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June temperatures briefly passed key climate threshold. Scientists expect more such spikes
AP News
Worldwide temperatures briefly exceeded a key warming threshold earlier this month, a hint of heat and its harms to come, scientists worry.
The mercury has since dipped again, but experts say the short surge marked a new global heat record for June and indicates more extremes ahead as the planet enters an El Niño phase that could last years.
Researchers at the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said Thursday that the start of June saw global surface air temperatures rise 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels for the first time. That is the threshold governments said they would try to stay within at a 2015 summit in Paris.
That Time Donald Trump Promised "Food for Everyone" at Versailles
Miami New Times
Donald Trump was in Miami yesterday to plead not guilty to 37 counts in a felony case that alleges he illegally hoarded classified documents from his time in the White House. […]
Trump opted to decompress with a trip to Versailles in Little Havana. The iconic restaurant has long been a pit stop for politicians seeking to curry favor with Miami's Cuban voters. […]
A glad-handing Trump was heard to declare, "Food for everyone!" […]
It turns out no one got anything. Not even a cafecito to-go.
CNN
US District Judge Aileen Cannon issued her first order since … Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith for allegedly mishandling classified information, instructing the parties to get the ball rolling to obtain security clearances for the lawyers who will need them.
In a Thursday order, Cannon gave “all attorneys of record and forthcoming attorneys of record” a Friday deadline for getting in touch with the Justice Department’s litigation security group so that they can expedite “the necessary clearance process.”
By June 20, she wants the lawyers to file a notice confirming they have complied with her instructions.
The Republicans’ remarkable views of Trump’s classified documents
The Washington Post
[…] As the country reckons with an unprecedented federal indictment of a former president, one of the most significant hurdles to a public resolution is arriving at a shared set of basic facts and priorities. And that’s particularly a challenge with the American right.
Multiple polls focused on the Trump classified documents case suggest that many, if not most, Republicans don’t particularly appreciate the potential gravity of the situation or its details. And it can’t simply be explained by mere partisanship.
One of the inescapable facts of the situation is that Trump got himself in trouble not because he took the documents in the first place, but because he declined to return them. The indictment only charges conduct after the government subpoenaed Trump’s documents in May 2022. After that subpoena, Trump only returned some of his remaining classified documents before the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago turned up more. The Washington Post recapped how Trump’s fateful decision not to return the documents resulted from rejecting his lawyers’ advice.
But despite it being readily apparent that Trump didn’t do what the government asked, a new YouGov poll shows Republicans, by and large, maintain that he did. It shows 53 percent say Trump “cooperated in returning documents,” with just 15 percent saying he didn’t.
Airman Who Leaked Files Is Indicted on Charges of Mishandling Secrets
The New York Times
A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, who posted dozens of secret intelligence reports and other sensitive documents on a gaming server, on six counts of retaining and transmitting classified national defense information.
The filing of criminal charges against Airman Teixeira, 21, comes two months after F.B.I. agents arrested him at his home in North Dighton, Mass., on April 13.
Airman Teixeira has remained in federal custody after prosecutors presented evidence that he had a history of making violent and racist threats, had access to an arsenal of weapons and represented a risk of sharing sensitive information with foreign countries.
Harris to deliver speech in North Carolina on anniversary of Roe v. Wade reversal
NBC News
Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver a major speech in North Carolina on June 24 as part of the Biden administration's plans to mark the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, a White House official told NBC News on Thursday.
During the speech in Charlotte, Harris, the first female vice president, will rally supporters, advocates and community leaders around the administration’s focus on the fight for reproductive rights, the official said.
It will be among several events the White House plans to hold this month to mark the anniversary, putting a spotlight on an issue campaign advisers see as a dominant 2024 voting issue.
Nearly a year later, most Americans oppose Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe
NPR News
A growing majority of Americans support legal abortion in at least the early months of pregnancy, but the public has become more politically divided on the issue, according to a new Gallup poll.
The data, released days before the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision that overturned decades of precedent, suggests continued growth in public support for abortion rights. It comes at a time when many states are implementing new restrictions, which often include only limited exceptions for medical emergencies.
A year after Dobbs, 61% of respondents said overturning Roe was a "bad thing," while 38% said it was a "good thing."
Supreme Court delivers win for Native American tribes in adoption case
CNBC
The Supreme Court on Thursday handed a major win to Native Americans by rejecting a challenge to a federal law aimed at protecting children and buttressing tribal identity.
In a 7-2 vote, the court turned away a series of claims seeking to invalidate parts of the Indian Child Welfare Act enacted in 1978 to keep Native American children within tribes. Among the provisions challenged was one that gives preference to Native Americans seeking to foster or adopt Native American children.
President Joe Biden said in a statement that the decision “keeps in place a vital protection for tribal sovereignty and Native children.”
The court, in a ruling authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, said the challengers did not have legal standing to contest whether the preference provisions violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment by discriminating on the basis of race.
US military chief says Ukraine offensive a ‘very difficult fight’
Al Jazeera
Senior US military officials said Ukraine faces a tough fight in the ongoing counteroffensive against Russian forces and the campaign to take back territory will likely come “at a high cost”.
The US assessment of Kyiv’s counteroffensive came as Chechen fighters said they had deployed to Russia’s Belgorod region bordering Ukraine to prevent attacks from pro-Ukraine Russian partisan groups and as Ukrainian military officials on Thursday reported advances along the front line in several locations.
“Ukraine has begun their attack, and they are making steady progress. This is a very difficult fight. It’s a very violent fight, and it will likely take a considerable amount of time at a high cost,” US Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday.
Russia tries to signal normalcy as Ukraine forces advance
Reuters
Russia announced plans on Thursday to stage elections in occupied parts of Ukraine in just three months, Moscow's latest bid to signal it is in control even as a Ukrainian counteroffensive has pushed its forces back in some areas.
The Ukrainian assault is in its early stages, and military experts say the decisive battles still lie ahead. But corpses of Russian soldiers and burnt-out armoured vehicles lining the roadside in villages newly recaptured by Ukrainian troops attested to Kyiv's biggest advances since last year.
"Our heroic people, our troops on... the front line are facing very tough resistance," Zelenskiy told NBC News in an interview in Kyiv. "Because for Russia to lose this campaign to Ukraine, I would say, actually means losing the war."
'It was hell.' Mother speaks of rescuing her child from Russian captivity
The Kyiv Independent
On Oct. 8, Tetiana Bodak was busy organizing a funeral for her mother, who was killed by a Russian attack in then-occupied Kherson Oblast, when she got an unexpected and very emotional phone call from her son.
"Mom, I'm in Oleshky (a Russian-occupied settlement in Kherson Oblast). On the way to Crimea," she heard him saying.
Bodak's confusion turned into fear the moment her 17-year-old son Vladyslav provided details. […]
Like thousands of other children in the occupied territories of Ukraine, Vladyslav became a victim of one of the darkest and most discussed outcomes of Russia's full-scale war — the forced deportation of Ukrainian children.
Kakhovka dam breach is devastating agriculture
Deutsche Welle
According to Ukraine's Agriculture Ministry, 600,000 hectares (1.44 million acres) of farmland no longer have access to irrigation water following the destruction of the Kakhovka dam on June 6. Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, about 4 million tons of grain and oilseeds worth $1.5 billion (€1.4 billion) were being harvested there annually.
"I have already not been able to farm my land since the occupiers have confiscated it, but now there won't be any water either," said Vasyl, a farmer from the region of Kherson, in southern Ukraine. "In February of this year, the Russians announced they were 'nationalizing' my fields and all of my farm."
Vasyl was forced to leave his home for western Ukraine for security reasons in 2022, but his parents still live in the territory, which is occupied by Russia, so he preferred not to give his full name to DW.
Super spy or paper pusher? How Putin’s KGB years in East Germany helped shape him
Los Angeles Times
Meticulous. Reticent. Clever, but never showy about it. Ever the watcher. It was 1989. The young Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was a KGB officer in the then-East German city of Dresden, and it was one of history’s pivotal moments.
The Berlin Wall had fallen. The repressive government of one of the Soviet Union’s most prized satellite states was collapsing, a prelude to the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. itself. The reunification of East and West Germany was just months away.
Putin’s five-year sojourn in Dresden, which abruptly ended in 1990, has come under renewed scrutiny as the 70-year-old Russian president prosecutes an increasingly brutal and bloody war in Ukraine — a neighboring sovereign state that for the last 16 months has fiercely resisted a total Russian takeover.
Hungary–US arms deal halted as Orban blocks Sweden's NATO membership
EuroNews
Right-wing Washington lawmaker is using Senate procedure to halt arms transfers. A lone American Senator is blocking Hungary from buying weapons from the US over its refusal to allow Sweden's accession to NATO.
Senator Jim Risch of Idaho is the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which reviews major overseas arms sales before they are given the go-ahead. His seniority gives him the prerogative to block deals unilaterally.
In a statement, Risch said his move was in direct response to Hungary's refusal to allow Sweden's accession, which requires the approval of NATO members.
“For some time now, I have directly expressed my concerns to the Hungarian government regarding its refusal to move forward a vote for Sweden to join NATO,” he told the Washington Post. “The fact that it is now June and still not done, I decided that the sale of new U.S. military equipment to Hungary will be on hold."
NATO Allies Reveal New Details on Ukrainian F-16 Training
Air & Space Forces Magazine
Western defense chiefs provided the most detailed public outline yet of their plans to remake Ukraine’s air force with Western jets such as the F-16 on June 15.
“The Netherlands and Denmark are stepping up to lead this consortium, and they are outlining the plan for training,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III told reporters at NATO headquarters after a gathering of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a collection of roughly 50 nations supporting Kyiv.
Kajsa Ollongren, the Dutch Minister of Defense, explained portions of that plan to the media after Austin’s remarks.
“We want to kickstart it first as soon as possible, but then work towards a more sustainable solution,” Ollongren said. She added that the current plan is to train “the first batch of Ukrainian pilots relatively soon. Our ambition is really to start this summer.”
Blinken visit seeks to ease fraught US relationship with China
The Guardian
In a long-awaited visit, the US secretary of state is due to arrive in China this week, where he is expected to meet with senior officials in an attempt to stabilise the fraught relationship between the two superpowers.
The buildup to Antony Blinken’s China visit has been marred by a series of tense exchanges. On Wednesday Qin Gang, China’s foreign minister, told Blinken in a phone call that the US should stop interfering in China’s internal affairs. Qin also said that the US should respect China’s concerns on the “Taiwan issue”. […]
Blinken, who will be in China on 18-19 June, will be the highest ranking US official to visit the country since Biden took office.
The visit comes at a low point in US-China relations. Beijing has repeatedly accused the US of engaging in double standards and a “new cold war mentality” when it comes to trade sanctions and export controls.
iPhone maker Foxconn to switch to cars as US-China tensions soar
BBC News
iPhone maker Foxconn is betting big on electric cars and redrawing some of its supply chains as it navigates a new era of icy Washington-Beijing relations.
In an exclusive interview, chairman and boss Young Liu told the BBC what the future may hold for the Taiwanese firm. He said even as Foxconn shifts some supply chains away from China, electric vehicles (EVs) are what will drive its growth in the coming decades. As US-China tensions soar, Mr Liu said, Foxconn must prepare for the worst.
"We hope peace and stability will be something the leaders of these two countries will keep in mind," 67-year-old Mr Liu told us, in his offices in Taipei, Taiwan's capital.
IBM quantum computer passes calculation milestone
Nature
Four years ago, physicists at Google claimed their quantum computer could outperform classical machines — although only at a niche calculation with no practical applications. Now their counterparts at IBM say they have evidence that quantum computers will soon beat ordinary ones at useful tasks, such as calculating properties of materials or the interactions of elementary particles.
In a proof-of-principle experiment described in Nature on 14 June, the researchers simulated the behaviour of a magnetic material on IBM’s Eagle quantum processor. Crucially, they managed to work around quantum noise — the main obstacle for this technology because it introduces errors in calculations — to get reliable results.
Their ‘error-mitigating’ techniques enabled the team to do quantum calculation “at a scale where classical computers will struggle”, says Katie Pizzolato, who heads IBM’s quantum theory group in Yorktown Heights, New York.
Climate change is causing Americans to move. They usually stay local, study finds
NPR News
Most people who move because of climate change in the United States don't go far, and they end up in homes that are less threatened by the effects of global warming, according to new research. The findings underscore the degree to which climate-related relocation is a hyperlocal phenomenon that can nonetheless protect people from disasters such as floods and hurricanes.
Sociologists at Rice University studied thousands of homeowners who sold their extremely flood-prone homes to the government through a special federal program, administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The program has moved about 50,000 families out of flood zones since the 1980s, and demand for such federal buyouts is growing.
The study is the first to examine where those families ended up living, and it found that most people stayed within a 20-minute drive of their original homes. Most families also moved to homes with lower flood risk, meaning the program successfully accomplished its primary goal.
The Summer of Smoke Is Just Getting Started
Gizmodo
Last week, hazardous air hung over much of the Eastern U.S.—blanketing major cities like New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. in a heavy haze of smoke. The Air Quality Index shot above 400 in some places (including NYC), well into the danger zone for human health. Thankfully, shifting air currents and weather improved air quality over the weekend. But the reprieve is likely temporary as Canadian wildfires continue to multiply and grow. Brief intermissions aside, the U.S. could be in for a whole season of bad air.
Canada has had an “unprecedented” start to its fire season, according to the country’s officials. The first hints of trouble for North America’s forests and lungs began in May when smoke from Alberta blazes covered Montana and parts of Idaho, Colorado, and Arizona in a dangerous, smoky smog. Also last month, Nova Scotia fires led to air quality alerts in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. And now, including the more recent Quebec fires, almost every Canadian province is dealing with big burns.
“If this rate continues, we could hit record levels for area burned this year,” Michael Norton, director of Canada’s Northern Forestry Center, said in a June 5 press briefing. “We are already seeing one of the worst wildfire seasons on record, and we must prepare for a long summer,” said Steven Guilbeault, the nation’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, in a news statement. Drought and hot weather, exacerbated by human-caused climate change, are to blame.
Minnesota clinics seeing more wheezing, struggling patients amid very unhealthy air
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Calls and visits to Minnesota medical clinics increased midweek as people inhaling historically bad air could no longer tolerate it.
"You breathe the stuff in yesterday, and today stuff is flaring," said Dr. Andrew Stiehm, a pulmonologist with Allina Health in St. Paul.
Air quality levels in the Twin Cities nudged into the "very unhealthy" range at one point on Wednesday as smoke from Canadian wildfires blew south.
Nick Witcraft, an air quality meteorologist with the MPCA, said Wednesday's smoke was the worst on record for the Twin Cities. At 6 p.m. Wednesday, St. Paul had the worst air quality in the United States, with a score of 256, according to AirNow.gov, the official U.S. air-quality index site.
Canada’s fires could worsen next week, sending more smoke into U.S.
The Washington Post
The latest surge of smoke pollution from Canadian wildfires is smothering parts of the Northern Plains and Midwest, resulting in unhealthy air for a second day in Minnesota and parts of neighboring states. […]
Canada’s historically bad fire season, in which 5.3 million hectares (13.1 million acres) have burned, is young, and weather projections suggest the hot, dry conditions that have fueled these blazes could intensify next week. Then, steering currents in the atmosphere could ferry yet more smoke into the northeastern United States.
“It’s not if but rather when the northern Ontario and Quebec will make headlines again,” tweeted Anthony Farnell, the chief meteorologist at Canada’s Global News.
Southern African caterpillar that feeds millions may be next climate casualty
Mongabay
Climate change will severely reduce the distribution of a caterpillar that’s harvested, sold and eaten by millions of people across Southern Africa, with some regions projected to lose nearly 100% of suitable habitat for the insects even under a moderate climate change scenario, a new study suggests.
The mopane worm (Gonimbrasia belina) feeds mostly on the butterfly-shaped leaves of the tree of the same name, Colophospermum mopane, a deciduous species that grows in mixed woodland or forms vast pure stands. But rising temperatures will severely restrict the places where mopane trees can grow, and, consequently, where the mopane worms can flourish, according to the study published in Frontiers of Biogeography.
The scientists behind the work devised species distribution models to predict the future range of the caterpillars in Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa, where mopane worms are most abundant, under two different climate change scenarios.
New details emerge after 152 koalas killed on private property: 'Unacceptable'
Yahoo! News Australia
“Embarrassing” is how the Victorian government’s approach to koala management has been described after a population living across a contaminated plantation became so sick over 150 animals were euthanised. Others determined to be in acceptable health were released back into the same forest.
Concerns about the government's handling of the situation at an industrial site in Portland were raised in parliament by Animal Justice Party MP Georgie Purcell. Since then her team have been inundated with questions about the koalas' welfare from Australia and overseas.
"Killing over 150 koalas cannot be considered appropriate management as they say it is. The Victorian public simply won't accept it," Ms Purcell told Yahoo News Australia. "That is why they are so desperate to cover up what is going on... and why it has been so difficult to get any answers or outcomes about the koalas."
The severity of the problem was revealed in May, when US industrial-giant Alcoa confirmed it euthanised 152 of 348 koalas health-checked between 2019 and 2023. The animals had been living in eucalyptus trees next to its aluminium smelter and many were suffering from a bone disease called fluorosis.
Is the PGA Tour-LIV Golf merger even legal?
Vox
The golf world was rocked last week by news that the PGA Tour, Europe’s DP World Tour, and Saudi Arabia’s controversial LIV Golf plan to merge. […]
Already, one senator, Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who chairs the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, signaled that he has some major reservations about the deal. Less than a week after it was announced, the senator wrote to the PGA Tour and LIV Golf requesting that they send records and communications about the deal to the subcommittee, saying in both letters that it “raises concerns about the Saudi government’s role in influencing this effort and the risks posed by a foreign government entity assuming control over a cherished American institution.”
There may be another hazard up ahead: antitrust regulators, who have generally taken a more adversarial stance on corporate consolidation in the last several years. They might not be thrilled with the game (and business) of golf being “unified” ... or a commissioner who expressly said the deal would mean less competition. And, sure enough, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that regulators are “reviewing” the proposed merger.
Tesla’s Magic Has Been Reduced to Its Chargers
The Atlantic
[…] The playbook Tesla wrote is now being run by almost every car company, and Tesla’s cars feel less special than they once did. Its car lineup is getting old; it leans on heavy price cuts instead of fresh merchandise while the electric competition starts to pass it by…
But Tesla still has one unbeatable superpower—its chargers. In recent weeks, Ford and General Motors separately announced that their cars will soon install ports on their electric vehicles compatible with Tesla’s plugs, eschewing the Combined Charging System (CCS) plug that seemed destined to be the industry standard in the United States. Just like that, the Tesla plug, once exclusive to its cars, could now very likely be the future of electric driving: Tesla, Ford, and GM alone account for roughly 70 percent of all EVs sold in the U.S., according to reporting from Reuters. If even one other big car company signs on to Tesla’s charging standard, CCS is all but done. Musk has already invited Toyota to join the party. The EV revolution has never hinged more on Tesla than right now.
Even the most hardened Musk critic will admit that the company got its Supercharger network right. With more than 17,000 locations in North America alone, it’s the most extensive public charging network in the world, and is also widely regarded as the most reliable and easiest to use. You pull up, plug in, and are billed for the electricity. Because these are Tesla chargers, they use only Tesla’s plugs, called the North American Charging Standard (NACS). Some Supercharger stations have adapters for other EVs now, but for the most part, they’ve stayed exclusive to Tesla’s vehicles. The chargers available to other EV cars, typically run by third-party companies, are infamous for making drivers use multiple payment apps, breaking down, and being too scarce.
Electric vehicles alone can’t solve transportation’s climate problems
Yale Climate Connections
To cut heat-trapping emissions, we also need to reduce car use […]
In much of the world, of course, the car remains king — a fact that’s reflected in policy focus on electric vehicles, or EVs, as a decarbonization solution. […]
Transportation is the largest source of heat-trapping emissions in the United States and one of the largest globally, so there’s an urgent need to move away from fossil-fuel-powered engines. But with relatively little fanfare, many government officials across the globe are cautioning that while EVs are necessary, they’re not sufficient, for a number of reasons.
“There is a strong lobby to simply saying, ‘Well, you just need to give people electric cars and that will solve the climate problem with transport’ — and that’s clearly not true,” said Lee Waters, the deputy minister for climate change in Wales. “We need to reduce tailpipe emissions and carbon as well as reducing the overall number of car journeys.”
In a First, Wind and Solar Generated More Power Than Coal in U.S.
E&E News via Scientific American
Wind and solar generated more electricity than coal through May, an E&E News review of federal data shows, marking the first time renewables have outpaced the former king of American power over a five-month period. […]
Renewable energy generation exceeded coal-fired power in 2020 and 2022, but only when hydropower was counted as a source of renewable energy, according to figures compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
This year has been different. Wind and solar sources generated a combined 252 terawatt-hours through the first five months of 2023, compared with coal output of 249 TWh, EIA data shows. Hydro generated an additional 117 TWh through May.
Linguists have identified a new English dialect that’s emerging in South Florida
The Conversation
“We got down from the car and went inside.”
“I made the line to pay for groceries.”
“He made a party to celebrate his son’s birthday.”
These phrases might sound off to the ears of most English-speaking Americans. In Miami, however, they’ve become part of the local parlance.
According to my recently published research, these expressions – along with a host of others – form part of a new dialect taking shape in South Florida.
This language variety came about through sustained contact between Spanish and English speakers, particularly when speakers translated directly from Spanish. […]
For example, we found people to use expressions such as "get down from the car" instead of "get out of the car." This is based on the Spanish phrase "bajar del carro," which translates, for speakers outside of Miami, as "get out of the car." But "bajar" means "to get down," so it makes sense that many Miamians think of "exiting" a car in terms of "getting down" and not "getting out."
Inside the battle to build a $1.2 billion fish barricade
Ars Technica
Over the past 50-some years, invasive carp, a stunningly destructive invasive species, have infested almost every waterway in the Midwest, from South Dakota to beyond the Mississippi Delta, and have even reached West Virginia. In some waters, it has been reported that around 90 percent of the fish are invasive carp; in one section of the Illinois River, a Mississippi tributary, they make up more than 75 percent of the total biomass in the water. They are obnoxious invaders, overwhelming other fish species, muddying clear waters, and—in some cases—jumping out of the water when startled. A passing boat can throw hundreds of fish into a frenzy, creating an airborne blizzard of 25-pound lunkers that have broken the arms and jaws of recreational boaters.
So far, however, the prolific fish have mostly stopped short of the Great Lakes, blocked by the subtle ridge of a continental divide that circles the lakes’ southern and western shores. Water to the west and south of the ridge flows to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. Water to the east and north flows to the Great Lakes, which contain about 20 percent of the world’s surface fresh water and attract boating, fishing, and other recreation, which all together have been estimated to generate between $14 billion and $42 billion a year.
But the fish, formerly called Asian carp, could still find a way in. There is a single year-round connection between those two main watersheds of eastern North America: the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.