A California whistleblower will head to trial next week for his lawsuit alleging the Newsom administration pressured him to illegally withhold drilling permits during his time as the head of the state’s oil and gas regulatory agency. Uduak-Joe Ntuk‚ the former head of the California Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM)‚ filed a lawsuit in September claiming he was pushed to stop issuing new well-drilling permits “without statutory authority or regulations.” Ntuk alleges that he...

Gov. Gavin Newsom is readying an army of bureaucrats to defend the state’s nation-leading climate policies against a potential second Trump administration. Newsom administration officials are keenly aware that deep-blue California is a prime target for former President Donald Trump’s political diatribes and policy rollbacks — and they fully expect he’ll resume his attacks on the Golden State if he wins in November. Trump campaign officials openly acknowledge that they plan to attack...

 Moderna has more to offer beyond its Covid vaccine. The biotech company Wednesday announced positive clinical trial data on three experimental vaccines against other viruses. The company is moving those shots to final stage studies‚ it said. The update brings Moderna a step closer to having multiple products on the market‚ which it badly needs amid plunging demand for Covid shots worldwide. The company’s Covid jab is its only commercially available...

The Supreme Court appeared listless‚ even bored‚ during Tuesday’s oral arguments in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine‚ the case asking the courts to ban the abortion drug mifepristone. Their frustration with the Alliance case is understandable‚ since they’ve been dealing with it for nearly an entire year. Last April‚ after two lower courts issued decisions that would have effectively removed mifepristone from the market‚ the justices voted...