Biden's pick for health secretary didn't sue those nuns As California's attorney general, Xavier Becerra (D) filed dozens of lawsuits against the Trump administration. One of them ended up pitting Becerra, who is now President Biden's nominee to be health secretary, in a court battle against Trump and the Little Sisters of the Poor, a charity run by Catholic nuns. Republican senators brought up the sisters during Becerra's confirmation hearings in the Senate. "It does seem like, as attorney general, you spent an inordinate amount of time and effort suing pro-life organizations, like Little Sisters of the Poor," Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said at one point. But Becerra didn't sue any nuns. California and other states sued the Trump administration, seeking to block a policy that would have allowed exemptions to the Affordable Care Act and its mandate that insurance plans provide birth-control coverage. The Little Sisters of the Poor voluntarily sought to join the case after it began, and was granted permission by a court. No one sued the group or legally compelled its participation, as a 2019 decision from the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals makes clear, though courts have recognized that the charity has an interest in the case's outcome. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here. Did you hear something fact-checkable? Send it here; we'll check it out. Kerry's climate illusion "The scientists told us three years ago that we had 12 years to avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis," John Kerry, the former secretary of state now serving as President Biden's international climate change envoy, said in a CBS interview. "We are now three years gone, so we have nine years left." Kerry is using a frequently cited, often misused figure. It's a good example of how scientists may write a long and complex report, which gets regurgitated by pundits and politicians in a way that frustrates the scientists and flattens their nuanced conclusions. If anything, scientists say, Kerry's phrasing understates the problem facing the planet. In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body, said in a report that the planet, which has already warmed 1 degree Celsius above preindustrial levels (approximately 1850 to 1890), would warm 1.5 degrees between 2030 and 2052 unless significant steps were taken to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Somehow, a popular takeaway from this report became the date "2030," portrayed as the point of no return for a climate reckoning. The key here is that the changes are happening on a continuum, and some parts of the globe are already warming to critical levels. As one expert put it: "There's nothing magic about 1.5C. There's no climate 'cliff' that we go off. The more carbon we emit, the more warming we cause, the more damage that's done." Kerry got Two Pinocchios. We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP, @rizzoTK, @mmkelly22) or Facebook. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup. | 
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