It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, June 08, 2022
Spanish lawmakers vote on whether to draw up laws to abolish prostitution Issued on: 08/06/2022 -
Spain voted on Tuesday in favour of a proposal to draw up legislation to abolish prostitution, cracking down further on pimping and introducing tougher penalties for men buying sex in a controversial initiative that has split the women's rights movement. FRANCE 24's Sarah Morris reports from Madrid, Spain.
New panels want to talk ethics, rules of climate tinkering
By SETH BORENSTEIN
June 6, 2022 A youngster, with an eye drawn on her hand to show she is watching and 1.5 for countries to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, takes part in a Fridays for Future climate protest inside a plenary corridor at the SEC (Scottish Event Campus) venue for the COP26 U.N. Climate Summit, in Glasgow, Scotland, Nov. 10, 2021. The idea of tinkering with the air to cool Earth's ever-warming climate seems to be gaining momentum. Two new high-powered panels have started to look at the ethics and governing rules surrounding the controversial technologies of geoengineering.
(AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, File)
Tinkering with the planet’s air to cool Earth’s ever-warming climate is inching closer to reality enough so that two different high-powered groups — one of scientists and one of former world leaders — are trying to come up with ethics and governing guidelines.
On Thursday, the newly formed Climate Overshoot Commission — which includes the former presidents of Mexico, Niger and Kiribati, a former Canadian prime minister, the ex-chief of World Trade Organization and other national minister level officials — will have its first meeting in Italy in a 15-month process to come up with governance strategy on pulling carbon dioxide out of the air, lowering temperatures by reflecting sunlight with artificial methods and adapting to climate change. This month, the American Geophysical Union, the largest society of scientists who work on climate issues, announced it was forming an ethics framework for “climate intervention” that would be ready for debate during the major international climate negotiations in November in Egypt.
This shows the idea of “solar geoengineering is finally getting serious,” said Harvard University climate scientist David Keith, a leader in the field.
Both groups said they aren’t quite advocating geoengineering, which includes putting particles in the air to reflect sunlight or whiten clouds, or the less-disputed carbon dioxide removal, such as technology to suck carbon out of the air but also more nature-based solutions such as more trees and getting oceans to sponge up more carbon.
But the two groups say the ideas need to be discussed with global warming nearing and likely shooting past the international goal of limiting temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since preindustrial times. The world has already warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since the mid-1800s and scientists say the world likely to pass the 1.5-degree mark in the 2030s.
“The climate change problem is at a point where even extreme options need to be thought about seriously,” Climate Overshoot Commission Executive Secretary Jesse Reynolds said in a Monday interview. “Now, to be clear, thinking about them includes the possibility of rejecting them. But not thinking about them does not seem to be a responsible path forward.”
What’s needed are ethical guidelines before anything is done to get the public trust, much like the scientific community did with the possibility of human cloning, said AGU Executive Director Randy Fiser said. If this doesn’t happen the public will have a giant backlash and won’t trust the community, said National Academy of Sciences President Marcia McNutt, who has studied the issue but declined a spot on the AGU ethics panel because of other commitments.
An earlier report by the academy “spoke to the double moral hazard of climate intervention: damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” McNutt said. Opponents of geoengineering — such as Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann — worry that just talking about guidelines will make the tinkering more likely to occur in the real world.
“I see it as a potentially cynical maneuver to buy the ostensible moral license to move forward with dangerous geoengineering prescriptions,” Mann said in an email. He said not only could there be harmful side effects, but it takes the pressure off of cutting fossil fuel emissions, which is what’s really needed. Mann also said no one can enforce ethics or governance rules, citing efforts to prevent Russia from invading Ukraine, but McNutt pointed to rules governing international oceans.
With or without guidelines, some of these high-tech ideas are going to happen, leaders of the two groups said. However, last year the Swedish government canceled an early but politically charged test of a device designed to put particles in the air that eventually, if fully implanted, could create what some would call an artificial volcano cooling the globe temporarily like 1991’s Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption in the Philippines.
“The work of looking at climate strategies continues to go on in labs, both in the for-profit and non-profit sectors,” said AGU’s Fiser, who said investors are funneling money into such projects.
Ethicists Nancy Tuana of Penn State and Christopher Preston of the University of Montana said if anything talking about the ethics of the tinkering with the atmosphere will put the brakes on efforts a bit more.
“It will slow it and this is a good thing,” Preston said in an email. “Ethical thresholds placed within frameworks are typically challenging to satisfy... An ethical framework can lead to paralysis. Ethics is not like maths. Ethical problems don’t often get ‘solved’.”
But not doing anything — no cuts in carbon dioxide emissions, no carbon dioxide removal and no solar geoengineering — “that’s the worst outcome and also the path of least resistance,” said Stanford University ethics expert Hank Greely.
“I view climate intervention in the same way I view the ‘Hail Mary’ pass in football,” said Colorado University ice scientist Waleed Abdalati, a former NASA chief scientist, referring to a last ditch desperation effort in a seemingly losing cause. “There is a chance it could get us to where we need to be, but just as no team wants to be in a position where that is the play they have to make, scientists recognize that we as a society would never want to be in a situation that we have to use such an approach to address the challenge we face.”
Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
On Broadway, more visibility, yes, but also an unseen threat
By MARK KENNEDYJune 6, 2022
This combination of photos shows scenes Broadway performances from the musical "Six," top row from left, the Lynn Nottage play "Clyde's," and the musical "Paradise Square," bottom row from left, the musical "MJ," the play ""for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf," and the musical "A Strange Loop."
(Boneau/Brian Brown/Polk & Co., The Press Room, O & M Co./DKC, Polk & Co. and Polk & Co. via AP)
NEW YORK (AP) — At a lunch for Tony Award nominees last month, veteran theater producer Ron Simons looked around and smiled. It seemed appropriate that the gathering was held at The Rainbow Room.
“I can guarantee you I have not seen this many people of color represented across all categories of the Tony Awards,” he recalled. “It was a diverse room. I was so uplifted and impressed by that.”
Multiple Black artists were nominated in every single performance category, including three of five featured actors in a musical, four of six featured actresses in a play, two of seven leading actors in a play and three of five leading actresses in a play. There are 16 Black performance nods out of 33 slots — a very healthy 48%.
By comparison, at the 2016 Tonys — the breakout season that included the diverse “Hamilton,” “Eclipsed” and “The Color Purple” revival — 14 of the 40 acting nominees for plays and musicals or 35% were actors of color.
“Let’s hope that the diversity that we saw in the season continues to be the norm for Broadway, that this isn’t just an anomaly or a blip in reaction to what we’ve been through, but just a reset,” said Lynn Nottage, the first writer to be nominated for both a play (“Clyde’s”) and musical (“MJ”) in a single season.
The new crop of nominees also boasts more women and people of color in design categories, such as first-time nominees Palmer Hefferan for sound design of a play (“The Skin of Our Teeth”), Yi Zhao for lighting design of a play (“The Skin of Our Teeth”) and Sarafina Bush for costume design of a play (“for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf”).
Other firsts this season included L Morgan Lee of “A Strange Loop” becoming the first out trans performer to be nominated for a Tony. Adam Rigg, scenic designer of “The Skin of Our Teeth,” became the first out agender designer nominated and Toby Marlow, “Six” co-creator is the first out nonbinary composer-lyricist nominated.
James Jackson, Jr., L. Morgan Lee, Antwayn Hopper, John-Andrew Morrison, Jaquel Spivey, Jason Veasey and John-Michael Lyles during a performance of "A Strange Loop." (Marc J. Franklin/Polk & Co. via AP)
Eleven performers — including Jaquel Spivey from “A Strange Loop,” Myles Frost in ”MJ” and Kara Young from “Clyde’s” — received a nod for their Broadway debut performances and 10 designers received nominations for their Broadway debuts, as did creators like “A Strange Loop” playwright Michael R. Jackson and “Paradise Square” co-book writer Christina Anderson.
“I’m very, very excited about all the new voices we’re hearing, all the new new writers who are represented on Broadway for the first time,” said A.J. Shively, an actor nominated for “Paradise Square.” “I really hope that trend continues.”
Perhaps nowhere is the diversity more apparent than in the oldest play currently on Broadway. “Macbeth,” directed by Sam Gold, has a Black Lady Macbeth in Ruth Negga, a woman taking on a traditional male role (Amber Gray plays Banquo), a non-binary actor (Asia Kate Dillon) and disability representation (Michael Patrick Thornton).
“If all the world’s a stage, our stage certainly is the world. I’m really proud to be up there with all the actors,” says Thornton, who uses his wheelchair as a cunning asset to play the savvy nobleman Lennox.
But while representation was seen across Broadway this season so was an invisible virus that didn’t care. The various mutations of COVID-19 sickened actors in waves and starved many box offices of critical funds. Skittish theater-goers who returned often had an appetite for only established, comfort shows. Hailee Kaleem Wright, Karen Burthwright and Sidney Dupont during a performance of "Paradise Square." (Alessandra Mello/The Press Room via AP)
Several of the Black-led productions came up short, including “Thoughts of a Colored Man,” “Chicken and Biscuits,” and “Pass Over.” They debuted in the fall, just as Broadway was slowly restarting and audiences were most fearful. “Thoughts of a Colored Man” closed early because it didn’t have enough healthy actors, at one point enlisting the playwright himself to get onstage and play a role.
One of the most painful blows was a revival of Ntozake Shange’s “for colored girls,” which struggled to find an audience. The cast of seven Black women included deaf actor Alexandria Wailes and, until recently, a pregnant Kenita R. Miller. It earned strong notices and a whopping seven Tony nominations. But it will close this week.
“In past seasons, had there been a play with seven Tony nominations and this bevy of glowing reviews, the show would have gone on for quite a while,” says Simons, the lead producer. “There’s an audience for this show. That’s not the problem. The problem is getting the audience into the theater to see the show.”
Despite a glut in inventory and not enough consumers, there were clear game-changers, like “A Strange Loop,” a musical about a gay Black playwright, that captured a leading 11 nominations, besting establishment options like a Hugh Jackman-led “The Music Man.” Broadway veterans agree that extraordinary storytelling was available for those hardy souls who bought tickets.
Jaquel Spivey during a performance of "A Strange Loop" in New York.
Broadway data often suggest improvements one year, then a drop off the next. Take the 2013-14 season, which was rich with roles for African Americans, including “A Raisin in the Sun” starring Denzel Washington, Audra McDonald channeling Billie Holiday in “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill” and the dance show “After Midnight.”
There were also African-Americans in nontraditional roles, like James Monroe Iglehart as the Genie in “Aladdin,” Nikki M. James and Kyle Scatliffe in “Les Miserables,” and Norm Lewis becoming the first Black Phantom on Broadway in “The Phantom of the Opera.”
Camille A. Brown participates in the 73rd annual Tony Awards "Meet the Nominees" press day in New York on May 1, 2019. Brown is nominated for two Tony Awards, one for best direction of a play, and one for best choreography her work on "for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf." (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)
Camille A. Brown, who this season together with Lileana Blain-Cruz became only the second and third Black women to be nominated for best direction of a play, has weathered the ups and downs.
“My thing is, let’s see what the next year and the year after that and the year after that look like?” she says. “I think the landscape was definitely a challenge, especially after George Floyd and the events that happened after that. But this is only the first season out after all of that stuff happened. So let’s see if it keeps going, and keeps evolving and keeps progressing.”
Simons is optimistic the gains this year will last and celebrates that, at the very least, a group of diverse actors got their Broadway credits this season. He predicts more Tony winners of color than ever before.
“Even though the box office hurt all of our feelings, it really is a celebration because never have we seen this kind of diversity happen on Broadway,” he says. “It is a rare year and it is a rare year for both the good and the bad.”
RIP Former Bon Jovi bassist, founding member Alec John Such dies By The Associated Press
June 5, 2022 In this June 19, 2004 photo Alec John Such, of Colts Neck, N.J., sits for a portrait inside his second floor bathtub. Alec John Such, the bassist and a founding member of Bon Jovi, has died. He was 70. The band announced Sunday, June 5, 2022 that John Such died. No details on when or how John Such died were immediately available. (M. Kathleen Kelly/NJ Advance Media via AP)
NEW YORK (AP) — Alec John Such, the bassist and a founding member of the iconic rock band Bon Jovi, has died. He was 70.
The group on Sunday announced the death of Such, the New Jersey band’s bassist from 1983 to 1994. No details on when or how Such died were immediately available. A publicist for singer-songwriter Jon Bon Jovi didn’t immediately respond to messages.
Bon Jovi credited Such for bringing the band together, noting that he was a childhood friend of drummer Tico Torres and brought guitarist and songwriter Richie Sambora to see the band perform. Such had played with Sambora in a band called Message.
The Yonkers, New York-born Such was a veteran figure in the thriving New Jersey music scene that helped spawn Bon Jovi. As manager of the Hunka Bunka Ballroom in Sayreville, New Jersey, Such booked Jon Bon Jovi & The Wild Ones before joining the singer-songwriter’s band. He played with Bon Jovi through the group’s heyday in the 1980s.
Such departed the band in 1994, when he was replaced by bassist Hugh McDonald. He later rejoined the band for its induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.
“When Jon Bon Jovi called me up and asked me to be in his band many years ago, I soon realized how serious he was and he had a vision that he wanted to bring us to,” said Such at the Hall of Fame induction. “And I am only too happy to have been a part of that vision.”
Crypto meltdown is wake-up call for many, including Congress
By KEN SWEET and FATIMA HUSSEIN Ranking member Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., speaks during a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing, Tuesday, May 10, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. After the latest cryptocurrency implosion, Washington appears ready to take its first steps to regulate the industry. Toomey is circulating a bill focused on regulating stablecoins, which would require stablecoin providers to have a license to operate, restrict the types of assets they carry to back those stablecoins, as well as be subject to routine auditing to make sure they are complying.
(Tom Williams/Pool Photo via AP, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Meltdowns in the cryptocurrency space are common, but the latest one really touched some nerves. Novice investors took to online forums to share tales of decimated fortunes and even suicidal despair. Experienced crypto supporters, including one prominent billionaire, were left feeling humbled.
When the stablecoin TerraUSD imploded last month, an estimated $40 billion in investor funds was erased — and so far there has been little or no accountability. Stablecoins are supposed to be less vulnerable to big swings — thus the name — but Terra suffered a spectacular collapse in a matter of days.
The Terra episode publicly exposed a truth long-known in the always-online crypto community: for every digital currency with staying power, like bitcoin, there have been hundreds of failed or worthless currencies in crypto’s short history. So Terra became just the latest “sh—coin” — the term used by the community to describe coins that faded into obscurity.
Terra’s quick collapse came just as bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, was in the midst of a decline that has wiped out nearly half of its value in a couple of months. The events have served as a vivid reminder that investors, both professionals and the mom and pop variety, can be rolling the dice when it comes to putting money into digital assets.
After being mostly hands-off toward crypto, it appears that Washington has had enough. On Tuesday, two senators — one Democrat and one Republican — proposed legislation that seeks to build a regulatory framework around the cryptocurrency industry; other members of Congress are considering more limited legislation.
What’s surprising, however, is that the cryptocurrency industry is signaling its cooperation. Politicians, crypto enthusiasts, and industry lobbyists all point to last month’s collapse of Terra and its token Luna as the possible end of the libertarian experiment in crypto.
Stablecoins are typically pegged to a traditional financial instrument, like the U.S. dollar, and are supposed to the cryptocurrency equivalent of investing in a conservative money market fund. But Terra was not backed by any hard assets. Instead, its founder Do Kwon promised that Terra’s proprietary algorithm would keep the coin’s value pegged to roughly $1.00. Critics of Terra would be attacked on social media by Kwon and his so-called army of “LUNAtics”
Kwon’s promise turned out to be worthless. A massive selling event caused Terra to “break the buck” and collapse in value. Reddit boards dedicated to Terra and Luna were dominated for days by posts referencing the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.
Terra’s ascendance attracted not only retail investors but also better-known cryptocurrency experts. One notable “Lunatic” was billionaire Mike Novogratz, who tattooed his upper arm with the word Luna and a wolf howling at the moon. Novogratz told his followers that the tattoo “will be a constant reminder that venture investing requires humility.”
Michael Estrabillo entrusted his crypto investments to stablegains, an investment vehicle that he says had assured him and other investors that the funds were secured in USD Coin, one of the largest stablecoins. Then, on May 9, he said he was informed his money was locked up in Terra.
“Had I known I was involved in a currency that was backed by an algorithm, I would have never invested in that,” Estrabillo lamented.
Washington may also be waking up to the fact that what used to be niche part of the internet and finance has gone mainstream and can no longer be ignored.
The total value of crypto assets hit a peak of $2.8 trillion last November; it’s now below $1.3 trillion, according to CoinGecko. Surveys show that roughly 16% of adult Americans, or 40 million people, have invested in cryptocurrencies. Retirement account giant Fidelity Investments now offers crypto as a part of a 401(k) plan. Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, has repeatedly pointed out that crypto is particularly popular among Black Americans, a community long distrustful of Wall Street.
Further, crypto has permeated popular culture. Numerous Super Bowl ads touted crypto. Sports arenas are now named after crypto projects and the Washington Nationals baseball team took a sponsorship deal from Terra before it collapsed. Celebrities routinely shill crypto on social media, and YouTube personalities generate millions of views talking about the latest crypto idea.
Terra’s collapse was a bridge too far, it seems.
On Tuesday, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, and Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming, proposed a framework to start regulating the industry, which would include giving the Commodity Futures Trading Commission full regulatory jurisdiction over cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and rewriting the tax code to include crypto. It would also fully regulate stablecoins for the first time ever.
This comes after the Biden administration’s working group on financial markets issued a 22-page report last November, calling on Congress to pass legislation that would regulate stablecoins. One recommendation includes a requirement that stablecoin issuers become banks that would hold sufficient cash reserves.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has also called for stablecoin regulation, saying “we really need a regulatory framework to guard against the risks,” during a House committee meeting in May.
Further, it appears that the cryptocurrency industry — with its libertarian leanings and deep skepticism of Washington — might also be on board.
“I do think this is a bit of a wake-up call. A lot of people were taken aback by Terra’s failure,” said Perianne Boring, founder of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, one of the top lobbyists for the cryptocurrency industry.
Other crypto lobby groups, like the Association for Digital Asset Markets, have announced support for the Lummis-Gillibrand bill.
One idea that Washington seems to be coalescing around is that entities that issue stablecoins — often used as a bridge between traditional finance and the crypto world — need to be transparent about the assets backing them and be as liquid as any other instrument playing a key role in finance.
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pennsylvania, is circulating a separate bill that would require stablecoin providers to have a license to operate, restrict the types of assets they carry to back those stablecoins, as well as be subject to routine auditing to make sure they are complying.
Describing Terra as a “debacle,” Toomey said in an interview that Terra’s collapse made it even more important that Washington build some guardrails around stablecoins. Toomey is the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee.
“It’s always difficult to get anything across the goal line in the Senate, but there’s nothing politically polarizing about creating a statutory regime for stablecoins,” Toomey said.
After Terra’s collapse there are two remaining big stablecoins: USD Coin issued by the company Circle, and Tether, created by the Hong Kong-based company Bitfinex. Both hold hard assets to back their value, but Bitfinex is less transparent about the assets it holds and is not audited. There are also a host of smaller stablecoin issuers, which in the world of crypto could become the latest hot item overnight.
“It’s not just urgent that Washington step in, it’s urgently urgent,” said Jeremy Allaire, founder and CEO of Circle, in an interview.
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Hussein reported from Washington. Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed.
EL NORTE BIENIVETO Migration gets top billing as Biden hosts hemisphere leaders
By ELLIOT SPAGAT
Migrants, many from Central American and Venezuela, walk along the Huehuetan highway in Chiapas state, Mexico, early Tuesday, June 7, 2022. The group left Tapachula on Monday, tired of waiting to normalize their status in a region with little work and still far from their ultimate goal of reaching the United States. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Migration has taken center stage at an assembly of Western Hemisphere leaders, reflecting its emergence as a top foreign policy issue amid red-carpet drama over who comes and who stays home.
The “Los Angeles Declaration,” to be announced while U.S. President Joe Biden meets with his counterparts from North, Central and South America Wednesday through Friday, is expected .to be a brief call to action that supporters hope will guide countries on hosting people fleeing violence and persecution and searching for more economic stability.
The United States has been the most popular destination for asylum-seekers since 2017, posing a challenge that has stumped Biden and his immediate predecessors, Donald Trump and Barack Obama.
But the U.S. is far from alone. Colombia and neighboring South American countries host millions who have fled Venezuela. Mexico fielded more than 130,000 asylum applications last year, many of them Haitians, which was triple from 2020. Many Nicaraguans escape to Costa Rica, while displaced Venezuelans account for about one-sixth the population of tiny Aruba.
“Countries are already having to do this, so rather than each country trying to sort this out and figure it out for themselves, what we’re doing is saying, ‘Let’s come together in a coherent way and construct a framework so we can all work together to make this situation more humane and more manageable,’” said Brian Nichols, assistant U.S. secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.
The controversy has undermined the start of the summit, which is being hosted by the U.S. for the first time since the inaugural event in 1994, at a time when China has been trying to make inroads in the region.
Migrants, many from Central American and Venezuela, walk along the Huehuetan highway in Chiapas state, Mexico, early Tuesday, June 7, 2022. The group left Tapachula on Monday, tired of waiting to normalize their status in a region with little work and still far from their ultimate goal of reaching the United States. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
Although Biden was heavily involved in Latin America while he was vice president, his focus has largely been elsewhere since taking office as president last year. He’s been trying to reorient U.S. foreign policy toward Asia while also rallying allies to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
Some concrete measures may be announced, perhaps funding for development banks. Nichols said in an interview Monday that discussing any specific initiatives would be premature, but officials have made clear that the agreement will be largely aspirational.
There is widespread agreement that relief must target growth and stability for entire communities in which migrants live, not just migrants.
“If you only help the migrants and not the communities around them, that’s counterproductive,” Nichols said.
The agreement may call for more pathways to legal status, mechanisms to reunite families, more efficient and humane border controls and improved information sharing, according to experts who have seen early drafts.
Leaders of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — each critical to any regional migration strategy — are skipping the Summit of the Americas, depriving Biden of symbolic heft and unity amid the photo opportunities and pageantry starting with an inaugural ceremony Wednesday.
Mexico’s López Obrador said he delegated Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard because the U.S. excluded Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, all countries that send large numbers of migrants to the U.S. and neighboring countries.
Upon leaving for Los Angeles on Tuesday, Ebrard said Mexico’s close relationship with the United States was unchanged and noted that Lopez Obrador will visit Washington in July.
President Guillermo Lasso of Ecuador said a migration accord would be an important recognition of what governments are facing.
“(When) you speak about problems and it becomes part of a declaration, a summit as important as this, obviously the problem exists, the problem enters the consciousness of those who should be part of the solution,” he told a group of civic activists in Los Angeles.
The migration accord took shape during discussions of top diplomats in Colombia in October and in Panama in April. Experts who have been consulted by governments say it is largely driven by the U.S. and other countries that take in lots of migrants, such as Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru and Panama.
The strategy appears to resemble a U.S.-only plan that Vice President Kamala Harris announced last July, calling for “secure and humane management of borders” and more paths to legal status.
So far, the Biden administration has little to show for it.
A man carries a child past members of the Mexican National Guard, on their way north on the Huixtla road in Chiapas state, Mexico, Wednesday, June 7, 2022. The group, part of a larger migrant caravan, left Tapachula on Monday, tired of waiting to normalize their status in a region with little work and still far from their ultimate goal of reaching the United States.
The meeting of regional leaders comes as several thousand migrants on Tuesday walked through southern Mexico — the largest migrant caravan of the year — with local authorities showing no signs yet of trying to stop them.
Mexico has tried to contain migrants to the south, far from the U.S. border. But many have grown frustrated there by the slow bureaucratic process to regularize their status and the lack of job opportunities to provide for their families.
U.S. authorities are stopping migrants crossing the Mexican border more often than at any time in about two decades. Under a pandemic-era rule aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19, many are quickly expelled without a chance to seek asylum. But Title 42 authority, which a federal judge in Louisiana has kept in place, is applied unevenly by nationality.
In Eagle Pass, Texas, one of the busiest spots for illegal crossings, Cubans freely wade through the Rio Grande and are released in the United States on humanitarian parole, aided by Cuba’s refusal to take them back. On the flip side, Mexico has agreed to take back migrants expelled from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, as well as Mexico.
Cristian Salgado, of Honduras, hoped he would be treated as Cubans he saw when he crossed illegally with his wife and 5-year-old son about a month ago but U.S. authorities turned him back to the Mexican border city of Piedras Negras without allowing him to plead his case. He remembers a border agent saying, “There is no asylum for Honduras.”
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Associated Press writers Maria Verza in Mexico City, Gonzalo Solano in Quito, Ecuador, and Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.
No, you’re not going crazy - package sizes are shrinking
“I’m not saying they’re profiteering, but it smells like it,”
By DEE-ANN DURBIN
Bottles of Gatorade are pictured, left, a 32 fluid ounce and 28 fluid ounce, in Glenside, Pa., Monday, June 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
It’s the inflation you’re not supposed to see.
From toilet paper to yogurt and coffee to corn chips, manufacturers are quietly shrinking package sizes without lowering prices. It’s dubbed “shrinkflation,” and it’s accelerating worldwide.
In the U.S., a small box of Kleenex now has 60 tissues; a few months ago, it had 65. Chobani Flips yogurts have shrunk from 5.3 ounces to 4.5 ounces. In the U.K., Nestle slimmed down its Nescafe Azera Americano coffee tins from 100 grams to 90 grams. In India, a bar of Vim dish soap has shrunk from 155 grams to 135 grams.
Shrinkflation isn’t new, experts say. But it proliferates in times of high inflation as companies grapple with rising costs for ingredients, packaging, labor and transportation. Global consumer price inflation was up an estimated 7% in May, a pace that will likely continue through September, according to S&P Global.
“It comes in waves. We happen to be in a tidal wave at the moment because of inflation,” said Edgar Dworsky, a consumer advocate and former assistant attorney general in Massachusetts who has documented shrinkflation on his Consumer World website for decades.
Dworsky began noticing smaller boxes in the cereal aisle last fall, and shrinkflation has ballooned from there. He can cite dozens of examples, from Cottonelle Ultra Clean Care toilet paper, which has shrunk from 340 sheets per roll to 312, to Folgers coffee, which downsized its 51-ounce container to 43.5 ounces but still says it will make up to 400 cups. (Folgers says it’s using a new technology that results in lighter-weight beans.)
Dworsky said shrinkflation appeals to manufacturers because they know customers will notice price increases but won’t keep track of net weights or small details, like the number of sheets on a roll of toilet paper. Companies can also employ tricks to draw attention away from downsizing, like marking smaller packages with bright new labels that draw shoppers’ eyes.
That’s what Fritos did. Bags of Fritos Scoops marked “Party Size” used to be 18 ounces; some are still on sale at a grocery chain in Texas. But almost every other big chain is now advertising “Party Size” Fritos Scoops that are 15.5 ounces — and more expensive.
PepsiCo didn’t respond when asked about Fritos. But it did acknowledge the shrinking of Gatorade bottles. The company recently began phasing out 32-ounce bottles in favor of 28-ounce ones, which are tapered in the middle to make it easier to hold them. The changeover has been in the works for years and isn’t related to the current economic climate, PepsiCo said. But it didn’t respond when asked why the 28-ounce version is more expensive.
Likewise, Kimberly-Clark — which makes both Cottonelle and Kleenex — didn’t respond to requests for comment on the reduced package sizes. Proctor & Gamble Co. didn’t respond when asked about Pantene Pro-V Curl Perfection conditioner, which downsized from 12 fluid ounces to 10.4 fluid ounces but still costs $3.99.
Earth’s Best Organic Sunny Day Snack Bars went from eight bars per box to seven, but the price listed at multiple stores remains $3.69. Hain Celestial Group, the brand’s owner, didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
Some companies are straightforward about the changes. In Japan, snack maker Calbee Inc. announced 10% weight reductions — and 10% price increases — for many of its products in May, including veggie chips and crispy edamame. The company blamed a sharp rise in the cost of raw materials.
Domino’s Pizza announced in January it was shrinking the size of its 10-piece chicken wings to eight pieces for the same $7.99 carryout price. Domino’s cited the rising cost of chicken.
In India, “down-switching” — another term for shrinkflation — is mostly done in rural areas, where people are poorer and more price sensitive, said Byas Anand, head of corporate communications for Dabur India, a consumer care and food business. In cities, companies simply jack up prices.
“My company has been doing it openly for ages,” Anand said.
Some customers who have noticed the downsizing are sharing examples on social media. Others say shrinkflation is causing them to change their shopping habits.
Alex Aspacher does a lot of the grocery shopping and meal planning for his family of four in Haskins, Ohio. He noticed when the one-pound package of sliced Swiss cheese he used to buy shrank to 12 ounces but kept its $9.99 price tag. Now, he hunts for deals or buys a block of cheese and slices it himself.
Aspacher said he knew prices would rise when he started reading about higher wages for grocery workers. But the speed of the change — and the shrinking packages — have surprised him.
“I was prepared for it to a degree, but there hasn’t been a limit to it so far,” Aspacher said. “I hope we find that ceiling pretty soon.”
Sometimes the trend can reverse. As inflation eases, competition might force manufacturers to lower their prices or reintroduce larger packages. But Dworsky says once a product has gotten smaller, it often stays that way. “Upsizing is kind of rare,” he said.
Hitendra Chaturvedi, a professor of supply chain management at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business, said he has no doubt many companies are struggling with labor shortages and higher raw material costs.
But in some cases, companies’ profits — or sales minus the cost of doing business — are also increasing exponentially, and Chaturvedi finds that troubling. He points to Mondelez International, which took some heat this spring for shrinking the size of its Cadbury Dairy Milk bar in the U.K. without lowering the price. The company’s operating income climbed 21% in 2021, but fell 15% in the first quarter as cost pressures grew. By comparison, PepsiCo’s operating profit climbed 11% in 2021 and 128% in the first quarter.
“I’m not saying they’re profiteering, but it smells like it,” Chaturvedi said. “Are we using supply constraints as a weapon to make more money?”
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AP Writers Ashok Sharma in Delhi and Kelvin Chan in London contributed.
Griner’s fate tangled up with other American held in Russia
By ERIC TUCKER
today
WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner leaves a courtroom after a hearing, in Khimki just outside Moscow, May 13, 2022. Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was detained at the Moscow airport in February after vape cartridges containing oil derived from cannabis were allegedly found in her luggage, which could carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Brittney Griner is easily the most prominent American locked up by a foreign country. But the WNBA star’s case is tangled up with that of a lesser-known American also imprisoned in Russia.
Paul Whelan has been held in Russia since his December 2018 arrest on espionage charges he and the U.S. government say are false. He was left out of a prisoner exchange in April that brought home yet another detainee, Marine veteran Trevor Reed. That has escalated pressure on the Biden administration to avoid another one-for-one swap that does not include Whelan — even as it presses for the release of Griner, an Olympic gold medalist whose case has drawn global attention.
For Griner and Whelan, the other’s case injects something of a wild card into their own, for better or worse.
The U.S. government may not agree to a deal in which just one of them is released, potentially complicating negotiations. But Whelan could also benefit from the attention given to Griner, which has cast a spotlight on his case. And though the U.S. may hesitate to give up a high-level Russian prisoner in exchange for Griner, who’s charged with a relatively minor drug offense, it’s possible it would be more inclined to do so if both she and Whelan were part of any deal.
The potential interplay between the cases is not lost on the families and supporters of Whelan and Griner.
“It’s still very raw,” Whelan’s sister, Elizabeth Whelan, said of her brother being excluded from the Reed deal. “And to think we might have to go through that again if Brittney is brought home first is just terrible.”
But “what’s really bad” about feeling that way, she hastened to add, is that she and her family absolutely want Griner released, too. “It’s not like we don’t want her home. We want everyone out of there, out of Russia and away from that situation.”
It all adds up to a “sticky wicket,” said Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon, a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania who specializes in Russia and is advising the WNBA players’ association on Griner’s case.
If Griner were to leapfrog Whelan in coming home, the administration will face scrutiny from Whelan’s supporters. “And if Paul Whelan gets out first, you’re going to have questions about why isn’t Brittney out when Brittney hasn’t even been convicted yet,” she said.
U.S. officials have not said whether swaps are being discussed that could get Griner, Whelan or both home, or whether they’d accept a deal that yields the release of one without the other. A spokesman for the State Department office that advocates for wrongfully detained Americans, the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, or SPEHA, declined to say how the cases might affect each other but said in a statement that the office remains committed to securing the release of both.
There’s no question that the February arrest of Griner — Russian authorities detained her at an airport after they said a search of her bag revealed vape cartridges containing oil derived from cannabis — has heightened public awareness around the dozens of Americans who, like Reed and Griner, are classified as wrongfully detained by foreign governments.
The seven-time WNBA All-Star is not only one of the most dominant figures in her sport but also a prominent gay, Black woman. That has prompted questions about the role race and sexual identity are playing in a country where authorities have been hostile to the LGBTQ community, and about whether her case would get more attention if it involved a white male athlete.
Griner’s wife, Cherelle, urged the Biden administration in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” to do anything necessary to get Griner home, but also expressed empathy for Whelan. She said that even though there’s no connection between the two besides the fact they’re both in Russia, “I obviously want him back, too.”
Griner’s fame cuts both ways, said St. Julian-Varnon. If ever Russia wants to reestablish itself as a country hospitable to foreign athletes like Griner, the country would have significant incentive to release her. But given Griner’s “political value” to Russia, it may also make a huge demand for her release.
“This is the biggest chip that they have to play,” she said.
Tamryn Spruill, a freelance journalist and author who launched a Change.org petition demanding Griner’s freedom, said in an email that if her “case can be leveraged to simultaneously secure Whelan’s release — or vice versa — then it is my hope that the president will exploit all of those avenues.”
Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine who was arrested for alleged spying, listens to the verdict in a courtroom at the Moscow City Court in Moscow, Russia, June 15, 2020. Brittney Griner is easily the most prominent American locked up by a foreign country. But the WNBA star’s case is tangled up with that of another prisoner few Americans have ever heard of. Paul Whelan has been held in Russia since his December 2018 arrest on espionage charges he and the U.S. government say are false.
(Sofia Sandurskaya, Moscow News Agency photo via AP)
Unlike Griner, who is awaiting trial, Whelan has been convicted and sentenced.
A corporate security executive from Michigan who was arrested after traveling to Russia for a wedding, Whelan was found guilty in 2020 and sentenced to 16 years in prison. He and his family have vigorously asserted his innocence. The U.S. government has denounced the charges as false.
Reed had also been sentenced well before the swap that freed him. He had been jailed over what Russian authorities say was a drunken physical encounter with police in Moscow and was freed in exchange for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot who was serving a 20-year sentence for drug trafficking conspiracy. U.S. officials cited in part Reed’s ailing health as justification for the trade.
It’s not clear which other Russians, if any, might be part of additional exchanges. Russian state media have for years floated the name of notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout, though such a deal risks being seen as lending false equivalency between a Russian the U.S. government regards as properly convicted and Americans it considers unjustly detained.
Jonathan Franks, a consultant who worked on the Reed case, said it was hard to envision a Griner-Bout deal or a Griner deal that didn’t involve Whelan.
“I truly believe Brittney Griner’s fastest path out of Russia is on Air Whelan,” he said.
Elizabeth Whelan said the early morning call she had to make to her aging parents to tell them Reed was coming home but her brother was not is not an experience she wants to repeat. But she said her family does understand the possibility one prisoner could be freed without the other.
“We’re faced with a situation where these hostile foreign nations can assign different values to each person they’re holding, and can work separate deals. Whichever deal comes through first is often who comes home first,” she said, “and it’s not at all a tenable situation.”
Doctor Mustaf Yusuf treats Ali Osman, 3, who is showing symptoms of Kwashiorkor, a severe protein malnutrition causing swelling and skin lesions, as his mother Owliyo Hassan Salaad, 40, holds him at a malnutrition stabilization center run by Action against Hunger, in Mogadishu, Somalia Sunday, June 5, 2022. Deaths have begun in the region's most parched drought in decades and previously unreported data show nearly 450 deaths this year at malnutrition treatment centers in Somalia alone.
(AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — No mother should have to lose her child. Owliyo Hassan Salaad has watched four die this year. A drought in the Horn of Africa has taken them, one by one.
Now she cradles her frail and squalling 3-year-old, Ali Osman, whom she carried on a 90-kilometer (55-mile) walk from her village to Somalia’s capital, desperate not to lose him too. Sitting on the floor of a malnutrition treatment center filled with anxious mothers, she can barely speak about the small bodies buried back home in soil too dry for planting.
Deaths have begun in the region’s most parched drought in four decades. Previously unreported data shared with The Associated Press show at least 448 deaths this year at malnutrition treatment centers in Somalia alone. Authorities in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya are now shifting to the grim task of trying to prevent famine.
Many more people are dying beyond the notice of authorities, like Salaad’s four children, all younger than 10. Some die in remote pastoral communities. Some die on treks in search of help. Some die even after reaching displacement camps, malnourished beyond aid.
“Definitely thousands” have died, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, Adam Abdelmoula, told reporters on Tuesday, though the data to support that is yet to come.
Salaad left behind another four children with her husband. They were too weak to make the journey to Mogadishu, she said.
Drought comes and goes in the Horn of Africa, but this is one like no other. Humanitarian assistance has been sapped by global crises like the COVID-19 pandemic and now Russia’s war in Ukraine. Prices for staples like wheat and cooking oil are rising quickly, in some places by more than 100%. Millions of the livestock that provide families with milk, meat and wealth have died. Even the therapeutic food to treat hungry people like Salaad’s son is becoming more expensive and, in some places, might run out. And for the first time, a fifth straight rainy season might fail. An “explosion of child deaths” is coming to the Horn of Africa if the world focuses only on the war in Ukraine and doesn’t act now, UNICEF said Tuesday.
Famine even threatens Somalia’s capital as displacement camps on Mogadishu’s outskirts swell with exhausted new arrivals. Salaad and her son were turned away from a crowded hospital after arriving a week ago.
They were sent instead to the treatment center for the extremely malnourished where rooms are full, extra beds have been put out and yet some people must sleep on the floor. Mothers wince, and babies wail, as tiny bodies with sores and protruding ribs are gently checked for signs of recovery.
“The center is overwhelmed,” said Dr. Mustaf Yusuf, a physician there. Admissions more than doubled in May to 122 patients.
At least 30 people have died this year through April at the center and six other facilities run by Action Against Hunger, the humanitarian group said. It is seeing the highest admission rates to its hunger treatment centers since it began working in Somalia in 1992, with the number of severely malnourished children up 55% from last year.
More broadly, at least 448 people died this year at outpatient and in-patient malnutrition treatment centers across Somalia through April, according to data compiled by humanitarian groups and local authorities.
Aid workers warn the data is incomplete and the overall death toll from the drought remains elusive.
“We know from experience that mortality rises suddenly when all the conditions are in place — displacement, disease outbreaks, malnutrition — all of which we are currently seeing in Somalia,” said Biram Ndiaye, UNICEF Somalia’s chief of nutrition.
Mortality surveys conducted in parts of Somalia in December and again in April and May by the U.N.’s Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit showed a “severe and rapid deterioration within a very short time frame.” Most alarming was the Bay region in the south, where adult mortality nearly tripled, child mortality more than doubled and the rate of the most severe malnutrition tripled.
Deaths and acute malnutrition have reached “atypically high levels” in much of southern and central Somalia, and admissions of acutely malnourished children under 5 have risen by over 40% compared to the same period last year, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network.
One notable complication in counting deaths is the extremist group al-Shabab, whose control over large parts of southern and central Somalia is a barrier to aid. Its harsh response to Somalia’s drought-driven famine from 2010-12 was a factor in more than a quarter-million deaths, half of them children.
Another factor was the international community’s slow response. “A drama without witnesses,” the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Somalia said at the time.
Now the alarms are sounding again.
More than 200,000 people in Somalia face “catastrophic hunger and starvation, a drastic increase from the 81,000 forecast in April,” a joint statement by U.N. agencies said Monday, noting that a humanitarian response plan for this year is just 18% funded.
Somalia isn’t alone. In Ethiopia’s drought-affected regions, the number of children treated for the most severe malnutrition — “a tip of the crisis” — jumped 27% in the first quarter of this year compared to last year, according to UNICEF. The increase was 71% in Kenya, where Doctors Without Borders reported at least 11 deaths in a single county’s malnutrition treatment program earlier this year.
At one of the overflowing displacement camps on the outskirts of Mogadishu, recent arrivals were anguished as they described watching family members die.
“I left some of my children behind to care for those suffering,” said Amina Abdi Hassan, who came from a village in southern Somalia with her malnourished baby. They’re still hungry as aid runs dry, even in the capital.
“Many others are on the way,” she said.
Hawa Abdi Osman said she lost children to the drought. Emaciated, and weakened by another pregnancy, she walked five days to Mogadishu.
“We had to leave some of our relatives behind, and others perished as we watched,” said her cousin, Halima Ali Dhubow.
More people come to the camp every day, using the last wisps of energy to set up makeshift shelters in the dust, lashing together branches with fabric and plastic. Some walked up to 19 days to reach the capital, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.
“Last night alone 120 families came in,” camp manager Nadifa Hussein said. “We are giving them all the little supplies we have, like bread. The number of people is so overwhelming that helping them is beyond our capacity. In the past aid agencies helped, but now aid is very scarce.
“Only God can help them,” she said.
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Cara Anna reported from Nairobi, Kenya. Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
EVENT: For Lula - and the return of hope to Brazil
Elections take place in October and president Bolsonaro and his far-right allies are ramping up threats against Brazilian democracy. We're coming together for an online rally to show that the world is watching. Take part and build international support for Lula and the wide-movement of resistance fighting back against Bolsonaro. Please join us in showing solidarity on June 23rd.
WITH:
Julia Felmanas, Núcleo PT Londres
Aline Piva, Progressive International Latin America Coordinator
Rodrigo Toneto, PT Youth activist
Richard Burgon MP, Brazil Solidarity Initiative Chair
Jess Barnard, Young Labour Chair
Luke Daniels, Caribbean Labour Solidarity
PLUS: International guests and speakers from the Brazilian Workers Party (PT) & Lula's campaign TBA!
