The fossil fuel projects the US littered around the world
Through the US Export-Import Bank, Barack Obama’s administration has spent nearly $34bn supporting 70 fossil fuel projects around the world, work by Columbia Journalism School and the Guardian has revealed. Guardian reporters have spent time at American-backed projects in India, South Africa and Australia to document the sickness, upheavals and environmental harm that come with huge dirty fuel developments. In India, for example, the reporters heard complaints about coal ash blowing into villages, contaminated water and respiratory and stomach problems. “While Obama can claim the US is the world’s leader on climate change – at least until Donald Trump enters the White House – it is also clear that it has become a major funder of fossil fuels that are having a serious impact upon people’s lives,” they write.
Obama’s dirty secret: the fossil fuel projects the US littered around the world
How Obama’s climate change legacy is weakened by US investment in dirty fuel
Abortion laws challenged in three states
Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Center for Reproductive Rights have filed lawsuits relating to abortion rights in Alaska, Missouri and North Carolina. In Missouri, the groups are challenging a pair of abortion restrictions that have reduced the number of abortion providers to just one. They are taking aim at a similar clinic restriction in Alaska. In North Carolina, they will mount a challenge to a 20-week ban on abortion that has some of the nation’s strictest exceptions – only the second time reproductive rights advocates have challenged a 20-week ban on abortion in federal court – potentially setting the table for these restrictions to go before the supreme court, as Molly Redden writes.
Planned Parenthood and ACLU mount abortion law challenges in three states
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Teen becomes seventh ‘faithless elector’ to protest Trump
Levi Guerra, 19, from Vancouver, Washington, has become the seventh person to indicate that she will break ranks with party affiliation and become a “faithless elector”, joining the ranks of the so-called “Hamilton electors”. “The renegade group believes it is the responsibility of the 538 electors who make up the electoral college to show moral courage in preventing demagogues and other threats to the nation from gaining the keys to the White House, as the founding fathers intended,” Ed Pilkington writes. Washington is a blue state and Guerra has been mandated to vote for Clinton, but she intends to write in an “alternative Republican” to highlight her fears over a Trump presidency. The last time more than one elector broke ranks was in 1912.
Teen becomes seventh ‘faithless elector’ to protest Trump as president-elect
Senators hint at interference in US election
Seven Democratic and Democratic-aligned members of the Senate intelligence committee have hinted that significant information about Russian interference in the US presidential election remains secret and ought to be declassified. The senators wrote to Obama requesting he declassify intelligence and did not directly accuse the Russian government or President-elect Donald Trump, a Republican, of wrongdoing in the letter. The particular intelligence, its strength or its impact on the outcome of the election has not been detailed.
Senators call for declassification of files on Russia’s role in US election
Keith Scott shooting: no charges filed
No state criminal charges will be brought against the police officer who fatally shot Keith Scott in North Carolina earlier this year. On Wednesday, the district attorney in Charlotte said that officer Brentley Vinson’s shooting of Scott in September was justified because Scott refused to drop a gun held at his side. The prosecutor said Scott never raised or pointed the gun but Vinson felt he posed a threat because he ignored orders to drop it and stared in a “trance-like state”. Scott’s wife Rakeyia, who filmed some of his confrontation with police and the aftermath, insisted that he was not armed when he was killed. In a statement, Scott’s family said they were “profoundly disappointed” by the decision. His death on 20 September became another flashpoint in the nationwide unrest over the killing of African American men by police officers. Protests and riots followed in Charlotte.
Keith Scott shooting: no charges to be filed against Charlotte police officer
Emotional service after reports Chapecoense plane ran out of fuel
An emotional service was held in southern Brazil on Wednesday night for the 71 players, technical staff, sports journalists and crew killed when a plane chartered by local team Chapecoense crashed on a Colombian mountainside, and there was anger at the news that the plane may have run out of fuel.
Chapecoense plane crash: fans’ anger after confirmation plane ran out of fuel
Colombia’s government ratifies revised Farc peace deal
Colombia’s government has formally ratified a revised peace agreement with the Farc leftist rebel group after the initial pact was narrowly rejected by voters last month. Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos, decided to skip a referendum on the new version and go directly to congress, where the deal’s supporters hold a majority. Opponents, led by former president Álvaro Uribe, boycotted the legislative votes.
Colombia’s government formally ratifies revised Farc peace deal
Kanye West checks out of hospital
Kanye West has checked out of a hospital in Los Angeles after being admitted with exhaustion after canceling his remaining tour dates last week.
Kanye West checks out of hospital after being admitted for exhaustion
And another thing …
A single dose of psilocybin, the active ingredient of magic mushrooms, can lift the anxiety and depression experienced by people with advanced cancer for six months or even longer, two new studies show. Researchers involved say the results are remarkable. The volunteers had “profoundly meaningful and spiritual experiences” which made most of them rethink life and death, ended their despair and brought about lasting improvement in the quality of their lives.
Magic mushroom ingredient psilocybin could be key to treating depression
