Typhoon Mawar Hits Guam, Island’s Strongest Storm In Over 20 Years: Residents were urged to stay home until the island is declared safe for travel, as the Category 4 typhoon brought hurricane-force winds of at least 150 miles per hour and heavy rain to the US territory. The eye of the storm passed just north of Guam and, as of Thursday morning, no storm-related deaths had been reported. The Biden administration preemptively declared a federal disaster emergency Tuesday, and although stronger building codes have helped reduce the extent of storm damage the island is still facing destruction. “As sunlight is starting to peek, we are waking up to a rather disturbing scene out there across Guam,” a meteorologist in Guam told the New York Times. “We are looking out our door and what used to be a jungle looks like toothpicks. It looks like a scene from the movie ‘Twister,’ with trees just thrashed apart.” The Pacific islands are increasingly threatened by rising seas, warming ocean temps, and other climate-related changes, including stronger tropical cyclones. (AP, The Hill, Grist, Axios, CNN, Washington Post $; Climate Signals: Typhoons)

Pas Plus! France Bans Short Haul Flights: The rule, which went into effect Tuesday, will stop most air travel between Paris and regional hubs like Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux, though connecting flights are unaffected. The general rule is that people cannot take any flight that can be replaced by a train trip of under two-and-a-half hours. Max Boycoff at the University of Colorado Boulder, told Al Jazeera the French law sets a precedent for other governments to follow. “While this material impact is quite minimal – only 2 percent of global emissions come from aviation – in symbolic ways, it has a lot of purchase.” Air France already has a partnership with France’s national rail company that allows travelers to combine plane and train reservations in a single booking, helping people compare travel modes and make a more eco-friendly, and faster, choice. (CNBC, CBS, Al Jazeera, CNN, Independent)

German Police Raid Climate Activist Pads: Fifteen properties across seven German states were searched as part of an investigation into whether the German climate protest group Letzte Generation (Last Generation) is a criminal organization. 170 police officers took part in the raids against the activist group, which aims to use civil disobedience to draw attention to a lack of government attention to the climate crisis. The group has previously gone on hunger strikes outside of the German capitol, thrown mashed potatoes at a Monet painting, and glued themselves to roads and runways to disrupt traffic, among other tactics. In a news conference Letzte Generation spokesperson Aimée van Baalen said “the need to resist is not diminished by criminalization,” adding that activists will continue to exercise their right to peacefully protest.(AP, BBC, NBC, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, CNN, Washington Post $, Bloomberg $), Politico $)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) INJUSTICE: Plans for I-55 expansion in Chicago raise concerns over air quality and community health (Inside Climate News)

🐦🗑️🔥: Climate scientists flee Twitter as hostility surges (Al Jazeera)

AGENCIES: Biden administration pauses copper mining project on Oak Flat, a sacred apache site (Grist),  Major polluter escapes EPA power plant rule (E&E $)

DOE: Energy Department cancels $200M Microvast battery grant (Utility Dive)

MILITARY: US military sees growing threat in thawing permafrost (Scientific American), Pentagon officials voice readiness concerns over climate change (Bloomberg Law)

THE HILL: Energy permitting reform divides environmental, clean energy groups as it remains in debt limit talks (Utility Dive)

HOUSE: House fails to override Biden veto maintaining solar tariffs (The Hill)

CITIES AND STATES: Rural electricity is getting its biggest boost since FDR — here’s how (Canary Media), Texas power struggle: How the nation’s top wind power state turned against renewable energy (Texas Tribune $), Washington state hits the brakes on landmark gas ban (E&E $)

~COLORADO: Biden administration announces new investments in Colorado River conservation (The Hill), Western states finally strike Colorado river deal. but the hard work has only just begun (TIME)

IMPACTS: How global warming and a wet winter may impact the US wildfire season (NBC)

HEAT: Ancient history teaches humanity how to face a hotter future (Bloomberg $)

SHOCKING: ‘Worthless’: Chevron’s carbon offsets are mostly junk and some may harm, research says (The Guardian), The fossil fuel industry is donating hundreds of millions to university climate and energy research (Yale Climate Connections)

SEAGRASS: A powerful climate solution just below the ocean’s surface (New York Times $)

TIKTOK: Climate change conspiracy theory about cataclysmic changes in Earth’s magnetic field goes viral on TikTok (Media Matters), A fake climate change theory is going viral on TikTok after Joe Rogan talked about it (The Verge)

TELLY: Summer watch list: climate-conscious movies and TV (Grist)

SKOL: 3 ways Minnesota is crushing it on climate action (Canary Media)

H2: Biden pressed to limit hydrogen credits key to new industry (Bloomberg $)

OIL & GAS: Shell agrees to pay $10 million for air pollution at massive new Pennsylvania petrochemical plant (AP)

TRAINS: Extreme weather is disrupting Amtrak’s trains — and its climate benefits (Grist)

TYRES: Old tyres can become a climate-friendly fuel (Economist)

STOVES: The heat is on: GOP attacks gas stove rule, approves bills (E&E $)

WIND: Once a whaling port, New Bedford wants to light the world again, with wind (AP)

EVs: Gasoline use isn’t falling fast enough. Targeting ‘superusers’ could help (Grist)

NOx: A US non-profit aims to reduce emissions of a super climate pollutant from chemical plants in China (Inside Climate News)

FINANCE: Will antitrust concerns be the death knell for insurers’ net-zero commitments? (Energy Monitor)

BUSINESSES: Climate change calls for cuts in carbon emissions. These US companies are leading the way. (USA Today)

LITHIUM: China’s risky strategy to control one-third of the world’s lithium supply (Wall Street Journal $)

CONSUMERS: Will Americans change their daily lives to acknowledge climate change? (Teen Vogue)

DISINFO: With climate panel as a beacon, global group takes on misinformation (New York Times $)

INTERNATIONAL: Europe must curb energy use next winter to replace gas for good (Bloomberg $), UN gets $2.4 bln in pledges for Horn of Africa aid efforts (Reuters), UN conference raises less than $1 billion for climate-wracked Horn of Africa in major disappointment (AP), Finding climate solutions in a Spanish village (New York Times $), In the Bahamas, a constant race to adapt to climate change (New York Times $)

• Put the brakes on L.A.’s all-electric bus plan? No way (LA Times, The Editorial Board $)

• A lawsuit to protect pensions from climate politics (Wall Street Journal, The Editorial Board $)

• What Exxon won’t tell you about climate costs (Bloomberg, Mark Gongloff and Liam Denning $)

New Right-Wing Propaganda Roundup: ¡Ahora en Español, También! 

Do you love conservative messaging laced through your aggregated digital tabloid clickbait? Did you spend years thinking Fox News was totally fair and balanced? ¿Quieres ver la desinformación en español?

If you said "yes," or "sí" to any of those, then good news! You've got some new media outlets to choose from. If you answered some variation of "No! What's wrong with you? Why would you ask that?" then bad news! You've got some new outlets to be aware of as likely future vectors for climate disinformation. 

We'll start with the simple one first: Americano, which is basically just "Fox News in Spanish," per a review by Michael Lovito at TheRighting. The still-growing "brainchild of Trump ally Ivan Garcia-Hidalgo," broadcasts over 25 radio stations and streaming services and, thanks to Trump-world connections, is aiming to raise "$30 to $50 million by the end of the spring." 

By hiring a mix of serious journalists from other Spanish-language outlets and people like "up-and-comer Freddy Silva, who was singled out by Media Matters for America for his inflammatory commentary regarding immigration and LGBTQ+ issues," Americano is setting itself up for exactly the failure that's eating into Fox News: "Americano will likely struggle to prevent its legitimate news gathering efforts from getting drowned out by its bombastic opinion shows." 

Alejandro Alvarado of Florida International University told Lovito that "There’s tension within these organizations. Yes, they favor right-wing politicians and governments, but I think Americano Media is trying to do serious journalism. But the talk shows are very emotional. They basically say what the audience wants to hear, and the audience is very opinionated. [The hosts] won’t correct them when they’re wrong and say that every form of government intervention is communism, because the audience is looking for that.”

Now, it's weird that the audience is the actor with agency here, and not the people whose literal job it is to program the channel. 

But it's the outlets that are less transparent about their bias that you really have to worry about — and that's where things start to get trickier. 

While Americano aspires to raise $50 million, The Messenger already has. But it turns out that lots of money from conservatives and a promise to do "balanced journalism" and "objective, non-partisan" news is still not enough to buy success. Launched just last week, the effort, backed by former co-owner of The Hill Jimmy Finkelstein, is already racking up headlines! Just… not the kind they probably hoped for. "The Messenger is a news startup, but it feels like a blast from the past," reads the Columbia Journalism Review's headline. The Wrap went with a quote from one of the many, many critics: "Sounds like a bad pitch from 'Succession'." 

Nieman Lab's Joshua Benton managed to pack a pun into a devastatingly concise summary of the website's flood of day 1 stories, with the headline "No need to shoot The Messenger: Its muddled ideas are doing the job" followed by an equally damning lede about the site's exclusive interview with Donald Trump that entirely failed to ask him about the former president being found "liable for sexual abuse and defamation.” “Surely if you had a 30-minute 'EXCLUSIVE' interview with the former president, you'd ask him a question about it, right?" Benton asks. 

Well, wrong, unfortunately. And why might that be? 

For that, we turn to the most pernicious of propaganda: Punchbowl, which is, per David Dayen's headline at The American Prospect, "The Access Journalism-House Republican Mind Meld." 

Dayen deftly explains "the razor-thin dividing line in access journalism" at outlets like Punchbowl, "between reporting the news and creating it: the way in which the tipsheets launder the desires of powerful people and pressure their opponents to go along." Dayen's description of Punchbowl's literal friendship with Republicans does well to detail "the normalizing process at work, where Beltway pack journalism determines the boundaries of discussion." 

The whole point of right-wing media outlets posing as unbiased while serving partisan disinformation is to build a false social reality. Billionaires fund "media" outlets not to try and participate in the civic debate, but instead to declare themselves the victors. 

And when they fail, they have the money to start over again.

Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up to receive Hot News every morning!

Send updates or feedback to jgoldman@climatenexus.org
Submit events and other items for consideration for a First Look using this form
Some articles require logins or subscriptions ($)