Clues about the northeast’s past and future climate from plant fossils

The warmer, wetter, and homogenous climate of the past may soon return for the eastern seaboard.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT

Ancient climates can help us understand the past, but also the future. 23 million years ago, in a time called the Miocene Epoch, Connecticut was around five to six degrees warmer than today and located roughly where Long Island is now. By the end of the Miocene, around five million years ago the earth had gradually cooled, Antarctica was glaciated, and there was some Arctic ice as well.

This cooling scenario moved in the opposite direction of today’s changing climate. One difference UConn Department of Earth Sciences Assistant Professor in Residence Tammo Reichgelt points out is that in the past, these changes happened gradually, spaced out over 18 million years rather than over just a few hundred years like with the current pace of global warming. The Miocene may still give us insight into what is in store for us in a warmer future.

Reichgelt leads a team of researchers including Department of Earth Sciences Assistant Professor Ran Feng, Aly Baumgartner from Fort Hays State University, and Debra A. Willard from the US Geological Survey who are working to understand the details of the climate for this ancient time for the eastern portion of the United States, which unfortunately is a blank spot on paleo-climate maps, says Reichgelt. These gaps are due to fewer fossil-rich areas in the east, likely due to a combination of glacial erosion and a lack of sedimentary basins where materials could be deposited. They published their most recent findings in Global and Planetary Change.

Faced with the challenge of the rarity of fossils for the region, Reichgelt and his co-authors pulled together as much fossil information as they could from sites along the east coast, from plant macrofossils including the remains of leaves, fruits, and flowers along with microfossils, such as pollen and spores.

“We have a scattering of different fossil localities all along the eastern seaboard, from Louisiana to Vermont, but nothing continuous,” says Reichgelt. “It immediately creates an already checkered picture, but it doesn't necessarily mean there's nothing interesting going on, it just makes it harder to interpret.”

A plant’s characteristics reflect the climate it grew in; therefore, plants are a powerful proxy to decipher what climatic conditions were like. As a paleobotanist, Reichgelt uses these clues from fossilized plants to reconstruct the details of ancient climates.

With the fossil data, the researchers pieced together the paleoclimate by looking at the modern-day plant distribution of the nearest living relatives to fossils found at each site. This information allowed the researchers to create the best overlapping range of where the plants could grow in today’s conditions.

“In some of these localities, there were tropical elements, such as pollen of the sapodilla family (Sapotaceae) in Massachusetts. It is much too cold for those types of plants at those locations today, which suggests that it was quite a bit warmer. We quantified it and created a best-fit envelope of what the climate was like, and it gives us ranges with an uncertainty of about two degrees.”

Reichgelt explains that the picture the data revealed is quite unexpected. They divided the data into two different time intervals, the warmer early to middle Miocene, and the late Miocene when it was cooling and getting closer to current climatic conditions.

Interestingly, there was very little temperature difference between the fossil flora from Vermont and those from Florida, says Reichgelt during the earlier time interval. In this globally warmer climate of the early Miocene, the eastern seaboard seems to have had a generally homogenous climate, with warmer and wetter conditions for the northeast and conditions that appear to be not unlike those of the southeast today.

Reichgelt says the data also indicate a pronounced difference in rainfall seasonality across the whole area, more so than what we see now.

Feng modeled climatic conditions for the Miocene and the team compared the models to the palaeobotanical reconstruction. The reconstructed climate data was consistent with models in terms of rainfall, however, modeled temperatures were higher than what is indicated by the fossil data.

“The question arises, could there be something that's influencing the plant reconstructions? Or could there be something influencing the model reconstructions? Long story short, heat transport systems such as ocean currents or storm systems along the eastern seaboard could transport water and heat from the low latitudes toward the high latitudes, in a much more efficient way than today. Since we only have evidence from land, it's very speculative,” says Reichgelt.

Modeling is an iterative process and mismatches between the models and the proxy data sometimes occur, but Feng and Reichgelt are part of a community effort to investigate the skill of models in simulating Miocene climate and the causes for the discrepancies between models and geological data. Reichgelt says the information here will most certainly be incorporated into validating and improving the models.

Reichgelt compared the findings to modern climate change scenarios which project an increase in rainfall seasonality as we proceed through the 21st century, where the northeast is expected to have increases in drought risk, increases in annual precipitation, and increases in extreme precipitation events, consistent with the results in the paper.

As the climate continues to change, the paleoclimate reconstruction data suggest we could start to see a homogenizing of the climate along the eastern seaboard where the seasonality of temperature looks a lot like what you would see in the southeast, says Reichgelt, for instance where northern winters are much warmer and like southeastern winters.

The warm winter we are currently experiencing in the northeast is a typical feature of the early-middle Miocene and may become more frequent in the future, says Feng.

Reichgelt adds another interesting finding related to the types of vegetation they analyzed, which were anything but homogenous in such a homogenous climate.

“The vegetation was extremely checkered. We do know that it was consistently forested, just like it is today, but with all sorts of different forest types. The reason why that's important is that in the west and central part of the continent during the Miocene, there was a huge transition from forest to grasslands and that doesn't seem to happen in the east.”

Investigating why this is the case is something that Reichgelt hopes to dig into in future studies.

As for what we should glean from this study, Reichgelt says it was amazing to find so much overlap between the Miocene and observed and modeled predictions for the changing climate of the eastern United States.

“From the increased precipitation, the northward amplification of climate change effects, and the changes in seasonal rainfall, the warmer world of the Miocene seems to be a remarkably good analog for the future.”

---

JOURNAL

Global and Planetary Change

DOI

10.1016/j.gloplacha.2023.104073 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Poleward amplification, seasonal rainfall and forest heterogeneity in the Miocene of the eastern USA

NSA Sullivan: Biden ‘Wants to Put Every Tool at Use’ to Find COVID Origins

President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that President Joe Biden was committed to finding out the origin of the coronavirus.

Anchor Dana Bash said, “I want to ask about a new  Wall Street Journal report out this morning that a classified intelligence report from the department of energy concludes that the coronavirus pandemic most likely did not emerge naturally, but it did come from a laboratory leak. Did the coronavirus start in a lab? Is that what you believe now?”

Sullivan said, “Dana, there is a variety of views in the intelligence community. Some elements of the intelligence community have reached conclusions on one side, some on the other. A number of them have said they just don’t have enough information to be sure. Here’s what I can tell you. President Biden has directed, repeatedly, every element of our intelligence community to put effort and resources behind getting to the bottom of this question. And one of the things in that Wall Street Journal report, which I can’t confirm or deny, but I will say the reference to the Department of Energy, President Biden specifically requested that the national labs, which are part of the Department of Energy, be brought into this assessment, because he wants to put every tool at use to be able to figure out what happened here. And if we gain any further insight or information, we will share it with Congress, and we will share it with the American people. But right now, there is not a definitive answer that has emerged from the intelligence community on this question.”

Bash asks National Security Adviser about new report ... - CNN

1:19

CNN anchor Dana Bash asks National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan to comment on a report from The Wall Street Journal. According to the Wall ...

CNN · 1 hour ago

Documents show Black activist who became Dominican PM was target of RCMP

By Jim Bronskill  The Canadian Press

Posted February 26, 2023 

View image in full screen

The RCMP logo is seen outside Royal Canadian Mounted Police "E" Division Headquarters, in Surrey, B.C., on Friday April 13, 2018.

 THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

It has long been known that the RCMP Security Service took a keen interest in Roosevelt “Rosie” Douglas, a Black rights activist who attended school in Canada and would go on to be prime minister of Dominica.

But recently released records reveal just how far the Mounties would go in the early 1970s to keep an eye on the young visitor from the Caribbean.

Douglas, the son of a wealthy coconut grower in tiny Dominica, came to Ontario to study agriculture before moving on to Sir George Williams University in Montreal.

Initially a supporter of the federal Conservatives, he became an outspoken advocate for the advancement of Black people and forged ties with international movement leaders.

Though he was a master’s student at McGill University by early 1969, Douglas emerged as one of the leaders of a protest at Sir George Williams against alleged racism. As police moved to evict the student demonstrators from the university’s computer centre, a fire broke out and chaos ensued.

Douglas was among the dozens arrested and charged. He served 18 months in jail and was forced to leave Canada in 1976 after fighting to stay.

Douglas promoted the push for Dominica’s full independence from Britain and would lead the country as prime minister for a short time before his death in 2000 at age 58.

A commission of inquiry into questionable RCMP security activities publicly confirmed more than 40 years ago that Douglas was a target of Security Service surveillance while in Canada. The Mounties recruited an informant who infiltrated the Black activist community and became an associate of Douglas.

A special operations group at the Security Service developed a national program of disruptive countermeasures in the early 1970s to prevent or contain what the force saw as the potential for political violence by agitators of various stripes.

Specific targets of the program, which came to be known as Checkmate, were classified for many years. But records disclosed through the Access to Information Act reveal that one of these actions was aimed at eavesdropping on Douglas’s conversation with a fellow activist.

2:23Rallying for hurricane-damaged Dominica

The RCMP knew Douglas used his own car to travel short distances but unwittingly depended on one of the force’s informants to transport him on longer trips.

Douglas was heading to Toronto to meet an important contact visiting Canada from the Caribbean. The RCMP reasoned that if his car were immobilized, Douglas would need to travel in the informant’s vehicle with the visitor, allowing “us to monitor their discussions through technical means,” says an internal account of the Checkmate program, released under the access law.

“A chemical, harmless to the engine, was introduced to the gas tank of Douglas’ car for this purpose. The operation was unsuccessful due to the chemical’s malfunction.”

However, another effort saw the RCMP “conduct an operation to discredit Douglas as a leader within the Black community and factionalize an already shaky alliance of Black groups Douglas was attempting to bring under his control.”

The RCMP adopted the proactive Checkmate tactics out of concern that existing legal mechanisms were either reactive and therefore inappropriate to intelligence needs, or inadequate to deal with new security threats.

The RCMP archival records highlight concerns about the emergence in the 1960s of more radical elements of the New Left and the extreme right. They point to expanding membership in Communist, Trotskyist, Maoist and other political organizations, including the separatist FLQ in Quebec.

The Mounties were also worried about “Canadian extremists” making links with foreign groups such as the Irish Republican Army, Palestinian organizations, and the Black Panther Party and Weathermen in the U.S., “all with a bloodied record of politically motivated violence and assassination.”

In the early 1970s, such Canadian elements were not united under a single banner, the RCMP wrote. “Individually, their actions seemed to be manageable, but the prospects of a Common Front foretold alarming consequences for civil order.”

2:18Outside investigators to examine historical allegations of misconduct by former Prince George RCMP officers

It is one thing for authorities to take action against individuals who are directly advocating violence, but quite another to silence people who are simply espousing radical views on the basis they might take up weapons in the future, said Steve Hewitt, whose book “Spying 101” examined RCMP surveillance of university campuses.

“That strikes me as rather dangerous in a free society.”

Researcher Andrea Conte, who has also delved into police operations against activists during the period, doesn’t feel he has a complete picture of the RCMP activities with regard to Douglas. Conte points out that Douglas unsuccessfully appealed to appear at the inquiry into the RCMP in the late 1970s.

In a letter outlining why he should be allowed to testify, Douglas wrote he had been part of an open and democratic struggle against racial injustice that was attracting support from parliamentarians, churches and other prominent organizations.

“What did the RCMP fear in me _ a non-violent civil libertarian?”

Security Service tactics during the era included illegal break-ins, the theft of a Parti Quebecois membership list and the burning of a barn to prevent a meeting from taking place.

The RCMP’s deeds led to the disbandment of the Security Service and the 1984 creation of the civilian Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

Eight years ago, CSIS received authority to go beyond traditional intelligence gathering and engage in threat reduction measures against targets _ legalization of the kind of “dirty tricks” that got the RCMP in trouble.

In theory, there is more awareness of these techniques and restrictions in place today, but lingering tensions over allowing a domestic intelligence agency to carry out disruption operations, said Hewitt, a senior lecturer in American and Canadian studies at the University of Birmingham in England.

“There’s always the potential for it to be abused.”

Seattle Opera Puts Story of Afghan Women Center Stage

An opera based on the popular novel “A Thousand Splendid Suns," which is set in Afghanistan, is making its world debut in Seattle

By Associated Press
Feb. 25, 2023, at 9:05 a.m.

Maureen McKay, left, who portrays Laila, John Moore, who portrays Rasheed, and Karin Mushegain, who portrays Mariam, perform in a dress rehearsal for the opera "A Thousand Splendid Suns," in Seattle, on Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023. Making its world debut Saturday, Feb. 25, 2023, it is based on a popular novel by Kabul-born author Khaled Hosseini that explores the inner worlds of Mariam and Laila over decades of Afghan history, some with stark parallels to the present.

(AP Photo/Stephen Brashear)

As the Taliban once again assert control of Afghanistan and push women further out of public view, a female Afghan filmmaker is working thousands of miles away to help bring to life a wildly popular tale of two heroines living in her homeland, including under the group’s first reign.

The world premiere of Seattle Opera’s “A Thousand Splendid Suns” opens Saturday evening. It is based on a novel by Kabul-born author Khaled Hosseini that explores the inner worlds of Mariam and Laila over decades of Afghan history, some with stark parallels to the present.

The women, born nearly two decades apart, forge an unlikely bond as they share an abusive husband and navigate struggles facing them and their country. It’s a story of hardships, injustices and loss, but also of deep love, endurance and one big decision that, ultimately, alters both their lives and leads to the survival of only one.

It was supposed to be a story of a bygone era -- until the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 dramatically changed that.

For the opera’s stage director, Roya Sadat, who lived under Taliban's first rule and made a professional name for herself after the group’s 2001 ouster, that reversal is deeply personal.

Born in the city of Herat, she happened to be in America when she learned that her birthplace had fallen to the Taliban in 2021. Just like other historic events in Afghanistan colored Mariam’s and Laila’s lives, that takeover has once again reshaped Sadat’s country and, this time, turned her into an asylee in the United States.

“I was actually never thinking that one day I will leave Afghanistan,” the 39-year-old said. “When I heard this news, I was in shock. And I just said: ‘no, no, no, it’s not possible.’... It was like watching a terrible movie.”

In that moment, Sadat added, directing “A Thousand Splendid Suns” took on a new meaning.

“Suddenly, the topic changed in my mind, that ‘Oh my God, now this story is going to repeat again. Now, maybe, a thousand Laila and Mariam are going to be in the same situation,’” she said.

In her director’s statement, Sadat writes about becoming “homeless” in the blink of an eye and describes how the goal of her work has evolved.

“My task was no longer to simply portray the universal pain, struggle, and perseverance of women through the story of two Afghan women,” she said. “It became a duty to convey an unparalleled injustice to which my countrywomen are condemned.”

Mariam and Laila have captured the imagination of composer Sheila Silver for a long time. She felt like she knew them and wanted to tell their story. She listened to the book in 2009 and recalled tears streaming down her face as one of the women faced her death.

“This is what heroes are made of, people who make sacrifices for others that they love and so that was what drew me in,” Silver said. “It was about the love and bonding and resilience and strength of these two women.”

And in that sense, she found their tales universal. “It’s their humanity that we’re celebrating,” she said. “It’s a story of that time with incredible parallels to this time today.”

Hosseini, the book’s author who lives in California, wishes that wasn’t the case.

He had hoped the story of “A Thousand Splendid Suns” would become a relic of the past, maybe a "cautionary tale.” But instead, he said, “what’s going on with women today is a cruel deja vu.”

He lamented that the international spotlight on Afghanistan seemed to have faded. He hopes the opera’s audience will be moved by the music, but also that the production, even if in limited ways, can spark conversations about the situation there.

“I’ve always thought of the arts as our most powerful … teachers of empathy,” he said. “I hope that this opera is an expression of the collective struggles and sacrifices of Afghans over the last four decades, particularly Afghan women.”

Despite initial promises, the Taliban have increasingly imposed restrictions on women and girls with an expanding list of bans that included barring them from universities and schools beyond the sixth grade. That has sparked an international uproar, deepening Afghanistan’s isolation at a time of severe economic turmoil.

The crackdown on women’s freedoms harkens back to when the Taliban ran Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 -- and to a somber part of Sadat’s own life under the group.

She no longer could attend school. She turned to books, sometimes borrowed from relatives or friends, to expand her world. Home doubled as a school of sorts, where her mother and an aunt would teach her different subjects.

Through it all, she clung to hope.

It was under the Taliban, that, sitting on her family’s kitchen floor, Sadat started writing a script that later turned into her first movie. At the time, she said, she didn’t have electricity; the kitchen fire provided the light she needed to write.

Toward the end of the Taliban’s reign, a relative helped her get a spot in a class that trained women in nursing. There, Sadat said she helped organize small cultural groups that produced theater critical of the Taliban’s treatment of women; to avoid getting caught, classmates would be on the lookout inside a stairwell to alert others if Taliban members approached.

After the Taliban’s fall, Sadat and her sister co-founded Roya Film House, a company that has produced films and TV dramas.

Working on the Seattle opera, she said, has been of special significance.

“In creating the atmosphere of this work, I have tried to show the people the beauty of Afghan women’s lives — the parts of that world they do not know and the people they have not seen,” she said. “I want to evoke Kabul in the old years, full of songs, poetry, music, color, and joy. Throughout Afghanistan’s history, even on the path of pain and suffering, is the radiant face of a woman who shines.”

___

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

Canada’s emissions data from 2021 shows a promising trend


ByKaren Graham
PublishedFebruary 26, 2023


In addition to emissions reduction efforts, which prevent new CO₂ from entering the atmosphere, climate scientists agree that removing historic and unavoidable emissions from air is crucial to limit global warming to 1.5°C Source - Climeworks

Canada’s carbon emissions increased in 2021 over the previous year’s amount but were still below pre-pandemic norms.

A new report released by the Canadian Climate Institute, says emissions in the country in 2021 were up 2.8 percent from the previous year, but down 6.7 percent from 2005 levels.

CTV News Canada is reporting that the data shows that Canada generated 691 megatonnes (Mt) of emissions in 2021, slightly more than in 2020 as a result of restrictions due to COVID-19.

This indicates a trend known as “decoupling,” a separation between economic growth and carbon emissions, according to the report, which shows that emissions per unit of economic output have dropped by 27.5 percent since 2005.

While the rise in economic activity from 2020 to 2021 increased emissions by 32 megatonnes (Mt), improvements in energy decarbonization and energy efficiency contributed to a net overall increase of only 19 Mt.

The institute’s principal economist, Dave Sawyer, said the “good news” is that emissions did not “bounce back” when COVID-19 lockdowns lifted, reports CBC Canada.

“It’s roughly a good news story that, yes, there is more activity coming out of COVID, but policy drivers and market drivers are working to keep emissions down,” said Sawyer.”They are lower than they would have been otherwise.”

While the news is promising, the trends observed for 2021 need to accelerate significantly for Canada to achieve the 2030 target.

And as the report points out, it is still imperative that quick and effective implementation of the federal government’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan, along with provincial and territorial action, will be instrumental to driving the scale of progress required this decade.

By 2030, the federal government aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the economy to between 40 and 45 percent of 2005 levels, and by 2050, Canada aims to reduce emissions to net zero.

Germany wants to ease visa application for Indian IT workers

Sun, February 26, 2023 


Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, right, welcomes German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, during latter's ceremonial reception at the Indian presidential palace in New Delhi, India, Saturday, Feb. 25, 2023. 

(AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Sunday that his government wants to make it easier for information technology experts from India to obtain work visas in Germany as the country struggles with a shortage of skilled labor.

Scholz said improving the legal framework so Germany becomes more attractive for software developers and those with IT development skills is a priority for his government this year.

“We want to make the issuing of visas easier,” he told reporters during a visit to India's high-tech hub of Bengaluru.

“Aside from the legal modernization we want to modernize the entire bureaucratic process as well,” Scholz said.

Asked about workers who don't speak the language when they come to Germany, he said it should not be seen as a hurdle if people arrive in the country speaking English first and then acquire German later on.

Scholz was speaking on the second day of his trip to India, after meeting Saturday with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss the fallout from the war in Ukraine.

The German leader last year invited Modi to attend a summit of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations he hosted in Bavaria, and said he favors India joining this year's meeting in Japan, too.

The Graphic Truth: Russia vs. US trade ties in Africa

February 26, 2023

Gabrielle DebinskiAri Winkleman

 Ari Winkleman

On the one-year anniversary of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the UN General Assembly last week held a vote calling on Russian troops to leave Ukrainian territory. Those who opposed the resolution included the usual suspects that have aligned themselves closely with the Kremlin like Syria and Belarus, as well as Eritrea and Mali, which have close links to the Russian military.

Perhaps more interesting, however, is a look at those countries that abstained in a bid to reinforce their neutrality. Crucially, most of last week’s abstentions came from African states, which can be seen as a reflection of Russia’s growing political and economic clout in the region. But a look at bilateral trade relations between these African nations with Russia and the US, separately, shows that in most cases, two-way trade in goods with the US is way more lucrative.

Indeed, this suggests that Russia’s political leverage across the continent is multifarious. It comes from Russia’s vast reserves of oil, wheat and fertilizer — as well as its position in the global weapons trade, accounting for around half of all arms exports to Africa. We take a look at two-way trade between African states that abstained from the recent UN vote with the US and Russia, respectively.

EPA Orders Temporary Halt to Shipping of Ohio Toxic Train Crash Contaminated Waste

By Jeff Louderback
February 26, 2023

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (L) and Tristan Brown, deputy administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, crouch down to look at part of a burned train-car at the site of a Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 23, 2023. (Allie Vugrincic/The Vindicator via AP, Pool)

Amid objections from Michigan authorities who said they were not aware hazardous materials were headed into their state, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ordered a temporary pause on shipments of contaminated waste from the site of Norfolk Southern Railway’s Feb. 3 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

“Everyone wants this contamination gone from the community,” EPA Region 5 Administrator Debra Shore said. “They don’t want the worry, and they don’t want the smell, and we owe it to the people of East Palestine to move it out of the community as quickly as possible.”

Shore vowed that the removal process will resume “very soon.”

On Feb. 3, a Norfolk Southern train carrying 151 cars derailed in East Palestine, a village of 4,761 in eastern Ohio near the Pennsylvania border.

A black plume rises as a result of a controlled detonation of a portion of the derailed Norfolk Southern trains in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 6, 2023. (Gene J. Puskar/AP Photo)

The National Transportation Safety Board reported that the train included 20 cars with hazardous materials, 11 of which derailed.

Seeking to avoid an uncontrolled explosion that officials claimed would send shrapnel into the air, toxic vinyl chloride was intentionally released and burned from five cars on Feb. 6, sending a massive cloud of black smoke into the sky that could be seen for miles around and was likened to a mushroom cloud caused by a nuclear weapon.

The burn triggered questions about the health effects that could potentially impact the residents of East Palestine.
EPA Takes Over Waste Disposal

Norfolk Southern had been responsible for waste disposal until Friday, Shore said. The railroad provided Ohio environmental officials with a list of disposal sites.

Moving forward, Shore explained that disposal plans including locations and transportation routes for contaminated waste will be subject to EPA review and approval.

“EPA will ensure that all waste is disposed of in a safe and lawful manner at EPA-certified facilities to prevent further release of hazardous substances and impacts to communities,” Shore said.

On Feb. 21, the U.S. EPA ordered Norfolk Southern to pay for cleanup costs in East Palestine.

“Norfolk Southern will pay for cleaning up the mess that they created and the trauma that they inflicted on this community,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said. “I know this order cannot undo the nightmare that families in this town have been living with, but it will begin to deliver much-needed justice for the pain that Norfolk Southern has caused.”

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said in a Feb. 23 statement that, under state EPA guidance, “Norfolk Southern brought in large dump trucks to move contaminated soil to U.S. Ecology Wayne Disposal, a licensed hazardous waste disposal facility in Michigan. This will be a continuous effort to properly manage and safely dispose of the waste.

“So far, 4,832 cubic yards of soil have been excavated from the ground and more may be removed as cleanup proceeds. When the process begins to dig up the tracks and remove the soil underneath, that soil will be hauled away immediately and taken to a proper disposal facility,” the statement noted.

More than 1.7 million gallons of contaminated liquid have been removed from the derailment site, according to DeWine’s office. Most of the 1.1 million gallons hauled off-site were sent to a Texas-based hazardous waste disposal facility, which has said it will no longer accept shipments.

A small amount was transported to Vickery Environmental in Vickery, Ohio, DeWine’s office reported.

DeWine’s office said that 15 of the 20 truckloads containing contaminated soil were shipped to the Michigan hazardous waste treatment and disposal facility in Wayne County in the Detroit area. Five truckloads were returned to East Palestine.

“Currently, about 102,000 gallons of liquid waste and 4,500 cubic yards of solid waste remain in storage on site in East Palestine, not including the five truckloads returned to the village,” DeWine’s office said. “Additional solid and liquid wastes are being generated as the cleanup progresses.”

Michigan Authorities Unaware

The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes & Energy said in a statement on Feb. 24 that it became aware of the shipments earlier that day.

The department said it is “working to monitor the disposal of hazardous soil and liquids from the Ohio train derailment at licensed hazardous waste facilities in Michigan to ensure that all health and environmental protection laws and procedures are rigorously adhered to.

“We expect any shipment of Ohio soils and liquids to be handled in accordance with all laws and regulations as any other contaminated site material that is disposed of at the facilities, which are subject to extensive monitoring to ensure that hazardous waste does not present a threat to the environment or human health,” the statement read.

On the evening of Feb. 24, Wayne County Executive Warren Evans said that his team did not get advance notice that the materials would arrive. State officials “also got last minute bits and pieces of information,” Evans added.

Evans said that Wayne County government officials should have been consulted before the contaminated waste was shipped to their area.

“I don’t know how you do that without contacting the local officials so that we can, No. 1, know how to respond to our communities and No. 2, give advice in terms of routes that you may take,” Evans said.

“I’m not here to say anybody was attempting to do anything nefarious,” Evans added. “But I can say that the outward effect of it looks like we’re being sandbagged.”

The EPA said that it will coordinate with Michigan officials on toxic waste disposal from the derailment site from this point forward.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell represents Ann Arbor and part of Wayne County. In a Feb. 24 statement, she echoed Evans’ view that Michigan officials should have been notified about the toxic waste headed their way.

“We were not given a heads up on this reported action. Our priority is to always keep the people we represent safe,” Dingell said. “We are making inquiries of EPA, DOT, Norfolk Southern, U.S. Ecology, the state of Ohio, and all others involved to understand what is being shipped, whether these are approved storage facilities, the implications of this decision, and how we ensure the safety of all Michigan residents.”

This is America: The 'watering down' of AP African American Studies

Ana Goñi-Lessan
USA TODAY






Hundreds of people railed against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state’s Department of Education in Tallahassee this month for rejecting the College Board’s Advanced Placement African American Studies class. The College Board claimed the rejection was "inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value."

In the newest framework of the class, released in early February, the College Board removed much of what the DeSantis administration opposed, which critics called the “watering down of history.”

My name is Ana Goñi-Lessan, and I’m a reporter for the USA TODAY- Florida network, covering children and families. And you're reading "This is America," a newsletter centered on race, identity and how they shape our lives.

I wanted to really dig into what exactly changed in the two frameworks, before and after DeSantis rejected the class. So I got a draft of the AP class from a university faculty member, dated for May 2022, and compared it to the most recent framework.

I found most of the class was unchanged, but there are differences in the source material for lessons about recent African American history, debate topics and contemporary issues.

It was alarming to see notable works from authors like Te-Nehisi Coates' "The Case for Reparations," and Michelle Alexander, author of "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness," were removed.

I can remember the first time I read Coates in The Atlantic. These titles shaped the way I think about our country’s history.

At the rally, there were children from elementary school and elderly grandparents in wheelchairs, all there for the same reason.

“If you would study history, governor, you would have known to mess with us in education always ends to your defeat,” Rev. Al Sharpton said as the crowd cheered.

📰 Read the full story: A breakdown of what was removed or changed in the AP African American Studies framework

Farmers offered £168m grants to drive innovation and boost animal welfare

Chris Hill
Thu, 23 February 2023 


More than £168m in government grants will be made available this year to help farmers drive innovation, improve animal welfare and protect the environment.

Farming minister Mark Spencer announced the funding while speaking at the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) conference in Birmingham.

He said the money would focus on "practical solutions that advance food productivity and deliver significant environmental and animal welfare benefits".

These could include robotic harvesting technology, handling equipment and "cow mattresses" to help prevent lameness in dairy cattle, sensors on tractors to measure soil nutrient levels, or improvements to slurry storage.

"We know that sustainable food production depends on a healthy environment, the two go hand in hand," said Mr Spencer.

“Helping farms invest in new technology as well as bringing in nature-friendly schemes will support the future of farming.”

Norfolk farmer Jamie Lockhart was also at the conference on his final day as the county's NFU chairman, before handing over the reins to Tim Papworth.

He welcomed Mr Spencer's announcement, but added: "If the minister wants to support innovation and new technologies, it is about how it is delivered.

"The devil will be in the detail as to how soon we can access these funds for an industry that is so low on confidence right now.

"It has to be welcomed, but if it is being distributed in the same way as the Farming Transformation Fund, it is incredibly time-consuming and laborious."

The grants, delivered through the Farming Innovation Programme (FIP) and Farming Investment Fund (FIF), will sit alongside Defra's Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes - a system of green incentives which will replace the EU's land-based subsidies being phased out after Brexit.

Mr Spencer also said the government also wants to support small abattoirs which are “crucial” for the rural economy.