Hard right presses culture war fights on defense bill, imperiling passage
Hard-right House Republicans are pushing to use the yearly bill that sets the U.S. military budget and policy as an opportunity to pick fights with the Biden administration over abortion, race and transgender issues, imperiling its passage and the decades-old bipartisan consensus in Congress around backing the Pentagon. Republican leaders have scheduled votes beginning Wednesday on the $886 billion measure, but as of Tuesday evening, they had yet to dissuade their ultraconservative colleagues from efforts to load it up with politically charged provisions. Those proposals would alienate the moderate Republicans and Democrats whose votes would be needed to get the bill through the narrowly divided House.
Former Manson family member Leslie Van Houten is released on parole
Leslie Van Houten, a former Charles Manson follower who played a role in the double murder of a Los Angeles couple in summer 1969, was released on parole Tuesday after serving more than half a century in prison, according to her lawyer. Van Houten’s lawyer, Nancy Tetreault, said she was taken Tuesday to transitional housing at an undisclosed location. “She’s going to have to learn to live in the world after 53 years in prison,” Tetreault said. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation confirmed her release. Van Houten will have a “three-year maximum parole term,” according to Mary Xjimenez, a department spokesperson.
Trump lawyers seek indefinite postponement of documents trial
Lawyers for former President Donald Trump asked a federal judge Monday night to indefinitely postpone his trial on charges of illegally retaining classified documents after he left office, saying that the proceeding should not begin until all “substantive motions” in the case had been presented and decided. The written filing — submitted 30 minutes before its deadline of midnight — presents a significant early test for Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump-appointed jurist who is overseeing the case. If granted, it could have the effect of pushing Trump’s trial into the final stages of the presidential campaign in which he is now the Republican front-runner or even past the 2024 election.
Vermont floods show limits of America’s efforts to adapt to climate change
This week’s flooding in Vermont is evidence of a dangerous climate threat: Catastrophic flooding can increasingly happen anywhere, with almost no warning. And the United States, experts warn, is nowhere close to ready for that threat. The idea that anywhere it can rain, it can flood, is not new. But rising temperatures make the problem worse. And as the flooding in Vermont demonstrates, the government can’t focus its resilience efforts only on the obvious areas. “It’s getting harder and harder to adapt to these changing conditions,” said Rachel Cleetus, policy director for the climate and energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It’s just everywhere, all the time.”
Heat down below is making the ground shift under Chicago
Underneath Chicago’s towers, roadways and subway and rail lines, the land is sinking. Since the mid-20th century, the ground between the city surface and the bedrock has warmed by 5.6 degrees Fahrenheit on average, according to a new study. All that heat has caused the layers of sand, clay and rock beneath some buildings to subside or swell by several millimeters over the decades, enough to worsen cracks and defects in walls and foundations. It isn’t just Chicago. In cities worldwide, rising underground temperatures cause tiny shifts in the ground beneath buildings, which can induce structural strain. The effects aren’t noticeable for a long time — until suddenly they are.
NATO says it will invite Ukraine to join some day, resisting calls to act soon
NATO declared Tuesday that Ukraine would be invited to join the alliance but did not say how or when, disappointing its president but reflecting the resolve by President Joe Biden and other leaders not to be drawn directly into Ukraine’s war with Russia. In a communique agreed by all 31 NATO nations, the alliance said that “Ukraine’s future is in NATO,” and it will be allowed to join when the member countries agree that conditions are ripe. It promised to continue supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia and to engage the alliance’s foreign ministers in a periodic review of Ukraine’s progress toward reaching NATO standards.
Protesters throng Israeli airport after government moves to rein in judiciary
Tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated across the country Tuesday, blocking the road outside the country’s main airport and about a dozen other thoroughfares and clashing with police officers to protest a vote in parliament that advanced efforts by the far-right ruling coalition to limit judicial oversight of the government. The protests led to frequent clashes with police officers, who fired water cannons at protesters in several cities and arrested at least 71 people. The protests were set off by a vote in which lawmakers gave provisional support to a bill that would reduce the ways in which the Supreme Court can overrule elected officials.
‘Heaviest rain ever’ in Japan’s south sets off floods and landslides
Heavy rains in southwestern Japan have washed away homes, flooded hospitals, disrupted mobile phone services and cut off power and water for hundreds of households, officials said Tuesday. The unusually high level of rainfall in Kyushu, Japan’s southernmost main island, on Monday has left at least six people dead and three missing, Japan’s top government spokesperson said. Satoshi Sugimoto, the top forecaster at the Japan Meteorological Agency, on Monday called it “the heaviest rain ever experienced” in northern Kyushu. Yoshiyuki Toyoguchi, an official with the land ministry, said at a news conference Monday that the rains were so heavy that some of the region’s dams could overflow with another downpour.
Ugandan president and his son are accused of crimes against humanity
A trove of testimonies from more than 200 people who accuse senior Ugandan officials of torture, killings and other crimes against humanity has been submitted to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, a lawyer for the complainants said Tuesday. The filing is an effort to bring international scrutiny to what human rights observers have called a brutal government crackdown on opposition groups and activists in the months before and after the country’s 2021 elections. The briefing accuses nine top Ugandan officials of abuses, including President Yoweri Museveni and his son, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, who has been maneuvering to succeed his father.
A trans woman is crowned Miss Netherlands for the first time
Rikkie Valerie Kollé, Miss Netherlands 2023, can still hardly believe she won her country’s annual pageant. The show flew by, “and 2 1/2 hours later I was Miss Netherlands,” Kollé, 22, said Tuesday. Kollé is the first trans woman to win the pageant in the Netherlands, and she will be the second openly trans woman to compete in a Miss Universe competition when she represents her country in El Salvador later this year. Kollé said she hoped to be there for her community and help young queer people, as well as raise awareness of the long waiting times for transgender health care in the Netherlands.
Humanitarian aid to Syria is imperiled after vetoes in U.N. Security Council
The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday failed to adopt two rival resolutions to extend cross-border aid deliveries into northern Syria from Turkey, effectively cutting off a vital lifeline to about 4.1 million people in opposition-held territories. Russia vetoed a bid put forth by Brazil and Switzerland to extend one resolution for nine months, a compromise from an initial 12-month extension called for by the United Nations and international aid agencies. A second resolution put forth by Russia for a six-month extension failed after Britain, France and the United States voted no and it did not reach the required quorum, with 10 council members abstaining. Russia and China voted in favor.
By wire sources
