Iranian short film awarded in US Big Water Film Festival

TEHRAN, Apr. 04 (MNA) – Directed by Alireza Ghasemi, the Iranian short film

 "Better than Neil Armstrong" won the prize of the Audience Favorite at the Big Water Film Festival.

This is the 21st international prize for Ghasemi's short film.

The synopsis of 'Better than Neil Armstrong' reads, "Four kids start their journey to the moon with the mission of finding a mysterious place called The Redland but the gates of Redland are being guarded by a mischievous snake."

Some of the short film's cast includes Asal Shakeri, Golnoosh Ghahremani, Kian Alipanah, Nooshika Khodashenas, and Ilia Hasani.

The Big Water Film Festival takes place on the shores of Lake Superior, in Ashland, Wisconsin and surrounding communities. 

The 14th Annual Big Water Film Festival, shown virtually over eight weeks, is now completed. 

MP/5457815

VIDEO: For the first time in US history, Muslims perform Taraweeh prayers at New York Times Square

Worshippers gather for the Taraweeh prayers at Times Square.

Syed Shayaan Bakht, Gulf Today

In a rare event, hundreds of Muslims gathered and prayed Taraweeh at Times Square in New York on Saturday to mark the start of the holy month of Ramadan.

For the first time in history, Muslims performed the Taraweeh prayer in this iconic place in the United States.

The event organiser told local media that Muslims living in the United States want to celebrate Ramadan in this emblematic place in the heart of New York City to show others that Islam is a peaceful religion.

The organisers said that there is a misconception about Islam.  

“We want to explain our religion to all who don`t know what is it about… Islam is a religion of peace.”

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan — when the faithful fast from dawn to dusk - began at sunrise on Saturday.

Muslims follow a lunar calendar and a moon-sighting methodology can lead to different countries declaring the start of Ramadan a day or two apart.

Ramadan tradition calls for colourful lanterns and lights strung throughout narrow alleys and around mosques in many Middle Eastern countries.

Parents and Students Organize Sit-In in Solidarity with Striking Sacramento Teachers

In Sacramento, parents and students are organizing sit-ins to support their teachers, who are on strike for higher pay and increased staffing

Molly Rosenzweig and Emma Lee 

April 3, 2022

Photo: Andrew Nixon / CapRadio

In an incredible show of solidarity, Sacramento parents and students have organized a sit-in to support striking teachers and support staff. Parents have been camping out at district headquarters in the Serna Center, calling for the school board to meet with teachers and reach an agreement. They are watching movies and playing board games, and have vowed to continue the sit-in until the district takes action. These community-led tactics demonstrate the interconnectedness between teachers and their communities.

Since March 23, 4,000 educators in Sacramento have been on strike demanding higher pay in pace with inflation, increased staffing in their schools, no cuts to health benefits, and improved support for students. These educators and staff have gone without pay since the strike began and many of the lowest-paid staff members are struggling to make ends meet. Yet these workers are holding out and keeping up the fight, keenly aware that their fight is not only their own, but also that of their students and community.

On the first day of their strike, at least 25,000 people gathered in support. On Thursday, 80 teachers and staff members took over the district office’s cafeteria, vowing to stay put until the district met and negotiated a contract. On Friday, members of the workers’ bargaining team waited for ten hours to be joined by the district bargaining team.

Did you know Left Voice has a podcast? Listen to All That’s Left on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Parents April Ybarra and Amber Verdugo have been leaders in the sit-in efforts, and gave moving speeches on Saturday showing their unwavering commitment to the struggle. Ybarra, who has been camping out in solidarity with the teachers, talked about how it was her teachers who helped her find her voice in an educational system designed to fail her. “We are tired,” she shouted, “but we are not defeated!” In a powerful moment, the workers voted unanimously to admit Ybarra and Verdugo to the negotiation team.

The chants from the picket line reflect a deep hatred toward the Sacramento City Unified Superintendent Jorge Aguilar. Aguilar, whose salary exceeds $400,000 and has very little classroom experience, has refused to show up to the bargaining table for the past three years. Aguilar reportedly refused to meet with teachers over strike talks, even at the request of California Superintendent of Public Instruction.

The capitalist system is responsible for creating the overwhelming and understaffed working conditions at schools. There is never enough money for education, but there is always enough room in the budget to fund the police.

Sacramento City Unified School District is short staffed by 250 regular teachers and 100 substitute teachers. Students are dismayed at the lack of help that their teachers have if they become sick or need to take a day off. Phoenix Leri, a high school senior in the district, told Associated Press, “It’s a struggle for [teachers] to find someone to stand in and help our class. It’s honestly kind of jarring, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Sacramento City Teachers Association (SCTA) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021 have been negotiating a contract with the district since 2019, and have been negotiating Covid-related issues since 2020. The pandemic has laid bare the contradictions faced by education workers: they are both indispensable to their communities, yet treated by their districts as expendable, as evidenced by nearly two years of unsafe reopening plans and massive budget cuts, including staff lay-offs. While teachers have been contracting Covid due to unsafe reopenings, now the district wants to make current and retired teachers pay hundreds more to keep a non-HMO health plan.

Larry Ferlazzo, a well-known English and social studies teacher in Sacramento, described district leaders’ indefensible decision to use Covid funds to opt for occasional one-time “bonuses” or “stipends,” while refusing to permanently increase staff wages, despite projections of increased state and local funding. Instead, funds were used to boost salaries of high-level administrators while there are unfilled teacher positions at just about every school, sub positions go unfilled, and already stressed staff are forced to cover classes during their free periods. Other districts have chosen to hoard funds rather than use them to hire much needed staff.

As we have also seen in Minneapolis, education workers have been taking the lead and are showing us how to fight back. Minneapolis students also organized a several-day sit-in in solidarity with teachers. And like their Minneapolis counterparts, Sacramento education workers, parents, students, and community members refuse to be pitted against each other and know their fight is one and the same. As they have been shouting in Sacramento: “When we fight, kids win!”

Both Sacramento and Minneapolis teachers are showing what it means to stand united with all of one’s co-workers, whether represented by the same union or not. In Minneapolis, teachers were standing side by side with the lowest-paid educational support professionals. In Sacramento, teachers are also fighting for support staff. As Ferlazzo wrote in his op-ed in Education Week, “teacher and custodian and paraprofessional and bus driver and school secretary working conditions are student learning conditions.”

The sub-par working conditions for education workers are not just a problem in Minneapolis or in Sacramento. A recent poll found that over half of teachers are considering quitting their jobs. Sacramento and Minneapolis are just the beginning. Unions across the country need to mobilize to make this fight a success and help teachers fight to defend public education nationwide. Leaders from teachers’ organizations such as the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and support staff unions need to go all out and financially support the striking teachers. And we, as the working class, must put pressure on our unions to stand in solidarity with striking teachers across the country, and make our voices heard on the streets.

To support these striking teachers, contribute to the SEIU GoFundMe.

Fox​ viewers are less likely to believe lies after being paid to watch CNN for 30 days: study

Sarah K. Burris
April 03, 2022

Screengrab.

A groundbreaking new study paid viewers of the Fox News Network to watch CNN for 30 days. What they found is that the viewers ultimately became more skeptical and less likely to buy into fake news. The early impacts, after just three days, showed that the viewers were already starting to change.

The findings of the study, written by David E. Brockman and Joshua L. Kalla, explained that the experiment used content analysis comparing the two networks during Sept. 2020.

"During this period, the researchers explained that "CNN provided extensive coverage of COVID-19, which included information about the severity of the COVID-19 crisis and poor aspects of Trump's performance handling COVID-19. Fox News covered COVID-19 much less," said the study. The coverage of COVID-19 it did offer provided little of the information CNN did, instead giving viewers information about why the virus was not a serious threat. On the other hand Fox News extensively but highly selectively covered racial issues, and its coverage of these issues provided extensive information about Biden and other Democrats' supposed positions on them and about outbreaks of violence at protests for racial justice in American cities. CNN provided little information about either. The networks both covered the issue of voting by mail, but again dramatically different information about it (in addition to offering different frames)."

"It's far from obvious," they surmised, that viewing different networks would affect the beliefs and attitudes of the viewer. In fact, It wasn't so much that viewers were tuning in because they already felt that way, their attitudes were actually being formed from the Fox network.

The Fox viewers were nearly all very conservative and strong Republicans, the study explained. "Of 763 qualifying participants, we then randomized 40 percent to treatment group. To change the slant of their media diet, we offered treatment group participants $15 per hour to watch 7 hours of CNN per week, during Sept. 2020, prioritizing the hours at which participants indicated they typically watched Fox News."

At the three-day mark, the viewers took a survey. "We found large effects of watching CNN instead of Fox News on participants' factual perceptions of current events (i.e., beliefs) and knowledge about the 2020 presidential candidates' positions," they found. They discovered changes in attitudes about Donald Trump and Republicans as well as a large effect on their opinions about COVID.

The viewers also evolved to believe that if Donald Trump made a mistake, "Fox News would not cover it—i.e., that Fox News engages in partisan coverage filtering."

The findings might suggest that the most cost-effective way for Democrats to win elections is to start running their own infomercials or commercials on the Fox networks.

While the report is 126 pages long, the first five explain the full findings.

National Park Service's oldest active ranger Betty Reid Soskin retires - just months after turning 100 years old

She was hired at age 84 and worked for more than 15 years as a park ranger at the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park in California

She also worked for the U.S. Air Force in a segregated union auxiliary in 1942, called the Boilermakers Union

A big part of her life was to voice the role of black women during the conflict

In 1945, Soskin and her first husband founded one of the first black-owned record stores in the San Francisco area

In 2015, Soskin received a presidential coin from President Barack Obama, who also congratulated her after learning about her retirement

By ASSOCIATED PRESS and ALASTAIR TALBOT FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED:  3 April 2022

The nation's oldest active park ranger is hanging up her Smokey hat at the age of 100 after only starting to work for the National Park Service at 84-years-old to tell the ‘untold stories’ of Black people’s efforts during World War Two.

Betty Reid Soskin retired Thursday after more than 15 years at the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California, the National Park Service announced.

Soskin 'spent her last day providing an interpretive program to the public and visiting with coworkers,' a Park Service statement said.

She led tours at the park and museum honoring the women who worked in factories during wartime and shared her own experience as a Black woman during the conflict. She worked for the U.S. Air Force in a segregated union auxiliary in 1942, called the Boilermakers Union A-36 and was responsible for filing change of address cards for the workers, who moved frequently.

'Being a primary source in the sharing of that history – my history – and giving shape to a new national park has been exciting and fulfilling,' Soskin said in the Park Service statement. 'It has proven to bring meaning to my final years.'

Betty Reid Soskin, the National Park Service's (NPS) oldest active ranger ever, retired on March 31 after a decade and a half of sharing her personal experiences and the efforts of women from diverse backgrounds who worked on the World War II


President Barack Obama greeted Betty Reid Soskin and awarded her with a presidential coin for her civil rights and National Parks service at a Christmas tree lighting in Washington in 2015

Soskin won a temporary Park Service position at the age of 84 in 2007 and became a permanent Park Service employee in 2011. She celebrated her 100th birthday last September.

'Betty has made a profound impact on the National Park Service and the way we carry out our mission,' Director Chuck Sams said. 'Her efforts remind us that we must seek out and give space for all perspectives so that we can tell a more full and inclusive history of our nation.'

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, whose role includes responsibilities such as managing use of public lands and maintaining national parks among many others, paid tribute to the ranger after more than 15 years as a member of the National Park Service.

'Park Ranger Betty Reid Soskin has been a trailblazer for women and the Park Service,' she tweeted. 'After countless tours at @RosieRiveterNPS and millions of smiles, today she is retiring. On behalf of @Interior, thank you, Betty, for your service. You will be missed'

Secretary Deb Haaland, who oversees the National Park Service and its natural parks, thanked Soskin for her 15 years as a ranger, saying she contributed to 'millions smiles'
Betty Reid Soskin speaks at Rosie the Riveter Visitor Center

Soskin was born Betty Charbonnet in Detroit in 1921 but recalled surviving the devastating Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 while living with her Creole family in New Orleans, according to the Park Service biography.

Her family then moved to Oakland, California, and Soskin remained in the San Francisco Bay Area, where in 1945 she and her first husband founded one of the first Black-owned record stores in the area, the biography said. The couple and their children encountered considerable racism, and she was the subject to death threats after they built a home in a white suburb.

She also was a civil rights activist and took part in meetings to develop a general management plan for the Home Front park. She has received several honors.

She was named California Woman of the Year in 1995.




Prior to becoming a park ranger at the age of 84, Soskin worked as a file clerk during World War II and also founded a record record in Berkeley, California, specializing in Gospel music


Soskin worked in a segregated unit of the Boilmakers union (pictured), during World War II with other black women who were responsible for filing workers' documentation

In 2015, Soskin received a presidential coin from President Barack Obama after she lit the National Christmas tree at the White House.

Upon learning the veteran ranger's retirement on Thursday, the former President tweeted: 'I heard Betty Reid Soskin is retiring at 100, and want to congratulate her for more than a decade of service as a National Park Ranger.'

'Betty, I hope you realize just how many people appreciate everything you’ve done—myself included,' he added.

In June 2016, she was awakened in her home by a robber who punched her repeatedly in the face, dragged her out of her bedroom and beat her before making off with the coin and other items.

Soskin, then 94, recovered and returned to work just weeks after the attack. The coin was replaced.

Soskin also was honored with entry into the Congressional Record. Glamour Magazine named her woman of the year in 2018.

President Obama congratulated Soskin for her public service after learning about her decision to retire on March 31, noting that

After learning about her retirement, Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who has previously represented the families of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Brianna Taylor, said on Twitter:

'The oldest active National Park Service ranger, Betty Soskin, has retired at the age of 100! She's been a source of inspiration for many Black girls and has done an outstanding job at the Rosie the Riveter Park! We wish her a joyous & peaceful retirement!'

The National Park Service also paid tribute to its highly-regarded employee and congratulated her after a 'remarkable career.'

The governmental agency announced that it will host an event to celebrate Soskin's retirement on April 16 in Richmond, California, at the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Pak.












Other influential figures, including civil rights attorney Ben Crump, and environmental friendly organizations also took to Twitter to congratulate the centenarian

RENT INCREASES = INFLATION

States clash over rental assistance as the federal government reallocates funds




By —Michael D. Regan

NPR

Nation 

Apr 3, 2022 


In her office at a nonprofit in central Nebraska, Karen Rathke routinely encounters residents still stung by the pandemic and hoping to get help with their rent.

Rathke, president of the Heartland United Way, was hoping to tap into an additional $120 million in federal Emergency Rental Assistance to help them. But that money, part of what’s known as ERA2, is at risk after Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts said he doesn’t want it.

Many other states have in recent months returned tens of millions of dollars in unused rental assistance because they have so few renters — but only Nebraska has flat out refused the aid.

“I’m very concerned about not having anything,” Rathke said of the federal money, which can be allocated over the next three years for everything from rent to services preventing eviction to affordable housing activities.

“All these nonprofits, when people come to them asking for help, the bucket will be empty,” she said. “It is hard to tell people no, to tell people that we don’t have the funds to help them.”

READ MORE: California lawmakers agree to help cover some unpaid rent

The debate is playing out across the country as the Treasury Department begins reallocating some of the $46.5 billion in rental assistance from places slow to spend to others that are running out of funds.

States and localities have until September to spend their share of the first $25 billion allocated, known as ERA1, and the second $21.55 billion, known as ERA2, by 2025. So far, Treasury says $30 billion has been spent or allocated through February.

Treasury announced earlier this month that over $1 billion of ERA1 funds would be moved, for a total of $2.3 billion reallocated this year. Larger states like California, New York, New Jersey and Texas are getting hundreds of millions of dollars in additional money. Native American tribes, including the Oglala Sioux Lakota in South Dakota and Chippewa Cree in Montana, are also receiving tens of millions of dollars in additional help.

Those losing money are almost all smaller Republican states with large rural populations and fewer renters. Many were slow to spend their share as required by program rules, so they either voluntarily returned money or had it taken. Some, like South Dakota, Wyoming and New Hampshire, unsuccessfully pitched to use the money for other things like affordable housing.

Treasury officials, housing advocates and many Republican governors argue there is still plenty of money to help renters in these states and that the reallocation gets money where it’s most needed. Montana, for example, returned $54.6 million but still has $224.5 million. West Virginia returned more than $42.4 million but still has $224.7 million, according to Treasury.

READ MORE: Across the U.S., rents at ‘insane’ levels with no relief in sight

“We are trying to reallocate the best we can,” said Gene Sperling, who is charged with overseeing implementation of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus rescue package. “This is a balancing act, but one that is rooted in commitment to getting the most funds to the most people in need as possible.”

North Dakota returned $150 million of its $352 million, saying it couldn’t effectively spend all the money by the deadline. The state believes the remaining funds are sufficient to meet the needs of those who are eligible.

Some Democratic lawmakers disagree.

“Outrageous and unacceptable: turning back rental assistance funds when applications are piling up and people are being evicted,” tweeted Democratic Rep. Karla Rose Hanson, of Fargo.

South Dakota was forced to return more than $81 million — though more than $9 million went to Native American tribes in the state. Gov. Kristi Noem suggested the money was not necessary, adding: “Our renters enjoy something even better than government hand-outs: a job.”

But Democratic Sen. Reynold Nesiba said there was a lack of awareness about the rental assistance and criticized the state for not doing more to promote it. He pointed to a $5 million tourism advertising campaign that was paid for with coronavirus relief funds and questioned why that level of promotion didn’t happen for pandemic relief programs.

Meanwhile, organizations that are helping administer the rental assistance still available expect a continued need. The state has long faced a run on affordable housing, which has only been exacerbated during the pandemic.

“Housing costs are just too high,” said Sandy Miller, who coordinates the rental assistance program for an organization called Community Action in the western half of South Dakota. “It’s harder for them to get in a home, it’s harder for them to stay in their home.”

Several states argued the reallocation addresses a flaw in the program, which created a funding formula based on population, not the number of renters in a state.

“Congress … did not take into consideration Wyoming’s small population, income levels, actual renters’ needs, and that the majority of Wyoming households — 70% — are owner occupied,” said Rachel Girt, the state’s rental assistance communication coordinator, after the state returned $164 million out of $352 million. Another $2.8 million was shifted to the Northern Arapaho Tribal Housing Program and Eastern Shoshone Housing Authority.

Josh Hanford, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Housing and Community Development, noted that the $352 million it received far surpassed the $25 million given to Memphis, which has a similar population.

“As long as we’re able to serve all our eligible households, hopefully folks will see that there is greater need in other parts of the country that have received a lot less assistance per household,” Hanford said when asked about the state returning $31 million.

In Nebraska, the loss of funds is projected to hit rural areas hardest.

READ MORE: States, cities running out of rental assistance funds

The state program already reallocated $85 million of its $158 million in ERA1 to its biggest cities of Omaha and Lincoln and their respective counties. It still has nearly $30 million. Without the additional $120 million in ERA2 money, an analysis by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Center on Children, Families and the Law found that tenants in Omaha and Lincoln will still have help after September, but those in other counties will not.

Ricketts, the Nebraska governor, defended the decision not to take the additional money.

The state “has received and distributed an unprecedented amount of federal funding to help Nebraskans weather the storm over these past two years,” he wrote in an opinion column. “But at a certain point, we must acknowledge that the storm has passed and get back to the Nebraska Way. We must guard against becoming a welfare state where people are incentivized not to work and encouraged to rely on government handouts well after an emergency is over.”

But housing advocates say his decision will leave many vulnerable tenants without a lifeline. Tenants in rural areas often have access to fewer resources, including affordable housing, internet access and reliable transport.

Lawmakers passed a bill last month requiring the state to apply for the money. But Ricketts vetoed the bill, saying the state “must guard against big government socialism.” If lawmakers don’t override his veto, the money is likely to be reallocated by Treasury to other states.

“We know from communities across Nebraska that the need is not only there, but is fairly severe,” said Erin Feichtinger, director of policy and advocacy for the social service agency Together.

“There is really no good reason to pass up these funds. It’s money that is allocated to Nebraskans,” she said. “Nothing bad will happen if we accept this funding, but lots of bad things can if we don’t.”

___

Associated Press reporters Stephen Groves in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; James MacPherson in Bismarck, North Dakota, and Lisa Rathke in Marshfield, Vermont, contributed.

Biden faces rising pressure on student loans with deadline looming

BY ALEX GANGITANO AND ARIS FOLLEY 

- 04/03/22 

President Biden is in a difficult position on student loans ahead of the midterms, as pressure builds from borrowers and Democrats for widespread cancellation.

Adding to the pressure is a key deadline: On May 1, millions of borrowers will have to pay unless a freeze on federal student loan payments put in place during the pandemic is extended.

Biden has been called on to extend the freeze until the next year — beyond the midterms.

But advocates for forgiveness, along with key Democrats, want more than another freeze.

“We’ve been saying for years now that we need to keep payments on pause until we cancel student debt,” said Natalia Abrams, president and founder of the Student Debt Crisis Center (SDCC).

Biden last extended the suspension in December. Loan payments were first paused in March 2020 under former President Trump, and have since been extended five times.

A growing number of Democrats are calling for a new extension, ramping up pressure on the White House.

“I’m hopeful that the president is going to take action,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) told The Hill this week. “It is something that is extraordinarily popular, not just with people with student loans, but families of people going to college.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Friday said a decision needs to be made before May. She said the administration will “factor the impacts of economic data on ranges of groups of people, including students.”

In 2020, Biden was one of a number of Democratic presidential candidates who called for widespread cancellation of federal student loans.

The number of student borrowers has risen sharply over the past two decades. According to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, federal student debt has grown seven times over, from $187 billion to $1.4 trillion, between 1995 and 2017.

The Federal Reserve estimated last year that roughly $1.7 trillion in student loan debt had been racked up by borrowers nationwide.

Biden in the campaign supported forgiving at least $10,000 in federal student loans per person. Others, including Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), have pressed for $50,000 per borrower or to cancel debt entirely.

Democrats are warning that inaction could cost them in November, when the party will try to hold on to House and Senate majorities.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who has called on Biden to wipe out “all student debt” in the past, said this week she thinks “inaction is going to be really dangerous for us in the midterms.”

“Enthusiasm is really low,” Omar said of Democratic voters. She added that “it’s important to listen to the people who have sent us to represent them and then us, and I know that student debt cancellation is a priority.”

Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) last month called for extending the freeze until 2023. Since then, nearly 100 Democrats across both chambers have also pushed for the extension, citing inflation loan-holders are facing.

“We’re definitely hearing from borrowers who will be changing their voting preferences and maybe not even voting because of the failure to see student loan cancellation passed,” said Cody Hounanian, SDCC’s executive director.

Leaders of the House Progressive Caucus raised the issue with Biden in a sit-down on Wednesday. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), who attending the meeting, said members discussed potential next steps, including “possible cancellation, possible extension of some of the programs that we’re already doing and repayments.”

“The president’s very cognizant that this is important to a lot of people who are just trying to get by and the good news is we had a really great conversation on that and a whole lot of other, I think, essential pocketbook issues,” he said.

Biden in April requested a memo from the Department of Education to determine his authority to cancel student debt through executive action. Since then, the administration has not publicly announced if the memo is complete.

The White House, when asked for comment, pointed to the “breathing room” the pause has given to borrowers. It also noted that no one has paid any federal student loans since Biden took office.

“The Education Department will continue working to ensure a smooth transition to repayment in May. The president supports Congress providing $10,000 in debt relief. And he continues to look into what debt relief actions can be taken administratively,” a White House official said.

A spokesperson for the Department of Education told The Hill that alleviating the burden of student debt is a critical priority. The administration is “committed to providing needed relief and meeting our ultimate goal of permanently making college more affordable,” the spokesperson added.

The department said it will keep communicating with servicers and borrowers about repayment updates.

The Biden administration reportedly told companies in recent weeks to not send out notices about student loan payments resuming.

​​Council of Economic Advisers Member Jared Bernstein acknowledged that student loan borrowers “face real challenges making debt payments,” when asked during the White House press briefing on Friday if borrowers are prepared to resume payments.

Bernstein also noted that White House chief of staff Ron Klain has previously “leaned into that” question. Klain signaled in early March that the White House would extend the freeze on student loan payments.

But advocates contend more action is needed.

“If Biden restarts payments on May Day we know that nearly 8 million people will be pushed into default,” said Thomas Gokey, organizer with the Debt Collective.

“We don’t need to pause this crisis, we need to end it. Biden can cancel all federal student loans with a signature,” he added.

Iowa’s bird flu death toll tops 13 million

Jared Strong,

 Iowa Capital Dispatch
April 02, 2022

White chickens on a farm (Shutterstock)

Two more poultry flocks in Iowa — including one with more than 5 million egg-laying chickens — were infected by a deadly and highly contagious avian influenza, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship reported Friday.

The new detections of the virus were in a massive commercial egg-laying flock in Osceola County, and in a flock of about 88,000 turkeys in Cherokee County.

The virus was confirmed in those flocks on Thursday, the end of the first month of such outbreaks in the state this year. There were a total of 12 detections in nine counties that affected at least 13.2 million birds.

Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig has said the threat of infection could loom for another two months as wild birds migrate through the state. Those birds are the likely carriers of the virus and can be asymptomatic if they are infected. The virus is often deadly for domestic birds.

Infected flocks are culled as quickly as possible to limit the risk of transmitting the virus to other nearby facilities.

The vast majority of the affected birds in Iowa have been egg-laying chickens due to the size of their flocks. The virus was previously found in a Buena Vista egg-laying flock of more than 5.3 million.

The state is the country’s top egg producer and has about 60 million laying hens, Naig has said. The infected flocks account for about 21% of that total. Naig expects food prices to increase because of the virus.

“If we continue to see the spread of (highly pathogenic avian influenza) and affecting more and more sites … I think you could very well see a change in price and even availability,” he said in an appearance on Iowa Press on Friday. “Now, the good news about the poultry industry is they can restock quickly — they can rebuild populations.”

The virus is unlikely to infect humans, and eggs and meat from infected flocks are discarded.

In 2015, a deadly bird flu outbreak led to the culling of more than 32 million birds in Iowa, which accounted for about two-thirds of the affected birds in the United States that year.

Iowa’s affected birds this year account for 59% of the country’s current 22.4 million total, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. The virus has been detected in commercial and backyard flocks in about two dozen states.

The rate of the detections in Iowa has been accelerating. The first was March 1 in a backyard flock in Pottawattamie County. Half of the state’s detections so far occurred in the past week, and all of them were at commercial facilities.

“Maybe we’re approaching the end — maybe we’re just getting started,” Naig said of the virus detections. “Time will tell.”.indent2Container { margin-left: 1em; border-left: solid 1px var(--brand_one); padding-left: 2em; }

Here are the flocks that were infected in Iowa in March:

— March 1: A backyard flock of 42 chickens and ducks in Pottawattamie County.
— March 6: A commercial flock of about 50,000 turkeys in Buena Vista County.
— March 10: A commercial flock of about 916,000 egg-laying chickens in Taylor County.
— March 17: A commercial flock of more than 5.3 million egg-laying chickens in Buena Vista County.
— March 20: A backyard flock of 11 chickens and ducks in Warren County.
— March 23: A commercial flock of about 54,000 turkeys in Buena Vista County.

— March 25: A commercial flock of about 250,000 young hens in Franklin County.
— March 28: A commercial flock of about 28,000 turkeys in Hamilton County.
— March 28: A commercial flock of about 1.5 million egg-laying chickens in Guthrie County.
— March 29: A commercial flock of about 35,500 turkeys in Buena Vista County.

— March 31: A commercial flock of more than 5 million egg-laying chickens in Osceola County.
— March 31: A commercial flock of about 88,000 turkeys in Cherokee County.


Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on Facebook and Twitter.

UN Weather Agency Sounds Alarm on Extreme Events in Antarctica

Among the events sparking concern was "freakish warming at Earth's South Pole" including "a mind-blowing" above-average reading at a research station.

ANDREA GERMANOS

April 2, 2022
Scientists with the United Nations weather agency on Friday expressed fresh concern over the climate crisis following recent extreme events in Antarctica—an area they say should not be taken "for granted."

"The Antarctic ice sheets hold almost 60 meters of potential sea-level rise. Understanding and properly monitoring the continent is therefore crucial for society's future well-being."

The remarks from climate experts with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)—delivered just ahead of a key report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—follow last month's collapse of East Antarctica's Conger Ice Shelf, record warm temperatures, and rare rainfall.

"Antarctica has often been referred to as a 'sleeping giant,'" said Mike Sparrow, head of the WMO co-sponsored World Climate Research Program, in a statement noting it's "the coldest, windiest, and driest continent and often thought of as being relatively stable."

"However," he continued, "recent temperature extremes and ice shelf collapses have reminded us that we shouldn't take Antarctica for granted."

"The Antarctic ice sheets hold almost 60 meters of potential sea-level rise. Understanding and properly monitoring the continent is therefore crucial for society's future well-being," said Sparrow.



Catherine Walker, an Earth and planetary scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and NASA, made a similar point about East Antarctica.

"All of the previous collapses have taken place in West Antarctica, not East Antarctica, which until recently has been thought of as relatively stable," Walker said to NASA's Earth Observatory.

"This is something like a dress rehearsal for what we could expect from other, more massive ice shelves if they continue to melt and destabilize," she said. "Then we'll really be past the turnaround point in terms of slowing sea-level rise."

The unprecedented high temperatures that hit the region last month were the result of an atmospheric river that originated near southeast Australia and "spread warmth-trapping clouds and moisture well inland across East Antarctica," as meteorologist Bob Henson wrote at Yale Climate Connections.

It was, in fact, "freakish warming at Earth's South Pole," as he put it.

Henson explained:
At Vostok, a Russian weather station launched in 1958, the high of –17.7°C (0.1°F) on March 18 smashed the record for any March by 26.8°F and came in roughly 63°F above the average daily high. The 26.8°F represents the largest margin in world history for breaking a monthly record at any site with at least 40 years of data, according to Maximiliano Herrera, an expert on international weather records. It's also the only time Vostok has gotten above zero Fahrenheit outside of December or January, never mind mid-March. Vostok's all-time high is –14°C (6.8°F).

About 350 miles away, on terrain and elevation roughly similar to Vostok, the French-Italian research site Concordia Station (staffed year-round, as is the case for Vostok) set its all-time record high of –11.5°C (11.3°F) on March 17. Data has been collected year round at this site only since 2005, a period too brief for an all-time record to carry too much weight. However, the reading was a mind-blowing 67°F above the daily average high of around –49°C (–56°F).

Etienne Vignon and Christoph Genthon, experts with the WMO Global Cryosphere Watch, put the temperatures at Concordia, located in an area known as Dome C, in the context of the March rainfall and pointed to wide reverberations of such changes.

"That it rains at the coast in March is a source of concern for everyone."

"The warm temperature at Dome C, still much below freezing, is probably more a wake-up call, not having significant local impact in the inner ice sheet. On the other hand, the fact that the temperature was way above 0°C and that it rained at the coast upstream the previous day is more of a concern," said Vignon and Genthon, both with France's Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, IPSL/Sorbone Université/École Polytechnique/CNRS.

They added that "rainfall is rare in Antarctica but when it occurs, it has consequences on ecosystems—particularly on penguin colonies—and on the ice sheet mass balance."

While there are no penguin chicks at this time of the year, Vignon and Genthon cautioned that "the fact that this happens now in March is a reminder of what is at stake in the peripheral regions: wildlife, stability of the ice sheet."

"Here the warm temperature at Dome C is a source of excitement for climatologists, that it rains at the coast in March is a source of concern for everyone," they said.

The comments on the Antarctic developments came ahead of the expected Monday release of the IPCC's Working Group 3 report on climate mitigation.

That report will land at "a crucial time," according to Greenpeace, "as countries, businesses, and investors must recalibrate plans for a faster transition away from fossil fuels, towards climate justice, and truly sustainable, more resilient food systems."

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PHOTO
An Adelie penguin is seen on ice floa over Penola Strait as the floes melt due to global climate change in Antarctica on February 7, 2022. (Photo: Sebnem Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

WATER IS LIFE

Gaza's Forthcoming Water Crisis Might Be Worse Than Anything We Have Ever Seen

When almost all of Gaza's water is not fit for human consumption because of a deliberate Israeli strategy, one can understand why Palestinians continue to fight back as if their lives are dependent on it; because they are.

Palestinian children fill plastic bottles and jerrycans with drinking water from public taps in Al Shati refugee camp, western Gaza Strip. Palestinians suffer from an acute shortage of drinkable water. 

(Photo: Mahmoud Issa/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

RAMZY BAROUD

April 1, 2022


"The water is back," one family member would announce in a mix of excitement and panic, often very late at night. The moment such an announcement was made, my whole family would start running in all directions to fill every tank, container or bottle that could possibly be filled. Quite often, the water would last for a few minutes, leaving us with a collective sense of defeat, worrying about the very possibility of surviving.

It is important to keep in mind that the water crisis in Gaza has been ongoing for years, and every aspect of this protracted crisis is linked to Israel.

This was our life under Israeli military occupation in Gaza. The tactic of holding Palestinians hostage to Israel's water charity was so widespread during the First Palestinian Intifada, or upirising, to the extent that denying water supplies to targeted refugee camps, villages, towns or whole regions was the first measure taken to subdue the rebellious population. This was often followed by military raids, mass arrests and deadly violence; but it almost always began with cutting Palestinians off from their water supplies.

Israel's water war on the Palestinians has changed since those early days, especially as the Climate Change crisis has accelerated Israel's need to prepare for grim future possibilities. Of course, this largely happens at the expense of the occupied Palestinians. In the West Bank, the Israeli government continues to usurp Palestinian water resources from the region's main aquifers - the Mountain Aquifer and the Coastal Aquifer. Frustratingly, Israel's main water company, Mekorot, sells stolen Palestinian water to Palestinian villages and towns, especially in the northern West Bank region, at exhorbitant prices.

Aside from the ongoing profiteering from water theft, Israel continues to use water as a form of collective punishment in the West Bank, while quite often denying Palestinians, especially in Area C, the right to dig new wells to circumvent Israel's water monopoly.

According to Amnesty International, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank consume, on average, 73 liters of water a day, per person. Compare this to an Israeli citizen, who consumes approximately 240 liters of water a day, and, even worse, to an illegal Israeli Jewish settler, who consumes over 300 liters per day. The Palestinian share of water is not only far below the average consumed by Israelis, but is even below the recommended daily minimum of 100 liters per capita as designated by the World Health Organization (WHO).

As difficult as the situation for West Bank Palestinians is, in Gaza the humanitarian catastrophe is already in effect. On the occasion of the World Water Day on March 22, Gaza's Water and Environmental Quality Authority warned of a 'massive crisis' should Gaza's water supplies continue to deplete at the current dangerous rate. The Authority's spokesman, Mazen al-Banna, told reporters that 98 percent of Gaza's water supplies are not fit for human consumption.

The consequences of this terrifying statistic are well known to Palestinians and, in fact, to the international community as well. Last October, Muhammed Shehada of the Euro-Med Monitor, told the 48th UN Human Rights Council session that about one-quarter of all diseases in Gaza are caused by water pollution, and that an estimated twelve percent of deaths among Gaza's children are "linked to intestinal infections related to contaminated water."

But how did Gaza get to this point?

On May 25, four days after the end of the latest Israeli war on Gaza, the charity Oxfam announced that 400,000 people in besieged Gaza have had no access to regular water supplies. The reason is that Israeli military campaigns always begin with the targeting of Palestinian electric grids, water services and other vital public facilities. According to Oxfam, "11 days of bombardment … severely impacted the three main desalination plants in Gaza city."

It is important to keep in mind that the water crisis in Gaza has been ongoing for years, and every aspect of this protracted crisis is linked to Israel. With damaged or ailing infrastructure, much of Gaza's water contains dangerously high salinity levels, or is extremely polluted by sewage and other reasons.

Even before Israel redeployed its forces out of Gaza in 2005 to impose a siege on the Strip's population from land, sea and air, Gaza had a water crisis. Gaza's coastal aquifer was entirely controlled by the Israeli military administration, which diverted quality water to the few thousand Jewish settlers, while occasionally allocating high saline water to the then 1.5 million Palestinian people, granted that Palestinians did not protest or resist the Israeli occupation in any way.

Nearly 17 years later, Gaza's population has grown to 2.1 millions, and Gaza's already struggling aquifer is in a far worse shape. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported that water from Gaza's aquifer is depleting due to "over-extraction (because) people have no other choice".

"Worse, pollution and an influx of seawater mean that only four percent of the aquifer water is fit to drink. The rest must be purified and desalinated to make it drinkable," UNICEF added. In other words, Gaza's problem is not the lack of access to existing freshwater reserves as the latter simply do not exist or are rapidly depleting, but the lack of technology and fuel that would give Palestinians in Gaza the ability to make their water nominally drinkable. Even that is not a long term solution.

Israel is doing its utmost to destroy any Palestinian chances at recovery from this ongoing crisis. More, it seems that Tel Aviv is only invested in making the situation worse to jeopardize Palestinian chances of survival. For example, last year, Palestinians accused Israel of deliberately flooding thousands of Palestinian dunums in Gaza when it vented its southern dams, which Israel uses to collect rain water. The almost yearly ritual by Israel continues to devastate Gaza's ever shrinking farming areas, the backbone of Palestinian survival under Israel's hermetic siege.

The international community often pays attention to Gaza during times of Israeli wars; and even then, the attention is mostly negative, where Palestinians are usually accused of provoking Israel's supposed defensive wars. The truth is that even when Israel's military campaigns end, Tel Aviv continues to wage war on the Strip's inhabitants.

Though militarily powerful, Israel claims that it is facing an 'existential threat' in the Middle East. In actuality, it is the Palestinian existence that is in real jeopardy. When almost all of Gaza's water is not fit for human consumption because of a deliberate Israeli strategy, one can understand why Palestinians continue to fight back as if their lives are dependent on it; because they are.
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


RAMZY BAROUD
 is a journalist and the Editor of the Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books including: "These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons" (2019), "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (2010) and "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (2006). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.