May 14, 2019

Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez rally against "middle ground" on climate change

Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Photo: J Pat Carter for the Washington Post

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called for urgent climate action at a rally on the last stop of the Sunrise Movement’s Road t0 a Green New Deal tour Monday.

Details: Sanders told the Howard University crowd the only way to take on an industry "with unlimited power, money and resources" was for a political revolution, according to AP. Ocasio-Cortez said, "I'll be damned if the same politicians who refused to act [in past decades] are going to try to come back today and say we need a middle of the road approach to save our lives," as an apparent dig at 2020 Democratic front-runner Joe Biden, according to CNN.

Go deeper: The state of the Green New Deal

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Ursula Perano

2 mins ago - Politics & Policy

Ghislaine Maxwell pleads not guilty in Jeffrey Epstein sex abuse case

Maxwell. Photo: Jared Siskin/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

Ghislaine Maxwell pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges brought earlier this month alleging that she conspired with billionaire Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse underage girls. A federal judge scheduled Maxwell's trial to begin July 12, 2021.

The big picture: Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Audrey Strauss urged the judge to deny Maxwell bail, calling her an "extreme flight risk" whose wealth and lack of ties to the U.S. give her few reasons not to attempt to flee the country.

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Ben Geman

Updated 49 mins ago - Politics & Policy

Biden seeks $2 trillion clean energy and infrastructure spending boost

Photo: Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images

Joe Biden expanded his energy and climate plans Tuesday with a call for spending $2 trillion over four years on climate-friendly infrastructure — a proposal the campaign is casting as part of a wider economic recovery package.

Why it matters: The plan, which is the focus of a speech Biden will deliver this afternoon, represents a long-anticipated plan to move his climate platform further left and make it more expansive.

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Fadel Allassan

2 hours ago - Health

4 former CDC heads say Trump's undermining of agency puts lives at risk

CDC director Robert Redfield and President Trump. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Four former directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention blasted the Trump administration's "repeated efforts to subvert" agency guidelines related to reopening schools, accusing the White House in a scathing Washington Post op-ed of undermining science with "partisan potshots."

Why it matters: Former directors Tom Frieden, Jeffrey Koplan and David Satcher and acting head Richard Besser served in parts of the Obama, Bush and Clinton administrations. They said they "cannot recall over our collective tenure a single time when political pressure led to a change in the interpretation of scientific evidence."