Tag Archives : Build House

Senate Democrats unveil sweeping funding bills, teeing up showdown with Republicans

Senate Democrats unveiled sweeping legislation outlining their plans to fund the government for the coming fiscal year, and Republicans are already drawing battle lines around their non-starters on abortion and other “poison pills.”

The mammoth package, which consists of all 12 annual appropriation bills, would provide $653 billion in non-defense discretionary spending, up 10.1 percent from the current fiscal year, as well as $850 billion in defense discretionary spending, which is 8.7 percent higher than fiscal 2022.

Packed into the package includes ambitious plans to advance Democratic-backed priorities spanning policy areas like climate, marijuana, defense and border security. Democrats also tucked in a proposed $21 billion COVID-19 emergency supplemental funding measure. 

“These bills are an investment in the American people that promote affordable housing, help families put food on the table, support the education and care of our children and young people, combat climate change, improve health care access, and invest in our communities,” Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said.  

“It is my hope that by releasing these bills, and making clear what the priorities of Senate Democrats are, we can take a step closer toward reaching a bipartisan compromise after months of stalled negotiations,” he added.

Republicans bristled at the legislation upon its release, with Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), vice chairman of the appropriations committee, writing off the drafts for failing to “appropriately allocate resources to our national defense,” and removing legacy riders that passed in the fiscal 2022  government funding omnibus earlier this year. 

“They have even taken the drastic step of providing hundreds of millions of dollars for taxpayer-financed abortions,” Shelby said, while decrying the proposed funding as “wasteful” and warning of a “long-term” continuing resolution (CR), a funding bandaid Congress often passes when it hasn’t reached a deal on speeding.  

Among the key points Democrats highlight in their proposals is funding for climate and renewable energy, including $10.6 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), up $1.1 billion from the current fiscal year, which includes a record $180 million investment aimed at environmental justice within the agency. The bills also lay out billions in funding for climate adaptation efforts at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and for the Green Climate Fund.

Democrats highlight the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in their funding summaries, touting their renewed efforts to go after abortion restrictions like the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits use of programs like Medicaid to pay for abortion services, but also new proposals around the issue.

Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.), chair of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on labor, health and education, said her subpanel’s bill includes a “new, historic abortion fund,” which she said aims to “help women get abortion care by providing assistance to cover the costs of services, travel, childcare, lodging and more.”

Democrats propose about $89. billion in discretionary budget authority for the fiscal year 2023 Transportation and Housing and Urban Development (THUD) Senate Appropriations bill, with billions aimed at homeless assistance, affordable housing and measures aimed at strengthening items like the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

Democrats also recommended $792.1 billion in funding for the Department of Defense, which is roughly $30 billion higher than the defense appropriations bill that advanced out of committee in the House, and more than what President Biden requested in his budget. 

The increase comes after Republicans balked at earlier funding proposals for defense programs, one of the list of hurdles keeping both sides from reaching a deal on an overall top-line.

“This legislation will keep America safe by giving our troops a well-earned pay raise, ensuring our servicemen and women are well-trained and well-equipped with the most up-to date technology, and shifting resources toward programs that’ll maintain our fighting edge over adversaries like China and Russia,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, said.

However, Senate Republicans say more is needed, instead pointing to the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed by the Senate Armed Services Committee last month as a more workable figure. The measures would allow for more than $857 billion for national defense, of which, roughly $817 billion would be put toward the Pentagon.

Senators currently have until the end of September, when current government funding is set to lapse, to pass their annual funding bills, or risk a shutdown. 

A number of Senate appropriators expect Congress to pass a CR before then to buy more time for negotiations, particularly with the pivotal midterm elections approaching. However, some Democrats have pushed back against a CR, which they argue as costly amid rising inflation.

“The stakes of inaction are too high to not complete our work,” Leahy said. “The burden of inflation would make a long-term continuing resolution untenable with grave consequences for communities and families across the country and for our national security.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Naomi Biden announces that her wedding will be on White House South Lawn

President Biden’s granddaughter says her wedding this fall at the White House will take place on the South Lawn.

“We have finally figured out where the ceremony will be,” Naomi Biden wrote on Twitter on Thursday.

“And much to the relief of Secret Service and with the dogs’ endorsement…we’ll be getting married on the South Lawn!” Biden, 28, said.

Jill Biden’s communications director announced earlier this year that the first lady and president would host their granddaughter’s Nov. 19 wedding reception at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Naomi Biden is poised to take the plunge with fiancée Peter Neal.

A White House wedding reception for a first family member hasn’t been held since 2008, when then-President George W. Bush’s daughter, Jenna Bush, held a bash there after tying the knot with Henry Hager in a Texas ceremony.

Source: TEST FEED1

Whelan's brother sees 'a little bit of hope' after prisoner swap offer

The brother of the former U.S. Marine held in Russia for the last three years said the family has “a little bit of hope” following talks of a U.S.-Russia prisoner swap.

The swap would reportedly trade a Russian arms trafficker for detained U.S. citizens Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner, though the State Department hasn’t shared details. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to discuss the matter with Russia soon.

“The offer that the U.S. government has made — and extraordinarily made public — is super,” said Whelan’s twin brother, David Whelan, on ABC News’ “Good Morning America” Thursday.

“Hopefully the Russian government will take the concessions that have been made and allow Paul to come home.”

Whelan has been held in Russia since December 2018, arrested on spying charges and sentenced to 16 years behind bars. 

WNBA star Griner is the other prisoner included in the Biden administration’s talks — who pled guilty to bringing hashish oil vape cartridges into the country and has been held for the last five months.

President Biden and the State Department have been under pressure from Griner and Whelan’s families to bring the U.S. citizens home.

The U.S. made a similar prisoner swap in April for former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed, who had been detained in Russia since 2019.

Source: TEST FEED1

Chinese courts are deciding key patent cases — the US and its allies should be wary

U.S. Senators Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.), in the bipartisan Defending American Courts Act advanced earlier this year, are right to express concern over China’s courts. A pair of recent cases in London illustrate why the senators’ concern is well-placed. China’s courts aim to be the forum of choice for the world’s disputes over whether rates on standard-essential patents (SEPs) are meeting commitments to offer fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) licensing terms — and current statutory law little equips courts in rule-of-law countries such as our own to stop them.

While disputes over rate setting might seem arcane, China’s courts, by asserting the power to adjudicate these disputes, are poised to help China dominate global technology markets — and compromise litigants’ most sensitive technology and data. 

On July 1, 2022, an English High Court judge granted an injunction in London against OPPO, a Chinese consumer electronics company, from seeking an injunction in Chongqing against Philips, a European mobile technology company, from suing OPPO in London. Philips alleges that OPPO is infringing certain Philips SEPs.

While the court granted the “anti-anti-suit injunction” in favor of Philips, allowing Philips to proceed in England against OPPO for patent infringement, the injunction applies only to proceedings in England addressing the validity of English patents; it “does notrestrict, even indirectly… the courts of the PRC from conducting global [FRAND] rate-setting if [OPPO] initiate proceedings [in the PRC] and if the courts of the PRC consider it appropriate.”

Since a judgment in 2021 by the Supreme People’s Court of China in Guangdong OPPO Mobile Telecommunications v. Sharp Corp., Chinese courts have declared themselves ready to decide FRAND terms not just for China, but worldwide, at least where the parties negotiating the terms for an SEP license have not agreed to any other forum. So, the door is open for a Chinese court to set worldwide FRAND terms. 

Shortly after Philips v. OPPO, the English Court of Appeal decided another OPPO case, this one involving Nokia SEPs. The court concluded that it did not matter that London and Chongqing courts might adopt inconsistent judgments about FRAND terms: The court upheld a refusal to grant OPPO a stay of the English proceedings, while permitting litigation in China to proceed. Lord Justice Arnold added: “[t]he reality is that OPPO are not concerned to save time or legal costs, they just want the FRAND issues to be determined in the forum of their choice.” 

One lesson is that parties can avoid the risk of inconsistent FRAND judgments – between tribunals within a given country or across national borders – by agreeing to arbitrate. As Lord Justice Arnold noted in Nokia v. OPPO, opting for arbitration of FRAND issues would be “[t]he only sure way to avoid these problems.”  

A second lesson is the emphasis the English judges place on the property character of IP rights and the contrast that they draw between the “territorial nature” of such property rights and the standard-setting contractual/regulatory regime of SEPs and FRAND. We should ask ourselves what role China, a state-driven economy led by a communist party, sees its adjudicators performing in FRAND rate-setting disputes like the OPPO cases. 

A third and broader lesson from the OPPO cases is that the adjudication of FRAND disputes in Chinese courts – especially as other jurisdictions step back – gives China a powerful tool for surveilling and influencing global markets. China’s courts have earned a reputation for procedural acumen, but their judges and other personnel operate under Military-Civil Fusion (MCF) — national legal and political control that may compel them to share information with authorities. 

Patented technology, by definition, is already publicized. But ordinary IP disputes require disclosure to adjudicating tribunals of vast categories of technical, economic, management and legal information that is not publicized, sometimes including third-party information. Such disclosure is tolerable in the U.S., UK and like-minded countries, because our tribunals generally operate under reliably enforced rules against sharing such litigation-produced-information.

By contrast, China’s MCF may compel adjudicators and other personnel to share it. This means that all major players in globally significant technology markets should exercise caution: Disclosing information to a court in China may equate to giving it to the Chinese military and to Chinese government-selected-industrial-champions.   

As recent FBI disclosures about a spy pagoda in Washington remind us, we should get China’s physical hardware out of our critical infrastructure and out of range from our most sensitive defense facilities. It also makes sense for businesses from the U.S. and like-minded countries to keep our disputes out of Chinese tribunals, through which China may pursue an equally ambitious, yet more subtle, effort to surveil and influence the world’s technology markets. 

Dr. Thomas D. Grant is a fellow of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at the University of Cambridge. He served as senior adviser for strategic planning in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation from 2019-21. F. Scott Kieff is the Fred C. Stevenson Research Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School. He served as a commissioner of the U.S. International Trade Commission from 2013-17. 

Source: TEST FEED1

LGBTQ+ youth experiencing trauma symptoms face greater suicide risk, research shows

LGBTQ+ youth are more likely than their heterosexual or cisgender peers to report high levels of trauma symptoms including hyper-vigilance and avoidance, putting them at greater risk of suicide, according to new research from The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention group for LGBTQ+ young people.

In a report published Monday, more than 30 percent of LGBTQ+ youth between the ages of 13 and 24 reported high levels of trauma symptoms. Another 60 percent said they had experienced low to moderate levels of trauma, and just 4 percent reported never having experienced any trauma symptoms at all.

Roughly 25 percent of LGBTQ+ youth that reported high levels of trauma also reported a past-year suicide attempt – more than three times higher than those who said they experienced moderate, low or no trauma.

Trauma symptoms were significantly associated with past-year suicide attempts across race, ethnicity, age, gender identity and sexual orientation, according to the report, which uses data from another Trevor Project study published earlier this year that surveyed just under 34,000 LGBTQ+ young people in the U.S. about their mental health.

America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news.

Trevor Project researchers said experiences of discrimination, harassment and violence against LGBTQ+ youth can contribute to trauma symptoms, which can include feeling scared, anxious or unsafe. A June report from the LGBTQ+ media advocacy group GLAAD found that roughly 70 percent of LGBTQ+ Americans face regular discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, an increase over the last two years.

The impact of recent legislation that targets LGBTQ+ people and their fundamental rights also cannot be discounted, Myeshia Price, a senior research scientist at The Trevor Project, said Thursday.

“We must consider the harm that discriminatory policies – and the ugly rhetoric surrounding them – can have when it comes to the potential for traumatizing LGBTQ youth,” she said.

Hundreds of bills in states across the country have been introduced this year aiming to restrict how transgender Americans access health care and play sports and limit how LGBTQ+ issues and identities more generally are spoken about in places like public schools.

A January poll from The Trevor Project and Morning Consult found that more than two-thirds of LGBTQ+ young people believe recent state-led efforts to restrict the rights of transgender and nonbinary people has negatively impacted their mental health.

Significantly more transgender and nonbinary youth reported high levels of trauma symptoms (44 percent) compared with cisgender LGBQ+ youth (25 percent), according to Thursday’s report.

Researchers said that signals that public health interventions aimed at suicide risk reduction should be gender-affirming to allow transgender, nonbinary or gender non-conforming youth “participate in treatment as their full selves.”

Programs should also include screening and treatment for symptoms of trauma, Trevor Project researchers wrote Thursday, and must be culturally salient to address disproportionate levels of trauma reported by LGBTQ+ youth of color.

Still, efforts to boost feelings of safety and security among LGBTQ+ youth should take precedence, researchers said, citing prior research that found that protective factors, such as resilience to cope with traumatic events, family acceptance and affirming environments can help improve youth mental health.

“While there is a greater need for both LGBTQ and cultural competencies in trauma-informed care, establishing a sense of safety for these youth is paramount.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Blood tests for 'forever chemicals' should be offered to patients with high exposure: report

Blood tests for the presence of “forever chemicals” should be available to patients who have a history of likely elevated exposure to these substances, a panel of top environmental health experts declared on Wednesday.

Clinicians should offer tests to patients who have been exposed to these cancer-linked compounds by either working or living in contaminated settings, the experts argued in a 300-page report published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

The report calls upon the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to update its clinical guidance regarding blood testing for per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). These so-called forever chemicals are linked to a variety of illnesses, such as thyroid cancer, testicular cancer and kidney disease.

If testing then reveals PFAS levels associated with an increased risk of adverse effects, patients should receive regular screenings and monitoring for these health impacts, according to the report.

“We are going to need robust and effective collaboration between local communities, states, and federal agencies in order to respond to the challenge of PFAS exposure,” Ned Calonge, associate professor of family medicine at the University of Colorado, Denver, said in a statement.

Calonge, who is also an associate professor of epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health, chaired the committee responsible for the report.

Patients eligible for blood testing, according to the authors, should include those with occupational exposure, those who have lived in communities with documented contamination and those have lived in locations where contamination likely occurred.

Some potential places of concern are areas near commercial airports and military bases — which often house PFAS-laden firefighting foam — as well as wastewater treatment plants, farms that have used sewage sludge and landfills or incinerators that received waste containing PFAS, the report stated.

Stressing that testing for PFAS should be “an informed and shared decision between clinicians and patients,” the authors urged clinicians to be transparent about the benefits, harms and limitations of the process.

“Testing can help people feel empowered in managing their own health, for example, or relieve the stress of not knowing one’s exposure level,” they explained in a press statement accompanying the report.

Drawbacks of testing include difficulties in interpreting results, as well as decreased property values once contaminated is discovered, according to the report.

The authors recommended that the CDC, its Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and public health departments support clinicians by producing educational materials about PFAS exposure and the potential health impacts.

Laboratories that conduct testing should report the results to their state public health authorities, with the goal of improving PFAS exposure surveillance, according to the report.

“We need to continue to identify communities with elevated PFAS exposure, learn more about specific health impacts, make testing available to patients and give clinicians more strategies for counseling patients and providing preventive medical care,” Calonge said.

Calonge and his colleagues recommended that clinicians take specific actions if the sum of seven types of PFAS reach specific threshold concentrations in a patient’s serum or plasma.

The authors said that they focused only on these seven types of PFAS — even though there are thousands — because those are the ones currently being monitored by the CDC.

Patients whose PFAS blood levels are below 2 nanograms per milliliter are not expected to experience adverse health impacts, according to the report.

Blood levels between 2 and 20 nanograms per milliliter could indicate possible adverse effects, particularly for sensitive populations or pregnant individuals, the authors found.

In this scenario, they suggested that clinicians encourage patients to reduce exposure, while prioritizing screening for abnormally high cholesterol, hypertension associated with pregnancy and breast cancer based on age and risk factors.

Patients whose blood levels of PFAS exceed 20 nanograms per milliliter may face a higher risk of adverse effects, according to the study.

In this case, the authors urged clinicians to take the same steps indicated in the previous category, while also assessing thyroid function and looking for signs of kidney cancer, testicular cancer and ulcerative colitis.

A decade ago, scientists demonstrated a “probable link” between PFAS and diagnosed high cholesterol, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, testicular cancer, kidney cancer and pregnancy-induced hypertension — the result of a settlement in West Virginia at the time.

Since then, however, researchers have been probing a plethora of possible links to other illnesses.  

Calogne and his colleagues acknowledged that research has yet to determine the relationship between PFAS exposure at a specific level and potential health impacts.

The authors maintained, however, that “there is sufficient evidence” of a link between PFAS and heightened risk of decreased antibody response in adults and children, high cholesterol in adults and children, decreased infant and fetal growth and kidney cancer in adults.

The researchers said they saw “limited or suggestive evidence” of an increased risk of breast cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease and ulcerative colitis in adults, pregnancy-induced hypertension and liver enzyme alternations in adults and children.

Inadequate or insufficient evidence is available to indicate such a link to many other health impacts, including cardiovascular conditions aside from high cholesterol and fetal development outcomes apart from lower birthweight, according to the study.

The authors also addressed the potential risks of PFAS exposure to babies via breast milk, noting that “research has consistently shown benefits of breastfeeding even while PFAS exposures have been occurring for many years.”

The substances, the researchers added, may also be present in water used to produce infant formula.

Stressing that it is yet unclear what types and levels of exposure to PFAS could be harmful to a nursing child, the scientists urged federal health agencies to conduct research related to such transfer of toxins.

“Regardless of current gaps in knowledge, clinicians counseling parents of infants on PFAS exposure should discuss steps to lower PFAS exposure through feeding,” the authors stated.

Going forward, the scientists called upon the CDC to “use a reader-centered approach in its revised guidance” and update that guidance every two years.

The Hill has reached out to the CDC for comment.

Source: TEST FEED1

Supreme Court critics really need to read the opinions

The Supreme Court recently issued an almost unanimous (8-1) decision in Johnson v. Arteaga-Martinez holding that INA section 1231(a)(6) does not require the government to provide bond hearings for migrants who have been detained for more than six months pending execution of a deportation order — or require it to prove that continued detention is justified.  

The ACLU says that this decision “upheld the federal government’s policy of locking up immigrants for months or years without a bond hearing.”

Maybe, but that’s not what I get from reading the opinion.

The court just interprets the statutory provision that authorizes the detention of an immigrant subject to a final order of deportation and concludes that it does not include the right to a bond hearing.

The court acknowledges that this might be a violation of the Due Process Clause in the Constitution; accordingly, it remands the case to a lower court for further proceedings to consider that issue.

Is detention even needed?

The DHS Fiscal Year 2020 Enforcement Lifecycle Report to Congress describes the end-to-end enforcement lifecycle of 2.8 million undocumented immigrants encountered between ports of entry along the Southwest Border between fiscal 2014 and fiscal 2019, and an additional 725,000 who were found to be inadmissible at Southwest Border ports of entry. Final enforcement outcomes included confirmed repatriations, grants of relief or other forms of protections from removal, and findings of non-removability.

The report indicates that — to a great extent — enforcement outcomes depend on detention practices.

Overall, 42 percent of the migrants remained in DHS custody between their initial encounter and a final enforcement outcome (or had no final outcome but were still in DHS custody as of March 31, 2020). These migrants were repatriated 98 percent of the time, with 0.5 percent receiving relief or other protection from removal and 1.5 percent remaining unresolved as of March 31, 2020.

Only 30 percent of migrants who were never detained were repatriated; 15 percent were granted relief; and 55 percent were unresolved.

The detention practice with the highest percentage of unresolved cases was placing the migrants in detention initially and then releasing them prior to a final enforcement outcome. These cases resulted in repatriations just 3 percent of the time; relief 12 percent of the time; and 85 percent were unresolved. 

The plaintiff’s situation

The plaintiff in this case, Antonio Arteaga-Martinez, is a Mexican citizen who entered the U.S. without authorization and was ordered removed. Then he claimed that he would be persecuted or tortured if he were to be returned to Mexico and sought withholding of removal under INA section 1231(b)(3). The government detained him pursuant to INA section 1231(a)(6).

Withholding is country specific — It would just prevent him from being deported to Mexico; he could still be deported to another country where he wouldn’t be persecuted or tortured. 

This delayed his deportation. He can’t be deported to Mexico until his withholding application is adjudicated, and apparently the government has been unwilling or unable to find another country that will accept him.

Supreme Court’s decision

The decision is based on an interpretation of INA section 1231(a)(6), which reads as follows:

• “(6) Inadmissible or criminal aliens — An alien ordered removed who is inadmissible under section 1182 of this title [Ineligible for visas or admission], removable under section 1227(a)(1)(C) [Violated nonimmigrant status or conditions of entry], 1227(a)(2) [criminal offenses], or 1227(a)(4) of this title [security or related removal grounds] or who has been determined by the Attorney General to be a risk to the community or unlikely to comply with the order of removal, may be detained beyond the [90-day] removal period and, if released, shall be subject to the terms of supervision in paragraph (3).”

INA section 1231(a)(6) does not specify how long detention may continue after the removal period has expired. In a previous case, Zadvydas v. Davis, the court observed that a statute permitting indefinite detention would raise a serious constitutional problem.

The court avoids this issue in the present case in accordance with the canon of constitutional avoidance, which is the principle that, if possible, the Supreme Court should avoid ruling on constitutional issues and resolve cases on other, non-constitutional grounds. 

It disposes of the case instead on the basis of an interpretation of whether the text in INA section 1231(a)(6) requires the government to provide bond hearings, or to prove that continued detention is justified. 

The court observes in this regard that there is no plausible construction of the text in INA section 1231(a)(6) that would require the government to provide bond hearings after six months of detention or require the government to prove that continued detention is justified. It just states that certain aliens “may be detained” after the 90-day removal period. 

Arteaga-Martinez also raises an issue that wasn’t disposed of when the case was in the lower courts: He asserts that prolonged detention without the right to a bond hearing raises serious due process concerns. He claims that outside of the national-security context, the Supreme Court has never authorized prolonged detention without an individualized hearing before a neutral adjudicator at which the detainee has a meaningful opportunity to participate.

The court notes with regard to this argument that it is a court of review, not of first view. Accordingly, it remands the case to the lower court for further proceedings to dispose of this issue.

If indefinite detention without the right to a bond hearing violates the Due Process Clause, which I think is the case, the best solution might be for Congress to amend the provision to include the right to periodic bond hearings for determining whether continued detention is warranted.

Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an Executive Branch Immigration Law Expert for three years. He subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years.  Follow him at https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/2306123393080132994

Source: TEST FEED1

Watch Live: Biden delivers remarks on the Inflation Reduction Act

President Biden will deliver remarks Thursday afternoon on the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

The event begins at 12:00 p.m. ET.

Watch the vide above.

Source: TEST FEED1

Uvalde principal says she'll second-guess herself 'for the rest of my life'

The principal of the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school that was the site of a mass shooting in May said Wednesday that she “will second-guess myself for the rest of my life.”

Robb Elementary School principal Mandy Gutierrez was asked during an interview with CNN if she thought she could lose her job.

“I feel that I followed the training that I was provided with to the best of my abilities,” she responded, according to the network.

“And I will second-guess myself for the rest of my life.”

Gutierrez, whose lawyer said earlier this week that she had been placed on paid leave by Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Superintendent Hal Harrell, defended her handling of the shooting, which left 19 children and two adults dead.

The principal also disputed elements of a Texas House investigative committee report issued earlier this month that “found systemic failures and egregiously poor decision making.” 

She disputed, for example, the finding in the report that there was a “culture of non-compliance with safety policies.”

“Anytime that an alert went out, every single teacher on that campus took it to mean it could be a potential escalating situation. And so everybody follows protocol,” she said.

Gutierrez’s interview comes amid increasing scrutiny over how officials responded to the May 24 school shooting, during which more than an hour passed before law enforcement confronted and fatally shot the gunman.

Source: TEST FEED1

More than half of Americans say they’ve personally felt the impacts of climate change, poll finds

As record-breaking heat waves continue to grip the country, a new Economist/YouGov poll finds 53 percent of U.S. adults report personally having felt the effects of climate change. Findings were based on responses from 1,500 individuals between July 23 and 26, 2022. 

Of those surveyed, 23 percent said they have not felt the effects of climate change, 18 percent reported they were not sure and seven percent responded saying “the climate is not changing.” However, nearly half of respondents did feel there is currently a climate emergency in the United States. 

Although understanding how a single phenomenon can be attributed to climate change is difficult, numerous studies have linked increased emissions from the burning of fossil fuels to more intense and frequent heat waves. 

Data from the Environmental Protection Agency also documents increasing heat wave intensity, frequency, duration and length of season throughout the 2010s compared with metrics collected from the 1960s onward. 

America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news.

However, other extreme weather events, like hurricanes will also become more intense as the Earth’s temperature warms.

The poll also found an additional 11 percent of respondents reported they expect to feel the effects of climate change in the future. 

Compared with previous summers, a quarter of those polled reported the summer of 2022 is “much hotter than usual,” and just over 30 percent noted it is “somewhat hotter than usual.” A large proportion of respondents also reported temperatures ranging from 90 to 99 degrees this past week in their areas. 

Meanwhile, 33 percent of individuals reported temperatures at or above 100 degrees.

Attitudes around what humans can do to mitigate climate change and its subsequent effects varied among participants. Fourteen percent felt it’s already too late to avoid the worst effects, while 43 percent felt this is still possible, but would require “a drastic change in the steps taken to tackle it.” A smaller proportion of respondents (12 percent) felt current steps being taken would be sufficient to address the worst outcomes. 

Nearly 40 percent of individuals polled had a high school education or less and 29 percent had some college education, compared with 22 percent who graduated college. 

The largest cohort of participants were also between the ages of 45 and 64, followed by those aged 30 to 44. The vast majority of respondents were white (67 percent) and 40 percent identified as independents on the political spectrum. 

In an effort to better prepare for the increasing threats posed by more frequent and intense weather events, the Department of Energy recently granted $14 million to projects aimed at meeting this goal. 

Source: TEST FEED1