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Texas high school students walk out in protest of district's transgender policies

Students at a northern Texas high school on Friday staged a walkout to protest a slate of new policies adopted by their school district this week that restrict educators’ ability to teach lessons about race, gender identity and sexual orientation.

Grapevine High School students walked out of their classrooms during third period on Friday afternoon, waving a large Progress Pride flag and carrying poster board signs with phrases like “Equality in education for all!” and “You can’t erase history.”

On Monday, trustees of the Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District (GCISD) approved a set of controversial policies that prevent teachers of students younger than the fifth grade from engaging in classroom instruction related to sexual orientation, gender identity and race, including lessons about critical race theory and other “systemic discrimination ideologies.”

The policies also enable school district personnel to misgender transgender students – even if the student’s parents request that their child be identified using a different name or pronouns – and prohibits transgender students from using facilities like restrooms or locker rooms consistent with their gender identity.

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“These policies are a reflection of Texas law and community values,” GCISD Trustee President Casey Ford said Monday, the Dallas Morning News reported.

Students at Grapevine High School, one of 21 schools in the district, on Monday said they disagreed with Ford and the three other trustees that had voted to adopt the new policies. 

“Protect trans kids!,” Grapevine students chanted during the walkout. 

Police attending the demonstration did not allow visitors or media on campus, according to the Dallas Morning News, but a small crowd of parents and supporters gathered on the sidewalk outside the school.

Under the new policies, library books considered “pervasively vulgar” or “obscene” or that promote subject matter that has been prohibited by law or the school district may be placed in a separate “parental consent area.”

Trustees, who now hold a conservative majority in Grapevine-Colleyville, under the policy changes are also able to review and challenge library materials more easily.

Challenged titles that, after an official review, are deemed appropriate for students will not be reconsidered for removal for at least a year, while books that are removed will not be reshelved for at least 10 years. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas called the changes “draconian.”

Texas Republicans, meanwhile, have rallied around the new policies.

“Grapevine-Colleyville ISD is the ONLY school district in the state that has passed a policy relating to CRT, real pronouns, bathroom access, and removing porn from libraries,” reads a state GOP fundraiser on WinRed, a fundraising platform endorsed by the Republican National Committee.

Donors are encouraged to help bring “common sense back” to classrooms in each of the state’s more than 1,000 public school districts.

Source: TEST FEED1

Shallowfakes are rampant: Tools to spot them must be equally accessible

Deepfakes had a moment this year: From a fairly obvious deepfake of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on hacked media in Ukraine to more proficient video scams involving Elon Musk and potentially spurious claims of deepfakes obscuring the truth from Pakistan to mayors’ offices across Europe. 

Hundreds of articles have focused on these and hypothetical deepfake scenarios and what they mean for the future of video and trust. But despite all this attention, shallowfakes — videos shared with misleading contexts or small edits — are far more widespread and easier to produce. Tackling the scourge of shallowfakes will set us in good stead in a number of ways. It will solve a pressing issue the public faces today. And it will provide a powerful set of tools for addressing more complex synthetic media manipulation like deepfakes. 

Shallowfakes can muddy the waters by casting doubt on urgent, authentic videos or by misdirecting attention by promoting false narratives. In conflict zones or during civil unrest, addressing these videos can mean the difference between life and death. It can be the difference between securing justice and enough reasonable doubt to prevent action. Poynter noted the explosion of this kind of shallowfake on TikTok during the early stages of the war in Ukraine, and we’ve seen countless more examples from the U.S. and from countries around the world. 

Luckily, we don’t need to implement complex new processes to tackle shallowfakes. Centrally this is a question of media literacy — how do you enable people to do the ‘lateral reading’ around a video or image they encounter in order to identify that it has been decontextualized or that there are better sources of information? However, there are also concrete, yet underresourced ways to help a media consumer verify whether a piece of video or an image has been shared with misleading context. 

Most journalists know how to use a reverse image search (or keyframe search for video) to see where the first instance of a piece of content is, and to see where it pops up over time. It is standard practice, and yet it is not something that is broadly accessible to ordinary people on the platforms they use most. TikTok doesn’t offer it as individuals look at videos on their “For You” pages and Facebook and Twitter don’t offer it as users browse their timelines — neither does YouTube as people watch video after video. On Google, it is inadequate where it is found offered directly for consumers: in Google Lens and embedded in Google Images, where it is oriented towards shopping queries, not confronting hoaxes and deception. 

This is something we’ve heard our partners on the ground ask for again and again in the global consultations we’ve led on dealing with media manipulation. If we could only ensure that there was equitable, intuitive access to simple verification tools like reverse image and video search — both within individual platforms and across platforms, as falsehoods don’t know platform borders — ordinary people and human rights defenders alike would be in a much stronger position to tackle the next wave of shallowfakes. 

At the same time, the fact that a simple reverse image search remains inaccessible highlights how we are going to have to approach this from a standpoint of equity. We need to approach this issue from the perspective of global human rights orientation, rather than applying a Western first or Silicon Valley-led approach. We see this bias manifest in a number of ways, including an overreliance on centralized authority and legislative or regulatory solutions, as well as in assumptions that social media platforms are able or willing to act globally in contextually appropriate ways to understand and respond to misinformation. This belies the state of affairs in much of the world, (including the Western world) where those in power have active interests in leveraging shallowfakes and the liar’s dividend, and where platforms have systematically underinvested in content moderation. 

On the flip side, we need to preserve creative expression and recognize the continued use of satire and creative expression to work around repressive regimes. We also need to ensure that our approach doesn’t discount people who don’t have access to the “right” technologies, whether that is a specific app or just a smartphone. These tools need to be ubiquitous and in the platforms that we all use, just like the tools used to create shallowfakes.

Ensuring that communities around the world can access and intuitively use detection tools is the heart of what an equitable approach to detection should look like. It also lays the groundwork for much more daunting challenges to come — deepfakes and AI-generated photorealistic images among them. 

It may surprise some to learn that we actually have a burgeoning set of technologies to track the transformations of manipulated media. My company, WITNESS, has been deeply involved in several such efforts, including the standard-setting work of the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, originally convened by Microsoft, Adobe, Twitter, the BBC and others. These technologies hold promise if they are built and used with attention to these global contexts: incorporating privacy, having broad accessibility, being opt-in and not using harmful legislative approaches. And there is increasing investment in the technical tools to detect deepfakes in cases where these authenticity trails are not embedded in the media. But if we can’t manage to make these emerging tools available for those who need them most, and intuitive to use, we can never hope to address the coming wave of disinformation. 

It is hard to overstate the value of and potential for justice that civilian witnesses and democratized access to video provides. It’s critical that we prioritize equitable access to simple, easy-to-use methods of authenticity detection if we want to continue advancing the fight for human rights and justice and fortify the truth. 

Sam Gregory is the director of programs, strategy and innovation of WITNESS, a human rights organization with global experience working on how people in crisis ensure their videos are trustworthy and more evidentiary, and an expert on deepfakes and responses to new forms of media manipulation.

Source: TEST FEED1

Energy secretary calls on US refiners to limit exports ahead of hurricane season

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm called on major U.S. oil refiners to build up capacity and reduce exports of refined products ahead of the winter in a letter shared with The Hill. 

In the letter, written last week, Granholm noted the reduced availability of diesel inventories along the East Coast, which are nearly 50 percent below the five-year average. Refined product exports are at a record high.

A likely above-average hurricane season, followed shortly by the winter heating season, is likely to compound demand in the northeast.  

“Given the historic level of U.S. refined product exports, I again urge you to focus in the near term on building inventories in the United States, rather than selling down current stocks and further increasing exports,” Granholm wrote, saying that such a buildup would be an alternative to emergency measures such as releases from the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve. 

The letter was reported first by The Wall Street Journal. The paper accused Granholm in a Wednesday editorial of attempting to strong-arm the energy industry and abandoning European nations weaning themselves off Russian imports. 

An Energy Department official sharply disputed this characterization, saying “as we get closer and closer to peak hurricane season right now, and we’re running our internal models, we are calling on [the industry] to be more proactive.” 

“We understand that they do have plans in place for their refineries and getting them back up and running,” the official added, “but we also want them as they’re increasing their exports to also look at the bigger picture … and making sure they’re making the right decisions to ensure there’s physical supply for American consumers and our allies.” 

The official cited another letter, also shared with The Hill, to Granholm from the six New England governors urging action ahead of the winter.

The governors asked the department to aid in modernizing New England’s energy reserves, as well as considering suspending the Jones Act, which restricts delivery of U.S.-exported liquefied natural gas into the region. 

In a statement to The Hill, American Petroleum Institute President Mike Sommers said: “History has shown that federal market intervention has long-term negative consequences for secure, reliable and affordable energy for Americans and the best path to build redundancies for unprecedented events, including hurricanes or global turmoil, is to increase access to American energy.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Affidavit suggests 'some of our most sensitive intelligence' mishandled: Senate Intel chair

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) on Friday said the redacted FBI affidavit used to justify a search warrant on former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence suggests that some of the country’s “most sensitive intelligence” was mishandled.

The heavily-redacted affidavit — which was made public on Friday after a judge ordered it to be unsealed the day before — revealed that 184 classified documents were found at Trump’s Florida residence in the first review of boxes recovered by the National Archives.

“It appears, based on the affidavit unsealed this morning, that among the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago were some of our most sensitive intelligence – which is one reason the Senate Intelligence Committee has requested, on a bipartisan basis, a damage assessment of any national security threat posed by the mishandling of this information,” Warner wrote in a statement on Friday, shortly after the affidavit was unsealed.

“The Department of Justice investigation must be allowed to proceed without interference,” he added.

Of the 184 documents recovered by the National Archives in January, 92 were marked as “SECRET” and 25 were marked “TOP SECRET.” Some of the top secret documents included information from “clandestine human sources,” which is information that cannot be shared with foreign governments, and from monitoring “foreign communications signals.”

The National Archives recovered a total of 15 boxes from Mar-a-Lago in January. The affidavit said authorities believed “evidence, contraband, fruits of crime or other items illegally possessed” still remained at Mar-a-Lago after the first tranche of documents were recovered in January.

The FBI ultimately executed a search warrant on the Florida residence earlier this month. An inventory list released after the search revealed that 11 sets of classified documents were recovered by the FBI, as well as information about “the president of France” and a pardon received by Trump ally Roger Stone.

Warner and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, penned a letter to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and Attorney General Merrick Garland earlier this month asking for details about the classified documents that were recovered in the search, in addition to an assessment of national security risks that were potentially triggered by the mishandling of documents, a Senate aide confirmed to The Hill on Friday.

“The Senate Intelligence Committee is charged with overseeing counterintelligence matters, including the handling and mishandling of classified information, which appears to be at the core of the search of Mar a Lago,” the aide said in a statement.

The letter was first reported by Axios.

Source: TEST FEED1

Successfully fighting climate change requires the support of both parties

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 contains Congress’s largest investment to date to deal with climate change. It passed without a single Republican vote. Before this, Congress’s most significant effort was in 2009 with enactment of ARRA (The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) during the first month of President Obama’s first term. No House Republican voted for the ARRA, and only three Republican senators did.

It wasn’t always this way.

When climate change first appeared on the national agenda the commitment to deal with it was bipartisan. At the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, President George H. W. Bush stated the U.S. position: “Let me be clear on one fundamental point. The United States fully intends to be the world’s preeminent leader in protecting the global environment. We have been that for many years. We will remain so.”

Before 2010, some Republican members of Congress provided leadership to deal with climate change. In 2003, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), with Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), took the lead in introducing the first major bill on the issue in the Senate. In 2007, three Republicans (Ted Stevens of Alaska, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania), joined me and three other Democrats in introducing the Low Carbon Economy Act. It proposed to set up a cap-and-trade system, but without all the complexity included in the House-passed bill. 

But opposition to dealing with climate change became a litmus test for Republicans seeking their party’s nomination in the 2010 midterm election campaigns. In June 2009, the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill passed in the Democratic-controlled House. To defeat the legislation, the Koch brothers, through Americans for Prosperity, worked with others from the fossil fuel industry to galvanize members of the tea party to oppose the bill. They succeeded. The bill died in the Senate in the face of a threatened Republican-led filibuster.

Since 2010, congressional Republicans have prevented enactment of significant legislation on the issue. President Trump’s strong opposition reinforced Republican opposition in Congress. 

In the 12 years since the Republican Party made climate change a political issue, the scientific evidence of climate change has become overwhelming. The real world evidence is also too obvious to ignore: record high temperatures, long-term drought in the southwest, increased frequency of forest and grassland fires, and historic flooding in coastal areas and even in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) home state.

Yet Republicans still feel no responsibility to address the issue.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) deserve great credit for developing the Inflation Reduction Act, and securing its passage. Now, in 2022, Democrats have finally managed to make progress, but they have had to do so without the help of a single Republican in either house of Congress.

Much more needs to be done. In Congress Democrats should not be the only ones committed to protecting the global environment. Until Republicans also are willing to support constructive policies to address climate change, our efforts to reduce emissions to stabilize the climate will continue to fall short.       

Jeff Bingaman served as a United States Senator from New Mexico from 1983 to 2013, for 5 terms, and is a former chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. His book, “BREAKDOWN, Lessons for a Congress in Crisis,” will be published in October by High Road Books.

Source: TEST FEED1

Black man convicted for rape 36 years ago as teenager exonerated

A Louisiana man has been cleared of rape charges he was wrongfully convicted for as a teenager over 30 years ago.  

On Thursday, Sullivan Walter, who is now 53, was released from prison after a state district judge dismissed his conviction for a rape that occurred in 1986, according to the Associated Press. 

Walter was arrested when he was 17 years old in connection with a rape in New Orleans, where an attacker entered the home of a woman and raped her while holding a knife to her throat and threatening to hurt her then 8-year-old son, according to the outlet.  

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Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams’ office worked with defense attorneys from the Innocence Project New Orleans, a nonprofit focused on freeing the wrongfully convicted or those serving unjust sentences, to have the conviction vacated.  

Attorneys argued that the only eyewitness to the attack, the victim, could have misidentified Walter. 

“There were some red flags that the eyewitness testimony could well have been unreliable,” Emily Maw, an attorney at the DA’s office told the AP.  

Filings from the DA’s office and the Innocence Project list several errors in Walter’s case, like years’ worth of mistakes made by Walter’s previous attorneys and no match between Walter’s blood and semen taken from the victim, the outlet added.  

Judge Darryl Derbigny, who vacated the case, called the failure to present the blood and semen evidence that could have proved Walter’s innocence, as “unconscionable” to say the least.  

Source: TEST FEED1

Sanders has highest favorability among possible 2024 contenders: poll

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) clocked in with the highest favorability rating among a list of 23 potential 2024 presidential contenders, according to a new USA Today-Ipsos poll.

Forty-six percent of respondents said they had at least a somewhat favorable view toward Sanders, while 41 percent said they had an unfavorable opinion.

President Biden had the second-highest favorability rating at 43 percent, although his unfavorability rating was notably higher than Sanders’s, with 52 percent of those surveyed saying they had an unfavorable opinion of the president. Former President Trump clocked in with the same ratings as Biden.

The three political figures were followed in the poll by other well-known potential candidates, while possible contenders with a smaller national profile were seen as unfamiliar by most voters.

Vice President Harris and former Vice President Mike Pence both received favorable ratings from at least 40 percent of respondents, earning the third- and fourth-highest figures among the candidates, respectively.

Among Democrats, Biden received the highest favorability rating, with 82 percent of Democratic voters indicating a positive view of the sitting president. Just 11 percent of Republicans indicated a favorable view of Biden.

Biden and his aides insist he plans to run for a second term in 2024 if his health allows, although some Democrats have dodged questions about supporting Biden’s reelection bid amid his low approval numbers. 

When asked, many of those Democrats say they are focused on this year’s midterm elections. But some figures dodging questions include those who could potentially mount their own White House bid in 2024.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) declined in June to say if she would be endorsing Biden in 2024 during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” she said. “But I think if the president has a vision, and that’s something certainly we’re all willing to entertain and examine when the time comes.”

Ocasio-Cortez’s favorability rating in the poll was in the middle of the pack, ranking No. 11 among those of the 23 polled candidates.

Thirty-three percent of voters surveyed said they had a favorable view of Ocasio-Cortez, while 38 percent indicated an unfavorable view.

The poll found the progressive lawmaker had the lowest favorability rating among Republicans, with 10 percent of GOP respondents giving her a favorable rating, 1 percentage point lower than Biden and Harris.

Trump received the highest favorability rating among Republicans — 81 percent — according to the poll. The former president was followed by Pence and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who were viewed favorably by 69 percent and 68 percent of Republican voters, respectively.

A group of moderate Republican governors included in the poll, like Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, saw lower favorability ratings. 

But the vast majority of respondents also indicated they were unfamiliar with the two governors, while higher-profile figures like Trump and Pence were known by most voters polled.

The poll was conducted Aug. 18-22 through online interviews with 2,345 U.S. adults. The margin of error is 2.5 percentage points.

Source: TEST FEED1

Dow drops 750 points following Powell speech at Jackson Hole

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 750 points Friday following comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell that the Fed will press forward with raising interest rates while inflation lingers. 

Powell gave a keynote address at the Fed’s annual policy summit in Jackson Hole, Wyo., saying that the central bank would be willing to take “forceful and rapid” steps to address inflation even if it means potentially higher unemployment rates and a recession. 

The Nasdaq composite also dropped more than 400 points, and the S&P 500 dropped by more than 100 points. 

The Bureau of Economic Analysis revealed on Friday that inflation slowed to 6.3 percent in July from exactly a year ago. This figure is down from the 6.8 percent annual inflation rate that was reported in June. 

But the Fed’s goal is to get inflation down to 2 percent, and Powell said the drop from last month is “far short” of what the Fed needs to see before it can be confident that inflation is dropping. 

The Fed has already raised interest rates from a range of 0 to 0.25 percent in March to 2.25 to 2.5 percent in July. This included two consecutive increases of 0.75 percentage points, the largest monthly increases in almost 30 years. 

Higher interest rates can restrain economic growth by making borrowing money more expensive and slowing consumer spending. 

Powell said the Fed’s decision on how much to raise interest rates next month will be based on the data it receives.

Source: TEST FEED1

DNC rolls out new ad on abortion access as trigger bans take effect

The Democratic National Committee rolled out a digital ad buy in four states hitting Republicans on abortion following bans on the procedure going into effect in Idaho, Texas, and Tennessee. 

The five-figure ad buy, which was first reported on by The Hill, is slated to run in Nevada, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Colorado. The spots will air on video mediums on seen on platforms like YouTube and Facebook. 

The spots highlight efforts to restrict abortion. One fifteen-second clip ends with the caption “your state could be next.” 

“Democrats will continue to remind voters that if Republicans gain power this November, they will go even further than overturning Roe and work to take away the freedom for millions more women to make their own health care decisions,” DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison said in a statement to The Hill. 

The ads the latest Democratic effort to zero in on the issue of abortion access as midterm campaigns shift toward general election messaging. On Thursday, Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke rolled out his first general election ads of the cycle, choosing to focus on abortion access. 

Democrats have been more aggressively messaging on the issue since Kansas voters rejected a ballot measure earlier this month that would give the state legislature the authority to ban abortion. On Tuesday, Democrat Pat Ryan defied expectations in the special election for New York’s 19th Congressional District, winning the election after centering his message on abortion. 

Source: TEST FEED1

The loss of Roe complicates Biden’s plan for safer pregnancies

Climate change, deficit reduction and Medicare reform were the headline achievements of President Biden’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act which the president has called “one of the most significant laws in our history.” Many experts say it will play a significant role in addressing a number of important health and environmental matters facing the nation that have been neglected for far too long. 

Passage of this law now brings renewed hope to Biden’s broader legislative agenda, especially in the field of public health. Part of that push involves an effort by the administration to tackle an issue that for years has disproportionately affected women, especially those of color: maternal mortality. Biden should be commended for focusing energy and federal resources to address it — but timing is everything, as they say, and Biden’s attempt to improve maternal health in America could not have come at a worse moment.

The Biden administration recently released a 70-page plan to improve access to health care and address the health disparities of women of color across the country.  Among its many provisions, the plan seeks to expand the number of health care providers, improve coverage of high-quality care and provide greater social service support for women. 

“We imagine a future where every person in this country can have a safe, dignified pregnancy and birth,” the report states, “and where equitable access to health care before, during and after pregnancy is assured.”

If you thought maternal mortality has declined in recent years thanks to advancements in modern medicine, think again. A Century Foundation analysis of 2020 data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that maternal mortality is climbing in the United States, outpacing our closest industrialized nation (France) by nearly threefold. Black women are three times as likely to die from maternal-related issues as white women, and Hispanic women experienced a 44 percent spike in maternal mortality from 2019-2020.  

It’s a growing crisis that has demanded attention for decades. But because of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs Wade, the problem is all but certain to continue despite Biden’s ambition to fix it. 

That’s because the availability of women’s health care professionals, which is already declining across the country, is expected to drop significantly in states that have enacted laws to ban abortion in the wake of the court’s decision. Nearly half of the OBGYN workforce resides in states that are restricting abortion, and many young OBGYNs are considering leaving to practice in states where abortion rights remain. This will only amplify the current shortage of women’s health care providers and hinder access to family planning, prenatal and postpartum health services and care for women in half the states across America — the very people Biden’s maternal health initiative seeks to help.  

There is a sad irony to it all; just when we finally see leadership from the White House confront a climbing public health threat that has disproportionately impacted women of color for years, the fallout from a politicized Supreme Court decision will make it infinitely more difficult to accomplish. What’s more, any future court action that seeks to advance Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ desire to overturn contraceptive access would make the current problem even worse.  

If the White House is committed to reversing the widening maternal mortality rate, it must first lead a federal legislative effort to protect contraceptive access and abortion rights. The U.S. House has moved to codify both rights — now the U.S. Senate must act and do the same. Biden must also designate funding and develop an operational plan to execute his 70-page initiative. Unless these things happen, Biden’s goal of having a positive and lasting impact on improving the health of women across the country has little hope of succeeding.  

Doing so will not only preserve a women’s right to choose. It will balance the availability of women’s healthcare professionals and services in states around the country. It will reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies — including those that present complications and end in fatality for the mother. It will pave the way for more equitable access to healthcare services for pregnant women of all races.   

And it will help improve public health for women everywhere by giving Biden’s plan to save lives a chance to work.  

Lyndon Haviland, DrPH, MPH, is a distinguished scholar at the CUNY School of Public Health and Health Policy.  

Source: TEST FEED1