Yahoo News US briefing: Amazon fires, endangered species and employee activism
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Good morning, I’m Tim Walker with today’s essential stories.
Bolsonaro slams ‘sensationalist’ critics despite record wildfires
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has described the wildfire outbreaks in the Amazon rainforest as an international crisis and called for the issue to be tackled at this weekend’s G7 summit. Fires in the Amazon are up 84% on last year and the Brazilian environment minister was booed by protesters at a climate event on Wednesday. But Brazil’s leader, Jair Bolsonaro, has blamed the blazes on environmental groups and said Macron’s “sensationalist” comments were made for personal political gain.
Alaska. Large fires are still burning in Alaska, where the wildfire season usually ends by the beginning of August. After the hottest July on record, residents of Anchorage are preparing for a future shaped by the climate crisis, writes Elizabeth Harball.
California blaze. Almost 4,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in Shasta County in northern California after a fast-moving wildfire broke out on Thursday.
Environmental groups suing Trump over endangered species
A coalition of environmental groups has launched a federal lawsuit to block the Trump administration’s new interpretation of the 1973 Endangered Species Act, the landmark conservation law credited with saving species including the bald eagle from extinction. The changes would weaken habitat protections and limit consideration of threats to species to the “foreseeable future”, a standard which conservationists say disregards the long-term dangers posed by the climate crisis to creatures such as the Canada lynx.
Climate debate quashed. The Democratic National Committee has voted down a proposal to devote one of the party’s dozen 2020 presidential debates exclusively to the issue of climate change.
Cheap daily pill reduces risk of heart attacks and strokes
A cheap, single pill that combines four common drugs and is designed to be taken daily reduces the risk of heart attacks, stroke and other causes of sudden death in people over the age of 50, a study has concluded. The “polypill” was trialled among 6,800 participants aged between 50 and 75, over a period of five years in rural Iran, where almost 34% of premature deaths are caused by coronary heart disease, and 14% by strokes.
Risk reduction. Published in the Lancet, the study was conducted by researchers from the US, UK and Iran, who found those taking the polypill had a more than 30% lower risk of serious heart problems compared with those who were merely offered medical advice.
Employee activism: Google workers latest to lobby bosses
More than 1,300 Google workers have signed a petition demanding the firm publicly commit to not provide any material support to government agencies involved in immigrant detention, until those agencies “stop engaging in human rights abuses”. The move coincides with the bidding period for a US Customs and Border Patrol cloud computing contract, which Google could provide. It also marks the latest example of a rise in employee activism: workers lobbying their own bosses over controversial political issues.
Business purpose. The bosses of 181 US companies, including Amazon and Apple, recently signed up to a change in the definition of the purpose of a corporation – to “improving our society”, rather than “to increase its profits”.
Crib sheet
Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein were seen at the billionaire sex offender’s apartment in 2010, “getting foot massages from two young well-dressed Russian women”, according to emails between a US literary agent and the writer Evgeny Morozov.
YouTube has disabled more than 200 channels it says were part of a propaganda campaign against pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, as financial observers said they feared the unrest could push the city’s outsized economy into recession.
Malaria can be eradicated, but not in the foreseeable future, according to a three-year review of the disease and efforts to control it by experts from the World Health Organization.
North Korea has demanded the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, be replaced by a “more mature” negotiator for the two countries’ denuclearisation talks, with Pyongyang’s top diplomat describing Pompeo as the “diehard toxin of US diplomacy”.
Must-reads
GM’s departure devastates another rust-belt town
Until late last year, Lordstown, Ohio, was still home to a Chevrolet factory. But when GM abruptly shuttered the plant, cutting the last 1,500 employees from a once-vast workforce, it dealt a heavy blow to a depressed rust-belt town – and gave the lie to Trump’s promise to return jobs to the midwest, as Adam Gabbatt reports.
How Popeyes’ new chicken sandwich conquered the US
When the fast-food chain Popeye’s launched its new sandwich – battered chicken, pickles and sauce on a brioche bun – it drew long lines and unexpectedly admiring reviews. Matthew Cantor and Charlotte Simmonds ask how social media savvy and consumer disillusionment with Chick-fil-A created a “bona-fried success”.
The fatal rise of cheap plastic surgery
Americans have been flocking to the Dominican Republic for cut-price cosmetic surgery, but not all of them are returning home: at least 12 New Yorkers have died during plastic surgery procedures on the Caribbean island in the past six years, as Michael Krumholtz and Noelis Ciriaco discover.
Is Taylor Swift treading water on her new album?
Taylor Swift’s latest LP, Lover, is a lot less bitter than her last effort, Reputation, with several “besotted paeans” to her British boyfriend, Joe Alwyn. It affirms Swift as a better songwriter than her rivals, writes Alexis Petridis, yet it “feels like consolidation, not progress”.
Opinion
The Amazon might seem remote, but in environmental terms it is the heart of the planet, says Eliane Baum, who lives and works there. And in Bolsonaro’s Brazil, it is under attack as never before.
Believing the Amazon is far away and on the periphery, when the only chance of controlling global heating is to keep the forest alive, reflects ignorance of continental proportions. The forest is at the very core of all we have. This is the real home of humanity.
Sport
Arsenal have made a solid start to the season, seeing off Newcastle and Burnley by one-goal margins. But now Unai Emery’s team face their first real test: Liverpool at Anfield. That is one of 10 things to look out for in the Premier League this weekend.
Serena Williams has drawn her old rival Maria Sharapova in the opening round of this year’s US Open, which begins on Monday. The two former champions have met in the finals of the other three majors and at the 2012 Olympics, but have yet to face each other at Flushing Meadows.
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