Heat records are broken around the globe as Earth warms, fast
The past three days were quite likely the hottest in Earth’s modern history, scientists said Thursday, as an astonishing surge of heat across the globe continued to shatter temperature records from North America to Antarctica. The spike comes as forecasters warn that the Earth could be entering a multiyear period of exceptional warmth driven by two main factors: continued emissions of heat-trapping gases, mainly caused by humans burning oil, gas and coal; and the return of El Nino, a cyclical weather pattern. Already, the surge has been striking. The planet just experienced its warmest June ever recorded, researchers said, with deadly heat waves scorching Texas, Mexico and India.
U.S. is destroying the last
of its once-vast chemical weapons arsenal
In a room behind a gantlet of armed guards and three rows of high barbed wire at the Army’s Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado, a team of robotic arms was busily disassembling some of the last of the United States’ vast and ghastly stockpile of chemical weapons. In went artillery shells filled with deadly mustard agent that the Army had been storing for more than 70 years. Out came inert and harmless scrap metal. The destruction of the stockpile has taken decades, and the Army says the work is just about finished. The remaining handful at a depot in Kentucky will be destroyed in the next few days.
New federal decisions make Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi
widely accessible
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday gave full approval to the Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi, and Medicare said it would cover much of its high cost, laying the foundation for widespread use of a medication that can modestly slow cognitive decline in the early stages of the disease but also carries significant safety risks. The FDA’s decision marks the first time in two decades that a drug for Alzheimer’s has received full approval, meaning that the agency concluded there is solid evidence of potential benefit. But the agency added a warning on the drug’s label, stating that in rare cases the drug can cause “serious and life-threatening events.”
Ohio moves closer to ballot
issue that would protect
abortion rights
Ohio moved one step closer to becoming the next big test case in the nation’s fight over abortion, after supporters of a measure that would ask voters to establish a right to abortion in the state’s constitution this week said they had filed more than enough signatures to put it on the ballot in November. Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights said Wednesday that it had collected roughly 710,000 signatures across all of the state’s 88 counties over the past 12 weeks. Under state law, the coalition needed 413,466 to qualify for the ballot. State election officials now have until July 25 to verify the signatures.
Two firefighters are killed in blaze aboard cargo ship at Port Newark in New Jersey
The call for help came from a place where firefighters from Newark are seldom sent: Port Newark, one of the busiest shipping hubs in the country. A fire had erupted late Wednesday on an Italian cargo ship carrying 1,200 new and used automobiles headed for West Africa. The first mayday call came from Augusto Acabou, a nine-year fire department veteran known for his big heart and brawny hugs, Newark fire officials said. Soon after, Wayne Brooks Jr., a 49-year-old with 16 years on the job, sounded a second call for help. Neither man would survive the blaze that eventually spread to three decks of the towering ship.
Trump aide pleads not guilty in classified documents case
Walt Nauta, a personal aide to former President Donald Trump, pleaded not guilty Thursday to federal charges of conspiring with Trump to obstruct the government’s monthslong efforts to retrieve a trove of highly sensitive national security documents from the former president after he left office. Nauta’s plea was entered for him by his lawyer, Stanley Woodward Jr., at a brief arraignment in U.S. District Court in Miami. A 40-year-old Navy veteran from Guam, Nauta was charged with Trump last month in a 38-count indictment with conspiracy, making false statements and withholding documents.
Israeli court acquits police officer who killed autistic Palestinian man
An Israeli court on Thursday acquitted a police officer charged with manslaughter in the killing of an unarmed Palestinian man with autism in Jerusalem, a case that drew Palestinian outrage and focused attention on the treatment of Palestinians by Israeli police. Iyad al-Hallaq, 31, was shot and killed by an Israeli police officer in Jerusalem’s Old City in May 2020 while walking to the special-needs school where he was a student. In her ruling, Judge Chana Lomp of Jerusalem District Court called al-Hallaq’s death a “horrific loss,” but said the Israeli police officer who killed al-Hallaq believed he was acting in self-defense.
Kerry to visit China to restart climate negotiations
John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s special envoy for climate change, said Thursday he would travel to China next week to restart climate negotiations between the world’s two largest polluters. China cut off talks in August in anger after Nancy Pelosi, who was House speaker at the time, visited Taiwan. The talks come as the highest global temperatures ever recorded, driven by the burning of fossil fuels as well as the climate pattern El Nino, bake both nations and much of the planet. The planned trip follows visits to China by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen aimed at stabilizing the nations’ uneasy relationship.
Pieces of Munich synagogue, destroyed on Hitler’s orders, found in river
Eighty-five years ago, Munich’s main synagogue was demolished on direct orders from Adolf Hitler. The synagogue, among the first Jewish places of worship to be destroyed in Hitler’s Germany, was lost to history, or so it seemed. But this week, construction workers found pieces of the synagogue, including a large portion of its Torah shrine, in the Isar River, 5 miles from where it once stood. The building’s remnants were used as landfill material when workers rebuilt an underwater structure after flooding in 1956. An estimated 150 tons of the underwater rubble will be transferred to a city yard to be carefully scrutinized for more pieces of the synagogue.
By wire sources
