MARK HARRIS' SON TESTIFIES HE REPEATEDLY WARNED FATHER ABOUT DOWLESS: The testimony from John Harris rebutted suggestions by Harris and his campaign that they’d seen no red flags about McCrae Dowless, who is now at the center of allegations into voting irregularities in the 9th Congressional District. John Harris’ dramatic testimony came on the third day of a hearing by North Carolina’s State Board of Elections that could decide the nation’s last unresolved congressional race and has drawn national attention — and it left his father in tears. “I love my dad and I love my mom,” John Harris said as his father cried. “I certainly have no vendetta against them, no family scores to settle, OK? I think they made mistakes in this process, and they certainly did things differently than I would have done them.”
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article226492265.html

DEQ ISSUES STRONGER CONSENT ORDER TO CHEMOURS ON GENX COMPOUND: The revised version requires Chemours, among other things, to: Submit more frequent reporting of GenX air emissions. Analyze PFAS and GenX contamination in sediment in the Cape Fear River. Provide drinking water treatment for water fountains and sinks in public buildings. Provide maintenance on filtration systems for at least 20 years. Two of the most valuable components of the agreement, the Sierra Club's Erin Carey said, are the sediment studies and the toxicity testing – both direct responses to criticisms from the public concerned about the original order's lack of focus on health concerns. "We know so little about these chemicals, which is crazy when you think about the volume released into the environment," said Carey, who serves as the Sierra Club's Wilmington-based coastal programs coordinator.
https://www.wral.com/new-chemours-consent-order-steps-up-enforcement-of-genx-related-chemicals/18204...

COAST GUARD LIEUTENANT HAD HIT LIST OF PROMINENT DEMOCRATS: Federal agents found 15 firearms — including several rifles — and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition inside Hasson's basement apartment in Silver Spring, Maryland. They also found a container with more than 30 bottles that were labeled as human growth hormone, court papers said. Prosecutors wrote that Hasson "began the process of targeting specific victims," including several prominent Democrats in Congress and 2020 presidential candidates. In February 2018, he searched the internet for the "most liberal senators," as well as searching "do senators have ss (secret service) protection" and "are supreme court justices protected," according to the court filing. Hasson's list of prominent Democrats included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and presidential hopefuls Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and Kamala Harris.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article226533950.html

MUSLIM ADVOCACY ORG WANTS FBI TO STOP SHARING FLAWED WATCHLIST: A Muslim civil rights group called for a congressional investigation Wednesday after its lawsuit revealed that the U.S. government has shared access to parts of its terrorist watchlist with more than 1,400 private entities, including hospitals and universities. The Council on American-Islamic Relations said Congress should look into why the FBI has given such wide access to the list, which CAIR believes is riddled with errors. Broad dissemination of the names makes life more difficult for those who are wrongly included, CAIR says. Many on the list are believed to be Muslim. "This is a wholesale profiling of a religious minority community," said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. "To share private information of citizens and non-citizens with corporations is illegal and outrageous." For years, the government had insisted that it did not generally share the list with private organizations.
https://www.wral.com/muslim-group-seeks-congressional-probe-on-terror-watchlist/18205322/

TRUMP FORMS COMMITTEE TO CHALLENGE CLIMATE CHANGE REPORTS HE DOESN'T LIKE: According to a White House memo dated Feb. 14, Mr. Trump’s staff members have drafted an executive order to create a 12-member committee, which will include a White House adviser, William Happer, whose views are sharply at odds with the established scientific consensus that carbon dioxide pollution is dangerous for the planet. The memo casts doubt on multiple scientific and defense reports concluding that climate change poses a significant threat to national security, saying they “have not undergone a rigorous independent and adversarial peer review to examine the certainties and uncertainties of climate science, as well as implications for national security.” The effort to establish the panel appears to be the latest step by the Trump administration to question the science of climate change, as Mr. Trump rolls back Obama-era regulations on planet-warming pollution from vehicle tailpipes and power plants. It also appears to be the latest example of Mr. Trump’s propensity to ignore the findings and recommendations of his own intelligence and defense officials.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/climate/climate-national-security-threat.html?module=inline