Biden to make Wednesday climate address as dangerous heat grips US and world – as it happened | US politics

President Joe Biden plans an address on climate change tomorrow, where he may announce new executive orders to curb US emissions after his attempts to achieve reductions via legislation stalled in Congress. However, he won’t declare a climate emergency, at least not yet.

Here’s what else happened today:

Following today’s revelation that the Secret Service deleted text messages from the January 6 attack and the day before, The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that National Archives is now demanding an investigation:

The US National Archives has asked the Secret Service to conduct an internal investigation over “erased” text messages from the day before and the day of the Capitol attack, according to a letter sent to the agency’s records management officer on Tuesday.

The request marks the latest escalation of the matter after the watchdog for the Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security inspector general, notified Congress he had sought the texts only to be told they no longer existed.

In the letter sent to the Secret Service records officer, reviewed by the Guardian, the National Archives requested the agency launch an internal review and report within 30 calendar days if it finds any texts were “improperly deleted”.

From the Guardian’s senior reporter Nina Lakhani, who reports on climate justice:

As attention focuses on the extreme temperatures scorching large swathes of Europe and the US, its worth drawing attention to other parts of the world where dangerous heat and drought have also been causing misery.

In Monterrey, Mexico’s third largest city where temperatures above 100F are the norm throughout the summer, residents are enduring a second month of water rationing as three dams which supply households are almost dry. Authorities are turning on taps for only six hours per day, though some residents have gone without any running water for long spells, and are forced to spend hours every day lining up at communal taps. The national water authority has declared a state of emergency across the country because of drought.

According to the North American Drought Monitor, 56% of Mexico is experiencing some level of drought with northern states like Nuevo Leon (home to Monterrey), Sonora, Chihuahua, and Coahuila particularly badly due to a combination of La Niña and global heating. Most of the country’s wheat is farmed in this northern belt, which is among three crops (along with maize and rice) that make up almost half the world’s calories. All three grains are vulnerable to extreme heat and drought, in large part because industrialised agriculture favors monocropping over crop diversity.

This was a little reported consequence of the punishing spring extreme heatwave in India and Pakistan, where more than a billion people faced temperatures from 100 to 122F from late March to the end of June, a period of almost 100 days. As a result, wheat yields dropped by about 15%, compounding the shortages caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Livestock died across the subcontinent.

The number of deaths so far attributed directly to the extreme spring heat is surprisingly low, just 90, compared to more than 1100 so far in Spain and Portugal, though this is likely at least partly down to issues with counting and reporting heat deaths. (Recent floods in India and Bangladesh have led to high death tolls, but this could be because such deaths are easier to count.) It’s the monsoon now in India, so temperatures have dropped significantly – it’s only 90F in Delhi today – but the humidity is very high. Humid heat is far more dangerous than dry heat, so the death toll could rise across the Asian subcontinent without anyone paying much attention.

Read more about crop scientists in Mexico developing heat and climate resilient wheat varieties here:

Ohio’s supreme court has struck down the state’s 15 congressional districts, saying they were so distorted in favor of Republicans that they violated the state constitution.

In a 4-3 ruling, the court gave the state legislature 30 days to come up with a new map. If the legislature fails to come up with a new plan, a GOP-controlled commission would then have another 30 days.

Any new map would be in effect for the 2024 elections. After striking down the initial map Republicans passed earlier this year, the Ohio supreme court declined to intervene again ahead of the state’s primary and block a revised map. The map they struck down Tuesday was that revised plan.

The plan creates 10 Republican-leaning districts and five Democratic-leaning districts, the court noted. While all 10 GOP districts are solidly Republican, three of the five Democratic ones are highly competitive, meaning Republicans could win them in a strong year for the party. Projections show Democrats would most likely win four in the state’s congressional delegation, despite winning around 47% of the statewide vote.

That split violates a provision in the state constitution that prohibits maps that “unduly favors or disfavors a political party or its incumbents.” Ohio voters overwhelmingly approved adding that language to the state constitution in 2018.

“Comparative analyses and other metrics show that the March 2 plan allocates voters in ways that unnecessarily favor the Republican Party by packing Democratic voters into a few dense Democratic-leaning districts, thereby increasing the Republican vote share of the remaining districts,” the court’s majority wrote. “As a result, districts that would otherwise be strongly Democratic-leaning are now competitive or Republican-leaning districts.”

The three judges who dissented argued that the majority opinion sought to use a system of proportional representation, which is not required under Ohio’s constitution.

Tuesday’s ruling marks the seventh time the Ohio supreme court has struck down congressional and state legislative maps this cycle. Despite all of those rulings, all of the maps struck down passed by lawmakers will be in place for at least the 2022 elections.

President Joe Biden plans an address on climate change tomorrow, during which he could declare a national climate emergency after his attempts to get legislation lowering America’s carbon emissions through Congress stalled.

Here’s what else has happened so far today:

President Joe Biden will outline his next steps to tackle climate change in an address in Somerset, Massachusetts on Wednesday, the White House announced. “The president will deliver remarks on tackling the climate crisis and seizing the opportunity of a clean energy future to create jobs and lower costs for families,” according to a statement.

The president may use the trip to declare the national climate emergency The Washington Post reports his administration has been mulling. Reuters quotes a White House official as saying, “We are considering all options and no decision has been made.”