WTF Just Happened Today

Thursday, January 13, 2022

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1/ The global average surface temperature in 2021 was the sixth-highest since reliable temperature record-keeping began in 1880 – marking the 45th consecutive year that global surface temperatures were above average. More than two dozen countries set their warmest years ever in 2021, while the U.S. recorded its hottest summer since 1936. July was the hottest month humanity has recorded. 2021 was also the seventh year in a row that global temperatures were more than 1 degree Celsius above the preindustrial average. Overall, 2021 ranked seventh lowest for Northern Hemisphere snow cover, ninth smallest for average Arctic sea ice extent, and 10th highest for number of named tropical storms. (Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / NBC News / The Guardian)

2/ Kyrsten Sinema will not support changing the Senate filibuster to pass voting rights legislation under any circumstance. In a Senate floor speech – just before Biden arrived at the Capitol to meet with all 50 Senate Democrats – Sinema said: “While I continue to support these bills, I will not support separate actions that worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country.” She added: “We must address the disease itself, the disease of division, to protect our democracy, and it cannot be achieved by one party alone.” Sinema’s comments came after the House approved a measure to combine the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act into a single bill. Chuck Schumer has said the Senate would begin debate on the House-passed bill by Monday, the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. It will be the Senate’s fifth attempt to consider voting rights legislation after Republicans used the filibuster four times to prevent the bills from ever reaching the floor. Biden, meanwhile, conceded that “the honest to god answer is I don’t know whether we can get this done.” (Washington Post / New York Times / Wall Street Journal / CNN / Bloomberg)

3/ The Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration from enforcing a vaccine-or-testing mandate for large employers. The rule would have applied to nearly 80 million American workers, and OSHA estimated that it would cause 22 million people to get vaccinated, prevent 250,000 hospitalizations, and save over 6,500 lives. The court, however, allowed a separate mandate requiring health care workers at facilities receiving federal money to be vaccinated. (New York Times / Associated Press / NBC News