Texas' legislature isn’t helping with scorching heat, San Antonio's mayor says

Texas is in the midst of a record-breaking heatwave, with temperatures reaching up to 120 degrees in areas. In San Antonio, Mayor Ron Nirenberg said Sunday, the state’s legislature has only made things worse.

“We're certainly grateful for a president now that's treating this heatwave with the urgency that I think is necessary. Especially given the fact that one of the challenges that we have is, cities in Texas are fighting our legislature and our state government for local control,” Nirenberg said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “We're trying to protect residents and workers, and they are doing everything they can to prevent that from happening.”

In June, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law that bars cities and counties from passing regulations that are stricter than state ones, overturning local rules like ones that mandate water and rest breaks for construction workers. The law goes into effect in September, if it survives a lawsuit brought by the cities of Houston and San Antonio.

San Antonio leaders were considering an ordinance that would mandate water breaks, until the state legislation was passed. Now, the city is trying to “make sure that there's a backstop to prevent the most vulnerable members, the workers in our community who deserve those basic things,” Nirenberg said, as the city grapples heat that’s caused a significant increase in emergency calls for heat-related illness and record demands for electricity.

On Thursday, President Joe Biden announced new steps to protect workers from the extreme heat that has plagued many parts of the country in recent weeks, including a new “heat alert” system that will notify employers and employees about ways to avoid dangerous conditions.

“What the announcement from President Biden will do is make sure that employers and employees know their rights, that there are protections in place also to ramp up enforcement activities through OSHA,” Nirenberg said.

“But the reality of the legislation I mentioned is the fact that [House Bill] 2127, which was passed by the legislature, upends 70-plus years of local authorities that have been adopted through city constitution, city charters, in cities all across the state.”

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30 days over 110 F in Phoenix. But expected monsoon rains could cool historically hot Southwest.

PHOENIX — A historic heat wave that has gripped the U.S. Southwest throughout July, blasting residents and baking surfaces like brick, is beginning to abate with the late arrival of monsoon rains.

Forecasters expect that by Monday, people in metro Phoenix will begin to see high temperatures fall under 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 degrees Celsius) for the first time in a month.

But not on Saturday. The high temperature in the desert city with more than 1.6 million residents climbed past 110 F for the 30th straight day, the National Weather Service said. The previous record stretch of 110 F or above was for 18 days in 1974.

There are increased chances on Sunday of cooling monsoon thunderstorms. Though wet weather can also bring damaging winds, blowing dust and the chance of flash flooding, the weather service warned. Sudden rains running off hard-baked surfaces can quickly fill normally dry washes.

Already this week, the overnight low at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport fell under 90 F (32.2 C) for the first time in 16 days, finally giving residents some respite from the stifling heat once the sun goes down.

Temperatures also were expected to ease in Las Vegas, Albuquerque and even in Death Valley, California, where the weather service said the expected high of 122 F (50 C) on Saturday is forecast to lower to 113 F (45 C) by Tuesday — along with a slight chance of rain.

Also in California, triple-digit heat was expected in parts of the San Joaquin Valley from Saturday through Monday, according to the National Weather Service in Hanford, California.

Gusty, late-afternoon winds were expected Saturday and Sunday in Santa Barbara County, posing an elevated risk of fire weather, the weather service in Los Angeles said. Hot, dry weather was also expected across nearby valleys, lower mountains and desert areas.

In Riverside County, more than 1,300 people were ordered to evacuate their homes and another 1,400 were facing evacuation warnings as crews battled a wildfire that charred 3.2 square miles (8.3 square kilometers) in the community of Aguanga, about 60 miles (96 kilometers) northeast of San Diego, authorities said Saturday. One firefighter was reported to have been injured in the so-called Bonny Fire, which authorities said was about 5% contained.

The heat is impacting animals, as well. Police in the city of Burbank, California, found a bear cooling off in a Jacuzzi behind a home on Friday. Police released a video of the animal in a neighborhood about 10 miles (16 kilometers) north of Los Angeles near the Verdugo Mountains and warned residents to lock up food and garbage.

A downward trend in Southwest heat started Wednesday night, when Phoenix saw its first major monsoon storm since the traditional June 15 start of the thunderstorm season. While more than half of the greater Phoenix area saw no rainfall from that storm, some eastern suburbs were pummeled by high winds, swirling dust and localized downfalls of up to 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) of precipitation.

Storms gradually increasing in strength are expected over the weekend.

Scientists calculate that July will prove to be the hottest globally on record and perhaps the warmest human civilization has seen. The extreme heat is now hitting the eastern part of the U.S, as soaring temperatures moved from the Midwest into the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, where some places are seeing their warmest days so far this year.

The new heat records being set this summer are just some of the extreme weather being seen around the U.S. this month, such as flash floods in Pennsylvania and parts of the Northeast.

“Anyone can be at risk outside in this record heat,” the fire department in Goodyear, a Phoenix suburb, warned residents on social media while offering ideas to stay safe.

For many people such as older adults, those with health issues and those without access to air conditioning, the heat can be dangerous or even deadly.

Maricopa County, the most populous in Arizona and home to Phoenix, reported this week that its public health department had confirmed 25 heat-associated deaths this year as of July 21, with 249 more under investigation.

Results from toxicological tests that can takes weeks or months after an autopsy is conducted could eventually result in many deaths listed as under investigation as heat associated being changed to confirmed.

Maricopa County confirmed 425 heat-associated deaths last year, and more than half of them occurred in July.

Elsewhere in Arizona next week, the agricultural desert community of Yuma is expecting highs ranging from 104 to 112 (40 C to 44.4 C) and Tucson is looking at highs ranging from 99 to 111 (37.2 C to 43.9 C).

The highs in Las Vegas are forecast to slip as low as 94 (34.4 C) next Tuesday after a long spell of highs above 110 (43.3 C). Death Valley, which hit 128 (53.3 C) in mid-July, will cool as well, though only to a still blistering hot 116 (46.7 C).

In New Mexico, the highs in Albuquerque next week are expected to be in the mid to high 90s (around 35 C), with party cloudy skies.

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Judge blocks Arkansas law allowing librarians to be criminally charged over ‘harmful’ materials

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Arkansas is temporarily blocked from enforcing a law that would have allowed criminal charges against librarians and booksellers for providing “harmful” materials to minors, a federal judge ruled Saturday.

U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks issued a preliminary injunction against the law, which also would have created a new process to challenge library materials and request that they be relocated to areas not accessible by kids. The measure, signed by Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders earlier this year, was set to take effect Aug. 1.

A coalition that included the Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock had challenged the law, saying fear of prosecution under the measure could prompt libraries and booksellers to no longer carry titles that could be challenged.

The judge also rejected a motion by the defendants, which include prosecuting attorneys for the state, seeking to dismiss the case.

The ACLU of Arkansas, which represents some of the plaintiffs, applauded the court's ruling, saying that the absence of a preliminary injunction would have jeopardized First Amendment rights.

“The question we had to ask was — do Arkansans still legally have access to reading materials? Luckily, the judicial system has once again defended our highly valued liberties," Holly Dickson, the executive director of the ACLU in Arkansas, said in a statement.

The lawsuit comes as lawmakers in an increasing number of conservative states are pushing for measures making it easier to ban or restrict access to books. The number of attempts to ban or restrict books across the U.S. last year was the highest in the 20 years the American Library Association has been tracking such efforts.

Laws restricting access to certain materials or making it easier to challenge them have been enacted in several other states, including Iowa, Indiana and Texas.

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said in an email Saturday that his office would be "reviewing the judge’s opinion and will continue to vigorously defend the law.”

The executive director of Central Arkansas Library System, Nate Coulter, said the judge's 49-page decision recognized the law as censorship, a violation of the Constitution and wrongly maligning librarians.

“As folks in southwest Arkansas say, this order is stout as horseradish!” he said in an email.

“I’m relieved that for now the dark cloud that was hanging over CALS’ librarians has lifted,” he added.

The Arkansas lawsuit names the state’s 28 local prosecutors as defendants, along with Crawford County in west Arkansas. A separate lawsuit is challenging the Crawford County library’s decision to move children’s books that included LGBTQ+ themes to a separate portion of the library.

The plaintiffs challenging Arkansas’ restrictions also include the Fayetteville and Eureka Springs Carnegie public libraries, the American Booksellers Association and the Association of American Publishers.

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Labor battle brews as Trump heads to Biden’s backyard

Donald Trump is headed to hotly contested Erie County Saturday evening, a western Pennsylvania bellwether Joe Biden won by a razor-thin margin almost three years ago.

Known for its labor union roots, Eric County is emblematic of the ongoing battle for organized labor ahead of next year’s election, particularly if the country sees another Biden-Trump rematch. Trump, who won the support of many rank-and-file union members seven years ago, is currently vying for an endorsement from the United Auto Workers union.

UAW’s president Shawn Fain has slammed the Biden administration for pumping out billions in subsidies for electric vehicles without requiring higher wages and other protections. The union has so far withheld its support from Biden, frustrating current and former Biden aides.

Trump’s campaign stop will mark his second trip to the state in a month, after Biden held his first political event of his reelection bid in June with a union rally in his regular haunt of Philadelphia. Labor groups, including the AFL-CIO, threw their support behind the president last month, with the AFL-CIO noting that it was the earliest in a presidential cycle that the group had endorsed a presidential candidate. Biden often calls himself the most “pro-union” president and a son of Scranton, Pa.

In 2020, Erie was one of two of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties that flipped from Trump to Biden. The city of Erie, its suburbs and rural pockets have played a pivotal role in determining which direction the state goes. Erie’s surrounding county voted for President Barack Obama twice before Hillary Clinton lost the county by fewer than 2,000 votes.

Democrats on Saturday were out in full force ahead of Trump’s rally, a preview of the contentious 2024 battle set to play out in the key swing state. In 2020, Biden won Pennsylvania by just 1.2 percentage points, and Erie County by 1,400 votes, a small margin that Trump — if he manages to secure the GOP nomination — is working to turn back in his favor.

The DNC on Saturday announced a new five-figure digital ad buy in the battleground state, contrasting “Trump’s countless unfulfilled promises” with Biden’s record on job creation, infrastructure and health care. The ad, titled “Trump talks. Biden delivers,” shows a split-screen of the former and current presidents.

“As Trump takes his lies to Pennsylvania and across the country, the DNC will constantly remind voters of the stark differences between Trump’s abysmal economic agenda and the numerous accomplishments President Biden has delivered for working families,” DNC chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement.

The AFL-CIO’s secretary-treasurer, Fred Redmond, and T.J. Sandell, of Erie, a union plumber with Plumbers Local 27 and president of the Great Lakes Building and Construction Trades Council, accused the former president of having an “anti-worker record,” on a Saturday morning press call as Trump continues to make a play for organized labor, most recently vying for an endorsement from the United Auto Workers.

“Donald Trump doesn’t care about workers. Trump undermined workers’ rights. Trump rolled back workplace safety rules. He delivered massive tax giveaways to the extremely rich and big corporations while not lifting a finger to help struggling working people in Erie and so many other communities around the country,” Redmond said.

Trump’s event at Erie Insurance Arena comes just days after federal prosecutors rolled out additional charges against the former president in the classified documents case. In a separate investigation, special counsel Jack Smith’s team also appears to be on the verge of indicting him for efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election in several states, including in Pennsylvania.

“BIG RALLY IN PENNSYLVANIA TODAY!” Trump posted on his Truth Social network Saturday afternoon.

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Trump hits back at GOP candidate who said he’s running to ‘stay out of jail’

Donald Trump said it's "wrong" to suggest he's running for the presidency to stay out of prison — and the former president signaled Saturday that he's prepared to punch down at any of his rivals who suggest he's doing so.

During the Lincoln Dinner on Friday evening — a key Republican event in the lead up to the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses — Will Hurd and Asa Hutchinson took aim at Trump for his legal troubles, echoing the line that putting a candidate facing multiple criminal charges at the top of GOP ticket spelled electoral disaster.

Hurd told the Trump-loving Iowa crowd that the former president was not running to improve America or represent people, but to stay out of prison. The remark, delivered toward the end of his address, drew loud boos from the crowd that continued as he walked off stage.

In trademark Trump fashion, the former president responded Saturday with blistering personal attacks on his foes and pushing back hard on the idea that he is running to counter his legal battles.

“In Iowa last night I noticed that a little known, failed former Congressman, Will Hurd, is ridiculously running for President,” Trump wrote Saturday on Truth Social, his social media platform. “He got SERIOUSLY booed off the stage when he said I was running “to stay out of jail.” Wrong, if I wasn’t running, or running and doing badly (like him & Christie!), with no chance to win, these prosecutions would never have been brought or happened!”

Four criminal cases are playing out against Trump, including two that have yielded indictments. In New York state, he has been accused of falsifying records in connection to paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels, and federal prosecutors have charged him with treating classified national security documents carelessly.

“If I weren’t running, I would have nobody coming after me,” Trump said at the Iowa dinner. “Or if I was losing by a lot, I would have nobody coming after me.”

Many of his GOP opponents are still treading a fine line. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has repeatedly indicated that he would pardon a convicted Trump if he won the presidency, noting in a Friday interview that he would not be “good for the country to have an almost 80-year-old former president go to prison.”

Hutchinson, who launched his presidential run on the principle that Trump could not win another term, described the former president's legal troubles in his speech as a harbinger for the country's future.

“You will be voting in Iowa, while multiple criminal cases are pending against Donald Trump. Iowa has an opportunity to say: ‘we as a party, we need a new direction for America and for the GOP,’” Hutchinson said at the dinner.

Trump responded to Hutchinson Saturday with another personal attack.

“Don’t weak people like 'Aida' … know or understand that the Prosecution of Donald Trump is an Election Interference Hoax, just like Russia, Russia, Russia, or the Fake Dossier, and that he is playing right into Marxists hands, when I am leading the [Republicans] by 50 Points and leading Biden BIG,” Trump wrote on Truth.

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DeSantis clarifies comment that he would ‘sic’ RFK Jr. on FDA or CDC

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis clarified his comment that if elected president he would "sic" Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on a medical agency, saying instead he would put the Democrat on a bipartisan task force that would hold medical agencies accountable for supposed government overreach.

“It wouldn’t be he would be the head of CDC,” DeSantis told Megyn Kelly in an interview on Friday. “That would be a doctor or a PhD.”

“I’m going to have probably a task force to go in there, hold people accountable for Covid, hold people accountable for what [has] happened,” DeSantis continued. “It would be more in that role that I’d want to get a bipartisan group of people together who understand the problem, understand the federal government's Covid response was a disaster.”

On Tuesday, DeSantis suggested to Clay Travis on OutKick that he saw a role for Kennedy on a medical-related federal agency, noting that they align on many conservative viewpoints about vaccines and the government’s response to Covid. Several Republicans, including former vice president Mike Pence, were quick to criticize him in response.

“If you’re president, sic him on the FDA if he’d be willing to serve,” DeSantis said on Tuesday — a role that he clarified on Saturday would be “outside” any particular agency.

In the Friday interview, DeSantis said he would look to nominate to medical agencies people like Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford University professor who was a notable early opponent of lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic and opponent of mask mandates and vaccine passports. He also touted a pandemic policy approach of returning to normal life while protecting low-risk groups. In April 2021, Bhattacharya served on a roundtable for DeSantis around alleged censorship from technology companies during the pandemic.

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ER visits spike as extreme heat scorches New York City

NEW YORK — More New Yorkers are heading to the emergency room for heat-related illnesses as the city bakes under a dayslong heat wave.

Hospitals across the city reported 25 heat-related emergency room visits Thursday, up from just six visits the day before and the most reported in any one day so far this summer, according to public data. Temperatures Thursday felt hotter than 100 degrees in parts of the city.

The National Weather Service had placed the entire city under an excessive heat warning, meaning temperatures could feel as hot as 105 degrees or higher. That was downgraded Friday to a heat advisory.

Heat is the leading weather-related killer and is expected to become only more deadly as climate change warms the planet. In New York City, heat-related deaths have risen over the past decade.

“This is not our first heat wave and, with climate change accelerating, it won’t be our last,” Mayor Eric Adams said at a news briefing Thursday.

Zach Iscol, commissioner of the Office of Emergency Management, said it was the first time the National Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning for the city since Aug. 13, 2021.

Each summer an estimated 350 New Yorkers die prematurely because of hot weather, according to the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. While some deaths are caused directly by heat exhaustion and hyperthermia, most heat-related deaths are the result of hot weather worsening existing chronic health conditions such as heart disease.

The fatal consequences don’t manifest equally. Low-income neighborhoods and communities of color experience higher rates of chronic conditions and are less likely to own or use an air conditioning unit. City health data shows Black New Yorkers are twice as likely to die of heat-related causes as their white counterparts.

“We are seeing a serious uptick not just in calls and concerns over heat illnesses, but in conditions themselves especially among seniors and essential workers, including delivery, hourly and shift workers who are biking in brutal heat,” Dr. Ramon Tallaj, founder of the physician network SOMOS Community Care, said in a statement.

“Remember, any extreme weather — be it wildfire smoke or intense heat — will always hit lower income communities of color harder,” he said.

Symptoms of heat illness include hot and dry skin, trouble breathing, rapid heartbeat, confusion or disorientation, dizziness and nausea and vomiting.

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