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Investors Managing $3T in Assets Urge Countries to Stop Deforestation (Maria)

The author writes, “Global investors managing over $3T in assets called on governments on Monday to stop and reverse deforestation and ecosystem degradation by 2030, in a statement signed ahead of a UN climate conference in Brazil next month. Around 30 institutional investors including Swiss private bank Pictet Group have signed up to the Belém Investor Statement on Rainforests.  A report last week found the world is falling far short of the goal of stopping deforestation, with losses of 20 million acres of forest — an area about the size of England — in 2024 alone, largely driven by agricultural expansion and forest fires.”

At Least 135 Mutilated Bodies of Palestinians Had Been Held at Notorious Israeli Jail, Say Gaza Officials (Russ)

The author writes, “At least 135 mutilated bodies of Palestinians returned by Israel to Gaza had been held in a notorious detention centre already facing allegations of torture and unlawful deaths in custody, officials from Gaza’s health ministry have told the Guardian. The director general of the health ministry, Dr Munir al-Bursh, and a spokesperson for Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, where the bodies are being examined, said a document found inside each body bag indicated the bodies all came from Sde Teiman, a military base in the Negev desert where, according to photos and testimonies published by the Guardian last year, Palestinian detainees were held in cages, blindfolded and handcuffed, shackled to hospital beds and forced to wear nappies.”

Mysterious Spot in Earth’s Magnetic Field Now Growing Rapidly (Sean)

From Futurism: “A major dip in the Earth’s magnetic field over the South Atlantic has been puzzling scientists for over a century. Perhaps most strangely, the weak spot — dubbed the South Atlantic Anomaly — has grown rapidly over the last eleven years. That’s according to satellite data suggests showing it’s expanded by an area equivalent to half the size of continental Europe, as detailed in a new paper published in the journal Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors.”

How Can Blue States Fight Back Against Trump? With Fiscal Disobedience (Reader Steve)

From The Guardian: “Faced with this reality, Democratic governors need more than legal complaints and rhetorical protest. They need fiscal strategies of resistance commensurate with the scale of the attack. And one of the most provocative – and potentially powerful – ideas available is the creation of state-administered escrow accounts, or ‘in trust’ funds, to temporarily hold federal tax revenues until the federal government upholds its constitutional obligations and withdraws its authoritarian threats.”

The Human Cost of Healthy Eating (Reader Jim)

The author writes, “Researchers at the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and the University of Nottingham Rights Lab and School of Geography have measured the risk of forced labor behind ingredients in recommended U.S. diets. By showing when healthy eating may come at the expense of exploited workers, the findings could inform how governments and institutions buy food at scale. The International Labor Organization estimates that approximately 28 million people worldwide are currently ensnared in forced labor, including across the United States.”

Scientists Discover Rogue Star-Eating Black Hole Far From Home (Laryn)

From 404 Media: “When stars wander too close to black holes, they are torn apart by extreme tidal forces, producing radiant light shows called tidal disruption events (TDEs)…The event, called AT 2024tvd, involved a black hole with a possible mass of up to 10 million Suns. While it’s a pretty typical enormous black hole, what’s weird is that it was spotted eating a star about 2,600 light years from the nucleus of a distant galaxy, which produced the unusual TDE. Scientists have seen a few dim hints of these off-nuclear events, but this is the first to be clearly captured in bright radio waves.”