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Month: March 2024
Biden Administration Unveils Strict Auto Standards to Speed Electric Shift
New York — President Joe Biden’s administration announced Wednesday revised pollution standards for cars and trucks meant to accelerate the U.S. auto industry’s shift to electric to mitigate climate change.
The rules set ambitious emission reductions for 2032 but are moderated somewhat compared with preliminary standards unveiled last April. Following carmaker criticism, the final rules give manufacturers greater flexibility and ease the benchmarks in the first three years.
Those shifts were criticized as a sop to corporations from at least one environmental group, even as the final rule won praise from other leading NGOs focused on climate change.
The final rules — which were described by administration official as “the strongest ever” and would likely be undone if Republican Donald Trump defeats Biden in November — still require a nearly 50% drop in fleet-wide emissions in 2032 compared with 2026 through increased sales of electric vehicles (EVs) and low-emission autos.
The rules, which dovetail with other key Biden programs to build more EV charging stations and manufacturing facilities and incentivize EV sales, establish the environment as a significant point of difference in the 2024 presidential election.
Trump has mocked climate change as a problem and cast the transition to EVs as a job-killer that will benefit China at the expense of American workers.
Biden argues that U.S. auto builders need to take the lead in the expanding EV market.
“I brought together American automakers. I brought together American autoworkers,” said Biden in a statement. “Together, we’ve made historic progress.”
Alluding to his target set three years ago that 50% of new vehicles in 2030 would be EVs, Biden predicted “we’ll meet my goal for 2030 and race forward in the years ahead.”
EVs accounted for 7.6% in 2023 sales, up from 5.9% in 2022, according to Cox Automotive.
The original proposal had envisioned the EV share surging to as much as 67% of new vehicle sales by 2032.
Carmakers, which are midway through sweeping, multi-billion-dollar investments to build more EV capacity, criticized the initial standards as overly-stringent. They cited the limited state of charging capacity in the United States that has dampened consumer demand, as well as difficulties in supply of metals and other raw materials for EV batteries.
Following input from the auto industry, organized labor and auto dealerships, Biden administration officials decided to allow manufacturers a “variety of pathways” to reaching the standard, a senior Biden administration official said Tuesday.
This path could include a mix of EVs, conventional but more fuel-efficient engines, and plug-in hybrid vehicles, which have seen a rise in demand of late.
Biden administration officials opted to soften year-to-year emissions improvements in the 2027-2030 period, while maintaining the same target in 2032.
Moderating the targets in these first three years “was the right call,” said John Bozzella, president of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a Washington lobby representing carmakers.
“These adjusted EV targets — still a stretch goal — should give the market and supply chains a chance to catch up,” said Bozzella, adding that the extra time will allow more EV charging stations to come on-line.
The final standards set a fleet-wide target of 85 grams of carbon dioxide in 2032, down from 170 in 2027, according to an administration fact sheet.
Wednesday’s initiative won praise from leading environmental groups including the Sierra Club and NRDC, which said the new rules “take us in the right direction,” according to a statement from the Natural Resources Defense Council chief Manish Bapna.
But Dan Becker, director of the climate transport campaign at the Center for Biological Diversity, slammed the adjusted rules as “significantly weaker.”
“The EPA caved to pressure from Big Auto, Big Oil and car dealers and riddled the plan with loopholes big enough to drive a Ford F150 through,” Becker said.
“The weaker rule means cars and pickups spew more pollution, oil companies keep socking consumers at the pump, and automakers keep wielding well-practiced delay tactics.”
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Efforts by US to Crack Down on TikTok Spark Backlash Against Israel
Washington — The initial backlash came quickly.
Within hours of last week’s vote in the House of Representatives approving legislation that could lead to a ban of the popular TikTok app in the United States, anger and outrage poured onto multiple social media platforms.
Some of the anger targeted U.S. lawmakers who supported the bill. Some focused on China.
And a number of social media accounts, some with large followings, put the blame on Israel and pro-Jewish groups in the United States.
“A foreign government is influencing the 2024 election,” Briahna Joy Gray posted on X.
“I’m not talking about China, but Israel,” added the former national press secretary for Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign.
Jake Shields, a former mixed martial arts fighter who has used social media in the past to share his views on transgender issues, blamed the Anti-Defamation League and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC.
“The ADL said Tiktok Is a threat to Israel,” Shields posted on X. “AIPAC the Israeli lobby gave Dan Crebsahaw [sic] millions of dollars Now Crenshaw fights to ban TikTok.”
And journalist Glenn Greenwald said on X that the TikTok legislation gained momentum only after “Bipartisan DC became enraged so many Americans were allowed to criticize Israel” using the TikTok app.
Other posts and videos were quickly shared across other major platforms, including TikTok and Facebook.
U.S. officials contacted by VOA said the rush by some social media users to blame Israel or Jewish groups was not a surprise.
“Unfortunately, there are antisemitic people in America who will blame Israel and the Jewish people for anything, even Congress banning a Chinese-controlled app,” Republican Senator Marco Rubio said in a statement to VOA.
“Their love for TikTok is no coincidence; it’s a tool used by the Chinese Communist Party to sow division and weaken our nation,” said Rubio, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a supporter of the legislation. “We can debate Middle East policy, but we must not tolerate hate or allow Communist China to manipulate our discourse.”
The FBI, which has warned repeatedly over the last several months both about the danger of TikTok and about a rising tide of antisemitism across the country, declined to comment, pointing to comments made by Director Christopher Wray at congressional hearings earlier this month.
“Americans need to ask themselves whether they want to give the Chinese government the ability to control access to their data, whether they want to give the Chinese government the ability to control the information they get through their recommendation algorithm,” Wray told House lawmakers during the annual Worldwide Threats hearing last week.
“When it comes to the algorithm and the recommendation algorithm and the ability to conduct influence operations, that is extraordinarily difficult to detect,” Wray added.
Researchers who track influence operations on social media, while wary, tell VOA that they have yet to see evidence that the spread of conspiracy theories blaming Israel or Jewish groups for the TikTok legislation is part of a concerted campaign.
“The period after 10/7 [Hamas terror attack on Israel] made clear that antisemitic conspiracies can spread rapidly across TikTok just by the nature of the platform’s algorithm, so no external coordination would be required as an explanation,” said Ben Dubow, president of Washington-based Omelas, which uses a combination of data collection, artificial intelligence and experts to track and analyze online disinformation and influence operations.
Dubow did not rule out the possibility that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, could be giving the anti-Israel and antisemitic posts more play if the Chinese government thought it might be helpful.
“The scant research available on TikTok’s algorithm often suggests ByteDance privileges content favorable to CCP [Chinese Communist Party] policy goals,” he said.
Omelas also found the conspiracy theories received some attention from other media outlets, including Russia-controlled RT and Qatar-based Al Jazeera.
“We’re seeing a few posts from RT and Al Jazeera tying the renewed push for a ban to TikTok’s role in the spread of ‘anti-Zionism’ in response to October 7,” Dubow said. “But none tying it explicitly to AIPAC and ADL.”
Geoff Roth, a professor of practice and journalism at the University of Houston, agreed the surge of social media posts echoing the Israel-TikTok narrative appeared to be “more organic.”
“The Israel conspiracy theory, as I like to put it, just seems to be coming from people who in general post stuff that is anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian,” he told VOA.
“It comes from different sides of the political spectrum,” Roth said. “But I think there’s people on both sides of the political spectrum that have a lot of anti-Israeli sentiment because of what’s going on in Gaza.”
Roth also noted that the theory tying the TikTok legislation to Israel and Jewish groups, while possibly the most prominent, is not the only narrative that gained traction following the bill’s passage in the House.
“There’s the narrative of security and concerns about the [Chinese]Communist Party and whether or not that [the legislation] is justified,” he said. “And then sort of the more far out things out there like, this is a Republican plot to get younger voters to be against Biden because if Biden signed it into law, he’s going to lose votes from younger people.”
One account on X pushing the Republican plot theory called the TikTok legislation “another trick.”
A second X account added, “I’d wager Republicans who just voted for a TikTok Ban will rename it the ‘Biden Ban the moment he signs it and within weeks that will be the official name and all anyone remembers.”
US Scientists: World on Verge of Historic Coral Bleaching
Pacific leaders are on high alert after U.S. scientists warned that the world is nearing a historic mass coral bleaching brought on by high water temperatures fueled by climate change. VOA’s Jessica Stone reports. (Produced by Jessica Stone)
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Biden to Tout Government Investing $8.5 Billion in Intel’s Computer Chip Plants in Four States
Washington — The Biden administration has reached an agreement to provide Intel with up to $8.5 billion in direct funding and $11 billion in loans for computer chip plants in Arizona, Ohio, New Mexico and Oregon.
President Joe Biden plans to talk up the investment on Wednesday as he visits Intel’s campus in Chandler, Arizona, which could be a decisive swing state in November’s election. He has often said that not enough voters know about his economic policies and suggested that more would support him if they did know.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the deal reached through her department would put the United States in a position to produce 20% of the world’s most advanced chips by 2030, up from the current level of zero. The United States designs advanced chips, but its inability to make them domestically has emerged as a national security and economic risk.
“Failure is not an option — leading-edge chips are the core of our innovation system, especially when it comes to advances in artificial intelligence and our military systems,” Raimondo said on a call with reporters. “We can’t just design chips. We have to make them in America.”
The funding announcement comes amid the heat of the 2024 presidential campaign. Biden has been telling voters that his policies have led to a resurgence in U.S. manufacturing and job growth. His message is a direct challenge to former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, who raised tariffs while in the White House and wants to do so again on the promise of protecting U.S. factory jobs from China.
Biden narrowly beat Trump in Arizona in 2020 by a margin of 49.4% to 49.1%.
U.S. adults have dim views of Biden’s economic leadership, with just 34% approving, according to a February poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs. The lingering impact of inflation hitting a four-decade high in 2022 has hurt the Democrat, who had a 52% approval on the economy in July 2021.
Intel’s projects would be funded in part through the bipartisan 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which the Biden administration helped shepherd through Congress at a time of concerns after the pandemic that the loss of access to chips made in Asia could plunge the U.S. economy into recession.
When pushing for the investment, lawmakers expressed concern about efforts by China to control Taiwan, which accounts for more than 90% of advanced computer chip production.
Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat up for reelection this year, stressed that his state would become “a global leader in semiconductor manufacturing” as Intel would be generating thousands of jobs. Ohio has voted for Trump in the past two presidential elections, and Brown in November will face Republican Bernie Moreno, a Trump-backed businessman from Cleveland.
Wednesday’s announcement is the fourth and largest so far under the chips law, with the government support expected to help enable Intel to make $100 billion in capital investments over five years. About 25% of that total would involve building and land, while roughly 70% would go to equipment, said Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel.
“We think of this as a defining moment for the United States, the semiconductor industry and for Intel,” said Gelsinger, who called the CHIPS Act “the most critical industrial policy legislation since World War II.”
The Intel CEO said on a call with reporters that he would like to see a sequel to the 2022 law in order to provide additional funding for the industry.
Biden administration officials say that computer chip companies would not be investing domestically at their expected scale without the government support. Intel funding would lead to a combined 30,000 manufacturing and construction jobs. The company also plans to claim tax credits from the Treasury Department worth up to 25% on qualified investments.
The Santa Clara, California-based company will use the funding in four different states. In Chandler, Arizona, the money will help to build two new chip plants and modernize an existing one. The funding will establish two advanced plants in New Albany, Ohio, which is just outside the state capital of Columbus.
The company will also turn two of its plants in Rio Rancho, New Mexico into advanced packaging facilities. And Intel will also modernize facilities in Hillsboro, Oregon.
The Biden administration has also made workforce training and access to affordable childcare a priority in agreements to support companies. Under the agreement with the Commerce Department, Intel will commit to local training programs as well as increase the reimbursement amount for its childcare program, among other efforts.
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Ukrainian Drone Strikes Hit Russia’s Oil Revenues
A recent series of Ukrainian drone strikes targeting Russian oil refineries has significantly reduced Moscow’s processing capacity — as Kyiv and its allies aim to deprive Russia of its main source of revenue. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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New Study Reports Widespread Forced Labor Abuses
Bank of Japan Scraps Radical Policy, Makes First Rate Hike in 17 Years
Researchers Detail Decline in Australia’s Environmental Health in 2023
SYDNEY — An annual university report said although Australia’s environmental scorecard deteriorated in 2023, the nation fared better than many other countries.
While 2023 was the hottest year on record globally, for Australia it was the eighth hottest year because of wet and relatively mild conditions.
The research is carried out each year by the Australia National University, or ANU, and is contained in the Australian Environment 2023 Report.
Researchers use scientific information to give Australia a score out of 10. In 2023, it was 7.5, down from 8.7 the previous year.
The decline was mostly due to reduced rainfall compared to 2022. They stress that the report card is not a reflection of the Canberra government’s policies, but a general assessment of the health of the environment.
Information about the weather data is used alongside satellite data on threatened species, biodiversity and water flows to calculate the annual score.
Australia’s biodiversity took a significant hit last year, according to the study. It states that a record 130 species were added to the Threatened Species List, compared with the average of 29 species added annually.
The university survey details how Australia’s population grew “rapidly” last year by 3.5%, its fastest growth in decades.
The study revealed that Australians are the world’s 10th worst greenhouse gas emitters per person, just after Saudi Arabia.
Professor Albert Van Dijk from the Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment told VOA the country’s greenhouse gas emissions increased for the first time in five years – mainly because domestic air travel picked up after COVID.
“While our emissions per person are very slowly going down – a lot more slowly than in most, you know, industrialized countries, but they are going down slowly – but our population is growing so fast,” he said. “It is growing faster than our emissions are going down. So, you know, we are not achieving the emissions reductions as a country that we need to achieve.”
Overall, the annual ANU report states that Australia is the world’s 15th largest emitter of greenhouse gases, contributing 1% of global emissions.
Van Dijk believes as a wealthy nation, Australia should be doing more to combat the impact of climate change.
“If you look at the uptake of electric vehicles, if you look at the use of renewables, we are still a laggard internationally,” he said. “We have got the 10th highest emissions per person globally; three times the global average, two times the average Chinese person.”
He said countries like the United Kingdom are doing more to reduce the emission per person.
“Australia needs to really step up its game. I think we should be very worried about the state of the environment globally, and especially about climate change.”
Australia’s government has for the first time legislated a target to cut carbon emissions by 43% from 2005 levels by 2030 and to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
The Spring Equinox Is Here, But What Does That Mean?
Q&A: TikTok Owner Is Essentially ‘Subsidiary’ of China’s Communist Party, US Lawmaker Says
washington — The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill March 13 that, if enacted into law, would give ByteDance, the Chinese owner of the TikTok social media app, 180 days to divest its U.S. assets or face a ban over concerns about national security, including Beijing’s ability to access Americans’ private information through the company
ByteDance denies it would provide such private data to the Chinese government, despite reports indicating such information could be at risk.
VOA sat down on the day the bill passed with Republican Representative Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on state, foreign operations and related programs, and co-chair of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus, to hear why he supported the bill and why he’s calling for faster military support for Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as a breakaway province that must one day reunite with the mainland, by force if necessary.
This year marks the 45th anniversary of Congress’ enactment of the Taiwan Relations Act, which outlines nondiplomatic relations between Washington and Taipei in the wake of formal U.S. recognition of Beijing as the government of China. The act states that the U.S. must provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
VOA: The House just passed a bill that would require ByteDance to divest TikTok. Did you support this bill?
U.S. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart: I absolutely did. … It has strong bipartisan support. And there’s also been a lot of misinformation about it. People say that it’s to ban TikTok. No, it’s basically saying you have to divest from, in essence, being controlled by the Communist Party of China.
We would have never allowed, during the Soviet empire, the Soviet Union to control, to own, one of the major networks in the United States – ABC, NBC, CBS. Why? Because it’s a threat to national security. In this case, it’s even more dramatic because they [the Chinese] have access not only to getting into people’s homes, but to actually get information from the American people. And they’ve been pretty good and very aggressive at doing that. And so TikTok needs to be divested. That’s the least that we should be requiring, and if so, then they can continue to function. But we cannot allow for this to function, getting information from the American people to an entity that is in essence a subsidiary of the Communist Party of China.
VOA: It is a consensus in Washington that if China invaded Taiwan, it would trigger a domino effect that could be catastrophic for the U.S. What are the most important actions the U.S. can take right now to prevent that from happening?
Diaz-Balart: The key is to avoid China doing something stupid, to avoid China being irresponsible in trying to intervene militarily with Taiwan. … And the way to do that is to make sure that Taiwan has the weaponry, everything it needs, so that China understands that trying to invade Taiwan is a very, very bad proposition.
VOA: The Biden administration last month approved a package of military equipment sales to Taiwan. Some analysts are worried this may not be sufficient to counter China’s aggression in the region. Do you think military sales to Taiwan are sufficient?
Diaz-Balart: I think military sales to Taiwan have to be done quicker. We have to be more aggressive … not only, obviously, directly, to help send the weaponry, sell the weaponry, and send the weaponry to Taiwan, but we also have to keep up with our defense spending domestically to keep the military industrial base alive and, well, with what we’ve seen, for example, going on Ukraine, [that] has demonstrated that we’re not where we need to be as far as our industrial base.
VOA: You visited Taiwan in January right after its election. What is your key takeaway from that trip?
Diaz-Balart: Taiwan is a very vigorous democracy. The press is very aggressive. That’s a good thing. … We made a point of obviously visiting with the president and the vice president-elect, also with the outgoing president. But we also met with the leadership of the other two parties, because it’s important to demonstrate that we cherish and that we love democracy and freedom. Taiwan is a beacon of freedom and democracy.
VOA: It is the bipartisan consensus to see China as one of the biggest geopolitical challenges for the U.S. in the coming decades. What should be the top priority the U.S. should tackle right now with China?
Diaz-Balart: We have to be a little bit more serious about understanding that China is a very dangerous player in the world. It is the largest fascist dictatorship on the planet, and the wealthiest fascist dictatorship on the planet. It has very ambitious goals. It has, you know, we see the cyberattacks that have taken place in this country that we know have come from Communist China. We also know that there have been thousands upon thousands of men, military-age males, coming from China across the southern border, which should frankly frighten all of us. …
That means utilizing every diplomatic and economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is: a growing threat to the United States and to the world. And you see, for example, in the region, how countries are very concerned about China’s aggressiveness, whether it’s the Philippines or India or even Vietnam. So there’s a growing concern in the world about this aggressive attitude of China. But we need to take real steps to confront that in a way to avoid war.
VOA: You’re also the chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on state, foreign operations and related programs. What kind of role would you like to see U.S. international broadcasting agencies like Voice of America play in countering Chinese Communist Party propaganda?
Diaz-Balart: The Voice of America has been a key player for decades in that cause of freedom and in getting real news, real information to people who don’t have access to it because of censorship. And so I’ve always been a strong supporter of it because of that. I think information is key. The first thing that happens in a dictatorship is that they close the ability for people to get real information, to get real news. And if we can be helpful to have people around the world get real information, real news, not only about what happens around the world but also what even happens in their own country, I think that is a service to humanity.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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US Bans Last Form of Asbestos in Use
No Brain Injuries Among ‘Havana Syndrome’ Patients, New Study Finds
Washington — An array of advanced tests found no brain injuries or degeneration among U.S. diplomats and other government employees who suffer mysterious health problems once dubbed “Havana syndrome, ” researchers reported Monday.
The National Institutes of Health’s nearly five-year study offers no explanation for symptoms including headaches, balance problems and difficulties with thinking and sleep that were first reported in Cuba in 2016 and later by hundreds of American personnel in multiple countries.
But it did contradict some earlier findings that raised the specter of brain injuries in people experiencing what the State Department now calls “anomalous health incidents.”
“These individuals have real symptoms and are going through a very tough time,” said Dr. Leighton Chan, NIH’s chief of rehabilitation medicine, who helped lead the research. “They can be quite profound, disabling and difficult to treat.”
Yet sophisticated MRI scans detected no significant differences in brain volume, structure or white matter — signs of injury or degeneration — when Havana syndrome patients were compared to healthy government workers with similar jobs, including some in the same embassy. Nor were there significant differences in cognitive and other tests, according to findings published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
While that couldn’t rule out some transient injury when symptoms began, researchers said it’s good news that they couldn’t spot long-term markers on brain scans that are typical after trauma or stroke.
That “should be some reassurance for patients,” said study co-author Louis French, a neuropsychologist at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center who treats Havana syndrome. “It allows us to focus on the here and now, to getting people back to where they should be.”
A subset, about 28%, of Havana syndrome cases were diagnosed with a balance problem called persistent postural-perceptual dizziness, or PPPD. Linked to inner-ear problems as well as severe stress, it results when certain brain networks show no injury but don’t communicate properly. French called it a “maladaptive response,” much like how people who’ve slouched to alleviate back pain can have posture trouble even after the pain is gone.
The Havana syndrome participants reported more fatigue, posttraumatic stress symptoms and depression.
The findings are the latest in an effort to unravel a mystery that began when personnel at the U.S. embassy in Cuba began seeking medical care for hearing loss and ear-ringing after reporting sudden weird noises.
Early on, there was concern that Russia or another country may have used some form of directed energy to attack Americans. But last year, U.S. intelligence agencies said there was no sign a foreign adversary was involved and that most cases appeared to have different causes, from undiagnosed illnesses to environmental factors.
Some patients have accused the government of dismissing their ailments. And in an editorial in JAMA on Monday, one scientist called for more research to prepare for the next such health mystery, cautioning that NIH’s study design plus the limits of existing medical technology could have missed some clues.
“One might suspect that nothing or nothing serious happened with these cases. This would be ill-advised,” wrote Dr. David Relman of Stanford University. In 2022, he was part of a government-appointed panel that couldn’t rule out that a pulsed form of energy could explain a subset of cases.
The NIH study, which began in 2018 and included more than 80 Havana syndrome patients, wasn’t designed to examine the likelihood of some weapon or other trigger for Havana syndrome symptoms. Chan said the findings don’t contradict the intelligence agencies’ conclusions.
If some “external phenomenon” was behind the symptoms, “it did not result in persistent or detectable pathophysiologic change,” he said.
The State Department said it was reviewing NIH’s findings but that its priority was ensuring affected employees and family members “are treated with respect and compassion and receive timely access to medical care and all benefits to which they are entitled.”
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Gambian Lawmakers to Vote on Bill to Repeal FGM Ban
US Supreme Court Examines Government Efforts to Curb Online Misinformation
Washington — The US Supreme Court was hearing arguments on Monday in a social media case involving free speech rights and government efforts to curb misinformation online.
The case stems from a lawsuit brought by the Republican attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri, who allege that government officials went too far in their efforts to get platforms to combat vaccine and election misinformation.
A lower court last year restricted some top officials and agencies of President Joe Biden’s administration from meeting and communicating with social media companies to moderate their content.
The ruling was a win for conservative advocates who allege that the government pressured or colluded with platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to censor right-leaning content under the guise of fighting misinformation.
The order applied to a slew of agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department and Justice Department as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The decision restricted agencies and officials from meeting with social media companies or flagging posts containing “free speech” protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry hailed the “historic injunction” at the time, saying it would prevent the Biden administration from “censoring the core political speech of ordinary Americans” on social media.
He accused federal officials of seeking to “dictate what Americans can and cannot say on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other platforms about COVID-19, elections, criticism of the government, and more.”
The order could seriously limit top government agencies from notifying the platforms about false or hateful content that can lead to harmful consequences.
But the ruling said that the government could still inform them about posts involving criminal activity, national security threats and foreign attempts to influence elections.
In addition to communications with social media companies, the ruling also restricted agencies from “collaborating, coordinating, partnering” with groups such as the Election Integrity Partnership, a coalition of research institutions that tackle election-related falsehoods.
Some experts in misinformation and First Amendment law criticized the ruling, saying authorities needed to strike a balance between calling out falsehoods and veering towards censorship or curbing free speech.
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Back to the Moon – Part 1
After the Apollo program ended, the US took a long hiatus from lunar exploration. What happened during this time, and what has NASA been doing? This documentary by the Voice of America’s Russian service explores the multiple attempts to return to the Moon, the space developments that laid the foundation for future concepts, and the birth of the Artemis lunar program.
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Extermination Planned for Island Mice Breeding Out of Control, Eating Birds
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Mice accidentally introduced to a remote island near Antarctica 200 years ago are breeding out of control because of climate change, and they are eating seabirds and causing major harm in a special nature reserve with “unique biodiversity.”
Now conservationists are planning a mass extermination using helicopters and hundreds of tons of rodent poison, which needs to be dropped over every part of Marion Island’s 297 square kilometers (115 square miles) to ensure success.
If even one pregnant mouse survives, their prolific breeding ability means it may have all been for nothing.
The Mouse-Free Marion project — pest control on a grand scale — is seen as critical for the ecology of the uninhabited South African territory and the wider Southern Ocean. It would be the largest eradication of its kind if it succeeds.
The island is home to globally significant populations of nearly 30 bird species and a rare undisturbed habitat for wandering albatrosses — with their 10-foot wingspan — and many others.
An undisturbed habitat, at least, until stowaway house mice arrived on seal hunter ships in the early 1800s, introducing the island’s first mammal predators.
The past few decades have been the most significant for the damage the mice have caused, said Dr. Anton Wolfaardt, the Mouse-Free Marion project manager. He said their numbers have increased hugely, mainly due to rising temperatures from climate change, which has turned a cold, windswept island into a warmer, drier, more hospitable home.
“They are probably one of the most successful animals in the world. They’ve got to all sorts of places,” Wolfaardt said. But now on Marion Island, “their breeding season has been extended, and this has resulted in a massive increase in the densities of mice.”
Mice don’t need encouragement. They can reproduce from about 60 days old and females can have four or five litters a year, each with seven or eight babies.
Rough estimates indicate there are more than 1 million mice on Marion Island. They are feeding on invertebrates and, more and more, on seabirds — both chicks in their nests and adults.
A single mouse will feed on a bird several times its size.
Conservationists snapped a photo of one perched on the bloodied head of a wandering albatross chick.
The phenomenon of mice eating seabirds has been recorded on only a handful of the world’s islands.
The scale and frequency of mice preying on seabirds on Marion has risen alarmingly, Wolfaardt said, after the first reports of it in 2003. He said the birds have not developed the defense mechanisms to protect themselves against these unfamiliar predators and often sit there while mice nibble away at them. Sometimes, multiple mice swarm over a bird.
Conservationists estimate that if nothing is done, 19 seabird species will disappear from the island in 50 to 100 years, he said.
“This incredibly important island as a haven for seabirds has a very tenuous future because of the impacts of mice,” Wolfaardt said.
The eradication project is a single shot at success, with not even a whisker of room for error. Burgeoning mice and rat populations have been problematic for other islands. South Georgia, in the southern Atlantic, was declared rodent-free in 2018 after an eradication, but that was a multiyear project; the one on Marion could be the biggest single intervention.
Wolfaardt said four to six helicopters will likely be used to drop up to 550 tons of rodenticide bait across the island. Pilots will be given exact flight lines and Wolfaardt’s team will be able to track the drop using GPS mapping.
The bait has been designed to not affect the soil or the island’s water sources. It shouldn’t harm the seabirds, who feed out at sea, and won’t have negative impacts for the environment, Wolfaardt said. Some animals will be affected at an individual level, but those species will recover.
“There’s no perfect solution in these kinds of things,” he said. “There is nothing that just zaps mice and nothing else.”
The eradication project is a partnership between BirdLife South Africa and the national Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, which designated Marion Island as a special nature reserve with the highest level of environmental protection. It has a weather and research station but is otherwise uninhabited and dedicated to conservation.
The department said the eradication of mice was “essential if the unique biodiversity of the island is to be preserved.”
Wolfaardt said the amount of planning needed means a likely go-ahead date in 2027. The project also needs to raise about $25 million — some of which has been funded by the South African government — and get final regulatory approvals from authorities.
Scientists have tried to control the mice of Marion in the past.
They were already a pest for researchers in the 1940s, so five domestic cats were introduced. By the 1970s, there were around 2,000 feral cats on the island, killing half a million seabirds per year. The cats were eliminated by introducing a feline flu virus and hunting down any survivors.
Islands are critical to conservation efforts, but fragile. The Island Conservation organization says they are “extinction epicenters” and 75% of all species that have gone extinct lived on islands. About 95% of those were bird species.
“This really is an ecological restoration project,” Wolfaardt said. “It’s one of those rare conservation opportunities where you solve once and for all a conservation threat.”
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US Sanctions Network Smuggling American Tech to Iran’s Central Bank
Washington — The U.S. Treasury Department unveiled sanctions against a network of companies and individuals for facilitating illegal technology transfers from dozens of U.S. firms to Iranian entities, including the country’s central bank.
The sanctions relate to Informatics Services Corporation (ISC), the technology arm of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), the Treasury Department said in a statement Friday.
It also sanctioned a number of alleged ISC subsidiaries and front companies based in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, and three individuals allegedly linked to them including Pouria Mirdamadi, a French-Iranian dual national.
Brian Nelson, the U.S. Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said the CBI “has played a critical role” in providing financial support to Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the foreign arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, known as the Quds Force.
“The United States will continue to use all available means to disrupt the Iranian regime’s illicit attempts to procure sensitive U.S. technology and critical inputs,” he said in a statement.
The Treasury’s move freezes any U.S. assets associated with the sanctioned individuals and entities, and generally prohibits Americans from doing business with them.
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What Makes People Happy? California Lawmakers Want to Find Out
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Assemblyman Anthony Rendon likes to spend his spare time away from the Capitol in Sacramento with his 4-year-old daughter at home near Los Angeles. Last weekend, he took her ice skating and afterward to an indoor playground, then let her get a donut after she agreed to ride her scooter on the way there.
“Those are the types of things that make me happy,” he said this week in an interview outside the state Assembly chambers, where he’s served as a lawmaker for a dozen years.
Now Rendon, a Democrat who was one of the longest-serving Assembly speakers in California history, is spending his last year in office trying to make happiness more central to policymaking. He created a first-in-the-nation group to study the issue, called the Select Committee on Happiness and Public Policy Outcomes, which held its first public hearing this week.
It would be “silly” for lawmakers to not study how they can make people happier, Rendon said.
“Because if we have everybody clothed, everybody housed, everybody has a job and they’re miserable, then we’ve failed at what we’re trying to do,” he said, adding that lawmakers should think about happiness as a priority in policymaking.
In California, three-quarters of adults say they are “very happy” or “pretty happy,” while 26% say they are “not too happy,” according to a September 2023 survey from the Public Policy Institute of California. Adults aged 18 to 34, people who are renters, those without a post-high school degree, and Californians with an annual household income of $40,000 or lower tend to be less happy than others.
California is breaking new ground in the United States. At least 12 state legislatures in the nation have committees focused on mental health and substance abuse issues, but no other state legislature has a committee devoted to happiness, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
But the idea to consider happiness in public policy isn’t unprecedented: The landlocked country of Bhutan in South Asia prioritizes happiness as a goal of public policy, measuring it through something written into its constitution called the Gross National Happiness Index. The country surveys residents on their level of happiness, and officials work to increase happiness by providing residents with free health care and education, protecting cultural traditions, and preserving forests, said Phuntsho Norbu, consul general of the Kingdom of Bhutan to the United States.
The government cannot make every person happy, but it should “create the right conditions that will allow people to pursue happiness,” Norbu said.
Lawmakers on California’s new committee heard this week from experts about the things that make people happy, what public officials can do to help and what role state and local government can play. The committee isn’t set on any solutions yet but plans to release a report with its findings after lawmakers adjourn for the year at the end of August, said Katie Talbot, Rendon’s spokesperson.
Assembly member Pilar Schiavo, a Democrat representing part of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, hopes the committee’s work can address poor mental health among youth in California, which her 11-year-old daughter has told her is a big issue in her class at school.
“It’s a true crisis that we have on our hands right now,” Schiavo said. “This is really getting to the heart of what that crisis is about.”
Research demonstrates that leisure activities, social relationships and life circumstances contribute to a person’s happiness, said Meliksah Demir, a professor of happiness at California State University, Sacramento. Public officials can work toward improving happiness by investing in mental health resources, making green spaces more accessible and teaching about the value of happiness early on in schools, Demir said.
Happiness has wide-ranging benefits that include making people more likely to vote, more creative and healthier, he said.
The Public Policy Institute of California’s September survey found that 33% of adults overall say they are very satisfied with their job, 31% say they are very satisfied with their leisure activities and 44% are very satisfied with their housing.
Californians’ level of happiness decreased during the pandemic, but experts are still researching the decline, said Mark Baldassare, the group’s survey director.
California, which is often ahead of other states on issues such as climate policy and civil rights, is behind many parts of the world in prioritizing happiness in policymaking, Rendon said. He was inspired to create the happiness committee in part by a report on happiness released annually by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
Last year’s report said that how people view the effectiveness of government — including how well it raises money, delivers services and avoids civil war — can influence their happiness. The United States was 15th in a world happiness ranking based on a three-year average from 2020 to 2022, according to the report. Scandinavian countries, including Finland and Iceland, ranked the highest.
Rendon’s decision to create the happiness committee aligns with his approach to making state policy that focuses on “bigger picture” social issues, longtime labor lobbyist Kristina Bas Hamilton said. People have different perspectives on government involvement in their lives, but the creation of the committee evokes the ultimate purpose of government, she said.
“Government’s role is to provide for its people,” Bas Hamilton said. “The goal is to have happy citizens. That’s the goal of all public policy.”
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