Article in Atlantic Magazine: What the President Could Do If He Declares a State of Emergency. From seizing control of the internet to declaring martial law, President Trump may legally do all kinds of extraordinary things.
Paradise lost; its residents found
Cell phone location data helps uncover where the residents of Paradise, Calif., went as the historic fire bore down on their homes.
Articles by two top law school professors:
No, Trump Cannot Declare an ‘Emergency’ to Build His Wall.“If he did, and used soldiers to build it, they would all be committing a federal crime.”
Donald Trump Is The Real National Emergency, Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig Says
Update on Jan. 5: Toll on Science and Research Mounts as Government Shutdown Continues
Here’s How the Government Shutdown Affects the Federal Emergency Management Agency
From the Wash Post: Consequences of the government shutdown strike the private sector.
As the partial government shutdown enters Day 14, its effects are starting to cascade far beyond the hulking agency buildings in Washington. Private companies with federal contracts are coping with chaos, confusion and uncertainty, while businesses large and small that rely on the operations of the vast federal bureaucracy are starting to feel sand in their gears.
From the NYTimes: Government Shutdown Leaves Workers Reeling: ‘We Seem to Be Pawns’
From a Harvard Law Professor: Trump’s Wall is Constitutionally Illegitimate.
No reading of our constitution would ever uphold the view that a president can stop the functioning of government, to insist upon a program unsupported by the public
Hurricane Florence Bathed North Carolina in Raw Sewage. New Figures Show It Was Even Worse Than We Thought.
Polluted flood waters swamped coal ash ponds at power plants. Rising waters engulfed private septic systems in back yards. The unwholesome mix inundated hog waste lagoons on farms. And the torrent overwhelmed municipal waste water treatment plants in towns large and small.
After Back-to-Back Hurricanes, North Carolina Reconsiders Climate Change. In a state where lawmakers once rejected sea level rise warnings, polls show a growing concern among residents and a desire for better policies.
From the WashPost: Disruptive, disappointing, chaotic: Shutdown upends scientific research
In research labs and field sites across the world, the week-long government shutdown has ground scientific progress to a halt. Thousands of scientists are among the hundreds of thousands of federal employees and contractors who must stay at home without pay. The furlough is expected to persist into the new year, which would mean a rocky start to 2019 for American science.
The partial shutdown, caused by President Trump’s rejection of a bipartisan spending deal that not allocate billions of dollars for a U.S.-Mexico border wall, curtailed scientific operations at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Agriculture Department, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Geological Survey. Furloughed government scientists are prohibited from checking on experiments, performing observations, collecting data, conducting tests or sharing their results.
If the budget impasse extends into the new year, scientists say, it will harm critical research. “Any shutdown of the federal government can disrupt or delay research projects, lead to uncertainty over new research, and reduce researcher access to agency data and infrastructure. . . . Continuing resolutions and short-term extensions are no way to run a government,” said Rush Holt, chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in a statement.
Recovery Diva 