This is an open thread where everyone is welcome, especially night owls and early birds, to share and discuss the happenings of the day. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
The crew of the Overnight News Digest consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, jeremybloom, Magnifico, annetteboardman, eeff, rise above the swamp, Besame and jck. 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.
This'll be a quick one due to travel. Hope everyone at Netroots has a grand time!
The Senate voted Wednesday to confirm Tiffany Cartwright to a U.S. district court, making the 38-year-old civil rights attorney one of the youngest federal judges in the country.
Cartwright was confirmed, 50-47, to a lifetime seat on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. Every Democrat present voted for her, along with two Republicans: Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.)
The climate crisis has taken on new meaning in the Green Mountain State, which is fighting to hold oil giants accountable in court.
Almost two years ago, Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan stood in Burlington to announce that his office was suing Exxon, Shell, the American Petroleum Institute, and other oil and gas giants for decades of climate deception that delayed action and created costly and hazardous conditions for Vermont residents. The scale of those costs and hazards was brought into sharp focus this week when communities throughout Vermont were devastated by floods made worse by climate change.
For those who might not think the Green Mountain State is on the front lines of the climate crisis, the events of this week showed that no community is safe. Towns throughout Vermont received more than 8 inches of rain between Sunday and Monday, prompting catastrophic flooding that roared through tiny communities and into peoples homes. Water rescues and evacuations took place as roadways turned to rivers. By Tuesday morning, the state’s capital city of Montpelier was so inundated that people were kayaking downtown. Roads were so impassable that Governor Phil Scott had to hike to the state’s emergency response center. Then, a dam threatened to burst.
The funding, totaling about $377 million, included hundreds of millions of dollars for energy-efficiency rebates and electrification as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as money from the bipartisan infrastructure package.
As a federal mediator joins the fray, the performers' union could call a strike as soon as Thursday after its film and television contracts package expires at midniAfter weeks of speculation, the industry will finally learn whether Hollywood will see its first “double strike” in six decades some time Wednesday or early Thursday morning.
With SAG-AFTRA’s current film and television contracts package expiring at midnight on July 12, negotiators for both labor and management have one more day to reach a potential compromise or a performers’ strike could be called as soon as Thursday. A federal mediator has been brought in for the final day, after the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers made a last-minute request this week that SAG-AFTRA agreed to on Tuesday evening, even as the union said in a statement it suspected a “cynical ploy” to extend talks further was afoot.
(The union maintained that it will not accede to extending its contract’s deadline again, as both parties did on June 30 — meaning the federal mediator will have just a single business day to help the two sides come to an agreement on a number of open issues.)
Camelot it ain’t.
Page Six regrets to report that a press dinner to boost Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign devolved into a foul bout of screaming and polemic farting on Tuesday night.
...The gaseous exchange — to which Page Six bore reluctant witness — began after a guest asked Kennedy, founder of ecological organization Waterkeeper Alliance, about the environment.
And it seems that the mere inquiry was enough to set off apparently drunk gossip-columnist-turned-flak Doug Dechert, the host of the event, who became enraged and screamed at the top of his lungs: “The climate hoax!”
No need to go out of your way for a northern lights show that will not be anything special in Seattle or anywhere else this week.
Driving the news: A story that went viral about the aurora borealis being visible in 17 states due to a solar storm is not accurate, according to the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute that was widely cited as the source.
- The Geophysical Institute does not make aurora predictions, according to a statement sent to Axios from research associate professor Don Hampton, a space physicist at the Institute.
- Aurora predictions are issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center, but the current numbers for Wednesday and Thursday actually show relatively low levels of activity.
What are you hoping for this evening? Tell us in the comments! And please share your reports from Netroots Nation!