TV News LIES

Joe Biden marked Monday’s Earth Day by announcing a $7bn investment in solar energy projects nationwide, focusing on disadvantaged communities, and unveiling a week-long series of what the White House say will be “historic climate actions”.

The president was speaking at Prince William Forest Park, in Triangle, Virginia, touting his environmental record and unveiling measures to tackle the climate crisis and increase access to, and lower costs of, clean energy.

The centerpiece was the announcement of $7bn in grants through the Environmental Protection Agency’s “solar for all” program, funded by last year’s $369bn Inflation Reduction Act, and which Biden said will benefit hundreds of thousands of mostly low-income families who currently spend up to 30% of their income on energy.

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Trump administration officials barred experts from warning legislators that they were about to write a major environmental loophole into law, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) staffers alleged in newly revealed internal communications.

The loophole,  arising from a clause in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), enabled many companies to avoid disclosing releases of toxic “forever chemicals” to the EPA.

Internal EPA correspondence obtained by The Hill shows that career staff members attempted to make Congress aware of the issue, but they believe their efforts were rebuffed by political appointees.

Thousands of homes and businesses were without power Tuesday as severe weather roared through several states, causing at least one death and spawning possible tornadoes.

Parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia and Georgia were under tornado watches into Tuesday night, while Wisconsin was experiencing a spring snowstorm.

Storms in Northeastern Oklahoma unleashed three suspected tornadoes and dumped heavy rain that was blamed for the death of a 46-year-old homeless woman in Tulsa who was sheltering inside a drainage pipe.

The woman's boyfriend told authorities the two had gone to sleep at the entrance of the drainage pipe and were awakened by floodwaters, Tulsa Fire Department spokesperson Andy Little said. Up to 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) of rain fell in Tulsa in about an hour, National Weather Service meteorologist Robert Darby said.

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Canada's 2023 wildfire season was the most destructive ever recorded, with 6,551 fires scorching nearly 71,000 square miles of land from the West Coast to the Atlantic provinces, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center. It wasn't just remarkable for its destruction, however, but also for the fact that it never really seemed to end.

It's the middle of the winter, and there are still 149 active wildfires burning across Canada, including 92 in British Columbia, 56 in the western province of Alberta, and one in New Brunswick, according to the CIFFC, which classifies two of the blazes as out of control.

"Zombie fires," also called overwintering fires, burn slowly below the surface during the cold months. Experts say zombie fires have become more common as climate change warms the atmosphere, and they are currently smoldering at an alarming rate in both British Columbia and Alberta.

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A 4.1-magnitude earthquake shook central Oklahoma early Saturday morning following a slightly stronger earthquake the night before and amid a series of smaller quakes.

The earthquake occurred just after 5:30 a.m. local time about 19 miles north of Oklahoma City, near the Northeast Edmond Gas and Oil Field. The quake, which had a depth of about 4.1 miles, was part of a series of several earthquakes clustered together Friday and Saturday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

On Saturday morning, the Oklahoma Geological Survey said in a statement that there have been reports of strong shaking in the immediate area and across Oklahoma City.

State seismologist Jake Walter told USA TODAY the area has recorded about 18 earthquakes in a 12-hour span. Connecting the dots, Walter added, the quakes follow a fault identified by researchers.

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It's a moment scientists have warned about for months: Earth has just ended its warmest year since people began keeping records, and scientists say it may have been the warmest in 125,000 years.

Even though the December data isn't yet official, the results were already "locked in" by mid-December, Gavin Schmidt, a scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, told USA TODAY.

Given the six consecutive months of extremely warm temperatures, it was virtually impossible for December to be cold enough to alter the final results.

"We are already beyond the point that any normal process would be able to keep 2023 from being the hottest year," Robert Rohde of Berkeley Earth, said in mid-December.

An Israeli private investigator who orchestrated a global hacking operation that targeted American climate activists and foundations was sentenced in federal court to nearly seven years in prison after pleading guilty.

The emails obtained through the hacking were published in the American media. Federal prosecutors said that oil giant ExxonMobil then used the news reports to fight multiple state investigations.

The activists were victims of a hacking attack led by private investigator Aviram Azari. Federal prosecutors in New York say Azari was a key figure in a "massive computer hacking campaign that targeted thousands of victims worldwide," including climate activists in the U.S., government officials in Africa, members of a Mexican political party and critics of a German company called Wirecard.

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• The temperature in Phoenix, Arizona continues to rise as the city broke its previous record of the most consecutive days at or above 110F (43C).