Supporters of Palestinians in U.S. see little hope for peace progress with Biden's Middle East visit

Marc Ramirez, USA TODAY
Fri, July 15, 2022

As a Palestinian American herself born and raised in the U.S., Suher Adi has been long attuned to the history of her people and of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

She grew up to understand her heritage in ways separate from the negative images she saw on TV. Adi went on to major in Middle Eastern history and became involved in activism, including dozens of pro-Palestinian rallies held across the U.S. in May 2021 following the ceasefire agreed to by Israel and Hamas after another period of violence.

Those solidarity marches reflected a rise in American support for the cause, most keenly among younger Americans like Adi. But as President Joe Biden visits the West Bank on Friday — on Jumu'ah, the holy day of rest for Muslims — she and other advocates are pessimistic about the visit given what they see as the administration's failure to take any real action to curtail continued Israeli settlement expansions or the expulsions of Palestinians in the West Bank.

What Adi and her peers have seen, she said, is that U.S. policies favoring Israel remain consistent no matter which political party is in charge.

“That’s just a reality that our generation is keenly aware of,” said Adi, 26, of Washington, D.C.

A Gallup poll released early last year showed that while most Americans still side with Israel, a growing number of Americans are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. But last week's pronouncement by the U.S. State Department regarding the May 11 killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, shot in the head while covering an Israeli military raid in the region, has further deepened the rift.

Yellow tape marks bullet holes on a tree at a makeshift memorial where Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was fatally shot in the West Bank city of Jenin.

The U.S. State Department said in a statement issued on July 4 that while the gunfire that killed Abu Akleh had likely come from Israeli positions, there was “no reason to believe” that the shooting was intentional. Eyewitnesses, as well as members of Abu Akleh’s crew, say there were no Palestinian militants in the area and that Abu Akleh was wearing a blue vest marked “Press.”

United Nations human rights officials, on the other hand, alleged that Israeli forces were “behind” the fatal shooting, noting it was "deeply disturbing" that Israel had not conducted a criminal investigation.

“What does it say about the freedom of the press that we champion across the globe?" Adi said. "Unfortunately it makes it apparent that the Biden administration does not really care about those things. We’re in a place where a Palestinian-American journalist is being disregarded because of her status as a Palestinian.”

Gallup’s World Affairs poll, released in March 2021, showed that while most Americans still side with Israel, favorable views of Palestinians are on the rise. Gallup's annual World Affairs poll found that about 30% of overall respondents sympathized with the Palestinian Authority, up from 21% in 2018 and higher than the annual average of 19% since 2001.

The Palestinian independence movement in the U.S. gained support at the same time as the Black Lives Matter movement, a concurrence some said was not coincidental; both are rooted in similar anger, especially among the young, over a lack of accountability, police brutality and systemic racism.

The area encompassing Israel and the Palestinian territories is home to a combined 13 million people. Israel exercises control over the West Bank and East Jerusalem. While Israel formally pulled out of Gaza in 2005, it still controls the Strip's northern borders as well as territorial waters and airspace. Several human rights organizations characterize the discrimination and subjugation experienced by some Palestinians as tantamount to apartheid and persecution.

May 20, 2022: Palestinians take cover behind a makeshift barrier during clashes with Israeli forces following a demonstration against the expropriation of Palestinian land by Israel in the village of Kfar Qaddum near the Jewish settlement of Kedumim in the occupied West Bank.

The comparison is what spurred Ethan Nichols, a 20-year-old sophomore at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, to take an interest in the Palestinian cause and participate in last year's Palestinian rights protests.

"I learned about apartheid in South Africa while growing up," Nichols said via email, "and making that comparison really helped me to understand the oppression facing Palestinian people."

"This is a basic human rights issue, and the Biden administration must take it more seriously," Nichols said. "... We can't pick and choose which nations we condemn human rights abuses in."
Journalist's killing further complicates troubled relations

Others who have long advocated for or studied the issue say they're pessimistic about the president's visit as well, particularly with the fatal shooting of Abu Akleh, whose family, along with the Palestinian Authority, have accused Israeli forces of deliberately targeting the well-known veteran journalist.

“I don’t think there’s any commitment on the part of the U.S. to do anything to move the ball forward,” said Jim Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, a community advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.

The State Department’s declaration regarding the killing, Zogby said, “was almost an ingenious exercise on obfuscation…. The goal remains how not to infuriate Israel, and not at all to provide Palestinian justice. Snipers don’t shoot from hundreds of yards away and hit somebody in the head and have it be an ‘Oops.’ It’s playing us for fools.”

Israeli authorities project an image of the Israeli and U.S. flags on the walls of Jerusalem's Old City in honor of July Fourth. President Joe Biden is set to visit Israel and the West Bank as part of a broader trip to the Middle East.

Louise Cainkar, a professor of social welfare and justice at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wis., said Palestinians see Abu Akleh’s killing in the same way that many Americans have viewed the killings of innocent Black Americans by police in the U.S.

“Just like the policing of Arab and Muslim communities in the U.S., Palestinians are oppressed under the pretext of terrorism,” Cainkar said. “But what’s really going on is expansion, just as indigenous people were treated here in the U.S. Do I think Biden will do anything to change this scenario? No.”

Zogby said that for Biden to visit the West Bank without any real pushback against Israeli actions "speaks volumes, that we don't care anything about the lives of Palestinians.... The priority of this administration from the beginning has been not to do anything to disrupt Israeli politics,"
Biden's West Bank visit 'more of a courtesy call'

To alter that perception, Biden must signal to Israeli leaders that the U.S. “will not support policies that only seek to further entrench the occupation and violations against human rights,” said Rev. Mae Elise Cannon, executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace, a coalition of Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant churches working toward Middle East peace.

“Right now, over 1,000 Palestinians in Masafer Yatta are under imminent threat of expulsion,” Cannon said, referring to a smattering of villages south of Hebron, in the southern West Bank. And while Israel has postponed a decision over whether to allow 3,000 new settlements to be built in a contested area that critics say would further divide East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, the issue, she said, “remains a core concern” for her group, based in Washington, D.C.

Biden is expected to announce more than $316 million in aid for various programs to benefit the Palestinian people.

United Kingdom Ambassador to the United Nations Matthew Rycroft and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley attend a Security Council meeting concerning the situation in the Middle East involving Israel and Palestinian territories, at United Nations headquarters, Dec. 18 in New York City.

Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, also in Washington, D.C., described Biden's visit as “more of a courtesy call than anything else.”

Israel's continuing encroachment in the West Bank is, he said, “a big issue that not only relates to the viability of a future Palestinian state, but from a human and humanitarian point of view these are places that Israel is attempting to demographically re-engineer,” Elgindy said. “If there were a real political process, I would expect to see more pushback by the administration on those kinds of measures.”

In addition, he said, guidelines put in place under former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo remain that allow products made in the Israeli-settled areas of the West Bank to be labeled as “Made in Israel.”

“That’s not in keeping with international law and what the Biden administration says, so I’m not sure why that’s still on the books,” Elgindy said. “It’s clear that they want to expend as little political capital as possible.”

Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa (C), accompanied by Latin and Greek clergymen, is given a tour in the Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, the site of regular protests against the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in favor of Jewish settlers on July 28, 2021.

Though the Trump administration’s hostility toward the Palestinians has dissipated under Biden, he said, there’s just so much on Biden’s plate – the war in Ukraine, fuel prices and global food shortages – that pushing for Palestinian independence “is just not really a priority,” he said. “And frankly it wasn’t a priority before the Ukraine crisis, so it’s even further down the list now.”

Yonatan Gher, Israeli executive director for Combatants for Peace, a Palestinian-Israeli grassroots activist group, said his sense is that the U.S. had been taking a wait-and-see approach with fresh Israeli leadership after the departure of former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, giving the new government time to stabilize.

Instead, with that government mired in turmoil and policies toward the Palestinian territories little changed, “I think they’re now realizing that might not be the best approach,” Gher said. “Hopefully this visit will be one that looks to set boundaries and be more forceful in communicating American policy. This region very much needs it.”
Some see room for progress

On Friday, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., released a statement calling on Biden to obtain the names of the soldiers responsible for Abu Akleh’s death, as well as their commanding officer, for prosecution by the U.S. Department of Justice.

“When an American citizen is murdered abroad, it is typically standard procedure for the U.S. to open a criminal investigation,” Tlaib wrote. “But in this case, the State Department and the Biden Administration have yet to launch an independent U.S. investigation.”

Tlaib is among the cosponsors of a legislative effort led by Rep. Andre Carson, D-Indiana, seeking to compel Biden to direct the FBI and State Department to conduct an independent probe into the killing.

Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., is leading a legislative effort to compel the Biden administration to direct the FBI and State Department to conduct an independent probe into the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

The killing, Carson told USA Today, “was not only a tragedy; it was an affront to a free press, journalists around the world and to all Americans.”

Nonetheless, he said he remains hopeful about the president’s visit.

“I believe there’s room for progress,” Carson said – especially, he added, in terms of urging Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiation table.

“This continues to be inherited from president to president and it has gone on for far too long,” Carson said. “… We must make it clear that violence, illegal settlements, military occupation and blockades are not steps toward peace.”

Gher, of Combatants for Peace, said he hopes that Biden’s visit, the U.S. can begin to signal “that enough is enough. As former President Obama said, ‘Friends need to speak hard truths to each other.’ I look forward to hearing some of those hard truths.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden Middle East visit: Palestinian supporters not hopeful for change

U.S. is planning to build new embassy in Jerusalem. Palestinian families say the area is stolen land.


Tovah Lazaroff and Lawahez Jabari and Abigail Williams
Sat, July 16, 2022 

JERUSALEM — Thistles and brown grass blanket a patch of earth in a modern Jerusalem neighborhood likely slated to be part of a new U.S. Embassy.

But according to Houston pathologist Dr. Hasan Khalidi, Israel has no right to grant the American government permission to build there. That’s because he believes the 7.5-acre the plot belongs to other Palestinian families like his own.

“I consider this as stolen land, confiscated land,” said Khalidi, 61, who was born in Amman, Jordan, but says his family roots in Jerusalem date back a thousand years.

“We visited Jerusalem at least three or four times a year, we would always go and explore the city and he used to tell me, ‘This is Khalidi land,’” he said, referring to his father, Ragheb.

The issue here is more than a simple property dispute and instead touches on one of the most sensitive flashpoints of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — the city of Jerusalem. The Khalidis and other Palestinian families’ claim also provides an insight to the convictions and the sense of loss that underpin many Palestinians’ relations with Israel overall.

Khalidi’s trip to the plot with his children — Muna, 20, Ragheb, 18, Lynn, 15 — came during President Joe Biden’s trip to the Middle East this week, where the president has so far been greeted warmly by Israeli leaders and less warmly by Palestinian leaders. On Friday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sat down with Biden for one hour during a half-day visit to Bethlehem.

Muna, a student at New York University, said she finds Biden’s indifference to Palestinians’ land claims “infuriating.”

“I voted for Biden and I was having some high hopes there may be some changes,” she said. “It is disappointing to see that as Palestinians, we have lost so much over the past 70-plus years.”

Hasan Khalidi stands on the plot with his children Muna, Lynne and Ragheb. (Kobi Wolf for NBC News)

But the Khalidis’ claims to the land received a boost during their visit when Adalah, an Israeli-based Arab rights nongovernmental organization, published new information from Israeli state archives.

The photograph of a yellowed typed lease agreement Adalah posted on its website and dated, showed signatures of members of at least five Palestinian families —Habib, Qleibo, El Khalidi, Razzaq and El-Khalili — with the British government, which at the time controlled the area then known as Mandatory Palestine.

While NBC News was not able to confirm the authenticity of the agreement, the Khalidi family had already publicly spoken about its connection to the land for decades and no one has to date contested that part of the Adalah release.

In the aftermath of that find, Khalidi family members have renewed their calls on the U.S. government, including Biden, not to build the U.S. Embassy on the land confiscated in 1950, two years after the state of Israel was created.

“There are over a dozen families that own it,” said prominent U.S. academic Rashid Khalidi, a cousin of Khalidi, who is the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University.

“It’s indecent for the United States to be building on illegally appropriated property of U.S. citizens,” he said.

Khalidi family members have renewed calls on the U.S. government not to build the U.S. Embassy on the land confiscated in 1950, two years after the state of Israel was created. (Kobi Wolf for NBC News)

The embassy lot is among many Palestinian properties seized by the Jewish state under its absentee property laws after the 1948 Israeli-Arab War. Some 750,000 Palestinians were displaced or fled as a result of the war.

Israel has held Jerusalem to be its capital since its creation in the aftermath of the war that gave it sovereignty over the western part of the city. It annexed the eastern part of the city after it captured that territory from Jordan during the Six-Day war in 1967.

Most of the international community, however, has preferred to withhold recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital until such time as there is a two-state solution to the conflict, that would include a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem and an Israeli one in the western part of the city. A portion of the international community has questioned Israel’s right to any part of Jerusalem, pending resolution of the conflict.

Then-President Donald Trump bucked international consensus in 2017 when he declared U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocated the embassy from Tel Aviv in 2018 to an already existing American facility in Jerusalem’s Arnona neighborhood.

Ivanka Trump,Steve Mnuchin (Sebastian Scheiner / AP)

The Trump administration then sought to expand that facility in what could be a $700 million project that would also include the 7.5-acre lot off of Hebron Road in Jerusalem that had belonged to the Palestinian families before 1948.

“It was previously the place where the British had their military headquarters called the Allenby Barracks,” Rashid said.

According to publicly available records in Israel, the U.S. plan is undergoing the permitting process through the Israeli Interior Ministry.

In Washington, D.C. the Department of State, however, did not confirm its intention to place an embassy-related compound on Hebron Road, explaining that it was now “engaged in a process that will culminate in [the] construction of a new embassy in Jerusalem.

“The site of that new embassy has not yet been confirmed. The process to confirm the site will involve coordination with Jerusalem and Israeli national authorities, as well as design and construction,” a State Department spokesperson said.

“Given that we are still involved in that process, at this point, we have no more details to share,” the spokesperson added.

While the State Department did not directly address the property claims by the Palestinian families, it said it conducts “thorough due diligence as part of our standard operating procure on all prospective sites for the U.S. facilities.”

But Khalidi and Rashid said that Palestinian claims to the land were well-known for decades, including by the U.S.

Hasan pointed to a study by Walid Khalidi, his uncle, published in the Journal of Palestine Studies in 2000 that spoke of a U.S. lease to the site dating back to 1989. It included efforts by the administration of then-President Bill Clinton to promote that plot, particularly after the passage of Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, which mandated that the United States move its embassy to Jerusalem, a step that was delayed through presidential waivers every six months until Trump’s time.

The Palestinian families even sent a letter decades ago to then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright detailing their claim.

Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum said that the Palestinian claim was an “old one” dismissed years ago by the U.S.

“In the last 150 years, Jerusalem has been under the Ottoman rule, a British mandate, a partial Jordanian rule and Israeli sovereignty,” she said.

Hasan Khalidi at the proposed site of a new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem on Thursday. 

(Kobi Wolf for NBC News)

“These claims are based on denying the validity of Israeli law. The American government’s relationship with Israel is based on the acknowledgment of the validity of our legal system,” Hassan-Nahoum added. “We are not concerned that something planned as a publicity stunt around Biden’s visit will derail our special relationship.”

While Israeli and American officials view the issue as concluded, for Palestinian families the story is not over.

Adalah said it was weighing possible legal options.

While Khalidi would really like the family to get the land back, or at least for the U.S. government to lease it from them, he acknowledges that is unlikely.

“We cannot do much,” he said. But, at the very least, “we are here showing our opposition to this project and documenting our refusal.”

Khalidi added: “At least you are hearing our voice and hopefully, someone will listen. Most likely no one.”

ZOONOSIS
In China's Wuhan, cholera-causing bacteria in turtles strikes nerve


 Buildings are seen at sunset, almost a year after the global outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Wuhan

Thu, July 14, 2022 

BEIJING (Reuters) -Detection in the Chinese city of Wuhan of a bacteria that caused cholera in a student and was separately found in samples from softshell turtles at a food market has struck a sensitive nerve with ordinary Chinese people, with some relating it to COVID-19.

The food market where samples from softshell turtles tested positive of the pathogen capable of causing cholera has been disinfected, local authorities said late on Thursday.

While no human cholera case was found among people who came in contact with the softshell turtles, the specific store selling them was ordered to shut down for three days.

Authorities said that the vibrio cholerae O139 strain for the student's infection, announced on Monday, and the contaminated samples are unrelated.

Officials are also tracking unspecified products of the same batch as the softshell turtles that have been shipped elsewhere, said the disease control authority in Wuhan's Hongshan district.

Despite a lack of solid signs of a cholera outbreak, netizens worried about another disease outbreak still made this issue among the top trending topics on China's Twitter-like microblog Weibo on Friday, with 200 million reads.

The earliest COVID-19 infections in late 2019 were initially linked to a local market in Wuhan that also sold seafood and fish products. The origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 remains a mystery and a major source of tension between China and the United States.

"Take the lesson of COVID, and hurry up in source tracing to secure evidence!!!" wrote a weibo user.

Reports of cholera, an acute watery diarrhoea disease potentially fatal if left without prompt treatment and usually linked to contaminated food or water, are rare in mainland China, with five cases in 2021 and 11 in 2020 but no deaths.

"The detection of Vibrio cholerae O139 ... does again remind us that wet markets, while culturally and economically important in Asia, have associated with them various public health risks," said Andrew Greenhill, a microbiology professor at Federation University Australia.

At this point there is no major cause for concern while ongoing surveillance is important, Greenhill said, adding that O139 has been detected in various other countries and that large cholera outbreaks are unlikely in locations with safe drinking water and adequate sanitation.

"In fact to detect the strain demonstrates that surveillance is being conducted, which can only be seen as a positive."

Wuhan, with a population of more than 12 million, said on Monday the case of cholera in a local university student did not cause further infections.

Wuhan is yet to disclose sources of the bacteria for the student and the samples, or details on source tracing progress.

(Reporting by Roxanne Liu and Ryan Woo; Editing by Christopher Cushing)

UKRAINE

The restart of the Azot plant, which the occupiers are planning, may lead to a man-made disaster Haidai



Ukrainska Pravda
ALONA MAZURENKO — THURSDAY, 14 JULY 2022, 18:19

Serhii Haidai, Head of the Luhansk Oblast Military Administration, said that the Russian occupiers want to restart the Azot plant in Sievierodonetsk, but warned that this could lead to a man-made disaster, due to the destruction that the plant suffered.

Source: Haidai on Facebook

Quote: "The restart of Azot could lead to a man-made disaster. The occupiers are knowingly exposing the residents of Sievierodonetsk to danger, forcing them to go to work at the factory.

The other day, the Ruscists announced in their propaganda media their plans to resume the operation of the Azot plant in Sievierodonetsk.


Details: Group DF, which includes the plant, said that it is dangerous to resume the work of the plant due to significant damage to its territory and the lack of the requisite specialists to operate it.

In particular, as a result of shelling by the occupiers, both ammonia shops 1-A and 1-B, and nitric acid shops were damaged.

Almost the entire infrastructure of the enterprise was damaged - water supply and water treatment systems, the energy supply system, logistics and railway management (railway track, the warehouse, and intermediate nodes were damaged). Two methanol storage facilities were destroyed, and four urea ammonium nitrate (UAN) storage facilities were damaged.

The Azot plant’s power supply system has been completely destroyed.

The plant cannot receive electricity from the Luhansk Energy Association (supports and power transformers at the Lysychansk-110, Yuvileina, and Shchastia sites were damaged) or from the Kreminska 500 kilowatts substation (the station was broken).

According to Haidai, the destruction of the Azot sewage treatment system (water supply plant) caused significant damage to Sievierodonetsk, because before the war the company had treated 100% of the city's sewage.

The Russians are already looking for Azot workers in the occupied city and inviting them to work, telling tales that they will bring the chemical plant back to life.

However, according to the Head of the Oblast Military Administration, this is impossible.

Quote: "An attempt to start production in violation of basic safety rules can lead to casualties and a man-made disaster affecting the entire region. Large-scale destruction at the plant is not compatible with its safe operation."

Background:

Dmytro Firtash's Ostchem Holding company announced its loss of control over the "Azot" plant in Sievierodonetsk

Republicans Complain About Violent Crime, But They Don’t Want to Talk About The Cause

Nathalie Baptiste

Fri, July 15, 2022 

As violent crime rates in the U.S. have ticked upward in recent years, conservative politicians have blamed progressive policies and blue-state lawmakers for being “soft on crime.” What they have largely ignored, however, is that crimes involving guns account for a significant portion of this increase.

Between 2019 and 2020, murders rose 30%. In 2020, more than 19,000 people were killed by gun violence, a 35% increase from 2019. That year, guns were used in 8 in 10 homicides. In just the last three months, we’ve seen back-to-back high-profile shootings — at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York; an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas; and a family-friendly holiday parade in Highland Park, Illinois. 

Republicans often downplay mass shootings as rare events that are simply the price we have to pay for the right to bear arms. But even while they shrug their shoulders at these tragedies, they’re prone to whipping up panic about gun violence in liberal cities. 

After the shooting in Uvalde, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) brushed off calls for tighter gun control laws in his state by claiming Chicago was worse on any given weekend. “I hate to say this, but there are more people shot every weekend in Chicago than there are in schools in Texas,” he falsely claimed. 

It should be impossible to fearmonger about a crime wave without discussing the role guns play.

Instead, conservatives have continued to advocate for expanding gun rights, seemingly ignoring that murder rates tend to be higher in Republican-led states.

Murder rates are an average of 40% higher in the states Donald Trump won in 2020 than in the ones he lost, according to a study published this year by the centrist think tank Third Way. The researchers found that eight of the 10 states with the highest murder rates went to Trump in the last presidential election.

There’s evidence that high crime rates are linked to lax gun laws. For example, in 2007, Missouri repealed its permit-to-purchase law, a statute that required handgun purchasers to show a valid license that required a background check before a sale. After the repeal, Missourians didn’t need a background check to buy guns from sellers who weren’t registered with the federal government.

Where there are more guns, there are more homicides.Kelly Drane, research director at the Gabby Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence

Subsequent studies indicated that repealing the permit law was linked to an increase in gun violence statewide. In 2014, the Journal of Urban Health found that the end of the permit-to-purchase law was associated with a 25% increase in gun homicides in the state. Six years later, the American Journal of Public Health found that getting rid of the law had been associated with a 47% increase in such crimes. 

Conversely, in 2015, the American Journal of Public Health found that a 1995 permit-to-purchase law in Connecticut had contributed to a 40% drop in gun homicides.

“Where there are more guns, there are more homicides,” said Kelly Drane, the research director at the Gabby Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Despite this, GOP-led states are still pushing to expand gun rights. 

Last year, Tennessee passed a law allowing most adults to carry a gun without a permit. Texas passed a similar law months later. Last month, Ohio became the 23rd state to allow its residents to carry a gun without a permit.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against New York’s law requiring individuals to demonstrate a particular need in order to obtain a concealed carry permit — opening the door for states to further relax gun laws and for more people to seek concealed carry permits.  After the ruling, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) lowered the standards to obtain a license to carry a gun. 

“People are increasingly carrying guns wherever they go,” said Nick Wilson, the senior director for gun violence prevention at the Center for American Progress. “What would normally be a verbal confrontation or fist fight is now people pulling out their guns.”

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has continued to defend gun restrictions in the wake of a mass shooting at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school. (Photo: Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has continued to defend gun restrictions in the wake of a mass shooting at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school.  (Photo: Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Lax gun laws at the city or state level can affect the rest of the country, making it so that even people who live in areas with stricter laws have fewer hurdles to acquiring firearms. People can easily travel to an area that doesn’t require background checks, buy a gun and return home. 

“When we don’t regulate the legal gun market, it allows the black market to flourish,” Drane said. An astonishing number of guns used in crimes are moved across state lines beforehand.

Between 2010 and 2020, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reported that more than 600,000 guns used in crimes came from a different state than the one in which they were found. According to Everytown for Gun Safety, between 2016 and 2020, 75% of the guns recovered across state lines came from states that didn’t require background checks.

ATF also found that 81 percent of the guns recovered in New York in 2020 came from another state. In the guns used in crimes in Baltimore and Chicago, cities conservatives routinely malign, the majority traveled across state lines. 

“Guns will flow from state to state,” Wilson said. “Chicago can pass as many laws as it wants, but people can just cross over to Gary, Indiana.”

Less stringent gun laws have also coincided with record gun sales. In 2020, Americans purchased 23 million guns — and approximately 40% of those guns went to first-time gun buyers, who tend to be less experienced and have less training than people who already own firearms.

With the midterm elections just a few months away and the control of Congress in the balance, conservatives are sure to continue pushing the narrative that President Joe Biden or Democratic prosecutors are to blame for crime while conveniently omitting how much of that surge is due to their love affair with guns. 

Texas Official Admits Beloved Black Principal Was Fired for Being Against Racism

Brooke Leigh Howard
Thu, July 14, 2022 

Facebook/James Whitfield

A member of a school board in Texas has said the quiet part out loud, admitting that a beloved Black high school principal who shared his stance on racism in the wake of George Floyd’s death was pushed out of the job for being a “total activist.”

Dr. James Whitfield, who became Colleyville High School’s first Black principal in 2020, wrote a letter to the school community about police brutality after Floyd’s murder, which led to him being placed on administrative leave in July 2020.

“He is encouraging the disruption and destruction of our district,” former school board candidate Stetson Clark said during a board meeting at the time, the Texas Tribune reported.

In September 2021, the school district voted unanimously to not renew Whitfield’s contract, causing uproar among many parents, students, and teachers. His critics claimed the letter he wrote to the community about “education [being] the key to stomping out ignorance, hate, and systemic racism,” was equivalent to implementing Critical Race Theory in the school.

Tammy Nakamura may be new to the Grapevine-Colleyville school board but that didn’t stop her from weighing in on Whitfield’s controversial departure during a gathering of school board members last month hosted by the Republican National Committee.

On the event’s page, the RNC stated that the group was organizing the June 26 meeting ahead of upcoming local, state, and federal elections to discuss “issues parents have raised, and the success they have had in getting elected and making a difference, and how parents/students can get involved.”

Nakamura was listed as a “distinguished, elected trustee” who would speak at the meeting.

RuPaul Book Pulled From Library Shelves Over One Parent’s Fury

In a video of the event posted to the Colleyville Citizens for Accountability Facebook group on July 8, Nakamura is seen commenting on Whitfield’s departure. After alleging Whitfield brought national attention to the school district because he was married to a white woman, Nakamura said it was the principal’s supposedly woke agenda that led to his ouster.

“I went in last week and read the whole file,” she said during the meeting.

“That’s the straw that broke the camel’s back… that got him fired,” Nakamura said, referring to the letter Whitfield sent to parents about targeting racism and hate, which she claimed showed an activist agenda. “There is absolute proof [of] what he was trying to do,” she said.

Though Nakamura didn’t elaborate on the contents of Whitfield’s letter, she was adamant that she had a list of other educators in the school system with similar motives.

“They have to be stopped now,” she added. “We cannot have teachers such as these in our schools because they’re just poison, and they’re taking our schools down.”

However, members of the Colleyville community pushed back, saying the novice school board member was attempting to fear-monger with “incoherent” and “misguided” claims for the sake of politics.

“First, Tammy Harris Nakamura, your story is incoherent so it’s hard to follow your misguided claims,” posted Amyn Gilani in the Colleyville Citizens for Accountability Facebook group.

“Second, Dr. James Whitfield was targeted because he addressed the murder of George Floyd and he made himself available to support all students who have questions and thoughts about inequality and injustice,” Gilani wrote. “James is an asset to our community, not poison.”

“Sounds like a 15th century attempt to prosecute an old world inquisition,” Karl Meek posted, questioning the board member’s motives in targeting educators with different political views. “What’s next, rounding up the ‘poisonous teachers’, shackling them and then sentencing them to an indeterminate incarceration in the ‘Towers of Colleyville’? What’s old must be new again?”

Another Colleyville resident called Nakamura’s suggestion of a list of “poisoned” teachers “an employment hit list.”

Oregon School’s Ridiculous Battle Over ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Ends With Book Ban

Others questioned why Nakamura even had access to go through educators’ files and whether it was a breach of privacy.

“Well tami, that is not what was read in open meeting by the HR director,” wrote Grapevine-Colleyville school district substitute teacher David Benedetto. “[By the way] .. why are you revealing confidential personnel matters?”

According to the Star-Telegram, Whitfield is on paid administrative leave until his resignation officially goes into effect in August 2023.

Neither Nakamura nor the Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District immediately returned requests for comment.

Bombshell alcohol study funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation finds only risks, zero benefits for young adults

Chloe Taylor
Fri, July 15, 2022 

People under the age of 40 start risking their health if they consume any more than two teaspoons of wine or two and a half tablespoons of beer per day, a new study suggests.

The analysis—part of the wider Global Burden of Disease study—was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and published in The Lancet medical journal on Thursday.

It found that for young adults between the ages of 15 and 39, there were zero health benefits—only risks—associated with drinking alcohol.

Globally, almost 60% of people who consumed unsafe amounts of alcohol in 2020 fell into this age bracket, according to the findings.

Researchers said that for people aged between 15 and 39, the recommended amount of alcohol that could be consumed before risking their health was “a little more than one-tenth of a standard drink.”

They defined a standard drink as 3.4 fluid ounces of red wine or 12 fluid ounces of beer.

By this definition, the study’s findings suggested that alcohol stops being “safe” to consume for under-40s after around two teaspoons of red wine or two and a half tablespoons of beer.

The Global Burden of Disease study is massive in scope. It has been ongoing since 1990 and uses data from 204 countries and territories, and is described in the Lancet as "the most comprehensive effort to date to understand the changing health challenges around the world."

But the young-adult side of this isn't the whole story.

'Benefits' of drinking alcohol

While the study warned that drinking only led to health risks for younger generations, the GBD research team found that for people over the age of 40 with no underlying health problems, consuming a small amount of alcohol each day could provide some health benefits.

These benefits included reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, and diabetes.

An example of “a small amount” of alcohol was between one and two 3.4-ounce glasses of red wine, the study’s authors said.

Globally, men were far more likely to drink harmful amounts of alcohol than women, the study found, with researchers stating that of the individuals who consumed harmful amounts of alcohol in 2020, 77% were male.

“Our message is simple: Young people should not drink, but older people may benefit from drinking small amounts,” Dr. Emmanuela Gakidou, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, said in a news release.

She acknowledged, however, that this “may not be realistic,” but added that it is important that people make informed decisions about the impact of alcohol on their health.

The study echoes findings from some earlier studies that have suggested there is no safe level of alcohol consumption.

Last year, an Oxford University study of more than 25,000 people found that there was “no safe dose of alcohol” when it came to brain health.

Meanwhile, an Irish study published in May concluded that alcohol may pose greater risks to the heart than previously thought, with one of the authors urging people to limit their weekly consumption to less than a bottle of wine or three and a half cans of beer.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Why Men as Young as 23 Are Choosing Vasectomies in Post-Roe America

KIND OF EXTREME FOR AVOIDING USING CONDOMS

Sri Taylor
Thu, July 14, 2022 

(Bloomberg) -- Connor Speed never imagined he would be asking for a vasectomy at the age of 23, but after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, he decided to take the plunge.

He’s frustrated by what he sees as a loss of rights for the women in his life; he also wants to avoid unwanted pregnancies.

“Unfortunately my fiancee and my daughter now don’t have the right to choose what they want to do with their body, and I do, so I made this choice,” said Speed, who scheduled the procedure in his home state of Missouri five days after the ruling. By the time he undergoes the planned procedure in October, he’ll have turned 24.

The high court’s reversal of the 1973 landmark decision protecting the federal right to abortion has sent shock waves through the medical, legal and advocacy communities. Under pressure to respond, the White House said President Joe Biden signed an executive order Friday intended to preserve access to the procedure.

Meanwhile, couples have been forced to reconsider how they’ll safeguard against unwanted pregnancies. Speed is among hundreds of men rushing to book sterilization procedures after the June 24 ruling.

70 Calls

In Ohio, where abortions are now prohibited after six weeks into pregnancy, the Cleveland Clinic went from lining up three or four vasectomies a day to 90 in the week following the Supreme Court decision. Des Moines, Iowa, urologist Esgar Guarín said he typically performs 40 to 50 vasectomies a month; last weekend alone 20 men registered. Koushik Shaw of the Austin Urology Institute in Texas said his office received about 70 calls within the hour of the ruling.

Many men who had been considering a vasectomy say the verdict was the last straw, according to Tampa, Florida, urologist Doug Stein. Weekly requests for the procedure at his practice have nearly tripled to about 150.

“They want to remain pregnancy-free, because now you cannot reverse a pregnancy as easily as you could before,” he said.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which provides vasectomies in some of its clinics, said web traffic on a page explaining how to receive a sterilization procedure increased over 2,200% in the days following the judgment. Traffic to an article on how to get a vasectomy spiked more than 1,500%.

“Many people are rightfully concerned about their rights and access to sexual and reproductive health care — including, but not limited to, abortion,” said Diana Contreras, Planned Parenthood’s chief health care officer.

In a vasectomy, doctors sever the tubes that carry sperm, preventing it from mixing with semen. Dependence on it is not uncommon: In a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey published in 2020, 5.6% of women cited vasectomy as their contraceptive approach, compared with 14% using birth control pills.

While vasectomies are often reversible, success rates range from 30% to 90%. Most women’s tubal ligation procedures, another surgical form of pregnancy prevention, can’t be reversed and are far more dangerous than male sterilization.

No Regrets

“Every single year in this country alone, 25 to 30 women die from getting their tubes tied,” said Marc Goldstein, a Weill Cornell Medicine urologist. In contrast, research published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1992 found that, among men who were cancer-free at the start of the study, vasectomy “was associated with reductions in mortality from all causes.”

Goldstein said he’s seen an unusual increase among vasectomies in men who are younger and in childless couples since the ruling. That may also reflect a link between vasectomies and financial dread that’s been noted in periods such as the Great Recession of 2007-2009, when procedures spiked while reversals dropped, he said. US consumer confidence has fallen to its lowest point since July 2020, according to the Ipsos-Forbes Advisor US Consumer Confidence Tracker.

“Whenever we see a downturn in the economy, more people think about having less children,” said Philip Werthman, a urologist at the Center for Male Reproductive Medicine & Vasectomy Reversal in Los Angeles. Whether those trends last remains to be seen.

“My initial response is that part of this is reactionary,” said Stein, the Tampa urologist. Future legislation and court activity will likely play an important role, he said.

While contraception itself is currently unaffected by the court’s June decision, Justice Clarence Thomas suggested the group reconsider that issue, among many other rights-based questions. As those uncertainties mount, Speed said his choice to get a vasectomy has eased a lot of his anxieties about family planning.

“I don’t regret my decision,” he said. “I am eager for it, I’m excited, and hopefully it’s not just a decision made in vain.”

Australian woman who was detained and asked by a US border official if she had an abortion says she's shocked by the response: 'a lot of people who've read this story are most horrified at that and I can see why'
Isabella Zavarise
Sat, July 16, 2022

A US border officer asked Madolline Gourley if she had recently had an abortion.Madolline Gourley

Madolline Gourley was traveling form Australia to Canada when she was detained in Los Angeles.

Gourley planned to house-sit in exchange for accommodations but border officials didn't believe her.

Most of the comments she's received about how she was treated have been positive and empathetic.

After being detained and asked whether she had an abortion by a US border official, Madolline Gourley told Insider she's shocked by the response she's received to her story going viral.

The 32-year-old was traveling from Brisbane, Australia, to Canada where she planned to house- and cat-sit in exchange for accommodations. After landing in Los Angeles, Gourley was detained by American border officials who didn't believe her story and questioned her for three hours.

During that time, a US border officer asked her repeatedly whether she was pregnant, and if she recently had an abortion. Gourley said no, but told Insider she thought about what the response would have been if she had said yes, and whether that would have gotten her deported quicker.

"I think a lot of people who've read this story are most horrified at that and I can see why, because of everything going on over there," she said.

Last month, the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a landmark decision that recognized a person's right to an abortion.

Gourley was eventually deported for breaching the conditions of a visa-waiver program. She said other house-sitters have reached out to her with similar stories of having issues while traveling on this visa. Gourley said The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Australia was supposed to provide her with the proper paperwork to support her trip, but she never received it.

While she said some people think she's lying about being asked about having an abortion, most of the comments she's received have been positive and empathetic.

"People just really feel sorry for the questioning and treatment I got while being held in detention," she told Insider. "I feel it was out of line for the officer to ask the pregnancy question again, and the abortion question."

Gourley said her treatment from the US border official won't deter her from traveling to the US, but said if she had never visited the country before and this was her first experience, she'd be mortified.

"For people that are coming to the United States for a holiday or a vacation, and that's the first person they're interacting with on US soil ... it doesn't make you wanna go to the United States," she said.

Gourley has tried contacting US Customs and Border Protection about the incident but said she hasn't heard back.

US Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Gourley has previously freelanced for Business Insider.

Images from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope remind us, yet again, how improbable it is that we're alone in the universe

Paola Rosa-Aquino,Morgan McFall-Johnsen

Sat, July 16, 2022 

The James Webb Space Telescope's first deep field infrared image, released on July 11, 2022.NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

• NASA unveiled the deepest, sharpest infrared image of the distant universe ever captured on Tuesday.

• Various estimates suggest Earth-like planets that could harbor life are abundant in the universe.

• The James Webb Space Telescope's instruments capture distant galaxies, stars, and worlds in unprecedented detail.

It's easy to lose yourself in the James Webb Space Telescope's first image. Snail-spiral galaxies, gleaming stars, and minuscule red dots surely represent billions of unknown worlds.

"The deep field image fills me with wonder and hope," Lisa Kaltenegger, professor of astronomy at Cornell University and director of the Carl Sagan Institute, told Insider.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope in the clean room at Northrop Grumman, Redondo Beach, California, in July 2020.NASA/Chris Gunn

Webb's image of the distant universe covers an area of the sky that you can blot out by holding a grain of sand at arm's length. Still, it contains thousands of galaxies, according to Kaltenegger, along with the possibility of billions of Earth-like planets. So far, the hunt for signs of life beyond Earth has turned up empty.

But astronomers say there are likely an abundance of places where life might thrive. Looking at Webb's pictures, it's hard to believe otherwise.

An abundance of distant worlds

An illustration of what it might look like on the surface of TRAPPIST-1f, a rocky planet 39 light-years away from Earth.NASA/JPL-Caltech

There are up to 400 billion stars teeming with planets in the Milky Way alone. We don't know for sure, but scientists have tried to calculate how many Earth-like planets are orbiting all those stars. Their estimates range from 300 million to 10 billion potentially habitable worlds.

Outside that, there are about 100 billion to 200 billion galaxies in the universe, each one home to 100 million stars, on average, and at least that number of planets.

Astronomers have already captured direct evidence of 5,000 planets beyond our solar system, according to NASA's Exoplanet Archive. Hundreds of these worlds sit in the "Goldilocks Zone," the orbital range around a star where the temperature is just right — not too hot and not too cold — for liquid water to exist on the planet.

Observations by NASA's Kepler mission suggest that one out of every five stars has a planet orbiting it within this just-right distance, according to Kaltenegger. "I like our chances of finding other Earth-like planets, and hopefully other Earth-like planets that also host life," Kaltenegger said.

The "Goldilocks Zone" around a star is where a planet is neither too hot, nor too cold, to support liquid water.NASA

The possibilities for life aren't limited to planets. Some ocean moons within our solar system are leading candidates for alien life. There's Jupiter's icy moon Europa, and Saturn's moon Enceladus, which have oceans of liquid water deep beneath their ice crusts. Astronomers think there's a chance life could thrive there. Surely, there are other Europas and Enceladuses in other star systems.

Still, despite the myriad galaxies and worlds already imaged and studied, astronomers are unsure about the odds of life arising elsewhere.

"We don't know how easy or hard it is to make life — that is why the search is so exciting," Kaltenegger said, adding, "Right now, I'd say the chances are between zero and 100%, but I am hopeful it won't be zero."

Looking for life as we know it

An artist's concept illustrates the idea that rocky, terrestrial worlds like the inner planets in our solar system may be plentiful and diverse in the universe.NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC-Caltech)

To understand whether exoplanets, or planets around other stars, have the conditions to host life, researchers measure the chemical makeup of their atmospheres. They do this by looking at how starlight gets filtered by the atmosphere, which dips at very specific wavelengths that correspond to different molecules.

Astronomers typically look for the ingredients that sustain earthly life — liquid water, a continuous source of energy, carbon, and other elements — when hunting for life in distant worlds. For instance, detecting methane in an exoplanet's atmosphere could be an indication of biology. According to Kaltenegger, these building blocks of life appear to be abundant in our solar system and the universe.

What's more, a potential alien astronomer looking for life beyond their planet might pick up on signs of life from Earth in a similar way. In 2021, Kaltenegger co-authored a study that found that more than 2,000 stars, some with their own planets, have a front-row seat to look toward the Earth as it passes around our sun. "That's just within 300 light-years, in our cosmic front yard, in terms of distance," Kaltenegger said.

One limitation in scouring the cosmos for alien life is that scientists' definition of what a life-supporting planet might look like is based on what we know about life on Earth. But by discovering and studying new worlds, astronomers can hone in on what makes a world habitable beyond a sample size of one — Earth.

Leveraging Webb's power to study other worlds

The James Webb Space Telescope drifts away from the rocket's last stage, on December 25, 2021.NASA TV

Since the first world outside our solar system was confirmed in 1995, astronomers have searched for other planets orbiting sun-like stars. Because these worlds are so far away, space-based telescopes like the Hubble Space Telescope have dramatically enhanced their planet-hunting capabilities, and the James Webb Space Telescope makes more such discoveries almost inevitable.

Webb will allow for unprecedented views into these distant planets. "With the James Webb Space Telescope, we can explore the chemical makeup of the atmosphere of other worlds — and if there are signs in it that we can only explain by life," Kaltenegger said.

There are 70 planets scheduled for study in Webb's first year alone. Already, Webb captured the signature of water, along with previously undetected evidence of clouds and haze, in the atmosphere of WASP-96 b — a giant and hot gas planet that orbits a distant star like our sun.

The James Webb Space Telescope observed the spectra of WASP-96 b, revealing its atmosphere has water, clouds, and haze.NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

"While the Hubble Space Telescope has analyzed numerous exoplanet atmospheres over the past two decades, capturing the first clear detection of water in 2013, Webb's immediate and more detailed observation marks a giant leap forward in the quest to characterize potentially habitable planets beyond Earth," NASA said.

Kaltenegger is part of a team that will dedicate 200 hours of Webb's telescope time in its first year to study faraway places, including worlds circling Trappist-1 — a cool, dim star 40 light-years from Earth.

"It is an amazing time in our exploration of the cosmos," Kaltenegger said, adding, "Are we alone? This amazing space telescope is the first-ever tool that collects enough light for us to start figuring this fundamental question out."