How Turkey’s anti-Gulen lobbyist risks Washington’s ire with Venezuela contract

Aaron Schaffer February 21, 2020


Reuters/Charles Mostoller
US-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen at his home in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, US, July 10, 2017.

Turkey’s most prominent paid advocate for the extradition of exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen has a new gig: Working to ease sanctions on the government of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro.

Amsterdam and Partners will represent Attorney General Reinaldo Munoz Pedroza after Florida-based law firm Foley & Lardner dropped the Venezuelans last month amid a political backlash in Washington. The firm also transferred $1.05 million it had received from Venezuela to Amsterdam, according to a newly disclosed letter to the US Justice Department.

Foley & Lardner’s contract called for the firm to be paid a total of $12.5 million for help “delisting parties subject to US economic sanction due to their connections to the republic.” The firm was notably tasked with representing Munoz Pedroza in discussions with the Treasury Department’s sanctions office.

Amsterdam and Partners founder Robert Amsterdam has been paid $2.25 million by Turkey to warn US federal and state officials about the alleged threat posed by Gulen and his network of charter schools since 2015. Ankara blames Gulen for the failed 2016 coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The Venezuela contract now risks imperiling those efforts.

After writing a letter to his colleagues last month urging them to boycott Foley, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., is now taking aim at Amsterdam. In an emailed statement to Al-Monitor, Scott’s office said he would “refuse to work with anyone in this firm, or anyone that contracts on this matter with this firm,” and urged “every one of his colleagues to stand with him against anyone who willingly represents a dangerous dictator.”


Related coverage:
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UAE insists it’s not lobbying for sanctions against Turkey after all
Explore Al-Monitor's award-winning database of Middle East lobbying here.

In response to Scott’s threat, Amsterdam told the Associated Press today that he would not “bend to the political dictates of Florida.”

Ironically, Amsterdam and Scott have a history dating back to Scott’s stint as governor of Florida. The firm disclosed three phone calls with the office of then-Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi in mid-2016 to discuss the Gulen schools in the state. Bondi is now a close ally of President Donald Trump.

Aaron Schaffer writes about Middle East lobbying for Al-Monitor in Washington, DC. He co-writes and reports for Al-Monitor's bi-weekly lobbying newsletter. On Twitter: @aaronjschaffer



Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/02/amsterdam-partners-turkey-lobbyist-work-maduro-venezuela.html#ixzz6EpHnqB2s

Meet the AIPAC leaders bankrolling the Bernie Sanders attack ads


Bryant Harris February 19, 2020

REUTERS/Jason Redmond
US Democratic 2020 presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders waves to the audience at a campaign rally in the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Washington, Feb. 17, 2020.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has recently emerged as the front-runner in the Democratic presidential field. The rise of the progressive darling’s star also is coinciding with a barrage of television attack ads against him in the crucial early voting states of Iowa and Nevada.

Although the ads have been purchased by a super PAC called Democratic Majority for Israel, they make no mention of Sanders’ pro-Palestinian advocacy. Instead they take aim at Sanders’ perceived electability against President Donald Trump in a general election, arguing that a self-identified socialist is ill-equipped to take on Trump and highlighting Sanders' heart attack last year.

Still, the bulk of the political action committee’s funding comes from a group of high-profile political donors affiliated with the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The influential lobbying group has historically prided itself on bipartisanship. But its pushback against Sanders, coupled with its social media ads targeting congressional Democrats last month, reflects its growing concern over the pro-Palestinian faction within the Democratic party.

The super PAC airing the anti-Sanders ads raised nearly $2.3 million for its war chest last year. An Al-Monitor analysis of Federal Election Commission filings shows that the vast majority of those funds — some $1.8 million — came from prominent AIPAC donors in November and December alone.

Democratic Majority for Israel spent $800,000 of that money on its Iowa ad buy. It’s still unclear how much the super PAC intends to spend on its Nevada ad buy or how much it has raised so far this year.

Mark Mellman, an AIPAC strategist and prominent Democratic pollster, launched the super PAC last year to support pro-Israel candidates and combat the increasing skepticism of the close US ally within his party. In his quest to take down Sanders, Mellman has marshaled significant resources from some key movers and shakers in AIPAC and the broader pro-Israel world.

Democratic Majority for Israel’s biggest benefactor, Stacy Schusterman, sits on the AIPAC National Council. Schusterman, who chairs her family’s oil business, Samson Resources, donated $1 million to Mellman’s super PAC in December.

Gary Lauder, a venture capitalist, was also generous with a donation of $500,000 that same month. His wife, Laura Lauder, sits on AIPAC’s northwest regional board.

The group’s next biggest donor, Milton Cooper, owns New York-based Kimco Realty and donates to the American Israel Education Fund, AIPAC’s sister organization that sends lawmakers on trips to Israel.

Cooper is also a member of the AIPAC National Real Estate Committee, a division within the organization for real estate professionals. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., addressed the committee’s 10th annual luncheon last year. Two other AIPAC real estate committee members — Michael Hackman and Mark Rubin — each donated $25,000 to Mellman’s super PAC last year.

Paula Gottesman, an AIPAC congressional club member who sits on the AIPAC New Jersey Council, donated $100,000 to the super PAC in November. And Barry Porter, a Democratic Majority for Israel Board member, forked over $50,000 to help fund the super PAC in December.

Finally, Michael Sonnenfeldt, who donated $25,000 to the super PAC in December, sits on the board of Trustees for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank with strong ties to AIPAC.

Additionally, The Intercept reported last week that AIPAC is counting donations to Democratic Majority for Israel as donations to the lobbying group, granting donors more access within the organization. AIPAC — which rarely responds to media queries — flatly denied the arrangement in an email to The Intercept.

Most of the super PAC’s contributors have a history of donating to candidates on both sides of the aisle, but particularly favor pro-Israel Democrats such as House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel and Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey, both of New York.

AIPAC started running Facebook ads against Sanders last year, asking users to sign a petition telling him that “America stands with Israel.” While the initial attacks slid largely under the radar, AIPAC could not avoid a furor earlier this month when it posted social media ads accusing “radicals in the Democratic party” of “pushing their anti-Semitic and anti-Israel policies down the throats of the American people.”

Some of the ads included graphics singling out two lawmakers backing Sanders: Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. Both Tlaib and Omar support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel despite Sanders’ opposition to it.

The graphic also included Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., who hasn’t endorsed the boycott movement and has backed her home-state senator Amy Klobuchar for president. (While Klobuchar’s positions on Israel closely align with AIPAC, McCollum has introduced legislation to condition US military aid to Israel based on its treatment of Palestinian child prisoners.)

AIPAC took down the ads and offered an “unequivocal apology” expressing regret that “the ad’s imprecise wording distorted our message and offended many.” The apology also insisted that the ads “alluded to a genuine concern of many pro-Israel Democrats about a small but growing group, in and out of Congress, that is deliberately working to erode the bipartisan consensus on this issue and undermine the US-Israel relationship.”

A rival lobbying group, the left-leaning J Street, has called on Democratic Majority for Israel to take down the anti-Sanders ads.

“Like their partner organization AIPAC — which recently ran vitriolic attack ads echoing Republican smears against progressive Democrats — [Democratic Majority for Israel’s] right-leaning positions on Israel and US foreign policy are completely out of touch with the vast majority of Democrats and American Jews,” J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami said in a statement.

Whether AIPAC and Democratic Majority for Israel will be successful in taking on Sanders and other pro-Palestinian Democrats remains to be seen.

The Sanders campaign said it raised $1.3 million in one day after the super PAC started airing its Iowa ads. Still, Sanders was the favorite to win Iowa when the ads aired, yet the caucuses resulted in a narrow tie between the progressive senator and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana.

And while presidential candidates have traditionally addressed the annual AIPAC policy conference in election years, Sanders has indicated that he will skip it this year — just as he did during his 2016 primary campaign. Another candidate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has also vowed to skip the March conference.

Bryant Harris is Al-Monitor's congressional correspondent. He was previously the White House assistant correspondent for Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest newspaper. He has also written for Foreign Policy, Al Jazeera English and IPS News. Prior to his stint in DC, he spent two years as a US Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco. On Twitter: @brykharris_ALM, Email: bharris@al-monitor.com.


Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/02/aipac-bankrolling-attack-ads-bernie-sanders-iowa-nevada.html#ixzz6EpGwaQwF

A top Trump economic adviser clashed with a CNN anchor during a segment where he was shown data that contradicted his claims

© Via CNN
CNN host Poppy Harlow and White House adviser Peter Navarro clashed on the Obama economy during a segment on Tuesday.

"Don't both presidents deserve credit for good economies?" Harlow asked Navarro.

The CNN host showed Navarro a series of charts with government data that contradicted his claims, but Navarro still called the Obama economy "horrible."

A CNN segment turned testy on Tuesday for White House trade adviser Peter Navarro after he was fact-checked on what he called the "horrible" Obama economy with government data that contradicted his claims.

Harlow first highlighted data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis showing Obama had four quarters when gross domestic product growth surpassed 4%, peaking at 5.5% once in 2014.

By comparison, Trump hasn't broken 4% so far during his time in office, and the last two quarters of 2019 saw 2.1% growth (the Trump figures were not displayed on CNN).

Then she showed figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that displayed Obama outpacing Trump on job growth in the last 35 months of his presidency compared to Trump's first 35. The average job gains for the former president were 227,000 per month compared to 191,000 for Trump.

"Don't both presidents deserve credit for good economies?" Harlow asked Navarro.

"If you lived through the Obama years ... [people] remember what it is was like," the top White House adviser said. "What President Obama did was double the debt from $10 trillion to $20 trillion."

Navarro went on to say that President Trump "fixed structural problems" caused by cumbersome regulations and high taxes. "Back in the Obama-Biden years, it was horrible."

Harlow then cut off Navarro.

"Peter, I'm sorry, I can't," the CNN host said, before displaying the same data again.

Navarro told Harlow to "put your numbers up," leading the CNN host to note the data was generated from government agencies.

"It's a great economy now. All I'm asking you is, wasn't it a good economy then as well?" Harlow asked.

Navarro responded: "No it was not, it was a horrible economy during the Obama years."

Trump has made the strength of the economy central to his re-election bid, touting the half-century low unemployment rate as well as steady wage growth.

On Monday, Trump ripped into Obama after the former president commemorated on Twitter the 11th anniversary of an $800 billion stimulus package he said paved the way for "more than a decade of economic growth and the longest streak of job creation in American history."

The president called it "a con job" in back-to-back tweets and derided Obama's handling of the economy.

More than 100 wild animals died from poisoning in a mass die-off seemingly triggered by coronavirus disinfectant

Rhea Mahbubani

© STR/AFP via Getty Images
More than 100 wild animals were found dead in a Chinese megacity and tests show that they were poisoned by the disinfectant that's being used to combat the coronavirus.

At least 17 species of animals, including wild boar, weasels, and blackbirds, were affected by the mass die-off.

Nanchong Stray Animal Rescue claims that authorities are killing domesticated animals outright amid fears that they can spread the coronavirus.

Animal activists shared distressing footage on Weibo: bloodied animals, a man hitting a dog with a stick, and an officer poking a lifeless dog.

Animals are the latest victims of the coronavirus crisis in mainland China.


Amid a scramble to control the spread of COVID-19, Chinese authorities believe, based on samples and tests, that at least 135 wild animals were poisoned by disinfectants being used to curb the illness, United Press International said based on reports from China's state-owned news agency Xinhua.

The mass die-off was reported in the megacity of Chongqing, in southwest China, which, in 2016, was home to over 30 million people. At least 17 species of animals, including wild boar, weasels, and blackbirds, have been affected, according to the Chongqing Forestry Bureau.

Tests have shown that the animals didn't die of any diseases such as coronavirus or bird flu, UPI said. They will be buried in disinfected sites.

Chinese state media said Chongqing is rounding up an estimated 5,300 forest rangers to monitor wildlife in the area. They will be accompanied by 200 "full-time supervisors," Xinhua reported, although it's unclear what they will be doing.Pets aren't being spared either

This may have been an unintended consequence of an official policy but animal rights activists with the Nanchong Stray Animal Rescue claim that authorities are killing domesticated animals outright amid fears that they can spread the coronavirus.

Officers in the Sichuan Province are allegedly knocking on people's doors and ordering residents to hand over their pets, while people beg for their companions to be spared, Metro UK reported. The group has accused Chinese authorities of killing the animals within minutes of getting their hands on them.

© Nanchong Stray Animal Rescue/Weibo

An activist shared several distressing images on Weibo: bloodied animals in a truck, a person hitting a dog with a wooden stick and an officer prodding a dog that was lying dead on the side of the road while people looked on.

Local officials have denied the accusations, saying animals were only killed if they had bitten anyone.

Metro UK also reported that residents of Hubei province - where the COVID-19 outbreak originated - were ordered to "deal with" their pets within five days. Animals weren't allowed outside people's homes and would be caught and killed, if they were found. These measures were also enforced in Beijing, Tianjin, Shandong, Hebei, and Shanghai.

© Nanchong Stray Animal Rescue/Weibo

Li Lanjuan, a professor and member of China's National Health Commission, sparked these steps by warning people to quarantine pets if they had come in contact with someone infected with COVID-19, according to reports.

Coronavirus has affected 75,465 people and killed 2,236 as of Friday, according to the National Health Commission. China plans to ban its wild animal trade and tighten supervision on "wet markets," which is where the coronavirus was reported to have started, although subsequent research cast doubt over that finding.

Read more:
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A crowd in Ukraine threw bricks at buses carrying coronavirus evacuees from Wuhan to quarantine

Egyptologists think they may have found the secret chamber where Queen Nefertiti was buried

Isaac Scher 


© Borja B. Hojas/Getty Images
New evidence could help Egyptologists solve the long-debated problem of where Queen Nefertiti was buried.

In February, a team of researchers discovered secret chambers behind the tomb of King Tutankhamun, better known as King Tut.

The discovery comes after years of debate over whether King Tut's tomb contains Nefertiti's remains.

For years, there has been a controversial theory about the famous 3,300-year-old tomb of King Tutankhamun: that Queen Nefertiti's remains are contained just beyond its walls.

A team of scientists led by Mamdouh Eldamaty, the former Egyptian minister of antiquities, seemed to have recently confirmed the theory. The researchers surveyed the tomb with ground-penetrating radar and discovered a previously unknown space near King Tut's burial. The uncovered area is roughly seven feet high and 33 feet long.

The theory of Nefertiti's burial was first advanced in 2015 by a British Egyptologist who said there could be secret chambers behind the tomb of King Tutankhamun. The theory was backed up by initial research later that year.

Three years later, in a sudden scientific twist, a different team found evidence refuting the theory. Using radar, Franco Porcelli and his team spent three years exploring the area around the pharoah's tomb and concluded there was nothing there.

"It is maybe a little bit disappointing," he told NPR in 2018.

But on Wednesday, Eldamaty's team entered the fray. The scientific journal Nature saw details of his team's brand-new and unpublished report, which revealed more evidence of the secret enclosure that could contain Nefertiti's remains. The team presented their research to Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities earlier in February.

The groundbreaking finding is "tremendously exciting," said Ray Johnson, an Egyptologist at the University of Chicago who was not part of the research team. "Clearly there is something on the other side of the north wall of the burial chamber," he told Nature.

King Tut's tomb was first discovered nearly a century ago, in 1922. The pharaoh himself died mysteriously at age 19 in 1323 BC, after ruling the throne for 10 years. (Experts believe he died of gangrene, though they previously thought he was murdered.)



© Markus Schreiber/AP Photo

Although some are delighted by the new finding, others remain skeptical.

The technology that Eldamaty's team used is not reliable, according to Zahi Hawass, a former Egyptian antiquities minister. It has "never made any discovery at any site in Egypt," he told Nature.'The biggest archeological discovery ever'

The location of Nefertiti's tomb has long been a mystery. If her remains were discovered, it would be a significant scientific breakthrough, according to Nicholas Reeves, the British scientist who first proposed that the queen is buried near King Tut's tomb.

For much of history, Nefertiti was known as the Great Royal Wife of the Pharoah Akhenaten. But some Egyptologists believe she was promoted to a co-regent with Akhenaten, and ruled Egypt with him before his death. Others theorize that Nefertiti may have ruled - but while she was disguised as a man.

Either way, "if Nefertiti was buried as a pharaoh, it could be the biggest archeological discovery ever," Reeves told Nature.

Read more:
Archaeologists discovered 30 ancient sarcophagi in Egypt with perfectly preserved mummies inside. Photos show the biggest coffin find in a century.

Archaeologists discovered a catacomb filled with mummified lion cubs, crocodiles, and cobras in an ancient Egyptian city of the dead

Expert with new theory on Nefertiti's tomb invited to Egypt

Scientists say they're 90% sure they've found a hidden chamber in King Tut's tomb - and they have a theory on who it might belong to

Nefertiti, Is That You? Radar Clues Reignite The World's Longest Game Of Hide-And-Seek

By Rachael Fu

The arduous tale of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb outlines the unique problem faced by archaeologists trying to uncover the secrets of nnell21 FEB 2020, 17:31Egypt's Valley of the Kings. Having drawn up plots in which to excavate, Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon searched desperately for the Boy King’s resting place, only to eventually find its entrance cloaked by the neighboring tomb of Ramses VI. In a valley where the wealthy dead were laid to rest with their most precious belongings, tombs were intended to evade those searching for them, and so attempts to find missing figures in history are still thwarting archaeologists to this day.


One such hotly sought-after Egyptian is the mother (or stepmother, researchers aren’t quite certain which) of Tutankhamun, Queen Nefertiti. For decades there has been a back and forth as to the location of her missing remains with the media reporting from one year to the next that Queen Nefertiti has been “found” while she sits out there somewhere, presumably sniggering at our naivety, in her still-not-yet-discovered sarcophagus.

A popular theory for the all-time Hide and Seek champion is that she’s tucked away in a secret chamber in the tomb of Tutankhamun, an afterlife property the world has been very familiar with since its groundbreaking discovery in 1922. In 2015 a paper titled The Burial of Queen Nefertiti? referenced high-resolution images that were believed to reveal the location of hidden doors within the tomb. This theory was later supported by distinct lines observed on the ceiling of the tomb, which led researchers to believe one of the “rooms” was actually a corridor, sealed off by a false wall. But as technological advances continue to change the way we practice archaeology, the convictions of this “hidden chamber” continue to waiver.

Recent findings from a team led by archaeologist Mamdouh Eldamaty, a former Egyptian minister of antiquities, reported on by Nature, detail the outcome of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) used to scan the area surrounding Tutankhamun’s tomb. Initial reports indicate that they have identified a previously unknown corridor-like space a few meters from the burial chamber, findings which were presented to Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) earlier this month. 

The famous bust of Nefertiti. Vladimir Wrangel/Shutterstock

Theoretically the idea of a hidden chamber within the tomb makes sense, as Tutankhamun’s pad is unusually small for a member of royalty. The spaces detected in Eldamaty’s GPR investigation appear as pale blue areas on the radar, which indicate a gap in the bedrock a few meters to the east. The team can’t yet confirm if the “space” is connected to Tutankhamun’s burial chamber, but the 2-meter-high (6.5 feet), 10-meter-long (32 feet) gap is at the same depth and runs parallel to the tomb’s entrance corridor.

As exciting as this sounds, not everyone is convinced. Zahi Hawass, another former Egyptian antiquities minister, told Nature that using geophysical techniques to search for tombs has “never made any discovery at any site in Egypt” and only serves to raise false hopes. He’s reported to have excavated an area to the north of the Boy King’s tomb in search of alternative entrances but found nothing. Francesco Porcelli, a physicist at the Polytechnic University of Turin in Italy, led a similar GPR survey inside the tomb in 2017, concluding in a paper published last year in the Journal of Cultural Heritage that his findings actually ruled out any possibility of there being hidden rooms within the tomb.

Eldamaty plans to return to the site to carry out further studies of the area north of the known burial chamber but faces difficulties as the resting place of Tutankhamun is once again obscured, only this time by air conditioning units rather than another tomb. Without removing these, the team will struggle to get a read on the bedrock in this crucial area, but hopes remain that by using a different antenna and taking readings closer together they may pin down the shape and location of the “hidden room” to within a few centimeters.

You’re safe for now, Nefertiti.

In photos: Storm Dennis

1/36 SLIDES © Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
As Storm Dennis sweeps in, the country is bracing itself for widespread weather disruption for the second weekend in a row. Experts have warned that conditions amount to a "perfect storm," with hundreds of homes at risk of flooding.

(Pictured) Flooded fields are seen following Storm Dennis on Feb. 18, in Symonds Yat, England. 

5/36 SLIDES © Cathal Noonan/AFP/Getty Images
The abandoned cargo ship MV Alta is pictured stuck on rocks in Ballycotton, Ireland on Feb. 18. A "ghost ship" drifting without a crew for more than a year washed ashore due to high seas caused by Storm Dennis.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/02/ghost-ship-washes-up-on-irish-coast.html

Slide 8 of 36: TYLORSTOWN, WALES - FEBRUARY 18: 

A man looks on at a landslide in the Rhondda valley on

 February 18, 2020, in Tylorstown, Wales. Inspections of 

old coal tips on the mountains in the Rhondda are underway

 following a landslide during storm Dennis. 

(Photo by Matthew Horwood/Getty Images)


The level of the River Ouse rises in York, North Yorkshire on Feb. 15.

People watch waves and rough 

seas pound against the harbour wall on Feb. 15 in Porthcawl, Wales.

San Juan Generating Station burns coal to produce electricity used throughout the southwest

ON ITS LAST STACK AS IT CLOSES DOWN, PHOTO ESSAY

THIS IS NOT UNLIKE GENESEE PLANT AT LAKE WABMUM IN ALBERTA JUST OUTSIDE EDMONTON STRIP MINING COAL TO FEED THE PLANT

Hannah Grover, Farmington Daily Times




Slide 1-4 of 26: Two of the four units at the San Juan Generating Station have already closed as part of an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to cut emissions at the power plant.Next Slide
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1/26 SLIDES © Hannah Grover/The Daily Times

Two of the four units at the San Juan Generating Station have already closed as part of an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to cut emissions at the power plant.

Greta Thunberg’s mother reveals teenager’s troubled childhood

Slideshow by USA Today


Greta Thunberg’s extraordinary transformation from a near-mute 11-year-old 

into the world’s most powerful voice on the climate crisis is revealed today by her mother.

In an emotional account, Malena Ernman describes how her daughter came to be diagnosed with autism, and how activism helped her overcome an eating disorder.

Ernman writes of the first indications that her elder daughter was unwell in extracts published today in the Observer from Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis, a book by the whole Thunberg family.

“She was slowly disappearing into some kind of darkness,” Ernman says. “She stopped playing the piano. She stopped laughing. She stopped talking. And she stopped eating.”

Ernman, a celebrated Swedish opera singer, and her husband Svante Thunberg, an actor, struggled to deal with their daughter’s silence and refusal to eat anything except tiny amounts of rice, avocado and gnocchi.

She lost 10kg in two months and was on the verge of being admitted to hospital before turning a corner. Yet when Thunberg returned to school, her father realised she was being bullied. “The school isn’t sympathetic,” Ernman writes. “Their understanding of the situation is different. It’s Greta’s own fault, the school thinks.”

After recovering some weight, Thunberg was assessed by psychiatrists and diagnosed with “high-functioning” autism, which Ernman describes as Asperger’s, as well as obsessive compulsive disorder.

She went on to become attuned to the climate crisis, with the pivotal moment coming during a film shown in class about rubbish in the oceans, “an island of plastic” in the south Pacific. But after the lesson, while Thunberg was gripped with concern, other pupils enthused about a teacher’s trip to New York and flights to Thailand and Vietnam.

“Greta can’t reconcile any of this with any of what she has just seen,” her mother writes. “She saw what the rest of us did not want to see. It was as if she could see our CO2 emissions with her naked eye.”

In the summer of 2018, Thunberg began her first school strike, taking a homemade placard to stand outside the Swedish prime minister’s office.

When she was joined by other activists, her father tried to persuade her to go home, aware of the emotional toll it was taking on her. But she refused and the time with other people had an unexpected effect on her.

On the third day, a Greenpeace activist offered Greta some vegan Thai noodles. “She takes a little bite. And another. No one reacts to what’s happening. Why would they? … Greta keeps eating. Not just a few bites but almost the whole serving.”

Thunberg is expected to come to the UK this week to take part in a youth protest in Bristol.

Her presence at the Bristol Youth Strike 4 Climate on Friday has been welcomed with delight by the organisers. “We are all just so excited – everyone is so excited about the thought of hearing her talk,” said Milly Sibson, who, like Thunberg, is 17. “I would love the chance to meet her because she is the founder of this movement and she is so important to it – she is an idol even though she is younger than me.”

Sotomayor’s Scathing ‘Public Charge’ Dissent Lights Up Twitter

(Bloomberg) -- Justice Sonia Sotomayor lit up Twitter after issuing a dissent against the Supreme Court’s 5-4 vote to allow an immigrant wealth test -- designed to weed out green card applicants deemed likely to need public assistance -- to go into effect.© Photographer: Pool/Getty Images Sonia Sotomayor

The Illinois rule says immigrants who are “likely at any time to become a public charge” because they may in the future need benefits such as food stamps, Medicaid or housing assistance may be turned away. It followed a ruling on Jan. 27 that was already poised to take effect in 49 states.

Sotomayor, who joined fellow liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan in the minority, argued that cases have repeatedly been rushed to the Supreme Court without being “ventilated fully in the lower courts.”

She went as far as to say that the practice is “putting a thumb on the scale in favor” of the party that won a stay -- a pointed dig at the Trump administration and her conservative colleagues.

“Claiming one emergency after another, the Government has recently sought stays in an unprecedented number of cases, demanding immediate attention and consuming limited court resources in each,” Sotomayor wrote. “And with each successive application, of course, its cries of urgency ring increasingly hollow.”

Death Penalty

Sotomayor comments drew renewed calls from Democrats to “flip the Senate” in November, and thus have more control over the confirmation of Supreme Court justices. Others praised the decision as a victory for the policies of President Donald Trump.

Among those commenting were Sister Helen Prejean, the Roman Catholic nun and advocate for abolition of the death penalty portrayed by Susan Sarandon in the 1995 film “Dead Man Walking.”

The court, said Prejean, has been quick to grant stays requested by the Justice Department, but not when death-row prisoners request the same -- an issue central to Sotomayor’s dissent.

“I fear that this disparity in treatment erodes the fair and balanced decision-making process that this court must strive to protect,” Sotomayor wrote.

Andrew Romanoff, who’s running for the U.S. Senate from Colorado as a Democrat, said Sotomayor was pushing back on a top court that’s “become unbalanced.” And presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren tweeted that she would “roll back” the public-charge policy if elected.

“Millions of children could lose their health care coverage because of the Trump administration’s cruel public charge rule,” Warren said.

NYPD cop disciplined for choking ICE protester during lower Manhattan rally

Thomas Tracy 

An NYPD cop caught on video throttling at least two protesters at a lower Manhattan immigration rally has been disciplined by the department, the Daily News has learned.

© Jefferson Siegel

Police Officer Numael Amador was found guilty of “using excessive force to clear a crowd of protesters” and “failing to report an incident in which force was used," in an departmental trial, documents acquired by The News reveal.

Amador was ordered to fork over 30 vacation days and was bounced by the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, an elite team of highly trained, heavily armed cops dispatched to respond to active shooter events, potential terror attacks and scenes of civil unrest.

He was accused of grabbing a pair of protesters by the throat as he and other officers tried to push back people rallying against the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit on Jan. 11, 2018.

The demonstration began as a peaceful march outside 26 Federal Plaza, but spun out of control as news spread that immigration activist Ravi Ragbir had been detained by ICE agents for deportation.

The crowd’s anger swelled as protesters spotted an ambulance taking Ragbir away, sparking clashes with police.

Eighteen people were arrested, including Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez (D-Manhattan).

Rodriguez hopes Amador has changed his behavior since being reprimanded.

“I hope the discipline the officer received will help him understand that he should conduct himself in a different manner as he maintains our safety and security as well as protester rights,” Rodriguez said. “I personally witnessed the way he was handling the protesters that day and for me it was so disappointing to see how a that officer was conducting himself.”

Ragbir remains in the U.S. as he fights his deportation.

The NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau brought excessive force charges against Amador in April 2018. He was found guilty and disciplined in August, according to department records.

Amador is now assigned to a patrol unit at the 101st Precinct in Far Rockaway, Queens.

The NYPD would not comment on the disciplinary measures, citing section 50-a of New York State’s civil rights law that prevents the public release of information about police disciplinary actions unless ordered by a judge. NYPD critics and transparency advocates have been pushing to get the law repealed.

An email to Amador was also not returned.

On July 11, 2017, about six months before his clash with protesters, Amador was named a “Hero of the Month” by former cop and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams for helping arrest a man who sucker punched a Bedford-Stuyvesant father into a coma.