一 | RENO, Nev. -- In an ongoing legal battle with the Biden administration over a Nevada lithium mine, environmentalists are poised to return to court with a new approach accusing U.S. wildlife officials of dragging their feet on a year-old petition seeking endangered species status for a tiny snail that lives nearby. The Western Watersheds Project said in its formal notice of intent to sue that the government's failure to list the Kings River pyrg as a threatened or endangered species could push it to the brink of extinction.It says the only place the snail is known to exist is in 13 shallow springs near where Lithium Americas is building its Thacker Pass Mine near the Oregon line.President Joe Biden has made ramped-up domestic production of lithium a key part of his blueprint for a greener future. Worldwide demand for the critical element in the manufacture of electric vehicle batteries is projected to increase six-fold by 2030 compared with 2020.Past lawsuits filed by conservationists and tribes have taken aim — largely unsuccessfully — at the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, which they accused of cutting regulatory corners to expedite approval of the mine itself in 2021.The new approach targets the department's Fish and Wildlife Service, charged with ensuring protection of fish and wildlife habitat surrounding the mine site 200 miles (321 kilometers) northeast of Reno.Western Watersheds Project says groundwater pumping associated with the mine’s 370-foot-deep (113-meter) open pit will reduce or eliminate flows to the springs that support the snails.In the formal 90-day notice of intent to sue sent to Interior Secretary Deborah Haaland last month, they say her agency's failure to make a 12-month finding on the listing petition filed in September 2022 is a violation of the Endangered Species Act.“The Fish and Wildlife Service isn’t supposed to sit on its hands while species are in imminent danger of extinction, but the fact that it hasn’t met the deadlines on the pyrg raises questions about why they might be delaying,” Adam Bronstein, the project's Nevada director, said in a statement.“It would be absolutely unacceptable if the Biden Administration is waiting until it’s too late to save the species so as not to interrupt the construction of a lithium mine," he said.Interior Department spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz said in an email Thursday the department had no comment on the group's intent to sue.Western Watersheds Project said time is of the essence because the snails were imperiled even before any new mining was contemplated due to livestock grazing, round-building and, increasingly, the anticipated impacts of climate change.“The species has no regulatory protection whatsoever ... because it is not an endangered species, or even a Bureau of Land Management-listed Sensitive species, and has no state law protections," the notice said.Conservationists and tribal lawyers claimed a partial victory last year when U.S. District Judge Miranda Du concluded the bureau failed to fully comply with new interpretations of the 1872 Mining Law. But she stopped short of blocking the project, allowing construction to begin as the bureau shored up plans for disposal of waste rock.The opponents appealed, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Du's ruling in July.The tiny snail’s shell is less than 2 millimeters (0.08 inches) tall. By comparison, a U.S. nickel coin is 1.95 millimeters thick. They've managed to survive in isolated springs, which are remnants of extensive waterways that have covered what is now dry land only to recede many times over the last 2 million years, the listing petition said.The project says three of the springs are within a 1-mile (1.6-kilometer) buffer zone, the bureau established in its review of potential impacts of a 10-foot (3-meter) drawdown of the groundwater table, and the rest are less than 4 miles (4.8 kilometers) away."As drought frequency increases with climate change, the Kings River pyrg will be at high risk of extinction,” the letter to Haaland said. It notes that the Nevada Department of Wildlife considers the pyrg “extremely vulnerable to climate change.”Lithium Americas had no comment on the notice of intent to sue the Fish and Wildlife Service, spokesman Tim Crowley said. The company said when the listing petition was filed last year that it's done extensive work to design a project that avoids impacts to the springs.The Bureau of Land Management said earlier its environmental review of the project that it didn't detect any of the snails "within the direct footprint of the project or any area likely to be adversely affected by the project.”。 据阿根廷媒体infobae、《奥莱报》报道，豪尔赫·梅西的守灵仪式已经结束，梅西做了最后的告别。 当地时间8月8日凌晨2点，豪尔赫在罗萨里奥的疗养院去世，享年68岁。北京时间8月8日晚，梅西与妻子安东内拉及三个孩子一同从迈阿密飞抵故乡罗萨里奥，落地后直接前往El Prado公墓，进行守灵仪式。 一夜过后，亲友们再次聚在一起，做最后的告别。这场葬礼的规模不大，没有对外开放，只有至亲好友到场，氛围肃穆而克制。 根据阿根廷媒体曝光的现场画面，梅西双手插兜，独自低头缓行，神情凝重。他沉痛地与家人拥抱，最终完成了这场沉默而深情的告别。
二 | ESPN阿根廷版记者Leo Paradizo透露：“梅西为了父亲而流泪，他参加这次世界杯也是为了他的父亲，他在世界杯上的每一个进球都是献给父亲的。在整个世界杯期间，豪尔赫一直要求医生不要向他的儿子透露自己健康状况的详细信息和严重程度，以免让他分心或担心。
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