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Democrat Mary Peltola wins special U.S. House election, will be first Alaska Native elected to Congress
Democrat Mary Peltola is the winner of Alaska’s special U.S. House race and is set to become the first Alaska Native in Congress, after votes were tabulated Wednesday in the state’s first ranked choice election.
Peltola topped Republican former Gov. Sarah Palin after ballots were tallied and votes for third-place GOP candidate Nick Begich III were redistributed to his supporters’ second choices. Peltola, a Yup’ik former state lawmaker who calls Bethel home, is now slated to be the first woman to hold Alaska’s lone U.S. House seat. […]
“What’s most important is that I’m an Alaskan being sent to represent all Alaskans. Yes, being Alaska Native is part of my ethnicity, but I’m much more than my ethnicity,” she said.
The Atlantic
Trump Can’t Hide From the Mar-a-Lago Photo
… so far, the federal government has been a step ahead of Trump at every turn.
The latest demonstration came in a filing late last night, in which prosecutors dramatically swept away the most recent excuses from Trump and his allies, who have insisted that the former president cooperated with the government and acted in good faith. The filing provides evidence that Trump and his team not only didn’t hand over all classified materials, but actively sought to conceal them by misleading the FBI. And a striking photograph, showing cover sheets with bold red block letters reading top secret // sci, preempts any claim that Trump might simply not have realized the documents were classified. […]
Using the dry language of legal filings, DOJ’s filing yesterday effectively calls Trump’s aides a passel of bald-faced liars: “That the FBI, in a matter of hours, recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the ‘diligent search’ that the former President’s counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter.”
ABC News
Cipollone, Philbin expected to appear Friday before federal grand jury probing Jan. 6
Two former top Trump White House lawyers are expected to appear Friday before a federal grand jury investigating the events surrounding Jan. 6, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and former deputy White House counsel Pat Philbin were subpoenaed by a federal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 election, ABC News reported last month.
The move to subpoena the two men has signaled an even more dramatic escalation in the Justice Department's investigation into the Jan. 6 attack than previously known. Members of former Vice President Mike Pence's staff have also appeared before a grand jury.
Politico
Judge again rejects Graham bid to throw out subpoena in Atlanta-area Trump probe
A federal judge has for the second time rejected Sen. Lindsey Graham’s effort to block a grand jury subpoena issued by the Atlanta-area district attorney investigating … Donald Trump and his allies’ effort to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.
In a 23-page order, U.S. District Court Judge Leigh Martin May ruled that the South Carolina Republican’s claim to be immune from such questioning — thanks to the protections of the so-called speech or debate clause of the Constitution — is not as sweeping as Graham claimed it to be. […]
"[T]he Court does not find that it can simply accept Senator Graham’s sweeping and conclusory characterizations of the calls and ignore other objective facts in the record that call Senator Graham’s characterizations into question,” May wrote.
She said she was “unpersuaded by the breadth of Senator Graham’s argument.”
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Ginni Thomas pressured Wisconsin lawmakers to change 2020 election result
In the days following … Donald Trump's loss in 2020, at least two Wisconsin lawmakers received an email from longtime conservative activist and wife to a U.S. Supreme Court justice Ginni Thomas urging the legislators to change the outcome of Wisconsin's presidential election, according to a new report.
Thomas, using an email program that allowed her to communicate with lawmakers on a mass scale, sent messages to Senate Elections Committee chairwoman Kathy Bernier and state Rep. Gary Tauchen, R-Bonduel, on Nov. 9, 2020, asking both to "take action to ensure that a clean slate of Electors is chosen for our state," according to The Washington Post and emails obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel under the state's public records law.
The Hill
Jan. 6 panel alleges Gingrich involvement with Trump efforts, seeks interview
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol is asking former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) to voluntarily sit with its investigators, claiming he advised the Trump team in the days after [his] loss in the 2020 election.
“Information obtained by the Select Committee suggests that you provided detailed directives about the television advertisements that perpetuated false claims about fraud in the 2020 election, that you sought ways to expand the reach of this messaging, and that you were likely in direct conversations with … Trump about these efforts,” the committee wrote in its letter to Gingrich.
NPR News
Oath Keepers attorney has been charged with conspiracy and obstruction of justice
An attorney for the far-right, anti-government group the Oath Keepers has been indicted in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Kellye SoRelle, who was arrested in Junction, Texas, is latest person with ties to the group to face charges stemming from the insurrection. A grand jury in Washington, D.C., handed up an indictment charging her with four counts, including conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding and obstruction of justice. […]
SoRelle is a lawyer and close associate of Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the Oath Keepers… SoRelle took up Rhodes' position as head of the group after he was charged, according to some reports.
BuzzFeed News
An Ex-NYPD Cop Who Stormed The Capitol And Attacked An Officer Has Been Sentenced To 10 Years In Prison
An ex-NYPD cop who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, making it the longest punishment to be handed down in connection with the riots so far.
"What you did that day, it is hard to really put into words," Judge Amit P. Mehta told Thomas Webster on Thursday, NBC News reported. "I still remain shocked every single time I see [video of the attack]."
The Nevada Independent
Cortez Masto and Sisolak hold slim leads, are losing Hispanic support, AARP poll finds
In Nevada’s high-profile races for governor and U.S. Senate, Democratic incumbents Gov. Steve Sisolak and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto hold narrow leads over their Republican challengers, according to a new AARP-commissioned poll focused on older and Hispanic voters and shared with The Nevada Independent.
In the Senate race, Cortez Masto leads Republican nominee and former Attorney General Adam Laxalt by less than 4 points (44 percent to 40 percent) — within the poll’s margin of error. In the gubernatorial race, Sisolak holds a 3-point lead over Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo (41 percent to 38 percent).
Despite those slim leads, the poll revealed shrinking margins of support from Hispanic voters for both Cortez Masto and Sisolak, who both relied heavily on the state’s Democratic-leaning Latino voting bloc during their most recent electoral wins.
Houston Chronicle
How the biggest Republican stronghold in Texas could cost Gov. Abbott his job
Beto O'Rourke invited them into the shade on a searing 100-degree summer day. He gave them cold water. And then, they gave him hell.
Greatly outnumbering his own supporters at Blodgett Park just miles from the Oklahoma border, protesters wearing Trump shirts and holding homemade signs quickly overwhelmed the El Paso Democrat's plans for a rally and charm offensive with shouts about their guns, their oil-based economy and the freedom to raise their cattle. […]
The rally never really got off the ground. […]
"We wanted to send him a message. He's not welcome here," said Gyene Spivey, the Republican Party chairwoman for Hansford County. "I wish he'd just go back down the road to El Paso."
The Washington Post
In fiercely contested Kherson, Ukraine pushes to retake occupied lands
Ukraine’s military has kept Ukrainians and the world guessing about the counteroffensive it claims to have launched in this Russian-occupied territory…
“It’s very risky here now,” said one soldier, who asked not to be identified by name or unit. “The Russians are very close and their weapons are not very precise. Their rockets can go anywhere.”
Kherson was the first strategically important city captured by Russia at the start of the invasion in late February, and the broader Kherson region helps form Russian President Vladimir Putin’s coveted “land bridge” to Crimea, which Russian invaded and annexed in 2014.
The Kyiv Independent
IAEA team finally arrives at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, intense battles continue across front line
Despite obstruction from Moscow, the UN-led International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission finally reached the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant on Sept. 1.
As the IAEA team of 14 experts headed through the battlefield to Europe’s largest nuclear plant, Russian forces began shelling the occupied city of Enerhodar and the pre-agreed route of the mission to the plant, Ukrainian authorities reported.
Later in the morning, one of the two operational reactors shut off due to Russian attacks near the plant and turned on the emergency protection, Ukraine's state nuclear company Energoatom reported.
While the mission’s road through occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia Oblast was far from safe, their arrival is seen as a sign of hope amid Russia’s ongoing nuclear blackmail.
CNBC
Lukoil chairman Ravil Maganov is the 8th Russian energy executive to die suddenly this year
The death of Ravil Maganov, chairman of the Russian oil giant Lukoil, at a hospital in Moscow on Thursday appears to mark the eighth time this year that a Russian energy executive has died suddenly and under unusual circumstances.
Maganov died after falling out of the window of the capital’s Central Clinical Hospital, according to the Russian state-sponsored news outlet Interfax. The circumstances of Maganov’s death were confirmed by Reuters, citing two anonymous sources.
But Lukoil, the company that Maganov helped to build, said the 67 year old had “passed away following a serious illness” in a press statement. The Russian embassy in Washington did not respond to a request from CNBC for an official statement.
Reuters
Gorbachev died shocked and bewildered by Ukraine conflict - interpreter
Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, was shocked and bewildered by the Ukraine conflict in the months before he died and psychologically crushed in recent years by Moscow's worsening ties with Kyiv, his interpreter said on Thursday.
Pavel Palazhchenko, who worked with the late Soviet president for 37 years and was at his side at numerous U.S.-Soviet summits, spoke to Gorbachev a few weeks ago by phone and said he and others had been struck by how traumatised he was by events in Ukraine.
"It's not just the (special military) operation that started on Feb. 24, but the entire evolution of relations between Russia and Ukraine over the past years that was really, really a big blow to him. It really crushed him emotionally and psychologically," Palazhchenko told Reuters in an interview.
Reuters
Putin denies Gorbachev a state funeral and will stay away
Russian President Vladimir Putin is to miss the funeral of the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, denying the man who failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet empire the full state honours granted to Boris Yeltsin.
EuroNews
Poland to demand €1.3 trillion from Germany in WWII reparations Access to the comments
The Polish government on Thursday estimated the financial cost of World War II losses under Nazi occupation at €1.3 trillion and said it would "ask Germany to negotiate these reparations".
"It's a significant sum of 6.2 trillion" zlotys, Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the ruling Law and Justice party, told a conference. He added the process of Poland's getting the reparations would be "long and difficult".
The sum was announced at the release of a report on the cost of years of Nazi German occupation. Some 30 historians, economists and other experts have been working on the document since 2017.
EU Observer
Eurozone inflation hits record, piling pressure on ECB
Inflation in the eurozone countries rose to another record high in August, putting more pressure on the European Central Bank (ECB) to raise interest rates significantly.
Consumer prices rose to 9.1 percent in the 19 EU members sharing the euro currency, from 8.9 percent in July, Eurostat, the bloc's statistics agency, said on Wednesday (31 August)…
The highest rates were recorded in Estonia at 25.2 percent, Lithuania 21.1 percent and Latvia with 20.8 percent hikes. Rates in Belgium, Greece, Spain, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia were all above 10 percent, Eurostat estimated.
Deutsche Welle
Uyghur community slams UN's China report as too little, too late
The United Nations has outlined "credible" reports of torture against Uyghur people in the region of Xinjiang. While for some it represents a "game changer," for others the long-awaited report is insufficient.
After waiting for almost a year, the United Nations Human Rights Office released the Xinjiang report on Wednesday, suggesting that China's large-scale internment and treatment of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in western China may amount to "crimes against humanity."
Human rights organizations have weighed in on the significance of this report, saying the findings expose the extent of harm that China has done to more than one million ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region. Others say the final results show why Beijing tried so hard to prevent the report from being released.
BBC News
Pakistan floods: Time running out for families in Sindh
People in southern Pakistan face yet more devastation after record floods blamed on climate change submerged a third of the country, killing more than 1,100 people.
A surge of water is now flowing down the Indus river, threatening communities in southern Sindh province.
Local officials say 1.2 million people have been displaced in Dadu district in Sindh, where hundreds of villages are submerged - and there is still more water coming. The military is evacuating the stranded by plane and many others by boat. Thousands more are still on the flood path and need to be moved - but there isn't much time.
Agence France-Presse via The Guardian
South African court bans offshore oil and gas exploration by Shell
A South African court has upheld a ban imposed on the energy giant Shell from using seismic waves to explore for oil and gas off the Indian Ocean coast.
The judgment delivered in Makhanda on Thursday marks a monumental victory for environmentalists concerned about the impact the exploration would have on whales and other marine life.
The 2014 decision granting the right for the “exploration of oil and gas in the Transkei and Algoa exploration areas is reviewed and set aside”, the high court ruled in the southern city.
Los Angeles Times
What the end of the Pelosi era could cost California
California could be on the cusp of losing one of the most effective national political allies it’s ever had.
Now in her second stint as House speaker, Nancy Pelosi has quietly and relentlessly promoted progressive California-backed policies on topics such as climate change, drought and healthcare. […]
She said in November 2020 that this would be her last term as speaker, though she has since distanced herself from that timeline. At 82, she is running for reelection in her San Francisco district, but some think she might retire after the midterm.
The prospect of Pelosi‘s departure has some Californians pondering what kind of power vacuum she will leave, and what it will mean for the state’s influence in Washington.
Dallas Morning News
Baristas steamed at Ted Cruz depiction as pothead slackers eager for handouts
Jacqueline Farias has spent the last five years as a barista at Merit Coffee in Highland Park while working her way through Texas Woman’s University.
It’s not unusual for 400 customers to pass through during a shift. That’s a lot of pouring, sweeping and wiping. Her psychology degree helps her cope with “adults throwing tantrums” but hasn’t opened doors to a job yet.
So she didn’t take kindly to being stereotyped by Sen. Ted Cruz as a lazy pothead whose vote could be bought by erasing some of her $53,000 in student loans. […]
To say that Cruz’s comments caught the attention of baristas nationwide would be a demitasse of understatement. They’re boiling mad.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Why Georgia Democrats are searching for votes in deep-red areas
As campaign events go, a recent gathering in this southwest Georgia town seemed a world apart from the glitzier events of bigger cities. A few dozen curious voters filled rows of folding chairs on the lawn outside a church to await Stacey Abrams’ arrival. […]
“I know folks paid a lot of attention to the numbers coming out of metro Atlanta. But I watched the numbers go up down here in southwest Georgia,” Abrams, speaking about vote totals in the past few election cycles, said to warm applause from the crowd.
“You’re the sneaky ones. Y’all went in there and boosted those numbers,” Abrams, running once again for governor, said. “And we’ve got to do it again.”
Behind in the polls, Abrams has been doing a lot of hunting for votes lately. In a race that could be decided by a sliver of the electorate, Democrats are anxious to cut the margins in overwhelmingly conservative territory far from the urban and suburban areas that form their base.
Detroit Free Press
Michigan abortion rights advocates ask state Supreme Court to put amendment on ballot
Supporters of a proposed amendment to the Michigan Constitution that would guarantee the right to an abortion asked the Michigan Supreme Court late Thursday to overrule a state regulatory board and put their measure on the ballot for the General Election this fall.
The move from "Reproductive Freedom For All", a coalition of abortion rights advocates, comes after the Michigan Board of State Canvassers failed to certify the language of the proposed amendment during a contentious meeting Wednesday. The four-person board deadlocked on whether to formally put the amendment on the ballot, voting 2-2 after debating questions of spacing, gibberish and legal authority.
"The Court should immediately adjudicate this case on an expedited basis because any delay may result in the RFFA ballot question being left off the ballot. Three quarters of a million Michiganders signed the RFFA petition—the most in Michigan’s history," reads part of the filing from the amendment supporters.
The Kansas City Star
Kansas certifies ‘historic’ primary results as top election official slams conspiracy theories
The Aug. 2 election in Kansas was the highest-turnout primary election in state history, Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab’s Office said Thursday as top officials met to formally certify the results, including the defeat of an amendment to remove abortion rights from the state constitution.
The unprecedented turnout in the Aug. 2 primary election was driven by extraordinary voter interest in the amendment, called Value Them Both by supporters, which would have overturned a 2019 Kansas Supreme Court decision that found the state constitution protects abortion access.
The Kansas State Board of Canvassers voted unanimously to certify the results of the amendment vote and every other state-level and congressional race at the end of a brief meeting in Topeka.
Bolt Magazine
The People Who Count Our Elections—or Can Grind the Process to a Halt
The 2020 election exposed more than any other how the mechanics of vote counting rely on a convoluted series of decisions by individual officials. Many are imbued with powers that, depending on how they wield them, can grind the machinery of democracy to a halt, as is made clear by the revelations about … Donald Trump’s plot to convince state and local officials to deny the results of the 2020 election. Even when their tasks are ceremonial, the system may still hinge on their operating in good faith and without desire to overturn an election.
Trump and his allies have only intensified their focus on this sea of decision-makers, building strength. The… election deniers are running for secretary of state or other critical local offices like county clerk and election judge, often with vows to intervene in upcoming elections; and local elections officials have faced persistent harassment from proponents of the Big Lie. […]
Today, Bolts is publishing an original database that details the local and state officials who are responsible for counting, canvassing, and certifying election results to help answer who in your local community is responsible for these tasks—and how and when they are selected.
The New York Times
The Pandemic Erased Two Decades of Progress in Math and Reading
National test results released on Thursday showed in stark terms the pandemic’s devastating effects on American schoolchildren, with the performance of 9-year-olds in math and reading dropping to the levels from two decades ago.
This year, for the first time since the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests began tracking student achievement in the 1970s, 9-year-olds lost ground in math, and scores in reading fell by the largest margin in more than 30 years.
The declines spanned almost all races and income levels and were markedly worse for the lowest-performing students. While top performers in the 90th percentile showed a modest drop — three points in math — students in the bottom 10th percentile dropped by 12 points in math, four times the impact.
Gothamist
Labor official recommends to preserve Amazon warehouse's union win on Staten Island
A National Labor Relations Board official has recommended that Amazon’s objections to a successful unionization vote at one of its Staten Island warehouses be rejected, and that the union be certified, officials said on Thursday.
Workers at the Staten Island warehouse known as JFK8 voted in favor of a union in a historic election in April. Soon after, Amazon sought to overturn the results, filing an objection with the NLRB claiming that organizers had used “objectionable, coercive, and misleading behavior,” to allure workers to vote “yes.”
Lisa Dunn, the hearing officer who presided over the proceedings in June, concluded that the union’s victory should be upheld and that the union be certified as bargaining representative, rejecting the objections in their entirety in the report, the NLRB said.
Bloomberg
Women Who Stay Single and Don’t Have Kids Are Getting Richer
[…] A growing cohort of women… are putting off motherhood or forgoing it entirely. As a result, many are advancing further in their careers than prior generations and entering a new frontier of wealth. Single women without kids had an average of $65,000 in wealth in 2019, compared with $57,000 for single, child-free men, according to new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. For single mothers, the figure was only $7,000.
Parenthood was losing its appeal even before Covid-19, and the hardship brought on by the pandemic appears to have accelerated the trend. A Pew Research Center study last year found that 44% of Americans age 18-49 who don’t have kids say it’s not too likely or not at all likely they will procreate someday—an increase of 7 percentage points from 2018.
US birthrates have been falling for the past 30 years as people get married later in life and put off having children. In 1990 there were about 71 births per year for every 1,000 women age 15 to 44. By 2019 that had dropped closer to 58 births, according to a Census Bureau analysis. At the same time, the share of women age 25 to 34 who don’t have kids reached a record in 2018, the most recent available in data going back to 1976.
Futurism
NASA Flew an MIT Device to Mars, Where It’s Been Cranking Out Breathable Oxygen for More Than a Year
A crewed trip to Mars will require… oxygen: how do you transport enough of the stuff to a planet some 140 million miles away, and what happens when it runs out?
NASA and MIT have been working on an answer, by way of a groundbreaking device — currently located on the Red Planet, notably — that's been generating breathable oxygen from Mars’ carbon-dioxide rich atmosphere since last year.
Known as the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE), the gadget has been churning out oxygen from aboard the Mars Perseverance rover, marking the first time resources on another planetary body have been collected and then transformed for use.
In a new study, published in the journal Science Advances with MIT researchers, NASA scientists found that even when subjected to different seasons, times of day, and atmospheric conditions, the lunchbox-sized MOXIE was able to produce six grams of oxygen per hour — the equivalent of a small tree.
The Guardian
Global fossil fuel subsidies almost doubled in 2021, analysis finds
Global public subsidies for fossil fuels almost doubled to $700bn in 2021, analysis has shown, representing a “roadblock” to tackling the climate crisis.
Despite the huge profits of fossil fuel companies, the subsidies soared as governments sought to shield citizens from surging energy prices as the global economy rebounded from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Most of the subsidies were used to reduce the price paid by consumers. This largely benefits wealthier households, as they use the most energy, rather than targeting those on low incomes. The subsidies are expected to rise even further in 2022 as Russia’s war in Ukraine has driven energy prices even higher.
Mississippi Clarion Ledger
What Jackson residents still want to know days into the city's water crisis
Days into a water crisis that left more than a hundred thousand people without water in Mississippi's capital city, there are still a number of questions left unanswered.
Chief among them: when will water pressure stabilize, leaving the city with consistent, though still undrinkable, running water.
There is no set timeline for water pressure returning to normal for all Jackson residents. City of Jackson officials say the situation improved overnight Wednesday and into Thursday morning. More than half of the city's water tanks, many of which emptied entirely over the last few days, have begun filling back up, according to a news release from city spokesperson Justin Vicory.
NBC News
The nation's poorest state used welfare money to pay Brett Favre for speeches he never made
Brett Favre earned nearly $140 million as a star NFL quarterback over two decades and millions more in product endorsements.
But that didn’t stop the state of Mississippi from paying Favre $1.1 million in 2017 and 2018 to make motivational speeches — out of federal welfare funds intended for needy families. The Mississippi state auditor said Favre never gave the speeches and demanded the money back, with interest.
Favre has repaid the fees, although not the $228,000 in interest the auditor also demanded. But the revelation by the auditor that $70 million in TANF welfare funds was doled out to a multimillionaire athlete, a professional wrestler, a horse farm and a volleyball complex are at the heart of a scandal that has rocked the nation’s poorest state, sparking parallel state and federal criminal investigations that have led to charges and guilty pleas involving some of the key players.
Mongabay
Blazing start to Amazon’s ‘fire season’ as burning hits August record
Towns in the Brazilian states of Amazonas and Pará have experienced a recent bout of skies overcast with thick clouds of smoke, the result of fires raging in the Amazon Rainforest. The forest fires peaked in the last few weeks after hitting a new historical record. For the month of August, there were 33,116 fires in the Amazon, according to INPE, Brazil’s national space research institute. That’s the highest number for the month since 2010, with the largest concentration of burning in the southern region of the biome.
On Aug.22 alone, as President Jair Bolsonaro was declaring in a television interview with the Globo network that Brazil’s reputation as a forest destroyer was unwarranted, more than 3,300 fire alerts were recorded in 24 hours, the worst single-day tally in 15 years. It was three times as many as during the infamous “Day of Fire” on Aug.10, 2019, which became a milestone in the history of the destruction of the rainforest. On that occasion, farmers in Pará colluded to start illegal fires in several spots across the region.
Record-breaking fires have become business as usual in recent years, particularly under Bolsonaro, who took office at the start of 2019. His administration has been marked by decade-high spikes in deforestation rates and fires in the Amazon. In June this year, for example, the Brazilian Amazon saw the highest number of fires for the month since 2007, with 2,562 major fires detected — an increase of 11% over June 2021. There were no new records broken in July, though the 5,373 fires reported were still up by 9% from July 2021.
The Washington Post
Costs of climate change far surpass government estimates, study says
The economic toll of deadly heat waves, crop-killing droughts and rising seas that each additional ton of carbon dioxide levies on society is much higher than the U.S. government tallies when considering new regulations, according to a new analysis published Thursday.
A sobering paper in the journal Nature on the damage caused by climate change brings into relief the threat that higher temperatures pose on the lives and livelihoods of millions of people at home and overseas.
The research team’s key finding: Each additional ton of carbon dioxide that cars, power plants and other sources add to the atmosphere costs society $185 — more than triple the federal government’s current figure.
The new study calculating climate change’s economic toll — known as the “social cost of carbon” — could renew pressure on President Biden to hike the federal government’s own estimate, a crucial number used by officials when assessing the potential costs and benefits of government regulations.
Ars Technica
Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused
[…] This week, an investigation from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Associated Press—supported by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting—has made public what could be considered local police's best-kept secret. Their reporting revealed the potentially extreme extent of data surveillance of ordinary people being tracked and made vulnerable just for moving about small-town America.
Reports showed how police in nearly two dozen agencies—one record shows the total figure could possibly be up to 60—use Google Maps-like tech called Fog Reveal. Licensed by Fog Data Science, Fog Reveal gives state and local police power to surveil what the company's marketing materials claimed in 2019 amounts to "hundreds of billions of records from 250 million mobile devices."
EFF found that Fog Reveal draws its data from Venntel, the same data source the feds use. Although neither company disclosed the nature of their business relationship to AP or EFF, it appears that because of their partnership with Venntel, Fog Reveal provides location data services to local police at a steep discount. This makes it more affordable for smaller police agencies and private security companies to access broad swaths of data and trace devices across months or even years.