President Joe Biden’s upcoming address in Normandy, France, to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day on June 6 will focus on the threat of Russia invading Europe, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters on Tuesday.
Sullivan, a key player in the “Russia collusion” hoax, previewed the president’s speech in a press gaggle aboard Air Force One. He said that Biden’s address would focus on drawing lessons from history to apply to threats today.
Past presidential addresses at D-Day commemorations have tended to avoid attacking Russia or the Soviet Union — even at the height of the Cold War — due to the fact that the USSR helped defeat Nazi Germany By the time the Allies landed on the beaches of France in 1944, the Soviets had lost millions of citizens fighting to repel the Nazi invasion.
Here is what President Ronald Reagan said in 1984, in what is considered one of the best orations in U.S. history:
It’s fitting to remember here the great losses also suffered by the Russian people during World War II: 20 million perished, a terrible price that testifies to all the world the necessity of ending war. I tell you from my heart that we in the United States do not want war. We want to wipe from the face of the Earth the terrible weapons that man now has in his hands. And I tell you, we are ready to seize that beachhead. We look for some sign from the Soviet Union that they are willing to move forward, that they share our desire and love for peace, and that they will give up the ways of conquest. There must be a changing there that will allow us to turn our hope into action.
We will pray forever that some day that changing will come. But for now, particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it. . .
Biden’s address will focus on Russia at a moment when U.S. weapons could be used, for the first time, by Ukrainian forces to attack targets inside Russian territory — an escalation that could widen the war beyond its current frontier.
New study finds Earth warming at record rate, but no evidence of climate change accelerating
by Seth Borenstein
A woman is silhouetted against the setting sun as triple-digit heat indexes continue in the Midwest, Aug. 20, 2023, in Kansas City, Mo. The rate Earth is warming hit an all-time high in 2023 with 92% of last year’s surprising record-shattering heat caused by humans, top scientists calculated. Credit: AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File
The rate Earth is warming hit an all-time high in 2023 with 92% of last year's surprising record-shattering heat caused by humans, top scientists calculated.The group of 57 scientists from around the world used United Nations-approved methods to examine what's behind last year's deadly burst of heat. They said even with a faster warming rate they don't see evidence of significant acceleration in human-caused climate change beyond increased fossil fuel burning. Last year's record temperatures were so unusual that scientists have been debating what's behind the big jump and whether climate change is accelerating or if other factors are in play. "If you look at this world accelerating or going through a big tipping point, things aren't doing that," study lead author Piers Forster, a Leeds University climate scientist, said. "Things are increasing in temperature and getting worse in sort of exactly the way we predicted." It's pretty much explained by the buildup of carbon dioxide from rising fossil fuel use, he and a co-author said. Last year the rate of warming hit 0.26 degrees Celsius (0.47 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade—up from 0.25 degrees Celsius (0.45 degrees Fahrenheit) the year before. That's not a significant difference, though it does make this year's rate the highest ever, Forster said.People suffering from heat related ailments crowd the district hospital in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh state, India, June 20, 2023. The rate Earth is warming hit an all-time high in 2023 with 92% of last year’s surprising record-shattering heat caused by humans, top scientists calculated. Credit: AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh, FileStill, outside scientists said this report highlights an ever more alarming situation. "Choosing to act on climate has become a political talking point but this report should be a reminder to people that in fact it is fundamentally a choice to save human lives," said University of Wisconsin climate scientist Andrea Dutton, who wasn't part of the international study team. "To me, that is something worth fighting for." The team of authors—formed to provide annual scientific updates between the every seven- to eight-year major U.N. scientific assessments—determined last year was 1.43 degrees Celsius warmer than the 1850 to 1900 average with 1.31 degrees of that coming from human activity. The other 8% of the warming is due mostly to El Niño, the natural and temporary warming of the central Pacific that changes weather worldwide and also a freak warming along the Atlantic and just other weather randomness. On a larger 10-year time frame, which scientists prefer to single years, the world has warmed about 1.19 degrees Celsius (2.14 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, the report in the journal Earth System Science Data found. The report also said that as the world keeps using coal, oil and natural gas, Earth is likely to reach the point in 4.5 years that it can no longer avoid crossing the internationally accepted threshold for warming: 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit ).Braxton Hicks, 7, of Livingston, Texas, holds his face to a portable fan to cool off during the DYB, formerly Dixie Youth Baseball, Little League tournament in Ruston, La., Aug. 9, 2023. The rate Earth is warming hit an all-time high in 2023 with 92% of last year’s surprising record-shattering heat caused by humans, top scientists calculated. Credit: AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, FileThat fits with earlier studies projecting Earth being committed or stuck to at least 1.5 degrees by early 2029 if emission trajectories don't change. The actual hitting of 1.5 degrees could be years later, but it would be inevitable if all that carbon is used, Forster said. It's not the end of the world or humanity if temperatures blow past the 1.5 limit, but it will be quite bad, scientists said. Past U.N. studies show massive changes to Earth's ecosystem are more likely to kick in between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius of warming, including eventual loss of the planet's coral reefs, Arctic sea ice, species of plants and animals—along with nastier extreme weather events that kill people. Last year's temperature rise was more than just a little jump. It was especially unusual in September, said study co-author Sonia Seneviratne, head of land-climate dynamics at ETH Zurich, a Swiss university. The year was within the range of what was predicted, albeit it was at the upper edge of the range, Seneviratne said. "Acceleration if it were to happen would be even worse, like hitting a global tipping point, it would be probably the worst scenario," Seneviratne said. "But what is happening is already extremely bad and it is having major impacts already now. We are in the middle of a crisis."A scuba diver swims near bleached coral, left, and healthy coral at the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, off the coast of Galveston, Texas, Sept. 15, 2023. The rate Earth is warming hit an all-time high in 2023 with 92% of last year’s surprising record-shattering heat caused by humans, top scientists calculated. Credit: AP Photo/LM Otero, FileUniversity of Michigan environment dean Jonathan Overpeck and Berkeley Earth climate scientist Zeke Hausfather, neither of whom were part of the study, said they still see acceleration. Hausfather pointed out the rate of warming is considerably higher than 0.18 degrees Celsius (0.32 Fahrenheit) per decade of warming that it was between 1970 and 2010. Scientists had theorized a few explanations for the massive jump in September, which Hausfather called "gobsmacking." Wednesday's report didn't find enough warming from other potential causes. The report said the reduction of sulfur pollution from shipping—which had been providing some cooling to the atmosphere—was overwhelmed last year by carbon particles put in the air from Canadian wildfires. The report also said an undersea volcano that injected massive amounts of heat-trapping water vapor into the atmosphere also spewed cooling particles with both forces pretty much canceling each other out. Texas Tech climate scientist and chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy Katharine Hayhoe said "the future is in our hands. It's us—not physics, but humans—who will determine how quickly the world warms and by how much."
More information: Piers M. Forster et al, Indicators of Global Climate Change 2023: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence, Earth System Science Data (2024). DOI: 10.5194/essd-16-2625-2024
SpaceX launched another batch of its Starlink internet satellites on Tuesday night (June 4), including 13 that can beam service directly to smartphones.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched 20 Starlink satellites, including 13 that can beam service directly to smartphones, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on June 4, 2024 at 10:16 p.m. EDT (0216 GMT on June 5).
The Falcon 9's first stage returned to Earth about 8.5 minutes after launch as planned, landing on the SpaceX droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean.
King Charles III will skip a gathering of international leaders including President Joe Biden to mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings Thursday, in a move that will inevitably highlight his ongoing health struggles.
Cancer-Stricken King Charles to Skip D-Day Commemoration With Biden
Charles made a moving speech Wednesday and will attend an event in France on Thursday, but will leave the business of glad-handing 25 world leaders to his son Prince William.
Charles is expected to attend a morning ceremony Thursday in Ver-Sur-Mer, Normandy, with British troops, but his son William will be the only senior royal attending an international ceremony with 25 world leaders including Biden at Omaha Beach in the afternoon. Official sources said it might have been “a step too far at this stage” for Charles to attend both events.
While Buckingham Palace declined to issue a formal, on the record statement to The Daily Beast clarifying that the king would not be attending the event on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, official sources said the decision had been made to “protect” the king’s “continued recovery.”
The king is, however expected to travel to Normandy on Thursday for a morning event with British veterans and did attend a ceremony Wednesday in Portsmouth, the British port from which many of the 156,000 Allied troops who landed in France in 1944 set off. The convalescing king arrived later than his son, the Prince of Wales, to the Portsmouth event, in a tweak to his schedule.
