20:02
Summary
19:45
‘Wildfires are being supercharged by climate change,’ Biden says
“These wildfires are being supercharged by climate change. It isn’t about red or blue states. It’s about fires,” the president said. “Scientists have been warning us for years that extreme weather is going to get more extreme. We’re living it in real time.”
The president made a push for his $3.5tn spending plan Congress is debating, which he said includes $8bn dollars to increase wildfire resiliency. That plan faces skepticism from key centrist Democrats Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema.
Biden also praised California’s governor Gavin Newsom, who faces a recall election Tuesday. The two will hit the campaign trail later today. Newsom, who spoke before Biden, warned that California is “dealing with extremes the likes of which we’ve never dealt with in our state’s history”.
19:32
Biden speaks on his administration’s response to wildfires
19:24
Study finds meat accounts for nearly 60% of all greenhouse gases from food production
The global production of food is responsible for a third of all planet-heating gases emitted by human activity, with the use of animals for meat causing twice the pollution of producing plant-based foods, a major new study has found.
The entire system of food production, such as the use of farming machinery, spraying of fertilizer and transportation of products, causes 17.3bn metric tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, according to the research. This enormous release of gases that fuel the climate crisis is more than double the entire emissions of the US and represents 35% of all global emissions, researchers said.
“The emissions are at the higher end of what we expected, it was a little bit of a surprise,” said Atul Jain, a climate scientist at the University of Illinois and co-author of the paper, published in Nature Food. “This study shows the entire cycle of the food production system, and policymakers may want to use the results to think about how to control greenhouse gas emissions.”
19:04
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18:30
On the eve of California’s gubernatorial recall election, many voters are signaling that the state’s peculiar recall process needs to change.
The recall effort has put governor Gavin Newsom in the peculiar position of having to fight for his political future while retaining broad approval among Californians.
The campaign to gather signatures to hold a recall picked up steam amid the worst of the state’s pandemic surge – with recall proponents capitalizing on frustrations over the state policies shutting down schools and businesses, mandating masking and social distancing.
But in California, no reason is necessary to start a recall petition. The only requirement to put a recall on the ballot is enough voter signatures – equal to 12% of voters in the last election – including those of voters from at least five counties.
So a small, motivated, and angry minority of conservatives were able to create a state-wide referendum on the Democratic governor of an overwhelmingly blue state.
“This is the politics of grievance,” said James Lance Taylor a political scientist at the University of San Francisco. “Because of the way this whole phenomenon works in California, it is making it possible for a very competent, governor to be removed for no real, legitimate reason.”
18:04
17:33
At her Guardian Live discussion with Jonathan Freedland, Hillary Clinton reflected on her win in the popular vote by nearly 3m votes in 2016, when she lost the electoral college by a few tens of thousands in a couple of states. She said Joe Biden could easily have lost the electoral college despite his 7m margin last year.
“Think about it, you could have someone who wins by nearly 10m votes and still lose the electoral college under our crazy dysfunctional system, which is a remnant of, frankly, compromises with slave states,” she said. “I think people who study American politics need to realize how insane this whole electoral college is when you talk about a democracy, which is what we’re supposed to be.”
17:12
In a poll released Monday by the UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, 75% of registered voters said they wanted to keep their right to remove a statewide official through a recall election.
But majorities of voters also proposed reforms to the process. For example, 63% of voters said they would like to see a runoff election in cases where a recall succeeds, but no candidate to replace an official has gained a majority of support.
Currently, even if a hair above 50% of voters choose to remove the governor, the replacement candidate with the most votes automatically becomes governor. In a scenario where 50.1% support removing governor Gavin Newsom, rightwing radio host Larry Elder – the leading opponent – could become governor with just 20% support.
A 55% majority also supported the idea of increasing the number of signatures required for a recall, and 59% said that recallers should have to give a reason for wanting to remove an official such as illegal or unethical conduct.
Updated
16:50
16:30
Today so far
Updated
16:20
16:07
USCP warns of ‘concerning online chatter’ around ‘Justice for J6’ rally
15:53
Hillary Clinton is speaking at a Guardian Live event to Jonathan Freedland, and she has been giving her reaction to the Texas anti-abortion law.
“So you ask if I’m surprised or discouraged. I’m neither. I’m not surprised because I’ve been involved in the women’s movement, the civil rights movement. I’ve seen the forces that are arrayed against progress when it comes to women’s autonomy, when it comes to the advancement of civil and political and economic rights. I know very well that the other side never gives up.
“They are relentless in their view of what is a properly constructed society, and in that view, white men are at the very top and nobody else is even close.”
15:40
At a Guardian Live online discussion, Hillary Clinton was asked by the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland whether she would have advised Joe Biden not to have gone ahead with the Afghan withdrawal if she had been in the administration.
In her reply, Clinton staunchly defended Biden, putting all the blame on Donald Trump, and the deal he made with the Taliban in Doha in February 2020.
“I don’t think he had that choice,” she said. “I think that it was way too far gone, and I respect the decision to leave. In effect, President Biden’s hands were tied because the Taliban had made it very clear, there would be a ceasefire with respect to the American presence in Afghanistan, not only the military but also the civilian presence which was considerable.
“But if there was any effort to go back on the deal that Trump had made, then that ceasefire would end. And that would have put President Biden in an impossible position because I believe that our casualties, both military and civilian, would have increased dramatically. And it would have required either withdrawing in the face of greater casualties or putting in more troops which there was no appetite for.”
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15:26
At the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Tony Blinken has pushed back against Republican attacks on the administration’s handling of the withdrawal and evacuation.
He has pointed repeatedly to Donald Trump’s deal with the Taliban in February 2020, in which the US agreed to withdraw its troops by 1 May this year.
“We inherited a deadline. We did not inherit a plan,” Blinken said.
Updated
15:16
House Republicans attack Blinken over handling of Afghanistan withdrawal
Secretary of State Tony Blinken is being lambasted by Republicans at the House Foreign Affairs Committee for the handling of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and subsequent evacuation.
Michael McCaul, the ranking Republican on the committee, said: “This, in my judgment, is not only disgraceful. It also dishonors the men and women who served our nation so bravely. Mr Secretary, the American people don’t like to lose, especially not to the terrorists, but that is exactly what has happened. This has emboldened the Taliban and our adversaries.”
“To make matters worse, we abandoned Americans behind enemy lines, we left behind the interpreters who you, Mr Secretary, and the President, both promised to protect. I could summarize this in one word: Betrayal,” McCaul added.
“The America I know keeps its promises. The most important promise in our military is no man left behind, no one left behind. But you broke this promise.”
Updated
15:02
Simone Biles and other Olympians to testify before Senate judiciary committee
Olympian Simone Biles will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday in an oversight hearing into the FBI’s “dereliction of duty” in its failure to properly investigate the sexual abuse allegations against former USA Gymnastics national team doctor Larry Nassar.
Biles will be joined on the panel by McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols, and Aly Raisman. FBI director Christopher Wray and Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz will also testify.
Senate Judiciary Committee
(@JudiciaryDems)BREAKING: Olympic and world champion gymnasts Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols, and Aly Raisman to testify at Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the FBI’s dereliction of duty in the Nassar case.
DOJ IG Horowitz and FBI Dir. Wray to also testify.
The hearing comes after Horowitz’s office found that the FBI made multiple serious failures during its investigation of the allegations against Nasser and failed to treat them with the “utmost seriousness and urgency that they deserved and required.”
Following the release of the report, the FBI rebuked the involved officers, saying in a statement that their conduct was “inexcusable and a discredit to this organization.”
Based on statements released by members of the committee ahead of the hearing, Wray can expect to face tough questions about what change the department has made to ensure the failures outline in the report do not happen again.
Nassar was ultimately convicted in federal and state courts after hundreds of girls and women came forward to publicly accuse him of sexual abuse. He is now serving what will amount to life in prison.
