BOSTON (CBS) – Nearly 50,000 homes and businesses lost electricity overnight as wind gusts topped 50 miles per hour in several towns across Massachusetts. Check: Power Outage Map READ MORE: 'It Can Work,' Summer Camps Will Be Open, But They'll Look A Lot Different Peak wind gusts hit 62 mph in Worcester and in nearby Westborough a gust around 50 mph brought a large tree down onto a house and garage on Birch Road. A tree fell onto this house on Birch Road in Westborough, March 1, 2021. (WBZ-TV) In Roxbury, a giant piece of scaffolding was blown off a building on Alphonsus Street, scattering debris into a backyard and pool. What’s left of it was being held up by a tree. READ MORE: Coronavirus In Massachusetts: Today's Developments “We have approximately 200-to-250 foot by 7 stories tall scaffolding that was dislodged because of the wind, collapsed and it’s leaning up against this building,” Boston Fire District Chief Pat Nichols told reporters. “It’s very fortunate nobody was hurt. It could have been a lot worse if there was anybody around, including construction people that might have been working in and around that building.” A giant piece of scaffolding was blown off a building on Alphonsus Street in Roxbury. (WBZ-TV) In Salem, Deputy Fire Chief John Payne said the wind was “ the factor ” in a fire overnight at a multi-family home off Broadway. The bitter cold was also an issue for firefighters, but no one was hurt. MORE NEWS: Mitt Romney Taken To Hospital For 'A Lot Of Stitches' After Fall In Boston The winds are expected to slow down Tuesday night and Wednesday will be calmer and warmer. ...
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Overnight Defense: Tim Kaine moves to claw back war powers authority | Study on sexual harassment and assault in the military
Happy Tuesday and welcome to Overnight Defense. I'm Ellen Mitchell, and here's your nightly guide to the latest developments at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and beyond. CLICK HERE to subscribe to the newsletter. 3 stories tonight... 1) THE TOPLINE: Sen. Tim Kaine Timothy (Tim) Michael Kaine Warner: White House should 'keep open additional sanctions' against Saudi crown prince Overnight Defense: Biden sends message with Syria airstrike | US intel points to Saudi crown prince in Khashoggi killing | Pentagon launches civilian-led sexual assault commission Biden administration to give Congress full classified briefing on Syria strikes by next week MORE (D-Va.), a longtime advocate for giving Congress more power over a president’s ability to wage war unilaterally, says he will begin moving this week to repeal or amend the congressional authorizations used to justify numerous foreign military conflicts the past two decades. ADVERTISEMENT Kaine, who expressed frustration that Congress didn’t get advanced notification before President Biden Joe Biden Senate Democrats negotiating changes to coronavirus bill Rural Americans are the future of the clean energy economy — policymakers must to catch up WHO official says it's 'premature' to think pandemic will be over by end of year MORE approved airstrikes in Syria last week , said lawmakers need to claw back some of their war powers authority. He plans to introduce a bipartisan resolution to repeal the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for use of military force against Iraq. “I just strongly believe — and this goes back to the drafting of the Constitution and the earliest understandings of it — is that if a president is defending against an ongoing attack or imminent attack, the president does have some unilateral power and that’s good. But the idea of going on offense against groups, that’s traditionally where you ought to be coming to ...
From Fighting Racism to Playing the D.C. Power Game, Vernon Jordan Was Hard to Beat
Vernon Jordan at work on voter-registration efforts at the Southern Regional Council in 1967. Photo: Warren K Leffler/PhotoQuest/Getty Images It is unfortunately true that many younger Americans, if they’ve at all heard of Vernon Jordan — who died yesterday evening at 85 — it was probably as a big-time Friend of Bill, the 42nd president’s confidant and golfing buddy. In truth, in Jordan’s long life, his relationship with Bill Clinton was more a reflection of his long climb to the summit of American political life from his marginalized upbringing than any sort of end in itself. Clinton, who had known Jordan since the 1970s, consulted him over the years just as hundreds of other wisdom seekers had. Jordan grew up in Jim Crow Georgia, the son of a postal-worker father and a mother who built a catering business. While waiting tables at the events she catered, he had a good chance to observe Atlanta’s white elite, and he began a habit of circulating easily in both Black and white worlds. He attended the virtually all-white DePauw University in Indiana before completing his education at Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C., putting him in close proximity to the movers and shakers of the civil-rights movement. Then, as a law clerk for an Atlanta attorney, he was deeply involved in the lawsuit that forced the desegregation of the University of Georgia. His formal involvement in broader civil-rights activity was succinctly described in his New York Times obituary : After the Georgia case, he served as Georgia field director of the N.A.A.C.P. The job required him to travel regularly throughout the Southeast to oversee civil rights cases both large and small. He said he tried to model himself after a friend, the vaunted director of the Mississippi office, Medgar Evers, who was later assassinated. In short order he became director of the Voter Education Project of the Southern Regional Council and was named executive director of the United ...
House Democrats reintroduce road map to carbon neutrality by 2050
House Democrats on Tuesday introduced a revamped version of a major bill aiming to get the country on the road to carbon neutrality by 2050. “Today’s introduction of the CLEAN Future Act promises that we will not stand idly by as the rest of the world transitions to clean economies and our workers get left behind, and that we will not watch from the sidelines as the climate crisis wreaks havoc on Americans’ health and homes," said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone Jr. Frank Joseph Pallone House Democrats criticize Texas's 'shortcomings in preparations' on winter storms House panel to probe conspiracy theories in the news House Democrats urge Amazon to investigate, recall 'defective' products MORE (D-N.J.) in a statement. The latest edition of the legislation, introduced by Pallone and Reps. Paul Tonko Paul David Tonko Pelosi: Sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo 'credible' Drug overdose crisis worsens in shadow of COVID-19 pandemic Key House Democrat urges 'economywide' approach to climate change MORE (D-N.Y.) and Bobby Rush Bobby Lee Rush House Democrats criticize Texas's 'shortcomings in preparations' on winter storms Over 40 lawmakers sign letter urging Merrick Garland to prioritize abolishing death penalty Woman who lived in church three years goes home under Biden deportation freeze MORE (D-Ill.), also sets an interim target of reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions to no more than half of what they were in 2005 by 2030. ADVERTISEMENT One of the ways it plans to reach its goals is through a clean electricity standard, under which power retailers would need to provide 80 percent of their electricity from clean sources by 2030 and 100 percent by 2035. This lines up with President Biden Joe Biden Senate Democrats negotiating changes to coronavirus bill Rural Americans are the future of the clean energy economy — ...
Chuck DeVore: Texas’ blackouts – here’s the truth about why they happened and what we have to do next
close Video Green New Deal would create ‘more events’ like Texas power outage: Rick Perry Rick Perry, former Energy Secretary and former Texas governor, discusses the potential impacts of progressive energy policies on ‘America Reports.’ As Texas entered a deep freeze on Feb. 14, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio broke seven record lows over three days. Ice-laden trees snapped power lines. Wind turbines ground to a halt while some reliable natural gas, coal and nuclear plants failed to get energy to the grid. Electricity demand hit an all-time high – but the supply wasn’t available, plunging some four million Texans into the cold and darkness. As massive gas-powered turbines spun down across Texas and the lights went out, an aggressive narrative spun up: the electric grid failed in Texas, not because wind and solar failed, but due to a lack of regulatory power to force the electric industry – from natural gas producers to pipeline operators to power generators, and lastly, the transmission line firms – to winterize. It was a failure of Texas’ unregulated free market. And further, this extreme weather event was a harbinger of more to come due to climate change, necessitating even more wind and solar power. This narrative, pushed out by the renewable industry and environmentalists, found a sympathetic mouthpiece in corporate media . RICK PERRY: TEXAS' WEATHER CRISIS – HERE'S HOW STATES, NATIONS SHOULD PREPARE FOR THE UNEXPECTED The narrative is wrong. There are three electric grids in the continental U.S with Texas having its own grid providing power to about 90% of Texans. This electrical independence allows Texans to escape a certain amount of federal meddling in its electric affairs – though it also makes Texans largely responsible for their own problems. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR OPINION NEWSLETTER Addressing those problems, the Texas Legislature held marathon hearings a week after the ...
