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Author: Jessica Corbett

  • DOJ Suit Accuses Major Drug Distributor of Fueling US Opioid Crisis



    The Biden administration on Thursday filed suit against one of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical distributors, AmerisourceBergen, and two of its subsidiaries for allegedly violating federal law and contributing to the opioid epidemic.

    Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the complaint accuses AmerisourceBergen of at least hundreds of thousands of violations of the Controlled Substances Act. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is requesting civil penalties and injunctive relief.

    “The Department of Justice is committed to holding accountable those who fueled the opioid crisis by flouting the law.”

    “The Department of Justice is committed to holding accountable those who fueled the opioid crisis by flouting the law,” Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said in a statement. “Companies distributing opioids are required to report suspicious orders to federal law enforcement. Our complaint alleges that AmerisourceBergen—which sold billions of units of prescription opioids over the past decade—repeatedly failed to comply with that requirement.”

    Anne Milgram, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), a Justice Department agency, highlighted that the complaint “alleges that the company’s repeated and systemic failure to fulfill this simple obligation helped ignite an opioid epidemic that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths over the past decade.”

    Citing data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute on Drug Abuse said earlier this year that “opioid-involved overdose deaths rose from 21,088 in 2010 to 47,600 in 2017 and remained steady in 2018 with 46,802 deaths. This was followed by a significant increase through 2020 to 68,630 overdose deaths.”

    The DOJ’s complaint spotlights five pharmacies to which AmerisourceBergen distributed drugs: two in New Jersey and one each in Colorado, Florida, and West Virginia.

    “For years, AmerisourceBergen put its profits from opioid sales over the safety of Americans,” declared Philip R. Sellinger, the U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey. “According to the complaint, this was part of a brazen, blatant, and systemic failure by one of the largest companies in America.”

    Jacqueline C. Romero, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, said that “the allegations against AmerisourceBergen are disturbing, especially for a company that is headquartered only a few miles from neighborhoods in Philadelphia devastated by the opioid epidemic.”

    In a lengthy statement responding to the new suit, the distributor provided details about each of the five pharmacies, and claimed that the examples “were cherry-picked by DOJ from the thousands of pharmacies AmerisourceBergen delivers medicines to be the most incriminating to the company.”

    “An objective review of the facts shows that the DOJ’s complaint about AmerisourceBergen is simply an attempt to shift blame from past administrations at the Department of Justice and specifically their agency, the DEA, to industries they were tasked with regulating,” the company added.

    Meanwhile, in a tweet Thursday, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) welcomed the “strong action” from the DOJ “to hold pharma and distributors accountable for fueling the opioid crisis.”

    Various multibillion-dollar settlements for other suits have already been reached with opioid distributors, manufacturers, and retailers—including AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, CVS, Johnson & Johnson, McKesson, Walgreens, and Walmart.

    However, many policymakers, experts, and advocates argue more must be done. As Jayapal put it: “All these companies need to be held accountable. This is a start.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Rights Advocates Alarmed Over Israel’s New ‘Fascist, Racist, and Settler’ Government



    Global concerns about the new Israeli government—especially what it means for Palestinians—continued to grow Thursday as Benjamin Netanyahu took the oath of office to again serve as prime minister, this time leading the most far-right and religiously conservative coalition in the country’s history.

    The embattled leader was sworn in following a 63-54 vote of confidence in his new government by the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. He has appointed 30 ministers and three deputy ministers from his Likud party as well as Noam, Otzma Yehudit (“Jewish Power”‘), Religious Zionism, Shas, and United Torah Judaism.

    “It is already clear that the emerging coalition will be disastrous for human rights between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.”

    The coalition finalized Wednesday features “a mix of an ultra-Orthodox and right-wing bloc,” with some of the most “right-wing politicians we’ve seen,” Al Jazeera‘s Sara Khairat reported Thursday from West Jerusalem, as protesters gathered. “They were on the fringes of politics and now here they are on the main stage.”

    Some ministry appointments were only possible because of a pair of laws passed by the Knesset on Tuesday—one enabling Aryeh Deri of Shas to serve as minister of the interior despite his recent tax fraud conviction and another allowing Religious Zionism’s Bezalel Smotrich to take on multiple posts.

    “These laws… dovetail with Netanyahu’s own attempt to escape potential liability for his long-running corruption/bribery trial,” wrote Mondoweiss‘ Jonathan Ofir. “If such exceptions can be made for Smotrich and Deri and cemented into law, this paves the way for the same being done for Netanyahu, when the need arises.”

    Another controversial pick is Otzma Yehudit’s Itamar Ben-Gvir, the new national security minister, who in 2007 was convicted of incitement to racism against Arabs and supporting a terrorist organization. As Common Dreams reported last week, the government reached a deal to lift the ban on parliamentary candidates who incite racism.

    In a joint statement Thursday, several advocacy groups said that “it is already clear that the emerging coalition will be disastrous for human rights between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.”

    “Previous Israeli governments have already entrenched military control over millions of Palestinians, severely harmed their human rights, and made the possibility of a just future more difficult,” they continued. “The senior figures in this new government have made it clear that they intend to exacerbate this trend and advance dangerous measures.”

    The organizations—including Adalah, B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, Peace Now, and Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI)—warned that “the occupation and apartheid in the occupied Palestinian territories have made Jewish supremacy the de facto law of the land and the new government seeks to adopt this into their official policy.”

    “As the mask slips away, we will continue to stand firm to protect the human rights of the most vulnerable population in the region,” the groups concluded. “We call on everyone for whom the future of this place is important to stand together with us.”

    Warning of the coalition’s determination “to hurt the vulnerable, discriminate, and withhold medical care from migrants, Palestinians, and queer people,” PHRI declared in a series of tweets Thursday that “it’s time to resist.”

    On the eve of his inauguration, Netanyahu had laid out the new government’s agenda—and made clear that expanding illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territory is a top priority.

    “The Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the land of Israel. The government will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the land of Israel—in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan, Judea, and Samaria,” the agenda states.

    University of Michigan professor Juan Cole noted at his blog Informed Comment that a Jordanian newspaper called the exclusive Jewish right plank of Netanyahu’s platform “the execution of the Palestinian people.”

    Cole added that “since Netanyahu has no intention of ever granting Israeli citizenship to the three million Palestinians living under Israeli military rule, the formal annexation of their territory would cement Israel’s apartheid system of racial difference,” a warning echoed by many other critics.

    After Netanyahu tweeted the agenda’s lines about land rights in Hebrew, Palestinian-American writer Yousef Munayyer responded, “Say it in English so your apartheid apologist buddies over here can understand it.”

    Munayyer also highlighted the silence of the United States government on the matter—while U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides congratulated Netanyahu and proclaimed, “Here’s to the rock solid U.S.-Israel relationship and unbreakable ties.”

    In a Thursday statement, U.S. President Joe Biden said in part that “I look forward to working with Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has been my friend for decades, to jointly address the many challenges and opportunities facing Israel and the Middle East region.”

    While Biden did not explicitly address any concerns about Israel’s new far-right government, he added that “as we have throughout my administration, the United States will continue to support the two-state solution and to oppose policies that endanger its viability or contradict our mutual interests and values.”

    In a Twitter thread, Sina Toossi of the Center for International Policy noted that the U.S. government has long “turned a blind eye to human rights abuses committed by its allies” and asserted that “the new Netanyahu government in Israel will make the U.S. double standard on human rights even more blatant and egregious.”

    Philip Weiss wrote Thursday for Mondoweiss that “the deafening silence” from some U.S. Zionist organizations shows they “are clearly upset” that Netanyahu ignored calls not to move foward with a coalition that “includes fascistic and racist/messianic convicted criminals, because it would damage U.S.-Jewish relations and provide ammunition to anti-Zionists.”

    Weiss also highlighted that “the leading Jewish anti-Zionist group leaped on the new Israeli government today to catalyze Jewish support for democracy in Israel and Palestine.”

    As he pointed out, Judith Butler of the U.S.-based Jewish Voice for Peace said that “the political conflicts at Jewish dinner tables across the diaspora are a sure sign that the consensus on the ‘democratic’ character of the state of Israel has broken apart.”

    Butler continued:

    The new government in Israel has proved to be the most shamelessly racist in its history. Yes, but racism has been there from the beginning, a founding credo… Of course, it is good that we are shocked by Israeli racism, now increasingly shameless, for the world should not be this way. And yet, many of us are coming late to this sense of shock and outrage. It is time to act now, knowing that it has been time to act for a very long time!

    The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) announced earlier this month that “150 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank by Israeli forces so far this year, including 33 children,” the region’s highest death toll since the U.N. started keeping track in 2005.

    Three U.N. special rapporteurs condemned the surging violence by Israeli forces and settlers, along with the unlawful occupation more broadly.

    “Illegal settlement poses a corrosive threat to Israeli society as a whole,” they said, “and unless Israeli forces abandon this dominant settler mindset and rightfully treat Palestinians in the occupied territory as protected persons, Israel’s deplorable record in the occupied West Bank will likely deteriorate further in 2023.”

    The experts added that “no peaceful settlement can be pursued under Israel’s repressive occupation: a reality that should be a wake-up call for all decision-makers.”

    This post has been updated with comment from U.S. President Joe Biden and Sina Toossi.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Regulators Launch Probe to ‘Dig Deeper’ Into Winter Storm Elliott Power Outages



    On the heels of yet another extreme weather event showcasing the inadequacy of the United States’ fossil fuel-dependent energy system, U.S. and North American regulators on Wednesday announced an investigation into power outages during Winter Storm Elliott.

    The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), and the latter’s six regional entities “will open a joint inquiry into the operations of the bulk power system during the extreme winter weather conditions,” the regulators revealed in a statement.

    More than 1.5 million homes and businesses across the United States lost power last week amid intense rain, snow, wind, and cold temperatures, according to Reuters.

    “This storm underscores the increasing frequency of significant extreme weather events… and underscores the need for the electric sector to change its planning scenarios and preparations for extreme events.”

    “The effects of Winter Storm Elliott demonstrate yet again that our bulk power system is critical to public safety and health,” stressed FERC Chairman Richard Glick. “The joint inquiry with NERC we are announcing today will allow us to dig deeper into exactly what happened so we can further protect the reliability of the grid.”

    Referring to the rotating Arctic air that typically circles the North Pole but occasionally shifts south, bringing bitter cold temperatures to swaths of the United States, as the nation endured in recent days, NERC president and CEO Jim Robb said that “there will be multiple lessons learned from last week’s polar vortex that will inform future winter preparations.”

    “In addition to the load shedding in Tennessee and the Carolinas, multiple energy emergencies were declared and new demand records were set across the continent. And this was in the early weeks of a projected ‘mild’ winter,” he continued. “This storm underscores the increasing frequency of significant extreme weather events (the fifth major winter event in the last 11 years) and underscores the need for the electric sector to change its planning scenarios and preparations for extreme events.”

    As Vox‘s Rebecca Leber detailed Tuesday:

    In many states, utilities and grid operators only narrowly averted greater disaster by asking customers to conserve their energy or prepare for rolling blackouts (when a utility voluntarily but temporarily shuts down electrical power to avoid the entire system shutting down). Some of the largest operators, including Tennessee Valley Authority, Duke Energy, and National Grid used rolling blackouts throughout the weekend. Texas also barely got through the emergency. On Friday, the U.S. Department of Energy permitted the state to ignore environmental emissions standards to keep the power on.
    […]
    It wasn’t that the country didn’t have enough gas to go around to meet the high demand. There was plenty of gas, but the infrastructure proved vulnerable to the extreme weather. Enough wells and pipes were frozen or broken to bring the grid to its brink.

    “This latest storm shows, yet again, that fossil fuels aren’t especially reliable in extreme weather,” the climate reporter wrote. “Yet so much of energy politics focuses purely on supply—the mining and extraction, and how much oil, gas, and coal is in reserve. It’s often taken for granted that this supply will always be accessible.”

    “In the meantime, we’ve failed to build more important infrastructure throughout our energy system; more energy storage, distributed power generation, interconnections across the major power grids, redundancy, and demand response are all needed,” she concluded. “Simply adding more gas or coal to the grid won’t prevent blackouts from happening again in the future.”

    The nation’s latest deadly winter storm—dozens are confirmed dead and the National Guard is going door-to-door in hard-hit Buffalo, New York, to search for victims—comes amid worldwide demands from climate scientists and activists to rapidly transition from planet-heating fossil fuels to renewable energy, and improve grid resiliency in the process.

    On a global scale, campaigners condemned COP27 last month as “another terrible failure” because the climate conference’s final agreement failed to call for phasing out all fossil fuels, which experts warn is necessary to meet the temperature goals of the 2015 Paris accord—and as Common Dreams reported last week, blowing past those targets, even temporarily, could have dire consequences for all life on Earth.

    While U.S. President Joe Biden has pledged to cut the country’s greenhouse gas emissions in half, relative to 2005, by the end of the decade, much of his climate agenda has been limited by Congress over the past two years and the incoming Republican-majority House of Representatives is expected to further obstruct the Democratic Party’s priorities—including and especially a transition to a cleaner and more reliable energy system.

    Despite the recent blackouts, Angelena Bohman—who received a doctoral degree from Carnegie Mellon University after researching grid resilience—told The Hill ‘s Rachel Frazin that the current U.S. system is “fairly resilient,” noting that utilites make improvements in anticipation of extreme weather.

    However, improvements also take time, Bohman added, explaining that “many utilities own hundreds of thousands of miles of transmission and distribution lines and if you’re going to upgrade any section of line, you’re doing very small amounts every year and you only have so much money to do that.”

    Frazin highlighted that one way to better protect transmission lines is to put them underground, but that can be expensive. Bohman told her that though a provision of last year’s bipartisan infrastructure legislation directing $5 billion to improving grid resilience is a “great start,” in terms of what is needed on a national scale, it is a “drop in the bucket.”

    While policymakers at all levels of U.S. government fail to address fossil fuel-driven global temperature rise and its devastating effects, such as extreme weather, to the degree that scientists say is needed, and people across the country and beyond suffer as a result, “fossil fuel industry barons win no matter what,” Thom Hartmann wrote Monday.

    As the author and progressive radio host put it:

    They all know accountability for corporate executive decision-making is nonexistent in today’s America, corrupted as we have been by five conservatives on the Supreme Court legalizing political bribery. And as long as the GOP has anything to say about it, their hundreds of billions in taxpayer-funded subsidies will never end.
    When extreme weather hits the U.S.—be it extreme heat in the summer or extreme cold in the winter—more of their product is burned to create electricity and heating/cooling, earning them more profits.

    “When weather is ‘normal,’” Hartmann added, “they just go back to bribing climate science deniers and Republican politicians across the nation to block any action to hold them accountable for 60 years of intentional lies.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Study Ties Abortion Restrictions to ‘Significant’ Jump in Suicide Rates for Young Women



    With abortion currently inaccessible in over a quarter of U.S. states, peer-reviewed research published Wednesday highlights the impact of cutting off care, revealing that restricted access is linked to increased suicide risk in young women.

    Published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, the analysis of targeted regulation of abortion providers (TRAP) laws was conducted by four experts at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the University of Pennsylvania (Penn).

    “Stress is a key contributor to mental health burden and a major driver of increased suicide risk,” said study co-author Ran Barzilay, a child-adolescent psychiatrist and neuroscientist at CHOP and Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, in a statement.

    “We found that this particular stressor—restriction to abortion—affects women of a specific age in a specific cause of death, which is suicide,” added Barzilay. “That’s the 10,000-foot view.”

    “Women who experienced the shock of this type of restrictive legislation had a significant increase in suicide rate.”

    While the study is based on state-level data from 1974 to 2016, it was unveiled at a time of heightened fear about abortion access—just six months after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade with Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

    Since that June 24 ruling, “trigger” bans have taken effect and anti-choice state legislators have escalated efforts to restrict abortion, blocking millions of people capable of becoming pregnant from seeking care close to home.

    “Abortion is currently unavailable in 14 states, and courts have temporarily blocked enforcement of bans in eight others as of December 12, 2022,” according to a Guttmacher Institute review from last week.

    During the years examined by the Penn-CHOP researchers, 21 states enforced at least one TRAP law.

    “We constructed three indices that measure access to reproductive care by looking at the enforcement of state-level legislation,” explained lead author Jonathan Zandberg of Penn’s Wharton School. “Every time a state enforced a law that was related to reproductive care, we incorporated it into the index.”

    After examining suicide rates before and after the laws took effect, and comparing them to rates elsewhere and broad trends, the researchers found that “comparatively, women who experienced the shock of this type of restrictive legislation had a significant increase in suicide rate,” Zandberg said.

    The publication notes that during the period studied, annual rates of death by suicide were 1.4-25.6 per 100,000 women of reproductive age—the researchers focused on those 20-34—and 2.7-33.2 per 100,000 women of postreproductive age, or 45-64.

    For reproductive-aged women, the average suicide death rate when no TRAP laws were enforced was 5.5 per 100,000, and enforcement of such a law was associated with a 5.81% higher annual rate—a trend that was not detected among older women.

    A statement from the university points out that the researchers “examined another common cause of death, motor vehicle death rates, and saw no effect. Controlling for potential confounders like the economy and political climate did not change the results.”

    While acknowledging the limitations of their findings, the researchers also stressed how rigorious their methods were.

    “This association is robust—and it has nothing to do with politics,” said Barzilay. “It’s all backed by the data.”

    Co-author Rebecca Waller of Penn’s Department of Psychology stressed that “we’re looking at the connection between summary data about causes of death at the state level and policy and politics over many decades.”

    “Yet, every death represents an individual moment of tragedy,” she said. “So, there’s clearly an awful lot more that we need to understand about what these findings mean for individual suicide risk.”

    “Whatever your view is on all of this, it’s all over the news. It’s everywhere,” Waller added. “The women internalizing the stories they hear are the ones who these restrictions will affect the most.”

    The new findings illustrate just one way abortion restrictions endanger the lives of people capable of pregnancy.

    Research released earlier this month by the Commonwealth Fund shows that “compared to states where abortion is accessible, states that have banned, are planning to ban, or have otherwise restricted abortion have fewer maternity care providers; more maternity care ‘deserts’; higher rates of maternal mortality and infant death, especially among women of color; higher overall death rates for women of reproductive age; and greater racial inequities across their healthcare systems.”

    That report argues that in partnership with residents and insurance and medical providers, state leaders can enhance the lives of patients by fighting for more and higher quality maternity care personnel and facilities as well as “by adopting the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid eligibility expansion for low-income adults and extending Medicaid postpartum coverage to one year.”

    “Increased federal funding for reproductive healthcare, family planning, maternity care, and care delivery system transformations also could mitigate the impact of the Dobbs decision and state abortion bans on people’s lives,” the publication adds. “State, congressional, and executive branch actions are all needed to protect the health of women and birthing people and ensure optimal and equitable outcomes for mothers and infants.”

    The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline—which offers 24/7, free, and confidential support—can be reached by calling or texting 988, or through chat at 988lifeline.org.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • ‘Disastrous’: SCOTUS Upholds Title 42 Migrant Policy During Court Fight



    Rights advocates on Tuesday expressed disappointment and frustration with a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court order to keep the Title 42 policy used to swiftly expel migrants in place—at least until justices hear arguments for the case in February, with a final decision due by the end of June.

    Title 42 is the section of the U.S. public health code that the administrations of both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden have used to deny millions of people typical asylum proceedings during the Covid-19 pandemic.

    “As a Covid control strategy, a humanitarian policy, and a border policy, Title 42 has not only failed but caused irreparable harm on a massive scale.”

    “Seeking asylum is a human right. This is a disastrous order by the Supreme Court,” asserted Congressman Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.), who is running for mayor of Chicago. “Title 42 is a cruel policy that was implemented using public health as an excuse. This extension of the policy until next June will put more asylum-seekers in harm’s way.”

    The decision from five right-wing members of the high court—Justice Neil Gorsuch and the three liberals dissented—comes after Chief Justice John Roberts last week temporarily blocked a planned rollback of the policy ordered by a district judge.

    Melissa Crow, director of litigation at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, said in a statement Tuesday that “the district court got it right: Title 42 is an illegal policy that has caused irreparable harm to people seeking asylum.”

    “The Supreme Court’s decision to extend the stay pending certiorari will have deadly consequences for people fleeing persecution,” Crow charged, noting that “human rights investigators have documented over 13,000 violent attacks against people expelled to Mexico under the Biden administration, a figure that represents just the tip of the iceberg.”

    “With the end of Title 42 once again delayed, this toll will rise,” she said. “The Biden administration was prepared to end Title 42 last week, and service providers stood ready to welcome asylum-seekers. Instead, people seeking safety at the border are spending another holiday season languishing in dire conditions—facing freezing temperatures and the ever-looming threat of violence—with no end in sight.”

    Karla Marisol Vargas, senior attorney with the Beyond Borders Program at the Texas Civil Rights Project, also stressed that “as a Covid control strategy, a humanitarian policy, and a border policy, Title 42 has not only failed but caused irreparable harm on a massive scale.”

    “We are incredibly disappointed” by the order, she added, warning that continuing the policy will lead to “more needless deaths.”

    Oxfam America’s Diana Kearney argued that the Supreme Court’s “cruel” decision “is not based on our laws but rather on our country’s worst xenophobic impulses,” while Javier O. Hidalgo at RAICES called it “a damning indicator of just how far the U.S. will go as a nation in turning its back on not only the immigrant community but also the rule of law.”

    Several critics of the policy vowed to keep up the fight. ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, the lead lawyer in a case against Title 42, said that “we continue to challenge this horrific policy that has caused so much harm to asylum-seekers and cannot plausibly be justified any longer as a public health measure.”

    The New York Times noted Tuesday that “the justices said they would address only the question of whether the 19 mainly Republican-led states that had sought the stay could pursue their challenge to the measure.”

    While Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor did not explain their votes, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined an opinion in which Gorsuch argued that the legal question the court plans to tackle “is not of special importance in its own right and would not normally warrant expedited review.”

    “The current border crisis is not a Covid crisis,” Gorsuch wrote. “And courts should not be in the business of perpetuating administrative edicts designed for one emergency only because elected officials have failed to address a different emergency. We are a court of law, not policymakers of last resort.”

    Given that the justices are set to address such a limited legal question, some advocates and legal experts have suggested that Biden—who faced intense criticism for continuing the Trump policy—should find a way end Title 42 before the court weighs in.

    “The Supreme Court’s decision today to prohibit the termination of Title 42 is a devastating failure of justice for the thousands of people and families who have been continually subjected to violence and cruelty because of this policy,” declared New York Immigration Coalition executive director Murad Awawdeh. “For years, Title 42 has proven to be a horrifying distortion of American values, existing as a front for xenophobia and racism.”

    “As Title 42 continues to be shuttled through the courts, it has resulted in untold pain and lives lost for those who are simply seeking freedom and safety in the United States,” he continued. “This is morally and ethically unacceptable, and the Supreme Court should be ashamed that they continue to sustain such an unsparing policy. We urge the Biden administration to take meaningful action and secure additional protections for asylum-seekers, such that a humane and fair asylum system can finally be achieved for all.”

    Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said in a statement that the order “keeps the current Title 42 policy in place while the court reviews the matter in 2023” and “we will, of course, comply with the order and prepare for the court’s review.”

    Jean-Pierre added:

    At the same time, we are advancing our preparations to manage the border in a secure, orderly, and humane way when Title 42 eventually lifts and will continue expanding legal pathways for immigration. Title 42 is a public health measure, not an immigration enforcement measure, and it should not be extended indefinitely. To truly fix our broken immigration system, we need Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform measures like the ones President Biden proposed on his first day in office. Today’s order gives Republicans in Congress plenty of time to move past political finger-pointing and join their Democratic colleagues in solving the challenge at our border by passing the comprehensive reform measures and delivering the additional funds for border security that President Biden has requested.
    “With over a third of a billion people in humanitarian need globally and over 100 million people displaced, the guardrails designed to protect people from humanitarian crises are quickly eroding and the continued undermining of safe, legal pathways to refuge such as the asylum process is not helping,” said Kennji Kizuka, director for asylum policy at the International Rescue Committee (IRC).

    “The U.S. can and should build a safe, orderly, and humane process to welcome asylum-seekers,” Kizuka continued, “and simultaneously commit and lead regional efforts to address the underlying issues that are causing humanitarian needs and displacement to continue spiraling in the Americas.”

    Julio Rank Wright, IRC’s regional vice president for Latin America, added that “ending restrictive border measures is essential, but it is also important that the international community increases funding and humanitarian resources for countries of origin and those along the routes that asylum-seekers follow to ensure a protection response that is robust enough to meet the moment.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • ‘An Absolute F**king Disgrace’: Record 6,036 US Kids Killed, Injured by Gunfire in 2022



    With just a few days left until the new year, 2022 has already set a grim record: so far at least 6,036 children across the United States have been killed or injured by gunfire, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

    As of Tuesday, 306 children under age 12 were killed by guns and another 668 were injured nationwide. For those ages 12-17, 1,328 were killed and 3,734 were injured.

    Those figures include the 19 kids—but not the two adults—killed in the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and come just a few weeks after the nation marked the 10th anniversary of the massacre of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

    Launched in 2013, the Gun Violence Archive (GVA) is an online project that aims “to document incidents of gun violence and gun crime nationally to provide independent, verified data to those who need to use it in their research, advocacy, or writing.”

    GVA’s annual figures for child deaths and injuries go back to 2014. As the group highlighted in a tweet Monday, this year is the first in recorded history that the overall number has topped 6,000—which Project Unloaded called “heartbreaking and preventable.”

    Jacob Sumner, who is pursuing a master’s degree in public administration at Arizona State University as a Sackton fellow, tweeted of GVA’s figures that “we should not and cannot allow that to be normal. We need lifesaving commonsense gun safety measures.”

    Noting ABC News‘ reporting on the record, Brady PAC—a political action committee that supports candidates who champion policies to reduce gun violence—declared that “our children have the right to live.”

    Another ABC reader described the development as “an absolute fucking disgrace.”

    U.S. President Joe Biden—who signed some gun safety reforms into law after the Uvalde shooting—said on the Sandy Hook anniversary that “we have a moral obligation to pass and enforce laws that can prevent these things from happening again.” However, with the GOP set to take control of the U.S. House next week, progress on the issue over the next two years is unlikely.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Planned Parenthood of Illinois Saw Out-of-State Patients Soar After Roe Fell



    In the six months since the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood of Illinois has seen its out-of-state patients jump from about 6% to nearly a third each month, the Chicago Tribune revealed Tuesday.

    “It is clear that abortion bans don’t stop people from having or needing abortions, they just make it more difficult to access care,” Jennifer Welch, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Illinois, told the Tribune. “The number of patients from other states forced to travel to our health centers is at a historic high.”

    “The number of patients from other states forced to travel to our health centers is at a historic high.”

    Before the court’s long-feared June 24 decision, the provider typically saw patients from 10-15 other states each month; now, patients from 31 states visit Planned Parenthood’s 17 health centers across Illinois. Along with a tenfold increase in patients from Wisconsin, Welch said, “we’re also seeing more patients than ever before from Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky, and Texas.”

    Providers and advocates warned that the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling would increase patient loads of abortion providers in pro-choice states, as “trigger bans” took effect and anti-choice state lawmakers imposed new forced birth policies that restricted or even shut down clinics.

    The pro-choice Guttmacher Institute highlighted last week that “abortion is currently unavailable in 14 states, and courts have temporarily blocked enforcement of bans in eight others as of December 12, 2022.”

    www.guttmacher.org

    “Virtually all of the 17.8 million women of reproductive age (15-49) who live in these 14 states, along with transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals who also may become pregnant, no longer have access to abortion unless they travel to another state or self-manage their abortion. Moreover, across these states, 66 clinics had stopped providing abortion care 100 days after Dobbs, and nearly one-third had closed entirely,” the new Guttmacher analysis notes, referencing a report from October.

    Of the five states that directly border Illinois, two—Kentucky and Missouri—have near-total bans on abortion. Wisconsin clinics have stopped providing abortions because of uncertainty about a pre-Roe ban. A ban in Indiana has been temporarily halted by litigation, and Iowa’s GOP governor has recently attempted to revive restrictions blocked in court a few years ago.

    “Even before Roe was overturned, getting an abortion was difficult or outright impossible for many people, especially those who were already facing steep barriers to accessing healthcare, including people with low incomes, Black and Brown people, immigrants, young people, those with disabilities, and rural populations,” says Guttmacher’s October report. “These inequities are likely to worsen as clinic-based abortion care disappears in many states.”

    The institute’s new report points out that “as state legislatures, courts, and voters continue to weigh in on abortion bans enacted in the wake of the Dobbs decision, the chaos created by overturning Roe is likely to continue. Progressive state legislatures are expected to support increased access to abortion care in their own states and attempt to mitigate the impact of barriers for those living in states that ban abortion, while conservative states are expected to pass more outright bans and other abortion restrictions. Moreover, more states will likely send questions on abortion and reproductive rights directly to voters.”

    As the Tribune reported:

    In Illinois, abortion access expanded in many ways this year. A new abortion clinic called Choices: Center for Reproductive Health opened in Carbondale in October, adding a third abortion clinic to the southern Illinois region.
    Choices, a reproductive healthcare provider based in Memphis, established the clinic there in part to provide access to patients in Tennessee, where an abortion ban went into effect in August. Carbondale, the home of Southern Illinois University, is several hours from Memphis and Nashville.

    Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri is planning to launch a mobile clinic to serve patients along Illinois’ southern border early next year, according to the report. A spokesperson said that since Roe was overturned, the Fairview Heights clinic has seen a 300% jump in patients from states other than Illinois or Missouri.

    “Surrounded by states where abortion is now unavailable and even criminalized, Illinois is a critical access point for those seeking care in the Midwest and South,” Elisabeth Smith, director of state policy and advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told the newspaper. “There has been a massive influx of patients from across the region, and Illinois providers have shown incredible resolve and determination to provide care to those who need it.”

    “It is more important than ever,” Smith said, “to build up protections for abortion with every tool that we have and at every level.”

    This post has been updated with the correct figures for the increase in patients at Illinois Planned Parenthood centers.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Temporarily Passing Paris Climate Targets Could ‘Significantly’ Raise Tipping Point Risk: Study



    Surpassing the global temperature targets of the Paris climate agreement, even temporarily, could dramatically increase the risk of the world experiencing dangerous “tipping points,” according to research published Friday.

    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines tipping points as “critical thresholds in a system that, when exceeded, can lead to a significant change in the state of the system, often with an understanding that the change is irreversible.”

    Published in the journal Nature Climate Change, the new study focuses on the potential shutdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the Amazon rainforest shifting to savannah, and the collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets.

    “Our model analysis reveals that temporary overshoots can increase tipping risks by up to 72%.”

    Under the 2015 Paris deal, governments agreed to work toward keeping global temperature rise this century below 2°C, ultimately aiming for limiting it to 1.5°C. However, scientists continue to warn the countries’ pledges and actions to cut planet-heating emissions are far from bold enough to reach those goals, and critics blasted the COP27 summit in Egypt last month as “another terrible failure” given that the conference’s final agreement did not call for rapidly phasing out all fossil fuels.

    “To effectively prevent all tipping risks, the global mean temperature increase would need to be limited to no more than 1°C—we are currently already at about 1.2°C,” noted study co-author Jonathan Donges, co-lead of the FutureLab on Earth Resilience in the Anthropocene at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). “The latest IPCC report is showing that we’re most likely on a path to temporarily overshoot the 1.5°C temperature threshold.”

    The researchers examined various scenarios with peak temperatures from 2°C to 4°C. As lead author and PIK scientist Nico Wunderling explained, they found that “the risk for some tipping events could increase very substantially under certain global warming overshoot scenarios.”

    “Even if we would manage to limit global warming to 1.5°C after an overshoot of more than 2°C, this would not be enough as the risk of triggering one or more global tipping points would still be more than 50%,” Wunderling said. “With more warming in the long-term, the risks increase dramatically.”

    “We found that the risk for the emergence of at least one tipping event increases with rising peak temperatures—already at a peak temperature of 3°C, more than one-third of all simulations showed a tipping event even when overshoot durations were limited strongly,” he added. “At 4°C peak temperature, this risk extends to more than half of all simulations.”

    According to the study, “Our model analysis reveals that temporary overshoots can increase tipping risks by up to 72% compared with non-overshoot scenarios, even when the long-term equilibrium temperature stabilizes within the Paris range.”

    Study co-author Ricarda Winkelmann, co-lead of the FutureLab on Earth Resilience in the Anthropocene at PIK, pointed out that “especially the Greenland and the West Antarctic ice sheet are at risk of tipping even for small overshoots, underlining that they are among the most vulnerable tipping elements.”

    “While it would take a long time for the ice loss to fully unfold, the temperature levels at which such changes are triggered could already be reached soon,” she said. “Our action in the coming years can thus decide the future trajectory of the ice sheets for centuries or even millennia to come.”

    While these scientists found that the Amazon and AMOC have higher critical temperature thresholds, various studies have highlighted the dangers of either system reaching its tipping point.

    An analysis of the Amazon released in September by scientists and Indigenous leaders in South America stated that “the tipping point is not a future scenario but rather a stage already present in some areas of the region,” meaning portions of the crucial rainforest may never recover—which could have “profound” consequences on a global scale.

    A study on the AMOC from last year, also published in Nature Climate Change, warned that the collapse of the system of currents that carries warm water from the tropics to the North Atlantic “would have severe impacts on the global climate system,” from disrupting rains that billions of people need for food and increasing storms to further threatening the Amazon and ice sheets.

    Donges stressed that “even though a temporary temperature overshoot would definitely be better than reaching a peak temperature and remaining there, some of the overshoot impacts may lead to irreversible damages in a high climate risk zone and this is why low-temperature overshoots are key here.”

    Pointing to estimates that current policies could lead to an average global temperature of up to 3.6°C by 2100, Donges declared that “this is not enough.”

    As Winkelmann put it: “Every tenth of a degree counts. We must do what we can to limit global warming as quickly as possible.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Record Number of US Cities, Counties, and States to Raise Minimum Wage in 2023



    After a decade since the launch of the Fight for $15 movement in New York City, a record number of U.S. states and communities are set to raise the minimum wage in the new year.

    From New Year’s Eve to New Year’s Day, the minimum wage will increase in 23 states and 41 cities and counties, according to a report released Thursday by the National Employment Law Project (NELP). In 40 of those 64 jurisdictions, it will hit or exceed $15 an hour for at least some workers.

    “The raises we are seeing are a true testament to the power of organizing.”

    By the end of 2023, additional increases are planned in five states and 22 localities—with 21 reaching or topping $15 an hour—bringing the total for next year to 86: 27 states and 59 cities and counties, says the report, Raises From Coast to Coast in 2023. The totals take into account that multiple increases are planned in Michigan and four local jurisdictions.

    “The raises we are seeing are a true testament to the power of organizing,” said Yannet Lathrop, senior researcher and policy analyst at NELP, in a statement. “These raises were achieved in a variety of ways, from ballot initiatives to statehouses to workers making their demands to employers directly.”

    “As these wins continue and we see the real-world impact of higher pay—from growing unionization to narrowing racial wealth gaps—we encourage lawmakers to go further and raise pay broadly across our economy,” Lathrop added.

    As the report details:

    In the 10 years since fast food workers walked out of their jobs demanding a $15 minimum wage and a union, the Fight for $15 worker movement has won minimum wage increases in 28 states and nearly five dozen cities and counties. These victories have led to an estimated $150 billion in additional annual pay for 26 million workers and to the narrowing of the racial wealth gap.
    The movement has also put pressure on employers to raise their pay scales, leading… hundreds of businesses, large and small, to raise wages to $15 or more. Among them are corporate giants employing hundreds of thousands of workers from coast to coast, including Amalgamated Bank, Bank of America, Barclays, Best Buy, Charter Communications, Chobani, Chipotle, CVS, Ikea, JP Morgan Chase, LabCorp, Macy’s, MetLife PNC, Sam’s Club, Southwest Airlines, Synchrony Financial, T- Mobile, Target, Under Armour, USAA, Verizon, Walgreen’s, Walmart, and Wells Fargo.

    “The monumental impact of the Fight for $15 is clearly visible in this year’s record wage increases as well as those in years past,” said NELP executive director Rebecca Dixon. “But in those same 10 years, congressional action to expand worker rights has been limited.”

    “While it is encouraging to see boosts to the minimum wage in cities and states across the country, we need federal policy to address the mounting crises brought about by record increases in the cost of living and pandemic recovery,” she stressed. “We must pass a higher federal minimum wage—at least $15 an hour—that accounts for rising costs of living and ensures that workers have the ability to support themselves and their families.”

    In March 2021, eight members of the Democratic caucus, joined all 50 Republicans in the U.S. Senate to kill legislation that would have established a $15 federal minimum wage, lifting millions of people out of poverty. Among those Democrats was Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who officially declared herself an Independent in recent weeks.

    State-wide polling conducted shortly before that vote last year showed a majority of Arizonans across the political spectrum in favor of increasing the minimum wage to $15 per hour. In November 2021, the people of Sinema’s hometown of Tucson approved a ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour in Arizona’s second-largest city.

    NELP’s new report notes that Tucson residents are on track to see a $15 hourly wage by 2025. The city’s current rate is $13, but it is set to increase to $13.85 on January 1, with a $10.85 tipped wage—both in line with the state’s floor.

    Worker wins from 2022 highlighted in the report include campaigns in Foster City and San Mateo County, California; Hawaii; Nebraska; Tukwila, Washington; and Washington, D.C.

    “In 2023 and 2024, the campaigns to watch include an $18 ballot measure in California and possible ballot measures in Arizona, Ohio, and Michigan,” the publication points out.

    “On the legislative front, there may be one fair wage campaigns in Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland,” the report adds, “as well as efforts to raise the minimum wage in Maryland (to speed up the state’s implementation of a $15 minimum wage), Massachusetts (where the minimum will reach $15 in 2023 and there are no inflation adjustments planned for following years), and New York (where the demand is $21.25 by 2026-2027).”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Key Democratic Campaign Firms Ditch Newly Independent Sen. Sinema

    “She chose to forfeit the Democratic Party infrastructure, so it’s only right that no Democratic staffer, consultant, or vendor should work with her,” said her ex-communications director, who now advises the Replace Sinema campaign.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

  • Key Democratic Campaign Firms Ditch Newly Independent Sen. Sinema



    While U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has declined to say whether she’ll run in 2024 since leaving the Democratic Party earlier this month, political consultants are already making plans, with some firms now declining to work with the Arizona Independent, HuffPost revealed Wednesday.

    “Consequences for Kyrsten Sinema? Finally.”

    “NGP VAN, which manages Democratic voter data, is set to cut off Sinema’s access at the end of January, according to a source with direct knowledge of the situation,” the outlet reported, noting that the development is “likely to be a headache for Sinema, since it will make it more difficult to target voters for digital advertising, mailers, and door-knocking.”

    Though a spokesperson for Bonterra Tech, NGP VAN’s parent company, declined to comment, HuffPost pointed out that other companies are making similar moves:

    The ad makers who worked with her in 2018, Dixon/Davis Media Group, have split with her campaign. Two other Democratic sources said polling firm Impact Research made the same decision.

    Both Dixon/Davis and Impact have the type of pedigree you would expect for firms that work with senators in key races. Dixon/Davis worked on President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, while Impact Research does polling for President Joe Biden. Both firms made the decision before Sinema’s recent party switch.

    A spokesperson for Sinema did not respond to an email seeking comment.

    HuffPost‘s revelations come after Politico reported within hours of Sinema announcing her departure from the party that the progressive digital firm Authentic has dropped her as a client.

    While Authentic declined to comment on that report and Sinema’s office did not immediately respond, the firm faced an internal revolt earlier this year over its work for the senator.

    According to internal union messages reviewed by Politico, Authentic employees said things like, “I am doing the devil’s work,” and “I feel sick about it tbh,” shorthand for “to be honest.”

    Those messages, made public in February, reportedly stemmed from frustration with Sinema blocking federal voting rights legislation. She has faced intense criticism from Democratic lawmakers and voters over the past two years for obstructing various party priorities.

    Before Sinema became an Independent, there were mounting calls for a strong candidate to challenge her in the 2024 Democratic primary if she sought reelection. While that will no longer be possible, critics are still pushing to replace her in two years. The two contenders receiving the most attention are Democratic Arizona Congressmen Ruben Gallego and Greg Stanton–who have both criticized Sinema but not officially said whether they are running.

    The “Primary Sinema” campaign, a Change for Arizona 2024 PAC project, rebranded as “Replace Sinema” the day after the senator made public that she will finish out her current six-year term as an Independent–though she has claimed that she won’t caucus with the GOP and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) agreed to let her retain her committee assignments.

    Sacha Haworth, who previously served as Sinema’s communications director and is now a senior adviser for the Replace Sinema campaign, suggested Wednesday that others in the campaign field should follow the lead of firms that are reportedly cutting her off.

    “Kyrsten Sinema abandoned the Democratic Party because she knew she couldn’t win a primary after spending years obstructing popular reforms and alienating her own voters,” Haworth said. “She chose to forfeit the Democratic Party infrastructure, so it’s only right that no Democratic staffer, consultant, or vendor should work with her.”

    However, HuffPost reported that Democrats who work with Sinema “privately signaled” that they are waiting on direction from the likes of Schumer and Biden about how to handle her.

    “Many D.C. Democrats would prefer to find a way to back Sinema for reelection–from a legislative perspective, it would make their lives far easier if they could rely on her to back Biden’s judicial selections and in forthcoming fights over funding and the debt limit–but fear she could be running third in a three-way battle, which would make it difficult to convince either Stanton or Gallego to stay out of the race,” according to to the outlet.

    Noting that national Democrats will soon have to decide whether to support Sinema in 2024, assuming she runs, NPR‘s Domenico Montanaro wrote earlier this month:

    There’s a real danger here for both the party and for Sinema. Backing someone wearing the team jersey could imperil Democrats’ chances at retaining the seat. It’s very likely her candidacy would pull more from the Democratic nominee and open up a path for a Republican to win with a mere plurality.

    But backing Sinema could enrage the Democratic base and also potentially cost them the seat. Without party support, Sinema could find herself in something of a political no man’s land. But she’s banking on her brand being enough to pull from moderates on both sides.

    That’s going to be a difficult test, especially since Sinema is widely unpopular.

    While polling suggests Sinema isn’t popular with Arizona voters, she is backed by some deep-pocketed donors, as More Perfect Union pointed out in a tweet Wednesday.

    “Before switching parties, Sinema received a flood of donations from Wall Street and private equity,” the outlet noted. “Sinema’s PAC just had its biggest fundraising quarter yet, and at least 40% of the money was from private equity and hedge fund figures.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Study Shows Medicaid Expansion Rejected by GOP Increased Cancer Survival in Other States

    One senior author said the research “adds to accumulating evidence of the multiple health benefits of Medicaid expansion, reinforcing the importance of expanding Medicaid in all states.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

  • ‘A Good Day’: House Dems Vote to Make Trump Tax Returns Public

    “No person is above the law, not even a president of the United States.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

  • Video Shows Biden Saying Iran Nuclear Deal ‘Is Dead, But We’re Not Gonna Announce It’

    “There is no progress happening with respect to the Iran deal now,” a White House official confirmed. “We don’t anticipate any progress anytime in the near future. That’s just not our focus.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

  • Marijuana Advocates, Industry ‘Deeply Disappointed’ After Reforms Left Out of Spending Bill

    “Democrats’ failure and the GOP’s continued resistance to any progress is out of step with voters’ opinion, is bad politics, and most importantly, it is bad public policy,” said one critic.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

  • Chief Justice Grants GOP Request to Halt End of ‘Inhumane’ Title 42 Policy

    “The Biden administration must make a full-throated defense of our humanitarian obligations in the face of politically motivated litigation,” one migrant rights advocate said.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

  • Just in Time for Holidays, Dems May Embrace GOP Plan to Boot Millions Off Medicaid

    One expert noted the pending deal has “huge stakes… for children and families.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

  • ‘Listen to Oregon’: Merkley, Wyden Urge FERC to Deny Expansion of Gas Pipeline

    Both U.S. senators from the state say approval of the GTN Xpress project would be “incompatible with President Biden’s pledge” to cut emissions.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

  • California Approves Blueprint to Become Carbon Neutral by 2045

    One expert praised parts of the plan but noted it “offers massive giveaways to Big Oil, using carbon capture to keep refineries online and increasing pollution through the expansion of dirty hydrogen.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

  • Climate Defenders Celebrate as Manchin’s Dirty Deal Defeated a Third Time

    “The people have triumphed over the polluters once again,” said People vs. Fossil Fuels. “But we know this fight isn’t over.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

  • Coalition Urges Biden Admin. to Consider Creating US Human Rights Body

    “The United States is lagging behind other nations in translating its global human rights obligations into domestic policies,” said the director of the ACLU’s Human Rights Program.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

  • Warning of Winter Surge, White House Revives Free At-Home Covid Test Program

    “This is not one disease in isolation,” said the president’s Covid-19 response coordinator. “We are very aware that this increase that we’re seeing in Covid is in that context of one of the worst flu seasons in a decade and RSV that was quite bad.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

  • Amid Fight Over Manchin Deal, Climate Justice Groups Offer Roadmap for Green Infrastructure

    “We must reject the false choice between accelerating clean energy transmission and ensuring communities are included in the process,” said Abigail Dillen, president of Earthjustice.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

  • ‘Chilling’: Republican State AG’s Office Sought List of Trans Texans

    “This is an alarming attack on the privacy, safety, and dignity of transgender Texans,” said the ACLU.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

  • Tom Cotton Blocks Senate PRESS Act Designed to Protect Journalists

    “The exceptions to make sure we could protect our country,” noted Sen. Ron Wyden, the bill’s sponsor, “were strong enough to get the support of 435 members of the House.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

  • Momentum to ‘Replace Sinema’ Already Building After She Ditches Dems

    “She should join her friends on Wall Street in 2024, and Democrats should nominate someone truly on the side of the working class who can unite and win Arizona,” said one progressive.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

  • Workers Celebrate as Adjunct Strike Ends at The New School After Deal Reached

    Labor rights advocates nationwide celebrated after part-time faculty at the New School in New York City reached a tentative collective bargaining agreement with the higher education institution late Saturday, ending a strike that has spanned more than three weeks. “Collective action and worker solidarity wins!” “WE WON! We won our fair contract,” tweeted Natasha Lennard, a columnist at The…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • ‘There Is Evidence of Criminality’: Jan. 6 Panel Meets to Decide Referrals to DOJ

    The committee is reportedly considering criminal referrals for former President Donald Trump and four associates: Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, and Mark Meadows.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

  • ‘Solidarity Works!’ Adjunct Strike Ends at The New School After Deal Reached

    “This is a strong, fair, five-year contract that increases compensation significantly, protects healthcare benefits, and ensures that part-time faculty are paid for additional work done outside the classroom.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

  • Russian Authorities Told Rights Group to Reject Nobel Peace Prize, Says Leader

    The decision to recognize Memorial alongside a Ukrainian group and Belarusian activist, said Yan Rachinsky, “is remarkable precisely because it shows that civil society is not divided by national borders.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams – Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.