“Following the landmark United Nations report released Monday, climate scientists said the path is clear — an immediate and sustained campaign to transform our energy system and reduce greenhouse gases.
‘Ultimately, what it comes down to is that we need to dramatically reduce emissions and stop burning fossil fuels,’ said Peter Frumhoff, director of science and policy at the Cambridge-based Union of Concerned Scientists.
He and others urged lawmakers and regulators to enact laws and rules that would:
Reduce carbon emissions by half what they were in 2010 by the end of the decade and effectively eliminate them by 2050.
Stop the burning of fossil fuels such as oil and gas; ramp up the use of clean energy, such as wind and solar power; curb deforestation; and use agricultural lands more sustainably.
Reduce the consumption of beef and dairy products, which contribute to deforestation and a significant amount of emissions from cattle.
Impose a tax or other fees on carbon pollution.
Encourage farmers to better manage their soil and land, so they sequester more carbon dioxide.
Invest in research to find ways to remove large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere, at reasonable costs.
Prepare for the unavoidable impacts that the United Nations report says will happen no matter what policymakers do, including sea levels rising by a foot by the middle of the century, more intense storms, greater flooding, and increased droughts.
Invest in helping the most vulnerable adapt to all the consequences of a warming world, especially the impoverished and those who have the least ability to move or make changes to protect their homes or livelihoods.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Covid-19 cases among kids have been on the rise in the US since early July. Almost 94,000 cases among children were added in the past week, the American Academy of Pediatrics said. The vast majority of child cases don’t require hospitalization, but CDC numbers show that number is increasing. About 200 children with Covid-19 were admitted to US hospitals every day over the past week. In some hot spots, like Orlando, children’s hospitals are busy with coronavirus patients and are bracing for worse waves once school restarts in more places. Meanwhile, China has punished dozens of officials for failing to control the Delta outbreak as the country struggles to contain the worst virus resurgence it’s seen in over a year. And in Australia, the most populous state, New South Wales, extended its lockdown as the city of Sydney recorded its highest daily case count since the pandemic began.” Read more at CNN
“WASHINGTON (AP) — Members of the U.S. military will be required to get the COVID-19 vaccine beginning next month under a plan laid out by the Pentagon and endorsed by President Joe Biden. In memos distributed to all troops, top Pentagon leaders said the vaccine is a necessary step to maintain military readiness.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the mid-September deadline could be accelerated if the vaccine receives final FDA approval or infection rates continue to rise.
‘I will seek the president’s approval to make the vaccines mandatory no later than mid-September, or immediately upon’ licensure by the Food and Drug Administration ‘whichever comes first,’ Austin said in his memo sent Monday, warning them to prepare for the requirement.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Dallas schools will require students and teachers to wear masks, defying Gov. Greg Abbott.” Read more at New York Times
“Covid is surging and vaccinations are lagging in Mexico.” Read more at New York Times
“Europe has reopened to Americans. The U.S. hasn’t reciprocated.” Read more at New York Times
“WASHINGTON (AP) — After weeks of fits, starts and delays, the Senate is on track to give final approval to the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan, with a growing coalition of Democrats and Republicans prepared to lift the first phase of President Joe Biden’s rebuilding agenda to passage.
Final Senate votes are expected around 11 a.m. EDT Tuesday, and the bill would then go to the House.
All told, some 70 senators appear poised to carry the bipartisan package to passage, a potentially robust tally of lawmakers eager to tap the billions in new spending for their states and to show voters back home they can deliver.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said it’s “the first time the Senate has come together around such a package in decades.”
After that, the Senate will immediately launch votes on Biden’s next package — the $3.5 trillion plan that is a more strictly Democratic undertaking — beginning a debate that will extend into fall.” Read more at AP News
“WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats unwrapped a budget resolution envisioning a massive $3.5 trillion, 10-year cascade of federal resources, aiming historic sums at family support, health and education programs and an aggressive drive to heal the climate.
The measure is a pivotal first step in what will likely be a tumultuous, months-long Democratic legislative march toward a progressive reshaping of the federal government that also hews to President Joe Biden’s top domestic policy ambitions.
The blueprint released Monday reflects many Democrats’ tilt leftward in the wake of Donald Trump’s presidency and bears the imprint of Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a longtime progressive voice now at the hub of the Democratic Party’s power structure in Congress.
Many of its proposals would be financed by raising taxes on the wealthy and large corporations while sparing people earning under $400,000 annually, an oft-repeated Biden pledge and liberal goal. Though party leaders say the measure will be fully paid for, the budget resolution does not require that, instead giving Congress’ tax-writing committees unspecified license to raise money that a summary calls ‘substantial….’
The budget outlines expanding Medicare coverage to dental, vision and hearing benefits and lowering the program’s eligibility age below its current 65, though the age reduction would be costly and is considered a long shot to survive. The children’s tax credit, expanded during the pandemic to provide millions of families with $300 monthly checks, would be extended beyond its current 2022 expiration. Other tax breaks for some low-earning workers and for child care would also be renewed.” Read more at AP News
“Crypto setback | Cryptocurrency lobbyists’ failure to win a change to tax reporting rules in the U.S. infrastructure bill yesterday left intact language for broad oversight of virtual currencies in the legislation that’s poised to pass the Senate. Despite a Herculean push, the industry’s public outreach and even tweeted prayers came up short.” Read more at Bloomberg
“KABUL — The Taliban took control of two more provincial capitals in Afghanistan on Monday, officials said. Their fall marked the latest development in a weekslong, relentless Taliban offensive as American and NATO forces finalize their pullout from the war-torn country.
The militants have ramped up their push across much of Afghanistan, turning their guns on provincial capitals after taking large swaths of land in the mostly rural countryside. On Monday they controlled five of the country's 34 provincial capitals. At the same time, they have been waging an assassination campaign targeting senior government officials in the capital, Kabul.
The sweep comes despite condemnations by the international community and warnings from the United Nations that a military victory and takeover by the Taliban would not be recognized. The Taliban have also not heeded appeals to return to the negotiating table and continue long-stalled peace talks with the Afghan government.” Read more at Boston Globe
“KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A U.S. peace envoy was back in the Middle East on Tuesday to warn the Taliban not to pursue a military victory on the ground and deliver a blunt message: A Taliban government that comes to power through force in Afghanistan will not be recognized.
The U.S. State Department said Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. envoy, was in Doha, Qatar, where the Taliban maintain a political office, to ‘help formulate a joint international response to the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.’
The development comes amid a weekslong, relentless Taliban offensive as American and NATO forces finalize their pullout from war-torn Afghanistan.
The insurgents have captured five out of 34 provincial capitals in the country in less than a week. They are now battling the Western-backed government for control of three others, including the city of Lashkar Gah, the capital of southern Helmand province, and the city of Kandahar, the capital in neighboring Kandahar province.” Read more at AP News
“ALBANY, N.Y. — Defiant yet increasingly alone, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo determined in recent days that his best chance at political survival is to drag out the process of his possible impeachment over allegations that he sexually harassed nearly a dozen women, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.
As members of the State Assembly met on Monday to lay the groundwork for impeachment proceedings, Mr. Cuomo remained focused on buying himself time, believing that events are moving too quickly and that to stay in office he and his lawyers would need to slow things down, these people said.
Mr. Cuomo is facing the prospect of becoming only the second governor to be impeached in the state’s history. Lawmakers were spurred by a report released last week by the New York State attorney general, Letitia James, that concluded Mr. Cuomo touched or verbally harassed 11 women, most of them current or former state employees.
Mr. Cuomo, who has denied touching anyone inappropriately, is in the most precarious moment of his decade-long tenure, facing a chorus of calls for his resignation from top Democrats, including President Biden and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.” Read more at New York Times
“Cuomo scandal reverberates past politics
An independent New York attorney general report finding that Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women and retaliated against at least one for telling her story.
Several current and former advisors and members of Cuomo’s senior staff ‘engaged in a flurry of communication’ to protect the governor as he faced his first public allegation of sexual harassment by arranging to leak the accuser’s private personnel file to the media and drafting a letter or op-ed that impugned her credibility, the report found.
Human Rights Campaign President Alphonso David, who had previously served as chief counsel to Cuomo, hassuddenly found himself in a precarious position at the country’s largest LGBTQ+ organization after his name surfaced in the report.
Roberta Kaplan, who chairs the Time’s Up board and in 2017 co-founded the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund to support survivors of sexual harassment and assault, resigned from the organization on Monday as criticism mounted over her role advising New York’s embattled governor.
A former top Cuomo aide, Melissa DeRosa, resigned Sunday night. She played an integral role in Cuomo’s attempts to counter sexual harassment allegations against him, including from a former staffer, Lindsey Boylan, who in December 2020 publicly accused the governor.
Kaplan, via her law firm Kaplan Hecker & Fink, is representing DeRosa.
The HRC and HRC Foundation Board of Directors told staff on Monday morning that they have retained the law firm Sidley Austin to review whether David’s role in responding to the allegations against the governor ‘aligned with HRC’s mission and values,’ according to emails shared with The 19th.
The boards’ email acknowledges that it has been a ‘difficult’ few days for HRC’s staff, ‘made all the more difficult because so many in the LGBTQ community are survivors of assault and harassment themselves.’
The Time’s Up board and president Tina Tchen said in a statement: ‘We hold ourselves accountable. The events of the last week have made it clear that our process should be evaluated and we intend to do just that.’” Read more at The 19th“Salaries withheld: Florida ‘could’ defund the salaries of district superintendents and county school board members who mandate mask wearing in schools, according to Gov. Ron DeSantis' office.” Read more at USA Today
“Scores of wildfires racing across much of the Northwest could be energized this week by a resurgence of high winds and heat, forecasters warn . That's especially bad news for the more than 20,000 firefighters battling the blazes in 15 Western states, and the thousands of structures threatened by the wildfires. California’s fire season is on pace to surpass last year's, which was the worst in recent recorded state history. Since the start of 2021, more than 6,000 blazes have destroyed more than 1,260 square miles of land. The Dixie Fire, the largest blaze in California history, has grown more than 750 square miles — an area larger than the city of Los Angeles.” Read more at USA Today
A satellite image from Aug. 6 shows smoke blowing east from the Dixie Fire.NASA Earth Observatory
“Smoke from California’s wildfires has made the air in Salt Lake City and Denver some of the dirtiest in the world.” Read more at New York Times
“A wildfire approaches this lady's house in the village of Gouves, on the island of Evia, Greece, on Sunday.
Extreme heat is driving massive fires in Greece and Turkey, as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called yesterday's climate report ‘a code red for humanity.’” Read more at Axios
“A Chinese court has upheld the death penalty for Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, a Canadian convicted of drug trafficking.” Read more at New York Times
“WASHINGTON — The Biden administration, under pressure from families of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, said on Monday that it intended to disclose some long-classified documents that the families think could detail connections between the government of Saudi Arabia and the hijackers who carried out the attacks.
In a court filing in long-running litigation brought by the victims’ families against Saudi Arabia, the Justice Department said that the F.B.I. ‘recently’ closed a portion of its investigation into the terrorist attacks and was beginning a review of documents that it had previously said must remain secret with an eye toward disclosing more of them.
‘The F.B.I. has decided to review its prior privilege assertions to identify additional information appropriate for disclosure,’ the department said in a letter to two federal judges in Manhattan overseeing the case. ‘The F.B.I. will disclose such information on a rolling basis as expeditiously as possible.’
The Justice Department letter about still-secret Sept. 11 information.
The terse letter provided no further details about what additional information might become public, or when disclosures would begin.” Read more at New York Times
“The Biden administration is violating the terms of a longstanding court settlement that requires certain protections for migrant children in government custody, lawyers said in a motion filed on Monday in a federal court.
The filing describes ‘shockingly deplorable’ conditions at two emergency shelters set up in Texas this year to help house a record number of children caught crossing the border with Mexico. It draws on reports from whistle-blowers who have worked at the shelters — one in Pecos, Texas, the other on the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso — as well as from legal advocates who are allowed limited access.
According to reports included in the motion, children at Fort Bliss lived in ‘filthy conditions’ and slept in large spaces with hundreds of other children. At Pecos, the motion said, children are supposed to clean their living spaces but regularly lack appropriate cleaning supplies. Many of the workers at the shelters are contractors and have little experience caring for children in such situations, it said, which has led to poor care and unnecessarily long stays.
Under a 1997 court decree, known as the Flores settlement, migrant children are to be transferred to state-licensed shelters with specific standards and requirements for care, including education and recreational activities, within three days of being taken into government custody.” Read more at New York Times
“Biden has issued an executive order targeting those in the Belarusian regime involved in the repression of human rights and democracy in the former Soviet state. The executive order came on the one-year anniversary of Belarus' election, which was declared fraudulent by the US and many in the international community and sparked widespread protests throughout the country. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko denied that state repression exists in his country, and accused the US of creating ‘lawlessness’ at home and abroad. However, Belarusian dissidents say they fear their country’s government will detain them for their opposition. Some fear what may be crude detention camps are already being built.” Read more at CNN
“A judge overseeing the conservatorship of Britney Spears has denied a request to expedite a forthcoming hearing that will focus on whether to remove or suspend the singer’s father from a role in directing the legal arrangement, as a new lawyer for Ms. Spears recently petitioned.
The ruling by Judge Brenda Penny on Monday in Los Angeles probate court denied the request made last week by Mathew S. Rosengart, a former federal prosecutor who was approved in July to replace the court-appointed lawyer who began representing Ms. Spears in 2008.
Mr. Rosengart had called for moving up a Sept. 29 hearing in the case as he seeks to have the singer’s father, James P. Spears, removed as conservator of her estate, a position Mr. Spears has held, sometimes in collaboration with others, for 13 years. Ms. Spears has called the arrangement abusive and exploitative, singling out her father’s control over the conservatorship.” Read more at New York Times
“NEW YORK (AP) — One of Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime accusers sued Prince Andrew on Monday, taking accusations that she has repeatedly publicly lodged against him, including that he sexually assaulted her when she was 17, to a formal venue.
Lawyers for Virginia Giuffre filed the lawsuit in Manhattan federal court, where Epstein was charged criminally with sex trafficking a month before he killed himself at age 66 in August 2019 in an adjacent federal jail where he was ordered to await trial.
Giuffre has repeatedly made her allegations against Epstein, his onetime girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, and Andrew, but the lawsuit was the first time she has directly confronted Andrew in such a formal setting. It steps up public relations pressure on the prince, even if he remains beyond the reach of the courts.
In a statement, Giuffre said she was ‘holding Prince Andrew accountable for what he did to me.’
‘The powerful and rich are not exempt from being held responsible for their actions. I hope that other victims will see that it is possible not to live in silence and fear, but to reclaim one’s life by speaking out and demanding justice,’ Giuffre said.” Read more at AP News
“President Biden’s presidency raised expectations among many Cubans of a return to the Obama days, when the United States sought to bury the last vestige of the Cold War by restoring diplomatic relations with Havana and calling for an end to the embargo.
Instead, Mr. Biden is taking an even harder line on Cuba than his predecessor, President Donald J. Trump, who tightened restrictions on travel and financial transactions.
The island became an early foreign policy crisis for the Biden administration after Cubans poured into the streets to denounce their authoritarian government and the food and medicine shortages exacerbated by the pandemic. The rare act of rebellion was quashed with the biggest crackdown on dissent in a generation.
The White House imposed new sanctions against Cuban officials in the past few weeks in response to the arrest of hundreds of protesters who took to the streets in cities across the island nation on July 11. Mr. Biden also asked government experts to draw up plans for the United States to unilaterally expand internet access on the island and has pledged to increase support for Cuban dissidents.” Read more at New York Times
“‘West Side Story,’ an ambitious, reimagined revival of the classic musical, will not reopen when Broadway returns this fall, the show announced Monday, making it one of the biggest productions yet to become a casualty of the pandemic.
The show’s lead producer, Scott Rudin, announced in April that he was stepping back from active roles in his Broadway productions after he came under fire for a long history of bullying employees. But Rudin said at the time that while the decisions about the future of ‘West Side Story’ and his other shows would be left to others, he hoped that they would return to Broadway when theaters were allowed to reopen.
The ‘West Side Story’ revival — put together by a creative team with avant-garde credentials, including the director Ivo van Hove and the choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker — opened in February 2020, less than a month before the coronavirus outbreak shut down Broadway and brought performances around the nation to a halt.” Read more at New York Times
“Lives Lived: Jane Withers played tough, tomboyish children in more than two dozen films in the 1930s and ’40s. She achieved a second burst of fame as Josephine the Plumber in Comet cleanser commercials. Withers died at 95.” Read more at New York Times