Today marks the 60th anniversary of the creation of Medicare and Medicaid — and nearly one month since President Trump’s federal budget slashed nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid to extend tax cuts for the rich. The cuts could lead to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths every year. “Medicaid has been a lifeline. And without it, people will die,” says Ai-jen Poo, co-founder of Caring Across Generations and the Domestic Workers Alliance, which helped organize a 60-hour vigil last week ahead of the anniversary as part of a broader campaign to fight back against Trump’s cuts. She highlights the role of immigrants, who make up a third of the caregiving sector, and says Trump’s crackdown on immigration hastens the dwindling of care available to the aging and elderly. “We should be adding a trillion dollars in investments in healthcare in this country and in caregiving services in this country,” says Poo. “We need to strengthen these systems and programs for the 22nd century, not gut them.”

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

• Trump’s Big Bill to be signed Friday after marathon vote and marathon speech by Dem leader Hakeem Jeffries;
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This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

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

Josh Dallin spends his workdays talking to Utahns who raise cattle and grow crops, and knew that many were in distress. Everyone from neighbors to fertilizer dealers to equipment suppliers were telling him they were worried that a farmer or rancher they knew was at risk of suicide.

Then in 2023, with money allocated by Congress, Dallin had new help to offer: As executive director of an agriculture center at Utah State University Extension, he had scores of $2,000 vouchers that Utahns working in agriculture could use to get free therapy.

Dallin feared no one in the typically stoical farming community would take him up on the federally funded offer. He was wrong.

Farmers and ranchers across Utah quickly accepted the money, which ran out in just four months — well before he expected — and his office had to start turning people away. It convinced Dallin of the deep need in the state’s agricultural communities, and people’s openness to getting help when cost is not a barrier. “I want you to know,” he recalled one voucher recipient telling him, “that this saved my life.”

“It was heartbreaking,” he said, to have to put “the brakes on the program.”

The money for the vouchers was part of a one-time $28 million allocation sent to states to help Americans producing food handle the extra stresses of the coronavirus pandemic. Any state that applied to the U.S. Department of Agriculture was awarded up to half a million dollars — which was used to hold trainings, start hotlines staffed by mental health workers and, like in Utah, provide therapy.

With that funding now mostly spent, leaders in some states have tapped state funds or leaned on private donors to ensure mental health support continues.

Utah has not — and, at least according to one legislator, has no intention to do so.

Republican state Sen. Scott Sandall, a third-generation rancher and farmer who is the Executive Appropriations Committee vice chair, criticized Congress for creating a program with a one-time boost of money, saying that without ongoing funding it was destined to fail.

“The way they set it up,” he said, “was eventually to have it go away.”

The Salt Lake Tribune and ProPublica reached out to Gov. Spencer Cox — himself a farmer who has advocated for better mental health resources in the state. In 2022, he acknowledged in a Utah Farm Bureau article that poor mental health was a problem affecting the state’s farmers and said he hoped investments in rural mental health could better support the agriculture industry. His office did not respond to interview requests for this story.

Although Utah does not currently have funds to pay for therapy for the agricultural industry, there is still support available.

You can dial 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. If you live in Utah, it will route you to the Utah Crisis Line, which is staffed by certified crisis workers at the Huntsman Mental Health Institute. The call is free and confidential, and you can reach someone at any time of day.

Another hotline, 1-800-FARM-AID, has staffers who can talk with you about what you are going through and connect you to resources.

Utah State University Extension has other resources available as well. You can listen to its podcast, “AgWellness,” which organizers say is aimed at teaching you to open up about what concerns you and how to help others who feel stressed. There are also free online courses that can teach you how to find relief from stress, or learn what to say and how to help if you know someone else who is struggling.

Farmers in the United States are 3.5 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population, according to the National Rural Health Association. Utah’s suicide rate has consistently been among the nation’s highest, and farmers and ranchers struggle with the volatility that comes with working in the dry mountain region. They die by suicide at the third-highest rate by vocation in the state, according to state data, behind miners and construction workers.

Fluctuating market prices, unpredictable weather and a stigma that farmers should be “tough” and can handle their mental stress themselves were constant pressures described by more than a dozen people The Tribune and ProPublica interviewed — farmers and ranchers, their families and those who support mental health programs for them.

The American Farm Bureau has emphasized in recent news releases that the Trump administration’s shifts in policy around tariffs and federal grant funding have increased the uncertainty faced by America’s farming communities — a population that overwhelmingly backed President Donald Trump in the 2024 election, according to an analysis by the nonprofit newsroom Investigate Midwest.

Trump acknowledged in his March speech to Congress that tariffs in particular may bring “a little bit of an adjustment period” for America’s farmers but said that he believes they will ultimately help by reducing competition from producers in other countries.

“Our farmers are going to have a field day right now,” Trump said. “So, to our farmers, have a lot of fun. I love you, too.”

Federal funding to support farmer mental health is tied up with ongoing debates over the Farm Bill, a sweeping package of legislation that Congress has been unable to move forward since it expired in 2023. The USDA said it will be ready to implement mental health programs if federal lawmakers appropriate more money for them.

Sandall, the state legislator, said he knows that the stress of working in an unpredictable industry like agriculture can cause anxiety and mental health challenges. But when he was presented with the data about the high suicide rates in Utah agricultural communities, he said he doesn’t think Utah lawmakers would be interested in funding a program intended to help one specific profession. There is “so much demand” for mental health support throughout the state, he said, adding that targeting certain professions would create a “battle for funding.”

“Whether they’re a mechanic,” he said, “or whether they’re a school teacher, or a doctor, or someone in agriculture, I just think it would be a little hard to start separating out and creating just mental health programs for individual industries.”

The stress of owning a dairy fell on Mitch Hancock’s shoulders overnight after his father-in-law died by suicide in 2014. Hancock’s father-in-law hadn’t shared with his family that he was in crisis.

Mental health, Hancock said, isn’t a topic discussed often among farmers. “I think we struggle in quiet.”

For Hancock, too, there was no time for him to grieve. It was early August, and there were still two more cuttings of alfalfa that needed to be made, another month of harvesting corn and the daily needs of milking cows.

He had been involved with the dairy because his father-in-law had been hoping to transition into retirement, Hancock said. Still, “I had never driven a tractor,” he said. “Never driven a semi in harvest, never driven a chopper. Never done any of that. So it was very much, ‘Well, let’s figure it out as we go.’”

That was more than a decade ago. Hancock and his wife have run NooSun Dairy since on 2,400 acres of land in Box Elder County, where the snow-capped Wasatch Mountains stretch to the east and the Great Salt Lake can be seen past acres of fields and homes looking west.

When he speaks, Hancock is taciturn and straightforward, a trained civil engineer who takes a pragmatic approach to running the dairy farm. But he has new insight now into what his father-in-law faced, he said, a weight far heavier than just having a successful business. He has employees who need these jobs and neighbors who count on him to buy their crops to feed his cows.

“We carry the burden to make sure that we can take care of all of those around us like we always have,” he said, “even in times of low milk prices.”

But being able to pay the dairy’s bills can be challenging, Hancock said, because the price he can sell at can fluctuate. Milk price regulations are set by a complex government process that can cause prices to change as often as daily. When prices are volatile, Hancock said, “it’s hard to look past the doomsday.”

Like fluctuating market prices, farmers face other elements of their work they can’t control: the price of fertilizers and equipment, how much it rains or whether animals get sick. And their workdays are long.

In addition, in Utah and the arid West, farmers and ranchers worry about water, said Craig Buttars, the outgoing Utah Department of Agriculture and Food commissioner. In one recent year when rainfall was particularly scarce, he recalled, ranchers scrambled to find enough feed and had to haul water to cattle — many of which graze on remote public lands.

“That just added another level of stress,” he said. “It seems like those things can just add on to one another. And at some point, producers, sometimes they just feel like, ‘Why am I doing this?’”

Some farmers have also felt villainized by the public for their water use, including by a recent study that suggested that farmers need to cut back or stop growing altogether in order to help stop the shrinking of Utah’s Great Salt Lake. This takes a toll, said Caroline Hargraves, the marketing director with the state agriculture department. “I can’t tell you how often I hear people say that farmers should just quit. Like we shouldn’t even grow our own food,” she said. “Just really demonizing anyone for their water use.”

Chris Chambers is an alfalfa and hay farmer in northern Utah who sells his crop to local cattle producers. He said it’s frustrating to read online comments posted in response to news articles about declining lake levels from people who think farmers should give up their water rights or stop farming.

“It’s your livelihood,” he said. “Water is the key, and we’ve got the senior priority rights to use the water from the state of Utah. And now we’re bad guys for doing it? We feel like we’re doing a good service for feeding people.”

In a state that has consistently higher rates of self-reported depression than the rest of the United States, residents in rural areas — where many farmers and ranchers live — face unique challenges in getting help. In the two counties that have the highest amount of farmland in the state, each has about one therapist for every 550 people, according to County Health Rankings, which pulls data from the National Provider Identification registry. (The national ratio is one therapist for every 300 people.)

Without that type of specialized care, doctors in rural areas often rely only on prescription medications, said Tiffany McConkie, a rancher in northeastern Utah who also works as a nurse at a clinic in the town of Altamont, in a three-room medical office decorated with photos of sun-drenched farm landscapes. It’s where people can go for general medical care in their own town in the Uintah Basin, a rural area known for its oil production and agriculture.

But if someone is seeking behavioral health treatment from that same medical system, Uintah Basin Healthcare, the only two therapists on staff work at a larger medical clinic that’s about 20 miles away, according to the health care system’s online provider list.

McConkie said some people hesitate to ask for mental health care, telling her that they are afraid of being medicated or that health care workers will call the police and they’ll be put into a “mental home.”

“And that’s not the case,” she said. “We just want to get them the help they need.”

Where rural Utah lacks easy access to therapists, there is also an abundance of firearms — and a higher suicide rate compared with urban areas, according to a 2018 Harvard study. That study found that the elevated suicide rate in rural Utah is not because people there attempt suicide more often but because they are using guns, which are more lethal than other methods.

In the basin where McKonkie lives, the local state-run mental health clinic has responded to those statistics by focusing on gun safety, handing out gun locks and secure ammo boxes at gun shows. They also travel to oil fields to do suicide prevention trainings with workers, an effort to meet their most at-risk population — middle-aged men — where they are.

“It has required some creativity on our part,” said Catherine Jurado, who works at Northeastern Counseling Center, adding that being in a smaller rural area allows them better opportunities to create relationships. “Who else in the United States thinks, ‘I need to go to a beef expo to do suicide prevention?’”

The shortfall in funding for farmer mental health has been going on for years. In 2008, Congress created the federal Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network but, for more than a decade, put no money into it. The network eventually was funded as part of the 2018 Farm Bill, but its annual $10 million covers the entire country across four regional offices and today generally does not support individual therapy.

Since the Farm Bill expired in September 2023, Congress has been unable to agree on a new legislative package, nor did it pass a proposed bill last year to give $5 million more in funding for the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network. Right now, the network has continued to be funded through temporary extensions.

When the pandemic-era funding injected a new surge of money at the state level in 2021, Utah’s agriculture department and Utah State University Extension — the state’s land-grant university — jumped at the opportunity.

The two organizations used some of the money at first for an educational podcast and online stress courses. And in 2023, they paid for therapy for about 240 farmers and ranchers. There are about 33,000 producers in Utah, according to 2022 Census of Agriculture data, most of whom work other jobs besides farming, which makes up nearly 3% of the state’s economy. As is the case throughout the United States, most Utah farms are family-run.

Buttars, the Utah agriculture department commissioner, said he was surprised by how many people sought the therapy vouchers.

“It really did wake me up to the number of people we have in the state, in our agricultural community, that felt the need for this type of program,” he said.

Dallin, with Utah State, said health care providers reported that those using the vouchers were improving, and that they were receiving positive feedback from those who went to therapy. But the money ran out more than a year ago, and the program has been halted.

In the absence of federal funds, some states have locked in state funding or private donations to keep supporting their farmers.

In Michigan, a program offering free therapy and online stress courses has been in place for nearly a decade, according to Remington Rice with Michigan State University Extension. He said state agriculture leaders advocated for the program after seeing distress among dairy farmers.

“Agriculture is a pillar of society,” Rice said. “No farmers, no food. … And so we need to address an issue that threatens our food supply.”

More recently, he said, a private business — a company that makes cherry products — reached out to donate a portion of its sales to help pay for therapy.

In Washington, a private donor — from a farming family who lost someone to suicide — has provided funding for no-cost therapy sessions for farmers and ranchers, said Don McMoran, who works at Washington State University Extension and is the Western regional lead for the national Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network.

In Utah, those who ran the therapy voucher program have been hesitant to approach lawmakers for state support.

Hargraves, with the state’s agriculture department, said it can be tough to get state legislators to fund new programs. And Dallin said his office has shied away from approaching legislators because the money would be earmarked as part of the higher education budget due to its association with the university. Utah’s legislative leadership has cut $60 million in funding from the public higher education system this year — the biggest budget cut to schools here in at least a decade.

Since the therapy voucher program ended, USU Extension has continued to run awareness campaigns encouraging farmers to invest in their mental health care. And the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food has also introduced mental health workshops into some certifications and courses that farmers and ranchers enroll in.

Dallin said his office has also been working with the University of Utah — a health research university that runs its own hospital system — to try to collect survey data to prove the voucher program’s effectiveness as they try to drum up more money in the future. He said he hopes by partnering, they can lean on the other university’s medical expertise and designation as a health care system.

“I honestly believe,” he said, “that if the government or if some organization were to give us a million dollars a year, I think we could spend it.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Jessica Schreifels, The Salt Lake Tribune.

On June 13 the NDP’s revenue critic hosted a press conference at the parliamentary press gallery calling “on the Liberal government to investigate Canadian charities that allegedly funneled taxpayer money in support of Israeli military operations and illegal settlements in Palestine.” After sponsoring a parliamentary petition on the subject, Ashton posted a letter she’d sent previously to Revenue Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau demanding the government investigate charities funding Israeli military operations in Gaza and illegal Israeli settlements. Ashton ended the May 27 post noting, “Not one cent of Canadian tax-dollars should be funding genocide.”

Ashton’s statement was referenced in a public letter headlined Stop Subsidizing Genocide signed by Gabor Mate, Yann Martel, Linda McQuaig, Roger Waters, Monia Mazigh, Amir Khadir, Desmond Cole, Libby Davies, Ellen Gabriel, Alex Neve and Sarah Jama. The letter calls into question the more than a quarter billion dollars a year sent to Israel and the Canada Revenue Agency’s failure to “enforce its rules on registered charities assisting foreign militaries, racist organizations and West Bank settlements.”

June 13 was set to be an important step forward for the Just Peace Advocates and Canadian Foreign Policy Institute led “colonialism is not charity” campaign that’s been gaining steam in Palestine solidarity circles. But the Ottawa press conference was upended by the revelation Ashton charged taxpayers $17,000 for a trip she took in December 2022. According to an article published that morning by CBC parliamentary bureau reporter John Paul Tasker, Ashton brought her husband and two young children with her on a trip over the Christmas period that took them to Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City. Ashton represents a northern Manitoba ridding so the airfare for the four of them cost $13,000. Ashton’s finances were okayed by the appropriate authorities, yet CBC Power and Politics did a 13-minute five-person discussion about Ashton’s expenses. The National Post, Winnipeg Sun, Truth North, Global News and Rebel News also reported on Ashton’s finances.

Apparently, four journalists attended the press conference and two of them asked multiple questions about Ashton’s finances, but none covered the Israel-focused charity subject. The dominant media completely ignored the substance of the presser though wide social media circulation of a clip from the press conference suggest significant interest in charities funding Israel’s genocide.

Most likely, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs or B’nai Brith shared information on Ashton’s finances to the media. They may have done so when they caught wind of the press conference or when Ashton posted on May 27 about the hyper-sensitive subject of taxpayer-subsidized charities funneling funds to Israel in contravention of CRA rules.

Likely, the Israel lobby has been keeping tabs on Ashton who has long been in their crosshairs. In 2017 the Jewish supremacist organization published a press release titled “B’nai Brith Denounces MP Niki Ashton for Standing in ‘Solidarity’ with Terrorists.” It began “B’nai Brith Canada strongly denounces federal NDP leadership candidate Niki Ashton for attending a rally this week in support of Palestinian terrorists and for questioning Israel’s right to exist in a Facebook post.”

Alternatively, journalists sat on details about Ashton’s expenses and social media posts from her husband dating back to December 2022. They then so happened to release the information just as Ashton challenged a little discussed subject that’s Canada’s most significant contribution to Palestinian dispossession.

Criticizing Ashton’s expenses serves to undercut her standing on public expenditures. As such, it was the perfect scandal to reveal about a politician challenging Israel charities laundering public funds.

But, the real scandal is how journalists either instigated or allowed themselves to be used to undermine a discussion about unlawful activity that costs taxpayers tens of millions of dollars each year to help a foreign government caught interfering in Canadian politics.

Beyond undercutting Ashton’s standing on public expenditures, it was a powerful message to the NDP. Apparently, NDP foreign critic Heather MacPherson was planning to participate in the press conference until the expenses information came to light. It will be interesting to see if the NDP and Ashton shy away from challenging Canada’s biggest contribution to Palestinian dispossession because of the ‘scandal’.

Part of why the Israel lobby likely pursued this line of response to Ashton challenging Israel charities is that they don’t have a good retort to the criticism. In addition to the large transfer of public funds, the charity issue undercuts their claim Israel is unfairly “singled out”. In fact, no other wealthy, faraway, country receives a remotely comparable amount of charity fundraising. And many of the Israel-focused registered charities violate existing CRA rules. Since 2005, for instance, the Heather Reisman and Gerry Schwartz’s HESEG Foundation has raised nearly $200 million to assist non-Israelis who join the Israeli military despite CRA rules that clearly state “supporting the armed forces of another country is not” charitable activity.

The Israel lobby is known for underhanded tactics and are likely behind the recent attack on Niki Ashton.

For those of us appalled by Israel’s holocaust in Gaza our response to this slander of Ashton must be to redouble our efforts to demand “not one cent of Canadian tax-dollars should be funding genocide.”

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

The letter cites a lengthy list of credible reports that Israel has possessed nuclear weapons for decades. Because Israel has not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), the Symington-Glenn Amendments to the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976, which allow no presidential discretion, goes into effect, including:

• termination of assistance under the Foreign Assistance Act, except for humanitarian assistance or food or other agricultural commodities;
• termination of defense sales and licensing of Munitions List exports;
• termination of foreign military financing;
• denial of U.S. government credit, credit guarantees, or other financial assistance (except for medical and humanitarian assistance and agricultural exports from the United States);
• U.S. government opposition to any loan or financial or technical assistance from international financial institutions (IFIs);
• prohibition of any loan or credit from U.S. banks to the foreign government (except for the purchase of food or other agricultural commodities); and
• prohibition under the Export Administration Act of exports to that state of specific goods and technology licensed by the Commerce Department (except for food and other agricultural commodities).

The letter states, “The President may not waive the cutoff of the above aid and exports under the Glenn Amendment where there has been a nuclear weapons detonation, or the offending state has received a nuclear explosive device. Congress would have to enact new legislation authorizing the President to waive some or all of these sanctions.”

VFP National Director, Mike Ferner, said, “Israel’s possession of The Bomb and the U.S.’ refusal to take appropriate action is yet another example of how the Madmen Arsonists – the Raytheons, Boeings, General Dynamics – actually govern our country and determine policy. The law is quite simple – Does Israel have an unregulated nuclear weapons arsenal? Yes, it does.  Is Israel a signatory to the NPT? No, it isn’t. So, the question to Biden is, ‘will you obey the law or the Madmen?’”

Ferner added, “This election year our members will ask their Congressional representatives, ‘Will you hold hearings to enforce existing law, or let the Madmen Arsonists continue to run our country?’”

Highlights of the letter:

• Senator John Glenn was prompted to seek a change in the law because of a reported theft of 100 kg of highly enriched uranium from an NRC vendor in 1968, later traced to the Dimona reactor complex in Israel. (pg. 3)
• Repeated CIA assessments and remarks of Colin Powell in 2016 that the U.S. knew Israel had at least 200 warheads at that time. (pgs. 4-9)
• Israel prosecuted and jailed Mordecai Vanunu for his courageous whistleblowing disclosure in the 1980’s that Israel has The Bomb. (pg. 7)
• Benjamin Netanyahu was identified by the FBI as being directly involved in an Israeli smuggling operation in the 1980’s that successfully stole 800 krytrons, a prized device used for triggers in nuclear weapons. (pg. 7)
• The Symington-Glenn amendment has been implemented by previous administrations. (pg. 4)
• What the President must do (pg. 10)
• Contrary to other instances where the Biden administration is allowed to ignore aid limitations, this one may be litigable in court. (pg. 10)

Veterans For Peace members across the U.S. are telling their members of Congress to vote NO on any more weapons for Israel and hold hearings to hold the Biden administration accountable  They have participated in numerous protests and acts of civil disobedience to highlight Israel’s ongoing genocide in Palestine.

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

For several years, the American car industry has been feuding with automotive service groups and right-to-repair advocates over who should control access to telematic data, information about speed, location, and performance that cars transmit wirelessly back to their manufacturers. Many in the automotive repair industry say this data is essential for fixing today’s computerized cars, and that it should be freely available to vehicle owners and independent shops. Increased access to telematic data, repair advocates argue, will drive down the cost of repair and keep vehicles on the roads for longer. This is particularly important for EVs, which must be used as long as possible to maximize their climate benefits and offset the environmental toll of manufacturing their metal-rich batteries.

These arguments have led members of Congress from both parties to introduce a bill called the REPAIR Act that would grant car owners, and the mechanics of their choosing, access to their telematic data. But the auto industry, which stands to make billions of dollars selling telematics to insurers, streaming radio services, and other third parties, contends that carmakers should be the gatekeepers of this data to avoid compromising vehicle safety. 

In July, ahead of a congressional hearing on right-to-repair issues, an automotive industry trade group called the Alliance for Automotive Innovation announced it had struck a “landmark agreement” with repair groups regarding telematic data sharing — an agreement that ostensibly preempted the need for legislation. A few weeks later, Tesla and Rivian, neither of which is a member of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, announced their support for the agreement. The only problem? Major national organizations representing the automotive aftermarket and repair industries weren’t consulted about the agreement, don’t support it, and claim it won’t make cars easier to fix.

The new agreement “was an attempt by the automakers to distort the facts of the issue and create noise and confusion in Congress,” Bill Hanvey, president of the Auto Care Association, a national trade association representing the aftermarket parts and services industry, told Grist. The Auto Care Association is among the groups that was not consulted about the agreement.

This isn’t the first time the auto industry and repair professionals have reached a voluntary agreement over right-to-repair. 

In 2002, the Automotive Service Association, one of the signatories on the new agreement, struck a pact with vehicle manufacturers to provide independent repair shops access to diagnostic tools and service information. Then, shortly after Massachusetts passed the nation’s first right-to-repair law focused on vehicles in 2013, manufacturers and organizations representing the aftermarket, including the Auto Care Association, signed a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, nationalizing the requirements of the law. That law granted independent mechanics explicit access to vehicle diagnostic and repair information through an in-car port. 

Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of the right-to-repair advocacy organization Repair.org, believes automakers signed the 2014 MOU “in order to prevent more legislation — and particularly more legislation that they would not like.” Automakers objected to including telematics in the 2014 MOU, according to Hanvey. “Because, at the time, the technology was so future-looking, the aftermarket agreed to get a deal in place,” he said.

Telematics is no longer technology of the future, however. Today, manufacturers use telematic systems to collect reams of real-time data related to a vehicle’s activity and state of health, potentially allowing manufacturers to evaluate cars continuously and encourage drivers to get service from their dealers when needed. Independent mechanics, meanwhile, need drivers to bring their vehicles into the shop in order to read data off the car itself — if the data is accessible at all.

In 2020, Massachusetts voters passed a ballot measure called the Data Access Law requiring carmakers to make telematic repair data available to owners and mechanics of their choosing via a standard, open-access platform. Shortly after voters approved it, Alliance for Automotive Innovation sued Massachusetts to stop the law from going into effect, arguing that it conflicted with federal safety standards. The federal judge overseeing the lawsuit has delayed ruling multiple times, keeping the requirements in legal limbo for nearly three years. In June, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell decided to begin enforcing the law, lawsuit notwithstanding. 

While fighting Massachusetts’ Data Access Law in court, automakers were also negotiating their own rules on data sharing. The agreement that the Alliance for Automotive Innovation announced in July included the imprimatur of two repair groups: the Automotive Service Association, a not-for-profit advocacy organization that lobbies states and the federal government on issues impacting automotive repair, and the Society of Collision Repair Specialists, a trade association representing collision repair businesses. 

Dubbed the “Automotive Repair Data Sharing Commitment,” the new agreement reaffirms the 2014 MOU by requiring carmakers to give independent repair facilities access to the same diagnostic and repair information they make available to their authorized dealers. In a step beyond the 2014 MOU, the new agreement includes telematic data required to fix cars. But carmakers are only required to share telematic repair data that “is not otherwise available through a tool,” like the in-car port used today, “or third party-service information provider.”

Because of those caveats, critics say, the agreement effectively changes nothing about telematic data access: Carmakers are still able to decide what data to release, and in what format. Independent shops may still be forced to read data off cars that manufacturers and their dealers have immediate, over-the-air access to, or they may have to subscribe to third-party services to purchase data that dealers receive at no charge. 

What’s more, the qualification about dealerships suggests Tesla and Rivian wouldn’t have to provide any telematic data whatsoever, since neither company works with dealers. That’s especially problematic, Hanvey said, considering both companies make cars that rely heavily on telematic systems. In a pair of class action lawsuits filed earlier this year, Tesla customers alleged that the company restricts independent repair by, among other things, designing its vehicles so that maintenance and repair work rely on telematic information Tesla exclusively controls. 

“The EVs are much more technological, much more reliant on code, and the repairs are much more complicated,” Hanvey said. “It’s difficult enough getting them repaired today, and if you take out the aftermarket, it’s going to be even more challenging for consumers.” 

Neither Tesla nor Rivian responded to a request for comment.

The voluntary nature of the agreement weakens it further, critics say. The Massachusetts Data Access Law and the REPAIR Act under consideration in Congress — which would also require manufacturers to give vehicle owners direct, over-the-air access to telematic repair data via a standard platform — would carry the force of law. By contrast, “there’s no distinction about what happens if this MOU is violated,” Hanvey said. 

Gordon-Byrne told Grist in an email that carmakers haven’t universally complied with the 2014 MOU. “And outside of Massachusetts there isn’t any statute to force compliance,” she said. 

“The problem,” Gordon-Byrne continued, “is lack of enforcement. If the parties don’t like the arrangement — they can talk about it once a year.” Indeed, the new agreement includes a yearly review of the terms by the signatories, as well as the establishment of a panel that will meet biannually to discuss any issues parties have raised regarding repair information access and to “collaborate on potential solutions where feasible.”

The Automotive Service Association and the Society of Collision Repair Specialists don’t represent all of the stakeholders who care about telematic data, which in addition to carmakers, dealers, and mechanics, includes companies that sell and distribute aftermarket parts. In fact, these two signatories appear to represent a small slice of the auto repair industry, which included more than 280,000 U.S. businesses this year, according to market research firm IBIS World. The Automotive Service Association did not provide membership numbers when Grist asked, but there were 1,243 U.S.-based businesses listed in its online directory as of this week. (Several major carmakers are also affiliated with the group, including Nissan, Ford, and Audi.) The Society of Collision Repair Specialists, which didn’t respond to Grist’s request for comment, includes approximately 6,000 collision repair businesses, according to its website. 

The Auto Care Association, meanwhile, represents over half a million companies that manufacture and sell third-party vehicle parts, and service and repair cars. And it’s not the only group that feels the new agreement doesn’t go far enough: So does the Tire Industry Association, which represents roughly 14,000 U.S. member locations that make, repair, and service tires, MEMA Aftermarket Suppliers, representing several hundred aftermarket parts manufacturers, and the Auto Care Alliance, a group of state and regional auto service provider networks with 1,200 members across the country. None of these groups was consulted in advance about the new agreement.

The data sharing agreement “is history repeating itself once again,” Ron Turner, director of the Mid-Atlantic Auto Care Alliance, said in a statement, referring to the voluntary industry agreements of 2002 and 2014, which the organization claims stymied national legislation and have not been adequately enforced. The groups promoting it, Turner said, “are slowing down much-needed legislation and enforcement the automotive industry has needed for decades.”

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation feels differently about voluntary agreements. Brian Weiss, vice president of communications at the trade organization, told Grist in an email that the 2014 MOU “has been working well for almost a decade” and the new data-sharing agreement builds off it. Weiss declined to respond to specific criticisms of the agreement, offer examples of telematic data that carmakers would have to release as a result of it, or explain why the Auto Care Association, a signatory on the 2014 agreement, wasn’t included in the new one.

Robert Redding, a lobbyist for the Automotive Service Association, told Grist that voluntary agreements have worked for its members, too, citing the service information agreement the group negotiated with carmakers in 2002. (The Automotive Service Association was not a party to the subsequent 2014 MOU.) The new agreement, Redding said, was the result of a year-long negotiation process, and he believes parties came to the table “in good faith.”

“We feel very good about the agreement,” Redding said. “This worked for service information, and we believe it’ll work for vehicle data access.” 

The groups backing the new agreement are already using it to argue that further regulation is unnecessary. In a September 22 court filing in the lawsuit concerning the Massachusetts Data Access Law, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation touted the agreement as evidence of the car industry’s “ongoing effort to ensure that consumers enjoy choice with respect to the maintenance and repair of their vehicles.” 

Several days later, at a September 27 hearing of the House Energy Subcommittee on Innovation, Data, and Commerce, Automotive Service Association board of directors chairman Scott Benavidez testified that the new data sharing agreement “nullifies the need for the REPAIR Act.” It was similar to an argument the group made nearly 20 years earlier when it opposed a national right-to-repair act for vehicles, arguing that the voluntary agreement it negotiated with carmakers in 2002 rendered legislation unnecessary.

Dwayne Myers, CEO of Dynamic Automotive, an independent auto repair business with six locations in Maryland, was disappointed to see the Automotive Service Association publicly oppose the REPAIR Act. Myers has been a member of the organization for about a decade, but he says he wasn’t consulted about the new agreement in advance of its release and he doesn’t believe it should be used to undermine laws guaranteeing access to repair data.

“They could have just remained quiet and let their MOU sit there — they didn’t have to oppose the right to repair,” Myers said. “To me it just felt bad. Why as an industry aren’t we working together, unless you’re not on our side?”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Tesla and Rivian signed a right-to-repair pact. Repair advocates are skeptical. on Oct 12, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Maddie Stone.

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape says the increased United States security involvement in Papua New Guinea is driven primarily by the need to build up the Papua New Guinea Defence Force and not US-China geopolitics.

Last night, despite calls for more public consultation, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Papua New Guinea’s Minister for Defence, Win Bakri Daki, penned the Bilateral Defence Cooperation and Shiprider agreements at APEC house in Port Moresby.

Prime Minister Marape said the milestone agreements were “important for the continued partnership of Papua New Guinea and the United States.”

• READ MORE: Analysis: Memories of war haunt ‘slippery slope’ to a militarised Pacific – Barbara Dreaver
• UPNG student protesters call for ‘transparency’ over US defence pact
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• Security pact: PNG expects more US military boots on ground
• Pacific leaders arrive in Port Moresby ahead of Modi and Blinken PNG visit
• OPM calls on global trade unions to blacklist Indonesian goods, services
• Other US defence pact reports

“It’s mutually beneficial, it secures our national interests,” he said.

He said the penning of the new defence pact elevated prior security arrangements with the US under the 1989 Status of Forces Agreement.

Despite public criticism, Marape maintains the agreements are constitutional and will benefit PNG.

He said it had taken “many, many months and weeks” and passed through legal experts to reach this point.

The Shiprider agreement will act as a vital mechanism to tackle illegal fishing and drug trafficking alongside the US, which is a big issue that PNG faces in its waters, Marape said.

“I have a lot of illegal shipping engagements in the waters of Papua New Guinea, unregulated, unmonitored transactions take place, including drug trafficking,” he said

“This new Shiprider agreement now gives Papua New Guinea’s shipping authority, the Defence Force and Navy ‘full knowledge’ of what is happening in waters, something PNG has not had since 1975 [at independence],” Marape said.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed those sentiments and stressed that the US was committing to the growing of all aspects of the relationship.

“Papua New Guinea is playing a critical role in shaping our future,” Blinken told the media.

He said the defence pact was drafted by both nations as “equal and sovereign partners”.

It was set to enhance PNG’s Defence Force capabilities, making it easy for both forces to train together.

He too stressed the US would be transparent.

For all their reassurances, both leaders steered clear of any mention of US troop deployments in PNG despite Marape having alluded to it in the lead up to the signing.

Reactions to the security pact
Although celebrated by the governments of the US and PNG as milestone security agreements the lead up to the signings was marked by a day of university student protests across the country calling for greater transparency from the PNG government around the defence pact.

The students’ president at the University of Technology in Lae, Kenzie Walipi, had called for the government to explain exactly what was in the deal ahead of the signing.

“If such an agreement is going to affect us in any way, we have to be made aware,” Walipi said.

Just before the pen hit the paper last night, Marape again sought to reassure the public.

“This signing in no way, state or form terminates us from relating to other defence cooperations we have or other defence relationships or bilateral relationships that we have,” Marape said.

He added “this is a two-way highway”.

Students at the University of Papua New Guinea ended a forum late last night and blocked off the main entrance to the campus as Prime Minister Marape and State Secretary Blinken signed the Defence Cooperation agreement.

They are maintaining a call for transparency and for a proper debate on the decision.

Hours before the signing, they presented a petition to the Planning Minister, Renbo Paita, who received their demands on behalf of the Prime Minister.

Students at the University of Technology in Lae met late into the night. Students posted live videos on Facebook of the forum as the signing happened in Port Moresby.

The potential impact of the agreements signed in Port Moresby overnight on Papua New Guinea and the Pacific will become more apparent once the full texts are made available online as promised by both the United States and Papua New Guinea.

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

Extending my heartfelt thanks to Prime Minister Marape and the people of Papua New Guinea for hosting me. I am grateful to have met with Pacific Islands leaders and to demonstrate our commitment to working together with our Pacific neighbors to address our shared challenges. pic.twitter.com/mpVCnIGDAT

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) May 22, 2023

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

A U.S.-based Chinese woman who gave only the nickname Ning Ning said she had recently received a late-night phone call from her father back in China, asking her to confirm whether a signature on a Change.org petition was hers.

“The state security police had come visiting, and my dad was repeating the [text on the petition] website back to me, asking me if it was me who signed,” Ning Ning said.

“They knew it was me because I had to fill out some personal details [for the petition],” she said.

Ning Ning’s revelations come as governments around the world scramble to assess the degree to which Beijing has managed to infiltrate and exert influence on foreign soil, particularly through the use of overseas police “service stations,” which have been shut down in a number of locations worldwide in recent months.

Video call from state security

State security police also wanted Ning Ning to provide all of the registration details she gave to Change.org, and to accept a video call from them, so they could see her logging onto the website, she said.

The state security police appeared to know the email address she had used to sign the petition already, as well as other email addresses she had previously used there, Ning Ning said.

“They knew my account details and asked me to share my screen with them, and they also searched for my accounts on other social media,” she said. “They then asked me if the accounts were mine or not, and what sort of things I had posted there.”

Repeated calls to the local police department in the district where Ning Ning’s family lives rang unanswered during office hours on March 3.

Change.org currently hosts more than 9,000 petitions containing the keyword “China” in English, the majority of which have to do with animal protection issues, according to a brief search of the site.

It is entirely possible to withhold a person's real name on the site, and only have a nickname displayed publicly, raising questions about how Chinese state security police were able to access private information on users of Change.org.

“It’s pretty scary, as if the state security police can see in real time who is logging onto that website with what email address,” Ning Ning said. “How can they know about these email addresses?”

A spokesperson for Change.org, which is blocked by China's Great Firewall of internet censorship, said the company’s cybersecurity team had recently reviewed the data privacy and information security agreements relating to people who sign international petitions and found no signs of leaks or system vulnerabilities.

Former Sina Weibo censor Liu Lipeng said China-based hackers could have targeted Change.org, or police could have somehow gotten their hands on leaked data from the site, however.

“The fact that the Chinese authorities were able to go straight to her family and ask them to get her to take something down tells us clearly that they saw her email address,” Liu said. “The police have already made it totally clear that this was a leak from Change.org.”

“But how did they then link her email to her real name?” he said. “That is still an open question.”

“But the fact that they knew the email address shows that this is definitely something leaked from that website.”

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Matt Reed.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Mia Ping-chieh Chen for RFA Mandarin.

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

A federal judge indicated Wednesday that former U.S. President Donald Trump signed a legal document containing voter fraud claims about the 2020 presidential election that he knew were false.

"The emails show that President Trump knew that the specific numbers of voter fraud were wrong but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and to the public."

That revelation came in U.S. District Judge David Carter's ruling that ordered ex-Trump lawyer John Eastman—considered the architect of the plot to overturn the election—to share some emails with the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.

Critics of the twice-impeached former president argue his "Big Lie" that the election was rigged by Democrats provoked the 2021 attack, which is tied to at least seven deaths and briefly delayed the certification of the results. As the new ruling highlights, Trump's bid to hold on to power despite losing reelection also featured legal battles over the outcomes in specific swing states.

"Four emails demonstrate an effort by President Trump and his attorneys to press false claims in federal court for the purpose of delaying the January 6 vote," wrote Carter, a California-based judge appointed by former President Bill Clinton. "The evidence confirms that this effort was undertaken in at least one lawsuit filed in Georgia."

Trump and his legal team claimed to a Georgia state court on December 4, 2020 that Fulton County improperly counted votes from 10,315 deceased people, 2,560 felons, and 2,423 unregistered voters. The battle then moved to federal court.

"On December 30, 2020, Dr. Eastman relayed 'concerns' from President Trump's team 'about including specific numbers in the paragraph dealing with felons, deceased, moved, etc.' The attorneys continued to discuss the president's resistance to signing 'when specific numbers were included," Carter explained.

According to the judge, Eastman wrote in an email on December 31, 2020: "Although the President signed a verification for [the state court filing] back on Dec. 1, he has since been made aware that some of the allegations (and evidence proffered by the experts) has been inaccurate. For him to sign a new verification with that knowledge (and incorporation by reference) would not be accurate."

Carter noted that "President Trump and his attorneys ultimately filed the complaint with the same inaccurate numbers without rectifying, clarifying, or otherwise changing them. President Trump, moreover, signed a verification swearing under oath that the incorporated, inaccurate numbers 'are true and correct' or 'believed to be true and correct' to the best of his knowledge and belief."

"The emails show that President Trump knew that the specific numbers of voter fraud were wrong but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and to the public," the judge continued. "The court finds that these emails are sufficiently related to and in furtherance of a conspiracy to defraud the United States."

As The New York Times reported Wednesday:

The episode was the latest example of how Mr. Trump was repeatedly told that his claims of widespread voter fraud were false and often pressed forward with them anyway. His attorney general at the time, William P. Barr, informed him at least three times that his accusations about fraud were unfounded, as did other top officials at the Justice Department, the White House Counsel's Office, and the Trump campaign.

Judge Carter's ruling came as part of a federal lawsuit Mr. Eastman filed at the beginning of the year, seeking to bar the committee from obtaining his emails as part of its inquiry into Mr. Trump's efforts to overturn the election.

Carter previously ruled in March that "it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021" and that he, Eastman, "and several others entered into an agreement to defraud the United States by interfering with the election certification process."

The latest development comes on the heels of what could be the select committee's final hearing; its only two Republicans are not returning to Congress next year and the panel's work could be discontinued if the GOP wins control of the House during the November midterms.

While the panel members last week voted unanimously to subpoena Trump—eliciting a "rambling" response from the ex-president—New York University School of Law professor Ryan Goodman said that "I think they were trying to hand the Justice Department all the evidence on a silver platter."

Trump's legal problems aren't limited to the January 6 attack and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Along with a New York state suit related to the Trump Organization, federal agents in August executed a search warrant on Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate. Since then, there have been fights in court over the seized materials, including documents marked classified.

Bloomberg reported Wednesday that "a group of Justice Department prosecutors believe there is sufficient evidence to charge Donald Trump with obstruction of justice, but the path to an actual indictment is far from clear."

"The team that's part of the classified records probe has not yet made a formal recommendation to Attorney General Merrick Garland, who would ultimately approve or reject such a move," the report noted, with unnamed sources warning that a decision would likely come after the midterms and potentially even after Christmas.

The Justice Department declined to comment, according to the outlet.

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

The pact between Washington and 14 Pacific island nations was a key outcome of the U.S.-Pacific summit last week aimed at countering China’s influence in the region. 

The Solomon Islands earlier this year signed a security pact with Beijing, causing concern for Washington and its allies.

“In the initial draft, there were some references that we were not comfortable with,” said Manele, who is on an official visit to New Zealand. 

“There [were] some references that put us in a position that we’ll have to choose sides. And we don’t want to be placed in a position that we have to choose sides.” 

The Solomon Islands government has tilted toward China under Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare. The Solomon Islands switched its diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 2019 and will host the Pacific Games next year with China’s financial help. 

Another Pacific nation, Kiribati, also recognized China in 2019, leaving Taiwan with just four regional allies.

The United States has not had an embassy in the Solomon Islands since the early 1990s, but has promised to reopen it as part of efforts to show a greater commitment to the Pacific. 

Manele said his government’s initial reservations about the U.S.-Pacific pact reflected its views on foreign policy in the region. 

The Pacific, he said, “should be a region of peace, cooperation, and collaboration.” 

During the negotiations, “we were able to find common ground that took us on board, so we signed,” he added.

President Joe Biden’s summit with Pacific leaders last week was meant to show a deeper U.S. commitment to a region that has turned to China to meet its development needs. 

Over two decades, China has become an important source of infrastructure, loans, and aid for Pacific island nations as it seeks to isolate Taiwan diplomatically and gain regional allies in international organizations such as the United Nations.

The 11-point U.S.-Pacific declaration condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

It said the signatory countries are committed to maintaining peace and security in the Pacific and that they recognize the importance of freedom of navigation and overflight under international law.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Stephen Wright for BenarNews.

In early 2018, former National Security Agency chief Keith Alexander worked out a deal with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the cyber institute led by one of his closest aides, Saud al-Qahtani, to help the Saudi ruler train the next generation of Saudi hackers to take on the kingdom’s enemies.

While the agreement between IronNet, founded by Alexander, and the cyber school was widely reported in intelligence industry outlets and the Saudi press at the time, it faced no scrutiny for its association with Qahtani, after the brutal killing of Jamal Khashoggi he reportedly orchestrated just a few months later.

Alexander officially inked the deal with the Prince Mohammed bin Salman College of Cyber Security, Artificial Intelligence, and Advanced Technologies — a school set up to train Saudi cyber intelligence agents — at a signing ceremony in Washington, D.C., according to an announcement in early July.

Qahtani’s proxy at the signing noted in a statement that “the strategic agreement will ensure [Saudi Arabia is] benefiting from the experience of an advisory team comprising senior officers who had held senior positions in the Cyber Command of the US Department of Defense.” Alexander’s for-profit cyber security firm IronNet would work closely with the Saudi Federation of Cybersecurity, Programming, and Drones, an affiliate of the college devoted to offensive cyber operations and at the time overseen by Qahtani.

People hold posters of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, near the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul, on Oct. 2, 2020.

Photo: Emrah Gurel/AP

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This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Lee Fang.

China has been successful in signing multiple bilateral agreements with almost a dozen Pacific Island nations during its Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to the region.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi started his region-wide tour last Thursday in Solomon Islands and has since met Pacific leaders from Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Niue, Cook Islands and Vanuatu.

He is on his final lap as he wraps up with visits to Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste today and tomorrow.

• READ MORE: China wanted a swift diplomatic victory in the Pacific – but Pacific leaders won’t be rushed
• RSF condemns Chinese curb on reporters during Pacific island tour
• Other China in the Pacific reports

Beijing’s approach has alarmed Pacific geopolitics-watchers as well as its traditional Western partners, who are cautioning Pacific nations to tread carefully when entering into deals with China, particularly in the sensitive area of security.

But the Asian superpower has declared its efforts to strengthen its relationship with the region does not have any political strings attached to it, even as its efforts to win-over Pacific foreign ministers over a multilateral trade and security deal received a major pushback, which is being seen as a “a big win” for the region.

However, Wang has struck several development agreements focusing on economy, health, disaster response, and technology, among others during his whirlwind visit to enhance China-Pacific Island countries relations.

Here is what we know so far:

Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands has been at the centre of regional political debate for the past few weeks because it signed up a controversial security agreement with China.

Aside from that deal, Beijing and Honiara signed up further mutual development cooperation agreements in the areas of economic cooperation, health cooperation, sectorial cooperation. These include:

• Non-Reciprocal Trade Arrangements.
• Visa waiver exemption agreement for diplomats, officials/service and Public Affairs passport holders for China.
• Civil Aviation Agreement.
• Memorandom of Understanding (MoU) on health between Solomon Islands China .
• Exchanged letters for construction of National Referral Hospital Comprehensive Medical Center.
• MoU on Disaster Risk Reduction.
• MoU between the two countries ministries of commerce on Deepening Blue Economy Cooperation to open up cooperation on infrastructure, marine industries, energy amongst other sectors.
• Commitment to complete 2023 Pacific Games facility and training Solomon Islands sportspeople for the Games.

“The two countries reaffirm their commitments to work together on all issues of mutual concerns,” Solomon Islands government said in a statement.

There was speculation that Kiribati was the potential target for the security pact.

But there were agreements formalised on security.

The Kiribati government confirmed the discussions, instead, ranged from China’s readiness to assist on climate action, covid-19, medical cooperation, and fisheries production and processing to maximise Kiribati’s benefits from our abundant resources.”

Up to 10 bilateral agreements were signed between the two countries in a range of areas. These included:

• Further elevating cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiaitve.
• 2022 Economic and Development Cooperation.
• Livelihood projects.
• Climate Change.
• Disaster Risk Reduction.
• Buota Bridge and adjacent road infrastructure development.
• Tourism.
• Protocols on Dispatching Medical Teams.
• Marine Transportation for the Line Islands.
• Covid-19 medical supplies.

“In just slightly over two years after the resumption of our diplomatic ties, both our countries have embarked on a very fruitful cooperation to cultivate our bilateral relations. These projects will deliver meaningful and tangible impacts on the lives of our people,” Kiribati president Taneti Maaau said.

Analysis – China has been successful in signing multiple bilateral agreements with almost a dozen Pacific Island nations during its foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to the region.https://t.co/FXJK9wRStu

— RNZ Pacific (@RNZPacific) June 3, 2022

Samoa
In his stopover at Samoan, Wang signed three agreements. These were:

• Economic & Technical Cooperation Agreement for projects to be determined and mutually agreed between the respective Countries.
• Handover Certificate for the completed Arts & Culture Centre and the Samoa-China Friendship Park.
• Exchange of Letters for the Fingerprint laboratory for Police complementary to the construction of the Police Academy.

Samoan prime minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa said the bilateral cooperation agreements were initiated “a number of years ago” and were not new development.

Fiame has also labelled China’s proposal to push through its multilateral economic and security deal “abnormal” and such an agreement could not be agreed to if the “region has not met to discuss it.”

Fiji
China has enjoyed much favour in its relationship with Fiji’s Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama. This trip was no different.

According to China’s Ambassador to Fiji, the two countries signed three agreements focusing on economic cooperation but further details were not provided.

Wang said after meeting with Bainimarama: “Our two sides agreed to further synergise our strategies, expand cooperation in economy, trade, agriculture, fisheries, tourism, civil aviation, education, law enforcement and emergency management and other areas within the framework of Blet and Road cooperation for mutual benefit and win-win outcomes.”

Bainimarama stressed the two countries “have a solid foundation”.

He downplayed the geopolitical tussle taking place in the region between Beijing and Western countries as the most central issue facing the region.

He reinforced that climate change was the greatest threat facing the Pacific and sought greater commitment from China on climate action.

“I’ve sought stronger Chinese commitment to keep 1.5 alive, end illegal fishing, protect the #BluePacific’s ocean, and expand Fijian exports,” he said via a Tweet.

The Pacific needs genuine partners, not superpowers that are super-focussed on power. At an excellent meeting with Minister Wang Yi, I’ve sought stronger Chinese commitment to keep 1.5 alive, end illegal fishing, protect the #BluePacific‘s ocean, and expand Fijian exports. pic.twitter.com/vBSVJtDf6a

— Frank Bainimarama (@FijiPM) May 30, 2022

Tonga
Wang arrived at Nuku’alofa on Tuesday, where he met with King Tupou VI, Tongan prime minister Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni, and minister for foreign affairs Fekitamoeloa ‘Utoikamanu.

The Tongan government announced it had signed “several bilateral agreements” with China after discussions focusing on mutual respect and the common interest of the people of the two countries.

• MoU on Cooperation in the Area of Disaster Risk Reduction and Emergency Response.
• MoU on Deepening Blue Economy Cooperation.
• Handover Certificate on the China-Aid Non-intrusive Imaging Inspection Equipment Project to Tonga Customs.
• Letter of Exchanges on the Provision of One Fingerprint Examination Laboratory.
• MoU on the Grant-Aid Assistance provided by Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, People’s Republic of China to the Government of the Kingdom of Tonga in 2022.
• Agreement for the Peripheral Area of Mala’ekula Royal Tomb Improvement Project.

According to the China’s foreign ministry, China and Tonga “reached extensive consensus on deepening cooperation in various fields and advancing Belt and Road cooperation, and signed a batch of economic cooperation agreements.”

RNZ Pacific’s Tonga correspondent Kalafi Moala said China has been behind many development projects in the Kingdom.

“There’s been a lot of local developments in Tonga by the Chinese, and that includes the restoration of Nukualofa since the riots of 2006 and we still have a loan from China that we still need to make payments on, it’s about $118 million dollars,” Moala said.

Vanuatu
Vanuatu was Wang’s sixth stopover.

He met with prime minister Bob Loughman and his cabinet ministers on Wednesday, where the two countries finalised cooperation agreements in the areas of economic technology, medical and health case, and marine economy.

No further details on the agreements have been provided.

In a statement, China’s foreign ministry said Loughman “spoke highly of the strong leadership of the Communist Party of China with Xi Jinping at its core.”

Loughman, on the other hand, said China “has proved to be a true friend of Vanuatu with concrete actions”.

He “firmly believes that cooperation with China will better help PICs seize development opportunities, and will further enhance bilateral cooperation between PICs and China.

Loughman has also indicated his government’s full support towards China’s “important role” in the region and its plans to expand its common development vision with Pacific Island countries.

Cook Islands (Virtual)
Wang met Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown on Thursday.

Brown said China was willing to discuss and plan the next step of cooperation according to the development needs of the Cook Islands.

According to Wang, the two sides could expand cooperation in tourism, infrastructure and education at the sub-national level to help the economic recovery of the Cook Islands.

“China is also willing to discuss and conduct more trilateral cooperation on the basis of past successful experience,” he said.

Brown said, “the Cook Islands firmly believes that the future of the Cook Islands is closely tied to China, and is ready to work with China to push for even greater development of bilateral relations in the next 25 years.”

“The Cook Islands attaches great importance to the China-Pacific Island Countries Foreign Ministers’ Meeting mechanism and the next cooperation initiatives proposed by China,” he said.

Although there were no details for any formal agreements signed, China’s foreign ministry said “the two sides agreed to strengthen cooperation in Chinese language education, support and encourage young people in the Cook Islands to learn Chinese, and cultivate more friendly envoys”, adding “Both sides agreed to continue to support each other in the international community.”

Niue (Virtual)
Premier of Niue Dalton Tagelagi said Beijing had “made positive contributions towards Niue’s prosperity” and it is “pleased” the relationship between the two nations continues to grow.

“We will continue to progress our close relationship and friendship with China to further advance bilateral relations and achieve common development and prosperity,” Premier Tagelagi said.

“Joint initiatives with China, such as roading and other strategic development and investment opportunities, will ultimately improve the quality of life for everyone in Niue and are part of Niue’s key aspiration toward self-sufficiency. China has heard Niue’s call, and we are very grateful for that.”

He said Nuie “supports in principle” China’s proposal in investing in common development and prosperity in the region.

“We would like time to consider how the arrangement with China will support existing regional plans to ensure that our priorities are aligned and will be beneficial for all of us for regional prosperity.

“I am confident that Niue’s officials will work together to ensure that the final document will reflect our shared vision,” he said.

A working Sunday afternoon today @ForumSEC w the visit from the State Councilor and Minister for Foreign Affairs of China, HE Wang Yi. Partnerships are fundamental to the realisation of our priorities but they must be built on mutual respect and joint collaboration. #BluePacific pic.twitter.com/PRuilRmGb5

— Sec-General of the @ForumSec, @PacOceanComm (@henrytpuna) May 29, 2022

Regional reactions
University of Hawai’is Centre for Pacific Studies associate professor Tarcisius Kabutaulaka said: “China’s rise has changed international geopolitics and its increased presence is changing the dynamics of Pacific regionalism.”

He believed countries in the region need to work out how to better manage the power imbalance in their relationships with China.

“The issue for me is that how do we manage that? How are we aware of that huge force in the form of China? And how do we manage that in ways that will benefit us and here I mean Pacific Island countries,” Dr Kabutaulaka said.

Former Fiji prime minister Sitiveni Rabuka warned against “new influences” coming into the South Pacific.

Rabuka said the Pacific was comfortable with the relationships it had had with traditional partners in Australia and New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

“New influences will probably take us time to get used to. I am hopeful that the government of our friends of our joint development partners will continue to help us as we try to map our way forward,” he said.

Former Tuvalu prime minister Enele Sopoaga said the growing influence on China in the Pacific was a “scary development” for the region.

Sopoaga said Pacific nations were being used as “canary in the coal mine.”

“The decision to take the draft [Common Development Vision] is up to individual respective countries in the Pacific. But I think this is a rather scary development that we are hearing about now,” he said.

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

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

The Solomon Islands prime minister is adamant a security co-operation agreement his government has signed with China will not undermine regional security.

In Parliament yesterday, Manasseh Sogavare confirmed the controversial security agreement with China had been signed despite strong opposition to the deal from the other side of the house.

The pact, a draft of which was first leaked online last month, raised domestic and regional anxieties about Beijing’s increasing influence in the South Pacific.

• READ MORE: China-Solomon Islands security pact: A Pacific stuff up?
• Other China-Solomon islands security pact reports

It is feared that it could open the door to China’s military presence in Honiara — a claim rejected both by China and Solomon Islands.

Sogavare has defended the intention behind the move, saying its aim is for the nation to diversify its security ties “to improve the quality of lives” of its people and to “address soft and hard security threats facing the country”.

“I ask all our neighbours, friends and partners to respect the sovereign interests of Solomon Islands on the assurance that the decision will not adversely impact or undermine the peace and harmony of our region,” Sogavare said.

In response, opposition leader Matthew Wale called on Sogavare to make the signed document public “to allay any regional fears of any hidden parts of it”.

‘Disclosure of the agreement’
“And now that the agreement has been signed whether the Prime Minister will allow a disclosure of the agreement so that members may have a perusal of it,” Wale said.

Wale’s sentiments were echoed by another opposition MP, the chairman of the foreign relations committee, Peter Kenilorea Jr.

Kenilorea Jr said Sogavare’s decision to strike a military cooperation deal with China lacked transparency and he believed whatever efforts partners were putting in from the region were not going to make a difference.

But he also expressed concern, now that the two countries have made the agreement official, that it could become the source for domestic tensions.

“It will just further inflame emotions and tensions and again underscores the mistrust that people have on the government,” Peter Kenilorea Jr said.

“It is cause for concern for many Solomon Islanders, but definitely a certain segment of the society will now feel even more concerned and might want to start to take certain action which is not in the best interest of Solomon Islands in our own unity as a country.”

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had raised “serious concerns” about the security pact when the news initially broke two weeks ago.

‘No need’, says Ardern
And following the announcement on Wednesday that the deal was done, Ardern reiterated her concerns.

“We see no need for this agreement,” Ardern said.

“We’re concerned about the militarisation of the Pacific and we continue to call on the Solomons to work with the Pacific with any concerns around their security they may have.”

The Solomon Islands prime minister is adamant a security cooperation agreement his government has signed with China will not undermine regional security. https://t.co/SxP21e1lKu

— RNZ Pacific (@RNZPacific) April 20, 2022

RNZ Pacific’s Honiara-based correspondent Georgina Kekea said the issue had divided public opinion in the country.

Kekea said people were already anticipating the signing of the pact.

“From what we’ve seen there are some who are with the signing, there some who are not. Some who are a bit sceptical about what the future will be like in the Solomon Islands with such an agreement being signed with China,” she said.

“So, there’s mixed feelings I would say on the ground, especially with the signing.”

US officials confer with Honiara
Meanwhile, senior US officials are meeting with Solomon Islands government this week with the security deal expected to be a major point of discussions.

Writing on his Village Explainer website in an article entitled “Pacific stuff up?”, Vanuatu columnist Dan McGarry writes that “if the coming election goes to Australia’s Labor party, Penny Wong is very likely to become Foreign Minister. So when she speaks, people across the region prick up their ears.

“Without the least disrespect to her recent forebears, she could be one of the most acute, incisive and insightful FMs in recent history.

“Whether she’ll be any more effective than them is another matter.”

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

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

The confirmation came as a U.S. delegation led by the National Security Council Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell was heading to Honiara to discuss regional security issues.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare told parliament on Wednesday that the agreement with China was to help with the country’s “internal security situation,” referring to recent unrest that saw businesses and buildings burned and looted.

The prime minister said the decision “will not adversely impact or undermine the peace and harmony of our region.”

Hours before that, a Chinese government spokesman said that the pact is “part of normal exchanges and cooperation between two sovereign and independent countries” and does not target any third party.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters in Beijing that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Solomon Islands counterpart Jeremiah Manele officially signed the document “the other day.”

China did not offer an explanation about whether the signed document is the final agreement.

Neither party has revealed any details of the deal, with Sogavare saying it would be disclosed after a "process."

Solomon Islands’ neighbors Australia and New Zealand have repeatedly voiced concerns since a copy of the draft agreement was leaked online in March.

On Tuesday, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Pacific Minister Zed Seselja issued a joint statement saying “Australia is deeply disappointed by the signing” of the pact.

“We are concerned about the lack of transparency with which this agreement has been developed, noting its potential to undermine stability in our region,” the statement reads.

Seselja traveled to Honiara last week to urge the Solomon Islands prime Mminister not to sign the deal with Beijing, without success. 

New Zealand's Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta said her country was "saddened" that the Solomon Islands had made the pact.

The U.S. also expressed concern over “the lack of transparency” in China's security pact with the Solomon Islands, calling it part of a pattern of Beijing offering "shadowy" deals to countries, Reuters news agency reported.

Two top U.S. officials for the Indo-Pacific region - Kurt Campbell and Daniel Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs - are currently in Fiji before traveling to Honiara to meet with the island nation’s leaders.

Campbell said in January that the U.S. has “enormous moral, strategic, historical interests” in the Pacific but had not done enough to assist the region.

Their trip has been criticized by China as having “ulterior motives.”

“Several senior U.S. officials now fancy a visit to some Pacific island countries all of a sudden after all these years,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Wang Wenbin, pointing out that the U.S. Embassy in Solomon Islands has been closed for 29 years.

This February, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Fiji to meet with Pacific island leaders, and announced that the embassy in Honiara would be reopened.

China has maintained that Pacific island countries need to diversify their cooperation with other countries and “have the right to independently choose their cooperation partners.”

“China is always a builder of peace and a promoter of stability in the South Pacific region,” Wang said.

A draft copy of the security pact leaked onto social media in late March suggested there would be Chinese logistical hubs or bases in the island nation.

One of the clauses says: “China may, according to its own needs and with the consent of Solomon Islands, make ship visits to, carry out logistical replenishment in, and have stopover and transition in Solomon Islands.”

David Capie, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, told RFA that the security pact would allow Beijing to set up military bases and deploy troops in the Pacific island nation, “marking the start of a much sharper military competition than anything we’ve seen in the region for decades.”

Capie said that the agreement “would allow the People’s Republic of China to deploy police and military personnel to Solomon Islands with the consent of the host government, and potentially provide for refueling and support of Chinese ships.”

U.S. State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said earlier this week that the U.S. is concerned that the agreement “leaves the door open for the deployment of Chinese forces on the Solomon Islands.”

“We believe that signing such an agreement could increase destabilization within the Solomon Islands and will set a concerning precedent for the wider Pacific island region," Price added.

Analysts say a presence of Chinese troops in the Solomon Islands could raise the risk of confrontation between China and the U.S. and its allies, as well as challenge the U.S.-led vision of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific.”

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

Republican Governor Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma was denounced Tuesday for signing into law one of the most extreme forced-pregnancy bills in the United States, a law pro-choice advocates argue is blatantly unconstitutional and must be challenged.

Stitt signed S.B. 612, which targets healthcare professionals by making it illegal for them to provide abortions at any stage of pregnancy with only a narrow exception for pregnant patients who are at risk of death unless their pregnancies are terminated.

"Abortion bans are never about safety. They're about coercion and control."

Under the law, which is scheduled to go into effect this summer, healthcare workers who provide abortion care could be charged with a felony and face as much as 10 years in prison as well as a $100,000 fine.

Stitt and other Republicans have been "emboldened" by the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to stop Texas from enacting its own forced-pregnancy law, known as S.B. 8, last year, said Nancy Northrup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR).

"Oklahoma's total abortion ban is blatantly unconstitutional and will wreak havoc on the lives of people seeking abortion care within and outside the state," Northrup said. "We've sued the state of Oklahoma ten times in the last decade to protect abortion access and we will challenge this law as well to stop this travesty from ever taking effect."

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban later this year, and the state has asked the court to overturn Roe v. Wade, which affirmed in 1973 that women in every U.S. state have the constitutional right to obtain abortion care.

Reproductive rights advocates have warned since S.B. 8 went into effect that the court's right-wing majority is likely to overturn the ruling, which would nullify any legal challenges to S.B. 612 in Oklahoma and would ensure other abortion bans can also go into effect.

"We are at a tipping point for abortion rights nationwide," tweeted Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

"This ban, like all abortion bans, will harm real people—people who are making a decision that they know will be best for themselves, their lives, their families, and their futures," Johnson added in a statement

In addition to S.B. 612, Oklahoma Republicans who control the state legislature are pushing two bills modeled on a Texas law passed last year that took enforcement of its abortion restrictions out of the hands of the state by allowing ordinary citizens to sue anyone they believed helped a patient obtain an abortion. Those bills would go into effect immediately if Stitt signs them into law.

"We want to outlaw abortion in the state of Oklahoma," Stitt said Tuesday.

Advocates in Oklahoma warned that the three anti-choice bills will harm healthcare not just for 900,000 women of reproductive age in the state but also for women across the Great Plains region.

"Oklahoma health centers are currently seeing dozens of patients each day who have left Texas to seek abortions," said the group. "Some providers have reported a nearly 2500% increase in Texas patients in the last four months of 2021, compared to the same period in 2020. And in turn, Oklahomans have started leaving for care in Kansas, Colorado, Arkansas, or even states further afield. If Oklahoma health centers are forced to stop providing abortion, the ripple effect will be felt throughout the region."

"Oklahoma's extreme law banning abortion is just one more reason we need federal protections for the right access abortion."

One advocate warned that Oklahoma's effort to "effectively eliminate" abortion care, in the words of S.B. 612 author state Sen. Nathan Dahm, will only "push people further to the margins, force people to carry pregnancies that are dangerous to their own health, or take greater risks to find abortion care wherever they can."

"The people of our region deserve access to essential healthcare in their own communities," said Myfy Jensen-Fellows, advocacy director for Trust Women, a women's health clinic in Oklahoma City. "No one should have to travel out of state to access abortion care. No one should be forced to carry a pregnancy that they do not want, or that is dangerous to their health."

The White House responded to Stitt's decision Tuesday by calling on the U.S. Congress to protect abortion rights in every state by passing the Women's Health Protection Act (WHPA), which would protect healthcare professionals' right to provide abortions and patients' right to recieve care.

Passage of the WHPA "would shut down these attacks and codify this long-recognized, constitutional right," said White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.

The U.S. House passed the WHPA last year, but right-wing Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin joined every Republican senator in blocking the legislation last month.

"Oklahoma's extreme law banning abortion is just one more reason we need federal protections for the right access abortion," said the Pro-Choice Caucus in Congress Tuesday.

Physicians for Reproductive Health (PRH) said it was "absolutely disgusted" by Stitt's signing of S.B. 612 and his claim that he was approving the bill in support of "families."

"When people have access to abortion, families and communities thrive," tweeted PRH. "There is a direct tie between abortion bans and devastating maternal health outcomes. Abortion bans are never about safety. They're about coercion and control."

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

President Biden signed The Emmett Till Antilynching Act into law on Tuesday, culminating efforts to make lynching a federal crime that started over a century ago. Michelle Duster, the great-granddaughter of Ida B. Wells, the legendary anti-lynching activist and pioneering African-American journalist, said at the signing ceremony,

"Since my great-grandmother's visit to the White House 124 years ago, there have been over 200 attempts to get legislation enacted. But we finally stand here today, generations later, to witness this historic moment."

The image went global and forced the people of the United States to witness the ravages of racism, the brutality of bigotry.

Emmett Till should be alive today. Born on July 25th, 1941, he would be eighty years old. Perhaps he would still be joking the way he did throughout his childhood. "For Emmett, life was laughter and laughter was life-giving," his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley wrote of him. "There was so much joy in his carefree world that he just wanted to share with everyone around him." Emmett Till, an African-American boy, was brutally murdered on August 28th, 1955, at the age of 14. He had been accused of "wolf whistling" at Carolyn Bryant, a white woman, then dragged out of his great-uncle's home in Money, Mississippi, where his mother had sent him from Chicago for the summer. Several days later, his brutally beaten, disfigured body, weighted down with a 75-pound cotton gin fan tied to his body with barbed wire, was pulled out of the Tallahatchie River.

The Leflore County sheriff attempted to force the immediate burial of Emmett Till, but Mamie intervened, and paid almost a year's salary for his body to be shipped back to Chicago. There, the funeral director refused to open the box for her to view her son's corpse. "Give me a hammer," she demanded. He relented, and allowed Mamie to view Emmett's mutilated remains. By then, the murder had sparked outrage across the nation. Mamie Till-Mobley insisted that Emmett receive an open-casket funeral. "Let the world see what I've seen," she said.

One hundred thousand mourners lined up to pay respects. Jet Magazine put a picture of Emmett in his casket, his head distended and deformed by violence, on the magazine's cover. The image went global and forced the people of the United States to witness the ravages of racism, the brutality of bigotry.

Two suspects, Roy Bryant, the husband of the woman who claimed she had been whistled at, and his half-brother J.W. Milam, were arrested for the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till. Two brave activists from the Mississippi NAACP, Medgar Evers and Amzie Moore, had been involved since Till was reported missing, first looking for the lost boy then seeking eyewitnesses to the murder. Despite the eyewitnesses they produced, an all-white all-male jury acquitted the suspects. One member of the jury said that they had reached their decision within minutes, but waited an hour to appear as if they had actually deliberated. Medgar Evers himself was later assassinated, in the driveway of his home, on June 12, 1963.

After the acquittal, Bryant and Milam sold their story to Look Magazine for $4,000—about the same amount that Mamie Till-Mobley had paid to ship her son home, and equivalent to over $40,000 in 2022. Despite their confession to the magazine that they murdered Till, they couldn't be prosecuted due to constitutional "double jeopardy" protections. Had a federal anti-lynching law existed at the time, they could have been charged.

Emmett Till's murder galvanized the civil rights movement. Months later, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. When asked why she refused to go to the rear of the bus, she said, "I thought of Emmett Till and I just couldn't go back."

A. Philip Randolph, the renowned African-American labor organizer and civil rights activist, chose the 8th anniversary of Till's death, August 28th, 1963, for the March on Washington, where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

In 2004, the FBI reopened the Emmett Till case, and conducted interviews with surviving eyewitnesses, leading to the identification of several other still living suspects. In 2017, historian Timothy Tyson published a book on the case which included a 2007 interview he conducted with Carolyn Bryant. In it, Tyson reports, she recanted part of her 1955 court testimony that Till touched her and made lewd comments, a revelation that could have led to her being charged with lying to the FBI.

She denied Tyson's account. In December, 2021, the Department of Justice formally closed the Emmett Till case.

"The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them," Ida B. Wells wrote. While Emmett Till's murderers escaped justice, his short life, and his mother Mamie Till-Mobley's tireless activism, charted the path forward for us all to permanently reject racist terror.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Amy Goodman, Denis Moynihan.

During a press briefing, reporter Kyle Ireland asked Noem: "There's a statistic circling around right now that 90% of South Dakota's LGBTQ community is diagnosed with either anxiety or depression. Why do you think that is?"

The governor responded: "I don't know. That makes me sad and we should figure it out."

The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) shared a video of the exchange on Twitter and noted that discriminatory policies like the one Noem approved earlier this month "can be directly correlated to anxiety, depression, and even suicidal ideation" in LGBTQ+ youth.

The NCLR also highlighted that similar measures are being considered and enacted in several other states, and reiterated that such policies "will have LONG-TERM and SERIOUS ramifications for the mental health and well-being" of the young people targeted.

After Noem—who is widely considered a leading candidate for the GOP's 2024 presidential primary race—signed the anti-trans measure, Cathryn Oakley of Human Rights Campaign (HRC) said her "eagerness to pass a bill attacking transgender kids reveals that her national political aspirations override any sense of responsibility she has to fulfill her oath to protect South Dakotans."

"Gov. Noem and South Dakota legislators need to stop playing games with vulnerable children," added HRC's legislative director and senior counsel. "Transgender children are children. They deserve the ability to play with their friends. This legislation isn't solving an actual problem that South Dakota was facing: It is discrimination, plain and simple. Shame on Gov. Noem."

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Last year, according to HRC, legislators introduced more than 250 anti-LGBTQ+ measures in 31 states and enacted 17 laws in 10 states. As Common Dreams reported last week, Republican lawmakers continue to pursue such policies, despite warnings about the impact.

Polling published in August 2020 by Morning Consult and the Trevor Project found that LGBTQ+ youth "are significantly more likely than straight/cis youth to exhibit symptoms of depression, anxiety, and/or both."

Of the 600 LGBTQ+ people ages 13-24 who were surveyed, 55% reported symptoms of anxiety, 53% reported symptoms of depression, and 43% reported symptoms of both in the two weeks preceding the survey. The figures were even higher for trans and nonbinary youth, at 69%, 66%, and 61%, respectively.

Amit Paley, CEO and executive director of the Trevor Project, said at the time that "we've known that LGBTQ youth have faced unique challenges because of the countless heartbreaking stories we've heard on our 24/7 phone lifeline, text, and chat crisis services; but these findings illuminate the existence of alarming mental health disparities that must be addressed through public policy."

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255) and Lifeline Chat is available at SuicidePreventionLifeline.org. The Trevor Project's crisis counselors can be reached at 1-866-488-7386, by texting "START" to 678-678, or through chat at TheTrevorProject.org. Both offer 24/7, free, and confidential support.

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