Here are some of tonight’s stories:
- The world’s two biggest greenhouse gas emitters make a joint pledge to slow climate change.
- At least 13 Trump administration officials broke the Hatch Act, but will not be punished.
- Inflation is making President Biden’s plans more difficult to achieve and hurting his popularity.
- The container jam in southern California’s ports is loosening due to steep fines that will soon be imposed on shippers.
- Vice President Harris is in Paris trying to help the U.S. turn the page on Trumpism.
- Republican gerrymandering surges as states redraw maps for House seats.
- A $600+ million settlement over lead in Flint, Michigan’s municipal water is approved by judge.
- Federal judge rules Texas school districts can impose mask restrictions without fear of fines from state’s attorney general.
- Johnny McEntee made the January 6 insurrection possible.
- Between 4,000-5,000 Afghans crossing into Iran daily to flee Taliban rule.
Links and details below the fold.
This is an open thread. Everyone is encouraged to share articles, stories, and tweets in your comments.
756,131 PEOPLE HAVE DIED FROM CORONAVIRUS IN THE U.S. 224.7 MILLION PEOPLE IN THE U.S. HAVE RECEIVED A VACCINATION DOSE
The Washington Post
U.S. and China issue joint pledge to slow climate change
The United States and China jolted the United Nations climate summit here with a surprise announcement Wednesday, pledging the two countries would work together to slow global warming during this decade and ensure that the Glasgow talks result in meaningful progress.
The world’s two biggest greenhouse gas emitters said they would take “enhanced climate actions” to meet the central goals of the 2015 Paris climate accord — limiting warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) beyond preindustrial levels, and if possible, not to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius. Still, the declaration was short on firm deadlines or specific commitments, and parts of it restated policies both nations had outlined in a statement in April.
At least 13 Trump officials illegally campaigned while in office, federal investigation finds
At least 13 senior Trump administration officials illegally mixed governing with campaigning before the 2020 election, intentionally ignoring a law that prohibits merging the two and getting approval to break it, a federal investigation released Tuesday found.
A report from the office of Special Counsel Henry Kerner describes a “willful disregard for the law” known as the Hatch Act that was “especially pernicious,” given that many officials abused their government roles days before the November election. […]
No punishment is expected to be assessed because, by most legal interpretations, the president in office at the time is the only person who can take action to fire or reprimand his political appointees when they act illegally.
Bloomberg
Biden Says His Agenda Will Curb Inflation, Return ‘Normal’ Economy
President Joe Biden acknowledged that Americans are feeling the pressures of inflation and goods shortages, promising that his soon-to-be-signed infrastructure legislation is part of his plan to overcome the extended effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Many people remain unsettled about the economy and we all know why,” he said Wednesday as he visited the Port of Baltimore to promote the infrastructure investments that would ease supply chain bottlenecks. […]
Though inflation is “real” and “one of the most pressing economic concerns of the American people,” there are also plenty of good signs in the economy, he said. “Jobs are up, wages are up, values are up and savings are up.”
China Is Evading U.S. Spies — and the White House Is Worried
A lack of top-tier intelligence on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s inner circle is frustrating senior Biden administration officials struggling to get ahead of Beijing’s next steps, according to current and former officials who have reviewed the most sensitive U.S. intelligence reports.
Those officials, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive issues, say China is becoming a harder target, more opaque, just as the demand for insights into Xi’s decision-making is soaring and tensions with the U.S. are heating up over issues from Taiwan to high technology. […]
The current and former officials emphasize that America’s spy agencies have long struggled to provide the insights policy makers demand on China. The hurdles facing the U.S. intelligence community are both deep-seated — Beijing did significant damage to American spy networks in China prior to Xi’s presidency — and basic, including a continuing shortage of Mandarin speakers.
Vox
Why it’s not quite time to panic about inflation
[…] Regardless of what the experts say, for regular people, the economic landscape can be a little nerve-wracking, especially when it comes to prices. Inflation makes people feel bad about the economy, even when there is plenty to feel good about, too.
I reached out to Claudia Sahm, a senior fellow at the Jain Family Institute and former Federal Reserve economist, to ask how to parse the latest inflation numbers. Sahm isn’t an inflation hawk and has for some time pushed back against fearmongering on the issue, but she acknowledged that the October situation isn’t good.
Wages aren’t broadly keeping up with inflation across all jobs, though they are in some sectors, such as hospitality. However, Sahm notes, the economic situation — and pandemic situation — is much better for many people this year than it was last. She’s not hitting the panic button on prices, but she worries about the implications for the reconciliation bill in Congress, and emphasizes that the Fed is paying attention to what’s going on. […]
Inflation, it’s not good, I’m not sugarcoating it, but there was a lot of good done. The American Rescue Plan [the stimulus bill signed into law by President Joe Biden earlier this year] was the absolute best policy, particularly in an environment with high inflation. You look across the world in developed countries, they all have inflation. And you know what the difference is in the United States? We put thousands and thousands of dollars in people’s pockets at the beginning of the year.
It really made a big difference to people’s lives. The fact that higher inflation is eating away at the wealthy, the lenders, the bond market people, I have no sympathy.
Los Angeles Times
Cargo jam at L.A. and Long Beach ports begins to ease as hefty fines loom
[…] One key problem facing the port complex has been the towering piles of containers left at the import terminals for days on end, taking up space that should go to new containers unloaded from the ships offshore.
In response, officials at the ports voted in late October to impose a new fee on containers that sit around for more than six days if intended for rail transport or nine days if intended for trucks. Starting Nov. 15, the ocean carrier companies that brought those idling containers in will be charged $100 on the first day past deadline, $200 on the next, and so on — an escalating fine that could quickly grow into the tens of millions of dollars a day for the thousands of containers on the docks.
The fee was intended as a shot across the bow of the shipping companies…With less than a week to go until the fee kicks in, it seems to be making a difference. The number of containers subject to the fine is down 26% at Long Beach, and the number of containers with a dwell time of more than nine days is down 14% at L.A. — a difference of more than 10,000 boxes on the docks.
Kamala Harris is in Paris making the case that Trump’s ‘America First’ era has ended
[…] Vice President Kamala Harris, the highest-ranking American to visit France since Trump left office, is trying to make the case the United States is a team player.
She began a five-day trip here by declaring “the best kind of work” happens with “scientists from around the world coming together.” Her tour of the Institut Pasteur science lab Tuesday, where Americans are working alongside Europeans to tackle COVID-19 and where her Indian-born mother researched breast cancer, was one of several events aimed at drawing a contrast with Trump’s “America First” agenda.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia House passes political map that safeguards Republican majority
The Georgia House voted Wednesday to remap the state’s 180 districts in a way that protects a shrinking Republican majority and adds new metro Atlanta districts to accommodate population growth.
The 99-79 vote, almost entirely along party lines, clears the way for the General Assembly to finish redistricting itself within days, a rapid process that began a week ago. The state Senate passed its maps on Tuesday, and Republican leaders will soon consider how to draw Georgia’s congressional lines as they attempt to gain seats. […]
Democrats objected to the redistricting plan, saying it had been quickly pushed through the legislative process with district lines that reduce their representation. Georgia is closely split between Democrats and Republicans in statewide elections, but the state House map continues to give the GOP an advantage.
AP News
Gerrymandering surges as states redraw maps for House seats
[…] Republicans dominated redistricting last decade, helping them build a greater political advantage in more states than either party had in the past 50 years.
Just three months into the map-making process, it’s too early to know which party will come out on top. Republicans need a net gain of just five seats to take control of the U.S. House and effectively freeze President Joe Biden’s agenda on climate change, the economy and other issues. […]
In the 14 states that have passed new congressional maps so far, the cumulative effect is essentially a wash for Republicans and Democrats, leaving just a few toss-up districts. That could change in the coming weeks, as Republican-controlled legislatures consider proposed maps in Georgia, New Hampshire and Ohio that target Democratic-held seats.
Capitol rioter who hit officer gets over 3 years in prison
A New Jersey gym owner who punched a police officer during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was sentenced Wednesday to more than three years in prison, a likely benchmark for dozens of other rioters who engaged in violence that day.
Scott Fairlamb, 44, was the first person to be sentenced for assaulting a law enforcement officer during the Capitol riot. His 41-month prison term is the longest among 32 riot-related sentences handed down so far… He had pleaded guilty, avoiding a trial.
NPR News
Capitol riot suspects had more ties to Oath Keepers than previously known
Prosecutors have brought some of the most serious charges stemming from the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol against alleged members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right group that targets law enforcement and military veterans for recruitment. More than 20 suspected members of the Oath Keepers have been arrested, and some are facing charges of conspiracy. Now, an examination of hacked records - purportedly taken from Oath Keeper web servers - shows more defendants may have ties to the group than has been previously known. […]
At least five defendants charged in the Jan. 6 attack, however, have identifying information that appears in the leaked records, but have not been tied to the Oath Keepers as part of their Jan. 6 criminal cases. The news organization ProPublica first reported on three of those defendants.
The U.K. will save thousands of its iconic red phone kiosks from being shut down
The U.K.'s phone regulator says it will keep thousands of the nation's famous red public phone kiosks in service, despite a sharp drop in calls from the boxes.
Communications regulator Ofcom says the payphones are still vital in case of emergencies, and in areas where cellphone users can't get a reliable signal.
Under the regulator's new criteria, a call box will need to be used at least 52 times over a 12-month period for it to stay in service. And if a kiosk is in an area identified as an accident or suicide hotspot, it can't be removed.
The Detroit News
Judge gives final approval to $600M-plus Flint water settlement
U.S. District Judge Judith Levy has given final approval to the historic $626.25 million settlement with victims of the Flint lead-tainted water crisis, a settlement that compensates more than half of the city's residents.
In her Wednesday opinion, Levy called the settlement a "remarkable achievement" in part because the comprehensive payment program and timeline are consistent for all plaintiffs, whether they are part of a class-action lawsuit or suing individually.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Kyle Rittenhouse's attorneys have asked for a mistrial. Here's what that means.
Kyle Rittenhouse’s defense attorneys on Wednesday asked a judge to grant a mistrial in the case against the teen who shot and killed two people and wounded a third during the unrest in Kenosha after the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
Defense attorney Corey Chirafisi asked for a mistrial with prejudice, meaning if the judge granted the motion, prosecutors could not refile the charges. He made the motion on the basis of "prosecutorial overreach," after Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger cross-examined Rittenhouse, who took the stand and said he acted in self-defense that night.
Judge Bruce Schroeder declined to make a ruling on the motion immediately and allowed testimony to continue Wednesday afternoon.
Minneapolis StarTribune
Cost of family health insurance tops $22,000 this year
The cost of employer-sponsored insurance plans continues to rise at a relatively steady rate even as a global pandemic has caused dramatic disruptions in how and when people get health care.
The findings, released Wednesday, come from California-based Kaiser Family Foundation's yearly report that put the average annual premium for family coverage this year in employer-sponsored health plans at $22,221, up 4% from last year. The national survey found that workers are contributing $5,969 toward the cost of family coverage this year, with employers paying the rest.
The Dallas Morning News
Texas schools can issue mask mandates while AG prohibited from issuing fines, a federal judge rules
Texas’ ban on mask mandates in schools violates the rights of students with disabilities, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, opening up a path for districts to again consider requiring face coverings.
Judge Lee Yeakel’s opinion will have broad implications for Texas’ 5 million school children and more than 1,000 districts, which have been caught in the middle of a highly politicized fight over masks and COVID-19 protections.
Attorney General Ken Paxton is also prohibited from imposing any fines, withholding any educational funds or bringing legal action to enforce Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order banning such mask mandate in districts, Yeakel ruled.
The decision will likely carry national impact, as states across the country are locked into similar legal fights. Many expect the ruling will be appealed to the Fifth Circuit.
Arizona Daily Star
Report: Arizona only state where COVID-19 the leading cause of death during pandemic
Arizona is the only state nationwide in which COVID-19 has been the leading cause of death during the pandemic, according to a new report Wednesday from the Arizona Public Health Association.
Nationally, COVID-19 is the third leading cause of death, with cancer and heart disease in the first two spots.
There are five states in which COVID-19 is the second leading cause of death, or in which there was a tie for second: Georgia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Texas, says the report, which examined data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in 40 states. In four states, it was lower than the third leading cause: Alaska, Hawaii, Maine and Vermont.
The Denver Post
FAA fines passenger on Aspen-bound flight with $23,000 fine for hitting flight attendant
A woman who struck a flight attendant on an American Airlines flight to Aspen from the Dallas-Fort Worth airport earlier this year could be forced to pay a $23,000 fine, the Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday in announcing new penalties sought against 10 unruly passengers.
Several other passengers on flights to or from Colorado have faced potential fines this year as air traffic has returned from pandemic lows. The FAA has investigated a surge in reports of passengers refusing to wear masks, causing disturbances and, in rare cases, assaulting crew members. Through Tuesday, airlines this year have reported more than 5,100 incidents.
The passenger on the March flight to Aspen, who wasn’t identified, refused to wear a face mask — which is still required aboard airplanes and in airports — and “verbally abused flight attendants after she realized her assigned seat would not recline,” according to an FAA news release.
The Guardian
Xi Jinping warns against return to Asia-Pacific tensions of cold war era
Xi Jinping has warned against a return to cold war-era tensions in the Asia-Pacific, urging greater cooperation on pandemic recovery and the climate crisis.
Amid growing tensions with the US over Taiwan, the Chinese president said all countries in the region must work together on joint challenges.
“Attempts to draw ideological lines or form small circles on geopolitical grounds are bound to fail,” he told a virtual business conference on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
“The Asia-Pacific region cannot and should not relapse into the confrontation and division of the cold war era.”
Seahorses and sharks living in River Thames, analysis shows
Seahorses, eels, seals and sharks are living in the tidal Thames, according to the most comprehensive analysis of the waterway since it was declared biologically dead in the 1950s.
But scientists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), who carried out the work, warn that the 95 miles of the tidal Thames is suffering from rising nitrate levels as a result of industrial runoff and sewage discharges. Water levels and temperature are also rising as a result of global heating.
On average, summer temperatures in the upper tidal Thames have been increasing by 0.19C a year since the turn of the century, the State of the Thames report said.
The scale of plastic pollution littering the tidal Thames, which stretches from below Teddington to Shoeburyness is also highlighted. As well as thousands of plastic bottles, wet wipes are a serious concern.
The Atlantic
The Man Who Made January 6 Possible
In late October 2020, Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, was attending the confirmation hearing for Amy Coney Barrett when his cellphone rang. He answered with a whisper and walked out to the hallway to take the call…
On the line was Andrew Hughes, the top staffer at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Meadows had asked him to call because it had been brought to Meadows’s attention that a young assistant at HUD had been caught consorting with the enemy.
She had liked an Instagram post from the pop star Taylor Swift. […]
Those enforcers—including the eagle-eyed official who had first spotted the offending “like”—worked for the Presidential Personnel Office, a normally under-the-radar group responsible for the hiring and firing of the roughly 4,000 political appointees in the executive branch. During the final year of the Trump administration, that office was transformed into an internal police force, obsessively monitoring administration officials for any sign of dissent, purging those who were deemed insufficiently devoted to Trump and frightening others into silence. […]
The office was run by Johnny McEntee. Just 29 when he got the job, he’d come up as Trump’s body guy—the kid who carried the candidate’s bags. One of Trump’s most high-profile Cabinet secretaries described him to me as “a fucking idiot.” But in 2020, his power was undeniable. Trump knew he was the one person willing to do anything Trump wanted. As another senior official told me, “He became the deputy president.”
McEntee and his enforcers made the disastrous last weeks of the Trump presidency possible.
EuroNews
Frustrated doctor diagnoses woman with ‘climate change’ in world first
A Canadian woman has become the first patient in the world to be diagnosed as suffering from ‘climate change’, after she developed breathing difficulties following an historic heatwave.
Working at the emergency department of the hospital in British Columbia, Dr Kyle Merritt said his diagnosis of the woman, in her 70s, was his attempt at processing what he was seeing.
Hundreds of people died as temperatures soared to nearly 50C in June, a Canadian record. The province’s coroner ruled that 570 of those sudden fatalities were ‘heat-related’. Around the world, WHO estimates that climatic changes cause more than 150,000 deaths a year.
But despite the overwhelming statistics, this is thought to be the first time climate change has been given as a cause of suffering by a medical professional.
Deutsche Welle
EU and US accuse Belarus of 'hybrid attack' at borders
The European Union is preparing to levy fresh sanctions against Belarus over the regime's move to send thousands of migrants to the bloc's borders, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday. […]
Regarding the migrant crisis on the Belarus-EU border, von der Leyen said she and Biden agreed to look into potential sanctions on airlines that facilitate human trafficking to Belarus.
"At the beginning of next week, there will be a widening of the sanctions," von der Leyen told reporters at the White House.
Both she and Biden "absolutely shared the same assessment" that Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko had launched a "hybrid attack" against EU democracies.
"It is important that Lukashenko understands that [the regime's] behavior comes with a price," von der Leyen said.
MercoPress
Brazil's STF poised to terminating Bolsonaro's secret funds
Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF) looked poised Tuesday to bring the existence of confidential funds to an end. According to this mechanism dating back to 2020, a parliamentarian acts each year as “budget rapporteur,” suggesting federal agencies where and how to spend that money. […]
The Congressional “secret budgets” have been a highly controversial issue, since they contradict the principles of transparency and impersonality required by any budget law. These funds are also believed to have allowed President Jair Bolsonaro to maintain governance within a Congress full of patronage.
Al Jazeera
Uneasy calm in Baghdad after assassination attempt on Iraq PM
Iraqi protesters who reject the results of the recent parliamentary elections have been holding sit-ins near the high-security Green Zone as an uneasy calm begins to settle in Baghdad after a failed attempt to assassinate Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi early on Sunday morning.
“We don’t accept the election results and we don’t accept the blame,” Khalid, a protester sitting in front of a makeshift tent near the iconic al-Jumhuriya Bridge, told Al Jazeera. “We won’t leave until they give us what we deserve.”
Khalid is one of a few hundred protesters who are mostly supporters of pro-Iran political blocs that suffered big losses in the October election. They claimed that the election was rigged.
Aid group says 4,000-5,000 Afghans crossing into Iran daily
As many as 4,000-5,000 Afghans have been crossing into Iran daily since the Taliban seized Kabul in August and hundreds of thousands more are expected to arrive in the coming winter, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said on Wednesday.
The aid group said as many as 300,000 Afghans have crossed the border since the Taliban victory and it called for more international support for Iran, which is grappling with a deep economic crisis of its own.
BBC News
Boeing agrees deal with families of Ethiopia crash victims
Boeing has reached an agreement with the families of the 157 people who died in the Ethiopia 737 Max crash in 2019.
The plane maker accepts liability for their deaths, according to court documents in Chicago. In return, families of the victims will not seek punitive damages from the company.
Lawyers for the victims' families said Boeing would still be held "fully accountable", welcoming the agreement as a significant milestone.
Afghanistan's ghost soldiers undermined fight against Taliban - ex-official
Afghanistan's ex-finance minister has blamed the government's fall on corrupt officials who invented "ghost soldiers" and took payments from the Taliban.
Khalid Payenda told the BBC that most of the 300,000 troops and police on the government's books did not exist. He said phantom personnel were added to official lists so that generals could pocket their wages. […]
The former minister said the numbers may have been inflated by more than six times, and included "desertions [and] martyrs who were never accounted for because some of the commanders would keep their bank cards" and withdraw their salaries, he alleged.
Ars Technica
NASA delays Moon landings, says Blue Origin legal tactics partly to blame
Senior NASA officials on Tuesday provided an updated timeline for returning humans to the Moon under the agency's Artemis program, and they discussed costs and other issues related to it. The biggest news came in the form of NASA's formal acknowledgement that a human landing on the Moon in 2024 is not possible, but there were plenty of other noteworthy tidbits.
The briefing with space reporters, led by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, came five days after the US Court of Federal Claims ruled against Blue Origin's lawsuit against NASA for its selection of SpaceX to build a lunar lander for the Artemis program. Previously, Nelson had promised to provide an update on the Artemis program following the lawsuit, and on Tuesday he made good on that.
He came out guns blazing at Blue Origin. "We've lost nearly seven months in litigation, and that likely has pushed the first human landing likely to no earlier than 2025," Nelson said, pinning the delay in NASA's return to the Moon firmly on Blue Origin and its lawyers. During the legal process, NASA was forbidden from working or even talking with SpaceX regarding the Human Landing System (HLS) program. The agency was also unable to provide milestone payments.
Sen. Lindsey Graham: “I will do everything in my power” to block Biden FCC pick
Senate Republicans are planning a strong fight against President Biden's nomination of consumer advocate Gigi Sohn to the Federal Communications Commission. "I will do everything in my power to convince colleagues on both sides of the aisle to reject this extreme nominee," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) wrote in a Twitter thread yesterday.
Sohn has a longtime career in government policy, having co-founded consumer-advocacy group Public Knowledge in 2001. In 2013, then-FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler chose Sohn to serve as a counselor, and the FCC proceeded to adopt Title II common-carrier and net neutrality regulations for Internet service providers—rules that were later overturned during the Trump administration. Since leaving the FCC, Sohn has continued to push for strict regulations to protect telecom consumers. […]
Sohn's support of consumer protection regulations was obviously going to put her at odds with Senate Republicans, but conservatives are also claiming she'll use the FCC to censor them.