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Good evening. Here’s the latest news at the end of Friday.
1. President Biden’s agenda to fight climate change seems to have collapsed and burned.
Biden came to power promising to wean the US off of fossil fuels to cut greenhouse gas emissions that are on their way to causing catastrophic global warming. But his climate goals have now come to a standstill amid democratic power struggles and shifting economic priorities driven by rapidly rising inflation.
Biden bowed to the political realities, saying he was instead willing to “take strong executive measures to deal with this moment”.
2. With little fanfare, President Biden embarked on a visit to Saudi Arabia.
Biden avoided a formal handshake with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is believed to be responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, who instead chose to give the de facto Saudi leader a fist. Biden’s discomfort was palpable, our reporters write.
Biden said he told the crown prince in their private meeting that he blames him for the murder of Khashoggi. After his assassination, Biden had said he would make Saudi Arabia a “pariah.” Asked about today’s comment, he said, “I don’t regret what I said.”
Yet the encounter gave Mohammed the… international rehabilitation he sought in return for steps toward closer relations with Israel and an unannounced understanding that the kingdom will soon pump more oil to ease high gas prices in the US
3. The death of a 4-year-old captured the horror of the Russian war against Ukraine.
Iryna Dmytriyeva posted a video early Thursday of her daughter, Liza, pushing a pink pram as they walked through the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia. Shortly afterwards, Russian missiles struck, in which Liza was killed, Ukrainian officials said, and seriously injured her mother. Liza, who had Down syndrome, visited a speech therapist who taught her how to pronounce her first words.
“When I saw those shoes, I recognized them,” said the speech therapist. “I knew it was our Liza.”
The attack appeared to follow a pattern of attacks by Russian troops on civilian targets. At least 10 Russian missiles hit Mykolaivhitting two universities, a hotel and a shopping center in the southern Ukrainian city.
Individual, Brittney Griner’s lawyers said: she had a recipe for the drug she accidentally carried into Russia.
4. Americans are not optimistic about the economy, even though their own finances have held up relatively well.
Only 10 percent of registered voters rate the US economy as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ according to a New York Times/Siena College polleven though wages are rising and unemployment is low.
That could be expensive for Democrats, as 78 percent of voters say inflation will be “extremely important” when they head to the polls in November. Economic pessimism can also become self-fulfilling if consumers cut spending.
5. The House passed two bills aimed at protecting access to abortion. Neither has the votes to advance in the Senate.
Democrats cheered as the bills passed, put both sides on the plate on the way to the midterms. One measure, mostly along party lines, would protect the right to travel across state lines for abortion services. Three Republicans joined the Democrats.
The second bill, a version of which was passed by the House of Representatives last year, would explicitly give health care providers the right to provide abortion services and their patients the right to receive them. The move also went along party lines.
As more US states criminalize abortion, activists in Mexico are inundated with calls from women seeking abortion medications. This video shows their efforts.
6. Demand for monkeypox vaccines exceeds the country’s supply, the CDC said.
It is unknown when the supply crisis will abate. The government has made another 131,000 doses available to states and local jurisdictions today, but the extent of the outbreak remains unclear, in part because tests have been conducted. slow and limited. More than 1,400 cases have been identified in the US, mostly in men who have sex with men, and the number of cases is likely to increase in the coming weeks.
In the corona news, US hospitals are witnessing a familiar scene: a growing number of coronavirus patients have no nurses to care for them. A chronic shortage of qualified nurses is as bad as ever in some parts of the US, experts say, and is showing signs of getting worse.
7. The Largest Bitcoin Miners In The US Have The Capacity To Use As Much Power As Possible as the entire city of Houston, a congressional investigation found.
After China cracked down on crypto mining last year, the US saw: an influx of cryptocurrency miners, which use powerful computers to create and track the virtual currency. Congressional Democrats said miners should be required to report their energy use.
The data showed that just seven companies were set up to use a whopping 1,045 megawatts of power, or enough electricity to power all homes in a city of about 2.3 million residents.
8. The James Webb Space Telescope didn’t just capture images of galaxies but also something closer to home: Jupiter.
NASA has released images of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, which is only 430 million miles from Earth. (For comparison, some of the light in the galaxy cluster in the image released this week travels more than 13 billion light-years.) With its 5-meter-wide mirror, the Webb telescope can discern fine details of Jupiter and its large moons.
Light pollution can often obstruct the night sky, making stargazing difficult. A writer in the Catskills wants to see the moon and stars better: “What’s the use of an illuminated bush at 2 a.m.?” she asks.
9. Jim Thorpe, one of the greatest athletes ever, was recovered as the only winner of the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Games.
Thorpe, who excelled at a dozen or more sports, dominated his two events at the 1912 Games, but was stripped of his medals after it was revealed that he had earned a few dollars for his Olympic career by briefly playing professional baseball. Historians had long believed that racism was a factor in the disqualification (Thorpe was a Native American).
In golf: Australian player Cameron Smith tops the standings at the British Open. Tiger Woods did not advance to the third round. He said what many fans feared: “I don’t know if I will be physically able to play another British Open here in St Andrews.”