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Scientists warn record Siberian temperatures and the rapid melting of the Arctic sea ice along the Russian coast indicate that climate change is occurring and may be irreversible. Siberia, famous for its bitterly cold weather, has been experiencing a tropical heat wave, with temperatures reaching a record 38 degrees Celsius June 20 in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk.  This week alone, the World Meteorological Organization reports some parts of Siberia have been warmer than the U.S. states of Florida and California, with temperatures going above 30 degrees Celsius.    It says the exceptional and prolonged heat is fueling devastating Arctic fires and causing a rapid decrease in the Arctic sea ice coverage.WMO spokeswoman Clare Nullis says the Arctic is heating more than twice the global average, and that is having a major impact on local populations and ecosystems.“We always say what happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic,” said Nullis. “It does affect our weather in different parts of the world where hundreds of millions of people live.  There was a study last week, which says that the extreme heat that we are seeing would have been almost impossible without climate change.  So, it does have a clear fingerprint of climate change on it.”   Since January, Scientists estimate total carbon emissions from the fires raging inside the Arctic Circle are the highest in 18 years of monitoring the phenomenon.  In addition, they warn the melting of ice and thawing of permafrost will potentially release methane, a very powerful greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.Nullis tells VOA greenhouse gases are having a major impact on infrastructure and ecosystems throughout the region.“It will be very, very hard to reverse because of the law of physics,” said Nullis. “You know, the levels of carbon dioxide, which we have got in the atmosphere now, will carry on heating surface temperatures for generations to come.  The lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere runs into many, many, many decades.”   A new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change warns that the iconic polar bear—a symbol of climate change—may be nearly extinct by the end of the century because of shrinking sea ice.   The article suggests high greenhouse gas emissions also will likely cause a steep decline in the reproduction of other Arctic subpopulations by 2100.
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Legal groups sued the U.S. government Friday to try to stop the expulsion of children detained in hotel rooms by the Trump administration under an emergency declaration citing the coronavirus.The owners of the Hampton Inn & Suites in McAllen, Texas, said Friday night that they ended any reservations on rooms used to detain minors. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also confirmed that all children had been taken away from the hotel, two days after The Associated Press reported that it was one of three hotels used nearly 200 times for detention of children as young as 1.But ICE repeatedly refused to answer questions about where contractors have taken the children, citing a potential security risk. “The Trump administration is holding children in secret in hotels, refusing to give lawyers access to them so it can expel them back to danger without even a chance for the children to show they warrant asylum,” said Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed suit on behalf of the Texas Civil Rights Project. Gelernt said suing on behalf of unnamed children was necessary “because the government is refusing to provide any information about the children.” The lawsuit was filed in Washington federal court, and Gelernt said he would seek to include any minors detained at the hotel as of Thursday. Government data obtained by AP shows children were detained 123 times at the McAllen hotel in April and June. Castle Hospitality, which operates the McAllen location, refused to say how many rooms had been booked for use by ICE or its private contractor, MVM Inc. The other Hampton Inns are near the airports in Phoenix and El Paso, Texas, according to the data obtained by AP.Under federal anti-trafficking law and a court settlement, most children who cross the U.S.-Mexico border are supposed to go to facilities operated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and eventually placed with family sponsors. But the Trump administration says it must expel children to prevent the spread of COVID-19, citing an emergency declaration in March by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At least 2,000 children have since been expelled without getting the chance to seek refuge in the U.S.Some children are as young as 1 and others have been held in hotels two weeks or longer, according to government data obtained by AP for April and June. Roberto Lopez of the Texas Civil Rights Project said when he entered the hotel last Friday, he saw people in scrubs going room to room on the fourth and fifth floors of the Hampton Inn caring for children. He saw one small child holding on to a gate in a doorway as an adult on the other side played with him. But on Thursday, when another advocate from the group went to the fourth floor, three men dressed in plainclothes stopped him, according to a video the group posted online. After the men asked for his identity, the advocate yelled in Spanish that he was a lawyer trying to help. The video shows the men in plainclothes shoving him and forcing him into an elevator, repeatedly refusing to identify themselves. On Friday, ICE described the lawyer and another person with him as people who “attempted to forcefully gain access” to an area its contract officers were restricting. A group of Congressional Democrats wrote Friday to Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf expressing “deep alarm” about the detention of children in hotels.“We are gravely concerned that the CDC order is being grossly misused to circumvent asylum and child welfare protections,” the letter said.
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A six-day series of events memorializing the life of the late civil rights icon and member of the U.S. House of Representatives John Lewis begins Saturday in his hometown of Troy, Alabama, and culminates next week with his funeral in the state of Georgia.A public service celebrating Lewis will take place Saturday morning at Troy University, where Lewis will lie in repose for visitors to pay their respects. Later in the day, a private ceremony will honor him at a chapel in Selma, Alabama, ahead of another public viewing.On Sunday, Lewis’ body will cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where he and other voting rights demonstrators were beaten in 1965 on a day known as “Bloody Sunday.”His body will be carried to Alabama’s capital, Montgomery, where Mayor Steven Reed is encouraging people to line the sidewalks on the final leg of that journey. Officials are asking the public to wear face masks and socially distance.Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has ordered flags to be flown at half-staff on Saturday and Sunday in honor of Lewis.During the nearly weeklong memorial events, Lewis’ body will lie in state at the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery, the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta and the U.S. Capitol in Washington.U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced earlier this week that visitors could pay their respects to Lewis in the U.S. Capitol on Monday and Tuesday.Due to the coronavirus, the public viewing will take place outside the Capitol building instead of inside in the traditional Capitol Rotunda. The lawmakers said social distancing will be “strictly enforced” and face masks will be required.The Georgia Democrat will be the second Black lawmaker to lie in state at the Capitol, following Congressman Elijah Cummings, who died last year.Lewis’ family said there will also be a procession through Washington next week and said members of the public will be able to pay their respects in a “socially distant manner.”Lewis’ funeral will be held Thursday at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. was once the pastor. Following the service, which will be private, Lewis will be interred at South View Cemetery in Atlanta.Lewis died last Friday at age 80, after a yearlong battle with advanced pancreatic cancer.He rose to fame as a leader of the modern-day American civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s. At 23, he worked closely with King and was the last surviving speaker from the August 1963 March on Washington where King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.The civil rights movement led Lewis into a career in politics. He was elected to the Atlanta City Council in 1981 and to Congress in 1986, calling the latter victory “the honor of a lifetime.” He served 17 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia’s fifth district.  
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The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said it is “concerned” that authorities in Zimbabwe may be using the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext to clamp down on citizens’ freedoms. This week, police arrested a prominent investigative journalist and an opposition leader, accusing them of inciting public violence.Journalist Hopewell Chin’ono and politician Jacob Ngarivhume have been jailed since Monday on allegations of inciting public violence — through social media — ahead of a planned July 31 government corruption protest. Both men have denied the charges.In Geneva on Friday, OHCHR spokesperson Liz Throssell said Zimbabweans have a right to protest corruption or anything else.“Merely calling for a peaceful protest or participating in a peaceful protest is an exercise of recognized human rights,” she said. “We are also concerned at reports of police using force to disperse and arrest nurses and health workers for infringing lockdown restrictions as they were trying to protest for better salaries and conditions of work… While recognizing the government’s efforts to contain the pandemic, it is important to remind the authorities that any lockdown measures and restrictions should be necessary, proportionate and time-limited, and enforced humanely without resorting to unnecessary or excessive force.”Late Friday, Chin’ono was denied bail by the Magistrate Courts, one day after the courts denied bail to Ngarivhume. Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said it would appeal the rulings to the High Court next week.Earlier in the week, bail hearings for Chin’ono and Ngarivhume were cut short on two consecutive days. Officials said they wanted to leave early to ensure they comply with a dusk-to-dawn curfew imposed in Harare on Wednesday as part of new restrictions to contain the coronavirus.Beatrice Mtetwa of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, who is representing Chin’ono, was not amused.“We find this extremely frustrating because constitutional rights like the right to liberty have now been suspended through failure to make appropriate arrangements,” she said. “Surely, they should make arrangements such as bail to take staff home so that constitutionally guaranteed rights like liberty are not unnecessarily infringed. It’s extremely frustrating. It makes a mockery of the need to come to court within 48 hours. It makes a mockery of the requirement that bail (application) be heard urgently.”Announcing the curfew, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said he was aware that some rights would be infringed upon. But Mtetwa was not convinced.“If you want to make excuses for trampling on people’s rights, you are absolutely free to do so but it is not what the constitution provides for,” she said. “Bail matters are always heard on an urgent basis. You can sit right into the night as long as you make arrangements to take the court staff home. So, it cannot be an excuse that the president has decreed. The president has no power to suspend constitutional rights.”Getting into a waiting prison vehicle Friday, Chin’ono had this to say to waiting reporters:“We are being persecuted for talking about corruption and we won’t be bowed.” Asked about his spirits, he said, “I am fine.”Nick Mangwana, the secretary of Zimbabwe’s ministry of information, did not answer phone calls from VOA. 
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A U.S. judge has ruled against Oregon, which sought to restrain federal officers’ actions during daily protests in Portland that have often spiraled into violence.The presence and actions of federal officers in Portland have raised concerns of a possible constitutional crisis on the ground that the agents have been deployed without local consent.U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman ruled Friday that the state lacked standing to sue on behalf of protesters. The state lawsuit sought to restrict federal agents’ actions when they arrest people, including prohibiting federal agents from detaining protesters without probable cause.The protests against racial injustice and police brutality pit local officials against the Trump administration and have increased the nation’s political tensions.Disturbances erupted again Friday with protesters clashing with agents who were dressed in fatigues and were positioned behind a steel fence by a federal courthouse, firing tear gas. Agents said they were hit with projectiles and lasers and forced protesters away from the building after declaring an unlawful assembly.Friday’s events came a day after another court ruling over the Portland protests. A different federal judge Thursday blocked U.S. agents from arresting or using physical force against journalists and legal observers at demonstrations. That case was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon.Earlier this week, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler was among a group of protesters who were tear-gassed when federal agents broke up a protest at the courthouse.According to the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, policing is a state power, not the authority of the federal government.“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,” the amendment states.Wheeler has said he wants the agents to leave, calling their presence an abuse of federal authority and an incitement for violence.Federal officers use chemical irritants and projectiles to disperse protesters at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland, Oregon, July 24, 2020.Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz on Thursday announced an investigation into the use of force by federal agents in Portland and Washington, where tear gas was used to clear an area across from the White House last month before President Donald Trump crossed the street to stand in front of a church.Also Thursday, Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari announced an investigation into allegations of improper behavior by DHS law enforcement in Portland recently.Demonstrators have marched in Portland every day in response to the May 25 death of George Floyd, a Black man, while in police custody in Minneapolis. Some protests have led to vandalism and other crimes.Elsewhere, federal law enforcement agents are also being dispatched to Chicago, Illinois, after a surge in gang violence that has left about 100 dead in the last several weeks. Agents are also being sent to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Kansas City, Missouri. The deployment to these three cities is part of what has been dubbed “Operation Legend” to fight violent crime.The mayors of these three cities and 12 others have sent a letter to federal authorities calling for the immediate withdrawal of their forces and to “agree to no further unilateral deployments in U.S. cities.”Trump has emphasized “law and order” as he finds himself fighting for re-election in November against former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee.David Chipman, a senior policy adviser at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, told VOA that when he was an agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, “I was proud to work with local leaders when they needed help righting wrongs.”Chipman said Trump’s recent actions in Portland and his statements about problems in other cities “make clear he thinks federal law enforcement are his personal chess pieces for partisan power grabs.”VOA’s Steve Herman contributed to this report.
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Amid rising diplomatic tensions, China has ordered the United States to close its consulate in Chengdu. Experts see the move as retaliation for the U.S. closing of China’s consulate in Houston, and they say it reflects a new level of hostility between the two countries ahead of U.S. presidential elections in November.  VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Washington.Videographers: Stella Hsu, Zoom video interviews; Jela de Franceschi, Skype interview
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Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama stepped up their attacks on President Donald Trump and defended their time in the White House in a new video showing their first in-person meeting since the coronavirus outbreak began.The 15-minute video, posted online Thursday, is the latest effort to get the former president more involved in the 2020 campaign as his former vice president tries to rebuild Obama’s winning coalition. Obama has promised an active role on the campaign trail this fall.  The former White House partners used an interview-style conversation to amplify Biden’s arguments against Trump, with Obama emphasizing Biden’s experience and personal attributes. They pointed to their administration’s 2010 health care law and blamed Trump for stoking division among Americans. They also were sharply critical of the Republican president’s efforts to combat the coronavirus, which has killed more than 140,000 Americans.  “Can you imagine standing up when you were president and saying, ‘It’s not my responsibility, I take no responsibility’?” Biden said, offering a line of attack similar to his recent campaign speeches when he asserted that Trump “quit” on the country and has “waved the white flag” in the pandemic.”Those words didn’t come out of our mouths while we were in office,” Obama replied. Trump slammed the pair Thursday afternoon in a Tweet, accusing them of doing a “terrible job” in office and allowing his election. The Republican National Committee issued a scathing assessment of “slickly produced, substance-free love fests,” dubbing the effort “Biden and Obama’s fiction.”The two men are shown wearing masks while arriving at an office, then sitting down well apart from each other to observe social distancing for an unmasked chat. Biden’s campaign billed it as their first in-person meeting during the pandemic.Obama compared the nation’s current economic circumstances to what he inherited in 2009 after the financial collapse that played out during his general election campaign the previous year.  “We had to move fast, not just 100 days,” Obama said. “We had to move in the first month to get the recovery act passed.” Calling Obama “Mr. President,” Biden answered that he’d repeat what he learned: “We have got to sustain and keep people from going under forever.”  The former president largely stayed out of the once-crowded Democratic primary but endorsed Biden in April, when he was the last candidate standing. Obama hosted a virtual fundraiser for his former vice president last month that raised $7.6 million, the most of any Biden campaign event so far. He warned then against Democrats becoming “complacent and smug.”In other exchanges, Obama and Biden blasted Trump’s view of American society, and Obama praised Biden as possessing empathy that he said Trump lacks.  “He ran by deliberately dividing people from the moment he came down that escalator, and I think people are now going, ‘I don’t want my kid growing up that way,'” Biden said, recalling Trump’s 2016 campaign launch.Obama said he has confidence in Biden’s “heart and your character.” Governing, the former president said, “starts with being able to relate. If you can sit down with a family and see your own family in them … then you’re going to work hard for them, and that’s always what’s motivated you.”Building on the point, Biden discussed the final months before his son Beau died of brain cancer and tied it to the 2010 health care law. Biden said he recalled thinking “what would happen if his insurance company was able to come in — which they could have done before we passed Obamacare — and said, ‘You have outrun your insurance.'”Obama said he “couldn’t be prouder of what we got done” and alluded to the Trump administration’s continued efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act through Congress and have it invalidated by the courts. “It is hard to fathom anybody wanting to take away people’s health care in the middle of a major public health crisis … and a time when unemployment is at double digits,” he said. The Republican National Committee insisted, “President Trump and Republicans will always protect pre-existing conditions.” However, when the GOP controlled Congress during Trump’s first two years in office, it failed to pass a promised ACA replacement that would preserve the law’s ban on insurers denying coverage based on a person’s medical history.  The RNC also noted that Obama pledged repeatedly in his first term that the new law would allow anyone to keep his existing private coverage. In fact, minimum coverage standards in the law did effectively force some policyholders to obtain different plans.  Obama remains a go-to foil for Trump and the Republican base, just as he was throughout his two terms as president. But the 44th president’s two winning coalitions remain the rough model for a Biden victory in November. At the time of the 2016 election, Obama had a 53% Gallup job approval rating, with 45% disapproving, for a net positive approval of 8 percentage points. When he left office a few months later, that net positive had risen to 22 percentage points: 59% approve, 37% disapprove. In 2018, when Gallup assessed past presidents’ standing, Obama notched a retrospective approval of 63%.  For Trump, meanwhile, Gallup has measured just three net positive approval ratings during his three-plus years in office, all coming earlier this year and none of them higher than 4 percentage points.   
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U.S. President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen left prison on Friday to finish his criminal sentence at home, a spokesman for Cohen’s attorney said, a day after a judge found he was imprisoned two weeks ago as retaliation for planning to publish a book about Trump.  Cohen was picked up at a prison in Otisville, New York, about 70 miles (110 km) northwest of New York City, by his son, the spokesman said. He is expected to return to his Manhattan apartment. In May, Cohen was furloughed from the prison because of concerns about the spread of the novel coronavirus.U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein on Thursday ordered Cohen to be released by 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) Friday. “We’re just waiting to get him home and then will be considering all next steps, including what the conditions of release will be, who will be supervising him and what, if any, additional legal actions he’ll take,” E. Danya Perry, who represents Cohen, said in an interview on Friday.
 
On July 9, Cohen and his lawyer, Jeffrey K. Levine, met with prison officials to convert his furlough to a home confinement for the final two years of his three-year sentence. After Cohen questioned a provision that barred him from publishing the book, engaging with news organizations and posting on social media, officials shackled him and returned him to prison.
 
Hellerstein said in Thursday’s court hearing that he had never seen such a gag provision in his 21 years on the bench. “It’s retaliatory because of his desire to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish a book,” Hellerstein said. Cohen may file a lawsuit seeking compensation for his unlawful imprisonment and violation of his First Amendment rights, his attorney said.”The lawsuit will get deeper into how this happened and who ultimately was responsible,” Levine said.  The probation officer who drafted the agreement for Cohen with the no-media provision told the court that he had not been aware of the book.  The Federal Bureau of Prisons also issued a statement after the judge’s ruling saying said the book played no role in the decision to return Cohen to prison. The bureau did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Cohen’s departure from prison.Cohen, who once said he would “take a bullet” for Trump, was sentenced in 2018 for directing hush payments to pornographic film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who said they had affairs with Trump. The president has denied having the encounters and has called Cohen a “rat.”  In court papers, Cohen said the book will contain his experiences and observations from the decade he worked for Trump, including both before and after he became president. Cohen said it would provide “unflattering details” of Trump’s Behavior.Even as he turned on Cohen, Trump has voiced his support for people who remained loyal to him.A day after Cohen was sent back to prison, Trump commuted longtime friend and adviser Roger Stone’s prison sentence for lying under oath to lawmakers investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
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