Slashing carbon dioxide emissions isn't enough! We also need to reduce other planet-warming pollutants to avert catastrophic climate change, study shows

Most mitigation strategies currently focus on slashing carbon dioxide emissions

But a new study warns this isn't enough to limit warming to 2.7°F (1.5°C)

Instead, researcher say we should also focus on reducing 'largely neglected' pollutants including methane, ground-level ozone smog, and nitrous oxide

By SHIVALI BEST FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 24 May 2022


In the fight against global warming, the importance of slashing our carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is regularly hammered home.

But a new study has warned that cutting CO2 isn't enough on its own.

Instead, researchers from Georgetown University say that strategies to avert catastrophic climate change should also focus on reducing other 'largely neglected' pollutants including methane, ground-level ozone smog, and nitrous oxide.

'Tackling both carbon dioxide and the short-lived pollutants at the same time offers the best and the only hope of humanity making it to 2050 without triggering irreversible and potentially catastrophic climate change,' the team explained.

 


Researchers from Georgetown University say that strategies to avert catastrophic climate change should also focus on reducing other 'largely neglected' pollutants including methane, ground-level ozone smog, and nitrous oxide

A: If CO2 emissions are cut alone (orange line), temperatures could exceed the 2.7°F (1.5°C) level by 2035, but if other pollutants are also targeted (green line), warming will be significantly reduced. B: the rate of warming with CO2 emissions cut (orange) versus CO2 plus other pollutants cut (green)

What other pollutants should we focus on?

The researchers say we must adopt a 'dual strategy' that also reduces non-CO2 pollutants, including:

 Methane
Hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants
Black carbon soot
Ground-level ozone smog
Nitrous oxide

They calculate that together, these five pollutants currently contribute almost as much to global warming as CO2.

In the study, the researchers analysed the impact of cutting CO2 alone, versus cutting the pollutant alongside other non-CO2 climate pollutants, in both the near-term and mid-term to 2050.

Their findings suggest that cutting CO2 alone can't prevent global temperatures from exceeding 2.7°F (1.5°C) above pre-industrial levels – the limit set in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

In fact, the researchers say that focusing on CO2 alone won't even stop temperatures from exceeding 3.6°F (2°C).

Instead, the researchers say we must adopt a 'dual strategy' that also reduces non-CO2 pollutants, including methane, hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants, black carbon soot, ground-level ozone smog, and nitrous oxide.

They calculate that together, these five pollutants currently contribute almost as much to global warming as CO2.

However, while CO2 lasts for a long time in the atmosphere, most of these pollutants only last a short time, according to the team.

This suggests cutting them could slow warming even faster than any other mitigation strategy.



Several other pollutants are released into the air from a range of industries, including road transport, energy industries and agriculture

A recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that cutting fossil fuel emissions and shifting to clean energy will actually make global warming worse in the short-term.

Burning fossil fuels also emits sulphate aerosols, which cool the climate – and these are reduced along with CO2 when switching to clean energy.

However, while much of the CO2 released from the burning of fossil fuels lasts hundreds of years in the atmosphere, sulphate aerosols only linger for a few weeks.

This leads to overall warming for the first decade or two.

The new study accounts for this effect, and concludes that only focusing on reducing fossil fuel emissions could result in 'weak, near term warming'.

Worryingly, this could potentially cause temperatures to exceed the 2.7°F (1.5°C) level by 2035 and the 3.6°F (2°C) level by 2050.

However, if non-carbon dioxide pollutants are also reduced, it will 'significantly improve the chance of remaining below the [2.7°F] 1.5°C guardrail,' according to the team.

'Continuing to slash fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions remains vital, the study emphasises, since that will determine the fate of the climate in the longer term beyond 2050,' the researchers explained in a press release.

'Phasing out fossil fuels also is essential because they produce air pollution that kills over eight million people every year and causes billions of dollars of damage to crops.'

The study come shortly after researchers warned that there is at most a 10 per cent chance of limiting global warming to 2.7°F (1.5°C) unless 'substantially' more is done to hit net-zero pledges this decade.

IPCC release new climate report outlining effects of global warming

Researchers analysed climate targets of 196 countries from the time of the Paris Agreement until the end of the COP26 meeting in Glasgow last November.

Adopted in 2016, the Paris Agreement aims to hold an increase in global average temperature to below 3.6°F (2°C) and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 2.7°F (1.5°C).

Climate pledges made at COP26 could keep warming to just below 3.6ºF, but only if all commitments are implemented as proposed, the scientists say.

However, the more ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement – to keep warming to 2.7°F (1.5°C) or below – has only a 6-10 per cent chance of being achieved, they say.

WHAT IS NET ZERO?

Net zero refers to achieving an overall balance between emissions produced and emissions taken out of the atmosphere.

Net-zero organisations should be actively reducing their emissions aligned to a 1.5ᵒC science-based target in line with the Paris Agreement.

There will be some carbon emissions that cannot be eliminated with current technology, so to achieve net zero, it is essential that certified greenhouse gas removals are also in place.

The UK government says it is committed to ensuring emissions generated by the UK re offset by removing the same amount of carbon from the atmosphere.

There are two main ways this can be achieved – by planting more trees and by installing 'carbon capture' technology at the source of the pollution.

Source: Carbon Trust

THE PARIS AGREEMENT: A GLOBAL ACCORD TO LIMIT TEMPERATURE RISES THROUGH CARBON EMISSION REDUCTION TARGETS

The Paris Agreement, which was first signed in 2015, is an international agreement to control and limit climate change.

It hopes to hold the increase in the global average temperature to below 2°C (3.6ºF) 'and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C (2.7°F)'.

It seems the more ambitious goal of restricting global warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F) may be more important than ever, according to previous research which claims 25 per cent of the world could see a significant increase in drier conditions.

The Paris Agreement on Climate Change has four main goals with regards to reducing emissions:

1) A long-term goal of keeping the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels

2) To aim to limit the increase to 1.5°C, since this would significantly reduce risks and the impacts of climate change

3) Governments agreed on the need for global emissions to peak as soon as possible, recognising that this will take longer for developing countries

4) To undertake rapid reductions thereafter in accordance with the best available science

Source: European Commission

PAKISTAN
Authorities urged to take measures against climate change

By Bureau report
May 24, 2022

PESHAWAR: Journalists, university students and civil society activists have called for coordinated planning and concerted actions by government and non-government authorities against heatwave and climate change.

A press release said that an online training session was held on Heatwaves and Climate Change, organised by Resilient Future International Private Limited, an Islamabad-based research and training company. Aftab Alam Khan, Chief Executive of Resilient Future International and lead trainer, explained that numerous research reports had confirmed that heatwaves had been increased due to climate change. The most notable among them are recent publications of the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

These reports are prepared by thousands of scientists and approved by almost all governments in the world. For instance, ‘Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability’ publication of IPCC-AR6 launched in February 2022 had already warned that Pakistan and other South Asian countries would face higher frequency of heatwaves with greater intensity and longer duration.

Aftab Alam underscored the disproportional impact of heatwaves on poor and marginalised communities, particularly women, children, outdoor labourers, elderly, disabled and transgender persons. Heatwaves have negative impacts on physical and mental health. Besides heatstroke, heart and kidney patients are also vulnerable. Heatwaves lead to mental stress and increased violent behaviours by individuals and groups.

The current heatwave in the country, according to estimates by the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SPARCO), has caused 10 per cent losses in wheat production, amounting to around 3 million tons of wheat. He suggested water-smart and climate-resilient methods in agriculture and industrial production. The recent outburst of Shisper Glacier lake is connected with the heatwave. Normally these lakes are formed in May or June. However, the heatwave that started in March resulted in the formation of the lake in April, Aftab added. This year March was the hottest month in the history of Pakistan. The temperature in Jacobabad reached 51 Celsius against the average of 43.8 Celsius.

Nawabshah faced 50.5 Celsius against an average of 44.6 and Moenjodaro reached 50 Celsius against its average temperature of 44 Celsius. Ali Jabir, a climate journalist, emphasised training needs for journalists to improve climate-related stories. He explained various climate-related terminologies to the participants. Jabir also explained zig-zag technology to convert brick kilns into climate-smart production units. Amir Sohail, a journalist from Swabi, noted that highway construction in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa should avoid tree cuttings and ensure timely plantation of trees.

Imran Baloch of Green Rural Development Organization, Hyderabad Sindh, emphasised regular training programmes on climate change. Hamza Yousaf, a student of IIU, talked about pollution created by plastic bags and stressed the need for community and government actions against that.

Trump-Endorsed Candidate Wants to Ruin Your Sex Life by Making This 1 Thing IllegalFacebook

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by Michael Hayne

 May 24th, 2022

Jacky Eubanks, a Trump-endorsed candidate running for a state representative seat in Michigan’s 63rd House District, is just the right amount of batshit to win in today’s clownish and deranged Republican party. If you don’t have any actual ideas or sound policy to help better people’s lives socially and economically, then you might be running as a Republican. And boy does Eubanks lack ideas and policy.

As concern grows over the future of reproductive rights across the United States after a leaked Supreme Court majority opinion showed the court appeared poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, many red states are taking the chance to ban abortion themselves.

But if you’re a psychotic, far-right Christian who has never actually read Jesus’ teachings, then why just stop abortion? Moreover, why not just ban birth control and really force those loose ladies to have a kid so you can deny any type of benefits for the child once they’re actually born? That’s exactly what Eubanks wants to do.

In an interview with far-right Christian Michael Voris, Eubanks was pressed on whether she would vote to make contraception illegal in Michigan.

“All of this could be avoided if we were actually a truly pro-life nation, which means conceiving a child is a beautiful and sacred thing. And that is why sex ought to be between one man and one woman in the confines of marriage, and open to life,” she said.

Yes, if only we actually were a nation based on the distorted Christian views of a crazy church lady, as opposed to say a secular nation of laws. It’s almost as if people like Eubanks not only can’t hear themselves talk but also don’t even try to conceal the fact that they’re total wackos not fit to serve ice cream. So it only seems fitting that Donald Trump would endorse her candidacy.

Our only advice is if you’re sleeping someone who supports either of these politicians, first, get your head checked, and second, BYOP (bring your own protection)!

SPORTS
Remembering 'New Yorker' editor and renowned baseball writer Roger Angell

May 24, 2022
Heard on Fresh Air
TERRY GROSS

Angell's writing earned him a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame, when he received a career excellence award in 2014. He died May 20 at the age of 101. Originally broadcast in 2001.

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. For many fans of good sports writing, baseball season was also Roger Angell season. He wrote about the game for The New Yorker, where he was published most of his adult life. His first piece was published in 1944. In 1956, he became the magazine's fiction editor. He described The New Yorker as the family store. His mother, Katharine Sergeant Angell White, had worked there as an editor. His stepfather, essayist E.B. White, was a New Yorker writer and contributing editor. Angell's writing earned him a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame when he received a Career Excellence Award in 2014. Roger Angell died last week at the age of 101. We're going to listen back to an excerpt of the interview I recorded with him in 2001 after he'd written a book about pitcher David Cone.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GROSS: Roger Angell, let's talk about your writing career a bit. You've been writing for The New Yorker since 1946, so that's 45 years. When you started writing for The New Yorker, your mother was the fiction editor. Your stepfather, E.B. White, was one of the magazine's star writers. Did it feel like the family business to you?

ROGER ANGELL: Yeah, it did. I mean, I didn't think in those terms then, but I really wanted to be a writer, I guess, and an editor, too, so I ended up doing both. And writing for The New Yorker seemed the natural thing. And I did write a couple of little fiction pieces when - back in those days, we could have tiny little back-of-the-book fiction pieces that got me going. But I think I learned from my stepfather really how hard writing is. I mean, his writing always - E.B. White's writing always looks absolutely like the easiest thing in the world, just nothing to it. There's no strain in anything he ever wrote.

But I'd watched him as a teenager when he was writing the Notes and Comment page for The New Yorker every week, and he'd go into his study up in Maine and close the door and be there all day long, and there were long silences between the little rips and sounds from the typewriter. And he'd come out, and he'd be silent and pale, not say anything at lunch, and at the end of the day, he'd file it off. And then the next day, he'd say, wasn't good enough. He'd try to get it back again. Writing is hard. And I think that there aren't many writers who write with ease. So I got that idea early on, too.

GROSS: Your mother was fiction editor of The New Yorker, and this was in an era where not that many women even worked, and certainly most of the women who did work worked in traditional women's professions, and being fiction editor of The New Yorker doesn't fall in that category. Were you aware of how unusual it was to have your mother do what she was doing?

ANGELL: Terry, I don't think I was sufficiently aware. I mean, I always admired her. And she thought of herself - she said - she didn't use the word feminist, but she spoke of herself as being a working woman. But work was so much a part of her life, and The New Yorker was the main event in her life, really, and it surrounded her every day. And I think of her now, and I think of her with galleys in a manila envelope under her arm or around the house or even in bed in the mornings or something, a bunch of galleys and brown - soft brown pencils and soft - and erasers, a lot of erasing, the stuff that comes off erasers around her and smoking cigarettes. And that was the standard of her life, and she was deeply involved with the magazine and with her writers. I think that if any way it inspired me to be a writer, then certainly she inspired me to be an editor. I actually ended up as the fiction editor of The New Yorker myself. I'm still a fiction editor there. And at one point, I would - I inherited her old office. And a shrink that I was seeing at the time heard that I'd moved into her old office and had the same job that she'd had, and he said, this is the greatest single act of sublimation in my experience.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: Your stepfather, E.B. White, was the co-writer of, you know, the most used style book, Strunk and White. Is that a stylebook you've used over the years?

ANGELL: Oh, sure. Yeah. They're a set of general - there's general advice in there. Be clear; don't be fancy. I don't have them by heart. But that's the heart of the book. There are lots of helpful hints about punctuation. And anyway, he once told me the rule about that and which, which I memorized on the spot. He said, The New Yorker is the magazine that cares about which; The New Yorker is a magazine that cares about that (laughter). No, I'm sorry - a magazine which cares about that, a Magazine.

GROSS: Oh, see - this never helps me.

ANGELL: All right.

GROSS: I'm still as confused as ever (laughter).

ANGELL: One is the defining - the magazine that. Or nondefining - a magazine, comma, which (laughter).

GROSS: You know, with that and which, I always say to myself, should I struggle again to figure out what the difference is between the two, or should I give up and figure most people don't really care anyways? What advice would you have for me on that?

ANGELL: I think you're right, that...

GROSS: Give up?

ANGELL: I don't stop and think about it. I just put down what - I mean, part of my mind does this anyway. It usually gets it right. And I don't stop and say, is this the correct form? And I will - the big thing is to look at what you've written and to - when it's done and to see if it's any good and to also to think about how it sounds. I think a lot about how writing sounds. Even a perfect sentence that sounds terrible in the end, if you almost say it to yourself as you're closing in at the end, you'll probably get it right. I still edit John Updike, and this is what he does. He corrects over and over, and he corrects on page proofs. The last day things are going in, he will rewrite and rewrite. And he will say on the phone to me, how does that sound? How does that sound to you, Roger? And I do the same thing to myself. How does that sound? Writing is meant to be heard as well as looked at.

GROSS: My interview with Roger Angell was recorded in 2001. He died last week at the age of 101.

Tomorrow on FRESH AIR. My guest will be poet Diana Goetsch. Her new memoir, "This Body I Wore," is about transitioning to living as a woman when she was in her late 40s. We'll also talk about what it was like to grow up trans in a time when she didn't have the language, literature or subculture to help her understand what it meant to be trans. I hope you'll join us.

(SOUNDBITE OF DAVE MCKENNA'S "A SHINE ON YOUR SHOES")

GROSS: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden, Ann Marie Baldonado, Thea Chaloner, Seth Kelley and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. I'm Terry Gross.

(SOUNDBITE OF DAVE MCKENNA'S "A SHINE ON YOUR SHOES")

Copyright © 2022 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

FEMINIST FILIPINA ROCK N ROLL

The All-Female Band Fanny Made History. A New Doc Illuminates It.

The group put out five albums in the ’70s and counted David Bowie and Bonnie Raitt as fans. The filmmaker Bobbi Jo Hart, dismayed its story hadn’t been told, took action.

Before Fanny, Jean Millington, Brie Darling, Wendy Haas Mull and June Millington performed as the Svelts.

Credit...Steve Griffith

By Mark Yarm
May 25, 2022

In spring 2015, the documentary filmmaker Bobbi Jo Hart was clicking around the Taylor Guitars website, looking for a new instrument for her 10-year-old daughter, when she came across a short profile of June Millington, the singer and lead guitarist for the pioneering 1970s all-female rock group Fanny.

Hart, now 56 and living in Montreal, grew up in a hippie household in California “with piles of LPs all over the place”: David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, and on and on. But she had never even heard of Fanny, despite the fact that it was the first all-female rock band to release an album on a major label.

Fanny put out a total of five albums between 1970 and 1974, one of which was produced by Todd Rundgren. The band scored two Top 40 hits — the swinging, soulful “Charity Ball” and the doo-wop-flavored “Butter Boy” — and played in the United States and abroad with Slade, Jethro Tull, Humble Pie, the Kinks and Chicago. The group backed Barbra Streisand in the studio and performed on “The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour” and “American Bandstand.”

In 1999, Bowie hailed Fanny as one of the finest rock bands of its time in Rolling Stone. He also lamented that “nobody’s ever mentioned them.”

Kathy Valentine, the bassist of the Go-Go’s, a later all-female band, wished more people had spread the word about Fanny. “If their visibility had been higher,” she said in an interview, “we would have seen a lot more women in the rock landscape.” Valentine didn’t hear about Fanny until 1982, she said, by which time the Go-Go’s were making their second album.

When Hart, the filmmaker, first learned about Fanny online, she had a visceral reaction. “It really pissed me off,” she said. “It was just another example of amazing women that we don’t know about.” Hart reached out to former band members about the possibility of a documentary, but determined that at the time, the Fanny story didn’t have the “forward-momentum narrative” she was looking for.

Then, in January 2017, Hart attended the Women’s March in Washington. She was watching Madonna speak on the Jumbotron when she spotted a woman with “flaming gray hair” onstage, filming the proceedings on her iPhone. It was June Millington. The sighting spurred Hart to call Millington, who had some news: Three members of Fanny — Millington, her younger sister, the bassist and singer Jean (Millington) Adamian, and the drummer and singer Brie Darling, a fellow Filipina-American — were about to make a new album on an indie label. The moment for a film had arrived.

The resulting documentary, “Fanny: The Right to Rock,” opens in New York on Friday before hitting other major markets and, on Aug. 2, video on demand. (It will come to PBS in 2023.) The movie documents the making of that album, recorded under the name Fanny Walked the Earth and released in 2018, and features interviews with five members from the original group’s frequently shifting lineup. (The reclusive keyboardist Nickey Barclay, who has said she hated her time in the band, notably did not participate. She also declined to speak for this article.) Valentine, Bonnie Raitt and the Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott are among the talking heads.

From left: Jean Millington, Nickey Barclay, Brie Darling, Alice de Buhr

 and June Millington practice in the basement of their band’s famed home, Fanny Hill.

Credit...Linda Wolf

The documentary lovingly recounts the history of Fanny, beginning with the sisters June and Jean Millington, who were born in the Philippines to a white American naval officer father and a Filipina socialite mother. In 1961, the Millington family moved overseas to Sacramento, Calif., where the sisters, as early adolescents, had a difficult time fitting in. Racism was a constant part of life. (In the film, Jean recalls the father of a boyfriend of hers telling his son, “I’ll buy you a Mustang if you stop seeing that half-breed girl.” The boyfriend opted for the car.)

The sisters found solace in music, forming an all-girl band in high school called the Svelts, which played the radio hits of the day. The Svelts morphed into Wild Honey, a Motown cover group that decamped to Los Angeles in 1969 to make it big. Wild Honey signed with Warner Bros. Records’s Reprise label later that year. Not long after, the band, looking for a new name with a female identity, chose Fanny, which in the United States is slang for bottom.

“We thought it was a double entendre that would work,” said June Millington, 74. It wasn’t until the band members toured overseas that they discovered that in Britain, fanny is slang for female genitals.

Early on, the band lived in Fanny Hill, a house in West Hollywood that Millington, in the film, calls “a sorority with electrical guitars.” Joe Cocker and the lead singer of the Band, Rick Danko, hung out there, and the group Little Feat would come over and jam; Raitt was a houseguest for a time. A libertine, clothing-optional spirit prevailed. “It was a wonderful, creative environment,” said Darling, who is 72 and lives in Los Angeles. “It wasn’t people just getting high” and having sex.

The film highlights the fact that two of Fanny’s members — June Millington and the drummer Alice de Buhr — are lesbians, something that the band never dared speak about publicly in those days. “People would ask us, ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’” recalled de Buhr, now 72 and residing in Tucson, Ariz. “And I’d say, ‘I’m taken.’ I hated not being able to say, ‘Well, I’m in love with a woman.’”

Predictably, Fanny was subjected to a great deal of sexism, often being treated as a novelty act. “Most of society didn’t see girls with a guitar between their legs,” said Patti Quatro, 74, who replaced Millington as lead guitarist in 1974. (Quatro, of Austin, Texas, is an older sister of Suzi Quatro.)

Millington said that the “condescension and sneering” that would greet Fanny at concert appearances was “so palpable it was almost physical.”

Both Millington and her sister recalled, however, that Fanny would ultimately win over the crowd. “I felt like it took at least 10 minutes for everyone to realize there was not a boy band playing behind us,” said Jean (Millington) Adamian, 73, who lives in Davis, Calif. “They were waiting for us to fall down. And once we proved it was really us playing and singing, it was generally a big, uplifting experience.”

Rock critics weren’t always swayed though. “We were battered by the reviews,” Millington said. “Every once in a while, they’d say, ‘Oh, they’re good.’” She cited a generally positive 1971 concert review in this newspaper headlined “Fanny, a Four-Girl Rock Group, Poses a Challenge to Male Ego.” “‘What will it do to the male ego?’ Well, who cares?” she said. “Why don’t you guys just deal with it and dig us?”

 

“The fact is that Fanny is a flame that ignites people,” June Millington said.

Credit...Linda Wolf


JUNE MILLINGTON EXITED Fanny in late 1973 in part because of a near “nervous breakdown,” she said in a video interview. “I’m glad I left, because I knew that my life was on the line on some major level.” She was sitting in front of a crackling fire at her home on the campus of the Institute for the Musical Arts, a nonprofit recording and retreat facility she co-founded with her longtime partner, Ann Hackler, in Goshen, Mass. On the mantel were various Buddhist objects — Millington is a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism — and a framed photo of Jimi Hendrix.

“The straw that broke the camel’s back,” Millington said, was the record company’s insistence that Fanny, whose members favored ’70s California chic, dress up in glammy, more revealing outfits onstage. (“My top was $45 worth of American coins, looped together, that just pinched my nipples,” de Buhr said.) Millington saw it as a sign that Reprise had lost faith in the band. “I took it as an insult,” she said.

A new version of Fanny — featuring Adamian, Barclay, Darling and Quatro — signed with Casablanca Records and released a final album, “Rock and Roll Survivors,” in 1974. That record featured the single “Butter Boy,” which Adamian said was inspired by — but not about, as has been widely reported — her then-boyfriend, Bowie, and his gender-bending ways.



“‘He was hard as a rock, but I was ready to roll, what a shock to find out I was in control of the situation,’” Adamian said, reciting the song’s opening lines. “I mean, those kinds of lyrics were very tongue-in-cheek and intended to be provocative.” “Butter Boy” became Fanny’s biggest hit, reaching No. 29 on the Billboard Hot 100 in April 1975. But by that time, the band had split up for reasons both artistic and personal.

Fanny has technically never reunited. But in 2016, Millington, Adamian and Darling played together at a concert in Northampton, Mass., a collaboration that led to the self-titled album “Fanny Walked the Earth.” That LP includes appearances by de Buhr and Quatro, plus Valentine of the Go-Go’s and members of fellow all-female groups the Runaways and the Bangles.

A tentative plan to tour behind the Fanny Walked the Earth album was scuttled when, two months before the record’s March 2018 release, Adamian suffered a stroke that affected the right side of her body. Today, she uses a wheelchair to get around. “I cannot play bass,” she said. “I keep looking at my two fingers, going, ‘If just one of you would move, that would be good.’ It’s absolutely frustrating.”

Fanny Walked the Earth’s Jean Adamian, Darling and June Millington.

Credit...Marita Madeloni

Millington has experienced health issues of her own. Her snow-white hair was noticeably shorter than it had been during the Fanny Walked the Earth era, the result of chemotherapy she received last year to treat breast cancer that is now in remission.

“I knew I was going to live because my work is not done,” she said. “So anything can happen.” She didn’t discount the idea of some version of Fanny recording or touring again. As for the latter scenario, she said it would take a lot of money to do so properly, given the medical situations she and her sister faced. (Adamian has sung live with Fanny Walked the Earth since her stroke; her son, Lee Madeloni, filled in on bass.)

In the meantime, Millington said, she was looking forward to the release of “Fanny: The Right to Rock.” Hart, the director, expressed the wish that the documentary would lead to far wider appreciation for the band. “A not-so-secret dream that I have is if they would get that recognition to be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,” Hart said.

Millington isn’t waiting for a call from the Rock Hall. “Is it ever going to happen? I don’t know,” she said. “And at this point, I don’t care.” She said she was comfortable resting on her laurels. “I’m fine with it, because I never imagined anyone would mention Fanny ever again,” she said. “For 30, 40 years, we couldn’t get arrested.”

The internet, she said, is exposing new audiences to the band. “Fanny is a flame that ignites people,” Millington continued. “It is igniting people all over the world of different ages and different sexes. It’s like the Olympic torch, and that is really something to be proud of.”

A version of this article appears in print on May 29, 2022, Section AR, Page 16 of the New York edition with the headline: A Reminder That They Rocked. 

OF COURSE I COLLECTED THEIR ALBUMS WHICH ARE AN EARLY FORM OF GRUNGE

 Rishi Sunak Hits The Rich List While Holding Out On Help For The Poorest

People are pointing out the inconvenient timing as the chancellor and his wife enter the Sunday Times rankings for the first time.

By Graeme Demianyk

HUFFPOST
20/05/2022 

Chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak alongside his wife Akshata Murthy.
IAN WEST VIA PA WIRE/PA IMAGES

Rishi Sunak has become the first frontline politician to be named in The Sunday Times Rich List since its inception in 1989 – just as the chancellor faces pressure to help ease the cost-of-living crisis facing households.

On the week inflation hit a 40-year high, prompting further fears about the UK tipping into a recession, Sunak and wife Akshata Murty entered The Sunday Times Rich List for the first time with their joint £730 million fortune.

Their listing among the nation’s 250 wealthiest people also comes after their finances came under intense scrutiny when it emerged Murty holds non-domiciled status allowing her to reduce her UK tax bill.

The timing could not have been worse for the ambitious politician, who earlier this week promised a tax cut for big business but conspicuously only said he was “standing ready” to help families.

Sunak had been seen as a frontrunner in any leadership contest to replace Boris Johnson but his standing was severely dented by the scrutiny of his family’s exorbitant wealth.

The chancellor has been resisting calls to impose a windfall tax on the high profits of oil and gas giants to help fund measures to ease the crisis, as well as facing demands to cut taxes as part of a new support package.

On Friday morning, the Sunday Times Rich List revealed the couple featured at 222 in the list with the joint forecast of £730 million, driven by Murty’s £690 million stake in Infosys.

It was estimated Murty’s non-dom status could have saved her £20 million in taxes on dividends from her shares in Infosys, an Indian IT company founded by her father.

She later agreed to pay UK taxes on her worldwide income.

Sunak was cleared of breaching the ministerial code by the prime minister’s standards adviser after considering the tax affairs.

Many on social media were quick to point out how further publicity of his wealth puts Sunak in a tricky spot.

But deputy prime minister Dominic Raab praised Sunak on Times Radio.

He said: “Rishi Sunak is a fantastic example of someone who’s been successful in business who’s come in to make a big impact in public service.

“I think we want more of those people.

“I think it’s fantastic that you’ve got someone of British Indian origin, showing all people in our country that you can get to the top of politics.

“And frankly, I think if I understood correctly, The Sunday Times Rich List was a reflection of not just him, but his wife.

UK Finance Minister Sunak, wife Akshata named in list of Britain's super-rich

• 21 May 2022

Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murthy attend a reception to celebrate the British Asian Trust in London. File

Finance Minister Rishi Sunak became the first high-profile British politician to make the Sunday Times Rich List, weeks after his family’s tax arrangements attracted controversy and amid a cost-of-living crisis.

Sunak and his Indian wife Akshata Murty, whose father co-founded the IT behemoth Infosys, made the annual list for the first time with their joint £730 million ($911 million) fortune.

The bulk of their wealth is believed to come from Murty’s £690-million stake in Infosys, but Sunak also had a highly lucrative career in finance before entering politics in 2015.

The listing, which started in 1989, this year estimates the minimum wealth of Britain’s 250 richest people or families, and features far fewer Russian billionaires due to Western sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine.

Sunak’s inclusion comes a month after it was revealed that his wife was sheltered from paying tax on foreign earnings to his Treasury department after claiming so-called non-domiciled status.

The “non-dom” scheme has become controversial in recent years, particularly now that Britons face tax rises and the cost-of-living crisis, with some opposition parties calling for its abolition.

It has been estimated Murty’s non-dom status could have saved her £20 million in taxes on dividends from her shares in Infosys.

Soon after the revelations emerged, she announced she would start paying UK tax on “all worldwide income,” noting that she did not want her tax affairs to be a “distraction” for her husband.

Sunak has also faced persistent criticism for doing too little to help hard-pressed Britons as his once-rosy prospects of succeeding Prime Minister Boris Johnson have ebbed rapidly.

Critics have accused him of hypocrisy for raising taxes on people as various prices surge, while his own family has seen millions of pounds in Infosys dividends shielded from his own Exchequer.

Just this week, he warned in a keynote speech to business leaders that Britons faced a “tough” few months ahead, with inflation confirmed as the highest rate in decades at nine percent.

 

Agence France-Presse

Men at Afghan TV station wear masks to support female colleagues told by Taliban to cover up

As female television anchors are ordered to cover their faces during broadcasts, their male counterparts join them in solidarity

By Ben Farmer 

IN KABUL

23 May 2022 

Male staff at Afghanistan's Tolo TV wear face masks to show solidarity with their female colleagues at the Kabul studio 

CREDIT: STRINGER /EPA-EFE/Shutterstock


Male Afghan news presenters wore masks during broadcasts to show solidarity with female colleagues told to cover their faces under new Taliban rules.

Female television anchors were directed to cover their faces from Sunday under an edict from the Taliban's ministry of vice and virtue.

The directive followed a nationwide proclamation that women outside the home should cover their faces, preferably with the burqa. Women who had no important work outside would be better to stay at home, the order said.

Female newsreaders were then told to obey the rules on Thursday. At first only a handful of news outlets complied. But on Sunday, most female anchors were seen with their faces covered.

Male presenters on Tolo, Afghanistan's most popular television network, wore Covid-style surgical masks alongside their female colleagues.

“I can’t breathe nor talk properly – how will I be able to run the program?” said Khatira Ahmadi, a female Tolo news presenter.
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Sonia Nizai, a female news anchor, added: “We were not ready mentally and morally that such things would be forced on us. Running three hours of programs with a mask is very difficult.”

 

TV anchor Khatira Ahmadi reads the news while covering her face at Tolo TV's Kabul studio 

CREDIT: STRINGER/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock


Women presenters were previously only required to wear a headscarf. Tolo news director, Khpolwak Sapai, said the channel had been compelled to make its women presenters follow the order.

“I was called on the telephone yesterday and was told in strict words to do it. So, it is not by choice but by force,” Mr Sapai told AFP.

Afghan male journalists also began sharing pictures on social media of themselves wearing masks in solidarity.

Mohammad Akif Sadeq Mohajir, spokesman for the ministry, said: “We are happy with the media channels that they implemented this responsibility in a good manner.”

Women's rights campaigners have accused the Taliban of attempting to erase women from public life in Afghanistan. Girls have been blocked from secondary school and women have been told they cannot travel alone.

Mr Mohajir said the authorities were not against women presenters.

“We have no intention of removing them from the public scene or sidelining them, or stripping them of their right to work,” he said.

The American Killing Fields
May 25, 2022


By Charles M. Blow
Opinion Columnist

The Republican Party has turned America into a killing field.

Republicans have allowed guns to proliferate while weakening barriers to ownership, lowering the age at which one can purchase a weapon and eliminating laws governing how, when and where guns can be carried.

They have done this in part with help from conservatives on the Supreme Court who have upheld a corrupt and bastardized interpretation of the Second Amendment.

But Republicans have also done so by promoting fear and paranoia. They tell people that criminals are coming to menace you, immigrants are coming to menace you, a race war (or racial replacement) is coming to menace you and the government itself may one day come to menace you.

The only defense you have against the menace is to be armed.

If you buy into this line of thinking, owning a gun is not only logical but prudent. It’s like living in a flood plain and buying flood insurance. Of course you should do it.

The propaganda has been incredibly, insidiously persuasive. As Vox pointed out last year, “Americans make up less than 5 percent of the world’s population, yet they own roughly 45 percent of all the world’s privately held firearms,” according to 2018 data.

But once you accept the dogma that a personal arsenal is your last line of defense against an advancing threat, no amount of tragedy can persuade you to relinquish that idea, not even the slaughter of children and their teachers in their classrooms.

Even if you think that shootings like the one in Texas are horrendous, you see yourself and your interests as detached from them. You didn’t do the killing. Your guns are kept safe and secure, possibly even under lock and key. You are a responsible gun owner. The person who did the killing is a lunatic.

Republicans carry this logic in Congress. They offer thoughts and prayers but resist reforms. They offer the same asinine advice: To counter bad guys with guns, we need more good guys with guns. They seem to envision an old-school western in which gunmen square off and the ranger always kills the desperado.

They want to arm teachers, even though most don’t want to be armed. Personally, I can’t imagine any of my elementary-school teachers with a gun in the classroom trying to fend off a gunman. That’s not what they signed up for.

And so Republicans keep the country trapped in a state of intransigence, ricocheting from one tragedy to another. This is not normal, nor is it necessary and inevitable.

No other country has the level of American carnage, but no other country has American Republicans.

The mass shootings are only the tip of the iceberg.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 45,000 people died from gun-related episodes in 2020, the most recorded in this country and a 15 percent increase from the year before. Slightly more than half, 54 percent, were the result of suicide, and 43 percent were the result of homicide.

And still, we do nothing to restrict gun access, or more precisely, Republicans agree to no new restrictions. This is not a both-sides-equally issue. The lion’s share of the resistance to passing federal gun safety laws falls squarely on Republican shoulders. We have to call a fig a fig and a trough a trough.

Beginning to pass gun safety wouldn’t immediately end all gun violence in this country, but it could begin to lower the body count, to lessen the amount of blood flowing in the streets.

Republicans have no intention of helping in that regard. Too often, they seem to see the carnage as collateral — as if they could use the constancy and repetition of these killings to scuttle efforts to stop future killings. Some Republicans may even count on Americans getting used to inaction, getting inured to the killing of children, getting numb to the relentless taking of life and no taking of action.

So we go through the cycle yet again — the wailing of loved ones, the sadness of a country. We call the victims’ names and learn a little about their lives before they were cut down. Maybe this one liked ice cream or that one liked to dress up like a princess. We ask: If not now, when? If not for this, then for what? We listen to Democrats condemn and Republicans deflect.

And before we can fully mourn one massacre, another one happens. It was just over a week ago that a white supremacist terrorist gunned down 13 people in a Buffalo grocery store. In fact, according to the Gun Violence Archive, there were 611 mass shootings in the United States in 2020. That’s not only more than one a day; it’s approaching two a day. (The archive defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people were shot or killed, not including the shooter.)

There is no great mystery about why we are where we are in this country when it comes to gun violence. We shouldn’t — and must not — pretend that this issue is complicated. It’s not.

We are not addressing our insane gun culture and the havoc it is wreaking because the Republican Party refuses to cooperate. There is death all around us, but for too many Republicans, it is a sad inconvenience rather than impetus for action.

PHOTO Credit...Kaylee Greenlee for The New York Times

Despite push for school safety policies after Texas shooting, research shows they do little

By Sean Boynton

Global News
Posted May 25, 2022

WATCH: 'You are doing nothing': Agony and anger rise in aftermath of Uvalde, Texas school shooting


Safety policies designed to protect schools from mass shootings have done little to deter them and may even be harmful to students, research shows, despite a renewed push for such measures in the wake of Tuesday’s shooting in Texas.

The 18-year-old gunman who killed at least 19 children and two teachers at a Uvalde elementary school was able to evade armed police officers and other security protocols already in place. Yet some U.S. lawmakers are arguing those policies are needed, and should be reinforced, instead of pursuing meaningful gun control.

“We have years of data suggesting that these measures, while they have been impacting school outcomes, they haven’t been necessarily changing the trajectories or the trends in actual injury and deaths,” said Odis Johnson, executive director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Safe and Healthy Schools in Washington, D.C.

Johnson and other researchers have found evidence that school safety policies — including on-campus police officers, metal detectors, and increased surveillance systems like security cameras — have a negative impact on education itself.

Students at schools that rely on such policies for safety often achieve lower test scores and rates of college admission compared to other schools, the research suggests.

One representative study released last year, which was co-authored by Johnson, found students at “high-surveillance” schools were more likely to face in-school suspension, achieved lower math scores and were less likely to attend college than students at “low-surveillance” schools.

The study also found such safety protocols predominantly impacted racialized students, with Black students four times as likely to attend schools considered “high-surveillance.”

2:28Texas school shooting puts Sandy Hook tragedy, fight for U.S. gun control back in focus

Meanwhile, gun violence at schools is on the rise in the U.S. The National Center for Education Statistics has found the number of school shootings resulting in injuries or death has increased steadily over the last seven years.

There have been 137 shooting incidents at schools so far this year — almost one a day — and there were 249 last year, according to David Riedman, lead researcher at the K-12 School Shooting Database at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security. It tracks every incident in which a gun is brandished or fired or a bullet hits school property.

“What is becoming more prevalent is systematic gun violence at schools is dramatically increasing, especially at high schools. This is due to students carrying weapons and conflicts escalating to the point of gun violence,” Riedman told Reuters.

READ MORE: Texas school shooting: What’s changed in U.S. gun control since Sandy Hook?

Johnson says school safety measures do not address the prevalence of guns in the country and the ease with which people can access them, including the Uvalde shooter, who purchased the weapons used in the massacre shortly after his 18th birthday.

They also don’t necessarily stop people outside a school from entering and opening fire.

“What is needed is an understanding that schools are embedded within communities and cities that have a problem with gun control,” he said.

In the wake of the 2018 shooting at Santa Fe High School that killed 10 people and wounded 13 others, Texas lawmakers focused instead on improving school safety, including mandatory emergency training for all school employees and improved mental health care for students.

1:21 ‘You are doing nothing’: Beto O’Rourke interrupts Texas governor’s remarks on school shooting

A new state law, which passed in 2019, required school districts to create “threat assessment teams” for every campus as well as “bleeding control stations,” which are essentially battlefield tourniquet kits in schools.

On Tuesday, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick continued to insist that schools need to be further secured, telling Fox News that officials must “harden these targets so nobody can get in.”



Other Republican lawmakers in Texas and elsewhere used similar language while speaking to conservative media on Tuesday and Wednesday. Attorney General Ken Paxton called for arming teachers, while Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said more armed police officers are needed on campuses.

Cruz also suggested on Wednesday that schools should only “have one door into and out of the school” that is protected by armed officers, doing away with other entry points. He also mentioned bulletproof windows and doors were needed.



Robb Elementary — the small elementary school in Uvalde, a heavily Latino community, where Tuesday’s shooting took place — has four armed police officers stationed on campus as part of its two-page list of preventative safety measures. Other measures include a threat assessment team, multiple on-campus police officers, security cameras and metal detectors.

Officials say one of the officers stationed at the school exchanged gunfire with the shooter, who still managed to make his way inside the school to kill students and teachers. The shooter was wearing tactical gear, according to official reports.

Johnson said focusing more on common sense gun control would also help those officers.

“I don’t know of a police officer out there who believes that their job is easier with more guns on the street, and easier access to those guns, and less responsibility in making sure they’re secured from young people,” he said.

Securing schools has also proven to be a profitable industry, reaching $2.7 billion in revenue in 2017, according to market research firm Omdia. The firm predicted then that revenue would grow to $2.8 billion by 2021, but the COVID-19 pandemic led to a drop in spending.

Yet in 2018, a Washington Post survey of schools that had experienced a shooting in the six years since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., found only one school that suggested such safety measures could have made a difference.

Johnson suggests lawmakers who are pushing school safety measures ahead of gun reform “haven’t caught up to these more recent trends” in his research and gun violence statistics, which has been available for years.

“I don’t know how long the lag has to be before lawmakers get the message that recent events suggest a change in approach is necessary,” he said.

— With files from Reuters

 

 

Deadline
Michael Moore Tells MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, “It’s Time To Repeal The Second Amendment”

Tom Tapp - 
© MSNBC via Twitter

“Who will say on this network or any other network in the next few days, ‘It’s time to repeal the Second Amendment’?” Michael Moore asked MSNBC host Chris Hayes today.

“Oh, you can’t say that,” he imagined Americans replying.

“Well why not?” asked Moore.

The Oscar-winning Bowling for Columbine filmmaker posed the question as the nation was still reeling from the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas yesterday in which 19 children and two adults were killed.

“Look, I support all gun control legislation. Not sensible gun control. We don’t need the sensible stuff. We need the hardcore stuff that’s going to protect ourselves and our children,” he said.

“We won’t acknowledge that we are a violent people to begin with. This country was birthed in violence with the genocide of the native people at the barrel of a gun. This country was built on the back of slaves with a gun to their back…We do not want to acknowledge our two original sins here that have a gun behind our ability to become who we became,” he told Hayes.

“I truly believe if Jefferson, Madison and Washington if they all knew that the bullet would be invented — some 50 years after our revolution, I don’t know if they would have written it that way. They didn’t even know what a bullet was. It didn’t exist until the 1830s. [If] they had any idea that there would be this kind of carnage, you have to believe that the Founders of the country would not support it.”

‘American Pie’ Singer Don McLean Pulls Out Of NRA Gig Following Texas Shooting



ET Canada
Brent Furdyk - 
© Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images

The upcoming National Rifle Association conference can say bye bye to Don McLean, who was scheduled to perform at the event but has announced he's cancelling in light of the horrific school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

In a statement to TMZ, the "American Pie" singer explained why he couldn't, in good conscience, perform at the NRA event to be held in Houston this weekend, just 250 miles away from Uvalde.

"In light of the recent events in Texas, I have decided it would be disrespectful and hurtful for me to perform for the NRA at their convention in Houston this week," said McLean.

"I’m sure all the folks planning to attend this event are shocked and sickened by these events as well. After all, we are all Americans," he added.

"I share the sorrow for this terrible, cruel loss with the rest of the nation," McLean concluded.

Other performers scheduled to entertain attendees at the NRA conference include Larry Gatlin, Lee Greenwood and Danielle Peck.