USA

USA: Climate change ratchets up the stress on farmworkers on the front lines of a warming Earth

(AP) --- Mily Trevino-Sauceda was 9 when her mother fell as she worked to move irrigation pipes along rows of potato and alfalfa on an Idaho farm. Mily’s 10-year-old brother splashed water over their mother’s face and body while her children looked on, scared and crying. Their mother had fainted from the heat, and could never again work as fast or as long in the sun.

Decades later, the memory remains sharp for Trevino-Sauceda, who says few systemic changes have been made to safeguard farmworkers from extreme heat.

USA: Harassment of TV meteorologists reflects broader anti-science, anti-media trends

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The harassment started to intensify as TV meteorologist Chris Gloninger did more reporting on climate change during local newscasts — outraged emails and even a threat to show up at his house.

Gloninger said he had been recruited, in part, to “shake things up” at the Iowa station where he worked, but backlash was building. The man who sent him a series of threatening emails was charged with third-degree harassment. The Des Moines station asked him to dial back his coverage, facing what he called an understandable pressure to maintain ratings.

USA: Top Republicans are gearing up to investigate the Hunter Biden case. Here’s what to know.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican chairmen of three key House committees are joining forces to probe the Justice Department’s handling of charges against Hunter Biden after making sweeping claims about misconduct at the agency.

Leaders of the House Judiciary, Oversight and Accountability, and Ways and Means committees opened a joint investigation into the federal case into President Joe Biden’s youngest son days after it was announced last month that he will plead guilty to the misdemeanor tax offenses as part of an agreement with the Justice Department.

Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene removed from US House Freedom Caucus

WASHINGTON, July 6 (Reuters) - U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump, has been voted out of the hardline House Freedom Caucus group after clashing with a fellow lawmaker, a caucus member said.

The move to expel the firebrand Greene from the roughly three-dozen-strong hardline group came weeks after she engaged in a heated clash on the House of Representatives floor with fellow hardliner Representative Lauren Boebert over the latter's plan to try to force a vote to impeach Democratic President Joe Biden.

US to give Ukraine cluster munitions in $800 million aid package

WASHINGTON, July 7 (Reuters) - The United States announced on Friday that it will send Ukraine cluster munitions - prohibited by more than 100 countries - as part of an $800 million security package, a move Ukraine said would have an "extraordinary psycho-emotional impact" on Russian forces.

USA: California Science Center to start complex process to display space shuttle Endeavour vertically

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The lengthy process of putting the retired space shuttle Endeavour on display in the vertical launch position will begin this month in Los Angeles.

The California Science Center announced Thursday that the six-month process will get underway July 20 at the future Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center currently under construction in Exposition Park.

USA: Twitter threatens legal action against Meta over its new rival app Threads

NEW YORK (AP) — Twitter has threatened legal action against Meta over its new text-based app called Threads, which has drawn tens of millions of users since launching this week as a rival to Elon Musk’s social media platform.

In a letter Wednesday to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Alex Spiro, an attorney representing Twitter, accused Meta of unlawfully using Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property by hiring former Twitter employees to create a “copycat” app.

USA: Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi has full FDA approval now and that means Medicare will pay for it

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials granted full approval to a closely watched Alzheimer’s drug on Thursday, clearing the way for Medicare and other insurance plans to begin covering the treatment for people with the brain-robbing disease.

The Food and Drug Administration endorsed the IV drug, Leqembi, for patients with mild dementia and other symptoms caused by early Alzheimer’s disease. It’s the first medicine that’s been convincingly shown to modestly slow the cognitive decline caused by Alzheimer’s.

USA: White gunman to be sentenced for killing 23 people in a racist Walmart attack in a Texas border city

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — The white Texas gunman who killed 23 people in a racist attack at a Walmart in 2019 is expected to learn his punishment Friday, after victims’ relatives berated him for days over the shooting that targeted Hispanic shoppers on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Patrick Crusius, 24, will likely be sentenced to multiple life terms in federal prison for committing one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history. However, he could still face the death penalty in a separate case in a Texas state court that has yet to go to trial.

US set to destroy its last chemical weapons, closing a deadly chapter dating to World War I

RICHMOND, Ky. (AP) — At a sprawling military installation in the middle of the rolling green hills of eastern Kentucky, a milestone is about to be reached in the history of warfare dating back to World War I.

Workers at the Blue Grass Army Depot are close to destroying rockets filled with GB nerve agent that are the last of the United States’ declared chemical weapons and completing a decadeslong campaign to eliminate a stockpile that by the end of the Cold War totaled more than 30,000 tons.

Subscribe to USA