DISARM, DEFUND, DISBAND
Scandal-scarred Lethbridge, Alta., police force told to fix problems or shut down

Wed., March 24, 2021, 

JUSTICE MINISTER KAYCEE MADU WITH PREMIER KENNEY

EDMONTON — Alberta’s justice minister has given the scandal-scarred Lethbridge Police Service until April 16 to serve up an action plan to fix its problems or face being disbanded.

Kaycee Madu acknowledged Wednesday that it’s a tight timeline, but said change needs to happen immediately.

"We cannot wait," Madu told reporters at the legislature, two days after sending the letter to the police service demanding the action plan.

"When there are serious problems that are right there before us, we don’t need to take months and years to deal with those issues."

Lethbridge is Alberta’s third largest city, with a population of more than 100,000.

Madu said the plan must address everything from recruiting to oversight, must have benchmarks and timelines, and be communicated to the public.

If not, Madu said he has advised the force he will take action that could include disbanding it.

Madu said disbanding it is an extreme measure, but added that police powers must be balanced by responsibility and have the confidence of the public.

"If I need to intervene to set aside the entire police service, I will," Madu said.

The Lethbridge police said in a news release it is on board with Madu’s plan and has already been working on reforms. The police service said it will likely have a plan to him sooner than the April 16 deadline.

"We have been developing an action plan over the past several months to address the problems raised by these troubling past cases," said the release.

"We are confident that the service is on the right path to correcting past behaviours and restoring public trust."

The Lethbridge Police Service has been the focus of numerous controversies, both past and ongoing in recent years.

Last year, two officers were temporarily demoted after a review determined NDP provincial legislature member Shannon Phillips, while environment minister in 2017, was surveilled and photographed at a diner. The officers involved were concerned about changes Phillips was making regarding off-highway vehicle use at a nearby wilderness areas.

Phillips has called the punishment too lenient and has won the right to appeal that decision.

Separately, five officers and one civilian are now being investigated for allegations of conducting improper database searches on Phillips while she was in cabinet in 2018.

Phillips said she has also found documents showing she might have been the target of a drugged drink at a bar in 2016, but that police never told her.

Phillips, now the NDP Opposition finance critic and legislature member for Lethbridge West, declined to comment Wednesday.

Last week, five Lethbridge police employees were suspended with pay as part of an investigation into the circulation of inappropriate images, reportedly including pictures of senior police staff pasted onto the bodies of characters from the animated “Toy Story” movies.

Last year, the force was criticized for the violent takedown of a citizen wearing a Star Wars stormtrooper costume and brandishing a toy laser blaster.

The year before that, images went viral of a Lethbridge officer euthanizing

TORTURING AND MURDERING a deer by running over the wailing animal numerous times with a police truck.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 24, 2021.

Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press

ANOTHER TRUMP APPOINTEE

Former Operation Warp Speed scientist apologizes after being fired over sexual harassment claim

BY NATHANIEL WEIXEL - 03/24/21 

© Getty Images


Moncef Slaoui, former chief scientist for the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed, apologized Wednesday after being fired from a medical device startup's board over sexual harassment allegations.

Slaoui served on the board of directors for Galvani Bioelectronics, a partnership between the Google spinoff Verily and the drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

GSK said Slaoui was fired over allegations of sexual harassment. In a statement emailed to The Hill, Slaoui acknowledged GSK's statement and action, and apologized.


"I have the utmost respect for my colleagues and feel terrible that my actions have put a former colleague in an uncomfortable situation," he wrote. "I would like to apologise unreservedly to the employee concerned and I am deeply sorry for any distress caused."

Slaoui also apologized to his wife and family "for the pain this is causing," and said he was taking a leave of absence from his current "professional responsibilities."

He said that he would "work hard to redeem myself with all those that this situation has impacted."

GSK fired Slaoui on Wednesday after the company said it received a letter containing "allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate conduct towards an employee of GSK by Dr. Slaoui, which occurred several years ago when he was an employee of GSK."

The pharmaceutical company said an investigation is ongoing, but the allegations were "substantiated."

Ex-Warp Speed chief exits two more drug companies

Slaoui departed GSK in 2017 after 30 years at the company. He was the head of GSK’s global vaccines business and before that, he was in charge of global research and development.

He was hired for Operation Warp Speed in May 2020, before resigning in January at the start of the Biden administration.

Slaoui recently announced the launch of a new company called Centessa Pharmaceuticals.

New study finds birds give people as much happiness as money

It’s the little things — or animals, in this case.

By Anagha Srikanth | March 24, 2021

Story at a glance

Researchers have found that higher incomes may improve people’s day-to-day well-being.

A new study suggests that biological diversity, especially of birds, can increase life satisfaction just as much as income.

During the coronavirus pandemic, nature has emerged as an escape from quarantine and social isolation.

In our pursuit of that elusive thing called happiness, scientists can offer few findings. One is that, contrary to popular belief, money can actually buy happiness. Another, more recent, is that so can birds.

"Europeans are particularly satisfied with their lives if their immediate surroundings host a high species diversity," said the lead author of a recent study published in Science Daily. Joel Methorst, a doctoral researcher at the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, the iDiv, and the Goethe University in Frankfurt, explained that, "according to our findings, the happiest Europeans are those who can experience numerous different bird species in their daily life, or who live in near-natural surroundings that are home to many species."

The social isolation necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic has pushed many people to escape into the outdoors and reconnect with nature. Research suggests that spending more time in nature and with animals can help people relax and even lessen physical and mental stress.

And the more birds, the better, according to the study, which analyzed data from the "2012 European quality of Life Survey" on life satisfaction in more than 26,000 adults from 26 European countries. A 10 percent increase in the number of bird species in peoples' surroundings increased their life satisfaction as much as an extra 10 percent in the bank, the study found.

"We also examined the socio-economic data of the people that were surveyed, and, much to our surprise, we found that avian diversity is as important for their life satisfaction as is their income," Katrin Böhning-Gaese, director of the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, professor at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, and member of the iDiv, said in the article.

Climate change, however, is threatening many species’ habitats and the authors pointed to studies of avian species in agricultural landscapes in Europe that show declining biological diversity.

"This poses the risk that human well-being will also suffer from an impoverished nature. Nature conservation therefore not only ensures our material basis of life, but it also constitutes an investment in the well-being of us all," said Methorst.

Published on Mar 24, 2021

Asian Americans faced biggest rise in online hate in 2020, survey finds

BY ARIS FOLLEY - 03/24/21 /THE HILL

© Getty Images

Asian Americans experienced the biggest rise in severe online hate and harassment in the past year in comparison to other groups, a new survey released by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found.

According to the survey, which was released on Wednesday, 17 percent of Asian Americans polled said they experienced sexual harassment, stalking, physical threats, swatting, doxing or sustained harassment over the past year — a 6 percent from those who said the same the prior year.

Half of Asian American respondents who said they were harassed also said they were harassed due to their race or ethnicity.


The new data comes despite recent efforts made by social media companies to combat hate speech, and as the nation has seen a surge in anti-Asian attacks reported since the coronavirus pandemic took hold in the United States a year ago.

Last week, lawmakers raised alarm over the spike in such attacks in the wake of a shooting spree in Atlanta that left eight people dead, including six Asian women.

In the aftermath of the shooting, a few Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.), called out former President Trump in particular for using terms like “Chinese virus” and “Kung flu” to refer to the coronavirus, saying the charged rhetoric helped contribute to a rise in anti-Asian attacks.

In its recent report, the ADL said that the rise in physical violence against Asian-Americans in the nation was “whipped up in large part by bigotry and conspiracy theories that grew online, fanned by national leaders,” including what it referred to as Trump’s “incendiary rhetoric blaming China for the pandemic” and his use of the controversial terms for the coronavirus.

The ADL also said the survey found “a sharp rise in online harassment of African-Americans based on their race, from 42 percent attributing their harassment to their race last year to 59 percent in this year’s survey.”


On Facebook alone, the organization said “derogatory posts against African-Americans quadrupled” in the wake of the fatal police killing of George Floyd in May, which sparked months of continued protests against police brutality and racial injustice.

“They stayed elevated until September, when the pace of protests slowed,” the organization said of the posts.

The survey included troubling findings for other groups as well.

The survey showed that 64 percent of LGBTQ-identifying respondents reported overall harassment this past year, making it the third in the row the bloc has reported higher rates of overall harassment than any other demographic, the organization said.

Thirty-six percent of Jewish respondents reported experiencing online harassment in the survey, compared to 20 percent from the previous year. Thirty-six percent of Muslim respondents also reported experiencing severe harassment online this past year.


Forty-one percent of Americans overall reported experiencing some form of online hate and harassment in the new survey. More than a quarter of respondents that reported experiencing harassment said they were targeted due to their race or ethnicity.

Jonathan A. Greenblatt, CEO of the organization, said in a statement that the survey “shows that even as technology companies insist that they are taking unprecedented steps to moderate hateful content on their social media platforms, the user experience hasn’t changed all that much.”

“Americans of many different backgrounds continue to experience online hate and harassment at levels that are totally unacceptable,” Greenbaldt said. “And not surprisingly, after a year where national figures including the president himself routinely scapegoated China and Chinese people for spreading the coronavirus, Asian-Americans experienced heightened levels of harassment online, just as they did offline.”

An overwhelming majority of respondents said they think social media platforms need to step up their actions to combat online hate.

In conjunction with the survey’s release, the ADL said it is also announcing an effort, dubbed the REPAIR Plan, to “hold platforms and individual perpetrators accountable for enabling online hate and extremism.”

The ADL said the survey was conducted by YouGov online between Jan. 7-15, 2021, and polled 2,251 individuals. The organization said the results were weighted and “are representative of all Americans 18 and older.” It said the survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.

The organization added that it also “included oversamples of respondents who identified as Jewish, Muslim, African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic or Latino, and LGBTQ+” in the survey in “an effort to understand the experiences of individuals who may be especially targeted because of their group identity.”id it is also announcing an effort, dubbed the REPAIR Plan, to “hold platforms and individual perpetrators accountable for enabling online hate and extremism.”

The ADL said the survey was conducted by YouGov online between Jan. 7-15, 2021, and polled 2,251 individuals. The organization said the results were weighted and “are representative of all Americans 18 and older.” It said the survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.

The organization added that it also “included oversamples of respondents who identified as Jewish, Muslim, African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic or Latino, and LGBTQ+” in the survey in “an effort to understand the experiences of individuals who may be especially targeted because of their group identity.”

Warren presses Yellen to ramp up BlackRock oversight

BY SYLVAN LANE / THE HILL / - 03/24/21 

© Greg Nash


Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pushed Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday to force investment firm BlackRock into tougher federal oversight under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

During a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Warren urged Yellen — the former chair of the Federal Reserve — to put the massive asset manager under strict supervision before the next time financial markets buckle.

“I understand that when the stock market is going up, it is easy to ignore risks that can be building up in the system. That was the mindset of the regulators that led up to the 2008 crash, and that is how taxpayers ended up on the hook for a $700 billion bailout of the giant banks,” Warren said.


“When the party is going strong, it's the job of the regulators to take away the punch bowl,” she added.

Under Dodd-Frank, an interagency group of financial regulators chaired by Yellen called the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) can designate firms as “systemically important financial institutions” (SIFIs) if it determines that the company’s collapse could trigger a broader financial crisis.

Put simply, SIFIs are banks and financial firms that the U.S. government considers “too big to fail.” SIFIs are subject to Fed stress tests and must develop plans for how they could be disassembled without causing a crisis if the firm is on the verge of collapse.

While U.S banks with more than $250 billion in assets are automatically considered SIFIs, Warren is among many Democrats and Wall Street skeptics in favor of applying the designation to BlackRock and other major financial firms.

BlackRock is the world’s largest nonbank investment company and manages nearly $9 trillion in assets — more than the individual gross domestic product of every single country except the U.S. and China.


“Does, potentially, a $9 trillion investment company pose some risk to the American economy if it should fail?” Warren asked Yellen, arguing in favor of BlackRock’s systemic importance.

Yellen, however, said that FSOC would be more likely to focus on specific activities instead of the size of firms.

She said that while asset managers face risks if sharp withdrawals from mutual funds cause fire sales across financial markets, “it’s not obvious to me that designation is the correct tool” to address those risks.

Warren countered that the point of SIFI designation was to give regulators the ability to crack down on certain activities with greater authority over and visibility into large firms.

“Designation is what is what gives the Fed its increased oversight power,” Warren said.


In a statement, BlackRock said that while it supports "financial regulatory reform that increases transparency, protects investors and facilitates responsible growth," the firm did not require special supervision.

"The past two administrations in the US, and numerous global regulators, have studied our industry for a decade and concluded that asset managers should be regulated differently from banks, with the primary focus being on the industry’s products and services," said BlackRock.

The debate between Warren and Yellen — both ardent Dodd-Frank supporters — is one of the earliest instances of Democratic lawmakers pushing the Biden administration to be more aggressive on financial regulation.

Progressives have largely been pleased with Biden’s picks for key financial posts, including several that were aides to Warren. Deputy Treasury Secretary nominee Wally Adeyemo and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director nominee Rohit Chopra were both early officials at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under Warren, and National Economic Council Deputy Director Bharat Ramamurti was a senior policy advisor for Warren in the Senate.

Even so, Warren and other progressive leaders have pledged to push the Biden administration to crack down on misconduct in the financial sector, tighten protections for consumers and push firms toward stronger climate change and diversity positions.

Updated at 3:06 p.m.

USA

Students of color more likely to be learning virtually during pandemic: survey

BY CELINE CASTRONUOVO - 03/24/21 

© Getty Images

Students of color are more likely to be engaged in virtual learning this year as more schools reopen for in-person classes, according to data released Wednesday by the Department of Education.

The survey, the first in the department's series of national studies on learning during the coronavirus pandemic, measured attendance and method of instruction among fourth and eighth graders nationwide as of January into early February.

At the time, about 68 percent of Asian students were only learning remotely, as well as 58 percent of Black students and 56 percent of Hispanic students.


Comparatively, just 27 percent of white students were receiving all-virtual instruction.

The data, collected by Education Department’s research and evaluation arm, the Institute of Education Sciences, indicated that about 23 percent of white students were learning in some sort of “hybrid” setting in which they were attending at least a portion of classes in person, with just 10 percent of Hispanic students, 14 percent of Black students and 16 percent of Asian students doing the same.

While the survey released Wednesday did not specify whether enrollment in virtual versus in-person learning was due to available offerings or personal decisions by parents, the Education Department reported that among the schools surveyed, 77 percent were offering hybrid or full-time in-person learning as of January.

The report is the first major attempt at data collection since the coronavirus pandemic forced schools across the country to close amid lockdown orders and safety restrictions.

The Education Department created the survey in response to one of President Biden’s first-day executive actions, with monthly findings expected through at least July. The reports are expected to determine the long-term impacts of the pandemic on learning, including identifying inequalities.


The first report came the same day Education Secretary Miguel Cardona told NBC’s “Today” that he anticipates all U.S. schools will be able open for in-person learning by the fall.

He added that he will first focus “on getting as many now in the spring.”

"I think if we continue with mitigation strategies that we know work and we utilize the American Rescue Plan funding to put in those safeguards that are needed to provide safe environments for our students, we can really continue to make the progress that we're making to get students [back in school] in the spring,” he said.

However, the push to reopen schools has prompted concerns from teachers unions and minority groups.

On Tuesday, the nation’s second-largest teachers union, the American Federation of Teachers, questioned the Biden administration’s decision to reduce the recommended distance between students in a classroom from 6 feet to 3 feet, saying that they were “not convinced that the evidence supports changing physical distancing requirements at this time.”

Additionally, a Census Bureau report released Monday found that homeschooling, separate from virtual learning, doubled during the pandemic, with a significant increase measured among the Black community from 3.3 percent choosing homeschooling to 16.1 percent.

Newsom picks Filipino American assemblyman for California attorney general

BY REID WILSON - 03/24/21 - THE HILL

© Facebook: Rob Bonta

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) will tap a longtime assemblyman from Oakland to replace Xavier Becerra as the state's next attorney general, he said Wednesday, days after Becerra resigned to become President Biden’s secretary of Health and Human Services.

Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D), long seen as a front-runner for the post, has held a seat in the Assembly since 2012. He is the first Filipino American to serve in California’s legislature, and he would become the first Filipino American attorney general in the state's history.

Bonta will need to be confirmed by the Assembly and the state Senate, though with overwhelming Democratic majorities in both chambers, those votes are likely to be all but ceremonial.

In a tweet announcing his decision, Newsom highlighted Bonta’s heritage at a moment when Asian American representation in politics has been forced into the spotlight amid a rising tide of anti-Asian hate that has emerged since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

Last week, eight people were murdered in Atlanta-area spas in an assault that apparently targeted Asian women.

“In this moment of sickening attacks on AAPI [Asian American and Pacific Islander] Californians, there’s no one better to defend CA values,” Newsom wrote on Twitter.

Bonta, 48, was born in Quezon City, Philippines. He has spent his time in Sacramento backing criminal justice reform bills. He co-authored a bill to eliminate cash bail for suspects awaiting trial. In 2019, Newsom signed Bonta’s bill to eliminate private prisons and detention centers.

“I became a lawyer because I saw the law as the best way to make a positive difference for the most people, and it would be an honor of a lifetime to serve as the attorney for the people of this great state,” Bonta said in a statement.

Overlooked detail in border debate: The legal right to seek asylum in the USA

BY GEOFFREY ALAN BOYCE, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — THE HILL - 3/25/2021

© Getty Images

Much hay is being made in the national media about the large number of migrant children and families crossing the southern border to seek safety and asylum in the United States. Multiple debates have coalesced around whether this increase in asylum-seekers represents a response to President Biden’s election and his pledge to reverse some Trump-era border policies, and/or whether it is accurate or appropriate to even describe this current increase as a “crisis” in the first place.

Overlooked in much of this debate is a critical but under-appreciated detail: that those seeking asylum in the United States have a right to do so under U.S. and international law. Those who petition for asylum after crossing the border irregularly are not fundamentally in violation the law – they are, rather, attempting to appeal to the law for protection, by utilizing those processes that are available to them.

One reason why this important detail is mostly overlooked is the steady expansion of deterrence strategy and its application under the Obama and Trump presidencies. Although it has antecedents in the origins of the country’s immigration detention system, prior to 2014, this strategy had principally been applied to those attempting unlawful and clandestine border crossing. However, after an increase that year in the arrival of unaccompanied minors, the government began to apply this strategy to asylum seekers as well. This process began in earnest with President Obama’s implementation of family detention and a high-bond policy for asylum-seekers. This policy was expanded further by President Trump’s implementation of metering (which dramatically slowed the number of individuals who could petition for asylum on any given day), the policy of family separation and the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), popularly known as the “remain in Mexico” policy. MPP caused tens of thousands of asylum seekers to remain stranded in squalid and dangerous conditions in Mexico while awaiting court hearings in the United States.


Originating among 18th century criminologists (and famously applied to cold-war era U.S. nuclear strategy) the logic of deterrence relies on the assumption that as individuals we make calculative behavioral choices by continuously monitoring our environment for information about risk and reward.

Following this logic and applying it to asylum-seekers requires, first, having a belief that appeal to existing asylum law is somehow illegitimate, and ought to be discouraged. Second, in order to be successful, it also requires that the risks, hardship and suffering that asylum-seekers are compelled to confront in the course of this appeal come to appear even more severe than those circumstances of violence, danger and persecution that a person may be fleeing in the first place. Such a policy approach is replete with moral hazard, and during the Trump era an overwhelming number of Americans rightfully rejected the extreme forms of official cruelty that resulted.

Arizona governor says Harris 'worst possible choice' to oversee border
Why is Biden stalling refugee resettlement?

Yet, this logic of deterrence still appears to color much of the narrative surrounding contemporary events along the border - such as Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) assertion that an increase in the number of asylum seekers indicates that the Biden administration is somehow “losing control” of the border; or Rep. Michael Guest’s (R-Miss.) assertion in The Hill that Biden’s relatively minor actions on border policy reflect an “open borders” agenda that is incentivizing human trafficking; or an argument from Tim Kane at the Hoover Institution that these policy changes are really the critical factor “encouraging” asylum-seekers to leave everything behind and to seek refuge in the United States.

These kinds of arguments and the assumptions behind them present a moral and political trap. To break free of this trap, the Biden administration ought to recognize its obligations to treat with dignity and compassion those attempting to obtain international protection from violence and persecution, by allowing such individuals to access those legal mechanisms and processes already established under the law. This would require not only expanding the government’s capacity to quickly and humanely process children and families at the border, but also ending the practice of metering and the use of Title 42 public health exemptions, so that all persons seeking asylum protection can lawfully do so in a safe, rapid and orderly manner at an established port of entry.

Geoffrey Alan Boyce, Ph.D., is academic director of the Earlham College Border Studies Program based in Tucson, Arizona.

USA

After 50-year stalemate, it's time to pass federal LGBTQ nondiscrimination law

BY CLIFFORD ROSKY AND TROY WILLIAMS, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS — 03/24/21
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

© Getty Images


A growing number of states have introduced legislation targeting transgender youth and their access to school sports and gender-affirming health care. Since January alone, more than two dozen states have introduced bills that would ban transgender girls and women from participating in sports consistent with their gender identity. In 2020, legislation was considered in 18 states. Outside observers may be surprised to learn that these kinds of bills have been blocked in Utah, a state with one of the most conservative legislative bodies in America, thanks in large measure to a veto threat from our Republican governor.

Anyone who knows Utah well wasn’t surprised. For the last six years, our state has consistently sought to advance protections for the LGBTQ community, while also defeating frequent attempts at discrimination. Utah is an example for the nation and the U.S. Congress that religious freedom and LGBTQ rights can coexist. This lesson should also continue to inform the ongoing national debate around federal nondiscrimination protections for all LGBTQ Americans.

In 2015, Utah became the first state with a Republican majority to pass LGBTQ employment and housing nondiscrimination protections through the state legislature. The bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan margins and support from a broad array of religious organizations, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In what has become a rarity in U.S. politics, we transcended partisan divisions and came together to underscore what we know to be true: Protecting the dignity and respect of LGBTQ people is not a progressive or a conservative value, it’s an American value.

The Equality Act was first introduced into Congress in 1973. Following the bill’s passage in the U.S. House with a bipartisan majority and the recent Senate Judiciary hearing, this seminal legislation is now closer than ever to becoming law. Republican in the House have also introduced their own version of a nondiscrimination bill, the Fairness for All Act, which also represents a major step forward in recognizing the harms that LGBTQ people endure due to the current lack of nondiscrimination protections at the federal level.

As we’ve listened to critics and defenders of both bills spar about why their bill is better than the other, we are concerned the two sides will remain at loggerheads, carrying on a bitter stalemate until the window of opportunity is closed. And if that were to happen, everyone involved loses – most of all, the LGBTQ people who so desperately need protections in employment, housing, healthcare and public spaces.

After nearly 50 years, a solution is long overdue. It’s now time for Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, to come together to pass the most robust protections possible.

Utahns have seen from experience what can happen when everyone comes to the table ready to reach an understanding. We got buy-in from all sides, implemented reasonable considerations to preserve religious freedom without violating LGBTQ liberty, and protected people from discrimination. This approach has also helped change the hearts and minds of Utahns. In 2019, a Public Religion Research Institute poll revealed that 77 percent of Utahns support LGBTQ nondiscrimination laws. We ranked the second highest level of support in the nation, just behind New Hampshire, and well ahead of California and New York.

 And there’s more.

The passage of this historic law laid the groundwork for more steps forward for the LGBTQ community. In 2017, we repealed the so-called “No Promo Homo” law that prohibited teachers from discussing LGBTQ issues in our public schools. In 2018, we worked with the State Board of Education to strengthen anti-bullying protections for LGBTQ students. In 2019, we passed an LGBTQ inclusive hate crimes law. In 2020, we became the 19th state in the nation to ban the harmful practice of conversion therapy upon minors. Gov. Spencer Cox (R) made national headlines last month by speaking movingly about the need to listen to and protect transgender youth. He also oversaw the drafting and funding of a statewide LGBTQ Suicide Prevention Plan.

As a country, we have to find a middle ground and stop pretending that protections for LGBTQ people and freedom for religious people are fundamentally and eternally at odds. There are ways to protect the LGBTQ community and ensure religious people can live out their faith freely. There is a way to respect religious voices without oppressing LGBTQ people. We can and must do both. We have been protecting both of these values in all of our nation’s anti-discrimination laws since the 1960s.

If we don’t act now, we will delay critical protections for years, possibly even decades.

Working together is the only path forward. It's what's possible in the current Congress when all of us come together to tackle the very real problem of LGBTQ discrimination. Codifying nondiscrimination protections into federal law will strengthen our country and make this a safer place for all LGBTQ people and the people who love us. It’s time.

Clifford Rosky is a professor of law at the University of Utah's S.J. Quinney College of Law.

Troy Williams is the executive director of Equality Utah.

Democrats to introduce bill to regulate toxic heavy metals in baby food

The proposed legislation would apply regulation to oversee chemical content in baby food.

By Alexandra Kelley |THE HILL | March 25, 2021

Story at a glance

Democrat lawmakers, including Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tammy Duckworth, introduced the Baby Food Safety Act of 2021.

It will regulate chemical limits in baby food.

A group of Democrat lawmakers are planning to introduce new legislation into the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday, March 26, that aims to tackle dangerous chemicals found in certain baby food brands.

Dubbed the Baby Food Safety Act of 2021, the forthcoming bill will be introduced by the U.S. Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Amy Klobuchar, along with Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL-08) and Tony Cárdenas (D-CA-29).

The bill specifically focuses on the trace amounts of inorganic arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury that are not regulated in baby food by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). If passed, the FDA would be required to oversee and set maximum levels of each chemical to be permitted in baby food.

“Parents deserve to have peace of mind that the baby and toddler food they purchase is safe and nutritious,” Duckworth said in a press release. “Reports that many types of commonly sold baby and toddler food products may contain levels of harmful metals that pose potential risk to babies, such as arsenic and lead, are deeply troubling. That’s one of the reasons why I’m proud to help introduce legislation today to address this issue, and I look forward to working with my colleagues and the FDA on making sure what we feed our children will help them grow up safe and healthy.”

In addition to regulating the levels of chemicals found in baby food, the bill would also authorize $50 million in federal funding for research on agricultural methods of reducing heavy metal presence in crops.

An accompanying public outreach campaign would be deployed as well, run through the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The chemicals targeted in the bill are known to have neurotoxic effects. Even low-level exposure is linked to decreases in IQ and diminished future economic productivity, as well as behavioral issues in children.

Advocacy groups working in children’s and environmental sectors have spoken out in support of the proposed law.

“The Baby Food Safety Act is an important step forward in recognizing the unique vulnerabilities of infants and children,” Jaclyn Bowen, the executive director of the Clean Label Project said. “Food safety is not JUST about microbial and pathogen contaminants. It's about fostering healthy nutrition during the critical period of brain and immune system development.”

Charlotte Brody, the national director of the Healthy Babies Bright Futures coalition, also praised the bill.

“The Baby Food Safety Act of 2021 will do just what its title states it will do: It will make baby food safer,” she stated. “It’s not just a piece of legislation. It’s a solution to a problem that parents can’t solve without the government’s help.”