Alarm at rightwing push to reverse clean-energy success in Texas and beyond

Supporters of clean energy say they expect further battles ahead to prevent state’s progress in solar and wind from being unwound

In the scramble before the end of Texas’s legislative session last week, a must-pass bill was amended to impose new costs upon renewable energy. This came amid a barrage of anti-solar and wind power measures pushed forward by Republicans to reshape a state that has become the US’s powerhouse of clean energy.

But the conservative lawmakers had help.

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Canada wildfires smoke: climate change ‘accelerated conditions’, says New York mayor as Canada battles more than 400 blazes – live

Eric Adams remarks come as city briefly ranked world’s worst for air pollution; more firefighters to be mobilised as over 200 blazes are out of control

Over 200 “out of control” fires are currently burning across Canada as experts warn that air quality will continue to deteriorate.

Leyland Cecco reports from Toronto:

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Mike Pence: ‘Trump asked me to choose him or the constitution – I chose the constitution’ – as it happened

Former US vice president says was proud to stand by Trump but goes on to criticise attempts to overturn election result in Iowa campaign launch

We’re about an hour away from Mike Pence’s campaign launch in Iowa, and a CBS News reporter at the event noticed something telling in his campaign’s arrangements for the media.

As noted below, the password for the wifi provided to journalists seems to be a reference to Pence’s refusal to go along with Trump’s demand that he block Congress’s certification of Joe Biden’s election win on January 6:

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Jodie Comer stops stage performance because of New York air: ‘I can’t breathe’

Actor was helped off stage from her one-woman show Prima Facie after city’s poor air quality prompted breathing issues

Jodie Comer stopped her one-woman show Prima Facie on Broadway because of breathing difficulties owing to New York’s air crisis.

According to eyewitnesses, the award-winning star of Killing Eve, tipped to win a Tony award this weekend, was 10 minutes late for the matinee performance. After three minutes of the show, she announced that she couldn’t proceed.

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Mike Pence enters 2024 race with speech denouncing Trump’s ‘reckless’ actions

Pence says Trump ‘demanded I choose between him and the constitution’ and that someone like that ‘should never be president again’

Mike Pence officially announced he is running for the Republican presidential nomination in a video posted early Wednesday and formally addressed a crowd of supporters in Ankeny, Iowa, on Wednesday afternoon.

In his speech, the former Indiana governor chastised Donald Trump for his “reckless” actions on 6 January 2021, took swipes at Joe Biden and singled out “enemies of freedom” around the world, including a three-second frame of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and China’s president, Xi Jinping, in the video.

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High school student and relative killed in Virginia graduation shooting

Virginia representative calls for more gun safety policies after suspect was arrested for killing two people and wounding five

A high school student and a relative were killed on Tuesday evening at a mass shooting at the young man’s graduation event in Richmond, Virginia, where five other people were shot and wounded.

Gunfire rang out outside a downtown theater, where the graduation ceremony had just ended, causing hundreds of attendees to flee in panic, weep and clutch their children, authorities and witnesses said.

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Outrage as anti-LGBTQ+ protest at California school board turns violent

Congressman Adam Schiff condemns ‘acts of violence’ as punches thrown outside meeting about designating June as Pride month

Democratic politicians across California condemned a volatile anti-gay protest outside a suburban Los Angeles school board meeting on Tuesday, as the school board heard public comment on whether to officially designate June as LGBTQ+ Pride month.

Footage from a local television station showed crowds of people shoving, kicking and throwing punches outside a school district building in Glendale, California.

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Tens of millions under air quality alerts in US as Canada fire smoke drifts south

Eastern US states including New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut issue alerts as hundreds of wildfires burn in Canada

Tens of millions of people in the US were under air quality alerts on Wednesday, as smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted south, turning the sky in some of the country’s biggest cities a murky brown and saturating the air with harmful pollution.

States across the east, including New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut, issued air quality alerts, with officials recommending that people limit outdoor activity.

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Two killed and five injured in Virginia shooting after high school graduation

Police say a graduate, 18, was one of the dead while a 19-year-old was arrested for second-degree murder

Seven people were shot, two fatally, when gunfire rang out outside a downtown theater in Virginia where a high school graduation ceremony had just ended, causing hundreds of attendees to flee in panic, weep and clutch their children, authorities and witnesses said.

A 19-year-old suspect tried to escape on foot but was arrested and would be charged with two counts of second-degree murder, interim Richmond police chief Rick Edwards, said during a news conference on Tuesday night at which he confirmed the two fatalities.

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At a glance: what you need to know about Canada wildfires and smoky US skies

Hazy skies hung over north-eastern US a day after the midwest received a similar alert from the Environmental Protection Agency

Canada is dealing with a series of intense wildfires that have spread from the western provinces to Quebec, with hundreds of forest fires burning. Wind has carried smoke from the fires southward, triggering air-quality alerts throughout the United States.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday issued a poor air-quality alert for New England, a day after parts of Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota received a similar advisory. Last week, US officials as far south as Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania reported being affected by the wildfires.

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Chris Christie, ex-New Jersey governor, launches 2024 presidential run

Pugilistic politician joins Republican primary with singular focus – to take the fight to Donald Trump

The former New Jersey governor Chris Christie announced his bid for for the Republican presidential nomination at a New Hampshire town hall.

In an unconventionally contrite speech, Christie said: “I can’t guarantee you success in what I’m about to do. But I guarantee you that at the end of it. You will have no doubt in your mind, who I am and what I stand for and whether I deserve it.”

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Missouri man executed for killing two jailers in failed escape plot

Michael Tisius, 42, received a lethal injection for killing Leon Egley and Jason Acton at the small Randolph county jail in 2000

A man who shot and killed two rural Missouri jailers nearly 23 years ago during a failed attempt to help an inmate escape was executed on Tuesday evening.

Michael Tisius, 42, received a lethal injection of pentobarbital at the state prison in Bonne Terre and was pronounced dead at 6.10 pm . He was convicted of the 22 June 2000 killing of Leon Egley and Jason Acton at the small Randolph county jail.

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Florida confirms it was behind flights that left asylum seekers in California

Officials claim the people, mostly from Colombia and Venezuela, consented to the travel, refuting allegations from Gavin Newsom

Florida confirmed on Tuesday that it was behind two private jet flights that brought three dozen people seeking asylum from the US southern border to California amid accusations that the individuals were coerced to travel under false pretenses.

The state’s division of emergency management said in a statement that the passengers all went willingly, and refuted allegations from California officials such as the governor, Gavin Newsom, who had threatened Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, with kidnapping charges.

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Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie announces 2024 presidential run – as it happened

House Republicans say they plan to vote on holding FBI director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress for declining to turn over a document outlining an unverified allegation of corruption against Joe Biden.

As the Associated Press reports, Republican House oversight committee chair James Comer along with GOP senator Chuck Grassley last month said they had heard the FBI possesses a document detailing “an alleged criminal scheme” “relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions” between a foreign national and Biden when he was vice-president. While Comer and other Republicans have played up the allegation, they haven’t offered any proof to substantiate it.

Three months before saboteurs bombed the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, the Biden administration learned from a close ally that the Ukrainian military had planned a covert attack on the undersea network, using a small team of divers who reported directly to the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces.

Details about the plan, which have not been previously reported, were collected by a European intelligence service and shared with the CIA in June 2022. They provide some of the most specific evidence to date linking the government of Ukraine to the eventual attack in the Baltic Sea, which U.S. and Western officials have called a brazen and dangerous act of sabotage on Europe’s energy infrastructure.

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US judge hears rightwing thinktank’s challenge over Prince Harry visa

Heritage Foundation, which claims duke may have lied about past drug use on application, wants US government to release records

A federal judge has given the US government a week to decide how to respond to a rightwing thinktank that alleges Prince Harry may have lied about past drug use on his visa application.

The Duke of Sussex moved to southern California with his wife, Meghan Markle, an American citizen, and their young family in 2020 after they left British royal life and embarked on new projects, including the release of his memoir, Spare in January.

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Family furious after coroner says death of Tasered man is ‘unexplained’

Keenan Anderson’s cousin and BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors disappointed at ‘gaslighting’ from coroner

The Los Angeles county coroner on Friday released the official autopsy of a man who died after being repeatedly Tased and restrained by Los Angeles police officers, declaring the manner of death to be “undetermined”, a conclusion that has sparked outrage from advocates and his family.

Keenan Anderson died on 3 January after LAPD officers held him down while responding to a traffic accident. Anderson was repeatedly Tased, and he yelled “they’re trying to kill me” before he became unconscious. He suffered a fatal heart attack at a hospital four hours later.

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Richer people pay more: California’s dramatic change to electricity bills

Some higher-income residents – who already enjoy subsidies for solar – oppose paying more than low-income households

California will soon become the first state to determine residents’ electricity fees based on their income as part of a new effort to spur households toward full electrification and bring down the state’s soaring electricity costs for low-income Californians.

Electricity bills are made up of fixed costs as well as fees that vary based on the amount of electricity residents use. Last year, the state passed a law giving the California public utilities commission a 1 July 2024 deadline to determine a fixed charge for household electric bills based on people’s income.

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‘Forget all the excuses’: Arnold Schwarzenegger expresses regret over groping claims

In the forthcoming documentary Arnold, the actor says of the historical allegations that ‘it doesn’t really matter what time it is … it was wrong’

Arnold Schwarzenegger has revisited historical allegations of groping in a new documentary series about his life and career.

In 2003, shortly before his re-election as governor of California, the Los Angeles Times published a report detailing claims of groping by six women across three decades.

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Black woman in Florida fatally shot through front door by white neighbor

Ajike ‘AJ’ Owens killed after allegedly trying to retrieve iPad taken from her child, while shooter has not been arrested or charged

A Black mother of four in Florida was killed by a white neighbor who shot her through a front door as the victim attempted to retrieve an iPad taken from her child, civil rights attorney Ben Crump has said.

In a Twitter post on Monday, Crump said the death of Ajike “AJ” Owens, 35, at a housing complex in Ocala on Friday evening was an “unjust killing” and lamented that the shooter had not been arrested or charged.

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Son of late CIA director cautions against far-right extremism in the US

In 1945, then OSS agent Richard Helms sent son a letter on Hitler’s stationery saying ‘there can be nothing that’s worse’ than Nazism

A man who was three years old when his father – an American intelligence operator – sent him a letter on a vanquished Adolf Hitler’s stationery has declared himself disgusted by US extremist groups who still admire the former Nazi ruler.

“Those people have no idea – the history and foulness of that,” Dennis Helms, the son of the late Richard Helms, the CIA director from 1966 to 1973, said of the presence of neo-Nazis and antisemitism in the US. “There can be nothing that’s worse … I can’t say enough bad about that.”

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