Plus: What went wrong with the Astrobotic Moon mission, and introducing Franceâs new PM
| | | | | | | Hello. An appeals court in Washington DC is considering a question that has never before been asked in US history, one regarding presidential immunity that strikes at the heart of American democracy. Phil McCausland in New York and Sam Cabral in WashingtonDC report on the hearing’s highlights. As scientific data confirms 2023 to have been the warmest year on record, Mark Poynting and Erwan Rivault visualise the numbers in digestible, yet unsettling, charts. Finally, France correspondent Hugh Schofield explains what makes the appointment of Gabriel Attal as the country’s new prime minister one for the history books. |
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| | | | | | AT THE SCENE | Washington DC, USA | | Trump's argument for immunity gets cold reception | | | | Mr Trump’s lawyers argue that the office of the White House shields him from his 2020 election fraud charges. Credit: Getty Images | | Can a US president have total immunity from criminal prosecution for things they did while at the White House? This is the question under consideration at an appeals court in the country’s capital, one that had not previously emerged in nearly 250 years of US history, because no president before Donald J Trump has ever been charged with a crime. | | | Donald Trump's lawyer, Dean John Sauer, argued that prosecuting a president for "his official acts" risked opening "a Pandora's box from which the nation may never recover". Sauer said, without immunity, nothing could prevent the criminal prosecution of incumbent President Joe Biden after he leaves office for "mismanaging the border allegedly".
Judge Florence Pan - who was appointed by Biden - did not appear convinced by the Trump argument for absolute immunity. She questioned whether a president could order the assassination of a political rival and still be shielded from prosecution. Judge Karen Henderson, who is viewed as the jurist most sympathetic toward Trump, expressed scepticism that immunity extends to violating criminal law by trying to overturn the 2020 election results. |
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| Questions Answered | | How 2023 became the hottest year on record | | | | Canada's wildfire season was by far its worst on record. Credit: Reuters |
| | Last year was about 1.48C (2.66F) warmer than the long-term average before humans started burning large amounts of fossil fuels, the EU's climate service says. BBC analysis shows almost every day since July has seen a new global air temperature high for the time of year. | | | | Mark Poynting and Erwan Rivault, Climate & Verify Data Journalism teams |
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| | What made 2023 the hottest year on record? | | The world went on a remarkable, almost unbroken streak of daily air temperature records in the second half of 2023. Sea surface temperatures have also smashed previous highs. This recent temperature boost is mainly linked to the rapid switch to El Niño conditions, which has occurred on top of long-term human-caused warming. | | What is El Niño and how did it impact global temperatures? | | El Niño is a natural event where warmer surface waters in the East Pacific Ocean release additional heat into the atmosphere. But air temperatures have been boosted unusually early on in this El Niño phase - the full effects had not been expected until early 2024. | | What can we expect in 2024? | | Some scientists believe 2024 could be warmer than 2023 - as some of the record ocean surface heat escapes into the atmosphere. However, the "weird" behaviour of the current El Niño means it's hard to be sure. It raises the possibility that 2024 may even surpass the key 1.5C warming threshold across the entire calendar year for the first time, according to the UK Met Office. | | | | | | |
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| | The big picture | | The Moon mission that’s doomed to fail | | | | The Peregrine lander probably won't land on the Moon. Credit: Astrobotic artwork |
| | Sometimes, rocket science is as hard as, well, rocket science. And Astrobotic, the American company that launched a mission on Monday to try to soft-land on the Moon, is very likely going to fail in its mission. Our science correspondent Jonathan Amos looks at what has gone wrong. | | | | |
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| | | For your downtime | | Train in the sky | | This railway in Tibet is the highest in the world. | | |
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| | And finally... in France | | French President Emmanuel Macron has named a new prime minister. At 34 years of age Gabriel Attal, who is currently education minister, is due to become the youngest PM in modern French history, and also the first openly gay one. Read more about the Macron whizz kid’s ascent. |
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| | | | | | | | Tech Decoded Newsletter | | Decode the biggest developments in global technology with a twice-weekly email. | | |
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