80-year-old man dies in North Dakota grain bin accident
LACK OF HEALTH AND SAFETY RULES ON THE FARM


An 80 year old North Dakota man died in what is at least the sixth fatal grain bin accident of the year. Photo courtesy of Pixabay

EVANSVILLE, Ind., Feb. 28 (UPI) -- Authorities have identified an 80-year-old man who died this week in a North Dakota grain bin.

Richard Volk was working atop a bin of wheat on his family farm near Devils Lake, N.D., on Wednesday afternoon when officials believe he fell in. It is unclear exactly what happened.

"It's the simple fact that nobody saw what happened," said deputy Ben Myrum of the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office, which responded to the call.

When other farmworkers realized they could not find Volk, the called for help, Myrum said.

The Devil's Lake Rural Fire Department eventually removed Volk's body from the silo after cutting holes in the sides to remove the grain.

Volk is at least the sixth farmer to die in a grain bin accident in the United States this year.

Dozens of farmers die in grain bins every year. The accidents happen most often at farms with few employees, which are not required to follow the same Occupational Safety and Health Administration safety regulations as larger commercial facilities.

Facial recognition firm's entire client list exposed in data breach
Feb. 26 (UPI) -- Clearview AI, a New York-based facial-recognition software company, said Wednesday that its entire database was exposed in a data breach.

The company sent a notification to its customers saying that an intruder gained unauthorized access to its list of customers, the number of user accounts those customers had set up and how many searches they conducted.

Clearview added that the company's servers were not breached and that there was no compromise of its systems or network.

The company said it fixed the vulnerability and the intruder didn't obtain search histories of law enforcement agencies that use the service.

Tor Ekeland, an attorney for Clearview, said that security is the company's top priority.

"Unfortunately, data breaches are part of life in the 21st century. Our servers were never accessed. We patched the flaw and continue to work to strengthen our security," Ekeland said.

Clearview's client base is mostly made up of law enforcement agencies including police departments in Toronto, Atlanta and Florida.

It has a database of 3 billion photos it collected from websites including YouTube, Facebook, Venmo and LinkedIn.

Sen. Ed Markey, D-My said the company poses "chilling privacy risks" condemned the company'sass., who has previousl inability to prevent the breach.

"Clearview's statement that security is its 'top priority' would be laughable if the company's failure to safeguard its information wasn't so disturbing and threatening to the public's privacy," Markey said. "This is a company whose entire business model relies on collecting incredibly sensitive and personal information and this breach is yet another sign that the potential benefits of Clearview's technology do not outweigh the grave privacy risks it poses."

24 states consider bills to ban natural hair discrimination
(WILL ALSO STOP WHITE PEOPLE CUTTING NATIVE YOUTHS BRAIDS OR PONY TAILS)


Three states have passed laws protecting natural hairstyles, and 24 more state legislatures are considering such bills. Photo courtesy of Erik Jacobs/Wikimedia Commons

EVANSVILLE, Ind., Feb. 27 (UPI) -- Nearly half of state legislatures will consider bills in the near future to protect a person's right to wear hair naturally.

The bills -- introduced in 24 states -- are modeled after a California law put into effect Jan. 1 that bans discrimination based on hairstyle.

Proponents say employers, and even schools districts, often ban hairstyles historically worn by racial minorities -- like braids, dreadlocks and twists.

"Our hairstyles influence the way employers and teachers treat us," said Courtney McKinney, a spokeswoman for the Western Center on Law and Poverty, which advocated for the California law along with several other organizations.

"It can impact your education and your ability to get a job. That's why we need laws to protect our right to wear our hair the way it grows out of our heads," McKinney said.

Hair discrimination against black people has a long history in the United States.

Before the Civil War, enslaved people from Africa, for whom long hair was culturally important, were forced to shave their heads, said Wisconsin state Rep. LaKeshia Myers, a Democrat who introduced legislation to protect natural hairstyles.

After the Civil War, newly freed black women began to straighten their hair to wear it in styles popular among white women of the time. That tradition continues to this day, Myers said. Across the country, black women use chemicals and heat to "relax" and straighten their hair to blend in at schools and workplaces.

"It's all for African Americans to fit into the workplace," Myers said. "Today, an African American trying to get a job is faced with the dilemma of do I straighten my hair for the interview to get the job? Why is my natural hair not considered professional?"

Black men are not immune, Myers said. In December 2018 in New Jersey, a black high school wrestler was forced by a referee to cut his dreadlocks to compete. This year, a school district in Texas attempted to expel a black student who refused to cut his dreadlocks.

"No child should be stopped from learning because of their hair," said Jade Magnus Ogunnaike, the campaign director for Color of Change, an online racial justice organization.

The push to pass such legislation is being spearheaded by a group called the CROWN Coalition, which stands for Creating a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural hair.

Color of Change is a CROWN Coalition founding member, Ogunnaike said. Other founders are are Dove, the Western Center on Law & Poverty and the National Urban League.

The coalition, which formed about two years ago, chose to begin in California.

"What happens in California can easily spread across the country," said Leah Barros, a lobbyist hired by the CROWN Coalition to advocate for the bill's passage in California. "It was passed in California with zero 'no' votes and bipartisan support. That was really important to set the foundation for this law to spread to other state legislatures."

Since then, New York and New Jersey have passed similar laws. The coalition continues to push for action in other states and in Congress.

"Hopefully, we will soon have federal legislation," Ogunnaike said.

The coalition is working with several federal lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who unveiled in December a bill to ban discrimination based on hair textures and hairstyles commonly associated with people of a particular race or national origin.

South Koreans sue Shincheonji for embezzlement, violation of law


A South Korean group is suing the religious sect Shincheonji 

for disclosing false data to the government. 

File Photo by Thomas Maresca/UPI | License Photo



Feb. 27 (UPI) -- A South Korean civic group is suing Shincheonji, the secretive religious group in the country that is being widely blamed for the massive outbreak of the new strain of coronavirus.

The National Shincheonji Victims Coalition said Thursday outside the Supreme Prosecutors' Office in Seoul they are filing a lawsuit against Lee Man-hee, 88, the founder of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, on charges of embezzlement and for his violation of South Korea's Infectious Disease Control and Prevention Act, Yonhap reported.

The case, which is to be assigned to the prosecutors' office in the city of Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, comes at a time when local critics of the church, sometimes referred to as a cult, is being held responsible for about half of all COVID-19 cases in Korea, where 1,766 cases and 13 deaths have been reported.

According to the South Korean victims coalition, Shincheonji reported lower-than-actual numbers, when the government requested a complete list of members after hundreds of people were infected in the city of Daegu.

Congregants have said they were not allowed to keep their masks on during services.

South Korean plaintiffs say the church's disclosure of a list of about 210,000 members is incomplete. Citing "Doomsday Office," a YouTube channel, the coalition said Shincheonji has 239,353 members and another 70,000 people waiting for admission into the church.

Shincheonji has 12 branches in South Korea that symbolize "12 tribes." Each group is named after a disciple of Jesus, according to South Korean press reports.

On Thursday the coalition said Lee had embezzled $8.25 million of real estate from Kim Nam-hee, a former church member and chairwoman of Mannam Volunteer Association. The coalition claimed Kim was Lee's former mistress.

Speculation is rising among South Korean government officials the church is not disclosing its full list of members. Lee Jae-myung, governor of Gyeonggi Province, said the list is short of 2,000 people, according to government estimates, Maeil Business reported Thursday.

SF court rejects lawsuit that said YouTube violates First Amendment

YouTube is a private company that is not subject to constitutional guarantees supporting freedom of speech and expression, the court ruled.

File Photo by Twin Design/UPI


Feb. 27 (UPI) -- A federal appeals court has ruled against a conservative nonprofit that accused YouTube and its owner Google of violating its right to freedom of speech.

The San Francisco court declined to reinstate a lawsuit by Prager University that accused YouTube of breaching its First Amendment rights by placing some of its videos in "restricted mode" because they promote a conservative point of view.

The court reasoned that YouTube is a private company and isn't bound by the First Amendment to ensure PragerU's freedom of expression.

"PragerU's attempt to foist a 'public forum' label on YouTube by claiming that YouTube declared itself a public forum ... fails," the 16-page ruling states. "YouTube's representation that it is committed to freedom of expression ... cannot somehow convert private property into a public forum.

"Whether a property is a public forum is not a matter of election by a private entity. We decline to subscribe to PragerU's novel opt-in theory of the First Amendment."

Prager University said YouTube also violated federal law against deceptive advertising, which the court also rejected.

"YouTube's braggadocio about its commitment to free speech constitutes opinions," it said.

Conservative groups have long complained that social media Internet platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are trying to shut down conservative points of view and should be held legally liable.

World's largest wealth fund, in Norway, earned 'historic' returns in 2019

HEY KENNEY HOW'S OUR HERITAGE TRUST FUND DOING


Norway's Johan Sverdrup oil platform is seen in the North Sea on January 7. Norway's wealth fund, established decades ago to invest in oil wealth, reported "historic" earnings for 2019. File Photo by Carina Johansen/EPA-EFE

Feb. 27 (UPI) -- The largest wealth fund in the world said Thursday it achieved "historic" earnings last year that surpassed $180 million.

Norway's sovereign wealth fund said in a report it earned a 20 percent return on investments during 2019 -- the greatest single-year return in its history. Officials said 2019 also saw the second-best return measured as a percentage.

Formally known as the Norges Bank Investment Management, the fund was founded by Norway's central bank in 1990 to invest in the nation's oil wealth.

Oystein Olsen, Norges Bank's chairman of the board, said last year saw the value of its investments surge by $195 billion to a total of almost $1.1 trillion. Investment manager Yngve Slyngstad said the growth was driven by "positive equity returns in all the fund's principal markets."

Fund managers notched a 26 percent return on equity investments, real estate ventures returned almost 7 percent and fixed income investments yielded 7.6 percent.

The wealth fund's total return was 0.23 percentage points higher than the return on the benchmark index.

Democrats in Congress unveil environmental justice bill


Rep. Raul M. Grijalva, D-Ariz., attends a committee hearing in Washington, D.C. on February 12, 2019. Grijalva was among House Democrats who introduced an environmental justice bill Thursday. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo

Feb. 27 (UPI) -- Congressional Democrats introduced an environmental justice bill Thursday to take on pollution and climate change issues in low-income and marginalized communities.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., and Rep. Donald McEachin, D-Va., led the Capitol Hill news conference, saying the bill was an effort to make sure environmental efforts bring a positive change for everyone and that minorities have a voice in those changes.

"For far too long, communities of color, low-income communities and tribal and indigenous communities have not been a meaningful voice in the decision-making process impacting their well-being," McEachin said in the news conference. "Not with this bill."

The bill would create a fund with a new fee on oil, gas and coal companies to support communities and workers transitioning from greenhouse gas-dependent economies. The bill would expand legal rights for marginalized communities and create new federal grants and program authority to address environmental racism.

Grijalva said he thought the bill has a chance to pass the Republican-controlled Senate even though it imposes new demands on the oil industry.

"I think it's going to be very difficult for people to turn their back on this issue," he said.

Martin Hayden, vice president of policy and legislation at Earthjustice, said the bill was built from comments from those living in communities affected by pollution and climate change.

"We cannot confront the legacy of environmental racism in the United States unless we listen to the voices of the people most harmed by it," Hayden said in a statement. "We commend chairman Grijalva and McEachin for the proposal they released today and the landmark process they used to create it. It represents a bold and necessary shift in the way we create federal environmental policy."

Indian women protest citizenship laws, joining global feminist movement

By Alka Kurian, University of Washington, Bothell

Indian women shout slogans during a protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act in Guwahati, India, on December 21. File Photo by EPA-EFE

Feb. 25 (UPI) -- Women are among the strongest opponents of two new laws in India that threaten the citizenship rights of vulnerable groups like Muslims, poor women, oppressed castes and LGBTQ people.

The Citizenship Amendment Act, passed in December 2019, fast-tracks Indian citizenship for undocumented refugees from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan -- but only those who are non-Muslim. Another law -- the National Register of Citizens -- will require all residents in India to furnish extensive legal documentation to prove their citizenship as soon as 2021.

Critics see the two laws as part of the government's efforts to redefine the meaning of belonging in India and make this constitutionally secular country a Hindu nation.

Since Dec. 4, Indians of all ages, ethnicities and religions have been protesting the new citizenship initiatives in scattered but complementary nationwide demonstrations. The uprisings have persisted through weeks of arrests, beatings and even killings across India by the police.

But the most enduring pocket of resistance is an around-the-clock sit-in of mostly hijab-wearing women in a working-class Delhi neighborhood called Shaheen Bagh.

Women take charge

Since Dec. 15, women of all ages -- from students to 90-year-old grandmothers -- have abandoned their daily duties and braved near-freezing temperatures to block a major highway in the Indian capital.

This is a striking act of resistance in a patriarchal country where women -- but particularly Muslim women -- have historically had their rights denied.

The Shaheen Bagh protests are as novel in their methods as they are in their makeup. Protesters are using artwork, book readings, lectures, poetry recitals, songs, interfaith prayers and communal cooking to explain their resistance to citizenship laws that, they say, will discriminate against not just Muslims but also women, who usually don't have state or property papers in their own names.

On Jan. 11, women in the Indian city of Kolkata performed a Bengali-language version of a Chilean feminist anthem called The Rapist is You. This choreographed public flash dance, first staged in Santiago, Chile in November, calls out the police, judiciary and government for violating women's human rights.

Dangerous place for women

India is the world's most dangerous country for women, according to the Thompson Reuters Foundation. One-third of married women are physically abused. Two-thirds of rapes go unpunished.

Gender discrimination is so pervasive that around 1 million female fetuses are aborted each year. In some parts of India, there are 126 men for every 100 women.

Indian women have come together in protest before, to speak out against these and other issues. But most prior women's protests were limited in scope and geography. The 2012 gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old Delhi woman -- which sparked nationwide protests -- was a watershed moment. All at once, the country witnessed the power of women's rage.

The current women-led anti-citizenship law demonstrations are even greater in number and power. Beyond Shaheen Bagh, Indian women across caste, religion and ethnicity are putting their bodies and reputations on the line.

Female students are intervening to shield fellow students from police violence at campus protests. Actresses from Bollywood, India's film industry, are speaking out against gender violence, too.

Women's secular agenda

With their non-violent tactics and inclusive strategy, the Shaheen Bagh women are proving to be effective critics of the government's Hindu-centric agenda. Their leaderless epicenter of resistance raises up national symbols like the Indian flag, the national anthem and the Indian Constitution as reminders that India is secular and plural -- a place where people can be both Muslim and Indian.

The Shaheen Bagh movement's novel and enduring strategy has triggered activism elsewhere in the country.

Thousands of women in the northern Indian city of Lucknow started their own sit-in in late January. Similar "Shaheen Baghs" have sprung up since, in the cities of Patna and even Chennai, which is located 1,500 miles from Delhi.

Global women's spring

India's Shaheen Bagh protests form part of a broader global trend in women's movements. Worldwide, female activists are combining attention to women's issues with a wider call for social justice across gender, class and geographic borders.

In January 2019 alone, women in nearly 90 countries took to the streets demanding equal pay, reproductive rights and the end of violence. Young women were also at the forefront of the 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, Lebanon, Sudan, Brazil and Colombia.

As I write in my 2017 book, such inclusive activism is the defining characteristic of what's called "fourth wave feminism."

There isn't a common definition of the first three feminist waves. In the United States, they generally refer to the early 20th century suffragette movement, the radical women's movement of the 1960s and 1970s and the more mainstream feminism of the 1990s and early 2000s.

Fourth wave feminism appears to be more universal. Today's activists fully embrace the idea that women's freedom means little if other groups are still oppressed. With its economic critique, disavowal of caste oppression and solidarity across religious divides, India's Shaheen Bagh sit-in shares attributes with the women's uprisings in Chile, Lebanon, Hong Kong and beyond.

The last time women came together in such numbers worldwide was the #MeToo movement, a campaign against sexual harassment, which emerged on social media in the United States in 2017 and quickly spread across the globe.

Shaheen Bagh and similarly far-reaching women's uprisings underway in other countries take #MeToo to the next level, moving from a purely feminist agenda to a wider call for social justice. Women protesters want rights -- not just for themselves, but human rights for all.

Alka Kurian is a senior lecturer in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington, Bothell. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Death toll from Delhi riots climbs to 38; violence begins to subside

A riot police officer stands among debris at a damaged area in East Delhi that was affected by deadly clashes in Delhi on Thursday. Photo by EPA-EFE

Feb. 27 (UPI) -- The death toll from violence in Delhi's northeast district climbed to 38 Thursday, though officials there said rioting began to subside.

Religious clashes began Sunday over India's controversial citizenship law, which offers amnesty to refugees from multiple neighboring nations as long as they aren't Muslim.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have consistently supported the law, but opponents say it violates the secular principles of the Indian Constitution.

Opponents rallied against the measure and demanded its withdrawal, but government officials say they won't pull it or amend it. Some activists have clashed with swords, stones and other weapons, and homes, vehicles and other property have been burned across the capital.

A senior Delhi Health Department official told the Press Trust of India that 11 more deaths were reported Thursday. Some 200 people have been injured in the violence.

It's unclear how many people have been arrested amid the arson, looting and bloodshed.

Some witnesses told The New York Times that police forces loyal to Bharatiya Janata Party have declined to intervene as Hindu mobs kill Muslim civilians.

Special Commissioner S N Shrivastava said, though, the violence has subsided in some areas.

"The situation is returning to normal. We are here to reassure people that we are with them," he said.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=HINDUISM 

IS FASCISM, CASTISM AND RACISM

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=INDIA

ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
Oklahoma inmates seek to re-open suit on state's lethal injection protocol

Feb. 27 (UPI) -- A group of Oklahoma death row inmates on Thursday filed a motion to reopen their lawsuit against the state's lethal injection protocol, weeks after officials announced a plan to resume executions.

The group challenged the state's plan, saying its new protocol is incomplete. The motion also alleges that a grand jury investigation into the state's methods of execution haven't been completed.

Those shortcomings, the court document said, threaten the inmates' First, Eighth and 14th Amendment rights.

The state announced Feb. 13 that it plans to resume executions, nearly six years after the use of an incorrect drug led to the botched execution of a convicted murderer.

RELATED Colorado House votes to abolish death penalty; Gov. Polis to sign

Gov. Kevin Stitt said that after mulling the option of using nitrogen gas to cary out executions, the state has now found a "reliable supply of drugs" to resume lethal injections.

Oklahoma's lethal injection protocol came under scrutiny in 2014 when Clayton Lockett died of a heart attack amid complications during his execution.

Autopsy reports released a year later indicated Oklahoma corrections officials used the wrong drug -- potassium acetate instead of potassium chloride -- during the process. Lockett complained of a burning sensation and attempted to raise his head and speak after doctors declared he was unconscious.

RELATED Supreme Court denies new hearing in Arizona death penalty case

The same incorrect drug was delivered to corrections officials for use in the planned 2015 execution of Richard Glossip. Former Gov. Mary Ballin called off Glossip's execution with a last-minute, indefinite stay after she learned of the discrepancy.

Oklahoma has carried out only one other execution since Lockett's, that of Charles Warner in January 2015. He received a nine-month stay due to the previous botched lethal injection.

Since then, the state had an unofficial moratorium on executions as it attempted to secure a supply of lethal injection drugs. Oklahoma uses a three-drug cocktail of midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride.

RELATED Texas appeals court lifts stay for death row inmate

Executions in the United States have undergone changes in recent years after states started running out of the essential lethal injection drug pentobarbital. The European Union in 2011 voted to prohibit the sale of the drug and seven other barbiturates to the United States for use in torture or executions. Other pharmaceutical companies have refused to sell drugs for lethal injection purposes outright, and some will only sell if their name is kept confidential.

Now states are being forced to use new drug cocktails, scramble to restock their stores of drugs and review their lethal injection policies.

In 2018, Oklahoma's attorney general's office announced it would use nitrogen gas inhalation as its primary method of execution. Officials, though, had difficulty finding a manufacturer to sell a method for administering the gas for an execution. Additionally, state law says nitrogen hypoxia may be used for executions only if drugs for lethal injections are unavailable.

RELATED Alabama death row inmate of 30 years dies of natural causes

Forty-seven people currently sit on death row in Oklahoma, including 30 who have exhausted the appeals process and are eligible for execution dates.

Twenty-one inmates were named in the lawsuit when it was filed in 2014: James Coddington, Benjamin Cole, Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, Nicholas Davis, Richard Fairchild, John Grant, Wendell Grissom, Marlon Harmon, Raymond Johnson, Emmanuel Littlejohn, James Pavatt, Kendrick Simpson, Kevin Underwood, Brenda Andrew, Glossip, Shelton Jackson, Phillip Hancock, Julius Jones, Alfred Mitchell and Termane Wood. Warner, who was executed in 2015, also was named.

FOR FULL PDF CLICK HERE 







THE RIGHT TO LIFE END THE DEATH PENALTY