Massive iceberg narrowly avoided collision with Antarctic ice shelf

Such a crash could have caused a new, even more massive iceberg to break off.

By Yasemin Saplakoglu

Live Science 

A-74 recently brushed by the Brunt Ice Shelf, which it split from last February. (Image credit: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2021), 

processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)

A massive iceberg that broke off of Antarctica last year recently spun around and narrowly avoided colliding with the Brunt Ice Shelf. Such a crash could have caused a new, even more massive iceberg to break off.


Iceberg A-74, which is more than 20 times the size of Manhattan, split from Antarctica's Brunt Ice Shelf in February 2020, Live Science previously reported. Ocean currents kept the giant beast near its parent ice shelf for the past six months, according to a statement from the European Space Agency (ESA). Everything was quiet, until the winds came.

In early August, strong winds spun the iceberg around the ice shelf. Two polar-orbiting satellites that make up the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission captured radar images between Aug. 9 and Aug. 18 that showed A-74 "brushing slightly" against a thin strip of ice that juts off the shelf and then moving south.

"The nose-shaped piece of the ice shelf, which is even larger than A-74, remains connected to the Brunt Ice Shelf, but barely," Mark Drinkwater, head of ESA's Mission Science Division, said in the statement. "If the berg had collided more violently with this piece, it could have accelerated the fracture of the remaining ice bridge, causing it to break away."

A-74 is about 490 square miles (1,270 square kilometers), but if it had hit the ice shelf hard enough, it could have released another iceberg with an area of about 656 square miles (1,700 square km), according to the statement.

Two major cracks in the ice shelf, known as "Chasm 1" (extending northward) and the "Halloween Crack" (extending eastward), are separated by a small distance. If they were to meet — for example, if there were a strong impact — an iceberg would break off, according to ESA. It's natural for ice shelves to calve, and glaciologists have been following the formation of small fractures and larger chasms for years.

A-74 broke off along the North Rift crack, the third major chasm to open in the Brunt Ice Shelf in the past decade, Live Science previously reported. Drinkwater noted that the team will continue monitoring the iceberg and the ice shelf using the Sentinel satellite imagery.

Bernie Sanders Says $3.5 Trillion Spending Plan Is 'The Minimum'

"I already negotiated. The truth is we need more," said the chair of the Senate Budget Committee.


Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) talks to reporters while leaving the U.S. Capitol on August 9, 2021. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

JAKE JOHNSON

COMMON DREAMS

August 26, 2021


Anticipating a clash with conservative Democrats over the price tag of the party's emerging reconciliation package, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday laid down a clear marker: the $3.5 trillion in spending outlined in a newly approved budget resolution is already the compromise, and anything less won't cut it.

"I already negotiated. The truth is we need more," Sanders (I-Vt.), chair of the Senate Budget Committee and chief architect of the reconciliation blueprint, told Politico in an interview published Thursday.

"While it will have no Republican support in Washington, Democrats, independents, and working-class Republicans all over the country support our plan."
—Sen. Bernie Sanders

"The needs are there," the Vermont senator added. "This is, in my view, the minimum of what we should be spending."

Sanders' remarks came less than 48 hours after the House Democratic leadership quelled a small revolt of right-wing members and passed the $3.5 trillion budget resolution, which the Vermont senator helped usher through the upper chamber earlier this month.

Congressional approval of the budget blueprint—which establishes the outer boundaries of the reconciliation package—sets in motion the likely contentious process of converting the popular resolution into legislative text. With Republicans unanimously opposed to the filibuster-proof reconciliation package, Democrats will need the support of virtually every member of the House and Senate to ensure it reaches President Joe Biden's desk, a reality Sanders acknowledged Thursday.

"Democrats have a very slim majority in the House. We have no majority in the Senate. That's it. It is 50/50," Sanders said. "Trust me, there are a lot of differences in the Senate among the Democrats. But at the end of the day, every Democrat understands that it is terribly important that we support the president's agenda. And most of these ideas came from the White House."

But conservative Democrats in both chambers are already threatening to derail the reconciliation process by expressing opposition to the $3.5 trillion price tag—which, as Sanders noted, is significant downward compromise from the $6 trillion proposal that he and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) were originally considering.

Earlier this week, a spokesperson for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) reiterated that "she will not support a budget reconciliation bill that costs $3.5 trillion"—music to the ears of Republicans who are openly hoping that Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) team up to pare back the legislation, in which progressives hope to include historic investments in green energy, Medicare expansion, and other top priorities.

A $3.5 trillion bill could also face trouble in the House, where at least nine conservative Democrats have voiced "concerns about the level of spending and potential revenue raisers." Among the revenue raisers floated for the reconciliation package are tax hikes on wealthy individuals and large corporations, proposals that are popular with the U.S. public but opposed by some right-leaning Democrats—many of them bankrolled by powerful corporate interests.

In his Politico interview Thursday, Sanders made clear that he views "every single thing" in the reconciliation framework—from the proposed lowering of the Medicare eligibility age to paid family and medical leave—as essential, though he declined to say what he would do if such priorities were stripped from the package.

On Friday, Sanders is set to travel to the Republican stronghold of Indiana to advocate for a $3.5 trillion reconciliation package. Two days later, the Vermont senator will hold a town hall on the legislation in Iowa.

"Sanders said if he could, he would travel to all 50 states this fall to make his case," Politico reported Thursday. "And he did not rule out West Virginia and Arizona, home to the Senate's two most conservative Democrats."

In a statement last week announcing his trips to Indiana and Iowa, Sanders said that "while it will have no Republican support in Washington, Democrats, independents, and working-class Republicans all over the country support our plan to finally invest in the long-neglected needs of working families."

"I very much look forward to hearing from some of them," Sanders added.
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Peace Group Challenges 'Architect' of Failed Wars Tony Blair to Public Debate

"Far from having a humanitarian impact, these interventions have served to make the world a much more dangerous and unstable place."

IT GAVE HIM A POST PM JOB; GO AROUND AND JUSTIFY THE WAR

"The lessons learnt or not learnt from these wars will have a real impact on the future of our foreign policy," Stop the War told former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. 

(Photo: lewishamdreamer/CC BY-NC 2.0)

ANDREA GERMANOS

COMMON DREAMS

August 26, 2021

The Stop the War coalition on Thursday invited former British Prime Minister Tony Blair—whom they called "one of the architects of the war on terror"—to a public debate on the impacts of the U.K.'s wars over the past two decades, framing such a dialogue as necessary "to help guide the foreign policy of the future."

The challenge (pdf) from the antiwar group followed an over 2,700-word essay Blair posted Saturday on his website in which he slammed U.S. President Joe Biden's decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan as "tragic, dangerous, unnecessary," and an act merely "in obedience to an imbecilic political slogan about ending 'the forever wars,' as if our engagement in 2021 was remotely comparable to our commitment 20 or even 10 years ago."

In 2001, then-Prime Minister Blair led the U.K. to war in Afghanistan alongside U.S. President George W. Bush. In 2003, he backed the Bush-led U.S. invasion of Iraq. Blair also called for British military intervention in Syria.

Stop the War said in their letter to Blair that "the death and destruction caused by the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and the attacks on Syria and Libya was catastrophic in itself and that, far from having a humanitarian impact, these interventions have served to make the world a much more dangerous and unstable place."

"This is not just a quetion of the interrpetation of history," the group continued. "The lessons learnt or not learnt from these wars will have a real impact on the future of our foreign policy."

In contrast to Blair's "continued emphasis on military intervention" to solve global problems, the peace group's letter advocates bringing an "end to the wars" by deploying a "foreign policy based on international cooperation, diplomacy, and negotiation."

MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan also responded to Blair's essay, tweeting Saturday, "Weird Blair said so many words when he could have just said ‘SORRY!’"

In a minute-long rant on his show Sunday, Hasan suggested that was the only word proponents of the war in Afghanistan, including ex-government officials, should utter in reaction to the ongoing U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Speaking on Democracy Now! Thursday, British MP Jeremy Corbyn, former chair of the Stop the War coalition, also offered a critical response to comments from Blair.

Along with George W. Bush, Blair "took us into a war that made no sense whatsoever," said Corbyn, lamenting that "all the worst predictions that any of us ever made have all come to pass."

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'Stop Making Things Worse': Biden Denounced for Plan to Resume Oil and Gas Leasing

"More oil and gas leasing is insane policy in light of the climate crisis," said one critic.


The sun sets over container ships and oil platforms off the coast of Huntington Beach, California on January 12, 2021. (Photo: Leonard Ortiz/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images)

KENNY STANCIL

COMMON DREAMS

August 26, 2021


Progressive advocates are rebuking the Biden administration after it said this week that federal officials will soon resume selling new leases for oil and gas drilling on public lands and waters.

"While the administration's appeal is pending, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland should use her discretion under the law to authorize the least amount of leasing required to comply with the court's order."
—Robert Weissman, Public Citizen

President Joe Biden's Tuesday announcement (pdf) came in response to a June court ruling by a Trump-appointed federal judge who sided with a group of Republican attorneys general that sued the Biden administration in March over its temporary pause on new leases for onshore and offshore fossil fuel extraction on federal property.

Despite Biden's 2020 campaign promise to ban new oil and gas leasing on public lands and waters, the Department of Interior plans to restart the leasing process as early as next Tuesday, putting the administration on track to hold a lease auction for the Gulf of Mexico as soon as October and onshore auctions early next year.

Public Citizen president Robert Weissman called the Biden administration's disclosure "distressing news" in a statement released Wednesday.

"The first, easiest steps to address the climate crisis are to stop making things worse," said Weissman. "More oil and gas leasing is insane policy in light of the climate crisis."

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, roughly 25% of the nation's total carbon emissions can be attributed to fossil fuel extraction on public lands and waters. Ramping up drilling defies evidence-based recommendations made by the International Energy Agency and the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which warned in recent reports that preventing catastrophic levels of global warming requires halting new fossil fuel projects.

Weissman acknowledged that "the administration's hands are somewhat tied by a flawed district court ruling" prohibiting its temporary moratorium on new leases for oil and gas drilling on federal lands and waters.

Reuters reported:

The filing to a Louisiana federal district court on Tuesday was in response to a motion by the state of Louisiana and 12 other states from earlier this month that sought to compel Interior to restart the leasing program and to show why it should not be held in contempt for failing to comply with the order issued weeks earlier.

Nevertheless, Weissman continued, the Interior Department "should do more to prevent the damage that new leasing will inflict."

"Among other measures," he said, "the Biden administration should force dirty energy companies to clean up the mess they have created on public lands and pay higher royalties for the privilege of extracting resources from public lands."

Earlier this month, the Interior Department announced that it is challenging the district court's decision, but "federal onshore and offshore oil and gas leasing will continue" as the process unfolds.

Biden's January executive order suspending new oil and gas leasing on federal property was meant to give administration officials time to conduct a comprehensive review of the "potential climate and other impacts associated with oil and gas activities on public lands or in offshore waters," which the Interior Department said is ongoing.

The moratorium did not affect existing leases, something the Trump administration sold in droves. The Biden administration, which in March declined to renew the Interior Department's policies limiting the provision of drilling permits, has so far approved fossil fuel drilling permits on federal and tribal property at a faster rate than its two immediate predecessors.

While fossil fuel industry groups celebrated Biden's decision to comply with the district court's order to restart the federal oil and gas leasing program, environmental groups criticized the administration for being excessively deferential and argued that the Interior Department still has the authority to limit the provision of new leases.

"The Biden administration doesn't necessarily have to keep incessantly offering land for sale to polluters without pauses or changing up the oil and gas leasing program," journalist Molly Taft wrote on Wednesday.

Earthjustice attorney Brettny Hardy told Taft that the federal judge's injunction "didn't say the Interior Department needed to start leasing again. What it said was you can't implement the pause Biden called for in his executive order."

"It didn't eliminate any of the Interior Department's regular discretion over whether it should lease, and how much to lease," said Hardy. "There's a number of federal laws that regulate that process and give Interior the power to cancel a lease sale if it determines that's necessary. There's a lot of discretion in the law."

According to Taft:


Hardy said there are a number of different, perfectly legal options the agency could exercise to put off the lease sales this year, which were initially scheduled by the Trump administration. "It sounds like they're going beyond what the court is requiring," Hardy said of the documents the administration filed Tuesday. She added she didn't have any direct insight as to why they were acting this way, but said a colleague suggested that "disinformation and politics is driving their decision."

Weissman, for his part, stressed that "while the administration's appeal is pending, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland should use her discretion under the law to authorize the least amount of leasing required to comply with the court's order."
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Planned Expansion of Facial Recognition by US Agencies Called 'Disturbing'

"Face surveillance is so invasive of privacy, so discriminatory against people of color, and so likely to trigger false arrests, that the government should not be using face surveillance at all," said one privacy advocate.


A live demonstration uses artificial intelligence and facial recognition at the Las Vegas Convention Center during CES 2019 in Las Vegas on January 10, 2019.

 (Photo: David McNew/AFP/Getty Images)


JULIA CONLEY

COMMON DREAMS

August 26, 2021


Digital rights advocates reacted harshly Thursday to a new internal U.S. government report detailing how ten federal agencies have plans to greatly expand their reliance on facial recognition in the years ahead.

The Government Accountability Office surveyed federal agencies and found ten have specific plans to increase their use of the technology by 2023—surveilling people for numerous reasons including to identify criminal suspects, track government employees' level of alertness, and match faces of people on government property with names on watch lists.

The report (pdf) was released as lawmakers face pressure to pass legislation to limit the use of facial recognition technology by the government and law enforcement agencies.

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rand Paul (D-Ky.) introduced the Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act in April to prevent agencies from using "illegitimately obtained" biometric data, such as photos from the software company Clearview AI. The company has scraped billions of photos from social media platforms without approval and is currently used by hundreds of police departments across the United States.

The bill has not received a vote in either chamber of Congress yet.

The plans described in the GAO report, tweeted law professor Andrew Ferguson, author of "The Rise of Big Data Policing," are "what happens when Congress fails to act."

 

Six agencies including the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS), Justice (DOJ), Defense (DOD), Health and Human Services (HHS), Interior, and Treasury plan to expand their use of facial recognition technology to "generate leads in criminal investigations, such as identifying a person of interest, by comparing their image against mugshots," the GAO reported.

DHS, DOJ, HHS, and the Interior all reported using Clearview AI to compare images with "publicly available images" from social media.

The DOJ, DOD, HHS, Department of Commerce, and Department of Energy said they plan to use the technology to maintain what the report calls "physical security," by monitoring their facilities to determine if an individual on a government watchlist is present.

"For example, HHS reported that it used [a facial recognition technology] system (AnyVision) to monitor its facilities by searching live camera feeds in real-time for individuals on watchlists or suspected of criminal activity, which reduces the need for security guards to memorize these individuals' faces," the report reads. "This system automatically alerts personnel when an individual on a watchlist is present."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation said the government's expanded use of the technology for law enforcement purposes is one of the "most disturbing" aspects of the GAO report.

"Face surveillance is so invasive of privacy, so discriminatory against people of color, and so likely to trigger false arrests, that the government should not be using face surveillance at all," the organization told MIT Technology Review.

According to the Washington Post, three lawsuits have been filed in the last year by people who say they were wrongly accused of crimes after being mistakenly identified by law enforcement agencies using facial recognition technology. All three of the plaintiffs are Black men.

A federal study in 2019 showed that Asian and Black people were up to 100 times more likely to be misidentified by the technology than white men. Native Americans had the highest false identification rate.

Maine, Virginia, and Massachusetts have banned or sharply curtailed the use of facial recognition systems by government entities, and cities across the country including San Francisco, Portland, and New Orleans have passed strong ordinances blocking their use.

But many of the federal government's planned uses for the technology, Jake Laperruque of the Project on Government Oversight told the Post, "present a really big surveillance threat that only Congress can solve."

In First for Australia, Court Orders Government Agency to Take Climate Action

One nonprofit said the decision in a case brought by bushfire survivors "should send a chill through the state's most polluting industries, including the electricity and commercial transport sectors."

Residents look on as flames burn through bush on January 4, 2020 in Lake Tabourie, Australia. (Photo: Brett Hemmings/Getty Images)

JESSICA CORBETT

COMMON DREAMS

August 26, 2021

In a case brought by bushfire survivors against an Australian state's environmental regulator, a court found Thursday that the government agency must take action to address the climate emergency—a first-of-its kind and potentially precedent-setting ruling for the fire-ravaged nation.

"This is a great day for environmental justice."
—Chris Gambian, Nature Conservation Council

"It's a really big win," said Elaine Johnson, director of legal strategy at the Environmental Defenders Office (EDO), which represented Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action (BSCA). "It means [the New South Wales agency] has to do something to ensure there is protection against climate change."

"The next 10 years are really critical," Johnson told The Sydney Morning Herald, which noted that the ruling comes in the wake of a major United Nations climate report about what the future could hold without a global course correction. "We need rapid and deep emissions cuts."

Though the government of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has long faced pressure to take bolder climate action and a federal court in the country found in May that Environment Minister Sussan Ley has a duty to protect children and the environment from the climate emergency, Johnson said Thursday's decision was the first in Australia to find that a government agency is required to address the global crisis.

"It's breaking new ground," she told the newspaper, adding that other Australian states could soon face similar legal challenges.

The landmark ruling in favor of survivors of the 2019-20 bushfires and earlier seasons came from Brian Preston, chief judge of the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales (NSW).

Preston ordered the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) "to develop environmental quality objectives, guidelines, and policies to ensure environment protection from climate change" in the Australian state.

Though Preston found that the EPA has not fulfilled its legal duty to ensure such protection, he said the agency "has a discretion as to the specific content of the instruments it develops" and his order "does not demand that such instruments contain the level of specificity contended for by BSCA, such as regulating sources of greenhouse gas emissions in a way consistent with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels."




The EPA had argued that it has already "developed numerous instruments to ensure environment protection in many ways, some of which incidentally regulate greenhouse gas emissions, such as methane from landfill," according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

In a statement, the agency—which has 28 days to appeal—said it was reviewing the decision.

"The EPA is an active government partner on climate change policy, regulation, and innovation," the agency statement said. "It is a part of the whole-of-government approach to climate change embodied by the NSW Climate Change Policy Framework and Net Zero Plan."

The statement also highlighted the EPA's involvement in "work that assists with and also directly contributes to" adaptation and mitigation measures, its support for industry "to make better choices," and its recently released "Strategic Plan and Regulatory Strategy."




Despite the judge's decision to limit the specificity of his order for the agency to act, his ruling was still welcomed by survivors, their legal representation, and climate campaigners around the world.

"This is a significant win for everyone who has been affected by bushfires," said BSCA president Jo Dodds, explaining that survivors have worked to rebuild their lives, homes, and communities that were devastated in recent years.

"This ruling means they can do so with confidence that the EPA must now also work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state," she continued. "Global warming is creating the conditions that can lead to hotter and fiercer fires, and all of us need to work to make sure we're doing everything we can to prevent a disaster like we saw during 2019 and 2020."

As Johnson put it: "The EPA has discretion as to what they do but they have to do something and it has to be meaningful."

"Greenhouse gases are the most dangerous form of pollution," she told The Guardian. "An obvious response to this order would be to control greenhouse gases in the same way they do other pollutants in the environment."





The nonprofit Nature Conservation Council said the court's decision "should send a chill through the state's most polluting industries, including the electricity and commercial transport sectors."

"Most people will be astonished to learn the EPA has until now not regulated greenhouse gases," said the council's chief executive, Chris Gambian. "But that will now have to change."

"This is a great day for environmental justice," he declared, crediting BSCA "for having the courage to launch this case" and EDO for their convincing arguments.

Calling human-caused climate change "the most significant challenge our society has ever faced," Gambian asserted that "allowing politicians to set greenhouse gas emission targets and controls rather than scientific experts has led us to the precipice."

"These decisions are far too important to left to the politicians. These are issues of science and should not be hijacked by the political process," he added. "We hope that today's decision results in the effective regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and gets the state on track to net zero well before 2050."

Biden's Latest Loan Forgiveness Sparks Fresh Calls to Cancel All Student Debt

"Millions of borrowers are still waiting for President Biden to make good on his promise to provide widespread student loan cancellation, and the time to act is now."

The Biden administration is under pressure from lawmakers and borrowers to provide broader student loan debt relief. (Photo: Joe Brusky/Flickr/cc)

JESSICA CORBETT

COMMON DFREAMS

August 26, 2021

Borrowers and their allies renewed calls for the Biden administration to wipe out all federal student debt on Thursday after the U.S. Department of Education announced $1.1 billion in loan forgiveness for 115,000 people who left the now-defunct ITT Technical Institute chain before graduating.

Alexis Goldstein, Open Markets Institute's director of financial policy, called the development "a great step," tweeting that "it's a relief that many scammed former students of ITT Tech will be getting long overdue relief."

"Broad-based student debt cancellation is still needed. And doing so while payments are paused is the right time to do it," added Goldstein, referencing that federal student loan payments are paused through the end of January 2022 due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Melissa Byrne, a Philadelphia-based progressive political strategist, also responded to the news on Twitter, asking: "Is this like biking with training wheels? Take off the training wheels and #CancelStudentDebt—all of it."

"You can't nickel and dime justice," Byrne also said, warning of moves that leave most borrowers behind.



The Associated Press explained that while "students are usually eligible for loan forgiveness if they attended a college within 120 days of its closure and were unable to complete their degrees," in this case the Education Department is extending that window back to March 31, 2008, several years before ITT Tech closed in 2016.

The department estimates that 43% of the affected ITT Tech borrowers are currently in default.

"For years, ITT hid its true financial state from borrowers while luring many of them into taking out private loans with misleading and unaffordable terms that may have caused borrowers to leave school," U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement Thursday.

"Today's action continues the department's efforts to improve and use its targeted loan relief authorities to deliver meaningful help to student borrowers," he said. "At the same time, the continued cost of addressing the wrongdoing of ITT and other predatory institutions yet again highlights the need for stronger and faster accountability throughout the federal financial aid system."

The administration's latest move brings the total amount of loan cancellation approved since January—when President Joe Biden took office—to $9.5 billion, which has benefited more than 563,000 borrowers, according to the department.

Eileen Connor, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School, welcomed the "good news" but also said that "the exact reasoning used by the department in expanding this look back period also demonstrates why all ITT loans need to be canceled."

Noting that "one of ITT's notorious scam tactics" was talking students into "multiple degrees and a mountain debt," Connor pointed out that it has been five years since the chain shut down in the face of "overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing, yet the department still has not addressed the more than 700,000 borrowers with over $3 billion in fraudulent debt from ITT."




Connor's call for additional action from the Biden administration was echoed by Abby Shafroth, staff attorney with the National Consumer Law Center's Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project.

Shafroth said that though the new relief action "will make a tremendous difference in the lives of the many borrowers who withdrew from ITT once they realized that the school had sold them a bill of goods," it still "left out hundreds of thousands more ITT students who were subject to the same misconduct."

"The department should use its existing authority to cancel all federal student debt taken out to attend ITT," she added. "And the department should not stop there—ITT is hardly the only school that took advantage of the federal student loan system and ITT students are hardly the only borrowers who have suffered from a broken student loan system. Millions of borrowers are still waiting for President Biden to make good on his promise to provide widespread student loan cancellation, and the time to act is now."

Thursday's move came a week after the Biden administration canceled $5.8 billion in federal student debt held by over 300,000 people with severe disabilities—a decision that, as Common Dreams reported, also sparked calls for broader loan forgiveness.

The administration's piecemeal approach to the nation's student debt crisis has led some to ask, as Eric Levitz wrote last week for Intelligencer, "Has Biden abandoned wide-scale student-loan forgiveness?"

Acknowledging the Education Department's ongoing review of the president's authority on the matter, Levitz posited that "blanket loan forgiveness remains possible. But in all likelihood, the Biden presidency will yield only small-bore reforms that deliver relief to specific kinds of borrowers, while most will carry on bearing the burdens of America's inefficient, scam-ridden system of higher education."

Biden, who campaigned on canceling up to $10,000 in student loan debt, has resisted pressure from progressive lawmakers—led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.)—to make that figure $50,000.

The trio continues to push the president on the issue, with Warren tweeting Thursday morning that "after the 2008 financial crisis, young people were shoved into a weak job market and plunged even deeper into student debt. Many never recovered financially. We must do better this time and #CancelStudentDebt."

U.S. to forgive loans for 100,000 students who went to ITT Tech

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Move impacts anyone who attended an ITT school between 2008 and 2016 but didn't graduate

The Associated Press · Posted: Aug 26, 2021 

The headquarters of the parent company behind the now-defunct ITT Technical Institute are seen in Indianapolis, Ind., on May 21, 2012. Prior to its closure, ITT Tech lied about its financial health and misled students into taking on debt they couldn't repay, according to the U.S. Department of Education. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg)

The U.S. Department of Education announced Thursday it will forgive student debt for more than 100,000 borrowers who attended colleges in the now-defunct ITT Technical Institute chain but left before graduating.

In a rarely used move, the agency said it will erase federal loans for borrowers who left the for-profit colleges during an eight-year window before their 2016 closure. During that period, the department said, ITT Tech lied about its financial health and misled students into taking on debt they couldn't repay.

The action will offer $1.1 billion US in loan forgiveness to 115,000 borrowers who attended ITT Tech, which had 130 locations across 38 U.S. states, but did not operate in Canada.

About 43 per cent of those borrowers are in default on their student loans, the department said.

"For years, ITT hid its true financial state from borrowers while luring many of them into taking out private loans with misleading and unaffordable terms that may have caused borrowers to leave school," Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement.

• Everest College grads want loan forgiveness for 'worthless' diploma

Students are usually eligible for loan forgiveness if they attended a college within 120 days of its closure and were unable to complete their degrees. But for ITT Tech, the Education Department is extending the window back to March 31, 2008.

That date, the agency said, is when ITT Tech's executives disclosed a scheme to hide the truth about the company's finances after the loss of outside funding. It led ITT Tech to shift more costs to students, the department said, and it prevented the company from making investments to provide a quality education.

ITT Tech shut down in 2016 after being hit with a series of sanctions by the Obama administration.

Under the new action, eligible borrowers will automatically get their loans cleared if they did not attend another college within three years of the school's closure. Those who went to another college but did not earn degrees may be eligible but must apply for discharges, the agency said.

Borrower advocates have been urging the Biden administration to broaden loan relief for students who attended shuttered for-profit colleges. The nonprofit Student Defense applauded the department's move and said the same should be done for students who attended other for-profit chains.

"There are countless others who attended other predatory institutions who are still waiting. We hope the Department will continue to implement our recommendations to make things right for all of them, too," Alex Elson, vice president of Student Defense, said in a statement.

It is the latest in a series of loan discharges targeting specific groups of students. In June, the Biden administration erased more than $500 million in student debt for borrowers who were defrauded by ITT Tech. That decision centred on claims that the company made exaggerating its graduates' success in finding jobs.

Earlier this month, Cardona announced he would automatically forgive student loans for 300,000 Americans with severe disabilities that leave them unable to earn significant incomes.

• Everest College students get $7.6M from Ontario government in fund

• 'Corinthian 100' refuse to pay back student loans at U.S. Everest College owner

But the Biden administration also faces growing pressure to pursue wider student debt forgiveness. Some Democrats in Congress are calling for the White House to use executive action to erase $50,000 for all student loan borrowers.

Biden has suggested such action needs to come from Congress, but he has asked the Education and Justice departments to study the topic. Earlier this month, Cardona said that study is still underway.

The Education Department has the authority to extend the window for loan forgiveness in cases of school closures, but the power has not often been used. After the closure of the Corinthian Colleges for-profit chain in 2015, the Obama administration widened the window back to June 20, 2014.

• Everest College closure no surprise to some who call it a scam

Biden has approved $9.5 billion in student loan cancellations this year for defrauded and disabled students


By Katie Lobosco, CNN
 Thu August 26, 2021


Washington (CNN)The Department of Education said Thursday that it will cancel $1.1 billion in student loan debt for some students who attended the now-defunct for-profit ITT Technical Institute -- bringing the total amount of loan discharges approved under President Joe Biden to $9.5 billion.

The majority of that debt is held by permanently disabled borrowers who have long been eligible for loan forgiveness but who have not applied. The Department of Education is making the cancellation automatic by using federal data to identify borrowers who qualify. The change will impact 320,000 borrowers, eliminating $5.8 billion in debt starting in September.

Much of the other debt relief will benefit victims of for-profit college fraud, many of whom have been waiting years for the Department of Education to process their forgiveness claims. The most recent action will automatically cancel the debt borrowed by 115,000 students who left ITT Tech without completing their program after March 2008.

About 43% of those borrowers are currently in default on their loans, the Department of Education said. The move was made after a new review of the problems at ITT Tech found that these borrowers attended the school during a period of time when the school misled students into taking out private loans that were allegedly portrayed as grant aid and engaged in widespread misrepresentations about the state of the institution's financial health.

A backlog of defrauded students await relief

"Today's action continues the Department's efforts to improve and use its targeted loan relief authorities to deliver meaningful help to student borrowers," said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona in a statement.

"At the same time, the continued cost of addressing the wrongdoing of ITT and other predatory institutions yet again highlights the need for stronger and faster accountability throughout the federal financial aid system," he added.

Biden extends student loan payment pause to January 31

The Biden administration already approved about $1.5 billion in student debt

 cancellation earlier this year for other former for-profit college students. Under law, borrowers who were defrauded by their college can apply for debt relief. The forgiveness process was simplified during the Obama administration when big for-profit colleges like Corinthian and ITT Tech shuttered.

But the Trump administration allowed for a backlog of more than 100,000 forgiveness claims. Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made it clear that she thought the rule was "bad policy" that puts taxpayers on the hook for the cost of the debt relief without the right safeguards in place and made changes to limit its reach.

There are many borrowers who are eligible for debt relief that could still be waiting, according to Student Defense, a nonprofit group that advocates for students' rights and has been calling on the Department of Education to speed up the process.

"Thanks to Secretary Cardona and President Biden, thousands of former ITT students will finally get the relief they've been owed for far too long. At the same time, there are countless others who attended other predatory institutions who are still waiting," said Student Defense Vice President Alex Elson in a statement.

Democrats push for broader debt cancellation

Key Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, are pressuring Biden to go further and broadly cancel up to $50,000 of student loan debt per borrower.

It would be an unprecedented move, but a memo from lawyers at Harvard's Legal Services Center and its Project on Predatory Student Lending says the Department of Education has the power to do so.

Biden, who said during the presidential campaign that he would support canceling $10,000 per borrower, has repeatedly resisted the pressure since taking office, arguing that the government shouldn't forgive debt for people who went to "Harvard and Yale and Penn." As of now, he has directed Cardona to write a memo on the executive branch's legal authorities to cancel debt.

Biden recently extended the pandemic-related pause on federal student loan payments another four months until January 31.

Borrower balances have effectively been frozen for more than a year, with no payments required on federal loans since March 2020. During this time, interest has stopped adding up -- saving the average borrower about $2,000 over the first year -- and collections on defaulted debt have been on hold.

The relief is even more significant for those who work in the public sector and may be eligible for loan forgiveness after 10 years. They are still receiving credit toward those 10 years of required payments as if they had continued to make them during the pandemic, as long as they are still working full time for qualifying employers.

Ilhan Omar to Joe Biden: Pardon Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale

The Minnesota Democrat argued that the information Hale leaked "has shone a vital light on the legal and moral problems of the drone program."

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) speaks during a press conference in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota on April 20, 2021. (Photo: Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images)

JAKE JOHNSON

COMMON DREAMS

August 26, 2021


Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota sent a letter Thursday calling on President Joe Biden to grant a full pardon to former Air Force intelligence analyst Daniel Hale, who was sentenced to nearly four years in prison last month for leaking classified documents that helped expose the horrors inflicted by the U.S. drone assassination program.

"I believe that the decision to prosecute Mr. Hale was motivated, at least in part, as a threat to other would-be whistleblowers."
—Rep. Ilhan Omar

Omar argued that "there are several aspects of Mr. Hale's case that marit a full pardon," including the fact that the trove of documents he leaked to a journalist—widely believed to be The Intercept's Jeremy Scahill—"has shone a vital light on the legal and moral problems of the drone program and informed the public debate on an issue that has for too many years remained in the shadows."

Among the many revelations from Hale's document leak were the details of one drone-strike operation in Afghanistan, a nation from which the U.S. is currently withdrawing troops after two decades of disastrous war and occupation. According to the documents, nearly 90% of the people killed during one five-month period of the operation were not the intended targets.

During a court appearance last month, Hale said the document leak "was necessary to dispel the lie that drone warfare keeps us safe, that our lives are worth more than theirs." In March, Hale pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act, which has long been used by both Democratic and Republican administrations to target journalists and whistleblowers.

In her letter to Biden on Thursday, Omar noted that Hale "took full responsibility for his actions" and that "his motivation, as outlined in his deeply moving letter to the judge in his case, was profoundly moral."

Omar was referring to an 11-page handwritten letter Hale sent to the judge presiding over his case shortly before he was sentenced to 45 months in prison.

"How could it be considered honorable of me to continuously have laid in wait for the next opportunity to kill unsuspecting persons, who, more often than not, are posing no danger to me or any other person at the time?" Hale wrote. "How could it be that any thinking person continued to believe that it was necessary for the protection of the United States of America to be in Afghanistan and killing people, not one of whom present was responsible for the September 11th attacks on our nation?"

Omar's call for a presidential pardon for Hale comes just over a month after the Biden administration launched its first drone strike in Somalia, the Minnesota Democrat's home country.

"Although the investigation of Mr. Hale's leaks began under the Obama administration, the Obama Department of Justice declined to prosecute him," Omar wrote. "It wasn't until 2019, under President [Donald] Trump, that he was indicted."

"We are all well aware of the severe consequences of the Trump administration's chilling crackdown on whistleblowers and other public servants who they deemed insufficiently loyal," she continued. "I believe that the decision to prosecute Mr. Hale was motivated, at least in part, as a threat to other would-be whistleblowers."

"I strongly believe that a full pardon, or at least a commutation of his sentence, is warranted," Omar added. "It is for precisely these cases, where the letter of the law does not capture the complex human judgments in difficult situations, that your pardon authority is at its most useful."

Read the full letter:


Dear President Biden:

I am writing to strongly encourage you to use your authority to pardon Daniel Everette Hale, who was sentenced to 45 months in prison on July 27, 2021, after pleading guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act.

Mr. Hale served as an intelligence analyst in the Air Force, and after his service, became one of the most outspoken critics of the drone program in which he had participated. In doing so, he joined a proud American tradition of veterans advocating for peace after their service was complete.

I take extremely seriously the prohibition on leaking classified information, but I believe there are several aspects of Mr. Hale’s case that merit a full pardon.

Although the investigation of Mr. Hale's leaks began under the Obama administration, the Obama Department of Justice declined to prosecute him. It wasn't until 2019, under President Trump, that he was indicted. We are all well aware of the severe consequences of the Trump administration's chilling crackdown on whistleblowers and other public servants who they deemed insufficiently loyal. I believe that the decision to prosecute Mr. Hale was motivated, at least in part, as a threat to other would-be whistleblowers.

Mr. Hale's release of information related to the drone program did not put any individual in danger. The information, while politically embarrassing to some, has shone a vital light on the legal and moral problems of the drone program and informed the public debate on an issue that has for too many years remained in the shadows. This information also provided concrete benefit to the legal efforts of Americans seeking to protect their Constitutional rights against secretive and arbitrary watchlisting practices.

Finally, Mr. Hale pled guilty and took full responsibility for his actions. His motivation, as outlined in his deeply moving letter to the judge in his case, was profoundly moral. As you frequently say, the United States should lead not just by the example of our power but by the power of our example. I implore you to read Mr. Hale's letter to the judge in full, and I believe you will agree that he was motivated by the same thing. Acknowledging where we've gone wrong, and telling the truth about our shortcomings, is not only the right thing to do, but also an act of profound patriotism.

The legal question of Mr. Hale's guilt is settled, but the moral question remains open. I strongly believe that a full pardon, or at least a commutation of his sentence, is warranted. It is for precisely these cases, where the letter of the law does not capture the complex human judgments in difficult situations, that your pardon authority is at its most useful.

I thank you for your consideration of this important matter, and I stand ready to continue the conversation. I look forward to your prompt response.
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'We're Staying': Line 3 Opponents Camp at Minnesota Capitol to Protest Oil Pipeline

"The cops are gathered here by the hundred and the governor's brand new fence glimmers in the background, but our spirit is resolved."


Demonstrators protest the Line 3 pipeline on the grounds of the Minnesota capitol building on August 25, 2021. (Photo: RootsAction)

JAKE JOHNSON

COMMON DREAMS

August 26, 2021


With Enbridge on the verge of completing its multibillion-dollar Line 3 pipeline, thousands of Indigenous leaders and environmentalists brought their protests against the sprawling tar sands project to the grounds of the Minnesota state capitol building on Wednesday to demand that lawmakers intervene before the dirty oil starts flowing.

Roughly 2,000 demonstrators—including Indigenous leaders who marched over 250 miles along the pipeline's route—rallied at the capitol Wednesday afternoon and hundreds stayed through the night as Minnesota police officers guarded the building's perimeter, which was surrounded by a chain-link fence installed in anticipation of the protest.

"The cops are gathered here by the hundred and the governor's brand new fence glimmers in the background, but our spirit is resolved," the Resist Line 3 Media Collective tweeted as pipeline opponents prepared to camp on the lawn of the capitol building. "We're staying."

Part of a "Treaties Not Tar Sands" week of action against Line 3, Wednesday's demonstration came after the Minnesota Supreme Court let stand state regulators' decision to greenlight construction of the massive oil project, leaving the movement with dwindling legal options. If completed, the pipeline will have the capacity to carry around 750,000 barrels of tar sands oil each day from Alberta, Canada to Wisconsin, traversing hundreds of bodies of water and wetlands along the way.

With the pipeline on track to be operational as soon as next month, water protectors are vowing to ramp up their opposition. To date, around 900 people have been arrested for engaging in civil disobedience at anti-Line 3 protests, which have frequently been met with violent police crackdowns.

"We're here in ceremony. We’re here to assert our treaty rights and our right to exist and our right to clean water," Nancy Beaulieu, a founder of the Resilient Indigenous Sisters Engaging Coalition, said during the rally Wednesday. "Line 3 violates our treaty and all the treaties along the Mississippi because the water flows. This is a people's problem, this is not just a Native issue here."

The U.S. portion of the near-complete Line 3 project involves the replacement of more than 300 miles of existing pipeline, which is part of a system that extends 1,097 miles.

First approved during the Trump administration, the pipeline has won the backing of the Biden Justice Department, which filed a legal brief defending the project in June—outraging environmental leaders who said the move ran counter to the Biden administration's promise to treat the climate crisis as an existential emergency.

Tim Walz, Minnesota's Democratic governor, has also voiced support for completion of the Line 3 project, despite warnings that it poses a threat to tribal lands and waters as well as the climate, with its contribution to the nation's planet-warming carbon emissions. One estimate suggests the Line 3 expansion project could have the equivalent climate impact of 50 new coal-fired power plants.

"There has already been much suffering, and it's only gonna get worse," Sam Strong, secretary of the Red Lake Nation, warned the crowd gathered at Minnesota's capitol building. "But we do have an opportunity to make a difference, we do have an opportunity to show the world a better way to live."

Winona LaDuke, executive director of the Indigenous-led environmental group Honor the Earth, told the Associated Press that Minnesota police "have arrested 800, almost 900 people all for a Canadian corporation to make a buck in the middle of climate chaos."

"It's poor policy and it's worse practice," said LaDuke, "and we're here to ask the governor why he continues with such egregious policies and how we're going to change that."

In a tweet late Wednesday, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) expressed solidarity with the Line 3 opponents "protesting for a livable planet, and for our future in Minnesota."

Last week, Omar joined Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and dozens of other members of Congress in calling on the Biden administration to immediately suspend the federal Clean Water Act permit allowing the construction of Line 3 and "undertake a thorough review" of its predecessor's permitting process.

"This pipeline's dangerous effects on the environment, surrounding communities, and Tribal groups will be irreversible," said Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. "The Biden administration must immediately suspend Line 3's Clean Water Act permit and conduct a full environmental impact statement."
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