Air

"Automaker Daimler AG and subsidiary Mercedes-Benz USA have agreed to pay $1.5 billion to the U.S. government and California state regulators to resolve emissions cheating allegations, officials said Monday."

"Four west coast cities in the US currently rank in the top 10 for worst air quality in the world, as wildfires rage up and down the western seaboard, cloaking the entire region in smoke."

"In a rare show of defiance of the Trump administration, key Senate Republicans joined Democrats on Thursday in agreeing to phase out chemicals widely used in air conditioners and refrigeration that are warming the planet."

"Thousands of tons of pollution spew into the air in the US from devices that proliferate online and in body shops".

"A record-smashing heat wave sent temperatures in areas across the Bay Area well over 100 degrees Sunday, choking the region with the smoke of weeks’ worth of wildfires and putting more than 2 million customers under the threat of rolling blackouts as the state’s energy grid neared capacity."

"A U.S. appeals court on Monday overturned the Trump administration’s July 2019 rule that sought to suspend a regulation that more than doubled penalties for automakers failing to meet fuel efficiency requirements."

"Hurricane Laura rolled over a coast studded with refineries and chemical plants. Other storms have caused the release of toxic substances, often affecting poorer or minority communities."

"Hurricane Laura tore through a region that is home to dozens of major oil refineries, petrochemical plants and plastics facilities. Now, residents could be breathing dangerously polluted air from those sites, public health experts and local advocates say."

"“Routine flaring” from oil wells produces emissions that harm the climate and human health. Two states have proposed new rules to reduce it, just as the true scope of the problem emerges."

"In fresh evidence of a link between air pollution and vulnerability to COVID-19, Emory University researchers have tied a modest increase in nitrogen dioxide exposure to a markedly higher death rate from the virus-borne illness."