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‘A taste of victory’: galvanized by US supreme court, far right turns to ‘legal vigilantism’
‘A taste of victory’: galvanized by US supreme court, far right turns to ‘legal vigilantism’ , MacKenzie Ryan, The Guardian
After the supreme court’s recent rulings against affirmative action and anti-discrimination precedent, researchers who track the far-right movement are flagging a new model of conservative activism: legal vigilantism, an aggressive, lawsuit-threatening tactic used to intimidate universities and private institutions to comply with the new rulings.

Experts have called the decisions a “catalytic event” while far-right groups and influencers are celebrating them with bigoted rhetoric online and mobilizing member support to roll back decades of progressive policy. Despite what they view as significant victories, hardline Trumpist politicians that rely on mining grievances in their quest for power may face a bleak fundraising season. [...]

Social media posts obtained by the Western States Center, which tracks anti-democracy activity, show far-right groups celebrating the supreme court decisions with anti-government, anti-immigration and anti-LGBTQ+ comments. Lindsay Schubiner, director of programs at Western States Center, reported that far-right groups are bolstering their ability to organize and build grassroots power around bigotry. She pointed to the rise of Moms for Liberty, a well-organized anti-LGBTQ+ group with more than 100,000 self-reported members, as a key group to watch due to its effectiveness in countering inclusionary policies in schools. The far right’s goal, she explained, is a broad rejection of LBGTQ+ people from public life, including elected office, community leadership decisions and their ability to access services.
Study reveals people most likely to hold antisemitic views
Study reveals people most likely to hold antisemitic views, King's College London
Dr. Daniel Allington, Reader in Social Analytics at King's has led the most comprehensive study to date examining the opinions of people with antisemitic views. The study is published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications.

Researchers also found antisemitic views to be more prevalent among people who consider it justifiable to take extreme authoritarian action against political opponents, and people who want to overthrow social order.

The findings suggest that antisemitism may be less closely linked to political beliefs than has previously been implied, and more closely linked to opinions and views on other topics such as religion, ethnic nationalism, and conspiracy theories.

"Whether we look at the left or the right of the political spectrum, we find people who are antisemitic and people who aren't. Our findings help us to get beyond the question of whether antisemitism is more of a problem on the right or on the left. What we found is that antisemitic views are more likely among conspiracy theorists, revolutionaries, and people who see dictatorship as an acceptable form of government," said Dr. Daniel Allington, Department of Digital Humanities.
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Alabama Black Belt becomes environmental justice test case: Is sanitation a civil right?
Alabama Black Belt becomes environmental justice test case: Is sanitation a civil right?, Dennis Pillion, AL.com
The EPA defines environmental justice as the fair treatment of all people regardless of race, income or other factors with respect to the development or enforcement of environmental laws.

President Joe Biden’s Administration has been particularly focused on environmental justice in recent years, looking to address situations where large numbers of minority or low-income populations have disproportionately had to bear the burden of things like massive landfills, heavily polluting industrial facilities, “poop trains,” and in the Black Belt, widespread sewage treatment problems.

In this case, the federal government chose to focus on the Alabama Department of Public Health and on rural Lowndes County, a majority-Black county of just under 10,000 people in south Alabama.

In Lowndes, according to the Justice Department, ADPH “engaged in a consistent pattern of inaction and/or neglect concerning the health risks associated with raw sewage.”
The Next Battle Over Colorblindness Has Begun
The Next Battle Over Colorblindness Has Begun, Sonja B. Starr, New York Times
The next — and even more important — stage of the battle concerns the future of all race-conscious policymaking. Is it ever permissible for policymakers to pursue goals like racial diversity, even when they use laws and policies that don’t treat individuals differently based on race?

That might sound like an outlandish question even to ask, let alone to answer in the negative. But the first wave of legal cases posing this challenge has already arrived. They concern the admissions policies of highly selective public high schools that sought greater racial diversity through race-neutral means, like showing a preference for poor applicants. The plaintiffs argue that these policies are unconstitutional because, they contend, the goal remains racially discriminatory.

The implication of these cases for the future of higher education has already begun to attract some public attention — and for good reason. The high school admissions policies at issue are effectively the same as those that universities are likely to soon adopt to try to preserve diversity in the post-affirmative action era. Those institutions are almost certain to face similar lawsuits.

But less appreciated is the impact that this legal battle could have beyond school admissions. Race gaps characterize nearly every dimension of U.S. life: life expectancy, maternal mortality, employment rates, income, wealth, environmental exposures, criminal justice involvement and many others. Policymakers routinely seek to close these gaps, even when debating policies that aren’t directly about race, such as environmental regulations, health policy and criminal justice reform.
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Heatwaves: Why this summer has been so hot
Heatwaves: Why this summer has been so hot, Justin Rowlatt, BBC News
In the UK, the June heat didn't just break all-time records, it smashed them. It was 0.9C hotter than the previous record, set back in 1940. That is a huge margin.

There is a similar story of unprecedented hot weather in North Africa, the Middle East and Asia. [...]

When we think about how hot it is, we tend to think about the air temperature, because that's what we experience in our daily lives.

But most of the heat stored near the surface of the Earth is not in the atmosphere, but in the oceans. And we've been seeing some record ocean temperatures this spring and summer.

The North Atlantic, for example, is currently experiencing the highest surface water temperatures ever recorded.
Climate Disasters Daily? Welcome to the ‘New Normal.’
Climate Disasters Daily? Welcome to the ‘New Normal.’, David Gelles, New York Times
Catastrophic floods in the Hudson Valley. An unrelenting heat dome over Phoenix. Ocean temperatures hitting 90 degrees Fahrenheit off the coast of Miami. A surprising deluge in Vermont, a rare tornado in Delaware.

A decade ago, any one of these events would have been seen as an aberration. This week, they are happening simultaneously as climate change fuels extreme weather, prompting Governor Kathy Hochul of New York, a Democrat, to call it “our new normal.” [...]

And yet even as storms, fires and floods become increasingly frequent, climate change lives on the periphery for most voters. In a nation focused on inflation, political scandals and celebrity feuds, just 8 percent of Americans identified global warming as the most important issue facing the country, according to a recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.

As climate disasters become more commonplace, they may be losing their shock value. A 2019 study concluded that people learn to accept extreme weather as normal in as little as two years.

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