Bags hang on empty pumps this week at a gas station in Georgia.
“Colonial Pipeline finally launched the restart of its operations yesterday evening following a six-day shutdown caused by a ransomware attack. This means shortages and ultra-long lines at the pump are coming to an end, but it will take several days for service to get back to normal. The ransomware group that carried out the attack demanded millions in bitcoin cryptocurrency payment. Colonial Pipeline and US government officials have managed to retrieve the most important data that was stolen, so it doesn’t look like the company will need to pay up. Meanwhile, President Biden signed an executive order meant to better protect the nation from cyberattacks like this one, which are also becoming a concern for entities like banks and stock exchanges. However, even the Biden administration admitted more would need to be done to stop an attack like the Colonial Pipeline hack.” Read more at CNN
“For years, President Donald Trump and his deputies played down the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels and delayed the release of an Environmental Protection Agency report detailing climate-related damage. But on Wednesday, the EPA released a detailed and disturbing account of the startling changes that Earth’s warming had on parts of the United States during Trump’s presidency.
The destruction of year-round permafrost in Alaska, loss of winter ice on the Great Lakes and spike in summer heat waves in U.S. cities all signal that climate change is intensifying, the EPA said in its report. The assessment, which languished under the Trump administration for three years, marks the first time the agency has said such changes are being driven at least in part by human-caused global warming.
As it launched an updated webpage to inform the public on how climate change is upending communities throughout the country, the Biden administration gave the agency’s imprimatur to a growing body of evidence that climate effects are happening faster and becoming more extreme than when EPA last published its ‘Climate Indicators’ data in 2016.” Read more at Washington Post
“WASHINGTON — Republicans sought to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6 insurrection during a rancorous congressional hearing Wednesday, painting the Trump supporters who attacked the Capitol as patriots harassed by law enforcement and downplaying repeatedly the violence of the day.
Democrats, meanwhile, clashed with Trump’s former Pentagon chief about the unprepared response to a riot that began when hundreds of Trump loyalists bent on overturning the election broke through police barriers, smashed windows, and laid siege to the building.
The colliding lines of questioning, and a failure to settle on a universally agreed-upon set of facts, underscored the challenges Congress faces as it sets out to investigate the violence and government missteps. The House Oversight Committee hearing unfolded just after Republicans in the chamber removed Representative Liz Cheney from her leadership post for rebuking Trump for his false claims of election fraud and his role in inciting the attack.
Former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, testifying publicly for the first time about Jan. 6, tried to defend their respective agencies’ responses to the chaos. But the hearing almost immediately devolved into partisan bickering about how that day unfolded, with at least one Republican brazenly stating there wasn’t an insurrection at all.
‘I find it hard to believe the revisionist history that’s being offered by my colleagues on the other side,’ Representative Stephen Lynch, a Massachusetts Democrat, proclaimed in exasperation. Other Democrats made similar accusations, with Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland urging his Republican colleagues to stop with the ‘evasions’ and ‘distractions.’
The violence of that day is well-established, particularly after an impeachment trial that focused on the clashes between rioters and police that left officers beaten and bloodied, including one who was crushed between a door and another shocked with a stun gun before he had a heart attack. Some of the insurrectionists threatened to hang then-Vice President Mike Pence and menacingly called for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in an apparent effort to find her.
But Republican lawmakers on the committee sought to refocus the hearing’s attention away from those facts, repeatedly equating the insurrection with violence in American cities last summer that arose from racial justice protests that they said Democrats had failed to forcefully condemn. Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona played video footage of violence outside the federal courthouse while Representative Andrew Clyde of Georgia said that while ‘there were some rioters’ on Jan. 6, it was a ‘bald-faced lie’ to call it an insurrection.
In ways that clearly rewrote the facts of the day and the investigations that resulted, Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona said the Justice Department was ‘harassing peaceful patriots.’ He described a California woman who was fatally shot by an officer during the insurrection after climbing through the broken part of a door as having been ‘executed,’ even though prosecutors have said the officer won’t be prosecuted because the shooting did not break the law.
’’It was Trump supporters who lost their lives that day, not Trump supporters who were taking the lives of others,’ said Representative Jody Hice of Georgia, overlooking that loyalists to the president instigated the riot, smashing through windows and spraying officers with pepper and bear spray.
Democrats bristled at the Republican characterization of the violence, with Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts saying: ‘This was a violent white supremacist mob who assaulted the nation’s Capitol. It was a deadly and dangerous insurrection that was incited by Donald Trump.’
One Capitol Police officer who was injured while confronting rioters suffered a stroke and died a day later of natural causes. Dozens more were severely injured, some of whom may never return to duty.
Democrats clashed with Miller repeatedly over the hours-long gap between when the National Guard was first requested and the time troops arrived. Representative Ro Khanna of California told Miller he was dumfounded ‘we had someone like you in that role.’ After Miller described a line of questioning from Lynch as ridiculous, the congressman shot back that Miller was ridiculous.
‘You were AWOL, Mr. Secretary,’ said Democratic Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois.
‘That’s completely inaccurate,’ Miller replied. ‘That’s completely inaccurate.’
In testimony aimed at rebutting broad criticism that military forces were too slow to arrive even as the pro-Trump rioters violently breached the building and stormed inside, Miller told the committee he was concerned before the insurrection that sending troops to the Capitol could fan fears of a military coup and cause a repeat of the deadly Kent State shootings in 1970.
‘No such thing was going to occur on my watch, but these concerns, and hysteria about them, nonetheless factored into my decisions regarding the appropriate and limited use of our armed forces to support civilian law enforcement during the Electoral College certification,’ Miller said. ‘My obligation to the nation was to prevent a constitutional crisis.’
Miller said that though military involvement in domestic law enforcement should be a ‘last resort,’ he regarded the speed at which the Defense Department moved on Jan. 6 as a success. He said he stood by each decision he made that day.
He said that though Trump had encouraged his supporters to protest the election results, he did not believe Trump’s rhetoric — which led to his impeachment — was the ‘unitary’ factor in the riot. This drew complaints from Democrats, who said Miller appeared to be softening criticism of Trump that he voiced in earlier media interviews.: Read more at Boston Globe
“The deadly Jan. 6 assault on the US Capitol was the most dangerous threat to American democracy in decades, eclipsing other recent acts of violence such as attacks on courthouses and police stations last year, Attorney General Merrick Garland said.
‘It’s fair to say that in my career as a judge and in law enforcement I have not seen a more dangerous threat to democracy than the invasion of the Capitol,’ Garland told the Senate Appropriations Committee during a hearing Wednesday on domestic terrorism.
Garland’s defense of the Biden’s administration focus on investigating the Jan. 6 riot comes as some congressional Republicans and supporters of former President Donald Trump have sought to equate the attack with violence carried out last summer at government buildings by left-wing activists in cities like Portland, Ore.” Read more at Boston Globe
“WASHINGTON — It took just 16 minutes on Wednesday morning for House Republicans to surgically remove Representative Liz Cheney from their leadership team, an act that both expunged a conservative stalwart who has challenged former president Donald Trump’s election lies and cementedthose fictions as GOP orthodoxy.
“We must go forward based on truth,” said Cheney, 54, defiantly striding out of the meeting and vowing to lead a fight against Trump after she was dumped by a voice vote. “We cannot both embrace the Big Lie and embrace the Constitution.”
Cheney’s ouster, a stunning rebuke for the member of a Wyoming family that helped to shape the GOP for decades, likely clears the way for the rise of RepresentativeElise Stefanik, 36, an erstwhile Trump critic from upstate New York who has recast her political personaover the past 18 months to fit a party firmly clampedin the former president’s vise.
‘There are serious issues related to election irregularities in the state of Georgia, as well as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin,’ Stefanik told reporters on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, displaying her commitment to baseless doubts about a fair election ahead of the expected vote to make her the third-ranking House Republican on Friday.
The diverging fates of the two women tell the story of a major American political party that has decided to live or die by a lie.
It mattered little to the Republicans saying ‘yes’ to remove Cheney that shehas a more conservative record than Stefanik, nor that the claims of election fraud their party has embraced brought a violent insurrection to their workplace four months ago. What mattered was that Cheney opposes Trump.
‘Liz Cheney was canceled today for speaking her mind and disagreeing with the narrative that President Trump has put forth,’ said Representative Ken Buck, a conservative from Colorado who voted to support her, and who derided Stefanik as a ‘liberal.’
The fall of Cheney and the rise of Stefanik — who, despite some opposition has the support of House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, minority whip Steve Scalise, and most importantly, Trump — is the latest contortion in a party that is remaking itself. Most of the party’s Trump renegades have retired (think former senator Jeff Flake of Arizona), lost reelection (think former representative Carlos Curbelo of Florida), or transformed (think Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina).” Read more at Boston Globe
“MINNEAPOLIS — Derek Chauvin abused his authority as a police officer when he pressed his knee into George Floyd’s neck until he went limp and treated him with ‘particular cruelty,’ qualifying him for a longer prison sentence, a judge said.
In a ruling made public Wednesday, Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill found state prosecutors had proved beyond a reasonable doubt four of five aggravating factors in Floyd’s killing that they argued should result in a tougher prison sentence for the former Minneapolis police officer.
Chauvin was convicted April 20 of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter in Floyd’s May 25 killing. Floyd died when Chauvin placed his knees on Floyd’s neck and back for more than nine minutes while he was handcuffed, facedown, on a Minneapolis street. Chauvin, who is being held in solitary confinement at a Minnesota prison, is scheduled to be sentenced June 25.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene aggressively confronted Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday and falsely accused her of supporting ‘terrorists,’ leading the New York congresswoman’s office to call on leadership to ensure that Congress remains ‘a safe, civil place for all Members and staff.’
Two Washington Post reporters witnessed Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) exit the House chamber late Wednesday afternoon ahead of Greene (Ga.), who shouted ‘Hey Alexandria’ twice in an effort to get her attention. When Ocasio-Cortez did not stop walking, Greene picked up her pace and began shouting at her and asking why she supports antifa, a loosely knit group of far-left activists, and Black Lives Matter, falsely labeling them ‘terrorist’ groups. Greene also shouted that Ocasio-Cortez was failing to defend her ‘radical socialist’ beliefs by declining to publicly debate the freshman from Georgia.
‘You don’t care about the American people,’ Greene shouted. ‘Why do you support terrorists and antifa?’
Ocasio-Cortez did not stop to answer Greene, only turning around once and throwing her hands in the air in an exasperated motion. The two reporters were not close enough to hear what the New York congresswoman said, and her office declined to discuss her specific response.” Read more at Washington Post
“Former Trump White House counsel Donald McGahn is expected to answer questions ‘as soon as possible’ in a closed session with House lawmakers about former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, according to an agreement outlined in court filings Wednesday.
McGahn will appear before the House Judiciary Committee, the court filing states, after House Democrats sued to enforce a subpoena for his testimony about whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice in Mueller’s Russia investigation.
A transcript of the interview, which will be closed to the public and the media, will be ‘promptly provided to all involved parties’ for review before it is released publicly, according to the court filing.
The agreement was negotiated by President Biden’s Justice Department and House lawyers to end the long-running litigation over McGahn’s testimony that the Trump administration had blocked.” Read more at Washington Post
“Israel’s military is set to decide today whether to escalate its bombing campaign in Gaza by adding ground forces after another day of relentless airstrikes reportedly killed several Hamas commanders and destroyed more buildings in Gaza as Hamas continued its rocket fire into Israel. At least 90 people have been killed so far in the fighting, with Palestinians making up the vast majority of the dead.
Sectarian violence has spread to cities across Israel, as Jewish mobs ransacked Arab businesses near Tel Aviv and beat a man on live television, and the city of Lod was declared ‘locked down’ following rioting and the torching of synagogues by Arab residents.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“FAA approves Boeing's proposed remedies for the 737 MAX. The plane maker can fix an electrical problem that has grounded more than 100 of its jets, paving the way for airlines to return them to passenger service within days.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Tesla stops accepting bitcoin for car sales. The cryptocurrency's value against the dollar fell more than 5% after CEO Elon Musk tweeted about concerns over bitcoin's link to fossil fuels. He said transactions wouldn't resume until ‘mining transitions to more sustainable energy.’” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Scientists hunt for the link between some Covid-19 vaccines and blood clots. Determining the connection between the shots from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson and rare clots would help experts to better assess any risks posed and safely calibrate their use. A scientist in Germany thinks he has found an answer.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Another challenge looms over the world’s most advanced economies as they turn the tide against Covid-19: the potential threat of inflation.
Shoppers surging to stores and diners trickling back to eateries in the U.S., the U.K. and parts of Europe are unleashing pent-up demand for goods and services.
That’s combining with the pandemic hangover of supply-chain disruptions, spiking commodity prices and rising wages to potentially reawaken the economic bugbear that’s feared at least as much as recession by policy makers.
Consumer prices in the U.S. jumped the most in more than a decade in April. While officials at the Federal Reserve described the rise in prices as ‘transitory,’ investors responded by driving stock prices lower.
For everyone else, inflation will be felt both at the cash register and in its influence on government spending decisions.
It’s fanning anxiety over President Joe Biden’s $4 trillion plan to remake the U.S. economy. He argues more spending on families and infrastructure is crucial after decades of rising inequality and decay.
Biden’s allies say the plan won’t fuel inflation because it’s spread over years and will be offset by tax hikes. His Republican opponents are already making comparisons with the 1970s ‘stagflation’ era of former President Jimmy Carter.
Fiscal restraint also carries risks. In Colombia, deadly street protests forced President Ivan Duque to scrap a plan to trim the budget deficit by increasing the tax burden on the rich and the middle class.
Many governments will have to tread carefully between alleviating poverty caused by the pandemic and fine tuning public spending in the face of inflation risks. The wrong economic call could spell political disaster with voters long exhausted by the health crisis.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Randi Weingarten, president of the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union, plans to call on Thursday for a full reopening of the nation’s schools for the next academic year, saying: ‘There is no doubt: Schools must be open. In person. Five days a week.’
Her prepared remarks, made available to The New York Times, come with about half of the nation’s public schools not offering five days per week of in-person learning to all students and with many families uncertain about whether they will have the option for a more traditional schedule in the fall.
Teachers’ unions have been one key barrier to a broader opening this school year, accused of slowing reopening timelines as they sought strict virus mitigation measures, even after teachers began to be vaccinated in large numbers.” Read more at New York Times
“Critical race theory is quickly becoming America’s latest cultural divide. According to some conservative politicians, it’s ‘teaching kids to hate their country.’” Read more at USA Today
“Two Indian states and the territory of Delhi have had to suspend Covid-19 vaccinations for people between the ages of 18 to 44 due to shortages. That’s a huge blow to India, which is trying frantically to vaccinate its massive population to stem the historic coronavirus wave devastating the country. Nepal’s Covid-19 crisis is deepening after Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli was forced to step down following a vote of no confidence. Oli, who touted unproven coronavirus remedies and attended crowded events, roused public anger over his response to a deadly second wave. Now, Nepal must form a new government while facing its highest daily death tolls since the pandemic began. In the US, the CDC recommended the use of Pfizer/BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine in 12- to 15-year-olds following the FDA's authorization.” Read more at CNN
“To the many propositions that governments have used to try to bolster slumping demand for the coronavirus vaccine, Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio raised the ante considerably on Wednesday, announcing that the state would give five people $1 million each in return for having been vaccinated as part of a weekly lottery program.
The lottery, whose legality could raise questions, will be paid for by federal coronavirus relief funds, Mr. DeWine, a Republican, said during a statewide televised address.
The first of five weekly drawings will be held on May 26, according to Mr. DeWine, who said that Ohio Lottery would conduct them.
‘I know that some may say, ‘DeWine, you’re crazy!’’ Mr. DeWine said on Twitter. ‘This million-dollar drawing idea of yours is a waste of money.’ But truly, the real waste at this point in the pandemic — when the vaccine is readily available to anyone who wants it — is a life lost to COVID-19.’” Read more at New York Times
“America is finally winning its fight against the coronavirus, Axios' Sam Baker and Andrew Witherspoon report.
For the first time in a long time, nobody needs to cherry-pick some misleading data to make it seem like things are going well. And the good news doesn’t need an endless list of caveats. It’s just really good news. We’re winning. Be happy.
The U.S. averaged fewer than 40,000 new cases per day over the past week.
That’s the first time the daily average has dipped below 40,000 since September — eight months ago.
New cases declined last week in 37 states. Not a single state moved in the wrong direction.
Deaths from the coronavirus are at their lowest level since last July — about 600 per day, on average, per AP, and may soon hit their lowest point of the entire pandemic.
Hospitalization rates are also falling significantly.” Read more at Axios
“83 — The number of Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes, including 17 children, in recent days. Rockets fired by the militant group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, have killed seven Israelis. Amid mounting tensions over the contested city of Jerusalem, the two sides have exchanged the heaviest fire since they fought a war in 2014.
$3 — The average price of gasoline per gallon in the U.S., the highest level since 2014. The cyberattack that took the nation’s largest gas pipeline offline for days has strained fuel supply across the East Coast, driving up costs. Scenes on social media showed motorists lined up by the dozens, and many stations in some metro areas were out of fuel. The Colonial Pipeline restarted operations on Wednesday, but it will take several days for deliveries to get back to normal, its owner said.
1.6% — The decline in global remittances, or money that foreign-born workers sent back to their home countries, to low- and middle-income nations last year. That drop was far less than the 20% decline projected by the World Bank early in the pandemic. Migrant remittances have become crucial economic lifelines as the recoveries of rich and poor countries diverge.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Corruption in South Africa. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa gives evidence today before the country’s inquiry into public sector corruption and fraud. His testimony comes as Ramaphosa’s party, the African National Congress (ANC), is attempting clean up its image ahead of local elections later this year. Last week, the ANC suspended Elias Sekgobelo ‘Ace’ Magashule, the party’s secretary-general, over multiple corruption allegations. As Lynsey Chutel writes in Foreign Policy’s weekly Africa Brief, while the ruling party fights factional battles, South Africa is ‘slipping deeper and deeper into economic and social malaise.’” Read more at Foreign Policy
“The makers of a craft liquor made from radioactive apples grown in the Chernobyl exclusion zone are in a battle with the Ukrainian government, after authorities seized all 1,500 bottles of the product before it could be exported.
The drink, called Atomik, has been impounded after Ukrainian Secret Service agents said the company used forged excise stamps, a claim the company’s founder, U.K.-based academic Jim Smith, disputes. The liquor is an attempt to prove that some products made in Chernobyl’s zone can be safe for human consumption, according to the company’s website. Smith claims the distillation process removes all traces of radioactivity.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad registered Wednesday to run again for the Islamic Republic’s presidency, raising the possibility that the populist leader who rapidly advanced Tehran’s nuclear program to challenge the West could return to the country’s top civilian post.
Ahmadinejad’s attempt to run again in 2017 disregarded the words of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had warned the firebrand, Holocaust-questioning politician his standing for office would be a ‘polarized situation’ that would be ‘harmful for the country.’
This time, however, Khamenei seemingly isn’t directly challenging the candidacy of the 64-year-old former Tehran mayor, who joins a wide-open election to replace the relatively moderate President Hassan Rouhani. A council Khamenei oversees ultimately will determine if Ahmadinejad and other hopefuls can run in the June 18 poll.
As Iran negotiates with world powers over its tattered nuclear deal amid tensions with the US, the entry of Ahmadinejad could enliven an election that Iranians so far appear unenthusiastic about during the coronavirus pandemic and crushing sanctions.” Read more at Boston Globe
“The Biden administration is debating how to get thousands of Afghans who worked for the US out of the country before American forces withdraw in a few months, amid fears that time is running out ahead of a potential Taliban takeover.
White House national security aides have held several meetings about the issue in recent days to trade ideas, discussing options including a mass evacuation of thousands of people to a third country where they could be processed and brought to the US.
The biggest concern for US officials is that Afghan citizens who played an invaluable role serving American forces and contractors such as translators, consultants, office assistants, and drivers would be quickly targeted by Taliban forces, especially if they continue to gain ground on President Ashraf Ghani’s government in Kabul.
The likeliest scenarios for the US would involve extracting Afghans through the existing special immigrant visas program, which has a long backlog, and allowing Afghan interpreters to seek refugee status, according to several people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because no decision has been made.
The White House is getting closer to presenting options to advocates and members of Congress impatient with the silence from President Biden, who promised withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years of war and US occupation. Biden’s spokespeople declined to comment.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Under Kremlin orders, the US Embassy has stopped employing Russians, forcing the embassy to cut its consular staff by 75 percent and limit many of its services.
The order went into effect on Wednesday, bringing the sharply deteriorating US-Russia relationship to an intensely personal level.
Because of the cuts, the embassy can offer only very limited services, such as considering ‘life-and-death’ visa applications. That leaves Russian businessmen, exchange students, and romantic partners adrift because they won’t be able to obtain visas. Even Americans will be unable to register their newborns or renew their passports.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Students have long turned to internet forums for help with their homework or to ask questions about course material. But a year-plus of remote learning has aided academic dishonesty, a problem that educators fear might not wane, even when classes are fully in-person again. Students say remote learning can be frustrating, with a lack of structure and limited interaction with instructors making it hard to retain new information. As a result, some have turned to websites like homeworkforyou.com, where students can post their coursework and solicit bids from people offering to complete it for them. One student who wanted an ‘A’ for projects related to a business class at York College in New York got 29 bids within a day, at an average price of $479. At North Carolina State University, statistics professor Tyler Johnson caught about 200 students cheating on a final exam after some posted their test questions to a for-profit homework site. Even after he busted them, Johnson said dozens in his class continued to pursue illicit ways to score higher marks. ‘Students have found a way to cheat, and they know it works,’ said Thomas Lancaster, senior teaching fellow in computing at Imperial College in London, who has studied academic integrity issues for more than two decades.” Read more at Wall Street Journal