Evelyn Reynolds

A former Trump White House lawyer said the evidence against the former president over his handling of classified documents was now “overwhelming” and would “last an antiquity”, after new charges were filed in the case on Thursday.“I think this original indictment was engineered to last a thousand years and now this superseding indictment will last an antiquity,” Ty Cobb told CNN. “This is such a tight case, the evidence is so overwhelming.”In June, the special counsel Jack Smith indicted Trump on 37 counts regarding his handling of classified records after leaving the White House.On Thursday, in a superseding indictment filed in a Florida court, four more charges were outlined. A second Trump staffer, the Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker Carlos De Oliveira, was charged, alongside Walt Nauta, Trump’s valet. Nauta previously pleaded not guilty.Trump was accused of attempting to destroy evidence and inducing someone else to destroy evidence. He also faces a new count under the Espionage Act, for keeping a document about US plans to attack Iran which he memorably discussed on tape.Trump denies all wrongdoing, in the documents case and in other cases including the criminal investigation in New York in which he faces 34 charges relating to hush-money payments to an adult film star.On Thursday night, on his Truth Social platform, the former president complained about another investigation, of Joe Biden’s own retention of classified material. Trump also called Smith “deranged”.A spokesperson called the new charges “nothing more than a continued desperate and flailing attempt” by the Biden administration to “harass” Trump and “those around him”.On Thursday, Trump told the conservative radio host John Fredericks he had handed over security video footage prosecutors now say he ordered deleted.“These were security tapes,” he said. “We handed them over to them … I’m not even sure what they’re saying.”Smith is also expected to indict Trump over his attempted election subversion. So are prosecutors in Georgia, regarding the former president’s attempts to overturn his defeat by Biden there.Found liable for sexual abuse and defamation against the writer E Jean Carroll, and fined about $5m, Trump also faces investigations of his business affairs.But his legal problems have not dented his popularity with his party. In polling regarding the Republican nomination for president in 2024, Trump has clear leads in early voting states and is approximately 30 points ahead of his nearest challenger, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, in national polling.Trump told Fredericks he will not end his campaign even if he is convicted and sentenced.“They went after two fine employees yesterday, fine people,” Trump said. “They’re trying to intimidate people so that people go out and make up lies about me. Because I did nothing wrong.”Cobb represented Trump during the investigation by another special counsel, Robert Mueller, into Russian election interference in the 2016 election and links between Trump and Moscow. The attorney later told the Atlantic he did not regret working for Trump, saying: “I believed then and now I worked for the country.”On Thursday, he told CNN: “It’s very difficult to imagine how Trump said that his lawyers met with Jack Smith today to explain to him that he hadn’t done anything wrong [Trump’s claim in the election subversion case], on the same day that Jack Smith produces this evidence of overwhelming evidence of additional wrongdoing.“So this is, I think, par for the course.”Cobb also said he was sure Trump had been advised by his own lawyers “not to destroy, move [documents] or obstruct this grand jury subpoena in any way.“So this is Trump going not just behind the back of the prosecutors, this is Trump going behind the back of his own lawyers and dealing with two people” – Nauta and De Oliveira – “who are extremely loyal”. More

Moviegoers flocked to cinemas last weekend for the highly anticipated release of two of the year’s biggest movies – Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. But conservatives have slated Barbie for being, among other things, too ‘woke’, anti-men and even … Chinese propaganda.
Is the outrage real or is it just another example of politics employing a culture war to rally the base? Jonathan Freedland and Amanda Marcotte try to figure it out

How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

Federal prosecutors on Thursday expanded the indictment against Donald Trump for retaining national security documents and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them, unveiling new charges against him and an employee over an attempt to destroy surveillance footage.The new charges – filed by the special counsel Jack Smith in Florida – were outlined in a superseding indictment that named Mar-a-Lago club maintenance worker Carlos De Oliveira as the third co-defendant in the case. Trump’s valet Walt Nauta was previously indicted for obstruction with the former president last month.Trump’s legal exposure in the classified documents case grew after he was accused of attempting to destroy evidence and inducing someone else to destroy evidence, as well as an additional count under the Espionage Act for retaining a classified document about US plans to attack Iran that he discussed on tape at his Bedminster club in New Jersey.The expanded indictment added a new section titled “The Attempt to Delete Security Camera Footage” that alleged in detail how Trump engaged in a scheme with Nauta and De Oliveira to wipe a server containing surveillance footage that prosecutors subpoenaed which showed boxes of classified documents being removed from the storage room.According to the indictment, Trump seemingly instructed Nauta to unexpectedly travel to Mar-a-Lago to have the tapes destroyed. Nauta then enlisted the help of De Oliveira, and they walked to a security booth where the camera angles were displayed on monitors before walking down to the cameras and pointing them out with flashlights.The following week, De Oliveira asked the director of IT at Mar-a-Lago, described as “Trump Employee 4” but understood to be Yuscil Taveras, how long surveillance footage was stored for and then told him “the boss” wanted the server deleted.When the director of IT replied that he did not know how to delete the server and suggested De Oliveira ask the security supervisor at the Trump Organization, De Olivera again insisted that “the boss” wanted the server deleted, the indictment said.De Oliveira’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.For months, prosecutors in the office of the special counsel have viewed the surveillance footage at Mar-a-Lago as key to the case because it showed Nauta removing boxes of classified documents out of the storage room just before Trump’s lawyer was scheduled to search for any classified documents after receiving a subpoena.The close detail about the scheme to delete the server added to the evidence of Trump’s alleged efforts to obstruct the criminal investigation by concealing classified documents from that Trump lawyer, Evan Corcoran.Trump asked Corcoran something to the effect of “What happens if we just don’t respond at all?” and “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?”, according to Corcoran’s notes that prosecutors obtained during the investigation.Ordinarily off limits to prosecutors, the notes came before the Washington grand jury hearing evidence in the case after a US appeals court pierced the attorney-client privilege Trump would otherwise have and ordered Corcoran to turn them over.Corcoran then told Trump that he would return on 2 June 2022 to look in the Mar-a-Lago storage room for documents. In the intervening period, the indictment said, Trump instructed Nauta to remove boxes containing classified documents from where Corcoran intended to search.Corcoran recounted in his notes that Trump also made a “funny motion” when they were discussing whether Corcoran should take the 38 documents back with him to his hotel. As Corcoran described it, Trump seemed to indicate he should “pluck” any documents that were “bad”, without saying it explicitly.The former president faces more than three dozen total charges in the case, including more than 30 violations of the Espionage Act. His trial is set for May 2024, at the end of the Republican presidential primary contest in which Trump is currently the frontrunner.A Trump spokesperson said the new charges were “nothing more than a continued desperate and flailing attempt” by the Biden administration “to harass President Trump and those around him”.The case is one of many compounding legal troubles that Trump faces as he vies for the Oval Office again. He faces possible additional indictments in Washington over his role in the January 6 insurrection and in Georgia over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. In April, he was charged with 34 felony counts related to a hush-money scheme involving the adult film star Stormy Daniels. In May, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E Jean Carroll.In Fulton county, Georgia, a decision is expected shortly from prosecutor Fani Willis on whether to charge Trump over a phone call in which he attempted to push Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” him enough votes to win the 2020 election. More

The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has held talks with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in Jeddah, in what was reported to be part of a bid for an ambitious and far-reaching diplomatic breakthrough in the region.The White House said Sullivan and the prince discussed on Thursday “initiatives to advance a common vision for a more peaceful, secure, prosperous and stable Middle East region interconnected with the world”.A New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, said that based on an interview with Joe Biden last week, he believed Sullivan went to Jeddah to “explore the possibility of some kind of US-Saudi-Israeli-Palestinian understanding”.The deal would amount to a grand bargain involving a US-Saudi security pact and the normalisation of Saudi-Israel diplomatic relations, in which recognition of Israel would be exchanged, on Washington’s insistence, on some improvement in the plight of Palestinians in the occupied territories, such as a halt to Jewish settlement building, and a promise never to annex the West Bank.Friedman said Biden had yet to make up his mind whether to proceed and the talks in Jeddah were exploratory. Any such deal, he said, would be “time-consuming, difficult and complex”.Bruce Riedel, a former CIA Middle East analyst and White House adviser, said the idea of such a multifaceted agreement was politically far-fetched.“The Saudis don’t want to see Joe Biden re-elected. They strongly prefer Donald Trump being back in the White House. He never questioned them on human rights issues, he supported the Yemen war 100%, he did nothing to them after [Washington Post columnist and Saudi dissident] Jamal Khashoggi was murdered,” Riedel said.“So there is a big question mark about why would the Saudis do something which would be so beneficial to Joe Biden. I don’t see that in the works, and I would assume the Biden people are smart enough to recognise this.”Getting the Senate to approve a security pact with Saudi Arabia would also be extremely difficult. Republicans would not want to help Biden achieve diplomatic progress and most Democrats would resist US commitments to a Saudi monarchy with such a bad human rights record, and demand substantial gains for the Palestinians, which Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-rightwing Israeli government would not accept.Khaled Elgindy, a Palestinian expert at the Middle East Institute, said that the extremists in Netanyahu’s cabinet would “shoot down” proposals of a settlement freeze and territorial transfers within the West Bank to Palestinian Authority control, “never mind taking substantive steps toward a two-state solution, which is simply not on the table”.“The other aspect of this that I find unsettling is the way it totally sidesteps Palestinian interests and even Palestinian agency,” Elgindy said. “It’s like we’ve gone back to the days when the US, Israel and Arab states could decide the fate of Palestinians without any Palestinian involvement. This alone should disqualify it from being taken seriously – but of course it won’t.”Friedman said Saudi demands would include guarantees that the US would come to the kingdom’s defence if attacked, that Washington would allow a US-monitored Saudi civil nuclear programme, and that the kingdom could buy an advanced US air defence system, Thaad.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMatt Duss, former foreign policy adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders, called the first demand a “non-starter” and the second and third “very bad ideas”.“Biden is weighing a world historical sucker’s bet,” Duss said on social media.Kirsten Fontenrose, a former senior director for the Gulf at the national security council during the Donald Trump administration, was also pessimistic about the chances for success.“I expect the Palestinian Authority to refuse to recognise a Saudi-Israel peace deal … the Israeli government to refuse a promise never to annex; the US Congress to refuse a collective defense pact with Saudi Arabia; the Saudi leadership to refuse to agree publicly never to weaponise their nuclear programme as long as Iran is close to doing so,” Fontenrose said. Riedel said there were more modest diplomatic gains to be won from engagement with the Saudi leadership, such as a further winding down of the conflict in Yemen, and Saudi aid to the occupied territories in the effort to forestall a third intifada, a Palestinian uprising against the expansion of settlements and other measures from an extreme Israeli government.The White House said that in his Jeddah talks, Sullivan had “reviewed significant progress to build on the benefits of the truce in Yemen that have endured over the past 16 months and welcomed ongoing UN-led efforts to bring the war to a close”. More

From 4h agoDonald Trump said his attorneys had a “productive” meeting with the Department of Justice this morning, and that “no indication of notice” was given during the meeting.Posting on Truth Social, Trump wrote:
My attorneys had a productive meeting with the DOJ this morning, explaining in detail that I did nothing wrong, was advised by many lawyers, and that an Indictment of me would only further destroy our Country. No indication of notice was given during the meeting — Do not trust the Fake News on anything!
It was reported earlier today that Trump’s lawyers were seen entering the offices of special counsel Jack Smith, a week after the former president said he had received a target letter from Smith. According to NBC, Trump’s attorneys were told to expect an indictment against him.The grand jury conducting special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss has left the federal courthouse in Washington.Just before 3pm EST, a deputy clerk at the courthouse told journalists that no indictments had been returned on Thursday and that none were expected by the end of the day.According to a Politico report, anticipation was palpable at the courthouse throughout the day.
Throngs of journalists crowded hallways and looked for signs of movement in the vicinity of the courthouse’s sealed grand jury spaces. Trump’s announcement that his lawyers had met with Smith’s team earlier in the day further fueled speculation that an indictment was imminent.
The media encampment outside the D.C. courthouse continued to grow through the day Thursday, despite the sweltering heat.
Vice-President Kamala Harris expressed deep concern over the attempted army coup in Niger during a call with Nigeria’s president, Bola Tinubu, the White House said in a statement.The statement reads:
The vice president strongly condemned any efforts to seize power by force in Niger, and emphasized that our substantial cooperation with the government of Niger is contingent on Niger’s continued commitment to democratic standards.
Harris and Tinubu committed to “defending democracy” in west Africa and the Sahel, it said.Niger’s president, Mohamed Bazoum, remained held in the presidential palace this afternoon and it was unclear who had taken charge of the country, after a group of soldiers declared a military coup on Wednesday evening.Rightwingers have long cried foul over Hunter Biden’s treatment by federal authorities.The pardon power is established in article 2 of the US constitution, which says the president “shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment”.The use of the pardon power has become increasingly controversial; presidents including Bill Clinton and Donald Trump having bestowed pardons and acts of clemency on donors and supporters.Trump was widely reported to have considered whether he could pardon himself, on issues including alleged collusion with Russian interference in the 2016 election.Trump also reportedly explored the idea of giving preemptive pardons to family members, another step he did not ultimately take.Joe Biden will not pardon his son Hunter on tax- and gun-related charges, the White House said on Thursday.At a briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked: “From a presidential perspective, is there any possibility that the president would end up pardoning his son?”“No,” Jean-Pierre replied. Pressed, she said:
I just said no. I answered.
In court in Wilmington, Delaware, on Wednesday, Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to two tax charges, both misdemeanours. He had been expected to plead guilty as part of a deal with federal prosecutors that also included a pre-trial diversion program on the guns charge, a felony.Donald Trump confirmed earlier today that his lawyers met with officials at the office of special prosecutor Jack Smith in Washington DC.Trump’s attorneys attended the meeting not to argue the facts of the case against indicting the former president, but instead with a broader appeal that indicting him would only cause more turmoil in the country’s political environment, CNN is reporting, citing two sources.In other justice department news, the Guardian’s Erum Salam reports that it will investigate Memphis’s police department after the beating death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of officers earlier this year:The US Department of Justice has announced an investigation into the city of Memphis and the Memphis police department over its policing practices to examine if they are discriminatory.The civil pattern or practice investigation will determine if Memphis police violated federal laws or the US constitution. The announcement comes after the police department came under scrutiny for its use of force, stops, searches and arrests that often targeted people of color.One of these instances involved Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who died on 10 January, three days after an encounter with Memphis police during a traffic stop in which he was violently beaten.Republican senator Ted Cruz gave a taste of how Donald Trump’s defenders could react if special counsel Jack Smith indicts the former president over his involvement in the January 6 insurrection:Here are his comments to the conservative Newsmax network:In the House, Republicans vowed that today would be the day they vote to hold Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in contempt, but then changed their mind. The Guardian’s Mary Yang reports on why:Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, is no stranger to Capitol Hill, where he has sparred with Republicans and Democrats over how he runs his platforms. A Republican-led panel was set to vote on Thursday on a resolution to hold him in contempt of Congress, for allegedly failing to turn over internal documents on content moderation.However, House judiciary committee chair Jim Jordan, a Republican of Ohio, temporarily suspended the vote.Jordan announced on Twitter that the committee “decided to hold contempt in abeyance. For now” and posted a series of tweets of alleged internal communications among Meta executives hours ahead of the hearing.A day after Hunter Biden’s agreement with prosecutors to resolve federal charges was upended by a judge, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Joe Biden would not consider pardoning his son, CNN reports:Yesterday, federal judge Maryellen Noreika unexpectedly rejected a deal that would have seen Hunter Biden plead guilty to charges related to failure to pay taxes, and enter a diversion program to resolve lying in a background check to purchase a firearm. Prosecutors and Biden’s attorneys are now expected to negotiate a new agreement that will address concerns Noreika raised about the orgininal’s scope, and present it to the judge within 30 days.Republicans have for years seized on Biden’s history of addiction and troubled business dealings to argue that both he and his father are corrupt, though they have struggled to find proof of their allegations.The wait to find out whether Donald Trump will be charged over the January 6 insurrection continues, as Politico reports that the federal court in Washington DC says no indictments are expected to be filed today: More

Joe Biden will not pardon his son Hunter on tax- and gun-related charges, the White House said on Thursday.At a briefing, the press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, was asked: “From a presidential perspective, is there any possibility that the president would end up pardoning his son?”“No,” Jean-Pierre replied.Pressed, she said: “I just said no. I answered.”In court in Wilmington, Delaware, on Wednesday, Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to two tax charges, both misdemeanours. He had been expected to plead guilty as part of a deal with federal prosecutors also including a pre-trial diversion program on the guns charge, a felony.In the event, a question from the judge about the scope of the deal led to its delay.Republicans claim Hunter Biden’s business affairs, and personal problems including public struggles with addiction, show Joe Biden to be corrupt and worthy of impeachment.Rightwingers have long cried foul over the younger Biden’s treatment by federal authorities.The pardon power is established in article 2 of the US constitution, which says the president “shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment”.The use of the pardon power has become increasingly controversial, presidents including Bill Clinton and Donald Trump having bestowed pardons and acts of clemency on donors and supporters.Trump was widely reported to have considered whether he could pardon himself, on issues including alleged collusion with Russian interference in the 2016 election.Trump also reportedly explored the idea of giving pre-emptive pardons to family members, another step he did not ultimately take.Now, Trump faces 71 criminal indictments and the prospect of more. As he seeks the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, most observers expect his lawyers to seek to draw out such legal battles in the hope he or another Republican in the White House will seize the pardon power.State-level indictments, however, are not subject to presidential pardons. In New York, Trump faces 34 criminal charges over hush-money payments to a porn star during the 2016 election. In Georgia, he is expected to be indicted over his election subversion in 2020.On Wednesday, Jean-Pierre told reporters Hunter Biden was “a private citizen”, and called his legal problems “a personal matter for him”.“As we have said, the president [and] the first lady, they love their son, and they support him as he continues to rebuild his life. This case was handled independently, as all of you know, by the justice department under the leadership of a prosecutor appointed by the former president.”Biden has used the pardon power sparingly, focusing largely on convictions for offenses relating to drugs.In four years in office, Trump issued 143 pardons and 94 commutations. Many were highly controversial, including pardons for his advisers Steve Bannon, Roger Stone and Paul Manafort.The Pew Research Center, however, points out that an analysis of justice department data shows Trump “used his executive clemency power less frequently than nearly every other president since the turn of the 20th century”. More

Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, is no stranger to Capitol Hill, where he has sparred with Republicans and Democrats over how he runs his platforms. A Republican-led panel was set to vote on Thursday on a resolution to hold him in contempt of Congress, for allegedly failing to turn over internal documents on content moderation.However, House judiciary committee chair Jim Jordan, a Republican of Ohio, temporarily suspended the vote.Jordan announced on Twitter that the committee “decided to hold contempt in abeyance. For now” and posted a series of tweets of alleged internal communications among Meta executives hours ahead of the hearing.“To be clear, contempt is still on the table and WILL be used if Facebook fails to cooperate in FULL,” Jordan said.Republican lawmakers have repeatedly accused Meta – along with other big names Google, Apple and Microsoft – of suppressing conservative speech on their platforms.Jim Jordan had alleged that Meta failed to turn over requested internal company documents to an investigation into tech companies and “willfully refused to comply in full with a congressional subpoena”, according to a report released on Tuesday.Jordan, an Ohio Republican, also subpoenaed the chief executives at Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple in February. Zuckerberg is so far the only one facing additional scrutiny.But regulating tech companies is a rare area of bipartisan support, even if the reasons behind it are different. Meta has come under fire from Democrats over privacy concerns and its marketing toward kids and teens. In 2020, Zuckerberg, along with the then Twitter chief executive, Jack Dorsey, faced intense questioning during a Senate judiciary hearing where Democrats condemned the executives for amplifying misinformation, such as false claims of election fraud, and raised antitrust concerns.Meta says it has fully complied with the congressional investigation.“For many months, Meta has operated in good faith with this committee’s sweeping requests for information. We began sharing documents before the committee’s February subpoena and have continued to do so,” said a Meta spokesperson, Andy Stone, in a statement posted in response to the hearing notice on Tuesday.He said Meta had so far delivered more than 53,000 pages of internal and external documents and “made nearly a dozen current and former employees available to discuss external and internal matters, including some scheduled this very week”, according to the statement.Politico reported that Meta handed over more documents hours before Jordan announced the Thursday vote but that the Ohio Republican was not satisfied.“They’ve given us documents because we’re pushing and because we’re talking about this – we appreciate that, but we are convinced that it’s way short of what they should be providing us,” Jordan reportedly said in an interview.One social media company, Twitter – which now goes by X – has escaped much of the scrutiny as its chief executive, Elon Musk, has been seen as friendly to conservatives. In his February letter to tech companies, Jordan called Twitter a model of transparency and praised its “Twitter files” – which many experts flagged as sensationalized.Meta’s second-quarter revenue defied expectations after its earnings release on Wednesday, and Zuckerberg’s own net worth surged on Thursday. More

Joe Biden announced new steps on Thursday to help Americans face the “existential threat of climate change” and extreme heat.“We want the American people to know help is here, and we’re gonna make it available to anyone who needs it,” the president said, speaking in a summer of record-breaking temperatures in the US and globally.The new measures will shield workers from high temperatures, improve weather forecasting, strengthen access to drinking water and otherwise improve heat resilience, Biden said.Experts described the measures as positive but modest, and the president stopped short of declaring a climate emergency or directly addressing the need to phase out planet-heating fossil fuels.Biden directed the Department of Labor to issue a hazard alert for workplaces such as farms and construction sites, where workers face a higher risk amid high temperatures. Heat has killed 436 workers since 2011, according to federal statistics.Sectors including agriculture and construction also frequently see heat-related safety violations, so the labor department will also increase its inspections of high-risk workplaces, Biden said. He also took a veiled swipe at Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, who this year banned his state’s municipalities from requiring workers be offered water breaks.“We should be protecting workers from hazardous conditions and we will, and those states where they do not, I’m going to be calling them out,” Biden said, later adding that when he played football as a young man, coaches would be fired for refusing players water breaks.The president also said the US Forest Service will award more than $1bn in grants to help cities and towns plant trees, “so families have a place to go to cool off”. Tree coverage can help lower temperatures in urban areas by more than 15 degrees fahrenheit.Biden added that the Department of Housing and Urban Development had set aside billions to help communities make their buildings more energy efficient and to open cooling centers. And he said the Department of Interior was boosting funding to “expand water storage capacity in the western states”, referring to the earmarking of $152m for water storage and pipelines for the drought-stricken western states, according to the White House.Biden also highlighted $7m in funding from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will use to improve weather forecasts, thereby improving preparedness for extreme weather like heatwaves.The press conference, held from a White House auditorium, came as nearly 40% of Americans face heat advisories, according to the National Weather Service.The president was joined virtually by mayors of Phoenix, Arizona and San Antonio, Texas, which have both roasted under scorching temperatures this summer.Phoenix has experienced 27 consecutive days where temperatures crossed 110F (43C), while San Antonio saw temperatures cross 100F (38C) on at least 15 straight days.“We feel like we are very much on the frontlines of climate change,” said Phoenix’s mayor, Kate Gallego.Gallego has been pushing Congress to pass a bill adding extreme heat to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s list of major disaster qualifying events, which would allow states to be reimbursed opening cooling centers, distributing water and otherwise tackling high temperatures.“We would love it if Congress would give you the ability to declare heat a disaster,” she said on Thursday.San Antonio’s mayor, Ron Nirenberg, touted the steps his city is taking to promote climate action, including boosting public transit and solar energy production.“Thankfully, sustainability and green energy are no longer four-letter words in the state of Texas,” he said.The nation’s capital is experiencing its own heat crisis, with officials warning that temperatures this week could exceed 100F (37.8C) for the first time in seven years. Oppressive heat is expected to spread into the midwest and north-east in the coming days.Heat is the “number one weather-related killer” in the US, Biden said.“Six hundred people die annually from its effects – more than from floods, hurricanes and tornadoes in America combined,” he said.Thursday’s announcement followed other heat-related measures from the White House. Last year, federal officials launched the interagency heat-focused website Heat.gov. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) also announced it was developing a heat standard for workers, but it could take years to finalize.Juley Fulcher, a health and safety advocate at the non-profit Public Citizen, said that while Thursday’s heat hazard alert reaffirmed existing federal heat-related protections, the new rule is crucial to expanding those measures.“Without a rule, Osha is in a very difficult position trying to hold employers accountable,” she said. “It must be a priority.”Industry interests are attempting to stall the rule’s completion, she said. On Wednesday, legislators introduced a bill which would require Osha to issue an interim rule.Climate activist Jamie Henn, who founded Fossil Free Media and previously co-founded 350.org, said Thursday’s announcements were insufficient. He noted that the president had failed to declare a federal climate emergency, which could allow him to speed the energy transition and block fossil fuel projects without congressional approval.“Addressing extreme heat will require us to stop pouring fuel on the flames,” said Henn.On Thursday, federal officials are expected to greenlight the expansion of a gas liquefaction and export terminal in Port Arthur, Texas, enabling the equivalent of 698bn cubic feet of the planet-heating fuel to be exported each year for three decades.“Stop approving and subsidizing projects which will increase climate-changing carbon in our atmosphere that’s fueling this extreme weather,” said John Beard, the chief executive of Port Arthur Community Action Network. More