NASA space treaty to allow establishment of lunar 'safety zones'

US accused by Russia of trying to circumvent 1967 treaty banning ownership of areas of the moon

Stuart Clark@DrStuClark
Wed 20 May 2020 THE GUARDIAN
 

Artist’s impression of lunar exploration at south pole crater. Photograph: Nasa


Countries joining Nasa’s exploration of the moon will be asked to sign up to a series of guiding principles known as the Artemis accords. Announced on 15 May, the accords are a set of broad themes that the agency hopes will form the basis of agreements to be negotiated with each country involved in the effort to land the next humans on the moon by 2024.

Based in part on the UN’s outer space treaty of 1967, the Artemis accords reassert that all activities should be undertaken only for peaceful purposes, and add that all plans should be communicated transparently with no secrecy. They commit the partners to using open international standards to allow machinery and equipment to function easily together, to provide emergency assistance to other astronauts and to mitigate the creation of space debris.

Where the accords are likely to become controversial is that they appear to allow the use of lunar resources for commercial gain, and they seek to establish “safety zones” around landing sites, which could be interpreted as de facto ownership of areas of the moon, which is forbidden by the outer space treaty. Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, has accused the US of trying to circumvent the UN with the accords.

BUREAU OF LAND MISMANAGEMENT
He opposed public lands and wildlife protections. Trump gave him a top environment job

Under the leadership of William Perry Pendley, the Bureau of Land Management is failing to fulfill its most basic duties of safeguarding America’s public lands, his critics say


Jimmy Tobias THE GUARDIAN Wed 20 May 2020

William Perry Pendley is Trump’s pick to lead the US Bureau of Land Management Photograph: Matthew Brown/AP

In July 2017, William Perry Pendley, a crusading conservative attorney, delivered a speech to a group of rightwing activists in North Carolina in which he was completely candid about his ideological commitments.

He accused “the media” of selling “their soul to the greens”. And after criticizing the Endangered Species Act, he made light of killing endangered species.

“This is why out west we say ‘shoot, shovel and shut up’ when it comes to the discovery of endangered species on your property,” he said, according to an audio recording of the event obtained by the Guardian. “And I have to say, as a lawyer, that’s not legal advice,” he added, as some in his audience quietly snickered at the reference to the illegal extermination, and the burial, of endangered animals.

It has been almost three years since he gave those remarks, and Pendley is now the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, a powerful agency that oversees more than 240m acres of federal land belonging to the American people, manages mineral resources and is required to comply with environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act.

Pendley has helped turn BLM into what one high-level employee, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, called “a ghost ship” in which “suspicion”, “fear” and “low morale” abound, despite the best efforts of career civil servants to support each other.

As Pendley and his superiors at the interior department press ahead with an effort to move BLM’s headquarters from Washington DC to Grand Junction, Colorado, the agency has hemorrhaged staff members and lost critical institutional memory, which many critics believe was the true purpose of the relocation effort all along.


“A skeleton crew is left” at BLM headquarters, said the employee. “So few people were able to move west that a lot of people retired early and a lot of people took other jobs, so my ballpark estimate is there is only about 20% of permanent employees left” at headquarters. As a result, the agency is failing to fulfill its most basic duties, like responding to public records requests and conducting oversight of state and regional operations, the staffer added.

Environmental and government watchdog groups are now responding with a lawsuit that calls into question the legitimacy of Pendley’s position. Last week a pair of environmental nonprofits sued the interior department, alleging that by repeatedly tapping Pendley as the BLM’s acting director, rather than officially nominating him for the position, the interior secretary has skirted the Senate confirmation process usually required for high-level executive branch appointments, and has violated federal law.

“The illegitimate Pendley appointment is particularly troublesome because he has forcibly moved the BLM Headquarters from Washington DC, to remote western Colorado,” said Peter Jenkins, a senior counsel at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, one of the groups that sued. “In doing so he uprooted the lives of scores of seasoned BLM staff and disrupted this already strained agency.”

An interior department spokesperson defended Pendley’s record.
The Trump administration rolled back key provisions of the Endangered Species Act, a law credited with saving the gray wolf, bald eagle and grizzly bear. Photograph: Karen Bleier/AFP via Getty Images

“Mr Pendley brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the department and is committed to carrying out the administration’s priorities and achieving the BLM’s … mission for the betterment of the American people,” said Conner Swanson, the spokesperson. “Mr Pendley has provided a steady hand in facilitating important matters, from the BLM headquarters move west to its response to Covid-19.” Swanson has said that the lawsuit against Pendley is “baseless”.

Pendley, a tall man with a handlebar mustache and a penchant for cowboy boots, has remarked in the past that his “personal opinions are irrelevant” to his job at BLM.

“I have a new job now. I’m a zealous advocate for my client. My client is the American people and my bosses are the president of the United States and [interior] secretary [David] Bernhardt,” Pendley said during an appearance at the conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists in Fort Collins, Colorado, last year. “What I thought, what I wrote, what I did in the past is irrelevant. I have orders, I have laws to obey, and I intend to do that.”

Pendley has long opposed public lands and wildlife protections. After serving in the Reagan administration in the 1980s, he became the president of the Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF), a conservative litigation organization funded by conservative and industry groups including the Charles Koch Foundation and Exxon Mobil, according to research from the watchdog groups Documented and Accountable.US.

Under Pendley’s leadership, the firm was a persistent foe of federal land agencies, getting involved in dozens of cases on behalf of industry groups and private landowners to challenge environmental protections implemented by the interior department.

Pendley became something of a fixture among the anti-government set, writing numerous books extolling rebellion against public lands and the federal government. He has expressed sympathy in the past for the Bundy family, whose militant agitation against federal land ownership included the armed takeover of the Malheur national wildlife refuge in 2016.

He has compared climate change to unicorns because “neither exist”. And in a 2016 National Review article, he laid out a case that argued for the near-total abolition of federal public lands across the nation.

Given his long history of legal advocacy on behalf of extractive industries, Pendley brought with him a 17-page recusal list of past clients, employers and investments when he took control of the BLM in 2019. The list included groups such as the American Exploration & Mining Association and the Petroleum Association of Wyoming. It has been nearly impossible for the public to know whether Pendley has abided by his recusal list, however, because the BLM has failed to release his detailed official calendar to the public.

Though Pendley has long been a committed conservative, he has not always had kind words for Donald Trump. In a 2016 op-ed in the Daily Caller, for instance, he said then-candidate Trump “is not fit to pull off Reagan’s boots”.

Apart from Pendley’s role in moving BLM’s headquarters to Colorado, the agency under his leadership has also repeatedly proposed land management plans that heavily promote the energy industry. In March, for instance, conservationists in Montana came out aggressively against a BLM resource management plan that they believe is far too friendly to corporate oil and gas interests, according to the Billings Gazette.

In a statement issued earlier this year, Representative Raúl Grijalva, the chairman of the House natural resources committee, expressed his concerns over Pendley.

“Anyone who wants our land management agencies to be functional in the future needs to recognize the seriousness of what Secretary Bernhardt, acting director Pendley, and their subordinates are doing.”

Leticia, Colombia

Huitoto indigenous people pose wearing face masks, amid concerns about the impact of coronavirus in the Amazonas region

Photograph: Tatiana de Nevo/AFP/Getty Images

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Huitoto indigenous people pose wearing face masks in Leticia, Colombia

Huitoto indigenous people pose wearing face masks, amid concerns about the impact of coronavirus in the Amazonas region

Photograph: Tatiana de Nevo/AFP/Getty Images

This pandemic threatens to undo what generations of feminists have fought for

With schools and daycares closed, and employers embracing permanent work-from-home arrangements, women will be forced to pick up the slack
Moira Donegan @MoiraDonegan
THE GUARDIAN Thu 21 May 2020
 

Farrah Eaton helps her two daughters, Elin, left, and Nola with home schooling. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images


During this pandemic, a contracting economy, public health fears, and steadily reduced public services have shifted massive amounts of work and caregiving responsibilities to the home – and it is women who are picking up the slack. Even as lockdowns lift and the virus recedes, many of these needs that were previously met outside the home will still be left to families to try to meet within it, and women will be disproportionately affected. The result is a potentially long-term constricting of women’s lives to the domestic sphere. This threatens to undo a century’s worth of progress that women have made in claiming access to public life.

Some women are home because they’ve lost work. The economic recession that has been prompted by the pandemic has disproportionately hurt woman-dominated service industries, meaning that this time, unlike the 2008 recession, women make up the majority of the newly unemployed. In April, the unemployment rate climbed to 15.5% for women, with black women and Latinas facing even higher average unemployment rates.


The economic recession that has been prompted by the pandemic has disproportionately hurt woman-dominated service industries

With schools and daycares closed, responsibilities like childcare and eldercare that were once diffused out into public services or commercial enterprises are now reined in to the home. But waged work, for those women who still have it, continues apace, with few concessions towards the new reality. In the pandemic, women’s lives have become more burdened, smaller and less free. Everyone has a public health obligation to stay home, but only women have a socially enforced responsibility to take on disproportionate domestic work while they are there.

Of those women who still have jobs and are working remotely, many are likely to keep working from home even after the virus recedes and lockdowns are lifted, since the pandemic has caused many companies to re-evaluate their overhead costs and the necessity of physical office space. Twitter has announced plans to move to more permanent work-from-home arrangements after the pandemic, and other companies are likely to follow suit. Many women who used to work outside the home will lose their income, but even those who keep it may have to stay in. And with unemployment surging and labor at a surplus, female workers whose children, housework or other domestic distractions don’t allow them to maintain their productivity know that their employers will find them easy to dispose of and easy to replace.


Female workers whose children, housework, or other domestic distractions don’t allow them to maintain their productivity know that their employers will find them easy to replace

Meanwhile, mothers working from home are likely to have their children with them for the foreseeable future. It remains unclear when schools will reopen in many parts of the country, but the Cal State university system has suspended in-person classes for the fall semester, a move that is likely to push many other university systems and K-12 institutions to do the same. When schools do reopen, many may use partly remote schedules, with students learning from home for part of the week.

Men are home too, but many of them aren’t helping. Studies have shown that men consistently underestimate the time that women spend on housework, childcare, and eldercare, and drastically overestimate their own contributions. This pattern has only been exacerbated by the pandemic. A Morning Consult and New York Times Poll found that in heterosexual households with school-age children, 45% of husbands thought that they spent more time homeschooling than their wives did. Among women, the perspective was wildly different: just 3% of wives said that their husbands did more of the homeschooling.

Homeschooling, meanwhile, is likely to remain the norm for the foreseeable future. Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York recently announced plans to overhaul the state’s public K-12 education programming in conjunction with the juggernaut Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a group that has historically advocated for the privatization of public education and lobbied against employment protections for the majority-woman teaching workforce. The plan is to implement technology to enable more distanced learning. “The old model of our education system where everyone sits in a classroom is not going to work in the new normal,” Cuomo argued. What he did not mention is that remote schooling still requires children to be supervised. The result is that parents – overwhelmingly, mothers – will effectively be deputized as teachers, without training or pay, and required to stay home with their kids.

The result of remote schooling is that mothers will effectively be deputized as teachers, without training or pay, and required to stay home with their kids

Cuomo’s decision is premised on the sexist assumption that women are perpetually available for more and more unpaid domestic work. In fact, it elevates that attitude from a cultural and marital injustice to a pillar of public policy. The state is retreating from its obligation to provide an education for children, and the childcare that that education represents. Women are inevitably tasked with compensating for the state’s failures.

With the state rolling back services, private companies making few concessions to women workers’ domestic needs, and men not picking up the slack, the post-pandemic world could mean smaller, more claustrophobic and more constrained lives for women. It could mean women out of work and unable to earn the money that would allow them to provide for their families or gain independence in marriages that are exploitative, abusive or just unhappy. It could mean a public, social and commercial realm that is less vibrant for being predominantly male. It could mean women doing more and more work with less and less freedom, tasked as they are with being the resource of last resort when employers, institutions and the state throw up their hands. And it could mean the loss of what feminists have been fighting for: women’s freedom from the domestic sphere, freedom from financial dependence on men and freedom to access public life.

It is still not clear what life will look like after the pandemic, but it seems increasingly likely that much more of it will be confined to that place that women have been striving for decades to get out of: the house.


Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Mexico has 1,900 species of bees and they’re all at risk: biologist

May 21, 2020

All of Mexico’s 1,900 different species of native bees are at risk of extinction, says Ricardo Ayala Barajas, a National Autonomous University researcher based at the Chamela Biology Station in Jalisco.

Most of Mexico’s bees do not sting and only 47 species produce honey, but all native species are endangered, explained the researcher on the United Nations World Bee Day, May 20.

In an interview with the newspaper Milenio, Ayala said that around the world there are approximately 20,000 different named species of bees, and like in Mexico, every one is threatened by the use of insecticides and deforestation.


“A great effort is required to try to reduce the use of insecticides and make more careful use of natural resources, for the future of humanity and to care for the bees that help plants reproduce and generate fruits and seeds,” Ayala said. “We must appreciate and understand them more in order to prevent them from disappearing,”

Bee conservation is on the rise in Mexico, just as it is globally.

In Guanajuato, people who kill bees or harm their habitat can be fined up to 8,000 pesos (US $350). In Yucatán, the government and communities are collaborating on a bee conservation project after significant bee populations have died, thought to be a result of crop dusting. A similar campaign is underway in Campeche.

Beekeeping in Mexico has been around for some 3,000 years, according to earth.com, and the nation’s beekeepers watch over some 2 million hives with annual honey export profits totaling some US $56 million per year.

Source: Earth.com (en), Milenio (sp)

Coronavirus conspiracy theories: More than a fifth of people believe the virus is a hoax

May 21, 2020

More than 4 in 10 people believe to some extent that China created coronavirus as a bioweapon to control the west, new research on Covid-19 conspiracy theories has suggested.

A new survey has revealed that when asked whether they believed that coronavirus is a bio-weapon developed by China to destroy the West, 55 per cent said they did not agree, 20.2 per cent said they agreed a little and 5.5 per cent agreed completely.

The research, led by clinical psychologists at the University of Oxford and published in the journal Psychological Medicine, indicates the number of adults in England do not agree with the scientific and governmental consensus on the Covid-19 pandemic.

It revealed that almost three fifths (59 per cent) of adults in England believe to some extent that the Government is misleading the public about the cause of the virus.

More than a fifth (21 per cent) believe the virus is a hoax, and 62 per cent agree to some extent that the virus is man-made, scientists say.

While 70.9 per cent said they did not agree the WHO already has a vaccine and are withholding it and 79 per cent said they did not agree that coronavirus is caused by 5G and is a form of radiation poisoning transmitted through radio waves.
From May 4-11, 2,500 adults – representative of the English population for age, gender, region, and income – took part in the Oxford Coronavirus Explanations, Attitudes, and Narratives Survey (Oceans) online.

Researchers found that approximately 50 per cent of this population showed little evidence of conspiracy thinking, 25 per cent showed a degree of endorsement, 15 per cent showed a consistent pattern of endorsement, and 10 per cent had very high levels of endorsement.

Higher levels of coronavirus conspiracy thinking were associated with less adherence to all Government guidelines, the study suggests.

The authors write: “Higher levels of coronavirus conspiracy thinking were associated with less adherence to all Government guidelines and less willingness to take diagnostic or antibody tests or to be vaccinated.

“Such ideas were also associated with paranoia, general vaccination conspiracy beliefs, climate change conspiracy belief, a conspiracy mentality, and distrust in institutions and professions.

“Holding coronavirus conspiracy beliefs was also associated with being more likely to share opinions.”

Daniel Freeman, professor of clinical psychology, University of Oxford, and consultant clinical psychologist, Oxford Health NHS Foundation, said: “Those who believe in conspiracy theories are less likely to follow government guidance, for example, staying home, not meeting with people outside their household, or staying two metres apart from other people when outside.

“Those who believe in conspiracy theories also say that they are less likely to accept a vaccination, take a diagnostic test, or wear a face mask.”

He added that the epidemic has all the necessary ingredients for the growth of conspiracy theories, including” sustained threat, exposure of vulnerabilities, and enforced change”.

Prof Freeman went on to explain that the beliefs were “corrosive to our necessary collective response to the crisis”.

The research also suggests that conspiracy theories are becoming more commonplace in wider society.

Dr Sinéad Lambe, Clinical Psychologist, said: “Conspiracy thinking is not isolated to the fringes of society and likely reflects a growing distrust in the government and institutions. Conspiracy beliefs arguably travel further and faster than ever before.

“Our survey indicates that people who hold such beliefs share them; social media provides a ready-made platform.”

“In the wake of the epidemic, mistrust looks to have become mainstream,” Prof Freeman added.

The research project is funded by the NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre.

AUTOWORKERS FORCE TRUMP TO WEAR MASK AT FORD

Auto Workers union demands Trump wear anti-virus mask on Ford plant visit  AND HE DOES

May 21, 2020 10:08 AM CDT BY MARK GRUENBERG

United Auto Workers members leave a Warren, Mich., plant at the end of their shift on May 18, 2020. The union is insisting President Donald Trump wear a mask when visiting a Ford plant on May 21. | Paul Sancya / AP



YPSILANTI, Mich.—When GOP President Donald Trump visits a Ford auto parts plant in Ypsilanti, Mich., on May 21, the United Auto Workers demands he wear an anti-coronavirus face mask.

He said he may, depending on specific parts of the plant he visits. But if past is prologue, given his visits to plants in Allentown, Pa., and Arizona whose workers manufacture personal protective equipment (PPE), he won’t.

More than a show of bravado is involved since Trump also refuses to wear a mask in the White House. Not coincidentally, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Arizona are swing states in the fall election that Trump needs in his column for another White House term. So is Wisconsin, where Vice President Mike Pence recently visited a PPE manufacturer, too. He didn’t wear a mask, either.

Ford officials backtracked late on May 20 from trying to force Trump to wear a mask when he visited the Rawsonville parts plant in Ypsilanti. That plant, like others run by the Detroit 3—Ford, FiatChrysler, and GM—started reopening on May 18. All restarted under strict protocols, with coronavirus tests and temperature checks of every worker, separation where needed on assembly lines, orders to wear masks, and other requirements. Workers’ entry is staged to keep them six feet apart as they walk in the gates.

The Detroit 3 also deep-cleaned and sterilized its plants in the weeks they were closed. That helped but didn’t completely stop the coronavirus. Ford had to briefly close its Chicago truck plant on May 18 when two workers tested positive, then reopened it on May 20—the same day it shut a 4,800-worker Dearborn truck plant when another worker tested positive for the coronavirus.

Given all that, Ford initially demanded Trump wear an anti-virus mask. So did the United Auto Workers. Then, after 4 pm on May 20, Ford backed down. UAW didn’t.

“The position of the union is that out of respect for the clean, sterile environment, anybody who enters into that plant needs to follow protocols,” spokesman Brian Rothenberg told news services.

Trump has refused to wear a mask when visiting other manufacturing facilities lately, such as at a Honeywell plant in Arizona. | Evan Vucci / AP

Starting on May 5, UAW reluctantly agreed to the Detroit 3’s reopening plans, after the firms and the union, working on a joint committee, hashed through the issues involved. But union President Rory Gamble warned the automakers that health and safety come first.

“We have supported a number of measures put in place to address Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization guidelines from FiatChrysler, GM, and Ford to protect our health and safety in the plant. Our volunteer members and the companies have done great work to reconfigure plants to achieve this safety goal,” Gamble said then.

“We continue to advocate for as much testing as possible at the current time and eventually full testing when available. As for the start date, the companies contractually make that decision, and we all knew this day would come. Our UAW focus and role is and will continue to be, on health and safety protocols to protect our members.”

The Detroit 3 yielded to COVID-19 cases and UAW pressure and closed the plants more than a month ago, due to outbreaks of the virus and fears of community spread among thousands of workers.

Along with the deep-cleaning and sterilization of the auto plants before they fully reopened, small sections were converted when the Detroit 3 switched to making ventilators.

Nobody openly discussed the political motives behind Trump’s and Pence’s visits to factories in swing states, whether PPE facilities or auto plants. The tours are designed to pump up the president’s political theme of “open up the economy again.” That mantra, echoed by congressional Republicans, right-wing extremists, and much of big business, is to declare it’s time to return to work, regardless of whether doing so would sicken or kill more people. Or cause a new spike in joblessness, too.

The virus has infected almost 1.6 million people nationwide and killed over 95,000 as of this writing. It’s also thrown at least 40 million people out of work since mid-March, as firms—including the Detroit 3—shut down as part of social distancing and anti-crowd efforts were undertaken to beat the virus’s community spread.

But Trump and Pence and their echo chamber argue the weekly numbers are declining, thus making opening safer. And they’re so confident of a quick economic turnaround that Trump told GOP senators on May 19 that he opposes extending increased jobless benefits beyond their scheduled end in July.

CONTRIBUTOR

Mark Gruenberg
Mark Gruenberg is head of the Washington, D.C., bureau of People's World. He is also the editor of Press Associates Inc. (PAI), a union news service in Washington, D.C. that he has headed since 1999. Previously, he worked as Washington correspondent for the Ottaway News Service, as Port Jervis bureau chief for the Middletown, NY Times Herald Record, and as a researcher and writer for Congressional Quarterly. Mark obtained his BA in public policy from the University of Chicago and worked as the University of Chicago correspondent for the Chicago Daily News.



Donald Trump is FINALLY pictured wearing a mask during private tour of Michigan Ford plant

by internewscast 21st May 2020

Donald Trump was finally photographed wearing a mask Thursday during the private part of a high-profile visit to a Ford factory – but spent the entire public part of the tour defying its boss Bill Ford’s request to cover up.

The president showed off the navy blue covering with the seal of the president on it, but added he didn’t want to give the media the ‘pleasure’ of seeing him wear one.

‘I wore one in this back area. I didn’t want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it,’ Trump said during his tour of the Rawsonville Components Plant. ‘I had the goggles and the mask.’

Trump has been reluctant to be photographed wearing a face covering and is reported to have said it would send the wrong message as he pushes to get the country focused on reopening from the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than 1.58 million Americans and killed almost 100,000.

He was finally photographed wearing a face covering backstage as Ford, the executive chairman of the firm founded by his great-grandfather Henry Ford, showed him three Ford GTs during a private tour.

But when he was in public, he brandished the mask with the presidential seal without putting it on, and posed with a face visor which he did not ear either.

After the tour, Ford Motor Company put out a statement from its executive chairman, saying the president was asked to wear a mask. The state attorney general also has threatened legal action against Ford if Trump did not wear a face covering during his tour.

‘Bill Ford encouraged President Trump to wear a mask when he arrived. He wore a mask during a private viewing of three Ford GTs from over the years. The President later removed the mask for the remainder of the visit,’ the company said.

Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel told CNN: ‘He is a petulant child who refuses to follow the rules. This is not a joke.’
What took so long? Donald Trump was finally photographed in a mask during the private portion of his tour of the Ford plant – , but he took it off before it could be seen in public


Request: Trump toured the plant with Bill Ford, the company’s executive chairman, who asked him directly to wear a mask throughout his time there. The president refused to wear it in public


President Trump defied Michigan’s mandatory face mask policy on Thursday and toured a Ford Motor factory with no covering


The navy blue mask has the seal of the president of the United States on it


President Trump was pictured holding up a plastic face covering


President Trump showed off the mask and said it ‘looked very nice’ when he had it on backstage




President Trump said it was his choice whether to wear the mask or not




Ford executives giving President Trump the tour wore face masks




President Trump carries a face mask crumbled in his hand during his factory tour


Michigan requires people to wear some type of face covering in public enclosed spaces thanks to an executive order signed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer at the end of April. There are no fines for violating the order but stores can refuse to serve those without the coverings.

‘Honestly, if he fails to wear a mask, he’s going to be asked not to return to any enclosed facility inside our state,’ Dana Nessel, a Democrat, told CNN.

Michigan requires people to wear some type of face covering in public enclosed spaces thanks to an executive order signed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer at the end of April. There are no fines for violating the order but stores can refuse to serve those without the coverings.

President Trump said he didn’t have to wear a mask because he’s been tested for the coronavirus and was tested again that morning. The mask prevents someone with the illness from transmitting it.

He did say the mask looked good on him when he wore it backstage.

‘It was very nice. It looked very nice,’ he said of his wearing the mask out of public view.

He said he didn’t wear one during the public portion of his factory tour – despite Michigan’s requirement – because ‘I was given a choice.’ The Ford Motor Company executives guiding him through the factory wore masks.

Bill Ford, the Executive Chairman of Ford Motor Company, who accompanied Trump on the tour, told the reporters traveling with Trump that it was the president’s ‘choice’ to wear a mask or not.

Asked if he should be wearing a mask to set an example, Trump said: ‘I think it sets an example both ways. As they say, I did have it on.’

During the visit, Trump touted his administration’s efforts to fight the coronavirus in the state.




President Trump nor his Chief of Staff Mark Meadows wore a mask but Housing Secretary Ben Carson and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner wore them


President Trump answered questions from the press during the factory tour


Ford Motor Company CEO Jim Hackett (left) speaks with President Donald Trump during the factory tour


President Trump did try on a plastic face shield during the tour, the face shields are made in the plant




The Rawsonville Components plant makes protective gear and ventilators to help battle the coronavirus


In his remarks, Trump told factory workers they were a ‘national treasure’


President Trump spoke among automobiles at the Rawsonville Components factory




Workers wear face masks when they listened to the president’s remarks

‘We have done a tremendous job in the state of Michigan, not only in terms of bringing autos back – auto productions – back but also in terms of fighting the virus,’ the president said at a roundtable with African American leaders on how the disease has infected disenfranchised communities.

The group was seated five feet apart at a long table in a closed off area of the Rawsonville Components Plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The area was closed off by blue drapes. Behind Trump was a backdrop that read ‘Transition to Greatness,’ the president’s new slogan.

‘You’ll notice at this table we are socially distance,’ Housing Secretary Ben Carson, who traveled with Trump to Michigan, pointed out.

Also at the event were Republican Senate candidate John James and State Representative Karen Whitsett. James wore a mask during the roundtable.

Trump touted Whitsett’s story after she appeared on Fox News to describe how she took hydroxychloroquine and was cured of COVID-19. She’s also met with the president at the White House during an event with people who survived the coronavirus.

Also at the event, Robin Barnes, a real estate agent, said hydroxychloroquine cured her when she had COVID-19.

She told Trump she heard him talking about the anti-malaria drug on television.

‘I was able to call my doctor and say listen hey let’s try this because, you know, this must be what’s going on,’ Barnes noted. She said got a prescription for it and the antibiotic azithromycin, also known as z-pack.

‘I took it at 9:30 in the morning. By four or five o’clock I was breathing good. So it works,’ she said.

‘Thank you for that,’ Trump told her.




State Representative Karen Whitsett joined President Trump at a roundtable meeting; Trump has touted her story of how taking hydroxychloroquine cured her of the coronavirus




Real estate agent Robin Barnes told President Trump she took hydroxychloroquine after seeing him talk about it on television and it cured her case of COVID-1

The president is taking hydroxychloroquine as a preventative measure against exposure to the coronavirus. He said he is finishing up his course of it this week.






Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel, a Democrat, said President Donald Trump will be told not to come back if he refuses to wear a face mask when he tours a Ford Motor plant




President Trump will visit a Ford Motor Company plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan, which has been recast to produce ventilators




Ford Motor Co., line workers put together ventilators that the automaker is assembling at its Rawsonville plant

During the roundtable, Trump offered his support to the state, which is suffering from heavy flooding in the north.

He did not address his previous threat to with hold federal funding after the Michigan secretary of state sent absentee ballot applications to all registered voters.

‘I’m not going to discuss that. There are so many forms of funding. What we want is good, straight, honest voting,’ he said.

Trump and other Republicans have claimed, without evidence, that mail in voting increases the chances for voter fraud. The president made that argument again on Thursday and explained why he, himself, votes absentee.

‘Now, if you’re president of the United States and if you vote in Florida, and you can’t be there, you should be able to send in a ballot. If you’re not well, you’re feeling terrible, you’re sick, you have a reasonable excuse – just a reasonable excuse – you should be able to vote by mail in,’ he said.

Trump has never been photographed wearing a face mask. He was not seen wearing a mask when he visited factories in Arizona and Pennsylvania over the past two weeks but he claimed he donned one for a few minutes backstage while at the Honeywell plant in Phoenix on May 5.

Ford has a policy that all visitors must wear personal protective equipment and originally indicated Trump would wear one. But the company later backed down and said the White House has its own protective procedures and will make its own determinations about whether masks will be worn.

Nessel threatened to take legal action against Ford Motors if the president doesn’t wear a face covering.

‘I know that Ford has asked him to do the same thing, but if we know that he’s coming to our state, and we know he’s not going to follow the law, I think we’re going to have to take action against any company or any facility that allows him inside those facilities and puts our workers at risk. We simply can’t afford it here in our state,’ she said.

‘We are just asking that President Trump comply with the law in our state, just as we would make the same request of anyone else in those plants,’ she added, pointing out that an agreement that allowed auto workers to return to the plant included a provision that everyone will wear a mask and observe social distancing policies.

She implored President Trump to think about the cost and work that would go into disinfecting the Rawsonville Components Plant after his visit.

‘We’re asking if President Trump doesn’t care about his own health, doesn’t care about the health and the safety of people who work in those facilities, at least care about the economic situation of, you know, costing these facilities so much money by having to close down and disinfect the plant after he leaves,’ she said.

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for Ford said the company shared its safety policy, which includes a requirement to wear masks, with the White House.

But the company backed down from saying Trump would be required to don a facial covering.

‘The White House has its own safety and testing policies in place and will make its own determination’ about whether Trump and White House officials will wear masks during the visit,’ a spokesperson said.

Trump said Tuesday he’d consider wearing a mask if the situation warranted it.

‘I don’t know, I haven’t even thought of it,’ Trump said. ‘It depends, in certain areas I would, in certain areas I don’t, but, I will certainly look at it. It depends on what situation. Am I standing right next to everybody, or am I spread out. Is something a hospital, is it a ward, what is it exactly? I’m going to a plant.’

‘So we’ll see,’ Trump said. ‘Where it’s appropriate, I would do it, certainly.’

Michigan has had more than 52,000 cases of the coronavirus and more than 5,000 deaths.

Nessel wrote an open letter to Trump on Wednesday, asking him to wear a face mask during his visit, arguing he has a ‘social and moral’ responsibility to do so.




Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive order requiring people to wear face masks in public enclosed places




Protestors chant on the steps of the state Capitol in Lansing




Don Richardson assembles a ventilator at the Ford Rawsonville plant that Trump will visit


Whitmer has instigated tough measures to try and combat the pandemic. In addition to the face covering policy, she instituted a stay-at-home requirement that remains in effect. Restrictions will start to ease in parts of the state on Friday.

Protesters, however, swarmed the state Capitol in Lansing to object to the shut down.

President Trump has cheered them on.

On Wednesday, the president argued the stay-at-home order should be lifted so residences can help out with flooding in the northern part of the state that has led to two burst dams and 10,000 people being evacuated.

‘We have sent our best Military & @FEMA Teams, already there. Governor must now ‘set you free’ to help. Will be with you soon!,’ he tweeted.

President Trump on Wednesday threatened to with hold unspecified federal funds from Michigan after the secretary of state sent absentee ballot applications to all registered voters.

The state is crucial to the president’s re-election effort. He won it by less than one point in the 2016 election.

Trump declined to specify on Wednesday what laws he said Michigan was breaking when Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson mailed out the applications. Republicans have argued without proof that mail-in ballots increase voter fraud. Democrats claim Republicans are against it because it benefits voting blocs that tend to vote Democratic.

‘Mail-in ballots are a very dangerous thing they’re they’re subject of massive fraud,’ Trump said at an event at the White House with the governors of Kansas and Arkansas.

Trump didn’t get specific on what kind of federal funds might be with held from the state. ‘You’ll be finding out that we finding out very soon if it’s necessary,’ he said. ‘I don’t think it’s going to be necessary.’

Whitmer called the threat ‘scary’ and ‘ridiculous’ given the heavy flooding in Midlands county.

‘We’ve got to evacuate tens of thousands of people who are worried and scared. On top of this global pandemic. And to have this kind of distraction is just ridiculous to be honest. It’s – threatening to take money away from a state that is hurting as bad as we are right now is just scary. And I think something that is unacceptable,’ Whitmer told CBS’ ‘This Morning’ on Thursday ahead of the president’s visit.




MAY 5: President Trump did not wear a mask to a Honeywell mask plant, but did wear protective safety goggles




MAY 14: The president also didn’t wear a mask nor gloves when he toured a medical supply company in Allentown, Pennsylvania


So far the president hasn’t been photographed wearing a face mask.

He told reporters that he put one on ‘backstage’ when visiting a Honeywell plant on May 5 in Arizona that was producing N95 masks to help deal with a nationwide PPE shortage due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump did not wear a mask when cameras were focused on him.

He did wear safety goggles.

He also didn’t wear a mask when touring a Allentown, Pennsylvania factory last week that was a distribution center for medical supplies and protective gear.

Source: dailymail US

SO MUCH FOR BEING HEROES
French healthcare workers fined at Paris hospital protest

AFP Protesters were calling for better conditions for healthcare workers

At least 50 healthcare workers were fined and three people arrested for a protest outside a hospital in Paris.

More than 400 doctors, nurses and ancillary staff wore scrubs and banged trays and pans to demand better funding for the hospital, which French media report is in financial difficulty.

The demonstrators were breaking social distancing rules, police have said.

Officers demanded that the protesters disperse, and gave those who refused a €135 ($150; £120) on-the-spot fine.

Protesters called for pay rises, and demanded reforms for better working conditions for healthcare workers.

Footage posted on social media shows large crowds banging on the doors of the hospital, while waving banners of support.
Skip Twitter post by @izpho

Beaucoup de monde pour soutenir le personnel hospitalier de l’hôpital Robert Debre à Paris pic.twitter.com/e5FQ7ATsCm— Nabil Izdar. (@izpho) May 21, 2020
Report
End of Twitter post by @izpho

Robert Debré Hospital, in the north of the city, was already having financial problems before the coronavirus outbreak, local news outlet France Info reports.

However, the epidemic has further exposed the hospital's funding issues.

In speeches delivered at the protest, healthcare workers described being overworked, while describing their fear of catching and transmitting the virus themselves, another outlet France Bleu reports.

France started easing its lockdown earlier this month, with shops and primary schools reopening. However, Paris remains under tight controls.

Pollution: Birds 'ingesting hundreds of bits of plastic a day'
By Helen Briggs BBC Environment correspondent

CHARLES TYLER

The dipper feeds on river insects

Birds living on river banks are ingesting plastic at the rate of hundreds of tiny fragments a day, according to a new study.

Scientists say this is the first clear evidence that plastic pollutants in rivers are finding their way into wildlife and moving up the food chain.

Pieces of plastic 5mm or smaller (microplastics), including polyester, polypropylene and nylon, are known to pollute rivers.

The impacts on wildlife are unclear.

Researchers at Cardiff University looked at plastic pollutants found in a bird known as a dipper, which wades or dives into rivers in search of underwater insects.

"These iconic birds, the dippers, are ingesting hundreds of pieces of plastic every day," said Prof Steve Ormerod of Cardiff University's Water Research Institute. "They're also feeding this material to their chicks."

Previous research has shown that half of the insects in the rivers of south Wales contain microplastic fragments.

"The fact that so many river insects are contaminated makes it inevitable that fish, birds and other predators will pick up these polluted prey - but this is the first time that this type of transfer through food webs has been shown clearly in free-living river animals," said co-researcher Dr Joseph D'Souza.

Plastic also accumulates in animals on beaches like this lugworm

The research team examined droppings and regurgitated pellets from dippers living near rivers running from the Brecon Beacons down to the Severn Estuary.

They found microplastic fragments in roughly half of 166 samples taken from adults and nestlings, at 14 of 15 sites studied, with the greatest concentrations in urban locations. Most were fibres from textiles or building materials.

Calculations suggest dippers are ingesting around 200 tiny fragments of plastic a day from the insects they consume.

Previous studies have shown that microplastics are present even in the depths of the ocean and are ending up in the bodies of living organisms, from seals to crabs to seabirds.

Rivers are a major route between land and sea for microplastics such as synthetic clothing fibres, tyre dust and other fragmenting plastic waste.

The research, published in the journal Global Change Biology, was carried out in collaboration with the Greenpeace Research Laboratories at the University of Exeter.


SEE 
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/05/long-read-africas-exploding-plastic.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/05/microplastic-pollution-in-oceans-vastly.html

Calls to US poison control centres jump during

pandemic

More than 3,600 cases of disinfectant exposure were reported in April to the US poison control centres compared to 1,676 in February.

Experts warn against using cleaning products beyond their intended use, such as wiping down groceries.

Dr Kelly Johnson-Arbor from the National Capital Poison Center said there was no medical reason to be "drinking or bathing in disinfectants".

In April, President Trump seemed to suggest injecting bleach as way of "cleaning" Covid-19 from the inside but appeared to recant the following day, telling journalists: "I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen."

21 May 2020