Citizen Cartwright

Note to readers

I’m going to take the rest of this week and next week off. See you on Monday, Sept. 12.

In the news

Iraq in new round of chaos after months of failed efforts to form a government

 

Tony Ornato, Secret Service official at center of Jan. 6 panel investigation, announces his retirement

 

The Atlantic: 'America’s national teacher shortage is dubious, but America’s education-data shortage is dire'

 

FTC sues data broker Kochava for allegedly selling location data from hundreds of millions of phones

 

Government to pause free at-home coronavirus tests Sept. 2

Global warming was predicted as early as 1824

My thanks to the reader who emailed a photo of an article from a New Zealand newspaper in 1912 saying the use of coal was adding about 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere a year. “This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the Earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.”

 

“Today’s headlines make climate change seem like a recent discovery,” says a 2019 article in JSTOR Daily, which aims to provide context for current events using peer-reviewed research. But “global warming was officially discovered more than 100 years ago,” JSTOR says.

 

In an 1824 paper, Joseph Fourier, a French mathematician and physicist, hypothesized that gases in the atmosphere create barriers that trap heat.

 

And in an 1837 paper, he surmised that over a long period of time, the amount of heat in the atmosphere could change — altered by both the Earth’s natural evolution and human activity. 

 

“The establishment and progress of human society, and the action of natural powers, may, in extensive regions, produce remarkable changes in the state of the surface, the distribution of the waters, and the great movements of the air,” Fourier predicted. “Such effects, in the course of some centuries, must produce variations in the mean temperature for such places.”

 

In 1856, amateur scientist and suffragette Eunice Newton Foote for the first time tested the heat-trapping capabilities of various gases and concluded that carbon dioxide was a heat-trapping gas.

 

Then, in 1896, the Swedish physicist Svante Arrhenius created what was, in effect, the first model of climate change.

 

"Despite having done his work by hand, using data that even he regarded as woefully inadequate, Arrhenius reached 'a conclusion that millions of dollars worth of research over the ensuing century hardly changed at all,’” JSTOR says.

Also in the news

Russia blocks final document at conference reviewing 50-year-old Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty

 

AP: Top takeaways from the unsealed Mar-a-Lago search affidavit

 

Dan Balz in WPost: Trump’s polarizing effect means this midterm election may not be like the past

 

U.S. student debt is about the size of the economy of Brazil or Australia

 

At $249 a day, prison stays leave former inmates deep in debt

 

How to save, transfer, delete your data on company laptops, mobile devices before leaving a job

 

Coming to a theater near you: $3 movie tickets for a day

 

Dialectical behavior therapy ‘the best tool we have’ for self-harming and suicidal teens

 

Scientists create synthetic mouse embryos using stem cells

California’s requirement that new vehicles be electric or hydrogen-powered by 2035

The state’s Air Resources Board adopted on Thursday “the world’s most stringent rules for transitioning to zero-emission vehicles,” according to The Associated Press.

 

California’s action is likely to reshape the U.S. auto market, which gets 10 percent of its sales from the nation’s most populous state, AP says.

 

Washington state and Massachusetts already have said they'll follow California’s lead and many more states are likely to — 17 states have adopted some or all of California’s tailpipe emission standards, which are stricter than federal rules.

 

California’s policy doesn’t ban cars that run on gas; after 2035 people can keep their existing cars or buy used ones, and 20 percent of sales can be plug-in hybrids that run on batteries and gas.

 

The transformation in what people drive will require at least 15 times more vehicle chargers statewide, a more robust energy grid and vehicles that people of all income levels can afford, says AP.

 

Transportation is the single largest source of emissions in the state, accounting for about 40 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions. The air board's action covers cars, pickup trucks and SUVs; the board is working on different rules for motorcycles and larger trucks.

 

In June, the European Parliament backed a plan to effectively prohibit the sale of gas and diesel cars in the 27-nation European Union by 2035, and Canada has mandated the sale of zero-emission cars by the same year.

 

Here is the press release from the California Air Resources Board.

Also in the news

Putin orders expansion of Russia’s armed forces

 

Pentagon announces changes to reduce risks to civilians in U.S. military operations

 

Interior Department grants $560 million across 24 states to plug more than 10,000 orphaned wells leaking methane

 

Federal government extends baby formula waivers, rebates for WIC families

Trump search redacted affidavit set to be released Friday

 

Black August as an alternative Black History Month

 

New Yorker: ‘When private equity takes over a nursing home’

 

Opinion article: 'If you’re suffering after being sick with covid, it’s not just in your head’

 

Small study is most rigorous test yet of psilocybin for alcoholism

 

Large study identifies top factors in your dog’s risk of getting dementia

Biden’s plan to cancel $10,000 in student loans, $20,000 for Pell Grants

More than 40 million Americans could have their student loan debt reduced — and in many cases eliminated — under the long-awaited forgiveness plan President Biden announced Wednesday — "a historic but politically divisive move in the run-up to the midterm elections," as The Associated Press puts it.

 

Biden is fulfilling a campaign pledge by erasing $10,000 in federal student loan debt for people with incomes below $125,000 a year, or households that earn less than $250,000. 

 

And he’s canceling an additional $10,000 for people who received federal Pell Grants. About 60 percent of borrowers have gotten Pell grants, and the majority of them come from families making less than $30,000 a year. The Education Department estimates that 27 million people will qualify for up to $20,000 in relief.

 

Biden has been agonizing for months over how to address the student debt issue, under pressure from progressive Democrats who say debt forgiveness is necessary to address racial disparities in the economy, says The New York Times. 

 

Republicans quickly denounced the plan as an insult to Americans who've repaid their debt and to those who didn’t attend college.

 

And some economists have raised concerns that debt relief will add to inflation by giving people more money to spend.

 

Because Biden is using executive action, rather than legislation, to forgive the loans, legal challenges are expected. But it's unclear who would have standing to make their case in court. A recent Virginia Law Review article argued that the answer might be nobody: States, for example, have little say in the operation of a federal loan system.

 

On its face, the plan could cost taxpayers about $300 billion or more in money they effectively lent out that never will be repaid. But the true cost is harder to calculate, and could be smaller, because much of the debt was unlikely ever to be repaid. More than eight million people had defaulted on their loans before the coronavirus pandemic. Many of those people had fairly small balances and now will be eligible for loan cancellation.

 

Biden also is extending a pause on federal student loan payments for what he says is the “final time.” The pause is now set to run through the end of the year, with repayments to restart in January. 

 

And he’s seeking to let people with undergraduate loans cap their payments at 5 percent of their discretionary monthly income, down from the 10 percent ceiling now in place on most income-based payment plans.

 

He also wants to have the government cover the monthly interest for those making payments — even if their payment is zero, because their income is low — so balances won't balloon. Under the current system, interest still accrues, and many borrowers find themselves falling deeper into debt even though they're making their monthly payments.

 

The timing for the debt relief is uncertain; the Department of Education says it will set up an application process by the end of the year.

 

Many Democratic lawmakers and progressive groups have said addressing economic racial disparities would require forgiving $50,000 of debt, citing reports showing that African American and other nonwhite borrowers end up with higher average loan balances than their white peers.

 

Many economists say the move could have damaging consequences for students and taxpayers in the future, by encouraging colleges and universities to raise prices, with the federal government footing the bill.

 

Here is a fact sheet on the plan, from the White House.

 

And here is an FAQ, from the Times.

Also in the news

Biden announces $3 billion military aid package for Ukraine on its Independence Day

 

Congress wants to hear what Twitter whistleblower Peiter Zatko has to say

 

Federal judge blocks Idaho abortion ban in emergencies; Texas restrictions allowed

 

NASA to test new moon rocket, 50 years after Apollo

 

Facebook, Twitter, others remove pro-U.S. influence campaign

 

'Pre-bunking' shows promise in helping people resist misinformation, researchers say

 

Amazon to shut down virtual healthcare service Amazon Care

Results of Florida, New York, Oklahoma primary elections

In some key races Tuesday:

 

Florida

U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist won the Democratic nomination for governor, setting him up to challenge GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose more than $130 million war chest Democrats aren’t expected to come close to matching, according to The New York Times. Crist, a former Republican governor of the state, was “backed by many in the party’s establishment who viewed him as the safest choice, even after he lost his previous two statewide elections,” says The Associated Press. 

 

U.S. Rep. Val Demings, a former police chief of Orlando, easily won the Democratic nomination to run for U.S. Senate and will face GOP incumbent Sen. Marco Rubio in November.

 

Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a 25-year-old progressive activist, won the Democratic primary in the House district being vacated by Demings in order to run for the Senate, setting himself up to be the first member of Congress from Generation Z.

New York

Special House election

Pat Ryan, a Democratic county executive in New York’s Hudson Valley, won the swing-district seat in a contest that was seen as a potential test of the impact the Supreme Court’s recent decision on abortion might have on the midterm elections.

 

U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler easily defeated U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney in the Democratic primary after a court forced the two veteran lawmakers into the same New York City congressional district.

 

U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, defeated Alessandra Biaggi, a state senator who challenged him from the left, after a “divisive” race, says the Times.

 

Oklahoma 

U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin won the GOP primary runoff to serve the remaining four years of the term of U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, who is leaving early after nearly 30 years in office. Mullin will be heavily favored in November’s general election against former Democratic U.S. Rep. Kendra Horn, along with an independent and a Libertarian, says AP. The state hasn’t elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in more than 30 years.

 

Here are live updates of the vote counts in all the states' races, from the Times.

Also in the news

Former Malaysia Prime Minister Najib Razak heads to prison after losing final appeal of corruption conviction

 

Thailand court suspends Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha pending decision whether he's overstayed legal term in office

 

U.S. carries out airstrike in Syria on Iran-linked targets

AP: Where the war in Ukraine stands after 6 months

Groups sue over lack of process to fix mail ballot mistakes in Alaska

Two men convicted in plot to kidnap Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer

Twitter's former security chief files whistleblower complaints accusing company of cybersecurity negligence

 

Moderna seeks FDA authorization for its coronavirus booster targeting newest Omicron variants