Study: More years playing football means more brain lesions on MRI
By Alan Mozes, HealthDay News

MRI scans can reliably detect brain lesions in players, with more showing up on scans the longer a person plays, according to a new study. File Photo by rthoma/Shutterstock

Repetitive head hits are common in football, and they're also linked to debilitating brain injuries.

But rendering a definitive diagnosis typically means waiting for autopsy results after the player has died.
Now, a new study suggests that brain scans can reliably spot troubling signs of sports-inflicted neurological damage while a person is still alive.

The research also showed that more brain lesions show up on the scans the longer football players have engaged in the sport.

"A routine [MRI] scan might be able to capture long-term harm to the brain in people who have been exposed to repetitive hits to the head, like those from American football and other contact sports," concluded study author Michael Alosco.

Alosco is co-director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center Clinical Core with Boston University's School of Medicine.

He and his colleagues explained that what such MRIs are looking for are bright spots on the brain known as "white matter hyperintensities."

RELATED Study: Youth football participation doesn't impact concussion recovery later

"They literally appear as bright white spots," said Alosco. "Anyone can see them. And they signal injury to the white matter of the brain."

Outside the context of contact sports, such spots typically are a sign of aging, he noted, "and it is common to see them in people who are older than 65."

Among the elderly, heart disease is often the root cause, Alosco said, because when the heart fails to deliver enough blood to the brain, the resulting oxygen deficit ends up injuring the person's small blood vessels and white matter.

RELATED Repeated head impacts, brain injury increase risk for depression

"However, these hyperintensities can have many causes, and research also links them with progressive brain diseases like Alzheimer's disease," he added.

So, he and his team set out to see whether the same bright spots might be linked to repetitive hits to the head among athletes involved in contact sports.

In all, the study focused on 67 football players, along with eight others who were either soccer players, boxers or military veterans.

On average, the football players had 12 years of play under their belts, including 16 professionals and 11 semi-professionals.

By the time the study got underway, all the athletes had already died, at an average age of 67. And all had donated their brains for research into head injuries.

But all had also undergone brain scans while alive, at an average age of 62.

When Alosco and his colleagues reanalyzed those scans, they found that the longer a football player had played the sport, the more bright spots he had while alive.

In addition, for every additional "unit" of white matter spots, the risk for having serious small vessel disease and general white matter damage in the brain doubled.

Each additional unit of such markers was also linked to a tripling of the presence of a specific protein -- "tau" -- that has long been linked to both Alzheimer's disease and a neurodegenerative disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.

In fact, autopsies confirmed that roughly seven in 10 of the athletes in the study had CTE, a precursor for dementia. And family members of the athletes in the study further confirmed that roughly two-thirds suffered from dementia.

The findings were published online this month in the journal Neurology.

Alosco said the results are "exciting," given that they offer "a very practical way to study brain harm" in real time, rather than after the fact.

But a more sobering assessment was offered by Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency medicine physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City and a former sideline physician for the New York Jets. The study "adds to the argument to ban tackle football altogether," he said.

"The implications of the study are quite clear: repetitive head and body impacts over time - whether concussive or subconcussive -- increase the risk for developing brain injury, indicating a long-term or cumulative effect," Glatter said.

And the problem is that, despite some effort to reduce risk, "playing contact football is inherently dangerous and unpredictable at best," raising the risk of CTE, cognitive impairment and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Still, another expert cautioned against overinterpreting the results until more research is completed.

The study only looked at athletes who had already developed brain injuries, noted Dr. Julie Schneider, associate director of the Alzheimer's Disease Center at Rush University Medical Center, in Chicago.

And that, she said, makes it impossible to conclude that the bright spots in question actually predict such injuries.

What's now needed, said Schneider, are "studies starting with players prior to having symptoms." That will be the only way to "figure out the sequence of brain changes, and their relationship with dementia during life."

More information

There's more on the link between football and brain injuries at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

Copyright © 2021 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Inside the ‘big wave’ of misinformation targeted at Latinos
By AMANDA SEITZ and WILL WEISSERT

Shown in the Spanish language are "He Votado Hoy" stickers or I voted today at a polling place in Philadelphia, May 21, 2019. This month’s elections may have offered a preview of the Spanish-language misinformation that could pose a growing threat to Democrats, who are already anxious about their standing with Latino voters after losing some ground with them last year. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Before last year’s presidential election, Facebook ads targeting Latino voters described Joe Biden as a communist. During his inauguration, another conspiracy theory spread online and on Spanish-language radio warning that a brooch worn by Lady Gaga signaled Biden was working with shadowy, leftist figures abroad.

And in the final stretch of Virginia’s election for governor, stories written in Spanish accused Biden of ordering the arrest of a man during a school board meeting.

None of that was true. But such misinformation represents a growing threat to Democrats, who are anxious about their standing with Latino voters after surprise losses last year in places like South Florida and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.

Heading into a midterm election in which control of Congress is at stake, lawmakers, researchers and activists are preparing for another onslaught of falsehoods targeted at Spanish-speaking voters. And they say social media platforms that often host those mistruths aren’t prepared.

“For a lot of people, there’s a lot of concern that 2022 will be another big wave,” said Guy Mentel, executive director of Global Americans, a think tank that provides analysis of key issues throughout the Americas.

This month’s elections may be a preview of what’s to come.

After Democratic incumbent Phil Murphy won New Jersey’s close governor’s race, Spanish-language videos falsely claimed the vote was rigged, despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud — a fact the Republican candidate acknowledged, calling the results “legal and fair.”

In Virginia, where Republican Glenn Youngkin campaigned successfully on promises to defend “parental rights” in classrooms, false headlines around a controversial school board meeting emerged.

“Biden ordenó arrestar a padre de una joven violada por un trans,” read one of several misleading articles, translating to “Biden ordered the arrest of a father whose daughter was raped by a trans.”

The mistruth was spun from an altercation during a chaotic school board meeting months earlier in Loudoun County that resulted in the arrest of a father whose daughter was sexually assaulted in a bathroom by another student. The father claimed the suspect was “gender fluid,” which sparked outcry over the school’s policy allowing transgender students to use bathrooms matching their gender identity.

In reality, the White House wasn’t involved with the meeting. The man was arrested by the local sheriff’s department. It’s also unclear how the suspect identifies.

Loudoun County was already the epicenter of a heated political debate over how the history of racism is taught in schools — another issue that became fodder for misinformation and political attacks on Spanish-language websites this summer, said Maria Teresa Kumar, president and CEO of Voto Latino, a nonprofit that mobilizes Hispanics to become politically engaged.

“It has everything to do with trust in institutions. Trust in government,” said Kumar, whose group works to combat the misinformation. “Eroding that trust will transfer not just to voting in the midterms, but just overall disengagement from your government.”

Stretched truths accusing some Democrats of being socialists or communists could also dominate the online narrative, said Diego Groisman, a research analyst at New York University’s Cybersecurity for Democracy project.

During the 2020 election, Groisman flagged Facebook ads targeting Latino voters in Texas and Florida that described Biden as a “communist.” The ads in Florida — where a majority of the country’s Venezuelan population is concentrated — compared Biden to that country’s socialist President Nicolás Maduro.

“There were clearly specific Spanish-speaking communities that were being targeted,” said Laura Edelson, the lead researcher for NYU’s program.

Evelyn Pérez-Verdía, a Florida Democratic strategist who watches Spanish misinformation patterns, says many online narratives intentionally stoke “fear in the Spanish-speaking communities.”

One conspiracy theory mentioned on talk radio grew out of Lady Gaga’s golden bird brooch at Biden’s inauguration. Some spreading the claim noted a similar brooch once worn by Claudia López Hernandez, the first openly gay mayor of Bogota, Colombia, signaled the new president was working with foreign leftists.

“They’re not going to stop. They’re going to double down on it,” Pérez-Verdía said of the misinformation.

Critics argue that social media companies like Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, have placed outsize attention on removing or fact-checking misinformation in English over other languages like Spanish.

Facebook’s own documents, leaked by ex-Facebook employee turned whistleblower Frances Haugen earlier this year, echo those concerns. Haugen said the company spends 87% of its misinformation budget on U.S. content — a figure that Meta spokesperson Kevin McAllister said is “out of context.”

An internal Facebook memo, written in March, revealed the company’s ability to detect anti-vaccine rhetoric and misinformation was “basically non-existent” in non-English comments.

Last year, for example, Instagram and Facebook banned “#plandemic,” a hashtag associated with a video full of COVID-19 conspiracy theories. Yet users were spreading misinformation on the platforms using “#plandemia,” the Spanish version of the hashtag, until just last month.

An analysis last year by Avaaz, a left-leaning advocacy group that tracks online misinformation, also found Facebook failed to flag 70% of Spanish-language misinformation surrounding COVID-19 compared to just 29% of such information in English.

McAllister said the company removes false Spanish-language claims about voter fraud, COVID-19 and vaccines. Four news outlets, including The Associated Press, also fact-check Spanish-language falsehoods circulating around U.S. content on Instagram and Facebook.

Meanwhile, researchers at the nonpartisan Global Disinformation Index estimated that Google will make $12 million this year off ads on websites that peddled COVID-19 disinformation in Spanish. Google has “stopped serving ads on a majority of the pages shared in the report,” company spokesperson Michael Aciman said in an email.

“Spanish-language misinformation campaigns are absolutely exploding on social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, etc.,” New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the party’s top progressive voices, tweeted after the Nov. 2 election.

That explosion is fueled in part by a U.S.-Latin America feedback loop that allows falsehoods to fester.

Misinformation that starts on U.S. websites is sometimes translated by social media pages in Latin American countries like Colombia and Venezuela. The inaccuracies are shared back through YouTube videos or messaging apps with Spanish speakers in expatriate communities like those in Miami and Houston.

Those falsehoods are more likely to reach U.S. Latinos because they tend to spend more time on sites such as YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram and Telegram, according to an October Nielsen report.

“We see YouTube accounts or radio stations churning out mis- or disinformation regarding a whole range of things that they pick up from fringe U.S. outlets,” Mentel said.

Some are working to fill the void of reliable information in those communities.

The Oakland, California, news service El Timpano delivers a text message of local news in Spanish to roughly 2,000 subscribers every week. Subscribers can text back with questions that staffers work to answer, said Madeleine Bair, who launched El Timpano.

The news service has fielded more than 1,500 questions over the past year, including ones about hoax COVID-19 cures.

“We really ramped up because it was clear that the communities we were serving were most in need of basic public health information,” Blair said, “and that information wasn’t reaching them.”

Others have urged the government to take on a watchdog role. Federal Trade Commission commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, a Democrat, said the regulator may look at disparities in how Big Tech monitors English-language disinformation compared to other languages.

“The first thing I think we need to do is investigate,” Slaughter said during a November panel with lawmakers.

___

Associated Press writers Marcos Martínez Chacón in Monterrey, Mexico, Abril Mulato in Mexico City and Marcy Gordon in Washington contributed to this report.

ECOCIDE

In shadow of Texas gas drilling sites, health fears escalate

By CATHY BUSSEWITZ and MARTHA IRVINE

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Rosalia Tejeda, second from left, plays with her children, from left, son Juscianni Blackeller, 13; Adaliana Gray, 5, and Audrey Gray, 2, in their backyard in Arlington, Texas, Monday, Oct. 25, 2021. As Tejeda, 38, has learned more about health risks posed by fracking for natural gas, she has become a vocal opponent of a plan to add more natural gas wells at a site near her home. (AP Photo/Martha Irvine)


ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — At a playground outside a North Texas day care center, giggling preschoolers chase each other into a playhouse. Toddlers scoot by on tricycles. A boy cries as a teacher helps him negotiate over a toy.

Uphill from the playground, peeking between trees, is a site where Total Energies is pumping for natural gas. The French energy giant wants to drill three new wells on the property next to Mother’s Heart Learning Center, which serves mainly Black and Latino children. The three wells, along with two existing ones, would lie about 600 feet from where the children planted a garden of sunflowers.

For the families of the children and for others nearby, it’s a prospect fraught with fear and anxiety. Living too close to drilling sites has been linked to a range of health risks, especially to children, from asthma to neurological and developmental disorders. And while some states are requiring energy companies to drill farther from day cares, schools and homes, Texas has taken the opposite tack: It has made it exceedingly difficult for localities to fight back.

The affected areas go beyond day care centers and schools close to drilling sites. They include communities near related infrastructure — compressor stations, for example, which push gas through pipelines and emit toxic fumes, and export facilities, where gas is cooled before being shipped overseas.

On Tuesday night, the City Council in this city situated between Dallas and Fort Worth is scheduled to vote on Total’s latest drilling request. Last year, the council denied Total’s request. The rejection came at a time when Black Lives Matter protests after George Floyd’s murder by police had led many American communities to take a deeper look at racial disparities. But with time having passed and with some turnover on the City Council, many residents worry that this time Total will succeed.



And they fear the consequences.

“I’m trying to protect my little one,” said Guerda Philemond, whose 2-year-old, Olivia Grace Charles, attends the day care. “There’s a lot of land, empty space they can drill. It doesn’t have to be in the back yard of a day care.”

Total declined a request for an interview to discuss the matter. But in a statement, the company said it has operated near Mother’s Heart for more than a decade without any safety concerns expressed by the City of Arlington.

“We listen to and do understand the concerns of the local communities with whom we interact frequently to ensure we operate in harmony with them and the local authorities,” the statement said.

The clash in Arlington comes against the backdrop of pledges from world leaders to reduce emissions, burn less fossil fuel and transition to cleaner energy. Yet the world’s reliance on natural gas is growing, not declining. As soon as next year, the United States is set to become the world’s largest exporter of liquid natural gas, or LNG, according to Rystad Energy.

As a result, despite pressure for energy companies to shift their spending to cleaner technologies, there will likely be more drilling for natural gas in Arlington and other communities. And children who spend time near drilling sites or natural gas distribution centers — in neighborhoods that critics call “sacrifice zones” — may face a growing risk of developing neurological or learning problems and exposure to carcinogens. A report by Physicians for Social Responsibility and Concerned Health Professionals of New York, which reviewed dozens of scientific studies, found that the public health risks associated with these sites include cancers, asthma, respiratory diseases, rashes, heart problems and mental health disorders.

Most vulnerable are non-white families. Many of the wells Total has drilled in Arlington are near Latino and Black or low-income communities, often just a few hundred feet from homes. A statistical analysis by The Associated Press of the locations of wells Total operates in Arlington shows that their density is higher in neighborhoods that many people of color call home.

Asked about that finding, Total did not respond directly but said its “decisions on future drilling are driven by the geological data.”

“America is segregated, and so is pollution,” said Robert Bullard, director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University. “The dirty industries, and what planners call locally unwanted land uses, oftentimes followed the path of least resistance. Historically, that’s been poor communities and communities of color.”

The pattern is evident well outside the Arlington area, too. When gas pumped in Texas is shipped out for export, it goes to liquid natural gas facilities along the Gulf Coast. Many of those facilities are near communities, like those in Port Arthur, Texas, that are predominantly non-white.

“There’s constant talk of expansions here,” said John Beard, founder of the Port Arthur Community Action Network, which opposes the expansion of export facilities. “When you keep adding this to the air, the air quality degrades, and so does our quality of life and so does our health.

“Once again, we’re being sacrificed.”

_______

At the Arlington day care, Wanda Vincent, the owner, has been cautioning parents about the health risks and gathering signatures to petition the City Council to reject Total’s drilling request. When she opened the facility nearly two decades ago, Vincent wanted to provide a refuge for children in her care, some of whom suffer from hunger and poverty.

That was before natural gas production accelerated in the United States. Around 2005, energy companies discovered how to drill horizontally into shale formations using hydraulic fracturing techniques. With this technique, known as fracking, water and chemicals are shot deep underground into a well bore that travels horizontally. It is highly effective. But fracking is known to contribute to air and water pollution and to raise risks to people and the environment.

Vincent worries that the political winds in Arlington have shifted since last year and that the council will approve Total’s new request.

“The world was dealing with what happened with George Floyd,” she said. “The meeting was emotional, just listening to the speakers that were talking and then sharing their hearts and saying, ‘Well, we want to do more. We want to, you know, racially do better.’ And I was encouraged. But you know what? Nothing has really changed since then.”

Some states have acted to force fracking away from residents. Colorado last year required new wells to be drilled at least 2,000 feet from homes and schools. California has proposed a limit of 3,200 feet. Los Angeles has taken steps to ban urban drilling. Vermont and New York state banned fracking years ago.

In Arlington, drilling is supposed to occur no closer than 600 feet from day care centers or homes. But companies can apply for a waiver from the City Council to drill as close as 300 feet.

France, Total’s home country, bars fracking. But that ban is largely symbolic because no meaningful oil or gas supplies exist in France. So Total, one of the world’s largest players in natural gas, drills in 27 other countries. It turns much of that gas into liquid, then ships it, trades it and re-gasifies it at LNG terminals worldwide.

The gas wells next to Mother’s Heart represent just a tiny fraction of Total’s global operations. Yet the company holds tight to its plans to drill there despite the community’s resistance.

“Nobody should have a production ban unless they have a consumption ban, because it has made places like Arlington extraction colonies for countries like France, and they have shifted the environmental toll, the human toll, to us,” said Ranjana Bhandari, director of Liveable Arlington, the group leading the opposition to Total’s drilling plans.

In Arlington, companies that are rejected for a drilling permit may reapply after a year. Some Arlington council members have said they fear litigation if they don’t allow the drilling. That’s because a Texas law bars localities from banning, limiting or even regulating oil or gas operations except in limited circumstances. (Arlington officials declined to be interviewed.)

“If I’m able to reach out to the French and speak to them directly, I would let them know, ‘Would you be able to allow somebody to go in your back yard and do natural gas drilling where you know your wife lays her head or your kids lay their head?’ ” said Philemond, the day care center parent. “And the answer would absolutely be ‘No’ within a second.”

___

A mile or so from the day care, in the back yard of Frank and Michelle Meeks, a high-pitched ringing blares like a school fire alarm as the sun sets. Just beyond their patio and grill looms the wall of another Total well site, where one of the wells was in the “flowback” stage, according to the City of Arlington. Flowback occurs when fracking fluids and debris are cleared from the wellbore before gas production begins. This site, which stretches behind many neighborhood houses, is near two day care centers.

The ringing goes on and on. When the wells were initially drilled, Michelle Meeks said, the sound and vibrations were a full-body experience. At this point, she and her husband barely notice it.

After the drilling started a decade ago at the site, a few hundred feet behind their house, they noticed cracks in their foundation and across their backyard patio. They now receive royalty checks for $15 or $20 a few times a year. That money wouldn’t make a dent in the cost of repairing the cracks in their foundation. But when the oil and gas developers came knocking years ago, the couple thought that saying no would have been futile.

“In Texas, you really can’t fight oil and gas production,” said Frank Meeks, a 60-year-old machine operator. “We don’t have the money to go and get big-time lawyers to keep them out of our back yards.”

A few miles away, Pamela Polk cares for her autistic 21-year-old grandson in a modest home she rents across the fence from another Total gas well site. She has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. And since they moved in a decade ago, her grandson developed asthma.

Arlington’s air quality exceeds federal ozone pollution standards set by the EPA. In 2012, at the height of the fracking boom, asthma rates for school-age children in Tarrant County were 19%-25% — far above national and state norms.

“You’d think they would at least put a flyer in the mailbox or something, you know?” Polk said. “I’m frustrated. I mean, we pay taxes, you know, even though we’re renters, we still pay taxes.”

The site is a quarter-mile from two day cares. Polk notices teenagers playing on the other side of the fence in the field adjacent to the drill site.

“The biggest thing that worries me,” she said, “is kids.”

_______

Around Arlington, drilling has imposed higher costs — literally — on lower-income neighborhoods than on more affluent areas. As the fracking boom took off, “land men” from the oil and gas companies went door to door in Arlington, asking permission to drill beneath homes of those who owned mineral rights. Some homeowners were offered signing bonuses and royalties. Renters like Polk, and others who don’t own the rights to the minerals beneath their homes, had no choice but to yield to drilling — and received nothing for it.

By contrast, when land men came knocking in Bhandari’s wealthier neighborhood 15 years ago, she and her neighbors, a lawyer among them, joined forces. Some opposed fracking. Others wanted higher royalty payments. In the end, the company, which had sought to drill next to a park, situated its well pad a mile away. Now, Bhandari is trying to help less affluent neighborhoods push back on drilling.

Arlington sits atop the Barnett Shale, one of the largest on-land natural gas fields in the United States. Gas production, which peaked in the Barnett Shale a decade ago, has been declining. Even with natural gas prices rising, few large U.S. companies plan to drill new wells at a time when investors are increasingly seeking environmentally responsible companies.

“Total is a publicly traded company. They claim to be very interested in the energy transition and so forth,” said Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University. “If a U.S. company were to do that here that was publicly traded, their stock would be hammered.”

Not only is Total among the few operators that are actively seeking new wells in the Barnett Shale. It’s also drilled closer to population centers than have other companies over the past eight years, according to an analysis by S&P Global Platts.

Some in Arlington have managed to benefit from the drilling. At Cornerstone Baptist Church recently, a dozen choir members belted out hymns while congregants clapped and waved hands. A rainbow of lights illuminated a cross hanging above. Balloons and ferns decorated the stage, flanked by outsize screens showcasing the singers.

The church, which allowed Total to drill for gas on its land about a decade ago, collected royalties that helped support food giveaways, as well as other churches, said Jan Porter, a former church elder.

“It’s enabled us,” he said, “to do ministries that we might not have been able to do.”

___

After natural gas is pumped from underground, it moves through pipelines, passing through compressor stations, which help keep the gas moving. About a half-mile west of Polk’s house is a compressor station. Occasionally, a sour smell wafts through the air. As the gas moves through a series of curved pipes, a sound like a giant vacuum arises constantly.

Exposure to emissions of volatile organic compounds from natural gas pipeline compressor stations has been linked to higher death rates, according to a study by Indiana University. When released, these compounds can create ozone, which may exacerbate asthma, bronchitis, emphysema or cause chest pain, throat irritation or reduced lung function, especially in children and older adults. Compressor stations in New York state emitted 39 carcinogenic chemicals, including benzene and formaldehyde, according to a study by the University of Albany. Compressor stations also release methane, a potent climate-warming gas.

A few blocks away, the same sour smell clings to the air as Patrick Vancooper prunes tomato plants and okra he grows on a strip of land between the street and a fence. Many of his neighbors, in a community with pockmarked roads and weathered apartments, don’t know they live near a compressor station.

Greg and Gloria Allen were among them. They noticed a smell like raw eggs or a skunk, with a chemical odor too pungent to be an animal. They didn’t know the cause.

When the couple drives down the block near the compressor station, hidden behind a row of commercial properties and a doctor’s office, the fumes are so severe that Gloria Allen, a 59-year-old bus driver for the City of Dallas, gets headaches.

“If they build something like that over there, they should tell us,” she said. “Any time that can be a danger to me and my family, that’s not a place for me.”

After two years living on the block, in a home they share with their 14-year-old grandson, Gloria Allen was diagnosed with asthma. On her day off, she visited her doctor to discuss her symptoms.

“It’s driving me crazy,” she said of the odor. “It’s coming through the fence. I smell it in the house. I’m going to move. I can’t take it.”

___

After the fracking boom reshaped communities like Arlington, America wound up with too much natural gas. Yet at the same time, the world’s thirst for it grew. Developers, Total among them, poured billions of dollars into expanding LNG export terminals along the U.S. Gulf Coast, often near communities made up predominantly of people of color.

The nation’s largest LNG export facility sits just outside Port Arthur, which is three-quarters non-white. A second export facility is being expanded in Port Arthur. And a third export facility has been proposed.

Beard, of the Port Arthur Community Action Network, worries that chemical leaks could cause a devastating explosion. An LNG export terminal just outside Port Arthur was recently fined for safety violations after hundreds of barrels of liquid natural gas escaped through cracks, vaporized and released 825,000 cubic feet of natural gas into the atmosphere.

Back in Arlington, where the gas supply chain begins, Rosalia Tejeda worries about her three children, who live with her a few blocks from the well site at Mother’s Heart. She spoke against the drilling plan at an Arlington planning board meeting in October. She was crushed when the panel voted to approve it, setting up this week’s City Council vote.

“Why don’t you be the one standing up for my children — for all these children that are going to suffer in the future?” Tejeda asked. “I mean, it’s crazy to me.”

___

AP staffers Angeliki Kastanis in Los Angeles and Francois Duckett in New York contributed to this report.

Expo 2020′s workers face hardships despite Dubai’s promises
By ISABEL DEBRE and MALAK HARB

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FILE - A worker talks on the phone by an installation honoring the foreign laborers who built Expo 2020 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Oct. 3, 2021. Intent on making a flawless impression as the first host of the world’s fair in the Middle East, Dubai has spent over $7 billion on pristine fairgrounds and jubilant festivities. But propping up the elaborate fair is the United Arab Emirates’ contentious labor system that long has drawn accusations of mistreatment. (AP Photo/Jon Gambrell, File)


DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Intent on making a flawless impression as the first host of the world’s fair in the Middle East, Dubai sought to leave nothing to chance.

It poured billions of dollars into its pristine fairgrounds and jubilant festivities that opened last month, aiming for 25 million visits to the pandemic-delayed Expo 2020.

Propping up the world’s fair is the United Arab Emirates’ contentious labor system that long has drawn accusations of mistreating workers. Highly sensitive to its image and aware that Expo attracts more attention to its labor practices, Dubai has held companies on the project to higher-than-normal standards of worker treatment. Contractors offer benefits and better wages to Expo workers, compared with elsewhere in the country, and many are grateful for the jobs.

Yet according to human rights groups and interviews with over two dozen workers, violations have persisted, underpinned by the UAE’s labor sponsorship system. It relies on complicated chains of foreign subcontracts, ties workers’ residency to their jobs and gives outsized power to employers.

Among the complaints are workers having to pay exorbitant and illegal fees to local recruiters in order to work at the world’s fair; employers confiscating their passports; broken promises on wages; crowded and unsanitary living conditions in dormitories; substandard or unaffordable food; and up to 70-hour workweeks in sometimes brutal heat.

“You can have the best standards in the world, but if you have this inherent power imbalance, workers are in a situation where they’re at risk of exploitation all the time,” said Mustafa Qadri, executive director of Equidem Research, a labor rights consultancy that recently reported on the mistreatment of Expo workers during the pandemic.

When questioned by The Associated Press, Expo organizers did not comment but referred to their previous statement in response to Equidem’s report, saying Expo takes worker welfare “extremely seriously” and requires all contractors to comply with standards “formulated from international best practice.”

Expo’s statement acknowledged the workers’ “most regularly raised topics of concern” involved “wage payments and food,” without elaborating. It said authorities have “worked directly with contractors to remedy both immediately.”

“Some cases have been identified where accommodation facilities have been found to not be in line with UAE legal requirements,” it added. “In such cases we work with a contractor to move workers to adequate accommodation facilities.”

Citing labor abuses at Expo and other human rights concerns, the European Parliament has urged a boycott of the event. The UAE called the resolution “factually incorrect,” without elaborating.

Emirati authorities did not respond to the AP’s repeated requests for comment.

PAYING A HIGH PRICE TO WORK

Mohammed, 27, is among scores of workers who clean the fairgrounds eight hours a day. A ceramic-tile salesman in Ghana, he’d dreamed of life in the skyscraper-studded cities of the Persian Gulf and the chance to send badly needed cash to his parents and six brothers and sisters.

A recruiter in Ghana’s southern city of Kumasi had promised him over $500 a month, including food and housing, Mohammed said. But to get the job, he’d have to pay a fee of $1,150, using years of savings. The agent assured him that he’d make that back in no time.

When he arrived, however, Mohammed learned he was to earn as little as $190 a month, and the promised food was undercooked rice and sausage he couldn’t stomach, forcing him to buy meals. He said the Abu Dhabi-based contractor that sponsored his work visa appeared to have no idea he had paid a small fortune to recruiters, a common practice in the UAE despite a government ban.

For six months of work, he would make less than what he paid to get the job.

“If I had known, I never would have come,” said Mohammed, who asked to be identified by only his first name because he feared reprisals. Most workers interviewed by the AP spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of losing their jobs after Expo officials warned them against talking to journalists.

Thousands of low-wage laborers from Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, barred from forming unions, toil up to 70 hours a week at Expo, living in crowded, dormitory-style housing, according to the workers and labor rights researchers.

They’re among millions from poor countries who come to Gulf Arab sheikhdoms to create massive government projects and serve small local populations as construction and domestic workers, janitors, cooks, garbage collectors and guards.

PACKED DORMS, ONE TOILET FOR 80 WORKERS

Equidem documented multiple cases of abuse at Expo’s construction site when the pandemic began. Workers described going hungry as employers withheld up to five months of wages and termination benefits.

Some were deprived of their identification documents, unable to change jobs or leave the country. Others were fired without warning and got stranded in the UAE. Several told of plunging into debt over high recruiting fees.

Those interviewed for Equidem’s report were primarily from India and Pakistan, attracted by average salaries of $300 a month, along with room and board. Many lived in packed accommodations that in one case saw 12 people crammed in a room and in another had over 80 people sharing a single toilet as the coronavirus coursed across the country.

Equidem reported that these issues specifically plagued four major UAE-based service and construction contractors: Ghantoot Gulf Contracting, Transguard Security, Al Naboodah Construction Group and JML Facades. All continue to operate at Expo.

Transguard said it complied fully with UAE labor laws and “makes every effort to ensure that all our practices are legal and ethical,” including “strict adherence to regulations that require salaries be paid in full and on time.” Transguard Group is a subsidiary of the state conglomerate that also owns the long-haul airline Emirates.

The other three companies did not respond to requests for comment.

In interviews with the AP, over two dozen workers described other forms of exploitation, with inadequate food a central concern. Many complained of long hours in hazardous heat. Several workers from West Africa and Pakistan said they’d paid hundreds of dollars in recruiting fees to unscrupulous agents, as Mohammed did. Others said employers confiscated their passports.

Expo’s worker welfare policy demands employers “ensure fair and free recruitment” and “respect the right of employees to retain their personal documents.”

‘WORK, SLEEP, WORK, SLEEP’

Eric, a cleaner from Cameroon, said he and his colleagues protested to Dubai-based Emrill Services about the lack of kitchen access and affordable food but got no response. They make less than $300 a month, with no food allowance.

Desperate to cover his younger brothers’ school fees at home, Eric said he can’t buy more than a plate or two of spaghetti from the canteen, and three meals a day would cost over half his salary.

“Everyone is complaining that the food is too expensive,” he said. “We don’t eat to our satisfaction because if you do, you will have no salary by the month’s end.”

In response to a request for comment, Emrill promised to investigate the complaints, saying it “takes employee well-being very seriously.”

Various companies at Expo offer workers free food or allow them to cook their own. Others provide a food allowance of some $80 a month, although several workers said that without refrigerators or easy kitchen access, they live on sour milk and store-bought bread.

Guards at the Expo entrance working for Abu Dhabi-based construction company Arkan said they were promised hot meals at a cafeteria during the break in an eight-hour shift. Despite repeatedly asking supervisors in the past three months, the guards received nothing, leaving them hungry throughout the day. Arkan did not respond to requests for comment.

In other cases, management has been more responsive. When one staffer from Malawi said he mobilized workers angered by their monotonous rice diet to complain to their bosses at ADNH Compass, the food improved, with meat options added.

“It’s a strange feeling,” said a 30-year-old janitor from Togo. “Your mother, your father, your nephew, your uncle, they call you and think (because) you travel, you’re a rich man. They don’t know you’re not eating.”

Expo’s security guards are ubiquitous — predominantly African men in black polo shirts, stationed across the vast, sunbaked grounds. They work the longest hours — typically 13-hour shifts, including a 40-minute lunch. The grind begins at dawn when buses pull up to their enormous dormitories near Dubai’s port and airport.

Aside from brief breaks, they spend hours in the withering weather. Many began in July and August, as the fair prepared to open, when temperatures exceeded 50 degrees Celsius (120 degrees Fahrenheit) with high humidity. Recent research published in the Cardiology Journal on workers building stadiums for Qatar’s 2022 World Cup cited potentially fatal effects of heat on young laborers.

Adding to the pressures is the constant surveillance, many guards said, with managers threatening penalties and salary deductions for breaks that stretch too long, or accidental dozing.

“If you show up late for attendance, if you close your eyes on the job, if you go inside too many times, you’ll lose pay for a day at least,” said one Indian guard with Dubai-based First Security Group, describing his manager’s threats at roll call. “We deserve more than 2,400 dirhams ($650 a month) for this kind of stress.”

Workers have little say over how they spend their days, shuttling back and forth between fairgrounds and dormitories, where four to six people share a room. For many, that lack of freedom is a core complaint of the labor system, where absconding from employers is grounds for arrest and deportation.

“Work, sleep, work, sleep. There’s no freedom,” said a 40-year-old guard from Kenya. “The pressure is the same all over the UAE. You just need to try to survive one day to another.”

Although most workers interviewed said their employers returned their identity documents after applying for their visas, at least six people who wanted to keep their passports said they could not — another common practice outlawed in the UAE. A few cleaners with Emrill said they’d apparently signed consent forms they didn’t understand, allowing the company to hold their documents.

Emrill told the AP it respects workers’ right to keep their documents, but “offers employees the option to keep any identification document, including passports, in the company safe for safekeeping.”

Dozens of other workers declined to talk to the AP, fearing revocation of their contract and other reprisals if they spoke about their concerns, even though Expo’s policy requires companies to “allow employees freedom to exercise their legal rights without fear of reprisal.”

One parking attendant said he was “bound by protocol not to answer a question from a journalist.”

Ahead of the global event, authorities failed to answer questions from journalists about worker deaths and injuries. As the fair opened, Expo officials gave conflicting figures for how many workers had been killed during construction.

Despite the difficult conditions, most cleaners, guards and parking attendants said they’re grateful for jobs that allow them to help their families back home. Their salaries far exceed what they’d make there or even what they’d earn for the same job in the parking lots of Dubai’s skyscrapers and marbled malls. Security guards at Expo earn about $55 more per month than they would outside it.

Many also feel they’re contributing to the event’s efforts to unite countries and cultures.

At the fair’s Jubilee Park, nestled between a stage and popular pub, a somber tribute to workers rises from the pavement. A roll call of the 200,000 people who worked at Expo over the years wraps around stone columns.

Although it is easy to miss, a small plaque on the monument reads: “Expo 2020 Dubai dedicates this monument to all our brothers and sisters who built the site.”

Justice Dept.: Gap reaches agreement to settle discrimination charges

Nov. 29 (UPI) -- Gap Inc. has reached a settlement to resolve federal charges that it discriminated against workers because of their immigration status, the Justice Department announced Monday.

In a statement, federal prosecutors said the U.S. clothing company has agreed to pay $73,263 in civil penalties, back wages to two employees -- an asylee and a lawful permanent resident -- who were fired under Gap policies and provide training to thousands of employees nationwide on anti-discrimination laws in order to resolve the charges filed under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The company also agreed to ensure its electronic programs are compliant with applicable rules and be subject to monitoring and reporting requirements.

In return, Gap does not admit to committing wrongdoing, contends its actions were not unlawful and that it did not engage in a pattern or practice of discrimination against any of its employees, the settlement reads.

According to the Justice Department, it notified Gap in early April 2018 that it had initiated an investigation into whether it had violated laws under the anti-discrimination provision of the IMA.

Investigators found that it did discriminate against certain non-U.S. citizen employees by reverifying their permission to work without reason for doing so. They also found the company required them to produce immigration documents for the re-verification instead of permitting them to choose other valid documentation.

They also said Gap's reliance on an electronic human resource management system contributed to its discriminatory practices

Gap has been contacted for comment.

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said this settlement with Gap underscores her department's work to end unlawful employment discrimination.

"Thirty-five years ago, Congress passed a law prohibiting employers from discriminating against workers because of their citizenship, immigration status or national origin, and from retaliating against them for asserting their rights," Clarke said. "The division continues to vigorously enforce the law -- holding thousands of employers accountable for violations, collecting millions of dollars in civil penalties and back pay and obtaining relief for countless victims of discrimination."

Pre-Inca mummy found in Peru with hands covering its face

Nov. 29 (UPI) -- An 800-year-old mummy with its hands covering its face was found by archaeologists in Peru.

The mummy -- which could be up to 1,200 years old -- was found at a site near the capital city Lima by researchers from the National University of San Marcos this week.

The body was found in the middle of a town square at the archaeological site of Cajamarquilla. It was tied with ropes with its hands covering its face.

Archaeologists say this way of burial is a southern Peruvian funeral custom preceding the Inca civilization. The mummy is most likely a man between 25 and 30 years old who had come from the mountains to the town. He was likely of high status.

Researchers haven't been able to pinpoint a time period when the man may have lived. Carbon dating and other analyses are being carried out.

Work on the site began in October with a team of 40 people. Pieter Van Dalen Luna and Yomira Huaman Santillan led the group.

"The whole team was really happy because we didn't think this was going to happen," Huamán told CNN. "We didn't expect to make such an important discovery."

Marine mollusks were also found outside of the mummy's tomb, even though the site is 15 miles away from the coast. Luna said descendants may place food and offerings at the tomb over the years. Llama bones were also found at the tomb site.

Other mummies have been found in Peru and Chile, many of them over 1,000 years old.

RCMP expected stiffer resistance during raid in B.C. pipeline, land rights conflict
Jorge Barrera 

© Submitted by Dan Loan RCMP officers on the Morice River Forest Service Road in northern B.C., on Friday, part of a two-day operation to clear barricades blocking construction of a natural gas pipeline.

The RCMP says it expected to face a higher threat when officers moved in last week to clear barricades blocking construction of a natural gas pipeline in northern British Columbia.

Social media "rhetoric" from supporters of the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs — who say the Coastal GasLink (CGL) project does not have their consent to cross the territory — led planners to believe they would face fiercer resistance, the RCMP said in a statement to CBC News.

"Our threat assessment … had been heightened by publicly available rhetoric on social media by the protesters calling for 'war,' which was a change from previous protests in the area," said the statement.

It was the third such police operation in as many years. Tactical teams, helicopters and canine units converged on the forest service road — which stems from Houston, B.C., about 1,000 kilometres north of Vancouver — in a two-day operation that resulted in about 30 arrests.

The statement was issued in the wake of footage, released by independent filmmaker Michael Toledano, showing officers breaking into a cabin with an axe and chainsaw while others pointed assault rifles and a police dog barked outside. Toledano is making a documentary for CBC's The Passionate Eye.

The operation, like the previous two, met little physical resistance from the two groups of Wet'suwet'en, Haudenosaunee and non-Indigenous people.

Wet'suwet'en member Sleydo' Molly Wickham, who has been a main spokesperson for the land resistance, was in that cabin and says the moment left her traumatized.

"This was a huge invasion … it was pretty intense and really frightening to have machine guns on you," said Wickham.

"They were very violent in the way they arrested us without a warrant. They had no right to enter and remove me from my territory as violently as they did."

Prominent Haudenosaunee grassroots leader Skyler Williams said there was "a lot of arm swinging, it was a bit of a blur, when we hit the ground, our heads were … pushed into the ice."

He said officers called him by name and targeted him for arrest first.

The RCMP were enforcing an injunction preventing obstruction of any work on CGL, which is owned by TC Energy.

The RCMP said the makeup of its team remained essentially the same during last week's operation, involving tactical units with "standard issue firearms" and dogs.

The remoteness of the area, surrounded by heavy forests, and the "unpredictable nature of what we could be facing," influenced the equipment and number of officer used, said the statement.
In court in underwear

Wickham, who was released Tuesday evening, says she was held in solitary confinement in Prince George for two days and that she and others went without brushing their teeth and soap for most of their stay in holding cells.

She says they also sometimes went without food or water — some of the faucets were broken — for 12-hour periods.

"City cells are not places where human beings should be for long periods of time," said Wickham.

Williams and Layla Staats, another documentary filmmaker, from Six Nations near Hamilton, say their ankles and wrists were shackled and that they were put in separate, box-like compartments in the back of SUVs for transport to their court appearance in Smithers, B.C., on Friday.

Staats described them as "metal dog cages."

Both said they weren't allowed to put their clothes on and instead were forced to go into the courtroom in their undergarments.

"It was a very disgusting feeling to be paraded around in such a way," said Williams.

The RCMP flatly rejected allegations of mistreatment, and said everyone was shuttled in regular detainee transport conditions.

"The allegations of how individuals were treated in a fashion similar to canines is ludicrous," said the statement.

"No one was placed in leg shackles during this operation … All those arrested were given the option what single layer they wished to wear while they were in custody. Individuals opted to wear their base layer, or long johns rather than their outer clothing."

‘I Decided’: New York Teen Baseball Star Refused to Accept Act of Racism At Private Prep School, He Chose to Leave In Response to Derogatory Comment About His Speed


Nicole Duncan-Smith
Mon, November 29, 2021

A 16-year-old baseball phenom has transferred from an elite New Rochelle, New York, prep school to attend his local public school in his junior year. The transfer comes after someone on the school’s staff allegedly spewed a racist statement toward him.

Local reports say Tony Humphrey was a star on the Iona Preparatory School’s baseball team. He was recruited by and has committed to playing for Boston College post-graduation.

Tony Humphrey (Pre Baseball Report)

Humphrey alleges that he signed up for the track team after his season was over and was pulled aside by an assistant athletics director he identified to local TV news station News 12 as Bernard Mahoney, who questioned why he was joining the team.

The Cortlandt native describes in detail the interaction that transpired on Friday, Nov. 19. He told the news outlet, “He comes up to me and asked why was I doing track.”

The young man shared that he wanted to improve his speed, to which the assistant athletics director responded by saying that he “gained that speed by running from the police.”

Humphrey that he believed that the statement was “racist.” He also added, “There was no reason for him to say that.”

He shared that he went home to talk to his mother about the exchange and the two immediately decided to transfer schools.

“I decided to leave, because of my current situation, as I’m already committed. I’m already going to [college],” he said adding. “I don’t feel like I have to stay at a program where they’re going to look at me different, or feel uncomfortable at a place I have to go to Monday through Friday.”

“There were other instances of racism during my freshman year. I took it up with the dean, I took it up with the higher-ups, and nothing happened to the other student,” the athlete shared.

On Tuesday, Nov. 23, the students, Humphrey’s former classmates, organized a walkout over the remarks, the Rockland/ Westchester Journal News reported. Leto then addressed the student body after the schoolwide prayer service and affirmed that an investigation had been launched as soon as they were made aware of the incident.

The school’s president, Brother Thomas R. Leto, has since sent a letter to address Humphrey’s departure from the school. Inside the letter, he shared that the staff member who made the comment to the young man, which the school would not confirm was Mahoney, has resigned from his post at the school.

Adding that, “Iona Preparatory does not condone for its students and will not accept from its faculty and staff.”

“One of the most important aspects of our school community — the acceptance and respect of every student — has been infringed upon,” Leto’s note continued.

He then apologized, “On behalf of the administration and staff, I am deeply sorry to this student and those most offended and negatively impacted. We remain fully committed to being an open, welcoming, embracing, and nurturing community, where every young man holds a special place in the brotherhood of Iona men.”

Rare Deep-Sea Anglerfish Found on San Diego Beach

Mon, November 29, 2021

A rare Pacific footballfish, a deep-sea anglerfish usually found at ocean depths of more than 2,000 feet, was found on beach in San Diego, California on November 13, according to local reports.

Jay Beiler, who captured these images, told Storyful he encountered the fish on Torrey Pines State Beach. “At first I thought it was a — like a jellyfish or something, and then I went and looked at it a little more carefully, and some other people were gathered around it too, and then I saw that it was this very unusual fish,” Beiler told NBC 7 San Diego. “It’s the stuff of nightmares — mouth almost looked bloody! I’d say it was nearly a foot long.”

According to NBC 7, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography reported the fish was a Pacific footballfish, one of the larger anglerfish species found throughout the Pacific Ocean. However, the species has only been seen “a few times” in California, said Ben Frable, manager of the marine vertebrate collection at Scripps.

The Pacific footballfish species live at depths between 2,000 to 3,300 feet, where sunlight doesn’t penetrate, according to the California Academy of Sciences. The fish use a fleshy, bioluminescent lure from their heads to attract prey. Credit: Jay Beiler via Storyful

 

Divers discovered a horrifying 26-foot sea worm that only comes out at night

Joshua Hawkins
Sun, November 28, 2021


Divers off the coast of New Zealand came face to face with a giant sea worm that was almost 30-foot long.

The creature is called a pyrosome, and while it might look intimidating, it’s actually perfectly safe to approach. Pyrosomes are part of a family of sea creatures known as tunicates or “sea squirts”. They’ve also been called cockroaches of the sea, National Geographic notes, due to their ability to pull food from even the most inhospitable environments.

Divers swim right next to this giant sea worm

Videographer Steve Hathaway, and his friend Andrew Buttle, discovered the pyrosome while filming a tourism promo in October of 2018. Hathaway says that Buttle was the first to notice the massive sea creature. He put on his scuba gear and dove in right after.

The pyrosome they found was roughly 26-foot long. These translucent worm-like creatures can often glow and look similar to a plastic bag floating through the water. The two divers spent almost an hour swimming around the creature, taking photos and capturing video of it. Hathaway says that he’d been hoping to catch a glimpse of one for years.

It isn’t just one creature

Pyrosome colonies can vary in size from very small to massive. 

- Credit: scubagreg123/Adobe

Buttle told National Geographic that swimming next to it the pyrosome “was pretty incredible”. He also noted how they could see thousands of tiny creatures along the giant sea worm’s body, up close.

That’s because pyrosomes are actually a free-flowing colony of hundreds or even thousands of individual organisms. These organisms are known as zooids. The small multicellular creatures pump water through their bodies to catch and feed on phytoplankton, poop particles, and other bacteria.

Andrew Jeffs, a marine science professor at the University of Auckland says that the pyrosome and the salp, a cousin of the pyrosome, are both important to tropical waters as a food source. Other creatures like turtles and spiny lobsters cling to the tubes and can feed for weeks at a time.

At night, pyrosomes swim to the surface of the sea. There they feed on whatever they can find in the water. Their bodies are very similar to gelatinous organisms like jellyfish. Additionally, they glow due to natural bioluminescence. While this one was 26-foot long, they can be as small as one centimeter in size. As long as the entire colony isn’t wiped out, they can theoretically live on forever.

Sightings of these giant sea worms are rare. But, scientists are making more efforts to study and understand these creatures.

I applied for LA’s basic income program – and the process was startling



Ruth Fowler
Mon, November 29, 2021,

Sitting in a Ralphs parking lot overlooking the Pacific Coast Highway at 8am on a Friday, hot and sticky in an ageing wetsuit, I clicked on the link for Big:Leap, Los Angeles’ guaranteed income pilot and the largest program of its kind in the US.

Applications for the program had opened that morning. Participants would be chosen by lottery and the criteria for eligibility were simple: applicants had to be over the age of 18, live in the city of Los Angeles, have one or more dependents, and be living in poverty according to the federal poverty guidelines – a somewhat outdated and controversial method of measuring poverty, but one which, in the absence of anything else, is still used widely. The project’s aim was straightforward, too: to study the effects of giving approximately 3,000 families $1,000 a month in cash with no strings attached.

Related: Californians on universal basic income paid off debt and got full-time jobs

To a single parent who had lost two jobs in 2021, the opportunity to receive an additional thousand dollars a month tax-free in a city where the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $2,195 seemed like a lifeline. I thought I knew what to expect from the process. I had applied for several aid programs before – CalWorks, CalFresh, MediCal, onerous and detailed applications that delved into my bank accounts, utility bills, rental agreement, child support, income and assets (or lack of them), and they often involved numerous trips to offices to clear up glitches that had tied my hypothetical aid up in a bureaucratic system. During the pandemic, I applied for – and received – $17,500 of SBA money. That application took just minutes to complete.

The approximately 80 questions that the Big:Leap application posed started predictably enough: What is your gender? How many children under the age of 18 do you have?

They soon delved into the personal: How much bodily pain have you had during the past 4 weeks?

Then the application took a nosedive into the deeply intimate:

Have you experienced any of the actions listed below from any current or former partner or partners?


Blame me for causing their violent behavior.


Shook, pushed, grabbed or threw me.


Tried to convince my family, children or friends that I am crazy or tried to turn them against me.


Used or threatened to use a knife or gun or other weapon to harm me.


Made me perform sex acts that I did not want to perform.Screen shots from the application

The application took me 45 minutes, several F-bombs and one packet of Kleenex to complete.

It’s the paradox of Big:Leap. The program aims to stop “controlling” people in poverty through policy by no longer dictating what recipients spend government assistance on. But to prove the project’s worth, researchers have developed a control program that felt frustrating and arduous – hurtful, even, at times. “That is proof that we have to get policy to stop forcing people in poverty to prove their need,” said Michael Tubbs, the former mayor of Stockton, California.

Stockton in recent years ran a wildly successful two-year guaranteed income pilot, the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (Seed). The program achieved the results many politicians and researchers aiming to combat wealth inequality had hoped for: critics of the scheme had argued that untaxed, additional, no-strings income – in Stockton’s case, $500 a month for two years – would quash people’s work ethic and that the money would be spent irresponsibly. Extensive surveys ultimately revealed that the money improved the 200 participants’ job prospects, financial stability, mental and physical health, and overall wellbeing. Only 1% of the money went towards alcohol and tobacco, researchers found.

Since then, other major California cities have launched their own pilots. San Francisco announced its program in September 2020. Oakland followed suit in March. Chicago, Illinois, passed its guaranteed income program in October.

The setup of each of these pilots has varied. The Stockton program had a similar structure to Big:Leap, using a control group and a trial group to draw its conclusions. But it had no criteria for entry other than a Stockton zip code, and potential applicants entered a simple lottery without any initial questionnaire.

Curious about the reactions of other LA residents to the application questions, I went along to one of the walk-in centers across the city, most of which were in the district of Curren D Price, the city councilmember who had initiated the LA scheme. It’s a predominantly working class, Spanish-speaking neighborhood with one of the highest poverty rates in the city. At Price’s office, 16 computer terminals were set up in a room with three bilingual volunteers ready to assist walk-in applicants who might not have the literacy or technology to complete the application at home. A reporter for KCRW, Aaron Schrank, sat outside the room, holding a voice recorder. On Friday, when applications opened, there had been lines around the block. When I visited three days later, 13 of the terminals were occupied, and bored children clutching crayons wandered around while their parents patiently typed away. One woman completed the application in three hours. Another took two.

Schrank told me that two people he’d interviewed early that morning had, like me, been confused and offended by the questions. Luis Riva, a former upholsterer, had told him: “They’re asking too many questions about my health. They’re asking questions that aren’t related to helping people with money. They’re asking other things like how is my health, how do I think, psychological stuff.” Bonnie Morales, who lost her father and then her job during the pandemic, complained: “They asked me about my partner, like if it was a girl or a boy. Like, what does that matter?… Why does it matter if I’m gay, a lesbian, bisexual, or trans? I just find those questions very fucking weird to me, you know … Ask me if I’m starving. Ask me if I can afford a bag of beans. Ask me that.”

A volunteer, Porsha Anderson, acknowledged that many of the applicants had struggled with the questions. “They want to know, ‘Why are they asking me about domestic issues? What am I meant to say? What’s the answer I need to give to get the money?’”

Dr Bo-Kyung Elizabeth Kim, an assistant professor at the University of Southern California Center on Education Policy, Equity and Governance who heads the local research overseers for Big:Leap, explained that the questionnaire includes core questions composed by researchers and questions added by the study sites.

“Both researchers and their political partners are hoping to understand how and why money provided through the program may or may not improve the specific experience of families in poverty,” she said, as well as the challenges that poverty can bring about.

The questions about intimate partner violence in the questionnaire were included by the city of Los Angeles, she said: “We suspect intimate partner violence is a widespread community issue based on police calls for domestic disturbances, but we actually do not have strong data on its prevalence as typically only physical violence is reported,” she noted. “Inclusion of those questions does help LA understand the prevalence of intimate partner violence among applicants, and helps the city determine if guaranteed income can actually help people move away from dangerous relationships.”

The questions on the application were not compulsory, she added. (The disclaimer at the start of the application did state that the questions weren’t obligatory, but there was no way for an applicant to avoid them. Everyone had to click through the entire application before they could be submitted for entry into the lottery.)

The Los Angeles mayor, Eric Garcetti, said that he, as a social scientist, wanted the LA program to have the biggest possible sample size and ask the deepest questions of that sample, to provide solid data for potential government policy aimed at combating poverty. The goal, he said, was to find solutions that allow people to exit poverty, not to simply survive it through cash, food, medical or tuition assistance.

Garcetti said what had convinced him to commit to the pilot were “Angeleno cards” – basic debit cards containing a cash amount handed out to LA residents in need during the pandemic. The cards had the added benefit of allowing the city to track where that money was spent, Garcetti said. After he saw that most of the money was spent on basic necessities such as food, rent and utilities, he became committed to the idea of a guaranteed income scheme that could act as a bellwether of sorts for programs at a federal and state level, he said. The city has since set up a new department to handle Big:Leap and other “community wealth initiatives” aimed at combating poverty.

The difference between traditional social services and the notion of a guaranteed income, Garcetti said, was “the trust that [the program] places in everyday people to make decisions for themselves”.

“Our addiction to poverty costs us trillions of dollars. I believe that we can save money spent on criminal justice, on lost economic opportunity, through this scheme and offer that up as a value proposition to federal government,” he added. “We treat the poor like children who can’t do anything for themselves. We treat the rich like spoilt teenagers and let them get away with anything.”

Poverty is disabling, and poverty is undignified. Seeking aid in the United States often still involves a double loss of privacy – first by divulging swathes of information that must be disclosed as proof of need: bank accounts, spending habits, rent, income, utilities etc, then by accepting aid that comes with strict caveats, an individual is forced to submit to the intrusive control of a government that does not trust poor people to make the right decisions for their own survival and wellbeing. Individual freedom comes with wealth. Wealth that is often accumulated generationally. Wealth that is often untaxed. Wealth that has bought a trust that the poor cannot afford.

Guaranteed income programs are bravely attempting to find a solution to seemingly unresolvable problems. But the process to get there, at least in LA, is arduous.

Perhaps one of the most telling questions on the Big:Leap application was “What does trust mean to you?” For Councilmember Price, trust means relying on the community for support. For Dr Kim, trust is something that should be given to those in poverty.

“We’ve been so controlling of people in poverty,” she said. “They’re not in control of their own money. People know how to use their money – they just don’t have any. The idea of this project is just to give them some room.”

When applications for the Big:Leap closed, more than 59,000 out of nearly 500,000 eligible Angelenos had applied. The pilot’s website had over 350,000 visits, and the city information line had taken 1,469 calls about the program.

After arriving home from the Price’s offices, I pulled on what’s known in the catering world as “black bistro” and went to serve cocktails at a private party in a $32m home in Beverly Hills for $25 an hour. It struck me that the entire budget for the Big:Leap was $40 million. The yawning gap between the insanely wealthy and the horrifically poor had never felt so acute.