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Overnight News Digest: Eggflation [1]
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Date: 2023-01-19
Greenland ice sheet — the second largest in the world — experiencing its highest temperatures in 1,000 years
CBS News
The Greenland ice sheet, one of the coldest and most remote regions of the world that serves a pivotal role in the Earth's climate, is now clearly feeling significant effects of climate change. Researchers found that central and northern areas of the sheet have recently seen the hottest temperatures in a millennium. It has been long clear that many parts of Greenland are warming, but the latest research, published in Nature on Wednesday, took a deeper look at the central part of Greenland's ice sheet, where the impact of climate change has long been unclear. To learn more about that impact, researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research drilled ice cores to create a "high-quality reconstruction" of temperatures in central and north Greenland from 1,000 AD to 2011. With that data, it became clear: Not even some of the coldest, most remote and highly-elevated areas of the world can escape the impacts of global warming. "This data shows that the warming in 2001 to 2011 clearly differs from natural variations during the past 1,000 years," the study's lead author, glaciologist Maria Hörhold said. "Although grimly expected in the light of global warming, we were surprised by how evident this difference really was."
U.S. hits its debt limit and now risks defaulting on its bills
NPR News
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, in a letter to Congress on Thursday, said the U.S. has reached its debt limit, and has begun resorting to "extraordinary measures" so the government can continue paying its bills. Yellen had already previously warned the U.S. would reach its debt limit on Thursday but had said the Treasury Department was preparing a contingency plan to avoid a default on the country's debt. […] Raising the debt limit used to be a routine exercise for Congress but it has become increasingly fraught. A potentially huge political fight looms this year as some House Republicans have vowed to block any increase in the debt limit in order to extract spending cuts.
In Debt-Limit Fight, Trump Wants Republicans to Play a Dangerous Game of Chicken
Bloomberg via Yahoo! news
Donald Trump is egging on Republicans already intent on using the federal debt limit as leverage to extract concessions from Democrats, potentially pushing the country further toward the brink of default as the former president seeks to reassert his grip on the GOP. The former president has been posting exhortations on social media for Republicans to “be tough” and not “give in” as the US approaches running out of cash later this year, asserting the party “can get back almost everything” Democrats won legislatively under President Joe Biden. Republicans who control the House have been demanding deep spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt cap. Biden and congressional Democrats are insisting that the limit be raised without conditions.
Eggflation: Why eggs are increasing in price and disappearing from shelves
Greenville Journal
When Mandy Wright, who owns Hooves and Heirlooms Farm with her husband Nathan Wright, began selling eggs 10 months ago, she struggled to even get a reply to her advertisements. Now, she’s having to explain to customers, old and new alike, there aren’t enough eggs to go around, certainly not enough to meet the increased demand for them due to an egg shortage across the country. “I never got a call back,” Wright says of her early months in business. “It’s been like eight months later, and everyone’s been calling me, ‘Hey, do you have eggs?’” The culprit causing a national shortage? Bird flu. Avian influenza, also known as bird flu, eradicated more than 44 million egg-laying hens across the United States and is responsible for hampering egg production. Stores across the country reflect barren shelves, and consumers who manage to find eggs are greeted with skyrocketing prices.
Eggs are expensive. For bakeries and breakfast joints, the pain is multiplied
Star Tribune
If the price of a dozen eggs at the grocery store seems severe, imagine cracking hundreds per day. Diners, bakeries and other businesses that go through eggs by the case, not the dozen, say the impact of the past year's spike in egg prices is staggering. "We're paying $2,000 more per week compared to this time last year," said Sam Turner, owner of the Nicollet Diner in Minneapolis, which brings in about $10,000 in revenue a day. "That can be very painful." Whether in omelets, scrambles, meringues or cakes, higher costs for eggs are getting baked into the prices customers pay. "Egg prices have had an enormous impact on us, and we've had to raise menu prices," Turner said. "We're a small business. At this point we lose a day of revenue every month" to the higher cost of eggs compared to a year ago.
President Joe Biden arrives in California to see storm damage with Gavin Newsom
The Sacramento Bee
President Joe Biden pledged to help California’s storm-damaged towns in “building back stronger” and attributed the extreme weather to climate change during remarks in Aptos. Prior to appearing before the media, Biden and Gov. Gavin Newsom walked along the ocean at Seacliff State Beach. The storms destroyed a large section of the beach’s famous pier, which created a “cement ship” docked in the water. Before the president spoke, Newsom praised Biden’s “empathy, the care and compassion that he has.” The governor said four days before Biden issued a national state of emergency declaration, he received a call from the president’s chief of staff saying the administration was ready to approve the request.
'Extreme' drought completely eliminated in California; Colorado River Basin lags behind
ABC News
"Extreme" drought has been completely eliminated in California for the first time in nearly three years, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. While the drastic change for California has happened over the last few weeks, the most recent batch of rain has completely eliminated the "extreme" drought category. However, while smaller reservoirs have returned to averages, many larger ones still remain low, according to experts. And it's still "too early to tell if the wet weather is enough to end the drought." This is the first time since April 2020 that there has been no "extreme" drought in California.
California’s next flood could destroy one of its most diverse cities. Will lawmakers try to save it?
Grist
In early 1862, a storm of biblical proportions struck California, dropping more than 120 inches of rain and snow on the state over two months. The entire state flooded, but nowhere was the deluge worse than in the Central Valley, a gash of fertile land that runs down the middle of the state between two mountain ranges. In the spring, as melting snow mixed with torrential rain, the valley transformed into “a perfect sea,” as one observer put it, vanishing beneath 30 feet of water that poured from the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. People rowed through town streets on canoes. A quarter of all the cows in the state drowned. It took months for the water to drain out. More than 150 years later, climate scientists say the state is due for a repeat of that massive storm. A growing body of research has found that global warming is increasing the likelihood of a monster storm that could inundate the Central Valley once again, causing what one study from UCLA and the National Atmospheric Center called “historically unprecedented surface runoff” in the region. Not only would this runoff destroy thousands of homes, it would also ravage a region that serves as the nation’s foremost agricultural breadbasket. The study found that global warming has already increased the likelihood of such a storm by 234 percent. In the crosshairs of that storm is the Stockton metropolitan area, which sits at the mouth of the San Joaquin River.
Warming to make California downpours even wetter, study says
AP News
As damaging as it was for more than 32 trillion gallons of rain and snow to fall on California since Christmas, a worst-case global warming scenario could juice up similar future downpours by one-third by the middle of this century, a new study says. The strongest of California’s storms from atmospheric rivers, long and wide plumes of moisture that form over an ocean and flow through the sky over land, would probably get an overall 34% increase in total precipitation, or another 11 trillion gallons more than just fell. That’s because the rain and snow is likely to be 22% more concentrated at its peak in places that get really doused, and to fall over a considerably larger area if fossil fuel emissions grow uncontrolled, according to a new study in Thursday’s journal Nature Climate Change. The entire western United States would likely see a 31% increase in precipitation from these worst of the worst storms in a souped-up warming world because of more intense and widely spread rainfall, the study said.
Political fundraising platform ActBlue names its first Black female CEO
The Washington Post
ActBlue, the online political fundraising platform that has helped raise $11 billion since 2004 for Democratic campaigns and liberal organizations, announced Thursday that Regina Wallace-Jones will take over as chief executive, making her the first Black woman to assume the role. Wallace-Jones, a former elected official and tech and finance executive, will also serve as ActBlue’s president. She succeeds Erin Hill, who led the Massachusetts-based nonprofit group for 14 years before stepping down at the end of last year. “There’s nothing better that I can and should be doing in this space,” Wallace-Jones said of her appointment. “It really brings together, in a very profound way, two areas of my life that I care deeply about and that I believe I could make the most powerful impact on this country with.”
Supreme Court issues report on Dobbs leak but says it hasn’t identified the leaker
CNN
The Supreme Court issued an investigative report on Thursday, announcing that it has yet to determine who leaked a draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade to the media last year, but at least 90 people had access to the document at one point. In a statement, the court said that the investigative team “has to date been unable to identify a person responsible by a preponderance of the evidence.” It is also unlikely the leak resulted from a computer hack, the statement said. Investigators said they conducted 126 formal interviews of 97 employees, all of whom denied disclosing the opinion. They also conducted a fingerprint analysis, “looked closely into any connections between employees and reporters,” and “especially scrutinized any contacts with anyone associated with Politico.” […] The report doesn’t say if justices or their spouses were interviewed, but implies they were not.
House Republicans launch border investigation aimed at Biden, Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas
Houston Chronicle
[…] The Republican-led House Oversight Committee on Thursday sent letters to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and top Border Patrol officials seeking information on the administration's border policies. The committee plans to hold a hearing on the issue next month, its chairman, U.S. Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, announced in a statement accusing Biden's policies of "fueling" a crisis at the border, where arrests topped more than 2 million for the first time last year. […] A separate group of Republican senators and congressmen, including U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and U.S. Rep. Brian Babin of Woodville, sent another letter this week to Mayorkas demanding details on Biden's plan to handle the arrival of an unprecedented number of migrants seeking asylum in the United States as they flee oppressive governments in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.
Hatred and vitriol Jacinda Ardern endured ‘would affect anybody’
RNZ via News Zealand Herald
[…] Entering what would have been her sixth year, [Prime Minister Jacinda] Ardern is [New Zealand’s] longest-serving Labour Prime Minister after Peter Fraser and Helen Clark. But in an emotional speech to her caucus in Napier she revealed she “no longer had enough in the tank” to do the job. “It’s time,” she said. “As much as I have taken great joy in this job, I would be giving a disservice to this country and to the Labour Party if I continued, knowing that I just don’t have enough in the tank for another four years.” While it wasn’t explicitly stated, it’s hard to imagine the increasingly violent abuse directed at her was not part of the reason. “It is no surprise to me at all … she could not, not be affected by this,” says Disinformation Project director Kate Hannah. Ardern probably tops the list for the amount of vitriol endured by any political leader in this country, Hannah believes.
3 Active-Duty Marines Charged in Jan. 6 Capitol Riot
The Daily Beast
Three active-duty Marines have been hit with federal misdemeanor charges for their alleged roles in the Capitol siege by a mob of Trump supporters. After one of them posted photographs from Jan. 6 to his Instagram page with the caption, “Glad to be apart [sic] of history,” FBI agents matched images of USMC members Micah Coomer, Dodge Dale Hellonen, and Joshua Abate inside the Capitol building with their official military ID photos, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Thursday. Hellonen, his detachment’s March 2018 “Student of the Month,” was last stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, the filing states. Coomer, who the feds say expressed support for the Boogaloo Bois, a loosely organized extremist collective aiming to foment a second Civil War, was stationed at Marine Corps Base Quantico, according to the filing, which does not identify Abate’s most recent duty station.
US and European countries pledge heavy weapons for Ukraine
BBC News
More countries have answered President Volodymyr Zelensky's call to send further arms to Ukraine. The US says a package worth $2.5bn (£2bn) will be sent, including armoured vehicles and air defence systems. Several European nations promised their own new packages - including hundreds of missiles pledged to Kyiv by the UK.The announcements come ahead of a crunch meeting scheduled in Germany on Friday, in which 50 countries are set to co-ordinate arms supplies. […] Nine countries - the UK, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark, Czech Republic, Estonia, the Netherlands and Slovakia - promised more support.
C.I.A. Director Visited Kyiv for Meeting With Zelensky
The New York Times
William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, traveled to Kyiv last week for secret consultations with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, according to two U.S. officials. Since just before the invasion, Mr. Burns has made periodic visits to Ukraine to meet with intelligence officials and to convey information to Mr. Zelensky. Mr. Burns, whose trip was confirmed by U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns, is just the latest high-level U.S. official to visit Ukraine. On Monday, a delegation including Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman; Jon Finer, the principal deputy national security adviser; and Colin H. Kahl, the under secretary of defense for policy, met with President Zelensky.
Zelenskyy orders criminal probe into Kyiv helicopter crash and four other developments
Euronews
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has ordered the country's security service to carry out a criminal investigation into a helicopter crash that killed 14 people in total on Wednesday. All nine people on board the helicopter were killed: Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky and four other ministry officials, including Monastyrsky's deputy, Yevhen Yenin, and State Secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Yurii Lubkovych; a national police official and the three crew members. The officials were flying to Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region. The aircraft, owned by the State Emergency Services, struck a kindergarten in the eastern Kyiv suburb of Brovary. A child on the ground was also killed, and at least 25 people were injured, including 11 children.
Chinese hospitals creak under the strain of a huge Covid outbreak
NBC News
Patients are crammed into hallways, stairwells and lobbies, and still the sick keep coming. In scenes reminiscent of the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Chinese hospitals are struggling to cope with a surge in Covid-19 cases following the country’s decision to scrap its “zero-Covid” policy in early December. Although the move relaxed three years of strict measures that had set off rare mass unrest, it also unleashed the virus on a population of 1.4 billion people that had been largely shielded from it. After international criticism that it had not been transparent about the severity of the outbreak, the Chinese government said last weekend that it had recorded 60,000 Covid-related deaths since Dec. 8. But that figure covers only those who have died in hospitals, suggesting the true death toll could be much higher. An estimate on Tuesday by Airfinity, an independent forecaster based in London, put the number of Covid-related deaths in China since Dec. 1 at 608,000, 10 times the official figure.
How scientists trained computers to forecast COVID-19 outbreaks weeks ahead
Los Angeles Times
Imagine a time when your virus-blocking face covering is like an umbrella. Most days, it stays in your closet or is stowed somewhere in your car. But when a COVID-19 outbreak is in the forecast, you can put it to use. Beyond that, an inclement viral forecast might induce you to choose an outdoor table when meeting a friend for coffee. If catching the coronavirus is likely to make you seriously ill, you might opt to work from home or attend church services online until the threat has passed. Such a future assumes that Americans will heed public health warnings about the pandemic virus — and that is a big if. It also assumes the existence of a system that can reliably predict imminent outbreaks with few false alarms, and with enough timeliness and geographic precision that the public will trust its forecasts. A group of would-be forecasters says it’s got the makings for such a system. Their proposal for building a viral weather report was published this week in the journal Science Advances.
Freshwater fish more contaminated with ‘forever chemicals’ than in oceans
The Guardian
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