END BEAR HUNTING

Wyoming black bear hunter accused of killing protected grizzly near highway into Yellowstone

Story by By MEAD GRUVER, Associated Press • May 15, 2023

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A Wyoming hunter faces up to a year in jail and a $10,000 fine if convicted of killing a protected grizzly bear he allegedly claims he mistook for a legal-to-hunt black bear outside Yellowstone National Park.

The male grizzly weighing about 530 pounds (240 kilograms) drew a lot of attention from drivers after its death May 1 near U.S. 14-16-20, the eastern approach into Yellowstone.

Patrick M. Gogerty, of Cody, turned himself in early the next morning, Wyoming Game and Fish Department game warden Travis Crane wrote in an affidavit filed in Park County Circuit Court.

By then, rumors about the dead bear were circulating far and wide.

“Gogerty should have turned himself in immediately,” Crane wrote.

Grizzlies in the Yellowstone region of southern Montana, eastern Idaho and northwestern Wyoming are a federally protected species. Killing one without a good reason, such as self defense, can bring tough penalties under state and federal law.

Gogerty is charged under Wyoming law with killing a grizzly bear without a license, a misdemeanor. Along with the jail time and hefty fine, he would face having to pay as much as $25,000 in restitution if convicted.

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Gogerty, who is scheduled for an arraignment Friday in Park County Circuit Court, couldn't be reached for comment. He had no listed phone number and no attorney in court records who might comment on his behalf.

Black bears are typically smaller and darker than grizzly bears. Large black bears with brownish coloring, and small grizzly bears with darker coloring, sometimes get mistaken for the other species, however.

Gogerty went hunting on the day the regular black bear hunting season opened in areas west of Cody. He first saw the grizzly about 100 yards (90 meters) off the highway, according to the affidavit filed Thursday in Circuit Court.

At first, he was confident that the bear he shot at seven times was a black bear because the animal didn't have a grizzly's characteristically humped back, he allegedly told Crane, the game warden.

“When Gogerty went up to the bear and saw the bear's claws, the pads and the head of the bear, he realized it was a grizzly bear,” Crane wrote in the affidavit.

The bear had been shot at least four times, the affidavit alleges.

Hunters and others on Yellowstone's outskirts kill grizzlies in self-defense or in cases of mistaken identity fairly often — about six times per year, on average, from 2015 to 2020, according to researchers.

Such encounters typically occur on private land or remote areas, far from the public eye.

As many as 50,000 grizzlies once roamed the western U.S., far more than today. Still, they are considered a conservation success story with rebounding numbers in Yellowstone and other pockets in the lower 48 states.

Grizzly-human encounters have increased as the Yellowstone region's grizzly population has grown as much as tenfold, to as many as 1,000 animals, since the 1970s.

Fire protection company Kidde-Fenwal files for bankruptcy citing PFAS lawsuits

Story by By Dietrich Knauth • May 15, 2023

Signage is seen at the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, New York City© Thomson Reuters

By Dietrich Knauth

(Reuters) - Kidde-Fenwal Inc, a subsidiary of Carrier Global Corp that specializes in fire control systems, filed for bankruptcy on Sunday, as it buckles under the weight of lawsuits alleging that "forever chemicals" in its firefighting foam products have contaminated water sources around U.S. airports and military bases.

Kidde-Fenwal filed for Chapter 11 protection in Delaware bankruptcy court. The company is seeking a buyer for its business, saying its likely liability in the litigation "substantially exceeds" its capacity to pay.

Since 2016, Kidde-Fenwal has been named as a defendant in more than 4,400 lawsuits filed by local governments, companies and individuals, claiming that aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) products contaminated drinking water and soil with perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS or "forever chemicals." Kidde-Fenwal sold AFFF foam products from 2007 to 2013, according to court documents.

Kidde-Fenwal is one of several defendants, along with 3M Co and DuPont de Nemours Inc, to face a bellwether trial in June in South Carolina federal court, where AFFF litigation has been consolidated.

The litigation has cost Kidde-Fenwal $6 million in 2023 alone. Kidde-Fenwal has $318 million in assets, and had $200 million in sale revenue for 2022, according to its court filings.

AFFF was jointly developed by 3M and the U.S. military in the 1970s, and has primarily been used to quickly extinguish burning fuel fires at military bases and airports, according to court documents.

Kidde-Fenwal does not make AFFF products, but it previously sold AFFF products through a subsidiary called National Foam. Kidde-Fenwal sold National Foam in 2013 for $77 million to a company that became known as New National Foam, according to court documents.

Carrier Global said Monday that it would support Kidde-Fenwal's efforts to find a buyer in bankruptcy, and that all proceeds from the sale would be available to pay AFFF liabilities and other claims. Carrier said there was "no assurance" that it would receive any recovery from a bankruptcy sale.

Carrier took ownership of Kidde-Fenwal when both companies were spun off from United Technologies Corp in 2020. Carrier said in a Monday statement that Kidde-Fenwal was an independently managed company and was not a "strategic fit" for Carrier going forward.

PFAS are found in thousands of products, from cell phones to food packaging. They have been the subject of an increasing number of lawsuits linking them to cancer, other health risks and environmental damage. 3M, a central defendant in the AFFF lawsuits, has said it would stop producing PFAS by 2025.

The case is In re Kidde-Fenwal Inc, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, No. 23-10638.

For Kidde-Fenwal: Derek Abbott of Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell; and Justin DeCamp of Sullivan & Cromwell

Read more:

North Carolina sues 3M, others over firefighting foams

3M to end 'forever chemicals' output at cost of up to $2.3 bln

New York sues 3M, five others over toxic chemical contamination

California sues 3M, DuPont over toxic 'forever chemicals'

(Reporting by Dietrich Knaut

Trump’s Call-In to Far-Right Roadshow Is Red Meat for Christian Nationalists

Story by Kelly Weill • May 15, 2023

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Reuters

© Provided by The Daily Beast

Atraveling Christian nationalist roadshow received the Donald Trump stamp of approval this weekend when, during a two-day event at the Trump National Doral Miami resort, the former president suggested hiring the roadshow’s co-founder, his old buddy Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

The event was ReAwaken America, a long-running tour that promotes far-right conspiracy theories and antisemitic speakers. It was co-founded by Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor who, after leaving the White House amid scandal in 2017, became a hero of the Christian nationalist and QAnon movements.

Now Trump is suggesting reinstating Flynn, should he win the 2024 presidential election.

Although Trump did not personally attend the ReAwaken tour at his own resort (he was in Iowa, where he had scheduled, then canceled a campaign rally) he spoke to the crowd via a cell phone, which Flynn held up to a microphone on the Doral stage.

“General, you just have to stay healthy because we’re bringing you back,” Trump said to Flynn on the call. “We’re gonna bring you back.”

Flynn’s reinstatement in the White House would be controversial, even on the right. Flynn was instrumental in launching the Stop The Steal movement, but later ran afoul of some of his compatriots, putting him at odds with more centrist Republicans and a subset of QAnon believers. But a future Flynn White House gig would be red meat for the conspiracy crowd that flocks to events like ReAwaken America—a crowd even more embroiled in fringe hoaxes and religious fervor than Trump’s 2016 base.

Flynn served an infamously short term in the Trump administration. Sword in as National Security Advisor on Jan. 22, 2017, he stepped down weeks later on Feb. 13, over concerns about his communications with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S.

Flynn also entered, then withdrew, a guilty plea of making false statements to the F.B.I., although Trump later pardoned him and the case was dropped. Flynn was also instrumental in the Stop The Steal movement, and, when questioned in connection to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, invoked the Fifth Amendment rather than state whether he thought the violence on Jan. 6 was justified.

Flynn has also publicly sworn an oath associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory and spoken at QAnon-aligned conferences, although he discredited QAnon in private texts with pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood. Wood later leaked the messages, in which Flynn speculated that QAnon was “a disinformation campaign to make people look like a bunch of kooks.” Still, QAnon-flavored language abounds at ReAwaken America. Flynn’s typical speech at the conference invokes QAnon-friendly fears of Christianity under attack.

Flynn’s dubious reputation hasn’t stopped Trump from mulling a new job for him in a future administration—but it has prompted Trump to muse that any such appointment would probably have to occur outside the Senate confirmation process, Rolling Stone reported earlier this month.

Trumpworld has at times exercised caution in its connections to ReAwaken America. The tour has featured end-times rhetoric, open calls for Christian nationalism, and prophecies of death for Trump’s opponents. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have been ReAwaken speakers, as have two Hitler-hyping antisemites who have elsewhere claimed that Jewish people eat children and that Hitler was “warning us” about Jews. Those two antisemitic speakers were listed as attendees at the Doral event, but were removed from the lineup after an outcry.

Nevertheless, the Doral event hosted bizarre speeches, alongside those from Trump family members like Eric and Lara Trump. Conspiracy theorist Liz Cronkin gave a speech promoting the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory that falsely claims prominent Democrats were engaging in child sex-trafficking under the guise of ordering pizza. Another speaker, a self-described “prophet,” urged that now is the time for religiously motivated “hand-to-hand combat” because she has seen evidence of mermaids, which are bad. “We have to understand what we’re dealing with. We have to understand the rules of engagement in spiritual warfare,” she told the crowd.

Flynn, who co-founded ReAwaken with businessman Clay Clark in 2021, is consistently one of the event’s biggest draws, leading attendees in baptisms and charged religious speech. At a November 2021 tour stop, Flynn called for “one religion” in the U.S. "If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God, and one religion under God," he told the crowd.

ReAwaken America is a money-maker. Current ticket prices aren’t listed online (would-be attendees have to request them via phone) but a PBS investigation last year found the prices to range from $250 to $500. With 14 multi-day stops last year, some boasting more than 3,000 attendees, the tour is one of the far right’s main events.

In addition to promoting ReAwaken America, Flynn has recently launched other side-gigs that tap into his far-right fanbase.

On May 10 on Twitter, he announced that he was creating a profile on Cameo, a service that allows people to buy personalized video messages from celebrities.

“That community represents millions of people and they deserve to have a personalized message sent to them,” Flynn said in an introductory video. “So this is really for anybody but particularly for that community. I love you all and I just want to say thank you, God bless you and God bless America and I look forward to doing videos for each and every one of you.”

So far, Flynn appears to have made two videos singing “Happy Birthday” for customers, at $150 a pop. He also this month launched a channel on Rumble, a YouTube alternative popular with the right. His first video, a two-and-a-half minute clip titled “The Decline of The Dollar,” splices together ominous footage about alternative currencies before concluding with a clip of Flynn endorsing a California-based precious metals retailer.

Flynn also promoted the precious metals store this month on Telegram, suggesting that followers stock up on gold in order to “start preparing for CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currency) & EO 14067.” The reference to CBDCs is a nod to an ongoing discussion by the Federal Reserve on whether to use digital currency in addition to physical money. Although the Fed has not decided whether to move forward with the digital option, figures in conspiracy circles have conflated CBDCs with other monetary proposals and falsely claimed that the currencies represent an imminent plot to oppress Americans by digitally banning them from buying things like guns or meat.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

ALIENATION, ATOMISATION

How the American Dream convinces people loneliness is normal


NEW YORK (AP) — At the end of “The Searchers,” one of John Wayne’s most renowned Westerns, a kidnapped girl has been rescued and a family reunited. As the closing music swells, Wayne's character looks around at his kin — people who have other people to lean on — and then walks off toward the dusty West Texas horizon, lonesome and alone.

It's a classic example of a fundamental American tall tale — that of a nation built on notions of individualism, a male-dominated story filled with loners and “rugged individualists” who suck it up, do what needs to be done, ride off into the sunset and like it that way.

In reality, loneliness in America can be deadly. This month, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared it an American epidemic, saying that it takes as deadly a toll as smoking upon the population of the United States. “Millions of people in America are struggling in the shadows," he said, “and that’s not right.”

He cited some potent forces: the gradual withering of longstanding institutions, decreased engagement with churches, the fraying bonds of extended families. When you add recent stressors — the rise of social media and virtual life, post-9/11 polarization and the way COVID-19 interrupted existence — the challenge becomes even more stark.

People are lonely the world over. But as far back as the early 19th century, when the word “loneliness” began to be used in its current context in American life, some were already asking the question: Do the contours of American society — that emphasis on individualism, that spreading out with impunity over a vast, sometimes outsized landscape — encourage isolation and alienation?

Or is that, like other chunks of the American story, a premise built on myths?

___

Alexis de Tocqueville, watching the country as an outsider while writing “Democracy in America” in the mid-1800s, wondered whether, “as social conditions become more equal,” Americans and people like them would be inclined to reject the trappings of deep community that had pervaded Old World aristocracies for centuries.

“They acquire the habit of always considering themselves as standing alone, and they are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in their own hands,” he wrote. “Thus not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but it ... throws him back forever upon himself alone, and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within the solitude of his own heart.”

This has been a recurring thread in how Americans perceive themselves. In the age before democracy, for better and for worse, “People weren’t lonely. They were tied up in a web of connections. And in many countries that’s more true than it was in the United States,” says Colin Woodard, director of the Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy.

“There’s this idea that going out into those vast spaces and connecting with the wilderness and escaping the past was precisely what made us Americans," Woodard says.

Yet many frontier myths skip over how important community has been in the settling and growth of the nation. Some of the biggest stories of cooperation — the rise of municipal organizations and trade unions, the New Deal programs that helped drag many Americans out of the Depression in the 1930s, war efforts from the Civil War to World War II — sometimes get lost in the fervor for character-driven stories of individualism.

Those omissions continue. Fueled in part by pandemic distrust, a latter-day strain of individual-over-community sentiment often paired with invocations of liberty and freedom occupies a significant chunk of the national conversation these days — to the point where advocacy about community thinking is sometimes met with accusations of socialism.


Let's not consign Americans to be the heirs of a built-in loneliness gene, though. A new generation is insisting that mental health be part of the national conversation, and many voices — among them women and people of color — are increasingly offering new alternatives to the old myths.

What's more, the very place where the discussion about loneliness is being held today — in the office of the surgeon general, a presidential appointee — suggests that other paths are possible.

___

The ways Americans perceive themselves as solitary (whether or not it's true) can be seen in their art.

One of the nation's early art movements, the mid-19th-century Hudson River School, made people tiny parts of outsized landscapes, implying both that the land dwarfed humans and that they were being summoned to tame it. From that, you can draw a line straight to Hollywood and director John Ford's Westerns, which used vast landscapes to isolate and motivate humans for the purposes of telling big stories. Same with music, where both the blues and the "high lonesome sound" helped shape later genres.

In the suburbs, Betty Friedan's groundbreaking “The Feminine Mystique” helped give voice to a generation of lonely women. In the city, Edward Hopper's work — like the iconic "Nighthawks” — channeled urban loneliness. At around the same time, the emergence of film noir — crime and decay in the American city its frequent subject — helped shape the figure of the lonely man alone in a crowd who might be a protagonist, might be an antagonist, might be both.

Today, loneliness plays out on streaming TV all the time in the forms of shows like “Severance,” “Shrinking,” “Beef” and, most prominently, the earnest “Ted Lasso,” a show about an American in Britain who — despite being known and celebrated by many — is consistently and obviously lonely.

In March, the show's creator and star, Jason Sudeikis, appeared with his cast at the White House to talk about the issue that the show is, in its final season, more about than ever: mental health. “We all know someone who has, or have been that someone ourselves actually, that’s struggled, that’s felt isolated, that’s felt anxious, that has felt alone,” Sudeikis said.

Solitude and isolation do not automatically equal loneliness. But they all live in the same part of town. During the pandemic, Murthy’s report found, people tightened their groups of friends and cut time spent with them. According to the report, Americans spent 20 minutes a day with friends in 2020 — down from an hour daily two decades ago. Granted, that was during peak COVID. The trend, though, is clear — particularly among young people ages 15 to 24.

Perhaps many Americans are alone in a crowd, awash in a sea of voices both physical and virtual yet by themselves much of the time, seeking community but suspicious of it. Some of the modernizing forces that stitched the United States together in the first place — commerce, communication, roads — are, in their current forms, part of what isolates people today. There's a lot of space between the general store and Amazon deliveries to your door, between mailing a letter and navigating virtual worlds, between roads that connect towns and freeways that overrun them.

And if Americans can figure out more about what connects and what alienates, some answers to the loneliness epidemic might reveal themselves.

“We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately," Benjamin Franklin, not incidentally the country's first postmaster general, said under very different circumstances. Or perhaps it's put better by the American poet Amanda Gorman, one of the country's most insightful young voices. This is from her poem “The Miracle of Morning,” written in 2020 during the early part of the pandemic.

“While we might feel small, separate, and all alone,

our people have never been more closely tethered.

Because the question isn’t if we can weather this unknown,

but how we will weather this unknown together.”

___

Ted Anthony, director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation at The Associated Press, has been writing about American culture since 1990. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/anthonyted

Ted Anthony, The Associated Press

'My truck won't move:' Are truckers boycotting Florida over DeSantis' new immigration law?

Story by C. A. Bridges and Thao Nguyen, 

USA TODAY NETWORK • Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Truck drivers called for boycotts over the weekend against Florida's tough new penalties and restrictions on undocumented immigrants in the state, which include requiring employers to verify if workers are authorized to work in the United States.

Social media "exploded" with reports of Latino truck drivers threatening to stop delivering to and in Florida, according to independent journalist Arturo Dominguez.

"Don't enter Florida," one trucker said in a TikTok video.

“My truck will not be going to Florida at all. I’m pretty sure we can all come together as a Latino community and boycott Florida as a whole because what they are doing to our brothers and sisters out there is not fair,” a truck driver said in another TikTok video.

Florida's new immigration law requires businesses with more than 25 employees to use E-Verify. The web-based, federal system allows enrolled employers to determine if their employees are legally authorized to work in the United States. It also invalidates identification cards issued in other states that are held by people who live in the country illegally.


Stock photo of trucks on the side of a road.© Pexels.com/Quintin Gellar

The new law, which was signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis Wednesday, will take effect July 1.

USA TODAY
What to know about the end of Title 42 and how it could affect migrants

Duration 2:21 View on Watch

Why are truckers not delivering to Florida?

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump administration established Title 42, part of a public health law to curb migration in the name of protecting public health. It allowed U.S. officials to turn away migrants at the U.S-Mexico border and denied migrants the right to seek asylum.

President Joe Biden tried to end the policy's use in 2022 but Republicans sued, claiming it was necessary for border security. Title 42 was tied to the national COVID-19 emergency declaration and it ended when that did last week, triggering GOP warnings of a massive surge at the border.

In response to the end of Title 42, the Florida legislature pushed through a new bill, which has been praised by supporters as necessary and condemned by critics as cruel and potentially leading to law enforcement profiling. It’s considered among the toughest steps taken by any state to deter migrants from arriving.

What does DeSantis' new immigration law do?

Florida's sweeping immigration bill, SB 1718, seeks to crack down on the flow of illegal immigration with some of the toughest penalties in the country. Among other things, the new law:

Requires private employers with 25 or more employees and all public agencies to use the federal E-Verify system to verify a new employee's employment eligibility, starting on July 1.

Requires employers to fire an employee if they discover them to be a "foreign national" who is not authorized to work in the U.S. and makes it illegal for any person to knowingly employ, hire, recruit or even refer, either for herself or himself or on behalf of another, for private or public employment within the state, such a person.

Hospitals that accept Medicaid must ask patients if they are U.S. citizens and if they are here legally, and report that data (without personally identifying information) to the governor quarterly and annually.
Invalidates out-of-state driver's licenses issued to "unauthorized immigrants."

Makes it a third-degree felony for anyone who knowingly or who reasonably should know that they are transporting immigrants who entered the country illegally into Florida. Transporting a minor is a second-degree felony.

Expands the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s counter-terrorism efforts to include immigration matters.

Appropriates tax dollars to be used for DeSantis' “unauthorized alien transport program,” the program he began when he flew about 50 Venezuelan migrants in two charter planes from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

According to Susan Pai, a Florida immigration lawyer based in Jacksonville, the law also applies to people who lawfully entered the country on visitor and student visas but are not authorized to work

Are truckers boycotting Florida?

We don't know for sure that they are, yet. Dominguez retweeted several videos of truckers calling for a boycott.

In one of the TikTok videos, a trucker under the name of @robertooleo88oficial said, translated from Spanish: "Truckers, don't enter the state of Florida. Let's be united as Latinos in defense of our Latin American brothers who are being assaulted by this very stupid law, which incites hatred and discrimination. My truck won't move. Don't enter Florida. Nobody enter Florida."

Another backed him up.

“I’m not going to Florida. I’m with you," @elarracas91.1 said, translated from Spanish. "I’m a trucker and Cuban. The race needs help and here we are. Strength.”

“Look at how many truckers are behind me," he said. "We have lines and lines and lines of truckers.

“Remember one thing. In Florida, more goes in than comes out so if we don’t take anything to Florida. Tell me? What are they going to have? Let’s see what the governor is going to do. Is his little truck going to take things to his lousy racist people he has there?”

Immigrant advocates said Florida’s approach targets a community already struggling to survive with new criminal penalties and restrictions. Immigrants living in Florida, legally and illegally, represent a huge share of the state’s workforce, leaders added. And now with out-of-state driver's licenses for undocumented people invalid in Florida, some are concerned they will be profiled and stopped.

“I’ve been getting a lot of calls from people asking me if they should leave the state,” Pai said. “The undocumented community is very scared to even show up for work.”


How many immigrants live and work in Florida?

According to the Migration Policy Institute, about 21% of Florida's population is foreign-born.

The Farmworkers Association of Florida, a grassroots nonprofit that advocates for social and environmental justice with farmworkers, estimates that there are about 300,000 farm workers in Florida who live in the state illegally — making up about 60% of the state’s farm workers.

Contributors: John Kennedy, Capital Bureau, USA TODAY NETWORK - FLORIDA; Brandon Girod, Pensacola News-Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: 'My truck won't move:' Are truckers boycotting Florida over DeSantis' new immigration law?

Threat of Trucker Protest Isn't Swaying Ron DeSantis on Migrant Crackdown

Story by Thomas Kika • May 15,2023

People look over a boat was left along the shoreline after it was used to transport Cuban migrants from the island nation on January 05, 2023 in Marathon, Florida. An increasing number of migrants from Cuba and Haiti have taken to the seas to reach the United States.

© Joe Raedle/Getty

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Monday stood by his state's recently passed immigration laws, despite reports of planned protests in response to it.

As Title 42 came to an end on Thursday, DeSantis signed into law a new bill, SB 1718, which will enact a handful of new rules against undocumented migrants when it goes into effect on July 1. This will include requirements that employers use E-Verify to ensure that their employees are authorized to work in the U.S. and that hospitals collect information on undocumented patients, among other things.

Newsweek

Ron DeSantis Stands By New Florida Immigration Laws

Duration 1:29  View on Watch

MSNBCThe cost of DeSantis' war on culture
7:13

NBC NewsFull Panel: DeSantis’ image that ‘he’s Donald Trump without the baggage' ... 'fell flat'
10:25

While the new bill has been praised by DeSantis's allies on the right, it has also received considerable pushback that continues to mount. On Saturday, independent journalist Arturo Dominguez began sharing to Twitter numerous clips of Latin American truck drivers calling for their fellow truckers to begin a service boycott of Florida, which would involve not bringing shipments into the state.

"Truckers, don't enter the state of Florida," one of the truckers said in Spanish. "Let's be united as Latinos in defense of our Latin American brothers who are being assaulted by this very stupid law, which incites hatred and discrimination...My truck won't move. Don't enter Florida. Nobody enter Florida."

Newsweek previously reached out to DeSantis's press office for comment on those reported boycott plans. While the governor has yet to issue an official statement on the issue, he stood behind SB 1718 during a press conference on Monday when he was pressed about the impact its new requirements would have on industries in Florida.

"Florida law is that you have to be here legally to able to be employed," DeSantis said. "That's been the law for forever. And so, when we have something like an E-Verify, that's a tool to make sure longstanding Florida law is enforced, and I think that that's important. You can't build a strong economy based on illegality."

Despite the numerous videos of truckers spreading on Spanish-language corners of social media, it remains unclear for the time being if any sort of protest has actually begun.

Meanwhile, immigrant advocates in Florida have reported that the state's undocumented communities are in a panicked state as SB 1718's new rules approach, with some considering if they might have to leave altogether.

"I've been getting a lot of calls from people asking me if they should leave the state," immigration lawyer Susan Pai said. "The undocumented community is very scared to even show up for work."

 

Others on social media have raised the concern that the new laws will lead to an increase in the profiling of anyone who appears to be Latin American or Hispanic, as SB 1718 will void any license issued out-of-state to undocumented individuals.

Newsweek reached out to the Florida Democratic Party via email for comment.

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China aims for better-skilled population, to improve childcare

Story by By Farah Master • May 15, 2023

 parents pushes a stroller with a baby in a park in Shanghai

© Thomson Reuters

HONG KONG (Reuters) - China needs to focus on education, science and technology to develop a better-skilled population, the state-backed People's Daily said on Tuesday, adding that the country will strive for a "moderate fertility" level to support economic growth.

President Xi Jinping recently attended a meeting concerned with population development, it added with the newspaper describing population development as a major event linked to China's "great rejuvenation".

Concerned about China's first population drop in six decades last year and its rapid ageing, the government has urgently embarked on measures to lift the country's birth rate including financial incentives and boosting childcare facilities.

Related video: Why China is launching projects to build 'new-era' marriage, childbearing culture (India Today)   Duration 1:23  View on Watch

China will double the number of childcare centres by 2025, state-backed broadcaster CCTV said on Tuesday, with the headline "It is no longer difficult to take care of a baby".

The number of caregivers per 1,000 people will increase to 4.5 by 2025 from 2.5 in 2022, it added.

Many Chinese women are reluctant to have more than one or even any children due to the high costs of child-rearing and as the lack of childcare means becoming a parent often entails giving up a career. Gender discrimination and traditional thinking that places the burden of caring for children mostly on women are still widespread throughout the country.Authorities have in recent months increased rhetoric about sharing child-rearing duties but paternity leave is still limited in most provinces.

Opening up fertility services to unmarried women may help to boost the country's fertility rate, the government's political advisers proposed in March.

(Reporting by Farah Master and the Beijing newsroom; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)

Thais cheer poll winner Move Forward as opposition parties agree to coalition

Story by By Chayut Setboonsarng and Panu Wongcha-um • 

REUTERS

Tuesday, May 16,2023

Thailand general election© Thomson Reuters

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's two main opposition parties agreed on Monday to form a ruling coalition after they trounced in a weekend election military-backed rivals that have controlled government for nearly a decade.

The Move Forward party and opposition heavyweight Pheu Thai dominated Sunday's ballot in a rout of army-backed parties, but could face challenges in mustering enough support to vote in a prime minister, with parliamentary rules drafted by the military after a 2014 coup skewed in favour of its allies.



Thailand general election© Thomson Reuters

Their alliance would need to ensure its efforts to form a new government would not be stymied by a junta-appointed Senate, which gets to vote on a prime minister in a bicameral sitting of the 750-member legislature, and has a record of favouring conservative parties led by generals.

Pita Limjaroenrat, Move Forward's 42-year-old leader proposed an alliance of six parties that would command 309 seats. That would be short of the 376 seats needed to ensure he was elected as prime minister.


Thailand general election© Thomson Reuters

Asked about the Senate, he said all sides must respect the election outcome and there was no use going against it.

"I am not worried but I am not careless," he told a press conference.

"It will be quite a hefty price to pay if someone is thinking about debunking the election result or forming a minority government."

Pheu Thai, controlled by the billionaire Shinawatra family said it agreed with Pita's proposal and wished him luck in efforts to become prime minister.


Thailand general election© Thomson Reuters

The party had won most seats in every election this century, including twice in landslides, but met its match against Move Forward as it came close to a sweep of the capital Bangkok and made gains in rivals' strongholds.

NO OTHER ALLIANCE

"Pheu Thai has no plan to form any other government," party leader Chonlanan Srikaew told a press conference.

Though the results appear to be a hammer blow for the military and its allies, with parliamentary rules on their side and some influential power-brokers behind them, they could determine the shape of a new government.

Move Forward was galvanized by a wave of excitement among the youth over its liberal agenda and promises of bold changes, including breaking up monopolies and reforming a law on insulting the monarchy.

The landslide victory of two progressive political parties in Thailand's

Duration 2:53  View on Watch

On Monday, Pita did a victory lap in Bangkok where thousands of supporters had gathered - some in the streets, others on rooftops - dressed in Move Forward's signature orange colour and chanting "Prime Minister Pita".

Thai opposition crush military parties in election

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DW  Thai Elections

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WION  Thailand Election 2023: Opinion polls indicate massive support for two opposition parties

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Dailymotion Nanalong Move Forward Party Leader ng Thailand, nakipagkasundo sa pagbuo ng coalition

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Student Pirag Phrasawang, 22, said he was "overwhelmed and excited to see change finally come to the country".

"My voice has been neglected for a long time. I'm glad that people finally woke up and responded to Move Forward's policies."

Pita has said Move Forward would press ahead with its plan to amend strict lese majeste laws against insulting the monarchy, which critics say have been used to stifle free speech. Thailand's palace does not comment on the law or its use.

The law punishes perceived insults by up to 15 years in prison, with hundreds of people facing charges, some of whom are in pre-trial detention.

Pita said parliament would be the right forum to seek amendments to the law, or article 112 of the criminal code.

"We will use the parliament to make sure that there is a comprehensive discussion with maturity, with transparency in how we should move forward in terms of the relationship between the monarchy and the masses," he said.

Asked if Pheu Thai would back that, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, one of its main candidates, said it could be discussed in the legislature.

"Pheu Thai has a clear stand that we won't abolish 112 but there can be a discussion about the law in parliament," she said.

(Reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat, Chayut Setboonsarng, Juarawee Kittisilpa and Panu Wongcha-um; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Thailand’s opposition won a landslide in elections. But will the military elite let them rule?

Story by Helen Regan • CNNTuesday, May 16, 2023

Like a good democracy, now comes the horse trading.

Hear from supporters of winning party in Thailand's election

Duration 2:40   View on Watch

Thai voters delivered a powerful message to the country’s military-backed government on Sunday: you do not have the will of the people to rule.

The progressive Move Forward Party, which gained a huge following among young Thais for its reformist platform, won the most seats and the largest share of the popular vote.

Pheu Thai, the main opposition party that has been a populist force in Thailand for 20 years, came second.

Together they delivered a crushing blow to the conservative, military-backed establishment that has ruled on and off for decades, often by turfing out popularly elected governments in coups.

“This is an unmistakable frontal rebuke, a rejection of Thailand’s military authoritarian past. It’s a rejection of military dominance in politics,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist from Chulalongkorn University.

Over the last two decades, each time Thais have been allowed to vote, they have done so overwhelmingly in support of the military’s political opponents. Sunday’s vote – which saw a record turnout – was a continuation of that tradition.

But despite winning a landslide, it is far from certain who will be the next leader.

Thailand’s opposition won a landslide in elections. But will the military elite let them rule?© Provided by CNNSupporters of the Move Forward Party react as they watch results come in at the party headquarters in Bangkok on May 14, after polls closed in Thailand's general election. - Jack Taylor/AFP/Getty Images

That’s because the military junta that last seized power in 2014 rewrote the constitution to ensure they maintain a huge say in who can lead, whether or not they win the popular vote.

Neither opposition party won an outright majority of 376 seats needed to form a government outright, they will need to strike deals and wrangle support from other parties to form a coalition big enough to ensure victory.

But that won’t necessarily be straightforward.

Dangerous territory

The first thing to know is that any opposition party or coalition hoping to form a government must overcome the powerful voting bloc of the senate.

Under the junta-era constitution, Thailand’s unelected 250-seat senate is chosen entirely by the military and has previously voted for a pro-military candidate.

Because a party needs a majority of the combined houses – 750 seats – to elect a prime minister, it means opposition parties need almost three times as many votes in the lower house to be able to elect the next leader and form a government.

In 2019, coup leader Prayut Chan-o-cha won the senate votes which ensured his party’s coalition gained enough seats to elect him as prime minister, despite Pheu Thai being the largest party.

There are also other threats to the progressive movement’s win. Parties that have previously pushed for change have run afoul of the powerful conservative establishment – a nexus of the military, monarchy and influential elites.


Thailand’s opposition won a landslide in elections. But will the military elite let them rule?© Provided by CNNMove Forward Party leader and prime ministerial candidate, Pita Limjaroenrat, attends a press conference following the general election, at the party's headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand, on May 15. - Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

Lawmakers have faced bans, parties have been dissolved, and governments have been overthrown. Thailand has witnessed a dozen successful coups since 1932, including two in the past 17 years.

And the purportedly independent election commission, anti-corruption commission and the constitutional court are all dominated in favor of the establishment.

In the progressive camp’s favor, however, is their large margin over the military-backed parties.

“If the results were murky, or if the pro-military parties got more, then we would be looking at manipulation, trying to shave the margins. But the results are so clear and very difficult to overturn now,” said Thitinan, adding that if there were attempts to subvert the vote, there would be public anger and protests.

Move Forward’s predecessor the Future Forward Party won the third most seats in the 2019 election. Shortly afterward, several of the party’s leaders were banned from politics and the party was later dissolved after a court ruled it violated electoral finance rules.

In the short term, that decision ended the threat from the Future Forward Party. But it also, in many ways, laid the foundation for Sunday’s historic vote.

Youth-led protests erupted across Thailand in 2020 after Future Forward was dissolved and a whole new generation of young political leaders were born, some of whom were willing to debate a previously taboo topic – royal reform.

Those calls electrified Thailand, where any frank discussion of the monarchy is fraught with the threat of prison under one of the strictest lese majeste laws in the world.

Many youth leaders were jailed or face ongoing prosecution linked to those protests. But some also went on to create the Move Forward party that swept to victory in the popular vote on Sunday.

That leaves the military establishment now locked in a political battle with a party that has kept the subject of royal reform on its manifesto.

Experts have said another coup would be costly, and dissolving a party with such a mandate would be “drastic.”

“Dissolving a party is a fairly drastic move. If there’s a way of keeping Move Forward out without dissolving them, then conservative politicians would probably prefer to do that. Because it’s not as strong a step in subverting the will that people have expressed,” said Susannah Patton, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Lowy Institute.

“But you can’t rule that out.”

Vote for change cannot be ignored

Move Forward’s allure went beyond the youth vote on which it built its base.

Unofficial results showed the party captured 32 out of 33 seats in Bangkok – traditionally a stronghold for conservative parties.

“What this shows is that people who are living in urban areas are really fed up with the government that the military has provided for almost a decade,” said Patton.

“They are wanting to choose something different, and Move Forward is not just the youth party but actually can attract a wider cross section of support as well.”

Move Forward’s radical agenda includes reforming the military, getting rid of the draft, reducing the military’s budget, making it more transparent and accountable, as well as constitutional change and to bring the military and monarchy within the constitution.

The party’s win over the populist juggernaut Pheu Thai is also significant. This is the first time a party linked with ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has lost an election since 2001.

And Pheu Thai’s marginal defeat to Move Forward shows voters’ frustration with the old cycle of politics that pitted populist Thaksin-linked parties against the establishment.

Thailand’s “two party system was already breaking down in 2019, but it’s continuing to break down this election,” said Patton.

In a press conference on Monday, Move Forward leader Pita Limjaroenrat said the party would go forward with plans to amend the country’s strict lese majeste laws – a key campaign pledge despite the taboo surrounding any discussion of the royal family in Thailand.

One of his priorities is to support young people facing jail terms on lese majeste charges, and Pita warned that if the law remains as it is, the relationship between the Thai people and the monarchy will only worsen.

His policies “strike at heart of the establishment,” said Thitinan, and even talking about the monarchy openly “is an affront to the palace.”

The Move Forward leader said Monday that he wants to form an alliance with the four other opposition parties to secure a majority in the lower house.

It could take 60 days before a prime ministerial candidate is endorsed by Thailand’s combined houses of parliament, but Sunday’s vote shows the people are ready for change.

However, if Thailand’s turbulent recent history is anything to go by, that could mean little. The military has shown in the past that it has few qualms about ignoring the popular vote.

CNN.com

Thailand's Senate could hold the key for hopeful election winner

Story by By Panarat Thepgumpanat • May 15

Thailand general election© Thomson Reuters


BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's Move Forward party announced on Monday that it had sufficient votes to form a coalition government but a military-appointed Senate, the party's position on a royal insult law and a complaint against its leader may stand in the way.


Thailand general election© Thomson Reuters

Pita Limjareonrat, 42, led the Move Forward party to a stunning victory in Sunday's general election, winning the highest number of seats, ahead of another opposition party, the political heavyweight Pheu Thai.

The victory of the two opposition parties may pave the way to ending nearly 10 years of military-backed governments led by a former army chief, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, whose newly formed party won a small fraction of the seats that the opposition parties did.

"I am ready to become Thailand's 30th prime minister," Pita declared, explaining that his party and its five prospective coalition partners, including Pheu Thai, would secure 309 seats in the 500-seat lower house of parliament.



Thailand general election© Thomson Reuters

However, to be indisputably in a position to become prime minister he needs to be able to command a majority in a joint sitting of the bicameral legislature, which includes 250 members of a military-appointed Senate.



Thailand general election© Thomson Reuters

So he needs 376 members of a joint session to vote for him.

Reuters spoke to six senators to try to gauge the mood of the upper house. Some of them suggested they would not necessarily vote with the majority in parliament, even though that reflected the will of the people as expressed on Sunday.

Related video: Analysis: Two Scenarios for Post-Election Thailand - TaiwanPlus News (TaiwanPlus)

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DailymotionOpposition Parties Score Stunning Election Win in Thailand

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France 24Changing of the guard? Thailand election winners challenge ruling establishment

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cbc.caThai voters choose democratic-leaning opposition parties

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Senator Somchai Sawangkarn said his vote for who becomes prime minister would based on his criteria and a lower-house majority alone was not sufficient.

"The person must be honest and not cause problems in the country," Somchai said.

"Hitler was elected in a majority but led the country to world war ... If there is a possibility of creating division in the country, I will not vote for them," he said.

Another, Kittisak Rattanawaraha, said the next leader must be loyal to the nation, religion and king and not corrupt, echoing themes upheld by Move Forward's conservative opponents.



Thailand general election© Thomson Reuters

A polarising issue for Move Forward is its position on amending a strict royal insult law, which sets out a sentence of up to 15 years for defaming the monarchy.

Critics says conservative governments have used the law to stifle dissent but conservatives are fiercely opposed to any suggestion of amending it.

The royal family is officially above politics and the king constitutionally enshrined to be held in "revered worship".

Senator Jet Sirathananon said he would respect the wishes of the majority.

"The Senate should not block the work of parliament. Based on what we saw yesterday, we'll respect people's votes," he said.

One senator said he would abstain on the grounds that it was the duty of the lower house to select the prime minister.

Another danger that Pita faces could come from the courts.

According to a complaint filed with the Election Commission before the vote, Pita broke electoral rules because he holds shares in a media company.

Pita said he was ready to explain that there was no wrongdoing and the allegation was a distraction.

"The road for Move Forward is just starting and it will not be smooth," said Ben Kiatkwankul, partner at Maverick Consulting Group, government affairs advisory.

(Additional reporting by Chayut Setboonsarng; Editing by Robert Birsel)