At least 30 are killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza as war deaths top 58,000, officials say
Israel and Hamas appeared no closer to a breakthrough in talks meant to pause the 21-month war and free some Israeli hostages. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington last week to discuss the deal with the Trump administration, but a new sticking point has emerged over the deployment of Israeli troops during the truce, raising questions over the feasibility of a new deal.
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National Observer
an hour ago
- National Observer
Republicans complain about smoke. But they voted for fire
It had to be a joke, right? A group of MAGA lawmakers moaning about 'suffocating Canadian wildfire smoke' in a complaint fired off to Canada's ambassador to the US. Someone at The Beaverton or Walking Eagle News must have been feeling especially snarky. But, no. Turns out that six of Trump's besties in Congress spent their July 4 weekend coordinating grievances and writing up a joint letter of protest, demanding action from the Canadian government. Their constituents have been 'limited in their ability to go outside … to spend time recreating, enjoying time with family and creating new memories,' the complaint reads. It makes no mention of the tens of thousands of Canadians forced to evacuate this year or those who have died. The signatories conveniently ignore the fact that smoke from the US side of the border regularly smothers those of us who live north of it. In fact, the complaint does not mention fires in the US at all, even though more than two million acres have burned so far this year, and Canadian firefighters have deployed to assist their US colleagues, just as US wildland firefighters have been helping in Canada. Given the MAGA credentials of the complainants, you may not be surprised to hear their complaint blames a 'lack of active forest management' (a nod to Donald Trump's weird conviction that countries like Finland rake their forests to remove fuel), admonishes Canada for not preventing arson and makes no mention of climate change whatsoever. It most certainly does not mention that the signatories just passed Trump's 'big beautiful bill' that will add an extra seven billion tonnes of fossil fuel pollution to the atmosphere over the next five years, compared to the Biden-era climate targets. The irony is what's suffocating — while MAGA lawmakers rage at the north for spoiling their barbecues, they're voting to supercharge the very crisis they refuse to name. The sharpest response to the US congresspeople came from Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew. He didn't mince words in his response. He called the GOP lawmakers 'ambulance chasers.' It had to be a joke, right? A group of MAGA lawmakers moaning about 'suffocating Canadian wildfire smoke' in a complaint fired off to Canada's ambassador to the US. Someone at The Beaverton or Walking Eagle News must have been feeling snarky. "This is what turns people off politics," Kinew said. "A group of congresspeople trying to trivialize and make hay out of a wildfire season where we've lost lives in our province." That group of congresspeople included Tom Emmer, the GOP's third-highest ranking member and majority whip in the House of Representatives. You might think he'd have been preoccupied over the long weekend — dealing with the horrendous floods that killed at least 120 people in Texas, sweeping away children at summer camp. In that situation, too, politicians and officials are contorting themselves to avoid acknowledging the obvious fact that catastrophes are hitting harder and more frequently. Terms like a one-hundred-year flood or one-thousand-year flood have become meaningless (the US has just been rocked by four one-in-1,000-year storms in less than a week). In Texas, the rain bomb struck at night. In about 45 minutes, the Guadalupe River surged from a stream you could wade across to a torrent two-storeys high. At its crest, more water was churning down the Guadalupe than the average flow rate over Niagara Falls. Yes, we can say climate change did this Governments should be ready for "more, bigger, extreme events," said Andrew Dessler, director of the Texas Center for Extreme Weather at Texas A&M. Ever-bigger floods are 'exactly what the future is going to hold.' Other climate scientists described the Texas floods as 'precisely' the kind of disaster being supercharged by global heating. 'This kind of record-shattering rain (caused by slow-moving torrential thunderstorms) event is *precisely* that which is increasing the fastest in a warming climate. So it's not a question of whether climate change played a role — it's only a question of how much,' said Daniel Swain. That last point is a key one. Far too much coverage of fire, flood and extreme weather still operates on the old trope that you can't attribute any particular event to climate change. But, scientists like Dessler emphasize that 'the role of climate change is like steroids for the weather — it injects an extra dose of intensity.' 'We have added a lot of carbon to the atmosphere, and that extra carbon traps energy in the climate system,' Dessler wrote after the tragedies in Texas. 'Because of this extra energy, every weather event we see now carries some influence from climate change. The only question is how big that influence is.' 'Measuring the exact size takes careful attribution studies, but basic physics already tells us the direction: climate change very likely made this event stronger.' The first attribution studies have already been published. These rapid response analyses don't have time to undergo peer-review and instead apply peer-reviewed methodologies to the conditions for a specific event. EU-based ClimaMeter has released just such a rapid-response study which concluded that the heavy rain that caused the floods in Texas 'cannot be explained alone by natural variability and points to human-caused climate change as one of the main drivers of the event.' Davide Faranda of ClimaMeter summarized the organization's findings: The flash flood that tore through Camp Mystic at night, when people were most vulnerable, shows the deadly cost of underestimating this shift. We need to rethink early-warning systems, land-use planning, and emergency preparedness. And above all, we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit future risks.' The basic pattern is that hotter air can hold more water vapour. And warmer oceans evaporate more water into the atmosphere. The rain bomb in Texas resulted from a tropical storm fuelled by an overheated Gulf of Mexico. The US-based organization Climate Central calculated that these unnatural early-July sea surface temperatures were made 10 to 30 times more likely by climate change. Fossil-fuels triple heat deaths As heart-breaking as the US floods have been, the death toll is many times lower than attribution studies are finding for heat waves. The early attribution studies are now rolling in for the heat wave that has been searing Europe. And for the first time, scientists are now taking the step of estimating the number of deaths linked to climate change. About 1,500 people died because of supercharged heat in just 10 days, across 12 cities, according to the team of scientists led by Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The researchers found that 65 per cent of the estimated heat deaths resulted from the extra heat caused by climate change, 'meaning the death toll was tripled due to the burning of fossil fuels.' The science is not subtle: fossil fuel pollution is killing people. The question is no longer if climate change is making disasters worse — it's how many lives it's already taken. When scientists can now calculate the number of deaths resulting from human-caused heating, we're witnessing the emergence of a macabre new metric: bodies per barrel. This isn't hyperbole, it's attribution science. The same methodology that can trace Texas floods to an overheated Gulf of Mexico can now count the bodies piling up from burning fossil fuels. And while the MAGA lawmakers may be insufferable, the deeper truth is harder to face: that same macabre math applies across the board, and border. The metric isn't confined to one political party or one country. In Canada, politicians continue to propose and celebrate new fossil fuel infrastructure, from LNG export terminals to new pipelines, gas networks to gas-guzzling vehicles. We can pretend to look away from the gruesome side of the ledger, but the bodies keep piling up.
National Observer
an hour ago
- National Observer
Canadian far right repeats Trump-fuelled conspiracy theories on wildfires
Trump-aligned congresspeople aren't spreading wildfire disinformation in a vacuum; American social media giants are enabling a haze of conspiracy theories and misinformation about the wildfires ravaging Canadian forests, and are disguising the fossil fuel industry's role in the crisis, researchers have found. "The real worrisome trend for Canadians is the export of insane conspiracy theories from American politicians," said Micheal Khoo, policy and development co-director at Climate Action Against Disinformation, the group behind the research. Between April 21 and June 20, seven conservative media content creators, influencers and think-tanks reached millions of users on social media with misleading information about the fires. They are Rebel News, The Daily Skeptic, Bjorn Lomberg, Jasmin Laine, Marc Nixon, The Fraser Institute and the Heritage Foundation. The misleading and false information was particularly prolific on X (formerly Twitter), owned by Trump's far-right financier Elon Musk. The posts promoted numerous conspiracy theories — asserting the fires were primarily caused by arson; that the government failed to adequately deploy firefighting resources, sometimes for nefarious purposes; that governments are using wildfires to push a "radical green-agenda," and that Canada is using fires to harm the US. In fact, arson is responsible for a tiny fraction of wildfires. Industrial forestry practices, like monocultures and historic fire suppression, are part of the problem, but climate change is exacerbating their impact by making hotter, drier conditions more common. There is no evidence any Canadian government is attempting to use wildfires to push a green agenda or harm Americans. That hasn't stopped far-right American politicians from turning some of these conspiracies into political theatre. Trump-aligned congresspeople aren't spreading wildfire disinformation in a vacuum; American social media giants are enabling a haze of conspiracy theories and misinformation about the wildfires ravaging Canada's forests. Last week, six Trump-allied House Representatives sent a letter to Kirsten Hillman, Canada's ambassador in Washington, asking the country to stop smoke from wildfires from drifting south so Americans can "spend time outdoors recreating, enjoying time with family, and creating new memories." Communities across the northern Prairie provinces and Ontario have been consumed by wildfires in recent months, forcing thousands to evacuate and leaving two people dead in Lac du Bonnet, Manitoba. "This is what turns people off politics," said Wab Kinew, the Manitoba premier in an interview with CBC. "When you've got a group of congresspeople trying to trivialize and make hay out of a wildfire season where we've lost lives in our province." The group laid blame for the "worrisome trend" on "a lack of active forest management" and arson. Four of the signatories — Tom Emmer, Tom Tiffany, Pete Stauber and Brad Finstad — have received at least $408,068 in campaign donations from fossil fuel-linked groups since 2020. "The real arsonists are the ones trying to burn down the truth about extreme weather — and that it's made worse by the burning of fossil fuels," said Khoo. He isn't surprised to see that wildfires and other extreme weather events are frequently targeted with misinformation by conservative commentators, who are often financially linked to the oil and gas sector. These disasters are the clearest examples of climate science being proven right and people being harmed, making them a clear target for far-right disinformation. The glut of conspiracy theories about the fires has roots in a decades-old effort by the fossil fuel industry to sow doubt about climate change. For years, industry-funded advertising campaigns, lobbying efforts, academic positions and think-tanks have worked to sway public opinion on the problem it was knowingly creating. Once those ideas are out in the world, conspiracy theorists and influencers have adopted and adapted them, wrapping them into MAGA-style conservatism that helps undermine people's belief in the links between climate change and fires, he said. "This is deep, long-term and incredibly well-funded, and it's got a proven set of networks," explained Khoo. "The industry has been successful moving it into another social movement that just looks for opportunism to say the things that fossil fuel companies would never say — I don't think [former Exxon CEO and former Trump-appointed Secretary of State] Rex Tillerson would have ever said that your space lasers are causing the hurricane, or whatever other conspiracies." Still, this haze of half-truths couldn't spread without the help of social media platforms like X that consistently let climate misinformation spread unhindered. The researchers singled out those companies' moderation efforts — or lack of moderation — as key drivers of the problem, and called on the Canadian government to force them to clean up their act. In the same way Canadian regulators enforce safety rules on products like airplanes or foods, the government can force tech companies to meet certain safety standards. That might be tricky with Trump — earlier this month, federal officials were forced to back down on a proposed digital services tax after the US president threatened to halt trade negotiations with Canada — but Khoo emphasized that stronger rules are essential to sustaining support for climate action, and are supported by the EU and other countries.
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
The challenger who narrowly lost to GOP Rep. Scott Perry wants another chance to beat him in 2026
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Democrat Janelle Stelson, who lost to Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Perry by barely a percentage point in 2024, will run again in the right-leaning congressional district in Pennsylvania. Stelson, a one-time local TV anchor and personality, mounted a challenge to Perry, the former leader of the hardline House Freedom Caucus. It was designed to sway moderate Republicans, portraying him as an extremist on abortion rights and slamming Perry's votes against Democratic-penned bills that carried benefits for firefighters and veterans. 'The story about Scott Perry just keeps getting worse,' Stelson said in an interview. Stelson called Perry the 'deciding vote' in the House's 218-214 vote on Republicans' tax break and spending cut package that she said would strip Medicaid benefits from thousands of his constituents, possibly shut down rural hospitals and further stretch health care facilities, such as nursing homes. 'This has disastrous, possibly deadly consequences, and Scott Perry did that,' Stelson said. For his part, Perry is already touting the bill's provisions to curb billions of dollars in spending across clean energy, cut spending on the safety-net health care program Medicaid and reduce subsidies to states that offer Medicaid coverage to cover immigrants who may not be here legally. It will, he said in a statement, 'end damaging 'Green New Scam' subsidies, lock in critical and additional reductions in spending' and ramp up efforts to make sure Medicaid benefits are reserved for 'vulnerable Americans and not illegal aliens.' Perry's campaign, meanwhile, has said that Perry's fundraising is its strongest since he's been in Congress, and that the issues that propelled President Donald Trump and Perry to victories in 2024 will still be relevant in 2026. With Washington, D.C., completely controlled by Republicans, recruiting strong House challengers is of the utmost importance for Democrats. They need to flip just three seats nationwide to retake the House majority they lost in 2022 and block Trump's agenda. Stelson lost in a damaging 2024 election for the Democratic Party, despite outspending Perry in a race that cost over $24 million, according to FEC filings. It wasn't one of the most expensive House races in the nation, but Perry's victory of slightly over 1% point made it one of the closest. Democrats took heart that Perry ran well behind Trump — by 4 points — in a district that is becoming more moderate with Harrisburg's fast-developing suburbs. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro won the district in 2022's gubernatorial race, when he blew out his Republican opponent. Shapiro will lead Pennsylvania's ticket again in 2026, and is supporting Stelson by headlining a fundraiser for her in the coming days. Shapiro's support could ward off a potential primary challenger to Stelson. ___ Follow Marc Levy on X at:
