Day 90: "Seriousness and urgency." - a podcast by Matt Kiser

1/ The White House abruptly reversed course on the number of refugees it will allow into the U.S. On Friday, the administration said it would keep Trump’s historically low refugee admissions target at 15,000, walking back Biden’s pledge to lift the cap to 62,500 this year and push it to 125,000 for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. Democratic leaders called the administration’s admissions target “unacceptable” and hours later the White House said it would increase the cap on refugee admissions for the rest of this fiscal year by May 15. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that Biden would set the final cap and expects that it will be higher than Trump’s ceiling, but is “unlikely” to rise to the 62,500 that Biden had promised in February. (Washington Post / CNN / New York Times / Wall Street Journal)

2/ The Biden administration ordered U.S. immigration enforcement agencies to stop using terms such as “alien,” “illegal alien,” and “assimilation” when referring to immigrants. In memos sent to department heads at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, “alien” will become “noncitizen or migrant,” “illegal” will become “undocumented,” and “assimilation” will change to “integration,” among others. (Washington Post)

3/ The U.S. and China agreed to cooperate to fight climate change “with the seriousness and urgency that it demands.” John Kerry, the Biden administration’s special envoy for climate, said that despite various political disputes between the two countries, “it’s very important for us to try to keep those other things away, because climate is a life-or-death issue in so many different parts of the world.” China and the U.S. are the world’s two biggest carbon emitters, accounting for nearly half of the planet’s carbon dioxide. Biden is scheduled to hosts a virtual summit of world leaders to discuss efforts to reduce carbon emissions later this week. (New York Times / Associated Press)

• poll/ 56% of Americans think climate change needs to be addressed immediately, while 11% think it needs to be addressed in the next few years, and 33% say action on climate can wait or doesn’t need to be addressed. (CBS News)

4/ The White House removed the Trump-appointed scientist from overseeing the National Climate Assessment, the government’s definitive report on the effects of climate change. Betsy Weatherhead – considered a mainstream scientist who believes that climate change is a real and serious issue – was reassigned to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Interior Department’s scientific arm. (Washington Post / C...

Further episodes of WTF Just Happened Today

Further podcasts by Matt Kiser

Website of Matt Kiser