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American Scar: The environmental tragedy of the border wall

American Scar: The environmental tragedy of the border wall

  Murat Oztaskin writes: In a remote and rugged expanse of southern Arizona, between the vast stretches of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts, a straight line runs. It cuts through mountaintops, across the foothills and valleys. At one time, the line was conceptual: the border between one country and another, a geopolitical abstraction real mainly to those who ached to cross it and to others who wished to prevent that. Now, in the past few years, much of it has…

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The economic shock from the pandemic continues to assault global fortunes

The economic shock from the pandemic continues to assault global fortunes

The New York Times reports: This past week brought home the magnitude of the overlapping crises assailing the global economy, intensifying fears of recession, job losses, hunger and a plunge on stock markets. At the root of this torment is a force so elemental that it has almost ceased to warrant mention — the pandemic. That force is far from spent, confronting policymakers with grave uncertainty. Their policy tools are better suited for more typical downturns, not a rare combination…

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Afghan economy has crumbled since Taliban takeover

Afghan economy has crumbled since Taliban takeover

The Wall Street Journal reports: Until a few months ago, Mohammed Wahid Haykalyar owned a busy restaurant in the heart of Kabul, where people came from all over the city for steaming plates of saffron rice and braised lamb. His monthly earnings of $3,000 were more than enough to pay for his children’s English-language lessons and after-school soccer practice. These days, he doesn’t even have money to buy food for his family. “I never imagined I would find myself here….

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The case for charging Donald Trump with manslaughter

The case for charging Donald Trump with manslaughter

Barbara McQuade writes: The next Jan. 6 committee hearing — a prime-time finale after seven previous hearings — is expected to focus even more intently on what was happening inside the White House during the insurrection. I will be listening for evidence of a crime that has gone largely undiscussed: manslaughter. Five people died in the Jan. 6 attack. Officer Brian Sicknick sustained a fatal stroke a day after rioters sprayed him with a chemical irritant. Air Force veteran Ashli…

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How a little-known lawyer pitched Trump on extreme plans to subvert election

How a little-known lawyer pitched Trump on extreme plans to subvert election

The New York Times reports: Around 5 in the afternoon on Christmas Day in 2020, as many Americans were celebrating with family, President Donald J. Trump was at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla., on the phone with a little-known conservative lawyer who was encouraging his attempts to overturn the election, according to a memo the lawyer later wrote documenting the call. The lawyer, William J. Olson, was promoting several extreme ideas to the president. Mr. Olson later conceded…

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Justice Department steps up January 6 probe of those in Trump’s orbit

Justice Department steps up January 6 probe of those in Trump’s orbit

The Wall Street Journal reports: The Justice Department is adding prosecutors and resources to its investigation into the actions of former President Donald Trump’s allies to overturn the 2020 election, according to people familiar with the matter, as the related congressional hearings have turbocharged interest in Mr. Trump’s own role in that effort. A Justice Department team focusing on elements of the investigation beyond the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has in recent weeks been given more…

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Joe Manchin’s unconscionable legacy

Joe Manchin’s unconscionable legacy

Leah C. Stokes writes: Over the last year and a half, I’ve dissected every remark I could find in the press from Senator Joe Manchin on climate change. With the fate of our planet hanging in the balance, his every utterance was of global significance. But his statements have been like a weather vane, blowing in every direction. It’s now clear that Mr. Manchin has wasted what little time this Congress had left to make real progress on the climate…

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After Biden confronts MBS about murdering Khashoggi, Saudi prince gives whataboutist retort

After Biden confronts MBS about murdering Khashoggi, Saudi prince gives whataboutist retort

CNN reports: Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, hit back at Joe Biden after the US President confronted him about the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi during a meeting between the two leaders on Friday, according to a source familiar with the matter. In the meeting, Bin Salman, also known as MBS, denied responsibility for the killing of Khashoggi at the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate. Biden said he inidicated that he disagreed with MBS, based…

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Russia and Iran are allies against the West but rivals in commodity sales

Russia and Iran are allies against the West but rivals in commodity sales

The Wall Street Journal reports: Iran and Russia are engaged in a fierce competition for sales of oil, refined crude products and metals in India, China and across Asia, as Moscow sells at prices that are undercutting one of its few supporters during the Ukraine invasion. The struggle over market share between Iran and Russia provides a stark example of how the Ukraine war is rewiring global energy markets, knocking Moscow out of the West only to find it re-emerge…

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Crytopmining capacity in U.S. rivals energy use of Houston, findings show

Crytopmining capacity in U.S. rivals energy use of Houston, findings show

The New York Times reports: Seven of the largest Bitcoin mining companies in the United States are set up to use nearly as much electricity as the homes in Houston, according to data disclosed Friday as part of an investigation by congressional Democrats who say miners should be required to report their energy use. The United States has seen an influx of cryptocurrency miners, who use powerful, energy-intensive computers to create and track the virtual currencies, after China cracked down…

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The war in Ukraine is the true culture war

The war in Ukraine is the true culture war

Jason Farago writes: At the thousand-year-old Cathedral of Saint Sophia here, standing on an easel in front of a towering Baroque golden altar, is a new, freshly painted icon that’s just a foot square. It depicts a 17th-century Cossack military commander with a long gray beard. His eyebrows are arched. His halo is a plain red circle. He looks humble beneath the immense mosaics that have glinted since the 11th century — through Kyiv’s sacking by the Mongols, its absorption…

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As climate change worsens, the Supreme Court, GOP and Joe Manchin have crippled Washington

As climate change worsens, the Supreme Court, GOP and Joe Manchin have crippled Washington

Ronald Brownstein writes: Mother Nature is entering a dissenting opinion on last month’s Supreme Court decision that weakened the federal government’s ability to combat climate change. With record heat in Texas that is testing the state’s power grid, a California wildfire that has threatened an ancient grove of sequoias considered a foundation stone of the national-park system, and persistent drought across the West that is forcing unprecedented cutbacks in water deliveries from the Colorado River, the summer of 2022 already…

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Joe Manchin has ‘single-handedly doomed humanity’

Joe Manchin has ‘single-handedly doomed humanity’

The New York Times reports: First, he killed a plan that would have forced power plants to clean up their climate-warming pollution. Then, he shattered an effort to help consumers pay for electric vehicles. And, finally, he said he could not support government incentives for solar and wind companies or any of the other provisions that the rest of his party and his president say are vital to ensure a livable planet. Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, who…

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Majority of Democrats believe Biden is not doing enough on climate change

Majority of Democrats believe Biden is not doing enough on climate change

Inside Climate News reports: Democrats who favor strong action on climate change are deeply dissatisfied with what they see as the slow pace of progress under President Joe Biden, according to a Pew Research Center report released Thursday. The survey of more than 10,000 adults conducted in early May showed a deep partisan divide over Biden’s climate policies—much in line with the split between Democrats and Republicans that has shown up in public opinion polling for more than a decade….

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