Good morning.
The House January 6 committee could subpoena Ginni Thomas, the wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, if she will not testify voluntarily about her involvement in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
The news from panel member Liz Cheney came two days after Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon was convicted of criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with the committee. He faces time in jail.
The second Republican on the committee, Adam Kinzinger, said yesterday: “You can’t ignore a congressional subpoena or you’ll pay the price,” a warning he said applied to “any future witnesses too”.
Cheney, the vice-chair of the panel, told CNN’s State of the Union: “The committee is engaged with [Ginni Thomas’s] counsel. We certainly hope that she will agree to come in voluntarily but the committee is fully prepared to contemplate a subpoena if she does not.”
Why does the committee want to speak to Thomas? She corresponded with Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, and John Eastman, a law professor who shaped the congressional side of a push that culminated in the deadly Capitol attack. She also corresponded with Arizona Republicans about attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory there.
What can we learn from the January 6 hearings? Trump’s efforts to subvert the elections laid bare the system’s weaknesses, exposing it to greater exploitation.
California fire remains uncontained as governor declares state of emergency
A ferocious wildfire in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada raged uncontained yesterday, forcing thousands of residents from their homes in the gateway to Yosemite national park.
The Oak fire started on Friday near the town of Midpines, California, and exploded in size over the weekend.
Burning through dense and dry vegetation on the region’s steep and rugged hillsides, the blaze was fanned by gusty winds and temperatures that hovered around 100F (38C). The extreme nature of the fire meant it turned tall trees into matchsticks and sent billowing black smoke curling over the quaint historic downtown of Mariposa.
It remained at 0% containment last night, despite a heavily resourced firefighting effort. Since Friday, it had consumed more than 15,000 acres. More than 3,000 people were under evacuation orders.
Have any homes been destroyed? At least 10 homes and other structures had been destroyed, with thousands remaining at risk in its path.
Is it the only fire raging? No. The fire is one of dozens burning across the American west as the region braces for peak fire-risk months that still lie ahead. More than 5.5 million acres have already burned in the US this year, roughly 70% more than the 10-year average.
Is Murdoch tiring of Trump? Mogul’s print titles dump the ex-president
Rupert Murdoch, hitherto one of Donald Trump’s most loyal media messengers, appears to have turned on the former president.
US media circles were rocked this weekend after the New York Post issued an excoriating editorial indictment of Trump’s failure to stop the attack on the US Capitol.
The editorial, in a tabloid owned by Murdoch since 1976, began: “As his followers stormed the Capitol, calling for his vice-president to be hanged, President Donald Trump sat in his private dining room, watching TV, doing nothing. For three hours, seven minutes.”
Trump’s only focus, the Post said, was to block the peaceful transfer of power.
“As a matter of principle, as a matter of character, Trump has proven himself unworthy to be this country’s chief executive again.”
Have any of Murdoch’s other paper’s turned against Trump? The Wall Street Journal, another Murdoch paper, issued a similar critique. Trump had “shown not an iota of regret”, the Journal said, adding: “Character is revealed in a crisis, and Mr Pence passed his January 6 trial. Mr Trump utterly failed his.”
What else did the paper say? “Unsubscribe from Trump’s daily emails begging for money. Then pick your favorite from a new crop of conservatives. Look to 2022, and 2024, and a new era. Let’s make America sane again.”
In other news …
A leading critic of the US response to the monkeypox outbreak, he didn’t understand why the US didn’t have more vaccines for the rapidly spreading viral disease. The California Democrat Adam Schiff said he wanted “to light a fire under the administration”.
At least two people were killed and several others injured in a shooting at a park in Los Angeles, officials said. Seven people were taken to local hospitals after gunfire erupted at an informal car show at Peck Park in the San Pedro neighborhood yesterday, the Los Angeles fire department said.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has reassured Egypt over Russian grain supplies at the start of a four-country tour of Africa, amid uncertainty over the future of a deal to resume Ukrainian exports via the Black Sea. Egypt bought 80% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine, and has been torn between the two.
The Chinese military has become significantly more aggressive and dangerous over the past five years, the United States’ top military officer said during a trip to the Indo-Pacific that included a stop in Indonesia. Gen Mark Milley said the number of unsafe interactions has risen by similar proportions.
Stat of the day: More than 85 million Americans were under excessive heat warnings on Sunday
From the Pacific Northwest to the southern Great Plains and on to the heavily populated Interstate 95 corridor, more than 85 million Americans were on Sunday under excessive heat warnings or heat advisories issued by the National Weather Service (NWS). The agency warned of “extremely oppressive” conditions in the north-eastern US from Washington to Boston. Even in Promised Land state park, 1,800ft up in Pennsylvania’s Pocono mountains, temperatures were forecast to soar above 90F (32C).
Don’t miss this: Want to stop feeling hurt when someone says no? Take the rejection therapy challenge
In 2012, 30-year-old Jia Jiang walked up to a stranger and asked if he could borrow $100. “No” was the response from the baffled man sitting in a hotel lobby. He wanted to know why he was being asked, but Jiang didn’t explain; he just said thanks then walked away. This was Jiang’s first day of rejection therapy, a concept created by Canadian entrepreneur Jason Comely that challenged people to approach strangers with weird requests to build their resilience against rejection.
… or this: I’ve been meeting with the same group of men for 36 years – here’s what they’ve taught me
“When I saw a flyer for a ‘men’s group’ in a shop window, I was a young, buttoned-up and newly single father. More than three decades on, the conversations are still changing my life,” writes David Spiegelhalter. “The messy bits of people’s lives have been fascinating, although confidentiality means that, unfortunately, I can’t give the details of all the extraordinary stories. But I can say that for decades we’ve listened to concerns about drinking too much, being fed up with work, enjoying work, suffering from depression, negotiating bisexuality, difficulties with partners, anxieties about children, and so on – all the usual business of living.”
Climate check: Tyre dust: the ‘stealth pollutant’ that’s becoming a huge threat to ocean life
For decades, coho salmon returning from the Pacific Ocean to the creeks and streams of Puget Sound in Washington state to spawn were dying in large numbers. No one knew why. Scientists working to solve the mystery of the mass deaths noticed they occurred after heavy rains. Toxicologists suspected pesticides but no evidence of pesticides was found. They ruled out disease, lack of oxygen and chemicals such as metals and hydrocarbons. It was when they tested car tyre particles – a poorly understood yet ubiquitous pollutant – that they knew they were on the right track.
Last Thing: Chess robot grabs and breaks finger of seven-year-old opponent
Played by humans, chess is a game of strategic thinking, calm concentration and patient intellectual endeavour. Violence does not usually come into it. The same, it seems, cannot always be said of machines. Last week, according to Russian media outlets, a chess-playing robot apparently unsettled by the quick responses of a seven-year-old boy unceremoniously grabbed and broke his finger during a match at the Moscow Open.
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