Music: S. Pri Noir — ‘Chico’
While the rich world braces for future climate change, the poor world is already being devastated by it
CNN reports: “Upside down” are the only words Manush Albert Alben has to describe life after the powerful Cyclone Idai. Nearly two weeks since the powerful cyclone destroyed most of the city of Beira, Mozambique, it is a long way from normal. “There’s no money, no groceries,” Alben, a fisherman, said while sitting in his wooden pirogue on a local beach. “We are suffering but trying to hold on.” Known for its busy port and views of the Indian Ocean,…
Insects have ‘no place to hide’ from climate change, study warns
The Guardian reports: Insects have “no place to hide” from climate change, scientists have warned, following an analysis of 50 years of UK data. The study showed that woodlands, whose shade was expected to protect species from warming temperatures, are being just as affected by climate change as open grasslands. The research examined the first springtime flights of butterflies, moths and aphids and the first eggs of birds between 1965 and 2012. As average temperatures have risen, aphids are now…
Whistle-blower in White House informs Congress about serious breaches of national security at highest levels of Trump administration
The New York Times reports: A whistle-blower working inside the White House has told a House committee that senior Trump administration officials granted security clearances to at least 25 individuals whose applications had been denied by career employees, the committee’s Democratic staff said Monday. The whistle-blower, Tricia Newbold, a manager in the White House’s Personnel Security Office, told the House Oversight and Reform Committee in a private interview last month that the 25 individuals included two current senior White House…
Trump’s threat to cut off much of America’s food supply
Reuters reports: President Donald Trump’s threat to shut down the U.S.-Mexico border would hit American consumers — in the gut. From avocado toast to margaritas, the United States is heavily reliant on Mexican imports of fruit, vegetables and alcohol to meet consumer demand. Nearly half of all imported U.S. vegetables and 40 percent of imported fruit are grown in Mexico, according to the latest data from the United States Department of Agriculture. Americans would run out of avocados in three…
Trump laid a trap on immigration — and only Beto is avoiding it
Peter Beinart writes: Beto O’Rourke isn’t known for his wonkish heft. But in his formal announcement for president on Sunday, the former Texas congressman offered one of the most important policy proposals of the nascent presidential campaign: He argued that to solve America’s problems at the border, America’s leaders must “help people in Central America where they are.” In so doing, he began laying a foundation to effectively rebut Donald Trump on his signature issue: immigration. Every major Democratic presidential…
Judge the attorney general by what he ultimately sends to Congress
Benjamin Wittes writes: Here’s a radical idea: For the next two weeks, let’s give Attorney General William Barr the benefit of the doubt. I understand why so many people are suspicious of Barr and are lining up to denounce him—and there may well come a day, and it might come soon, when I will get in line and join them. Barr’s initial letter summarizing the top-line conclusions of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation allowed President Donald Trump to claim exoneration…
Is methane in Mars’ atmosphere evidence of life?
The New York Times reports: Methane gas periodically wafts into the atmosphere of Mars; that notion, once considered implausible and perplexing, is now widely accepted by planetary scientists. Why the methane is there is still a bewildering mystery. It may even point to present-day Martian microbes living in the rocks below the surface. In Nature Geoscience on Monday, scientists working with the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter reported that in the summer of 2013, the spacecraft detected methane within…
Music: Maverick Sabre & Chronixx — ‘Her Grace’
It’s time to focus on Trump’s corruption
Michael Paarlberg writes: It’s a fortunate thing for Donald Trump that the Democrats, and much of the media, spent the past two years focused on the narrow question of whether his 2016 campaign actively colluded with Russian agents to hack his opponents’ emails. Were it not for this singular obsession, we might have come to appreciate the full scope of graft, influence peddling and petty theft that has made this the most crooked administration in US history. One doesn’t have…
For Russia, an assassin ends up as ‘a used bullet’ who can easily be replaced
Michael Schwirtz writes: For months, I had been traveling in Russia and Europe, reporting on the poisoning last year in England of the former Russian spy, Sergei V. Skripal. It had touched off a geopolitical confrontation and brought talk of a new Cold War. Britain and its allies enacted sanctions and expelled more than 150 Russian diplomats after blaming the nerve agent attack on two officers from Russia’s military intelligence service, the G.R.U. For Ukraine, Russian interference was an old…
How many innocent people does the U.S. kill by remote control?
In an editorial, the New York Times says: The Pentagon says American airstrikes in Somalia have killed no civilians since President Trump accelerated attacks against Shabab militants there two years ago. Amnesty International investigated five of the more than 100 strikes carried out in Somalia since 2017 by drones and manned aircraft, and in just that small sampling found that at least 14 civilians were killed. The Pentagon says airstrikes by the American-led coalition fighting the Islamic State killed at…
Leaked reports reveal how Saudis torture political prisoners
The Guardian reports: Political prisoners in Saudi Arabia are said to be suffering from malnutrition, cuts, bruises and burns, according to leaked medical reports that are understood to have been prepared for the country’s ruler, King Salman. The reports seem to provide the first documented evidence from within the heart of the royal court that political prisoners are facing severe physical abuse, despite the government’s denials that men and women in custody are being tortured. The Guardian has been told…
Across the Middle East and North Africa, environmentalists are coming under attack like never before
Peter Schwartzstein writes: Conservation NGOs have been closed or so suffocated that they’re as good as dissolved. Activists and experts have been threatened into silence—or worse. A community that had until recently mostly escaped the fate of much of the region’s civil society has suddenly fallen afoul of the authorities. Its plight mirrors the difficulties faced by environmentalists worldwide. Globally, 197 environmental defenders were killed in 2017, according to the UN Environment Programme, a fivefold increase from a decade ago….
Evidence of the most significant event in the history of life on Earth
Douglas Preston writes: If, on a certain evening about sixty-six million years ago, you had stood somewhere in North America and looked up at the sky, you would have soon made out what appeared to be a star. If you watched for an hour or two, the star would have seemed to grow in brightness, although it barely moved. That’s because it was not a star but an asteroid, and it was headed directly for Earth at about forty-five thousand…
Music: Colde — ‘Space’