US/Politics
Republicans are fighting against a social movement in the financial sector meant to address systemic issues like climate change. Governmental initiatives in Florida, West Virginia and Texas are targeting powerhouse Wall Street firms that they say are engaging in environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing, which they view to be harmful to their states’ economies. Letters dated Aug. 10 were sent out this month by the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs to Wall Street firms Blackrock, Vanguard, Institutional Shareholder Services and State Street, asking for details about the companies’ ESG practices and how they could affect the state’s public pensions, including retirement funds for teachers and state employees. Read the full story here.
Liberal lawmakers are pressing Democratic leaders in the House to not include a side deal undercutting environmental reviews worked out with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) in a short-term measure funding the government. House Natural Resources Chairman Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) is circulating a letter asking leadership to separate the Manchin deal out from a continuing resolution that would temporarily avert a government shutdown. Read the full story here.
The Georgia grand jury investigating former President Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election is seeking testimony from his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows. Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney overseeing the investigation, ordered Meadows to appear for a Sept. 27 interview according to a court filing. She is also seeking Sept. 22 appearances from two other figures associated with Trump: attorney Sidney Powell and cyber researcher James Waldron. Kyle Cheney reports for POLITICO.
Attorneys for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp argued in court yesterday that their client is “beyond the reach” of a subpoena and should not be forced to testify before the grand jury investigating Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Kemp’s attorneys argued that the Republican governor should be protected by sovereign immunity, executive privilege and attorney-client privilege. They added there were concerns about the investigation interfering with his re-election campaign this fall. Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who is overseeing the special purpose grand jury, said he would take the arguments under advisement before he makes a ruling, but did not give a deadline for his decision. Jason Morris, Nick Valencia and Sara Murray report for CNN.
A federal judge has ordered that a redacted version of the affidavit used to obtain a warrant for former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence be unsealed by noon today. The decision by Judge Bruce E. Reinhart came just hours after the Justice Department submitted its proposal for extensive redactions to the document, in an effort to shield witnesses from intimidation or retribution if it is made public, officials said. Reinhart appeared to accept the requested cuts and, moving more quickly than government lawyers had expected, issued a brief two-page order directing the department to release the redacted affidavit. The order said that he had found the Justice Department’s proposed redactions to be “narrowly tailored to serve the government’s legitimate interest in the integrity of the ongoing investigation.” Glenn Thrush and Alan Feuer report for the New York Times.
Some of the biggest names at Fox News have been questioned, or are scheduled to be questioned in the coming days, by lawyers representing Dominion Voting Systems in its $1.6 billion defamation suit against the network. Among those set to face questioning are Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Lou Dobbs. The depositions are among the clearest indications yet of how aggressively the election technology company is moving forward with its suit – a case that First Amendment scholars say is extraordinary in its scope of significance. The suit accuses Fox of pushing false and far-fetched claims of voter fraud to lure back viewers who had defected to other right-wing news sources. Jeremy W. Peters reports for the New York Times.
The Pentagon yesterday introduced a plan to reduce civilian casualties resulting from U.S. military operations. The plan envisions embedding risk-mitigation specialists in military operations centers throughout the world, establishing a “center of excellence” to promote best practices, and instituting oversight from the highest levels of the Defense Department. The risk-mitigation plans will apply not only when firing a missile or dropping bombs, but also when conducting cyber strikes and other operations conducted outside of “the lethal space,” a senior defense official said. The aim is to “help commanders and operators better understand the civilian environment before operations begin,” the official added. Karoun Demirjian reports for the Washington Post.
U.S. military and intelligence officials are stepping up their efforts to defend the electoral process from foreign hacking and disinformation, according to a statement from U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency. Officials are “actively defending against foreign interference and influence operations in U.S. elections, specifically by focusing on how adversaries seek to undermine U.S. interests and prosperity, the will to vote of the populace, as well as their belief in the sanctity and security of their elections,” the statement says. U.S. intelligence officials are warning that Russia, China and Iran may seek to interfere in the US voting process or shape voters’ perceptions, according to the command. Sean Lyngaas reports for CNN.
A federal judge in Fort Worth struck down a Texas law yesterday that prohibits adults under 21 from carrying handguns, on the grounds that the restriction violated the Second Amendment. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Mark T. Pittman of the Northern District of Texas wrote that the Second Amendment, “as informed by Founding-era history and tradition,” did not exclude 18- to 20-year-olds from the right to bear arms. Judge Pittman, who was nominated by President Trump in 2019, ordered the injunction stayed for 30 days, pending appeal, meaning that it would not immediately go into effect. Eliza Fawcett reports for the New York Times.
The Department of Homeland Security has terminated the Disinformation Governance Board following criticism that it could stifle freedom of expression. The decision to fold the board, which was formed earlier this year to combat online disinformation, was widely anticipated and following a recommendation from the Homeland Security Advisory Council. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has “terminated the Disinformation Governance Board and rescinded its charter,” DHS said on its website late Wednesday. “The Department will continue to address threat streams that undermine the security of our country consistent with the law, while upholding the privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties of the American people and promoting transparency in our work.” Dustin Volz reports for the Wall Street Journal.
CNN: Inside Trump’s public bravado and private resistance over Mar-a-Lago documents.
Politico: Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows ordered to testify in Fulton County probe of Trump election overturn efforts.
The New York Times: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) seeks to keep distance from Trump inquiry.
The New York Times: Florida pair pleads guilty in theft of diary of Ashley Biden, daughter of the president.
Those who live in four more GOP-led states – Idaho, Tennessee, Texas and North Dakota – this week experience the beginning of “trigger laws” restricting abortion rights, while litigation continues in some cases. Of the four states, all but North Dakota already had anti-abortion laws in place that largely blocked patients from accessing the procedure. Many clinics that provided abortions have either stopped offering those services or moved to other states where abortion remains legal. The Associated Press updates current situations in the four states.
Federal labor officials accused Starbucks of discriminating against unionized employees by promising raises only to stores that rejected the union.
Virus/Climate/Science
COVID-19 has infected over 94.02 million people and has now killed over 1.04 million people in the United States, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Globally, there have been over 599.476 million confirmed coronavirus cases and over 6.48 million deaths. Sergio Hernandez, Sean O’Key, Amanda Watts, Byron Manley and Henrik Pettersson report for CNN.
Cases of monkeypox globally fell 21 percent in the past week, according to a report from the World Health Organization on Thursday. Europe’s outbreak might be ebbing but cases in the Americas show a “continuing steep rise,” according to the organization. “In Latin America in particular, insufficient awareness or public health measures are combining with a lack of access to vaccines to fan the flames of the outbreak,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters. In late July, he declared the unprecedented spread of monkeypox to dozens of countries to be a global emergency (The Associated Press).
British household energy bills are set to rise 80 percent this fall, according to the government’s energy regulator.
Before California announced its plan to end gasoline-powered car sales, automakers had set their own ambitious goals for electric vehicles.
UKR/RU
The U.S. State Department and Yale University have identified at least 21 detention sites in Russian-controlled territory. The sites in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine are being used by the Russian military or Russian-backed Ukrainian separatists to detain, interrogate or deport civilians and prisoners of war in ways that violate international humanitarian law, according to the research. There were also signs pointing to possible mass graves. The New York Times reports.
Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday issued a decree ordering a sharp increase in the size of Russia’s armed forces. The decree, stamped by the president’s office and posted on the Kremlin website, raised the target number of active-duty service members by about 137,000, to 1.15 million, as of January of next year, and ordered the government to set aside money to pay for the increase. It was the first time in five years that Putin had issued an order changing the overall headcount of the Russian armed forces. Anton Troianovski and Ivan Nechepurenko report for the New York Times.
Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant was disconnected from the nation’s power grid yesterday leading to large-scale power outages in nearly all Russian-occupied cities of Southern Ukraine. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was still able to generate power to meet its own needs and to keep essential systems working safely, according to the Ukrainian energy agency, Energoatom. The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, said yesterday afternoon that the episode underscored the extreme danger at the plant, where shelling has damaged power lines and other infrastructure. Marc Santora reports for the New York Times.
Inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency, who plan to enter the plant before Sept. 5, will be given wider latitude than initially sought. IAEA officials had originally planned to try to ensure that enriched-uranium stockpiles had not gone missing from Europe’s largest nuclear power plant during the course of the six-month war. The inclusion of security and safety experts will allow the IAEA to potentially perform a forensic evaluation of shelling against the plant, which could be used to hold attackers responsible (Bloomberg News and Yahoo News).
The Associated Press: IAEA mission seeks to visit the Zaporizhzhia plant.
Mykhail Podolyak barely flinched as air raid sirens wailed in Kyiv, signaling incoming Russian missiles. Sitting in his office at the heavily fortified presidential administration building in Ukraine’s capital, the adviser to the head of the office of Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky said the sirens have become a normal part of life six months into the war with Russia. “We’re getting used to this new lifestyle — we are used to the wailing sirens now, and to the bombardments because the Russian Federation is mostly aiming at the civilian population and civilian infrastructure,” he said through a translator during an interview with The Hill’s Laura Kelly.
The Hill: Here’s every weapon the U.S. has supplied to Ukraine with $13 billion.
Daily Beast: Friends of Kremlin critic and international businessman Dan Rapoport do not believe he died on Aug. 14 as the result of a suicide leap off a building in Washington, D.C.
Global Developments
Washington and Beijing have reached a landmark agreement that would allow US regulators access to audits of Chinese companies that are listed on American exchanges, a breakthrough in talks that have languished for more than a decade.Read more.
The U.S. has carried out airstrikes targeting enemy positions and rocket launchers near Deir ez-Zor in northeast Syria, according to a U.S. official. The latest strikes were launched overnight in response to a rocket attack against two coalition bases housing U.S. troops in Syria in which three U.S. service members suffered minor injuries. Oren Liebermann and Chandelis Duster report for CNN.
The Solomon Islands failed to answer a U.S. Coast Guard vessel’s request for a port visit, stoking fears of China’s influence in the region. The Solomon Islands has had a tense relationship with the U.S. and its allies since striking a security pact with China in May. The islands’ government did not immediately answer a Reuters request for comment. Reuters reports.
Angola’s ruling party is set to narrowly win this week’s general election, handing President João Lourenço another five-year term despite allegations of unfairness. With 97% of the ballots counted, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, or MPLA, has won 51% of the vote in Wednesday’s elections, the country’s electoral commission said. The opposition National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, or Unita, won 44%. However, in the run-up to the vote, civil-society groups had questioned the impartiality of the electoral commission, saying it was too close to the MPLA, and raised concerns over the limited airtime given to opposition parties on state media. Neither the U.S. nor the E.U. sent full observation missions to make public assessments on the vote, and Washington-based pro-democracy group Freedom House, which assesses countries’ political rights and civil liberties, rates Angola as “not free.” Gabriele Steinhauser reports for the Wall Street Journal.
Reuters analysis: China’s navy begins to erase the imaginary Taiwan Strait median line.
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