Federal environmental authorities have ordered a temporary halt in the shipment of contaminated waste from the site of a fiery train derailment earlier this month in eastern Ohio near the Pennsylvania state line. Region 5 administrator Debra Shore of the Environmental Protection Agency said Saturday the agency ordered Norfolk Southern to “pause” shipments from the site of the Feb. 3 derailment in East Palestine but vowed that removal of the material would resume “very soon.” “Everyone wants this contamination gone from the community. They don’t want the worry, and they don’t want the smell, and we owe it to the people of East Palestine to move it out of the community as quickly as possible,” Shore said. Until Friday, Shore said, the rail company had been solely responsible for the disposal of the waste and supplied Ohio environmental officials with a list of selected and utilized disposal sites. Going forward, disposal plans including locations and transportation routes for contaminated waste will be subject to EPA review and approval, she said. “EPA will ensure that all waste is disposed of in a safe and lawful manner at EPA-certified facilities to prevent further release of hazardous substances and impacts to communities,” Shore…

Attorney General Paxton has joined two Missouri-led multistate letters being sent to CVS and Walgreens concerning their decision to seek approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on using the mail to sell abortion pills. CVS and Walgreens recently announced their willingness to aid the Biden Administration’s radical abortion agenda by selling abortion pills via mail. The Biden Administration has attempted to twist statutes to allow the delivery, but the companies’ decision to send through the mail clashes with federal and many state laws that actually bans the distribution of abortion pill through the mail. A letter to CVS stated that “federal expressly prohibits using the mail to send or receive and drug that will be used or applied for producing production. “Although many people are unfamiliar with this statute because it has not been amended in a few decades, to text could not be clear… In December, the Biden Administration’s Office of Legal Counsel encouraged the U.S. Postal Service to disregard this plain text but the text, not the Biden Administration’s view, is what governs.” The letter also says that in addition to being illegal to send through the mail, abortion drugs are dangerous and they can be…

A powerful storm system took aim at the Gulf Coast on Tuesday, spawning a tornado that downed utility poles and power lines, overturned vehicles and ripped roofs off homes in communities east of Houston. There were no immediate reports of serious injuries. The National Weather Service had issued a tornado emergency for that area, warning that a “large, extremely dangerous and potentially deadly tornado” was on the ground Tuesday afternoon and was headed toward Baytown, about 25 miles east of Houston. The warning expired as the system moved to the east. The storm damaged commercial buildings, homes and power lines in nearby Pasadena, a city southeast of Houston. Utility poles and power lines were downed, and several vehicles, including a trailer, were damaged or flipped over in a parking lot. Footage from Houston TV stations showed several businesses suffered major damage, including the city’s animal shelter. Nearby, fences were laid over and shingles and sections of roofs were torn from homes, but there were no immediate reports of injuries. In Baytown, there were downed power lines and damage to homes and businesses, but no reports of serious injuries, said Baytown spokesperson Jason Calder. Shell Chemicals’ site in nearby Deer Park…