Here are some of tonight’s stories:
- Extreme weather wreaks havoc worldwide as climate change bears down.
- Speaker Pelosi rejects two of Kevin McCarthy’s picks for insurrection probe, so he pulls all Republicans from committee.
- Republicans block infrastructure bill and promise to make the U.S. default on its debt
- Western wildfire smoke cross the nation.
- The 50-year war on drugs imprisoned millions of Black Americans.
- American parents like the child tax credit.
- COVID cases triple over last 2 weeks in the U.S.
- Top US scientist on melting glaciers: ‘I’ve gone from being an ecologist to a coroner’.
- State attorneys general reach a $26 billion opioid settlement.
- Afghan translators in grave danger as the U.S. ends war in Afghanistan.
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.
609,333 PEOPLE HAVE DIED FROM CORONAVIRUS IN THE U.S. 186.8 MILLION PEOPLE IN THE U.S. HAVE RECEIVED A VACCINATION DOSE
Los Angeles Times
Summer of disaster: Extreme weather wreaks havoc worldwide as climate change bears down
[…] Extreme weather this summer has flattened rural communities in Germany with floodwaters, triggered deadly mudslides in India and sparked heat waves and fires that can be seen from space in the Western United States and Canada. Floods have also wrought damage in parts of New Zealand, Nigeria and Iran.
Scientists have been warning for years that rising temperatures will make dry conditions for wildfires more common in some parts of the world and, in other places, trap more moisture in the atmosphere, leading to heavier rainfalls during storms. […]
“All of this was predicted in climate science decades ago,” said John P. Holdren, a professor of environmental policy at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. “We only had to wait for the actual emergence in the last 15 to 20 years. Everything we worried about is happening, and it’s all happening at the high end of projections, even faster than the previous most pessimistic estimates.”
Scientists and environmental activists are in a race to persuade the world to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by enough to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels. Failure to do so could result in massive disruptions such as famine and widespread coastal flooding. Time is short: Global temperatures have already risen on average by 2.16 degrees Fahrenheit (1.2 degrees Celsius) since 1880.
California’s electric car revolution, designed to save the planet, also unleashes a toll on it
[…] Alongside his docked ship, Gerard Barron, CEO of the Metals Company, held in his hand one of the nodules he argues can help save the planet. […]
The urgency with which his company and a handful of others are moving to start scraping the seabed for these materials alarms oceanographers and advocates, who warn they are literally in uncharted waters. Much is unknown about life on the deep sea floor, and vacuuming swaths of it clean threatens to have unintended and far-reaching consequences. […]
The sprint to supply automakers with heavy duty lithium batteries is propelled by climate-conscious countries like the United States that aspire to abandon gas-powered cars and SUVs. They are racing to secure the materials needed to go electric, and the Biden administration is under pressure to fast-track mammoth extraction projects that threaten to unleash their own environmental fallout.
In far-flung patches of the ocean floor, at Native American ancestral sites, and on some of the most pristine federal lands, extraction and mining companies are branding themselves stewards of sustainability, warning the planet will suffer if digging and scraping are delayed. All the prospecting is giving pause to some of the environmental groups championing climate action, as they assess whether the sacrifice needed to curb warming is being shared fairly.
Bloomberg
Pelosi Rejects Two of McCarthy’s Picks for Jan. 6 Riot Probe
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two Republicans selected by House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy for a committee to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, sparking a threat by the chamber’s top Republican to pull out of the inquiry entirely.
Pelosi, who has final say over the 13-member committee’s composition, said she informed McCarthy she wouldn’t accept his recommendation that Representatives Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana join the panel and requested he select two new members.
“With respect for the integrity of the investigation, with an insistence on the truth and with concern about statements made and actions taken by these members, I must reject the recommendations of Representatives Banks and Jordan to the Select Committee,” Pelosi said in a statement. “The unprecedented nature of January 6th demands this unprecedented decision.”
Debt-Limit Steps May Run Out in October, Budget Office Says
The U.S. is at risk of a default in October or November unless Congress raises or suspends the debt limit, the Congressional Budget Office said, offering lawmakers a cushion of time to avert a potential crisis.
Without an increase, the Treasury Department’s ability to borrow would be exhausted and it would probably run out of cash sometime in the first quarter of the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, “most likely in October or November,” the nonpartisan CBO said in a report Wednesday. The debt limit, or the total debt the Treasury can issue to the public and other government agencies, has been on a two-year hold that expires July 31.
More Variants Are Coming, and the U.S. Isn’t Ready to Track Them
[…] Kenny Beckman, director of the University of Minnesota Genomics Center (UMGC), has a vision for the future of pandemic fighting in America. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), he says, should create a robust, user-friendly tracker that surveils virus mutations in something close to real time, much as the National Hurricane Center tracks storms. Scientists in public and private labs would feed in sequences, which would be compiled to create straightforward maps of virus activity that everyone from health experts to the curious public could consult to see what mutations are in their vicinity.
Beckman says he “doomscrolls” hurricane maps himself, even though he lives in St. Paul. He thinks the CDC could create something just as useful and compelling for Covid. The agency does have a tracking webpage showing the proportion of positive tests and their given variants, but the 10 regional classifications it uses are almost comically broad, lumping together places as far away from one another as Arizona and Guam. And the data was, as of mid-July, a month old; while the CDC does offer a projection of current mutation activity, it’s based on estimates. It isn’t clear how the tracker might help anyone make an informed decision.
“The CDC ought to be the national Covid preparedness center,” Beckman says. And not just Covid. Done right, the platform could be applied to all kinds of threats, from other viruses to antibiotic-resistant bugs to foodborne pathogens. “All of the technology for carrying out this kind of sequencing, this kind of genomics, this is all quintessentially American,” Beckman says. “This is the country that manufactured and pioneered the methods to do this kind of work. It’s appalling to me that we weren’t also the leaders to use it.”
The Hill
Cheney: Republican leader seeking to block real Jan. 6 investigation
Republican Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) on Wednesday blasted House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), claiming that he is working to undermine an investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol “at every opportunity.”
“There must be an investigation that is nonpartisan, that is sober, that is serious, that gets to the facts, wherever they may lead," Cheney told reporters outside the Capitol. "And at every opportunity, the minority leader has attempted to prevent the American people from understanding what happened to block this investigation." […]
"She objected to two, one of whom may well be a material witness to events that led to that day, that led to January 6," Cheney said. "The other who disqualified himself by his comments in particular over the last 24 hours demonstrating that he is not taking this seriously. He is not dealing with the facts of this investigation but rather viewed it as a political platform."
"This investigation must go forward. The idea that anybody would be playing politics with an attack on the United States Capitol is despicable and is disgraceful,” she added, saying she agreed with the Speaker’s decision to turn down the two nominations.
San Francisco Chronicle
If you're fully vaccinated, what's your risk of 'long COVID' as delta variant spreads?
[…] I’ve been fully vaccinated. What is my risk of developing long COVID if I get infected?
The short answer is we do not know for certain yet. John Swartzberg, a UC Berkeley infectious disease expert, said no robust studies have been conducted so far to answer this question. Even anecdotal reports have been few.
However, Swartzberg said his conjecture is that long COVID will be unlikely in fully vaccinated people. “The vaccines considerably suppress viral replication in those individuals that have breakthrough infections,” he said in an email. “Our bodies will have less to contend with during the breakthrough infection and this should make long COVID less likely.”
He said more will be known in the next several months as COVID infections increase due to the delta variant.
Smoke from California's wildfires could contain dangerous levels of toxic metals, new research shows
[…] Several recent studies reveal new and elevated risks associated with smoke exposure, including lead poisoning, increased susceptibility to COVID-19 and more severe flare-ups of respiratory illnesses, like asthma. The findings come alongside research that’s in the works on the long-term effects of even brief bouts with smoke, which could include cancer and heart disease.
Wildfire smoke has been known for decades to pose health issues, but the full scope of the problem is only coming into view as burning forests become more ubiquitous and researchers dig deeper into the fallout. […]
The research by the California Air Resources Board … found that the particulate matter in this smoke — airborne particles that lodge into people’s lungs and are the source of most smoke-related problems — contained lead, zinc, calcium, iron and manganese.
The Wall Street Journal
Bootleg Fire in Oregon Nears 400,000 Acres; Smoke From Fires Affects East Coast
Nearly 20,000 firefighters battled dozens of wildfires across the western U.S. Wednesday as dry, windy weather and potential thunderstorms threatened to hinder containment efforts, and smoke from fires affected air quality as far away as the East Coast.
The Bootleg Fire in south central Oregon, the largest fire in the U.S. currently, expanded to 394,407 acres by Wednesday with 32% containment. Wind and dry vegetation have helped fuel the fast-moving fire, and pushed some of the 2,250 firefighters assigned to the incident off the front lines and into designated safety areas for 10 consecutive days.
In northern California, officials issued new voluntary evacuation orders Tuesday evening for communities across the state line in Nevada because of the Tamarack Fire burning south of Lake Tahoe. The 39,045-acre blaze rapidly spread over the weekend, and by Tuesday, it had moved north to Highway 88, prompting the California Department of Transportation to close a portion of the freeway extending to the state line.
The fires are among more than 80 large wildfires burning more than 1.2 million acres across 13 states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. The highest number of fires are in Montana, Idaho, Oregon, California and Washington.
AP News
Wildfires in US West blowing ‘so much smoke’ into East Coast
Smoke and ash from massive wildfires in the American West clouded the sky and led to air quality alerts Wednesday on parts of the East Coast as the effects of the blazes were felt 2,500 miles (4,023 kilometers) away.
Strong winds blew smoke east from California, Oregon, Montana and other states all the way to other side of the continent. Haze hung over New York City, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. […]
“One of the things about this event that makes it so remarkable is that the smoke is affecting such a large swath of the U.S,” said Jesse Berman, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and an expert on air quality. “You’re not just seeing localized and perhaps upstate New York being affected, but rather you’re seeing numerous states all along the East Coast that are being impacted.”
50-year war on drugs imprisoned millions of Black Americans
[…] Fifty years ago this summer, President Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs. Today, with the U.S. mired in a deadly opioid epidemic that did not abate during the coronavirus pandemic’s worst days, it is questionable whether anyone won the war.
Yet the loser is clear: Black and Latino Americans, their families and their communities. A key weapon was the imposition of mandatory minimums in prison sentencing. Decades later those harsh federal and state penalties led to an increase in the prison industrial complex that saw millions of people, primarily of color, locked up and shut out of the American dream.
An Associated Press review of federal and state incarceration data shows that, between 1975 and 2019, the U.S. prison population jumped from 240,593 to 1.43 million Americans. Among them, about 1 in 5 people were incarcerated with a drug offense listed as their most serious crime.
Infrastructure bill fails first vote; Senate to try again
Senate Republicans rejected an effort Wednesday to begin debate on the big infrastructure deal that a bipartisan group of senators brokered with President Joe Biden. But supporters in both parties remained hopeful of a better chance soon.
Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York had scheduled the procedural vote that he described as a step to ”get the ball rolling” as talks progress. But Republicans mounted a filibuster, saying the bipartisan group needed more time to wrap up the deal and review the details. They sought a delay until Monday. […]
The party-line vote was 51-49 against proceeding, far short of the 60 “yes” votes needed to get past the Republicans’ block. The Democratic leader switched his vote to “no” at the end, a procedural step that would allow him to move to reconsider.
The Atlantic
The Republicans Have Already Given Biden What He Needs
The much-ballyhooed bipartisan infrastructure agreement was always a shaky proposition… So it wasn’t a big surprise that the first test vote on the infrastructure agreement failed in the Senate today. Republicans blocked debate on the proposal, defying a bid by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to hurry negotiators along by bringing the unfinished bill to the floor. […]
Biden wants the bipartisan infrastructure agreement so he can deliver on his campaign promise that he would be a dealmaker who could bring the warring parties together. […]
As much as Biden would love Republican votes for the infrastructure plan, he wants the roads and bridges even more. If the GOP senators won’t seal the deal they struck or dawdle too long in finishing it, Democrats are already planning to take the bipartisan infrastructure framework and add it to their own $3.5 trillion measure. That’s the leverage Schumer is using by forcing an early vote on the bipartisan proposal; Democrats don’t want to repeat the mistake they made in President Barack Obama’s first year in office, when they allowed Republicans to drag out negotiations over a health-care bill for months and squandered the new president’s political capital.
Vox
Three Parents describe child tax credit: “I can’t tell you how relieved I was”
On July 15, millions of working-class parents across America woke up to a welcome surprise: hundreds of dollars directly deposited into their bank accounts with the label “CHILDCTC.” The first payment of the anticipated expanded child tax credit, passed as part of Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package, had arrived for eligible families with children under 18.
Parents were granted the option to receive half of the annual tax credit in six monthly payments of up to $300 for each child under 6 years old, and $250 for children ages 6 to 17; the other half of the credit will be awarded in 2022. Eligibility is based on income and filing status — married filers, for example, must have an adjusted gross income of less than $150,000 a year in order to receive the full credit, which phases out gradually with higher incomes. […]
“I can’t tell you how relieved I was,” David Watson, technician, father of two, New Jersey [said]. “My shoulders already feel lighter.”
How America lost its commitment to the right to vote
The Voting Rights Act is arguably the most successful civil rights law in American history. Originally signed in 1965, it was the United States’ first serious attempt since Reconstruction to build a multiracial democracy — and it worked. Just two years after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, Black voter registration rates in the Jim Crow stronghold of Mississippi skyrocketed from 6.7 percent to nearly 60 percent.
And yet, in a trio of cases — Shelby County v. Holder (2013), Abbott v. Perez (2018), and Brnovich v. DNC (2021) — the Court drained nearly all of the life out of this landmark statute. […]
These cases are the culmination of more than half a century of efforts by conservatives who, after failing to convince elected lawmakers to weaken voting rights, turned to an unelected judiciary to enact a policy that would never have made it through Congress. All of this is bad news for minority voters in America, who are most likely to be disadvantaged by many of the new restrictions currently being pushed in statehouses across America, and for the country’s relatively young commitment to multiracial democracy. And there are at least three reasons to fear that decisions like Shelby County and Brnovich foreshadow even more aggressive attacks on the right to vote.
The New Orleans Advocate
Republicans end first-ever veto session without overriding a single veto. Here's how it happened.
On Monday, House Speaker Clay Schexnayder made a bold prediction: He was “comfortable 100%” he would have the votes in the Louisiana House to override Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’ veto of a bill targeting transgender athletes, a measure that had energized Republicans to call the first-ever veto session in history.
On Wednesday, the Legislature ended the override session without overturning a single veto, having failed to garner enough votes on the transgender sports bill or any other.
Republican leaders fell two votes short of the 70 needed in the House to bypass the governor and turn the transgender bill into law, a day after the Senate voted to override the governor's rejection of Senate Bill 156.
The vote was an embarrassing defeat for Republican legislative leaders, who convened the historic session with confidence they could overpower the governor politically, using a veto override process that has only been used twice in recorded history. The most recent veto override came in 1993.
The Oregonian
Oregon utilities face big challenges meeting 100% clean electricity by 2040 target
Oregon just passed an ideologically and technically ambitious clean energy bill that directs its two largest utilities to deliver 100% clean electricity to customers by 2040 and prohibits new or expanded natural gas-fired power plants in the state.
The new law makes Oregon the eighth state to commit to 100% clean electricity, and along with New York, it now has the most ambitious timetable in the nation to get there. […]
In reality, however, no one, including the utilities, knows how they will achieve the bill’s most ambitious targets, which stairstep from 80% clean electricity by 2030, to 90% percent by 2035 and 100% by 2040. […]
Making “100 x 40” a reality will require major advances in technology, structural changes in energy markets and fundamental shifts in the way transmission is coordinated and sold. Even then, some believe there’s a hefty dose of wishful thinking…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. COVID cases triple over last 2 weeks
COVID-19 cases have tripled in the U.S. over the last two weeks.
Across the U.S., the seven-day rolling average for daily new cases in the U.S. rose over the past two weeks to more than 37,000 on Tuesday, up from less than 13,700 on July 6, according to Johns Hopkins University. Health officials, according to the Associated Press, are blaming the delta variant and slowing vaccination rates.
Just 56.2% of Americans have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The latest Johns Hopkins COVID numbers show the U.S. continues to lead the world in both cases — 34.1 million — and deaths, with more than 609,680.
The Kansas City Star
‘A tipping point’: Kansas City hospitals are turning away patients due to COVID surge
Like other hospitals in the Kansas City region, the University of Kansas Health System is turning down transfer patients because its beds are full, setting up a potential crisis, its chief medical officer said Wednesday.
“I think we’re at a tipping point,” Steve Stites said during KU’s daily briefing. “If we don’t take it seriously, we could easily end up back where we were in November.”
The hospital is “running full steam,” like others in the metro, because of an increase in COVID-19 patients and others returning to the hospital who may have stayed away at the height of the pandemic. Last fall, Stites said, the hospital had beds available.
No Black parents, teachers or scholars invited to Missouri hearing on teaching race
A Missouri legislative committee on Monday held a hearing on how educators teach K-12 students about race and racism without hearing from any Black Missourians.
No Black parents, teachers or scholars testified to the Joint Committee on Education during the invite-only hearing on critical race theory.
Aside from an official from Missouri’s education department, the only people who testified Monday were critics of critical race theory, which is a way of thinking about America’s history through the lens of racism.
Missouri NAACP President Rod Chapel called it “ridiculous” to have a conversation about inequity while “excluding the very people who are saying we’ve been treated inequitably.”
Houston Chronicle
Texas Democrats pledge not to return from D.C. until August
Texas House Democrats will not return to the state until after the special session of the Legislature is over, one of the leaders of their walkout confirmed Tuesday.
State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, said they expect to return to Texas on Aug. 7 — when the 30-day special session aimed at passing new voting restrictions is required to end.
“It will be our plan on that day — on or about — to return back to Texas,” Martinez Fischer told advocates of a group Center for American Progress Action Fund, that is led by former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, a Democrat. “Then we will evaluate our next option.”
Gov. Greg Abbott rules out another mask mandate despite rise in COVID cases
Gov. Greg Abbott is ruling out another mask mandate, despite a rising number of COVID cases in Texas and around the country. […]
“Everyone in the state of Texas, as well as the United States — they know exactly what the standards are, what practices they want to adopt to help protect themselves,” Abbott said. “There’s no more time for government mandates. This is time for individual responsibility, period.”
The Washington Post
Spies for centuries have trained their sights on those who shape destinies of nations: presidents, prime ministers, kings.
And in the 21st century, most of them carry smartphones.
Such is the underlying logic for some of the most tantalizing discoveries for an international investigation that in recent months scrutinized a list of more than 50,000 phone numbers that included — according to forensic analyses of dozens of iPhones — at least some people targeted by Pegasus spyware licensed to governments worldwide.
The list contained the numbers of politicians and government officials by the hundreds. But what of heads of state and governments, arguably the most coveted of targets?
Fourteen. Or more specifically: three presidents, 10 prime ministers and a king.
Senate Republicans on Wednesday threatened to vote against an increase to the debt ceiling unless Congress first agrees to new spending cuts or other measures… The new ultimatum marked a reversal for Republicans, who agreed to address the debt ceiling — the statutory amount the government can borrow to pay its bills — multiple times to advance policies under … Donald Trump that helped add $7 trillion to the federal debt during his term. […]
The drama intensified earlier Wednesday, after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Punchbowl News that his party is unlikely to vote for an increase. […]
“This is once again the McConnell double standard,” an incensed Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the chairman of the chamber’s Finance Committee, said … “When Donald Trump was president, they made sure everything happened,” Wyden added. “Now we have covid debt, we have Trump debt, we’ve got a double standard. And we want to make it clear, nobody is going to hold the American economy hostage.”
CBC News
U.S.-Canada border to remain closed until at least Aug. 21
The U.S. land border will remain closed to non-essential travel until at least Aug. 21, according to a renewal order issued by the American government Wednesday.
In a notice pre-published in the U.S. Federal Register, the U.S. government says that while vaccination rates have improved, opening the land border to non-essential travel still poses too great a risk.
"Given the outbreak and continued transmission and spread of COVID-19 within the United States and globally, the Secretary has determined that the risk of continued transmission and spread of the virus associated with COVID-19 between the United States and Canada poses an ongoing specific threat to human life or national interests," says the U.S. government notice.
The new order expires one minute before midnight on Aug. 21.
More resources are making their way to British Columbia to help with wildfire-fighting efforts, as wind and heat look likely to cause more extreme fire behaviour in coming days.
More than 3,100 people are currently involved in firefighting efforts, including firefighters from Alberta, Quebec and New Brunswick. Another 500 are expected to arrive this weekend, including 100 firefighters from Mexico.
The federal government is also sending up to 350 military personnel to join the firefighting efforts.
Mongabay
As soy frenzy grips Brazil, deforestation closes in on Indigenous lands
The thick plumes of smoke stretched for miles across this slice of Brazil’s Mato Grosso state, blanketing the dense rainforest surrounding it. Soon, they drifted across the river and into the Wawi Indigenous Territory, a black cloud settling above the thatched rooftops of the Indigenous village of Khikatxi.
Just a couple months earlier, Indigenous people in the area had reported the whirring sound of chainsaws as the emerald canopy that covered some 365 hectares (900 acres) was razed, likely to make way for another soy plantation, local sources say. Then, in late June, thick smoke invaded Kamikia Kĩsêdjê’s village.
“The whole area was burning, right on the border with our territory,” said Kamikia, a filmmaker and photographer who lives in Khikatxi, home to about 600 Kĩsêdjê Indigenous people. “And it was so close to the riverbank, which really worried us. Here, we use the forest and the river for our survival.”
The Guardian
Top US scientist on melting glaciers: ‘I’ve gone from being an ecologist to a coroner’
Diana Six… an entomologist at the University of Montana, … has spent the last 30 years researching how bark beetles are decimating pine forests.
But a constant, haunting depression has taken over her life… The climate crisis isn’t just decimating glaciers and life on Earth. […]
“I don’t think people realize that climate change is not just a loss of ice. It’s all the stuff that’s dependent on it. The ice is really just the canary in the coalmine. To have 97, 98 degrees in Glacier national park for days on end is insane. This is not just some fluke.
“There are many years where the snow is gone so early that you just don’t see it in the mountains. And water getting that warm is absolutely devastating to fish and algae.
“Life doesn’t just deal with this. When I went up Glacier with my students a few weeks ago, the flowers were curling up. At some of the lower elevations, glacier lilies were shriveled, lupins didn’t even open. The flowers should extend for another three weeks and they’re already gone. Any insects or birds that depend upon them, like bees or hummingbirds are in trouble, their food is gone. Bird populations have just baked.
“There have been total losses of a lot of baby birds this year. You see these ospreys and eagles sitting on top of the trees in their nests and those young, they just can’t take the heat. Year after year of that and you lose your birds.
“People seem to think of extinctions as some silent, painless statistic. It’s not. You look at birds that can no longer find fish because they’ve moved too far off shore. They’re emaciated, they’re starving to death. We are at the point that there’s nothing untouched.
Small farms vanish every day in America’s dairyland: ‘There ain’t no future in dairy’
[…] The license plates for Wisconsin say “America’s Dairyland” beneath a picture of a red barn. The state has the most dairy farms in the country. But it lost 826 dairy farms in 2019, or 10% of its dairy herds – the most dramatic loss in the state’s history, and part of a downward trend which saw the state lose 44% of its dairy farms over the last decade. Last year, for the first time in state history, the number of dairy farms dipped below 7,000.
At the same time, milk production in the state has increased every year since 2004, and has set a new annual record each year since 2009, according to the US Department of Agriculture. In the last decade alone, Wisconsin has increased milk production by 25%. The number of operations declines, just as the number of cows per operation goes up – 3% of Wisconsin farms now produce roughly 40% of the state’s milk. Milk produced on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO), or farms with more than about 700 cows but often housing thousands, is increasingly making up the state’s overall milk production.
NPR News
Men's Spending Habits Result In More Carbon Emissions Than Women's, A Study Finds
When it comes to climate change, male consumers may get a bit more of the blame than their female counterparts. Men spend their money on greenhouse gas-emitting goods and services, such as meat and fuel, at a much higher rate than women, a new Swedish study found.
Published this week in the Journal of Industrial Ecology, the study looked at consumer-level spending patterns rather than the climate impact of producers and manufacturers to see if households could reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by buying different products and services.
"The way they spend is very stereotypical – women spend more money on home decoration, health and clothes and men spend more money on fuel for cars, eating out, alcohol and tobacco," study author Annika Carlsson Kanyama, at the research company Ecoloop in Sweden, told The Guardian.
State Attorneys General Reach A $26 Billion National Opioid Settlement
A bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general announced on Wednesday a $26 billion national settlement with drugmaker Johnson & Johnson and three companies that distributed opioid painkillers even as addiction and overdose deaths skyrocketed.
"The opioid epidemic has torn families apart and killed thousands of North Carolinians," said North Carolina state Attorney General Josh Stein, one of the lead negotiators.
Stein said the deal will "force these drug companies to pay a historic amount of money to bring much-needed treatment and recovery services" to North Carolina and other states that sign on to the settlement.
States have 30 days to decide whether to embrace the deal. Local governments will have 150 days to sign on.
BBC News
Monkeypox: More than 200 contacts tracked in US for rare disease
More than 200 people in 27 US states are being tracked for possible rare monkeypox infections, health officials say.
They fear people may have come in to contact with a Texas man who brought the disease in from Nigeria earlier this month. The man - believed to be the first monkeypox case in the US since 2003 - was taken to hospital but is in a stable condition. So far, no new cases have been found.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says it is concerned passengers who were on board two flights the man made may have been exposed to the disease. He flew into Atlanta, Georgia from Lagos, Nigeria on 9 July, before taking a flight to Dallas, where he was hospitalised, the CDC said.
Deutsche Welle
Germany, US strike Nord Stream 2 compromise deal
The US and Germany have struck a compromise over the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, according to a joint statement released by both nations on Wednesday.
The pact comes days after Chancellor Angela Merkel's last official visit to Washington prior to leaving office this September. Officials had talked up the chances of an accord during the visit, and during Joe Biden's tour of Europe in June.
The two countries agreed to support Ukraine and to sanction Russia if it tries to use energy supplies for gaining geopolitical leverage.
Bavarians pick up the pieces after flooding
Residents are picking up the pieces after flooding caused havoc in southern Germany. But some locals are worried that climate change could mean worse disasters are yet to come.
"It's like the surface of the moon," farmer Barbara Angerer says, looking around at what used to be a lush green field where her cattle grazed.
"Now it's a completely new landscape. You would never recognize it."
Reuters
At least 25 dead as rains deluge central China's Henan province
At least 25 people have died in China's flood-stricken central province of Henan, a dozen of them in a subway line in its capital Zhengzhou, and more rains are forecast for the region.
About 100,000 people have been evacuated in Zhengzhou, an industrial and transport hub, where rail and road links were disrupted. Dams and reservoirs have swelled to warning levels and thousands of troops are taking part in the rescue effort in the province.
Twelve people died and more than 500 were pulled to safety after a subway tunnel flooded, state media reported, while social media images showed train commuters immersed in chest-deep waters in the dark and one station reduced to a large brown pool. […]
"Such extreme weather events will likely become more frequent in the future," said Johnny Chan, a professor of atmospheric science at City University of Hong Kong.
Half of all Afghan district centers under Taliban control - U.S. general
Taliban insurgents control about half of Afghanistan's district centers, the senior U.S. general said on Wednesday, indicating a rapidly deteriorating security situation.
Insecurity has been growing in Afghanistan in recent weeks, largely spurred by fighting in its provinces as U.S.-led foreign troops complete their withdrawal and the Taliban launch major offensives, taking districts and border crossings.
"Strategic momentum appears to be sort of with the Taliban," General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters.
CBS 60 Minutes
Moneer Noori began working as a translator for U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2009 when he was 18 years old. He said in the years that followed, he joined U.S. special forces in some of the highest-profile missions of the war.
"I'm the most senior linguist in Afghanistan that's left behind," Noori told correspondent Enrique Acevedo over a Zoom interview from Kabul for a report streaming now on 60 Minutes+.
"Our life is threatened every day... because we [have] done a lot of missions," Noori said. "And our face has been seen a lot, and our life is in danger."
Al Jazeera
Violence escalates in water-shortage protests in Iran’s Khuzestan
A third civilian has died during protests over water shortages in Iran’s southwestern Khuzestan province, authorities confirmed. […]
This year… has been especially difficult for the province – and the whole country by extension – due to extremely hot temperatures and droughts that have led to widespread blackouts and water shortages.
Officials acknowledge that the province has been hit hard, but they claim separatist groups are to blame for the violence and accuse foreign media of trying to take advantage of the situation to oppose the theocratic establishment.
India’s excess deaths during COVID could be over 4 million: Study
India’s excess deaths during the pandemic could be a staggering 10 times the official COVID-19 toll, likely making it modern India’s worst human tragedy, according to the most comprehensive research yet on the ravages of the virus in the South Asian country.
Most experts believe India’s official toll of more than 414,000 dead is a vast undercount but the government has dismissed those concerns as exaggerated and misleading.
The report released on Tuesday estimated excess deaths – the gap between those recorded and those that would have been expected – to be between 3 to 4.7 million between January 2020 and June 2021.
Ars Technica
Home and office routers come under attack by China state hackers, France warns
Compromised routers give the hackers anonymity in ongoing large-scale attacks.
China state hackers are compromising large numbers of home and office routers for use in a vast and ongoing attack against organizations in France, authorities from that county said.
The hacking group—known in security circles as APT31, Zirconium, Panda, and other names—has historically conducted espionage campaigns targeting government, financial, aerospace and defense organizations as well as businesses in the technology, construction, engineering, telecommunications, media, and insurance industries, security firm FireEye has said. APT31 is also one of three hacker groups sponsored by the Chinese government that participated in a recent hacking spree of Microsoft Exchange servers, the UK’s National Cyber Security Center said on Monday.