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Advocates welcome passage of bill to tackle environmental racism in Canada

Advocates say Canada’s first environmental justice law will help chart scale of problem, address negative health impact. Environmental and social justice advocates in Canada have welcomed a new bill that pledges to develop a national strategy to prevent and address the effects of environmental racism. In a statement on Friday, the Canadian Coalition for Environmental and Climate Justice (CCECJ) said passage of Bill C-226 this week would help communities better understand the scale of the problem and lay out strategies for how to tackle it. The bill passed a third reading in the Senate on Thursday and is now expected to achieve “royal assent”, the last step in the legislative process. “We know the stories about where and how environmental racism exists in Canada. The formal data on these realities is incomplete, and therefore, there is a lack of understanding about how real this problem is,” said Ingrid Waldron, CCECJ’s co-founder and co-director. “Data collection and analysis will be a critical starting point in the strategy required by the Environmental Justice Strategy Act. The consequences of inaction on environmental racism would be ongoing negative impacts on people’s health and wellbeing.” Environmental racism refers to the disproportionate siting of hazardous projects and polluting industries among populations of colour and Indigenous communities. Over the past decades, examples in Canada have included mercury poisoning in Grassy Narrows First Nation in northern Ontario, the building of major oil and gas pipelines on unceded, Indigenous lands, and the placement of landfills near historic African-Canadian communities on the east coast. I am pleased to share that the federal Environmental Racism/Justice private members bill (Bill C-226) was approved at Senate yesterday. It becomes the first environmental justice law in Canada. Statement from my organizations ENRICH and the CCECJhttps://t.co/pWN7z7NOMy — Dr. Ingrid Waldron (@ingrid_waldron) June 14, 2024 Advocates have spent years urging the Canadian government to take action on the issue, the effects of which continue to be felt in communities across the country. Janelle Nahmabin, of Aamjiwnaang First Nation in Ontario, told Al Jazeera in 2021 about how growing up in one of Canada’s most heavily industrialised areas – known as “Chemical Valley” – has affected her and her community. The pollution residents are exposed to every day has harmed their relationship with the land, she said, which in turn “disconnects Indigenous people from their culture, because the land is a part of our identity”. In 2020, a United Nations special rapporteur also found a “prevalence of discrimination in Canada’s laws and policies regarding hazardous substances and wastes is clear”. “There exists a pattern in Canada where marginalized groups, and Indigenous peoples in particular, find themselves on the wrong side of a toxic divide, subject to conditions that would not be acceptable elsewhere in Canada,” the expert said in a report (PDF) to the UN Human Rights Council. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals had promised in their 2021 party platform to pass legislation requiring the environment minister to “examine the link between race, socio-economic status, and exposure to environmental risk”. Trudeau’s government supported Bill C-226 on environmental racism, with Steven Guilbeault, the minister of environment and climate change, saying in February that “environmental protection should not change depending on who you are or where you live”. “Decision-making should ensure equal opportunity to all and avoid discriminating underrepresented groups. This national engagement will help us meaningfully and collectively reflect on environmental justice and racism,” Guilbeault said in a statement. Bill C-226 – put forward by Green Party leader Elizabeth May – requires the minister to “develop a national strategy to promote efforts across Canada to advance environmental justice and to assess, prevent and address environmental racism”. It also says the minister must work with interested parties, including Indigenous communities, and then submit a report to Canada’s Parliament within two years of the bill’s final passage, laying out the national strategy. “The passage of Bill C-226 represents a commitment to addressing the long-standing and deeply entrenched issue of environmental racism in Canada,” May of the Green Party said in a statement on Thursday. “This legislation is a testament to the power of collective action and the importance of ensuring that all voices, especially those of marginalized communities, are heard and respected in our environmental policies.” Adblock test (Why?)

Pope calls for ban on ‘lethal autonomous weapons’ at G7

Pope Francis spoke about the moral quandaries surrounding artificial intelligence in warfare, saying ‘no machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being’. Pope Francis called for a ban on “lethal autonomous weapons” in an address to the G7 leaders’ summit in Italy on the perils of artificial intelligence (AI). On Friday, the pontiff was the first head of the Roman Catholic Church to ever attend a Group of Seven meeting. “In light of the tragedy that is armed conflict, it is urgent to reconsider the development and use of devices like the so-called ‘lethal autonomous weapons’ and ultimately ban their use,” the pope said. “This starts from an effective and concrete commitment to introduce ever greater and proper human control. No machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being.” The G7 – which brings together Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States – said on Friday that AI “can play a crucial role in promoting progress and development in our societies”. “We recognise the impact of AI on the military domain and the need for a framework for responsible development and use,” the leaders said in a draft statement. Pope Francis, 87, who has suffered from mobility issues in recent years, arrived in Puglia by helicopter and was welcomed by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. He told the leaders gathered in the southern Italian region, “Artificial intelligence [is] at the same time an exciting and fearsome tool. We would condemn humanity to a future without hope if we took away people’s ability to make decisions about themselves and their lives, by dooming them to depend on the choices of machines.” The Argentinian pontiff was speaking after a series of bilateral meetings with leaders including Ukraine’s President Volodymr Zelenskyy, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In a statement on his social media platforms, Zelenskyy said he and Pope Francis talked about the upcoming summit on Ukraine on Saturday and Sunday. “We discussed the consequences of Russian aggression against Ukraine, Russian air terror and the difficult situation in the energy sector … and expectations from the Global Peace Summit,” Zelenskyy said. Adblock test (Why?)

US ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China’s COVID efforts: Report

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus, an investigation by the Reuters news agency has found. Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military’s propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vaccination campaign, Reuters reported in a story released on Friday. Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines – China’s Sinovac inoculation. The clandestine operation has not been previously reported. It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, the Reuters investigation found. It identified at least 300 accounts on X, formerly Twitter, that matched descriptions shared by former US military officials familiar with the operation. Almost all were created in the middle of 2020 and centred on the slogan #Chinaangvirus – Tagalog for “China is the virus.” “COVID came from China and the VACCINE also came from China, don’t trust China!” one typical tweet from July 2020 read. The words were posted next to a photo of a syringe beside a Chinese flag and a soaring chart of infections. Another post read: “From China – PPE, Face Mask, Vaccine: FAKE. But the Coronavirus is real.” After Reuters asked X about the accounts, the social media company removed the profiles, determining they were part of a coordinated bot campaign based on activity patterns and internal data. [embedded content] The US military’s anti-vax effort began in the spring of 2020 and expanded beyond Southeast Asia before it was terminated in mid-2021. The Pentagon tailored the campaign to local audiences across Central Asia and the Middle East using a combination of fake social media accounts on multiple platforms to spread fear of China’s vaccines among Muslims at a time when the virus was killing tens of thousands of people each day. A key part of the strategy: amplify the disputed contention that, because vaccines sometimes contain pork gelatin, China’s shots could be considered forbidden under Islamic law. The military programme started under former President Donald Trump and continued months into Joe Biden’s presidency – even after alarmed social media executives warned the new administration that the Pentagon had been trafficking in COVID misinformation, Reuters said. The Biden White House issued an edict in spring 2021 banning the anti-vax effort, which also disparaged vaccines produced by other rivals, and the Pentagon initiated an internal review. Spokespeople for Trump and Biden did not respond to requests for comment about the clandestine programme, Reuters reported. A senior Department of Defense official acknowledged the US military engaged in secret propaganda to disparage China’s vaccine in the developing world, but the unnamed official declined to provide details. A Pentagon spokeswoman said the US military “uses a variety of platforms, including social media, to counter those malign influence attacks aimed at the US, allies and partners”. She alleged China started a “disinformation campaign to falsely blame the United States for the spread of COVID-19”. ‘Dismayed, disappointed, disillusioned’ In an email, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it has long maintained the US government manipulates social media and spreads misinformation. A spokesperson for the Philippines Department of Health said the “findings by Reuters deserve to be investigated and heard by the appropriate authorities of the involved countries”. Some American public health experts condemned the Pentagon programme, saying it put civilians in jeopardy for potential geopolitical gain. “I don’t think it’s defensible,” said Daniel Lucey, an infectious disease specialist at Dartmouth College’s Geisel School of Medicine. “I’m extremely dismayed, disappointed and disillusioned to hear that the US government would do that.” The effort to stoke fear about Chinese inoculations risked undermining overall public trust in government health initiatives, including US-made vaccines that became available later, Lucey and others said. Although the Chinese vaccines were found to be less effective than the American-led shots by Pfizer and Moderna, all were approved by the World Health Organization. Sinovac did not respond to a request for comment. “It should have been in our interest to get as much vaccine in people’s arms as possible,” said Greg Treverton, former chairman of the US National Intelligence Council, which coordinates the analysis and strategy of Washington’s many spy agencies. What the Pentagon did, Treverton said, “crosses a line”. Adblock test (Why?)

Supreme Court overturns federal bump stock ban, siding with Austin gun dealer

Michael Cargill, owner of Central Texas Gun Works, sued over the ban. The U.S. Supreme Court sided with him in a 6-3 decision Friday.

House Democratic leader declares Justice Alito ‘an insurrectionist sympathizer’ amid flag fracas

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., declared Bush-appointed Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito an “insurrectionist sympathizer” while also condmening Justice Clarence Thomas in comments to Fox News on Friday. Jeffries’ barb comes as Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann, continue to be under fire for previously flying the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, which features a pine tree on a white background.  The flag became associated with the January 6, 2021 Capitol protests after some protesters who broke into the complex carried the banner around, in an apparent throwback to its Colonial significance. The flag itself dates back to the American Revolution when it was notably utilized in a maritime fashion by Continental Army ships in the 1770s. The pine tree is a symbol of the state of Maine as well as the state tree, while the “appeal to heaven” caption describes the hopes of colonists that God would deliver them from British tyranny. ALITO’S WIFE DISPLAYED UPSIDE DOWN FLAG AFTER ARGUMENT WITH INSULTING NEIGHBOR When asked about criticisms of Justices Alito and Clarence Thomas, Jeffries told Fox News’ Chad Pergram that, “the American people almost uniformly agree that the right-wing justices on the Supreme Court are completely and totally out of control.” “It appears that Justice Alito is an insurrectionist-sympathizer, joined by his right-wing buddy Clarence Thomas,” Jeffries said, as Democrats often utilize the term to describe those involved in the protests, as well as former President Trump. Jeffries called the meeting between Trump and Republicans on Capitol Hill “shameful and an embarrassment that [they] wanted to welcome the insurrectionist-in-chief back as a conquering hero.” Jeffries also commented that the high bench cannot police itself when it comes to ethics and that there have been significantly more “aggressively partisan, right wing, extreme decisions” since Trump nominated a trio of justices. JUSTICE ALITO WARNS COLLEGE STUDENTS THAT ‘SUPPORT FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS DECLINING’  “[T]his is why Democrats after the fall of 2022 are winning… and overperforming.” In May, Alito responded to criticisms of the Appeal to Heaven flag having flown at his Alexandria, Va. home in the wake of the Capitol protests by telling Fox News that his wife displayed it for an unrelated reason. Alito claimed Martha-Ann had placed it in response to insults directed at her from a neighbor, saying the situation started when the neighbor posted a “F— Trump” sign very close to a school bus stop. In a recent letter responding to demands from Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Dick Durbin of Illinois that he recuse himself from Trump v. United States and any cases pertaining to January 6, Alito strenuously rejected their demand. “[Martha-Ann] did not fly it to associate herself with that or any other group and the use of an old historic flag by a new group does not necessarily drain that flag of all other meanings,” Alito wrote. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “A reasonable person who is not motivated by political or ideological considerations or a desire to affect Supreme Court cases would conclude that this event does not meet the applicable standard for recusal. I am therefore duty-bound to reject your recusal request,” he added. Fox News’ Shannon Bream contributed to this report.

Lawmakers push Biden admin to pay more attention to northern border threats

FIRST ON FOX: House Republicans are moving to bolster security along the northern border as the U.S.-Canada line becomes more of a concern for illegal immigration hawks. Rep. Nick Langworthy, R-N.Y., is leading a new bill that would require the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to conduct a yearly threat assessment of the northern border. It would also direct DHS to update its northern border enforcement strategy within 90 days of the threat assessment’s release. The Biden administration has been grappling with a crisis at the southern border for much of the president’s term. NYC MIGRANT SQUATTERS FOUND WITH DRUGS AND GUNS WERE PREVIOUSLY CAUGHT AT SOUTHERN BORDER AND RELEASED: ICE Recent months have seen the U.S.-Canada border become a growing problem as well, though it is equipped with far fewer resources to deal with it. There were 2,019 Customs and Border Patrol agents patrolling the northern border in fiscal year 2020 compared to 16,878 at the southern border. The northern border also saw over 150,000 fewer encounters than the southern border at the time, but the figure has more than quadrupled since then. The first seven months of fiscal year 2024 saw 9,460 people apprehended at the northern border, nearly twice the 4,849 people apprehended for all the previous fiscal year, according to figures provided by Langworthy’s office. Langworthy’s bill currently has 13 co-sponsors, including fellow Republicans from northern border states. CARTELS USING DRONES TO SMUGGLE DRUGS ACROSS BORDER, FORMER DEA OFFICIAL WARNS “I’ve personally met with Border Patrol agents in New York and witnessed their struggle firsthand — they are severely under-supported and left to face this crisis with limited resources,” he told Fox News Digital. “This legislation is not just a necessity; it’s a demand for more transparency from the Biden administration as it comes to the safety and sovereignty of our nation.” Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., a co-sponsor who has a modest part of the border in her district, said, “Since President Biden took office, there has been an unprecedented surge in illegal crossings at our northern border, including an 846% increase across a single sector, threatening our national security and the safety of communities across NY-24.” “President Biden has let our southern border completely crumble, and because of that, our northern border is now being targeted,” said Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich. Democrats, in turn, have blamed Republicans for further fueling the border crisis by refusing a bipartisan border and immigration policy overhaul earlier this year. GOP lawmakers had said the legislation was not sufficient for the scope of the problem. EMBATTLED BIDEN BORDER ORDER LOADED WITH LOOPHOLES ‘TO DRIVE A TRUCK THROUGH’: CRITICS The White House said in a recent statement announcing new executive actions on the southern border, “Republicans in Congress chose to put partisan politics ahead of our national security, twice voting against the toughest and fairest set of reforms in decades.” Fox News Digital reached out to DHS and the White House for comment on Langworthy’s bill.

Trump’s campaign says Supreme Court’s decision striking down his admin’s bump stock rule ‘should be respected’

The campaign for former President Donald Trump reacted to the Supreme Court’s decision Thursday striking down a Trump-era ban on a firearm accessory known as a “bump stock.”  “The Court has spoken and their decision should be respected,” said Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt in a statement.  “President Trump has been and always will be a fierce defender of Americans’ Second Amendment rights and he is proud to be endorsed by the NRA. During a time when our border is open to terrorists and criminals, and migrant crime is on the rise, the right to keep and bear arms has never been more critical, and Joe Biden wants to take that right away from law-abiding Americans. President Trump won’t let that happen,” Leavitt said. In a 6-3 decision, the high court’s majority said that a bump stock does not transform a firearm into a machine gun and that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) “exceeded its statutory authority” by issuing the rule.  SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN FEDERAL BAN ON BUMP STOCKS A bump stock is an attachment that replaces a semi-automatic weapon’s standard stock, the part of the long weapon that rests on the shoulder. As the shooter applies forward thrust on the barrel, the device harnesses the recoil energy so that the trigger will “bump” against the stationary finger, which then allows another round to be fired. The effect is more rapid shots than with a standard stock. The high court’s majority found that the statutory definition of a “machinegun” is any weapon capable of firing “automatically more than one shot . . . by a single function of the trigger.”  “Congress has long restricted access to “‘machinegun[s],’” a category of firearms defined by the ability to “shoot, automatically more than one shot . . . by a single function of the trigger,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority. TEXAS GUN STORE OWNER SAYS SUPREME COURT SHOULD LIMIT GOVERNMENT ‘POWER’ IN ‘BUMP STOCK’ BAN CASE “Semiautomatic firearms, which require shooters to reengage the trigger for every shot, are not machineguns. This case asks whether a bump stock—an accessory for a semi-automatic rifle that allows the shooter to rapidly reengage the trigger (and therefore achieve a high rate of fire)—converts the rifle into a ‘machinegun.’ We hold that it does not,” he said.  After a 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas that left 60 people dead and 500 more wounded, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) issued an interpretive rule concluding that “bump stocks” are machine guns. “This tragedy created tremendous political pressure to outlaw bump stocks nationwide. Within days, Members of Congress proposed bills to ban bump stocks and other devices ‘designed to accelerate the rate of fire of a semiautomatic rifle,’” Thomas wrote in Thursday’s opinion. The Trump administration initiated a ban on the devices — reversing earlier regulations — and President Biden’s Justice Department defended it in court.  Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the majority saying, “the Court puts bump stocks back in civilian hands. To do so, it casts aside Congress’s definition of ‘machinegun’ and seizes upon one that is inconsistent with the ordinary meaning of the statutory text and unsupported by context or purpose.” TRUMP DEMANDS BIDEN ‘DRUG TEST,’ RIPS ‘RADICAL’ RFK JR. IN BID TO ‘REBELLIOUS BUNCH’ AT NRA “When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck. A bump-stock-equipped semiautomatic rifle fires ‘automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. Because I, like Congress, call that a machinegun, I respectfully dissent,” Sotomayor wrote.  Michael Cargill, owner of Central Texas Gun Works, sued the government after he was forced to surrender several “bump stocks” under the ATF’s rule. He argued that the agency had overstepped its administrative authority to impose a ban, absent any congressional action. “Over five years ago I swore I would defend the Constitution of the United States, even if I was the only plaintiff in the case. I did just that,” Cargill, an Army veteran, said Friday.  CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Trump spoke at the National Rifle Association’s Annual Meeting in Texas last month, thanking the “great patriots” for the endorsements, but reprimanded the “rebellious bunch” for not voting. “But one thing I’ll say, and I say it as friends, we’ve got to get gun owners to vote, because you know what? I don’t know what it is. Perhaps it’s a form of rebellion, because you’re a rebellious people, aren’t you?,” Trump said. “But gun owners don’t vote. What is that all about?” “If gun owners would vote, we would swamp them at levels that nobody’s ever seen before,” he said. “So, I think you’re a rebellious bunch. So let’s be rebellious and vote this time.”

Top Dem Senate candidate diverted millions from police during crime surge to fund mental health facility

FIRST ON FOX: The Democrat running in one of this year’s top Senate races previously diverted millions of dollars from law enforcement to fund a mental health facility despite an ongoing surge in crime. Prince George’s County executive Angela Alsobrooks, who is running to replace retiring Democrat Sen. Ben Cardin in Maryland, announced in June 2020 that $20 million in the county budget already set aside for a new police training facility would instead be used to treat mental health and addiction. Alsobrooks argued during her announcement concerning the reallocation that a third of inmates at Prince George’s County jails had mental illnesses, such as addiction, and that it was “unjust” to treat them in jail, Maryland Matters reported at the time. EXPERTS PREDICT INFLATION ELECTION TROUBLE FOR BIDEN: ‘TOO LATE’ TO FIX The reallocation came amid a wave of nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd while in police custody, which led to increased calls for defunding police by Democrats and left-wing activists. Violent crime also surged that year, including a historic 30% nationwide increase in the murder rate from the previous year, according to FBI statistics. Those statistics were similar when taking into account just Prince George’s County, which saw a 16% increase in overall violent crime from 2019 to 2020, as well as a 58% increase in reported homicides, a 19% increase in reported robberies and a 15% increase in reported aggravated assaults, all according to FBI statistics. The county did experience a small drop in property crime from 2019-2020. Alsobrooks double-downed on the decision to divert the money years later during a fireside chat with Ebenezer AME Church, despite the increases in crime seen across her county. TRUMP RALLY DRAWS SWING STATE VOTERS ANGRY OVER ‘SHAM’ CONVICTION: ‘BIGGEST SCAM EVER’ “And so one of the things that we’ve done during our administration is, I decided that we were going to reallocate $20 million away from a police training facility. Now, we still have a training facility, but this one was going to be very expensive. And I have decided that you can’t heal people in jail,” Alsobrooks said in the January 2022 interview. “I have reallocated, with the support of the County Council who had to vote to approve it — and it was also on your ballot in 2020. You had to approve it as well — but we instead have reallocated $20 million. And we are now opening the doors to a new mental health care and addictions care facility that will be opening the doors this July, in partnership with luminous health care, so that we can actually heal our loved ones and not treat them in jail.”  Gina Ford, a spokesperson for Alsobrooks, told Fox News Digital, “As the chief law enforcement official, Angela Alsobrooks oversaw a 50% decrease in violent crime. And as County Executive, Angela has increased the police department’s budget by 22% over her tenure.” BIDEN CAMP JABS AT TRUMP’S ‘FAILED’ BUSINESS RECORD AS FORMER PRESIDENT LOOKS TO SWAY NATION’S TOP CEOs Ford’s reference to a decrease in violent crime came during Alsbobrooks’ time serving as the state attorney for Prince George’s County from 2011 to 2018, when violent crime did indeed see a 50% drop. Since becoming country executive in 2018, however, violent crime in the county has increased 30% through 2022, according to FBI statistics. Alsobrooks will face former Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan in the November general election. Elections analysts rate the race as “likely Democratic,” although Hogan could keep the race competitive considering his high approval rating upon leaving office in 2023 despite leading a traditionally deep-blue state. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Texas Supreme Court rejects case that could have imperiled IVF access

The justices allowed a lower court’s opinion to stand, and, for now, sidestepped the question of whether a frozen embryo has the same rights as a living child.

Varanasi to Howrah in 6 hours: Check stations, route, maximum speed to be…

This development is expected to significantly improve travel efficiency and convenience between these two cities, making the journey faster and more comfortable for passengers