Good morning.
Widespread devastation and extreme weather are likely to become inevitable within the next two decades thanks to human behaviour causing rising temperatures, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned.
Only rapid and drastic reductions in greenhouse gases in this decade can prevent such climate breakdown, although some climate changes are “irreversible”, the world’s leading climate scientists have said.
A major climate change report published on Monday, eight years in the making, found that human activity was “unequivocally” the cause of rapid changes to the climate, including sea level rises, melting polar ice and glaciers, heatwaves, floods and droughts.
Top Cuomo aide quits amid sexual harassment scandal
A senior aide to the New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, who often defended him in the past, resigned on Sunday in the wake of a state attorney general’s report that the governor had sexually harassed 11 women.
Melissa DeRosa, the secretary to the governor, was linked in the report to efforts to cover up the governor’s actions and retaliate against one of his accusers. The report described DeRosa as a central figure in Cuomo’s office’s retaliation against one of the women, Lindsey Boylan, after she became the first person to speak out publicly.
Cuomo has denied any wrongdoing and said he “never touched anyone inappropriately or made inappropriate sexual advances”.
Brittany Commisso, a former aide and one of 11 women Cuomo is accused of sexually harassing, has said the governor “needs to be held accountable” and that what he did to her was “a crime”.
Cuomo’s lawyer has described Commisso’s account as fabricated, claiming emails and other documentary evidence undermine her story. “There has been no open-minded fact-finding … the investigators acted as prosecutors, judge and jury,” Glavin said.
Taliban score another victory as fighters take Afghan city of Kunduz
The Taliban have claimed a huge symbolic victory after their fighters seized a large city for the first time in northern Afghanistan, the fifth provincial capital the group has captured in three days.
Much of Kunduz, a strategic city close to the border with Tajikistan and an important political and military hub, was in the control of armed men by Sunday, including the governor’s office, while residents fled and pro-government forces retreated to the nearby airport.
“The enemy left behind vehicles, weapons and equipment,” tweeted the Taliban’s spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid about the city’s abandoned police headquarters, promising further advances.
The Biden administration’s decision in May to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan after two decades prompted an immediate collapse in security and what seems to be an unstoppable Taliban offensive across the country.
In other news …
US senators resumed a weekend session aimed at passing of a $1tn bipartisan infrastructure package on Sunday amid threats from former president Donald Trump, who raged against any Republicans who support the measure.
A rightwing TV and radio host who was an outspoken critic of Dr Anthony Fauci and anti-vaxxer has died after contracting Covid-19.
An eight-year-old Hindu boy has become the youngest person to be charged with blasphemy in Pakistan and is being held in protective police custody, while the boy’s family have gone into hiding.
The regime of the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, is stepping up a “purge” of activists and journalists, with reports every day of someone else being detained by state security forces and activists saying about 100 organisations have had to close.
Stat of the day: A record number of US children are in hospital with Covid
With about 90 million adult Americans remaining unvaccinated, and vaccines remaining unauthorized for those 12 years and under, increasing numbers of children in the US are falling ill with the virus. On Sunday, the director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, said: “The largest number of children so far in the whole pandemic right now are in the hospital, 1,450 kids in the hospital from Covid-19.”
Don’t miss: Flight attendants grapple with ‘unprecedented rise’ in unruly passengers
We all know the odd tale of air rage, but according to new figures, disruptive behaviour on planes is surging in the US. More than 85% of attendants have dealt with unruly passengers in the first six months of 2021, according to the Association of Flight Attendants, and the Federal Aviation Administration has investigated more than 600 incidents involving misbehaving passengers in the same period, nearly double the number in the previous two years combined.
Climate check: The California tourist town that’s running out of water
The town of Mendocino draws nearly 2 million visitors a year with its rugged beaches, scenic hikes and charming bed-and-breakfasts. Despite being nestled along a number of major rivers, creeks and springs, it has, for the past century, relied on shallow wells for water. But now, their water levels have rapidly declined, during a historic drought across the US west, threatening the community.
Last Thing: Rice babies on the rise in Japan
Who doesn’t love a cuddle? The owner of a rice shop in southern Japan must have thought the same and came up with a solution of sorts for grandparents who are having to wait a little longer before being able to meet their new grandchildren: Parents in Japan are sending bags of rice that weigh the same as their newborn baby and bear a picture of its face to relatives who are unable to visit them owing to the pandemic, so they can hold them “and feel the cuteness”.
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