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    Trump officials cancel major solar project in latest hit to renewable energy

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    The Trump administration has killed a huge proposed solar power project in Nevada that would have been one of the largest in the world, indicating that the White House plans to attack not only wind power but all renewable energy.On Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) changed the status of the Esmeralda 7 project to say its environmental review has been “cancelled”, the climate publication Heatmap first reported.The super project in southern Nevada was set to cover 185 sq miles – a footprint close to the size of Las Vegas – and include seven solar projects proposed by different companies, including NextEra Energy Resources, Leeward Renewable Energy, Arevia Power and Invenergy. Together, the network of solar panels and batteries was set to produce 6.2 gigawatts of energy, enough to power nearly 2m homes.Asked to comment, the interior department appeared to leave open the possibility that at least parts of the project could be resubmitted for review. In an email, a spokesperson said: “During routine discussions prior to the lapse in appropriations, the proponents and BLM agreed to change their approach for the Esmeralda 7 Solar Project in Nevada. Instead of pursuing a programmatic level environmental analysis, the applicants will now have the option to submit individual project proposals to the BLM to more effectively analyze potential impacts.”The developers’ joint proposals were permitted by Joe Biden. Even once Donald Trump re-entered the White House this year, the process appeared to be moving forward when his BLM advanced a draft environmental impact statement. But the process has since come to a standstill, with the BLM failing to issue a final environmental impact statement or record of decision for the project.Reached for comment, a spokesperson for NextEra Energy Resources said: “We are in the early stage of development and remain committed to pursuing our project’s comprehensive environmental analysis by working closely with the Bureau of Land Management.”The Guardian has also contacted Leeward Renewable Energy, Arevia Power and Invenergy for comment.In an executive order on day one, Trump directed a pause on new renewable energy authorizations for federally owned land and water. Then in February he appointed Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Colorado-based oil industry trade group Western Energy Alliance, to head the BLM, which manages a quarter of a billion acres of public land concentrated in western states.In July, as part of an attempt to win support for his tax and spending bill, Trump issued another order aimed at halting renewable projects, which called on the Department of the Interior to review its policies that affect wind and solar, and gave the interior secretary, Doug Burgum, final decision-making power on whether such projects could proceed.The following month, the president said his administration would not approve solar or wind power projects. “We will not approve wind or farmer destroying Solar,” he posted on Truth Social. “The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!” More

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      Windy Conditions Fan Forsyth Fire in Utah

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      The Forsyth fire in Utah threatened a small community in the state’s southwest corner. Farther west, the Conner fire burned rapidly near Lake Tahoe.A wildfire in southwestern Utah destroyed 17 homes, and threatened hundreds more, as it grew to more than 1,500 acres on Friday night, the authorities said.The blaze, known as the Forsyth fire, burned just north of St. George, a city near the state’s borders with Nevada and Arizona and about 30 minutes from Zion National Park. The damage was concentrated in Pine Valley, a community of just over 300 people about 40 minutes north of St. George.Hundreds of firefighters and other emergency personnel responded to Pine Valley on Thursday when the fire broke out, but a quick change in the winds on Friday led to the destruction of homes, Sheriff Nate Brooksby of Washington County said on Facebook.“The firefighters were shocked,” Sheriff Brooksby said. “I could see it in their eyes. They gave it all they had, and still lost to mother nature.”All the residents of Pine Valley had been ordered to evacuate and members of the public were advised to stay away until the fire was contained, the sheriff’s office said.Red flag winds, those averaging 15 miles per hour or greater during dry conditions, continue to drive the fire, according to Utah Fire Info, an interagency team for public information regarding wildfires.According to the agency, 150 personnel had been deployed to fight the fire and 400 structures remained under threat. The cause of the fire remained under investigation.About 500 miles west, in Douglas County, Nev., roughly 25 miles east of Lake Tahoe, the Conner fire exploded to almost 14,000 acres, from 2,000 acres on Friday.The fire started as a structure fire, according to the Bureau of Land Management of Nevada, spreading quickly in windy conditions as dry brush and grass fueled its growth.Resources from federal, state and local agencies from Nevada and California were responding to the fire and almost 500 emergency workers were involved in attempts to contain it. Evacuations had been ordered.Images shared on social media showed plumes of smoke from the Conner fire that were visible from Lake Tahoe, a popular vacation destination that straddles California and Nevada and is home to hiking trails, campgrounds and cabins.Wildfire risk remained high as large sections of the United States were expected to experience a heat wave over the weekend.According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, sections of the country encompassing parts of California, Colorado, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming were at critical risk of wildfires. More

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      Trump mega-donor’s paper savages his pardon of Las Vegas Republican

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      A Nevada newspaper owned by a Donald Trump mega-donor has savaged the US president’s decision to pardon a Republican councilwoman who was convicted of using donations intended to fund a statue of a police officer to pay for cosmetic surgery.The Las Vegas Review-Journal, owned by the billionaire Miriam Adelson, described the decision as a “debasement of presidential pardon power” in a scathing editorial published after Trump granted clemency to Michele Fiore, a former Las Vegas councilwoman and Nevada state lawmaker.Fiore was convicted of fraud last year. Federal prosecutors said at trial that she had raised more than $70,000 for the statue of a Las Vegas police officer who was fatally shot in 2014 in the line of duty, but had instead spent it on cosmetic surgery, rent and her daughter’s wedding.Adelson, who is worth $35bn, spent $100m on re-electing Trump in 2024, but apparently decided not to intervene when the Review-Journal, Nevada’s largest newspaper, attacked him on Friday.The newspaper’s editorial criticized Trump’s pardon of Fiore, who was due to be sentenced next month, in no uncertain terms.“The pardon, which was brief and contained no explanation, is an affront to the federal jury that heard her case and sends precisely the wrong message to public officials tempted to enrich themselves through their sinecures,” the Review-Journal wrote.“In addition, pardons are typically reserved for those who were wrongly convicted or the victim of some other miscarriage of justice. There is no evidence that either occurred in this case. Instead, it’s difficult to argue that political considerations weren’t the primary motivation for granting relief to Ms Fiore.”Trump quietly pardoned Fiore, a firm supporter of his, on Wednesday, and the move only came to light after Fiore wrote about the clemency in a Facebook post. The White House confirmed the pardon, but did not elaborate further.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn January, Trump was criticized after he issued “full, complete and unconditional” presidential pardons to about 1,500 people who were involved in the January 6 attack on Congress, including some convicted of violent acts. More

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      12 States Sue Trump Over His Tariffs

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      A dozen states, most of them led by Democrats, sued President Trump over his tariffs on Wednesday, arguing that he has no power to “arbitrarily impose tariffs as he has done here.”Contending that only Congress has the power to legislate tariffs, the states are asking the court to block the Trump administration from enforcing what they said were unlawful tariffs.“These edicts reflect a national trade policy that now hinges on the president’s whims rather than the sound exercise of his lawful authority,” said the lawsuit, filed by the states’ attorneys general in the U.S. Court of International Trade.The states, including New York, Illinois and Oregon, are the latest parties to take the Trump administration to court over the tariffs. Their case comes after California filed its own lawsuit last week, in which Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state attorney general accused the administration of escalating a trade war that has caused “immediate and irreparable harm” to that state’s economy.Officials and businesses from Oregon, the lead plaintiff in the suit filed Wednesday, have also expressed concerns about the vulnerability of the state’s trade-dependent economy, as well as its sportswear industry, as a result of the tariffs.“When a president pushes an unlawful policy that drives up prices at the grocery store and spikes utility bills, we don’t have the luxury of standing by,” said Dan Rayfield, Oregon’s attorney general, in a statement. “These tariffs hit every corner of our lives — from the checkout line to the doctor’s office — and we have a responsibility to push back.”Asked about the latest lawsuit, Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, called it a “witch hunt” by Democrats against Mr. Trump. “The Trump administration remains committed to using its full legal authority to confront the distinct national emergencies our country is currently facing,” he said, “both the scourge of illegal migration and fentanyl flows across our border and the exploding annual U.S. goods trade deficit.”The other states in the suit are Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico and Vermont. All of the states have Democratic attorneys general, though Nevada and Vermont have Republican governors.Mr. Trump’s tariffs have shocked and upended the global trade industry. He set a 145 percent tariff on goods from China, 25 percent on Canada, and 10 percent on almost all imports from most other countries.The moves have drawn legal challenges from other entities as well, including two members of the Blackfeet Nation, who filed a federal lawsuit in Montana over the tariffs on Canada, saying they violated tribal treaty rights. Legal groups like the Liberty Justice Center and the New Civil Liberties Alliance have also sued. “I’m happy that Oregon and the other states are joining us in this fight,” said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, who is working on the Liberty Justice Center’s lawsuit. More

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      Swept Out of Office by Covid, a Democratic Governor Eyes a Comeback

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      Steve Sisolak, the former governor of Nevada, says he is weighing a rematch against Gov. Joe Lombardo, the Republican who ousted him in 2022.Many Democrats performed better than expected in the 2022 midterm elections, bucking historical trends to hold on to key governor’s offices and House seats and to expand their majority in the Senate.One notable exception was Gov. Steve Sisolak of Nevada, who was weighed down by a backlash to the lockdowns he had ordered during the coronavirus pandemic and by the economic downturn that followed. Even as Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, squeaked out a re-election victory in Nevada, Mr. Sisolak became the only Democratic governor to lose that year, giving way to Joe Lombardo, a Republican.Now, as Democrats search for a direction after their November defeat and contemplate the best ways to oppose President Trump and his allies, Mr. Sisolak is considering a rematch against Mr. Lombardo. A former Clark County sheriff, Mr. Lombardo has stood as a Republican bulwark against the Democratic-controlled Nevada Legislature. He is up for re-election next year.Mr. Lombardo occupies a somewhat rare position in today’s Republican Party. Though he speaks favorably of the president, he distanced himself last year from the state party and its focus on debunked election conspiracy theories, and he was not an especially vocal presence on the campaign trail for Mr. Trump.In two phone calls this week, Mr. Sisolak, 71, spoke about a possible comeback attempt, the state of the Democratic Party and how the economic turmoil caused by Mr. Trump’s tariffs could affect Nevadans.Here is the conversation, condensed and edited.What have you been seeing in Nevada since you’ve been out of office, and how do you think Governor Lombardo has been doing?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Man Gets 100 Years in Prison for His Role in 2020 Shooting Spree

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      The rampage on Thanksgiving Day killed one person and injured several others in Nevada and Arizona.A Texas man has been sentenced to at least 100 years in prison for his part in a two-state shooting spree on Thanksgiving Day in 2020 that killed one person and wounded several others across Nevada and Arizona.The rampage began in the early hours of Nov. 26, 2020, when the man, Christopher McDonnell, 32, and two others started opening fire from their moving car at motorists outside Las Vegas in what prosecutors called a “mobile mass shooting.” Roughly 10 hours after it began, the spree ended when the car crashed along a highway near Bouse, Ariz., after a shootout with the police.On Friday, Mr. McDonnell, of Tyler, Texas, listened in a courtroom in Clark County, Nev., before his sentencing as victims and their relatives described how the eruption of random shootings that day had upended their lives.“I struggle every day,” said Kevin Mendiola, whose 22-year-old son, Kevin Mendiola Jr., was shot and killed during the spree outside a 7-Eleven in Henderson, Nev., about 15 miles southeast of Las Vegas.Mr. McDonnell pleaded guilty but mentally ill to nearly two dozen felony charges in October, including first-degree murder and multiple counts of firing a weapon at an occupied vehicle. All of the charges were filed in Nevada, and he does not face any in Arizona.At the hearing on Friday, Mr. McDonnell, his face tattooed to resemble a skull, read from a brief statement: “I take full responsibility for my own wrongdoings, and I appreciate the courts for administering justice.” Mr. McDonnell’s lawyer did not respond to requests for comment on Sunday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Six Republicans in Nevada again charged for 2020 fake elector scheme

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      Six Republicans in Nevada have again been charged with submitting a bogus certificate to Congress that falsely declared Donald Trump the winner of the presidential battleground’s 2020 election.Aaron Ford, the state’s attorney general, announced on Thursday that the fake electors case had been revived in Carson City, the capital, where he filed a new complaint this week charging the defendants with “uttering a forged instrument”, a felony.A Nevada judge dismissed the original indictment earlier this year, ruling that Clark county, the state’s most populous county and home to Las Vegas, was the wrong venue for the case.Ford, a Democrat, said the new case was filed as a precaution to avoid the statute of limitations expiring while the Nevada supreme court weighs his appeal of the judge’s ruling.“While we disagree with the finding of improper venue and will continue to seek to overturn it, we are preserving our legal rights in order to ensure that these fake electors do not escape justice,” Ford said.“The actions the fake electors undertook in 2020 violated Nevada criminal law and were direct attempts to both sow doubt in our democracy and undermine the results of a free and fair election. Justice requires that these actions not go unpunished.”Officials have said it was part of a larger scheme across seven battleground states to keep the former president in the White House after losing to Joe Biden. Criminal cases have also been brought in Michigan, Georgia and Arizona.Trump lost in 2020 to the president by more than 30,000 votes in Nevada. An investigation by then Nevada secretary of state Barbara Cegavske, a Republican, found no credible evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state.The defendants are state the Republican party chair Michael McDonald; the Clark county Republican party chair Jesse Law; the national party committee member Jim DeGraffenreid; the national and Douglas county committee member Shawn Meehan; the Storey county clerk Jim Hindle; and Eileen Rice, a party member from the Lake Tahoe area.In an emailed statement to the Associated Press, McDonald’s attorney, Richard Wright, called the new complaint a political move by a Democratic state attorney general who also announced on Thursday that he plans to run for governor in 2026.“We will withhold further comment and address the issues in court,” said Wright, who has spoken often in court on behalf of all six defendants.Attorneys for the others did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.Their lawyers previously argued that Ford improperly brought the case before a grand jury in Democratic-leaning Las Vegas instead of in a northern Nevada city, where the alleged crimes occurred. More

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      Moderate Earthquake Rattles Reno and Lake Tahoe

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      Preliminary estimates showed that the quake had a magnitude of 5.8, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, though the intensity was still changing.Residents of Northern Nevada and the Lake Tahoe basin were rattled on Monday afternoon by an earthquake that struck southeast of Reno, Nev. Preliminary estimates showed that the quake had a magnitude of 5.8, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, though the intensity was still changing.There were no initial reports of major damage. The temblor struck just after 3 p.m. and was centered about 14 miles north-northeast of Yerington, Nev., a small town of about 3,000 residents. It was followed by more than 10 aftershocks, according to the U.S.G.S.At the Boys & Girls Clubs of Mason Valley in Yerington, children dove under their desks but nothing fell over, said Nick Beaton, 30, the center’s director of development.“The biggest thing that stuck out to me was it felt like the ground was rolling,” Mr. Beaton said. “You could feel the waves of the ground shaking while you were on your hands and knees.”In Carson City, Nev., dozens of miles west of the epicenter, the manager of the local Trader Joe’s grocery store, Brian Garland, said the quake was “just a little bit of a rumble — not enough to knock anything down, but enough so you knew what it was.”“Everybody just kind of looked at each other like: ‘Was that what we thought it was? Or are we all having some kind of mass vertigo?’” Mr. Garland said with a laugh.The earthquake struck during what experts say could be a period of increased seismic activity in the region, after decades of relative quiet. But its occurrence does not signal that a larger, catastrophic quake is any more likely.An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck off the coast of Northern California last week, causing little damage but setting off a tsunami warning that affected five million people.Seismologists have long warned that an overdue “Big One,” the likes of which the region has not experienced since 1906, could happen at any time. They have urged residents to prepare as much as possible by assembling emergency supplies and practicing “drop, cover and hold on” exercises with their children.It has been three decades since a significant quake struck the region.The Loma Prieta earthquake, with a magnitude of 6.9, shook the Santa Cruz Mountains in California in 1989, leaving 63 people dead and more than 3,700 people injured.A magnitude 6.7 quake in the Northridge neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1994 left 60 people dead, about 7,000 injured and more than 40,000 buildings damaged. The catastrophe also revealed a major defect in some steel-frame buildings, including many high rises, which under extreme shaking could collapse.Alex Hoeft More

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      US Republican politician must resign after pleading guilty to sexual assault

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      Days after winning elected office, a Republican politician in Indiana pleaded guilty to trying to sexually assault a woman in Las Vegas and now must resign his position.John Jessup, commissioner of Hancock, Indiana, is at the center of one of the more bizarre tales to emerge from the down-ballot 5 November elections across the US.As noted by the local Greenfield Daily Reporter newspaper and KLAS, authorities in Nevada charged Jessup, 49, in June in connection with a sexual assault that occurred in January. But he remained in office as a county commissioner; ran for a seat on the Hancock council, which is a distinct elected body; and emerged as one of three victors after collecting about 15,000 votes.Jessup’s satisfaction with his victory – secured while he was under house arrest in Nevada – may have been fleeting, however. Records show he pleaded guilty in Nevada court on 13 November to attempted sexual assault, which is a kind of felony that can carry multiple years in prison, according to state law.Indiana prohibits convicted felons from serving in state or local elected offices, though a decisive majority of its voters on 5 November helped vault Donald Trump to a second US presidency just months after a New York City jury convicted him on felony charges of criminally falsifying business records.Therefore, Jessup must resign – unlike Trump, who has also faced multimillion-dollar civil penalties for a rape allegation that a judge determined to be substantially true.Jessup on Monday told the Guardian that he must fill out certain paperwork before he could step down. The county council chair had mailed him those papers, but they had not immediately arrived, said Jessup, who is awaiting a sentencing hearing tentatively scheduled for April.According to what Jessup told the Daily Reporter, he was prepared for prosecutors to argue that he deserves between eight and 20 years in prison. Jessup reportedly said that his attorneys were going to seek a sentence of probation.“It’s been my greatest honor serving the people of Hancock county and I’m deeply, deeply ashamed and profoundly sorry for the shame that I brought to the county,” Jessup told the Daily Reporter.An affidavit obtained and reported on by the outlet said Jessup’s criminal charges came after he flew to Las Vegas with a woman in January.Multiple witnesses allegedly told authorities that Jessup got the woman intoxicated by constantly “feeding” her Long Island iced teas. Purportedly, as Jessup repeatedly said the famous slogan “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” she became so intoxicated that she needed a wheelchair to get back to her hotel room.There, she recalled showering while clothed – and her immediate next recollection was waking up naked as Jessup sexually assaulted her, authorities wrote in the affidavit cited by the Daily Reporter.The woman reported the assault to police in just a few days, and authorities arrested him in Indiana in June before extraditing him to Nevada. According to the Daily Reporter, during an interview with investigators, Jessup acknowledged that he “fucked up” – and spoke of taking his life – yet also maintained that he had not done anything criminal.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionJessup posted a $100,000 bond to await the outcome of the case against him under house arrest in the Las Vegas area.In a statement to the Indiana news outlet WXIN, a Republican party official in Hancock county denied that her organization had any role in Jessup’s case “until the legal process concludes or he resigns”.“Mr Jessup decided to keep his name on the ballot after charges were filed,” Janice Silvey, Hancock county Republican party chairperson, said in a statement. “He later verbally and via text committed to resigning if elected.”Silvey added that the local Republican party would arrange a caucus to fill Jessup’s position once his resignation takes effect.Hancock county is part of a region that includes Indianapolis, the state capital. It has a population of about 80,000. More