OLD FASHIONED CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Corruption-trial coverage getting little attention

Charita M. Goshay, The Repository
Sun, March 5, 2023 

Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder leaves the Federal Courthouse with Mark Marein, Householder’s attorney, after a day at the courthouse during his trial for racketeering conspiracy on Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023, in Cincinnati. Larry Householder and former Ohio Republican Party chair Matt Borges are charged with racketeering in an alleged $60 million scheme to pass state legislation to secure a $1 billion bailout for two nuclear power plants owned by FirstEnergy

We're in the midst of an era in which the means and ability to communicate has never been easier, yet serious stories and the coverage of the things which really matter often have to fight for readers' attention.

To borrow from the Irish writer Seamus Deane, we appear to be stuck somewhere between "Boredom and Apocalypse."

Currently, former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder is on trial for racketeering, accused of orchestrating a $60 million bribe from FirstEnergy officials, who buttonholed the legislature in 2019 to approve House Bill 6, which granted the utility a $1.3 billion subsidy for two nuclear power plants while increasing consumer rates and reducing subsides for clean/renewable energy projects.

Mathematically speaking, it's a cheap date.

But few if any folks have been paying much attention to Householder's trial, we must suppose because it's not entertaining enough, though House Bill 6 is literally taking money out of their pockets. According to Democratic state Reps. Casey Weinstein of Hudson and Jeffrey Crossman of Parma: "Ohioans continue to pay $287,000 every single day for subsidies that bail out an out-of-state coal plant and are tied to the largest public corruption scandal in state history. The subsidies are estimated to cost Ohioans up to $1.8 billion by 2030."

A plugged nickel

We know from experience that lessons unlearned are often repeated. Ohio has a Murderers' Row of misappropriation by top officials, including former Attorney General Marc Dann, Canton-born Deputy State Treasurer Amer Ahmad, and legendary House Speaker Vern G. Riffe Jr.

Householder is the second consecutive Ohio House speaker to land in trouble, following Cliff Rosenberger, who resigned his post in 2018 during an FBI investigation of his travel expenditures and his dealings with the payday loan industry, which was waging a battle to kneecap any attempt to regulate its practices.

Ohio scandals:From pancaking and Coingate to ECOT and House Bill 6: 50 years of Ohio public corruption cases

In 2005, the Toledo Blade broke "Coingate," a scandal in which $50 million of Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation funds was sunk into rare coins, a feat engineered by Tom Noe, a big-dog fundraiser, friend of Gov. Robert Taft, and who just happened to be a coin dealer.

Noe, whose companies made at least $1 million off the state, ended up in prison over illegal campaign contributions. Taft, and two of his staffers acquired criminal records for violating the state's ethics laws for failing to report gifts they received from Noe.

The media gets blamed for a lot. People who tend to have the most to hide are often the loudest complainers, sowing seeds of distrust along the way. In some cases, the criticism is warranted, even welcome, but who's at fault for decades of Statehouse corruption?

Who keeps voting for ambivalence?

Cornfed Machiavellis:Being Buckeyes doesn't mean we should act like nuts

The first draft of history

Reporting on state government is a thankless job because, even when it's done, it's far down the totem pole of stories getting read.

Yet, even if no one ever reads the stories, they matter because you have a right to know. Newspapers have a civic duty and an obligation to be the repository of record. It's the reason for their very existence.

They matter because newspapers remain, as Mark Twain put, "the first draft of history."

They matter because it's your money. For example, the FBI has launched a pay-to-play investigation of ECOT, the state's shambolic Electronic School of Tomorrow, which still owes you $117 million. The bureau, which also is looking into the workings behind the bill legalizing sports betting, has declared Ohio as one of the most politically corrupt in the country, describing the Householder case in "a league all its own," but Buckeyes don't appear to be bothered by that status.

Somewhere, Charles Ponzi is weeping with envy.

Charita M. Goshay is a Canton Repository staff writer and member of the editorial board. Reach her at  charita.goshay@cantonrep.com. On Twitter: @cgoshayREP

AUSTRALIA

Colourful WorldPride march closes Sydney Harbour Bridge as PM joins the throng


ByLinda Morris
March 5, 2023 —

Among the vast crowd of 50,000 people who made their way across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday morning, one activist for gender diversity stood alone.

“I’ve got me a spot in the front, and a nice frock. No heels,” said Norrie, the Sydney resident who took on the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages in the High Court nine years ago and became the first person to win the right to be declared a person of non-specific gender.

“I was the first person in NSW to be declared non-binary. Until then, the assumption had been that you were either male or female,” they said. “This walk is a celebration of how much queer people have gone mainstream, and I’m loving that.”

Sunday’s Pride march shut down the Sydney Harbour Bridge for seven hours as the rainbow-hued crowd made its way from Milsons Point to the Cahill Expressway and The Domain and Hyde Park in what is believed to be the largest public turnout for inclusion since 250,000 people walked the bridge for Indigenous reconciliation in 2000.

It was the penultimate event of the 17-day global WorldPride festival, which arrived in Sydney on February 17 on its first visit to the Southern Hemisphere. The festival wrapped up on Sunday with a live music concert in The Domain, with performers including G Flip and Altar Boy. An estimated half a million people attended the festival’s 300-plus events.

Attended by politicians of most persuasions, activists and celebrities, the bridge walk had been organised to celebrate the right of the LGBTQ community to “claim their own sexuality and self-defined identity, and the right to live those identities without fear or stigma while protesting the ongoing barriers faced by these communities”.

A crowd of 50,000 people who made their way across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday morning.

It was a fitting end to “the most wonderful celebration we’ve had in this country” said restaurateur and chef Kylie Kwong.

“When I think back to when I was coming out 35 years ago, you know, when I was 15 to 19 years old, there was certainly not this visibility and support around the community,” she said. “As some of the community leaders have said, Sydney WorldPride literally saves lives.”

Sunday’s walk was led by 45 “rainbow champions” – influential Australians, representing each of the 45 years since the first Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras as well as its original participants, known as the ’78ers.

The march was the penultimate event of the 17-day global WorldPride festival.

One of those original protestors, Anne Rauch said the WorldPride march felt like a repeat of “what we did in ’78”. “This is about global equality and there’s a whole lot of countries that haven’t progressed. People who identify as gay are killed for that reason.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong joined the early morning crowd that gathered on the bridge to loud cheers, making slow progress as the PM stopped repeatedly to pose for selfies.

Albanese said the bridge walk was a moment of great symbolism.“It’s about saying everybody should be valued for who they are and that our society is strengthened by its diversity. It’s a celebration of that but also an acknowledgement, being led by the ’78ers that social change doesn’t happen in a uniform way. And it’s not easy, and people have made great sacrifices.”

Actress and comedian Magda Szubanski said she was participating to celebrate five years of marriage equality. “I’m here to celebrate with my people, which is all people, let’s face it.”

Szubanski said she was not out to overtly change minds: “We just go on being ourselves and hopefully they’ll realise, you know, it’s more fun to be with us than against us.”

Among those who turned out were mother and son Shelley and James Argent. James came out to his mother in 1996 when it could be physically dangerous to declare yourself gay in public.

Bearing a sign, “Proud of my gay son”, Shelley Argent said her advice to other parents was simple: “Understand that it’s the hardest thing a child ever does, coming out to their parents, so be patient. Even if you don’t understand, look for support, look for your questions to be answered.

GALLERY

Gallery: Sydney WorldPride 2023 - Oxford Street Party

“Put on a happy face because if the child sees you looking sad, the child feels bad, and they don’t want to disappoint their parents.”

PHOTO CREDIT:EDWINA PICKLES

MARKET ANARCHY

How Tesco and Sainsbury's obsession with Aldi fuelled Britain's fruit and vegetable rationing crisis

Daniel Woolfson
Sat, March 4, 2023 

fruit and vegetable shelves empty in supermarket rationing crisis - DANIEL LEAL/AFP via Getty Images

It began innocuously: a handful of social media users queried why they couldn’t find tomatoes in their local shops.

But what started as mild annoyance soon escalated into something much more serious: Tesco, Asda, Aldi and Morrisons began rationing tomatoes, cucumbers and other salad vegetables as shortages hit the supermarket sector. Restrictions are still in place almost two weeks later.

February’s shortages were blamed on bad weather spells in Morocco and Spain, which damaged crops and delayed harvests.

Yet farmers in Britain say there are more deep-seated problems at work. Many complain that continued pressure from supermarkets to lower prices has brought Britain’s agricultural sector to its knees and left the country vulnerable to shortages.

Farmers blame endless price wars between British supermarkets and German discounters Aldi and Lidl, which have left producers with a raw deal.

Pressure on profit margins has only grown over the last 18 months as the prices of feed, fertiliser and energy have surged in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Faced with soaring costs and squeezed prices for their products, many farmers are cutting back on production or giving up altogether.

“If growers are not making a profit, they’re not going to do it,” says Ali Capper, the owner of 200-year-old Stocks Farm.

“This sector is losing money – growers are not idiots.”

Capper, who grows hops and apples in Worcestershire, says Brexit made the UK overly reliant on imported fruit and vegetables from markets like Morocco. However, she believes aggressive negotiating from the supermarkets is “the number one reason why there are shortages”.

A December survey by Sustain found some farmers were left with a profit of less than 1pc after supermarkets and intermediaries such as packers and distributors took their cut.

“Why should their children take on debt or sell their businesses to service debt?” says Capper, “Many are multi-generation family businesses.”

Supermarket price wars are not new. However, the cost of living crisis has supercharged competition in the sector by putting a rocket under the growth of German discounters Aldi and Lidl.

Combined, the two now account for roughly 17pc of the UK grocery market and last year Aldi overtook Morrisons to become Britain’s fourth largest supermarket.

British grocers have responded with lower prices. Tesco became the first supermarket to explicitly price match Aldi in 2020, and currently does so on 600 products. Sainsbury’s price matches 300 of its products against Aldi, expanding the range of linked items in January.

Asda and Morrisons do not match explicitly but have been competing on price.

Often the easiest way to lower prices is to push suppliers to sell at the lowest levels possible.

Retail expert David Sables says: “The reality is [producers] are being hit not just by Tesco and Sainsbury’s but Asda, Morrisons and absolutely everybody for the same reason.”

The scale of the supermarkets means they have a lot of negotiating power, with many farmers often reluctantly accepting deals for fear of losing the major retailers as customers if they say no.

Jack Ward, chief executive of the British Growers Association, says: “[Price wars] have gradually… eroded all of the value out of the fresh produce sector.

“In 2014, carrots were 80p a kilo. By 2017, they were 60p a kilo and at the start of 2022 they were 40p a kilo. Today they’re on sale at 50p a kilo.”

“Four years of general inflation and a year of super-inflation and we’re still expected to sell them 10p a kilo cheaper than they were five years ago.”

Supermarkets are not accused of any illegality and all abide by the Groceries Code, which is a set of guidelines meant to ensure that food producers are treated fairly. Aldi tops the Groceries Code Adjudicator's (GCA) ranking of best behaved supermarkets, with Tesco second.

Sables says: “The truth of the matter is that where Aldi may not squeeze suppliers too hard, it's because their business model lends itself to keeping the price down.”

Aldi has smaller stores with lower rents than Tesco or Sainsbury’s. The retailer also stocks a smaller range of products on shelves, which keeps costs down. Lower overheads put less pressure on the prices it pays for stock.

“Everybody knows if you’re pitching to Aldi you’ve got to come in low, but they don’t have to squeeze or be unreasonable or pressurising,” says Sables.

“When the other [retailers] – with their range choices and sophistication and bigger stores and higher stockholdings – try to compete on pricing, of course they have to put pressure on the suppliers.”

The National Farmers Union (NFU) has repeatedly warned of an escalating crisis in British food, highlighting the failure to give growers a fair deal as a key issue. In December, it said Britain was “sleepwalking” into a food security crisis.

“The consequences of undervaluing growers can be seen on supermarket shelves right now,” says NFU president Minette Batters. “This is a reality we’ve been warning the Government about for many months.

“Without urgent action there are real risks that empty shelves may become more commonplace.”

The NFU has urged government and industry to intervene and make the supply chain fairer for farmers and growers.

Batters says: “We saw it with eggs, they do not have contractual relationships that are fit for purpose.”

Shortages of eggs last year were widely attributed to the ongoing outbreak of avian flu in the UK. But some farmers claimed it was because they were not getting a good enough deal from the supermarkets.

Suppliers who believe they are being mistreated by retailers can complain officially by lodging a complaint with the GCA.

Speaking earlier in 2022, Mark White, the adjudicator himself, said he was “concerned that the pressure has impaired relationships and created wider problems”.

Batters says: “Farmers and growers are extremely reluctant to speak up. There is a fear of being delisted. It is a really challenging environment.”

However, some on the supermarket side say it is just as challenging for retailers. These businesses too are facing major increases in costs, ranging from energy to wages.

Higher costs and elevated levels of customer switching, driven by the cost of living crisis, have left major retailers fighting to sustain themselves.

A senior retail industry source says: “If big supermarkets don’t [compete], soon we’re going to find that Aldi and Lidl are the big supermarkets.”

Sables says: “Farmers may very well say this is down to Aldi [but] everybody’s fuel and heating and fertiliser costs have gone up because of the war in Ukraine… that’s got nothing to do with Aldi.”

A Sainsbury’s spokesman said: “We have always believed in close collaboration with our farmers and in paying them fairly.

“As inflationary pressures rise, we have supported our farmers and producers financially, as well as investing to keep prices low for customers throughout this financial year. We have longstanding partnerships with our suppliers to ensure long term confidence and investment into the sector.”

Tesco has given millions of pounds of additional support for the pig, egg and milk sectors over the last year and raised the price it pays for potatoes and chilled vegetables.

Andrew Opie, director of sustainability at the British Retail Consortium (BRC), says: “Retailers have long established relationships with the farmers in the UK and beyond, and they understand they need to pay a sustainable price for these goods.”

However, Ward, of the British Growers Association, says the UK’s current problems with food production require a much broader rethink of the way the nation eats.

“We need to find a more sustainable way of trading fresh produce," he says. "When I say sustainable, that's got to be sustainable in terms of viability for small producers, in terms of the social impact, food prices, and sustainable in terms of not imposing a negative impact on the environment.”

Factbox-Willow oil and gas project in Alaska sparks green opposition



Fri, March 3, 2023 

(Reuters) - Environmental and climate activists are rallying online against ConocoPhillips’ proposed Willow oil and gas drilling project in Alaska as the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden weighs whether to greenlight the controversial plan.

A petition on Change.org opposing the project has gathered over 2 million signatures, while the hashtag #StopWillow has been trending in social media posts.

Here are some details about the project:

WHAT IS THE WILLOW PROJECT?

The Willow project is a $6 billion proposal from ConocoPhillips' to drill oil and gas in Alaska. It would be located inside the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a 23 million-acre (93 million-hectare) area on the state's North Slope that is the largest tract of undisturbed public land in the United States.


WILL IT BE APPROVED?

President Joe Biden's administration said in February it would support a scaled-back version of the project.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) published the project's final environmental review last month, selecting a "preferred alternative" that would include three drill sites and less surface infrastructure than originally proposed. ConocoPhillips had initially wanted to build up to five drill sites, dozens of miles (km) of roads, seven bridges and pipelines.

A final decision could come as soon as this month.

The project had been initially approved by the Trump administration, but a federal judge in Alaska in 2021 reversed that decision, saying the environmental analysis was flawed.

WHAT IS ITS ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT?

According to BLM's analysis, the design it endorsed would reduce the project's impact on habitats for species like polar bears and yellow-billed loons.

But environmental groups remain staunchly opposed, arguing the project conflicts with the Biden administration’s promises to fight climate change and poses a threat to pristine wilderness.

"The Willow project would have a devastating effect on public lands and our climate, and approving it after passing the largest climate bill in history would be a giant step in reverse," the Sierra Club said in a February press release, referring to the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act.

"Allowing Willow to move forward will pose a threat to some of Alaska’s last undisturbed wilderness, to the populations of wildlife that call it home, and to the public health of nearby communities and makes it harder to achieve our climate goals. We must end new leasing on public lands and conserving more nature to secure our climate future," it added.

BLM's parent agency, the Interior Department, has emphasized that the selection of the preferred alternative was not a final decision on approval of the project, adding that it had "substantial concerns" about Willow's impact on greenhouse gas emissions and wildlife.

In a statement, ConocoPhillips said the design preferred by BLM represented "a viable path forward" for Willow and said it was ready to begin construction "immediately" upon approval.

WHY IS WILLOW IMPORTANT FOR ALASKA?

The Willow project area holds an estimated 600 million barrels of oil, or more than the amount currently held in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the country's emergency supply.

The project is important to Alaska's elected officials, who are hoping it will help offset oil production declines in a state whose economy relies heavily on the drilling industry.

ConocoPhillips has said the project would deliver up to $17 billion in revenue for federal and state governments and local Alaska communities.

The Biden administration has also been urging U.S. oil companies to invest in boosting production to help keep consumer energy prices in check.

(Reporting by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

If Joe Biden can open massive new oil fields, then so can Britain


Matthew Lynn

TELEGRAPH
Sun, March 5, 2023 

President Joe Biden talks to reporters after a lunch with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Democrats about his upcoming budget and political agenda, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, March 2, 2023.

 (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) 

It would be the biggest new oil field in decades. It could supply as much as 2pc of all the oil needed by the United States. And it would be large enough by itself to make a significant difference to the global price, dealing yet another blow to Vladimir Putin’s collapsing war machine in Ukraine.

Over the next couple of weeks, President Joe Biden is expected to approve the Willow Project, a vast new fossil fuel development in Alaska. Despite the fierce opposition of environmental protesters, Biden has decided that the US, and indeed the world, still needs oil.

If the Left-leaning, climate-friendly Biden can approve new energy projects, why can’t we do the same in the UK? No one could possibly accuse Biden of being a climate change denying reactionary. And yet in the US, unlike most of Europe, the debate about energy still has some vague connection to reality.

It recognises that it will take a while and cost a lot to switch to renewables. In the meantime you will need oil and gas – and you might as well produce it yourself rather than buy it from Saudi Arabia.

With plenty of reserves available in this country, perhaps it is time the UK learnt a lesson from Biden – and started to open up some new oil and gas fields of our own.

President Biden is not ignoring climate change or in hock to the oil industry. He is spending so much money on putting the US at the forefront of the shift to green energy that every other country in the world is complaining about the support he is offering.

From subsidies for electric vehicles, to investment in wind and solar power to building the infrastructure for carbon neutral heating, industrial and transport systems he is spending hundreds of billions of dollars to hit net zero as quickly as any other country. On any measure you care to look at, the Biden White House takes this stuff seriously.

And yet, despite that, he is about to approve the biggest new oil field in years. Led by the energy giant ConocoPhillips, the Willow Project in Alaska has the capacity to generate 180,000 barrels of oil a day, or 1.5pc of the US’s total energy needs.

It will add an extra third to Alaska’s annual production. Unsurprisingly, there has been an outcry from environmental activists, with opposition petitions attracting more than a million signatures, and accusations that Biden is breaking his election pledge not to allow new oil drilling on federal land (which, in fairness, has more than an element of truth to it).

Even so, the president is poised to ignore all that and approve the project. Drilling could start before the end of the year.

So if the United States, which is largely energy independent, can decide to go ahead with developing new fossil fuels, then why can’t we do the same in the UK?

It is about being realistic. Renewable energy capacity takes a long time, and it will be years before we can switch heating systems and cars to electricity.

In the meantime, we will still need oil and gas, and we might as well produce it ourselves, creating wealth, jobs and tax revenues in the process, instead of buying it from Russia or Saudi Arabia instead. In Washington, that is just obvious. In London, unfortunately, it still isn’t.

The UK ought to get over its bone-headed opposition to new energy production. In the North Sea, producers have been harassed and taxed out of existence.

Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish government did everything in its power to stop new licences being approved, even though it is one of the country’s most important industries. Windfall taxes have been slapped on the sector, with the Labour Party calling for those to be even higher.

When energy giants such as Shell or BP announce bumper profits – hardly a surprise when energy prices are so high – they are vilified, and face calls for even stiffer levies. In response, projects have been put on hold, and investment stalled.

Shell said last year it was ‘reviewing’ (corporate speak for scrapping) the money spent in the North Sea, and so has Norway’s Equinor. We can hardly complain if output is falling.

The record on fracking has been even worse. Even though it enabled the US to be independent in energy, and although Texas has hardly been convulsed by earthquakes, in this country it has been effectively banned despite the fact we have vast reserves of shale oil and gas in the North.

Liz Truss’s doomed pro-growth government briefly tried to revive it, but was shot down in a hail of opposition. The result? The UK has a huge deficit in energy, importing £2 billion more a month in oil alone than we export. But, heck, who cares. Apparently it is better to just buy energy from Qatar, or indeed from Biden’s America, than produce the stuff ourselves.

That is ridiculous. It doesn’t make any difference to the environment whether the oil is extracted in this country or somewhere else.

Nor does running down oil capacity do anything to speed up green technology. It just puts us at risk of shortages when supply is tight. Biden at least has the guts to realise we will still need oil for a while longer, and it might as well be American oil instead of anyone else’s.

It might be too much to hope for from anyone in charge of British energy policy – but it is time we took a lesson from Washington and approved some new energy projects in this country as well.

Archaeologists in Israel left red-faced after it transpired that a unique 'ancient' inscription was carved last summer

Isobel van Hagen
Sun, March 5, 2023 

In this article:
Darius the Great
King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire from 522 to 486 BCE

The Darius inscription, which was announced as inauthentic on Friday

Shai Halevi/ Israel Antiquities Authority

An inscription bearing the name of a Persian king is "not authentic," the Israel Antiquities Authority said.


In a demonstration, an expert in ancient inscriptions had etched the words into the shard last summer.


The Antiquities Authority said they take "full responsibility for the unfortunate event."

Antiquities authorities in Israel backpedaled on Friday after they announced a supposedly ancient inscription of the name of a Persian king was "not authentic."

It turned out an expert in ancient Aramaic inscriptions had etched the words into the shard last summer.

The finding of what was thought to be the first-ever discovery of an inscription with King Darius the Great's name received considerable publicity when it was announced on Wednesday. The supposed shard of pottery was found by a hiker last December in Tel Lachish National Park 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem.

The inscription on the shard of pottery reads, "Year 24 of Darius," according to a government press release on Wednesday. This would have dated the inscription to 498 BC — or 2,500 years ago.

Darius the Great was the father of King Ahasuerus — an important figure in the Jewish tradition linked to the story of Purim, which is celebrated next week.

But after news broke about the seemingly serendipitous finding, an expert came forward to explain that she herself had carved the words into the shard, according to the Associated Press.

The expert, who was not named by the Antiquities Authority, was giving a demonstration to students at an archeological site where a Canaanite city once stood and left the modified pottery behind last August.

"The Israel Antiquities Authority takes full responsibility for the unfortunate event," said Professor Gideon Avni, the authority's chief scientist, according to Israeli news outlet i24.

"In terms of ethical and scientific practices, we see this as a very severe occurrence," he said.

The authority said in a statement they believed the researcher had left the shard "unintentionally and without malice," but that it was also "careless," which led to a "rare mistake" that "distorted the scientific truth."

The piece of pottery was found to be ancient after being thoroughly examined in a laboratory, the Associated Press reported, which seemingly added to the confusion. The authority also said it would now review all of its procedures and policies.

Darius I ruled the ancient Persian Achaemenid Empire from 522 BC until his death in 486 BC.

ECO ACTIVISM IS NOT TERRORISM

Activists and groups gear up for week of action against Georgia’s ‘Cop City’

Timothy Prattin Atlanta
Sun, March 5, 2023 

Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA

A broad range of individuals and activist organizations, from a local rabbi to Black Voters Matter, Atlanta-area residents and people from across the US, are gearing up for a “week of action” this week to defend a forest south-east of the city in Georgia, as part of a movement protesting a project dubbed “Cop City”.

Related: ‘Assassinated in cold blood’: activist killed protesting Georgia’s ‘Cop City’

The protest comes less than two months after police shot and killed activist, Manuel Paez Terán, or “Tortuguita”, one of dozens camped in the forest. The fatal shooting of an environmental protester, the first of its kind in US history, raised the movement’s profile nationally and internationally.

It also ratcheted up tensions between local government and law enforcement officials on the one hand, and the diverse coalition of individuals and groups seeking to protect the forest. “This is the first week of action since the state killed someone,” said Marlon Kautz, an organizer with the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which provides bail and other resources to protestors who have been arrested. “The entire character, mood and status of the struggle has transformed dramatically … [and] feels much more real – to us, and to the state.”

A key issue is whether this Week of Action – which includes a music festival in the forest; a Jewish shabbat, or Friday evening, service; herbal workshops; and a “know your rights” workshop – will draw people back to camping and tree-sitting in the forest.

There’s also the question of whether various marches also scheduled – including one led by a handful of Black-led organizations – will result in more arrests on the state “domestic terrorism” charges that 18 activists are already facing.

The land in question is called South River forest on municipal maps, and “Weelaunee forest” – a Muscogee (Creek) word meaning “brown water” – by activists. At least 85 acres of the forest is under threat from the $90m police and fire department training center opponents of the project have labeled “Cop City”.

Another 40 acres is under threat from Ryan Millsap, former owner of Blackhall Film Studios, who made a deal with DeKalb county in 2020 to swap the land, in use as a public park, for another piece of land nearby. That deal is on hold due to a local environmental group’s lawsuit, and residents of surrounding neighborhoods continue to use the park for recreation.

The two parts of the forest are divided by a stream, Intrenchment Creek, which is the municipal name of the public park. The pair of threats to the forest led dozens of “forest defenders” to camp in the woods on both sides of the creek starting in late 2021. Tortuguita was camped on the Intrenchment Creek Park side on 18 January, when dozens of officers from the Atlanta and Dekalb county police departments, the Georgia bureau of investigation (GBI), Georgia state patrol and, possibly, the FBI, swept through the forest, with the goal of clearing activists.

The GBI, now tasked with investigating the shooting, said that Tortuguita fired a gun first at a state trooper. The agency also released a document appearing to show that the activist purchased the gun. Despite the presence of the multiple agencies, the GBI has also said there is no body-cam or other footage of the shooting.

Since the shooting, the forest seems to be cleared of tree-sitters and campers on both sides of the creek, according to activists. The city of Atlanta, which owns the land where “Cop City” is planned, announced in a recent press conference that Dekalb county, where the land is located, had granted what’s known as a “land disturbance permit” – meaning work on the training center could begin.

And while Tortuguita’s death – the first time US law enforcement has killed an environmental activist while protesting – brought attention from international media, members of Congress, and global environmental organizations, Atlanta-area residents opposed to the training center have recently turned to local government.

A member of a “community stakeholder advisory committee” meant to provide local input into the training center has resigned in protest against Tortuguita’s killing. Another member lodged an appeal against the land disturbance permit with a county zoning board that will be heard in April, claiming that work on the training center will drive sediment into the creek, in violation of the Clean Water Act and state law.

Meanwhile, the specter of “forest defenders” possibly arriving during the Week of Action led local Clayton State University to send an email to students, warning them against being drawn by the week’s activities to attempt entering the site of the planned training center – which is being guarded by more than 100 Atlanta officers around the clock, at a cost of $1m monthly, according to a recent court filing.

“The APD and Georgia Bureau of Investigations have taken a zero-tolerance stance on protestors who attempt to enter the property of this proposed training location,” read the email, “[and protesters] will be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” The email said nothing about the public park area of the forest.

Most of the neighborhoods surrounding the forest have large Black populations, and local government has overlooked the area for decades, leading to industrial and other kinds of pollution.

Kamau Franklin, founder of Community Movement Builders, a grassroots organizing group, is helping organize a march of Black-led organizations during the Week of Action to draw attention to the opposition in his community to a training center that he sees as accelerating police militarization and brutality, as well as overlooking community input in how best to use the land.

This would help put a lie to the “outside agitator” trope that Georgia governor Brian Kemp, Atlanta mayor Andre Dickens and others have used to describe opposition to “Cop City”, based on the out-of-state addresses of most forest defenders arrested to date, he said.

“The idea is to have a march with Black-led groups, centered in Atlanta history, and the protest movements we’ve always been a part of,” Franklin said.

Although there is no way to know how many people will show up for the week’s events, or from where – there’s no tickets to buy or sell, and all work is being done autonomously and largely, anonymously – Sam, part of the Atlanta Community Press Collective, an anonymous group of activists who use journalistic methods to monitor “Cop City”, said they’ve received queries from Spain, Canada, New York, Minnesota and California in the last week alone.

“I have the impression there’s going to be a lot of people and a diversity of events that’s probably the most accurate representation of the breadth of this movement all along,” they said.

Conservatives finally overturned Roe. They aren’t talking about it at CPAC

Eric Garcia
Sat, March 4, 2023


The last time that the Conservative Political Action Conference convened just outside of Washington DC in 2020, conservatives still had only a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court. Just months later, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death created an opening on the high court, which led to Donald Trump nominating Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Then in June 2022, the new 6-3 Supreme Court majority announced Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which overturned the right to seek an abortion enshrined in Roe v Wade. Indeed, the prospect of conservative Supreme Court nominations helped galvanise Republicans to line up behind Mr Trump in 2016.

“It was the reason the judiciary was on the ballot in ‘16,” Hogan Gidley, who served as deputy press secretary in the Trump administration, told The Independent. “We had lost so many of these rulings.

But at the most recent CPAC gathering at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Oxon Hill, few people mentioned the Dobbs decision. The ruling ended up backfiring to some extent for the GOP.

As the first day of the conference got underway earlier this week, CPAC head Matt Schlapp and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan agreed that the demise of Roe was a positive development but quickly moved past it to discuss other topics.

In fact, only one CPAC panel – entitled “Some Tuff Mutha...” – discussed abortion at length. It featured anti-abortion activist Abby Johnson, who once worked at a Planned Parenthood clinic and now runs And Then There Were None, which aims to move women away from working at the organisation; Kimberly Fletcher, founder of the conservative Moms for America; and Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America. During that panel, they discussed medication abortion and Ms Johnson said how the Dobbs decision didn’t have an effect in many states like California, where abortion is legal.

Many conservative activists and elected officials, including Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, instead focused more on LGBT+ issues and accused activists of targeting and even “grooming” children.

The groups featured on the panel still had some booths on the lower level, along with various conservative organisations.

Ms Fletcher told The Independent that she wished more people talked about abortion at the conference.

“Because if our future is our children, then I think that we should be talking a lot more about the solutions on how we take back the future,” she said. “It's kind of like a big, you know, pep rally.”

“We would love there to be more talks about the pro-life ... because now that it has gone to the states, it's a big fight,” Ms Fletcher told The Independent. “And quite honestly, it's not done on the national level either.”

The more tepid celebration of the end of Roe came after Republicans underperformed in the 2020 midterm elections, months after the Supreme Court’s ruling. The conservative movement’s overturning of Roe served as a major motivator for young liberal voters, who turned out in droves and delivered Democrats a Senate seat in Pennsylvania as well as staving off a “red wave” in the House of Representatives.

“Unfortunately, a lot of politicians are scared to talk about it, because in this last election cycle, we did not see good results on the abortion issue,” said Kelly Lester, who was working the And Then There Were None booth.

But not everyone is avoiding the issue. Mr Gidley said that when he travelled the country, Mr Trump’s mention’s of abortion attracted the most applause at his rallies.

“It may not be top of mind right now because we won it,” he said. “Now it’s a feather in your cap.”

On the last day, commentator Michael Knowles said that “there can be no middle way with transgenderism” and called for “eradicating transgendering from public life” and connected the issue to Republican efforts to restrict abortion.

A Florida man found a massive clam on the beach and was going to turn it into chowder. It turned out to be more than 200 years old.


Cheryl Teh
Fri, March 3, 2023 

A clam pulled out of Mission Creek, California (left), and a bowl of clam chowder soup.

Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The San Francisco Chronicle 

Blaine Parker found a big clam on the Florida coast and wanted to turn it into clam chowder.


But Parker found out from a marine lab that it was more than 214 years old.


He named his new friend "Aber-clam Lincoln," after the president who was also born in 1809.

A Florida man and his family found a gigantic clam at Alligator Point, Florida. They were planning to cook it but realized it was more than 200 years old.

Blaine Parker told the Tallahassee Democrat that when he found the clam over Presidents' Day weekend, he thought it was just big enough for two servings of chowder.

"We were just going to eat it, but we thought about it a while and figured it was probably pretty special. So, we didn't want to kill it," Parker told the Tallahassee Democrat.

Parker, a member of the volunteer group AmeriCorps, ended up bringing the clam to the Gulf Specimen Marine Lab in Panacea, Florida. Parker is also a specimen collector for the lab, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.

The lab realized Parker's find was a six-inch, 2.6-pound clam, estimated to be more than 214 years old.

Realizing how old it was, Parker named the clam "Aber-clam Lincoln".

"Age can be calculated by the number of layers on the shell, with each layer representing a year; with this, Blaine counted 214 layers on Aber-clam Lincoln's shell, meaning this clam was born in 1809, the same year as Abraham Lincoln, hence its name!" the lab wrote in a February 21 post on Facebook.

The lab added that most ocean quahog clams weigh around half a pound. This makes Aber-clam Lincoln five times the weight of an average clam.

In 2006, scientists found a 507-year-old Quahog clam that they nicknamed "Ming" — after estimating that it was alive in 1499, during the Ming Dynasty in China.

The Tallahassee Democrat separately reported on February 28 that Parker had sent Aber-clam Lincoln back to his home under the sea. Parker released the clam back into the Gulf of Mexico about a week after he found it at Alligator Point, Florida.

The Gulf Specimen Marine Lab did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

High-speed train from Las Vegas to Los Angeles in the works after Brightline reaches agreement with unions on $10 billion project

Aaron McDade
Sat, March 4, 2023 

Brightline announced a deal with a group of rail unions to build its Brightline West project connecting Las Vegas to Southern California.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Brightline announced a deal with rail unions to build a 218-mile, high-speed line from Las Vegas to Los Angeles.


The company plans to connect Las Vegas to Southern California via rail capable of traveling 200 mph.


Brightline hopes to break ground this year, and finish the system by the end of 2027.

Rail company Brightline announced an agreement last week with a group of rail worker unions to build a $10 billion, high-speed train connecting Las Vegas to Los Angeles.

Brightline's agreement — made with the High Speed Rail Labor Coalition, a collective of 13 rail unions that represent over 160,000 railroad workers across freight and passenger rail — greenlit the development of a 218-mile rail line between the two cities, according to the company's announcement.


"Our nation's first high-speed rail system will be operated and maintained by union labor, a statement of the strength of the American workforce," Mike Reininger, CEO of Brightline Holdings, said in a statement.

Reininger continued: "As the most shovel-ready high-speed rail project in the United States, we are one step closer to leveling the playing field against transit and infrastructure projects around the world, and we are proud to be using America's most skilled workers to get there."

Brightline estimates the "Brightline West" project will have an economic impact of about $10 billion on the area, creating about 35,000 construction jobs, as well as 1,000 permanent jobs at stops along the line in Southern California.

The company also estimates the Brightline West project could attract about 12 million of the 50 million one-way trips taken annually between Las Vegas and Los Angeles annually, 85% of which are taken by bus or car.

Brightline said it believes the draw away from car and bus trips will result in about 400,000 fewer tons of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas, from being put into the atmosphere per year.

A Brightline executive told SFGate the company expects to break ground this year, and hopes to finish construction in 2027.

The train will eventually be capable of traveling around 200 miles per hour, meaning a trip across the whole 218-mile line would take a little over an hour. A Las Vegas tourism website estimates that a trip from Los Angeles to Las Vegas by car takes an average of four hours, depending on traffic conditions.

The rail line is set to run from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, according to the company's website. The press release said the rail line will have stops in Rancho Cucamonga, Apple Valley, and Hesperia, California.

Brightline currently operates a rail service that has several stations throughout Florida, and is also set to open an extension this year connecting Disney World in Orlando with its existing stations in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, among others.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Abortion may be legal in Argentina but women still face major obstacles

Agustina Latourrette - BBC World Service
Sat, March 4, 202

An illustration shows a woman in tears at a health centre

María was 23 when she decided to have an abortion.

At the health centre where she had gone for treatment, she says she overheard one doctor saying to a colleague: "When will these girls learn to keep their legs closed?"

María lives in Salta, a religiously conservative province in north-west Argentina, where many healthcare workers are still against abortion.

She was eventually given a pill to end her pregnancy, but she says the nurses were reluctant to treat her and wanted to make her feel guilty: "After I expelled the pregnancy tissue, I could see the foetus."

"The nurses put it in a jar to make sure I saw it and they told me, 'This could have been your child.'"


Argentina relaxed its law on abortion in 2020, allowing a woman to choose to terminate her pregnancy in the first 14 weeks, Previously, it was only allowed in the case of rape or if the woman's life or health was at risk.

Abortion is a highly contentious issue in Argentina, where more than 60% of people are Catholic and 15% are evangelical Christians, with the leadership of both groups opposing the practice.

Maria says she was shown the foetus and told: "This could have been your child."

The new law allows health workers in Argentina to abstain from performing abortions.

"As soon as the law was passed, I declared myself a conscientious objector," says Dr Carlos Franco, a paediatrician from the same area as María, who estimates that 90% of health workers in the province's main public hospital have done the same.

He says his years studying embryology left him with the belief that life begins at fertilisation.

"My duty, as a doctor, is to take care and protect the human life from the embryonic stage," he adds.

This helps explain why women like María are having so much trouble accessing legal abortions.

María had initially spent two days at the health centre just waiting to be seen by a doctor.

Eventually, when none came, she turned to social media for help and found Mónica Rodriguez, a local activist, who helped her file a complaint at the hospital and secure an appointment.

Ms Rodriguez says she gets about 100 phone calls a month from women in Salta who are having similar difficulty getting access to safe abortions.

She tells the BBC her main job is simply to listen: "While I don't recommend abortion, I don't romanticise motherhood either."

The campaign to expand abortion rights in Argentina has taken decades, but Valeria Isla, director of sexual and reproductive health at the national health ministry, says that significant progress has been made.

She cites official figures showing that the number of mothers dying from abortions has dropped by 40% since the law was enacted in 2021.

The number of public health centres that provide abortions has gone up by more than a half over the same period, and the drug misoprostol, which chemically induces abortions, is now being manufactured in the country, making it more widely available.

Long waits for treatment and the social stigma surrounding abortions can make women vulnerable to corrupt practices.

There have been cases reported of women being forced to pay hundreds of dollars for treatment that should be free in public health facilities.

"There is a mafia," says Dr María Laura Lerma, a psychologist based in a remote mountain community in Jujuy in the country's north-west. "In many rural areas of Argentina, some doctors who work in the public hospital take patients to their private clinics."

The government has urged women to report allegations of corruption, but many women in rural areas are too scared to do so.

Anti-abortion activists are trying to block the law allowing the procedure

Doctors who do agree to perform abortions have been targeted with spurious legal complaints.

In September 2021, one doctor in Salta was briefly detained following an accusation by the aunt of a 21-year-old patient that she had performed an "illegal abortion".

The accusation was untrue, but it took a year for a court to dismiss the case.

"Anti-abortion organisations have historical connections with judges and people in power and they use them to generate fear and endanger the freedom of doctors who provide abortions," says Rocío García Garro, a lawyer for pro-choice campaign group Catholics for the Right to Decide.

Anti-abortion campaigners are also using the courts to try and get the abortion law declared unconstitutional.

Cristina Fiore, a local parliament representative in Salta, is one of them.

"We believe human life starts at conception and we are against this throwaway culture," she says.

So far, all legal challenges have failed.

María is clear why she made the choice not to continue with her pregnancy: "I had never wanted to be a mum… My parents abandoned me and that's a trauma which has taken me years to overcome."

She says she wants training to be improved for nurses and gynaecologists to prevent others suffering like her.

"There are many women, especially in the small rural towns, who are discriminated against like me and not all of them dare to speak."

*Names of some contributors have been changed to protect their privacy.