The Mayor of America’s Hottest City Learned a Lot From July’s Heat Wave

Temperatures in Phoenix, Ariz. rose above 110°F for 31 straight days last month, a record-breaking spell of extreme heat that raised sidewalks to scalding temperatures, keeled over mighty saguaro cacti, and inundated hospitals with patients suffering from heat-related ailments. All told, Phoenix’s Maricopa County reported 39 heat-related deaths in July, with more than 300 others being investigated.

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Such conditions are likely to come again soon. The first two weeks of August saw slightly cooler temperatures in the city, but they are projected to rise again in the coming days. And even after Phoenix residents make it through this summer and into the balmy winter months, global climate change likely means that yet more super-heat waves will be back in the years ahead.

The city has made efforts to adapt. Phoenix created the first publicly funded heat response office in the U.S. in 2021, and appointed a former environmental sciences professor as its leader. It’s painting roads with a reflective coating designed to absorb less heat, and it has launched an initiative to improve tree cover in poorer parts of the city. It’s also building new air-conditioned homeless shelters out of shipping containers. 

Still, it remains to be seen if one of the country’s fastest-growing cities can adapt faster than temperatures rise. In the aftermath of the unprecedented stretch of extreme heat, TIME spoke with Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego about the response to the brutal heat wave, and what the city has learned going forward.

The following interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Time: Phoenix just got out of an unprecedented heat wave. Can you tell us a bit about where things stand now?

Mayor Kate Gallego: Phoenix is the valley of the sun—we are used to hot summers. We have wonderful weather most of the year, but we know that every summer is going to be hot. This summer was record-breaking, particularly for days above 110 degrees. We got some rain last night so we’re doing a little bit better today. But it was a very tough summer for our community, particularly for those who are most vulnerable.

There’s been a lot written about the desperate plight of poor and unhoused people in Phoenix dealing with these temperatures. What level of resources has that required from the city?

We have a network of more than 60 cooling centers where individuals can go. We have a program called Cold Callers where we can check on people who are likely to be most vulnerable to heat, including people with health challenges and older adults. We have a network of volunteers that can hand out cooling kits throughout our community as well as maps or resources related to heat. We are working as hard as we can to develop new shelter options—that’s everything from hotels to creating housing out of shipping containers. As we speak, people are moving into a shipping container project that the city of Phoenix purchased with American Rescue Plan dollars. It’s powered by solar energy with onsite batteries, and it’s just one example of how we’re trying to get shelter built quickly. Another advantage of the shipping container housing is that it can be manufactured indoors so that the construction workers who are building it have a little bit more protection from the summer heat.

Has this extreme heat meant that the city had to spend more on programs like those to keep people safe? 

We have a lot of long term investments to try to increase the amount of affordable housing and shelter, and then we continue to invest in new programs every year. Every summer we learn more. We’ve learned a lot about mobile cooling units being very positive. We’ve learned new techniques that our firefighters use to cool people down, including getting ice baths out in the field. So yes, we are spending more than we have before, but we’re also getting smarter and tracking which solutions really deliver.

What else have you learned about what solutions really work, and which aren’t as useful in dealing with extreme heat?

We have found that really looking at the built environment, including the materials you choose, can be very important. Green buildings have performed [much better]. We have a cool pavement program where we do a lighter colored sealant on city streets, and Arizona State University has found about a 10-12 degree cooling impact [from that]. We’re looking at a variety of different programs in the water area, which range from protecting our water supply to just getting out water to our community. We have a variety of programs on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. One that has been very popular is in our key transit corridors, such as our downtown, [where] we are pushing towards 75% shade cover—that will be a mix of planting trees and using things like canopies in the built environment. And that makes a really significant impact and allows people to move about more successfully. Having a heat office that is focused completely on this challenge has been a great success for us. Having a one stop shop where people can go with ideas and challenges around heat really gives us more momentum to get things done. 

Do you think there’s any misconceptions among people from other parts of the U.S. about Phoenix’s heat?

One of the lessons we’ve all learned this summer has been that extreme heat happens in every part of the country, as well as all over the world. It is not a challenge that is just associated with sunny communities. We saw some of our colder states hit heat records. Phoenix is on the front lines of climate change, but it is coming to every part of our country, and we all need to do more to prepare. I hope we will also step up and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and I’m trying to lead Phoenix in that direction.

Do you think that the recent stretch of extreme heat has strengthened residents’ resolve to lower greenhouse gas emissions?

Phoenix voters have already told pollsters for years that they believe greenhouse gas emissions are a challenge we need to focus on. Our voters passed a [2015] plan that said we wanted to be the most sustainable desert city. But I do think there is added momentum for investments in infrastructure related to heat, as well as supporting innovative solutions such as cool pavement and green buildings. I’m optimistic that we’ll get new resources from the federal level. I’m in my fifth year now as mayor, and this was my first conversation with a president around heat. I’m excited that we have someone in the White House who is so interested in solutions. We’re also seeing new momentum with the federal legislation to make heat a federally eligible disaster, now that so many communities have seen it’s a challenge for them. 

I am also aware though that this is a very polarizing issue for some people. We have elected officials in the Arizona legislature who still maintain that this should not be a priority.

Have you had conversations with any of those folks since this heat wave? Have you sensed any change in their outlook? 

We just negotiated a regional transportation plan for the greater Phoenix area. One of the top priorities for the [conservative] Freedom Caucus in the negotiations was to protect fossil fuel vehicles. They were also very concerned about having a person on the regional transportation oversight committee who was focused on [climate] resilience. Climate change is a settled issue for most Phoenix voters, but it continues to be one on which there is debate at the elected official level.

Are there lingering effects on first responders and residents from the heat wave? 

Our first responders were heroic. They worked in very difficult conditions. We had several very large fires, so imagine wearing tens of pounds of gear and having to go out into a blaze when it’s 110 degrees. We have people who had real medical challenges that will continue, and many residents will see their highest power bill ever in the coming weeks. We’re doing a big push around the Inflation Reduction Act money that is available for residents to invest in solar and energy efficiency. We want to try to find as many long term solutions as possible, and we’re grateful that the federal government is stepping up to help people impacted by high power bills.

source https://time.com/6303354/phoenix-mayor-kate-gallego-interview-heat-wave/

Dianne Feinstein Hospitalized After Fall at Home

(WASHINGTON) — U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the oldest member of Congress, fell in her home and went to a hospital, her office said on Wednesday.

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The 90-year-old California Democrat, who has faced mounting concerns about her health and her ability to perform the duties of a senator, “briefly went to the hospital yesterday afternoon as a precaution after a minor fall in her home,” her office said in a statement.

All of her scans were clear, and she returned home, said her spokesman Adam Russell, who provided no further details.

Read More: Hillary Clinton: Dianne Feinstein Shouldn’t Retire

The San Francisco hospital visit comes after Feinstein missed months of work in Washington earlier this year when she was hospitalized for the shingles virus and its side effects. Since her return to work in May, she has traveled the Capitol halls in a wheelchair and has often appeared confused and disoriented.

Feinstein has defended her ability to perform her job, though her office said in May that she was still experiencing vision and balance impairments from the shingles virus.

Feinstein, who took office in 1992, announced earlier this year that she would not seek reelection in 2024. Several Democrats have already entered the race to replace her.

source https://time.com/6303028/dianne-feinstein-hospitalized-fall/

This Urgent Care Clinic Is Flooding the Internet With Nonsensical Posts. Is AI to Blame?

You might go to an urgent care facility’s website to make an appointment or read an explanation of what causes fevers. But most people are probably not looking to urgent care websites for an explanation of what happens when unicorns consume ketamine.

But that—and millions of other pages about things that don’t make much sense—have suddenly been popping up on the website of a New York City-based urgent care clinic called Nao Medical. The company, which says it has 16 locations in New York City and Long Island, appears to be using AI to generate a vast flood of well-written and sensibly structured—but not particularly accurate—posts about popular topics in an effort to rank higher on Google. 

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One post on Nao Medical’s website explains a medical condition it calls “Derek Jeter Herpes Tree,” which is not actually a medical condition but that Nao says nevertheless is “a rare viral infection” that affects trees. There are posts promising that Ivermectin can help COVID-19 patients regain their sense of smell (not true), about getting iodine poisoning from eating too much shrimp (extremely unlikely), about a “cutting-edge technology” called the Cloud 5 Zinc Shell (not a real thing) and a “revolutionary healthcare solution” called Chicken Par Y (not a real thing either.) Google just about anything you can think of and “Nao Medical” and you will find a long list of posts, some of which appear to make some sense, others which don’t. 

“Are you tired of the traditional colonoscopy procedure? Looking for a more enjoyable and engaging way to protect your health? Look no further than color guard!” one post reads, going on to explain that the color guard (yes, the people who wave flags in marching bands) can be a “fun and effective” alternative to colonoscopy procedures. (It appears to have gotten the color guard confused with Cologuard, an at-home colon cancer screening test.) 

We were promised that AI would change the world for the better, freeing humans from meaningless tasks and putting a wealth of information at our fingertips. But now that AI is here, the first-hand negative consequences are also piling up. Sites like Nao Medical appear to be using AI to generate millions of pages of content that are not only useless, but also spreading or amplifying misinformation that exists in other parts of the Internet.

Read More: The AI Arms Race Is Changing Everything

The eerie thing about the Nao Medical posts is that they are not total nonsense. The article “Why Are Unicorns Healthier Than Dragons” makes a decent case, with bullet points and headers, as to why the former imaginary creature has superior health to the latter imaginary creature. (One explanation: “They often retreat to serene meadows and engage in meditation, allowing them to maintain a calm and balanced state of mind.”) The article extolling the “Surprising Health Benefits of Ginger Bread Shrek” does not describe why the post links the character Shrek to ginger bread, but does provide a recipe and the promise that “by enjoying ginger bread Shrek, you can not only satisfy your sweet tooth but also give your immune system a natural boost.” 

According to Google algorithm and search engine optimization (SEO) experts, Nao Medical appears to be using AI to write millions and millions of posts, structuring them to have headings and keywords that people are using to search in Google. 

“It’s clear to see that AI is being used in some way to falsely inflate this site’s organic visibility through mass content production,” says Nick Boyle, SEO director at the Audit Lab, a British digital marketing agency.

Google looks for what it calls E-E-A-T when it decides which websites show up first in organic search: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust. Since Nao Medical is a legitimate group of medical centers with thousands of reviews on Google maps, Google perceives them as having experience and trust. By creating “copious amounts” of content on certain topics, Nao is appearing to try to convince Google that it also has authority on certain topics, says Marie Haynes, a Google algorithm expert with her own consulting firm who looked into Nao Medical’s web strategy for TIME. 

Google could be ranking Nao’s pages higher because it can easily find plausible-sounding information in Nao’s many AI-generated posts, which link externally and which have bolded subheadings with useful titles like “Fish Oil: Pros and Cons” (in a post about which is a better health choice: fish oil or Nao Medical.)

Nao Medical had about 11,000 daily impressions until early June, Haynes says.  Then the volume of pages on the site naomedical.com started to spike—between the first time she checked, on July 27, and the second time, July 31, the site went from about 15 million pages to 25 million. Now, the site has around 1.4 million daily impressions. “That doesn’t happen organically. It has to be black hat,” she says, referring to people who violate laws or ethical standards on the Internet. 

Nao Medical’s president, Arihant Jain, responded to initial questions about Nao Medical and its business model, saying the clinic boomed during the pandemic and then has struggled as patient volume dropped and as insurers refuse to pay for services they had once covered. But Jain did not respond to multiple follow-up queries about Nao Medical’s web strategy and whether the company used AI to create millions of posts. 

The company’s strategy is actually very clever, Haynes says. Nao appears to be addressing topics people are searching for but that don’t turn up a lot of organic results, making it easier for Nao to rise to the top. 

Nao Medical ranks on the first page if you are Googling “caffeine and autism,” for example. This is probably because Nao has created a “topical hub” with around 22 published pages about caffeine and autism, making the site seem authoritative on the subject.. The AI appears to have structured the posts well, with headings addressing topics and subtopics that Google knows people look for, such as “can caffeine worsen anxiety in individuals with autism?”

Nao’s success in getting to the top of Google results also illuminates a problem with the search engine that has been circulating on the Internet: that Google search “is dying” because it is coming up with too many useless results. One reason: that there are too many people whose job it is to “game their way to the top of Google,” wrote engineer Dmitri Brereton in a viral post in Feb. 2022. 

Google search has adapted to address new spam techniques and low-quality content for 25 years, and its goal is to show “helpful, relevant content that’s created for people, rather than to attain search engine rankings,” Danny Sullivan, public liaison for Google’s search business said in a statement provided to TIME. Google regularly launches updates to search to make sure it’s providing relevant information; in August 2022 it released an update that it said would lead to “more content by people, for people.” Using AI to generate content for the sole purpose of manipulating ranking results violates Google’s spam policy, the company says. But despite rising interest in generative AI, Google says, 99% of visits to websites from search have remained spam-free.

Read More: In the Rush to AI, We Can’t Afford to Trust Big Tech

Nao’s strategy seems like it would have limited benefits, given that most of the people running across this content online probably do not live within the clinic’s service area. But Jain told me that after Nao’s in-person patient volumes dropped after the pandemic, the company decided to offer more telemedicine, psychiatry, and nutrition services. “Our plans are to grow outside of New York,” he told me; the company already offers telemedicine in a few other states. 

Experts warned about AI flooding the internet with useless content but much of the AI-generated content popping up so far appears to be misleading or worse.  And there’s something particularly disturbing about a health care company using AI to improve its results. Patients could assume from its post volumes that Nao is more of a medical authority than it actually is.

Haynes, the SEO consultant, says this type of SEO tactic is unlikely to work for long. For one thing, Google is currently  implementing an AI content system that is built to detect “unhelpful” content, and, according to Haynes, many of Nao’s nonsense posts would likely fall into this category. So Google will catch up with Nao sooner or later. 

That’s what happened to a product review website called Conch-House.com, which put up around 6,000 posts a day in 2022, gaining 6 million users by scraping content from Amazon reviews. The site brought in $800,000 in revenue in two months—until Google shut it down. 

Besides, says Haynes, Google is constantly changing how search works. Generative AI could completely upend how Google processes and shows results; one experiment uses generative AI to improve results. That may mean it won’t make sense for websites to use AI to create content to answer questions because Google’s search will already be answering them—thanks, of course, to AI. 

source https://time.com/6302710/nao-medical-google-ai/

How Interior Design TikTok Drama Is Raising Questions About Claims of Originality Online

Every few days, a new drama seems to emerge between content creators on TikTok—and more often than not, it revolves around content theft. In an increasingly saturated influencer landscape, one of the key ways for creators to differentiate themselves from their peers is through the originality of their content. When they feel that someone else is benefiting from their ideas, they often leverage their following to call out the alleged perpetrator and ruin the so-called “thief’s” credibility. But the world of DIY and interior design, where this latest drama takes place—much like any other creative endeavor—thrives on imitation and inspiration, making originality a slippery claim.

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The drama begins with a now-deleted video uploaded last week by a popular creator with close to 2 million followers who goes by the handle @TayBeepBoop. She is known for videos in which she decorated her house with a monster head gallery wall and a gradient room—a departure from the beige minimalism seen widely on the app these days. In the deleted video, she said she conceded that while it might be “petty,” she felt she had to call out another creator with more than 2 million followers who goes by @KaarinJoy for allegedly copying her ideas. While her language is indirect, she tries to make a point with comparisons between her own videos and @KaarinJoy’s, saying the similarities are “getting out of hand.”

I don’t know if you guys are getting this TikTok interior design drama on your FYPs but these women are beefing about truly the ugliest interiors I’ve ever seen pic.twitter.com/ANI83vIFKg

— potato bun (@erewhonsmoothie) August 7, 2023

To paint a better picture: Tay has a large mirror that she decorated with moss and flowers, and so does Kaarin. Tay has a squiggly green line that she painted on the wall going down her stairs, and Kaarin has a squiggly green line painted in her kitchen. Tay displayed her boyfriend’s monster head art pieces on the wall, and Kaarin hung a series of dinosaur heads in picture frames. Tay also accused Kaarin of copying her green and blue gradient room after Kaarin decided to paint the cabinets in her kitchen green and blue, pointing out that Kaarin also purchased the peel-and-stick wallpaper Tay designed in collaboration with Otto Studio (though, she allowed, anyone can buy the wallpaper).

At the end of the video, Tay says that she messaged Kaarin and asked her to “stop copying [her],” to which she says Kaarin responded that she “didn’t want to copy [her].”

Claims of content theft have come in many forms on TikTok. Comedians have accused creators of stealing their jokes, bar for bar, with small changes to try to make them their own. The biggest and most persistent problem has been related to dance challenges created by Black creators and their fight for proper credit. Since the app got popular back in 2020, there have been multiple instances in which Black TikTokers have created a dance, only to have it go viral after being co-opted by white creators who failed to give proper credit. The issue culminated in the Black TikTok strike in 2021 and, two years later, still persists—exemplified most recently by Jordyn Williams and her viral dance challenge earlier this year.

Such drama, as some commenters pointed out, might seem unlikely in a community of DIY arts-and-crafters, but many of the central themes cut across artistic mediums. After Tay posted her original video, she was met with backlash, with critics pointing out that she herself has been open about finding inspiration for her DIY projects on Pinterest. Even if Kaarin found inspiration from Tay, they argued, Tay in turn had sourced ideas from someone else. The general consensus among these commenters and other TikTokers dueting the video was that Tay was wrong to call our Kaarin in the way that she did. In response to this criticism, Tay uploaded a text to her Instagram story, saying, “I posted a [video] today that I should’ve continued to handle privately. This isn’t what I want my page to be about, so I removed it.” She continued to say she’s passionate about “credit to designers and creators” and wishes that could have been the focus of this conversation.

@kaarinjoy

💗

♬ original sound – Kaarin Joy

Kaarin uploaded a response to the drama on TikTok last week and confirmed that the two had spoken over DMs. In the video, Kaarin says that Tay asked her to stop doing her DIYs, and Kaarin said, “I wish she had come to me privately because I’m so frustrated.” Tay seemed to have moved on from the drama, but the comments section of her videos and Otto Studio did not. In videos she uploaded after the criticism began, users left comments like, “If I buy your wallpaper, can I hang it up, or do I need to ask your permission?”

@taybeepboop

Adding a squiggle shelf to my gradient room 💚💙 #skimspartner #diy #homedecor

♬ original sound – TayBeepBoop

On Saturday, Otto uploaded a post on Instagram and TikTok, saying that their collaboration with Tay would “no longer be available for purchase.” The company said they are “disappointed in and do not stand behind the video that Tay BeepBoop posted regarding Kaarin Joy earlier this week.” They write that her actions go “against the values and ethos of the DIY community.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Otto Studio – Renter-friendly Wallpaper (@_ottostudio)

Tay also uploaded an apology video that day. “My behavior has been wild and inappropriate,” she says in the video before apologizing for “taking so long to realize that.” The creator also says this was a “massive learning moment” and that she apologized to Kaarin personally.

@taybeepboop ♬ original sound – TayBeepBoop

TIME reached out to Tay, Kaarin, and Otto Studio for comment but did not immediately hear back.

source https://time.com/6302655/tiktok-interior-design-drama/

With Imran Khan Sent to Jail, Pakistan Faces the Abyss

Few will have missed the bitter irony of a court ruling against Pakistan’s former Prime Minister, Imran Khan, who was found guilty of corruption, sentenced to three years in prison, and barred from contesting elections for five years. For however his legacy is judged in years to come, Khan will be remembered above all for his single-minded crusade to root out “corruption” from the political fabric of Pakistan.

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The ruling against Khan was not unexpected. Since his removal from office following a no-confidence motion in April 2022, as well as his increasingly confrontational posture with the military (which he blamed for his downfall), many believed it was only a matter of time before Khan lost his freedom completely.

With Pakistan’s ruling coalition imminently poised to step down and make way for a caretaker government, Khan’s incarceration was seen as the last bit of unfinished business ahead of general elections. These should be held within 90 days but could come as late as Spring 2024, following a decision on August 5, 2023 by the Council of Common Interests (responsible for overseeing relations between Pakistan’s federating units) to approve the demarcation of new constituencies based on the latest census data—a skillful maneuvering tactic by Pakistan’s all-powerful military, which is desperate to use the time to dampen Khan’s soaring popularity.

This may explain the haste in obtaining a ruling against Khan, which has been widely condemned for its lack of due process. It is clear that neither Khan’s political foes at the head of the ruling coalition nor his erstwhile backers in the military establishment were prepared to take any chances that could scupper their plans to disqualify Khan as a member of parliament and crush any prospect of his return to power.

Read More: Exclusive: Imran Khan on His Plan to Return to Power

And this undemocratic move may well work. The response to his arrest has been relatively muted compared with the violent protests when he was arrested for the first time earlier this year, which convulsed large parts of Pakistan before Khan was released on May 11, 2023 after the Supreme Court ruled that he had been unlawfully detained, as security forces failed to obtain permission to carry out arrest on court premises. The Biden Administration has declared Khan’s arrest “an internal matter,” leaving no doubt that the U.S.—once the target of Khan’s strongest vitriol—is unlikely to come forward in his defense.

Khan could in theory secure a fresh judicial reprieve or regain the confidence of the military leadership by toning down his anti-military rhetoric. But neither is likely—not least for a man who has entered his eighth decade.

But while the fate of Khan’s individual career may well be in doubt, his brand of right-wing populism resting on the idea of “a savior” devoted to protecting the public from “corrupt” politicians will remain for years to come.

That’s because it’s a narrative that Pakistan’s generals have methodically honed over many decades as the preferred instrument to shape political outcomes in the country. It now enjoys a life of its own that is, arguably, independent of the fortunes of any single political leader. Although some like Khan and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, once also the military’s blue-eyed boy, built their careers on the back of this narrative with the military’s blessing, both took their place among Pakistan’s “corrupt” politicians after falling foul of their military sponsors.

Khan’s arrest is a reminder that the country must rethink this narrative and find a new way forward. There are signs that a large swathe of the public is tiring of this narrative. The most significant of these stem from Pakistan’s widening “youth bulge” and its fast expanding urban population (an estimated 60% and 40% of the population, respectively) who represent Khan’s core constituency. Their energies must be channelled, for they will not stand to be disenfranchised in the event of Khan’s disqualification or worse, a ban on Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI).

Opinion polls point consistently to Khan as Pakistan’s most popular political leader. And as if to prove the point, the day after Khan’s conviction, the PTI swept local government by-elections in Peshawar trouncing the government-backed candidate.

While it may be true that, historically, the fate of political leaders in Pakistan has been decided by their relations with the military than by their standing in the polls, it would be rash indeed to ignore its implications against the background of extreme political polarization. 

For any elections (whenever they are held) to enjoy even a semblance of credibility requires, at the very least, a voice for millions in Pakistan who have clearly signalled their impatience with old habits of political engineering.

Khan may no longer be able to be that voice, but the military would be unwise to think they’ve just had the last word.  

source https://time.com/6302592/imran-khan-pakistan-future-essay/

Supreme Court Reinstates Regulation of Ghost Guns

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is reinstating a regulation aimed at reining in the proliferation of ghost guns, firearms without serial numbers that have been turning up at crime scenes across the nation in increasing numbers.

The court on Tuesday voted 5-4 to put on hold a ruling from a federal judge in Texas that invalidated the Biden administration’s regulation of ghost gun kits. The regulation will be in effect while the administration appeals the ruling to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans — and potentially the Supreme Court.

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Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined with the court’s three liberal members to form the majority. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas would have kept the regulation on hold during the appeals process. Neither side provided an explanation.

The Justice Department had told the court that local law enforcement agencies seized more than 19,000 ghost guns at crime scenes in 2021, a more than tenfold increase in just five years.

Read More: Column: For Most of U.S. History We’ve Had Both Gun Rights and Gun Regulations

“The public-safety interests in reversing the flow of ghost guns to dangerous and otherwise prohibited persons easily outweighs the minor costs that respondents will incur,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, wrote in a court filing.

The new rule was issued last year and changed the definition of a firearm under federal law to include unfinished parts, like the frame of a handgun or the receiver of a long gun, so they can be tracked more easily. Those parts must be licensed and include serial numbers. Manufacturers must also run background checks before a sale — as they do with other commercially made firearms. The requirement applies regardless of how the firearm was made, meaning it includes ghost guns made from individual parts or kits or by 3D printers.

The rule does not prohibit people from purchasing a kit or any type of firearm.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, in Fort Worth, Texas, struck down the rule in late June, concluding that it exceeded the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ authority. O’Connor wrote that the definition of a firearm in federal law does not cover all the parts of a gun. Congress could change the law, he wrote.

Read More: Biden Isn’t Giving Up on Gun Safety, Even as Much of Washington Is For Now

Lawyers for individuals, businesses and advocacy groups challenging the rule told the Supreme Court that O’Connor was right and that the ATF had departed from more than 50 years of regulatory practice in expanding the definition of a firearm.

The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which has long supported regulation of ghost guns, praised the Supreme Court’s action. “The challenged rule simply requires that ghost gun kits are regulated like the guns that they are. It will save lives,” David Pucino, the group’s deputy chief counsel, said in a statement.

source https://time.com/6302666/ghost-guns-supreme-court-regulation/

President Biden to Announce Historic Monument Designation for Grand Canyon

TUSAYAN, Ariz. — President Joe Biden will use his visit to Arizona on Tuesday to formally announce a national monument designation for the greater Grand Canyon, making Native American tribes’ and environmentalists’ decades-long vision to preserve the land a reality.

Biden is expected to announce plans for a new national monument to preserve about 1,562 square miles (4,046 square kilometers) just outside Grand Canyon National Park, National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi confirmed a day earlier. It will mark the president’s fifth monument designation.

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Tribes in Arizona have been pushing Biden to use his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to create a new national monument called Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni. “Baaj Nwaavjo” means “where tribes roam,” for the Havasupai people, while “I’tah Kukveni” translates to “our footprints,” for the Hopi tribe.

Read More: As Grand Canyon National Park Turns 100, Its Chief Ranger Plans for the Next Century

Tribes and environmentalists for decades have been trying to safeguard the land north and south of Grand Canyon National Park, while Republican lawmakers and the mining industry tout the economic benefits and raise mining as a matter of national security.

Biden arrived Monday evening at Grand Canyon National Park Airport, where he was greeted by Democratic congressmen Raúl Grijalva and Ruben Gallego. Biden embraced them when he got off Air Force One and the trio chatted for a few minutes. Grijalva, who serves on the House Natural Resources Committee, has repeatedly introduced legislation to create the monument.

He will be speaking in an area that is between Pinyon Plain Mine, which is being developed and has not opened, and Red Butte, a site culturally significant to the Havasupai and Hopi tribes.

Representatives of various northern Arizona tribes have been invited to attend the president’s remarks. Among them are Yavapai-Apache Nation Chairwoman Tanya Lewis, Colorado River Indian Tribes Chairwoman Amelia Flores, Navajo President Buu Nygren and Havasupai Tribal Councilwoman Dianna Sue White Dove Uqualla. Uqualla is part of a group of tribal dancers who will perform a blessing.

“It’s really the uranium we don’t want coming out of the ground because it’s going to affect everything around us — the trees, the land, the animals, the people,” Uqualla said. “It’s not going to stop.”

Read More: ‘You Can’t Push the Land Too Hard.’ How Mapping the Grand Canyon Shaped a Vision of Climate Trouble to Come

The Interior Department, reacting to concerns over the risk of contaminating water, enacted a 20-year moratorium on the filing of new mining claims around the national park in 2012.

A U.S. Geological Survey in 2021 found most springs and wells in a vast region of northern Arizona known for its high-grade uranium ore meet federal drinking water standards despite decades of uranium mining.

In 2017, Democratic President Barack Obama backed off a full-on monument designation. The idea faced a hostile reception from Arizona’s Republican governor and two senators. Then-Gov. Doug Ducey threatened legal action, saying Arizona already has enough national monuments.

Opponents of establishing a monument have argued it won’t help combat a lingering drought and could prevent thinning of forests and stop hunters from keeping wildlife populations in check. Ranchers in Utah near the Arizona border say the monument designation would strip them of privately owned land.

The landscape of Arizona’s political delegation has since changed considerably. Gov. Katie Hobbs, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an independent, are all on board. Hobbs, a Democrat, has openly urged Biden to issue a designation. In a letter sent to Biden in May, Hobbs claimed that she heard from people across the political spectrum, including sporting groups and outdoor groups, in support of a monument.

Mining companies and the areas that would benefit from their business remain vehemently opposed. Buster Johnson, a Mohave County supervisor, said the monument proposal feels solely politically driven and there should have been another hearing on the matter. He doesn’t see the point of not tapping into uranium and making the country less dependent on Russia.

“We need uranium for the security of our country,” Johnson said. “We’re out of the game.”

No uranium mines are operating in Arizona, although the Pinyon Plain Mine just south of Grand Canyon National Park has been under development for years. Other claims are grandfathered in. The federal government has said nearly a dozen mines within the area that has been withdrawn from new mining claims could still potentially open, even with the monument designation, because their claims were established before 2012.

After Arizona, Biden will go on to Albuquerque on Wednesday, where he will talk about how fighting climate change has created new jobs. He’ll then visit Salt Lake City on Thursday to mark the first anniversary of the PACT Act, which provides new benefits to veterans who were exposed to toxic substances. He’ll also hold a reelection fundraiser in each city.

source https://time.com/6302504/biden-grand-canyon-national-monument-designation/