US

To stop climate disaster, make ecocide an international crime. It’s the only way | Jojo Mehta and Julia Jackson

Outlawing ecocide would hold governments and corporations accountable for environmental negligence. We can’t wait

The Paris agreement is failing. Yet there is new hope for preserving a livable planet: the growing global campaign to criminalize ecocide can address the root causes of the climate crisis and safeguard our planet – the common home of all humanity and, indeed, all life on Earth.

Nearly five years after the negotiation of the landmark Paris agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions and associated global warming to “well below 2.0C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5C”, we are experiencing drastically accelerating warming. 2020 was the second warmest year on record, following the record-setting 2019. Carbon in the atmosphere reached 417 parts per million (ppm) – the highest in the last 3m years. Even if we magically flipped a switch to a fully green economy tomorrow, there is still enough carbon in the atmosphere to continue warming the planet for decades.

Source: theguardian.com

‘Like moving a herd of elephants’: San Francisco’s history of houses on wheels

This weekend, the city moved a Victorian house six blocks – a practice that has continued for more than a century

Hundreds of San Franciscans lined the streets on Sunday – phones drawn and ready – to glimpse a unique procession slowly making its way through the city. “Ladies and gentlemen, please stand on the sidewalk,” a police speaker blared. “There’s a house coming down the street.”

The two-story, 5,170-sq-ft green Victorian, known as the Englander House, had spent more than a century in the heart of San Francisco. But for years it stood vacant and fell into disrepair, sandwiched behind a gas station and loomed over by new apartment buildings. The city, which suffers from a housing shortage, was ready to build a 48-unit building in its place.

Source: theguardian.com

The soul of the city: San Francisco honors literary hero Lawrence Ferlinghetti

The co-founder of the City Lights Bookstore had global stature but remained a neighborhood fixture

By 2pm, a small memorial of flowers and a can of Pabst had begun to accumulate outside the door of City Lights Books, to commemorate the death of its co-founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

A vigil for Ferlinghetti, one of the last living links to the Beat generation, will take place at 7pm tonight in the adjacent Jack Kerouac Alley. That tiny side street separates the bookstore – a tourist attraction and official city landmark for decades – from the celebrated Beat hangout Vesuvio Cafe.

Source: theguardian.com

SolarWinds hack was work of ‘at least 1,000 engineers’, tech executives tell Senate

True scope of the breach, which affected 100 companies and several federal agencies, is still unknown

Tech executives revealed that a historic cybersecurity breach that affected about 100 US companies and nine federal agencies was larger and more sophisticated than previously known.

Source: theguardian.com

Police say Tiger Woods ‘lucky to be alive’ after car crash in California

45-year-old undergoes surgery after crash in suburb of LA
Reports say golfer suffered compound fractures to legs

Tiger Woods has been taken to hospital with serious injuries to both legs after a car accident, with a Los Angeles police officer saying the golfer is “very fortunate” to have survived.

Carlos Gonzalez, the first LA county deputy to respond to the scene, added that Woods was “calm and lucid” despite being trapped inside his vehicle. Woods was removed from the crash by firefighters, and his vehicle suffered “major damage”.

Source: theguardian.com

Rochester officers involved in Daniel Prude’s death won’t face charges

Body camera showed officers holding 41-year-old Black man down until he stopped breathing last winter

Police officers shown on body camera video holding Daniel Prude down naked and handcuffed on a city street last winter until he stopped breathing will not face criminal charges, according to a grand jury decision announced Tuesday.

The 41-year-old Black man’s death last March sparked nightly protests in Rochester, New York, after the video was released nearly six months later, with demonstrators demanding a reckoning for police and city officials.

Source: theguardian.com

US Senate hears testimony on Capitol riot: ‘These criminals came prepared for war’ – live

10.25pm GMT

Donald Trump used to promise his supporters that they would be winning so much, they would get sick and tired of winning. But the former US president is now on a seemingly endless losing streak.

He lost the presidential election, lost more than 60 legal challenges to the result, lost his bid to overturn the electoral college, lost control of the Senate and lost an impeachment trial 43-57, though he was spared conviction on a technicality. On Monday, Trump lost yet again – with potentially far-reaching consequences.

10.00pm GMT

That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

Source: theguardian.com

Capitol mob ‘came prepared for war’, US Senate hears testimony – video

The former Capitol police chief, Steven Sund, said during a joint hearing on security failures that the insurrectionists during the 6 January attack ‘came prepared for war’.

Senators investigating the attack on the US Capitol last month heard testimony on training and equipping the Capitol police as the former police chief of that department and other security officials testified publicly for the first time Tuesday.

US politics: latest updates

Source: theguardian.com

US Capitol rioters ‘came prepared for war’, Senate hears in testimony

First congressional hearing on attack comes day after Merrick Garland said he would expand investigation into 6 January assault

US politics – live updates

Testifying on Tuesday in the first congressional hearing on the US Capitol attack, the chief of Capitol police who resigned over the riot said the pro-Trump mob which stormed the building “came prepared for war”.

Source: theguardian.com

Facebook’s message to media industry is clear: don’t rely on us | Antoun Issa

Facebook has been moving away from news for years, and users are turning elsewhere to consume news content

Facebook and Google could not have reacted more differently to Australia’s move to make them pay for news content. They both started from combative positions, but as the new media code drew closer to reality, Google lowered its fists, while Facebook went straight for the head.

Facebook’s dramatic use of its might to try coerce a government – it reversed its news ban in Australia on Tuesday after obtaining a few last-minute concessions – only reinforce growing concerns that the social media giant is too big, too powerful and needs to be reined in. Given several countries have signalled pursuing similar legislation, the global chain reaction of regulation Facebook sought to fend off might actually have been accelerated courtesy of its abrupt behaviour in Australia.

Source: theguardian.com