Extra, Extra
River Boat Collision: “A river boat with over 100 passengers was struck on Friday by a much larger tanker ship, capsizing the cruise vessel and prompting a major rescue effort in the Mississippi River near the French Quarter.” The video and images from the scene are crazy. Rescue operations are underway. Here’s the latest.
+ A One Point Five Alarm Fire: “Scientists for years have warned that allowing global average temperatures to rise 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels would result in a profoundly more dangerous world. Extreme heat will become more common and more intense. Storms will become more powerful and destructive. Sea levels will rise. And poor countries will bear the brunt of the damage.” At this point, 1.5 is a pipe dream (and the temperature inside that pipe just set a record). A Key Paris Agreement Goal Is Dead. What Now?
+ Appetite for Self Destruction: Republicans acknowledge voters rejected them (Yay, smart!) but show little appetite for breaking with Trump (Yay, good for the Dems in 2028).
+ The Killer App: After the warnings about AI destroying humanity, it was good old email that overpowered the system. A negative Outlook: Microsoft scrambles to fix email outage. “Very little is known so far about what is behind the outage, but Microsoft has attributed it to an ‘elevated load,’ or servers becoming overstretched. The tech giant assured users it was doing everything it could to fix the problem.” (I’d write an inappropriate pun about elevated loads, but I’m spent after a week of Nvidia jokes.)
+ Times Up Chuck? “Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland announced on Thursday that he would challenge Senator Chuck Schumer of New York for majority leader, setting up a clash among Democrats just as they were celebrating their new majority.” (Infighting is how Dems celebrate!)
+ Muting the Executioner’s Song: The excellent Bryan Stevenson in the NYT (Gift Article): “The death penalty in America is not about whether people deserve to die for the crimes they commit; it is about whether our imperfect governments deserve to kill. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s commutation last week of all of California’s 548 death sentences to life imprisonment without parole is a remarkable act of moral leadership.”
+ The Brink: “Matt Lambert, a former emergency room physician and health care technology executive, shot five people and then himself on Thursday in D.C., apparently motivated by a bitter, ongoing and all-consuming legal dispute with the Metropole Condominium Association and the building’s property manager.” Michael Brice-Saddler in The Washington Sun: What the Logan Circle Shooter Told Me.
