Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame, jck, and JeremyBloom. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw.
OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time
Trees and power lines may fall atop soils saturated by one of the wettest summers on record.
...The large-scale outlook for Lee’s movement has changed little. Lee has made its northward turn as a result of the influence of an upper trough over eastern North America. Forecast models are unified in a mostly northward track and acceleration of Lee through the rest of the week, resulting in a landfall between Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and western Nova Scotia this weekend. If Lee tracks on the slower end of the model projections, it will tend to go more to the west, near Cape Cod. If Lee moves faster, a more easterly track nearer to the U.S.-Canada border is likely. But given Lee’s very large wind field, with tropical storm-force winds that span a distance of over 500 miles, the entire coast from eastern Massachusetts to central Nova Scotia is likely to experience tropical storm conditions this weekend, regardless of Lee’s exact landfall location.
Lee’s large size will make it a more formidable storm surge threat than its maximum sustained winds would suggest, particularly since the surge will have very large waves on top of it. Fortunately, the phase of the moon will not be producing unusually high tides this weekend; the highest tides of the month at Cape Cod, Massachusetts, begin occurring on September 26. However, the timing of Lee’s arrival with respect to high tide is crucial, since the range between high tide is very large in this part of the world. Tidal range at Boston is about nine feet; the maximum storm surge flooding there is likely to occur near the high tide cycle around 1 p.m. EDT Saturday. At Eastport, Maine, on the Canadian border, the tidal range is about 18 feet; the maximum storm surge flooding is likely to occur near the high tide cycle at 12:31 p.m. EDT Saturday and potentially during the 12:48 a.m. EDT Sunday high tide as well.
...How did Lee get so big? ...Interaction with a trough of low pressure at landfall. This hasn’t happened yet, but when Lee approaches landfall on Friday, it will interact with a trough of low pressure and become an extratropical storm. The nature of extratropical storms is to have a much larger area with strong winds than a hurricane does, since extratropical storms derive their energy from the atmosphere along a frontal boundary that is typically many hundreds of miles long.
“I feel very strongly that this country needs to get off its butt and do so with honesty and a respect for what’s happening.”
“For too long, conservatives have run from the climate conversation. Help me reverse the narrative that somehow we don’t care about this Earth.”
That was the plea from Republican congressman John Curtis at the Conservative Climate Summit, a sold-out event in his home state of Utah, that focused on a conservative approach to climate solutions.
...Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon spoke about what he called “the climate opportunity” and said he was happy to be engaged in this “very important and urgent conversation.” He said he’s on a mission to make Wyoming “carbon negative.”
“As a mountaineer, I know that glaciers are disappearing,” Gordon said. “As a rancher, I can see what’s happening to our farms. As someone who cares about the world for our future, as a conservative, I feel very strongly that this country needs to get off its butt and do so with honesty and a respect for what’s happening.”
It could become the first law in the US to force companies to publicly report their greenhouse gas emissions, and more mandated disclosures could be on the way.
California legislators passed a bill Monday night that would force big companies doing business in the state to disclose how much planet-heating carbon dioxide pollution they create. It will be the first mandate of its kind in the nation if it’s signed into law and comes as the SEC drags its heels on a similar federal mandate.
The bill, SB 253, requires the California Air Resources Board to develop rules by 2025 for companies with annual revenues over $1 billion. By 2026, the companies would have to publicly report greenhouse gas emissions that come from their operations and electricity use. Crucially, they’ll also be required to disclose how much pollution is generated by their supply chains and customers by 2027.
...The requirement that companies disclose emissions from their supply chains and consumer use of their products and services, called “Scope 3” emissions in industry speak, has gotten the most pushback from industry. It pushes them to design products that pollute less and encourage suppliers to slash their own emissions. Scope 3 emissions typically make up the biggest chunk of a company’s carbon footprint, which is why environmental advocates have fought to include them in new rules.
...Just as the flu vaccine is updated every year to target the viruses likely to be circulating in the fall and winter, health officials say an updated COVID shot can help bolster people's waning immunity as we head into respiratory virus season.
...You'll get a boost in immunity within about two weeks after getting the shot that could reduce your risk of coming down with COVID – and that protection will likely last for a few months. It should also make you more likely to get a more mild case if you do get sick.
The boost in protection against severe disease – the kind of scary symptoms that can send you to the hospital – should last a lot longer. Exactly how long depends on a variety of factors including your immune system, your health, your age and your prior exposures to both the vaccines and infections. But for many people, the hope is the COVID shots can be annual, like flu shots.
"It will markedly increase your protection against getting very sick for about a year or so," says Dr. Robert Wachter, professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco.
Covid infections are putting people at higher risk of diabetes, strokes, heart disease and other long-term illnesses - but experts warn it may be decades before the full impact is known.
Several international studies - involving millions of people, mainly from before vaccines became widely available - found a Covid infection doubled the risk of developing heart disease and increased the chance of stroke 1.6 fold.
It was also associated with higher rates of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
"There are a lot of long-term sequelae to Covid that we don't really know yet and we may not know for years," Payinda said.
"Post polio syndromes were not identified for literally decades after polio infections. The same with the 1918 flu epidemic - people born during the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic had a two- to three-fold increased risk of later developing Parkinson's Disease."
The latest research showed vaccination halved the risk of cardiac problems post-infection, he said.
The first case that will be heard among the five that Donald Trump faces will be on Oct. 2, 2023, in Manhattan. But it won't be before a jury.
NBC News reported this weekend about the length of the upcoming Trump trials. But buried in the report was the revelation that Trump's lawyers checked the box on the forms to elect for a "bench trial" when it comes to Attorney General Letitia James' case against the Trump Organization, the ex-president and his heirs, who serve as vice presidents.
..."Donald Trump's lawyers screwed up again," trial lawyer Michael Popok said when talking about the development. "His then-lawyer Alina Habba screwed up the procedures in New York, didn't file the appropriate paper on time, and therefore, Donald Trump was properly denied a jury trial."
With her seat in danger, the Coloradan is starting to sound like a completely different person at home.
...Determined to head off another near-death electoral experience, Boebert has made a subtle, but unmistakable, shift in her strategy. She is surprisingly open about her parallel identities: the Washington firebrand when in D.C., and the bring-home-the-bacon pol in Colorado.
“I have these dual aspects of national and home,” Boebert told POLITICO as she sat outside the community center in this one-road town that runs parallel to the Colorado River.
Boebert’s opponent isn’t about to let her get away with cutting separate figures in Colorado and Washington.
“When you have the worst performing race in probably 20 years, you’re going to try to reset. And her team was trying to get her to reset,” Frisch said in an interview. “But it wasn’t that long ago that she was getting in a fight with Marjorie Taylor Greene on the floor about who was the first person to have a chance to impeach President Biden.”
The Big Three car companies have authorized $5 billion in stock buybacks over the past year.
Roughly 150,000 auto workers are preparing to launch what may be the biggest strike in decades this Thursday over their employers’ refusal to provide adequate pay and job security. Meanwhile, in the past twelve months, the Big Three automakers — General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis — have authorized $5 billion in stock buybacks, effectively giving billions of dollars to shareholders that could have gone to autoworkers.
On top of the stock buybacks, the Big Three have reported $21 billion in profits in just the first six months of 2023. Despite the enormous gains, the companies have cried poverty in response to union demands for wage increases to make up for decades of pay stagnation.
As part of its efforts to force the auto companies to spend more on their workers, the UAW has taken aim at the corporations’ stock buyback approach, in which companies repurchase their shares to drive up their short-term value. In their negotiations over a new contract, which expires on Thursday, the union proposed automatic payments to workers when the companies authorize buybacks or expand dividends.
...Last year, S&P 500 companies set records for stock buybacks, spending over $923 billion — far outpacing the $565 billion the top firms spent on dividends, which are profit-sharing payments made to shareholders. The U.S. government banned such stock buybacks as “market manipulation” until 1982, when President Ronald Reagan’s administration legalized them as part of his deregulatory “Reagan Revolution.” These expenditures, which artificially inflate value for shareholders, come at the cost of long-term investments that ensure a company’s ability to exist, including compensation for their workers.
Climate events coming up over the next week:
In this joint op-ed, mother and daughter climate activists say that this work should be a family affair.
This September, thousands of youth will march through the streets of Manhattan to call on President Biden to end the era of fossil fuels and declare a climate emergency. But will their parents join them?
As a mother and daughter who both spend our free time on climate activism, we are unusual in the climate movement: a teen climate organizer with Fridays for Future and a parent organizer with Climate Families NYC, under one roof. While one of us — Helen — organizes high school students for school climate strikes or heads to Albany to lobby for climate legislation, the other — Eliza — organizes parents of younger children to pressure elected officials and protest financial institutions that continue to fund new fossil fuel projects. We’ve found hope, purpose, and family closeness by doing this work alongside each other. But the reason we do climate organizing is that we’re both deeply worried about the future, disappointed, and angry.
Kids and teenagers are showing tremendous leadership facing the climate crisis. Frontline and Indigenous youth are leading fights against pipelines and drilling sites. Greta Thunberg sat outside the Swedish parliament each Friday and youth around the world followed suit, starting a global movement. Young people in Montana recently won a landmark climate case against the state government. Young people have founded lasting organizations like Sunrise Movement, Youth vs. Apocalypse, Zero Hour, Fridays for Future, Treeage and more. Teenagers around the world continue to organize protests that mobilize thousands of young people. They need and deserve support. They need parents and caregivers to show up, not just at their sporting events and graduations, but also in this critical moment for their futures and the future of humanity.
Next Week: Climate Week NYC
With just days to go until Climate Week NYC begins on September 18, Climate Group is proud to announce author and activist Jane Fonda and IPCC chair Jim Skea among the latest speakers set to share their insights on climate action at the Opening Ceremony and The Hub Live.
Climate Week NYC, organized by Climate Group in partnership with the UN General Assembly and the City of New York, brings together business leaders, political decision takers, local change makers and civil society representatives from all backgrounds to discuss how to accelerate climate action, fast. It kickstarts and drives international climate discussions throughout the fall, supporting the UNSG Climate Summit and the lead-up to COP28.
Click here to register for climate week – you can attend virtually or in person!
Check out Climate Week NYC ‘s online events calendar for a full list of events you can attend or view remotely.
Will YOU be joining the upcoming climate actions, either in person or virtually? Tell us all about it in the comments!