The Washington Post
Two generations of humans have killed off more than half the world’s wildlife populations, report finds
Human activity has annihilated wildlife on a scale unseen beyond mass extinction, and it has helped put humans on a potentially irreversible path toward a hot, chaotic planet stripped clean of the natural resources that enrich it, a new report has concluded.
Populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians have declined by 60 percent since 1970, according to a report released Monday by the advocacy group World Wildlife Fund. The animals that remain will fight against warming oceans choked with plastic, toppled rain forests may zero out fragile species, and refuges such as coral reefs may nearly die off.
That will transform life as humanity knows it, said Carter Roberts, the chief executive of the WWF in the United States, if societies do not reverse course to protect the food, water and shelter needed for survival.
Startling new research finds large buildup of heat in the oceans, suggesting a faster rate of global warming
The world’s oceans have been soaking up far more excess heat in recent decades than scientists realized, suggesting that Earth could be set to warm even faster than predicted in the years ahead, according to new research published Wednesday.
Over the past quarter-century, Earth’s oceans have retained 60 percent more heat each year than scientists previously had thought, said Laure Resplandy, a geoscientist at Princeton University who led the startling study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The difference represents an enormous amount of additional energy, originating from the sun and trapped by Earth’s atmosphere — the yearly amount representing more than eight times the world’s annual energy consumption.
In email to Trump’s campaign strategist, Roger Stone implied he knew of WikiLeaks’s plans
Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to President Trump, sent an email to Trump’s chief campaign strategist in October 2016 that implied that he had information about WikiLeaks’s plans to release material that would be damaging to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
In an email to Stephen K. Bannon on Oct. 4 — days before WikiLeaks began releasing emails hacked from the account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta — Stone said that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange feared for his personal safety but would nevertheless be releasing “a load every week going forward.”
Stone posted the exchange with Bannon on Thursday in a column on the Daily Caller website, shortly before the New York Times published a story describing the message.
Slate
Federal Judge Allows North Dakota Republicans to Block Native Americans From Voting
A federal judge rejected on Thursday a lawsuit brought by Native American voters disenfranchised by North Dakota’s draconian voter ID law. The decision likely means that hundreds, perhaps thousands of citizens will not be able to cast a ballot in November because they live on reservations.
Following Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp’s narrow victory in 2012, North Dakota’s Republican lawmakers passed a new law requiring voters to present an ID that lists their current residential street address. The measure plainly targeted Native Americans, many of whom live on rural reservations with no street names or residential addresses. Previously, residents could vote with a valid mailing address, allowing rural tribal voters to list their P.O. Box. Now they must provide an ID with their exact residency—something that many Native Americans don’t have and can’t get.
For that reason, U.S. District Judge Daniel L. Hovland halted this requirement in April, citing its “discriminatory and burdensome impact on Native Americans.” But the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision in September, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to reinstate Hovland’s ruling. (Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan dissented.) On Tuesday, a group of Native Americans returned to court with a new lawsuit demonstrating that the residential address rule did not merely burden their right to vote; it denied them access to the ballot altogether. Their suit explained how tribal voters simply could not obtain a residential address: The state’s mapping systems conflict with each other, as do the state’s different residency databases, meaning many voters cannot secure an official address in time for the election.
The Political Power of Fed-Up Teachers
Vanessa Arredondo began her teaching career five years ago in Phoenix with about 30 students in her second-grade class and a list of supplies she had to pay for out of her own pocket. In her first year, she watched veteran teachers quit out of frustration or desperation, leaving behind their overstuffed classes to ill-equipped substitutes. Four years later, she moved to a school in the border county of Yuma, Arizona, and again she found students learning with old books and a long-outdated curriculum. She now teaches third grade at a school in rural La Paz County, in the middle of the desert, where the school week runs from Monday to Thursday, mainly to keep the lights on.
Arredondo, 26, joined the headline-grabbing, weeklong walkout in April, part of an unprecedented wave of teacher activism in red states across the country. She didn’t consider herself very political—she hadn’t even voted until the 2016 election—but she had seen how desperate her fellow teachers had become. Her political awakening came in the gallery of the state Senate, where she watched the Legislature try to pass a budget. As senators bickered over details of the bill, Arredondo was shocked to see Republicans strike down pro–public education amendments proposed by Democrats, as if more than 50,000 teachers and supporters hadn’t just swept around the Capitol in the largest outpouring of support for education in the state’s history.
BBC News
Palau to ban sunscreen products to protect coral reefs
Palau is set to become the first country to impose a widespread ban on sunscreen in an effort to protect its vulnerable coral reefs.
The government has signed a law that restricts the sale and use of sunscreen and skincare products that contain a list of ten different chemicals. Researchers believe that these ingredients are highly toxic to marine life, and can make coral more susceptible to bleaching.
The ban comes into force in 2020. In a statement, Palau's President Tommy Remengesau said the ban, which would see fines of $1,000 (£760) for retailers who violated the law, was timely.
US indictment accuses Chinese firm of stealing trade secrets
The US justice department has indicted three individuals and two companies based in China and Taiwan for allegedly stealing a US company's trade secrets.
This is the fourth economic espionage case the department has brought against Chinese-based companies and individuals since September. The department has filed a civil suit against the two companies as well. […]
The indictment alleges that the companies and the three individuals conspired to steal trade secrets from Micron, a US semiconductor company worth $100bn.
Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro makes top judge Sergio Moro justice minister
Brazil's far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro has convinced prominent anti-corruption judge Sergio Moro to lead the country's justice ministry.
Mr Moro said on Thursday it was an "honour" to be asked to be the minister overseeing justice and public security. But his appointment is likely to fuel allegations that his high-profile anti-fraud probe was politically motivated.
Operation Car Wash, as his inquiry was known, was accused of unfairly targeting left-wing politicians.
Deutsche Welle
Angela Merkel's potential successors: What is their foreign policy?
It's been a long time since the 1,000 or so delegates of Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) have had this much power. They are about to choose who will succeed the German chancellor as head of the party.
The appointee will almost certainly run as candidate for chancellor at the next federal electrions in 2021 for Germany's major center-right party. Given that the CDU is still the biggest party in the country, the next party leader could well be the next German leader. […]
[They are: Friedrich Merz, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, and Jens Spahn.]
US Justice department charges Malayisan financier and Goldman Sachs bankers
The US Justice Department announced charges on Thursday against a fugitive Malaysian financier and two former Goldman Sachs bankers. […]
A three-count indictment charged Low Taek Jho, also known as Jho Low, with misappropriating money from the state-owned fund. He is accused of using it for bribes and kickbacks to foreign officials, to pay for luxury real estate, art and jewelry in the United States and helping to finance Hollywood movies, including "The Wolf of Wall Street."
Also charged was Tim Leissner, a former Goldman Sachs banker, who pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy and to conspiring to violate foreign bribery laws.
Another former Goldman official, Ng Chong Hwa, 51, also known as Roger Ng, was arrested earlier Thursday in Malaysia and accused of circumventing internal accounting controls, prosecutors said.
UK investigates biggest Brexit funder Arron Banks
Britain's National Crime Agency on Thursday said it had launched a criminal investigation into the pro-Brexit millionaire Arron Banks over cash used to promote Britain's exit from the European Union.
The UK Electoral Commission said it suspected that Banks "was not the true source" of money loaned to the Leave campaign, and that he had tried to conceal its real origins.
The commission said it had investigated financial transactions which appeared to come from companies registered in Gibraltar and the Isle of Man. Since 2000, UK laws have effectively forbidden overseas or foreign donations to registered political campaigners.
Reuters
Ocean Shock: Bulldozed by shrimp in Borneo
Swinging his machete with an economy of movement that only the jungle can teach, Matakin Bondien lopped a stray branch from the path of his boat. He hopped barefoot from the prow, climbed a muddy slope and stared once more at what he’d lost.
Not long ago, the clearing had been home to mangroves, saltwater-loving trees that anchor a web of life stretching from fish larvae hatching in the cradle of their underwater roots to the hornbills squawking at their crown. Now the trees’ benevolent presence was gone, in their place a swath of stripped soil littered with felled trunks as gray as fossils.
“Do you think we can find any food in this place now?” asked Bondien, a village leader of the Tombonuo people. “The company thinks it can do anything it wants — that we don’t count.”
The company is Sunlight Inno Seafood. Owned by Cedric Wong King Ti, a Malaysian businessman known as “King Wong,” it has bulldozed swaths of mangroves in the Tombonuo’s homeland in northern Borneo to make space for plastic-lined ponds filled with millions of king prawns. The shrimp are destined to be fattened for three months, scooped up in nets, quick frozen, packed into 40-foot refrigerated containers and loaded onto cargo ships bound for distant ports.
U.S. Senator Manchin's social media accounts hacked: statement
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin was notified his social media accounts had been hacked, his office said on Thursday, amid U.S. government warnings of attempts to interfere in next week’s congressional elections. […]
U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies have warned that Russia, China, Iran and other foreign entities are also trying to interfere in the upcoming vote. Separately, the U.S. government indicted a Russian woman for conspiring to interfere with the Nov. 6 elections.
It was not immediately clear when Manchin’s accounts were hacked or by whom. It was also unclear what, if anything, had been done with the accounts when they were hacked.
U.N. urges end to U.S. embargo on Cuba, U.S. raises rights concerns
The United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted its 27th annual resolution calling for an end to the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba after a failed bid by Washington to amend the text to push Cuba to improve its human rights record.
The U.N. vote can carry political weight, but only the U.S. Congress can lift the more than 50-year-old embargo. The United States and Israel voted against the resolution, 189 countries voted in favor and Ukraine and Moldova did not vote.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told the General Assembly that the resolution was an opportunity for countries “to feel they can poke the United States in the eye.”
The Sydney Morning Herald
Temperatures to soar in Sydney on Friday, prompting total fire ban
The large pool of heat that has been baking inland Australia will reach the east coast of NSW on Friday, pushing the mercury towards the 40-degree mark and prompting authorities to declare total fire bans for Sydney, the Illawarra and the Hunter. […]
Australia was "exceptionally warm" last month, with mean temperatures 1.83 degrees above the 1961-90 average, making it the fourth warmest October on record, the bureau said.
Minimum temperatures were the second warmest on record, behind only 2015.
Australian war ships will make port visits to an enlarged naval base on Papua New Guinea, expanding the Navy’s presence to Australia’s north as concerns rise over Chinese interest in the region.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison revealed on Thursday afternoon he had signed an agreement with PNG counterpart Peter O’Neill for a joint redevelopment of the naval base at Lombrum, Manus Island.
Australia is expected to pay for much of the upgrade — a signal of the government’s eagerness to hold onto its status as PNG’s preferred security partner rather than risk having Beijing step in and fill the role.
TIME
China's Internet Censorship Is Influencing Digital Repression Around the World, Report Warns
Internet freedom around the world declined this past year, thanks in part to China’s efforts to export its digital surveillance standards, according to a new report from watchdog Freedom House.
The group’s 2018 Freedom on the Net report found that overall internet freedoms declined for the eighth consecutive year as governments ramped up collection of user data and wielded repressive “fake news” laws to silence dissent. Freedom House found 26 of the 65 countries covered in the annual report demonstrated diminishing web freedoms, including the U.S.
“Democracies are struggling in the digital age, while China is exporting its model of censorship and surveillance to control information both inside and outside its borders,” said Freedom House president Michael J. Abramowitz.
The report cited how social media hate speech, rumors and propaganda helped fuel deadly violence this past year in Myanmar, India and Sri Lanka.
Bloomberg
Trump Says U.S. Military May Fire on Migrants Who Throw Rocks
Donald Trump said U.S. soldiers on the border with Mexico may fire on migrants who commit violence and that people who cross into the country illegally would be detained in “massive” tent cities, as he sought to rev up his base ahead of elections next week.
In a speech at the White House on Thursday, Trump ratcheted up his attacks on the migrants, insisting without evidence that the impoverished families walking toward the U.S. are violent invaders who will endanger Americans’ safety if they’re allowed into the country. […]
While Trump tried to portray the caravans as a “crisis,” the closest group is still hundreds of miles from the U.S. border.
What If Maxine Waters Takes the Gavel and Wall Street Loves It?
For months, bank stock watchers have warned Representative Maxine Waters might call for tougher regulations and hold harsh hearings, target penalty-box bank Wells Fargo & Co. and security-breaching Equifax Inc., and go after President Donald Trump’s lenders, if she were to take control of the House Financial Services Committee.
On Wednesday, signs began emerging that Wall Street might be warming up to Waters who, as the ranking member on the committee in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, is the likely committee chair if the Democrats take over the House in next week’s midterm elections. Fox Business Network’s Charles Gasparino sent out a soothing tweet: “People close to Waters say she will have a constructive relationship w banks.” Raymond James analyst Ed Mills wrote that Waters’s potential chairmanship poses “more headline risk than actual negative impact,” even given Waters’s “national profile” and her reputation as a liberal Democrat.
And, for the first time in a decade, the securities and investment industries are spending more on Democrats than Republicans ahead of the Nov. 6 midterm elections.
Senate Panel Seeks FBI Briefing on Super Micro Hacking Report
A U.S. Senate committee asked the FBI and Department of Homeland Security for a classified briefing on a report saying China’s intelligence services used subcontractors to plant malicious chips in Super Micro Computer Inc. server motherboards.
The Homeland Security panel asked for officials to appear before the panel by Oct. 25 in response to a Bloomberg Businessweek report. The agencies are processing the request and the panel hasn’t yet been briefed, according to a committee spokesman.
“To fully understand the accuracy of public reports about the potential cybersecurity and supply chain threat, we respectfully request that DHS and FBI provide a classified briefing with the appropriate subject-matter expert,” according to an Oct. 16 letter from the panel’s chairman, Republican Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and top Democrat, Claire McCaskill of Missouri.
The Guardian
'It's a ghost page': EPA site's climate change section may be gone for good
More than a year after the US Environmental Protection Agency took down information on climate change from its website for an “update”, it now seems uncertain whether it will ever reappear.
In April last year, the EPA replaced its online climate change section with a holding page that said the content was being updated to “reflect the agency’s new direction under… Donald Trump”.
Information previously found at epa.gov/climatechange made it clear that human activity was warming the planet, resulting in harm to Americans’ health as well as crucial ecosystems on which humans depend.
Trump climate plan will break law by worsening pollution, states say
Environmentally minded US states say the Trump administration’s biggest climate change rollback could increase pollution, violating federal law, according to a preview of how they will fight the federal government.
The Environmental Protection Agency is moving to replace Barack Obama’s clean power plan, a rule that would have hastened the US shift away from electricity produced from burning coal. […]
The 14 states opposing the EPA rule say that it means pollution could end up higher than if the agency hadn’t written a new rule at all.
Bolton praises Bolsonaro while declaring ‘troika of tyranny’ in Latin America
John Bolton has welcomed Brazil’s far-right president-elect Jair Bolsonaro as a “positive sign” for Latin America as he hailed a new ally against what Bolton called a “troika of tyranny”: Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
In a speech in Miami on Thursday, the US national security adviser announced new sanctions against Venezuela and Cuba, including a ban on US citizens taking part in trade in Venezuelan gold. Bolton also added over two dozen entities owned or controlled by the Cuban military and intelligence services to a sanctions blacklist.
Bolton was speaking a few days before midterm elections in which the diaspora from Cuba and other Latin American states represent an important part of the Florida electorate.
The Los Angeles Times
Republican candidates say they would protect sick Americans but fight coverage for poorest patients
Even as embattled Republican candidates across the country pledge to protect Americans with preexisting medical conditions, nearly all continue to resist extending health protections to their poorest constituents.
Republicans running for governor in states that have not expanded Medicaid to low-income adults through the Affordable Care Act almost universally oppose any coverage expansion through the government safety net program. […]
Facing a barrage of attacks from Democrats for voting to scrap the 2010 healthcare law, often called Obamacare, Republican candidates in recent weeks have insisted they, in fact, have championed protections for patients with preexisting conditions.
But the wall of GOP resistance to Medicaid coverage risks undercutting that effort as well as leaving millions of low-income Americans in states from Florida to Texas to Wyoming without access to health insurance or regular medical care until at least the next election.
Bullet train project scores possible victory in civil suit seeking to block bond money
The California bullet train appears to have fended off a civil suit attempting to stop the project, inching the high-speed rail line toward what could be another in a series of legal victories.
A case brought by opponents seeking to stanch the flow of bond dollars to the project was dealt a blow in a tentative ruling Thursday by Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Richard K. Sueyoshi, though arguments Friday put off a final ruling. A final decision could take three months.
The case, brought by almond farmer John Tos, Kings County and other groups, asserts that legislation that clarified the 2008 $9-billion high-speed rail bond was an unconstitutional modification of a voter-approved act.
Mexico's president-elect looks to calm fears after economic fallout over airport cancellation
Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday sought to reassure edgy investors and business leaders alarmed about his controversial decision to cancel the capital’s $13-billion airport project — a move that sent the peso plummeting, roiled financial markets and enraged much of the country’s impresario class. […]
Lopez Obrador had reached out to Mexico’s business community following his landslide election victory in July, signaling a conciliatory and pragmatic posture that calmed markets and eased fears stirred by his often-fiery leftist oratory.
But much of that reassurance seemed to evaporate after he declared on Monday that he would scrap the airport project after a national vote that was organized by his supporters and saw only a tiny slice of the electorate cast ballots.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Winfrey sees ‘chance to make history’ in campaigning for Abrams in Ga.
Oprah Winfrey said she decided to travel to Georgia because of a chance to make history. She had been watching the gubernatorial campaign from afar and decided three days ago to offer support to Democrat Stacey Abrams.
“Nobody paid for me to come here,” she said to a cheering crowd during the morning stop in Cobb County. “No one even asked me to come here. I paid for myself, and I approve this message.”
There were no warmup acts or opening speeches at two events, campaign rallies that also had elements of the one-on-one interviews that made Winfrey a media icon. Between events at the Anderson Theatre in Marietta and Porter Sanford Performing Arts Center in Decatur, Winfrey also joined campaign volunteers in knocking on doors.
Houston Chronicle
U.S. becomes world’s largest oil producer; global oversupply concerns cause oil price to drop
The United States became the world’s largest oil producer in August, the Energy Department said Thursday, but the milestone spurred another sharp drop in oil prices as markets reacted skittishly to the prospect of growing crude supplies amid a global economic slowdown.
The Energy Department reported that America’s crude output hit a record 11.3 million barrels a day in August, pushing past the Russian Ministry of Energy's August estimate that Russia's production was 11.2 million barrels a day. U.S. production grew by more than 400,000 barrels, or nearly 4 percent, from July’s output of 10.9 million barrels a day, the Energy Department said.
That jump in production — even as pipeline shortages have slowed development in the booming Permian Basin in West Texas — helped drive crude to its lowest level since April, adding to slide that has lopped 17 percent from oil prices since they hit a recent peak above $76 a barrel in early October. On Thursday, crude lost 2.5 percent, settling at $63.69 a barrel in New York.
Dallas Morning News
O'Rourke pulls race to statistical tie
With time running out and fresh polls showing the race back to a statistical dead heat, Sen. Ted Cruz stumped Thursday in Pampa, a rural Republican stronghold in the Texas Panhandle that doesn't see many statewide politicians.
Voters were pleased to see him, though many confessed some puzzlement as to why he would bother -- or need to bother -- with just five days remaining before Election Day. […]
Cruz certainly needs to drum up every vote he can. Rep. Beto O'Rourke has been drawing huge crowds in the big cities and the Rio Grande Valley. He's raised a record-smashing $70 million, compared to about $30 million for Cruz. And a flurry of polls in the last few days show the Democrat has halted any momentum Cruz gained after their two debates.
StarTribune
PolyMet mine gets green light from Minnesota regulators
State regulators on Thursday gave PolyMet Mining Corp. the green light to move forward with a $1 billion copper/nickel mine near the Iron Range, nearly completing one of the longest and most contentious environmental reviews in Minnesota’s history.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) said it has issued a set of long-awaited permits PolyMet needs to proceed with the 6,000-acre open-pit mine, tailings basin and processing plant at the former LTV taconite site near Hoyt Lakes. It includes a financial assurance plan that would eventually peak at more than $1 billion to protect taxpayers against future cleanup costs and accidents, and pay for a water treatment plant that would operate for decades after the mine closes. […]
The project, however, still needs water and air quality permits from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, which typically would require it to launch within five years, and a wetlands permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is now reviewing the outstanding state permits, and state regulators expect that process to be complete by the end of the year.
The Seattle Times
Yakama Nation chairman denied access to U.S. Supreme Court hearing over headdress
Yakama Nation Tribal Council Chairman JoDe Goudy was denied access Tuesday to a U.S. Supreme Court hearing unless he removed his traditional feathered headdress.
He didn’t.
Clad in full leadership regalia, Goudy appeared at the nation’s highest court to hear oral arguments in a case about whether his tribe should be subject to the state fuel tax when importing wholesale gasoline to the reservation.
Security officers told Goudy the court cannot be subject to outside influences and that his headdress would obstruct the view of others. A live video of the incident was posted on Facebook.
AP: A growing toll: 56,800 migrants dead and missing in 4 years
[…] As migration worldwide soars to record highs, far less visible has been its toll: The tens of thousands of people who die or simply disappear during their journeys, never to be seen again. In most cases, nobody is keeping track: Barely counted in life, these people don’t register in death, as if they never lived at all.
An Associated Press tally has documented at least 56,800 migrants dead or missing worldwide since 2014 — almost double the number found in the world’s only official attempt to try to count them, by the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration. The IOM toll as of Oct. 1 was more than 28,500.
The AP came up with almost 28,300 additional dead or missing migrants by compiling information from other international groups, requesting forensic records, missing persons reports and death records, and sifting through data from thousands of interviews with migrants.
Ars Technica
Russia’s only aircraft carrier damaged as its floating dry dock sinks
Russia's one and only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, is in the middle of a long-forestalled refit in Murmansk. But its repairs may take a bit longer now that the floating dry dock that was carrying it at Murmansk's Shipyard 82 suddenly sank—causing a giant crane to crash onto the Kuznetsov and gash a 16-foot hole in its hull. One shipyard worker is missing, and four others were hospitalized—two of them in critical condition.
The floating dry dock, the PD-50—one of the largest in the world—apparently sank as the result of a power outage following a power surge at the shipyard, possibly related to damage to power lines caused by ice.
New data shows China has “taken the gloves off” in hacking attacks on US
Remember the good old days, when the US and China were supposedly working out new norms for the cybers, and China was going to stop all that hacking of US companies to steal intellectual property? It turns out the Chinese were just upping their hacking game, improving their operational security and penetration skills—learning from the methods of their Russian counterparts.
A recent example of that "island hopping" tactic is the "Cloud Hopper" hacking campaign, active since at least May of 2016. In October, DHS issued a new alert on the campaign, warning of a surge in activity by the campaign over the past few months. Cloud Hopper has been attributed to the threat group known as APT 10, aka Stone Panda—a hacking group that has been tied to the Chinese Ministry of State Security's Tianjin Bureau.