Nearly two-thirds of Americans think the federal government is not doing enough to take on climate change, according to a new survey. 

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A Pew Research Center poll published Tuesday found that 65 percent of U.S. adults didn’t think the government was doing enough to lessen the impacts of climate change. 

There were big differences between Democrats and Republicans in the poll, with 89 percent of Democrats saying they didn’t think the government was doing enough but just 35 percent of Republicans saying the same. 

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Some policies, however, had broad support, according to the poll. 

Ninety percent of those surveyed support planting about a trillion trees to pull carbon from the atmosphere and 84 percent said they support a tax credit for carbon capture technology. Some House Republicans backed similar proposals earlier this year. 

Most respondents, 80 percent, also said they support stronger restrictions on power plant emissions while 73 percent said they would support taxing corporations based on their carbon emissions. Stronger automobile fuel efficiency standards were supported by 71 percent. 

The Pew Research Center surveyed 10,957 U.S. adults between April 29 to May 5. The poll’s margin of error for the full group of respondents is plus or minus 1.4 percentage points. 

 

Welcome to Hillicon Valley, The Hill’s newsletter detailing all you need to know about the tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. If you don’t already, be sure to sign up for our newsletter with this LINK.

Welcome! Follow our cyber reporter, Maggie Miller (@magmill95), and tech reporter, Chris Mills Rodrigo (@chrisismills), for more coverage.

NEW ASSANGE INDICTMENT: The Justice Department on Wednesday announced a superseding indictment in the case against WikiLeaks Founder Julian AssangeJulian Paul AssangeHillicon Valley: Justice Department announces superseding indictment against WikiLeaks’ Assange | Facebook ad boycott gains momentum | FBI sees spike in coronavirus-related cyber threats | Boston city government bans facial recognition technology Justice Department announces superseding indictment against Wikileaks’ Assange Mueller investigated whether Trump misled him on WikiLeaks question in Russia probe MORE, alleging that he intentionally worked with hackers affiliated with groups “LulzSec” and “Anonymous” to target and publish sensitive information. 

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The new indictment, handed down by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., did not add any charges to the existing 18 charges brought against Assange last year, but alleged that Assange and WikiLeaks actively recruited hackers to provide WikiLeaks with documents. 

Assange is alleged to have provided the leader of hacking group “LulzSec” with a list of groups to target in 2012 in order to obtain information to post to the WikiLeaks platform. 

The new indictment alleges that in one case, Assange gave the LulzSec leader specific documents and pdfs to target and sent to WikiLeaks, and WikiLeaks eventually published information obtained from an American intelligence company by a hacker associated with LulzSec and with Anonymous.

“To obtain information to release on the WikiLeaks website, Assange recruited sources and predicted the success of WikiLeaks in part upon the recruitment of sources to illegally circumvent legal safeguards on information, including classification restrictions and computer and network restrictions,” the indictment reads, noting this was done with the intent to publish the information online. 

The 18 charges unveiled last year alleged that Assange worked with former Army Intelligence Analyst Chelsea ManningChelsea Elizabeth ManningHillicon Valley: Justice Department announces superseding indictment against WikiLeaks’ Assange | Facebook ad boycott gains momentum | FBI sees spike in coronavirus-related cyber threats | Boston city government bans facial recognition technology Justice Department announces superseding indictment against Wikileaks’ Assange Overnight Defense: National Guard activated to fight coronavirus | Pentagon ‘fairly certain’ North Korea has cases | General says Iran threat remains ‘very high’ after US strikes MORE in 2010 to obtain and disclose sensitive “national defense information” through conspiring to crack a password tied to a Department of Defense computer. 

WikiLeaks has published thousands of pages of material obtained from Manning, including details around Guantanamo Bay detainees and combat guidelines concerning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If convicted, Assange faces a maximum of 10 years in prison for each of the existing 18 charges brought against him except for alleged conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, for which Assange could face up to five years in prison.  

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Read more here. 

 

FACEBOOK AD BOYCOTT: Facebook is coming under mounting pressure from major companies to rein in hateful content on the platform or risk further loss of ad revenue.

In the past week, companies like Patagonia, The North Face, Ben & Jerry’s and REI have joined the Stop Hate for Profit campaign organized by civil rights groups in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd.

Organizers of the Facebook boycott acknowledge that while previous efforts to change Facebook’s platform have fallen short, the national focus on racial injustice has put a spotlight on all aspects of life, including social media.

“I think the country is reckoning with this legacy of systemic racism in a way that it hadn’t before. You see this playing out in the public square [and] it seems to be playing out in the political arena,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), told The Hill in an interview Tuesday. “That environment, I think, creates the conditions in which this advertising pause has so much appeal.”

The ADL, NAACP, Sleeping Giants, Color of Change, Free Press and Common Sense launched the Stop Hate for Profit campaign last week, calling on companies to pull their advertising dollars from Facebook for the month of July.

The groups have held private discussions with Facebook CEO Mark ZuckerbergMark Elliot ZuckerbergHillicon Valley: Justice Department announces superseding indictment against WikiLeaks’ Assange | Facebook ad boycott gains momentum | FBI sees spike in coronavirus-related cyber threats | Boston city government bans facial recognition technology Facebook boycott gains momentum Ben & Jerry’s is latest company to join Facebook advertising boycott MORE for years about how to improve the way the platform deals with racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic, white supremacist and otherwise violent content. The decision to band together and seek support from advertisers was sparked by Facebook’s handling of the anti-police brutality protests following Floyd’s death.

“There’s been a lot of misinformation,” said James Steyer, founder and CEO of Common Sense.

He said that after Floyd’s death, “there’s been a ton of hate and white supremacist content on the platform, and they just ignore it.”

The campaign comes at a time when Facebook is under internal and external pressure over its handling of President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump rally sparks self quarantine of dozens of Secret Service agents GOP: Trump needs a new plan Trump faces ObamaCare court deadline as political ground shifts MORE’s rhetoric, especially his posts that are seen as glorifying violence. Zuckerberg has defended the platform’s hands-off approach, but that position has come under increasing fire as other tech companies like Twitter have been more aggressive about attaching warning labels to the president’s comments.

The groups behind the current boycott are calling for Facebook to, among other things, create a threshold for harm where users facing harassment can speak directly with an employee, an internal mechanism for removing ads labeled as misinformation and a system for flagging content in private groups.

Although the campaign was just launched last week, it has already received more than a dozen corporate supporters.

Read more.

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FACIAL RECOGNITION LEADS TO FALSE ARREST: A failed facial recognition match led to a wrongful arrest in Detroit, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) alleged in a complaint Wednesday.

Robert Williams, a Black man, was held for more than a day in January after his driver’s license photo was matched to surveillance video of a shoplifter.

Officers released him after admitting “the computer must have gotten it wrong,” Williams said. The charge against him has been dismissed.

This case may be the first national example of facial recognition leading to a wrongful arrest, and highlights biases advocates have pointed to in the technology.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal agency within the Commerce Department, released an expansive study in December finding that the majority of facial recognition systems have “demographic differentials” that can worsen their accuracy based on a person’s age, gender or race. 

The ACLU of Michigan’s complaint calls on the Detroit Police Department to halt its use of facial recognition.

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Read more.

 

AND BOSTON BANS: Boston City Council on Wednesday unanimously voted to ban city government from using facial recognition technology.

The new ordinance comes amid refocused scrutiny on facial recognition driven by anti-police brutality protests following the death of George Floyd. The law makes it illegal for city officials to “obtain, retain, possess, access, or use” the controversial software.

Boston is the sixth city in Massachusetts to ban government use of facial recognition, and the largest on the East Coast to do so.

San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., have both passed similar bans.

Boston’s ordinance points to racial and gender biases that plague the technology.

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CYBER SPIKE: A top official at the FBI on Wednesday said that the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has received 20,000 coronavirus-related cyber threat reports this year, as officials sounded the alarm on growing cyber threats to COVID-19 vaccine research.

Tonya Ugoretz, the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, said during a virtual conference hosted by cybersecurity group CrowdStrike that the IC3 was tracking a massive spike in hackers using the COVID-19 crisis to target Americans.

“Already, here we are in the first or second week of June, the IC3 has already had as many complaints up to this point as they did for all of 2019, and that is for all types of internet fraud,” Ugoretz said.

She noted that for just coronavirus-related activity — such as scams, malicious emails, or fraud — the FBI IC3 has received “at least 20,000 complaints.”

The new data revealed Wednesday is a continuation of a trend in increasing cyberattacks and targeting during both the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing protests around the death of George Floyd. Major agencies including the World Health Organization and the Department of Health and Human Services have been targeted, while coronavirus-related scams have targeted federal relief funds. 

Ugoretz said in April that the IC3 was receiving between 3,000 and 4,000 cybersecurity complaints per day, an increase from the typical 1,000 complaints per day the IC3 saw prior to the pandemic. 

Read more.

 

NEW SECTION 230 BILL: Sens. Brian SchatzBrian Emanuel SchatzHillicon Valley: Justice Department announces superseding indictment against WikiLeaks’ Assange | Facebook ad boycott gains momentum | FBI sees spike in coronavirus-related cyber threats | Boston city government bans facial recognition technology Bipartisan senators introduce legislation to update tech liability protections FAA says it won’t make masks on planes mandatory MORE (D-Hawaii) and John ThuneJohn Randolph ThuneGOP: Trump needs a new plan Police reform in limbo after Senate setback Hillicon Valley: Justice Department announces superseding indictment against WikiLeaks’ Assange | Facebook ad boycott gains momentum | FBI sees spike in coronavirus-related cyber threats | Boston city government bans facial recognition technology MORE (R-S.D.) introduced legislation Wednesday to update legal protections for online platforms.

The Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency (PACT) Act would create a new method for holding the companies accountable by clarifying Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to require companies to give consumers more information about their content moderation policies and let users appeal decisions.

Section 230 gives internet companies immunity from lawsuits for content posted on their sites by third parties and allows them to make “good faith” efforts to moderate content.

The bill would also require tech platforms to release quarterly reports on what content has been removed, demonetized or otherwise limited.

It would amend Section 230 to require companies to remove court-ordered illegal content within 24 hours and remove liability protection from civil lawsuits by federal regulators.

The two lawmakers, the ranking member and chairman of Senate Commerce’s subcommittee that oversees the internet, described their bipartisan initiative as way to amend the provision without tearing it apart.

“Our bill updates Section 230 by making platforms more accountable for their content moderation policies and providing more tools to protect consumers,” Schatz said in a statement.

“The internet has thrived because of the light touch approach by which it’s been governed in its relatively short history,” Thune added. “By using that same approach when it comes to Section 230 reform, we can ensure platform users are protected, while also holding companies accountable.”

Read more about the legislation here. 

 

TWITTER BANS TRUMP MEMBER: Twitter has suspended a pro-Trump account after it said the account committed “repeated violations” of copyright policies.

In a post on the platform Locals, the owner of the suspended Twitter account, Carpe Donktum, said that he was suspended for sharing a doctored video that President Trump also shared last week. 

The video, which was taken down by Twitter on Friday, shows two children running toward each other and embracing. The tweet shared by Trump and Donktum featured an edited video with menacing background music and a manipulated CNN headline and appeared to show the children running from each other.

“I received a DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] takedown order this morning for that video, and a few hours later a suspension letter,” Donktum said in the post. 

Donktum’s account was also suspended for eight days last July over a video depicting Trump as a cowboy attacking CNN journalist Jim AcostaJames (Jim) AcostaHillicon Valley: Justice Department announces superseding indictment against WikiLeaks’ Assange | Facebook ad boycott gains momentum | FBI sees spike in coronavirus-related cyber threats | Boston city government bans facial recognition technology Twitter permanently suspends account behind doctored video shared by Trump Twitter disables video in Trump tweet featuring fake CNN chyron MORE.

He said that Twitter did not give him an avenue to get his account back, so he assumes the move is “final and permanent.”

Read more.

 

Lighter click: Everything is fine, everything is good

An op-ed to chew on: Who can own the Moon?

NOTABLE LINKS FROM AROUND THE WEB: 

Amazon Workers Urge Bezos to Match His Words on Race With Actions (New York Times / Karen Weise)

Andrew YangAndrew YangHillicon Valley: Justice Department announces superseding indictment against WikiLeaks’ Assange | Facebook ad boycott gains momentum | FBI sees spike in coronavirus-related cyber threats | Boston city government bans facial recognition technology The Hill’s Campaign Report: Progressives feel momentum after primary night Clinton, Buttigieg among Democrats set to hold virtual events for Biden MORE‘s Data Dividend Isn’t Radical, It’s Useless (Motherboard / Edward Ongweso Jr.)

Segway stops production, marking the end of a scooter era (Washington Post / Rachel Lerman)

Why are Black and Latino people still kept out of the tech industry? (The Los Angeles Times / Sam Dean and Johana Bhuiyan) 

Sen. Roy BluntRoy Dean BluntTrump, GOP clash over new round of checks Hillicon Valley: Apple’s developer dispute draws lawmaker scrutiny of App Store | GOP senator blocks bill to expand mail-in and early voting | Twitter flags Trump tweet on protesters for including ‘threat of harm’ GOP senator blocks bill to boost mail-in and early voting during pandemic MORE (R-Mo.) on Tuesday blocked an attempt by Sen. Amy KlobucharAmy KlobucharHillicon Valley: Apple’s developer dispute draws lawmaker scrutiny of App Store | GOP senator blocks bill to expand mail-in and early voting | Twitter flags Trump tweet on protesters for including ‘threat of harm’ GOP senator blocks bill to boost mail-in and early voting during pandemic Biden campaign vetting Congressional Black Caucus chair Karen Bass as potential running mate MORE (D-Minn.) to push legislation through the Senate that would promote mail-in voting and expand early voting during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Blunt, who serves as chairman of the elections-focused Senate Rules Committee, blocked Klobuchar’s attempt to pass the bill in a Senate by unanimous consent due to concerns that it would federalize the election process.

“I just don’t think this is the time to make this kind of fundamental change,” Blunt said, pointing to concerns that passing the bill would lead to state and local election officials having less control over elections.

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The Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act, introduced by Klobuchar and Sen. Ron WydenRonald (Ron) Lee WydenHillicon Valley: Apple’s developer dispute draws lawmaker scrutiny of App Store | GOP senator blocks bill to expand mail-in and early voting | Twitter flags Trump tweet on protesters for including ‘threat of harm’ GOP senator blocks bill to boost mail-in and early voting during pandemic OVERNIGHT ENERGY: Internal watchdog probing Park Police actions toward Lafayette Square protesters | Democrats detail their .5T green infrastructure plan | Green groups challenge Trump water rules rollback MORE (D-Ore.) in March, would provide $3 million to the Election Assistance Commission to implement new requirements in the bill. These include requiring states to expand early voting to 20 days prior to the election, and extending the time for absentee ballots to be counted.

“There has been a real desire at the federal level to take over the elections process, I don’t think that’s a good idea, and if it was a good idea, it wouldn’t be a good idea six months before the election,” Blunt added.

The Republican senator noted that while he did not support passage of the bill, he was open to considering sending more funding to states to help address election challenges.

He also announced the Senate Rules Committee would hold a hearing next month on election concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular to examine ways Americans are voting in 2020. 

“I think funding is one thing, helping states help themselves is something that I think we can still do,” Blunt said.

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Congress previously appropriated $400 million for states to address election concerns as part of the CARES Act, a coronavirus stimulus bill signed into law by President TrumpDonald John TrumpBowman holds double-digit lead over Engel in NY primary McGrath leads Booker in Kentucky with results due next week NY Republican Chris Jacobs wins special election to replace Chris Collins MORE in March. But experts estimate a total of $4 billion is needed to ensure elections can move forward this year. 

Klobuchar, the top Democrat on the Senate Rules Committee, argued that passage of the bill would “ensure voters do not have to choose between their right to vote and their health.”

The blocking of the bill came the same day multiple states held primary elections, with some states including Kentucky and New York facing influxes of absentee ballots that could delay election results for days. 

The elections came in the wake of chaos in Georgia during the state’s primary earlier this month, when voters faced hours-long lines due to malfunctioning voting machines, a lack of polling sites and problems involving mail-in ballots.

Voters in Wisconsin were forced to vote in person in March due to a Supreme Court ruling, with dozens of coronavirus cases reported in the weeks following tied to the election. 

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Klobuchar and other Senate Democrats sent a letter to Blunt and other Republican committee chairs this month asking that they hold hearings to examine what went wrong in Georgia and Wisconsin. The House Intelligence, Judiciary and Administration panels held hearings on election issues over the past weeks. 

While experts have argued in favor of increasing mail-in voting to halt the spread of COVID-19 at the polls, Republicans including President Trump have been vehemently opposed, citing concerns that the practice might increase ballot fraud and other interference efforts. 

Klobuchar on Tuesday pushed back on this narrative, noting that in Oregon, where residents have voted entirely by mail for more than two decades, there have only been only about “a dozen cases of fraud.”

”Support from the federal government is vital because we have seen states struggle when it comes to administering elections,” Klobuchar said. “With fewer than six months left before the general election, Congress must act now to ensure that states have the resources and the funding that they need.”

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The Department of Justice (DOJ) is asking a judge to temporarily block the release of former national security adviser John BoltonJohn BoltonLincoln Project launches new ad hitting Trump over China policies Trump criticizes Bolton as memoir excerpts offer scathing account of White House Bolton book portrays ‘stunningly uninformed’ Trump MORE‘s upcoming memoir, arguing that it contains classified information. 

The Trump administration filed an emergency application Wednesday asking for a restraining order to halt the publication of Bolton’s book, called “The Room Where It Happened.”

“To be clear: Defendant’s manuscript still contains classified information, as confirmed by some of the Government’s most senior national-security and intelligence officials,” reads the DOJ’s memorandum supporting their argument.

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“Disclosure of the manuscript will damage the national security of the United States,” it continues.

The application includes declarations from top U.S. intelligence and national security officials, including Director of National Intelligence John RatcliffeJohn Lee RatcliffeDOJ seeks temporary restraining order blocking Bolton book release Hillicon Valley: Report finds CIA security failures led to massive breach | Pelosi calls on advertisers to pressure social media giants | Experts warn firms facing serious cyber threats in COVID-19 era Coronavirus Report: The Hill’s Steve Clemons interviews Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney MORE and National Security Agency Director Paul Nakasone.

The motion comes the same day The Hill and other news outlets published details of the book almost a week before its release, including explosive allegations that President TrumpDonald John TrumpLincoln Project launches new ad hitting Trump over China policies Trump criticizes Bolton as memoir excerpts offer scathing account of White House Bolton book portrays ‘stunningly uninformed’ Trump MORE asked Chinese leader Xi Jinping to help him get a competitive edge in the upcoming presidential race against former Vice President Joe BidenJoe BidenSenator demands Trump Organization explain Chinese business dealings in light of Bolton book Hillicon Valley: Senate Republicans, DOJ target Section 230 | Facial recognition under the spotlight | Zoom launches E2E encrypted beta The Memo: Bolton exposé makes Trump figure of mockery MORE, the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Bolton claims Trump stressed the importance of getting the vote from U.S. farmers and advocated that China make more purchases of U.S. soybeans and wheat to help his electoral chances.

While Bolton does touch on infighting within the White House, he focuses heavily on Trump’s foreign policy.

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The DOJ’s filing escalates the legal fight between Bolton and the White House over the publication of the book.

Bolton announced plans earlier this year to move forward with the memoir’s publication after a dispute with the White House, saying at the time that he had removed all classified information from the book.

The White House argues Bolton did not receive the green light to use such information, that he is in violation of his nondisclosure agreement with the Trump White House and that he will be publishing classified information.

“The type of classified information in these passages is the type of information that foreign adversaries of the United States seek to obtain, at great cost, through covert intelligence,” Ratcliffe wrote his signed declaration.

“Unauthorized disclosure of these types of classified information could reveal, in some instances, the limits and, in some instances, the capabilities of U.S. intelligence collection and would cause irreparable damage to national security,” Trump’s intelligence chief continues.

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The motion for an injunction comes as part of a lawsuit the Justice Department filed on Tuesday against Bolton over the book’s publication.

Bolton’s publisher slammed the lawsuit in a statement, calling it “the latest in a long running series of efforts by the Administration to quash publication of a book it deems unflattering to the President.”

“Ambassador Bolton has worked in full cooperation with the NSC in its pre-publication review to address its concerns and Simon & Schuster fully supports his First Amendment right to tell the story of his time in the White House to the American public,” Simon & Schuster said in a statement.

While the restraining order against Bolton is a civil case, he could face criminal charges if the DOJ decides to prosecute him over the information he has included in his book, should he proceed with the book’s publication next week.

A Missouri appeals court on Tuesday ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $2.1 billion to women who claimed the company’s talc-based products caused their ovarian cancer.

The decision by the Eastern District Missouri Court of Appeals cut in half the amount of compensatory and punitive damages the company is required to pay compared with a previous jury verdict, according to reports.

The jury verdict from July 2018 had ordered $4.69 billion paid after allegations by 22 women and their families, but the court ruled to reduce the damages owed because it said some of the plaintiffs were from out of state and should not have been included in the suit, St. Louis Today reported.

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Johnson & Johnson had appealed the verdict, requesting the court throw out the decision entirely, which the court declined to do, saying it had found “significant reprehensibility” in the company’s conduct. The court cited in its decision internal memorandums as far back as the 1960s indicating the company’s talcum products contained asbestos, a known carcinogen.

“A reasonable inference from all this evidence is that, motivated by profits, defendants disregarded the safety of consumers despite their knowledge the talc in their products caused ovarian cancer,” the ruling said, according to The New York Times.

The plaintiffs “showed clear and convincing evidence defendants engaged in conduct that was outrageous because of evil motive or reckless indifference,” the court said.

Johnson & Johnson has to pay $500 million in actual damages and $1.62 billion in punitive damages. 

Kim Montagnino, a spokeswoman for the company, told the Times that Johnson & Johnson will seek review of the case by the Supreme Court of Missouri. 

“We continue to believe this was a fundamentally flawed trial, grounded in a faulty presentation of the facts,” she said. “We remain confident that our talc is safe, asbestos free and does not cause cancer.”

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Mark Lanier, who represents the plaintiffs, said the decision was “a clarion call for J&J to try and find a good way to resolve the cases for the people who have been hurt,” according to Fox Business. Six plaintiffs in the case died before the trial began, and another five have died since the trial ended in 2018, according to the Times.

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Lanier told The Hill in a statement that his clients “appreciate the extensive time and careful scholarship shown in the appellate court’s meticulous detailed ruling.”

Johnson & Johnson has defended its talc-based products as safe as the company has faced more than 19,000 lawsuits relating to those products as of March. The company has appealed almost all of the cases it has lost. 

Last month, the company announced it would discontinue its talc-based products in the U.S. and Canada, citing decreased sales and “misinformation around the safety of the product and a constant barrage of litigation advertising.” 

In October, Johnson & Johnson recalled 33,000 bottles of baby powder after the Food and Drug Administration found trace amounts of asbestos in a bottle.

Nevada’s governor announced Monday that the state will adopt tougher emission standards for vehicles set by neighboring California, a blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back vehicle standards passed under the Obama administration.

Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) said in a statement that the time was right for Nevada to confront climate change and work to develop sustainable transit options, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“Now more than ever, it is critical for Nevada to continue accelerating efforts to address climate change including capturing the many benefits of sustainable transportation options for Nevadans,” Sisolak said. “Now is the time to set a new trajectory that will lead to healthier communities across the Silver State and establish Nevada as a leader in the clean transportation economy.”

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Local activists told the newspaper that the changes were a result of concerns over air pollution in the Las Vegas region, which is one of the worst-hit by smog in the country. The state’s decision comes as California is engaged in a legal battle with the White House over the Trump administration’s efforts to end the Clean Air Act’s exception that allows the state to set its own, tougher emission standards and allows other states to jump on board with California’s standards.

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California officials have largely resisted the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back emission standards, thereby creating two sets of standards for vehicles in the U.S.

One local activist told the Times that an increase in wildfires and other effects of climate change necessitated Nevada’s decision to join with California in adopting the tougher standards.

“Nevada is already feeling a lot of severe climate change impacts,” said Patricia Valderrama of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “There’s a growing interest in more environmentally friendly options and gaining access to those options.”

President TrumpDonald John TrumpBowman holds double-digit lead over Engel in NY primary McGrath leads Booker in Kentucky with results due next week NY Republican Chris Jacobs wins special election to replace Chris Collins MORE’s approval rating for how he has responded to the coronavirus pandemic has dropped to its lowest level, according to a new poll that comes as new cases spike nationwide and the president has sparked criticism for suggesting COVID-19 testing should be slowed. 

The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, released Wednesday, found that only 37 percent of Americans approve of the way Trump has responded to the health crisis, the lowest percentage since the poll began asking the question in early March.

Of those surveyed, 58 percent of Americans responded that they disapproved of how Trump has reacted to the pandemic.

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Trump sparked confusion over the weekend when he said during a rally that he asked staff to “slow down the testing, please.”

“Testing is a double-edged sword,” Trump said in Tulsa, Okla. “We’ve tested now 25 million people. It’s probably 20 million people more than anybody else. Germany’s done a lot. South Korea’s done a lot.”

The White House had said that his comments were meant as a joke but Trump on Tuesday appeared to undermine his own officials’ explanation on the comments, saying he doesn’t “kid.”

“Let me make it clear. We have got the greatest testing program anywhere in the world. We test better than anybody in the world. Our tests are the best in the world and we have the most of them,” Trump said, adding that more tests allow the United States to detect more cases. “By having more cases it sounds bad, but actually what it is is finding more people.”

The U.S. has seen a spike in new coronavirus cases, a worrying sign for the country as a number of states move forward with plans to reopen their economies. The number of new cases nationally climbed above 30,000 per day over the weekend, after having leveled off at around 20,000 per day for weeks. 

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According to a database compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. has reported 2,347,102 confirmed cases and 121,225 deaths from COVID-19 as of Wednesday morning.  

Senate Republicans have also warned that it is too soon to scale back testing, saying there’s no evidence the United States is ready to ease up on the number of daily tests until there is a vaccine.

According to the Reuters/Ipsos poll, even Republicans have reached low confidence in Trump’s administration. Just 43 percent of GOP voters said they thought the country was headed in the “right direction,” the lowest recorded level since Trump took office in January 2017.

The survey also found that former Vice President Joe BidenJoe BidenJoe Biden wins New York primary The Memo: Trump’s law and order bet falling flat Pro-Trump group ad questions Biden’s mental fitness MORE, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, leads Trump by 10 points among registered voters. The number is a slight dip from a 13-point lead in a similar poll last week.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online and polled 1,115 adults, including 503 Democrats and 408 Republicans, between June 22-23. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that it will review two issues that Bill Cosby’s team is appealing in his sexual assault case. 

Cosby, 82, has been imprisoned since 2018 when he was convicted for drugging and sexually assaulting a former Temple University employee at his home in 2004. He was given a three- to 10-year sentence.

But Cosby’s legal team is arguing against the judge’s decision to allow five other accusers to testify in his case and to include a deposition in which he admitted to giving quaaludes to other women before, The Associated Press reported. 

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The state Supreme Court also agreed to review Cosby’s claim that a former prosecutor had said he wouldn’t be prosecuted for the case, which prompted him to agree to testify in his accuser’s lawsuit.

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Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill allowed five other women besides Temple University employee Andrea Constand to testify in Cosby’s criminal trial which ended in his conviction on all three felony sex assault counts. 

Cosby’s charges came after dozens of women said he drugged and sexually assaulted them in the past, but Constand was the only woman whose case was still within the statute of limitations.

O’Neill had said he saw “striking similarities” in the women’s stories and decided their testimonies would be allowed in the 2018 trial to show evidence of a “signature crime,” according to the AP.

However, Cosby’s legal team has argued the testimony was dated, unreliable and not related to Constand’s claims.

The comedian was charged in December 2015 with Constand’s sexual assault after his decade-old deposition from Constand’s civil case resurfaced, in which he said he gave drugs to women he wanted to have sex with. 

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Cosby’s lawyers have said he only answered the deposition questions a decade earlier because the then-district attorney Bruce Castor promised not to bring a criminal case against him. 

Cosby’s spokesman Andrew Wyatt said they were “extremely thankful” that the Supreme Court ruled to review the issues, in a statement obtained by the AP. He also connected Cosby’s case to the protests over the justice system. 

“As we have all stated, the false conviction of Bill Cosby is so much bigger than him — it’s about the destruction of ALL Black people and people of color in America,” he said.

Constand asked the court in a statement to consider the other women who “selflessly put themselves in harm’s way” to testify against Cosby.

“I have no doubt that the Supreme Court of PA will do the right thing and not allow Cosby’s wealth, fame and fortune to win an escape from his maleficent, malignant and downright criminal past and seek justice at all cost,” she said.

French constitutional court strikes down most of hate speech law

The decision could also have an impact on the European Commission’s Digital Services Act.

France’s highest constitutional body on Thursday struck down most of a controversial bill requiring online platforms such as Google and Facebook to remove hateful content within 24 hours and terrorist propaganda within one hour.

“‘[The legislation] undermines freedom of expression and communication in a way that is not necessary, adapted nor proportionate,” the Constitutional Council said, ruling that the text is not compatible with the French constitution.

The text, drafted by MP Laetitia Avia from President Emmanuel Macron’s La République en Marche party, was adopted by the National Assembly in May but challenged before the Constitutional Council by a group of conservative senators.

Thursday’s decision is a blow for the government, which had hoped the so-called Avia law could serve as a model for the European Commission’s Digital Services Act — a set of rules on content moderation to be presented by the end of the year that will target tech companies.

The decision could also have an impact on the Digital Services Act itself, as it poses clear limits on what France can lobby for at an EU level while providing guidance on what is acceptable — and what is not — in terms of content moderation.

The decision “should be a warning for everyone pushing for EU legislation on the [Digital Services Act] heading in the same dangerous direction,” tweeted MEP Tiemo Wölken, who drafted an initiative report on the DSA in the European Parliament’s legal affairs committee.

The controversial French hate speech legislation, criticized by tech companies, NGOs, opposition parties and the European Commission, required online platforms to remove flagged “obviously unlawful” hateful content within 24 hours and flagged terrorist propaganda and child sexual abuse material within one hour, or face fines.

An EU regulation currently under discussion also requires platforms to remove terrorist propaganda within one hour. France was hoping to implement its own law sooner as negotiations in Brussels are stuck.

“Given the difficulty to appreciate whether flagged content is obviously unlawful within the deadline, the penalty incurred as of the first breach and the absence of specific cause that exonerates from responsibility, [the legislation] can only but incite online platform operators to remove flagged content, whether they are obviously unlawful or not,” the Constitutional Council wrote about the 24-hour removal deadline.

The reasoning echoes the law’s critics, who argued throughout the legislative process that letting private actors define what is illegal and what is not without the involvement of a judge would lead to the removal of lawful material. The decision was welcomed by tech companies.

“The government was stuck with this legislation. It was a law from the majority group that itself was a harassment victim,” a French official involved in the legislative process said after the decision.

The Constitutional Council also ruled unconstitutional the so-called obligations of means for platforms, including requirements to implement procedures, both human and technical, to ensure that notified content was processed as fast as possible. They argue those obligations were directly linked to the 24-hour removal deadline and should therefore be stricken from the law.

“This Constitutional Council decision should be a roadmap to improve a mechanism that we knew was unheard of and therefore perfectible,” Avia said in a statement.

The European Commission said it “took note” of the decision, which “underlines the need to safeguard freedom of expression online,” a spokesperson said.

The cabinet of France’s Digital Junior Minister Cédric O had no immediate comment.

Elisa Braun contributed reporting from Paris. 

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