July 13, 2021

Severe drought threatens Hoover dam reservoir - and water for US west

(Guardian UK) Had the formidable white arc of the Hoover dam never held back the Colorado River, the US west would probably have no Los Angeles or Las Vegas as we know them today. No sprawling food bowl of wheat, alfalfa and corn. No dreams of relocating to live in a tamed desert. The river, and dam, made the west; now the climate crisis threatens to break it.

The situation here is emblematic of a planet slowly, inexorably overheating. And the catastrophic consequences of the extreme weather this brings.

....(snip)....

Surveying the dam’s sloping face from its curved parapet, Michael Bernardo, river operations manager at the US Bureau of Reclamation, admits the scarcity of water is out of bounds with historical norms. While there is no “average” year on the Colorado River, Bernardo and his colleagues were always able to estimate its flow within a certain range.

But since 2000, scientists say the river’s flow has dwindled by 20% compared to the previous century’s average. This year is the second driest on record, with the flow into Lake Mead just a quarter of what would be considered normal.

“These are scenarios that aren’t necessarily where we expect to be in our models,” said Bernardo, whose work helps deliver a reliable level of water to thirsty western states. Nearly 40 million people, including dozens of tribes, depend on the river’s water. “We’re getting those years that are at the extreme ends of the bell curve. We’ve seen extremes we haven’t seen before, we now have scenarios that are very, very dry.” .........(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/13/hoover-dam-lake-mead-severe-drought-us-west?

July 13, 2021

Santa Clara VTA targets return of light-rail service by end of July

Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) has released plans to phase in the return of light-rail service.

“We know our light-rail passengers are eager to see the trains running again. We are too. Our multi-phase plan is now underway with expectations to resume light-rail service by the end of July, although no firm date can be set at this time,” the authority wrote in an online posting.

The first phase is currently underway with the move to successive phases dependent on the completion of the previous phase. The full plan includes:

* Phase 1: (currently underway) Outreaching to Guadalupe employees and identifying immediate/interim work locations.

* Phase 2: Moving and onboarding critical staff entails fit for duty evaluations and set up of immediate work locations.

* Phases 3-5 involve continued onboarding of staff, infrastructure repairs and a "soft opening" in non-revenue service before being fully operational. Trains will operate in non-revenue service prior to service restoration and Way Power & Signal staff will check out their new work location and visually inspect the line rather than start actual inspections or repairs.

“Each successfully completed phase is critical to provide a strong foundation for the next phase. We will keep the public updated on completion of phases,” explained the authority. ............(more)

https://www.masstransitmag.com/rail/article/21229904/santa-clara-vta-targets-return-of-lightrail-service-by-end-of-july

July 12, 2021

Florida, the Land of Gleaming Condos, Frets After Collapse

(NYT) SURFSIDE, Fla. — Modern Florida was built on condos like Champlain Towers South.

“A new lifestyle is evolving in Florida and with it, a new habitat, the condominium,” Florida Trend magazine declared in 1970, when it first used the word. Condos promised an entrée to the Florida dream of sunshine and fresh starts, affordable because it could be shared with a few hundred neighbors.

A condo craze boomed in the 1970s, and Florida, decades after the advent of air-conditioning, insect repellent and swamp dredging, was on its way to becoming the third-most populous state, a frontier land for builders and investors and a powerful lure for people seeking the ultimate Florida reward: life on the beach.

The residents of Champlain Towers South came to Surfside, Fla., from all over the Americas and every walk of life: wealthy penthouse owners who kept a beachside pied-à-terre, modest-income retirees who had called the place home for decades, orthodox Jews just a few blocks from temple, Cuban exiles, New York snowbirds. They were seduced by the promise of prosperity and enjoyment embodied in the gleaming buildings that have defined the Miami skyline for nearly half a century. ............(more)

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/12/us/miami-champlain-towers-florida-dream.html?

July 12, 2021

"There Was No Plan. He Is Deranged"

“There Was No Plan. He Is Deranged”
During the reporting of his latest book on the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, “Fire and Fury" author Michael Wolff says he got an invitation to meet the former president at Mar-a-Lago. In an interview, he tells DER SPIEGEL what ensued.

Interview Conducted By Marc Pitzke
12.07.2021, 16.00


(Der Spiegel) "Let's sit in the garden,” says Michael Wolff. The 67-year-old journalist and author usually lives in New York City's Greenwich Village, in an old, book-filled townhouse. But today, he has invited DER SPIEGEL to the Hamptons, the wealthy enclave at the eastern tip of Long Island. Wolff owns a modest (by comparison) white colonial summer home here, hidden behind tall hedges.

Birds sing in the jasmine-scented air as Wolff serves fresh coffee and sits down at a wooden picnic table.

His books "Fire and Fury” (2018) and "Siege: Trump under Fire” (2019) were full of sensational insider gossip about Donald Trump, whom Wolff describes as more or less imbecilic, and the chaos in his White House. They set off a furor and were translated into dozens of languages. One of Wolff's most important sources was Steve Bannon, who was let go as Trump's chief advisor.

Wollf insists that he really wanted to write about something completely different next. Then Jan. 6 happened.

....(snip)....

DER SPIEGEL: With dangerous consequences, if you look at the events since the elections – he still doesn't acknowledge his loss.

Wolff: Completely. It's dangerous because he's in some other reality and manages to bring a good part of the country along with him. Even though there was not one single person in the White House, in his campaign, in his family, who took any of this seriously or who believed in any of this, you know? No one believed that he won the election. No one believed he could do anything to meaningfully disrupt the results of the election. No one believed it. No one, 100 percent no one believed that Joe Biden was not going to be the president on Jan. 20.

DER SPIEGEL: So, Jan. 6 was not an attempted cop?

Wolff: That's just political reporters trying to apply some logic to this. There is no logic to this. There was no plan. He is deranged. The guy can't get from the beginning of the sentence to the end of a sentence. Everybody knows there was no election fraud, except Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani. It's like they're on some other planet. ...........(more)

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/bestselling-author-michael-wolff-on-his-trump-exposes-there-was-no-plan-he-is-deranged-a-650ddf37-09f4-4cef-9c48-5e4082274cc7

July 12, 2021

After early struggles, Isle Royale's transplanted wolves show healthy signs of settling in

(Detroit Free Press) After a somewhat rough start, the wolves who survived being transplanted to Isle Royale in Lake Superior seem to have taken a liking to their new surroundings, producing multiple litters of pups.

Nineteen wolves were transplanted on the island national park between 2018 and 2019 to bolster its nearly vanished wolf population and counterbalance the island's swelling numbers of moose.



Though the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted Michigan Technological University's annual winter survey of Isle Royale wolves and moose for the first time in 63 years last winter, data gathered last summer and this spring and summer seems to show the transplanted wolves settling into their new home. Researchers last summer found evidence of two litters of wolf cubs born on the island's eastern end, and possibly a third litter on the west side of the island, Michigan Tech research assistant professor Sarah Hoy said.

In January, a remote camera on the island caught footage of a group of four wolf pups on the island's eastern end.

"That shows that at least one litter of the wolves had survived into winter," Hoy said. ....................(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/07/12/litters-wolf-pups-isle-royale-transplants-settle/7918093002/

July 12, 2021

Scholar Carol Anderson on the "anti-Blackness" coded into the Second Amendment

Scholar Carol Anderson on the "anti-Blackness" coded into the Second Amendment
Behind the Second Amendment's ambiguous language, Anderson says, is a white terror that endures to this day

By DEAN OBEIDALLAH
PUBLISHED JULY 12, 2021 5:30AM


(Salon) Carol Anderson is likely to trigger a lot of people on the right with her book about the anti-Black history of the Second Amendment, "The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America." But if anyone understands what white backlash looks and feels like it's Anderson, who also wrote the 2016 bestseller "White Rage."

In her new book, Anderson, the chair of African American studies at Emory University, shares a history of the Second Amendment that few of us ever heard, arguing that it was included in the U.S. Constitution after demands by slave states for a constitutional right to form militias to put down slave revolts. Anderson details how Virginia's Patrick Henry and George Mason expressed fears that the federal government would not help them defeat slave uprisings, and demanded that the Second Amendment be included so they could deal with such revolts themselves — an acute concern in the slave-owning oligarchy of that time.

From there, Anderson traces how for decades the Second Amendment only protected the right of white Americans to own guns. In fact, states like Virginia enacted laws in the early 1800's making it a crime for free Black people to carry guns. In the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision, where the Supreme Court ruled that Black people were not citizens, Chief Justice Roger Taney — who wrote the opinion — expressed the concern that if Blacks were to become citizens, they would have the constitutional right to firearms

Anderson draws a straight line from the racist history of the Second Amendment and its application to our society today where armed (and unarmed) Black Americans are treated vastly different by the police than armed and dangerous white people. She points to the contrast between the case of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who in 2014 was killed by police while playing with a toy pellet gun, andwhite supremacist Dylann Roof, who in 2015 murdered nine Black worshipers at a historic church in South Carolina, but was captured alive by police. ..................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2021/07/12/scholar-carol-anderson-on-the-anti-blackness-coded-into-the-second-amendment/

July 11, 2021

Florida man 'sparks security scare and flight chaos by threatening to BLOW UP Ft Lauderdale Airport.

Florida man 'sparks security scare and flight chaos by threatening to BLOW UP Fort Lauderdale Airport after missing his flight


A bomb threat that sparked a security scare and an hours-long shut down of Fort Lauderdale Airport Saturday has been cleared, but over 100 flights are delayed.

A source told Fox News a passenger reportedly missed his flight and threatened to blow up the place, though police had not confirmed any details of the incident.

That suspect - who has not been identified - is not believed to have had any explosive material in his possession.

The only official police statements came from The Broward County Sheriff Office, which confirmed a bomb threat was made at 8:49am in a 11:46am tweet and the airport was safe to reopen in a 12:36pm tweet.

As of 1:15pm, 80 outgoing flights have been delayed and 72 inbound flights are delayed, according to the flight-tracking service FlightAware. .............(more)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9775993/Bomb-threat-sparks-security-scare-evacuations-Four-Lauderdale-Airport.html

July 11, 2021

Randi Weingarten Rips CRT Critics for 'Trying to Stop Us From Teaching Students Accurate History'

Randi Weingarten Rips CRT Critics for ‘Trying to Stop Us From Teaching Students Accurate History’
The political and media elites that are whipping up anger over Critical Race Theory are furious with a teachers union leader for exposing their lies.

By John Nichols
JULY 9, 2021


(The Nation) The Republican Party’s cynical assault on Critical Race Theory is a political strategy that relies on controlling the message going into the 2022 midterm elections. So partisan apparatchiks, along with the talking heads that populate the GOP’s media echo chamber, have adopted a rigid approach to any dissent from the party line regarding what it hopes will be the new orthodoxy on teaching—or, to be more precise, not teaching—about historic and systemic racial injustice in America. If someone dares to suggest that what Republicans like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are proposing is not just shamelessly anti-historical but also threatening to freedom of speech and honest dialogue in the United States, the response is guaranteed to be rough.

Conservative strategists who see the assault on CRT as vital to their prospects for an electoral comeback are terrified that the absurdity of their arguments will be exposed. They want Democrats and progressives to avoid the subject so that Republican governors and Fox News hosts can convince suburban swing voters that the issue that matters most in their lives is the history curriculum at the local high school. It’s an old “culture wars” strategy, but it only works if the GOP spin goes unquestioned.

So challenges to the big lie du jour are treated as threats. Efforts to explain CRT as an academic project that seeks to expand thinking about systems that perpetuate racism are met with vitriol very nearly as intense as what might target a dissident calling out the false premises of an authoritarian regime.

But Randi Weingarten is unafraid of the right-wing speech police. The American Federation of Teachers union president took them on this week with a robust defense of public education that teaches the whole story of America. “Let’s be clear: critical race theory is not taught in elementary schools or high schools,” she said. “It’s a method of examination taught in law school and college that helps analyze whether systemic racism exists—and, in particular, whether it has an effect on law and public policy. But culture warriors are labeling any discussion of race, racism or discrimination as CRT to try to make it toxic. They are bullying teachers and trying to stop us from teaching students accurate history.” ...........(more)

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/critical-race-theory-teachers/

July 11, 2021

The high cost of being a recalcitrant ***hole when flying

The Federal Aviation Administration continues to battle hostile passenger behavior aboard commercial flights, handing out $119,000 in new fines this week for misconduct on planes.

The FAA has received 3,271 reports of unruly behavior by passengers since the beginning of the year. About 2,475 of those reports involved refusal to wear face masks.

Flight attendant Paul Hartshorn Jr. called the increase of these airline incidents “absolutely staggering.” Some confrontations have been so egregious, they’ve disrupted entire airline schedules.

“We’ve seen flights delayed, cancelled, and multiple diversions to the Midwest. This has all been happening in numbers that we’ve never seen before,” said Harshorn, a spokesperson for the Association of Professional Flight Attendants. ..............(more)

https://www.bostonherald.com/2021/07/08/unfriendly-skies-faa-fines-unruly-passengers-plaguing-airlines/

July 10, 2021

Washington DC: Metrorail's July 4 Ridership Hits Highest Numbers Since March 2020

(DCist) Ridership on D.C. Metro could be making a comeback after more than a year of pandemic lows.

On Sunday, July 4, Metro rail ridership topped 210,000 people, the highest single-day total since March 2020. Overall, Metro ridership levels have fallen about 85% since the beginning of the pandemic, and ridership has not reached the peaks seen in 2019. On July 4, 2019, there were more than 400,000 riders on Metro rail, according to WMATA ridership data.

Last year visitors were discouraged from gathering on the National Mall to watch fireworks on July 4 due to COVID restrictions on large gatherings.

Metro’s board of directors hopes to get more people back to riding the metro later this summer with a series of changes including extending operating hours to midnight on weekdays and 1 a.m. on weekends, providing more frequent trains during peak hours, and offering a flat $2-per-ride fee on the weekends. ............(more)

https://dcist.com/story/21/07/06/metro-ridership-shows-signs-of-recovery/