YEAR OF THE RAT 2020 IN CASE YOU FORGOT
Thursday, June 25, 2020
#IMPEACHBARR
Attorney General Barr ordered antitrust probes of 10 cannabis mergers, because he dislikes the industry, prosecutor says
Attorney General Barr ordered antitrust probes of 10 cannabis mergers, because he dislikes the industry, prosecutor says
While these were nominally antitrust investigations, and used antitrust investigative authorities, they were not bona fide antitrust investigations,’ says John Elias
MARKETWATCH PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/GETTY IMAGES, ISTOCKPHOTO
A federal prosecutor told House lawmakers on Wednesday that Attorney General William Barr ordered antitrust staffers to investigate 10 proposed mergers in the cannabis sector because of his personal dislike of the industry.
John Elias, a member of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, told the House Judiciary Committee in prepared testimony that the investigations were carried out even after staffers had determined that the cannabis business is highly fragmented with many market participants in the states that have legalized cannabis. Read Elias’ statement.
Mergers are usually only subjected to antitrust investigations if they are likely to have an impact on competition or create a monopoly.
“While these were nominally antitrust investigations, and used antitrust investigative authorities, they were not bona fide antitrust investigations,” said Elias. “Nonetheless, they accounted for 29% of the Antitrust Division’s full-review merger investigations in Fiscal Year 2019.”
The testimony is part of the committee’s probe into whether the Justice Department under Barr has been improperly politicized. Elias and Aaron Zelinsky, a career Justice Department prosecutor, were subpoenaed by House Democrats to testify. Zelinsky worked on cases as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, including the case against Roger Stone, an ally of President Donald Trump.
See now:Career prosecutor set to tell Congress that Trump ally Roger Stone got special treatment from the Justice Department
Elias explained that the antitrust division’s manual instructs staffers to first look at market share as an indicator of whether a deal needs to get routine clearance or be subjected to the fullest review, by issuing what is called a “Second Request” subpoena. Typically, a company would need at least double-digit market share to merit that subpoena, which can lead to demands for hundreds of thousands or even millions of documents.
See also:Mueller said to have weighed possibility Trump lied in written responses to investigators
Merging companies must comply with a Second Request subpoena, as they cannot close a deal until they have complied.
The prosecutor said in the case of a review of a proposed merger between cannabis retailer MedMen Enterprises Inc. and PharmaCann LLC, staffers found the deal did not raise any significant competitive concerns. But on March 5, 2019, Barr called the antitrust division leadership to his office and ordered them to issue Second Request subpoenas. The division went ahead and did so and said the reason was that it had not “evaluated this industry before.”
“This rationale — standing alone, without reference to a competition problem — is not described in the Merger Guidelines as a basis for investigating a transaction,” said Elias.
The companies were then asked to provide 1.3 million documents from the files of 40 employees. The investigation then found that the markets were indeed “unconcentrated” and was closed without enforcement action. By then, however, the deal had collapsed with MedMen citing delays in obtaining regulatory approval. The company’s stock price had lost about a third of its value while the investigation was being conducted.
See also:U.S. pot retailer MedMen says it’s trying to use stock to pay its bills amid cannabis industry’s cash crunch
The antitrust division went on to investigate another nine deals, including one in which staffers determined the post-merger market share would be just 0.35%, said Elias.
When prosecutors brought their concerns to the head of the Antitrust Division, Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim, he responded by saying the investigations were motivated “by the fact that the cannabis industry is unpopular ‘on the fifth floor,’” a reference to Barr’s offices in the DOJ headquarters building.
“Personal dislike of the industry is not a proper basis upon which to ground an antitrust investigation,” said Elias.
Barr said in April of 2019 that he would “favor one uniform federal rule against marijuana but, if there is not sufficient consensus to obtain that, then I think the way to go is to permit a more federal approach so states can make their own decisions within the framework of the federal law and so we’re not just ignoring the enforcement of federal law,” he said.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
MedMen shares MMNFF, -5.83% were last trading at 23 cents, and have lost 56.5% in 2020 to date.
The Cannabis ETF THCX, -1.60% was down 4% Wednesday, and has lost 22.5% in the year to date, while the S&P 500 SPX, 0.14% has fallen 5.7%.
A federal prosecutor told House lawmakers on Wednesday that Attorney General William Barr ordered antitrust staffers to investigate 10 proposed mergers in the cannabis sector because of his personal dislike of the industry.
John Elias, a member of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, told the House Judiciary Committee in prepared testimony that the investigations were carried out even after staffers had determined that the cannabis business is highly fragmented with many market participants in the states that have legalized cannabis. Read Elias’ statement.
Mergers are usually only subjected to antitrust investigations if they are likely to have an impact on competition or create a monopoly.
“While these were nominally antitrust investigations, and used antitrust investigative authorities, they were not bona fide antitrust investigations,” said Elias. “Nonetheless, they accounted for 29% of the Antitrust Division’s full-review merger investigations in Fiscal Year 2019.”
The testimony is part of the committee’s probe into whether the Justice Department under Barr has been improperly politicized. Elias and Aaron Zelinsky, a career Justice Department prosecutor, were subpoenaed by House Democrats to testify. Zelinsky worked on cases as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, including the case against Roger Stone, an ally of President Donald Trump.
See now:Career prosecutor set to tell Congress that Trump ally Roger Stone got special treatment from the Justice Department
Elias explained that the antitrust division’s manual instructs staffers to first look at market share as an indicator of whether a deal needs to get routine clearance or be subjected to the fullest review, by issuing what is called a “Second Request” subpoena. Typically, a company would need at least double-digit market share to merit that subpoena, which can lead to demands for hundreds of thousands or even millions of documents.
See also:Mueller said to have weighed possibility Trump lied in written responses to investigators
Merging companies must comply with a Second Request subpoena, as they cannot close a deal until they have complied.
The prosecutor said in the case of a review of a proposed merger between cannabis retailer MedMen Enterprises Inc. and PharmaCann LLC, staffers found the deal did not raise any significant competitive concerns. But on March 5, 2019, Barr called the antitrust division leadership to his office and ordered them to issue Second Request subpoenas. The division went ahead and did so and said the reason was that it had not “evaluated this industry before.”
“This rationale — standing alone, without reference to a competition problem — is not described in the Merger Guidelines as a basis for investigating a transaction,” said Elias.
The companies were then asked to provide 1.3 million documents from the files of 40 employees. The investigation then found that the markets were indeed “unconcentrated” and was closed without enforcement action. By then, however, the deal had collapsed with MedMen citing delays in obtaining regulatory approval. The company’s stock price had lost about a third of its value while the investigation was being conducted.
See also:U.S. pot retailer MedMen says it’s trying to use stock to pay its bills amid cannabis industry’s cash crunch
The antitrust division went on to investigate another nine deals, including one in which staffers determined the post-merger market share would be just 0.35%, said Elias.
When prosecutors brought their concerns to the head of the Antitrust Division, Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim, he responded by saying the investigations were motivated “by the fact that the cannabis industry is unpopular ‘on the fifth floor,’” a reference to Barr’s offices in the DOJ headquarters building.
“Personal dislike of the industry is not a proper basis upon which to ground an antitrust investigation,” said Elias.
Barr said in April of 2019 that he would “favor one uniform federal rule against marijuana but, if there is not sufficient consensus to obtain that, then I think the way to go is to permit a more federal approach so states can make their own decisions within the framework of the federal law and so we’re not just ignoring the enforcement of federal law,” he said.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
MedMen shares MMNFF, -5.83% were last trading at 23 cents, and have lost 56.5% in 2020 to date.
The Cannabis ETF THCX, -1.60% was down 4% Wednesday, and has lost 22.5% in the year to date, while the S&P 500 SPX, 0.14% has fallen 5.7%.
Trump’s July 4 trip to Mount Rushmore draws sharp criticism from Native Americans
Many Native Americans activists say the Rushmore memorial is as reprehensible as the many Confederate monuments being toppled around the nation
“Mount Rushmore is a symbol of white supremacy, of structural racism that’s still alive and well in society today,” said Nick Tilsen, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe and the president of a local activist organization called NDN Collective. “It’s an injustice to actively steal Indigenous people’s land then carve the white faces of the conquerors who committed genocide.”
While some activists, like Tilsen, want to see the monument removed altogether and the Black Hills returned to the Lakota, others have called for a share in the economic benefits from the region and the tourists it attracts.
Trump has long shown a fascination with Mount Rushmore. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said in 2018 that he had once told her straight-faced it was his dream to have his face carved into the monument. He later joked at a campaign rally about getting enshrined alongside George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. And while it was Noem, a Republican, who pushed for a return of the fireworks on the eve of Independence Day, Trump joined the effort and committed to visiting South Dakota for the celebration.
The four faces, carved into the mountain with dynamite and drills, are known as the “shrine to democracy.” The presidents were chosen by sculptor Gutzon Borglum for their leadership during four phases of American development: Washington led the birth of the nation; Jefferson sparked its westward expansion; Lincoln preserved the union and emancipated slaves; Roosevelt championed industrial innovation.
And yet, for many Native American people, including the Lakota, Cheyenne, Omaha, Arapaho, Kiowa and Kiowa-Apache, the monument is a desecration to the Black Hills, which they consider sacred. Lakota people know the area as Paha Sapa — “the heart of everything that is.”
As monuments to Confederate and colonial leaders have been removed across U.S. cities, conservatives have expressed concern that Mount Rushmore could be next. Commentator Ben Shapiro this week suggested that the “woke historical revisionist priesthood” wanted to blow up the monument. Noem responded by tweeting, “Not on my watch.”
Tim Giago, a journalist who is a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe, said he doesn’t see four great American leaders when he looks at the monument, but instead four white men who either made racist remarks or initiated actions that removed Native Americans from their land. Washington and Jefferson both held slaves. Lincoln, though he led the abolition of slavery, also approved the hanging of 38 Dakota men in Minnesota after a violent conflict with white settlers there. Roosevelt is reported to have said, “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are..”
The monument has long been a “Rorschach test,” said John Taliaferro, author of “Great White Fathers,” a history of the monument. “All sorts of people can go there and see it in different ways.”
The monument often starts conversations on the paradox of American democracy — that a republic that promoted the ideals of freedom, determination and innovation also enslaved people and drove others from their land, he said.
“If we’re having this discussion today about what American democracy is, Mount Rushmore is really serving its purpose because that conversation goes on there,” he said. “Is it fragile? Is it permanent? Is it cracking somewhat?”
The monument was conceived in the 1920s as a tourist draw for the new fad in vacationing called the road trip. South Dakota historian Doane Robinson recruited Borglum, one of the preeminent sculptors at the time, to abandon his work creating the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial in Georgia, which was to feature Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson.
Borglum was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, according to Mount Rushmore historian and writer Tom Griffith. Borglum joined the Klan to raise money for the Confederate memorial, and Griffith argues his allegiance was more practical than ideological. He left that project and instead spent years in South Dakota completing Mount Rushmore.
Native American activists have long staged protests at the site to raise awareness among the history of the Black Hills, which were taken from them despite treaties with the United States protecting the land. Fifty years ago this summer a group of activists associated with an organization called United Native Americans climbed to the top of the monument and occupied it.
Published: June 25, 2020 By Associated Press
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s plans to kick off Independence Day with a showy display at Mount Rushmore are drawing sharp criticism from Native Americans who view the monument as a desecration of land violently stolen from them and used to pay homage to leaders hostile to native people.
Several groups led by Native American activists are planning protests for Trump’s July 3 visit, part of Trump’s “comeback” campaign for a nation reeling from sickness, unemployment and, recently, social unrest. The event is slated to include fighter jets thundering over the 79-year-old stone monument in South Dakota’s Black Hills and the first fireworks display at the site since 2009.
But it comes amid a national reckoning over racism and a reconsideration of the symbolism of monuments around the globe. Many Native American activists say the Rushmore memorial is as reprehensible as the many Confederate monuments being toppled around the nation.
Several groups led by Native American activists are planning protests for Trump’s July 3 visit, part of Trump’s “comeback” campaign for a nation reeling from sickness, unemployment and, recently, social unrest. The event is slated to include fighter jets thundering over the 79-year-old stone monument in South Dakota’s Black Hills and the first fireworks display at the site since 2009.
But it comes amid a national reckoning over racism and a reconsideration of the symbolism of monuments around the globe. Many Native American activists say the Rushmore memorial is as reprehensible as the many Confederate monuments being toppled around the nation.
“Mount Rushmore is a symbol of white supremacy, of structural racism that’s still alive and well in society today,” said Nick Tilsen, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe and the president of a local activist organization called NDN Collective. “It’s an injustice to actively steal Indigenous people’s land then carve the white faces of the conquerors who committed genocide.”
While some activists, like Tilsen, want to see the monument removed altogether and the Black Hills returned to the Lakota, others have called for a share in the economic benefits from the region and the tourists it attracts.
Trump has long shown a fascination with Mount Rushmore. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said in 2018 that he had once told her straight-faced it was his dream to have his face carved into the monument. He later joked at a campaign rally about getting enshrined alongside George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. And while it was Noem, a Republican, who pushed for a return of the fireworks on the eve of Independence Day, Trump joined the effort and committed to visiting South Dakota for the celebration.
The four faces, carved into the mountain with dynamite and drills, are known as the “shrine to democracy.” The presidents were chosen by sculptor Gutzon Borglum for their leadership during four phases of American development: Washington led the birth of the nation; Jefferson sparked its westward expansion; Lincoln preserved the union and emancipated slaves; Roosevelt championed industrial innovation.
And yet, for many Native American people, including the Lakota, Cheyenne, Omaha, Arapaho, Kiowa and Kiowa-Apache, the monument is a desecration to the Black Hills, which they consider sacred. Lakota people know the area as Paha Sapa — “the heart of everything that is.”
As monuments to Confederate and colonial leaders have been removed across U.S. cities, conservatives have expressed concern that Mount Rushmore could be next. Commentator Ben Shapiro this week suggested that the “woke historical revisionist priesthood” wanted to blow up the monument. Noem responded by tweeting, “Not on my watch.”
Tim Giago, a journalist who is a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe, said he doesn’t see four great American leaders when he looks at the monument, but instead four white men who either made racist remarks or initiated actions that removed Native Americans from their land. Washington and Jefferson both held slaves. Lincoln, though he led the abolition of slavery, also approved the hanging of 38 Dakota men in Minnesota after a violent conflict with white settlers there. Roosevelt is reported to have said, “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are..”
The monument has long been a “Rorschach test,” said John Taliaferro, author of “Great White Fathers,” a history of the monument. “All sorts of people can go there and see it in different ways.”
The monument often starts conversations on the paradox of American democracy — that a republic that promoted the ideals of freedom, determination and innovation also enslaved people and drove others from their land, he said.
“If we’re having this discussion today about what American democracy is, Mount Rushmore is really serving its purpose because that conversation goes on there,” he said. “Is it fragile? Is it permanent? Is it cracking somewhat?”
The monument was conceived in the 1920s as a tourist draw for the new fad in vacationing called the road trip. South Dakota historian Doane Robinson recruited Borglum, one of the preeminent sculptors at the time, to abandon his work creating the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial in Georgia, which was to feature Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson.
Borglum was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, according to Mount Rushmore historian and writer Tom Griffith. Borglum joined the Klan to raise money for the Confederate memorial, and Griffith argues his allegiance was more practical than ideological. He left that project and instead spent years in South Dakota completing Mount Rushmore.
Native American activists have long staged protests at the site to raise awareness among the history of the Black Hills, which were taken from them despite treaties with the United States protecting the land. Fifty years ago this summer a group of activists associated with an organization called United Native Americans climbed to the top of the monument and occupied it.
Quanah Brightman, who now runs United Native Americans, said the activism in the 1970s grew out of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. He hopes a similar movement for Native Americans comes from the Black Lives Matter movement.
“What people find here is the story of America — it’s multidimensional, it’s complex,” Griffith said. “It’s important to understand it was people just trying to do right as best they knew it then.”
The White House had no immediate comment on criticism of the president’s planned visit.
“What people find here is the story of America — it’s multidimensional, it’s complex,” Griffith said. “It’s important to understand it was people just trying to do right as best they knew it then.”
The White House had no immediate comment on criticism of the president’s planned visit.
RODENT PIZZA
Chuck E. Cheese parent CEC Entertainment files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
Published: June 25, 2020 Ciara Linnane
CEC Entertainment Inc., the parent of Chuck E. Cheese and Peter Piper Pizza, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy late Wednesday, weighed down by restaurant closures during the coronavirus pandemic. The company said it will use the time to continue talks with its financial stakeholders, including landlords, to "achieve a comprehensive balance sheet restructuring that supports its re-opening and longer-term strategic plans." As of June 24, 266 company-operated restaurant and arcade venues had reopened for business. The company is expecting to keep these venues open through Chapter 11 and to offer dine-in, delivery and take-out services. The company's non-U.S. franchise partners and corporate entities are not included in the process.
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/06/rat-horoscope-2020-free-astrology.html
WORST PIZZA EVER NO GREAT LOSS
Published: June 25, 2020 Ciara Linnane
CEC Entertainment Inc., the parent of Chuck E. Cheese and Peter Piper Pizza, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy late Wednesday, weighed down by restaurant closures during the coronavirus pandemic. The company said it will use the time to continue talks with its financial stakeholders, including landlords, to "achieve a comprehensive balance sheet restructuring that supports its re-opening and longer-term strategic plans." As of June 24, 266 company-operated restaurant and arcade venues had reopened for business. The company is expecting to keep these venues open through Chapter 11 and to offer dine-in, delivery and take-out services. The company's non-U.S. franchise partners and corporate entities are not included in the process.
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/06/rat-horoscope-2020-free-astrology.html
Infectious-disease expert says we’re thinking too much about a second wave of COVID-19 when it’s really more like a forest fire
Published: June 23, 2020 By Tim Rostan
‘I think that wherever there is wood to burn, this fire is going to burn’: Dr. Michael Osterho
Published: June 23, 2020 By Tim Rostan
‘I think that wherever there is wood to burn, this fire is going to burn’: Dr. Michael Osterho
Print iconn much the way onlookers can get overly invested in describing the specific status of a market cycle or an economic recession or recovery as if it were an inning of a baseball game — generally leaving aside the fact that extra innings are always a possibility — we’ve gotten too caught up in the wave metaphor as representative of a country’s or region’s pandemic experience, says one noted infectious-disease expert.
‘I think this is more like a forest fire. I don’t think this is going to slow down. ... I think that wherever there is wood to burn, this fire is going to burn, and right now we have a lot of susceptible people.’— Dr. Michael Osterholm, Center of Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota
‘I think this is more like a forest fire. I don’t think this is going to slow down. ... I think that wherever there is wood to burn, this fire is going to burn, and right now we have a lot of susceptible people.’— Dr. Michael Osterholm, Center of Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota
The wave language, said Osterholm, is drawn from the pattern of influenza outbreaks, in which an initial case load is traditionally followed by a lull and then a secondary and perhaps tertiary outbreak, whereas in this coronavirus pandemic the U.S. is still seeing daily case tallies trend upward in dozens of states on a regular basis, some 104 days after the World Health Organization formally made its pandemic call. “I’m not sure the influenza analogy applies anymore,” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to see one, two and three waves — I think we’re just going to see one very, very difficult forest fire of cases.”
Dr. Michael Osterholm leads the Center of Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. CIDRAP/UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
Don’t miss:Yes, America needs to brace itself for a secnd wave of coronavirus
Watch the “Meet the Press” interview:
Dr. Michael Osterholm leads the Center of Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. CIDRAP/UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
Don’t miss:Yes, America needs to brace itself for a secnd wave of coronavirus
Watch the “Meet the Press” interview:
After years of talk, tech companies appear to be getting serious about diversity efforts
Tech companies large and small offer targets for hiring black workers and devote large sums to the effort, but black tech workers say ‘We’ve heard it before’
Published: June 25, 2020 By Jon Swartz
Tech companies large and small offer targets for hiring black workers and devote large sums to the effort, but black tech workers say ‘We’ve heard it before’
MARKETWATCH PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/ISTOCKPHOTO
Six years ago today, Facebook Inc. released statistics on the makeup of its global workforce that did not reflect the demographics of its users: Just 3% of its workers were black.
The company, citing the creation of a diversity team a year before, vowed to make more hires with lower attrition for under-represented groups. It formed partnerships with key groups to find more women and people of color. And it began offering training to employees in unconscious bias.
“We have a long way to go, but we’re absolutely committed to achieving greater diversity at Facebook and across the industry,” Maxine Williams, Facebook’s then-global head of diversity, said at the time.
Fast forward to 2020, and Facebook’s FB, 1.07% black workforce has increased to just 3.8%.
In a blog post last week, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg announced a new effort with more specific goals and support: The company committed to a 30% increase in the number of people of color in leadership positions over the next five years, and will devote $200 million to support black-owned businesses and organizations — part of a $1.1 billion investment in black and diverse suppliers and communities in the U.S.
The move from nebulous efforts that proved to be mostly lip service to concrete plans and financial commitments, including specific hiring goals and amounts of money dedicated to the effort, go beyond Facebook. A raft of large and small tech companies have made proclamations in recent days, including Google parent Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, 0.06% , GOOG, 0.19% , Microsoft Corp. MSFT, 0.37% , SAP SE SAP, 0.69% , Apple Inc. AAPL, 0.78% , Mozilla Corp., Pinterest Inc. PINS, -1.25% , Reddit and a number of startups. Undoubtedly, more are to come. Cisco Systems Inc. CSCO, 0.16% , for example, is expected to share plans soon, according to a person familiar with the company’s strategy.
See also: Here are tech companies’ plans for increasing diversity amid protests over racial inequality
Whether the statements lead to action after years of empty slogans, broken promises and countless panels and working groups on the topic is far from certain, black tech workers and diversity advocates told MarketWatch.
“We’ve agreed [inclusion] was a problem since at least 2013, but everyone was waiting for everyone else to do something,” Larry Whiteside Jr., president of International Consortium of Minority Cybersecurity Professionals, which is pushing the cybersecurity industry to hire and recruit more minorities, said in a phone interview. “Social protests have forced the hands of companies, large and small, to take action. It is time.”
Companies have been prompted, in large part, by two once-in-a-generation events — a pandemic not seen in the U.S. for a century, coupled with a social protest movement unlike any since 1968 — to finally move the needle on the hiring of minorities at tech companies, employment experts told MarketWatch.
“There is a sense of urgency; recent events accelerated our plans,” Judith Williams, SAP’s global head of people sustainability and chief diversity and inclusion officer, told MarketWatch. “We have to change the dynamic of our industry, and better reflect society.”
Vows of improved representation aren’t new. For years, tech’s largest players have undertaken efforts to broaden the diversity of their workforces — albeit with minimal progress, as evidenced by the percentage of black tech workers. Black people accounted for 9% of workers in core information-technology occupations in the U.S. last year, compared with 8% in 2015 and 7% in 2010, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Blacks represent 13.4% of the U.S. population, according to the most recent government estimates.
“My worry at the beginning of COVID was that companies would see that as an opportunity to take a pass on hiring black women and Latinas, as they did during the 2008 financial crisis,” said Bertina Ceccarelli, chief executive of nonprofit NPower, a leader in tech training programs. “But with the recent protests and acute visibility of systemic racism, this encourages companies to expand recruiting and training plans.”
Any progress would be an improvement, she said, citing a two-year study conducted by NPower that shows only 4% of the nation’s tech workforce are black women.
See also: Black tech workers hope nationwide protests will force industry to be more inclusive
“We’ve heard it before. Some of this stuff is optics. I don’t know if I want to laugh at it or shake my head,” Lisa Love, co-founder and chief marketing officer at Tanoshi, a Silicon Valley startup that provides lower-income households and school districts with educational, affordable devices to close the digital divide, told MarketWatch. “You have to start from Day One on diversity. Your company has to reflect the nation.”
The four-year-old company, which is raising $2 million in a seed round, is hopeful that social awareness and empathy with the black community enhances its ability to finally secure venture-capital funding, said Love, who is black.
The reticence of Love, Whiteside, and others is real. Six years after their first diversity reports, Alphabet, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter Inc. TWTR, -1.46% have increased their black representation by low single-digit percentages, according to a CNBC analysis. Apple’s workforce is 9% black, yet black executives account for only 3% of leadership.
Some tech companies have made advances, but their numbers may be skewed by gains outside of technical operations. Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, 0.29% has reported a healthy increase in black employees, to 26.5%, but those numbers are thought to largely rely on warehouse and delivery workers instead of the tech-focused workforce. The same could be said for Apple’s retail workers.
Concrete goals and money to fund the efforts could make a difference, though. While others in tech were organizing panels to discuss the issue, Intel Corp. INTC, -2.44% in early 2015 pledged $300 million toward diversity efforts and set 2020 as a deadlines to reach “full representation” in hiring. The company said that it actually achieved that goal in 2018, and is continuing the effort: In a May Corporate Responsibility Report, the company released diversity goals of increasing the number of women in technical roles to 40% and doubling the number of women and underrepresented minorities in senior roles by 2030.
After years of fitful starts and unfulfilled promises, the flurry of announcements and pronouncements give hope to people like Jill Barnard, chief financial officer of Televerde, a sales and marketing technology company based in Phoenix.
“Most companies just stay in the lane of what is legally required,” Barnard, who is white, told MarketWatch. “We can all do better.”
The company, citing the creation of a diversity team a year before, vowed to make more hires with lower attrition for under-represented groups. It formed partnerships with key groups to find more women and people of color. And it began offering training to employees in unconscious bias.
“We have a long way to go, but we’re absolutely committed to achieving greater diversity at Facebook and across the industry,” Maxine Williams, Facebook’s then-global head of diversity, said at the time.
Fast forward to 2020, and Facebook’s FB, 1.07% black workforce has increased to just 3.8%.
In a blog post last week, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg announced a new effort with more specific goals and support: The company committed to a 30% increase in the number of people of color in leadership positions over the next five years, and will devote $200 million to support black-owned businesses and organizations — part of a $1.1 billion investment in black and diverse suppliers and communities in the U.S.
The move from nebulous efforts that proved to be mostly lip service to concrete plans and financial commitments, including specific hiring goals and amounts of money dedicated to the effort, go beyond Facebook. A raft of large and small tech companies have made proclamations in recent days, including Google parent Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, 0.06% , GOOG, 0.19% , Microsoft Corp. MSFT, 0.37% , SAP SE SAP, 0.69% , Apple Inc. AAPL, 0.78% , Mozilla Corp., Pinterest Inc. PINS, -1.25% , Reddit and a number of startups. Undoubtedly, more are to come. Cisco Systems Inc. CSCO, 0.16% , for example, is expected to share plans soon, according to a person familiar with the company’s strategy.
See also: Here are tech companies’ plans for increasing diversity amid protests over racial inequality
Whether the statements lead to action after years of empty slogans, broken promises and countless panels and working groups on the topic is far from certain, black tech workers and diversity advocates told MarketWatch.
“We’ve agreed [inclusion] was a problem since at least 2013, but everyone was waiting for everyone else to do something,” Larry Whiteside Jr., president of International Consortium of Minority Cybersecurity Professionals, which is pushing the cybersecurity industry to hire and recruit more minorities, said in a phone interview. “Social protests have forced the hands of companies, large and small, to take action. It is time.”
Companies have been prompted, in large part, by two once-in-a-generation events — a pandemic not seen in the U.S. for a century, coupled with a social protest movement unlike any since 1968 — to finally move the needle on the hiring of minorities at tech companies, employment experts told MarketWatch.
“There is a sense of urgency; recent events accelerated our plans,” Judith Williams, SAP’s global head of people sustainability and chief diversity and inclusion officer, told MarketWatch. “We have to change the dynamic of our industry, and better reflect society.”
Vows of improved representation aren’t new. For years, tech’s largest players have undertaken efforts to broaden the diversity of their workforces — albeit with minimal progress, as evidenced by the percentage of black tech workers. Black people accounted for 9% of workers in core information-technology occupations in the U.S. last year, compared with 8% in 2015 and 7% in 2010, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Blacks represent 13.4% of the U.S. population, according to the most recent government estimates.
“My worry at the beginning of COVID was that companies would see that as an opportunity to take a pass on hiring black women and Latinas, as they did during the 2008 financial crisis,” said Bertina Ceccarelli, chief executive of nonprofit NPower, a leader in tech training programs. “But with the recent protests and acute visibility of systemic racism, this encourages companies to expand recruiting and training plans.”
Any progress would be an improvement, she said, citing a two-year study conducted by NPower that shows only 4% of the nation’s tech workforce are black women.
See also: Black tech workers hope nationwide protests will force industry to be more inclusive
“We’ve heard it before. Some of this stuff is optics. I don’t know if I want to laugh at it or shake my head,” Lisa Love, co-founder and chief marketing officer at Tanoshi, a Silicon Valley startup that provides lower-income households and school districts with educational, affordable devices to close the digital divide, told MarketWatch. “You have to start from Day One on diversity. Your company has to reflect the nation.”
The four-year-old company, which is raising $2 million in a seed round, is hopeful that social awareness and empathy with the black community enhances its ability to finally secure venture-capital funding, said Love, who is black.
The reticence of Love, Whiteside, and others is real. Six years after their first diversity reports, Alphabet, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter Inc. TWTR, -1.46% have increased their black representation by low single-digit percentages, according to a CNBC analysis. Apple’s workforce is 9% black, yet black executives account for only 3% of leadership.
Some tech companies have made advances, but their numbers may be skewed by gains outside of technical operations. Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, 0.29% has reported a healthy increase in black employees, to 26.5%, but those numbers are thought to largely rely on warehouse and delivery workers instead of the tech-focused workforce. The same could be said for Apple’s retail workers.
Concrete goals and money to fund the efforts could make a difference, though. While others in tech were organizing panels to discuss the issue, Intel Corp. INTC, -2.44% in early 2015 pledged $300 million toward diversity efforts and set 2020 as a deadlines to reach “full representation” in hiring. The company said that it actually achieved that goal in 2018, and is continuing the effort: In a May Corporate Responsibility Report, the company released diversity goals of increasing the number of women in technical roles to 40% and doubling the number of women and underrepresented minorities in senior roles by 2030.
After years of fitful starts and unfulfilled promises, the flurry of announcements and pronouncements give hope to people like Jill Barnard, chief financial officer of Televerde, a sales and marketing technology company based in Phoenix.
“Most companies just stay in the lane of what is legally required,” Barnard, who is white, told MarketWatch. “We can all do better.”
Monkeys escape lab with COVID-19 samples in ‘Planet of the Apes’ raid
By Josh K. Elliott Global News Updated June 1, 2020
By Josh K. Elliott Global News Updated June 1, 2020
In this file photo, a monkey crosses telephone wires on a street in New Delhi, India, Thursday, Sept. 27, 2012. AP Photo/Kevin Frayer
India is grappling with an incident straight out of a movie after several monkeys raided a laboratory and escaped with COVID-19-tainted blood samples in hand.
The incident happened at a medical college in Meerut, a city in the Uttar Pradesh area of northern India on Tuesday, according to officials.
“Monkeys grabbed and fled with the blood samples of four COVID-19 patients who are undergoing treatment,” Dr. S. K. Garg, a top official at the college, told Reuters. He added that it’s unclear whether the tubes of blood had been spilled.
Garg also urged calm amid fears that the monkeys might spread the coronavirus around Meerut.
“No evidence has been found that monkeys can contract the infection,” he said.
India is grappling with an incident straight out of a movie after several monkeys raided a laboratory and escaped with COVID-19-tainted blood samples in hand.
The incident happened at a medical college in Meerut, a city in the Uttar Pradesh area of northern India on Tuesday, according to officials.
“Monkeys grabbed and fled with the blood samples of four COVID-19 patients who are undergoing treatment,” Dr. S. K. Garg, a top official at the college, told Reuters. He added that it’s unclear whether the tubes of blood had been spilled.
Garg also urged calm amid fears that the monkeys might spread the coronavirus around Meerut.
“No evidence has been found that monkeys can contract the infection,” he said.
Thailand’s ‘Monkey City’ overrun by gangs of hungry, horny macaques
I CAN'T REMEMBER WHEN THE MAINSTREAM PRESS USED HORNY
IN A HEADLINE
Josh K. Elliott
I CAN'T REMEMBER WHEN THE MAINSTREAM PRESS USED HORNY
IN A HEADLINE
Josh K. Elliott
© MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP via Getty Images Longtail macaques pull the tail of a cat in an abandoned building in the town of Lopburi, some 155km north of Bangkok, on June 21, 2020.
It's been three months since Lopburi, Thailand, closed itself off to tourists due to the novel coronavirus — and three months since the city's wild macaques last had a good banana.
The so-called "Monkey City" has gone bananas ever since, with locals forced into a double lockdown against the invisible threat of COVID-19, and against the loud, stinky, aggressive and highly visible threat of thousands of rampaging monkeys.
Read more: Monkeys break into lab, steal COVID-19 samples in 'Planet of the Apes' raid
Lopburi locals have barricaded themselves inside against the macaques, and the city has designated several no-go zones that have been entirely taken over by warring factions of monkeys.
"We live in a cage but the monkeys live outside," Lopburi resident Kuljira Taechawattanawanna told the AFP. She says she was forced to cover her terrace with netting to keep the hungry animals from raiding her home for food.
"Their excrement is everywhere (and) the smell is unbearable, especially when it rains," she added.
Humans in the city had found a delicate balance with the thousands of macaques who lived there in pre-coronavirus times. The macaques attracted tourists to the city, and those tourists would buy bananas so they could feed the animals and take photos with them.
However, that delicate balance collapsed under the threat of the coronavirus, when lockdowns cut off the supply of tourists and left the hungry monkeys looking for a new food source. The world caught a glimpse of that struggle last March when video of a fight between rival monkey gangs went viral.
Read more: Starving monkey ‘gangs’ brawl in Thailand as coronavirus keeps tourists away
Things have only gotten worse since then, locals say. They've tried to keep the animals at bay by throwing them scraps and junk food, but that only made the monkeys more violent, officials say.
“The more they eat, the more energy they have ... so they breed more,” Pramot Ketampai, a manager of several shrines in the city, told AFP.
“They’re so used to having tourists feed them and the city provides no space for them to fend for themselves,” Supakarn Kaewchot, a government veterinarian, told Reuters.
"With the tourists gone, they’ve been more aggressive, fighting humans for food to survive," she added. "They're invading buildings and forcing locals to flee their homes."
The city monkeys have more energy for things like fighting and sex because they don't have to hunt for food, Supakarn says. That's why officials are now taking steps to get their numbers under control.
Thailand's Department of National Parks has launched a program to sterilize some 500 monkeys, in hopes of curbing the population in the city. The monkeys are being captured, sedated, castrated and released with reference numbers tattooed on their bodies.
The initiative is meant to slow their reproduction rate, and is not aimed at hurting the existing population, Supakarn said.
"We're not doing this in the wild, only in the city areas," she said.
The city's wildlife department hopes to find a more long-term solution for the problem by building a new monkey sanctuary. However, that might not be an easy sell for locals who would rather see the monkeys disappear altogether.
"We need to do a survey of the people living in the area first," wildlife official Narongporn Dauduem told the AFP. "It's like dumping garbage in front of their houses and asking them if they're happy or not."
Shop owner Taweesak Srisaguan told the AFP that monkeys living in a nearby cinema routinely stop by to steal spray cans from his store, but he admits he'd miss their monkey business if they were permanently relocated.
"I'm used to seeing them walking around, playing on the street," he said. "If they're all gone, I'd definitely be lonely."
In other words, he likes that Lopburi is known as the Monkey City — he just doesn't want it to become known as the Monkeys' City.
VIDEO
https://www.facebook.com/AFPnewsenglish/videos/677390863112447/
It's been three months since Lopburi, Thailand, closed itself off to tourists due to the novel coronavirus — and three months since the city's wild macaques last had a good banana.
The so-called "Monkey City" has gone bananas ever since, with locals forced into a double lockdown against the invisible threat of COVID-19, and against the loud, stinky, aggressive and highly visible threat of thousands of rampaging monkeys.
Lopburi locals have barricaded themselves inside against the macaques, and the city has designated several no-go zones that have been entirely taken over by warring factions of monkeys.
"We live in a cage but the monkeys live outside," Lopburi resident Kuljira Taechawattanawanna told the AFP. She says she was forced to cover her terrace with netting to keep the hungry animals from raiding her home for food.
"Their excrement is everywhere (and) the smell is unbearable, especially when it rains," she added.
Humans in the city had found a delicate balance with the thousands of macaques who lived there in pre-coronavirus times. The macaques attracted tourists to the city, and those tourists would buy bananas so they could feed the animals and take photos with them.
However, that delicate balance collapsed under the threat of the coronavirus, when lockdowns cut off the supply of tourists and left the hungry monkeys looking for a new food source. The world caught a glimpse of that struggle last March when video of a fight between rival monkey gangs went viral.
Read more: Starving monkey ‘gangs’ brawl in Thailand as coronavirus keeps tourists away
Things have only gotten worse since then, locals say. They've tried to keep the animals at bay by throwing them scraps and junk food, but that only made the monkeys more violent, officials say.
“The more they eat, the more energy they have ... so they breed more,” Pramot Ketampai, a manager of several shrines in the city, told AFP.
“They’re so used to having tourists feed them and the city provides no space for them to fend for themselves,” Supakarn Kaewchot, a government veterinarian, told Reuters.
"With the tourists gone, they’ve been more aggressive, fighting humans for food to survive," she added. "They're invading buildings and forcing locals to flee their homes."
The city monkeys have more energy for things like fighting and sex because they don't have to hunt for food, Supakarn says. That's why officials are now taking steps to get their numbers under control.
Thailand's Department of National Parks has launched a program to sterilize some 500 monkeys, in hopes of curbing the population in the city. The monkeys are being captured, sedated, castrated and released with reference numbers tattooed on their bodies.
The initiative is meant to slow their reproduction rate, and is not aimed at hurting the existing population, Supakarn said.
"We're not doing this in the wild, only in the city areas," she said.
"We need to do a survey of the people living in the area first," wildlife official Narongporn Dauduem told the AFP. "It's like dumping garbage in front of their houses and asking them if they're happy or not."
"I'm used to seeing them walking around, playing on the street," he said. "If they're all gone, I'd definitely be lonely."
In other words, he likes that Lopburi is known as the Monkey City — he just doesn't want it to become known as the Monkeys' City.
VIDEO
https://www.facebook.com/AFPnewsenglish/videos/677390863112447/
Tanzanite: Tanzanian miner becomes overnight millionaire
BBC•June 25, 2020
Saniniu Laizer carrying the gemstones at the trading centre
He said the windfall would not change his lifestyle, and that he planned to continue looking after his 2,000 cows. He said he did not need to take any extra precautions despite his new-found riches.
"There is enough security [here]. There won't be any problem. I can even walk around at night without any problem."
Some small-scale miners like Mr Laizer acquire government licences to prospect for Tanzanite, but illegal mining is prevalent especially near mines owned by big companies.
In 2017, President Magufuli ordered the military to build a 24km (14-mile) perimeter wall around the Merelani mining site in Manyara, believed to be the world's only source of Tanzanite.
A year later, the government reported an increase in revenue in the mining sector and attributed the rise to the construction of the wall, the BBC's Sammy Awami in Dar es Salaam reports.
Small-scale miner finds largest tanzanite gems in Tanzania's history, becomes millionaire
N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY•June 25, 2020
BBC•June 25, 2020
Mr Laizer - holding up the precious stones - plans to build a school and a shopping centre in his community
A small-scale miner in Tanzania has become an overnight millionaire after selling t
wo rough Tanzanite stones - the biggest ever find in the country.
Saniniu Laizer earned £2.4m ($3.4m) from the country's mining ministry for the gemstones, which had a combined weight of 15kg (33 lb).
"There will be a big party tomorrow," Mr Laizer, a father of more than 30 children, told the BBC.
Tanzanite is only found in northern Tanzania and is used to make ornaments.
It is one of the rarest gemstones on Earth, and one local geologist estimates its supply may be entirely depleted within the next 20 years.
The precious stone's appeal lies in its variety of hues, including green, red, purple and blue.
Its value is determined by rarity - the finer the colour or clarity, the higher the price.
Mr Laizer mined the stones, weighing 9.2kg and 5.8kg, last week, but he sold them on Wednesday during a trading event in the northern region of Manyara.
Until now the largest Tanzanite rock to be mined weighed 3.3kg.
President John Magufuli phoned in to congratulate Mr Laizer on the find.
"This is the benefit of small-scale miners and this proves that Tanzania is rich," the president said.
Mr Magufuli came to power in 2015 promising to safeguard the nation's interest in the mining sector and increase the government's revenue from it.
What did the new millionaire say?
Mr Laizer, 52, who has four wives, said he would slaughter one of his cows to celebrate.
He also plans to invest in his community in Simanjiro district in Manyara.
"I want to build a shopping mall and a school. I want to build this school near my home. There are many poor people around here who can't afford to take their children to school."
"I am not educated but I like things run in a professional way. So I would like my children to run the business professionally."
A small-scale miner in Tanzania has become an overnight millionaire after selling t
wo rough Tanzanite stones - the biggest ever find in the country.
Saniniu Laizer earned £2.4m ($3.4m) from the country's mining ministry for the gemstones, which had a combined weight of 15kg (33 lb).
"There will be a big party tomorrow," Mr Laizer, a father of more than 30 children, told the BBC.
Tanzanite is only found in northern Tanzania and is used to make ornaments.
It is one of the rarest gemstones on Earth, and one local geologist estimates its supply may be entirely depleted within the next 20 years.
The precious stone's appeal lies in its variety of hues, including green, red, purple and blue.
Its value is determined by rarity - the finer the colour or clarity, the higher the price.
Mr Laizer mined the stones, weighing 9.2kg and 5.8kg, last week, but he sold them on Wednesday during a trading event in the northern region of Manyara.
Until now the largest Tanzanite rock to be mined weighed 3.3kg.
President John Magufuli phoned in to congratulate Mr Laizer on the find.
"This is the benefit of small-scale miners and this proves that Tanzania is rich," the president said.
Mr Magufuli came to power in 2015 promising to safeguard the nation's interest in the mining sector and increase the government's revenue from it.
What did the new millionaire say?
Mr Laizer, 52, who has four wives, said he would slaughter one of his cows to celebrate.
He also plans to invest in his community in Simanjiro district in Manyara.
"I want to build a shopping mall and a school. I want to build this school near my home. There are many poor people around here who can't afford to take their children to school."
"I am not educated but I like things run in a professional way. So I would like my children to run the business professionally."
Saniniu Laizer carrying the gemstones at the trading centreHe said the windfall would not change his lifestyle, and that he planned to continue looking after his 2,000 cows. He said he did not need to take any extra precautions despite his new-found riches.
"There is enough security [here]. There won't be any problem. I can even walk around at night without any problem."
Some small-scale miners like Mr Laizer acquire government licences to prospect for Tanzanite, but illegal mining is prevalent especially near mines owned by big companies.
In 2017, President Magufuli ordered the military to build a 24km (14-mile) perimeter wall around the Merelani mining site in Manyara, believed to be the world's only source of Tanzanite.
A year later, the government reported an increase in revenue in the mining sector and attributed the rise to the construction of the wall, the BBC's Sammy Awami in Dar es Salaam reports.
Small-scale miner finds largest tanzanite gems in Tanzania's history, becomes millionaire
N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY•June 25, 2020
Tanzanian small-scale miner Saniniu Kuryan Laizer, 52, poses with two of the biggest of the country's precious gemstones, Tanzanite, as a millionaire during the ceremony for his historical discovery in Manyara, northern Tanzania, on June 24, 2020.More
A small-scale miner in Tanzania became a millionaire after finding and selling the two largest tanzanite stones ever unearthed in the country.
The government gave Saniniu Laizer a giant check worth 7.74 billion Tanzanian shillings ($3.35 million) for the two dark violet-blue gemstones which weigh 9.27 kilograms (20.43 pounds) and 5.108 kilograms (11.26 pounds), according to the Ministry of Minerals. President John Magufuli called to congratulate Laizer live on television.Laizer, 52, told the BBC he plans to invest in the community and slaughter one of his cows to celebrate.
"There will be a big party tomorrow," Laizer told the outlet. "I want to build a shopping mall and a school. I want to build this school near my home. There are many poor people around here who can't afford to take their children to school."
He added that he plans to continue looking after his 2,000 cows.
Tanzanite can only be found in a small northern region of the East African country. The gems were discovered in a mine surrounded by a wall built by the government to prevent illegal mining.
A small-scale miner in Tanzania became a millionaire after finding and selling the two largest tanzanite stones ever unearthed in the country.
The government gave Saniniu Laizer a giant check worth 7.74 billion Tanzanian shillings ($3.35 million) for the two dark violet-blue gemstones which weigh 9.27 kilograms (20.43 pounds) and 5.108 kilograms (11.26 pounds), according to the Ministry of Minerals. President John Magufuli called to congratulate Laizer live on television.Laizer, 52, told the BBC he plans to invest in the community and slaughter one of his cows to celebrate.
"There will be a big party tomorrow," Laizer told the outlet. "I want to build a shopping mall and a school. I want to build this school near my home. There are many poor people around here who can't afford to take their children to school."
He added that he plans to continue looking after his 2,000 cows.
Tanzanite can only be found in a small northern region of the East African country. The gems were discovered in a mine surrounded by a wall built by the government to prevent illegal mining.
Tanzanian small-scale miner Saniniu Kuryan Laizer, 52, poses with the enlarged check copy from the government after selling two of the biggest of the country's precious gemstones, Tanzanite, during the ceremony for his historical discovery in Manyara, northern Tanzania, on June 24, 2020.
The government set up trading centers around the country to all small-scale miners, who typically mine by hand, to sell their gems and gold to the government, Reuters reported.
“This is a confirmation that Tanzania is rich,” Magufuli told minerals minister Doto Biteko, per Reuters.
Follow N'dea Yancey-Bragg on Twitter: @NdeaYanceyBragg
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Small-scale Tanzanian miner finds gemstones worth more than $3 million
Miner becomes millionaire after finding biggest tanzanite stones
AFP•June 24, 2020
Tanzanite is prized by gem-makers for its extraordinary violet-blue hue. The gems seen here were mined in 2006, when they were valued at around $1,500
Dar es Salaam (AFP) - A Tanzanian small-scale miner has become a multi-millionaire after uncovering two of the biggest of the country's precious tanzanite stones ever found and selling them to the government.
Saniniu Kuryan Laizer, 52, found the stones weighing 9.27 and 5.1 kilogrammes (20.4 and 11.2 pounds) respectively in the northern Mirerani hills, an area which President John Magufuli had fenced off in 2018 to stop smuggling of the gem.
He sold them to the government for 7.7 billion Tanzanian shillings (nearly $3.3 million/2.9 million euros)
Tanzanite was first found in the foothills of Kilimanjaro in 1967, and the northern Tanzanian region of Manyara is the only known place where the stones, coveted by jewellers by their remarkable violet-blue sparkle, are found.
At a function celebrating the find in Manyara on Wednesday, mining minister Dotto Biteko said the stones were the biggest ever uncovered in the country.
"Laizer is our (shilling) billionaire and let us make sure that he is safe," he said.
"We are now moving from a situation where the small miners were smuggling tanzanite, and now they are following the procedures and paying government taxes and royalties."
Laizer said he hoped to use the money to develop his community.
"I plan to build a mall in Arusha and a school near my home," said Laizer.
"I thank God for this achievement because it's the first time to get this size. When I found these, I notified government officials who valuated the stones and today they called me for payment."
The government wrote on Twitter that the stones would be placed in the national museum.
Magufuli made a call to Laizer during the ceremony that was broadcast on loudspeakers, to congratulate him.
"This is the benefit to small miners and testifies to the fact that Tanzania is rich," he said.
When the 24km (14-mile) perimeter wall was unveiled around the mining site, Magufuli said that 40 percent of all tanzanite produced at the site was being lost to smugglers.
Magufuli has taken multiple steps to regulate the mining sector, which has faced allegations of fraud and underreporting of production and profits.
Tanzania in 2017 introduced new regulations obliging foreign companies to give 16 percent free shares to the government
Miner becomes a millionaire overnight after finding biggest tanzanite gems in history: ‘There will be a big party’
Rory Sullivan The Independent 25 June 2020
Tanzania Ministry of Minerals/Handout via REUTERSMore
A subsistence miner in Tanzania has become a multi-millionaire overnight after selling the two largest tanzanite gemstones ever found.
Saniniu Laizer, 52, received a cheque for 7.74 billion Tanzanian shillings (£2.6 million) from the country’s government on Wednesday for the pair of dark violet-blue stones.
Mr Laizer discovered the gemstones, which are roughly the size of a forearm, in a tanzanite mine in the north of the country, the only place in the world where the mineral is known to exist.
The first gemstone weighed 9.27 kg and the second was 5.1 kg, according to a mines ministry spokesperson.
“There will be a big party tomorrow,” Mr Laizer told the BBC on Wednesday. He added that he planned to invest some of the money into his community in Simanjiro district in Manyara.
“I want to build a shopping mall and a school. I want to build this school near my home. There are many poor people around here who can’t afford to take their children to school,” he said.
Tanzanian president John Magufuli congratulated Mr Laizer during a call that was broadcast live on television.
“This is the benefit of small-scale miners and this proves that Tanzania is rich,” Mr Magufuli said.
Last year, Tanzania established trading centres around the country to enable miners, who do not officially work for any mining companies and usually mine by hand, to sell gems and gold directly to the government.
In April 2018, the president inaugurated the wall he had ordered the military to build around tanzanite mines in the north of Tanzania.
He said the measure was to stop illegal mining and trading in the mineral, adding that 40 per cent of the tanzanite produced was being lost at the time.
Additional reporting by Reuters
The government set up trading centers around the country to all small-scale miners, who typically mine by hand, to sell their gems and gold to the government, Reuters reported.
“This is a confirmation that Tanzania is rich,” Magufuli told minerals minister Doto Biteko, per Reuters.
Follow N'dea Yancey-Bragg on Twitter: @NdeaYanceyBragg
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Small-scale Tanzanian miner finds gemstones worth more than $3 million
Miner becomes millionaire after finding biggest tanzanite stones
AFP•June 24, 2020
Tanzanite is prized by gem-makers for its extraordinary violet-blue hue. The gems seen here were mined in 2006, when they were valued at around $1,500
COMPARE THESE TO THE GIANT GEMSTONES MINED
(AFP Photo/MATT BROWN)
Dar es Salaam (AFP) - A Tanzanian small-scale miner has become a multi-millionaire after uncovering two of the biggest of the country's precious tanzanite stones ever found and selling them to the government.
Saniniu Kuryan Laizer, 52, found the stones weighing 9.27 and 5.1 kilogrammes (20.4 and 11.2 pounds) respectively in the northern Mirerani hills, an area which President John Magufuli had fenced off in 2018 to stop smuggling of the gem.
He sold them to the government for 7.7 billion Tanzanian shillings (nearly $3.3 million/2.9 million euros)
Tanzanite was first found in the foothills of Kilimanjaro in 1967, and the northern Tanzanian region of Manyara is the only known place where the stones, coveted by jewellers by their remarkable violet-blue sparkle, are found.
At a function celebrating the find in Manyara on Wednesday, mining minister Dotto Biteko said the stones were the biggest ever uncovered in the country.
"Laizer is our (shilling) billionaire and let us make sure that he is safe," he said.
"We are now moving from a situation where the small miners were smuggling tanzanite, and now they are following the procedures and paying government taxes and royalties."
Laizer said he hoped to use the money to develop his community.
"I plan to build a mall in Arusha and a school near my home," said Laizer.
"I thank God for this achievement because it's the first time to get this size. When I found these, I notified government officials who valuated the stones and today they called me for payment."
The government wrote on Twitter that the stones would be placed in the national museum.
Magufuli made a call to Laizer during the ceremony that was broadcast on loudspeakers, to congratulate him.
"This is the benefit to small miners and testifies to the fact that Tanzania is rich," he said.
When the 24km (14-mile) perimeter wall was unveiled around the mining site, Magufuli said that 40 percent of all tanzanite produced at the site was being lost to smugglers.
Magufuli has taken multiple steps to regulate the mining sector, which has faced allegations of fraud and underreporting of production and profits.
Tanzania in 2017 introduced new regulations obliging foreign companies to give 16 percent free shares to the government
Miner becomes a millionaire overnight after finding biggest tanzanite gems in history: ‘There will be a big party’
Rory Sullivan The Independent 25 June 2020
Tanzania Ministry of Minerals/Handout via REUTERSMore
A subsistence miner in Tanzania has become a multi-millionaire overnight after selling the two largest tanzanite gemstones ever found.
Saniniu Laizer, 52, received a cheque for 7.74 billion Tanzanian shillings (£2.6 million) from the country’s government on Wednesday for the pair of dark violet-blue stones.
Mr Laizer discovered the gemstones, which are roughly the size of a forearm, in a tanzanite mine in the north of the country, the only place in the world where the mineral is known to exist.
The first gemstone weighed 9.27 kg and the second was 5.1 kg, according to a mines ministry spokesperson.
“There will be a big party tomorrow,” Mr Laizer told the BBC on Wednesday. He added that he planned to invest some of the money into his community in Simanjiro district in Manyara.
“I want to build a shopping mall and a school. I want to build this school near my home. There are many poor people around here who can’t afford to take their children to school,” he said.
Tanzanian president John Magufuli congratulated Mr Laizer during a call that was broadcast live on television.
“This is the benefit of small-scale miners and this proves that Tanzania is rich,” Mr Magufuli said.
Last year, Tanzania established trading centres around the country to enable miners, who do not officially work for any mining companies and usually mine by hand, to sell gems and gold directly to the government.
In April 2018, the president inaugurated the wall he had ordered the military to build around tanzanite mines in the north of Tanzania.
He said the measure was to stop illegal mining and trading in the mineral, adding that 40 per cent of the tanzanite produced was being lost at the time.
Additional reporting by Reuters
Climate change: Planting new forests 'can do more harm than good'
Matt McGrath - Environment correspondent,
BBC•June 22, 2020
Children planting trees in Ethiopia, a country which has embraced new forests as part of its climate plan
Rather than benefiting the environment, large-scale tree planting may do the opposite, two new studies have found.
One paper says that financial incentives to plant trees can backfire and reduce biodiversity with little impact on carbon emissions.
A separate project found that the amount of carbon that new forests can absorb may be overestimated.
The key message from both papers is that planting trees is not a simple climate solution.
Will millions more trees really stop climate change?
'A trillion trees to the rescue'
Trees 'most effective solution' for climate change
Is there any point in planting new trees?
Over the past few years, the idea of planting trees as a low cost, high impact solution to climate change has really taken hold.
Previous studies have indicated that trees have enormous potential to soak up and store carbon, and many countries have established tree planting campaigns as a key element of their plans to tackle climate change.
In the UK, promises by the political parties to plant ever larger numbers of trees were a feature of last year's general election.
In the US, even President Donald Trump has rowed in behind the Trillion Trees Campaign.
Legislation to support the idea has been introduced into the US Congress.
Another major tree planting initiative is called the Bonn Challenge.
Countries are being urged to restore 350 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2030.
President Trump planting a tree at the White House to mark Earth Day
So far, around 40 nations have endorsed the idea.
But scientists have urged caution against the headlong rush to plant new forests.
They point to the fact that in the Bonn Challenge nearly 80% of the commitments made to date involve planting monoculture plantations or a limited mix of trees that produce specific products such as fruit or rubber.
The authors of this new study have looked closely at the financial incentives given to private landowners to plant trees.
These payments are seen as a key element of increasing the number of trees significantly.
The study looked at the example of Chile, where a decree subsidising tree planting ran from 1974 to 2012, and was widely seen as a globally influential afforestation policy.
The law subsidised 75% of the costs of planting new forests.
While it was intended not to apply to existing forests, lax enforcement and budgetary limitations meant that some landowners simply replaced native forests with more profitable new tree plantations.
Their study found the subsidy scheme expanded the area covered by trees, but decreased the area of native forest.
The authors point out that since Chile's native forests are rich in biodiversity and store large amounts of carbon, the subsidy scheme failed to increase the carbon stores and accelerated biodiversity loss.
"If policies to incentivise tree plantations are poorly designed or poorly enforced, there is a high risk of not only wasting public money but also releasing more carbon and losing biodiversity," said co-author Prof Eric Lambin, from Stanford University.
"That's the exact opposite of what these policies are aiming for."
A second study set out to examine how much carbon a newly planted forest would be able to absorb from the atmosphere.
Up until now, many scientists have calculated the amount of carbon that trees can pull down from the air using a fixed ratio.
Suspecting that this ratio would depend on local conditions, the researchers looked at northern China, which has seen intensive tree planting by the government because of climate change but also in an effort to reduce dust from the Gobi desert.
Looking at 11,000 soil samples taken from afforested plots, the scientists found that in carbon poor soils, adding new trees did increase the density of organic carbon.
But where soils were already rich in carbon, adding new trees decreased this density.
The authors say that previous assumptions about how much organic carbon can be fixed by planting new trees is likely an overestimate.
"We hope that people can understand that afforestation practices are not one single thing," said Dr Anping Chen, from Colorado State University and a lead author on the study.
"Afforestation involves many technical details and balances of different parts, and it cannot solve all our climate problems."
Both papers have been published in the journal Nature Sustainability.
Follow Matt on Twitter.
Rather than benefiting the environment, large-scale tree planting may do the opposite, two new studies have found.
One paper says that financial incentives to plant trees can backfire and reduce biodiversity with little impact on carbon emissions.
A separate project found that the amount of carbon that new forests can absorb may be overestimated.
The key message from both papers is that planting trees is not a simple climate solution.
Will millions more trees really stop climate change?
'A trillion trees to the rescue'
Trees 'most effective solution' for climate change
Is there any point in planting new trees?
Over the past few years, the idea of planting trees as a low cost, high impact solution to climate change has really taken hold.
Previous studies have indicated that trees have enormous potential to soak up and store carbon, and many countries have established tree planting campaigns as a key element of their plans to tackle climate change.
In the UK, promises by the political parties to plant ever larger numbers of trees were a feature of last year's general election.
In the US, even President Donald Trump has rowed in behind the Trillion Trees Campaign.
Legislation to support the idea has been introduced into the US Congress.
Another major tree planting initiative is called the Bonn Challenge.
Countries are being urged to restore 350 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2030.
President Trump planting a tree at the White House to mark Earth DaySo far, around 40 nations have endorsed the idea.
But scientists have urged caution against the headlong rush to plant new forests.
They point to the fact that in the Bonn Challenge nearly 80% of the commitments made to date involve planting monoculture plantations or a limited mix of trees that produce specific products such as fruit or rubber.
The authors of this new study have looked closely at the financial incentives given to private landowners to plant trees.
These payments are seen as a key element of increasing the number of trees significantly.
The study looked at the example of Chile, where a decree subsidising tree planting ran from 1974 to 2012, and was widely seen as a globally influential afforestation policy.
The law subsidised 75% of the costs of planting new forests.
While it was intended not to apply to existing forests, lax enforcement and budgetary limitations meant that some landowners simply replaced native forests with more profitable new tree plantations.
Their study found the subsidy scheme expanded the area covered by trees, but decreased the area of native forest.
The authors point out that since Chile's native forests are rich in biodiversity and store large amounts of carbon, the subsidy scheme failed to increase the carbon stores and accelerated biodiversity loss.
"If policies to incentivise tree plantations are poorly designed or poorly enforced, there is a high risk of not only wasting public money but also releasing more carbon and losing biodiversity," said co-author Prof Eric Lambin, from Stanford University.
"That's the exact opposite of what these policies are aiming for."
A second study set out to examine how much carbon a newly planted forest would be able to absorb from the atmosphere.
Up until now, many scientists have calculated the amount of carbon that trees can pull down from the air using a fixed ratio.
Suspecting that this ratio would depend on local conditions, the researchers looked at northern China, which has seen intensive tree planting by the government because of climate change but also in an effort to reduce dust from the Gobi desert.
Looking at 11,000 soil samples taken from afforested plots, the scientists found that in carbon poor soils, adding new trees did increase the density of organic carbon.
But where soils were already rich in carbon, adding new trees decreased this density.
The authors say that previous assumptions about how much organic carbon can be fixed by planting new trees is likely an overestimate.
"We hope that people can understand that afforestation practices are not one single thing," said Dr Anping Chen, from Colorado State University and a lead author on the study.
"Afforestation involves many technical details and balances of different parts, and it cannot solve all our climate problems."
Both papers have been published in the journal Nature Sustainability.
Follow Matt on Twitter.
A FEW MORE BAD APPLES
3 charged over killing of Black teenager who reportedly cried out 'I can't breathe' while being restrained at Michigan facility for 'at-risk youth'
Frederick died May 1 after being restrained for 12 minutes, according to prosecutors. The incident reportedly took place after he threw a sandwich in the cafeteria.
"In my opinion, the complications of him being restrained, on the ground in a supine position by multiple people, is ultimately what led to his death," Dr. Ted Brown of the Kalamazoo County Medical Examiner's Office said Wednesday.
At least 25 students ran away from the facility after Frederick was killed.
Three staff members at a Michigan youth facility have been charged with involuntary manslaughter over the death of a Black teenager who reportedly yelled "I can't breathe" before going into cardiac arrest.
The death of Cornelius Frederick, 16, was officially ruled a homicide Wednesday afternoon, with Kalamazoo County Prosecutor Jeff Getting announcing charges hours later.
Frederick died May 1, a few days after staff at the Lakeside Academy in Kalamazoo placed their weight on his chest, causing him to lose consciousness on April 29, according to a lawsuit filed Monday by his aunt, the Associated Press reported.
"Cornelius's scream of 'I can't breathe' was not enough to get the staff members to stop the excessive restraint," according to the lawsuit, which states that another child detained at the facility heard the incident unfold.
His family is seeking $100 million in a civil suit.
Video footage shows that Frederick was restrained for a full 12 minutes, according to the state, as MLive reported. It took another 12 minutes before anyone to begin CPR or call the police, who say that Fredericks was being disciplined for throwing a sandwich in the cafeteria. Seven staff members were involved in the incident.
Sequel Youth and Family Services, which ran Lakeside Academy, a facility for "at-risk youth," said 11 people have since been "separated from the organization," per MLive. The school, a state-licensed facility, "focuses on the confrontation and redirection of negative behavior while recognizing desired, positive behavior," according to its website.
"We cannot comment on pending legal matters. That said, we are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of Cornelius and acted quickly to terminate all staff involved," Sequel Youth and Family Services told MLive in a statement. "Additionally, we have removed the former executive director of Lakeside from the organization. We have been in regular contact with law enforcement and state officials to help ensure justice is served and have accelerated the work that was already underway across our organization to move to a restraint-free model of care. We take our obligation to meet the significant behavioral health needs of all our students incredibly seriously and remain focused on our mission of providing the absolute best care and treatment possible for our clients."
On Wednesday, Dr. Ted Brown of the Kalamazoo County Medical Examiner's Office said that an autopsy revealed Fredericks died due to a lack of oxygen and blood flow.
"In my opinion, the complications of him being restrained, on the ground in a supine position by multiple people, is ultimately what led to his death," Brown told MLive.
After Frederick was killed, at least 25 students ran away from the facility.
Three employees, Michael Mosley, Zachary Solis, and Heather McLogan were charged Wednesday with involuntary manslaughter in connection with the death. Mosley and Solis allegedly restrained Frederick while McLogan, a nurse, allegedly failed to provide medical care, according to the prosecutor.
Frederick's family had been pressing for murder charges.
An African American protester wears a mask that say "I Can't Breathe" and holds a sign that says, "Say Their Names" as they perform a peaceful protest walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. Ira L. Black/Corbis via Getty Images
Three former employees at Lakeside Academy in Kalamazoo, Michigan, have been charged with involuntary manslaughter over the death of 16-year-old Cornelius Frederick.
Three former employees at Lakeside Academy in Kalamazoo, Michigan, have been charged with involuntary manslaughter over the death of 16-year-old Cornelius Frederick.
Frederick died May 1 after being restrained for 12 minutes, according to prosecutors. The incident reportedly took place after he threw a sandwich in the cafeteria.
"In my opinion, the complications of him being restrained, on the ground in a supine position by multiple people, is ultimately what led to his death," Dr. Ted Brown of the Kalamazoo County Medical Examiner's Office said Wednesday.
At least 25 students ran away from the facility after Frederick was killed.
Three staff members at a Michigan youth facility have been charged with involuntary manslaughter over the death of a Black teenager who reportedly yelled "I can't breathe" before going into cardiac arrest.
The death of Cornelius Frederick, 16, was officially ruled a homicide Wednesday afternoon, with Kalamazoo County Prosecutor Jeff Getting announcing charges hours later.
Frederick died May 1, a few days after staff at the Lakeside Academy in Kalamazoo placed their weight on his chest, causing him to lose consciousness on April 29, according to a lawsuit filed Monday by his aunt, the Associated Press reported.
"Cornelius's scream of 'I can't breathe' was not enough to get the staff members to stop the excessive restraint," according to the lawsuit, which states that another child detained at the facility heard the incident unfold.
His family is seeking $100 million in a civil suit.
Video footage shows that Frederick was restrained for a full 12 minutes, according to the state, as MLive reported. It took another 12 minutes before anyone to begin CPR or call the police, who say that Fredericks was being disciplined for throwing a sandwich in the cafeteria. Seven staff members were involved in the incident.
Sequel Youth and Family Services, which ran Lakeside Academy, a facility for "at-risk youth," said 11 people have since been "separated from the organization," per MLive. The school, a state-licensed facility, "focuses on the confrontation and redirection of negative behavior while recognizing desired, positive behavior," according to its website.
"We cannot comment on pending legal matters. That said, we are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of Cornelius and acted quickly to terminate all staff involved," Sequel Youth and Family Services told MLive in a statement. "Additionally, we have removed the former executive director of Lakeside from the organization. We have been in regular contact with law enforcement and state officials to help ensure justice is served and have accelerated the work that was already underway across our organization to move to a restraint-free model of care. We take our obligation to meet the significant behavioral health needs of all our students incredibly seriously and remain focused on our mission of providing the absolute best care and treatment possible for our clients."
On Wednesday, Dr. Ted Brown of the Kalamazoo County Medical Examiner's Office said that an autopsy revealed Fredericks died due to a lack of oxygen and blood flow.
"In my opinion, the complications of him being restrained, on the ground in a supine position by multiple people, is ultimately what led to his death," Brown told MLive.
After Frederick was killed, at least 25 students ran away from the facility.
Three employees, Michael Mosley, Zachary Solis, and Heather McLogan were charged Wednesday with involuntary manslaughter in connection with the death. Mosley and Solis allegedly restrained Frederick while McLogan, a nurse, allegedly failed to provide medical care, according to the prosecutor.
Frederick's family had been pressing for murder charges.
US Supreme Court allows quick removal of asylum-seekersRichard Wolf, USA TODAY•June 25, 2020
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court handed a green light Thursday to the Trump administration in its effort to speed up the removal of those seeking asylum.
The court ruled that asylum-seekers claiming fear of persecution abroad do not have to be given a federal court hearing before quick removal from the United States if they initially fail to prove that claim.
The decision was written by Associate Justice Samuel Alito. Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.
The case, one of many to come before the high court involving the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration, concerned Sri Lanka native Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam. He was arrested 25 yards north of the Mexican border and immediately placed in expedited removal proceedings.
More: President Trump's immigration crackdown inundates Supreme Court
Immigration officials determined that Thuraissigiam did not have a credible fear of persecution, even though he is a member of Sri Lanka's Tamil ethnic minority that faces beatings and torture at the hands of the government.
"While aliens who have established connections in this country have due process rights in deportation proceedings, the court long ago held that Congress is entitled to set the conditions for an alien’s lawful entry into this country and that, as a result, an alien at the threshold of initial entry cannot claim any greater rights under the Due Process Clause," Alito wrote in a 36-page opinion.
In her dissent, Sotomayor said the system Congress established short-circuits an inquiry designed to determine whether asylum-seekers "may seek shelter in this country or whether they may be cast to an unknown fate."
"Today’s decision handcuffs the judiciary’s ability to perform its constitutional duty to safeguard individual liberty and dismantles a critical component of the separation of powers," she wrote. "It increases the risk of erroneous immigration decisions that contravene governing statutes and treaties."
The court's other two liberal justices, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, agreed with the judgment but said they would have applied it only to Thuraissigiam's claim.
"Addressing more broadly whether the Suspension Clause protects people challenging removal decisions may raise a host of difficult questions," Breyer wrote, such as whether the same limit can apply to those picked up years after crossing the border, or to those claiming to be U.S. citizens.
During oral argument in March, Chief Justice John Roberts and other conservatives expressed concern that granting Thuraissigiam a hearing could lead to a significant expansion of new claims. His lawyer said about 9,500 asylum-seekers fit the same category.
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court handed a green light Thursday to the Trump administration in its effort to speed up the removal of those seeking asylum.
The court ruled that asylum-seekers claiming fear of persecution abroad do not have to be given a federal court hearing before quick removal from the United States if they initially fail to prove that claim.
The decision was written by Associate Justice Samuel Alito. Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.
The case, one of many to come before the high court involving the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration, concerned Sri Lanka native Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam. He was arrested 25 yards north of the Mexican border and immediately placed in expedited removal proceedings.
More: President Trump's immigration crackdown inundates Supreme Court
Immigration officials determined that Thuraissigiam did not have a credible fear of persecution, even though he is a member of Sri Lanka's Tamil ethnic minority that faces beatings and torture at the hands of the government.
"While aliens who have established connections in this country have due process rights in deportation proceedings, the court long ago held that Congress is entitled to set the conditions for an alien’s lawful entry into this country and that, as a result, an alien at the threshold of initial entry cannot claim any greater rights under the Due Process Clause," Alito wrote in a 36-page opinion.
In her dissent, Sotomayor said the system Congress established short-circuits an inquiry designed to determine whether asylum-seekers "may seek shelter in this country or whether they may be cast to an unknown fate."
"Today’s decision handcuffs the judiciary’s ability to perform its constitutional duty to safeguard individual liberty and dismantles a critical component of the separation of powers," she wrote. "It increases the risk of erroneous immigration decisions that contravene governing statutes and treaties."
The court's other two liberal justices, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, agreed with the judgment but said they would have applied it only to Thuraissigiam's claim.
"Addressing more broadly whether the Suspension Clause protects people challenging removal decisions may raise a host of difficult questions," Breyer wrote, such as whether the same limit can apply to those picked up years after crossing the border, or to those claiming to be U.S. citizens.
During oral argument in March, Chief Justice John Roberts and other conservatives expressed concern that granting Thuraissigiam a hearing could lead to a significant expansion of new claims. His lawyer said about 9,500 asylum-seekers fit the same category.
Asylum seekers wait for news outside El Chaparral port of entry on the U.S.-Mexico border in Tijuana, Mexico, on March 19, 2020.
Only 30 petitions for federal court hearings have been filed so far, American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt said then. But Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler said the figure was closer to 100 and warned of "the potential for a flood" of cases if the Supreme Court ruled for Thuraissigiam.
The case represented a crucial test of the Trump administration's effort to speed the removal of thousands of migrants without granting federal court hearings. The fast-track process is allowed under a law passed by Congress in 1996.
The California-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which has drawn Trump's ire for its decisions on immigration, ruled last year that efforts to remove asylum-seekers under such "expedited removal" procedures violated their constitutional rights.
The Justice Department argued that extending the streamlined process could add years of court wrangling. After losing the case, the administration in July expanded the expedited removal system to incorporate asylum-seekers apprehended anywhere in the country who have not been continuously present in the USA for two years.
The case is one of several challenging the Trump administration's efforts to crack down on migrants seeking asylum after crossing the Mexican border.
In February, a federal appeals court blocked the administration’s policy of returning asylum-seekers to Mexico to await court hearings, a practice immigrant rights advocates have denounced as inhumane and deadly.
Last September, the justices temporarily upheld a different policy denying asylum to those who do not seek protection first from a country they pass through, such as Mexico.
But in 2018, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked a policy aimed at denying asylum to migrants crossing the border illegally rather than at designated crossings.
Trump's three-year crackdown on immigration has led to a surge in lawsuits reaching the Supreme Court, where a rebuilt conservative majority increasingly is paying dividends for him.
In the past year, the justices also let the administration deter poor immigrants and redirect military funds to build a wall along the southern border.
The high court has heard arguments in eight immigration cases since its term began in October, including a challenge to Trump's plan to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that enables nearly 650,000 undocumented immigrants to work without fear of deportation.
The program was created by President Barack Obama in 2012 to help young, undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children. During oral argument in November, the court's conservative justices said the administration had ample policy reasons to end it. But the high court ruled 5-4 against the Trump administration in a surprise ruling written by Roberts. Trump has said he will try again to wind down the DACA program.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court upholds Trump administration on removing asylum-seekers
Justices rule for Trump administration in deportation caseMARK SHERMAN,
Associated Press•June 25, 2020
The Supreme Court is seen in Washington, early Monday, June 15, 2020. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration can deport some people seeking asylum without allowing them to make their case to a federal judge.
The high court's 7-2 ruling applies to people who are picked up at or near the border and who fail their initial asylum screenings, making them eligible for quick deportation, or expedited removal.
The justices ruled in the case of man who said he fled persecution as a member of Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, but failed to persuade immigration officials that he faced harm if he returned to Sri Lanka. The man was arrested soon after he slipped across the U.S. border from Mexico.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the high-court opinion that reversed a lower-court ruling in favor of the man, Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam, who was placed in expedited removal proceedings that prohibit people who fail initial interviews from asking federal courts for much help.
Immigration officials handled Thuraissigiam's case as a part of process Congress created “for weeding out patently meritless claims and expeditiously removing the aliens making such claims from the country," Alito wrote.
He noted that more than three-quarters of people who sought to claim asylum in the past five years passed their initial screening and qualified for full-blown review.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer agreed with the outcome in this case, but did not join Alito's opinion.
In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “Today’s decision handcuffs the Judiciary’s ability to perform its constitutional duty to safeguard individual liberty." She was joined by Justice Elena Kagan.
Lee Gelernt, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who argued the case in the Supreme Court, said the outcome will make it hard to question the actions of immigration officials at the U.S. border. “This decision will impact potentially tens of thousands of people at the border who will not be able to seek review of erroneous denials of asylum," Gelernt said.
Since 2004, immigration officials have targeted for quick deportation undocumented immigrants who are picked up within 100 miles of the U.S. border and within 14 days of entering the country. The Trump administration is seeking to expand that authority so that people detained anywhere in the U.S. and up to two years after they got here could be quickly deported.
On Tuesday, a federal appeals court threw out a trial judge’s ruling that had blocked the expanded policy. Other legal issues remain to be resolved in the case.
The administration has made dismantling the asylum system a centerpiece of its immigration agenda, saying it is rife with abuse and overwhelmed by meritless claims. Changes include making asylum-seekers wait in Mexico while their cases wind through U.S. immigration court, denying asylum to anyone on the Mexican border who passes through another country without first seeking protection there, and flying Hondurans and El Salvadorans to Guatemala with an opportunity to seek asylum there instead of the U.S.
On Monday, the Trump administration published sweeping new procedural and substantive rules that would make it much more difficult to get asylum, triggering a 30-day period for public comment before they can take effect.
The United States became the world’s top destination for asylum-seekers in 2017, according to UN figures, many of them Mexican and Central American families fleeing endemic violence.
___
Associated Press writer Elliott Spagat in San Diego contributed to this rep
Only 30 petitions for federal court hearings have been filed so far, American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt said then. But Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler said the figure was closer to 100 and warned of "the potential for a flood" of cases if the Supreme Court ruled for Thuraissigiam.
The case represented a crucial test of the Trump administration's effort to speed the removal of thousands of migrants without granting federal court hearings. The fast-track process is allowed under a law passed by Congress in 1996.
The California-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which has drawn Trump's ire for its decisions on immigration, ruled last year that efforts to remove asylum-seekers under such "expedited removal" procedures violated their constitutional rights.
The Justice Department argued that extending the streamlined process could add years of court wrangling. After losing the case, the administration in July expanded the expedited removal system to incorporate asylum-seekers apprehended anywhere in the country who have not been continuously present in the USA for two years.
The case is one of several challenging the Trump administration's efforts to crack down on migrants seeking asylum after crossing the Mexican border.
In February, a federal appeals court blocked the administration’s policy of returning asylum-seekers to Mexico to await court hearings, a practice immigrant rights advocates have denounced as inhumane and deadly.
Last September, the justices temporarily upheld a different policy denying asylum to those who do not seek protection first from a country they pass through, such as Mexico.
But in 2018, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked a policy aimed at denying asylum to migrants crossing the border illegally rather than at designated crossings.
Trump's three-year crackdown on immigration has led to a surge in lawsuits reaching the Supreme Court, where a rebuilt conservative majority increasingly is paying dividends for him.
In the past year, the justices also let the administration deter poor immigrants and redirect military funds to build a wall along the southern border.
The high court has heard arguments in eight immigration cases since its term began in October, including a challenge to Trump's plan to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that enables nearly 650,000 undocumented immigrants to work without fear of deportation.
The program was created by President Barack Obama in 2012 to help young, undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children. During oral argument in November, the court's conservative justices said the administration had ample policy reasons to end it. But the high court ruled 5-4 against the Trump administration in a surprise ruling written by Roberts. Trump has said he will try again to wind down the DACA program.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court upholds Trump administration on removing asylum-seekers
Justices rule for Trump administration in deportation caseMARK SHERMAN,
Associated Press•June 25, 2020
The Supreme Court is seen in Washington, early Monday, June 15, 2020. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration can deport some people seeking asylum without allowing them to make their case to a federal judge.
The high court's 7-2 ruling applies to people who are picked up at or near the border and who fail their initial asylum screenings, making them eligible for quick deportation, or expedited removal.
The justices ruled in the case of man who said he fled persecution as a member of Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, but failed to persuade immigration officials that he faced harm if he returned to Sri Lanka. The man was arrested soon after he slipped across the U.S. border from Mexico.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the high-court opinion that reversed a lower-court ruling in favor of the man, Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam, who was placed in expedited removal proceedings that prohibit people who fail initial interviews from asking federal courts for much help.
Immigration officials handled Thuraissigiam's case as a part of process Congress created “for weeding out patently meritless claims and expeditiously removing the aliens making such claims from the country," Alito wrote.
He noted that more than three-quarters of people who sought to claim asylum in the past five years passed their initial screening and qualified for full-blown review.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer agreed with the outcome in this case, but did not join Alito's opinion.
In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “Today’s decision handcuffs the Judiciary’s ability to perform its constitutional duty to safeguard individual liberty." She was joined by Justice Elena Kagan.
Lee Gelernt, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who argued the case in the Supreme Court, said the outcome will make it hard to question the actions of immigration officials at the U.S. border. “This decision will impact potentially tens of thousands of people at the border who will not be able to seek review of erroneous denials of asylum," Gelernt said.
Since 2004, immigration officials have targeted for quick deportation undocumented immigrants who are picked up within 100 miles of the U.S. border and within 14 days of entering the country. The Trump administration is seeking to expand that authority so that people detained anywhere in the U.S. and up to two years after they got here could be quickly deported.
On Tuesday, a federal appeals court threw out a trial judge’s ruling that had blocked the expanded policy. Other legal issues remain to be resolved in the case.
The administration has made dismantling the asylum system a centerpiece of its immigration agenda, saying it is rife with abuse and overwhelmed by meritless claims. Changes include making asylum-seekers wait in Mexico while their cases wind through U.S. immigration court, denying asylum to anyone on the Mexican border who passes through another country without first seeking protection there, and flying Hondurans and El Salvadorans to Guatemala with an opportunity to seek asylum there instead of the U.S.
On Monday, the Trump administration published sweeping new procedural and substantive rules that would make it much more difficult to get asylum, triggering a 30-day period for public comment before they can take effect.
The United States became the world’s top destination for asylum-seekers in 2017, according to UN figures, many of them Mexican and Central American families fleeing endemic violence.
___
Associated Press writer Elliott Spagat in San Diego contributed to this rep
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