House Republicans push through defense bill limiting abortion access and halting diversity efforts

Associated Press

House Republicans push through defense bill limiting abortion access and halting diversity efforts

 Lisa Mascaro and Kevin Freking – July 14, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House passed a sweeping defense bill Friday that provides an expected 5.2% pay raise for service members but strays from traditional military policy with Republicans add-ons blocking abortion coverage, diversity initiatives at the Pentagon and transgender care that deeply divided the chamber.

Democrats voted against the package, which had sailed out of the House Armed Services Committee on an almost unanimous vote weeks ago before being loaded with the GOP priorities during a heated late-night floor debate this week.

The final vote was 219-210, with four Democrats siding with the GOP and four Republicans opposed. The bill, as written, is expected to go nowhere in the Democratic-majority Senate.

Efforts to halt U.S. funding for Ukraine in its war against Russia were turned back, but Republicans added provisions to stem the Defense Department’s diversity initiatives and to restrict access to abortions. The abortion issue has been championed by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., who is singularly stalling Senate confirmation of military officers, including the new commandant of the Marine Corps.

“We are continuing to block the Biden administration’s ‘woke’ agenda,” said Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.

Turning the must-pass defense bill into a partisan battleground shows how deeply the nation’s military has been unexpectedly swept up in disputes over race, equity and women’s health care that are now driving the Republican Party’s priorities in America’s widening national divide.

During one particularly tense moment in the debate, Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, a former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, spoke of how difficult it was to look across the aisle as Republicans chip away at gains for women, Black people and others in the military.

“You are setting us back,” she said about an amendment from Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., that would prevent the Defense Department from requiring participation in race-based training for hiring, promotions or retention.

Crane argued that Russia and China do not mandate diversity measures in their military operations and neither should the United States. “We don’t want our military to be a social experiment,” he said. “We want the best of the best.”

When Crane used the pejorative phrase “colored people” for Black military personnel, Beatty asked for his words to be stricken from the record.

Friday’s voted capped a tumultuous week for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as conservatives essentially drove the agenda, forcing their colleagues to consider their ideas for the annual bill that has been approved by Congress unfailingly since World War II.

“I think he’s doing great because we are moving through — it was like over 1,500 amendments — and we’re moving through them,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. She told reporters she changed her mind to support the bill after McCarthy offered her a seat on the committee that will be negotiating the final version with the Senate.

Democrats, in a joint leadership statement, said they were voting against the bill because Republicans “turned what should be a meaningful investment in our men and women in uniform into an extreme and reckless legislative joyride.”

“Extreme MAGA Republicans have chosen to hijack the historically bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act to continue attacking reproductive freedom and jamming their right-wing ideology down the throats of the American people,” said the statement from Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Pete Aguilar of California.

The defense bill authorizes $874.2 billion in the coming year for the defense spending, keeping with President Joe Biden’s budget request. The funding itself is to be allocated later, when Congress handles the appropriation bills, as is the normal process.

The package sets policy across the Defense Department, as well as in aspects of the Energy Department, and this year focuses particularly on the U.S. stance toward China, Russia and other national security fronts.

Republican opposition to U.S. support for the war in Ukraine drew a number of amendments, including one to block the use of cluster munitions that Biden just sent to help Ukraine battle Russia. It was a controversial move because the weapons, which can leave behind unexploded munitions endangering civilians, are banned by many other countries.

Most of those efforts to stop U.S. support for Ukraine failed. Proposals to roll back the Pentagon’s diversity and inclusion measures and block some medical care for transgender personnel were approved.

GOP Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas, who served as a White House physician, pushed forward the abortion measure that would prohibit the defense secretary from paying for or reimbursing expenses relating to abortion services.

Jackson and other Republicans praised Tuberville for his stand against the Pentagon’s abortion policy, which was thrust into prominence as states started banning the procedure after the Supreme Court decision last summer overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade law.

“Now he’s got support, he’s got back up here in the House,” Jackson said.

But it’s not at all certain that the House position will stand as the legislation moves to the Senate, which is preparing its own version of the bill. Senate Democrats have the majority but will need to work with Republicans on a bipartisan measure to ensure enough support for passage in their chamber.

McCarthy lauded the House for gutting “radical programs” that he said distract from the military’s purpose.

Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee, led by Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, dropped their support due to the social policy amendments.

Smith, who is white, tried to explain to Crane and other colleagues why the Pentagon’s diversity initiatives were important in America, drawing on his own experience as a businessman trying to reach outside his own circle of contacts to be able to hire and gain deeper understanding of other people.

Smith lamented that the bill that the committee passed overwhelmingly “no longer exists. What was once an example of compromise and functioning government has become an ode to bigotry and ignorance.”

Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri, Stephen Groves and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

The Energy Transition Is Underway. Fossil Fuel Workers Could Be Left Behind.

The New York Times

The Energy Transition Is Underway. Fossil Fuel Workers Could Be Left Behind.

Madeleine Ngo – July 14, 2023

The decommissioned Conesville Power Plant in Conesville, Ohio, on July 5, 2023. (Maddie McGarvey/The New York Times)
The decommissioned Conesville Power Plant in Conesville, Ohio, on July 5, 2023. (Maddie McGarvey/The New York Times)

WASHINGTON — Tiffany Berger spent more than a decade working at a coal-fired power plant in Coshocton County, Ohio, eventually becoming a unit operator making about $100,000 annually.

But in 2020, American Electric Power shut down the plant, and Berger struggled to find a job nearby that offered a comparable salary. She sold her house, moved in with her parents and decided to help run their farm in Newcomerstown, Ohio, about 30 minutes away.

They sell some of the corn, beans and beef they harvest, but it is only enough to keep the farm running. Berger, 39, started working part time at a local fertilizer and seed company last year, making just one-third of what she used to earn. She said she had “never dreamed” the plant would close.

“I thought I was set to retire from there,” Berger said. “It’s a power plant. I mean, everybody needs power.”

The United States is undergoing a rapid shift away from fossil fuels as new battery factories, wind and solar projects, and other clean energy investments crop up across the country. An expansive climate law that Democrats passed last year could be even more effective than Biden administration officials had estimated at reducing fossil fuel emissions.

While the transition is projected to create hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs, it could be devastating for many workers and counties that have relied on coal, oil and gas for their economic stability.

Estimates of the potential job losses in the coming years vary, but roughly 900,000 workers were directly employed by fossil fuel industries in 2022, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Biden administration is trying to mitigate the impact, mostly by providing additional tax advantages for renewable energy projects that are built in areas vulnerable to the energy transition.

But some economists, climate researchers and union leaders said they are skeptical the initiatives will be enough. Beyond construction, wind and solar farms typically require few workers to operate, and new clean energy jobs might not necessarily offer comparable wages or align with the skills of laid-off workers.

Coal plants have been shutting down for years, and the nation’s coal production has fallen from its peak in the late 2000s. U.S. coal-fired generation capacity is projected to decline sharply to about 50% of current levels by 2030, according to the Energy Information Administration. About 41,000 workers remain in the coal mining industry, down from about 177,000 in the mid-1980s.

The industry’s demise is a problem not just for its workers but also for the communities that have long relied on coal to power their tax revenue. The loss of revenue from mines, plants and workers can mean less money for schools, roads and law enforcement. A recent paper from the Aspen Institute found that from 1980 to 2019, regions exposed to the decline of coal saw long-run reductions in earnings and employment rates, greater uptake of Medicare and Medicaid benefits and substantial decreases in population, particularly among younger workers. That “leaves behind a population that is disproportionately old, sick and poor,” according to the paper.

The Biden administration has promised to help those communities weather the impact, for both economic and political reasons. Failure to adequately help displaced workers could translate into the kind of populist backlash that hurt Democrats in the wake of globalization as companies shifted factories to China. Promises to restore coal jobs also helped Donald Trump clinch the 2016 election, securing him crucial votes in states such as Pennsylvania.

Federal officials have vowed to create jobs in hard-hit communities and ensure that displaced workers “benefit from the new clean energy economy” by offering developers billions in bonus tax credits to put renewable energy projects in regions dependent on fossil fuels.

If new investments like solar farms or battery storage facilities are built in those regions, called “energy communities,” developers could get as much as 40% of a project’s cost covered. Businesses receiving credits for producing electricity from renewable sources could earn a 10% boost.

The Inflation Reduction Act also set aside at least $4 billion in tax credits that could be used to build clean energy manufacturing facilities, among other projects, in regions with closed coal mines or plants, and it created a program that could guarantee up to $250 billion in loans to repurpose facilities like a shuttered power plant for clean energy uses.

Brian Anderson, the executive director of the Biden administration’s interagency working group on energy communities, pointed to other federal initiatives, including increased funding for projects to reclaim abandoned mine lands and relief funds to revitalize coal communities.

Still, he said that the efforts would not be enough, and that officials had limited funding to directly assist more communities.

“We’re standing right at the cusp of potentially still leaving them behind again,” Anderson said.

Phil Smith, the chief of staff at the United Mine Workers of America, said that the tax credits for manufacturers could help create more jobs but that $4 billion likely would not be enough to attract facilities to every region. He said he also hoped for more direct assistance for laid-off workers, but Congress did not fund those initiatives.

“We think that’s still something that needs to be done,” Smith said.

Gordon Hanson, the author of the Aspen Institute paper and a professor of urban policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, said he worried the federal government was relying too heavily on the tax credits, in part because companies would likely be more inclined to invest in growing areas. He urged federal officials to increase unemployment benefits to distressed regions and funding for workforce development programs.

Even with the bonus credit, clean energy investments might not reach the hardest-hit areas because a broad swath of regions meets the federal definition of an energy community, said Daniel Raimi, a fellow at Resources for the Future.

“If the intention of that provision was to specifically provide an advantage to the hardest-hit fossil fuel communities, I don’t think it’s done that,” Raimi said.

Local officials have had mixed reactions to the federal efforts. Steve Henry, the judge-executive of Webster County, Kentucky, said he believed they could bring renewable energy investments and help attract other industries to the region. The county experienced a significant drop in tax revenue after its last mine shut down in 2019, and it now employs fewer 911 dispatchers and deputy sheriffs because officials cannot offer more competitive wages.

“I think we can recover,” he said. “But it’s going to be a long recovery.”

Adam O’Nan, the judge-executive of Union County, Kentucky, which has one coal mine left, said he thought renewable energy would bring few jobs to the area, and he doubted that a manufacturing plant would be built because of the county’s inadequate infrastructure.

“It’s kind of difficult to see how it reaches down into Union County at this point,” O’Nan said. “We’re best suited for coal at the moment.”

Federal and state efforts so far have done little to help workers like James Ault, 42, who was employed at an oil refinery in Contra Costa County, California, for 14 years before he was laid off in 2020. To keep his family afloat, he depleted his pension and withdrew most of the money from his 401(k) early.

In early 2022, he moved to Roseville, California, to work at a power plant, but he was laid off again after four months. He worked briefly as a meal delivery driver before landing a job in February at a nearby chemical manufacturer.

He now makes $17 an hour less than he did at the refinery and is barely able to cover his mortgage. Still, he said he would not return to the oil industry.

“With our push away from gasoline, I feel that I would be going into an industry that is kind of dying,” Ault said.

GOP’s Far Right Seeks to Use Defense Bill to Defund Ukraine War Effort

The New York Times

GOP’s Far Right Seeks to Use Defense Bill to Defund Ukraine War Effort

Karoun Demirjian – July 13, 2023

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) participates in a hearing regarding Air Force General Charles Q. Brown’s nomination to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Capitol Hill in Washington on Tuesday, July 11, 2023. (Kenny Holston/The New York Times)
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) participates in a hearing regarding Air Force General Charles Q. Brown’s nomination to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Capitol Hill in Washington on Tuesday, July 11, 2023. (Kenny Holston/The New York Times)

WASHINGTON — A group of right-wing House Republicans pushing to load up the annual defense bill with socially conservative policies on abortion, race and gender have another demand: severe restrictions on U.S. military support for Ukraine.

The pressure raises the prospect of a divisive floor fight over America’s backing for the war effort just as President Joe Biden tries to rally European allies to support Kyiv in its conflict with Russia.

The group’s proposals on military aid stand no chance of passing the House, where there continues to be strong bipartisan support for backing Ukraine’s war effort, or going anywhere in the Senate. But the far right’s insistence on casting votes on the matter anyway has further imperiled the defense legislation and transformed what is ordinarily a broadly supported measure that provides the annual pay raise to U.S. military personnel and sets Pentagon policy into a partisan battleground that has placed Republican divisions on display.

The House on Wednesday began debating the $886 billion measure, sidestepping the rifts as Republican leaders toiled behind the scenes to placate ultraconservative lawmakers who are demanding votes to scale back Ukraine aid and add social policy dictates. But those disputes will eventually have to be resolved to pass the bill, which had been expected to receive approval Friday — a timetable that is now in doubt as the hard right threatens to hold up the process.

The right-wing lawmakers are seeking votes on a series of proposals that would hamstring U.S. support for Ukraine, including one to curtail all funding for Kyiv until there is a diplomatic solution to the conflict and another that would end a $300 million program to train and equip Ukrainian soldiers that has been in place for nearly a decade.

“Congress should not authorize another penny for Ukraine and push the Biden administration to pursue peace,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., argued to lawmakers on the House Rules Committee this week, appealing to them to allow votes on several proposals she has written on the topic. “Ukraine is not the 51st state of the United States of America.”

Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said votes to curtail support for Ukraine were every bit as important to the members of his group as votes to restrict abortion access and services for transgender soldiers. Asked whether some might seek to block the bill without such votes, he replied: “They might.”

Because Speaker Kevin McCarthy holds only a slim margin of control in the House, any rebellion by the right wing could stop the defense measure in its tracks, denying him the votes he would need from his side to advance it to final passage. But if he bows to the demands for votes on Ukraine, it would put divisions in Congress over the war on display at a critical junction in Ukraine’s counteroffensive, and just after Biden has appealed to allies this week during a NATO summit to remain united in support.

“We can see from what’s taken place at the NATO summit, the significance and importance of us all speaking with one voice and making sure that we’re giving the Ukrainians what they need to win this war,” Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an interview Wednesday. “It will be absolutely the worst thing to do to have a show of division — that’s playing right into Putin’s hands,” he said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Some mainstream Republicans say they relish the fight, seeing it as a potential opportunity to put the rebellious right wing of the party in its place.

“It’s going to fail big time,” Rep. Mike D. Rogers, R-Ala., said of the hard right’s bid to scrap American support for Ukraine. “So I hope they make it in order — I think you’ll see it go down overwhelmingly.”

The defense bill is the latest forum right-wing lawmakers have been using to challenge McCarthy’s leadership. Their protest, which began during January’s protracted speaker fight, resumed last month, when 11 far-right lawmakers brought the House floor to a standstill to express their fury at McCarthy’s debt ceiling deal with Biden. They have threatened similar tactics in the future if he fails to bow to their demands.

McCarthy had been bracing for a difficult fight over Ukraine funding in the coming months, when the Biden administration is expected to request billions of dollars to keep Kyiv’s war machine humming.

Hoping to head off a revolt from the right wing, the speaker publicly declared he was opposed to any additional funding for Ukraine beyond the limits of the debt ceiling deal, despite having publicly proclaimed just weeks before: “I vote for aid for Ukraine; I support aid for Ukraine.”

But with the defense bill, the ultraconservative faction is trying to force the issue now.

Greene, who has become one of McCarthy’s closest allies, demurred Wednesday when asked whether she would help other right-wing members block progress on the bill if leaders denied her a vote to curtail Ukraine funding. Despite being one of the most outspoken hard-right members of the House, Greene has routinely taken McCarthy’s side in disputes with his rank and file, and has refused to lend any support to the efforts to undermine his leadership. But her involvement is an indicator of how deeply a vote on Ukraine might split House Republicans.

Ukraine assistance is a tricky issue for the GOP politically. Both of the front-runners for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, have said they would like to limit U.S. assistance to Ukraine. According to a recent poll by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, while more than 70% of Republicans want to see Ukraine win the war, only half support sending U.S. military aid to help the country defeat Russia.

Last year, 57 House Republicans voted against a measure to provide $40 billion in military and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine. Congress approved a total of more than $113 billion in Ukraine aid last year.

House GOP leaders expressed confidence Wednesday that they could defeat any proposal to strip funding for Ukraine, thus preserving the integrity of the underlying defense bill. But they worried aloud about the social policy measures, which they noted would alienate Democrats whose votes would be needed to pass the bill.

Ultraconservatives are pushing for votes on proposals that would undo a Pentagon policy offering time off and travel reimbursement to service members traveling out of state to obtain an abortion, to end diversity training in the military, and to ensure that medical services for transgender troops are limited.

“Those I think are actually dicier,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., chair of the Rules Committee. “You’re not going to get any Democrats that way.”

GOP leaders appealed to their colleagues Wednesday to support the bill as is, highlighting provisions already included that would ban drag shows at military installations and the teaching of critical race theory.

“This bill goes after the woke, failed, far-left policies that far-left Democrats have wrongfully forced onto the Department of Defense and our men and women in uniform,” Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the No. 4 Republican, told reporters.

Putin’s Panicked Purge May Signal a New Mutiny on the Horizon

Daily Beast

Putin’s Panicked Purge May Signal a New Mutiny on the Horizon

Allison Quinn – July 13, 2023

AFP via Getty
AFP via Getty

Three weeks after the Kremlin’s private mercenary army ditched Ukraine to go to war against the country’s own regular military, cracks in Vladimir Putin’s war machine are turning into massive fractures.

A top general has been dismissed after picking up where mutiny mastermind Yevgeny Prigozhin left off, even as the Kremlin is reportedly trying to purge disloyal military officers who could threaten further rebellion.

Major General Ivan Popov, the commander of the 58th Combined Arms Army, said he was dismissed from duty after “harshly” telling military leaders on the “very highest level” about failings on the battlefield that were leading to “mass deaths” of Russian troops.

Echoing Prigozhin in the run-up to his armed uprising, he accused military brass of betraying their own troops by distorting the reality on the frontline: “The Ukrainian army could not break through our ranks at the front but our senior chief hit us from the rear, viciously beheading the army at the most difficult and intense moment,” he said.

Among other things, he complained of a lack of proper counter artillery systems and reconnaissance of Ukrainian artillery.

“It was necessary to either remain silent and be a coward, saying what they wanted to hear, or call a spade a spade,” he said, adding that he “could not lie.”

As a result, he said, “The senior chiefs apparently sensed some kind of danger from me and quickly concocted an order from the defense minister in just one day and got rid of me.”

His comments, made in an audio message to subordinates that was subsequently shared by a federal lawmaker late Wednesday, resonated with many pro-war Russian military bloggers and propagandists, with even Kremlin mouthpiece Vladimir Solovyov suggesting he’d spoken the “truth.”

Lawmakers, too, jumped in to defend the sidelined general, with United Russia Secretary General Andrei Turchak writing on Telegram that the “motherland” can “be proud” of Popov. (Turchak did, however, take issue with fellow lawmaker Andrei Gurulyov publicizing Popov’s complaints, accusing him of putting on a “political show” by airing the military’s dirty laundry.)

Russia’s Chaotic Meltdown Over American Cluster Bombs Begins

With Prigozhin’s shadowy past, the Kremlin propaganda machine has apparently had a relatively easy time portraying him as a rogue madman with his own agenda following his short-lived mutiny. But Popov, who is well-respected within the military establishment, may prove a more formidable critic.

“The problems Popov spoke of are actually very important. And Prigozhin spoke of the very same problems. How else is there to get these problems across to the leadership?” pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov wrote of the scandal.

Neither the Defense Ministry, nor the Kremlin, have commented on the matter.

But a new report suggests the net is widening behind the scenes. Russia’s security services scooped up dozens of high-ranking military officers in the wake of Wagner Group founder Prigozhin’s violent uprising last month, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Sources cited by the Journal on Thursday confirmed numerous reports that General Sergei Surovikin, the deputy commander of Russia’s military operations in Ukraine, was among those detained for questioning, reportedly after word got out that he knew about the mutiny in advance.

But the scope of the fallout is apparently much greater than previously reported. At least 13 high-ranking officers were hauled in for questioning, some of whom have since been released, and 15 were suspended or fired altogether, according to the report.

“The detentions are about cleaning the ranks of those who are believed can’t be trusted anymore,” one source was quoted saying.

The #1 Sign You Aren’t Drinking Enough Water—Plus, How To Tell if You’re *Overhydrated*

Parade

The #1 Sign You Aren’t Drinking Enough Water—Plus, How To Tell if You’re *Overhydrated*

Emily Laurence – July 13, 2023

There are times when nothing sounds better than gulping down a big glass of water, like after an intense workout or coming inside after spending hours in the sun. But if you only drink water when you’re sweating, your body isn’t going to function properly. Staying properly hydrated is immensely important—playing a role in body temperature control, delivering nutrients to cells, keeping organs functioning and staying mentally sharp. Even when fluid loss is just 1% of body weight, it will negatively impact brain function and mood.

This is exactly why it’s important to drink enough water continuously, even before signs of dehydration start to show. But how can you make sure you’re drinking enough? Doctors share the tell-tale signs that you need to up your water intake.

Related: Eat Your Way to Better Hydration! Try These 7 Fresh and Hydrating Foods

How To Tell You Aren’t Drinking Enough Water: The Number One Sign

According to integrative medicine doctor and Cure medical advisor Dr. Dana Cohen, MD, the number one sign you aren’t drinking enough water is if it’s been more than three hours since you went to the bathroom last and when you do go, your pee is dark yellow. “The best way to measure your hydration levels is super easy: the frequency and color of your pee. You should be getting up to pee every two to three waking hours, and if you’re not, you’re probably dehydrated,” she says.

Dr. Cohen says that urine that’s pale yellow is a good indicator that you’re drinking enough. If it’s dark yellow, orange or brown, that means you’re not drinking enough. If your urine is clear, she says that’s a sign that you’re actually overhydrated, drinking more water than you need.

Related: Summer is Here! Learn the 10 Key Signs of Dehydration (and How to Fight It)

The one caveat to this, she says, is if you’ve eaten foods linked to discoloring urine, such as asparagus or beets. If you have, there’s another easy way to know you aren’t drinking enough water: if you’re thirsty. “The most common sign of inadequate hydration is feeling thirsty. If you consistently feel thirsty, it’s an indication that your body needs more fluids,” says Dr. Patrick Carter, DO, a board-certified family practitioner and the medical advisor for Prime IV Hydration & Wellness. However, he adds that there are other reasons someone may feel thirsty unrelated to hydration, including having certain medical conditions (like diabetes or sickle cell anemia).

Both doctors say that if you feel dizzy, fatigued, have a headache, or are experiencing muscle cramps and weakness, these are all signs of dehydration. Dr. Cohen says that signs of extreme hydration include anuria (no urine output), dizziness rendering the person unable to stand or walk normally, low blood pressure, fast heart rate, fever, lethargy, confusion and can lead to seizures, shock or coma. “These symptoms require immediate medical attention,” she says.

Related: This Is How Much Water People 50 and Older Should Drink Every Day, According to a Urologist

How To Stay Hydrated

Both doctors say hydration needs vary from person to person, but Dr. Carter says a good general guideline to follow is aiming to drink eight eight-ounce glasses of water a day. However, he adds that it’s important to take into account your individual needs, such as how active of a lifestyle you lead. “It’s always a good idea to consult with a healthcare professional to determine the appropriate amount of water for your specific needs,” Dr. Carter says.

When it comes to staying hydrated, both doctors say that while drinking water is important, drinking other liquids can help you meet your hydration goals. This includes herbal tea, unsweetened fruit juices, milk and electrolyte drinks. “I also recommend a green smoothie with chia seeds, as the fiber in the green smoothie acts like a sponge and holds onto hydration longer, while the minerals help move fluids into the center of your body more efficiently than plain bulk water,” Dr. Cohen explains. She adds that chia seeds hold up to 30 times their weight in water, which allows fluids and electrolytes to be held in the body longer.

If you struggle with remembering to drink enough water, Dr. Carter recommends setting reminders using your phone or an app like Waterllama, My Water, or Aqualert. He also recommends carrying a reusable water bottle with you wherever you go, which serves as both a visual reminder and a way to meet your hydration needs.

Remember: It’s important to hydrate before you notice any symptoms of dehydration. Be mindful of your intake throughout the day and use your urine color and frequency as a hydration monitor. That way, you can function at your absolute best.

Next up, check out these 11 low-calorie drinks that will help you stay hydrated.

Florida orange harvest sees worst season since before World War II

Fox Weather

Florida orange harvest sees worst season since before World War II

Andrew Wulfeck – July 13, 2023

Florida orange harvest sees worst season since before World War II

MIAMI – Growers of the official fruit of the Sunshine State are continuing to struggle with orange production, which has reached its lowest levels since before World War II.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture held a teleconference on Wednesday when it announced the final 2022-23 season forecast of 15.85 million boxes of oranges, levels not seen since harvests in the 1930s.

The figure was in line with previous expectations and, like many other fruits, saw a significant drop in production from levels reported just one year ago.

During the 2021-22 season, over 41 million boxes were harvested, which was just a fraction of amounts produced during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

According to the USDA, orange production peaked in 1998 at 240 million boxes but saw a significant decline after the historic 2004 hurricane season.

ORANGE JUICE PRICES ON THE RISE: WHY WEATHER EXTREMES ARE TAKING A TOLL ON STRUGGLING FLORIDA CITRUS INDUSTRY

Harvesters have blamed weather disasters and citrus greening in recent years for the reduction in fruit production.

Citrus growers previously described the setbacks as “unprecedented” and told FOX Business that they were just trying to survive for a better day.

A report from the University of Florida’s Economic Impact Analysis Program estimated agriculture losses from 2022’s Hurricane Ian at around $1 billion.

The figure was on top of Hurricane Irma’s $2.5 billion in damage in 2017 and several billion dollars done by hurricanes in 2004.

FLORIDA SUFFERS $1 BILLION HIT TO AGRICULTURE INDUSTRY FROM HURRICANE IAN

In addition to weather disasters, citrus greening from an Asian bug discovered in the Lower 48 back in 1998 has been rampant.

According to university experts, once a tree becomes infected, its nutrient flow will slow and eventually impair its ability to produce fruit.

There is no known cure for citrus greening, meaning that a plant with the disease will deteriorate until it dies.

Trees producing grapefruits, lemons, tangerines, tangelos and other fruits are also susceptible to the disease.

According to USDA estimates, harvesters produced around 45% fewer boxes of grapefruit than last season and tangerines and tangelos saw a decline of around 36%.

Most major citrus operations have reached the end of the harvest season and won’t start up in earnest again until the fall and winter.

Another insurer is leaving Florida. How much is DeSantis to blame?

Tampa Bay Times, St. Petersburg, Fla.

Another insurer is leaving Florida. How much is DeSantis to blame?

Jay Cridlin, Tampa Bay Times – July 13, 2023

Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed more than 300 bills into law this year.

They include measures that touched on a broad swath of issues, including abortion, immigration, transgender care, space exploration, the death penalty, college diversity programs, phosphogypsum in road construction, alimony, a law enforcement registry for people with disabilities, drag shows, affordable housing and election reforms.

What wasn’t signed into law was a measure that might have prevented Farmers Insurance from announcing this week it was dropping tens of thousands of home, auto and umbrella policies in the state, following the lead earlier this year of insurers like United Property & Casualty.

In his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, DeSantis is promoting his record as governor, particularly how he’s led a reshaping of Florida’s education, diversity and investment policies.

But despite DeSantis signing multiple legislative packages since May 2022 designed to curtail skyrocketing rates, the state’s property insurance problem is still far from solved. More than a half-dozen insurers have withdrawn from Florida or faced insolvency in the past 18 months, all as record Atlantic Ocean temperatures have spurred hurricane forecasters to boost predictions for an above-average season this year.

DeSantis spokesperson Jeremy Redfern pointed to new laws targeting frivolous lawsuits against insurance companies and billions in funding to help insurers obtain backup reinsurance as evidence of the governor’s attention to the problem. The state is already seeing some progress in the form of new insurers entering the market, Redfern said.

“Even the most aggressive reforms will take time to affect the insurance industry,” Redfern said in an email. “The 2021, 2022, and 2023 legislative efforts will be effective.”

During a Wednesday radio appearance on the Howie Carr Show, DeSantis touted those legislative efforts, saying that, “because we did those reforms, it now is more economical for companies to come in. I think they’re going to wait through this hurricane season, and then I think they’re going to be willing to deploy more capital to Florida.”

”Knock on wood, we won’t have a big storm this summer,” DeSantis said. “Then I think you are going to start to see companies see an advantage.”

But Farmers’ abrupt exit Tuesday has opened DeSantis up to a fresh round of criticism that he and the Republican-led Legislature haven’t done enough to calm Florida’s insurance market.

“Knock on wood??? That’s not how this works,” Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, said on Twitter. “Floridians need action on property insurance — not this.”

“It’s the No. 1 issue I hear about when I go talk to my constituents,” said Rep. Dan Daley, D-Coral Springs. “They’re not talking about drag shows. They don’t give a s—t about any of that. They care about being able to pay their property insurance bill and not being dropped by their insurer, and what we’ve done in this state is not really address that.”

Incremental change and patience

Property insurance reform was an issue in Florida long before DeSantis took office in 2019.

His first major action on the matter came that spring in the form of a bill limiting “assignment of benefits” claims, when contractors, not homeowners, seek reimbursement from insurers. DeSantis called it “meaningful” reform that “will protect Florida consumers from predatory insurance practices.” It was widely seen as a long-sought win for the insurance industry.

That more substantial changes weren’t an immediate priority reflects as much on the Legislature as it does on DeSantis, said former Republican state Sen. Jeff Brandes.

“This isn’t the battle he was taking on back then,” Brandes said. “He would tell you his statement was, ‘I will sign whatever the Legislature puts in front of me on property insurance.’ He said that comment multiple times. The Legislature chose not to send him anything.”

In May 2022, DeSantis convened a special legislative session designed to “stabilize the insurance market,” with an emphasis on targeting the “thousands of frivolous lawsuits” filed against insurance companies. The package that emerged included $2 billion in tax money to subsidize insurers’ reinsurance costs and $150 million to help hurricane-proof homes and tightened restrictions on suing insurers. DeSantis called it “the most significant reforms to Florida’s homeowners insurance market in a generation.”

After Hurricane Ian struck Southwest Florida, DeSantis called another session designed to “implement necessary reforms to the property insurance market.” In December, he signed a bill creating a $1 billion reinsurance fund and further tightening restrictions on lawsuits. Again, he called the reform “meaningful.”

“The issues in Florida’s property insurance market did not occur overnight, and they will not be solved overnight,” he said in a statement after signing. “The historic reforms signed today create an environment which realigns Florida to best practices across the nation, adding much-needed stability to Florida’s market, promoting competition, and increasing consumer choice.”

Then, during this year’s regular session, he signed a bill dubbed the Insurer Accountability Act, designed to impose transparency requirements on insurers and stiffen penalties on those that exhibited bad behavior. The law, he said, would “reinforce our commitment to Florida policyholders” and “protect consumers from predatory insurer practices.”

With each bill, supporters said it would take time to have a real impact.

“I do think that they were bold moves that will show positive changes for the homeowners’ industry over the coming years, but it is going to take two, three, four years for those changes to bear any fruit,” said Trevor Burgess, CEO of St. Petersburg flood insurer Neptune Flood. “And that’s because, for the past 10 years, there’s just been so much damage done. You’ve had all of these insurance companies fail. Those that haven’t failed have struggled, and so it’s been very difficult for anyone to make any money or build up any reserves.”

Brandes said that Farmers won’t be the last insurer to withdraw, and that he thinks rates will go up another 10% to 15% next year before stabilizing in 2025. But if DeSantis and the Legislature had done nothing, he said, “you wouldn’t have a market in Florida. You would have had 10 companies leaving instead of just one.”

Democrats say the changes under DeSantis represent positive steps; the bipartisan Insurer Accountability Act passed unanimously. But they’ve been too narrowly focused on tort reform, said House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa. In a statement explaining why it was leaving, Farmers didn’t even mention lawsuits.

In recent sessions, Democrats have proposed changes including a publicly elected insurance commissioner and blocking certain insurers from claiming insolvency. None gained traction.

“They don’t really know what to do,” Driskell said of Republican legislative leadership. “They keep trying to scramble and put together these piecemeal solutions that haven’t really stabilized the market or brought rates down. To me, it’s not so much a commitment of, ‘Oh, yes, we’re on top of this, there’s more to do, stay tuned.’ It’s more, ‘Eh, let’s try this. Oh, that didn’t work. Let’s see what we can try next.’”

That’s not all on DeSantis, she said; the House speaker and Senate president also have “so much power and authority in terms of shaping the policy agenda of this state.” But she also doesn’t see DeSantis pushing a more cohesive plan before a Legislature that rarely pushes back.

“I don’t even know what his plans and desires are with respect to property insurance, because he doesn’t articulate them,” she said. “He can articulate a blueprint for how to destroy DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) in higher education. I have yet to see any blueprint for property insurance.”

“Distracted” by 2024

Since the Insurer Accountability Act was introduced in the Senate on March 31, DeSantis has spent at least 40 days out of state. He’s taken multiple campaign trips to the early-primary hotbeds of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina; and he spent five days on an international trade trip to South Korea, Japan, Israel and the United Kingdom.

DeSantis hasn’t faced many questions about homeowners insurance on the presidential campaign trail. The most it became an issue was weeks before he officially entered the race, when former President Donald Trump took to social media, calling Florida’s latest insurance bill “the biggest insurance BAILOUT to Globalist Insurance Companies, in HISTORY.”

“He’s also crushed homeowners whose houses were destroyed in the Hurricane,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “They’re getting pennies on the dollar. His Insurance Commissioner does NOTHING, while Florida’s lives are ruined. This is the worst Insurance Scam in the entire COUNTRY!”

In stump speeches, DeSantis speaks about his legal battles with The Walt Disney Co., about his trips to the southern border with Mexico and about his campaign against corporate environmental, social and governance programs. He says little to nothing about Florida’s latest property insurance laws.

“He’s so ambitious and he’s so focused on that big goal that he’s let a lot of the everyday stuff go,” Driskell said. “You can’t just have a diet of red meat. You need some vegetables as well.”

One thing DeSantis does talk about is people moving to “the free state of Florida,” building and buying homes to escape “states governed by leftist politicians.”

“All I have to look at to see whether Chicago’s doing well, I just look at real estate values in Naples,” he said recently in New Hampshire. “When those are going up, I know Chicago’s done something stupid again, and people are fleeing.”

With pricier homes come pricier rates, though, which is keeping some residents from continuing to afford living here, said state Rep. Hillary Cassel, D-Dania Beach.

“If you can’t guarantee what your cost of insurance is going to be to insure that home, you can’t now become a homeowner,” Cassel said. “If your cost is going to increase 30% year after year after year, you can’t buy a house.”

In 2022, DeSantis called two special sessions on property insurance. Now that he’s running a national campaign, Driskell said he might be too “distracted” to do it again — although another catastrophic storm this season could change that.

Absent the right political motivation — whether it comes from a hurricane or from pressure on the campaign trail — Cassel isn’t sure lawmakers will swing back into action.

“Not with this leadership,” Cassel said. “Nope.”

More Clarence Thomas allegations stain the court: Lawyers with supreme court business paid Clarence Thomas aide via Venmo

The Guardian

Lawyers with supreme court business paid Clarence Thomas aide via Venmo

Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington – July 12, 2023

<span>Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters</span>
Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

Several lawyers who have had business before the supreme court, including one who successfully argued to end race-conscious admissions at universities, paid money to a top aide to Justice Clarence Thomas, according to the aide’s Venmo transactions. The payments appear to have been made in connection to Thomas’s 2019 Christmas party.

The payments to Rajan Vasisht, who served as Thomas’s aide from July 2019 to July 2021, seem to underscore the close ties between Thomas, who is embroiled in ethics scandals following a series of revelations about his relationship with a wealthy billionaire donor, and certain senior Washington lawyers who argue cases and have other business in front of the justice.

Vasisht’s Venmo account – which was public prior to requesting comment for this article and is no longer – show that he received seven payments in November and December 2019 from lawyers who previously served as Thomas legal clerks. The amount of the payments is not disclosed, but the purpose of each payment is listed as either “Christmas party”, “Thomas Christmas Party”, “CT Christmas Party” or “CT Xmas party”, in an apparent reference to the justice’s initials.

However, it remains unclear what the funds were for.

The lawyers who made the Venmo transactions were: Patrick Strawbridge, a partner at Consovoy McCarthy who recently successfully argued that affirmative action violated the US constitution; Kate Todd, who served as White House deputy counsel under Donald Trump at the time of the payment and is now a managing party of Ellis George Cipollone’s law office; Elbert Lin, the former solicitor general of West Virginia who played a key role in a supreme court case that limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions; and Brian Schmalzbach, a partner at McGuire Woods who has argued multiple cases before the supreme court.

Other lawyers who made payments include Manuel Valle, a graduate of Hillsdale College and the University of Chicago Law School who clerked for Thomas last year and is currently working as a managing associate at Sidley, and Liam Hardy, who was working at the Department of Justice’s office of legal counsel at the time the payment was made and now serves as an appeals court judge for the armed forces.

Will Consovoy, who died earlier this year, also made a payment. Consovoy clerked for Thomas during the 2008-09 term and was considered a rising star in conservative legal circles. After his death, the New York Times reported that Consovoy had come away from his time working for Thomas “with the conviction that the court was poised to tilt further to the right – and that constitutional rulings that had once been considered out of reach by conservatives, on issues like voting rights, abortion and affirmative action, would suddenly be within grasp”.

None of the lawyers who made payments responded to emailed questions from the Guardian.

According to his résumé, Vasisht’s duties included assisting the justice with the administrative functioning of his chambers, including personal correspondence and his personal and office schedule.

Vasisht did not respond to an emailed list of questions from the Guardian, including questions about who solicited the payments, how much individuals paid, and what the purpose of the payments was. The Guardian also asked questions about the nature of Thomas’s Christmas party, how many guests were invited and where the event took place.

Reached via WhatsApp and asked if he would make a statement, Vasisht replied: “No thank you, I do not want to be contacted.”

Legal experts said the payments to Vasisht raised red flags.

Richard Painter, who served as the chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W Bush administration and has been a vocal critic of the role of dark money in politics, said it was “not appropriate” for former Thomas law clerks who were established in private practice to – in effect – send money to the supreme court via Venmo.

“There is no excuse for it. Thomas could invite them to his Christmas party and he could attend Christmas parties, as long as they are not discussing any cases. His Christmas party should not be paid for by lawyers,” Painter said. “A federal government employee collecting money from lawyers for any reason … I don’t see how that works.”

Painter said he would possibly make an exception if recent law clerks were paying their own way for a party. But almost all of the lawyers who made the payments are senior litigators at big law firms.

Kedric Payne, the general counsel and senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, said that – based on available information – it was possible that the former clerks were paying their own party expenses, and not expenses for Thomas, which he believed was different than random lawyers in effect paying admission to an exclusive event to influence the judge.

He added: “But the point remains that the public is owed an explanation so they don’t have to speculate.”

Thomas has been embroiled in ethics scandals for weeks following bombshell revelations by ProPublica, the investigative outlet which published new revelations about how the billionaire conservative donor Harlan Crow has paid for lavish holidays for the justice, bought Thomas’s mother’s home, and paid for the judge’s great-nephew’s private school education. The stories have prompted an outcry on Capitol Hill, where Democrats have called for the passage of new ethics rules.

Thomas is known for having close relationships with his former clerks. A 2019 article in the Atlantic noted that the rightwing justice has a “vast network” of former clerks and mentees who are now serving as federal judges and served in senior positions throughout the Trump administration. The large presence of former Thomas clerks, the Atlantic noted, meant that the “notoriously silent justice may end up with an outsize voice in the legal system for years to come”.

Thomas’s chamber did not respond to a request for comment.

Got a tip on this story? Please contact Stephanie.Kirchgaessner@theguardian.com

How Hot Is the Sea Off Florida Right Now? Think 90s Fahrenheit.

The New York Times

How Hot Is the Sea Off Florida Right Now? Think 90s Fahrenheit.

Catrin Einhorn and Elena Shao – July 12, 2023

Beach goers take a dip in the Atlantic Ocean at Hollywood Beach, Monday, July 10, 2023, in Hollywood, Fla. The world’s oceans are already record hot, especially the Atlantic, water surrounding much of Florida is in the 90s, hitting 96 degrees Fahrenheit around the keys. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Florida’s coral reefs are facing what could be an unprecedented threat from a marine heat wave that is warming the Gulf of Mexico, pushing water temperatures into the 90s.

The biggest concern for coral isn’t just the current sea surface temperatures in the Florida Keys, even though they are the hottest on record. The daily average surface temperature off the Keys on Monday was just over 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32.4 Celsius), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The real worry, scientists say, is that it’s only July. Corals typically experience the most heat stress in August and September.

“We’re entering uncharted territories,” said Derek Manzello, an ecologist and the coordinator of NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch program.

Coral reefs are natural wonders that support myriad species and blunt damage from storms. In the United States, reefs generate economic benefits to the tune of $3.4 billion annually for fisheries, tourism and coastal protection, according to NOAA.

But oceans have absorbed some 90% of the additional heat caused by humans as we burn fossil fuels and destroy forests. When sea temperatures rise too high, corals bleach, expelling the algae they need for sustenance. If waters don’t cool quickly enough, or if bleaching events happen in close succession, the corals die. For decades, scientists have been warning that climate change is an existential threat to coral reefs. Already, the world has lost a huge proportion of its coral reefs, perhaps half since 1950.

“To be blunt, it can be very depressing,” Manzello said. “Unfortunately, I’m a scientist watching it happen.”

Marine heat isn’t just affecting the Gulf of Mexico. Globally, about 40% of the planet is experiencing a marine heat wave, according to Dillon Amaya, a physical scientist at NOAA who studies them.

“Florida is one patch in a terrible quilt right now,” Amaya said.

In part, that’s because the planet is entering a natural climate phenomenon known as El Niño, which typically brings warmer oceans. But now, El Niño is coming on top of long-term warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

While coral is especially vulnerable, heat waves harm untold species, and the effects are different around the world, as species are adapted to different temperature ranges.

In general, fish need more oxygen when the water is warmer. That’s a problem, because warmer water holds less oxygen.

“Large-scale fish kills are becoming more frequent as our climate changes,” said Martin Grosell, a professor of ichthyology at the University of Miami.

Coral reefs are particularly important because so many species rely on them. About 25% of all marine life, including more than 4,000 kinds of fish, depend on reefs at some point in their lives, according to NOAA.

While there aren’t yet reports of bleaching in Florida, it has already begun on reefs to the south, Manzello said, off Belize, Mexico, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Colombia.

Florida’s coral reef system stretches about 350 miles, from the St. Lucie inlet on the mainland south and west past the end of the Keys, and is frequented by sea turtles, manta rays, flounder and lobster.

What happens in Florida will depend on conditions over the next few weeks. Storms, which churn up deeper, cooler water and reduce sunshine, could provide relief, scientists say. El Niño periods are typically associated with below-average Atlantic hurricane seasons, but that might not hold true this year.

Researchers who care about coral are deeply troubled.

“I do lose sleep over it,” said Andrew Baker, a professor of marine biology at the University of Miami, where he directs the Coral Reef Futures Lab. “But I don’t want to write the eulogy just yet.”

Scientists like Baker are racing to come up with ways to help coral become more resilient to higher temperatures, for example by crossing Florida’s corals with varieties that seem to withstand more heat. But ultimately, the survival of corals and countless other species relies on the ability of humans to rein in climate change.

“You have to go to the root causes,” said Lizzie McLeod, the global oceans director at The Nature Conservancy. “We have to be reducing emissions, we have to move to clean energy, we have to reduce subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.”

In Key West, beachgoers expressed surprise at the warmth of the ocean, comparing it to bath water. Lynsi Wavra, a captain and ecotour guide, said her mother had lived there for 20 years and had witnessed the coral declining.

“She’d come home crying,” Wavra said.

Russian Military Hit by Uncertainty as One General Is Killed and Another Remains Absent

The New York Times

Russian Military Hit by Uncertainty as One General Is Killed and Another Remains Absent

Paul Sonne – July 12, 2023

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Gen. Sergei Surovikin. (Reuters)

One top commander has disappeared since a mutiny. Another was killed in an airstrike in Ukraine. Another accused his leadership of treachery after being fired. And a fourth former commander was gunned down while out on a jog in what may have been an organized hit.

The ranks of the Russian military have continued to be roiled by instability in the days since a short-lived insurrection by Wagner mercenaries three weeks ago, as pressures from Moscow’s nearly 17-month war reverberate across the armed forces.

On Wednesday, mystery deepened over the fate of Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the country’s former top commander in Ukraine, who has been dubbed “General Armageddon” for his ruthless tactics, and who has not been seen since the Wagner rebellion.

One of the country’s top lawmakers said, when pressed by a reporter, that the general was “taking a rest.”

“He is unavailable right now,” the lawmaker, Andrei Kartapolov, the head of the Russian Duma’s defense committee, added in a video posted on the Telegram messaging app before hurrying away from the reporter.

Surovikin was considered to be an ally of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary company, whose forces mounted the brief insurrection in late June aimed at toppling Russia’s military leadership before standing down in a deal with the Kremlin.

The New York Times reported that U.S. officials believe Surovikin had advance knowledge of the mutiny but do not know whether he participated. In the hours after the rebellion began, Russian authorities quickly released a video of the general calling on the Wagner fighters to stand down.

The lawmaker’s enigmatic comment about Surovikin came two days after Russian authorities released the first footage of the country’s top military officer, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, since the insurrection.

In the video, Gerasimov was receiving a report from the Russian Aerospace Forces, which are run by Surovikin. But the person giving the update in the footage was Surovikin’s deputy, Col. Gen. Viktor Afzalov.

Surovikin’s location is just one of the many mysteries that have arisen since the mutiny. Despite a deal announced by the Kremlin, under which Prigozhin would depart Russia for Belarus and avoid prosecution, the mercenary tycoon appears to have remained in Russia.

The Kremlin disclosed this week that Prigozhin and his top commanders met with President Vladimir Putin five days after the mutiny, raising many questions about what sort of deal had been struck with the former insurrectionists. On Wednesday, the Ministry of Defense said that Russian armed forces had been collecting Wagner’s weapons, ammunition, and military equipment.

The matériel is expected to be restored for further use. So far, the mercenary group has handed over thousands of small arms and heavy weapons, the ministry said, including rocket launch and mortar systems, anti-tank guns and multipurpose armored tractors.

Russia, meanwhile, received another blow to its top military ranks. Lt. Gen. Oleg Tsokov, the deputy commander of Russia’s Southern Military District, was killed in Ukraine during a Monday night missile strike on the occupied city of Berdiansk, one of the highest-level losses for Russia during the course of the war, Ukrainian authorities announced.

A Russian lawmaker and retired general, Andrei Gurulyov, confirmed Tsokov’s death in an appearance on state television Wednesday, saying he “died heroically.” The death recalled the early days of the war, when Ukrainian officials said they had killed about 12 generals on the front lines.

Gurulyov also released a recording late Wednesday of the commander of Russia’s 58th Combined Arms Army, Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov, explaining to his troops why he was relieved from commanding the unit, which is fighting on the front in Ukraine near Zaporizhzhia.

Popov described a “difficult situation with the senior leadership,” which led to him being relieved after he brought up problems on the battlefield, including the lack of counter battery fire and artillery reconnaissance stations, as well as deaths and injuries the force is suffering from enemy artillery fire.

Popov appeared to take aim at Gerasimov without naming him, saying that while Ukrainian forces couldn’t break through his army unit from the front, “our senior commander hit us from the rear, treacherously and vilely decapitating” the army unit “at the most difficult and tense moment.”

Russian authorities also arrested a Ukrainian man Wednesday on suspicion of gunning down a former Russian submarine commander, Capt. 2nd Rank Stanislav Rzhitsky, this week in the southern city of Krasnodar, where he had been serving as the deputy director of the city’s mobilization office.

Russian news outlets reported that Rzhitsky, who posted his running routes publicly on the exercise service Strava, was shot to death while jogging in a Krasnodar park.

On Tuesday, the day after the body was found, Ukrainian military intelligence said on its official Telegram account that Rzhitsky had commanded a submarine that was involved in missile attacks on Ukraine. Friends and relatives, however, told Russian news outlets that he had left active-duty military service before the February 2022 invasion.

The state news agency RIA Novosti, citing an anonymous source in Russian law enforcement, reported that the man arrested Wednesday had admitted under questioning to being recruited by Ukrainian intelligence to carry out the killing.

Rzhitsky’s name had been entered in the online database Myrotvorets, which posts photographs, social media accounts and telephone numbers of people considered to have committed crimes against Ukraine.

A red stamp was added over his photograph on the database reading, “Liquidated.”