Jens Stoltenberg speaks during the press conference to preview the Nato summit in Madrid on Monday.Photograph: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP/Getty Images
Dan SabbaghDefence and security editorMon 27 Jun 2022 11.05 EDT
Nato’s secretary general has said this week’s Madrid summit will agree the alliance’s most significant transformation for a generation, putting 300,000 troops at high readiness in response to Russia’s invasion ofUkraine.
Jens Stoltenberg said the military alliance’s forces in the Baltic states and five other frontline countries would be increased “up to brigade levels” – doubled or trebled to between 3,000 and 5,000 troops.
That would amount to “the biggest overhaul of our collective defence and deterrence since the cold war,” Stoltenberg said before the meeting of the 30-country alliance, which runs from Tuesday to Thursday this…
California’s wildfire season intensifies between July and October when temperatures soar, vegetation becomes bone dry and desiccating winds develop.
The peak season that has been marked by devastating blazes and smoky skies in recent years is approaching fast, and many are wondering just how bad it will be.
The consensus among experts is that the next few months will see above-average fire activity as has been the case in recent years amid a changing climate marked by hotter temperatures and longer dry periods. Nearly all of California is in a severe or extreme drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
“We do have the ingredients for an active, above-normal fire year, with the snowpack being below average,” said Brent Wachter, a fire meteorologist at the U.S. Forest Service’s Geographic Coordination Center in Redding, Calif. “We also have an above-normal grass crop. That’s a big driver.”
This year’s grass crop got a healthy boost when a string of weak storms delivered light rain to Northern California in May and June. While the systems may have prevented wildfire conditions from advancing rapidly in Northern California in June, they didn’t provide enough precipitation to put a dent in the state’s drought. Plus, they helped grasses grow more prolifically. Those grasses will dry out quickly in summer when the state typically receives no or very little rain and heat events are common, creating fuel for wildfires.
A helicopter prepares to drop water on the Dixie Fire in Aug. 20, 2021.Ty O’Neil/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
This year’s meager snowpack is only exacerbating the dire situation. In an ideal year, a robust snowpack is spread across the Sierra Nevada by spring, and it melts through summer with the runoff feeding the landscape. When the ground and vegetation are moist, fires don’t spread quite as rapidly. This year, while the snowpack got an early start with a historic October storm and a wet December, January through March were abnormally dry, resulting in a well-below-average snowpack. Going into summer, little snow remains in the Sierra Nevada range this year, with the northern section at 16% of normal for this date and the central and southern at 0%, according to the California Department of Water Resources.
Without a slow trickle of snowmelt through summer, trees and plants dry out more quickly and some will die. Trees that don’t get enough water become stressed and more prone to bark beetle attacks that kill trees. “Since 2010, an estimated 129 million trees have died in California’s national forests due to conditions caused by climate change, unprecedented drought, bark beetle infestation and high tree densities,” the U.S. Forest Service said.
There may be a bit of good news: While peak fire season is bound to be more severe than average, there’s a chance it might not be as bad as last year’s near-record or the 2020 season, a study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research said. The scientists estimated the number of acres that are likely to burn in the West by analyzing precipitation, temperatures, drought and other climate conditions in the winter and spring.
“What our research shows is that the climate of the preceding winter and spring can explain over 50% of the year-to-year variability and overall trend in summer fire activity,” Ronnie Abolafia-Rosenzweig, the lead author of the study and a researcher at the center, said in a statement. “This gives us the ability to predict fire activity before the summer fire season begins.”
The researchers predicted that that fires this summer will burn 1.9 to 5.3 million acres in the West, with 3.8 million acres being the most likely total. Although well short of the record 8.7 million acres burned in 2020, this would represent the 8th-largest burned area since 1984, a continuation of the long-term trend of more widespread conflagrations, the study said.
Of the study, Wachter said his “professional guess” is this upcoming season will be severe — but not as bad as in 2020 when a dry lightning storm in August sparked fires throughout California or last year when the Dixie Fire grew to be 963,309 acres, becoming the second-largest wildfire in state history.
A home burns as the Dixie fire rips through the Indian Falls neighborhood of unincorporated Plumas County, California on July 24, 2021. JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images
Wachter said long-term weather forecasts suggests heat waves this summer may be less intense than in recent years, and this could help lower wildfire risk.
“This summer, the heat wave events aren’t expected to be as prolific and as long as duration in previous years,” he said. “We’ve seen several excessive heat warnings issued for 4 to 5 years in a row. I would expect they would be a little more limited this year.”
This point is reinforced in the most recent wildland fire seasonal outlook for June through September from the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise. “Drought conditions are expected to intensify some during the summer, but likely not as dramatic compared to the previous two years due to less potential for extended hot periods,” according to the outlook created by experts from more than a half dozen government agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. “Regardless, dead fuel moisture will spend ample time at unusually dry and critically dry levels, especially away from the coast. Live fuels will continue to become more flammable starting with the lower elevations and transitioning upwards in elevation from June into July, with coincident critically dry dead and live fuels expected to increase during this period then continue into August and September.”
Wachter said that while certain factors impacting the fire season are easy to predict, what he calls “acute weather” events, such as dry lightning storms that spark fires and offshore winds that fan flames, are much harder to pin down.
“Any kind of lightning can be problematic, especially if it’s of the dry variety, especially if it’s a mix of wet and dry,” he said.
Abortion rights campaigners participate in nationwide demonstrations following the leaked Supreme Court opinion suggesting the possibility of overturning the Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision, at Duncan Plaza in New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S., May 14, 2022. REUTERS/Kathleen Flynn/File Photo
Read More
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
June 27 (Reuters) – Battles over abortion shifted to state courts on Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to the procedure nationwide, as a judge blocked a statewide ban in Louisiana and clinics in Idaho, Kentucky, Mississippi and Texas sued seeking similar relief.
The five are among the 13 states with “trigger laws” designed to ban or severely restrict abortions once the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that recognized a right to the procedure, as it did on Friday.read more
Political pressure is mounting on Joe Biden to take more action to protect abortion rights across the US as firebrand New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for supreme court justices to be impeached for misleading statements about their views on Roe v Wade.
Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks took aim at justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. Both were appointed by former president Donald Trump and had signaled that they would not reverse the supreme court’s landmark 1973 decision in Roe v Wade during confirmation hearings as well as in meetings with senators.
On Friday, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch formed part of the conservative majority which in effect ended legal access to abortion in most states, and Ocasio-Cortez said “there must be consequences” for that.
“They lied,” the leftwing, second-term representative said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “I believe lying under oath is an impeachable offense … and I believe that this is something that should be very seriously considered.”
Ocasio-Cortez added that standing idly by “sends a blaring signal to all future nominees that they can now lie to duly elected members of the United States Senate in order to secure … confirmations and seats on the supreme court”.
She also mentioned impeaching Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife Ginni emailed 29 Republican lawmakers in Arizona as she tried to help undermine Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Thomas has not recused himself from election-related cases, drawing criticism.
“I believe that not recusing from cases that one clearly has family members involved in with very deep violations of conflict of interest are also impeachable offenses,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
House members can impeach a judge with a simple majority vote. But to be removed from office a justice would need to be convicted by a two-thirds majority of the Senate.
Biden’s Democratic party controls the House with a clear majority, but its standing in the Senate is much more tenuous. The Senate is split 50-50, though Biden’s vice-president, Kamala Harris, can serve as a tiebreaker for votes that can be carried by a simple majority.
The president dismissed the overturning of Roe v Wade as “cruel” but stopped well short of calling for the impeachment of any justices. He has also rejected the strategy proposed in some quarters to expand the supreme court in a way that would allow for the addition of more liberals and blunt the bench’s current conservative majority.
Joining Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Thomas as conservatives on the supreme court are justices Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett and John Roberts. The liberals are Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Breyer is retiring and due to be replaced by Ketanji Brown Jackson, another liberal.
Nonetheless, on Sunday, Ocasio-Cortez urged Biden to personally take steps to address what she called the supreme court’s “crisis of legitimacy”.
“President Biden must address that,” she said.
Ocasio-Cortez suggested Biden could order the opening up of abortion clinics on federal lands in states where terminating pregnancies has been outlawed “to help people access the healthcare services they need”, echoing an idea from the Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren.
In states where abortion is no longer allowed because of Friday’s ruling, residents who need to terminate pregnancies must now travel hundreds of miles – if not more – to get access to the procedure.
Many US corporate giants have taken steps to provide support and financial assistance to employees seeking abortions in states where that is outlawed in most cases. But such measures won’t help millions of people who need abortions but are not employed by a large international or national company.
That’s where an order from Biden to allow abortion on federal lands in anti-abortion rights states would come in and help.
Ocasio-Cortez also discussed possibly expanding access to abortion pills that could be mailed to those in need, though Republican politicians are gearing up to limit access to those as well.
For instance, South Dakota’s governor, Kristi Noem, said her state would move to block medical providers in states where abortion is legal from mailing to South Dakotans pills that could end a pregnancy.
The pressure on Biden follows Ocasio-Cortez’s remark earlier this month that she could not yet commit to endorsing him for another run at the White House in the 2024 election.
Her comments on Sunday also came after senators such as Susan Collins of Maine and Joe Manchin of West Virginia said they felt deceived by Friday’s controversial supreme court decision to end nearly 50 years of protections granted by Roe v Wade.
Collins, a Republican, said she felt “misled” after Kavanaugh and Gorsuch had said they would leave in place “longstanding precedents that the country has relied upon” during their confirmation hearings and in meetings with her.
Meanwhile, Manchin said he had trusted both Kavanaugh and Gorsuch when they “testified under oath that they … believed Roe v Wade was settled legal precedent”.
Manchin was the lone Democrat to support Kavanaugh’s appointment.
(CNN)Russian forces are arguably having their best spell since the invasion of Ukraine began four months ago.
They have eliminated most Ukrainian defenses in the Luhansk region, consolidated control of a belt of territory in the south, improved their logistics and command structure and blunted the effectiveness of Ukrainian attack drones.
Within the last week, the Russians have been rewarded for their intense — some would say merciless — bombardments of the remaining parts of the Luhansk region held by Ukrainian forces, which have finally given up Severodonetsk and lost territory south of Lysychansk.
The head of the self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic, Leonid Pasechnik, predicted last Friday that Russian forces would completely encircle Lysychansk within two or three days. So far they haven’t, but the city is in imminent peril.
By the numbers:Japan recorded its first June temperature of 104°F (40°C) or higher, and records continue to be set there. Officialsare urging millionsto conserve electricity as the heat continues, including in Tokyo.
104.4°F (40.2°C):Thehigh temperature in Isesaki, Japan, about 50 miles northwest of Tokyo, on June 25. This set a national heat record for the month of June.
There’s no reason to force rabbits, guinea pigs, mice and rats to undergo painful new chemical tests for cosmetics when today’s science allows for non-animal testing methods that are more relevant to human safety. iStock.com
In a victory for rabbits, guinea pigs, mice, rats and all animals used for testing, Louisiana is the latest state to take steps to end the cruel and unnecessary use of animals to test cosmetics. Eight other states (California, Nevada, Illinois, Virginia, Maryland, Maine, Hawaii and New Jersey) have already banned the sale of cosmetics that have been newly tested on animals. This win aligns with rising consumer opinion that there is no need to test products like shampoo, aftershave and lipstick on animals. There is also a similar bill that will be heading to the governor’s desk in New York.
As we celebrate the passage of this law in Louisiana, we remain focused on the need for a comprehensive national solution. While we have worked hard to ensure states pass these laws, it’s imperative for animals that we ban animal testing for cosmetics at the federal level. That will do more to bring the United States into greater harmony with the many nations that have prohibited such testing and strengthen the international regulatory frameworks that govern animal testing and the many non-animal methods coming to replace them.
Congress recently had a golden opportunity to end cosmetics animal testing in the U.S. but, sadly, did not seize it. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee recently considered must-pass legislation that grants the Food and Drug Administration additional oversight on cosmetics. We urged committee members to include language from the federal Humane Cosmetics Act into this legislative package. In a major missed opportunity for animals, the language was not included in this legislation. Still more concerning is that the current bill’s language may preempt state laws that end the production and/or sale of cosmetics tested on animals, like the one just passed in Louisiana. We will not rest until this issue is addressed by Congress, and we will not stop until animals no longer have to suffer for these cruel and outdated cosmetics tests.
Some of the strongest support for ending animal testing for cosmetics is coming from the cosmetics industry itself. The Humane Cosmetics Act has the endorsement of the Personal Care Products Council, the trade association representing nearly 600 companies that make and market cosmetics, in addition to more than 375 companies that have individually signed on to support this legislation. Companies want a federal law that aligns the U.S. with the nine states and 41 countries that have already passed laws to end or limit animal testing for cosmetics.
Our thanks to state Rep. Barbara Freiberg (R, 70) for her leadership on this issue. Her work to make Louisiana the latest state to take on the cruelty of cosmetics animal testing will help solidify congressional support for this issue and bring us one step closer to finally relegating animal testing for cosmetics to history.
Sara Amundson is president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund.
Should you come across the bodies of suspected avian flu victims, report your findings to Defra on 03459 335577. Photograph: Brian D Anderson/Rex/Shutterstock
Walking the Orkney shoreline, usually such a peaceful and calming activity, has been more disturbing of late. Along the strand, a succession of small bedraggled forms lie prone – victims of the avian flu ripping through the seabird populations of the Northern Isles and up the east coast of Britain.
Crossing over to the Brough of Birsay, the tidal island, via a narrow causeway, I stumble across the first gannet. Its long, streamlined body is immediately recognisable: spectre white, misted with gold at its crown. Its eyes, staring blindly, have that piercing, icy quality of a husky’s, while its beak is the palest powder blue lined in black, as if designed with a felt-tip pen.
It is unusual to be able to admire such a creature at close quarters, but I keep my distance. Best not to touch it. There’s a second bird just a few metres further on, this one sprawled across the strand, wings outstretched. A pitiful sight. It’s the same story all up the coast, affecting many species at once. Last year it was the geese. This year: the gannets, guillemots, great skuas, and more. A catastrophe in our midst, and one with global significance: at this time of year, Scotland plays host to 46% of the world’s northern gannets and 60% of all great skuas.
There is horrifying footage from the famous gannet colonies at Hermaness in Shetland, where more than 1,000 dead birds have been recorded in the waters, and the Bass Rock off East Lothian, – the largest such colony in the world – show scenes of devastation. Birds slide from their rocky perches, hang lodged in crags while their close neighbours continue to feed and fledge their chicks amid the corpses. This annual gathering, where birds feed and fledge their young collectively and in close proximity, is serving as a superspreader event.
Thought to be the worst ever outbreak in the UK, much of the drama is unfolding offshore; the true toll in those remote colonies, where birds crowd tightly together, is not yet fully known. But we can track its progress through the birds washed up on our beaches: should you come across the bodies of suspected avian flu victims, report your findings to Defra on 03459 335577.
Following the attack in the Myrtle Beach Golf and Yacht Club, the alligator returned to the retention pond, theSun News reported.
The victim’s body was recovered from the pond and the alligator was removed and euthanized, police say. The police department’s investigation is still underway, authorities said, and the victim’s identity and a cause of death have not yet been released.
The police department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNN.
