Archived version

Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs ordered the operation, which used fake social media accounts urging U.S. lawmakers to fund Israel’s military, according to officials and documents about the effort.

Israel organized and paid for an influence campaign last year targeting U.S. lawmakers and the American public with pro-Israel messaging, as it aimed to foster support for its actions in the war with Gaza, according to officials involved in the effort and documents related to the operation.

The covert campaign was commissioned by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, a government body that connects Jews around the world with the State of Israel, four Israeli officials said. The ministry allocated about $2 million to the operation and hired Stoic, a political marketing firm in Tel Aviv, to carry it out, according to the officials and the documents.

The campaign began in October and remains active on the platform X. At its peak, it used hundreds of fake accounts that posed as real Americans on X, Facebook and Instagram to post pro-Israel comments. The accounts focused on U.S. lawmakers, particularly ones who are Black and Democrats, such as Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader from New York, and Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, with posts urging them to continue funding Israel’s military.

ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, was used to generate many of the posts. The campaign also created three fake English-language news sites featuring pro-Israel articles.

The Israeli government’s connection to the influence operation, which The New York Times verified with four current and former members of the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and documents about the campaign, has not previously been reported. FakeReporter, an Israeli misinformation watchdog, identified the effort in March. Last week, Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, said they had also found and disrupted the operation.

The secretive campaign signals the lengths Israel was willing to go to sway American opinion on the war in Gaza. The United States has long been one of Israel’s staunchest allies, with President Biden recently signing a $15 billion military aid package for the country. But the conflict has been unpopular with many Americans, who have called for Mr. Biden to withdraw support for Israel in the face of mounting civilian deaths in Gaza.

An Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip on Monday. The secretive influence campaign signals the lengths Israel was willing to go to sway American opinion on the war in Gaza. Credit...Ramadan Abed/Reuters

The operation is the first documented case of the Israeli government’s organizing a campaign to influence the U.S. government, social media experts said. While coordinated government-backed campaigns are not uncommon, they are typically difficult to prove. Iran, North Korea, China, Russia and the United States are widely believed to back similar efforts around the world, but often mask their involvement by outsourcing the work to private companies or running them through a third country.

“Israel’s role in this is reckless and probably ineffective,” said Achiya Schatz, the executive director of FakeReporter. That Israel “ran an operation that interferes in U.S. politics is extremely irresponsible.”

Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs denied involvement in the campaign and said it had no connection to Stoic. Stoic didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The campaign didn’t have a widespread impact, Meta and OpenAI said last week. The fake accounts accumulated more than 40,000 followers across X, Facebook and Instagram, FakeReporter found. But many of those followers may have been bots and didn’t generate a large audience, Meta said.

The operation began just weeks into the war in October, according to Israeli officials and the documents on the effort. Dozens of Israeli tech start-ups received emails and WhatsApp messages that month inviting them to join urgent meetings to become “digital soldiers” for Israel during the war, according to messages viewed by The Times. Some of the emails and messages were sent from Israeli government officials, while others came from tech start-ups and incubators.

The first meeting was held in Tel Aviv in mid-October. It appeared to be an informal gathering where Israelis could volunteer their technical skills to help the country’s war effort, three attendees said. Members of several government ministries also took part, they said.

Participants were told that they could be “warriors for Israel” and that “digital campaigns” could be run on behalf of the country, according to recordings of the meetings.

The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs commissioned a campaign aimed at the United States, the Israeli officials said. A budget of about $2 million was set, according to one message viewed by The Times.

Stoic was hired to run the campaign. On its website and on LinkedIn, Stoic says it was founded in 2017 by a team of political and business strategists and calls itself a political marketing and business intelligence firm. Other companies may have been hired to run additional campaigns, one Israeli official said.

Many of the campaign’s fake accounts on X, Instagram and Facebook posed as fictional American students, concerned citizens and local constituents. The accounts shared articles and statistics that backed Israel’s position in the war.

The operation focused on more than a dozen members of Congress, many of whom are Black and Democrats, according to an analysis by FakeReporter. Representative Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from New York who is outspoken about his pro-Israel views, was targeted in addition to Mr. Jeffries and Mr. Warnock.

Some of the fake accounts responded to posts by Mr. Torres on X by commenting on antisemitism on college campuses and in major U.S. cities. In response to a Dec. 8 post on X by Mr. Torres about fire safety, one fake account replied, “Hamas is perpetrating the conflict,” referring to the Islamist militant group. The post included a hashtag that said Jews were being persecuted.

On Facebook, the fake accounts posted on Mr. Jeffries’s public page by asking if he had seen a report about the United Nations’ employing members of Hamas in Gaza.

Mr. Torres, Mr. Jeffries and Mr. Warnock didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The campaign also created three fake news sites with names like Non-Agenda and UnFold Magazine, which stole and rewrote material from outlets including CNN and The Wall Street Journal to promote Israel’s stance during the war, according to FakeReporter’s analysis. Fake accounts on Reddit then linked to the articles on the so-called news sites to help promote them.

The effort was sloppy. Profile pictures used in some accounts sometimes didn’t match the fictional personas they cultivated, and the language used in posts was stilted.

In at least two instances, accounts with profile photos of Black men posted about being a “middle-aged Jewish woman.” On 118 posts in which the fake accounts shared pro-Israel articles, the same sentence appeared: “I gotta reevaluate my opinions due to this new information.”

Last week, Meta and OpenAI published reports attributing the influence campaign to Stoic. Meta said it had removed 510 Facebook accounts, 11 Facebook pages, 32 Instagram accounts and one Facebook group tied to the operation. OpenAI said Stoic had created fictional personas and biographies meant to stand in for real people on social media services used in Israel, Canada and the United States to post anti-Islamic messages. Many of the posts remain on X.

X didn’t respond to a request for comment.

On its LinkedIn page, Stoic has promoted its ability to run campaigns backed by A.I. “As we look ahead, it’s clear that A.I.’s role in political campaigns is set for a transformative leap, reshaping the way campaigns are strategized, executed and evaluated,” it wrote.

By Friday, Stoic had removed those posts from LinkedIn.

The website of the Columbia Law Review was taken down by its board of directors on Monday after student editors refused a request from the board to halt the publication of an academic article written by Palestinian human rights lawyer Rabea Eghbariah titled “Toward Nakba as a Legal Concept.”

The article argues for the Nakba to be developed as a unique legal framework, related to but distinct from other processes defined under modern international law, including apartheid and genocide.

This is not the first time that Eghbariah’s legal scholarship has been censored by an Ivy League institution. The Harvard Law Review last year refused to publish a similar, shorter article it had solicited from Eghbariah even after it was initially accepted, fully edited and fact-checked. Eghbariah calls the abrupt rejection of his work “offensive,” “unprofessional” and “discriminatory,” and says “it is really unfortunate to see how this is playing out and the extent to which the board of directors is willing to go to shut down and silence Palestinian scholarship. … What are they afraid of? Of Palestinians narrating their own reality, speaking their own truth?”

The surprise search was reportedly part of a criminal antitrust investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) into RealPage, a $9 billion software company that recommends rent raises on millions of housing units across the U.S.

The problem with RealPage, according to multiple lawsuits filed in the past two years in California, Arizona, New York, and other states, is that its algorithm increases rental prices in response to data collected from landlords — not according to demand.

Landlords "were not competing at all," Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes stated in a February lawsuit announcement against RealPage.

"They were colluding with one another," Mayes said.

According to the Arizona lawsuit, and others filed, landlords gave RealPage detailed information about rent prices, lease terms, amenities, move-out dates, and occupancy rates.

"Using this sensitive data RealPage directed the competitors on which units to rent, when to rent them, and at what price," Mayes stated. "This was not a fair market at work, this was a fixed market."

To absolutely no one's surprise.

cross-posted from: https://jorts.horse/users/fathermcgruder/statuses/112567436249982605

NY Gov Hochul delays controversial NYC congestion pricing plan ‘indefinitely’.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/05/business/ny-gov-hochul-delays-indefinitely-controversial-nyc-congestion-pricing-plan/index.html

I'm sure lots of revenue will be missed now that NYC congestion tolling has been killed, but was it earmarked for specific mass transit projects or was it just going to be used to hire more cops and whatnot?

#NYC #NewJersey #transit

@usa

Data slides

• slide1: rank of net assets
• slide2: expense vs income

The recent decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the approval of exploratory drilling east of California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains is a significant victory for environmental conservation and protection of sensitive ecosystems.

The court found that the U.S. Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act by relying on two categorical exclusions to avoid the necessary environmental reviews for the proposed gold-mining exploration project in Inyo National Forest’s Long Valley area.

The court’s decision highlights the importance of conducting thorough environmental assessments and evaluations before approving projects that could have significant impacts on the environment and wildlife. By overturning the Forest Service’s approval, the court has sent a strong message that agencies cannot shortcut the regulatory process and must adhere to the requirements of environmental laws.

“We are so thrilled that the appellate court overturned the illegal agency actions,” said Wendy Schneider, executive director of Friends of the Inyo. “The impacts to the ecosystem, including sensitive species, and to the local community deserve an in-depth, detailed evaluation. Friends of the Inyo will keep working to protect this special area from destructive mining impacts.”

The impact of the Gold mining exploration project would have affected the unique species that call this region home. From the majestic Sierra Bighorn Sheep to the Black Toad, and the vibrant Golden Trout to the elusive Slender Salamander and Lyell Salamander, these species are not found anywhere else on Earth.

The diverse ecosystem of the Inyo National Forest also supports Desert Bighorn Sheep, Black Bears, Mountain Lions, Wild Horses, Tule Elk, Mule Deer, Coyotes, Squirrels, and various species of birds. It is crucial to protect and preserve their habitats to maintain the delicate balance of this environment.

“The bi-state sage grouse populations have been in severe decline across the Eastern Sierra due to mining, development of intact landscapes, livestock grazing in meadows and sagebrush habitats, and raven predation,” said Laura Cunningham, California director at Western Watersheds Project. “This ruling gives the imperiled birds a reprieve from industrial disturbance.”

The concerns raised by conservation groups regarding the potential harm to endangered species in the area are valid and should not be ignored. The court’s ruling acknowledges the potential risks posed by the mining project to the delicate ecosystem of the Long Valley area and the need for a detailed evaluation of its impacts.

By holding the Forest Service accountable for its failure to conduct a comprehensive environmental review, the court has affirmed the importance of protecting biodiversity and sensitive habitats.

Moving forward, it is essential for agencies to prioritize environmental conservation and sustainability in their decision-making processes. Projects that could have potentially harmful impacts on the environment must undergo thorough scrutiny and public review to ensure that all relevant factors are considered.

The collaborative efforts of conservation groups in challenging the Forest Service’s approval of the mining project have been instrumental in securing this important legal victory. Their dedication to protecting the environment and wildlife in the Long Valley area should be commended, and their advocacy serves as a reminder of the importance of safeguarding our natural resources for future generations.

cross-posted from: https://jorts.horse/users/fathermcgruder/statuses/112563861339745778

Solar project to destroy thousands of Joshua trees in the Mojave Desert
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/solar-project-destroy-thousands-joshua-100000768.html

It's crazy to me that a destructive photovoltaic solar project like this one is considered reasonable, but a new nuclear power plant within or adjacent to a city is beyond the pale.

@usa

Archive link

Mr. Lewis revealed that The Post was in dire straits, with more than $70 million in losses over the last year and audience declines of 50 percent over the same period.

So, clearly, the only answer is to bring in your old coworkers from Murdoch properties and get rid of that damn estrogen at the top.

No matter how bad you think this could be, it's worse.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today released the following statement on the decision of Senate and House leaders of both political parties to extend an invitation to Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to address a joint meeting of Congress:

It is a very sad day for our country that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been invited – by leaders from both parties – to address a joint meeting of the United States Congress.

Israel, of course, had the right to defend itself against the horrific Hamas terrorist attack of October 7th, but it did not, and does not, have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people. Israel does not have the right to kill more than 34,000 civilians and wound over 80,000 – 5% of the population of Gaza. It does not have the right to orphan 19,000 children. It does not have the right to displace 75% of the people of Gaza from their homes. It does not have the right to damage or destroy over 60% of the housing in Gaza. It does not have the right to destroy the civilian infrastructure of Gaza, to obliterate water and sewage systems, and deny electricity to the people of Gaza. It does not have the right to annihilate Gaza’s health care system, knocking 26 hospitals out of service and killing more than 400 health care workers. It does not have the right to bomb all 12 of Gaza’s universities and 56 of its schools, or deny 625,000 children in Gaza the opportunity for an education.

It most certainly does not have the right to block humanitarian aid – food and medical supplies – from coming in to the desperate people of Gaza, creating the conditions for starvation and famine. It does not have the right to condemn hundreds of thousands of children to death by starvation. This is a clear violation of American and international law.

The International Criminal Court recently announced that it is seeking warrants for the arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas. The ICC is right. Both of these people are engaged in clear and outrageous violations of international law.

Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal. He should not be invited to address a joint meeting of Congress. I certainly will not attend.

Russia’s brutal ongoing invasion of Ukraine has provided US intelligence services with a rare opening to recruit Kremlin insiders furious with the handling of the war.

“Disaffection creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity for us,” said CIA Director Bill Burns last year during a speech in the United Kingdom. “We’re very much open for business.”

“That business is the exchange of information that the asset or agent would provide for something that they want,” said David McCloskey, former CIA officer and author of Moscow X. “We want people who have some sense of what [Russian] leaders’ priorities are – what they’re trying to accomplish.”

The ongoing recruitment effort is far from a state secret. The CIA has released Russian-language videos on social media appealing to the patriotism of disaffected Russians with access to information that could be helpful to the US.

The effort highlights the evolution of an intelligence service that has historically conducted its essential mission of countering national security threats and informing policymakers under a shroud of secrecy.

Indeed, until the CIA’s internally unpopular and short-lived director, James Schlesinger, finally posted a sign on a highway marking the site of the ultra-secret organization’s Virginia headquarters in 1973, its very location had been shielded from the public.

Fast forward to today, when the spy agency is not only ubiquitous across social media platforms, it is actively using its newfound public-facing presence to accomplish one of CIA’s primary objectives: recruiting foreign spies to steal secrets.

Posts have included step-by-step instructions for would-be Russian informants on how to avoid detection by Russia’s security services by using virtual private networks, or VPNs, and the Tor web browser to anonymously and through encryption contact the agency on the so-called Dark Web.

The FBI launched a similar effort aimed at recruiting Russian government sources in the US, including geo-targeting social media ads to phones located near Russia’s embassy in Washington.

"This direct appeal is an unusual approach, but one which could prove effective in reaching a Russian populace with few options to express their discontent,” said Douglas London, a former CIA station chief posted abroad. “Russians angry with the Kremlin’s state-sanctioned corruption and abuse, with no way to act openly, are left with few alternatives other than finding external support.”

But while the technology is new, espionage has underpinned, and often undermined, US-Russian relations for decades.

That secret battle between intelligence services is the focus of a new CNN-BBC documentary – “Secrets and Spies” – which premieres Sunday at 10 p.m. ET.

With never before heard interviews from Cold War spies and the traitors who sealed their fate, “Secrets and Spies” tracks the operatives who worked behind the scenes to steal and share vital intelligence as the world stood on the brink of nuclear war.

Over 30 years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the world has returned to a period of great power conflict. In his latest book, CNN chief national security analyst Jim Sciutto describes it as “a definitive break between the post-Cold War era and an entirely new and uncertain one.”

Like the Cold War of the past, espionage remains a vital tool for both sides of the latest conflict, as evidenced by tech-savvy US intelligence officers attempting to recruit new assets in plain sight, and Russian-linked operatives reportedly increasing operations across Europe.

While espionage is illegal in every nation in the world, and undercover operatives have certainly been used for nefarious purposes such as sabotage, assassination, and election interference, “Secrets and Spies” pulls back the veil on a lesser-known, historically critical function of spying: to reduce uncertainty and miscalculation among nuclear-armed adversaries.

As the documentary underscores, the espionage lessons of the Cold War could very well determine future global stability.

“You have to know your enemy,” said CNN presidential historian Tim Naftali. “If you don’t, you can scare your enemy into doing something that neither of you wants to see happen.”

The historic nature of Trump’s criminal conviction is being leveraged by his campaign as a sort of roll-call vote to see which politicians will defend the former president and which of them will defend America’s legal system. It appears you can’t do both.

Larry Hogan, a moderate Republican who is running for an open Senate seat in liberal-leaning Maryland, took to social media to urge all Americans to “respect the verdict and the legal process”.

Within minutes, Chris LaCivita, a top official on Trump’s campaign, posted a crystal-clear reply to Mr Hogan: “You just ended your campaign.” The implication: if you’re not with us on this, you’re politically dead.

[...]

Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson said that Thursday was “a shameful day in American history” and that Trump’s conviction was “a purely political exercise, not a legal one.” Steve Scalise, another top Republican in Congress, said that America’s legal system was operating like a banana republic. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis compared the process to a “kangaroo court”.

[...]

"This is a quintessential show trial,” [Florida Senator Marco] Rubio said. “This is what you see in communist countries. This is what I grew up having people in the [Cuban exile] community tell me about. It happened in the days after the Castro revolution.”

[...]

These types of defences align with Trump’s larger belief that many of his issues are not with individuals - whether they be voters or jurors. Instead, he feels that many of the bedrock structures of American government, like its electoral process and its judicial system, its media, its intelligence agencies, are fundamentally and unfairly rigged against him. It’s why, at his rallies, he calls for the “deep state” to be dismantled, to great cheers.

In Trump’s eyes, a claim that America’s legal system is functioning properly is a de facto critique of him - and to criticise him risks alienating both the former president and his sizable base of supporters within the party. It’s a step that many Republican officials are wary of taking.

[...]

Earlier this month, an ABC News/IPSOS poll found that one fifth of Donald Trump's supporters said they would either reconsider or withdraw their support for him if he were convicted of a felony.

In an era when presidential elections are ultimately decided by a few thousand voters in a few swing states, it remains to be seen whether this guilty verdict will ultimately move that dial.

Archived link

The North Cascades elk herd is a cluster of some 1,600 animals whose domain, like so many habitats, is riven by a highway. From 2012 to 2019, Washington state records show, at least 229 elk were killed by cars along a stretch of State Route 20 in the Skagit Valley. The situation imperils humans, too: In 2023, a motorist died after swerving around an elk into a telephone pole.

“My own nephew had an elk collision, and I’ve nearly had collisions myself over the years,” said Scott Schuyler, a member of the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe, who is also the tribe’s natural resources and cultural policy representative. “We have an obligation to protect our neighbors and ourselves and these animals.”

To many observers, the solution has long been clear: a wildlife bridge, flanked by fencing. But building such a structure would cost around $8.5 million, a daunting expense.“There didn’t seem to be any money out there on the horizon that could make this happen,” said Jennifer Sevigny, a biologist with the nearby Stillaguamish Tribe of Indians, which co-manages the elk herd.

That changed in November 2021, when Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — a package that included the Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program (WCPP), a grant initiative that would distribute $350 million over five years to states, Native tribes and other entities for animal-friendly infrastructure. Although Sevigny knew the competition for grants would be fierce, she submitted a proposal for an elk bridge when the program launched in 2023. “Honestly, I didn’t think we were going to get it,” she said.

“We have an obligation to protect our neighbors and ourselves and these animals.”

When the recipients of the first $110 million in grants were announced in December 2023, however, the Stillaguamish was among them. Once the grant agreement is finalized, the tribe will partner with the Upper Skagit to convene biologists and engineers to design the bridge, which is expected to take four years to construct.

The Skagit Valley overpass wasn’t the only tribal winner: Of the 10 Western wildlife crossing projects selected for the initial round of WCPP funding, four were Native-led. “It was really awesome to see that (experience) come to fruition,” said Shailyn Wiechman, connectivity coordinator at the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society and a member of the Chippewa-Cree Tribe of the Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation. But tribal-led connectivity projects on and adjacent to reservations still face obstacles — and money remains a big one.

TRIBES HAVE LONG BEEN among the staunchest advocates of wildlife crossings.When Montana declared its intent to widen U.S. 93 on the Flathead Indian Reservation in the early 1990s, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes objected: The road, the tribes declared, should “respond to and be respectful of the land and the Spirit of Place.” State and federal engineers, in consultation with tribal officials, eventually included fences and around 40 wildlife crossings — underpasses and a capacious overpass — in the highway’s reconstruction. Roadkill plummeted, and the passages allowed grizzly bears, deer and other species to safely traverse the highway.

More recently, the Burns Paiute Tribe in Oregon has collected animal movement and collision data on Highway 20, which bisects the tribe’s traditional homeland, and the Blackfeet Nation has partnered with nonprofits and researchers to devise a plan for reducing roadkill on its lands. In 2022,the state of Colorado completed a wildlife overpass and underpass where Highway 160 passes through Southern Ute Tribe land — passages whose locations were guided by years of deer and elk research by tribal biologists. The tribe contributed $1.3 million toward the $12 million passages, which were used by more than 1,300 deer and 600 elk in their first four months.

When Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg kicked off the Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program in April 2023, he did so in New Mexico on the Santa Ana Pueblo, which hopes to build wildlife crossings on nearby Interstate 25 and Highway 550. The Santa Ana and other tribes, Buttigieg declared over the rumble of I-25 traffic, had “helped lead the rest of the country” in establishing crossings.

But the program’s details offered reason for concern. While successful applicants for the WCPP receive up to 80% of the funding for chosen crossings, they’re required to cover the remaining cost. Few Native tribes are so cash-flush, and in a 2022 letter to the U.S. Department of Transportation, environmental groups urged Buttigieg to waive the matching requirement for tribes “as a matter of equity.” But the agency didn’t budge; in an email, a department spokesperson said that the program was “subject to federal share requirements” in U.S. statutes, and that the agency was working with tribes to identify opportunities for flexibility.

Wiechman, who provided technical support to tribal applicants, observed that tribes are accustomed to “Frankensteining” money together, and the four tribes that secured WCPP grants met the matching requirement with the help of funds from partners and other federal programs. In New Mexico, the Mescalero Apache Tribe received nearly a half-million dollars to evaluate future crossings on I-70; in Washington, the Puyallup Tribe of Indians got $216,000 to plan passages along a state highway. And the Salish and Kootenai were granted $8.6 million to construct another overpass on Highway 93. “We have tribal sovereignty, we have treaties, and we use those political points to be able to push these projects forward,” said Whisper Camel-Means, a member of the Salish and Kootenai tribes and the manager of their Division of Fish, Wildlife, Recreation, and Conservation.

The Stillaguamish met the matching requirement by working with a couple that owns five parcels of land, totaling 143 acres and worth $1.2 million, on either side of the proposed overpass. The couple has been purchasing land to protect elk for the past decade, and the tribe had discussed a crossing structure with them long before the grant was announced. While this was certainly a clever solution, it meant that both the tribe and private landowners had to contribute to healing the wound created by a state-owned highway.

“We have tribal sovereignty, we have treaties, and we use those political points to be able to push these projects forward.”

THE MATCHING requirement, said Wiechman, remains “an enormous barrier” for many tribes. Santa Ana Pueblo biologists, on whose land Buttigieg announced the program, have spent years studying the risks nearby highways pose to deer, bears, cougars and other species. But the New Mexico Department of Transportation chose not to propose passages adjacent to the pueblo in its own WCPP grant application, and the tribe was unable to muster matching funds in time — though, according to Glenn Harper, the Santa Ana’s range and wildlife division manager, it plans to apply this year.

Tribal members and advocates hope that future grant cycles will exempt tribal-led projects from the matching requirement (a change that could require tweaking the federal code) and prioritize species that have cultural importance to tribes. The significance of migratory wildlife to many tribes, along with the safety problems that plague Bureau of Indian Affairs roads, makes Native lands prime candidates for crossings. And since state and federal highways have fragmented tribal lands for generations, Native leaders argue that it is only just that governments prioritize their reconnection.

“In our history and our culture, we’re taught to leave things better than what we inherited, and to repair and restore what you can,” Scott Schuyler said. “This is the continuation of our moral and historical obligation.”

After working at the U.S. State Department for over 20 years, Stacy Gilbert quit the Biden administration this week after a report she contributed to concluded Israel was not obstructing humanitarian assistance to Gaza.

Gilbert served as a senior civil military adviser in the State Department’s chief humanitarian office, which features heavily in internal policy discussions over Gaza. Despite “abundant evidence showing Israel is responsible for blocking aid,” the report concluded the opposite and was used by the Biden administration to justify continuing to send billions of dollars of weapons to Israel.

Gilbert says she was “shocked” to find that the report concluded Israel was not not blocking humanitarian assistance: “That is not the view of subject matter experts at the State Department, at USAID, nor among the humanitarian community. And that was known. That was absolutely known to the administration for a very long time.” Gilbert says there is a clear pattern by Israel “of arbitrarily limiting, restricting or just outright blocking assistance going in that has caused the very grave situation in Gaza.”

Nineteen percent of cotton on the U.S. market still sources back to the forced labor heartlands of East Turkestan (Xinjiang), according to a new analysis. Reducing that figure is easier than Washington makes it look.--

Tests in all fields of science have reproducibility issues. Researchers publish findings one day only to obtain different results the next. Thus, when mutually independent investigations reach the same conclusions, it indicates more than a hint of truth.

That in mind, the results of a recent analysis by biotechnology firm Applied DNA Services into the origin of cotton sold on the U.S. market make interesting reading. Sampling 822 cotton-containing products from clothing to home textiles, the company found almost one-fifth contain the isotopic signature of China-controlled East Turkestan (Xinjiang), where various evidence and reports indicate it may have been picked or processed by innocent detainees and others whose personal autonomy has been entirely negated by the Chinese Communist Party. Smaller-scale testing by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection reached similar conclusions last year.

So, tainted materials are continuing to infiltrate the supply chains for American consumers, and, given that Washington has passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which prohibits the importation of goods produced wholly or in part from the so-called Xinjiang Autonomous Uyghur Region unless it can be proven that they are not the fruits of coerced labor, this raises three important questions: How is so much contraband cotton escaping the attention of U.S. officials? Who is bringing it in? And what needs to be done to prevent it?

The first is not difficult to answer. Some of the cotton is tucked away in blended fibers and mislabeled as wholly U.S.- or Brazil-produced to obscure its true origin, while, as revealed to Sourcing Journal by Applied DNA Services’ Vice President MeiLin Wan, a quarter is entering the United States by taking advantage of a legal exemption known as “de minimis” at the border. Originating from the 1930 Tariff Act, this loophole currently allows packages valued at less than $800 to be imported without paying duties, which, in practical terms, means less attention from authorities and an open invitation for products that would prefer less scrutiny of their background.

As for who is responsible for dressing the U.S. in tearstained garments, unlike research from Germany that willingly pointed the finger at big brands like Adidas, Puma and Hugo Boss in 2022, Applied DNA Services has declined to name names, but its revelation about the de minimis pathway implicates China’s fast fashion giants. Both Temu and Shein have been linked to potential forced Uyghur labor before, and both have a business model that is predicated on keeping prices down by importing packages under the $800 threshold. Each ships more than a million a day.

Supporters of de minimis argue it is a boon to small businesses, but their line hardly holds when it is giving a tax-free ride to companies with estimated annual revenues that can top $30 billion, especially since it also facilitates factories and firms with functionally absent human rights safeguards to outcompete the American domestic retail and textile industries. That China’s other de facto export to the States — fentanyl — is also creeping in via the same exception to law does not strengthen their case.

Nor does the statistic that 85% of U.S. cargo seizures arrive to the country’s airports and shores in de minimis form. This was revealed by Brandon Lord, executive director at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Trade and Policy Programs department, who, in testimony to the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet in early May, asserted that the exemption has created an environment with “high rates of non-compliance” that expends government resources instead of saving them as intended.

To ensure, then, that U.S. citizens can towel off, clothe themselves and clad their feet in the morning without literal blood being shed from nonvoluntary workers to enable them to do so, revoking or radically reforming the low-cost package free-for-all seems to be a vital next step. Doing so would lessen pressure on Customs and Border Protection staff, who, in the ecommerce era, are now attempting to field more than a billion de minimis imports per year without corresponding increases in tools and personnel, according to Lord.

If taking a hatchet to de minimis is deemed unworkable or misdirected at U.S. consumers, then far tighter screening and more severe punishments for companies whose shipments contain Xinjiang produce are the other alternative. It would also help to prevent re-export of goods that have been denied entry on forced labor grounds so that suppliers cannot try their luck in America before pivoting to markets with weaker legislation if they get found out. Such measures would compel businesses to apply a significantly more watchful eye to where and how their goods come to be.

Having already denied items to the value of over $3.3 billion, including more than 1,400 apparel, footwear and textile shipments, from entry to its markets on the grounds that Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples may have suffered unconscionable mistreatment to produce them, the U.S. has taken a leading role to send the message that modern slavery will not be tolerated.

Nonetheless, when it comes to combating vast human rights abuses in East Turkestan, even the best have plenty of room for improvement. In contrast to the concept of negligibility that underpins de minimis, nothing less than maximum effort is required.

Guilty on 34 counts.

In a historic verdict, Trump was convicted of falsifying business records in connection to a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.

- Ukraine has been struggling to counter a Russian offensive in the east of the country, often launched by Russia from military outposts near the Ukrainian border, but on Russian soil.

- This week, France and Germany agreed to allow Ukraine the use of its weapons. UK Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron said earlier this month that it was up to Ukraine to decide how to use British weapons, while this week the Polish Deputy Defence Minister said that Ukrainians could use Polish weapons “as they see fit”.

- Last week, Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg told the Economist that the West should allow Ukraine to defend itself by striking military bases in Russia. “Ukraine has the right to defend themselves. And that includes striking targets on Russian territory,” he said.--

A number of US allies this week signalled they were open to this possibility to let Ukraine strike inside Russia using their Western weapons, after months of concern about escalation.

Russia's Vladimir Putin has warned of "serious consequences", especially for what he called "small countries" in Europe.

On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington’s stance on the matter would "adapt and adjust" based on changing battlefield conditions. He is currently in the Czech capital, Prague, for a meeting of Nato foreign ministers.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said late on Wednesday that even though US support for Kyiv had evolved, "right now, there's also no change to our policy".

Ukraine has been struggling to counter a Russian offensive in the east of the country, while the city of Kharkiv has suffered weeks of deadly attacks, often launched by Russia from military outposts near the Ukrainian border.

Mr Blinken’s statement, during a trip to Europe, followed more direct comments made earlier this week by France’s President Emmanuel Macron, who said Ukraine should be “allowed” to use weapons supplied by the West against military sites on Russian territory - although strictly not on civilian targets.

Mr Macron has for some time advocated for more direct intervention in the Ukraine war – but other Western leaders also appear to be softening to the idea.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has remained cautious in public but a spokesman in Berlin said that "defensive action is not limited to one's own territory, but also includes the territory of the aggressor".

Last week, Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg told the Economist that the West should allow Ukraine to defend itself by striking military bases in Russia. “Ukraine has the right to defend themselves. And that includes striking targets on Russian territory,” he said.

UK Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron said earlier this month that it was up to Ukraine to decide how to use British weapons, while this week the Polish Deputy Defence Minister said that Ukrainians could use Polish weapons “as they see fit”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has previously said it was "unfair" for Western countries to impose limits on the use of their weapons, while acknowledging that Ukraine could not risk the support of its partners.

Russia has reacted angrily to the prospect of Western weapons being used against targets on Russian territory.

"In Europe, especially in small countries, they should be aware of what they are playing with," Vladimir Putin said, noting that many European countries had "small territory" and a "dense population".

The Russian leader added that responsibility for any strikes inside his country's territory would lie with Western arms suppliers, even if Ukraine's forces carried out the strikes.

Some Nato countries remain nervous about the prospect. On Thursday, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said she did not think it necessary to hit Russian military bases and urged the West to supply more air defences to Ukraine instead.

However, it is thought Ukraine has already used some Western-supplied weapons for attacks on Russian territory, although it has done so without fanfare.

Latvia's foreign minister, Baiba Braze, told Ukrainian media that some countries had already provided weapons “without conditions” to Ukraine but that “not everything” was said aloud.

Other countries have been more forthcoming in giving Ukraine permission to use their weapons inside Russia.

The US has already supplied Ukraine with thousands of defensive weapons, tanks and air defence systems.

Since April, it has also sent Ukraine the longest-range version of ATACMS missiles, which can travel up to 190 miles (300km).

Until now, Ukraine has been using drones to attack targets ever further into Russian territory.

Earlier this week it was reported that Ukrainian drones had managed to hit an early-warning radar near the city of Orsk, around 1,500km (932 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

In a nation which has the highest percentage of its citizens imprisoned in the world, Louisiana is the state with the highest percentage of its citizens imprisoned in the country. This is the exact wrong direction.

Recently, with memories of the floodings still fresh, Vermont lawmakers voted to assess a fee on fossil-fuel producers to pay for “climate-adaptive” infrastructure projects in the state. The bill operates on the polluter-pays principle, the basis of the federal Superfund law—it’s been dubbed the Climate Superfund Act. Last week, the act was sent to Governor Scott, who, despite his December statement, is expected by many to veto it. It will then go back to the legislature, which is expected to override his veto in a special session, already planned for June. (The bill passed with super-majorities in both houses.) “We’re confident,” Paul Burns, the executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, a key backer of the bill, said, referring to an override. “Of course,” he added, “you always want to be careful on this kind of thing.” (VPIRG lost years’ worth of records in July’s flood.)

The Climate Superfund Act doesn’t specify how much money should be collected; instead, it directs the state treasurer to determine how much it has cost Vermont to deal with the impacts of climate change. (A 2022 study from researchers at the University of Vermont predicted that, in the next hundred years, the cost of property damage from flooding alone could top five billion dollars.) The Agency of Natural Resources is then to assess fees on fossil-fuel companies based on their greenhouse-gas emissions between 1995 and 2024.

Here is the fossil fuel report (pdf).

- Democrats are asking the US Department of Justice to investigate major oil companies and their trade groups following a congressional probe that concluded the industry spent decades deceiving the public about climate change.

- The American Petroleum Institute criticized the move by Democrats as “unfounded political charade to distract from persistent inflation and America’s need for more energy, including oil and natural gas".

The three-year investigation, started by Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, accused Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Shell Plc, BP Plc, the American Petroleum Institute and US Chamber of Commerce of engaging in a public relations “campaign of deception and doublespeak” while internally acknowledging that fossil fuels caused climate change since the 1960s.

“We believe that there is adequate evidence that fossil fuel industry companies and trade associations may have violated one or more federal statutes and that, accordingly, further investigation is warranted,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Jamie Raskin wrote in a May 22 letter to the Justice Department.

Read More: US Lawmakers Lambast Big Oil’s ‘Deception’ on Climate Change

The lawmakers are “setting a dangerous precedent by attempting to leverage federal law enforcement agencies to settle policy disputes,” Neil Bradley, the US Chamber of Commerce’s chief policy officer, said in an emailed statement.

The American Petroleum Institute criticized the move by Democrats as “unfounded political charade to distract from persistent inflation and America’s need for more energy, including oil and natural gas,” according to a statement from spokeswoman Andrea Woods. “US energy workers are focused on delivering the reliable, affordable oil and natural gas Americans demand, and any suggestion to the contrary is false,” she said.

The 65-page report was released by the two committees last month along with hundreds of pages of subpoenaed corporate documents. It accused the oil companies of a range of misdeeds including offering public support for the Paris climate agreement while internally acknowledging their business models were at odds with such a scenario.

It also said the companies erroneously touted natural gas as a bridge fuel to a cleaner future while ignoring its significant climate impacts; and it said the industry poured money into universities around the world to win support for the idea of fossil fuels being part of an energy transition.

“Our investigation into the fossil fuel industry calls to mind the historic congressional investigation into deceptive practices of the tobacco industry and its trade associations, which led to investigations and litigation by several state attorneys general and the Department of Justice,” Whitehouse, who leads the Senate Budget Committee, and Raskin, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, said in their letter.

The Justice Department said it received the letter, but declined to comment further.

Families of the victims of the Uvalde school shooting are suing the manufacturer of the gun used in the attack, the maker of a video game and Instagram parent company Meta.

In two new lawsuits, they claim the companies helped promote dangerous weapons to a generation of “socially vulnerable” young men, including the 18-year old gunman.

Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in the attack at Robb Elementary School. Friday marked the second anniversary of the Texas school shooting.

The dual lawsuits - filed in Texas and California - are against Activision, the developer of the military video game series “Call of Duty”; Daniel Defense, the gun manufacturer known for its high-end rifles; and Meta.

The companies are accused of being responsible for “grooming” a generation of young people who live out violent video game fantasies in the real world, with easily accessible weapons of war.

The gunman, Salvador Ramos, used an AR-15 style rifle in the attack.

The lawsuits contend that Meta and Activision "knowingly exposed" him to the gun he used at Uvalde and conditioned him to see it as the solution to his problems.

The lawsuits claim that Instagram, Activision and Daniel Defense have been "partnering…in a scheme that preys upon insecure, adolescent boys", attorneys said in a news release.

“There is a direct line between the conduct of these companies and the Uvalde shooting,” the statement said.

“This three-headed monster knowingly exposed him to the weapon, conditioned him to see it as a tool to solve his problems and trained him to use it.”

According to lawsuits, the gunman had been playing Call of Duty, a war-based video game with a rifle similar to the one used in the shooting, since he was 15 years old.

The lawsuit says the gunman was "simultaneously" the subject of "aggressive marketing" by Daniel Defense, which targeted the teen with ads on Instagram.

"Instagram creates a connection between …an adolescent …and the gun and a gun company," Josh Koskoff, the plaintiffs' attorney, told the BBC's US media partner CBS, on Friday.

"And nobody exploited Instagram for this purpose more than Daniel Defense."

An Activision spokesperson told CBS that the "Uvalde shooting was horrendous and heartbreaking in every way", adding that the company expresses its "deepest sympathies" to victims and their families.

"Millions of people around the world enjoy video games without turning to horrific acts", the spokesman said.

The BBC has reached out to Meta, Daniel Defense and Activision for comment.

Daniel Defense, which is facing other lawsuits filed by some victims' families, said in a 2022 statement that such litigation was “frivolous” and “politically motivated”.

On Wednesday, families of the victims reached a $2m (£1.5m) settlement with the city of Uvalde.

More than 370 officers from various local, state and federal departments were at Robb Elementary during the attack.

It took police more than an hour to stop the gunman, who was barricaded inside adjoining classrooms.

Additionally, the families announced that they will be taking new legal action against 92 individual officers from the state's Department of Public Safety for "shocking and extensive failures" during the shooting response.