Lee Zeldin claims before Senate that Trump administration plan will make Environmental Protection Agency ‘more efficient’
Senate Democrats accused the Trump administration of abandoning the Environmental Protection Agency’s mission to protect human health and the environment at a congressional hearing Wednesday, slamming agency leadership over a proposal to cut its budget in half.
Lee Zeldin’s appearance before the Senate environment committee was the EPA administrator’s last of three budget hearings this week where he argued for sharply reduced funding for the agency, which already has seen its staffing reduced to its lowest level in decades under his leadership. During much of the week, the former Republican congressman from New York took an aggressive approach, responding to Democrats in the House and Senate with his own questions and at times accusing them of being unprepared or failing to care about the EPA’s record.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
04/30/2026 - 10:20
04/30/2026 - 10:00
Exclusive: Government should back projects that prioritise renewables to protect consumers from ongoing price shocks, they say
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Former oil and gas industry leaders, including senior executives from BP and Shell, are warning the Albanese government that Australians risk ongoing price shocks and higher costs if it prioritises fossil fuel development in response to the global energy crisis.
Sixteen ex-executives and professionals – who had worked for companies including Woodside, Inpex, Exxon Mobil and Esso – have urged the government to reject calls for fast-tracked gas and coal extraction, arguing it would do nothing to improve the nation’s liquid fuel security.
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04/30/2026 - 05:15
Nearly 60 countries back voluntary roadmaps to wean world off coal, oil and gas, at conference prompted by frustration with UN climate summits
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Governments have been asked to develop national “roadmaps” setting out how they will end the production and use of fossil fuels, after a landmark climate meeting involving nearly 60 countries.
The voluntary plans will form the bedrock of a new initiative to wean the world off coal, oil and gas, the focus of two days of intensive talks in Colombia this week.
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04/30/2026 - 05:00
Moreangels Mbizah has blazed a trail in Zimbabwe as the first black African woman to found a conservation organisation in the country
The turning point for Moreangels Mbizah came in 2014. The conservation biologist was in Hwange national park in Zimbabwe, scanning the savannah to monitor the movements of lions for her zoology PhD research.
The GPS signal told her something was wrong. One of the lions had strayed into a nearby village, putting itself and the local community at risk. Mbizah and her team took off to try to herd it back into its habitat.
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04/30/2026 - 01:00
WPP accused of breaching its climate policy after report reveals firm linked to twice as much oil advertising as US rivals
A British advertising conglomerate has helped the oil companies ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP spend an estimated $1bn (£740m) on adverts in the US since the 2015 Paris agreement to tackle the climate crisis, a report shows.
London-based WPP was the leading advertising group serving the US’s oil industry over the past decade, according to analysis by the climate investigations platform DeSmog. The figure is nearly twice the respective amounts linked to its US rivals Omnicom and Interpublic Group (IPG), which merged in November.
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04/30/2026 - 00:00
The Welsh seaside resort has already seen a fall in offending and drug use, now a £20m investment and a fresh approach to building job skills is bringing new opportunities for under-25s
Killing time playing pool at the West Rhyl youth club, friends Sienna, 19, and Jake, 26, are unanimous when asked what a tour of the north Wales seaside town should look like. “The first place I’d show anyone is ‘Crackhead Circle’,” Sienna says.
The small public garden behind the town hall and a paved area by the closed home bargain store Wilko in the adjacent high street host several strung-out characters on a cold February afternoon. Police cars crawl through the area every 15 minutes or so as part of Project Renew, a year-long crackdown on gang activity and drugs.
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04/30/2026 - 00:00
Elusive nightingale ‘doing well’ at Northward Hill, Kent, but experts cite concerns around loss of habitat
The dawn chorus at RSPB Northward Hill in Kent is a riot of sound: the melodic robin, the two-tone cuckoo, the whitethroat’s scratchy warble. Even the garbling geese and mooing cows from the neighbouring Thames marshes add to the symphony.
But in late April one energetic singer hogs the limelight. For a few weeks after arriving from West Africa, the nightingale spends the night – and early morning – in complex song. As it searches for a mate and marks its territory, its song is at times as sweet and tuneful as a soul singer, at others as frantic as a car alarm.
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04/29/2026 - 20:00
Or is it the gaslight on the hill?
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04/29/2026 - 10:13
Despite popular support for a 25% levy on gas exports, Anthony Albanese opposes it and there is little discussion about how to reduce our usage
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We’re yet to see next month’s Australian federal budget, so mark this column with an asterisk. But barring a late change it is likely it will do a remarkable thing: give fossil fuel industries what they want.
That’s worth noting this week, as representatives from 57 national governments including Australia meet in Colombia for the first international conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels. That gathering heard France aims to remove coal from its national grid by 2027, end oil dependency by 2045 and stop using fossil gas by 2050.
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04/29/2026 - 09:01
Rise in electricity demand in first quarter of 2026 was moderated by record output from rooftop solar
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More datacentres and warmer conditions helped push electricity demand to record highs in the first three months of the year, according to Australia’s Energy Market Operator, while growth in batteries kept average wholesale prices down.
Electricity demand – from households, business and industry – reached record levels of 25GW in Q1 2026, an increase of 1.2% compared with the same quarter last year. Across the grid, this growth was offset by record output from rooftop solar.
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