Former President Obama praised climate activist Greta Thunberg on Tuesday after meeting with the 16-year-old during her visit to Washington, D.C., to lobby lawmakers on environmental issues.
She started the Fridays for Future school climate strikes in August last year when she staged a solo protest outside the Swedish parliament. It's grown into a global movement.
Thunberg will lead a global climate strike this Friday ahead of the UN Climate Action Summit 3 days later, which she'll address.
The big picture: Thunberg also met with Green New Deal co-sponsor Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) at Congress. Markey tweeted that he was "proud to join young climate activists."
What he's saying: Markey tweeted, "By failing to take meaningful action on climate, our leaders failed the young people of the world. A generation of leaders owes our youngest generations an apology & a commitment to finally take the bold action we’ve failed to achieve."
Saudi Arabia hopes to fully restore oil output curtailed by Saturday's attacks by the end of September and have already revived 50% of the lost production, the kingdom's energy minister said Tuesday, per multiple reports.
Why it matters: The comments by Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman — and an earlier Reuters report of the rough timeline — are putting downward pressure on oil prices, which had soared in the wake of the attacks against a major processing plant and oilfield.
Crude oil prices fell sharply Tuesday, reversing some of their major increases over recent days, after Reuters reported that Saudi Arabia will quickly restore output lost during attacks on its facilities over the weekend.
Why it matters: The report, if borne out, will ease fears of a prolonged outage from the strikes against a massive processing facility and oil field in OPEC's largest producer and the world's largest crude oil exporter.
The attack on a Saudi Arabian oil field Saturday is still reverberating through markets, and it could have long-term implications for much more than the price of crude.
What's happening: Just about every market was moved by the attack and fears or hopes of how it could reprice assets.
School districts are debating what position to take after New York City announced that 1.1 million public school students could skip classes without penalties to join the global youth climate strikes Friday, the New York Times reports.
Why it matters: Per the Times, this a test of the movement’s impact — by causing disruptions and getting noticed by political leaders who are in NYC for the United Nations Climate Action Summit 3 days later and the General Assembly meeting that follows it.
House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler slammed the White House Monday for blocking 2 former aides from testifying before the committee and placing "unprecedented limitations" on former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski ahead of his appearance Tuesday.
Why it matters: The House Judiciary Committee is trying to step up investigations in order to determine whether to recommend Trump’s impeachment for obstruction of justice and abuse of power.
The office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance has subpoenaed 8 years of President Trump's "personal and corporate tax returns" as part of its investigation into hush money payments made to Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election, the New York Times reports.
The big picture: A federal investigation into the payments resulted in Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleading guilty to campaign finance violations, and it "effectively concluded" in July with no further charges. Vance's office opened a new investigation last month into whether the Trump Organization falsely listed its reimbursement of Cohen for the $130,000 payment to Daniels as a legal expense, which would be illegal under New York law.
Saturday's attacks in Saudi Arabia have resulted in the largest oil market disruption in history, and they raise questions of war, energy supply and the fate of the largest-ever IPO. Dan digs in with Axios' Ben Geman.
Analysts and traders are looking at the immediate supply effect of the Saudi attacks and what they portend for the long-term security of the world's largest crude oil exporter.
Why it matters: Prices had been middling for months thanks to the sluggish global economy, U.S. production growth and trade fights. But the attacks could keep prices in a higher band for a while, even though there's enough crude sloshing around to prevent shortfalls for now and the wider economic landscape remains bearish.
Thousands of environmental activists and politicians are descending on New York City in the coming days for rallies and a major summit. Almost certainly, they will use oil, natural gas and/or coal to get there.
The big picture: That's the classic hypocrisy charge — you're a hypocrite for advocating on climate change while using fossil fuels. Such arguments are shallow because virtually everyone depends on these fuels somehow. Yet the charges are increasing, so it's worth exploring the concrete steps people can actually take in a warming world.
Humberto strengthened into a hurricane as it moved east into the Atlantic Ocean Sunday night, and the National Hurricane Center warns Bermuda is set to be impacted with heavy rain from the Category 1 storm.
The latest: Humberto was moving at 3 mph 785 miles west of Bermuda at 11 p.m., with sustained winds of 75 mph. It lashed the Hurricane Dorian-devastated Bahamas with 70 mph winds as it scraped past, but the NHC said the nation escaped the bulk of the storm.
More than 2 weeks since Hurricane Dorian struck the Bahamas, the death toll remains at 50, but government data shows 1,300 people are still listed as missing, while much of the archipelago faced another tropical storm this weekend.
The latest: Bahamians escaped the bulk of storm Humberto, now a hurricane, as it passed offshore, but it still lashed the islands with sustained winds of 70 mph. The National Hurricane Center said. And Humberto's outer rain bands are forecast to dump 1–2 inches of additional rain with isolated storm total amounts of 6 inches.
