Here are some of today's top stories:
- The Biden administration unveiled a plan how solar energy could produce nearly half of America’s electricity by 2050.
- The world’s largest carbon-sucking plant is making small reduction in CO2 emissions.
- The world’s oil, gas and coal reserves must stay in the ground in order to have just a 50 percent chance of meeting climate targets.
- Richmond, Virginia removed 12-ton stature honoring Confederate traitor Robert E. Lee.
- Vice President Harris joins California’s Gov. Newsom to campaign against his recall.
- The county attorney where Minnesota’s state capitol is says he won't prosecute cases arising from low-level traffic stops.
- Judge prevents Florida’s Gov. DeSantis from banning school mask mandates.
- Republicans claim they’re concerned about the political ramifications of their Texas abortion victory.
- The Treasury Department reports the top 1% are evading $163 billion a year in taxes.
- US cities are losing 36 million trees a year.
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.
651,746 PEOPLE HAVE DIED FROM CORONAVIRUS IN THE U.S. 208 MILLION PEOPLE IN THE U.S. HAVE RECEIVED A VACCINATION DOSE
The Washington Post
Biden blueprint shows how solar power could produce nearly half the nation’s electricity by 2050
The Biden administration announced a blueprint Wednesday outlining how solar energy could produce nearly half of the nation’s electricity by mid-century, part of its ambitious bid to address climate change.
The new Energy Department analysis shows how the United States can scale up production of solar panels, which now provide 3 percent of the nation’s electricity, to 45 percent over the next three decades.
The move, which would transform the nation’s energy industry and infrastructure, shows how President Biden is determined to reshape the economy and cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in the face of staunch political opposition.
The Profound Beauty of Firefly Tourism
I’ve been in Great Smoky Mountains National Park for less than an hour when I’m mistaken for a woodland fairy. Even though I’m here to witness the ethereal phenomenon of synchronous fireflies — a species famed for its ability to flash in unison — the association is surprising since, after a pandemic period of virtual living, I’m feeling more like a haggard dweller of the modern world than an enchanted being of old-world mythology. In fact, when I hear a stranger calling out from across the forest glen I’m wandering, it takes me a second to realize that she’s addressing me. She waves me over and asks again: “Are you a magical creature?” […]
It does feel like we’ve traveled through a portal to another realm. […]
This year, Tufts University released the first-ever comprehensive study of firefly tourism. Researchers found that, globally, 1 million people travel to witness firefly-related phenomena every year. Given that the synchronous fireflies of Elkmont are some of the most famous fireflies in the world — and that I live in their home region of southern Appalachia — coming across the study during lockdown made me think it was past time to see these brilliant creatures.
Bloomberg
World’s Largest Carbon-Sucking Plant Starts Making Tiny Dent in Emissions
In Iceland’s barren landscape, a new container-like structure has risen alongside plumes of steam near the Hellisheidi geothermal power plant. Its job is to reverse some of the damage carbon-dioxide emissions are doing to the planet.
The facility, called Orca and built by Swiss startup Climeworks AG, will suck CO₂ out of the air. Icelandic startup Carbfix will then pump it deep into the ground, turning it into stone forever. Of the 16 installations Climeworks has built across Europe, Orca is the only one that permanently disposes of the CO₂ rather than recycling it.
The plant will capture 4,000 tons of CO₂ a year, making it the largest direct-air capture facility in the world. But that only makes up for the annual emissions of about 250 U.S. residents. It’s also a long way from the company’s original goal of capturing 1% of annual global CO₂ emissions — more than 300 million tons — by 2025. The company is now targeting 500,000 tons by the end of the decade.
Amid Western Blazes, Prescribed Fire Is Keeping Some Forests Resilient
With more than 217,000 acres burned as of September 8, the Caldor Fire southwest of Lake Tahoe has left swaths of the Sierra Nevada severely devastated. More than 900 structures have been destroyed, including virtually the entire town of Grizzly Flats.
But within the fire’s massive footprint stand patches of green, living trees. One looks like a finger poking into the eastern edge of the fire, along Caples Creek and around Caples Lake. That expanse of vitality overlaps extensively with an 8,800-acre area that had been treated in 2019 with prescribed burning, a tactic practitioners say can make fire-adapted forests less susceptible to catastrophic blazes, and limiting the threat they pose to people.
By setting smaller, controlled fires, forest managers can help eliminate the brush, branches and thickets of young trees that can supercharge fast-moving blazes, while leaving larger, older trees alive. After a century of fire suppression policies, much of California’s conifer woodlands are thickly overgrown, making them vulnerable to runaway megafires, especially in the midst of a severe drought.
Inside Climate News
To Meet Paris Accord Goal, Most of the World’s Fossil Fuel Reserves Must Stay in the Ground
[…] In order to have just a 50 percent chance of meeting the most ambitious climate target, the study found, the production of all fossil fuels will need to start declining immediately, and a significant majority of the world’s oil, gas and coal reserves will have to remain underground over the next few decades.
While the research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, is only the latest to argue that meeting the 2015 Paris Agreement goals to limit warming requires a rapid pivot to clean energy, it lays out with clear and specific figures exactly how far from those targets the world remains.
“The inescapable evidence that hopefully we’ve shown and that successive reports have shown is that if you want to meet 1.5 degrees, then global production has to start declining,” said Daniel Welsby, a researcher at University College London, in the United Kingdom, and the study’s lead author. As part of the Paris Agreement, nations agreed to try to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
The nation's largest Confederate statue no longer stands on Monument Avenue
Amanda Lynch’s eyes welled with tears Wednesday morning as a crane heaved the 12-ton tribute to Robert E. Lee from the 40-foot pedestal where he's stood over Monument Avenue for over a century.
She felt weightless as the statue drifted from its base and the crowd around her started to cheer.
Her 14-year-old daughter last year was part of the summer of protest that transformed the former capital of the Confederacy, compelling politicians to dismantle the monuments that many thought would outlast them.
“It almost felt like a pressure valve being released," she said of seeing the statue come down. "I really wish my grandparents were here to see that all the things they prayed for are coming to fruition."
Los Angeles Times
Vice President Harris joins Newsom in the Bay Area to fight recall effort
Gov. Gavin Newsom received a boost from a familiar face Wednesday when his longtime political ally Vice President Kamala Harris returned to the Bay Area to campaign for him against the GOP-led recall.
“They wouldn’t be trying to recall him but for the fact that he has always stood for reproductive rights,” Harris said. “They wouldn’t be trying to recall him except they know he stands for our Dreamers and our farmworkers.”
“This is why they are putting in so many resources and time to take out Gavin Newsom.”
Larry Elder cuts short Venice homeless encampment tour after hostile reception
Larry Elder’s scheduled tour of homeless encampments in Venice ended shortly after it began Wednesday morning, with the leading Republican in the gubernatorial recall race hastily exiting in a Suburban after being angrily confronted by a group of homeless people and advocates.
Elder — who had arrived in his new “Recall Express” campaign bus shortly after casting his ballot at a voting center across town — spent roughly 12 minutes in the neighborhood, with his departure hastened by what appeared to be an egg thrown in his direction.
“It kind of glanced his head,” an Elder campaign staffer said of the object.
Oregon Public Broadcasting News
Watersheds shape beaver genetics, according to new Oregon State University study
Beavers are often relocated because they are beneficial to stream reconstruction and can even help salmon populations by damming rivers. Their dams slow downstream flow and can increase habitats for waterfowl and other creatures. […]
This new study by Oregon State University surveyed a large swath of the Oregon coastal range (an area as large as Vermont). Researchers took genetic material from over 300 beavers. They found that beavers have genetic material calibrated down to the watershed.
OSU researcher Vanessa Petro says that keeping the beavers in the same watershed is important because subtle differences in the landscape can make a difference for beavers.
“Beaver colonies that occupy the South Umpqua basin vs the Upper Nehalem, I mean those are two totally different geographic areas that have different hydrology, vegetation,” Petro says. “So even though to us, we know that both of those locations occur in Western Oregon, they are still pretty different to the wildlife species actually inhabiting them.”
The Denver Post
The tarantulas are coming out of hiding in southeastern Colorado
One of Colorado’s weirdest tourist attractions — some might call it creepy in more ways than one, since it involves creeping tarantulas — has begun in southeastern Colorado.
The annual “tarantula migration,” when hairy brown spiders as big as saucers come out of hiding looking for mating partners, happens in September and generally peaks in mid-September. An influx of visitors make the drive down to La Junta, three hours from Denver, to watch the eight-legged arachnids cruising for hookups. […]
Even though it’s called a migration, it isn’t one. When mating season arrives, otherwise reclusive males reaching adulthood emerge from their burrows to go on “walkabouts” looking for females, according to Whitney Cranshaw, a retired Colorado State University entomologist. After mating, their days are numbered because they will die later this season.
Colorado company at the forefront of battery technology for electric cars is expanding
Solid Power is expanding its facilities and the capacity to produce solid state batteries for use in electric vehicles… The new building will allow Solid Power to produce about 2,500 kilograms, or 5,511 pounds, of the electrolyte per month, up from the current 100 kilograms per month. […]
Once the company is producing the larger cell, about the size of an iPad, it will start three to four years of formal testing to qualify to provide cells for electric vehicles. Hundreds or thousands of the cells make up a battery pack in a car. […]
Development of a solid state battery for electric vehicles has been called “the holy grail” by some industry experts. Instead of liquids, as in a lithium ion cell, a solid state version uses solid materials such as ceramics or polymers through which the charge moves from one electrode to another.
Minneapolis StarTribune
Ramsey County attorney says he won't prosecute cases arising from low-level traffic stops
Ramsey County Attorney John Choi on Wednesday announced that his office will no longer prosecute most felony cases arising from low-level traffic stops, an effort aimed at reducing racial disparities in the criminal justice system.
Choi rolled out the new policy, which he described as a nation-leading collaboration between the county and cities within its jurisdiction, with the stated hope of building trust between law enforcement and communities of color. In St. Paul, Black motorists are four times more likely to be pulled over than white motorists, he said.
"We do not want to incentivize that type of policing," Choi said at a news conference Wednesday. […]
At Wednesday's news conference, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter said the city is planning to incorporate those efforts into written code. The St. Paul City Attorney's Office is also expected to announce new guidance for handling traffic stops "very soon," he said.
Orlando Sentinel
Judge prevents DeSantis from banning school mask mandates as state appeals earlier ruling
A judge again ruled against the DeSantis administration Wednesday in an ongoing face mask case, deciding the state cannot ban school districts from imposing mask mandates while it appeals his earlier ruling.
Leon County Circuit Judge John Cooper ruled Aug. 27 that Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ban on school mask mandates was unconstitutional and a violation of Florida’s new Parent’s Bill of Rights. He ordered the state not to take action against districts with mask mandates.
But the state quickly appealed and was granted an automatic stay typically provided to the government in such lawsuits. The lawyers for the parents who sued DeSantis and other state leaders then asked the judge to lift the stay, arguing children faced the “very real prospect of irreparable harm,” if school districts could not enforce mask mandates.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A college town divided: Liberal Athens split into Republican districts
The bustling streets of Athens are packed with students, professors and townies this time of year, making it the kind of liberal college bastion that would easily elect Democrats — if it weren’t sliced into political pieces.
Twisting district borders divide the University of Georgia and the city, from the Arch to Stegeman Coliseum and extending into rural areas, creating a gerrymander that put Republicans in power over the region nearly a decade ago.
When Georgia legislators redistrict the state again this fall, the Republican majority will likely be able to keep its domination over the Classic City.
Athens-Clarke County overwhelmingly supported Democrat Joe Biden with 70% of the vote, but the state’s political maps are drawn in a way that splits the area so that Democrats control just one of seven elected legislative and congressional seats. Republicans hold two of three state House seats, both state Senate seats and both congressional districts that include Athens.
Houston Chronicle
These companies are top donors to sponsors of Texas' abortion law
[…] A recent report from Popular Information identified some of the nation's most prominent corporations that were top donors to legislators who sponsored the [Texas' abortion ban]. […]
AT&T is one of the top donors to the sponsors of Texas' abortion ban, also known as SB 8. AT&T has donated $301,000 to the sponsors of SB 8 since 2018. In AT&T's 2020 Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Report, CEO John Stankey said one of the company's "core values" was "gender equity and the empowerment of women," Popular Information reports.
Other major corporate donors to the sponsors of SB 8— legislation that allows anyone to sue anyone that helps a woman get an abortion in Texas and receive $10,000— include Charter Communications which donated $313,000, USAA which donated $152,000, Farmers Insurance which donated $120,000, United Healthcare which donated $90,000, Health insurer Anthem which donated $87,250, General Motors which donated $72,750, and CVS Health which donated $72,500, according to data from the Texas Ethics Commission.
Slate
Republicans Don’t Actually Want Roe v. Wade to End This Way
[…] Republicans are … fearful of the political ramifications of their own victory. Indeed, it seems undeniable that Republicans did not anticipate this abrupt triumph over Roe, instead assuming that the Texas law would be blocked by the courts. After all, hundreds of similar laws were blocked by the courts for years. Their decision to downplay this victory should upend the conventional wisdom about Roe not just politically, but also from a constitutional perspective. […]
Legislatures passed all these restrictions knowing that the federal judiciary would safeguard the core right to abortion. They did not have to face the political backlash that might result from the closure of every abortion clinic or the prosecution of patients who terminate illegally. As the implementation date for each new law loomed, clinics would race to court to obtain an injunction. Judges would oblige, and Republicans would rail against their rulings—and fundraise off the outrage they fomented. At the next legislative session, they’d repeat the process, creating an endless cycle of anti-abortion fervor that never resulted in the prohibition of abortion.
Now the Supreme Court has broken that cycle… Yet few of its members are willing to acknowledge this new state of affairs. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell dismissed the Supreme Court’s effective abandonment of Roe—a key aim of his ruthless drive to capture the federal judiciary—as a “highly technical decision.” Texas’ Republican senators, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn—normally so vocal about their hostility to abortion—were silent.
Reuters
Mexican abortion ban punished poor women, top justice says
Mexican Supreme Court's unanimous decision on Tuesday to decriminalize abortion will principally help poorer women, who have in the past borne the brunt of punishments for the crime, the president of the tribunal said on Wednesday.
Speaking after the court ruled it was no longer possible to prosecute any woman who has an abortion without violating the constitution, Supreme Court president Arturo Zaldivar said denying women the right had been an enormous social injustice.
"Rich girls, and I've said this, and it upsets many that I say it, have always had abortions and never gone to prison. This is a crime which to a great extent punishes poverty," Zaldivar told reporters at a news conference in Mexico City.
Vox
Democrats have a high-risk, high-reward plan to save Roe v. Wade
[…] With the increasingly likely demise of Roe looming on the horizon, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced last week that the US House will soon hold a vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), legislation that would enshrine a nationwide right to abortion and preserve many of the specific legal protections recognized by Supreme Court decisions like Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992).
Reproductive rights activists say it’s a well-thought-out bill that not only expands federal protections but also anticipates potential challenges from conservative state governments. It has widespread, but probably not universal, support among elected Democrats. All of the major Democratic presidential candidates, including President Joe Biden, endorsed legislation “codifying Roe” during the last election cycle. The WHPA has 205 co-sponsors in the House and 47 in the Senate.
Realistically, however, the bill faces a difficult uphill climb before it could become law. Even if it passes the House, it’s unclear whether the WHPA has majority support in the Senate.
In the face of environmental racism, sustainability isn’t about what you buy.
[…] Despite the lack of institutional support and corporate confusion and expense, local groups all over the country are working to protect the environment. In low-income and underserved communities, activists say it’s crucial that we not only work to preserve the land but also educate the people who live there on how they can work to be sustainable in an accessible way. In these communities, though, the urgency is less to do with personal consumption than with the structural factors that cause daily harm to the people who live there — a problem known as environmental racism.
This key term was coined in 1982 by African American civil rights leader Benjamin Chavis. It’s described as the way communities, primarily inhabited by people of color and groups with lower socioeconomic status, are faced with various factors that affect their quality of life, such as proximity to toxic waste facilities and garbage dumps, environmental pollution, etc. Chavis also described environmental racism as discrimination within environmental policymaking, as well as the exclusion of people of color in the ecology movements. […]
Environmental racism is an epidemic in the United States, and does not begin or end with the obstacles faced by those in the Bronx. From state to state, underserved and low-income communities are suffering the consequences of both poor policymaking and a lack of care for the land and the residents who reside on it. According to Insider, an estimated 70 percent of contaminated waste sites are located in low-income communities, and more than 2 million Americans live within a mile of sites that are susceptible to flooding — the majority of which are found in Black and brown communities.
The Atlantic
After 9/11, the U.S. Got Almost Everything Wrong
[…] Vice President Dick Cheney [defined] the U.S. response to the 2001 terrorist attacks over the next two decades, as the United States embraced the “dark side” to fight what was soon dubbed the “Global War on Terror”…
It was a colossal miscalculation. […]
The United States—as both a government and a nation—got nearly everything about our response wrong, on the big issues and the little ones. The GWOT yielded two crucial triumphs: The core al-Qaeda group never again attacked the American homeland, and bin Laden, its leader, was hunted down and killed in a stunningly successful secret mission a decade after the attacks. But the U.S. defined its goals far more expansively, and by almost any other measure, the War on Terror has weakened the nation—leaving Americans more afraid, less free, more morally compromised, and more alone in the world. A day that initially created an unparalleled sense of unity among Americans has become the backdrop for ever-widening political polarization.
The nation’s failures began in the first hours of the attacks and continue to the present day. Seeing how and when we went wrong is easy in hindsight. What’s much harder to understand is how—if at all—we can make things right.
NPR News
Election Workers Are Under Attack. A Group Of Lawyers Plans To Defend Them
Voting officials nationwide are still grappling with a new reality after the 2020 election that includes death threats, conspiracy theories and legal penalties for making what were once regarded as minor mistakes, but on Wednesday, a bipartisan group of attorneys announced an organization aimed at helping them fight back.
The Election Official Legal Defense Network is the first organization of its kind aimed at providing pro-bono legal help and advice for election officials who up until a year ago did not really need it.
"It would be better if this wasn't necessary," said David Becker, a cofounder of the group and the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. "But given the conversations many of us have had with election officials around the country, it's an unfortunate byproduct of the environment we now live in and the election denialism we're now seeing."
Sheltering Inside May Not Protect You From The Dangers Of Wildfire Smoke
When wildfire smoke descends over a city or town, as it does increasingly often for tens of millions of people in the American West, public health officials have a simple message: Go inside, shut doors and windows. Limit outdoor activities.
New research shows that may not be enough to protect a person's health. […] The research shows, in detail for the first time, the depth of the public health risk millions of Americans are being exposed to every climate-fueled fire season. But the findings are also encouraging in that they show there are steps people can take to protect their health.
Homes that used air filters, in addition to closing windows and doors, were able to cut the amount of those tiny PM2.5 particles floating inside them by half, according to research from the University of California, Berkeley.
AP News
Police planning to reinstall Capitol fence ahead of rally
Law enforcement officials concerned by the prospect for violence at a rally in the nation’s capital next week are planning to reinstall protective fencing that surrounded the U.S. Capitol for months after the Jan. 6 insurrection there, according to a person familiar with the discussions. […]
Police continue to track intelligence indicating far-right extremist groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are planning to attend next week’s rally, which is designed to demand “justice” for the hundreds of people who have been charged in connection with January’s insurrection.
Jill Biden heads back to classroom as a working first lady
Jill Biden has gone back to her whiteboard.
After months of teaching writing and English to community college students in boxes on a computer screen, the first lady resumed teaching in person Tuesday from a classroom at Northern Virginia Community College, where she has worked since 2009.
She is the first first lady to leave the White House to log hours at a full-time job.
The New York Times
The top 1 percent are evading $163 billion a year in taxes, the Treasury finds.
The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans are the nation’s most egregious tax evaders, failing to pay as much as $163 billion in owed taxes per year, according to a Treasury Department report released on Wednesday.
The analysis comes as the Biden administration pushes lawmakers to embrace its ambitious proposal to beef up the Internal Revenue Service to narrow the “tax gap,” which it estimates amounts to $7 trillion in unpaid taxes over a decade. The White House has proposed investing $80 billion in the agency over the next 10 years to hire more enforcement staff, overhaul its technology and usher in new information-reporting requirements that would give the government greater insight into tax evasion schemes.
The proposals have been met with deep skepticism from Republicans and business lobbyists who argue that the I.R.S. cannot be trusted with more power and that the proposals are an invasion of privacy.
‘Cyber Grave Robbers’ Accused of Stealing Identities of Surfside Condo Victims
In the dark days following the Champlain Towers South condominium collapse in Surfside, Fla., the sister of Ana Ortiz, who died in the tragedy, noticed strange financial activity in Ms. Ortiz’s accounts.
A notification that Ms. Ortiz’s mailing address had been changed. Requests for replacement credit cards to be mailed to a new address. Unauthorized wire transfers. Purchases charged to her cards.
The sister, Nicole Ortiz, notified the police. It was July 9, barely two weeks after the June 24 collapse — and the day of Ana Ortiz’s funeral.
The results of the investigation, which grew to involve several local and federal law enforcement agencies, were revealed on Wednesday, when prosecutors in Miami-Dade County announced that they had charged three people for stealing the identities of at least seven Champlain Towers residents.
Deutsche Welle
Germany's Angela Merkel declares 'yes, I am a feminist'
Germany's chancellor may have been hesitant to describe herself as a feminist in the past, but as Angela Merkel counts down her last few days in office, it would appear she is making her position known.
Speaking to reporters after an event with Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in Düsseldorf on Wednesday, Merkel spoke about her new perspective on feminism.
"Essentially, it's about the fact that men and women are equal, in the sense of participation in society and in life in general. And in that sense I can say: 'Yes, I'm a feminist.'" […]
At Wednesday's event Germany's first female chancellor was more candid and admitted her reticent approach from the past.
"I was a bit shyer when I said it. But it's more thought-out now. And in that sense, I can say that we should all be feminists."
EuroNews
Good news for the ocean as tuna species bounce back from the brink of extinction
There’s good news for the tuna you’re used to seeing in supermarkets, like Atlantic and Southern bluefin. These and two other species are showing signs of recovery from overfishing. They have been hunted by commercial fishing companies for decades but now it’s hoped they might not go extinct, as previously feared.
The news comes from International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) which has just released an update to its Red List. This list shows the extinction risk of thousands of species around the world. Unfortunately, more than 38,000 species are still facing the threat of extinction, but there were signs of recovery for some.
In 2011, most species of tuna were considered to be at serious risk of extinction. With 6 million tonnes thought to have been caught in 2019, these are some of the most commercially valuable fish in the world.
Brussels doctors to prescribe museum visits for stress
[…] Working hand in hand with the psychiatric unit at the local Brugmann hospital, Delphine Houba [, a Brussels city councilor,] hopes to improve the mental health of patients suffering from stress and anxiety, as well as revitalise the museum sector. All of which have taken a toll since the pandemic began.
"It is true, we are used to going to the doctor and getting medicine. Here the idea is to consider that art is part of the process of healing….Like what Le Clézio said — the Nobel prize winner for literature — one day we might realise there is no art, but just medicine," Houba told Euronews.
For the next three months, five public museums in the Belgian capital covering fashion to art will take part in the pilot project. If it is successful, Houba hopes more will participate.
The art historian Isabel Vermote from Belgium’s famous Royal Museum of Fine Arts welcomes the idea, but with caution.
CNN
US cities are losing 36 million trees a year. Here’s why it matters and how you can stop it
[…] Tree cover in US cities is shrinking. A study published last year by the US Forest Service found that we lost 36 million trees annually from urban and rural communities over a five-year period. That’s a 1% drop from 2009 to 2014.
If we continue on this path, “cities will become warmer, more polluted and generally more unhealthy for inhabitants,” said David Nowak, a senior US Forest Service scientist and co-author of the study.
Nowak says there are many reasons our tree canopy is declining, including hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, insects and disease. But the one reason for tree loss that humans can control is sensible development.
“We see the tree cover being swapped out for impervious cover, which means when we look at the photographs, what was there is now replaced with a parking lot or a building,” Nowak said.
Main suspect tells Paris attacks trial he's 'an Islamic State soldier'
ParisThe main suspect in a jihadist rampage that killed 130 people across Paris described himself defiantly as "an Islamic State soldier" on Wednesday, upsetting some survivors who took it as a threat at the start of the trial into the 2015 attacks.
Salah Abdeslam, 31, appeared in court dressed in black and wearing a black face mask, one of 20 men accused of involvement in the gun-and-bomb attacks on six restaurants and bars, the Bataclan concert hall and a sports stadium on Nov. 13, 2015.
Asked his profession, the French-Moroccan removed his face mask and told a Paris court: "I gave up my job to become an Islamic State soldier."
The Canadian Press
Leaders spar on vaccines, snap elections as French debate kicks off
Five federal party leaders jousted over mandatory vaccination, health care and snap elections in the first of two official election debates Wednesday evening as they sought to sway francophone voters before election day on Sept. 20.
With less than two weeks to go, millions of voters were expected to tune in to the two-hour French debate and Thursday’s English debate.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-François Blanchet and Green Party Leader Annamie Paul were set to participate in both debates.
Al Jazeera
WHO urges rich countries to hold off on booster shots until 2022
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has called on wealthy countries with large supplies of coronavirus vaccines to refrain from offering booster shots through the end of the year, expanding an earlier request that has been largely ignored.
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also said he was “appalled” at comments by a leading association of pharmaceutical manufacturers a day earlier who said vaccine supplies are high enough to allow for both booster shots and vaccinations in countries in dire need of jabs but facing shortages.
“I will not stay silent when companies and countries that control the global supply of vaccines think the world’s poor should be satisfied with leftovers,” he said, adding that low- and lower-middle-income countries were “not the second or third priority”.
Taliban must allow departures from Afghanistan, Blinken says
The new Taliban-led Afghan government must live up to its commitments to allow safe passage for those looking to leave Afghanistan, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said.
Speaking from Germany on Wednesday during a virtual meeting of the foreign ministers of United States-allied nations, Blinken outlined three “core objectives” of US policy towards Afghanistan following the completed withdrawal of American troops from the country.
Enabling the departures of people seeking to leave, “preventing terrorist groups from using Afghanistan as a base”, and ensuring a flow of humanitarian assistance top the Biden administration’s agenda, Blinken said.
“We must hold the Taliban, including the recently announced caretaker government and any eventual Afghan government, to their commitment to allow foreign nationals, visa holders, and Afghans to travel outside the country if they wish,” he said.
BBC News
West African leaders suspend Guinea from Ecowas following coup
Guinea has been suspended from the West African regional bloc Ecowas following the coup that overthrew President Alpha Condé on Sunday, Burkina Faso's Foreign Minister Alpha Barry has said. The bloc also demanded Mr Condé's release from custody, he added.
Leaders of the 15-nation bloc held a virtual meeting to discuss the coup waged by elite troops led by the 41-year-old Col Mamady Doumbouya. He accused Mr Condé, 83, of rampant corruption and human rights abuses. The deposed president's whereabouts are unclear, although the coup leaders have said he is safe.
Guinea is one of the world's biggest producers of bauxite, the raw material for aluminium, and prices have leapt to a 13-year-high following the coup.
UK 'cut climate pledges' to clinch Australia trade deal
Ministers agreed to cut key climate pledges to help clinch the UK trade deal with Australia it has emerged.
According to an email from an unnamed Cabinet official, leaked to Sky News, government ministers referred to dropping "climate asks" to get the deal "over the line". This included cutting references to limiting global warming to specific temperatures.
The government said the deal will reinforce climate commitments.
The email, which was sent last month, states that Trade Secretary Liz Truss and Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng agreed to ditch references to the targets of the Paris Agreement on climate change to sweeten the Australian trade deal.
Popular Science
We finally know what turns cats into tabbies
[…] while breeders have long known how to pair animals for a desired fur coat pattern, like tabby stripes, the answer to how those patterns emerge from a biological standpoint has long evaded scientists.
Geneticists recently discovered a gene in domesticated cats that triggers changes in fetal cat development, resulting in those trademark feline tabby stripes. The gene, Dkk4, produces a “pre-pattern” of thick and thin skin on the developing cat embryo that ends up mapping the pattern of stripes on the cat’s fur later. Thick patches had more Dkk4 expression and would later be covered with darker fur, while thin patches had less Dkk4 expression and would later be covered by lighter fur. The research team also detected the thick-thin skin variation before the embryos even developed hair follicles. Their findings were published in Nature Communications.
Cat fur development “really has been an unsolved mystery,” geneticist Gregory S. Barsh, the senior author of the new study, told The New York Times. “We think this is really the first glimpse into what the molecules might be” that steer the patterning process.
Ars Technica
The James Webb telescope has a bona fide launch date
NASA announced in August that the James Webb Space Telescope had passed its final ground-based tests and was being prepared for shipment to its launch site in Kourou, French Guiana. Now, the oft-delayed $10 billion telescope has an official launch date: December 18, 2021.
The date was announced on Wednesday by NASA, the European Space Agency, and the launch provider, Arianespace. The space telescope will launch on an Ariane 5 rocket.
Why is NASA's most expensive scientific instrument ever launching on a European rocket? Because the European Space Agency is conducting the launch for NASA in return for a share of observation time using the infrared telescope. Webb will observe wavelengths of light longer than those of the Hubble Space telescope, and this should allow the new instrument to see the earliest galaxies of the Universe.