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The world’s oceans were the hottest ever recorded in 2022, demonstrating the profound and pervasive changes that human-caused emissions have made to the planet’s climate.
More than 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions is absorbed in the oceans. The records, starting in 1958, show an inexorable rise in ocean temperature, with an acceleration in warming after 1990.
Sea surface temperatures are a major influence on the world’s weather. Hotter oceans help supercharge extreme weather, leading to more intense hurricanes and typhoons and more moisture in the air, which brings more severe rains and flooding. Warmer water also expands, pushing up sea levels and endangering coastal cities.
The temperature of the oceans is far less affected by natural climate variability than the temperature of the atmosphere, making the oceans an undeniable indicator of global heating.
What has caused this rise? The international team of scientists that produced the ocean heat analysis concluded: “The Earth’s energy and water cycles have been profoundly altered due to the emission of greenhouse gases by human activities, driving pervasive changes in Earth’s climate system.”
Why is this so significant? John Abraham, a professor of thermal sciences at the University of St Thomas in Minnesota who was part of the study team, said: “If you want to measure global warming, you want to measure where the warming goes, and over 90% goes into the oceans. Measuring the oceans is the most accurate way of determining how out of balance our planet is.”
Lawyers who enabled Trump in election plot face heightened risk of charges
Four lawyers who gave Donald Trump erroneous legal advice that aided his attempts to overturn the 2020 US presidential election now face heightened prospects of criminal charges after a House panel released an exhaustive report on the January 6 insurrection, and referred the lawyers for possible prosecution to the justice department, say former federal prosecutors.
John Eastman, Jeff Clark, Rudy Giuliani and Kenneth Chesebro played overlapping roles, allegedly offering Trump bogus legal cover that included promoting a fake electors ploy to replace those Joe Biden won with ones for Trump, in an effort to block Congress from certifying Biden as president on January 6.
The lawyers’ actions and schemes were cited in an 845-page report published last month by the House select committee investing the events of January 6 2020, and in the referrals to the Department of Justice, for giving various types of legal support to Trump that enabled parts of his attempted coup.
The report accused Trump of criminally engaging in “a multi-part conspiracy”, and cited four criminal offenses: making false statements, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and aiding or comforting insurrection, all of which were referred to the DoJ for prosecution.
What are the referrals for? The specific referrals to the DoJ differ somewhat for the four lawyers. All of them were referred for allegedly conspiring to defraud the United States. Except for Giuliani, the other three were referred for allegedly conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, a reference to Congress certifying Biden’s win on January 6.
Golden Globes 2023: The Banshees of Inisherin and The Fabelmans win big
A year after going on mute – no red carpet, no stars, no television broadcast in 2022 – the Golden Globes returned to form at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles with the champagne overflowing, a ceremony over-running and overstretching; and gesturing toward improving its longstanding diversity issues while taking shots from the host Jerrod Carmichael.
The night’s big winners were The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical family drama that also won best director, and Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin, while the network darling Abbott Elementary, HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon and The White Lotus took home the top TV awards.
The 80th annual Golden Globes, an image rehabilitation show of sorts after a February 2021 investigation by the Los Angeles Times found the Hollywood Foreign Press Association had no Black members and numerous ethical lapses, produced a diverse slate of winners, including an absent Zendaya for the second season of Euphoria; Abbott Elementary’s Quinta Brunson and Tyler James Williams; and the night’s first winner, Ke Huy Quan, who celebrated an emotional return to acting after child stardom in the 80s with Everything Everywhere All At Once. Wakanda Forever’s Angela Bassett became the first person to win a major individual acting award for a Marvel movie.
What were the standout moments? “I‘m here because I’m Black,” said incoming MC Jerrod Carmichael, who addressed the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s tarnished reputation head-on in his opening monologue in one of the most memorable moments of the night. Meanwhile, Jennifer Coolidge and Michelle Yeoh gave the best speeches of the evening. Here are the other key moments.
Who won the awards? Here’s the full list of winners.
In other news …
At least 17 people have been killed in California as a relentless string of storms batter the state, turning rivers into flood zones and forcing thousands of people to evacuate from towns with histories of deadly mudslides.
Six people have been injured by a man wielding a knife during rush hour at the Gare du Nord station in Paris, French authorities said. Officers arrested the man at the busy station after they opened fire and wounded him, said a police source, who asked not to be named.
The last 10 remaining senators in Haiti’s parliament have officially left office, leaving the country without a single democratically elected government official. Haiti – which is engulfed in gang violence and the worst malnutrition crisis in decades – is now spiralling towards anarchy.
After a second rape conviction, Harvey Weinstein asked New York’s highest court Tuesday to overturn his first one, arguing that the judge in the 2020 case betrayed his right to a fair trial by “succumbing to the pressure” of the #MeToo movement.
In-N-Out Burger, the famous California fast food chain, is expanding eastward as far as Tennessee, a move Tennessee’s governor called “life-changing”. The family-owned burger company will open an “eastern territory office” in Tennessee, as well as several restaurants in the Nashville area, by 2026.
Don’t miss this: Love across the border – a couple’s 13-year quest to be reunited in the US
Tom Kobylecy and Yedid Sánchez’s budding romance took place amid the intoxicating odor of woody oak and sawdust of a Chicago-area Home Depot. Her cleaning shift started at 6am, just as his shift restocking store shelves was ending. He would linger to strike up a conversation, but Mexican-born Sánchez spoke little English. The few Spanish words Kobylecy could muster came out in a nasally midwestern accent. Comical misunderstandings and fumbled translations with the aid of a pocket dictionary were a feature of those first weeks together. They soon got past this obstacle and married. But their life together was shrouded in a secret. Sánchez was not living legally in the country.
… or this: ‘My first day was a sex scene’– the disturbing history of teen actors and nudity
Spoiler alert: Romeo and Juliet does not have a happy ending. But Franco Zeffirelli’s adaptation of the Shakespeare play did – at least until recently. The 1968 movie was a huge commercial success and became a secondary school fixture. But now it has emerged that the stars Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting are suing the studio, Paramount, for $500m over Zeffirelli’s handling of a scene in which both actors, then 16 and 17, briefly appeared partially naked. From Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver to Brooke Shields in The Blue Lagoon, are films that used teen actors for sexual roles heading for a reckoning? Steve Rose looks at the scenes cinema and TV might want to forget.
Last Thing: Grief, the Taliban and the royal ‘todger’ – Prince Harry bares all in Stephen Colbert interview
The studio audience in New York chanted “Harry! Harry!” Monarchists in Britain, however, are likely to regard the bawdy exchange as yet another blow to the dignity of the royal family. Prince Harry took his book tour to American late-night television on Sunday and found himself confronted with questions about a trip to the north pole in which his genitalia suffered frostnip. He appeared unfazed and amused by the interview with the comedian Stephen Colbert, who wondered aloud: “No one in my life when I was a child could ever explain to me that someday the Duke of Sussex was going to say the words ‘cock cushion’ to me and it would all make sense. This is absolutely surreal.”
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