As president, Mr. Biden has not yet challenged that logic. Instead, he visited an Iowa ethanol plant last year to boast about the lavish biofuels subsidies in his Inflation Reduction Act, and to announce a new waiver allowing more ethanol to be sold in the summertime to help suppress gas prices. But his most important […]
Read More As America rushes to generate more renewable electricity, it has become fashionable to fret that solar and wind farms use too much land. But America is also racing to produce more renewable fuels, and they use much, much more land to displace much, much less fossil fuel. It’s fairly well-known that farm-grown fuels like corn […]
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For years, the Hamptons were a hot summer destination for young, up-and-coming New Yorkers and the old and new moneyed alike. It was a place to see and be seen. Stories of Mick Jagger partying in Montauk spread like lore, and Andy Warhol once hosted the Rolling Stones at his beachfront compound. It wasn’t uncommon […]
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LOS ANGELES — Standing less than a mile from Dodger Stadium on a recent Saturday afternoon, Vincent Montalvo could hear the roar of the crowd inside the ballpark. It was Jackie Robinson Day, and more than 50,000 fans were nestling into their seats for a matchup against the Chicago Cubs. But Montalvo had no plans […]
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There is a new wrinkle in the ongoing tussle between Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and the Walt Disney Company. On Friday, Mr. DeSantis signed a bill into law giving a board that oversees government services at Disney World the ability to void development agreements that had already been approved for the resort. At least […]
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For years, New York law permitted developers to built atop Native American burial sites without taking steps to preserve the ancient remains, making the state one of only four with no meaningful protection for graves on private lands. But that is set to change thanks to a provision included in the state budget deal Gov. […]
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Disney responded, however, by working with the outgoing board to pass a development agreement and restrictive covenants that would greatly limit the authority of the new DeSantis board. This action led to Florida’s next round of reprisals against Disney. The new DeSantis board voted to nullify the new contracts, and DeSantis himself mused at how […]
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They arrived just before midnight, carrying machetes and hoes, hammers and sickles, with plans to seize the land. When the 200 activists and farm workers got there, the ranch was vacant, overgrown with weeds, and the farm headquarters empty, except for a stray cow. Now, three months later, it is a bustling village. On a […]
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Bashing New York City has long been a popular pastime on the right. Conservatives routinely portray the Big Apple as a dystopian wasteland. And the bashing has reached a fever pitch since Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, announced multiple charges against Donald Trump. How dare Bragg pursue these cases, Republicans ask, when crime is […]
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In the two decades since the federal government turned over control of Governors Island to New York City, city officials have sought an innovative way to use the 172-acre patch of land with stunning views of Lower Manhattan. They have finally come up with an answer. On Monday, Mayor Eric Adams plans to announce a […]
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It’s Herbert Hoover’s fault. In the early 1920s, as a reform-minded secretary of commerce, Hoover wanted to bring order to America’s chaotic cities and towns, where a lack of controls on land use allowed grimy factories, livery stables and the like to spring up in residential neighborhoods. He convened a committee that drafted a model […]
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The Vatican formally repudiated on Thursday the “Doctrine of Discovery,” a legal concept based on 15th-century papal documents that European colonial powers used to legitimize the seizure and exploitation of Indigenous lands in Africa and the Americas, among other places. The decision comes after decades of demands from Indigenous people to rescind the doctrine, which […]
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MONTAUK, N.Y. — New York’s Native American tribes fought bitterly with former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo over his efforts to tax their tobacco sales and seize a sizable share of their gambling proceeds, and they blamed him for the deterioration of a stretch of interstate that slices through tribal lands. So when Mr. Cuomo resigned in […]
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WASHINGTON — The Biden administration said Tuesday that it was withdrawing a land swap deal that would have helped to clear the way for construction of a road through a wildlife refuge in Alaska. The move is a reversal of the government’s position and one that could put an end to a project that would […]
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SENECA FALLS, N.Y. — Along a stretch of County Road 124 in New York’s picturesque Finger Lakes region, men stand guard at a barbed wire blockade, tending a fire they keep burning around the clock and protecting a two-story home that is on the verge of collapse. The scene is the latest front in a […]
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The couple blames California officials for what they believe is a below-value sale. But they are also disheartened by the family’s decision to sell. “Your fight is bigger than you,” Ms. Johnson said. Kavon Ward, who founded Justice for Bruce’s Beach in 2020 to spearhead the return of the land, said that she, too, had […]
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In March, Gabe Sierra, a contractor whose family has been in the construction business for more than 30 years, will take offers for his latest creation: an 11,000-square-foot mansion with seven bedrooms and a pool in Pinecrest, Miami. To sweeten the deal, he’s throwing in the exact same house and a King Kong-size, bright green […]
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LAC DU FLAMBEAU, Wis. — The yellow barricades and chained-together concrete blocks went up late last month, cutting off dozens of houses from roads on the Lac du Flambeau Reservation in northern Wisconsin, where soaring evergreens and the papery bark of birch trees punctuate the skyline. To tribal leaders, who for years tried and failed […]
Read MoreWhat could make a person die for trees? About five years ago, I published a novel called “The Overstory,” the tale of several characters who come together to protect an old-growth forest. The book follows these characters as they put their lives on the line in increasingly aggressive confrontations against powerful interests in the hope […]
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