Month: December 2019

The unusually warm weather has prompted public discussion about the
climate crisis, a subject that is not often a priority in a country that heavily depends on hydrocarbon exports.

Putin acknowledged rising global temperatures, but cast doubt on the human role in climate change.

“We know that in the history of the Earth there have been periods of warming and cooling, and this might depend on the global processes in the universe,” he said. “A small tilt of the Earth’s axis and its orbit around the sun can lead to and have already led to very serious climate changes on the Earth, which had dramatic consequences — good or bad, they were still dramatic.”

“And it is happening again now. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to work out exactly how humankind affects climate change. But we cannot stay idle either, I agree with my colleagues. We should make our best efforts to prevent dramatic changes in the climate,” he added.

Moscow, however, may still have a chance for a white Christmas. Orthodox Christmas is observed on January 7 and the state meteorological agency said an extensive cyclone from Eastern Europe may alter air flows in the region, bringing cooler weather.

As the cyclone forms, the agency said, it will “deepen the tropospheric hollow above Central Russia, thereby giving hope for the return of ‘winter’ in the region.”

The massive outdoor ice-skating at VDNKh, a park in northern Moscow that is also home to the capital’s principal weather station, remained open for business on Wednesday.

On the cusp of 2020, the state of the planet is far more dire than in 2010. Preserving a safe and healthy ecological system is no longer a realistic possibility. Now, we’re looking at less bad options, ceding the fact that the virtual end of
coral reefs, the drowning of some
island nations, the worsening of already-devastating storms and the displacement of millions — they seem close to inevitable. The climate crisis is already costly, deadly and deeply unjust, putting the most vulnerable people in the world, often who’ve done the least to cause this, at terrible risk.

The worst part? We’ve known about this for a very long time. The climate emergency may seem like the issue of the moment, a new thing, a 2020 Democrats thing or a Greta Thunberg thing, but check out this
1958 educational film that mentions “tourists in glass-bottomed boats would be viewing the drowned towers of Miami;” or coverage of the
first Earth Day in 1970, 50 years ago this coming April, when millions hit the streets; or NASA scientist James Hansen’s
1988 testimony before the US Senate stating the era of global warming had begun.

It bears repeating that scientists have looked at the evidence, and
more than 97% of them agree that humans are warming the planet, primarily by burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. The warnings from scientists are only getting more dire as we peel decades off the calendar.

There’s a bright spot in all of this, and I will get to that.

But first I think we must take a clear-eyed, cold assessment of 2020.

Emissions are still going up

There are two numbers you need to understand to put this moment in perspective.

What’s actually happening? Yep, emissions continue to rise.

“We basically dillied and dallied and squandered the last 40 years, and you can’t just keep kicking the can down the road,” Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, and a senior research scientist, told me. “To hold to 1.5 degrees (Celsius), which frankly is not going to happen, would require at best reducing global emissions 7.5% every year, starting next year, at a time when emissions are actually going up!”

“The longer we wait the more impossible it becomes.”

“The world is in a far more perilous place at the end of 2019 compared to 2010 as climate impacts are being seen and felt all over the world,” Bill Hare, director of Climate Analytics, a research group, said in an email. “We have used up nearly half the carbon budget we had remaining in 2010. Fossil fuel emissions are 10% higher, and still increasing. Sea level rise is accelerating, and global temperature is increasing at 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade.”

We see our fingerprints on the storms

It’s not as if no one cares.

The news media is picking that up, using terms such as “climate emergency” and “climate crisis” instead of the blander “climate change.” Increasingly, lots of people are making these critical connections, which should motivate the political, social and economic revolution necessary to fix things.

Yes, the Paris Agreement happened in 2015.

But the end of the fossil fuel era is not yet in sight.

There’s evidence that only certain chunks of society are getting the message.

In other words: Despite the increased sense of urgency, public opinion is flat.

There’s hope, though

OK, so about that hope.

“Greta, in the space of basically 14 months, goes from being a lonely teenage girl sitting with a little sign outside the Parliament building, all by herself, to on one day having 4 million people marching in the streets with her all around the world,” Leiserowitz said. “That’s remarkable!”

We should continue shouting Greta’s “Yes, and” message into the next decade.

Yes, this truly is a horrible mess.

And yes, we must fix it.

Correction: An original version of the piece misquoted the number of climate change marchers.

Trump, who has said Pompeo would run if there were a risk of Republicans losing the Kansas seat, has received briefings from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Pompeo’s polling strength in the state, people familiar with the matter said.

And inside the White House, names of potential secretary of state replacements have been bandied about as advisers wait to learn Pompeo’s decision.

Publicly, Pompeo has downplayed and even dismissed the idea that he is considering a run, despite taking regular trips to Kansas and sitting for interviews with Kansas media outlets.

But the new social media accounts aren’t helping to quiet the speculation. In his new online image, Pompeo is a homegrown, all-American family man — with almost no mention of his role in Washington. In addition to the photos of card games at his kitchen table and drinking beer, Pompeo is seen washing dishes in a pair of gym shorts and attending college football games.

“Merry Christmas!” he wrote, followed by emoji of a Christmas tree, a wrapped present and a cross.

State Department officials who have worked with Pompeo chuckled at the images, observing that they seemed to portray him as a “man of the people.”

The new Twitter account — which accrued more than 17,000 followers in less than two weeks — caught the attention of White House officials, some of whom expect Pompeo to depart his post in the near future.

But Pompeo, who has remained in lockstep with Trump throughout his time in the administration, didn’t go rogue in launching the new account on the President’s favorite messaging platform. Before creating the new handle, the State Department held discussions with the White House about the legalities of setting up a personal account.

“There were discussions about the rules relating to official vs. personal accounts, and under what mechanisms senior officials could keep their accounts and followers,” an administration official said.

The State Department did not reply to a request for comment on these discussions, nor on why Pompeo felt the need to launch a personal Twitter at this particular juncture. The White House also did not respond.

If Pompeo does decide to run, he will need to leave behind his official secretary of state Twitter handle, but he can maintain his new account.

McConnell’s push

Pompeo’s prospective run may have no bigger supporter than the man who oversees the Senate Republican conference: McConnell. The Kentucky Republican has been effusive in his praise for the former House member and unabashed about his desire to see Pompeo as the next senator from Kansas.

Repeatedly, McConnell has said publicly that he wants Pompeo to run. He invited Pompeo to speak at his alma mater, the University of Louisville, as part of a speaker’s series at the endowed institution that bears his name: the McConnell Center.

Privately, McConnell has been forceful in expressing that desire, sources say, noting that the Senate would serve as an ideal place to continue the secretary of state’s service, expand his profile and broaden his portfolio as he considers his next political move.

Those conversations haven’t been only with Pompeo. They’ve also occurred inside the Oval Office. In a fall meeting at the White House to discuss the political landscape, McConnell showed Trump the numbers from what he and his team were seeing in Kansas — numbers, sources said, that underscored GOP concern about the state of the primary there.

Kansas hasn’t had a Democratic senator since 1932, but Sen. Pat Roberts’ looming retirement has become a cause for concern within the GOP establishment.

Their worry is that the party will nominate Kris Kobach, an anti-illegal-immigration firebrand and voter-fraud crusader who lost the governor’s race last year to a Democrat. Kobach then turned around and announced his candidacy for Senate in July.

Democrats also made gains in the Kansas 2018 congressional races. The GOP worry is that a Senate race with Kobach could become a repeat of the governor’s race, paving the path for a Democratic victory. Roberts himself has wondered publicly if Kansas is shifting politically, telling CNN he didn’t know if Kansas was “deep red anymore” and was now “maybe purple.”

While no specific ask was made in McConnell’s conversation with Trump, it was made clear that unlike those already in the race, Pompeo would have a much clearer path to victory in his home state.

Upon seeing the numbers, Trump previewed the response he would give publicly on Fox News a short time later: If a Pompeo run was necessary to assure that Republicans would hold on to the seat, he’d not only be supportive of the idea, but also would make clear to Pompeo that a run was necessary.

Planning for an exit

With the polling figures and softened social media persona as the backdrop, the White House is working on developing a list of potential Pompeo replacements, a source familiar with the discussions said.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, national security adviser Robert O’Brien and Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun are all being discussed as part of the list, the source said, but cautioned the effort is a work in progress and could change at any time.

“While it was not a great time for us, it was not a bad time for him to pass,” he added.

The special, which first aired on December 9, 1965, was an immediate critical and commercial hit, and it has since become a perennial holiday favorite.

“They said, ‘We’ll play it once and that will be all. Good try,’ ” Mendelson told Pop Matters.

He and director Bill Melendez “thought we had ruined Charlie Brown forever when it was done. We kind of agreed with the network. One of the animators stood up in the back of the room — he had had a couple of drinks — and he said, ‘It’s going to run for a hundred years,’ and then fell down. We all thought he was crazy, but he was more right than we were.”

The special has aired for more than 50 years.

Mendelson produced dozens of specials featuring “Peanuts” characters Charlie Brown and Snoopy, specials for the animated series “Cathy,” as well as numerous shows and over 100 episodes of the animated series “Garfield and Friends.”

The Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center, an institution dedicated to the works of the “Peanuts” creator, tweeted about Mendelson’s passing.

Mendelson graduated from Stanford University in 1954 with a degree in English and served in the Air Force after college. He worked for his father’s produce business before he joined KPIX-TV in 1961 to pursue a career as a TV producer.

He went on to produce several documentaries, including one about San Francisco Giants star Willie Mays.

He is survived by his wife, Ploenta, his children Glenn, Lynda, Jason, Sean; her stepson Ken; and eight grandchildren.

“The rates of increase in vaping that we have observed in teenagers actually surpasses anything that we have seen in the past, which is basically highlighting that vaping has basically been embraced very, very promptly by teenagers.”

The report is based on an annual survey of drug, alcohol and cigarette use and related attitudes among eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders in the United States. This year’s survey included 42,531 students from 396 public and private schools nationwide.

For the first time, the survey measured the daily vaping of marijuana and found that 3.5% of 12th graders, 3% of 10th graders and 0.8% of eighth graders reported vaping marijuana daily.

Among the illnesses, 78% were in people younger than 35, the CDC has reported, with a median age of 24. Patients have been as young as 13.

“We predict that next year that awareness that vaping of THC is associated with these acute lung injuries may lead to actually a reduction of vaping among teenagers,” Volkow said. “We will find out.”

Illicit drug use, other than marijuana, stays relatively low

Marijuana was the most commonly used illicit drug by adolescents while rates of other illicit drug use remained relatively low, according to the new report.

After remaining mostly steady for many years, the reported daily use of marijuana has climbed significantly since 2018 among eighth and 10th graders, reaching 1.3% and 4.8% respectively, according to the report.

Yet the overall past year marijuana use rates remained steady at 35.7% among 12th graders, 28.8% among 10th graders and 11.8% among eighth graders, the report said.

Among 12th graders, the report found relatively low past year rates of using LSD at 3.6%; synthetic cannabinoids at 3.3%; cocaine and ecstasy at 2.2%; and heroin, at 0.4%.

The percentage of students reporting alcohol use in the past year saw a significant decline among 10th and 12th graders from 2014 to 2019, now at 37.7% and 52.1% respectively.

The report also found that this year 2.4% of 12th graders said they smoked cigarettes daily, marking a significant decline from 3.6% last year — but when it comes to e-cigarettes, 11.7% of 12th graders said they vaped nicotine daily in 2019, the first year daily vaping use has been measured in the report.

While much progress has been made in reducing the use of alcohol, opioids and some other substances among youth, Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the
American Public Health Association, called the growth in vaping and marijuana use among young people “a major concern.”

Lawmakers have agreed to ban the sale of tobacco products to
anyone under the age of 21 as part of the sweeping year-end spending agreement, according to multiple people involved in the talks. The increased age restriction for tobacco purchases is one of several provisions outside the spending measures themselves that will be attached to the broader $1.4 trillion spending agreement and likely become federal law.

On the other hand, a woman’s cervix also can be tested for the presence of certain high-risk types of HPV that can cause cancers, including cervical cancer.

The findings are part of the Human Papillomavirus For Cervical Cancer screening trial, a publicly funded Canadian study.

Weighing screening options

The new study involved 19,009 women across British Columbia who had no history of invasive cervical cancer. The women, ages 25 to 65, were randomly assigned to one of two groups between 2008 and 2012.

In one group, the women underwent HPV testing alone. In the other group, the women underwent routine cytology-based Pap smear testing. Lastly, if women in the HPV testing group received positive results for HPV, it was followed by cytology, whereas HPV-negative women underwent cytology screening at 24 months after their results.

All participants were invited to complete a demographic and behavioral questionnaire, which included questions related to their HPV vaccination status, sexual health and sociodemographic status, among other factors.

The researchers found that significantly more women showed signs of precancer cells in the first round of HPV testing compared with the Pap test group, despite the groups having similar questionnaire responses.

Referral rates for followup appointments related to concerning test results were significantly higher in the HPV testing group, at 57%, compared with the Pap test group, at 30.8%. By 48 months, those referral rates were lower in the HPV testing group, at 49.2%, compared with the Pap test group, at 70.5%.

“What this study could offer is confidence that the most important part of screening in co-testing is HPV, and health agencies can now consider whether offering Pap tests is good use of limited and scarce health dollars,” Ogilvie said.

“Offering women HPV [testing] for cervical cancer screening detects more precancerous lesions earlier, and also a negative HPV test offers more assurance that women will not develop precancer in the next four years,” she said. “This can mean that women may need to be screened less frequently but have more accurate results.”

Limitations of the study included that the women were mostly highly educated and primarily from two specific regions in British Columbia. More research is needed to determine whether similar results would emerge among a more diverse group of women.

“We have known from years of clinical research that primary HPV testing is more sensitive than cytology testing, a fact that was confirmed by this study. However, the study only compared primary HPV testing to liquid-based cytology,” he said. “There was no co-testing comparison group in the study.”

‘This could really potentially simplify how we screen women’

“They say if you don’t have Pap testing right now, don’t start Pap testing; instead invest in doing primary HPV testing, because it is that much more effective if it’s the only option that you have,” she said. “So these implications are important for North America, but they’re really important for the whole world. Cervical cancer is more common in lower-resource settings where people don’t have access to screening.”

“What will replace the Pap test? In 2012, the American Cancer Society endorsed co-testing with cervical cytology testing and HPV testing at 5-year intervals as the preferred strategy for screening women 30 to 65 years of age because this approach combines the sensitivity of HPV testing with the familiarity of traditional Pap testing,” Massad wrote.

“However, the addition of cervical cytology testing adds little to the accuracy of HPV testing while increasing cost and false-positive results,” he wrote. “In 2018, organizations that develop cancer screening guidelines are wrestling with whether to recommend replacing co-testing with primary HPV testing as the optimal screening strategy.”

With this new study, that wrestling continues.

(CNN) — A 6,000-square-foot, 10-bedroom Victorian mansion could’ve been yours for only $50,000, but there was one catch: You had to put together a restoration proposal for the historic property in order to be considered.

“This is not an auction, it’s a contest,” DeRosa told CNN.

Applications closed December 18 and the city will review the offers and vote on a winner. The winner will be chosen after January 8, DeRosa said.

“It’s not so much the buyer who offers the best price that is of importance here, it’s the buyer with the best intended use and plan to restore this mansion that really matters,” said DeRosa.

The property once belonged to Auburn banker James Seymour, who was known for his philanthropic efforts. He founded the Seymour Library and the Auburn City Hospital.

The mansion sits on approximately an acre of land, and it has three stories, five bathrooms and four fireplaces. A two-story carriage house is also on the property.

CNN’s Melissa Gray contributed to this report.

“Today we choose to remember Tess with celebration filled with music she created, music that inspired her and music that tells a story about Tess to friends and family,” Lourie said. “We celebrate Tess with the written word which she revered and used so beautifully to reflect on herself and the world.”

Her friends performed songs including “Graceland” by Paul Simon, “I Believe” by R.E.M. and “My Girl” by The Temptations and read poems she loved and wrote.

Majors’ friends have spent the past week “jamming in the family room” of her family’s home, listening to music with her parents or visiting her favorite spot, Lourie said.

“(Her parents) wanted them at the center of the ceremony because it is through their passion and creativity that Tessa’s memory endures,” he said.

David Smith, a humanities teacher at St. Anne’s, paid tribute to her parents, Christy and Inman Majors.

“Tess was Tess because Christy and Inman allowed Tess to be Tess, whatever that looked like,” he said. “How blessed and grateful we are that you did.”

Her family did not speak at the ceremony but a written remembrance by her father, a novelist, was handed out. In it, he shared memories of his daughter and his appreciation for the love and support his family has received.

“She loved life and got her money’s worth out of it. The family is heartbroken and will miss her so very much,” her father wrote.

The student interned with the Augusta Free Press earlier this year, during which time she wrote at least four articles. Lourie read an excerpt from a tribute written by Chris Graham, the newspaper’s editor.

“Tess Majors would conquer the world,” Graham wrote. “I became convinced of that this past spring.”

“It is beyond my ability to process what has happened since that none of the great things that Tess Majors was destined to do will be able to come to pass,” Graham wrote in his tribute. “I’m certain, as certain as I am of anything, that she was going to achieve in whatever it was that she decided to set her sights upon.”

She was killed in a park near campus

A struggle followed and one of the people stabbed Majors with a knife several times.

She staggered her way up to the “surface side” of Morningside Drive, Harrison said, adding that she was found by a school security officer who called 911. She was taken to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead.

A 13-year-old boy was arrested a day after the killing and charged with second-degree murder, first-degree robbery and criminal possession of a weapon.

New York police Detective Wilfredo Acevedo testified in court this week the teen told him he went to the park with two other people with the intention of robbing someone.

The trio initially followed a man but then targeted Majors who refused to give up her property, Acevedo testified. An attorney for the teen argued his client was not aware that a robbery would be taking place.

“She’s a tremendous disservice to the country and she’s not doing a good job and some people think that she doesn’t know what she’s doing,” he said, seated in front of a videoconference screen that minutes earlier had beamed in US troops from around the globe. “A lot of people think that, a lot of people have said it.”

It’s hardly a surprise anymore that Trump’s sedate official calls for harmony are not exactly reflected in his actions or words. Freshly impeached by the House and eager for his Senate trial to begin, Trump is spending the holidays in a tense intermission as lawmakers argue over their next steps.

No sign of a break

A week since the impeachment vote, there is no sign of a break in the Christmas impasse over how and when his impeachment trial will transpire. Democrats have demanded to know the parameters of the trial before sending over their articles of impeachment, and have made clear they believe it should include witnesses.

The uncertain interval wasn’t what Trump was hoping for when he resigned himself last week to becoming only the third US president to be impeached. Even as it became clear he would not avoid that stain on his legacy, Trump looked to the trial in the Republican-held Senate as an inevitable vindication.

The President has displayed impatience at getting the proceedings underway. But the top Republican in the Senate does not appear to share his eagerness, saying he’s happy to delay the start of a trial he doesn’t particularly want to hold.

“I’m not anxious to have this trial, so if she wants to hold all the papers, go right ahead,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday on “Fox and Friends.” “We’re at an impasse.”

Pelosi wrote in a letter to Democrats this week that she wasn’t going to appoint Democratic managers — those lawmakers who will argue the case in the Senate — until she knows more about how the trial will proceed, leaving the two sides at a stalemate.

The standoff has irritated Trump, who holds his own views on how the trial should proceed (with witnesses and dramatics) but seems, for now, willing to put those visions aside for the more staid and concise proceeding favored by many Republicans.

“Ultimately that decision is going to be made by Mitch McConnell, and he will make it — he has the right to do whatever he wants; he’s the head of the Senate,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday.

Republican sources told CNN this week that McConnell is open to going to the Senate floor without support from the Democratic Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer on a rule to conduct the impeachment trial. He would need the support of 51 GOP senators to approve such a rule, which many Republicans believe he would be able to lock down.

Still, not all members of his party are enthusiastic at McConnell’s handling of the matter. Murkowski said in a television interview this week that McConnell had “confused the process” by saying he was acting in “total coordination” with the White House on setting the parameters for the trial.

“In fairness, when I heard that, I was disturbed,” Murkowski told KTUU, a CNN affiliate. “To me, it means that we have to take that step back from being hand in glove with the defense, and so I heard what Leader McConnell had said, I happened to think that that has further confused the process.”

Ready to go his own way

McConnell’s preference remains cutting a bipartisan deal with Schumer, like the one that was reached during the Clinton trial, Republican sources said. There is an expectation that the two men will still try to discuss a bipartisan way forward as the Senate gets back into session in January.

But if they can’t reach a deal, McConnell almost certainly would go to the floor to set the procedures for the trial. Republicans say they want the articles transmitted first from the House to the Senate to begin that process, which Democrats refuse to do until they see the procedures.

With neither side budging from those opposing positions, there was no indication they would reach an agreement in the next several days. That’s left Trump uncertain and agitated as he settles into a two-week long stay at his Florida resort.

Before he left, some aides expressed concern he would spend his time at the resort surrounded by conservative allies who might convince him to buck the legal advice he’d received and push for a show trial.

Since departing Washington last Friday, Trump has been lapping up the positive attention that has become a hallmark of his southern getaways to Mar-a-Lago. After weeks of full-tilt jousting with Democrats that ended in his impeachment, his return to Palm Beach resembled a hero’s return, if the hero was wounded and hungry for revenge.

Perhaps with those voters in mind, Trump also swapped the traditional stone Episcopalian church where he’s worshipped at past Christmas Eves for a more modern Baptist service, complete with fake snow and smoke.

Afterward, he was spotted chatting in the club’s ballroom with Alan Dershowitz, a retired Harvard Law School professor who has been discussed as a possible addition to his legal team.

Trump also encountered the Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin at the club and posed for photos as the Russian-born hockey player handed him a jersey.