Here are some of today’s top stories:
- Biden administration brings back climate scientist ousted by the former guy.
- Bipartisan effort to save the USPS.
- Texas outlaws almost all abortions.
- Republicans fear January 6 probe could undercut 2022 midterm message.
- Eastern Oregon counties want to secede into Idaho.
- Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police lose big in Philadelphia District Attorney race.
- Three Tulsa massacre survivors testify before Congress.
- Parking requirements are destroying cities.
- Nevada is on the verge of passing a public option.
- Rep. Tim Ryan unloads on Republican opposition to January 6 inquiry.
Details and links to sources below the fold.
This is an open thread. Everyone is encouraged to share articles, stories, and tweets in your comments.
586,961 PEOPLE HAVE DIED FROM CORONAVIRUS IN THE U.S. 159.2 MILLION PEOPLE IN THE U.S. HAVE RECEIVED A VACCINATION DOSE
The Washington Post
A prosecutor says no to a rape charge, so a college student calls her own grand jury
Madison Smith will be just a few months out of college when her story is heard this fall by a most unusual Kansas grand jury — one she convened.
For three years, the local prosecutor has resolutely refused to make her case: that what began as consensual sex in a college dorm room became a rape, and that she was unable to say “stop” because her classmate was strangling her.
But Smith invoked a vestige of frontier justice that allows citizens in Kansas to summon a grand jury when they think prosecutors are neglecting to bring charges in a crime. The law, dating to the 1800s, was originally used to go after saloonkeepers when authorities ignored violations of statewide prohibition. The 22-year-old graduate is believed to be the first to convene a citizen grand jury after a prosecutor declined to pursue a sex-crime charge.
White House brings back climate scientist forced out by Trump administration
The Biden administration has reinstalled the director of the federal climate program that produces the U.S. government’s definitive reports on climate change, after the Trump administration removed him in November.
Michael Kuperberg, the climate scientist who ran the program for six years during Democratic and Republican administrations, was reinstated Monday, the White House confirmed.
As the executive director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, Kuperberg coordinates climate change research across 13 federal agencies and production of the program’s National Climate Assessment, the nation’s most important report on climate change science and its consequences.
Biden calls off key sanctions on Russian pipeline as Blinken holds first meeting with Moscow
The Biden administration on Wednesday decided against sanctioning the company in charge of a Russian gas pipeline, just hours before Secretary of State Antony Blinken sat down with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in the first face-to-face gathering of a Biden Cabinet member and their Russian counterpart. […]
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) called the decision “naive, deceitful and weak,” and Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) said it gives Russian President Vladimir Putin “massive strategic leverage in Europe.”
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, meanwhile, praised the decision as “a constructive step which we are happy to further discuss with our partners in Washington.”
Senators reach bipartisan deal to overhaul USPS finances, tighten accountability requirements
A bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation Wednesday to lift significant financial burdens off the ailing U.S. Postal Service while tightening accountability requirements for mail delivery, a major stride for an agency that has tussled with its balance sheet and reputation for the better part of a year.
The bill, identical to a version that has advanced in the House, would repeal $5 billion a year in mandatory retiree health-care expenses and require future postal retirees to enroll in Medicare. Advocates say the measures would save the agency $30 billion over the next decade.
Austin American-Statesman
Gov. Greg Abbott signs 'fetal heartbeat' bill banning most abortions in Texas
Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law Wednesday legislation that prohibits abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, effectively banning most abortions in the state.
Senate Bill 8, a priority for Republican state lawmakers, would allow virtually any private citizen to sue an abortion provider or others who “aid and abet” an abortion in violation of the new ban.
The bill sailed through the Senate and House, despite fervent opposition from Democrats. Flanked by Republican lawmakers in his Capitol office, Abbott made good on his promise to sign the bill at a ceremony that was closed to the media and broadcast on Facebook.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia Republicans oppose measure condemning Atlanta spa shootings
All eight Republicans who represent Georgia in the U.S. House voted against a resolution that passed condemning the Atlanta spa shootings.
The 244-180 vote included every House Democrat plus several dozen Republicans. The resolution’s text includes the names and biographical details about the eight victims of the March 16 attack plus language “reaffirming the House of Representatives’ commitment to combating hate, bigotry, and violence against the Asian-American and Pacific Islander community.”
Five of Georgia’s six House Democrats voted in favor of the measure; U.S. Rep. David Scott was not present for the vote.
CNN
The New York attorney general's office has opened a criminal tax investigation into top Trump Organization officer Allen Weisselberg, increasing the legal pressure on the long-time aide to … Donald Trump, people familiar with the investigation say.
The pressure on Weisselberg is mounting from two directions with the attorney general looking into his personal taxes, while prosecutors in the district attorney's office are digging into his role at the Trump Organization, his personal finances, and benefits given to his son Barry, a long-time employee of the Trump Organization. […]
Weisselberg has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Republicans fear January 6 probe could undercut 2022 midterm message
Senior Republicans are making clear they have little interest in moving forward with a sweeping January 6 investigation in part because a detailed probe could become politically damaging and amount to a distraction for their party just as control of Congress is at stake in next year's midterm elections.
Publicly and privately, Republicans are making that case, with Senate GOP Whip John Thune noting that there's concern among some GOP members that the findings of the probe "could be weaponized politically and drug into next year."
Bloomberg
Some Vaccines Help Nations Exit The Pandemic Faster Than Others
With hundreds of millions of people now vaccinated against Covid-19, the coronavirus outbreak should begin to die down in places where a large chunk of the population has been inoculated. But that isn’t happening everywhere. […]
One reason for that may be the different types of vaccine being used. Evidence derived from the expanding global inoculation rollout indicates that the messenger RNA shots developed by Moderna Inc. or Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE are better at stopping people from becoming contagious, helping reduce onward transmission -- an unexpected extra benefit as the first wave of Covid vaccines were intended to stop people from becoming very sick.
House Backs Commission to Probe Jan. 6 Insurrection at Capitol
The Democratic-controlled House passed legislation to create an independent bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, with 35 Republicans breaking ranks with their leaders to support the probe.
The 252-175 vote sends the bill to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain after Minority Leader Mitch McConnell earlier Wednesday announced his opposition. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has vowed to bring it to a vote, but he would need at least 10 Republican senators to go along.
Los Angeles Times
Gaza cease-fire calls grow even as Netanyahu publicly plays down Biden admonition
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday publicly shrugged off the strongest U.S. call yet to wind down fighting with Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, but there were growing indications he would accede to international pressure for a cease-fire. […]
Early Thursday in Gaza City, orange flashes lighted up the sky, as the thunder of heavy bombardment drowned out the morning call to prayer.
The fighting has killed at least 227 Palestinians, 64 of them children, and 12 people on the Israeli side, including a small child, a teenager and a soldier.
Ford unveils the F-150 Lightning. Will truck buyers take to electric pickups?
Ford Motor Co.’s new all-electric pickup truck will arrive next year having already secured one notable admirer. “This sucker’s quick,” President Biden said from behind the wheel in Dearborn, Mich., on Tuesday after a high-torque off-the-line blast in a pre-production F-150 Lightning.
Although a classic car lover, Biden is a climate hawk whose aggressive goals for cutting greenhouse gas emissions will require large-scale electrification of U.S. transportation. So count him as receptive. The company also expects young, tech-savvy buyers to be early customers of the Lightning, set to go on sale in mid-2022.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Video shows ax-wielding man inflicting damage to George Floyd Square
An ax-wielding man was captured on video vandalizing displays and a structure at George Floyd Square in south Minneapolis late at night over the weekend.
The damage occurred about 2 a.m. Sunday at 38th and Chicago, the intersection that has been an informal gathering place and remembrance since Floyd was killed by police May 25, 2020.
The Oregonian
Five eastern Oregon counties voted Tuesday in favor of considering becoming part of Idaho. Baker, Grant, Lake, Malheur and Sherman counties join Union and Jefferson, which voted last year to require county officials to study or promote joining Idaho. […]
The grassroots group Move Oregon’s Border for a Greater Idaho wants to flip Oregon’s mostly rural eastern and southern counties -- plus a few northern counties in California -- into Idaho, believing they’d be better off in Idaho’s more conservative political environment. It’s hoping that political pressure from county initiative votes will lead to negotiations between Oregon and Idaho to move the border between the two states, putting up to 22 of Oregon’s 36 counties in Idaho.
Portland announces it will aggressively clean or remove homeless encampments
The city of Portland announced Wednesday it plans to more aggressively clean, downsize or remove homeless encampments starting Monday.
After a year of avoiding or limiting encampment evictions, the city will act more strictly. The change comes after officials in charge of cleaning and removing street camping sites concluded their passive approach “has been ineffective,” according to a memo released by the city.
Instead of allowing extended time for campers to comply with rules – including separating tents by at least six feet and keeping sidewalks, building entrances and accessibility ramps clear for pedestrians – the city will instead immediately post an eviction notice if certain health and safety concerns are present.
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Climate change is to blame for an estimated $8.1 billion of Hurricane Sandy losses, researchers say
Roughly $8.1 billion of the total $62.7 billion in losses suffered in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut from Hurricane Sandy in 2012 can be attributed to sea-level rise caused by carbon dioxide emissions, according to a study published Tuesday by a team of researchers in Nature Communications.
The researchers, using computer modeling and reconstructions, found that warming caused by human activity raised sea levels about 4 inches in the New York area in the century preceding the storm. That was enough, they said, to force coastal flooding farther inland and deepen floodwaters.
Philly DA Larry Krasner’s big win is a huge loss for the police union that tried to stop him
After voting for Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, Jesse Vincent walked out of his Mount Airy polling place and said he showed up “for one reason.”
“To make sure the FOP-supported candidate and his desire to please the establishment and the police did not prevail today,” Vincent said Tuesday. He was referring to the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, the city’s police union and the most vocal opponent of Krasner and the local criminal justice reform movement he leads. […]
Krasner’s resounding victory Tuesday over challenger Carlos Vega, a former prosecutor whose candidacy the union spent heavily to boost, was an emphatic marker of the rapid decline of the FOP’s political brand. The election had the feeling of a last stand for the 14,000-member union, which funded a group that was the top outside spender in a race that attracted national attention and was seen as a bellwether in the national debate over criminal justice and police accountability.
Reuters
World’s largest iceberg, nearly four times size of New York City, forms in Antarctica
A giant slab of ice bigger than the Spanish island of Majorca has sheared off from the frozen edge of Antarctica into the Weddell Sea, becoming the largest iceberg currently afloat in the world, the European Space Agency said on Wednesday.
The newly calved berg, designated A-76 by scientists, was spotted in recent satellite images captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, the space agency said in a statement posted on its website with a photo of the enormous, oblong ice sheet.
China says U.S. threatening peace as warship transits Taiwan Strait
China accused the United States on Wednesday of threatening the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait after a U.S. warship again sailed through the sensitive waterway that separates Taiwan from its giant neighbour.
The U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet said the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Curtis Wilbur conducted a "routine Taiwan Strait transit" on Tuesday in accordance with international law.
"The ship's transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific. The United States military will continue to fly, sail, and operate anywhere international law allows," it said.
BuzzFeed News
Three Tulsa Massacre Survivors Delivered Terrifying Testimony In Congress
Viola Fletcher is 107 years old, but she can still recall in vivid detail the horror of one night almost a century ago.
On May 31, 1921, she was woken up by her terrified parents, who took her and her five siblings and fled their Tulsa home.
In the streets, a white mob was attacking the Black community. It was the start of the Tulsa massacre.
"I still see Black men being shot and Black bodies lying in the street," Fletcher, the oldest living survivor of the massacre, said in testimony on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.
Officers of the US Capitol Police criticized Republican leaders' opposition to the creation of a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots in a powerful letter released Wednesday afternoon as the House debated the measure.
"The brave men and women of the USCP were subjected to hours and hours of physical trauma which has led to months of mental anguish," the members wrote, adding that the complex where they work still has broken doors and windows — visual reminders of the events of that day.
The Guardian
Stench of death pervades rural India as Ganges swells with Covid victims
There was a time before when the Ganges was “swollen with dead bodies”.
In 1918, when the great flu pandemic swept through India and killed an estimated 18 million people, the water of this river – upon which so many lives depended – was filled with the stench of death.
And so it is again. India’s official death toll from the coronavirus pandemic may be just over a quarter of a million, but experts believe the real figure to be up to five times higher, and the bodies that have begun washing up in India’s holiest river have become haunting representations of the uncounted Covid dead.
Cyclone Tauktae: death toll rises to more than 90 after huge storm hits India
The number of fatalities from a major cyclone on India’s west coast has jumped to at least 91 and the navy was searching for another 49 people missing at sea after a barge carrying offshore workers sank in the storm.
Cyclone Tauktae, which left a trail of destruction after sweeping in from the Arabian sea on Monday, is the latest storm in what experts say is a growing number of ever-bigger storms in the region because of climate change warming its waters.
Deutsche Welle
EU-Turkey relations at 'historic' low point: European Parliament
The European Parliament on Wednesday adopted a report urging the EU Commission to formally suspend accession negotiations with Turkey if Ankara does not reverse its "hostile" policies.
"In recent years, the [government] of Turkey has distanced itself increasingly from EU values and standards. As a result, relations have been brought to a historic low point," Members of the European Parliament said in a statement.
MEPs slammed Turkey's human rights record and its foreign policies in the report adopted by 480 votes in favor, 64 against and 150 abstentions.
BBC News
Colonial Pipeline boss confirms $4.4m ransom payment
Colonial Pipeline has confirmed it paid a $4.4m (£3.1m) ransom to the cyber-criminal gang responsible for taking the US fuel pipeline offline.
Its boss told the Wall Street Journal he authorised the payment on 7 May because of uncertainty over how long the shutdown would continue.
"I know that's a highly controversial decision," Joseph Blount said in his first interview since the hack.
Galapagos Islands: Erosion fells Darwin's Arch
A famous rock formation off the Galapagos Islands known as Darwin's Arch has collapsed. The Ecuadoran Ministry of Environment said it was due to "natural erosion".
"The collapse of Darwin's Arch, the attractive natural bridge found less than a kilometre from the main area of Darwin Island, was reported," the ministry said.
The formation, named after the English biologist Charles Darwin, is considered a top diving location.
The Denver Post
Two former Loveland police officers will face criminal charges for violently arresting a 73-year-old woman with dementia and lying about or failing to report the woman’s injuries, which included a broken arm and a dislocated shoulder.
Prosecutors with the Eighth Judicial District Attorney’s Office on Wednesday filed charges against Austin Hopp and Daria Jalali, the officers who violently arrested Karen Garner in June after receiving a report that she tried to walk out of a Walmart with $13 of merchandise.
NPR News
Rep. Tlaib Pushes Biden To Protect At-Risk Palestinians In Middle East Conflict
In a notable tarmac conversation, Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib conveyed to President Biden her dissatisfaction with the United States' response to the bloody conflict between Israel and Hamas that has now entered its second week, her office says.
Tlaib, the first woman of Palestinian descent to serve in Congress, also told Biden that Palestinians must be protected, and she shared her harsh assessment of Israel's role in escalating the violence, an aide for the congresswoman's office said in a statement.
The Pentagon Has Never Passed An Audit. Some Senators Want To Change That
When the Pentagon launched its first-ever independent financial audit back in 2017, backers of accountability in government welcomed it as a major step for a department with a track record of financial boondoggles.
But the Defense Department failed that audit – and the next two as well. Now lawmakers are introducing a bipartisan bill that would impose a penalty for any part of the department, including the military, that fails to undergo a "clean" audit.
"The Pentagon and the military industrial complex have been plagued by a massive amount of waste, fraud and financial mismanagement for decades. That is absolutely unacceptable," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who co-sponsored the bill with Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, along with Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Mike Lee, R-Utah.
The Atlantic
Lewis Mumford was suspicious of parking. “The right to access every building in a city by private motorcar,” he wrote in The City in History, “in an age when everyone owns such a vehicle, is actually the right to destroy the city.” Jane Jacobs, who disagreed with Mumford on many counts, agreed here. Parking lots, she said in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, were “border vacuums”: inactive spaces that deadened everything around them. […]
Parking requirements enforce what Mumford decried: the right to access every building by private car. As Mumford predicted, they have been a disaster. American urban history is stained with tragic missteps and shameful injustices, so parking requirements are hardly the worst policy cities have tried. But they are notable for how much needless damage they have caused, over a long period, with few people even noticing.
The trouble with parking requirements is twofold. First, they don’t do what they’re supposed to, which is prevent curb congestion. Because curb parking is convenient and usually free, drivers fill up the curb first, no matter how much off-street space exists nearby. Second—and more consequential—parking requirements attack the nature of the city itself, by subordinating density to the needs of the car.
What Bosses Really Think of Remote Workers
America’s CEOs have a message for people who love working from home: Your happy days are numbered. Remote work is “suboptimal,” Jonathan Wasserstrum, the CEO of the New York commercial-real-estate company SquareFoot, told me. “I believe that work is better when most of the people are in the office most of the time together,” he said. As if to prove his point, at that moment our phone connection grew fuzzy, prompting him to sarcastically add, “Oh, because remote is so great, right?”
What really gets Wasserstrum’s goat is when people say no one should come into the office, because that would be more fair to the people who don’t want to come into the office. He said that although he wouldn’t fire someone for asking to work remotely full-time, SquareFoot is a real-estate company. “If somebody didn’t believe in the value of an office at least one day a week, they probably shouldn’t be at the company anyway,” he said. At a recent Wall Street Journal conference, WeWork CEO Sandeep Mathrani cheered cubicle life even louder, saying that the most “engaged” workers are those who want to work from the office most of the time. “People are happier when they come to work,” he added confidently.
Vox
Why the Republican Party can’t reckon with Trump
Most Republican critics of Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election result have gone quiet. […]
There are likely three reasons for this. First, there’s the cynical calculation that the GOP can best win future elections by seeming united, rather than spotlighting party divisions. Second, there’s the fear of openly defying Trump and earning the enmity of his supporters, since those deemed insufficiently loyal to the former president tend to see their jobs put at risk. And third, there’s the fatalistic view that this criticism simply won’t achieve anything, because the GOP base will trust the propaganda pipeline of conservative media and social media over their own leaders.
Nevada is on the verge of passing a public option
…while the public option, a government-run insurance plan that competes with private insurers, seems to be off the table at the federal level, Nevada lawmakers are pushing to pass their own version before the end of their legislative session.
Nevada would become just the second state with a public option, after Washington implemented its own version of the proposal this year. The Democrat-controlled legislature is racing against the clock — the legislative session ends on June 1 — but the legislation is already moving through Senate committees.
EuroNews
EU states agree to allow entry to bloc for vaccinated travellers
Ambassadors for EU members states have agreed to measures allowing vaccinated travellers from third countries into the bloc, according to an EU spokesman.
Commission spokesman Christian Wigand told reporters on Wednesday that representatives of the countries had come to an agreement, but it still needed to be formally adopted by the European Council. […]
With the summer tourist season approaching, the ambassadors of the 27 countries approved the recommendation which was proposed by the European Commission.
55% of the world’s plastic waste comes from just 20 companies
A new study reveals that just 20 businesses produce 55 per cent of the world’s plastic single-use waste.
Research by the Minderoo Foundation tracked the journey of polymers as they left factories and followed their journey into becoming single-use plastics, before being thrown away.
Currently, single-use plastics account for the majority of the plastics which are thrown away annually. In 2019 the Foundation reported that over 130 million metric tonnes were thrown away in 2019 - most of this is burned, placed in landfill or at its very worst discarded into the environment.
NBC News
Rep. Tim Ryan unloads on Republican opposition to Jan. 6 inquiry in House floor speech
Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, laced into House Republicans during a debate before the passage of a bill to create an independent 9/11-style commission to investigate the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
"I want to thank the gentleman from New York and the other Republicans who are supporting this and thank them for their bipartisanship," Ryan said, referring to the 35 GOP House members who supported the measure. He said of the rest "of our friends on the other side of the aisle, holy cow. Incoherence. No idea what you're talking about."
Ryan compared the opposition to the bill, which passed 252-175 on Wednesday, to the Republican-led investigation into the 2012 terrorist attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, which left four Americans dead; critics largely said it was a political move against Hillary Clinton.
UFOs are about to make their way to the U.S. Senate. Here's what to know.
U.S. intelligence agencies are expected to deliver a report on “unidentified aerial phenomena” to Congress next month, sparking renewed interest and speculation into how the government has handled sightings of mysterious flying objects — and if there's any worldly explanation for them.
The unclassified report, compiled by the director of national intelligence and the secretary of defense, aims to make public what the Pentagon knows about unidentified flying objects and data analyzed from such encounters.
Ars Technica
All fossil fuel exploration needs to end this year, IEA says
To limit global warming to 1.5˚C by the end of the century, the world has to deploy clean technologies en masse while slashing investment in new oil, gas, and coal supplies, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency.
Getting to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 will require a historic deployment of widespread renewable power, electric vehicles, and new technologies, many of which are only now in the prototype stage. To get a jump-start, we’ll need to double our investments in clean technologies to $4 trillion by the end of the decade.
Climate change is erasing humanity’s oldest art
The limestone caves and rock shelters of Indonesia's southern Sulawesi island hold the oldest traces of human art and storytelling, dating back more than 40,000 years. Paintings adorn the walls of at least 300 sites in the karst hills of Maros-Pangkep, with more almost certainly waiting to be rediscovered. But archaeologists say humanity's oldest art is crumbling before their very eyes.
"We have recorded rapid loss of hand-sized spall flakes from these ancient art panels over a single season (less than five months)," said archaeologist Rustan Lebe of Makassar's culture heritage department.
The culprit is salt. As water flows through a limestone cave system, it carries minerals from the local bedrock, and the minerals eventually end up in the limestone. At the limestone's surface, those minerals oxidize into a case-hardened rocky crust.