Biden executive order aims to boost protections for sexual assault victims in U.S. military

Barrage of Russian attacks aims to cut Ukraine’s lights

In central Kharkiv you hear the rattle of generators on every street.

Ten days ago, Ukraine’s second city was plunged into darkness by a massive, targeted Russian missile attack on the energy system – it was the biggest since the start of the full-scale war.

As Kharkiv works to restore power, there has been a wave of additional strikes across the country targeting the energy supply.

Volodymyr Zelensky has condemned what he calls Russia’s “missile terror”.

The Ukrainian president has also renewed his calls to his country’s allies for more air defence systems as protection.

The authorities in Odesa on the Black Sea in the south of the country say the energy system there was the latest to be hit overnight, with missiles and drones, causing partial blackouts.

In Kharkiv to the north, the damage is more serious.

Kharkiv’s mayor, Igor Terekhov, has said it will take weeks to restore full supply and that is if Russia’s armed forces don’t strike the same targets again.

The initial attack on the city’s energy supply even knocked out the air raid siren. There is now a screeching noise that comes straight to people’s mobile phones instead.

There can be hours of those missile warnings in the city each day – during one on Saturday night, the blast wave from a strike blew out dozens of windows in a block of flats.

But the Russians have increasingly been aiming at the power grid.

“The damage is very serious,” Mr Terekhov told the BBC.

“We need time to repair it,” he added, suggesting that meant a couple more months at least.

Russia’s defence ministry confirms that its latest strikes have been focused on Ukraine’s power supply. It says the aim is to disrupt the work of the country’s defence industry and claims that “all aims of the strike were achieved”.

The ministry has a long history of disinformation.

But the Kharkiv mayor did tell the BBC that the city’s manufacturing sector, which requires significant power, has been affected by the blackouts. There are no further details.

Blackout periods

The impact on civilian life is more obvious.

Blackout periods have been introduced in order to conserve energy, and there is a schedule for the city. On Saturday those power cuts lasted six hours, but by Sunday they had been reduced to four hours.

The timings can slip.

“They were supposed to cut the power to my area at 09:00, so I got up especially early to charge everything,'” a friend messaged. “Then I got in the lift and got stuck. They’d cut the power early!”

A hair salon in a Kharkiv back street is one of many small businesses with a generator whirring noisily outside the door. On Saturday it was on for seven hours, allowing the salon to keep operating.

The same goes for cafés and companies throughout the city centre, although many have sheets of wood over their windows to cover a gap where the glass has already been shattered or to protect it from future blasts.

Some of the boards are painted with birds and flowers.

“We’ve been working on generator power since Monday,” salon owner Natalia told the BBC. “Of course it’s really hard, especially because we’re all women and when we finish work late at night it’s so dark!”

Russia has attacked Ukraine’s power grid before, in the first winter of the full-scale war.

As engineers scrambled to perform emergency repairs then, residents shivered in the dark in their homes or headed for central “invincibility points” for warmth and power.

Hope for a ‘quiet night’

It is much warmer now but the impact is still significant; when night falls, whole areas of Kharkiv remain pitch dark.

That affects people’s mood as much as it makes life awkward.

“The Russians have got new weapons,” a student called Liza worries, in one of Kharkiv’s central squares.

There’s a lot of chatter here about whether new, gliding bombs used by Moscow might bring even more devastation to Ukraine.

“People are depressed and thinking about leaving Kharkiv for a while. We notice that our army is struggling.”

The city authorities are determined to keep spirits up, as much as possible.

Within hours of the latest missile strike this weekend, dozens of workmen were clearing up the mess around the apartment block and sawing wood to seal windows.

The city metro is already running and electric trolleybuses and trams have been replaced by regular buses.

In Odesa, two districts were in partial blackout on Sunday morning. By early afternoon, power had been restored.

“A few days ago we had a total blackout, that was major,” Odesa resident Masha told the BBC. “Yesterday there were no traffic lights in the city centre and limited streetlights, to save power.”

On Sunday, she said, there were people out and about in town as usual. Officials say consumption restrictions have now been lifted all over the country.

When I asked Kharkiv salon owner Natalia whether she was worried by the latest attacks, she quoted her city’s reputation.

“We are invincible,” she joked.

She then wished us a “quiet night,” meaning one with without explosions.

In Kharkiv, nowadays, that is increasingly rare.

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Brazil Aims to Lower Electricity Bills With Eletrobras Funds

(Bloomberg) — President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva intends to issue a provisional measure next week designed to lower Brazil’s electricity prices through the securitization of payments owed by the country’s largest power generation company, according to an official familiar with the plan.

Biden aims to make North Carolina a top battleground — but Trump isn’t worried yet

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — Everywhere he turns, President Joe Biden and his campaign are playing defense across the 2024 electoral map.

That is except for one state: North Carolina.

In the Tar Heel State, where Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are set to visit Tuesday, favorable demographics, a string of major Republican nominees painted as extreme and a rapidly changing electorate that only narrowly backed former President Donald Trump in 2020 has Democrats feeling optimistic about their chances to flip the crucial battleground.

But with Biden’s popularity lower since his last run, Republicans here aren’t fretting yet. Polling shows Trump with an edge ranging from a few points to almost double digits, with even bigger leads on major issues.

“North Carolina is going to be this election’s Arizona, or past elections’ Florida,” former GOP Gov. Pat McCrory said of his state’s role in 2024 as the potential tipping point.

Republicans have a long history of success at the presidential level in North Carolina over the past 40 years, losing only once when Barack Obama carried the state in 2008. But Biden’s loss there in 2020 was the closest a Democrat has come since then, with Trump winning by just slightly more than 1 percentage point. Meanwhile, the state’s rapid growth has seen its largest Democratic-leaning counties become bigger and more blue.

That’s encouraged Democrats to be much more proactive in North Carolina this time around, particularly as it’s the only front-line swing state Biden did not carry in 2020. Already, his campaign has staffed up top positions and included the state in its $25 million battleground state ad buy. Biden’s visit Tuesday will mark his second visit to the state this year; in the 2020 general election cycle, he didn’t visit North Carolina until September.

“Anyone that you talk to from 2020 would tell you that the Biden campaign was just not here early,” said Anderson Clayton, chair of the state Democratic Party. “What we’ve really tried to do is go ahead and put boots on the ground and have an energy build up here.”

Winning North Carolina and its 16 electoral votes could be essential for Biden given his vulnerability in other states he carried four years ago. Rep. Wiley Nickel, D-N.C., who won one of the most hotly contested House races last cycle but is not seeking re-election this fall after redistricting, made the case for a North Carolina focus to Biden aboard Air Force One last year.

“The nationwide math just isn’t there without North Carolina,” he said. “You had John McCain’s ghost and John Lewis’ ghost propelling Biden to win in Georgia and Arizona, and you don’t have as much going on in those states this time, so you’ve got to look to one more and without one more state it gets really difficult … North Carolina by every account is the best opportunity there.”

Biden and Harris have billed their visit — which is technically a White House and not a campaign event — as a chance to tout in-state job growth, investments in local infrastructure and a law signed last year by Gov. Roy Cooper that expanded Medicaid as part of the Affordable Care Act. But leaders in the state see it as an opening salvo of what is sure to be a brutal and expensive campaign season.

“In 2020, we probably weren’t that high on the target list,” said Cooper, who is appearing alongside Biden and Harris on Tuesday, adding that unlike the 2020 campaign, which fell in the middle of the Covid pandemic, Biden and Democrats will get to engage in much more substantive door-to-door and in-person voter engagement. “You’re going to see organization that we haven’t seen before.”

Surveys so far show Trump ahead. A Marist College poll taken after this month’s Super Tuesday primaries, which had a margin of error of 3.6 percentage points, found Biden trailing the former president by 3 points — with the same survey showing Democratic state Attorney General Josh Stein leading Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson by 2 points in the battle for governor.

The same poll showed Trump with 12- and 9-point edges on immigration and the economy, including a 22- and 17-point edge respectively with independents. Biden held a 5-point advantage with voters on abortion and a 1-point edge on preserving democracy, which was a top concern for North Carolina voters.

Other preprimary surveys, including from Fox News and Bloomberg/Morning Consult, showed Trump leading by 5 to 9 points.

Couple those results with Trump having already pulled off back-to-back victories here, and his team is feeling good about their chance to make it three in a row. Trump has also elevated several veterans of North Carolina races: Senior adviser Chris LaCivita previously worked on McCrory’s campaign, and new Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley formerly led the North Carolina state party. New RNC co-chair Lara Trump also hails from the state.

“In 2016 and 2020, Democrats lit money on fire in North Carolina only to lose to President Trump,” Anna Kelly, an RNC spokesperson, said in a statement. “With President Trump’s record of success in the state and two North Carolinians at the helm of the RNC, 2024 will be no different — Tar Heel State families have felt the strain of Biden’s failures and are ready to deliver for President Trump yet again.”

‘The greatest liability’

Both Democrats and Republicans in North Carolina acknowledge that there are some true wild cards this time around. While Democrats lost a Senate race here after the Supreme Court rescinded Roe v. Wade, this year will mark the first elections for president and governor since the state’s GOP supermajority in the state Legislature overturned Cooper’s veto and enacted a 12-week abortion ban last year.

What’s more, Robinson, the GOP gubernatorial candidate, has said that he wants to further restrict abortion to six weeks. (His campaign says he supports exceptions that include rape, incest and the life of the mother.)

Robinson himself will be a focal point of the campaign. Formerly a prolific poster to his personal Facebook page, Robinson has been in the spotlight for years over comments that include linking homosexuality to pedophilia, calling homosexuality and transgenderism “filth,” and saying that the Black Panther franchise was “created by an agnostic Jew and put to film by [a] satanic marxist” before using a Yiddish slur for Black people. That is in addition to other comments and posts critics have condemned as sexist, Islamophobic and antisemitic.

Robinson in October insisted he is not antisemitic and distanced himself from his old social media posts, describing them as “poorly worded” in remarks for the state Legislature, adding: “There is no antisemitism standing here in front of you.” Facing a backlash over his anti-LGBTQ remarks in 2021, Robinson said he would “fight for” the rights of LGBTQ community.

Democrats are hopeful that they can take Trump down in the state by closely tying him together with Robinson, whom the former president called “Martin Luther King on steroids,” in endorsing him at a North Carolina rally this month.

One Trump ally predicted Robinson’s history of remarks could turn off some evangelicals who are staunch supporters of Israel, and that he will face far more in negative spending than McCrory did as an incumbent in 2016.

“The open question is how Trump deals with statements that Robinson makes and whether [Democrats] can tie the two together,” this person said. “So if I’m Biden, I’m going to try to do that.”

“I do think it’s an uphill climb for Biden on Trump right now. I’d bet on Trump,” this person added. “But it’s entirely in Trump’s hands about how he deals with Robinson.”

L.T. McCrimmon, a senior adviser to Biden’s campaign, said in a statement that North Carolina Republicans “continue to alienate the voters who will decide this election with their extreme rhetoric and backwards policies,” targeting Trump for “doubling down on his toxic agenda by hand-picking a slate of extreme candidates” and calling the state “ground zero for the extreme and losing MAGA agenda.”

Democrats have also taken aim at other down-ballot, statewide candidates, including Dan Bishop, the GOP nominee for attorney general and current member of the House Freedom Caucus, and Michele Morrow, a conservative activist and GOP nominee for state superintendent of public instruction who previously expressed support for violence against Democratic leaders.

But none have garnered the attention Robinson has.

“The greatest liability for Donald Trump, on his whole national race for president that is greater than any legal liability he’s currently facing, is Mark Robinson on the gubernatorial ticket,” Paul Shumaker, a longtime Republican operative in the state, said. “And the reason being is the Democrats will move to link Trump and Robinson together and put them in lockstep.”

Mike Lonergan, communications director for Robinson’s campaign, said in a statement that Robinson “is very bold and outspoken about his Christian faith” and is “not a career politician that’s been groomed for higher office for decades — he’s a former factory worker.”

“As Lt. Governor Robinson has often said, we don’t live in a theocracy, we live in a constitutional republic,” he said. “If and when he should become governor, he will take the oath and duties of his office with the utmost respect, working to make North Carolina better for people of all backgrounds and walks of life; by growing our economy, reforming our schools and creating a culture of life that does more to support mothers and families.”

Jonathan Felts, a longtime North Carolina operative who is leading a pro-Robinson super PAC, said Robinson’s opponents are greatly overestimating how unknown the candidate is, while greatly underestimating his appeal.

“They think this is a phenomenon unique just to blue collar, working-class grassroots,” Felts said of Robinson’s meteoric rise through North Carolina GOP circles. “And that’s not the case. It doesn’t matter if you’re a country club Republican, big commercial developer, one of the largest car dealers in the country … they’re all in on Mark Robinson.”

And with Robinson generating headlines throughout North Carolina for years, voters aren’t just being introduced to him.

“They’ve all heard about the controversies,” he said, “And they’re still sticking with him.”

No matter which way the gubernatorial race goes, it will be historic. Robinson, should he win, would be North Carolina’s first Black governor. Stein, his opponent, would be its first Jewish chief executive. Another interesting wrinkle to the race is North Carolina’s long history of ticket-splitting, specifically sending Republicans to the White House or Senate while voting for Democrats for governor. And initial polling suggests that could happen again this time, just as it did in 2016 and 2020 when Trump and Cooper won on the same ballot.

Winning those crossover voters could be critical for both Trump and Biden, while another group of voters — those who cast ballots for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in this month’s Republican presidential primary — could prove key to both coalitions as well.

So far, the candidates aren’t putting much distance between themselves and the top of the ticket. Robinson has already campaigned with Trump, while Stein is set to appear at Biden’s Tuesday event.

“I think he’s the one who can deliver a better future for the people of North Carolina in this country,” Stein said of Biden. “But the voters will choose us on our own merits.”

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The ‘Taylor Swift effect’ aims to provide water during Brazil’s life-threatening heat waves

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazilian climatologist Núbia Beray Armond for years had been sounding the alarm about Rio de Janeiro’s need for an extreme heat plan including water distribution. Interest was tepid until a disastrous Taylor Swift concert — and now her phone won’t stop ringing.

A stifling heat wave blanketed southeast Brazil the day of Swift’s concert last November, just before the start of summer in the Southern Hemisphere. Tens of thousands of “Swifties” lined up for hours under a sweltering sun, some huddling beneath umbrellas. Once inside, a group of parched fans managed to get Swift’s attention; she paused her performance to ask staff to provide them with water.

Not everyone was so lucky. Ana Clara Benevides, 23, suffered heat exposure that caused cardiorespiratory arrest during the concert, and she died.

Her death sparked outrage. Many accused organizers of failing to deliver sufficient water for concertgoers. Brazil’s justice minister said the death was unacceptable, and his ministry issued a regulation obliging organizers of big events during heat waves to guarantee water for attendees.

Others were galvanized to enshrine water access into law, a sign Brazilian authorities have begun considering it a public health issue in an ever-hotter world.

Rio is in the vanguard. Of the almost 100 bills now working their way through municipal, state and federal legislatures, about a third are in Rio state, including the capital, according to an analysis by the consulting firm Governmental Radar, which dubbed it “the Taylor Swift effect.” Many of the bills are named after Benevides.

Niteroi, a city in Rio’s metropolitan region, was first to pass a municipal ordinance guaranteeing water at large events.

Taylor Swift at Estádio Olímpico Nilton Santos in Rio de Janeiro on Nov. 19.TAS2023 / Getty Images

“Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Benevides’ death was a turning point in the issue of water distribution for Rio’s public administration,” said Beray Armond, coordinator of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro’s GeoClima laboratory and researcher at Indiana University Bloomington.

Brazil’s summer has been particularly oppressive. Nine heat waves swept across the country in 2023, and three since January, according to the government’s meteorology institute.

The heat index — what the temperature feels like to the human body when humidity is combined with air temperature — hit a record 59.3 degrees Celsius (138 Fahrenheit) the day of Swift’s concert. That record has been broken four times since, most recently during the March 11-18 heat wave, when the heat index reached 144 Fahrenheit on Sunday.

In Rio, people sought relief at beaches such as Copacabana and Ipanema. Thousands of colorful parasols fluttered in the sea breeze, and people dipped into the waves. But some, like 43-year-old Eduardo Alves de Castro, found it hard to relax.

“It’s worrisome because we wonder how far these high temperatures are heading. The concern is that there’s no end to it. We are in a very privileged place: Here in front of the beach, you cool off, but there are people in a much less favorable situation, and who are much more affected,” Castro said.

During heat waves, those unable to afford power bills from round-the-clock air conditioning often cool down with multiple showers a day, which deplete a shared tank or run up water bills.

Many people in favelas — urban, working-class neighborhoods — didn’t pay for water until three private companies assumed concessions in 2021 and began installing water meters. The largest of them, Waters of Rio, said in an email it has provided water to an additional 300,000 people since taking over.

Daiane Nunes, who lives in Rio’s Rocinha favela, regularly treks uphill to a natural water source in the forest. She and fellow residents fill bottles in a small flow of water there.

“The water that comes from our pipes is impossible to drink because it contains a lot of chlorine. Apart from buying water, this is our only chance of getting natural water,” said Nunes, 33.

Water shortages for poor, non-white populations is a worldwide phenomenon growing increasingly severe as global temperatures rise.

Street vendors sell bottled water to Taylor Swift fans outside the Nilton Santos Olympic stadium. — Street vendors sell bottled water to Taylor Swift fans outside the Nilton Santos Olympic Stadium in Rio de Janeiro on Nov. 18.Silvia Izquierdo / AP

Brazilian states and municipalities need to develop plans for water distribution, determine the costs and adopt the best means of management, said Luana Pretto, executive president of the Treat Brazil Institute, a think tank that advocates for basic sanitation and protection of water resources.

In Rio, ahead of World Water Day on Friday, people crowded into a hotel’s conference room in the city center to share their stories of trouble accessing water.

Water is intermittent in Jardim Gramacho, a neighborhood beside what until 2012 was Latin America’s biggest landfill. That was distressing to Fatima Monteiro, a community health agent who suffers from high blood pressure, which puts her at greater risk of blackouts and fainting during heat waves. She dug herself a makeshift well.

“I had to. I didn’t know how to live with the lack of water,” said Monteiro, who attended the conference. Aware that the runoff from landfill had caused water pollution, she said that to be safe she uses the well water only for cooking and washing.

Days after Benevides’ death, City Hall announced 150 designated areas within health posts where people suffering from dehydration could receive saline solution to mitigate the impacts of heat waves.

During Carnival festivities in February, the Waters of Rio concessionaire distributed water at the Sambadrome, where dancers in heavy costumes parade alongside gigantic floats. The company handed out water to parade-goers congregating before they entered the avenue, and after the parade following an hour of sweaty exertion.

But even as authorities attempt to grapple with the problem, there have been shortcomings.

Soccer fans complained they were barred from entering Maracana stadium with water bottles ahead of the game last Sunday — the same day the heat index hit 62.3 degrees Celsius. Brazil’s justice ministry asked for clarification from Maracana’s administrators, citing obligations of the regulation issued in the wake of Swift’s November show.

Rio also moved to install free water dispensers. But as summer winds down, just one has been established so far, in the wealthy Ipanema neighborhood — and even it is proving less effective than desired. An Associated Press reporter visited the dispenser in the sweltering heat Wednesday and helped children struggling to use it, which requires scanning a QR code and filling out an online form. A man without a cellphone couldn’t get water.

While Beray Armond welcomed Rio’s nascent attempts to provide water, she is waiting to see if the recently proposed bills are actually enacted into law.

“If you don’t have legislation that forces public or private entities to distribute water, you’re basically condemning your population to illness or death,” Beray Armond said. “We still need to improve, but it’s better than before, when we had nothing.”

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Multipronged $50 million campaign backed by labor aims to prioritize child and senior care

A new labor-backed campaign plans to spend at least $50 million ahead of the 2024 election to put child and senior care legislation back on the priority list, after it fell out of President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda during his administration.

The “Care Can’t Wait” campaign is focused on resurrecting parts of Biden’s “Build Back Better” program, including universal child care and guaranteed paid family and medical leave that Democrats were forced to abandon due to opposition from Republicans and moderate Democrats. It will also push for billions in new spending for child and senior care.

The campaign is backed by some of the nation’s largest labor unions — including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) — whose members stand to benefit from expanded federal spending, along with some major left-leaning advocacy groups and super PACs, like Priorities USA.

“Care work makes all other work possible, helping children learn and grow, protecting the injured, ill and aging, and keeping our neighborhoods safe,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the teachers union. “Unfortunately, care work remains largely invisible: unprotected by labor laws, and all too often, informal and unrecognized for just how important it is — and just how important care workers are to the fabric of our society and the functioning of our economy.”

Biden has pushed for more federal support for senior and child care, such as his proposal to invest $775 billion over 10 years. But his agenda ran into opposition on Capitol Hill from moderates, like then-Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and was eventually set aside in favor of infrastructure and climate legislation, both of which passed Congress during his first two years in office.

And when Republicans won back the House in 2022, Biden’s care agenda was effectively dead.

To do anything big in 2025, he would not only need to be re-elected but would likely need Democrats to retake the House and hold the Senate — a tall order given Democrats’ grim prospects in next year’s Senate contests.

In addition to traditional advertising campaigns in key battleground states, the campaign’s coalition aims to contact 10 million infrequent voters, host town halls for presidential and Senate candidates, commission new research and polling to bolster the argument that their policy is popular, and offer “care immersions” for candidates to spend a day working alongside family and professional caregivers.

“Through Care Can’t Wait Action, we can educate and mobilize our communities, sending a powerful message that care is on the ballot in 2024, ensuring that providers and the families who depend on them have the support they need every day,” said AFSCME president Lee Saunders.

Advocates say the Covid pandemic exposed the need for better support for family care providers, plus the need for more care workers and better compensation for them.

“Our country is in a care crisis — families from every walk of life are grappling with the challenge of accessing high-quality, affordable care. Meanwhile, the largely women of color workforce who provide this vital care are barely getting paid enough to get by,” said Fatima Gross Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center Action Fund.

Alex Seitz-Wald

Alex Seitz-Wald is a senior politics reporter for NBC News.

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US aims to deploy troops on tankers to deter seizures by Iran: official

This July 5, 2023 image released by the US Department of Defense shows a video screenshot of an Iranian naval vessel approaching the M/T Richmond Voyager to unlawfully seize the commercial tanker in the Gulf of Oman (Handout)

The United States is preparing to deploy sailors and Marines aboard commercial tankers transiting the Gulf as part of efforts to deter Iran from seizing ships, a US official said Thursday.

The security details would provide a further layer of protection for the tankers in addition to the warships and planes operating in the strategically vital area, through which around a fifth of the world’s oil passes.

“There is an effort… to employ security details composed of both Marines and Navy sailors on commercial tankers transiting in and near the Strait of Hormuz as an added layer of defense for these vulnerable ships,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

An invitation is needed to do so because the ships are private vessels, but “we are undergoing preparations to execute should final agreements be in place to do that,” the official said.

The United States is boosting its forces operating in the region, announcing last month that it would deploy a destroyer, F-35 and F-16 warplanes, as well as an Amphibious Readiness Group/Marine Expeditionary Unit comprised of some 3,000 personnel.

The US military says Iran has either seized or attempted to take control of nearly 20 internationally flagged ships in the region over the past two years.

Washington said its forces blocked two attempts by the Iran to seize commercial tankers in international waters off Oman on July 5, while Tehran took control of a commercial ship the following day.

In April and early May, Iran seized two tankers within a week in regional waters, and Tehran was also accused of launching a drone attack against an Israeli-owned tanker in November 2022.

There have been a series of such incidents since 2018, when then-US president Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and reimposed crippling sanctions on the Islamic republic, sending tensions soaring.

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Biden executive order aims to boost protections for sexual assault victims in U.S. military

Biden executive order aims to boost protections for sexual assault victims in U.S. military – CBS News

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President Biden on Friday signed an executive order meant to strengthen protections for sexual assault survivors in the U.S. armed forces by addressing how those cases are prosecuted.

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