PandemicPrepare Now for the Next Pandemic | Biden’s Border Test | Saving California’s Beaches, and more

Young Migrants Crowd Shelters, Posing Test for Biden  (Michael D. Shear, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Eileen Sullivan, New York Times)
The administration is under intensifying pressure to expand its capacity to care for as many as 35,000 unaccompanied minors, part of a wave of people crossing the border.

With Iran, First Prevent the Nukes  (Dalia Dassa Kaye and Jon Wolfstahl, Defense One)
If Tehran gets the Bomb, every other regional problem immediately gets a lot harder.

5 Strategies to Prepare Now for the Next Pandemic  (Tiffany A. Radcliff and Angela Clendenin, The Conversation)

How to Save Beaches and Coastlines from Climate Change Disasters  (Nicole Vas, Los Angeles Times)
The frequency of natural disasters has soared in recent decades. Total damage topped $210 billion worldwide in 2020. With climate change, the costs attributed to coastal storms will increase dramatically.
At the same time, coastal habitats such as wetlands and reefs are being lost rapidly. Some 20% of the world’s mangroves were lost over the last four decades. More than half of the Great Barrier Reef was degraded by bleaching in 2020 alone. In California, we have lost more than 90% of our coastal marshes.
Coastal habitats serve as a critical first line of defense, and their loss puts communities at even greater risk from coastal flooding. Coral reefs work as natural breakwaters and reduce flooding by breaking waves offshore. Wetlands such as marshes and mangroves protect coastlines by dampening storm surge and waves; they also prevent erosion and can build new land.

Trump’s Border Wall Belongs to Biden Now  (Kevan Q. Malone, Washington Post)
A border policy divorced from history can’t do what policymakers want

Biden Administration Pressed by Lawmaker to Label White Supremacists Overseas as Terrorists  (Phil Stewart, Reuters)
President Joe Biden’s administration is being pressed by a key Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Elissa Slotkin, to consider designating white supremacist groups overseas as foreign terrorists subject to U.S. government actions. If Biden’s administration were to take the unprecedented step of listing such groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), or even a less-stringent designation, it would help curb dangerous white supremacist organizations, Slotkin argued in the letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, which was reviewed by Reuters. (Cont.)