Nation & World News – At a glance – for Sunday, July 16, 2023

Turmoil in Florida’s new State Guard, as some recruits quit

Early last summer, complaining that Washington had failed to provide adequate staffing for Florida’s National Guard, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that for the first time in 75 years he was activating the State Guard, a force of volunteers that could respond to hurricanes and other public emergencies. But the deployment this spring has been mired in internal turmoil, with some recruits complaining that what was supposed to be a civilian disaster response organization had become heavily militarized, requiring volunteers to participate in marching drills and military-style training sessions on weapons and hand-to-hand combat. At least 20% of the 150 people initially accepted into the program dropped out or were dismissed, state officials acknowledged.

With a centrist manifesto, No Labels pushes its presidential bid forward

A new political platform focused on cooperative governance by bipartisan group No Labels has something for everyone to embrace — and just as much for both sides to reject. No Labels’ possible third-party challenge for the presidency next year has drawn fire from liberals, centrists and even some members of Congress who support the group’s principles but fear that its efforts could greatly damage President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign and hand the White House back to Donald Trump. But at an event Monday, the group will formally release what it calls a “common sense” proposal for a centrist White House, in hopes of shifting the conversation from the politics of its potential presidential bid to the actual policies that it believes can unite the country.

The Southwest braces for record-breaking heat

People across the southwestern United States were trying to stay cool Saturday as a punishing heat wave was poised to break temperature records. The National Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning for this weekend that covered more than 31 million people, mostly in Arizona, Nevada and California. An additional 61 million people on the West Coast and in the South were under a heat advisory. The weather service forecast 45 record-high temperatures across the country before the weekend. Municipalities and community organizations scrambled to provide water and cool shelter to their most vulnerable populations, primarily homeless individuals.

Cricket oasis rises outside Houston

Drive northwest out of Houston, and as cow pastures wrestle back the flat expanse from the city’s tentacled sprawl, there arise along the road, suddenly, improbably, many, many cricket fields. Head south to find a small cricket stadium nestled in the suburbs, or west to find fields sprouting in county parks. The game of cricket — a bat-ball-and-wicket contest of patience and athleticism that was born in Britain and is barely understood by most Americans — has surprisingly taken hold in the land of Friday night football. Cricket’s swift rise in Houston has attracted international attention and helped make Texas the launchpad for the sport’s first American professional league, Major League Cricket, whose inaugural season began Thursday outside Dallas.

Rare dinosaur ‘bonebed’ is discovered in a Maryland park

Fossils from animals including dinosaurs and stingrays more than 100 million years old were uncovered in a Maryland park in what experts said could be the widest-ranging discovery of fossils of different species on the East Coast. In April, a group of paleontologists and volunteers with the Department of Parks and Recreation in Prince George’s County found and classified a 3-foot-long shin bone as one from a theropod, a branch of the dinosaur family that includes carnivorous dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex. “Finding a bonebed like this is a dream for many paleontologists,” said JP Hodnett, a paleontologist with the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.

Search for a century-old shipwreck turns up one even older

In September, a Discovery Channel film crew traveled to Paradise, Michigan, searching for two French naval ships that disappeared in 1918. But on a voyage to find them, they stumbled upon another shipwreck that was four decades older. Josh Gates, host of “Expedition Unknown,” and a team of researchers instead spotted the Satellite, a tugboat also lost in Lake Superior that had not been seen for 142 years, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society announced this past week. The ship’s sinking had many witnesses, but its cause is still up for debate, said Bruce Lynn, executive director at the historical society’s museum in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Russian forces are doing ‘everything they can’ to stop counteroffensive, Zelenskyy says

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces were throwing “everything they can” at Kyiv’s troops fighting to retake land in the south and east, again emphasizing the grueling nature of a counteroffensive that is moving more slowly than some allies had hoped and later stressing the importance of their continued support. Ukrainian troops have made only small gains since launching the widely anticipated campaign in June, and in recent weeks, they appear to have stalled in some areas in the face of staunch Russian defenses. Casualties are mounting, and U.S. officials have said Ukraine has also lost newly provided Western armored vehicles in field after field of land mines.

After suffering heavy losses, Ukrainians paused to rethink strategy

In the first two weeks of Ukraine’s grueling counteroffensive, as much as 20% of the weaponry it sent to the battlefield was damaged or destroyed, according to U.S. and European officials. The toll includes some of the formidable Western fighting machines — tanks and armored personnel carriers — the Ukrainians were counting on to beat back the Russians. The startling rate of losses dropped to about 10% in the ensuing weeks, the officials said. Some of the improvement came because Ukraine changed tactics, focusing more on wearing down the Russian forces with artillery and long-range missiles than charging into enemy minefields and fire.

The U.S. and China are restarting climate talks

For nearly a year, talks between the planet’s two biggest polluters, China and the United States, have been suspended as the impacts of global warming have grown more intense in the form of deadly heat, drought, floods and wildfires. John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s special envoy for climate change, is set to arrive in Beijing on Sunday to restart climate negotiations with the Chinese government. He is slated to meet with his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, and other officials for three days of talks, with the goal of finding ways to work together on climate change despite simmering tensions between the countries on trade, human rights and other issues.

South Korea reels from monsoon rains as floods and landslides kill 26

Powerful monsoon rains swept across South Korea, burying homes, knocking down trees, canceling flights and trains, and cutting power to tens of thousands of residents, officials said Saturday. The downpour caused flooding and landslides in the country’s central region, leaving at least 26 people dead and 10 others missing as of late Saturday, the Interior Ministry said, adding that the rainfall was expected to intensify in the coming days. The Korea Meteorological Administration said Saturday that the rain would get stronger over the next two days, mainly in the central and southwestern parts of the country.

Israeli reservists threaten mass resignations If judicial plan proceeds

At least 180 senior fighter pilots, elite commandos and cyberintelligence specialists in the Israeli military reserve have informed their commanders that they will no longer report for volunteer duty if the government proceeds with a plan to limit judicial influence by the end of the month. About a dozen have already resigned, but hundreds more have discussed the possibility of doing so during in-person gatherings and online forums this past week and are preparing to formally suspend their service in the coming days, according to interviews with 12 of those reservists and group resignation letters and messages seen by The New York Times.

Netanyahu says he’s ‘very well’ after being rushed to hospital

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was feeling “very well” Saturday evening after experiencing mild dizziness and being rushed to a hospital for examination. Netanyahu, 73, caused a brief panic Saturday afternoon when his office announced that he had checked into the Sheba Medical Center, a leading hospital near Tel Aviv. Netanyahu’s office said he had felt mildly dizzy Saturday and went to the medical center on the advice of his personal physician. Concerns subsided hours later after Netanyahu released a video in which he appeared energetic and healthy.

By wire sources