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      Climate activists block Federal Reserve bank, calling for end to fossil fuel funding

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      One day after the largest climate march since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, hundreds of climate activists blockaded the Federal Reserve Bank in New York to call for an end to funding for coal, oil and gas, with police making scores of arrests.“Fossil fuel companies … wouldn’t be able to operate without money, and that money is coming primarily from Wall Street,” Alicé Nascimento, environmental campaigns director at New York Communities for Change, said hours before she was arrested.The action came as world leaders began arriving in New York for the United National general assembly (UNGA) gathering and followed Sunday’s 75,000-person March to End Fossil Fuels, which focused on pushing Biden to urgently phase out fossil fuels. Monday’s civil disobedience had a different but compatible goal, said Renata Pumarol, an organizer with the campaign group Climate Defenders.“Today we want to make sure people know banks, big banks, are responsible for climate change, too,” she said. “And while marches are important, we think civil disobedience is, too, because it shows we’re willing to do whatever it takes to end fossil fuels, including putting ourselves on the line.”Monday’s action was organized by a coalition of local organizations including New York Communities for Change and Extinction Rebellion NYC, alongside national groups such as Climate Organizing Hub and 350.org. Demonstrators first gathered in New York’s Zuccotti Park, in the financial district in lower Manhattan, which is partially owned by fossil fuel investor Goldman Sachs.The small concrete urban space was the base for the original Occupy Wall Street protests 12 years ago.On Monday, demonstrators then marched in the rain to the nearby New York Federal Reserve building, the largest of the network of 12 federal banks dotted around the country that make up the central bank of the United States.Protesters blockaded multiple entrances into the bank while singing, beating drums and holding up signs. Over 100 people were arrested, according to the New York City Office of the Deputy Commissioner for Public Information, with organizers estimating that roughly 150 arrests were made.“If you arrest one of us, one hundred more will come,” activists chanted.The protesters called attention to both public and private fossil fuel financing. Globally, government subsidies for coal, oil and gas reached a record high of $13m per minute in 2022 last year – equivalent to 7% of global GDP and almost double what the world spends on education – according to the International Monetary Fund.Last year, the US also ranked 16th among the G20 countries on a scorecard by the independent economic research group Green Central Banking, which the researchers say indicates US financial regulators are falling behind their international peers on climate risk mitigation.Meanwhile, since the signing of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, major private banks have provided some $3.2tn to the fossil fuel industry to expand operations, far outstripping the amount that global north governments have collectively spent on international climate finance, an analysis from ActionAid, the Washington DC-based non-profit, found this month. Another recent analysis from the Sierra Club environmental group found that major global banks have announced climate pledges but nonetheless financed coal energy across the US.Monday’s action came after a slew of global protests last week, some of which targeted financial institutions. In New York, dozens rallied outside of the headquarters for asset manager BlackRock and Citibank on Wednesday and Thursday respectively, to call attention to both firms’ investments in fossil fuels. And on Friday, protesters targeted the Museum of Modern Art over its relationship to fossil fuel investor KKR.Another protest is planned for Tuesday at New York City’s Bank of America offices, with additional actions throughout the week as the United Nations hosts its Climate Ambition Summit as part of the UNGA. More

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      Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tells climate marchers to be ‘too big and too radical to ignore’ – live

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      From 1h agoThe crowd cried out in cheers for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who thanked them for showing up and highlighting the urgency of the climate crisis.“This issue is the issue, one of the most important issues of our time,” she said, adding: “We must be too big and too radical to ignore.”Climate action requires a democratic restructuring of the economy, she said.“What we’re not gonna do is go from oil barons to solar barons,” she told the crowd.The Climate Reality Project, a non-profit global network comprising 3.5 million climate activists, was one of the many organizations present at the march in New York City today.
      We are mobilizing around the summit to leverage national and international pressure to demand leaders change course.
      This is a critical moment for mass mobilization on fossil fuels that could ignite bigger and bolder climate action.
      Here is a tweet by Oil Change International of the various climate change marches that were staged around the world this week, including today’s rally in New York City.
      This is a big, beautiful climate movement & we’re calling on world leaders to #EndFossilFuels NOW. No more talk, we need action!
      Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues, announced that she is working on a musical about the climate crisis.She and three cast members previewed a song from the show called Panic. “We want you to panic / We want you to act / You stole our future / And we want it, we want it back.”“Don’t let the cynics win. The cynics want us to think that this isn’t worth it. The cynics want us to believe that we can’t win. The cynics want us to believe that organizing doesn’t matter, that our political system doesn’t matter, that our economy doesn’t matter,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told a crowd of cheering protestors.“We’re here to say that we organize out of hope, we organize out of commitment, we organize out of love, we organize out of the beauty of our future. We will not give up! We will not let go! We will not allow cynicism to to prevail! We will not allow our vision of a collaborative economy, of dignity for working people, of honoring the Black, brown, Indigenous, white working class! We will not give up and that is what we are here to do today!” she added.“The United States continues to be approving record number of fossil fuel leases and we must send a message, right here today – that has got to end!”Earlier this month, AOC spoke to the Guardian and said that “there’s a very real danger here,” in reference to the presidential 2024 elections and the climate crisis.The crowd cried out in cheers for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who thanked them for showing up and highlighting the urgency of the climate crisis.“This issue is the issue, one of the most important issues of our time,” she said, adding: “We must be too big and too radical to ignore.”Climate action requires a democratic restructuring of the economy, she said.“What we’re not gonna do is go from oil barons to solar barons,” she told the crowd.Here are more images coming through the newswires from the march:World leaders have ‘forgotten’ responsibility to Mother EarthVeteran Indigenous organizer Tom Goldtooth, who is executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, attended the march. “I’m here at the request of spiritual authorities within our Indigenous network,” he said.“They said that this United Nations secretary general’s summit on climate ambition has no spiritual soul to it – that the world leaders have forgotten what the responsibility is to understand the sacredness of Mother Earth.”He decried world leaders’ focus on technological solutions like geoengineering, as well as carbon offset markets, which studies show often do not result in lowered emissions.“We’re here to renew not only our relationship but humanity’s relationship to building sustainable communities based upon regenerative economy, living economy, not a fossil fuel economy,” he said.“The fight for the planet is not a personal issue, it’s a collective issue,” said Grant Miner, a graduate student representing the labor contingent with the Student Workers of Columbia University. “The economy that we have now is structured around killing the planet for profit.”“We’re asking Biden to divest fossil fuels,” said Sincere Cheong, who marched alongside thousands of other people. “The world is being destroyed and if we don’t cut back right now we won’t be able to limit the global warming to 1.5 degrees.”Tens of thousands of people in New York City have kicked off a week of demonstrations seeking to end the use of coal, oil and natural gas blamed for climate change.“This is an incredible moment,” said Jean Su of Center for Biological Diversity, who helped organize the mobilization.
      Tens of thousands of people are marching in the streets of New York because they want climate action, and they understand Biden’s expansion of fossil fuels is squandering our last chance to avoid climate catastrophe.
      Su said the action was the largest climate protest in the US since the start of the pandemic, with organizers estimating around 75,000 protestors taking to the streets in New York City.She added:
      This also shows the tremendous grit and fight of the people, especially youth and communities living at the frontlines of fossil fuel violence, to fight back and demand change for the future they have every right to lead.
      In addition to celebrities and lawmakers, kids from across the country as well as elderly people showed up at the protests, waving climate signs and chanting alongside event organizers.New York’s Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who previously championed the Green New Deal alongside Senator Bernie Sanders, is also expected to address the crowd later this afternoon.Sunday’s demonstration comes ahead of the the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit, which the UN secretary general, António Guterres, says will focus on on bold new climate pledges.In its citations for its climate journalists of the year, Covering Climate Now said:
      Manka Behl of the Times of India was praised by judges for reports “from the frontlines of the crisis in one of the world’s most climate-important countries” and for her interviews with leaders.

      Damian Carrington of the Guardian was credited for science-based reporting that “explains that politics and corporate power, not a lack of green technologies, are what block climate progress”, and cited for leading a reporting team on investigating “carbon bombs” and super-emitting methane leaks.

      Amy Westervelt was described as a prolific, multiplatform reporter for Critical Frequency whose work exposes how fossil fuel companies continue to mislead the public and policymakers alike.
      “Every news outlet on earth can learn from the engaged, hard-hitting journalism that Manka, Damian and Amy bring to the climate story,” said Mark Hertsgaard, the executive director of Covering Climate Now. “It’s reporting like this that arms the public with the power that knowledge gives.”The awards also recognized six Special Honors winners for “rigorous investigative reports, eye-opening exposes of climate injustice, and much-needed analyses of climate solutions”:Covering Climate Now, the global journalism collaboration, is announcing its media awards this week at a time when audiences need to know how and why “the planet is on fire” and what can be done, judges said.CCN’s three climate journalists of the year for 2023 are Damian Carrington of the Guardian, Manka Behl of the Times of India and Amy Westervelt, the founder of the Critical Frequency podcast network.Naomi Klein, the international bestselling author, won in the commentary category, while Ishan Kukreti of the Indian non-profit Scroll.in won for long-form writing.Covering Climate Now is a global collaboration involving some 600 news outlets with a reach of more than 2 billion people, and its media awards program was launched three years ago to spread standards of excellence in climate journalism.This year’s winners were selected from a list of finalists from more than 1,100 entries from 29 countries, and chosen by more than 100 journalists.Children showed up in droves for the march to end fossil fuels.“We’re here today because our planet deserves a future,” Ida, 12, said.Gus, a six-year-old, travelled from Boston for the march with his mother, Laura. “We’re here to end fossil fuels … so we can stop climate change,” he said.Aviva, a seven-year-old Brooklynite who attended the march with her mom and sister, spoke into the megaphone. “Hey hey, ho,” she shouted, as the crowd responded: “Fossil fuels have got to go!”As the climate rally in New York City continues, climate activists in Germany sprayed orange paint on to Berlin’s popular Brandenburg Gate on Sunday in attempts to call on the German government to stop using fossil fuels.“The protest makes it clear: it is time for a political change,” the climate activist group the Last Generation said in a statement, the Associated Press reports.“Away from fossil fuels – towards fairness,” it added.The Associated Press reports that police have blocked the area around the historic gate and confirmed that they have detained 14 activists that are affiliated with the Last Generation.Mentions of gas stoves are emerging as a theme among the many signs protesters are holding up at the march to end fossil fuels.This April, New York became the first US state to ban gas stoves in new residential building construction as research emerged about its dangers for human health.At the march, the Rev Lennox Yearwood, head of the Hip Hop Caucus, likened today’s climate movement to the US fight for racial justice.“We’re at our lunch counter moment for the 21st century,” he said.A native of Louisiana, he said he was excited to see demonstrators support environmental justice activists’ fight to end petrochemical buildout in the south-west US.“We need to end fossil fuels in all forms,” he said.Protesters chanted: “We are unstoppable, another world is possible.”Others sang Leonard Cohen’s Anthem: “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”Here is video by the Guardian’s visual reporter Aliya Uteuova on the fossil fuels march in New York City this afternoon.The activists will be marching to the United Nations ahead of the UN Climate Ambition Summit that is set to take place in a few days.Veteran environmental activist Bill McKibben travelled to New York City to attend the march.“I think it’s a real restart moment after the pandemic for the big in-the-streets climate movement,” he said. “It’s good to see people get back out there.”The crowd, he said, reflected the diversity of New York City.“I’m glad to see there’s a lot of old people like me here,” said McKibben, who founded Third Act, an activist group aimed at elders. “We’ll be marching in the back because we’re slow!”Climate scientist Peter Kalmus at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab also spoke at the press conference, saying that he has two kids in high school and that he’s “terrified for their future”.“I’m terrified for my future right now,” he added.“We are so clearly in a fucking climate emergency. Why won’t Biden declare it?” he said. More

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      AOC, the change agent: inside the 8 September Guardian Weekly

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      Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s explosive entrance on to the US political scene at the age of 29, as the youngest woman ever to be elected to the House of Representatives, was a beacon of hope for the progressive left during the dark days of the Trump presidency.Five years on, AOC is established as an influential figure in the Democratic party, known for her advocacy of green policies and efforts to engage marginalised groups. In a wide-ranging interview, she talks to Washington bureau chief David Smith about the climate crisis, misogyny in US politics and the potential – one day – for a presidential run of her own.For many school and college students, this time of year marks a new term. But in England, a major political row has been threatening to engulf the government as safety fears over a form of aerated concrete used in many public buildings have forced more than 100 schools to remain closed, as Peter Walker and Sally Weale report.For those with an eye farther afield, on the graduate jobs market, Hibaq Farah and Tom Ambrose consider the future careers most likely to withstand the coming onslaught of artificial intelligence.In Features, Matthew Bremner’s investigation into the massacre of migrants in the north African Spanish enclave of Melilla is a sobering but important read. Jay Owens changes the pace somewhat with an exploration of dust, and what it reveals about the world around us.Olivia Rodrigo is one of pop’s hottest properties – but much of the simple joys of her teenage years were lost in a previous life as a child TV actor. She opens up to Laura Snapes about her second album and trying to make sense of her life.To round off, our lifestyle pages have a Middle Eastern flavour this week, with a delicious recipe from Meera Sodha for herbed saffron rice with pistachios, and tips on how to make the perfect hummus.Get the magazine delivered to your home address More

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      ‘There’s a very real danger here’: AOC on 2024, the climate crisis and ‘selling out’

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      The campaign office of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sits deep in the Bronx, across the street from a Chinese takeaway and 99-cent discount store, near enough to a railway bridge to hear the rumble of passing trains. The front window of the plain redbrick building is dominated by a big, smiling photo of the US congresswoman and notices that say: “We welcome all races, all sexual orientations, all gender identities, all religions, all abilities,” and “We say gay in the Bronx”. Inside, the words “¡AOC! ORGANIZING BASE” are printed in giant purple letters on a wall.Ocasio-Cortez, who at 29 became the youngest woman and youngest Latina to serve in the House of Representatives, is now 33, twice re-elected and comfortable in her political skin. She could hardly be described as an old hand but nor does she channel the shock of the new. She deploys social media with enviable authenticity; she grills congressional witnesses like a seasoned interrogator; she is an object of perverse fascination for Fox News and rightwing trolls; she has been around Washington long enough to draw charges of “co-option” and “selling out”.“AOC Is Just a Regular Old Democrat Now,” ran a headline on New York magazine’s Intelligencer website in July. The article’s author, Freddie deBoer, argued that Ocasio-Cortez’s appearance on the Pod Save America podcast to announce her endorsement of Joe Biden for president in the 2024 election was her “last kiss-off to the radicals who had supported her, voted for her, donated to her campaign, and made her unusually famous in American politics”.The Ocasio-Cortez who sits for an interview with the Guardian is clearly aware of the leftist’s eternal dilemma – purity versus pragmatism – and determined to navigate it with care. She makes clear that Biden cannot take progressives for granted next year but urges Democrats to unite against the bigger threat of “fascism” in America. She condemns the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, but wants the US to be clear about its aims there and acknowledge “the anxieties of our history”.And after a summer of extreme heat and wild weather, she evidently worries that incrementalism will not be enough to address a climate crisis that is crying out for revolution.Ocasio-Cortez’s first legislative proposal after arriving on Capitol Hill was a Green New Deal that envisions a 10-year national mobilisation in the spirit of President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1930s New Deal. That went nowhere, but last year Biden did sign the Inflation Reduction Act into law, touting its $369bn investment in clean energy and climate action as the biggest of any nation in history.However, the president also approved more oil and gas drilling permits in his first two years in office than his predecessor, Donald Trump, according to the Bureau of Land Management.It is, Ocasio-Cortez acknowledges, a mixed picture. “What is difficult is that the climate crisis does not really care about the political complexities that we very much have to grapple with in our work,” she says, wearing a blue dress with floral shoulder pattern and sitting on a long wooden seat dotted with black and yellow cushions.“We can celebrate all of these policies that result in reductions but we also can’t erase them with increased oil and gas production. I’m very concerned about where our net math is on that because we can calculate, yes, we had an enormous amount of reductions that are represented in the Inflation Reduction Act, but this is not something that can be measured necessarily in dollars and cents.“It’s measured in carbon tonnes and in emissions and there’s a lot of funny math that happens in emissions when people talk about clean coal and how fracking somehow reduces our carbon emissions, when we know that it increases methane, which is far more powerful than CO2. While on one hand we can applaud the progress, on the other hand that in no way erases the the setbacks that we’ve had.”Ocasio-Cortez has joined Congressman Earl Blumenauer and Senator Bernie Sanders in introducing a bill calling on the president to declare a national climate emergency to unleash every resource available. In early August, Biden claimed that he had “practically” declared such an emergency, but in reality he has not.Even so, the congresswoman says: “I believe he understands the scale of the crisis. I think what we are up against, which perhaps should be discussed more for those of us in the climate movement, is the geopolitics of this.”She goes on to describe a challenge that is bigger than one man or one nation. “The shift in energy represents a real threat to traditional power globally. As we shift away from non-renewables, we are talking about threatening power among some of the most influential institutions in the United States, in Latin America and globally. That is something that is going to have profound ramifications, all of which I don’t even believe we can fully appreciate yet.“I think that is what drives an enormous amount of blowback and resistance. When you look at, for example, the influence of the Koch brothers in US democracy, they basically have historically purchased enormous amounts of influence over the United States Senate. They are oil barons. These are fossil fuel companies that have exerted huge amounts of influence both in US democracy and in global interests.”Ocasio-Cortez also points to the power and influence of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) and Middle Eastern nations such as the United Arab Emirates. “When we talk about the transition to renewable energies, wrapped inside that is a profound challenge to the current global order and that, I believe, is something that we’re going to have to contend with in our time.”For the left, the war in Ukraine is potentially more complicated. Putin’s invasion is by any measure an affront to morality. But US support for Ukraine has put critics of the military-industrial complex (the government spends about $900bn a year on defence, around 15% of the federal budget or 3.3% of the gross domestic product) in the uncomfortable position of rooting for the Pentagon and endorsing a windfall for defence contractors. Longtime sceptics of US imperialism suddenly find themselves aligned with Republican hawks.Ocasio-Cortez articulates the uneasy accommodation: “It’s a legitimate conversation. I think on one hand, it is important for us to underscore what a dramatic threat to global order Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is and continues to be. We must defend democracy. We cannot allow this reversion into almost a late 19th-century imperial invasion order – it is so incredibly destabilising and dangerous. We must fight against that precedent. We must protect the democracy of Ukraine and the sovereignty of Ukraine 100%.“I think it’s also relevant to acknowledge that this is happening on the heels of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and how many of us were raised growing up saying this was going to be temporary, and it became a forever war. I believe that acknowledging the anxieties of our history of that is relevant.“Indicating to the people of this country what are we looking for, what are the levels of accountability, is not something that I think is an affront to democracy. I think the American people understandably want clarity about what our commitments are, to what extent they are. I think that is absolutely fair. We do not want a forever war and we also don’t want a return to a 19th-century imperial order either.”A self-described democratic socialist, Ocasio-Cortez has not been afraid to buck Democratic leadership, including by voting against a deal that Biden negotiated with Republicans in May to raise the debt ceiling. In 2020 she made the provocative comment that, in any other country, she and Biden would not be in the same party. Yet she has endorsed his re-election in 2024. Does that mean she has travelled towards him or he towards her?“I think it means that we have a US political system that’s not parliamentary, to my envy of many other countries,” she replies deftly. “There were so many people that were so up in arms about that comment, which I likely maintain to this day. But I find that parliamentary systems allow for a larger degree of honesty about the political coalitions that we must make. It’s not anything negative towards the president or towards anybody else.“It’s just a reality that we have very different political coalitions that constitute the Democratic party and being able to define that, I actually think grants us much power. It’s to say, listen, I am not defined by nor do I agree with all of the stances of this president, and I’m sure neither does he with mine.“But that does not mean that we are not in this together against the greater forces and questions of our time, and I think being able to demonstrate that ability to coalesce puts us in a position of far greater strength than, say, the Republican party who are at each other’s necks to the extent that they can’t even fund the government.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThere has been no greater rallying point for Democrats of all stripes than Trump. As Paul Begala, a former White House adviser, has observed: “Nothing unites the people of Earth like a threat from Mars.” Ocasio-Cortez, a celebrated member of “the Squad” of House progressives, regards continued solidarity as imperative for as long as the quadruple-indicted former president menaces US democracy.She warns: “We should be candid about the fact that his chances as the nominee are still the strongest, probably out of the entire [Republican] field, and what that means. There’s very real danger here because with our electoral college, we know it doesn’t matter how many millions more votes you get. It’s about the smattering of states who just represent a few thousand votes’ difference between Trump and Biden.“We are not in 2020, and seeing what that turnout may look like is something that I’m sure keeps many of us up at night. But that being said, I know that this is why, to me, support of President Biden has been very important, because this question is larger than any policy differences. This is truly about having a strong front against fascism in the United States.”But will that be enough to motivate the progressive base in 2024? Trump has no serious primary challenger, but his approval rating remains mired in the 40s. A recent Emerson College polling survey found the Green party candidate Cornel West drawing support from 7% of independents, 8% of Black voters and 7% of Hispanics – key parts of the Biden coalition. In a hypothetical presidential election, the survey found 44% support Trump, 39% Biden, 4% West and 13% undecided.Ocasio-Cortez acknowledges that, after defeating Sanders in the 2020 primary, Biden made welcome efforts to include progressives on joint policy taskforces and in his administration. But she cautions that he must now make his case to the left all over again.“In 2020 the Biden campaign, after the nomination, did work very hard to unite the party. We’re very early still in the 2024 election cycle, but I do believe that it will be very important for President Biden’s team to once again engage in that coalition-building because it is not one and done.”Likewise, she continues, Latino voters must not be taken for granted. “Republicans have been very aggressive about building presence in Latino communities, and I believe that we as Democrats can double and triple down in our efforts to communicate in a way that’s not just translations of English material, but for us to manoeuvre ourselves almost as a separate, distinct campaign that occurs in Spanish or in many of the languages and communities that constitute the base of the Democratic party.”Ocasio-Cortez was part of an all-Latino congressional delegation that recently visited Brazil, Chile and Colombia to begin redefining US relations with Latin America after decades of interventions and distrust. The group met landless workers and homeless workers who have organised popular movements while also becoming a formidable force at the ballot box.She reflects: “I think sometimes in the US, especially on the left but even across the political spectrum, there is a struggle between more grassroots movements feeling as though engaging in electoralism is a form of selling out, or the compromises required in being part of a legislative system are somehow delegitimising to an authentic relationship to advancing the working class.“I think what we’ve seen from MST [Landless Workers Movement] and MTST [Homeless Workers Movement] is that there’s actually a way to do both, that you can preserve your integrity but also understand the importance of taking a pragmatic approach and being in the game when it comes to having electoral representation.”It takes one to know one. Ocasio-Cortez, a former restaurant server and bartender who in 2018 defeated 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley for a seat that represents parts of the Bronx and Queens, faces the accusation from some that she has gone from outsider to insider, that she has become just a little too comfortable toeing the party line.She laughs. “I think I would be remiss to not mention that I’ve absolutely been subject to part of that. But just as we hear from some of these folks in Brazil, we are so underserved without having that presence in governance. To sacrifice all of that to a historically neoliberal order has not served us.“I think that when you see how even the Democratic party of the United States has changed in just the last five years alone, we’ve seen the fruits of being able to have a seat at the table … I believe that we would not have the legislation that we have today if it were not for that progressive representation in government.”Her commitment to the system, whatever its flaws, invites the question of whether Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most gifted communicators in politics today, will run for president herself some day. She does not say no. “For me personally, I’m very much just motivated by what the conditions of the present moment are and what we can do to help advance that cause.“I am not interested in running for anything – president or anything else including for re-election in my own seat – just running for running’s sake. It always comes down to the conditions of that moment and the possibilities of our time.”The first woman nominated for president by the Democratic party was Hillary Clinton in 2016. In Trump, she lost to a rival who gloried in shameless misogyny. But Ocasio-Cortez, whose gender, race, age and ideology make her as antithetical to Trump as can be imagined, refuses to be discouraged.“I do believe that the power of misogyny is very real and very potent in American politics,” she says. “But I’m very encouraged by what has happened since then. I believe women have emerged as a profound electoral force, especially with the overturning of Roe v Wade. Young women especially I think have been very animated and organised in this moment. I think we are in a moment of generational change.“We are absolutely contending with an extraordinary misogyny in our politics. The United States can go around and say what it says, but many, many, many other countries have elected female heads of state, whereas the United States has gone well over 200 years without one. Those barriers are very real, but I think the change of this time is also giving a lot of us a lot of hope.”Before getting back to work in an office of greens, purples, whites and yellows – and hundreds of colourful backpacks for constituents entering the new school year – she sums up: “Certainly the conditions have been such and the misogyny in our politics has been such that we’ve never been able to elect a woman president. But that doesn’t mean we never will.” More

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      Hurricane Idalia: Georgia declares state of emergency as severe flooding and storm surges hit south-eastern US – live

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      From 2h agoGeorgia governor Brian Kemp has issued a state of emergency for the state that is set to last until 11.59pm on 8 September.“We are taking every precaution ahead of Hurricane Idalia’s landfall tomorrow, and I am taking this additional executive action to ensure state assets are ready to respond,” Kemp said on Tuesday ahead of Idalia.“Georgians in the expected impact area can and should take necessary steps to ensure their safety and that of their families. We are well positioned to respond to whatever Idalia may bring,” he added.The executive order said that Idalia “has the potential to produce severe impacts to citizens throughout south-central and southeast coastal Georgia”, and that potential flooding, downed trees, power lines, and debris may render “Georgia’s network of roads impassable in affected counties, isolating residences and persons from access to essential public services.”The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, warned potential looters seeking to steal from people’s homes following the storm, saying: “You loot, we shoot.”“I’ve told all of our personnel at the state level, you protect people’s property and we are not going to tolerate any looting in the aftermath of a natural disaster. I mean, it’s just ridiculous that you would try to do something like that on the heels of an almost category 4 hurricane hitting this community,” DeSantis said in a press conference on Wednesday.
      “Also, just remind potential looters that even you never know what you’re walking into. People have a right to defend the property. [In] this part of Florida, you got a lot of advocates [who] are proponents of the second amendment and I’ve seen signs in different people’s yards in the past after these disasters and I would say probably here: ‘You loot, we shoot.’”
      World Central Kitchen, a non-profit founded by the celebrity chef and restaurateur José Andrés, mobilized its teams across western Florida ahead of Hurricane Idalia making landfall earlier today.WCK teams have prepared hundreds of sandwiches to provide immediate relief for residents.The Florida division of emergency management has issued a warning on hidden dangers of floodwaters.“Please do NOT walk, wade or drive through floodwaters as they can hide a variety of dangers,” the division said.Here are some graphics created by the Guardian’s visuals team on Hurricane Idalia’s path and direction:The Guardian has published an explainer on storm surges and the threat from storm surges from Hurricane Idalia.For the full story, click here:Here are some images of Hurricane Idalia coming through the newswires:The South Carolina governor, Henry McMaster, said that he does not think Hurricane Idalia will be as detrimental as other hurricanes that have swept through the state.“This is not as bad as some that we’ve seen. We don’t think it’s going to be as disruptive as some but it is going to be disruptive. There’s going to be high winds, a lot of water,” McMaster said at a press briefing on Wednesday.He added that the state is not going to have any evacuations, saying:
      “We are not going to have any evacuations. We’re not have any closing of state agencies … This does not appear to be one that requires any evacuation orders or closing of state agencies but some of the schools are closed. Some of the schools are closed, we’re urging them to try to get back open back up as quickly as possible …
      We’ve been through this before. We’ve been through a lot worse than this one appears to be, so we are ready.”
      Georgia governor Brian Kemp has issued a state of emergency for the state that is set to last until 11.59pm on 8 September.“We are taking every precaution ahead of Hurricane Idalia’s landfall tomorrow, and I am taking this additional executive action to ensure state assets are ready to respond,” Kemp said on Tuesday ahead of Idalia.“Georgians in the expected impact area can and should take necessary steps to ensure their safety and that of their families. We are well positioned to respond to whatever Idalia may bring,” he added.The executive order said that Idalia “has the potential to produce severe impacts to citizens throughout south-central and southeast coastal Georgia”, and that potential flooding, downed trees, power lines, and debris may render “Georgia’s network of roads impassable in affected counties, isolating residences and persons from access to essential public services.”The Guardian’s Ankita Rao has tweeted photos of what she describes as “some of the worst flooding” in Tarpon, Florida, that her parents and friends have seen as a result of Hurricane Idalia.According to Rao, the access to and from one of her friend’s home has been flooded entirely.Other residents can be seen kayaking across the flood waters.Idalia has brought heavy flooding and damage to the state’s Gulf coast after it made landfall slightly before 8am ET on Wednesday as a category 3 storm.“I found them all to be laser focused on what their needs were and I asked them, but I think they’re reassured that we’re going to be there for whatever they need, including search and rescue off the shore,” Biden said of the governors of North and South Carolina, as well as Georgia, as he reffirmed federal assistance to southeastern states currently enduring Hurricane Idalia.“How can we not respond? My god, how can we not respond to those needs?” Biden said in response to whether he can assure Amricans that the federal government is going to have the emergency funding that they need to get through this hurricane season.“I’m confident even though there’s a lot of talk from some of our friends up in the Hill about the cost. We got to do it. This is the United States of America,” he added.“I don’t think anybody can deny the impact of a climate crisis anymore. Just look around. Historic floods. I mean, historic floods. More intense droughts, extreme heat, significant wildfires have caused significant damage,” Biden said.He added that he has directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to redeploy resources, including up to 1,500 personnel and 900 Coast Guard personnel throughout the south-eastern states.Biden said that he approved an early request of an emergency declaration by Florida governor Ron DeSantis “in advance” of Hurricane Idalia’s arrival.He added that he spoke with the governors of Georgia and South Carolia and let each of them know that “if there’s anything the states need right now, I’m ready to mobilize that support.”President Joe Biden is speaking now about Hurricane Idalia.We will bring you the latest updates.Anthony White is in Perry, Florida where the small city is seeing widespread destruction as a result of Hurricane Idalia.He reports for the Guardian:Driving into Perry, a small, historic city with a population of just more than 7,000 on Wednesday morning, about 15 miles inland from the coast where Hurricane Idalia made landfall, the scene of destruction was jaw-dropping.Many residents had evacuated, especially after it was announced that some emergency shelters in the region would need to close because even they may not be able to withstand the impact of the storm.Approaching from Tallahassee, the state capital, 50 miles inland, where I left on Tuesday evening at the urging of relatives – having originally planned to ride out the hurricane – more and more streets and highways were blocked by fallen trees on the approach to Perry.There were power lines down all over the place and poles leaning, flood waters in some parts, and trees blocking even several lanes on both sides of the four-lane highway, forcing people to drive in the median. There was danger everywhere.For the full story, click here: More

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      ‘It’s a beast’: landmark US climate law is too complex, environmental groups say

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      When President Joe Biden passed the Inflation Reduction Act a year ago, Adrien Salazar was skeptical.The landmark climate bill includes $60bn for environmental justice investments – money he had fought for, as policy director for the leading US climate advocacy coalition Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJA).But after much discussion, the grassroots group realized they did not have the resources to chase after IRA funding. It would have to hire new staff and develop a specific program to apply for grants to access those funds. The coalition is stretched thin as is: organizing local and state campaigns, leading community engagement, and planning youth programming. GGJA decided it would not apply to funding opportunities at all.“It is not within our capacity to try to build a program that helps our members access federal funding. We just don’t have the capacity to do that,” Salazar said. Many employees lack the time or knowhow to take on grant opportunities.“We’re a national organization. How can we imagine a small organization that’s doing neighborhood, grassroots-level door-knocking to have the capacity to also navigate the federal bureaucracy?”Indeed, many of the small, community-based organizations that would benefit from funding the most are facing hurdles to competing for these investments.Together, their experiences tell a story that echoes other environmental justice experts’ concerns about the IRA – that the monumental spending package won’t assist the communities that need the money the most.Last year, advocates speaking to the Guardian criticized the bill for its many concessions to the fossil fuel industry: “This new bill is genocide, there is no other way to put it,” said Siqiñiq Maupin, co-founder of the Indigenous-led environmental justice group Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic. Salazar felt similarly: how could he trust the federal government to allocate those billions of dollars to communities of color when it still fails to protect them from polluters?Now, a second major criticism has emerged: some groups simply don’t have the time or resources to navigate the complicated bureaucratic process of applying for funding.A year after the law’s passing, various grant deadlines for funding have already come and gone, representing key opportunities many groups may have missed.Applying for funding opportunities – which is no guarantee of success – requires local community groups that are often run by volunteers to prepare an enormous amount of documentation.Lakiesha Lloyd, an organizer who lives and works in Charleston, West Virginia, is still educating herself on how the application process works. She sees the historic climate bill as a lifeline for her predominantly Black community on the West Side where concrete highways crisscross the neighborhood and poor air quality reigns.“We’ve never seen this kind of investment toward climate in our nation’s history,” said Lloyd, who works as a climate justice organizer for the national veterans rights group, Common Defense.Still, she has a lot to learn until she can tap in herself. Instead, she’s relying on a peer partner to help navigate the federal grant-making process.Morgan King, a climate campaign coordinator in West Virginia who has worked with Lloyd, said applying for grants is often easier said than done.“It’s not something that someone can just sit down alone and write within a several-hour time gap,” she said. “The grant application, especially for federal grants, is a beast and requires basically to set aside a week or two of time just focused on it.”This year, King worked with several non-profits to prepare an application for a public health-focused grant program.They had hoped to develop a pilot program on Charleston’s West Side to provide indoor air monitors to income-eligible households. With this data, local advocates could educate community members and engage them in citizen science while also building a case for electrifying homes that currently run on gas.Ultimately, the groups working with King weren’t able to develop an application that felt competitive before the grant deadline hit.“I think had we had a grant writer or more time, we could’ve gotten it there,” King said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn light of these challenges, some critics of the IRA have said their concerns about the spending bill have only deepened.Maria Lopez-Nuñez, a member of the White House environmental justice advisory council, remains wary of whether the money set aside for environmental justice priorities will outweigh the damage done by the legislation’s further investment in fossil fuels.“On one hand, there’s incredible amounts of money out there for communities to actually deal with the issues at hand,” said Lopez-Nuñez. “On the other hand, there are even larger investments in climate scams that are going to hit communities fast and hard,” she added, referring to IRA money set aside for carbon capture and sequestration, as well as hydrogen projects.With more funding, these types environmental harms are exactly the kinds of problems locals groups would be more effective at combating – if only they could access such grants. The federal government has taken notice of this irony and proposed a solution.In April, the Environmental Protection Agency announced the formation of over a dozen regional hubs – better known as TCTACs (pronounced like the mint) – that will aid local community groups attempting to access IRA money.“We know that so many communities across the nation have the solutions to the environmental challenges they face,” said the EPA administrator, Michael Regan, in a statement. “Unfortunately, many have lacked access or faced barriers when it comes to the crucial federal resources needed to deliver these solutions.”In the New York and New Jersey region, for instance, the EPA is funding the national advocacy group We-Act for Environmental Justice, which plans to hire a specialist in government funds and offer grant-writing training and workshops.“Across the federal government, there is no central place you can go to [learn] about the funding opportunities that are available,” said Dana Johnson, senior director of strategy and federal policy for We-Act.Although these hubs are meant to offer more specialized, regional assistance to groups, there are still some concerns as to whether they will be successful owing to the demands that will be made of them; the hub that covers the south-eastern US includes a mammoth territory of eight states.“It’s too soon to know if the IRA will be in any way successful, but it is very clear that the problems that were baked into it are very real and impacting people now,” said Tamara Toles O’Laughlin, a national climate strategist and founder of Climate Critical, an organization working to undo the harm and trauma many climate advocates carry.For Lloyd, the work of unlocking funding sources will continue with or without additional support from the federal government.Since March, she’s been working with King to meet with West Side neighbors and inform them about the IRA – and most importantly, dream with them about the types of projects they want to see emerge from the law’s investments. Together, they have come up with ideas for LED street lights, renewable energy development, green spaces and a farm-to-market grocery store.She’s looking forward to grants opening up and connecting with the technical assistance centers to figure out how to access them. Lloyd remains an optimist. “Optimism is really all we have sometimes,” she said. More

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      The US and China must unite to fight climate change, not each other | Bernie Sanders

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      Climate change is a global crisis and cannot be solved by any one country alone. If the United States, China and other industrialized countries do not come together to dramatically decrease greenhouse gas emissions, the world we leave our children and future generations will become increasingly unhealthy and uninhabitable. Tragically, the cooperation required to address this existential threat is being undermined by hawks in both the United States and China who are moving us toward a disastrous cold war.Now is the time for a radical rethinking of geopolitics to reflect the reality that international cooperation is not only in the best interests of all countries, but is absolutely necessary for the survival of the planet.Here’s the reality. The last eight years have been the eight hottest on record. This year is on track to be the hottest year in recorded history, and this past July was the hottest month on record. Across the United States, July broke more than 3,200 daily temperature records and dozens of American cities broke or tied their previous daily temperature records three or more times. Phoenix experienced 31 days in a row at or above 110F (43.3C), 13 days longer than the previous record. El Paso, Miami, Austin and many other places also suffered under record-breaking stretches of extreme heat.Smoke from unprecedented wildfires in Canada enveloped US cities and drifted halfway around the world, causing dangerously unhealthy air quality. Vermont, my home state, experienced floods that damaged 4,000 homes and 800 businesses, the state’s worst natural disaster since 1927. In Maui, Hawaii, rapidly moving fires destroyed 2,700 structures in historic Lahaina and took more than 100 lives, making it the deadliest wildfire in the US in more than a century.But it’s not just the US that is dealing with record-breaking heatwaves and enormous climate-caused devastation. China experienced record-high temperatures last month, including the country’s all-time temperature record of 126F (52.2C), and recent flooding has killed about 100 people, destroyed nearly 200,000 homes, displaced some 1.5 million people and caused more than $13bn in damage.From Tokyo to Rome to Tunis to Tirana, cities across Asia, Europe and north Africa experienced their hottest days on record. In Iran, the heat index hit 158F (70C), testing the limits of human survival. In our own hemisphere, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador all saw temperature records fall. It’s winter right now in South America, but that hasn’t stopped temperatures from exceeding 100F (37.7C) in some places, a heating event a climate historian labeled “one of the extreme events the world has ever seen”.And it’s not just that temperatures have been soaring on land. Our oceans have never been warmer. Right now, 44% of the world’s oceans are experiencing a marine heatwave. The Mediterranean Sea is experiencing its hottest temperatures on record, more than 9F hotter than average in some places. Off the coast of Newfoundland, waters are as much as 18F above normal. South of Miami, waters reached 101F (38.3C). You’re supposed to find temperatures like that in a hot tub, not the ocean. This warming could further devastate coral reefs, fisheries and marine ecosystems around the world.In the midst of this global crisis, there is both good news and bad news. The good news is that recent years have seen long-overdue steps to transition the global economy away from fossil fuels into more efficient and renewable energy sources. In the United States, the Inflation Reduction Act included an unprecedented $300bn in investments in clean energy and energy efficiency, which could help increase US solar energy by 500% and more than double wind energy by 2035, reducing carbon emissions by roughly 40%.Other countries have also made major investments. China spent $546bn on clean energy last year and continues to manufacture and deploy more renewable energy than the rest of the world combined. By 2030, China may deploy enough renewable energy to essentially power the entire US electrical grid three times over. The European Union has laid out a plan to invest more than $1tn over the next decade in renewables and energy efficiency, aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% compared with 1990.Importantly, large sections of the corporate world have turned away from investments in fossil fuels and are now spending hundreds of billions on sustainable energy. Altogether, the International Energy Agency (IEA) expects the global community to invest $1.6tn in wind, solar power, electric vehicles, batteries, and electric grids this year, compared with just $1tn in fossil fuels. This progress has led the IEA to forecast that renewables will surpass coal to become the largest source of global electricity generation by early 2025, much faster than previously predicted.The bad news is that we are still falling well short of the kinds of investments needed to deal with this crisis. We are still not moving fast enough to save our planet. The latest report from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects that without more urgent action, the world will pass the key 1.5C (2.7F) threshold by the early 2030s, risking a far deadlier future for our children and future generations. The science is clear: if the US, China, and the rest of the planet do not act with greater urgency to dramatically cut carbon emissions, our planet will face enormous and irreversible damage.Let’s be clear: since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the US has put more carbon into the atmosphere, by far, than any other country. While the new technologies sustained by fossil fuels improved our standard of living, we laid the groundwork for the climate calamity the planet is now experiencing.In recent years, the rapidly growing Chinese economy has eclipsed the US as the world’s major carbon emitter. Right now, China is building six times as many coal-fired power plants as the rest of the world combined – the equivalent of two new coal plants every week. Last year, they quadrupled the number of new coal plants approved compared with 2021. Current plans will see China add as much new coal to its grid as used in all of India, the second largest coal user, and five times more coal capacity as the US.It is no great secret the Chinese government is undertaking many policies that we and the international community should oppose. They are cruelly repressing and interning the Uyghurs, threatening Taiwan and stifling freedom of expression in Tibet and Hong Kong. China has bullied its neighbors, abused the global trading system, stolen technology and is building out a dystopian surveillance state.The US is rightly organizing its allies to press Beijing on these and other issues. But organizing most of our national effort around a zero-sum global confrontation with China is unlikely to change Chinese behavior and will alienate allies and partners.Most importantly, it could doom our planet by making climate cooperation impossible between the world’s two largest greenhouse emitters. We need to move in a bold new direction. Recent history provides some instructive examples.In 1962, when the US and the Soviet Union stood on the verge of nuclear war, President John F Kennedy and the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, came together to prevent mutual destruction. Just a few months later, with the nuclear crisis as the background, President Kennedy proposed to the Soviet Union an arms reductions plan which would change the confrontational dynamic that had brought the world to the brink. Even arch anti-communists like Nixon and Reagan made bold gambits to reduce tensions, fearful of global annihilation. We face a similar dynamic today, facing collective catastrophe if we do not change course.Here is the insane dynamic that must be changed. In recent years, both the US and China have greatly increased their military budgets. The US now spends some $900bn on the Pentagon, more than the next 10 nations combined. China, with the world’s second largest military budget, spends almost $300bn. Despite spending these huge amounts on “defense”, both countries are losing the war against the climate ccrisis. The US has experienced massive floods, fires, drought and extreme weather disturbances, which have cost us hundreds of billions. The recent flooding in China alone will cost that government tens of billions. Into the future, scientists tell us that great cities like Shanghai and New York will be underwater if we do not act effectively against the climate crisis.So here’s a “radical” idea. Instead of spending enormous amounts of money planning for a war against each other, the US and China should come to an agreement to mutually cut their military budgets and use the savings to move aggressively to improve energy efficiency, move toward sustainable energy and end our reliance on fossil fuels. They should also provide increased support for developing countries who are suffering from the climate crisis through no fault of their own.Now, I know that establishment politicians in both countries will tell me how naive and unsophisticated I am to offer such a suggestion and they will provide a million reasons as to why it can’t be done. My response is this: go talk to the people in Vermont who have lost their homes because of unprecedented flooding and the families in Hawaii who lost loved ones in the recent fires. Go talk to the more than 1 million people in China who have been displaced by catastrophic floods. Go talk to the people in southern Africa who are starving because of the terrible drought and floods they are experiencing or farmers around the world who can no longer grow their crops because of water shortages.Perhaps most importantly, go talk to the hundreds of millions of young people in every country on earth who are losing hope, wondering whether they should even have children of their own, given the enormous challenges the climate crisis poses for a normal life.Nelson Mandela famously remarked; “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” If we are to save the planet, now is the time for bold action. Let’s do it.
      Bernie Sanders is a US Senator and chairman of the health, education, labor and pensions committee More

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      Biden says landmark climate bill is winning against special interests – as it happened

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      From 2h agoPresident Joe Biden has started his speech marking the first anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act, which he described as “one of the most significant laws … of taking on a special interest and winning”.Biden begins thanking Vice-President Kamala Harris and members of Congress who played a “pivotal” role in getting the bill passed. “Everyone was telling us there’s no possibility with the divided Congress the way it was,” he said.Here’s a recap of today’s developments:
      President Joe Biden used the first anniversary of his signature Inflation Reduction Act to pitch the landmark clean-energy law as an economic powerhouse to an American public that remains largely unaware of its contents. Speaking at a White House ceremony, Biden said the legislation has already created 170,000 clean energy jobs and will create some 1.5m jobs over the next decade, while significantly cutting the nation’s carbon emissions.
      Biden and first lady Jill Biden will travel to Maui on Monday to survey damage from the deadly wildfires that ravaged the resort town of Lahaina last week. The Bidens will meet with survivors of the fires, as well as first responders and other government officials, the White House said.
      Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney in Georgia who is prosecuting Donald Trump and 18 other allies over efforts to overturn the 2020 election, has proposed a trial commencement date of 4 March 2024 for Trump and his 18 co-defendants. That would have Trump in court mid-campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
      Willis is facing a flurry of racist online abuse after the former president attacked his opponents using the word “riggers”, a thinly veiled play on the N-word. Calls to violence have proliferated across far-right sites since the charges against Trump in the Georgia case were made public on Monday night.
      Former vice-president Mike Pence said the Georgia election was not stolen in 2020 and that “no one is above the law” after Trump was indicted in the state’s election subversion case. Pence’s remarks were his first since the indictment was handed down on Monday, and mark a new full-court press in recent days surrounding his certification of the 2020 election results.
      Trump’s dubious defense that he was exercising his free-speech rights in response to a four-count federal criminal indictment charging him with pushing illegal schemes to overturn his 2020 election loss is prompting ex-Department of Justice officials and scholars to criticize such claims as bogus and as threats to the rule of law.
      Special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump and his attempts to overturn the 2020 election obtained a trove of direct messages that the former president sent to others privately through his Twitter account, according to newly unsealed court documents. A court filing last week showed federal prosecutors obtained a search warrant in January directing Twitter to produce “data and records” related to Trump’s Twitter account as well as a non-disclosure agreement prohibiting Twitter from disclosing the search warrant. The social media platform delayed complying, prompting a federal judge to hold Twitter in contempt and fine it $350,000, the filing showed.
      Americans are deeply divided along party lines in their views of Trump’s actions in the most recent criminal cases brought against him, according to a new poll.
      We reported earlier that the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has proposed that Donald Trump’s trial on election interference charges start on 4 March 2024.Willis’s suggested date is just one day before Super Tuesday, when 15 states are scheduled to hold primaries or caucuses to select their 2024 candidates.Willis submitted her recommendation in a court filing which also requested arraignment for the defendants charged in the Georgia election case to take place during the week of 5 September.Trump is set to be on trial in New York on 25 March 2024 on separate charges connected to a $130,000 payment he made to Stormy Daniels, a porn star, with whom he is alleged to have had an extramarital affair.He is also set to go on trial in Florida in May on charges of retaining classified documents after leaving office.The US has faced some tough times in recent years, Biden says. Despite this, he says the economy is stronger and better than any other industrial nation in the world right now.He accuses Republicans of having repeatedly tried to repeal key parts of the Inflation Reduction Act, and of taking credit for private investments and the jobs coming into their states. “That’s OK,” he says. “I’m proud of the historic law my administration passed, but it’s not about me. It’s about you.”
      Bidenomics is just another way of saying restore the American dream.
      Biden says the US is investing more than $50bn to build up resilience to the impacts of climate change. He vows to cut carbon pollution by half by 2030.The Inflation Reduction Act is helping families save thousands of dollars in energy bills every year, he says. Consumers will save an estimated $27bn in electric bills between now and 2030, he says.
      When I say climate means jobs, I mean good paying union jobs.
      Biden says his administration is also boosting the nation’s energy security after years in which China dominated the clean energy supply chains.He says the time is over in which the answer has been to find the cheapest labor, and then to import the product from abroad. “Not any more,” he says. “We are building it here and sending the product over here.”The Inflation Reduction Act is projected to help triple wind power and increase solar power eightfold by 2030, he says.Biden says the Inflation Reduction Act is bringing jobs back to the US.
      We’re leaving nobody behind. We’re investing in all of America, in the heartland and coast to coast.
      The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has proposed a trial commencement date of 4 March 2024 for Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case.Willis also asked to schedule arraignments for the defendants for the week of 5 September, according to a court filing.Biden says more jobs have been created in the two years since he took office than any administration has in a single four-year term.The US has more jobs than before the pandemic, he says, and workers are finding better, higher-paying and higher-satisfaction jobs.Meanwhile, unemployment and inflation are down, he says. He attributes inflation falling to “corporate profits coming back down to earth”.President Joe Biden has started his speech marking the first anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act, which he described as “one of the most significant laws … of taking on a special interest and winning”.Biden begins thanking Vice-President Kamala Harris and members of Congress who played a “pivotal” role in getting the bill passed. “Everyone was telling us there’s no possibility with the divided Congress the way it was,” he said.As we wait for Joe Biden to take the stage, here is some lunchtime reading on the Georgia election investigation.As part of Georgia district attorney Fani Willis’s delivery of a 41-count indictment against former president Donald Trump and 18 others, the racketeering charge also lists 30 “unindicted co-conspirators”.Here is the Guardian’s explainer on those individuals and their involvement in the alleged 2020 presidential election fraud:President Joe Biden is set to deliver an address at approximately 2.30pm on the anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act.We will bring you the latest updates of Biden’s remarks.It is the nature of conspiracy theories to turn tragedy into grist, to transform grief and human suffering into an abstract game. The latest horrifying example came out of news late July that Barack Obama’s chef Tafari Campbell had drowned in the waters off Martha’s Vineyard.What was a terrible accident and a tragic loss for Campbell’s family and friends was almost immediately seized upon by the paranoid corners of the internet as proof that somehow Barack and Michelle Obama had been involved in an assassination.It was not the first time that conspiracists have seized on a senseless death as proof of a deeper plot: the 1993 suicide of Vince Foster, lawyer in the Clinton White House, and the murder of the DNC staffer Seth Rich during the 2016 presidential campaign were both used as proof of a “Clinton body count” by the right wing, a playbook that was immediately resurrected as news of Campbell’s death broke. The difference was that those earlier conspiracy theories were focused almost entirely on the Clintons, while the current iteration is far more diffuse and its targets far more wide-reaching.Campbell’s death, these conspiracists claim, is not just proof of the Obamas’ criminality but of a massive network of treasonous child sex traffickers – an elaborate and convoluted narrative all too well known to us now as QAnon. QAnon appeared in 2017 and quickly spread through the far right, before beginning to wane in the wake of Joe Biden’s inauguration.But it hasn’t disappeared entirely, and understanding the conspiracy theory’s rise and fall – and the awful legacy it has left us – reveals a great deal about the modern landscape of partisan paranoia. It also offers some clues on how best to fight back.Read the full story here.Donald Trump is testing the limits of what the federal judge presiding over his 2020 election subversion case will tolerate after warning the former president against making inflammatory remarks.US district court judge Tanya Chutkan last week admonished Trump against violating the conditions of his release put in place at his arraignment, warning that inflammatory remarks from the former president would push her to schedule the trial sooner.Trump immediately tested that warning by posting on Truth Social messages that largely amplified others criticizing Chutkan. “She obviously wants me behind bars. VERY BIASED & UNFAIR,” Trump wrote on Monday.Trump has waged a similarly defiant campaign against others involved in criminal cases against him, including special counsel Jack Smith and Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis, the New York Times reported.
      Some lawyers have said that if Mr. Trump were an ordinary citizen issuing these attacks, he would be in jail by now. The question is whether Mr. Trump will face consequences for this kind of behavior ahead of a trial.
      ‘He is absolutely in my view testing the judge and testing the limits, almost daring and taunting her,’ said Karen Agnifilo, who has a three-decade legal career, including as the chief assistant in the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Ms. Agnifilo added that Mr. Trump is so far benefiting from his status as a candidate for office, facing fewer repercussions from the judges in the cases than other vocal defendants might.
      Trump could be found in violation of the conditions of his release, which could entail a fine or even being sent to jail, the report writes.Calls to violence have proliferated across far-right sites since the charges against Donald Trump in the Georgia case were made public on Monday night.Several Gab posts reproduced images of nooses and gallows and called for Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney in Georgia, and grand jurors who delivered the charges to be hanged. And posts on Patriots.win combined the wordplay with direct calls to violence.Earlier this month, Willis wrote to Fulton county commissioners and judges to warn them to stay vigilant in the face of rising tensions ahead of the release of the indictment. She told them that she and her staff had been receiving racist threats and voicemails since she began her investigation into Trump’s attempt to subvert the election two years ago. She said:
      I guess I am sending this as a reminder that you should stay alert over the month of August and stay safe.
      As Willis’s investigation approached its climax, Trump intensified his personal attacks on her through social media. He has accused her of prosecutorial misconduct and even of being racist herself.Willis has rebuffed his claims as “derogatory and false”.Trump has also unleashed a barrage of vitriol against Jack Smith, the special counsel who earlier this month brought four federal charges against Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Trump has referred to the prosecutor, who is white, as “Deranged Jack Smith”.The judge in the federal case, Tanya Chutkan, has warned him to be careful not to make inflammatory public comments about the proceedings, saying she would “take whatever measures are necessary” to prevent intimidation of witnesses or contamination of the jury pool.Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney in Georgia who is prosecuting Donald Trump and 18 other allies over efforts to overturn the 2020 election, is facing a flurry of racist online abuse after the former president attacked his opponents using the word “riggers”, a thinly veiled play on the N-word.Hours after Willis had released the indictments on Monday night, Trump went on his social media platform Truth Social calling for all charges to be dropped and predicting he would exonerated. He did not mention Willis by name, but accused prosecutors of pursuing the wrong criminal targets.“They never went after those that Rigged the Election,” Trump wrote.
      They only went after those that fought to find the RIGGERS!
      Willis is African American. So too are the two New York-based prosecutors who have investigated Trump, the Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg who indicted him in April over alleged hush-money payments, and Letitia James, the state attorney general who is investigating Trump’s financial records.Trump’s allusion to the racial slur was immediately picked up by his supporters on far-right platforms including Gab and Patriots.win. The sites hosted hundreds of posts featuring “riggers” in their headlines in a disparaging context.The word has also been attached to numerous social media posts to Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss. The two Black poll workers from Atlanta were falsely accused by some of the 19 defendants in the Fulton county case of committing election fraud during the 2020 vote count, and the indictment accuses Trump allies of harassing them.The attorney representing Donald Trump in his Georgia case once donated to the campaign of Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney who filed charges against the former president on Monday.Drew Findling, who is on the team of lead Trump attorneys fighting against Rico charges in Georgia, has backed several Democrats, including donating $1,440 to Willis’ successful primary campaign in July 2020, Federal Election Commission records obtained by Rolling Stone reveal.Findling also donated $8,400 to Joe Biden’s winning campaign, records show.Findling is an attorney who has represented rap artists like Gucci Mane, Migos and Cardi B. He also has tweeted critically of Trump, calling him in 2018 “the racist architect of fraudulent Trump University”. More