The best historical precedent for the Environmental Protection Agency's action comes from Ronald Reagan. He's not exactly known as the environmental president, but he took the decisive steps toward solving an earlier air pollution problem: destruction of the ozone layer.
On Monday, the Obama administration plans to release the finalized Clean Power Plan, the president's flagship policy to combat global warming. The plan is aimed at the electricity sector, which generates the largest single slice, 31 percent, of U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions.
The rule, if it stands, could substantially alter the U.S. energy landscape, driving the expanded use of "clean" energy while further diminishing coal's long dominance as a source of power for homes and businesses.
Before this past week's historic resumption of diplomatic relations with Cuba, Washington Post photojournalist Sarah L. Voisin visited the nation to capture a lifestyle that will inevitably change as businesses emerge among a population hopeful for new goods.
Last Friday, the Los Angeles Times reported on a key ruling by a U.S. federal judge who in coming days plans to order the release of hundreds of immigrant women and children from holding facilities in the United States. Most of those immigrants originated from Latin American countries.
The ceremony -- attended by Cuban President Raúl Castro and some 10,000 of the country's ruling elite and their guests, but not by the frail 88-year-old Fidel -- was the first since the restoration of relations with the United States.
President Barack Obama made the closure of the controversial offshore prison a priority when he took office in 2009, but the plan has faced numerous setbacks, including Congress blocking the transfer of detainees to U.S. prisons.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A diplomatic freeze that stretched back five decades, outlasting the Cold War and nine U.S. presidencies, officially ended Monday as Cuba and the United States reopened embassies.
The U.S. president and Cuban state television simultaneously announced the landmark agreement, aimed at easing decades of enmity across the narrow Straits of Florida.
UPDATE: The United States and Cuba have reached a deal to reopen embassies in Washington and Havana, in a major step toward ending decades of Cold War enmity. President Barack Obama is expected to issue a statement at 11 a.m. (1500 GMT) Wednesday in the White House Rose Garden about the deal, which constitutes one of the major foreign policy achievements of his presidency.
