It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, July 09, 2022
CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M
Blockchain.com faces $270 million hit on loans to bankrupt Three Arrows
Fri, July 8, 2022
(Reuters) -Cryptocurrency exchange Blockchain.com could lose $270 million on its loans to bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), a source with knowledge of the matter said on Friday.
The development comes days after 3AC filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy, seeking protection from creditors in the United States after one of the most high-profile blow-ups of the crypto crash this year.
"Three Arrows is rapidly becoming insolvent and the default impact is approximately $270 million worth of cryptocurrency and U.S. dollar loans from Blockchain.com," Blockchain.com's Chief Executive Officer Peter Smith said in a letter to shareholders, according to a company spokesperson.
The news was first reported by CoinDesk.
Earlier this week, digital asset exchange Genesis Trading also said it had been exposed to 3AC, but had mitigated its losses after the hedge fund failed to meet a margin call.
Aggressive rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve and recession fears have led to a turmoil in equities and sparked a selloff in cryptocurrencies. The crypto winter has hit several companies in the sector including lending patform Celsius Network and Voyager Digital.
A Dutch doctor and the internet are making sure Americans have access to abortion pills
David Ingram
Thu, July 7, 2022
A little-known European medical team is poised to become one of the most important groups in the shifting landscape of U.S. abortion bans.
Aid Access, an online-only service run by a Dutch physician, Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, began shipping abortion pills to Americans from abroad four years ago. The organization’s team consists of about four doctors supervising about 10 medical staff members, and they’re difficult for U.S. authorities to reach because all are outside the country and they ship pills from a pharmacy in India.
Opponents of abortion rights have so far largely found themselves powerless to stop Aid Access from mailing abortion pills even to the most conservative corners of the country, at least while the organization’s opponents don’t control the White House. That has transformed Aid Access nearly overnight from an obscure overseas group into an essential part of the effort to keep abortion accessible nationwide.
“It’s the only clinically supported service that mails to states where telehealth for abortion is banned,” said Ushma Upadhyay, an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco.
Gomperts, who founded Aid Access in 2018, said she has no intention of changing her work now that the Supreme Court has overruled Roe v. Wade. Aid Access has been receiving 4,000 requests a day since Roe v. Wade was overturned, she said, up from 600 to 700 a day previously.
Last year, after Texas banned abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, orders from the state tripled in the weeks after the law took effect, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open.
“We will continue to serve women who need it. We’re not going to stop,” Gomperts said in a phone interview, adding, “We are expanding again our capacity, so we can help with all the requests that we get.”
Image: Rebecca Gomperts following a press conference at the Pez Vela Marina in the port of San Jose, Guatemala on Feb. 23, 2017. (Johan Ordonez / AFP - Getty Images)
The steps are relatively straightforward: Potential patients visit the Aid Access website and answer a series of questions, including how long they’ve been pregnant and whether anyone is forcing them to seek abortions. The medical team reviews the answers and may write prescriptions that get sent to pharmacies. For pills coming from India, the process may take a couple of weeks. Gomperts said the organization is prioritizing people who are pregnant over those who want to stock pills for the future.
Around 25 people work on a help desk to answer questions from patients, with three people on at any given time, Gomperts said. Aid Access charges $110 to $150 depending on where the patient is.
The ease of the process makes Aid Access yet another example of how a global internet can frustrate and subvert local law enforcement — at least so far.
James Bopp, the general counsel of the National Right to Life Committee, said that without control of the presidency or a new federal law, there’s little his organization or its allies who oppose abortion rights could do against a group based outside the U.S.
“The reality is state laws have limited extraterritorial effects,” he said. “There’s no question that the federal government has much more authority, and we hope to get them on our side to make these state laws much more effective.”
A medication abortion generally involves five pills of two different drugs. Women take one pill of mifepristone, followed a day or two later by four pills of misoprostol.
The pills became easier to obtain during the pandemic, when first a federal judge and then the Biden administration allowed patients to get them without visiting clinics in person. Medication abortions accounted for 54% of U.S. abortions in 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research institute that supports abortion rights. In 2011, the share was 24%.
But even before Roe was overturned, 19 states had banned the use of telemedicine for medication abortions or required the physical presence of the prescribing physician, according to KFF, a nonprofit organization for health information.
Now, more than 20 states have banned or restricted abortions, according to an NBC News tracker of state laws.
Gomperts said Aid Access is hearing confusion and fear from women in the U.S.
Rebecca Gomperts on the Aurora, a floating abortion clinic, in Dublin in 2001. (Jeroen Oerlemans / Shutterstock)
“The people who are affected are poor women in red states that have these trigger laws,” she said. “There’s so much social injustice being done — again and again and again, to the most vulnerable part of the population.”
Other online pharmacies will ship abortion pills to states where abortion is banned, according to the website of Plan C, an advocacy group, but experts said Aid Access is different because it’s based outside the U.S., has staff members available to answer questions and has cooperated with outside researchers.
“We know it’s safe, because it’s one of the options for self-managed abortion that we’ve been able to study,” said Dr. Abigail Aiken, a physician who is an associate professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, who has done research on Aid Access.
About 96% of those who used abortion pills from Aid Access reported successfully ending their pregnancies without surgical intervention, according to research Aiken published this year. About 1% reported they received treatment such as antibiotics or blood transfusions, and there were no reported deaths.
“They really are a humanitarian nonprofit, not a business the way an online pharmacy is,” Aiken said.
Gomperts founded Aid Access in response to tightening U.S. laws around abortion access. She had already been running a similar service, called Women on Web, in other countries, and Aid Access received 57,506 requests from people in the U.S. in its first two years.
“It was clear in the last few years that access in the U.S. was getting harder and harder and harder. We started off mostly with helping service women in the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, in South Korea and Japan,” she said, because U.S. service members in those countries had limited access.
Gomperts’ résumé has made her a hero within the abortion rights movement; she has performed abortions in international waters off Portugal and other countries where abortion was restricted, and she has used drones to deliver pills in Northern Ireland in defiance of authorities there.
Time magazine named Gomperts one of its 100 most influential people of 2020, and in a tribute in the magazine, Cecile Richards, the former president of Planned Parenthood, called her “one of the bravest people I know.”
“She is living her ethical and moral duty as a physician to ‘do no harm,’” said Dr. Emily Godfrey, an associate professor of family medicine and of obstetrics and gynecology with the University of Washington School of Medicine. “The problem is when nonmedical people restrict access to medical care, to licensed qualified medical care, people are more prone to seek unsafe abortion — and that’s what kills, unsafe abortion.”
Aid Access already faced down one hostile U.S. presidency. In March 2019, under then-President Donald Trump, the Food and Drug Administration sent a warning letter asking Aid Access to cease operations. Aid Access refused and sued the FDA to block any potential action. The agency never followed through on its request. Last week, an FDA spokesperson had no immediate comment on what plans the agency has, if any, with regard to Aid Access.
The agency’s stance could change if an opponent of abortion rights were to become president. But on the state level, said Dr. Richard Hearn, a physician and lawyer in Idaho who has represented Aid Access, regulators and prosecutors might have as difficult a time barring the organization as their counterparts did stopping the import of alcohol during Prohibition in the 1920s.
“No state like Texas or Idaho is going to be able to do anything to Aid Access in Amsterdam or Austria. They’re not going to have jurisdiction, and the Netherlands isn’t going to extradite,” he said, emphasizing that he was speaking for himself, not the organization.
Complicating state-level legal efforts is the fact that Attorney General Merrick Garland has said states can’t enforce bans on abortion pills because the FDA has approved the regimen, which pre-empts state action. The issue is already being litigated in federal court in Mississippi, where a generic maker of mifepristone is suing to block state restrictions.
It’s not clear whether any state or federal prosecutor plans to pursue action against Aid Access directly. The Mississippi attorney general’s office, which argued the case that led to last month’s Supreme Court ruling, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“It’s just futile to try to stop mifepristone and misoprostol. They’re perfectly safe, especially early on,” Hearn said.
Nonetheless, abortion rights opponents have proposed even harsher penalties aimed at online prescriptions of abortion pills. The National Right to Life Committee published a model state law on its website that would, if states adopt it, make it a felony to maintain a website giving instructions for self-managed abortions, but enforcement would remain a challenge.
One of the few things limiting the reach of Aid Access is that it’s still not well known. Gomperts criticized social media apps such as Instagram and Facebook for removing posts about abortion services.
“The freedom of speech is one of the key constitutional rights in the U.S., but because of these laws, even that right is under stress because people are so afraid,” she said.
The lack of awareness is something that abortion rights advocates and some physicians hope will change, even if Aid Access becomes a lightning rod similar to Planned Parenthood.
Gomperts said her goal is for Aid Access to eventually become unnecessary.
“It shouldn’t have to be a foreign organization,” she said. “What should happen in the end is that the states like New York and California, liberal states, they should just make it possible for the doctors and providers there to ship the pills to the other states.”
SHOULD BE FRONT PAGE NEWS
Gasoline Prices See The Largest Drop In Nearly 15 Years
Editor OilPrice.com Fri, July 8, 2022 While gasoline prices are still $1.50 higher per gallon than they were this time last year, they fell sharply overnight in what was the largest one-day drop in nearly 15 years, according to AAA data.
The current price for a gallon of gasoline in the United States is averaging $4.721 on Friday, down from $4.752 per gallon on Thursday—a 3.1-cent drop. The weekly change is even more significant at 12.1 cents.
According to Gas Buddy’s Patrick De Haan, more than 5,800 gas stations across the country are offering gasoline at $3.99 per gallon or less.
While they are trending down this week, gasoline prices are still $1.58 higher than they were this time last year. Gasoline prices continued to drop as crude oil prices rose on Thursday and Friday, but crude oil prices are still down significantly week on week.
WTI crude was trading up $2.01 per barrel on Friday at $104.70—down almost $4 on the week.
High gasoline prices have been a worry for the Biden Administration, which has so far released more than 145 million barrels of crude oil from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves, bringing the SPR down to levels not seen in decades in order to calm the high prices at the pump.
But the falling price of crude oil—which makes up about 60% of the cost of gasoline—fell this week largely on fears of a recession.
Another measure that the Biden Administration has taken includes asking OPEC+ to pump more, but the group has been either unwilling or unable to live up to its production quotas.
Also contributing to the price decrease in gasoline is U.S. gasoline demand, which is down roughly 4.5% from last week, according to De Haan.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
Biden’s Potential Kentucky Court Pick Would Be A Lot Like Clarence Thomas, Says Former Boss
Travis Waldron Thu, July 7, 2022 Biden's reported pick of Chad Meredith, an anti-abortion lawyer, for a federal judgeship in Kentucky has drawn outrage from Democrats and reproductive rights groups.
(Photo: Ryan C. Hermens/Lexington Herald-Leader via Getty Images)
Biden's reported pick of Chad Meredith, an anti-abortion lawyer, for a federal judgeship in Kentucky has drawn outrage from Democrats and reproductive rights groups. (Photo: Ryan C. Hermens/Lexington Herald-Leader via Getty Images)
President Joe Biden’s reported pick for a lifetime federal judgeship in Kentucky is not only extremely anti-abortion, he would also operate a lot like conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and the late Antonin Scalia, according to his former boss.
Chad Meredith, who the Louisville Courier-Journal reported last week was Biden’s pick for a soon-to-be vacant U.S. District Court seat, “would be a strong and dependable conservative asset to the federal judiciary for decades,” according to a 2018 letter from Stephen Pitt, a general counsel to conservative former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R). The letter touted Meredith’s candidacy for a different federal court vacancy in Kentucky that year.
Meredith, who was deputy general counsel to Bevin at the time, would “adhere to the textualist and originalist viewpoint followed by the late Justice Scalia and by other justices, such as Justice Thomas and Justice [Neil] Gorsuch,” Pitt wrote in his letter to then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “In sum, it is my opinion that the qualities I believe you think are most important in a federal judge are the same as I hold to. Based upon that belief, I can recommend Chad Meredith without reservation.”
McConnell aide Terry Carmack responded to Pitt at the time by saying he has “great respect for Chad,” according to an email included in the released records. Meredith was vetted for the position, but then-President Donald Trump chose another conservative lawyer to fill it instead.
Pitt wrote a similar letter to McConnell in December 2016 that recommended Meredith for a different Kentucky judicial vacancy. That letter, which was included in the records release, also suggested that Meredith would be “a strong and consistent conservative voice” in the mold of Scalia.
The comparisons between Meredith and Justices Thomas and Scalia are likely to intensify calls on Biden to abandon his plans to nominate him. Not only would such a pick run counter to Biden’s much-touted record of putting forward diverse and progressive judicial nominees, but it would come on the heels of the Supreme Court gutting Roe v. Wade, a decision that breaks from 50 years of precedent and strips away the constitutional right to an abortion.
The ruling has devastated and infuriated Democrats, who are now scrambling to try to protect reproductive rights nationwide. Biden’s apparent decision to nominate Meredith, meanwhile, has raised questions about why a president who has insisted he would “do all in my power to protect” abortion rights would hand a lifetime judicial appointment to an ardent opponent of them.
The White House initially notified Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear that he planned to nominate Meredith on June 23, the Courier-Journal reported, citing emails from a White House official to Beshear’s office.
“To be nominated tomorrow: … Stephen Chad Meredith: candidate for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky,” the email from White House aide Kathleen M. Marshall said.
But the next day, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and the nomination did not occur.
A White House spokesperson on Wednesday did not respond to a request for comment on whether Biden is still planning to nominate Meredith.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, meanwhile, tried to have it both ways when asked about Meredith, declining to comment on the problems with his potential nomination while boasting about the rapid pace and diversity of Biden’s other nominees.
“I’m just not ― we just don’t comment on ― on vacancies, whether executive branch or judicial, in situations where we have not made a nomination. We just have not made a nomination on this yet,” Jean-Pierre said Wednesday on Air Force One en route to Ohio.
“I do want to add and reiterate that the president is proud that we’ve confirmed more federal judges than during the last three presidents, presidencies, at the equivalent time in their administrations,” she said. “That includes so many history-making firsts to help our judiciary represent the diversity of America, including [a] groundbreaking new Supreme Court justice. And that is something that we’re going to continue to do, and we won’t stop there.”
The president is making a deal with the devil and once again, the people of Kentucky are crushed in the process.Former Kentucky state Rep. Charles Booker
Meredith certainly fits the mold of Trump’s court picks. He’s a member of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal organization that funneled anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ and anti-voting rights judicial nominees to Trump’s White House for years. All six of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade are Federalist Society members, as were dozens of Trump’s nominees to U.S. appeals courts.
During his time as Bevin’s deputy counsel, Meredith defended a 2017 Kentucky law that forced abortion patients to undergo an ultrasound ― and doctors to show the patient an image and play audio of a heartbeat ― before they could have the procedure. He lost that case in a U.S. District Court, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit upheld the law in 2019. The two judges on the three-judge panel who voted to uphold the Kentucky law are Federalist Society members and were appointed to that court by Trump.
In 2019, Meredith and Pitt also defended Bevin’s decision to deny a license to Planned Parenthood that would have allowed it to perform abortions in Kentucky. The organization received the license only after Beshear defeated Bevin later that year.
Biden’s decision to nominate Meredith may have been part of a deal with McConnell to speed other Biden nominees through a deadlocked Senate, especially ahead of midterm elections that could cost Democrats control of the chamber. But it has drawn outrage from Kentucky Democrats and national reproductive rights organizations, who’ve questioned whether any deal would be good enough to hand a lifetime appointment to a conservative like Meredith.
Beshear, citing Meredith’s role in a series of controversial pardons Bevin issued before he left office, called the potential nomination “indefensible” during a news conference last week.
Rep. John Yarmuth, the only Kentucky Democrat in Congress, said he “strongly” opposed the pick, and he told the Courier-Journal “the last thing we need is another extremist on the bench.”
“The president is making a deal with the devil and once again, the people of Kentucky are crushed in the process,” former Kentucky state Rep. Charles Booker, the Democratic nominee in this year’s U.S. Senate race, tweeted after the Courier-Journal’s initial report.
The National Women’s Law Center, NARAL, Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights groups called on Biden this week to drop Meredith from consideration.
“Chad Meredith should not be nominated to a lifetime judgeship,” the groups told the Courier-Journal. “This is unacceptable at any time, but especially on the heels of six Supreme Court justices taking away a fundamental right from millions of people.”
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Related...
‘Operation Higher Court’: Inside the religious right’s efforts to wine and dine Supreme Court justices
Peter S. Canellos and Josh Gerstein Fri, July 8, 2022
The former leader of a religious right organization said he recruited and coached wealthy volunteers including a prominent Dayton, Ohio, evangelical couple to wine, dine and entertain conservative Supreme Court justices while pushing conservative positions on abortion, homosexuality, gun restrictions and other issues.
Rob Schenck, an evangelical minister who headed the Faith and Action group headquartered near the Supreme Court from 1995 to 2018, said he arranged over the years for about 20 couples to fly to Washington to visit with and entertain Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and the late Antonin Scalia.
Schenck, who was once an anti-abortion activist but broke with the religious right in the last decade over its aggressive tactics and support for gun rights, said the couples were instructed before the dinners to use certain phrases to influence the justices while steering clear of the specifics of cases pending before the court — for example, to “talk about the importance of a child having a father and a mother,” rather than engage in the particulars of a gay-rights case.
“We would rehearse lines like, ‘We believe you are here for a time like this,’” which is a reference to the Old Testament Book of Esther in which the Hebrew woman born with the name Hadassah becomes queen of Persia and succeeds in preventing a genocide of her people.
Schenck said the goal was to create an ecosystem of support for conservative justices, as a way of making them more forthright in their views.
The previously undisclosed initiative by Faith and Action illustrates the extent to which some Supreme Court justices interacted with advocates for the religious right during a period when the court grappled with social issues such as abortion and gay rights. The calculated nature of Faith and Action’s efforts shows how outside actors can use social activities and expensive dinners to penetrate the court’s highly sealed environment.
Thomas and Alito did not respond to requests for comment through the Supreme Court. Efforts to reach the family of Scalia, who died in 2016, were unsuccessful.
Schenck’s organization, Faith and Action, became a part of Liberty Counsel in 2018 and is now known as Faith and Liberty. Its vice president, Peggy Nienaber, was quoted earlier this week as praying with Supreme Court justices in a recording posted on YouTube and reported by Rolling Stone magazine. Schenck told the magazine that he began the prayer sessions as a way of building rapport with conservative justices.
Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, said, “I don’t know a lot about what Rob Schenck has done in the past . . . When he says he invited couples to wine and dine justices, I know of nothing like that that happened.”
Schenck pointed to one prominent evangelical couple — Don and Gayle Wright of Dayton, Ohio — as major funders of his group, which established an office directly behind the Supreme Court building. Don Wright became wealthy through his furniture business and real estate firm, owning homes in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Siesta Key, Florida.
Schenck said that, in addition to making regular donations to Faith and Action, the Wrights financed numerous expensive dinners with Thomas, Alito, Scalia and their wives at Washington, D.C., hotspots including the Capital Grille. Don Wright died in 2020.
Gayle Wright did not return a phone message left at her Ohio home, seeking comment for this story. A request for comment made Friday to the family business Don Wright Realty, now headed by their son Scott, produced no immediate response.
Don Wright’s obituaries on Dignity Memorial and Legacy.com cited his charitable work with Faith and Liberty and his closeness to Supreme Court justices through his support for the Supreme Court Historical Society. Among the pictures featured on the Dignity Memorial site were images of the Wrights and their extended family with Scalia and Alito, and Don Wright with Chief Justice John Roberts.
“The late Antonin Scalia enjoyed hunting and fishing trips with the [Wright] family. But whether he was sitting in a hunting cabin with the guys or at a Supreme Court dinner he was always the same,” read the obituary on both sites.
In reporting Wright’s passing, The Dayton Business Journal wrote on August 3, 2020: “As trustee of the Supreme Court Historical Society, Wright became friends with several prominent justices, including Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and the late Antonin Scalia. An avid hunter/outdoorsman, Wright said Scalia would often accompany the family on hunting trips.”
Supreme Court Historical Society newsletters indicate Wright was a major donor to the group and was elected as a trustee for a three-year term in 2003 and again in 2006.
Schenck said he met the Wrights at Faith Baptist Church in Sarasota, Florida, where he was a guest pastor and they attended while staying at their vacation home in nearby Siesta Key.
He said the Wrights had strongly conservative views on abortion, homosexuality and gun rights, and dedicated themselves to reinforcing the Supreme Court justices’ own conservative views on the issues. They were the most active of the roughly 20 couples involved in the program Faith and Action called “Operation Higher Court,” Schenck said.
All the couples “knew they were being coached” and adhered to a “casual reporting procedure” in which they offered feedback on their dinners with the justices and their wives, Schenck said.
The Wrights were the most heavily involved of all the couples. “They set the standards,” Schenck said. “They were the most active, the most engaged.”
Staver, of Liberty Counsel, said he is familiar with one instance of Schenck coaching couples on how to behave around Supreme Court justices — but it was in connection with the historical society banquet, not private dinners.
“What he did was he would talk to them [the couples attending the banquet] about protocol. I saw him do that once. He would talk to them about how these are Supreme Court justices and he actually would say ‘don’t talk about issues or cases, this is just a dinner.’ He used it himself to try to get people to contribute to Faith and Action. Afterwards he would ask them how they liked it (the society dinner). That’s the coaching he’s talking about. He wasn’t saying set them up to ‘say this to them or that to them.’”
For his part, Schenck said that in addition to the dinners, Scalia was a guest at the Wrights’ home in Jackson Hole. A financial disclosure report Scalia filed shows his transportation, food and lodging for a June 2006 visit to Jackson Hole were paid for by the Wyoming State Bar in connection with a continuing education program for lawyers. Similar reports show he spoke to the Wyoming State Bar in Cheyenne in September 2008 and to the Federalist Society in Laramie in October 2012, with expenses paid by those groups.
Property records indicate the Wrights sold their Jackson Hole home in 2013.
As the leaders of a separate branch of the government, the justices have long set their own ethical standards. They are not bound by rules applied to other federal judges, and make their own decisions on whether to recuse themselves from cases on conflict-of-interest grounds. The justices file annual disclosure forms under the Ethics in Government Act requiring them to report gifts now worth more than $415 in aggregate, but meals are rarely reported as gifts and “personal hospitality” received at a host’s private home or business need not be reported. The justices also report annually on travel, lodging and meals received in connection with speaking engagements and legal conferences.
A review of more than a decade of financial disclosures from Thomas, Alito and Scalia found no reporting of restaurant or other meals as gifts, aside from food being included along with transportation and lodging expenses reimbursed by groups and entities sponsoring speaking events featuring the justices.
There are few public references to Faith and Action’s work with the judiciary, but a 2001 article in a Christian magazine, Charisma, described the group’s “Operation Higher Court” as offering “prayer and ministry to the Supreme Court justices.”
“The Supreme Court is the most insulated and isolated branch of the U.S. government,” Schenck told the magazine. “They do not interface with the public, so we’ve literally had to pray our way in there each step of the way.”
In the story, Schenck describes meeting and praying with Scalia just 24 hours after the court handed down its controversial decision resolving the 2000 presidential election, Bush v. Gore.
Schenck’s own decision to break with the religious right is detailed in the 2015 documentary “The Armor of Light,” and his 2018 book, “Costly Grace: An Evangelical Minister’s Rediscovery of Faith, Hope, and Love.”
He is currently the director of the Washington-based Dietrich Bonhoeffer Institute, named for the German theologian who opposed Nazism.
Heidi Przybyla contributed to this report.
EU Parliament condemns US abortion ruling, seeks safeguards Abortion-rights activists chant after handcuffing themselves to the front steps of Los Angeles City Hall on Wednesday, July 6, 2022, in Los Angeles. They doused the steps with red paint.
(AP Photo/Ashley Landis) ASSOCIATED PRESSMore RAF CASERT Thu, July 7, 2022
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union's parliament on Thursday overwhelmingly condemned the end of constitutional protections for abortion in the United States and called for such safeguards to be enshrined in the EU's fundamental rights charter.
In a 324-155 vote with 38 abstentions, European Parliament lawmakers adopted a resolution that crystalized the anger seen in many of the EU's 27 member countries since the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its ruling on June 24.
“It teaches us a lesson: Women’s and girls’ human rights can never be taken for granted, and we must always fight to defend them,” Swedish politician Helene Fritzon, who is vice president of an parliamentary alliance of Socialists and Democrats, said.
Underscoring fears that anti-abortion movements might expand in Europe, some legislators said they wanted to see EU-wide protections adopted.
“The United States has clearly shown why we must use every tool available to safeguard abortion rights in the European Union," said Stéphane Séjourné the president of the liberal Renew Europe group in the EU Parliament.
The resolution calls on member nations to add a sentence reading “Everyone has a right to safe and legal abortion” to the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
National laws determine the status of abortion in individual EU countries, much like the Supreme Court's ruling will result in for states in the U.S. Abortion is legal and practiced without much political opposition in many member nations, but is banned in Malta and restricted in Poland.
The EU Parliament resolution mentioned a recent case in Malta involving an American tourist who had an incomplete miscarriage and could not get the fetal tissue removed even if her life was in danger. A human rights activist in Poland was charged for providing an abortion pill, according to the resolution.
The Supreme Court’s overturning of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision has emboldened abortion opponents around the world. The EU resolution expressed concern “about a possible surge in the flow of money funding anti-gender and antichoice groups in the world, including in Europe.”
Despite the support for the resolution, it is not expected to have an immediate impact on abortion legislation in the bloc.
‘Slice human fingers to the bone’: Meet the potentially dangerous mantis shrimp found in SC waters
ALEX CASON Sarah Claire McDonald Fri, July 8, 2022
Among the shrimp species that surround South Carolina’s coast, mantis shrimp stand out as most notable of them all.
Not even technically a shrimp, mantis shrimp, or stomatopods, are distant relatives of crabs, lobsters and shrimp. They get their name because this carnivorous marine crustacean resembles a mix between a praying mantis and a shrimp. Occasionally, they can even be described as appearing similar to a lobster.
Often seen in local waters along the state’s coast and along the Southeastern U.S., the mantis shrimp can be found in shallow tropical or subtropical waters.
“The mantis shrimp (not a true shrimp) is a flattened, inshore crustacean sometimes incorrectly called ‘rock shrimp,’” says SCDNR about the species. - “Mantis shrimpcan be eaten, but have little meat of poor quality,” SCDNR continues.
With over 450 species of mantis shrimp worldwide, they are a common sight seen in a variety of different colors and can grow anywhere from 12 to 15 inches in length.
They can be found along coastal shores, usually living in an abandoned burrow, sometimes U-shaped and move in and out to capture nearby prey when spotted. The fast and vicious stomatopods can also live in coral reefs or rock crevices. Depending on the specific mantis shrimp species, these marine critters can be active during the day or live nocturnally.
Mantis shrimp spend a majority of their lives living in burrows, reefs or crevices and generally only leave to mate or hunt for nearby food sources. Mantis shrimp act as an ecological importance to their coral reefs. This is because they are incredibly sensitive to surrounding environmental pollutants and their behavior can indicate when conditions may be poor.
“They have a unique set of “thumb splitters” or small appendages that they use to break or crack open shells of other crustaceans to retrieve food and nutrients. They are the fastest known organism due to their quick jabbing appendages that can reach up to 170 mph,” according to Lamar University.
These appendages can be used in two separate ways, generally seen through hunting and attacking in the species.
“There are two main types of hunting for mantis shrimp: spearing and smashing. Smashing mantis shrimp have calcified forelimbs that they use to administer a powerful strike to both predators and prey. Spearing mantis shrimp have sharp forelimbs they use to pierce predators and prey,” according to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.
Fishermen and marine specialists alike have stated that the mantis shrimp’s claw is dangerous, and caution is necessary to avoid getting hurt.
“The title of fastest punch in the animal kingdom firmly belongs to the peacock mantis shrimp, whose club-like appendages reach the speed of a .22-caliber slug, shatter clamshells with ease and can slice human fingers to the bone,” wrote The Washington Post.
Mantis shrimp can act aggressively, and their jabs and blows have been described as “devastating” to their prey or to many that choose to spar with one.
Ancient jawbone could give glimpse of Europe's earliest humans
MADRID (Reuters) - Archaeologists in Spain said on Friday they had dug up an ancient jawbone that could help them look into the face of some of the earliest human ancestors in Europe.
The surprise find, which could be about 1.4 million years old, could also give vital clues to the evolution of the human face over the millennia, the team from the Atapuerca Foundation said.
"The first week of July 2022 will enter the history of human evolution," the team added in a statement.
The fossilised fragment of an upper jaw and cheekbone was found near caves in the Atapuerca Mountains in northern Spain's Burgos province, the site of other ancient remains.
The scientists said they were still working on identifying the specific kind of human ancestor and determining the bone's age.
"We have to continue our research for about at least a year. ... This takes lots of time," José María Bermúdez de Castro, one of the team's coordinators, told journalists.
"What we can say is that we have found a fossil that's very important and interesting that belongs to one of the first populations that arrived in Europe."
(Reporting by Catherine Macdonald; Writing by Andrew Heavens; Editing by Richard Chang)
IOWA
Proposed 350-mile carbon capture pipeline would go through Johnson County. Here's what you need to know.
IT'S BUILDING A PIPELINE CAUSES DAMAGE, DOESN'T MATTER WHAT IT TRANSPORTS
George Shillcock, Iowa City Press-Citizen Thu, July 7, 2022
A sliver of northeastern Johnson County is included in the latest proposal for a carbon capture pipeline in Iowa after two much larger projects completely avoided the area.
A map of a proposed pipeline filed with the Iowa Utilities Board shows the main artery of the 350-mile project would extend from an Archer Daniels Midland Co. location in Cedar Rapids, cutting southeast through Johnson, Linn, Cedar, Clinton and Scott counties. A second lateral line would run north from Davenport to another ADM location in Clinton.
While the main line wouldn't go directly through Johnson County, the proposed route's 2-mile corridor does include the northeastern part of the county. Other pipeline proposals in Iowa have avoided running through Johnson County, where opposition is expected.
"This is an exciting opportunity for ADM to connect some of our largest processing facilities with our carbon capture capabilities, advancing our work to significantly reduce our CO2 emissions while delivering sustainable solutions for our customers," ADM president of carbohydrate solutions Chris Cuddy said in the release. "These efforts are core to our purpose, our culture and our growth, and we look forward to working with Wolf Carbon Solutions to finalize this agreement and further decarbonize our operations and our industry.”
Nick Noppinger at Wolf Carbon Solutions told the Press-Citizen in an email statement that the company's goal is to reach voluntary agreements through respectful and open discussions with all landowners along this proposed route. He said the proposed 2-mile corridor, with one mile on each side of a proposed center line, would enable them to cooperatively work with landowners to determine the best possible route.
“Wolf Carbon Solutions is committed to building and maintaining meaningful relationships with landowners," Noppinger said. The proposed 350-mile carbon capture pipeline from Wolf Carbon Solutions US, LLC
This pipeline is one of several proposed in the Midwest that would run through Iowa, drawing criticism from environmental groups and landowners amid fears that eminent domain will be used to take property for the construction of pipelines.
Three companies — Summit Carbon Solutions, Navigator CO2 Ventures and ADM-Wolf — want to build pipelines that run through Iowa that will be used to move carbon dioxide captured from ethanol, fertilizer and other agricultural industrial plants.
The Johnson County Board of Supervisors and other county governments and elected officials and also signaled strong opposition to these projects.
The 350-mile pipeline would include both a main line running west to east from Cedar Rapids into Illinois, and a lateral line running south to north from just north of Davenport to Clinton.
The company would use pressure to liquefy the carbon dioxide, and the pipelines would transport it and then inject it deep underground where it will be permanently sequestered. Summit Carbon plans to sequester carbon in North Dakota; Navigator CO2 and Wolf-ADM plan to do so in Illinois.
ADM and Wolf expect to transport 12 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.
The news release from Wolf-ADM states that ADM’s carbon capture and sequestration capabilities in Decatur have allowed it to safely and permanently store more than 3.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide 1½ miles underground and have paved the way for increased decarbonization of the company’s operations. The company announced plans to construct a zero-emissions power plant adjacent to the company’s Decatur corn complex, and wants to achieve the wheat milling industry’s first carbon-neutral footprint. This map, based on information in March 2022, shows the proposed route of the 2,000-mile Summit Carbon Solutions CO2 pipeline that will carry pressurized carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to a sequestration site a mile underground in central North Dakota. About 470 miles of the pipeline would be located in South Dakota.
The release said the pipeline would have significant spare capacity to serve other third-party customers looking to decarbonize across the Midwest and Ohio River Valley.
To build the pipeline, Wolf-ADM will either have to purchase land from many private property owners along the 350-mile route or acquire permission from the Iowa Utilities Board and county governments to use eminent domain to acquire the land, regardless or the support of private landowners.
While landowners can refuse to voluntarily give up their land for this type of project, Summit, Navigator and ADM-Wolf can ask the three-person Iowa Utilities Board to grant eminent domain powers if they're determined to serve a public purpose. That would force unwilling landowners to grant easements at fair market values.
Eminent domain is a power a government entity or its agent can use to take private property for public use while compensating landowners. In this case, if the board grants eminent domain powers, it would force unwilling landowners to sell ADM-Wolf the rights to build across their property.
Wolf-ADM is asking for several informational meetings to take place in September. The company could bypass the need to use eminent domain by reaching out to landowners along the proposed route and attempting to negotiate easements.
Johnson County Supervisors express opposition to carbon capture pipelines
The Johnson County Board of Supervisors has already taken a strong stance against carbon capture pipelines, months before any route was officially proposed to run through the county.
The board sent two letters opposing the other two pipeline projects using eminent domain, even though they would not run through Johnson County.
On Wednesday, Supervisor Jon Green told the board about the Wolf-ADM project and said he would like to see the Supervisors send an additional letter stating the county's opposition. The rest of the board signaled its support for an additional letter.
Green, in April, speculated that such a pipeline would eventually make its way to Johnson County and suggested the board should put its "finger on the scale." The other Supervisors agreed and the letter was sent.
Michael Daly, a resident of Cedar Township in Johnson County, said at the April meeting that a potential pipeline could cut into his land. It is unclear if this proposal would
"My interest now is more urgent to find some solution," he said. "About the only thing we can do is object."
Supervisor Lisa Green-Douglass said in April that eminent domain should be used for "the greater good and not for private enterprise or private profit, which is what this would be." The latest version of Navigator Co.'s proposed Heartland Greenway carbon capture pipeline.
Johnson County Board of Supervisors Executive Director Mike Hensch said in April that he wanted to remind the public that, even if eminent domain is exercised, objections from landowners will go to a county compensation commissions. Hensch is a member of the compensation commission and said he was not taking a position on the issue.
"Each county, in the compensation commissions, can refuse the amount of money that is being recommended. And the step beyond that is district court. We're years away," he said.
ADM-Wolf is proposing five public informational meetings in the counties that the pipeline would go through, and a sixth that would be virtual.
"Wolf is committed to transparent, two-way communication throughout this process and is enthusiastic about bringing the economic and environmental benefits of this carbon capture and storage project to Iowa," its letter read.
The letter said that once dates are confirmed, the company will make reservations for suitable locations in each county. Each location will have Wi-Fi capabilities and will be ADA-compliant.
George Shillcock is the Press-Citizen's local government and development reporter covering Iowa City and Johnson County. He can be reached at (515) 350-6307, GShillcock@press-citizen.com and on Twitter @ShillcockGeorge
Tear gas: Senators decry lack of federal safety assessment
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — In 2020, Black Lives Matter protesters were doused with tear gas, making them gasp for breath, their eyes feeling as if they were on fire. Bystanders, including children and pregnant women, were also exposed.
Andrew Selsky, The Associated Press
FILE - A demonstrator kneels and uses a makeshift shield as federal agents launch tear gas during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland, Ore., on July 29, 2020. Questions posed by lawmakers, medical workers and experts about the safety of tear gas remain unanswered, even after more than a dozen U.S. senators asked a congressional watchdog to look into the issue. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — In 2020, Black Lives Matter protesters were doused with tear gas, making them gasp for breath, their eyes feeling as if they were on fire. Bystanders, including children and pregnant women, were also exposed.
As police responded to mass protests across the nation two years ago with tear gas and other chemical munitions, more than a dozen U.S. senators asked the congressional watchdog to find out whether federal agencies have assessed how safe they are.
But the report by the Government Accountability Office skipped that question, dedicating only three paragraphs to the effects of “chemical irritants” and flash-bangs. Both of the U.S. senators from Oregon — where the Trump administration deployed militarized federal agents — believe the report leaves too many questions unanswered and are calling for regulation of the tear gas industry.
The GAO report noted there were incidents in which less-lethal force may have been used by federal agents in violation of policy, but provided no details.
“This report is completely inadequate,” U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, one of the report requesters, said through spokeswoman Molly Prescott. “Congress and the American people deserve to know the details to better understand the significant issues and damage done by inappropriate use of less-lethal force."
Portland, Oregon’s largest city, was an epicenter of the protests, with months of nightly, often violent demonstrations and vandalism following the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. Portland police used tear gas and pepper balls against protesters, and the Trump administration sent militarized federal agents to the city, starting in July 2020.
At least 1,315 federal officers were deployed to Oregon, according to a redacted document obtained by U.S Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, from the Department of Homeland Security. They used more than a dozen different types of crowd-control devices, including 40 mm canisters loaded with tear gas or an oily extract of pepper plants, 40mm “direct impact rounds” loaded with tear gas or pepper compounds, smoke grenades and foggers that emit chemical irritants, the document showed.
Law enforcement officials say tear gas, if used properly, is an effective tool for crowd control. On Sunday, police in Akron, Ohio, used tear gas against people protesting the shooting of Jayland Walker, a Black man who was killed by police on June 27 in a hail of gunfire.
Wyden isn’t satisfied with the GAO report and will keep pressing for answers, spokesman Hank Stern said.
Gretta Goodwin, a director of the GAO and lead author of the report released late last year, said her office was unable to answer the senators’ question on whether federal agencies have assessed the safety and effectiveness of tear gas and other chemical munitions, or their impacts on underlying health conditions.
“We start out by looking to see what information is out there,” Goodwin said over the phone. “We weren’t really able to find anything.”
Instead of government oversight, the multi-billion-dollar industry regulates itself, a situation Wyden believes must end.
“He will push ... for the appropriate federal agencies to oversee the manufacture of tear gas in our country, as well as to undertake an urgently needed non-industry and neutral study into the impact of these weapons on human health and the environment,” Stern said.
The Associated Press previously found few studies exist on the health effects of tear gas, with many being old and focusing on military personnel, who tend to be healthier and in better physical condition than the general public.
The GAO found that three federal agencies — the Marshals Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Secret Service — don’t even document when officers violate their agencies’ policies while using these weapons.
“That needs to be known. That needs to be more transparent,” Goodwin said.
Among controversial tactics and actions taken by law enforcement during Black Lives Matter protests: "Kettling,” in which police seal off escape routes while blanketing people in tear gas and firing pepperballs; and firing projectiles point-blank at people. Donavan LaBella suffered severe injuries while peacefully protesting in Portland when he was hit in the face by a projectile fired by a federal officer.
Samira Green, pregnant at the time, found herself enveloped by tear gas fired by Portland police on June 2, 2020.
“Literally, you cannot breathe anything. It is clenched,” Green said, describing how her lungs seemed to seize up.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that “long-lasting exposure or exposure to a large dose of riot control agent, especially in a closed setting” may cause blindness, glaucoma, severe chemical burns to the throat and lungs, respiratory failure and death.
The GAO report footnoted a 2016 study by Physicians for Human Rights and the International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations on health consequences of crowd-control weapons.
But the congressional watchdog agency should have noted that “our data is quite limited because there is no transparency about the weapons,” said Rohini Haar, co-author of the 2016 study.
Tear gas, which is banned in warfare by the Chemical Weapons Convention, is getting more powerful, Haar said. Silicon is sometimes added to make tear gas last longer in the air and on surfaces, even though its health effects are unknown, said Haar, an emergency room physician and researcher at the University of California School of Public Health in Berkeley.
Haar said it’s time for the U.S. government to either do its own research on riot-control agents or support others to conduct it.
