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In these updates, we will call attention to the most noteworthy state AG news or developments emerging in the previous week. LitigationCalifornia AG Kamala Harris has announced in a press release that her office has filed new criminal charges against executives of Backpage.com including “26 counts of money laundering [and] 13 counts of pimping and conspiracy to commit pimping.” Backpage.com is an “online advertising website,” per AG Harris’ press release. AG Harris states in the press release that the charged executives “creat[ed] an online brothel – a hotbed of illicit and exploitative activity” on Backpage.com. The criminal complaint alleges that the executives “created multiple corporate entities to launder money and circumvent the refusal of financial institutions to process Backpage transactions because of overtly sexual material,” according to AG Harris’ press release. Further, “the defendants … [Read more...] about California, West Virginia and New York: State Attorneys General January 2 Update

LitigationLed by California AG Xavier Becerra and New York AG Eric Schneiderman, 16 AGs took legal action against the Trump Administration to defend the Affordable Care Act (ACA). AGs filed a Motion to Intervene in House v. Price, a suit by House Republicans that challenges the legality of cost sharing subsidies under the ACA. Intervening states said the Republican-led action “undercuts the affordability of health insurance plans under the ACA.” AG Becerra said that President Trump’s unpredictable behavior and failure to defend access to healthcare threatens the lives of millions of Americans. The Motion refers to President Trump’s own words vowing to let the ACA “explode.” RegulatoryWest Virginia AG Patrick Morrisey and eight other states identified a list of federal regulations they said should be repealed, replaced, or modified. The recommendations are in response to a request for public comment from the U.S. … [Read more...] about California, West Virginia, Louisiana: State Attorneys General May 22 Update

Jun 04, 2:38 AM EDT Newsletter Signup BusinessTechnologyWorldNationalMedia & CultureOpinionSportsLuxury Science By Shubham Sharma 05/25/18 AT 4:22 AM A massive asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago and triggered a series of sporadic events that wiped out nearly three fourth of life living on the planet, including non-avian dinosaurs. It has long been believed the event, popularly known as the Chicxulub impact, proved catastrophic for all of life in ways more than one, but if the latest study is anything to go by, the impact had a much broader and long-lasting effect on global temperatures.In the past, scientists have posited the immediate aftermath of the impact resulted in a period of what has been called a “global winter.” Dust and aerosols blocked sunlight and led to a massive decline in global temperatures for a few years. But, that was just the beginning. Study suggests dinosaur-killing asteroid triggered 100,000 years of global warming. Pictured, an … [Read more...] about Asteroid That Killed Dinosaurs Caused Global Warming For 1,000 Centuries

London’s environmental protests show that action must be taken on the climate - but things must be based on evidence, not fanaticism. A major global capital grinding to a halt because of a political issue is usually evidence that there is some level of support for the cause. However, climate science is too complicated to be distilled into sound bites, the evidence too subtle to lend itself to revolutionary fervour. It is time governments and scientists started working together - and took the ground away from the protestors who want to do nothing more than disrupt. I believe that in hindsight, these protests may prove to be a watershed moment in public and governmental attitudes to climate change; in the UK and maybe across the world. The response of the authorities – who barely enforced the law against what were unlicensed and clearly disruptive protests which incorporate a number of serious public order offences - shows that they know this. Their reaction has been … [Read more...] about Action to tackle climate change must be based on evidence not fanaticism ǀ View

The Kyoto story11 December 1997 was a momentous occasion for the international community when the world gathered to adopt a binding decision on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Members attending the COP-3 to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) assembled at Kyoto, Japan and almost unanimously accepted – the reality of global warming. A binding treaty was signed that came to be known as the Kyoto Protocol in which signatories resolved to take emissions to a “level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”.Under the terms of the treaty, the United States and the European Union were to cut their emissions by an average of 5% by 2012 (with the base year being 1990). Same obligations however, were not imposed on developing countries because of their lower development level and much less contribution in the historical build-up of carbon dioxide in the environment.  Under Article 4 of the Protocol, … [Read more...] about From Kyoto To Paris: Coming Full Circle Of Being “Trumped”