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Arizona Gov. Ducey signs laws to restrict trans athletes, surgeries, abortions


DON'T SEE THAT SIGN AT DEATH PENALTY OR ANTIWAR PROTESTS

File Photo by Jemal Countess/UPI | License Photo


March 30 (UPI) -- Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey on Wednesday signed into law a trio of controversial bills to ban transgender girls from competing in women's sports, minors from undergoing gender reassignment surgery and abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

The Republican governor announced he signed the three bills in a letter to Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in which he described the legislation as "common sense."

Ducey enacted the laws despite strong push back from LGBTQ and healthcare advocates.

"A vast majority of Arizonans believe in the right to abortion and want to ensure trans youth have every opportunity to thrive," Darrell Hill, policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, said in a statement. "The legislators who supported these bills know that their transphobic, anti-choice agenda is misaligned with the will of their constituents."

The legislation were passed by Arizona legislators last week with Senate Bill 1138 banning gender transition procedures for anyone under the age of 18, even with parental consent, while threatening medical professionals with sanctions for referring such medical procedures to a minor.

S.B. 1165 prohibits male-born transgender athletes from competing in public or private school sports designated for girls.

And S.B. 1164 bars medical professionals from knowingly performing an abortion on a pregnant person after 15 weeks of fetus gestation under threat of felony charges without exception for pregnancies the result of incest or rape.

Ducey, in his letter, said the legislation concerning transgender youth are "common-sense and narrowly targeted" to "protect participation and fairness for female athletes and to ensure that individuals undergoing gender reassignment surgery are of adult age."

The bills, he said, ensure that "transgender individuals continue to receive the same dignity, respect and kindness as every individual in our society."

Terry Schilling, president of American Principles Project, a conservative think tank, commended Ducey for enacting these two bills.

"While there is much more that must be done to combat the left's radical agenda, this is an important start, and we urge other states without such laws to pass them as soon as possible," he said in a statement.

Opponents, however, quickly condemned Ducey's decision to not veto the legislation with the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy group in the United States, saying any harm minors incur because of these bills belong to the governor and lawmakers who passed them.

"Gov. Ducey has chosen discrimination over protecting the well-being of vulnerable children," Cathryn Oakley, HRC's state legislative director and senior counsel, said in a statement. "This isn't leadership, it's cowardice. The Human Rights Campaign strongly condemns his actions and won't stop fighting for trans kids across the nation."

Kathy Hoffman, the state's Democratic superintendent of Public Instruction, also accused Ducey of siding with "extremism" and injecting "politics into our schools" with signing the bills she described as "hateful."

"How many kids will be harmed because of this legislations? How many kids will suffer until a future, more tolerant legislature rights theres wrongs?" she asked via Twitter. "I am deeply disappointed in this decision, and my heart breaks for the families and kids who will suffer because of these laws."

The American Civil Liberties Union responded with saying it will take Ducey to court.

"The government can't violate our right without a fight, it tweeted.

The abortion bill also came under quick attack, with healthcare advocates stating it will not only harm Arizonans but disproportionally harm lower-income Arizonans and minorities.

"Many of our clients must already travel to reach care, take time off of work at their own cost and arrange childcare. These are often insurmountable burdens because they add to the financial, logistical and legal obstacles faced by abortion seekers in the state," said Brianna Gordon from the Tucson Abortion Support Collective. "We don't need thoughts and prayers -- we need these lawmakers to take the boot off our necks."

The laws were signed as Republican-controlled states seeks to enact similar legislation.

According to HRC, 2021 was a record year for legislators to file bills targeting transgender people with this year on track to surpass that with 320 already under considered by states. Seventy of those bills concern banning trans youth from school sports.

The Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization focused on reproductive health and rights, said 71 state bills have been introduced this year to ban all or most abortions.

Last week, two Republican governors vetoed similar bills to Arizona's ban on trans youth from girls' sports.

Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb and Utah Gov. Spencer Cox separately spiked their states' legislation on the grounds that they are essentially flawed.

Meanwhile, an abortion bill similar that of Arizona but enacted by Florida is currently before the Supreme Court.

Oklahoma governor signs transgender sports ban into law

March 30 (UPI) -- Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Wednesday signed a bill into law that prohibits transgender boys and girls from competing on sports teams consistent with their gender at public schools and colleges in the state.

The law will require that a parent or guardian of a student at a public school, public charter school or public college in the state who competes on a sports team sign an affidavit acknowledging their child's biological gender at birth and requiring them to only play on a sports team associated with that gender.

"Girls should compete against girls, boys should compete against boys," said Stitt, who said he was unaware of any transgender athletes in the state and had not consulted with any transgender people when considering the bill.

He added that he was not concerned with the potential of the NCAA removing events from the state, after suggesting it may if the measure were signed into law.

"Even if the NCAA had a problem with it, we are going to do what is right," Stitt said.

The Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association released a statement saying it would comply with the new law.

"With Gov. Stitt signing the Save Women's Sports Act into law this morning at the State Capitol, the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association will now comply with the new state law," the organization said.

Lawmakers who supported the bill referenced University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, who won the 500-yeard freestyle at the NCAA women's swimming championship race earlier this month, becoming the first known transgender athlete to win a Division I national championship in any sport.

"I knew I must stand up for something I know to be true -- sex is a fact," said Republican state Sen. Julie Daniels, who said the result influenced her decision to support the bill.

"Five decades of Title IX is going to be very quickly undone if we allow just a few biological males to come in and start taking the medals, taking the ribbons, setting the fastest time and taking the scholarships."

Nicole McAfee, executive director of Freedom Oklahoma a group that advocates for equality for LGBTQ+ people in the state, said the bill would endanger transgender children.

"It tells nonbinary and gender diverse folks that policymakers not only don't understand, them but are going out of their way to make sure they feel unsafe and unwelcome in the state," McAfee said.

Tamya Cox-Toure, executive director of the ACLU Oklahoma, said the organization may seek a legal challenge to the law.

"Transgender people belong everywhere, but with the swipe of a pen and a public display, Gov. Stitt has sent a clear message to Oklahoma's vulnerable transgender youth that they are not welcome or accepted in our state," Cox-Toure said.

More than 150 anti-transgender laws have been proposed throughout the country this year, and on Wednesday Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., and 20 other Republican lawmakers introduced a bill that would honor Emma Weyant, who finished second to Thomas in the NCAA swimming championship.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this month issued an official proclamation declaring Weyant, a Sarasota, Fla., native and University of Virginia swimmer, the "rightful winner" of the race.

DAMNED IF YOU DO....

Commerce inquiry imperils solar industry, advocates say

By MATTHEW DALY

March 28, 2022

 Farmland is seen with solar panels from Cypress Creek Renewables, Oct. 28, 2021, in Thurmont, Md. The Commerce Department says it is investigating whether imports of solar panels from Southeast Asia are circumventing anti-dumping rules that block imports from China. The decision could dramatically reduce solar imports to the U.S. and undercut President Joe Biden’s ambitious climate goals. Clean energy leaders said the investigation could lead to thousands of layoffs in the domestic solar industry and imperil up to 80% of planned solar projects in the U.S. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — In a decision that could dramatically undercut President Joe Biden’s ambitious climate goals, the Commerce Department said Monday it is investigating whether imports of solar panels from Southeast Asia are circumventing anti-dumping rules that limit imports from China.

Clean energy leaders said the investigation — which could result in retroactive tariffs of up to 240% — would severely hinder the U.S. solar industry, leading to thousands of layoffs and imperiling up to 80% of planned solar projects in the U.S. Such an outcome would jeopardize one of Biden’s top clean energy goals and run counter to his administration’s push for renewable energy such as wind and solar power.

The Commerce Department decision “signals that the Biden administration’s talk of supporting solar energy is empty rhetoric,″ said Heather Zichal, CEO of the American Clean Power Association, a clean-energy group.

Zichal, who was White House energy adviser under President Barack Obama, called on Biden to reverse the decision immediately. “America’s solar workers and the clean energy community are watching and will remember,″ she said, calling implications of the investigation “apocalyptic″ for the industry.

“Overnight, the Commerce Department ... drove a stake through the heart of planned solar projects and choked off up to 80% of the solar panel supply to the U.S.,″ she said, adding that Biden ”must fix this now.″

The Commerce investigation follows a complaint by Auxin Solar, a small California-based manufacturer that said solar panels assembled in four Southeast Asian nations — Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam — are circumventing rules intended to block imports of solar cells and panels from China.

The White House declined to comment, but a Commerce spokesman said the agency will “conduct an open and transparent investigation to determine whether circumvention” of U.S. trade law is occurring. “This inquiry is just a first step ... and no additional duties will be imposed at this time,″ said spokesman Jeremy Edwards.

Auxin Solar CEO Mamun Rashid said he was grateful that Commerce officials recognized the need to investigate what he called “pervasive backdoor dumping” of solar panels by China. Solar manufacturers in smaller Asian countries use parts produced by Chinese companies as a way to keep costs down while skirting steep antidumping and countervailing tariffs on Chinese goods, he said.

“For years, Chinese solar producers have refused to fairly price their products in the U.S. and have gone to significant lengths to continue undercutting American manufacturers and workers by establishing ... operations in countries not covered by those duties,″ Rashid said. “Fair trade and enforcement of our trade laws are essential to rebuilding the American solar supply chain and making solar (panels) in America again.”

The Commerce Department action comes weeks after Biden extended tariffs imposed by former President Donald Trump on most solar panels imported from China and other countries. In a nod to his efforts to combat climate change and boost clean energy, Biden excluded tariffs on some panels used in large-scale utility projects.

Biden’s Feb. 4 announcement continued many Trump-era tariffs, but he exempted so-called bifacial solar panels that can generate electricity on both sides and are now used in many large solar projects. The technology was still emerging when the tariffs were first imposed by Trump.

Biden also doubled an import quota on solar cells — the main components of panels that go on rooftops and utility sites — to 5 gigawatts, allowing a greater number of imported cells used by domestic manufacturers.

Biden faced a choice among competing constituencies on solar power, a key part of his climate and clean-energy agenda. Labor unions support import restrictions to protect domestic jobs, while the solar industry relies in large part on cheap panels imported from Asia.

In a speech this month, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the U.S. must boost domestic manufacturing of products such as solar panels.

“The more we rely on other countries to make things for us, the more vulnerable we become to supply chain disruptions like we have seen over the past two years,″ she said March 15, adding that “at least 95% of the market for the cells that go into solar panels is estimated to have components that were produced in China.″

Biden has set a goal to cut planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% below 2005 levels by 2030, and solar power is a key part of that agenda. A report last year by the Energy Department says solar has the potential to supply up to 40% of the nation’s electricity within 15 years — a tenfold increase over current solar output.

Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, which represents solar installers, called the Commerce investigation a “misstep” that could have a devastating impact on the U.S. solar market and result in tens of thousands of layoffs. The decision could result in retroactive tariffs of up to 240%, a possibility Hopper said would have an immediate and “chilling effect on the solar industry.″

Additional tariffs could cause the loss of 70,000 American jobs, including 11,000 manufacturing jobs, she said, and could result in a dramatic drop in solar installations and a corresponding increase in planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.

“Solar prices are increasing, federal climate legislation is stalled and trade restrictions are now compounding,″ Hopper said. “Commerce should quickly end this investigation to mitigate the harm it will cause for American workers and our nation’s efforts to tackle climate change.”

Trump approved tariffs on imported solar-energy components in 2018, saying his administration would always defend American workers and businesses from unfair competition. The tariffs were initially set at 30% and later cut to 18% and then 15%. They were set to expire without action by Biden.

Under Biden’s decision, tariffs will be set at 14.75% and gradually reduced to 14%.

Since the tariffs were imposed, solar-panel production in the U.S. has tripled. Chinese and South Korean companies have set up factories in Georgia, Florida and Alabama, and an American firm, First Solar Inc., expanded domestic production at a plant in Ohio.

After Israel attacks, sidelined Palestinian issue reemerges

#FREEPALESTINE

By TIA GOLDENBERG

1 of 15

A member of Israeli Zaka Rescue and Recovery team cleans blood from the site where a gunman opened fire in Bnei Brak, Israel, Tuesday, March 29, 2022. A gunman on a motorcycle opened fire in central Israel late Tuesday, in the second fatal mass shooting rampage this week. The shooter was killed by police. (AP PhotoOded Balilty)


TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Three deadly attacks in Israel in a week are raising questions over Israel’s approach to its conflict with the Palestinians, after years of efforts to sideline the issue and focus instead on other regional priorities.

The attacks by Palestinian assailants, including most recently on Tuesday night, have killed 11 people in the deadliest spate Israel has seen in years. They come as peace talks on ending Israel’s rule over Palestinians and setting up a Palestinian state on occupied lands are a distant memory. In the meantime, Israel has shifted its priorities to containing archenemy Iran and building regional Arab alliances.

Israel’s government, with support from the Biden administration, has tried to do what leaders describe as “shrinking” the conflict. Instead of seeking a partition deal with the Palestinians, it aims to keep things quiet by taking steps to improve the Palestinian economy and reduce frictions.

But now, as Israel faces the possibility of another cycle of violence less than a year after a war with Hamas militants in Gaza, the Palestinian issue is once again clawing its way back to the fore and exposing the weaknesses of this approach.

It was a message that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas tried to deliver as he condemned Tuesday night’s shooting in the central city of Bnei Brak.

“Permanent, comprehensive and just peace is the shortest way to provide security and stability for the Palestinian and Israeli peoples and the peoples of the region,” he said. Israel has long sidelined Abbas, branding him an unacceptable partner for peace talks.

Israel sees the current wave as another round of extremist violence aimed against its very existence. It blames incitement on Palestinian social media, says that Hamas encourages the violence and points to a flood of weapons available in Palestinian communities.

In Tuesday’s attack, a 27-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank methodically gunned down victims, killing five. On Sunday night, a shooting attack by two Islamic State sympathizers in the central city of Hadera killed two police officers. Last week, a combined car-ramming and stabbing attack in the southern city of Beersheba — also by an attacker inspired by IS — killed four.

The two earlier attacks were carried out by Palestinian citizens of Israel; in all three incidents the attackers were killed by police or passersby.

The violence has stunned Israelis, who had enjoyed relative quiet since last year’s 11-day war with Hamas. It has also overshadowed a historic gathering in the Negev Desert this week that for the first time saw the foreign ministers of four Arab countries meet their Israeli and American counterparts on Israeli soil. And though the foreign ministers — from Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Morocco — paid lip service to the Palestinian issue, the meeting centered on the emerging nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. The Palestinians were not invited.

In response to the violence, Israel has increased its security presence in Israeli cities and the occupied West Bank. It has made arrests in Arab communities and raided the West Bank home of the man who carried out Tuesday’s attack.

“We are dealing with a new wave of terror,” said Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. “As in other waves, we will prevail.”

But there are no signs that Bennett is prepared to address the deeper issues fueling the conflict.

Bennett heads an unwieldy coalition of ideologically diverse parties — including an Islamist Arab faction — that united with the goal of toppling former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. To survive, the coalition agreed to set aside divisive issues, most notably the conflict with the Palestinians, and instead focus on matters in the Israeli consensus, such as the pandemic and the economy.

The U.S. ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, has repeatedly called the new government “a beautiful thing.” Focused on the war in Ukraine and tensions with China, Washington has indicated it has no plans to float a peace plan and instead wants to lay the foundation for future talks one day.

With his tack, Bennett and his government did not diverge from Netanyahu, who begrudgingly accepted the concept of Palestinian statehood under fierce American pressure but did little to advance the idea.

The Palestinians, in turn, have drawn disappointing parallels with the war in Ukraine, lamenting that the West has rallied swiftly against Russia’s aggression and has yet to move to sanction Israel for its 55-year occupation.

Meanwhile, Israel has deepened its control over the West Bank with its web of checkpoints and barriers, and hundreds of thousands of Israelis living in Jewish settlements. The Israeli-Egyptian blockade on Gaza persists. The last substantive peace talks took place a decade and a half ago. The Palestinians seek the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, for a future state.

The Bennett government appears to have learned some lessons from last year, when a series of missteps before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan boiled over into the Gaza war.

This year, as major Muslim, Jewish and Christian holidays converge, Israel has offered to ease a series of restrictions on Palestinians ahead of Ramadan, which begins this weekend.

Israel has issued thousands of work permits for Gaza laborers, lifted a ban on family visits to Palestinian prisoners from Gaza and said it will not restrict Palestinian gatherings around Jerusalem’s Old City like last year.

A rare visit by Jordan’s king to Palestinian leaders in the West Bank this week, followed by visits to the king by Israel’s defense minister and president on Wednesday, was aimed at cementing the calm.

The uptick in violence could derail the new measures.

King Abdullah II told Isaac Herzog, the visiting Israeli president, that he condemned the bloodshed, but that any regional progress “must include our Palestinian brothers.”

Many Palestinians say the true aim of Israel’s measures is to maintain the status quo, in which millions live under a decades-long military occupation with no end in sight.

“They’re doling out little privileges through an eyedropper,” said Diana Buttu, a former legal adviser to the Palestinian leadership. “The Israelis have long taken the position that Palestinians don’t deserve rights, that we don’t want rights, that it’s just a question of us being able to be bought off, to get little permits here and there.”

Any solution to the Palestinian conflict is complicated by a yearslong rift between Abbas’ Fatah movement and Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip and calls for Israel’s destruction. And with two of the last three attacks having been carried out by Israeli citizens, Israel may now be forced to reckon with a minority population riddled by violent crime and long suffering from discrimination.

In Israel, some argue that even Palestinian statehood wouldn’t end the conflict.

The Palestinians “will never accept Israel as a Jewish state. The struggle for them is for all of Israel,” Yitzhak Gershon, a retired military major general, told Israeli Army Radio.

Meanwhile, several rights groups have branded Israeli rule between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea as an apartheid system.

Omar Shakir of the international group Human Rights Watch stressed that no grievance justifies the killing of innocent people. He added: “The reality is that it is unsustainable to continue ruling over millions of people deprived of their fundamental rights.”

___

Associated Press writer Joseph Krauss in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Several killed in West Bank clashes after Arab attacks in Israel

Thu, 31 March 2022,

Israeli security forces are shown at the scene of a stabbing attack in a bus near the Elazar settlement in the occupied West Bank on Thursday. A Palestinian stabbed and wounded an Israeli civilian on the bus before being shot dead by a another passenger, the Israeli army said. (Oren Ben Hakoon/AFP/Getty Images)

Israeli forces killed at least two Palestinians on Thursday, the Palestinian health ministry said, in clashes that erupted during a raid in the occupied West Bank that followed deadly Arab attacks in Israel.

In a separate incident, a Palestinian stabbed a passenger on an Israeli bus near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank and was shot dead by another passenger, the Israeli military said.

The national ambulance service said the man who was stabbed had suffered moderate wounds.

Earlier, the Israeli military said its forces and border police entered the refugee camp in the city of Jenin to "apprehend terrorist suspects".

"During the operation, terrorists opened fire at our forces. Israeli troops returned fire that struck the gunmen. An Israeli soldier was slightly wounded," the military said in a statement.

The Palestinian health ministry said two Palestinians, aged 17 and 23, were killed in the clashes.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement that "continued raids and daily killings of our people and the daily crimes by settlers will lead the region towards more tension and escalation".

On Tuesday, a Palestinian gunman from the Jenin area shot dead five people in the Tel Aviv suburb of Bnei Brak before he was killed by police. The shooting, condemned on Tuesday by Abbas, raised to 11 the number of people killed by Arab attackers in Israel over the past week to 11.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett spoke late on Wednesday with U.S. President Joe Biden. The U.S. Embassy said Biden had expressed "his deepest condolences following the horrific terrorist attacks".

Bennett has announced a series of measures to deal with what he has described as a new wave of attacks, saying more police would be put on city streets and security would be tightened in areas bordering the West Bank.

(REUTERS)

Israeli forces kill 2 in West Bank clash, Palestinian stabs bus passenger

Violence comes 2 days after shooting in central Israel left 5 people dead

The Associated Press · Posted: Mar 31, 2022 

Israeli forces raided a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank early Thursday, setting off a gun battle in which two Palestinians were killed and 15 were wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

In a separate incident, a Palestinian stabbed a 28-year-old Israeli man on a bus in the West Bank before being killed by a bystander, the Israeli military said. The Magen David Adom emergency service said the stabbing victim was treated and taken to a hospital.

Videos circulated online showed smoke rising from the centre of the Jenin refugee camp as gunfire echoed in the background. Others appeared to show Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen moving through the narrow streets.
Spike in violence

The raid came two days after a Palestinian from a village near Jenin shot and killed five people in central Israel, part of a wave of attacks in recent days that have left a total of 11 people dead.

5 killed in 3rd deadly attack in Israel in a week

The Palestinian Health Ministry said 17-year-old Sanad Abu Atiyeh and 23-year-old Yazid al-Saadi were killed in the refugee camp. It said 30-year-old Nidal Jaafara was shot and killed near the West Bank town of Bethlehem, apparently referring to the stabbing incident.

The Israeli military said troops came under fire after entering Jenin to arrest suspects. It said one soldier was wounded and evacuated to a hospital for treatment.

The Jenin refugee camp was the scene of one of the deadliest battles of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising. In April 2002, Israeli forces fought Palestinian militants in the camp for nearly three weeks. Twenty-three Israeli soldiers and at least 52 Palestinians, including civilians, were killed, according to the United Nations.

Palestinian Hadeel Abu Atiyeh, centre, cries during the funeral of her brother Sanad Abu Atiyeh, 17, in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin on Thursday. Israeli forces raided a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank earlier in the day, setting off a gun battle in which two Palestinians were killed and 15 were wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. (Nasser Nasser/The Associated Press)

The Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the occupied West Bank and co-ordinates with Israel on security matters, appears to have had little control over Jenin in recent years. Israeli forces operating in and around the city and refugee camp often come under fire.

The Islamic Jihad militant group announced a "general mobilization" of its fighters after Thursday's raid.

In Tuesday's attack, a 27-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank village of Yabad, near Jenin, methodically gunned down victims, killing five. On Sunday night, a shooting attack by two Islamic State sympathizers in the central city of Hadera killed two police officers. Last week, a combined car-ramming and stabbing attack in the southern city of Beersheba — also by an attacker inspired by ISIS — killed four. The two attacks claimed by ISIS were carried out by Arab citizens of Israel.

ISIS claims responsibility after gunmen kill 2 police officers in Israel

Four killed in southern Israel shopping centre attack

U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Wednesday. Biden expressed his condolences after the recent attacks and said the U.S., "stands firmly and resolutely with Israel in the face of this terrorist threat and all threats to the state of Israel," the White House said.

No serious peace talks in more than a decade

The recent wave of violence has come at a time when Israel is focused on building alliances with Arab states against Iran. There have been no serious Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in more than a decade, and Bennett is opposed to Palestinian statehood.

Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian leaders have held a flurry of meetings in recent weeks, and Israel has announced a series of goodwill gestures, in an effort to maintain calm ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins this weekend.

They hope to avoid a repeat of last year, when clashes in Jerusalem set off an 11-day Gaza war, but the recent attacks have sent tensions soaring. After a Security Cabinet meeting late Wednesday, Israel nevertheless decided to carry on with plans to ease restrictions on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Poll: 47% of Americans 'worry a great deal' about energy costs

A Gallup poll released Wednesday indicates that nearly half of Americans "worry a great deal" about the cost and availability of energy. Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI | License Photo

March 30 (UPI) -- Nearly half of Americans are stressed about the cost and availability of energy, up from around a third of Americans one year ago, according to a Gallup poll released Wednesday.

The poll, conducted between March 1 and 18, found that 47% of respondents "worry a great deal" about the rising cost of energy. Another 30% worry a "fair amount"; 17% worry a little.

Concerns over energy have been rising steadily since 2020, when fewer than one-fourth of Americans responded that they worried a great deal about its cost. In 2021, that figure was 37%.

The poll's results indicate that energy-related stress currently is on par with national sentiment in 2012, when the price of gas hit what was at the time its highest-ever point at $3.60 per gallon.

Current prices at the pump have soared much higher. The AAA reported that the average cost of a gallon of regular unleaded gas across the country was $4.24 as of Wednesday.

The Gallup survey also found that 44% of U.S. adults identify the energy situation in the country as "very serious," and 46% describe it as "fairly serious."

Stress about energy costs also fell along party lines. Among those who identify as Republicans, two-thirds now worry a great deal about energy availability and affordability, compared with 28% of Democrats and 48% of independents, the poll found.

Widespread anxiety about energy is driving the White House to look for new ways to drive down gas prices.

"This is sort of a five-alarm fire at the White House -- they are extremely intensely concerned," Jeff Stein, a political reporter at the Washington Post, told CBS News.

"High gas prices are one of the most salient political issues. People see it every day, they feel it in their pocketbooks. It affects a president's approval rating quite dramatically."

Another poll released by Quinnipiac University on Wednesday found that four out of 10 Americans blame rising gas prices on policies enacted by President Joe Biden's administration, The Hill reported.

Energy prices are so high due to a variety of reasons, according to experts -- cuts to oil production during COVID-19 combined with a post-pandemic surge in demand for gas, as well as a U.S. ban on Russian oil imports in response to their invasion of Ukraine, are major factors.

"The world needs Russian oil and refined products," Tom Kloza, the Global Head of Energy Analysis at Dow Jones' Oil Price Information Service, told PBS News earlier this month. "If you lose that Russian oil, you could see prices really go up for a long period of time."

Implant allows ALS patients to operate a computer using brain waves
By Dennis Thompson, HealthDay News

Four patients with the neurodegenerative disease called ALS -- also known as Lou Gehrig's disease -- received implants via a catheter threaded through one of the major veins that drain blood away from the brain. Photo by sfam_photo/Shutterstock

A handful of "locked-in" amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients can now work a laptop computer using their brain waves, thanks to an implant lodged in a major vein inside their skull.

The implant -- a stent lined with 16 miniscule electrodes -- is nestled in a vein located near the motor cortex of completely paralyzed patients, the authors of a new study on the procedure explained.

"This device senses the electrical activity that occurs in the motor cortex when someone thinks about moving their limbs," said co-researcher Douglas Weber, a professor of mechanical engineering and neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh. "These movement signals are then transmitted to an external device where they are decoded from command signals that are sent to a computer, thus providing a direct communication link for the brain."

With the implant, patients can send emails and texts, browse the web, shop online or manage their personal finances, Weber noted.

RELATED Brain implant allows patient with advanced ALS to communicate

"There's many activities of daily living that seem to be well supported by this device," he said.

This isn't the first research effort to use brain implants to help the paralyzed use computers or other electronic devices.

For example, a study released last week detailed the case of a locked-in German ALS patient who has regained the ability to communicate via two microchips implanted in his brain. That paper was published in the journal Nature Communications.

RELATED Biden signs bill to expand funding for ALS

But this is the first attempt to place such an implant without removing part of the skull to access the brain, the researchers said.

Four patients with the neurodegenerative disease called ALS -- also known as Lou Gehrig's disease -- instead received their implant via a catheter threaded through one of the major veins that drain blood away from the brain, Weber said.

The catheter delivers the implant into a part of the vein near the brain. The implant then opens up and lines the walls of the vein, much as a normal stent expands to support the walls of a narrow or weak blood vessel in heart attack patients.

Once in place, the implant picks up signals from the motor cortex and relays them to an electronic decoder implanted in the person's chest, Weber said.

The decoder analyzes nerve signals when people think of certain movements -- for example, tapping their foot or extending their knee -- and translates those thoughts into computer navigation.

In combination with eye-tracking technology, those movement thoughts allowed patients to operate a laptop, Weber said. One of the patients got so good at it that they could control a computer independently, without an eye tracker.

The preliminary findings were presented Tuesday, in advance of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) annual meeting, to be held from April 2 to 7 in Seattle. Such research is considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Dr. Natalia Rost, chair of the AAN Science Committee, praised the "cross-pollination" of neuroscience and engineering in the study, noting that such efforts "sometimes yield some of the most exciting results."

The point of this small-scale study was mainly to show that the implant posed no safety hazards to patients.

"Obviously as a stroke doctor, I feel extremely strongly about the safety of these devices," said Rost, who is chief of the stroke division at Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston. "There is a certain fear of God you instill in stroke doctors by inserting a device" into a major cranial vein.

In the new study, the researchers monitored the participants for one year, finding that the device stayed in place for all four patients and did not hamper blood flow.

"The device integrates well into the walls of the blood vessel over time," Weber said. "Certainly after implantation the device is exposed to the bloodstream, but once it becomes encapsulated and fully integrated into the blood vessel wall, I think the risks of thrombosis [clotting] diminish over time."

Since there have been no signs of clots or vein blockages in the initial patients, the research team has continued to recruit more people into a larger trial for the implant, Weber said.

The investigators plan to expand the trial to include patients who are severely paralyzed for reasons other than ALS, Weber said, potentially including severe stroke victims or people with a spinal cord injury.

"These are all people that may benefit from the assistive communication and digital communication functions that are supported by this technology," Weber said.

More information

The U.S. National Institutes of Health has more about ALS.

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Hubble detects earliest-known star through 'warp' in space


The Hubble detected Earendel through a warp in space that magnified the star's light. Photo courtesy of NASA

March 30 (UPI) -- The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a star 12.9 billion light years away from Earth, the oldest and most distant object ever recorded, NASA revealed Wednesday.

The space agency said the telescope detected light from a star that existed within the first billion years after the so-called Big Bang. That's a record for the Hubble, whose previous oldest discovery was a star that was about 4 billion years old.

Scientists said they were able to single out the star by looking at it through space warped by a galaxy cluster identified as WHL0137-08. The warp created a "natural magnifying glass" that helped amplify light from the star, NASA said in a release.

Researchers compared the warping to a ripple in the surface of a swimming pool that increases magnification and brightness on the pool's floor.

The scientists who discovered the star, nicknamed Earendel, wrote about it in the journal Nature.

"We almost didn't believe it at first, it was so much farther than the previous most-distant, highest redshift star," said lead author Brian Welch of Johns Hopkins University.

"Normally at these distances, entire galaxies look like small smudges, with the light from millions of stars blending together. The galaxy hosting this star has been magnified and distorted by gravitational lensing into a long crescent that we named the Sunrise Arc."

NASA said the discovery opens the door for its new, more powerful James Webb Space Telescope to take a look at Earendel.

The JWST, which was launched Dec. 25, is the most powerful telescope ever launched into space and will use infrared technology to view objects farther away from Earth than ever before.

"With Webb we expect to confirm Earendel is indeed a star, as well as measure its brightness and temperature," said co-author Dan Coe at the Space Telescope Science Institute.

"We also expect to find the Sunrise Arc galaxy is lacking in heavy elements that form in subsequent generations of stars. This would suggest Earendel is a rare, massive metal-poor star."

The researchers believe Earendel is 50 times the mass of our sun and millions of times brighter.

Seafood biz braces for losses of jobs, fish due to sanctions

By PATRICK WHITTLE

FILE - In this Oct. 29, 2015, file photo, a cod to be auctioned sits on ice at the Portland Fish Exchange, in Portland, Maine. Russia, along with Iceland and Norway, remains a major producer of the white fish, which it harvests from the Barents Sea and other frigid oceans. The U.S. is clamping down on trade with Russia, and is targeting seafood in particular. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)


PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The worldwide seafood industry is steeling itself for price hikes, supply disruptions and potential job losses as new rounds of economic sanctions on Russia make key species such as cod and crab harder to come by.

The latest round of U.S. attempts to punish Russia for the invasion of Ukraine includes bans on imports of seafood, alcohol and diamonds. The U.S. is also stripping “most favored nation status” from Russia. Nations around the world are taking similar steps.

Russia is one of the largest producers of seafood in the world, and was the fifth-largest producer of wild-caught fish, according to a 2020 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Russia is not one of the biggest exporters of seafood to the U.S., but it’s a world leader in exports of cod (the preference for fish and chips in the U.S.). It’s also a major supplier of crabs and Alaska pollock, widely used in fast-food sandwiches and processed products like fish sticks.

The impact is likely to be felt globally, as well as in places with working waterfronts. One of those is Maine, where more than $50 million in seafood products from Russia passed through Portland in 2021, according to federal statistics.

“If you’re getting cod from Russia, it’s going to be a problem,” said Glen Libby, an owner of Port Clyde Fresh Catch, a seafood market in Tenants Harbor, Maine. “That’s quite a mess. We’ll see how it turns out.”

Russia exported more than 28 million pounds (12.7 million kilograms) of cod to the U.S. from Jan. 1, 2020, to Jan. 31, 2022, according to census data.

The European Union and United Kingdom are both deeply dependent on Russian seafood. And prices of seafood are already spiking in Japan, a major seafood consumer that is limiting its trade with Russia.

In the U.K., where fish and chips are a cultural marker, shop owners and consumers alike are bracing for price surges. British fish and chip shops were already facing a squeeze because of soaring energy costs and rising food prices.

Andrew Crook, head of the National Federation of Fish Friers, said earlier this month that — even before the war — he expected a third of Britain’s fish and chip shops to go out of business. If fish prices shoot up even higher, “we are in real dire straits,” he said.

In mid-March, the U.K. slapped a 35% tariff hike on Russian whitefish, including chip-shop staples cod and haddock.

“We’re a massive part of U.K. culture and it would be a shame to see that go,” he told broadcaster ITV.

U.S. consumers are most likely to notice the impact of sanctions via price and availability of fish, said Kanae Tokunaga, who runs the Coastal and Marine Economics Lab at Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland.

“Because seafood is a global commodity, even if they are not harvested in Russia, you will notice the price hike,” Tokunaga said.

In the U.S., the dependence on foreign cod stems to the loss of its own once-robust Atlantic cod fishery that cratered in the face of overfishing and environmental changes. U.S. fishermen, based mostly in New England, brought more than 100 million pounds (45.4 million kilograms) of cod to the docks per year in the early 1980s, but the 2020 catch was less than 2 million pounds (900,000 kilograms).

Regulators have tried to save the fishery with management measures such as very low fishing quotas, and many fishermen targeting other East Coast groundfish species such as haddock and flounder now avoid cod altogether.

Seafood processors in Massachusetts are concerned about job losses due to loss of Russian products, Democratic U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, who does support sanctions on Russia, said.

“I have heard from seafood processors in my home state with concerns about potential sudden effects of a new, immediate ban on imports on their workforce, including hundreds of union workers in the seafood processing industry,” he said on the Senate floor in February.

For U.S. producers of seafood staples such as fish and chips, the lack of Russian cod could mean pivoting to other foreign sources, said Walt Golet, a research assistant professor at the University of Maine’s School of Marine Sciences.

“We might be able to bring in more from Norway, a little more from Canadian fisheries,” Golet said. “It really is driven by the price of those imports.”

As an alternative, producers and consumers could try underutilized fish species caught domestically, such as Atlantic pollock and redfish, said Ben Martens, executive director of Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association.

“Maybe this is a time to use haddock or hake or maybe monkfish, something different,” Martens said. “If it’s going to disrupt supply chains it does present an opportunity for other species to fill that void.”

___

Associated Press writer Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.

The five plagues testing humanity

The uncivil war between nationalism and internationalism.

By

 John Feffer

 -

March 28, 2022

SOURCETomDispatch

Image Credit: yungblackmaoist/Deviant Art

Once upon a time, the tutelary gods of nationalism and internationalism met for a chat. They had a superb perch above the clouds. From there, they could see everything happening on the Earth below and they set to arguing, as they so often did.

Sophia, the goddess of internationalism, began by proudly pointing to the accomplishments of humanity. “Behold the United Nations,” she said, not for the first time. “See how all the peoples of the world cooperate across borders, languages, and cultures.”

Nikolai, the god of nationalism, whose followers believed that fortified borders and high walls make good neighbors, scowled. “It’s just a talking shop where I see lots of my people getting all up in each other’s faces.”

“Then behold the international charities,” Sophia replied with a smile. “People from one country giving to those in other countries.”

“What a waste of money!” Nikolai retorted. “So much lost to overhead and bureaucracy.”

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“It’s 2015,” Sophia said, “and I don’t think I’ve ever seen internationalism looking stronger. The Paris climate agreement, the Iran nuclear deal, and how about Germany’s decision to accept a million refugees this year!”

“Nonsense!” Nikolai exploded. “Those agreements are farces and just wait for the German backlash. It’s going to be epic!”

Sophia groaned. “You’re incorrigible. I give you one example after another of international solidarity and you dismiss them out of hand. All you do is sit around complaining.”

“Not true,” he countered. “I’ve been roaming the earth, observing current events closely, and I’d wager that your beloved internationalists will give up their vaunted ideology when push comes to shove.”

“A wager, you say?”

“You’ve never put your devotees to a test,” Nikolai responded, rubbing his hands. “If I win, all humanity will be under my thrall. If you win, you can implement world government or whatever other nonsense you favor.”

Sophia considered her sparring partner. Both of them were new to the game. Other tutelary gods — the guardians of ancient cities, deities who presided over mountains and rivers — had been around for millennia. She and Nikolai, twin gods born only a few centuries earlier, had squabbled from the moment of their creation. Arriving just before her, he’d asserted the prerogatives of age and gender from the start.

Now, this infuriating brother of hers was raising the stakes. She briefly considered consulting her fellow deities responsible for peace and justice, but just responded, “I’ll take that bet and, what’s more, I’ll give you a free hand to test humanity with a succession of plagues — up to five scourges. In my heart of hearts, I know they’ll remain true to global solidarity.”

Nikolai was secretly pleased, for in his heart of hearts he’d already devised five plagues sure to be winners. He would show his soft-headed sister once and for all who was lord of the lands that lay below.

A plague of politicians

When they next met two years later, Nikolai looked triumphant. “I’ve come back from roaming the earth and everything’s working out in my favor!” he exclaimed, his male pride in full flower. “And it didn’t take much. A few votes here and there and suddenly the Great Blue Wall collapsed.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sophia responded.

“The U.S. presidential election, dear sister! Surely you registered the victory of Donald Trump last year and he’s already performed so admirably, the purest expression of American nationalism anyone’s seen in generations.”

The victory of Donald Trump had indeed caused her heartache.

“Behold the collapse of your Paris and Iran agreements, not to speak of the glorious wall he’s planning to build on the southern border!” her brother continued. “And it’s not only that, little sister! Behold the victory of the Brexit referendum in England, the growing strength of anti-immigrant sentiment across Europe, the election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, not to mention the rise of my pals Modi, Putin, Orbán, Duterte, and Ortega — all now in office and prospering!”

She calmly considered her bloviating brother. “Has the United Nations collapsed?”

“Well, no, but — ”

“Has international civil society been repressed out of existence?”

“Of course not, but — ”

“And has the popularity of your dear Donald ever risen above 50%?”

“That’s not the point!”

“Oh, but brother, it very much is the point! Your argument rests on passing phenomena. Elections come and go; institutions endure. You’ll have to do better than offer me a set of buffoons as proof of your victory. I guarantee you that the voters will kick them out of office at the next opportunity.”

Nikolai’s face turned beet red. Sure that he would instantly triumph over her with his blitzkrieg electoral strategy, he now saw that he’d have to visit a more serious plague on humanity.

Enter the pox

Grim as the moment was when they next reconvened, Nikolai was glowing. “All my men are still in office!” he exclaimed. “So perhaps it’s not such a passing phenomenon, little sister. Just to make sure, though, I decided to subject humanity to a physical test. How do you like my little coronavirus? It took only the tiniest of alterations to move it from bat to pangolin to human.”

“Ingenious,” she conceded.

“And you see its impact, right? Where there was once a debate about borders, now every country’s building its own walls to keep the infected out. Better yet, the richer countries are hoarding their medical supplies. You see, sister, in an emergency, everyone turns out to be a hyper-nationalist. And just wait until they develop a vaccine. It’ll be every nation for itself.”

“I beg to differ,” she replied. “There have been extraordinary examples of global solidarity. Shipments of equipment from one country to another. Doctors sharing knowledge. And the future will certainly be like the past.  You remember the stories of international care workers risking their lives in Ebola hotspots?”

“Trivial examples,” Nikolai said in his most patronizing tone.

“Perhaps, but you’ve forgotten one crucial point.”

“And what’s that, dear sister?”

“A global pandemic requires a global response. It’s of no use for a single country to vanquish a pandemic only within its own borders. Even now calmer heads are building a cooperative response and internationalism will emerge stronger than ever.”

Nikolai furrowed his brow, but he’d prepared for this moment. “No matter, sister. For behold, I’ve sent a third plague on the heels of the second: the collapse of the global economy. You’ve always sung the praises of international trade, but supply chains are now collapsing, prices are soaring, and countries are refocusing on domestic production.”

Sophia was growing tired of her brother’s conspiratorial fulminations against “globalists,” sometimes siding with the far right, sometimes with the economic nationalists of the left — anything to win an argument. “You know as well as I do that bulls and bears come and go as frequently as politicians in electoral cycles, but the global economy has been a solid reality for more than a century. Yes, it suffered declines after World War I and during World War II that make the present moment look like nothing, but has the global supply chain truly shut down? Are we returning to a barter system? Again, dear brother, you’ve mistaken the trees for the forest.”

“The trees and the forest,” he practically shouted in frustration, “are going up in flames!”

“More importantly, you’ve mistaken my internationalism for rank neoliberalism, something I’ve never backed. If you want to continue this argument, take it up with Hermes who’s presided over commerce for so many more centuries than you and I have been around.”

Nikolai had no intention of arguing with Hermes. His beef was with his sister — and he still had two wild cards up his sleeve.

Trial by sword

By now, Sophia was a little worried. Maybe she’d been over-optimistic in 2015. Maybe she shouldn’t have given her brother so many opportunities to test humanity. After all, there might indeed be a breaking point.

Trump had truly scared her and remained disruptive, even though no longer in office. Still, she was cautiously optimistic that similar leaders elsewhere would lose their next elections as well.

Meanwhile, the global economy was recovering, as she’d predicted, even if the international community still wasn’t addressing the staggering disparities in wealth within and between countries that had only been exacerbated by the pandemic. No less worrisome, the international response to the pandemic had been nowhere near as robust as she’d hoped. Some countries could boast more than 90% of their citizens fully vaccinated, while less than 1% of the population in the Democratic Republic of Congo had gotten even one shot and the situation in Chad, Madagascar, and too many other places wasn’t much better. Worse yet, new variants of Covid-19 were emerging.

Then, just when she thought her brother might have given up, the unexpected happened, leaving him exultant.

On that fateful day, he burst into her glade, interrupting her lyre practice. “Have you seen the news, sis? My tyrant-whispering has finally born fruit. Russia has attacked Ukraine!”

She gave him a stern look. “Brother, you’re unleashing demons.”

“You see how quickly the world reverts to its elemental passions?” he exulted. “It’s the glorious nineteenth century all over again!”

“There were no nuclear weapons then. You’re putting the world at risk of Armageddon.”

“Oh, don’t overreact, dear sister. You’ll see that this war can enflame nationalist passions quite nicely without ending life as they know it.”

Sophia began to keep tabs on the conflict. With every recent war — Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen — she’d hoped humanity would conclude that nothing justified such suffering. Perhaps the latest outrage would finally tip the balance sheet.

Soon, in fact, she was able to say to her brother, “You miscalculated. The Russian attack has only solidified support for my position.”

“What do you mean?” Nikolai asked, horrified.

“Your man in Moscow could have remained in power until his mortal end. Now, he’s thrown his country into economic peril, even as his geopolitical position becomes ever more fragile. Once, he presided over a veritable Nationalist International. Now, virtually everyone, including old friends in places like Hungary and Poland, is treating him like a pariah. If he’s not careful, he could end up all alone in his own country as well.”

“You exaggerate!”

“Do I? Your desperation mirrors his. Your desire to win at all costs has disabled your critical faculties. Tell me, brother, is this glorious war going well for Russia?”

He looked uncomfortable.

“Even if Putin manages to gain control over Ukraine through brute force, it’ll be momentary. Ukrainians en masse have already rejected such an occupation.”

“He absorbed Crimea,” Nikolai responded weakly.

“At great cost. Surely you remember the woman who swallowed a fly, a story that does not end well.”

“Although you’re a goddess, you can’t see into the future.”

“No, I can’t. But I can see one thing. You’re coming to the end of your games and humanity has remained my faithful servant.”

“You haven’t won yet! Just you wait!”

She didn’t like the sound of that.

The ultimate challenge

The war in Ukraine continued, alongside all the world’s other ongoing conflicts. Nor had the pandemic, the fragility of the global economy, or political extremism disappeared. Sophia believed in her own arguments, but who could look at the planet below and remain truly optimistic?

As she glumly assessed the state of the world, Nikolai crept up and tapped her on the shoulder, a sly expression on his face and a hockey stick in his hand.

“I have no time for games,” she said.

“No games, sister. This is the final plague.”

“A hockey stick?”

“’Tis but a symbol — of the greatest peril humanity now faces.”

“Ah,” she said, the realization dawning on her. “That graph! Carbon emissions since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. But what does a problem that’s been going on for two centuries have to do with our present wager, especially now that your friend’s gone from the White House and the Paris agreement’s back on track?”

“Oh, sister, you know that those are only voluntary commitments that few nations are even paying much attention to right now.”

“It was just a beginning,” she ventured.

“But time’s running out,” he replied with satisfaction. “And climate change is only a symptom of a much deeper problem. Humanity’s exhausting the resource base of this planet, not just fossil fuels but minerals for so-called clean energy. And with every country still asserting its right to expand its economy and burn through yet more resources, forget about clean water or more land to grow food on. Even if some miracle happens and there’s a binding agreement to reduce carbon emissions, it won’t solve the larger resource problem.”

“We can mobilize international pressure to change the growth paradigm,” she countered.

Nikolai folded his arms and looked at her smugly. “More and more conflicts over ever fewer resources? And what will fuel those conflicts, my dear sister? The desperation of nationalism will inevitably overcome the slow and ineffectual efforts of internationalism.”

Sophia suddenly motioned to the human activity below, frenzied and ant-like. “Look at people mobilizing all over the world to protest on Fridays, plant trees, stop the building of coal plants.”

Nikolai smiled maddeningly. “Behold the overheating poles, the spreading fires, the rising seas. You can argue with me, dear sister, but you can’t argue with Mother Nature.”

“Solar panels,” she responded weakly. “Electric cars.”

“Requiring more resource extraction, which will only spur more conflict.”

“The war you started in Ukraine’s pushing Europe to move away from fossil-fuel imports.”

“But not quickly enough. Face it, sis, you’ve lost.”

She took a deep breath. Nikolai’s face had the same look of pride she remembered from their childhood when the wars he’d instigated destroyed the Concert of Europe she’d so proudly created in 1815. She realized it was finally time to tell her brother the truth. She almost felt sorry for him as she exhaled and said, “If I lose, everyone loses.”

“Exactly.”

“And if you win, everyone loses, too. In your eagerness, you’ve proven one thing: that nationalism’s the ultimate losing proposition. All these years, in other words, you’ve been driving at top speed right down a dead-end street. A deadly pandemic, nuclear Armageddon, planet’s end. I’m sorry, bro, but your philosophy just crashed into a brick wall.”

“No!”

“You’ve been hoisted by your own arrogant petard.”

In sudden anger, he raised the hockey stick above his head. “You’ve tricked me!”

“No, you’ve tricked yourself.”

He swung the stick in her direction. Her brother being easy to predict, she ducked automatically, pivoted, and wrapped her arms around him.

“Calm yourself, brother,” Sophia whispered in his ear. He was exasperating, but he was family.  “Let’s sit back and watch what happens.” Then she added, in a voice filled with sadness, “I may have won our little wager, but you could still score the biggest Pyrrhic victory of all time.”

Copyright 2022 John Feffer

John Feffer

http://www.johnfeffer.com/

John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies. His dystopian novel, Splinterlands, a Dispatch Books original (with Haymarket Books), will appear this fall. He is a TomDispatch regular.