Budget Bills, Fake Vaccines, & More Edited Royal Photos
March 20, 2024
Hello, readers – happy Wednesday! Today, we’re talking about the federal budget, climate warnings, Bolsonaro’s indictment, Jared Kushner’s views on Gaza, an immigration law in Texas, Trump’s lawsuit, and more news about Princess Kate (sort of).
This past week, we shared a story about TikTok facing a ban in the U.S. and asked our readers how they felt about it. Here are the results of that survey.
“I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.” – Jack London
Imagine Being THIS Late To Meet A Deadline
After a few months of back and forth, Congress has finally locked in a budget to keep the American government funded for the rest of the fiscal year. The 2024 fiscal year began on October 1, 2023, and ends September 30, 2024, meaning we’re almost halfway through it. Congress had passed a deal setting funding for some agencies earlier this month, but left other parts of the government un-budgeted up until now.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said that the text of the bipartisan deal will be released “as soon as possible” before Congress votes on the budget. Legislators have until 11:59 p.m. ET Friday to pass the bill, or else the federal government will have to contend with a partial shutdown.
Johnson, a Republican, has had to reach across the aisle and work with Democrats despite his party’s majority in the House thanks to a small but vocal group of far-right Republicans. President Biden said of the deal, “I will sign it immediately.” Hopefully, the bill will garner the Democratic votes it requires to pass the House and avoid any speed bumps in the tightly-split Senate.
It’s Hot & Only Getting Hotter
You hear that? That’s the sound of yet another climate alarm sounding. This time, the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization is ringing the bell. The organization says that there’s a “high probability” that 2024 will be yet another record-breakingly hot year thanks to increases in greenhouse gases, land and water temperatures, and glaciers and sea ice melting in 2023.
“Never have we been so close – albeit on a temporary basis at the moment – to the 1.5° C lower limit of the Paris agreement on climate change,” said the agency’s secretary-general. “The WMO community is sounding the red alert to the world.” According to the report, the 12-month period between March 2023 and February 2024 averaged 1.56 C (2.81 F) above pre-industrial levels.
It’s not just heat we need to worry about. According to a study by IQAir, 83 of the cities with the worst air pollution in the world in 2023 were located in India, and all but one of the most-polluted cities were located in Asia. Global warming is expected to make that air pollution even worse as climate change affects rain and wind, which can influence the spread of pollutants and the danger of wildfires.
Jair In Hot Water
- Like his political idol Donald Trump, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is being hit with lawsuits after leaving office. On Tuesday, Brazil’s Supreme Court released an indictment accusing Bolsonaro of falsifying his Covid-19 vaccination status as recently as December 2022. The indictment alleges that the former president and 16 others fed a public health database false information to let Bolsonaro, his 12-year-old daughter, and a few others in his circle skip out on getting vaccinated.
- One police detective said the investigation “found several false insertions between November 2021 and December 2022, and also many actions of using fraudulent documents.” That timeline means he manipulated the database just before traveling to the U.S. following an election loss to current Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Kushner Really Cares…About That Waterfront View
- As people face famine and violence in Gaza, Jared Kushner is eyeing the area’s waterfront property. In an interview at Harvard earlier this month, Kushner pointed out the “very valuable” potential of Gaza’s “waterfront property” before suggesting that Israel should push Palestinians out of the area as it “cleans up.” He added that Israel should “just bulldoze something in the Negev” and “try to move people in there.” Kushner, if you need a refresher, is the husband of Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, and was a senior foreign policy adviser under his father-in-law’s administration.
- Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defiantly re-emphasized Israel’s plans for a ground invasion of Rafah and its over 1.1 million people. Netanyahu’s announcement came less than a day after a U.S.-Israel meeting where President Joe Biden warned against the invasion plan. National security adviser Jake Sullivan said “Israel has not presented us or the world with a plan for how or where they would safely move those civilians, let alone feed and house them and ensure access to basic things like sanitation.” He also noted that “an invasion would shut [aid] down or at least put it at great risk.”
More Mixed Nuts
- MPs vote to throw out amendments to Rwanda deportation bill (Guardian)
- Ukraine war: Thousands of children to be evacuated from Belgorod after strikes (BBC)
- Blinken lauds ‘extraordinary’ expansion of defense ties with the Philippines amid China tensions (NBC)
- Russia confirms naval chief replaced after Black Sea failures (CNN)
- Lloyd Austin Praises NATO Allies for Commitment to Ukraine (NYT, $)
Texas Takes ICE’s Job
- Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that Texas could enforce a new immigration law that allows the arrest and detention of people suspected of entering the country illegally. Predictably, the vote was 6-3, with the three liberal judges dissenting, saying the order “invites further chaos and crisis in immigration enforcement.”
- On Monday, the court issued an indefinite pause on the law, but that’s over now. Immigration is typically a duty of the federal government, but Texas has taken matters into its own hands for months now. Opponents of the law worry about an increase in racial profiling – Texas has a 40% Latino population.
Sounds Like Trump Got His Feelings Hurt
- (TW: sexual violence) Former President Trump is suing ABC News and George Stephanopoulos for defamation stemming from an interview with Rep. Nancy Mace. Stephanopoulos was pushing Mace on her continued support of Trump despite a jury finding he had sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll in 1996. In the interview, Stephanopoulos repeatedly says that Trump raped Carroll.
- Trump’s lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in the Southern District of Florida, claims that Stephanopoulos’s statements were “false, intentional, malicious and designed to cause harm.” While the jury last year found that Trump had sexually abused Carroll, there wasn’t enough proof that he had raped her. Months later, however, the judge in the case concluded that the claim Trump raped Carroll was “substantially true.”
More Nuts In America
- Peter Navarro begins serving prison sentence after historic contempt prosecution (CNN)
- Young conservatives have grown up in Trump’s Republican Party. Now, it’s time to vote (NPR)
- Biden seeks to reinvigorate diverse coalition in critical 2024 campaign swing out West (CNN)
- Potential 2024 candidates keep saying no, but No Labels is pressing forward anyway (NBC)
- Congress requests documents from UC Berkeley in widening campus antisemitism investigation (CNN)
- Supreme Court allows strict Texas SB4 immigration law to take effect for now (ABC)
Kensington Palace & The Case Of The Cut-Up Pictures
- The mystery surrounding the Princess of Wales continues to unfold, and Getty Images is leading the charge. According to Getty, a picture of the late Queen Elizabeth taken by Kate and published by Kensington Palace last year shows signs of being “digitally enhanced,” a claim backed up by further analysis from CNN.
- The picture in question depicts Queen Elizabeth with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and was supposedly taken by Kate a few months before the Queen’s death. CNN’s analysis says that at least 18 spots in the picture show signs of editing, and Getty has told the outlet that it is “undertaking a review of handout images and in accordance with its editorial policy is placing an editor’s note on images where the source has suggested they could be digitally enhanced.”
- The editing scandal first arose after the Princess of Wales went missing for months thanks to a “scheduled” abdominal surgery. Soon after she unofficially re-appeared in paparazzi photos, Kensington Palace posted a Mother’s Day photo of Kate that the internet and publications realized was edited. While Kate has said that the edits are a “hobby” of hers, sending heavily edited photos like those to agencies like Getty is highly frowned upon by the company, which works very closely with the royals. For those of you looking for an update on Kate’s health, she showed up in paparazzi photos looking healthy while shopping at a mall on Saturday.
More Loose Nuts
- Court jails first person convicted of cyberflashing in England (Guardian)
- Images taken deep inside melted Fukushima reactor show damage, but leave many questions unanswered (AP)
- Notre Dame Cathedral’s restoration has been a 5-year journey of dedication and recovery (AP)
- Ancient chariot grave found at construction site for Intel facility in Germany (CBS)
- Kids’ Cartoons Get a Free Pass From YouTube’s Deepfake Disclosure Rules (Wired)