Amnesty report describes Axum massacre in Ethiopia’s Tigray
By CARA ANNAtoday


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FILE - In this Monday, Nov. 4, 2013 file photo, the Church of St. Mary of Zion in Axum, in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. A new Amnesty International report issued Friday, Feb. 26, 2021 says soldiers from Eritrea systematically killed "many hundreds" of people, the large majority men, in a massacre in late November 2020 in the Ethiopian city of Axum. (AP Photo/File)

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Soldiers from Eritrea systematically killed “many hundreds” of people, the large majority men, in a massacre late November in the Ethiopian city of Axum in the Tigray region, Amnesty International said Friday. The new report echoed the findings of an Associated Press story last week and cited more than 40 witnesses.

As pressure on Ethiopia increased over what might be the deadliest massacre of the Tigray conflict, the prime minister’s office announced that “humanitarian agencies have now been provided unfettered access to aid in the region.” It added that the government “welcomes international technical assistance to undertake the investigations (into alleged abuses) as well as invites the potential to collaborate on joint investigations.”

And yet the government alleged the Amnesty report relied on “scanty information,” and said the human rights group should have visited the Tigray region. Amnesty said it requested permission from the government in December and never received a response.

“As you know, no independent human rights monitors have been allowed in the region since the conflict began,” spokesman Conor Fortune said in an email to the AP.

Crucially, the head of the government-established Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, Daniel Bekele, says the Amnesty findings “should be taken very seriously.” The commission’s own preliminary findings “indicate the killing of an as yet unknown number of civilians by Eritrean soldiers” in Axum, its statement said.

The Amnesty report describes the soldiers gunning down civilians as they fled, lining up men and shooting them in the back, rounding up “hundreds, if not thousands” of men for beatings and refusing to allow those grieving to bury the dead.

Over a period of about 24 hours, “Eritrean soldiers deliberately shot civilians on the street and carried out systematic house-to-house searches, extrajudicially executing men and boys,” the report released early Friday says. “The massacre was carried out in retaliation for an earlier attack by a small number of local militiamen, joined by local residents armed with sticks and stones.”

The “mass execution” of Axum civilians by Eritrean troops may amount to crimes against humanity, the report says, and it calls for a United Nations-led international investigation and full access to Tigray for human rights groups, journalists and humanitarian workers. The region has been largely cut off since fighting began in early November.

Ethiopia’s federal government has denied the presence of soldiers from neighboring Eritrea, long an enemy of the Tigray region’s now-fugitive leaders, and Eritrea’s government dismissed the AP story on the Axum massacre as “outrageous lies.” Eritrea’s information minister, Yemane Gebremeskel, on Friday said his country “is outraged and categorically rejects the preposterous accusations” in the Amnesty report.

But even senior members of the Ethiopia-appointed interim government in Tigray have acknowledged the Eritrean soldiers’ presence and allegations of widespread looting and killing.

Ethiopia said the “alleged incident” in Axum “will have to be thoroughly investigated.”

And Ethiopia’s ambassador to Belgium, Hirut Zemene, told a webinar on Thursday that the alleged massacre in November was a “very highly unlikely scenario” and “we suspect it’s a very, very crazy idea.”

No one knows how many thousands of civilians have been killed in the conflict between Ethiopian and allied forces and those of the Tigray regional government, which had long dominated Ethiopia’s government before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018. Humanitarian officials have warned that a growing number of people might be starving to death as access, while improving, remains restricted.

“Hostilities must cease immediately,” the European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement in response to the Amnesty International report, adding that “the level of suffering endured by civilians, including children, is appalling.”

The presence of Eritrean soldiers in Tigray has brought some alarm. The United States has repeatedly urged Eritrea to withdraw its soldiers and cited credible reports of “grave” human rights abuses.

On Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States is “gravely concerned” by reports of atrocities.

“The United States has repeatedly engaged the Ethiopian government on the importance of ending the violence, ensuring unhindered humanitarian access to Tigray, and allowing a full, independent, international investigation into all reports of human rights violations, abuses, and atrocities,” Blinken said in a statement. “Those responsible for them must be held accountable.”

Witnesses of the massacre in Axum told Amnesty International that Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers jointly took control of the city but the Eritreans carried out the killings and then conducted house-to-house raids for men and teenage boys.

Bodies were left strewn in the streets after the events of Nov. 28 and 29, witnesses said.

“The next day, they did not allow us to pick the dead. The Eritrean soldiers said you cannot bury the dead before our dead soldiers are buried,” one woman told Amnesty International. With hospitals looted or health workers having fled, some witnesses said a number of people died from their wounds because of lack of care.

“Gathering the bodies and carrying out the funerals took days. Most of the dead appear to have been buried on 30 November, but witnesses said that people found many additional bodies in the days that followed,” the new report says.

After obtaining permission from Ethiopian soldiers to bury the dead, witnesses said they feared the killings would resume any moment, even as they piled bodies onto horse-drawn carts and took them to churches for burial, at times in mass graves.

The AP spoke with a deacon at one church, the Church of St. Mary of Zion, who said he helped count the bodies, gathered victims’ identity cards and assisted with burials. He believes some 800 people were killed that weekend around the city.

After being left exposed for a day or more, the bodies had begun to rot, further traumatizing families and those who gathered to help.

The new report says satellite imagery shows newly “disturbed soil” beside churches.

FOREVER CHEMICALS
Water near Arizona Air Force base is tainted in latest case

By ANITA SNOW

February 26, 2021

FILE - In this April 14, 1999, file photo, F-16 Fighting Falcons sit on the tarmac at Luke Air Force Base in Glendale, Ariz. The U.S. Air Force says it will be distributing bottled water until at least April to thousands of residents and business owners near Luke Air Force Base in suburban Phoenix in the latest case of fire firefighting foam from a military base contaminating a nearby community's water supply. (AP Photo/Ken Levine, File)


PHOENIX (AP) — The U.S. Air Force says it will be distributing bottled water to thousands of residents and business owners near its base in suburban Phoenix until at least April, marking the latest case of chemicals from military firefighting efforts contaminating the water supply in a nearby community.

Luke Air Force Base announced this month that studies showed high levels of contaminants had affected drinking water for about 6,000 people in roughly 1,600 homes as well as a few neighboring businesses.

A contractor is scheduling deliveries of drinking water to the homes of people who picked up their first bottles this week, said Sean Clements, chief of public affairs for the 56th Fighter Wing at the base. Those deliveries will go on until a long-term filtration facility can be set up in April, Clements said Thursday.

The base has recommended people use bottled water for drinking and cooking but deemed tap water safe for bathing and laundry.

Similar contamination tied to the use of firefighting foam has been found in water supplies near dozens of military sites in Arizona, Colorado and other states and has triggered hundreds of lawsuits. Growing evidence that it’s dangerous to be exposed to the chemicals found in the foam has prompted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to consider setting a maximum level for those chemicals in drinking water nationwide.

But they aren’t regulated now, meaning the base can’t be punished even though the EPA says the chemicals stay in the body for long periods and may cause adverse health effects.

The Arizona Corporation Commission, which regulates utilities, is scheduling an emergency meeting next week with five water companies to discuss concerns about the contamination, said Caroline Oppleman, spokeswoman for the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.

Oppleman said her agency is working with the base, regulators and federal and local officials to ensure actions are taken to ensure healthy drinking water for residents.

A statement from Luke Air Force Base last week said testing had detected levels of perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorooctane sulfonate above the EPA’s health advisory for how much should be consumed in drinking water over a person’s lifetime.

The so-called forever chemicals from a class known collectively as PFAS were found during tests of water from Valley Utilities Water Co. The compounds are used in many industrial and consumer products and in foam used by commercial industries and the armed services to extinguish fuel fires.

The company said its water meets all EPA and Arizona drinking water standards and that no treatment is required because PFAS are not regulated by federal or state environmental agencies. 

Chief Financial Officer Bryan Thomas said the utility nevertheless is working with the base on “additional sampling and potential water treatment options.”

Brig. Gen. Gregory Kreuder, commander of Luke Air Force Base, said a study showed the chemicals may have affected “supply wells that provide drinking water” to properties nearby.

“We share community concerns about the potential impact of these compounds on drinking water,” he said.

The contamination problem is well known in neighboring New Mexico, where chemicals from several bases have seeped into local water supplies.

The state sued the U.S. Air Force in 2019 over groundwater contamination at Cannon and Holloman air bases, saying the federal government has a responsibility to clean up plumes of toxic chemicals left behind by past military firefighting activities.

In court documents, the state describes the contamination detected at the bases as shocking, saying it migrated into public and private wells that provide drinking water and livestock and irrigation water to surrounding communities.

New Mexico said its dairy industry has been affected as well as residential and commercial property values.

This year, the state challenged a federal court’s decision to combine its lawsuit over contamination at Air Force bases with similar litigation brought by hundreds of other jurisdictions nationwide.

The New Mexico attorney general’s office and state Environment Department argue the decision to centralize the claims violated the state’s sovereignty and could lead to extreme delays that further endanger public health and the environment.

The U.S. Air Force Academy in 2019 said unsafe levels of PFAS chemicals were found in groundwater at four sites on its Colorado Springs campus, south of Denver. The chemicals also have been discovered around the Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs.

Texas jail inmates hungry, shivering during unusual freeze

By ACACIA CORONADO

FILE - This Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, file photo shows power lines in Houston. When an unusually heavy winter storm blanketed much of Texas with snow, knocking out electricity to millions of homes and leaving many struggling to find clean water, one sector of the population was particularly vulnerable: inmates in Houston at the state's largest county jail. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — When an unusually heavy winter storm blanketed much of Texas with snow, knocking out electricity to millions of homes and leaving many struggling to find clean water, one sector of the population was particularly vulnerable: inmates at the state’s largest county jail.

Raul Carreon, a pretrial inmate at the Harris County Jail, said it became freezing cold and “pitch black” when the power went out at the lockup late on Feb. 14. Then, he said, they lost water pressure, so toilets wouldn’t flush, leading to “feces and urine backing up in the commodes.”

A boil water notice was issued for the region, but Harris County inmates didn’t have that option and had to risk using water straight from the taps, Carreon said.

“Sanitation is very minimal, the smell here reeks of urine and feces,” said Carreon, who spoke to The Associated Press during a phone call Feb. 19 arranged by the Texas Jail Project, an advocacy organization. He said he just stayed in his bunk “because I don’t want to deal with what is going on here.”

Krish Gundu, co-founder and executive director of the Texas Jail Project, said her organization checked in with inmates in at least 20 Texas counties in the wake of the storm and that the conditions Carreon described were the norm — even worse in smaller counties.

“People are very cold, they are freezing, no extra blankets, there isn’t enough food,” Gundu said. Some inmates were instructed to cover their unflushed toilets with cardboard to mask the stench, she said.

Carreon — who according to jail records, is scheduled for trial in April on eight charges including aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon — said he lives in a pod with more than 20 men.

He said food was rationed in the days after the storm, and that some meals were just cornbread or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with water. Tensions were running high in his unit, due to the small meals and restricted access to phones. All inmates receive five free phone calls a week, but to make more calls — or to buy food — they need money in their commissary accounts. Carreon said his mother couldn’t afford to top up his account because she lives on government financial assistance.

Elizabeth Rossi, a senior attorney with the Civil Rights Corps — a nonprofit that aims to fight injustices in the American legal system — said she received multiple reports of jail food being rationed after the storm and said the restricted access to phones at Harris County means inmates struggled to “check if their loved ones are okay and let them know that they are not.

“I think this highlights how unprepared Texas and Texas jails are for climate crisis like these that are going to be happening increasingly in the future,” Rossi said.

Gundu said her organization was working to deliver water and deposit money in commissary accounts. Many inmates, she said, were unable to communicate with family for a week.

The Harris County Sheriff’s Office denied it had restricted inmates’ access to food and water in the days following the storm.

“There were no food rations,” the office said in a Feb. 19 statement. “Bottled drinking water is being distributed during the boil water notice.”

It conceded that the jail system was “hit with brief periods of having no power and/or plumbing throughout this event,” but insisted Harris County Jail had regained full power and water pressure. The office disputed complaints about the jail being too cold, saying the temperature inside never dropped below the state’s minimum of 65 degrees.

The issues were not restricted to county jails, although the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said state jails and prisons had been ready for the winter crisis. Jeremy Desel, a spokesman for the agency, said virtually all 102 of its facilities were affected by the storm. He said 32 units lost power and operated on generators but have since had power restored. He said 33 units temporarily experienced low water pressure.

But, he said, the state took significant steps to prepare, including distributing blankets, jackets and water.

“Our agency is very used to emergency situations when it comes to weather events,” Desel said in a statement. “We deal with severe winter weather in parts of the state every year and hurricane situations in the southern parts of the state nearly every year as well, so we are very accustomed to both preparation for events and the response to them.”

Prison rights advocates say inmate complaints related to the storm were not restricted to Texas. Some correctional facilities in Louisiana had intermittent electricity and frozen pipes, affecting toilets and showers. One inmate at a facility near Baton Rouge described ice on the walls inside his cell.

The jail in Harris County has long been the subject of legal action due to overcrowding. Civil Rights Corps won a settlement in a lawsuit to ensure that most misdemeanor defendants in the Harris County Jail don’t languish behind bars because they can’t afford bail. A similar lawsuit over bonds for poor defendants in felony cases is pending.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez raised concerns about the facility after its population ballooned to more than 9,000 inmates, leaving little room to quarantine individuals who test positive for the coronavirus or to separate new inmates from the general population. The jail population had dropped to about 8,800 inmates as of Jan. 26. Most were awaiting trial.

In late January, a federal judge expressed frustration over what she called a lack of progress in efforts to relieve overcrowding at the Harris County Jail during the pandemic. In a court filing, nine inmates described the facility as a “metal can of contagion.”

“A lot of people are just stuck, nothing is moving,” said Gundu, of the Texas Jail Project. “Some folks said ‘we feel like we are in purgatory, we have been forgotten, we have been put on mute.’”

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Acacia Coronado is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

White House climate czar to AP: 

Texas storm ‘a wake-up call’

By MATTHEW DALY


FILE - In this Jan. 27, 2021 file photo, National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy speaks during a press briefing at the White Housein Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The deadly winter storm that caused widespread power outages in Texas and other states is a “wake-up call” for the United States to build energy systems and other infrastructure that are more reliable and resilient in the face of extreme-weather events linked to climate change, President Joe Biden’s national climate adviser says.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Gina McCarthy said Friday that the storm that devastated Texas and other states “is not going to be as unusual as people had hoped. It is going to happen, and we need to be as resilient and working together as much as possible. We need systems of energy that are reliable and resilient as well.″

McCarthy said the scientific evidence is clear that more frequent and more dangerous storms are likely, “and if we really care about keeping our people working and keeping our kids healthy and giving them a future we’re proud of, then we’re not going to ignore these wake-up calls. We’re going to take action.

McCarthy’s comments came as Biden and his wife Jill were in Texas to survey damage caused by the storm, which caused millions of homes and business to lose heat and running water. At least 40 people in the state died.

“We need to envision a future and an optimistic way of giving people hope again — that we are building back better,″ she said, using Biden’s slogan for a plan costing at least $2 trillion to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure and create clean-energy jobs.

“It is a catchy phrase, but it also is a kind of optimistic rallying cry and I think we ought to heed it,″ McCarthy said.

McCarthy said she expects an “after-action” report on the Texas crisis and ways it can be avoided in the future. Many people were caught in frigid homes that lacked heat for days in subfreezing temperatures.

Texas is not connected to the rest of the nation’s power grid, and McCarthy said the storm may be reason to rethink that.

“You know, now’s not the time for me to be pointing fingers, but clearly the United States has always done best when it’s worked together and relied on one another,″ she said. “And I think Texas might ... have a real opportunity and probably ought to think about making sure they join with their neighbors in an interstate grid system that allows them flexibility, and that helps them help their neighbors when the time comes.″

While Oklahoma, Louisiana and other neighboring states also were hit hard by the storm, they were able to rely on each other, she said.

McCarthy said Biden is committed to an all-of-government response to climate change, which she said was “part and parcel of a strategy to strengthen our economy and grow jobs” amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden has set a goal of eliminating pollution from fossil fuel in the power sector by 2035 and from the U.S. economy overall by 2050, speeding what is already a market-driven growth of solar and wind energy and lessening the country’s dependence on oil and gas. The aggressive plan is aimed at slowing human-caused global warming that is magnifying extreme weather events such as the Texas storm and deadly wildfires in the West.

Biden also wants to ensure that efforts to address climate change include “workers that have been left behind” by closed coal mines or power plants, as well as communities located near polluting refineries and other hazards, McCarthy said.

“We’re going to push the clean energy, we’re going to push for better cars, but it’s also going to be about capturing the will of the public to actually face the challenges we’re facing today and meet them in a way that’s going to be beneficial to them,″ she said.

For example, Biden’s plans to provide 500,000 charging stations for electric cars and invest in battery technology are intended to make it easier for the public to participate in a clean-energy economy. “If we can lower that cost, and everybody knows they can get where they need to go when they need to get there” in an electric car, “we’ll get the kind of demand on the auto-sector side that we need,″ she said.

Similarly, if utilities are given the right incentives, they can meet Biden’s goal to have net-zero carbon emissions by 2035, McCarthy said. The head of a lobbying group for electric utilities said earlier this month that the 2035 date would be “an incredibly difficult situation to handle” for most U.S. providers.

While she respects the group and individual utilities, 2035 is Biden’s goal “and I think we will get there,″ McCarthy said.

On coal, McCarthy convened a working group Friday to discuss ways to help communities affected by coal-mine closures and shuttering of coal-fired power plants.

The working group is intended to “bring a high level of representation from every single agency ... to come around the table and start thinking about ways in which we can really address communities that may be having difficult transitions,″ she said.

One idea, endorsed by West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, is to ramp up a program to seal and clean abandoned coal mines in his state and across the country. Former coal miners and power plant workers “have a terrific skill set that could be used in the same areas to start closing some of the mines,″ she said. “We can provide significant resources to keep people working in those areas ... and it’s going to reduce methane emissions″ that are now spewing virtually uncontrolled.

Similar challenges exist in the oil and natural gas industry, McCarthy said.

“From a climate perspective, we can address a dangerous problem,″ she said, while also “investing in ways that continue to build up opportunities for workers to work.″

Tribes want Native statue to replace one tied to massacre

By PATTY NIEBERG

February 25, 2021

DENVER (AP) — Months after protesters tore down a statue of a U.S. soldier who took part in the slaughter of Native Americans, tribal members and descendants of those who survived the Civil War-era attack urged Colorado lawmakers on Thursday to replace it with the likeness of an Indigenous woman at the state Capitol.

The new statue would replace the one depicting a Union Army soldier who helped carry out the Sand Creek Massacre of 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people in 1864, one of the worst mass murders in U.S. history. It was toppled over the summer amid the national reckoning over racial injustice and the movement to remove symbols from public spaces that are tied to military atrocities against people of color, typically the Confederacy

FILE - In this June 6, 2020 file photo, a demonstrator raises his fist after chaining himself to the Civil War Monument during protests over the death of George Floyd in front of the State Capitol in downtown Denver. On Thursday, Feb. 25, 2021, state lawmakers are considering what to put on the pedestal on which the monument stood until it was toppled in late June 2020 The monument, which portrays a Union soldier and was erected in 1909, was targeted during demonstrations over the death of George Floyd before the statue was pulled down by four individuals. On Thursday, Feb. 25, 2021, Colorado lawmakers will discuss what to put in place of the statue. . 

(AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)

The proposed new bronze statue would depict a young woman sitting on a white flag, wearing a native Cheyenne dress, with her left arm extended. She has cut off her braids and the joint of a finger on her left hand in signs of mourning.

Ryan Ortiz of the Northern Arapaho Tribe testified virtually in favor of the new statue for the Capital Development Committee. He said the massacre is the origin of historical trauma for the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes and that the statue would be a chance to right previous wrongs.

“It’s not very often in history do we have a chance to atone for our ancestors’ mistakes,” Ortiz said.

Otto Braided Hair, a Northern Cheyenne tribal member and descendent of a Sand Creek survivor, has worked on education surrounding the massacre for the last 20 years. He shared details passed down by his great-grandfather.

“He was part of a recovery crew to go down and look for survivors and couldn’t get near the village because the whole valley permeated with burnt bodies,” Braided Hair said. “And so that’s what the soldiers did and the soldier represents for us.”

On November 29, 1864, Col. John Chivington led around 700 U.S. volunteer soldiers to a village of nearly 500 people camped along the banks of Big Sandy Creek. Chivington ordered his men to attack and kill mostly women, children and elderly at the camp. The village had believed they were under the protection of the U.S. Army, and people even approached the unit with white flags.

Over the next two days, the troops shot and hunted fleeing women and children in a 35-square-mile (90-square-kilometer) area. Chivington never faced a trial for his actions.

The Sand Creek Massacre site is tucked away in rural southeastern Colorado and honors the victims

“We should be your neighbors. We should be living amongst you. But we were forced out of the area,” Ortiz said to the committee.

State Rep. Susan Lontine, a Democrat and chairwoman of the Capitol Building Advisory Committee that reviews art, memorials and architectural designs, said she supported the statue after hearing from tribal members.

“We are at a moment of social reckoning, and we have, as a state, our own sins to atone for,” she said.

Lontine, whose committee approved the replacement in November, said the statue’s placement is important to the tribes because after the massacre, soldiers came back to Denver, displaying the victims’ body parts as trophies and ended their parade at the steps of the Colorado Capitol.

“We’re also dealing with Indigenous people to our state who have suffered numerous broken promises, and I feel that the approval of the committee is a step toward a promise to fulfilling and placing their memorial on the Capitol grounds,” Lontine said.

The Capital Development Committee, which is in charge of reviewing funding requests for projects, will deliberate the new statue and make a decision over the next few weeks.
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Nieberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Pandemic leaves tribes without US recognition at higher risk

By CHRISTINE FERNANDO

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FILE - In this Jan. 6, 2020, file photo, Tony A. (Naschio) Johnson, center, elected chairman of the Chinook Indian Nation, plays a drum as he leads tribal members and supporters as they march to the federal courthouse in Tacoma, Wash., as they continue their efforts to regain federal recognition. As COVID-19 disproportionately affects Native American communities, many tribal leaders say the pandemic poses particular risks to tribes without federal recognition. The Chinook Nation received some federal funding through a local nonprofit for small tribes to distribute food to elders and help with electricity bills, tribal Johnson said. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)

Rachel Lynne Cushman is used to getting calls from Chinook Nation members worried about losing housing or having their power shut off. Since COVID-19 hit, they come in daily.

Cushman is secretary-treasurer for the group of tribes whose rural, ancestral lands are based in one of Washington state’s poorest counties. While they mostly have been spared from the health effects of the coronavirus, the pandemic has taken a significant economic toll.

“We’re doing the best we can,” Cushman said. “But the reality is we don’t have the resources to help.”

Unlike federally recognized tribes, the Chinook Nation doesn’t have a political relationship with the United States, which would make it eligible for federal coronavirus relief funding for state, local and tribal governments. Hundreds of tribes lack the designation, which they say leaves them struggling to help their members and less equipped to combat a pandemic that’s disproportionately affected Native Americans and other people of color.

The 574 federally recognized tribes shared $8 billion from a massive coronavirus relief package approved last March. They have used the money to provide meals, personal protective equipment, cleaning supplies, COVID-19 testing, business support, housing relief and more. Another bill that passed in December gives those tribes another year to spend the money and includes funding for vaccines, testing and housing assistance for federally recognized tribes.

The Chinook Nation — consisting of the Lower Chinook, Clatsop, Willapa, Wahkiakum and Kathlamet tribes — received some federal funding through a local nonprofit for small tribes to distribute food to elders and help with electricity bills, tribal council chairman Tony A. (Naschio) Johnson said. But even paired with grants, he said it’s a drop in the bucket.

“It’s completely unfair for our neighbors to get millions of dollars, and for us to get some trickle-down, if anything,” Johnson said. “That’s not to say that other tribes shouldn’t be getting funding; we just need funding, too.”

The path to federal recognition is long, complicated and expensive, requiring deep anthropological and genealogical research and extensive documentation proving that the tribe is distinct from others and has continuously operated since the 1900s. The process can cost millions of dollars.

Five tribes were recognized under the Obama administration and seven tribes under the Trump administration, the latest being the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Montana, according to the Interior Department.

Tribes have received the designation through treaties, acts of Congress or by applying to the Interior Department. With it, tribal land is protected from being sold, their governments are recognized as sovereign, and they share in federal funding for things like public safety, education and health.

The Chinook Nation’s quest for federal recognition started with hiring lawyers to fight for land rights in 1899. The tribe was recognized in 2001, but the status was revoked 18 months later after the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs ruled that it failed to prove it had consistently existed as a tribe through history.

The revocation was traumatic, said Johnson, who cut his hair in a traditional sign of mourning. He said he sometimes looks back at a letter he wrote to his children about the bright future ahead and wants to scream.

They’re still battling for the status and got a boost from a U.S. judge who ruled about a year ago that a ban on the tribe reapplying for federal recognition was unjustified.

Meanwhile, the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians, a tribe in Los Angeles County without a land base, has raised $2.6 million to build a case. It’s among six tribes based in California, Florida, Michigan and New Mexico whose petitions are being considered by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Five more tribes in Louisiana, North Carolina and California are seeking federal recognition but haven’t completed their paperwork yet.

The Los Angeles-area tribe’s 900 members are facing job losses and food insecurity, tribal President Rudy Ortega said.

The problems are not unlike what federally recognized tribes and others are facing in the pandemic, he said, but his tribe has additional roadblocks to financial help. Grant funding has helped, but applying for the money has become more arduous after 10 tribal government employees were laid off, Ortega said.

“We do the best with what we have, but we wish we had more because we can’t fulfill everyone’s needs on our own,” he said.

The tribe is recognized by California, but that doesn’t guarantee government funding. While it can open access to state funding, state recognition is mostly seen as a stepping stone to federal recognition.

In the meantime, the tribe’s leaders are asking members for help delivering food and donating money for emergency rental assistance, COVID-19 testing and protective equipment. Other than that, much of the tribe’s funding comes from grants and an online store.

Likewise, efforts within the Chinook Nation to combat the pandemic haven’t gone far enough, tribal leaders say. While they have taken strict COVID-19 precautions, including canceling big events and encouraging people to socially distance, there was little to prepare the tribe for the economic effects.

Tribal leaders expanded a distribution system for those most in need and invested in a traditional foods program. They distributed two to five fish per household each week last summer, and processed elk and bear that volunteers offered for tribal refrigerators.

But Johnson, the tribal chairman, said what they need most is federal status and funding, which members have been fighting for through letter-writing efforts and social media campaigns.

“With federal recognition, that’s how we’re going to change the future of our community,” he said.
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Fernando reported from Chicago. Felicia Fonseca in Flagstaff, Arizona, contributed. Both are members of The Associated Press’ Race and Ethnicity team. Follow Fernando on Twitter at https://twitter.com/christinetfern and Fonseca at https://twitter.com/FonsecaAP.

Amendment would ban ‘servitude’ by California prison inmates

By DON THOMPSON

February 25, 2021

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FILE - In this Aug. 17, 2020, file photo, inmate firefighters - notable by their bright orange fire gear compared to the yellow worn by professional firefighters - prepare to take on the River Fire in Salinas, Calif. California could change its constitutional ban on slavery to remove the words "unless for the punishment of crime," further reducing the state's already faltering dependence on thousands of inmate firefighters, under a proposed amendment backed Thursday, Feb. 25, 2021, by local officials and actor-activist Danny Glover. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California relies on thousands of inmates to fight massive wildfires, churn out vehicle license plates, mop prison floors and myriad other tasks — all for wages that rarely top a few dollars a day.

Opponents want to end what they call a visage of slavery. They propose to amend the state Constitution’s ban on indentured servitude to remove an exemption for people who are being punished for crimes.

Prison labor predominantly affects Black and Latino people who make up the majority of inmates, San Francisco Supervisor Matt Haney said Thursday. He is asking the Board of Supervisors to become the first to formally back the overhaul proposed by Democratic Assemblywoman Sydney Kamlager of Los Angeles.

“Even through the COVID-19 pandemic, California inmates have been forced to work for as low as 8 cents per hour,” he said. “Many have been on the front lines fighting our increasingly dangerous wildfires, earning just $2 to $6 a day.”

California has long depended on inmate firefighters to help battle increasingly monstrous wildfires. But their numbers have dwindled in recent years as the state has eased sentencing laws and shifted more offenders to county custody instead of state prisons.

Along with daily wages of $2.90 to $5.12, depending on skill level, inmate firefighters get an additional $1 an hour when assigned to emergencies, corrections officials said.

The state also depends on inmates to work as cooks, custodians, gardeners and many other roles that keep the prison system running from day to day.

Inmates also work for the Prison Industry Authority, which has produced most of the prison system’s protective equipment during the pandemic along with more traditional products such as vehicle license plates, furniture, road signs, clothing and numerous food products.

Ending such programs “would be devastating to California, especially on the fire crews,” said Nina Salarno, president of Crime Victims United of California. “This law would hurt rehabilitation efforts ... because you are then taking away incentives for inmates to learn skills and trades so they can come back into society and be self-sufficient.”

State officials did not comment on the proposal to end the practice, but the authority promotes the programs as training inmates to be “job ready” upon release. Those inmates “are getting jobs and paying taxes. For every inmate that does not return, taxpayers save money!” it says on its website.

Inmates who apply to work for the authority receive credits toward earlier release, along with the potential for industry certifications in fields such as comoputer coding, welding or metal working. Nearly 4,700 inmates are currently in the program, which has space for more than 6,700 inmates.

They are generally paid 40 cents to $1 an hour, though the limited number who work for private companies while serving their sentences receive industry-comparable wages.

Legal Services for Prisoners with Children executive director Dorsey Nunn, who co-founded the reform group All of Us or None, was sentenced to life in prison when he was 19 then paroled in 1981.

He disputed the benefits of the prison work while arguing that an amendment would do more to promote racial equity and healing than recent efforts to rename schools and tear down statues of controversial figures.

“People actually thought that my rehabilitation was occurring because they were forcing me to work. Actually, involuntary servitude gives work a bad name,” Nunn said. “You can’t volunteer when you’re being forced to do this stuff. Nobody in their right mind in the state of California would take a job if they was paying you 15 cents an hour or seven cents an hour or $2 a day.”

He and other proponents hope a change in the California Constitution would eventually lead to a similar ban in the U.S. Constitution. The state’s current wording dates from 1974 and reads, “Slavery is prohibited. Involuntary servitude is prohibited except to punish crime.”

The proposed amendment would change the wording to, “Slavery and involuntary servitude are prohibited.”

George Galvis, co-founder of All of Us or None and executive director of Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice, said there still could be room under the change for prison work and rehabilitation programs leading to jobs.

“The key word is ‘involuntary,’” Galvis said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that there won’t be employment or vocational programs and opportunities,” but he said inmates should be paid competitively.

The good job-training programs now benefit relatively few of California’s 95,000 inmates, argued Nunn, while “half the people that work in the prison are sweeping, picking up paper and doing other stuff. It’s no great skill being taught and they’re being paid pennies on the day.”

Putting the amendment before voters would take a two-thirds vote in both chambers of the Legislature, where Democrats hold such an edge. Proponents noted that similar changes have already been adopted in the more conservative states of Colorado, Nebraska and Utah.

The Abolish Slavery National Network says similar efforts are underway in New Jersey and South Carolina. Changing the U.S. Constitution would take approval from two-thirds of states.

Riverside County Supervisor Manny Perez intends to bring up a resolution supporting the California effort when his board meets March 9. He called inmate labor part of “the lingering legacy of slavery.”

 

Virginia lawmakers vote to legalize marijuana in 2024

By DENISE LAVOIE and SARAH RANKIN59 minutes ago

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Sen. Jeremy McPike, D-Prince William, left, Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, center and Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, right, confer on marijuana legislation before the floor session of the Virginia Senate, which is meeting inside the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond, Va., Saturday, Feb. 27, 2021. (Bob Brown/Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP)

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia lawmakers gave final approval Saturday to a bill that will legalize marijuana for adult recreational use, but not until 2024, when retail sales of the drug would also begin.

With a compromise bill clearing the House and Senate, Virginia becomes the first Southern state to vote to legalize marijuana, joining 15 other states and the District of Columbia. The legislation now goes to Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, who supports legalization.

The bill was a top priority for Democrats, who framed legalization as a necessary step to end the disparate treatment of people of color under current marijuana laws. But talks between Democrats in the House and Senate grew tense in recent days, and a compromise version of the massive bill did not emerge publicly until late Saturday afternoon.

“It’s been a lot of work to get here, but I would say that we’re on the path to an equitable law allowing responsible adults to use cannabis,” said Sen. Adam Ebbin, the chief sponsor of the Senate bill.

Several Democrats said they hoped Northam would send the legislation back to them with amendments, including speeding up the date for legalization.

“If we have already made the decision that simple possession should be repealed, we could have done that today and ended the disproportionate fines on communities of color,” said Sen. Jennifer McClellan.

“Let’s be absolutely clear — this bill is not legalization, and there are a lot of steps between here and legalization,” she said.

Northam’s spokeswoman, Alena Yarmosky, said the governor “looks forward to continuing to improve this legislation.”

“There’s still a lot of work ahead, but this bill will help to reinvest in our communities and reduce inequities in our criminal justice system,” she said.

Under the legislation, possession of up to an ounce (28.3 grams) of marijuana will become legal beginning Jan. 1, 2024, at the same time sales will begin and regulations will go into effect to control the marijuana marketplace in Virginia.

Under a provision Senate Democrats insisted on, the legislation will include a reenactment clause that will require a second vote from the General Assembly next year, but only on the regulatory framework and criminal penalties for several offenses, including underage use and public consumption of marijuana. A second vote will not be required on legalization.

The Senate had sought to legalize simple possession this year to immediately end punishments for people with small amounts of marijuana, but House Democrats argued that legalization without a legal market for marijuana could promote the growth of the black market.

Lawmakers last year decriminalized marijuana, making simple possession a civil penalty that can be punished by a fine of no more than $25.

House Majority Leader Charniele Herring said that while the legislation isn’t perfect, it was a “justice bill.”

“This moves us in a ... direction to strike down and to address those institutional barriers, and over-policing, over-arrests, over-convictions of African Americans who do not use marijuana at a higher rate than our white counterparts, but we seem to get the brunt of criminal convictions,” Herring said.

A recent study by the legislature’s research and watchdog agency found that from 2010-2019, the average arrest rate of Black individuals for marijuana possession was 3.5 times higher than the arrest rate for white individuals. The study also found that Black people were convicted at a rate 3.9 times higher than white people.

The bill calls for dedicating 30% of marijuana tax revenue — after program costs — to a Cannabis Equity Reinvestment Fund. The money would be used to help communities that have been historically over-policed for marijuana crimes, with funds going toward scholarships, workforce development and job placement services, and low- or no-interest loans for qualified cannabis businesses.

Virginians who have a marijuana-related conviction, have family members with a conviction, or live in an area that is economically distressed could qualify as social equity applicants who would get preference for licenses to get into the marijuana marketplace as cultivators, wholesalers, processors and retailers.

The largest portion of the tax revenue from marijuana sales would go toward funding pre-K for at-risk kids.

The bill drew sharp criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia and and other racial justice advocacy groups.

“Today, the Virginia General Assembly failed to legalize marijuana for racial justice. Lawmakers paid lip service to the communities that have suffered decades of harm caused by the racist War on Drugs with legislation that falls short of equitable reform and delays justice,” the ACLU said in a tweet.

Groups that opposed legalization entirely have said they are concerned that it could result in an increase in drug-impaired driving crashes and the use of marijuana among youth.

Republican lawmakers spoke against the measure Saturday night, saying such a critical issue deserved a less rushed approach.

“I would say there are not more than two or three members of this body that have a clue about the comprehensiveness of what this bill does,” said Senate Minority Leader Tommy Norment.

Invading retrovirus linked to high rates of lymphoma, leukemia among koalas


A novel retrovirus is rapidly rewriting the koala genome, and researchers say it is causing high numbers of cancers in the animals. File Photo by Ken Bohn/San Diego Zoo/UPI | License Photo

Feb. 26 (UPI) -- A novel retrovirus is rapidly rewriting the koala genome, and new research -- published Friday in the journal Nature Communications -- suggests the virus, known as the koala retrovirus, or KoRV, is responsible for elevated rates of lymphoma, leukemia and other cancers among northern Australia's koala population.

Like HIV and other retroviruses, KoRV makes copies and inserts its DNA into the host's genome. These mutations can cause health problems.

The genomes of almost all animals, including humans, contain the remnants of past "germ line" infections. Because most of these infections -- identified by degraded viral fragments -- occurred millions of years ago, figuring out how they might have impacted animal health is near impossible.

Koalas, on the other hand, have provided scientists the opportunity to study a retrovirus invasion in real-time.

In Australia and New Zealand, koalas are regularly attacked by dogs and hit by cars. As a result, large numbers of koalas are rescued and rehabilitated -- and tested for diseases.

"The koalas undergo thorough diagnostic procedures under general anaesthetic performed by experienced wildlife veterinarians which allows diagnosis of tumors or cancer," lead study author Gayle McEwen, scientist at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, told UPI in an email.

As a result of this practice, cancer rates among koalas are well documented. Captive and rescued koalas are also regularly tested for KoRV.

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Because retroviruses have been shown to cause cancer in other animals, researchers hypothesized that KoRV was to blame for elevated cancer rates in koalas.

To confirm the connection, researchers sequenced DNA from wild koalas diagnosed with cancer. Genomic analysis revealed the locations where KoRV had inserted its DNA.

By comparing retrovirus insertion sites between healthy koalas and koalas with cancer, as well as genetic differences between healthy and tumor tissues in individual koalas, researchers identified a strong correlation between KoRV mutations and genes causing cancers common among koalas.

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When comparing the genomes of different koalas, researchers found KoRV insertion sites varied dramatically. Among the genomes of humans and other animals, the signatures of ancient germ line infection are mostly found in the same places in any two individuals.

"Over time, endogenous retroviruses accumulate mutations and become degraded and so there will be fewer re-integration events and only some specific integrations will remain in the population until eventually all individuals in the population have integrations at the same loci -- ones which don't have a highly deleterious effect," McEwen said.

The diversity of KoRV mutations found in koala genomes confirmed the retrovirus infection is still in its earliest stages. That's bad news for koalas.

"The constant generation of new integrations increases the likelihood that they will land someplace harmful, such as in oncogenes," co-author Alex Greenwood, professor of wildlife diseases at Leibniz-IZW, told UPI.

An oncogene is a gene that has the potential to cause cancer.

Despite the diversity of KoRV insertion sites revealed by the latest analysis, researchers were surprised to find that KoRV mutations were concentrated around certain hotspots.

The proteins that guide the viral DNA insertion process seem to prefer certain sequences in a host's genome.

"Many of the genes that are hotspots are very active -- meaning the DNA tends to be 'open' and accessible," Greenwood said.

Unfortunately, some of the more open, or active, sites on the genome are those that host large concentrations of genes related to cell proliferation.

Because KoRV mutations can affect germ line cells, they can rapidly spread through animal populations."With a normal germ line mutation, there is a 50:50 chance that it will be passed on to offspring from the parent carrying that mutation. However, with KoRV, it can frequently generate new integrations in individuals," McEwen said.

"As multiple KoRV integrations build up, then the chance of any progeny inheriting at least one endogenous KoRV integration from an affected parent becomes more than 50 percent, and this will continue to rise with further integrations," McEwen said.

The findings help explain how rapidly spreading germ line infections by retroviruses can aid the proliferation of serious health problems.

The scientists said they hope to gain further insights into the spread of KoRV mutations and their health affects by analyzing the genomes of groups of koalas living on islands, where they've separated from larger population.

They also plan to study the links between KoRV mutations and other koala disease, including chronic chlamydia and wasting disease.

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Seal rescued after crossing Canadian highway


A seal was given a ride back to the ocean in Prince Edward Island, Canada, after the animal was spotted crossing a highway and heading into a field in the opposite direction from the water. Photo courtesy of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Feb. 26 (UPI) -- Police in Canada's Prince Edward Island said they wrangled a loose seal for the second time in a week after one of the animals was spotted crossing a highway.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Prince Edward Island said officers stationed in the Queens district were called out Tuesday on a report of a seal pup crossing a highway near Fairview and headed toward a field, in the opposite direction from the water.
A member of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans joined in the search, and the team used a snowmobile and a drone to locate the wandering seal.

The seal was loaded onto the snowmobile and taken back to the road, where a Department of Fisheries and Oceans vehicle was waiting to transport the animal to the north shore for release.

The rescue came only days after a seal was found wandering down a sidewalk in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, about a half-mile away from the nearest water. That seal also was given a ride back to the shore and released.