Exclusive: Mexico moves to launch world's largest oil hedge - sources

AMLO NEO LIBERAL
NEW YORK/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico has asked top Wall Street banks to submit quotes for its giant oil hedging program, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday, while trading in crude oil options has increased this week ahead of the megadeal.FILE PHOTO: General view shows Mexican state oil firm Pemex's Cadereyta refinery, in Cadereyta, on the outskirts of Monterrey, Mexico April 20, 2020. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril/File PhotoThe finance ministry has asked banks for price quotes, one source with direct knowledge of the matter said, signaling the beginning of the process to execute the hedge. The ministry was not immediately available for comment.

Every year, Mexico buys as much as $1 billion in financial contracts, the world’s largest oil hedge program, to protect its oil revenues. Bankers and officials on both sides of the deal expect a smaller hedge this year because the options used to protect oil profits are more expensive than last year.

The oil market crashed earlier this year, with the U.S. crude benchmark CLc1 falling to negative-$40 a barrel in April. It was trading around $43 on Friday.


Having the hedge in place protected Mexico from the plunge. The 2020 hedge, arranged in 2019, was completed at $49 a barrel, according to the country’s finance ministry, and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said in April that the hedge would yield roughly 150 billion pesos ($6 billion).

Because volatility is higher this year, Mexico is expected to pay more for less coverage for the insurance policy for 2021. However, it is expected to go ahead to avoid further damaging its financial standing with international investors, sources have said. The country’s credit rating has been cut in recent months and is in danger of additional declines.

Trade shops and banks based in Europe and the United States have been active buyers of implied volatility options this week, market sources said. That is a signal that dealers are preparing for the extensive buying that comes with the finance ministry’s purchases, those sources said.

Negotiations are very secretive and limited to few participants as both sides attempt to secure the best terms in a highly competitive deal for banks.


For the 2020 hedge, sources estimated two-thirds of the options Mexico bought were indexed to the international Brent crude benchmark LCOc1, shifting away from the Maya oil Mexico mainly produces.

Average Brent crude prices for 2021 LCOCALYZ1 are currently at about $46 a barrel, their highest since early March.


Writing By David Gaffen; Editing by Marguerita Choy

Highest temperatures for 40 years in Norwegian Arctic archipelago

Issued on: 25/07/2020 -

Svalbard is known for its polar bears, which a recent study predicts could all but disappear within the span of a human lifetime due to the Climate change Kt MILLER POLAR BEARS INTERNATIONAL/AFP

Oslo (AFP)

Norway's Arctic archipelago Svalbard on Saturday recorded its highest temperature for over 40 years, almost equal to the all-time record, the country's meteorological institute reported.

According to scientific study, global warming in the Arctic is happening twice as fast as the rest of the planet.

For the second day in a row, the archipelago registered 21.2 degrees Celsius (70.2 Fahrenheit) of heat in the afternoon, just under the 21.3 degrees recorded in 1979, meteorologist Kristen Gislefoss told AFP.


The island group, dominated by Spitzbergen the only inhabited isle in the northern Norway archipelago, sits 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from the North Pole.

The relative heatwave, expected to last until Monday, is a huge spike of normal temperatures in July, the hottest month in the Arctic,

The Svalbard islands would normally expect to be seeing temperatures of 5-8 degrees Celsius at this time of year.

The region has seen temperatures five degrees above normal since January, peaking at 38 degrees in Siberia in mid-July, just beyond the Arctic Circle.

According to a recent report "The Svalbard climate in 2100," the average temperatures for the archipelago between 2070 and 2100 will rise by 7-10 degrees, due to the levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

Changes are already visible. From 1971 to 2017 between three and five degrees of warming have been observed, with the biggest rises in the winter, according to the report.

Svalbard, known for its polar bear population, houses both a coal mine, digging out the most global warming of all energy sources, and a "doomsday' seed vault which has since 2008 collected stocks of the world's agricultural bounty in case of global catastrophe

The vault required 20 million euros ($23.3 million) worth of work after the infiltration of water due to thawing permafrost in 2016.

© 2020 AFP

Turtle released to sea after months recovering

A Caretta caretta turtle, which was rescued from a fishing line in April and then recovered in a conservation centre, makes its way along Cofete beach in the Canary island of Fuerteventura, Spain July 24, 2020. REUTERS/Juan Medina
(Reuters) - Free at last! Taking all the time in the world, a Loggerhead sea turtle ambles slowly back to the ocean and liberty.

Unbothered by the prying eyes of tourists on this deserted Spanish beach, the reptile seems in no rush to head for the waves.

The turtle was rescued in April after it was caught on a fishing line and its flippers were badly damaged.

After recovering from its injuries at a conservation centre for marine life in Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands, it was released on Cofete Beach on Friday.


Reporting by Graham Keeley, additional reporting by Juan Medina; Editing by Christina Fincher

Gazans defy taboos to rescue, neuter stray animals

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Palestinian veterinarians neuter a dog at a clinic in Gaza City, Monday, July 13, 2020. In the impoverished Gaza Strip, where most people struggle to make ends meet amid a crippling blockade, the suffering of stray dogs and cats often goes unnoticed. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)


GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — In the impoverished Gaza Strip, where most people struggle to make ends meet amid a crippling blockade, the suffering of stray dogs and cats often goes unnoticed.

Said el-Er, who founded the territory’s only animal rescue organization in 2006, has been trying to change that. He and other volunteers rescue dogs and cats that have been struck by cars or abused and nurse them back to health — but there are too many.

So in recent weeks they have launched Gaza’s first spay-and-neuter program. It goes against taboos in the conservative Palestinian territory, where feral dogs and cats are widely seen as pests and many view spaying and neutering as forbidden by Islam.

Palestinian veterinarians treat a cat at a clinic in Gaza City, Monday, July 13, 2020. In the impoverished Gaza Strip, where most people struggle to make ends meet amid a crippling blockade, the suffering of stray dogs and cats often goes unnoticed. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)


“Because the society is Muslim, they talk about halal (allowed) and haram (forbidden),” el-Er said. “We know what halal is and what haram is, and it’s haram (for the animals) to be widespread in the streets where they can be run over, shot or poisoned.”

Islam teaches kindness toward animals, but Muslim scholars are divided on whether spaying and neutering causes harm. Across the Arab world, dogs are widely shunned as unclean and potentially dangerous, and cats do not fare much better.

El-Er and other advocates for the humane treatment of animals face an added challenge in Gaza, which has been under an Israeli and Egyptian blockade since the Islamic militant group Hamas seized power in 2007. Gaza’s 2 million residents suffer from nearly 50% unemployment, frequent power outages and heavy travel restrictions.

With many struggling to meet basic needs, animal care is seen as a waste of precious resources or a luxury at best. El-Er’s group, Sulala for Animal Care, relies on private donations, which can be hard to come by.

El-Er says his team can no longer keep up with the number of injured animals that they find or that are brought to the clinic. “The large number of daily injuries is beyond our capacity,” he said. “That’s why we resorted to neutering.”

On a recent day, volunteers neutered a street dog and two cats that had been brought in. There are few veterinary clinics and no animal hospitals in Gaza, so they performed the operations in a section of a pet store that had been cleaned and disinfected.

“We have shortages in capabilities, tools, especially those needed for orthopedic surgeries,” said Bashar Shehada, a local veterinarian. “There is no suitable place for operations.”

El-Er has spent years trying to organize a spay and neutering campaign but met with resistance from local authorities and vets, who said it was forbidden. He eventually secured a fatwa, or religious ruling, stating that it is more humane to spay and neuter animals than to consign an ever-growing population to misery and abuse.

Palestinian veterinarian injects anesthetic for a neutering surgery at a clinic in Gaza City, Monday, July 13, 2020. In the impoverished Gaza Strip, where most people struggle to make ends meet amid a crippling blockade, the suffering of stray dogs and cats often goes unnoticed. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)Once the fatwa was issued, el-Er said local authorities did not object to the campaign as a way of promoting public health and safety. The Hamas-run health and agriculture ministries allowed veterinarians to carry out operations and purchase supplies and medicine, he said.

The Gaza City municipality provided land for a shelter earlier this year. Before that, El-Er kept the rescued animals at his home and on two small tracts of land that he leased.

The new shelter currently houses around 200 dogs, many of them blind, bearing scars from abuse or missing limbs from being hit by cars. At least one was adjusting to walking with a prosthetic limb. A separate section holds cats in similar shape.

The group tries to find homes for the animals, but here too it faces both economic and cultural challenges. Very few Gazans would keep a dog as a pet, and there’s little demand for cats. Some people adopt the animals from abroad, sending money for their food and care.

Over the past decade, international animal welfare groups have carried out numerous missions to evacuate anguished animals from makeshift zoos in Gaza and relocate them to sanctuaries in the West Bank, Jordan and Africa.

But there are no similar campaigns for dogs and cats, and Gaza has been sealed off from all but returning residents since March to prevent a coronavirus outbreak.

El-Er’s phone rang recently and the caller said a dog had been hit by a car. Volunteers from Sulala brought it back to the shelter on the back of a three-wheeled motorbike and began treating it. El-Er says they receive around five such calls every day.

Vietnam bans wildlife imports, markets amid new health fears


FILE - In this Aug 25, 2019, file photo, a conservationist holds up a Central Vietnamese flowerback box turtle (Bourret's box turtle) at a sanctuary in Cuc Phuong national park in Ninh Binh province, Vietnam. Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Thursday signed a directive to ban wildlife imports and closes illegal wildlife markets as a response to the thread of zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19. (AP Photo/Hau Dinh, File)

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam announced Friday that it was banning wildlife imports and would close wildlife markets in response to renewed concerns about the threat from diseases that can jump from animals to humans, such as the virus that causes COVID-19.

An order signed by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Thursday bans all imports of wildlife dead or alive and includes eggs and larvae. It also merits tougher penalties for crimes involving the trade in wildlife.

Vietnam has been a popular destination for wildlife products — often from endangered species — that are used in traditional medicine or in preparing exotic cuisine. The move comes amid increased scrutiny of the health risks of the wildlife trade as the world deals with the new coronavirus, which is thought to have jumped from animals to humans.
FILE - In this Aug 25, 2019, file photo, a Southern Vietnamese box turtle (Cuora picturata) walks in its pen at a sanctuary in Cuc Phuong national park in Ninh Binh province, Vietnam. Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Thursday signed a directive to ban wildlife imports and closes illegal wildlife markets as a response to the thread of zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19. (AP Photo/Hau Dinh, File)

“The existence of wildlife markets in many locations has been a big problem in Vietnam for a long time,” said Phuong Tham, country director for the Humane Society International Vietnam.

“This rapacious appetite for wildlife is endangering not just these species’ survival, but as we have seen with the coronavirus outbreak, it is endangering people’s lives too. So this ban can’t come soon enough,” Tham said.

The new directive includes recommendations that conservationists have been making for years, including cracking down on domestic markets, said Steve Galster, the director of Freeland, a group working on ending the wildlife trade.

“COVID-19 elevated the issue of wildlife trade, so Vietnamese lawmakers got involved with the issue in the past few months and helped push the directive forward,” he said.

The directive is not perfect as it still has exceptions that will allow some trade in wild animals to continue, but it is a good start and can hopefully made stronger over time, Galster said.

The Australian government on Saturday welcomed the decision. Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said Vietnam’s crackdown was a huge win for global public health.

“Vietnam is reducing the risk of future pandemics and showing the world how we can manage these markets into the future,” Littleproud said. “All nations have a responsibility to keep people safe from harm and regulating the production and sale of wild animals that carry diseases is a critical part of that.

He said the Vietnamese government should be congratulated for their leadership in taking “evidence-based approach to reducing the risk of animal to human diseases being spread. Australia will also continue to pursue global reforms on this issue where other opportunities exist.”

___ Associated Press journalist Tassanee Vejpongsa in Bangkok, Thailand, and Dennis Passa in Brisbane, Australia, contributed to this report.

'Spread out? Where?' Smithfield says not all plant workers can be socially distanced
FILE PHOTO: The closed Smithfield Foods pork plant is seen as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continued, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, U.S., April 16, 2020. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Smithfield Foods, the world’s biggest pork processor, said workers cannot be socially distant in all areas of its plants, in response to U.S. senators who pressed meatpackers on coronavirus outbreaks in slaughterhouses.

Meatpackers are under mounting pressure to protect workers after more than 16,000 employees in 23 states were infected with COVID-19 and 86 workers died in circumstances related to the respiratory disease, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker last month said Smithfield, Tyson Foods Inc (TSN.N), JBS USA [JBS.UL] and Cargill Inc [CARG.UL] had put workers in harm’s way to maintain production. The senators asked the companies how much meat they shipped to China while warning of domestic shortages due to slaughterhouse outbreaks.


Smithfield, in a June 30 response made public on Friday, said it erected physical barriers and took other steps to protect workers in areas where social distancing is impossible.

The company, owned by China’s WH Group Ltd (0288.HK), balked at slowing processing line speeds to increase space between employees. It said slowdowns would back up hogs on farms, leading to animal euthanizations and higher food prices.

“For better or worse, our plants are what they are,” Smithfield Chief Executive Kenneth Sullivan said. “Four walls, engineered design, efficient use of space, etc. Spread out? Okay. Where?”


Tyson told the senators it decreased the number of employees on production lines and created barriers or required face shields in areas where employees cannot be distanced.

“These companies clearly cannot be trusted to do what is right,” said Booker. He and Warren called for new legislation to protect workers.

Smithfield, Tyson and JBS did not disclose how much meat they have exported. JBS, a unit of Brazil’s JBS SA (JBSS3.SA), said it accounted for less than 10% of U.S. pork exports to China. Cargill said it has not exported U.S. beef or turkey to China this year.


Reporting by Tom Polansek; Editing by Leslie Adler

U.S. charges 18 Portland protesters as it sends tactical police to Seattle

(Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors on Friday unveiled charges against 18 Portland, Oregon protesters ranging from assaulting police to arson and trespassing, a day after the Trump administration expanded the deployment of tactical police to Seattle.

A protester throws a canister of teargas back toward federal law enforcement officers during a demonstration against police violence and racial inequality in Portland, Oregon, U.S., July 24, 2020. REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs

The arrests came this week during clashes with specially equipped federal police agents sent to Portland, where 56 straight days of antiracism demonstrations have captured national attention.

The federal forces have drawn criticism from Democrats and civil liberties groups who allege excessive force and federal overreach by President Donald Trump.

The deployment of federal officers has also drawn the scrutiny of the Justice Department inspector general, who announced an investigation of their use of force, and prompted a federal judge to issue a temporary order limiting their use of force and blocking them from arresting journalists and legal observers of street protests.

The Trump administration sent a tactical team to Seattle on Thursday in anticipation of protests this weekend despite the objections of the Seattle mayor and Washington state governor, who warned of a Portland-like escalation of tensions.

U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington Brian Moran said in a statement that federal agents are stationed in Seattle to protect federal properties and the work done in those buildings.

“Let’s not let the violence that has marred the Portland protests damage peaceful movements here for a more just society,” Moran said. “My hope is our community will speak with one voice to discourage those who seek to hijack peaceful protests with damage and destruction.”


The Trump administration has also sent federal police to Chicago, Kansas City and Albuquerque over the objections of those mayors.

Trump, who is running for re-election on Nov. 3 in part on a campaign of law and order, has threatened to deploy federal forces in more cities run by Democratic mayors, who he accuses of being soft on crime.

The Portland team of tactically equipped, camouflaged officers fired tear gas canisters at Black Lives Matter demonstrators in central Portland early on Friday, taking on a policing role typically reserved for local law enforcement.

“I made clear to Acting Secretary (Chad) Wolf that deployments in Seattle - like we have seen in Portland - would undermine public safety and break community trust,” Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said on Twitter late on Thursday, referring to the acting secretary of Homeland Security.

Washington state Governor Jay Inslee warned that federal officers might “make the thing worse and throw gasoline on a fire.”

Portland has been rocked by nearly two months of demonstrations for racial equality and against police brutality, part of a movement that has swept the United States since the May 25 death of George Floyd, an African American, in the custody of Minneapolis police.

The Justice Department said all 18 of those charged in Portland had made a first appearance in federal court and were released pending trial or other proceedings.


Five people were charged with suspicion of assaulting a federal officer, trespassing and creating a disturbance during protests on the night of July 20-21, said Billy Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon.

Seven people have been charged in connection with criminal conduct during a July 21-22 night protest, including one person charged with arson. Another six were charged over events from the night of July 22-23.


Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by David Gregorio, Matthew Lewis and Daniel Wallis

USA 

IMWA Machinists union president rallies striking shipyard workers

Striking Bath Iron Works shipbuilders march in solidarity, Saturday, July 25, 2020, in Bath, Maine. The production workers went on strike June 22 after overwhelmingly rejecting the company’s final contract proposal. The dispute centers on subcontractors, work rules and seniority.(AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)


BATH, Maine (AP) — The international president of the Machinists union rallied striking workers at Bath Iron Works on Saturday, urging them to stay strong and proclaiming “there’s no way in hell we are backing down from this fight.”

Robert Martinez Jr. delivered a message of unity to Machinists Local S6 during a strike that passed the one-month mark this week. He accused the shipyard, a subsidiary of General Dynamics, of “corporate greed.”

“This is the largest strike in the United States of America right now,” he told the crowd of hundreds outside the union hall, across the street from the shipyard. “The eyes of the nation are upon us.”
Striker's signs are gathered near Bath Iron Works, Wednesday, July 22, 2020, in Bath, Maine. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local S6 is in its fifth week of the strike over a new contract. The shipbuilder and union remain at odds over issues of seniority and subcontractors. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Sara Gideon, Democratic speaker of the Maine House, speaks at a rally for striking Bath Iron Works shipbuilders, Saturday, July 25, 2020, in Bath, Maine. Gideon is challenging U.S.Rep Susan Collins, R-Maine, in the November election. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

The group, which included some spouses and children, marched from the shipyard’s north gate to the south gate in a show of solidarity.

The 4,300 production workers went on strike on June 22 after overwhelmingly rejecting the company’s final contract proposal.

The strike is centered around subcontractors, work rules and seniority, with wages and benefits being less of a concern. The company’s offer contained 3% pay raises in each of the three years covered by the proposal.

A picketer stands in front of a union office near Bath Iron Works, Wednesday, July 22, 2020, in Bath, Maine. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local S6 is in its fifth week of the strike over a new contract. The shipbuilder and union remain at odds over issues of seniority and subcontractors. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Both sides have been meeting separately with a federal mediator but there have been no face-to-face negotiations since the strike began.

Martinez asked Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, who visited workers on the picket line the day before, to press the company to return to the negotiating table. Collins’ opponent in the November election, Democratic House Speaker Sara Gideon, spoke at the event on Saturday.

The union also accused the company of hiring “scab” workers from Alabama and Mississippi and putting them up in local hotels.

Martinez called it a “slap in the face” for workers.

Bob Martinez, the international president of the machinist union representing striking Bath Iron Works shipbuilders, speaks at a rally Saturday, July 25, 2020, in Bath, Maine. The production workers went on strike June 22 after overwhelmingly rejecting the company’s final contract proposal. The dispute centers on subcontractors, work rules and seniority.(AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)The company has said it’s ready to return to the negotiating table when directed to do so by the mediator. A company spokesperson had no further comment on Saturday.


It’s the first strike in 20 years at Bath Iron Works, which is one of the Navy’s largest shipbuilders and a major employer in Maine, with 6,800 workers.

The shipyard builds guided-missile destroyers, the workhorse of the fleet, and the strike threatens to put production further behind at a time of growing competition with Russia and China.

Striking Bath Iron Works shipbuilders march in solidarity, Saturday, July 25, 2020, in Bath, Maine. The production workers went on strike June 22 after overwhelmingly rejecting the company’s final contract proposal. The dispute centers on subcontractors, work rules and seniority. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

The company was already about six months behind schedule when the strike began. The company needs to be able to hire subcontractors to get caught up, the shipyard’s president contends.

US Groups push to remove proposed funding for nuclear testing

FILE - In this April 22, 1952 file photo a gigantic pillar of smoke with the familiar mushroom top climbs above Yucca Flat, Nev. during nuclear test detonation. A defense spending bill pending in Congress includes an apology to New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and other states affected by nuclear testing over the decades, but communities downwind from the first atomic test in 1945 are still holding out for compensation amid rumblings about the potential for the U.S. to resume nuclear testing. (AP Photo,File)


ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Deep within a multibillion-dollar defense spending measure pending in Congress is an apology to New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and other states affected by radiation from nuclear testing over the decades.

But communities downwind from the first atomic test in the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945, are still holding out for compensation for health effects that they say have been ongoing for generations due to fallout from the historic blast.

So far, their pleas for Congress to extend and expand a federal radiation compensation program have gone unanswered. The program currently covers workers who became sick as a result of the radiation hazards of their jobs and those who lived downwind of the Nevada Test Site.
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Those excluded from the program include residents downwind of the Trinity Site in New Mexico, additional downwinders in Nevada, veterans who cleaned up radioactive waste in the Marshall Islands and others.

Tina Cordova, a cancer survivor and co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, said the excuse always has been that the federal government doesn’t have enough money to take care of those affected.

She said the need is even greater now since the coronavirus is disproportionately affecting those with underlying health conditions and downwinders fall into the category because of their compromised health.

“When you talk about enhancing plutonium pit production and defense spending in the trillions, you can’t tell us there’s not enough money to do this,” she told The Associated Press. “You can’t expect us to accept that any longer and that adds insult to injury. It’s as if we count for nothing.”

U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, the New Mexico Democrat who advocated for the apology, continues to push for amendments to the radiation compensation program. His office recently convened a meeting among downwinders, uranium miners, tribal members, other advocates and staff in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office.

“The congressman believes that the need for medical and monetary compensation has never been more urgent,” said Monica Garcia, a spokeswoman for the congressman.

The concerns of Cordova and other advocates are growing amid rumblings about reported discussions within the Trump administration about whether to conduct live nuclear weapons testing.
FILE - This July 16, 1945 photo, shows an aerial view after the first atomic explosion at Trinity Test Site, N.M. A defense spending bill pending in Congress includes an apology to New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and other states affected by nuclear testing over the decades, but communities downwind from the first atomic test in 1945 are still holding out for compensation amid rumblings about the potential for the U.S. to resume nuclear testing. (AP Photo/File)

The discussions come as the New START treaty between the U.S. and Russia nears expiration in 2021. Russia has offered to extend the nuclear arms control agreement while the Trump administration has pushed for a new pact that would also include China.

While the U.S. House has adopted language that would prohibit spending to conduct or make preparations for any live nuclear weapons tests, a group of senators has included $10 million for such an effort in that chamber’s version of the bill.

The Union of Concerned Scientists, nuclear watchdogs and environmentalists all are pushing for the funding to be eliminated. They sent letters this week in opposition and plan to lobby lawmakers.

“A U.S. resumption of nuclear testing would set off an unpredictable and destabilizing international chain reaction that would undermine U.S. security,” reads one letter.

Kevin Davis with the Union of Concerned Scientists’ global security program said resuming live testing would be unnecessary because the U.S. has been able to do sub-critical experiments and use its super computers along with data from past testing to run simulations on the nation’s nuclear stockpile.

The last full-scale underground test was done Sept. 23, 1992, by scientists with Los Alamos National Laboratory at the Nevada Test Site northwest of Las Vegas. Less than two weeks later, then President George H.W. Bush signed legislation mandating a moratorium on U.S. underground nuclear testing.

Democrat Rep. Ben McAdams of Utah is among those leading the effort to ban spending for testing. He said thousands of residents in his state are still dealing with trauma and illness as a result of previous testing.

Dozens of groups also signed on to a letter sent to congressional leaders in May advocating for the expansion of the radiation compensation program.

“We can’t continue to allow the government to walk away from their responsibility,” Cordova said.

Fight for police-free schools has been years in the making

By ASTRID GALVAN

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 https://apnews.com/bc5b750085a89e03e132d7d3dda09a99/gallery/8688cae9b60b47eab0186a7cd3d74283
Shyra Adams stands outside James Madison Memorial High School Friday, July 17, 2020,in Madison, Wis. Adams helps lead a parent-driven movement to get police out of schools in Madison, including her high school, James Madison Memorial. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)


PHOENIX (AP) — The group of protesters started out small, just a handful of students who told officials at school board meetings why they wanted police out of Madison, Wisconsin, schools.

Over four years, their numbers grew but not their results. So they took to yelling from the audience and making emotional pleas about how police make students, especially those of color, feel unsafe.

But officers remained at four high schools in the Madison Metropolitan School District until George Floyd’s death by Minneapolis police ushered in a national reckoning over police brutality and racial injustice.

That’s when the school board president, who had long resisted removing police, had a change of heart. Madison quickly joined cities like Minneapolis, Phoenix, Denver and Portland, Oregon, in abandoning partnerships with police on campuses.

The move may seem sudden, but it follows years of well-organized, student-driven action. Only now, more grown-ups are listening.

Police officers assigned to schools wear a uniform, carry guns and get specialized training. Critics say having armed police on campus often results in Black students being disproportionately arrested and punished, leading to what they call the schools-to-prison pipeline.

Supporters say police make schools safer and that having someone trained to deal with young people is more effective than having random officers respond to large fights and other problems.

At the Madison school board protests, “we would basically go up there, be nice and when you would look up, when you were talking, they would be looking down at their phone or their computer. So that made us even more frustrated,” said Shyra Adams, 20, who graduated from high school in 2017 and is now a youth justice coordinator with Freedom Inc., the group behind the protests.

Adams says opponents called her and others thugs or angry protesters — “anything but youths.”

She attended nearly every monthly meeting since 2016, sharing how she was injured when two school resource officers broke up a fight between her and a boy she said was bullying her friend. Adams said the officers twisted her arm. They let the boy, who was white, go to class, and he got two days of suspension, while she got five.

“I knew there’s absolutely no way I can build a relationship with somebody like that,” Adams said of the officers.

The movement to pull police from campuses has been decades in the making but grew substantially with student activism in the last four years, said Judith Browne Dianis, executive director of the Advancement Project National Office, a nonprofit focusing on civil rights and justice.

“We were noticing that when you have police in schools, you have a culture clash. And that culture clash is that their job is to protect people but also they enforce the criminal code, and they were enforcing criminal code on regular teen behavior,” Dianis said of the early beginnings of the movement.

Michelle Ruiz, who started the student-led movement to get police out of schools in the Phoenix Union High School District, shown here at the Puente offices Thursday, June 18, 2020, in Phoenix. School districts around the country are voting to eliminate police from public schools. But this isn’t a sudden reaction to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, but to a years-long movement led by students who say they feel unsafe with police on campus.(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Recent national data on arrests at schools is hard to come by, but studies from a few years ago show that Black students are disproportionately punished both in schools and by law enforcement.

During the 2015-2016 school year, Black students accounted for 15% of total enrollment but 31% of students referred to law enforcement or arrested, according to the Civil Rights Data Collection put out by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

Students of color are also more likely to be enrolled in a school with an officer. While 42% of U.S. high schools in the 2013-2014 school year had officers, 51% of high schools with large Black and Latino populations had them.

Students have spent the last several years targeting that disparity.

Michelle Ruiz, 21, protested at her Phoenix high school district as a senior, driven by concerns that officers on campus can result in students without legal status ending up in immigration custody. She struggled academically and questioned why there were so few resources but enough money for cops.

With support from immigrant rights group Puente, Ruiz began speaking out at school board meetings in 2017 with a handful of other students. Their numbers grew to 15 or 20 within a few months.

President Donald Trump’s election “brought a big momentum,” Ruiz said. But it took three years for the superintendent to announce the Phoenix Union High School District wouldn’t renew its $1.2 million contract with police.

“I feel, as a student who has been advocating this for a long time, happy, and it brings me hope that the district’s willing to change,” Ruiz said of the July 7 decision.

Activists in Madison also are celebrating a change of heart. The June 29 vote to eliminate police from high schools was introduced by school board President Gloria Reyes, a former police officer who had long resisted calls to abandon the contract.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Reyes said she understood institutional racism in police departments but believes it also exists in school administrations and that getting rid of police on campuses altogether isn’t an all-in-one solution.

After Floyd’s death, students protested outside Reyes’ home, and once the teachers union spoke out, she felt it was time for change.

“I had to step out of my own personal and professional beliefs around the issue and just reflect on the many voices and reflect on George Floyd and what was happening,” Reyes said. “And ultimately, I had to do what I felt in my heart was the right thing to do.”

The school board established a committee to create a new school safety plan. Reyes still worries about what will happen when a big fight breaks out and police who don’t know the students and lack special training show up.

That’s a major concern for Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers.

Canady says school resource officers are carefully selected and trained to work with teenagers. They’re usually veteran officers who have volunteered with young people, such as coaching sports or leading church youth groups.

“We train our people to be really thoughtful about arrests, and we want to do everything to avoid an arrest,” Canady said.

His organization trained 10,000 school resource officers last year, which he estimates is roughly half those in the country. They usually get about 40 hours of training before they’re assigned to a school and have ongoing instruction, Canady said.

For Adams, the youth organizer in Madison, the fight isn’t over. She says she’s working to ensure that students and parents have more say in decision-making and that the district creates a transformative justice program that keeps kids out of jail.

“Folks just think that after we got cops out of schools that’s it, and it’s that simple. It’s not,” Adams said.