Here are some of tonight’s top stories:
- House creates select committee for investigating January 6 insurrection.
- Over 100 deaths may be tied to historic Northwest heat wave; more deaths in Canada.
- COVID Delta variant could ‘wreak havoc’.
- Trump Organization and CFO Allen Weisselberg are indicted in tax evasion investigation.
- University of North Carolina trustees approve tenure for Nikole Hannah-Jones by a 9-4 vote.
- Robinhood Financial will pay nearly $70 million fine, but did not admit to wrongdoing.
- Pew Research Center says suburban voters and white men helped Biden defeat Trump this past November.
- Biden's infrastructure plan would cut U.S. debt and increase economic growth.
- Iran wants guarantees that the United States won’t renege on a nuclear deal again.
- U.S. military is close to completing Afghan withdrawal as Taliban makes strategic gains.
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.
604,198 PEOPLE HAVE DIED FROM CORONAVIRUS IN THE U.S. 180.7 MILLION PEOPLE IN THE U.S. HAVE RECEIVED A VACCINATION DOSE
The Washington Post
House votes to create select committee for investigating Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol
The House voted Wednesday to form a select committee tasked with investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, with nearly all Republicans opposing the legislation — a sign of the political challenges that face Democrats as they attempt to probe why thousands of … Donald Trump’s supporters swarmed the building and tried to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
The 220-to-190 nearly party-line vote stands in contrast to a vote in May, when 35 House Republicans joined Democrats to back the creation of an independent commission to examine the root causes of the attack. While that group of House Republicans was willing to embrace an outside panel of experts evenly weighted between GOP and Democratic appointees, most were wary of a select committee that would be firmly in the control of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s handpicked participants. […]
“It will find the truth — which clearly the Republicans fear,” she said during a speech on the House floor Wednesday.
Federal program debuts climate change, racial justice criteria as part of infrastructure grants
For the first time, federal transportation officials judged projects seeking multimillion-dollar grants from a highway, rail and port infrastructure fund based on how they might tackle climate change and racial injustice.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced his choices for the $900 million fund Wednesday, backing projects that he said also would spur the economy. The decisions offer a preview of how the Biden administration’s infrastructure policy might reshape road and rail networks if Congress agrees on a major spending package.
“We’re talking about new jobs being created, we’re talking about communities finding new economic lifelines,” Buttigieg said. “We’re talking about families and businesses that are going to be able to count on safer and more reliable transportation infrastructure.”
Record heat swells over Northeast while Pacific Northwest sizzles
When one side of the Lower 48 is dealing with hot weather, it tends to be relatively cool on the opposite end. Not this week. Heat domes situated over both corners of the contiguous United States on Tuesday promoted record-high temperatures in the Northeast at the same time the Pacific Northwest sizzled amid unprecedented temperatures. […]
A relatively unusual configuration of weather systems has promoted record highs in the Northeast and the Pacific Northwest simultaneously. As a stagnant and exceptionally strong heat dome has roasted the Pacific Northwest, called an “omega block” because of its shape, a weaker heat dome in the western Atlantic has supplied hot air along the East Coast.
Heat domes are zones of high pressure that essentially bake the air beneath them.
Los Angeles Times
Over 100 deaths may be tied to historic Northwest heat wave
The grim toll of the historic heat wave in the Pacific Northwest became more apparent as authorities in Canada, Washington state and Oregon said Wednesday that they were investigating more than 100 deaths likely caused by scorching temperatures that shattered all-time records.
Oregon health officials said more than 60 deaths have been tied to the heat, with the state’s largest county, Multnomah, blaming the weather for 45 deaths since the heat wave began Friday.
In Vancouver, in Canada’s British Columbia province, police said they had responded to more than 65 sudden deaths since Friday. Washington state authorities had linked more than half a dozen deaths to the heat, but that number was likely to rise.
Fears that Delta variant could ‘wreak havoc’ in L.A. prompted call to wear masks indoors
California is just two weeks into its long-awaited reopening, but already a new coronavirus threat has prompted Los Angeles County health officials to request a voluntary rollback of one of the freedoms fully vaccinated people only recently began to enjoy.
The county’s recommendation this week that everyone — regardless of inoculation status — should wear face coverings in public indoor settings as a precaution, given the presence of the worrisome Delta variant of the coronavirus, underscores that speed bumps may still lie ahead on the road to pre-pandemic normalcy.
It also illustrates the current landscape in the long-running battle against COVID-19: one where those who have had their shots may be asked to give a little to help shield those who haven’t.
Vox
How the delta variant is altering the course of the pandemic
The fast-spreading delta variant of the coronavirus is eroding some of the world’s precious progress against the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s likely the most transmissible variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus identified to date, appears to cause more severe illness than others, and has already landed in at least 85 countries.
While health experts are worried, much of their advice hasn’t changed. The strategies that have contributed to progress so far — masks, social distancing, and especially vaccines — on the whole remain effective. But these tools work best when everyone is willing to use them, and those who don’t are at the greatest risk. […]
Under Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, fully vaccinated Americans do not need to wear masks or maintain social distancing. But World Health Organization officials made a different recommendation on June 25, encouraging even vaccinated individuals to wear masks in the hope of preventing the spread of variants like delta.
Oregon Public Broadcasting News
Oregon governor declares wildfire emergency
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has declared a state of emergency aimed at improving response to active and imminent wildfires across the state, and has invoked the state’s Emergency Conflagration Act late Wednesday morning to aid in response to a growing fire east of Mount Hood.
These steps comes after a fire in Central Oregon prompted evacuations and the closure of an airport in Redmond Tuesday, and a separate fire in Eastern Oregon put up to 100 residents of Wasco County under “go-now” evacuation orders.
Crippling heat, which has abated in Northwest Oregon but continues to stifle much of the state, has exacerbated a drought emergency across much of the state at a time when forecasts call for windy conditions and dry thunderstorms ahead.
The Denver Post
How pollution, diversions and drought are squeezing the life out of the lower Arkansas River Valley
[…] In the 1940s, the Arkansas River was dammed south of town to build the reservoir, a place locals call the Sapphire on the Plains. The reservoir was tied up in a 40-year battle until Colorado and Kansas came to an agreement, in 2019, to provide an additional water source to help keep the levels high enough for recreation and to support fish.
Forty years may seem like a long time to develop a plan to save fish and improve water levels for a reservoir, but southeastern Colorado is used to long fights when it comes to water.
For nearly a century, leaders in southeastern Colorado have worked on plans to bring clean drinking water to the area through the proposed Arkansas Valley Conduit, but progress on the pipeline project stalled after a major push in the 1960s. Pollution, water transfers and years of worsening drought amid a warming climate continue to build stress for water systems in the area. Adding to that, the area continues to see population decline combined with a struggling economy.
Texas Monthly
The Delivery Robots Are Your Friends, Says Delivery-Robot Company
Everybody who sees the new delivery driver for Southside Flying Pizza in Austin wants to stop and meet her. She’s short, a little clumsy, and right now, she needs help from a buddy when making her rounds, to ensure she doesn’t accidentally miss a stop sign or neglect to notice a speeding pickup truck coming around a blind curve in the city’s Travis Heights neighborhood, where she lives. […]
… Most folks seem to enjoy the novelty of seeing a delivery robot when they spot it. Right now, it is a unique presence on Austin’s streets, one of only a handful of Refraction delivery robots currently in operation. In the first week of the pilot program, Southside only deploys the bots on weekdays, with an extremely limited range, though Refraction says that they’re capable of a delivery radius of about three miles. “They’re supplemental,” Kevin Jamison, manager at Southside Flying Pizza’s South Congress location, told me. “We use them when we don’t have a driver available.” The restaurant also employs human delivery drivers, and works with the various delivery apps—though those, Jamison notes, cost the restaurant a few dollars more per delivery, and robots don’t need to be tipped. […]
Like most tech CEOs, [Luke] Schneider is quick to offer a utopian vision for what his company will bring to the lives of the rest of us.
Houston Chronicle
Texas group posts parent's guide to detect 'critical race theory' teachings
A conservative think tank in Austin went viral on Tuesday with social media posts warning parents that their kids might be learning critical race theory in school if they use words such as “colonialism,” “white supremacy” or “ally.”
The Texas Public Policy Foundation tweeted — and later deleted — a list of 21 buzzwords to “identify critical race theory in the classroom,” which also included terms like “black lives matter” and “equity, diversity and inclusion.”
“Stay on the lookout for some of CRT’s less ‘buzzworthy’ names and language,” the group wrote in the tweet, which read like a vintage PSA on how to spot drug use in teens.
The New York Times
Trump Organization and Top Executive Are Indicted in Tax Investigation
A grand jury in Manhattan has indicted Donald J. Trump’s family business, the Trump Organization, and one of its top executives in connection with a tax investigation into fringe benefits handed out at the company, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
The specific charges against the company and its chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, were not immediately clear. The indictment was expected to be unsealed Thursday afternoon after Mr. Weisselberg and lawyers for the Trump Organization appear in court.
Experts Debate Reducing the Supreme Court’s Power to Strike Down Laws
Legal experts clashed on Wednesday over the wisdom of proposals to reduce the Supreme Court’s power to strike down democratically enacted laws, as President Biden’s commission on judicial branch overhauls held its first public hearing with witnesses.
But they spent limited time on the highest-profile idea associated with the panel — the push by some liberals to expand the Supreme Court, in response to Republican hardball moves that have left it with a 6-to-3 conservative majority even though Democrats have won the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Brian Kemp tries to shore up base as Donald Trump keeps up attacks
Not long after Gov. Brian Kemp was peppered with boos at the Georgia GOP convention, the first-term Republican camped out in the halls outside the Jekyll Island convention hall to face questions from angry partisans who blamed him for Donald Trump’s defeat. […]
Yet his need to constantly prove himself to his party’s core supporters underscores his precarious 2022 positioning as he simultaneously tries to fend off pro-Trump primary challengers while he prepares for a likely tough rematch with Democrat Stacey Abrams.
The Raleigh News & Observer
UNC trustees approve tenure for Nikole Hannah-Jones, bringing end to campus controversy
UNC-Chapel Hill trustees voted to approve tenure for distinguished journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones at a meeting Wednesday afternoon, bringing a resolution to the national controversy that has ensued over her hire.
Hannah-Jones, who is a Black woman, is to join the UNC-CH faculty Thursday as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media. She and her legal team had said she would not begin the job without tenure.
The Board of Trustees had not previously offered Hannah-Jones tenure for the position, which other Knight chairs at UNC-CH have received. The board voted to do so at Wednesday’s meeting, which was triggered by UNC-CH Student Body President Lamar Richards making an official petition for a special meeting on this issue.
Richards is one of two Black trustees on the board. Ten of the 13 trustees are white men. The vote was 9-4 in favor of granting tenure.
Miami Herald
Surfside condo rubble as death toll rises to 18
[…] Teams have been working through the rubble at a faster pace after engineers and first responders built a ramp overnight Tuesday to bring cranes, backhoes and other heavy equipment closer to the sunken pool deck, which experts and survivors have said collapsed first, potentially triggering the disaster.
Miami-Dade Fire Chief Alan Cominsky emphasized that the priority is still search and rescue, and noted that conditions on the pile are becoming more dangerous as debris moves and shifts or falls from the portion of the tower that remains standing. Though heavy equipment is allowing workers to move larger and heavier pieces of debris, Cominsky said some large concrete slabs are not holding together.
“They’re crumbling as we try to move them,” he said.
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Pennsylvania governor vetoes Republican-led election overhaul citing voter ID restrictions
Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed a Republican rewrite of Pennsylvania’s Election Code on Wednesday, making clear his party’s opposition to stricter voter ID requirements and setting up a potential showdown on the issue at the ballot box.
In addition to requiring voters to show ID during every election, the bill would have created early voting, instituted new security rules for drop boxes, and allowed voters to fix mail ballots with missing signatures. GOP lawmakers said the legislation provided extra security measures while also expanding access, but Wolf said it would create new barriers for voters.
“This bill is ultimately not about improving access to voting or election security, but about restricting the freedom to vote,” Wolf said in a statement. “If adopted, it would threaten to disrupt election administration, undermine faith in government, and invite costly, time-consuming, and destabilizing litigation.”
New Jersey’s second offshore wind project will power more than a million homes
The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities on Wednesday voted unanimously to approve the state’s second offshore wind project by naming two developers to produce 2,658 megawatts of energy off the coast — enough to power 1.15 million homes.
The project will be split between two companies: Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind LLC, a partnership of Shell New Energies US and EDF Renewables North America; and, Ocean Wind 2 LLC, an Ørsted subsidiary.
Officials said it amounts to the “nation’s largest combined offshore wind” award announced so far in the U.S.
The Boston Globe
42 dangerous Portuguese man o’ war appear at beaches in Nantucket
Droves of Portuguese man o’ war — the dangerous, jellyfish-like creature with a potent sting and sprawling tentacles — were spotted at beaches in Nantucket and Westport, officials said.
A bewildering 42 of the creatures washed up between Miacomet and Madaket beaches in Nantucket just before noon on Wednesday, said Mark Hamilton, an assistant harbormaster for the town. […]
While it closely resembles a jellyfish, the man o’ war is actually considered a siphonophore, meaning it is comprised of four completely separate organisms, each with a different task, according to NOAA.
Man o’ war have been known to float into New England waters in the late summer months, but almost never as early as June.
AP News
Robinhood pays $70 million to settle range of allegations
Robinhood Financial will pay nearly $70 million to settle a wide range of allegations, including that it gave customers misleading information and improperly allowed some users to make riskier trades after they lied about their trading experience.
The financial penalty is the largest ever ordered by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a non-governmental organization that oversees the brokerage industry, and one that “reflects the scope and seriousness of Robinhood’s violations,” said Jessica Hopper, head of FINRA’s department of enforcement. […]
Robinhood neither admitted nor denied the allegations in the settlement announced Wednesday.
Republican donor pays $1M to deploy South Dakota national guard
Willis Johnson, … [a] billionaire Republican donor, who amassed a fortune building an international junkyard empire, took the unusual step of calling South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a rising Republican star who has railed against illegal immigration and aligned herself firmly with former … Donald Trump.
He asked if she wanted to send National Guard troops from South Dakota to the U.S.-Mexico border — and offered up $1 million to help. Noem said, “Yes.”
Her acceptance of the donation from Johnson, who doesn’t even live in Noem’s state but rather in Tennessee, has drawn intense scrutiny. It landed in state coffers Tuesday and though it came from Johnson’s private foundation and appears to be legal, experts say it sets a troubling precedent in which a wealthy patron is effectively commandeering U.S. military might to address private political motivations.
NPR News
Arizona Republicans Strip Some Election Power From Democratic Secretary Of State
Arizona Republicans have stripped the secretary of state's office — currently held by a Democrat — of the right to defend the state's election laws in court, or choose not to, a change enacted as part of Arizona's newly signed budget.
The spending blueprint that Gov. Doug Ducey signed into law Wednesday declares that the attorney general — currently a position occupied by Republican Mark Brnovich — has sole authority over election-related litigation.
If the secretary of state and attorney general were to disagree over a legal strategy when Arizona election laws are challenged, the new law states that "the authority of the attorney general to defend the law is paramount."
Republicans also adopted language stating it's their intent for the law to apply through Jan. 2, 2023, coinciding with the end of Democrat Katie Hobbs' term as secretary of state.
We Just Got Our Clearest Picture Yet Of How Biden Won In 2020
[…] The Pew Research Center just released its validated voters' report, considered a more accurate measure of the electorate than exit polls… The new Pew data shows that shifts among suburban voters, white men and independents helped Biden win in November, even while white women and Hispanics swung toward Trump from 2016 to 2020. […]
Suburban voters appear to have been a major factor helping Biden win. While Pew found Trump winning the suburbs by 2 points in 2016, Biden won them by 11 points in 2020, a 13-point overall swing. Considering that the suburbs accounted for just over half of all voters, it was a big demographic win for Biden.
That said, Trump gained in both rural and urban areas. He won 65% of rural voters, a 6-point jump from 2016. And while cities were still majority-Democratic, his support there jumped by 9 points, to 33%.
The Atlantic
Nowhere Is Ready for This Heat
The Portland Streetcar is 20 years old, making it relatively sprightly for infrastructure in the United States. Yet it was built for a different geological epoch. On Sunday, while Portland suffered through what was then its hottest day ever, the system started to melt. As the temperature reached 112 degrees Fahrenheit, a power cable on a major bridge warped, twisted around some metal hardware, and scorched. Elsewhere, the wires that run above the track expanded and sagged so much that they risked touching the train cars. By mid-afternoon, the streetcar system had shut down. The trams, which run on 100 percent renewable energy, seem to offer exactly the sort of urban fast transit that the country needs to reduce carbon pollution. But they were not prepared for—they could not withstand—one of the region’s first wrenching encounters with the remade atmosphere. […]
The Biden administration has been teased for trying to stuff climate change into an infrastructure frame. But this week has affirmed the basic logic of its move. Adaptation, long the neglected arm of climate policy, will need to lead our efforts to address rising global temperatures. “Most of the infrastructure that we’re going to use in the next several decades, it’s already here; it’s already in the ground,” Constantine Samaras, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University, told me. “We have to figure out ways to make that stuff, those systems, resilient to increasing extremes.”
So far we haven’t met that standard. Even as the climate has diverged from its long-time normal range, the construction of physical infrastructure has not. “The public might look at engineering and say, ‘Of course they’re designing for a future climate; it would be silly if they weren’t,’” Samaras said. “But we’re basically not doing it.” In 2018, he and his colleagues looked at whether any state department of transportation was planning for the precipitation thresholds of the future. Essentially none of them were, he said.
CNBC
A bipartisan infrastructure deal reached by President Joe Biden and a group of senators would not only add to economic growth, but also lower the national debt, according to a new study from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
Researchers at the Wharton School said the additional $579 billion in new infrastructure spending would increase domestic output by 0.1% and decrease the U.S. debt by 0.9% by 2050.
"Over time, as the new spending declines, IRS enforcement continues, and revenue grows from higher output, the government debt declines relative to baseline by 0.4 percent and 0.9 percent in 2040 and 2050 respectively," the Wharton team wrote.
CBC News
Smoky skies. Polluted air. Sweltering heat. During three of the past five summers, British Columbians have endured extreme weather events, rewriting a season long known for its mild, sunny forecasts.
This week's historic heat wave, which unleashed punishing temperatures on the Pacific Northwest and is now moving eastward to Alberta, has brought the realities of climate change into even sharper relief.
Climate scientists are cautious about citing climate change as the cause of any specific weather event. But some say evidence suggests extreme events are intensifying and becoming more common because of global warming.
182 unmarked graves discovered near residential school in B.C.'s Interior, First Nation says
A First Nation in B.C.'s South Interior says 182 unmarked grave sites have been discovered near the location of a former residential school.
The community of ʔaq̓am, one of four bands in the Ktunaxa Nation and located near the city of Cranbrook, B.C., used ground-penetrating radar to search a site close to the former St. Eugene's Mission School, the Lower Kootenay Band announced Wednesday.
In a statement, the ʔaq̓am band said it began searching the area for burial sites after finding an unknown, unmarked grave during remedial work around the ʔaq̓am cemetery last year. The cemetery is adjacent to the former school.
The Guardian
Big oil and gas kept a dirty secret for decades. Now they may pay the price
After a century of wielding extraordinary economic and political power, America’s petroleum giants face a reckoning for driving the greatest existential threat of our lifetimes.
An unprecedented wave of lawsuits, filed by cities and states across the US, aim to hold the oil and gas industry to account for the environmental devastation caused by fossil fuels – and covering up what they knew along the way. […]
“We are at an inflection point,” said Daniel Farber, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley and director of the Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment.
“Things have to get worse for the oil companies,” he added. “Even if they’ve got a pretty good chance of winning the litigation in places, the discovery of pretty clearcut wrong doing – that they knew their product was bad and they were lying to the public – really weakens the industry’s ability to resist legislation and settlements.”
US must guarantee it will not leave nuclear deal again, says Iran
A US guarantee that it will never unilaterally leave the Iran nuclear deal again is vital to a successful conclusion of talks in Vienna on the terms of Washington’s return to the agreement, the Iranian ambassador to the UN, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, has said.
His comments are the clearest official signal yet that disagreements between the US and Iran on how such a guarantee might be constructed remain a serious obstacle. Donald Trump took the US out of the nuclear deal in 2018, only three years afterhis predecessor, Barack Obama, had signed it.
Takht-Ravanchi said that unless some US guarantee of stability was provided, European and other investors would not have the confidence to invest in the Iranian economy.
Euronews
Fish are swimming to cooler waters as climate change heats our oceans
[…] Climate change is a global issue with global effects that many of us will be aware of on land. However, the oceans absorb the majority of the excess heat in our climate system, and the waters or our planet are warming, too.
This is having a direct impact on fish populations, with those species which are able to move to new habitats now shifting into areas to the north or south where the temperatures better suit their metabolisms.
The reason is that fish are particularly sensitive to changes in temperature, due to being cold-blooded animals. They also live in habitats close to their upper temperature limit, meaning that even a slight change in temperature can impact their ability to feed and breed.
Deutsche Welle
China's Xi says Beijing will no longer be bullied
The Chinese Communist Party celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding with a flyby of jets and helicopters over Tiananmen Square.
Chinese President Xi Jinping struck a defiant tone during a major address celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing on Thursday, with the leader telling the audience that the Asian nation has embarked on "irreversible historical course."
The era of China "being slaughtered and bullied is gone forever," Xi said during the speech in Tiananmen Square.
"Anyone who dares try to do that will have their heads bashed bloody against the Great Wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people," the Chinese leader added to roaring applause.
As US troops leave, Afghanistan buried under American trash
The Bagram Air Base was the headquarters of US forces in Afghanistan for nearly 20 years. The base has been emptying out since the spring, leaving tons of garbage behind. […]
US soldiers will either take their equipment with them or give it to local security forces. But troops will leave plenty behind — such as junk, packaging and electronic waste. More than a 100,000 US troops have served at Bagram since 2001. The base, 70 kilometers north (40 miles) of Kabul, has grown into a small American town, complete with a shopping center and fast-food restaurants.
Mongabay
Brazil continues to lose an entire generation of Indigenous leaders to COVID-19
Oral tradition is one of the main means of transmitting knowledge between generations in Indigenous society. The elders know the specific songs for each of life’s milestones, like death, marriage, and the first harvest. They also remember and share myths about forest animals, and battles fought between their ancestors and enemy warriors. In a certain way, the collective memory is how Indigenous peoples record their own histories.
Aruká Juma was one of the few remaining Juma people and lived in the village of Canutama in Brazil’s Amazonas state. Estimated to be around 90 years old, Aruká was one of the few survivors of a massacre in which his people were decimated in the 1960s. On Feb. 17 this year, he became another name on the list, more than 500,000 names long today, of the people lost to COVID-19 in Brazil.
Reuters
Sydney Delta outbreak grows, cases in community stoke worries
Australia's New South Wales (NSW) state authorities said they were still finding a significant number of new COVID-19 cases in the community, raising worries of fresh clusters as it reported a rise in new infections for the third day in a row.
Half of Thursday's total 24 cases were detected in the community, while the others infected were already in home quarantine, officials said, as Sydney nears a week of a hard lockdown put in place to contain an outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant.
"(This) is a cause of concern. That is what we will be looking at in the next few days and beyond as a measure of our success," NSW state Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters in Sydney.
U.S. military days away from completing Afghan withdrawal - sources
The U.S. military appears just days away from completing its withdrawal from Afghanistan, well ahead of the Sept. 11 deadline set by President Joe Biden to end America's longest war, U.S. officials told Reuters on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The withdrawal of troops and equipment from Afghanistan would not include forces that will remain to protect diplomats at the U.S. embassy and potentially assist securing Kabul airport. [The] embassy presence could be around 650 troops.
The disclosure of the brisk pace of the U.S. withdrawal comes as the Taliban insurgency ramps up its offensive throughout the country. The Pentagon now estimates the Taliban control 81 of the country's 419 district centers.
Al Jazeera
Donald Rumsfeld, Iraq war architect, dies at 88
Donald Rumsfeld, who served as former United States President George W Bush’s defence secretary and was the architect of the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, has died at the age of 88, his family announced on Wednesday. […]
Many observers responded to the news of Rumsfeld’s passing on Wednesday by pointing out his central role in the US invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, the deaths of thousands of people in both countries, and the use of torture.
Iyad el-Baghdadi, president of the Kawaakibi Foundation, a research and activist group focused on liberty in the Arab world, said “Donald Rumsfeld was a war criminal who presided over illegal wars that involved wholesale massacres of civilians, systemic torture and plunder, and massive corruption”.
“The country he helped break has still not recovered. This is his legacy. May he burn in hell for all eternity.”
Thousands of Palestinians swept up in Israeli arrest campaign
Israel continues to carry out a wave of arrests of Palestinians, including children, in an effort to crush Palestinian resistance and political opposition to the occupation.
In May 2021, at least 3,100 Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and 1948 occupied territories were arrested during random and organised Israeli arrest campaigns, reported the Palestinian prisoners’ association Addameer in its report for the month.
The Revelator
Refuge No More: Migratory Birds Face Drought, Disease and Death on the Pacific Flyway
The Western drought has exacerbated a water crisis, years in the making, that threatens the health of millions of birds — and so much more.
Extreme drought conditions gripping the West have stirred familiar struggles over water in the Klamath Basin, which straddles the Oregon-California border. Even in a good year, there’s often not enough water to keep ecosystems healthy and farms green — and this year is anything but good.
For the past two decades critics have simplistically reduced water woes in the basin to “fish vs. farms” in the battle for an increasingly scarce resource. This year, which is expected to be the lowest water year on record, it’s clear there aren’t any winners.
Ars Technica
Amazon doesn’t like FTC chair Lina Khan’s views, wants her off investigations
Amazon filed a 25-page petition today with the Federal Trade Commission asking that Chairwoman Lina Khan recuse herself from antitrust investigations into the company.
Khan, a frequent critic of Amazon and other Big Tech firms, was appointed FTC chair less than two weeks ago. Though there has been plenty of speculation about her first moves, her short tenure to date means she hasn’t had much opportunity to file lawsuits or announce investigations. Amazon’s petition shows that its legal team hasn’t sat idle since her nomination as commissioner and subsequent appointment as chair. […]
Khan made a name for herself four years ago when she published a paper in a law journal. Titled “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox,” the paper made the case that current antitrust laws have fallen short as tech platforms have risen to dominance. She argued that prices are a poor yardstick with which to measure anticompetitive behavior and market power, especially among platform companies like Amazon.