| Indictment update: Every day in this newsletter, we will share the latest on whether and when Donald Trump gets indicted. There are two investigations that appear to be wrapping up: - The federal investigation into the efforts to overturn the 2020 election and Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol: No updates here, but the signs we've seen point to Trump and/or his allies being charged any day now, potentially with serious crimes.
- The Georgia investigation into Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election: It's possible charges come some time in the month of August, reports The Washington Post's Holly Bailey from Atlanta.
Also, how does a local prosecutor in Atlanta have authority to investigate a former president? Fani Willis is a district attorney in Atlanta. She has spent more than two years investigating whether Trump's campaign broke state laws when pressuring Georgia Republicans to overturn Joe Biden's win in the state. She has been pretty vocal in telegraphing that serious criminal charges will likely be filed, and legal experts I've spoken to say those charges will likely include Trump. She can do this because states are separate sovereign entities under the Constitution and thus have the ability to pass — and enforce — their own laws, said Kristy Parker, a former federal prosecutor who has worked under multiple administrations. "The state has a right to enforce its laws against anyone, including a former president or any federal official," she said. Has this summer's blistering heat changed Republicans' position on climate change?  Volunteers in Portland, Ore., deliver water to homeless people in June during a record-breaking heat wave in the Northwest. (Alisha Jucevic for The Washington Post) | Republicans in Congress now by and large accept that climate change is an issue and want to do something about it, conservative climate activists say. But their policy ideas are generally not as aggressive as what Democrats are pushing for and what scientists say is needed to effectively combat the most severe threats from global warming. Republicans are having discussions in the halls of Congress this summer about climate change that would have been unthinkable five years ago, said Karly Matthews, spokesperson for the American Conservation Coalition Action. Like: harnessing nuclear energy to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and updating forest management strategies to help prevent wildfires. She attributed that shift to Republicans seeing the effects of climate change in the places that they represent, like droughts suffocating the farms of Iowa and floods drowning the coasts of Louisiana.  Floodwaters in Davenport, Iowa, in 2018. (KC McGinnis/for The Washington Post) | "I think we can even go as far to say the pendulum has shifted," Matthews said. "And now it's just a matter of ironing out the policy details." But climate change ranks low on the list of concerns for party members, a Pew Research Center Survey found. Only 10 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents consider climate change a top personal concern. Republicans lean toward pro-business climate proposals, like offering tax credits to companies that develop climate technology. But the party generally wants to address climate change by creating new energy industries like hydrogen and nuclear, not moving away from old ones like fossil fuels that add to greenhouse gas emissions. (This spring, House Republicans passed a bill to sharply increase the domestic production of fossil fuels.) Efforts that could penalize businesses, like a carbon tax or tougher restrictions on power plant emissions, have less support in the party. Tiernan Sittenfeld, with the League of Conservation Voters, said any solutions the GOP is proposing feel more like "greenwashing" (or making something seem more sustainable than it really is) than meaningful climate solutions. As scientists warn that we're running out of time to avoid the worst effects of climate change, Democrats are mainly going it alone on climate policies rather than trying to bring Republicans on board. But that means they need to win back the House in next year's election — and keep the Senate and White House — to take more action. Still, as heat waves continue to smother the U.S., some Republicans hold out hope that their party will join the discussion in a more meaningful way. "As Donald Trump is the near presumptive nominee of our party in 2024, it's going to be very hard for a party to adopt a climate-sensitive policy," Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) told CNN. "But Donald Trump's not going to be around forever." | 
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