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McConnell says House's Supreme Court security bill can’t pass Senate 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned late Monday afternoon that a House bill to provide protection to Supreme Court justices and their staffs will not pass the Senate, ratcheting up a standoff with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). 

McConnell and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who drafted a Senate bill to implement new protections only for Supreme Court justices, accused House Democrats of trying to stall the measure.  

Cornyn’s bill, which he wrote with Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), passed the Senate unanimously.  

McConnell said he had informed House leaders Monday that if they pass a different version of the bill that provides bodyguards for Supreme Court justices and their clerks, it won’t make it to President Biden’s desk.  

“The version of the Supreme Court security bill that apparently they’re going to try to pass on suspension tonight is not going to pass the Senate,” he said, referring to the House calendar for passing legislation quickly with two-thirds support.  

“The security issue is related to Supreme Court justices, not nameless staff that no one knows,” he added.

The House Supreme Court security bill was not on the lower chamber’s schedule announced for Monday evening, but it’s expected to take up the measure this week.  

Cornyn, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said, “All we’re trying to do is give the justices the very same protection that is available to members of Congress.” 

“Capitol police can provide protective details for people who are under imminent threat, but they don’t have the authority in the Supreme Court to do the same thing, and I think this is playing with fire,” he said. 

Senate Republicans have stepped up pressure on the House to pass legislation to protect Supreme Court justices after a 26-year-old armed man was charged with attempting to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh.  

Cornyn and Coons drafted their bill to protect Supreme Court justices after the a leaked draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion rights decision, caused a public uproar. The public backlash sparked concerns about the safety of the justices.

“This is exactly why the Senate passed legislation very shortly after the leak to enhance the police protection for the justices and their families. This is commonsense, noncontroversial legislation that passed this chamber unanimously,” McConnell said on the floor last week.  

“But House Democrats have spent weeks blocking it. The House Democratic majority has refused to take it up,” he said.  

House Democratic leaders say they didn’t immediately pass the Senate bill because they wanted to draft a more robust measure.  

“The justices are protected. This issue is not about the justices; it’s about staff and the rest. The justices are protected,” Pelosi said Thursday.  

Mychael Schnell contributed.  

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Equilibrium/Sustainability — Fish leather made from a predator

A group of scuba divers are selling thin, strong and sustainable leather goods made from an invasive and insatiable predator: Lionfish.

“We know there are solutions for some of the problems — such as coral-friendly sunscreens to help protect the reefs — but nobody’s been able to do anything about the lionfish,” Aarav Chavda, CEO of “eco-positive” leather startup Inversa, told The Guardian. 

Lionfish, a species with origins in the Indian Ocean, have been eating their way across Atlantic and Mediterranean reefs since the 1980s.

Every lionfish killed saves up to 70,000 reef fish, and unlike cattle leather, there’s no risk of deforestation, Chavda told The Guardian.

Inversa’s goal is to finance fishing cooperatives in the Caribbean, underwriting their purchase of hunting and tanning equipment that can help them transform the predators from game-devouring menace to a revenue source.

Otherwise, Chavda said, the fishing communities face a no-win choice: If they hunt the lionfish eating their way through the reefs — for which there is currently no market in the Caribbean — then “they’re not hunting other things.”

“They’d be spending their precious time not on lobster, not on grouper — so it’s very unfortunate,” he told the newspaper. 

Welcome to Equilibrium, a newsletter that tracks the growing global battle over the future of sustainability. We’re Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin. Send us tips and feedback. A friend forward this newsletter to you? Subscribe here.

Today we’ll look at how the war in Ukraine is taking a toxic toll on the country’s environment. Then we’ll explore the latest effects of California’s drought as well as a study linking “forever chemicals” to high blood pressure in middle-aged women. 

War in eastern Ukraine unearths toxic legacy 

A Russian artillery strike on a chemical plant in eastern Ukraine sent smoke billowing into the air on Sunday, highlighting yet another danger posed by war in one of Europe’s most polluted areas. 

Fire and smoke: Russian shelling set fire to the Azot chemical plant in the town of Sievierodonetsk, where dozens of civilians were sheltering, The Guardian reported.

Sievierodonetsk is part of Luhansk, one of the breakaway provinces whose independence Russia recognized just before its February invasion of the country

Toxic legacy: Luhansk — like the neighboring province Donetsk — has a long history of severe pollution from mining and heavy industry dating back to the Soviet era, Olya Melen-Zabramna of the Ukrainian nonprofit Environment People Law told Equilibrium. 

“This territory is huge — and the level of pollution is also huge,” she said. 

• While the Ukrainian government had attempted to clean up some of this damage over the past decade, the outbreak of hostilities between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists in 2014 interrupted that process, she said.
• “Part of the problem is direct damage,” Melen-Zabramna added. “But part of the problem is that [the war] interrupted active protection, monitoring and remediation.” 

Amid today’s active combat, she stressed that “there is nobody who is taking measurements.”  

“No one is performing monitoring of water quality,” Melen-Zabramna said, noting that doing so is particularly important due to the number of highly polluted mining sites. 

MORE PRICE SPIKES

Rice could be the next key grain to see a dramatic surge in price as a result of the ongoing war — with potential consequences as severe as export bans or political unrest. 

International rice prices are at a 12-month high after five months of straight increase, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. 

• Rising wheat prices — a result of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, which has tied up 22 million tons of the key grain — may be leading to spillover demand for rice, CNBC reported.
• Surging costs of fuel and fertilizer — both major products of Russia disrupted by the war — are also contributing to the broader increase in food costs, The New York Times reported. 

Export ban? If rice gets sufficiently expensive, it could lead countries like India that produce and depend on the commodity to restrict or even ban exports, CNBC noted.

• India banned wheat exports in May, citing food security risks after a spring heat wave slashed rice production, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

Impacts of a rice export ban? Such a ban would lower prices for farmers in the export-banning country while raising them around the world, David Laborde of the International Food Policy Research Institute told CNBC. 

That’s distinct from “a price rise that compensates for higher costs and will benefit farmers (and help them produce),” according to Laborde. 

Food versus fuel: The growing global grain crisis should throw cold water on the U.S. embrace of biofuels, experts from the International Food Policy Research Institute told the Financial Times. 

Cutting the amount of grains in biofuels by 50 percent globally would compensate for all the grain held up by the Ukraine war, the Times reported. 

The U.S. uses up to 40 percent of its corn production to make ethanol, according to the World Resource Institute. 

Global shortages will get worse: As a result of the war and Russian blockade, “the world will face an acute and severe food crisis and famine,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said at a conference in Asia this weekend, cited by CNBC. 

The crisis “touches Asia, Europe and Africa,” he added. 

Southern California golf greens go brown

Golf courses across Southern California are bracing for the impacts of new drought restrictions in the region, which have led operators to “dial back their sprinklers and let some green grassy areas turn brown,” The Los Angeles Times reported.  

• Many residents of Southern California already see golf courses as what the Times described as “a detested symbol of social privilege and water profligacy — a lush playground for the wealthy that can drink more than 100 million gallons a year.”
• Despite such resentment, some of the region’s courses are public facilities visited by residents of various income levels, the newspaper noted.

Some alternatives available: Los Angeles water customers are only allowed to irrigate two days a week, although an emergency conservation ordinance enables large landscape areas — including golf courses — to request an “alternative means of compliance,” the Times reported. 

That alternative involves cutting consumption by a fixed amount mandated by the city, plus an added reduction of 5 percent below each site’s historical usage, according to the outlet.  

Perks of using wastewater: Thirty-seven golf courses fall under the jurisdiction of Los Angeles’s Department of Water Resources, including 20 private and 17 public municipal courses. 

While the restrictions apply to courses that use drinking water, they do not apply to the 11 courses that irrigate with recycled wastewater, the Times reported. 

DIFFICULT DECISIONS 

California’s ongoing drought has been particularly damaging to farmers in the state’s Central Valley, whose irrigation supplies underwent significant cuts earlier this year, CNN reported.  

The limits this year have pushed many farmers to leave greater portions of their land idle, according to CNN.  

“I got the land, I got the people. I have everything but no water. I can’t do it,” Joe Del Bosque, one of many Latino farmers in the region who rely on California’s agriculture, told CNN.   

Fallowed fields, hazy skies: As these farmers decide to fallow their fields and uproot their orchards and vineyards, they are often amassing the vegetation “into towering pyres” and setting them ablaze, the Times reported.  

These circumstances are also creating a surge in air pollution, which the newspaper described as a “lung- and heart-aggravating haze across the valley.”  

Burning in wildfire season: “Increased removal of orchards and vineyards will add strain to already existing difficulties faced in implementing this aggressive open burning phase-out strategy,” Jaime Holt, spokesperson for the San Joaquin Valley air district, told the Times.  

“And of course all of this is happening at the same time the region is experiencing worsening air quality impacts due to increasingly severe wildfires,” Holt added. 

‘Forever chemicals’ up hypertension risk in women

Middle-aged women who have greater blood concentrations of toxic “forever chemicals” may be at greater risk of developing high blood pressure, a new study has found.

These women were more likely to become hypertensive than those who had lower levels of the compounds, also called per- and polyfluroalkyl substances (PFAS), according to a study in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension.  

Routine exposure: “PFAS are known as ‘forever chemicals’ because they never degrade in the environment and contaminate drinking water, soil, air, food and numerous products we consume or encounter routinely,” lead author Ning Ding, of the University of Michigan, said in a statement. 

Increased vulnerability: Thus far, scientists have demonstrated a “probable link” between PFAS and diagnosed high cholesterol, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, testicular cancer, kidney cancer and pregnancy-induced hypertension. This latest study extends that last category to another subset of women. 

• “Women seem to be particularly vulnerable when exposed to these chemicals,” Ding said.
• Of more than 1,000 women tracked from 1999 to 2017, the scientists found that 470 developed high blood pressure.  

Specific risk: Women who fell in the highest one-third for levels of three PFAS subtypes incurred between 42 percent and 47 percent greater risk of developing high blood pressure, compared to women in the lowest one-third, according to the study.

To read the full story, please click here. 

Monday Miscellanies

SEC investigating Goldman Sachs ESG funds 

• The Securities and Exchange Commission is scrutinizing whether Goldman Sachs’s environment, social and governance (ESG) funds are misleading — likely the result of new enforcement aimed at minimizing deceptive labeling of funds as environmentally friendly, The New York Times reported.

MIT engineers build LEGO-like artificial intelligence chip 

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineers have designed a “LEGO-like” artificial intelligence chip that is stackable, reconfigurable and uses light instead of wires to transmit data in the hopes that mobile device upgrades will one day occur by snapping new sensors onto old internal chips — minimizing the need to shelve obsolete gadgets. 

Latino activism leading on efforts to combat climate change 

• With U.S. Latinos often living in lower income neighborhoods that lack tree canopies and “are degrees hotter than nearby areas,” Latino activists are sounding the alarm about the dangers of global warming, The Associated Press reported. 

Please visit The Hill’s Sustainability section online for the web version of this newsletter and more stories. We’ll see you tomorrow.

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On The Money — Stocks and cryptocurrencies plummet

Stocks and cryptocurrencies are getting hammered ahead of the Federal Reserve’s expected rate hike announcement. We’ll also look at the White House’s consideration of a gas tax holiday and explore why President Biden’s bet on an economic recovery may have backfired. 

But first, see which celebrity chef is opening a restaurant in Trump’s former Washington, D.C., hotel. 

Welcome to On The Money, your nightly guide to everything affecting your bills, bank account and bottom line. For The Hill, we’re Sylvan Lane, Aris Folley and Karl Evers-Hillstrom. Someone forward you this newsletter? Subscribe here.

Stocks enter bear market

Stocks on Monday continued a massive sell-off that started last week on news that inflation had reached a 40-year high and has yet to hit a ceiling despite a monetary tightening program begun by the Federal Reserve. 

The S&P 500 dropped 3.87 percent Monday to hit 3,749 from 3,900. This constitutes a move into a bear market for one of the premier indices of U.S. stocks, having fallen more than 20 percent since its recent high of 4,796 in January. 

• In the two trading days since Friday, the index has dropped more than 6.5 percent from 4,017. 
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average of major U.S. companies fell 2.79 percent Monday to hit 30,518 from 31,459. The index has seen a drop of around 17 percent since its January high. The Russell 2000 index of smaller U.S. stocks fell more than 4.9 percent Monday, having already entered bear territory on a plunge of nearly 25 percent since the beginning of the year. 
• The bond market also saw a sell-off Monday that drove up yields and that analysts likened to a Federal Reserve rate hike in its own right. The two-year U.S. Treasury bond rose 27 basis points to hit almost 3.34 percent, with the 10-year note making a similar jump of 22 basis points to offer a 3.37 percent yield. 

The context: With the two-year yield rising above the yield of the 10-year note, the bond market saw an “inversion” that is widely seen as a harbinger of recession. The 30-year Treasury note popped 0.17 percent to a yield of about 3.36 percent, just slightly steadier than its shorter-term counterparts that are more sensitive to movements in interest rates. 

Those rates are expected to increase again this week after a meeting of the Fed’s Federal Open Markets Committee on Tuesday and Wednesday. The committee has signaled it will continue to raise rates by 50 basis points at its next several meetings, although there is speculation that a 75-point hike could be under consideration. 

The Hill’s Tobias Burns has more on this here. 

CRYPTO CRASH  

Warning signs flash for crypto industry 

The latest cryptocurrency selloff reveals signs of trouble for the crypto industry, which was already facing layoffs and hiring freezes amid a global economic downturn. 

Bitcoin plunged nearly 23 percent from Friday to Monday, hitting its lowest mark since late last year. Ethereum, the second most popular cryptocurrency, dropped 32 percent over the same period. The total crypto market cap dropped below $1 trillion for the first time since January as investors unloaded their digital coins. 

“Certainly, if you’re a crypto intermediary, you’re staring down dark, dark days here. This is not like the stock market where there’s a long-term track record of prices going up,” said Lee Reiners, executive director of Duke University’s Global Financial Markets Center. 

“This might be it, frankly,” he added. “This could be the beginning of the end for cryptocurrency.” 

• The bitcoin rout accelerated after crypto lender Celsius Network announced that it would block customers from withdrawing or transferring digital assets to “stabilize liquidity” amid “extreme market conditions,” a move that drew outrage from users. 
• Monday’s collapse coincided with a stock market selloff, indicating that investor fears over surging inflation and rising interest rates are hitting crypto just as hard, if not harder, than high-risk stocks. 
• That could spell trouble for crypto companies that enjoyed exponential growth in the last few years but are already beginning to downsize due to falling crypto prices. Crypto.com and Gemini recently announced layoffs, while Coinbase paused all hiring. 

Karl has more here. 

OFFICIALS CONSIDER A GAS TAX HOLIDAY

White House takes new look at federal gas tax holiday 

The White House is showing signs that it is more seriously considering a federal gas tax holiday, sources tell The Hill.  

President Biden’s economic team has discussed the gas tax holiday recently and is expected to meet later this week for further talks. 

• The White House is under political pressure to do something to provide relief to Americans dealing with high inflation and rising gas prices. The economic storm has created serious headwinds for Democrats ahead of the midterms, where the party is worried about a shellacking. 
• Suspending the federal gas tax would require an act of Congress, but a public push by Biden in favor of the policy could help spur action on Capitol Hill. 

Check out more here from The Hill’s Amie Parnes and Morgan Chalfant. 

TOO HOT TO HANDLE 

Why Biden’s bet on a rapid economic rebound may have backfired 
President Biden’s bet on a rapid rebound from the coronavirus recession may have backfired.  

• The president and his top economic officials rallied Democrats around a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill in March 2021, urging Congress not to repeat the mistakes of the Great Recession and cut off support for the economy too soon.  
• The bill was also Biden’s way of delivering on the promise made during the pivotal Georgia Senate runoffs, which gave his party a slim Senate majority: elect Democrats and get another round of stimulus checks. 

Just more than a year after Biden signed the bill, U.S. unemployment rate is nearly at pre-pandemic levels, the economy has added more than 10 million jobs and gross domestic product is well above where it was when COVID-19 shattered the economy. By those measures alone, the recovery under his watch was far stronger than the slow trudge out of the Great Recession. 

But despite the rapid rebound, Biden’s approval rating is at all-time lows as Americans feel the brunt of high inflation — a risk few within and beyond the administration took seriously when he signed the American Rescue Plan (ARP).  

Sylvan explains here.

Good to Know

The coronavirus pandemic forced millions of working parents to juggle job responsibilities with caring for their children, and a new report sheds light on how those child care struggles negatively affected caregiver employment.   

A study out of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine (UNC) looked at child care-related employment disruptions before and after COVID-19. The results showed there was a 30 to 40 percent increase in employment disruptions due to child care difficulties among all parents, no matter their child’s health needs. 

Here’s what else we have our eye on: 

• Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in an interview on Sunday that he thought the Fed could address inflation with a “soft-ish landing,” to avoid a recession.  
• Amazon will begin delivering orders in a California city by drone later this year, the company announced Monday. 
• Reps. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) have asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to address online price gouging of baby formula during the nationwide shortage.  

That’s it for today. Thanks for reading and check out The Hill’s Finance page for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you tomorrow. 

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Five takeaways: Trump aides describe chaotic post-election White House

The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol delivered damning new evidence on Monday suggesting former President Trump was aware of his election defeat, but still pushed false claims of rampant fraud in an effort to cling to power and raise millions of dollars in campaign donations.

A key witness in Monday’s hearing, Trump’s former campaign manager Bill Stepien, was forced to cancel his in-person appearance when his wife went into labor. But after a short delay, the panel regrouped, leaning on pre-recorded interviews with Stepien, former Attorney General Bill Barr and a number of other former Trump aides to bolster their case.

All told, the witnesses told the story of a chaotic post-election environment in which top White House staffers, campaign operatives, cabinet secretaries and congressional leaders pressed the former president to abandon the fictitious narrative of a stolen election, only to be ignored by Trump and a small cadre of loyalists willing to go along with the sham.

Here are five takeaways from the panel’s second public hearing.

Trump was warned at every turn

The committee brought out official after official from the campaign and from the Trump administration detailing how they cautioned Trump at every turn against declaring victory and claiming fraud.

The former president was told the uptick in voting by mail due to COVID-19 would delay the results. He was advised against claiming victory before the results were finalized. And he was told again and again that his election fraud claims were baseless and unsupported by evidence.

“My recommendation was to say that votes are still being counted. It’s too early to tell, too early to call the race,” Stepien said.

“I don’t recall the particular words. He thought I was wrong. He told me so. And you know, that they were going to, he was going to go in a different direction.”

Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller offered similar advice.

“There were suggestions by, I believe it was Mayor Giuliani, to go and declare victory and say that we’d won it outright,” Miller said. “I remember saying that… we should not go and declare victory until we had a better sense of the numbers.”

Former Attorney General Bill Barr in particular laid into the former president, calling the claims “completely bogus and silly and usually based on complete misinformation.”

“There was an avalanche of all these allegations of fraud that built up over a number of days. And it was like playing whack-a-mole, because something would come out one day and then the next day it would be another issue,” Barr said.

Part of building a legal case against Trump

Monday’s hearing was the committee’s first fully dedicated to showing the extent Trump was repeatedly warned about his election fraud claims.

It’s an important building block for the committee in the week ahead as they look at what actions Trump took given the repeated warnings from staffers and even his attorney general. 

That point is key to showing Trump’s culpability and would raise questions about his motivation as the committee holds hearings looking at the former president’s pressure campaign at the Department of Justice to investigate his attempts to get Vice President Mike Pence to reject the will of the voters.

Trump campaign lawyer Alex Cannon said he had a “15 second” conversation with Pence in which he relayed the campaign was unable to substantiate Trump’s election fraud claims.

“He asked me if we were finding anything. And I said that I didn’t believe we were finding it or I was not personally finding anything sufficient to alter the results of the election. And he — he thanked me. That was our interaction,” Cannon said.

Barr also told Trump his fraud claims should be the campaign’s work, not the Department of Justice.

“The department doesn’t take sides in elections, and the department is not an extension of — of your legal team,” Barr said he told Trump later. 

“He didn’t seem to be listening and I didn’t think it was, you know, that I was inclined not to stay around if he wasn’t listening to advice from me or his other cabinet secretaries.”

Witnesses give sense of Trump’s state of mind

The committee failed to directly demonstrate that Trump himself knew there was no voter fraud, and realized he was misleading the public.

In fact, in some of the taped depositions, witnesses described a president who seemed to believe his own arguments even as nearly everyone around him did not.

Barr detailed a report Trump relayed on Dominion voting machines, something the former attorney general said in earlier testimony “were made in such a sensational way that they obviously were influencing a lot of people.”

“And the statements were made very conclusory like this — these machines were designed to, you know, engage in fraud or something to that effect, but I didn’t see any supporting information for it,” Barr said of Trump.

“And I was somewhat demoralized because I thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff he has, you know, lost contact with — with it — he’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff.”

Former Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue also testified to Trump’s fixation.

“There were so many allegations that when you gave him a very direct answer on one of them, he wouldn’t fight you on it, he’d move to another one,” Donoghue said.

Fundraising juggernaut 

If Trump’s claims of a stolen election are false, they are also extremely lucrative. 

House investigators found that, between Election Day and the Jan. 6 attack, Trump’s campaign sent millions of emails to potential supporters — as many as 25 per day — asking for small donations to something called the Official Election Defense Fund. 

In interviews with campaign staffers, the investigators found that no such fund ever existed.

“I don’t believe there is actually a fund called the Election Defense Fund,” said Hanna Allred, a former Trump campaign aide. 

Gary Coby, the former digital director for Trump’s campaign, acknowledged that the fund was a marketing tool: “Just topic matter,” he told the committee, “where money can potentially go to be — how money can potentially be used.”

The effort yielded $250 million, investigators found, $100 million in the first week after the election alone. 

Yet most of the money did not go to help the campaign fight to overturn the election result, as the solicitations suggested, the committee said. Instead, Trump created a separate entity, the Save America PAC, which funneled money to conservative groups run by Trump allies, including $1 million to a charitable foundation run by his former chief of staff Mark Meadows; more than $5 million to the event company that oversaw Trump’s Ellipse rally on Jan. 6;

and more than $200,000 to the Trump Hotel Collection. 

“So not only was there the big lie, there was the big rip off,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.). “Donors deserve to know where their funds are really going. They deserve better than what President Trump and his team did.”

Fox News predicted Trump would ‘exploit this anomaly’

Few news outlets have been more friendly to Trump during his meteoric political rise than Fox News, where the top pundits — including Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity — have defended Trump’s actions post-election and repeatedly downplayed the violence of Jan. 6.  

Yet it was Fox News which was first to declare that Biden had won Arizona in 2020 — a controversial election-night call that deflated the Republicans’ hopes of keeping the White House. And Monday’s select committee hearing revealed that leaders at the network had not only anticipated that Trump would try to spin the early returns to claim a false victory, they also steered their coverage to warn viewers against believing it. 

Appearing before the panel, Chris Stirewalt, former political editor at Fox News, described a phenomenon known as the “red mirage,” which predicts that Republican candidates typically race ahead of Democrats on Election Day because GOP voters tend to favor in-person voting. The margins close, Stirewalt said, as mail-in ballots — which are more popular with Democrats — are counted after the polls close. 

“So in every election — certainly a national election — you expect to see the Republican with a lead, but it’s not really a lead. When you put together a jigsaw puzzle, it doesn’t matter which piece you put in first. It ends up with the same image. So for us, who cares?” Stirewalt said.  

“But that’s because no candidate had ever tried to avail themselves of this quirk in the election-counting system,” he continued. “We had gone to pains — and I’m proud of the pains we went to — to make sure that we were informing viewers that this was going to happen. Because the Trump campaign and the president had made it clear that they were going to try to exploit this anomaly.”

Other witnesses on Monday described Fox’s Arizona decision as a gut punch for Trump, his aides and his family members watching the election returns at the White House that night. 

Miller said the call “completely” changed the atmosphere in the room. 

“[We were] both disappointed with Fox and concerned that maybe our data or our numbers weren’t accurate,” he said.

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Virginia could lose 42 percent of its tidal wetlands by 2100 due to sea level rise, study finds

A huge portion of Virginia’s tidal wetlands could disappear if global sea levels continue to rise at their current rate.  

Tidal wetlands provide numerous environmental benefits like providing a habitat for fisheries, capturing and storing carbon dioxide and acting as a defense against coastal storms and erosion.  

But many tidal wetlands are at risk of disappearing due to the effects of climate change. And while tidal wetlands can change in size by growing vertically and moving further inland, if sea levels rise too rapidly wetlands can essentially “drown” in place, according to Virginia Mercury.  

America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news.

A new study published in the journal Environmental Research Communications states that Virginia could lose up to 42 percent of its tidal wetlands by 2100 if nothing is done to curb the effects of climate change.  

And all of that loss will be costly with one study claiming that losing a hectare, or roughly two football fields, of wetlands could cost the country an average of $1,900 extra a year in flood damages.  
 

In the past two decades, Earth has lost over 1,540 square miles of mangroves, tidal flats and tidal marshes, according to a study published in the journal Science last month, which is roughly the size of the Spanish island Mallorca.  

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DOJ charges alleged gun trafficker who purchased 75 guns in six months

A man has been arrested and charged for allegedly purchasing at least 70 firearms within a six-month span. 

According to a Justice Department statement, authorities said that Demontre Antwon Hackworth was indicted last week on federal firearm crimes charges, saying that Hackworth sold firearms without a license and made false statements during the purchase of a firearm. 

Authorities said that Hackworth purchased at least 92 guns from federally licensed firearms dealers, including 75 firearms during a six-month span from a dealer stripped of its seller’s license.

At least 16 of the 92 firearms Hackworth purchased allegedly have been used in incidents that include homicide, aggravated assault and drug trafficking in two U.S. states and Canada, according to the statement. 

One of the 16 guns the alleged gun trafficker purchased was used in three separate criminal incidents, two aggravated assaults and one unlawful possession, and two more guns were used in two separate incidents. 

“Illegal firearms trafficking is not a victimless crime,” Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Dallas Field Divison Special Agent in Charge Jeff Boshek said in a statement. 

“There are real consequences when individuals illegally engage in the business of buying and selling firearms. ATF will continue to use all available resources to strategically target and identify illegal firearms sales, trafficking patterns, and sources of crime guns; and to interrupt the illegal flow of firearms to criminal gang members, felons, firearm traffickers, and all persons who are otherwise prohibited from possessing firearms under federal law.”

Hackworth, 31, could face up to 35 years in federal prison if convicted.

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How reliving the January 6 insurrection can take a toll on mental health

Reliving traumatic events can be painful and it’s a position many Americans may find themselves in this week as The House Select Committee investigating the events of January 6 are revealing graphic details of the day the U.S. Capitol was attacked by a violent mob. 

Beginning on Sunday, lawmakers in Washington began sharing new details about January 6, 2021 through live, televised hearings that include never-before-seen footage of the violent attack on the Capitol, graphic images and gripping testimony. 

The impact was felt by those testifying, including Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, who was injured during the riot, telling lawmakers the Capitol was like a “war scene” and described slipping on others’ blood and being in hand-to-hand combat for hours.   

House Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) also hinted on the mental impact the insurrection has had on lawmakers, “the cycle has just been moved on, but it has deeply, deeply affected lawmaking, policy making. It has impacted the actual legislative process, the aftermath of it. And it’s very quiet, it’s not spoken about.” 

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However, trauma from January 6 isn’t limited to those who experienced the violent mob first-hand but can extend to all Americans. 

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) says incidents of mass violence disturb a person’s collective sense of order and safety and may even impact those with no personal connections to the event.  

Feelings such as overwhelming anxiety, trouble sleeping and other depression-like symptoms are common responses to incidents of mass violence and can occur before, during or after the event.  

Injured victims as well as bystanders are at risk for emotional distress due to incidents of mass violence, as well as their friends and family members, first responders and recovery workers and community members that live near the event. 

Virginia Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D) also acknowledged witnessing the events of January 6 — in person or on television — was traumatic. Wexton put out a statement that included trauma and mental health resources for her constituents, saying, “It is okay to not feel okay. What’s important is that you take the time to take care of yourself and know that help is available.” 

One lawmaker did just that, with Michigan Rep. Dan Kildee (D) sharing that regular sessions with a psychiatrist and meditation techniques helped him deal with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, developed in the aftermath of the January 6 Capitol riot. 

Reliving painful memories can cause a range of emotions but recognizing them for what they are and naming them can help, according to Mental Health Alliance (MHA). 

“These are responses to trauma. Hundreds of police officers, members of Congress, staffers and journalists experienced a harrowing insurrection while millions of us watched the disturbing events unfold in real time,” explained Schroeder Stribling, president and CEO of MHA, in a statement released on the one-year anniversary of January 6.  

Stribling went on to say that intense emotions are a normal and valid response to a traumatic event and that Americans are not alone in experiencing these feelings. 

Taking a break from the news cycle can also help, as the constant replay of news stories about a disaster or traumatic event can increase stress and anxiety and make some people relive the event over and over.  

In order to cope with traumatic events, SAMHSA encourages Americans to engage in relaxing activities to help heal and move on, get enough good quality sleep and understand that disasters can have lifelong impacts. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Smithsonian board of regents votes to return 29 Benin Bronzes 

The Smithsonian Museum’s board of regents voted Monday to return 29 Benin bronzes to Nigeria.  

Last November, The Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African Art announced the institution’s plan to repatriate 39 artifacts stolen by the British during an 1897 raid on the ancient Kingdom of Benin, according to The Art Newspaper.

All of the institution’s Benin Bronzes — a term that is used to describe a number of artifacts taken from the raid including brass plaques, elephant tusks and ivory animal statues — were subsequently removed from display as the museum worked to figure out how many of the artifacts were linked to the raid and how to return the artwork to Nigeria.  

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The Smithsonian’s board of regents said in a statement that the 29 artifacts it plans to repatriate were taken during the 1897 British raid on Benin City and will be returned to Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments at an unspecified date.  

It is unclear what will happen to the remaining 10 Benin Bronzes in the Smithsonian’s possession.  

In April, the museum adopted a new ethical returns policy which authorizes each Smithsonian museum to return collections in certain circumstances “based on ethical considerations.” 

Those ethical considerations include how the museum acquired the collection with the policy noting some examples of unethical acquisition as being taken under duress or stolen.  

Under the policy, in some cases, the Smithsonian’s board of regents will be required to approve the decision to return objects when “they are of significant monetary value, research or historical value” or when the collection might “create significant public interest.”  

The vote marks a global shift in museum ethics when it comes to keeping stolen artifacts. In May, the Denver Art Museum chose to remove its Benin Bronzes from display and in November the Metropolitan Museum of Art returned three artifacts to the Nigerians.  

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Source: TEST FEED1

Top cyber official urge for transformation in cyberspace

National Cyber Director Chris Inglis said Monday that the administration and federal agencies should prioritize transforming the way they approach and invest in cybersecurity, as previous efforts have “not worked.”

Ingles was speaking at cyber summit hosted by The Information Technology Industry Council on ways the public and private sector can combat cyber threats.

“I think that everything else that we have tried, as nobly intended, has not worked,” Inglis said. 

“And so in order for us to then change the nature of the game, I think that we have to crowdsource the adversaries the way they’ve crowdsourced us,” he added.

Crowdsourcing refers to bringing together actors to defend against a threat or attack a target. The Hill has reached out to Inglis’ office for more details on his comments.

Inglis also said that despite some improvements in cyberspace over the years, the U.S. government still has a long way to go to compete with its adversaries.

The Biden administration and some lawmakers have places a renewed focus on cybersecurity following major disruptions including the war in Ukraine, the SolarWinds hack and the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack.

The Biden administration handed down an executive order last year aimed at improving the nation’s cybersecurity through initiatives including threat information sharing between the government and the private sector, modernizing federal government cybersecurity standards and improving software supply chain security.

At the summit, Inglis said the needed transformation will be built upon both government initiatives and better collaboration with the private sector. 

“That transformation is going to be built on the back of real work,” Inglis said.

“And outside [the government], we’re kind of pushing hard for the government to stand up to its role to collaborate with the private sector,” he added. 

In a recent congressional hearing, cyber officials said they have made progress on securing federal networks through methods like two-factor authentification and encryption, though they too conceded there was more work to be done.

Inglis also warned Monday that cyberattacks, including ransomware, are enduring threats that will continue to persist and adapt. He said he’s had conversations with people asking “when can we stop” defending the country against cyber threats.

“And unfortunately, the answer is we’ll never not defend ourselves in cyberspace,” Inglis said. 

“The cost of entry for aggressors at this point is still far too low for us to essentially assume that this is over. And therefore, we need… to continue to defend ourselves,” he added. 

Source: TEST FEED1