Good morning.
The conservative supreme court is “creeping dangerously towards authoritarianism”, the Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on Sunday, raising again the unlikely scenario of impeaching justices for recent actions.
She made the comments just days after the nation’s highest court released a batch of incendiary and far-reaching rulings striking down affirmative action in colleges, LBGTQ+ rights and President Biden’s student loan relief program.
“These are the types of rulings that signal a dangerous creep towards authoritarianism and centralization of power in the court,” she told CNN’s State of the Union.
“In fact, we have members of the court themselves, with justice Elena Kagan saying that the court is beginning to assume the power of a legislature right now.
What has been said abut the student loan decision? The US supreme court’s decision to strike down President Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan late last week “usurped the authority of congress”, Democratic House representative Ro Khanna said on Sunday . Khanna, of California, argued that if anyone thought Biden was unduly empowered by the legislation which the president used to issue the debt relief program, “then the solution is Congress can repeal the … act”.
The supreme court backed voting rights this term – is it enough to protect the 2024 election? “It might be now that this will open the door to more litigation over state legislative maps and there might be changes required because of section 2 for some state legislatures,” said Richard Pildes, an election law professor at New York University.
Israel launches biggest military operation in West Bank in years
Israel has begun a major aerial and ground offensive in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, its biggest military operation in the Palestinian territory in years, as violence continues to surge in the conflict.
At least five Palestinians were killed and 28 were injured in the attack that began at about 1am on Monday, with the death toll likely to rise, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Gun battles with Palestinian fighters and explosions continued into Monday morning, in the raid the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said targeted a major command centre for the Jenin Brigades militant group in the city’s slum-like refugee camp.
Thick black smoke from burning tyres set alight by residents swirled through the streets, while calls to support the fighters rang out from loudspeakers in mosques. Every entrance to the camp was encircled by Israeli soldiers.
What has the reaction been on the ground? The Jenin operation led to protests overnight across the West Bank, including at a checkpoint near the city of Ramallah, in which a Palestinian man died after being shot in the head by the army. Israel’s air defence systems were put on alert for potential retaliatory rocket fire from the blockaded Gaza Strip after several Palestinian factions vowed revenge.
How many people have died this year because of the conflict? More than 180 Palestinians and 24 Israelis have been killed this year in the escalating violence, inflaming fears that the region is moving closer towards a new chapter of full-scale conflict.
Baltimore mass shooting: two dead and dozens injured as police search for suspects
Two people have been killed and 28 wounded, about half of them children, in a mass shooting in Baltimore, police have said.
The Baltimore police department’s acting commissioner, Richard Worley, confirmed there were a total of 30 victims during a press conference at the scene on Sunday afternoon. Among the 28 injured were an estimated 14 who were under the age of 18, said Worley, noting that police were still trying to confirm victims’ ages.
He said “more than one shooter” was involved, although it was not clear how many, and that no arrests have been made.
The shooting took place shortly after 12.30am at a block party in the Brooklyn Homes area of south Baltimore. An 18-year-old woman was pronounced dead at the scene and a 20-year-old man died later in hospital.
Who were the people who were injured? The ages of the victims ranged from 13 to 32, Worley said. Nine were taken by ambulance and 20 others walked into area hospitals with injuries from the shooting.
In other news …
An escalating feud between the two main rivals for the Republican presidential nomination is akin to a “teenage food fight”, another challenger, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, said yesterday. He made the comment after the campaign of Ron DeSantis released a bizarre video targeting Trump.
Russia has brought 700,000 children from the conflict zones of Ukraine into Russian territory, the head of the international committee in the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, has said. Grigory Karasin said the children have “found refuge with us” after fleeing conflict areas in Ukraine.
Another bus carrying asylum seekers arrived in downtown Los Angeles from a Texas border city early on Saturday, the second such transport in less than three weeks. The bus, which arrived at about 12.40pm at Los Angeles’s Union Station from Brownsville, Texas, held 41 people including 11 children.
A white California woman who styled herself as a “mom influencer” has been ordered to spend three months in prison for falsely accusing a Latino couple of attempting to kidnap her children. State jurors found Kathleen “Katie” Sorensen guilty of knowingly making a false report of a crime.
Globs of asphalt binder that spilled into Montana’s Yellowstone River during a bridge collapse and train derailment could be seen on islands and riverbanks downstream from Yellowstone national park a week after the spill occurred, witnesses report. Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency said cleanup efforts began on Sunday.
Don’t miss this: ‘There is no hope’ – simmering anger boils over in poverty-riven French district
With damage estimated at about €12m and more than 110,000 books and documents destroyed, the incineration of the state-of-the-art library in Borny, a neighbourhood of the city of Metz, was one of the biggest attacks on French state infrastructure in the five nights of rioting that have spread across the country. The police shooting of Nahel, a 17-year-old boy of Algerian and Moroccan descent, at a traffic stop outside Paris last week has led to sustained unrest nationwide: more than 2,000 cars burned, more than 700 businesses damaged and more than 3,000 people arrested, with an average age of 17. Beyond Borny, across to the former mining towns along the German border, a region where there has been an increase in the vote for the far-right Marine Le Pen, cars were torched, bins were set alight and youths clashed with police. A McDonald’s was burned down, a kebab shop set on fire, a police station attacked and a school damaged.
Climate check: Warm temperatures return to California after cool spring bringing wildfire risk
It’s been a slow start to the summer in California, where an extremely wet winter and unseasonably cool spring have left the landscapes lush. But a timely rise in temperatures is forecast, providing both ideal weather for revelry and the return of high risks. State officials have issued strong warnings to residents and visitors alike: California has been spared a ferocious fire so far this year – but the dangers still loom large. The Fourth of July has long been a high-risk weekend for wildfire in California, with firework-fuelled celebrations sparking thousands of blazes each year. “We know what is coming our way – hot weather and dry conditions,” said Isaac Sanchez, a battalion chief with California’s department of forestry and fire protection, adding that the agency is ready and planning for the worst. “The importance of preparation on the part of the public [should not be] understated.”
Last Thing: Sriracha lovers feel the heat as hot sauce shortage continues
Sriracha lovers everywhere are feeling the not so pleasant sting of the beloved hot sauce shortage, now in its second year. Drought in Mexico has resulted in a scarcity of chilli peppers – in particular, red jalapeños, the raw ingredient of sriracha – leading Huy Fong Foods, the California-based maker of the iconic condiment, to scale back production. “It is a challenging crop to grow,” said Stephanie Walker, a plant scientist at the New Mexico State University. “Jalapeños are really labor intensive, requiring people to de-stem them by hand before they go for processing.”
Resellers on Amazon, eBay and Craigslist are pricing bottles of hot sauce for as high as $120. A representative for Huy Fong Foods said in a statement to the Guardian that while “limited production has recently resumed”, the company has “no estimations of when supply will increase”, or when it will again hit supermarket shelves.
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