Plans of four G20 states are threat to global climate pledge, warn scientists

‘Disastrous’ energy policies of China, Russia, Brazil and Australia could stoke 5C rise in temperatures if adopted by the rest of the world

A key group of leading G20 nations is committed to climate targets that would lead to disastrous global warming, scientists have warned. They say China, Russia, Brazil and Australia all have energy policies associated with 5C rises in atmospheric temperatures, a heating hike that would bring devastation to much of the planet.

The analysis, by the peer-reviewed group Paris Equity Check, raises serious worries about the prospects of key climate agreements being achieved at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow in three months. The conference – rated as one of the most important climate summits ever staged – will attempt to hammer out policies to hold global heating to 1.5C by agreeing on a global policy for ending net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050.

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Foreign Office is ‘complicit in British man’s Somalia torture’

‘David Taylor’ claims hooding, sensory deprivation and waterboarding was to persuade him to cooperate with the CIA

A British citizen has claimed he was tortured in Somalia and questioned by US intelligence officers, raising concern that controversial practices of the post-9/11 “war on terror” are still being used.

The 45-year-old from London alleges he has endured hooding, sensory deprivation and waterboarding at the hands of the Somali authorities to persuade him, he believes, to cooperate with the CIA. Foreign Office officials are aware of the allegationsof torture and US involvement, but their failure to act has raised questions over UK complicity.

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Meet Julie K Brown, the woman who brought down Jeffrey Epstein

It was by focusing on his silenced victims, says the dogged Miami Herald reporter, that she was able to help bring the billionaire sex offender to justice after police and prosecutors had failed

The town of Palm Beach in Florida, the crime writer Carl Hiaasen has observed, “is one of the few places left in America where you can still drive around in a Rolls-Royce convertible and not get laughed at.” It’s an unironic island, filled with the super-rich and famous, plastic surgeons and, of course, the former US president, Donald Trump, who holds court at his ostentatious Mar-a-Lago resort.

A satellite of Miami, the island prides itself on its many flamboyant charity balls, but no amount of good-cause fundraising can remove the whiff of corruption that hangs heavy in the subtropical air. If money talks in most places, in Palm Beach it speaks with a confident authority that’s seldom questioned. Never has that understanding been more egregiously demonstrated than in the case of the inscrutable financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

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Biden races to unite allies against China knowing sooner or later an explosion will occur

US president is being much tougher than expected on Beijing, but a lack of solidarity will undermine his policy’s success

It’s generally accepted in Washington that once-buoyant hopes for the emergence of a free, democratic China, initially sparked by Richard Nixon’s groundbreaking 1972 visit, have sunk without trace. President Xi Jinping’s regime is now described as a “systemic rival”, “strategic competitor” or outright “threat”. The EU, Nato, the UK, and regional allies broadly agree: the era of engagement is over.

What’s lacking is agreement over what comes next. The hole where common policy and joint action should be gapes ever more dangerously amid almost daily collisions on multiple fronts with Xi’s aggressive, authoritarian one-party state. If it’s not about human rights abuses, cyberhacking, or trade, it’s Taiwan, visas, spying, maritime disputes, the Indian border, or alleged hostage-taking.

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Arizona secretary of state tells Trump before election lie rally: get over it

Democrat Katie Hobbs says ‘this is nothing more than being a sore loser’ as ex-president heads to Phoenix for event

Arizona’s secretary of state had a message for Donald Trump before he appeared in Phoenix on Saturday: “Take your loss and accept it and move on.”

Related: Fox News backs Covid vaccination – a pity no one told Tucker Carlson

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R Kelly had sexual contact with underage boy as well as girls, prosecutors say

  • Jury selection nears in sex-trafficking trial of R&B star
  • Prosecutors detail new claims but not new charges

Federal prosecutors in R Kelly’s sex trafficking case say the R&B star had sexual contact with an underage boy as well as girls, and jurors should hear those claims.

Related: Surviving R Kelly producers: 'We wanted to explain why you shouldn’t blame survivors'

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‘The bear came out of nowhere’: Alaska prospector on terrifying grizzly attack

Richard Jessee, who was searching for gold, said: ‘There was no doubt about it: the bear was trying to get into my cabin’

An Alaska gold prospector rescued from a sustained attack by a grizzly bear some compared to a famous scene in the movie The Revenant told a local newspaper: “The bear came out of nowhere.

“It rolled my bike and the trailer over like it was a toy car. I was in shock and hypothermic.”

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Tennessee radio host doubted and mocked vaccines – now he has Covid

A conservative radio host in Tennessee who urged listeners not to get vaccinated against Covid-19 has changed track and called on listeners to get the shot, after contracting the virus and ending up in hospital in “very serious condition”.

Related: Fox News backs Covid vaccination – a pity no one told Tucker Carlson

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Democrats gear up for inflation fight as Republicans attack rising prices

Americans are paying more for gas, hotels and used cars – and Republicans sense an opportunity to inflict a political wound upon the Democrats

Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats have been eager to celebrate America’s economic rebound as pandemic-related restrictions are relaxed and more businesses reopen. But there has been one sore spot in recent economic reports that Democrats have been less enthusiastic about: inflation.

Related: Republican governor says ‘time to start blaming unvaccinated’ for rise in cases

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‘Heart-wrenching’: inside a hospital grappling with Delta and vaccine hesitancy

As the variant tears its way through the US and vaccination rates plateau in the state, hospitals are experiencing a new wave of cases

Nurse Matt Robinson braced himself before pushing the heavy doors to the recently reopened Covid-19 ward at Methodist University hospital in downtown Memphis, Tennessee.

This hadn’t been in the script. After over a year of continuous work with Covid-19 patients throughout the pandemic, the burnout brought on by constant exposure to death and trauma, Robinson had hoped his job might return to normal.

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Search for bodies in Florida condo collapse ends, with death toll at 97

Firefighters have officially ended their efforts following one of the nation’s deadliest engineering failures

Firefighters have declared the end of their search for bodies at the site of a collapsed Florida condo building, concluding a month of painstaking work removing layers of dangerous debris that were once piled several stories high.

The collapse on 24 June at the oceanside Champlain Towers South killed 97 people, with at least one more missing person yet to be identified. The site has been mostly swept flat and the rubble moved to a Miami warehouse. Although forensic scientists are still at work, including examining the debris at the warehouse, there are no more bodies to be found where the building once stood.

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Alabama governor joins growing number of Republicans urging Americans to get vaccinated – live

  • Covid cases likely to accelerate through summer, new forecasts say
  • CDC director warns Americans in ‘another pivotal moment’ in pandemic

As the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony comes to an end, First Lady Jill Biden cheers from the stands. On Saturday, she is expected to attend the USA v France women’s 3x3 basketball game and the USA v Nw Zealand women’s soccer game.

. @FLOTUS stands to cheer as #TeamUSA enters the arena. pic.twitter.com/XM0xiSzqxb

First Lady @DrBiden will attend the following Olympic events in Tokyo on Saturday, per the White House:

- USA v France women's 3x3 basketball game
- Various swimming races
- USA v New Zealand women's soccer game

The bust of a man who was a Confederate general, Ku Klux Klan leader and slave trader was removed from the Tennessee state capitol this morning, a year after the governor said it was high time it was gone.

Nathan Bedford Forrest had been immortalized at the Tennessee capitol in Nashville since the late 1970s.

HAPPENING NOW: Crews are starting the process of removing the Nathan Bedford Forrest bust from the capitol. @WKRN #GMN pic.twitter.com/8HwOG3zsoY

The State Building Commission on Thursday gave approval for the relocation of the Forrest bust to the Tennessee State Museum, a final step in a process that has taken more than a year since Gov. Bill Lee first said it was time for the statue to be moved.

“It’s been a year long journey, and this is an appropriate step in that process,” Lee said prior to the Building Commission meeting Thursday morning. “It’s most important to me that we followed the process. We talked about that from the very beginning.”

The bust of Confederate Gen. and KKK leader Nathan Bedford Forrest is off its pedestal and being wheeled out of the Tennessee Capitol. pic.twitter.com/dgAg4isvxw

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Republican governor says ‘time to start blaming unvaccinated’ for rise in cases

Alabama’s Kay Ivey says surge in new infections is due to a reluctance among many in state to get inoculated

The Republican governor of Alabama has said it is “time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks” for rising cases of Covid-19, amid concern that months of misinformation over the need and efficacy of vaccines is fueling a resurgence of coronavirus infections in several states.

Kay Ivey said that vaccines are “the greatest weapon we have to fight Covid” and added that a surge in new cases of the coronavirus in Alabama is due to a reluctance among many people in the state to get inoculated.

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‘There’s magic in misery’: ultramarathon runners cross Death Valley – in a drought

A hundred athletes are picked each year for the 135-mile race. This time the climate was especially brutal

In the Badwater Basin at the bottom of California’s Death Valley, the air feels like a giant hair dryer and the pavement can melt the soles of your shoes.

Yet on Monday night, 100 of the world’s top endurance runners set off on what has become known as “the world’s toughest foot race”, carving 135 miles of terrain through one of the planet’s most extreme climates at the most intense time of year.

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US ‘not of the woods yet’, says CDC chief, as Delta variant drives Covid surge – video

The US is at another 'pivotal moment' in the pandemic as the Delta variant drives a big rise in new cases, said CDC director, Rochelle Walensky, who warned 'we are not out of the woods yet'. She added: 'The Delta variant is more aggressive and much more transmissible than previously circulating strains,' she said. 'It is one of the most infectious respiratory viruses that we know of and that I have seen in my 20-year career.'

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‘Pivotal moment’: CDC chief issues stark warning over surge in Delta Covid variant – as it happened

  • Senators say FBI gathered over 4,500 tips but failed to follow them up
  • Nancy Pelosi rejects Jim Jordan and Jim Banks for inquiry role
  • White House in talks with CDC about updating masking guidance

The recent heatwave that broiled the US Pacific north-west not only obliterated temperature records in cities such as Seattle and Portland – it also put a torch to a comforting bromide that the region would be a mild, safe haven from the ravages of the climate crisis.

Unprecedented temperatures baked the region three weeks ago, part of a procession of heatwaves that have hit the parched US west, from Montana to southern California, over the past month. A “heat dome” that settled over the area saw Seattle reach 108F (42.2C), smashing the previous record by 3F (1.7C), while Portland, Oregon, soared to its own record of 116F (46.7C). Some inland areas managed to get up to 118F (47.8C).

Related: ‘Nowhere is safe’: heat shatters vision of Pacific north-west as climate refuge

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About 100 CIA officers and family have been sickened by Havana syndrome

Director William Burns has initiated a taskforce to investigate the syndrome and tripled the size of the medical team involved

About 100 CIA officers and family members are among about 200 US officials and kin sickened by “Havana syndrome”, the CIA director, William Burns, said on Thursday, referring to the mysterious set of ailments that include migraines and dizziness.

Burns, tapped by Joe Biden as the first career diplomat to serve as CIA chief, said in a National Public Radio interview that he had bolstered his agency’s efforts to determine the cause of the syndrome and what is responsible.

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Tech firm hit by giant ransomware hack gets key to unlock victims’ data

Kaseya’s universal key can free the files of hundreds of organizations, ending the worst of the attack’s fallout

The software company at the center of a huge ransomware attack this month has obtained a universal key to unlock files of the hundreds of businesses and public organizations crippled by the hack.

Nineteen days after the initial attack over the Fourth of July weekend, the Florida-based IT management provider, Kaseya, has received the universal key that can unlock the scrambled data of all the attack’s victims, bringing the worst of the fallout to a close.

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Low-key US-China meeting will address high tensions in relationship

Visit by deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman on Sunday follows reported standoff over diplomatic protocol

Amid escalating diplomatic tensions, the US deputy secretary of state, Wendy Sherman, will travel to China this Sunday to meet with senior Chinese diplomats in the highest-level visit since the US climate envoy John Kerry’s trip to Shanghai in April.

Sherman’s upcoming trip will not have the trappings of a fully fledged official visit. She will – according to a Chinese statement – “hold talks” with Xie Feng, a vice-minister in charge of the bilateral relations, and “meet” with Wang Yi, China’s state councilor and foreign minister.

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Man who endured weeklong attacks by grizzly bear rescued after SOS spotted

Alaska man injured by bear that kept returning to his isolated hut in the wilderness

It reads like the plot of a thriller movie or page-turning novel.

A man in Alaska was rescued, injured but alive, after enduring repeated attacks by a grizzly bear that kept on returning to his isolated hut in the wilderness, from which he had no way of contacting the outside world.

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