from Hurricane Maria.

Mar 06, 2019

And in Massachusetts, students at Hampshire College have been staging a weeks-long sit-in in the president’s office, protesting what they fear may be the future shuttering of their school. In January, the president of Hampshire College announced they would seek to merge the school with a “strategic partner,” before laying off staff in the following weeks and announcing it would not be admitting a new class in the fall. This is a Hampshire College student with the group Hamp Rise Up, which has been organizing the protests.

Ola’i Wildeboar: “We’re fighting for transparency, better representation and an educational system that listens to us and actually serves our best interests. … It’s really tragic, the fact that schools like this are closing down so rapidly. And now that we’re here in the midst of this movement, I realize how important education is and how essential it is for these places to exist.”

Groundwater in 39 States Contaminated by Coal Ash Waste

Mar 05, 2019

In environmental news, a new report finds that coal waste from hundreds of coal-fired power plants around the country has contaminated groundwater in 39 states with unsafe amounts of toxic chemicals. In some cases, the dangerous toxic substances, including arsenic, lithium and mercury, have leached into local drinking water supplies. The lead author of the report by the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice said, “At a time when the Trump EPA—now being run by a former coal lobbyist—is trying to roll back federal regulations on coal ash, these new data provide convincing evidence that we should be moving in the opposite direction.”

See related:

• Ex-Coal Lobbyist Andrew Wheeler Confirmed as EPA Administrator
• The Fox in Charge of the Henhouse: Activists Decry Trump’s EPA Pick, Coal Lobbyist Andrew Wheeler
• Trump Nominates Ex-Coal Lobbyist Andrew Wheeler as Permanent EPA Head
• “Shame On You!” Protesters Interrupt Trump Admin Promoting Coal & Fossil F uels at U.N. Climate Talks
• Trump Boasts of Repealing U.S. Environmental Regulations + Expanding Oil & Gas “Production”
• Ex-Koch Official Overseeing EPA Water Regulations
• Climate-Change Denier President Donald Trump Has Rolled Back Numerous Environmental Regulations During First Two Years in Office
• New EPA Rules Would Roll Back Regulations on Mercury & Other Toxins

Here’s what’s in your bottled water (Marketplace)

CBC News
Published on Apr 6, 2018

Ever wonder what’s lurking in your bottled water? Marketplace asked a lab to test five of the top-selling brands of bottled water in Canada, and microplastics were found in all of them. To read more: http://cbc.ca/1.4575045

US Is Killing More Civilians Than EVER In Afghanistan

The Ring of Fire

Published on Mar 6, 2019

According to new reports, the US hit a new milestone in 2018 by killing more civilians than ever in Afghanistan. The so-called “War on Terror” has actually been ramping up in recent years, with more and more bombs being dropped by the US in the Middle East, resulting in thousands of unnecessary deaths each year. We have no strategy to “win” this conflict, and we have no strategy on how to get out, which puts us in a deadly situation. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.