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      Appeals court weighs narrowing Trump gag order in election subversion case

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      A federal appeals court appeared inclined at a hearing on Monday to keep some form of a gag order against Donald Trump preventing him from assailing potential trial witnesses and others in the criminal case related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.The court expressed concern, however, that the order was too broad and left open the possibility of restricting its scope – including allowing the former US president to criticize the prosecutors in the office of the special counsel Jack Smith who brought the charges.The trial judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the case in federal district court in Washington, entered the order in October that prohibited Trump from making inflammatory statements and social media posts attacking prosecutors, potential witnesses and court staff in the case.It allowed Trump only to criticize the case in general terms – such as broadly attacking Joe Biden, the Biden administration or the justice department as bringing politically motivated charges against him – and to criticize the judge herself.Trump appealed to the US court of appeals for the DC circuit, arguing the order unconstitutionally infringed on his first amendment rights and protected core political speech as he campaigns to be re-elected to the presidency next year. The order was paused while he appealed.On Monday, at the hearing, which lasted more than two hours, the three-judge panel repeatedly suggested they found untenable Trump’s position that there could be no “prophylactic” provision to ensure Trump was restricted from prejudicing the case until after it had already taken place.Trump’s lawyer John Sauer argued that prosecutors had not met their evidentiary obligations – that Trump’s statements directly led to threats to witnesses, for instance – to get a gag order. The legal standard, Sauer said, should be proof of an “imminent threat”.But the panel interjected that there was a clear pattern with Trump stretching back to the post-2020 election period that when he named and assailed individuals, they invariably received death threats or other harassment from his supporters.The pattern has included the trial judge Chutkan, who received a death threat the very next day after Trump’s indictment when he posted “If you go after me, I’m coming after you” on his Truth Social platform, even if Trump had not directly directed his ire at her.“Why does the district court have to wait and see, and wait for the threats to come, rather than taking reasonable action in advance?” the circuit judge Brad Garcia pressed Sauer.The Trump lawyer responded that posts from three years ago did not meet the standard required for a gag order, as he argued the supreme court has held that a “heckler’s veto” – gagging a defendant merely because of fears about how a third party might act – was not permissible rationale.What has complicated Trump’s case is the scant legal precedent to guide the courts in how to balance the constitutional needs of the criminal justice process and Trump’s right to political speech, even as he uses his 2024 campaign to shield himself from legal exposure.The circuit judges on multiple occasions wrestled with the question of when Trump might be engaged in political speech to defend himself during the campaign, and when he might be engaged in political speech “aimed at derailing or corrupting the criminal justice process”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionStill, the panel was also unconvinced that Trump should not be able to complain about the special counsel’s office, and sharply questioned the government’s lawyer Cecil Vandevender why Trump’s attacks against prosecutors would cause prejudice to the case.If Trump made an actual threat, the circuit judge Patricia Millett said, that would be a crime and a violation of Trump’s pre-trial conditions of release. But she suggested the special counsel surely had thick enough skin to withstand jibes from the former president.The panel appeared to conclude in general that some of the language in the gag order, such as Trump being prevented from making statements that “targeted” prosecutors, or the lack of distinctions between threats to prosecutors and threats to witnesses, needed to be refined.Millett questioned the government’s position that Trump calling a potential trial witness a “slimy liar” was not permissible, but calling the same witness an “untruth speaker” would be. Vandevender struggled to articulate a line of demarcation.It was unclear how soon the panel would issue a ruling, and whether they would make adjustments to the gag order or rescind it. The three-judge panel were all Democratic appointees: Garcia was appointed by Biden, while Millett and Cornelia Pillard were appointed by Barack Obama.Regardless of the outcome, either Trump or the government could appeal to the supreme court. But even if the order is ultimately upheld and returned to Chutkan, also an Obama appointee, she faces the tricky task of what to do with potential future violations.A gag order violation is typically treated as criminal contempt of court, which requires punishment for defying the order. Chutkan could not rule on a sanction herself, however: it would require prosecutors to take it up as a new charge and seek a separate trial. More

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      ‘Congratulations, birds’: Biden brings the jokes as he pardons Thanksgiving turkeys

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      He had his turn at the White House, made all the right noises and now, getting on a bit, is heading for a quiet retirement.Sadly for the millions of voters who tell opinion pollsters they want him to make way for someone younger, it is not Joe Biden, but a turkey named Liberty who is about to put his feet up.The US president spent part of his 81st birthday on Monday observing the White House tradition of pardoning Thanksgiving turkeys. Liberty received executive clemency along with another gobbler named Bell.After their moment in the sun, Liberty and Bell will be returned to their home state to be cared for by the University of Minnesota’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resources Sciences. Biden, meanwhile, will continue to wrestle with two intractable wars, turmoil at the border and a bitterly divided nation.While past presidents have used this occasion to tell dad jokes, Biden did grandad jokes. His seven-minute remarks on the White House south lawn on a crisp Monday were light on the puns favoured by Barack Obama that made his daughters cringe, or the funny-not-funny gags about pardons made by Donald Trump that made the nation cringe. But they were heavy on self-deprecating references to Biden’s age, enough to elicit groans from any campaign aides who still believe the subject can be dodged.The president thanked the chair of the National Turkey Federation and said when he met him and his family earlier, they sang “Happy Birthday”. America’s first octogenarian president quipped: “I just want you to know it’s difficult turning 60. Difficult.”He laughed at his own joke.The tradition dates to 1947 when the federation, which represents turkey farmers and producers, first presented a National Thanksgiving Turkey to President Harry Truman. Biden joked: “This is the 76th anniversary of this event. I want you to know I wasn’t there [for] the first one; I was too young to make it up.”He laughed at his own joke again and then, a little uneasily, laughed some more. This was not vintage comedy.The president had rambled about being used to chickens in Delaware. Nodding to the derivation of their names from the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, he suggested the 20-week-old, 42lb birds have a new appreciation for the words “Let Freedom Ring”. Turning to the turkeys’ home, Minnesota, he said he would like see them play ice hockey.Things really went downhill when Biden said the turkeys beat tough odds and competition to reach the White House, comparing the feat to getting tickets to Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour or Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour but calling the latter Britney, presumably confusing Swift with Britney Spears.“They had to work hard to show patience and be willing to travel over a thousand miles. You could say it’s even harder than getting a ticket to the Renaissance tour or – or Britney’s tour. She’s down in … it’s kind of warm in Brazil right now.”In short, this is a president who flies into war zones but he failed the Swiftie test.There was mystified silence from Biden’s audience, including a group of schoolchildren, who might have been thinking there goes grandpa again. The internet may have crashed as Republican operatives and rightwing media types scrambled to post the clip. Things could only have got worse if the president’s bitey German shepherd, Commander, had shown up with a taste for turkey.One of the gobblers was then brought to a podium decorated with pumpkins and autumnal colours. “That’s a big bird, man, I’m impressed,” Biden observed, raising his right hand and declaring: “I hereby pardon Liberty and Bell! All right. Congratulations, birds.”There were cheers from a crowd of a couple of hundred people including transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg and family. Biden concluded “on a serious note” about Thanksgiving – “we have so much to be thankful for as a nation” – and went to greet the schoolchildren as a band played jolly festive tunes. Asked by a reporter if a hostage deal is near in Israel, he replied, “I believe so,” and crossed his fingers.A few minutes later he broke into a half-trot and went inside, back to a world of cares and likely election rematch with Trump. No one seemed to have thought about bringing him a birthday cake. Perhaps they feared it would look bad for Biden in those corners of the media where 81 candles are an impeachable offence but 91 indictments? Not so much. More

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      Cardi B drops support for Biden over military aid to Ukraine and Israel

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      Three years after supporting Joe Biden’s victorious 2020 campaign, the straight-talking rap superstar Cardi B has ditched her backing of the president after public service cuts in her home town of New York.The Grammy winner, whose legal name is Belcalis Almánzar, said in an Instagram live stream she was done with Biden. Her tirade highlighted what she portrayed as contradiction between US domestic and foreign policies, saying the White House was helping Ukraine fight Russia and Israel fight Hamas while the New York City mayor, Eric Adams, announced a 5% municipal budget cut last week.Adams said the cuts would affect schools, libraries, the New York police department and the sanitation service, among others.As Cardi B said: “In New York, there is a $120m budget cut that’s going to affect schools, public libraries and the police department.“And a $5m budget cut in sanitation … We are gonna be drowning in … rats.”Adams warned last week that more cuts would be necessary without additional funding from Washington to manage New York’s increase of migrants.“Migrant costs are going up, tax revenue growth is slowing and [Covid-19] stimulus funding is drying up,” Adams said in a statement.“No city should be left to handle a national humanitarian crisis largely on its own, and without the significant and timely support we need from Washington, today’s budget will be only the beginning.”But the Biden administration has not agreed to meet Adams’s funding plea amid growing domestic anger over the multi-billion-dollar funding of the Ukrainian defense against Russia’s invasion and Israel’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza.An NBC poll released on Sunday showed that Biden’s approval rating has declined to 40%, the lowest level of his presidency. And the survey showed that strong majorities of all voters disapprove of his handling of foreign policy.The steepest declines of support came among voters aged 18 to 34 – 70% said they did not approve of Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza.Cardi B, who memorably helped promote Biden’s candidacy as he successfully ran for the White House in 2020, vowed that she would no longer endorse political candidates in the future.“I’m endorsing no presidents no more,” Cardi B warned. “Joe Biden is talking about, ‘Yeah, we can fund two wars,’ … talking about, ‘Yeah, we got it, we’re the greatest nation.’ No … we’re not. We don’t got it, and we’re going through some shit right now. So say it!”She added: “We are really, really, really fucked right now. No, we cannot fund these … wars.”Cardi B asked whether the US was going broke and then answered: “Yes, it is. We ain’t got McDonald’s money.”In a final rebuke to Biden’s economic and foreign policy management, she said: “Feed that … to somebody else, twinkle, but don’t feed it to me.” She then promised “to get to the bottom of it”. More

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      Rosalynn Carter: a life in pictures

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      Former US ambassador to Thailand Morton Abramowitz (left) and former US first lady Rosalynn Carter, a baby in her arms, speak to the child’s mother at the Sa Kaeo refugee camp, Prachinburi Province (later Sa Kaeo), Thailand, on 9 November, 1979.

      Photograph: Diana Walker/Getty Images More

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      Rosalynn Carter, wife of Jimmy Carter and former first lady, dies aged 96

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      Rosalynn Carter, wife of the 39th president Jimmy Carter, has died at the couple’s Georgia home aged 96.Carter, who became one of the nation’s leading mental health advocates during and after her husband’s time in the White House, was diagnosed with dementia in May.On Friday, her family announced she had entered hospice care at home, joining her 99-year-old husband in end-of-life treatment in the Plains one-story residence they shared since before Jimmy Carter was elected a Georgia state senator in 1962.The former president has been in hospice care there since February after declining further medical intervention for his own health issues.“Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished,” Jimmy Carter said in a statement released Sunday afternoon by the Carter Center.“She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.”The statement said Mrs Carter “died peacefully, with family by her side” at 2.10pm ET. An online tribute book is open at www.rosalynncartertribute.org.Chip Carter, the couple’s middle son, said: “Besides being a loving mother and extraordinary first lady, my mother was a great humanitarian in her own right. Her life of service and compassion was an example for all Americans.“She will be sorely missed not only by our family but by the many people who have better mental health care and access to resources for caregiving today.”The former first lady was born Eleanor Rosalynn Smith in August 1927, in Plains, a small rural town of fewer than 600 people where her husband was also born and raised.She was a fiercely loyal ally throughout his political career, both in the White House and during his years as a respected international diplomat after his single term in office ended in 1981. But she also forged her own identity for her mental health advocacy and as a social justice activist.She founded the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers in 1987, and remained active in the organization into her later years.The Carter Center, a human rights non-profit founded by the couple, paid tribute to her work in its statement earlier this year announcing her dementia diagnosis.“Mrs Carter has been the nation’s leading mental health advocate for much of her life. We recognize, as she did more than half a century ago, that stigma is often a barrier that keeps individuals and their families from seeking and getting much-needed support,” it said.“We hope sharing our family’s news will increase important conversations at kitchen tables and in doctor’s offices around the country.”Rosalynn Carter and her husband were also supporters of Habitat for Humanity, raising awareness and funds for the Carter Work Project named for them, and frequently tackling projects themselves as “some of our best hands-on construction volunteers”.One of the couple’s final public appearances was at the Plains Peanut Festival in September, days before Jimmy Carter’s 99th birthday, when they rode the parade together in the back of an SUV.Their families were already known to each other when they met while Jimmy Carter was at the US naval academy in Maryland during the second world war. They married in 1946, and helped run the Carter family’s peanut farm together until his political career took off.She wore the same gown to Carter’s 1977 presidential inauguration as she had when he was elected Georgia governor in 1970.The couple, who celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary in 2021, had four children, Jack, Chip, James and Amy. Their sons were adults by the time Carter was elected president, but Amy, aged nine, was the subject of massive media attention and became one of the most famous child residents of the White House. More

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      Can a socialist ex-marine fill Joe Manchin’s seat in West Virginia?

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      To launch his campaign for US Senate, Zach Shrewsbury chose the site of one of America’s most famous hangings.Charles Town, West Virginia, was where state authorities executed the abolitionist John Brown after he led an attack on a federal armory a few miles down the road in Harpers Ferry, a pivotal moment in the lead-up to the civil war. One hundred and sixty four years later, Shrewsbury – who decided against attempting to get a permit for the event at the site of the insurrection, which is now a national park – stood on the courthouse grounds where Brown’s hanging took place to announce that he would be the only “real Democrat” running to represent West Virginia in the Senate next year.“We need leaders that are cut from the working-class cloth. We need representation that will go toe to toe with corporate parasites and their bought politicians. We need a leader who will not waver in the face of these powers that keep the boot on our neck,” Shrewsbury said to applause from the small group of supporters gathered behind him.“So, as John Brown said, ‘These men are all talk. What we need is action.’ I’m taking action right now to stand up to these bought bureaucrats.”The remarks were a swipe at Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator who for the past 13 years had managed to represent what has become one of the most Republican states in the nation. In recent years he has used his power as a swing vote in Congress to stop several of Joe Biden’s legislative priorities – attracting the ire of progressives and prompting Shrewsbury to mount a primary challenge.A few weeks after Shrewsbury began campaigning, he was showing a friend around an abandoned mining town when his phone rang with news: Manchin had decided not to seek re-election, leaving Shrewsbury as the only Democrat in the race.By all indications, Shrewsbury, a 32-year-old Marine Corps veteran and community organizer, faces a difficult, if not impossible, road to victory. West Virginia gave Donald Trump his second-biggest margin of support of any state in the nation three years ago, and Manchin is the last Democrat holding a statewide office. Political analysts do not expect voters to elect the Democratic candidate – whoever that turns out to be – and predict Manchin will be replaced by either Governor Jim Justice or Congressman Alex Mooney, the two leading Republicans in the Senate race.Shrewsbury’s message to them is: not so fast.“People were really sold on the fact that Joe Manchin could be the only Democrat that could win in West Virginia, and I very much disagree,” Shrewsbury told the Guardian a week after the senator made his announcement.Also a former governor, Manchin is considered the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, and when the party took the majority by a single vote in the chamber in 2021, Manchin stopped the Biden administration from passing policies that would have made permanent a program to reduce child poverty, and more forcefully fight climate change.Sitting in a conference room at the Fayette county Democratic party’s headquarters in Oak Hill, where visitors pass a lobby displaying an American flag, a pride flag, and a stack of Narcan, the opioid-overdose reversal medication, Shrewsbury outlined his plans to run a campaign distinctly to the left of Manchin’s policies – and one he believes can win.“People want someone who’s genuine. They don’t want a politician. They want someone who actually looks like them. I mean, hell, you can’t get much more West Virginia than this,” said Shrewsbury, fond of wearing flannel shirts and hunting caps.Among his priorities are creating universal healthcare and childcare programs, and reducing the role of incarceration in fighting the opioid epidemic ravaging West Virginia.“Everyone here just is thankful for the scraps or crumbs that we get from whoever we elect. And that’s who we keep electing – whoever can keep the little crumbs coming along. I’m trying to say there is a better way,” Shrewsbury said.He also doesn’t shy away from identifying as a socialist, arguing the term may be less politically damaging than it appears – West Virginia Democrats voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential primary, and the independent senator, he argues, is popular even with the state’s Republicans.“If caring about working-class people, caring about people having bodily autonomy, water rights, workers’ rights, makes you a socialist, then call me whatever you want. Doesn’t bother me,” Shrewsbury said.Raised on a farm by a Republican family in rural Monroe county, Shrewsbury dropped out of college after a semester and joined the marines. In the years that followed, he guarded the perimeter at the US base in Guantánamo Bay, and was deployed to Japan, Malaysia and South Korea before eventually moving to Seattle and then returning to West Virginia, where he realized how bereft his home state was of the prosperity he saw elsewhere in the country and overseas.“Why can’t my home be as economically profitable as the rest?” Shrewsbury recalls thinking. “It woke me up in the Marine Corps a little bit, and once I got back home, I really just kind of put the nail in the coffin there for what I was gonna be for work. I want to help people.”He turned to community organizing, seeing it as a way to help a state with the fourth-highest poverty rate in the nation, which is struggling to transition from the declining coal and logging industries that have historically undergirded its economy.“I know Zach’s a long shot. It’s like David against three Goliaths,” said Pam Garrison, a fellow community organizer. “Zach is able to be hardline when he needs to be. I’ve seen him being forceful and steadfast in his principles and what things are. And then I’ve seen the compassionate and empathy side of Zach too, And that’s what makes a good politician.”Since 2020, Shrewsbury has helped towns dig out from flooding, door-knocked in the narrow Appalachian valleys – known as hollers – to find out what residents were looking for from the state legislature, and talked to mayors and city councils about the opportunities presented by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which incentivizes consumer usage of renewable energy, including home solar panels.Though Manchin played a key role in authoring the IRA, he also nixed the expanded child tax credit, which has been credited with cutting the child poverty rate by half in 2021, the sole year it was in effect. Shrewsbury was outraged by reports that later emerged of the senator privately expressing worries that people would use the program’s money to buy drugs, and jumped into the race.Despite the state’s conservative leanings, Sam Workman, the director of the Institute for Policy Research and Public Affairs at West Virginia University, believed Manchin may have had a path to victory had he decided to run. But he said the same cannot be said for Shrewsbury or any other Democrat.“It’s kind of a fall-on-your-sword moment,” Workman said. “Politics is like sports: you should never say never, but I do not see the Democrats winning the Senate seat, no matter who runs.”Shrewsbury may be alone in the Democratic primary at the moment, but he expects other candidates to enter. Since launching his campaign, he has not heard from the state Democratic party, nor the national party’s senate campaign arm.“I’m not exactly what the party wants, because I speak my mind. You know, I’m not going to toe the party line,” he said. “I wish the party would get back in more touch with the workers. But like I said, I have the message that many people aren’t saying.” More

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      Network of Lies review: Brian Stelter on Fox News, Trump and Dominion

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      This week, Rupert Murdoch formally stepped down as the chairman of News Corp. At the annual shareholder’s meeting, the 92-year-old media mogul inveighed against the “suppression of debate by an intolerant elite who regard differing opinions as anathema”. He also passed the baton to Lachlan Murdoch, his 52-year-old son, “a believer in the social purpose of journalism”.Murdoch also told those assembled that “humanity has a high destiny”. Unmentioned: how Fox News’s coverage of the 2020 election led to its shelling out of hundreds of millions to settle a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems, or how other suits continue.Five days after the election, insisting Donald Trump could not have lost to Joe Biden – as he clearly did – Maria Bartiromo defied management to become “the first Fox host to utter the name ‘Dominion’”, writes Brian Stelter, a veteran Fox-watcher and former CNN host. “All gassed up on rage and righteousness, [Bartiromo] heaped shame onto the network and spurred a $787.5m settlement payment.”Bartiromo popularized the Trump aide Sidney Powell and her special brand of insanity. Their enthusiasm became fatally contagious. January 6 and the insurrection followed. Two and a half years later, Bartiromo is still on the air. Powell is a professional defendant. Last month, she pleaded guilty in Fulton county, Georgia, to six counts of misdemeanor election interference and agreed to six years of probation. She still faces potential civil liability and legal sanction.“What Bartiromo began on a Sunday morning in November … destroyed America’s sense of a shared reality about the 2020 election,” Stelter laments. “The consequences will be felt for years to come.”In the political sphere, Trump shrugs off 91 criminal charges and assorted civil threats to dominate the Republican primary, focusing on retribution and weaponizing the justice department and FBI should he return to power.With less than a year before the 2024 election, Stelter once again focuses on the Murdochs’ flagship operation. Like his previous book from 2020, Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth, Network of Lies offers a readable and engrossing deep dive into the rightwing juggernaut paid for by the Murdochs and built by the late, disgraced Roger Ailes.Now a podcast host and consulting producer to The Morning Show, an Apple TV drama, Stelter also has journalistic chops earned at the New York Times. He wades through court filings and paperwork from the Dominion litigation, talks to sources close to Fox and the Murdochs, and offers insight into the firing of Tucker Carlson, the dominant, far-right prime-time host who was suddenly ditched in April. Stelter’s book is subtitled The Epic Saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the Battle for American Democracy. He overstates, but not by much.Unlike Bartiromo, Carlson didn’t drink the Kool-Aid. He was sly and calculated, not crazy.“Carlson privately thought Powell’s ‘software shit’ was ‘absurd’,” Stelter writes about the idea that voting machines were outlandishly rigged. “He worriedly speculated that ‘half our viewers have seen the Maria clip’, and he wanted to push back on it.” But Carlson didn’t push back hard enough. He went with the flow.He now peddles his wares on what used to be Twitter, broadcasts from a basement, and hangs out with Trump at UFC. For a guy once known for wearing bow ties, it’s a transformation. Then again, Carlson also prided himself on his knowledge of how white guys ought to fight, an admission in a text message, revealed by the Dominion suit, that earned the ire of the Fox board and the Murdochs.In Stelter’s telling, Fox “A-listers” received a heads-up on what discovery in the Dominion case would reveal.“‘They’re going to call us hypocrites,’ an exec warned.” Plaintiffs would juxtapose Fox’s public message against its internal doubts about voter fraud claims. “It was likened to ‘a seven-layer cake of shit’,” Stelter writes.The miscalculation by Fox’s legal team is now legend. It led Murdoch to believe Dominion would cost him $50m. But even Murdoch came close to concluding it was “unarguable that high-profile Fox voices” fed the “big lie”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionStelter captures the Murdochs’ struggle to make money, keep their audience happy and avoid liability. It is a near-impossible task. The beast must be fed. There is always someone or something out there waiting to cater to Trump’s base if Fox won’t. After the 2020 election, Trump forced Fox to compete with One America News and Newsmax for his attention and his followers’ devotion.The Murdochs’ pivot toward Ron DeSantis as their Republican candidate of choice won’t be forgotten soon, at least not by voters during the GOP primary. Despite being assiduously courted by Fox to appear at the first debate, which it sponsored, Trump smirkingly and wisely declined to show. Fox still covers Trump’s events – until he plugs Carlson, the defenestrated star.Judging by the polls, none of this has hurt Trump’s hopes. He laps the pack while DeSantis stagnates, Nikki Haley threatening to take second place. At the same time, some polling shows Trump ahead of Joe Biden or competitive in battleground states and leading in the electoral college. For now, Fox needs him more than he needs Fox.In that spirit of “social purpose” reporting lauded by his dad, Lachlan Murdoch will be left to navigate a defamation action brought by Smartmatic, another voting machine company, and, among other cases, a suit filed by Ray Epps, an ex-marine who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges for his role in the January 6 insurrection but became the focus of conspiracy theorists. Sating the appetites of the 45th president and his rightwing base never comes cheap.In the Smartmatic litigation, Fox tried to subpoena George Soros, the bete noire of the right. It lost, but conspiracy theories die hard. US democracy remains fragile, the national divide seemingly unbridgeable. Expect little to change at Fox. The show must go on.
      Network of Lies is published in the US by Simon & Schuster More

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      Texas: Republican-controlled school board votes against climate textbooks

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      Texas’s Republican-controlled education board voted Friday not to include several climate textbooks in the state science curriculum.The 15-member board rejected seven out of 12 for eighth-graders. The approved textbooks are published by Savvas Learning Company, McGraw Hill, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Accelerate Learning and Summit K-12.The rejected textbooks included climate-crisis policy solutions, and conservative board members criticized them for being too negative about fossil fuels – a major industry in the state. Texas leads the nation in the production of crude oil and natural gas.Although Texas adopted standards in 2021 that requires eighth-graders be taught the basics about climate change, some argue that measure does not go far enough.Aaron Kinsey, a Republican board member and executive of an oilfield services company in west Texas, criticized photos in some textbooks as unduly besmirching the oil and gas industry during a discussion of the materials this week.“The selection of certain images can make things appear worse than they are, and I believe there was bias,” Kinsey said, according to Hearst Newspapers.“You want to see children smiling in oilfields?” said Democratic board member Aicha Davis. “I don’t know what you want.”Texas’s 1,000-plus school districts are not required to use board-approved textbooks. But the board’s decision wields influence.Some in powerful positions have tried to sway the board to reject the textbooks. On 1 November, Texas railroad commissioner Wayne Christian – who oversees the state’s oil and gas industry – sent a letter to the education board’s chairman Kevin Ellis, relaying “concerns for potential textbooks that could promote a radical environmentalist agenda”.Also contested was the inclusion of lessons on evolution – the theory addressing the origins of human existence which the scientific community supports and religious groups reject.The decision comes despite pleas from the National Science Teaching Association to not “allow misguided objections to evolution and climate change” to affect the adoption of new textbooks.The deputy director of the National Center on Science Education, Glenn Branch, said: “Members of the board are clearly motivated to take some of these textbooks off of the approved list because of their personal and ideological beliefs regarding evolution and climate change.”Texas is one of six states that has not adopted the Next Generation Science Standards in its K-12 science curriculum. The standards underscore that climate change is a real threat caused by humans and can be mitigated by a reduction in greenhouse gases.Texas has seen some of the most extreme effects of the worsening climate crisis in recent years. According to the Texas state climatologist, John Nielsen-Gammon, the summer of 2023 was the second hottest on record, after 2011.In 2021, Texas experienced an unprecedented winter storm that blanketed much of the state in snow, left millions without power after the electrical grid failed, and resulted in deaths. Houston also bore the wrath of 2017’s Hurricane Harvey, a devastating category 4 hurricane that destroyed homes and buildings while leading to the deaths of more than 100 people in Texas.The states ranks 41st out of 50 in the US.The Associated Press contributed reporting More