Abortion restrictions repel graduating OB-GYNs from conservative states, report shows

Adrianna Rodriguez, USA TODAY
Fri, September 29, 2023


A survey found new doctors are changing their plans to practice in states with abortion restrictions after the 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that preserved abortion as a constitutional right for nearly 50 years.

Researchers from the University of Utah School of Medicine received responses from nearly 350 graduating obstetricians and gynecologists from training sites in 37 states. Findings showed more than 17% of residents said the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision changed their practice and fellowship plans.

Residents who had intended to practice in abortion-restrictive states before the decision were eight times more likely to change their plans after the decision than new doctors who wanted to practice in states that protected abortion, according to the report published Thursday in Obstetrics & Gynecology, the official journal of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Experts say the findings add to growing evidence of a medical brain drain in states with a conservative majority, where abortion laws are not only driving established doctors away but also deterring new talent.

The trend will exacerbate maternal mortality rates in areas of the country where maternity care is limited, also known as maternity care deserts, said the study’s lead author Dr. Alex Woodcock, a complex family planning fellow at the University of Utah School of Medicine.

“We're going to see medical students and residents and physicians continue to leave these spaces because they don’t feel like they can practice the full spectrum of care that they spent their life learning how to do,” said Dr. Leilah Zahedi-Spung, an OB-GYN in maternal-fetal medicine and complex family planning in Denver, who is unaffiliated with the study.

Before the Dobbs decision, maternal death rates were 62% higher in states that restricted abortion compared with states where there was access, according to a report from the Commonwealth Fund. Experts worry providers will continue to leave, driving up mortality rates.

“It’s only going to get worse,” said Zahedi-Spung, who recently left Tennessee, a state with one of the strictest abortion bans, due to the Dobbs decision. “We’re going to watch so many more pregnant people die, unfortunately.”

In follow-up interviews, survey participants said they would consider returning to conservative states if the hospital guaranteed legal protection for their practice and offered more money, according to Woodcock. They’d also wanted to see health care systems take a definitive and public stance on abortion.

“Applicants don’t want to apply to hospitals in restrictive states and hear silence on what those places are doing in terms of advocacy efforts,” she said.

Follow Adrianna Rodriguez on X, formerly Twitter: @AdriannaUSAT.

Health and patient safety coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial input.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Abortion: New doctors avoid conservative states, survey shows

US

Supreme Court approval rating mired near record low: Gallup

Lauren Irwin
Fri, September 29, 2023 


The Supreme Court’s approval rating is mired in a near-record low, according to a new survey.

With the Supreme Court set to begin its new term next week, the Gallup poll found Americans tend to view the court in a negative light.

The court’s approval rating fell to its lowest point in September 2021 after it declined to block a controversial Texas abortion law, which later led to the 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

“With the Supreme Court preparing to begin a new term, Americans’ approval of the high court and their trust in it remain near their historically lowest points, and the public is divided over whether its ideology is about right or too conservative,” the report said.

Currently, 41 percent of respondents approve of how the Supreme Court is handling its job, which remains near levels seen over the past two years. Fifty-eight percent disapprove of how the court is handling its job, the latest survey found.

Forty-nine percent of respondents say they have trust in the judicial branch, up from a record low of 47 percent a year ago. According to Gallup, trust in the Supreme Court averaged 68 percent before 2022.

In 2022, a record 42 percent of respondents said the court was “too conservative.” It was the first time since 1993 that a majority of Americans didn’t deem the court “about right,” the survey giant noted. Now, 42 percent say it’s “about right,” while 39 percent see it as too conservative and 17 percent see it as too liberal.

Currently, 23 percent of Democrats approve of the job the Supreme Court is doing, while 56 percent of Republicans approve. Forty percent of independents said they approve.

“Given Democrats’ widespread belief that the Supreme Court is too conservative, their low approval rating of the court is not surprising,” Gallup reported in its release. “Their approval rating of the court fell 25 percentage points to 25% after the Dobbs decision and dropped further to a new low of 17% two months ago, but has risen slightly to 23% in the latest poll.”

The survey of 1,016 adults, conducted Sept. 1-23, has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

The Supreme Court will begin its next term on Monday, Oct. 2. It has a 6-3 conservative majority and plans to hear six cases in its first week back.

French police are being accused of systemic discrimination in landmark legal case

ANGELA CHARLTON
Fri, September 29, 2023 


Police take on protesters during a march against police brutality and racism in Marseille, France, on June 13, 2020. France’s highest administrative authority held a landmark hearing over accusations of systemic discrimination in identity checks by French police. Local grassroots organizations and international rights groups filed France’s first class-action lawsuit targeting the nation’s police force. 

(AP Photo/Daniel Cole, File)

PARIS (AP) — France’s highest administrative authority held a landmark hearing Friday over accusations of systemic discrimination in identity checks by French police. Victims are not seeking money, but a ruling to force deep reforms within law enforcement to end racial profiling.

Local grassroots organizations and international rights groups allege that French police target Black people and people of Arab descent in choosing who to stop and check. They filed France's first class-action lawsuit against police in 2021, and the case reached the Council of State on Friday.

The government has denied systemic discrimination by police, and has said that police officers are increasingly targeted by violence.

A decision is expected in the coming weeks.

“This was a big step in a battle that I hope we will win one day,’’ said Achille Ndari, who attended Friday's hearing and who is among those whose personal accounts informed the lawsuit.

He said he was targeted by a rough police ID check for the first time during his first year of law school, and that it made him cry in his bed. Ndari, who is Black, said it shook his confidence in himself, his identity and France’s system of law and order.

Now a street performer in Paris, he described his awe after attending Friday’s hearing, and the feeling that the experiences of people like him were finally heard.

“It’s not everyone who has the chance to go to such a place'' as hallowed as the Council of State, he said. “Now there will always be a trace of our suffering, our invisible, silent suffering.’’

Police officers who corroborate accounts of discriminatory checks are among people cited in a 220-page file submitted by the groups’ lawyers to the Council of State.

Critics have said such ID checks, which are sometimes rough and often carried out multiple times on the same person, can mark young people for life and worsen the relationship between police officers and residents of many low-income neighborhoods.

The hearing comes amid lingering anger over the killing of a 17-year-old of North African origin by police during a traffic stop in June. Nahel Merzouk's death in the Paris suburb of Nanterre unleashed protests that morphed into nationwide riots. Tens of thousands of people marched last weekend around France to denounce police brutality and racism.

The case heard Friday focuses on ID checks, and was initiated by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Open Society Justice Initiative and three grassroots organizations that work with young people. The NGOs took the case to the Council of State after the government failed to meet a deadline to respond to the class-action suit.

French courts have found the state guilty of racial profiling in identity checks in the past, but the case heard by the Council of State is different in that it is seeking reforms instead of damages.

The groups that filed the lawsuit want to require police to record data about identity checks and to abolish preventive ID checks; limits on checks targeting children; new training for police; and an independent mechanism to lodge complaints against police.

“We hope this hearing will bring recognition by the law of the injustice that young people of color in French cities face every day. To be stopped by police in the middle of the street for no reason; to be spread-eagled, to have your ID checked, to be frisked in front of everyone,″ Issa Coulibaly, head of community youth group Pazapas, said in a statement by the Open Society Justice Initiative.

Coulibaly, a Black man in his 40s, has described being subjected to numerous undue ID checks starting when he was 14.


French court should reject lawsuit on police racial profiling, adviser says

Layli Foroudi
Fri, September 29, 2023 

A view shows the Conseil d'Etat, France's highest administrative court, in Paris

By Layli Foroudi

PARIS (Reuters) - An adviser to France's top administrative court urged it on Friday to reject a class action lawsuit against the state alleging police inaction on racial profiling, saying the government could not be held at fault over a lack of reform.

Six human rights groups petitioning the Conseil d'Etat (State Council) argued the police discriminate against young Arab and Black men during routine patrols. The case asks the council to require concrete reforms from the government.

If successful, the landmark petition could open the way for similar broad legal challenges in a country where activism has traditionally taken the form of direct protest, and where class actions only became possible in 2014 and remain rare.

At Friday's hearing, the adviser, public rapporteur Esther de Moustier, said judges did not have the power to impose legislative changes and that the state could not be held "at fault" if policy measures had not brought results.

The State Council, of which the public rapporteur is a member, is not bound by such opinions but follows the adviser's lead in most cases.

A decision in the case is expected in the coming weeks.

A lawyer for the rights groups, which include Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, urged the council not to follow the recommendation.

Rejecting the case would be like saying that "the pain exists, but the doctor doesn't want to intervene," said the lawyer, Antoine Lyon-Caen.

The rights groups' case is supported by statements from 40 victims as well as police.

The government and police are under scrutiny after an officer shot dead Nahel, a teenager of North African descent, during a traffic stop in June, bringing long-simmering resentment among urban immigrant communities to the boil.

Lawyer Slim Ben Achour, who has defended racial profiling victims in cases where the state was found to be at fault, said if the court rejects this type of class action "it will be catastrophic and an important indicator for what is happening in this country".

(Reporting by Layli Foroudi; editing by Rami Ayyub)

Los Angeles city and county to spend billions to help homeless people under lawsuit settlement

ROBERT JABLON
Thu, September 28, 2023 

 People line up along temporary tents to partake in a free Thanksgiving meal provided by the Union Rescue Mission as the Los Angeles Skid Row district annual feast hosts thousands of homeless and others in need, in downtown Los Angeles, on Nov. 24, 2022. Los Angeles County and city will spend billions of dollars to provide more housing and support services for homeless people under a lawsuit settlement approved Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023, by a federal judge.

 (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles County and city will spend billions of dollars to provide more housing and support services for homeless people under a lawsuit settlement approved Thursday by a federal judge.

The county ends more than two years of court battles over LA's response to the homelessness crisis by agreeing to provide an additional 3,000 beds by the end of 2026 for people with mental health and drug abuse issues.

It was the last piece in a series of commitments that were hammered out after a lawsuit was brought in 2020 by the LA Alliance for Human Rights, a coalition that includes businesses, residents, landlords, homeless people and others who alleged that inaction by both the city and county created a dangerous environment.

“All told, we're looking at some 25,000 new beds for unhoused people and a total of over $5 billion ... just to implement these three agreements,” alliance spokesperson Daniel Conway said.

U.S. District Judge David Carter had rejected earlier settlement proposals offering far fewer beds.

Conway said the final deal was historic and “will stand the test of time” because it includes court enforcement requirements.

It will serve as "a blueprint for other communities looking to address homelessness humanely and comprehensively,” Conway said.

The new agreement sets up a commitment to provide hundreds of new beds each year through 2026 but doesn't include specifics on funding, although earlier this year the county and city both passed budgets that together include some $1.9 billion to fight homelessness.

California is home to nearly a third of the nation’s homeless population, according to federal data. About two-thirds of California’s homeless population is unsheltered, meaning they live outside, often packed into encampments in major cities and along roadways.

During the court case, the city had contended that the county, which operates the local public health system, was obligated to provide services and housing for people who are homeless or have substance abuse issues but was failing.

Now, both governments will partner in an effort that “stands to help more unhoused Angelenos in the city come inside and receive care,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement.

“It took a long time and a lot of hard work from many people to get to this point, but this is finally an agreement we can be proud of,” county Board of Supervisors Chair Janice Hahn said in a statement. “This is an achievement that will mean real care and housing for thousands of people who are struggling with mental illness and addiction.”

LA has one of the nation's largest unhoused populations. Those living on the streets, in shelters or in vehicles has ballooned in recent years.

A federally required January count estimated that on any given night there were more than 75,500 unhoused people in the county, with well over 46,000 of them in the LA city limits. About a third of them said they had substance abuse issues.

Since 2015, homelessness has increased by 70% in the county and 80% in the city.

Homeless populations, once mainly confined to Skid Row, are now found in nearly all parts of the city. Encampments have cropped up in Hollywood, pricey West Los Angeles and within sight of Los Angeles City Hall.

Bass made dealing with the homelessness crisis a priority in her mayoral campaign. On her first day in office last December, she declared a state of emergency over the issue.

However, a nonprofit group called Fix the City filed a lawsuit Monday against the emergency declaration, calling it a “vast and illegal expansion of mayoral power.”

The group, which has battled the city over its approach to dealing with development issues, contends that Bass's efforts under the emergency to fast-track construction of affordable housing has circumvented necessary public input and planning review, including eliminating competitive bidding for some projects.

Judge approves L.A. County deal for 3,000 mental health and substance use treatment beds

Doug Smith
Fri, September 29, 2023

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, 79, pauses in front of the Midnight Mission while leading a tour of Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles on Friday. After retired judge Jay C. Gandhi was appointed to monitor Los Angeles County's settlement of the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights case, Carter challenged Gandhi to prove his passion for the job by meeting him on Skid Row. Gandhi showed up at 6:30 a.m. Friday for the tour.

 (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

A federal judge signed off Thursday on Los Angeles County's commitment to produce 3,000 new mental health and substance use treatment beds, settling a 3½-year lawsuit that alleged city and county officials had done little to address homelessness, while adding language to ensure the agreement was transparent and effectively monitored.

"This is an extraordinary step forward," U.S. District Judge David O. Carter said. "It's going to save a lot of lives."

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, City Council President Paul Krekorian and Board of Supervisors Chair Janice Hahn, attending the hearing at Carter's invitation, praised the agreement.

"We are all now aligned," Hahn told the judge. "The stars are aligned with 3,000 beds. This is a solid proposal. We will make it happen."

After twice rejecting proposed settlements between Los Angeles County and the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, a group representing primarily downtown business and property owners, Carter ended the case in characteristically disruptive style, accepting the latest proposed settlement only after inserting his own wording and requiring the parties to accept or reject his additions, "yes or no."

The earlier proposals had started at 300 beds and then been raised to 1,000.

Bass, who told the court 3,000 beds would make a significant difference, said after the hearing that the starting figure of 300 had shocked her and that adding a zero was the right solution.

The settlement "is a floor, not a ceiling," Carter said, dictating his amendment to an aide who wrote it by hand on a copy of the agreement projected on a screen. While significant, it "does not solve homelessness," he said.

Expressing displeasure at the lack of transparency he said he has observed in the distribution of funds for services, Carter inserted language requiring invoices for the services that would be rendered under the agreement to be made public.

Carter leads a tour of Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles on Friday. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

That added transparency was welcome, said plaintiff's attorney Elizabeth Mitchell of Umhofer, Mitchell & King.

"It’s so difficult to hold the providers accountable, the county accountable when you don’t have transparency," she said. "I think overall we’re very happy with it."

Carter said that in his visits to Skid Row service centers he has seen people leave waiting rooms after growing impatient, but suspects they were included in the agency's billings even though they received no services.

He said it was unlikely voters would approve new taxes — which would undoubtedly be required for the county to meet its obligations — if they were not confident the money was being spent efficiently.

The decision brings an end to a saga that has seen Carter alternately praise and berate public officials, hold court on the streets of Skid Row during the coronavirus pandemic, render a visionary ruling to end homelessness on Skid Row — only to have it overturned on appeal — and squeeze more and more money from a reluctant county.

The city had settled its side of the case in earlier agreements that committed it to produce close to 20,000 new beds of either interim or permanent housing.

Among his interjections Thursday, Carter raised multiple reservations about the nomination of retired Judge Jay C. Gandhi as a monitor to ensure compliance with the agreement. Though he called Gandhi a friend, Carter questioned his commitment to the case and the $200,000 annual fee proposed for him.

Carter gives Thee Big Mama, right, a comforting hug before leading an early morning tour of Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles on Friday. Thee Big Mama used to live homeless in Skid Row but now has housing. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

He instructed the aide to strike a paragraph that described Gandhi as "material to brokering the Settlement Agreement" and having "a meaningful background in the case."

That statement, he said, was false. Gandhi had worked briefly on the case, he said, whereas special master Michele Martinez and another U.S. district judge, Andre Birotte Jr., had worked with the parties on the agreement some days until 2 a.m.

Carter also objected to the proposal to set Gandhi's annual fee at $200,000 while Martinez would receive only $50,000. He characterized the differential as gender discrimination.

"He can work for free or he can work for the same salary as Michele Martinez," Carter said.

Hahn told the court that the supervisors had already approved the amount for Gandhi's fee but that she thought the terms could be adjusted so the money would be equally divided between the two.

The handwritten addition published with the agreement Thursday afternoon read, "The monitor must be willing to take to the streets, and learn from the community, not the bureaucracy, and has an absolute fiduciary duty to the court."

In a closing gesture to impress on all parties his determination to ensure compliance, Carter announced that he would be on the streets of Skid Row at 6:30 a.m. Friday and advised Gandhi to be there too to show his passion for the job.

The case, filed in March of 2020, took several turns.

In May 2020, Carter ordered the city and county to find shelter for the thousands of people living near freeway overpasses, underpasses and ramps.

That decision was eventually vacated when the city and county agreed to construct new forms of shelter for 6,700 people within 18 months, and fund homeless services for the people who ended up staying in these locations after they were built.

In 2021, Carter granted a preliminary injunction sought by the plaintiffs telling the city and county to offer every homeless person on Skid Row housing or shelter within the year.

In a sharp rebuke to Carter, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in overturning the decision that he failed to follow basic legal requirements, using “novel” legal theories that no one had argued, and ruled on claims that no one had alleged and on evidence that was not before him.

Carter, left, and retired Judge Jay C. Gandhi, right, speak with Paula Chatman, 58, who has been homeless in Skid Row for the last 40 years, in downtown Los Angeles on Friday. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

In April of 2022, the city reached its own settlement in which it agreed to open enough beds over the next five years to accommodate 60% of the city’s unsheltered population in each City Council district.

The exact number of beds required, based on the results of the 2022 point-in-time homeless count, is estimated to be about 13,000 beds.

The county and L.A. Alliance for Human Rights continued negotiating and came up with an agreement late last year that provided 300 new mental health and substance use beds, and supportive services for city-financed interim and permanent housing. It also called for the expansion of mental health outreach by adding 11 new multidisciplinary teams, which include physical and mental health practitioners, bringing the total to 34 and nearly doubling its Homeless Outreach and Mobile Engagement Teams, which focus on severe mental illness, to 10. It did not include continuing oversight by a court monitor.

Pushed by Carter to do better, the parties came back in April with the 1,000-bed commitment and an agreement by the county to fund 450 new subsidies for beds at board and care homes “frequently utilized by individuals with serious mental illness who are at risk of homelessness” — only to have the judge reject it again.

A county petition to the 9th Circuit for an order for Carter to accept that agreement was denied, leading to the prospect of a trial neither side wanted. To forestall it, they returned Monday with the terms the judge wanted.

Times researcher Scott Wilson contributed to this report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

US appeals court blocks venture capital fund's grant program for Black women

Nate Raymond
Updated Sat, September 30, 2023 

FILE PHOTO: Black women-owned venture capital fund to respond to conservative activist's lawsuit

By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) -A federal appeals court on Saturday blocked a venture capital fund from moving forward with a program that awards funding to businesses run by Black women in a case by the anti-affirmative action activist behind the successful U.S. Supreme Court challenge to race-conscious college admissions policies.

The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on a 2-1 vote granted a request by Edward Blum's American Alliance for Equal Rights to temporarily block Fearless Fund from considering applications for grants only from businesses led by Black women.

Blum's group asked the court to do so while it appealed a judge's Tuesday ruling denying it a preliminary injunction blocking Fearless Fund from moving forward with its "racially exclusive program." Grant applications were due Saturday.

The judges in the majority, U.S. Circuit Judges Robert Luck and Andrew Brasher, agreed with Blum's group that Fearless Fund's "racially exclusionary" grant program likely violated Section 1981 of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, a Civil War-era law that bars racial bias in contracting.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash earlier this week concluded that under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment's free speech protections, Fearless Fund had a right to express its belief in the importance of Black women to the economy through charity.

But the appeals court's majority, comprised of two appointees of Republican former President Donald Trump, said the First Amendment "does not give the defendants the right to exclude persons from a contractual regime based on race."

Blum in a statement said his group was "gratified that the 11th Circuit has recognized the likelihood that the Fearless Strivers Grant Contest is illegal." Defense lawyers said they planned to seek further appellate review.

"We remain committed to defending our clients’ meaningful work," said Jason Schwartz, a lawyer for Fearless Fund.

Fearless Fund describes itself as "built by women of color for women of color."

The lawsuit is one of three that Blum's Texas-based group has filed since August challenging grant and fellowship programs designed by the venture capital fund and two law firms to help give Black, Hispanic and other underrepresented minority groups greater career opportunities.

A different group founded by Blum, who is white, was behind the litigation that led to the June decision, powered by the Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority, declaring unlawful race-conscious student admissions policies used by Harvard University and the University of North Carolina.

According to the Fearless Fund, businesses owned by Black women in 2022 received less than 1% of the $288 billion that venture capital firms deployed.

The fund aims to address that disparity, and counts JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and MasterCard as investors. It has invested nearly $27 million in 40 businesses led by minority women since its founding in 2019.

It also provides grants, and Blum's lawsuit took aim at its Fearless Strivers Grant Contest, which awards Black women who own small businesses $20,000 in grants and other resources to grow their businesses.

The fund argued Blum was trying to "turn a seminal civil rights statute on its head" by suing it under a Civil War-era law enacted to protect formerly enslaved Black people from racial bias.

U.S. Circuit Judge Charles Wilson, an appointee of Democratic former President Bill Clinton, in a dissenting opinion on Saturday called it a "perversion" of Congress' intent to use that law against a remedial program like Fearless Fund's.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Andrea Ricci and Leslie Adler)

Federal court temporarily blocks race-based grant program

Olivia Alafriz

POLITICO
Sat, September 30, 2023 

Charles Krupa/AP photo

A federal appeals court on Saturday temporarily blocked a grant program for Black women-owned businesses.

American Alliance for Equal Rights, a nonprofit backed by conservative legal activist Edward Blum, sued the Atlanta-based Fearless Fund in August, alleging that the venture capital fund’s grant program violated the 1866 Civil Rights Act’s “guarantee of race neutrality” in making “contracts” by discriminating against other races.

The lawsuit follows a Supreme Court decision in June that struck down race-based affirmative action in higher education after challenges brought by Students for Fair Admissions, a group also backed by Blum.

After a district court judge in Georgia refused to issue an injunction earlier this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit granted the injunction in a 2-1 decision on Saturday. Robert Luck and Andrew Brasher, both appointed by former President Donald Trump, were in favor. Charles Wilson, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, dissented.

The targeted program intends to support Black women-owned businesses by awarding grants and providing mentorship and business support services — however, in the Saturday opinion, the judges said that it was “substantially likely” that the program was illegal.

Blum has filed similar suits against several businesses that he says use the same kind of racial classifications previously used in higher education admissions — such programs are likely the next target for conservative legal activism.

‘We Won the First Round’: Federal Judge Denies Conservative Activist Behind SCOTUS’ Affirmative Action Reversal Request to Block Venture Fund for Black Women-Owned Businesses


Niko Mann
Fri, September 29, 2023 

A federal judge denied a request to block a small venture capital fund from providing grants to Black women starting their own businesses.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash denied the request on Sept. 26, which was made by conservative activist Edward Blum and his nonprofit American Alliance for Equal Rights.

Blum filed a federal lawsuit claiming that the Fearless Fund Management violated the Civil Rights Act of 1866 because only Black women are eligible for the $20,000 grants. According to Reuters, Thrash denied the request for an injunction pending an appeal in a federal court in Atlanta.”

Conservative Edward Blum attacks a venture capital fund that provides grants to Black women. (Photo: MSNBC/ YouTube screenshot)

“Blum sought an injunction to block the Fearless Fund from awarding grants for what he called a “racially exclusive program.”

The fund was reportedly created in 2019 by entrepreneur Arian Simone, executive Ayana Parsons, and “The Cosby Show” actress Keshia Knight Pulliam to provide funding for women of color. It offers grants to women-owned and women-led businesses.

Blum’s group filed an emergency appeal on September 23, requesting that the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals block the fund from selecting a grant recipient. However, the judge ruled that the Fearless Fund’s grant program is a form of speech protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.

The Washington Post shared a statement from Arian Simone and Ayana Parsons following the ruling, highlighting the significant barriers women of color continue to face in accessing capital. In 2022, businesses owned by Black women received less than one percent of the $288 billion invested by venture capital firms.

The statement read, “Women of color continue to face significant barriers in obtaining access to capital. We are very pleased with the court’s decision to deny the plaintiffs’ attempt to shut down our grant program and look forward to continuing to advance our critical mission.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton was in Atlanta to support the Fearless Fund and spoke in front of the courthouse after the ruling. Sharpton emphasized that the fund is not discriminatory and was created to combat discrimination against women of color. “We won the first round,” he said.

Simone also spoke out following the decision and expressed her gratitude to those in attendance.

“Along with my partner Ayana Parsons, we have founded the nation’s first venture capital fund that is created by women of color for women of color,” she said. “And we will continue to operate the nation’s first venture capital fund that is built by women of color for women of color.”

Sharpton shared a video on social media with the caption, “We came to ATL to stand against those who seek to undo generations of hard-won civil rights because this country needs to move forward on equality – not backward… Today, I’m proud to have stood with #FearlessFund in that courtroom as the judge denied the preliminary injunction.'”



Blum is the founder of Students for Fair Admissions, the group that filed a lawsuit against affirmative action policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that race can no longer be considered in college admissions, effectively ending affirmative action in college admissions.

Blum, a white conservative who has faced criticism for his stance, is also involved in a lawsuit against two law firms that provide grants for Black, Hispanic, and underrepresented minorities in terms of career opportunities. Blum alleges that these firms discriminate against white candidates.

“Excluding students from these prestigious fellowships based on their race is unfair, polarizing, and illegal,” said Blum.

The Fearless Fund is represented by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, and civil rights attorney Ben Crump.”

Georgia federal judge rejects conservative activist group’s effort to halt grant funding for Black women

Isabel Rosales and Jaide Timm-Garcia, CNN
Tue, September 26, 2023 

Shuran Huang/The Washington Post/Getty Images

A federal judge in Atlanta has denied a conservative group’s request for an injunction to stop a Black women-owned venture capitalist firm from awarding grants exclusively to Black women entrepreneurs.

The American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER ) had argued that the Fearless Fund’s grant program amounted to racial discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

Judge Thomas Thrash, Jr., Senior U.S. District Judge of Northern District of Georgia, denied the group’s request for a preliminary injunction to halt the firm’s grant selection process while the lawsuit goes to trial, saying the case was a matter of free speech and charitable donations fall under the purview of the First Amendment.

“The judge’s ruling today tells me that there are people in this world who respect progress and allow people to express their freedom of speech, and we are so grateful,” Fearless Fund co-founder and CEO Arian Simone told CNN. “It’s encouraging to know that laws are still in place to protect us.”

AAER told CNN they are “disappointed” with the court’s denial and have appealed the decision.

“Our nation’s civil rights laws do not permit racial distinctions because some racial groups are overrepresented in various endeavors, while others are under-represented,” said AAER founder Edward Blum in an email response to CNN.

Blum is the same conservative activist behind Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, the Supreme Court case whose June ruling dismantled affirmative action in college admissions.

Fearless Fund is an Atlanta-based company that was started in 2019 to break down the barriers Black women face trying to secure resources and funding for growing their business. Their website lists corporate giants including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Fifth Third Bank and Mastercard as partners. Fearless Fund runs a separate non-profit organization called the Fearless Foundation, where it gives charitable donations and grants to women of color entrepreneurs, according to co-founder and COO Ayana Parsons.

Simone said the venture capitalist firm is the first of its kind “built by women of color, for women of color.”

“Women of color are the least funded but the most founded,” said Simone, adding that Black women statistically make up the majority of small business owners, but receive the least amount of funding compared to other demographics.

It was one of Fearless Foundation’s grants, the Strivers Grant Contest, which exclusively awards Black women entrepreneurs up to $20,000, that was the target of AAER’s complaint.

In early August, Blum filed a lawsuit on behalf of AAER against the Fearless Fund and its foundation. The group argued that their members, un-named in the lawsuit, were excluded from the program because they weren’t Black, and faced “additional harm” from the illegal act of racial discrimination, AAER’s attorneys stated in the court hearing.

Blum told CNN that “venture capital funding gaps between the races is never a legal or moral justification to exclude certain men and women from public programs by race or ethnicity.”

He added that AAER “believes it is legally permissible to provide benefits to businesses and individuals who are under-resourced but those benefits must be made available to all races and ethnicities.”

During closing remarks, Judge Thrash said his understanding was that the Fearless Fund is trying to get a message across that Black women lack access to capital funds, a problem they recognize and are trying to address.

“The Plaintiff wants them to communicate a different message,” Thrash said. “That’s not the way it works.”

AAER’s attorneys declined to comment after the hearing.

The lawsuit caught the attention of civil rights activist and leader Rev. Al Sharpton, who said he views it as evidence the fight over affirmative action is expanding beyond school grounds. In a news release on Monday, Rev. Sharpton said that the case could have larger consequences for DEI initiatives across corporate America and could pave the way for future lawsuits “targeting race-conscious diversity programs … across all kinds of public and private sectors.”

In the month after the Supreme Court’s landmark affirmative action decision, conservatives put top Fortune 100 companies on notice. Thirteen Republican state attorneys general sent a letter to top companies including Apple, Google, Netflix and others, arguing the court’s ruling on affirmative action also applied to employers.

“[We] write to remind you of your obligations as an employer under federal and state law to refrain from discriminating on the basis of race, whether under the label of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ or otherwise,” the letter read. “Treating people differently because of the color of their skin, even for benign purposes, is unlawful and wrong. Companies that engage in racial discrimination should and will face serious legal consequences.”

Outside the federal courthouse after the judge denied AAER’s motion, Sharpton stood with Simone and Parsons, the Fearless Fund co-founders.

“We won the first round but the fight is not over … we’re going to keep on fighting, and we’re going to fight wherever this reactionary group raises his [sic] head,” he told the crowd of supporters and media gathered.

Parsons told CNN that she believes the lawsuit is bigger than the Fearless Fund, venture capital or corporate America.

“I’ve been a corporate executive my entire career, and yes diversity, equity and inclusion is under attack,” she said. “I hope that the American people understand the magnitude of this lawsuit and how it impacts and affects all of us.”

She said Fearless Fund is not afraid of what comes next in the legal process, but emphasized her belief that this is an attempt to dismantle the economic freedom and progress being made in the country.

“This is about anything that is race-conscious decision making and trying to include those that have long been excluded,” Parsons said.

As a Black business owner, Sophia Danner-Okotie said she couldn’t get a loan despite showing proof of growth and contract opportunities she had lined up with retailers.

“We’re definitely under-funded and it’s felt – it’s felt hard,” she told CNN. Danner-Okotie said she has received a $10,000 grant from the Fearless Foundation.
“Not being able to go to a bank and get funding - that kills your courage sometimes, that kills your ambition,” she said. “So Fearless Foundation stepping in and saying, ‘We’re going to help you with this mission. We believe in what you’re doing, and we want to help you grow this business.’ That was a boost to my business and ego as well.”

This is not the end of the line for AAER’s lawsuit. While Judge Thrash denied a preliminary injunction to pause the grant program, the case itself continues in the Northern District.

 CNN news

The high-tech hunt for one of the world's most elusive sharks

Dino Grandoni,Photos and videos by Greg Lecoeur, 

(c) 2023, The Washington Post
Fri, September 29, 202

 

OFF THE COAST OF CORSICA - Nicolas Tomasi has never laid eyes on it. He has worked these waters for years without seeing one but has heard the tales from old-timers - of a patient predator, hiding under the sand off this French island's shores, waiting for the right moment to strike.

The angel shark does not want to be found. But it can hide no longer.

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On a hot August afternoon, Tomasi lowered a long, plastic tube attached to a weight over the edge of a dinghy and into the indigo water.


With the push of a few buttons, an electric pump began sucking up a small portion of the Mediterranean Sea - and with it, the ocean's secrets.

The thin stream of siphoned water looked ordinary, but floating in it were microscopic particles laden with DNA from dozens of ocean animals. If an angel shark was below, this device could detect it.

Today, said Tomasi, a project manager with the Natural Marine Park of Cap Corse and Agriate, we can find rare sea life "sans avoir à plonger." Without having to dive.

This is environmental DNA, or eDNA, a revolutionary technology that is helping scientists detect the treasure trove of genetic information animals leave in their wake and understand the breadth of life on Earth like never before.

Before, biologists had to drag nets through the sea or run electric currents through the water to incapacitate and count animals. Now, they can tally biodiversity simply by sampling water, soil or even air for the DNA animals shed in their environments daily.

Around the world from the Arctic to the Amazon, eDNA is rewriting the way biologists do conservation, allowing them to spot invasive pests entering ecosystems before anyone has seen them and to follow animals' migration fueled by climate change without deploying an army of people to track them.

But the most promising place for deploying eDNA may be Earth's oceans, where many species remain unknown and many threats, such as warmer waters and ocean acidification, are mounting.

In the case of France's elusive angel shark, eDNA helped scientists rediscover an animal many thought to be lost for good, and gave ocean managers key information about where it lives so that they can protect it.

"They are always surprised that from a sample of water, you can detect the species," said Stéphanie Manel, a professor at the École Pratique des Hautes Études who was showing Tomasi how to collect DNA.

"But this is DNA," she said. "DNA is there. So it's not magic."

Her ambitions extend beyond the angel shark. Her goal is nothing short of "a map of the biodiversity in the Mediterranean."

- - -

Fallen angel

It used to be easy to find an angel shark.

A 19th century zoologist in the British Isles wrote it "haunts our coasts in abundance." Once widespread from Scandinavia to the Western Sahara, it was so plentiful in Europe's seas that the crystal-blue water off Nice in the French Riviera is named Baie des Anges, or the Bay of Angels.

With a flattened body and eyes on top of its head, the common angel shark, or squatina squatina, lies on the bottom of the ocean, burying its body in the sand. For hours it waits in shallow waters until - whoosh! - it pops its head up, opens its jaws and sucks an unsuspecting fish into its mouth.

For as long as humans have known about the shark, they have exploited them. The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder lauded its rough skin for its ability to polish ivory and wood.

But it was the advent of modern fishing that really did the carnivorous fish in. That lie-and-wait strategy for ambushing prey also made it easy for fishermen to scoop it up in trawls scraping the sandy sea bottom, even when trying to catch other fish.

Slow to grow and reproduce, the fish's population plummeted and the Mediterranean lost a key predator. Today, the common angel shark is no longer common, with the International Union for Conservation of Nature listing the species as critically endangered.

By 2015, its last stronghold appeared to be the Canary Islands off northwestern Africa. The shark had disappeared everywhere else. Or so scientists thought.

But locals in Corsica knew better. "I've seen the bite," Sébastien Leccia said. As a teenager, he remembered a man showing him a scar on his arm. "We knew," said Leccia, now an official with the Office of the Environment of Corsica. "But it wasn't studied."

Until in 2019, a fisherman shared pictures of the odd, flat fish caught off the northeastern coast with biologists. Some were juveniles, suggesting a hidden shark nursery. Another series of photos from a diver further confirmed Corsica's angel sharks were no myth.

But those fleeting images only painted a partial picture. Where else around Corsica did the angel shark swim? Did these sharks stay put, or mingle around the Mediterranean? In 2020, during covid lockdowns, the sharks started "to come back to the shore," said David Mouillot, a University of Montpellier professor collaborating with Manel. Had the decline in beach and boat activity during the pandemic made angel sharks less shy?

"We don't know whether it's covid, climate" or something else, he said.

For the past several years, Manel and Mouillot's team have been siphoning water along the Corsican coast to find its genetic finprint and map its whereabouts. In late August, a 56-foot trimaran named the Victoria IV cut a course along the island's northwestern shoreline to continue the search.

After dropping the tube into the blue water on that hot August afternoon, the eDNA team waited as a pump whooshed water through a fist-sized amber capsule. Inside, an accordion-shaped filter collected tiny DNA-laden particles.

After half an hour running the pump, Tomasi snapped on rubber gloves and poured a bottle of clear solution into the amber capsule, preserving the genetic material so it could be sent to a lab onshore.

There, the snippets of DNA would be multiplied using a polymerase chain reaction, or PCR - a technique also used for detecting covid in humans - and then compared to DNA from a database to see what species were swimming below. The plunging cost of analyzing DNA over the past decade opened the door for this work.

So far, the team has used eDNA to find at least seven spots along the Corsican coast where angel sharks were still patrolling, according to a paper the team published in May. But more may be lurking undetected.

"Because it is endangered, the DNA is rare," Manel said.

- - -

'A young science'

Manel first got interested in eDNA after geneticists found invasive frogs in French wetlands. Much of the first eDNA work, in fact, was done in freshwater ecosystems, where DNA lingers in abundance.

More recently, scientists have refined ways of extracting strands of genetic material from saltwater, soil and air. Depending on conditions, DNA can last for days in the ocean after an animal has shed it.

"When we started nobody believed it would work," Mouillot said of their marine eDNA work as the boat chugged along Corsica's rocky coast lined with modern steel wind turbines and medieval stone towers once used to watch for pirates.

"Everyone thought we are crazy. It's a waste of money."

In the Mediterranean, the team was on the lookout for another invader: the rabbitfish.

The rabbitfish doesn't look much like a rabbit. But it shares with its land counterpart one crucial and devastating trait: It reproduces like crazy, overwhelming ecosystems. The fish has infiltrated the eastern Mediterranean through the Suez Canal, one of some 3,500 harmful invasive species costing society more than $423 billion a year. It hasn't been spotted near Corsica. But it's only a matter of time, scientists say.

"It's inevitable at some point," said Rick Stewart-Smith, a marine biologist from the University of Tasmania in Australia who joined Manel and Mouillot on the Victoria IV.

But biologists are doing more than just tracking endangered and invasive species. Today they use eDNA to diagnose infections in insects and reconstruct entire food webs by combing through feces.

"We got to the point where we could detect one or two molecules," said Colin Simpfendorfer, a shark scientist at James Cook University in Australia conducting his own eDNA work. "That's how powerful those sorts of techniques can become."

"What eDNA can deliver for conservation is massive," he said. "It is revolutionizing a lot of the work that we do."

Yet the field is still new, and going through growing pains.

DNA is the blueprint for life, made up of four bases - adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine - strung together in an order distinctive to every type of organism. To match DNA collected from the environment to a specific species, researchers must check samples against a reference database.

Yet the databases available right now are incomplete and disjointed. To confirm that particular sequence of A's, T's, G's and C's came from angel sharks, for instance, Manel and Mouillot's team had to test their method on angel shark tissue provided by fishers in Corsica and by an aquarium in Spain.

There is also a lack of standardization for filtration methods as well as a lack of communication with other scientific disciplines, said Louis Bernatchez, editor in chief of the scientific journal Environmental DNA. Many of the scientists sampling tissue from animals and sequencing DNA don't focus on the parts of the genome that eDNA methods are good at detecting.

"It's still a young science," said Bernatchez, a professor at Laval University in Canada. "It just keeps improving."

Then there are the privacy concerns. Wild animals aren't the only ones shedding DNA everywhere. Humans do, too. Spikes in the viral genetic signatures in sewer water, for instance, are allowing health officials to predict covid outbreaks.

In a paper this year, University of Florida biologist David Duffy and colleagues showed sleuths can recover medical and family information from genetic traces left in the environment by humans, suggesting one day police departments and insurance companies may be able to spot genetic disorders and surveil populations using eDNA.

"Essentially what we have shown is that humans are not really very different," Duffy said. "The same technologies that can allow us to recover a tiger's DNA from the environment actually can recover human DNA as well."

- - -

Going deep

And eDNA still can't capture some vital information. It can't say much yet about the quantity or body size of fish - though researchers are working on linking the amount of DNA they find in the water to the abundance of a species. And there are other fish that don't shed a lot of DNA to begin with, making eDNA detection difficult.

Some fish "don't piss a lot," Stewart-Smith said. "They don't have soft skin or mucus."

Finding some creatures requires taking a plunge. Stewart-Smith bobbed his head up and down and side to side, letting out big puffs of glistening air bubbles from his scuba gear. In one hand he held a pencil and in the other, a piece of special waterproof paper.

Swimming along a 50-meter tape measure laid along the seafloor, he counted every rainbow wrasse, painted comber and other vibrant fish he could spot. His colleague Graham Edgar passed him going the opposite direction, snapping pictures of the seafloor.

Once Stewart-Smith got to the end of the tape measure, he spun around to swim the line again - this time gently brushing away seagrass with his hand and plunging headfirst into crevices to get a better look at the life on this stretch of rocky seafloor near the small island of Giraglia at the northern tip of Corsica.

In one of the cracks he spotted a cardinal fish, a neon-orange animal that looks like a living piece of gummy candy.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," Stewart-Smith, who is also co-founder of the Reef Life Survey, said back aboard the Victoria IV.

This is a tried-and-true method for surveying sea life. For the past 16 years, the Reef Life Survey has trained professional scientists and amateur divers alike to conduct underwater surveys the same standardized way. Their catalogues, which include not only the species but also the abundance and body sizes of different reef fish at thousands of sites around the world, has provided marine managers with crucial baseline data.

This old-school approach can complement eDNA analysis. Visual surveys, for instance, aren't very good at spotting sea creatures swimming in deep waters or hiding under rocks. And other fish simply flee at the first sight of divers.

"The first thing to recognize when you're surveying marine life is that no method is perfect," said Edgar, also a University of Tasmania marine biologist.

Back on the deck, the pair enter data into their laptops. No angel sharks. No fish, in fact, bigger than 6 inches. In other areas off the coast of Corsica where Stewart-Smith went diving, fish were also small and skittish, a sign of overfishing even in areas that are supposed to be protected. Both eDNA and visual surveys can let government agencies know if fishing restrictions are working, or being ignored by poachers.

"They were all very shy," he said. "If it's meant to be no entry, the fish are telling me no."

- - -

One last look

As the Victoria IV clipped up a stretch of dry coastline, Mouillot drew in a breath of ocean air. "I'm very excited to swim," he said. "Do you smell the angel shark?"

Sure, eDNA is the shiny new technology. But there is nothing quite like seeing a shark face to face.

Snapping on flippers and swim caps, Moullot and Manel plunged into the water near a smattering of beachgoers enjoying the last days of summer. This sandy cove is near one of the spots the eDNA team had detected the shark in two years ago.

To find an angel shark, look for its silhouette. Often, the only thing to see is its outline in the sand. "You don't see the angel shark," said Jose A. Sanabria-Fernandez, another reef diver looking for the shark. "You see the shape of the angel shark."

The pair swam at a brisk pace along the coast, overhead strokes and eyes down, scanning for the outline of the shark under the sand. After several minutes of searching, Mouillot stopped.

"Many beautiful fish," he said, bobbing in the water. "But no angel shark."

The eDNA samples collected on the trip may reveal the sharks once they are analyzed in the coming weeks. But he and Manel care about more than just the angel shark. Their latest survey involves an eDNA method called metabarcoding that can detect not just one species, but whole groups of animals.

"People need to be aware that you need to protect species," Manel said. "The angel shark is maybe an emblematic species."

The pair want not just to measure biodiversity but bolster it, by someday moving some of Corsica's sharks to the French mainland coast and giving Nice's Baie des Anges its angels back.

Mouillot acknowledged the political and legal hurdles. "It's a very controversial idea," he said.

"It would be the greatest challenge of the end of my career," he added, "because it means that we can reverse the decline of biodiversity."

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Charlotte company agrees to pay $218 million for bribing foreign government officials
Gavin Off
Fri, September 29, 2023 

A Charlotte-based chemical manufacturing company agreed to pay more than $218 million in penalties following federal investigations that found the company spent years bribing foreign government officials in return for business, a U.S. Justice Department release said.

Albemarle Corporation agreed to the payment after admitting to Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission investigators that its third-party agents conspired to bribe officials in Vietnam, Indonesia and India for business with the countries’ state-owned oil refineries, the release said. The schemes took place between 2009 and 2017 and violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Albemarle was named a Fortune 500 company this year.

“Albemarle earned nearly $100 million by participating in schemes to pay bribes to government officials in multiple countries,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division in the department’s release.

According the the Justice Department:

• Albemarle Corporation got contracts at two state-owned oil refineries in Vietnam after an intermediary sales agent sought higher commissions to pay bribes to Vietnamese officials.

• The company used a third-party intermediary to secure business with Indonesia’s state-owned oil company even after an intermediary told Albemarle that it would have to pay bribes for the business ties.

• Albemarle used a third-party to “corruptly retain catalyst business with India’s state-owned oil company by avoiding Albemarle being blacklisted,” the government release said.

“Corruption has no borders, but neither does justice,” said Dena King, U.S. attorney for the Western District of North Carolina in the department’s press release. “Companies are expected to adhere to the same ethical and legal standards whether they are doing business on U.S. soil or overseas.”

In a statement, Albemarle said: “The actions taken by a limited number of former employees and third-party sales representatives happened years ago ... Those responsible for these past actions were held to account and separated years ago.”

The statement said Albemarle’s payment resolved the self-reported investigation and the company has since changed how it monitors third parties.

In addition to the $218 million payment, Albemarle has agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department in any current or future investigations related to its business dealings.

India's Jaishankar says Canada has 'climate of violence' for Indian diplomats

Fri, September 29, 2023 

FILE PHOTO: Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Jakarta


By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Friday there was a "climate of violence" and an "atmosphere of intimidation" against Indian diplomats in Canada, where the presence of Sikh separatist groups has frustrated New Delhi.

"Because there is freedom of speech, to make threats and intimidate diplomats, I don't think that's acceptable," Jaishankar told reporters on Friday evening in Washington.

Relations between India and Canada have been tense of late, mostly due to the presence of Sikh separatists in Canada who have kept alive the movement for Khalistan, or the demand for an independent Sikh state to be carved out of India.


Canada's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this month, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged that Indian agents may have had a role in the June murder of Sikh separatist leader and Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was labeled a "terrorist" by India.

New Delhi dismissed the allegations as absurd. Washington has urged India to cooperate with Canada in the murder probe.

In 2018, Trudeau assured India that Canada would not support anyone trying to revive a separatist movement in India, while repeatedly saying that he respects the right to free speech and assembly of protesters to demonstrate.

Canada is home to an influential Sikh community, and Indian leaders say some fringe groups there remain sympathetic to the cause of an independent Sikh state. The cause hardly has any support in India.

The demand for Khalistan has surfaced many times in India, most prominently during a violent insurgency in the 1980s and 1990s which paralyzed the state of Punjab for over a decade.

The insurgency killed tens of thousands of people and the Khalistan movement is considered a security threat by the Indian government. Sikh militants were blamed for the 1985 bombing of an Air India Boeing 747 flying from Canada to India in which all 329 people on board were killed.

Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984 by two Sikh bodyguards after she allowed the storming of the holiest Sikh temple, aimed at flushing out Sikh separatists.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Blinken urges Indian cooperation in Canada's Sikh murder probe

Updated Fri, September 29, 2023 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with India's External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Washington, U.S.


By Humeyra Pamuk and David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday he had urged his Indian counterpart to work with Canada to investigate the killing of a Sikh separatist advocate that the Canadian prime minister has linked to Indian government agents.

India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar confirmed earlier he had spoken to Blinken and the U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan about Canadian allegations of New Delhi's possible involvement in the June killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada.

Blinken met with Jaishankar at the State Department on Thursday afternoon.

"We're very concerned about the allegations that have been raised by Canada, by Prime Minister Trudeau," Blinken told a news conference after a meeting with Mexican officials.

"We have been in close contact with Canada about that and at same time we have engaged with the Indian government and urged them to work with Canada on an investigation," he said, adding that he repeated the call in his meeting with Jaishankar.

"Those responsible need to be held accountable and we hope that our friends in both Canada and India will work together to resolve this matter," Blinken added.

A State Department spokesperson said that in the meeting Blinken had urged India to cooperate "fully" with the ongoing Canadian investigation.

Ties between Indian and Canada have become seriously strained after Trudeau told parliament this month that Canada suspected Indian government agents were linked to the murder.

The incident has put the United States in an awkward spot diplomatically, caught between its neighbor and close ally Canada and India, which Washington has been courting as a key partner in its effort to push back against expanding Chinese influence.

An official State Department readout of the meeting between Blinken and Jaishankar issued on Thursday made no mention of the Nijjar issue, but an unnamed U.S. official subsequently confirmed late on Thursday that it was raised in the meeting.

On Friday, a State Department spokesperson said that during their meeting, the two "discussed a full range of issues impacting the important, strategic, and consequential relationship between the United States and India" and that the key issues were noted in the official readout.

Speaking in Quebec on Thursday, Trudeau said he was certain that Blinken would broach the issue with Jaishankar.

Nijjar was a Canadian citizen but India had declared him a "terrorist." He supported the cause of Khalistan, or an independent homeland for Sikhs to be carved out of India.

Jaishankar said on Tuesday New Delhi had told Canada it was open to looking into any "specific" or "relevant" information it provides on the killing.

Trudeau, who has yet to publicly share any evidence, said last week he shared the "credible allegations" with India "many weeks ago."

Blinken and Sullivan said last week that Washington was "deeply concerned" about the allegations raised by Trudeau.

The U.S. ambassador to Canada told Canadian television that some information on the case had been gathered by the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, which groups the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Britain.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and David Brunnstrom; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Caitlin Webber, Daniel Wallis and Don Durfee)


Blinken raises Sikh leader’s murder in meeting with Indian foreign minister Jaishankar

Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
Fri, September 29, 2023 



US secretary of state Antony Blinken reportedly asked Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar to cooperate with Canada's investigation into the killing of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Ties between India and Canada plummeted after prime minister Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government of involvement in the killing of the Canadian national.

Nijjar – a designated terrorist in India – was assassinated in Surrey on 18 June by two masked men. He has been linked to the secessionist Khalistan movement, which calls for a separate homeland for the Sikh religious community to be carved out of India's Punjab state.

India vehemently denied what it called an "absurd" allegation, adding it was not New Delhi's "policy" to be involved in assassination on foreign lands.

“Blinken raised the Canadian matter in his meeting, (and) urged the Indian government to cooperate with Canada’s investigation,” Reuters quoted a US official as saying, though a State Department statement made no mention of the issue.

Mr Trudeau has been reportedly mounting pressure on Canada's "Five Eyes" intelligence-sharing allies to push India into cooperating with the investigation.

The prime minister on Thursday said he was certain that Mr Blinken would broach the issue with India's Jaishankar.

The US State Department’s formal statement on its website after Mr Blinken’s meeting with Mr Jaishankar made no mention of Nijjar’s murder or of Canada.

A readout from the State Department listed points like India's G20 presidency, the creation of an India-Middle East-Europe corridor, defence, space and clean energy as topics of conversation between the two.

Mr Jaishankar on Tuesday said New Delhi has told Canada it was open to looking into any "specific" or "relevant" information it provides on the killing.

Mr Trudeau, who is yet to publicly share any evidence, said last week he shared the "credible allegations" with India "many weeks ago".

Mr Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan said last week the United States was “deeply concerned” about the allegations raised by Canada.

India has responded to the allegation by suspending visa services in all categories for Canadian nationals citing “security threats” to its consulates. Each country expelled one senior diplomat from the other in a tit-for-tat move.

A group of hackers called the “Indian Cyber Force” claimed responsibility for temporarily taking over the official website of the Canadian Armed Forces on Wednesday.

"That's a very common thing that happens, unfortunately, often. But our cyberofficials and security officials acted very, very quickly," defence minister Bill Blair told reporters.

Court orders Subway franchise owners to pay workers nearly $1M - and to sell or close their stores

Associated Press
Updated Fri, September 29, 2023 

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal court ordered the owners of 14 Subway locations north of San Francisco to pay employees nearly $1 million in damages and back pay — and also to sell or shut their businesses, with any sale proceeds going to the Department of Labor.

Federal investigators said franchise owners John and Jessica Meza directed children as young as 14 to operate dangerous machinery, assigned minors work hours that violated federal law, and failed to pay their employees regularly, including by issuing hundreds of bad checks and illegally keeping tips left by customers.

The Labor Department also charged that the Mezas coerced employees in an attempt to prevent them from cooperating with its investigation and that an associate, Hamza Ayesh, played a role in those efforts, including threatening an employee who complained about receiving a bad check.

The Mezas did not admit to threatening or coercing employees, according to Arkady Itkin, their lawyer, who added that they did admit to issuing bad checks and violating some labor standards. He added that Ayesh did not admit to threatening an employee, but agreed to settle what Itkin called a “he said, she said situation" to put it to rest.

Itkin added that the Mezas are people of modest means who are very unlikely to be able to pay the sum agreed to in the court order. “The settlement agreement might make it look like they're just going to cough up a million dollars,” he said. “It's not going to happen.”

Unpaid 15-year-old Subway workers were threatened when they asked for wages, feds say

Julia Marnin
Fri, September 29, 2023 

Szymon via Unsplash

When two 15-year-old Subway workers in California asked for their unpaid wages, their supervisor threatened to file a police report against them and “push for the max sentence,” court documents say.

They were threatened for simply exercising their rights as a Department of Labor Investigation was underway, according to the agency and a complaint filed in federal court.

The restaurant’s owners and operators, who run 14 Bay Area Subway restaurants, didn’t properly pay their employees, including the two teens, stole workers’ tips, violated child labor laws and tried convincing workers to not cooperate with a federal investigation, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

“Hundreds of bad checks” were issued to the employees — that bounced, officials said.

As a result, the Department of Labor sued the franchisees, John Michael Meza and his wife, Jessica L. Meza, who run the 14 Subway restaurants with franchisor and operator Doctor’s Associates LLC. The restaurants are located in Antioch, Clayton, Concord, Cotati, Napa, Petaluma, San Pablo, Santa Rosa, Vallejo and Windsor, according to officials.

Now, a federal judge has ordered the Subway operators to pay nearly $1 million in back wages and damages to 184 employees after repeatedly violating the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Department of Labor announced in a Sept. 29 news release.

In addition to this, they must also “sell or shut down their businesses by Nov. 27,” according to officials who described the court order as a “rare action.”

“Thanks to some very brave young people who stood up to their employers’ exploitation and attempts to intimidate them, the Department of Labor and a federal court are holding these business owners accountable,” the agency’s Wage and Hour Regional Administrator Ruben Rosalez in San Francisco said in a statement.

Attorney Arkady Itkin told McClatchy News in a statement on Sept. 29 that the court’s order was the result of the parties reaching an agreement.

“Any settlement payments will be subject to my client’s ability to pay which appears to be quite modest at this time,” Itkin said.

In addition to threatening teen employees, the Subway franchisees had 14- and 15-year-olds using dangerous equipment, which is illegal under federal law, officials said.

Young workers were also assigned shifts that resulted in them working “hours not permitted by law,” the release said.

The 184 Subway employees are owed $475,000 in minimum wage, overtime and tips they never received and will be paid that same amount in liquidated damages, according to officials.

The Mezas must pay $150,000 in penalties and the couple, along with their associate, must pay $12,000 in punitive damages “for their retaliatory conduct,” officials said.

“The contempt employers showed for their workers’ safety, dignity and rights cost them the businesses they hoped to build and brought significant financial consequences,” Marc Pilotin, the regional solicitor of labor in San Francisco, said in a statement.

‘Escalating and unsettling’: British Columbia residents condemn ‘whites-only mom and tots’ poster

“We are seeing growing support for the far-right and racist politics," says the Canadian Anti-Hate Network

Imani Walker
·Writer
Fri, September 29, 2023 at 3:19 PM MDT·5 min read
5

One of the posters at the Coquitlam Centre, pictured on Monday. (Brandi Morin)

The discovery of a “whites-only mom & tots” poster in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, is raising major concerns about the rise of racism and hate speech in the province.

Posted on Instagram by Indigenous journalist Brandi Morin, thousands of Canadians have commented, horrified by the poster that asks white parents if they’re “tired of being a minority?” The poster also shares how white people can “escape forced diversity” by joining “other proud parents of European children to create an atmosphere in which their kids can feel like they belong.”

“Invest in your child’s sense of well being and racial identity by giving them the gift of time spent amongst their own people – because they deserve it,” the poster states, accompanied by a URL link and an email address for parents to join a chat group.

Morin joined the "White Tri-cities" group and posted screenshots of the chat discussion which includes hundreds of members being encouraged to keep their identities anonymous. The chat mainly focused on when and where the parents can meet, as well as discussion about why they feel they’re “not the racists.”

“It’s a thinly veiled meeting of white supremacy that breeds hate into the next generation – truly sickening and wholly unsafe,” commented Instagram user @indigi_nish under Morin’s post.

“It’s pretty easy to see the scandalous unethical behaviour in this country, especially when most leadership stood and applauded for a Nazi veteran in our parliament. Nothing here is unbelievable anymore,” wrote another user.

“Their ancestors imposed their presence on native lands at the expense of Native American and African people and now they want to act victimized,” commented another user.