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      Republicans shelve Zuckerberg contempt vote in ‘censorship’ inquiry ‘for now’

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      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

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      Biden announces new measures to protect Americans from extreme heat

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      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

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      We warned you about this climate emergency. Now it’s here | Peter Kalmus

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      We’ve passed into a ferocious new phase of global heating with much worse to come. Biden must declare a climate emergency.I’m terrified by what’s being done to our planet. I’m also fighting to stop it. You, too, should be afraid while also taking the strongest action you can take. There has never been a summer like this in recorded history: shocking ocean heat, deadly land heat, unprecedented fires and smoke, sea ice melting faster than we’ve ever seen or thought possible. I’ve dreaded this depth of Earth breakdown for almost two decades, and, like many of my colleagues, I’ve been trying to warn you. As hard as I could. Now it’s here.And mark my words: it’s all still just getting started. So long as we burn fossil fuels, far, far worse is on the way; and I take zero satisfaction in knowing that this will be proven right, too, with a certainty as non-negotiable and merciless as the physics behind fossil-fueled global heating. Instead, I only feel fury at those in power, and bottomless grief for all that I love. We are losing Earth on our watch. The Amazon rainforest may already be past its tipping point. Coral reefs as we know them will be gone from our planet by mid-century, and possibly much earlier given this surge in sea-surface temperatures. These are cosmic losses. And as a father, I grieve for my children.Fossil fuels are causing this damage. Therefore, the only way out of this heat nightmare is to end them. No amount of tree planting, recycling, carbon offsetting, or wishful carbon-capture thinking will ever change this. The longer we allow the fossil fuel industry to exist, the more irreversible damage to Earth the people who profit from it will continue to knowingly cause. We are careening toward fossil-fueled heatwaves that will kill over a million people in single events. And it will not plateau there: more fossil fuels, more heat, more death. The only way out is to end fossil fuels.Biden’s refusal to declare a climate emergency and his eagerness to push new pipelines and new drilling – at an even faster pace than Trump – goes against science, goes against common sense, goes against life on Earth. In the world of politics-as-usual, with its short-term goals and calculus of “safer to follow than to lead”, I suppose there are reasons and rationalizations for this planet-destroying choice. But speaking as a scientist, it seems ignorant and short-sighted. It’s certainly a form of climate denial. And I have no doubt that fossil fuel executives and lobbyists – and those who chose to stand with them – will, in the future, be considered criminals.Because the stakes could not be greater. Every speck of fossil fuel sold and burnt combusts into carbon dioxide, forcing the planet to heat. Carbon dioxide resides in the atmosphere for a very long time, making the excess heat and other climate impacts basically irreversible on human-relevant timescales. Every bit of extra heat makes climate disasters more frequent, widespread and intense.Each minute the fossil fuel industry exists, each drilling permit, airplane flight, gallon of gas, fossil fuel ad, lobbyist’s email, takes us further into irreversible heat catastrophe, socially and physically. These floods and fires and heatwaves and crop failures will keep pushing harder against the systems of our society – insurance, real estate, infrastructure, food, water, energy, geopolitics, everything – until at some point, inevitably, the systems will break. Nowhere is safe.Using executive orders and federal agency rules, and without needing to involve this failure of a Congress, Biden could end new drilling leases on federal lands and waters, block new pipelines and effectively ban fracking. He could unleash a historic education program to counter fossil fuel industry disinformation, using the bully pulpit to build awareness and support. He could prohibit government financing of overseas fossil fuel infrastructure, end energy department fossil-fuel financing programs, ban new fossil-fuel vehicle sales by 2030, prosecute violations by fossil fuel polluters, commit to veto laws granting immunity to such criminals, and more.Declaring a climate emergency would unleash additional powers such as banning oil exports and further accelerating renewable energy buildout on a scale not seen since the mobilization for the second world war. It would send an unmistakable signal to investors still living in the past, to universities that have been shamefully slow to divest, to media outlets that have failed to connect the dots, to all the dangerously lagging institutions of our society. And it would be a desperately needed win for climate activists.Biden had the last opportunity of any president to keep the world under 1.5C of heating. Tragically, this opportunity has now almost certainly been squandered. However, Biden could still choose to pivot and prevent, instead of cause, even greater damage. But will he choose to do so? Or will he continue to champion oil executives and their pipelines?The planet is desperate for visionary leadership. The planet is desperate for policy that creates an equitable transition away from fossil fuels, and into climate emergency mode as a society.I have not given up, and I never will. I owe that to my children, to all the good people who don’t deserve this, and to all the life on this gift of a planet. No matter how much we’ve lost, it will never be too late to fight. But the hour is late. It is time to set aside differences and fight together, as creatively and courageously as we can, to save all we still can. Soon, all but the greatest fools among us will realize that nothing was more important.
      Peter Kalmus is a climate scientist and author of Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution More

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      Hunter Biden pleads not guilty to tax and gun charges amid uncertainty over previous plea agreement – as it happened

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      From 4h agoThe president’s son had been expected to formally agree with federal prosecutors on a resolution to two tax charges and one gun charge brought against him. Instead, he pleaded not guilty to the counts, after a judge raised issues with the deal.Here’s the New York Times with an explanation of the surprise turn of events:
      Judge Maryellen Noreika has delayed a decision on whether to accept the plea agreement between federal prosecutors and Hunter Biden — demanding that the two sides make changes in the deal clarifying her role and insert language that limits the broad immunity from prosecution offered to Biden on his business dealings. Biden’s lawyers estimated it would take about two weeks.
      After a grueling three-hour hearing, Hunter Biden entered a plea of not guilty on the tax charges, which he will reverse if the two sides redo their agreement to the judge’s satisfaction.
      This blog has closed. Read more about the Hunter Biden story here:Hunter Biden went to a federal courthouse in Wilmington, Delaware to formally accept an agreement with prosecutors, which was expected to resolve the long-running investigations into his conduct. But in a surprise move, the presiding judge turned down the deal and ordered the two parties to make changes, delaying the resolution of the case. It was also revealed that federal investigators are continuing a separate inquiry into his business activities – a fact welcomed by the GOP, which has been looking to prove that Joe Biden and his son are corrupt. Back in Washington DC, Republican lawmakers aggressively questioned homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who may soon be the target of impeachment, while elsewhere, lawmakers tried to determine if the US government has found evidence of aliens.Here’s what else happened today:
      Mayorkas defended his handling of the southern border from criticism by the GOP, saying his security strategy “is working”.
      The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates to their highest level in 22 years in their ongoing campaign to stop inflation.
      Rudy Giuliani admitted that statements he made about two Georgia election workers alleging they perpetrated fraud in the 2020 election were false.
      At the last minute, a top House Republican tried to derail the plea agreement federal prosecutors reached with Hunter Biden.
      Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, briefly appeared unable to speak at a press conference. He had suffered a concussion in April.
      As chair of the House oversight committee, James Comer has led the campaign of investigations into Joe Biden’s administration, and particularly his son Hunter Biden.In a statement released after the surprise in today’s court hearing, which resulted in a federal judge rejecting, for now, a plea deal between Hunter and federal prosecutors, Comer said the agreement should be taken off the table for good:
      Today District Judge Noreika did the right thing by refusing to rubberstamp Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal. But let’s be clear: Hunter’s sweetheart plea deal belongs in the trash. Last week we heard from two credible IRS whistleblowers about the Department of Justice’s politicization and misconduct in the Biden criminal investigation. Today, the Department of Justice revealed Hunter Biden is under investigation for being a foreign agent.
      The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly has more on today’s developments in Hunter Biden’s long-running legal troubles:Reporters on the scene shared more details about the health scare involving Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s top Republican.CNN says an aide to the leader downplayed the difficulty he suddenly experienced in speaking to the press earlier today, nothing he later took their questions:Senate Republican conference chair John Barrasso later said he was “concerned” about McConnell, but did not think his health was deteriorating:We have just passed hour five of homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s appearance before the House judiciary committee, where, as the Guardian’s Mary Yang and Joan E Greve report, Republican lawmakers have repeatedly made clear they believe he is failing at his job and should be impeached. Here is their rundown of the hearing so far:Republican lawmakers grilled Alejandro Mayorkas, the embattled US secretary of homeland security, during a House judiciary committee oversight hearing on Wednesday.Mayorkas, who has been the target of a GOP-led congressional investigation over his handling of the US-Mexico border, faced a series of tough questions regarding his tenure as head of the department, which broadly oversees US immigration and border policies. The hearing came as some House Republicans have threatened to impeach Mayorkas, the first Latino and immigrant to head the Department of Homeland Security, over his alleged mismanagement of the border.Mayorkas offered a pre-emptive rebuttal to Republicans’ attacks in his opening statement, noting that unlawful crossings at the southern border have decreased by more than half compared with the peak before the end of the pandemic-era policy known as Title 42.The health of senate minority leader Mitch McConnell is back under scrutiny after an alarming moment during a Republican press conference this afternoon in which he abruptly stopped speaking and had to be led away.Video of the incident was posted to Twitter by NBC congressional reporter Frank Thorp, who said the Kentucky senator, 81, “appeared to be unable to restart talking”.McConnell was hospitalized in April after suffering concussion when he tripped and fell during a private dinner at a hotel in Washington DC. In 2019, he tripped and fell at his home in Kentucky, suffering a shoulder fracture.Thorp said that McConnell was led off by his friend and colleague John Barrasso, Republican senator for Wyoming, and later returned to watch the conclusion of the press conference.Asked what had happened, McConnell reportedly said: “I’m fine”.The US Federal Reserve raised interest rates to a 22-year high on Wednesday as it continued its fight against rising inflation, my colleague Dominic Rushe writes.The decision to increase rates by a quarter-percentage point to a range of 5.25% to 5.5% comes after the Fed paused its rate-rising cycle last month.US inflation has now declined for 12 straight months and is currently running at an annual rate of 3%, down from over 9% in June last year. The Fed has raised rates from near zero in an attempt to cool the economy and bring prices down.The US economy has remained robust despite the 11 rate rises the Fed has now implemented – its most aggressive rate-rising cycle in 40 years. Hiring has slowed but remains strong and the unemployment rate is still close to a record low.Read the full report here:Republicans are very pleased that a federal judge rejected Hunter Biden’s plea deal today.Here’s the view from an attorney for the GOP-controlled House committee that made a last-minute attempt to disrupt the deal:The Biden administration has generally avoided the topic of Hunter Biden, and at her ongoing briefing to reporters, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre preempted all questions about the president’s son:The president’s son had been expected to formally agree with federal prosecutors on a resolution to two tax charges and one gun charge brought against him. Instead, he pleaded not guilty to the counts, after a judge raised issues with the deal.Here’s the New York Times with an explanation of the surprise turn of events:
      Judge Maryellen Noreika has delayed a decision on whether to accept the plea agreement between federal prosecutors and Hunter Biden — demanding that the two sides make changes in the deal clarifying her role and insert language that limits the broad immunity from prosecution offered to Biden on his business dealings. Biden’s lawyers estimated it would take about two weeks.
      After a grueling three-hour hearing, Hunter Biden entered a plea of not guilty on the tax charges, which he will reverse if the two sides redo their agreement to the judge’s satisfaction.
      Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to federal tax and gun charges, after a plea deal that was intended to resolve the allegations fell apart in court, Reuters reports.The plea came after the federal judge presiding over the hearing in Wilmington, Delaware said she needed more time to evaluate the deal reached by the president’s son with prosecutors. Prior to the hearing, Biden had agreed to admit guilt to the tax charges, and avoid the gun charge as long as he satisfied certain conditions as part of the deal with the government. More

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      UFO hearing key takeaways: cover-up claims and Pentagon denials

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      In scenes that felt reminiscent of a science-fiction movie, the US Congress held a public hearing on claims the government is covering up its knowledge of UFOs.Unsurprisingly, the hearing generated huge interest in the US and around the world as it heard from three key witnesses, including David Grusch, a whistleblower former intelligence official who in June claimed the US has possession of “intact and partially intact” alien vehicles.UFOs have become a high-profile news story in recent years. The US military says it is actively trying to investigate the small number of sightings for which there is no obvious explanation.As the hearing unfolded there were no new revelations about aliens, but there were startling allegations from witnesses, and a general sense that a cover-up exists somewhere in the US government – as well as skepticism that that has anything to do with “little green men”.Here are the key takeaways:Claims of a cover-upThe US government conducted a “multi-decade” program which collected, and attempted to reverse-engineer, crashed UFOs, David Grusch told the hearing. Grusch, who led analysis of unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAP) within a US Department of Defense agency until 2023, claimed he had been denied access to secret government UFO programs, said he has faced “very brutal” retaliation as a result of his allegations. He claimed he had knowledge of “people who have been harmed or injured” in the course of government efforts to conceal UFO information.Hints of violenceCongressman Tim Burchett asked Grusch if he has any personal knowledge of people who have been harmed or injured in efforts to cover up or conceal extraterrestrial technology. Grusch replied: “Yes.”Burchett asked Grusch if he has heard of anyone being murdered. The former intelligence official answered: “I directed people with that knowledge to the appropriate authorities.”Pentagon denialsBut the Pentagon has denied Grusch’s claims of a cover-up. In a statement, a defense department spokesperson said investigators had not discovered “any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently”.Other witnesses, other claimsOther witnesses at the hearing were David Fravor, a former navy commander who recalled seeing a strange object in the sky while on a training mission in 2004. Ryan Graves, a retired navy pilot who has since founded Americans for Safe Aerospace, a UAP non-profit, claimed that he saw UAP off the Atlantic coast “every day for at least a couple years”.The sightings were “not rare or isolated” and were being witnessed by military aircrews and commercial pilots “whose lives depend on accurate identification”, Graves said.Graves said UAP objects had been detected “essentially where all navy operations are being conducted across the world”. Asked if there were any common characteristics to the UAPs that have been cited by different pilots, Graves says sightings were primarily of “dark grey or black cubes inside of clear sphere” where “the apex or tips of the cube were touching the inside of the sphere”.Doubts lingerNot everyone was convinced by Grusch’s testimony. At times, he appeared less forthcoming under oath than he had been in media interviews.In the interview with NewsNation in June, Grusch claimed the government had “very large, like a football-field kind of size” alien craft, while he told Le Parisien, a French newspaper, that the US had possession of a “bell-like craft” which Benito Mussolini’s government had recovered in northern Italy in 1933.On Wednesday, he was reluctant to go into details on those claims, citing issues of security.Garrett Graff, a journalist and historian who is writing a book on the government’s hunt for UFOs, tweeted: “Very interesting to me that Dave Grusch is unwilling to state and repeat under oath at the #UFOHearings the most explosive – and outlandish – of his claims from his NewsNation interview. He seems to be very carefully dancing around repeating them.”Legislation to comeIn his closing remarks, Republican congressman Glenn Grothman described the hearing as “illuminating” and said he believed legislation would follow.Grothman, the chair of the House subcommittee on national security, the border and foreign affairs, said: “Obviously, I think several of us are going to look forward to getting some answers in a more confidential setting. I assume some legislation will come out of this.” More

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      Ron DeSantis unharmed after car crash on way to campaign event

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      Ron DeSantis, the rightwing governor of Florida and candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, was involved in a car crash on the campaign trail on Tuesday.In a statement to media, DeSantis’s press secretary, Bryan Griffin, said: “This morning, the governor was in a car accident while traveling to an event in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He and his team are uninjured.“We appreciate the prayers and well wishes of the nation for his continued protection while on the campaign trail.”DeSantis, 44, remains in second place in primary polling, albeit about 30 points behind Donald Trump, the multiply indicted former president, in most polling averages and in polls in early voting states.A month out from the first Republican debate, the governor has been reported to be seeking to reboot his campaign.On Tuesday, according to News Channel 9, a Chattanooga ABC affiliate station, the crash happened when “traffic slowed and four motorcade cars hit each other”.The outlet also said one DeSantis staff member “had minor injuries” but “went on to the campaign stop [to] be treated there”.DeSantis was in Tennessee for fundraising and other events. A spokesman told Florida media the governor would continue with his schedule. More

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      Texas governor Greg Abbott rejects demand to remove floating barriers targeting migrants – as it happened

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      From 5h agoA battle is brewing in Texas between its Republican governor Greg Abbott and the Biden administration, which has demanded the state remove floating barriers placed in the Rio Grande to prevent people from crossing from Mexico.Today, Abbott vowed to defy the request from the justice department, potentially setting up a legal fight with the Democratic administration:As the Guardian’s Maya Yang reported last week, the deployment of the floating barriers comes amid reports that Texas authorities are mistreating migrants who cross into the state from Mexico:
      Two pregnant migrant women who were trying to turn themselves in to US immigration authorities have alleged that Texas national guard soldiers refused to provide them with water.
      Speaking to CNN at a shelter in Eagle Pass, Texas, the two women, identified as Carmen from Honduras and María from El Salvador, recounted their experiences at the border amid recent reports of “inhumane” behavior by American border authorities.
      “They told us it was a crime to cross into the US and that we should return to Mexico,” Carmen, who said she is six months pregnant, told CNN. She added that she and her husband had initially tried to cross the Rio Grande on 12 July but were stopped by Texas national guard soldiers.
      Election day 2024 is still a long way off, but we’re getting closer to 23 August, when Republican presidential candidates will have their first debate. Most of the big names have qualified, but Donald Trump says he might not attend, while his former vice-president, Mike Pence, is struggling to qualify, as are Doug Burgum and Asa Hutchinson. We’ll see if these candidates can turn it around in the weeks to come. Meanwhile, the White House expressed alarm at the latest news from Israel, where the far-right government has won passage of a key part its judicial overhaul. Opponents of the move say it could threaten the country’s democracy.Here’s what else happened today:
      Texas’s Republican governor has rejected a justice department demand that the state remove floating barriers intended to stop migrants entering from Mexico.
      Mitt Romney says donors should cut off support to Republican presidential contenders who have no hope of winning the nomination, in an effort to winnow the race to two candidates and defeat Trump.
      House Republicans may decide to hold Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in contempt.
      Special counsel Jack Smith has obtained documents from Bernie Kerik, who advised the Trump campaign’s attempt to prove fraud in the 2020 election.
      Alabama Republicans are resisting a supreme court order to draw a second majority Black congressional district.
      Mitt Romney, the Utah senator who was the Republican nominee for president in 2012 but lost to Barack Obama, has proposed a strategy to unite the current crop of GOP contenders for the White House against Donald Trump.Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Romney, one of Trump’s most outspoken opponents in Congress, calls on donors backing Republican presidential candidates to withdraw their support once it becomes clear that their choice can’t win. The goal is to winnow the field to a two-person race, in hopes the other candidate can keep Trump from returning to office.Here’s more of what he has to say:
      Despite Donald Trump’s apparent inevitability, a baker’s dozen Republicans are hoping to become the party’s 2024 nominee for president. That is possible for any of them if the field narrows to a two-person race before Mr. Trump has the nomination sewn up. For that to happen, Republican megadonors and influencers – large and small – are going to have to do something they didn’t do in 2016: get candidates they support to agree to withdraw if and when their paths to the nomination are effectively closed. That decision day should be no later than, say, Feb 26, the Monday following the contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.
      There are incentives for no-hope candidates to overstay their prospects. Coming in behind first place may grease another run in four years or have market value of its own: Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum got paying gigs. And as former New Hampshire Gov John H Sununu has observed, ‘It is fun running for president if you know you cannot win.’
      Left to their own inclinations, expect several of the contenders to stay in the race for a long time. They will split the non-Trump vote, giving him the prize. A plurality is all that is needed for winner-take-all primaries.
      …
      Our party and our country need a nominee with character, driven by something greater than revenge and ego, preferably from the next generation. Family, friends and campaign donors are the only people who can get a lost-cause candidate to exit the race. After Feb 26, they should start doing just that.
      CNN has reported new details of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his 2022 election loss, including that Bernie Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner who worked with the Trump campaign to uncover fraud, has turned over a trove of documents to the prosecutor.The materials include research and witness statements produced by the team, which was led by Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani. CNN reports that Kerik will meet with Smith’s prosecutors next month for an interview.Here’s more from CNN’s story:
      Former New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik was part of the team led by Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani trying to uncover fraud that would swing the election in favor of Trump.
      For months, Kerik had tried to shield some of the documents from investigators, citing privilege.
      But in recent weeks, Kerik gave the documents to the Trump’s 2024 campaign to review. After that review, the campaign declined to assert privilege, according to Kerik’s lawyer, Tim Parlatore, who turned over the documents to Smith’s office on Sunday.
      “I have shared all of these documents, approximately 600MB, mostly pdfs, with the Special Counsel and look forward to sitting down with them in about 2 weeks to discuss.” Parlatore said.
      Kerik is scheduled to sit down for an interview with the special counsel’s office next month, CNN has learned.
      Among the materials now in Smith’s possession are witness statements, research and other documents produced by Giuliani’s team.
      When the January 6 congressional committee subpoenaed Kerik for documents, he provided a log of his communications that he said he was withholding due to privilege. Those communications have never been disclosed publicly, as the committee did not challenge Kerik’s privilege claims in court.
      The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax authority today announced it would end the practice of sending its employees on unannounced visits of the homes of people who owed taxes.The IRS received a major infusion of funds to modernize its systems under last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, but wound up in the crosshairs of Republicans, who claimed, without evidence, that the money would pay for armed agents.In a statement, IRS commissioner Danny Werfel said the decision to end the decades-old practice of dispatching unnamed agents to homes and businesses was part of its modernization plan.“We are taking a fresh look at how the IRS operates to better serve taxpayers and the nation, and making this change is a common-sense step. Changing this long-standing procedure will increase confidence in our tax administration work and improve overall safety for taxpayers and IRS employees,” Werfel said. The IRS added that the change in policy was supported by its employee union.In an interview with CNN, a top official with the NAACP civil rights group explains the problems with Alabama’s new congressional maps: Nonetheless, the GOP-led state has gone ahead with maps that appear to violate a supreme court ruling ordering lawmakers to draw a second majority African-American congressional district.Israel’s far-right government today won a battle in their case to reform the judiciary, but as the Guardian’s Chris McGreal reports, American Jews opposed to the government’s policies against Palestinians say they are feeling optimistic about changing minds in the United States:Mike Levinson has been pushing back for 40 years and finally thinks he might be getting somewhere.“There’s a change and the politicians see it. I think it scares them,” said Levinson, holding a sign demanding “Stop Israeli settler violence” as he marched through New York on Thursday.“There’s a tremendous change going on in the American Jewish community. There are a lot of Jews, especially young people, who are not so quick to automatically and unconditionally support everything that Israel does. People are accepting the fact that it’s OK to be Jewish and criticise Israel.”Levinson, a Jewish New Yorker, began protesting against Israeli government policies during its 1982 invasion of Lebanon. It’s been a long and often lonely road since then as he has sought to get his fellow Americans to pay attention to decades of Israeli occupation, military assaults on the West Bank and Gaza, and the unrelenting expansion of Jewish settlements.Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York was seen joining striking writers and actors on a picket line outside Netflix’s Manhattan offices today.An overwhelming majority of voters in Ohio support a proposed constitutional amendment that would guarantee access to abortion in the state, according to a new poll. A new USA Today/Suffolk University poll showed 58% of Ohio voters backed the amendment enshrining abortion rights. Among those who backed the amendment included a third of Republicans and 85% of independent women.The proposed amendment states that:
      Every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion.
      Under this proposal, abortion could still be banned after “fetal viability”, or whether it can live outside the womb.Republican congressman of Florida Matt Gaetz has been defending his decision to introduce legislation to defund investigations into Donald Trump led by special counsel Jack Smith.Gaetz made the announcement last week, just hours after the former president said he had received a letter identifying him as a target of the justice department’s investigation into the January 6 insurrection, led by Smith.In an interview with Newsmax, Gaetz said he didn’t “need Jack Smith to tell me what happened on January 6”. He said:
      I was there. I saw President Trump encourage people to peacefully and patriotically go into places where permits had been reserved with city government for lawful protest activity.
      A key group of Senate Democrats have urged the minority leader, Mitch McConnell, to pressure Senator Tommy Tuberville to end his “reckless, dangerous” hold on military nominations.The letter, led by armed services committee member Senator Mazie Hirono and obtained by NBC, calls on McConnell to “exercise your leadership to protect the readiness of our military”.Tuberville, who for months has been blocking military nominations in protest of the Pentagon’s policy to reimburse travel expenses for those seeking reproductive care, including abortions, across state lines, has been “threatening our national security”, the letter says. It continues:
      We know you share our concerns about the consequences of this hold on our Armed Services, and as the leader of your conference, we urge you to take stronger action to resolve this situation.
      The Democratic signatories to the letter all serve on the Senate armed services committee with Tuberville.Election day 2024 is still a long way off, but we’re getting closer to 23 August, when Republican presidential candidates will have their first debate. Most of the big names have qualified, but Donald Trump says he might not attend, while his former vice-president Mike Pence is struggling to qualify, as are Doug Burgum and Asa Hutchinson. We’ll see if these candidates can turn it around in the weeks to come. Meanwhile, the White House has expressed alarm at the latest news from Israel, where the far-right government has won passage of a key part its judicial overhaul. Opponents of the move say it could threaten the country’s democracy.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Texas’s Republican governor has rejected a justice department demand that it remove floating barriers intended to stop migrants entering from Mexico.
      House Republicans may decide to hold Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in contempt.
      Alabama Republicans are resisting a supreme court order to draw a second majority Black congressional district.
      Republicans have hammered Joe Biden over migration at the southern border ever since he took office, but over the weekend, one GOP lawmaker said he believed both state and federal authorities had mishandled the crisis, the Guardian’s Maya Yang reports:A Texas Republican representative, Tony Gonzales, has called the current tactics used to deter migrants at the US-Mexico border “not acceptable” and urged the Biden administration and Congress to focus more heavily on legal immigration.In an interview with CBS’s Face The Nation on Sunday, Gonzales, whose 23rd district in Texas includes 800 miles of the US-Mexico border, said that the border crisis “has been anything but humane” and called recent reports of Texas troopers allegedly pushing small children and nursing babies back into the Rio Grande “not acceptable”.“It’s not acceptable and it hasn’t been acceptable for two years … Everything that is happening along the border is just adding fuel to the fire,” Gonzales said. He went on to say that Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, who has come under fire from human rights groups over his controversial Operation Lone Star border security program, “is doing everything he can to secure the border”.A battle is brewing in Texas between its Republican governor Greg Abbott and the Biden administration, which has demanded the state remove floating barriers placed in the Rio Grande to prevent people from crossing from Mexico.Today, Abbott vowed to defy the request from the justice department, potentially setting up a legal fight with the Democratic administration:As the Guardian’s Maya Yang reported last week, the deployment of the floating barriers comes amid reports that Texas authorities are mistreating migrants who cross into the state from Mexico:
      Two pregnant migrant women who were trying to turn themselves in to US immigration authorities have alleged that Texas national guard soldiers refused to provide them with water.
      Speaking to CNN at a shelter in Eagle Pass, Texas, the two women, identified as Carmen from Honduras and María from El Salvador, recounted their experiences at the border amid recent reports of “inhumane” behavior by American border authorities.
      “They told us it was a crime to cross into the US and that we should return to Mexico,” Carmen, who said she is six months pregnant, told CNN. She added that she and her husband had initially tried to cross the Rio Grande on 12 July but were stopped by Texas national guard soldiers. More

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      Talks initiated with North Korea over US soldier who ran across border

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      The US-led United Nations Command has initiated talks with North Korea about the American soldier who ran into that country and crossed one of the most militarized borders in the world, according to an official.But a British lieutenant general who helps lead the UN command stopped short of saying exactly when talks about Travis King began, whether they have been constructive or how many exchanges there have been. The lieutenant general, Andrew Harrison, also would not address any known details about King’s health condition.“None of us know where this is going to end – I am, in life, an optimist, and I remain optimistic,” Harrison told reporters at a news conference in the South Korean capital, Seoul. “But … I will leave it at that.”Harrison added that the communications between the UN Command and North Korea about King kicked off through mechanisms which were set up under a 1953 armistice that halted fighting during the Korean war.He did not elaborate, but the Associated Press reported that Harrison may have been referring to a telephone line between the UN Command – which was created to fight that war – and the North Korean People’s Army at Panmunjom, the border truce village where King crossed on 18 July.Harrison’s comments about the beginning of a dialogue centering on King’s fate came about four days after the US said North Korea had been unresponsive to its attempts to start talks.King was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, after finishing a prison sentence in South Korea for assault. Potentially facing discipline from the army as well as discharge from the service, he took a civilian tour of Panmunjom on Tuesday and ran into North Korea.He was reportedly laughing as he bolted across the border separating the Koreas, which technically remain at war because no treaty was ever signed.King, 23, is the first known American to be held in North Korea in nearly five years.The US fought alongside the South during the Korean war and has never set up a diplomatic relationship with the North. The two countries sometimes talk through the armistice telephone line, but North Korea could be reluctant to release King quickly to the US given the political history lurking over the situation, according to experts in some quarters.The last three known American detainees in North Korea were released in 2018. Back then, the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, engaged in nuclear diplomacy with the Donald Trump White House.But just a year earlier, the American student Otto Warmbier died within days of his being released in a coma after 17 months in captivity.Warmbier and other American detainees in North Korea were imprisoned over various accusations, including of subversion, anti-state activities and spying.King had served in South Korea as a cavalry scout with the US army’s 1st Armored Division. A court in Seoul sentenced him to prison and fined him 5m won (about $3,900) for assault on an unidentified person as well as damaging a police vehicle.His relatives have said he may have been overwhelmed by his legal issues and potential discharge from the army when – like many tourists do – he programmed a tour of Panmunjom, an area without civilian residents that is jointly overseen by the UN Command and North Korea.King’s detention in North Korea came at a particularly fraught time in that region politically speaking. North Korea on Monday fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast, the latest in a recent streaks of weapons testing which is apparently meant to protest against naval assets which the US sent to South Korea.The Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting More