America's gun obsession is a cultural disease

Despite a long-running national debate, the problem is only growing worse

JAMES ZOGBY

Assault weapons have grown in popularity in the US since the expiration of a ban on them in 2004. AFP

It’s difficult to find the words that adequately describe most Americans’ feelings on first learning of the massacre of 19 children and two teachers in Texas last week. There was shock, fear, even nausea and then disgust at the realisation that this nightmare the country experienced too many times before was playing out again.

As expected, the next day’s papers were filled with graphs and charts showing how many mass shootings America has had (an average of one a day); how many school massacres it’s had in the past few decades (dozens); how many gun homicides (50 a day); and how many guns are owned by US civilians (more than 400,000,000). Bottom line: Americans own more guns and have a higher per capita murder rate and mass causality events annually – by far – than any other developed country on Earth.

No matter how many times they are told this and how many outrages they endure, Americans know in their hearts that nothing will be done. And so, they are resigned to live with fear, knowing the nightmare will return.

Let’s face it: the US, in this sense, is a troubled country. Its debate on gun violence can best be described as pathetic. Republicans and some Democrats fearful of getting in the crosshairs of the “gun lobby” refuse to take any action. They refuse to allow even limited controls on guns, arguing that the unfettered right to own weapons is sacred. The solution to gun violence, they argue, is more guns.

Having seen legislation to ban assault weapons or place limits on gun purchases routinely defeated, Democrats have either given up trying or been reduced to offering weak proposals. The result: Each new tragedy gives birth to short-lived horror, a bit of finger-pointing, a half-hearted attempt to pass some limited reforms and then failure.

The reality is deeper than policies or legislation. It is not just that America’s stockpile of guns is too sophisticated or that it have too many of them. The root problem is its sick "gun culture".

My generation grew up playing "cowboys and Indians" or "cops and robbers". If we didn't have cap pistols or toy rifles, we simply improvised with a pointed finger, a thumb trigger and "pow, pow, you're dead". My grandchildren do not play these games. Instead, they act out more fanciful tales of fantasy futuristic heroes, all possessing more potent weapons. But they will also make do, when needed, with sticks or fingers morphing them into weapons possessed of all sorts of destructive powers. And the video games they play and movies they watch are largely based on killing – so much so that it has become normalised

.

A shooting at a Texas elementary school in May left 19 children and two teachers dead. Reuters

If we didn't have cap pistols or toy rifles, we simply improvised with a pointed finger

From cradle to grave, Americans are fed a steady diet of guns and violence. From cartoons, westerns or cop shows to video games and Quentin Tarantino's "bullet and blood fests", guns and shooting and killing are ingrained into America’s "deep culture". Like home-made apple pie, guns have become part of what America is as a nation.

There is a scene in the film-noir cult classic Gun Crazy, in which Bart, the film's main character, is staring longingly into a store window as a young boy. The object of his desire is a six-shooter. Unable to resist its call, he shatters the glass and attempts to steal the weapon, only to be arrested in the act.

The next scene has Bart standing before a judge trying to explain his obsession with guns. He tells the court: "I feel good when I'm shooting them. I feel awful good inside, like I'm somebody."

Bart's fixation with the weapon is pathological, and it leads ultimately to his demise. When I see the look on the faces of gun enthusiasts lining up to make what they fear may be their last purchase before "Democrats take our guns away", I think of Bart. When I watch them sensually cradling their assault weapons or "zoned out" at the shooting range, I think of Bart, knowing that nothing good can come of it.

We know all this. And yet there continues to be a pathological obsession not only with owning weapons, but also with blocking any reasonable controls on their ownership. The modus operandi of this lobby is simple and direct. They allow no discussion, no compromise, no concessions and no wavering or weakness. And they mask their deadly advocacy with the US Constitution, arguing that what is at stake is the very survival of America's freedoms. In the process, they further inflame the passions of their adherents.

In the end, Americans have a "gun crazy" culture, armed to the teeth, with some believing that they are the true patriots defending liberty against tyranny. When we add to this mix all of the resentments and pressures that gave birth to the Tea Party and Trumpism (including a not-so-subtle appeal to race), we are left with a dangerous and volatile brew.

Americans will see more angry debate. They may pass some weak and ineffective legislation. And then they’ll move on to another issue that will distract them until the next massacre occurs. And another one will occur, because until there is a prolonged and serious national discussion about the country’s troubled obsession with guns and purge ourselves of this pathology, it will only be skirting around the edges of an issue that is killing its people.

Published: May 30, 2022

James Zogby
Dr James Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute and a columnist for The National

Meet Oregon's Tina Kotek, who hopes to be America's first lesbian governor

The former Oregon House speaker won the state’s Democratic primary, though she’ll face headwinds in November as Republicans eye the governor’s mansion.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tina Kotek, left, is embraced by her wife, Aimee Kotek Wilson, during a primary election party at Revolution Hall in Portland, Ore., on May 17.

Beth Nakamura / The Oregonian via AP

May 30, 2022
By Matt Lavietes

Tina Kotek is hoping to make political history again. She became the country’s first out lesbian speaker of a state House of Representatives in 2013. She broke barriers once again by becoming Oregon’s longest-serving speaker, before stepping down in January to run for governor.

Now, after winning the state’s Democratic nomination for governor last week, Kotek hopes to add another notch to her political belt by becoming the first lesbian governor in the United States.

“It’s not why I’m running,” Kotek, 55, said. “But I also know that it can create inspiration for other young people to be like, ‘Look, life can get better. I can do whatever I want, because look at this person or that person.’ So, it’d be an honor.”

Oregon Rep. Tina Kotek speaks at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in 2016.

David Paul Morris / Bloomberg via Getty Images

To achieve that, she’ll have to get past Republican Christine Drazan, the former minority leader of the Oregon House, in November’s open general election. And amid the tough current national environment for Democrats, Republicans are eyeing the Oregon governor’s mansion as an opportunity to score a win in a solidly blue state.If elected, Kotek would follow three other LGBTQ Democrats who have headed a state government: former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, who came out as gay during his resignation speech in 2004; Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who is gay; and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, who is bisexual.

Kotek was born and raised in York, Pennsylvania, and made her way west in 1987 to attend the University of Oregon, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in religious studies. She then went to the University of Washington to pursue her master’s degree in comparative religion and international studies.

Kotek, who is Roman Catholic, said that while many religious institutions have rejected LGBTQ people, religious teachings — at least the way she interprets them — have always played an important role in her life.

“I think God has said, ‘People are who they are. I’ve made them that way. Let’s support and celebrate people in their authentic selves,’” she said. “That’s what I believe in, and I think that’s what a lot of people believe. I know a lot of Oregon voters believe that.”

As she learned about different religions as a student, Kotek also had another spiritual awakening of a different sort: She came out as a lesbian. Like her learnings about religion, Kotek said that her coming out experience has equally shaped her success and political style.

“When you’re coming out, you have to build a resilience of dealing with people who treat you differently for who you are, and that has made me a stronger person,” Kotek said. “It’s also made me open to saying, ‘Look, I want to understand where you’re coming from and let’s have a conversation.’”

“I’ll talk to anybody,” she added. “Because at the end of the day, we’re all human beings.”

After graduate school, Kotek returned to Oregon to work in public policy for various nonprofits. In 2007, she was elected to the state’s House of Representatives.

If elected governor, Kotek said she intends to use her bully pulpit to fight back against the historic number of anti-LGBTQ bills circulating in state legislatures throughout the country.

More than 320 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in state legislatures this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group. Many of the bills aim to limit the instruction of LGBTQ issues in schools, trans youths’ ability to participate in school sports and trans youths’ access to gender-affirming medical care. The Oregon Legislature, however, is not currently considering any such bills, according to HRC.

“It’s hard when you’re young,” Kotek said. “You’re trying to figure out who you are, and to have people coming after you, feeling like you can’t be your authentic self right now, that’s hurtful. It’s damaging for LGBTQ youths, who have a higher degree of suicidality, and it’s dangerous.”

Kotek added that she believes the problems that the slate of legislation aims to solve are “manufactured” to distract Americans from more pressing issues such as health care costs and inflation.

“Picking on a couple of trans kids who want to be their authentic self and play sports? Is that really the issue that we need to be focusing on in this country?” Kotek asked. “I don’t think so.”

In recent weeks, the LGBTQ community has also been rattled that some of their federal rights may be stripped away by the Supreme Court after a leaked draft majority opinion this month showed the court plans to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion rights decision. Politico originally reported the leaked draft of the court’s opinion, which sent political shockwaves across the nation.

Kotek said that if elected, she would “look into” modifying Oregon’s Constitution to protect same-sex marriage, which the Supreme Court legalized nationwide in a landmark ruling in 2015.

“We’re in that kind of moment where people want to push back, whether it’s because of raw politics or fear,” Kotek said. “What I would say is, let’s have dialogue, let’s work through it, let’s keep moving forward.”

“That’s why I consider myself a progressive,” she added. “We can always make the world better, we can always move forward.”

Inside Ontario’s ‘scary’ child-welfare system where kids are ‘commodities’

Andrew Russell - Saturday
 (Global News)


Video: Kids ‘may not be safe’ in Ontario’s child welfare system

Warning: Story contains descriptions that may be disturbing to some users. Caution advised.

A joint investigation by Global News and APTN has found disturbing conditions inside Ontario’s group homes, a network of private and not-for-profit facilities meant to protect some of the province’s most vulnerable children.

There is a significantly high number of injuries, extensive use of physical restraints, and missing kids among private service providers, the investigation found.

Former residents and experts in child welfare paint a startling portrait of a system that lacks qualified staff and neglects and even mistreats some children who have experienced trauma or have complex mental health needs.

These revelations are drawn from interviews with more than 65 group home workers, youth, and child welfare experts and an exclusive analysis of a database of more than 10,000 serious occurrence reports — obtained through freedom of information requests.

Also called SORs, the reports are submitted to the province by service providers such as children’s aid societies, group-home operators, and foster-care agencies. For example, SORs document when a child dies, is injured, goes missing, or is physically restrained.

Between June 2020 and May 2021, the Global/APTN investigation found there were over 1,000 reports of serious injuries and over 2,000 reports of physical restraints — despite the province’s 2017 pledge to “minimize” their use.

READ MORE: Indigenous leaders, foster kids decry child welfare system

Over 12,000 kids -- 17 years old or younger -- were legally in the care of a children’s aid society at any given moment in 2019, according to the latest provincial data.

What happens inside these homes is not disclosed to the public, unlike inspections for long-term care or daycare centres, which are posted online.

Inspection reports from the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services also found instances of children sleeping on soiled mattresses, lack of access to basic dental or medical care or proper clothing.

Children’s services, used when kids are facing abuse or neglect in the home or prove too challenging for their parents to handle, are part of an ecosystem serving children in Ontario at a cost of $1.8 billion in 2020.

Of the roughly 300 licensed group homes in Ontario, nearly half are run by private “for-profit” companies.

For some operators, each child in care provides a revenue stream and comes with a “price tag,” child welfare experts say.

“The money flows with [kids] but it doesn't flow to them,” said Kiaras Gharabaghi, the dean of community services at Toronto Metropolitan University, formerly Ryerson University. “We're talking about the private sector, we're talking about generating profits, we're talking about companies doing business through kids as commodities.”

He said the data highlights how the current child-welfare system doesn’t focus on the “dignity and care” of young people.

“Right now … there is a young person in a group home somewhere who's hungry and not allowed to get food,” Gharabaghi said.

“There are young people everywhere in the province who are moving today from one placement to another, with all of their belongings jammed into garbage bags.

“That's fundamentally problematic.”

The average cost of a group home bed is $315 a day, according to Global News’ analysis of quarterly financial data that children’s aid societies submitted to the Ontario government. But for kids with more complex needs who require a one-on-one worker, that number can skyrocket to more than $1,200 a day, as in one instance uncovered by Global News/APTN.

And while private operators make up only 25 per cent of beds across the province, they filed 55 per cent of all SORs at foster care and group homes, including 83 per cent of all physical restraints, 66 per cent of reports of missing youth, 62 per cent of medication errors, and 31 per cent of serious injuries.
Inside Mary Homes

Delana Land was reading the paranormal thriller What Lies Beneath in her bedroom one evening when a worker at Mary Homes told her to turn out the lights.

After pleading to continue reading, she says an argument ensued between her and staff, ending with a worker’s foot on her back.

“She ripped the book out of my hand and said I was resisting,” said Land, who was 15 at the time. “Eventually she stepped on my back and then I just kind of went down."

Originally from Asubpeeschoseewagong First Nation, in northern Ontario, Land arrived at a Mary Homes’ residence in 2015, some 2,000 kilometres away from her home and family.

A private company, Mary Homes operates five group homes in the Ottawa area.

She said two workers physically restrained her before falling to the floor.

“I was probably on the floor for like 20 minutes,” she said. “They were very mean.”

READ MORE: Lawsuit against coroner after death of Indigenous child should proceed

For youth like Land, who have bounced from home to home inside the child-welfare system, the experience can be terrifying.

“I tried opening my window, and I couldn't. There were nails in the windows … because they thought we'd jump out,” said Land, now 21. She said shoes and jackets were locked up to prevent kids from running away.

“It was pretty scary.”

Residents who lived at Mary Homes said food was locked away and they lacked access to mental health support. They also said staff were poorly trained.

The 2020-2021 SOR data showed that Mary Homes had the highest number of serious injury reports in the province.

Unlike a home with foster parents, staff at Mary Homes work in shifts to supervise young people.

Land said the home was so bad she fled following the death of 13-year-old Amy Owen. She lived in a stairwell at the Rideau Centre Mall in Ottawa. In her view, it was better than living at Mary Homes.

“At least I was able to be me. I was able to be okay.”

Mary Homes declined repeated requests to comment on the allegations by former residents. The company also refused to comment on the data showing a high number of restraints inside their five group homes.

Effective last January, the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services imposed conditions on Mary Homes' group home licenses, including submitting an updated policy on the use of restraints, which employees would have to learn and adhere to. The ministry also instructed senior managers to follow up with staffers within 24 hours of an incident. If the manager discovers that an employee didn't follow provincial regulations, the manager would have to file a report that would have to be kept on-site and available to ministry staff on request.

At the same time, the ministry also took aim at one of Delana Land's former homes: workers were no longer allowed to lock up kids' shoes.

A pattern of physical restraints

The data analyzed by Global News and APTN revealed a high number of incidents that involve physical restraints, which can include immobilizing a child by the shoulders and wrists with their arms extended, sometimes face-down on the ground.

While group homes account for only 20 per cent of the beds in the child-welfare system, they account for 90 per cent of the reports for physical restraints in residential care.

Under provincial regulations, these measures are only supposed to be used when a child or youth poses an imminent risk of injury to themselves or others.

The three service providers that submitted the most SORs — Enterphase Child & Family Services, Mary Homes and Hatts Off Inc. — make up nearly a quarter of all SORs and 58 per cent of reports for physical restraints.

“Restraints are considered therapeutic interventions. I think restraints are acts of violence,” Gharabaghi said. “Certainly, the young people will tell you that they're experienced as acts of violence."

“We have an official system, a publicly regulated system, in which institutional violence is considered normal and good.”

‘They're choking me’

Jessica Fowler, originally from the Kingston area, was just four years old when she entered the child-welfare system.

Separated from her sisters, she moved around the system 15 times, including instances where she said she was abused or was “starved.”

“There's nothing I could do about my situation,” she said.

“It's really scary when you're in it because you don't know where you're going.”

She said the most violent experience was when she was 16 and arrived at a Mary Homes residence on the outskirts of Ottawa. She also lived at Mary Homes’ Wilhaven residence for a period of time.

Fowler said she was repeatedly humiliated, threatened and physically restrained by staff.

“[Staff] would go straight into a restraint instead of trying to de-escalate the situation,” she said, adding that employees would seldom try to speak calmly with kids first.

READ MORE: Ottawa unveils $40B deal on Indigenous child welfare compensation

Sometimes, she said, a physical restraint would be used after something as minor as a disagreement over making a piece of toast at the wrong time.

“I was trying to make myself some breakfast,” she said. “I'm like, ‘My attitude is not going to change until I eat.’”

She said a staff member grabbed the toast out of her hand and started to drag her down the stairs.

“They were pulling on my shirt and choking me. They ripped my shirt and were kind of clawing at me to force me into my room,” she said.

“It's scary. I'm being shoved down like, a flight of stairs, and they're choking me, basically.”

For Indigenous youth like Land, who are vastly overrepresented in care, the overuse of restraints is a continuation of intergenerational trauma, according to experts.

In Canada, only eight out of 100 children under the age of 14 are Indigenous, but they make up 52 per cent of children in foster care, according to federal data.

“Child welfare was built on the foundation of racism,” said Gharabaghi, who has spent more than four decades working in child welfare. “Thousands of children and youth are not getting what they need.

“I'm talking about catastrophic problems that have impacted entire demographic groups: Indigenous people, Black people in extraordinary ways.”
Amy Owen’s death

One of those young people who the system failed was Amy Owen. A teen from Poplar Hill First Nation, in northwestern Ontario, she lived at a Mary Homes residence with Land and Fowler.

Owen had repeatedly begged for help for mental health issues before taking her own life in April 2017, according to a $5.5-million lawsuit filed by her family.

A statement of claim filed by her father, Jeffrey Owen, states the family didn’t know which group home she was living in when she died.

“[Mary Homes] repeatedly ignored diagnosis events, obvious signs, and expert recommendations, which indicated that Amy was at serious risk of self-harm,” the lawsuit said.

A statement of defence, filed by Mary Homes, denied “all allegations of negligence” and said the company took “all efforts” to ensure her safety.

Owen and Land were close, like sisters, and had a pact to run away together, Land said.

“I kept telling her, we're going to take off. She died on [April 17] and then I took off on the 20th,” she said. “I still did it because I knew she wanted it.”

Owen’s death traumatized some of the other kids in the Wilhaven home, which surrendered its licence in 2019.

“After Amy died, I didn't understand what I was going through, that I was suffering from PTSD,” Fowler said. “They said that I was running away for attention.”

Mary Homes isn't the only company that frequently uses restraints.

Enterphase, a large operator of group homes in the Durham region outside of Toronto, operates five of the 10 children’s residences with the most SORs on a per-bed basis.

Cassandra Murphy, who worked at Enterphase from 2011 to 2014, said she was restraining children multiple times a day.

“Which to me might say, maybe this isn't the right environment for them,” she said. “Maybe this home, this program, isn't what they need to rehabilitate them. Maybe they need something different.”

Murphy, who completed a college diploma in correctional services, said she didn’t have the proper training to care for kids with complex mental health conditions. Today, she lives with remorse.

“Having my own children now, there's a lot of regrets on how I would have handled certain situations [differently] when I worked there,” she said.

“A lot of sadness for the children that were in those positions.”

With kids being restrained multiple times a day in some cases, she said a lack of mental health training contributed to a kind of “fight or flight mode” in workers that would often lead to restraints rather than de-escalation.

“[The data] shows our first response is to go hands-on with the child,” she said.
Physical restraints increasing in some cases

In April 2015, Justin Sangiuliano, a 17-year-old with a developmental disability, went into cardiac arrest and became unresponsive while being restrained, reportedly face-down on the ground, at an Enterphase group home. He survived in hospital in a brain-dead state for five days.

The coroner found that an undiagnosed genetic mutation was the most important underlying cause of Sangiuliano’s sudden death. The restraint — and the struggle that preceded it — was a contributing factor, the coroner’s report said.

Enterphase’s executive director, Harold Cleary, said in a statement at the time that a Durham Children’s Aid Society investigation of the incident concluded that “there are no current child protection concerns that require ongoing involvement... staff administered (the physical restraint) appropriately.”

Following the fatal incident, there were calls to minimize the use of restraints but data obtained for this investigation shows that calls have gone unheeded.

In late 2015, the Toronto Star reported that Enterphase filed 152 SORs from January to mid-May 2015, 84 of which were for restraints — a rate of 1.8 restraints per bed.

New numbers for January to mid-May 2021 show Enterphase reported 213 restraints at a rate of 3.7 restraints per bed — double the rate from roughly seven years ago.

Enterphase declined a request for an on-camera interview.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the group home operator said it prefers to “over-report” serious occurrences in the “interest of transparency.”

“Any time a caregiver redirects a child where there is physical contact, it is reported and identified as a restrictive intervention, and therefore deemed a restraint,” said Enterphase program manager Erica Stewart. “This includes situations where a staff member has held onto a child’s hand to prevent them from running onto a road and being struck by a vehicle.”

“At any given time, approximately 70% of the residents in our care are either suicidal or violent or both,” she said.

The company said its own records indicated that 40 per cent of restraints reported by Enterphase resulted in a child being placed on the ground in the “prone” position.

Stewart said that employees at Enterphase are required to have, at minimum, a post-secondary diploma and/or degree in a social services-related field.

“All new employees receive thorough and extensive training on the specific needs of the children in the home that they are working with,” she said.

The company also said it underwent an external review in 2020 and is implementing a restraint-reduction plan.

“Restraints are an emergency response used by a caregiver as a last resort after all other options have been exhausted in the event of immediate danger when someone is harming themselves or others,” Stewart said.

READ MORE: Ontario family files lawsuit against child services agency in death of 4-year-old girl

Other group home providers among the top five for the highest use of physical restraints on a per-bed basis were:

KidsKare Agency, out of Ottawa

Kushions Inc., in Barrie

Hand In Hand Children's Services, based in the Peterborough area

KidsKare, Kushions, and Hand In Hand Children's Services declined to respond to questions from Global News about the use of physical restraints.

Unison Treatment Homes, which had the highest overall number of SORs on a per-bed basis, said their policies forbid restraints. Instead, it attributed the frequency to a small number of youth who repeatedly ran away.

Of its 438 SORs, just over 400 involved missing-children reports — when kids are absent from a Unison home without permission.

“Three youth accounted for 58% of the SOR reports. Seven youth accounted for 89.5% of the SOR reports,” said Phillip Thibert, the company’s executive director. “These youth were considered by the police as being ‘chronic’ missing persons due to being [away without permission] from their placement.”
What needs to change?

Coura Niang, president of the Ontario Association of Child and Youth Care, said that there is not enough oversight of the child-welfare system and that the current “framework” is not only doing damage to children now but also down the road.

“They don't do as well as other children in early adulthood,” she said.

“The framework through which we're caring is actually inconsistent, and that is what's causing harm.”

For two decades, her association has been advocating that group-home workers be legally required to have a college or university degree in child and youth care.

“When you have an incredibly high instance of SORs, you need to look very closely because it can be an indicator that you have incorrectly, improperly trained practitioners who are inadvertently escalating behaviour,” Niang said.

“In the worst-case scenario today, we have front-line workers where the minimum qualification is that they have a driver's licence and perhaps a high school diploma.”

Eleven government-funded reports over the last decade have pointed out flaws in the child-welfare system and how to fix them.

For example, a 2016 review of residential services co-authored by Gharabaghi included 33 recommendations, such as better inspections focused on quality of care, and “meaningful consequences” for service providers who don’t comply with provincial standards.

“Take the profit out of the system, take the price tag off kids,” Gharabaghi said. “That would revolutionize the way we care for people because it would render care a social process as opposed to an economic process.”

If it were to phase out for-profit service providers, Ontario would be following New Brunswick’s lead, where only not-for-profit organizations are eligible to be licensed.

READ MORE: Ontario plans to redesign child welfare system to focus on prevention, early intervention

Merrilee Fullerton, Ontario's Minister of Children, Community and Social Services, declined a request to be interviewed about the state of the child-welfare system.

In a statement, her office said physical restraints are “prohibited except in very specific circumstances” and “must never be used to punish a child or youth.”

After vowing to reform the system for years, Queen’s Park announced non-binding standards and a multi-year strategy to improve the child-welfare system in July 2020.

In July 2023, new regulatory changes regarding restraints are scheduled to take effect. Homes whose policies allow their use will be required to tell children on arrival what the rules are regarding physical restraints.

Staff working in group homes will also need to have a degree, diploma or certificate in a relevant field or experience and skills relevant to their duties. The changes stop short of calling for a degree or diploma in child and youth care.

Under the new regulations, homes will be prohibited from using garbage bags to move children’s belongings between placements.

But with physical restraints still widely in use and inspection reports finding poor conditions in group homes, kids like Delana Land and Jessica Fowler want to see the system urgently transformed so another child doesn’t have to take the bed they left behind.

“It breaks my heart to think that there's kids that are also going through the same things, that my bed was basically replaced with another kid who's in the same situation that I was in,” Fowler said.

“I don't want anyone else to experience the same things … feeling helpless and alone.”

— with additional data analysis from Daniel Nass

If you would like to share your experience working or living in the child-welfare system, please reach out to us at investigate@globalnews.ca

Breast milk banks in Canada, U.S. concerned over impact of baby formula shortage

Teresa Wright - GLOBAL NEWS

As parents in Canada and the United States grapple with a critical baby formula shortage, officials at human breast milk banks say they are concerned about the impact the shortages could have on families.

Lindsay Groff is the executive director of the Human Milk Banking Association of North America, which accredits non-profit donor breast milk banks in the U.S. and Canada. Its 31 members include three of Canada’s four human milk banks.

Breast milk banks in the U.S. have been seeing a steady rise in demand for donor milk over the last few years, but that trend has increased sharply in recent weeks in the wake of the formula supply crisis, Groff said.

“We’ve been getting a lot more calls about donating milk, thankfully, and also for families scrambling to find a safe alternative to feed their baby, they are looking into donor milk,” she said.

Read more:

Ontario plant looking to sell baby formula in Canada. But will this help with the shortage?

“It’s very stressful, we’re hearing the stress in the calls and the emails coming in from people desperate to feed their babies so we hope this all levels out and gets resolved soon.”

The shortages are a bigger problem in the U.S., where parents who rely on infant formula have been scrambling to find safe alternatives for their babies.

U.S. baby formula shortage affects Canadian market

But Canada has not been spared by formula supply challenges, namely in specialty formulas for children with allergies to cow’s milk protein or with certain health conditions.

Groff said milk banks in Canada haven’t been seeing the same increase in demand for donor milk, since supply shortages have been less acute, so far. But the banks have noted an increase in the number of mothers offering to donate their extra breast milk to help families in need of baby formula alternatives.

Read more:

London, Ont. parent support group says ‘worry is already here’ for baby formula shortage

This places a different kind of pressure on milk bank staff, as it takes time to screen donors to ensure rigorous safety protocols are followed to guarantee a safe milk supply.

“The phone rings and moms call and they eagerly want to share their extra breast milk and there is a lot that goes into screening donors,” Groff said.

“There is a written interview, there is a verbal screening and also moms and lactating individuals also have to get a blood test. These things do take time and we are happy that many people are stepping up to the plate and inquiring about donating their extra breast milk.”

Breaking down the costs new parents are facing

Jannette Festival, CEO of NorthernStar Mothers Milk Bank in Calgary, says she believes part of the reason there hasn’t been the same demand in Canada for donated milk is because the country has a better system in place to support new mothers.

“(The U.S.) maternity leave is only six weeks, so most moms don’t have a chance to establish breastfeeding before they have to go back to work,” Festival said.

“We just don’t see that in Canada. We’ve got a very generous maternity leave, so moms are at home with their babies -— they are able to establish breastfeeding — so it just makes it a little bit easier to feed their own babies with their own milk.”

Read more:

Canada facing shortage of baby formula for infants with food allergies. Here’s what to do

Festival says she is concerned about the baby formula shortage and how it could affect Canadian families if supplies are not returned to normal levels before too long.

“I am worried. There are many moms who can’t breastfeed and don’t have an alternative and their babies need specialty formulas. So hopefully with Canada and the U.S. allowing milk to come from other countries, possibly we may see that shortage alleviated soon,” she said.

U.S. military brings in baby formula from Europe amid crisis

The vast majority of donated breast milk in North America is sent to neo-natal intensive care units (NICUs) to feed medically fragile babies in hospitals. Other amounts are also dispensed at pharmacies for families whose babies are in need of additional supply for medical reasons.

But some milk banks do provide some donated milk for babies in the community, depending on their capacity and individual policies.

Read more:

Stressed infant formula-feeding parents in Saskatchewan call shortage ‘no joke’

If families are desperate, they can apply to milk banks for a small, temporary amount of donated milk, Festival said. But this can be expensive and cannot be seen as a long-term alternative.

“Long-term we can’t because those healthy babies do drink a lot of milk. One bottle in the NICU could feed eight babies in a day. For healthy babies in the community, they would go through eight bottles themselves, so that’s not a solution for sure.”

Baby formula shortage felt in Canada

Both Festival and Groff say they are encouraged to see more women in Canada stepping forward to donate their extra breast milk.

They hope women will continue to consider donating milk well into the future, as donor breast milk will remain a constant demand well after the baby formula crisis is resolved.

Southern Baptist church releases database of sexual abusers, redactions spark anger

Kathryn Mannie - Friday

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has published an internal database of sexual abusers and those accused of sexual assault within the church's ranks, as promised early this week.

The 205-page list holds hundreds of entries of alleged and convicted cases of sexual abuse perpetrated by pastors and officials in the Southern Baptist denomination, the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.

The cases span mostly from 2000 to 2019, but many of the entries have been redacted.

When the SBC's executive committee announced that they would release the database, they specified that the names of survivors, witnesses, and church staff who have "uncorroborated allegations of sexual abuse" against them would be removed from the list, according to Gene Besen, the committee’s interim counsel.

Many of the unredacted entries are for church officials who have already been convicted and are on sex offender registries. Some people who viewed the list took to Twitter to vent their frustration that many of the cases that weren't redacted can easily be searched online and do not reveal any new information.

One commenter joked, "Thank you for the transparency of this heavily redacted document." Another claimed that a list like this could be easily crowdsourced.

The SBC released a statement along with the database: "We are releasing the list in the exact form that it was provided," and clarified their criteria for redaction.

"In making redaction decisions, counsel to the Executive Committee included, in their entirety, entries that reference an admission, confession, guilty plea, conviction, judgment, sentencing, or inclusion on a sex offender registry. The only exception to those entries is the redaction of names or identifying information of survivors and/or other individuals unrelated to the offender."

The statement was penned by Willie McLaurin, interim president and CEO, and Rolland Slade, chairman of the SBC.

The two also noted that the publication of the once-secret database is an "initial, but important, step towards addressing the scourge of sexual abuse and implementing reform in the Convention. Each entry in this list reminds us of the devastation and destruction brought about by sexual abuse."

"Our prayer is that the survivors of these heinous acts find hope and healing, and that churches will utilize this list proactively to protect and care for the most vulnerable among us."

The decision to make the database public was reached during a virtual meeting that was called in response to an explosive investigative report released Sunday. The 288-page report followed a seven-month investigation that revealed widespread cover-ups and mishandling of sexual abuse allegations by top church members.

The report detailed how former SBC vice-president August Boto and former SBC spokesman Roger Oldham kept their own private list of abusive pastors. According to the report, the list contains 703 names of church abusers. Both Boto and Oldham retired in 2019.

“Despite collecting these reports for more than 10 years, there is no indication that (Oldham and Boto) or anyone else, took any action to ensure that the accused ministers were no longer in positions of power at SBC churches,” read the report, which was compiled by Guidepost Solutions, an independent investigations firm that works with religious organizations.

It’s not clear how many SBC committee members knew about the internal list, but the report, detailed that some “were aware of the existence of Southern Baptist-related sexual abuse allegations for many years.”

During the virtual meeting, Besen said that the committee intends to "review the unsubstantiated allegations, and if more can be substantiated, we will release those as well."

A survivors hotline, managed by Guidepost, has been opened so that people can report further abuse allegations. The hotline can be reached at 202-864-5578 or SBChotline@guidepostsolutions.com.

Guidepost wrote that callers "will be notified of the available options for care and will be put in touch with an advocate," noting that the hotline is a "stopgap measure" until more meaningful reform can be passed at the SBC annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif.

The SBC also created a sexual abuse task force that will make formal recommendations on reform during the June 14-15 annual meeting, according to Pastor Bruce Frank, who led the task force.

McLaurin issued a formal apology to victims of sexual abuse at the hands of SBC pastors. There are over 47,000 churches in the SBC.

“We are sorry to the survivors for all we have done to cause pain and frustration,” he said. “Now is the time to change the culture. We have to be proactive in our openness and transparency from now.”

Last of the Salem 'witches' pardoned 329 years after she was convicted of witchcraft

Elizabeth Johnson Jr. was 22 when she became a scapegoat during the Salem witch trials of 1692.

National Post Staff - Saturday


She was sentenced to hang, but then-Gov. William Phips ultimately threw out her punishment. The mass religious hysteria that led to 20 executions had started to abate, but Johnson’s name was only formally cleared on Thursday — a mere 329 years later.

Captivated by her story, a grade eight civics class at North Andover Middle School in Massachussets took up Johnson’s cause and looked up legislative avenues to absolve her wrongful conviction.

“They spent most of the year working on getting this set for the legislature — actually writing a bill, writing letters to legislators, creating presentations, doing all the research, looking at the actual testimony of Elizabeth Johnson, learning more about the Salem witch trials,” their teacher Carrie LaPierre, told Boston Globe.

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“It became quite extensive for these kids.”

The students sent their findings to state Senator Diana DiZoglio, a Democrat from Methuen. The legislation she introduced was included in a budget bill and approved.

“We will never be able to change what happened to victims like Elizabeth but at the very least can set the record straight,” DiZoglio said.

LaPierre said the effort sought to advocate for the disadvantaged:

“Passing this legislation will be incredibly impactful on their understanding of how important it is to stand up for people who cannot advocate for themselves and how strong of a voice they actually have.”

In the centuries since the trials, those who were convicted or put to death were pardoned. Johnson is the last accused witch to have her name cleared, according to Witches of Massachusetts Bay, a group dedicated to preserving the history of 17th century witch hunts.

Not much is known about Johnson, save that she lived in an area now part of North Andover and was never married nor had children.

Twenty people from Salem and surrounding towns were killed and hundreds of others were accused during a Puritanical upheaval inflamed by superstition and paranoia. An entire community became an infamous and lasting example of the dangers of fanaticism. Amid the fervour, one man was crushed to death by rocks and other nineteen were hanged.

Killer whale stranded in France’s River Seine dies after rescue effort fails

Thomas Kingsley
Mon, May 30, 2022, 

The whale died of natural causes it has been confirmed 

(Slater Moore Photography/The Washington Post)

A killer whale stranded in the River Seine in France has died of natural causes, the campaign group Sea Shepherd said on Monday, after attempts to guide it back to sea failed.

"We found him late this morning," Lamya Essemlali, head of Sea Shepherd France, told Reuters.

During an attempt on Saturday to lure the whale back out to sea with a drone emitting orca sounds, the animal behaved incoherently and emitted distress calls, local officials said.

By Monday, it resembled nothing more than "a ghost of an orca", Ms Essemlali said, and it died before any attempt at euthanization could be made.

The whale's body will be moved to the shore of the river and an autopsy will be conducted, local officials said in a statement.

The orca was first spotted at the mouth of the Seine on 16 May between the port of Le Havre and the town of Honfleur in Normandy, before it swam miles upstream west of the city of Rouen.

Plans were announced on Sunday by French authorities for the whale to be euthanised after a plan to guide it back to sea failed and scientists concluded it was in agonising pain and terminally ill, the local prefecture said on Sunday.

The whale responded “erratically” and “incoherently” to a rescue mission on Saturday highlighting that the whale was in distress.

"The attempt to bring back the whale to sea having failed, and to prevent adding to it stress levels, a decision was made to stop the intervention in the evening," marine mammal specialists overseeing the mission said.

Body of minke whale spotted near Montreal recovered from river, necropsy performed

Saturday


MONTREAL — A dead whale found in the St. Lawrence River northeast of Montreal is likely the second of two minke whales spotted in the area earlier this month.

A Quebec marine mammal research group says the whale was recovered Friday from the waters near Contrecoeur, Que., about 50 kilometres downstream from Montreal.

A post to the Quebec Marine Mammal Emergency Response Network's website says the male whale, about 3.8 metres long and believed to be one to two years old, was transported to St-Hyacinthe for a necropsy.

The group says the state of the animal suggests it had died between a few days and a week earlier and its skin was covered with a fungi similar to that found on a humpback whale who died after a stay in Montreal in 2020, indicative of a prolonged stay in freshwater.

Minke whales are common in Quebec but don't generally venture west of the saltwater St. Lawrence estuary around Tadoussac, Que.

A final necropsy report is not expected for a few months, but the group says there was no obvious cause of death or signs of trauma observed, although an absence of food in the stomach suggests it had not fed recently.

It says there is no sign of the other minke whale, who was first spotted around May 8 in the Montreal area before both vanished around mid-May.

The Canadian Press

Crowd confronts cleric at Iran tower collapse that killed 31

PTI Updated: May 30, 2022 
(Eds: With fresh updates.)

Dubai, May 30 (AP) Protesters angry over a building collapse in southwestern Iran that killed at least 31 people shouted down an emissary sent by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sparking a crackdown that saw riot police club demonstrators and fire tear gas, according to online videos analysed on Monday.

The demonstration directly challenged the Iranian government's response to the disaster a week ago as pressure rises in the Islamic Republic over rising food prices and other economic woes amid the unravelling of its nuclear deal with world powers.

While the protests so far still appear to be leaderless, even Arab tribes in the region seemed to join them Sunday, raising the risk of the unrest intensifying. Already, tensions between Tehran and the West have spiked after Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard on Friday seized two Greek oil tankers seized at sea.

Ayatollah Mohsen Heidari AleKasir tried to address upset mourners near the site of the 10-story Metropol Building but hundreds gathered Sunday night instead booed and shouted.
Surrounded by bodyguards, the ayatollah, in his 60s, tried to continue but couldn't.

“What's happening?” the cleric stage-whispered to a bodyguard, who then leaned in to tell him something.

The cleric then tried to address the crowd again: “My dears, please keep calm, as a sign of respect to Abadan, its martyrs and the dear (victims) the whole Iranian nation is mourning tonight.”

The crowd responded by shouting: “Shameless!”

A live broadcast on state television of the event then cut out. Demonstrators later chanted: “I will kill; I will kill the one who killed my brother!”

The Tehran-based daily newspaper Hamshahri and the semiofficial Fars news agency said the protesters attacked the platform where state TV had set up its camera, cutting off its broadcast.

Police ordered the crowd not to chant slogans against the Islamic Republic and then ordered them to leave, calling their rally illegal.

Video later showed officers confronting and clubbing demonstrators as clouds of tear gas rose.

At least one officer fired what appeared to be a shotgun, though it wasn't clear if it was live fire or so-called “beanbag" rounds designed to stun.

It wasn't immediately clear if anyone was injured or if police made any arrests.

The details in the videos corresponded to known features of Abadan, located some 660 kilometers southwest of the capital, Tehran.

Foreign-based Farsi-language television channels described tear gas and other shots being fired.

Independent newsgathering remains extremely difficult in Iran.

During unrest, Iran has disrupted internet and telephone communications to affected areas, while also limiting the movement of journalists inside of the country.

Reporters Without Borders describes the Islamic Republic as the third-worst country in the world to be a journalist — behind only North Korea and Eritrea.

Following the tower collapse in Abadan last Monday, authorities have acknowledged the building's owner and corrupt government officials had allowed construction to continue at the Metropol Building despite concerns over its shoddy workmanship.

Authorities have arrested 13 people as part of a broad investigation into the disaster, including the city's mayor.

Rescue teams pulled two more bodies from the rubble on Monday, bringing the death toll in the collapse to 31, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. Authorities fear more people could be trapped under the debris.

The deadly collapse has raised questions about the safety of similar buildings in the country and underscored an ongoing crisis in Iranian construction projects. The collapse reminded many of the 2017 fire and collapse of the iconic Plasco building in Tehran that killed 26 people.

In Tehran, the city's emergency department warned that 129 high-rise buildings in the capital remained “unsafe,” based on a survey in 2017.

The country's prosecutor-general, Mohammad Javad Motazeri, has promised to address the issue immediately.

Abadan has also seen disasters in the past. In 1978, an intentionally set fire at Cinema Rex — just a few blocks away from the collapsed building in modern Abadan — killed hundreds.
Anger over the blaze triggered unrest across Iran's oil-rich regions and helped lead to the Islamic Revolution that toppled Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Abadan, in Iran's oil-rich Khuzestan province, is home to Iran's Arab minority, who long have complained about being treated as second-class citizens in the Persian nation.
Arab separatists in the region have launched attacks on pipelines and security forces in the past.

Videos and the newspaper Hamshahri noted that two tribes had come into the city to support the protests.

Meanwhile, one of the two Greek tankers seized by Iran on Friday turned on its tracking devices for the first time since the incident.

The oil tanker Prudent Warrior gave a satellite position Monday off Bandar Abbas, a major Iranian port, according to data from MarineTraffic.com analysed by The Associated Press.
In an earlier message on its website, the ship's manager Polembros Shipping said the vessel remains held by Iranian forces and its crew "are in good health and are treated well."

It remains unclear where the second ship, the Delta Poseidon, is.

 (AP)
VM

Texas shooting: America won't solve mass killings until it stops exporting violence

Azad Essa
26 May 2022 
As public calls for a reckoning with the gun lobby increase, there is no accompanying discussion on the ways in which the US is exporting violence elsewhere

A woman cries as she attends the vigil for the victims of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas on 25 May 2022 (AFP)

At this time, we don’t know why the 18-year-old gunman who killed 19 children and two adults in a mass shooting at a south Texas primary school did it.

And even if, after authorities comb through his personal belongings, devices and social media history, we may never fully know what led him to carry out this carnage. All we know is that Tuesday's massacre is likely to go down as the second deadliest school shooting in the country's history after Sandy Hook in 2012.

For families in the US, the uncanny familiarity of the latest tragedy is all but normalised

This time, a lone gunman strapped in body armour, armed with a handgun and an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle, entered the Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and slaughtered 21 victims. The military-grade ammunition caused such immense devastation that some victims were unrecognisable. Authorities were forced to ask parents for DNA samples to help identify the children.

For families in the US, the uncanny familiarity of the latest tragedy is all but normalised. Across the US, parents gripped onto their young ones and gasped as their screens rolled over one update after another.

Just days earlier, a self-identified white supremacist entered a supermarket and killed 10 Black people in Buffalo, New York. A day later a person was killed and several injured in California when a gunman entered a church used by Taiwanese Americans and opened fire.

Last month, a man in his early 60s unleashed a volley of gunshots on New York City subway, injuring 23 people.

Americans recognise that each time their children go to school, or they go to the local shopping mall, church or synagogue, they play with their lives. They also know they can’t do much about it.

Mass protests

America has been here before.

Just over four years ago, a gunman entered the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in an affluent suburb in Florida and murdered 17 students.

All conversations about gun violence in America continues to sidestep arguably the biggest issue of them all: the political economy of the arms industry in the country

The shootings mobilised young Americans with more than a million people taking to the streets in several hundred rallies across the country to demand gun controls. The public actions drew support from corporations and politicians; A-list celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney and Steven Spielberg donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the rallies. Before long, it had become a corporate carnival.

"The March for Our Lives (MFOL) was a massive outcry against extreme violence delivered with a mix of pop sentiment, corporate cooperation, and an awareness of the socioeconomic privilege that allows certain voices to be heard louder than others," the New Yorker wrote, adding: "The student leaders were grateful, thanking their celebrity donors and corporate sponsors on social media, posing in front of the little blue bird at Twitter’s Washington offices."

Their good intentions notwithstanding, their absorption into the American mainstream was an attempt to commodify their message. It was also emblematic of a movement that had derived its legitimacy through its proximity to power and influence.

High School shooting survivor David Hogg speaks at an installation of body bags assembled on the National Mall by Gun Control activist group March For Our lives on 24 March, 2018 (AFP)

The MFOL movement suggested several changes to gun laws, including a ban on semi-automatic weapons, the implementation of universal background checks and surveillance of gun sales, moving the legal age to purchase guns to 21; and ending gun shows and second-hand sales.

In 2021, it added several important elements to its policy agenda, including a more serious articulation of state-sanctioned police violence in a bid to become a more intersectional movement.

But like almost all conversations about gun violence in America, it continues to sidestep arguably the biggest issue of them all: the political economy of the arms industry in the country.

Stunning hypocrisy

The US government spends more money on arms than any other country. In 2021, it spent $801bn, or 3.5 percent of its GDP.

"The increase in R&D spending over the decade 2012–21 suggests that the United States is focusing more on next-generation technologies," said Alexandra Marksteiner, a researcher with Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in a press release last month. "The US government has repeatedly stressed the need to preserve the US military’s technological edge over strategic competitors."

SIPRI has repeatedly demonstrated that not only is Washington the biggest procurer of arms, it is also the world's largest arms exporter. Between 2017-2021, the US was responsible for 39 percent of all arms deliveries around the world.

This is two times more than Russia and close to 10 times as much as China, making their way to around 103 countries, many of whom are led by either corrupt, oppressive regimes or war criminals.

In other words, as frustration and pressure builds on politicians to make meaningful changes to American gun laws, the American military-industrial complex continues to expand abroad.

And as the public calls for a reckoning with the gun lobby, there is no accompanying discussion on the ways in which America is exporting violence elsewhere. Instead, the debate is almost always reduced to dogmatic and fundamentalist politicians in the pockets of the gun lobby.

It is odd that little to none of these attacks on schools, churches, malls or department stores have led anti-gun activists to openly question American militarism.

This is a society that fawns over its troops who can kill and murder civilians and children by "mistake", run torture camps, deploy secret drone campaigns that incinerate targets on the basis of "safeguarding American interests", but themselves expect to be treated with the utmost care and dignity. This is also a society that calls for gun controls while its military interferes with the domestic affairs of other nations through its 750 military bases in 80 countries around the world.


The hypocrisy is stunning.

Solving the epidemic

In the first five months of 2022, there have been reportedly over 200 mass shootings, including 27 school shootings, in the US. This is absurd. No other country in the world endures such ignominy.

The American republic of white supremacy Read More »

The rhythm and geographic spread of the violence has been so unpredictably random and grotesque in scale that there are families, particularly those belonging to minority groups, who are genuinely afraid of what the next day will bring for their loved ones.

Schools have become death traps.

And with the country growing increasingly polarised, and post-pandemic induced inequality, mental illness and racist conspiracy theories on the rise, the easy availability of guns makes America especially dangerous.

But solving this epidemic will require more than implementing gun controls. It requires a reckoning with the American project, the one that institutionalised violence in the name of building a homeland and later, an empire.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Azad Essa is a senior reporter for Middle East Eye based in New York City. He worked for Al Jazeera English between 2010-2018 covering southern and central Africa for the network. He is the author of 'The Moslems are Coming' (Harper Collins India) and 'Zuma's Bastard' (Two Dogs Books).

Coal ash cleanup contractor not immune from workers' suit

TRAVIS LOLLER
Tue, May 24, 2022, 

FILE - In this Aug. 6, 2019, photo, Ansol and Janie Clark pose at a memorial Ansol Clark constructed near the Kingston Fossil Plant in Kingston, Tenn. The Tennessee Valley Authority was responsible for a massive coal ash spill at the plant in 2008 that covered a community and fouled rivers. The couple says the memorial is for the workers who have come down with illnesses, some fatal, including cancers of the lung, brain, blood and skin and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Ansol Clark who drove a fuel truck for four years at the cleanup site, and suffered from a rare blood cancer, has also died now. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)

A contractor hired to clean up the nation's worst coal ash spill is not immune from being sued by workers who say they were not properly protected, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week.

More than 200 workers blame Jacobs Engineering for exposing them to ash they say caused a slew of illnesses, including cancers of the lung, brain, blood and skin.

A Knoxville, Tennessee, jury in 2018 took only a few hours to decide that Jacobs — a contractor hired by Tennessee Valley Authority — breached its duty of care to the workers, exposing them to airborne “fly ash” with known carcinogens. The jurors said Jacobs’ actions were capable of making the workers sick. Whether those actions actually did make them sick, and thus eligible for monetary damages, was left for a subsequent trial or trials.

The federal judge in the case ordered mediation, alluding to many workers' urgent need for medical care. More than three years later, the two sides have not been able to come to an agreement and a new trial date has not been set.

In the meantime, Jacobs has challenged the workers' right to sue. In the question decided last week, Jacobs argued that TVA was immune from lawsuits because it is a federal public utility, and that protection extends to the contractor through derivative immunity.

In its ruling, the federal appeals court panel found that TVA is not immune from suit and neither is Jacobs. The court notes that Congress, in creating the TVA, wrote a clause into statute specifically providing that the utility can “sue and be sued in its corporate name.”

The largest industrial spill in modern U.S. history began with a leaky six-story earthen dam outside TVA’s Kingston Fossil Plant. On Dec. 22, 2008, that dam collapsed, releasing more than a billion gallons of coal ash sludge in a torrent that knocked nearby homes off their foundations. As the sludge slowly dried over the yearslong course of the cleanup, it turned into a fine dust that had to be constantly watered down but still filled the air, especially on windy days, according to trial testimony.

Some of the cleanup workers took on 12-hour shifts for months at a time with few or no days off. A Jacobs subcontractor testified at trial that workers were not allowed to wear masks to protect them from the fly ash “because it looked bad.” In Associated Press interviews, workers recalled constantly coughing and joking about “coal ash flu.” Later they began suffering strange lesions. Dozens developed cancers and at least 40 later died from illnesses.

Jacobs’ attorneys have said the company did its best to mange the cleanup in a way regulators said was safe. It has not been proven that Jacobs — or even coal ash — is to blame for any illnesses, and the EPA classifies coal ash as nonhazardous.

But Duke University geochemist Avner Vengosh, who is not involved in the litigation, found high levels of radioactivity and toxic metals, including arsenic and mercury in the Kingston coal ash. In a statement about his 2009 peer-reviewed study, he warned that inhaling airborne particles could have a "severe health impact.”

Still, if and when the workers get a new trial, it could be difficult to prove the ash caused their illnesses. Experts say there just is not enough research on the health effects of prolonged exposure to fly ash.