Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
State is the first to enact a broad ban of PFAS compounds, which are found in everything from cosmetics to cookware
Maine has enacted a groundbreaking law that will ban the use of toxic PFAS compounds in all products by 2030, except in instances deemed “currently unavoidable”.
Though states and the federal government have passed piecemeal laws regulating the dangerous chemicals’ use, Maine is the nation’s first state and world’s first government to enact a broad prohibition on the class of about 9,000 compounds, which are dubbed “forever chemicals” because they don’t fully break down and accumulate in the environment and humans.
The US president praises the German leader but reiterates his concerns about the pipeline that will run from Russia to Germany
Joe Biden hosted Angela Merkel at the White House on Thursday for bilateral meetings as the outgoing German chancellor prepares to step down, in a visit that marked Biden’s latest attempt to strengthen relationships with US allies.
The two leaders met in the Oval Office and later held a joint press conference. Biden and Merkel vowed to work together to defend against Russian aggression and stand up to anti-democratic actions by China, and also spoke to the importance of the US-German alliance.
Beatty, who serves as the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, shared a photo on Twitter of US Capitol police (USCP)officers putting a zip-tie on her and escorting her out of the building.
A swiftly spreading wildfire raged through drought-parched timber and brush in south-central Oregon for a ninth day on Wednesday, displacing hundreds of residents. The Bootleg fire - which has burned through more than 212,377 acres (85,945 hectares) of forest - has burned 21 homes and 54 other structures, according to state and federal authorities. Video obtained from the Oregon state fire marshal showed emergency crews up close to the fire as it burned around the Fremont-Winema National Forest, about 250 miles south of Portland
Lawmakers’ bid to bar Republicans from passing voting restrictions energizes activists
Happy Thursday,
I’m writing from Austin, where I arrived on Sunday night expecting to cover the high-stakes showdown over GOP-backed voting bills at the Texas capitol.
German-US pair to meet before holding joint press conference
US president hopes to strengthen alliances after Trump’s tenure
The Guardian’s Luke Harding, Julian Borger and Dan Sabbagh report:
Vladimir Putinpersonally authorised a secret spy agency operation to support a “mentally unstable” Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election during a closed session of Russia’s national security council, according to what are assessed to be leaked Kremlin documents.
In their meeting this afternoon, Joe Biden and Angela Merkel will almost certainly discuss the future of Afghanistan as the US military withdraws from the country.
Biden said last week that the withdrawal from Afghanistan will conclude by August 31, although the Pentagon has said that the operation is already 90% complete.
But even as high-level US diplomats head to the region, they are encountering doubts from Afghanistan’s neighbours about any such security partnerships with the US. This is in contrast to 2001, when Central Asian countries made their territory available for US bases, troops and other access when the US hit back for the 9/11 attacks plotted by al-Qaida in Afghanistan.
There is distrust of the US as a reliable long-term partner, after an only partly successful war in Afghanistan and years of widely fluctuating US engagement regionally and globally, say former American diplomats. Russia also says a permanent US military base in its Central Asia sphere of influence would be ‘unacceptable’.
Exclusive: Documents suggest Russia launched secret multi-agency effort to interfere in US democracy
Vladimir Putin personally authorised a secret spy agency operation to support a “mentally unstable” Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election during a closed session of Russia’s national security council, according to what are assessed to be leaked Kremlin documents.
The key meeting took place on 22 January 2016, the papers suggest, with the Russian president, his spy chiefs and senior ministers all present.
I’m proud to take on devastating blazes. But sometimes I wonder if anyone else sees the scale of the crisis
I’m a firefighter currently battling the Bootleg fire in southern Oregon, the largest blaze right now in the US. As I write this, it’s already ripped through over 200,000 acres (312.5 sq miles).
I’m part of a crew that arrived last Thursday. We were one of the first on the scene, and several of us have already gotten heat exhaustion, one guy got fuel in his eye from a water pump and two of our division’s masticators (giant machinery that functions like a lawn mower but for an entire forest) burned up.
President to discuss massive $3.5tn plan over lunch with Democrats
Senate minority leader McConnell hits back at Biden on voting rights
Joe Biden is meeting with a bipartisan group of mayors and governors to discuss the bipartisan infrastructure framework.
Among the attendees are New Jersey governor Phil Murphy and Illinois governor JB Pritzker, both Democrats, as well as Vermont governor Phil Scott, a Republican.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi announced her appointees to the January 6 select committee earlier this month, after the chamber voted in favor of forming the panel.
In addition to Republican Liz Cheney, Pelosi named Democrats Bennie Thompson, Elaine Luria, Jamie Raskin, Stephanie Murphy, Pete Aguilar, Adam Schiff and Zoe Lofgren to the committee. Thompson, who chairs the House homeland security committee, will serve as chairman.
Gen Mark Milley drew comparison to Nazi Germany as Trump tried to overturn election defeat, new book I Alone Can Fix This says
Shortly before the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Mark Milley, told aides the US was facing a “Reichstag moment” because Donald Trump was preaching “the gospel of the Führer”, according to an eagerly awaited book about Trump’s last year in office.
Cuban special forces have begun a widespread crackdown on anti-government protests. The historic demonstrations were sparked over food shortages, high prices and other grievances against the government. Meanwhile, rallies have been held in several US cities, with hundreds of people waving Cuban flags and calling for change on the Communist-run island
As scorching temperatures spread, the search for ways to protect against heat stress is becoming ever more urgent
William Martínez, who as a child worked on a sugarcane plantation in rural Nicaragua, learned the hard way what many in the US and Canada are now realising: that rising temperatures are costing lives and livelihoods.
Martínez, along with fellow villagers in La Isla, found himself getting sicker as he worked long, gruelling days in the fields under the beating Nicaraguan sun two decades ago. Workers at the nearby mill, which supplies molasses to alcohol companies, began to suffer kidney failure, and would be forced out of the workforce and into expensive and time-consuming dialysis. His father and uncles, addled with the same affliction, had died when Martínez was a boy, forcing him to join the workforce.
Satellite imagery from NOAA shows various clusters of fire in the state of Oregon. The Bootleg fire, which has been burning since 6 July, is the largest active blaze in the nation, covering an area larger than the size of New York City. The growing Bootleg fire continued to devour forest in south-central Oregon, after forcing hundreds of residents in the Klamath Falls area to evacuate
Texas Democratic lawmakers have fled their state in a desperate attempt to stop the Republican-run legislature from passing laws they say will suppress the vote of people of color.
The extreme move – which sawdozens of Democrats leave via planes and head to Washington DC – is the latest and wildest escalation in a fight over voting rights in the state and in America more broadly.
As fires propagate throughout the US west on the heels of record heatwaves, experts are warning that the region is caught in a vicious feedback cycle of extreme heat, drought and fire, all amplified by the climate crisis.
Firefighters are battling blazes from Arizona to Washington state that are burning with a worrying ferocity, while officials say California is already set to outpace last year’s record-breaking fire season.
President condemns Trump’s ‘big lie’ about a stolen election but fails to mention filibuster in 20-minute Philadelphia speech
Joe Biden has made an impassioned attack on racist voting laws sweeping America, warning that “the 21st-century Jim Crow assault is real” and demanding of Republicans: “Have you no shame?”
Joe Biden gave his most muscular defense of the right to vote yet on Tuesday, but offered few specifics on how Democrats could overcome Republican efforts to stymie federal voting reform.
Thousands have been forced to evacuate from Alaska to Wyoming amid soaring temperatures and a drought
Nearly 60 wildfires were burning across 10 states in the parched American west on Tuesday, with the largest, in Oregon, consuming an area nearly twice the size of Portland.
The fires have torched homes and forced thousands to evacuate from Alaska to Wyoming, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Arizona, Idaho and Montana accounted for more than half of the large active fires.
The Utah division of wildlife resources has released video footage showing planes dropping small fish from the air into the lakes below.
The fish – which are usually between 1 and 3 inches (2.5cm-7.5cm) long and include rainbow trout, cutthroat trout, brook trout, tiger trout, splake and Arctic grayling – are specifically raised for fishing. They are dropped into fishless lakes that do not have any natural reproduction, and they are often sterile.
Utah’s DWR says this allows the state to control their numbers and does not affect any native fish populations.
This method of stocking, in which the small fish can survive the high fall because of their size, has been used since the 1950s
The wellspring of Lake Mead created by the dam’s blocking of the Colorado River has plummeted to an historic low as states in the west face hefty cuts in their water supplies
Had the formidable white arc of the Hoover dam never held back the Colorado River, the US west would probably have no Los Angeles or Las Vegas as we know them today. No sprawling food bowl of wheat, alfalfa and corn. No dreams of relocating to live in a tamed desert. The river, and dam, made the west; now the climate crisis threatens to break it.
The situation here is emblematic of a planet slowly, inexorably overheating. And the catastrophic consequences of the extreme weather this brings.
A drunken Rudy Giuliani repeatedly urged Donald Trump to “just say we won” on election night last November, according to a new book, even as key states started to slip away from the president and defeat by Joe Biden drew near.