California Gov. Jerry Brown warned that President Trump has just made a “colossal mistake” in gutting the federal government’s effort to combat climate change, which will ignite a response Trump is unprepared to handle.

“It defies science itself,” Brown said in a call to The Times shortly after Trump signed an executive order that aims to bring an abrupt halt to the United States' leadership on global warming. “Erasing climate change may take place in Donald Trump‘s mind, but nowhere else.”

“Yes, there is going to be a counter-movement,” Brown vowed, predicting Trump’s actions will mobilize environmentalists in a way President Obama never could. “I have met with many heads of state, ambassadors. This is a  growing movement. President Trump’s outrageous move will galvanize the contrary force. Things have been a bit tepid [in climate activism]. But this conflict, this sharpening of the contradiction, will energize those who believe climate change is an existential threat.”

The top U.S. general commanding the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria said that the U.S.-led coalition was probably responsible for a blast that killed more than 200 people.

"If we did it, and I would say there's at least a fair chance that we did, it was an unintentional accident of war and we will transparently report it to you,” Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend told reporters Tuesday via teleconference from Baghdad.

He made the comments in response to witness reports that an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition leveled a large apartment block and killed scores of civilians, including women and children, in west Mosul's Jadidah neighborhood on March 17.

President Trump on Tuesday ordered the federal government to retreat from the battle against climate change launched by President Obama, issuing a directive aimed at dismantling the core policies that have made the U.S. a global leader in curbing emissions.

The plan unveiled by Trump reflects an about-face for the U.S. on energy, and it puts into jeopardy the nation’s ability to meet the obligations it agreed to under the global warming pact signed in Paris with 194 other nations. It would shelve the landmark Clean Power Plan that mandates electricity companies reduce their emissions. It seeks to dislodge consideration of climate throughout the federal government, where it has been a factor in every relevant decision in recent years.

"My administration is putting an end to the war on coal," Trump said. "I am taking historic steps to lift the restrictions on American energy to reverse government intrusions and to cancel job killing regulations."

Soon after President Trump took office, an executive order was quietly drafted to suspend talks with China on an obscure but potentially far-reaching treaty about bilateral investment.

After eight years and two dozen rounds of negotiations, the treaty terms were almost in final form. Pulling out after so much time and effort would send a clear message that the Trump administration meant to take a new and tougher approach to China.

But the executive order never even got to the president’s desk. It was quietly shelved, according to sources inside and outside the White House, at the behest of former Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn, now Trump’s top economic advisor.

The Supreme Court set aside a death sentence on Tuesday for a Texas inmate who as a 13-year-old could not tell time or name the days of the week, concluding he should not be executed in light of his mental disability.

In a 5-3 decision, the justices reversed the Texas state appeals court that had restored a death sentence given to Bobby James Moore, a 57-year old prisoner who shot and killed a store clerk in a botched robbery in 1980.

At issue was whether Moore had a mental disability that would make his execution "cruel and unusual punishment" under the 8th Amendment. The justices banned states from executing prisoners with a mental disability, but they left states some flexibility to set the standards.

When House Speaker Paul D. Ryan pulled the plug on the GOP’s Obamacare overhaul, lawmakers spilled out of the Capitol basement, angry, frustrated and stunned.

But Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), leader of the conservative and rebellious House Freedom Caucus that led the fight against the bill, was uncharacteristically quiet, downplaying his political victory and mulling over the next move.

After coming together to battle President Obama and becoming a driving force in the Republican Party, this 30-member-plus bloc of deficit hawks and right-flank conservatives had appeared for a while to be pushed aside by the movement that swept President Trump into office.

A lawyer for former Deputy Atty. Gen. Sally Yates said in letters last week that the Trump administration had moved to squelch her testimony in a hearing about Russian meddling in the presidential election. 

In the letters, attorney David O'Neil said he understood the Justice Department was invoking “further constraints” on testimony she could provide at a House Intelligence Committee hearing that had been scheduled for Tuesday. He said the department's position was that all actions she took as deputy attorney general were “client confidences” that could not be disclosed without written approval. 

The Washington Post first reported the letters. A person familiar with the situation confirmed them as authentic to the Associated Press. 

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) on Monday urged fellow Californian Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare) to remove himself from their investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Before late last week, Schiff had gone out of his way not to be critical of Nunes throughout the fledgling investigation. They have held the top positions on the House Intelligence Committee for two years, and have served in Congress together for more than a decade.

"This is not a recommendation I make lightly, as the Chairman and I have worked together well for several years; and I take this step with the knowledge of the solemn responsibility we have on the Intelligence Committee to provide oversight on all  intelligence matters, not just to conduct the investigation," Schiff said in a statement.

A Democratic senator wants to know if Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin committed an ethics violation when he publicly plugged “The Lego Batman Movie,” a film in which he has a financial stake.

A former Hollywood financier, Mnuchin was asked at the end of a question-and-answer session on Friday hosted by the Axios news website to name a movie people should see.

“Well, I’m not allowed to promote anything that I’m involved in. So I just want to have the legal disclosure, you’ve asked me the question and I am not promoting any product,” Mnuchin said at the event, which aired on C-SPAN2.