On May 16, Nicaraguan lawmakers approved a constitutional amendment that allows the government to strip Nicaraguan nationality fromcitizens who opt for a second nationality.

On May 20, El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly approved a “foreign agents” law mandating that any person or organization receiving funds from abroad register with the Ministry of Interior as a foreign agent.

Read the full statement in English and Español.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

On May 16, Nicaraguan lawmakers approved a constitutional amendment that allows the government to strip Nicaraguan nationality fromcitizens who opt for a second nationality.

On May 20, El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly approved a “foreign agents” law mandating that any person or organization receiving funds from abroad register with the Ministry of Interior as a foreign agent.

Read the full statement in English and Español.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Can’t Look Away: The Case Against Social Media is a new documentary that exposes the real-life consequences of the algorithms of big tech companies and their impact on children and teens. In 2022, social media companies made an estimated $11 billion advertising to minors in the U.S., where 95% of teenagers use social media. One in three teens uses social media almost constantly. “These products, they’re not designed to hook us, adults,” says Laura Marquez-Garrett, an attorney at the Social Media Victims Law Center in Seattle who is featured in Can’t Look Away. “They are designed to hook children.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Below is a statement by Chitra Kumar, the managing director of the Climate and Energy Program at UCS.

“It would be extremely difficult to set protective health standards without the EPA’s Office of Research and Development, and I think that’s exactly what this administration is aiming for. I am not sure how the EPA could fulfill its legal mandate of public health protection if this plan goes forward.

“The scientists and experts in this office conduct and review the best available science to set limits on pollution and regulate hazardous chemicals to keep the public safe. We’re talking about soot that worsens asthma and heart disease, carcinogenic ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water, and heat-trapping emissions driving climate change. The administration knows, and history shows, that industry will not regulate itself.

“The EPA is claiming that this is not a done deal yet, so it’s paramount that the administration hear: This is not acceptable. Everyone, including President Trump and his cabinet’s children and grandchildren, would feel the consequences of this move, not to mention the most polluted communities, predominantly Black, Brown and low income, who would bear the brunt. Is the administration’s ideology and pledge to industries that strong that they are willing to put their own loved ones at risk?”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The bill proposes to increase the penalties for slander and defamation related to ongoing investigations into the alleged commission of crimes by officials and public servants, decreasing the time allowed to address rectification requests from seven days to a day.

CPJ and partners call on lawmakers to consider the bill’s ramifications and respect the rights of all Peruvians to have access to information that is guaranteed by the Constitution.

Read the full statement here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

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The man tapped by President Donald Trump to be second-in-command of the federal agency that protects the public from environmental dangers is a lawyer who has represented companies accused of harming people and the environment through pollution.

David Fotouhi, a partner in the global law firm Gibson Dunn, played a key part in rolling back climate regulations and water protections while serving as a lawyer in the Environmental Protection Agency during Trump’s first administration.

Most recently, Fotouhi challenged the EPA’s recent ban of asbestos, which causes a deadly cancer called mesothelioma. In a brief filed in October on behalf of a group of car companies called the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, he argued that, for the specific uses that were banned, the “EPA failed to demonstrate that chrysotile asbestos presents an unreasonable risk of injury.”

The EPA banned the carcinogen in March, long after its dangers first became widely known. More than 50 other countries have outlawed use of the mineral. The agency had worked toward the ban for decades, and workers died while lobbyists pushed to delay action, as a 2022 ProPublica investigation showed.

Less than a day after Trump’s inauguration this week, the White House webpage that celebrated the historic ban was gone.

Fotouhi’s nomination to be the EPA deputy administrator must yet be approved by the Senate.

The asbestos rule is just one of several environmental issues at the heart of the EPA’s regulatory mission on which Fotouhi has represented companies accused of polluting. The 39-year-old lawyer, who is expected to play a critical role running the agency, represented International Paper in lawsuits accusing the firm of contamination from PFAS, or “forever chemicals”; a tire company that allegedly released a chemical known to kill endangered salmon (the firm disputed the claim and is fighting the lawsuit); and a coalition of businesses in Washington state that sued the EPA over its water quality standards for legacy pollutants known as PCBs.

Environmentalists are calling on Fotouhi to recuse himself from decisions regarding asbestos and other issues he’s recently worked on at Gibson Dunn. “Here’s a guy who wrote a very biased and one-sided attack on the EPA rule on asbestos. I would not want him to come anywhere near EPA decision-making on the asbestos rule,” said Robert Sussman, an attorney who represents the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization and served as EPA deputy administrator during the Clinton administration.

“I recused myself from everything involving former clients,” said Sussman.

Fotouhi declined to comment for this story.

Government ethics law calls for attorneys to recuse themselves for a year from matters on which they provided services in the previous year.

The issue may be a mere formality in an administration that in its first day took steps to roll back environmental and health protections put in place by the previous administration. Within hours of his inauguration on Monday, Trump ordered the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris climate accords, halted the approval of leases for new offshore wind projects in federal waters and revoked several executive orders relating to climate change.

It is not unusual for political appointees to the EPA to have ties to industry, especially in Republican administrations. Among the people returning to the agency from Trump’s first term are Nancy Beck, a former lobbyist for the American Chemistry Council, the influential industry trade group; Aaron Szabo, a lobbyist who represented the American Petroleum Institute and contributed to the Project 2025 chapter on the EPA; and Lynn Dekleva, who also worked for the American Chemistry Council and DuPont.

In announcing his nomination of Fotouhi on Truth Social earlier this month, Trump wrote that “David will work with our incredible EPA Administrator, Lee Zeldin, to advance pro Growth policies, unleash America’s Energy Dominance, and prioritize Clean Air, Clean Water, and Clean Soil for ALL Americans.” His expertise could be essential for Zeldin, the former U.S. representative from Long Island whom Trump nominated to run the agency and who has little experience with environmental issues.

While working at the EPA in the first Trump administration, Fotouhi served as deputy general counsel and acting general counsel. He played a central role in a revision of the Waters of the U.S. rule that removed federal protections from wetlands and streams. He later described it as some of his most important work. His Gibson Dunn online biography says he also “played a critical role in developing the litigation strategy to defend” the agency’s decision not to impose financial requirements on companies that extract minerals and ore from rock. Environmentalists had pushed for the requirements to protect taxpayers from being held responsible for costly environmental cleanups.

Fotouhi also advocated for landfills and ponds that contain coal ash to be deemed “clean” even though they didn’t meet the agency’s usual standards — a position favorable to the coal industry, according to one waste expert who worked with him during the Trump administration. “Dave was adamant about that issue,” said the former colleague, who asked not to be named to avoid public involvement in political discussions. The former colleague described Fotouhi as a brilliant lawyer who knows the environmental statutes but “doesn’t hesitate to get creative” to find a way to use them to take industry-friendly positions.

A Harvard-educated attorney, Fotouhi led an office of hundreds of lawyers at Gibson Dunn and has defended clients and provided legal counsel under every major environmental law, according to his bio on the firm’s website. He represented International Paper in two suits over PFAS, persistent industrial chemicals that cause cancer and other diseases. The chemicals were at the heart of two cases in which the company was accused of spreading PFAS-containing biosolids in Maine. The biosolids, or sludge, have been found to contribute to PFAS contamination of food and water throughout the state. (Gibson Dunn is representing ProPublica pro bono in a case against the U.S. Navy.)

Nathan Saunders, a plaintiff in one of the suits, learned in 2021 that his well water in Fairfield, Maine, had extremely high levels of the chemicals. After he learned that PFAS were linked to kidney damage, the discovery made sense to the lifelong Maine resident, whose wife had developed kidney failure more than a decade earlier.

Fotouhi succeeded in getting his client dismissed from the Saunders suit by arguing that there wasn’t information to tie the company’s conduct to the water contamination. Saunders’ attorney, Elizabeth Bailey, described the legal strategy as common among companies facing PFAS contamination suits and difficult for plaintiffs to overcome without access to internal company information. “They say, ‘Yes, there’s contamination, but there’s no way for you to show whose contamination it was and — oh, by the way, if you can’t specifically identify how our contamination got from our location to your client’s location at the very beginning of the lawsuit, we shouldn’t be in this case at all,’” said Bailey.

Fotouhi also attempted to overturn EPA’s water quality standards for toxic chemicals known as PCBs, which have been linked to cancer. In December 2023, he filed a suit against the agency on behalf of Washington state business groups that claimed that the standards are impossible to meet.

If the EPA chooses not to continue fighting the case, those standards could be overturned. The loss would be devastating to waterways, according to Katelyn Scott, water protector at Spokane Riverkeeper, an advocacy organization devoted to protecting the river and its watershed. “Without the EPA at the helm fighting to protect them, our river would be vulnerable to higher levels of pollution that would really put our fish and our people at risk of harm,” she said.

Phillip Landrigan, a physician who has spent decades working to protect public health from environmental threats, said the potential consequences would be similarly dire should the EPA choose to overturn the asbestos ban.

“President Trump came into office saying that he was going to make life better for working Americans,” said Landrigan. Reversing the decades-in-the-making asbestos ban, he said, “would expose working American women and men to a known human carcinogen and fly in the face of that promise.”

Kirsten Berg contributed research.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Sharon Lerner.

In response, Tyson Slocum , director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, issued the following statement:

“Eighty-six years ago, Congress established the first-ever federal consumer protections for natural gas, regulating it as an essential utility service, declaring that most exports of the gas cannot occur unless first deemed to be in the public interest. In less than a decade, the U.S. has gone from exporting no LNG, to becoming the largest exporter of this fossil fuel in the world. The explosion of exports has upended domestic energy markets, forcing American households and businesses to compete with Berlin and Beijing for access to U.S.-produced fuel, and has exposed American energy markets to increased price volatility and episodes of sharply higher prices.

“Already-approved and under construction LNG export terminals will nearly double America’s already record export capacity, and pending applications would result in as much as a quadrupling of existing capacity. Today’s study makes clear that all pending export applications must be denied as being inconsistent with the public interest, and should result in a reassessment of existing exports to determine compatibility with the public interest. Using LNG exports to provide energy abundance for China at the expense of higher utility bills for working Americans is not in the public interest”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, the organisation has revealed in a landmark new investigative report.

The 294-page report documents how, during its military offensive launched in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has “unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with total impunity”.

This 14-month military offensive was launched in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023.

• READ MORE: Amnesty International accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza
• Other Gaza genocide reports

An Amnesty International statement made along with releasing the investigation says that the Aotearoa New Zealand government “can and should take action”, for example:

• Publicly recognise that Israeli authorities are committing the crime of genocide and commit to strong and sustained international action;
• Ban imports from illegal settlements as well as investment in companies connected to maintaining the occupation; and
• Do everything possible to facilitate Palestinian people seeking refuge to come to Aotearoa New Zealand and receive support.

Lisa Woods, advocacy and movement building director at Amnesty International Aotearoa New Zealand, said: “This research and report demonstrate that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza.

“It’s not enough to say ‘never again’. The New Zealand government has to publicly call this what it is — genocide.

“We’re asking the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister to show leadership. New Zealand has a responsibility to act.”

Ban illegal settlement products
Woods said that in addition to acknowledging that this was genocide, the New Zealand government must ban products from the illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory — “and open the doors to Palestinians who are desperately seeking refuge.”

Agnès Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, said about the new report:

“These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.

“Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them.

“Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now.”

Callamard said that states that continued to transfer arms to Israel at this time must know they are “violating their obligation to prevent genocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide”.

She said that all states with influence over Israel, particularly key arms suppliers like the US and Germany — but also other EU member states, the UK and others — must act now to bring Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to an immediate end.

Population facing starvation
Over the past two months the crisis has grown particularly acute in the North Gaza governorate, where a besieged population is facing starvation, displacement and annihilation amid relentless bombardment and suffocating restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid, Callamard said.

“Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted in committing genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm it was inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza,” she said.

“It continued to do so in defiance of countless warnings about the catastrophic humanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to take immediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza.

“Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza are lawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicate Hamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside military goals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent.”

Amnesty International said in its statement that it had examined Israel’s acts in Gaza closely and in their totality, taking into account their recurrence and simultaneous occurrence, and both their immediate impact and their cumulative and mutually reinforcing consequences.

The organisation considered the scale and severity of the casualties and destruction over time. It also analysed public statements by officials, finding that prohibited acts were often announced or called for in the first place by high-level officials in charge of the war efforts.

“Taking into account  the pre-existing context of dispossession, apartheid and unlawful military occupation in which these acts have been committed, we could find only one reasonable conclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, whether in parallel with, or as a means to achieve, its military goal of destroying Hamas,” Callamard said.

Atrocities ‘can never justify Israel’s genocide’
“The atrocity crimes committed on 7 October 2023 by Hamas and other armed groups against Israelis and victims of other nationalities, including deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking, can never justify Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”

According to the statement, international jurisprudence recognises that the perpetrator does not need to succeed in their attempts to destroy the protected group, either in whole or in part, for genocide to have been committed.

The commission of prohibited acts with the intent to destroy the group, as such, was sufficient.

The report examines in detail Israel’s violations in Gaza over nine months between 7 October 2023 and early July 2024.

Amnesty International interviewed 212 people, including Palestinian victims and witnesses, local authorities in Gaza, healthcare workers, conducted fieldwork and analysed an extensive range of visual and digital evidence, including satellite imagery.

It also analysed statements by senior Israeli government and military officials, and official Israeli bodies.

On multiple occasions, the organisation shared its findings with the Israeli authorities but had received no substantive response at the time of publication.

Unprecedented scale and magnitude
The organisation said Israel’s actions following Hamas’s deadly attacks on 7 October 2023 had brought Gaza’s population to the brink of collapse.

Its brutal military offensive had killed more than [44,000] Palestinians, including more than 13,300 children, and wounded or injured more than 97,000 others by 7 October 2024, many of them in direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families.

Israel had caused unprecedented destruction, which experts say occurred at a level and speed not seen in any other conflict in the 21st century, levelling entire cities and destroying critical infrastructure, agricultural land and cultural and religious sites, Amnesty International said.

It thereby rendered large swathes of Gaza uninhabitable.

• The full Amnesty International report on Israel’s Gaza genocide

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Donald Trump has made the mass deportation of immigrants a centerpiece of his plans for a second term, vowing to forcibly remove as many as 20 million people from the country. Historian Ana Raquel Minian, who studies the history of immigration, says earlier mass deportation programs in the 1930s and '50s led to widespread abuse, tearing many families apart through violent means that also resulted in the expulsion of many U.S. citizens. “These deportations that Trump is claiming that he will do will have mass implications to our civil rights, to our communities and to our economy, and of course to the people who are being deported themselves,” says Minian. She also says that while Trump's extremist rhetoric encourages hate and violence against vulnerable communities, in terms of policy there is great continuity with the Biden administration, which kept many of the same policies in place.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

This article was produced in partnership with Source New Mexico, which was a member of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in 2023. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

Victims of New Mexico’s biggest wildfire could receive hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government for the hardship they endured when the blaze roared across their land in 2022 after the U.S. Forest Service accidentally ignited it.

U.S. District Judge James Browning said at the end of a hearing in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Tuesday that he was “leaning” toward ruling for fire victims who sued the Federal Emergency Management Agency last year for limiting the types of damages it would pay for. Browning said he would issue a ruling as soon as possible, but likely not until next month.

The lawsuit centers on FEMA’s determination that a federal law allows it to pay victims for economic losses but not emotional harm, which Source New Mexico and ProPublica reported on in January. Lawyers for fire victims said some people who owned little of value would not get enough money to rebuild unless FEMA paid for emotional harm.

If Browning does side with victims, FEMA could be required to compensate them for the stress of fleeing the fire, the distress they felt as it burned their trees and the toll of losing their home and possessions — what victims’ lawyers describe in legal filings as “annoyance, discomfort and inconvenience.”

A few could get sizable payments for pain and suffering resulting from injuries, in addition to payments for the injuries themselves. So far, the only recourse for people who were injured or for the families of those who died in the fire or ensuing floods has been to sue the federal government — a long, uncertain process. One suit filed on behalf of three people who died in post-fire flooding is pending.

Gerald Singleton, whose San Diego-based firm is representing about 1,000 victims of the fire, said in an interview after the hearing that emotional harm losses could amount to about $400 million. Such payments could result in a more equitable distribution of funds than the current system, he said, because renters and people with little to their name would receive money beyond the dollar value of their possessions.

If victims win, it’s not clear how quickly they could be paid. Lawyers representing FEMA said the agency would have to go through the formal rulemaking process to allow for payments for emotional damages. That could take months.

The money would come out of a nearly $4 billion fund Congress established in September 2022 to, as President Joe Biden put it, “fully compensate” victims of the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire. It was triggered by two controlled burns that escaped to scorch a 534-square-mile area and destroy several hundred homes.

As of Friday, FEMA’s Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Claims Office has paid $1.5 billion to households, nonprofits, businesses and local and tribal governments.

Jay Mitchell, director of the claims office, watched the hearing Tuesday. In a brief interview afterward, Mitchell suggested it could be challenging and costly to dole out payments for emotional distress.

He said the ruling could open the door to a flood of claims seeking damages for “nuisance” or “trespass” from people whose properties were touched by wildfire smoke. “Smoke goes where it goes,” he said as he walked into a meeting with lawyers representing FEMA.

FEMA declined to comment further, citing the pending lawsuit, and encouraged anyone affected by the fire to file a claim by Dec. 20.

The crux of the legal fight is FEMA’s interpretation of the Hermits Peak-Calf Calf Canyon Fire Assistance Act, written and sponsored by U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez and U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, Democrats from New Mexico. Plaintiffs argue that the agency improperly denied what are called “noneconomic damages” when it finalized the rules for how the $4 billion fund would be paid out. Those rules limited compensation to economic damages, those that come with a price tag: things like cars, homes, business expenses and cattle.

For months, lawyers for FEMA and four firms representing victims have exchanged briefs over what federal lawmakers intended when they wrote the bill. In Tuesday’s hearing, Browning questioned lawyers for both sides about that language.

For example, the law says payments “shall be limited to actual compensatory damages.” Victims’ lawyers argued, with numerous citations in New Mexico law and elsewhere, that “actual compensatory damages” historically means both economic and noneconomic damages. Lawyers representing FEMA interpreted the clause to mean that Congress was imposing a limitation: Only economic damages were allowed. Browning said he agreed with lawyers for the victims. “Plaintiffs have a better reading,” he said.

At the beginning of Tuesday’s hearing, Browning said he’d already made up his mind on one issue: He agreed that New Mexico law does allow noneconomic damages to be paid to victims in a scenario like the fire. That’s important because the federal law requires damages to be calculated in accordance with state law.

He cited an opinion issued this year from the New Mexico attorney general that concluded emotional hardship payments are allowed for victims of “nuisance and trespass.” Two state lawmakers requested that opinion shortly after Source and ProPublica reported on the issue.

Browning said he would try to rule quickly, citing previous delays in getting money to victims. “I don’t live under a rock,” he said. “I know that there has been a lot of criticism of how slow the process was.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico.

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Oregon Public Broadcasting. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

The Biden administration released a report last week acknowledging “the historic, ongoing, and cumulative damage and injustices” that Columbia River dam construction caused Northwest tribal nations starting in the 20th century, including decimation of the salmon runs that Indigenous people were entitled to by government treaty.

Across 73 pages, the report from the U.S. Department of the Interior concludes “the government afforded little, if any, consideration to the devastation the dams would bring to Tribal communities, including to their cultures, sacred sites, economies, and homes.”

But here’s what’s not in the report: The injuries to Native people were not just an unforeseen byproduct of federal dam building. They were, in fact, taken into account at the time. And federal leaders considered that damage a good thing.

In government documents from the 1940s and 1950s, obtained by Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica, government officials openly discussed what they called “the Indian problem” on the Columbia River, referring to the tribes’ fisheries that were protected under federal treaties. At times, they characterized the destruction of the last major tribal fishery as a benefit that dam construction would bring.

The archival government records were released to Columbia River treaty tribes several years ago under the Freedom of Information Act. They were first made public by OPB and ProPublica in March and April episodes of the podcast “Salmon Wars.”

The documents reveal that the government’s 1950s era of dam building on the Columbia was marked not by a failure to consider tribal impacts, but rather by a well-informed and intentional disregard for Native people.

“These documents shine a spotlight on a historic wrong” U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, said in a statement to OPB and ProPublica. “The government’s actions wiped out tribal communities, houses, villages, and traditional hunting and fishing sites with thousands of years of history.”

In response to emails detailing what the documents contained, Merkley said he would push the federal government to develop new tribal villages to replace the Indigenous fishing settlements that the dams flooded out.

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, a fellow Oregon Democrat, said he looked forward to working with tribes and the federal government to “to repair that shameful past.”

The Interior Department’s new report “writes yet one more painful chapter in the awful and deceitful history of federal decisions that willfully ignored Tribal communities’ rights and humanity,” Wyden said in an emailed statement.

The report does not mention any of the discussion from government officials previously reported by OPB and ProPublica.

A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior declined to comment when emailed the documents and asked whether the department was aware of them.

“We have nothing further to add beyond what’s in the extensive report,” press secretary Giovanni Rocco said in an email.

The report is a component of a recent 10-year agreement between the White House and tribes to restore endangered Columbia River Basin salmon populations.

Northwest tribes lauded the report as a long-overdue accounting of harms and a demonstration of the current administration’s commitment to listen to tribes and do right by them.

“The analysis highlights the many different ways the dams have impacted our cultures, lifestyles, diets, and economies and it got this information directly from the tribal people who have been affected,” Corinne Sams, chair of the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission, said in an emailed statement. “By listening to and including these testimonies, interviews, and statements, the federal government has taken tribes into consideration on this topic from a relationship of respect and willingness to learn.”

Salmon are estimated to have once totaled more than 10 million in the Columbia River, and they were central to the way of life for many tribes across the river basin. People fished along the river and its many tributaries in what are now Oregon, Washington, Idaho and parts of Canada for thousands of years. Salmon were a fixture of Indigenous people’s diet, religion and commercial trade.

Now, the river system’s salmon hover around 1 million. The decline is attributed largely to dams and other habitat loss stemming from development, along with overfishing.

Documents show government officials in the 20th century came to view the Native presence on the river as a detriment to the government’s own plans for hydropower – and harmful to the fish themselves.

In one memo from 1951, Sam Hutchinson, the acting regional director for the Bureau of Fisheries, summarized a conversation about the anticipated impact of The Dalles Dam, which ultimately drowned the tribes’ last major fishery, at Celilo Falls, when it was completed in 1957.

Hutchinson wrote, “I stated that the beneficial effects would compensate for the detrimental conditions that exist there at present.”

One of those benefits, according to Hutchinson: “The Indian commercial fishery would be eliminated and more fish would reach the spawning grounds in better condition.”

The successor agency to the Bureau of Fisheries, which is now a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, declined through a spokesperson to comment on Hutchinson’s historical remarks.

Hutchinson’s sentiment was also documented in meeting minutes from a 1947 committee of state, federal and local governments about future dam plans.

“We get up above and we run into the Indian problem at Celilo and other places. They are allowed to fish at will,” said Milo Moore, director of what was then called the Washington Department of Fisheries, according to the minutes. He said the tribes’ fishing made it difficult to maintain a constant supply of fish for the department’s own purposes. The state agency’s role included protecting and promoting the commercial and sport fisheries downriver, whose participants were predominantly white.

The head of the Port of Vancouver at the time, Frank Pender, also told federal officials of “the Indian problem” and said of tribal fishing, “certainly we don’t want it to stand in the way of the development of our own way of life.”

At one point during the proceedings, a man named Wilfred Steve was introduced as “our public relations officer for the Department of Fisheries and the Indians,” meeting minutes say. Steve acknowledged “these dams are going along and they are going to destroy their very life, the essence of life of these various tribes.”

Later in his remarks, the public relations officer praised the potential of education programs to assimilate Native people and stated “we hope that there will be no Indians.” He recommended paying the tribes in exchange for flooding their lands and destroying their fisheries.

Like the others quoted in the documents, Steve is now deceased.

Randy Settler, a Yakama Nation fisherman whose family history of salmon fishing was previously documented by OPB and ProPublica, said the money his family received in exchange for the dam flooding Celilo and other tribal lands amounted to roughly $3,200 per individual.

After dam construction, Congress and agency officials created programs to boost fishing opportunities that involved stocking the river with massive numbers of fish.

The archival government documents detail how these programs were used to justify allowing the dams to block the migration of native salmon. However, 99% of the stocked fish were almost entirely aimed at the fishing grounds below the dams that were used predominantly by white fishermen.

“It was kind of like what happened to the buffalo,” Settler told OPB and ProPublica during the initial reporting for “Salmon Wars.” “If they could rid the natural food of those tribes that they were dependent upon, they could weaken the tribes and get them to stop going across their ancestral territories. They would be more confined to their reservation lands where they could be controlled.”

The Biden administration has promised tribes it will restore wild salmon populations. As part of the 10-year agreement it signed with tribes, which includes a pause on any lawsuits over the dam system, the White House announced a plan to invest heavily in tribal-led salmon restoration and energy projects that could potentially replace the power from some hydroelectric dams. President Joe Biden also signed a memorandum calling for federal agencies to prioritize salmon recovery and to review the work to make sure they’re doing enough.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Tony Schick, Oregon Public Broadcasting.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

Join us for a virtual discussion of how private schools known as “segregation academies” in the Deep South continue to preserve divisions within communities even 70 years after Brown v. Board of Education.

In the rural community of Wilcox County, Alabama, a Black principal is working to empower students in the segregated public high school. A Black woman is grappling with demons of the county’s past. A white woman is digging into that history. A white high school graduate is realizing the importance of interracial friendships. Others are using art to bridge divides.

ProPublica is examining the lasting effects of “segregation academies,” private schools that opened across the Deep South in opposition to desegregation. In our first story, we wrote about how the local academy in Wilcox is nearly all white while the public schools are virtually all Black. As a result, people don’t often know one another well. When we asked local residents how often they have ever invited someone of another race over for dinner, we heard variations of, “That would be very uncommon.”

Although people haven’t often forged those deeper relationships, we met many who said they want to. We met others who are already doing so.

They confront a long and painful legacy of racism. They battle the inertia of “the way things are.” And they must build trust across racial divides where it often hasn’t existed before.

Shelly Dallas Dale still has flashbacks to being sprayed with tear gas, especially that first time.

Dale was 16 years old in 1971 when she joined a march in downtown Camden, 40 miles south of Selma in the heart of Alabama’s Black Belt, to protest its segregated schools. She and 428 others were arrested for “illegal marching.” They included 87 students. In an article about the march, the local newspaper called them “deluded blacks.”

Dale had grown up afraid of white people, but she still summoned her courage to join the Civil Rights Movement as it unfolded in Camden — even though protestors had lost their jobs and faced violence and arrests.

Before the desegregation march, she had become so fearful for her safety that she wrote her own obituary. Then she went to her older sister with a request. “This is the dress,” she recalled saying. “If I should get killed, bury me in it.”

At the march, someone fired tear gas at her. A white man shot her younger sister, she said, the bullet rocketing across the girl’s back just beneath the skin. But Dale and her family remained determined that Black students in Wilcox County should have access to the same educational opportunities as white children. She would march again — and face tear gas again.

Dale went on to become the county’s long-serving (and first female) tax assessor, a role that brought her into contact with every type of person — including the white people who had traumatized her and other Black children.

She tried to face her fear each day. She said she got to know people beyond the flashbacks and the years of fighting for basic rights like voting and school equality.

“I think it has helped me to embrace people more,” she said. “And to look beyond the evil side.”

Unlike many Black residents of Wilcox County during the 1950s and 1960s, Betty Anderson’s father did not work for a white man. For more than four decades, Joe Anderson ran the Camden Shoe Shop in the heart of downtown. Because he was his own boss, he joined local actions in the Civil Rights Movement without the fear for his livelihood that others, including sharecropping families, faced.

When his health declined in 2006, Betty Anderson moved back to help him. She had spent 42 years away, including a stint modeling in New York, but quickly became a fixture again in Wilcox County.

To honor her father and other family members, she opened the Camden Shoe Shop & Quilt Museum in his old building. The sidewalk leading up to it is painted shades of rose, azure and forest green. A pillow embroidered with “Welcome” sits on the arm of an old chair adorned with flowers. Inside its colorful doors awaits an array of artwork and historical memorabilia, much of it from her own relatives.

Her whole family was involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. visited their home. Activists stayed with them. Her grandmother and other family living in nearby Gee’s Bend made quilts to earn money for demonstrators’ gas and other needs.

The museum features quilts made by her great-great-grandmother, who had been enslaved and passed the craft down to later generations. Her father’s 1965 voting card and his 1967 NAACP membership card are on display. So are the jeans and a shoe Anderson herself wore in the historic 1965 march from the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma to the state capital of Montgomery, Alabama, 54 miles away. Her Converse — black with a red stripe — has two golf-ball-sized holes worn into its sole.

Anderson marched again for voting rights in Camden a few weeks later with classmates from her school. Although Wilcox County was mostly Black, virtually none of its registered voters were. Police arrested her middle brother. They jailed her youngest brother, just 8 years old, in Selma. For hours, nobody knew where he was.

Despite the pain she lived through, Anderson is one of the people in Camden who seems to know everyone in town — Black and white. An upbeat and gregarious woman, she has no qualms crossing racial lines and is a frequent presence at activities held by both Black and white residents. She opens her eclectic museum as a local gathering spot.

Frequent visitors include the women who work in the nearby Black Belt Treasures Cultural Arts Center. Anderson is an artist in residence there, but the organization means much more to her. In a town where white and Black neighbors remain apart in many ways, she and the white women who run it have become close friends.

When Black Belt Treasures launched in 2005, one goal rose above others: Its founders wanted to craft a new narrative, one that had gone largely untold in a region often defined by poverty and need.

To do this, they wanted to draw people off the interstate and into Alabama’s Black Belt — particularly Camden, in the heart of it — to see for themselves.

“We have gotten so much negative press and yet there’s a richness of life here,” Executive Director Sulynn Creswell said. “We have problems, but there are many, many talented, gifted people who live in this region.”

Among other things, Black Belt Treasures operates a gallery in a former car dealership that is now filled with paintings and pottery and quilts fashioned by hundreds of artists from across the region. Its staffers also work with tourism efforts and take myriad arts programs out into schools and the broader community.

Creswell and the center’s other employees have been key players in revitalizing downtown Camden, including playing a role in the creation of a colorful “Revolution of Joy” mural on a building between their gallery and Betty Anderson’s museum. All of their names are painted on it, along with those of a diverse group of people from around the county who came together to add their own artistic touches. Creswell and Kristin Law, who directs the center’s art programs and marketing, also were founding members of a local racial reconciliation group. The women, who are white, emphasized that they want the community to come together more — and they see the arts as a prime vehicle for that.

“Yes, we have had our bad history,” Law said. “But we are also a beautiful place with beautiful people, and we’re all trying to work together to make a better place.”

That includes two teenagers who work with them. Jazmyne Posey is a Black student at the local public high school. While working in the gallery, she met and befriended Law’s daughter, Samantha Cook, who is white and attends Wilcox Academy, the local private school. The other key women on staff here also have sent their children to the academy.

In a town that is otherwise still segregated, especially in its schools, the two teenagers forged a friendship that likely would never have happened if they had relied on their school encounters.

In 1975, a few years after the private Wilcox Academy opened in Camden when schools were being desegregated, a young white woman named Susan McIntyre took a job there.

During her 12 years teaching French, she admired the school’s instruction and met families whose ancestors had owned plantations in the area. She sent her two daughters to the school and became close friends with another white woman whose children were about the same age.

Back then, it was unheard of, she said, for a Black student to attend the academy, and none did. After growing up in a white world, she didn’t think much about why.

Later, she took a job teaching in the county’s mostly Black public schools, where she still works. She interacted with Black students and teachers far more than ever before in her life.

One day, while watching a group of Black students, a thought struck her. She wondered what message generations of school segregation had sent them. It was, she feared, an unjust lesson of inferiority.

She began to read every book she could find in the local library about slavery. She dug into the ways desegregation played out in Wilcox County — and how it continues to affect students. It was hard to ignore the role Wilcox Academy had played in the continued segregation of students.

“This is the thing that’s haunted me for years,” she said. “What if we had never started the private school?”

The public schools in Wilcox County remain nearly all Black. But in recent years, a few Black students have crossed the county’s racial divide to enroll at the academy.

In August 2020, McIntyre’s granddaughter Anna Crosswhite was about to start her junior year at Wilcox Academy when she volunteered to be a water girl for the football team. One day, she noticed four Black students watching practice. Recognizing a couple of them from her brother’s summer baseball league, she walked over to say hello.

The guys explained that COVID-19 had shut down the public school’s football season. As upperclassmen, they didn’t want to miss their last years of high school sports and they were thinking of applying to the academy.

Crosswhite, who is white and has an adopted brother from China, was excited about the prospect of the academy’s student body becoming more diverse.She only knew of one Black student at the school. And with just 23 students in her class, she liked the possibility of new friends.

She also thought back to when she was younger and volunteered at BAMA Kids Inc., a local nonprofit. Once in a while, she heard Black youth volunteers say things like, “Girl, we’re not allowed at your school.” Maybe the new students would help change that perception.

But old notions lingered. She said she heard pushback from other academy students, although she didn’t want to divulge details that would identify her classmates.

“We were 50 years behind,” she said. “I didn’t realize how behind we were.”

The academy admitted the football players, and Crosswhite said she became friends with them. Although they hung out on the weekends and often went out to eat together, she never went into any of their homes. But she got to know them far better than she would have if they hadn’t gone to school together.

Now a student at Auburn University, she is studying to become a teacher and sees how those friendships better prepared her for what she calls “the real world.”

When a bell blared at Wilcox Central High School one morning this spring, the principal slipped from behind his desk beneath a stuffed deer head with blue school baseball caps propped on its antlers.

Curtis Black emerged into a hallway filled with students who, like him, grew up in a segregated school. Not a single white student attended the one he went to in a neighboring county. He realized the detriments of isolating students this way when he arrived at college and encountered a wider variety of people.

Due to population decline in Wilcox County, the school operates in a building far bigger than its student body of about 400 can fill. Where once the county had three public high schools, it now has just this one. When the centralized school opened in this building near downtown Camden, complete with a competition-size swimming pool, many hoped it offered what white parents wanted — and that they might give it a chance.

That didn’t happen. But Black carefully avoided criticizing Wilcox Academy. Instead, he rattled off programs that his school offers. Students can access the high school’s medical-training lab, its agriculture lab, its welding lab. They can take dual credit courses with area community colleges. They can earn certifications.

As principal, he wants to create broader opportunities for his students, many of whom descend from people who were enslaved in this area. Their grandparents were traumatized by violent reactions to the Civil Rights Movement. His goals include exposing them more to the outside world and providing them the academic tools to land quality jobs out of high school or to succeed in college.

This spring, walking down the school’s hallways, he pointed to the senior class.

“In two or three months, they’re going to be around people from different backgrounds, different ethnic groups, different Christian groups,” Black said. “So we need that exposure.”

Help ProPublica Report on Education

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Jennifer Berry Hawes, photography by Sarahbeth Maney.

Over the weekend, Myanmar junta forces battled anti-junta insurgents in the Myanmar border town of Myawaddy, opposite the Thai town of Mae Sot, a major conduit for trade between the neighbors.

The escalating violence in Myanmar has sent refugees fleeing across the border into Thailand. Junta air strikes on Saturday and Sunday, in response to the capture by rebels of junta strongholds in Myawaddy, sent about 3,000 people over the Thai border seeking safety.

“Today, we were able to have a discussion and send a message to the other side [Myanmar junta and ethnic groups] regarding whether there are planes to be flown in the area,” Thailand’s minister of defense,Sutin Klungsang, told a conference with other senior Thai government officials on Tuesday. 

“We would have the capacity to intercept those planes. It was a friendly message, but meant as somewhat of a warning.”

Myanmar’s neighbors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have tried to promote a resolution of the crisis in Myanmar which began when the military overthrew an elected government in early 2021. But Myanmar’s generals have largely ignored ASEAN’s efforts. Thailand has established a committee to handle the crisis but political analyst Panitan Wattanayagorn believes this only indicates that previous mechanisms are not working.

“It suggests to you that the normal mechanism at the office for the National Security Council doesn’t work, it’s quite problematic,” Panitan told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday.  

He said Thai government statements on protecting sovereignty, and on humanitarian aid and neutrality may not be enough to restore public confidence in border security and reactions were too slow and general.

“This is not enough to calm down the panic or the worries of the people, of the traders, of the international community and ASEAN,” he said, emphasizing that Thailand’s defense system also needed to be improved. 

“We need to move more quickly to exert our power and push the position to get more things done.”

Thai media outlets reported more clashes in Myawaddy as of Tuesday, but Thai government ministers said they were hopeful that the situation was returning to normal.

On Wednesday, there were reports that the anti-junta Karen National Liberation Army had withdrawn “temporarily” from Myawaddy following a counteroffensive by the junta.

“The situation has improved in the past couple of days and we are happy to see it under the good care of the agencies on the ground,” said Minister of the Interior Anutin Charnvirakul at Tuesday’s conference. “We look forward to the normalcy that will come in the days ahead.”

Anutin added that tourists could safely visit Mae Sot and that border trade was still flowing. 

“This is Thai sovereign territory and we are well-prepared to respond to any eventuality,” he said.

Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn. 

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Kiana Duncan and Pimuk Rakkanam for RFA.

There have been five days of intense hearings on this matter in the Supreme Court (SC) — the GMO Public Interest Writ filed almost 20 years ago in 2005 by the author, which ended on 18 January 2024.

In these last 20 years, piecemeal hearings have dealt with submissions relating to individual crops like hybrid Bt cotton, the attempted commercialisation of hybrid Bt brinjal (2010) and now the attempt to commercialise hybrid HT mustard.

The evidence provided here is a distillation of the critical inputs of those 60+ submissions based on the affidavits and studies of leading, independent scientists and experts of international renown.

However, there is a serious and proven conflict of interest among our regulators, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Agriculture along with the International Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), which promote GMOs in Indian agriculture. This evidence reflects the findings of the TEC Report (Technical Expert Committee) appointed by the Supreme Court (SC) in 2012 and two Parliamentary Standing Committees of 2012 and 2017.

‘Modern biotechnology’ or genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are products where the genomes of organisms are transformed through laboratory techniques, including genetically engineered DNA (recombinant) and its direct introduction into cells. These are techniques not used in traditional breeding and selection.

GMOs create organisms in ways that have never existed in 3.8 billion years of evolution and produce ‘unintended effects’ that are not immediately apparent. This is why rigorous, independent protocols for risk and hazard identification are the sine qua non of correct regulation in the public interest. The Indian ‘Rules of 1989’ describe GMOs as “hazardous”.

Contamination by GMOs of the natural environment is of outstanding concern, recognised by the CBD (Convention on Biodiversity), of which India is a signatory. India is one of 17 listed international hot spots of diversity, which includes mustard, brinjal and rice.  India is the centre of the world’s biological diversity in brinjal with over 2500 varieties grown in the country and as many as 29 wild species.

India is a secondary centre of origin of rape-seed mustard with over 9000 accessions in our gene bank (National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources). With a commercialised GM crop, contamination is certain. The precautionary principle must apply, is read into the Constitution and is a legal precedent in India.

Hybrid Bt cotton was introduced in 2002 and remains the only approved commercialised crop in India. It has been an abject failure.

Failure of Bt cotton

India is the only country in the world to have introduced the Bt gene into hybrid Bt Cotton.  It was introduced in hybrids as a ‘value-capture mechanism’, according to Dr Kranthi, ex director of the Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR). The hybrid technology disallows seed saving by millions of small farmers. Conservative estimates indicate that Indian farmers may have paid an additional amount of Rs 14,000 crores for Bt cotton seeds during the period 2002-18, of which trait fees amounted to Rs 7337.37 crores, (Dr Kranthi). There was also a phenomenal three-fold increase in labour costs in hybrid cotton cultivation.

Prof. Andrew Gutierrez (University of California, Berkeley) is among the world’s leading entomologists and cotton scientists and provided the ecological explanation of why hybrid Bt cotton is every bit a disaster that it is in India. Most hybrid cottons are long season (180-200-day duration). This increases the opportunities for pest resurgence and outbreaks because it links into the lifecycle of the pest. The low-density planting also increases the cost of hybrid seeds substantially.

Hybrids require stable water too (therefore, irrigation, as opposed to rain-fed) and more fertiliser. Some 90% of current Bt cotton hybrids appear susceptible to sap-sucking insects, leaf-curl virus and leaf reddening, adding to input costs and loss of yield. Most telling is that India produces only 3.3 million tonnes from its irrigated area of 4.9 million hectares compared to 6.96 million tonnes from an equivalent area in China.

Hybrid Bt cotton in India has resulted in a yield plateau, high production costs and low productivity that reduce farmer revenues, correlated with increased farmer distress and suicides. It has stymied the development of economically viable high-density short-season (HD-SS) Non-Bt high-yielding straight-line varieties. The failure of hybrid Bt cotton is an abject lesson for GMO implementation in other crops.

Yet, the regulators attempted to repeat history in the form of hybrid Bt brinjal and Hybrid HT Mustard.

Field trial solutions (CICR data) of high-density short-season (HD-SS) NON-GMO pure-line (non-hybrid), rainfed cotton varieties have been developed in India that could more than double yield and nearly triple net income.

The Central Government admitted in its affidavit in the Delhi High Court (22 Jan 2016), adding, (on 23 January 2017), that Bt “cotton seeds are now unaffordable to farmers due to high royalties charged by MMBL (Mahyco Monsanto Biotech Ltd) which has a near monopoly on Bt cotton seeds and that this has led to a market failure”.

Moreover, there is no trait for yield enhancement in the Bt technology. Any intrinsic yield increase is properly attributable to its hybridisation in both Bt cotton and Bt brinjal. Lower insecticide use is the reason for introducing the Bt technology worldwide.

The pink bollworm has developed high levels of resistance against Bollgard-II Bt cotton, leading to increased insecticide usage in India, increases in new induced secondary pests and crop failures. The annual report 2015-16 of the ICAT-CICR confirms that Bt cotton is no longer effective for bollworm control

Insecticide usage on cotton in 2002 was 0.88 kg per hectare, which increased to 0.97 kg per hectare in 2013 (Srivastav and Kolady 2016).

Matters were deliberately muddied in India, leading to any hybrid vigour being attributed to the Bt technology! Yields have stagnated despite the deployment of all available latest technologies, including the introduction of new potent GM technologies, a two-fold increase in the use of fertilisers and increased insecticide use and irrigation. And yet, India’s global rank is 30-32nd in terms of yield.

In 13 years, the cost of cultivation increased 302%. In 15 years, there was 450% increase in labour costs. The costs of hybrid seed, insecticide and fertiliser increased more than 250 to 300%.

Net profit for farmers was Rs. 5971/ha in 2003 (pre-Bt) but plummeted to net losses of Rs. 6286 in 2015 (Dr Kranthi)

Regulatory failure: Bt brinjal

Regulators tried to commercialise Bt brinjal and in hybrids in 2009. The Bt gene is proven to be undeniably toxic (Profs. Schubert of the Salk Institute; Pusztai, Seralini and others have confirmed this).

In August 2008, the regulators were forced to publish the Developers’ (Monsanto-Mahyco) self-assessed bio-safety dossier on their website, 16 months after the order of the SC to make the safety dossier data public (15 Feb 2007).

Bt brinjal was the first vegetable food crop in the world to be approved for commercialisation, by the collective regulatory body and their expert committees, virtually without oversight. When the international scientific community examined the raw data, their collective comments were scathing. Prof Jack Heinemann stated that Mahyco has failed at the first, elementary step of the safety study: “I have never seen less professionalism in the presentation and quality assurance of molecular data than in this study”.

He criticised Mahyco for using outdated studies, testing to below acceptable standards and inappropriate and invalid test methods.

Prof David Andow, in his comprehensive critique of Monsanto’s Dossier, ‘Bt brinjal Event EE1’, listed 37 studies of which perhaps one had been conducted and reported to a satisfactory level by Monsanto. He concluded: “The GEAC set too narrow a scope for environmental risk assessment (ERA) of hybrid Bt brinjal, and it is because of this overly narrow scope that the EC-II is not an adequate ERA… most of the possible environmental risks of Bt brinjal have not been adequately evaluated; this includes risks to local varieties of brinjal and wild relatives, risks to biological diversity, and risk of resistance evolution in BFSB.”

The Central Government itself declared an unconditional and indefinite moratorium on Bt brinjal in Feb 2009 based on the collective responses of the scientific community.

Disaster in the making: GM Hybrid HT Mustard

Like Bt, HT is a pesticidal crop (to kill weeds). These two GMO technologies represent about 98% of crops planted worldwide, with HT crops accounting for more than 80%. Neither has a trait for yield. In its 2002 Report, the United States Department for Agriculture stated: “currently available GM crops do not increase the yield potential… In fact, yield may even decrease if the varieties used to carry the herbicide tolerant or insect-resistant genes are not the highest yielding cultivars… Perhaps the biggest issue raised by these results is how to explain the rapid adoption of GE crops when farm financial impacts appear to be mixed or even negative.” 

The developer’s (Centre for Genetic Manipulation of Crop Plants University of Delhi) bio-safety dossier, in contempt of the SC orders, has never made its data public. A Right to Information (RTI) request was filed in 2016 with the Directorate of Rape-Seed Mustard Research, which conducts protocols of non-GMO mustard trials for crop improvement programmes for our farmers, for varietal stability and performance. The RTI was an eye opener. Virtually all the directorate’s norms were flouted in the field trials, making them invalid. Hybrid mustard HT DMH 11 was out yielded by more than the 10% norm by non-GMO varieties and hybrids, which forced the developers to admit this fact in their formal reply affidavit in the SC.

Hybrid HT mustard DMH 11 employs three transgenes: the male sterility gene, barnase, the female restorer gene, barstar, and the bar gene that confers tolerance to Bayer’s herbicide glufosinate ammonium or BASTA. Each of the parent lines has the bar gene that makes them both HT crops along with their resulting hybrid DMH 11. The reason for employing barnase and barstar is because mustard is a closed pollinating crop (even though it out crosses pretty well, 18%+) and this technology (a male sterility technology) makes it easier to produce mustard hybrids.  It is not a hybrid technology. Its counterpart in non-GMO male sterility technology is the CMS system (cytoplasmic male sterility). Employing male sterility in mustard allows it to be used more easily in already existing hybridisation technology.

It is curious the extent to which the regulators have tried to obfuscate the facts and muddy the waters. Their first response was that the acronym HT in mustard DMH 11 means ‘hybrid technology’. When this didn’t work, the next ‘try’ was that DMH 11 isn’t an HT crop!

This too was easily proved wrong because of the presence of the bar gene. Now, this fact has been admitted.

Furthermore, the regulators have failed either intentionally, or because they are simply unable to stop, illegal HT cotton being grown on a commercial scale for the last 15 years or so. This is the state of GMO regulation in India.

Bayer’s own data sheet states that glufosinate causes birth defects and is damaging to most plants that it comes into contact with. Like its counterpart, glyphosate, it is a systemic, broad spectrum, non-selective herbicide (it kills indiscriminately soil organisms, beneficial insects etc) and is damaging to most plants and aquatic life. The US Environmental Protection Agency classifies glufosinate ammonium as “persistent” and “mobile” and is “expected to adversely affect non-target terrestrial plant species”.

Glufosinate is not permitted in crop plants in India, under the Insecticide Act. Since it is very persistent in the environment, it will certainly contaminate water supplies in addition to food. Surfactants are used to get the active ingredients into the plant, which is engineered to withstand the herbicide, so it doesn’t die when sprayed. The herbicide and surfactant are sprayed directly on the crops and significant quantities are then taken up into the plant.  The weeds die — or used to!

The US Geological survey noted that while 20 million pounds/year of glyphosate was used prior to GE crops (1992), 280 million pounds/year was used in 2012, largely as a result of glyphosate-resistant crops. In the U.S. alone, glyphosate-resistant weeds were estimated to occupy an area of over 24 million hectares as of 2012. This is a failed and unsustainable technology anywhere, and for India it will be disastrous.

The stated objective by the regulators themselves for HT mustard is that the two HT parent lines (barnase and barstar each with the bar gene), will be similarly employed in India’s best (non-GMO) varieties to create new crosses resulting in any number of HT hybrid mustard DMH crops. Thus, Indian mustard varieties (non-GMO) in a very short time will be contaminated and Indian mustard agriculture (which is non-GMO) destroyed.

The regulators claim that GMO HT hybrid DMH 11 will create a significant dent in India’s oilseeds imports. Given that GMO mustard has no gene for yield enhancement, is significantly out yielded by non-GMO mustard hybrids and varieties, this is indeed a magic bean produced from thin air by the regulators, defying all logic and commonsense. Mustard Oil imports are virtually zero (ie rapeseed mustard as distinct from canola rape oil which is also illegal GMO).

The story of the current steep decline in oilseeds production in Indian farming must be laid at the door of a wrong policy decision that comprehensively ignored national and farmers’ interest to severely slash import duties on oilseeds of around 300% to virtually zero. In 1993-94, India imported just 3% of our oil-seed demand; we were self- sufficient. Then we happily bowed to WTO pressure and now import almost 70% of our demand in edible oils! (Devinder Sharma).  This is the real reason for our heavy import bill.

The TEC recommend a double bar on GM Mustard — for being an HT crop and also in a centre of mustard diversification and/or origin. It is hoped that our government will recognise the dangers of GMOs, bar HT crops, including GM mustard, and impose a moratorium on all Bt crops.

Aruna Rodrigues

Lead Petitioner in the GMO PIL filed in 2005 for a moratorium on GM crops.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Aruna Rodrigues.

Bald eagle pair along the Lewis and Clark River, near Astoria, Oregon. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

At hundreds of wildlife rehabilitation centers across the U.S., people can learn about wild animals and birds at close range. These sites, which may be run by nonprofits or universities, often feature engaging exhibits, including “ambassador” animals that can’t be released – an owl with a damaged wing, for example, or a fox that was found as a kit and became accustomed to being fed by humans.

What’s less visible are the patients – sick and injured wild animals that have been admitted for treatment.

Each year, people bring hundreds of thousands of sick and injured wild animals to wildlife rehab centers. Someone may find an injured squirrel on the side of the road or notice a robin in their backyard that can’t fly, and then call the center to pick up an animal in distress.

We study ecology and biology, and recently used newly digitized records from wildlife rehabilitation centers to identify the human activities that are most harmful to wildlife. In the largest study of its kind, we reviewed 674,320 records, mostly from 2011 to 2019, from 94 centers to paint a comprehensive picture of threats affecting over 1,000 species across much of the U.S. and Canada.

Our findings, published in the journal Biological Conservation, point to some strategies for reducing harm to wildlife, especially injuries caused by cars.

Tracking the toll

Humans are responsible for the deaths and injuries of billions of animals every year. Bats and birds fly into buildings, power lines and wind turbines. Domestic cats and dogs kill backyard birds and animals. Development, farming and industry alter or destroy wild animals’ habitats and expose wildlife to toxic substances like lead and pesticides. Extreme weather events linked to climate change, such as flooding and wildfires, can be devastating for wildlife.

Most Americans support protecting threatened and endangered species, and recognize that human activities can harm wildlife. But it is surprisingly difficult to determine which activities are most harmful to wildlife and identify effective solutions.

Information from wildlife rehab centers across the U.S. can help fill in that picture. When an animal is brought into one of these centers, a rehabilitator assesses its condition, documents the cause of injury or illness if it can be determined, and then prepares a treatment plan.

Wildlife rehabbers may be veterinarians, veterinary technicians or other staff or volunteers who are certified by state agencies to treat wildlife. They follow professional codes and standards, and sometimes publish research in peer-reviewed journals.

A growing data pool

Until recently, most wildlife rehab records existed only in binders and file cabinets. As a result, studies drawing on these records typically used materials from a single location or focused on a particular species, such as bald eagles or foxes.

Recently, though, rehab centers have digitized hundreds of thousands of case records. Shareable digital records can improve wildlife conservation and public health.

For example, the Wildlife Center of Virginia has worked with government agencies and other rehab centers to establish the WILD-ONe database as a tool for assessing trends in wildlife health. This will be an exciting area of research as more records are digitized and shared.

Threats vary by species

Using this trove of data, we have been exploring patterns of wildlife health across North America. In our study, we identified key threats affecting wildlife by region and for iconic and endangered species.

Overall, 12% of the animals brought to rehab centers during this period were harmed by vehicle collisions – the single largest cause of injury. For great horned owls, which are common across the U.S., cars were the most common cause of admission – possibly because the owls commonly forage at the same height as vehicles, and may feed on road kill.

Other threats reflect various animals’ habitats and life patterns. Window collisions were the most common injury for the big brown bat, another species found in many habitats across the U.S. Fishing incidents were the main reason for admission of endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtles, which are found in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic coast.

Toxic substances and infectious diseases represented just 3.4% of cases, but were important for some species. Bald eagles, for example, were the species most commonly brought to centers with lead poisoning. Eagles and other raptors consume lead ammunition inadvertently when they feed on carcasses left in the wild by hunters.

In southern Florida, hurricanes and floods resulted in spikes in the numbers of animals brought to rehab centers, reflecting the impact of climate-driven extreme weather events on wildlife health.

About one-third of animals in the cases we reviewed were successfully released back to the wild, though this varied greatly among species. For example, 68% of brown pelicans were released, but only 20% of bald eagles. Unfortunately, some 60% of the animals died from their injuries or illnesses, or had to be humanely euthanized because they were unable to recover.

Spotlighting solutions

Our results spotlight steps that can help conserve wildlife in the face of these threats. For example, transportation departments can build more road crossings for wildlife, such as bridges and underpasses, to help animals avoid being hit by cars.

Wildlife management agencies can ban or limit use of ammunition and fishing gear that contain lead to reduce lead poisoning. And governments can incorporate wildlife into disaster management plans to account for surges in wildlife rescues after extreme weather events.

People can also make changes on their own. They can drive more slowly and pay closer attention to wildlife crossing roads, switch their fishing and hunting gear to nonlead alternatives, and put decals or other visual indicators on windows to reduce bat and bird collisions with the glass.

To learn more about animals in your area and ways to protect them, you can visit or call your local wildlife rehab center. You can also donate to these centers, which we believe do great work, and are often underfunded.

The scale of threats facing wild animals can seem overwhelming, but wildlife rehabbers show that helping one injured animal at a time can identify ways to save many more animal lives.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post The Ways Humans Harm Wildlife: Tracking the Toll appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Tara K. Miller – Richard B. Primack.

Tedros added: "I urge and I plead—for full medical and fuel aid access NOW! The more we wait, the more we put these fragile lives at risk."

The WHO chief's plea came a day after Christian Lindmeier, a spokesperson for the Geneva-based United Nations agency, warned that "an imminent public health catastrophe... looms with the mass displacement, the overcrowding, the damage to water and sanitation infrastructure."

Meanwhile, James Elder, a spokesperson for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), said Tuesday that "child deaths due to dehydration, particularly infant deaths due to dehydration, are a growing threat."

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) called Gaza a "graveyard" for children, more than 3,600 of whom have been killed by Israeli bombardment, with another 1,000 minors reported missing, according to Palestinian and other officials.

Israeli forces have attacked numerous hospitals, clinics, ambulances, and medical workers, including the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital and al-Hilu Hospital. The Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday that the bombardment that damaged al-Hilu "endangers the lives of women in the maternity wards and medical staff."

According to an "urgent call for protecting healthcare workers in Gaza" published Tuesday in the British medical journal The Lancet, Israeli forces have attacked 57 medical facilities since launching the war on Gaza on October 7, killing 73 workers—including doctors, nurses, paramedics, and others—as of October 24. Sixteen of the medical personnel were killed while on duty.

As Israel's bombardment of Gaza exacts a heavy toll on overwhelmed medical workers and infrastructure in the besieged strip, frontline medics like Dr. Noureddein al-Khateeb—a 38-year-old resident doctor in the emergency department at the Nasser Medical Center in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis—say they are living "in a constant state of threat and fear."

"It's constant fear on top of the exhaustion we're experiencing," al-Khateeb toldThe New Humanitarian on Wednesday. "But one shouldn't think of that too much. I can't. If I do, I won't get any work done."

Al-Khateeb added that "we're also afraid for our families' safety, but what can we do?"

Dr. Mohamed Abu Mousa, a radiologist at Nasser, said one of the few trips he's made outside the hospital since Israeli bombardment began was to bury his 7-year-old son after he was killed in an October 15 Israeli airstrike on their family home.

"We don't have the luxury of pausing to grieve," he told The New Humanitarian. "The heartache is immense, but the wounded are endless. We have to keep going."

Conditions are dire inside Gaza's hospitals, which are running out of or low on fuel, medicines, equipment, and other essential services and supplies.

"We're operating on children without anesthetics," Léo Cans, who heads the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) mission in Palestine, toldCNN Tuesday. "We don't have morphine for them."

On Wednesday, MSF international president Dr. Christos Christou said in a video published on social media that "we've seen and heard the stories of the hell being unleashed on Gaza" as "helpless people are being subjected to horrific bombing" and "families have nowhere to run or hide."

Christou continued:

So many people need help. What medical staff can do is just a drop in the ocean compared to the immense needs. Our teams working in Gaza are exhausted and terrified. Our staff tell us that pregnant women can't get to hospitals to deliver. People are stuck under the rubble of shelled-out buildings. Children are having limbs amputated while lying on the floor.

"An immediate cease-fire is the only way the people of Gaza can find safety and the essential aid they urgently need," Christou asserted. "The bombing, the all-out assault, needs to stop now... As a human being, I beg—stop the bombing and allow people in Gaza to live."

The Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday afternoon that at least 8,796 Palestinians—including nearly 2,300 women and over 3,600 children—have been killed in Israeli attacks, while around 23,000 other people have been injured.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

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For the past quarter century, Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, has worked to thwart one clear threat to its profits: a free, publicly funded tool to file taxes online. The company’s success at preventing that threat was near total — until earlier this year, when the IRS announced a plan to test such an approach. Advocates cheered, seeing it as a first step to a system where Americans, particularly low-income taxpayers, could easily avoid paying big fees for tax preparation.

It’s a new chapter in the long-running conflict over free tax filing, but Intuit has fallen back on some tried-and-true tactics, ones previously documented by ProPublica. In Washington, D.C., the company has deployed 63 lobbyists this year, according to OpenSecrets, to stalk the halls of government. Meanwhile, op-eds and stories that parrot Intuit’s talking points have appeared in at least 20 newspapers and other publications across the country.

The centerpiece of this PR push has been an argument that Intuit unveiled on its website in May. Seeking to capitalize on recent research that found racial disparities in IRS audits, the company has argued that an IRS tax filing tool would only make things worse. It’s a conclusion rejected by authors of that research, but the idea has certainly made for some eye-catching headlines.

“IRS Free Tax Service Could Further Harm Blacks,” is how the Defender, a Black paper in Houston, put it in a June headline. The piece cited unnamed “industry experts” as raising the concern but quoted only one person by name: Intuit’s spokesperson Derrick Plummer. The story was produced by Trice Edney News Wire, a service that provides content to local Black papers across the country. Hazel Trice Edney, the service’s editor-in-chief, did not respond to requests for comment.

Later that month, an article in Black Enterprise (“Critics Claim The IRS Free Tax Prep Service Could Hurt Black Americans”) took a similar approach. The story’s arguments were attributed to “industry skeptics” or other unnamed opponents of the IRS proposal, while Intuit’s Plummer was the only critic identified by name, and he was quoted at length. Ida Harris, Director of Digital Content for Black Enterprise, which touts itself as “the premier business, investing, and wealth-building resource for African Americans,” told ProPublica that “the story came to fruition through information shared by a fellow media professional,” but declined to identify who that was. The article was “not sponsored content, no payola was involved,” she said.

Internal Intuit documents from last decade, previously divulged by ProPublica, made clear that “pushing back through op-eds” was part of the company’s strategy against what it called government “encroachment.” One specific goal: “Buy ads for op-eds/editorials/stories in African American and Latino media.” ProPublica did not find evidence that Intuit has paid to place stories this year, but otherwise, the 2023 campaign seems to be following that template.

TurboTax has long dominated the market for online tax filing, in part by luring customers with the promise of “free” filing. A wave of government investigations, prompted by ProPublica’s reporting, has accused Intuit of frequently misleading customers with that promise. Most recently, a Federal Trade Commission judge ruled that the agency’s fraud suit against Intuit can proceed. Intuit has denied wrongdoing and has vowed to appeal.

Back in 2014, ProPublica reported on an Intuit-backed campaign against the idea of return-free filing, a government service that would pre-fill tax return information, just as governments do in many other countries. A rabbi, a state NAACP official and others penned pieces claiming return-free filing would hurt “the most vulnerable people.” Various PR firms and lobbyists were involved in organizing the effort.

This time around, the threat to the tax prep industry is what the IRS has called a direct file option. The agency will build an online tool similar to TurboTax that allows people to file their taxes by answering simple questions. The option will not be widely available next tax season, however, since it is only a test run. The agency has yet to detail who will be eligible to use it.

“The fact of the matter is that the industry is targeting black and brown communities trying to stoke fear of a direct file tool,” said Brandon Tucker, senior policy director of Color of Change, an online activist organization devoted to racial justice that supports direct file. “Black people are critical to their profit margins.”

In a statement, Plummer, Intuit’s spokesperson, declined to comment on the company’s role in the recent spate of op-eds, except to deny it had paid to secure the pieces. “With an idea as bad as the Direct File scheme we don’t have to pay anyone to talk about how terrible it is,” he wrote. “The fact that Americans across the political spectrum and people of color are raising alarm bells about how harmful the Direct File scheme will be to the most vulnerable should be a wake-up call to its cheerleaders.”

In July, Benjamin Chavis penned the highest profile entry in the current wave of Intuit-friendly op-eds. Chavis is a former executive director of the NAACP who currently heads the National Newspaper Publishers Association, a trade association for Black papers. He also is the national co-chair of No Labels, which seeks to raise $70 million to launch a third-party presidential ticket for 2024. (“Dr. King was a centrist” and would have supported No Labels, Chavis has argued.) Chavis did not respond to questions from ProPublica. His Chicago Tribune op-ed did not quote Intuit, but used language that echoed the company’s arguments. “The IRS has an alternative to TurboTax. But will that widen the racial wealth gap?” was the headline.

One of Chavis’ arguments, that an IRS tool could lead Black taxpayers to miss out on tax credits, came from a report by the Progressive Policy Institute. Despite its name, the nonprofit think tank is aligned with the pro-business wing of the Democratic Party and has a long history with Intuit. (One Intuit document listed PPI as part of its “coalition.”) After the company’s long-tenured chief lobbyist retired, he joined PPI’s board. PPI declined to say whether Intuit had contributed to the organization. In a statement, PPI President Will Marshall said, “No funding source has a vote on the subjects PPI tackles or the positions it takes.”

The core of Chavis’ piece was the same as the earlier stories by Trice Edney News Wire and Black Enterprise — an argument from an Intuit blog post.

Earlier this year, a study by a team of academic and government researchers found that the IRS audited Black taxpayers between three and five times the rate of other taxpayers. As a result, Intuit argued, having the IRS prepare the taxes of Black taxpayers “would likely increase these inequities.” Chavis more timidly offered that it “may increase racial income inequality.”

The study itself, however, lends no support to that conclusion. The authors pinpointed audits of people who claim the earned income tax credit as the driver of the racial disparity. The EITC is one of the main anti-poverty programs in the U.S. and is aimed primarily at low-income, working parents: Most recipients earn under $20,000 a year. For decades, the IRS has disproportionately audited EITC claimants because of pressure from Republicans in Congress as well as laws that require a special focus on “improper payments.”

Together with the gutting of the IRS’ budget, which caused audits of the rich to tank, the focus on the EITC meant the agency audited those who claimed the credit at about the same rate as the top 1% of taxpayers by income. Another clear consequence was that Black taxpayers, who on average have lower incomes, were disproportionately audited. ProPublica examined these problems in articles in 2018 and 2019. One of those articles reported that “the five counties with the highest audit rates are all predominantly African American, rural counties in the Deep South.” ProPublica’s work was cited in Congress as well as in the study.

The researchers found that the way the IRS selected EITC audits made the disparity even worse, but put the blame on “seemingly technocratic choices about algorithmic design,” not conscious bias.

Evelyn Smith, one of the co-authors of the study and a Ph.D. candidate in economics at the University of Michigan, disagreed with Intuit’s take on her work. “With free, assisted filing, we might expect EITC claimants to make fewer mistakes and face less intense audit scrutiny, which could help reduce disparities in audit rates between Black and non-Black taxpayers," she said.

Last week, in response to the study’s findings, the IRS announced major changes to how it audits EITC claims. The agency will “substantially” reduce the number of EITC audits, said IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel. The move is part of the IRS’ broader shift to focus more on high-end tax evasion.

The recent PR push against direct file has not been limited to Black publications and authors. In Nevada, a pair of accountants and the state’s former controller penned op-eds in local newspapers with almost the same wording. “We urge Nevadans to speak out about this congressional proposal and urge our elected officials in Washington D.C. to not let the IRS have more power than it already has!” said one. “I urge all Nevadans to speak out about this Congressional proposal and urge our elected officials in Washington D.C. to not let the IRS have more power than it already has!” said the other. Neither the writers nor the editors of papers they appeared in responded to requests for comment.

In Arizona, a lawyer named Phillip Austin, vice chair of the East Valley Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, argued in the Arizona Republic in July that the IRS providing free tax filing “would disproportionately hurt the Hispanic community.” Austin told ProPublica that he was not compensated for writing the piece. “I submitted the letter as an Op-Ed, reflecting my opinion, citing research,” he said, but declined to say how he came to write it.

Meanwhile, there’s been a steady supply of op-eds and letters from right-leaning and centrist nonprofits denouncing direct file in politically oriented Washington, D.C., publications. In July alone, The Hill ran four op-eds against the idea. One came from Center Forward, a group that says it aims to “give voice to the center of the American electorate.” Recently listed as among the group’s “stakeholders” was H&R Block’s chief lobbyist. Neither Center Forward nor H&R Block responded to requests for comment.

While the op-eds keep coming, the tax prep industry did get one early win in Congress. In July, the House Appropriations Committee passed a provision barring the IRS from spending money on “a free, public electronic return-filing service option.” A similar provision almost became law in 2019.

This provision is unlikely to pass in the Democratic-controlled Senate, however. Instead, the IRS is on track to launch its direct file pilot next tax season. What happens after this spring is unclear — except that Intuit will continue to work to make sure the idea goes no further.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Paul Kiel.

A military judge at Guantánamo has thrown out the confessions of Saudi man Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri because he had been tortured and waterboarded at secret CIA black sites in Afghanistan, Thailand, Poland, Romania and Morocco before being sent to Guantánamo. Psychologists James Mitchell and John Bruce Jessen, who were paid at least $81 million by the CIA to develop and then implement the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program, had waterboarded al-Nashiri at a CIA black site. We get response from Roy Eidelson and discuss his new book, Doing Harm, which investigates the American Psychological Association’s complicity in post-9/11 torture programs and the struggle to reform the psychology field. “We felt there was a lot at stake,” says Eidelson. “It took over a decade for us to bring change in terms of APA’s policy toward interrogation and detention operations.” As the U.N. calls for al-Nashiri’s release, Eidelson warns that APA leadership and military personnel are once again pushing guidelines that expand psychologists’ role in torture. “They want to expand the opportunities that are available for psychologists to work in this arena where 'do no harm' is, at best, secondary, and sometimes off the table entirely,” says Eidelson. “It feels as though APA is slipping — slipping back into positions that led to awful things.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

It’s no secret that most of these PET bottles, named for the polyethylene terephthalate plastic they’re made of, are never recycled. Many end up on beaches or in waterways, where they degrade into unsightly plastic shards and fragments that threaten marine life. But blighted beaches are only the tip of the iceberg. According to a new report from the nonprofit Defend Our Health, PET plastic bottles cause hazardous chemical pollution at every stage of their life cycle.

“Plastics have a terrible health burden on the population,” said Mike Belliveau, Defend Our Health’s executive director. He urged the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, to place more stringent limits on the use of toxic chemicals, and called on beverage companies like Coca-Cola — named the number one plastic polluter for five years running by the Break Free From Plastic coalition — to replace at least half of their plastic bottles with reusable and refillable container systems by 2030.

“The beverage industry has to be responsible and held accountable for the supply chain impacts of their plastics,” Belliveau said.

The report begins at the end of the plastic life cycle, with littered PET plastic bottles that release cancer-causing pollutants and heavy metals into the environment. Although industry trade groups like to advertise PET as “100 percent recyclable,” the reality is that 70 percent of bottles are never collected for recycling. Instead, they’re dumped, sent to landfills, or incinerated, causing air pollution that disproportionately affects low-income communities and communities of color. Of the remaining 30 percent, Defend Our Health estimates that only one-third are turned into new bottles; the rest are either wasted during the recycling process or “downcycled” into lower-quality plastic products like carpeting.

With global plastic waste generation expected to triple by 2060, experts say recycling infrastructure is unlikely to keep pace. Recent research also shows the recycling process may unintentionally incorporate toxic chemicals into recycled toys, kitchen utensils, and other products, potentially putting consumers at risk.

Chemical releases also occur further up the PET bottle supply chain, when bottles are sitting on the shelf. Independent testing suggests that virtually all plastic bottles leach chemicals into the beverages they hold. These chemicals include antimony from antimony trioxide, a cancer-causing catalyst used to speed up the production of PET plastic. A 2022 analysis from Defend Our Health found antimony in Diet Coke, Honest Tea, Dasani, and other Coca-Cola products at concentrations exceeding California’s safe drinking water standard.

In response to Grist’s request for comment, Coca-Cola said all of its products are safe and have been approved by regulators everywhere it operates. “Consumers can be assured that our products are safe and of high quality,” a spokesperson said.

The rest of the report focuses on feedstocks, the chemical building blocks of PET. The production of monoethylene glycol, for example — one of PET’s main ingredients— causes some 68,000 pounds of the carcinogen ethylene oxide to be released into the air annually, and is the country’s leading source of pollution from 1,4-dioxane, a probable carcinogen. Processing and refining oil and gas to make other plastic feedstocks — chemicals like ethylene and para-xylene — can emit particulate matter, smog-producing volatile organic compounds, and aromatic hydrocarbons. The extraction of that oil and gas itself causes the release of more than 1,000 chemicals, some of which may have health unrecognized health impacts.

“We’re just barreling forward with a lot of these chemicals without understanding the implications for human health,” said Roopa Krithivasan, Defend Our Health’s director of research and a coauthor of the report. She said the burden of chemical pollution falls most heavily on marginalized communities, including poor people and people of color who live near fossil fuel extraction sites, plants that produce PET or its chemical components, and waste incinerators. According to Defend Our Health, people of color make up nearly two-thirds of those facing serious cancer risk from living within six miles of ethylene oxide emissions from a petrochemical plant.

“Our future is in the crosshairs,” Yvette Arellano, executive director of the Houston-based environmental justice organization Fenceline Watch, told reporters on Monday at a press conference for the report. “As a woman of color in the extreme-right Southern states captured by oil interests, we’re disenfranchised and disproportionately affected. Many including myself are diagnosed with infertility, babies are affected in the womb even before their first breath, and even after can potentially be diagnosed with developmental issues, neurological issues, immune issues.”

Belliveau said the EPA has done a good job identifying these disparities, but a “terrible” job correcting them. In general, he said the agency should do more to regulate plastic-related chemicals — like by adopting a federal limit for 1,4-dioxane in drinking water, enacting stricter standards for ethylene oxide pollution, and setting rigorous pollution standards for other plastic-related chemicals. Companies could help, too, by voluntarily replacing hazardous chemical additives with safer alternatives.

The EPA did not respond to Grist’s request for comment in time for publication.

More broadly, however, Belliveau wants to see fewer plastic bottles being produced in the first place. States like California are beginning to nudge companies in this direction by requiring some single-use plastics to be eliminated and replaced with reusable systems — like soda fountains and bottle refill stations — but green groups say the private sector has to step up as well. Defend Our Health wants soda makers like Coca-Cola to sell at least half of their beverages in reusable or refillable packaging by 2030 — a target twice as ambitious as Coca-Cola’s current goal.

In fact, Coke appears to be backsliding on its reuse commitment: In its latest sustainability report, the company said refillable packaging accounted for only 14 percent of the products it sold in 2022, down from 16 percent the year before. Based on Coca-Cola’s reported sales volume, the nonprofit Oceana estimates that the decrease means that the company generated 5.8 billion additional single-use bottles over the past two years, in place of reusable packaging.

Coca-Cola “has a history of not meeting its promises,” Matt Littlejohn, Oceana’s senior vice president of strategic initiatives, told Grist. He said the Defend Our Health report, which Oceana was not involved in, highlights how important it is for Coca-Cola to fulfill and exceed its existing targets — “not only for the ocean’s health, but for all of our health as well.”

Coca-Cola did not respond to Grist’s request for comment about its reuse targets.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Plastic bottles harm human health at every stage of their life cycle on May 23, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Joseph Winters.

Research has shown that plastic pollution is a life-threatening crisis poised to grow worse unless governments intervene to prevent fossil fuel and petrochemical corporations from expanding the production of single-use items.

"The way we produce, use, and dispose of plastics is polluting ecosystems, creating risks for human health, and destabilizing the climate," UNEP executive director Inger Andersen said in a statement. "This UNEP report lays out a roadmap to dramatically reduce these risks through adopting a circular approach that keeps plastics out of ecosystems, out of our bodies, and in the economy."

"If we follow this roadmap, including in negotiations on the plastic pollution deal," said Andersen, "we can deliver major economic, social, and environmental wins."

The report proposes a four-fold "systems change" to address "the causes of plastic pollution, rather than just the symptoms." As UNEP summarizes, it consists of the following:

• Reduce: By first eliminating problematic and unnecessary plastics, policymakers can reduce the size of the problem.
• Reuse: Promoting reuse options—including refillable bottles, bulk dispensers, deposit-return schemes, packaging take-back schemes, etc.—can reduce 30% of plastic pollution by 2040. To realize its potential, governments must help build a stronger business case for reusable items.
• Recycle: Reducing plastic pollution by an additional 20% by 2040 can be achieved if recycling becomes a more stable and profitable venture. Removing fossil fuels subsidies, enforcing design guidelines to enhance recyclability, and other measures would increase the share of economically recyclable plastics from 21 to 50%.
• Reorient and Diversify: Careful replacement of products such as plastic wrappers, sachets, and takeaway items with products made from alternative materials (such as paper or compostable materials) can deliver an additional 17% decrease in plastic pollution.

"Even with the measures above, 100 million metric tons of plastics from single-use and short-lived products will still need to be safely dealt with annually by 2040—together with a significant legacy of existing plastic pollution," UNEP explains. "This can be addressed by setting and implementing design and safety standards for disposing of non-recyclable plastic waste, and by making manufacturers responsible for products shedding microplastics, among others."

According to the agency: "Theshift to a circular economy would result in $1.27 trillion in savings, considering costs and recycling revenues. A further $3.25 trillion would be saved from avoided externalities such as health, climate, air pollution, marine ecosystem degradation, and litigation-related costs. This shift could also result in a net increase of 700,000 jobs by 2040, mostly in low-income countries, significantly improving the livelihoods of millions of workers in informal settings."

Although UNEP's recommendations necessitate a substantial investment, it is "below the spending without this systemic change: $65 billion per year as opposed to $113 billion per year," the agency notes. "Much of this can be mobilized by shifting planned investments for new production facilities—no longer needed through reduction in material needs—or a levy on virgin plastic production into the necessary circular infrastructure. Yet time is of the essence: a five-year delay may lead to an increase of 80 million metric tons of plastic pollution by 2040."

While many progressive advocacy groups are likely to welcome UNEP's overall message that readily available solutions, backed by strong regulatory instruments, can help bring about a transformation from a "throwaway" society to a "reuse" society, the agency is facing criticism for its promotion of burning plastic waste in cement kilns.

"Burning plastic waste in cement kilns is a 'get out of jail free card' for the plastic industry to keep ramping up plastic production by claiming that the plastic problem can be simply burned away," Neil Tangri, science and policy director at the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), said in a statement. "Not only does this pose a grave climate and public health threat, it also undermines the primary goal of the global plastic treaty—putting a cap on plastic production."

Larisa de Orbe of the Mexican environmental justice groups Red de Acción Ecológica and Colectiva Malditos Plásticos echoed Tangri's argument.

"To tackle the plastic crisis, waste should not be burned, but its production should be drastically reduced, and single-use plastics should be banned," said Orbe. "Environmental authorities in Mexico and the [U.N.] Human Rights Rapporteur on Toxic Substances have recognized that the burning of waste in cement kilns has caused environmental disaster and the violation of human rights in the territories and communities near these activities."

Imports of plastic waste into Mexico grew by 121% between 2018 and 2021. As GAIA noted, a large portion of that "is suspected to be burned in cement kilns, which operate with few controls or emissions monitoring systems."

Linda Birnbaum, former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and National Toxicology Program, called the U.N.'s promotion of burning of plastic waste in cement kilns "an irresponsible choice that has significant health implications for the communities living nearby."

"Burning plastic waste releases dioxins that stay in the environment forever, and are linked to cancers, reproductive, and developmental impairments," said Birnbaum. "These are the very same chemicals that are threatening the residents of East Palestine, Ohio."

Ahead of the first round of global plastic treaty negotiations in December, civil society organizations, scientists, and other advocates demanded robust rules to confront the full lifecycle impacts of the plastic pollution crisis.

After talks opened, the Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) alliance, comprised of more than 100 groups, emphasized the need to limit the ever-growing production and consumption of plastic and hold corporations accountable for the ecological and public health harms caused by manufacturing an endless stream of toxic single-use items.

The coalition launched a petition outlining what it described as the "essential elements" of a multilateral environmental agreement capable of "reversing the tide of plastic pollution and contributing to the end of the triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution." According to experts associated with BFFP, an effective pact must include:

• Significant, progressive, and mandatory targets to cap and dramatically reduce virgin plastic production;
• Legally binding, time-bound, and ambitious targets to implement and scale up reuse, refill, and alternative product delivery systems;
• A just transition to safer and more sustainable livelihoods for workers and communities across the plastics supply chain; and
• Provisions that hold polluting corporations and plastic-producing countries accountable.

While the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee meetings in December (INC-1) and those scheduled to begin later this month (INC-2) mark the first time that governments have met to develop global regulations to restrict plastic production, the United States and the United Kingdom—the world's biggest per-capita plastic polluters—have so far refused to join a worldwide treaty aimed at curbing the amount of plastic waste destined for landfills and habitats, though both countries are reportedly now open to the idea.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

There are a lot of things you could say about the GOP’s proposed plan to reduce the deficit. But if we want to be more expansive than just calling it “batshit crazy” and washing our hands of the whole clown show, as we think Biden can and should,then we could point out that the GOP plan is an expression of profound hostility to the idea of a federal government that serves anyone besides war profiteers.

Their proposal illustrates the party’s commitment to a government that fails Americans in many important ways, because the party’s only strategy to preserve power is to harness people’s anger and fear. How better to make people fear that things will be taken away from them than by actually taking things away, and then diverting the blame?

The Republican-proposed cuts to discretionary spending would harm millions of people, invariably causing losses of health, home, life, and opportunity. I’ll dig into the specifics below. A helpful visual representation of the proposed cuts from The New York Times estimates that the GOP plan would cut discretionary spending across the board by an average of 18 percent. But the GOP is also claiming that they would spare defense, veterans’ health and border security from those cuts. If you exclude military spending from cuts, then all the other federal departments and agencies would have their budgets cut by 51 percent. At that point, you might as well throw in the towel, because public services are as good as dead.

The Republican-proposed cuts to discretionary spending would harm millions of people, invariably causing losses of health, home, life, and opportunity.

Forget about avoiding the worst effects of climate change. Forget about public infrastructure projects. Forget about federal student aid. Forget about clean air and clean water and cleaning up contaminated lands. Forget about space exploration. Forget about loans for farmers. Forget about food and workplace safety inspections. Forget about growing union power. Forget about cracking down on corporations when they jack up prices or steal wages or spill a bunch of toxic chemicals in your town or oil in the sea. The U.S. government would pretty much solely be an insurance company with a massive army, as no doubt the founding fathers intended. Right?

Now, there’s no good reason for Biden to concede to these agents of chaos masquerading as serious people. Several legal scholars have spent considerable amounts of time charting the least-harmful path out of this thicket. Most recently, eminent legal scholar Laurence Tribe joined the chorus calling for the U.S. to ignore the debt ceiling and continue to pay its bills. But while the GOP’s plan deserves no serious consideration, it is worth talking about how budget cuts harm federal departments and agencies, and by extension, the public.

There’s no good reason for Biden to concede to these agents of chaos masquerading as serious people.

For so many people, the executive branch is basically a black box: its internal mechanisms mysterious, its value unclear. Earlier this spring, 21 federal departments wrote letters laying out explicitly what 22 percent budget cuts would do to their work. (22 percent is the White House Office of Management and Budget’s estimate of the first year of budget cuts under the GOP plans, with the cuts growing deeper each year.) Among other things, these letters make the case for the value of federal agencies to the American people in franker terms than we usually get from the spokespeople of the administrative state.

So, according to the agencies themselves…

The Harms of the GOP Budget Cuts Include:

• The firing of 1,800 food inspectors who conduct mandatory food inspections would cause a shortage of meat, poultry, and eggs available for consumers, and estimated lost production volumes of more than 11.5 billion pounds of meat, 11.1 billion additional pounds of poultry, and over 590 million pounds of eggs, equivalent to a loss of over $89 billion for the industry. It would also cause over $2.2 billion in lost wages for furloughed industry employees.

• Funding cuts would have “dramatic impacts” on western states impacted by drought, including by undermining ongoing programs that support 489 dams and 338 reservoirs delivering water to more than 31 million people and 1 of every 5 western farmers. In just one example, spending cuts would increase the likelihood that the water levels in Lake Mead decline to the point that water allocations from the reservoir are no longer possible, and people could lose power from inadequate amounts of water passing over dams. About 25 million people rely on the water from Lake Mead.

• Funding cuts at Health and Human Services would cause, among many other impacts, over a million households to be unable to afford to heat their homes; a million elderly adults to no longer receive meals they depend on; and hundreds of thousands of children to lose critical early childhood care that’s often necessary for their parents to be able to work.

• Reducing funding for fighting wildfires on public lands by nearly 40 percent across the fire programs, and cutting as many as 1,754 of the 4,468 full-time firefighting positions at Interior, would have devastating ecosystem impact and increase the danger to people in high fire-risk areas. An additional 2,200-2,700 wildland firefighters with the Forest Service would also be furloughed.

• Funding cuts would cut off over one million women, infants, and children from a supplemental nutrition program; non-breastfeeding postpartum women, unhoused and migrant individuals, and children would be the first to lose benefits.

• Funding cuts would allow more species to go extinct, as the Fish and Wildlife Service’s implementation of the Endangered Species Act is already significantly underfunded and “does not keep pace with current demand” for species to receive critical protections to avoid extinction.

• About $156 million in back wages for 135,000 private sector workers would not be recovered because the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division would have to reduce its compliance actions, investigations, and targeted inspections.

• Alaskan Natives whose lands are contaminated by arsenic, asbestos, lead, mercury, pesticides, and various petroleum products would lose a significant new program intended to clean up this contamination.

• Funding cuts to a rental assistance program that serves approximately 1.3 million families would represent a “historically unprecedented loss of existing affordable housing, a breach of federal contracts, and a repudiation of decades of long-term bipartisan federal investment.” Cuts would likely lead to tens of thousands of evictions.

• Funding cuts to the Education Department would impact an estimated 25 million children by cutting more than 60,000 teachers and aids from classrooms serving low income students. It would also decrease aid to all 6.6 million Pell Grant recipients and eliminate Pell Grants for 85,000 students, eliminate FWS financial support for approximately 11,000 students, and eliminate Work-Study financial support for approximately 85,000 students, among other impacts.

And all of this doesn’t even include the damage that the GOP is intending to do to the U.S.’s only piece of climate legislation.

Among the many things you could say about the GOP’s proposed plan to reduce the deficit, then, you could say that it is senselessly cruel, wildly irresponsible, and embarrassingly uninformed.

All of this doesn’t even include the damage that the GOP is intending to do to the U.S.’s only piece of climate legislation.

You could say that it targets the most vulnerable Americans, whether that means vulnerability to wildfires and drought and rising seas, or vulnerability to food and housing insecurity, or to environmental hazards or pollutants, or systemic barriers to education and workplace access, or to wage theft or unsafe working conditions.

You could even say that any child in our underfunded public school system could do better, fairer, and more discerning math. And unlike our political media, children would probably be more likely to cover this calamity as a serious story with real-world impact, rather than assessing it primarily within the context of Biden’s re-election campaign, Kevin McCarthy’s efforts to maintain Speaker, and the stock market.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Hannah Story Brown.

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Monday night rejected claims that Sen. Dianne Feinstein is being targeted by "anti-feminist" attacks as calls mount for the 89-year-old lawmaker's retirement.

On the social media platform Bluesky, the New York Democrat said Feinstein (D-Calif.) "is causing great harm to the judiciary" with her prolonged absence from the Senate due to her recovery from shingles. Feinstein, who sits on the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, has not been present since late February.

Her absence leaves Democrats without a majority on the panel, and therefore unable to advance President Joe Biden's judicial nominees without the support of Republicans.

Ocasio-Cortez noted that Feinstein's indefinite absence has come as right-wing federal courts are gutting reproductive rights. As of last month, there were 18 judicial nominees for circuit and district courts pending in the Senate.

Feinstein asked in April that she be temporarily replaced on the Judiciary Committee, as calls for her resignation intensified among Democratic lawmakers.

The request required unanimous consent from the Senate, and was denied after Republicans including Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) refused to support removing Feinstein from the Judiciary Committee. Collins suggested she was doing so out of respect for the senator, who has served for more than 30 years.

But by keeping Feinstein tied to the committee in her absence, Collins made it less likely that judges who oppose forced pregnancy will be able to be confirmed and help to secure abortion rights—which both senators say they support and which Feinstein has counted among her signature issues.

Feinstein's absence has also left committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) without the power to subpoena Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts regarding questions about ethics on the court in the wake of revelations about the financial ties of right-wing Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has suggested that advocates and lawmakers who have called on Feinstein to step down are being sexist and applying a double standard, saying "I've never seen them go after a man who was sick in the Senate in that way."

The idea that calls for Feinstein to resign are anti-feminist, said Ocasio-Cortez on Monday, "are a farce," considering that proponents of her early retirement are seeking to protect the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people across the U.S. through the judiciary.

Feinstein has said she will not seek reelection next year and plans to leave the Senate when her current term ends in January 2025. She has faced questions about her health for cognitive health in recent years, before her bout with shingles.

U.S. Reps. Katie Porter, Barbara Lee, and Adam Schiff have all launched campaigns to replace the senator.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Julia Conley.

A report published Wednesday by the Environmental Working Group examines how the "mining" process behind popular cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, Dogecoin, and Monero creates a wide range of pollution that is harming communities and fueling the climate emergency.

The EWG report—entitled Proof of Problems: Bitcoin Mining's Pollution Toll on U.S. Communities—profiles six case studies of adverse effects of the cryptocurrency mining process known as "proof-of-work."

"This report vividly shows how proof-of-work crypto-mining operations are contributing to increased air, water, and noise pollution in many communities across the U.S.," EWG policy director and report co-author Jessica Hernandez said in a statement.

"It amplifies the voices of those who are fighting to save their homes and livelihoods from the bitcoin mines invading their communities," Hernandez added. "The industry cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the real-world harm it is causing or greenwash the problem away."

As an executive summary of the report details:

Not all bitcoin mines are alike. Some rely on the resurrection of dormant fossil fuel power plants, some find low-cost high-pollution fuel sources like burning coal waste in Pennsylvania, and others flare gas from oil wells to generate the necessary electricity, like the mines blighting Montana's scenery.

They all use the same technology, individual computer hardware no bigger than a shoe box or two, all competing to solve the same puzzle and earn a few bitcoin. But it takes thousands of these mining computers, called rigs, to become competitive in the mining industry. That's why some companies are placing multiple shipping crates full of bitcoin mining rigs in communities across the U.S...

What these mines have in common is their use of proof-of-work, which is wasteful by design. This system, a type of software to record and manage bitcoin transactions, has proven highly inefficient, requiring massive amounts of fossil fuel-generated electricity to operate. Proof-of-work is a source of constant noise, a blight in communities across the country, and a hotbed of fraud and corruption that bilks consumers and ratepayers out of billions of dollars.

"Despite staunch opposition nearly everywhere bitcoin is mined, Wall Street bankers and other large financial backers manage to continue this assault on climate and communities across the country," the report states. "Change is needed, and it's needed urgently."

One of the report's case studies shows how a Blockstream mining center in Adel, Georgia created so much noise that the residents of one nearby house spent thousands of dollars to install 11 layers of insulation as the constant din damaged their hearing and kept them captive in their own home.

"It sounds like 1,000 jet engines taking off at one time. You can hear it five miles away from here," said Annette Tiveron, who lives in the house. "It ripples our pond from the vibration with the machines. It's literally shaking your brain."

The EWG report renews the group's calls to "change the code, not the climate" and highlights alternatives to proof-of-work, such as "proof-of-stake," to which the cryptocurrency Ethereum switched last year.

"Speaking with people around the country has been eye-opening in revealing the extent of the problems that bitcoin mines are causing in communities," EWG editor in chief and report co-author Anthony Lacey said in a statement. "It's hard to learn of these stories and not ask why bitcoin miners can't change their code to be better neighbors."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

The post Punitive Work Tests in SNAP and Medicaid Would Harm Workers with Unstable Jobs appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Julie Yixia Cai.

Photograph Source: tytvault – CC BY-SA 2.0

Any criticism of left-leaning YouTube commentators should begin with a basic endorsement of civil liberties. Many people now get much of their news and views from social media, and not from the older legacy media of newspapers and TV broadcasts. Since the barriers to participation in new media are less restrictive, the YouTube shows and platforms (ranging across a wide political spectrum) can be considered as a real extension of free speech and democracy.

Left commentators on YouTube periodically raise alarms about the algorithmic bias on YouTube that favors right wing outlets and broadcasters. The algorithm is not a mysterious ghost in the machine, but is instead an outcome of dominant corporate interests and investments. Indeed, the left leaning YouTubers often criticize right wing disinformation campaigns, offering their own commentary as a more truly informative counterbalance. They encourage viewers to press the Like button, of course, and to become not just subscribers but financial donors.

As a general rule, it is true enough that the left tends to lean toward reality, and the right tends to lean away. Important distinctions will be lost, however, if we only follow general rules.

The Young Turks (TYT), hosted by its founder Cenk Uygur and co-hosted by Ana Kasparian, was a pioneer in the creation of progressive and left leaning platforms on YouTube. TYT grew to become an extended platform of platforms, and over the years some of their earlier commentators (including Jimmy Dore and Kyle Kulinski) left to start their own popular shows.

Notable features of the YouTube left have become clearer and more prominent over time.

The commentators often refer to themselves as content creators, which means they must always beat the clock to turn out product for the coming episode. Sometimes they have done their homework and do have informed opinions. Just as often, they are content to be performers pitching their hot takes to loyal fans and subscribers. Many are busy clawing their way up in ratings, like proverbial crabs in a barrel, and post clickbait subject lines that promise knock out punches with competitors.

Arm waving and hyperventilating outrage is all part of the scene, spanning the political spectrum from right to left. In this sense, Alex Jones is not far removed from Jimmy Dore and Cenk Uygur, or indeed from World Wrestling Entertainment. Yeah, and the white guys outnumber everyone else on the YouTube left. A few of the outstanding talents do include a black woman, Briahna Joy Gray, who brings an analytical mind to any issue she raises. She is also more often willing to say, “I don’t know.” Likewise, Mike Figueredo at The Humanist Report is one of the few queers among prominent YouTube lefties, and is notable for his humor, irony, and ambivalence.

Only a minority of the YouTube lefties take pains to follow evidence wherever it leads. In a sense, this is just a consequence of their primary job as performers. A few state honestly that they talk for a living. The viewer is always free to vote thumbs up or thumbs down on whether they like a performance or not. What is at stake is not really a public conversation in which there might be a quest for the truth. In politics, this would mean a quest for the empirical ground of a public policy, perhaps in healthcare, housing, or education.

Now watch this recent episode of The Young Turks (TYT), in which Uygur and Kasparian discuss drug use and harm reduction:

A Dangerous New “Zombie Drug” is Taking Over American Streets
The Young Turks (TYT), Mar 4, 2023

As a cofounder of a harm reduction project in Philadelphia in the previous century, and as a socialist still working in the healthcare movement, I am dismayed by the performances of Uygur and Kasparian.

Xylazine, known in drug slang as tranq, is a non-opioid drug originally used as a horse tranquilizer. The early epicenter of tranq use was Philadelphia (especially in Kensington, the site of one of the first harm reduction sites founded by Prevention Point Philadelphia, which was a branch project of ACT UP Philadelphia.) Tranq has since spread to other cities and towns and is used for cutting heroin. It is also found mixed with fentanyl and other drugs. Naloxone is not sufficient to counteract the inhibitive respiratory effects of xylazine. See the link and excerpted text from NIH here.

“In the event of a suspected xylazine overdose, experts recommend giving the opioid overdose reversal medication naloxone because xylazine is frequently combined with opioids. However, because xylazine is not an opioid, naloxone does not address the impact of xylazine on breathing. Because of this, experts are concerned that a growing prevalence of xylazine in the illicit opioid supply may render naloxone less effective for some overdoses. Emergency medical services should always be alerted to a suspected overdose. Learn more about stopping overdose from the CDC.”

At TYT, Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian are in the business of shooting off their mouths on any issue tossed up in the news cycle. In this TYT episode, anyone unfamiliar with actual harm reduction programs might conclude from their talking points that harm reduction is simply a misguided effort to let drug addiction take its course.

Cenk Uygur rages against a vague regiment of “the crazy left” he accuses of being right wing libertarians. That is both boring and demagogic. Unwittingly, Uygur reveals his reflexive commitment to the partisan “centrism” that has migrated quite far to the right over the past thirty and forty years.

Kasparian does not seem to understand that harm reduction was never designed to reverse rising rates of fatal overdoses as a stand-alone program. She is certainly not properly acquainted with the basic science of drug addiction and treatment, nor the necessary integration of harm reduction into comprehensive healthcare. Addressing harm reduction in public policy does not require Kasparian to become a doctor or scientist. But she proves herself more eager to deliver opinions than to do responsible journalism.

Harm reduction opens bridges to a range of health services. Yes, such services have to be improved. By raising the ground floor of healthcare, housing, and education, for example. When Ana Kasparian says some addicts need “intervention,” one would like to know exactly what she has in mind. Vast police sweeps of neighborhoods in Philly, New York, and Los Angeles? If the question is raised so plainly, we may count on her denial in some new episode of The Young Turks. The problem is that she is substantially ignorant on dozens of topics, and projects her ignorance through the megaphone of social media.

As Karl Kraus wrote early in the twentieth century, “The making of a journalist: no ideas and the ability to express them.”

Kasparian has a platform from which she might hold career politicians accountable. Her partisan “pragmatism” instead gives political cover for Biden and his party colleagues, since Biden campaigned with an explicit promise to veto any single payer healthcare bill that might cross his desk. Biden was also an early and zealous volunteer in the War on Drugs. No surprise, his son Hunter has access to high end drug rehab programs, underscoring the brutal fact that the War on Drugs was always and still remains a class war.

Kasparian is concerned that Republicans may gain traction with voters on issues of law and order. Sure, no one wants to be threatened or assaulted on the streets, and there are links between some kinds of drug addiction and some crimes of violence.

In terms of public policy, however, the moral squalor and organized lying proceeds from the top down, from the heights of state power down to ravaged neighborhoods. In crucial areas of public policy, including the ever-growing war budget and the strip mining of public goods and services, the corporate status quo is bipartisan. By all means, make honest distinctions between parties and candidates, but likewise study of the actual divisions of labor within a corporate command economy. Including the relations of power between career politicians and the voting public.

The Democratic and Republican parties keep each other in business. This structural codependency has consequences in bipartisan accords that advance the project of war and empire, and likewise in bipartisan privatization schemes that undermine public health, housing, and education.

Though harm reduction is essential to the care of all patients, it is also emergency work within the present reality of a broken health care system. Uygur is nearly incoherent by the end of the linked TYT episode, and warns that the Democratic Party has been bullied by “the crazy left” on drug policy. On the contrary, any sane and rational public health policy related to drug addiction is undermined by the sensationalist performance art of Uygur; and (much more importantly) by career politicians who agitate voters to dread a zombie apocalypse of drug addicts.

Kasparian quite simply makes a caricature of harm reduction. The founders of harm reduction programs in this country were also advocates for community clinics in which drug use could be medically supervised. Since Kasparian targets California as the state where harm reduction has presumably gone off the rails, a few facts are in order.

Governor Newsom of California campaigned in favor of single payer health care, but turned his back on this policy once he gained office. More recently, Newsom vetoed a bill that would have established harm reduction sites in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Oakland. (Governor Jerry Brown had likewise rejected similar legislation in 2018.) I have a hunch this is among the crucial signals Newsom is sending out to clear a “centrist” lane in his future political career.

Truly, in healthcare as in politics a single strategy cannot solve all problems. For example, the pioneers of harm reduction hardly anticipated that Oxycontin would have a public and aggressive corporate promotion campaign. The chief drug mafia in this case, the Sackler family, have received a few fines that are only spare change drawn from their vast fortune, and have had their family name removed from certain art galleries and philanthropic projects. In this case as in so many others, the law of capital is a net woven with such cunning that it catches a multitude of minnows, but lets the sharks go free.

Test strips are available to detect the chemistry and safety of some drugs used in social venues and dance clubs, but the strips have to be specific for required purposes. This is the concluding paragraph (with a linked text) of a report titled “Perspectives of people in Philadelphia who use fentanyl/heroin adulterated with the animal tranquilizer xylazine; Making a case for xylazine test strips,” published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence Reports, Volume 4, September 2022, and available online at ScienceDirect.

“The use of test strips as a harm reduction strategy is promising, but test strips for xylazine are not commercially available. If developed, they would likely be used by people who use fentanyl/heroin. It is important to be responsive to the stated needs of PWUD [people who use drugs] and consider allocation of resources to the development of xylazine test strips.”

Did it ever occur to Kasparian that harm reduction programs might include specific test strips for addictive drugs such as fentanyl and xylazine? She emotes on schedule to produce the next episode of The Young Turks. Investigative journalism is not really in her job description.

The first quarter of the twenty-first century has all the objective signs of being an era of accelerating catastrophes. Sensational modes of political performance always had a near kinship with totalitarian regimes in the previous century. The distinction that matters most in this regard is whether public emotion is illuminated by public reason, or on the contrary becomes an apocalyptic mass rapture. When we encounter a chorus line of jerking knees in any political camp whatsoever, we might take several steps back to gain more perspective. In the early years of the AIDS epidemic, health care activists followed a good rule: Homework and hellraising. In that order. That, too, was a harm reduction project.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Scott Tucker.

"I call bullsh*t."

That's how Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, responded Thursday to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issuing limited restrictions for the use of over-the-top dicamba herbicides in four states.

Noting that it has been over a year since the Biden administration released a report "detailing just how incredibly devastating the 2020 dicamba approval has been," Donley said, "And now we're supposed to believe that four states not being able to use dicamba for two weeks in June accomplishes something?"

Under the EPA's rules for the 2023 season, farmers in Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa can't apply the herbicides Engenia, Tavium, and XtendiMax after June 12 or the V4 growth stage for soybeans and first square for cotton—whichever comes first. The previous end date for those states was June 20, which is the new cutoff for South Dakota, where farmers previously had until June 30.

Some experts warn that the timing of the EPA's move is "troubling" given the proximity to soybean planting. University of Illinois weed scientist Aaron Hager toldFarmProgress that "it's going to be a challenge. I'm afraid for soybean farmers who have already made their seed and herbicide purchases for the 2023 growing season."

Meanwhile, longtime critics of the herbicide like Donley and George Kimbrell, legal director at the Center for Food Safety, called out the EPA for continuously failing to go far enough to limit harm from dicamba, given concerns about drift damage.

"This marks the fifth time in seven years EPA has made changes to dicamba's registration," Kimbrell said in a statement. "Yet faced with a mountain of data that its past measures have utterly failed to protect farmers, the environment, and endangered species, EPA once again failed to make meaningful changes."

"What EPA revised only affects four of 34 states, offers nothing to admitted continued risks to endangered species, and makes a label that already was impossible to follow in real-world farming even more impossible to follow," Kimbrell added.

"If allowed to stand, EPA's capitulation to pesticide companies will condemn many thousands of farmers to another year of devastating dicamba clouds injuring their crops, endangering their livelihoods, and tearing apart their rural communities," he warned, vowing to continue doing "everything we can to stop this harm."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

For the second time in six months, a federal agency reprimanded a Louisiana developer for its failure to offer an adequate assessment of the harm that its proposed $400 million agricultural development would cause to neighboring Black communities and historic sites.

In a forceful letter dated Dec. 23, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rejected claims by the developer, Greenfield LLC, that its massive grain transfer facility in St. John the Baptist Parish upriver from New Orleans will have “no adverse effects.” The Corps is considering a permit application by Greenfield to build on federally protected waters and has the power to halt the project.

This is the second time the Corps has intervened.

In May, ProPublica revealed that a whistleblower had raised alarms about the project after the report she drafted on behalf of Greenfield — concluding that the facility would inflict damage on communities and historic sites — was gutted by the consulting firm where she worked to exclude any mention of that harm. In response to that story, the Corps deemed the drastically edited archaeological and historical survey “insufficient” and ordered Greenfield to produce a new report.

That new report, which the Corps received in November, did not address the agency’s demand that the developer conduct a more complete assessment of how the project could damage historic sites and harm residents of nearby towns, according to the Corps’ December letter.

“The report,” the letter reads, “just doesn’t demonstrate adequate engagement and that must be rectified.”

A Greenfield spokesperson said in a statement that “we and our team of respected expert consultants have done thorough evaluations to consider any and all potential impacts.” The statement went on to say that “Greenfield takes seriously its responsibility to provide regulatory agencies with accurate and complete information consistent with the regulatory requirements.”

The Corps’ letter criticizes Greenfield and its contractors for failing to meaningfully consult with people whose lives would be impacted by the dozens of looming grain silos, new rail, truck and shipping traffic and pollutants from the facility. It says Greenfield and its consultants have not done enough to account for the ways that the development project might harm communities of color, a requirement under federal environmental justice standards.

“It’s very disappointing that they would continue to double down on the report, that they are still saying there will not be any detrimental effects,” Erin Edwards, who blew the whistle on the earlier report, told ProPublica in a recent interview. Edwards co-authored the first version of the report when she worked as an architectural historian for Gulf South Research Corporation, the for-profit cultural resources and archaeological consulting firm that had been hired by another of Greenfield’s consultants to conduct a federally required assessment of historic sites.

Edwards resigned in late 2021 after her report was stripped of every mention of possible harm to communities or cultural properties, including her conclusion that the area surrounding the development should be listed as a historic district because of its connection to histories of slavery. In internal Gulf South emails obtained by ProPublica, a company manager wrote that it would lose its contract for the report — and could lose future work — if it didn't change the findings.

“Gulf South knew all along that the project would have an adverse effect on the historic plantations there, and they knew that it would have an adverse effect on the area as a whole,” Edwards said. “There’s no way to look at the evidence and not see that it’s going to be detrimental.”

Gulf South, which did not respond to questions about the new report or the Corps’ response letter, had earlier told ProPublica that it stood by the edited report and that Edwards’ version had been nothing more than a draft. Ramboll LLC, the consulting firm Greenfield hired to clear permitting hurdles and had in turn contracted Gulf South, also did not respond.

In response to the Corps’ recent letter, Ramboll said in a letter of its own that it and its client have consulted with community members and local groups. The company cited meetings between Greenfield and members of the environmental justice group Rise St. James, including the group’s founder, Sharon Lavigne. Ramboll’s letter claimed that Rise St. James “expressed support for Greenfield and its engagement approach.”

But when contacted on Friday, Lavigne told ProPublica that she said no such thing.

“I am not in favor of it. I oppose it,” Lavigne told ProPublica. “I don’t know how the writing got changed around to say that I support the grain elevator.”

When asked about the inconsistency, a Greenfield spokesperson told ProProPublica in an email, “There was an error in the characterization which has been corrected, and we’ve apologized to Rise St. James for the error.”

Greenfield added that the response by the Corps and the community to the new report “helps to make a good project even better. In areas where more information will help the Corps understand what we've proposed, we'll provide it.”

The Greenfield grain facility has been the target of sustained pushback from nearby communities, civil and human rights groups and historic preservation organizations, as well as from other federal agencies, including the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, which oversees federal preservation policy. The land where the development is planned sits beside the Whitney Plantation Museum, which serves as a memorial to people who were enslaved in Louisiana. One plot of land down the river is another unusually well preserved plantation designated as a National Historic Landmark.

The Corps is also asking questions about the impact that the Greenfield development will have on existing communities. In its letter, the Corps asks Greenfield to more rigorously account for the grain facility’s likely impact on Wallace, a small, nearly all-Black rural community that sits directly beside the planned construction.

“Wallace will be directly impacted by the proposed action,” the letter said, adding that other federal agencies, including the National Park Service and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, have urged the Army Corps “to ensure that the community of Wallace is considered in the evaluation of the permit decision.”

Because the project would be built on federally protected waters, including wetlands and the Mississippi River, Greenfield had to apply for a permit from the Corps. Before it can grant the permit, the Corps has to enforce provisions of the National Historic Preservation Act.

“What we feel is that Greenfield intentionally ignored people in our community, that they just moved ahead without us,” said Joy Banner, who lives in Wallace and is the co-founder, along with her sister Jo Banner, of a group called the Descendants Project. The group supports communities whose members trace their ancestry to people enslaved in the region. “Now the Corps is backing that up,” she said. “The Corps is saying, ‘You did not talk to them about cumulative impacts, and the information that you provided is not consistent with the actual impact that a massive grain terminal would have.’ The story they offered is not adding up.”

In response to ProPublica’s reporting last year, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation raised concerns about Greenfield’s plans. In an interview, Sara Bronin, the agency’s incoming chair, said that federal agencies like the Corps need to hold developers and their consultants accountable when they don’t follow the law.

“There should be an alignment between environmental justice, equity and historic preservation,” Bronin said. “Especially in communities that have lacked power, that have been underrepresented in our histories, we must be more cognizant about and motivated to address the historical injustices that people still feel very deeply today.”

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Seth Freed Wessler.

"I was very clear that we're not passing a clean debt ceiling," McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters following his conversation with the president. "We're not spending more next year than we spent this year. We've got to find a way to change this and I want to sit down and work."

While some members of his caucus have vocally singled out Social Security and Medicare, McCarthy has declined to explain precisely what and how much he wants to cut. But as part of a deal with the far-right flank of his caucus, McCarthy agreed to push for a cap on federal spending at fiscal year 2022 levels.

According to an analysis released Wednesday by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), such a cap would entail significant cuts to "a wide array of public services that the federal government provides and that people and communities depend on, including public health; food safety inspections; air traffic control operations; the administration of Medicare and Social Security; housing and other assistance for families with low incomes; education and job training; and scientific and medical research, to name just a few."

"Moreover, many of these programs are still feeling the effects of austerity imposed largely by the 2011 Budget Control Act," CBPP's Joel Friedman and Richard Kogan wrote, pointing to a law that the GOP forced through following a damaging round of debt ceiling brinkmanship. "Even with a recent boost in 2023, funding for non-defense programs outside of veterans' medical care is about 2% below its 2010 level, adjusted for inflation, and 9% below when adjusted for both inflation and population growth. Funding for these programs needs to rise to meet national needs, address shortfalls that hamper the delivery of government services, and help create an economy in which everyone has the resources they need to thrive."

CBPP's estimates suggest that a federal spending cut of $146 billion across military and non-military programs would be required to meet House Republicans' demand to cap fiscal year 2024 spending at 2022 levels.

But Friedman and Kogan stressed that cuts to non-military discretionary spending—a broad category that includes healthcare and education programs—would have to be even larger if the Pentagon budget is shielded, as some House Republicans have proposed. Military spending represents more than half of all federal discretionary spending.

"Reducing defense funding to its 2022 level in 2024 would require a cut of $76.2 billion from its current level," Friedman and Kogan noted. "If instead one assumes that defense funding is frozen in 2024—that is, held at its 2023 level rather than being reduced to the 2022 level—but that House Republicans still press to return total discretionary funding to its 2022 level, then those additional cuts would need to be absorbed by non-defense programs. If that comes on top of protecting veterans’ medical care, then the remaining non-defense programs would need to be cut by 24.3% on average."

"The cuts the House Republicans are calling for, whether achieved by reducing non-defense programs categorized as discretionary or mandatory, are deep," Friedman and Kogan concluded. "Claims that they are designed merely to root out 'wasteful spending' are highly misleading and distract from the policy implications of these proposals and the harm they would cause."

The White House has insisted on legislation that raises the debt ceiling without any attached spending cuts or other conditions, a message it reiterated after Biden's meeting with McCarthy on Wednesday.

"President Biden made clear that, as every other leader in both parties in Congress has affirmed, it is their shared duty not to allow an unprecedented and economically catastrophic default," the White House said in a readout of the meeting. "The president welcomes a separate discussion with congressional leaders about how to reduce the deficit and control the national debt while continuing to grow the economy."

As McCarthy prepared for his discussion with Biden, the Republican Study Committee (RSC)—the largest House GOP caucus—convened on Capitol Hill to discuss their priorities for time-sensitive debt ceiling negotiations.

According to a presentation slide obtained by Politico's Olivia Beavers, RSC chair Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) offered a broad outline of the GOP's group's priorities, including a reversal of recent discretionary spending increases. Last year, the RSC called for gradually increasing the retirement age and partially privatizing Social Security.

Aaron Fritschner, communications director for Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), criticized House Republicans' continued refusal to put forth a budget detailing their specific demands.

"Wow what a disaster," Fritschner tweeted in response to the RSC presentation. "They truly have no idea what to do."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jake Johnson.

Kristen Miller, executive director of Alaska Wilderness League, implored Biden to "reverse course on this massive climate disaster."

"Our window to act is rapidly closing to avert catastrophic climate change," Miller added, "and this plan only takes us one giant step closer to the edge."

The BLM's newly released supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) suggests a "preferred alternative" to the originally planned Willow Project, a ConocoPhillips initiative that has been the subject of years of court battles between environmentalists and the federal government under the Trump and Biden administrations.

The SEIS recommends the approval of three drilling locations instead of the original five and proposes limiting pipeline mileage. ConocoPhillips executives have said that any fewer than three drilling sites would make the project unviable as it would prevent Willow from turning a profit for the company.

"The Interior Department must reject the Willow proposal and live up to this administration's promises to take meaningful climate action."

The Biden administration's assessment acknowledges that "any North Slope oil and gas development, including the Willow [Master Development Plan], would likely incur spills" even if significant preventative measures are taken.

Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic warned in a statement that "if approved, this project would be the largest on public lands and would set back our national climate goals tremendously."

"Willow would lock us into extraction for another 30 years and could potentially be the catalyst for future oil expansion in the Arctic," the grassroots group said. "In 2021, a federal judge rejected the Interior Department's 2020 approvals of Willow for lack of adequate consideration of the impact of the surrounding environment. Regardless of the precautions put in place, there is no denying that fossil fuels are single-handedly the most damaging contributor to the global climate emergency, especially the Arctic."

"The Interior Department must reject the Willow proposal and live up to this administration's promises to take meaningful climate action and protect biodiversity by leveraging natural climate solutions," the group added. "The only reasonable solution to the climate emergency is to deny new fossil fuel projects like Willow and invest in a just transition."

The Interior Department—headed by Deb Haaland, who criticized the Willow Project as a member of Congress—now has a month to make a final decision on the project.

In a statement, the department made clear that it could further curtail the project or block it entirely—a step climate groups said would be consistent with the administration's climate pledges.

"The department has substantial concerns about the Willow project and the preferred alternative as presented in the final SEIS, including direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions and impacts to wildlife and Alaska Native subsistence," the agency said. "Consistent with the law, a decision will be finalized by the department no sooner than 30 days after publication of the final SEIS. That decision may select a different alternative, including no action, or the deferral of additional drill pads beyond the single deferral described under the preferred alternative."

While the scaled-back alternative plan for Willow would have a smaller climate impact than the originally proposed project, it would still emit around 9.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, the BLM estimated.

Earthjustice, which has fought the Willow Project in court, noted that the revised plan would "bring at least 219 wells, 267 miles of pipelines, and 35 miles of roads to a vast public lands area in Alaska's Western Arctic, permanently altering a globally significant and ecologically rich landscape."

As The New York Timesreported, ConocoPhillips "has said it was hoping for a fast decision from the Biden administration that would allow construction to begin this winter," fearing that "if spring sets in and warmer temperatures begin to melt the frozen roads, it could make it more difficult for crews to pass and construction would have to be shelved for another year."

"Therein lies one of the Willow project's ironies," the Times continued. "Over the past 60 years, Alaska has warmed more than twice as fast as the rest of the United States and the region is expected to continue to warm by an average of 4°F over the 30-year life of the Willow project, thawing the frozen Arctic tundra around the drilling rigs and shortening the winter season during which ice roads and bridges remain frozen. The proposed solution: ConocoPhillips plans to eventually install 'chillers' into the thawing permafrost to keep it solid enough to support the equipment to drill for oil—the burning of which will release carbon dioxide emissions that will worsen the ice melt."

Dyani Chapman, state director of the Alaska Environment Research and Policy Center, said Wednesday that "it's absurd that as our tundra is melting because of climate change, ConocoPhillips plans to use 'chillers' to re-freeze tundra so it can drill for oil that will, in turn, make climate change even worse."

"The Willow project is bad for Alaskans," said Chapman. "ConocoPhillips' activities, which bring gas leaks and harmful development into the region, have already done a lot of damage to local communities. The community of Nuiqsut is already surrounded by planned and active oil wells and people there have seen a rise in respiratory illnesses. They do not need more oil wells and drilling."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The post Fed Will Cause Unnecessary Harm to the US and World Economy Next Year appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Mark Weisbrot.

The state of California on Thursday sued 18 manufacturers of "forever chemicals" for harming people and the planet, and engaging in widespread deception.

"We won't let them off the hook for the pernicious damage done to our state."

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are manufactured chemicals that persist in the human body and environment for long periods. They have been used in everything from water-resistant clothing and furniture to cookware, food packaging, and firefighting foam.

Forever chemicals have been found in drinking water, soil, wildlife, and people across the country, and they have been linked to various health problems, including multiple types of cancer, childhood obesity, and damage to immune and reproductive systems.

"PFAS are as ubiquitous in California as they are harmful," said California Attorney General Rob Bonta. "As a result of a decadeslong campaign of deception, PFAS are in our waters, our clothing, our houses, and even our bodies."

The Democrat declared that "the damage caused by 3M, DuPont, and other manufacturers of PFAS is nothing short of staggering, and without drastic action, California will be dealing with the harms of these toxic chemicals for generations."

"Today's lawsuit is the result of a yearslong investigation that found that the manufacturers of PFAS knowingly violated state consumer protection and environmental laws," he added. "We won't let them off the hook for the pernicious damage done to our state."

Filed in the Alameda County Superior Court, the complaint states that the "defendants created and/or contributed to a public nuisance, harmed and destroyed natural resources, marketed defective products, failed to provide adequate warnings concerning the use of their products, and engaged in unlawful business practices."

The suit is seeking preliminary and permanent equitable relief, damages, statutory penalties, and restitution as well as associated attorneys' fees, expert costs, and litigation costs.

3M spokesperson Carolyn LaViolette told Reuters that the company "acted responsibly in connection with products containing PFAS and will defend its record of environmental stewardship."

While DuPont didn't respond to the news agency's request for comment, The Wall Street Journal noted that a statement on its website "says the company's present use of PFAS is limited, that it has systems, processes, and protocols in place to ensure the chemicals are used safely, and that it is actively pursuing research into alternatives."

The suit in California comes as the Biden administration and lawmakers face calls for federal legislation focused on not only limiting or ending the use of PFAS but also addressing the health impacts and environmental pollution resulting from widespread use of forever chemicals.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

Four nationwide medical associations on Thursday called on state officials to clarify anti-abortion laws that have gone into effect in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, noting that a "confusing legal landscape" has resulted from the patchwork of state-level restrictions—and has already led to patients being denied care.

"As physicians and pharmacists, we view patient wellbeing as paramount and are deeply troubled that continuity of care is being disrupted."

Pharmacists and doctors have been left with "many questions about how broadly state laws will be interpreted and the impact of these actions on physicians' and pharmacists' ability to serve the needs of their patients," said the American Medical Association (AMA), American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, National Community Pharmacists Association, and American Pharmacists Association in a statement.

More than half of U.S. states have either already restricted access to abortion care or are likely to, and states including Indiana and Texas have banned medication abortions at specific points in pregnancy. Lawmakers in South Dakota and Montana have also proposed restrictions on medication abortion but courts have temporarily enjoined the laws.

Uncertainty about the status of bans is compounded by the language in the restrictions, the groups said.

"In many states, these laws prohibit prescribing and dispensing an 'abortion-inducing drug,' or contain other comparable terms," they said. "This language is vague, and it is unclear whether it prohibits certain medications only when prescribed to induce abortion or whether a medication is prohibited entirely if it has the potential to induce abortion regardless of the condition for which it was prescribed."

Without clarifying guidance regarding what pharmacists and physicians are permitted to dispense and for what health conditions, the groups said, "we are deeply concerned that our patients will lose access to care and suffer irreparable harm."

The associations named the commonly prescribed drug methotrexate as a drug which was rendered off-limits overnight for some of the millions of people who rely on it to treat chronic conditions. Methotrexate is prescribed to patients experiencing ectopic pregnancies, which a fetus cannot survive and which can be fatal for a pregnant patient if left untreated. It is also taken by millions of people each year to treat lupus, Crohn's disease, and arthritis.

As Common Dreams reported in July, medical providers have learned of cases of children with juvenile arthritis who have been denied the drug in states with abortion bans. One eight-year-old suffering from the condition in Texas was identified by a pharmacist as a "female of possible child-bearing potential" who needed proof of her diagnosis to obtain the medication.

"Our members and our patients report that this uncertainty is disrupting care," said the organizations. "Patients who rely on these medications for reasons unrelated to pregnancy termination report new challenges in accessing these and other medications, and it is placing our patients' health at risk."

Access to mifepristone, which can be used for medication abortions as well as to relieve pain during an IUD insertion and for pregnancy-related conditions, has also reportedly been threatened in states hostile to abortion rights.

The groups noted several "examples that highlight reactionary steps taken by various stakeholders stemming from a lack of clarity in state policy," including:

• Reports of legal counsel, tasked with minimizing legal exposure for their institution and employees, prioritizing caution over access and advising against providing certain medications;
• The removal of emergency contraceptives (which are not abortifacients) from kits used by organizations to care for victims of sexual assault—compounding the trauma these victims experience—because the legal risk is too unclear; and
• Policies requiring pharmacists to reject prescriptions unless new, burdensome administrative processes are met, such as confirming a female patient's diagnosis with the prescriber for every potential abortifacient regardless of whether the medication has multiple uses, like methotrexate.

"Without access to medications proven to be safe and effective, our patients' health is at risk," the organizations said. "As physicians and pharmacists, we view patient well-being as paramount and are deeply troubled that continuity of care is being disrupted."

Two months after the AMA condemned the overturning of Roe as "a direct attack on the practice of medicine" and a violation of patients' rights, the groups called on state lawmakers to issue guidance or pass new regulations to ensure patients can access the medication they need.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Julia Conley.

Two New Zealand government agencies have revealed mounting concern about the intensity and the impact of online misinformation — and prompted loud calls for government action.

But behind the scenes, the government’s already reviewing how to regulate media content to protect us from “harm” — and the digital platforms are already heading in new directions.

“There is no minister or government agency specifically tasked with monitoring and dealing with the increasing threat posed by disinformation and misinformation. That should change,” Tova O’Brien told her Today FM listeners last week.

• LISTEN TO THE FULL RNZ MEDIAWATCH REPORT: Mounting fake news
• Frontline reports on disinformation — Pacific Journalism Review

For her, the tipping point was friends and peers recycling false rumours about the Prime Minister and her partner that have been circulating for at least five years.

The Tova show made fun of those rumours — and the paranoid people spreading them — in a comedy song when it launched back in March. Co-host Mark Dye asked the PM about one of them — the claim O’Brien and Ardern were once flatmates.

The PM laughed it off on the air back then, but last week O’Brien told her listeners the worst rumors had now spread so widely there’s nothing funny about them anymore.

“Thanks to social media . . . they’ve been picked up by all of us,” she said.

‘Sad and scary’
“It’s sad and it’s scary and . . . powerful propagandists are taking advantage of them.

“It is time now for a government ‘misinformation minister’,” she said — acknowledging the job title could be misconstrued.

But last Monday, one minister said he was on the case.

“Who is the minister in charge of social media? Is that you?” Duncan Greive asked the Broadcasting and Media Minister on Spinoff podcast The Fold.

“I suppose so  . . . and we’re trying,” said Willie Jackson, who also said he had heard misinformation from people he knows, including relatives.

“There’s a lot of things out of control, but I’m trying to bring some balance to it,” he said.

“We’re going through a whole content regulation review right now. I’m waiting on some of the results.”

That review, overseen by Internal Affairs Minister Jan Tinetti, began in May 2021 — and it’s complicated.

Role of the regulators
It is reconsidering the role of the regulators and complaints bodies which uphold standards for mainstream media today — the Broadcasting Standards Authority, the Advertising Standards Authority, the Media Council and the Classification Office.

And for the first time, online outlets including social media could also be classed as “media service providers” obliged to abide by agreed standards too.

Just last week the BSA released fresh research showing New Zealanders were worried about digital social media platforms’ misinformation “making it harder to identify the truth.”

But while people can complain to the Broadcasting Standards Authority about the accuracy of what they see or hear on the air, it is all but impossible to successfully challenge fake news online.

“We need to bring a set of rules to the table. We have to at the same time balance those rules with freedom of expression,” Willie Jackson told The Fold.

Jackson also said he would soon be meeting Google and Meta (parent company of Facebook) executives to discuss all of that and more.

They already know there’s a problem.

Living by the Code — or ticking boxes?
Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and Tik Tok all signed up last week to the new Aotearoa New Zealand Code of Practice for Online Safety and Harms overseen by Netsafe.

It was hailed as “a world first” in several media reports, but also condemned by some critics as a possible box-ticking exercise — that only requires the powerful platforms to tick easy boxes.

The Code creates an oversight committee to consider public objections — and that will be yet another self-regulatory body that people can complain to.

“It sounds like the worst sanction is that they’d be asked to leave the agreement, which isn’t really a sanction at all. It’s understandable that there are some people saying some concrete legislation that would have proper penalties in place would be better,” former newspaper editor Andrew Holden told RNZ this week.

“The signatories can pick and choose which measures they agree to implement, and which ones they don’t think are appropriate to them, and they can ignore,” Stuff’s technology writer Tom Pullar-Strecker noted.

Net users’ group Tohatoha called it ”an industry-led model that avoids the real change and real accountability needed to protect communities, individuals and the health of our democracy.”

“I think that this is an attempt to preempt that regulatory framework that’s coming down the pipeline,” Tohatoha chief executive Mandy Henk told Newstalk ZB last week.

She was referring to that Review of Media Content Regulation going on slowly behind the scenes and out of the headlines. One round of consultation with news media has been completed on the basic principles — and another one has begun on some of the details and the framework.

One-stop digital-age shop
The review says content can cause harm to individuals, communities and society.

A one-stop digital-age shop to regulate and set standards for all media could oblige offshore tech companies to curb misinformation on their platforms — or be penalised.

Online outlets including social media could be classed as “media service providers” with minimum standards to uphold, just like the established news media and broadcasters.

RNZ MediaWatch understands Cabinet will soon consider a proposed new regulatory framework, and details are due to be published next month for public input and discussion.

The stated goal of the review is also “to mitigate the harmful effects of content, irrespective of the way the content is delivered”.

One of the possibilities is the development of “harm minimisation codes”, with legislation setting out minimum standards for harm prevention and moderation. This could even mean the creation of new criminal offenses and penalties for non compliance.

Can this be done without compromising freedom of speech in general — and specific fundamental press freedoms as well?

Good reporting that is clearly in the public interest routinely causes some distress — or even “harm” — to certain people or groups. (Investigative reporting on Gloriavale over the past 30 years, for example).

Online giants ahead of the game

But while the government and the media industry ponder all this, the social media platforms continue to evolve in unforeseen ways.

Within the last fortnight users of Facebook and its sister platform Instagram have found their feeds featuring far more stuff from influencers, celebrities and even strangers — and less stuff from their friends, family or favoured sources of news.

The reason is Facebook fighting off Tik Tok, the Chinese made video-sharing app that now has more than a billion users around the world — including plenty here in New Zealand.

AI-driven algorithms are shaping much more of what social media users will see from now on. What this means for the spread of misinformation here in New Zealand is not yet clear.

Two days after the new social media code of practice was unveiled, Meta’s vice-president of public policy in Asia and Pacific was in Auckland talking about “the regulatory models that can drive greater transparency and accountability of digital platforms and the work being done to promote greater safety across the Meta Family of Apps.”

“We’re already creating and developing guardrails to address safety, privacy, and well-being in the metaverse,” Simon Milner said, though misinformation on Facebook or Instagram today was not mentioned.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

A gathering titled "No War 2022"—hosted by World Beyond War and taking place July 8-10—will consider major and growing threats faced in today’s world. Emphasizing "Resistance and Regeneration," the conference will feature practitioners of permaculture who work to heal scarred lands as well as abolish all war.

Listening to various friends speak of the environmental impact of war, we recalled testimony from survivors of a Nazi concentration camp on the outskirts of Berlin, Sachsenhausen, where over 200,000 prisoners were interned from 1936 to 1945.

As a result of hunger, disease, forced labor, medical experiments, and systematic extermination operations by the SS, tens of thousands of internees died in Sachsenhausen. 

Researchers there were tasked with developing sturdy shoes and boots which warring soldiers could wear, year-round while trudging through war zones. As part of a punishment duty, emaciated and weakened prisoners were forced to walk or run back and forth along “the shoe path,” carrying heavy packs, to demonstrate the wear and tear on shoe soles. The steady weight of tortured prisoners traversing “the shoe path” rendered the ground, to this day, unusable for planting grass, flowers, or crops.

The scarred, ruined ground exemplifies the colossal waste, murder, and futility of militarism.

Recently, Ali, a young Afghan friend of ours, wrote to ask how he could help comfort families who had lost loved ones in the massacre of schoolchildren in Uvalde, Texas. He struggles to console his own mother, whose oldest son, forced by poverty to enlist in the military, was killed during war in Afghanistan. We thanked our friend for his kindness and reminded him of a project he had helped create, in Kabul, some years ago, when a group of young, idealistic activists invited children to gather as many toy guns as they could possibly find. Next, they dug a large hole and buried the assembled toy weapons. After heaping soil over the “grave of guns,” they planted a tree atop it. Inspired by what they were doing, an onlooker hastened across the road. She came with her shovel, eager to help.

Tragically, real weapons, in the form of mines, cluster bombs and unexploded ordnance remain buried under the ground, across Afghanistan. UNAMA, The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, laments that many of Afghanistan’s 116,076 civilian war victims have been killed or injured by explosive devices.

The Emergency Surgical Centers for Victims of War reports that victims from explosions continue to fill their hospitals, since September 2021. Every day, nearly three patients during this period have been admitted to their hospitals due to injuries caused by explosive violence.

Yet the manufacture, sale, and transport of weapons continue, worldwide.  

The New York Times recently reported about the role of Scott Air Force Base, near St. Louis, MO, where military logisticians transport billions of dollars in weapons to the Ukrainian government and other parts of the world. The money spent manufacturing, storing, selling, shipping, and using these weapons could alleviate poverty throughout the world. It would cost only $10 billion, annually, to eradicate homelessness in the United States through expansion of existing housing programs, but this, perennially, is seen as prohibitively expensive. How sadly twisted our national priorities are when investments in weapons are more acceptable than investments in futures. The decision to build bombs instead of affordable housing is a binary, simple, cruel, and painful one.

On the last day of the World Beyond War conference, Eunice Neves and Rosemary Morrow, both renowned permaculture practitioners, will describe recent efforts of Afghan refugees to help regenerate arid agricultural land in the small Portuguese city of Mértola. Residents of the city have welcomed young Afghans, forced to flee their land, to help cultivate gardens in a region quite vulnerable to desertification and climate change. Aiming to break “the vicious circle of resource degradation and depopulation,” the Terra Sintrópica association fosters resilience and creativity. Through daily and healing work in the greenhouse and garden, young Afghans displaced by war steadily decide to restore hope rather than seek harm. They tell us, in their words and actions, that healing our scarred Earth and the people it sustains is both urgent and achieved only through careful effort.  

The persistence of militarism is promoted by so-called "realists." Nuclear-armed opponents push the world closer and closer to annihilation. Sooner or later these weapons are bound to be used. Antiwar and permaculture activists are often depicted as delusional idealists. Yet cooperation is the only way forward.  The “realist” option leads to collective suicide.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Kathy Kelly, Matt Gannon.

The post War Scars the Earth. To Heal, We Must Cultivate Hope, not Harm appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Matt Gannon – Kathy Kelly.

The Pentagon must step up its efforts to track and publicly report on civilians hurt and killed by U.S. military operations, according to an unreleased draft of the 2023 defense spending bill.

The Defense Department must establish a Commission on Civilian Harm and do more to mitigate the impact of civilian casualties, according to a draft version of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, for Fiscal Year 2023 obtained by The Intercept. The so-called chairman’s mark — House Armed Services Committee Chair Adam Smith’s version of the NDAA — contains legislation and funding recommendations that must still be considered, debated, and voted on. The House Armed Services Committee is slated to consider Smith’s draft of the bill and offer amendments later this week.

“These proposals reflect that after 20 years, the accumulation of reports — by you, by the New York Times, the excruciating reporting on the strike in Kabul last year — led Congress to a tipping point where they felt the need to legislate in order to better understand civilian harm and to do something about it,” Brian Finucane, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group and former legal adviser to the State Department, told The Intercept.

While the civilian harm measures in the markup appear to constitute a major improvement, especially the requirement to set up the Commission and substantive changes to the Defense Department’s annual civilian casualty report, known colloquially as Section 1057, experts say they still fall short. There is also, they note, no guarantee that the measures will make it to the final version of the NDAA.

“It’s a good improvement, but we wish it went further,” said a Democratic congressional staffer familiar with the document. “We are pleased with the 1057 changes and the COE and Commission on Civilian Harm, and really hope those pieces stay in.”

The draft bill, which was shared with The Intercept prior to its public release this week, contains elements of directives set forth in Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s January memo directing subordinates to draw up a “Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan” that has yet to be released. The chairman’s mark also bears the imprint of legislation to overhaul the Pentagon’s civilian harm prevention, mitigation, reporting, and transparency policies, introduced in April by Reps. Jason Crow, D-Colo.; Ro Khanna, D-Calif.; Sara Jacobs, D-Calif.; and Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., as well as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

It “requires them to look at the human faces of these operations.”

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This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Nick Turse.

The post Will US Rate Hikes Harm Developing Countries? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Joe Sammut.

A leaked draft of a United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) opinion that would overturn Roe v Wade, a landmark 1973 decision that gave women the constitutional right to abortion, recently put abortion rights once again on the global agenda.

The overturning of Roe v Wade would not only affect the safety and wellbeing of American women, but women all across the world and especially those in developing countries.

As a human rights lawyer in Kenya, I too am watching the developments in Washington, DC with worry. This is not only because I feel for American women being forced to fight for their right to bodily autonomy, but also because case law in commonwealth jurisdictions such as Kenya is sometimes influenced by decisions taken in US courtrooms.

Consider the recent decision in Constitutional Petition E009 of 2020, which strongly affirmed that abortion care is a fundamental right under the Constitution of Kenya and outlawed arbitrary arrests and prosecution of patients and healthcare providers for seeking or offering such services. In its determination, the court cited and relied upon the principles set out in previous SCOTUS decisions including Roe v Wade; Griswold v Connecticut; Eisenstadt v Baird; and Rochin v California among others. Thus a move by the SCOTUS to overturn Roe v Wade would also put the right to abortion in further jeopardy in my own country.

In Kenya, the Constitution in Article 26 (4) allows for abortion under certain conditions. That is if, in the opinion of a trained health professional, there is a need for emergency treatment; or the life or health of the mother is in danger; or if permitted by any other written law. Nonetheless, 11 years after passing the Constitution, Kenya's male-dominated legislature is yet to pass any law on reproductive health. Moreover, the executive continues to threaten access to safe abortion for women and girls by adopting a narrow and restrictive approach to public policy on the issue.

Consider that in 2015, the Ministry of Health arbitrarily withdrew the "Standards and Guidelines for Reducing Morbidity and Mortality from Unsafe Abortion in Kenya", creating uncertainty as to the status of legal abortion and discouraging medical providers from performing abortions for fear of the legal consequences. The courts later ruled the ministry's actions as unconstitutional.

We know that laws seeking to limit the number of abortions in any given jurisdiction rarely do. Instead, they lead to an increase in unsafe abortions that can cause serious health complications and even death.

According to the World Health Organization, about 73 million induced abortions take place worldwide each year. Global estimates from 2010 to 2014 demonstrate that 45 percent of all induced abortions are unsafe and that developing countries bear the burden of 97 percent of all unsafe abortions.

In Africa, where the risk of dying from an unsafe abortion is the highest in the world, Roe v Wade has long been an important weapon in the arsenal of those fighting to liberalise abortion laws and make the procedure safer for women and girls despite it rarely being invoked by name. Tunisia, which previously allowed only access to safe abortion for population control purposes, liberalised the law just nine months after the Roe v Wade ruling—allowing women to access the service on demand. Additionally, in 1986, Cape Verde allowed for abortion on request prior to 12 weeks gestation which aligns with Roe v Wade holding of the same.

After a drawn-out fight—some 30 years after Roe v Wade—in 2003, the African Union finally adopted the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, known as the Maputo Protocol. The protocol explicitly requires countries to authorise medical abortions in cases of sexual assault, rape, incest, or where the continued pregnancy endangers the health of the mother. This specific provision draws from the 1979 United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) which in turn hooked its clause on access to safe abortion on Roe v Wade. Today, of the 55 member countries in the AU, 49 have signed the protocol and 43 have ratified it.

That women's right to abortion was recognised at the federal level in the US encouraged other countries to move towards liberalisation of their abortion laws. Significant progress has been made towards securing abortion rights for African women since Roe v Wade came into effect nearly half a century ago, however, the struggle is still far from over.

Twelve African nations have still not ratified the Maputo Protocol, and many of those who did are yet to bring their national laws truly in line with its requirements. The opponents of abortion led by the Catholic Church and its affiliates still have significant political and social support in many countries, including Kenya, and they are working around the clock to further limit women's access to the procedure. An example is the Catholic Church-backed group CitizenGO which promotes campaigns against abortions including an unsuccessful effort to investigate and shut down Marie Stopes International, whose services are lifesaving.

Some may argue that the worries about the possible overturning of Roe v Wade having an effect on women's access to healthcare in Africa are baseless as African countries are all independent—that they all can and do enact laws and formulate policies free of the West. This is true, but only to a certain extent.

In many African nations, key women's rights initiatives are being sustained only thanks to funding received from the West. In Kenya, for example, 95 percent of sexual and reproductive health aid comes from the US. Therefore, African governments often take cues from policy decisions made in Washington due to the latter's financial muscle.

Moreover, anti-abortion rights forces in the US have always been keen to limit access to abortion not only in the country but also internationally. The US has passed laws and initiatives in the past designed solely to limit access to abortion abroad.

Take the Mexico City Policy, commonly known as the Global Gag Rule, passed by President Ronald Reagan in 1984. The policy requires foreign NGOs to certify that they will not "perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning" using funds from any source, including non-US funds, as a condition of receiving US global family planning assistance.

The various US presidents who have come after Reagan have either reinstated or withdrawn the rule. But the policy remained in effect for many years and played a significant role in restricting women's access to safe abortion in developing countries.

In 2017, President Donald Trump not only reinstated the policy, but also expanded its reach significantly. Four years later, in 2021, President Joe Biden rescinded it once again.

Although a Supreme Court decision on Roe v Wade would not result in the reinstatement of the policy by the current US government, the repercussions would be deleteriously dire with a change of administration to the Republicans. This is because foreign policy is often driven by domestic policy. Clawing back on Roe v Wade would therefore only be the beginning of the assault on women's rights in the US—and overseas. It is possible that an unfavourable ruling by the highest court on American soil could be used to permanently codify the gag rule.

This policy has always been aimed at controlling the behaviour of NGOs, but whenever it has been reinstated it also affected the behaviour of governments as it gave them the signal that the US is no longer committed to protecting the right to abortion.

Economic resources have long been used as a weapon to perpetuate neo-colonialism in Africa. In many African countries, patriarchal leaderships happily accept foreign funds that come on the condition of the relegation of women's rights—including their right to abortion—especially when these funds are desperately needed to mitigate grave economic crises.

Indeed, during President Trump's tenure accessing safe abortions became more difficult for many women in many countries across the Global South partially because of Washington's stance on the issue.

In Kenya, for example, the High Court reinstated the Standards and Guidelines for Reducing Morbidity and Mortality from Unsafe Abortion in 2019, but the Ministry of Health did not provide direction to health professionals on its implementation. This was widely interpreted as the government's hesitation to depart from the then-current US position on abortion. Consequently, government facilities in the counties still do not stock Medabon—a combination therapy recommended for safe abortion. Health professionals also remain untrained on the provision of safe abortion and post-abortion care; and those with the skill set are hesitant to offer these services for fear of arrests by the government whose executive arm often operates above the law, disregarding court orders. All that means is that many women in the country still have little choice other than turning to unsafe backstreet abortions that can lead to sepsis, shock, organ failure and death.

Biden's decision to withdraw the Mexico Policy and the general pro-abortion rights stance of his administration gave many fighting for safe abortion access in countries like Kenya some hope, but the overturning of Roe v Wade and the consequent introduction of abortion bans in various US states can make any progress unlikely once again. The US policies on abortion, whether we like it or not, significantly influence how seriously governments take the issue of unsafe abortions. Thus the overturning of Roe v Wade would not only affect the safety and wellbeing of American women, but women all across the world and especially those in developing countries.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Stephanie Musho.

Combining findings from more than 2,000 scientific and government studies, a report published Thursday details how hydraulic fracturing has "dire impacts on public health and the climate."

"Fracking swings a wrecking ball at our climate."

Physicians for Social Responsibility and Concerned Health Professionals of New York (CHPNY) released the eighth edition of their Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking, a comprehensive examination of the state of the hydraulic fracturing industry and its impacts.

"The scientific evidence reveals conclusively that fracking causes widespread and severe harm to people and the climate," Sandra Steingraber, CHPNY co-founder and compendium co-author, said in a statement.

"For over 10 years, individual studies have demonstrated impacts in multiple areas, including toxic air pollution, water contamination, radioactive releases, earthquakes, methane emissions, and much more," she added. "The compendium takes stock of all the science together, which shows that continuing and expanding fracking brings with it a grave cost."

The report reveals that:

• Global expansion of fracking and liquefied natural gas (LNG) is fueling the climate crisis, driving the current surge in global levels of methane, a greenhouse gas that is up to 87 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period and which has contributed 40% of all global warming to date;
• LNG is even worse for the climate, as the process of liquefying the gas requires tremendous amounts of energy;
• Carbon capture and storage (CCS) fails to mitigate the dangers of fracking, as it does not actually capture methane emissions but instead makes local air pollution from fracking infrastructure worse;
• Drilling, fracking, storing, transporting, and disposing of oil and gas cause serious harm to human health, including respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular disease, and impairments to infant and maternal health; and
• Fracking is an injustice, as toxic air pollution, water contamination, and other impacts disproportionately affect communities of color and low-income communities.

According to the publication:

In sum, the vast body of scientific studies now published on hydraulic fracturing in the peer-reviewed scientific literature confirms that the climate and public health risks from fracking are real and the range of environmental harms wide. Our examination uncovered no evidence that fracking can be practiced in a manner that does not threaten human health directly or without imperiling climate stability upon which human health depends.

"People, nurses, and doctors across the United States have been pointing to harms from drilling and fracking for well over a decade," said Barbara Gottlieb, environment and health program director at Physicians for Social Responsibility. "Now there is clear and overwhelming scientific evidence showing that fracking makes people sick, degrades the environment, and imperils the climate."

"From a public health perspective and a climate perspective, stopping fracking is imperative," she stressed.

Dr. Kathleen Nolan of Physicians for Social Responsibility and Concerned Health Professionals of New York, said, "States and countries that have banned fracking are leading the way to a stable and healthy climate future, preventing poisonous fracking chemicals from causing birth defects, cancer, heart disease, asthma and pneumonia, diseases of other organs and tissues, and early death."

"Banning fracking also prevents induced earthquakes and greatly reduces emissions of methane, carbon dioxide, toxic gases, and particulate matter into our atmosphere," she added. "We know what must be done: Now we must do it—and do it quickly."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

Combining findings from more than 2,000 scientific and government studies, a report published Thursday details how hydraulic fracturing has "dire impacts on public health and the climate."

"Fracking swings a wrecking ball at our climate."

Physicians for Social Responsibility and Concerned Health Professionals of New York (CHPNY) released the eighth edition of their Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking, a comprehensive examination of the state of the hydraulic fracturing industry and its impacts.

"The scientific evidence reveals conclusively that fracking causes widespread and severe harm to people and the climate," Sandra Steingraber, CHPNY co-founder and compendium co-author, said in a statement.

"For over 10 years, individual studies have demonstrated impacts in multiple areas, including toxic air pollution, water contamination, radioactive releases, earthquakes, methane emissions, and much more," she added. "The compendium takes stock of all the science together, which shows that continuing and expanding fracking brings with it a grave cost."

The report reveals that:

• Global expansion of fracking and liquefied natural gas (LNG) is fueling the climate crisis, driving the current surge in global levels of methane, a greenhouse gas that is up to 87 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period and which has contributed 40% of all global warming to date;
• LNG is even worse for the climate, as the process of liquefying the gas requires tremendous amounts of energy;
• Carbon capture and storage (CCS) fails to mitigate the dangers of fracking, as it does not actually capture methane emissions but instead makes local air pollution from fracking infrastructure worse;
• Drilling, fracking, storing, transporting, and disposing of oil and gas cause serious harm to human health, including respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular disease, and impairments to infant and maternal health; and
• Fracking is an injustice, as toxic air pollution, water contamination, and other impacts disproportionately affect communities of color and low-income communities.

According to the publication:

In sum, the vast body of scientific studies now published on hydraulic fracturing in the peer-reviewed scientific literature confirms that the climate and public health risks from fracking are real and the range of environmental harms wide. Our examination uncovered no evidence that fracking can be practiced in a manner that does not threaten human health directly or without imperiling climate stability upon which human health depends.

"People, nurses, and doctors across the United States have been pointing to harms from drilling and fracking for well over a decade," said Barbara Gottlieb, environment and health program director at Physicians for Social Responsibility. "Now there is clear and overwhelming scientific evidence showing that fracking makes people sick, degrades the environment, and imperils the climate."

"From a public health perspective and a climate perspective, stopping fracking is imperative," she stressed.

Dr. Kathleen Nolan of Physicians for Social Responsibility and Concerned Health Professionals of New York, said, "States and countries that have banned fracking are leading the way to a stable and healthy climate future, preventing poisonous fracking chemicals from causing birth defects, cancer, heart disease, asthma and pneumonia, diseases of other organs and tissues, and early death."

"Banning fracking also prevents induced earthquakes and greatly reduces emissions of methane, carbon dioxide, toxic gases, and particulate matter into our atmosphere," she added. "We know what must be done: Now we must do it—and do it quickly."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, he didn’t seek a democratic mandate. Russia has an authoritarian regime, in which one man and his lieutenants run the show. The diverse views of over 140 million citizens of the Russian Federation — spanning a huge number of ethnicities and languages, not to mention geography — mean little when it comes to foreign policy choices.

Yet when Russian tanks began rolling into Ukraine, the U.S. and its European allies turned to a familiar weapon, one that indiscriminately targets all Russian citizens rather than just those responsible for the crimes we are seeing today: broad-based economic sanctions.

In recent years, sanctions have become a favored tool of U.S. policymakers, used as a modern form of siege warfare but with lower domestic political costs than sending U.S. troops abroad. In addition to sanctions targeting oligarchs and the Russian high-tech and defense sectors, the U.S. and its allies have gone for the jugular by attempting to tank the entire Russian economy.

Russia is staying afloat for now, thanks to continuing sales of its natural gas reserves, but the stories of a handful of other countries hold a cautionary tale for the West about the potential human costs of sanctions to ordinary citizens.

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“Only by grappling with the full impact of sanctions can the U.S. ensure that sanctions don’t exacerbate the plight of ordinary citizens and serve, rather than undermine, U.S. interests.”

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Murtaza Hussain.

A leading U.S. drug policy reform advocate on Thursday welcomed the inclusion of harm reduction policies in President Joe Biden's inaugural National Drug Control Strategy, a plan that comes amid a record surge in fentanyl-driven overdose deaths.

"We must embrace the evidence-based public health approaches we know work and save lives."

"We applaud the Biden-Harris administration for taking the historic step—to support access and funding for harm reduction services and reduce barriers to lifesaving medications," Grant Smith, deputy director of the Office of National Affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance, said in a statement. "Despite over one million lives lost to drug overdose over the last 20-plus years, this is the first time an administration has included harm reduction in the National Drug Control Strategy."

"The administration should continue to focus on its promise of equity by decreasing racial disparities in drug policy and the overdose crisis," Smith asserted.

"From 2020 until now, Black people have experienced a 48.8% increase in overdose mortality, Hispanic or Latino people experienced a 40.1% increase, and American Indians and Alaska Natives experienced the highest increase in overdose mortality of all ethnic groups" he noted. "This cannot continue."

Citing the "heartbreaking toll" of 106,854 U.S. overdose deaths over the past year, the White House said its 2022 National Drug Control Strategy "focuses on two critical drivers of the epidemic: untreated addiction and drug trafficking."

In addition to addressing untreated addiction for people at risk of overdose, the administration's plan "calls for greater access to harm reduction interventions including naloxone, drug test strips, and syringe services programs."

Naloxone—sold under the brand name Narcan—is an opioid blocker than can rapidly reverse the life-threatening effects of an overdose. Testing strips detect fentanyl—a powerful synthetic opioid added to various drugs to increase their potency—but are outlawed as paraphernalia in many states.

Dr. Rahul Gupta, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, told NPR that "the most important action we can take to save lives, right now, is to have naloxone in the hands of everyone who needs it without fear or judgment."

"The most important action we can take to save lives, right now, is to have naloxone in the hands of everyone who needs it without fear or judgment."

Biden's strategy "directs federal agencies to integrate harm reduction into the U.S system of care to save lives and increase access to treatment." It also calls for "collaboration on harm reduction between public health and public safety officials, and changes in state laws and policies to support the expansion of harm reduction efforts across the country."

The strategy's anti-trafficking elements include a proposed $300 million increase—"one of the largest ever"—in U.S. Customs and Border Protection funding, as well as " efforts to strengthen domestic law enforcement cooperation."

While the White House says the plan aims to "advance racial equity in the investigation, arrest, and sentencing for drug-related offenses," Smith expressed disappointment in the administration's perpetuation of the failed War on Drugs.

"Criminalization approaches only saddle mostly Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous people with criminal legal records and often incarceration, which increases their risk for infectious diseases, overdose, and death," he said. "Prioritizing federal spending on public health rather than enforcement and interdiction is the best path forward."

Smith contended that with so U.S. overdose deaths and a crisis that costs the nation's economy more than $1 trillion annually, "we must embrace the evidence-based public health approaches we know work and save lives."

"But," he stressed, "it must be done outside of the harmful apparatus of the drug war to be effective and provide the kind of racial equity this administration has long promised."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Isabella Kaminski.