At a televised White House press conference Friday, President Joe Biden rebuked the Kremlin for insisting that leading Russian dissident Aleksei Navalny simply lost consciousness and died after taking a stroll in prison.

“Make no mistake: [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death,” Biden said. “Putin is responsible. What has happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin’s brutality. No one should be fooled, not in Russia, not at home, not anywhere in the world.”

Navalny had been incarcerated in a high-security prison at an Arctic penal colony known as Polar Wolf on extremism charges widely believed to be politically contrived. Known as the country’s most outspoken critic of Putin and his United Russia party, Navalny had returned to Russia from Germany after receiving treatment there in 2020 for poisoning by a nerve agent called Novichok, which was developed by the Soviet Union. Upon re-arriving in Russia in 2021, Navalny was immediately arrested and subsequently sentenced to 19 years in prison.

“We don’t know exactly what happened,” Biden added, “but there is no doubt that the death of Navalny was a consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did.”

Speaking to reporters, Biden said Navalny’s mysterious death reinforces the need for Congress to put together an aid package to help Ukraine continue fighting Russia’s invasion. 

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Raw sewage and runoff in the Tijuana River is exposing communities at the US-Mexico border to an unusual and noxious brew of pathogens and toxic chemicals, according to a report released this week.

Billions of gallons of sewage flow through the river, which winds north from Mexico through California and empties into the Pacific Ocean, containing a mix of carcinogenic chemicals including arsenic, as well as viruses, bacteria and parasites, according to public health researchers at San Diego State University, who published the report.

The researchers have called the situation “a pressing public health crisis.”

Wastewater flowing into the ocean has resulted in more than 700 consecutive days of beach closures in San Diego county, but the contamination isn’t limited to the water. Pollutants and pathogens contained in sewage have also been detected in the local air and soil—exposing even those who live miles away from the water.

Earlier this week, Meta decided to create the grandest of Gordian knots for itself when Adam Mosseri, its executive in charge of Instagram and Threads, announced that the company doesn’t want Threads to “proactively amplify political content from accounts you don’t follow”—in effect, announcing the company hopes to limit how “political” content is spread and shared. 

Given the boundless and ill-defined nature of politics, his plan seems nearly impossible to implement. Mosseri did not say the plan was to tone down “content involving electoral politics,” or even something as vague as “turning the volume down on toxic politics.” He referred only to leashing the vast but vague category of  “political content.”

Billionaire Mark Cuban did ask Mosseri on threads what Meta means when it says “political content.” But Mosseri never replied. When CNN’s Oliver Darcy pressed the company, he received a written reply: “Informed by research, our definition of political content is content likely to be about topics related to government or elections; for example, posts about laws, elections, or social topics,” with the caveat that “global issues are complex and dynamic, which means this definition will evolve.” 

In effect, Mosseri was asking users of Threads to stick to dumb posts—nothing that would, actually, have to be moderated. It reminded me of the edict at the old Deadspin to “stick to sports.” Jim Spanfeller, the CEO of the blog’s new parent company, demanded that of staff, telling them to not write about politics. Apart from bad business, it quickly didn’t make any sense. Sure, you can write a story about Tiger Woods without contextualizing what it means for a Black man to dominate the whitest sport, but it would be stupid. And the only way to avoid politics in writing about the scandal that ensued when the then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted in support of the Hong Kong protests would be not to write about it at all.

The cynical read is that politics being ill-defined is the point. Anything annoying for them to deal with, that could even tenuously be described as “political,” can be contained by limiting its algorithmic boost.

This story first appeared on Meduza, an independent, reader-supported Russian newsroom based in Latvia.

Officials in the Kremlin’s political bloc see Alexey Navalny’s death as “a very negative development” — for Vladimir Putin’s reelection campaign. At the same time, members of the Putin administration do not expect the opposition politician’s demise to seriously affect the results of next month’s tightly controlled presidential vote. 

This is according to two sources close to the Putin administration, one source close to the leadership of the ruling United Russia party, and a Kremlin political strategist, all of whom spoke to Meduza on condition of anonymity. (It should be noted that these are typical remarks regarding any events that may affect the course of Putin’s reelection.) 

Asked to comment on Navalny’s death, two of the aforementioned sources gave extremely cynical responses, saying that the opposition politician “knew what he was getting into when he returned to Russia” in 2021 and that he was “punished for working against the country.”

At the same time, both sources believed that Navalny wasn’t “purposefully” killed, instead attributing his death to poor prison conditions. “Did you expect anything else? It was bound to happen sooner or later,” one said. 

A New York judge ruled on Friday that former President Donald Trump must pay $355 million and cease doing any business in New York for three years after being found liable for years of deceiving banks and insurance companies about his net worth. While Trump has said he will appeal the decision, if the ruling stands, it would potentially obliterate his financial resources. What’s more, it comes on top of an earlier decision by the same judge to revoke Trump’s license to operate businesses in New York. Between the payments and the license revocation, Trump’s business career would likely be in serious jeopardy, at least in the state of New York. But, with an appeals process that is expected to last several years, his fate is far from settled. 

The decision, issued by New York Superior Court judge Arthur Engoron, is the result of a civil fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. James accused Trump of telling banks and insurance companies that his assets were worth far more than they really were in an effort to get better deals on loans and insurance policies. Among other falsehoods, Trump told banks was that condos in New York were worth tens of millions on the open market, when in actuality they were rent-controlled and unavailable to sold, and that his Mar-a-Lago resort was worth hundreds of millions or even as much as $1.5 billion, when in reality, because of deed restrictions, it would likely be worth just a fraction of that. 

Over the course of several months this past fall, Trump’s attorneys wrangled with James’ legal team, and just as often with Engoron, bitterly denying Trump had done anything wrong. But the fact that Trump was liable for the fraud was never really in question throughout the trial—after Trump’s team largely failed to address any of James’ accusations directly, Engoron ruled before the trial even began that Trump had indeed acted fraudulently. The trial essentially was to determine exactly how much Trump would owe for his fraudulent behavior. James’ called a string of witnesses, including former Deutsche Bank employees, to testify that they would never have given Trump such good terms for loans and insurance policies. Trump and his attorneys continually maintained that Trump had paid his creditors back and had paid his insurance policy bills, so there was no effective harm done. 

The trial was especially notable for the clashes between Trump and Engoron. After Trump repeatedly used his social media account to complain about Engoron’s clerk, the judge issued a limited gag order prohibiting the former president from denigrating courtroom staff. When Trump violated the order—twice—Engoron fined him and eventually forced Trump to testify. Engoron ruled Trump’s testimony on the subject was “not credible.” Trump later lashed out against Engoron when he returned to the stand to testify in the trial, and at one point he stomped out of court, Engoron refused to dismiss the case. None of the theatrics seemed to help the former president. The case also named Trump’s adult children and a number of his top employees at the Trump Organization.

In the past, former President Donald Trump has promised a consensus on abortion, criticizing Republicans for being too stringent but without getting more specific. 

According to a report published in the New York Times this morning, Trump has landed on a limit that he thinks will do the job: a 16-week abortion ban. 

Citing “two people with direct knowledge” of Trump’s thinking, the Times reports that the former president “privately favors” a 16-week ban with exceptions for rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother. (It is unclear whether that means only cases of rape or incest reported to law enforcement.)

Abortion is already banned before 16 weeks in 20 states, so the national ban Trump is reportedly considering would, if enacted, likely further restrict it in another 30 states that currently lack such a limit. (Though the majority of abortions—nearly 94 percent—take place before the 13-week mark, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)

The paper reports that Trump sees that limit as one that can appeal to both social conservatives who want harsh abortion bans as well as voters who want more modest rules. 

On Saturday, a far-right convoy calling itself “God’s army” is set to host rallies at different border towns along the US-Mexico border to decry what they call a migrant “invasion.” Throughout the week, the group’s organizers made their way from Virginia Beach to Jacksonville, Florida, before splitting into three groups heading to rallies in Yuma, Arizona, San Ysidro, California, and near Eagle Pass, Texas. On a “Take Our Border Back” website, they called on “all active & retired law enforcement and military, veterans, mama bears, elected officials, business owners, ranchers, truckers, bikers, media and LAW ABIDING, freedom-loving Americans.” 

HAPPENING NOW: In San Ysidro, California, the stage is set and dozens of people have started gathering for the third leg of the Take Our Border Back Convoy. The group will have a rally and then caravan to Yuma, Arizona. Follow our live blog for updates: https://t.co/KmiUpgdBNt pic.twitter.com/37G3NzAe9q

— Border Report (@BorderReportcom) February 3, 2024

The convoy, whose organizers have been known to disseminate anti-vaccine and election denial messages, as well as QAnon conspiracy theories, emerged in reaction to growing tensions around an ongoing border standoff between Gov. Greg Abbott and the federal government in Eagle Pass, Texas. The Lone Star State’s National Guard has taken control of a park there, sealing it off with concertina wire and denying US Border Patrol access to the migrant crossing area where a woman and two children recently drowned in the Rio Grande. 

Abbott’s defiance has earned support from Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and 25 Republican governors. “My thoughts are that the feds are staging a civil war, and Texas should stand their ground,” Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) posted on X.

This story was originally published by Slate and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Rebecca Helm despises the phrase “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”

This moniker is used to describe the vast stretch of ocean from the West Coast of North America to Japan that is crammed with an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of trash, most of which are plastic.

“I think it’s a really awful practice to name a part of the world after something bad that’s happened to it,” says Helm, a marine biologist at Georgetown University’s Earth Commons Institute.

Moreover, she thinks that this term misleadingly implies that this area is a barren wasteland, when in fact there is a trove of marine life living alongside the floating plastic bottles, dirty fishing nets, and discarded Styrofoam cups. Along with the occasional shark or sea turtle passerby, this region—which is actually called “the North Pacific High”—hosts a unique array of tiny species that live at the sea surface, from electric-blue seadragons to minuscule snails that ride bubbles like rafts across the open ocean.

More than 150 Democratic members of Congress have written to President Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra with a demand: Do more to prevent the criminalization of pregnant people post-Dobbs and to support those who are unfairly targeted by law enforcement. 

The letter, dated Thursday, highlights the case of Brittany Watts, the 34-year-old Black woman from Ohio who was charged with a felony in October over her handling of an at-home miscarriage; when she later sought care at a hospital, a nurse reported her to police. While a grand jury ultimately declined to indict Watts earlier this month, the letter notes that “the fact that Ms. Watts faced degrading law enforcement interrogation and that such a case was even brought forward at all is alarming and cruel.” It also emphasized that—as I reported earlier this week—Watts’ experience is indicative of broader inequities related to the criminalization of pregnant people, with women of color far more likely to face “punitive responses” from healthcare professionals. That includes the criminalization of adverse pregnancy outcomes, including miscarriages—which, as in Watts’ case, can be mistaken for self-managed abortions.

Spearheaded by members of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, the letter urges federal officials to provide “educational, financial, and legal services support to any person who experiences or is threatened with pregnancy criminalization,” and to reduce the likelihood of criminalization in the first place through three specific measures: investigating prosecutions of pregnant people as forms of sex-based discrimination; reminding hospital and medical staff of patients’ rights to privacy under HIPAA; and enforcing the section of the Affordable Care Act that prohibits discrimination based on sex when federally-funded healthcare personnel “improperly report to law enforcement when patients miscarry, terminate a pregnancy, or seek other pregnancy-related care.” 

The letter also notes that—as my colleague Katie Herchenroeder and I reported in November—the fallout from the Dobbs decision “has only escalated efforts to charge people with crimes related to their pregnancies.” As Katie and I wrote a few months ago: 

On top of abortion clinics closing, obstetrics programs and maternity wards—from Alabama to Idaho—have also shuttered, putting providers out of work and leaving 1.7 million women living in counties without abortion or maternity care access, according to an analysis conducted by ABC News and Boston Children’s Hospital. Providers who are still working risk losing their license or going to jail if they miscalculate what thin exceptions to abortion bans mean for the care they can give. And with some bans incentivizing people to report those having abortions to law enforcement, criminalization is poised to get worse.  

Yesterday, I wrote about the “Take Our Border Back” convoy headed to three southwestern cities and the grab bag of conspiracies its participants embrace. But, wait, there’s more! Moms for America—not to be confused with that other right-wing moms’ group, Moms for Liberty—has joined the convoy, and here is what their leader, Kimberly Fletcher, has to say about why they’re going:

Here’s why Moms for America is going to the border.
Join us and follow us along the way
https://t.co/Nd0gHJP6uH#Texas #Texasborder #texasbordercrisis #BorderCrisis

As Kimberly makes her way to the Texas border please join us after at our Summit and Gala.
Grab tickets now… pic.twitter.com/tLdD84v2Ba

— Moms for America (@momsforamerica) February 1, 2024

Fletcher, who was subpoenaed for her involvement in the rally that preceded the January 6 Capitol insurrection, has spoken up about the border before. In 2018, Fletcher told the conservative outlet The Blaze about how, on a recent trip to the border, she had learned about a six-year-old migrant girl who “had been raped by 30 men!” But when FactCheck.org tried to verify the story with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, they learned that there was no evidence that the supposed rape ever happened. When the fact checkers called Fletcher for comment, she told them that she had heard the story from someone else. Politifact didn’t find any evidence to support Fletcher’s story, either.

This story was originally published on Judd Legum’s Substack, Popular Information, to which you can subscribe here.

Since its initial publication in 1970, millions of children have read In the Night Kitchen, the classic picture book by celebrated author Maurice Sendak. The book is about a young boy who has a surreal dream about baking a cake that needs to be finished by morning. It was named a Caldecott Honor Book, one of the most prestigious awards in children’s literature. 

At least two copies of In the Night Kitchen are available in elementary school libraries in Indian River County, Florida. This concerned Jennifer Pippin, the chair of the local Moms for Liberty chapter, because the main character, Mickey, is sometimes depicted without clothes. In an interview, Pippin told Popular Information that she believes the book may be “harmful to minors.” She was worried that if a “5-year-old picks up this book and has never seen a picture of a penis… [t]he parent wouldn’t be able to discuss this with the child.” This is an example of one of the offending images:

Pippin submitted formal challenges to the Indian River County School District seeking the removal of In the Night Kitchen, which she calls “pornographic.” Pippin challenged other books with drawings of figures without clothes, including Unicorns Are the Worst, a book about a goblin complaining about how much people like unicorns. The concern about Unicorns Are The Worst is this picture of a goblin’s butt:

Following Pippin’s challenges, which occurred in November and December of 2023, the books were removed from the library shelves. 

The Supreme Court of Oregon on Thursday ruled that 10 Republican and Independent state senators cannot run for reelection this year. Their transgression? Not showing up for work.

Since 2019, Republicans, Oregon’s minority party, have been staging walkouts to prevent the majority party from passing progressive measures, like a proposal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and to protest Covid restrictions. The AWOL senators were facing fines of $500 for every day of missed work, but that didn’t stop them: During the 2019 walkouts, some senators even went into hiding or fled the state. Then-Goc. Kate Brown (D) admonished them. “Public servants are chosen by and entrusted to represent their constituents, and working for the people of Oregon is an honor and a privilege,” she said. “Playing games and avoiding tough conversations is a dereliction of that responsibility and trust.”

Conservatives’ unusual strategy works in Oregon because it is one of the few states that require at least two-thirds of its 30-member Senate to be present to conduct legislative business. The legislature tilts blue but consistently has more than a third of Republican and Independent senators.

In 2022, voters amended the Oregon Constitution to have more stringent attendance rules for state legislators—no more than 10 absences—or else they would be banned from holding state office for the next term. Hannah Love, a campaign strategist for the ballot measure, explained to Oregon Public Broadcasting that “Oregonians…do not want to let the gridlock of the extreme partisan walkouts hold our democracy back any longer. They know that as regular people, we can’t walk off the job with zero consequences or accountability. And we’re sick of politicians who think they can play by a separate set of rules.” The measure passed with 68.3 percent of the vote, but there were sharp detractors. “What they’re trying to do is use extortion to prohibit freedom of speech,” said John Large, chair of the Lane County Republicans.

Despite the new attendance rules, 10 lawmakers still boycotted the senate in 2023 over a bill to expand gender affirming care and access to abortion. Their main point of protest was language allowing minors under the age of 15 to receive an abortion without parental consent or notification. “That, to us, is the issue,” said Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp (R-Bend). They walked out of work for six weeks. The bill ultimately passed, but the final language required parental notification for minors under the age of 15 getting abortions. Both parties celebrated the passage as a win.

Earlier this week, a right-wing group calling itself the “Take Our Border Back” convoy began its journey from Virginia to the US southern border. The organizers, who plan to hold anti-immigration rallies in three border cities, say their goal is “to call for immediate action to secure our borders before irreversible serious consequences befall our nation.”

Their catalyst, presumably, was the standoff in Eagle Pass, Texas, where the Texas National Guard has blocked the US Border Patrol from patrolling a section of the US-Mexico border along the Rio Grande. Abbott has accused President Biden of failing to enforce laws that protect the US border, and has said that Texas “has the legal authority to control ingress and egress into any geographic location in the state.” The convoy organizers appear to agree: In their promotional materials, they complain about politicians “who are enabling tens of thousands of illegal entrants, criminals, and known terrorists from over 160 countries worldwide to cross daily into our country along our southern border!”

It’s hard to predict exactly what this convoy will amount to. Initial reports on its size were underwhelming—some accounts estimated that the initial size to be around 40 vehicles, a far cry from the 700,000 that the organizers had hoped for.

Small though the convoy may be, extremism experts that I spoke with told me they were still watching it closely. Noelle Cook, a researcher who is working on a book about the women who participated in the January 6 Capitol insurrection, has been monitoring long-dormant channels from the 2022 People’s Convoy, in which vehicles converged outside of Washington, DC, to protest Covid vaccine mandates. Recently, Cook says, these channels have come alive with fans following the new convoy from home. For the organizers, these channels are “a way to get people across the country thinking that they can participate in something.”

And in those online spaces, networking opportunities abound. The organizers draw from a veritable grab bag of right-wing movements and conspiracy theories: The Christian nationalist organizers refer to the convoy as “God’s army;” the QAnon adherent leaders use hashtags associated with the conspiracy theory; the Covid denialist leaders spread the word about the convoy in anti-vax forums. The cross-pollination of these various factions is one thing Devin Burghart, the president and executive director of the extremism tracking group Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, is paying close attention to.

In mid-October, Wesley Bell, St. Louis County’s first-ever Black prosecuting attorney, appeared at a virtual event for Missouri Democratic voters eager to discuss the race he was running against Sen. Josh Hawley. “We’re in a place to get this guy,” Bell boasted. Come Election Day, he said, “I’m going to wake up either as the St. Louis County prosecutor or the US senator-elect.”

But less than three weeks later, Bell abruptly called a press conference. Standing in front of a wall of posters bearing his name—and with the words “U.S. Senate” covered by white masking tape—Bell announced he’d instead decided to primary Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), one of the most progressive members of the House.

Bush had been making national headlines as a leading voice for a ceasefire in Gaza, where more than 6,000 Palestinians had already been killed in the Israeli bombardment launched after Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack. (As of this writing, the death toll has risen to over 26,000.) In a tweet a day prior to Bell’s announcement, Bush had decried Israel’s military operations as an “ethnic cleansing campaign.” ​​

Bell insisted there was “nothing personal” about his decision, but he called Bush’s statements “offensive” and contrasted himself with her—on the war and more generally—by pledging to “stand with the president.” Asked by a reporter whether US aid to Israel should be conditioned on adherence to international law, he responded, “I think we have to stand with our allies.” And, drawing a clear contrast with his new opponent on criminal justice issues, Bell called Bush’s support for defunding the police “misguided,” claiming it hurt Democrats electorally. The following day, he released a list of endorsements that included a number of prominent Jewish members of the St. Louis community, as well as a handful of police chiefs in the district.

On Tuesday, another possible line of attack emerged for Bell, as news broke that Bush was under federal investigation for allegedly misspending security money. (In late 2023, a congressional ethics board recommended a complaint regarding campaign funds being used to pay her husband for “security” be dismissed.)

While Gov. Ron DeSantis traveled the country promoting his state’s effort to ban everything from books to student pronouns in what turned out to be a failed presidential campaign, Black community educators felt swamped by an energized public ready to learn the history their state is intent on denying them.

“It has been overwhelming,” says Kristin Fulwylie, executive director of the Black History Project, an education nonprofit that oversees Black history courses in Orlando, Miami, Jacksonville, and Fort Lauderdale. “There’s a lot of energy. Our students are really eager and asking for new additions to our programs.” 

Many of these extracurricular programs have grown in strength since last February, when the College Board publicly capitulated to DeSantis’s stripped down version of the Advanced Placement (AP) African American studies course. Florida Commissioner of Education, Manny Diaz Jr., took to Twitter to claim that the course was “filled with Critical Race Theory” and “woke indoctrination” for including lessons on intersectionality, Black queer studies, and the reparations movement for decendents of the formerly enslaved, among others. Conservative officials across the state parroted the same rhetoric to ban lessons on race, gender, and sexuality, dismantle diversity and inclusion initiatives, and target LGBTQ students. Not only did Florida legislators succeed in forcing changes to the AP African American studies course, a flood of censorship legislation –from the Stop WOKE Act in 2022 to last year’s “curriculum transparency” law–has criminalized teaching Black and LGBTQ authors and subjects. Disturbingly, school libraries and even assigned reading lists must now be vetted by “media specialists” who have been trained by the state. 

Some educators outside of Florida’s strictly monitored classrooms have responded by bringing the fight to the schools; others have carved out new spaces to learn on their own terms, filling libraries, community halls, and cultural centers or what researchers call “third spaces.” 

Freedom Schools

On Friday, Utah’s state House of Representatives distinguished itself by becoming the country’s first legislative body to pass an anti-trans bill in 2024.

It also happens to be dangerously extreme, by seeking to make it a criminal offense for people to use a bathroom in a public building that doesn’t correspond with the gender on their birth certificate. According to Erin Reed, who tracks anti-trans legislation nationwide, the law raises the prospect of people forced to “potentially undergo a genital examination if under criminal investigation for being in the bathroom.” People determined under the law to have used the wrong bathroom inside public spaces, from colleges to Salt Lake City’s airport, could be sent to jail for up to 6 months. 

The bill, which would need to pass the state’s Senate and be approved by the governor to become law, is so extreme that Reed and others have said it could even ensnare cisgender people and subject them to prosecution if someone thinks they’re peeing in the wrong place.

As Chris Geidner writes at Law Dork, “It is extreme legislation that explicitly retrofits the crimes of voyeurism and criminal trespass in the state to allow for the prosecution of many transgender people for using the right bathroom.”

When pressed on the House floor, the bill’s sponsor could not point to a single example of inappropriate behavior by a trans person in an Utah bathroom. But members of the Utah House—which meets for only 45 days a year and just started its 2024 session on Tuesday—nonetheless voted 57 to 17 to police bathrooms.

GOP presidential contender Nikki Haley responded to former President Donald Trump’s gaffe from Friday night, in which he confused her with Nancy Pelosi and suggested that she had something to do with the security failures at the US Capitol on January 6. 

“Last night, Trump is at a rally and he’s going on and on mentioning me several times as to why I didn’t take security during the Capitol riots,” she told an audience in Keene, New Hampshire. “I wasn’t even in DC on January 6.”

Nikki Haley, like most candidates who have sought to deny Donald Trump the 2024 GOP nomination, has had to carefully calibrate her criticism of the former president, who remains overwhelming popular inside the party. One attack she’s been willing to deploy is to gently suggest that, at 77, he’s too old to be president again.

Trump helped make her case last night in the form of what seemed to be a senior moment, where he repeatedly confused Republican Nikki Haley, who spent years as his UN ambassador, with former Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi. In a rambling digression during a rally in New Hampshire, the former president blamed Haley for security lapses at the Capitol on January 6, even though Haley had left the federal government more than two years before the riot.

The moment came after Trump complained that the media never report on the size of his rally crowds, as compared with Haley’s smaller ones. But then he made his bizarre segue, as he seemed to blame his primary opponent for what happened at the Capitol. “By the way, they never report the crowd on January 6. You know Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, you know, they—do you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it. All of it, because of lots of things,” Trump said. “Like Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guards, whatever they want. They turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that. These are very dishonest people.”

A deeply confused Trump confuses Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley multiple times: Nikki Haley was in charge on January 6. They don’t want to talk about that pic.twitter.com/f3lhWgAzUw

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) January 20, 2024

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The global transition to clean energy has a cost, but it may be a lot lower than the figures that sometimes get thrown around. The differences are large, amounting to trillions and even tens of trillions of dollars.

A new analysis from RMI, the clean energy research and advocacy group, identifies what its authors say is a basic flaw in many of those estimates: They don’t fully take into account the decrease in fossil fuel spending.

“This kind of narrative that there’s a massive surge in capital that’s required is simply incorrect,” said Kingsmill Bond, a co-author of the report and an analyst for RMI whose work covers the financial side of the energy transition.

The report finds that global capital spending (money used for equipment and property, among other things) on energy supply is on track to be about $2.5 trillion in 2030, up from $2.2 trillion in 2023.

On my way to Moms for Liberty’s New York City town hall last night, I passed a posh-looking elderly woman, decked out in a brown fur coat, matching fur hat, and bright red lipstick. 

This was a more typical sight on the Upper East Side—the wealthy enclave that has been home to characters like Carrie Bradshaw, Jared and Ivanka, and much of the cast of Gossip Girl—than the one I encountered at the end of the block. Outside the Bohemian National Hall—a Czech and Slovak cultural center on East 73rd Street that the right-wing group booked to great outrage—protesters wielding signs with slogans like “Moms for Bigotry” and “Protect Children From Hate” shouted down attendees who filed into the building (which included Rudy Giuliani’s son, Andrew, and disgraced former congressman George Santos) via a police-protected ramp. Moms for Liberty, the so-called parents’ rights group that has pushed book bans and helped stir the moral panic about pronoun usage in schools, promised the event would consist of “important discussions about education in NY.”

But the protesters were skeptical that the group had anything of substance to offer at its first formal event in deep-blue New York City. 

“They need to go back to Florida—take the bigotry back where it belongs,” said protester and Brooklyn resident Julie DeLaurier, who said her two kids were graduates of the city’s public schools. “If it works in DeSantis land, fine. It doesn’t work here.”

New York City schools, she added, need “full funding—not censorship.” (The city’s education department will face $100 million in new cuts during the next fiscal year, on top of $600 million in cuts Mayor Eric Adams already announced, Chalkbeat New York reported this week.)