Listen To This Story

Federal Judge Strikes Down President’s Ban On Wind Energy Projects (Maria)

The author writes, “A federal judge in Massachusetts overturned President Trump’s decision to halt all new permits for wind energy projects. The ruling by Judge Patti Saris of the District of Massachusetts on Monday called the ban ‘arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law.’ Trump halted all new wind energy project permits in a Jan. 20 executive order. … The ban led to seven offshore wind projects being paused.”

The Supreme Court Is Set to Pick Financial Predators Over the People (Dana)

From The New Republic: “Justice Brett Kavanaugh used an interesting choice of phrase when describing the constitutional issues in Trump v. Slaughter, the vividly named case on the president’s ability to remove certain federal officials that Congress stipulated could only be fired for cause. … What really jumped out at me was how he phrased it. The court’s conservative justices speak often about protecting ‘liberty’ or ‘individual liberty’ when referring to the president’s removal power and Congress’s constrains on it. In their view, it is essential for individual liberty that the president is able to fire any top-level federal official for any reason, or even for none at all.”

Trump’s Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Once Defended Congress’ Power of the Purse. Now He Defies It (Reader Jim)

From ProPublica: “Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been one of the most vociferous defenders of President Donald Trump’s expansive use of executive authority, withholding billions of dollars in federal funding to states and dismissing protests of the White House’s boundary-pushing behavior as the gripings of ‘disenfranchised Democrats.’ But court documents reviewed by ProPublica show that a decade ago, as a House member, Duffy took a drastically different position on presidential power, articulating a full-throated defense of Congress’ role as a check on the president — one that resembled the very arguments made by speakers at recent anti-Trump ‘No Kings’ rallies around the country.”

Eurovision Reels From Boycotts Over Israel (Sean)

The author writes, “Meeting at the European Broadcasting Union’s Geneva headquarters, members of the EBU — the world’s biggest public service media alliance — decided [last week] that no vote was needed on Israel’s inclusion in next year’s 70th edition, to be held in Vienna. Public broadcasters in Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Slovenia swiftly announced they were boycotting the world’s biggest live televised music event. Others may follow, with Iceland considering its position. Widespread opposition to the two-year war in Gaza had led to mounting calls for Israel to be excluded.”

‘The Narwhals Stop Calling’: How the Noise From Ships Is Silencing Wildlife in the Arctic (Laura)

From The Guardian: “The delicate clicks and whistles of narwhals carry through Tasiujaq, locally known as Eclipse Sound, at the eastern Arctic entrance of the Northwest Passage. A hydrophone in this shipping corridor off Baffin Island, Nunavut, captures their calls as the tusked whales navigate their autumn migration route to northern Baffin Bay. But as the Nordic Odyssey, a 225-metre ice-class bulk carrier servicing the nearby iron ore mine, approaches, its low engine rumble gives way to a wall of sound created by millions of collapsing bubbles from its propeller. The narwhals’ acoustic signals, evolved for one of Earth’s quietest environments, fall silent.”

New Study Shows How Your Brain Changes at Four Key Ages: 9, 32, 66, and 83 (Russ)

The author writes, “The human brain has four distinct turning points where its structure changes, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications, demonstrating that brain development is not as linear as you might think. ‘It’s easy to fall into this belief that there’s a “good” or “bad” way for a brain to be structured,’ said lead study author Alexa Mousley at the University of Cambridge. ‘And that’s not really the case. What this study is emphasizing is the brain is expected to be doing something different at different ages.’”