News service from Undernews this weekend beginning Friday will vary in an erratic manner as your editor will be celebrating the 85th birthday of his wife of 58 years including a party and having some out of town guests. A historian and author of 5 books, Kathy Smith is the best story your editor will have this weekend.
October 17, 2024
Undernews Note
Subscriptions
BBC - The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has adopted a 'click to cancel' rule, which aims to make it easier for people to end subscriptions.It will force companies to make subscription sign-ups and cancellations equally straightforward.
Businesses, including retailers and gyms, will also have to get consent from customers before renewing subscriptions or converting free trials into paid memberships. The new rule is due to come into effect in around six months' time.
Food
Nice News - Food banks play a crucial role in keeping communities fed across the globe. Another vital but lesser-known benefit? They’re helping to fight climate change, with a recent impact report outlining the link between food banks and a reduction in carbon emissions. Breaking down the numbers, food banks associated with The Global FoodBanking Network, or GFN, provided 1.7 billion meals to over 40 million people last year. That’s the equivalent of mitigating an estimated 1.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.
Without these organizations, perfectly edible ingredients — recovered
from farms, grocery stores, and other food businesses — would head
straight to a landfill, where they’d create greenhouse gas emissions and
squander the efforts that went into producing the food in the first
place (think: water use, land use, transportation costs, and more). Instead, food banks come to the rescue and redirect those ingredients to nourish people in need, addressing inequality and helping the environment all at once.
Immigration
New Republic - Trump’s
anti-immigration policy is the most obvious example. "The role of
immigrants in the American food system is difficult to overstate," Frida
Garza and Ayurella Horn-Muller write for Grist and El País. "Every year, hundreds of thousands of people, the vast majority of them coming from Mexico,
legally obtain H-2A visas that allow them to enter the U.S. as seasonal
agricultural workers and then return home when the harvest is done."
Another estimated 1.7 million undocumented workers are also employed "in
some part of the U.S. food supply chain."
What would happen if all those workers suddenly disappeared? Replacing them, Garza and Horn-Muller report, wouldn’t be easy, since U.S. workers often don’t find these jobs appealing. The shock to the system would likely drive a spike in food prices. And even if mass deportation policies didn’t survive legal challenges, the "chilling effect" of the threat could still disrupt the industry—and harm a lot of people.
Climate change
LA Times - The Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared the way for a climate-change rule adopted by the Biden administration that would force coal-fired power plants to cut their carbon pollution 90% by 2032 or shut down.By a 7-1 vote, the court rejected a series of emergency appeals from Republican-led states and the coal and electric power industries.The decision comes as a mild surprise because the court’s conservatives have repeatedly blocked the EPA’s more ambitious climate change plans.
Nice News - A climate change course will soon be mandatory for all students at the University of California, San Diego, the first major public college to implement such a rule.
Time - In September, NASA declared the summer of 2024 the hottest in recorded history. Before that news could be fully digested, the U.S. was hit with Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, unprecedented in their own rights in terms of intensity and destruction. Despite the seemingly never ending accumulation of dire climate records and extreme weather events, Republicans remain thoroughly opposed to virtually any kind of climate change mitigation effort...According to a recent Pew poll, only 12% of Republicans, compared to 59% of Democrats, believe that dealing with climate change should be a top priority for the president and Congress. Showing that the GOP wants to go beyond its usual aims of bolstering fossil fuel production and eliminating environmental regulations, Republicans’ resistance is increasingly evolving into shrewd strategies focused on dismantling climate education and advocacy programs, and even promoting misinformation (like Republican U.S. Congresswoman Majorie Taylor Greene’s recent claim that people can “control” the weather).
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Data: Southeast Regional Climate Center; Chart: Axios Visuals |
Election
CNN - An overseas ballot process that could be crucial for Democrats has been the target of multiple Republican-backed lawsuits
filed in recent days. There are about 6.5 million eligible American
voters living, serving and studying overseas, with about 1.6 million of
them from battleground states — and more in tight House districts. Those
votes could be decisive: The 2020 election was decided by 44,000 votes
over four states. More than 1.2 million ballots were sent abroad in 2020
and nearly 890,000 were eventually counted, according to a report by
the US Election Assistance Commission.
In addition to the new lawsuits filed by Republicans in Pennsylvania,
North Carolina and Michigan, Donald Trump has suggested without evidence
that the overseas vote is a source of fraud.
Donald Trump
Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Jan. 6, 2021— the day his supporters occupied Congress in a failed insurrection to try to stop lawmakers from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory—was a “day of love.”
Trump on Univision says migrants also ‘eating other things they’re not supposed to’
Latino
NPR’s Franco Ordoñez says Trump argued that Latinos were better off when he was president. He spoke about his plans to lower energy costs as well as inflation. When asked about his immigration plans, he shifted the conversation to discuss crimes committed by those in the U.S. illegally. Many Latino voters in swing states come from mixed-status families, which makes Trump’s rhetoric toward immigrants an issue. However, he is gaining ground on Latino voters, particularly those from 2nd and 3rd generation families who have been in the country longer.
Ukraine
NPR - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is in Brussels to discuss with European Union leaders his plan to end the war with Russia by the end of next year without giving up any territory. He is also urging Western allies to invite Ukraine to join NATO soon. However, some allies, including the U.S., are hesitant because they want to avoid provoking Russia. Zelenskyy informed lawmakers that some Western allies have pressured him to negotiate with Russia on what he believes are unfair terms. NPR’s Joanna Kakissis says he also stated that Russia only wants Ukraine to surrender and that the only way to keep Ukraine safe is through an ironclad security guarantee, such as an invitation to join NATO. Zelenskyy's victory plan to end the war includes a key condition that the U.S. doesn't support: the lifting of restrictions on Ukraine to strike military targets deep inside Russia with advanced weapons supplied by the West. The U.S. argues that these actions would escalate the war — a sentiment echoed by the Kremlin
Drugs
Roll Call - Drug overdose deaths dropped a record amount during the past year, according to provisional data the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Wednesday. The CDC reported that 94,758 individuals died because of drug overdoses in the 12-month period ending May 2024 — a 15 percent drop from the previous 12-month period. The agency estimates that number may rise to 98,820 when finalized, which would be a 12.7 percent drop. Rahul Gupta, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, commended the data, which showed a decline in nationwide drug-related deaths for the sixth month in a row.
Abortions
Intercept - About two-thirds of abortions in the U.S. in 2023 were done with mifepristone and misoprostol, the two-pill combination found in AntiPreg and similar products. Most were prescribed by clinicians at brick-and-mortar offices or through telehealth appointments. The World Health Organization advises that the pills are so safe in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy that supervision by a medical clinician is not needed. Taking the pills without clinician oversight is called “self-managed abortion.”
The practice has become so widespread that the New York Times estimated last year that it comprised 10 percent of all abortions being done in America. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, however, has not approved the importation of foreign-made misoprostol or mifepristone pills, much less their distribution without a prescription.
The non-approved pills tend to enter the U.S. in bulk, most passing surreptitiously through customs at land borders and international airports. Many are delivered to feminist-oriented mutual aid groups who distribute them at low cost or for free. Others go to people who are just trying to turn a profit. Both groups repackage their international bulk shipments as single doses and mail them domestically — typically from post offices.
Religion
CNN - The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay $880 million
to victims of clergy sexual abuse dating back decades, in what an
attorney said was the largest single child sex abuse settlement with a
Catholic archdiocese. "I am sorry for every one of these incidents, from
the bottom of my heart," Archbishop José H. Gomez said in a statement.
"I believe that we have come to a resolution of these claims that will
provide just compensation to the survivor-victims of these past abuses,"
the archbishop added. Attorneys for 1,353 people who allege that they
suffered horrific abuse at the hands of local Catholic priests reached
the settlement after months of negotiations with the archdiocese, the Los Angeles Times reported. The agreement caps a quarter-century of litigation against the most populous archdiocese in the
Daily Beast - Pope Francis will become the first-ever sitting pope to publish a book. Publisher Penguin Random House announced Wednesday that Francis’ autobiography will be published early next year in January instead of upon his death as originally planned. Titled Hope, Francis has reportedly been working on the book for the last six years with Italian publisher Carlo Musso. In addition to recounting his upbringing, Italian roots and how his ancestors immigrated to Latin America, Hope will also cover his adult life, his vocation, adult life and calling to the papacy. According to Penguin Random House, the book arrives just in time to celebrate the 2025 Jubilee—a time dedicated to forgiveness, renewal and spirituality. “In recounting his memories with intimate narrative force and reflecting on his own personal passions, Pope Francis deals unsparingly with some of the crucial moments of his papacy and writes candidly, courageously, and prophetically about some of the most important and controversial questions of our present times,” said Penguin Random House in a statement. “In every page, in every passage, it is also the book of those who have travelled with me, of those who came before, of those who will follow,” said Pope Francis about the project. “An autobiography is not our own private story, but rather the baggage we carry with us. And memory is not just what we recall, but what surrounds us. It doesn’t speak only about what has been, but about what will be.
Money
Dirt Digger's Digest - Toronto-Dominion has joined the dubious club of large companies that have paid a penalty of $1 billion or more in a single case of misconduct. It achieved that distinction with the recent slew of announcements by the U.S. Justice Department and several financial regulators that the book was being thrown at the Canadian bank’s U.S. subsidiary TD Bank for widespread failures in meeting its obligations to prevent the use of its operations for money laundering by criminals and tax evaders....
Looking specifically at penalties for anti-money-laundering deficiencies, Toronto-Dominion is now at the top of the list in that category, overtaking Denmark’s Danske Bank, which has hit with $2 billion in criminal fines by the DOJ in 2022. Other banks with the highest penalties for AML and related Bank Secrecy Act violations include: JPMorgan Chase ($811 million), HSBC ($665 million), U.S. Bancorp ($528 million), Deutsche Bank ($491 million), and Capital One ($390 million). The non-bank with the largest total is Western Union at $740 million.
Polling update
PRESIDENTIAL STATE MARGINS
Total electoral votes: 538 --270 needed to win. Harris currently has 202. Biden won in 2020 with 306. There are now 78 electoral votes too close to call
FLORIDA
Three poll average: Trump leads Harris by 9% - 6% better than 2020
GEORGIA
Three poll average: Trump leads 3%
October 16, 2024
Population
Newsweek - Former President Bill Clinton has suggesting that in order to grow the economy, the United States requires more migrants to counterbalance the nation's historically low birth rate. "America is not having enough babies to keep our populations up, so we need immigrants that have been vetted to do work," Clinton said Sunday at a campaign event for Vice President Kamala Harris in Fort Valley, Georgia.
Clinton reiterated his stance at a separate event in Columbus, Georgia, where he said: "We got the lowest birth rate we've had in well over 100 years. We're not at replacement level, which means we got to have somebody come here if we want to keep growing the economy." The U.S. birth rate has been steadily declining for years, hitting a record low in 2023. According to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics, the fertility rate dropped another 3 percent last year, reaching 54.5 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44. Just under 3.6 million babies were born in the U.S. in 2023, 76,000 fewer than the year before.
The total fertility rate in 2023 remained below replacement—the level at which a given generation can exactly replace itself (2,100 births per 1,000 women). The rate has generally been below replacement since 1971 and consistently below replacement since 2007.
Schools
Chalkbeat - As principal of Dunaire Elementary School, Sean Deas has seen firsthand the struggles faced by children living in extended-stay hotels. About 10% of students at his school, just east of Atlanta, live in one.The children, Deas said, often have been exposed to violence on hotel properties, exhibit aggression or anxiety from living in a crowded single room, and face food insecurity because some hotel rooms don’t have kitchens.“Social trauma is the biggest challenge” when students first arrive, Deas said. “We hear a lot about sleep problems.” To meet students’ needs, Deas developed a schoolwide program featuring counselors, a food pantry, and special protocols for handling those who may fall asleep in class.
“Beyond the teaching, there’s a social part,” he said. “We have to find ways to support the families as well.”
Extended-stay hotels are often a last resort for low-income families trying to find housing. Nationally, more than 100,000 students lived in extended-stay hotels in 2022, according to the Department of Education, though officials say that is likely an undercount. Children living in hotels are considered homeless under federal law, and in some Atlanta-area counties about 40% of homeless students live in this kind of housing, according to local officials.
American Prospect - Education spending in North Carolina is about to go way up, thanks to lawmakers’ largesse. But the extra funds—close to half a billion dollars—won’t go to the public schools attended by the vast majority of children in the state, or to hike teacher pay, despite a worsening shortage. Instead, the huge influx of cash will go to pick up the tab for private school tuition, including for well-off families, a priority for North Carolina’s Republican supermajority. In fact, according to recent state analysis, funding for the state’s public schools will drop by nearly $100 million as a result of voucher expansion. While Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, vetoed the bill, legislators are expected to override him.
As one school district leader stated, “It feels like to me that there’s a desire to suffocate traditional public schools to justify their demise.”
North Carolina’s tilt toward school privatization is all the more remarkable given that the state was, until relatively recently, a model for the kind of education-as-human-capital vision that united both political parties. Starting in the 1980s, governors of both parties plowed money into public schools, teacher salaries, and community colleges, with the aim of supercharging the state’s economic development.
Today, the story couldn’t be more different. The GOP candidate for governor, current Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, is a vocal proponent of school vouchers and has encouraged North Carolina parents to remove their children from public schools, citing alleged agendas in the classroom. “Do not turn your children over to these wicked people,” Robinson told attendees at a church service.
A growing number of parents seem to be listening. North Carolina, which once had the highest percentage of students enrolled in public schools in the nation, has seen private school enrollment soar in recent years.
In recent years, education policies in states red and blue have diverged dramatically. Red-state lawmakers have donned the mantle of culture warriors, imposing limits on what teachers can talk about and what kids can learn, mandating so-called patriotic education, and injecting religion into public school curricula. Conservatives have banned “critical race theory” in schools and intimated that teaching students about LGBT history is a pretext for “grooming” children. Oklahoma is now requiring that public schools teach the Bible as an “indispensable historical and cultural touchstone,” Louisiana is requiring displays of the Ten Commandments in every classroom, and Texas has inserted Bible stories into its elementary school curriculum.
But the explosion of so-called universal school vouchers is likely to have a far more profound impact on the lives of young people in red states than these culture-war hot buttons. As states race to pay for families to send their kids to private schools, blowing up state budgets in the process, the schools attended by the vast majority of kids will be left with far fewer resources, blunting their prospects. By design, funds are being shifted away from students in poor and rural areas and into the pockets of affluent parents, entrenching inequality in the process.
Ecology
EcoWatch - A network of universities across Europe has launched an initiative to train medical students on climate change-related illnesses as well as provide education on more sustainable healthcare. The initiative includes 25 universities that have formed the European Network on Climate & Health Education, which will incorporate climate change education into the existing curriculum. The goal is to better prepare students to treat humans facing health disparities linked to climate change as well as to improve the sustainability of the healthcare system.
Media
Gallup - Americans continue to register record-low trust in the mass media, with 31% expressing a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in the media to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly,” similar to last year’s 32%. Americans’ trust in the media -- such as newspapers, television and radio -- first fell to 32% in 2016 and did so again last year. For the third consecutive year, more U.S. adults have no trust at all in the media (36%) than trust it a great deal or fair amount. Another 33% of Americans express “not very much” confidence.
Gallup first asked this question in 1972 and has measured it in most years since 1997. In three readings in the 1970s, trust ranged from 68% to 72%, yet by Gallup’s next readings in the late 1990s and early 2000s, smaller majorities of 51% to 55% trusted the news media. The latest findings are from a poll conducted Sept. 3-15, which includes Gallup’s annual update on trust in the media and other civic and political entities in the U.S.
Donald Trump
Newsweek - A retired major general has warned that Donald Trump could use the National Guard as "his own personal police force," following the former president's comments about potentially using the military in a domestic scenario. Trump has spoken about what he calls the "enemies from within" multiple times during campaigning this year, including on Sunday, when he told Fox News that these "sick people" who are "radical left lunatics" should "be handled" by the National Guard.
The next day, during a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, Kamala Harris played a clip of Trump making the comments, along with several similar ones. During CNN's coverage, Laura Coates interviewed Ret. Major General Randy Manner, who has endorsed Harris for president.
"If (Trump) was to be the commander-in-chief again, everything changes – the Supreme Court has given him immunity," Manner said. "And the threshold for turning the National Guard into his personal police force is quite low."
Manner went on: "As long as (Trump) has a consenting governor, he can authorize the funds to pay them as the commander-in-chief. And he can use the National Guard, almost in any way that he wants. And most Americans don't know how very easy it would be for an unhinged president to use the military against our own citizens."
When asked whether the military would comply with such an order, Manner pointed out that the country's president is responsible for promoting officers in the military—although they have to be approved by the Senate.
A psychologist's good analysis of Trump
Political Wire - “With just weeks left in the 2024 presidential contest, Donald Trump already has plans in place to aggressively challenge the election results if he fails to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris,” Rolling Stone reports. “According to four conservative attorneys and other sources who’ve spoken to the former president on this matter, Trump intends to declare — as soon as on Election Night — that the race is being ‘rigged’ or ‘stolen’ from him, by pointing to slow vote-counts of mail-in ballots in crucial battleground states as his evidence for supposed Democratic shenanigans afoot.”
Kamala Harris
AP News - “Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday unveiled his ticket’s plans to improve the lives of rural voters, as Vice President Kamala Harris looks to cut into former President Donald Trump’s support.”
“The Harris-Walz plan includes a focus on improving rural health care, such as plans to recruit 10,000 new health care professionals in rural and tribal areas through scholarships, loan forgiveness and new grant programs, as well as economic and agricultural policy priorities. The plan was detailed to The Associated Press by a senior campaign official on the condition of anonymity ahead of its official release.”
“The Harris-Walz plan calls on Congress to permanently extend telemedicine coverage under Medicare, a pandemic-era benefit that helped millions access care that is set to expire at the end of 2024. They are also calling for grants to support volunteer EMS programs to cut in half the number of Americans living more than 25 minutes away from an ambulance.”
“It also urges Congress to restore the Affordable Connectivity Program, a program launched by President Joe Biden that expired in June that provided up to $30 off home internet bills, and for lawmakers to require equipment manufacturers to grant farmers the right to repair their products.”
Energy
CNN - International Energy Agency has good news: Oil and natural gas prices will probably be lower over the next five years.
Energy prices soared in the wake of Russia's full-scale invasion of
Ukraine in February 2022, which followed a rise in global demand as
economies reopened after Covid lockdowns put lives on hold. According to
the IEA, oil and natural gas supplies will increase in the second half
of this decade as long as the conflict in the Middle East and Russia's
war in Ukraine don’t derail current trends. In a wide-ranging report,
the agency also said that investing in clean energy
isn't just necessary to prevent a climate catastrophe — it also makes
financial sense because it will "remove inefficient fossil fuel
subsidies."
Election
AP News - In Maine and Alaska, voters in competitive congressional districts will elect a winner using ranked choice voting. Rather than cast a single vote for their preferred candidate, voters rank their choices in order of preference on the ballot. If a candidate is the first choice of more than 50% of voters in the first round of counting, that candidate is the winner.
But if no candidate surpasses 50%, the count continues in round two. The candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and voters who chose that candidate as their top pick have their votes redistributed to their next choice. This continues with the candidate with the fewest votes getting eliminated until someone emerges with a majority of votes.
Ranked choice voting has become more popular in recent years, particularly at the municipal level. Voters in two dozen cities and counties — from New York and Minneapolis to Boulder, Colorado — used ranked choice voting in 2023, according to FairVote, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for the expansion of ranked choice voting. Seven other cities voted in favor of preserving, adopting or expanding ranked choice voting.
Proponents of ranked choice voting argue the system encourages candidates to build broader coalitions, eliminates the spoiler effect and discourages negative campaigning. Opponents say it’s confusing and can result in a candidate without the largest number of first-choice votes ultimately prevailing.
Because they take place over multiple rounds that are tabulated only
once all first-choice votes are counted, elections in Alaska and Maine
that advance to ranked choice are often resolved a week or more after
Election Day. More
CNN - A record number of early votes were cast in Georgia on Tuesday as residents headed to the polls in the critical battleground state. "We have had over 328,000 total votes cast so far," Gabe Sterling of the Georgia secretary of state's office said on X. The previous first-day record was 136,000 in 2020, Sterling said. The swing state is one of the most closely watched in this election, with former President Donald Trump trying to reclaim it after losing there to President Joe Biden by a small margin four years ago. At the same time, several new rules passed by a Trump-backed Republican majority on the State Election Board are creating uncertainty around the post-election process. This has led Democrats and others to mount legal challenges, many of which have yet to be resolved even as Election Day nears.
Hurricanes
Washington Post - The Small Business Administration program is “exhausted” after Hurricanes Helene and Milton, Biden said yesterday. It could slow recovery operations for millions of victims....Tropical Storm Nadine could form in the Atlantic later this week, but it probably wouldn’t threaten the U.S. mainland. More
Middle East
NBC News - The Biden administration may restrict military assistance to Israel if the humanitarian situation in Gaza doesn’t improve within the next 30 days, according to a letter sent last weekend to Israeli Defense Minister Yaov Gallant and Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer. A U.S. State Department spokesperson confirmed the existence of the letter yesterday.
In the letter, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that the U.S. must continually assess under its own law whether Israel is “directly or indirectly” impeding the transport of U.S. humanitarian assistance to Gaza. If it is, they warned that the U.S. could halt additional military financing, two U.S. officials and a defense official said.
The Biden administration sent a similar warning to Israeli officials in
April but ultimately determined the actions taken by Israel to improve
the humanitarian situation afterward met the requirements under the law.
Since then, the situation in the Gaza Strip has further deteriorated. More
Polling update
2024 PRESIDENTIAL RACE: HARRIS VS. TRUMP
Five poll average: Harris leads by 3% - 2% less than her best rating
PRESIDENTIAL STATE MARGINS
Total electoral votes: 538 --270 needed to win. Harris currently has 202. Biden won in 2020 with 306. There are now 94 electoral votes too close to call
GEORGIA
Three poll average: TIE
Electoral vote: TIE
MICHIGAN
Three poll average: TIE
Electoral vote: TIE
PENNSYLVANIA
3 poll average Trump leads by 1%
Electoral count: Virtual Tie
October 15, 2024
Business
AP - Walgreens will close about 1,200 locations over the next three years as the drugstore chain seeks to turnaround a struggling U.S. business that contributed to a $3 billion quarterly loss. Company shares soared Tuesday after Walgreens detailed the plan and also reported better-than-expected quarterly results.
The company said Tuesday that about 500 stores will close in the current fiscal year and should immediately support earnings and free cash flow. Walgreens didn’t say where the store closings would take place....
Walgreens operates about 8,500 stores in the United States and a few thousand overseas. All of the stores that will be closed are in the United States. CEO Tim Wentworth told analysts Tuesday that the majority of its stores, or about 6,000, are profitable and provide the company with a foundation to build on.
Indigenous people
Data: Axios research, Pew Research Center. (Map shows state-observed
holidays; some cities observe others. Alabama and Virginia observe
Columbus Day + another holiday besides Indigenous Peoples' Day.) Map: Axios Visuals
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