LifeStraw saves the lives of two hikers missing in the CA mountains for five days
Rescuers have located two California hikers that went missing after descending into a valley and becoming lost. The pair was hiking with a larger group who turned back after deeming the trail too dangerous. The two hikers forged ahead and when they failed to return home that night, their friends reported them missing.
The whereabouts of the hikers were unknown for five days before rescue crews found footprints in the snow and began following them, dispatching a helicopter that spotted the pair huddled around a campfire. The hikers survived by rationing their food and drinking water through a LifeStraw, which filters dirty water and makes it safe to drink. Their survival is credited to the fact that they carried the necessary supplies. Both hikers are reportedly in good condition.
Pennsylvania nuns face down a pipeline
A congregation of nuns has taken a stand against the company that built a natural gas pipeline through their land. The Adorers of the Blood of Christ stood up against Williams, an Oklahoma-based pipeline company, and owners of the 200-mile long Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline. The pipeline carries shale gas from northeastern Pennsylvania to the coast, where it is then shipped overseas. Part of the pipeline runs under a cornfield that the nuns have owned for over a century. When Williams claimed eminent domain over the property, the nuns sued. The nuns lost both the case and their appeal. They hoped the Supreme Court would weigh in, but the court refused to hear their case. The pipeline now runs under their property.
Still, the nuns are proud of their fight. They see protecting the earth as their religious duty. During the protests they organized, they would stand silently with signs or sing Amazing Grace. One day, while the nuns protested, children passed out bread to the pipeline workers. “We’ve made people aware,” one of the nuns told The New Yorker, “And possibly changed people’s minds that nuns don’t know anything, that we’re just in the church praying all the time.”
Trump signs two executive orders making it harder for states to block pipelines
After officials in Washington state and New York stopped new energy projects through the permitting process, President Trump has signed two executive orders that speed up oil and gas pipeline projects and make it harder for states to block the projects. Trump insisted that the move was not intended to strip power away from the states but instead ensures that they follow the intent of the Clean Water Act.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo called Trump’s order an overreach that undermines state’s ability to protect water quality and the environment. Washington Governor Jay Inslee, in a joint statement with the Washington attorney general, said the executive order was “an unprecedented assault on the right and obligation of every state to protect their waters and their community.”
