Trump’s EPA strips itself of regulating ability, gutting Clean Air Act in what experts say is a gift to planet polluters

On the heels of the hottest summer ever recorded in the US, the Trump administration has said it will erase any limits on emissions from coal and gas plants that are dangerously heating up our planet.

The US Environmental Protection Agency said it will strip itself of its ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions coming from power plants under the Clean Air Act, removing a key tool to address the climate crisis.

Energy Transfer, whose CEO is a major Trump donor, named as biggest single methane producer in new rankings

Down a short gravel track in a largely nondescript corner of Louisiana sits a gas processing facility, operated by a company whose chief executive is a major donor to Donald Trump. It may be the largest emitter of methane in the US.

The Energy Transfer site, located near the city of Shreveport, is named as the biggest single “super-emitter” in new rankings of US oil and gas operations for the largest releases of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that is rapidly overheating our planet, according to a new UCLA study, which is based on satellite data.

From the Trump administration to AI experts, plans by the Anthropic boss to boost safety have spawned a largely negative response

• OpenAI boss and Elon Musk back slowdown on ‘reckless’ AI development

• Editorial: controlling AI – humanity cannot outsource its survival

The safety debate that ignited when whistleblowers last week warned that the most advanced AI poses an existential threat to humanity should come with a health warning: side effects include whiplash. It was only seven days ago that AI enthusiasts were cheerily toying with OpenAI’s newest model GPT-6 Astra which was marketed in part as a lifestyle tool to help people book tennis courts, run fashion companies and order takeaways.

By Wednesday, cutting-edge AI started to look a lot less appealing when the resigning Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon warned “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade”. Yes, he was talking about artificial superintelligence – an as-yet-nonexistent version of the technology that outcompetes humans in most domains – but his comments, and the chorus of experts that echoed him, jangled plenty of nerves.

Silicosis sufferers are getting younger as Trump and the coal mining industry push back on protections

Silicosis is one of the oldest workplace hazards and public health experts have known for decades how to prevent it. Yet a new wave of workers, from Appalachian coalminers to Latino countertop fabrication workers, are developing and dying from the disease as industry fights new protections and regulators fail to defend the rules that could protect them.

John Robinson’s grandfather developed black lung back when coalminers could spend decades in the mines before being diagnosed with the disease, often dying in their 60s, 70s and 80s. But Robinson, who mined for coal in south-west Virginia, was diagnosed when he was 47. He’s part of a trend that has grown over the past two decades in central Appalachia, where more coalminers are developing black lung disease at younger ages.

Michigan case is one of several legal disputes as Trump administration uses emergency powers to force a half-dozen coal-fired plants from closing

In a defeat for the Trump administration, a federal court on Friday ruled that the energy department exceeded its authority when it forced a Michigan coal-fired power plant to stay open past its scheduled retirement date last year.

The energy secretary, Chris Wright, had said the 64-year-old JH Campbell Generating plant was needed to ensure reliable electricity in the region, and he used emergency powers to keep it operating. Environmental groups and three states – Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota – went to court to try to overturn orders keeping the plant online.