World could face record temperatures in 2023 as El Nino returns

Story by By Kate Abnett • Yesterday

 People take a break under a cooling mist, in Tokyo© Thomson Reuters

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The world could breach a new average temperature record in 2023 or 2024, fuelled by climate change and the anticipated return of the El Nino weather phenomenon, climate scientists say.

Climate models suggest that after three years of the La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean, which generally lowers global temperatures slightly, the world will experience a return to El Nino, the warmer counterpart, later this year.


A woman speaks on a mobile phone as she walks through a market on a hot summer day in New Delhi© Thomson Reuters

During El Nino, winds blowing west along the equator slow down, and warm water is pushed east, creating warmer surface ocean temperatures.

"El Nino is normally associated with record breaking temperatures at the global level. Whether this will happen in 2023 or 2024 is yet known, but it is, I think, more likely than not," said Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service.


A dried-up creek bed is seen in a drought-affected area near Chivilcoy

© Thomson Reuters

Climate models suggest a return to El Nino conditions in the late boreal summer, and the possibility of a strong El Nino developing towards the end of the year, Buontempo said.

Related video: El Nino Likely To Strike This Monsoon Season: Will 2023 Be A Drought Year For India? (Moneycontrol)  Duration 3:17   View on Watch

The world's hottest year on record so far was 2016, coinciding with a strong El Nino - although climate change has fuelled extreme temperatures even in years without the phenomenon.

The last eight years were the world's eight hottest on record - reflecting the longer-term warming trend driven by greenhouse gas emissions.

Friederike Otto, senior lecturer at Imperial College London's Grantham Institute, said El Nino-fuelled temperatures could worsen the climate change impacts countries are already experiencing - including severe heatwaves, drought and wildfires.



In an Argentine field, green shoots mask scars of drought

"If El Niño does develop, there is a good chance 2023 will be even hotter than 2016 – considering the world has continued to warm as humans continue to burn fossil fuels," Otto said.



Vines are seen at Petersons vineyards in Hunter Valley

© Thomson Reuters

EU Copernicus scientists published a report on Thursday assessing the climate extremes the world experienced last year, its fifth-warmest year on record.

Europe experienced its hottest summer on record in 2022, while climate change-fuelled extreme rain caused disastrous flooding in Pakistan, and in February, Antarctic sea ice levels hit a record low.

The world's average global temperature is now 1.2C higher than in pre-industrial times, Copernicus said.

Despite most of the world's major emitters pledging to eventually slash their net emissions to zero, global CO2 emissions last year continued to rise.

(Reporting by Kate Abnett, editing by Deepa Babington)

EMOTIONAL PLAGUE

America's Loneliness Epidemic Is Fueling The Far Right, Sen. Chris Murphy Says

Story by Daniel Marans • Yesterday 


Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) is a mainstream progressive known for supporting a tougher U.S. approach to Saudi Arabia and stricter gun safety regulations.

In December, though, he began taking up a cause not typically on Congress’ agenda: an epidemic of loneliness in the United States that Murphy believes is quietly at the heart of the bitterness and violence wracking the country.

“We’re all searching for the reasons why there’s been a retreat to very hair-trigger hostility and violence in this country,” Murphy told HuffPost in a phone interview in March. “We’re all trying to understand why Donald Trump did so well despite the fact that he focused all his energy on tax cuts for the very elite.”

“I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s a lot of things that unite Americans that we refuse to see, and one of those things is the way that many of us are increasingly feeling very lonely, very isolated and increasingly disconnected,” he added.

In discussions in the press and with colleagues, Murphy makes the case that the rise of social media and the isolating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have turbocharged the United States’ already-depleted communal infrastructure and norms. That has, in turn, helped fuel growing rates of mental illness, substance abuse, violence and even, some studies show, right-wing extremism.



Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) speaks about a bipartisan bill to rein in gun violence in June 2022. The bill's passage gave him hope for more collaboration between Democrats and Republicans.© Provided by HuffPost

Rather than dismiss the uptick in right-wing extremism as evidence of some Americans’ incorrigible inclination for racism and sexism, Murphy sees the American loneliness epidemic as a phenomenon that can help explain that rise in a way that leaves room for constructive solutions without excusing hateful behavior.

“When you’re alone or lonely, that’s often followed by anger, and that’s understandable. We’ve all felt lonely in our life, and we know how frustrating that feels and how it can easily lead to anger,” Murphy said. “The right has offered an off-ramp for that anger. They have offered connections and identity based around hate messages and division.”

“That’s not where people want to go naturally,” he added. “I think folks who end up being attracted to these hate groups could be offered a much more constructive identity or a much more constructive set of connections. But they don’t see that often.”

For now, Murphy is engaged in an awareness-raising exercise without a clear set of policy goals. He aims to convince policymakers to join him but also to demonstrate to disaffected Americans that he is taking their concerns seriously.

“My hope is that we can just spend some time talking about how we feel,” he said. “If disconnected people out there feel like people in government understand how they feel and care about how they feel, then maybe they’ll be open to a conversation about policies that can help.”

There’s a lot of things that unite Americans that we refuse to see, and one of those things is the way that many of us are increasingly feeling very lonely, very isolated and increasingly disconnected.Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)

Murphy tipped his hand ever so slightly toward a suite of community-reviving policies that he anticipates both parties can get behind.

“You’re talking about reining in the rough edges of technology, especially as it applies to our lovely kids. You’re talking about rebuilding healthy local communities. You’re talking about supporting churches and civic groups and local newspapers,” Murphy said. “All those things are not easily separated into ‘right’ or ‘left.’ That’s what’s so attractive about this issue.”

Murphy’s initiative comes amid growing research about how loneliness is affecting Americans’ mental health.

About seven months after U.S. society reorganized in response to the coronavirus pandemic, 36% of Americans reported feeling lonely “frequently” — up from 25% before the pandemic, according to an October 2020 survey conducted by Harvard University.

The rate of loneliness among American young people has become a particular cause for concern. More than 3 in 5 — or 61% — of Americans ages 18 to 25 reported frequent loneliness in the Harvard study, compared with 24% of Americans ages 55 to 65.



Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), left, talks to Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) during a late March hearing on Capitol Hill. Murphy sees room for common ground on policies to combat loneliness.© Provided by HuffPost

In retrospect, Murphy believes governments did not adequately weigh the costs of school closures and other pandemic-related measures on youth mental health.

“You’d be foolish not to look back on our decision to keep many schools closed for upwards of two years and see it as a mistake,” said Murphy, who nonetheless rejects the idea that Democrats were more committed to school closures than Republicans. “It is a rewrite of history to pretend that this was a partisan issue.”

He followed that up with a caveat that Democratic-run school systems may have stayed closed longer toward the end of the pandemic, but said “Republican states were closed for a long time, too.”

Scholars have also identified a link between younger Americans’ loneliness and their heavy use of social media, which often reduces the frequency of more rewarding, in-person social interactions. Experts have found that social media has played a role in increased depression and loneliness among adolescent girls.

“It’s possible that girls are even more isolated than boys because boys’ online experience is often collaborative through online gaming — Fortnite or Minecraft — whereas girls’ online experience is often alone, scrolling through social media,” Murphy said.

At the same time, evidence suggests that among adults, men have been hit harder by the loneliness epidemic than women. The suicide rate among men, always higher than among women, also went up considerably more than the women’s rate in 2021.

“When you lose the ability to naturally connect through churches, or social clubs, or even the workplace, that often is a bigger problem for men than women,” Murphy said. “Because without those easy, natural connections, through work and institutions, men don’t do as well as women in seeking out connection proactively.”

There was no one precipitating event in Murphy’s life that prompted him to take this issue more seriously. As the father of two sons — one adolescent and the other preadolescent — Murphy has noticed the effect of technology on young people’s interactions and the world they inhabit.

I think Republicans supported that bill in part because they share my concern for where this country is heading and the new stresses that surround our kids.Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)


What’s more, Murphy credits his work crafting a bipartisan gun control and mental health bill in the Senate last June for giving him hope that Democrats and Republicans can take additional steps to address the country’s loneliness crisis. The Connecticut senator was elected shortly before the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The fight to reduce gun violence has been a defining feature of his two terms in the Senate.

“I think Republicans supported that bill in part because they share my concern for where this country is heading and the new stresses that surround our kids,” he concluded.

Murphy’s interest in loneliness is also the product of his efforts to understand the appeal of far-right ideology to young people. To that end, the Connecticut senator spent the summer consuming literature and media by and about the “New Right,” a broad term for the unconventional forms of right-wing ideology gaining traction among some young men, in particular. The designation typically includes welfare state-supporting Catholic fundamentalists like Sohrab Ahmari and monarchists like Curtis Yarvin, but also mainstream economic populists like popular YouTube host Saagar Enjeti.

Although Murphy says that the New Right is “in many ways very dangerous,” because of what he describes as the movement’s “antidemocratic” and “theocratic elements,” he sees room for common ground in the movement’s insistence on community taking precedence over unbridled capitalism.

“If you study the developing New Right inside the conservative movement, you’ll see early signs of a potential realignment amongst people in this country who may not share the same views on abortion or civil rights, but who do believe that our economy and the state of American kids and families have become so unhealthy that government has to take some new action,” Murphy said.

“To the extent I think there’s a realignment coming, it only comes through a rejection of neoliberalism,” he said, referring to the ideology behind the laissez-faire capitalist policies that have taken root in the United States since the 1970s. “Changing the incentives inside the market [is] not going to cure the psychological rot in this country.”

'This was fear': Imperial CEO hears of impacts from oilsands leaks, apologizes

Story by The Canadian Press • Yesterday 


OTTAWA — The head of Imperial Oil heard Thursday how a nine-month delay before informing downstream communities about a seeping tailings pond on a company oilsands mine created weeks of fear and rumours.



"This was not uncertainty, this was fear," Conservative member of Parliament Laila Goodridge told Imperial CEO Brad Corson, who was testifying before the House of Commons environment and sustainability committee.

The hearing was struck after two releases of toxic oilsands tailings water from the Kearl mine north of Fort McMurray, Alta. The committee was questioning Corson on why it took so long for First Nations and governments to find out what was happening with both the tailings pond seepage and overflow from a mine containment pond.

Goodridge, who represents Fort McMurray, said she visited one of the First Nations communities during that nine-month gap.

"I had elders telling me, 'We don't know what's going on, but don't drink the water,'" she said. "There was just a vacuum of information.

"People were afraid."

Corson repeatedly apologized for keeping people in the dark.

"I am deeply apologetic," he said.

"Imperial strives to build strong and lasting relationships with Indigenous communities based on mutual respect, trust and shared prosperity. We have broken this trust."

Seepage, originally described as discoloured water, was discovered in May. Corson acknowledged Imperial knew by August it was tailings, which have since been found to have left levels of toxic chemicals exceeding environmental limits in immediately adjacent waters.

But no notification was provided until February to leaders of six area First Nations.

"We did not speak directly with the leaders and we did not provide regular updates," he said. "We didn't want to go back to the communities until we fully understood the situation and had a plan."

Corson faced repeated questions about what Imperial was doing to clean up the mess.

He repeated findings that suggest no effects to area wildlife or to downstream drinking water.

He blamed the overflow on equipment and process failures, and the seepage on a layer of groundwater that was shallower than anticipated.

He said the company has 200 people working on remediation. It has dug trenches to intercept the ongoing seepage and installed more than 300 wells to pump it out and monitor its composition. It won't happen again, he said.

"I do believe (the pond) is a safe structure," he said.

Michael McLeod, an MP from the Northwest Territories riding of Deh Cho downstream from Kearl, was skeptical.

"As long as (the tailings ponds) exist, we're under the threat of leakage," he said.

"I've had the reassurances all my life that this isn't going to happen. Yet here we are."

Corson said he supported plans from federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault to create a working group with different levels of government, First Nations and industry to improve communication around what goes on in the oilsands. The group would also address concerns about seepage from all oilsands tailings ponds.

"The concept of bringing stakeholders together ... to work together to improve the communication process and to improve the management of tailing for this industry is positive," he said.

On Monday, the committee heard from First Nations leaders, who expressed fear and anger about how their communities were left ignorant about what was going on while their people continued to use lands next to the releases. They said the Alberta Energy Regulator has lost its credibility and called for it to be disbanded.

Next Monday, the committee expects to hear from Laurie Pushor, head of the Alberta regulator.

The committee hearings are one of three investigations going on into the Kearl releases. Alberta's Information Commissioner has begun a probe into whether the regulator had a duty to inform the public as soon as it heard about the problem, and the regulator's board is commissioning its own third-party review.

The environmental group Greenpeace is also calling for Imperial to be charged over releases of the toxic wastewater.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 20, 2023.

— By Bob Weber in Edmonton

The Canadian Press

Hydro-Québec scores legal victory in Maine over $1B US transmission line project

Story by CBC/Radio-Canada • Yesterday 

Hydro-Québec has scored an important legal victory in a courtroom south of the border to allow its $1-billion US transmission-line project in Maine to go ahead.


Maine Superior Court has ruled in favour of Hydro-Québec and its U.S. partners in a court case regarding the utility's project to build a transmission line.© Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press

The transmission line, which would span 336 kilometres between Quebec and Maine, is a pivotal part of the provincial utility's plan to sell hydroelectricity to the commonwealth of Massachusetts.

On Thursday, Maine Superior Court ruled in favour of Hydro-Québec and its U.S. partners. According to local media reports, the court found that the project already had the necessary permits prior to being rejected by 59 per cent of voters in a referendum in November 2021. Work was suspended a few weeks later.

Last August, the Maine Supreme Court ruled that referendum was unconstitutional. It also sent the case back to the Superior Court level in order to have a ruling on the issue of permits.

Related video: Hydro-Québec needs to bury power lines to minimize future outages, expert says (cbc.ca) Duration 3:17 View on Watch

Hydro-Québec's partner in Maine, NECEC, has already spent nearly $450 million US on the project, which is about 43 per cent of the total projected cost, according to documents presented in court.

If the project were abandoned, Hydro-Québec estimates that it would lose nearly $530 million on top of potentially losing $10 billion in revenue over 20 years.

The utility also claimed it had spent an additional $160 million as of the end of last year in connection with agreements it has struck in connection with the project.

The utility has said that the deal with the state of Massachusetts would reduce greenhouse gases by three million tonnes, the equivalent of taking 700,000 cars off the road.

"We are satisfied with the ruling. This was our biggest legal obstacle to the project," said Lynn St-Laurent, a spokesperson for Hydro-Québec.

Hydro-Québec had initially hoped for the transmission line to be up and running by December 2022, but the legal wrangling caused significant delays.

St-Laurent said it's too early to know when work can resume and when the project will be completed, especially since there is a possibility that Thursday's ruling will be appealed.

Microsoft agrees to buy $50m Foxconn parcel in Wisconsin

Story by The Canadian Press • Wednesday


MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Microsoft has agreed to buy a $50 million parcel of land in southeastern Wisconsin meant for Foxconn after the world's largest electronics manufacturer failed to fulfill grandiose promises to build a massive facility that would employ thousands of workers.



Microsoft plans to build a $1 billion data center on the 315-acre (127-hectare) parcel in Mount Pleasant, a village of about 27,000 people in Racine County, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Milwaukee. It's unclear how many people the center might employ. Paul Englis, Microsoft's director of global community research and engagement, told the Racine County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday that such centers typically employ 300 to 400 people.

The village already is home to a Foxconn Technology Group manufacturing facility. The Taiwan-based company is best known for making Apple iPhones. The company announced plans in 2017 to build a $10 billion facility in Mount Pleasant that would employ 13,000 people.

Wisconsin's governor at the time, Republican Scott Walker, and then-President Donald Trump praised the decision, with Trump boasting the plant would be the “eighth wonder of the world.”

The state agreed to provide Foxconn with nearly $3 billion in tax breaks. The company never delivered on its promises and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers scaled back the tax breaks to $80 million contingent on the number of jobs created and investments. The company qualified for just $8.6 million in tax credits last year after creating 768 eligible jobs and making a $77.4 million capital investment by the end of 2021.

According to a fact sheet describing the Microsoft project compiled by southeastern Wisconsin economic development groups, the parcel of land is part of a tax-increment financing district that includes the Foxconn campus. Property taxes collected in such districts can be used to subsidize development.

Foxconn spent $60 million to help Mount Pleasant officials buy the property to create the district, said Mia Tripi, a spokesperson for the village and Racine County.

Foxconn would receive the proceeds from the land sale to Microsoft as partial reimbursement of what Foxconn spent to acquire land for the district in 2017, according to the fact sheet. Microsoft would be eligible to recoup 42% of property taxes paid on new construction, up to $5 million annually.

Microsoft must begin the first phase of construction by July 2026 and begin the second phase by July 2033.

The tech sector has been contracting after pandemic-era expansions brought on a boom in demand for workplace software. Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, hasn't been immune to the trend, announcing in January that it planned to cut 10,000 workers and consolidate leased office locations. Company officials said then that the layoffs amounted to less than 5% of their total employee base.

___

This story has been corrected to show that Paul Englis spoke to the Racine County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday — not Thursday.

Todd Richmond, The Associated Press

Is Pierre Poilievre deliberately muddying the waters on the CBC's Twitter label?

Story by David Said, PhD Candidate/Researcher, Political Science, University of Guelph 

THE CONVERSATION • Yesterday 

Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, is attempting to mislead Canadians into believing that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is an untrustworthy news source after it was labelled “government-funded media” by Elon Musk’s Twitter.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre rises during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in March 2023.© THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle

In response, CBC paused its activity on Twitter, objecting to any suggestion the government has any control over its journalism.

Poilievre is suggesting Twitter’s designation is proof the CBC lacks editorial independence and is a Liberal government propaganda tool.

But that’s not what Twitter’s label is actually suggesting. For Poilievre to try to persuade Canadians that the label confirms CBC is an extension of the Liberal government is disingenuous and improperly discredits the legitimacy of government-funded enterprises.

Public plea

In early April, Poilievre made a public request to Musk to label the CBC “government-funded media,” saying Canadians should be protected against disinformation and manipulation by state media. From the outset, Poilievre was conflating news organizations that receive government funding as public broadcasters to state media outlets, which are controlled editorially by ruling governments.

After the request was granted, he again took to Twitter to signal that the public broadcaster has officially been exposed as “government-funded media,” thereby suggesting that it can no longer be considered trustworthy.

What Poilievre apparently forgot to mention is that there are important differences in Twitter’s seemingly arbitrary verification labels. Failing to explain these differences suggests he’s just trying to score political points or, worse, is intentionally misleading Canadians.

According to Twitter’s media account label policies, there’s a distinction between the “government-funded” and “state-affiliated” labels.

The “government-funded” title is used to indicate that some or all of the media outlet’s funding is provided by government.

The “state-affiliated” label, on the other hand, is used to describe media outlets that are directly controlled by the state in terms of editorial content via a variety of ways, including financial resources, direct or indirect political pressure or control over the production and distribution of media content.

Not a warning

The “government-funded” label doesn’t appear to suggest any sort of warning or raise cause for concern about the outlet’s objectivity and independence. Instead, it reads simply as describing a media entity that receives funding from the government.

The “state-affiliated” label, however, is an indication of political interference in a media outlet’s journalism.

Poilievre appears to deliberately conflate the two labels, which suggests he wants Canadians to believe that the Liberal government is exerting direct political control over the CBC because it receives funding from the government.

Not only is this misleading but it appears to exploit three connected challenges:

Most Canadians are unaware of how government agencies and systems work;

The majority of Canadians get their news from social media;

Younger Canadians are more trusting of information received from social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Grasping the nuances

Not everyone understands the nuances of how Canadian government works and fewer recognize the complexity of the institutions that make up the administrative state, which the CBC is part of as a Crown corporation.

In order for the public to be protected against disinformation, the complexities of the Canadian government shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand the way they apparently were by a spokesperson for CBC. That spokesperson insisted that all Canadians know the CBC/Radio-Canada is publicly funded and its editorial independence is protected by law via the federal Broadcasting Act.

Like many other Crown corporations — including Canada Post, Via Rail and the Bank of Canada — the CBC is a state-owned enterprise designed to carry out functions at an arm’s length from the government. Crown corporations operate similarly to large for-profit companies, but they’re public organizations that fulfil both commercial and public policy objectives.

In light of this, there’s nothing unsurprising or scandalous about designating the CBC as “government-funded” since it’s a Crown corporation, not the arm of a political party. The CBC has cast a critical eye on governments of all stripes and at all levels since its inception, whether those governments were Conservative, Liberal or NDP.

The CBC logo is projected onto a screen in Toronto in 2019

 THE CANADIAN PRESS/Tijana Martin

Taxpayer funds

Nearly two-thirds of the CBC’s funding come from taxpayers and is therefore subjected to parliamentary oversight. The public broadcaster maintains editorial independence, regardless of what party’s in power, and receives its funding through a vote in Parliament.

Overlooking this fact makes it easier to believe that the CBC perpetuates “Trudeau propaganda,” which is no more true than if the CBC is accused of peddling “Poilievre propaganda” if he wins the next federal election.

This doesn’t mean the CBC, like any news organization, is without flaws — and perhaps there’s cause to re-evaluate the role Canada’s national broadcaster plays in the country’s rapidly evolving society.

But misleading Canadians by conflating Twitter’s media account verification labels, as Poilievre has done, is not the way forward.

While Poilievre is correct that Canadians should be shielded from disinformation and manipulation, they should also be cautious of politicians misleading them on complex issues regarding the independence and impartiality of government agencies.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

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Twitter in 2022: 5 essential reads about the consequences of Elon Musk’s takeover of the microblogging platform

Black Twitter shaped the platform, but its future lies elsewhere

Clorox to cut 4% of non-production workforce

Story by Reuters • 

(Reuters) - Clorox Co on Thursday said it would cut about 200 positions, or 4% of its non-production workforce, as it looks to keep a lid on costs amid worries of an economic slowdown.


The Pine-Sol manufacturer joins a list of companies - from tech firms to retailers such as Bed Bath & Beyond Inc and Wayfair Inc - that have reduced their workforce in the face of growing recessionary fears in the United States.

"We're on track to generate ongoing annual savings of approximately $75 million to $100 million, with benefits beginning this fiscal year," Chief Executive Officer Linda Rendle said in a blog post.

"Transformation isn't a one-time event, and we'll continue to implement changes as we execute this transformation," she added.

The household staples maker said in February that it had planned for more layoffs over the next few months in a bid to rein in costs.

In September, Clorox said as a result of its streamlining efforts, it had eliminated nearly 100 positions in 2022, or roughly 2% of its non-production workforce.

As of June 30, 2022, the company employed about 9,000 people worldwide, with 72% in the United States.

(Reporting by Granth Vanaik in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)

Twitter removes section of Hateful Conduct Policy protecting transgender users

Story by MobileSyrup • Tuesday

Twitter has changed its Hateful Conduct Policy to get rid of protections for its transgender users, which was first spotted by the nonprofit organization Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and reported by The Verge.



In the Hateful Conduct Policy, Twitter used to have a line that included “repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to dehumanize, degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category,” but removed the part that read “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.”

GLAAD used Wayback Machine to learn that Twitter removed the inclusion of misgendering and deadnaming people back on April 8th. Twitter originally added the misgendering and deadnaming back in 2018 to cover transgender users.


DailymotionCalls for greater legal protection for transgender people
1:48

Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, states that this is another example of how unsafe the company is for its users and advertisers.

TikTok and Pinterest prohibit misgendering and deadnaming in their hate and harassment policies. Meta has also stated that it will “prohibit violent or dehumanizing content directed against people who identify as LGBTQ+ and remove claims about someone’s gender identity upon their request.”

According to The Verge, Twitter hasn’t completely gotten rid of its protections; however, the choice to remove misgendering and deadnaming seems like it’s purposefully attacking the trans community.

Source: GLAAD, The Verge

FASCIST FLORIDA

DeSantis signs bill eliminating unanimous jury decisions for death sentences

Story by Sydney Kashiwagi • Yesterday 

Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill Thursday that will no longer require juries agree unanimously to recommend death sentences, reducing the number of jurors need to recommend a death sentence to the lowest threshold of any state with capital punishment.

SB 450 reduces the number of jurors needed to recommend a death sentence from 12 to 8.

The bill was prompted by a jury’s decision last year to not hand the death penalty to Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz. A jury recommended Cruz receive a life sentence without the possibility of parole instead for the February 2018 shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Of the 12 jurors in Cruz’s trial, three voted against the death penalty.

The move left some family members of the victims disappointed and upset.

“A few months ago, we endured another tragic failure of the justice system. Today’s change in Florida law will hopefully save other families from the injustices we have suffered,” Ryan Petty, the father of Parkland victim Alaina Petty, said in a statement Thursday.

Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, an anti-death penalty group, warned that the new law would be challenged immediately and could lead to more wrongful convictions.

“If one of the primary justifications for the death penalty is to provide solace and finality to victims, instituting this new unconstitutional statute almost certainly does the opposite,” FADP’s Director Maria DeLiberato, said in a statement. “This change is a return to Florida’s prior scheme - which the United States Supreme Court has already found unconstitutional - and which required nearly 100 new penalty phase trials. Many of those are still pending. This new law will be immediately challenged, and there will be extensive litigation, plunging the system - and victims’ families in particular - into decades of uncertainty and chaos.”

The ACLU of Florida also slammed the new bill.

“Florida already has the highest number of death row exonerations in the country. With this bill and others, Florida is rapidly widening the net of who will be sent to death row with absolutely no consideration for the flaws that will inevitably lead to the harm of more innocent people,” Tiffani Lennon, the executive director of the ACLU of Florida, said in a statement.

Florida once required a simple majority, or 7-5, vote for a death sentence. But the US Supreme Court ruled the state’s sentencing process unconstitutional in 2016, because a judge was allowed to overrule a life recommendation and impose the death penalty.

That was followed by a Florida Supreme Court ruling that found the jury must be unanimous to impose the death penalty, and Florida lawmakers adopted the unanimity requirement soon after. But the Florida Supreme Court reversed that ruling in 2020, and while acknowledging the legislature had already changed the law, the ruling gave the legislature discretion to revise the statute.

“Once a defendant in a capital case is found guilty by a unanimous jury, one juror should not be able to veto a capital sentence,” DeSantis said in a statement. “I’m proud to sign legislation that will prevent families from having to endure what the Parkland families have and ensure proper justice will be served in the state of Florida.”

SB 450 found broad support among Florida lawmakers. The legislation’s sponsors framed it as an attempt to curtail the influence of “activist jurors” who, critics say, lie about their openness to considering the death penalty when questioned during jury selection. The bill leaves in place requirements a jury be unanimous to find guilt, and Florida judges will still be allowed to overrule a death penalty recommendation and impose a life sentence instead.

Additionally, if less than 8 jurors determine a defendant should be sentenced to death, the jury’s recommendation to the court needs to be a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, according to the bill.

Nearly all 27 states that have the death penalty require a unanimous jury to recommend or sentence a capital defendant to death. Currently, the only exception is Alabama, where a judge can impose a death sentence if 10 of 12 jurors recommend it.

CNN’s Melissa Alonso and Dakin Andone contributed to this report.

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US gun safety group’s chilling new ad calls for assault weapons ban

Story by Joan E Greve • Yesterday 

A gun safety group has created a provocative new ad campaign calling for the renewal of a federal assault weapons ban, in the wake of several devastating mass shootings across the US that involved the use of military-style rifles.

The ad, released on Thursday by the gun safety group Brady and shared exclusively with the Guardian, features a US navy veteran of the Vietnam war reading a chilling account of coming under gunfire and being struck by a bullet.

“I remember someone picking me up as they ran. They put me down on the floor and covered me with blankets,” the veteran says in the ad. “Someone was screaming – took me a moment to realize it was me. But I survived.”

The veteran then reveals that the writer of those words was not a fellow service member but Josh Stepakoff, who was six years old when a mass shooter attacked his Jewish community center in 1999. The ad ends with the message, “Assault weapons belong in war zones, not our communities. Ban assault weapons.”

The campaign also includes images showing a casket draped in an American flag, an honor given to soldiers killed in battle, in everyday places that have been the site of mass shootings, such as schools and grocery stores.

“These weapons and their tactical features are designed for the battlefield and not for civilian hands,” said Christian Heyne, Brady’s vice-president of policy. “These are not scenarios that exist in the rest of the industrialized world. This ad is really attempting to sort of tell that story in a powerful way.”

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MSNBCPoliticians need to follow will of the people, says gun safety group president

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According to a Politico-Morning Consult poll taken in late January, 65% of US voters support banning assault-style weapons while 26% oppose the policy. Heyne suggested that the ad could help viewers better understand the very real ramifications of this policy debate.

“As advocates, this is one of our chief goals, to connect with people in an emotional way,” Heyne said. “We’ve got to break through a lot of this noise and remind people that what we’re talking about is very clearly and very simply that weapons of war are tearing our communities apart.”

Brady’s push for the renewal of the 1994 federal assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004, comes just weeks after another school shooting devastated a US community and reinvigorated calls for action to address gun violence. Last month, a shooter wielding an AR-15 military-style rifle attacked the Covenant school in Nashville, killing three children and three adults. The shooting prompted Joe Biden to once again call on Congress to pass a federal assault weapons ban.

“We’ve continued to see Republican officials across America double down on dangerous bills that make our schools, places of worship and communities less safe,” Biden said earlier this month. “Congress must ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, require safe storage of firearms, eliminate gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability, and require background checks for all gun sales, and state officials must do the same.”

Last year, House Democrats managed to pass a bill banning assault weapons, but the proposal stalled in the Senate. Now that Republicans control the House, Democrats’ chances of passing the bill during this session of Congress are virtually nonexistent. But gun safety groups have seen progress at the state level; Washington is expected to soon enact an assault weapons ban, becoming the 10th US state to do so.

Still, gun safety advocates hope to see action at the federal level, and they point to data suggesting an assault weapons ban could help make mass shootings less deadly and may even prevent them from happening. One analysis released in 2019 found that mass-shooting fatalities were 70% less likely to occur when the federal assault weapons ban was in effect, while another study from 2021 concluded that the ban prevented 11 public mass shootings between 1994 and 2004.

The data underscores the urgent need to take action against assault weapons at the federal level, Heyne said. He said inaction is no longer an option.

“The answer can’t be to just put our hands up in the air and to do nothing. If we want to stop the reality that we’re living in, it will require proactive steps to accomplish it,” Heyne said. “Our leaders should have the courage to protect the most vulnerable among us.”