#ABOLISHSECONDAMENDMENT

Police pushback doesn’t stop conservative gun law rollback
By LINDSAY WHITEHURST

FILE - In this May 22, 2021, file photo a handgun from a collection of illegal guns is reviewed during a gun buyback event in Brooklyn, N.Y. Gun violence is on the rise across the country and law enforcement agencies are struggling with how to manage the spikes, especially in cities. The federal government has stepped in with strike forces and other measures help to stop the sale of illegal weapons. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, FIle)

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The latest push to loosen gun laws in states across the U.S. has put police officers at odds with Republican lawmakers who usually trumpet support for law enforcement.

In states like Texas, Tennessee and Louisiana, police opposed pushes to drop requirements for people to get background checks and training before carrying handguns in public, plans that came as gun sales continued to shatter records during the coronavirus pandemic.

“We feel it was just another opportunity to get our officers hurt,” said Fabian Blache Jr., executive director of the Louisiana Chiefs of Police Association. “It was a danger to law enforcement.”

There, a last-ditch public plea by dozens of Louisiana law enforcement officers helped narrowly avert a push to override the Democratic governor’s veto of legislation dropping concealed-carry permit requirements. But he expects the proposal to come back next year, and in several other conservative-leaning states police opposition didn’t stop laws dropping permit requirements.

Gun violence is on the rise across the country and law enforcement agencies are struggling with how to manage the spikes, especially in cities. The federal government has stepped in with strike forces and other measures help to stop the sale of illegal weapons. Cops are already working at a disadvantage in many cities over forces winnowed by retirements and difficulty attracting new officers following the massive police protests in 2020, and many see looser gun laws as one more challenge.

Not knowing who might be carrying a gun heightens the potential danger in any encounter, and less required training means more people who don’t know how to properly handle a weapon, Blanche said.

“Police officers are trained around the country, and they make mistakes,” he said. “So why are we going to give opportunity to people who are not trained to be able to carry a firearm and use it at will?”

In Tennessee this year, warnings from police chiefs and sheriffs didn’t stop a push to drop permit requirements in the GOP-controlled state Legislature. That law passed months after another measure cracking down on protesters camping out for police reform, a vote that was framed as a support for law enforcement.

Though several polls have found public support for gun permits, arguments that they undermine Second Amendment rights have gained favor in conservative-leaning state governments in recent years.

“There is something of a disjunction between repeating the political slogan of ‘back the blue’ versus supporting policies that rank-and-file police and leaders of police organizations actually support,” said Robert Spitzer, a professor at The State University of New York-Cortland and author of “The Politics of Gun Control.”

Police opposition hasn’t stopped a push to drop permitting requirements that’s passed in about 20 states, Spitzer said. While their positions carry authority, they don’t have the ad campaigns and lobbyists that overtly political interests often do.

“Their voices and opinions have been known, but they haven’t been a real megaphone in public political terms because that puts them in a real bad spot. They’re public servants and their job is to enforce the law, no matter what the law is,” he said.

And permitless carry has supporters in law enforcement, including sheriffs, many of whom are in elected positions and oversee more rural areas. In Utah and Iowa, police groups were more divided generally stayed out of the debate this year.

Discussions about police reform dominated the conversation in Iowa, as well as how to stem the rise in violent crime, said Sam Hargadine, the Iowa Police Chiefs Association executive director. He doesn’t see the permit question as a big piece of the violent-crime discussion, especially since chiefs already couldn’t deny people permits.

“I think there’s extremes on both sides. But there’s got to be some compromises made, because we’re having far too many shootings,” he said.

Not all police oppose the legislation, and gun-rights advocates don’t see a conflict between combating crime and making it easier for people to carry firearms. They argue that people generally don’t get permits for guns used in violent crimes, so the change will make it easier for those who do follow the law to get a gun and many measures also tougher penalties for some gun crimes.

For Texas Republican James White, his party’s differing with the chiefs of the state’s largest cities on permit-less carry was part of the give-and-take of the legislative process.

“There were some things this session ... where we were consistent with where law enforcement would want to be, and there were sometimes that we just had to tell them we have to look a different direction,” said White, an outgoing state lawmaker now running for agriculture commissioner.

He also touted the stronger penalties contained in the law for felons who carry guns illegally. “It was a very strong on crime, tough on crime deal,” he said.

White argued the new law didn’t represent a massive shift in a state where guns were allowed in cars without permits and licenses weren’t required for long guns. Texas became the largest state to drop handgun licensing requirements this year, a move applauded by the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights advocates.

Alan Gottlieb with the Second Amendment Foundation argued that policing is already inherently dangerous and dropping permits won’t make a big dent but will enhance gun rights. “I shouldn’t need a permit to exercise my constitutional rights,” he said.

Police opposition had helped keep the idea from gaining traction even in firearm-friendly Texas, but with a change in legislative leadership support swelled over the span of a few weeks this year. It passed over objections from survivors of the mass shooting that killed 23 people at an El Paso Walmart two years ago.

“One thing I’ve learned in my many years of working with police is, you can rely on them to tell you what’s going to put the public at danger,” said Everytown For Gun Safety President John Feinblatt. “I think that what police know is that crime is rising around the country and this is the worst possible moment to pass laws like this.”

To shake hands or not? An age-old human gesture now in limbo

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE SECRET HANDSHAKE 

OF THE FREEMASONS?!

By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH

August 8, 2021

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In this July 28, 2021 photo, Los Angeles Chargers head coach Brandon Staley greets wide receiver Mike Williams during practice at the NFL football team's training camp in Costa Mesa, Calif. As workers return to the office, friends reunite and more church services shift from Zoom to in person, this exact question is befuddling growing numbers of people: to shake or not to shake. (AP Photo/Alex Gallardo)

In this July 28, 2021 photo, Los Angeles Chargers head coach Brandon Staley greets wide receiver Mike Williams during practice at the NFL football team's training camp in Costa Mesa, Calif. As workers return to the office, friends reunite and more church services shift from Zoom to in person, this exact question is befuddling growing numbers of people: to shake or not to shake. (AP Photo/Alex Gallardo)

As the pandemic took hold, a Kansas City-area meeting and event planning business began hawking “I Shake Hands” stickers to help ease awkward social encounters.

“We didn’t want the sticker to say, ‘We Don’t Shake Hands’ because that is kind of off-putting,” said John DeLeon, vice president of operations and sales at MTI Events, adding that the idea was that anti-shakers could simply choose not to wear one of the stickers. “But if someone had the sticker on in that group, then that was the indication that it was OK.”

Now, as workers return to the office, friends reunite and more church services shift from Zoom to in person, this exact question is befuddling growing numbers of people: to shake or not to shake?

The handshake has been around for centuries. A widely held belief is that it originated to prove to someone that a person was offering peace and not holding a hidden weapon. But hands can be germy — coated with fecal matter and E. coli.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, cautioned last year, “I don’t think we should ever shake hands ever again, to be honest with you.”

On the other side is Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University. He thinks the whole shaking controversy is overblown. The solution, he says, is simple: “If you are worried about COVID, the best way to make handshakes safe is to be fully vaccinated. And for any other things that might be on people’s hands, just wash your hands before you touch your face. That is what hand sanitizer is for.”

The greeting is almost instinctual and hard to deny. But remote workers who have been holed up in makeshift kitchen and bedroom offices have been denied it for months. Meetings, birthdays, retirement parties and even funerals have been shifted onto Zoom. The loss of connections has been heartbreaking, and the resurgence of the delta variant is raising fresh questions about the return to something resembling normal.

DeLeon isn’t sure the handshake is ever coming back. The stickers his company sold were never hot sellers. Other companies hawked signs and stickers that more firmly discouraged handshaking — including one featuring a skeleton hand and another covered with COVID-19 germs.

“I played golf with a guy the other day, who I had never met and we got along really well. And on the 18th green it is traditional that you stick your hand out and you take your hat off and you shake hands with who you played with,” he said. “And we just kind of stared at each other and fist-bumped and walked off.”

Not so fast, say etiquette experts and businesspeople like Dave McClain, 52, of Overland Park, Kansas. McClain recalls coming across one of the “I Shake Hands” stickers at a networking event and slapping it onto his shirt.

“You can make phone calls all you want and you can meet with people online via Zoom call but it is just not the same as being able to reach out your hand and shake their hand, look them in the eye and really establish that rapport,” he said.

Diane Gottsman, a national etiquette expert and author of “Modern Etiquette for a Better Life,” also doesn’t think the handshake will be a casualty of the pandemic but said to take it slowly.

“Don’t be the first to extend your hand, even if you are comfortable,” instructed Gottsman, who lives in San Antonio, Texas. “Watch the other person and allow them to extend their greeting of choice.”

Former President Donald Trump, a self-described germaphobe who has said publicly that he dislikes the custom and even described it as “barbaric,” faced criticism in the early days of the pandemic when he continued shaking hands.

The administration of President Joe Biden initially took a much more socially distanced approach to the pandemic. But following the relaxation of federal guidance on masks and more widespread availability of vaccines, handshakes and even hugs have returned.

Lizzie Post, the great-great-granddaughter of the late etiquette maven Emily Post, said the country is entering an awkward time similar to the start of the pandemic, when people were trying to evaluate how much others were socially distancing before getting close to them.

Now the question is whether family, friends and business associates are vaccinated. Her approach is to announce up front that she is, then ask bluntly whether a hug or handshake is desired.

She doesn’t think the handshake is going away.

“It is a really hard greeting to deny because it has been so ingrained since we were kids or young adults,” said Post, who lives in Burlington, Vermont. “And I see that being more powerful than the past year of not practicing it because for many people that past year also was spent just so not in contact with anyone they would shake a hand. It is not like you and your roommate shake hands every time you walk in the door.”

But she said that also is getting questions about how to ditch the shake on the podcast she produces with her cousin, Daniel Post Senning, called “Awesome Etiquette.”

“Our advice to them is to get comfortable with letting people know, because I think the rude thing to do would be to stand there and act like you are ignoring an outstretched hand,” she said. “If the outstretched hand comes to you and you do not want to shake hands, you want to acknowledge that by saying, ‘I actually don’t shake hands’ or ‘I am sorry that I don’t shake hands, but I am so pleased to meet you.’”

Business Law Southwest, which advises businesses in New Mexico, Arizona and Texas, offered at the beginning of the pandemic to help create new workplace guidelines — such as a no-handshake policy. But there wasn’t interest, said Kristy Donahue, a company spokeswoman.

“At the end of the day, people crave human interaction and human touch, and you know that psychology experiment where they have the monkeys and there were some monkeys they never petted and some that they did. And the monkeys that weren’t being handled kind of withered away,” she said. “We haven’t evolved that much from there.”

 

China Urges US to End Embargo on Cuba

 Asian Countries - New

 

China has called on the United States to immediately and fully lift its sanctions and decades-long embargo against Cuba, and to stop making excuses to interfere in and destabilize the small Caribbean island.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, whose name was not mentioned, made the remarks in a statement on Wednesday, after the administration of US President Joe Biden announced so-called human rights sanctions against Cuba, targeting the country’s police force and two of its senior officials.

“China firmly opposes any move to arbitrarily impose unilateral sanctions and interfere in other countries’ internal affairs under the pretext of so-called ‘freedom,’ ‘human rights,’ and ‘democracy,’” the statement said.

“The recent US sanctions against [a] Cuban institution and officials severely violate the basic norms governing international relations and once again demonstrate to the world the typical US-style double standards and bullyism,” it added.

The US Treasury Department announced the sanctions on July 30, claiming they were in response to what it called the suppression of recent protests in Cuba.

The US sanctions targeted two Cuban police force leaders as well as the Cuban national police force. During a meeting with Cuban-American leaders at the White House, Biden said that there would be more sanctions, “unless there’s some drastic change in Cuba.”

Reacting, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said the sanctions “coupled with disinformation and aggression, are used to justify the inhumane blockade of Cuba.”

Last month, protests erupted against the government of Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel as the country experienced its worst economic crisis in 30 years, with shortages of electricity and food exacerbated by the US embargo. Cuban leaders have held the decades-long US embargo responsible for the economic difficulties of the people.

The Chinese statement stressed, too, that it was the US economic, commercial, and financial blockade that was seriously hindering Cuba’s efforts to improve its economy and the livelihood of its population, and was trampling on the Cuban people’s right to subsistence and development.

“Enough with sanctions! The right way is to support,” it said.

The Chinese statement said that recently, several countries and international organizations had extended a helping hand to Cuba, aiding its government and people to fight the coronavirus pandemic and improve the livelihoods of its population.

It said China would continue to deepen friendly relations with Cuba and firmly support the island’s efforts to overcome the impact of the pandemic, promote economic development, and maintain social stability.

The recent US sanctions come as Cuba is also experiencing its toughest phase yet of the coronavirus pandemic. The Cuban government has reiterated that the US embargo is impeding its ability to purchase equipment and other supplies to deal with COVID-19.

  August 5, 2021 Source: Agencies

STALINISM UNMASKED

Belarus sees a year of fierce repression after disputed vote

By YURAS KARMANAU

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FILE - In this file photo made from video on Monday, Aug. 10, 2020, Alexander Taraikovsky is shot during a rally after the Belarusian presidential election in Minsk, Belarus. Alexander Taraikovsky died as protests swelled, a day after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko's re-election to a sixth term in the Aug. 9, 2020. Authorities first claimed that Taraikovsky was killed when an explosive device he intended to throw at police blew up in his hands, but Associated Press video showed that he had no explosives when he fell to the ground. (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov, File)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Belarusian authorities long ago removed the makeshift memorial to a protester shot by police at the start of last year’s massive protests against the country’s autocratic president, replacing flowers and placards with a garbage can.

Alexander Taraikovsky died as protests swelled, a day after President Alexander Lukashenko’s reelection to a sixth term in the Aug. 9, 2020, presidential vote that the opposition denounced as rigged. Police dispersed the peaceful demonstrators with rubber bullets, stun grenades and clubs in a stunningly brutal crackdown.

Lukashenko earned the nickname of “Europe’s last dictator” in the West for his relentless repression of dissent since taking the helm in 1994. But when last year’s protests presented him with an unprecedented challenge, he responded with an unusual ferociousness. That turned out to be the opening salvo in a year of intense repression, the most shocking example of which was the arrest of a journalist after his flight was forced to divert to Belarus.

Authorities first claimed that Taraikovsky, 34, was killed when an explosive device he intended to throw at police blew up in his hands, but Associated Press video showed that he had no explosives when he fell to the ground. Officials later acknowledged that Taraikovsky might have been killed by a rubber bullet. But they never opened an inquiry.

“It was a premeditated murder, but they don’t want to recognize it,” Taraikovsky’s partner, Elena German, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Minsk, Belarus’ capital.

“There is no law. We haven’t yet received a formal refusal to open a criminal case, so we can’t even appeal,” she said. “They didn’t even return the clothes Sasha (Taraikovsky) was wearing when he left home on that day.”

FILE - In this Aug. 23, 2020, file photo, Belarusian opposition supporters rally at Independence Square in Minsk, Belarus. President Alexander Lukashenko earned the nickname of “Europe’s last dictator” in the West for his relentless repression of dissent since taking the helm in 1994. was once called “Europe’s last dictator” in the West and has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for 27 years. But when massive protests that began last August presented him with an unprecedented challenge, he responded with exceptional force. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)

FILE - In this Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2020 file photo, Belarusian opposition supporters light phones lights and wave an old Belarusian national flags during a protest rally in front of the government building at Independent Square in Minsk, Belarus. President Alexander Lukashenko earned the nickname of “Europe’s last dictator” in the West for his relentless repression of dissent since taking the helm in 1994. was once called “Europe’s last dictator” in the West and has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for 27 years. But when massive protests that began last August presented him with an unprecedented challenge, he responded with exceptional force. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky, File)

Even as Belarusian authorities responded with mass arrests and beatings, peaceful demonstrations, some of which drew up to 200,000 people, continued for months. Eventually, relentless repressions — and winter weather — took their toll, and the protests withered. Opposition leaders have been either jailed or forced to leave the country, and authorities have moved methodically to stamp out any sign of dissent.

People were regularly arrested simply for putting the opposition’s red-and-white flag in their windows or even for dressing in red-and-white colors. In December, two people were handed two-year prison sentences for writing, “We will not forget!” on the pavement where Taraikovsky was killed.

“I think our main mistake was that we underestimated the cruelty of the regime,” Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the main challenger to Lukashenko in last year’s election, told The Associated Press in an interview in Vilnius, Lithuania, earlier this week. “We believed maybe that if there were hundreds of thousands of people in the streets, the regime would at least hear people.”

The West has refused to recognize the election and sanctioned Belarusian officials it accuses of involvement in vote-rigging and the crackdown.

Western powers further ramped up pressure on Belarus after it diverted a passenger plane in May that was flying from Greece to Lithuania and ordered it to land in Minsk, where authorities arrested dissident journalist Raman Pratasevich.

Lukashenko alleged there was a bomb threat against the flight and that is why it was diverted. But the European Union called it air piracy and barred Belarusian carriers from its skies and cut imports of the country’s top commodities, including petroleum products and potash, a common fertilizer ingredient.

A furious Lukashenko retaliated by tossing an agreement with the EU on countering illegal migration. Officials in neighboring Lithuania accused Belarusian authorities of encouraging thousands of migrants, most of them from Iraq, to cross into its territory as part of their “hybrid war” against the West.

FILE - In this file photo made from video provided by the State TV and Radio Company of Belarus on Sunday, Aug. 23, 2020, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko armed with a Kalashnikov-type rifle near the Palace of Independence in Minsk, Belarus. President Alexander Lukashenko earned the nickname of “Europe’s last dictator” in the West for his relentless repression of dissent since taking the helm in 1994. was once called “Europe’s last dictator” in the West and has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for 27 years. But when massive protests that began last August presented him with an unprecedented challenge, he responded with exceptional force. (State TV and Radio Company of Belarus via AP, File)

In the latest drama to seize the world’s attention, Belarusian Olympic sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya fled to Poland this week, saying she feared reprisals back home after a dispute with her coaches at the Tokyo Games.

After a year of relentless repressions, public protests are nearly impossible to organize, but opposition leaders remain confident that Lukashenko’s rule is doomed.

“The system is rotten,” said Tsikhanouskaya, who left for Lithuania under pressure a day after last year’s election. “It’s already impossible to make this system monolithic again because so many people ... really want changes.”

Tsikhanouskaya suggested that the country’s growing isolation could help raise pressure on the country’s elite — and even make them join the cause against Lukashenko.

But some analysts cautioned that Lukashenko could hold out for some time.

“Western sanctions inflict significant pain on the Belarusian regime by hitting its economic foundation,” said Artyom Shraybman, head of Sense Analytics, an independent analysis firm. “But such regimes can exist in international isolation because they are capable of distributing whatever scarce resources they have to the benefit of armed services.”

“The goal behind the latest wave of repressions is to show the West that sanctions don’t work, and repressions against civil society will only escalate in response to sanctions,” argued Shraybman, who was forced to leave Belarus fearing arrest.

 

FILE - In this Sunday, Aug. 9, 2020 file photo, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko smiles after voting at a polling station during the presidential election in Minsk, Belarus. Lukashenko earned the nickname of “Europe’s last dictator” in the West for his relentless repression of dissent since taking the helm in 1994. was once called “Europe’s last dictator” in the West and has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for 27 years. But when massive protests that began last August presented him with an unprecedented challenge, he responded with exceptional force. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - In this Monday, Aug. 10, 2020 file photo, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, candidate for the presidential elections, reacts during a news conference after the Belarusian presidential election in Minsk, Belarus. Tsikhanouskaya, the main opposition candidate in last year's election who left for Lithuania under official pressure after the vote, acknowledged that the opposition underestimated the cruelty of Belarusian authorities, who responded to peaceful protests against vote-rigging with a brutal crackdown that has seen more than 35,000 people arrested and thousands beaten by police. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - In this Sunday, Aug. 9, 2020 file photo, protesters give aid to a man injured by shrapnel from a smoke grenade during clashes with police after the presidential election in Minsk, Belarus. President Alexander Lukashenko earned the nickname of “Europe’s last dictator” in the West for his relentless repression of dissent since taking the helm in 1994. was once called “Europe’s last dictator” in the West and has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for 27 years. But when massive protests that began last August presented him with an unprecedented challenge, he responded with exceptional force. (AP Photo, File)

Indeed, Belarusian authorities in recent weeks have escalated their crackdown on independent journalists, civil society activists and others whom they consider disloyal or suspicious. Lukashenko denounced the activists as “bandits and foreign agents” and vowed to continue what he called a “mopping-up operation” against them.

A total of 29 Belarusian journalists are currently in custody, serving their sentence or awaiting trial. More than 50 NGOs are facing closure, including the Belarusian Association of Journalists, the biggest and most respected media organization in the country, and the Belarusian PEN Center, an association of writers led by Svetlana Alexievich, the winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in literature.

Andrey Dynko, a journalist from the Nasha Niva online newspaper that was shut by authorities, spent 13 days in prison in gruesome conditions.

“I feel like I came back from the abyss,” Dynko told the AP in a telephone interview from Minsk. “I have an item that I cherish most now — a plastic bottle that I drank from, used to wash myself and slept on instead of a pillow for 13 days.”

German, Taraikovsky’s partner, said that she has “learned to be strong” over the past year but acknowledged that she has little hope and energy left.

FILE - In this Aug. 10, 2020, file photo, police officers kick a demonstrator during a mass protest following presidential election in Minsk, Belarus. President Alexander Lukashenko earned the nickname of “Europe’s last dictator” in the West for his relentless repression of dissent since taking the helm in 1994. was once called “Europe’s last dictator” in the West and has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for 27 years. But when massive protests that began last August presented him with an unprecedented challenge, he responded with exceptional force. (AP Photo, File)

FILE In this Sunday, Aug. 23, 2020 file photo, a woman gestures in front of a riot police blockade during a protest in Minsk, Belarus. President Alexander Lukashenko earned the nickname of “Europe’s last dictator” in the West for his relentless repression of dissent since taking the helm in 1994. was once called “Europe’s last dictator” in the West and has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for 27 years. But when massive protests that began last August presented him with an unprecedented challenge, he responded with exceptional force. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - In this Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2020 file photo, Opposition activist Nina Baginskaya, 73, center, struggles with police during a Belarusian opposition supporters rally at Independence Square in Minsk, Belarus. President Alexander Lukashenko earned the nickname of “Europe’s last dictator” in the West for his relentless repression of dissent since taking the helm in 1994. was once called “Europe’s last dictator” in the West and has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for 27 years. But when massive protests that began last August presented him with an unprecedented challenge, he responded with exceptional force. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky, File)

“Many of my acquaintances have gone abroad, and, frankly speaking, I have a similar desire,” said German, who has two daughters. “I don’t see any future for my children here, and I don’t want them to be educated through propaganda.”

Amid the growing Western pressure, Lukashenko has relied on political and financial support from Russia, Belarus’ main sponsor and ally. The Kremlin has provided Belarus with a $1.5 billion loan to keep its Soviet-style economy afloat and strongly condemned Western sanctions.

Independent analyst Valery Karbalevich said that while the Russian money has buttressed Lukashenko’s rule for now, the broad discontent smolders and could spill over at any moment.

“It’s quite obvious that Lukashenko has lost the support of the majority of the country’s urban population, and the protest sentiments were stifled by repressions but didn’t disappear,” Karbalevich said.

____

Vladimir Isachenkov and Tanya Titova in Moscow and Liutauras Strimaitis in Vilnius, Lithuania contributed to this report.

Biden taps major donors for Argentina and Switzerland envoys
By AAMER MADHANI and BRIAN SLODYSKO

August 6, 2021

President Joe Biden waves as he walks to Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, Aug. 6, 2021, as he heads to Wilmington, Del., for the weekend. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — President Joe Biden is nominating two major Democratic donors to serve as ambassadors to Argentina and Switzerland.

The White House announced Friday that Biden has picked LGBT rights activist and philanthropist Scott Miller to serve as his administration’s envoy to Bern and trial lawyer Marc Stanley to serve in Buenos Aires. The U.S. ambassador to Switzerland also serves as the chief envoy to Liechtenstein.

Miller, a former account vice president at UBS Wealth Management in Denver, and his husband, Tim Gill, are prominent philanthropists and generous backers of Democratic candidates and causes.

Stanley, a prominent Dallas attorney, was chairman for the Lawyers for Biden arm of the 2020 campaign, recruiting lawyers across the country to donate legal services to the president’s run for the White House.

Miller and his husband have donated at least $3.6 million to Democratic candidates and causes since 2010. That includes $365,000 given to Biden’s general election fundraising effort, according to federal fundraising disclosures. Though they donated at least $1.1 million to support Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid, they also gave $50,000 that election to a group called “Draft Biden,” which sought to get Biden to run in that year’s primary, the records show.

Stanley has contributed nearly $1 million since 2010, records show. That includes a $35,000 contribution made in April 2020 to Biden’s general election fundraising effort, as well an additional $5,600 max-out donation he gave to Biden’s Democratic primary bid in 2019.

Presidents often dispense prime ambassadorships as rewards to political allies and top donors. Those appointments often come with an expectation that the appointees can foot the bill for entertaining on behalf of the United States in pricey, high-profile capitals.

About 44% of Donald Trump’s ambassadorial appointments were political appointees, compared with 31% for Barack Obama and 32% for George W. Bush, according to the American Foreign Service Association. Biden hopes to keep political appointments to about 30% of ambassador picks, according to an administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about internal discussions.

To be certain, most political appointees from the donor class, a small population that’s made up of predominantly white men, have historically had little impact on foreign policy.

Occasionally, such political appointees have caused headaches.

Trump’s appointees included hotelier and $1 million inaugural contributor Gordon Sondland, who served as chief envoy to the European Union. Sondland provided unflattering testimony about Trump during his first impeachment, which centered on allegations Trump sought help from Ukrainian authorities to undermine Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Sondland was later fired by Trump.

Other major donors to receive ambassadorial nominations from Biden include Denise Bauer (France and Monaco), David Cohen (Canada) and Cynthia Telles (Costa Rica).

The White House also announced Biden is nominating career senior foreign service officer David Gilmour to serve as ambassador to Equatorial Guinea. Gilmour has held a series of high-ranking State Department positions and is a former ambassador to Togo.

—

Slodysko reported from Washington.

Devastated by wildfires, Turkey’s beekeepers see grim future

By ZEYNEP BILGINSOY

Beekeeper Guven Karagol shows his burnt beehives in Kalemler village of Manavgat, Antalya, Turkey, Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021. Turkey's wildfires have left little behind, turning green forests into ashen, barren hills. The destruction is intensely felt by Turkey's beekeepers, who have lost thousands of hives, the pine trees and the bugs their bees depend on, in a major blow to Turkey's honey industry. (Akif Yilmaz/IHA via AP)

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey’s wildfires have left little behind, turning green forests into ashen, barren hills. The destruction is being intensely felt by Turkey’s beekeepers, who have lost thousands of hives as well as the pine trees and the insects their bees depend on.

Twelve days of deadly wildfires have dealt a major blow to Turkey’s honey industry and even its longer term prospects appear bleak.

Nearly all of the residents of Osmaniye, a neighborhood in Turkey’s southwestern Mediterranean resort of Marmaris, are beekeepers. Their beehives once looked out to the green hills of Mugla province where Marmaris is located and provided the main income for many families.

Ali Kaya, 33, is second-generation beekeeper. After his father’s death, he took over the honey business his father had set up in 1979. Yet this week Kaya lost 250 hives in Osmaniye to the wildfires, as well as the entire ecosystem upon which his bees depend, so just buying new hives will not solve his economic woes.

He says the entire region is in shock.

“There is nothing left here, no trees left. Animals burned. Some people’s homes and roofs burned,” he said. “I have no idea what we’ll do. Our heads are all messed up, our mental outlook destroyed. We can’t think clearly here in Osmaniye.”

 

Beekeeper Guven Karagol shows the remains of his beehives in Kalemler village of Manavgat, Antalya, Turkey, Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021. Turkey's wildfires have left little behind, turning green forests into ashen, barren hills. The destruction is intensely felt by Turkey's beekeepers, who have lost thousands of hives, the pine trees and the bugs their bees depend on, in a major blow to Turkey's honey industry. (Akif Yilmaz/IHA via AP)

Aug. 3, 2021 photo taken from a helicopter shows burnt forest near tourist resort of Marmaris, Mugla, Turkey. Turkey's wildfires have left little behind, turning green forests into ashen, barren hills. The destruction is intensely felt by Turkey's beekeepers, who have lost thousands of hives, the pine trees and the bugs their bees depend on, in a major blow to Turkey's honey industry. (Ismail Coskun/IHA via AP)

The red pine trees endemic to Anatolia span the Taurus mountain system. They can be seen along Turkey’s coast from the eastern Mediterranean all the way to the northern Aegean Sea, including a great number around Mugla. The pines provide a welcoming habitat for scores of shrubs and make an ideal environment for bees.

Bees in Mugla produce a special pine-based honey. Unlike most of the honey in the world, which is created from the nectars of flowers, bees in Mugla collect the secretions of Marchalina hellenica, a scale insect that lives on pine trees and feeds on their sap. What they leave behind, the bees take to make a nutritious honey.

Wildfires in Turkey started on July 28 amid a ferocious heat wave and raged on for days across more than half of Turkey’s provinces. As of Sunday, some wildfires were still burning in the provinces of Mugla, Aydin and Isparta. At least eight people and countless animals have been killed. Villages and resorts had to be evacuated, with some people fleeing to beaches to be rescued by sea. The wildfires also threatened two coal-burning power plants.

The Turkish government has promised to rebuild the many burned homes and compensate villagers for their animals, along with providing other aid. But it has also been criticized for its lack of firefighting planes, poor planning and overall inability to stop the fires.


A new fire rages the forest in Senyayla village near near tourist resort of Marmaris, Mugla, Turkey, Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021. Turkey's wildfires have left little behind, turning green forests into ashen, barren hills. The destruction is intensely felt by Turkey's beekeepers, who have lost thousands of hives, the pine trees and the bugs their bees depend on, in a major blow to Turkey's honey industry. (Ismail Coskun/IHA via AP)

Samil Tuncay Bestoy, who heads the Environmental and Bee Protection Association, said hundreds of thousands of hives were saved purely by an accident of timing. Many nomadic beekeepers, including some from Mugla, each year move their hives to Turkey’s inland upper plains in the spring and come to Mugla from mid-August on for the pine trees. Those beehives were spared from burning but their whole production cycle has been shattered.

“Now they don’t have anywhere to come back to, there are no forests left,” said Bestoy, a beekeeper himself. “The bees and the beekeepers are waiting at the plains with no idea of what to do.”

Since they cannot remain on the plains for long because of their feeding needs, the association was working to find healthy, temporary forest locations in Mugla, which is already highly populated with hives.

It’s a short-term solution to save the bees but points to the need for the close coordination between the government, bee-keeping associations and beekeepers to chart the way forward. Workers may have to find new beekeeping routes or even jobs in other industries.

Even before the wildfires, Turkey’s beekeepers were already suffering from climate change, with droughts and high temperatures reducing the pine trees’ sap and killing the bugs.

“Beekeeping is a fundamental culture of Anatolia and we were already warning that we may lose it to the climate crisis. These fires have added fuel to that fire,” Bestoy said.

Further to the east, forests in Antalya’s Manavgat district were also incinerated. Beekeeper Guven Karagol had to leave his hives behind once those flames grew near.

“The fires came quickly and my beehives were burning, I could only watch. Six years of my work, this year’s labor, burned,” he told Turkish IHA news agency.

When he returned at daybreak after the fires, he saw some bees emerging and realized that 20 out of 100 hives had somehow survived.

“I thought I can’t do this in a completely blackened nature, my hopes were shattered.” he said. “These 20 hives gave me hope.”

The Turkish government has said that the burned forests would be reforested and groups have launched campaigns for saplings but many experts say the forests need to be left alone to regenerate.

Medine Yilmaz, another second-generation beekeeper in Osmaniye, also lost her hives and had spoken to Turkish officials who visited the area. She wanted the remaining trees to be allowed to stay upright to see if they could regenerate but she said authorities were planning on tearing down everything.

“We rose up as younger people and stopped the bulldozers. If they come again, I will lay down in front of them and not let them cut the trees,” she said.

Her husband, Yusuf, was devastated.

“I don’t care about the houses that burned. Our only sadness is that nature has disappeared, our only livelihood were these pines,” he said. “Homes will be rebuilt, wounds bandaged but nature will not heal for 70-80 years.”

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Follow all AP stories on climate change issues at https://apnews.com/hub/climate.

GERMANY

Activists form human chain demanding exit from coal mining
August 7, 2021

Environmental and climate activists as well as residents of neighbouring villages have form a human chain on the edge of the Garzweiler open-cast mine in Juechen, Germany, Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021. About 2,500 people have protested for a quick exit from coal mining in western Germany. They formed a four-kilometer (2.5-mile) human chain between the villages of Luetzerath and Keyenberg on Saturday. Protesters were campaigning to save Luetzerath from being bulldozed to make way for a coal mine. (Malte Krudewig/dpa via AP)

LUETZERATH, Germany (AP) — About 2,500 people in western Germany demonstrated Saturday for a quick halt to coal mining in the region, where a village could be bulldozed to make way for a mine.

Participants in the protest formed a 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) human chain between the threatened village of Luetzerath and nearby Keyenberg.

 

A sign reading "Stop coal now!" is written on a banner at a demonstration at the Garzweiler open-cast mine in Juechen, Germany, Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021. About 2,500 people have protested for a quick exit from coal mining in western Germany. They formed a four-kilometer (2.5-mile) human chain between the villages of Luetzerath and Keyenberg on Saturday. Protesters were campaigning to save Luetzerath from being bulldozed to make way for a coal mine. (Malte Krudewig/dpa via AP)

A sign reading "Climate protection now!" is written on a banner at a demonstration at the Garzweiler open-cast mine in Juechen, Germany, Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021. About 2,500 people have protested for a quick exit from coal mining in western Germany. They formed a four-kilometer (2.5-mile) human chain between the villages of Luetzerath and Keyenberg on Saturday. Protesters were campaigning to save Luetzerath from being bulldozed to make way for a coal mine. (Malte Krudewig/dpa via AP)

Luetzerath stands a few hundred meters (yards) away from a vast pit where German utility giant RWE is extracting lignite coal to burn in nearby power plants.

Coal mining is due to end in Germany by 2038, but environmentalists say it needs to stop at least 10 years earlier if the country is to play its part in meeting the Paris climate accord goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

“If we want to survive on this planet, we have to take measures now,” protester Michael Zobel told The Associated Press. “Survival on this planet is endangered and it starts right here. So coal mining needs to be stopped, and there will need to be other measures, too.”

The village of Luetzerath is located in North Rhine-Westphalia state, which was among the regions of Germany hit hardest by floods last months that killed more than 200 people and caused billions of euros (dollars) worth of damage.

Scientists have said that while it’s hard to attribute specific storms to climate change, extreme weather of the kind that caused the flash floods in parts of Western Europe last month will become more severe and frequent in a warming world.

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Follow AP’s climate coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-change

IT'S TOO LATE CLIMATE CHANGE IS HAPPENING

Landmark U.N. report says some climate effects permanent, still time to avoid others

"[This] report is a code red for humanity," U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday of the IPCC climate report.



Climate activists gather outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on July 28. Photo by Sarah Silbiger/UPI | License Photo

Aug. 9 (UPI) -- A landmark report released on Monday cautions that global temperatures worldwide will probably surpass a level in about a decade that experts and officials have been trying to avert.

The nearly 4,000-page assessment was released by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change. It's the panel's sixth climate report and the first since 2013.

According to the report, human influence on the climate is "unequivocal" affecting the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere -- but says there's still a chance to avoid the worst case scenario.

The report said the world is already seeing the effects of climate change, including longer heat waves, heavy precipitation, more frequent and sustained droughts and stronger tropical cyclones -- and that it's "widespread, rapid and intensifying."

"Global surface temperature will continue to increase until at least the mid-century under all emissions scenarios considered," the report states.

"Global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius and 2 degrees Celsius will be exceeded during the 21st century unless deep reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades."

The report adds that the warmer climate will "intensify" very wet and very dry weather swings, climate events and seasons, but noted the "location and frequency of these events depends on projected changes in regional atmospheric circulation, including monsoons and mid-latitude storm tracks."

The lengthy study said although many of the effects of climate change are permanent, there's still a chance to avoid other worst-case changes.

Limiting human impact, it said, would require cutting carbon emissions to "at least net zero" and making "strong reductions" in other greenhouse gas emissions.

"The scale of recent changes across the climate system as a whole and the present state of many aspects of the climate system are unprecedented over many centuries to many thousands of years," the panel said in a statement.

"Many changes due to past and future greenhouse gas emissions are irreversible for centuries to millennia, especially changes in the ocean, ice sheets and global sea level."

"This report is a reality check. We now have a much clearer picture of the past, present and future climate," said IPCC Working Group Co-Chair Valerie Masson-Delmotte said.

"Today's ... report is a code red for humanity," said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. "Global heating is affecting every region on Earth, with many of the changes becoming irreversible."

"The evidence is irrefutable: Greenhouse gas emissions are choking our planet and placing billions of people in danger," he added in a tweet. "We must act decisively now to avert a climate catastrophe."

Landmark report maps out five scenarios for Earth's climate future

Paris Agreement climate targets could soon be out of reach without immediate and massive greenhouse gas emission reductions, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in a landmark report published Monday.

“This report is a reality check,” said IPCC Working Group I co-chair Valérie Masson-Delmotte in a statement. “We now have a much clearer picture of the past, present and future climate, which is essential for understanding where we are headed, what can be done, and how we can prepare.”

The report offers a more granular analysis of how greenhouse gases (GHGs) contribute to global temperature increases, and spells out different emission scenarios to estimate how likely it is the planet will cross the Paris Agreement goal of holding global warming to “well below 2, preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius” compared to pre-industrial levels. The IPCC estimates that from 2011 to 2020, global surface temperature was 1.09 C higher than the 1850 to1900 pre-industrial average.

The five scenarios considered range from very high emissions (doubling of global GHGs by 2050) to very low emissions (net-zero by 2050 and negative emissions thereafter), with its intermediate scenario representing emissions holding at current levels until mid-century.

“Global surface temperature will continue to increase until at least the mid-century under all emissions scenarios considered,” the report reads. “Global warming of 1.5 C and 2 C will be exceeded during the 21st century unless deep reductions in CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades.”

The IPCC’s best estimate in its lowest-emission scenario sees warming held to 1.4 C by the end of the century, with its best estimate in the highest-emission scenario coming in at 4.4 C warming.



As the planet warms, the IPCC warns heat waves, droughts, cyclones, and heavy rain will all become more common, posing a direct threat to agriculture and human safety. Then there is Arctic sea ice, snow cover, and permafrost that is melting and contributing to sea level rise and methane leaking into the atmosphere, potentially representing a tipping point for the Earth’s climate.

Tipping points in climate science refer to a threshold that, when crossed, lock in major damage. Scientists are still developing better understandings of how tipping points work, but they essentially represent a minefield on the road to net-zero given the uncertainty. Carbon sinks turning into carbon emitters, like Canada’s managed forest, or Greenland rapidly losing more than 18 billion tonnes of ice contributing to sea level rise are just potential two examples.

The IPCC report highlights the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the system of ocean currents that includes the Gulf Stream, as one important tipping point. The IPCC says the AMOC is “very likely” to weaken over the 21st century under all scenarios, but only has “medium confidence” there won’t be an “abrupt collapse” before 2100. If it collapsed, the world’s weather patterns would be dramatically impacted.

In fact, one study published last week in Nature Climate Change found evidence the AMOC was weakening, and warned a collapse would have “severe impacts” and increase the risk of cascading problems for other major Earth systems, “such as the Antarctic ice sheet, tropical monsoon systems and Amazon rainforest.”

“Hopefully, as our governments head to COP26, they will have all of this in mind, and they will make those new commitments as ambitious as science requires them to be,” says Pembina Institute director of federal policy Isabelle Turcotte.

“We need to do more at the federal level, (but) we also need to come back home domestically and make sure all provinces are energetically rowing in the same direction,” she said.

Canada has pledged to reduce emissions between 40 and 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, but its latest modelling forecasts a 36 per cent reduction by 2030. Moreover, the IPCC previously said to hold global warming to 1.5 C there should be about a 45 per cent reduction in global GHGs from 2010 levels. Because global GHG emissions were higher in 2010 than in 2005, Canada’s commitment to lower emissions 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels is actually a weaker pledge than what the IPCC called for.

“We are not yet aligned with what science says the global target should be, so Canada needs to do more,” said Turcotte. “But we also need to keep in mind that Canada is a rich country that has hugely benefited from extracting and burning fossil fuels, and so we have a carbon debt to the world, and we need to do more than the global average effort.”

A recent report from the Pembina Institute found 95 per cent of Canadian emissions are not covered by a provincial or territorial 2030 climate target. It also found no jurisdiction had developed a path to net-zero. Because provinces hold jurisdiction over natural resource development, it is a major gap in the country’s climate ambition.

“Absent these provinces stepping up, Canada is unlikely to meet any climate target,” Turcotte said.

Turcotte pointed to the importance of carbon budgets as a tool for decarbonizing. One reason they are helpful is that a carbon budget lays out the amount of emissions a jurisdiction can generate. That shifts the focus somewhat away from the less important goal of net-zero by 2050 toward the more important question of how much carbon is emitted in the intervening years. She said net-zero is an “important longer-term milestone,” but the focus on it can be misleading.

“It could lead us to climate catastrophe, because net-zero is an emissions level in 2050,” she said. “What matters is the cumulative amount of CO2 we emit from now until 2050, or from now until we get to net-zero.”

John Woodside, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada's National Observer

‘Nowhere to run’: UN report says global warming nears limits

In this Monday, July 26, 2021 file photo, a man carries goods on his bicycle as he walks out of the the Yubei Agricultural and Aquatic Products World in Xinxiang in central China's Henan Province. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report released on Monday, Aug. 9, 2021, says warming already is smacking Earth hard and quickly with accelerating sea level rise, shrinking ice and worsening extremes such as heat waves, droughts, floods and storms. (AP Photo/Dake Kang, File)

Earth is getting so hot that temperatures in about a decade will probably blow past a level of warming that world leaders have sought to prevent, according to a report released Monday that the United Nations called a “code red for humanity.”

“It’s just guaranteed that it’s going to get worse,” said report co-author Linda Mearns, a senior climate scientist at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research. “Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.”

But scientists also eased back a bit on the likelihood of the absolute worst climate catastrophes.

The authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which calls climate change clearly human-caused and “unequivocal,” makes more precise and warmer forecasts for the 21st century than it did last time it was issued in 2013.

Each of five scenarios for the future, based on how much carbon emissions are cut, passes the more stringent of two thresholds set in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. World leaders agreed then to try to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above levels in the late 19th century because problems mount quickly after that. The world has already warmed nearly 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since then.

Under each scenario, the report said, the world will cross the 1.5-degree-Celsius warming mark in the 2030s, earlier than some past predictions. Warming has ramped up in recent years, data shows.

“Our report shows that we need to be prepared for going into that level of warming in the coming decades. But we can avoid further levels of warming by acting on greenhouse gas emissions,” said report co-chair Valerie Masson-Delmotte, a climate scientist at France’s Laboratory of Climate and Environment Sciences at the University of Paris-Saclay.

In three scenarios, the world will also likely exceed 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial times — the less stringent Paris goal — with far worse heat waves, droughts and flood-inducing downpours unless there are deep emissions cuts, the report said.

  

FILE - In this Friday, Aug. 6, 2021 file photo, smoke spreads over Parnitha mountain during a wildfire in the village of Ippokratios Politia, Greece, about 35 kilometres (21 miles), north of Athens. Thousands of people fled wildfires burning out of control in Greece and Turkey on Friday, as a protracted heat wave left forests tinder-dry and flames threatened populated areas and electricity installations. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

 

FILE - This Thursday, July 15, 2021 file photo shows destroyed houses in Schuld, Germany. Due to heavy rains, the Ahr River dramatically flooded over its banks the previous evening. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

FILE - In this Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021 file photo, a floating dock sits on the lakebed of the Suesca lagoon, in Suesca, Colombia. The lagoon, a popular tourist destination near Bogota that has no tributaries and depends on rain runoff, has radically decreased its water surface due to years of severe droughts in the area and the deforestation and erosion of its surroundings. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, File)

“This report tells us that recent changes in the climate are widespread, rapid and intensifying, unprecedented in thousands of years,” said IPCC Vice Chair Ko Barrett, senior climate adviser for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

With crucial international climate negotiations coming up in Scotland in November, world leaders said the report is causing them to try harder to cut carbon pollution. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called it “a stark reminder.”

The 3,000-plus-page report from 234 scientists said warming is already accelerating sea level rise and worsening extremes such as heat waves, droughts, floods and storms. Tropical cyclones are getting stronger and wetter, while Arctic sea ice is dwindling in the summer and permafrost is thawing. All of these trends will get worse, the report said.

For example, the kind of heat wave that used to happen only once every 50 years now happens once a decade, and if the world warms another degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), it will happen twice every seven years, the report said.

As the planet warms, places will get hit more not just by extreme weather but by multiple climate disasters at once, the report said. That’s like what’s now happening in the Western U.S., where heat waves, drought and wildfires compound the damage, Mearns said. Extreme heat is also driving massive fires in Greece and Turkey.

Some harm from climate change — dwindling ice sheets, rising sea levels and changes in the oceans as they lose oxygen and become more acidic — is “irreversible for centuries to millennia,” the report said.

The world is “locked in” to 15 to 30 centimeters (6 to 12 inches) of sea level rise by mid-century, said report co-author Bob Kopp of Rutgers University.

Scientists have issued this message for more than three decades, but the world hasn’t listened, said United Nations Environment Program Executive Director Inger Andersen.

For the first time, the report offers an interactive atlas for people to see what has happened and may happen to where they live.

Nearly all of the warming that has happened on Earth can be blamed on emissions of heat-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. At most, natural forces or simple randomness can explain one- or two-tenths of a degree of warming, the report said.


  

FILE - In this Thursday, July 29, 2021 file photo, birds fly over a man taking photos of the exposed riverbed of the Old Parana River, a tributary of the Parana River during a drought in Rosario, Argentina. Parana River Basin and its related aquifers provide potable water to close to 40 million people in South America, and according to environmentalists the falling water levels of the river are due to climate change, diminishing rainfall, deforestation and the advance of agriculture. (AP Photo/Victor Caivano, File)

FILE - In this Tuesday, July 20, 2021 file photok the Staten Island Ferry departs from the Manhattan terminal through a haze of smoke with the Statue of Liberty barely visible in New York. Wildfires in the American West, including one burning in Oregon that's currently the largest in the U.S., are creating hazy skies as far away as New York as the massive infernos spew smoke and ash into the air in columns up to six miles high. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

The report described five different future scenarios based on how much the world reduces carbon emissions. They are: a future with incredibly large and quick pollution cuts; another with intense pollution cuts but not quite as massive; a scenario with moderate emission cuts; a fourth scenario where current plans to make small pollution reductions continue; and a fifth possible future involving continued increases in carbon pollution.

In five previous reports, the world was on that final hottest path, often nicknamed “business as usual.” But this time, the world is somewhere between the moderate path and the small pollution reductions scenario because of progress to curb climate change, said report co-author Claudia Tebaldi, a scientist at the U.S. Pacific Northwest National Lab.

While calling the report “a code red for humanity,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres kept a sliver of hope that world leaders could still somehow prevent 1.5 degrees of warming, which he said is “perilously close.”

Alok Sharma, the president of the upcoming climate negotiations in Scotland, urged leaders to do more so they can “credibly say that we have kept 1.5 degrees alive.”

“Anything we can do to limit, to slow down, is going to pay off,” Tebaldi said. “And if we cannot get to 1.5, it’s probably going to be painful, but it’s better not to give up.”

In the report’s worst-case scenario, the world could be around 3.3 degrees Celsius (5.9 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than now by the end of the century. But that scenario looks increasingly unlikely, said report co-author and climate scientist Zeke Hausfather, climate change director of the Breakthrough Institute.

“We are a lot less likely to get lucky and end up with less warming than we thought,” Hausfather said. “At the same time, the odds of ending up in a much worse place than we expected if we do reduce our emissions are notably lower.”

The report said ultra-catastrophic disasters — commonly called “tipping points,” like ice sheet collapses and the abrupt slowdown of ocean currents — are “low likelihood” but cannot be ruled out. The much talked-about shutdown of Atlantic ocean currents, which would trigger massive weather shifts, is something that’s unlikely to happen in this century, Kopp said.

A “major advance” in the understanding of how fast the world warms with each ton of carbon dioxide emitted allowed scientists to be far more precise in the scenarios in this report, Mason-Delmotte said.

In a new move, scientists emphasized how cutting airborne levels of methane — a powerful but short-lived gas that has soared to record levels — could help curb short-term warming. Lots of methane the atmosphere comes from leaks of natural gas, a major power source. Livestock also produces large amounts of the gas, a good chunk of it in cattle burps.

More than 100 countries have made informal pledges to achieve “net zero” human-caused carbon dioxide emissions sometime around mid-century, which will be a key part of the negotiations in Scotland. The report said those commitments are essential.

“It is still possible to forestall many of the most dire impacts,” Barrett said.

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Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/Climate

___

Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Group wages legal battle to raise Christian flag at Boston City Hall

First Amendment. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

 

A lawsuit alleges that a civic association and its director's constitutional rights of free speech and equal protection under the law were violated by the denial of an application to raise the Christian flag during a celebration at Boston City Hall. Image courtesy of Liberty Counsel

Aug. 9 (UPI) -- A civic association and its director are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling that rejected their request to fly a Christian flag on a Boston City Hall flagpole.

Harold Shurtleff and Camp Constitution allege in a lawsuit that their constitutional rights of free speech and equal protection under the law were violated by the denial of an application to raise the flag during a September 2017 celebration of Constitution Day and Citizenship Day. Their event was designed to commemorate the contributions of the Christian community to Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

A Boston official has said the refusal was based on a policy to refrain from flying non-secular flags on its pole in accordance with the First Amendment's prohibition of government establishment of religion.

But Shurtleff, an association co-founder and a former Boston resident who now lives in New Hampshire, said Camp Constitution is not trying to force anybody to fly the flag

"We're the ones that are actually going to fly it," Shurtleff told UPI. "The city isn't going to fly it, just us. We're going to raise it and have our ceremony and it will probably come down a day or two later or maybe just a few hours after that."

The flag is white and has a red Latin cross inside a blue square in the upper corner.

The city offered to fly a non-religious flag instead, but Shurtleff and the organization declined the offer. They filed suit in federal court seeking an order allowing them to hold ceremonies with non-secular flags at designated public forums -- which they contend includes the flagpole -- and a declaration that Boston's policy denying the flying of non-secular flags on the City Hall flagpoles based on their content is unconstitutional

A trial court judge found in favor of Boston and the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision, ruling the city could act on legitimate concerns about excessive entanglement with religion and, thus, made a valid choice for its flag-raising program to remain secular.

Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based nonprofit that litigates religious liberty cases, then filed a petition at the Supreme Court asking the justices to overturn the 1st Circuit

"There is a crucial difference between government endorsement of religion and private speech, which government is bound to respect," attorney Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel's chairman, said in a news release. "Censoring religious viewpoints in a public forum where secular viewpoints are permitted is unconstitutional and this must stop."

A decision by the justices on whether to hear the case is pending.

Celebrating Christian contributions

Camp Constitution, a public charitable trust, offers classes and workshops on U.S. history and current events. The organization, which was formed in 2009 and is based in New Hampshire, says its mission is to "enhance understanding of the country's Judeo-Christian heritage, the American heritage of courage and ingenuity, the genius of the United States Constitution and free enterprise."

Boston owns three flagpoles that are 83 feet tall and located in front of City Hall. The city usually raises the U.S. flag and the POW/Mia flag on one of them, the Massachusetts flag on another and its own flag on the third. On request, the city will sometimes replace its flag with another for a limited time.

From June 2005 through June 2017, the city approved 284 flag-raising events requested by private organizations at its third flagpole in connection with ethnic and other cultural celebrations, the arrival of dignitaries from other countries, the commemoration of historic events in other countries and the celebration of certain causes, according to court documents.

Shurtleff made a request in July 2017 to fly the Christian flag close to Sept. 17 as part of an event to "celebrate and recognize the contributions Boston's Christian community has made to our city's cultural diversity, intellectual capital and economic growth."

Liberty Counsel says if the application had not referred to the flag as Christian, Shurtleff's request would not have been rejected. It notes in the Supreme Court petition that Boston has raised flags with religious imagery.

Among them were the Portuguese flag, which has dots inside blue shields that represent the five wounds of Christ when crucified and 30 dots for the coins Judas received for having betrayed Christ, and the Turkish flag, with the star and crescent of the Islamic Ottoman Empire. In addition, Boston's flag includes the city seal, which contains a Latin inscription that translates as "God be with us as he was with our fathers," the petition says.

The city had no written policies for handling flag-raising requests when Camp Constitution asked to fly its flag and no previous application had been denied, according to the petition. Boston put its past policy and practice in writing in October 2018 and did not change how flag requests are handled, court documents say.

Threat to freedom?

The Boston press office said city officials have no comment while the case is still pending.

In a brief opposing the request for the Supreme Court to hear the case, attorneys for Boston argue that people who see a flag flying above City Hall would reasonably interpret it as conveying a message on behalf of the city.

They also point out that the city did not deny Shurtleff and Camp Constitution's request to hold an event at the flagpole celebrating Christian values.

"Rather, the city denied them access to one of three city-owned flagpoles to raise a flag representing a particular religion in place of the city's flag," the brief says. "Thus, it can be inferred from the circumstances that the petitioners are not seeking permission to present their flag as part of an event celebrating the Christian religion or to engage in private speech, but are instead seeking to use the flagpole to obtain the powerful image of city approval of their religious views."

Eighteen religious and civil rights organizations filed a friend-of the-court brief late last month supporting the city's position, including Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, Women of Reform Judaism, the Methodist Federation for Social Action and the New Hampshire Conference, United Church of Christ.

The groups say even modest governmental involvement with religion is a grave threat to religious freedom.

"There is no historical context that can give the Christian flag -- a purely religious symbol -- a nonreligious meaning," the brief says. "The physical context here -- displaying the flag in between the American and Massachusetts flags -- would only accentuate the impression that the city is favoring Christianity."

Shurtleff said a few people have told him they're worried that if he wins at the Supreme Court, the Satanic flag and others that they find objectionable will be allowed on the city poles.

"I said if you're worried about them flying the Satanic flag, which is not likely, you show up and you pass out your Bible tracts and you pray for them," he said.