The Dallas Morning News
Runaway Texas Dems settle in for long exile with financial help from Beto O’Rourke, Willie Nelson
With financial help from the likes of Willie Nelson and Beto O’Rourke, and moral support from the White House, Democrats from the Texas Legislature spent their second full day on the lam pleading for congressional help on voting rights.
As they settled in for a month-long exile at a four-star hotel a few blocks from the White House, they also focused on liberal allies like Sen. Elizabeth Warren who already support the cause that prompted them to slip out of Austin on short notice Monday, bringing the Texas House to a screeching halt for lack of a quorum.
Some will meet Thursday with Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, one of two Democrats who resist eliminating the filibuster standing in the way of Democrat-backed voter protection bills.
No love lost between Cornyn, Cruz and the fugitive Texas Democrats
Democrats who fled Austin to halt action in the Texas House on elections legislation are imploring the U.S. Senate to adopt federal protections on voting rights. But they’re getting no sympathy from their home state senators, nor giving any.
“Work? You are shirking your responsibility in Austin for a boondoggle in DC,” Cornyn tweeted at state Sen. Royce West of Dallas, one of nine Democratic senators who joined state House colleagues in Washington.
On Fox News, Cruz mocked the Texas Democrats, whom Vice President Kamala Harris lauded as latter-day civil rights heroes.
The Atlantic
Biden Is Speaking to an America That Doesn’t Exist
Joe Biden is not known as a fiery orator, but the president was riled up yesterday.
Biden spoke in Philadelphia about voting rights, calling a current round of state laws and bills, plus rhetoric emanating from Donald Trump and others, “the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War.” The president defended the 2020 election, celebrating the record voter turnout, praising election officials who made sure voting was smooth, and rebutting attacks lodged by Trump and his aides, who have baselessly claimed that the election was stolen or marred by fraud. “No other election has ever been held under such scrutiny, such high standards,” Biden said. “The big lie is just that: a big lie.”
But the president’s main focus was the next election, which he warned was gravely threatened. “I’m not saying this to alarm you,” he said. “I’m saying this because you should be alarmed.” He added, “We have to prepare now.”
The question is, who is we?
Biden’s speech assumes a unified American people who support democratic norms, and it assumes that once they understand the threat posed to those norms, they’ll be willing and able to fend it off. That nation is a chimera. Many Americans support these attacks on democracy, and those who don’t face a system stacked against them.
Mother Jones
Biden Pushes for Voting Protections, But Not for Ending the Filibuster That Blocks Them
[…] Yet voting rights advocates say the White House’s rhetoric about the existential threat to democracy has not been matched by action to solve the problem. Biden, they complain, has been much more engaged in trying to pass an infrastructure plan than in trying to persuade Senate Democrats to pass the For the People Act, the sweeping voting rights measure that was blocked by a GOP filibuster last month. […]
Voting rights advocates and some leading Democrats specifically want Biden… to call for an end to the filibuster for voting rights legislation. This exemption from the 60-vote requirement would allow Democrats to approve the For the People Act through a simple majority vote—which is exactly how voter suppression legislation is passing in the GOP-controlled states. Voting advocates want Biden to press centrist Democratic senators, such as Joe Manchin of West Virginia, to reform the filibuster with the same energy he’s been lobbying them to back his infrastructure plan.
Yet so far there’s no indication that the White House will comply.
Houston Chronicle
Can Texas really arrest House Democrats after flight to D.C.? Yes. Here's how.
What started as a threat from the governor could become a promise.
After Texas House Democrats left the state Monday for Washington D.C. to deny Republicans the quorum needed to pass their controversial “election integrity” bill, Gov. Greg Abbott said in an interview with Austin TV station KVUE, if they don’t show up to vote in Austin, he will have them arrested. […]
It's not quite as simple as that, however.
As governor, Abbott cannot issue the warrant. That duty is reserved for the Speaker of the House, according to the Texas House of Rules.
Spanish rail giant tapped as operator of planned Houston-Dallas bullet train
A world leader in passenger rail will be the operator of a planned but still controversial Texas bullet train between Houston and Dallas — if the line is ever built.
Texas Central, developers of the proposed high-speed rail line, said Wednesday it signed an agreement with Spanish rail operator Renfe. The agreement formalizes Renfe as early operator of the system. Specifically, Texas Central said the company will assist in “design and development of the commercial aspects of the high-speed train system.” […]
Though Houston and Dallas officials support the project, it faces stiff opposition from rural landowners and lawmakers.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta court upholds CDC eviction moratorium
The federal appeals court in Atlanta on Wednesday upheld the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s nationwide freeze on most evictions due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The 2-1 opinion by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the landlords who brought the suit failed to do what they needed to do to strike down the moratorium: prove they have suffered an “irreparable injury” because of the freeze. […]
If the ban lapses, housing experts worry a deluge of evictions could be forthcoming.
Georgia Republicans center campaigns on false claims of election fraud
The organizers at the door handed out soft-pink “Trump Won” signs to each attendee. An out-of-state radio host spouted far-right conspiracies. Speaker after speaker insisted that Joe Biden couldn’t have won
November election and that Georgia couldn’t be a blue state. […]
This was no fringe group. Some of the biggest stars in the Georgia GOP were in attendance… Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene opened by telling the crowd, “I do not think Joe Biden won the election.” […]
The early maneuvering in races for statewide posts, including governor and secretary of state, have focused on debunked claims that voter fraud was rampant in Georgia last year.
The Philadelphia Inquirer
The election claim at the heart of Bill McSwain’s feud with Bill Barr came from Delco. And it’s been debunked.
The specific allegation of electoral misconduct that blew open the relationship between Bill McSwain and former Attorney General Bill Barr this week — and may have hurt McSwain’s gubernatorial prospects before he even launched his campaign — arose out of Delaware County and has since been debunked.
McSwain, the top federal prosecutor in the region during the 2020 election, complained in a letter released this week by former … Donald Trump that Barr ordered him not to make public statements about how the election was run. And he cited a directive from a top Justice Department aide to share “serious allegations” of fraud and election irregularities with state Attorney General Josh Shapiro.
Miami Herald
NOAA says South Florida is in for more high tide flooding in 2021
South Florida can expect even more days this year where the high tide keeps rising, causing flooding even on sunny days.
This prediction, while unsurprising for anyone familiar with sea level rise’s expected impact on the coastal region, is the conclusion of NOAA’s annual high tide flooding outlook, released Wednesday.
Last year, NOAA predicted that the Virginia Key tide gauge would record three to six flood days from May 2020 to April 2021. It recorded six.
ProPublica
Democratic Senators Call for Investigation of Tax Avoidance by the Ultrawealthy
Two prominent members of the Senate Finance Committee are calling for an investigation into tax avoidance by the ultrawealthy, citing ProPublica’s Secret IRS Files series.
In a letter sent today, Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) wrote to the committee’s chairman, Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), that the “bombshell” and “deeply troubling” report requires an investigation into “how the nation’s wealthiest individuals are using a series of legal tax loopholes to avoid paying their fair share of income taxes.” The senators also requested that the Senate hold hearings and develop legislation to address the loopholes’ “impact on the nation’s finances and ability to pay for investments in infrastructure, health care, the economy, and the environment.”
Boston Globe
July’s weather has been horrible from the get-go — why?
[…] If it never rained again the rest of the month, this will have been Boston’s third-wettest month in recorded history. The first 13 days of this month have brought more rain than many areas would see in nearly all the summer months combined. […]
The temperature is running over 4 degrees cooler than it was in June and while half of July is still ahead of us it’s unlikely we’re going to end up with a warmer-than-average month. […]
The jet stream is kind of clogged up… What we are observing is more of a flow from November or April, when blocks in the atmosphere leaving us with low clouds and drizzle for days on end… We’ve seen 240 percent more cloudiness then we would typically have during this one of the least cloudy months of the year.
The Guardian
Severe drought threatens Hoover dam reservoir – and water for US west
[…] The engineering might of Hoover dam undoubtably reshaped America’s story, harnessing a raucous river to help carve huge cities and vast fields of crops into unforgiving terrain. But the wellspring of Lake Mead, created by the dam’s blocking of the Colorado River and with the capacity to hold enough water to cover the entire state of Connecticut 10ft deep, has now plummeted to an historic low. The states of the west, primarily Arizona and Nevada, now face hefty cuts in their water supplies amid a two-decade drought fiercer than anything seen in a millennium. […]
Surveying the dam’s sloping face from its curved parapet, Michael Bernardo, river operations manager at the US Bureau of Reclamation, admits the scarcity of water is out of bounds with historical norms. While there is no “average” year on the Colorado River, Bernardo and his colleagues were always able to estimate its flow within a certain range.
But since 2000, scientists say the river’s flow has dwindled by 20% compared to the previous century’s average. This year is the second driest on record, with the flow into Lake Mead just a quarter of what would be considered normal… Nearly 40 million people, including dozens of tribes, depend on the river’s water.
Top US general warned of ‘Reichstag moment’ in Trump’s turbulent last days
Shortly before the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Mark Milley, told aides the US was facing a “Reichstag moment” because Donald Trump was preaching “the gospel of the Führer”, according to an eagerly awaited book about Trump’s last year in office. […]
Leonnig and Rucker report that Milley spoke to an “old friend”, who warned the general that Trump and his allies were trying to “overturn the government” in response to Joe Biden’s election victory, which Trump falsely maintains was the result of electoral fraud.
Milley is reported to have said: “They may try, but they’re not going to fucking succeed. You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with guns.”
Reportedly calling Trump supporters “Brownshirts”, a reference to paramilitaries who served Hitler in Germany in the 1930s, Milley is reported to have believed long before the Capitol attack that “Trump was stoking unrest, possibly in hopes of an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and call out the military”.
Detroit News
Judge denies media access to audio recordings from alleged Whitmer kidnap plotter
A U.S. magistrate judge has denied a request from several media outlets that sought audio linked to the case against a man accused of attempting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
But Western District Magistrate Judge Sally Berens granted the release of several photos and a video admitted during Delaware defendant Barry Croft's bond hearing in January.
Media were able to observe and report on each of the exhibits at the Jan. 13 bond hearing, which was "sufficient to satisfy the First Amendment," Berens wrote Tuesday.
The public's right of access to judicial records is "neither a constitutional right nor an absolute right," but one left to the "sound discretion of the trial court," the magistrate wrote.
Detroit Free Press
Michigan GOP executive who blamed Trump for election loss resigns leadership post
A Michigan Republican Party leader who faced grassroots pushback after saying the 2020 presidential election wasn't stolen and blaming … Donald Trump for the loss has resigned his position with the state party.
Jason Roe confirmed Wednesday he had stepped down as executive director of the state GOP, but declined to provide a specific reason for the decision.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
As the Third Precinct burned, Minneapolis police officers in another precinct destroyed case files
As an unruly crowd besieged Minneapolis' Third Precinct headquarters last summer, officers on the other side of the city destroyed a cache of documents, including inactive case files, search warrants and records of confidential informants.
In a private police report, Minneapolis officer Logan Johansson disclosed that he and other investigators in the Second Precinct decided to destroy the documents shortly after May 28 "in direct response to the abandonment of the Third Police Precinct in Minneapolis by city leadership."
If the Second Precinct fell, this sensitive information could wind up in the wrong hands, Johansson wrote. "The data contained in these files could put the lives of CIs or various other cooperating defendants at risk."
Drought fuels unusually high wildfire activity in Minnesota
[…] The 65-acre fire is the largest of four burning or smoldering across the Boundary Waters and Superior National Forest as soaring temperatures and persistent drought across Minnesota's crispy landscape fuel outbreaks. A fifth fire broke out Tuesday near Bemidji.
It's far from the conflagrations in the western United States. Still, Minnesota has tallied 1,634 wildfires since March that have burned 35,000 acres, according to the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
"We're way above our average," said Linda Gormanson, DNR burning permit coordinator. "All of the northwest side of the state is listed as very high fire danger right now."
Typically at this time of year Minnesota is sending firefighting resources to other states. The reverse is happening this year, with crews from other states helping out in Minnesota, said DNR forestry spokesman Anthony Hauck.
AP News
US to begin evacuating Afghans who aided American military
The Biden administration said Wednesday that it is prepared to begin evacuation flights for Afghan interpreters and translators who aided the U.S. military effort in the nearly 20-year war — but their destinations are still unknown and there are lingering questions about how to ensure their safety until they can get on planes.
The Operation Allies Refuge flights out of Afghanistan during the last week of July will be available first for special immigrant visa applicants already in the process of applying for U.S. residency, according to the White House.
Summer setback: COVID deaths and cases rising again globally
[…] The World Health Organization reported Wednesday that deaths climbed last week after nine straight weeks of decline. It recorded more than 55,000 lives lost, a 3% increase from the week before.
Cases rose 10% last week to nearly 3 million, with the highest numbers recorded in Brazil, India, Indonesia and Britain, WHO said.
The reversal has been attributed to low vaccination rates, the relaxation of mask rules and other precautions, and the swift spread of the more-contagious delta variant, which WHO said has now been identified in 111 countries and is expected to become globally dominant in the coming months.
The Salt Lake Tribune
Utah Sen. Mitt Romney says it’s ‘moronic’ for conservatives to politicize the COVID vaccines
Sen. Mitt Romney says the politicization of the coronavirus vaccines is “moronic.”
His comments come days after an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference gathering in Texas cheered that the U.S. fell short of President Joe Biden’s vaccination goal.
Romney called that reaction “grossly unfortunate” when asked Tuesday by reporters at the U.S. Capitol.
“After all, […] Trump and his supporters take credit for developing the vaccine,” Romney said, “why the heck won’t they take advantage of taking the vaccine they received plaudits for having developed?”
Trump-era policies entice Australian company to consider opening uranium mines in Utah
[…] In May, TNT Mines — an Australian zinc, gold and uranium mining company — acquired dozens of mining claims in the East Canyon uranium-vanadium project area, and according to a recent presentation to investors, the company is currently mapping the geology of the area.
The renewed interest in the region’s uranium deposits, TNT said in the presentation, is being driven by two major factors: East Canyon’s proximity to Energy Fuels’ White Mesa Mill near Blanding (the only conventional uranium mill operating in the United States) and policies implemented by … Trump that sought to boost domestic uranium production.
Although there are several fully permitted uranium mines in San Juan County, including Energy Fuels’ Daneros Mine near Bears Ears National Monument, they have remained mostly idle in recent decades due to low global uranium prices.
Inside Climate News
Planes Sampling Air Above the Amazon Find the Rainforest is Releasing More Carbon Than it Stores
Over the last several years researchers have said that the Amazon is on the verge of transforming from a crucial storehouse for heat-trapping gasses to a source of them, a dangerous shift that could destabilize the atmosphere of the planet.
Now, after years of painstaking and inventive research, they have definitively measured that shift.
In a study published Wednesday in Nature, a team of researchers led by scientists from the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research, reported results from measuring carbon concentrations in columns of air above the Amazon. They found that the massive continental-size swath of tropical forest is releasing more carbon dioxide than it accumulates or stores, thanks to deforestation and fires.
“There is no doubt that the Amazon is a source,” said Luciana Gatti, the lead author of the study.
Thawing Permafrost has Damaged the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and Poses an Ongoing Threat
Thawing permafrost threatens to undermine the supports holding up an elevated section of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, jeopardizing the structural integrity of one of the world’s largest oil pipelines and raising the potential of an oil spill in a delicate and remote landscape where it would be extremely difficult to clean up. […]
In response, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources has approved the use of about 100 thermosyphons—tubes that suck heat out of permafrost—to keep the frozen slope in place and prevent further damage to the pipeline’s support structure.
The Washington Post
As IRS audits waned, big businesses racked up unapproved tax breaks
Federal audits of corporate tax returns have plunged in recent years, letting big companies claim elaborate tax breaks with less government scrutiny, according to a Washington Post analysis of company filings.
Accounting rules permit businesses to claim tax breaks even if they are likely to be overturned by tax authorities, legal experts said. In the past, the Internal Revenue Service audited virtually every tax return filed by large corporations and rejected tax breaks it deemed inappropriate, data show.
But during the Obama administration, congressional Republicans moved to slash the IRS budget, shrinking the agency’s staff and straining its ability to conduct audits. As a result, the federal government now examines just half of all large company tax returns, despite businesses claiming increasing tax benefits over this period that they say could be overturned by authorities, according to regulatory filings, interviews with tax policy experts and data from the IRS and financial researcher Calcbench.
Cuba and Haiti upheaval could mean twin migration crises
For decades, the United States met asylum seekers from Cuba and Haiti with divergent attitudes: for Cubans, open arms, and for Haitians, return tickets.
The countries, the largest by population in the Caribbean, have seen distinct crises in vastly different political contexts. As Cuba faces its largest protests in decades, amid tough economic conditions, Haiti is grappling with the chaotic aftermath of the assassination of its president. But the Biden administration has delivered the people of both countries a uniform message: “Do not risk your life attempting to enter the United States illegally,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said during a news conference Tuesday. “You will not come to the United States.”
The briefing appeared to be the administration’s attempt to get out ahead of what some experts warn could become concurrent Caribbean migration crises.
CNN
US is running more than 30,000 radio ads a month to deter migration from Central America
The United States is running more than 30,000 radio ads a month in Central America to deter migration amid a renewed focus on the region and the root causes pushing people to journey north, a State Department spokesperson told CNN.
The ad campaign is designed to combat a range of factors driving migrants to the US-Mexico border, including misinformation spread by smugglers and the widespread belief among migrants that border enforcement has been relaxed under the Biden administration. Over recent weeks, several senior administration officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris, have visited the region in an attempt to instill hope and discourage migration to the US southern border.
Joe Manchin says he's 'very, very' disturbed about reconciliation proposals on climate change
"I know they have the climate portion in here, and I'm concerned about that," Manchin said moments after Biden met with Senate Democrats in the Capitol on Wednesday.
"Because if they're eliminating fossils, and I'm finding out there's a lot of language in places they're eliminating fossils, which is very, very disturbing, because if you're sticking your head in the sand, and saying that fossil (fuel) has to be eliminated in America, and they want to get rid of it, and thinking that's going to clean up the global climate, it won't clean it up all. If anything, it would be worse."
Los Angeles Times
Biden urges Democratic unity on rebuilding infrastructure, expanding social programs
President Biden on Wednesday tried to solidify a fragile coalition of Democrats to make progress on his massive infrastructure proposal that would both rebuild the nation’s roads and enact a broad array of social programs, such as new Medicare benefits, child-care assistance and immigration reform.
Biden visited Capitol Hill a day after a group of Democrats said their social program bill, which Democrats plan to enact on a strict party-line vote, would total $3.5 trillion.
Added to the approximately $600 billion earmarked for “hard infrastructure” that Biden hopes to enact on a bipartisan basis, the whole package would amount to $4.1 trillion in new spending over a decade.
“We’re going to get this done,” Biden said as he arrived for the Senate Democrats’ lunch in the Capitol.
Raging wildfires threaten American Indian tribal lands
Fierce wildfires in the Northwest are threatening American Indian tribal lands that already are struggling to conserve water and preserve traditional hunting grounds in the face of a Western drought.
Blazes in Oregon and Washington were among some 60 large, active wildfires that have destroyed homes and burned through close to 1 million acres in a dozen mostly Western states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
In north-central Washington, hundreds of people in the town of Nespelem on the Colville Indian Agency were ordered to leave because of “imminent and life-threatening” danger as the largest of five wildfires caused by dozens of lightning strikes Monday night tore through grass, sagebrush and timber.
San Francisco Chronicle
Dixie Fire explodes near Paradise, site of the devastating 2018 Camp Fire
Officials Wednesday warned residents of Pulga and east Concow in Butte County to prepare to evacuate as firefighters battled an out-of-control wildfire burning across about 1,200 acres in the Feather River Canyon near Highway 70.
Dubbed the Dixie Fire, the fire was first reported about 5:15 p.m. Tuesday above the Cresta Dam in Jarbo Gap. The fire’s northeastern push during its first 24 hours took the flames away from populated communities near Paradise and the Feather River Canyon, areas devastated by the 2018 Camp fire.
The Oregonian
‘I just packed up and ran’: Bootleg fire continues to spread in southern Oregon
Marc Valens has spent the past half-century building the Moondance Ranch on a piece of property in Beatty in Klamath County, near where the Bootleg fire began.
Valens was planning to celebrate the ranch’s 50th anniversary this year. Instead, he and his wife will spend it cleaning up debris left behind after the Bootleg fire ravaged the property, destroying what Valens spent the last five decades building. […]
“I just packed up and ran,” Valens said. “I could tell from the photo this is a monster already.”
California hatchery won’t release salmon into parasite-ridden Klamath River
This summer, for the first time in its 55-year history, Iron Gate Fish Hatchery will not release young salmon into the Klamath River.
Hatchery management cited the river’s exceptionally poor water quality and heightened fish disease risk as reasons for keeping hatchery smolts in captivity until conditions improve in the fall. […]
The decision comes on the heels of a staggering juvenile fish kill on the mainstem Klamath River that began in May. At one point, as many as 97% of sample salmon captured by fishery biologists from the Yurok Tribe were infected with the parasite C. shasta, and many of them were already dead.
NPR News
Extreme Heat Is Worse For Low-Income, Nonwhite Americans, A New Study Shows
As record-high heat hammers much of the country, a new study shows that in American cities, residents of low-income neighborhoods and communities of color endure far higher temperatures than people who live in whiter, wealthier areas.
Urban areas are known to be hotter than more rural ones, but the research published Tuesday in the journal Earth's Future provides one of the most detailed looks to date at how differences in heat extremes break down along racial and socioeconomic lines. […]
The study is the latest to show how climate change driven by human activity disproportionately harms people of color and those who are poor. The warming climate is making heat waves more frequent and intense. And even without heat waves, Americans can expect far more days over 90 degrees Fahrenheit than a few decades ago.
Drug Overdoses Killed A Record Number Of Americans In 2020, Jumping By Nearly 30%
More than 93,000 people died of a drug overdose in the U.S. last year — a record number that reflects a rise of nearly 30% from 2019, according to new data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Officials said the increase was driven by the lethal prevalence of fentanyl as well as pandemic-related stressors and problems in accessing care.
"This is the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a 12-month period, and the largest increase since at least 1999," Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told NPR.
Bloomberg
Anthrax, Grasshoppers, Dying Clams Show North American Heat Toll
Swarms of hungry grasshoppers are leaving little food behind for grazing cattle, shellfish are baking in coastal waters, baby birds are falling from trees and dormant anthrax is reawakening to threaten sheep.
Such calamities are the result of a record heat wave and bone-dry conditions that gripped western North America in the past month, threatening animals and undermining the livelihood of farmers. What’s happening in parts of the U.S. and Canada shows the damage climate change is wreaking on agriculture. […]
“The damage is going to get worse,” according to Kevin Wanner, associate professor of entomology at Montana State University, who said two straight years of dry weather swelled Montana’s grasshopper population to its biggest in about a decade. “They can appear suddenly one day and chew down a field.”
Al Gore Warns Greenwashing May Stop the Climate Fight In Its Tracks
Al Gore warned that the “the mounting threat of greenwash” poses a significant and increasing risk to a successful transition away from fossil fuels.
“There remains a yawning gap between long-term climate goals and near-term action plans” at both the corporate and government levels, the former U.S. vice president said, adding that the chasm encompasses more than just environmental issues. “Large emitters must increase their climate ambitions with renewed credibility and urgency. Likewise, developing countries urgently need substantial support on vaccine access, climate finance and debt relief.”
Deutsche Welle
EU proposes sweeping 'Fit for 55' emissions reduction plan
The European Commission has proposed a plan to reduce the EU's carbon emissions by 55% compared with 1990 levels by 2030.
The "Fit for 55" package comprises 12 legislative proposals aimed at hitting the target. The overarching goal is to make the EU carbon neutral by 2050 as part of the European Green Deal.
"We already have the goals," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters in Brussels at a press conference to announce the proposals. "We have a climate law which is underpinned by investment. With this proposal, we have the road map."
Apartments of 5 Berlin police officers searched for far-right links
Berlin police on Wednesday announced that it had raided apartments and rooms connected to five of its officers after it was found that they had shared racist and anti-government content in an online chat group with 12 members.
The officers were said to have distributed images and caricatures depicting racist, right-wing imagery as well as unconstitutional symbols.
The department said the operation had been "a success" and that evidence was currently being evaluated.
Al Jazeera
Taliban claims capturing key Afghan border crossing with Pakistan
The Taliban says it has captured the strategic border crossing of Spin Boldak along the frontier with Pakistan, continuing sweeping gains made since foreign forces stepped up their withdrawal from Afghanistan. […]
“The Taliban presence can be seen at Afghan border along with Pakistan in Chaman and no Afghan [government] forces are there at the Afghan border side,” local administration official Arif Kakar told Al Jazeera. […]
A video shot by a local witness and seen by Al Jazeera showed the Afghan government flag on the Spin Boldak side of the crossing had been replaced by the white flag of the Taliban, which refers to Afghanistan as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
‘Little to lose’: Poverty and despair fuel South Africa’s unrest
South Africa is facing its worst unrest in decades as protests over the jailing of former President Jacob Zuma have led to spiralling violence and looting.
At least 72 people have died in six consecutive days of violent clashes between police and protesters and in stampedes by looting mobs. More than 1,200 people have been arrested so far.
What initially started as a protest against the jailing of Zuma on Friday for contempt of court has mushroomed into grievances over inequality and poverty that have rocked the country.
EuroNews
Crops left to rot in England as Brexit begins to bite
Fruit and vegetables are being left to rot in England as Brexit deters migrants from taking up picking jobs. Farmers have told Euronews that restrictions to freedom of movement have had a "devastating" impact.
Brexit -- the effects of which kicked-in at the start of the year -- means hiring migrant pickers from eastern Europe is now much harder.
Barfoots of Botley, a farming company based on England's south coast near Bognor Regis, said 750,000 courgettes were being left to rot.
Protests in France over bid to restrict those without both COVID jabs
Thousands of people have demonstrated in France against plans to restrict restaurants and cultural spaces to those that have been vaccinated or have recently tested negative for COVID-19.
Police used tear gas to disperse the demonstrators in several French cities, including the capital city, Paris, and Lyon.
The measures, announced on Monday, were part of an attempt by President Emmanuel Macron to fight a new wave of infections and potential hospitalisations. “The more we vaccinate, the less space we leave this virus to circulate,” he said.
Reuters
U.S. Senate passes bill to ban all products from China's Xinjiang
The U.S. Senate passed legislation on Wednesday to ban the import of products from China's Xinjiang region, the latest effort in Washington to punish Beijing for what U.S. officials say is an ongoing genocide against Uyghurs and other Muslim groups.
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act would create a "rebuttable presumption" assuming goods manufactured in Xinjiang are made with forced labor and therefore banned under the 1930 Tariff Act, unless otherwise certified by U.S. authorities.
Passed by unanimous consent, the bipartisan measure would shift the burden of proof to importers. The current rule bans goods if there is reasonable evidence of forced labor.
U.S. House select committee announces first hearing to probe Jan. 6 attack
The special congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former … Donald Trump said on Wednesday it would hold its first hearing on July 27.
Members of the Democratic-led panel, known as the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, said in a statement the hearing would include testimony from U.S. Capitol Police officers. […]
Hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the building that day in an unsuccessful attempt to stop Congress from certifying Democratic President Joe Biden's election win. The violence left five dead, including a Capitol Police officer.
Vox
The five-day workweek is dead
The five-day workweek is so entrenched in American life… But there’s nothing inevitable about working eight hours a day, five days a week (or more). This schedule only became a part of American labor law in the 1930s, after decades of striking by labor activists who were tired of working the 14-hour days demanded by some employers. Indeed, one of the biggest goals of the American labor movement beginning in the 19th century was “an attempt to gain time back,” Erik Loomis, a history professor at the University of Rhode Island, told Vox.
And now, more than 15 months into the pandemic, there’s a growing conversation about how American workers can take back more of their time. The trauma and disruption of the last year and a half have a lot of Americans reevaluating their relationships to work, whether it’s restaurant servers tired of risking their safety for poverty-level wages or office workers quitting rather than giving up remote work. And part of that reevaluation is about the workweek, which many say is due for a reboot.
The New Yorker
Bill McKibben: We Need the “Whole-of-Government” Climate Fight That Biden Promised
Having had almost thirty-five years to come to terms with climate change, I’m used to the contours of our dilemma. Even so, the past two weeks have frightened me, both for what feels like a rapid acceleration in the pace of the planet’s heating and for what feels like a slowdown in a few key corners of the Biden Administration’s attempts to take its measure. […]
Congress is part of the whole-of-government approach, obviously, and even though everything there has to run through Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, who has expressed “grave concerns” that we might be moving too fast on projects such as electric vehicles, there are signs of real progress… Last week, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer even declared that gas is as much a problem as coal—a major step for the Democrats. So there’s progress but no guarantees. And the courts are part of the government, too—and a federal judge just struck down President Biden’s Day One effort to pause oil and gas leasing on public land.
To even things out, you’d need the executive branch hitting on every cylinder. Much credit to those in the White House who helped spur the Senate announcement, but there seem to be other corners of the Administration where the whole-of-government approach has not quite permeated.
Ars Technica
iOS zero-day let SolarWinds hackers compromise fully updated iPhones
The Russian state hackers who orchestrated the SolarWinds supply chain attack last year exploited an iOS zero-day as part of a separate malicious email campaign aimed at stealing Web authentication credentials from Western European governments, according to Google and Microsoft.
In a post Google published on Wednesday, researchers Maddie Stone and Clement Lecigne said a “likely Russian government-backed actor” exploited the then-unknown vulnerability by sending messages to government officials over LinkedIn.