Tensions were running high on Saturday as protesters committed arson and looted luxury stores on the streets of Paris, in the 18th weekend of "yellow vest" demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron, the AP reports.
Why now: Onthe 4-month anniversary of the yellow vest movement,the action turned aggressive and destructive in a key moment, "marking the end of the great debate." Protesters say Macron is full of "hot air," failing French people as living standards decline, wages are sluggish and unemployment continues to increase.
Walking back a 2015 regulation under President Obama, the Trump administration on Friday finalized a move to lift protections on nearly 9 million acres of federal lands for the greater sage grouse, with the aim of expanding leases for the oil, gas and mining industry, reports the Washington Post.
The big picture: Also this week, the Interior Department spelled out plans to keep the Atlantic coast in its program to expand offshore oil-and-gas leasing despite criticism. Per WaPo: “In pursuit of that agenda over the past two years, the administration has sought to reverse dozens of regulations aimed at making oil platforms safer, reducing carbon dioxide and methane released into the atmosphere, and protecting the habitats of endangered animals and those on the verge of an endangered status.”
Former Vice President Al Gore said on Friday that the unintended consequence of President Trump's resolute rejections of climate change is that more people are demanding that we take action to protect the planet, reports CNN.
The backdrop: Gore— who was in Atlanta on Friday to meet with climate change activists and expressed his support of the Green New Deal — besmirched Trump in his 2017 documentary: "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power," and called the president's abandonment of the Paris climate agreement "indefensible."
