With TikTok and lawsuits, Gen Z takes on climate change
With active lawsuits in five states, TikTok videos that mix humor and outrage, and marches in the streets, a growing number of young people are engaged in efforts to raise awareness about global warming and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The movement is seeking to shape policy, sway elections and shift a narrative that its proponents say too often emphasizes climate catastrophes instead of the need to make the planet healthier and cleaner. Climate change is a growing political priority for young people. It was one of the top issues among one-third of young voters in the 2020 presidential election, according to Tufts University.
Hawaiian Electric was warned of its system’s fragility before wildfire
Hawaiian Electric has known for years that extreme weather was becoming a bigger danger, but the company did little to strengthen its equipment and failed to adopt emergency plans used elsewhere. Before the wildfire on Maui erupted Aug. 8, killing more than 100 people, many parts of Hawaiian Electric’s operations were showing signs of stress — and state lawmakers, consumer groups and county officials were saying that the company needed to make big changes. Attention turned to the company after the emergence of a video that appeared to show a power line in Lahaina throwing off sparks and igniting dry grass just hours before the fire devastated the city.
The South knows a hot, sticky summer. But this? ‘It’s hell.’
In Louisiana, and along much of the Gulf Coast, the misery of summer has never been reflected simply by a temperature reading alone. It’s not just the heat. It’s the moist, soupy, suffocating humidity that swallows up everything and conspires with the heat to make any activity without air conditioning draining and even deadly. And this summer it has been absolutely abysmal. In New Iberia, a city in the swamps west of New Orleans, Herman Marshall sat under his carport, a fan a few feet from his face, blowing out hot air. “It’s hell,” said Marshall, 72. “It’s all I can say.”
One dead, dozens of buildings destroyed in Washington state wildfire
A wildfire in eastern Washington state has left one person dead and destroyed dozens of structures as authorities have raced to contain blazes across the state and in the nearby Canadian province of British Columbia. The Gray Fire began in Washington around noon Friday, prompting evacuations, and had burned through 9,500 acres by Saturday morning. One person has died and 185 structures have been destroyed by the fire, which was zero percent contained as of Saturday morning, according to Joe Smillie, a spokesperson for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. British Columbia was also under a state of emergency order early Saturday because of wildfires.
Hurricane Hilary weakens to a category 2 storm as it nears Mexico and California
Hurricane Hilary was charging through the Pacific Ocean on Saturday heading toward Mexico and the United States, where it could cause heavy rain and dangerous flooding even after weakening. The Category 2 hurricane was south-southeast of Punta Eugenia, Mexico, and San Diego as of Saturday afternoon, the National Hurricane Center said. Meteorologists have said that the storm may cause “life-threatening” and potentially “catastrophic” flooding in Baja and the Southwestern United States. The storm was most likely to become a tropical storm before reaching Southern California by Sunday.
Giuliani repeatedly sought financial lifeline from Trump
Rudy Giuliani is running out of money and looking to collect from a longtime client who has yet to pay: former President Donald Trump. For the better part of a year, as Giuliani has racked up the bills battling an array of criminal investigations, private lawsuits and legal disciplinary proceedings stemming from his bid to keep Trump in office after the 2020 election, his team has repeatedly sought a lifeline from the former president, according to several people close to him. And even as the bills have pushed Giuliani close to a financial breaking point, Trump has largely demurred.
Deadly Russian strike hits city center in northern Ukraine
A Russian missile slammed into the center of Chernihiv, in northern Ukraine, on Saturday, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 100, including 12 children, Ukrainian officials said. The missile tore through the main square just before noon, as people were leaving church after celebrating a holy day, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry said. “A Russian missile hit the heart of Chernihiv,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a statement. “A square, a university and a theater. Russia turned an ordinary Saturday into a day of pain and loss.” Ukrainian officials and emergency services released graphic videos of the initial blast in the attack and the devastating aftermath.
For a trendy night out in Paris, how about a climate change workshop?
On a recent summer evening in central Paris, a handful of people trickled into a trendy Brazilian bar to take part in a “Climate Fresk,” a workshop run by a nonprofit of the same name, that teaches the basics of global warming and highlights possible solutions. The events have become a trendy night out in France, with more than 1 million participants. The popularity of the Climate Fresks, named for the “fresco” that participants create with the cards, comes as much of Europe faces hotter summers associated with climate change. (France is expected to experience its strongest heat wave of the summer this weekend.)
In Europe, few even want to talk about Trump part 2
For most European governments, it is almost too upsetting to think about, let alone debate in public. But the prospect that Donald Trump could win the Republican nomination for the presidency and return to the White House is a prime topic of private discussion. The talk is intensifying as Trump is neck-and-neck with President Joe Biden in opinion polls. “It’s slightly terrifying, it’s fair to say,” said Steven Everts, a European Union diplomat who is soon to become director of the European Union Institute for Security Studies.
El-Sissi pardons Arab Spring activist after nearly a decade in prison
Egypt’s president on Saturday pardoned a prominent democracy activist serving a 15-year prison sentence for his role in protests that followed the 2011 revolution, according to the activist’s lawyer and Egyptian state news media. The pardon decree by the president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, was the latest in a string of high-profile prisoner releases by his regime. The activist, Ahmed Douma, a blogger and protest leader, was one of the best-known faces of the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak. A court sentenced Douma to 25 years prison in 2015 on charges of rioting and attacking the security forces, a punishment later reduced to 15 years.
Brazil found the last survivors of an Amazon tribe. Now what?
Tamandua Piripkura is one of the last three known survivors of the Piripkura people, an offshoot of a larger Indigenous group that once spread across a large swath of the Amazon rainforest, where he has lived isolated his entire life. His partner in isolation had long been his uncle, Pakyi. The men are at the center of a question that Brazil has been grappling with for years: Who has the right to the forest? The ranchers and loggers who hold government titles to the land, or two Indigenous men whose ancestors were here before Brazil had a government?
In warning to Taiwan, China announces military patrols
China’s military said it would stage “joint combat readiness” patrols around Taiwan on Saturday, sending a warning gesture to the island democracy soon after a leading candidate in Taiwan’s presidential election finished an overseas trip that Beijing had denounced. Vice President Lai Ching-te, the candidate, had flown to Paraguay, making stops in the United States on his way there and back. The Chinese government is trying to curtail the international activities of Taiwan, which it claims as its own territory. The Chinese military announcement provided no details about the scale and location of the patrols, but they appeared to be relatively limited.
By wire sources