Climate Disasters Daily? Welcome to the ‘New Normal.’
New York Times (subscription not needed for article)
Catastrophic floods in the Hudson Valley. An unrelenting heat dome over Phoenix. Ocean temperatures hitting 90 degrees Fahrenheit off the coast of Miami. A surprising deluge in Vermont, a rare tornado in Delaware.
A decade ago, any one of these events would have been seen as an aberration. This week, they are happening simultaneously as climate change fuels extreme weather, prompting Governor Kathy Hochul of New York, a Democrat, to call it “our new normal.”
Over the past month, smoke from Canadian wildfires blanketed major cities around the country, a deadly heat wave hit Texas and Oklahoma and torrential rains flooded parts of Chicago.
“It’s not just a figment of your imagination, and it’s not because everybody now has a smartphone,” said Jeff Berardelli, the chief meteorologist and climate specialist for WFLA News in Tampa. “We’ve seen an increase in extreme weather. This without a doubt is happening.”
Turkey backs Sweden's Nato membership - Stoltenberg
BBC
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has agreed to support Sweden's bid to join Nato, the military alliance's chief Jens Stoltenberg says.He said the Turkish leader would forward Sweden's bid to the parliament in Ankara and "ensure ratification".
Meanwhile, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said: "I am very happy, it is a good day for Sweden."
Turkey had previously spent months blocking Sweden's application, accusing it of hosting Kurdish militants.
As one of Nato's 31 members, Turkey has a veto over any new country joining the group.Reacting to the news, US President Joe Biden said he welcomed the commitment by President Erdogan to proceed with "swift ratification".
Putin meets Prigozhin: Getting to grips with latest twist in Wagner saga
BBC
Russian President Vladimir Putin met Yevgeny Prigozhin five days after the Wagner mercenary boss led a failed mutiny, the Kremlin has revealed. The BBC's Russia Editor gets to grips with the latest twist in the Wagner saga.
So, let me get this straight.
On the morning of 24 June, the day of the mutiny, Vladimir Putin accused the Wagner leadership of "treachery" and "a stab in the back". Later that day, Russian air force pilots were killed, shot down by Wagner fighters.
Then, with the mercenaries just 200km (120 miles) from the Russian capital, the Kremlin and Wagner did a deal. The mutiny was over. No-one was arrested. No-one has been prosecuted.
Not only was Yevgeny Prigozhin not clapped in irons and hauled off to the police station for his rebellion.
Extreme heat will smother the South from Arizona to Florida
NPR
After a weekend of broiling heat waves in the Southwest and South Florida, more extreme heat is forecast to build throughout the week.
Forecasters say residents of both regions should stay out of the sun as much as possible.
Across the country, heat waves are getting hotter, lasting longer and becoming more unpredictable. Jeff Goodell, the author of The Heat Will Kill You First, called it a dire consequence of climate change.
"We know that as we continue to burn fossil fuels, our planet is getting hotter," Goodell said on Morning Edition. "Heat waves are the clearest manifestation of that."
They can be especially life-threatening for older adults, children, people with disabilities and those who work outdoors.
Idaho militia leader Ammon Bundy is due back in court. But will he show up?
NPR
Antigovernment militant Ammon Bundy is scheduled to appear in a Boise, Idaho, court today facing charges in a civil lawsuit stemming from a tense protest in 2022 that led to the lockdown of one of Idaho's largest hospitals.
St Luke's health system filed suit against Bundy last year after his far-right People's Rights group staged a protest against the hospitalization of one of his associate's grandkids. With Bundy supporters stationing themselves outside hospital doors, and some calling for violence on social media, things became tense enough that the downtown Boise hospital was put on lockdown briefly. Emergency services had to be diverted to another facility in the suburbs.
Membership for Ukraine on agenda at NATO talks
Deutsche Welle
In the 74-year history of NATO, leaders of the military alliance have almost never held their regular summit so close to their traditional adversary. Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, lies just 200 kilometers (125 miles) east of the border of the Russian exclave, Kaliningrad. Ukraine, under invasion by Russia, is just 360 kilometers to the south. Russia's close ally Belarus, where the arrival of Wagner mercenary troops is hotly anticipated, is at a distance of merely 35 kilometers. 2006 NATO leaders met in Riga, Latvia, but back then Russia was not perceived as a threat, more as a partner.
To protect the largest ever gathering of heads of state and government in the history of the small Baltic country, the Lithuanian army and NATO allies are providing about 4,000 troops. If you take police and secret services into account, around 12,000 people will be keeping watch over the two days of the summit on July 11 and 12. Russian "provocations" are to be expected, according to Lithuanian diplomats.
The German military is also playing its part, with the air force having temporarily stationed Patriot missile defense systems around Vilnius to ward off potential attacks. These have been up and running since July 6, the air force announced on Twitter. German special forces of an unspecified nature are also deployed, according to another tweet.
South Africa: Johannesburg revels in snowy surprise
Deutsche Welle
People in South Africa's largest city, Johannesburg, were delighted on Monday by rare snowfall.
The South African Weather Service said Johannesburg last saw snow in August 2012.
More snow was expected in the city Monday overnight.
Cold weather conditions were expected to continue in other parts of the country for the rest of the week.
Johannseburg's winter wonderland
While other parts of South Africa regularly receive snowfall during winter, the once-in-a-decade dusting captured Johannesburg residents' imaginations.
They took to social media to share videos and photos of them playing in the snow.
Senator stalls US military promotions in anti-abortion standoff
Al Jazeera
One senator’s anti-abortion protest has resulted in the United States Marine Corps — one of the country’s most elite military units — being without a confirmed leader for the first time in 164 years.
Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama has refused to confirm promotions to top military posts until the Pentagon agrees to end its policy of offering leave and travel funds for reproductive healthcare, including abortion.
Tuberville’s strike has left an estimated 265 military positions in limbo. On Monday, General David Berger, the commandant of the Marine Corps, retired in an official farewell ceremony, leaving his post without a congressionally approved replacement.
The last time the Marines’ leadership failed to have an official successor was in 1859, when the commandant at the time died unexpectedly.
Spain rescues 86 people from boat near Canary Islands
Al Jazeera
The Spanish coastguard says it has rescued 86 people from a boat off the Canary Islands that had been spotted earlier in the day by a rescue plane.
A plane and ship were dispatched to initially search for a fishing vessel from Senegal that had about 200 people on board and had been missing for nearly two weeks.
The rescue service initially thought the boat spotted on Monday by the reconnaissance plane 114km (71 miles) to the south of the island of Gran Canaria could have been the missing vessel.
But its spokesperson said the rescue service found 86 people on board and only a further investigation would show where it had sailed from. The boat was being towed to Gran Canaria.
Flash floods rage in Vermont, New York; one dead, damages over $3 bln
Reuters
July 10 (Reuters) - Torrential downpours unleashed flash floods on the U.S. Northeast on Monday that washed out roadways, overwhelmed rivers, forced numerous boat rescues and killed a woman who was swept away in front of her fiancé, officials said.
More than 13 million Americans were under flood watches and warnings from Eastern New York state to Boston and Western Maine to the northeast, the National Weather Service said in its forecast Monday, after storms that began over the weekend inundated rivers and streams.
Private forecaster AccuWeather estimated damages and economic loss at $3 billion to $5 billion, preliminarily, based on its own method of evaluation.
More than 1,000 flights to and from airports across the region, including New York's LaGuardia and Boston's Logan, were delayed or canceled on Monday due to the rains.
Amtrak suspended passenger train service between the state capital Albany and New York City after flooding damaged tracks. Amtrak shares some of that route's track with the Metro-North commuter railroad into New York, which suspended some service on that line and another.
New York Times dissolves sports department in favor of coverage from The Athletic
USA Today
The New York Times announced it is disbanding its sports department in favor of incorporating coverage from The Athletic, the sports website that its parent company purchased 18 months ago.
In an email to the Times newsroom on Monday morning, executive editor Joe Kahn and deputy managing editor Monica Drake called the change "an evolution in how we cover sports."
The Times sports department currently has more than 35 journalists and editors, who will be shifted to other roles in the newsroom without any layoffs, the newspaper said.
The shift in philosophy "will scale back the newsroom’s coverage of games, players, teams and leagues," according to the email, and focus "even more directly on distinctive, high-impact news and enterprise journalism about how sports intersect with money, power, culture, politics and society at large."
Claims about BBC presenter are rubbish, says young person at centre of scandal
The Guardian, UK
The young person at the centre of a scandal over a BBC presenter reportedly paying for explicit pictures has issued a statement in which they claimed the key allegations are “rubbish”.
A prominent male BBC presenter was suspended at the weekend after allegations he spent £35,000 buying explicit images from the young person, who was allegedly 17 years old when they started talking online.
The young person’s mother made the allegations in the Sun newspaper, which published her claim that payments from the BBC presenter helped fund her child’s crack cocaine habit.Yet in a dramatic turn of events, on Monday evening the young person’s lawyer issued a statement saying the mother and the Sun had made false claims.
Fox News may face lawsuit over Tucker Carlson’s January 6 conspiracy theory
Experts say conservative network Fox News could face a “a fairly strong” lawsuit from a man who Tucker Carlson repeatedly accused of working as a government agent and carrying out the January 6 insurrection.
Carlson, who was fired from the network in April, repeatedly alleged that Ray Epps was a secret government agent who coordinated the January 6 riots, the New York Times reported.
Epps, a Trump supporter and former marine, has been at the center of a far-right conspiracy theory after an article by a rightwing website argued that he was spared from criminal charges because of his covert role.
Carlson and other rightwing figures, including members of Congress, have latched onto the false theory that Epps was a government agent involved in whipping up the January 6 attack.
Medical abortion pill to become easier to access across Australia as restrictions scrapped
The Guardian, Australia
Medical abortions will become easier to access under rules that allow doctors and pharmacists without specialist certification to prescribe termination pills.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration has scrapped restrictions on the prescription of medical abortion pills, which are used in the early stages of an unwanted pregnancy.
The MS-2 Step mifepristone medication, known as RU486 in some countries, was previously only allowed to be prescribed by a doctor with specialist certification and then provided by a pharmacist registered to dispense the product.