Quebec Court of Appeal upholds requirement for minors seeking sex designation change

MONTREAL — Advocates for transgender rights say they're disappointed by a Quebec Court of Appeal decision that upholds a law requiring minors who want to change their official sex designation to first obtain a letter from a health professional or social worker.

The ruling Thursday overturns a 2021 lower court decision that declared the rule invalid because it violates the dignity and equality rights of transgender and non-binary teenagers.

Quebec law says that minors applying for an official sex designation change with the province need to supply a letter from a physician, psychiatrist, sexologist or social worker declaring the change is "appropriate."

Court of Appeal judges Geneviève Marcotte and Marie-Josée Hogue said the requirement is a suitable measure to assess the "seriousness" of a minor's intention to change their sex designation. The resulting limits to minors' rights as enshrined in the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms and Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms are therefore justified, they said.

However, the judges said the rule should not empower health professionals to decide what a minor's gender identity should be, but does enable them to evaluate a minor's understanding of the sex designation change process and whether they are undertaking it voluntarily.

Related video: 2SLGBTQ+ rights organizations join forces against Quebec's gender identity committee (cbc.ca)  Duration 4:30  View on Watch

"The burden imposed on minors is reasonable under the circumstances," Marcotte and Hogue wrote in the majority opinion, since "it takes into account their reality, the fact that they have not all reached their full maturity and that some, until they reach full age, may be more vulnerable on account of their age."

The third justice on the panel, Stephen Hamilton, issued a concurring opinion, agreeing with his colleagues' conclusions but through a slightly different legal analysis.

Reacting to the ruling Thursday, Montreal-based advocate Celeste Trianon said the letter provision poses unreasonable hurdles for transgender youth who seek a sex designation change.

The requisite professional evaluation can be prohibitively expensive, especially for transgender or non-binary minors who don't have the support of their parents or who are homeless, Trianon said in an interview. It can also be difficult for transgender and non-binary people to find sympathetic professionals, she explained.

"If you're asking professionals in the first place, you're going to face many of the barriers that exist within the system of obtaining trans health care in Quebec," Trianon said. "It's going to create delays and in many cases create a financial barrier."

Audrey Boctor, a lawyer for the Montreal-based Centre for Gender Advocacy — which argued in court against the letter requirement — said Thursday the organization is disappointed by the decision but couldn't yet say whether it would pursue an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Court of Appeal did hand one victory to the gender advocacy centre, ruling that minors at least 14 years old don't need to notify their parents to apply to change their given names to correspond to their gender identity.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 21, 2024.

Thomas MacDonald, The Canadian Press

UTOPIAN SOCIALISM

As a Latina Vegan, I’m Decolonizing a Cruel & Racist Food System

Story by Lauren T. Ornelas, As Told To Nicole Froio

 • Refinery29

Growing up in Texas in the 1970s, I spent long periods away from my mother. My parents divorced when I was 4 years old, so my mom raised my sisters and me by herself. To make ends meet, she spent long hours at work, trying to earn enough money to feed, clothe, and house us. That meant other people in the community took care of us during the day. While my mother was away, I would watch the cows on the hillside, and I would think about how sad it must’ve been for the mother cow to come home and not find her baby there anymore. In this sense, I saw myself in these animals, and I didn’t want to be responsible for disrupting any family of cows the way capitalism was interrupting mine.

As an elementary school student, it was my innate connection to non-human animals like cows, and my understanding of the harms of raising and slaughtering calves, that moved me to become a vegetarian. But, as a kid, it was difficult for me to stick with this diet, mostly because of my family’s financial restraints. Sometimes, all we could eat was what others donated to us or what our school served us, and that often included meals with meat. I realized then that poverty prevented me from eating my ethics and that I didn’t have the freedom to eat how I wanted to.

Being Chicana, I’ve long known that food is political, even if it shouldn’t be. My mom supported the Delano Grape Strike, a labor movement the predominantly Filipino organization Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) launched against the grape growers in Delano, California, in 1965, California, to fight against the exploitation of farmworkers. She boycotted non-union grapes and taught me about the impact of labor exploitation on the bodies and minds of farmworkers. By the time I got to high school, I was getting involved in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. I learned that I could make a difference from far away, that, like my mom, one of the things I could do was boycott companies with vested interests in the apartheid regime, so I did.

For me, food, animal rights, and racialized liberation struggles have always been linked, but I learned early that not everyone recognized the interconnectedness of this violence. In 1987, I was excited to get involved in the animal rights movement. But my elation was stolen by the reality of white supremacy within the movement. My colleagues regularly brought me out as a token Latina vegan in order to shame my people into veganism or to prove that the vegan movement wasn’t only white; however, these same folks rarely listened to me when I discussed why Latines don’t always have the access to plant-based foods or the labor struggles of farmworkers. Instead, they pitted animal rights and human rights against each other, as if I couldn’t care about and work on both at the same time. For decades, I did work I believed in while feeling exploited and misunderstood by organizations and people who were supposed to be my comrades.

Then, in 2006, while I participated in the World Social Forum in Caracas, Venezuela, I felt seen, understood, and affirmed for the first time. I was sharing space with people who looked like me, sounded like me, and shared both my passion for the work and grievance with how it was being carried out. They, like me, understood how the lack of human rights is inherently linked to the lack of rights for non-human animals. There, surrounded by fervor and gripe, I realized that if we wanted to be a part of a movement or organization that cared deeply for all living beings, we would have to take matters into our own hands. 

Later that year, I founded the Food Empowerment Project, an organization that seeks to create a more just and sustainable world by recognizing the power we have as food eaters. Through the publication of free, accessible, and culturally sensitive resources on our website, we encourage ethical food choices. We published our first big resource, Vegan Mexican Food, in Spanish and English in 2007, making Mexican recipes available to everyone looking to practice veganism without losing their cultural foods in the process. But more than just veganized recipes, this resource discusses the changes in our diets that took place due to colonization, to explain the introduction of farmed animals into the Americas, and to take us back toward a food system that is free from the exploitation of humans and non-human animals. 

Education, a people-animal-land liberation politic, and advocacy are all at the root of this work. Growing up experiencing food apartheid, I know that being vegan isn’t easy for people who are lower income or who live in food deserts. I also know that many people in my community, largely impoverished migrants and people of color, work in the food industry with little-to-no labor protections. As such, we often experience the harms of the non-ethical food production practices. In terms of food consumption, Black, Latine, and Indigenous people are the most impacted by lack of access to healthy foods and, as a result, struggle with higher rates of dietary diseases. When it comes to food labor, cycles of poverty leave our communities with few career paths outside of farm work, forcing us to toil for low wages and no paid time off at companies that break labor laws with impunity.

Through the Food Empowerment Project, we see how these struggles are interconnected and fight against abuses of both human and non-human animals. Through working with community organizations, conducting original surveys and studies, and sharing our findings with local politicians, we increase access to healthy food options where they are absent. Similarly, we advance the rights of farmworkers by supporting legislative and regulatory changes as well as corporate efforts led by the laborers. And we promote ethical veganism through education, outreach, and resources.

We owe young people direct changes, as quickly as we can, to make up for the horrors that we’ve been wreaking on each other, on the planet, and on non-human animals. With the Food Empowerment Project, I am committed to pulling at all of the threads of oppression, tugging at them until everybody’s free.

RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL FILM

Île-à-la-Crosse Survivors Still Waiting

Story by The Canadian Press

 • 

Métis children along with First Nations children were subjected to the forcible attendance at residential schools in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

Métis survivors, however, are in some cases, still fighting for the recognition and acknowledgment of what they experienced and the intergenerational impact they have borne. Chronicling the lives and struggles of Île-à-la-Crosse (ILEX) Residential School Survivors, a short film, Waiting for Justice, has been named the 2024 Best History Film at the Toronto Documentary Festival and is also being screened as part of the Toronto Short Film Festival. Waiting for Justice was co-produced with the full support of Métis Nation– Saskatchewan (MN–S) in 2023. Métis filmmaker Matt LeMay said, “Working on this project with our Indigenous Geographic team (Kaily Kay, Crystal Martin, and Derek Robitaille) was a profound honour. We wholeheartedly commit to supporting the Île-à-la-Crosse Survivors and their community until justice is rightfully served.” 

Despite being one of the oldest boarding schools in the country, the ILEX (I-le-Crosse) Residential School has never been formally recognized as such, or its Survivors compensated by the Federal or Provincial Government. ILEX Survivor, Louis Gardiner is part of a class action lawsuit filed against Canada and Saskatchewan in 2022. As one of the Survivors featured in ‘Waiting for Justice’, Gardiner said he has mixed emotions about the award, “On one hand, it’s a difficult film for us to watch but it’s something we felt necessary to be a part of to keep our stories alive and apply pressure on the appropriate governments and institutions to reach a settlement before all of our Survivors are lost.” 

The first Catholic mission was established in Île-à-la-Crosse in 1783. The initial School at ILEX was a day school opened by the Oblates' Roman Catholic Mission in 1847. In 1860, the Sisters of Charity, also known as the Grey Nuns arrived and transformed the School into a boarding/residential school. Nine girls and six boys comprised the first class of resident students. In 1874, a new school building was built on the site and the School became known as Notre-Dame-du-Sacre-Coeur. The School received federal funding in 1875 and 1876 but was denied further federal funding since it lay outside of Treaty Six territory, and Treaty Ten had not yet been signed. Nevertheless, in 1880, then-Prime Minister John A. Macdonald described the Île-à-la-Crosse School as one of four federal “Indian schools” that set the standard for other educational facilities. 

In 1901, the Mission grounds were flooded and by 1905, the poor living conditions led the Grey Nuns to leave the ILEX School. The school was relocated in 1906 to the nearby community of Lac la Plonge, where it was known as Beauval or St. Bruno's. Beauval eventually became a formally recognized Indian Residential School and its students were included in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. In 1917, the Grey Nuns returned to Île-à-la-Crosse and Father Marius Rossignol reopened the School. Because the Mission managed the day-to-day operations of both schools, the two schools quickly became companion institutions. The Mission took in Aboriginal students from across Northern Saskatchewan, then sent the First Nations students to Beauval and the Métis students to the ILEX School. Because this system was never strictly enforced, however, a considerable number of Métis students attended Beauval, and a considerable number of First Nations students attended the ILEX School. Between 1917 and 1945, the Grey Nuns and the Mission conducted the day-to-day operations of the Île-à-la-Crosse School, while Canada provided funds for the School's operations. The Mission also continued to operate Beauval during this period and frequently shared federally funded resources between Beauval and the ILEX School, including supplies and staff who traveled back and forth between the two schools. The Mission staff (who also managed the operation of the Beauval School for First Nations students) and ILEX School administrators and staff (who were often also Beauval administrators and staff) treated the two schools interchangeably for purposes of compelling mandatory attendance. Although the Indian Act did not apply to Métis people, the Mission and School staff nevertheless informed nearby families and communities that it was mandatory for Métis children to attend the Île-à-la-Crosse School, and threatened forcible removal of their children if they did not comply.

In 1945, the Saskatchewan Department of Education officially assumed the administration of the Île-à-la-Crosse School. (Court File Number: KBG 1263-2022; Statement of Claim Gardner v. Canada; united4survivors.ca)

For more than one hundred years, Métis children were forcibly taken from their family homes and made to attend the Catholic institution. While there, they too were subjected to violence and abuse. The youngest survivors of the Île-à-la-Crosse Residential School are now in their fifties and the oldest are in their late nineties. The Metis survivors of residential schools are calling for the same supports as First Nations survivors to move themselves forward, …the recognition and acknowledgment of what happened to them, a settlement, and a healing fund.

Backed by Métis Nation-Saskatchewan (MN-S), the survivors have started a class action to spur both governments to join them at the table to negotiate a resolution that includes a recognition of the harms suffered at the school, failing which the class action will be litigated in court. The Île-à-la-Crosse Boarding School Steering Committee Inc. is comprised of twelve board members representing twenty communities in Northwest Saskatchewan. The committee has been actively advocating for Survivors of the Île-à-la-Crosse Boarding School for over twenty years. Founding members of the committee include Antoinette Lafleur, Emile Janvier, Margaret Aubichon, and Duane Favel. On July 19, 2019, the Île-à-la-Crosse Boarding School Steering Committee, the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan, and the Government of Canada signed a Memorandum of Understanding for Île-à-la-Crosse Exploratory Discussions.

In the MOU, Canada acknowledged that Île-à-la-Crosse School Survivors were excluded from the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA), and all the groups involved agreed on a framework for “Exploratory Discussions.” These were preliminary discussions about what might be involved in negotiating a settlement for the Survivors. The Exploratory Discussions never got past the preliminary stages, and no settlement was reached with Canada. After the IRSSA was signed in 2006, requests could be made to add schools to the school list. The request to add the Île-à-la-Crosse School was denied, because Canada said that the School was run by the Mission, and not by the federal government, and it was not an “Indian” residential school. The Daniels Supreme Court decision that confirmed that Métis people are aboriginal people to whom the Federal Government owed a fiduciary duty was not decided until 2016, a decade after the IRSSA was signed.

The MOU is still in place. Now that the Gardiner Action has started, the lawyers will continue to work to try to settle with Canada and will encourage Saskatchewan to join this settlement effort. The lawyers, however, will not delay the court proceedings in the Gardiner Action while negotiations are underway because it is important not to further delay resolution. The Île-à-la-Crosse Boarding School Steering Committee and the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan are collaborating with the plaintiffs named in the Gardiner Action to help with the prosecution of the claim.

In 2005, the Merchant Law Group started a proposed class action on behalf of the Île-à-la-Crosse School Survivors. The Merchant lawsuit has never moved forward and has not even been certified as a class action. Almost all of the surviving plaintiffs from the Merchant lawsuit have fired Merchant Law Group and hired Waddell Phillips. These former Merchant clients all support the new Gardiner Action and want it to go forward as the only class action for the Île-à-la-Crosse School Survivors. The Gardiner plaintiffs will request that the Court “stay” the Merchant lawsuit, meaning that the Merchant action will be put to a stop by the court so that only the Gardiner Action will proceed. 

On November 9, 2023, Justice Bardai, the Gardiner Action case management judge, decided that the application to stay the Merchant lawsuit needed to be brought before a different judge, Justice Keene, who was appointed to case manage the Merchant lawsuit. Justice Bardai also said that the Gardiner Action could move forward to certification, regardless of the status of the other action.

In 1964, the boys' dormitory burned down and had to be rebuilt. At that time, there were 331 students at the School, about 100 of whom were resident students. Eight years later fire broke out again at the school which led to it being shut down. Although the building was rebuilt in 1976, the Saskatchewan Department of Education transferred the administration of the school to a locally run school board that year, and the residential school closed its doors. In total, approximately 1,500 Métis and First Nations students attended the Île-à-la-Crosse School between 1860 and 1972 from many communities across Northern Saskatchewan including Clear Lake, Old Lady's Point, Buckley's Point, Dore Lake, Sled Lake, Green Lake, Jans Bay, Cole Bay, Beauval, Patuanak, Pine House Lake, Sapwagamik, Canoe River, Buffalo Narrows, St. Georges Hill, Michel Village, Turner Lake, Bear Creek, Black Point, Descharme Lake, Garson Lake and La Loche.

MN–S is working diligently to host its own screenings of Waiting for Justice in various regions of Saskatchewan, specifically in ILEX. Once secured, communities will be invited to attend. You can watch the eighteen-minute award-winning short now at Indigenous Geographic, https://indigenousgeographic.ca/ourwork. As has been said of the Holocaust survivors, the Metis residential school survivors went on and made lives for themselves the best they could. They lost their language, families, roots, and sense of belonging, all at the same time…behind the doors of the Île-à-la-Crosse Residential School.

Carol Baldwin, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Wakaw Recorder

ENBRIDGE LINE 5

Panel urged to move lawsuit to state court that seeks shutdown of part of aging pipeline in Michigan

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Michigan attorneys pressed a federal appellate panel on Thursday to move their lawsuit seeking to shut down a portion of an aging oil pipeline running beneath the Straits of Mackinac from federal to state court, arguing that state environmental protection laws are in play.

Assistant Attorney General Daniel Bock told a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati that the challenge to Enbridge Inc.'s Line 5 pipeline deals with the public trust doctrine, a legal concept in which natural resources belong to the public. He said that concept is rooted in state law.

He said the lawsuit also invokes public nuisance concepts governed by state law as well as the Michigan Environmental Protection Act. He added the state owns the bottom of the straits.

“There’s no federal jurisdiction over this case,” Bock said.

Bock went on to assert that Enbridge Inc., the Canadian company that owns the pipeline, missed its deadline to shift the case from state to federal court.

Enbridge attorney Alice Loughran countered that the case should remain in federal court because it affects international trade between the U.S. and Canada. She said the company didn't have to comply with the standard 30-day deadline for requesting removal to federal court because it lacked enough information to formulate the request.

The judges — Richard Griffin, Amul Thapor and John Nalbandian — questioned Loughran extensively about why the company missed the deadline and sounded skeptical of her answers. It's unclear when they might issue a ruling.

The pipeline, known as Line 5, was constructed in 1953. It moves 23 million gallons (87 million liters) daily of crude oil and natural gas liquids between Superior, Wisconsin, and Sarnia, Ontario, passing through northern Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It’s part of a network transporting Canadian crude to refineries in both nations.

A section of the pipeline runs beneath the Straits of Mackinac, which link Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Fears of the section rupturing and causing a catastrophic spill have been growing since 2017, when Enbridge engineers revealed they had known about gaps in the pipeline’s protective coating in the straits since 2014. That section of pipeline also was damaged by a boat anchor in 2018, intensifying concerns about the line’s vulnerability.

Attorney General Dana Nessel filed a lawsuit in state court in 2019 seeking to void a 1953 easement that enables Enbridge to operate a 4.5-mile (6.4-kilometer) section of pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac, which links Lake Michigan with Lake Huron.

Nessel won a restraining order from a state judge in June 2020. Enbridge moved the case into federal court in December 2021, a year and a half later. Nessel asked U.S. Circuit Judge Janet Neff to shift the case back into state court but Neff refused, prompting Nessel to appeal to the 6th Circuit.

Enbridge filed a separate federal lawsuit in 2020 arguing the state's attempt to shut down the pipeline interferes with federal regulation of pipeline safety and could encourage others to launch copycat actions and impede interstate and international petroleum trading. That case is still pending in Neff's court.

Enbridge has insisted the section of pipeline that runs beneath the straits is in good condition and could operate indefinitely. The company maintains that shutting the line down would constrict U.S. and Canadian oil and natural gas supplies, driving up costs. Rather than shutting the pipeline, Enbridge has proposed encasing the pipes in a protective tunnel.

Michigan's Public Service Commission approved the $500 million project in December despite intense opposition. Enbridge still needs approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. A final decision might not come until 2026.

A federal judge in Madison, Wisconsin, last summer gave Enbridge three years to shut down part of Line 5 that runs across the reservation of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.

The tribe sued Enbridge in 2019 to force the company to remove about 12 miles (19 kilometers) of pipeline crossing its reservation, saying the pipeline is prone to spills and land agreements allowing it to operate on reservation land expired in 2013.

The company has proposed rerouting the pipeline to end its dispute with the tribe. It has appealed the shutdown order to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That case is still pending.

Pipeline opponents rallied in downtown Cincinnati ahead of the arguments Thursday, holding signs that read “Shut Down Line 5 Pipeline” and “Evict Enbridge.” Nessel appeared at the rally and accused Enbridge of “forum shopping” in hopes of finding a favorable judge.

“Ultimately, this is a Michigan case brought under Michigan law by Michigan's chief law enforcement officer on behalf of the people of Michigan on behalf of our Great Lakes and it belongs in a Michigan court,” she said to cheers.

Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy said in an email to The Associated Pres that Nessel is the one looking for a favorable venue for the case and accused her of ignoring the federal interests in the case.

Todd Richmond, The Associated Press

Security and climate change drive a return to nuclear energy as over 30 nations sign summit pledge

BRUSSELS (AP) — In the shadow of a massive monument glorifying nuclear power, over 30 nations from around the world pledged to use the controversial energy source to help achieve a climate-neutral globe while providing countries with an added sense of strategic security.

The idea of a Nuclear Energy Summit would have been unthinkable a dozen years ago after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, but the tide has turned in recent years. A warming planet has made it necessary to phase out fossil fuels, while the war in Ukraine has laid bare Europe's dependence on Russian energy.

“We have to do everything possible to facilitate the contribution of nuclear energy,” said Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. “It is clear: Nuclear is there. It has an important role to play,” he said.

In a solemn pledge, 34 nations, including the United States, China, France, Britain and Saudi Arabia, committed “to work to fully unlock the potential of nuclear energy by taking measures such as enabling conditions to support and competitively finance the lifetime extension of existing nuclear reactors, the construction of new nuclear power plants and the early deployment of advanced reactors.”

“We commit to support all countries, especially emerging nuclear ones, in their capacities and efforts to add nuclear energy to their energy mixes,” the statement said.

The one-day meeting was held in Brussels next to the 1958 Atomium, the 102-meter (335-foot) -tall construction of the nine iron atoms, which sought to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy in the wake of the nuclear bomb explosions at the end of World War II and their use as a geopolitical deterrent ever since.

Related video: Activists protest Brussels nuclear energy summit (Reuters)

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Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, tried to reinvigorate that peaceful mission.

“Without the support of nuclear power, we have no chance to reach our climate targets on time. Renewables will play the major role in terms of electricity, especially solar supported by wind and hydropower,” Birol said. "But we also need nuclear power, especially in those countries where we don’t have major renewable potential.”

“We have to do whatever we can to increase the current nuclear capacity, which is currently only less than 10% of global electricity generation," he said.

In Europe, France is the leader in nuclear energy and accounts for about two-thirds of its overall provisions.

French President Emmanuel Macron said that "thanks to the nuclear model, France is one of the few countries that exports its electricity, which is an opportunity.”

“We should be much more concerned about, for example, CO2 emissions, which have a direct impact on you and me and on our health every day,” he said. “Our priority must be to get out of coal and gas and move towards nuclear power and renewable energy.”

The devastating impact of a nuclear accident, like the one in 1986 in Chernobyl, Ukraine, was barely a talking point. Outside the meeting, environmental groups sought to highlight the dangers of the technology and convince leaders that renewable energy sources like wind and solar were much more practical and worthwhile.

Building nuclear plants takes many years and projects are often marred by cost and deadline overruns, and environmentalists stressed that point with demonstrations outside the summit center.

“Nuclear, all the evidence shows, is too slow to build. It’s too expensive. Much more expensive than renewables,” said Lorelei Limousin of Greenpeace. “The government must focus on developing renewable energy, energy savings, the real solutions that work for people like home insulation, public transport — not nuclear energy fairy tales.”

___

Associated Press journalists Aleksandar Furtula and Sylvie Corbet contributed to this report.

Raf Casert, The Associated Press

GOP CANCEL CUTLURE

Judge dismisses lawsuit over removal of marker dedicated to Communist Party leader

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought against the state of New Hampshire after government officials removed a historical marker dedicated to a feminist and labor activist who also led the U.S. Communist Party.

The sponsors of the marker honoring Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who filed the lawsuit last year, lack the legal right or interest to argue for the marker's restoration, Judge John Kissinger wrote, agreeing with the state's argument for a dismissal. The ruling was made public Wednesday.

The sponsors argued they had standing because they spent time and energy researching Gurley Flynn, gathering signatures in support of the marker and filing for its approval. They said state officials violated a law regarding administrative procedures and should put it back up.

“While no one disputes the time and effort expended by the plaintiffs in relation to the Flynn marker, the court finds no support for a determination that such efforts give rise to a legal right, interest, or privilege protected by law,” Kissinger wrote.

One of the plaintiffs, Arnie Alpert, said Thursday that they were considering filing a request with the judge for reconsideration.

The green and white sign describing the life of Flynn was installed last May in Concord, close to where she was born on Aug. 7, 1890. It was one of more than 275 across the state that describe people and places, from Revolutionary War soldiers to contemporary sports figures. But it was taken down two weeks after it went up.

The marker had drawn criticism from two Republican members of the Executive Council, a five-member body that approves state contracts, judicial nominees and other positions, who argued it was inappropriate, given Flynn’s Communist involvement. Republican Gov. Chris Sununu agreed and called for a review of the historical marker process. It was removed in consultation with Sununu, according to Sarah Crawford Stewart, commissioner of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Known as “The Rebel Girl” for her fiery speeches, Flynn was a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union and advocated for women’s voting rights and access to birth control. The marker said she joined the Communist Party in 1936 and was sent to prison in 1951. She was one of many party members prosecuted “under the notorious Smith Act,” the marker said, which forbade attempts to advocate, abet or teach the violent destruction of the U.S. government.

Flynn later chaired the Communist Party of the United States. She died at 74 in Moscow during a visit in 1964.

Under the current process, any person, municipality or agency can suggest a marker as long as they get 20 signatures from New Hampshire residents. Supporters must draft the marker’s text and provide footnotes and copies of supporting documentation, according to the state Division of Historical Resources. The division and a historical resources advisory group evaluate the criteria.

The lawsuit said that policies and guidelines used by Stewart's department to run the program are invalid because their adoption wasn’t consistent with requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act. The lawsuit said Stewart didn’t follow the guidelines, which require the department to consult with the advisory historical resources council before markers are “retired.”

Kathy Mccormack, The Associated Press

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN

 

World’s first genetically-edited pig kidney transplant into living recipient performed at Massachusetts General Hospital

MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL

BOSTON – Today, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a founding member of the Mass General Brigham health care system, announced the world’s first successful transplant of a genetically-edited pig (porcine) kidney into a 62-year-old man living with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD). Surgeons from the Mass General Transplant Center conducted the four-hour-long surgery on Saturday, March 16. The procedure marks a major milestone in the quest to provide more readily available organs to patients. Mass General Brigham is an internationally recognized leader in transplantation services, providing advanced care for a wide spectrum of organ and tissue transplants throughout its renowned academic medical system.

Under the leadership of Leonardo V. Riella, MD, PhD, Medical Director for Kidney Transplantation, Tatsuo Kawai, MD, PhD, Director of the Legorreta Center for Clinical Transplant Tolerance, along with Nahel Elias, MD, Interim Chief of Transplant Surgery and Surgical Director for Kidney Transplantation, a genetically-edited pig kidney with 69 genomic edits was successfully transplanted into a living patient.

Mass General Brigham has a rich history in organ transplant innovation, including the world’s first successful human organ transplant (kidney) performed at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 1954 and the nation’s first penile transplant, performed at MGH in 2016. Mass General Brigham transplantation programs draw upon the deep, integrated expertise of some of the world’s leading transplant physicians and scientists who collaborate across experienced multidisciplinary teams to advance medicine and improve the lives of patients.

“Mass General Brigham researchers and clinicians are constantly pushing the boundaries of science to transform medicine and solve significant health issues facing our patients in their daily lives,” said Anne Klibanski, MD, President and CEO, Mass General Brigham. “Nearly seven decades after the first successful kidney transplant, our clinicians have once again demonstrated our commitment to provide innovative treatments and help ease the burden of disease for our patients and others around the world.”

“The tireless commitment of our clinicians, researchers and scientists to improving the lives of our transplant patients – both current and future – is at the very heart and soul of academic medicine and what it means to work and provide care at Mass General Brigham,” said David F. M. Brown, MD, President, Academic Medical Centers, Mass General Brigham. “We are so thankful to the incredible staff throughout our hospitals who helped make this surgery a success, and to the patient for his bravery and courage.”

“The success of this transplant is the culmination of efforts by thousands of scientists and physicians over several decades. We are privileged to have played a significant role in this milestone. Our hope is that this transplant approach will offer a lifeline to millions of patients worldwide who are suffering from kidney failure,” Kawai said.

The pig kidney was provided by eGenesis of Cambridge, Mass., from a pig donor that was genetically-edited using CRISPR-Cas9 technology to remove harmful pig genes and add certain human genes to improve its compatibility with humans. Additionally, scientists inactivated porcine endogenous retroviruses in the pig donor to eliminate any risk of infection in humans. Over the past five years, MGH and eGenesis have conducted extensive collaborative research, with the findings published in Nature in 2023.

“We are grateful for the courageous contribution of the patient and to the advancement of transplantation science,” said Mike Curtis, Chief Executive Officer, eGenesis. “We congratulate our collaborators at MGH on this historic milestone. We also recognize the work and dedication of the eGenesis team that made this achievement possible. This represents a new frontier in medicine and demonstrates the potential of genome engineering to change the lives of millions of patients globally suffering from kidney failure.” 

“This seminal transplant could not be possible without collaboration and effort from multiple teams and specialists at MGH including physicians, surgeons, scientists, anesthesiologists, and nurses. They participated in coordinating the patient’s care in preparation for the transplant, seeing him through the surgery, and caring for him post-operatively,” Elias said.

This successful procedure in a living recipient is a historic milestone in the emerging field of xenotransplantation – the transplantation of organs or tissues from one species to another – as a potential solution to the worldwide organ shortage. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), more than 100,000 people in the U.S. await an organ for transplant and 17 people die each day waiting for an organ. A kidney is the most common organ needed for transplant, and end-stage kidney disease rates are estimated to increase 29-68 percent in the U.S. by 2030, according to literature published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

The patient, Mr. Richard ‘Rick’ Slayman of Weymouth, Mass., is recovering well at MGH and is expected to be discharged soon.

“The real hero today is the patient, Mr. Slayman, as the success of this pioneering surgery, once deemed unimaginable, would not have been possible without his courage and willingness to embark on a journey into uncharted medical territory. As the global medical community celebrates this monumental achievement, Mr. Slayman becomes a beacon of hope for countless individuals suffering from end-stage renal disease and opens a new frontier in organ transplantation,” said Joren C. Madsen, MD, DPhil, Director of the MGH Transplant Center.

Mr. Slayman said in a statement, “I have been a Mass General Transplant Center patient for 11 years and have the highest level of trust in the doctors, nurses, and clinical staff who have cared for me. When my transplanted kidney began failing in 2023, I again trusted my care team at MGH to meet my goals of not just improving my quality of life but extending it. My nephrologist, Dr. Winfred Williams, MD and the Transplant Center team suggested a pig kidney transplant, carefully explaining the pros and cons of this procedure. I saw it not only as a way to help me, but a way to provide hope for the thousands of people who need a transplant to survive. I want to thank everyone at MGH who has cared for me, especially Dr. Williams, Dr. Kawai, the surgeon who performed my first kidney transplant and now this one, and Dr. Riella, who has orchestrated the logistics behind this new transplant. They have supported me during every step of the journey, and I have faith they will continue to do so.”

Mr. Slayman, who has been living with Type 2 diabetes and hypertension for many years, previously received a kidney transplant from a human deceased donor in December 2018, performed at MGH by Kawai, after being on dialysis seven years prior. The transplanted kidney showed signs of failure approximately five years later and Mr. Slayman resumed dialysis in May 2023. Since resuming dialysis, he encountered recurrent dialysis vascular access complications requiring visits to the hospital every two weeks for de-clotting and surgical revisions, significantly impacting his quality of life and a common problem among dialysis patients.

“The continued success of this groundbreaking kidney transplant represents a true milestone in the field of transplantation. It also represents a potential breakthrough in solving one of the more intractable problems in our field, that being unequal access for ethnic minority patients to the opportunity for kidney transplants due to the extreme donor organ shortage and other system-based barriers. This health disparity has been the target of many national policy initiatives for over 30 years, with only limited success. An abundant supply of organs resulting from this technological advance may go far to finally achieve health equity and offer the best solution to kidney failure – a well-functioning kidney – to all patients in need. I commend Mr. Slayman, who has been my patient for many years, for his courageousness in becoming a trailblazer in the field of transplantation,” Williams said.

The procedure was performed under a single FDA Expanded Access Protocol (EAP) – known as compassionate use – granted to a single patient or group of patients with serious, life-threatening illnesses or conditions to gain access to experimental treatments or trials when no comparable treatment options or therapies exist. Mr. Slayman also received infusion of novel immunosuppressant drugs, tegoprubart, provided by Eledon Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and ravulizumab, provided by Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Riella led the group of Mass General Transplant Center physicians in applying for the EAP, which was rigorously reviewed by the FDA before its approval in late February. Combined, MGH transplant clinicians and surgeons have nearly 30 years of experience with xenotransplantation research.

“Seventy years after the first kidney transplant and six decades following the advent of immunosuppressive medications, we stand on the brink of a monumental breakthrough in transplantation. At MGH alone, there are over 1,400 patients on the waiting list for a kidney transplant. Some of these patients will unfortunately die or get too sick to be transplanted due to the long waiting time on dialysis. I am firmly convinced that xenotransplantation represents a promising solution to the organ shortage crisis,” Riella said.

About Massachusetts General Hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The Mass General Research Institute conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the nation, with annual research operations of more than $1 billion and comprises more than 9,500 researchers working across more than 30 institutes, centers and departments. In July 2023, Mass General was named to the U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals Honor Roll. MGH is a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system.

About Mass General Brigham

Mass General Brigham is an integrated academic health care system, uniting great minds to solve the hardest problems in medicine for our communities and the world. Mass General Brigham connects a full continuum of care across a system of academic medical centers, community and specialty hospitals, a health insurance plan, physician networks, community health centers, home care, and long-term care services. Mass General Brigham is a nonprofit organization committed to patient care, research, teaching, and service to the community. In addition, Mass General Brigham is one of the nation’s leading biomedical research organizations with several Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals. For more information, please visit massgeneralbrigham.org.

 

A swarm to save the day

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE (IISC)

 

IMAGE: 

MULTIPLE SWARMS OF DRONES FOR TESTING THE PROPOSED APPROACH FOR DISASTER MANAGEMENT. THE IMAGE DEPICTS SEARCH AND MITIGATION FOR TWO TARGETS ILLUSTRATED AS WHITE CIRCLES BY THREE SWARMS OF DRONES.

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CREDIT: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND ROBOTICS LABORATORY, DEPARTMENT OF AEROSPACE ENGINEERING, INDIAN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE (IISC)

A new approach by researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) seeks to use multiple swarms of drones to tackle natural disasters like forest fires.

Forest fires are becoming increasingly catastrophic across the world, accelerated by climate change.

“A swarm of drones could be the solution,” says Suresh Sundaram, Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering, IISc. Although they have not yet been used in India, the use of drones is not entirely new. But in a new study, Sundaram’s team proposes taking the technology a step further: Coordinated multi-swarm drones swooping in to quell forest fires.

“By the time somebody identifies and reports a fire, it has already started spreading and cannot be put out with one drone,” says Sundaram. “You need to have a swarm of drones. A swarm that can communicate with each other.”

The solution was to design a special kind of algorithm that would allow the swarm to communicate with each other as well as make independent decisions. In a hypothetical scenario, when an alarm is raised about a potential fire, the swarms can be sent in, each drone armed with cameras, thermal and infrared sensors, and temperature detectors, to spot the fires. Once the fire is discovered, the drone closest to it becomes the centre of the swarm and attracts others towards it. Interestingly, each drone will also have autonomy to calculate the fire’s size and potential spread, and decide how many drones are needed to quench the fire.

“These decisions are made by the drones,” says Sundaram. “They figure out which cluster of fire is going to spread faster, and allocate the required number of drones to put out that fire while the others look for other fire clusters.”

The swarm-based search algorithm developed by the team is key to controlling the drones’ behaviour. Searching for fire cannot be random as the area to explore would be too large. To address this, the researchers took inspiration from the foraging behaviour of a marine predator, a flagellum called Oxyrrhis marina.

“When foraging, it firsts take longer steps to explore the area. Once it feels like it is closer to the food source, it will reduce the step length and then start exploring the area in more detail,” explains Josy John, PhD student at the Department of Aerospace Engineering, and lead author of the study published in IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems. The team decided to incorporate this behaviour into their algorithm. “The temperature sensors in the drones look for a minimum [threshold] value. When that is reached, the drones reduce their search step, because the fire is near,” John adds.

The advantage of using drones, Sundaram points out, is that the decision-making is decentralised, based on data, and aimed at maximum efficiency. No more than the required number of drones will be assigned to a fire cluster, allowing others to fan out in search of other clusters.

The researchers have tested specific components of the approach, such as the AI-enabled fire detection using thermal cameras, and accurate payload drop mechanism for fire extinguisher deployment. Full-scale search and mitigation by the swarm is yet to undergo field-testing. Going forward, they plan to combine such drone swarms with unmanned ground vehicles that can carry resources and serve as refuelling stations.

Such drone swarms can also be helpful during other natural disasters like floods and earthquakes, to locate survivors, deliver water, food and medicines; and boost communication.

Visual representation of drone [VIDEO] | 

Multiple swarms of drones for testing the proposed approach for disaster management. 

CREDIT

Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Laboratory, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Science (IISc)

JOURNAL

IEEE Transactions on Systems Man and Cybernetics Systems

DOI

10.1109/TSMC.2024.3352660 

 

Connecting computers so they can think faster

Better hardware can make computers faster, it's true. But linking them in specific ways can also speed them up.

NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

 

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THESE SMART PEOPLE MADE COMPUTERS COMMUNICATE BETTER WITH EACH OTHER SO THAT THEY DON'T HAVE TO WAIT FOR ONE ANOTHER. SANDER ROET (ON TEAMS), TITUS VAN ERP, ANDERS LERVIK, DANIEL ZHANG, AND LUKAS BALDAUF, FROM THE NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY.

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CREDIT: PHOTO: PER HENNING, NTNU.

We are used to computers getting faster and faster, but complicated calculations involving lots of data can take a very long time, even today.

This applies to calculations of chemical reactions, how proteins assume different three-dimensional forms and so-called phase transitions, where one chemical substance transitions from one state to another, such as from solid to liquid form.

These types of results are often very important – for example, in the chemical industry.

Down from one year to ten days

These complicated calculations can take years to perform, and access to the most powerful computers is limited. How nice would it be if someone could make the calculations faster? Maybe a lot faster? And using existing equipment?

“We have managed to increase the calculation speed of chemical reactions by 30-40 times,” says Titus van Erp, a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU’s) Department of Chemistry. If sufficient computing resources are available, the speed can be increased even more.

Van Erp headed the research group that performed this study, but what does it mean in practice?

“A calculation that previously took one year can now be done in ten days,” says the professor.

The example in question concerned a calculation of how water molecules are split into hydrogen and oxygen.

This also means that the researchers can now perform computer calculations that would previously have been impractical and perhaps impossible to carry out. The results have been published in PNAS, the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.

Connected computers are smarter

So how have they done this?

“We connected 20 computers that could work together to perform the calculations,” says van Erp.

Connecting computers together is nothing new, but the way the researchers did this is completely different from what others have done.

“We modified the algorithms, which optimized the exchange of data between the machines,” van Erp said.

Because the computers could work actively much more of the time, there was much less delay during the calculations.

The computers don’t have to wait

“Previously, connected computers spent a lot of time waiting for each other. One computer in a network has had to wait for calculations being performed by another computer in the network, but they don’t have to do that in our method,” says van Erp.

This is especially important at a time when current computer technology is starting to reach a limit. The increase in speed is no longer as fast as it was a few years ago and results like this are, therefore, important, necessary and encouraging.

The research group further consisted of lead authors Daniel T. Zhang and Lukas Baldauf, and Anders Lervik from the Department of Chemistry at NTNU, as well as Sander Roet from Utrecht University, who was a PhD student at NTNU when they carried out the experiments.

Reference: Daniel T. Zhang, Lukas Baldauf, Sander Roet, Anders Lervik and Titus S. van Erp. Highly parallelizable path sampling with minimal rejections using asynchronous replica exchange and infinite swaps. PNAS. 5 February, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.231873112

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2318731121 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Highly parallelizable path sampling with minimal rejections using asynchronous replica exchange and infinite swaps