Acidification impedes shell development of plankton off the US West Coast

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IMAGE: THIS CLOSE-UP IMAGE OF TWO PTEROPODS OF THE SPECIES LIMACINA HELICINA PROVIDES A SENSE OF HOW FRAGILE THE CARBONATE SHELLS OF THE TINY SEA SNAILS ARE. view more 

CREDIT: CREDIT: NOAA OCEAN ACIDIFICATION PROGRAM

Shelled pteropods, microscopic free-swimming sea snails, are widely regarded as indicators for ocean acidification because research has shown that their fragile shells are vulnerable to increasing ocean acidity. 

A new study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, shows that pteropods sampled off the coasts of Washington and Oregon made thinner shells than those in offshore waters. Along the coast, upwelling from deeper water layers brings cold, carbon dioxide-rich waters of relatively low pH to the surface. The research, by a team of Dutch and American scientists, found that the shells of pteropods collected in this upwelling region were 37 percent thinner than ones collected offshore.

Sometimes called sea butterflies because of how they appear to flap their "wings" as they swim through the water column, fat-rich pteropods are an important food source for organisms ranging from other plankton to juvenile salmon to whales. They make shells by fixing calcium carbonate in ocean water to form an exoskeleton. 

 "It appears that pteropods make thinner shells where upwelling brings water that is colder and lower in pH to the surface, " said lead author Lisette Mekkes of Naturalis Biodiversity Centers and the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Mekkes added that while some shells also showed signs of dissolution, the change in shell thickness was particularly pronounced, demonstrating that acidified water interfered with pteropods' ability to build their shells. 

The scientists examined shells of pteropods collected during the 2016 NOAA Ocean Acidification Program research cruise in the northern California Current Ecosystem onboard the NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown. Shell thicknesses of 80 of the tiny creatures - no larger than the head of a pin - were analyzed using 3D scans provided by micron-scale computer tomography, a high-resolution X-ray technique. The scientists also examined the shells with a scanning electron microscope to assess if thinner shells were a result of dissolution. They also used DNA analysis to make sure the examined specimens belonged to a single population.  

 "Pteropod shells protect against predation and infection, but making thinner shells could also be an adaptive or acclimation strategy," said  Katja Peijnenburg,  group leader at Naturalis Biodiversity Center. "However, an important question is  how long can pteropods continue making thinner shells in rapidly acidifying waters?"

The California Current Ecosystem along the West Coast is especially vulnerable to ocean acidification because it not only absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but is also bathed by seasonal upwelling of carbon-dioxide rich waters from the deep ocean. In recent years these waters have grown increasingly corrosive as a result of the increasing amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide absorbed into the ocean. 

"Our research shows that within two to three months, pteropods transported by currents from the open-ocean to more corrosive nearshore waters have difficulty building their shells," said Nina Bednarsek, a research scientist from the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project in Costa Mesa, California, a coauthor of the study. 

Over the last two-and-a-half centuries, scientists say, the global ocean has absorbed approximately 620 billion tons of carbon dioxide from emissions released into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, changes in land-use, and cement production, resulting in a process called ocean acidification.

"The new research provides the foundation for understanding how pteropods and other microscopic organisms are actively affected by progressing ocean acidification and how these changes can impact the global carbon cycle and ecological communities," said Richard Feely, NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and chief scientist for the cruise.

CAPTION

This image depicts the difference in thickness between two specimens of the pteropod Limacina helicina, one collected in more acidified coastal waters, the other collected off shore, that were analyzed as part of a new study published in Science Reports.

CREDIT

Courtesy of Lisette Mekkes, Naturalis Biodiversity Center; used with permission.

This research was supported by NOAA's Ocean Acidification Program. 

Watch this video to get a sense of how fragile and tiny these creatures are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1-4gGTk3OM&feature=emb_logo

For more information, contact Theo Stein, NOAA Communications, at the

Canadian researchers create new form of cultivated meat

Layered sheets of cells stack up to slabs of lab-made meat

MCMASTER UNIVERSITY


IMAGE: A SAMPLE OF MEAT CULTIVATED BY RESEARCHERS AT CANADA'S MCMASTER UNIVERSITY, USING CELLS FROM MICE. view more

CREDIT: MCMASTER UNIVERSITY

HAMILTON, ON, Jan. 19, 2021 -- McMaster researchers have developed a new form of cultivated meat using a method that promises more natural flavour and texture than other alternatives to traditional meat from animals.

Researchers Ravi Selvaganapathy and Alireza Shahin-Shamsabadi, both of the university's School of Biomedical Engineering, have devised a way to make meat by stacking thin sheets of cultivated muscle and fat cells grown together in a lab setting. The technique is adapted from a method used to grow tissue for human transplants.

The sheets of living cells, each about the thickness of a sheet of printer paper, are first grown in culture and then concentrated on growth plates before being peeled off and stacked or folded together. The sheets naturally bond to one another before the cells die.

The layers can be stacked into a solid piece of any thickness, Selvaganapathy says, and "tuned" to replicate the fat content and marbling of any cut of meat - an advantage over other alternatives.

"We are creating slabs of meat," he says. "Consumers will be able to buy meat with whatever percentage of fat they like - just like they do with milk."

As they describe in the journal Cells Tissues Organs, the researchers proved the concept by making meat from available lines of mouse cells. Though they did not eat the mouse meat described in the research paper, they later made and cooked a sample of meat they created from rabbit cells.

"It felt and tasted just like meat," says Selvaganapathy.

There is no reason to think the same technology would not work for growing beef, pork or chicken, and the model would lend itself well to large-scale production, Selvaganapathy says.

The researchers were inspired by the meat-supply crisis in which worldwide demand is growing while current meat consumption is straining land and water resources and generating troubling levels of greenhouse gases.

"Meat production right now is not sustainable," Selvaganapathy says. "There has to be an alternative way of creating meat."

Producing viable meat without raising and harvesting animals would be far more sustainable, more sanitary and far less wasteful, the researchers point out. While other forms of cultured meat have previously been developed, the McMaster researchers believe theirs has the best potential for creating products consumers will accept, enjoy and afford.

The researchers have formed a start-up company to begin commercializing the technology.

Tunisia seeks to stem wave of night-time street riots

Defying movement restrictions aimed at reining in spiralling novel coronavirus infections, students and activists have flocked to a key boulevard in Tunis, shouting slogans against poverty, corruption and police repression.  

Tunisian protesters raise their fists as they chant during an anti-government demonstration on the Habib Bourguiba avenue in the capital Tunis, January 19, 2021. (AFP)

Tunisia has seen angry daytime protests against the government, following four nights of confrontations between police and disaffected youths that has led to hundreds of arrests.

Defying movement restrictions on Tuesday, aimed at reining in spiralling novel coronavirus infections, students and activists flocked to a key boulevard in Tunis, shouting slogans against poverty, corruption and police repression.

"There's despair everywhere. The virus comes on top of poverty and unemployment. Ten years (since the revolution), our demands still haven't been met," said Donia Mejri, a 21-year-old student.

Protests in Tunis and the coastal city of Sfax, organised via social media, came after nights of rioting with young people lobbing rocks at police in exchange for teargas, and more than 600 people arrested by Monday.

"The crisis is real and the anger is legitimate and so are the protests, but the violence is unacceptable and we will confront it with the force of law," Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi said in a televised speech on Tuesday night, after protests appeared to have died down.

READ MORE: Young Tunisians clash with police on fourth consecutive night

Tunisian security officers detain a protester during an anti-government demonstration on the Habib Bourguiba avenue in the capital Tunis, on January 19, 2021. (AFP)

Much of the unrest has hit working class neighbourhoods, where anger is boiling over soaring unemployment and a political class accused of having failed to deliver good governance a decade on from the 2011 revolution.

President Kais Saied urged young Tunisians to refrain from further violence even as social media posts called for new rallies.

"Do not attack or insult anyone and do not damage private property or state institutions," he said on Monday, warning that "chaos" does not allow progress.

'We want our rights'

But Ghazi Tayari, a civil society activist in Sfax, said the daytime protesters had "no desire to destroy or steal".

"We want our rights, and we won't stop until this government falls," he said.

Tunisia's tourism-reliant economy shrank by nine percent last year, consumer prices have spiralled and one third of young people are unemployed.

Tunisia often sees protests in January, a month of several key anniversaries including former president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali's fall from power on January 14, 2011.

Large gatherings are banned due to the coronavirus pandemic and police have been deployed, with an overnight curfew extended from 8:00 pm to 4:00 pm.

READ MORE: Tunisia arrests hundreds as riots continue across the country

A Tunisian protester lifts a loaf of bread as security officers confront demonstrators during an anti-government rally on the Habib Bourguiba avenue in the capital Tunis, on January 19, 2021. (AFP)

'Denial of the anger'

Tunisia's divided political leadership has stayed largely silent on the protests by youths dismissed by many commentators as "delinquents".

Messages posted online on Tuesday called for protests to keep going, and activists warned demonstrations were likely to continue until major action was taken to address the root cause of anger.

"There is a denial and an underestimation of the anger among young people," said Olfa Lamloum, who heads the International Alert peace-building campaign group.

Tunisia's 11 successive governments since the ousting of Ben Ali "have not had a strategy to answer the central question of employment", she said.

Lamloum, who works in some of the most deprived areas of the country, warned that "as long as there is a purely security response, with mass arrests, and no social or political response, tensions will remain high".

The social unrest comes at a time of economic crisis, worsened by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, that has deepened poverty.

Widespread popular discontent is now driving many to leave.

Tunisians made up the largest number of irregular migrants, more than 12,000, who arrived in Italy last year on boats crossing the Mediterranean.

Clashes in towns

In the latest unrest, hundreds of youths in the capital battled police in several districts, including the vast Ettadhamen suburb.

In Sfax, the second largest city, protesters blockaded roads with burning tyres, an AFP correspondent reported.

Clashes were also reported in the towns of Gafsa, Le Kef, Bizerte, Kasserine, Sousse and Monastir.

The powerful Tunisian trade union confederation UGTT has called for an end to the violence, while noting that the constitution guarantees the right to demonstrate.

READ MORE: Ten years since Bouazizi’s fatal act of defiance, where does Tunisia stand?

Shepard Smith Calls Out Former Fox News Colleagues: 'I Don't Know How Some People Sleep at Night' (Video)

© TheWrap Shepard Smith

Shepard Smith is striking back. In a new interview with PBS News, the former Fox News host revealed exactly why he left his long-standing post at the network and blasted the network and fellow colleagues for spreading "mis- and dis-information."

In an interview set to air Tuesday night, Smith admitted to host Christine Amanpour that "I stuck with it as long as I could" in an attempt to uphold a responsibility to set the record straight on what the network chose to broadcast to its viewers.

"If you feel like the Fox viewers were getting mis- or dis-information, I was there to make sure that they got it straight," Smith explained. "There were a lot of others in there who I thought were trying to do the same thing. But I thought to just abandon it, and to deprive those viewers of — it wasn't just me, there was an entire team of people getting the news on the air — to deny them that, with the thought that they might replace it with opinion instead, seemed a little selfish. So I stuck with it as long as I could. And at some point, I realized I reached the point of diminishing returns and I left."

Prior to leaving Fox News in 2019 for a new show on CNBC, Smith had been a prominent fixture at the network — and a long-standing one at that, having joined in 1996.

Also read: Shepard Smith to Join CNBC As Host of Evening News Program

The important question is: does this interview actually redeem Shep Smith in any way? Well, kind of. He did mention in the interview that he was "proud" of the journalistic work that he did and that he basically kept his blinders on so he could try to deliver the real news amidst all the twisted propaganda.

But perhaps more of a reason to consider redeeming the former Fox anchor is his pointed comment at his former colleagues that comes near the end of the clip. "I slept very well," he told Amanpour. "I don't know how some people sleep at night. Because I know there are a lot of people who propagated the lies and have pushed them forward over and over again, who are smart enough and educated enough to know better."

Steve Bannon, Accused of Defrauding Trump Supporters, Gets One of Trump's Last-Minute Pardons

© TheWrap Donald Trump pardons Steve Bannon Lil Wayne Kodak Black

Donald Trump used the final hours of his presidency to issue pardons and commutations, which included a large number of people who have been the subjects of criminal justice reform efforts. But the list also included well-connected politicians convicted of corruption and a few high-profile friends including his former chief strategist Steve Bannon.

And, as it happens, rappers Lil' Wayne and Kodak Black.

Bannon's pardon comes before he has even seen a day in court. He was arrested in August and charged in connection to his We Build the Wall campaign, which purported to raise funds to help build a wall along the border with Mexico. But federal prosecutors contend that the effort was a way to bilk credulous Trump supporters of their savings, and that Bannon and three accomplices pocketed most of the money for themselves. Each charge could have sent him to prison for 20 years.

In a statement Tuesday night, the White House announced that Trump pardoned 73 people and commuted sentences for 70 more. Bannon and Lil' Wayne (real name Dwayne Michael Carter Jr.) for example were both pardoned and Kodak Black (real name Bill K. Kapri) had his prison sentence commuted. But notably missing from the list were people close to Trump's inner circle, such as his son-in-law Jared Kushner's father, who were rumored to be under consideration. Also missing: "Tiger King" subject Joe Exotic.

It isn't known if more pardons and commutations will happen before Trump's term ends at noon on Wednesday.

Among other clemency recipients: Republican fundraiser Elliot Broidy, who pled guilty last year to acting as an unregistered foreign agent and collecting millions to lobby Trump, received a full pardon; former Democratic Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who has been in prison for 7 years after being convicted of bribery and racketeering while in office, had his sentence commuted; and Randall "Duke" Cunningham, a former California Republican congressman who served 8 years in prison for taking bribes, received a conditional pardon.

Elliot Broidy/ ABC
Read the rest of the list here.

Also read: Donald Trump's Last Speech as President Is 19 Minutes of Self-Congratulation (Video)


Bannon has pled not guilty and denies the charges; many people have pointed out that during a 2019 "Wall-a-Thon" fundraiser for We Build the Wall, Bannon joked about stealing the money, saying in the clip "We're off the coast of St. Tropez in southern France in the Mediterranean. We're on the million-dollar yacht of Brian Kolfage. Brian Kolfage, he took all that money from Build the Wall."

According to the New York Times, which broke the news of Bannon's pardon, Trump intended it as "a preemptive move that would effectively wipe away the charges against Mr. Bannon, should he be convicted."

Also read: SAG-AFTRA Board Moves to Expel Donald Trump





As the CEO of right-wing website Breitbart, Bannon emerged as a key Trump supporter in 2015 and in 2016 he joined Trump's presidential campaign as chief executive officer. After Trump's electoral college victory, he joined the administration as Trump's chief strategist and Senior Counselor to the President serving until August, 2017 when the white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, held in August 2017, erupted into violence.

Bannon became the focus of particularly heavy criticism for his perceived role in how the White House handled the situation, and was fired less than a week later as part of the administration's damage control efforts. Bannon maintains he resigned, however, and had always intended to do so. Interestingly, Bannon and Trump had a very public falling out 5 months later when in early 2018 he was quoted criticizing Trump and members of Trump's inner circle in Michael Wolff's book "Fire and Fury." All is clearly forgiven now, however.

Over 16,000 Christians Want Franklin Graham Fired for 'Helping Incite' Capitol Riot


More than 16,000 Christians have signed a petition calling for evangelical leader Franklin Graham to be fired as the head of Samaritan's Purse and his father's namesake non-profit Billy Graham Evangelistic Association after he endorsed President Donald Trump's conspiracy theories that the election was "rigged or stolen."

© Drew Angerer/Getty Thousands of Christians have signed a petition calling on Samaritan's Purse and BGEA to fire Franklin Graham, son of the late evangelical Christian leader Billy Graham. In this photo, Franklin Graham pre-records his invocation to the Republican National Convention at the Mellon Auditorium on August 27 in Washington, D.C.

Graham said in December that he believed Trump when he said that the election was "rigged or stolen." Graham later tweeted his support for Republican lawmakers planning to object to the certification of President-elect Joe Biden's win in multiple battleground states. The petition argues that Graham's support of Trump's false claims helped to incite the mob of the president's rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol while Congress convened to count the Electoral Votes on January 6.

"As long as Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association stand by Franklin Graham, it must be said that these once-vaunted organizations have forgotten their original Christian missions, abandoned the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and are complicit in the spread of dishonest, discredited election conspiracy theories and the deadly, unpatriotic, white-nationalist terrorism at the U.S. Capitol incited by those lies," the petition launched by Faithful America says.

"Our faith in Jesus Christ demands that we do better than this. Your fellow Christians from across the country call on you to fire Franklin Graham, or to resign from the Board in individual protest," the signatories add. The petition will be sent to board members of both organizations.

Faithful America describes itself as the nation's largest online community of Christians organizing for social justice. The organization, backed by thousands of supporters, previously called on Samaritan's Purse to remove Graham as its CEO after he prayed at the Republican National Convention in late August of last year.

"The petition is in response to Graham's discredited and incendiary claim that the 2020 election 'was rigged or stolen,' the type of misinformation rhetoric that inspired the failed coup of January 6 and likely contributed to the presence of signs like 'Jesus 2020' and 'Trump is my savior, Jesus is my president' at the preceding 'Stop the Steal' rally," Nathan Empsall, Faithful America's campaigns director, wrote in a Tuesday email to Newsweek.

Newsweek reached out to Samaritan's Purse, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Graham for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Samaritan's Purse was founded in 1970 and provides disaster, medical and other humanitarian relief in countries around the world. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was founded in 1950 by Graham's father, the legendary American evangelist Billy Graham, who died in 2018. Graham serves as both organizations' president and CEO.

White evangelical Christians were a key base of support backing Trump in the 2016 presidential election and throughout his tenure in the White House. Exit polls from the 2016 presidential election showed that about eight in 10 white evangelicals voted for Trump. In 2020, the results were similar, with exit polls showing somewhere between 76 and 81 percent of white evangelicals supporting a second Trump term.

Although the president and many of his supporters continue to claim the election was stolen by Biden, there is no evidence to support this extraordinary allegation. More than 50 lawsuits contesting the election results brought by Trump and his supporters have failed in state and federal courts. Even judges appointed by Trump and other Republicans have emphasized in their rulings that lawyers did not provide evidence to support the claims of widespread voter fraud.

In November, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at the Department of Homeland Security, which was led by a Trump appointee, asserted that "there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised." The federal agency described the 2020 election as "the most secure in American history."

Former Attorney General William Barr, who was widely viewed as one of Trump's most loyal and effective Cabinet members, said in early December that there was "no evidence" of fraud that would change the election outcomes. Recounts and audits—including hand recounts—have verified the results in multiple battleground states disputed by Trump.

Trump became the first president in U.S. history to be impeached a second time last Wednesday for his role in inciting the January 6 insurrection against the U.S. Capitol. Ten Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump alongside their Democratic colleagues, while a number of other Republican lawmakers condemned the president's actions and said he should be held accountable.

Graham condemned the Republican members of Congress who voted to impeach a president of their own political party. The prominent evangelical compared them to Judas, the Biblical disciple who betrayed Jesus ahead of his execution.

"Shame, shame on the ten Republicans who joined with Speaker Pelosi & the House Democrats in impeaching President Trump yesterday. After all that he has done for our country, you would turn your back & betray him so quickly?" Graham wrote in a Facebook post.

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CANADA

Tory caucus to meet Wednesday to determine fate of MP Derek Sloan: sources

© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick 

Conservative MP Derek Sloan arrives to a meeting in Ottawa on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2020.

The Conservative Party of Canada's caucus will be holding a vote on Wednesday to decide whether to remove MP Derek Sloan, sources say.

The party's leader, Erin O'Toole, had called for his removal on Monday, after a report from Press Progress surfaced revealing the member of parliament for Hastings–Lennox and Addington accepted at $131 donation from a man who has been described as a neo-Nazi.

Read more: O’Toole seeks to boot MP Derek Sloan from Conservative caucus over donation

A Conservative source told Global News many members of caucus are frustrated that Sloan doesn't act like a member of the team, and does not show any remorse or understanding about the effects his behaviour has on his colleagues.

Wednesday's vote will be about the cumulative effect of Sloan's behaviour, not just about the issue of the donation, the source said.

Another source confirmed to Global News the meeting will take place at 11 a.m. ET.

However, in an interview on Tuesday, Sloan dismissed the calls for his removal as “trumped-up charges.”

“This is infighting and it's not good for the future of conservatism in Canada,” he said.

Sloan also maintained that he did not know of the donation from Paul Fromm before Monday, adding that he condemns racism and hatred.

“I don't know much about Paul Fromm,” he said. “I understand that he's affiliated with racist groups. I condemn that, I condemn racism. I condemn hatred.”

“That's certainly something I'm proud to say.”

Video: MP Derek Sloan says he condemns racism, hatred after donation scandal

Sloan said his leadership campaign team did not have the manpower to conduct background checks on each individual donation, saying they received over 13,000 individual donations.

Earlier on Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was "pleased" with O'Toole's move to begin the process of removing Sloan.

“The Liberal Party has been calling for Erin O’Toole to remove Derek Sloan from caucus for many, many months now following a number of unacceptable comments that he has made,” Trudeau said.

“We are pleased that Erin O’Toole has finally decided to take leadership and we’ll see how that unfolds.”

On Monday, O'Toole issued a statement calling Sloan's acceptance of the donation "far worse than a gross error of judgment or failure of due diligence."

The leader said he had initiated the process to remove Sloan under the Reform Act, and would bar him from running as a candidate for the party.

Read more: O’Toole seeks to boot MP Derek Sloan from Conservative caucus over donation

"Racism is a disease of the soul, repugnant to our core values." he said in the statement.

"It has no place in our country. It has no place in the Conservative Party of Canada. I won't tolerate it."

However, in a statement Monday evening, Sloan claimed Fromm had applied and was accepted as a member of the party last summer amid the party's leadership race.

He said this means scrutineers for the campaigns of O'Toole, Peter MacKay and Leslyn Lewis also overlooked Fromm's application.

“Therefore the Party, and the O’Toole campaign, failed to uphold the same standards to which they are now applying to me,” he said.

But, in an email to Global News, a spokesperson from the Conservative Party said it was Sloan’s campaign that sold Fromm a party membership in May.

“Mr. Sloan’s campaign accepted the donation from this individual in August,” the email read. “We are revoking this membership. We are remitting the funds.”

A majority vote of the party caucus would be required to remove Sloan.

It was not immediately clear how members planned on voting, though at least one has publicly called for his ouster.

In a tweet on Monday, MP Eric Duncan said he has "had enough too."

"There is no room for this garbage in our Party," he wrote. "Good riddance."

Trudeau ‘pleased’ Erin O’Toole removing Derek Sloan from Conservative caucus

Former Conservative MP John Baird also shared his thoughts on Twitter, saying he has "worked well with many social conservatives in our party over the years."

"They are welcome in our party, but Derek Sloan’s behaviour is not. I am fully supportive of @erinotoole's strong leadership," he wrote.

Sloan, meanwhile, has said he has heard from some members of the party who have offered their support.

“I don’t want to highlight anybody in particular, but you know, I think many people that I’ve spoken to, frankly, understand that this can happen to anyone,” he said.

This is not the first time members of the party have called for Sloan to be removed from caucus.

Last year he faced calls for removal after he questioned whether Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa was working for China amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

However, Sloan insisted he was not questioning Tam’s loyalty to Canada, and ultimately remained in the party’s caucus.

— With files from Global News' Amanda Connolly

Keystone XL pipeline: Biden administration to rescind permit on Wednesday, sources say

By Dan Merica and Gregory Krieg, CNN 

President-elect Joe Biden's incoming administration plans to rescind the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline on his first day in office, two sources familiar with the decision tell CNN, delivering a win to an array of progressive organization and rolling back one of President Donald Trump's earliest moves.

© Andrew Burton/Getty Images Miles of unused pipe, prepared for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, sit in a lot on October 14, 2014 outside Gascoyne, North Dakota.

The decision was not included in a memo from incoming Biden chief of staff Ron Klain released on Saturday, but sources familiar with the move tell CNN that the Biden team intends to make the executive order one of the President-elect's first climate crisis actions.

The pipeline has long been a political hot button and Trump made it a political issue during the 2016 general election. The Keystone pipeline system current stretches more than 2,600 miles, carrying crude from Alberta, Canada, through Manitoba, Canada, and down into Texas. The Keystone XL portion, which has been protested and opposed by numerous indigenous groups, would run from Alberta to Nebraska and cut through Montana and North Dakota.

The Supreme Court delivered a substantial blow to the project in 2020 when it cleared the way for several pipeline projects to be receive fast-tracked permits, but excluded the Keystone XL pipeline from that order.

The decision on put a block on the cross-border pipeline was first reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, citing a presentation that included "Rescind Keystone XL pipeline permit" in the list of environmental executive actions Biden would take on his first day.

The Biden transition declined to comment on the plans. A source familiar with the decision, however, said that the presentation reported by the CBC was weeks old.

Trump signed executive actions at the outset of his administration that approved the Keystone XL pipeline, dispensing with plans from the Obama era to block construction.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday authorized the declassification of a set of documents connected to the investigation of his 2016 campaign’s contacts with Russia.

© Alex Brandon/AP Photo President Donald Trump gestures as he boards Air Force One last week in Harlingen, Texas.

Trump has long declared his intention to make public more of the sensitive materials underlying the probe, which he has maligned as a “witch hunt,” despite findings that his campaign sought and relied upon materials obtained by Russia to aid his campaign against Hillary Clinton.

Trump has spent his final weeks in office seeking to erase any vestiges of the investigation, pardoning key figures such as George Papadopoulos, the 2016 campaign aide whose interactions with a Russia-linked professor helped ignite the probe, known as Crossfire Hurricane.

It’s unclear which documents Trump has ordered declassified less than 24 hours before he leaves office. He cited the decision as based on the results of a Dec. 30 review he asked the Justice Department to perform. The department presented him with a “binder of materials” that remain classified, he said in a memorandum issued on Tuesday. Trump said he then asked for the documents to be declassified to “the maximum extent possible.”

The FBI responded that it believed that all of the materials should remain classified, but that some were particularly crucial and should at least be redacted.

“I have determined to accept the redactions proposed for continued classification by the FBI in that January 17 submission,” Trump said in his memo. “I hereby declassify the remaining materials in the binder. This is my final determination under the declassification review and I have directed the Attorney General to implement the redactions proposed in the FBI’s January 17 submission and return to the White House an appropriately redacted copy.”

It’s unclear when the newly declassified documents will become public. But Trump’s decision represents a sharp walkback from two previous assertions that he would declassify every document related to the probe, a longtime demand of his political allies, who have amplified his denigration of the investigation.

A war on ‘domestic terrorism’ would be a disaster for US minorities



WAQAS MIRZA
11 JAN 2021

In the aftermath of the Capitol Hill riot, empowering the national security state to wage a war on ‘domestic terror’ is likely to result in marginalised communities being disproportionately targeted.

As denunciations of the storming of Capitol Hill continue to pour in, the political consensus is seamlessly settling into labeling the act as “domestic terrorism.”

Joe Biden condemned the mob as “insurrectionists” and “domestic terrorists”. The soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, and even ‘Squad’ member Ayanna Pressley joined the chorus. Seemingly oblivious to his own role in contributing to the bungled putsch, Republican Senator Ted Cruz also called the attack “a despicable act of terrorism.”

As of today, at least 25 domestic terrorism cases have been opened in connection with the January 6 violence, according to US Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy.

While the the violence in Washington DC may or may not meet one of the many formal definitions of terrorism in the US, there has been a concerted effort among many Democrats to label the act as such and enact new legislation that would make it easier to prosecute the perpetrators.

This push for new legislation and more funding for law enforcement agencies comes amidst a growing recognition among Democrats that the far-right, among them many white supremacist and ethnonationalist groups, comprise a significant portion of Trump’s base and have increasingly turned to violence to seek their objectives.

In November 2020, for example, a working group advising the incoming Biden administration urged the President-elect “to create a White House post overseeing the fight against ideologically inspired violent extremists and increasing funding to combat them.” After the violence on Capitol Hill, according to the Wall Street Journal, Joe Biden “plans to make a priority of passing a law against domestic terrorism.”

In Congress, too, there is talk of domestic terrorism. A letter signed by Democratic leaders of five House committees asked the FBI Director Christopher Wray to “leverage all available assets and resources” to ensure the perpetrators of the domestic terrorist attack were brought to justice.

Empowering a bloated security state

While the renewed focus on the far-right is understandable given the violence in DC, the reinforcement of the “terrorism” framework raises critical questions regarding the threat to civil liberties and racial and religious minorities that it continues to pose.

The ACLU opposed House Resolution 4192 on those grounds, calling it “unnecessary” as “the offenses it creates largely duplicate existing crimes” as well as “harmful because it expands authorities that law enforcement has abused to target marginalized communities.”

Consider, for example, the No Fly List, a secret government list based on unknown criteria that comprises tens of thousands of individuals prohibited from boarding a plane. It has long been evident that the list is discriminatory, disproportionately targeting Muslims, based on a highly arbitrary criteria without any transparency, and once included a 4-year old child. The list contained only sixteen names on September 11, 2001 but has since bloated to include more than 81,000 names.

Expanding the list to to include the perpetrators of the Capitol Hill attack, as chairman of the Democratic House Committee on Homeland Security recently called for, will not change the arbitrary and secretive basis for punitive state action that the list represents.

Similarly, the vast surveillance apparatus propped up to target American Muslims and the mass surveillance programs established by the National Security Agency, will continue to be detrimental to free speech and political organising when broadened to include even more communities or infused with additional resources and funding.

The demand for a more expansive application of the “terrorism” designation is explicitly a call for more punitive measures, which have been previously been pursued in an arbitrary and discriminatory way and without transparency or hope for redress. It further empowers and expands the national security state, contributing to bloated budgets for law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and border patrol, which disproportionately target Muslims and other people of colour in any case.

It is a call for far more widespread surveillance powers being granted to agencies which have a proven record of abusing those powers. It leads even more to legal innovations which continue to constrict the many rights and civil liberties which have already become strained during the war on terror.

This demand is also predicated on the mistaken belief that there can, somehow, be an objective definition of terrorism which would capture perpetrators of ideologically-motivated violence regardless of race, religion, or political use.

The infinite malleability of terrorism

Terrorism, however, is an infinitely malleable category. Even if an objective application was possible, law enforcement and intelligence agencies enjoy wide discretion in deciding who to surveil, investigate, and prosecute.

Given their history, it is not difficult to guess which populations they would target.

This is not mere speculation. The authority granted to local police forces and the FBI to combat the terrorist threat has routinely been used to target innocent individuals as well as non-violent protests and social movements.

The “unnecessarily and dangerously militarized” police force for example, which has been present in full force to crush the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests from 2016 onwards, was the product of the Department of Defense’s 1033 Program. While the program pre-dates 9/11, it was ramped up in response to the war on terror.

The FBI’s identification of a spurious “Black Identity Extremist” threat in 2017 also follows the precedents of the war on terror. It echoes the category of “pre-crime,” established to identify terrorist threats before they materialise through specious theories of radicalisation -- dutifully provided by a cottage industry of terrorism experts -- which would feed the preventive prosecution of individuals who had never committed a crime.

Activists from BLM, Occupy, and indigenous rights movements have repeatedly found themselves at the crosshairs of local and federal agencies, empowered by the funding, resources, and broad authority granted to them under the aegis of the war on terror. Innocent Muslims have also remained a primary target.

As the visibility and threat posted by far-right groups continues to grow, it will be increasingly tempting to reinforce the framework of the war on terror and increase law enforcement and intelligence agencies’ funding and authority to suppress its growth.

An expansion of the national security state and further entrenchment of its authoritarian elements, however, would only result in the continuing repression of already marginalised communities.

Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints and editorial policies of TRT World.

AUTHOR
Waqas Mirza @waqasahmi is a writer and activist based in Massachusetts. His work focuses on US foreign policy, War on Terror, Islamophobia, surveillance, policing and development.