Новости за 09.12.2020

The world’s second-richest man—and second-most irritating Twitter user, after the president—has moved to Texas. After months of complaining about Covid-19 shutdowns affecting his factories, while also predicting in March that the virus would be almost gone by the end of April, Elon Musk announced Tuesday at a Wall Street Journal conference that he has bailed on San Francisco. “He said relocating made sense with Tesla’s new factory being built in Texas,” the Journal reported. “He lamented that California... Читать дальше...

Bloomberg reported on Sunday that California water futures are now officially on the Wall Street markets, with the United States–based CME Group heading up the 2021 contracts connected to the state’s billion-dollar water market. The “commodity” was most recently going for $496 per acre-foot with the main purchasers of the futures—which were first announced by CME in September—expected to be large-scale water consumers, chiefly utility companies and the states’ Big Ag corporations. (California... Читать дальше...

Tuesday, December 8 was a minor procedural date on the 2020 presidential election calendar but also a notable symbolic one: The safe harbor deadline. At that time, which by law occurs six days before the members of the Electoral College gather to cast their votes for the president and vice president, the slates of electors from each state are locked in place. This year, every state but Wisconsin certified its electoral results by the deadline, all but guaranteeing President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Читать дальше...

No state has weathered the brunt of the Trump administration’s climate skepticism like California. During the past four years, the president stripped the Golden State of its ability to regulate car emissions, threatened to withhold emergency wildfire funds due to supposed forest mismanagement, and rolled back environmental protections the state—home to the nation’s worst air quality—desperately needs.

Donald Trump finished off the 2020 campaign in a frenzy of hastily organized rallies. From southern Florida to northern Michigan, he and a small troupe of guests and aides barnstormed 17 campaign events in four days in an act of defiant freneticism and slapdash theater that has characterized the whole of the Trump presidential experience. “If I don’t sound like a typical Washington politician,” he declared at one regional airport tarmac after another, “it’s because I’m not a politician.” It was... Читать дальше...

Will Senate Republicans ever stop trying to indemnify employers against Covid-19 lawsuits as the price for a Covid stimulus deal? On Tuesday it seemed that they might, but on inspection that turned out to be a feint. Meanwhile, there were signs that Democrats were starting to go wobbly.