Teen Activist to Lawmakers: Try Harder on Climate Change
New Immigration 'Tent Courts' Are Not Open to the Public ; Trump Will Allow Pork Industry to Monitor Itself ; and More Picks
New Immigration 'Tent Courts' Are Not Open to the Public ; Trump's USDA Will Allow Pork Industry to Monitor Itself ; and More Picks 9/18
Tent Courts Open as Latest Hurdle for Migrants Seeking Asylum in US (Reader Steve)
From the Los Angeles Times: “Unlike other immigration courts, the tents built in Laredo and Brownsville, Texas, this summer are not open to the public. U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat, was allowed to visit [a] tent court Monday, but The Times was barred from entering by a Border Patrol supervisor who said the court was a ‘secure area.’ Laura Lynch, senior policy counsel with the American Immigration Lawyers Assn., was also barred from observing Monday’s hearings by Immigration and Customs Enforcement staff after entering the tent complex.”
On Climate, the Best Defense Is a Good Offense (Gerry)
The author writes, “Navy and DoD leaders must begin, in rapid earnestness, using the climate-mitigation levers at their disposal. It is time to go on the offense. The greatest potential is to mobilize and lead the entire U.S. government, which has significantly more options for mitigation, such as reforestation by the U.S. Forest Service, engagement of trade policies and diplomacy by the State Department, and advancement of carbon neutral nuclear power and carbon capture tech research by the Department of Energy.”
2016 Russian Cyberattack on Ukraine Intended to Cause Far More Damage Than It Did (Mili)
The author writes, “Russia’s hackers apparently intended to trigger [the] destruction not at the time of the blackout itself but when grid operators turned the power back on, using the utility’s own recovery efforts against them.”
Trump Is About to Make the Pork Industry Responsible for Inspecting Itself (Chris)
The author writes, “Meatpacking workers incur injury and illness at 2.5 times the national average; and repetitive-motion conditions at a rate nearly seven times as high as that of other private industries. Much has to do with the speed at which they work: Hog carcasses weighing as much as 270 pounds come at workers at an average rate of 977 per hour, or about 16 per minute. President Donald Trump’s US Department of Agriculture is close to finalizing a plan that would allow those lines to move even faster.”
Dark Crystals: The Brutal Reality Behind a Booming Wellness Craze (Chris)
From the Guardian: “Demand for ‘healing’ crystals is soaring — but many are mined in deadly conditions in one of the world’s poorest countries. And there is little evidence that this billion-dollar industry is cleaning up its act.”
