Joe Biden delivered an impassioned pitch for his infrastructure plan in Crystal Lake, Illinois. The president argued the bipartisan infrastructure framework, as well as his American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan, would provide critical investments in early education, affordable childcare options and renewable energy sources. “We can’t wait any longer to deal with the climate crisis,” Biden said. “We see it with our own eyes, and it’s time to act.”
Donald Trump is filing class-action lawsuits against the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and Google. The former president has consistently accused Facebook and Twitter of censorship since January, when he was banned from the platforms for inciting the Capitol insurrection. Most legal experts say the case lacks merit.
The president of Haiti was assassinated in an early-morning raid that shocked the Haitian people and leaders around the world. The president, Jovenel Moïse, was killed by members of an armed group that reportedly claimed to be members of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Biden condemned the assassination as a “heinous” crime.
Crews have ended the search for survivors in the Miami condo collapse. The death toll in the Surfside condo building collapse rose after more bodies were discovered in the rubble today. Dozens remain unaccounted for nearly two weeks after the building collapsed.
Biden held a meeting with key interagency leaders to address the recent series of ransomware attacks on major companies. The meeting comes on the heels of the Kaseya ransomware attack, which has affected hundreds of companies around the world. The Republican National Committee also confirmed yesterday that its computer servers were targeted by hackers believed to be connected to the Russian government.
Rudy Giuliani has been suspended from practicing law in Washington DC. Giuliani has also been suspended from practicing law in New York after a court rule that he made “demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public” in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 elections in favor of Donald Trump.
Thirty-six states and Washington DC have alleged that the Google Play Store policies violate antitrust laws, and are suing the tech company.
“Google has served as the gatekeeper of the internet for many years, but, more recently, it has also become the gatekeeper of our digital devices — resulting in all of us paying more for the software we use every day,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.
“Once again, we are seeing Google use its dominance to illegally quash competition and profit to the tune of billions.”
Policies that charge app developers a 30% commission for subscription purchases, exclusionary contracts and misleading security warnings that shut out competitors in Android app distribution lead to higher app prices that hurt consumers, the attorneys allege in a lawsuit.
States have filed three other lawsuits against the tech giant, over its efforts to monopolize search and its monopoly of advertising technology.
Rudy Giuliani has been suspended from practicing law in Washington, DC.
Giuliani has also been suspended from practicing law in New York after a court rule that he made “demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public” in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 elections in favor of Donald Trump.
The former president’s lawyer and confidante claimed rampant fraud during the 2020 presidential election without proof. He will not be allowed from practicing law in Washington until New York resolves its case.
The bar suspensions show just how far Giuliani has fallen from his pinnacle as an attorney who served in the number 3 spot in the Justice Department, and as the US attorney in Manhattan.
Darnella Frazier’s uncle killed by police car pursuing robbery suspect
The AP reports:
The teenager who recorded the last moments of George Floyd’s life in a video that helped launch a global protest movement against racial injustice said her uncle has died in a crash involving a Minneapolis police car.
Darnella Frazier said in a Facebook post that Leneal Lamont Frazier died early on Tuesday after his vehicle was struck by a squad car police said was pursuing another driver linked to several robberies.
Frazier was not involved in the pursuit and his niece questioned why police were conducting a high-speed chase on a residential road.
“Another black man lost his life in the hands of the police!” Frazier wrote. “Minneapolis police has cost my whole family a big loss. Today has been a day full of heartbreak and sadness.”
According to police, the squad car and two other vehicles collided about 12.30am after the suspect fled from a traffic stop. The driver of one of the other vehicles was taken to North Memorial Health in Robbinsdale, where he later died. The officer involved in the crash was treated at a hospital.
Opinion: The climate crisis will create two classes
Peter Gleick, co-founder of the Pacific Institute, a hydrologist and climatologist, and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, writes:
The unprecedented heatwaves sweeping over the planet recently are harbingers of the heatwaves of the future.
The US National Climate Assessment noted that the period since 1950 in the south-western US has been hotter than any comparable period in the past 600 years, and temperatures continue to rise. Heat stress is already the leading weather-related cause of death in the United States, worse than hurricanes, tornadoes or floods. In Europe, more than 20,000 people, mostly elderly, are already estimated to die annually from exposure to extreme heat. This problem is most severe in poorer communities that lack shade trees, air conditioning and cooling shelters.
Every one of these changes shows the fingerprints of human-caused climate change. In response, humans that can move will move. Just as millions migrated over the past half-century from the colder north to sunny, warm communities in Florida, Arizona, New Mexico and southern California, we will certainly see a massive reverse migration in the coming half century away from the coasts, extreme heat and water shortages to places thought to be more favorable. We’re already seeing refugees on the southern border of the US fleeing countries suffering from drought and disasters. If greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated, some models suggest that more than a million climate refugees may move from Central America and Mexico to the United States. In April, the UN high commissioner for refugees released a report showing that climate- and weather-related disasters already displace more than 20 million people a year, and a report from the Australian Institute for Economics and Peace suggests that more than a billion people could be displaced by climate and weather disasters by 2050.
How bad will it get? I don’t know because I don’t know how long our politicians will dither before finally dealing with the climate crisis. I don’t know because there are natural factors that could slightly slow or, more likely, massively speed up, the rate of change, causing cascading and accelerating disasters faster than we can adapt. But we know enough now to invest in reducing the emissions of climate-changing gases and to begin to adapt to those impacts we can no longer avoid. These changes are coming and the costs, especially to those left behind, will be beyond anything our disaster management systems have had to deal with in the past.
Crews have ended the search for survivors in the Miami condo collapse.
“Just based on the facts, there’s zero chance of survival,” assistant chief Ray Jadallah of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue told families, according to the New York Times, of the missing in a private briefing. “We need to bring closure,” Jadallah said.
Crews pulled 10 more bodies from the rubble today, as the official death toll rose to 46. Emergency workers said they were shifting from rescue to recovery mode, after two weeks of searching for survivors. The efforts continued despite Tropical Storm Elsa making landfall.
As cities across the United States are recording significant increases in homicides this year, police departments and some politicians have pointed at criminal justice reforms, low morale in police departments and officer resignations to explain the surge. Pushes to defund police departments coupled with surging gun sales have led to lawlessness, they argue, and cities should bolster police budgets and hire more officers to combat the violence.
That analysis fails to fully explain the current dynamics of rising violence. It doesn’t factor in the impact of the pandemic on vulnerable communities and the disruption brought on by lockdowns to violence prevention strategies. Furthermore, research has shown that cities that increased police budgets were just as likely to see a rise in murders as cities that reduced them.
While Democrats and Republicans are invoking the murder of Black and brown people to make their political arguments, organizers from the most affected communities say their own voices and solutions are not being heard. Relying on arrests and prosecutions to reduce violent crime has helped fuel mass incarceration and has led to the overrepresentation of Black and Latinx people in the nation’s prisons and jails, organizers say, destabilizing many already underserved families and contributing to the cycle of gun violence in these communities. And the emphasis on arrests ignores the strides that have been made by grassroots violence prevention and victim advocacy groups in past years, efforts that have proven to save lives.
“It’s frustrating that this conversation is being leveraged and exploited to become a political conversation rather than one about the disparities that are now worse,” Hollins said. “It’s also a big slap in the face to the organizing that’s been done around violence.”
The recent conversations on crime and violence come at a time when non-police responses to gun violence have been gaining greater recognition from officials at every level. Joe Biden earmarked $5bn in his infrastructure plan for community-based intervention programs that target the small population of a city’s residents who are involved in the majority of violent incidents.
On 23 June, Biden also rolled out a plan to address increased gun crimes and other public safety concerns that would “crack down on rogue gun dealers” and provide additional funds for cities to hire more officers and pay their overtime. The plan also highlights the need for sustainable support to holistic violence prevention programs.
“They intervene before it’s too late, these interrupters,” Biden said. “They turn down the temperature, halt the cycle of retaliation and connect people to services. And it works. States should invest American Rescue Plan funds in those kinds of violent crime programs.”
The services and programs that have proved to help reduce shootings in past years are diverse, reaching people at different points in the gun violence cycle. Some work with police and some don’t. Some try to intervene before shootings occur. Others dispatch people in the aftermath to assist victims and prevent retaliation. Some programs provide financial assistance for burials and connections to counseling.
Research suggests that many of these programs in California have been very successful in saving lives and public funds. In 2012 the Department of Justice recommended that hospital-based violence intervention programs like Youth Alive! Oakland and the Wraparound Project in San Francisco should be developed across the US. Homicides in Oakland dropped by nearly half in the six years following the launch of an innovative police-community partnership called Operation Ceasefire in 2012. And in Stockton, California, a recent evaluation of Advance Peace, a violence interruption program, found it contributed to a 20% drop in gun homicides and assaults and saved the city between $42.3m and $110m in its first two years of existence while operating on less than $900,000 over that same period.
A new heatwave is predicted to bring dangerously hot weather to California’s inland regions this week, as relentlessly high temperatures continue to torment the west coast.
Meteorologists are warning residents to prepare for “potentially record-breaking” temperatures as high as 115F (46C) in the Central Valleyand 120F (49C) in desert areas like Palm Springs, with temperatures in Death Valley set to approach an all-time high. The heat is predicted to start to build on Wednesday and increase through the weekend.
“Temperatures are going to be about 10 degrees above normal for this time of year,” said Diana Crofts-Pelayo a spokesperson for the California office of emergency services. “This will be a record-setting heatwave.”
The state is already facing extreme drought and fires spawned by the dry conditions. The fire situation could be intensified by gusty winds near the Oregon border and predicted lightning storms in the Sierra Nevada mountains, the forecasters said.
“The big story is the developing heat,” said Eric Schoening, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service (NWS). “This will be a long duration event, where it is not going to cool down much at night. So it is a dangerous time for the state.”
The warnings follow on the heels of last week’s record-setting heatwave in the normally-cool Pacific north-west, which left hundreds dead in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia from heat-related illness, and as North America emerges from the hottest June on record.
That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
Joe Biden delivered an impassioned pitch for his infrastructure plan in Crystal Lake, Illinois. The president argued the bipartisan infrastructure framework, as well as his American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan, would provide critical investments in early education, affordable childcare options and renewable energy sources. “We can’t wait any longer to deal with the climate crisis,” Biden said. “We see it with our own eyes, and it’s time to act.”
Donald Trump is filing class-action lawsuits against the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and Google. The former president has consistently accused Facebook and Twitter of censorship since January, when he was banned from the platforms for inciting the Capitol insurrection. Most legal experts say the case lacks merit.
The president of Haiti was assassinated in an early-morning raid that shocked the Haitian people and leaders around the world. The president, Jovenel Moïse, was killed by members of an armed group that reportedly claimed to be members of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Biden condemned the assassination as a “heinous” crime.
The death toll in the Surfside condo building collapse rose to 46, after 10 more bodies were discovered in the rubble. Another 94 people remain unaccounted for nearly two weeks after the building collapsed.
Biden held a meeting with key interagency leaders to address the recent series of ransomware attacks on major companies. The meeting comes on the heels of the Kaseya ransomware attack, which has affected hundreds of companies around the world. The Republican National Committee also confirmed yesterday that its computer servers were targeted by hackers believed to be connected to the Russian government.
Surfside condo building collapse death toll rises to 46
In case you missed it earlier today: the death toll in the Surfside condo building collapse rose to 46, after rescue crews recovered ten more bodies from the rubble.
The mayor of Miami-Dade county, Daniella Levine Cava, said that 32 of the victims have been identified. As of today, 94 people remain unaccounted for.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said that the search and rescue workers recovered an additional 10 victims from the rubble of the collapsed condo in Surfside, bringing the death toll to 46 https://t.co/PjOVUlbYIJpic.twitter.com/McRG8KWIxh
Levine Cava repeatedly became emotional at a press conference today as she announced the updated death toll, describing the grief of the victims’ families and the anguish of those still waiting to hear about their missing loved ones.
“Our commitment to this mission is deeply personal. This is our community, our neighbors, our families,” Levine Cava said.
“And our first responders have truly searched that pile every single day since the collapse as if they’re searching for their own loved ones.”
During a press gaggle aboard Air Force One en route to Illinois earlier today, Jen Psaki provided a few details on Joe Biden’s morning meeting with key interagency leaders to address recent ransomware attacks.
The White House press secretary told reporters, “In this meeting, they provided an update on their ongoing work: surge capacity, resilience and reporting, addressing payment systems, and our ongoing efforts to combat ransomware.”
Psaki said the administration did not have “anything new to report in terms of attribution” or operational actions, but she noted that Biden “reserves the right to respond against any ransomware networks and those that harbor them”.
Before leaving for Illinois, Biden was asked for his message to Russian President Vladimir Putin after the series of ransomware attacks, some of which have been blamed on hackers based in Russia. Biden replied, “I will deliver it to him.”
Joe Biden will soon start making his way back to Washington after delivering a speech on infrastructure in Crystal Lake, Illinois.
The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, has also released a statement on Biden’s conversation with Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot earlier today.
Joe Biden is welcomed by Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot, as he arrives at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois. Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
“During a greet with Mayor Lightfoot on the airport tarmac, President Biden expressed his personal support for the two ATF officials and the Chicago police officer who were shot earlier today,” Psaki said.
“He reiterated his commitment to working with the Mayor and leaders in Chicago in the fight against gun violence and conveyed that the Department of Justice would soon be in touch about the strike force announced just a few weeks ago that will be working with cities like Chicago.”
A Chicago police officer and two federal agents were shot on the Far South Side of the city early this morning. According to the Chicago Tribune, the three law enforcement officers were fired upon while sitting in an unmarked police vehicle on their way to conduct a joint investigation.
Before delivering his remarks on infrastructure at McHenry County College, Joe Biden visited the college’s child learning center, which provides childcare to students who are parents.
During the visit, one reporter asked Biden if he was concerned about Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell’s comments that he will wage a “hell of a fight” if Democrats attempt to pass an infrastructure bill along party lines.
In response, Biden pointed to the Republican leader’s positive comments about the president’s coronavirus relief package, joking, “Mitch McConnell loves our programs.”
Biden’s comment appeared to be a reference to McConnell saying yesterday that the coronavirus relief package would bring a lot of money to Kentucky.
“You’re going to get a lot more money,” McConnell said at an event in his home state. “I didn’t vote for it. But you’re going to get a lot more money. Cities and counties in Kentucky will get close to $700 or $800 million.”
Speaking to reporters today, Biden said of McConnell, “Look it up man, he’s bragging about it in Kentucky.”
'We can’t wait any longer to deal with the climate crisis,' Biden says in infrastructure pitch
Speaking in Crystal Lake, Illinois, Joe Biden delivered an impassioned pitch for his infrastructure proposals, saying the country needed to invest in early education, affordable childcare options and renewable energy sources.
The president emphasized that the bipartisan infrastructure framework and the Democratic reconciliation package would bolster the country’s response to the climate crisis.
Pres. Biden says the bipartisan infrastructure deal will address the climate crisis, but that his Build Back Better plan will take it further: "We can't wait any longer to deal with the climate crisis. We see it with our own eyes." pic.twitter.com/ZdSrUP5YrA
Issuing a warning about the dangerous weather patterns the US is seeing, Biden noted the country currently faces the threats of extreme heat, record drought and a looming wildfire season that could be the worst one yet.
“We can’t wait any longer to deal with the climate crisis,” Biden said. “We see it with our own eyes, and it’s time to act.”
As he wrapped up his speech at McHenry County College, the president acknowledged his remarks had gotten into the weeds of infrastructure policy.
“I know that’s a boring speech, but it’s an important speech,” Biden said.
Delivering a pitch for his infrastructure proposals, Joe Biden took a moment to criticize senator Ron Johnson, a Republican of Wisconsin, for questioning the reality of climate change.
“From 2010 to 2020, Illinois had 49 extreme weather events,” Biden said. “Although I heard today from a senator north of here that, a Republican senator, there is no global warming.”
CNN obtained a video of Johnson saying at a recent event with a Republican group that he believes climate change is “bullshit” (although he mouthed the expletive rather than saying it aloud).
Johnson’s comments ignore the scientific consensus that global temperatures are rising because of human activity.
Biden pitches reconciliation infrastructure bill: 'We need to invest in our people'
Joe Biden has started his speech at McHenry County College to promote his infrastructure proposals, including his American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan.
The president mocked his predecessor, Donald Trump, for repeatedly announcing “infrastructure week” but ultimately failing to pass any major infrastructure bills during his four years in office.
“God willing, we’re not going to have 40 weeks of ‘infrastructure week.’ Remember those?” Biden joked.
The president also emphasized the importance of “human infrastructure,” arguing the US absolutely must invest in critical areas like education and childcare.
“To truly deal everybody in this time, we need to invest in our people,” Biden said.
Many of Biden’s original infrastructure proposals were not included in the bipartisan infrastructure framework, so Democrats are working to craft a reconciliation bill to cover more of the president’s legislative priorities, including expanding access to affordable childcare.
If Democrats use reconciliation with the second infrastructure bill, they will not need any Republican support to pass the proposal.
