• Trump’s Big Bill to be signed Friday after marathon vote and marathon speech by Dem leader Hakeem Jeffries;
• Democratic and labor leaders say Big Budget Bill will hurt workers and destroy the middle class;
• SF sues Trump over EPA termination of Environment Climate Justice grants;
• Advocates fear state cannabis tax proposals could unravel and hurt programs for children
• MALDEF planning million dollar lawsuit over US citizen arrested for filming ICE raid

The post Trump’s Big Bill to be signed Friday after marathon vote; Advocates fear state cannabis tax bills could unravel funding and hurt programs for children – July 3, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

Before being shuttered in early March, the EPA’s environmental justice arm was aimed at making sure communities were being treated fairly and receiving their due protection under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. Zealan Hoover, former senior advisor to the EPA administrator under the Biden administration, told the Daily Yonder that this work had big implications for rural places since there are pollution concerns in rural areas across the country. 

“EPA was very focused on making sure that not just on the regulatory side, but also on the investment side, we were pushing resources into rural communities,” said Hoover. 

According to Hoover, most of the pollution challenges the U.S. faces are not new. He said that the employees, now on leave, who staffed the EPA’s regional environmental justice offices were deeply knowledgeable on the issues affecting communities in their regions — issues that can go on for decades. Hoover said he worries about recent changes to the agency under the Trump administration, which also include a series of deregulatory actions and a proposed 65 percent budget cut. 

“I trust that the great folks at EPA who remain will still try valiantly to fill those gaps, but the reality is that this administration is pushing to cut EPA’s budget, pushing employees to leave, and that’s going to restrict EPA’s ability to help rural communities tackle their most significant pollution challenges,” Hoover said. 

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One rural community that has faced years of environmental challenges is where Sherri White-Williamson lives in rural Sampson County, North Carolina. In 2021, the county’s landfill ranked second on the list of highest methane emitters in the U.S. The county is also the second-largest producer of hogs nationwide, and in 2022, it accounted for nearly three percent of all U.S. hog sales. 

The hog industry is known for its pollution from open waste storage pits that emit toxic chemicals into nearby neighborhoods. For years, concerns about North Carolina’s hog industry have centered on the disproportionate harm that its pollution does to low-income communities and communities of color since hog farms frequently locate their operations adjacent to such communities in rural counties. 

White-Williamson is also an EPA veteran. She worked on environmental justice initiatives at the agency’s Washington, D.C., office for over a decade before moving back home to southeastern North Carolina. She is now the executive director of the Environmental Justice Community Action Network, or EJCAN, which she founded in Sampson County in 2020 to empower her neighbors amidst environmental challenges like those wrought by the hog farms and the landfill.

In her early work with EJCAN, White-Williamson said she noticed that conversations about environmental justice often centered on urban areas. Since then, White-Williamson said she has focused on educating the public about what environmental justice looks like in rural communities. 

“A lot of our issues have to do with what the cities don’t want or dispose of will end up in our communities,” said White-Williamson. “The pollution, the pesticides, the remnants of the food processing all ends up or stays here while all of the nice, clean, freshly prepared product ends up in a local urban grocery store somewhere.”

Another misconception about environmental justice, according to White-Williamson, is that it exists exclusively to serve communities of color. During her time at the EPA, White-Williamson said she spent time in communities with all kinds of racial demographics while working on environmental justice initiatives.

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“I spent a lot of time in places like West Virginia and Kentucky, and places where the populations aren’t necessarily of color, but they are poor-income or low-income places where folks do not have access to the levers of power,” White-Williamson said. 

When pollution impacts local health in communities without access to such “levers of power,” the EPA’s regional environmental justice offices were a resource — and a form of accountability. Without those offices, it will be more difficult for rural communities to get the services they need to address health concerns, said Dr. Margot Brown, senior vice president of justice and equity at the Environmental Defense Fund. 

“They’re dismantling the ecosystem of health protections for rural Americans, and by dismantling them, they’ll make them more susceptible to future hazards,” Brown said of the Trump administration’s decisions at the EPA. “It will impair health and well-being for generations to come.”

Brown worked at the EPA for nearly 10 years under President Obama and then under President Trump during his first administration. Her time there included a stint as deputy director of the Office of Children’s Health Protection. She, along with Hoover and White-Williamson, said that community members will likely need to turn to their state governments or departments of environmental quality in the absence of the regional environmental justice offices.

But White-Williamson noted that state governments, too, receive federal funding. Frozen funds across federal agencies and cuts to healthcare programs, including Medicaid, could wind up compounding challenges for rural communities trying to mitigate environmental health impacts. 

“The communities that most need the assistance and guidance will again find themselves on the short end of the stick and end up being the ones that are suffering more than anybody else,” White-Williamson said. 

Hoover described it as a “one-two punch” for rural communities. On the one hand, he said, rural places are losing access to healthcare facilities because of budget cuts.

“And on the other hand, they are also sicker because the government is no longer stopping polluters from polluting their air and their water.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Closures of EPA’s regional environmental justice offices will hurt rural America on Apr 5, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Julia Tilton, The Daily Yonder.

The move, outlined in a department memo obtained by Grist, is part of the Trump administration’s broader goal of steering federal infrastructure spending toward fossil fuels. The restriction of federal funding comes as health experts warn that pedestrian deaths have surged. 

DOT officials did not respond to requests for comment.

The undated memo, reportedly sent March 11 to DOT offices, ordered an immediate freeze on all grants made after January 2021, invoking a series of executive orders aimed at dismantling federal diversity and climate initiatives. It instructs agency employees to identify projects that provide “funding to advance climate, equity, and other priorities counter to the Administration’s executive orders.” 

It specifically targets any funds for projects “whose primary purpose is bicycle infrastructure,” one of many steps President Donald Trump has taken to boost the fossil fuel industry. It also calls for flagging projects that might prioritize benefits to disadvantaged communities or reduce emissions. This likely includes hundreds of grants awarded through Safe Streets and Roads for All, a $5 billion initiative created by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The goal of these efforts is to help communities address roadway safety concerns, said John Tallmadge, the executive director of Bike Durham, a nonprofit group in Durham, North Carolina. The group is supporting a series of infrastructure improvements in Durham that were counting on funding from the agency’s BUILD grants, also expected to be impacted. 

The Durham project would add sidewalks, crosswalks, and bus stops to the city’s busiest transit corridor, which is used by thousands of people each day. “Numerous locations along this corridor have had pedestrian fatalities,” Tallmadge said. 

These safety concerns were highlighted in a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which found Americans were 50 percent more likely to die walking in 2022 than in 2013. Its author, Rebecca Naumann, said infrastructure that prioritizes safety over speed — like the improvements Durham hopes to build — are proven solutions that protect everyone. 

She notes such designs have helped other high-income countries, like the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada, reduce traffic deaths in recent decades. The opposite is true of the United States, which as of 2022, saw more pedestrian deaths than any of the 27 other countries Naumann studied.

One DOT project manager, who requested anonymity to avoid professional retaliation, told Grist the memo and executive orders will make it “terribly difficult to use federal transportation dollars where it’s needed most.” That’s bad news for more than bike lanes: Sustainable transportation not only makes communities safer, it lowers travel costs; improves access to important services like medical care, schools, and work; and helps mitigate climate change. “It’s frustrating to see these solutions stall when so many communities urgently need them,” he said. As Tallmadge noted, delays and revisions to federal grants will increase the cost of any project — the opposite of government efficiency.

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Other funding likely to be caught up in these restrictions include projects within the Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program, which supports multimodal travel; the BUILD program, which is designed to meet local or multi-jurisdictional needs; and the Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program, which helps communities harmed by past transportation decisions. Grants recently awarded under these initiatives range from $22 million for electric buses in Rhode Island to $157 million for green spaces that connect Atlanta neighborhoods currently divided by highways. “The restriction of funding for projects like the Atlanta BeltLine and its RAISE Grant is an assault on disadvantaged communities,” said U.S. Representative Nikema Williams, the Democrat who represents a wide swath of Atlanta. “These projects improve equity and mobility while spurring economic development.”

The DOT memo follows recommendations outlined in the conservative Project 2025 policy agenda that has shaped much of the Trump administration’s work. It broadly argued that the federal government should not fund local transportation projects. Instead, it suggests “user fees” and enabling “private companies to charge for transportation” through ventures like toll roads, removing air pollution regulations, restricting electric vehicle infrastructure, and eliminating federal funding for bicycle lanes, ferries, and other transportation. 

Yet the move to restrict programs like BUILD, which rely on community input, clashes with Project 2025’s emphasis on local decision-making, said Caron Whitaker, the deputy executive director of the League of American Bicyclists. The Atlanta BeltLine project, for example, was supported by private and public entities at almost every level of government in Georgia. “Why are we pulling back grants where local governments choose what they want to do?” Whitaker asked. “If safety is a federal issue, then local fatalities matter,” she added. “If the economy is a federal issue, then local economies matter.” 

The League, which is circulating a petition protesting the DOT’s review, recently led meetings with congressional aides to discuss the importance of funding active transportation projects. One former DOT employee who spoke to Grist said the scale of Safe Streets and Roads for All means there will be widespread impacts. “Safety is a bipartisan issue. You see Republican and Democratic representatives and senators touting the announcement whenever they’re awarded,” he said. “I think people just think, ‘Oh, this probably just hurts the coasts and the big cities,’ but there’s definitely rural areas that were trying to improve safety.”

It takes a lot of work for communities to get a federal grant, he said, often alongside finding matching funds. Whitaker agreed. “It puts local governments in a tough position,” she said. Because the Safe Streets program funding was congressionally allocated, explicitly including “bicyclists,” Duffy’s move to cut programs “whose primary purpose is bicycling” may not even be legal. Last week, a coalition of nonprofits and cities sued to reverse the federal freeze on grants, including the March DOT memo. “Since our nation’s founding, the Constitution has made it clear,” wrote the Southern Environmental Law Center, who is litigating the case, that “Congress controls federal spending — not the president.”

These efforts may limit transportation research nationwide. The DOT funds research and technical assistance projects through the National Cooperative Highway Research Program, or NCHRP, which is also subject to review. “If the policy memo is applied broadly to NCHRP, there could be a significant loss in current and future funding,” said Jennifer Dill, director of the Transportation Research and Education Center. “Without more research about countermeasures and solutions to fatalities, it will be hard to reverse that trend.” She worries Duffy’s recent actions will limit states’ ability to effectively use federal money for local priorities.

At headquarters, morale among many of those remaining at the DOT is at new lows. At first, the DOT project manager who spoke to Grist hoped to come up with ways to rephrase grants to avoid triggering words like “equity” and “climate.” But the new restrictions have escalated into an unprecedented level of scrutiny, with the political appointees reviewing every contract. 

“It’s gone beyond just switching words to get through the censor,” he said. “It’s not only making people afraid to carry on with good work that was underway, but has a chilling effect on everything we do going forward.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The government aims to cut funding for safer streets. Here’s who would be hurt most. on Mar 27, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Lois Parshley.

Illustration by Paola Bilancieri.

On January 20, 2025, President Donald J. Trump, by executive order, indicated his intention to remove the US from World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations agency responsible for global public health. This decision will have wide-ranging and negative consequences for people’s health worldwide.

Since it joined the organization in 1948, the United States has been its greatest funder, making it WHO’s most influential member. However, despite its global importance, the agency has a budget of roughly one-quarter of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which shows its limitations in addressing critical health challenges at a global level.

WHO is funded by contributions from its nearly 200 member states, with each contribution determined by the United Nations based on a country’s wealth. For the period 2024-2025, for example, that number has been set at $264 million for the US and $181 million for China. WHO also receives voluntary contributions from member states, philanthropic foundations and private donors. While for the same period the US is projected to provide $442 million (making it the largest contributor,) China is set to provide just $2.5 million.

Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, WHO has six regional offices and 150 country offices worldwide. Through them, the agency promotes the control of epidemic and endemic diseases, sets international health standards, collects information on global health issues, serves as a forum for health-related scientific and policy discussions, and assesses worldwide health challenges.

As part of its mandate, WHO heads a vast network of public health agencies and laboratories where scientists track new disease outbreaks and collect data to develop vaccines and therapies to address them. There are 21 WHO collaborating centers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and three at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Those centers are focused on US health priorities, such as polio eradication, cancer prevention and global health security.

WHO has been at the frontline response to national disasters such as the earthquakes in Afghanistan, Nepal, Syria and Turkey, and devastating floods in Libya, Pakistan and South Sudan. It has done so by deploying emergency medical teams, sending medical aid and helping countries cope with the mid- and long-term effects of these events.

US cuts in funding will affect childhood immunizations, polio eradication, and response to emergencies and to influenza and other pandemic threats. Through its Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System, the WHO processes data from countries around the world to track and assess circulating viruses. Cutting its ties to WHO could hinder US access to critical tools for developing biological ways to control influenza.

In 2019, WHO established a Special Initiative for Mental Health which has helped bring badly needed community mental health services to 50 million more people. At least 320,000 girls, boys, women and men were receiving mental, neurological, and substance abuse services for the first time in their lives. A new WHO Commission on Social Connection has been created, aimed at combating loneliness and social isolation as pressing health threats. The Commission intends to elevate social connection as a public health priority in countries of all income levels.

Experts predict that the US withdrawal from WHO will allow China to gain control of the organization. “There is one country that’s desperate for the United States to leave the WHO, and that’s China,” cautioned Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat at a past hearing of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

Because the US entered WHO membership through a joint 1948 resolution passed by both houses of Congress –that President Harry Truman explicitly referenced as his legal basis for joining WHO—observers believe that the US withdrawal from the organization violates US law because it doesn’t have the express approval of Congress.

As an independent international public health consultant, I have conducted health-related missions in over 50 countries worldwide for several agencies, including WHO. I have seen the lives-saving work that local branches of WHO does to improve the health of the most vulnerable in developing countries, work that will be severely curtailed from lack of funds.

During the 2020 conflict of the US with WHO, when the US’s withdrawal from the organization was later rescinded by President Biden) a group of leading international health experts wrote in the Lancet, “Health and security in the USA and globally require robust collaboration with WHO –a cornerstone of US funding and policy since 1948. The USA cannot cut ties with WHO without incurring major disruption and damage, making Americans far less safe.” This statement remains as true now as when it was written.

The post US Withdrawal from WHO Will Hurt World Health appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Cesar Chelala.

Protests erupted and grew in multiple cities across Turkey following the government crackdown on Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who was due to be selected as an opposition party presidential nominee on March 23, alongside other politicians and municipal staff last week. Multiple journalists have been placed in police custody, while several have been hurt by the police in the field since March 21.

“Neither the police violence targeting journalists who are covering the street protests, nor the raiding of their homes, is acceptable under any conditions,” said Özgür Öğret, CPJ’s Turkey representative. “Turkish authorities should immediately release the journalists in custody and allow the press to operate freely and safely.”

Police in Istanbul took at least five photojournalists into custody while raiding their homes on Monday morning: Yasin Akgül of Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Ali Onur Tosun of NOW Haber, along with freelancers Bülent Kılıç, Zeynep Kuray, and Hayri Tunç. Another freelance photojournalist, Murat Kocabaş, was also detained by the police in Izmir on Monday.

Zişan Gür, a reporter for the leftist news website Sendika, was taken into custody by the police while in the field in Istanbul on Sunday evening.

Turkish police have also beaten or used rubber bullets on multiple field reporters since Friday, according to local press freedom advocacy groups, including: Akgül, Egemen İsar of the Nefes newspaper, Hakan Akgün of the state-owned Anadolu Agency, Dilara Şenkaya of Reuters, Ali Dinç of Bianet, Eylül Deniz Yaşar of İlke TV, Yusuf Çelik of Özgür Gelecek, and freelancers Kemal Aslan and Rojda Altıntaş. The journalists also had their equipment damaged by the police, according to those groups.

Meanwhile, Ebubekir Şahin, the government-appointed chair of the media regulator RTÜK, has threatened Turkish TV channels broadcasting the protests and opposition rallies with license cancellations. İlhan Taşçı, an opposition-appointed member of the RTÜK, argued that the regulator has no authority to suppress broadcasts before they air and can only review what has already run.

CPJ emailed RTÜK and the Turkey’s Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, for comment but didn’t receive any replies.

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

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

CEO pay has been skyrocketing for years now, fueled in part by tax cuts for corporations and ultra wealthy individuals. That’s not just unfair to ordinary workers or taxpayers — it’s dangerous for our entire economy.

The post How Overpaid CEO’s Hurt the Rest of Us appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Kieran Cuadras.

The two South Korean KF-16 fighter jets, both carrying four MK-82 bombs, dropped them outside the designated firing range, leading to unintended explosions in a civilian area, the South Korea’s air force said.

“We deeply apologize for the civilian casualties caused by this accidental bomb release and wish the injured a swift recovery,” said the air force in a release. “We will take all necessary measures, including compensation for damages.”

The United States and South Korea on Thursday held combined live-fire drills near the city of Pocheon, just 25 kilometers (16 miles) south of the border to the North, in a show of firepower aimed at North Korea ahead of the allies’ annual springtime exercise this month.

Fire service authorities said two of the eight injured people were seriously hurt, with some suffering fractures to the neck and shoulders.

The explosion also caused extensive property damage, with two homes destroyed, they said.

The MK-82 bomb, commonly used for destroying buildings and bridges, creates an explosion crater approximately 8 meters in diameter and 2.4 meters deep, with a lethal radius comparable to the size of a football field.

Unlike guided munitions, the MK-82 is an unguided bomb, meaning it is manually released by the pilot under the guidance of ground personnel. The aircraft’s computer system calculates altitude, speed, and trajectory to estimate the bomb’s impact point.

An unintended release, or abnormal drop, can occur due to errors involving ground control, pilot operation, aircraft computer performance, or the bomb’s attachment system.

Investigators are working to determine the exact cause of the malfunction.

(Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

Thursday’s joint exercise mobilized more than 160 pieces of military hardware, including K2 tanks, K55A1 self-propelled howitzers, Apache attack helicopters and F-35A stealth jets, according to the South Korean military.

The drills began with U.S. and South Korean drones conducting reconnaissance missions against simulated threats and directing artillery firing before mechanized infantry troops and tanks moved in to secure target areas.

North Korea has consistently condemned the joint military exercises, describing them as invasion rehearsals, while South Korea and the U.S. emphasize that the drills are defensive in nature.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.

The death toll from Vanuatu’s 7.3 earthquake is expected to rise because concrete buildings have collapsed with people inside in the capital Port Vila.

International Federation of Red Cross Pacific head of delegation Katie Greenwood posted on X that the Vanuatu government was reporting 14 confirmed fatalities and 200 people were treated for injuries at the main hospital in Port Vila.

Rescue efforts to retrieve people trapped by fallen buildings and rubble have continued overnight.

• READ MORE: Buildings ‘pancaked’ in Vanuatu as 7.3 magnitude quake strikes off capital Port Vila
• Powerful 7.3 magnitude quake strikes Vanuatu – serious damage in Vila
• Violent’ earthquake strikes Vanuatu — at least one reported dead
• RNZ live news: Vanuatu earthquake updates
• ABC: Why earthquakes are more common in places such as Vanuatu

Vanuatu Government is reporting 14 confirmed fatalities and 200 treated for injuries at main hospital in Port Vila. Local humanitarian network activated and @vanuaturedcross leads the Shelter response with Government and support from @ifrc

— Katie Greenwood (@KatiegIFRC) December 17, 2024

In a press conference, caretaker Vanuatu Prime Minister Charlot Salwai said a State of Emergency and curfew were in place in the worst affected areas.

“Urgently request international assistance,” he said.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated 116,000 people had been affected by the quake and earlier said there were six unconfirmed deaths.

Vanuatu has been experiencing aftershocks following Tuesday’s quake, the ABC reports.

The New Zealand High Commission was among buildings that have been damaged.

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

• Follow RNZ News live blog for updates

Rescue operation continue in Port Vila, Vanuatu (it is 3:45am)
3 people have been pulled out of rubble alive, with one of them in serious condition.
All the staff from American Embassy is safe. #earthquake #sismo #Vanuatu #terremoto pic.twitter.com/oDVUjvJYci

— Disasters Daily (@DisastersAndI) December 17, 2024

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

They had marched peacefully for nine days, in what Māori peoples call hīkoi, in an effort to stop the country’s new right-wing government from forcing through a bill that would dilute Indigenous influence on the government by reinterpreting one of its founding documents. 

“Māori have been here, we are going to be here forever. You’re never going to assimilate us,” said Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn, one of the Māori activists who participated in the hīkoi. “This is a great time for revolution.” 

Proponents describe the Treaty Principles bill as a push for equal rights for all citizens of Aotearoa, which is how Māori refer to New Zealand: an effort to define principles underlying the Treaty of Waitangi, an English-language agreement signed by some of the country’s colonizing founders and Indigenous Māori that gave the Crown the right to govern the nation in exchange for enshrining Māori rights.

“Did the treaty give different rights to different groups, or does every citizen have equal rights? I believe all New Zealanders deserve to have a say on that question,” said David Seymour, a member of Parliament who leads ACT New Zealand, the country’s right-wing party. (Seymour has Māori ancestry, but leaders of his tribe do not claim him.) 

But Māori opponents say the measure would weaken Indigenous rights that not only help address long-standing social and economic inequities but are critical to protecting the country’s lands and waters. 

“That redefinition could diminish Māori participation and environmental governance, as the treaty currently ensures that Māori involvement in managing national natural resources,” said Mike Smith, a Māori climate activist who has two climate lawsuits pending before the country’s high court. “So by limiting these rights, the bill may weaken the environmental stewardship practices that are rooted in Māori morals and values and thereby impact the country’s ability to address all the environmental challenges, and more particularly combat climate change effectively.”  

Seymour pushed back on that characterization. “If it’s true no country can do conservation without something like the Treaty of Waitangi, the world is in trouble,” he said. “In any event, New Zealand has had its current conception of the treaty for over 30 years, and we are a solid, but not the best, environmental regulator, so others clearly do better without something like the treaty.”

The Treaty Principles bill isn’t expected to pass in the current Parliament, although it could eventually head to a referendum. But it’s just one part of a broader right-wing backlash against the significant gains that Māori have made in recent decades to win back stolen land and secure better representation and co-governance of government agencies. 

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“This is not just about Māori interests and rights. This is about the protection of all that we hold dear,” said Māori activist Tina Ngata, who has been hosting online education sessions about the bill. “Indigenous rights have been one of the strongest roadblocks to corporate exploitation.” 

Ngata was part of a successful push in 2018 to get Aotearoa New Zealand to ban oil and gas exploration in its waters. The country’s right-wing government, which vaulted into power last year, is now pushing to reverse that ban.

The government wants to double its mineral mining exports to $2 billion over the next decade, and has delayed a planned tax on agricultural emissions. It also repealed the Māori Health Authority — which addresses Indigenous health disparities, many of which are expected to worsen with climate change — and is in the processes of deleting references to the Treaty of Waitangi from existing laws. 

Smith said that even though his climate litigation isn’t specifically based on the treaty, it lends critical weight to his arguments regarding the government’s obligation to protect the environment. 

A website promoting the Treaty Principles bill says it wouldn’t have an effect on co-governance of Aotearoa New Zealand’s rivers and mountains, such as the Tūpuna Maunga Authority that gives Māori tribes of Auckland a say in how the city’s volcanic mountains are managed. It would, however, remove Māori co-governance of the country’s water services, which has been controversial since the prior government announced plans to nationalize water management.

Smith sees the measure as an effort to play upon the fears of the non-Māori population and make it easier for private interests to profit. “It’s an indicator that they want to stomp on Māori rights and philosophies and worldviews. It’s an indicator that they just are refusing to fight the challenge that climate change and the global biodiversity crisis demands of us,” he said.

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But he has been heartened by the huge amount of support for the Māori cause. A video of a Māori legislator leading the haka in Parliament went viral on social media, underscoring the force of the opposition, which expands beyond Māori peoples and includes a former prime minister and prominent lawyers, health care professionals, translators, church leaders, and the Waitangi Tribunal, a federal commission dedicated to reviewing Māori claims regarding the treaty.

That commission is expected to hold a hearing next week to consider the question of whether the Aotearoa New Zealand government has violated Māori rights in its response to climate change. The hearing has been overshadowed by the Treaty Principles controversy, but Smith is watching it closely. The tribunal only has the power to make recommendations, and can’t force the government to do anything, but its findings could help strengthen Smith’s climate cases before the high court.  

The debate over the treaty is complicated by the fact that the English- and Māori-language versions of the treaty have different meanings. Murupaenga-Ikenn emphasized that the vast majority of Māori chiefs signed the Māori-language version that never relinquished sovereignty. 

Murupaenga-Ikenn said she’s been excited by how the Treaty Principles bill has spurred her people into action. She was part of a massive hīkoi 20 years ago to rally in favor of Indigenous ownership of the seabed, but last week’s gathering was far larger, with as many as 55,000 people, and activists hope it’ll bleed into more local protests and stronger voter participation. 

If she saw Seymour, the ACT politician behind the bill, Murupaenga-Ikenn said she would thank him. “Thank you very much for putting a reenergized fire under my people to just shake us up and wake us up,” Murupaenga-Ikenn said. “The time is now for a revolution. Thank you, David Seymour.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Mass protests against New Zealand’s effort to weaken Māori rights — and hurt the planet on Nov 22, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Anita Hofschneider.

At about 3 a.m. on October 25, an airstrike hit a compound housing 18 journalists from multiple media outlets in south Lebanon’s Hasbaya area, killing pro-Hezbollah Al-Mayadeen TV’s camera operator Ghassan Najjar, broadcast engineer Mohammed Reda, and Hezbollah-owned Al-Manar TV’s camera operator Wissam Kassem.

The three injured were reported to be camera operator Hassan Hoteit and assistant camera operator Zakaria Fadel of the media production company Isol and Al Jazeera camera operator Ali Mortada.

“CPJ is deeply outraged by yet another deadly Israeli airstrike on journalists, this time hitting a compound hosting 18 members of the press in south Lebanon,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York. “Deliberately targeting journalists is a war crime under international law. This attack must be independently investigated and the perpetrators must be held to account.”

The journalists had moved to Hasbaya from Marjayoun, which is further south and had been hit by Israeli strikes.

Al-Manar correspondent Ali Shoeib said in a video aired by his outlet that the Israeli military knew that the area that was struck housed journalists of different media organizations, The Associated Press reported

The privately owned local news station Al Jadeed aired footage showing collapsed buildings and cars marked “Press” strewn with dust and rubble and its correspondent Mohammed Farhat posted a video showing his bed covered in rubble.

Lebanon’s information minister Ziad Makary described the attack as a “war crime.”

“This is an assassination, after monitoring and tracking, with prior planning and design, as there were 18 journalists in the place representing seven media institutions,” he said.

CPJ has confirmed that Israeli strikes have killed three journalists on assignment and injured at least seven in Lebanon since the IDF and Lebanon’s militant group Hezbollah began exchanging fire in October 2023.

CPJ in New York emailed the Israel Defense Forces’ North America Media Desk asking if its forces were aware that there were journalists in the compound but did not immediately receive a response.

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

Lea o escuche la versión en español.

This guide will be released in Spanish in several formats to make this information more widely accessible. If you want to receive printed booklets that you or your organization can share with dairy workers in Wisconsin, or if you want to be notified when we post related videos on TikTok and YouTube, sign up here.

We are reporters at ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative news organization. Over the past two years, we have reported on the lives of dairy workers in Wisconsin and the dangers they face on the job.

Dairy workers are excluded from many state and federal legal protections that help other workers. As a result, if they are injured on the job, they often face obstacles to getting medical care or the time needed to recover.

Many dairy workers have seen relatives or co-workers lose their jobs and get kicked out of farm housing after an injury. Others have ended up with disfigured bodies and massive medical debt.

Many are undocumented. They worry about being deported if they speak up about an injury.

We heard these concerns repeatedly in our interviews with more than 100 immigrant workers. We know people often feel hopeless.

But while there are real challenges, our reporting has shown us that for some workers, there can be a path toward getting treatment after an injury. Here is some of what we found:

• Workers who are injured on larger farms have more protections. This is because of an insurance system called workers’ compensation. You can benefit even if you are undocumented.
• The workers’ compensation system is complex and difficult to navigate. Employers sometimes discourage workers from filing claims. Getting a lawyer can be critical, especially if you have a permanent disability.
• Workers who are injured on smaller farms usually can’t access workers’ compensation. The only way to compel an employer to cover medical costs is to file a lawsuit. These lawsuits can be extremely difficult to win. Because of that, attorneys may not want to take your case.
• You may be able to access free or low-cost medical care. Ask about hospital charity, free clinics and a Wisconsin insurance plan called BadgerCare Plus.

Few of the workers we’ve interviewed understood their rights after an injury. This guide is our attempt to explain your options, as limited as they are. We also want to answer questions that many workers have asked based on situations they’ve found themselves in. It is based on conversations with workers, attorneys, health care providers, community advocates, interpreters, researchers and farmers. It covers what you can do before you get to a farm, how to navigate the workers’ compensation system, and your options if you get injured on a farm that doesn’t have workers’ compensation.

The guide is especially focused on the workers’ compensation system because it is one of the few areas where injured dairy workers have a right to medical care. We know this system has limitations and isn’t available to everybody. However many workers have found it to be useful, particularly if they get help from an attorney.

This guide does not provide legal or medical advice. We strongly encourage you to talk to a lawyer or a doctor about your situation. We’ll point you to some resources in the last section.

We welcome your thoughts and questions. Please feel free to write us an email or call us by phone or WhatsApp. Thank you.

Maryam Jameel: Maryam.Jameel@propublica.org or 630-885-6883

Melissa Sanchez: Melissa.Sanchez@propublica.org or 872-444-0011

Farming in general has one of the highest fatality rates of industries in the U.S. Almost every year in Wisconsin, dairy farmers or their employees die on the job, crushed under tractors or drowned in manure lagoons or trampled by cows.

Injuries are even more common. But they are not always reported. That makes it impossible to accurately compare the dangers on dairy farms with other types of jobs. In our reporting, however, most workers told us they had been injured on the job. “If you haven’t been injured,” one former worker said, “then you haven’t really worked on a farm.” Cows can be unpredictable; workers told us they’d been kicked, stepped on and smashed against barn walls by the 1,500-pound animals.

We have spoken to several workers who lost fingers inside of machinery, a man whose legs were crushed by heavy metal gates and a woman who got trampled and thrown over a fence by a bull. Other workers have chronic pain from the repetitive motions of attaching tubes to cow teats hundreds of times a day.

In the winter, temperatures in Wisconsin can drop below zero, with high winds, snow and ice. Many workers have suffered serious injuries after they slipped on ice-covered concrete floors. Others have suffered frostbite.

Medical and public health officials said some workers develop infections and other issues from their exposure to animal feces and other harmful substances common on farms.

No government agency rates dairy farms on safety. In fact, even when workers die or are injured, dairy farms are not always inspected.

There is no guarantee that you will be safe on any farm. But farms can take steps to protect their workers and make sure they receive the medical treatment they need after an injury. One of the best ways to learn about safety issues on a farm is by talking to current or former employees.

Some questions you can ask:

• What kind of training do workers get when they are hired?

• Did you feel that the training was enough to help you do your job safely?

• What is the pace of work? Are there enough workers to do the job?

• Can cows easily kick you as you milk them?

• Can you describe a recent injury that happened to you or a coworker and how the supervisor responded? Did that worker get medical care or time off to heal?

• Do you know whether the farm has workers’ compensation insurance?

• How do the supervisors treat you? Do they speak to you respectfully?

We have also found that local Latino grocery stores can be good places to learn more about specific farms. Workers cash their checks at these businesses and often share information about work conditions with the clerks and owners. Ask them about a farm’s reputation and if there is anything they think you should know.

One sign that a farm may be a good place to work is if workers stay there for a long time.

The answer depends on how many workers the farm employs.

In general, if the farm has six or more employees, it should have a type of insurance called workers’ compensation that is supposed to cover these costs. Workers’ compensation is different from medical insurance. (If you are counting how many workers a farm has, don’t count the farm owners and their close relatives who work on the farm.)

If a farm has fewer than six employees, it does not have to have workers’ compensation under state rules. Workers who are hurt at these farms have only one legal avenue to get help paying for medical care. They may be able to file a lawsuit. (See the “Resources other than workers’ compensation” section for more information.)

You can ask your employer or look it up yourself online. If the farm has workers’ compensation insurance, it should be listed here: https://www.wcrb.org/coverage-lookup/. But the site, run by the Wisconsin Compensation Rating Bureau, is only available in English.

You’ll need to know the farm’s name or its address to do a search. If you don’t find the farm listed, you can email the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, which oversees the workers’ compensation system, at WCINS@dwd.wisconsin.gov, or call 608-266-3046. If you speak Spanish, you can ask for an interpreter.

You may know a farm by a nickname. To find out a farm’s official name, look at the upper left-hand corner of your paycheck, above the address. Or you can check the main entrance, where many farms have signs with their name.

State officials and lawyers say you should tell your employer right away that you got hurt and get the medical treatment you need. The Department of Workforce Development said any delays may hurt your workers’ compensation case.

Gabriel Manzano Nieves, a workers’ compensation attorney in Madison, said many people he works with don’t want to report what seems like a minor injury. He said he’s had clients who thought at first that they had a sore shoulder or a sprain. Weeks later a doctor told them that they had a permanent injury. He added: “Later their employer might say, ‘How do I know this didn’t happen at home?’ Reporting time is really important for proving it happened at work.”

1. After you report your injury, your employer is supposed to file a claim with their insurance company within seven days. (Your employer can be fined if they delay filing a claim on purpose.) Your medical provider — usually that’s your doctor — can also file a claim for you.
2. Then the insurer is supposed to report this information to the state.
3. Once the claim is filed, the insurer will usually send you a letter or call and ask for your permission to get your medical records related to the injury.
4. The insurer will look at your records to decide whether to accept the claim and pay the medical costs. The company may also send you to an independent doctor or nurse who may make a different decision about your injury and treatment.
5. You may be entitled to some of your pay if you need days off work to recover from your injury. You should get a check from your employer’s insurance carrier, usually 14 days after your injury or illness, though lawyers say it can take longer.

Explain how you got injured and that it happened at work. Otherwise you may not get workers’ compensation. State officials recommend that you say this before you get treated. Give the name of the farm and the workers’ compensation insurer, if you know it, so that the hospital or doctor’s office can bill the insurer. Attorneys suggested that if you get any medical bills, you send them to the insurer.

Be open and detailed about your pain so your doctor can accurately assess your health. We know some workers sometimes don’t tell their doctors everything because they are embarrassed, they want to seem strong, they fear the cost of treatment, or for other reasons. Many other workers say their employers have told them not to tell the hospital that their injury was work-related in order to avoid filing a workers’ compensation claim. In some cases, employers promise to pay the medical bills out of pocket.

You have the right to choose your own doctor and to be alone with them during your visits; that means your employer does not have a right to be in the room if you do not want them there. Several attorneys said you can also ask your doctor if they would recommend any restrictions on how or how much you work, such as limiting how much weight you carry or how many hours a day you work.

The Department of Workforce Development encourages workers to try to return to work anyway. “You will be in a stronger position to obtain additional benefits if you attempted to return than if you refused an offer of work,” state officials said. But if you have work restrictions, tell your employer you are willing to work within them, attorneys said. And if you feel any pain, tell your supervisor. Your employer should report it to their insurance company. Also, see a doctor to reassess your health, attorneys said.

No. In Wisconsin, your immigration status does not affect your eligibility. Nearly every part of the Wisconsin Workers’ Compensation Act applies to workers regardless of their immigration status.

“Whether you’re in the country legally or not, it’s not relevant,” said Douglas Phebus, an employment attorney who has represented dozens of dairy workers in Wisconsin.

However, he said workers have told him their bosses threatened to get them deported after they asked about workers’ compensation. “That’s ridiculous but it’s scary,” Phebus said.

Deporting undocumented immigrants who are not a threat to national security or public safety is not a priority for the Biden administration, according to official guidance.

The state’s Department of Workforce Development said it does not share information with federal immigration authorities.

Many undocumented immigrants work under fake names and Social Security numbers. Martha Burke, a workers’ compensation attorney, said that when she fills out workers’ compensation paperwork, she often includes both names that workers use. State officials said workers don’t have to provide a Social Security number.

If you need less than three days to recover, you won’t be paid for that time off of work. State law only allows payment to start on the fourth day off from work. You could get paid two-thirds of your wages.

At this stage — as medical bills may be piling up — many workers and advocates suggest talking to an attorney.

You can also call the Department of Workforce Development’s workers’ compensation division to discuss problems with a claim. (See the resources page at the end of this guide to find this contact information.) You can ask state officials to review your claim and try to resolve your dispute with the insurance company, or ask for a formal hearing. The vast majority of workers who ask for hearings have attorneys, state officials said.

You may qualify for other benefits. How much depends in part on how much a doctor thinks your injury will affect your ability to work and earn money in the future.

Doctors might not try to determine if your injury is permanent or note that in your file unless you ask them to. You have to be your own advocate, said Marisol González Castillo, a personal injury attorney who used to specialize in workers’ compensation.

To get permanent disability benefits, you may need help from an attorney. We spoke to two workers whose fingers were amputated in farm accidents. Both got their initial medical bills paid but didn’t get any permanent disability compensation. Years later, each of them wondered if they should have looked for an attorney to help them make a claim.

State law gives workers six years after their injury or most recent workers’ compensation payment to file for permanent disability benefits. (If your injury happened before March 2, 2016, you have 12 years after the date of injury to file a claim.)

The dead worker’s dependents, usually their spouse or children, may be able to qualify for death benefits and burial expenses from the workers’ compensation insurer. Employers are supposed to report deaths to the state within one day.

You can file a claim to request benefits through the state’s Uninsured Employers Fund (UEF). You must call (608) 266-3046 to ask for an application. There is an option for Spanish speakers. You will be asked to give them certain documentation, such as copies of check stubs and medical records.

Some attorneys said you may want to collect information to help the state confirm the actual number of workers on the farm; this could include the names of your coworkers or copies of work schedules.

Thousands of farm workers are excluded from the state’s workers’ compensation system because the farms where they work are too small to be required to have insurance. In addition, many workers who get injured on large farms told us their employers refused to file a claim for them. The workers said they didn’t get medical care because they were afraid their employer would retaliate against them.

Given this reality, we wanted to explain what your options are, even though there aren’t very many, and point you to resources that could help you.

You are not automatically entitled to get help from your employer. This means you could end up with thousands of dollars in medical bills. Hospitals can sue you over unpaid medical debt, which could lead to a court-ordered garnishment of your wages. Garnishment is when money is automatically taken out of your paycheck to pay down your debt.

We know of several farmers who have paid out of pocket for their workers’ medical costs. So you should ask for help, several workers and attorneys said. But the only legal avenue to get your employer to pay your medical bills is to file a personal injury lawsuit.

Given their limited protections, workers who get injured on small farms are in a difficult situation, said Matthew Keifer, a doctor who specializes in occupational safety and is the former director of the National Farm Medicine Center. He said workers should think about finding a job on a larger farm where they would have workers’ compensation. “I know a lot of small farmers who are just wonderful people and would bend over backwards for their employees,” he said. “But there’s a lot that are not.”

These are lawsuits against the employer that ask for money for an injury that a worker thinks was the employers’ fault. Workers can also ask for more money for their pain and suffering.

But unlike in workers’ compensation cases, you have to prove that your employer was to blame for your injury. For example, you may have to show that your employer knew about a workplace hazard but did not fix it.

It can be hard to prove that someone was negligent, said Phebus, the employment attorney. He said he turns away about two-thirds of the dairy workers who call his office asking about personal injury lawsuits.

“People come to see us and they got hurt, but it wasn’t any particular act of negligence,” he said. “It’s just that farming is very dangerous.”

One worker who was injured by a bull on a small farm said she spoke to several attorneys before she found one who took her case.

Brian Laule, a personal injury attorney in River Falls, agreed that these cases can be difficult. But he said workers should not feel hopeless. Instead he encouraged workers to do their research and call several attorneys. “Run the situation by them,” he said. “You can reach out to attorneys for free and find out if you have any recourse.”

You may have to pay your own medical bills. Here are some programs that may help you:

• Charity care: Many hospitals offer charity care programs that cover some or all medical bills for uninsured, low-income patients. You will likely need to fill out an application and share information about your income to find out if you qualify. Ask hospital staff if this is an option.
• Payment plans: Several medical professionals and attorneys also recommended that workers ask about payment plans to avoid having their bills sent to collections. (This is when debt collectors try to make you pay and sometimes charge fees or interest that can make your debt bigger.) Many hospitals have “patient navigators” on staff who can help you apply for charity care or get on a payment plan.
• BadgerCare Plus: This is a state public health insurance program for low-income residents. Undocumented immigrants who have children can get coverage in medical emergencies. (You can also qualify if you are pregnant.) You can call your local health agency to find out if you qualify. Visit this page and click on your county to find the phone number. If you speak Spanish, you can ask for an interpreter.
• Free and low-cost clinics: We also know many workers have long-term pain from repetitive motion injuries, which is damage caused by doing the same actions, such as milking cows, over and over. You may be able to get medical care for these and other nonemergency injuries from “safety net” clinics for free or at a low cost. Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services maintains a page with the names, addresses and phone numbers of these clinics across the state. These facilities are not where you should go if you have serious or life-threatening injuries.
• Urgent care clinics: Hospital emergency room visits can be extremely expensive, warned Aida Bise, the director of migrant and seasonal agricultural worker services for Family Health La Clinica, a community health clinic in Wautoma. For minor injuries, Bise says that workers should think about going to an urgent care clinic. “These are way cheaper,” she said.

One worker whose shoulder was injured when a cow slammed him against a wall on a small farm in 2022 said his employer refused to pay his hospital bills. As a result, the man, an undocumented and uninsured immigrant from Mexico, didn’t initially get the treatment he needed.

“It’s an immense, intolerable pain that’s hard to describe,” he said. “I just want to get the bills paid and recover.” More than five months passed before he got treatment; a community advocate helped him get surgery and other treatment covered by the hospital’s charity care.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is in charge of enforcing workplace safety laws in Wisconsin. It investigates deaths and injuries that happen on the job. You can file a confidential complaint online or call 1-800-321-6742.

Not every complaint will lead to an on-site inspection, which is when an OSHA official comes to the farm and checks for safety hazards. Once again, workers on small farms have fewer protections. If a farm has fewer than 11 employees, federal law may ban OSHA from investigating deaths, injuries or complaints. (Read our story about inconsistencies in OSHA's work on small farms.)

We have talked to many workers who were fired, kicked out of farm housing or threatened with deportation after an injury.

It can be hard for workers to challenge these actions. Each case is different, so you may want to talk to an attorney.

If you lose your housing: Your rights depend on whether you’re considered a tenant under Wisconsin law. You may be a tenant if you pay rent or if your landlord takes rent out of your wages.

• If you are a tenant: You cannot be forcibly removed from housing without a court order. You have a very short amount of time when you can defend against an eviction in court; several attorneys said you should call an attorney quickly if you want to challenge the process or if you have been forced out without a court order.
• Legal Action of Wisconsin has this explainer about tenants’ rights.
• If you are not a tenant: Your rights are more limited. Some attorneys said they have negotiated more time for their clients to move out of farm housing. Again, call an attorney early to explore your options.

If you got fired: If you believe that you were fired because an injury left you with a disability, you may be able to file a discrimination complaint with the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development’s equal rights division. Call 608-266-6860 to learn more; if you speak Spanish, you can request an interpreter. If you work on a farm with at least 15 employees, you may be able to file a discrimination charge with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Call 1-800-669-4000 to learn more; there is an option for Spanish speakers.

Separately, your employer can be penalized for refusing to hire you back after an injury because you filed a workers’ compensation claim.

We’ve talked to many workers who were not paid for their last week of work before getting fired. You can file a complaint with the Department of Workforce Development’s equal rights division to try to get your wages back. You can do that online here, though that form is not in Spanish. Or you can call 608-266-6860 and ask to speak to somebody in Spanish and have a complaint form mailed to you.

If you are worried about being deported: If you are in a dispute with your employer over unpaid wages or another workplace issue, or if you are cooperating with a labor-related investigation at your job, you may qualify for deferred action. This is a temporary protection from deportation. An OSHA investigation can count as a labor dispute. The agency would have to write a letter on your behalf to request deferred action. The U.S. Department of Labor has information about how this program works.

How to report retaliation: You have the right to file a whistleblower complaint with OSHA if you believe your employer retaliated against you for exercising certain rights, such as expressing concern over a workplace safety issue. You can file a complaint online or call 1-800-321-6742. These complaints are not confidential, which means your employer will know you filed one.

If two or more workers have come together to discuss collective concerns about their workplace — including safety or injuries — they have another protection against retaliation. They can file a complaint under the Wisconsin Employment Peace Act with the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission. Call 608-243-2424 to learn more; Spanish speakers need to request an interpreter. This process can be complex, even for people who don’t have a language barrier, several attorneys said; you may want to get an attorney or somebody who can help you file the complaint.

There is no single place where you can get information about what to do if you get injured on a Wisconsin dairy farm. But we wanted to share a list of some of the resources we learned about that can be helpful.

Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development: This is the agency that oversees the state’s workers’ compensation system. You can call 608-266-1340 to speak to a specialist about problems with a claim, discuss late payments, ask for a hearing application, or talk about any other related issues. Spanish speakers can request an interpreter when they call.

Farmworker Project: This is part of the Legal Action of Wisconsin, a nonprofit organization that provides legal services to low-income residents. Attorneys can’t take every case but may be able to provide a consultation. They can also refer workers to bilingual private attorneys. You can call or text 920-279-7025 with questions. This phone number is also available on WhatsApp.

State Bar of Wisconsin: This organization has a search tool on its website that lets you look for attorneys by county and learn whether they speak a language besides English. The site is only available in English.

211 Wisconsin: If you are in Wisconsin, you can dial 2-1-1 and get connected to a free phone-based information service. It is available in Spanish. This program can connect you to specialists who can get you referrals for thousands of programs and services across the state. It is available 24 hours a day. The nonprofit United Way of Wisconsin manages this program.

Voces de la Frontera: This is the state’s largest immigrant rights organization. Voces offers workers’ rights training and has a network of advocates across the state who may be able to connect you to resources in your area. You can contact Voces at 414-643-1620.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by .

The Kachin Independence Army, an ethnic minority rebel group battling the junta in resource-rich Kachin State says it has captured about 100 junta camps, eight towns and a major trade route in recent months.

Last week, the group seized a base in Waingmaw township, about 20 km (12 miles) from the state capital, Myitkyina.

Heavy fighting erupted there late on Sunday as a military convoy was passing, sending residents fleeing any way they could, most in cars and on motorbikes, some of those who fled said.

Twenty-six civilians were wounded by gunfire and shelling, with six men and two women in critical condition, the residents said, adding that about 40 people, many of them migrant workers, were trapped and unable to escape in the chaos.

“Unfortunately they got stuck in the fighting that erupted at the entrance of Waingmaw town,” said one resident who managed to flee. The resident declined to be identified citing safety fears.

“They were suddenly in the middle of a battle and getting injured.”

It was not clear which side’s fire hit the residents, they said.

RFA telephoned Kachin State’s junta spokesperson, Moe Min Thein, and Kachin Independence Army information officer Col. Naw Bu for more information, but neither of them answered the calls.

Most of those wounded in the fighting were men between the ages of 30 and 60, the resident said.

Aid groups sent them to hospital in Waingmaw, but were transferred early on Monday to hospital in Myitkyina, about 20 km (12 miles) to the north, relief workers told RFA. 

Limited telecommunications have made it difficult for aid workers to confirm the identities of the injured and to assess safety, they said.  

Seven residents of Waingmaw were killed and 22 wounded in fighting between Tuesday and Saturday last week.. 

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

Last week a House of Commons justice committee hearing instigated by Liberal MP Anthony Housefather heard from a half dozen students about how difficult life has become as their peers criticize Israel’s holocaust in Gaza. As the Grind’s Dave Gray-Donald pointed out, the media ignored that three of the students who testified previously held positions in Israel lobby organizations. But focusing only on those paid to promote a foreign state ignores the depth of the problem.

The problem begins when two and three-year olds are indoctrinated into worshiping a far-away apartheid state. The daycare and preschool at the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre in Toronto
has Israeli flags on the wall and describes “Israel as a Source and Resource”.

From daycare to summer camp to kindergarten, many young Jews are conditioned to be “terrified” by those opposing genocide. At a number of private elementary schools, they paint the kids’ faces with Israel’s colours on special occasions and regularly sing the national anthem of one of the most violent states in history. At Montréal’s Hebrew Academy Israeli emissaries lead five- and six-year-olds in “fun IDF programs”. Photos of Israeli soldiers and IDF emblems are common and schools also show movies that celebrate the Israeli military and have students send gifts to IDF bases.

Beyond instilling an emotional attachment towards the Israeli military, the kids are radicalized into fundraising for colonial land theft. Schools distribute Jewish National Fund Blue Boxes as part of “educating Jewish youth and involving them in these efforts in order to foster their Zionistic spirit and inspire their support for the State of Israel. For many Jews, the Blue Box is bound up with childhood memories from home and the traditional contributions they made in kindergarten and grade school.” Blue Boxes raise funds for the explicitly racist JNF, which has played an important role in the colonization of Palestine. A number of Montreal Jewish schools have also recently brought grade three and fours to “JNF Day” events that show maps of Israel that include the illegally occupied West Bank.

At Tuesday’s Israel Independence Day rally in Montreal hundreds, maybe a thousand, students were bused in from private schools. The DJ belted out different school names as the kids danced, waived Israeli flags and knocked beach balls around.

In a sign of what’s being taught at the schools, the Montreal Gazette reported on a student yelling “fuck off” as their bus passed by the Palestine counter demonstration. An hour later, at a cafe a few blocks away, a large group of 16- and 17-year-olds sat down next to me with Israeli flags draped over their shoulders. When I asked how they felt about the 15,000 Palestinian children killed one joked about liking to eat 15,000 of the ice creams he was consuming.

As the kids grow older, the indoctrination becomes more intense and sophisticated. At Toronto’s TanenbaumCHAT all grade 12s were recently given a copy of the Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism and the Delegitimization of Israel Noa Tishby’s book Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth. They also entice students to join the IDF. Former Israeli soldiers visit and school alumni sometimes speak to the teenagers from their IDF bases. Hebrew Academy, TanenbaumCHAT and others also celebrate those who join the Israeli military.

Is it surprising that kids who have endured this indoctrination feel threatened by criticism of Israel? For many, university may be their first sustained interaction with anti-Zionism (or even non-Jews).

One certainly can have sympathy for young people who have been brought up in a fantasyland in which Israel is the “only democracy in the Middle East” and a place where settlers made an empty land “bloom”. They’ve been told over and over the IDF is “most moral army in the world” and “there’s no such thing as Palestinians”. We should pity those who have been sheltered from the real world in which billions around the world perceive Israel as a settler colonial state engaged in an ongoing genocide against millions of displaced people.

Something must be done to help them. What can we do to prevent the shock of entering the real world when they attend university? Require changes in the curriculum? Demand historical honesty?

Parliament should investigate what can be done to save these students from feeling frightened by social justice activists opposing genocide.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Yves Engler.

So far, only Vietnam has said that it opposes the 180 km (112 mile) Chinese-built project, said Sun Chanthol, a deputy prime minister and the former minister of public works.

“There is nothing to worry about, but they keep raising it,” he told reporters after the meeting in Phnom Penh, referring to Vietnam. “I have already explained to them. We studied it in detail. Do not worry. Do not worry.”

The Funan Techo canal, officially known as the Tonle Bassac Navigation Road and Logistics System Project, will connect the Cambodian coastal province of Kep on the Gulf of Thailand with the inland provinces of Kandal and Takeo and the capital of Phnom Penh via a tributary of the Mekong River.

The Cambodian government has said it would cut transport costs and reduce dependence on Vietnamese ports. Construction is scheduled to begin later this year and could be completed within four years.

A group of Vietnamese experts suggested last week that Hanoi should push for a delay to allow further discussions about the project’s environmental and geopolitical impacts on the Mekong delta, which is home to 17.4 million people.

The experts said the canal could “reduce the flow of the river by up to 50%” in the delta, leaving it vulnerable to sea water incursions.

Senior Vietnamese officials have also asked that the Mekong River Commission be allowed to evaluate the project. The commission works with Cambodia, Thailand and Laos and Vietnam to “manage the shared water resources and the sustainable development of the Mekong River.”

10,000 jobs

Sun Chanthol, who also serves as the first vice president of the Council for the Development of Cambodia, met with representatives from several embassies, including the United States, the United Kingdom and France.

He told reporters afterward that the project will create jobs for at least 10,000 people, most of them Cambodian.

“Only a few Chinese will be technical advisers,” he said. “China can’t spend money to send their thousands of workers here.” 

Cambodia plans to allow a Chinese state-owned company, the China Road and Bridge Corporation, to build the canal under a 50-year construction, operation and transfer agreement. 

The U.S. Embassy has said that while it respects “Cambodia’s sovereignty in internal governance and development decisions,” the Cambodian people as well as people in neighboring countries “would benefit from transparency on any major undertaking with potential implications for regional water and agricultural sustainability.”

Former Prime Minister Hun Sen, now the president of the Senate and still retains much power, told a business banquet last week that construction of the canal will go ahead as planned, emphasizing the project was of national interest.

Sun Chanthol is scheduled to give a public presentation on the project at the Institute of Technology of Cambodia in Phnom Penh on Saturday.

Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Khmer.

The post Despite Its Popularity, The Kids Online Safety Act Won’t Help Young People, It Will Hurt Them appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Kate Horgan.

Several students remained hospitalized earlier this week with brain injuries from the Jan. 23 quake, according to the school’s principal.

“The seven most severely injured individuals have been assessed by experts who confirmed no bleeding in the brain,” the principal said. “The unconsciousness observed was attributed to a lack of oxygen following the collapse.”

Xinjiang emergency management authorities said last week that the quake’s epicenter was Uchturpan’s Yamansu village, where the school is located. More than 12,000 residents were displaced throughout the Xinjiang region, they said.

Xinjiang is located along a seismic belt where earthquakes often occur.

The quake was reported as 7.1 magnitude by the China Geological Survey, but as 7 magnitude by the U.S. Geological Survey. 

No deaths have been reported. 

RFA has contacted officials in Uchturpan county’s Uchturpan Bazaar, Imamlirim town and in Yamansu – the worst-hit locations – to gather information about the extent of damage.

An individual in Uchturpan county, who asked for anonymity, told RFA that he had heard about the damage to the school but was unaware of the harm to the children due to a strict information blockade. 

He said two village secretaries have been deemed responsible for the building’s safety and dismissed from their positions.

“There is a special investigation group looking into the reasons behind the school building collapse incident,” the school principal said. “The school’s situation will be thoroughly investigated, and there will be a result.”

Edited by Matt Reed.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Shohret Hoshur for RFA Uyghur.

A handful of studies have sought to quantify the scope and scale of the mental health consequences of disasters that have occurred in the recent past, such as 1992’s Hurricane Andrew, 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, and 2017’s Hurricane Irma. The results point to an alarming trend: The stress and trauma of losing a loved one, seeing a home destroyed, or watching a beloved community splinter has resounding mental health repercussions that stretch on for months, even years, after the disaster makes its first impact. Anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, post-traumatic stress, and sometimes suicidal ideation and suicide follow disasters. 

Children and adolescents — who are still learning to regulate their emotions, rely on routine and a sense of safety more than most adults do, and get social and mental stimulation from interacting with peers — are among the demographics most vulnerable to the chaos and isolation brought on by extreme weather events. 

A study published in mid-January in the Journal of Traumatic Stress analyzed survey data from more than 90,000 public school students across Puerto Rico in the months following Hurricane Maria’s landfall in September 2017. Maria, a Category 5 storm that caused widespread destruction in the northern Caribbean, killed nearly 3,000 people in Puerto Rico and caused mass blackouts that left huge portions of the island without electricity and drinking water for months — a reflection of decades of disinvestment in and mismanagement of the island’s infrastructure.

Some 30 percent of the students surveyed five to nine months after the hurricane made landfall said they felt their lives were threatened by the storm, 46 percent said their homes were significantly damaged, and 17 percent said they were injured or a family member was injured. 

Roughly 7 percent of the young people surveyed — about 6,300 students — developed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, after the storm. For this subset, the psychological consequences of living through Maria and its aftermath were extreme. 

Prior research has shown that young people are more likely to turn to alcohol as a coping mechanism after experiencing traumatic stress, a precursor to PTSD. A study published in 2021 hypothesized that children living in Louisiana who were exposed to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 would have higher rates of anxiety, depression, and alcohol use as teenagers than the general population in southeastern Louisiana. The researchers found a connection: the more severe the traumatic stress during and after the disaster, the more likely the individual was to report substance use. 

“There is an initial link that has been found in other research,” said Alejandro L. Vázquez, the lead author of the Puerto Rico study and an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. But a huge question remains. “The mechanism for why kids are using substances in this situation is less clear,” he said. Vázquez wanted to figure out which specific symptoms of traumatic stress were linked to alcohol and substance abuse in the students who suffered PTSD symptoms after Hurricane Maria. He found that angry outbursts and irritable behavior, two of the core symptoms of PTSD, were strongly correlated to self-reported substance use. 

Robbie Parks, an environmental epidemiologist at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, called the study a “fantastic synthesis of how the hidden burden of climate-related disasters such as Hurricane Maria can have long-lasting, non-obvious impacts on the way that our health and well-being is maintained.” Parks was not involved in the research.

The ultimate purpose of the research, Vázquez told Grist, is to arm counselors, teachers, and mental health professionals with information that can help them identify PTSD as it forms in young people post-disaster and intervene before it prompts them to develop unhealthy habits. “When we think about trajectories, if you get into the habit of using these maladaptive coping strategies, you can build biological dependence on substances,” Vázquez said. “One storm can have this life-changing effect for a child.” 

The upshot is that isolating the behaviors that may eventually lead to alcohol and drug dependence is a first step toward protecting children from some of the more visceral consequences of surviving a disaster like a hurricane. The study found that children who had a supportive caregiver, friend, or teacher were less likely to turn to harmful coping devices. “This is consistent with the idea that the disintegration of social structures — be it climate change or otherwise — will impact the way people behave after a traumatic event,” Parks said. “It speaks to the particular vulnerability of youth in a resource-scarce area.”  

More research is needed to figure out exactly how to help youth survive the mental repercussions of hurricanes and other extreme weather events, Vázquez said, especially as climate change becomes more severe. “There’s going to continue to be intense storms with more devastation in low-lying areas like Puerto Rico that are more vulnerable,” he said. 

If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 9-8-8, or the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How climate disasters hurt adolescents’ mental health on Jan 19, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Zoya Teirstein.

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For most workers in Wisconsin who get hurt on the job, the state’s workers’ compensation system is there to cover medical expenses and pay a portion of their wages while they heal.

“One of the bedrock principles of worker’s compensation is universal coverage,” the state’s Department of Workforce Development, which oversees the workers’ compensation system, says on its website. “That means that virtually every employee is covered.”

But the law is different for farms, and many immigrant dairy workers — the backbone of one of the state’s most celebrated yet dangerous industries — don’t get this protection. Wisconsin exempts all kinds of farms with fewer than six employees not related to the owners from the requirement to have workers’ compensation coverage.

No state or federal agency appears to track how many of Wisconsin’s 5,700 or so dairy farms fall into that category — or how many workers go without coverage. Neither does the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation, one of the state’s most powerful lobbying groups.

But the number of those farms is likely in the thousands since many employ only one or two workers. According to one national study, more than 23,000 agricultural workers in Wisconsin were exempt from workers’ compensation coverage in 2020; that’s a larger number of excluded agricultural workers than in almost every other state in the country.

The workers’ compensation exemption comes on top of limits on the federal government’s enforcement of occupational health and safety laws on these same small farms, which effectively leaves employers to police themselves.

It’s not just workers on small farms who go unprotected. Many injured workers on large farms said they are too afraid of retaliation from their employers to pursue claims. The problem is exacerbated by immigration status: Most immigrants who work on Wisconsin dairy farms are in the United States illegally and fear getting fired or deported.

“Workers’ compensation really doesn’t work for anyone, not even the workers it’s supposed to work for. It really doesn’t,” said Lola Loustaunau, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School for Workers who is studying access to workers’ compensation for immigrant workers in high-risk industries. “That gets increasingly worse the more precarious workers are.”

ProPublica reported this week on how immigrant dairy workers are frequently hurt on the job and often go without medical care. When their injuries are so severe that they can no longer work like they used to, they can get fired and thrown out of the housing many employers provide. Many are left with few legal options.

“The farm owner didn’t want to help me with anything,” said a 47-year-old man who was unable to work for several months this year after the muscles and tendons in his shoulder were ripped from the bones when a cow slammed him against a wall. “They don’t really see us as full humans.”

The man worked with two other workers on a farm that, according to state records, didn’t have workers’ compensation insurance. He said he went without medical care for months until the owner of Latino grocery store in the area put him in touch with a local nonprofit organization that helped him get hospital charity care.

In more than a dozen states, including New York, California and Idaho, farms with as few as one employee are required to have workers’ compensation insurance. Wisconsin’s exemption for small farms is one of many federal and state carve-outs that have historically left farm workers — and dairy workers in particular — with fewer rights and protections than others. Farm workers aren’t entitled to overtime pay, and they don’t have the right to form a union. Dairy farm housing is largely unregulated and uninspected. Workers’ deaths and injuries on small farms are almost never investigated by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, as ProPublica has previously reported.

A Department of Workforce Development spokesperson said state law does not authorize its Worker’s Compensation Division to provide resources or programs to an injured worker whose employer is not required to have workers’ compensation insurance. “Division staff refer injured workers who contact the division with immediate needs to community-based organizations and other service providers,” the spokesperson said.

The Wisconsin Farm Bureau says in its annual policy book that it supports keeping the threshold for requiring workers’ compensation insurance at farms with six employees. In a statement, Amy Eckelberg, a spokesperson for the Farm Bureau, said farmers from across the state set the organization’s policy priorities.

“Our farmers use every means available to avoid injuries to their employees, family members and themselves through appropriate education, training and physical precautions to mitigate against known safety threats,” she said.

Over the course of the past year, ProPublica has interviewed more than 60 immigrant workers who said they were injured on Wisconsin farms. Workers on small and large farms repeatedly said their supervisors ignored their injuries.

Take the case of Luis, a Nicaraguan man who works on a farm in south-central Wisconsin that, according to state records, has workers’ compensation coverage. He said that one morning in January, a cow kicked his hand. “In that moment, I thought my hand was broken,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do about the pain.” Luis said he told his manager, who said, “It’s fine. Keep working,” and so he did.

Later that day, he stopped by a Latino grocery store to buy painkillers and bandages in the hopes of reducing the swelling. He knew his employer had workers’ compensation insurance, but he didn’t want to press the matter. “It’s better not to say anything,” he said. Luis never got medical care.

Many workers who did get medical treatment said their supervisors pressured them to tell hospital officials their injury wasn’t work-related. One former hospital employee said immigrant dairy workers who came into the emergency room would beg him not to note in their files that they were hurt at work. He said they didn’t want the hospital to call their employer to ask about workers’ compensation coverage; they were afraid their supervisors would get mad and fire them.

Some farms that are large enough to be required to carry workers’ compensation insurance don’t have it. One man whose face was bashed in by a bull last year said at least seven other people worked on the farm. But the farm didn’t have workers’ compensation coverage, according to state records.

More than a half-dozen workers said in interviews that workers’ compensation paid some or all of their medical bills and provided them partial pay as they recuperated. But their bodies are no longer the same.

“My right hand is fucked,” said an Ecuadorian man who lost two fingers and can’t use two others after his hand got caught in a piece of machinery in a milking parlor. “I can’t close my hand; it just stays open. It hurts when I try to use it a lot. And in the cold, the pain is unbearable.”

“I can’t run. I can’t walk more than a half hour. My leg falls asleep,” said a Nicaraguan man whose legs were crushed under a heavy metal gate two years ago. “The farm owner told me I’m lucky to be alive because even cows can be killed there.”

“I kept trying to work, but I couldn’t stand the pain,” said a Nicaraguan man who injured his spinal column when he slipped off a skid steer he was cleaning and fell on concrete. “They laughed at me, saying I was making up the pain, that I didn’t want to work.”

Workers who are injured on small farms that don’t have workers’ compensation insurance have only one legal recourse to compel their employers to pay their medical bills: take them to court. But few immigrant dairy workers do so.

“A lot of folks are afraid that somehow suing will affect their immigration status,” said Douglas Phebus, a lawyer who has represented workers on small dairy farms in personal injury cases. “The whole system is designed to burden these folks. It’s all stacked against them.”

Unlike workers’ compensation claims, for which a worker has to prove only that an injury happened in the course of work, the burden of proof is higher in personal injury lawsuits: Workers must show that their employers were negligent.

And it can be challenging to find an attorney — especially one who speaks Spanish — as well as the time to meet since workers routinely work 70 to 80 hours a week.

Kate McCoy, the occupational health and safety program director for the state’s Department of Health Services, said immigrant dairy workers are at an especially high risk of disability and death.

“From the public health standpoint, you never want to see a population that’s afraid to access medical care and is afraid to speak to health officials, and that’s one of the things we see with this population,” she said.

McCoy’s team is working with Loustaunau and other University of Wisconsin researchers to better understand the occupational health needs of workers in high-risk industries — including immigrant dairy workers — and the challenges they face when they seek workers’ compensation.

The group held its first listening session this month. Every worker who attended, including several dairy workers, said they had been fired after sustaining injuries. Several described how they came to see being hurt, and then getting insulted or humiliated by a supervisor, as part of the job, Loustaunau said. Many talked about depression and the toll injuries took on their families.

“We know that there are fantastic farmers and farm employers who go out of their way to take care of employees,” McCoy said. “But unfortunately the stories we heard last Friday night were [about] the folks that were not upholding what we would want.”

Health department officials hope to use what they learn from the listening sessions to provide workers information they need about occupational safety and the workers’ compensation system. They also plan to conduct sessions to help workers learn how to navigate the claims process.

Among the workers at the listening session was a man who said he was bullied, assaulted and threatened with deportation several years ago after falling more than 10 feet while trying to fix a barn curtain on a dairy farm. The man suffered a concussion, memory loss and damage to his spine, and he had to relearn how to walk and talk. He and his wife drove more than an hour in the snow to attend the session. In an interview with ProPublica, the man, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, said he wanted to share his experience because he doesn’t want that to happen to other dairy workers, especially new immigrants.

“We are not animals,” said the man, who asked to be identified by one of his surnames, Paredes, because he is afraid of retaliation from his former employer. “As human beings, we have rights.”

For several months, Paredes’ medical bills were covered by workers’ compensation, and he received partial pay during the time he was supposed to spend recovering.

But he said he still hadn’t been cleared by a doctor to return to work when the farm owner showed up to the house he provided to Paredes, his wife and four children. According to Paredes and his wife, the farm owner demanded that he return to work.

“Sometimes you don’t have another choice,” he said. “A lot of us don’t want to speak up.”

But Paredes couldn’t do the job anymore. His doctor eventually cleared him to work two hours a day, but the farm owner insisted he work longer shifts. The farm owner taunted him, Paredes said, calling him “cripple man” and “dumb,” and told him to “go back to your pueblo because you’re not good for anything.”

Eventually, Paredes felt he had no option but to quit. His wife got three jobs to make up for the lost income, including milking cows at another farm and cleaning a church. Paredes said he hasn’t been able to hold a regular job since the accident. He has thousands of dollars in medical debt for ongoing care that is no longer covered by workers’ compensation. He picks up odd jobs, such as cutting grass or painting houses, when he can. But when he does physical labor, he said he quickly feels intense pain in his spine. And he said his brain doesn’t work like it used to. He gets motion sickness and feels dizzy when he walks or drives.

“I feel useless,” he said. “Like I’m good for nothing.”

Help ProPublica Journalists Investigate the Dairy Industry

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Melissa Sanchez and Maryam Jameel.

As the Palestinian death toll in Gaza nears 10,000, calls for ceasefire are growing around the world. “This is a paradigm-changing moment,” says Shibley Telhami, who discusses the shifting public opinion on conflict in Israel and Palestine and its potential impact on Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. Telhami is a professor of peace and development at the University of Maryland and senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy.

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

The post The Truth May Hurt, But We Still Have to Face It appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Robert Koehler.

The post Fires Hurt the Poor More appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Alexander Cockburn.

Rob Reich, a faculty associate director at Stanford University's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, tweeted that "this is a big step forward for AI governance," and it is "great to see" Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI "coordinating on baseline norms of responsible AI development."

"We need enforceable accountability measures and requirements to roll out AI responsibly and mitigate the risks and potential harms to individuals, including bias and discrimination."

Alexandra Reeve Givens, CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), called the announcement "a welcome step toward promoting trustworthy and secure AI systems."

"Red team testing, information sharing, and transparency around risks are all essential elements of achieving AI safety," Reeve Givens said. "The commitment to develop mechanisms to disclose to users when content is AI-generated offers the potential to reduce fraud and mis- and disinformation."

"These voluntary undertakings are only a first step. We need enforceable accountability measures and requirements to roll out AI responsibly and mitigate the risks and potential harms to individuals, including bias and discrimination," she stressed. "CDT looks forward to continuing to work with the administration and Congress in putting these safeguards in place."

Caitriona Fitzgerald, deputy director at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), had a similar response.

"While EPIC appreciates the Biden administration's use of its authorities to place safeguards on the use of artificial intelligence, we both agree that voluntary commitments are not enough when it comes to Big Tech," she said. "Congress and federal regulators must put meaningful, enforceable guardrails in place to ensure the use of AI is fair, transparent, and protects individuals' privacy and civil rights."

Biden brought together leaders from the companies to announce eight commitments that the White House said "underscore three principles that must be fundamental to the future of AI: safety, security, and trust."

As the White House outlined, the firms are pledging to:

• Commit to internal and external red-teaming of models or systems in areas including misuse, societal risks, and national security concerns, such as bio, cyber, and other safety areas;
• Work toward information sharing among companies and governments regarding trust and safety risks, dangerous or emergent capabilities, and attempts to circumvent safeguards;
• Invest in cybersecurity and insider threat safeguards to protect proprietary and unreleased model weights;
• Incent third-party discovery and reporting of issues and vulnerabilities;
• Develop and deploy mechanisms that enable users to understand if audio or visual content is AI-generated, including robust provenance, watermarking, or both, for AI-generated audio or visual content;
• Publicly report model or system capabilities, limitations, and domains of appropriate and inappropriate use, including discussion of societal risks, such as effects on fairness and bias;
• Prioritize research on societal risks posed by AI systems, including on avoiding harmful bias and discrimination, and protecting privacy; and
• Develop and deploy frontier AI systems to help address society’s greatest challenges.

"There is much more work underway," according to a White House fact sheet, which says the "administration is currently developing an executive order and will pursue bipartisan legislation to help America lead the way in responsible innovation."

Brown University computer and data science professor Suresh Venkatasubramania, a former Biden tech adviser who helped co-author the administration's Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, said in a series of tweets about the Friday agreement that "on process, there's good stuff here," but "on content, it's a bit of a mixed bag."

While recognizing the need for additional action, Venkatasubramania also said that voluntary efforts help show that "adding guardrails in the development of public-facing systems isn't the end of the world or even the end of innovation."

The White House fact sheet says that "as we advance this agenda at home, the administration will work with allies and partners to establish a strong international framework to govern the development and use of AI. It has already consulted on the voluntary commitments with Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, the UAE, and the U.K."

Gabriela Zanfir-Fortuna of the Future of Privacy Forum pointed out that the European Union was not listed as a partner.

As Common Dreamsreported last month, the European Parliament passed a draft law that would strictly regulate the use of artificial intelligence, and now, members of the legislative body are negotiating a final version with the E.U.'s executive institutions.

The fact sheet adds that "the United States seeks to ensure that these commitments support and complement Japan's leadership of the G7 Hiroshima Process—as a critical forum for developing shared principles for the governance of AI—as well as the United Kingdom's leadership in hosting a Summit on AI Safety, and India's leadership as chair of the Global Partnership on AI."

Noting that portion of the document, Zanfir-Fortuna tweeted: "What is missing from the list? The Council of Europe's ongoing process to adopt an international agreement on AI."

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

Pena is just one of scores of women who’ve faced violence – beatings, attacks, dispossession, incarceration, intimidation assassination – related to their roles as environmental activists. In a new analysis from the Autonomous University of Barcelona published in the journal Nature, researchers examined 523 documented cases of violence specifically against women environmental defenders, or WEDs. In 81 of these cases, the defender was assassinated, whether by the state, an organized criminal group, a business interest, or some combination of the three. 

According to the study, women often face violence in these conflicts not only as activists, but because their actions often defy patriarchal gender expectations of docility and sacrifice that authoritarian governments may use as means of enforcing social order. Women, particularly low-income and Indigenous women, have long been at the frontlines of environmental conflict, putting them in close contact with paramilitaries, traffickers, and resource extraction workers. Even when governments concede to environmentalists, women are often left out of negotiations, despite the documented disproportionate impacts of ecocide on women. 

“Across these countries, authoritarian populism reinforced existing chauvinism wherein gendered tropes and inequalities incite and justify violence against women,” the study authors wrote.

These cases were identified using an ongoing mapping project called the Environmental Justice Atlas, which tracks environmental justice conflicts throughout the world. The atlas sorts conflicts by health impacts, type of environmental problem (oil and gas, agriculture, etc.), conflict levels, and other categories. WEDs faced extrajudicial violence primarily in the Philippines, Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico, where conflict over land, minerals, and industrial activity have reached a fever pitch. 

In Colombia, for instance, illicit cattle ranching and coca farming near Indigenous communities have led to armed conflicts between land defenders and organized criminal groups. The country also has a high rate of violence against women in general, with 630 femicides officially recognized in 2020 alone. Indigenous and Black women are disproportionately likely to be affected by gendered violence, and are also more likely to live near the frontlines of armed environmental conflict and face threats when speaking up.

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Study authors noted that violence against women activists doesn’t always look like outright murder. Other more common forms of environmental harassment include displacement, repression, criminalization, and non-deadly forms of violent targeting. The study found that women were incited to take action after facing certain forms of violence, such as sickness or non-assasination deaths of family members. They also mobilized in response to  food insecurity and loss of livelihood..

Study authors say that cases of violences against WEDs are likely severely undercounted, noting that conflict reporting frequently sidelines women as residents, mothers, and wives, rather than as activists in their own right. Furthermore, environmental conflicts are not always well documented in and of themselves, making it difficult for researchers to determine if violence against women was related to environmental activism.

But documenting violence against women environmental defenders is not the same as finding justice. International human rights advocates say that even in high-profile cases, it’s often difficult for families of WEDs who have been murdered or wrongfully incarcerated to get justice. The assassination of Honduran land defender Berta Cáceres for example, was international news seven years ago, but according to Amnesty International campaigner Graciela Martinez, Cáceres’ family is still searching for some of the perpetrators.

“It is important to keep pushing for justice, as there is a lot of impunity,” Martinez said. “When attacks are gender-based it is even more difficult to get justice.” 

Martinez is working with human rights defenders from around the world to advocate for increased protections for environmental activists like Cáceres. She said 15 out of 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries have agreed to take on articles of protection, which would outline rights for the region’s marginalized people in their defense of their lands and communities. She believes better protection — for women and other vulnerable environmental activists — is possible with commitment from world leaders, but only if those groups are able to participate in the process of implementation. 

“We must engage human rights defenders, and especially Indigenous people, women, and children in this process,” she said.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How environmental conflicts hurt — and motivate — women activists on Jun 15, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Katie Myers.

Split deity, Haida carving. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

Montana’s Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte became the latest to sign several new anti-transgender laws, including one that will prevent gender-affirming medical care for minors.

One thing these new laws do not take into account is that the 12 federally recognized tribes in Montana have historically recognized multiple gender identities, including transgender identities. Most Indigenous peoples recognize multiple gender identities that are believed to be the result of supernatural intervention.

In this regard, Montana state Rep. Donavon Hawk, a Democrat from Butte who is Crow and Lakota, said, “It surprises me that this country is only a couple hundred years old, and we are not able to function with LGBTQ people in our communities.” Indigenous communities have incorporated LGBTQ+ peoples within their societies for centuries.

As an Indigenous scholar who studies the history and religion of Indigenous peoples, I am troubled by how these new anti-transgender laws might affect religious expression and the rights of Indigenous communities, not just in Montana but across the nation.

Indigenous ideas about gender

Indigenous peoples have been in North America for at least 30,000 years. As their societies developed over time, hundreds of different ethnicities, languages, religious practices, gender expressions and identities emerged.

Transgender individuals, an umbrella term for individuals whose gender identity is not linked to the sex they were assigned at birth, have existed throughout history, including within Indigenous communities.

I learned from my maternal grandparents about Blackfeet religion and history. The Blackfeet acknowledged and accepted individual gender expression and identity because it was granted by the divine. Personal gender identity was rarely questioned, because it was tantamount to questioning the divine.

I first learned about Blackfeet ideas about transgender individuals as a young person from hearing oral history stories about famous Blackfeet religious leaders, warriors and adventurers who were transgender. They were viewed as having a direct connection to the divine. People often sought out these individuals for blessings, prayer or spiritual guidance.

Indeed, anthropologists and historians have studied Blackfeet gender expression and learned that the Blackfeet recognized multiple gender identities, including what is defined today in Western societies as transgender.

Two-Spirit and the divine

The modern-day term that many Indigenous peoples in North America have begun to use as an umbrella term to describe the multiple gender identities within Indigenous communities is Two-Spirit. That includes transgender people.

In many Indigenous communities, as the Indian Health Service notes, Two-Spirit identity is believed to come from the divine in visions or dreams and Two-Spirit people often “filled special religious roles as healers, shamans and ceremonial leaders.”

Even though the term Two-Spirit does not encompass the wide variety of gender identities across Indigenous communities, many people embrace its use as a way to revitalize Indigenous traditions.

Sadly, transphobia does exist within contemporary Native American communities. And anti-transgender violence is part of the life experience of Two-Spirit people. Some scholars argue this is because of the long history of colonialism and cultural genocide that forced the Western-defined gender binary and patriarchy on Indigenous communities.

The laws might hurt Indigenous rights

Montana’s recent legislative session passed several anti-transgender laws, including one that allows health care providers to refuse patients based on conscience, prohibits drag story hours and defines biological sex as only male or female, in addition to preventing gender-affirming medical care for minors.

Worried about how this last law will affect Montana’s children, the Montana Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics stated that “taking away this care will, without a doubt, harm kids.”

Montana is not alone in its efforts to introduce and pass anti-transgender legislation. The nationwide civil rights group Human Rights Campaign states that in 2023 alone, more than 450 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in state legislatures.

Investigative journalist Nora Mabie wrote in an article in May 2023 that Indigenous peoples and Native American tribes were being left out of this decision-making process as a result of racism, discrimination and partisanship in the Montana Legislature.

By ignoring the long Indigenous histories of integrating multiple gender identities consecrated by the divine, legislatures are bound to cause both individual suffering and the diminishing of Indigenous peoples’ rights to practice their own religions.

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

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Rosalyn R. LaPier.

"Wealthy G7 countries like to cast themselves as saviors but what they are is operating a deadly double standard—they play by one set of rules while their former colonies are forced to play by another," Oxfam International's interim executive director, Amitabh Behar, lamented. "It's do as I say, not as I do."

"It's the rich world that owes the Global South," said Behar. "The aid they promised decades ago but never gave. The huge costs from climate damage caused by their reckless burning of fossil fuels. The immense wealth built on colonialism and slavery."

"The G7 must pay its due. This isn't about benevolence or charity—it's a moral obligation."

Recent peer-reviewed research detailing how the prioritization of capitalist class interests has reproduced inequality between nations over time found that the Global North has "drained" more than $152 trillion from the Global South since 1960, and climate justice advocates stress that this plunder is reflected in rich countries' outsized share of historic and present greenhouse gas pollution.

According to Oxfam's new analysis, planet-heating emissions attributed to the G7 inflicted $8.7 trillion in climate change-related loss and damage on developing countries between 1979 and 2019—a figure that has since increased and will continue to grow.

At the United Nations COP27 climate conference last year, delegates agreed to establish a loss and damage fund after failing to commit to phasing out the fossil fuels causing so much harm. It remains to be seen how the new fund will operate, but Oxfam on Wednesday condemned G7 members for continuing to push for public investment in fracked gas and oil development despite vowing to wind down climate-wrecking dirty energy production at a faster rate.

Previous efforts to facilitate climate aid from the Global North to the Global South have fallen far short of what's needed due to the stinginess of wealthy countries, especially the United States.

In 2009, developed nations agreed at COP15 to allocate $100 billion in green finance per year to the developing world by 2020 and every year after through 2025, at which point a new goal would be established. However, only $83.3 billion was mobilized in the first year, and governments are not expected to hit their annual target, which has been denounced as woefully inadequate, until this year.

Based on Oxfam's calculations, the G7 is $72 billion behind on the pledge to help impoverished countries ramp up clean energy and respond to increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather.

Oxfam's $13.3 trillion estimate is based on a combination of the $8.7 trillion in uncompensated climate destruction caused by the G7 since 1979 and its $72 billion climate finance shortfall, plus nearly $4.5 trillion in unfulfilled development funding.

In 1970, rich nations including the G7 agreed to spend 0.7% of their gross national income (GNI) on Official Development Assistance (ODA). As of last year, however, they had provided just 0.27%. For their part, G7 members contributed a total of $2.8 trillion in ODA from 1970 to 2022, leaving a cumulative gap of $4.49 trillion between what they promised and what they've delivered.

"This money could have been transformational," said Behar. "It could have paid for children to go to school, hospitals, and lifesaving medicines, improving access to water, better roads, agriculture and food security, and so much more. The G7 must pay its due. This isn't about benevolence or charity—it's a moral obligation."

The upcoming G7 meeting, held this year in Japan, gives members of the powerful club a perfect opportunity to make good on their unmet commitments to uplift the poor, Oxfam said.

"G7 leaders are meeting at a moment where billions of workers face real-term pay cuts and impossible rises in the prices of basics like food," Oxfam pointed out. "Global hunger has risen for a fifth consecutive year, while extreme wealth and extreme poverty have increased simultaneously for the first time in 25 years."

"Two hundred fifty-eight million people across 58 countries are currently experiencing acute hunger, up 34% over the last year," the organization continued. "In East Africa alone, drought and conflict have left a record 36 million people facing extreme hunger, nearly equivalent to the population of Canada. Oxfam estimates that up to two people are likely dying from hunger every minute in Ethiopia, Kenya Somalia, and South Sudan."

Meanwhile, "the fortunes of the world's 260 food billionaires have increased by $381 billion since 2020," Oxfam noted. "Synthetic fertilizer corporations increased their profits by ten times on average in 2022. According to the IMF, the 48 countries most affected by the global food crisis face an additional $9 billion in import bills in 2022 and 2023."

"The G7 is home to 1,123 billionaires with a combined wealth of $6.5 trillion," said Oxfam. "Their wealth has grown in real terms by 45% over the past ten years. A wealth tax on the G7's millionaires starting at just 2%, and 5% on billionaires, could generate $900 billion a year. This is money that could be used to help ordinary people in G7 countries and in the Global South who are facing rising prices and falling wages."

Oxfam called on G7 governments to take the following steps immediately:

• Cancel debts of low- and middle-income countries that need it;
• Return to the 0.7% of GNI aid target, pay off aid arrears, and meet their commitment to provide $100 billion annually to help poorer countries cope with climate change;
• Bring in new taxes on rich individuals and corporations; and
• Expedite the reallocation of at least $100 billion of the existing Special Drawing Rights (SDR) issuance to low- and middle-income countries and commit to at least two new $650 billion issuances by 2030.

"Each and every day, the Global South pays hundreds of millions of dollars to the G7 and their rich bankers. This has to stop," Behar said. "It's time to call the G7's hypocrisy for what it is: an attempt to dodge responsibility and maintain the neo-colonial status quo."

The need for debt relief and redistribution is only poised to grow.

"At least an additional $27.4 trillion is needed between now and 2030 to fill financing gaps in health, education, social protection, and tackling climate change in low- and middle-income countries," Oxfam estimates. "That equates to an annual financing gap of $3.9 trillion."

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

"Wealthy G7 countries like to cast themselves as saviors but what they are is operating a deadly double standard—they play by one set of rules while their former colonies are forced to play by another," Oxfam International's interim executive director, Amitabh Behar, lamented. "It's do as I say, not as I do."

"It's the rich world that owes the Global South," said Behar. "The aid they promised decades ago but never gave. The huge costs from climate damage caused by their reckless burning of fossil fuels. The immense wealth built on colonialism and slavery."

"The G7 must pay its due. This isn't about benevolence or charity—it's a moral obligation."

Recent peer-reviewed research detailing how the prioritization of capitalist class interests has reproduced inequality between nations over time found that the Global North has "drained" more than $152 trillion from the Global South since 1960, and climate justice advocates stress that this plunder is reflected in rich countries' outsized share of historic and present greenhouse gas pollution.

According to Oxfam's new analysis, planet-heating emissions attributed to the G7 inflicted $8.7 trillion in climate change-related loss and damage on developing countries between 1979 and 2019—a figure that has since increased and will continue to grow.

At the United Nations COP27 climate conference last year, delegates agreed to establish a loss and damage fund after failing to commit to phasing out the fossil fuels causing so much harm. It remains to be seen how the new fund will operate, but Oxfam on Wednesday condemned G7 members for continuing to push for public investment in fracked gas and oil development despite vowing to wind down climate-wrecking dirty energy production at a faster rate.

Previous efforts to facilitate climate aid from the Global North to the Global South have fallen far short of what's needed due to the stinginess of wealthy countries, especially the United States.

In 2009, developed nations agreed at COP15 to allocate $100 billion in green finance per year to the developing world by 2020 and every year after through 2025, at which point a new goal would be established. However, only $83.3 billion was mobilized in the first year, and governments are not expected to hit their annual target, which has been denounced as woefully inadequate, until this year.

Based on Oxfam's calculations, the G7 is $72 billion behind on the pledge to help impoverished countries ramp up clean energy and respond to increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather.

Oxfam's $13.3 trillion estimate is based on a combination of the $8.7 trillion in uncompensated climate destruction caused by the G7 since 1979 and its $72 billion climate finance shortfall, plus nearly $4.5 trillion in unfulfilled development funding.

In 1970, rich nations including the G7 agreed to spend 0.7% of their gross national income (GNI) on Official Development Assistance (ODA). As of last year, however, they had provided just 0.27%. For their part, G7 members contributed a total of $2.8 trillion in ODA from 1970 to 2022, leaving a cumulative gap of $4.49 trillion between what they promised and what they've delivered.

"This money could have been transformational," said Behar. "It could have paid for children to go to school, hospitals, and lifesaving medicines, improving access to water, better roads, agriculture and food security, and so much more. The G7 must pay its due. This isn't about benevolence or charity—it's a moral obligation."

The upcoming G7 meeting, held this year in Japan, gives members of the powerful club a perfect opportunity to make good on their unmet commitments to uplift the poor, Oxfam said.

"G7 leaders are meeting at a moment where billions of workers face real-term pay cuts and impossible rises in the prices of basics like food," Oxfam pointed out. "Global hunger has risen for a fifth consecutive year, while extreme wealth and extreme poverty have increased simultaneously for the first time in 25 years."

"Two hundred fifty-eight million people across 58 countries are currently experiencing acute hunger, up 34% over the last year," the organization continued. "In East Africa alone, drought and conflict have left a record 36 million people facing extreme hunger, nearly equivalent to the population of Canada. Oxfam estimates that up to two people are likely dying from hunger every minute in Ethiopia, Kenya Somalia, and South Sudan."

Meanwhile, "the fortunes of the world's 260 food billionaires have increased by $381 billion since 2020," Oxfam noted. "Synthetic fertilizer corporations increased their profits by ten times on average in 2022. According to the IMF, the 48 countries most affected by the global food crisis face an additional $9 billion in import bills in 2022 and 2023."

"The G7 is home to 1,123 billionaires with a combined wealth of $6.5 trillion," said Oxfam. "Their wealth has grown in real terms by 45% over the past ten years. A wealth tax on the G7's millionaires starting at just 2%, and 5% on billionaires, could generate $900 billion a year. This is money that could be used to help ordinary people in G7 countries and in the Global South who are facing rising prices and falling wages."

Oxfam called on G7 governments to take the following steps immediately:

• Cancel debts of low- and middle-income countries that need it;
• Return to the 0.7% of GNI aid target, pay off aid arrears, and meet their commitment to provide $100 billion annually to help poorer countries cope with climate change;
• Bring in new taxes on rich individuals and corporations; and
• Expedite the reallocation of at least $100 billion of the existing Special Drawing Rights (SDR) issuance to low- and middle-income countries and commit to at least two new $650 billion issuances by 2030.

"Each and every day, the Global South pays hundreds of millions of dollars to the G7 and their rich bankers. This has to stop," Behar said. "It's time to call the G7's hypocrisy for what it is: an attempt to dodge responsibility and maintain the neo-colonial status quo."

The need for debt relief and redistribution is only poised to grow.

"At least an additional $27.4 trillion is needed between now and 2030 to fill financing gaps in health, education, social protection, and tackling climate change in low- and middle-income countries," Oxfam estimates. "That equates to an annual financing gap of $3.9 trillion."

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

In 2003, China agreed to a 10-year loan of two pandas – a male named Le Le and a female named Ya Ya – to the Memphis Zoo. After being renewed for another 10 years in 2013, the Memphis Zoo announced in December 2022 that both pandas would be sent back to China in April 2023. 

Le Le unexpectedly died on Feb. 1, 2023, arousing grief and rage from Chinese netizens. Claims soon arose that both pandas had been regularly mistreated and malnourished by the zoo, with some even going so far as to say that Le Le had been maimed before and after his death. 

The surviving panda Ya Ya’s patchy, dry fur was also claimed to be a sign of mistreatment.

Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) found such claims to be false and lacking any credible sources to support them. 

In Depth

A recent picture on the Chinese social media platforms Douyin and Weibo appearing to show Le Le with a wound on his upper and lower backbone raised netizens' concerns over potential panda abuse. The accompanying caption read, “Bloodstains on our national treasure Lele, after being knifed by a Memphis Zoo [official] in the U.S.” 

FabuLous, a popular science blogger on Weibo with over 616,000 fans, said in a Weibo post soon afterwards that the panda in the photo was actually Shu Lan, a female kept at the Lanzhou Zoo in China’s Gansu province. 

Was Le Le knifed by a zookeeper?

After checking both claims, AFCL found allegations that Le Le had been knifed to be false. The panda in the photo is indeed Shu Lan. 

AFCL first used the Chinese search engine Baidu to find the picture of the injured giant panda, and later using the photo tracker tool Tineye to trace where the original picture without captions came from. The photo first appeared on Oct. 18, 2016, long before the recent video accusing Lele's suspected abuse. 

Tineye's search results also brought up a Weibo post from China's National Forestry Administration that allowed AFCL to confirm the panda’s identity as Shu Lan. The post revealed that the original photo was provided by a netizen about the suspected abuse of Shu Lan at the Lanzhou Zoo.

A subsequent search on Baidu using “Shu Lan” and "Lanzhou Zoo" as keywords showed that CCTV covered the incident on Oct. 17, 2016.

Was Lele's left eye gouged out and sold for $720,000?

Rumors that Lele's left eye was gouged out and sold for a whopping $720,000 also abounded on Douyin. Similar to the above claim regarding Le Le being knifed, these claims circulating on the Chinese internet were second-hand and unverified.

AFCL found two points of suspicion with such claims. The first is that the stated selling price of the eye varies from claim to claim, with some saying $720,000 and others $600,000. All such claims do not provide any independent, authoritative sources to support their conclusions. The second point is that there is no consensus at all on specifically which eye was gouged out. Some claim the right eye, some claim the left and some even claim both. 

None of the joint reports issued by the China Zoological Society and the Memphis Zoo have indicated that Le Le is missing an eye. Common sense would also dictate that the visitors at a zoo would notice a missing eye.

Several Chinese panda experts also worked with the Memphis Zoo to complete Lele's autopsy, determining that the initial cause of death to be a heart attack. No mention was made of gouged eyes.

FabuLous also responded to this rumor, claiming that the photo of the gouged eyes circulating on the Internet (the first from the left in the photo below) was in fact Meilan, a giant panda from Dujiangyan in China’s Sichuan province. Her seeming lack of an eye in the picture was caused by the camera angle overemphasizing the shade over the eye, FabuLous said.

Is the panda in the photo Le Le?

After comparing the photo with other pictures of both Le Le and Meilan, AFCL found significant differences in head shape and black eye rings confirmed that the panda in the picture is certainly not Le Le. Owing to the lackluster camera angles however, it is difficult to state with complete confidence that the panda in the photo is Meilan. It’s possible that the photo is a composite of several different panda pictures cut and spliced together. 

P7

The shape of both the panda’s head and black eyes ring are two features that distinguish it from Lele. Lele's head is oval with thin cheeks on both sides of his face. By contrast, the panda in the photo has a round and flat head with fat cheeks, similar to Meilan. Lele’s black eye rings are more symmetrical, while the right eye of the panda in the photo is rounder than its noticeably more sunken left eye, another point similar to Meilan. 

Is Ya Ya’s patchy skin a sign of abuse? 

Various videos and comments by Chinese netizens have also claimed that Memphis Zoo officials mistreated Ya Ya, with one oft-cited piece of evidence for their claim being Ya Ya’s often patchy fur. An article on the popular Chinese social media platform Weixin noted that she looks “thin and bony with dry hair, as if she’s been abused.”  

AFCL found that Ya Ya’s patchy fur is the result of a chronic skin disease. Memphis Zoo acknowledges the condition, stating on their website that, “the skin disease has genetic origins. As the panda gets older, hormonal fluctuations caused by changes of season can result in sparse and uneven fur.”

Xie Zhong, vice president of the Chinese Association of Zoological Gardens (CAZG), repeated the same sentiment in a story written by China Daily earlier this year, noting earlier in the article that Ya Ya had been “well cared for since being lent to the Memphis Zoo in 2003.” CAZG is a non-profit Chinese organization tasked with overseeing animals in captivity within China, as well as Chinese animals loaned abroad. 

At a Chinese Foreign Ministry press conference on April 11, spokesperson Wang Wenbin noted in response to questions concerning Ya Ya’s health that “the overall condition of the giant panda is relatively stable except for the fur condition caused by skin disease.” Wang further noted that Chinese personnel from CAZG and the Beijing Zoo were working with the Memphis Zoo on taking care of Ya Ya during her final days in the United States. 

Conclusion

AFCL found claims that Memphis officials maimed or mistreated either Le Le or Ya Ya to be false. No credible reports show that either panda was abused during their time at the zoo. 

The Memphis Zoo and its partner organization the Chinese Association of Zoological Gardens released joint statements on their respective websites last year which noted that, “CAZG is confident that the giant pandas at the Memphis Zoo are receiving the highest quality of care.”

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Dong Zhe & Shen Ke.

In 2003, China agreed to a 10-year loan of two pandas – a male named Le Le and a female named Ya Ya – to the Memphis Zoo. After being renewed for another 10 years in 2013, the Memphis Zoo announced in December 2022 that both pandas would be sent back to China in April 2023. 

Le Le unexpectedly died on Feb. 1, 2023, arousing grief and rage from Chinese netizens. Claims soon arose that both pandas had been regularly mistreated and malnourished by the zoo, with some even going so far as to say that Le Le had been maimed before and after his death. 

The surviving panda Ya Ya’s patchy, dry fur was also claimed to be a sign of mistreatment.

Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) found such claims to be false and lacking any credible sources to support them. 

In Depth

A recent picture on the Chinese social media platforms Douyin and Weibo appearing to show Le Le with a wound on his upper and lower backbone raised netizens' concerns over potential panda abuse. The accompanying caption read, “Bloodstains on our national treasure Lele, after being knifed by a Memphis Zoo [official] in the U.S.” 

FabuLous, a popular science blogger on Weibo with over 616,000 fans, said in a Weibo post soon afterwards that the panda in the photo was actually Shu Lan, a female kept at the Lanzhou Zoo in China’s Gansu province. 

Was Le Le knifed by a zookeeper?

After checking both claims, AFCL found allegations that Le Le had been knifed to be false. The panda in the photo is indeed Shu Lan. 

AFCL first used the Chinese search engine Baidu to find the picture of the injured giant panda, and later using the photo tracker tool Tineye to trace where the original picture without captions came from. The photo first appeared on Oct. 18, 2016, long before the recent video accusing Lele's suspected abuse. 

Tineye's search results also brought up a Weibo post from China's National Forestry Administration that allowed AFCL to confirm the panda’s identity as Shu Lan. The post revealed that the original photo was provided by a netizen about the suspected abuse of Shu Lan at the Lanzhou Zoo.

A subsequent search on Baidu using “Shu Lan” and "Lanzhou Zoo" as keywords showed that CCTV covered the incident on Oct. 17, 2016.

Was Lele's left eye gouged out and sold for $720,000?

Rumors that Lele's left eye was gouged out and sold for a whopping $720,000 also abounded on Douyin. Similar to the above claim regarding Le Le being knifed, these claims circulating on the Chinese internet were second-hand and unverified.

AFCL found two points of suspicion with such claims. The first is that the stated selling price of the eye varies from claim to claim, with some saying $720,000 and others $600,000. All such claims do not provide any independent, authoritative sources to support their conclusions. The second point is that there is no consensus at all on specifically which eye was gouged out. Some claim the right eye, some claim the left and some even claim both. 

None of the joint reports issued by the China Zoological Society and the Memphis Zoo have indicated that Le Le is missing an eye. Common sense would also dictate that the visitors at a zoo would notice a missing eye.

Several Chinese panda experts also worked with the Memphis Zoo to complete Lele's autopsy, determining that the initial cause of death to be a heart attack. No mention was made of gouged eyes.

FabuLous also responded to this rumor, claiming that the photo of the gouged eyes circulating on the Internet (the first from the left in the photo below) was in fact Meilan, a giant panda from Dujiangyan in China’s Sichuan province. Her seeming lack of an eye in the picture was caused by the camera angle overemphasizing the shade over the eye, FabuLous said.

Is the panda in the photo Le Le?

After comparing the photo with other pictures of both Le Le and Meilan, AFCL found significant differences in head shape and black eye rings confirmed that the panda in the picture is certainly not Le Le. Owing to the lackluster camera angles however, it is difficult to state with complete confidence that the panda in the photo is Meilan. It’s possible that the photo is a composite of several different panda pictures cut and spliced together. 

P7

The shape of both the panda’s head and black eyes ring are two features that distinguish it from Lele. Lele's head is oval with thin cheeks on both sides of his face. By contrast, the panda in the photo has a round and flat head with fat cheeks, similar to Meilan. Lele’s black eye rings are more symmetrical, while the right eye of the panda in the photo is rounder than its noticeably more sunken left eye, another point similar to Meilan. 

Is Ya Ya’s patchy skin a sign of abuse? 

Various videos and comments by Chinese netizens have also claimed that Memphis Zoo officials mistreated Ya Ya, with one oft-cited piece of evidence for their claim being Ya Ya’s often patchy fur. An article on the popular Chinese social media platform Weixin noted that she looks “thin and bony with dry hair, as if she’s been abused.”  

AFCL found that Ya Ya’s patchy fur is the result of a chronic skin disease. Memphis Zoo acknowledges the condition, stating on their website that, “the skin disease has genetic origins. As the panda gets older, hormonal fluctuations caused by changes of season can result in sparse and uneven fur.”

Xie Zhong, vice president of the Chinese Association of Zoological Gardens (CAZG), repeated the same sentiment in a story written by China Daily earlier this year, noting earlier in the article that Ya Ya had been “well cared for since being lent to the Memphis Zoo in 2003.” CAZG is a non-profit Chinese organization tasked with overseeing animals in captivity within China, as well as Chinese animals loaned abroad. 

At a Chinese Foreign Ministry press conference on April 11, spokesperson Wang Wenbin noted in response to questions concerning Ya Ya’s health that “the overall condition of the giant panda is relatively stable except for the fur condition caused by skin disease.” Wang further noted that Chinese personnel from CAZG and the Beijing Zoo were working with the Memphis Zoo on taking care of Ya Ya during her final days in the United States. 

Conclusion

AFCL found claims that Memphis officials maimed or mistreated either Le Le or Ya Ya to be false. No credible reports show that either panda was abused during their time at the zoo. 

The Memphis Zoo and its partner organization the Chinese Association of Zoological Gardens released joint statements on their respective websites last year which noted that, “CAZG is confident that the giant pandas at the Memphis Zoo are receiving the highest quality of care.”

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Dong Zhe & Shen Ke.

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

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. This story was co-published with Minnesota Public Radio and KARE-TV.

Amy Morris started working at Hilltop Health Care Center in Watkins, Minnesota, in June 2021 with a clean nursing license that belied her looming troubles.

Morris, a licensed practical nurse, had been fired from a nearby nursing home seven months earlier for stealing narcotics from elderly residents. The state of Minnesota’s health department investigated and found that the accusation was substantiated, and then notified the Board of Nursing, the state agency responsible for licensing and monitoring nurses.

But even though state law requires the board to immediately suspend a nurse who presents an imminent risk of harm, it allowed Morris to keep practicing.

In September 2021, supervisors at Hilltop discovered that pain pills were disappearing during Morris’ shifts and called the sheriff. Only then did Hilltop learn of allegations of narcotic theft that had been made nearly a year earlier at the other nursing home.

“I thought, ‘How is she practicing now?’” Meeker County Sheriff Brian Cruze recalled.

The answer, ProPublica found, is that the nursing board’s investigations frequently drag on for months or even years. As a result, nurses are sometimes allowed to keep practicing despite allegations of serious misconduct.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. In the face of intense criticism eight years ago, the nursing board announced changes to improve its performance. But that progress was short-lived, ProPublica found.

Since 2018, the average time taken to resolve a complaint has more than doubled to 11 months, while hundreds of complaints have been left open for more than a year; state law generally requires complaints to be resolved in a year. Some nurses, like Morris, have gone on to jeopardize the health of more patients as the board failed to act on earlier complaints.

Some of the board’s problems stem from vexingly bureaucratic issues, ProPublica found. For example, the board had started meeting every month to resolve cases more quickly. But, for the past few years, it has gone back to meeting every other month.

Some complaints get caught in a general email inbox, where they sometimes sit for weeks or months before being forwarded to staff for investigation, according to current and former staffers.

And the board, which oversees licensing and discipline for more than 150,000 nurses, has been perennially shorthanded. By state law, the board is supposed to have 12 nurses and four members of the public. But at times, it has operated with barely enough members to make up a quorum. In March, Gov. Tim Walz made five appointments to the board, leaving one vacancy.

Other problems stem from the board’s professional staff, who investigate complaints and prepare the materials the board uses to make disciplinary decisions. Several former employees told ProPublica that the lag time in resolving discipline cases could be attributed to a dysfunctional office environment and a wave of resignations, many of them since the board’s August 2021 selection of veteran staffer Kimberly Miller as executive director.

David Jiang, who resigned from the board in August because he moved out of the state, told Walz in a letter that the board’s problems “arise because of a general lack of confidence from the staff, lack of communications to the board, and, most importantly, a general lack of oversight by the Board.”

Walz’s office did not respond to ProPublica’s requests for comment about Jiang’s concerns.

William Hager, a former legal analyst for the board, vented his frustrations about Miller’s leadership in an email to another employee in February 2022. “I am very concerned the Director seems to have been unaware of this ‘backlog,’” Hager, who left the board a few months later, said in the email. Miller “has chosen to not learn how to work” the case management system “or engage with software and staff to oversee our work.”

Miller, who worked for the board for more than two decades before becoming executive director, acknowledged the case backlog in an interview but said she was working to “right the boat,” including by hiring a consultant to improve board performance. Although the number of pending complaints is higher now than it was after a critical 2015 state audit, the backlog has been reduced by about a quarter since peaking last summer, according to state data.

“I think that we are on a good course at this point, and we’re making the changes that we need to, and learning to work as a team, and working out our system that I think is going to be really wonderful at some point,” Miller said in an interview. She did not respond to questions about criticism of her job performance.

Miller blamed the backlog on the transition to remote work during the height of the pandemic and on a new case management system that she said board members found difficult to use. She said some cases simply take longer than others. When a nurse won’t agree to discipline as part of a settlement, she said, the board must file the case in the state’s administrative court, where Miller said scheduling a hearing can take “at least a year.”

But a spokesperson for the administrative court said that the court was not the source of delays, and nurse discipline cases are concluded on average in four months from the time they are filed.

The state’s own data, in part, counters Miller’s assertions of progress. The board closed more complaints in fiscal years 2020 and 2021, respectively, than it did in 2022, when vaccines were widely available and many industries were returning to in-person work.

It was not clear why the board did not move quickly to suspend Morris after the substantiated report of pill theft. Miller declined to discuss individual discipline cases, citing confidentiality rules.

ProPublica contacted 10 current and seven former members of the board. None responded to requests for comment.

The nursing board finally issued a temporary suspension of Morris’ license in November 2021 — a month after prosecutors filed charges in the Hilltop case. She is facing felony theft charges for both incidents and has failed to show up in court. She has not entered a plea because she has not appeared to face the charges, and authorities have issued warrants for her arrest.

She did not return messages left on her cellphone and sent by email.

Administrators for both facilities declined to comment. Records show that one Hilltop manager was frustrated by a lack of warning about Morris. The manager complained to a state inspector that there was “nothing flagged on the background study or license verification,” according to the facility’s inspection report.

“This is not a facility system problem but a state system problem,” the manager said.

When Christy Iverson started working for the board last year on investigations of nurse misconduct, she was surprised by the backlog of cases. Some she took on were around five years old. It was embarrassing, she said, to put her name on cases that had been on hold for so long.

Then, about four months into her tenure, she said, she was instructed to help the licensing staff with an influx of applications ahead of an anticipated nursing strike at several hospitals in the Twin Cities and Duluth areas. Iverson, who had spent over a decade working in leadership positions at an area hospital, said she largely spent her days folding letters and sorting paperwork. So she quit.

The problems she observed weren’t new. A Minneapolis Star Tribune investigation in 2013 had sparked the state audit that found serious delays at the board and led to improvements for a time.

With auditors scrutinizing it in 2014, the board began to dispose of complaints more quickly. The average age of closed cases was reduced from six months to four. But delays then climbed, eventually reaching the current average of 11 months, according to state data.

And despite a state mandate to resolve complaints within a year, the percentage of cases that go beyond that mark has soared from less than 5% in 2016 to 30% now, the state data shows.

Miller said the board is mindful of the backlog and puts a priority on “all of our more egregious cases.”

An internal email provided to ProPublica described how complaints can sit for weeks or even months simply because they weren’t forwarded in a timely manner. Those delays, the employee wrote, were “unprofessional” and “inefficient.”

For example, a complaint about a nurse stealing medication sat in the main inbox for more than two months before it was forwarded to the discipline staff, according to that internal email. It was the fourth complaint the board had received about that nurse. The employee’s email describing these delays was sent to several other employees and the board’s executive director in December. Miller did not answer ProPublica’s questions about the employee’s allegations.

Some delays begin in the earliest stages of processing a complaint, according to former employees and lawyers who represent nurses in front of the board. Eric Ray, a former discipline program assistant from January 2020 until fall of 2021, said in an interview that the board didn’t always meet statutory requirements to notify nurses of a complaint within 60 days of receiving it. Ray said he saw complaints “sitting for months or a year” before the board sent a notice to the nurse.

Miller said the board “did take seriously the 60-day issue” and recently made changes to the management software so that it would remind caseworkers that a letter needed to be sent out.

The notification delays can also hurt a nurse’s ability to mount a defense, according to lawyers who defend nurses in front of the board. As complaints age, they become more difficult to investigate, evidence becomes harder to locate, nurses move on to other jobs and witnesses forget key details.

“This is your professional career on the line,” said attorney Marit Sivertson. “It makes it incredibly difficult for someone to be able to fairly defend themselves.”

The state law that requires the board to resolve complaints within a year also gives the board sweeping discretion to take longer if it determines the case can’t be resolved in that time. Still, Sivertson said that does not explain why so many cases take more than a year to resolve. She and eight other lawyers have met several times to raise these issues with Miller and assistant attorney general Hans Anderson, legal counsel to the board. In October, they presented their concerns at a board meeting. They said they are still waiting for a response.

Del Shea Perry is also still waiting. It’s been nearly five years since the death of her son, Hardel Sherrell, in the Beltrami County Jail in northern Minnesota. The incident sparked public outrage and led to reforms and consequences for some of the officials connected to his care. Sherrell died on the floor of his cell after guards and medical staff refused his pleas for help. A pathologist hired by Perry as part of a wrongful death lawsuit later ruled that he died of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a treatable neurological disorder.

State legislators passed a law named after Sherrell that aims to improve access to health care for jail inmates. Todd Leonard, the jail doctor who monitored Sherell’s condition via telephone, had his medical license indefinitely suspended in early 2022. And this month, Beltrami County and Leonard’s company agreed to settle Perry’s lawsuit by paying Sherrell’s family $2.6 million.

But there have been no consequences for Michelle Skroch, a nurse who worked for Leonard and was directly in charge of Sherrell’s care in the last two days of his life. According to a state administrative judge who ruled in the doctor’s licensing case, Skroch failed to provide care to Sherrell or even check his vital signs as he lay nearly lifeless on the floor of his cell wearing adult diapers soaked in his own urine.

An emergency room doctor had released Sherrell to the jail with instructions to bring him back if his symptoms worsened. Instead, Skroch instructed jail staff not to assist him because she said there was nothing medically wrong with him, according to the judge’s report.

The judge wrote that it could appear from Skroch’s notes that she had “provided some type of care or assessment” of Sherrell. “She, in fact, did not,” the judge wrote.

Video later showed she had only briefly peered into his cell twice and had missed that he was in distress: Sherrell was unconscious on the floor with a white substance coming out of his mouth.

In response to Perry’s lawsuit, Skroch testified that she was able to sufficiently assess Sherrell’s condition without touching him and that she believed his condition was improving. She also noted that emergency room doctors had diagnosed him with weakness and “malingering,” a medical term for faking illness.

In ruling that the medical board had cause to discipline Leonard, the judge also called for the nursing board to investigate Skroch’s “dereliction of duty and shocking indifference.” Noting that the doctor was both Skroch’s supervisor and her romantic partner, the judge wrote it appeared “she was unconcerned about being held accountable by the attending physician.”

Five years later, Skroch still has an unblemished license and her online professional profile identifies her as the nursing director of Leonard’s medical firm. She declined to comment.

Another nurse who provided care to Sherrell at the jail filed an official complaint about Skroch with the nursing board. But she said that after an interview with a board representative about a year after the death, she has not heard an update. The board is required to provide updates every 120 days on the status of a case.

“I have no idea what the board is doing, and it sure as hell shouldn’t take 4 years to investigate,” Perry wrote in a text message.

When a nurse is accused of misconduct, the board can seek discipline ranging from a reprimand, which is essentially a public slap on the wrist, to a license revocation, which means the nurse can no longer work in the field. Typically, the board allows a nurse to continue working while it tries to reach an agreement or takes the complaint to the state’s administrative court.

But in cases when the nurse poses an immediate risk to patients, the board can use its power to issue a temporary suspension and remove the nurse from practice while it investigates.

The board rarely used that power until the state legislature changed the law in 2014. Under the revised rules, the board wasn’t just authorized to use the emergency suspension — it was required to do so in cases where there was “imminent risk of serious harm.”

As a result, the board ramped up its use of temporary suspensions, issuing 55 of them from 2014 to 2017, more than twice as many as it had in the preceding four years, according to data reported to a national database of actions taken against medical professionals.

In 2018, this increase was touted by Daphne Ponds, then a board employee. Speaking at a national seminar on nurse regulation, Ponds, who helped investigate complaints against nurses, told her peers that the Star Tribune’s stories had “made us look bad, made us look ineffective.”

She added, “The legislature had really sent the board a clear message that you have this tool of temporary suspension — you need to use it.”

But about that time, the board had reverted to its pre-audit practices. In 2018, it issued only three temporary suspensions, according to a national discipline database. And it issued only 11 over the next three years.

Miller said the board is now inclined to protect the public by pursuing a voluntary agreement to stop practicing with nurses who’ve been the subject of a complaint. She said this is because there are “more hoops” to jump through to issue a temporary suspension, while the voluntary agreements can be drafted and signed by the nurse in days.

Asked how she reconciles this with a state law requiring a temporary suspension when there is an imminent risk of serious harm, Miller said Minnesota’s attorney general had signed off on the strategy.

Hager, the former legal analyst for the board, said that while a stipulation to cease practicing may work in some cases, it doesn’t work in all of them, especially when nurses don’t want to cooperate. In one case reviewed by ProPublica, a nurse kept her license for more than a year because she refused to sign a stipulation. The board suspended her only after she was convicted of financial exploitation.

Sometimes, the delays hurt patients. In early 2018, the board received complaints about a nurse named La Vang that accused him of stealing narcotics from patients — including one allegation that was validated by the state health department.

But the board didn’t issue a temporary suspension, and Vang got a new job later that year. He stole pain medicines from another patient, LaVonne Borsheim, according to a lawsuit that Borsheim and her husband brought against Vang and the home care company that employed him.

In that lawsuit, Borsheim described pain so severe that she didn’t want to go on living. (Attempts to reach Vang for comment were unsuccessful.)

By the time the nursing board got Vang to sign an agreement to cease practicing in August 2018, the police had already arrested him on charges that he had stolen Borsheim’s drugs. Vang pleaded guilty in federal court to obtaining controlled substances by fraud. At his sentencing, Vang’s attorney said he was in treatment for drug addiction and was embarrassed that he had violated Borsheim's trust. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Do You Have a Tip for ProPublica? Help Us Do Journalism.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Emily Hopkins and Jeremy Kohler.

Leading up to the BLM's decision—which ConocoPhillips chairman and CEO Ryan Lance expects this week—opponents have stressed scientists' warnings about the need to keep fossil fuels in the ground if humanity has any chance of preventing catastrophic global heating and meeting the Paris climate agreement's 1.5°C target for this century.

Announced by the Houston-based company in 2017, the 30-year development in the National Petroleum Reserve would produce up to 180,0000 barrels of oil a day at its peak and release over 9.2 metric tons of planet-heating carbon dioxide annually.

"We don't need to prop up the fossil fuel industry with new, multiyear projects that are a recipe for climate chaos."

"Some Native Alaskan Iñupiaq have also raised serious concerns about the project's local environmental impacts, including disturbance to local wildlife, disruption to traditional hunting practices, and a decline in air quality," BBC Newsnoted Friday.

Gore, a longtime environmentalist, acknowledged both local and global concerns on Friday in comments to The Guardian.

"The proposed expansion of oil and gas drilling in Alaska is recklessly irresponsible," he said. "The pollution it would generate will not only put Alaska Native and other local communities at risk, it is incompatible with the ambition we need to achieve a net-zero future."

"We don't need to prop up the fossil fuel industry with new, multiyear projects that are a recipe for climate chaos," Gore continued. "Instead, we must end the expansion of oil, gas, and coal and embrace the abundant climate solutions at our fingertips."

Climate advocacy groups have been sending President Joe Biden and U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland that same message.

After the White House released its budget blueprint on Thursday, Varshini Prakash, executive director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, said that the "proposed budget—especially its investments in clean energy, jobs, and an end to oil and gas subsidies—is the kind of thing young people in this country want to see ahead of 2024."

"But President Biden has the power to act on climate and issues important to our generation without having to go through a Republican House," Prakash added. "He can reject the Willow Project, which goes against his own agenda to stop the climate crisis, and can do everything in his executive authority, like declaring a climate emergency and invoking the Defense Production Act, to jump-start our transition to clean energy."

Though Willow is backed by Alaska's three-member congressional delegation, Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, and the state Legislature, opponents of the project have taken social media by storm with the hashtag #StopWillow.

"I have never seen so many videos, so many comments, mentions about a climate topic on social media," 26-year-old Alaina Wood, a scientist and climate activist with more than 353,500 followers on the video platform TikTok, toldThe Washington Post Tuesday.

Elise Joshi, a 20-year-old University of California, Berkeley student and acting executive director of the nonprofit Gen-Z for Change, posted one of the earliest TikTok videos about the project, which now has over 300,000 views. She emphasized that "this is not environmentalist groups."

"This is young people as a whole, as a voter base, taking action," Joshi explained to the Post. "With Willow, this is one of the biggest actions we've ever seen on TikTok go forward. It has shown that we are willing to fight."

A Change.org petition urging Biden to stop Willow—now signed by more than 3 million people and promoted by groups including the Indigenous-led NDN Collective—declares that "there must come a point where human health, food security, environmental justice, and a functioning ecosystem come before corporate profit."

Pointing to the growing support for the petition, Alex Haraus, a 25-year-old TikTok creator whose Willow videos have millions of views, toldCNN, "If that doesn't emphasize the fact that it's everyday Americans pushing back, I don't know what does."

"This is not an environmental movement, it's much larger than that," Haraus added. "It's the American public that can vote."

Hazel Thayer, another climate activist who has posted TikTok videos with #StopWillow, toldThe Associated Press Wednesday that the proposed Big Oil project is "just so blatantly bad for the planet."

"With all of the progress that the U.S. government has made on climate change, it now feels like they're turning their backs by allowing Willow to go through," Thayer said. "I think a lot of young people are feeling a little bit betrayed by that."

Quannah Chasinghorse—a Han Gwich'in and Sicangu/Oglala Lakota land protector, climate justice activist, and fashion model from Eagle Village, Alaska and the tribes of South Dakota—wrote Friday in a CNN opinion piece opposing the project that "I've been inspired by the chorus of voices who have joined me."

"To date, #StopWillow (and related) videos from a diverse array of young creators have around 300 million direct views on TikTok alone," Chasinghorse noted. "In a matter of just a few days, #StopWillow catapulted to the top of social media conversations."

"As I watch millions of people join the #StopWillow movement, these staggering numbers send a clear message that today's youth expect President Biden and Secretary Haaland to step up," she added. "It reflects a game-changing trend that astute leaders should not ignore: They must deliver the climate leadership they promised by taking bold action to stop the Willow climate disaster before it's too late."

Even if the Biden administration gives Willow the green light, that approval is expected to be met with legal challenges.

"I think that litigation is very likely," Earthjustice senior attorney Jeremy Lieb told The Guardian. “We and our clients don't see any acceptable version of this project."

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

Top Senate Democrats released a report Wednesday highlighting the far-reaching implications of the House GOP majority's push to freeze federal spending at fiscal year 2022 levels, a cap that would inflict severe cuts on programs that help low-income families afford food, healthcare, housing, and other necessities.

"We've heard a lot of talk from House Republicans about cutting spending, but very few specifics," said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. "Well, that's probably because the specifics are actually pretty bad."

The new report, released under the banner of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee (DPCC), estimates that reverting to fiscal year 2022 federal spending levels would "amount to a 12% cut to each and every" discretionary spending program, including military programs.

If Republicans shield military spending from their proposed cuts—as they've suggested they would—and maintain funding for veterans' medical care, cuts to other programs would have to be even steeper, the Democratic report notes.

"It would amount to a 30% cut to all other federal programs," the report estimates. "That's a 30% cut to the [National Institutes of Health], opioid addiction and mental health treatment, housing assistance, child care and child nutrition, law enforcement and public safety, science and innovation, and veteran assistance programs."

More specifically, the Democrats' analysis warns that the GOP plan would "deny 1 million babies access to formula"; "sharply reduce programs American parents depend on to raise their families, from Head Start, to affordable child care, to heating assistance, to child nutrition, to help with housing costs"; and "slash healthcare for seniors, people with disabilities, and low-income families."

"This report makes clear that when House Republicans throw out ideas like 'going back to 2022 funding levels,' which Speaker McCarthy and MAGA Republicans in the House want to do, they aren't actually proposing a 'freeze,'" Murray said Wednesday. "They are calling for drastic, draconian cuts that will hurt families in every corner of the country, undermine our economy, jeopardize our national security, and limit our future."

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), chair of the Senate Budget Committee, said that "when you add up the cuts they want to make, they are so extreme they don't want to show them to you." The minimal details House Republicans have released indicate that they're planning to target the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Affordable Care Act subsidies, student debt relief, and more.

"If Republicans do as many promise and 'protect defense spending,' the cuts could surge as high as 30%," Whitehouse continued. "The arithmetic is devastating for them. And all of this is supposedly to deal with a national debt that they deliberately made worse with massive revenue losses because they lowered tax rates for their corporate and billionaire friends and donors."

"The MAGA majority's economic plan conveniently demands painful sacrifice only from seniors and working people while they insist on preserving or even expanding wasteful tax breaks for billionaires and greedy corporations."

Senate Democrats released their report just hours after the Congressional Budget Office warned that the U.S. could default on its debt as soon as this summer if Congress doesn't act to raise the borrowing limit, which Republicans are using as leverage to demand spending cuts that Democratic leaders have pledged to oppose.

A default would spark a devastating economic crisis, potentially wiping out millions of jobs and trillions of dollars in household wealth.

"Take the extreme MAGA House majority at their word that they intend to manufacture a costly default crisis unless they get concessions that weaken the retirement and health security of millions of Americans," Liz Zelnick, director of the Economic Security and Corporate Power program at Accountable.US, said in a statement Wednesday. "The MAGA goal of holding the debt limit hostage is twofold: damage the president politically and accomplish a decades-old right-wing mission of gutting Social Security and Medicare benefits."

"The MAGA majority's economic plan conveniently demands painful sacrifice only from seniors and working people while they insist on preserving or even expanding wasteful tax breaks for billionaires and greedy corporations," Zelnick added. "Many MAGA lawmakers conveniently ignore their own role in exacerbating the debt with trillions of dollars in wasteful tax breaks for giant corporations that never trickled down to anyone else."

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

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Kristina Korte.

Sen. Bernie Sanders argued late Tuesday that the Republican Party's efforts—in concert with dark money groups—to block the Biden administration's student debt cancellation plan in the courts "will hurt them politically" as the November midterms approach.

"If you do what the people want, and not what the corporate world wants or billionaire campaign contributors want, you win elections."

"I have the radical idea that good policy is good politics. And it is good policy to cancel student debt in this country," Sanders (I-Vt.), the chair of the Senate Budget Committee and a longtime proponent of total student debt forgiveness, said in an appearance on MSNBC.

"What Biden did is the right thing—I would have gone further," the senator said of the president's proposed $10,000 in debt cancellation for borrowers with federal student loans and up to $20,000 for those with Pell Grants. "It's what the people want. I'm not going to tell you it's 100% popular. But it is what the people want. And you know what? If you do what the people want, and not what the corporate world wants or billionaire campaign contributors want, you win elections."

Asked specifically about Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) recent announcement that he's been speaking with litigators to devise a legal case against Biden's student debt cancellation plan—which relies on emergency authorities established by the 2003 HEROES Act—Sanders replied that a "strong majority of the American people think we should cancel student debt."

"If Senator Cruz and others want to challenge that," he added, "I think that's gonna hurt them politically."

Watch:

Sanders' comments came as GOP lawmakers and right-wing advocacy groups continued to seek out plaintiffs with standing to challenge student debt relief in court, with the ultimate goal of getting the case before the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court.

Cruz said earlier this month that one Supreme Court litigator told him student loan servicers are best-positioned to claim harm from the Biden administration's plan, which appears to have helped boost the president's popularity among young voters.

Republican lawmakers have also seized on Biden's recent remark that "the pandemic is over" to attack his administration's legal case for student debt forgiveness.

As the Wall Street Journal noted Tuesday, "Would-be plaintiffs can't take action until the administration makes a formal move toward cancellation, such as releasing an application for loan forgiveness or wiping out the balances of a first batch of borrowers."

The Education Department has said it expects to release applications by early October.

In his MSNBC appearance Tuesday, Sanders argued that while Biden's student debt forgiveness plan is a positive step, the White House and congressional Democrats must stress that it's just part of a broader working-class agenda that includes Medicare expansion, a minimum wage increase, and other popular policies if they're to be successful in upcoming elections.

"If Democrats are going to do well in 2022, in my view, they've got to stand up very firmly for working families, make it clear that we are seeing unprecedented levels of corporate greed, unprecedented levels of concentration of ownership in this country, all the while working families are struggling and in many instances seeing a decline in their standard of living," said Sanders.

"Now is the time, if you want to win an election, to say you know what? I'm on the side of the vast majority of Americans, Black, white, and Latino. I'm prepared to take on greedy powerful corporate interests who are enjoying record-breaking profits while you Americans can't afford healthcare, can't afford to send your kids to college, and are working for starvation wages," the senator continued. "That, to my mind, is how you go forward and win."

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

Sen. Bernie Sanders argued late Tuesday that the Republican Party's efforts—in concert with dark money groups—to block the Biden administration's student debt cancellation plan in the courts "will hurt them politically" as the November midterms approach.

"If you do what the people want, and not what the corporate world wants or billionaire campaign contributors want, you win elections."

"I have the radical idea that good policy is good politics. And it is good policy to cancel student debt in this country," Sanders (I-Vt.), the chair of the Senate Budget Committee and a longtime proponent of total student debt forgiveness, said in an appearance on MSNBC.

"What Biden did is the right thing—I would have gone further," the senator said of the president's proposed $10,000 in debt cancellation for borrowers with federal student loans and up to $20,000 for those with Pell Grants. "It's what the people want. I'm not going to tell you it's 100% popular. But it is what the people want. And you know what? If you do what the people want, and not what the corporate world wants or billionaire campaign contributors want, you win elections."

Asked specifically about Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) recent announcement that he's been speaking with litigators to devise a legal case against Biden's student debt cancellation plan—which relies on emergency authorities established by the 2003 HEROES Act—Sanders replied that a "strong majority of the American people think we should cancel student debt."

"If Senator Cruz and others want to challenge that," he added, "I think that's gonna hurt them politically."

Watch:

Sanders' comments came as GOP lawmakers and right-wing advocacy groups continued to seek out plaintiffs with standing to challenge student debt relief in court, with the ultimate goal of getting the case before the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court.

Cruz said earlier this month that one Supreme Court litigator told him student loan servicers are best-positioned to claim harm from the Biden administration's plan, which appears to have helped boost the president's popularity among young voters.

Republican lawmakers have also seized on Biden's recent remark that "the pandemic is over" to attack his administration's legal case for student debt forgiveness.

As the Wall Street Journal noted Tuesday, "Would-be plaintiffs can't take action until the administration makes a formal move toward cancellation, such as releasing an application for loan forgiveness or wiping out the balances of a first batch of borrowers."

The Education Department has said it expects to release applications by early October.

In his MSNBC appearance Tuesday, Sanders argued that while Biden's student debt forgiveness plan is a positive step, the White House and congressional Democrats must stress that it's just part of a broader working-class agenda that includes Medicare expansion, a minimum wage increase, and other popular policies if they're to be successful in upcoming elections.

"If Democrats are going to do well in 2022, in my view, they've got to stand up very firmly for working families, make it clear that we are seeing unprecedented levels of corporate greed, unprecedented levels of concentration of ownership in this country, all the while working families are struggling and in many instances seeing a decline in their standard of living," said Sanders.

"Now is the time, if you want to win an election, to say you know what? I'm on the side of the vast majority of Americans, Black, white, and Latino. I'm prepared to take on greedy powerful corporate interests who are enjoying record-breaking profits while you Americans can't afford healthcare, can't afford to send your kids to college, and are working for starvation wages," the senator continued. "That, to my mind, is how you go forward and win."

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

Sen. Bernie Sanders argued late Tuesday that the Republican Party's efforts—in concert with dark money groups—to block the Biden administration's student debt cancellation plan in the courts "will hurt them politically" as the November midterms approach.

"If you do what the people want, and not what the corporate world wants or billionaire campaign contributors want, you win elections."

"I have the radical idea that good policy is good politics. And it is good policy to cancel student debt in this country," Sanders (I-Vt.), the chair of the Senate Budget Committee and a longtime proponent of total student debt forgiveness, said in an appearance on MSNBC.

"What Biden did is the right thing—I would have gone further," the senator said of the president's proposed $10,000 in debt cancellation for borrowers with federal student loans and up to $20,000 for those with Pell Grants. "It's what the people want. I'm not going to tell you it's 100% popular. But it is what the people want. And you know what? If you do what the people want, and not what the corporate world wants or billionaire campaign contributors want, you win elections."

Asked specifically about Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) recent announcement that he's been speaking with litigators to devise a legal case against Biden's student debt cancellation plan—which relies on emergency authorities established by the 2003 HEROES Act—Sanders replied that a "strong majority of the American people think we should cancel student debt."

"If Senator Cruz and others want to challenge that," he added, "I think that's gonna hurt them politically."

Watch:

Sanders' comments came as GOP lawmakers and right-wing advocacy groups continued to seek out plaintiffs with standing to challenge student debt relief in court, with the ultimate goal of getting the case before the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court.

Cruz said earlier this month that one Supreme Court litigator told him student loan servicers are best-positioned to claim harm from the Biden administration's plan, which appears to have helped boost the president's popularity among young voters.

Republican lawmakers have also seized on Biden's recent remark that "the pandemic is over" to attack his administration's legal case for student debt forgiveness.

As the Wall Street Journal noted Tuesday, "Would-be plaintiffs can't take action until the administration makes a formal move toward cancellation, such as releasing an application for loan forgiveness or wiping out the balances of a first batch of borrowers."

The Education Department has said it expects to release applications by early October.

In his MSNBC appearance Tuesday, Sanders argued that while Biden's student debt forgiveness plan is a positive step, the White House and congressional Democrats must stress that it's just part of a broader working-class agenda that includes Medicare expansion, a minimum wage increase, and other popular policies if they're to be successful in upcoming elections.

"If Democrats are going to do well in 2022, in my view, they've got to stand up very firmly for working families, make it clear that we are seeing unprecedented levels of corporate greed, unprecedented levels of concentration of ownership in this country, all the while working families are struggling and in many instances seeing a decline in their standard of living," said Sanders.

"Now is the time, if you want to win an election, to say you know what? I'm on the side of the vast majority of Americans, Black, white, and Latino. I'm prepared to take on greedy powerful corporate interests who are enjoying record-breaking profits while you Americans can't afford healthcare, can't afford to send your kids to college, and are working for starvation wages," the senator continued. "That, to my mind, is how you go forward and win."

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

Sen. Bernie Sanders argued late Tuesday that the Republican Party's efforts—in concert with dark money groups—to block the Biden administration's student debt cancellation plan in the courts "will hurt them politically" as the November midterms approach.

"If you do what the people want, and not what the corporate world wants or billionaire campaign contributors want, you win elections."

"I have the radical idea that good policy is good politics. And it is good policy to cancel student debt in this country," Sanders (I-Vt.), the chair of the Senate Budget Committee and a longtime proponent of total student debt forgiveness, said in an appearance on MSNBC.

"What Biden did is the right thing—I would have gone further," the senator said of the president's proposed $10,000 in debt cancellation for borrowers with federal student loans and up to $20,000 for those with Pell Grants. "It's what the people want. I'm not going to tell you it's 100% popular. But it is what the people want. And you know what? If you do what the people want, and not what the corporate world wants or billionaire campaign contributors want, you win elections."

Asked specifically about Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) recent announcement that he's been speaking with litigators to devise a legal case against Biden's student debt cancellation plan—which relies on emergency authorities established by the 2003 HEROES Act—Sanders replied that a "strong majority of the American people think we should cancel student debt."

"If Senator Cruz and others want to challenge that," he added, "I think that's gonna hurt them politically."

Watch:

Sanders' comments came as GOP lawmakers and right-wing advocacy groups continued to seek out plaintiffs with standing to challenge student debt relief in court, with the ultimate goal of getting the case before the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court.

Cruz said earlier this month that one Supreme Court litigator told him student loan servicers are best-positioned to claim harm from the Biden administration's plan, which appears to have helped boost the president's popularity among young voters.

Republican lawmakers have also seized on Biden's recent remark that "the pandemic is over" to attack his administration's legal case for student debt forgiveness.

As the Wall Street Journal noted Tuesday, "Would-be plaintiffs can't take action until the administration makes a formal move toward cancellation, such as releasing an application for loan forgiveness or wiping out the balances of a first batch of borrowers."

The Education Department has said it expects to release applications by early October.

In his MSNBC appearance Tuesday, Sanders argued that while Biden's student debt forgiveness plan is a positive step, the White House and congressional Democrats must stress that it's just part of a broader working-class agenda that includes Medicare expansion, a minimum wage increase, and other popular policies if they're to be successful in upcoming elections.

"If Democrats are going to do well in 2022, in my view, they've got to stand up very firmly for working families, make it clear that we are seeing unprecedented levels of corporate greed, unprecedented levels of concentration of ownership in this country, all the while working families are struggling and in many instances seeing a decline in their standard of living," said Sanders.

"Now is the time, if you want to win an election, to say you know what? I'm on the side of the vast majority of Americans, Black, white, and Latino. I'm prepared to take on greedy powerful corporate interests who are enjoying record-breaking profits while you Americans can't afford healthcare, can't afford to send your kids to college, and are working for starvation wages," the senator continued. "That, to my mind, is how you go forward and win."

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

Progressive voices on Monday rebuked Republican U.S. lawmakers for repeatedly warning President Joe Biden that forgiving student loan debt will harm the military's ability to attract recruits with the promise of free college.

"The price of a college degree should not be bloodshed or a lifetime of crippling debt."

Nineteen Republican members of the House of Representatives last week signed a letter to Biden expressing concern over the "unintended consequences" of the president's plan to cancel $10,000 to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for borrowers in lower-income to upper-middle-income families.

The letter counts the GI Bill—which covers all in-state tuition and fees at public colleges and universities—among "some of the most successful recruiting incentives for the U.S. military" and "a driving factor in many individuals' decision" to join the armed forces.

"By forgiving such a wide swath of loans for borrowers, you are removing any leverage the Department of Defense maintained as one of the fastest and easiest ways of paying for higher education," the Republican lawmakers asserted.

Progressives accused the Republicans of saying "the quiet part out loud," while offering backhanded praise for inadvertently acknowledging what critics call the poverty draft.

"Every time I see a politician just come out and say, 'We can't forgive student debt because we'll lose one of our best military recruiting tools,' I have to stop and marvel at the absolute moral repugnance of the sentiment, and the audacity of stating it so bluntly," poet Stefan Mohamed tweeted.

"The GOP is admitting that the military relies on poor young people to keep the war machine going, and that's why they oppose canceling student debt," the group Our Wisconsin Revolution argued on Twitter. "The price of a college degree should not be bloodshed or a lifetime of crippling debt."

While Pentagon brass often tout the "all-volunteer" nature of the U.S. military, critics have noted that the poverty draft—which disproportionately affects people of color—is fueled by the student debt crisis.

Despite record enlistment bonuses, U.S. military recruiting is currently in crisis. According to Army data, up to 70% of potential recruits are disqualified in the first 48 hours due to obesity, low aptitude test scores, or drug use—an increase from previous disqualification rates of 30%-40%.

During the height of the so-called War on Terror, which was launched in 2001 and continues to this day, the U.S. military made up for recruitment shortfalls by lowering admission standards to allow people with felony convictions, gang members, and racists—but not openly LGBTQ+ aspirants—to sign up, resulting in widespread infiltration of white supremacists.

Deception, falsification of qualifying records, and outright lies were also commonly reported during recruitment by a military that, when faced with enduring shortfalls, simply extended combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan through compulsory "stop-loss" orders.

Additionally, military recruiters—who operate under mottos like "first to contact, first to contract"—have targeted children as young as 10 years old via pre-Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps, JROTC, and ROTC programs from the elementary school through collegiate levels.

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

In explosive testimony Tuesday, Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, revealed new details to the January 6 select committee about the events leading up to the “Stop the Steal” rally. She indicated then-President Donald Trump and his inner circle, that included personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, expected the event to grow violent and did little to stop it. Hutchinson described how Trump demanded that the Secret Service allow his supporters wielding weapons to enter the Ellipse in order to make his rally seem better attended. “They’re not here to hurt me,” Trump said in dismissing safety concerns, Hutchinson testified. We feature her extended remarks.

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

The protest on Thursday targeted Vinh Hang Eco-park and Cemetery, an 80-ha, 500 billion dong ($21.8 million) project in the Hung Nguyen district of central Nghe An province.

Approved by local authorities in 2017, the cemetery has encounterd strong objection by local residents due to environmental and water resource concerns.

“There was a clash among the police and local residents. One woman was seriously injured and was sent to Nghe An provincial hospital for emergency care. Two others were sent to a district hospital with less serious injuries,” local resident Phan Van Khuong told RFA Vietnamese.

“They arrested three or four people but released them on the same day,” he added.

A Facebook page titled “Hạt lúa Kẻ Gai” showed ozens of police officers in uniform knocking down protesters’ tents.

“The Commune People’s Committee sent some people to plant markers on a road where local residents put up tents [to block the project] and we all rushed up there to stop them,” Nguyen Van Ky, a resident from Phuc Dien village, told RFA.

“In response, district and commune police officers were deployed and they removed the tents and shoved us down, injuring four people,” said Ky.

The injuries were caused when police officers kicked and stomped on protesters. A fourth protester had a leg injury that did not require hospital treatment.

RFA called authorities from Nghe An province and Hung Tay commune to seek comments but no one answered the phone.

While all land in Communist-run Vietnam is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations have become a flashpoint as residents accuse the government of pushing small landholders aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too little in compensation.

Translated by Anna Vu. Written by Paul Eckert.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

With COVID-19 coverage ending for the uninsured, we look at how uninsured people and communities of color will bear the impact of the end to free COVID-19 testing, treatment and vaccines, and how the pandemic has led to a renewed push for Medicare for All. We are joined by Dr. Oni Blackstock, primary care and HIV physician and founder and executive director of Health Justice, and Dr. Adam Gaffney, critical care physician, professor at Harvard Medical School and immediate past president of Physicians for a National Health Program.

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

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Paul Rogers.

The post Sanctions are Blunt Instruments Which Punish Entire Populations But Hurt Leaders Least appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Patrick Cockburn.