Ontario education workers' union president thinks deal 'falls short' after agreement reached, strike averted

Laura Walton, the president of Ontario School Board Council of Unions (OSBCU), representing 55000 Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) education workers, reacted Sunday evening to the union and the government reaching a tentative deal to avert a strike. 

"As a mom, I don't like this deal; as a worker, I don't like this deal; as the president of the OSBCU, I understand why this is the deal that is on the table. I think it falls short, I think it's terrible we live in a world that doesn't see the need to provide services to kids that they need, but we will always put our workers first, we will always put our students first and that's why there will not be a strike tomorrow," Walton said. 

The decision to cancel a provincewide walkout by Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) workers came after weekend talks between the union and Ontario’s provincial government. 

In an update posted to Twitter, CUPE’s bargaining team said it had reached a tentative agreement it would take to its membership. There will be no job action tomorrow,” the update said. 

“Our members will be reporting to schools to continue supporting the students that we are proud to work with.”

World still ‘on brink of climate catastrophe’ after Cop27 deal

Story by Fiona Harvey in Sharm el-Sheikh 

THE GUARDIAN

The world still stands “on the brink of climate catastrophe” after the deal reached at the Cop27 UN climate summit on Sunday, and the biggest economies must make fresh commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions, climate experts and campaigners have warned.


Photograph: Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters© Provided by The Guardian

The agreement reached in Sharm el-Sheikh early on Sunday morning, after a marathon final negotiating session that ran 40 hours beyond its deadline, was hailed for providing poor countries for the first time with financial assistance known as loss and damage. A fund will be set up by rich governments for the rescue and rebuilding of vulnerable areas stricken by climate disaster, a key demand of developing nations for the last 30 years of climate talks.

But the outcome was widely judged a failure on efforts to cut carbon dioxide, after oil-producing countries and high emitters weakened and removed key commitments on greenhouse gases and phasing out fossil fuels.

Related: The Guardian view on Cop27’s outcome: a real achievement, but too far to go | Editorial

Mary Robinson, chair of the Elders Group of former world leaders, ex-president of Ireland and twice a UN climate envoy, said: “The world remains on the brink of climate catastrophe. Progress made on [cutting emissions] has been too slow. We are on the cusp of a clean energy world, but only if G20 leaders live up to their responsibilities, keep their word and strengthen their will. The onus is on them.”

António Guterres, secretary general of the UN, warned: “Our planet is still in the emergency room. We need to drastically reduce emissions now – and this is an issue this Cop did not address. The world still needs a giant leap on climate ambition.”

Oil-producing countries had thwarted attempts to strengthen the deal, said Laurence Tubiana, one of the architects of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, now chief executive of the European Climate Foundation. “The influence of the fossil fuel industry was found across the board,” she said. “This Cop has weakened requirements around countries making new and more ambitious commitments [on cutting emissions]. The text [of the deal] makes no mention of phasing out fossil fuels, and scant reference to the 1.5C target.”

She blamed the host country, Egypt, for allowing its regional alliances to sway the final decision, a claim hotly denied by the hosts. Next year’s conference of the parties under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (Cop) will take place in Dubai, hosted by the United Arab Emirates, one of the world’s biggest oil exporters.

Tubiana warned: “The Egyptian presidency produced a text that clearly protects oil and gas petro-states and the fossil fuel industries. This trend cannot continue in the UAE next year.”

At the talks, nearly 200 countries agreed that a fund for loss and damage, which would pay out to rescue and rebuild the physical and social infrastructure of countries ravaged by extreme weather events, should be set up within the next year

However, there is no agreement yet on how much money should be paid in, by whom, and on what basis. A key aim for the EU at the talks was to ensure that countries classed as developing in 1992 when the UNFCCC was signed – and thus given no obligations to act on emissions or provide funds to help others – are considered potential donors. These could include China, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states and Russia.

Related: The big takeaway from Cop27? These climate conferences just aren’t working | Bill McGuire

Under the final agreement, such countries can contribute on a voluntary basis.

John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate, who tested positive for Covid on Friday night and spent the rest of the summit self-isolating in his hotel, fixed China in his sights in a statement after the conference concluded.

“Reducing emissions in time is about maths, not ideology. That’s why all nations have a stake in the choices China makes in this critical decade,” he said. China is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, as well as the world’s second biggest economy, and comes second only to the US in cumulative historical emissions since the industrial revolution.

“The US and China should be able to accelerate progress together, not only for our sake, but for future generations. And we are all hopeful that China will live up to its global responsibility.”

Paul Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House climate adviser, now with the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington DC, said: “It’s time for the US to work with developing nations to put pressure on China, or climate protection will become impossible. China should be a climate outcast, along with Russia.”

Several key commitments championed by the UK, which hosted last year’s Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, were dropped from the final deal, at the behest mainly of Saudi Arabia and other petro-states, though the Guardian understands that China, Russia and Brazil also played a role in weakening some aspects.

These included a target for global emissions to peak by 2025, in line with the goal of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the threshold of safety that was the focus of the Glasgow Climate Pact signed last year at Cop26.

Although the final text did include the commitment to limiting temperature rises to 1.5C, the language was regarded as weak and marking no progress on the outcome of Cop26 a year ago.

Alok Sharma, the UK’s Cop26 president, sacked as a minister by Rishi Sunak, was visibly angry at the close of the conference. “Those of us who came to Egypt to keep 1.5C alive, and to respect what every single one of us agreed to in Glasgow, have had to fight relentlessly to hold the line. We have had to battle to build on one of the key achievements of Glasgow, the call on parties to revisit and strengthen their [national plans on emissions].”

In Glasgow, in the final moments a commitment to phase out coal was watered down by China and India to a phase down of coal, a last-minute trial that reduced Sharma to the brink of tears. At Cop27, he joined with efforts to include a phase down of all fossil fuels in the text, but it was reduced in the final stages to a simple repetition of the Glasgow commitment to phase down coal.

Sharma listed commitments weakened or lost, hitting the table for emphasis: “We joined with many parties to propose a number of measures that would have contributed to this. Emissions peaking before 2025, as the science tells us is necessary. Not in this text. Clear follow-through on the phase down of coal. Not in this text. A commitment to phase out all fossil fuels. Not in this text. And the energy text, weakened in the final minutes [to endorse “low-emissions energy”, which can be interpreted as a reference to gas].”

In the end the responsibility will lie with everyone, as Meena Raman of Third World Network, an adviser to developing countries, points out. “Since the EU and Alok Sharma are disappointed that fossil fuel phase-out is not in the text, we would like them to take leadership and revise their NDCs [nationally determined contributions] and put into plans their fossil fuel phase-out urgently and stop expansion of fossil fuels including oil and gas. [It’s] not enough to play to the gallery but act if they really want to save the planet and not hide behind 2050 net zero targets, which will bust the remaining carbon budget for 1.5C.”

Sharma concluded: “I said in Glasgow that the pulse of 1.5C was weak. Unfortunately, it remains on life support.”

 

In a First, Rich Countries Agree to Pay for Climate Damages in Poor Nations

Story by Brad Plumer, Lisa Friedman, Max Bearak and Jenny Gross • 

 The New York Times

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — Negotiators from nearly 200 countries concluded two weeks of talks early Sunday in which their main achievement was agreeing to establish a fund that would help poor, vulnerable countries cope with climate disasters made worse by the pollution spewed by wealthy nations that is dangerously heating the planet.


Climate activists at a protest on Saturday at the COP27 climate summit in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt.© Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters

The decision regarding payments for climate damage marked a breakthrough on one of the most contentious issues at United Nations climate negotiations. For more than three decades, developing nations have pressed for loss and damage money, asking rich, industrialized countries to provide compensation for the costs of destructive storms, heat waves and droughts fueled by global warming.

But the United States and other wealthy countries had long blocked the idea, for fear that they could be held legally liable for the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change.

The agreement hammered out in this Red Sea resort town says nations cannot be held legally liable for payments. The deal calls for a committee with representatives from 24 countries to work over the next year to figure out exactly what form the fund should take, which countries should contribute and where the money should go. Many of the other details are still to be determined.

The creation of a loss and damage fund was almost derailed by disputes that ran into the dawn hours of Sunday over other elements of a broader agreement, including how deeply countries should cut their emissions and whether to include language that explicitly called for a phaseout of fossil fuels, including coal, natural gas and oil. By 5 a.m. in Egypt, negotiators were still debating those other measures.

Norway’s minister for climate and environment, Espen Barth Eide, second from left, warned about the “dramatic difference” between 1.5 and 2 degrees of warming.

CANADA'S ENVIRONMENT MINISTER IS THIRD FROM LEFT

© Sedat Suna/EPA, via Shutterstock

Developing nations — largely from Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and South Pacific — fought first to place the loss and damage fund on the formal agenda of the two-week summit. And then they were relentless in their pressure campaign, arguing that it was a matter of justice, noting they did little to contribute to a crisis that threatens their existence. They made it clear that a summit held on the African continent that ended without addressing loss and damage would be seen as a moral failure.

“The announcement offers hope to vulnerable communities all over the world who are fighting for their survival from climate stress,” said Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s minister for climate change. “And gives some credibility to the COP process.”

Pakistan, which spearheaded a group of 134 developing nations pushing for loss and damage payments, provided a fresh reminder of the destructive forces of climate change. Over the summer, Pakistan suffered devastating flooding that scientists say was made worse by global warming, resulting in more than 1,500 deaths, plunging one-third of the country underwater and causing $30 billion in damages, even as Pakistan contributes less than 1 percent of the world’s planet-warming emissions.

As the summit was nearing an end, the European Union consented to the idea of a loss and damage fund, though it insisted that any aid should be focused on the most vulnerable nations, and that aid might include a wide variety of options such as new insurance programs in addition to direct payments.

That left the United States, which has pumped more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than any nation in history, as the last big holdout. By Saturday, as talks stretched into overtime, American officials said that they would accept a loss and damage fund, breaking the logjam.

Still, major hurdles remain.

Related video: Historic compensation fund approved at UN climate talks

Duration 0:59 View on Watch

The United States and the European Union are pushing for assurances that China will eventually contribute to any fund created — and that China would not be eligible to receive money from it. The United Nations currently classifies China as a developing country, which would make it eligible for climate compensation, even though it is now the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases as well as the second-largest economy. China has fiercely resisted being treated as a developed nation in global climate talks.

There is also no guarantee that wealthy countries will deposit money into the fund. A decade ago, the United States, the European Union and other wealthy emitters pledged to mobilize $100 billion per year in climate finance by 2020 to help poorer countries shift to clean energy and adapt to future climate risks through measures like building sea walls. They are still falling short by tens of billions of dollars annually.

While American diplomats agreed to a fund, money must be appropriated by Congress. Last year, the Biden administration sought $2.5 billion in climate finance but secured just $1 billion, and that was when Democrats controlled both chambers. With Republicans, who largely oppose climate aid, set to take over the House in January, the prospects of Congress approving an entirely new pot of money for loss and damage appear dim.

“Sending U.S. taxpayer dollars to a U.N. sponsored green slush fund is completely misguided,” said Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming. “The Biden administration should focus on lowering spending at home, not shipping money to the U.N. for new climate deals. Innovation, not reparations, is key to fighting climate change.”

For their part, a variety of European nations have voluntarily pledged more than $300 million to address loss and damage so far, with most of that money going toward a new insurance program to help countries recover from disasters like flooding. Poorer countries have praised those early efforts while noting that they may ultimately face hundreds of billions of dollars per year in unavoidable, irreversible climate damages.

“We have the fund, but we need money to make it worthwhile,” said Mohamed Adow, executive director of Power Shift Africa, a group that aims to mobilize climate action across the continent. “What we have is an empty bucket. Now we need to fill it so that support can flow to the most impacted people who are suffering right now at the hands of the climate crisis.”

There was a brewing debate over what to call the new fund. Developing nations consider it “compensation” and climate activists often refer to it as “reparations.” But diplomats, particularly the Americans, called the money “loss and damage resources.”

In addition to a loss and damage fund, developing nations used the climate talks to push for reforms at two of the world’s biggest lending institutions, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

The agreement reached in Sharm El Sheikh broaches the possibility of both institutions paying into the loss and damage fund. Heavy debt is one of the main obstacles developing countries face in being able to respond adequately to climate-driven crises, both immediate and long-term.

The two-week summit, which was scheduled to end Friday, stretched into Saturday as negotiators from nearly 200 nations clashed over several thorny issues. The talks come at a time of multiple crises. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has roiled global food supply and energy markets, stoked inflation and spurred some countries to burn more coal and other alternatives to Russian gas, threatening to undermine climate goals.

At the same time, rising global temperatures have intensified deadly floods in places like Pakistan and Nigeria, as well as fueled record-breaking heat across Europe and Asia. In the Horn of Africa, a third year of severe drought has brought millions to the brink of famine.

One area of concern at the talks was whether nations would strive to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, a goal that nations emphasized at climate talks last year in Glasgow. Beyond that threshold, scientists say, the risk of climate catastrophes increases significantly.

The planet has already warmed by an average of 1.1 degrees Celsius, and scientists have said that countries need to cut their carbon emissions more quickly and more significantly to keep warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The world is currently on a trajectory to warm by 2.1 to 2.9 degrees Celsius by the end of this century.

Every fraction of a degree of additional warming could mean tens of millions more people worldwide exposed to life-threatening heat waves, water shortages and coastal flooding, scientists have found. A 1.5-degree world might still have coral reefs and summer Arctic sea ice, while a 2-degree world most likely would not.

“One point five is not just a number that somebody invented,” Espen Barth Eide, Norway’s minister of climate and environment told the conference on Friday. He spoke about “the paramount difference, the dramatic difference between warming that ends at 1.5 and 2 degrees.”

“Entire countries that are present here will simply disappear from the surface of the planet. Most of all the ice on the world will melt,” he said. “Cities we love and live in will be gone. It’s such a drama in front of us that we simply have to make sure that we stick to what we were told to do in Glasgow.”

One of the biggest obstacles to a deal at this year’s talks, negotiators said, was the chaotic management style of the Egyptian hosts, whose job it is to understand the concerns of each country and then broker a deal.

Diplomats complained that the Egyptian presidency held middle-of-the-night meetings and allowed delegates to see only snippets of potential text. Technical issues with sound delayed negotiating sessions. Lack of easy access to food and water also slowed down progress; negotiators had to hunt for sandwiches and coffee in the sprawling venue.

“I’ve never experienced anything like this in 25 years,” said one longtime delegate, who asked not to be identified because talks were still ongoing. The delegate called the process “untransparent, chaotic, unpredictable.”

While the conference was scheduled to end on Friday, negotiators did not reach a final agreement until dawn on Sunday morning.

China says Xi was not criticizing Trudeau during candid exchange at G20

BEIJING, Nov 17 (Reuters) - China's foreign ministry on Thursday said Chinese President Xi Jinping was not criticising Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after Xi was seen confronting him at the G20 summit over alleged leaks from an informal meeting they had held on Tuesday.

Beijing supports having frank exchanges as long as they are held on an equal basis, and China hopes Canada will take action to improve bilateral ties, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said during a regular media briefing.

"The video you mentioned was indeed a short conversation both leaders held during the G20 summit. This is very normal. I don't think it should be interpreted as Chairman Xi criticising or accusing anyone," Mao said.

In video footage published by Canadian broadcasters on Wednesday, a translator for Xi can be heard in the video telling Trudeau that "everything we discussed was leaked to the paper(s), that's not appropriate."

Xi himself can be heard saying, in Mandarin, "that is not appropriate, and we didn't do it that way."

Xi then goes on to say "if there is sincerity, we can communicate well with mutual respect, otherwise the outcome will not be easy to tell." Mao said this was not a threat, as both leaders were engaging in a "normal" exchange and merely "expressing their respective positions".

Mao did not answer a question from Reuters on why the meeting on Wednesday was set up, and what Xi meant when he said "that is not appropriate, and we didn't do it that way."

The video captured a rare candid moment for Xi, whose image is carefully curated by Chinese state media.

Xi's displeasure was possibly due to media reports, citing a government source, that said Trudeau brought up "serious concerns" about alleged espionage and Chinese "interference" in Canadian elections when meeting with Xi on Tuesday, Trudeau's first talks with the Chinese leader in more than three years.

Trudeau confirmed the conversation with Xi, and what the Canadian source had said were the topics of discussion, at a news conference at the end of the G20, after Xi had confronted him.

"Canada trusts its citizens with information about the conversations that we have in their name as a government," Trudeau said, according to a transcript of the news conference.

The candid exchange follows years of diplomatic tensions between China and Canada, which were triggered by the arrest of Huawei Technologies executive Meng Wanzhou in 2018 on behalf of the United States, and Beijing's subsequent arrest of two Canadians on spying charges.

That standoff ended last year, but now Canada is poised to announce an Indo-Pacific strategy similar to one put forward by U.S. President Joe Biden earlier this year to counter China's rising influence in the region.

Canada's strategy is largely to align with the United States by using trade, economic support, diplomacy and military assets to bolster partnerships in the region, while at the same time engaging with China on issues like climate change.

Furthermore, Trudeau's finance and industry ministers recently delivered major speeches in Washington where they pitched Canada as a future alternative supplier of key products, like critical minerals and battery materials, which are markets now dominated by China. (Reporting by Eduardo Baptista and Steve Scherer in Ottawa; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Tom Hogue and Jonathan Oatis)

Great Lakes/ St. Lawrence 'green' corridor initiative announced at U.N. conference

Chris Brock, Watertown Daily Times, N.Y.
Thu, November 17, 2022 

Nov. 17—CLAYTON — Under an initiative announced at a United Nations climate gathering last week, preliminary plans are in the works for a "Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway System Green Shipping Corridor Network."

The announcement noted that the U.S. Department of Transportation, the U.S. Department of State, and Transport Canada will work with state, provincial, local communities, private-sector and non-governmental leaders, and Indigenous Peoples of Canada and the U.S. to host consultations with ports and other stakeholders. The goal: facilitating the establishment of a Great Lakes Green Shipping Corridor Network.

"It's a grand initiative if they follow up with it," said John M. Peach, executive director of the Clayton-based nonprofit environmental advocacy group Save the River. "There's a lot of initiatives coming out of the COP27. What we have to see is, what's the follow through?"

"COP27" is the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, being held in Egypt. The conference began Nov. 6 and concludes on Friday.

"I'd like to see more from them," Mr. Peach said. "This is a pretty brief announcement of the initiative, and I haven't seen a lot more."

A joint statement issued by the American and Canadian embassy and consulates said that the Green Shipping Corridor Network builds on the work launched under the "Joint Statement by the U.S. Department of Transportation and Transport Canada on the Nexus between Transportation and Climate Change," of February 2021.

The embassies said that green shipping corridors are a key means of spurring the early adoption of zero-emission fuels and technologies to place the shipping sector on a pathway to align with the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The 1.5 °C (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) target is the goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which calls for countries to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit global warming.

"Through the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway System Green Shipping Corridor Network Initiative, Canada and the United States will work with industry to help facilitate the establishment of green corridors throughout the region, including by convening stakeholders and contributing to assessments and analyses relating to alternative fuels and power options within the system," according to the joint statement.

Joel A. Brammeier, president and CEO of the nonpartisan and nonprofit Alliance for the Great Lakes, a based in Chicago, said the Green Shipping Corridor Network is just one of shipping sustainability efforts that have come forward in the last few years.

"The Great Lakes governors and provincial premieres have an effort to kind of reboot sustainability with shipping a couple of times," Mr. Brammeier said on Wednesday. "Any effort to improve the sustainability is a good thing. This particular effort appears to focus quite a bit on fueling and carbon reduction, which is really critical."

But he added there's also a critical link that should not be overlooked.

"It's important to note that a large part of the shipping industry, at least in the U.S., is really joined at the hip with the steel-making and mining industries," Mr. Brammeier said. "We're talking about a carbon-intensive network of industries that the shipping industry supports. It's going to be difficult to get a large carbon reduction without addressing that system. But any effort to improve the fuels that these vessels are operating on push into alternative fuels. That has been a challenge for the Great Lakes shipping industry."

Mr. Brammeier compared it to a "chicken and egg question."

"Are we going to move from diesel and heavy sulphur fuel to something like liquefied natural gas that requires a fuel infrastructure network, that doesn't exist? But if the industry wants to be here for the long haul sort of speak, it's going to need to push toward that transition sooner than later."

He added, "You have to look at the whole picture and consider how nested in these industries are with each other in the Great Lakes and what it needs to look like to really make a meaningful carbon reduction."

Ports along the Great Lakes also could play a role in any workable sustainability plan, Mr. Brammeier said.

"As the Great Lakes casts off that legacy of contaminated harbors and destroyed shorelines, engaging with the ports and with the communities that have ports is really critical," he said. "It's not just about the ships and industries. It's about the communities that are homes to these ports and the industries that rely on the ports."

Through that cooperation, Mr. Brammeier sees potential for progress.

"I think there's an opportunity here to look at ports differently — as parts of communities that can engage in a positive way with communities around them. That could mean workforce development, operating low pollution, low carbon and making sure the industries that are being enabled by shipping are ones that are sustainable within the community."

The two governments view the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway System Green Shipping Corridor Network Initiative as an important element in "catalyzing" development of the fuels and infrastructure needed to make the transition to low- and zero-emitting shipping, and, on both sides of the border, creating the jobs to make the fuel available and infrastructure development a reality.

"It's critical for us to look at what it means to operate in a healthy and sustainable way for the Great Lakes," Mr. Brammeier said.

Ballast and invasives

As far as shipping-related effects on the St. Lawrence-Great Lakes environment, Mr. Peach continues to raise another issue he has steadily advocated.

"I'm even more concerned on the whole water ballast situation," he said. "They're not mutually exclusive. I keep hoping that through pressure from Congress and others, that eventually the EPA is going to step in and tighten up ballast water requirements."

Ballast water discharges from ships contribute to the spread of invasive species. There are regulations in place, but Mr. Peach would like to see more.

"What I hear from the shipping industry is that they need to know what the requirements, regulations and specifications are going to be before they invest in their final ballast filtration systems."

Mr. Brammeier said the EPA is expected to release new rules in regards to water ballast later this year or early next year.

"We've been advocating for that, to address ballast water in lakers because fresh water ships are moving invasive species around the Great Lakes. We've been advocating for the EPA to follow Canada's lead," he said.

In rules announced in June 2021, Canadian ships traveling abroad and those coming into Canada from abroad are required to meet certain standards by 2024.

"Invasive species has been the real stick in the eye for decades and we continue to be as aggressive as possible. Preventing the introduction and spread of invasives is critical," Mr. Brammeier said. "That's an ecological concern that's right there in the faces of people who use the lakes every day. This bigger question — what's the long-term will to create a sustainable shipping industry in the Great Lakes? I think the jury is still out on that."

Judge Blocks ‘Dystopian’ Florida Ban on Teaching Race, Gender



Erik Larson
Thu, November 17, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- Florida’s new law restricting how matters of race and gender can be taught in state universities was partially put on hold by a federal judge who opened his decision with a quote from George Orwell’s 1984: “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

The law, championed by Governor Ron DeSantis as a way to “fight back against woke indoctrination,” likely violates the First Amendment and is “positively dystopian,” Chief US District Judge Mark E. Walker said in a ruling Thursday, granting a preliminary injunction sought by rights groups and academics.

The ruling bars the Florida Board of Governors of the State University System from enforcing much of the law while the case proceeds. Walker said the order was justified because the law could cause “irreparable injury” to professors who are likely to win the case.

“One thing is crystal clear -- both robust intellectual inquiry and democracy require light to thrive,” said Walker, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. “Our professors are critical to a healthy democracy, and the State of Florida’s decision to choose which viewpoints are worthy of illumination and which must remain in the shadows has implications for us all.”

A lawyer for the Board of Governors didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Lawyers for the state argued in court filings that the law was needed to prevent liberal professors from “endorsing the proposition that members of one race are morally superior to members of another, that individuals are inherently racist solely by virtue of their race, or that a person’s moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race.”

The state argued in court papers that the First Amendment didn’t apply because the Florida government “has simply chosen to regulate its own speech -- the curriculum used in state universities and the in-class instruction offered by state employees.”

The bill was signed into law in April by the governor, as DeSantis was positioning himself as the Republican alternative to former President Donald Trump.

In practice, the law restricts instruction about racial power dynamics in the US, the history of slavery and discrimination, and any meaningful discussion of affirmative action, according to the complaint, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

The law “is racially motivated censorship” passed by lawmakers “to stifle widespread demands to discuss, study, and address systemic inequalities” following the murder of George Floyd,” the plaintiffs claim.

Walker’s ruling heaped praise on the role academics play in society.

“If our ‘priests of democracy’ are not allowed to shed light on challenging ideas, then democracy will die in darkness,” the judge said. “The First Amendment does not permit the State of Florida to muzzle its university professors, impose its own orthodoxy of viewpoints, and cast us all into the dark.”

The case is Pernell v. Florida Board of Governors of the State University System, 4:22-cv-304, US District Court, Northern District of Florida (Tallahassee).

US gives protections to rare Midwest bird as prairie suffers

Thu, November 17, 2022

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The U.S. government Thursday announced protections for two populations of a rare prairie bird that's found in parts of the Midwest, including one of the country’s most prolific oil and gas fields.

The lesser prairie chicken's range covers a portion of the oil-rich Permian Basin along the New Mexico-Texas state line and extends into parts of Colorado, Oklahoma and Kansas. The habitat of the bird, a type of grouse, has diminished across about 90% of its historical range, officials said.

"The lesser prairie-chicken’s decline is a sign our native grasslands and prairies are in peril,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Southwest Regional Director Amy Lueders.

The crow-sized, terrestrial birds are known for spring courtship rituals that include flamboyant dances by the males as they make a cacophony of clucking, cackling and booming sounds. They were once thought to number in the millions. Now, surveys show, the five-year average population across the entire range hovers around 30,000 birds.

Environmentalists had sought stronger federal protections for decades. They consider the species severely at risk due to oil and gas development, livestock grazing, farming and the building of roads and power lines.

Republicans in Congress said greater protections weren't needed and the government instead should rely on voluntary conservation efforts already in place.

The Fish and Wildlife Service decision covers the grouse's southern population in New Mexico and the southern reaches of the Texas Panhandle, where they are now considered endangered, and their northern range, where they received the less severe “threatened” status. The rule take effect in late January.

Landowners and the oil and gas industry say they have had success with voluntary conservation programs aimed at protecting habitat and boosting the bird’s numbers.

But population estimates reveal that the southern areas have lower resiliency and may have as few as 5,000 birds remaining, with the estimates dropping to as low as 1,000 birds in 2015 and 2022 following drought conditions, officials said.

The federal government in 2014 classified the bird as a threatened species, but was forced to reverse that move two years later following court rulings that determined the agency didn't properly consider the voluntary conservation efforts.

Landowners and oil companies already participating in the voluntary conservation programs won’t be affected by Thursday's decision because they have been taking steps to protect habitat, officials have said. It prevents activities that result in the loss or degradation of existing habitat.

More than 9,375 square miles (24,280 square kilometers) were covered by conservation agreements as of last spring.

A 2014 Kansas law says the state has the sole power to regulate the lesser prairie chicken — along with the larger, darker and more abundant greater prairie chicken — and their habitats within Kansas. It authorized the attorney general or county prosecutors to sue over any federal attempt to enforce conservation measures.

“In their final rule, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service first commended landowners’ voluntary efforts to increase lesser prairie-chicken populations in Kansas, and then unilaterally decided that the federal government is better equipped to address these local areas,” Kansas Republican Rep. Tracey Mann of Kansas said in a statement.

Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity said having protections for the animals was “terrific" but came too late for prairie chickens in some areas. Robinson's group filed a lawsuit against the government last month because it was five months late in releasing a final decision. The initial petition for protections for the bird was filed in 1995.

“We wish that the Fish and Wildlife Service hadn’t delayed this protection for 27 years, because quicker action would have meant a lot more lesser prairie chickens alive in a lot more places today,” he said.

THE COMMODITY FETISH IS SACRED
Activist attacks on famous paintings decrease support for addressing climate change, study finds

Ben Adler
·Senior Editor
Thu, November 17, 2022

Protesters from the group Ultima Generazione glue themselves to a wall after throwing soup on Vincent van Gogh’s “Sower at Sunset” on Nov. 4 in Rome. (Laura Lezza/Getty Images)

The recent spate of high-profile protests by young climate change activists, such as throwing soup at famous paintings in museums or stopping traffic on busy roadways, makes the public less likely to support action to address climate change, according to a new survey conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania.

“Republicans, Democrats, independents: In every case, people reported that these actions made them less likely to support climate action,” Michael Mann, a professor of earth and environmental science at Penn and a co-author of the study, told Yahoo News. “People are turned off by it, and as a result they’re less likely to support the cause of the people doing the protests.”

The researchers asked more than 1,000 Americans whether they approve of using tactics like shutting down traffic or gluing oneself to a painting. “A plurality of respondents (46%) report that these tactics decrease their support for efforts to address climate change,” the researchers wrote. “Only 13% report increasing support.” Forty percent said such protests had no effect on their views.

The study was undertaken after activists from the British environmental group Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup at Vincent Van Gogh’s painting “Sunflowers,” which hangs in London’s National Gallery. Two activists then glued themselves to the wall next to the painting and shouted, “Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?” The painting, which is encased in glass, was not damaged.

Throughout October and November, Just Stop Oil members also have repeatedly blocked traffic on roads and highways in London.

Protests targeting art have also continued. In late October, a pair of activists from the climate action advocacy organization Last Generation threw mashed potatoes at a painting by Claude Monet that sold for $110.7 million in 2019 and glued themselves to the adjacent wall at the Museum Barberini in Potsdam, Germany. A few days later, a protester at a museum in The Hague, in the Netherlands, glued his head to the painting “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” by Johannes Vermeer. And on Tuesday the group Last Generation Austria tweeted a video of some of its members pouring a black liquid on a painting by Gustav Klimt at the Leopold Museum in Vienna.

Just Stop Oil climate activists block traffic in Trafalgar Square in London on Oct. 6. (Kristian Buus/In Pictures via Getty Images)

Although there is no direct connection between these works of art and climate change, activists have used the paintings in an apparent bid to raise awareness about rising global temperatures. But protests have drawn criticism from many in the art world, and even some in the climate community.

Last week, the directors of 92 prominent art museums, including New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Madrid’s Museo Nacional del Prado and the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, signed a joint statement condemning the attacks on artwork and asking activists to stop. Although none of the works have been harmed as of yet, the directors warned that they could be. “The activists responsible underestimate the fragility of this irreplaceable work, which should be preserved as a world cultural heritage,” they wrote. “As museum directors who are entrusted with the works, we were deeply shocked by their risky endangerment.”

On Thursday, art historian and climate activist Lucy Whelan wrote in the Guardian that throwing things at art is counterproductive. “These attacks feel part of a helpless careering towards climate chaos,” she wrote.

The University of Pennsylvania survey results bolster that case. The findings, however, were not the same across all demographic groups. Republicans responded the most negatively to these climate protests, with 69% of them saying they decreased their support for climate action, while only 9% said they increased their support. Twenty-seven percent of Democrats said the protests decreased their support, while 21% said it increased it. Among independents, 43% reported a decrease in support and 11% reported an increase.

The researchers found that mentioning to respondents that the painting was unharmed did not have a statistically significant effect on survey results. Neither Just Stop Oil nor Last Generation immediately responded to requests from Yahoo News for comment.

Critics of the Penn survey countered that a recent online poll in the United Kingdom found that two-thirds of the British people support “taking nonviolent direct action to protect the UK’s nature.” But, Mann notes, not all direct actions are the same.

“It's one thing to ask people if they support nonviolent protests generically,” Mann said. “But it doesn’t capture the very off-putting nature of the recent simulated art defacement actions, which seem to cause widespread revulsion by a large cross section of the public, in part because there’s no logic or connection there. People wonder, what did Van Gogh do to deserve this wrath?”

Just Stop Oil climate activists glue themselves to a Van Gogh painting at the Courtauld Gallery in London. (Kristian Buus/In Pictures via Getty Images)

Some climate activists have applauded the recent protests. “This is exactly the type of activism we need more of,” Andreas Karelas, the founder and of RE-volv, a nonprofit climate justice organization, wrote in an op-ed in The Hill. Comparing the climate actions to civil disobedience by civil rights activists such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Karelas argues that “nonviolent forms of direct action are the most effective tools we have to change society.”

“I believe the climate crisis has progressed to the point where we must take disruptive action to try to change course on a planet that is becoming increasingly unlivable,” Aileen Getty, heiress to an oil fortune and an environmental philanthropist, wrote in the Guardian.

Mann does not disagree that the urgency of climate change necessitates direct action. But, he said, blocking commuters or defacing artwork lacks the connection to the problem that, say, civil rights protesters sitting at a segregated lunch counter had.

“These young folks’ hearts are in the right place,” Mann said. “They fear for their future, and rightfully.”

But, he argued, they should choose “actions where the targets make more sense.”

“There are bad actors and villains in the climate space: Fossil fuel companies engaged in greenwashing campaigns, plutocrats who fund dark-money climate denial and delay campaigns, makers of gas-guzzling vehicles, the list goes on,” Mann wrote Tuesday in an op-ed for Time magazine. “A public opinion survey earlier this year by researchers at Yale and George Mason University finds that direct actions that target the bad actors (e.g., billionaires who fly fossil fuel-guzzling private jets) garner substantial support.”

Biden Made a Play for Young Voters. It Worked — and Helped Democrats Keep the Senate

AND KEEP THE LOSSES IN HOUSE LOW



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Akayla Gardner and Gregory Korte
Thu, November 17, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- Young voters delivered on President Joe Biden’s hopes they would turn out in the midterms, helping to win key Senate races and fending off a Republican bid to wrest full control of Congress.

Voters under 30 were decisive in Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto’s win in Nevada -- which officially secured the party’s hold on the chamber. And Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock might not have been able to force a December runoff against Republican challenger Herschel Walker without them.

Outsized support from young voters helped carry Democrats to victory in the Pennsylvania and Arizona Senate contests, according to data analyzed by Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

Twenty-seven percent of voters aged 18 to 29 cast ballots in last week’s elections, the second-highest turnout in three decades, according to the analysis. The participation was surpassed only by the 31% who voted in the 2018 midterms under former President Donald Trump.

Signs show the bloc increasingly trending away from the GOP. Network exit polls found young voters broke widely for Democrats, by 63% to 35% in House races, and by an even more pronounced split in crucial Senate contests, including Pennsylvania, where they favored Democrat John Fetterman by 70% to 28%, a 42-point margin over Republican challenger Mehmet Oz.

Political watchers have often downplayed the impact of under 30-year-olds in midterms, arguing they fail to turn out. But this year, according to data from the Tufts center, known as CIRCLE, they were instrumental in the Georgia Senate race, delivering 116,000 net votes to Warnock, who garnered just 35,000 votes more than Walker. The final outstanding Senate race is set to be decided in a Dec. 6 runoff, in which enthusiasm from young people could be pivotal.

In other Senate races, the final margin of victory was larger than the youth contribution, but the disparity in votes for Democrats over Republicans still factored heavily in Biden’s party retaining control of the chamber.

“Young voters were the difference between a Republican-controlled or Democratic-controlled Senate,” said John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics.

Edge in Close Races

Cortez Masto’s razor-thin, 49% to 48%, defeat of Republican Adam Laxalt is attributable to young voters, according to CIRCLE’s data, which found those under 30 backed Cortez-Masto 64% to 31%, accounting for 11% of votes cast.

In Arizona, incumbent Senator Mark Kelly carried the youth vote by 76% to 20%, boosting him to a 51% to 47% victory over Republican challenger Blake Masters.

But in Ohio, Florida and North Carolina -- three Senate races where Republicans were victorious -- young voters broke for Democrats by smaller margins. The bloc was not enough to propel Democrat Mandela Barnes across the finish line in Wisconsin, where Republican Senator Ron Johnson squeaked by 50.5% to 49.5% despite losing under 30s by 69% to 31%.

The past three election cycles -- 2018, 2020 and 2022 -- broke a pattern of nearly split political allegiances among younger Americans, which once tended to favor Republicans in midterm years, according to Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, director of CIRCLE.

Biden credited those voters in a press conference the day after the election.

“I especially want to thank the young people of this nation, who -- I’m told, I haven’t seen the numbers -- voted in historic numbers again -- just as they did two years ago,” he said.

Play for Youth Vote

Pollsters projected Democrats would suffer losses driven by high inflation and worries about a potential recession. But exit polls show social issues such as abortion were equally important for voters who -- in addition to keeping Democrats in control of the Senate -- left Republicans with a smaller-than-expected majority in the House.

In April, Della Volpe and student leaders from the Harvard Public Opinion Project briefed Biden and White House staffers on the youth vote, according to Alan Zhang, the project’s student chair. They shared findings from their Spring 2022 poll, conducted in March, which showed Biden’s approval down 18 points among young people since taking office.

Biden and Democrats made a play for young and non-White voters in the subsequent months with initiatives to forgive as much as $20,000 in student debt and pardons for Americans with federal convictions for marijuana possession. Biden in speeches also hit at the US Supreme Court decision overturning nationwide abortion rights and the emphasized threat he said Trump supporters posed to democratic institutions.

While polls show broad support for student debt relief and easing of cannabis prosecutions, it is unclear how much those moves motivated voters.

An October poll by Harvard’s Institute of Politics of likely voters under 30 found that 54% said Biden’s student-debt forgiveness plan would be good for the country, but only 9% said it was an important issue, well behind inflation at 45%, abortion at 33%, and “protecting democracy” at 30%.

Separately, an October Politico and Morning Consult survey found 71% of millennials and 55% of Gen Z voters supported Biden’s cannabis pardons.

Kawashima-Ginsberg of CIRCLE said the president’s ability to deliver on some campaign promises boosted him with that demographic.

“The student debt cancellation certainly affirmed many people’s faith in the Biden administration,” she said.

Nathan Brand, a Republican National Committee spokesperson, said the GOP overperformed with young people in certain states compared to previous cycles.

“Democrats’ policies and empty promises have made life more expensive and more difficult to buy a home, and young people are more pessimistic about the direction of our country,” Brand said.

Florida was one bright spot for Republicans, where the party won both a gubernatorial and Senate contest. Exit polls show Democrats had only a slim edge in the vote for governor, in which potential 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis handily beat his Democratic challenger.

Overall, the results should be alarming for Republicans -- whose largest share of voter support comes from the Silent Generation, baby boomers and Gen Xers, according to Della Volpe, who warned the GOP could become “a regional party.”

“Younger voters -- Gen Z and millennials -- will represent 40% of the electorate in the next presidential election,” he said. “You don’t need to be a statistician to see that’s not sustainable.”

--With assistance from Zahra Hirji.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

U.S. aims for zero-emissions heavy-duty vehicles by 2040


 A semi-truck makes its way past an industrial plant in Mansfield, Ohio

Thu, November 17, 2022 
By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States aims to only sell and produce zero-emissions medium- and heavy-duty vehicles like school buses and tractor trailers by 2040, the U.S. energy secretary agreed at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt on Thursday.

The non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) sets a target for 30% of those new vehicles - which include commercial delivery vehicles, buses and trucks - to be zero-emission by 2030 and 100% by 2040.

"We have to work together across oceans and borders to meet our clean energy goals,” said U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

The $430 billion climate, tax and drug policy bill passed in August includes new commercial electric vehicles tax credits, with up to $7,500 for light- and medium-duty vehicles and up to $40,000 for heavy-duty vehicles.

Granholm said the funding will "drive technological innovation, lower vehicle costs, and reduce transportation emissions."

A group of 16 lawmakers led by Senator Martin Heinrich earlier this month had urged President Joe Biden to sign the agreement, noting medium and heavy trucks represent 10% of vehicles but account for 28% of total on-road greenhouse gas emissions.

“Decarbonizing commercial transport vehicles is critical to meeting our overall carbon emissions targets," Heinrich said in a statement. "By committing to this goal alongside many other nations, the United States is affirming that we are serious about meeting our responsibility on climate and protecting our children’s future."

Lawmakers said the memorandum "does not require U.S. federal agencies to adopt new emission standards, targets, or requirements."

The memorandum was previously signed by 16 countries and endorsed by over 60 state and local governments, manufacturers, financial institutions and others and more countries are expected to sign.

Reuters reported earlier this month the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to issue tougher greenhouse gas emissions rules for heavy-duty trucks and other vehicles through at least the 2030 model year by the end of 2023.

The EPA in March had proposed tighter standards for 17 of the 33 sub-categories of vocational and tractor vehicles, including school buses, transit buses, commercial delivery trucks, and short-haul tractors.

House Republicans Plan to Ax Democrats’ Climate Crisis Committee


197Ari Natter
Thu, November 17, 2022 

(Bloomberg) -- Republicans plan to kill a special committee focused on climate change when they take control of the House next year, the top GOP member of the panel said Thursday.

“The climate crisis committee will not exist,” Louisiana Representative Garret Graves, the top GOP member of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, said in an interview. “I don’t think that’s really consistent with what we are going to be focused on.”

The committee was resurrected by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2019 when Democrats took back control of Congress. It’s served as a platform for the party to highlight the consequences of climate change and potential solutions to reduce emissions and increase clean energy. It held dozens of hearings and produced an action plan that called for limiting fossil fuel production, though the body lacks the power to advance legislation.

Read: GOP Plans to Offer Oil, Gas and Trees As Climate Fixes

Graves said that he and fellow House Republicans will instead focus on a strategy they previewed over the summer that called for boosting domestic fossil fuel production and increasing liquefied natural gas exports, but that didn’t specify emission reduction targets. While it’s possible for House Republican leaders to re-brand the committee with a different name and focus, Graves said “there are no plans at this point” to do that.

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy and a spokesman didn’t respond to requests seeking comment Thursday about the future of the committee.

Republicans Barely Won the House. Now Can They Run It?

Carl Hulse
Thu, November 17, 2022 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) departs a news conference following his re-election as the Republican Senate leader, at the Capitol in Washington, Nov. 16, 2022. (Al Drago/The New York Times)

WASHINGTON — Republicans managed to make their victory in the House seem like a loss by underperforming so badly. But while they did not win control by anywhere near the margin that they anticipated, they did win. And in the House, even the barest majority can work its will if it can hold together to produce 218 votes.

The main question going forward is whether Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, who was nominated Tuesday to lead the new Republican majority, can achieve the unity necessary to perform fundamental tasks such as funding the government, or whether unyielding far-right members will make the new speaker’s life miserable and the House an unmanageable mess.

The likely single-digit-seat victory will allow Republicans to claim power — including subpoena power — set the agenda, run the committees and try to hold President Joe Biden’s feet to the fire with a string of promised investigations.

Despite their underwhelming showing, Republicans are unlikely to be chastened into cooperating with Biden and no doubt will plunge ahead aggressively once they get their hands on the gavels. For many, that was the point of the election. Their agenda is investigative, not legislative.

“We must be relentless in our oversight of this administration,” Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 House Republican, wrote in a letter to colleagues. “From the politicization of the Justice Department to the job-crushing regulations coming from every agency, we need to shine a bright light on the actions and policy failures of this administration.”

For McCarthy, his party’s win came in the worst possible way. The much thinner than expected majority means fewer Republicans from swing districts who might be averse to provoking chaos, making him more reliant on the fire-breathing hard-right members who triumphed in safe, ruby-red districts on the promise of political warfare against Biden.

At the same time, he will need to protect the less incendiary freshmen, such as the newcomers from New York who will be the top targets of Democrats beginning almost immediately.

The margin and the mix could combine to make the House all but ungovernable.

“It is going to be hard,” Rep. Fred Upton, a retiring Republican centrist from Michigan, said of the task ahead for the new leaders, who are already contending with demands from the right to agree to restrictions that would severely limit their power. “It is going to be really hard, especially when it comes to producing results.”

The only results that interest many in the House majority are those that inflict political pain on Biden and congressional Democrats, as demanded by their MAGA constituents. In a closed-door meeting of Republicans on Monday, right-wing lawmakers including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia extracted a promise that their leaders would investigate Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Justice Department for their treatment of defendants jailed in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

But the new leadership cannot do only investigations. They still have to find some “yes” votes to approve spending bills and other legislation that must pass to keep the government running, when many of their members are very accustomed to voting “no” on just about everything.

Republicans have shut down the government over spending disputes and faced down Democratic administrations over raising the federal debt limit since the rise and fall of Newt Gingrich in the House in the 1990s. In the past, more government-minded Republicans such as Upton could be relied upon to step up and supply the votes needed to resolve a crisis. But the ranks of pragmatists have been severely depleted, replaced by lawmakers who would like nothing more than a game of fiscal chicken, no matter the risks to an already shaky economy.

Already, House Republicans are pushing the incoming team to agree to rules changes that could hamstring the leadership in their ability to bring bills to the floor, an approach that could threaten necessary legislation, such as an increase in the debt limit. Republican leaders could — and probably would be forced to — seek votes from Democrats, but too many concessions or too much cooperation across the aisle will likely spark a rebellion from within.

Not to mention that House Democrats, feeling good about their own election showing, will not be in a big hurry to rescue Republican leaders from their own troops without getting something for it.

The Democratic majority in the Senate will only make the House speaker’s life more difficult. Democrats are emboldened by the fact that they were able to hold — and potentially increase — the Senate majority in the face of historical trends. They want to flex those muscles by pushing ahead on legislative initiatives like the ones they believe led them to victory. Democratic control of the Senate also means that committees in the chamber will not be running parallel investigations into the administration as Republicans had hoped.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who will remain as majority leader, has invited Republicans to try to work with Democrats on legislative initiatives, but it seems unlikely that House Republicans will want to take advantage of his offer. The divide is just too wide.

The gulf between Republicans and Democrats just expanded a bit in the Senate as well.

When the Senate convenes in January, the GOP ranks will not include Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio, Roy Blunt of Missouri or Richard Burr of North Carolina — veteran mainstream Republicans upon whom Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, could rely to cast difficult votes on must-pass bills. They will be replaced with Sens.-elect J.D. Vance of Ohio, Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Ted Budd of North Carolina, each of whom received the enthusiastic endorsement of former President Donald Trump.

The Senate newcomers will be joined by, among others, Sen.-elect Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, a congressman who belongs to the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, and potentially Herschel Walker of Georgia, another Trump acolyte, should he prevail in the Dec. 6 runoff.

At the same time, McConnell is likely to be under constant attack from Trump, who has called repeatedly for his ouster. He already faced a mini-rebellion in his own ranks, with a leadership challenge from Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who oversaw the Senate Republican campaign arm. Although McConnell prevailed, his actions will continue to be under great scrutiny as the Republican Party battles over its identity.

The election results are still being microscopically analyzed by both parties to discern the messages from voters, which could inform how party leaders proceed over the next two years with a presidential contest on the horizon. But one thing is already clear: With an almost nonexistent majority in the House, Republicans are in for a rough ride, and it will be a challenge to get even the most basic work of Congress done.

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