Trump says he’s been indicted in special counsel investigation into classified documents
Los Angeles Times
[Donald] Trump has been indicted related to his handling of classified records, he said on social media Thursday, making him the first U.S. president charged with a federal crime. […]
The unprecedented decision comes after a more than yearlong investigation into whether Trump knowingly retained top-secret and other classified government records when he left office in 2021 and disregarded a subpoena to return all classified documents in his possession, and whether he and his staff obstructed FBI efforts to ensure all documents had been returned.
Presidential and other government records in the White House’s possession must be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration by the day a president leaves office. Archives staff quickly questioned why some materials were not received from Trump in 2021, prompting a months-long negotiation with the former president and his staff and resulting in the return of over 15 boxes of material in January 2022, including nearly 200 documents marked as classified.
Trump charges include conspiracy to obstruct, false statements
NBC News
The seven charges Trump faces include making false statements and conspiracy to obstruct, two sources briefed on the charges confirmed. All of the charges are related to retaining documents and obstructing justice, the sources said.
One of the sources noted that seven charges may not equal seven counts; multiple counts can be connected to each charge.
Lawmakers react to Trump indictment news
Politico
Lawmakers were quick to react following the news that … Donald Trump had been indicted on charges connected to his handling of classified documents. The reaction largely fell along party lines...
“Trump’s apparent indictment on multiple charges arising from his retention of classified materials is another affirmation of the rule of law,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a former Trump impeachment manager and a member of the high-profile Jan. 6 committee, wrote on Twitter. “For four years, he acted like he was above the law. But he should be treated like any other lawbreaker. And today, he has been,” Schiff added. […]
Multiple GOP lawmakers accused the Justice Department of attempting to interfere in the 2024 election, in which Trump is currently the Republican frontrunner.
Supreme Court Rejects Voting Map That Diluted Black Voters’ Power
The New York Times
The Supreme Court, in a surprise decision, ruled on Thursday that Alabama had diluted the power of Black voters in drawing a congressional voting map, reaffirming a landmark civil rights law that had been thought to be in peril.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who has often voted to restrict voting rights and is generally skeptical of race-conscious decision making by the government, wrote the majority opinion in the 5-to-4 ruling, stunning election-law experts. In agreeing that race may play a role in redistricting, the chief justice was joined by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh and the court’s three liberal members, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. […]
The impact of the decision, which required the Legislature to draw a second district in which Black voters have the opportunity to elect representatives of their choice, will not be limited to Alabama. Other states in the South, notably Louisiana and Georgia, may also have to redraw their maps to bolster Black voting power, which could, among other things, help Democrats in their efforts to retake the House.
Extreme weather expected as El Nino climate pattern returns, US forecaster says
Reuters
El Nino has officially returned and is likely to yield extreme weather later this year, from tropical cyclones spinning toward vulnerable Pacific islands to heavy rainfall in South America to drought in Australia and in some parts of Asia.
After three years of the La Nina climate pattern, which often lowers global temperatures slightly, the hotter El Nino is back in action, according to an advisory issued on Thursday by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center. […]
The last time an El Nino was in place, in 2016, the world saw its hottest year on record. Coupled with warming from climate change, 2023 or 2024 could reach new highs.
Global warming surged in past decade, research says
Deutsche Welle
Global warming has increased in the past decade by 1.14 degrees Celsius, according to new research presented on Thursday in the German city of Bonn during the interim negotiations for the annual UN Climate Conference (COP28).
The research warned that human-induced warming has been rising at an "unprecedented rate" of 0.2 degrees per decade. The study, which looked at the decade between 2013 and 2022, was published in the Earth System Science Data journal.
‘Unprecedented does not begin to describe this event’: Wildfire haze smothers East Coast
E&E News
The unhealthy haze that gripped vast swaths of the United States on Wednesday turned skies milky white, ushered schoolchildren indoors, put hospitals on alert and peaked air pollution far beyond federal health standards…
It’s also the latest manifestation of a trend that those regulators are effectively helpless to confront in the short term: bigger and longer-lasting wildfires linked to the effects of climate change. While those blazes are already catastrophically common in California and other Western states, hotter and drier conditions in eastern forests are now facilitating their spread in that part of the country as well.
And short of solving climate change, there’s not much for federal regulators to do about it.
“We’re going to see more fire risk,” said Jessica McCarty, director of the Geospatial Analysis Center at Miami University in Ohio and a NASA researcher in atmospheric smoke, told a House committee two years ago. Absent any way to stop the plume’s spread, state and local agencies could only warn residents to avoid it.
Biden sends firefighters, aid to Canada as wildfire smoke blankets much of the U.S.
CNBC
President Joe Biden on Thursday assured Americans the government was aiding Canada in fighting the wildfires that have cloaked the East Coast and Midwest in unhealthy levels of smoke and haze.
“Since May, more than 600 U.S. firefighters, support personnel, and firefighting assets have been deployed, working alongside Canadian firefighters to tackle what is likely to be the worst fire season in Canadian history, and one that has huge impacts here in the United States,” Biden said in a statement.
The president spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday and offered additional assistance to beat back the fires, particularly in Quebec, where 150 fires are burning. The president said he directed the National Interagency Fire Center to help as well.
In a statement, Trudeau thanked Biden for the aid, adding that the countries must “work together to address the devastating impacts of climate change.”
Kátł'odeeche First Nation residents grieve impact of wildfire on their community
CBC News
Isabelle Sunrise tried hiding her tears from her daughters when they drove through the Kátł'odeeche First Nation near Hay River, N.W.T., and saw the destruction left by a wildfire.
"As I drove home yesterday for the first time, like I couldn't keep it in, my heart sank," she said. "I started tearing up. By the time I got home, I was kind of sobbing, but I didn't wanna let my girls see but they heard me."
The community was evacuated on May 14 as a wildfire burned out-of-control nearby. Days later, it engulfed part of the reserve.
Wildfire smoke is a sign of things to come, climate experts warn
NY1
While wildfires are not unusual in Canada, they don’t typically don’t burn so intensely at this time of year, particularly in the eastern part of the country. That may change going forward, experts say, thanks to the effects of climate change.
“It’s fairly simple,” said Daniel Zarrilli, special advisor for climate and sustainability at Columbia University. “Hotter, drier conditions are making the kind of wildfires that we’re seeing in Canada right now more likely.”
“The wildfire season is starting earlier, running later,” said Bill Ulfelder, the New York executive director for the Nature Conservancy. “There are more fires. They’re bigger. And they’re more intense.”
U.N. climate chief calls for end to fossil fuels as talks head to Dubai
Mongabay
The world won’t be able to limit global temperature rise as called for in the 2015 Paris Agreement without eventually eliminating the use of fossil fuels, according to Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
“The position of the [UNFCCC] secretariat is following the science, and the science is clear,” Stiell said at a June 5 press conference for the climate talks underway in Bonn, Germany. Halving emissions by 2030, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says is necessary to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, and getting to net-zero emissions by 2050 “requires a deep cut and reduction, the phasing out, phasing down of all fossil fuels,” he said.
Arctic Sea Ice Is Melting Way Faster Than Previously Thought, Study Finds
Gizmodo
The Arctic Circle could lose its summer sea ice a whole decade earlier than previously projected by scientists. It’s yet another sign that the climate crisis is affecting our global systems faster than researchers had understood before.
In a new study published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers outlined how the Arctic could experience rapid sea ice loss as early as the 2030s. It’s a decade earlier than a 2021 UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which predicted that the region would lose its sea ice by the middle of this century, researchers wrote. And even if world leaders create policies that successfully lower earth-warming global emissions, the Arctic would still lose September sea ice by the 2050s, the study explained. […]
“These results emphasize the profound impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the Arctic, and demonstrate the importance of planning for and adapting to a seasonally ice-free Arctic in the near future,” researchers wrote in the study.
Climate Crisis Is on Track to Push One-Third of Humanity Out of Its Most Livable Environment
ProPublica
Climate change is remapping where humans can exist on the planet. As optimum conditions shift away from the equator and toward the poles, more than 600 million people have already been stranded outside of a crucial environmental niche that scientists say best supports life. By late this century, according to a study published last month in the journal Nature Sustainability, 3 to 6 billion people, or between a third and a half of humanity, could be trapped outside of that zone, facing extreme heat, food scarcity and higher death rates, unless emissions are sharply curtailed or mass migration is accommodated.
The research, which adds novel detail about who will be most affected and where, suggests that climate-driven migration could easily eclipse even the largest estimates as enormous segments of the earth’s population seek safe havens. It also makes a moral case for immediate and aggressive policies to prevent such a change from occurring, in part by showing how unequal the distribution of pain will be and how great the improvements could be with even small achievements in slowing the pace of warming.
Zelensky visits Kherson Oblast following Kakhovka dam disaster; Russia shells flooded city
The Kyiv Independent
President Volodymyr Zelensky met with regional authorities in Kherson Oblast on June 8 after Russia’s destruction of the Kakhovka dam caused substantial flooding in the region and elsewhere in southern Ukraine.
According to Zelensky, they discussed several key issues, including an assessment of the operational situation in Kherson Oblast, the ongoing evacuation of civilians, providing the necessary assistance to residents affected by flooding, and exploring potential plans for the region's ecosystem restoration. […]
Six hundred square kilometers of Kherson Oblast have been flooded since Russian forces blew up the Kakhovka dam on June 6, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on June 8. Sixty eight percent of that is located in Russian-occupied territory on the east bank of the Dnipro River, while 32% of it is in the Ukrainian-controlled west bank.
Is the Kakhovka dam breach a hard blow to the Ukrainian counteroffensive?
France24
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was direct in his assessment of the motives behind the Kakhovka dam breach on Tuesday, June 6. “Considering all the elements, we have to naturally assume that it was a Russian attack to stop the Ukrainian counteroffensive aiming to liberate Ukrainian territory,” the German leader said.
Ukrainian authorities have made the same claims, which have been denied by Russia. In turn, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu blamed the incident on the Ukrainian military who, he said, breached the dam to “prevent offensives by the Russian army along this part of the frontlines”.
US officials call reports of China plan to build a spy facility in Cuba ‘not accurate’
South China Morning Post
The White House and Pentagon called media reports on Thursday of Chinese plans to build a spy facility in Cuba inaccurate, capping off a day in which new concerns about national security threats emanating from Beijing sparked calls for a harder line against the country.
Beijing was said to have offered Havana cash payments on the order of “several billion” US dollars to be able to build the facility, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the “secret” agreement citing US officials familiar with the plan. […]
On Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said that “based on the information that we have … we are not aware of China and Cuba developing any type of spy stations”.
Chinese censors take aim at AirDrop and Bluetooth
BBC News
China wants to restrict the use of mobile file-sharing services such as AirDrop and Bluetooth in a move that will expand its censorship machine. The national internet regulator on Tuesday launched a month-long public consultation on the proposals.
They want service providers to prevent the spread of illegal and "undesirable" information, among other things. Activists fear that this will further hinder their ability to mobilise people, or share information.
Bluetooth, AirDrop and such file-sharing services are crucial tools in China, where the so-called Great Firewall has resulted in one of the mostly tightly-controlled internet regimes. In recent years, anti-government protesters have often turned to AirDrop to organise and share their political demands.
China’s rolling COVID waves could hit every six months — infecting millions
Nature
The latest surge in COVID-19 cases in China is not surprising to researchers, who say that China will see an infection cycle every six months now that all COVID-19 restrictions have been removed and highly infectious variants are dominant. But they caution that rolling waves of infection carry the risk of new variants emerging.
“Unfortunately, a new reality with this virus [is that] we will have repeated infections,” says Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle. “The fear is that this virus will produce a new variant that can compete with the current ones and is more severe.”
The current surge is caused mainly by a highly infectious subvariant of Omicron called XBB.1.5, first identified in India last August. According to Nanshan Zhong, a prominent respiratory physician in China, as many as 65 million people could become infected per week by the end this month.
This is the first major reinfection wave that China has seen since the central government dropped all its COVID-19 control measures in December, prompting a widespread Omicron outbreak.
NIH restarts bat virus grant suspended 3 years ago by Trump
Science
Three years after … Donald Trump pressured the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to suspend a research grant to a U.S. group studying bat coronaviruses with partners in China, the agency has restarted the award.
The new 4-year grant is a stripped-down version of the original grant to the EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit research organization in New York City, providing $576,000 per year. That 2014 award included funding for controversial experiments that mixed parts of different bat viruses related to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the coronavirus that sparked a global outbreak in 2002–04, and included a subaward to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). The new award omits those studies, and also imposes extensive new accounting rules on EcoHealth, which drew criticism from government auditors for its bookkeeping practices.
But EcoHealth’s embattled director, Peter Daszak, says his group is pleased: “Now we have the ability to finally get back to work,” he says.
6 months in, Hakeem Jeffries reflects on the debt ceiling drama and replacing Pelosi
NPR News
Democratic Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of New York was sworn into the 118th Congress six months ago, making history as the first Black House minority leader in U.S. history.
In that time, the House has seen a lot of division, and nowhere was that more evident than the recent talks on the debt ceiling, which saw the U.S. government almost default on its debts. The House of Representatives voted last week to pass a bill to suspend the nation's debt limit through January 1, 2025.
"It was incredibly important that we avoid this dangerous default, even though there were many extreme MAGA Republicans who were determined to bring that about," Jeffries told NPR.
George Santos’ Lawyer Was Part of the January 6 Mob
Mother Jones
George Santos, the lying and indicted GOP congressman from Queens, New York, has steadfastly refused to say where he was on January 6, 2021, while pro-Trump rioters were attacking the US Capitol to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory. He was filmed that day in the VIP section for the Donald Trump rally at the Ellipse that preceded the assault, but his post-rally whereabouts remain a mystery. Yet newly uncovered photos and video footage of January 6 show that his attorney, Joseph Murray, was in the angry pro-Trump mob that trespassed on Capitol grounds.
Archived footage obtained by Mother Jones from that day traces the movements of Murray and Angela Ng, who is identified on the website of Murray’s law firm as its office manager, as they marched from the Ellipse to the Capitol. Both Murray and Ng are retired New York police officers. Ng is also currently listed as working for Santos in his Queens district office as a constituent services representative, according to LegiStorm. Part of the throng of irate Trump loyalists, Murray and Ng passed downed barricades, entered restricted grounds, and made their way up the steps of the north side of the building. There they watched and Murray filmed, as hundreds of rioters nearby broke doors of the Capitol and poured into the building.
FBI agent who testified for Republicans was suspended over leaked sensitive information
NBC News
Garret O’Boyle, an FBI agent who was presented in a public hearing by House Republicans as a whistleblower, was suspended by the bureau because internal investigators had concluded that he leaked sensitive investigative information to the right-wing group Project Veritas, according to a bureau official.
House Democrats now accuse O'Boyle of lying to the committee and are referring the matter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, according to a letter obtained by NBC News.
Lawmakers learned about the reason for O'Boyle's suspension, which was previously unreported, in testimony that Jennifer Moore, the FBI’s executive assistant director for human resources, provided to the House Judiciary Committee's Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Parts of her testimony are included in a letter top Democrats on the Judiciary and Weaponization panels wrote to Garland, alleging that O’Boyle lied to the committee about leaking information before he was suspended.
USAID says it is halting all food aid to Ethiopia amid diversions
Al Jazeera
The United States aid agency USAID has announced it is halting food aid to all of Ethiopia, a month after pausing aid to the war-torn Tigray region, citing illicit diversions.
The agency on Thursday cited “a widespread and coordinated campaign” to divert aid from those in need as the reason for the suspension in Ethiopia, which has grappled with rampant hunger amid civil war and drought.
“We made the difficult but necessary decision that we cannot move forward with distribution of food assistance until reforms are in place,” said a statement by a spokesperson for the US government’s main international aid agency.
“Our intention is to immediately resume food assistance once we are confident in the integrity of delivery systems to get assistance to its intended recipients,” the statement added.
AI system devises first optimizations to sorting code in over a decade
Ars Technica
Anyone who has taken a basic computer science class has undoubtedly spent time devising a sorting algorithm—code that will take an unordered list of items and put them in ascending or descending order. It's an interesting challenge because there are so many ways of doing it and because people have spent a lot of time figuring out how to do this sorting as efficiently as possible.
Sorting is so basic that algorithms are built into most standard libraries for programming languages. And, in the case of the C++ library used with the LLVM compiler, the code hasn't been touched in over a decade.
But Google's DeepMind AI group has now developed a reinforcement learning tool that can develop extremely optimized algorithms without first being trained on human code examples. The trick was to set it up to treat programming as a game.