CANADA
Three senators face criticism over trip to Israel, meeting with right-wing politician

Fri, March 3, 2023 



OTTAWA — Three Canadian senators are facing criticism after visiting Israel and inviting a right-wing politician to Canada.

Senate Speaker George Furey joined Conservative Senate Leader Don Plett and unaffiliated Sen. Patti LaBoucane-Benson on a trip to Israel this week.

They met with local officials including Amir Ohana, the speaker of the Israeli parliament, which announced the senators had invited him to visit Canada.

Ohana has previously caused controversy by claiming in media interviews that Muslims are prone to "cultural murderousness." As former public safety minister, he modified Israel's COVID-19 vaccination priority list to exclude prisoners who are Palestinian.

The advocacy group Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East criticized the senators for posting about the trip without mentioning human-rights concerns and the Israeli government's shift toward right-wing policies.

This year, Ottawa issued two statements raising concerns about Israel undertaking "punitive measures" such as banning the Palestinian flag, the building of illegal settlements and a divisive judicial reform.

The advocacy group wantsthe senators to retract Ohana's invitation and "suspend all partnerships with Israel’s government" until it abides by international law.

LaBoucane-Benson said the trio was unable to meet with Palestinian officials but said she had called for an immediate de-escalation of recent violence and work toward long-term peace.

"We worked with consular officials in an effort to hear diverse perspectives while managing logistical and security considerations," she wrote in an email.

"We met with current and former Israeli legislators from different parties. Unfortunately, a Palestinian politician was unable to attend a planned meeting."

LaBoucane-Benson noted "alarming incidents of violence" in the West Bank in recent weeks, including during their visit, against both Palestinians and Israelis.

"Those responsible for these egregious acts — on both sides — must be held accountable, and those whose comments incite further violence must be denounced and condemned," she wrote.

Furey and Plett's office did not respond to requests for comment.

Shimon Fogel, head of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said the Justice and Peace advocacy group's characterization of Ohana and the demand to suspend diplomatic relations amounts to "ridiculous attempts at headlines" after 75 years of productive relations.

"Particular governments come and go, but the core values shared by our two democracies are deeply entrenched and have stood the test of time," he wrote.

"When differences arise, as they have any number of times over the years, both Canada and Israel have articulated their positions and expressed concerns in a constructive way."

He said Canada has been making the right approach in advocating for a two-state solution, "including to not single out Israel" in its public statements.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 3, 2023.

Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press

NOW COMES TOXIC CLEAN UP
Touquoy gold mine to cease production earlier than expected

Fri, March 3, 2023

The open pit of the Touquoy gold mine is seen amid the surrounding forests in Moose River, N.S. (Steve Lawrence/CBC - image credit)

The Touquoy gold mine in Moose River, N.S., is now expected to wrap up mining in early 2024 instead of at the end of that year.

The Australia-based owner, St Barbara, has finished mining gold from the open pit and is now processing stockpiles of ore, which are lower grade and less profitable.

The company expected to complete the stockpile processing by the end of 2024 and then place the mine in care and maintenance mode. That means monitoring and water treatment would continue, but other operations would cease.

But that schedule has been bumped up due to the company's difficulty getting approval for changes it wants to make at the site.

Atlantic Gold, a subsidiary of St Barbara that runs the Touquoy mine, is running out of room in its tailings management facility, the location where leftover materials are placed after they've been processed.

Steve Lawrence/CBC

The company asked the province in 2021 for permission to place its tailings in the open pit once gold there was exhausted, but Environment Minister Tim Halman said at the time he didn't have enough information to make a decision, and requested that more studies be undertaken.

The company proceeded with those studies and submitted more information in 2022, but Halman once again responded with a request for more information.

After receiving even more information, Halman earlier this week sent a third request for more studies on the impacts of the in-pit tailings proposal, giving the company one year to submit the additional information.

In a statement on the company's website Thursday, St Barbara blamed that decision for its early move to care and maintenance.

The statement said compiling all the information Halman has asked for will take more time than is available before the existing tailings pond runs out of room.

In a statement Friday, a spokesperson for St Barbara said the company is disappointed in the province's decision, and while it plans to continue working to reach a resolution, "we must assess the impacts of this response on business continuity in the province."

Future plans for Touquoy

An environmental group has raised concerns about the mine being placed in care and maintenance, citing worries that it could remain that way indefinitely and delay reclamation of the mine site.

But St Barbara has other plans for the Touquoy open pit.

The company has proposed three other gold mines in Nova Scotia, and is now focusing on its Fifteen Mile Stream project, which would see four open pits developed in the Liscomb Game Sanctuary, about 95 kilometres northeast of Halifax.

St Barbara wants to use the Touquoy facilities for processing gold and its open pit for storing tailings from Fifteen Mile Stream. The company has until August 2025 to finish the environmental studies on the Fifteen Mile Stream proposal.

Climate change, invasive species and the Great Lakes

Fri, March 3, 2023

From February 7 to 9, more than 900 attendees participated in the virtual 2023 Invasive Species Forum, which focused this year on invasive species action in a changing climate. Keynote presenter Dr. Gail Krantzberg, a professor at McMaster University’s Walter G. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology spoke about the link between climate change and invasive species in a Great Lakes context, calling for “a new era of science, of predictive science that will help us understand threats to the region and enhance the resilience of the Great Lakes.”

There is much uncertainty about invasive species and changing climate. What is known is that we’re going to see more frequent extreme weather: an increased severity of storms, more floods and prolonged periods of drought. There will be extremes in lake levels, both highs and lows. “That’s the point,” Dr. Krantzberg said. “It’s extremes. When we get extreme drops, we lose habitat and wetland habitat and create more stress on native biodiversity.”

These changes could result in the loss of nearshore zones throughout the Great Lakes, leading to displacement or disappearance of coastal wetland species and the potential increase of alien species coming in because of thermal shifts: where the water was once too cold and the winters too brutal, it’s now possible for them to survive. We will see a shift towards warm water species, including alien invasive species, and they are very damaging.

A 2000 report from the American Institute of Biological Sciences noted damages from non-indigenous plants, fish, molluscs, insects and terrestrial plants (in the United States alone) were over $2.5 billion a year. That cost has likely risen.

“That doesn’t even account for the true costs of species extinctions,” said Dr. Krantzberg. “How do you put a value on the loss of biodiversity or aesthetic damages?”

Take zebra mussels, for example. Municipalities spend millions every year ensuring that infrastructure pipes don’t become clogged with them and destroy the water infrastructure. What’s not as generally known is the damage zebra mussels cause to native species. “Zebra mussels like to go where the water is moving and so they smother our native species,” Dr. Krantzberg said.

Zebra mussels were first introduced into the Great Lakes through ballast tank releases from ocean-going ships originating in the Black Sea. “Now zebra and quagga mussels are everywhere, causing these massive damages to the system,” said Dr. Krantzberg. They don’t much like cold water, so Lake Superior and the depths of Huron and Michigan might see little impact; however, their quagga mussel cousins very much like when it’s cold.

Emerging invasive species threats include the spotted lanternfly, the jumping worm and the kudzu vine. The spotted lanternfly could potentially destroy the fruit and grape crop in the Niagara region, and has been detected across the border in Niagara Falls, New York. The jumping worm is already in Ontario. Native to East-Central Asia, jumping worms like to feast on mulch and topsoil, causing erosion and killing plants. They cause a lot of environmental damage where they are established. Kudzu, a fast growing vine native to southern United States, has been found in Leamington, Ontario.

The history of invasive species in North America dates back to the turn of the twentieth century, when plants were brought across the ocean as horticultural ornamentals. Purple loosestrife is a perfect example, noted Dr. Krantzberg. “It’s a pretty Eurasian plant but also can destroy wetlands. As time moves on, we’re seeing more crustaceans, some fishes and some microbial invaders as well. The non-indigenous aquatic species are very diverse, so you can imagine the impacts on the system are equally diverse.”

Over time, species range and advancement is limited by climate, the severity of the winters, the coldness of the waters, or the habitat of the forest. When the climate becomes favourable, the species is able to find it, reproduce and then rapidly grow. “They can grow exponentially, which means if we don’t catch them before they come and keep our eyes out for them, the cost of control is enormous,” she said. “There’s a lot of science that we need to understand: where these species are around the globe, how they might be able to get to the Great Lakes, and which ones might be able to get to the Great Lakes. We need to be united in our science because early warning systems can reduce the risk of invaders.”

Billions of dollars have been spent on restoration efforts in the United States through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. The Canadian and Ontario governments have also focused their efforts on restoration and remediation. No such money has been invested for over 20 years in revitalizing, modernizing Great Lakes science, she pointed out.

Dr. Krantzberg is also Canadian Co-chair of the International Joint Commission Great Lakes Science Advisory Board – Science Priority Committee. As part of her role in that position, she has helped lead the work group for the Great Lakes Science Strategy for the Next Decade project.

“We really need to understand better how climate change is affecting the Great Lakes and will for the next 20 to 50 years,” she said. “We need big science and big data in order to do that.”

There are new pressures affecting the ecosystem, the economy and social cohesion of the region, she added. Communities, cities, conservation authorities and others are looking for solutions to adapt and respond to new pressures, including pressures that are not yet seen. “A science plan could collect the information needed to forecast change, to forecast which species in which part of the world would find it favourable to come into the Great Lakes, as well as how we might stop them from coming here.”

There’s a winter component to the science need: What happens in the lakes during the winter months? What happens under the ice, and what happens where there’s no ice? There are also questions about the food web, about invasive species and changes in chemical and nutrient cycling in the Great Lakes.

That’s not all. “We need to deal with equity, diversity and inclusion in Canada. How do we think about our underserved groups like our important Indigenous tribes and First Nations that don’t even have safe drinking water?” she asked.

Dr. Krantzberg wants to see people, governments and groups coming together in genuine collaboration, rather than working in silos. Centres of Excellence should be established to advance interdisciplinary science, support management and policy development, and address economic decision making.

“We could have a Centre of Excellence for traditional ecological knowledge and build on thousands of years of Indigenous observations on the Great Lakes to tell us what’s changing, fine-tune what’s changing,” she suggested. “They could tell us how to integrate traditional ecological knowledge with western science, if it can be done. There’s lots of opportunities for these centres of excellence to happen and to engage new researchers, get youth to populate the Great Lakes research agenda and be the next generation of change agents.”

The decisions of today can slow the spread of invasives, improve the climate, reduce greenhouse gases and adapt to a changing climate more proactively.

“I’ll be very frank here,” said Dr. Krantzberg. “If we fail in all of this, the planet will survive. Biodiversity will be completely different. It will not support humanity the way we know it, but the planet will survive. There’s no Planet B for humanity.”

She warns that successfully adapting to a changing climate doesn’t mean there won’t be negative impacts, but those that do occur will be less severe. She’s a big fan of adaptation, such as improving the way water permeates through the ground. “Don’t pave over a greenbelt. Let it be there as a sponge so you don’t get as much flooding. Successful adaptation doesn’t mean there won’t be a flood, but it means it will be less severe.”

“Yes, we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Dr. Krantzberg concluded. “The co-benefit for invasive species is clear. But the climate has changed. We need to adjust to that, and we need to adjust to that right away because the climate’s not going to go back to what it was.”

Lori Thompson, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Manitoulin Expositor

Agreement on Yellowknife picketing rules nowhere in sight as strike rolls on

Fri, March 3, 2023 

Strike signs stands near the entrance to a city-managed construction site in Yellowknife. Lawyers for the city and the union will once again return to court to argue the merits of a court-ordered injunction against picket line activity. (Walter Strong/CBC - image credit)

The City of Yellowknife and the Public Service Alliance of Canada are still battling over a court order that sets limits on how long striking workers can stop vehicles at picket lines.

On Friday Supreme Court Justice Andrew Mahar decided to adjourn court until next week so the union and the city have time to file new affidavits and prepare for witness cross-examinations. At issue is whether any cars have been stopped for longer than four minutes since the two sides decided on a picketing protocol on Feb. 22.

The city and the union have been contesting the validity and details of an injunction granted on Feb. 14, and later amended. The union says that since they and the city agreed on a picketing protocol on Feb. 22, there have been no issues with picketers detaining vehicles for too long.

The city and the union were in court all day Thursday to present arguments for and against the injunction. Christopher Lane, the lawyer representing the city, said that a court order is needed to prevent unduly long vehicle stoppages at the city's solid waste management plant and at the construction site for the new pool.

But Michael Fisher, the lawyer representing the union, says the agreement reached on Feb. 22 is working, so there's no reason for a court-ordered injunction. On Friday he said that the current court order creates a "chilling effect" on picketing efforts, and leaves union members scared that they might be charged with contempt of court over small issues.

The city initially asked for a court order to further restrict vehicle stoppages by picketers, and the union initially asked that the city's application for an injunction should be thrown out altogether because of alleged overreach in the City of Yellowknife's original ex parte injunction application.

An ex parte application is one where not all affected parties are present for the application. Under Canadian law, a judge may grant an interim injunction ex parte under certain conditions.

However, Judge Mahar made it clear Friday that he was not receptive to these arguments against the injunction.

"My position is that the agreement that was reached last week should be maintained. The only issue left for me is whether the understanding should be a court order or an agreement," he said.

An illegal stop, or a friendly chat?

In court Friday, the lawyers discussed new affidavits related to factual claims supporting the injunction.

The city filed a new affidavit Thursday from a woman who says her car was stopped for more than four minutes. But the union's lawyer said he was filing an affidavit from the picketer involved, which says the picketer and the woman were having a friendly chat, and that the woman could have indicated a desire to continue forward at any time.

The city and the union both confirmed that they want to cross examine each other's witnesses when the hearing over the injunction reconvenes.

Justice Mahar tried to schedule further proceedings for next Thursday, but the city's lawyer said he would be in transit to Palm Springs at the time and so unavailable.

The judge will meet with the lawyers Friday afternoon to work out a schedule.

About 205 unionized city workers have been on strike since Feb. 8. The impasse is largely over wages.

University of Saskatchewan launches website aimed at rooting out Indigenous identity fraud

Fri, March 3, 2023

The University of Saskatchewan has launched a website aimed at verifying membership or citizenship in Indigenous communities. (Indigenous.usask.ca - image credit)

The University of Saskatchewan has launched a website it hopes will help ensure that only genuine Indigenous people will benefit from jobs and funding set aside for them.

The site is a portal, enabling First Nations, Métis, Inuit and international Indigenous peoples applying for Indigenous-specific jobs, scholarships or funding to upload proof they belong to an Indigenous community.

It also provides a verification process for those without documentation.

The website is the latest step in a long process that began in late 2021, shortly after CBC published a story that showed high-profile Prof. Carrie Bourassa, who had claimed to be Métis, Anishnabe and Tlingit, was of entirely European ancestry. Following an internal investigation, Bourassa resigned from the U of S.

At that time, the university followed the honour system — self-identification — when it came to claims of Indigenous ancestry. If someone said they were Indigenous, the university accepted it without question.

Since that time, the university has publicly said the honour system is no longer acceptable. Angela Jaime, the university's interim VP of Indigenous engagement, says the new system represents a concrete change.

"We know that there are already individuals who may not be truthful about who they are and their connection to community who are employed across Canada in government, in private sector and in institutions of higher learning," she said. "So it makes no sense to allow them to continue to occupy Indigenous space if they are not themselves Indigenous."

Artsandscience.usask.ca

Jamie says while the site is run by the university, Indigenous communities are in the driver's seat when it comes to deciding what qualifies as proof of membership or citizenship.

She says the proof could be a status or citizenship card, though the community might be open to other forms of proof.

"It's the Indigenous governments and communities that determine what that documentation looks like, whether that be a physical piece of paper, a card or an oral history and who adjudicates that. It's those communities that decide that for us — not the university determining it," Jaime told CBC.

She says the new system will not only apply to future applications for jobs, scholarships and funding, but also to those already benefitting from such opportunities.

"Anyone who holds Indigenous space, Indigenous-specific roles or material advantage in any way will be required to go through the verification process," she said.

Between 100 and 150 university faculty and staff will be required to go through that process, she says, which will be done in stages over the next year. The process for existing students will take place at a later time.

Jaime says there will be an appeals process if the documentation is deemed insufficient. However, she says, the final decision will rest with the Indigenous community being claimed by the applicant.

"It's the sovereign inherent rights of Indigenous people to determine the way forward," she said, "not Western institutions like the University of Saskatchewan or any other university."

A single foreign worker blew the lid off a massive international trafficking ring north of Toronto, police say

Fri, March 3, 2023 

A farm north of Toronto where York Regional Police say foreign workers from Mexico worked in deplorable conditions. (York Regional Police - image credit)

It began with a tip from a single foreign worker.

Now, police north of Toronto say they have rescued 64 Mexican migrants exploited by an international labour trafficking ring and in living conditions so deplorable that officers themselves have been left shaken.

On Feb. 8, police acting on search warrants in East Gwillimbury, Vaughan, Toronto and Mississauga located dozens of workers who they say were lured to Canada with promises of a better future. Instead, they were given mattresses on the floor, housed with dozens in bug-infested rooms, faced threats and, in some cases, say police, sexual assault.

"These workers are coerced with promises of a better life, decent wages, quality housing and eventually documentation. These are almost always false promises," York Regional Police Deputy Chief Alvaro Almeida told reporters on Friday.

One foreign worker — not the one who blew the whistle — spoke to CBC News in the days following the raid, and described the squalid housing he and others were forced to pay for out of their wages.

The man, in his 20s, was a farm worker, but managed to leave before the police raid. CBC News has agreed to protect his identity because he fears deportation.

At 5 a.m. each morning, he said a bus would take the workers to a farm where they would pack vegetables. At the end of the week, he says he would be left just $50 in a cash envelope — after deductions for food and lodging.

At the Toronto duplex where he was housed, there were six to eight workers in a room, pairs of two sharing a mattress, he said in Spanish.

"We really came to suffer from deception by those who hired us, with extensive work hours and sleeping in dirty places with cockroaches and bedbugs… These were the daily conditions we faced."

5 charged, 2 more wanted

The investigation began in November 2022 after one Mexican national contacted police, police said at a news conference.

Over the next three months, investigators spoke with several others who provided similar accounts and found they'd been exploited by a trafficking ring operating not only in York Region but across the Greater Toronto Area, police said. Workers were living in squalor, forced to work long hours with little pay and bussed in to work at farms, factories and warehouses, all while their exploiters lived lives of luxury, police allege.

York Regional Police

The names of those businesses have not yet been released as the Ontario Ministry of Labour continues its investigation.

Five people have been arrested, including two Canadian citizens and three Mexican nationals, facing 44 charges between them including human trafficking, materially benefiting from trafficking people and participating in a criminal organization, among others.

Two others remain wanted.

As for the foreign workers, police say Spanish-speaking officers from York Regional Police as well as police in Peel, Toronto and the Ontario Provincial Police explained what was happening and offered workers support. Of the 64 workers found, 53 accepted the help and continue to be supported, police say.

Officers saw themselves in those seeking 'better life'

"To see the state of the workers' living conditions, considering the promises that were made to them, was heartbreaking," said York police Chief Jim MacSween.

"The Spanish-speaking officers who assisted in the investigation were also deeply affected, as they could see the reflections of their own families and friends in the faces of these hardworking people who were only trying to find a better life."

Evan Mitsui/CBC

Exactly how they were recruited in Mexico remains under investigation, police say.

Almeida said he knows labour trafficking victims may be afraid to come forward, afraid to seek help for fear they'll be arrested and deported.

To anyone in that position he said, "We're here to help."

But one advocate says Canada's own immigration system has serious gaps that can leave migrant workers fearful about coming forward about the exploitation they face.

'A systemic issue,' advocate says

"What we see often in situations like this is that police come in, do a big splash, call it human trafficking ... and within a few weeks, workers are being deported," said Syed Hussan, executive director of the Migrant Workers Alliance of Canada.

Rather than police, who lack the tools to secure rights for exploited workers, immigration, housing and labour authorities should work to ensure the workers aren't doubly punished, first by being exploited and then by being removed from Canada, he said.

"This is a systemic issue.... Many migrants are facing these issues because they don't have permanent residence rights," said Hussan.

The federal government has said it is working on a regularization program to grant status to undocumented migrants in Canada, but Hussan says despite making that promise over a year ago, there's been no update.

"We're calling on the federal government to not delay," he said.

But no matter their status, he says, if workers were brought to Canada under false pretences, the federal government should act to secure them proper work permits.

"Our concern is what will happen to the workers after the spotlight shifts and the police move on."

But Cynthia Moreno of the Consulate General of Mexico in Toronto says she expects the workers will likely have some status in Canada.

"If they are potential victims, that guarantee comes first, the guarantee of their rights as victims."

N.W.T. says lack of notice on oilsands tailings spill goes against deal with Alberta

Fri, March 3, 2023 

The government of the Northwest Territories says Alberta didn't tell it about two major oilsands tailings spills on waters that flow into the territory, despite a legal agreement obliging it to do so.

Shane Thompson, the territory's environment minister, says he didn't learn about the two spills of at least 5.3-million litres until Wednesday.

Alberta Environment and Protected Areas hasn't responded to questions about when it first learned of the spills.

The first began in May, when workers at Imperial Oil's Kearl oilsands mine noticed seepage from one of its tailings ponds.

A second release was spotted in February when tailings escaped from a storage pond.

Thompson says he has spoken with Alberta Environment Minister Sonya Savage several times since the first release and she didn't mention it — although the two departments have been in touch this week.

He says the poor communication is not encouraging as Alberta and Ottawa work out how tailings will be released into the waters of the Athabasca River, which flow into the N.W.T.

A 2015 agreement between the two jurisdictions obliges one party to immediately inform the other of any emergencies or environmental changes to the river.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 3, 2023.

The Canadian Press

ABOLISH THE SECOND AMENDMENT

3 ways to prevent school shootings, based on research

Beverly Kingston, Director and Senior Research Associate, Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, University of Colorado Boulder 

Sarah Goodrum, Senior Research Associate, Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, University of Colorado Boulder

THE CONVERSATION
Fri, March 3, 2023

School shootings are tragic, but parents, students and school staff can take steps to prevent them, researchers report. AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell

In the months leading up to his 2012 attack that killed 26 people in Newtown, Connecticut, a 20-year-old man exhibited a cascade of concerning behaviors. He experienced worsening anorexia, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. His relationships deteriorated, and he became fixated on mass murders.

In 2013, an 18-year-old had enraged outbursts at school and threatened to kill his debate coach. Concerned, the school’s threat assessment team interviewed him, rating him as a low-level risk for violence. But three months after the assessment, he shot and killed a classmate and himself on school grounds in Centennial, Colorado.

By 2018, a 19-year-old man had more than 40 documented encounters with law enforcement and a history of threatening others and weapons purchases. After his mother died in 2017, family friends contacted law enforcement and expressed concern about his behavior. In 2018, he perpetrated a shooting that killed 17 people in Parkland, Florida.

All three perpetrators displayed disturbing behavior before their attacks – and the people around them missed the opportunities to intervene.

We are sociologists at the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of Colorado Boulder. We study the circumstances that lead to violence in which an attacker picks a target – like a person, group, or school – in advance.

We find that the same patterns of concerning behavior emerge among the perpetrators, but that’s not all. We also find that there are often many opportunities to intervene with the perpetrator before the tragedy that peers, family members, school staff, law enforcement officials, and others miss.

Much of the public discussion on preventing school shootings focuses on whether and how to limit people’s access to firearms. While these efforts remain important, over the past 30 years, our work has identified other strategies that can reduce the risk for violence. Here are three evidence-based steps that schools and communities can take to prevent violence.

1. Teach students and adults to report warning signs

Most school shooters exhibited concerning behavior and communicated their plan to cause harm before their deadly attack.

These troubling behaviors and communications provide opportunities for adults to step in, for students to speak up, and for people to help a student who may be in psychological or emotional distress.

But the warning signs for violence can be difficult to distinguish from other types of problem behavior, particularly among adolescents.

According to the U.S. Secret Service, the 10 most common concerning behaviors among school attackers are:

threats to the target or others, and an intent to attack, including on social media


intense or escalating anger


interest in weapons


sadness, depression or isolation


changes in behavior or appearance


suicide or self-harm


interest in weapons or violence


complaints of being bullied


worries over grades or attendance


harassing others

Attackers typically exhibit five or more of these concerning behaviors.

Educational programs and training that encourage people to share their concerns about, and seek help for, those engaging in worrisome behavior may improve safety in schools and communities.

2. Develop and publicize around-the-clock anonymous tip lines

People need a way to safely report their concerns. Tip line systems include websites, phone numbers to call or text, email addresses, and apps. They let students and others anonymously, or confidentially, share their concerns about another’s threatening behavior or communications.

These tip lines can make people less hesitant to report situations that worry them or that they think may not be their business, such as bullying, threats, drug use, or someone’s talk of suicide.

Several states have modeled their tip lines after Colorado’s Safe2Tell, which is a 24/7/365 live anonymous reporting system that was created in the wake of the 1999 Columbine High School mass shooting. Safe2Tell relays tips to local law enforcement officials and school leaders, who investigate and triage each tip. These law enforcement officials and school leaders determine the nature of the concern, along with the most appropriate response.

A 2011 study found the system had helped stop 28 potential school attacks, but that research has not been updated in the years since. Recent Safe2Tell reports indicate that the system also helps students get help for significant mental health needs.

During the 2021-22 school year, for instance, Safe2Tell received 19,364 reports. Of those, 14% were related to suicide threats, 7% to bullying, and 7% to welfare checks. Of the 84 self-reports related to mental health that year, 32% received counseling services, 32% had their parents notified, 22% had an official check on their well-being, 12% were hospitalized at least briefly, and 10% were given a suicide assessment; some received more than one of those responses.

These types of interventions are known to prevent school violence. The National Policing Institute is a nonprofit organization based in Arlington, Virginia, that maintains the Averted School Violence Database. As of 2021, the database contained case information on 171 averted attacks, 88 of which were first discovered by a peer of the potential attacker.

3. Conduct behavioral threat assessment and management

Once people report their concerns, law enforcement officers, school staff and mental health professionals must evaluate the reports and determine how to handle the information, and the people implicated.

One method, called behavioral threat assessment and management, seeks to identify the cause of the concerning behavior – such as a grievance, psychological trauma, or mental health concern. In schools, this process encourages the threat assessment team to evaluate the risk for violence and build a plan for supporting and monitoring the student, their behavior and their communications.

Schools that use this approach are less likely to simply suspend or expel the students they evaluate. That means students can still receive services and support through their school, rather than being excluded from it.

This process also helps distinguish cases in which a student made a threat but does not intend harm from those in which a student poses a real threat.

Once the team has assessed the threat, it can share the results – and the plan of action – with other school staff members to ensure everyone knows how to handle the student and their behavior. School staff members then also know how, and to whom, to report any subsequent observations of worrying actions or statements from the student.

It’s important for all school personnel to know that the federal student privacy law allows this type of information-sharing because it relates to school and personal safety. Some school leaders hesitate to share the plan because they are confused about this provision of the law.

For that reason, and because resources may be constrained at school or may not extend to a student’s home life, the action plans that follow behavioral threat assessments aren’t always carried out properly. So the team may have completed the assessment paperwork, but not the actual work of supporting, managing or monitoring the student’s needs.

Americans are not helpless in the face of school violence. Research has identified solutions. We believe it’s time to act to consistently and effectively implement these solutions.

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

It was written by: Beverly Kingston, University of Colorado Boulder and Sarah Goodrum, University of Colorado Boulder.

Read more:

Five years after Parkland shooting, a school psychologist offers insights on helping students and teachers deal with grief


Five years after Parkland, school shootings haven’t stopped, and kill more people

Beverly Kingston receives funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Botnar Foundation, City of Denver

Sarah Goodrum receives funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Bureau of Justice Assistance, and U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

MICHIGAN

Hamtramck approves proclamation supporting Palestinians

Niraj Warikoo, Detroit Free Press
Thu, March 2, 2023 

Hamtramck city council this week approved a proclamation expressing support for Palestinians and opposing military aid to "all repressive governments."

The proclamation did not mention Israel, but appeared to criticize the country, drawing criticism from some residents and support from others during a council meeting Tuesday night when the proclamation was approved. It's the latest council move that has drawn intense debate in a city with changing demographics. It was signed by Mayor Amer Ghalib and five of six city council members; the one member who did not sign it, Amanda Jaczkowski, announced last week she is resigning and her resignation was accepted Tuesday night by the council.

The impetus for the resolution originally came from a pair of Ann Arbor activists who have tried unsuccessfully over the years to convince Ann Arbor and Dearborn to pass resolutions criticizing Israel.

Hamtramck has one of the highest poverty rates among cities in Michigan, which was noted in the proclamation.

"The City of Hamtramck believes that the Palestinian People should enjoy the right of self-determination that comes with having a free, peaceful and secure homeland of their own; and ... the City of Hamtramck stands against occupation of any country and supports the right of every occupied nation to gain freedom, sovereignty and independence," the proclamation read. "U.S. military aid to foreign governments has enriched defense contractors at the expense of struggling cities like Hamtramck while threatening the safety and security of the people in the region and elsewhere."

Hamtramck City Hall and Police Department in Hamtramck on August 25, 2021.

The proclamation concluded by stating "that the Mayor and Council of the City of Hamtramck oppose military aid to all repressive governments around the world."

Ghalib read the proclamation during the meeting and explained why he supports it, acknowledging that some were concerned.

"There was a lot of tension around this," Ghalib said. "I keep getting calls from members of the community to explain, thinking that we are doing stuff that are unnecessary."

He said that Hamtramck has issued previous proclamations in support of other groups. In 2020, Hamtramck passed a resolution slamming India for its treatment of Muslims.

"We have done proclamations before for Ukraine ... for Poland, for Yemen, for Bangladesh," Ghalib said. "And this is for Palestine. ... Three things we cannot bargain about ... faith, family, and freedom. ... We support the freedom of every nation to live free of occupation and free of repression and persecution."

There was no formal vote since proclamations don't require one, said City Clerk Rana Faraj. No council member objected to the resolution at the meeting.

Carrie Beth Lasley, a Hamtramck resident and former city councilwoman, blasted the resolution, saying it was part of a pattern of missteps by the council that feeds into stereotypes of Muslims wanting to establish sharia, or Islamic law. Faraj read Lasley's comments, which were submitted in writing.

Lasley suggested the proclamation was introduced by an anti-Semite and that the council is "acting exactly how Islamophobes have said the first majority-Muslim council would act," making it seem like Hamtramck residents are "petty, hateful people."

"You're all playing right into the stereotype," Lasley said.

The proclamation came during an intense round of Israeli-Palestinian violence. More than 60 Palestinians and 14 Israelis have been killed this year, according to the Associated Press.

More:Hamtramck council approves Islamic animal sacrifices at home

More:Hamtramck's all-Muslim City Council condemns antisemitism

The debate over the proclamation touched upon some tensions in Hamtramck over the past year on LGBTQ issues, religious animal sacrifices and bars as the city's demographics change to a population with more Muslim residents.

There is strong support for Palestinians among many in Hamtramck, which has one of the highest percentages of residents of Arab and Bangladeshi descent among cities in the U.S. The mayor and all of its city council members are Muslim, believed to be the only city in U.S. history with an all-Muslim council. The city has the highest percentage of immigrants among cities in Michigan. During the meeting, most of the residents and others who spoke about the proclamation expressed support for it and criticized Israel.

Metro Detroit communities have over the years weighed in on foreign policy topics, but in some cases, have resisted attempts to weigh in on matters over which some say they have no jurisdiction. In 2014, Dearborn City Council President Susan Dabaja, the first Arab American to lead the council, pushed back against attempts by activists from Ann Arbor to pass a Dearborn resolution criticizing Israel.

On Tuesday night, the activists from Ann Arbor who were at the Dearborn meeting in 2014, Blaine Coleman and Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, were at the Hamtramck council meeting urging passage of the proclamation.

Ghalib told the Free Press that idea for the resolution originally came from Coleman and his associates.

Coleman said he and Savabieasfahani "proposed a simple 7-word resolution to Hamtramck City Council which we have also proposed to Ann Arbor City Council for many years: 'We are against military aid to Israel.'"

Hamtramck mayoral candidate Amer Ghalib delivers a victory speech during a campaign party on Nov. 2, 2021, at the Yemani American Leadership Association in Hamtramck.

Ann Arbor Council has rejected Coleman's anti-Israel resolution in previous years.

Ghalib told the Free Press by email that "Blaine and his people have been advocating and requesting that for months. They finally came to the council meetings a few times. A councilman volunteered to bring a resolution with that idea. It mentioned Israel by name. Another council person opposed that. We tried to compromise with removing names and generalizing the idea to include all repressive governments and occupying forces around the world."

Ghalib added that Hamtramck "passed one for Ukraine last year and we are not afraid of voicing our support for freedom, peace, sovereignty and independence of every nation around the work."

Coleman said they will now try to convince Dearborn to pass a similar resolution.

A leader with a Jewish group in metro Detroit said it will continue to work with Hamtramck on other issues and believes the proclamation does not refer to Israel since Israel is not a repressive nation.

"While many may see this resolution as targeting Israel, I am glad Israel is not specifically mentioned," Rabbi Asher Lopatin, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of metro Detroit/American Jewish Committee told the Free Press by email. "Israel is certainly not a repressive government. The situation in the West Bank is one of disputed territory that needs to be resolved by the Palestinians and the Israelis. Since 1967, Israel has struggled for a peaceful and equitable solution on this territory. And many Jews ... can agree that the Palestinians should have a right to nationhood."

Lopatin added that Israel should not be held to a double-standard.

"I am glad that the resolution mentions 'all repressive governments' rather than singling out ... any one nation," he said.

Speakers at the council meeting who support the proclamation expressed different views of Israel, calling it racist and an apartheid state. One speaker, Nasr Hussain, lamented that the proclamation did not mention Israel specifically. Hussain also noted Hamtramck's sizable Bangladeshi American population, comparing Israel to Pakistan, which used to occupy the area that is now Bangladesh.

Hamtramck City Council and Mayor Amer Ghalib, on Jan. 10, 2023, voting to allow animal sacrifices for religious reasons.

"Nobody hates occupation more than Bengalis with Pakistan occupying Bengal" before Bangladesh became a free country in 1971, Hussain said.

Bill Meyer, an activist in Hamtramck, also spoke in favor of the proclamation, saying that criticizing Israel is not antisemitic.

"Supporting Palestinians does not mean you're antisemitic," Meyer said.

The debate over the Hamtramck proclamation is the latest local controversy in Michigan over the Middle East dispute. In January, a group of protesters on the campus of the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor who demonstrated in support of Palestinians during a visit by Vice President Kamala Harris drew criticism from Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, the nation's largest Jewish civil rights group, because they chanted in support of "intifada," an Arabic word that means "shaking off." The word has also been used to refer to armed uprisings against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. UM spokesman Rick Fitzgerald told the Free Press the university is reviewing the matter.

In January 2022, Hamtramck's council passed a resolution condemning anti-Semitism shortly after the all-Muslim council took office. At the time, Lopatin and the American Jewish Committee hailed the move as a positive step for Jewish-Muslim relations in metro Detroit. Lopatin and other Jewish leaders then went to Hamtramck to meet with Ghalib and Jaczkowski.

Lopatin said this week that "while certainly we can disagree on the Middle East, that should not stop us from working together in areas that we agree upon locally."

The January 2022 resolution condemning anti-Semitism was introduced by Jaczkowski, a Polish-American convert to Islam and the only woman on the council. In a Facebook post, she said she resigned for health reasons. In a statement from her that was read at the meeting, she said: "I don’t want anyone to take my resignation as a reason to blame others, fight, or walk away from Hamtramck. In fact, I encourage the opposite. Attend more meetings. Join a commission. Educate yourself on the political process, public policy, and more."

In another proclamation approved Tuesday night by the council celebrating women's history month, her name was on the proclamation. Jaczkowski has at times disagreed with members of the council who are more conservative, but her colleagues and Ghalib praised her at the meeting.

"We always had some disagreements," but they were minor, Ghalib said. He said Jaczkowski leaving is "a big loss."

Contact Niraj Warikoo:nwarikoo@freepress.com or Twitter @nwarikoo

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Hamtramck city council approves proclamation supporting Palestinians

A manhole cover launched into space with a nuclear test is the fastest human-made object. A scientist on Operation Plumbbob told us the unbelievable story.

Rebecca Harrington
Thu, March 2, 2023 

The pockmarked Nevada Testing Site, strewn with craters from all the nuclear weapons tests that took place there.NNSA

Robert Brownlee was on the Operation Plumbbob team that launched an object in space before Sputnik.

They put a manhole cover above a nuke underground, and the explosion shot the iron cap into space.

The fastest human-made object was part of the US government's nuclear testing in the 1950s.

When I first saw this story on an old Quora thread, I didn't believe it.

Pedestrians walk past a manhole cover that wasn't shot into space in Berkeley, California, on July 18, 2019.AP/Jeff Chiu

How could an iron manhole cover be the fastest human-made object ever launched?

I honestly pictured something akin to the exploding manhole covers that terrify NYC residents:

It wasn't like that. This manhole cover was shot into space with a nuclear bomb.

Robert Brownlee, an astrophysicist who designed the nuclear test in question, told Insider the unbelievable story in 2016, before he died at the age of 94 in 2018.

Brownlee refuted the non-believers and asserted that yes, it likely was the fastest object that humankind ever launched.

Here's how Brownlee says history was made.

From 1945 until 1992, the US detonated 1,054 nuclear bombs in tests.

DOE

By the 1950s, the US government and the public were concerned with the radiation that nuclear bombs could release into the atmosphere.

The last US nuclear bomb to be tested, nicknamed "The Divider," being loaded underground for detonation on September 23, 1992.LANL

By 1962, the US was conducting every nuclear test underground.

But the very first underground nuclear tests were a bit of an experiment — nobody knew exactly what might happen.

The mushroom cloud from the Uncle test at the Nevada Test Site on November 29, 1951, reached 11,500 feet.Department of Energy

The first one, nicknamed "Uncle," exploded beneath the Nevada Test Site on November 29, 1951.

Uncle was a code for "underground."

It was only buried 17 feet, but the top of the bomb's mushroom cloud exploded 11,500 feet into the sky.

The underground nuclear tests we're interested in were nicknamed "Pascal," during Operation Plumbbob in 1957.

Sadly, no images are left from the Pascal experiments. All that's left are government documents like this one.NNSA

Brownlee said he designed the Pascal-A test as the first that aimed to contain nuclear fallout. The bomb was placed at the bottom of a hollow column — 3 feet wide and 485 feet deep — with a 4-inch-thick iron cap on top.

The test was conducted on the night of July 26, 1957, so the explosion coming out of the column looked like a Roman candle.

Brownlee said the iron cap in Pascal-A exploded off the top of the tube "like a bat much hotter than hell."

Brownlee wanted to measure how fast the iron cap flew off the column, so he designed a second experiment, Pascal-B, and got an incredible calculation.

Herbert Grier, director of timing and firing, seated at the firing console in control room during an Operation Plumbbob test.NNSA

Brownlee replicated the first experiment, but the column in Pascal-B was deeper at 500 feet. They also recorded the experiment with a camera that shot one frame per millisecond.

On August 27, 1957, the "manhole cover" cap flew off the column with the force of the nuclear explosion. The iron cover was only partially visible in one frame, Brownlee said.

When he used this information to find out how fast the cap was going, Brownlee calculated it was traveling at five times the escape velocity of the Earth — or about 125,000 miles per hour.

"The pressure at the top of that pipe was enormous," he told Insider in 2016. "The first thing that you get is a flash of light coming from the device at the bottom of the empty pipe, and that flash is tremendously hot. That flash that comes is more than 1 million times brighter than the sun. So for it to blow off was, if I may say so, inevitable."

Pascal-B's estimated iron cover speed dwarfs the 36,373 mph that the New Horizons spacecraft — which many have called the fastest object launched by humankind — eventually reached while traveling toward Pluto.

An artist's rendering of the New Horizons spacecraft approaching Pluto.NASA

Brownlee said he expected the manhole cover to fall back to Earth, but they never found it. He concluded it was going too fast to burn up before reaching outer space.

WT1190F, a hollow seven-foot piece of space junk, seen burning up as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on November 13, 2015.IAC/UAE/NASA/ESA

"After I was in the business and did my own missile launches," he told Insider in 2016, "I realized that that piece of iron didn't have time to burn all the way up [in the atmosphere]."

Mere months after the Pascal tests, October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite. While the USSR was the first to launch a satellite, Brownlee was probably the first to launch an object into space.

On Oct. 4, 1957, Sputnik 1 successfully launched and entered Earth's orbit.NASA/Asif A. Siddiqi

Since it was going so fast, Brownlee said he thinks the cap likely didn't get caught in the Earth's orbit as a satellite like Sputnik and instead shot off into outer space.

Some people have doubted the incredible manhole cover story over the years. But Brownlee, with first-hand knowledge of the test, said he knows the truth.

"From my point," he told Insider in 2016, "it sure happened."

So the next time you look up at the stars, remember Brownlee's story. Somewhere out there, a manhole cover launched by a nuclear bomb is probably speeding away from Earth at about 125,000 mph.

Bryan Allen/Getty Images

This story has been updated.