Michigan car owner sued after Jeep kills mechanic during oil change

Landon Mion
Sat, May 7, 2022, 1:52 AM·3 min read

A Michigan man who left his car at a dealership for an oil change and tire rotation is being sued after his vehicle was involved in the death of one of the dealership's employees.

Sergio Enrique Diaz-Navarro took his red 2019 Wrangler to a Chrysler Jeep Dodge dealership on March 13, 2020, and 19-year-old lube technician Daniel Thompson worked on the car. After the service was complete, the vehicle "lurched forward" as the young employee attempted to operate it, crushing 42-year-old mechanic Jeffrey Hawkins against a cabinet, court records show.

Thompson had lowered the Jeep from the vehicle lift, and then tried to start the car and let it idle to ensure there were no oil leaks around the filter, according to court records.

"Thompson reached into the vehicle and pressed brake with his right foot, keeping his other foot on the floor," the plaintiff summary reads. "He pressed the start button. When the vehicle did not start, he took his foot off the brake and depressed the clutch pedal. He again hit the start button. This time the Jeep started. He removed his foot from the clutch, still standing outside the vehicle. The vehicle lurched forward."

Hawkins was taken to the hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries, according to The Kansas City Star.

Diaz-Navarro and Thompson were both sued in a Michigan circuit court in March 2021.

New Jeep vehicles parked outside a Chrystler, Jeep, Dodge and RAM dealership in South Edmonton. On Wednesday, 24 August 2021, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

 (Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Attorney David Femminineo, who is representing Hawkins' estate, told FOX 2 that Thompson did not know how to drive the vehicle's manual transmission and did not have a license. The attorney also said the dealership cannot be sued because of a legal standard preventing an employee from suing their boss for negligence, which, in this case, would be the hiring of someone who should not have been driving.

Because the incident happened at work and involved two employees, the boss cannot be sued, FOX 2 notes.

Diaz-Navarro's attorney told FOX 2 he plans to fight the case in a trial later this month.

"When you hand your car over to anybody including the valet or the person at the service desk at your local dealership, you better be able to trust that person," the attorney said.

Femminineo told McClatchy News that the car owner is responsible for Hawkins' death in the same way that someone who lent another person their vehicle would be liable for any injuries caused by the driver. He said a person who lends their car is liable for negligent acts because they gave the other person permission to use their vehicle.

According to a summary filed in court on March 1, the court has ordered the Rochester Hills Chrysler Jeep Dodge dealership, where the incident occurred, to indemnify Diaz-Navarro if he is found liable of negligence.

"So in reality, the owner is going to be held responsible, but the dealership’s insurance company is paying," Femminineo told McClatchy News. He said he hopes a verdict in excess of $15 million is awarded.

To counter China, Biden launches 3D printing initiative with GE Aviation and other large firms

Sat, May 7, 2022, 

US President Joe Biden's administration announced on Friday a new initiative that would boost manufacturing of 3D printed products by domestic small- and medium-enterprises (SMEs), an effort that the White House hopes will work in conjunction with legislation meant to boost US competitiveness against China.

Dubbed "Additive Manufacturing Forward" or "AM Forward", the initiative involves voluntary commitments from some of America's largest manufacturers, including aerospace giant GE Aviation and leading defence contractor Raytheon, to source more 3D printed parts from smaller companies.

The larger companies would pledge to help train workers at these SMEs to make the products and help develop common development and certification standards for "additive manufacturing", otherwise known as 3D printing.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

US President Joe Biden, from left, speaks to Senator Rob Portman, a Republican from Ohio, and Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, at the United Performance Metals manufacturing facility in Hamilton, Ohio on Friday. 

Photo: Gaelen Morse/Bloomberg 

Extending 3D printing capabilities to more companies in the high-tech supply chain, the administration reasons, would lower costs and increase the competitiveness of US SMEs and reduce dependence the large manufacturers and defence contractors have on overseas companies.

At an event attended by executives from some of America's largest manufacturers, Biden touted the potential 3D printing has to offer economically and from a national security perspective.

"The executives here today have agreed to launch a new compact between large, iconic manufacturers and smaller American suppliers, a commitment by these large companies to help those smaller ones adapt new technologies so we can continue to be the leading exporter of aircrafts and engines in areas like medical devices, clean energy technologies and so much more," he said.

While Biden's policies have diverged from the priorities of his immediate predecessor, former president Donald Trump, particularly on social issues and the environment, he has so far kept hard-line policies on China intact, including efforts to reduce American reliance on manufacturing in the country.

The US leader also reiterated a call for Congress to speed up passage of legislation that would provide billions of US dollars in funding for domestic semiconductor manufacturing and other provisions meant to counter China.

"We were ranked number one in the world in [research and development] three decades ago," Biden said. "Now we're ranked number nine in the world. China was number eight in the world 30 years ago. Now they're number two in the world. We've got to up our game."

What the White House refers to as the Bipartisan Innovation Act is what will emerge from Congress, assuming that the House of Representatives and the Senate manage to agree on provisions in China-related bills that each chamber has already passed.

The House passed its America Competes Act in February last year and the Senate passed its US Innovation and Competition Act four months later.

Provisions for 3D printing in USICA are part of some US$23 billion worth of funding that the bill would allocate for the development of high-tech priorities including aeronautics and space technology.



"Advanced materials and manufacturing processes, including additive manufacturing, to reduce the cost of manufacturing scale-up and certification for use in general aviation, commercial aviation, and military aeronautics" are called for under the heading of "experimental aircraft projects".

In-situ additive manufacturing shows up in the legislation under the "Mars-forward technologies" heading along with other technologies including nuclear propulsion and cryogenic fluid management.

As part of AM Forward, GE Aviation will target SME suppliers to compete on 50 per cent of its requests for products made using 3D printing or related technologies, and will target 30 per cent of its total external sourcing of additively manufactured parts from domestic SMEs, according to the White House fact sheet.

Lockheed Martin, another participant in the initiative, will work with its SME suppliers to conduct research to improve the performance of additive manufacturing AM techniques specifically focused on the use of 3D printing as an alternative to the manufacture of products through the more traditional use of castings and forgings, it said.

Honeywell and Siemens Energy are also among the inaugural participants in AM Forward.

In a report on 3D printing prepared for US lawmakers in 2019, the Congressional Research Service - Congress's public policy research arm - noted that 3D printing can be faster, cheaper, and more flexible than conventional production methods given 3D printers' lower prices, easily modifiable digital designs, and ability to integrate multiple distinct manufacturing processes into a single operation.

The White House pledged support for AM Forward SMEs involved in the initiative through federal programmes.

For example, the Small Business Administration would extend loans and Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) programme "can support the widespread deployment of new additive capabilities across US industry", it said.

Additional reporting by Robert Delaney

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2022 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Workers at Apple China Plant Clash With Guards Over Lockdowns


Bloomberg News
Fri, May 6, 2022, 3:32 AM·2 min read

(Bloomberg) -- Hundreds of workers at a technology factory in China clashed with authorities and flooded past isolation barriers after weeks under lockdown, a stunning breakdown in the Communist Party’s efforts to contain Covid-19 infections.

The Shanghai factory, which is owned by Taiwan’s Quanta Computer Inc. and makes devices for Apple Inc. among others, has been operating under tight restrictions since the beginning of April. In a video shared on Twitter and YouTube, workers rushed through barriers and tangled with guards in white protective gear who tried to keep them inside.

Quanta employees confirmed the clash occurred Thursday evening, while the company did not immediately provide comment. One worker said that people are worried about further tightening because there are positive Covid cases on the campus. The government is taking a central role in managing the plant’s operations, said another employee on-site.

The incident underscores the rising challenges for President Xi Jinping’s hardline strategy in containing the pandemic. China has imposed sweeping lockdowns to quarantine the infected and prevent Covid’s spread, an approach that has sparked unusual protests and complaints in the 25-million strong city of Shanghai. The policy has also threatened China’s economy, jeopardizing its ability to reach a target growth rate of 5.5%.

China’s main strategy for minimizing damage to its economy amid the rolling lockdowns is for companies and factories to operate in a “closed loop” system, in which workers live and sleep on-site or in nearby accommodation that they’re shuttled to. This has helped Shanghai restart production at more than 70% of its industrial manufacturing facilities, while 90% of 660 “key” industrial companies have resumed output, officials said this week.

But it’s unclear how long the closed loops can be sustained, given the resources required to feed and house thousands of workers at a time. The system also requires that workers avoid contact with anyone outside the loop, including family members. The majority of Japanese factories in Shanghai haven’t yet resumed operating despite the city’s assurances that production is getting back on track.

Tensions at the Quanta factory in the Songjiang district of Shanghai boiled over after workers tried to return to dormitories after their shifts, according to Taiwanese media outlet UDN. More than 100 jumped over a gate and ran past the staff without regard for their guidance, it said.

People are getting tired and frustrated under the controls, one of the workers said.

Operations at the facility returned to normal by Friday morning, another worker said.

Quanta is a critical partner for Apple, generating more than 50% of its revenue from the Cupertino, Calif.-based company as it assembles MacBooks and other devices. The Taiwanese company also does work for HP Inc., Dell Technologies Inc. and Microsoft Corp., according to Bloomberg supply chain data.

U.S. Energy Department to commit $2.25 billion to carbon storage program

FILE PHOTO: A flare burns off excess gas from a gas plant in the Permian Basin oil production area near WinkThu, May 5, 2022

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Energy intends to commit $2.25 billion for projects to store carbon dioxide underground and help fight climate change, it said on Thursday.

The funding for carbon storage validation and testing over the next five years will come from the bipartisan infrastructure bill signed by President Joe Biden last year.

"The goal here is that at the end of the day, you do actually have commercially available facilities for storage," said Emily Grubert, deputy assistant secretary for carbon management at the department.

Grubert said the money would come "quickly" but gave no further details on timing.

The program will look at storing carbon from projects including capturing emission from power plants and other industrial sites or removing carbon directly from the air. It will look at potential storage sites both onshore and offshore, such as at depleted oil and natural gas fields under the seabed in the Gulf of Mexico.

(THUS ALLOWING THE METHANE TO BE USED FOR FRACKING )

Capturing carbon emissions from power plants adds costs to the generation of electricity and companies typically want subsidies to help cover the expense.

Direct capture, a nascent technology to suck carbon dioxide directly from ambient air, can cost up to $600 per tonne of carbon captured.

But backers say the money beginning to pour into the technologies will lead to advances and cost cuts.

Grubert said advances in storing carbon underground on a virtually permanent basis without leaks can give companies confidence to move ahead with capturing the gas.

"We're likely to see a lot of opportunities for transitioning fossil fuel companies and fossil fuel workers in this space because a lot of the same types of skill sets are quite similar," Grubert said.

Biden's goal of decarbonizing the economy by 2050 could face a setback if his wider climate legislation is not passed by Congress.

Many scientists say the first priority to curb climate change is to avoid emissions to begin with, but that carbon storage will likely be necessary to avoid the worst impacts from greenhouse gases.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Tom Hogue)

3D PRINTING
Biden plugs manufacturing initiative at Ohio metal company
   

AAMER MADHANI
Fri, May 6, 2022, 

HAMILTON, Ohio (AP) — President Joe Biden pledged Friday that 3D printing technology would help return factory jobs to the U.S. and reduce inflationary pressures as he traveled to an industrial Midwestern state with a Senate seat in play to make his case for the future of manufacturing.

Inflation at a 40-year high and Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine have caused growing uneasiness about the economy among voters. Biden is staking his presidency in part on the promise that his policies on matters ranging from infrastructure to computer chips can create a more resilient economy.

“The pandemic and the economic crisis that we inherited and Putin’s war in Ukraine have all shown the vulnerability when we become too reliant on things made overseas,” Biden said. “We learned the hard way that we can’t fight inflation if supply chains buckle and send prices through the roof every time there’s a disruption.”

Biden went to United Performance Metals in Hamilton to highlight commitments by five leading U.S. manufacturers to boost their reliance on small and medium American firms for 3D printing. GE Aviation, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Siemens Energy have agreed to take part in the program. The president toured the factory with executives.

The promise of 3D printing is that it could reverse the outsourcing of factory jobs and industrial production, allowing for more components to be manufactured in the U.S. An analysis by the consulting firm Kearney estimated that the technology could produce $600 billion to $900 billion in economic value by enabling more production domestically.

The president also pressed Congress to approve a stalled competition and innovation bill that the Democratic president says is critical to bolstering domestic manufacturing and helping solve a semiconductor shortage that has delayed production of life-saving medical devices, smartphones, video game consoles, laptops and other modern conveniences.

“Pass the damn bill and send it to me,” Biden said Friday in his remarks.

Biden was in Ohio — where an open Senate seat is up for grabs with the retirement of Republican Rob Portman — shortly after its primary elections. Rep. Tim Ryan easily won the Democratic nomination Tuesday and will face Republican JD Vance, author of the memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.” Ohio would be a difficult pickup for Democrats, as the state backed former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election by 8 points.

GE Aviation and Raytheon set a goal of looking to small and medium firms for 50% of their requests for quotes for products requiring 3D printing or related technologies.

Siemens Energy committed to targeting 20% to 40% of externally sourced 3D print parts and will work with 10 to 20 small and medium firms to help improve their capability. Lockheed Martin has agreed to work with smaller suppliers on research to improve the use of 3D printing as an alternative to castings and forgings. Honeywell is offering technical assistance including part design, data generation, machine operation and post-processing to small and medium suppliers it works with.

The semiconductor chip problem has been building since coronavirus pandemic-related lockdowns shut down major Asian chip factories more than two years ago. Now it could extend past this year, despite the semiconductor industry’s efforts to catch up with demand.

There is bipartisan support for boosting domestic chip production, but lawmakers in the Senate and the House still need to negotiate over differences.



The House in February passed a version of the legislation that could pump $52 billion in grants and subsidies to the semiconductor industry to help boost U.S. production. The bill must now be reconciled with a Senate version passed eight months ago.

House Democrats also tucked in other priorities that have raised Republican concerns about the bill’s cost and scope.

The bill includes $8 billion for a fund that helps developing countries adjust to climate change; $3 billion for facilities to make the U.S. less reliant on Chinese solar components; $4 billion to help communities with significantly higher unemployment than the national average; and $10.5 billion for states to stockpile drugs and medical equipment.

President Joe Biden speaks at United Performance Metals in Hamilton, Ohio, Friday, May 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
___

Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

Man Sends 4-Letter Message To Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott In MSNBC B-Roll Footage

Lee Moran

Sat, May 7, 2022, 

Blink and you may miss one protester’s blunt message to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on MSNBC.

A man wearing a t-shirt with the slogan “Fuck Greg Abbott” while carrying a sign that read “Abortion Saves Lives” appeared in B-roll footage that aired on Thursday’s broadcast of “The Last Word,” reported Mediaite.

The uncensored curse word flashed up on the screen as guest host Alicia Menendez discussed the leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade. Watch via Mediaite here.

Abbott last year signed legislation that effectively banned abortions in the state at six weeks. He later restricted access to abortion medication.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

Vaccine skeptics and anti-maskers who invoked 'my body, my choice' in the pandemic are now lining up to support the end of Roe v. Wade

Mia Jankowicz
Thu, May 5, 2022,

A pro-abortion demonstration on March 1, 1986.Cynthia Johnson/Getty Images

People against vaccine and mask mandates have argued that they impose on a person's bodily autonomy.

That rallying cry of "my body, my choice" was rooted in the abortion-rights battles of Roe v. Wade.

Yet those people against vaccine and mask mandates are now encouraging the potential demise of abortion rights.

The leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion that would end Roe v. Wade has been met with approval by many conservatives who championed the very same notion of bodily autonomy and personal choice throughout the pandemic.

Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, for example, urged the justices to move ahead with the decision on Tuesday.

Yet, while railing against vaccine mandates last June, he said that they ultimately mean that "personal autonomy means nothing. It is no longer your body, it is no longer your choice."

Bodily autonomy has become a familiar line of argumentation from anti-vaxxers, vaccine skeptics, and anti-maskers in recent years. "Medical freedom," "bodily autonomy" and "my body, my choice" became watchwords of an anti-vaccine movement turbocharged in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Leading anti-vaccine campaigners and conspiracy theorists — such as Erin Elizabeth and Sherri Tenpenny — have marshaled the cause of "bodily autonomy" over and over again. Both were infamously dubbed among the "Disinformation Dozen" by the Center for Countering Digital Hate. Tenpenny has called abortion "slaughter."

But the concept of personal control over what medical choices one takes gained prominence in the abortion-rights movement that led to the landmark 1973 judgment of Roe v. Wade. Then, it was applied to the decision of whether or not to bear a child to term.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott invoked that thinking last December when railing against vaccine mandates, telling Fox News' Sean Hannity the issue was about "whether or not somebody is going to have something put into their body that they do not want put into their body," Rolling Stone reported.

Yet in May that year Abbott imposed one of the most restrictive abortion bills in the US, banning abortions after six weeks even in the case of rape or incest.

He also called on the Supreme Court to follow through with the draft opinion, the Houston Chronicle reported.

"The conceptual inconsistency would be laughable if the issues weren't so crucially important," Prof. Timothy Caulfield, an expert in public-health ethics at the University of Alberta, told Insider.

"Their argument was often that it is an infringement on individual rights to, for example, ask someone to wear a mask during a pandemic," he said. "But this same community is totally fine restricting something a fundamental as reproductive autonomy. Huh?"

A woman holds a placard a protest against vaccine mandates in August 2021 in Edmonton, Canada.

Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Throughout the pandemic, this view was precisely mirrored — and inverted — by the vaccine skeptics.

"If you support a national vaccine mandate, but shout 'my body, my choice!' in support of aborting of a baby with its OWN AUTONOMOUSLY BEATING HEART … you might be an evil asshole," tweeted Steven Crowder, a conservative comedian, last September. On Tuesday, Crowder said that he "can't contain" his excitement at the Supreme Court decision.

Elizabeth, of the "Disinformation Dozen," made the same point in a Telegram post on the day of the leak.

"It is just so preposterous to me that the people saying 'my body my choice' are the same ones who demanded that we be vaccinated in order to go to our jobs or in order for our children to go to school," she said.

Prof. Tina Rulli, an ethicist at the University of California's philosophy department, told Insider: "The irony is that the exact reverse is true."
Competing claims

In a co-authored paper for the journal "Bioethics," Rulli and Prof. Stephen Campbell of Bentley University's philosophy department compared the competing claims of infringement on bodily rights brought about by the vaccine-skeptic and pro-life movements.

Even if one accepts the premise that a fetus has same human rights as a legal person — a far from universal view — the logic of "my body, my choice" is weaker when marshaled against vaccine mandates rather than forced birth, they wrote.

The paper argued that with abortion, the death of a fetus is a serious, intentional, moral decision made towards an identifiable being. By contrast, an unvaccinated person who caused someone else's COVID-19 death may never learn of it, and most likely didn't intend it, they wrote.

However, the harms caused to others by refusing to be vaccinated can extend to many people, and range from mild to multiple deaths — and getting jabbed is much less inconvenient than the burden of carrying to term and giving a lifetime of care to a child, the professors wrote.

"Pro-life advocates who believe that the 'sanctity of life' justifies the enormously burdensome costs of gestation mandates should have a very low tolerance for actions that pose a substantial risk of death to others when the costs of avoiding such risks are minimal," they wrote.

A vaccine mandate means that "worst case, you can't attend school or you lose your job," Rulli told Insider. "That's serious, but it's not a bodily imposition."

"Abortion restrictions, however, are true physical impositions; pregnant people are required to stay that way and give birth even at risk to their health," she said.

"[...] Being an anti-vaxxer who cares about bodily autonomy while also being pro-life makes no sense."

HORRAY ANOTHER HOMOPHOBIC SECT OF WHITE PEOPLE

The new, more conservative Global Methodist Church just launched: Key takeaways from its start

Liam Adams, Nashville Tennessean
Fri, May 6, 2022, 

AVON, Indiana — A new Methodist denomination officially launched this month and many of its leaders met Friday to make key decisions for the denomination’s formation.

The new denomination, the Global Methodist Church, splintered from the United Methodist Church as part of a schism primarily over LGBTQ rights. The Global Methodist Church will be a home for Methodist churches that hold more “traditionalist” stances on sexuality and gender.

The Wesleyan Covenant Association — the main organization behind the formation of the Global Methodist Church — gathered its supporters and voting delegates here in the Indianapolis suburbs on Friday and Saturday to help the new denomination get off the ground.

Before the split, the UMC, with more than 6.2 million members in the U.S., according to 2020 data, was the largest mainline Protestant denomination in the nation. As of 2018, the denomination had more than 12 million members worldwide.

Here are key takeaways.

Related: Methodists focus on Easter amid denominational schism and the tough decisions ahead

Previously: A new Methodist denomination announced its official launch. How did we get here?
What is the significance of the event?

The Global Methodist Church launched earlier than originally expected, casting it in a state of flux right as churches are already joining. The churches joining are those that have left the UMC.

The Wesleyan Covenant Association, an advocacy group, is meeting partly to recommend policies the Global Methodist Church’s leadership can adopt to establish a doctrinal foundation.

The Wesleyan Covenant Association issued its recommendations through a series of votes cast by the group’s legislative assembly.

Delegates put their hands in the sky as to reach out as Rev. Dr. Carolyn Moore announces Friday, May 6, 2022, Jay Therrell, president of the WCA-Florida, as the new president of Wesleyan Covenant Association.

What did they decide on?

The Wesleyan Covenant Association legislative assembly voted for a new president and on four non-binding resolutions Friday.

The Rev. Jay Therrell, a Florida pastor, will lead the Wesleyan Covenant Association, replacing the Rev. Keith Boyette from Virginia. Boyette will take on a key leadership position in the Global Methodist Church.

"I am trusting in the amazing group...to get us across the Jordan and into where we need to be," Therrell told the audience Friday upon his election. "I’m really sure God is for us. We are going to get there. It will be soon."

Two of the four resolutions contained recommendations for the Global Methodist Church. One resolution forwarded along a catechism, or core denomination beliefs, and the other includes policies embodying traditionalist beliefs on sexuality and gender.

How did deliberations play out?

Each of the measures on Friday passed with more than 95% approval from the 235 delegates that comprise the Wesleyan Covenant Association's legislative assembly. The consensus contrasts with the division between this group and others within the UMC in years prior over topics like sexuality and gender identity.

The vote on the “sexual holiness” resolution followed a presentation by a task force that studied the topic and developed the recommendations included in the approved resolution. The delegates approved an amendment adding a recommendations for the development of resources for church leadership and laity promoting the idea that "a committed marriage between one man and one woman as the optimal environment for nurturing and raising children."

A man holds a book Friday, May 6, 2022, as delegates and others visit inside Kingsway Christian Church on Friday, May 6, 2022, to attend the Global Legislative Assembly of the Wesleyan Covenant Association being held in Avon, Ind.

What are the wider implications?

The Global Methodist Church’s temporary leadership body will now have to decide on whether to adopt the recommendations it received from the Wesleyan Covenant Association. If it does, it will be a significant development for the denomination.

But much else remains undetermined. Regional UMC conferences will determine this summer whether to approve requests by individual churches wanting to disaffiliate. Other major decisions await the approval of delegates at the UMC General Conference in 2024.

Liam Adams covers religion for The Tennessean. Reach him at ladams@tennessean.com or on Twitter @liamsadams.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Global Methodist Church launches, Wesleyan Covenant Association meets

FREEDOM FROMM RELIGION

What they wore: Clothes spotlight sex abuse in Amish, others

Exhibit confronts sex abuse among Amish and others
whether or not somebody is  sexually assaulted as a child.

PETER SMITH
Fri, May 6, 2022

LEOLA, Pa. (AP) — Clotheslines with billowing linens and long dresses are a common sight on the off-grid farms of Pennsylvania's Lancaster County, home to the nation's largest Amish settlement. For many tourists they're as iconic a part of Amish Country's bucolic scenery as the rural lanes and wooden bridges.

But for two days in late April, a clothesline with a different purpose was strung in a small indoor exhibit here. Hanging from it were 13 outfits representing the trauma of sexual assault suffered by members of the Amish, Mennonite and similar groups, a reminder that the modest attire they require, particularly of women and girls, is no protection.

Each garment on display was either the actual one a survivor wore at the time they were assaulted or a replica assembled by volunteers to match the strict dress codes of the survivor's childhood church.

One was a long-sleeve, periwinkle blue Amish dress with a simple stand collar. The accompanying sign said, “Survivor Age: 4 years old.”

Next to it was a 5-year-old's heavy coat, hat and long, hunter green dress, displayed above sturdy black shoes. “I was never safe and I was a child. He was an adult,” a sign quoted the survivor as saying. “No one helped me when I told them he hurt me.”

There was also an infant’s onesie.

“You feel rage when you get a tiny little outfit in the mail,” said Ruth Ann Brubaker of Wayne County, Ohio, who helped put the exhibit together. “I didn’t know I could be so angry. Then you start crying.”

The clothes on display represented various branches of the conservative Anabaptist tradition, which include Amish, Mennonite, Brethren and Charity. Often referred to as the Plain churches, they emphasize separation from mainstream society, church discipline, forgiveness and modest dress, including head coverings for women.

It was part of a larger conference on awareness of sexual abuse in the Plain churches held April 29-30 at Forest Hills Mennonite Church in Leola and sponsored by two advocacy organizations: A Better Way, based in Zanesville, Ohio, and Safe Communities, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Hope Anne Dueck, the executive director of A Better Way and one of the exhibit’s organizers, said many survivors report being told things such as “If you had been wearing your head covering, then you probably wouldn’t have been assaulted,” or “You couldn’t have been dressed modestly enough.”

“And as a survivor myself,” Dueck said, "I knew that that was not the truth.”

“You can be harmed no matter what you’re wearing,” she said. Those who contributed to the exhibit “were wearing what their parents and the church prescribed, and wearing them correctly, and were still assaulted.”

The exhibit was based on similar ones that have been staged at college campuses and elsewhere in recent years called “What Were You Wearing?” They show a wide range of attire with the aim of shattering the myth that sexual assault can be blamed on what a victim had on.

Current and former members of plain-dressing religious communities — not just the Anabaptists but others such as Holiness, an offshoot of Methodism with an emphasis on piety — agreed last year that it was time to hold their own version.

“At the end of the day, it was never about the clothes,” said Mary Byler, a survivor of child sexual abuse in the Amish communities where she grew up. Byler, who founded the Colorado-based group The Misfit Amish to bridge cultural gaps between the Amish and the wider society, helped to organize the exhibit.

“I hope it helps survivors know that they’re not alone," she said.

Survivors were invited to submit their outfits or descriptions of them. All but one provided children's attire, mostly girls and one boy, reflecting their age when they were assaulted. The lone adult outfit belonged to a woman who was raped by her husband shortly after giving birth, Dueck said.

Organizers plan to have high-quality photos made of the clothes to display online and in future exhibits.

Plain church leaders have acknowledged in recent years that sexual abuse is a problem in their communities and have held seminars to raise awareness.

But advocates say they need to do more, and that some leaders continue to treat abuse cases as matters of church discipline rather than as crimes to be reported to civil authorities.

Dozens of offenders from Plain church affiliations have been convicted of sexually abusing children in the past two decades, according to a review of court files in several states. Several church leaders have been convicted for failing to report abuse, including an Amish bishop in Lancaster County in 2020.

Researchers and organizers at the conference said they are surveying current and former Plain community members to gather concrete data on what they believe is a pervasive problem.

But the display made a powerful statement on its own, said Darlene Shirk, a Mennonite from Lancaster County.

“We talk about statistics ... but when you have something physical here, and because the dress is from the Plain community, it shouts, ‘Look, this is happening in our community!’” she said.

Advocates say that in the male-led Plain churches, where forgiveness is taught as a paramount virtue, people are often pressured to reconcile with their abusers or their children's abusers.

Byler said that in the 18 years since she reported her sexual assaults to civil authorities, she has heard more stories of abuse in the Plain churches than she can count. Survivors are often isolated from their communities and met with “very victim-blaming statements,” she said.

“Child sexual assault and sexual assault is something that happens ... inside of communities from every walk and way of life,” Byler said.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

The Ocean's Biggest Garbage Pile Is Full of Floating Life

Annie Roth
Fri, May 6, 2022

Scientists aboard a ship supporting Ben Lecomte's swim through the garbage patch sampled the water along the way, finding high concentrations of neuston, or organisms living at the water's surface. 

(Ben Lecomte via The New York Times)

In 2019, French swimmer Benoit Lecomte swam more than 300 nautical miles through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to raise awareness about marine plastic pollution.

As he swam, he was often surprised to find that he was not alone.

“Every time I saw plastic debris floating, there was life all around it,” Lecomte said.

The patch was less a garbage island than a garbage soup of plastic bottles, fishing nets, tires and toothbrushes. And floating at its surface were blue dragon nudibranchs, Portuguese man-o-wars and other small surface-dwelling animals, which are collectively known as neuston.

Scientists aboard the ship supporting Lecomte’s swim systematically sampled the patch’s surface waters. The team found that there were much higher concentrations of neuston within the patch than outside it. In some parts of the patch, there were nearly as many neuston as pieces of plastic.

“I had this hypothesis that gyres concentrate life and plastic in similar ways, but it was still really surprising to see just how much we found out there,” said Rebecca Helm, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina and co-author of the study. “The density was really staggering. To see them in that concentration was like, wow.”

The findings were posted last month on bioRxiv and have not yet been subjected to peer review. But if they hold up, Helm and other scientists say, it may complicate efforts by conservationists to remove the immense and ever-growing amount of plastic in the patch.

The world’s oceans contain five gyres, large systems of circular currents powered by global wind patterns and forces created by Earth’s rotation. They act like enormous whirlpools, so anything floating within one will eventually be pulled into its center. For nearly a century, floating plastic waste has been pouring into the gyres, creating an assortment of garbage patches. The largest, the Great Pacific Patch, is halfway between Hawaii and California and contains at least 79,000 tons of plastic, according to the Ocean Cleanup Foundation. All that trash turns out to be a great foothold for living things.

Helm and her colleagues pulled many individual creatures out of the sea with their nets: by-the-wind sailors, free-floating hydrozoans that travel on ocean breezes; blue buttons, quarter-sized cousins of the jellyfish; and violet sea-snails, which build “rafts” to stay afloat by trapping air bubbles in a soaplike mucus they secrete from a gland in their foot. They also found potential evidence that these creatures may be reproducing within the patch.

“I wasn’t surprised,” said Andre Boustany, a researcher with the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. “We know this place is an aggregation area for drifting plastics, so why would it not be an aggregation area for these drifting animals as well?”

Little is known about neuston, especially those found far from land in the heart of ocean gyres.

“They are very difficult to study because they occur in the open ocean and you cannot collect them unless you go on marine expeditions, which cost a lot of money,” said Lanna Cheng, a research scientist at the University of California, San Diego.

Because so little is known about the life history and ecology of these creatures, this study, though severely limited in size and scope, offers valuable insights to scientists.

But Helm said there is another implication of the study: Organizations working to remove plastic waste from the patch may also need to consider what the study means for their efforts.

There are several nonprofit organizations working to remove floating plastic from the Great Pacific Patch. The largest, the Ocean Cleanup Foundation in the Netherlands, developed a net specifically to collect and concentrate marine debris as it is pulled across the sea’s surface by winds and currents. Once the net is full, a ship takes its contents to land for proper disposal.

Helm and other scientists warn that such nets threaten sea life, including neuston. Although adjustments to the net’s design have been made to reduce bycatch, Helm believes any large-scale removal of plastic from the patch could pose a threat to its neuston inhabitants.

“When it comes to figuring out what to do about the plastic that’s already in the ocean, I think we need to be really careful,” she said. The results of her study “really emphasize the need to study the open ocean before we try to manipulate it, modify it, clean it up or extract minerals from it.”

Laurent Lebreton, an oceanographer with the Ocean Cleanup Foundation, disagreed with Helm.

“It’s too early to reach any conclusions on how we should react to that study,” he said. “You have to take into account the effects of plastic pollution on other species. We are collecting several tons of plastic every week with our system — plastic that is affecting the environment.”

Plastic in the ocean poses a threat to marine life, killing more than 1 million seabirds every year, as well as more than 100,000 marine mammals, according to UNESCO. Everything from fish to whales can become entangled, and animals often mistake it for food and end up starving to death with stomachs full of plastic.

Ocean plastics that do not end up asphyxiating an albatross or entangling an elephant seal eventually break down into microplastics, which penetrate every branch of the food web and are nearly impossible to remove from the environment.

One thing everyone agrees on is that we need to stop the flow of plastic into the ocean.

“We need to turn off the tap,” Lecomte said.

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