Summary
- The House approved a resolution to form a select committee to investigate the 6 January insurrection. The final vote was 222 to 190, with two Republicans – Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger – joining all Democrats to pass the measure. The vote comes one month after Senate Republicans blocked the House-approved bill to form a bipartisan commission to study the Capitol attack.
- Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld died at 88. Rumsfeld served as defense secretary for Gerald Ford and later George W Bush. He was best known for launching the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a legacy that attracted many critics.
- Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction was overturned by the Pennsylvania supreme court. The court ruled that Cosby’s damning testimony in a civil case could not be used in a criminal trial because of a prior agreement with prosecutors.
- Joe Biden met with governors of western states as the region battles a historic heatwave. The president outlined the steps his administration is taking to prepare for wildfire season, including raising pay to at least $15 an hour for all federal firefighters.
- The Trump Organization is expected to be charged with tax-related crimes tomorrow, according to multiple reports. The chief financial officer of Donald Trump’s company, Allen Weisselberg, is also expected to be charged in connection with allegations that he failed to properly report company perks.
- The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s board of trustees granted tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones. The dispute over tenure had come amid escalating rightwing drive across the US to ban the teaching of the 1619 Project – which Hannah-Jones created to explore the lasting legacy of slavery – and “critical race theory” in schools.
- In New York’s mayoral Democratic primaries, revised vote counts have Eric Adams in the lead by a thin margin. Adams, a former police captain and Brooklyn borough president, was leading over former sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia and civil rights lawyer Maya Wiley, who was trailing Garcia in a close third. Some 125,000 ballots have yet to be counted in the ranked-choice election.
- The US surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, said the Delta variant is worrying. The variant, which is thought to be the most transmissible version of Covid-19 yet, is likely responsible for the plateauing or increasing cases in parts of the US. “If you are not vaccinated, then you are in trouble,” he said in an interview with CNN. “This is a serious threat, and we are seeing it spread among unvaccinated people.”
– Joan E Greve and Maanvi Singh
Updated
South Dakota governor uses private funds to send troops to Mexico border
Sarah Betancourt reports:
South Dakota’s Republican governor, Kristi Noem, is deploying up to 50 national guard troops to the southern US border, responding to a call from the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, for help dealing with a rise in border crossing, although the majority of migrants have been sent back to Mexico.
Noem said on Tuesday in a statement that she was responding to his request for assistance in responding to “ongoing violations of state and federal law by illegal aliens crossing the unsecured border”.
Abbott reissued a disaster declaration on Tuesday, which said some border counties were partnering with the state to boost arrests and detention of people “for crimes related to the border crisis”.
Noem, a longtime supporter of former president Donald Trump, who focused heavily on keeping asylum seekers and other immigrants out of the country, said the initial deployment for guard troops will last for between 30 and 60 days.
The deployment is being paid for by a private donation, which some say is unusual.
“I’ve never heard of anything quite like this before,” said Dan Grazier, a military fellow at the Straus Military Reform Project, which is run by the Center for Defense Information, a non-profit, non-partisan organization in DC that analyzes military matters.
He said the deployment set a troubling precedent and risked politicizing the military.
Read more:
From viral videos to Fox News: how rightwing media fueled the critical race theory panic
Viral videos of impassioned parents denouncing critical race theory at school board hearings have become a cornerstone of the movement to ban its teaching.
In one such video, a mother declares critical race theory (CRT) to be “a tactic used by Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan on slavery very many years ago to dumb down my ancestors so we could not think for ourselves”. In another, a woman calls CRT “the American version of the Chinese cultural revolution”. A third mother says she has proof that her local school board is “teaching our children to go out and murder police officers”.
The videos, and their spread online, are emblematic of the way the campaign to ban CRT has combined genuine grassroots anger, institutional backing, and a highly effective rightwing propaganda machine to propel critical race theory from academic obscurity to center stage in the US political debate.
That movement has gained tremendous ground at great speed. Legislation seeking to limit the teaching of CRT has been introduced in at least 22 states this year, and enacted in six: Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. Statewide resolutions against CRT have also been passed in Florida, Georgia and Utah.
“This was a massive campaign that has borne fruit in very dramatic fashion,” said Emerson Sykes, a first amendment lawyer with the ACLU, which is exploring litigation to combat these bills. “It’s going to take a massive campaign to try to push back against that.”
Read more:
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s board of trustees granted tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones.
Hannah-Jones is the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist who created the New York Times’ 1619 Project, which commemorated the 400th anniversary of the beginning of slavery in what would become the US and its lasting impact. The trustees voted 9-4 to grant her tenure as the Knight chair in Race and Investigative Journalism at the university’s Hussman School of Journalism.
The school had initially delayed tenure to Hannah-Jones, despite offering it to previous Knight chairs, amid backlash from conservatives who took issue with her work on the 1619 Project. The dispute over tenure had come amid escalating rightwing drive across the US to ban the teaching of the 1619 Project and “critical race theory” in schools.
During the closed session meeting of the trustees, demonstrators were forcibly removed by police.
It should have been communicated how this meeting would go, that tenure proceedings are always held in closed session, and an attempt made to de-escalate. Instead Black students were shoved and punched because they were confused about the process. This is not right. https://t.co/37UPjWpDOR
— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) June 30, 2021
Updated
In New York’s mayoral Democratic primaries, revised vote counts have Eric Adams in the lead by a thin margin.
Adams, a former police captain and Brooklyn borough president, was leading over former sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia and civil rights lawyer Maya Wiley, who was trailing Garcia in a close third. Some 125,000 ballots have yet to be counted in the ranked-choice election.
As my colleague Adam Gabbatt reported earlier today:
The mayoral election had been thrown into chaos after the board of elections mistakenly included 135,000 “test ballots” in its vote tally.
The board of elections had published updated vote totals for the Democratic primary earlier on Tuesday, which showed Kathryn Garcia, New York’s former sanitation commissioner, narrowing the gap on Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, to less than two points.
Hours later, however, the board of elections said it had become aware of a “discrepancy” in its report. The elections board said its calculations had included “both test and election night results, producing approximately 135,000 additional records”.
The error is likely to sow unfortunate confusion around the system of ranked choice voting, which was used for the first time in a New York City mayoral election this year.
Ranked choice voting allowed voters to rank up to five candidates for mayor, and Tuesday night’s vote tally was supposed to give New Yorkers an early glimpse at how the race was shaping up after rankings from early and in-person votes had been calculated.
Instead, the city has provided fuel to election conspiracy theorists nationwide, with millions still convinced the presidential election was fraudulent. There is no evidence of mass fraud in either the New York City mayoral election or the presidential election.
Read more:
Updated
The US surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, said the Delta variant is worrying.
The variant, which is thought to be the most transmissible version of Covid-19 yet, is likely responsible for the plateauing or increasing cases in parts of the US. “If you are not vaccinated, then you are in trouble,” he said in an interview with CNN. “This is a serious threat, and we are seeing it spread among unvaccinated people.”
The available coronavirus vaccines provide protection against the Delta – but many Americans either are not seeking out vaccines or have issues accessing the vaccine. People who are immunocompromised are also at risk, because they are unable to derive full protection from the vaccine.
Updated
New York mayor Bill de Blasio is asking residents to conserve energy to avoid blackouts or brownouts amid a searing heatwave.
Parts of New York City saw power outages as residents and businesses across the city cranked up their air conditioners. Con Edison, the energy company serving the region, reduced voltage to certain neighborhoods after a power line burned.
We need New Yorkers to take IMMEDIATE action: reduce your use of electricity in your home or your business for the rest of the day. We need to avoid energy disruptions during this heat emergency. https://t.co/w5BQDHzUFt
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) June 30, 2021
Updated
Today so far
That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- The House approved a resolution to form a select committee to investigate the January 6 insurrection. The final vote was 222 to 190, with two Republicans -- Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger -- joining all Democrats to pass the measure. The vote comes one month after Senate Republicans blocked the House-approved bill to form a bipartisan commission to study the Capitol attack.
- Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld died at 88. Rumsfeld served as defense secretary for Gerald Ford and later George W Bush. He was best known for launching the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a legacy that attracted many critics.
- Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction was overturned by the Pennsylvania supreme court. The court ruled that Cosby’s damning testimony in a civil case could not be used in a criminal trial because of a prior agreement with prosecutors.
- Joe Biden met with governors of western states as the region battles a historic heat wave. The president outlined the steps his administration is taking to prepare for wildfire season, including raising pay to at least $15 an hour for all federal firefighters.
- The Trump Organization is expected to be charged with tax-related crimes tomorrow, according to multiple reports. The chief financial officer of Donald Trump’s company, Allen Weisselberg, is also expected to be charged in connection with allegations that he failed to properly report company perks.
Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Some members of the US Capitol Police force and the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington were present for the House vote.
USCP Officer Harry Dunn told NBC News after the vote, “The commission is happening. And I just ask that everybody takes it serious.”
Michael Fanone, the MPD officer who was injured during the Capitol insurrection and has called on House minority leader Kevin McCarthy to denounce conspiracy theories spread by his members, was also on Capitol Hill today.
Officers Fanone + Dunn leave the Capitol after an emotional afternoon watching the House debate and vote on establishing a Select Committee on Jan 6 attack.
— Haley Talbot (@haleytalbotnbc) June 30, 2021
“The commission is happening. And I just ask that everybody takes it serious,” Dunn said. pic.twitter.com/sT1aRALPii
Adam Kinzinger, one of only two House Republicans who voted in favor of forming a select committee to investigate the 6 January insurrection, emphasized the need for a “full accounting” of the attack.
“We need answers on who was involved in the insurrection and who played a role in orchestrating it. We need transparency and truth,” the Illinois congressman said in a statement.
As I have said before, we cannot let fear stop us from doing what is right. While I believe an independent bipartisan commission is the best approach, I voted today in support of establishing a Select Committee for January 6th--because the truth matters. https://t.co/MMCpP31eWp pic.twitter.com/ZnJxRCZYRI
— Adam Kinzinger (@RepKinzinger) June 30, 2021
Echoing Liz Cheney, Kinzinger said a bipartisan commission would have been preferable to a select committee, but the commission bill was blocked by Senate Republicans last month.
“Today, I voted in support of the Select Committee (H.Res.503) because the truth matters,” Kinzinger said. “We have to put the partisan political divisions aside and put the interests of our country and our democracy at the forefront. And as I said before, we cannot let fear stop us from doing what is right.”
Updated
Liz Cheney explained why she voted for the January 6 select committee in a statement, emphasizing that she saw the committee as the only remaining option to investigate the insurrection.
I've said before that a bipartisan independent commission would've been the best way to investigate the Jan. 6th attack.
— Rep. Liz Cheney (@RepLizCheney) June 30, 2021
⁰That effort was unfortunately blocked. A select committee is now the only remaining option. I will vote to support it. See my full stmt: pic.twitter.com/C073yKWRWH
The Republican congresswoman noted she still considered a bipartisan commission to be the best way to investigate the Capitol attack. However, the commission bill failed in the Senate last month.
“It is right to be wary of an overtly partisan inquiry,” Cheney said. “But Congress is obligated to conduct a full investigation of the most serious attack on our Capitol since 1814. ... I believe this select committee is our only remaining option. I will vote to support it.”
Cheney described the investigation as vital to protecting American democracy, saying, “We must ensure that what happened on January 6, 2021 never happens again.”
House passes resolution to form select committee to investigate Capitol insurrection
The House has approved the resolution to form a select committee to investigate the insurrection of January 6.
The final vote was 222 to 190, with two Republicans -- Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger -- joining all Democrats to pass the measure.
The House voted 222-190 to adopt H.Res. 503. https://t.co/4xRik4TmV6
— House Press Gallery (@HouseDailyPress) June 30, 2021
The vote comes one month after the House passed a bill to form a bipartisan commission to study the Capitol attack, a proposal that attracted the support of 35 Republicans.
But that bill died in the Senate because of a Republican filibuster. Most of the House Republicans who supported the commission bill voted against forming a select committee.
Donald Rumsfeld served as the secretary of defense for Presidents Gerald Ford and George W Bush, with about three decades separating his two terms.
Before becoming Ford’s defense secretary, Rumsfeld served as an Illinois congressman, a US ambassador to Nato and a White House chief of staff.
But Rumsfeld will likely be most remembered for launching the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a legacy that attracted many critics. However, Rumsfeld never apologized for guiding the US into war, consistently defending his actions despite the widespread criticism.
Donald Rumsfeld dies at 88
Donald Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary who led the US into the Iraq war, has died. He was 88.
Rumsfeld’s family said he died surrounded by his family in Taos, New Mexico in a statement on Wednesday.
“It is with deep sadness that we share the news of the passing of Donald Rumsfeld, an American statesman and devoted husband, grandfather and great grandfather,” the family said.
“History may remember him for his extraordinary accomplishments over six decades of public service, but for those who knew him best and whose lives were forever changed as a result, we will remember his unwavering love for his wife Joyce, his family and friends, and the integrity he brought to a life dedicated to country.”
A statement from the family of Donald Rumsfeld: pic.twitter.com/AlKYxVvqgF
— Donald Rumsfeld (@RumsfeldOffice) June 30, 2021
Updated
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has sued Joe Biden’s administration to stop the transfer of detained immigrants from a prison in New Jersey to facilities more than 100 miles away from where they are currently being held.
These type of transfers can put thousands of miles between detained people and their families, friends and attorneys.
ACLU-NJ executive director, Amol Sinha, said such a transfer could make those affected more vulnerable to deportation because New Jersey is one of the few states which offers legal representation to people facing deportation.
“The policy of transferring people deprives community members of their rights and fails to treat them with the dignity they deserve,” Sinha said.
It is the first time the ACLU has filed an immigration challenge against the Biden administration. Under Donald Trump, it was routine for the civil rights group to file lawsuits against the White House as it attempted to fundamentally shift how immigration works in the US (in four years, Trump made more than 1,000 changes to immigration law).
“We sued the Trump administration over 400 times, and the Biden administration is trying to resolve many of those suits,” ACLU executive director Anthony Romero said in a statement. “Today’s suit is a challenge to a decision made by the Biden administration – it’s not a Trump hold-over.”
Updated
Late last night, 2m Pfizer vaccine doses donated by the US arrived in Peru, according to the state department.
Representative Norma Torres, a Democrat from California, tweeted: “With every vaccine donated to Latin America and countries around the world, we strengthen our global fight against Covid-19.”
Joe Biden initially committed to donating 80m vaccine doses across the globe by the end of June. But as the deadline approached, the White House said it would be impossible to meet that goal because of legal, logistical and regulatory hurdles.
This week, the US is also expected to ship 2.5m doses of the Moderna vaccine to Pakistan. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday: “Over this week, we’ll be able to announce more places that the United States will be sending our doses.”
Updated
Authorities have raised the death toll from the collapsed Florida condominium to 16 people. There are still 147 people unaccounted for nearly a week after a portion of the Champlain Towers South block collapsed in the Miami suburb of Surfside.
Joe and Jill Biden are scheduled to visit Surfside tomorrow.
Biden will meet with families impacted by the disaster and with first responders, said Miami-Dade mayor Daniella Levine Cava.
“We are deeply grateful for the support we’ve received from president Biden and the federal administration since day one, and thankful he will be visiting the site of this tragedy to spend time with the impacted families and first responders,” Levine Cava said in a statement.
Updated
A reporter asked Jen Psaki whether the Delta variant of coronavirus had shifted the White House’s plans to host thousands of military families and frontline workers for a July 4th celebration.
Psaki said the White House is moving forward with their plans because the vaccines have proven effective against the Delta variant.
“If you have been vaccinated, the message we’re conveying is that you’re safe. These vaccines are effective,” the press secretary said.
The White House press briefing has now concluded.
Jen Psaki deflected a question about Joe Biden’s thinking on whether supreme court Justice Stephen Breyer will retire after the term concludes tomorrow.
“We leave that decision to Justice Breyer to make,” the White House press secretary said.
Psaki reiterated that, if there is an opening on the supreme court, Biden will nominate an African American woman to fill the seat.
The president made that promise during the campaign. If an African American woman were nominated and confirmed, she would become the first Black woman to serve as a supreme court justice.
But Psaki emphasized that the president does not know whether or when Breyer will retire. Some progressives have pushed the 82-year-old justice to retire to allow Biden to nominate a younger judge to fill the seat.
“We do not know if there is an opening,” Psaki said. “We will leave it to any justice to determine the timeline of their retirement.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked if Joe Biden had any response to the Pennsylvania supreme court overturning Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction.
“I don’t have a direct response from the White House to that announcement,” Psaki replied.
The press secretary emphasized that the president has long been “an advocate for fighting against violence against women” and raising up the voices of survivors.
EPA administrator Michael Regan joined Jen Psaki for the White House press secretary’s daily briefing, and he provided an update on the administration’s wildfire response efforts.
Regan noted that Joe Biden met with governors of west coast states today to discuss those efforts, and he outlined the administration’s plans to raise pay for federal firefighters and deploy technology to detect new fires and monitor potential problem areas.
Taking questions from reporters, Regan was asked whether he believed the Surfside condo collapse was the result of climate change.
“I don’t know if we have enough information at this point,” Regan replied.
ABC News has more details on the arguments that Bill Cosby’s legal team made to get his sexual assault conviction overturned:
Last year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed to hear two points in Cosby’s appeal to overturn his 2018 sexual assault conviction.
One was the admission into trial of ‘prior bad acts’ witnesses and Cosby’s 2005-2006 quaalude deposition. The appeal argued that the trial judge erred in allowing Cosby’s prior deposition about using quaaludes during consensual sexual encounters with women in the 1970s at trial.
The second point was a written agreement from previous Montgomery County prosecutor Bruce Castor not to criminally prosecute Cosby in the Constand case. Castor had testified that while he was district attorney, he promised Cosby he would not file criminal charges if the entertainer would testify in a civil lawsuit Constand filed against Cosby in 2005. Cosby testified during four days of depositions by Constand’s attorneys, and the civil lawsuit was settled for more than $3 million in 2006. Prosecutor Kevin R. Steele later brought criminal charges against Cosby in 2015 after succeeding Castor as the county’s district attorney.
If the name Bruce Castor sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because he served as one of Donald Trump’s lawyers in the second impeachment trial. His performance was widely mocked.
Updated
NBC News reporter Tom Winter explains that the Pennsylvania supreme court ruled Bill Cosby’s damning testimony from a previous civil case could not be used in a criminal trial because of a past agreement with prosecutors.
The PA Supreme Court says it was an "unconstitutional 'coercive bait-and-switch" when prosecutors initially said he wouldn't be charged so he could testify in a civil case only to then turn around and use evidence in the civil case against him in two criminal trials.
— Tom Winter (@Tom_Winter) June 30, 2021
Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction overturned by Pennsylvania supreme court
Some major news away from Washington: the Pennsylvania supreme court has overturned the sexual assault conviction of actor Bill Cosby.
The AP reports:
Pennsylvania’s highest court overturned Bill Cosby’s sex assault conviction Wednesday after finding an agreement with a previous prosecutor prevented him from being charged in the case.
Cosby has served more than two years of a three- to 10-year sentence at a state prison near Philadelphia. He had vowed to serve all 10 years rather than acknowledge any remorse over the 2004 encounter with accuser Andrea Constand.
The 83-year-old Cosby, who was once beloved as ‘America’s Dad,’ was convicted of drugging and molesting the Temple University employee at his suburban estate.
He was charged in late 2015, when a prosecutor armed with newly unsealed evidence — Cosby’s damaging deposition from her lawsuit — arrested him days before the 12-year statute of limitations expired.
Prosecutors have not yet indicated whether they will attempt to appeal the decision. Cosby is expected to be released from prison as early as today.
Today so far
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Joe Biden met with governors of western states as the region battles a historic heat wave. The president outlined the steps his administration is taking to prepare for wildfire season, including raising pay to at least $15 an hour for all federal firefighters.
- The Trump Organization is expected to be charged with tax-related crimes tomorrow, according to multiple reports. The chief financial officer of Donald Trump’s company, Allen Weisselberg, is also expected to be charged in connection with allegations that he failed to properly report company perks.
- Meanwhile, Trump is taking a tour of the US-Mexican border with Texas governor Greg Abbott. The Republican governor has pledged to build the border wall that Trump pushed during his presidential campaign.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
One of Donald Trump’s key aides is expected to be charged on Thursday with failing to properly report company perks, including rent-free apartments and cars, in the latest stage of an escalating battle between New York prosecutors and the former president.
The Wall Street Journal reported the Manhattan district attorney’s is preparing to charge the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, with tax-related crimes, the first criminal charges against the former president’s company since prosecutors began investigating it three years ago.
While no charges are expected against Trump on Thursday, more charges are likely. New York prosecutors are still investigating allegations of “hush money” paid to women who say they had sexual relations with Trump, and claims of real-estate price manipulation.
The charges and ongoing investigations are likely to be damaging both to the former president’s company and its relationships with banks and other business partners, and could cloud his political comeback.
Some cities across the American west are banning fireworks ahead of the Fourth of July weekend amid fears that pyrotechnics could spark catastrophic wildfires during a historic heatwave.
Authorities warn that the combination of record-high temperatures, extreme drought conditions, and at-home fireworks creates a tinderbox-like situation that could quickly turn devastating.
In Portland, Oregon – which shattered records on Monday when it hit a high of 116F (47C) – the fire department issued a prohibition on all fireworks because of the high temperatures and dry conditions, according to the city’s ABC affiliate, KATU.
Bend and Tualatin, Oregon, have also banned the use of fireworks through 9 July, the news station reported. Bend still has two public fireworks events scheduled for the holiday, however.
“If we don’t take this proactive step now, I fear the consequences could be devastating,” the Portland fire chief, Sara Boone, said in a statement.
“It is not easy to make a decision like this so close to our national holiday, but as fire chief I feel I have a higher responsibility to sometimes make unpopular decisions during unprecedented times to protect life, property and the environment.”
The Biden administration is taking additional steps to assist wildfire response efforts, on top of raising federal firefighters’ pay.
The federal government will provide funding for national guard surge firefighters when wildfires break out and deploy satellite technology from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to detect new fires.
The department of energy will also use sensor arrays to monitor lightning strikes, which can spark wildfires.
As wildfire season begins, we're making critical investments to protect our communities including:
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 30, 2021
- Better pay for firefighters
- Funding for national guard surge firefighters
- NOAA satellite technology to detect new fires
- DOE sensor arrays to detect lightning strikes
Kate Brown, the Democratic governor of Oregon, expressed dismay about the “unprecedented” heatwave affecting her state and others.
Brown noted that some streets in Oregon are literally buckling because of the high temperature, which hit 116 degrees Fahrenheit in Portland on Monday.
Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, also delivered some criticism of Donald Trump, saying it was a pleasure to work with a president who understands the severity of the climate crisis.
“I’ve been waiting four and a half years to hear a president say what you just said,” Newsom told Joe Biden.
Newsom then delivered this message for those who deny the reality of climate change: “You’ve got to believe your own damn eyes.”
Updated
Kamala Harris also delivered remarks at the start of Joe Biden’s meeting with western governors about the heat wave and wildfire season.
“This is a personal issue for me as a daughter of California,” the vice-president said.
Harris, who previously served as one of California’s senators, recounted the pain of witnessing the devastation that wildfires like the Camp Fire, which destroyed the town of Paradise, have had on her state.
She said one of the worst experiences after a wildfire is seeing cars still parked in driveways of homes because it means residents didn’t get out in time.
Joe Biden confirmed that his administration is taking steps to ensure federal firefighters are paid at least $15 an hour, with 10% bonuses available for those on the front lines.
The president said he was shocked to discover last week that some firefighters are paid as little as $13 an hour.
“Come on, man. That’s unacceptable,” Biden said.
Biden also noted that fighting wildfires is “no longer a seasonal job” because of the climate crisis, which has caused a longer and more dangerous wildfire season.
Updated
Biden meets with western governors to discuss heatwave and wildfires
Joe Biden is now meeting with governors of west-coast states as the region battles a historic heatwave that has caused record-high temperatures in many cities.
Tune in as I discuss wildfire prevention, preparedness, and response efforts. https://t.co/9QfAlFfPbs
— President Biden (@POTUS) June 30, 2021
The meeting is also meant to address the Biden administration’s preparations for wildfire season, which has been particularly devastating in recent years.
Experts say the heat wave and the increasingly frequent wildfires are a sign of what’s to come if nations do not take aggressive action to combat the climate crisis.
“Right now we have to act and act fast,” Biden said.
Updated
The Guardian’s Lois Beckett and Abené Clayton factcheck recent stories about a crime ‘wave’ in the US:
There’s been a wave of media coverage this summer about an increase in homicides across the United States, with attention often focused on the same political question: will Americans still want to defund or even reform the police if “violent crime” is on the rise?
Anxiety about violent crime is often used to win elections. Police and politicians routinely share misleading, out-of-context crime statistics to advance their agendas. Fearmongering about rising crime has also been used for decades to undermine Black Americans’ protests for civil rights. So it’s important to ask: is this homicide increase actually significant?
What's happening with homicides is not part of some broader “crime wave.” In fact, many crimes, from robberies to rape, dropped during the pandemic, and continued to fall.
— Lois Beckett (@loisbeckett) June 30, 2021
Even “violent crime” only increased about 3% last year: https://t.co/kRO1PPPEWW pic.twitter.com/U8CI3zAN4S
After decades of a primarily downward trend in the overall number of people killed, crime experts say they expect 2020 will mark the biggest single-year national jump in homicides since national crime statistics began to be released in the 1960s.
A preliminary government estimate shows a 25% single-year increase in killings in 2020. In some larger cities, the number of homicides has remained higher than usual through the early months of 2021.
But what’s happening with homicides is not part of some broader “crime wave”. In fact, many crimes, from larcenies to robberies to rape, dropped during the pandemic, and continued to fall during the first few months of 2021. “Crime” is not surging.
Updated
Meanwhile, Donald Trump will travel to the US-Mexican border with Texas governor Greg Abbott today.
The former president and the Republican governor are touring parts of the border where Abbott has pledged to build the wall that Trump pushed during his campaign.
The visit comes as Republicans have continued to criticize Joe Biden for the recent increase in apprehensions at the US-Mexican border, blaming the president’s immigration policies for the uptick.
Democrats have mocked Trump’s visit as a shallow attempt to distract from Republicans’ own poor policies on immigration.
“Donald Trump and Republicans are bringing their clown show on the road in a desperate attempt to try to spin their cruel border policies to mislead voters,” said DNC rapid response director Ammar Moussa.
“If Republicans were serious about addressing issues at the border, they’d join President Biden and Democrats in working to clean up the mess they left behind, create a safe and humane immigration system, and finally pass immigration reform. Anything less is political theatre.”
The long-running investigation by Cyrus Vance, the Manhattan district attorney, began after Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, paid hush money ahead of the 2016 presidential election to two women who alleged that they had sexual encounters with Trump; Trump denies the claims.
There is now a particular focus on Allen Weisselberg, 73, the longtime chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, the private real estate conglomerate. Prosecutors are examining his son Barry’s use of a Trump apartment at little or no cost, cars leased for the family, and tuition payments made to a school attended by Weisselberg’s grandchildren.
Such gifts and perks are worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. If the Weisselbergs failed to account properly for that money on tax returns and other financial filings, they could be in legal jeopardy.
Trump Organization expected to be charged tomorrow – report
The Trump Organization is expected to be charged with tax-related crimes in Manhattan tomorrow, according to a new report.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
The Manhattan district attorney’s office is expected to charge the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer with tax-related crimes on Thursday, people familiar with the matter said, which would mark the first criminal charges against the former president’s company since prosecutors began investigating it three years ago.
The charges against the Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg, the company’s longtime chief financial officer, are a blow to former President Donald Trump, who has fended off multiple criminal and civil probes during and after his presidency. Mr. Trump himself isn’t expected to be charged, his lawyer said. Mr. Weisselberg has rejected prosecutors’ attempts at gaining his cooperation, according to people familiar with the matter.
The defendants are expected to appear in court on Thursday afternoon, the people said.
Updated
After a century of wielding extraordinary economic and political power, America’s petroleum giants face a reckoning for driving the greatest existential threat of our lifetimes.
An unprecedented wave of lawsuits, filed by cities and states across the US, aim to hold the oil and gas industry to account for the environmental devastation caused by fossil fuels – and covering up what they knew along the way.
Coastal cities struggling to keep rising sea levels at bay, midwestern states watching “mega-rains” destroy crops and homes, and fishing communities losing catches to warming waters, are now demanding the oil conglomerates pay damages and take urgent action to reduce further harm from burning fossil fuels.
But, even more strikingly, the nearly two dozen lawsuits are underpinned by accusations that the industry severely aggravated the environmental crisis with a decades-long campaign of lies and deceit to suppress warnings from their own scientists about the impact of fossil fuels on the climate and dupe the American public.
The Biden administration is moving to raise federal firefighters’ pay as part of its strategy to prepare for wildfire season.
Axios reports:
The White House is raising the pay for federal wildland firefighters to $15 per hour, and will move to provide up to 10% retention bonuses at the end of the season to full-time firefighters who choose to stay on, the official said. Temporary firefighters will also be offered incentives to remain on the job.
The salary increase comes after President Biden expressed surprise at the $13 per hour salary paid to some federal firefighters during a wildfire briefing on June 22.
The administration plans to work with Congress to secure additional funding to train and equip more members of the military and firefighters to be able to act as ‘surge’ forces to head to areas with large fires that may be overtaxing other fire crews.
The Guardian’s Jonathan Watts and Matthew Taylor report:
Joe Biden has joined scientists in blaming the climate crisis for a record-shattering heatwave in the western US and Canada that has been linked to dozens of deaths, buckled roads, blackouts and wildfires.
Officials in Canada have been shocked by the temperature rise, which hit 47.9C (118F) in Lytton, British Columbia, on Monday, smashing the national record set the previous day. The extended heatwave has also posed a health threat. In Vancouver, police said they responded to 25 sudden-death calls in a 24-hour period.
“Vancouver has never experienced heat like this, and sadly dozens of people are dying because of it,” Sgt Steve Addison said in a news release. “Our officers are stretched thin, but we’re still doing everything we can to keep people safe.”
Referring to the heatwave in the north-west, the US president said the US needed stronger infrastructure to prepare for extreme weather.
“Anybody ever believe you’d turn on the news and see it’s 116 degrees in Portland, Oregon? 116 degrees,” Biden said in a barbed criticism of climate deniers. “But don’t worry – there is no global warming because it’s just a figment of our imaginations.”
Biden to meet with west coast governors amid historic heat wave
Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will meet with governors from west coast states today, as the region battles a historic heat wave that has set record-high temperatures in many cities.
The governors attending are Kate Brown of Oregon, Gavin Newsom of California, Mark Gordon of Wyoming, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, Spencer Cox of Utah, Steve Sisolak of Nevada, Jay Inslee of Washington and Jared Polis of Colorado. The group includes Democrats and Republicans.
According to the White House, the meeting will focus on the “devastating intersection of drought, heat, and wildfires in the Western United States, and strengthening prevention, preparedness and response efforts for this wildfire season”.
Experts have warned that the devastating heat wave is just a sign of things to come if the world does not curb greenhouse gas emissions.
“This is the beginning of a permanent emergency,” Inslee told MSNBC yesterday. “We have to tackle the source of this problem, which is climate change.”
The blog will have more details on the meeting coming up, so stay tuned.
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