Good morning.
Donald Trump has succeeded in an 11th-hour attempt to temporarily stay the release of sensitive White House records on the US Capitol attack.
Washington DC’s federal appeals court on Thursday granted Trump’s request to temporarily stop the National Archives from handing over the records to the bipartisan House select committee that is investigating the 6 January insurrection.
After the US district judge Tanya Chutkan’s ruling that the former president could not claim executive privilege over the documents, Trump was granted a temporary injunction.
What is Trump doing? Delaying. The Democrat-led committee may have to finish its investigation before next year’s midterms, in which Republicans are tipped to take control of the US House.
When is the hearing? The court will hear oral arguments on 30 November.
Who are the judges? The DC circuit court chooses three judges at random to consider the appeal: it will be Patricia Millett, Robert Wilkins and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
US fails to sign up to Cop26’s boldest pledges
The US has failed to commit to some of Cop26’s toughest climate pledges, with its signature noticeably absent on promises to phase out coalmining, to end the use of internal combustion engines and to compensate poorer countries.
This is despite the Biden administration proclaiming the US’s status as a climate leader and underlining its willingness to undo the damage caused by the previous administration. It comes as Democrats express confidence that their pared-down $1.75tn spending bill, which contains landmark climate measures, will clear Congress next week.
The weakness of the proposed targets agreed at the climate summit means leaders will have to renegotiate next year, the three architects of the Paris agreement said. Current national plans would lead to 2.4C of heating, according to analysis by Climate Action Tracker – a far cry from 1.5C.
How many committed to phasing out coalmining? More than 40 countries signed up to the pledge, excluding the US, China and India. The latter two combined burn about two-thirds of the world’s coal, and the US still generates about a fifth of its electricity from it.
Meanwhile, delegates from countries where the climate emergency is already “an everyday reality” have spoken about how they are affected by anxiety over the looming disaster.
These maps show how Republicans are blatantly rigging elections
Before next year’s midterms, politicians are undertaking the once-a-decade process of editing the nation’s political maps: the “invisible scalpel” known as gerrymandering that shapes the terrain and tenor of US politics.
The US is almost unique in allowing partisan lawmakers to redraw maps for their own advantage. This year Republicans can redraw the lines of 187 congressional districts, while Democrats can do so in 75.
Here are four maps showing the key ways that Republicans will seek to increase their chances of winning back the US House next November:
Dismantling a Democratic district.
Diluting the influence of Black voters.
Weakening diverse suburbs.
Regrouping Democrats voters into non-competitive districts.
In other news …
The judge presiding over Kyle Rittenhouse’s homicide trial has been thrust into the spotlight after he admonished prosecutors and his phone was heard ringing with a song played at Donald Trump’s rallies. Wisconsin’s longest-serving circuit judge, Bruce Schroeder, also queried the veracity of iPad footage ahead of the defense resting its case.
Netflix has cut a Latina housekeeper character from its upcoming series Uncoupled, starring Neil Patrick Harris, after a veteran actor described the characterization as “hurtful and derogatory”. Ada Maris wrote an open letter expressing offense at the stereotypes reinforced by the role.
The US and European delegations on the UN security council have called for action against Belarus, condemning Minsk for endangering migrants “for political purposes”. Poland says Belarus has lured 2,000 migrants in order to send them over its border in revenge for EU sanctions.
The American journalist Danny Fenster has been jailed for 11 years in Myanmar after being convicted on a range of charges previously described by the US government as “profoundly unjust”.
Stat of the day: AstraZeneca has sold more than $2.2bn of Covid vaccine this year
AstraZeneca is set to move to “modest profitability” after selling more than $2.2bn of its Covid-19 vaccine in the first nine months of this year. The drugmaker has committed to providing the shot on a not-for-profit basis during the pandemic so far, and sales in the year’s final three months “are expected to be a blend of the original pandemic agreements and new orders”, it said.
Don’t miss this: Placebo talk gender fluidity, queerness and climate apocalypse
Twenty-five years on from their debut album, Placebo are back. On the band’s eighth studio album, singer Brian Molko – who “cultivated a gendered and sexual expansiveness” decades before the term “non-binary” became commonly used – turns his attention to climate disaster and surveillance culture. Bleak as that may sound, co-writer and multi-instrumentalist Stefan Olsdal reflects on Never Let Me Go’s exploration of the theme of “love in the time of cholera”. Or, as Sasha Geffen puts it, “how we hold each other through the ruin”.
Last Thing: Merkel’s star doppelganger steps down alongside chancellor
Germany’s leading Angela Merkel impersonator, Ursula Wanecki, is pretty much the chancellor’s spitting image. But after 16 years as Merkel’s double, Wanecki says she will hang up the blazers when the 67-year-old retires next month. The lookalike doesn’t expect people will stop shouting “hallo Angie” at her “for some time to come” though.
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