Today’s comic by Matt Bors is Gun control that doesn't fly:
• Deadly record-breaking heat in Southwest could become “typical”:
Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist and professor of meteorology at Penn State University, was in Phoenix on Friday when temperatures hit 106 degrees. He was speaking at a Democratic National Platform committee meeting, where he pointed to the extreme weather as “an example of just the sort of extreme heat that is on the increase due to human-caused climate change,” he told HuffPost.
“The likelihood of record heat has already doubled in the U.S. due to human-caused warming,” he said, “and that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.”
• Meanwhile, the Kochs gave at least $88 million to groups defending ExxonMobil’s climate change cover-up:
The Kochs have spent over $88 million in *traceable* funding to groups attacking climate change science, policy and regulation. Of that total, $21 million went to groups that recently bought a full page New York Times advertisement defending ExxonMobil from government investigations into its systematic misrepresentation of climate science.
• Dad tattoos scar on head to honor son battling brain cancer
A father of an 8-year-old boy battling brain cancer had a scar tattooed on his head after the boy said his own scars made him feel like a “monster.”
“This broke my heart,” Josh Marshall, 28, who lives in Kansas, told Buzzfeed. “I told him if people wanted to stare, they could stare at us both.”
• New York will provide free tampons at schools, shelters, jails
New York City is on track to become the nation's first city to require free tampons and sanitary pads in public schools, homeless shelters and jails after lawmakers approved the idea Tuesday amid a national discussion of the costs of having a period.
The proposal, which Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration supports, marks a new direction in activists' push to dismantle what they see as unfair financial barriers between women and needed sanitary products. New York state lawmakers voted last month to become the sixth state to eliminate sales tax on the items.
• USDA Wildlife Services killed 3.2 million animals in 2015:
The highly secretive arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture known as Wildlife Services killed more than 3.2 million animals during fiscal year 2015, according to new data released by the agency.
The total number of wolves, coyotes, bears, mountain lions, beavers, foxes, eagles and other animals killed largely at the behest of the livestock industry and other agribusinesses represents a half-million-animal increase more than the 2.7 million animals the agency killed in 2014.
• Mexican police shoot at protesting teachers; 12 dead:
On Sunday, police fired live ammunition at teachers in Oaxaca protesting educational reform that threatens their line of work, leaving at least 12 dead as countless others were wounded and arrested. This brutal police crackdown, allegedly ordered by the state governor, recalls the disappearance of 43 student teachers in Iguala, Guerrero in November, 2014, a ignominious tragedy the country is still reeling from.
• Documents show federal Bureau of Prisons ignored internal warnings about inmates’ deaths as result inadequate medical care.
• Protesters stage “die-in” at National Rifle Association HQ:
At least 16 people were arrested during a peace vigil outside the National Rifle Association (NRA) on Tuesday, as activists staged a “die-in” to demand gun reform in the wake of the mass shooting in Orlando earlier this month.
The demonstration, organized by the peace group CODEPINK, began Monday night and lasted into Tuesday morning as activists blocked the entrance to the NRA’s headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia and lay down on the ground to symbolize victims of gun violence. The action was tracked on Twitter with the hashtag #DisarmHate.
• On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Greg Dworkin rounds up the latest polls and other Trump disasaters, and Joan McCarter notes Rubio’s return, the Congressional Dems’ protests demanding gun votes, and Trump’s latest attempt at a speech. And, still more superdelegate proposals considered.
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