Members of white nationalist group charged with planning riot at Idaho pride event
Joseph Ax – June 11, 2022
Group of men arrested after they were found in the rear of a U Haul van in Coeur d’Alene
(Reuters) – Police in northwest Idaho arrested more than two dozen members of a white nationalist group on Saturday and charged them with planning to stage a riot near a LGBTQ pride event, authorities said.
Lee White, police chief in the city of Coeur D’Alene, told reporters 31 members of Patriot Front face misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to riot and additional charges could come later.
A local resident spotted the men, wearing white masks and carrying shields, getting into a U-Haul truck and called police, telling the emergency dispatcher it “looked like a little army,” according to White. Police pulled the truck over about 10 minutes after the call.
Video taken at the scene of the arrest and posted online showed about 20 men kneeling next to the truck with their hands bound, wearing similar khaki pants, blue shirts, white masks and baseball caps.
Police recovered at least one smoke grenade and documents that included an “operations plan” from the truck, as well as shields and shin guards, all of which made their intentions clear, White said.
“They came to riot downtown,” he said.
The men come from at least 11 states, White said, including Texas, Colorado and Virginia.
Patriot Front formed in the aftermath of the 2017 white nationalist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, when it broke off from another extremist organization, Vanguard America, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
But as the high court prepares to decide another major climate case in the coming days and resolve a controversy over water pollution this fall, the mood among environmental groups is more gloomy – and the sense of foreboding, experts say, is likely justified.
That’s not only because the Supreme Court is more conservative than it has been in decades – and perhaps more willing to reconsider precedent – but also because environmental rules are caught up in a broader fight over whether federal agencies may regulate businesses without explicit approval from Congress.
The answer to that question will have sweeping implications for President Joe Biden’s administration beyond the Environmental Protection Agency if Republicans capture control of Congress this year. Presidents of both parties often turn to agency regulations when they’re unable to move their agenda through Congress – even though those policies frequently run into trouble in court.
“Environmentalists are holding their breath to see just how bad it will be,” said Robert Percival, director of the environmental law program at the University of Maryland. “It seems likely that they’re going to be making major cutbacks in the EPA’s authority.”
Power plant emissions
In one of the most significant climate cases to reach the high court in years, the justices will soon decide whether the EPA may regulate carbon emissions from power plants. Nineteen states, led by West Virginia, challenged climate regulations approved by the Obama administration and later abandoned by President Donald Trump.
The decision will land as scientists and international groups issue dire warnings about the Earth’s changing climate. A United Nations report in April found that without significant and immediate emission reductions, limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius – a threshold that risks more severe effects – would be “beyond reach.”
As the Supreme Court prepares to decide a major climate case in the coming days and resolve a controversy over water pollution this fall, the mood among environmental groups is more gloomy.
In the eviction case, the Trump and Biden administrations relied on a 1944 public health law that lets officials “make and enforce such regulations” as they deem “necessary to prevent the…spread of communicable diseases.” But the law, the court said, doesn’t say anything specifically about halting evictions during a pandemic.
“It strains credulity to believe” Congress meant to give the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “the sweeping authority” it used to impose the moratorium, a majority of the court ruled in August. “We expect Congress to speak clearly when authorizing an agency to exercise powers of ‘vast economic and political significance.'”
President Barack Obama’s EPA required states to reduce emissions by shifting power plants away from coal. The Supreme Court blocked enforcement of those rules in 2016 and Trump repealed them a year later, prompting a new round of lawsuits. While the court’s three liberal justices signaled support for the EPA during oral arguments in February, the court’s six-member conservative bloc was harder to read.
One of the issues the justices debated then was the “major questions doctrine,” the principle that Congress can delegate some decisions to agencies but not those that involve “vast” economic or political matters. One sticky issue with that doctrine is that there’s no clear definition of “vast significance.” Those who oppose the doctrine say that if a law is vague then Congress intended to give agencies wide deference to interpret it.
Another case the high court will take up later this year deals with the 1972 Clean Water Act which requires Americans to obtain a permit before putting certain pollutants into the “waters of the United States.” The law doesn’t define exactly what that term means.
In one of the most significant climate cases to reach the high court in years, the justices will soon decide whether the EPA may regulate carbon emissions from power plants.
The couple told the court last year that the agency’s interpretation was “emblematic of all that has gone wrong with the implementation of the Clean Water Act.” Their lot, they said, doesn’t include a stream, river, or lake – the kind of navigable waterways usually covered by the federal requirements.
But the Biden administration countered in court filings that EPA’s designation was made eight years before the family bought the property and that the couple dumped nearly 2,000 cubic yards of gravel and sand to fill the wetlands anyway. The wetlands are adjacent to water that eventually feeds into Priest Lake, the government concluded.
‘Pushing the boundaries of their powers’
Legal experts point to several factors they say explain why complicated questions about agency power pop up so often in environmental cases. Some of it has to do with how the legal system works broadly as it weighs the impact of laws and regulations.
One of the challenges environmentalists face in federal court is demonstrating the cost of not protecting the environment. It’s easier for industries to quantify the expense of updating a power plant to reduce emissions, for instance, than it is to tally up the costs that climate change may impose on an entire society.
“Because we all bear the costs of pollution, the benefits of regulation are often spread broadly, while the costs of reducing pollution are concentrated where they belong – on polluters,” said Sambhav Sankar, senior vice president of programs at Earthjustice, an environmental law group.
And while there’s often an economic incentive for industries to challenge environmental regulations, there’s not always a similarly powerful force to support those rules.
“So that means that this is always a target for pro-industry conservatives,” Sankar said. “And when these cases show up in court, the court sometimes struggles to appreciate the value of regulation to society as a whole.”
Adam White, a senior fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said the agencies themselves also have a role to play. Administrations may decide that getting legislation through Congress is impossible and so turn to regulations instead. Lawmakers may not be compelled to take a difficult vote if they think the administration is going to act on its own. And agencies, sometimes, may just overstep their authority.
“The agencies with a lot of political wind in their sails have a kind of emergency mentality that they need to do as much as they can as fast as they can,” said White, who is also the co-director of the Center for the Study of the Administrative State at George Mason University. “They end up pushing the boundaries of their powers.”
Another problem with deferring to agencies, White argued, is that their leadership changes every time a new president is sworn into office.
The upside to that, he said, is that presidential elections “have consequences.”
“But the downside is that every four or eight years you get a total overhaul in regulatory policy,” White said. “At some point, everybody – the courts, the private sector, all of us – we can look at this and say, ‘That’s no way to run a country.'”
Obama warns the Ukraine war is ‘far from over’ and the ‘costs will continue to mount’
Jake Epstein and John Haltiwanger – June 10, 2022
Former US President Barack Obama speaks during the Copenhagen Democracy Summit at The Royal Danish Playhouse (Skuespilhuset) in Copenhagen, on June 10. 2022.Photo by PHILIP DAVALI/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images Obama warns the Ukraine war is ‘far from over’ and the ‘costs will continue to mount’
Former US President Obama warned that Russia’s war in Ukraine is “far from over.”
Speaking at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Friday, he said the costs will “continue to mount.”
According to Ukrainian officials, hundreds of troops on both sides are dying every day.
Former US President Barack Obama on Friday cautioned that Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine will not end anytime soon and warned it will have far-reaching consequences.
“Make no mistake, this war is far from over. The costs will continue to mount,” Obama said during a speech at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Friday, adding that the trajectory of the war remains unpredictable and urged the world to remain “strong, steadfast and sustained” in its support until the conflict ends.
Obama praised the fierce resistance of Ukrainian forces and civilians against the aggression of Russian troops, citing their “courage” as a reason that President Vladimir Putin has been unable to achieve his desired strategic objectives within the eastern European country.
“They’ve united to defend not just their sovereignty, but their democratic identity,” he said. “Their actions have rallied much of the world behind the values of self-determination and human dignity — it’s inspiring.”
The war, Obama said, has turned Russia into an international pariah — cutting the country off from resources and forcing its “best and brightest” to leave.
Obama’s warning, however, underscores the current status of the 15-week-long war, which has become a slow-moving, scorched-earth, and bloody campaign in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
Ukraine said earlier this week that over 40,000 civilians have been killed or injured since the February 24 invasion — a figure much higher than the latest United Nations tally of roughly 9,500 casualties.
The UN, however, has warned in all its casualty reports that it “believes that the actual figures are considerably higher, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration.”
Meanwhile, on the battlefield, officials have said both Ukraine and Russia are losing hundreds of troops each day.
The Ukraine war has also prompted the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. Well over seven million people have fled across Ukraine’s border since the war began, according to the UN refugee agency, and there are close to five million Ukrainian refugees across Europe.
There are also concerns that the war will catalyze a global food crisis, given Ukraine is a major exporter of wheat, sunflower oil, and corn. Russia’s blockade on Ukraine’s Black Sea ports is threatening the food supplies of countries around the world, particularly in Africa and the Middle East.
The roots of the war in Ukraine can be traced back to 2014, when Obama was still in the White House. That year, Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea. The Kremlin in 2014 also began supporting rebels in a war against Ukrainian forces in the Donbas. By the time Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February, roughly one-third of the Donbas was controlled by the Kremlin-backed rebels.
Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine in 2014 led to historic tensions between Moscow and Washington, which have been on the rise ever since.
The Obama administration slapped sanctions on Russia over the 2014 annexation of Crimea, but they didn’t go nearly as far as more recent economic penalties imposed on Russia by the Biden administration and European countries in response to the broader invasion of Ukraine this year.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has criticized the West over its response to the annexation of Crimea, suggesting it paved the way for the wider war.
“If the world had punished Russia for what it did in 2014, there would be none of the horrors of this invasion of Ukraine in 2022,” Zelenskyy said in late March. “We need to fix these terrible mistakes now.”
Ukraine says so many Russians were killed that the Russian army is storing dead soldiers in a meatpacking plant turned morgue
Cheryl Teh – June 10, 2022
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The Ukrainian military says the Russians converted a meatpacking plant in Melitopol into a morgue.
However, this plant has now run out of space to store dead soldiers, per the Ukrainian army.
The Ukrainians said this pushed the Russian army to search frantically for industrial refrigerators.
Ukraine says that the Russian army has lost so many soldiers that it has run out of room to store their dead in the occupied city of Melitopol.
A press release from the intelligence division of the Ukrainian defense ministry said on Thursday that the Russians were looking for “additional refrigerators” to store the bodies of their dead soldiers after the Russians ran out of space in a meat-packing plant-turned-morgue.
“The occupation administration of Melitopol is urgently looking for additional freezers and industrial refrigerators. It is known that the city meat-packing plant, which was converted into a morgue, is already completely filled with the bodies of the killed occupiers and can no longer accept more,” read the Ukrainian defense ministry’s statement.
According to the Ukrainian government, the Russian ministry started repurposing the meat-packing plant on June 6 and converted it into a morgue. According to the Ukrainians, the owners of the meat-packing plant were informed they would have to hand over the plant free of charge to preserve the bodies of fallen Russians.
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The Ukrainians added that the Russian bodies were being brought to the meat-packing plant from outside Melitopol. The Ukrainians said these soldiers likely died in fierce fighting near the cities of Polohy and Huliaipole in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region.
“These events are associated with heavy losses of the occupiers in manpower,” the Ukrainian defense ministry wrote. “In addition, the long-term storage of the bodies of those killed is due to the intentions of the Russian leadership to hide the real scale of losses from the Russian electorate.”
Russian military moves in the Arctic worry the U.S. and NATO
Melissa Rossi, Contributor – June 10, 2022
In late May, Russian ambassador at large Nikolai Korchunov informed state media that the situation in the Arctic was becoming perilous. He wasn’t referring to melting polar ice due to climate change. Instead, he warned of “a very disturbing trend that is turning the Arctic into an international arena of military operations,” and blamed NATO for expanding its footprint in the region.
“That’s a typical Russian play,” retired Finnish Maj. Gen. Pekka Toveri told Yahoo News. “Western activities in the Arctic have been very mild.” In March, however, NATO held “Exercise Cold Response” in Norway. With 35,000 fighters from 28 countries, it wasNATO’s biggest Arctic exercise in 30 years. Yet the alliance, unlike Russia, has no new plans for permanent forces or military bases in the region, Toveri said, while acknowledging that “more patrolling and more exercises have given Russia reason to point the finger and claim the West is the problem.”
The Arktichesky Trilistnik [Arctic Trefoil] military base on Alexandra Land Island in Arkhangelsk Region, Russia. (Russian Defence Ministry Press Office/TASS via ZUMA Press)
Western experts say that Russia, the largest of the eight countries surrounding the Arctic, is behind the militarization in the mineral-rich region, which supplies 20% of Russia’s GDP. For the past decade, the Kremlin has been revamping shuttered Soviet bases, forming a necklace of dozens of defensive outposts (by some counts upwards of 50) from the Barents Sea to territories near Alaska, and building new facilities like the ultra-modern Trefoil, its northernmost base that became fully operational last year. The U.S. and NATO have looked on in consternation as Russia has established a new “Arctic command” and four new Arctic brigades, refurbished airfields and deep-water ports, and keeps launching mock military attacks on Nordic countries in between jamming GPS and radar during NATO exercises. It has also, according to the U.S. State Department, been trying out “novel weapon systems” in the Arctic.
“We’ve seen increased Russian military activity in the Arctic for some time,” a senior State Department official told Yahoo News. However, the situation is ratcheting up, and not just because Russia keeps testing new hypersonic weapons in the Arctic, launching a hypersonic missile there just days after Korchunov made his remarks. Before the year’s end, the State Department official added, Russia plans to launch 19 more tests, including of new weapons. “Seeing Russia’s aggressive and unpredictable behavior, particularly since the Ukraine invasion, has really heightened concerns about Russian activity” in the high north, the official said.
With relations between Moscow and Western governments the iciest in decades due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, analysts wonder if the Arctic will become the next powder keg. Russia’s expansion of bases, weapons testing and boosted manpower in the Arctic comes as Finland and Sweden have applied for NATO membership. If accepted, that would further isolate Russia in the Arctic, making it the only non-NATO country in the region, further boosting the chances of unintended incidents, analysts say.
Author of the recently released report “The Militarization of Russian Polar Politics,” Mathieu Boulègue, a research fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House, told Yahoo News that his biggest fear is a nuclear mishap in the region.
“If you look at the long list of nuclear assets — whether it is icebreakers, strategic submarines, floating nuclear power plants or spent fuel — there is a lot of risk of nuclear incidents,” he said. “Incidents like this are mitigated in peacetime, when you’re talking to the different stakeholders. But the problem is that we don’t really talk [with] Russia very well these days. So this further increases the risk of miscalculation and errors.”
The Kola Peninsula, for instance, a Kentucky-sized thumb of Russian land abutting Finland, is the most nuclearized place on the planet. The headquarters for Russia’s Northern Fleet, which accounts for two-thirds of Russia’s second-strike maritime nuclear capabilities, the Kola Peninsula marks the entry to the Russian part of the Arctic and holds three military bases and repositories for nuclear arms.
A new hypersonic cruise missile is launched by a frigate of the Russian Navy from the Barents Sea. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
Another third of Russia’s nukes on the sea, however, are located at the far Eastern end of the Arctic, Boulègue added — with Russia’s Pacific Fleet, headquartered in Vladivostok, but some vessels are based in Kamchatka, just across from Alaska. Those facilities could pose future problems for the U.S., Boulègue said, by creating “a flashpoint of tension, should Russia decide to contest American access to the Arctic.”
Ian Williams, deputy director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, also points to Wrangel Island — 300 miles from Alaska — where Russia has installed a new air search radar system and may be renovating an airfield, as well as bases in eastern Siberia. “They’ve got plenty of places to put stuff if they want to threaten Alaska,” he noted.
The growing uneasiness about Russian activities in the Arctic, where it is pursuing a new Northern Sea Route made possible by melting ice due to climate change, has motivated the U.S. armed forces to rethink their Arctic strategies. Last year, the Army published “Regaining Arctic Dominance,” its first strategic plan for the far north. This week the Army announced it is activating a new 12,000-troop-strong Arctic airborne division — the first time it has created a new division in 70 years. Troops are training in Alaska, learning to fight in the brutal polar climes — where temperatures can drop to negative 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
The U.S. Navy is conducting Arctic maneuvers with ships and submarines and more — and the Air Force is sending the bulk of its F-35s to Alaska, saying the state “will be home to more advanced fighters than any other location in the world.” Congress approved funding for six new “ice breakers,” ships that can plow through frozen waters. And new satellites meant to enhance polar communications and offer fresh “eyes” on Russia are being launched, along with new radar systems being constructed from Alaska to Denmark.
An Icebreaker cuts a path for a cargo ship near Nagurskoye, Russia. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP)
All of these moves are welcomed by Toveri, who believes that the West cannot appease Putin and expect “to have the peace dividend from the Cold War times.” He added that after the Soviet Union fell, many Nordic countries, including Sweden, shrunk their militaries and slashed spending, while countries such as Denmark, shut down their missile defense radar systems, which they are again rebuilding.
Such moves, however, rankle the Kremlin, which sees them as provocative. Earlier this year, Russian spy planes violated Sweden and Danish airspace. In March 2018 and February 2019, Russian bomber jets targeted Norway’s Globus radar system in mock air attacks, barreling towards the domed structures before abruptly turning back. Russia’s problems with Norway extend far beyond its snooping abilities, however.
The Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, which lies midway between Russia and Greenland, is a case in point. Beyond Russia’s historical territorial claims to the area, the archipelago is also home to a radar and satellite system capable of tracking ballistic missile paths that is seen as key to NATO communications. Russian politicians occasionally threaten to just snatch the archipelago, like they did with Crimea.
“If there’s going to be a dispute in the Arctic, it will probably be here,” said Williams of CSIS, and the U.S. State Department official underscored that concern.
Telecommunication domes of the Kongsberg Satellite Services in Svalbard Archipelago, Norway. (Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images)
Timo Koivurova, research professor of the Arctic Centre at Finland’s Lapland University, told Yahoo News he laments that “relations between Russia and the Western states have deteriorated and Cold War thinking has started to prevail.” He wonders if concerns are being overblown, however. “If you are talking with a security-oriented scholar, he might argue that the third world war is coming out of the Arctic. But it’s very difficult for me to imagine that because if you think about Russia’s military objectives in the region, there are not many military drivers for Russia, other than this kind of balancing with NATO.”
Williams likewise sees many parts of the Arctic picture as undecided, including the U.S. military commitment to the region, which is a pricy undertaking.
“Keeping an F-35 operating in the Arctic is a lot more expensive than keeping it operating in Hawaii,” he said. He notes that the U.S. is concerned about Russia’s strong-arming control of the Northern Sea Route, an act that the U.S. believes would violate international maritime law. “The big question is, would we extend ourselves out into that area? Right now, it’s an open question.”
“The last thing Russia needs is a hot war in the Arctic,” Nima Khorrami, research associate at the Arctic Institute, told Yahoo News. “Because if that happened, no one would come in to invest.” And right now Putin, who has stamped the idea of Russia’s Arctic identity into the national psyche, wants Asian investments in the region, he said. Any kind of military showdown, added Khorrami, “and the grand strategy of turning the Northern Sea Route into a new Suez Canal is gone.”
Biden just declared heat pumps and solar panels essential to national defense – here’s why and the challenges ahead
Daniel Cohan, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rice University – June 10, 2022
President Joe Biden authorized use of the Defense Production Act to ramp up production of several climate-friendly technologies. Werner Slocum/NREL
Solar panels, heat pumps and hydrogen are all building blocks of a clean energy economy. But are they truly “essential to the national defense”?
President Joe Biden proclaimed that they are in early June when he authorized using the Defense Production Act to ramp up their production in the U.S., along with insulation and power grid components.
As an environmental engineering professor, I agree that these technologies are essential to mitigating our risks from climate change and overreliance on fossil fuels. However, efforts to expand production capabilities must be accompanied by policies to stimulate demand if Biden hopes to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.
Energy and the Defense Production Act
The United States enacted the Defense Production Act of 1950 at the start of the Korean War to secure materials deemed essential to national defense. Presidents soon recognized that essential materials extend far beyond weapons and ammunition. They have invoked the act to secure domestic supplies of everything from communications equipment to medical resources and baby formula.
For energy, past presidents used the act to expand fossil fuel supplies, not transition away from them. Lyndon Johnson used it to refurbish oil tankers during the 1967 Arab oil embargo, and Richard Nixon to secure materials for the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline in 1974. Even when Jimmy Carter used the act in 1980 to seek substitutes for oil, synthetic fuels made from coal and natural gas were a leading focus.
Today, the focus is on transitioning away from all fossil fuels, a move considered essential for confronting two key threats – climate change and volatile energy markets.
Utility-scale solar is now cheaper than fossil fuels. This installation is at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Ethan Miller/Getty Images
The Department of Defense has identified numerous national security risks arising from climate change. Those include threats to the water supply, food production and infrastructure, which may trigger migration and competition for scarce resources. Fossil fuels are the dominant source of greenhouse gas emissions that are driving global warming.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine highlights additional risks of relying on fossil fuels. Russia and other adversaries are among the leading producers of these fuels. Overreliance on fossil fuels leaves the United States and its allies vulnerable to threats and to price shocks in volatile markets.
Even as the world’s top producer of oil and natural gas, the United States has been rocked by price spikes as our allies shun Russian fuels.
Targeting 4 pillars of clean energy
Transitioning from fossil fuels to cleaner energy can mitigate these risks.
As I explain in my book, “Confronting Climate Gridlock,” building a clean energy economy requires four mutually reinforcing pillars – efficiency, clean electricity, electrification and clean fuels.
Efficiency shrinks energy demand and costs along with the burdens on the other pillars. Clean electricity eliminates greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and enables the electrification of vehicles, heating and industry. Meanwhile, clean fuels will be needed for airplanes, ships and industrial processes that can’t easily be electrified.
The technologies targeted by Biden’s actions are well aligned with these pillars.
Insulation is crucial to energy efficiency. Solar panels provide one of the cheapest and cleanest options for electricity. Power grid components are needed to integrate more wind and solar into the energy mix.
Heat pumps, which can both heat and cool a home, are far more efficient than traditional furnaces and replace natural gas or heating oil with electricity. Electrolyzers produce hydrogen for use as a fuel or a feedstock for chemicals.
Generating demand is essential
Production is only one step. For this effort to succeed, the U.S. must also ramp up demand.
Stimulating demand spurs learning by doing, which drives down costs, spurring greater demand. A virtuous cycle of rising adoption of technologies and falling costs can arise, as it has for wind and solar power, batteries and other technologies.
The technologies targeted by Biden differ in their readiness for this virtuous cycle to work.
Insulation is already cheap and abundantly produced domestically. What’s needed in this case are policies like building codes and incentives that can stimulate demand by encouraging more use of insulation to help make homes and buildings more energy efficient, not more capacity for production.
Electrolyzers face a tougher road. They’re expensive, and using them to make hydrogen from electricity and water for now costs far more than making hydrogen from natural gas – a process that produces greenhouse gas emissions. The Department of Energy aims to slash electrolyzer costs by 80% within a decade. Until it succeeds, there will be little demand for the electrolyzers that Biden hopes to see produced.
Why heat pumps are most likely to benefit
That leaves heat pumps as the technology most likely to benefit from Biden’s declaration.
Heat pumps can slash energy use, but they also cost more upfront and are unfamiliar to many contractors and consumers while technologies remain in flux.
Pairing use of the Defense Production Act with customer incentives, increased government purchasing and funding for research and development can create a virtuous cycle of rising demand, improving technologies and falling costs.
Heat pumps, which can both heat and cool, are far more efficient than traditional furnaces and air conditioning. Phyxter.ai/Flickr, CC BY
Clean energy is indeed essential to mitigating the risks posed by climate change and volatile markets. Invoking the Defense Production Act can bolster supply, but the government will also have to stimulate demand and fund targeted research to spur the virtuous cycles needed to accelerate the energy transition.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Daniel Cohan, Rice University.
Daniel Cohan serves on the Board of Scientific Counselors for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He has received research funding from the Energy Foundation, the Carbon Hub, and various federal agencies.
The gunman in that case, 22-year-old Jacob Tyler Roberts, opened fire in the crowded shopping mall using a Stag Arms AR-15 rifle he had stolen from an acquaintance. In addition to Forsyth, Cindy Ann Yuille was killed in the incident and 15-year-old Kristina Shevchenko was injured. The gunman died by suicide at the scene.
PHOTO: Police and medics work the scene of a multiple shooting at Clackamas Town Center Mall in Portland, Ore., Dec. 11, 2012. A gunman is dead after opening fire in the shopping mall, killing two people and wounding another, sheriff’s deputies said. (Greg Wahl Stephens/AP, FILE)
The parade of mass shootings since that fateful day in 2012 have stirred up a tide of emotions within Kemp, he said, including the recent massacres in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas. And Kemp said his resolve to get measures enacted to keep guns, especially high-powered AR-15-style rifles, out of the hands of those he says shouldn’t possess them, becomes stronger with each nightmarish mass shooting.
PHOTO: People embrace outside the scene of a mass shooting at a Tops supermarket a day earlier, in Buffalo, N.Y., May 15, 2022. (Matt Rourke/AP, FILE)
Kemp is one of several longtime gun owners ABC News spoke with who say they want gun control laws and reform. Gun rights extremists, with, they say, the NRA as their bullhorn — no longer represent the majority of gun owners in the U.S.
But proponents of the guns say that they are essentially no different than other hunting rifles, are used responsibly for sport and are not the weapons of war that opponents make them out to be.
PHOTO: Flowers, toys, and other objects are seen at a memorial for the victims of the deadliest mass shooting in nearly a decade resulting in the death of 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, May 29, 2022. (Veronica Cardenas/Reuters)
Defining ‘AR-15’
An AR-15 is a type of semi-automatic rifle, firing one bullet with each pull of the trigger — a contrast with illegal automatic rifles, which fire continuously as long as the trigger is depressed.
“AR-15 style rifles can be made for a variety of bullet calibers and to accept a variety of different capacity ammunition magazines,” said Jake Charles, lecturing fellow and executive director of the Center for Firearms Law at Duke University School of Law.
The guns, which have skyrocketed in popularity, are often referred to as “assault rifles,” but whether that is an apt description depends on who you ask.
“Assault weapon” is a legal term of art. Under the 1994 federal assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004, it was defined as “Semiautomatic rifles having the ability to accept a detachable ammunition magazine and at least two of the following traits” — including a bayonet mount or grenade launcher.
Video: Man says he refused to sell AR-15 style rifle to Nikolas Cruz in 2018
0:32 1:16 Gun shop owner says he turned away Florida shooting suspect from buying AR-15 And I said, well, I don’t sell any farms to
“It’s not a simple yes or no,” as to whether an AR-15-style gun is an assault rifle, Charles told ABC News.
“Often an assault rifle refers to an automatic rifle, like the military’s M4 or M16. In that sense, the AR-15 is not one because it’s not an automatic weapon,” Charles said. “But sometimes an assault rifle is the description for a rifle that is classified as an ‘assault weapon’ under federal or state laws restricting those weapons. For example, under the 1994 federal assault weapons ban, Colt’s AR-15 was specifically listed as a prohibited assault weapon.”
According to Erik Longnecker, the deputy chief of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ office of public and governmental affairs, public affairs division, “assault rifle” and “assault weapon” are not defined under current federal firearms law.
“Assault rifle and assault weapon are both political terms that are not defined in the Gun Control Act or the National Firearms Act,” he said.
The ATF also does not have a definition for AR-15. “That is a specific model of rifle originally manufactured by Colt who also holds the trademark to that term,” according Longnecker.
“Colt began manufacturing these types of rifles in the 1960s; other manufacturers began producing AR-type variants in the 1970s,” Longnecker added.
PHOTO: In this Aug. 15, 2012 file photo three variations of the AR-15 assault rifle are displayed at the California Department of Justice in Sacramento, Calif. (Rich Pedroncelli/AP, FILE)
According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearm industry trade association: “The ‘AR’ in ‘AR-15’ rifle stands for ArmaLite rifle, after the company that developed it in the 1950s. ‘AR’ does NOT stand for ‘assault rifle’ or ‘automatic rifle.’ AR-15-style rifles are NOT ‘assault weapons’ or ‘assault rifles.'”
NSSF says that there are millions of such guns in circulation.
Gun owners weigh in
Still, some of the gun owners who spoke with ABC News questioned the need to possess the powerful weapons.
Kemp says the ultimate purpose of an AR-15-style rifle, the gun that was used to killed his brother-in-law, is they are designed to do “a lot of damage.”
And they have.
Although handguns are involved in most shooting deaths, the use of semi-automatic rifles is climbing, said Louis Klarevas, a research professor at Teachers College, Columbia University who specializes in gun violence and safety. In the 1980s, less than 20% of gun massacres involved semi-automatic rifles according to a report he issued as an expert witness in a California court case over banning assault weapons.
In a recent TikTok video that went viral, Benjamin Beers, who said he is a former Marine who served in Kuwait, and was stationed in Camp Pendleton, California, declared he was handing over his AR-15 and 9mm gun to authorities to have them destroyed.
Beers told ABC News the decision was sparked in part by the Uvalde shooting. He also said he wants weapons like the AR-15 banned.
“I would love to see semi-automatic rifles such as the AR-15 banned, if not banned, some major laws changed. It’s the single most effective method used [for killing] … to committing such heinous acts of violence. And we’ve seen it for decades,” he said.
Steve Labbé is also a legal gun owner. He says he is for an outright ban on assault rifles, but thinks such legislation would be tricky to enact.
“The ban of assault weapons is a tricky play on words. I say this because assault weapons can and do use the same ammunition as hunting rifles, and that is where the people who overstate the Second Amendment rights find the gray area.”
“We need to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. And if we can’t ban assault weapons, then we should raise the age to purchase them from 18 to 21, strengthen background checks, enact safe storage laws and red flag laws. Repeal the immunity that protects gun manufacturers from liability, address the mental health crisis,” Biden said.
Congress has remained in a stalemate with Democrats wanting to push gun control legislation, and most Republicans rejecting those proposals. This week, however, the House passed the “Protect Our Kids Act” which has sweeping gun reform measures including raising the age limit to purchase semi-automatic weapons and banning high-capacity magazines.
Gun rights advocates often tout the AR-15-style rifle as a hunting tool but the gun owners who spoke with ABC News, most of whom hunt, refute that for most hunting scenarios.
“Hunting and self-preservation have no need for high-capacity cartridges, no need for semi-automatic and automatic phases of fire,” Labbé said. “That way, someone who takes offense to their specific type of ammunition being called out because an AR-15 uses the same ammunition (the typical, ‘I hunt rats with an AR-15’) can feel safe in the knowledge that their hunting gun isn’t affected by this ban. We should also acknowledge that hunting guns can be converted to assault weapons as well,” he said.
Kemp also said he wouldn’t use an assault rifle to hunt because of what it does to flesh.
“The way an AR-15 round enters the body … it’s designed to tumble and create a lot of tissue damage,” he said.
In a statement to ABC News, an NRA spokesperson said: “The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in America. Tens of millions of Americans legally own AR-15s for a variety of lawful purposes, including self-defense.”
The gun rights group also stated: “There’s been a growing trend in the number of hunters who choose to hunt with an AR-15” and that “the focus and burden of our laws ought to be on prosecuting violent criminals and in ensuring those with dangerous behavioral issues don’t have access to any firearm.”
PHOTO: Christine Barnes hunts for deer, Oct. 27, 2018 in Acton, Maine. (Portland Press Herald via Getty Images, FILE )
In the case of the shooter who killed his brother-in-law, Kemp said, “The young man who was the shooter … there were no mental health issues. That’s just a bogus argument.”
‘God-given right’ argument and proposed solutions
“There needs to be drastic changes taken with this weapon,” Beers said. He said the guns can be custom-built and easily ordered online with a 30-round magazine.
“And it’s always just stuck with me, this isn’t right. This is the same weapon I got issued in the Marines.” he said.
Kemp said that when his family found out that the active shooter who killed his brother-in-law stole the AR-15 which was in a home unsecured, “my first question to the officer …[was] doesn’t Oregon have a safe storage gun law? He said, no. The guy that left the gun on locked and loaded … zero consequences.”
Kemp says he is not for an all-out ban of AR-15-type rifles, but said the weapon should fall under the National Firearms Act, which places limits on ownership of “shotguns and rifles having barrels less than 18 inches in length, certain firearms described as ‘any other weapons,’ machine guns, and firearm mufflers and silencers.”
Having AR-15-style weapons covered under the NFA, would provide “an incredibly detailed, thorough background check at a higher cost,” Kemp said. “You never hear machine guns being used in shootings, rarely, nor silencers,” he added.
He also said the country should put back in place the Federal Assault Weapons Ban enacted in 1994 and lasted 10 years, which covered the AR-15.
“We know the ban worked because we saw less shootings involving those types of weapons,” he said of that period.
Kemp expressed his frustration at what he called, “gun advocate extremists.” “They don’t like having to do the background check. They don’t like not being able to carry weapons wherever they want. They don’t like the process of having to get a concealed carry permit,” he said.
“[They] don’t believe there should be any restrictions on the types of ammunition you can buy, or … armor piercing … [they] feel like there shouldn’t be any restrictions since the Second Amendment is how we founded the country. It’s my God-given right. Well, God didn’t write the Constitution, nor amendments,” he added.
ABC News’ Emily Shapiro, Libby Cathey and Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
Senator says what?! Rick Scott, the richest U.S. senator, calls the president a “rich kid”
Palm Beach Post – June 9, 2022
Florida Sen. Rick Scott has criticized President Biden’s efforts in fighting inflation. But did the senator go too far in calling the president a “rich kid?” [Corey Perrine/Naples Daily News via AP]
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, during a recent appearance on Fox and Friends, went off the rails in criticizing President Joe Biden’s efforts to curb inflation.
“Think about this. Biden’s a rich kid. His whole life has been paid for by your tax dollars. Has no idea how to deal with inflation, no plan to deal with inflation,” Scott said with an apparent straight face.
Sen. Scott’s criticism/description of President Biden is, well, rich, coming from a man who is the nation’s wealthiest senator. (Much of that wealth, generated by a company convicted of stealing $1.5 billion from the government while he was in charge.)
Sen. Scott’s net worth? An estimated $220 million, according to The Celebrity Net Worth website. The president’s? A mere $9 million, according to the website.
Neither is exactly suffering from higher prices at the gas pump or grocery store but there’s a difference between a guy who worked for the government and one who sold his hospital business for millions.
Inflation remains a problem for middle class and working class families who actually struggle to keep their heads above water. The name-calling, that the president is a “rich kid,” from a “kid” who’s far richer, doesn’t resolve the issue. It just cheapens the discourse.
Editor’s Note: First Impressions is a digital opinion feature by The Palm Beach Post, offering bite-sized but informed commentary on daily developments. Did the senator miss the irony in his criticism of the president, or was “the rich kid” remark routine politics?
Finland plans to build barriers on its border with Russia
June 9, 2022
Finnish-Russian border crossing in Imatra
HELSINKI (Reuters) – Finland’s government plans to amend border legislation to allow the building of barriers on its eastern frontier with Russia, it said on Thursday, in a move to strengthen preparedness against hybrid threats amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Finland, which is currently applying for membership in the Western military alliance NATO, has a history of wars with Russia, although currently the forest-covered border zone between the two countries is marked merely with signs and plastic lines for most of its 1,300-km (810-mile) length.
The Finnish government has rushed to strengthen border security as it fears Russia could attempt to put pressure on Finland by sending asylum seekers to its borders – as the European Union accused Belarus of doing at the end of last year when hundreds of migrants from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa got stuck on the Polish border.
The government’s amendments to the law include a proposal to enable concentrating the reception of asylum applications only at specific points of entry.
Under existing EU rules, migrants have the right to ask for asylum at any given entry point to an EU member country.
The amendments would also allow the building of barriers such as fences, as well as new roads to facilitate border patrolling on the Finnish side.
“Later on, the government will decide on border barriers to the critical zones on the eastern border, on the basis of the Finnish Border Guard’s assessment,” minister of internal affairs Krista Mikkonen said in a statement.
(Reporting by Anne Kauranen; Editing by Alex Richardson)
Russia Plans to Send Detained Ukrainians Into Minefields, Says Leaked Call
Allison Quinn – June 9, 2022
Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
As Russian authorities plow full-steam ahead with a deranged PR effort to “restore” the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol that Putin’s troops nearly wiped off the face of the earth, Ukrainian citizens detained in other cities occupied by Russian troops will reportedly be used to perform the deadly task of removing landmines from the area.
That’s according to Ukraine’s Security Service, which released audio Thursday of what it described as an intercepted phone call between an officer of Russia’s FSB and a colleague apparently tasked with cleaning up the supposedly “liberated” city.
In the nearly three-minute recording, the purported FSB officer identifies himself by the call name “Kaspii” and asks his colleague if he’s been briefed on plans to de-mine Mariupol “the natural way” and send those “detained” in Russian-occupied Melitopol to complete the task.
His colleague, who says he’s located in Basan in the Zaporizhia region, responds that he had not yet been informed of that plan but “that wouldn’t be bad.”
“Kaspii” says everything has already been agreed upon with military leadership, but the logistics still need to be pinned down: “Everyone’s already aware [of the scheme], the main thing is to come up with an arrangement.”
The call ends with his colleague double-checking that he heard correctly, asking if the plan is to use those detained “from our guys, or the other ones … the Ukropy [a slur for Ukrainians].”
The man identified as an FSB officer responds, “Fuck, the locals” before appearing to add that they should “serve the motherland.”
The disturbing conversation comes as Russian authorities pull out all the stops to paint a glowing picture of occupied Mariupol, even as Ukrainian authorities sound the alarm over myriad war crimes committed by Putin’s troops there and say the Russian troops controlling the city are hiding the scale of death by dumping newly discovered bodies of civilians in landfills.
While the Russian military plans to send detained Ukrainians into literal minefields around the city, St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov says up to 1,000 Russians from his city are being bussed in to help with restoration efforts—including on a theater where Russian forces were accused of killing more than 600 civilians in an airstrike.
Wearing a blazer emblazoned with a large “Z,” Beglov claimed in an interview with the “Saint Petersburg” news channel on Thursday that Mariupol residents are “glad… they are with Russia.”
“They all speak in Russian and think in Russian,” he said of those in the city who endured weeks of relentless bombing by Russia.
![Florida Sen. Rick Scott has criticized President Biden's efforts in fighting inflation. But did the senator go too far in calling the president a "rich kid?" [Corey Perrine/Naples Daily News via AP]](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/tddf9ydmnFpcuouvxp3otA--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTcwNTtoPTQ3MDtjZj13ZWJw/https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/MbUX7h6AGlt9wYyDCPlMiw--~B/aD0xNjAwO3c9MjQwMDthcHBpZD15dGFjaHlvbg--/https://media.zenfs.com/en/palm-beach-daily-news/897d97d16591a2fb6343a582a25a135e)
