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An MQ-4C Triton drone of the type shot down in the Gulf.
An MQ-4C Triton drone of the type shot down in the Gulf. Photograph: Reuters
An MQ-4C Triton drone of the type shot down in the Gulf. Photograph: Reuters

US briefing: Iran shoots down US drone, sea wall costs and Biden under fire

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Thursday’s top story: US-Iranian tensions escalate amid dispute over an American drone. Plus, Joe Biden criticised for working with segregationist senators

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Good morning, I’m Mattha Busby with today’s essential stories.

Iran shoots down US drone, as missile hits Saudi Arabia

An unmanned US drone has been shot down in the strait of Hormuz by Iran, which accused America of spying in its airspace in the south of the country and attempting to worsen tensions in the region. A US military official confirmed one of its drones was taken down, but said it was in international airspace. Meanwhile, President Trump has been briefed on the details of a missile strike in Saudi Arabia that appeared to come from Yemen.

  • ‘Harsh response’. The secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council Ali Shamkhani had warned earlier on Wednesday against any state crossing a “red line” and entering into its airspace or maritime borders.

Biden criticised for past association with segregationist senators

In comments on Monday, Biden said that despite major disagreements he had worked with the senators with ‘some civility’. Photograph: Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden refused to apologise after saying he had worked alongside two southern segregationist senators in Congress with “some civility” despite major disagreements. After fellow contender Cory Booker criticised him for also joking “about calling black men ‘boys’”, Biden said: “There’s not a racist bone in my body.” However, previous remarks made by the former vice-president have emerged, as critics call into question his credentials.

  • Criticism. “Biden’s relationships with proud segregationists are not the model for how we make America a safer and more inclusive place for black people, and for everyone,” Booker said in a statement.

Sea walls to protect US from climate crisis would cost billions

A couple leave their flooded home the morning after Hurricane Irma swept through the area in September 2017 in Fort Myers, Florida. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Building sea walls to guard US communities against rising sea levels could cost $416bn over the next 20 years, and the figure represents a mere slice of what governments in coastal states will have to fund if they do not wish to just retreat inland. The costs could amass to nearly as much as the initial investment in the interstate highway system, but the report’s publisher said this had likely been overlooked.

  • Who’s going to pay for that?’ Is it really going to be taxpayers? Asks Richard Wiles, executive director of the Center for Climate Integrity. “The current position of climate polluters is that they should pay nothing, and that’s just not tenable.”

Yemen war death toll approaches 100,000

A comprehensive report has exposed the extent of directly targeted civilian casualties in Yemen as the conflict enters its fourth year. It comes as a UK court declared the British government’s continued supply of weapons to the Saudi-led coalition as unlawful. The deliberate targeting of civilians has been denied by both sides but the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (Acled) has recorded 4,500 direct civilian targeting events that led to approximately 11,700 reported deaths since 2015.

  • Killings. 2018 was “the war’s deadliest and most violent year on record”, according to Acled, and British Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle warned that “a generation of Yemenis now hate Britain as much as the Saudi royal air force”.

Crib sheet

Must-reads

‘We encountered people who had been turned away from their families and they didn’t feel understood or supported. We became a family little by little and it’s just grown.’ Composite: The Guardian

The new American family: trans, gender queer, nonbinary, two-spirit

As part of our series, Stonewall at 50, we hear from six people who found love and happiness – after being told they didn’t belong. “I would love for everyone to be able to find the family within themselves,” says “Fresh” Lev White, a 56-year-old masculine-presenting non-binary person. “It will help enrich your experience with others.”

Which 2020 Democrats are powered by fossil fuel donations?

Among the Democratic contenders, there is a wide acknowledgement that the climate emergency has to be tackled. Some, however, have signed a pledge to no longer accept money from the oil, gas and coal industry, while others haven’t. Most notably, Beto O’Rourke has taken more than $600,000, mainly from individuals, and Colorado senator Michael Bennet has accepted over $180,000, from Pacs. Here’s the rest.

Plastic wrapped in plastic: the wasteful reality of America’s grocery stores

For the latest in the United States of Plastic, Jessica Glenza and Jessica Pettway visit leading markets to document the ubiquitous pointlessness of plastic. All the stores wrapped plastic around eggs, most enclosed baby greens into rigid plastic shells and nature’s readymade coverings were often replaced with plastic. As supermarkets in the UK take limited action against plastic, American grocers are falling far behind.

The Jerusalem hospital where Palestinian babies die alone

Critically ill Palestinian children taken from impoverished Gaza to a better equipped hospital in Israel are suffering and dying alone because their parents are often not allowed to immediately accompany them, Oliver Holmes writes. Six babies have passed away since January 2018 without a parent present, according to the hospital.

Opinion

At a congressional hearing on reparations on Tuesday, two black writers detailed their starkly different appraisals of how the US should tackle its historic racial inequalities and injustices, and we have posted the full testimonies.

Ta-Nehisi Coates said:

The typical black family in this country has one-tenth the wealth of the typical white family. Black women die in childbirth at four times the rate of white women

Coleman Hughes said:

If we were to pay reparations today, we would only divide the country further – making it harder to build the political coalitions required to solve the problems facing black people today.

Sport

USA face Sweden today in their first true test at the World Cup, against the nation that handed them their earliest ever exit from a major tournament at the 2016 Olympics. However, the Americans have since adopted relentlessly attacking tactics. Game on.

Following that match, the goalkeeper Hope Solo branded the Sweden team “a bunch of cowards” for their defensive tactics, leading US Soccer to realize “it now had an excuse to remove its biggest adversary in the fight for equal pay, and it did,” she writes.

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