THE PARTY OF NO NOTHINGS

House Democrats pass bill against gas price gouging with no Republican votes

Rep. Kim Schrier, D-Wash., co-sponsored a bill to fight gas price gouging. Photo courtesy of Dr. Kim Schrier/Facebook


May 19 (UPI) -- The U.S. House on Thursday passed a bill to prevent gasoline price gouging bill without a single Republican vote in favor. The vote was 217-207.

The bill sponsored by Rep. Kim Schrier, D-Wash., and Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., would make it illegal to sell gas at an excessive price during an energy emergency.

"At a time when people in my district and across the country are feeling the pain of high prices at the gas pump, Congress needs to be doing all we can to bring down costs," Schrier said in a statement.

Schrier said the FTC needs to have the power to investigate and crack down when there's evidence of real gouging.

RELATEDDespite expensive gas, about 40M in U.S. expected to travel Memorial Day weekend

House Republican Whip Steve Scalise wrote to Republican members that the bill was an "attempt by the Majority to distract and shift blame" for high gas prices. Scalise wrote that there was no evidence of gas price gouging.

The Consumer Price Gouging Prevention Act of 2022 would give the president the power to issue an emergency declaration that would make it unlawful to hike gasoline and home energy prices "in an excessive or exploitative manner."

It would also give the FTC more tools to crack down on price gouging, allowing the FTC to prioritize enforcement action on big oil and gas companies.

RELATED Gas prices hit new record high in U.S.; up 26 cents over past month

The Thursday afternoon national average gas price was $4.58 cents per gallon for regular, according to AAA. The price for diesel was $5.57 per gallon.

Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, D-Texas, was one of four Democrats who voted against the bill.

"The Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act would not fix high gasoline prices at the pump, and has the potential to exacerbate the supply shortage our country is facing, leading to even worse outcomes," Fletcher said in a statement. "For these reasons, I voted no on this legislation today."

RELATED Rising oil costs, demand push gas prices in U.S. back up near peak level in March

Market analysts have said Russia's Ukraine invasion and the pandemic recovery are the primary drivers of higher gas prices.

President Biden ordered the release of a million barrels of oil a day from the strategic reserve in an effort to lower gas prices at the pump.

House panel weighs reforms for clemency amid backlog of 17,000 petitions

One lawmaker on Thursday emphasized that roughly 2 million people are imprisoned in the United States -- the highest incarceration rate of any country.

 File Photo by f11photo/Shutterstock

May 19 (UPI) -- A House panel convened a hearing on Thursday to examine the presidential clemency system, just days after a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the chamber demanded information on a backlog of 17,000 people who are seeking relief under the process.

The House judiciary subcommittee gathered to weigh possible reforms at a hearing that came a few weeks after President Joe Biden issued his first round of clemency.

In opening remarks, subcommittee Chair Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, noted that Congress should encourage presidents to routinely use executive clemency powers by fixing what she called "an apparently broken system."

Lee added that presidential clemency is a useful tool to right wrongs of the criminal justice system and overcome "misguided policies that led to mass incarceration."

RELATED Biden issues first 3 pardons, including one for Secret Service agent who guarded JFK

Rather than address the merits of presidential clemency powers, Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., cited a spike in U.S. violent crime over the last two years and criticized Democrats for what he said was "an agenda of totally reforming the justice system."

"Now may not be the time, despite what the Biden administration and many of my colleagues believe to release drug traffickers and dealers back into our communities and neighborhoods," he said.


Over his eight years as president, Barack Obama issued a total of 212 pardons and commuted 1,715 sentences. 

File Photo by Shawn Thew/UPI

Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., said her bill -- the Fix Clemency Act -- would replace the Justice Department's pardon attorney with an independent clemency board with a goal of expediting backlogged clemency petitions.

RELATED House Democrats call on Biden to commute all federal death sentences

She emphasized that roughly 2 million people are imprisoned in the United States -- the highest incarceration rate of any country -- and said they disproportionately affect Black, Latino, indigenous, disabled and LGBTQ communities.

"This is a shameful legacy. People, locked in cages throughout this nation. Real people, their families and friends, are serving their sentences alongside them," Pressley said. "I know this all too well, growing up with an incarcerated parent."

Lawmakers who favor reforming the system said that Congress must reject the "unjust status quo" and disrupt the cycle of treating trauma with trauma. Reforming the clemency process, they said, is an essential part of the solution.

RELATED Beto O'Rourke's plan to legalize marijuana includes clemency

"After decades of draconian mandatory sentencing policies, far too many non-violent federal offenders, disproportionally people of color, remain in prison serving what we know now are unnecessarily harsh sentences," Rep. Gerrold Nadler, the judiciary committee chairman, said.

Nadler added that clemency is the only remaining relief for thousands of petitoners and that the committee is obligated to evaluate and upgrade the system.

In a letter to the pardon attorney, Pressley and Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon joined Republican Reps. David Joyce and Kelly Armstrong in asking for a full report on the clemency backlog within a couple weeks.

RELATEDTrump grants presidential pardons, commutations to seven people

Biden granted clemency for 78 people during his first round last month. Former President Barack Obama issued 212 pardons and commuted 1,715 sentences during his two terms in the White House and former President Donald Trump issued 143 pardons and 94 commutations.

COULD APPLY TO LUCY

New York court expected to decide if zoo elephant deserves human right

Happy and Patty are shown at the Bronx Zoo. File Photo courtesy of Wildlife Conservation Society

May 19 (UPI) -- New York's highest court is expected to rule in the case of Happy, an Asian female elephant at the Bronx Zoo, to determine if she should be free from unlawful captivity similar to humans.

Steven Wise, animal rights attorney and president of the Nonhuman Rights Project (NRP), an animal rights group, has argued that Happy is autonomous, cognitively complex and deserves the same legal protection humans have against unlawful imprisonment.

"What we're saying is that she has a right to bodily liberty and that that makes her no longer a thing," Wise told The Washington Post. "She's a person."

Happy's attorneys have offered as evidence of her intelligence that she passed a self-awareness, mirror self-recognition test in 2005. An article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal noted that such ability has long appeared limited to humans and apes.

They have also argued that Happy is lonely and not happy in 1.15-acre captivity and are seeking to move her from the Bronx Zoo to one of the country's two elephant sanctuaries where they say she would have more space and interaction with other elephants.

The Bronx Zoo, on the other hand, has argued that Happy is treated compassionately, has had contact with another elephant, and has bonded with zookeepers.

"At the Bronx Zoo, we are focused on what is best for Happy, not in general terms, but as an individual with a unique and distinct personality," Wildlife Conservation Society's Bronx Zoo said in a statement. "Their concern is winning a legal argument, not what is best for Happy."

RELATED World's oldest scientific zoo celebrates 194th anniversary

Happy's attorneys' legal argument has focused on the writ of habeas corpus, which is used to determine if a person's imprisonment is unlawful.

The Bronx Zoo argued in its statement that this is a misuse of the writ of habeas corpus.

"The court should not issue a writ of habeas corpus in a case such as this --where the holding of the elephant is not illegal; the relief sought is not actual release from confinement; and the writ is filed regarding a non-human animal. Habeas corpus is a summary proceeding with one remedy intended for people: release from illegal confinement."

RELATED Endangered okapi at Oklahoma City Zoo is pregnant

Currently, Happy's living space at the Bronx Zoo is separated by a fence from the zoo's other elephant, and Mary Dixon, a zoo spokeswoman, said Wednesday that the two elephants touch trunks, smell each other, and communicate, the Post reported.

The New York Court of Appeals is expected to make a decision in the coming months.

Happy, who was born in the wild in 1971, has lived at the Bronx Zoo since 1977, according to a profile on the NRP website.

RELATED Louisville Zoo announces birth of Hartmann's mountain zebra

According to the New York Times, she was probably captured from Thailand, along with six other calves, possibly from the same herd.

Happy was imported to the United States in the early 1970s and sold for $800 to the now-defunct Lion Country Safari in Laguna Hills, Calif., which named the calves after Snow White's seven dwarfs, according to the NRP profile. Happy was later relocated to the still operational The Lion Country Safari in Loxahatchee, Fla., before she was moved to the Bronx Zoo in 1977 with Grumpy, who was attacked by two other elephants there and euthanized in 2002.

Wives, mothers worry for 'innocent' men netted in Salvadoran gang crackdown

Oscar BATRES
Thu, 19 May 2022


Hundreds wait desperately for news at La Esperanza (Hope) prison in San Salvador 


President Nayib Bukele declared a 'war' on gangs after 87 people were killed in 72 hours of violence in March 

Relatives and rights groups have denounced the arrest of many, including minors, with no gang links 

A poll by Cid Gallup found that a majority of Salvadorans support Bukele's crackdown

For three days, Ofelia Hernandez and her two small children have camped outside a Salvadoran prison where her husband is being held -- one of tens of thousands arrested since March in President Nayib Bukele's "war" on gangs.

She claims her husband is innocent; an honest laborer caught in an indiscriminate dragnet and whose family cannot make ends meet without him.

Hernandez's husband, 55-year-old mason Pedro Segovia, was apprehended on May 3 in the city of San Miguel, 139 kilometers (86 miles) east of the capital San Salvador, where he has been held ever since.

He was arrested, she said, on suspicion of collaborating with gangsters.

With her children, Hernandez, 25, traveled to "La Esperanza" prison where she waits for news with hundreds of others outside its high, grey walls.

"I need to find out if they are going to give him to me, or what, because I need him at home," Hernandez told AFP.

For food, she and her children rely on hand-outs from others gathered outside the prison in what has become a make-shift camp.

They sleep on the sidewalk, on plastic or cardboard, under the stars.

- 'Perfect storm' -

Bukele announced a state of emergency in late March following a bloody weekend in which 87 people -- many civilians, according to the government -- were killed in gang-related violence.

Since then, the police and military have been rounding up suspected gang members using emergency powers that have done away with the need for arrest warrants.

The small Central American country has also increased sentences for gang membership five-fold, to up to 45 years.

The wave of detentions is unprecedented in the country of 6.5 million people that has suffered decades of violent crime driven by powerful gangs such as Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18.

So far, 31,500 suspected gangsters have been detained.

With another 16,000 already behind bars before the campaign started, the government claims to have made a big dent in gang membership, thought to number some 70,000 in total.

But relatives and rights groups have denounced the arrest of many, including minors, with no gang links.

Amnesty International has said Bukele's state of emergency "has created a perfect storm of human rights violations."

On Wednesday, UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet recognized that dealing with gang violence is a "very, very challenging issue", but added "it should be done in compliance with international human rights laws."

- 'It is painful' -

The El Faro news site published the results of an investigation this week that claimed the wave of violence in March came after the government broke a pact with the leaders of MS-13 and Barrio 18.

Last year, the US Treasury Department said Bukele's government had agreed a truce with the gangs in exchange for privileges for their imprisoned leaders.

The government has denied any such negotiations.

Another woman, 54-year-old Elizabeth Hernandez, insists her son was arrested without cause.

"For me the president has done an injustice... taking boys who have nothing to do with the others [gang members]," she told AFP outside the jail, where she said she had received no news.

"It is painful. I don't sleep and I don't eat knowing that my son is suffering."

Hernandez claimed to have seen a man released from jail whose "forehead was all beaten up."

Lucia Conner, for her part, begged Bukele "to exercise his conscience and release anyone who does not deserve it, who is unjustly imprisoned" -- including, she said, her son.

A recent poll by Cid Gallup found that a majority of Salvadorans support the crackdown.

"They (the gangs) have messed with people a lot," a soldier guarding the prison told AFP.

He pointed to a large scar left by a cut to his throat which he said was made by a gang member.

"Those who are gangsters, let them rot in jail," he said.

Experts say mass arrests are but a stop-gap as long as so many Salvadorans have no feasible exit from a life of penury.

With a poverty rate of 30.7 percent and sky-high unemployment that pushes ever more people to emigrate, a career as a gangster is one of few options available to those who remain.

They eke out a living by extorting protection money, and from drug dealing that brings them into regular conflict with one another.

ob/mav/gm/mlr/caw

Hive mind: Tunisia beekeepers abuzz over early warning system

PUBLISHED : 20 MAY 2022

Tunisian beekeeper Elias Chebbi uses a SmartBee device that remotely monitors his hives

TESTOUR, Tunisia: Elias Chebbi inspected a beehive in a field in Tunisia, minutes after a buzz on his phone warned him of a potential problem.

The 39-year-old beekeeper opened a flap in the hive to reveal a low-cost, locally made sensor dedicated to measuring key environmental variables. An app on his phone then warns him if action needs to be taken.

"Thanks to this, I can relax," he said. "It tells me remotely everything that's happening."

Chebbi has two of the sensors, entirely produced in Tunisia by the only company of its kind in North Africa.

He periodically places one in each of the 100 or so hives he keeps, on a grassy hillside an hour's drive from the capital Tunis.

The devices, each costing under 300 Tunisian dinars (around 92 euros), send live updates on temperature, humidity and the weight of the hive to a central computer.

It then analyses the data and helps him react quickly to potential problems -- as well as selecting the most resilient, productive queens for breeding.

That is a major asset as bee colonies face multiple threats, including climate change and increasingly common collapses of entire hives.

Chebbi remembers being stung by a sudden heatwave in 2013, before he started using the system, when he lost around a quarter of his hives.

"I had big losses, 26 hives, because of humidity and the sudden change in temperature," he said.

But since he started using the SmartBee system -- developed in 2020 by a group of young Tunisian engineering graduates -- his losses have dropped dramatically, to under 10 percent of his hives in a given year.

He has also boosted his honey production by 30-40%.

Today, Khaled Bouchoucha, 34-year-old CEO of manufacturer Beekeeper Tech, says the sensors gather "a huge amount of information on the bees' yield and the threats they face".

The gadgets "gather reliable data in real time, so beekeepers can make good decisions and avoid collapse of their hives", he said.

This data is then fed wirelessly to the company's cloud computing system, which analyses it to identify potential problems.

If it does, it sends a warning to the beekeeper to intervene -- by cooling overheating hives, adding insulation to those that are dangerously cold, or providing sugar solution to those whose weight shows that they have not produced enough honey to survive the winter.

Beekeeper Tech has sold over 1,000 of the systems, mostly in Tunisia and neighbouring countries.

Bouchoucha says customers are swarming to the app and the firm's workers are preparing another 1,500 orders for customers in Libya, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and even New Zealand.

Bee populations around the world are facing disaster from overuse of pesticides, mites and temperature extremes due to climate change.

That also spells catastrophe for humans, as we depend on pollination by bees for over a quarter of all the food we consume.

According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, three quarters of the world's main crops depend on pollinators -- but the insects are in decline worldwide, mostly due to human activities.

Beekeeping itself is also a vital livelihood for many.

In Tunisia, with its population of 11 million, the sector employs some 13,000 people and produces some 2,800 tonnes of honey every year, according to its agricultural union.

The FAO marks a World Bee Day every year on May 20 to raise awareness about "the essential role bees and other pollinators play in keeping people and the planet healthy."

The SmartBee app offers more than an early warning system.

The data it collects also tells beekeepers about the health and productivity of each hive, its resistance to changes in climate.

Mnaouer Djemali, chief scientific officer at the National Agronomic Institute of Tunisia and a co-founder of Beekeeper Tech, said data from the hives "enables us to measure the profitability of each queen" and to select the best for breeding.

"That can help us boost our food security and sovereignty," he said. "We are sorely in need of that in a world full of diseases and wars."

Jordan's 'Fierce Savage' kicks down martial arts gender constraints


Fayyad says she won't give up Mixed Martial Arts until she's old, at which point she'll turn to something less intense, like jiujitsu (AFP/Roy ISSA)

Joseph Abi Chahine
Thu, May 19, 2022

It's no mystery why Jordanian Lina Fayyad has been nicknamed "Fierce Savage" -- watching as she lands successive blows in the cage, it's clear she is poised to take mixed martial arts by storm.

With her long maroon hair and small frame, she cuts an unusual figure in the world of MMA, and perhaps even more so within the country and region from which she hails, where women are virtual strangers to the sport.

"At the beginning, I heard a lot of criticism that continues until today," the 33-year-old told AFP from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, where she is undergoing and overseeing training boot camps.

"When someone sets their sights on a goal, nothing will stop them from achieving it."

In a region where social and cultural restrictions often bar women from pursuing sports professionally, Fayyad's journey has not been straightforward.

"There were a lot of obstacles that stood in my way: injuries, criticism -- I would get kicked out of sports clubs because I'm a girl and men refused to participate in training with me," she said.

"It used to bother me at first but now I don't care."

- Jordan's only female fighter -

Encouraged by her father, a boxer, Fayyad entered the world of martial arts at the tender age of 10, then practised taekwondo starting at 12, before moving on to a roster of other sports.

"I earned three gold medals in kickboxing in the Arab championships and a gold medal in Muay Thai world championships," she said.

She shifted to MMA in 2017, and has since won two of the three fights she has taken part in.

But aside from her drive for competition -- which is high -- Fayyad is compelled by the need to send a message to her fellow countrywomen.

"I am the only woman who practises MMA in Jordan," she said. "I get a lot of nice comments from women and they are really encouraged when they see me.

"I feel like I am somehow responsible because I want to prove that Arab women can reach their goals," she continued.

"If I had listened to criticism and become a housewife, I would not be happy. I want to make use of the advantages God gave me to achieve more."

In a training hall in the Cypriot capital Nicosia, Fayyad prepares for her next fight in June -- provided she recovers from recent fractures in both her feet.

But as with other obstacles, she doesn't let her injuries get in the way.

"I will stop when I get old," she said -- but by "stop", she means she will simply shift to a more age-appropriate sport, like jiujitsu.

"I often hear that I'm a 'fierce savage' in the cage, and it's true, I'm not afraid. The nickname represents me."

jac/jsa/dwo

'Straight to your soul': Japan's taiko reinvents drum tradition






Yoshikazu Fujimoto has been a member of taiko troupe Kodo for decades

 (AFP/Charly TRIBALLEAU)

Sara HUSSEIN
Thu, May 19, 2022, 7:43 PM·4 min read

In a hall on Japan's Sado island, 71-year-old Yoshikazu Fujimoto strikes the imposing drum mounted before him, producing a boom so powerful that it reverberates through the floorboards.

Fujimoto is a veteran performer of Japanese taiko drumming, a musical form with roots in religious rituals, traditional theatre and the joyous abandon of seasonal festivals called matsuri.

But for all its ancient pedigree, taiko as a stage performance is a fairly modern invention, developed by a jazz musician and popularised in part by one of Japan's most famous troupes: Sado island's Kodo.

Fujimoto is the oldest of the 37 musicians that make up the group, which recruits members through a rigorous two-year training programme.

It was founded partly to attract people to Sado, off Japan's west coast, and tours internationally, spreading the gospel of taiko.

"Taiko itself is like a prayer," said Fujimoto, who came to Sado in 1972 to join the group that evolved into Kodo.

"It used to be said that the area reached by the sound of a drum made up a single community," he said.

"Through taiko... I want to become part of a community with the audience and send a message of living together, a message of compassion."

It has been a life-long project for Fujimoto, who is a specialist performer of the o-daiko, an enormous single drum mounted on a stand that is struck by a musician standing with his back to the audience and arms raised overhead.

The effect is an all-encompassing wall of sound that seems to enter the ribcage and vibrate through its bones.

And it is highly physical, with Fujimoto grunting in exertion as the muscles in his almost-bare back flex beneath the straps of his tunic with every strike.

- 'One with the sound' -

"I become one with the sound," he said. "Playing taiko makes me feel I'm alive."

Kodo's performances range from the sombre power of the o-daiko solo to ensemble pieces featuring flute and singing, and even comic interludes that encourage audience participation.

Taiko simply means drum in Japanese, and performers use two main types.

The first is made from a single, hollowed tree trunk with cow or horsehide nailed over each end. The second uses hide stretched over rings attached with ropes to a wooden body.

They have been part of rituals and theatrical artforms like noh and kabuki in Japan for centuries.

But drumming in those contexts is often a solemn practice,while modern taiko performance is closer to folk festivals where troupes often made up of local residents play in streets or fields to unite the community, drive away malign influences or pray for a good harvest.

"Contemporary taiko drumming took a lot of inspiration from this local festival drumming and combined with more formal traditional performing arts to evolve into what we see as taiko drumming today," explained Yoshihiko Miyamoto, whose company Miyamoto Unosuke has made taiko for over 160 years.

Key to that evolution was jazz drummer Daihachi Oguchi, who moved festival drumming onto the stage in the 1950s and 60s.

Then in 1969, musician Den Tagayasu moved to Sado to found a taiko troupe that he hoped would attract young people to the island and revitalise it.

- 'Straight to your soul' -

Fujimoto left his native Kyoto to join the group known as Ondekoza, and when they split he stayed and helped found Kodo.

Joining now involves an arduous two-year training programme, where apprentices aged 18-25 live in dorms, without phones or televisions.

"The day starts at 5am, when we get up and immediately go out to stretch. Then we start cleaning and polishing the floors," said Hana Ogawa, a 20-year-old who completed the trainee programme this year.

After cleaning, the trainees go for a run and then spend the entire day practising, with breaks only for food. They have one day off a week.

It might not be for everyone, but Ogawa, who decided to join Kodo after seeing them perform in high school, has no regrets.

"I'm happy every day, because I love taiko and I pursued this one goal and achieved it, so it's a dream come true," she told AFP.

Taiko drumming has been growing in popularity at home and abroad in recent years, with troupes established in Europe and the United States and a steady rise in overseas orders for Miyamoto's store.

"Taiko has the power to connect people with its sound," he said.

"Especially in this contemporary age, you hear the sound of machines everywhere, but taiko uses this raw hide and the drum bodies made by wood," he added.

"It's like a sound of nature, it's very organic. I think that's one of the reasons it comes straight to your soul."

sah/kaf/lto

Higher wall, Covid policy make US border more deadly



Pedro Rios, Director of the American Friends Service Committee, says migrants have become desperate enough to take large risks to get across the border while Title 42 blocks a legal route 

(AFP/Frederic J. BROWN)More

Paula RAMON
Thu, May 19, 2022

Horrific fractures, punctured lungs and a traumatic miscarriage: Jay Doucet has seen the severity of his patients' injuries worsen as more migrants fall from a growing border wall in their bid to evade a pandemic-imposed legal blockade.

To the already imposing obstacles for people trying to enter the United States on its southern border, the Covid crisis added another: a quick-fix health rule called Title 42 that allows authorities to remove anyone simply because they might be carrying the disease.

And with no legal route into the country, migrants have been taking their lives in their hands.

"You and I wouldn't jump (from) a 30-foot wall, but they would," says Doucet, head of trauma at UC San Diego Health.

In 2019, the wall that straddles parts of the border between the United States and Mexico was raised in several places, fulfilling a campaign promise of then-president Donald Trump.

The increase, from 18 feet (5.4 meters) to 30 feet, was almost instantly noticeable for Doucet and his colleagues.

In the two years before the height increase, they saw 67 significant injuries; in the two years since, that figure has hit 375.

They have dealt with sixteen people who have died after falling from the wall in that time.

- 'We couldn't go back' -

"We have clear empirical evidence that these higher walls do not stop or divert migratory flows, but they do cause more serious injuries," says Carlos González Gutiérrez, Mexican consul in San Diego, who has been called to help hundreds of Mexicans hospitalized in the city.

The "wall" -- which for the most part is a fence -- runs through hills and dunes, out into the waters of the Pacific.

If it is imposing from afar, up close it seems enormous.

"I don't know how I got up, it was all very fast," said one migrant.

The woman, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, fled Colombia with her family because of threats of violence.

Her terrifying climb over the wall was a success.

Her daughter was not so lucky, falling and badly fracturing her ankle.

Even if they had known what would happen, they would still have climbed.

"We couldn't go back," she told AFP.

- Desperate -

"During the pandemic, many asylum seekers became very desperate and frustrated that they didn't have a method of presenting themselves at the port of entry," says Pedro Rios of the NGO American Friends Service Committee.

"And so this meant that many of them were crossing through very dangerous areas."

President Joe Biden's administration announced it would rescind Title 42 on May 23, but opposition from Republican-dominated states has tied the issue up in legal knots.

A judge is expected to rule on its fate this weekend.

For migration reform campaigners, Title 42 has been a failure: an immigration policy dressed up as a health policy -- and not fit for either purpose.

"Title 42 has created enormous human suffering," says Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior policy adviser for the American Council on Migration, who points out that 2021 and 2022 will be the deadliest years on record.

A total 557 people died at the border in 2021, more than double the 283 deaths in 2018, before Title 42 and the wall's elevation.

Those deaths include dehydration and starvation from desert crossings, as well as people who drowned in rivers.

- Health -

Perversely, Title 42 may even have increased the number of people trying to cross illegally.

It provides for immediate removal with no legal consequences, so migrants who are caught and sent back can try to cross again without fear of imperiling a future asylum application.

US border patrol logged a record 1.73 million encounters with migrants in the 12 months to September 2021.

They are on track to surpass that figure this year.

"Many of these (are) the same individual crossing the border multiple times," says Reichlin-Melnick.

With the world's worst official death toll and a high domestic infection rate, the US is not keeping Covid at bay by refusing entry to Latin Americans, he says.

Opening the doors to Ukrainians fleeing Russia's invasion proves that Title 42 is not about health.

"There is no reason to admit thousands of Ukrainians and block Nicaraguans, Venezuelans or Haitians seeking asylum."

In his hospital office in San Diego, Doucet pauses at the sound of a helicopter bringing in another patient.

"I think we were very hopeful that a simple solution like a wall would make the problem go away," he says. "It's made things worse.

"People don't understand how desperate they are to come."

pr-hg/md

Sisi-mania: Austria's starry empress returns to screens



The fairy tale aspect of Sisi's life has drawn attention and made sites like Vienna's Schoenbrunn Palace among Austria's most popular attractions 

AFP/ALEX HALADA

Jastinder KHERA
Thu, May 19, 2022

She was the Princess Diana of the 19th century. An impossibly glamorous Austro-Hungarian empress whose star-crossed love life and tragic end entranced the public.

Now two movies and two new series -- including one being made for Netflix -- are set to reignite the fascination with Empress Elisabeth, who was popularly known as "Sisi".

The first of the films, "Corsage", premieres at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday while the series, "Sisi" -- which covers her early life and turbulent marriage to Emperor Franz-Joseph -- is streaming in Germany on RTL+.

It has already raised eyebrows there with its frank depiction of the young empress' sexuality while garnering favourable reviews from critics.

The series' Swiss-American star Dominique Devenport told AFP that part of the upsurge in interest in Sisi is a desire "to find more female narratives".

She may have been one of the most famous women of the 19th century, but Devenport said Sisi's life was "full of extremes, full of pain".

CHILD BRIDE
Married to Franz-Joseph when she was just 16, Sisi chafed against the rituals and strictures of life at the stiff and stuffy Habsburg court.

Devenport said the questions she asks of herself in the series are ones many young people today can relate to: "How can I stay myself; what decisions do I make, how do I keep up with what is expected from me?"

The rival Netflix series, "The Empress", is still in production, with release slated for later this year.

- A royal star -

Historian Martina Winkelhofer said Sisi was "one of the first very famous women in Europe".

"You have to consider that she came into Austrian history at the beginning of mass media," she said.

The advent of photography turbocharged her fame -- "suddenly you had the wife of an emperor who you could really see."

With the current thirst for stories with strong female characters, it was no surprise that Sisi's story would be revisited, Winkelhofer argued.

Sisi was also obsessed with her own image, and her figure.

In the elegant 19th century Hermes Villa on the outskirts of Vienna where the empress spent some of her later years, curator Michaela Lindinger pointed to the exercise equipment which Sisi used in an effort "to keep young really until her last day".

Vicky Krieps, the acclaimed Luxembourg-born actress who made her breakthrough opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in "Phantom Thread", plays this later Sisi in "Corsage", withdrawing from her husband and from life at court.

In Sisi's bedroom, a gloomy statue entitled "Melancholia" is a sign of the sadness that overcame her after the suicide of her son and heir to the throne, Crown Prince Rudolf, in 1889.

Just under 10 years later, she herself died at the age of 60, assassinated by an Italian anarchist.

- Enduring fairy tale -

Traditionally, however, it has been the fairy tale aspect of Sisi's life that has drawn attention and made sites like Vienna's Schoenbrunn Palace among Austria's most popular attractions.

Sisi has become a representation of Habsburg glamour far beyond Austria's borders, and is a particular cult figure in China.

Indeed, Andreas Gutzeit, the showrunner of the series "Sisi", said he got the idea to revisit the story after watching the trilogy of 1950s films in which the empress was portrayed by Vienna-born actress Romy Schneider, whose life was also a high-octane mix of glamour and tragedy.

Gutzeit said the RTL+ series has already been sold to several countries in eastern Europe and as far afield as Brazil.

The many different facets of the empress' life mean that "in each period, you have your own Sisi", insisted historian Winkelhofer.

Over the ages her image has moved from a focus on her physical beauty to her use of charm, to more modern depictions of her as a more assertive and empowered proto-feminist figure.

"You can discover a new woman in each lifetime," Winkelhofer said.

jsk/fg/pvh/spm

6.9M earthquake strikes in Australia/New Zealand area for 2nd time in 7 weeks

A map by the U.S. Geological Survey shows where the earthquake was centered on Thursday, just southwest of New Zealand. Image courtesy U.S. Geological Survey

May 19 (UPI) -- A powerful earthquake struck off the coast of Australia on Thursday and created a tsunami warning, scientists said.

The quake registered a magnitude of 6.9 in the Pacific Ocean in the Macquarie Island region, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It was centered about 660 miles southwest of Bluff, New Zealand

The quake was strong enough to generate a tsunami warning for Macquarie Island.

The USGS said that the quake affected little land. There were no reports of damage caused by the quake or a tsunami.

Thursday's was the second powerful quake in the region in less than two months. A 6.9-magnitude earthquake also was measured off the Australian coast on March 30, which did not produce a tsunami warning.