House GOP Oversight Chair Blasted for Attacking President Biden’s Deceased Son

MARCH 2, 2023

MAGA Republican Oversight Committee Chair James Comer is being blasted from all corners for his despicable attack on President Biden’s deceased son, with veterans calling on Comer to apologize to the Biden family, and military members and veterans, for disparaging Beau Biden’s service and legacy. 

Here’s a look at what they’re saying: 

Common Defense: 

“Unacceptable that @RepJamesComer would attack the character of the late Beau Biden, who served with courage and distinction. We’re calling on Rep. Comer to issue an apology to the Beau Biden family, and our military families, for disparaging his service and legacy.”

Daily Beast: House Oversight Chair Laments That Joe Biden’s Dead Son Was Never Prosecuted

“House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer invoked the late son of President Joe Biden on Tuesday, lamenting that Beau Biden was never prosecuted over an investigation into illegal contributions involving his father’s 2008 presidential campaign. […] Comer’s invocation of the president’s late son runs contrary to the GOP congressman’s repeated claims that he’s not interested in digging into any Bidens but the president himself.”

Washington Post: White House slams ‘despicable’ suggestion Beau Biden should have been indicted

“Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) criticized a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for not prosecuting President Biden’s late son when he was still alive, a notion the White House slammed as ‘despicable.’”

HuffPost: White House Slams Republican’s ‘Incredibly Ugly’ Remark About Biden’s Late Son

“When asked about the remarks during Wednesday’s press briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, ‘It says a lot about the chairman, which is not good, by the way.’

‘To make the statement that he did is incredibly ugly and inappropriate,’ she added.

“Instead of House Republicans focusing on attacking the president and his family, why don’t they actually focus on what the American people put them in office to do, which is to deliver for them, which is to actually work with their colleagues … to actually put forth pieces of legislation or put forth policies that’s going to make a difference in their lives,” Jean-Pierre continued.”

MSNBC: White House slams GOP’s Comer over comments about Beau Biden

“It’s no secret that the Oversight Committee chairman appears fixated on the president’s family, but given the Kentuckian’s latest comments, it seems Comer should choose a new hobby.”

Daily Mail: White House tears into Republican Rep. James Comer’s ‘ugly’ and ‘despicable’ claims that Biden’s dead son Beau should have been indicted in connection to Delaware campaign finance case

“The White House on Wednesday tore into Republican Rep. James Comer’s ‘ugly’ and ‘despicable’ claims that President Joe Biden’s dead son Beau should have been indicted alongside a Delaware man who violated campaign finance laws.  […] A request for comment from Comer’s office has yet to be returned.”  

American Independent: Rep. James Comer criticizes U.S. attorney for not investigating Biden’s dead son

“The House Oversight Committee chair’s comments about Beau Biden are the latest in the House Republicans’ search for dirt on the Biden family.”

Kate Bedingfield:

“On a human level, that’s appalling. It’s despicable. And frankly it says quite a lot – none of it good – about James Comer.”

DNC Chair Jaime Harrison: 

“Disgusting new low for the MAGA Republican majority.”

Congressman Don Beyer: 

“This is disgraceful and Comer should be ashamed. Beau Biden served this country honorably and died years ago of brain cancer. I know Republicans have a feverish hatred of the President but this is completely unacceptable.”

Charlie Sykes: 

“For this congressman… to smear a dead war hero because his name is Biden- despicable doesn’t seem a strong enough word about it. This is one of those have you no shame moments.”

Mike Barnicle: 

“Their mission – Comer just expressed it with the phrase – ‘to go after the Bidens.’ …It’s pretty simple, that’s their mission. They’re not interested in governing, they’re not interested in issues that affect you, other people around this country every single day, their families, their kid’s schools, school lunch programs, Social Security, none of those liveable issues. They’re not interested in it, their mission is to go after the Biden’s. Dead or alive.”

One year on from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where does the ‘cyberwar’ stand?

MARCH 2, 2023

By MATHEW INGRAM

CJR

Ukrainian flag displayed on a laptop screen and binary code code displayed on a screen are seen in this multiple exposure illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on February 16, 2022. 

(Photo illustration by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via AP)

After Russian troops invaded Ukraine a little over a year ago, the latter country set out to reinforce a second front in the war—a digital one. As I reported for CJR at the time, the Ukrainian government posted appeals in online hacker forums, asking for volunteers to protect Ukrainian infrastructure and conduct digital missions against Russia. The posts asked hackers to “get involved in the cyber defense of our country.” According to Foreign Policy, within a couple of months, more than four hundred thousand people had joined the informal hacker army.

Cybersecurity experts say Ukraine had one important thing going for it when Russia attacked a year ago, at least in terms of computer warfare: it was already well aware of the risk of Russian hacking. In 2015, a digital attack crippled Ukraine’s power plants and left hundreds of thousands without electricity; experts believe that hackers affiliated with the Russian government caused the outage. In 2017, a ransomware attack known as NotPetya, which many experts believe was created by Russian entities, caused an estimated ten billion dollars in damages globally, much of it in Ukraine. In the year since Russia’s invasion, there have been thousands more digital skirmishes between the two countries. But it’s unclear who, if anyone, is actually winning, or what impact all this cyber-rattling has had on the larger war.

According to a recent presentation by Yurii Shchyhol, the head of Ukraine’s State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection, the country’s Computer Emergency Response Team responded to over two thousand “cyber incidents” last year. A quarter of these targeted the federal government and local authorities, Computer Weekly magazine reported; the rest involved defense and other security sectors, as well as energy, financial services, IT and telecom, and logistics. On the opposite side of the ledger, Russians in close to a dozen cities were greeted one day last week by radio messages, text warnings, and sirens alerting them to an air raid or missile strikes that never came. Russian officials said that the alerts were the work of hackers.

Google’s internal Threat Analysis Group says that hacking and other forms of computerized warfare have continued to play a “prominent role” in the war. Last month, the company released a report entitled, Fog of War: How the Ukraine Conflict Transformed the Cyber Threat Landscape. It concluded that there has been a dramatic increase in digital attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure since 2020, with code names like Shadylook, Skyfall, and DarkCrystal. The targeting of internet users in Ukraine by Russian hackers was twice as high last year as in 2020, Google said, and the targeting of NATO countries was more than three times as high. The Threat Analysis Group said that it had also tracked a series of “self-described news entities” with ties to Russian intelligence—including News Front, ANNA News, and UKR Leaks—promoting narratives that, for example, blame the US and NATO for instigating the war and characterize the Ukrainian government as “Nazis.” The Internet Research Agency, which became infamous for running a disinformation campaign around the 2016 US election, is also still active, Google’s experts say, but has shifted its activity “from a range of domestic Russian political issues to focus almost exclusively on Ukraine and mobilization.”

Thomas Rid, a professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University, said on Twitter that the Google report represented “impressive work” by a company that has “more comprehensive telemetry than most SIGINT (signal intelligence) agencies today.” One of the most interesting aspects of the Google report, Rid wrote, is the “hack-and-leak integration, and the very old-school exploitation and collaboration with activists, often with disinformation and forgeries mixed in.” Rid also had some criticisms, though—the report, he said, focuses on Russian activities in or related to Ukraine, but “that’s highly likely just one part of the picture, and probably not the most impressive part.”

Meanwhile, some experts have expressed skepticism that all these attacks and counterattacks in cyberspace are materially altering the course of the war. A report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research organization based in the US, stated last June that “It may offend the cyber community to say it, but cyberattacks are overrated. While invaluable for espionage and crime, they are far from decisive in armed conflict. A pure cyberattack is inadequate to compel any but the most fragile opponent to accept defeat. No one has ever been killed by a cyberattack, and there are very few instances of tangible damage.” However, the report did allow that cyber operations “are very useful to conduct espionage, to gain advance knowledge of opponent planning and capabilities, and to mislead.”

Then, in August, researchers from the University of Cambridge, the University of Strathclyde, and the University of Edinburgh, in the UK, released a research paper in which they argued that “the widely-held narrative of a cyberwar fought by committed civilians and volunteer ‘hacktivists’ linked to cybercrime groups is misleading.” The researchers collected data on thousands of hacking attempts and conducted interviews with hackers, concluding that “the role of these players in so-called cyberwarfare is minor, and they do not resemble the ‘hacktivists’ imagined in popular accounts.” Contrary to some predictions, the report said, the involvement of civilian hackers “appears to have been minor and short-lived; it is unlikely to escalate further.”

For all the talk about the risk of cyber warfare over the past several decades, “this is the first time you’ve been able to see in real time how cyber contributes to an overall military campaign,” Tim Stevens, a senior lecturer in global security at King’s College London, told Euronews recently. “Yes, it can be useful under certain circumstances, but it’s not going to win you a war.” In other words, one year in, hackers don’t seem likely to dramatically change the outcome of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, for all the James Bond-style nicknames. The fighting on the ground will matter more.

Other notable stories:New York’s Gabriel Debenedetti profiled Kate Bedingfield, whose last day as President Biden’s communications director was yesterday. Bedingfield has amassed significant influence within Biden’s inner circle, Debenedetti writes, while keeping a lid on White House leaks and explaining “the obsessions of the voracious press to a president who still reads print newspapers.” Bedingfield’s replacement will be Ben LaBolt, a former Obama staffer who most recently worked for Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta. Politico assessed the growing West Wing influence of officials with ties to that company.

The Washington Post’s Jada Yuan explains how Jill Biden’s recent trip to Africa—which was intended to highlight food insecurity, among other issues—got overshadowed in the US press after she essentially confirmed in an interview there that her husband will run for reelection. The trip, Yuan writes, “was a perfect encapsulation of Biden’s time as first lady, promoting noble causes and being generally uncontroversial, but ultimately less interesting to American media outlets than a single decision of her husband’s.”

The Newark Star-Ledger moved to shutter its DC bureau—the only such newsroom still maintained by a New Jersey newspaper—and let go of Jonathan D. Salant, its veteran political reporter. According to the New Jersey Globe’s David Wildstein, eleven members of New Jersey’s Congressional delegation, including senators Cory Booker and Bob Menendez, have since written to the Star-Ledger in protest of the decision.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project named Miranda Patrucic as its new editor in chief, succeeding Drew Sullivan, who will stay on as publisher. Elsewhere in the world of investigative journalism, the Center for Public Integrity announced that it will acquire and expand the Accountability Project, “an innovative platform that allows journalists to search 1.8 billion public records” and organize resulting data for analysis.

And according to D magazine, the Dallas Morning News fired Meghan Mangrum, an education reporter, after she addressed the city’s mayor as “bruh” in a Twitter post pushing back on his criticism of local-media coverage of crime. Mangrum was fired for a supposed violation of the paper’s social-media policy on the same day that she had helped to organize a union protest outside the paper’s headquarters.

ICYMI: Fred Ritchin on AI and the threat to photojournalism no one is talking about

Mathew Ingram is CJR’s chief digital writer. Previously, he was a senior writer with Fortune magazine. He has written about the intersection between media and technology since the earliest days of the commercial internet. His writing has been published in the Washington Post and the Financial Times as well as by Reuters and Bloomberg.

Passenger planes nearly collided on runway for fifth time this year. Why does this keep happening? An aviation expert explains.

A near-miss between a private jet and a commercial JetBlue flight at Boston Logan International Airport is being investigated by the FAA.


JetBlue tails at Logan Airport in Boston, MA on April 5, 2022.

 (Photo by David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) 


Rebecca Corey
·Writer and Reporter
Thu, March 2, 2023 

The Federal Aviation Administration said it’s investigating “a close call” between a private jet and a commercial JetBlue flight that narrowly avoided colliding on a runway at Boston Logan International Airport on Monday evening.

According to a preliminary statement from the FAA, the incident took place when the pilot of a Learjet 60 operated by Hop-A-Jet, a private charter company, “took off without clearance while JetBlue Flight 206 was preparing to land on an intersecting runway.”

“An air traffic controller instructed the pilot of the Learjet to line up and wait on Runway 9 while the JetBlue Embraer 190 landed on Runway 4-Right, which intersects Runway 9. The Learjet pilot read back the instructions clearly but began a takeoff roll instead,” the statement said.

The pilot of the JetBlue flight “took evasive action and initiated a climb-out as the Learjet crossed the intersection.”

According to a preliminary review of the data by Flightradar24, “the closest the two aircraft came was approximately 565 feet,” and the Learjet “cleared the intersection of the two runways seconds before” the JetBlue flight. The Learjet continued on to its destination, landing in Florida two hours and 50 minutes after the incident, while the JetBlue flight “conducted a go-around and landed safely 11 minutes after the incident.”

On Wednesday, the National Transportation Safety Board announced that they would also be investigating, making it the fifth close call on a runway that the agency has looked into this year. Other near-misses have occurred in Honolulu; Austin, Texas; and at the JFK International Airport in New York.

Yahoo News spoke with Michael J. McCormick, a former FAA official and assistant professor of air traffic management at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, to better understand what went wrong and how mishaps like this can be avoided. Some responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Can you describe exactly what happened at the Boston airport on Monday?

“Boston Logan International Airport, like many of the United States airports that were built before World War II, is constrained or landlocked in its ability to grow as an airport. Therefore, it has a very small footprint and the runways all intersect, meaning that in order to take off or land on those runways, you’re going to cross the path of another runway," McCormick said.

“In this instance, there was one aircraft that was landing on an intersecting runway, and there was another aircraft that was told to line up and wait, which is a procedure where the aircraft goes out onto the runway and waits for takeoff. Unfortunately, the Learjet, which is a chartered Learjet, went out on the runway and started its departure just as JetBlue was coming in to land on the intersecting runway. JetBlue recognized the conflict and executed what’s known as a ‘missed approach’ in order to avoid any problems with the other aircraft.

“So this is a case where we have a human error involved in that cockpit. And this is where the NTSB needs to take an in-depth look at the human factors involved and what was going on in the cockpit at the time of the event that would contribute to an error like this."
This is the fifth time this year that commercial aircraft have been involved in a near collision on a runway. Why does this keep happening?

“Runway collisions are one of the most significant accidents that can occur in aviation. Therefore, the FAA closely monitors what’s known as ‘runway incursions,’ where a vehicle, an aircraft or a pedestrian can go out on a runway when they’re not supposed to be there," McCormick said.

“There have not been a significant number of increases in runway incursions. In fact, this year the numbers of runway incursions are lower than they were last year. What we’re experiencing is more tracking of these types of events, so we know when they're occurring and they garner a lot more attention as a result. Websites such as FlightAware and Flightradar24 are providing real-time analysis of data, then they’re sharing that data with the public. And that’s how we gain greater awareness of what’s occurring.”
We’ve also witnessed the recent failure of a computer system that grounded flights nationwide. Why does commercial air travel seem to be such a mess right now?

“What we saw during the holidays, and even going into last summer, is that due to staffing shortfalls and equipment shortfalls post-pandemic, the airlines are no longer as resilient as they were. That means that when something happens, such as bad weather or a thunderstorm or snowfall, it causes such a disturbance in the individual airline’s system that they don’t have the flexibility in staffing and in equipment to recover from that. So that means that they’re struggling to keep up with the post-pandemic demand for air travel,” McCormick said.

“The outage of the computer system Notice to Air Missions, or NOTAMs, was due to an error on the part of a contractor performing routine maintenance during the midnight shift. And the FAA normally schedules this type of maintenance on a midnight shift so the impact can be minimized. Unfortunately, in this case, the contractor made a duplicate error on the backup system, and the backup system also did not work, which required what’s known as a “cold start” in order to restore the entire database, which took about two hours. And to ensure the highest level of safety, all air traffic was stopped on the ground until the system was clearly up and running.”

What needs to change so that close calls on the runway can be avoided?

“I think the first and most important change that needs to happen is the FAA needs permanent leadership. They currently have an acting administrator, who’s doing a good job, but an acting administrator does not have the ability to establish and set a vision and long-term priorities in terms of infrastructure investment and investment in systems that can help prevent and alert controllers when things like this happen,” McCormick said.

“The second thing is that the FAA needs a reliable and secure funding stream. For the past several years, the FAA has had to suffer through numerous occasions where funding was cut off due to budget impasses. And as a result, upgrades to systems and system software could not take place — they had to stop and then restart, stop and then restart. So I think those two crucial aspects will help ensure the integrity and the safety of the National Airspace System.

“And of course, airlines need to adjust their schedules in order to try to meet the demand that’s taking place and not overschedule and work beyond their ability to handle any disturbances that occur within their airline systems.”

Should airline passengers think twice about booking their next flight?

“One of the things that the United States is privileged to enjoy is the safest air transportation system in the world. And air transportation is by far, by orders of thousands, safer than other forms of transportation in the United States,” McCormick said. “There has not been anything that would lead me to believe that there’s been any decrease in the integrity of the safety of that system, and I would be very comfortable traveling myself and traveling with my family.”

Indigenous woman will lead the US Department of Treasury’s Office of Tribal and Native Affairs

PAULY DENETCLAW 

Indian Country Today
Mar 2, 2023


U.S. Treasurer Lynn Malerba, Mohegan Tribe, and Fatima Abbas, director of the Office of Tribal and Native Affairs, during a visit with young people from the Center for Native American Youth.Photo courtesy of the U.S. Treasury

WASHINGTON — An Indigenous woman will become the first director of the Office of Tribal and Native Affairs at the U.S. Treasury. The tribal affairs office is first of its kind for the department and a permanent fixture.

Fatima Abbas, Haliwa Saponi, who was previously interim director of the office, will take over as the permanent director. The office will work closely with Indigenous nations to address specific needs identified by tribal leaders and to work with the Treasury Tribal Advisory Committee, a seven-member group that advises Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on “taxation of Indians, the training of Internal Revenue Service field agents, and the provisions of training and technical assistance to Native American financial officers,” according to the Treasury.

“She can pave the way and set the stage for all of the good things that will happen within Treasury and that's what's going to be so important,” Chief Lynn Malerba, U.S. Treasurer, said to ICT. “She is standing up this office. She has the ability to create a vision for this office that will endure long after the two of us are gone.”

CRYPTO CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Senators write a scathing letter to Binance alleging it’s a ‘hotbed of illegal financial activity’ and has helped pay criminals billions

BYOLGA KHARIF AND BLOOMBERG
March 2, 2023 

Changpeng Zhao, Co-Founder & CEO, Binance, at Media Village during day one of Web Summit 2022 at the Altice Arena in Lisbon, Portugal.
BEN MCSHANE—SPORTSFILE FOR WEB SUMMIT/GETTY IMAGES

US Senators representing both Democrats and Republicans are demanding that Binance and Binance.US provide a detailed accounting of their finances and efforts to maintain regulatory compliance, according to a letter signed by Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen and Roger Marshall

“[What] little information about Binance’s finances is available to the public suggests that the exchange is a hotbed of illegal financial activity that has facilitated over $10 billion in payments to criminals and sanctions evaders,” the senators wrote in the letter, which was dated March 1.

The letter, addressed to Binance.US President Brian Shroder and Binance Chief Executive Officer Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, cited recent Reuters reporting that cast doubt on the extent to which the two entities were really independent of each other. This line of questioning echoes a recent court filing from Texas officials related to the proposed Binance.US acquisition of the bankrupt crypto broker Voyager Digital. Binance and Binance.US have the same majority owner in Zhao, according to the details laid out in the Texas filing. The global entity had secret access to a bank account belonging to the US exchange, according the Reuters report.

Binance is the world’s biggest crypto exchange, with nearly 60% market share as of mid-February, according to research firm CryptoCompare. Over the past several years, it’s faced investigations from US agencies including the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The senators’ letter cited “investigations into criminal sanctions evasion, money laundering conspiracy, unlicensed money transmission, questions about its financial health, and increased scrutiny over its intentionally ‘opaque corporate structure.’”

That increasing scrutiny has also extended to Binance partners and counterparties. In February, the issuer of a Binance-branded stablecoin acknowledged that it had received a Wells notice from the SEC. The company, Paxos, had also been directed by the New York State Department of Financial Services to stop any further issuance of the BUSD stablecoin, which was at the time the third-largest in the market by circulation. Earlier this year, investigators identified Binance as a counterparty to Bitzlato, a digital-asset platform accused of processing millions of dollars in illegal funds.

The senators allege in the letter that Binance allowed US users to access its global site, which they are supposed to be prohibited from using. It likened Binance to the collapsed FTX exchange, which filed for bankruptcy in November after revealing it misused customer funds.

“Mr. Zhao’s assertion that Binance.US is fully independent is eerily similar to claims Sam Bankman-Fried made regarding the distinction between FTX US and FTX – claims that appear to be false, given that FTX US has filed for bankruptcy, its users have lost access to their funds, and its new CEO has declared that it is, in fact, insolvent,” the senators wrote. “With this scheme in place, and in pursuit of profits, Binance has intentionally allowed US-based users to illegally access and trade unregulated products on the main exchange.”

The letter criticized the exchange’s compliance efforts, saying: “Binance’s business strategy appears to depend, at least in part, on the maintenance of a laughably weak anti-money laundering compliance program.”

Binance’s Chief Strategy Officer Patrick Hillmann told Bloomberg in a recent interview that the exchange had compliance “gaps” in the past, but has since addressed and closed them. Hillmann said the company is in settlement discussions with US regulators but couldn’t provide a timeline or a potential settlement amount. Binance also hired a new chief compliance officer in January: Noah Perlman joined the exchange after a stint at the Winklevoss-founded Gemini Trust.

“Unfortunately, a lot of misinformation has been spread about our company and we look forward to correcting the record,” Binance said in a statement to Bloomberg. “As a globally regulated exchange, we receive queries from officials in jurisdictions in which we operate on a regular basis and we always respond in an attempt to both explain our business operations and cooperate with our regulators. Binance.com does not operate in the US, nor do we have US-based customers, however we appreciate the senators’ request and will provide information to help them better understand why we remain the most trusted platform with users across the globe.”


Binance.US didn’t return a request seeking comment.

SEC objections to Voyager-Binance deal criticized by U.S. judge

By Dietrich Knauth

Representations of cryptocurrencies and Voyager Digital logo 

are seen in this illustration taken, July 7, 2022. 

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustrations/File Photo


March 2 (Reuters) - A U.S. bankruptcy judge on Thursday criticized the Securities and Exchange Commision for casting vague doubts about crypto lender Voyager Digital's proposed sale to Binance.US, saying the regulator had essentially asked to "stop everybody in their tracks" without explaining how to address its concerns.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Wiles made the remarks at a court hearing in New York to consider Voyager Digital's restructuring plan that would sell its assets and transfer its customers to crypto exchange Binance.US.

Even if Wiles confirms the plan, the sale, which Voyager values at $1.3 billion based on current crypto prices, cannot close until it gets final approval from the SEC and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which has also raised doubts about the deal.

The SEC, which has objected to the sale, is currently investigating whether Voyager's crypto lending business involved the sale of unregistered securities. It has raised concerns in court filings that Voyager cannot prove that the Binance deal or any other crypto transaction complies with U.S. securities law.

When pressed by Wiles as to whether the SEC believed that the Voyager sale violated U.S. securities laws, SEC attorney William Uptegrove did not have a definite answer.

"We can't take a position at this point," Uptegrove said. "The SEC is a deliberative body, and it's process is a nonpublic one by federal law."

Wiles was not satisfied with that response.

"Deliberative is one thing, but what have you done?" Wiles asked. "If there are reasons to be concerned here, I need to hear specifics."

Wiles is expected to rule on whether Voyager's bankruptcy plan should be confirmed later on Thursday.

The Binance transaction includes a $20 million cash payment and an agreement to transfer Voyager's customers to Binance.US's crypto exchange. The crypto assets deposited by Voyager customers account for the bulk of the deal's valuation, according court documents.

Once Voyager's customers have Binance.US accounts in place, they will be able to make withdrawals for the first time since Voyager froze their accounts last summer.

Voyager filed for bankruptcy in July, months after the crash of major crypto tokens TerraUSD and Luna sent shockwaves across the digital asset industry.

It estimates the sale will allow customers to recover 73% of the value of their deposits at the time of Voyager's bankruptcy filing, the company's attorney Christine Okike said at Thursday's hearing.

CFIUS did not formally object to the Binance sale, but it warned that its ongoing review of national security concerns could end up blocking the deal.

Binance.US has said that it is "fully independent" of its international parent company Binance, which is owned by Chinese-born and Singapore-based Changpeng Zhao.

Volunteer work at a Romanian shelter inspires Northeastern graduate to write play about survivors of sex trafficking

In a simple setup, bunk beds are arranged on stage in a shared bedroom as women go about their daily routines—studying, putting on makeup or preparing for a job interview. They are interrupted in their banter when a 15-year-old enters the shelter for the first time, holding a duffel bag with her belongings.

This moment of normality is a far cry from where they came from. All are survivors of sex trafficking in Romania.

The opening scene is part of Northeastern graduate Bianca Vranceanu’s play, inspired by her volunteering at the Open Doors Foundation while living and visiting Romania.

The shelter rehabilitates Romanian women who have escaped human trafficking. Women typically stay for 18 months, where they receive psychological care, learn life skills, and are assisted in finding jobs and apartments after they leave.

During her volunteering, Vranceanu developed relationships and friendships with the women.

“I realized that these situations could happen to anyone, no matter their appearance or background,” says Vranceanu. “Human trafficking could happen to anyone.”

The play will undergo a two-week intensive workshop at Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, California. Readings of the play will run from March 19 to April 2, with two Friday and Saturday performances set a week apart.

 

Victor Talmadge, professor of the practice and director of theater studies, poses for a portrait at Lisser Hall in Oakland, California. Photo by Ruby Wallau for Northeastern University

“What I find exciting, as much as anything, is having her presence on campus here in Oakland,” says Victor Talmadge, a professor of the practice and director of Theater Studies at Mills. “But also, the format is relatively untraditional in that it’s a playwrighters workshop with a focus on her and making sure that she gets the time to refine her piece as much as she can.”

The workshop replicates the National Playwrights Conference at the O’Neill Theater Center in Connecticut. The process allows the playwright to work with a director and actors to revise the script. In addition, there are two public performance readings during the program to allow for revisions.

It is the first time the Mills campus is doing anything like this, at least as far as Talmadge knows. He began working in the theater program at Mills in 2014.

“We’ve never been lucky enough to have a playwright in residence,” says Talmadge. “This is the first time we’ve produced a new play or workshopped a play from a playwright outside of the Mills campus.”

It was only a year ago when Vranceanu wrote this play in a class taught by professor Melinda Lopez at the Boston campus. Lopez says she was taking off as a writer when she proposed writing a play about the women in the shelter.

Lopez, who Vranceanu considers her mentor, worked with her to approach the material ethically.

 

Invisible no more: Northeastern professors study mental and physical health of teen victims of sex trafficking

“She made this beautiful container that allows for the humanity of these individuals and allows them to be more than their past circumstances,” says Lopez.

The story of the women explores three phases of their life—their childhood, human trafficking experience, and their rehabilitation at the shelter. The women also come from different backgrounds and range in age from 15 to 27.

While developing the play, Vranceanu knew the stories were heavily rooted in trauma and wanted to implement a “Do No Harm” ethical approach in every production stage.

This began with assuring the women she interviewed were comfortable and supported during the interview process by having a psychologist present in case they were triggered. Vranceanu also secured their consent to tell their stories while keeping her subjects anonymous by changing their names and not providing details that would expose their location.

Vranceanu also considered how the actors would deal with the material on stage. She provided outlets for them during their performance—like doing origami, putting makeup on, or even dancing to help relieve stress and ground themselves.

Lastly, Vranceanu thought about the audience once they finished the play. She wrote a mandatory talkback at the end of each performance so the audience could digest the information, communicate, and ask questions to help them process the material before moving forward.

In the future, Vranceanu would like to have a production of the play take place. Eventually, she hopes to pitch the play to theater companies in the area.

“It explores their courage, their trust and their resilience,” says Vranceanu. “I want it to be this empowering story that showcases their strength.”

“I wrote this play from a place of passion,” Vranceanu added. “It’s a topic and story that means so much to me.”

Beth Treffeisen is a Northeastern Global News reporter. Email her at b.treffeisen@northeastern.edu. Follow her on Twitter @beth_treffeisen.

CAPITALI$T ANARCHY

One Year Later, There’s No End in Sight to the Baby Formula Shortage

Many store shelves remain bare as the private and government response struggles to produce results and federal aid dries up. For parents of color most of all, it’s been a year of pain and panic.

CHABELI CARRAZANA, 

THE 19TH 

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

Shelves of baby formula with sign about customer limits due to supply shortage, Publix, West Palm Beach, Florida.

LINDSEY NICHOLSON/UCG/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP VIA GETTY IMAGES

This story was originally published by The 19th

Amber Romero’s son, Max, has known nothing but a formula shortage.

He was born in February 2022, the same month that the largest formula plant in the country closed down due to a recall. This has left Romero, a breast cancer survivor who had to rely on formula, in an impossible situation. Her son’s only food source is routinely missing — and only through perseverance, a network of friends and strangers on the Internet have they been able to piece together a steady supply as long as they have.

When Max turns 1 this month and begins transitioning away from formula, it’ll be a somber reminder that the shortage has outlasted them, and not the other way around.

“We have never had any normalcy with this situation. I don’t know what it’s like to grab a few things at the grocery store and pick up some formula.”


“We have never had any normalcy with this situation. I don’t know what it’s like to grab a few things at the grocery store and pick up some formula,” said Romero, 41.

The ongoing formula shortage, which peaked in May and June last year, has largely fallen out of public awareness. In-stock numbers have improved, and the country appears to have moved on to the next crisis (though a scarcity of eggs, parents noted, is not as panic-inducing as a shortage of the one food many babies eat). Yet families in many parts of the country still report bare store shelves and limited options, particularly in rural communities with fewer retailers. Big-box stores, including CVS and Target, continue to limit how much formula a family can buy at one time. And starting next month, low-income families who rely on federal assistance to pay for formula will have even fewer options as waivers enacted during the height of the crisis begin to expire.

By now, the shortage has been going on for so long that all types of formula are missing from stores, not just the sensitive brands that were initially — and are still — in short supply. Romero’s son drinks Enfamil Neuropro, a brand that wasn’t even manufactured at the Abbott Nutrition plant that shut down last year. Enfamil is a brand of Reckitt, which was the second-largest formula producer in the United States until recently, when it took over more than 50 percent of the market share from Abbott after desperate parents switched their kids over.

In the past year, Romero turned to friends in her home of Des Moines, Iowa, for help on social media, posting to Facebook when she was low and asking others to look out for her son’s brand. The added pressure she feels as a first-time parent, navigating the sea of unknowns that already come with a new baby, has felt suffocating at times.

“As soon as I start to see [our formula stash] go down — it’s almost like panic for me. My husband sometimes thinks I’m overreacting. I don’t know if it’s a motherly-instinct-type thing pulling through, but it’s stressful,” Romero said.

A formula shortage like this was poised to happen at any moment if just one component of the supply chain broke down. Because of heavy regulation, three companies — Abbott, Reckitt and Gerber — controlled almost the entire formula market in the United States at the start of the shortage. Between them they operate just nine factories, and the one that shut down was the largest. On top of that, as much 65 percent of all formula is purchased by families on WIC, the supplemental program for low-income women and children. But state contracts limit the types of formula WIC participants can purchase, so when shortages began, shelves emptied quickly.

“It is one of those things where you don’t really know how messed up the system is until the system breaks completely.”

“It is one of those things where you don’t really know how messed up the system is until the system breaks completely,” said Elyssa Schmier, the vice president for government relations at MomsRising, an advocacy group that has worked with President Joe Biden’s administration on solutions to the formula crisis.

The same communities that struggle with access to food are seeing those issues again with the formula shortage, and there hasn’t been a clear answer from the Biden administration or the private companies as to why those distribution challenges have lingered for a year.

Low-income families and parents of color are more likely to be on WIC and purchase formula, while also being overrepresented in jobs that don’t allow them the flexibility to pump or breastfeed. Parents of color are also less likely to live near hospitals that offer breastfeeding support. By the time babies are six months old, when they generally start consuming food as well as milk, only about 19 percent of Black women and 24 percent of Latinas are still exclusively breastfeeding, compared with 27 percent of White women, according to a 2019 estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The formula crisis is a microcosm of the broader systemic challenges facing low-income families accessing basic necessities, said Jamila Taylor, president and CEO of the National WIC Organization, a nonprofit that works with state and local WIC agencies. Taylor said the agency’s partners on the ground have also found that higher-income people from other communities have gone into neighborhoods with higher need and purchased formula there.

“Those that ​‘have’ have contributed to the shortage among other families that need it,” Taylor said. ​“There are still some real challenges on the ground. And to be quite honest, the White House — they weren’t as responsive as they should have been initially when it came to this issue, so we’re kind of still trying to play catch up.”

According to data from NielsonIQ, on average about 13 percent of formula stock has been missing from store shelves over the past eight weeks. At the worst of the shortage, in late May, about 24 percent of stock was missing. The shortage is worst in Southern states, including Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, as well as Colorado and California, where 15 to 20 percent of formula was out of stock over the past two months, according to NielsonIQ.

Nationwide, about 16 percent of families reported difficulty obtaining formula during the first week of January, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Marginalized communities struggled the most: 30 percent of Latinx families and 19 percent of Black families reported difficulty, compared with 12 percent of White families. About 8 percent of families said they had less than a week of formula on hand. Half of all families said they switched formula brands and 35 percent received formula online or from family and friends, while some turned to more drastic options, including watering formula down (5 percent) and making their own (2 percent).

Andrea Ippolito, the founder of SimpliFed, a virtual breastfeeding and baby feeding support platform, said that a year later, the frustration among her clients is that no systemic changes have been put in place.

“These are our more vulnerable humans, and we’ve put band-aids on huge, gaping holes in the system,” she said. ​“We have too few players that control too much of the market.”

The federal government is still trying to piece together exactly what went wrong. The Department of Justice last month opened a criminal investigation into the Abbott facility in Michigan that shut down on February 17, 2022. Initially, the Food and Drug Administration launched an investigation into Abbott after four infants became sick with bacterial infections. Abbott said further investigations found no ​“definitive link” between its formula and the babies’ illnesses.

A whistleblower complaint alerted the FDA to potential safety concerns at the Michigan plant in October 2021, but it didn’t reach the highest officials at the FDA until February 2022, a breakdown in communication that contributed to the botched response to the crisis. Last month, the head FDA official overseeing the formula shortage, Frank Yiannas, resigned as a result. The FDA is now beginning a significant overhaul of its entire food safety division, with plans to put one person in charge of overseeing food safety and policy.

The FDA said in a statement that ensuring the availability of safe infant formula is ​“of the utmost importance to the agency,” adding that it ​“has made significant progress in the last year in its efforts to ensure nutritious, safe infant formulas (including specialty metabolic formulas) are on store shelves for Americans who rely on these products.”

As the federal response is ongoing, it will still likely be some time before the situation stabilizes for consumers.

In December, Robert Cleveland, Reckitt’s senior vice president of North America and Europe nutrition, said he expects the shortage to ​“persist to some degree” until the spring. In the meantime, tariffs on international formula have been reinstated after Congress’ Formula Act expired at the end of 2022. That means it will be more costly for stores to stock those formulas.

It’s all happening as the waivers created for families on WIC start to phase out in the coming months, leaving no safety net.

As of March 1, WIC participants will once again be limited on which brand of formula they can purchase using the program. States have a contract with a singular manufacturer, either Abbott, Reckitt or Gerber, which have held all WIC contracts for three decades. At the start of the shortage, a rule was relaxed to allow WIC families to purchase whatever formula they can find. But soon, they will be restricted to the formula their state contracts with.

On May 1, WIC families will also no longer be able to use WIC to buy larger or varied container sizes of formula, eliminating a flexibility also designed to increase availability for families. Formula comes in either a powder or liquid form in multiple sizes.

By July 1, flexibilities that allowed families to purchase imported specialty formulas with WIC will also expire.

Advocates want to see those changes made permanent.

“They can’t be temporary changes because we can’t go through this again,” Taylor said. ​“We saw it blow up for families and be such a challenging issue — not to mention the mental health impact that it had on moms.”

Kathleen Nagy, a mother of an 18-month-old and 4-month-old in New Jersey, has now been through the formula shortage with both of her kids. Her older daughter was still on formula, a specific Enfamil brand for children with dairy allergies called Nutramigen, when the shortage began. But Nagy couldn’t find Nutramigen at the start of 2022, driving to ​“seven, eight, nine different stores” to find it. Even though she had WIC, and even though her state contracted with Enfamil already, she said her local WIC office couldn’t ship her the formula after March 2022. They couldn’t find it, either.

When her son was born in September, they were OK until about November, when she started noticing that his formula, a sensitive type called Enfamil Gentlease, was also missing from stores. They had to begin buying larger boxes of powder formula at $50 each — it was the only thing left. It lasted them, at most, two weeks.

“I can’t keep doing that,” Nagy said. ​“It’s super stressful.”

Some changes to the WIC program could help parents in the case of another shortage, advocates said. Allowing families to use WIC to purchase items online could help mitigate the added transportation and regional issues with the shortage for families who are already low-income. So would allowing them to use their WIC benefits in another state.

“I have people begging, ‘Where can you find this?’”

In West Virginia, where Breanna Dietrich runs a Facebook group for parents searching for formula, that’s a constant issue.

The families in the rural area she helps live near the border with Ohio. On her Facebook page, which has nearly doubled in size since May, it’s often the case that families in one state have the formula a family is looking for in another. But parents may not have the funds to travel to get it or to pay for formula without using WIC.

“I have people begging, ​‘Where can you find this?’” said Dietrich, 36.

Dietrich’s youngest daughter was on formula when the shortage began, and she said the impact on her family was profound. When Dietrich’s eldest daughter was recently out of town for a cheerleading competition, she sent her a picture of the formula aisle at a grocery store. Her older son also reflexively walked down the formula aisle when he stopped at Kroger recently, and sent a photo to his mom. In both photos, the shelves were largely empty.

“The fact that my children that are teenagers see it because they’ve been there with the baby? The mental side of this — I am still not OK,” she said.

There are a few potential solutions in the works. The FDA announced last month that it is creating a ​“pathway” for international formula providers brought in during the shortage to continue marketing their products while simultaneously working toward FDA accreditation to stay in the U.S. market. Eleven companies have expressed interest in doing so.

The agency is using a pandemic data analysis tool to help track in-stock rates of formula and anticipate shortages. It’s also establishing a new Office of Critical Foods to manage oversight of medical foods and formula that people rely on as their singular source of nutrition.

In California, a bill has been introduced that would create a formula stockpile for the state, similar to supply build-ups for medication. Abbott also recently announced plans to open a second U.S. plant in Ohio, but commercial production of formula isn’t slated until 2027.

Schmier said that in working with the administration it’s clear some of the issues are down to the private companies — “[the administration] can’t get into a truck and distribute formula from a private manufacturer, so some of the concerns are hyper-localized,” she said. But the federal government does have the ability to make permanent the regulations it has changed in the past year.

The moment to act is now, she said.

“While that crisis is still really fresh in the minds of a lot of people, there’s far more that probably could be done in this area to make sure that nothing happens in the future,” Schmier said. “…We are not totally out of the woods. It should never be that one factory goes down and the entire country is thrown into a tailspin.”

For parents like Romero, what comes next won’t soon erase the pain of the past year. She said she felt misled by formula companies and the federal government when they gave assurances at the height of the shortage in the spring that the situation would stabilize in a few months.

But that help never came in time for her and her son.

“I’m kind of like, ​‘What is it now? What’s causing the hold-up now?’” she said. ​“We as a country say that we want to put our kids first and we don’t. We’ve failed mothers and kids so much.”

Peasant Wages for Lordly Feats

Medieval Times performers strike against dismal pay and hazardous conditions.

EMILY JANAKIRAM 

IN THESE TIMES

MARCH 2, 2023

An illustration of a knight holding an "Unfair Labor Practice Strike" sign while on horseback.P

HOTO COURTESY OF MEDIEVAL TIMES PERFORMERS UNITED

Outside the Medieval Times castle in Buena Park, Calif., a sudden Monty Python-like spectacle emerges — twoscore knights, queens, squires and trumpeters, all marching on the boss to demand a fair contract. The protest is part of an indefinite unfair labor practice strike that comes after three months of stalled negotiations between newly unionized workers and Medieval Times management.

In 2022, workers at two of Medieval Times’ ten castles unionized, claiming that the medieval-themed dinner theater was paying them peasant wages to enact lordly feats of strength — jousting on horseback, with real weapons. ​“I absolutely love my job, and the people that I work with,” says Jake Bowman, a knight speaking from the picket line in California. But Bowman makes just $18.50 an hour in one of the highest cost-of-living regions in the country, a wage he says is almost impossible to live on. ​“One of our knights is sleeping in his car right now,” Bowman adds. According to a post by @MTUnitedNJ on Twitter, stable hands — who take care of the horses essential to the show — make so little that they qualify for food stamps. The union demands wages be increased to the hourly living wage minimum for Orange County, which is currently estimated to be $23.66.

According to Monica Garza, who works as a queen at the unionized Medieval Times castle in Lyndhurst, N.J., as well as Erin Zapcic, a queen and union steward in Buena Park, in bargaining sessions, the company told workers at each castle that it does have money — it just chooses not to spend it on workers. Medieval Times management did not respond to multiple email requests for comment.

Knights are sleeping in their cars, while stable hands make so little they qualify for food stamps.

Instead, the largesse of the kingdom is being doled out to those who bend the knee. The five workers interviewed for this article confirmed that in January, nonunion castles received 20% to 25% raises while union castles were offered 2% to 3% in negotiations, which worked out to mere cents per hour. Multiple workers called this figure ​“a slap in the face.” Further, they say, some job roles are being undervalued. Trumpeters were initially not offered raises at all, according to Jessica Gibson, a trumpeter with the New Jersey location. ​“In their mind, we play a few calls [to announce ceremonies],” Gibson says. ​“We do so much more — we’re backstage helping the queens set up, doing radio communications — but they don’t see that.”

In addition to low pay, workers who spoke with In These Times all named serious safety concerns as one of their top grievances. ​“You’re working with live animals in a live show, where real weapons are swung at you,” Bowman says. Jonathan Beckas, a knight at the Medieval Times castle in New Jersey who goes by J.C., recounted a recent incident when he was tossed from a horse because management scheduled extremely noisy construction during rehearsals — a nail gun went off and startled the horse. J.C. says he only avoided injury because, as someone who was trained in stage combat before joining Medieval Times, he managed to fall and land with proper technique.

Workers say management’s training methods also expose them to risk of injury. Sean Quigley, a former ​“lord marshal” at the Lyndhurst castle (he left in January), says his Medieval Times instructor had a horse throw him off without warning during his knight training in 2017. Quigley, who says he was provided no helmet or protective gear, landed fully on his back and bruised his spine. Since then, workers say, the only improvements to the safety measures is that female performers, such as queens, now wear helmets when they ride a horse — if there are enough helmets. ​“There are very obvious safety measures that are overlooked,” says Garza.

The largesse of the kingdom is being doled out to those who bend the knee, with nonunion castles receiving 20% to 25% raises in contrast to the 2% to 3% being offered to unionized workers.

Chronic understaffing further increases the safety risks, workers say. ​“We never have enough people,” Bowman says. All the workers In These Times spoke to say understaffing leads actors to perform the strenuous jousting act several times back-to-back, which heightens the risk of injury. According to Garza, there are also no dedicated event staff and virtually no security, leaving workers on stage open to harassment. She recounts being physically accosted on stage by a drunk audience member, whom she had to fight off herself.

Workers say understaffing burdens existing staff with extra responsibilities. For instance, Garza says two trumpeters at the Lyndhurst castle were asked to operate the spotlight right as a show was about to start. The task — which involves climbing onto scaffolding above the stage and moving heavy, specialized lighting equipment — was not part of trumpeters’ job descriptions, but when trumpeters refused to perform it, Garza says they were fired. (On February 27, Medieval Times posted a job listing for a spotlight operator at their Lyndhurst location, proclaiming in all-caps: ​“FOR A LIMITED TIME, WE ARE OFFERING A $250 SIGN-ON BONUS AFTER 60 DAYS OF EMPLOYMENT!”)

The union has raised these issues in bargaining, but workers say the company and its lawyers have been dismissive, reportedly telling workers, ​“you’re not Hollywood, you’re not Broadway” and ​“anyone can do your job.” After four bargaining sessions, workers say management still refused to negotiate on wages or staffing minimums, leading workers to consider striking.

In New Jersey, Medieval Times has a whole show’s worth of scabs waiting in a hotel "in case we strike like California,” workers say.

The last straw precipitating the Buena Park strike was litigation against the union. The company is suing Medieval Times Performers United and the American Guild of Variety Artists for trademark infringement for using the Medieval Times company name and logo in union branding — a strategy not even notorious union-busters like Amazon and Trader Joe’s have tried. ​“They were trying to send a message that, if you organize, you can expect a day in court. It was clearly retaliation and intimidation,” says Zapcic. According to Zapcic and Bowman, Medieval Times has also reported the union’s social media accounts for trademark infringement, in the process getting the union’s TikTok account banned, which — at 8,200 followers — had been a key organizing tool.

Strikers claim aggressive litigation isn’t the only strike-breaking tactic the company is resorting to. Within a week of the strike beginning, the company had called upon its cavalry: Not-so-parfait-gentil knights from other locations to work as scabs in the Buena Park castle.

In New Jersey, according to Garza and J.C., the company has a whole show’s worth of scabs waiting in a hotel. ​“My manager was very candid with me … saying that they are there in case we strike like California,” says Garza.

“They’re also doing a nice PR campaign against us on the inside, that we’re ruining people’s jobs and we’re being unreasonable,” says Bowman.

But the union has its own cavalry coming in: ​“We are part of AFL-CIO and a network of people who will drop everything and come out to support you,” Zapcic says. ​“We had some of the girls from Star Garden [Topless Dive Bar] out picketing with us. … Starbucks [Workers] United has been out picketing with us, and we get more people to join the line every day — we’re turning it into a big party … Over the last week, I’ve had a new appreciation for what being in a union means.”

Courage did not wane in the hearts of the thousands of peasants who, armed with old bows, sticks and axes, revolted across England in the wake of the Black Death, demanding an end to serfdom. Nor does it wane now in the hearts of Medieval Times Performers United. With the force of the labor movement behind them, the workers are confident that, unlike the peasants of 14th-century England, their quest will not be in vain.

VIEWPOINT

As Russia Pulls Back From the Nuclear Treaty, The Fate of Humanity Hangs in the Balance

The fragility of the arms control treaty lays bare the need for nuclear abolition.

FRIDA BERRIGAN MARCH 2, 2023

Peace activists wearing masks of Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden march in support of the NEW Start Treaty on Jan, 29, 2021

(PHOTO BY JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)

There’s not a lot of good news.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved its Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds to midnight to dramatize the global peril posed by nuclear weapons and climate catastrophe. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine just passed the somber and maddening one year mark. Now, in apparent retaliation for President Joe Biden’s unannounced trip to Ukraine last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that his nation was done with the New START Treaty, the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia.

The New START Treaty, signed in 2011, curbed a decades-long arms race that produced tens of thousands of nuclear warheads, nearly bankrupted both nations and threatened the whole world with devastating nuclear firepower. The treaty capped at 1,550 per nation the number of nuclear warheads deployed on long-range bombers, submarines and intercontinental missile systems. Moscow and Washington further agreed to a schedule of regular inspections to confirm progress. In 2018, they mutually verified that each nation had taken enough warheads offline — by scrapping them or holding them in strategic reserve — to be in full compliance with the treaty. In 2021, they agreed to extend the terms of the treaty until 2026. But the two nations suspended inspections during the pandemic, and then the war in Ukraine ratcheted up tensions to near-apocalyptic levels.

Since Russia’s invasion a year ago, Washington and other allies have provided Ukraine with weapons, military aid, training and solidarity. The United States alone has supplied more than $27 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, including more than 1,600 Stinger anti-aircraft rocket systems, 8,500 Javelin anti-tank missile systems and over 1 million 155mm artillery rounds.hardware, training and ammunition.

The stakes were high from the beginning as nations lined up behind the invader and the invaded. Now, the future of arms control is at stake.

In a speech marking the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin highlighted Western interference in the war effort for his decision to opt out of New START. ​“They want to inflict a strategic defeat on us and claim our nuclear facilities,” the Russian president told parliament on February 21, thus ​“I am forced to state that Russia is suspending its participation in the strategic offensive arms treaty.” The Russian government later said it would continue to exchange nuclear data with the United States and abide by the treaty’s limits, but observers fear Russia is one step closer to full withdrawal.

Biden called Putin’s move ​“a big mistake,” urging Russia to come back to the table. There’s a chance that will happen, but this flashpoint demonstrates that arms control is a poor guarantor of global stability. And it points to the need for something new.

As Dr. Ira Helfand of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War declared, ​“If we don’t get rid of nuclear weapons, they’re going to be used. And if they’re used, nothing else that we’re doing is going to make any difference.”

The global community has an opportunity to push hard for nuclear abolition. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) condemned Putin’s withdrawal from the treaty in strong terms. But Alicia Sanders-Zakre, ICAN’s policy and research coordinator, also stresses that ​“the weakening of the last remaining bilateral arms control agreement underscores the need for multilateral disarmament instruments, including the UN Treaty on the Prohibition for Nuclear Weapons,” or TPNW. So far, the TPNW has collected 92 signatory countries and 68 ​“states parties” still in the process of gaining ratification through their governing bodies.

The TPMW is the only global treaty to explicitly ban countries from using or threatening to use nuclear weapons. It also provides a verifiable pathway for nuclear disarmament. ​“Every country that joins this treaty strengthens the normative barrier against nuclear weapons,” notes Sanders-Zakre, ​“something that is desperately needed given the unprecedented level of nuclear risk we are facing.”

Florian Eblenkamp, an ICAN campaign officer, points to the upcoming G7 Summit as an opportunity to push the richest and most powerful countries in the world toward abolition. The meeting will be held in mid-May in Hiroshima, Japan — the first of only two cities to ever suffer the devastating impacts of a nuclear bomb attack, when the United States dropped the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945. Hiroshima is officially a ​“city of peace” and one role of the city government is to work for nuclear abolition. Mayor Kazumi Matsui is the President of Mayors for Peace, which represents more than 8,000 cities in 166 nations, and which issued a February 14 statement that read in part, ​“The only guarantee to protect humanity and the planet from the threat of nuclear weapons is their total elimination.”

ICAN, Hiroshima University and others are organizing a ​“Youth Summit” in Hiroshima ahead of the G7 meetings this spring, calling on young people from around the world to come and ​“experience the power of Hiroshima, a city that embodies the hope for a world without nuclear weapons.”

The G7 includes nuclear states the United States, France and the United Kingdom, as well as Canada, Germany, Italy and Japan. Russia left the international body in 2018, and China has yet to attain the requisite ​“developed nation” status despite its economic and military power. While Russia and China will not be in Hiroshima, they will be watching the proceedings closely.

Against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Ukraine, overheated rhetoric and collapsing bilateral arms control regimes, the G7 Summit is the perfect time for the richest and most powerful nations of the world to embrace the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. At 90 seconds to nuclear midnight, it is not a minute too soon.

FRIDA BERRIGAN writes for TomDispatch, Waging Nonviolence and other outlets. Her book, It Runs in the Family: On Being Raised By Radicals and Growing Into Rebellious Motherhood, was published by OR Books in 2015. She lives in New London, Conn., with her husband, three kids and six chickens.

Why Russia’s suspension of participation in New START augurs badly for arms control?

March 2, 2023
By Hamdan Khan

MODERN DIPLOMACY


On February 21st, President Putin while delivering his state of the nation address announced that “Russia is suspending its membership in the New START Treaty”. He went on to clarify that it was not a withdrawal but rather a suspension of participation. Interestingly, the treaty does not contain a provision about the parties (to the treaty) “suspending” their membership. Nevertheless, in article XIV the treaty recognizes the parties’ right to withdraw if they decide that “extraordinary events related to the subject matter” of the treaty have “jeopardized” their “supreme interests”. The withdrawing party would have to give notice containing “a statement of the extraordinary events”, which could jeopardize its supreme interests.

Signed in 2010, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) took effect in 2011 for a period of 10 years; in 2021, the treaty was extended for another 05 years. In article II, New START caps the number of deployed warheads for both countries besides limiting the number of deployed and non-deployed delivery systems. Moreover, the treaty delineates the locations for basing deployed and non-deployed warheads besides stipulating a comprehensive mechanism of notifications for the exchange of information about changes in respective arsenals and most importantly the on-site inspections for verifications.

What is behind Russia’s suspension of its membership?

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted the Western capitals to rally around the sole agenda of disgruntling Russian objectives in Ukraine, which Moscow entwines with its existential security interests. Western sanctions against Russia and the unremitting supply of weapons to Ukraine — which empowered Kyiv to drastically roll back Russian advances — pushed the antagonism between Moscow and the West all times high since the end of the Cold War. As the zero-sum interplay thrived, the positive-sum arrangements, such as arms control, were predictably going to be a casualty and this is exactly what transpired.

In August 2022, Russia “temporarily” halted inspection activities citing the lopsided travel restrictions on its inspectors by Washington imposed in the wake of the war in Ukraine and “no obvious indication” of a decline in the number of COVID-19 cases in the US. Moscow, however, underscored its full commitment to the other provisions of the treaty and as per the US State Department, stepped up the notifications under the treaty. Later, the talks to resume inspections slated in November were postponed by Moscow accusing Washington of “toxicity and animosity”. In late January 2023, the US State Department spokesperson criticized Russia for refusing to allow inspections and cautioned that Russian actions threaten the “viability of US-Russia nuclear arms control”.

During his state of the nation address, Putin alleged that repeated requests by Russia to inspect US facilities have been turned down by Washington. He claimed that “the West is directly involved in Ukraine’s attempts to strike” Russian strategic aviation bases and alleged that drones used in the attacks were “equipped and updated” by NATO. The attacks reportedly occurred in December 2022 at Engels air base which houses Russian long-range strategic bombers. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) later alleged that the US undertook the attempts to “probe the protection” of Russian strategic facilities and that attacks on the facilities were launched by the US “military-technical and intelligence assistance”. Putin also rejected that matters related to strategic weapon systems can be disassociated from the war in Ukraine and the Western avowals to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia. The Russian MFA claimed that the US policies aim to “undermine Russia’s national security”, which belies the principle of “indivisible security” enshrined in the preamble of the New START. It goes without saying that the antagonism intensified by the war in Ukraine had finally spilled over to strategic arms control.

What would change after Russia suspended its membership?

Russia’s MFA upheld that Moscow would “strictly comply” with “qualitative restrictions” for strategic arms set by the treaty until its annulment. It also affirmed that the exchange of notifications on ICBM and SLBM launches would continue as per the 1988 Soviet-U.S. agreement. If the parties choose to adhere to the two items, there are few chances of an immediate arms race imperiling strategic stability.

Nevertheless, provided the inspections had already been stopped, the notifications for “removal from accountability” and changes in data concerning the strategic arms enshrined in articles VI and VII respectively would likely come to an end and so would the meetings of the Bilateral Consultative Commission (BSC). The developments would essentially mark an end to reciprocal transparency and mutual trust, which would have been crucial once the attempts to conclude a follow-on agreement to New START were to be made.

How the suspension would affect the future of arms control?

New START was the last remaining arms control treaty between the US and Russia, which together account for nearly 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons. Once the five-year extension of the treaty annuls in 2026 and given the cynicism around a follow-on agreement, it would be the first time since 1970 that there would be no limitations on the US and Russian strategic arsenals and delivery means. The non-existence of arms control between Washington and Moscow coupled with the obsolescence of some of the existing strategic systems and the emergence of new systems with strategic applications, a new and more intense strategic arms race would likely unfold.

On top of that, apart from the nuclear rivalry between the US and Russia, Washington — besides its threat perception of North Korea and that of its Pacific allies like South Korea and Japan — has recently been vociferously expressing concerns about what it claims is the large-scale modernization and expansion of the Chinese nuclear arsenal, which, as per the estimates by Pentagon, could have as many as 1000 warheads by 2030. Likewise, President Putin in his address alluded to the nuclear arsenals of Great Britain and France, which are “directed against” Russia and form NATO’s “combined offensive capabilities”. He did not miss adding the caveat that before talks on Russia restoring its membership of New START, Moscow “must have a clear idea” of the strategic capabilities of Great Britain and France.

Therefore, it is unlikely that either the US or Russia would agree to new arms control unless their other respective nuclear adversaries are also brought into the fold. And if China is to join arms control talks — which it has shown little interest till now — Beijing would unlikely overlook India’s growing strategic capabilities, which itself is vying to gain a strategic edge over its arch-rival Pakistan. Even if all the Nuclear Weapons States (NWSs) agree to participate in arms control talks, not only the participation of more parties would render it difficult to reach a consensus, but also the inclusion of de facto nuclear powers in arms control talks would further add to the complications. Contrariwise, in the absence of arms control, the arms race between the USA and Russia would also channel down the nuclear chain to impact the force postures of all the NWSs.

Congressional Black Caucus demands response from DOJ on police accountability

BY CHEYANNE M. DANIELS - 03/02/23 

Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) is seen as the House votes to adjourn on the second day of the 118th session of Congress on Wednesday, January 4, 2023. The House held three more ballots for Speaker, with neither Reps. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) or Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) getting enough votes.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) on Thursday announced they have sent a letter to the Department of Justice demanding data around the status of President Biden’s 2022 executive order on police accountability.

The executive order, Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices to Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety, called for establishing a national law enforcement accountability database to track officer misconduct, as well as creating guidance and practices to address mental health crises and improving safety conditions in prisons and jails.

“Some of these provisions should have been completed by now,” said. Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), chairman of the caucus. “Tyre Nichols and other lives depend on it.”

Horsford said Attorney General Merrick Garland has received the letter and indicated he will be responding to the CBC.

The caucus’s announcement came during a press conference listing the group’s successes of the 117th Congress and its goals for the 118th, which include housing and job opportunities.

But one of the biggest priorities of the CBC this session will be public safety reform, Horsford said, specifically in areas of police accountability, transparency and standards.

“People have talked about the brutal, brutal beating of Tyre Nichols, which resulted in his death and is a reminder that we have a long way to go and solving systemic police violence in America,” said Horsford.

Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, was pulled over by Memphis police officers on Jan. 7 for allegedly driving reckless. But the traffic stop soon turned violent, with five Black police officers beating Nichols unconscious. Nichols succumbed to his injuries from that encounter and died on Jan.10.

“What we are saying as the Congressional Black Caucus is that no one should die as a result of a traffic stop,” Horsford said. “No child who goes to a park should not come home. No one should die in the middle of the night when someone busts through their door in their home.”House Democrat accuses GOP of ‘misplaced priorities’ on educationEPA to require Norfolk Southern to test directly for dioxins in East Palestine

Horsford added that the CBC was not “going after law enforcement as a whole,” but rather targeting bad policing.

“We don’t want to end policing. We want to put an end to bad policing,” Horsford said. “All of us, regardless of party, should agree that bad policing has no place in America. That is why we are working to build consensus. This is not a Black issue alone. This is not a Black, Brown or white issue. This is a public safety and accountability issue. It is not a Republican, Democratic or Independent issue. It is a public safety and accountability issue.”