GOP lawmaker acknowledges letting people into Capitol complex day before Jan. 6 attack
A House Republican lawmaker acknowledged on Thursday bringing a “constituent family” into the Capitol complex a day before rioters breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after the select committee investigating the attack called on him to address evidence that he’d brought a group inside a Capitol office building.
Hours earlier on Thursday, the Jan. 6 select committee’s chair, Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), and vice chair, Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), requested an interview with Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) next week, contending that its review of evidence preceding the riot contradicted claims by him and other GOP lawmakers that no such tours had taken place. […]
Loudermilk previously led a group of Republicans in criticizing Democrats for accusing them of leading “reconnaissance tours” through the Capitol and filed a complaint with the House Ethics Committee against the group of Democratic lawmakers.
The Kyiv Independent
Daughter mourns loved ones killed in Kyiv Oblast: ‘Humans can’t do what they did to my family.’
On March 23, Kyiv resident Olena Sukhenko got the most terrifying phone call of her life.
“Russians came to our house,” her younger brother told her. “They took our mother. Our father went with her.” […]
Olena asked her brother to leave the house immediately and hide in a safer place but he refused. Hours after Russian troops kidnapped her parents from their home in the then-occupied village of Motyzhyn in Kyiv Oblast, they returned and took her brother as well. […]
… after Ukrainian forces liberated Kyiv Oblast. A grave with four dead bodies was found in the forest around Motyzhyn on April 2. Three of them were her family members, found shot dead, with their hands tied behind their backs and signs of torture on their bodies.
“And for what?” Olena asks, trying to hold back tears. “For being Ukrainians.”
UPI
President Biden gives Finland, Sweden full U.S. support to join NATO
President Joe Biden assured the leaders of Finland and Sweden of full U.S. backing for their NATO memberships as he welcomed them to the White House on Thursday. Both Scandinavian countries formally applied to join NATO this week, as a direct result of Russia's war in Ukraine.
Biden hosted the visit by Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and Finland President Sauli Niinisto. The three leaders spoke at a joint news conference in the Rose Garden of the White House on Thursday afternoon.
Biden assured the Finnish and Swedish leaders that they have "the full, total, complete backing of the United States of America."
EuroNews
Sea changes: How NATO's expansion could stabilise the Baltic region Access to the comments
Exercise Hedgehog might have been planned long before Russian troops invaded Ukraine, but the huge war games taking place this month in Estonia are a prickly reminder of NATO readiness just 64km from the closest Russian base. […]
Some 15,000 NATO military personnel from 14 countries are involved in the exercise, one of the largest of its kind since Estonia gained independence for the second time, in 1991. […]
There's no doubt that the governments of the three Baltic States see the intrinsic of having Finland and Sweden as members of NATO. […]
The Baltic Sea will soon become a NATO sea, says Glen Grant, a defence expert at the Baltic Security Foundation in Riga.
The Guardian
‘Now we get hit too’: Belgorod, the Russian city on the Ukraine frontline
The sounds of war have become louder in Belgorod, a mid-sized Russian city about 25 miles (40km) from the Ukrainian border. And the blasts are more frequent.
“On Sunday, we were woken up again by explosions. You never know if it’s them or us firing,” said Vladimir, a shopkeeper in the city.
Locals such as Vladimir first witnessed Russia’s military buildup at the start of the year, when thousands of troops amassed near Belgorod before Moscow’s attack in late February.
“When the conflict started, we would hear rockets being launched into Ukraine. But now we get hit too. It is a different sound.”
The Telegraph
Vladimir Putin 'weaponising' world's food supplies
Vladimir Putin is “weaponising” global food supplies by stealing grain and destroying agricultural equipment as part of his war in Ukraine, Western officials have said. […]
Putin's army has destroyed silos and other food production infrastructure in cities including Kherson, Luhansk and Donetsk, according to Western sources.
The UN estimates that 1.7bn people in over 100 countries are being impacted by the current surge in food, energy and commodity prices.
A Western official said: “[Russia] has exacerbated a pre-existing bad situation and has created a major threat to global food security through a deliberate policy of weaponisation of global food supply.”
The Oklahoman
Oklahoma lawmakers pass nation's most restrictive abortion law
Oklahoma is poised to implement the strictest anti-abortion law in the nation after state lawmakers on Wednesday gave final passage to a Texas-style ban that begins at conception.
Nearly all abortions would be prohibited under the legislation that would take effect immediately upon Gov. Kevin Stitt's signature. […]
The bill allows private citizens to sue anyone who "aids or abets" a woman seeking an abortion at any point in her pregnancy. The woman pursuing the procedure could not be sued.
AL.com
Alabama’s Dr. Yashica Robinson tells Congress: ‘Abortion is essential health care’
[…] Dr. Yashica Robinson, medical director of the Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives, board member of Physicians for Reproductive Health and a board-certified OBGYN, testified before the House Judiciary Committee that mortality rates for pregnant women will increase if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
“It is undeniable that without access to abortion, maternal mortality rates will continue to rise,” Robinson told the committee. “I cannot emphasize enough that abortion is essential health care.” […]
In Alabama, Robinson noted, black women are five times more likely than white women to die of pregnancy-related causes. In the United States, pregnant black women are three times more likely to die than pregnant white women.
“Systemic barriers, racism and white supremacy are at the roots of both our maternal health crisis and our abortion access crisis,” Robinson said.
Los Angeles Times
Amid anger and grief, some Black residents of Buffalo are talking about guns
[…] Residents describe the East Side as a segregated but tightknit neighborhood where everybody knows one another. Having their neighbors slaughtered during a routine trip to the grocery store in the heart of their community has many of them feeling unsafe, sad and angry. Feeling unprotected in their own neighborhood by government leaders and law enforcement, conversations about guns are quietly occurring among family, friends and neighbors.
While the national dialogue following a mass shooting often turns to gun restrictions and what the president or Congress can do, the conversations happening here are about being able to protect oneself.
“You’ve got poor Black people who are just trying to make a living,” said Cambridge Boyd, CEO of a local nonprofit. “We’re trying to survive here, and ain’t too much to survive off of. ... We’re getting to the point now where the cops are killing us, the racists are killing us, the government — they ain’t paying us no attention — so what else y’all want us to do?”
The Atlantic
Conservatives Are Defending a Sanitized Version of ‘The Great Replacement’
… the premise that violence against nonwhite people is justified to prevent “white genocide” or the “replacement” of white Americans by nonwhite immigrants…
Fox News has consciously amplified the same line of argument, with popular hosts such as Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham echoing its logic. Carlson, for example, has said that “the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World,” while Ingraham has maintained that Democrats “want to replace you, the American voters, with newly amnestied citizens and an ever increasing number of chain migrants.” […]
The ideology of the Great Replacement is a particular threat to democratic governance because it insists that entire categories of human beings can or should be excluded from democratic rights and protections. Any political cause can theoretically inspire terrorism, but this one is unlike others in that what it demands of its targets is their non-existence.
Bloomberg
China Warns US a ‘Dangerous Situation’ Forming Over Taiwan
China’s top diplomat again warned the US over its increased support for Taiwan, showing the island democracy remains a major sticking point between the world’s biggest economies as Beijing sent more military aircraft toward the island.
“If the US side insists on playing the Taiwan card and goes further and further down the wrong road, it will certainly lead to a dangerous situation,” Yang Jiechi, Beijing’s top diplomat, said in a phone call with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
Yang said Washington should “have a clear understanding of the situation,” according to a statement posted online by his nation’s Foreign Ministry. “China will certainly take firm action to safeguard its sovereignty and security interests,” he added.
Deutsche Welle
Taliban orders female TV presenters to cover face on air
The Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have asked local television broadcasters to ensure that female presenters cover their faces when on air, an official said on Thursday.
"Yesterday we met with media officials... they accepted our advice very happily," said Akif Mahajar, spokesman for the Taliban's Virtue and Vice Ministry. […]
The Taliban authorities have informed all television stations that the new order is "final and non-negotiable," the Afghan media outlet TOLOnews said.
Mongabay
Illegal mining footprint swells nearly 500% inside Brazil Indigenous territories
Illegal miners expanded their footprint in Indigenous territories in Brazil by nearly 500% between 2010 and 2020, according to a recent report from the research collective MapBiomas. It also shows that illegal miners boosted their presence in conservation units by 301% during the same period.
“These are outrageous statistics,” said geologist Cesar Diniz, technical coordinator of mining mapping for MapBiomas. “Although prospecting in Indigenous territories is nothing new, we’re seeing it expand by leaps and bounds ever since 2017.”
Railway Age
U.S. Rail Traffic Downturn 12 Weeks and Counting
U.S. carloads and intermodal units for the week ending May 14, 2022, were each down about 5% from the same week last year, according to Association of American Railroads’ figures released May 18. It’s the 12th consecutive week of declines from the prior-year period.
Business Insider
A SpaceX flight attendant said Elon Musk exposed himself and propositioned her for sex, documents show. The company paid $250,000 for her silence.
SpaceX, the aerospace firm founded by Elon Musk…, paid a flight attendant $250,000 to settle a sexual misconduct claim against Musk in 2018, Insider has learned.
The attendant worked as a member of the cabin crew on a contract basis for SpaceX's corporate jet fleet. She accused Musk of exposing his erect penis to her, rubbing her leg without consent, and offering to buy her a horse in exchange for an erotic massage, according to interviews and documents obtained by Insider.
The incident, which took place in 2016, is alleged in a declaration signed by a friend of the attendant and prepared in support of her claim.
KUSA — Denver
GOP candidate for Colorado governor says eliminate one-person, one-vote system
Coloradans have elected just one Republican governor in the last 50 years. A current GOP candidate for governor has an idea that could change that: stop counting each vote equally.
Former Parker Mayor Greg Lopez, who holds the top line on the 2022 Republican primary ballot, says Colorado should create an electoral college system for electing candidates to statewide office.
The plan, which would be the first of its kind on the state level, would give far more voting power to Coloradans in rural, conservative counties and dilute the voting power of Coloradans in more populous urban and suburban areas. Even as turnout numbers vary over time, the sheer number of rural conservative counties would create a built-in advantage for Republicans.
Minnesota Public Radio News
Minnesota GOP chair Hann apologizes for antisemitic image
The chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota apologized Thursday for an image that was projected at the party's state convention of George Soros manipulating the strings of puppets with the faces of two prominent Jewish Democrats.
Republican Party Chair David Hann said in a statement that after speaking to staff at the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, the party understands concerns that the imagery perpetuated an antisemitic trope. […]
The image was contained in a video shown by secretary of state candidate Kim Crockett. The faces on the puppets were DFL elections attorney Marc Elias and Secretary of State Steve Simon. Soros is also Jewish.
NPR News
These 14 states had significant miscounts in the 2020 census
For the 2020 census, all states were not counted equally well for population numbers used to allocate political representation and federal funding over the next decade, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released Thursday.
A follow-up survey the bureau conducted to measure the national tally's accuracy found significant net undercount rates in six states: Arkansas (5.04%), Florida (3.48%), Illinois (1.97%), Mississippi (4.11%), Tennessee (4.78%) and Texas (1.92%).
It also uncovered significant net overcount rates in eight states — Delaware (5.45%), Hawaii (6.79%), Massachusetts (2.24%), Minnesota (3.84%), New York (3.44%), Ohio (1.49%), Rhode Island (5.05%) and Utah (2.59%).
Houston Chronicle
Ted Cruz faces bar complaint over attempt to overturn 2020 presidential election results
A bipartisan watchdog group has filed a Texas Bar complaint against Sen. Ted Cruz for his work on a Pennsylvania case that sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in that state and “false and misleading” public statements he made at the time.
The complaint is one of several that the group, known as The 65 Project, plans to file against lawyers who worked on cases brought by … Trump alleging that widespread voter fraud called President Joe Biden's win into question. […]
“Mr. Cruz knew that the allegations he was echoing had already been reviewed and rejected by courts,” the complaint reads. “And he knew that claims of voter fraud or the election being stolen were false.”
High Country News
The Western U.S. is experiencing its worst drought since 800 A.D.
Across the West, state leaders are bracing against the long-term impacts of aridification. In late April, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown added four additional counties to the ‘drought emergency’ tally — now, half the state is in a state of emergency. Further south, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which gets water to millions of city dwellers, restricted outdoor water use for the first time ever. In Colorado, the U.S. Department of Agriculture designated the entire state a “primary natural disaster area” due to the threat of drought — also considered an ‘unprecedented’ move. The Southwest, as a whole, has been hit hard with dry conditions: Utah and New Mexico both issued separate emergency declarations, one for water scarcity and the other for wildfire.
The political designations unlock resources and expand powers for states and counties to navigate the extreme water scarcity, making available, among other things, relief aid for the agriculture industry. Westerners will undoubtedly need it this summer, and — as the drought likely continues — future summers.
Shrinking snowpacks, parched topsoil and depleted reservoirs are symptoms of the West’s worst set of dry years since 800 A.D. There is also a significant likelihood the megadrought continues. A study published in Nature Climate Change in February predicted a 94% chance the drought stretches through 2023; the chances of it persisting through 2030 are 75%, when factoring in continued impacts of a warming climate.
Gizmodo
U.S. at High Risk of Power Emergencies This Summer, Say Regulators
A chunk of the U.S., from California to Texas to the Midwest, is at risk of blackouts and unreliable power supply this summer as extreme heat and drought impact the electric grid, a major regulator said Wednesday.
In an annual assessment of grid conditions, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a nonprofit organization that monitors the nation’s electric grids, said that the grid serving much of the Midwest is at “high risk” for energy emergencies this summer. Meanwhile, electric grids that bring power to the West and Texas could also see serious problems.
“It’s a pretty sobering report, and it’s clear the risks are spreading,” John Moura, a director at NERC, told reporters in a press briefing. “I certainly do think it’s our most cautionary tale here.”
Edmonton Journal
Kenney will stay in power until new leader chosen after Wednesday's promise to resign
[Alberta] Premier Jason Kenney will stay at the helm of the UCP until a leadership race decides his replacement, after announcing Wednesday he intends to resign.
After a marathon six-hour caucus meeting Thursday, United Conservative caucus chairman Nathan Neudorf released a statement saying a “vigorous discussion and debate” led to the decision Kenney would continue to lead the caucus and government until a new leader is chosen.
New York Daily News
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez engaged to longtime boyfriend Riley Roberts
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is engaged to her longtime boyfriend Riley Roberts…
“It’s true!” she confirmed [on Twitter]. “Thank you all for the well wishes.”
Ocasio-Cortez, 32, met Roberts when they were students at Boston University in 2011. They got engaged last month during a trip to Puerto Rico, she said.
Science
Hate your face mask? There’s hope
A U.S. government contest has 10 companies competing to make better face coverings.
In the shipping room of his factory here, Richard Gordon pulls open the drawer of a restaurant-style convection oven to show off a tray filled with his company’s new, freshly sterilized product: multicolored face masks that feature an origami design.
“I thought masks were a total horror,” Gordon says. “They looked awful, felt awful, were hard to breathe in, were hot, and leaked.” So he and Min Xiao, his wife, started a company named Air99 in 2016 to produce something much better.
Now, their mask, named the Airgami, is vying for part of the half-million dollar purse in the final phase of the Mask Innovation Challenge, run by the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). The contest aims to promote masks that have a better fit, function, and look than existing designs and to nurture the “rather underfunded and a little stagnant” ecosystem of mask development, says Kumiko Lippold, a BARDA pharmacologist and toxicologist who organizes the challenge.