June 2022 – Page 3 – The Tarbabys Blog

‘Biblical’ insect swarms spur Oregon push to fight pests

Associated Press

‘Biblical’ insect swarms spur Oregon push to fight pests

CLAIRE RUSH – June 26, 2022

April Aamodt holds a Mormon cricket that she found in Blalock Canyon near Arlington, Ore. on Friday, June 17, 2022, while OSU Extension Agent Jordan Maley, far right, looks at more of the insects on the road. Both are involved in local outreach for Mormon cricket surveying. (AP Photo/Claire Rush)

In this photo provided by rancher Diana Fillmore, grasshoppers swarm around the dog of rancher Diana Fillmore on her land in Arock, Ore., on July 6, 2021. Growing grasshopper outbreaks in recent years have slammed ranchers and farmers across parts of southern and eastern Oregon.. Farmers in Oregon already battling extreme drought and low water supplies are bracing for another grasshopper and Mormon cricket infestation. Severe outbreaks in recent years, fueled by drier, warmer conditions, have wreaked havoc. (Diana Fillmore via AP)

In this August 2021 photo provided by rancher Diana Fillmore, Grasshoppers feed on rancher Diana Fillmore's land in Arock, Ore. Farmers in Oregon already battling extreme drought and low water supplies are bracing for another grasshopper and Mormon cricket infestation. Severe outbreaks in recent years, fueled by drier, warmer conditions, have wreaked havoc. (Diana Fillmore via AP) — In this August 2021 photo provided by rancher Diana Fillmore, Grasshoppers feed on rancher Diana Fillmore’s land in Arock, Ore. Farmers in Oregon already battling extreme drought and low water supplies are bracing for another grasshopper and Mormon cricket infestation. Severe outbreaks in recent years, fueled by drier, warmer conditions, have wreaked havoc. (Diana Fillmore via AP)

In this August 2021 photo provided by rancher Diana Fillmore, Grasshoppers feed on vegetation on rancher Diana Fillmore's land in Arock, Ore. Farmers in Oregon already battling extreme drought and low water supplies are bracing for another grasshopper and Mormon cricket infestation. Severe outbreaks in recent years, fueled by drier, warmer conditions, have wreaked havoc. (Diana Fillmore via AP) — In this August 2021 photo provided by rancher Diana Fillmore, Grasshoppers feed on vegetation on rancher Diana Fillmore’s land in Arock, Ore. Farmers in Oregon already battling extreme drought and low water supplies are bracing for another grasshopper and Mormon cricket infestation. Severe outbreaks in recent years, fueled by drier, warmer conditions, have wreaked havoc. (Diana Fillmore via AP)

In this photo provided by rancher Diana Fillmore, grasshoppers cover rabbit brush that they've eaten bare on rancher Diana Fillmore's land in Arock, Ore., on July 15, 2021. Farmers in Oregon already battling extreme drought and low water supplies are bracing for another grasshopper and Mormon cricket infestation. Severe outbreaks in recent years, fueled by drier, warmer conditions, have wreaked havoc. (Diana Fillmore via AP) — In this photo provided by rancher Diana Fillmore, grasshoppers cover rabbit brush that they’ve eaten bare on rancher Diana Fillmore’s land in Arock, Ore., on July 15, 2021. Farmers in Oregon already battling extreme drought and low water supplies are bracing for another grasshopper and Mormon cricket infestation. Severe outbreaks in recent years, fueled by drier, warmer conditions, have wreaked havoc. (Diana Fillmore via AP)

ARLINGTON, Ore. (AP) — Driving down a windy canyon road in northern Oregon rangeland, Jordan Maley and April Aamodt are on the look out for Mormon crickets, giant insects that can ravage crops.

“There’s one right there,” Aamodt says.

They’re not hard to spot. The insects, which can grow larger than 2 inches (5 centimeters), blot the asphalt.

Mormon crickets are not new to Oregon. Native to western North America, their name dates back to the 1800s, when they ruined the fields of Mormon settlers in Utah. But amidst drought and warming temperatures — conditions favored by the insects — outbreaks across the West have worsened.

The Oregon Legislature last year allocated $5 million to assess the problem and set up a Mormon cricket and grasshopper “suppression” program. An additional $1.2 million for the program was approved earlier this month.

It’s part of a larger effort by state and federal authorities in the U.S. West to deal with an explosion of grasshoppers and Mormon crickets that has hit from Montana to Nevada. But some environmental groups oppose the programs, which rely on the aerial spraying of pesticides across large swaths of land.

Maley, an Oregon State University Extension Agent, and Aamodt, a resident of the small Columbia River town of Arlington, are both involved in Mormon cricket outreach and surveying efforts in the area.

Video: Mormon crickets invade Idaho village

Mormon crickets have invaded the Village of Murphy in Owyhee County

In 2017, Arlington saw its largest Mormon cricket outbreak since the 1940s. The roads were “greasy” with the squashed entrails of the huge insects, which damaged nearby wheat crops.

Rancher Skye Krebs said the outbreaks have been “truly biblical.”

“On the highways, once you get them killed, then the rest of them come,” he explained. Mormon crickets are cannibalistic and will feast on each other, dead or alive, if not satiated with protein.

The insects, which are not true crickets but shield-backed katydids, are flightless. But they can travel at least a quarter of a mile in a day, according to Maley.

Aamodt fought the 2017 outbreak with what she had on hand.

“I got the lawnmower out and I started mowing them and killing them,” she said. “I took a straight hoe and I’d stab them.”

Aamodt has organized volunteers to tackle the infestation and earned the nickname “cricket queen.”

Another infestation last year had local officials “scrambling,” Maley said.

“We had all those high-value crops and irrigation circles,” he explained. “We just had to do what we could to keep them from getting into that.”

In 2021 alone, Oregon agricultural officials estimate 10 million acres of rangeland in 18 counties were damaged by grasshoppers and Mormon crickets.

Under the new Oregon initiative, private landowners like farmers and ranchers can request the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) survey their land. If ODA finds more than three Mormon crickets or eight grasshoppers per square yard it will recommend chemical treatment. In some areas near Arlington surveyed in May soon after the hatch there were 201 Mormon crickets per square yard.

State officials recommend the aerial application of diflubenzuron. The insecticide works by inhibiting development, preventing nymphs from growing into adults. Landowners can be reimbursed for up to 75% of the cost.

Diana Fillmore is a rancher participating in the new cost-sharing initiative. She says “the ground is just crawling with grasshoppers” on her property.

ODA recommended she treat her 988-acre ranch in Arock in southeastern Oregon. As the program’s protocol calls for applying insecticide to only half the proposed area, alternately targeting swaths then skipping the next one, this means nearly 500 acres of her land will actually be sprayed.

Fillmore decided to act, remembering last year’s damage.

“It was horrible,” Fillmore said. “Grasshoppers just totally wiped out some of our fields.” She was forced to spend $45,000 on hay she normally wouldn’t have to buy.

Todd Adams, an entomologist and ODA’s Eastern Oregon field office and grasshopper program coordinator, said as of mid-June ODA had received 122 survey requests and sent out 31 treatment recommendations for roughly 40,000 acres (16,187 hectares).

Landowners must act quickly if they decide to spray diflubenzuron as it is only effective against nymphs.

“Once they become adults it’s too late,” Adams said.

Oregon’s new program is geared toward private landowners. But the federal government owns more than half of Oregon’s total land, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has its own program for outbreaks on Western public land.

The U.S. government’s grasshopper suppression program dates back to the 1930s, and USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has sprayed millions of acres with pesticides to control outbreaks since the 1980s.

APHIS National Policy Director William Wesela said the agency sprayed 807,000 acres (326,581 hectares) of rangeland across seven Western states in 2021. So far this year, it has received requests for treatment in Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Nevada and Arizona, according to Jake Bodart, its State Plant Health Director for Oregon.

In a 2019 risk assessment APHIS recognized the main insecticide used, diflubenzuron, remains “a restricted use pesticide due to its toxicity to aquatic invertebrates,” but said risks are low.

APHIS says it follows methods to reduce concerns. It instructs pesticide applicators to skip swaths and apply the insecticide at lower rates than listed on the label.

But environmental groups oppose the program. Last month, the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) sued APHIS in the U.S. District Court in Portland. In their filing, they accuse APHIS of harming rangeland ecosystems and not adequately informing the public about treatment areas.

They also allege the agency violated the National Environmental Policy Act by not assessing all the alternatives to pesticides or analyzing the cumulative effects of the program.

Federal officials declined to comment on the suit because it is pending before courts.

Environmentalists say the reduction of grasshoppers diminishes the food source of other wildlife that prey on them.

“We’re very concerned about the impact of these broad, large sprays to our grassland and rangeland ecosystems,” said Sharon Selvaggio, the Xerces Society’s Pesticide Program Specialist.

Selvaggio added the sprays can be “toxic to a wide variety of insects” beyond grasshoppers and Mormon crickets, expressing particular concern for pollinators such as bees.

The two environmental groups want the agency to adopt a more holistic approach to pest management, by exploring methods such as rotational grazing.

“We’re not trying to stop APHIS from ever using pesticides again,” said Andrew Missel, staff attorney at Advocates for the West, the nonprofit law firm that filed the suit. “The point is really to reform” the program, he added.

In Arlington, the “cricket queen” Aamodt said residents had experimented with pesticide alternatives. During 2017, some covered trees in duct tape to trap the insects. The following year, local officials brought in goats to graze hillsides.

For now, those fighting against future infestations hope the new state program will bring much-needed support.

“Keep in mind that these are people that are taking time out from their own lives to do this,” said OSU Extension Agent Maley. “The volunteers made a huge difference.”

Rush is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

AOC says Supreme Court justices who lied under oath must face consequences for ‘impeachable offense’

Insider

AOC says Supreme Court justices who lied under oath must face consequences for ‘impeachable offense’

Yelena Dzhanova – June 26, 2022

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday called for consequences for justices who “lie under oath.”
Ocasio-Cortez was referring to SCOTUS Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch.
Two senators said the justices assured them they believed Roe v. Wade is law, but both voted to overturn it.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday said she believes it’s an “impeachable offense” for a Supreme Court justice to lie under oath.

Following the overturn of Roe v. Wade, Sens. Susan Collins and Joe Manchin said they felt misled by Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch during their individual confirmation hearings. The two senators, both pro-choice, voted to confirm Kavanaugh and Gorsuch because they assured them that they believed Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision that made abortion a constitutional right nationwide, was law.

Both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, however, voted to strike down Roe earlier this week.

Ocasio-Cortez, speaking in an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” said she believes the court is facing a “crisis of legitimacy” and justices must face consequences if they lie under oath.

“If we allow Supreme Court nominees to lie under oath and secure lifetime appointments to the highest court of the land and then issue, without basis,” she said, “we must see that through. There must be consequences for such a deeply destabilizing action and a hostile takeover of our democratic institutions.”

“To allow that to stand is to allow it to happen,” she continued. “And what makes it particularly dangerous is that it sends a blaring signal to all future nominees that they can now lie to duly elected members of the United States Senate in order to secure Supreme Court confirmations and seats on the Supreme Court.”

Ocasio-Cortez added that she believes that lying under oath is an impeachable offense.

“I believe that this is something that should be very seriously considered, including by senators like Joe Manchin and Susan Collins,” she said.

The decision to overturn Roe v. Wade sparked protests nationwide. Since the decision was made public, a slew of prominent individuals from musician Jack White to lawmakers such as Ocasio-Cortez have blasted the ruling. Attorney General Merrick Garland condemned the court’s decision, saying on Friday that it’s a “devastating blow to reproductive freedom in the United States.”

June 24, 2022: The Day Chief Justice Roberts Lost His Court

The New York Times

June 24, 2022: The Day Chief Justice Roberts Lost His Court

Adam Liptak – June 25, 2022

John Roberts is sworn in as chief justice of the United States by Justice John Paul Stevens as his wife, Jane, holds a Bible and as President George W. Bush looks on in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Aug. 29, 2005. (Doug Mills/ The New York Times)

WASHINGTON — In the most important case of his 17-year tenure, Chief Justice John Roberts found himself entirely alone.

He had worked for seven months to persuade his colleagues to join him in merely chipping away at Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion. But he was outflanked by the five justices to his right, who instead reduced Roe to rubble.

In the process, they humiliated the nominal leader of the court and rejected major elements of his jurisprudence.

The moment was a turning point for the chief justice. Just two years ago, after the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy made him the new swing justice, he commanded a kind of influence that sent experts hunting for historical comparisons. Not since 1937 had the chief justice also been the court’s fulcrum, able to cast the decisive vote in closely divided cases.- ADVERTISEMENT -https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-10-1/html/r-sf-flx.html

Roberts mostly used that power to nudge the court to the right in measured steps, understanding himself to be the custodian of the court’s prestige and authority. He avoided what he called jolts to the legal system, and he tried to decide cases narrowly.

But that was before a crucial switch. When Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative appointed by former President Donald Trump, succeeded Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal icon, after her death in 2020, Roberts’ power fizzled.

“This is no longer John Roberts’ court,” Mary Ziegler, a law professor and historian at the University of California, Davis, said Friday.

The chief justice is now in many ways a marginal figure. The five other conservatives are impatient and ambitious, and they do not need his vote to achieve their goals. Voting with the court’s three liberals cannot be a particularly appealing alternative for the chief justice, not least because it generally means losing.

Roberts’ concurring opinion in Friday’s decision, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, illustrated his present and perhaps future unhappy lot. He had tried for seven months to persuade a single colleague to join his incremental approach in the case, starting with carefully planned questioning when the case was argued in December. He failed utterly.

In the end, the chief justice filed a concurring opinion in which he spoke for no one but himself.

“It leaves one to wonder whether he is still running the show,” said Allison Orr Larsen, a law professor at the College of William & Mary.

The chief justice will face other challenges. Although Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, said that “nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion,” both liberal and conservative members of the court expressed doubts.

Justice Clarence Thomas, for instance, wrote in a concurring opinion that the court should go on to overrule three “demonstrably erroneous decisions” — on same-sex marriage, gay intimacy and contraception — based on the logic of Friday’s opinion.

In Friday’s abortion decision, Roberts wrote that he was ready to sustain the Mississippi law at issue in the case, one that banned most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The only question before the court was whether that law was constitutional, and he said it was.

“But that is all I would say,” he wrote, “out of adherence to a simple yet fundamental principle of judicial restraint: If it is not necessary to decide more to dispose of a case, then it is necessary not to decide more.”

He chastised his colleagues on both sides of the issue for possessing unwarranted self-confidence.

“Both the court’s opinion and the dissent display a relentless freedom from doubt on the legal issue that I cannot share,” he wrote. “I am not sure, for example, that a ban on terminating a pregnancy from the moment of conception must be treated the same under the Constitution as a ban after 15 weeks.”

The failure of his proposed approach was telling, Larsen said.

“It sounds like the justices are talking past each other,” she said. “There is very little evidence of moderation or narrowing grounds to accommodate another’s point of view.”

The chief justice acknowledged that his proposed ruling was at odds with the part of Roe v. Wade that said states may not ban abortions before fetal viability, around 23 weeks. He was prepared to discard that line. “The court rightly rejects the arbitrary viability rule today,” he wrote, noting that many developed nations use a 12-week cutoff.

But there was more to Roe than the viability line, Roberts wrote. The court should have stopped short, he wrote, of taking “the dramatic step of altogether eliminating the abortion right first recognized in Roe.”

Alito rejected that approach.

“If we held only that Mississippi’s 15-week rule is constitutional, we would soon be called upon to pass on the constitutionality of a panoply of laws with shorter deadlines or no deadline at all,” he wrote. “The ‘measured course’ charted by the concurrence would be fraught with turmoil until the court answered the question that the concurrence seeks to defer.”

The chief justice’s proposal was characteristic of his cautious style, one that has fallen out of favor at the court.

“It is only where there is no valid narrower ground of decision that we should go on to address a broader issue, such as whether a constitutional decision should be overturned,” he wrote Friday, citing his opinion in a 2007 campaign finance decision that planted the seeds that blossomed into the Citizens United ruling in 2010.

That two-step approach was typical of Roberts.

The first step of the approach in 2007 frustrated Justice Antonin Scalia, who accused him in a concurrence of effectively overruling a major precedent “without saying so.”

“This faux judicial restraint is judicial obfuscation,” Scalia, who died in 2016, wrote at the time. But Scalia did not have the votes to insist on speed. Roberts’ current colleagues do.

At his confirmation hearing in 2005, Roberts said the Supreme Court should be wary of overturning precedents, in part because doing so threatens the court’s legitimacy.

“It is a jolt to the legal system when you overrule a precedent,” he said. “Precedent plays an important role in promoting stability and evenhandedness.”

He used similar language in criticizing the majority Friday.

“The court’s decision to overrule Roe and Casey is a serious jolt to the legal system — regardless of how you view those cases,” he wrote. “A narrower decision rejecting the misguided viability line would be markedly less unsettling, and nothing more is needed to decide this case.”

There are, to be sure, areas in which there is little or no daylight between Roberts and his more conservative colleagues, including race, religion, voting rights and campaign finance. In other areas, as in a death penalty decision Thursday, he may be able to forge a coalition with the three liberals and Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

But Roberts, 67, may have a hard time protecting the institutional values he prizes. The court has been buffeted by plummeting approval ratings, by the leaked draft of Friday’s majority opinion, by revelations about the efforts of Virginia Thomas, the wife of Clarence Thomas, to overturn the 2020 election, and by Thomas’ failure to recuse himself from a related case.

Tensions are so high that federal officials arrested an armed man this month outside Kavanaugh’s home and charged him with trying to kill the justice. There have been protests outside the justices’ homes in anticipation of the Roe ruling. Ten days ago, Congress approved legislation extending police protection to the justices’ immediate families.

The climate — and a court that routinely divides along partisan lines in major cases — has increasingly undercut Roberts’ public assertions that the court is not political.

“We don’t work as Democrats or Republicans,” he said in 2016. Two years later, he reiterated that position in an extraordinary rebuke of President Donald Trump after Trump responded to an administration loss in a lower court by criticizing the judge who issued it as an “Obama judge.”

“We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” Roberts said in a sharp public statement that nonetheless went against substantial evidence to the contrary even then.

On Friday, all three Democratic appointees voted to strike down the Mississippi law and all six Republican ones voted to uphold it.

His concurring opinion and his institutionalist impulses notwithstanding, Roberts may have a hard time convincing the public that party affiliations say nothing about how the justices conduct their work.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told his law clerks in the ’90s that he wanted to serve for 43 years to make liberals’ lives ‘miserable’

Insider

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told his law clerks in the ’90s that he wanted to serve for 43 years to make liberals’ lives ‘miserable’

Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert – June 25, 2022

In a 1993 New York Times article, a former law clerk of Clarence Thomas said he held a grudge against liberals.
The conservative Supreme Court Justice was resentful of the media coverage of his confirmation hearing.
“The liberals made my life miserable … and I’m going to make their lives miserable,” NYT reported he said.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told his law clerks he intended to serve on the highest court of the land to make the lives of liberals “miserable,” according to a 1993 report from The New York Times.

Thomas, who was confirmed to the Supreme Court in 1991 amid contentious confirmation hearings, resented the media coverage surrounding his appointment. Central to the hearings were accusations and testimony about alleged sexual harassment of one of his subordinates, Anita Hill, who accused the justice of repeated, unwanted sexual advances and inappropriate conduct in the workplace.

He was ultimately confirmed in a 52-48 vote.

In a conversation with his law clerks two years following his confirmation, The New York Times reported Thomas expressed his desire to serve on the court until the year 2034.

“The liberals made my life miserable for 43 years,” a former clerk remembered Thomas – who was 43 years old when confirmed – saying, according to The New York Times. “And I’m going to make their lives miserable for 43 years.”

Thomas, considered the most conservative justice on the court, joined the majority opinion on Friday which overturned federal abortion protections established in Roe v. Wade. In a concurring opinion, Thomas indicated he also believes the Supreme Court should “reconsider” decisions from the cases Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell, which established the federal right to use birth control and legalized same-sex activity and gay marriage, respectively.

Supreme Court went too far in taking the ‘dramatic step’ of overturning Roe v. Wade

Business Insider

Chief Justice John Roberts says Supreme Court went too far in taking the ‘dramatic step’ of overturning Roe v. Wade

Brent D. Griffiths – June 24, 2022

Chief Justice John Roberts said the Supreme Court shouldn’t have overturned Roe v. Wade.
He argued the court’s conservative justices went too far in ending a federal right to abortion.
He added that a “narrower decision” would have been “markedly less unsettling.”

Chief Justice John Roberts made it abundantly clear that he felt the Supreme Court’s five other conservative justices went too far in their decision on Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade and end a federal right to an abortion.

“The Court’s decision to overrule Roe and Casey is a serious jolt to the legal system—regardless of how you view those cases,” Roberts wrote in his concurring opinion, released on Friday along with the majority opinion. “A narrower decision rejecting the misguided viability line would be markedly less unsettling, and nothing more is needed to decide this case.”

Roberts’ view, though, became largely moot in the face of the bloc of other Republican-appointed justices, including President Donald Trump’s three picks, Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the court’s majority opinion, which overturned nearly 50 years of precedent holding that abortion rights are part of a constitutional right to privacy. As he had in a leaked draft opinion, Alito torched the landmark 1973 decision in Roe.

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito wrote. “Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.”

Roberts has long cut a reputation as a justice who would prefer that the court more directly address the questions before it as opposed to authoring sweeping opinions that go down in the history books. It has long been thought that this principle animated his decision to preserve the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, better known as Obamacare, in the 2012 ruling that protected President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement.

Roberts made clear in his concurring opinion that he would have upheld Mississippi’s near-complete ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy — the law at the center of the case decided on Friday — but he stressed that overturning Roe and the 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey would have profound effects. Roberts called such an action a “dramatic step” that Mississippi did not want the court to take. (The state changed its view of the case after Barrett was confirmed to the court.)

“Both the Court’s opinion and the dissent display a relentless freedom from doubt on the legal issue that I cannot share,” Roberts wrote. “I am not sure, for example, that a ban on terminating a pregnancy from the moment of conception must be treated the same under the Constitution as a ban after fifteen weeks.”

Roberts’ preferred decision would still have significantly curtailed abortion rights. Upholding Mississippi’s law without overturning Roe would have limited the concept of fetal viability that the court made the center of its ruling in Casey. Roberts said he agreed that the court erred in its original decision in Roe, but he added that the justices did not need to gut the decision “all the way down to the studs.”

California’s largest reservoirs at critically low levels – signaling a dry summer ahead

The Guardian

California’s largest reservoirs at critically low levels – signaling a dry summer ahead

Maanvi Singh – June 24, 2022

<span>Photograph: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images</span> — Photograph: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images

California’s two largest reservoirs are at critically low levels, signaling that the state, like much of the US west, can expect a searing, dry summer ahead.

This week, officials confirmed that Lake Oroville, the state’s second-largest reservoir, was at just 55% of its total capacity when it reached its highest level for the year last month. Meanwhile, Shasta Lake, California’s largest reservoir, was at 40% capacity last month – after the state endured its driest start to a year since the late 19th century.

It’s a dire sign for a state already struggling to manage water during the most severe megadrought in 1,200 years. The glittering turquoise water in both lakes have receded to expose dry, brown lake bed. Dramatic visuals compiled by the department of water resources contrast images of an abundant Oroville in 2019 with this year – when officials say the lake saw a “show a shocking drop in water levels”.

Only five years ago, in February 2017, Oroville was so full that millions of gallons of water eroded the main spillway of its dam, which is the tallest in the US, forcing evacuation of nearly 200,000 residents downstream.

This year, millions in the state are already subject to unprecedented water restrictions and many in rural areas are expecting their wells to run dry within months, if not weeks.

“I feel I might have become a bit numb to both the numerical records and then the scenes of drought,” said John Abatzoglou, a climatologist at the University of California, Merced. “And that just reflects how rough the last three years have been for the state.”

Oroville is not as badly off this year as it was last year, when dozens of houseboats were hauled out of the lake because there wasn’t enough water to support them, and one of the state’s largest hydroelectric power plants was shut down for the first time since it was built in 1967.

“While we don’t expect every year to be as dry as this year or last, we have trended in California in the broader south-west towards a more arid climate,” Abatzoglou said. “Meaning that water is becoming more and more scarce.”

The Oroville and Shasta reservoirs back up the two largest dams in the state. Oroville is central to the State Water Project system, which can service up to 27 million Californians and 750,000 acres of farmland. And Shasta is the key reservoir in the federal Central Valley Project, which serves areas as far north as Redding – all the way south into Bakersfield.

Forested mountains overlook a dry lakebed. A trestle bridge over mud and rock connects two hills. — A section of a drought-stricken Shasta Lake sits mostly dry. Photograph: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images

Officials at the State Water Project announced earlier this year that it would only be able to provide 5% of requested water supplies to its contractors. The federal project, meanwhile, announced it wouldn’t be providing any water to the state’s agricultural belt, and that cities would be allocated only 25% of their historical water use.

The low water allocations will force farmers to either fallow their fields, or rely more on diminishing groundwater reserves, said Heather Cooley, research director at the non-profit Pacific Institute. The implications will trickle down to rural residents across California, many of whom have seen household wells tap out in recent years, she said.

Officials are also concerned that the reservoirs will be too shallow and hot for aquatic life this year. In an effort to protect endangered winter-run Chinook salmon, the bureau of reclamation and the department of water resources are seeking to install temporary chilling units at Shasta Dam to cool the water flowing into a national fish hatchery.

State and federal agencies will take “a conservative approach to water management” amid the drought, said Karla Nemeth, department of water resources director. “We need to be prepared for a hotter, drier future brought on by our changing climate.”

The current megadrought – which researchers found was the most severe in 1,200 years – is a sign that “we’re already seeing the effects of climate change in California”. Cooley said. “And we know that those effects are only going to get worse.”

Water pours from an open spillway coming from a full lake with a dam. — Lake Oroville’s emergency spillway flooded over in 2017. This year, it’s at perilously low levels. Photograph: Josh FW Cook/AP

Demand for water is also likely to go up as California and much of the west faces more extreme heatwaves and hotter summers. Farmers and residential homeowners will require more water to keep fields and gardens green, she notes.

With global heating, California’s dry seasons are likely to be drier, and its wet seasons might be wetter, said Allison Michaelis, an assistant professor in the department of earth, atmosphere, and environment at Northern Illinois University.

In a study published this year in the journal Earth’s Future, Michaelis and her colleagues found that climate crisis amped up the amount of rain and snowfall that flowed into Oroville in 2017, ahead of the deluge that year. And research suggests that the same force could drive more extreme droughts in coming decades.

“It is challenging to attribute any one, specific event to climate change,” said Michaelis, who led the study. “But given what I and my co-authors found in our Earth’s Future paper, and what other researchers are finding, we can expect California’s hydroclimate to be more volatile in the future.”

Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, sends abortion back to the states

Yahoo! News

Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, sends abortion back to the states

Jon Ward, Chief National Correspondent – June 24, 2022

Roe has fallen, and the fight over abortion in America will now rage on into a new and possibly even more polarizing and divisive chapter.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, that the Constitution does not guarantee a right to abortion, in one of the most momentous and controversial decisions of the past few decades.

The court’s conservative majority overturned the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade by a vote of 5-4. Roe had stood as one of the most debated rulings in the court’s history: revered by many women’s rights advocates and reviled by conservatives who believe abortion kills a human life.

Security fencing outside the Supreme Court. — Security fencing outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives,” read the majority opinion.

Under Roe and the court’s 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, states had not been allowed to enact bans on most abortions until after a pregnancy had reached the threshold of fetal viability, when it is believed that an unborn child could survive outside the womb. That viability threshold is about 23 or 24 weeks.

The abortion issue will now be decided state by state. Abortion will not be outlawed across the country. Some states will now expand access to the procedure.

“Whatever the exact scope of the coming laws, one result of today’s decision is certain: the curtailment of women’s rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens,” read the dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

In at least 15 states abortion will be illegal. Most of these states — across the South, the Midwest and the Mountain West — have “trigger” laws in place that will now ban the procedure. The new laws will take effect within a few days in some places, and within a month in others.

The 15 states that are now expected to enact an outright ban on abortion are Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Three other states — Georgia, Ohio and South Carolina — are likely to ban abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy. Two other states — Arizona and Florida — have passed 15-week bans this year.

That is a total of 20 states banning or limiting abortion within the first trimester or early in the second.

But others may join them. Iowa currently limits abortion after 22 weeks, and this month the state’s highest court said there is no right to abortion in Iowa’s Constitution. Republican lawmakers in the state are likely to try now to ban the procedure.

Abortion rights advocates and anti-abortion activists outside the U.S. Supreme Court. — Abortion rights advocates and anti-abortion activists outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

And so there are about 20 states, and the District of Columbia, where abortion is likely to remain widely available — and fairly well along into a pregnancy.

President Biden, a supporter of abortion rights, is limited in what he can do in response to the ruling. There are marginal changes he can make to expand access through the Food and Drug Administration and through Medicaid.

Conversely, the overall impact on abortion rates may not be as dramatic as anti-abortion activists might be hoping for, which is likely to lead to the next round of political skirmishes over the issue.

“Absolute bans in red states probably won’t have the effect that the right-to-life movement expects … especially if blue states step up abortion funding, and especially given the difficulty of eliminating access to abortion medication,” wrote Mary Ziegler, a historian and attorney who has written five books about abortion law and politics, including “Dollars for Life,” which was released this month. “The question becomes what happens then.”

“Some conservative lawmakers will likely respond by trying to stop interstate travel for abortion or fighting for a nationwide ban — steps designed to eliminate abortion in progressive states,” she wrote.

Anti-abortion protesters outside the Supreme Court. One man holds up a sign that reads: Goodbye, Roe. — Anti-abortion protesters outside the Supreme Court on June 13. (Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Last December, when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Dobbs case, Ziegler made the point even more sharply: “The right-to-life movement is aiming for the recognition of personhood and the outlawing of every abortion, nationwide. Roe is just the beginning,” she said then.

However, Justice Brett Kavanaugh signaled during those arguments that he does not believe the court can enact a nationwide ban. Kavanaugh, who was confirmed to the court in 2018, described the state of Mississippi as arguing that “because the Constitution is neutral, that this court should be scrupulously neutral on the question of abortion.”

In his concurring opinion in the court’s final decision, Kavanaugh made this point even more explicitly.

“Because the Constitution is neutral on the issue of abortion, this Court also must be scrupulously neutral. The nine unelected Members of this Court do not possess the constitutional authority to override the democratic process and to decree either a pro-life or a pro-choice abortion policy for all 330 million people in the United States,” Kavanaugh wrote.

Since Chief Justice John Roberts wrote his own concurring opinion saying he supported a 15-week ban but did not support throwing out a right to abortion entirely, the court does not currently have a majority of judges who might even be open to enacting a nationwide ban on abortion.

It was clear last December, however, that the court was likely to dramatically weaken abortion protections, and even overturn Roe. But there was some thought that the court might enact a nationwide ban at 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Then, in early May, a draft of the court’s opinion in Dobbs was leaked to a Politico reporter. Politico also reported that a majority of justices were prepared to rule that Roe and Casey were wrongly decided, and that states should decide the issue.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. — Justice Samuel Alito in 2019. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the leaked draft opinion that the Roe ruling was “egregiously wrong from the start.”

It was not known for sure, however, that the court’s ruling would emerge in the same form as the leaked draft. However, the final decision that was released was largely the same.

Roe, Alito wrote in the final opinion, was “egregiously wrong and on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided.”

“The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision,” he wrote.

The dissenting opinion said that under Roe and Casey, the court had “struck a balance” between Americans with “profoundly different views about the ‘moral[ity]’ of ‘terminating a pregnancy, even in its earliest stage.’”

“Today, the Court discards that balance. It says that from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of,” the dissent said.

“Some States have enacted laws extending to all forms of abortion procedure, including taking medication in one’s own home. They have passed laws without any exceptions for when the woman is the victim of rape or incest. Under those laws, a woman will have to bear her rapist’s child or a young girl her father’s — no matter if doing so will destroy her life.

“… Most threatening of all, no language in today’s decision stops the Federal Government from prohibiting abortions nationwide, once again from the moment of conception and without exceptions for rape or incest,” the dissent said.

The liberal justices also expressed grave concern that other individual rights, to contraception and to “same-sex intimacy and marriage,” may be under threat from the conservative majority.

Now that the court has thrown Roe out, the American debate may become even more contentious, as the legal and political battles shift to a kaleidoscope of state legislatures and courts.

“Don’t believe [the Supreme Court] when the justices say this will deescalate debate about abortion,” Ziegler wrote. “That doesn’t seem to be where this is headed.”

Cover thumbnail photo: Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images.

What will happen now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned

Dark Purple – Post Roe law will ban or severely restrict abortion

Blue – Abortion will be legal*

Red – Trigger law will ban all or nearly all abortions

Orange – Will Likely ban abortions

Light purple – Pre Roe law will ban abortions

Megan Rapinoe, sports world react to Supreme Court decision on abortion rights: ‘The cruelty is the point’

Yahoo! Sports

Megan Rapinoe, sports world react to Supreme Court decision on abortion rights: ‘The cruelty is the point’

Henry Bushnell and Chris Cwik – June 24, 2022

Athletes and sports organizations reacted, mostly with horror, to the Supreme Court’s decision Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade and enable dozens of state laws that will criminalize abortions.

“This decision shows a branch of government that is so out of touch with the country and any sense of human dignity,” the WNBA players association said in a statement less than two hours after the Court officially ruled on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

Sue Bird tweeted that she was “gutted.” Her team, the Seattle Storm, said they were “furious and ready to fight.”

The WNBPA statement continued: “This ruling provides a treacherous pathway to abortion bans that reinforce economic, social and political inequalities and could lead to higher rates of maternal mortality while eviscerating rights to reproductive freedom for everybody.”

The NWSL players association also “strongly condemned” the decision — “a decision that effectively takes away a person’s right to make decisions about their own body, a basic human right at the core of every aspect of life,” the NWSLPA said in a statement later Friday afternoon.

Megan Rapinoe delivers emotional response, call to action

Individual soccer players also spoke out against the ruling while in camp with the U.S. women’s national team. On a previously-scheduled Zoom call with reporters Friday afternoon, midfielder Lindsey Horan said she was “still a little bit shocked,” and called it a “step backwards for our country.”

Forward Megan Rapinoe, who was not originally slated to meet with reporters, asked to speak in light of the Court’s ruling, and wiped away tears as she described a “disheartening,” “infuriating” and “scary day.”

In an unscripted opening statement that lasted more than nine minutes, she stressed that the decision will hit various groups of marginalized women most forcefully.

“We know that this will disproportionately affect poor women, Black women, Brown women, immigrants, women in abusive relationships, women who have been raped, women and girls who have been raped by family members — [or] who, you know what, maybe just didn’t make the best choice,” she said.

“And that’s no reason to be forced to have a pregnancy. It will completely exacerbate so many of the existing inequalities that we have in our country. It doesn’t keep not one single person safer. It doesn’t keep not one single child safer, certainly. And it does not keep one single — inclusive term — woman safer. We know that the lack of abortion [rights] does not stop people from having abortions, it stops people from having safe abortions.”

Rapinoe also responded emotionally to the concern — sparked by Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion in Friday’s ruling — that the Court could ultimately overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, which protects same-sex marriage, and other landmark rulings as well:

“I absolutely think gay rights are under attack, I absolutely think we will see legislation pop up state by state by state that will eventually come to this radical court. I have zero faith that my rights will be upheld by the court. I have faith in our country, and I have faith in people, and I have faith in the voters. And if you ever needed a f*cking motivation to vote, to get involved — quite literally, people’s lives depend on it. Actual lives. We’re talking life and death, and also your life in terms of, what does it mean to even be alive? If you can’t be your full self, what the f*ck is the point?”

She also explained why she doesn’t view the ruling as “pro-life,” pointing to other areas — such as healthcare — that will be affected by the Supreme Court’s decision.

“I just can’t understate how sad, and how cruel this is. I think the cruelty is the point. Because this is not pro-life by any means. This way of thinking, or political belief, is coupled with a complete lack of motivation around gun laws, it comes with pro-death penalty, it comes with anti-healthcare, anti-prenatal care, anti-childcare, anti-pre-K, anti-food assistance, anti-welfare, anti-education, anti-maternity leave, anti-paternity leave.

“This is not pro-life. And it’s very frustrating and disheartening, and frankly just infuriating to hear that be the reason that people are wanting to end abortion rights, and end this vital aspect of a woman’s — not only healthcare and general basic safety in this country, but her bodily autonomy, and the right to freedom, and the pursuit of happiness and liberty, is being assaulted in this instance. And it’s just incredibly disheartening.”

She concluded with a call to men who’ve “been silent” on abortion rights. “Stand up,” she said. “Say something.”

She pointed out that the decision was made by a majority-male court, and that the many systems and laws that discriminate against women in the U.S. were created by men.

“You are allowing a violent and consistent onslaught on the autonomy of women’s bodies, on women’s rights, on women’s minds, on our hearts, on our souls,” Rapinoe said when asked what her message to men, as a monolith, would be. “We live in a country that forever tries to chip away at what you have enabled, at what you have been privileged enough to feel your entire life.

“You also have the opportunity to do better every single day. You have the opportunity to show up, make your voices heard, whether that’s in the workplace, on a media zoom, in stadiums, in your family, the way that you vote. It is not a women’s issue. It is everyone’s issue.”

Other prominent athletes speak out on Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade

Several athletes past and present referenced the timing of the decision, one day after the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the watershed law that helped spark a decades-long women’s sports boom. “Yesterday we celebrated Title IX,” Orlando Magic guard Devin Cannady tweeted. “Today we tell these same women that they don’t have the freedom to make decisions about their own body.

“I’m sick for you, I stand with you,” Cannady wrote. “This country needs to be better, this sh*t is so backwards.”

Several teams and leagues responded with incisive statements, including the NBA and WNBA, which vowed to ensure access to reproductive health care for their employees.

“The NBA and WNBA believe that women should be able to make their own decisions concerning their health care and future, and we believe that freedom must be protected,” the joint statement reads. “We will continue to advocate for gender and health equity, including ensuring our employees have access to reproductive health care regardless of their location.”

In the NWSL, the Kansas City Current said they were “heartbroken.” The OL Reign said they “fiercely oppose the decision.” Gotham FC said it “vehemently objects to any rollback of Roe v. Wade and believes reproductive rights are human rights.”

The NWSL released its own statement, saying the ruling denies individuals “liberty and equality.”

“The Supreme Court’s ruling today denies individuals in this country the full liberty and equality that is the cornerstone of a just society. Reproductive rights are human rights. Until every individual has the same freedoms as their neighbor, our work is not done. We will continue to make our voices heard. The NWSL is more than just a soccer league; we are a collective who will stand up every day for what is right.”

While most strong statements came from women’s leagues and teams, the Seattle Sounders of MLS said they “believe in the right to autonomy over our bodies, and the right to choose.” Their goalkeeper, Stefan Frei, tweeted that “our country is actively moving in the wrong direction.”

Orlando City, in a joint statement with the NWSL’s Orlando Pride, said that this autonomy, and access to safe reproductive healthcare, were “basic, nonnegotiable human rights, and our club deeply objects to today’s Supreme Court decision.”

“Today’s reversal of Roe v. Wade is one that will not only put many at risk, disproportionately those in BIPOC and underserved communities, but is one that opens the door for future discrimination and civil rights violations of other marginalized groups,” the two Orlando clubs continued.

“Defending human rights is a battle that we will continue to fight, both for those impacted today, and for those who may be targeted in the future.”

With Roe v. Wade defunct, a ‘poverty shock’ is coming

Yahoo! Finance

With Roe v. Wade defunct, a ‘poverty shock’ is coming

Rick Newman, Senior Columnist – June 24, 2022

On June 24, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that had secured the federal right to obtain an abortion.

Now a political earthquake is likely to ensue.

Abortion protections have been in place since the court’s decision in 1973, and polls show roughly two-thirds of Americans think it should stay that way. Yet the explosive opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization invalidates Roe and leaves abortion laws up to states. About half of states plan to partially or fully ban abortions, which is bound to generate storms of protest.

There will also be stark financial implications for many women who want to end a pregnancy but find they can’t. “What we’re going to see is a shock to poverty and inequality for poor women, Black women, young women in the Deep South,” economist Caitlin Myers told Yahoo Finance in a recent interview, before the June 24 decision came down. “What we will see are poor, vulnerable women, many of whom are already parenting, having children that they do not feel prepared for and suffering financial shocks as a result.”

Myers organized more than 150 economists and other researchers who filed an amicus brief in Dobbs v. Jackson, which began in Mississippi in 2018 when the state legislature banned abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. There were prompt legal challenges, and the Supreme Court heard the case last December. With the court overturning Roe, it won’t make abortion illegal everywhere, but will leave the decision up to states. Some states are ready to impose bans much stricter than the Mississippi law.

While there are obvious moral arguments against abortion, it may also be morally dubious to ban abortions and effectively impose financial hardship on reluctant mothers. Research shows that abortion protections afforded by Roe have helped reduce teenage motherhood by 34% and teen marriage by 20%. That has allowed more young women to complete high school, attend college and establish professional careers. People who go further in school have higher lifetime earnings, in general. By most metrics, the improved outcomes are more pronounced for Black women than for whites, which suggests Black women would suffer more from a new set of bans than white women would.

“Some of the financial instability that these women experience, it is severe, it can last for years,” Myers told Yahoo Finance. “We do see some evidence of recovery, particularly at about five years out. But then there are other components of the shock, for instance, shocks to the probability that these women complete their desired education, that they finish high school, that they finish college, that they enter a professional occupation. Those shocks appear to be much more permanent. And they can have long run effects on the probability that women live in poverty.”

Doctors perform about 800,000 abortions in the United States each year. Despite the new abortion bans on the way, most women seeking an abortion in the United States will still be able to get one by traveling to a state that allows them if they live in one that doesn’t. But some women who live in an anti-abortion state won’t have the means to travel for the procedure, and researchers estimate that overall, 10% to 15% of women who want an abortion won’t be able to get one. So the total number of abortions might decline by 100,000 per year, or a little more.

That may not sound like a lot, but women who can’t afford to travel out of state are generally in tough financial circumstances already. They’re unlikely to be able to afford $10,000 or more per year for child care so they can work after the child is born. They’re at risk of falling into or remaining in the poverty trap Roe has helped some women avoid.

States that do enact abortion bans can put programs into place that would help keep new mothers afloat, such as child-care and health-care subsidies and more generous welfare programs. But they seem unlikely to, given that virtually all the states likely to enact bans have Republican governors or legislatures that tend to oppose well-funded social programs. Of the 12 states that have refused to expand Medicaid, as the Affordable Care Act allows them to do, for instance, 10 also have abortion bans on the books or in the works, including Florida and Texas, the most populous anti-abortion states. Abortion opponents who think they’ve won a historic victory should consider the women who will lose from the decision.

Zelenskyy: Ukraine’s defense will be as powerful as Israel’s

Ukrayinska Pravda

Zelenskyy: Ukraine’s defense will be as powerful as Israel’s

Roman Petrenko – June 23, 2022

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine insists that after winning the war Ukraine will work towards becoming a truly European state – more liberal than before in many respects, but with a powerful security and defence system akin to Israel’s.

Source: Zelenskyy during a meeting with the Israeli university community

Details: Zelenskyy noted that many Ukrainians have already learned how to repulse an aggressor. In the future, Ukraine will work to widen the participation of Ukrainian citizens in the country’s defence.

Quote from Zelenskyy: “This concerns not only the security of our borders, but also internal security. With neighbours like ours, we can expect bombardments, cruise missiles and who knows what else at any moment. So the air defence system of our country has to be improved.

We will build a European country, which will be a member of the European Union. But with a defence system as powerful as that of Israel.”

Earlier: Oleksii Reznikov, Minister of Defence of Ukraine, announced that the first shipment of HIMARS [High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, a light multiple rocket launcher supplied to Ukraine by the US – ed.] systems has arrived in Ukraine.