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      Ivana Trump funeral: Donald Trump and children attend ‘wonderful send-off’

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      Ivana Trump funeral: Donald Trump and children attend ‘wonderful send-off’Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric – Ivana’s three children with her ex-husband – gather for memorial at Catholic church in Manhattan Ivana Trump, the businesswoman who helped her husband build an empire that launched him to the presidency, was celebrated at a funeral mass in New York City on Wednesday.Ivana Trump: a life in picturesRead moreAt St Vincent Ferrer Roman Catholic Church on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Ivana’s three children with the former president Donald Trump – Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric – arrived with family members just before 1.40pm, before the gold casket was taken into the church.Donald Trump, Melania, and their son, Barron, entered the church through the side door.Tiffany Trump, the daughter of the former president and Marla Maples, for whom Donald Trump divorced Ivana, also attended the service. So did family friends including the Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, and Charles Kushner, a real estate developer and the father of Ivanka Trump’s husband. The fashion designer Dennis Basso, a longtime friend of Ivana Trump, was also among the mourners.“It was an elegant and wonderful send-off for Ivana Trump,” said publicist R Couri Hay, an attendee. “The church was blanketed in red flowers, red roses – Ivana’s favorite flowers. It was majestic, it was sober.“I would say that the church was drenched in tears,” Hay also said.The Trump family announced last week that Ivana, who was 73, died at her Manhattan home. Authorities said the death was an accident, blunt impact injuries to the torso the cause.Ivana and Donald Trump were married from 1977 to 1992. In the 1980s they were a power couple and she became well known in her own right, instantly recognizable with her blond hair in an updo and glamorous look.Ivana Trump took part in her husband’s businesses, managing one of his Atlantic City casinos and picking out some of the design elements in New York City’s Trump Tower.Their divorce was ugly but in recent years they were friendly. Ivana Trump was an enthusiastic supporter of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and said they spoke on a regular basis.On Wednesday, press congregated across the street from the church, in the Lenox Hill section of the Upper East Side. Several secret service agents were positioned in front of the building. Police set up metal barricades.Some passersby paused to take in the activity. Marilyn Greeley, who lives nearby, said she had not known Ivana, but she saw her in a movie theater years ago.“It’s sad,” Greeley said. “Obviously, you think about how she died.”A woman who identified herself as Elaine was walking south on Lexington Avenue.“I think it’s very sad,” she said. “She fell down the stairs.”Marie-Noelle Levin, who said she met Ivana several times, came to a corner across from the church to pay her respects.“It’s very hard for me to cry, but here I am crying,” Levin said, wiping a tear.Michael Powers, a neighborhood resident, said: “I think it’s really sad that she died the way she did. She was beloved by New York City.”At about 3.30pm, Ivana’s casket was carried out of the church. Her three children, grandchildren, Donald Trump, Melania, Barron, as well as other relatives, exited the church. They left shortly thereafter.TopicsDonald TrumpNew YorkDonald Trump JrUS politicsIvanka TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Statehood or independence? Puerto Rico’s status at forefront of political debate

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      Statehood or independence? Puerto Rico’s status at forefront of political debateUS lawmakers introduced a bill to determine the island’s status but how Puerto Rico should pave its path toward decolonization is the root of the debate Luz Rivera Sotomayor spent most of her days in church praying for her family’s health before she was diagnosed with dystonia in 2020. Two years after her diagnosis with the muscular system disorder, Rivera became bedridden at 59 and survives in Puerto Rico on what little she gets from a temporary program for low-income families.Because she lives in the US territory, Rivera is one of the thousands of Puerto Ricans who doesn’t qualify for the federal supplemental security income benefits intended to help people with disabilities in US states. In April, the supreme court reaffirmed in United States v Vaello-Madero that Congress is constitutionally allowed to treat territorial residents differently when extending federal benefits.“My sister has been blessed because someone in the community always comes around with what she needs,” said Jaqueline Rivera Sotomayor, who regularly takes care of Rivera Sotomayor, who lost her ability to speak. “But I can’t imagine what other people go through just to get by.”The consequences of Puerto Rico’s status has been on the forefront of political debates on the island in recent weeks, with a clash in opinions on whether the territory should become a US state, independent, or fall under a free association agreement.On Friday, US lawmakers introduced a bill that proposes a binding plebiscite – or direct electoral vote – to determine the island’s status. The draft was announced in May by the House majority leader, Steny Hoyer; Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner, Jenniffer González-Colon; and Representative Nydia Velázquez.The Puerto Rico Status Act would not include as an option the island’s current commonwealth status, a system that has lost support since the federal government established an unelected fiscal board in 2016, with authority to commandeer the local political branches, after the island entered bankruptcy.“In the aftermath of Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy, there appears to be a far-reaching consensus that the island’s colonial condition must come to an end,” said Rafael Cox Alomar, a law professor at the University of the District of Columbia, who has done research and analysis focused on Puerto Rico’s status and history. “The idea that Puerto Rico ceased to be a colony in 1952 after the inauguration of its own constitution no longer stands.”But exactly how Puerto Rico should pave its path toward decolonization is the root of the island’s debate. The bill, which is highly unlikely to advance in the Senate, proposes the plebiscite take place in November 2023. Puerto Rico’s current administration, led by Governor Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia, believes becoming the 51st state would eradicate the island’s colonial status.Some statehood supporters believe the bill is redundant, since the island held a referendum in November 2020 and ended with 53% of the votes in favor of statehood. However, only about half of registered voters participated, and the referendum was not approved by the US Department of Justice under the Trump administration even before the vote took place.The opposing party to the island’s current administration, which has traditionally supported Puerto Rico’s commonwealth formula, is quickly losing support within the island and among its own members. The decades-old Popular Democratic party is expected to hold a meeting later this year to determine whether it supports the island’s territorial status or the option of free association, which puts into question the party’s future.“If you’re going to deal with colonialism, all sides have to agree the status quo is not the solution,” said Representative Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, chairman of the US House of natural resources committee, which oversees affairs in US territories. After presenting the bill on Friday, Grijalva expects the committee to vote on it as soon as Wednesday.In June, Grijalva and other federal legislators held a public forum in Puerto Rico and heard dozens of testimonies from political party members, community advocates and interest groups to help legislators revise the proposed measure.Puerto Rican groups dedicated to mobilizing communities around the need for legislation that resolves the status issues were present in these discussions. The group Boricuas Unidos en la Diáspora suggested better defining the economic and cultural consequences of statehood, while others advocated for the formation of a citizens’ assembly to determine the island’s future instead of the bill.“The people of Puerto Rico must be the protagonists of their process, it can’t be prewritten by someone else,” said Javier Smith, special projects coordinator at Vamos Puerto Rico, a community organizing group. “If we’re going to keep the same subordinate political and economic structures, we’re not really changing anything.”The forum came before the UN special committee on decolonization approved a draft resolution recognizing Puerto Rico’s right to self-determination and independence for the fortieth time. Dozens of independence supporters for Puerto Rico protested near the United Nations’ headquarters in New York later that day.Rivera Sotomayor, who is taking care of her sister in Adjuntas, said she welcomes any process that solidifies Puerto Rico’s status in relation to the US, one way or another. For now, she is relying on their mother’s Social Security benefits to help cover the costs of her sister’s medications.“This is terrible,” said Rivera Sotomayor. “When you have a loved one, bedridden like this and in need of medication and diapers, the situation gets frustrating.”TopicsPuerto RicoUS politicsAmericasfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Perhaps it’s time to kick Joe Manchin out of the Democratic party | Robert Reich

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      Perhaps it’s time to kick Joe Manchin out of the Democratic partyRobert ReichAt every opportunity, Manchin has sabotaged Democrats’ agenda. What’s going on here? It’s spelled m-o-n-e-y After putting a final spear through the heart of what remained of Biden’s and the Democrat’s domestic agenda, West Virginia’s Democratic senator Joe Manchin now rejects any tax increases on big corporations or the wealthy – until inflation is no longer a problem.This is rich, in every sense of the word. Raising taxes on big American corporations and the wealthy would not fuel inflation. It would slow inflation by reducing demand – and do it in a way that wouldn’t hurt lower-income Americans (such as those living in, say, West Virginia).As a 76-year-old let me say: Joe Biden is too old to run again | Robert ReichRead moreManchin’s state is one of the poorest in America. West Virginia ranks 45th in education, 47th in healthcare, 48th in overall prosperity and 50th in infrastructure.Tax revenue from corporations and billionaires could be used to rebuild West Virginia, among other places that need investment around America.But Manchin doesn’t seem to give a cluck. After all, the Democrats’ agenda – which Manchin has obliterated – included pre-K education, free community college, child subsidies, Medicare dental and vision benefits, paid family leave, elder care, and much else – all of enormous value to West Virginia. (On a per-person basis, West Virginians would have benefitted more than the residents of all but two other states.)It’s not as if Manchin has championed anything else Democrats have sought. Remember Manchin’s “bipartisan compromise” on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act? Nothing came of it, of course.Nothing has come of any of the fig leaves Manchin has conjured to cover his unrelenting opposition to every other Democratic goal.What’s going on here? It’s spelled m-o-n-e-y.Few if any American-based global corporations or billionaires reside in West Virginia, but lots of money flows to Manchin from corporations and billionaires residing elsewhere.Manchin has not only taken more campaign contributions from oil, gas and coal companies than any other senator (as well as dividends from his own coal company), he has one of the largest war chests from all big American corporations.If the Democratic party had any capacity to discipline its lawmakers or hold them accountable (if pigs could fly), it would at least revoke Manchin’s chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.To continue to allow this crucial position to be occupied by the man who has single-handedly blocked one of the last opportunities to save the Earth is a thumb in the eye of the universe.I’m told the Democrats don’t dare take this step for fear Manchin would leave the Democratic party and switch his allegiance to the Republicans.Why exactly would this be so terrible? Manchin already acts like a Republican.Oh, no! they tell me. If Manchin switches parties, Democrats would lose control over the Senate.Well, I have news for Democrats. They already lost control over the Senate.In fact, the way things are right now, Biden and the Democrats have the worst of both worlds. They look like they control the Senate, as well as the House and the presidency. But they can’t get a damn thing done because Manchin (and his intermittent sidekick, Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema) won’t let them.So after almost two years of appearing to run the entire government, Democrats have accomplished almost nothing of what they came to Washington to do.America is burning and flooding but Democrats won’t enact climate measures.Voting rights and reproductive rights are being pulverized but Democrats won’t protect them.Gun violence is out of control but Democrats come up with a miniature response.Billionaires and big corporations are siphoning off more national wealth and income than in living memory and paying a lower tax rate (often zero), but Democrats won’t raise taxes on big corporations and the wealthy.Which means that in November’s midterm elections, Democrats will have to go back to voters and say: “We promised a lot but we delivered squat, so please vote for us again.”This does not strike me as a compelling message.By kicking Manchin out of the party, Democrats could at least go into the midterms with a more realistic pitch: “It looked like we had control of the Senate, but we didn’t. Now that you know who the real Democrats are, give us the power and we will get it done.”Maybe this way they’ll pick up more real Democratic senators, and do it.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
      TopicsDemocratsOpinionJoe ManchinUS SenateUS CongressUS politicscommentReuse this content More

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      Secret Service turned over just one text message to January 6 panel, sources say

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      Secret Service turned over just one text message to January 6 panel, sources sayHouse committee wants all communications from day before and day of Capitol attack but agency indicates such messages are lost The Secret Service turned over just one text message to the House January 6 committee on Tuesday, in response to a subpoena compelling the production of all communications from the day before and the day of the US Capitol attack, according to two sources familiar with the matter.Primetime January 6 hearing to go ahead despite chairman’s positive Covid testRead moreThe Secret Service told the panel the single text was the only message responsive to the subpoena, the sources said, and while the agency vowed to conduct a forensic search for any other text or phone records, it indicated such messages were likely to prove irrecoverable.House investigators also learned that the texts were seemingly lost as part of an agency-wide reset of phones on 27 January 2021, the sources said – 11 days after Congress first requested the communications and two days after agents were reminded to back up their phones.The disclosures were worse than the committee had anticipated, the sources said. The panel had hoped to receive more than a single text and was dismayed to learn that the messages were lost even after they had been requested for congressional investigations.It marked a damaging day for the Secret Service, which is required to preserve records like any other executive branch agency, and now finds itself in the crosshairs of the select committee examining its response with respect to the Capitol attack.The circumstances surrounding the erasure of the Secret Service texts have become central to the January 6 committee’s work as it investigates how agents and leaders planned to move Donald Trump and Mike Pence as violence unfolded at the Capitol.The controversy – and the subpoena – over the lost text messages came last week after the Department of Homeland Security inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, the watchdog for the Secret Service, revealed many messages from the time in question had gone missing.In a letter to Congress, the inspector general said some Secret Service texts from 5 and 6 January 2021 were erased amid a “device replacement program” and indicated that the agency was stonewalling his investigation by slow-walking the production of evidence.The Secret Service has said the missing texts were purged as part of a planned agency-wide reset of phones and replacement of devices. Agents were told to back up data to an internal drive, one source said, but that directive appears to have been ignored.Hours after the complaint letter from Cuffari, the chair of the January 6 committee, Bennie Thompson, met the panel’s staff director, David Buckley, and his deputy, Kristin Amerling, before convening members to request a closed-door briefing from the inspector general.The Guardian first reported the inspector general told the committee the Secret Service’s account of why the texts went missing kept changing, among other issues, prompting the panel to issue a subpoena for the texts and after-action reports later the same day.But even as the Secret Service complied with the subpoena, and produced thousands of pages of documents related to decisions made on the day of the Capitol attack, the agency could provide just one text message, the sources said.The Secret Service was also unable to provide any after-action reports, the sources said, because none were conducted. Cuffari said the agency opted to use his review as the after-action report – only for personnel to slow-walk his investigation, the sources said.A spokesman for the Secret Service could not immediately be reached for comment.The fallout from the missing text messages episode, as well as testimony from former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson describing a fracas inside the presidential vehicle on January 6 as Trump tried to reach for the steering wheel, has renewed questions over credibility.According to the Secret Service, the sequence of events was as follows: agents were told of a forthcoming update in December 2020, Congress requested communications on 16 January 2021, agents were reminded to back-up data on 25 January and the update went through on 27 January 2021.The agents were told in the reminder about “how to save information that they were obligated or desired to preserve so that no pertinent data or federal records” were lost, though the note seemingly went unheeded and texts were purged.House investigators are currently discussing with the inspector general the possibility of reconstructing the lost texts, the sources said, examining options including acquiring specialized software and forensic tools.The justice department inspector general has been able to retrieve lost texts, recovering messages in 2018 from two senior FBI officials who investigated former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Trump and exchanged notes criticizing the latter.The Secret Service was not responsible for security at the Capitol on January 6 – that is performed by US Capitol police – but agents led protection details for Trump, Pence, and other executive branch officials across Washington that day.But Secret Service actions have become a focus for House investigators as they investigate whether and when the agency knew Trump wanted to go to the Capitol, and whether it intended to remove Pence from the complex as rioters sought to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election win.The missing texts are also the subject of a new investigation, after the National Archives told the Secret Service to launch an internal review and issue a report within 30 calendar days, if it found that any texts were “improperly deleted”.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsSecret ServiceUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesTrump administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      Biden to make Wednesday climate address as dangerous heat grips US and world – as it happened

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      President Joe Biden will outline his next steps to tackle climate change in an address in Somerset, Massachusetts on Wednesday, the White House announced. “The president will deliver remarks on tackling the climate crisis and seizing the opportunity of a clean energy future to create jobs and lower costs for families,” according to a statement.The president may use the trip to declare the national climate emergency The Washington Post reports his administration has been mulling. Reuters quotes a White House official as saying, “We are considering all options and no decision has been made.”President Joe Biden plans an address on climate change tomorrow, where he may announce new executive orders to curb US emissions after his attempts to achieve reductions via legislation stalled in Congress. However, he won’t declare a climate emergency, at least not yet.Here’s what else happened today:
      The January 6 committee will continue with its hearing planned for the Thursday prime-time TV hour despite its chair Bennie Thompson testing positive for Covid-19.
      The second day of Steve Bannon’s trial got underway in Washington.
      The Secret Service has lost for good text messages from 5 and 6 January 2021, when the US Capitol was attacked. The National Archives is demanding an investigation.
      Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska is in Washington for meetings with the Biden administration and an address to Congress on Wednesday.
      Nancy Pelosi’s reported trip to Taiwan has prompted a warning from China.
      There are at least 120 Republicans election deniers running for office, according to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight.
      A small explosion and fire occurred at Hoover Dam, but was quickly contained.
      Following today’s revelation that the Secret Service deleted text messages from the January 6 attack and the day before, The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that National Archives is now demanding an investigation:The US National Archives has asked the Secret Service to conduct an internal investigation over “erased” text messages from the day before and the day of the Capitol attack, according to a letter sent to the agency’s records management officer on Tuesday.The request marks the latest escalation of the matter after the watchdog for the Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security inspector general, notified Congress he had sought the texts only to be told they no longer existed.In the letter sent to the Secret Service records officer, reviewed by the Guardian, the National Archives requested the agency launch an internal review and report within 30 calendar days if it finds any texts were “improperly deleted”.Secret Service told to begin an inquiry into erased January 6 text messagesRead moreJackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s only abortion clinic and the subject of the supreme court case that overturned Roe v. Wade last month, has given up its legal battle to continue operating.Reuters reports that the clinic was making a last-ditch legal effort before the state supreme court to get it to halt Mississippi’s almost total ban on abortions, but threw in the towel after the clinic’s owner sold the building. Its fate seemed sealed earlier this month after a judge rejected the clinic’s petition to halt the ban, which went into effect following last month’s ruling by the US supreme court in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.Mississippi’s only abortion clinic to close after judge leaves state law in forceRead moreUkraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska is in Washington for meetings at the White House and an address to Congress. As you can see above, she’s already met Joe and Jill Biden.Here’s what Zelenska had to say about the visit after meeting with secretary of state Antony Blinken:Feels strange – not to hear any sirens. At the @FLOTUS invitation, I arrived to the USA to discuss our needs in the fight against the aggressor. It is also the topic of the meeting with @SecBlinken. His position remains the same: independent 🇺🇦 will exist much longer than Putin. pic.twitter.com/dTUA8QtFk9— Олена Зеленська (@ZelenskaUA) July 19, 2022
      Tomorrow, she will address senators and House representatives in the Capitol. In a letter to lawmakers, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “We hope that all Members will take advantage of this important and timely opportunity to hear directly from First Lady Zelenska, to learn more about the terrible toll of the Russian invasion and to express our gratitude to the people of Ukraine for their fight for Democracy.”Meanwhile in Washington, a group of House Democrats was arrested in front of the supreme court after staging a demonstration in support of abortion rights.Multiple members of Congress, including @AOC, being arrested by Capitol Police for blocking traffic outside the Supreme Court in abortion rights demonstration: pic.twitter.com/fysQN1oBAw— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) July 19, 2022
      Here’s where they’re being corralled. The group also includes the assistant House speaker, Katherine Clark. pic.twitter.com/2jNIRB2WtU— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) July 19, 2022
      Members arrested:Dean, Velasquez, Lee, Speier, Clark, Jacobs, Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Andy Levin, Carolyn Maloney, Adams, Watson Coleman, Escobar, Bush, Schakowsky, Omar & Pressley.w/ @OrianaBeLike https://t.co/pR0b0sve5u— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) July 19, 2022
      Last week, the Democratic-led House approved legislation that protected abortion access nationwide, after the supreme court overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed states to ban the procedure. However, there’s no sign the legislation will be able to overcome a Republican filibuster in the Senate.House approves legislation to protect abortion access across US Read moreA small explosion and fire broke out but was quickly extinguished at Hoover Dam, which is at the center of the western United States’s massive drought.touring the #hooverdam and heard an explosion #fire pic.twitter.com/1tjWuNWBaZ— Kristy Hairston (@kristynashville) July 19, 2022
      The embankment straddling the Nevada-Arizona border holds back Lake Mead, which has dropped to its lowest level since it was full 20 years ago due to drought and climate change. Reuters reports that the blaze at Hoover Dam had been extinguished before the local fire department arrived. It is unclear if the lake’s low water level played a role in the explosion, but authorities warn that the reservoir could soon hit “dead pool” levels, when water will no longer be able to flow downstream. Former New York City mayor Bill de Blasio has ended his bid for the Democratic nomination in the state’s 10th congressional district.It’s clear the people of #NY10 are looking for another option and I respect that. Time for me to leave electoral politics and focus on other ways to serve. I am really grateful for all the people I met, the stories I heard and the many good souls who helped out. Thank you all! pic.twitter.com/gpt6V6WLUf— Bill de Blasio (@BilldeBlasio) July 19, 2022
      De Blasio, who led America’s largest city for eight years and left office with low approval ratings, was trailing in polls to represent the district that includes part of the city in the U.S. House of Representatives.The Secret Service will tell Congress it doesn’t have any new texts to give to the House subcommittee investigating the January 6 insurrection, according to Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig. MORE NEWWWS – @SecretService will tell Congress it doesn’t have any new texts from its agents around Jan 6 attack to provide. Anything not already turned over has been purged. Its gone.— Carol Leonnig (@CarolLeonnig) July 19, 2022
      The House committee set a deadline for today for the Secret Service to hand over deleted texts that were sent among agents, Donald Trump and Mike Pence on the day before and the day of the riot. Last week, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security notified the committee that texts from those days had been deleted. The explanation from the Secret Service for the deletions have shifted several times, from software upgrades to device replacements. From the Guardian’s senior reporter Nina Lakhani, who reports on climate justice: As attention focuses on the extreme temperatures scorching large swathes of Europe and the US, its worth drawing attention to other parts of the world where dangerous heat and drought have also been causing misery.In Monterrey, Mexico’s third largest city where temperatures above 100F are the norm throughout the summer, residents are enduring a second month of water rationing as three dams which supply households are almost dry. Authorities are turning on taps for only six hours per day, though some residents have gone without any running water for long spells, and are forced to spend hours every day lining up at communal taps. The national water authority has declared a state of emergency across the country because of drought.According to the North American Drought Monitor, 56% of Mexico is experiencing some level of drought with northern states like Nuevo Leon (home to Monterrey), Sonora, Chihuahua, and Coahuila particularly badly due to a combination of La Niña and global heating. Most of the country’s wheat is farmed in this northern belt, which is among three crops (along with maize and rice) that make up almost half the world’s calories. All three grains are vulnerable to extreme heat and drought, in large part because industrialised agriculture favors monocropping over crop diversity.This was a little reported consequence of the punishing spring extreme heatwave in India and Pakistan, where more than a billion people faced temperatures from 100 to 122F from late March to the end of June, a period of almost 100 days. As a result, wheat yields dropped by about 15%, compounding the shortages caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Livestock died across the subcontinent.The number of deaths so far attributed directly to the extreme spring heat is surprisingly low, just 90, compared to more than 1100 so far in Spain and Portugal, though this is likely at least partly down to issues with counting and reporting heat deaths. (Recent floods in India and Bangladesh have led to high death tolls, but this could be because such deaths are easier to count.) It’s the monsoon now in India, so temperatures have dropped significantly – it’s only 90F in Delhi today – but the humidity is very high. Humid heat is far more dangerous than dry heat, so the death toll could rise across the Asian subcontinent without anyone paying much attention.Read more about crop scientists in Mexico developing heat and climate resilient wheat varieties here:The race against time to breed a wheat to survive the climate crisisRead moreJoe Biden is not going to declare a climate emergency when he delivers an address on climate change in Somerset, Massachusetts tomorrow, according to the Associated Press. A source told the AP that while Biden is planning to announce steps the White House is taking to address climate change, he will not declare a climate emergency. President Biden is not going to issue an emergency climate declaration this week, according to an @AP source. https://t.co/PWfms6Eq0R— Chris Megerian (@ChrisMegerian) July 19, 2022
      Earlier today, the Washington Post reported that Biden was floating the idea of declaring an emergency after senator Joe Manchin effectively blocked a spending package that would have allocated billions toward addressing the climate emergency. Manchin told Democratic leaders last week that he does not support the package, ultimately striking down its chance of passage.It’s day two of Steve Bannon’s federal trial in Washington DC as he faces charges of contempt for Congress, ignoring subpoenas from the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. A lawyer for Bannon has asked the judge to delay the trial by a month so the defense team can figure out what evidence they could offer. The judge, Carl J Nichols, denied his lawyer’s request, but said he may push back the start of opening arguments a day so both teams can organize themselves. Just in: Judge Carl Nichols denies Steve Bannon’s — latest — request to delay trial, this time by a month— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) July 19, 2022
      Bannon’s trial began yesterday with jury selection. Attorneys have narrowed the pool down to 22 prospective, with a final 12 needed, along with two alternatives.Ohio’s supreme court has struck down the state’s 15 congressional districts, saying they were so distorted in favor of Republicans that they violated the state constitution.In a 4-3 ruling, the court gave the state legislature 30 days to come up with a new map. If the legislature fails to come up with a new plan, a GOP-controlled commission would then have another 30 days. Any new map would be in effect for the 2024 elections. After striking down the initial map Republicans passed earlier this year, the Ohio supreme court declined to intervene again ahead of the state’s primary and block a revised map. The map they struck down Tuesday was that revised plan. The plan creates 10 Republican-leaning districts and five Democratic-leaning districts, the court noted. While all 10 GOP districts are solidly Republican, three of the five Democratic ones are highly competitive, meaning Republicans could win them in a strong year for the party. Projections show Democrats would most likely win four in the state’s congressional delegation, despite winning around 47% of the statewide vote.That split violates a provision in the state constitution that prohibits maps that “unduly favors or disfavors a political party or its incumbents.” Ohio voters overwhelmingly approved adding that language to the state constitution in 2018.“Comparative analyses and other metrics show that the March 2 plan allocates voters in ways that unnecessarily favor the Republican Party by packing Democratic voters into a few dense Democratic-leaning districts, thereby increasing the Republican vote share of the remaining districts,” the court’s majority wrote. “As a result, districts that would otherwise be strongly Democratic-leaning are now competitive or Republican-leaning districts.”The three judges who dissented argued that the majority opinion sought to use a system of proportional representation, which is not required under Ohio’s constitution.Tuesday’s ruling marks the seventh time the Ohio supreme court has struck down congressional and state legislative maps this cycle. Despite all of those rulings, all of the maps struck down passed by lawmakers will be in place for at least the 2022 elections.The Republican judge blocking her party from rigging electoral districtsRead morePresident Joe Biden plans an address on climate change tomorrow, during which he could declare a national climate emergency after his attempts to get legislation lowering America’s carbon emissions through Congress stalled.Here’s what else has happened so far today:
      The January 6 committee will continue with its hearing planned for the Thursday prime-time TV hour despite its chair Bennie Thompson testing positive for Covid-19.
      The Secret Service will turn over texts to the January 6 committee that were said to have been deleted.
      Nancy Pelosi’s reported trip to Taiwan has prompted a warning from China.
      There are about 120 Republicans election deniers running for office – at least, according to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight.
      President Joe Biden will outline his next steps to tackle climate change in an address in Somerset, Massachusetts on Wednesday, the White House announced. “The president will deliver remarks on tackling the climate crisis and seizing the opportunity of a clean energy future to create jobs and lower costs for families,” according to a statement.The president may use the trip to declare the national climate emergency The Washington Post reports his administration has been mulling. Reuters quotes a White House official as saying, “We are considering all options and no decision has been made.”120. That’s the number of Republican candidates who deny the results of the 2020 election and will be on the ballot this fall, according to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight, which notes that may not be the full count.Election denying is most common in House of Representatives and governorship races, and least in secretary of state and Senate contests, according to the analysis. It’s also hard to pin down the degree to which Republican politicians refuse to accept the validity of the results of the last presidential race, since many haven’t made their views known – which FiveThirtyEight concludes means some likely believe baseless theories about the outcome, but are keeping it to themselves.Finally, the analysis finds that election denying is no surefire path to victory. Candidates who rejected the theory have in fact won 54 percent of races against an election denier, versus 36 percent for the deniers themselves. Here’s what FiveThirtyEight has to say about that dynamic:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} In other words, questioning the results of the 2020 election might not be a surefire path to the nomination, but it hasn’t proven to be a dealbreaker for Republican voters, either. That speaks volumes as to the overall direction the Republican Party is moving in. More

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      Primetime January 6 hearing to go ahead despite chairman’s positive Covid test

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      Primetime January 6 hearing to go ahead despite chairman’s positive Covid testBennie Thompson to miss hearing as ex-Trump aides Matthew Pottinger and Sarah Matthews expected to give evidence The chairman of the congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by extremist Trump supporters has contracted Covid – but Thursday’s primetime hearing will proceed, according to a statement from the chairman, Mississippi congressman Bennie Thompson.“While Chairman Thompson is disappointed with his Covid diagnosis, he has instructed the select committee to proceed with Thursday evening’s hearing. Committee members and staff wish the chairman a speedy recovery,” committee spokesperson Tim Mulvey said.I tested positive for COVID-19 yesterday, and I am experiencing mild symptoms. Gratefully, I am fully vaccinated and boosted. I encourage each person in America to get vaccinated and continue to follow the guidelines to remain safe. pic.twitter.com/brHXGlWmfq— Bennie G. Thompson (@BennieGThompson) July 19, 2022
      Meanwhile, two former White House aides are expected to testify at the hearing as the panel examines what then president Donald Trump was doing as his supporters stormed the US Capitol, according to a person familiar with the plans.Biden considers declaring climate emergency as agenda stalls in Congress – liveRead moreMatthew Pottinger, former deputy national security adviser, and Sarah Matthews, a former press aide, are expected to testify, according to the person, who was not authorized to publicly to discuss the matter and requested anonymity.Pottinger and Matthews resigned immediately after the January 6 insurrection, which interrupted the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the election.Lawmakers on the nine-member panel have said the hearing will offer the most compelling evidence yet of Trump’s “dereliction of duty” that day, with witnesses detailing his failure to stem the angry mob.“We have filled in the blanks,” Illinois Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger said on Sunday. “This is going to open people’s eyes in a big way.”He added: “The president didn’t do very much but gleefully watch television during this timeframe.”A spokesperson for the committee declined to comment on the specific witnesses. CNN was the first to report the story.Thursday’s hearing will be the first in the primetime slot since the 9 June debut, which was viewed by an estimated 20 million people.Although questions remain about what exactly the former president was doing and saying as the mob descended on the Capitol, the House committee has been laying out a case that the attack was premeditated and was instigated by Trump.Trump and his allies have insisted that the riot was spontaneous, and they did not know it was going to happen.Along with Thursday’s hearing, the House committee told the Secret Service it has until today to turn over deleted texts sent the day before and the day of the insurrection.The existence of deleted text messages may be central as the panel looks into how the Secret Service handled Trump and then vice-president Mike Pence as the breach unfolded.Meanwhile, Trump’s former top strategist Steve Bannon is back in federal court on Tuesday for the second day of his trial. Bannon faces charges of criminal contempt of Congress after he failed to comply with a subpoena from the House committee.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Pro-Israel hardliners spend millions to transform Democratic primaries

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      Pro-Israel hardliners spend millions to transform Democratic primariesCritics say Aipac and its allies are seeking to influence Democratic politics with money from Republican billionaires Pro-Israel lobby groups have poured millions of dollars into a Democratic primary for a Maryland congressional seat on Tuesday, in the latest attempt to block an establishment candidate who expressed support for the Palestinians.A surge in political spending by organisations funded by hardline supporters of Israel, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), has reshaped Democratic primaries over recent months even though debate about the country rarely figures as a major issue in the elections.Critics accuse Aipac and its allies of distorting Democratic politics in part because much of the money used to influence primary races comes from billionaire Republicans.Aipac has spent $6m on Tuesday’s contest in Maryland, more than any other organisation, to oppose Donna Edwards, who served eight years as the first Black woman elected to Congress from Maryland before losing a bid for the Senate in 2016.Edwards is endorsed by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, among other leading Democrats.The other Joe: how Manchin destroys Biden’s plans, angering DemocratsRead moreBut she angered some pro-Israel groups during her stint as a representative by failing to back resolutions in support of Israel over its 2011 war in Gaza and other positions. She also backed the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran when it was strongly opposed by the Israeli government and therefore Aipac.Aipac launched a super political action committee, or super Pac, the United Democracy Project (UDP), in December as a legal mechanism to spend unlimited amounts to directly influence elections and counter growing criticism within the Democratic party of Israel’s continued domination of the Palestinians.The lobby group kickstarted the UDP with $8.5m and donations from wealthy donors with close ties to Israel. They include two Republican billionaire businessmen and Trump campaign funders, Paul Singer and Bernie Marcus, as well as the billionaire Israeli American Democratic donor Haim Saban.UDP-funded television ads criticising Edwards make no mention of Israel and instead attack her as an ineffective politician who got nothing done during her stint in Congress. Over the past two months, Edwards has lost a significant lead in opinion polls over her rival, Glenn Ivey, who is now marginally ahead.A more liberal pro-Israel group, J Street, which calls for the US government to take a harder line with the Israeli government to end to the occupation, has backed Edwards through its Super Pac with about $700,000 in ads.A J Street spokesperson, Logan Bayroff, accused Aipac of being a Republican front organisation in part because of its endorsement of members of Congress who voted to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory following the 6 January 2021 storming of the Capitol.“It’s alarming that a group that has endorsed some of the most rightwing extremist Republicans, with a super Pac funded in part by Republican billionaire megadonors, could go into a Democratic primary and spend and spend with the single-minded purpose of crushing a fairly popular mainstream candidate who they’ve labelled anti-Israel with no evidence, no real justification at all, for such a claim,” Bayroff said.“This is all about trying to drive the party back into more rightward direction on Israel and foreign policy. It’s really alarming and it’s fundamentally anti-democratic when a group can influence this process in such a way because most voters wouldn’t know where this money is coming from. I think that’s dangerous.”Bayroff said Aipac and UDP were attempting to intimidate candidates into “feeling that they cannot offer good faith criticism of Israeli policy, that they cannot vocally support Palestinian rights”.“They recognise that the political space on these issues in the Democratic party has opened up and they want to try to arrest and reverse that trend, and push us back to a place in which there’s really very little public debate or discussion about the correct American role in the region,” he said.The most visible sign of that shift has come from members of “the Squad” of congressional progressives – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib – who are unusually vocal in their support of the Palestinian cause. Opinion polls also show that younger Democrats, including American Jews, are more openly critical of Israel.A UDP spokesman, Patrick Dorton, dismissed J Street’s accusations including the charge of being a Republican front group by pointing to Saban’s financial support.“We’re exercising our democratic first amendment rights in participating in these elections. If you want to look at politicians who’ve intimidated people and chilled discussion on the US Israel relationship, look at the Squad,” he said.“In part UDP was formed because there were an increasing number of candidates with radical anti-Israel views running for Congress. Our view is that is dangerous for American democracy and could negatively impact the the bipartisan support for the US-Israel relationship.”UDP and other pro-Israel groups, such as the Democratic Majority for Israel and Pro-Israel America, have spent heavily to oppose candidates regarded as anti-Israel in Democratic primaries from Texas to Ohio and California.The UDP helped defeat six of seven contenders it opposed, including the co-chair of Bernie Sanders’ most recent presidential campaign, Nina Turner, in a solid Democratic seat in Ohio. Turner, who has argued that substantial US aid to Israel should not be used to perpetuate the occupation of Palestinian land, at one point held a lead of 30 percentage points – but lost.TopicsUS politicsIsraelDemocratsUS foreign policyMiddle East and north AfricanewsReuse this content More

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      West Virginia to resume abortions after judge blocks enforcement of ban – as it happened

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      A West Virginia judge on Monday blocked officials from enforcing a 19th-century ban on abortions after the US supreme court overturned the 1973 Roe v Wade decision that recognized the right of women nationally to terminate pregnancies, Reuters reports.The decision by Kanawha county circuit judge Tera Salango clears the way for the state’s lone abortion clinic to resume services, which it suspended out of fear of prosecution following the high court’s 24 June ruling.We’ll have more details soon…Today has been a hot one across much of America, with parts of the country enduring a wave of temperatures that hit dangerous levels in places, even as major action against climate change has stalled indefinitely in Washington. Meanwhile, abortion advocates in West Virginia succeeded in getting the state’s ban on the procedure blocked, though the Republican-dominated statehouse appears to have been expecting such an outcome.Here’s a rundown of the day’s major events:
      A bipartisan group of lawmakers has introduced legislation to codify same-sex marriage rights into law after conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas last month signaled the court could reconsider its ruling protecting the unions.
      Jody Hice, a Georgia congressman and 2020 election denier, has been subpoenaed by a grand jury looking into attempts to subvert the election results in the state.
      The trial of Steve Bannon, a former top adviser to Trump, got underway. He’s facing contempt charges for defying the January 6 committee.
      A prominent economist outlined his argument against the relentless pursuit of economic growth in an interview with The New York Times Magazine, arguing it was unsustainable.
      The daily White House press briefing is happening now, with Council of Economic Advisers member Jared Bernstein at the podium. After the apparent defeat of Joe Biden’s legislative effort to fight climate change last week, The Guardian’s David Smith reports Bernstein is restating the president’s resolve to use executive actions to lower America’s carbon emissions:Bernstein: “The president will aggressively fight to tackle climate change because he knows it’s one of the reasons he’s here.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) July 18, 2022
      Bernstein on Biden: “He has taken unprecedented action already to tackle the climate crisis.” He will continue to do so “even if the legislative path is closed to him”.— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) July 18, 2022
      Bernstein: “The president will always try to pursue the best legislative path to get the best deal for the people who sent him up here. But if that path closes, he will find another path.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) July 18, 2022
      Bernstein is also mounting a defense of Biden’s economic record, noting strength in retail sales and the recent drop in the budget deficit.At White House press briefing. Economic adviser Jared Bernstein: “If you look at retail sales from just last week, you’ll see American consumers still helping to fuel really remarkable job gains…. Where we are right now remains solidly within expansion.” pic.twitter.com/IxnURQxmnZ— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) July 18, 2022
      Bernstein: “The budget deficit has come down 77% in the first nine months of this fiscal year. That’s the biggest decline on record.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) July 18, 2022
      Communities across parts of the greater Phoenix area are today dealing with fallen power lines, road closures and power outages after severe thunderstorms over the weekend triggered flash floods, dust storms and ping-pong ball sized hail.The skies have been lit up by lightning across the region – from the White Mountains area to the Colorado River, with almost 25,000 flashes in just 12 hours on Saturday, according to the National Weather Service. More thunderstorms are expected this afternoon and evening, which has made gardeners and farmers happy as last year’s monsoon failed to deliver. Much of Arizona is today enjoying a brief relief from above-average scorching temperatures thanks to a spate of monsoon storms over the past week, but it’s expected to get hotter again tomorrow with temperatures in Phoenix, one of America’s hottest cities, forecast to top 112F on four consecutive days from Tuesday to Friday. On a rare coolish day in Phoenix (top temperature 109F), the sweltering heat in the UK has caught the eye of meteorologists at the National Weather Service. We in the Desert Southwest are not the only ones seeing very hot temperatures…much of the UK will be seeing record high temps today/tomorrow as well…forecast highs today/tomorrow for London are 36-38C (98-100F)! UK may see their 1st 40C (104F) ever! https://t.co/mm5MDGNyNf https://t.co/cAn6AFdFgk— NWS Phoenix (@NWSPhoenix) July 18, 2022
      West Virginia’s Republican leaders knew a court ruling could stop the state’s abortion ban from coming into effect.“The West Virginia Legislature is strongly advised to amend the laws in our state to provide for clear prohibitions on abortion that are consistent with Dobbs”, attorney general Patrick Morrisey wrote in a June memorandum following the supreme court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the constitutional right to abortion.However governor Jim Justice said lawmakers in the Republican-dominated Senate and House of Delegates “are not ready” right now to craft new abortion legislation, the State Journal reported. While the legislature will hold a special session later this month to debate a proposal to slash the state’s income taxes, Justice predicted a special session on legislation to restrict abortion would have to be called later.Here’s a little more on the West Virginia abortion ruling. Circuit court judge Tera Salango sided with the state’s last remaining abortion clinic on Monday by overturning a 19th-century law that made performing or receiving the procedure a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.The ruling allows the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia to immediately resume providing abortions, which it stopped following the 24 June US Supreme Court decision overturning federal protections provided by Roe v Wade.The state argued that an abortion ban on the books dating back 150 years, which included an exception when the woman’s life was in danger, was still enforceable.But Salango agreed with the position of the ACLU of West Virginia, which argue for the clinic that the law was invalid, partly because it had not been enforced in more than 50 years, but also because it had been superseded by others, including a 2015 law allowing abortions until 20 weeks.A West Virginia judge on Monday blocked officials from enforcing a 19th-century ban on abortions after the US supreme court overturned the 1973 Roe v Wade decision that recognized the right of women nationally to terminate pregnancies, Reuters reports.The decision by Kanawha county circuit judge Tera Salango clears the way for the state’s lone abortion clinic to resume services, which it suspended out of fear of prosecution following the high court’s 24 June ruling.We’ll have more details soon…A bipartisan group of congress members has introduced a bill called the Respect for Marriage Act in response to a warning from Justice Clarence Thomas that the right wing Supreme Court majority could soon take aim at same-sex marriage.Thomas, one of six conservatives on the panel, appeared to signal in June that the court would likely follow up its overturning of Roe v Wade abortion protections by looking at other “settled” issues, including the 2015 Obergefell ruling that legalized gay marriage.House judiciary chair Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, said Monday that the bipartisan group, which includes Republican Maine senator Susan Collins, was proposing the new act in an attempt to enshrine marriage equality into federal law.Nadler said: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Three weeks ago, a conservative majority on the Supreme Court not only repealed Roe v Wade and walked back 50 years of precedent, it signaled that other rights, like the right to same-sex marriage, are next on the chopping block.
      As this Court may take aim at other fundamental rights, we cannot sit idly by as the hard-earned gains of the Equality movement are systematically eroded.
      If Justice Thomas’s concurrence teaches anything it’s that we cannot let your guard down or the rights and freedoms that we have come to cherish will vanish into a cloud of radical ideology and dubious legal reasoning. Nancy Pelosi’s office has announced that Olena Zelenska, Ukraine’s first lady and wife of president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, will address members of both chambers of Congress on Wednesday morning.Olena Zelenska, the First Lady of Ukraine, will speak to Congress on Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/EHnZk5iVgZ— Kyle Stewart (@KyleAlexStewart) July 18, 2022
      The announcement said she will speak at 11am, but gave no details of the topic. Zelenska, who has spent most of the war since Russia’s 24 February invasion in an undisclosed location, has made only rare public appearances.She spoke with the Guardian’s Shaun Walker last month:Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska on being Russia’s target No 2: ‘When you see their crimes, maybe they really are capable of anything’Read moreBetsy DeVos, who served as Donald Trump’s education secretary throughout his single term of office, now believes the department she led should be abolished.DeVos was speaking at a weekend conference in Florida hosted by Moms for Liberty, a conservative parents’ activist group dedicated to electing rightwing candidates to school boards and opposing diversity and perceived “wokeism” in classrooms.“I personally think the Department of Education should not exist,” DeVos told the three-day gathering in Tampa, to loud applause, according to Florida Phoenix.Decisions about education, she said, should be made by state government and local school boards, which she asserted were best placed to serve their communities.Her comments almost exactly echoed the language of a bill by Republican Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie last year that said: “unelected bureaucrats in Washington DC should not be in charge of our children’s intellectual and moral development.”DeVos, who once advocated for guns to be allowed in schools to counter the threat from grizzly bears, was among several ultra-conservative speakers at the summit of a group set up during the Covid-19 pandemic to fight mask and vaccination mandates in schools.They included Florida Republican senator Rick Scott, who was applauded by attendees for voting against the bipartisan gun reform package signed into law by Joe Biden last month.The conference also featured a breakout panel on school safety including Scott and Ryan Petty, a Florida board of education member whose daughter Alaina was among 17 murdered in a 2018 high school shooting in Parkland, Florida.The panel, the Phoenix reported, discussed arming school personnel and tightening security on campuses, but not gun reforms advocates say might have prevented shootings such as in Parkland and in Uvalde, Texas in May, where a teenage gunman killed 19 students and two teachers.The Moms for Liberty group has a high profile supporter in Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis, whose raft of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in recent months includes the so-called “don’t say gay” bill banning discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms.DeSantis, a likely 2024 presidential candidate whose state education department banned dozens of math textbooks earlier this year for “prohibited topics,” urged attendees to resist what he sees as left-wing wokeism.“Now is not the time to be a shrinking violet. Now is not the time to let them grind you down. You’ve got to stand up and you’ve got to fight,” he said, according to Politico.The president of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has defended WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and repeated his offer asylum to him. In June, the UK approved Assange’s extradition to the US to face prosecution for charges involving WikiLeaks’ disclosure of confidential diplomatic cables and military records.At a routine press conference Monday, Reuters reports, Lopez Obrador said: “I left a letter to the president about Assange, explaining that he did not commit any serious crime, did not cause anyone’s death, did not violate any human rights and that he exercised his freedom, and that arresting him would mean a permanent affront to freedom of expression.”Lopez Obrador has called Assange “the best journalist of our time.” Lopez Obrador claims to have penned a similar letter for former President Donald Trump before he left office. Legal fights over abortion access continue across the US. Today in West Virginia, the state’s lone abortion clinic is asking a judge to toss an 150-year-old state law so that the facility can immediately resume providing the procedure. The Women’s Health Center of West Virginia suspended performing abortions on 24 June, when the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade. The 1800s West Virginia law states that obtaining or performing an abortion is a felony, which can result in up to 10 years imprisonment, according to The Associated Press. The exception is for instances where a woman or other pregnant person’s life is at risk. The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia has contended that the statute isn’t valid because it hasn’t been enforced in more than five decades, and has been superseded by more contemporary statutes on abortion, which recognize the right to this procedure, AP says. Advocates point to West Virginia’s 2015 abortion law, which permits the procedure up to 20 weeks. The state’s attorney general, Patrick Morrisey, has contended that the old law remains enforceable.Lawyers for the state contend that the law hasn’t been enforced solely because Roe would have made illegal the prosecution of abortion recipients and providers, per AP. Democratic Florida congresswoman Val Demings revealed this morning that she has Covid-19. “I’ve tested positive for Covid and am currently isolating with mild symptoms,” Demings said on Twitter. “Thank you for the many well-wishes, and stay safe.”Demings, who is campaigning against Republican senator Marco Rubio for the US Senate, reportedly attended Florida Democrats’ Leadership Blue conference in the central Florida city of Tampa this weekend. At the conference, the congresswoman’s husband, Orange ounty Mayor Jerry Demings, told Politico that her voice was hoarse from speaking at several events. Politico notes that it’s not known where Demings contracted Covid-19. Other prominent democrats – including Florida congressman Charlie Crist and Illinois governor JB Pritzker – attended the convention. Politico reports that no other top speakers have publicly disclosed whether they have tested positive for Covid. Demings, who was once considered as a possible vice-president to Joe Biden, attracted national attention when she worked as an impeachment manager during Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial.It’s a hot day across much of America, with parts of the country enduring a wave of temperatures that will hit dangerous levels in places, however major action against climate change is still stalled indefinitely in Washington. Meanwhile, more allies of Donald Trump are feeling legal heat related to the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.Here’s what has happened today so far:
      Jody Hice, a Georgia congressman and 2020 election denier, has been subpoenaed by a grand jury looking into attempts to subvert the election results in the state.
      The trial of Steve Bannon, a former top adviser to Trump, begins today. He’s facing contempt charges for defying the January 6 committee.
      A prominent economist outlined his argument against the relentless pursuit of economic growth in an interview with The New York Times Magazine, arguing it was unsustainable.
      The Washington Post has published an excellent look at where US emissions are now, and what senator Joe Manchin’s death blow against Biden’s climate agenda means for the fight to stop global temperatures from rising.America’s carbon emissions are already on the downward trajectory from their peak in 2005, the data says, and thus, Manchin’s decision last week not to support provisions to hasten their decline means the US likely won’t hit goals intended to keep global warming in check.From the Post’s report:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} A major part of the goal can be achieved by riding the ongoing downward trend in emissions, which reflect government policies and actions taken by the private sector, particularly the energy industry, to become more sustainable. For instance, a recent analysis by the Rhodium Group, a research firm that closely tracks emissions policies, found that the United States is already on track to reduce emissions by somewhere between 24 and 35 percent below their 2005 level by 2030.
      But that’s nowhere near enough to meet the pledge.
      The current blowup of negotiations with Manchin “makes it harder, and it makes any additional actions by the executive branch that much more critical. The stakes are now that much higher,” said John Larsen, a partner with Rhodium.
      Several analyses have suggested that policies like those contained in the Senate legislation could have accounted for about a billion additional tons of annual U.S. emissions reductions.
      “We estimate the Senate budget deal likely would have cut emissions by roughly 800 million to 1 billion metric tons in 2030,” said Princeton University professor Jesse Jenkins, an energy policy expert and modeler.
      In Jenkins’s analysis, there would still be a gap, albeit a small one – of hundreds of millions of tons – to achieve the Biden administration pledge.
      Somewhat separate from all of this is what it means for the Earth – after all, every major emitter has to act or else each one’s progress, or lack thereof, will be moot.The Guardian’s Joan E Greve has taken a look at a question swirling around Joe Biden as he struggles with both his advanced age and record low approval ratings: could he decide not to run again in 2024?Joe Biden is having a rough summer. The US supreme court has overturned Roe v Wade, ending federal protections for abortion access. Although gas prices are now falling, they remain high and have driven inflation to its largest annual increase in more than 40 years. West Virginia senator Joe Manchin has finally ended any hopes that the president had of passing a climate bill in Congress. With an evenly divided Senate, Biden’s options for addressing these problems – or enacting any of his other legislative priorities – are bleak.The American people have taken note. Biden’s approval rating has steadily fallen since April and now sits in the high 30s. A recent Monmouth poll found that only 10% of Americans believe the country is heading in the right direction. Too old to run again? Biden faces questions about his age as crises mountRead more More