Gov. Katie Hobbs is withdrawing 13 unconfirmed cabinet nominees from Senate consideration while leaving them in place as "executive deputy directors" who will continue leading their agencies.

Why it matters: It's a response to what she called a "political circus" created by Senate President Warren Petersen and the committee he created to vet her nominees, which has dragged out the confirmation process and subjected some nominees to intense scrutiny.

• Hobbs' move includes directors for major agencies like the Department of Administration and Department of Economic Security.
• The governor "will pursue other lawful avenues of ensuring state government can continue to function for Arizonans," she wrote in a blistering letter to Petersen.

On Wednesday evening, the Arizona treasurer announced that she will be serving as acting governor beginning later this evening until mid-morning tomorrow amid a mysterious disappearance of Gov. Katie Hobbs.

In a press release on X, formerly known as Twitter, Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee announced her brief tenure as acting governor, saying that she is "pleased to step in this role."

Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs speaks during the Super Bowl LVII Host Committee Handoff Press Conference at Phoenix Convention Center on February 13, 2023, in Phoenix, Arizona.  (Carmen Mandato/Getty Images))

The Republican state treasurer noted that during her less than 24-hours as acting governor she would refrain from confirming the thirteen agencies that still hold vacancies and wait for the Democratic governor to fill them upon her return.

"While I am pleased to step in this role, I will refrain from naming directors to the 13 agencies that currently have vacancies and will not call the Arizona Legislature into session to confirm them," Yee said in an X post. "That being said, I do hope when the Governor returns to Arizona, she will promptly name qualified directors to these important state agencies."

 All Fine Wine & Good Spirits liquor stores are set to close Wednesday in Philadelphia after Tuesday night’s mass looting where 18 different store locations were broken into, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

 An Obama-appointed federal judge rejected a motion from former President Donald Trump calling on her to recuse herself from the case involving his challenge to the results of the 2020 election Wednesday.

 The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a proposed rule Wednesday that would require states to “transfer” foster children from families who do not support their “gender identity,” a copy of the rule showed.

 The Pentagon has defended a senior official amid allegations of her involvement in an Iranian influence network, The Washington Free Beacon reported Tuesday.

 Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf of Delaware blocked federal agents from investigating then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden as part of an investigation into Hunter Biden’s alleged violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), according to a new report.

Graphics processing units (GPUs) from Apple, AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, Arm, and Nvidia are vulnerable to a new attack that lets malicious websites read usernames, passwords, and other sensitive data displayed by other websites.

According to a research paper published on Tuesday, 26 September 2023, the cross-origin attack lets a malicious website from one domain read pixels displayed by other domains.

Malicious actors can then reconstruct the pixels to view words or images displayed by the target domain.

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However, for the attack to work, a malicious page must be loaded into Chrome or Edge. Internal differences in the way Firefox and Safari work block the attack from stealing pixels.

A startling and honestly distressing view is beginning to receive serious consideration in both academic and popular discussions of climate change ethics. According to this view, having a child is a major contributor to climate change. The logical takeaway here is that everyone on Earth ought to consider having fewer children.

Although culturally controversial, the scientific half of this position is fairly well-established. Several years ago, scientists showed that having a child, especially for the world’s wealthy, is one of the worst things you can do for the environment. That data was recycled this past summer in a paper showing that none of the activities most likely to reduce individuals’ carbon footprints are widely discussed.

The second, moral aspect of the view — that perhaps we ought to have fewer children — is also being taken seriously in many circles. Indeed, I have written widely on the topic myself.

But scientific evidence and moral theorizing aside, this is a complicated question with plenty of opponents. In what follows, I will address some of the challenges to this idea. Because while I recognize that this is an uncomfortable discussion, I believe that the seriousness of climate change justifies uncomfortable conversations. In this case, that means that we need to stop pretending the decision to have children doesn't have environmental and ethical consequences.

The argument that having a child adds to one’s carbon footprint depends on the view that each of us has a personal carbon ledger for which we are responsible. Furthermore, some amount of an offspring’s emissions count towards the parents’ ledger.

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