(NYT) The Biden administration plans to restore environmental protections to Alaska’s Tongass National Forest that had been stripped away at the end of the Trump administration.
According to a White House agenda of forthcoming regulatory actions published Friday, the administration intends to “repeal or replace” a Trump-era rule that opened about 9 million acres of Tongass, one of the world’s largest intact temperate rainforests, to logging and road construction.
President Donald Trump exempted the Tongass from a Clinton-era policy known as the roadless rule, which banned logging and road construction in much of the national forest system.
Alaskan lawmakers have long said that lifting the roadless rule protections in their state would provide a sorely needed economic boost. Among those is Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
Environmentalists say that allowing road construction — a first step toward logging — could devastate the vast wilderness of mountains, rivers and virgin old-growth forest that is widely viewed as one of America’s treasures.
Hong Kong to censor films under Beijing’s security laws
(NYT) Hong Kong’s city government Friday said it would begin blocking the distribution of films that are deemed to undermine national security, marking the official arrival of mainland Chinese-style censorship in one of Asia’s most celebrated filmmaking hubs.
The new guidelines apply to domestically produced and foreign films.
With the blessing of the Communist government in Beijing, Hong Kong authorities have changed school curricula, pulled books off library shelves and moved to overhaul elections. Police have arrested pro-democracy activists and politicians as well as a high-profile newspaper publisher.
The updated rules announced Friday require Hong Kong censors considering a film for distribution to look out not only for violent, sexual and vulgar content, but also for how the film portrays acts “which may amount to an offense endangering national security.”
Martha White, whose actions led to 1953 bus boycott, dies at 99
(AP) Martha White, a Black woman whose actions helped launch the 1953 bus boycotts in Louisiana’s capital city, died last Saturday, her family confirmed.
White was working as a housekeeper in Baton Rouge in 1953 when, after a long day of walking to and from work, she sat in a seat designated for white passengers. When the driver ordered her to get up, White refused and another Black woman sat beside her in solidarity.
Bus drivers began a strike, leading to the overturning of an ordinance desegregating the city’s buses. That prompted a boycott by the Black community in Baton Rouge.