Governments are in favor of debt forgiveness for Sri Lanka, but private lenders (hedge funds) are blocking the deal.

The Bolsonaro mob vented their hatred of democrac y on Brazil's equivalents of the White House, the Capitol, and the Supreme Court. They destroyed even abstract art as if it expressed support for democracy, and wrote graffiti on the walls calling for military dictatorship.

People have a right to say they would prefer a military dictatorship, but taking or planning violent action in the name of establishing one is an unforgivable crime.

Democrats in the House could thwart McCarthy's vow to use the debt ceiling to hold the US government to ransom by signing a discharge petition. They would need at least five Republicans to sign it with them.

I think there is another way. Robert Reich recommended that Democrats should unite with the slightly-less-extremist Republicans to elect one of those as speaker.

It has been reported that any member of the House can now demand a new election for speaker, per the new rules McCarthy imposed at the demand of the hyperextremists. If Democrats make a deal with the Republican slightly-less-extremists to support one of those as speaker, perse would win. They could make a deal beforehand to raise (or eliminate) the debt ceiling and to leave Social Security and Medicare untouched.

Reich referred to those Republican as "moderates", but I don't think that term fits them. Just as "moderate" Democrats are actually plutocratist, not moderate at all, so are "moderate" Republicans.

Republican senators are blocking most of Biden's appointments to federal judgeships in the US south.

This is partly because of a rule that the Senate won't vote on a nominee unless the senators of per home state approve of per. ISTR that the Republicans abolished that rule when the corrupter became president, so they could quickly fill the backlog of vacancies that they had created by blocking all of Obama's nominations for years.

So why is that rule operating now? Did Democats restore it?

Australia proposes to make major polluting businesses invest to reduce heir emissions intensity — the amount of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of production — to meet annual targets.

However, it will continue the use of "carbon offsets", which tend to range from delusional optimism to outright fraud.