February, 17 2016, 09:30am EDT
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FDA Plan to Measure Weed Killer Residues on Food Only a First Step
WASHINGTON
Consumer advocacy group U.S. Right to Know applauded the U.S. Food and Drug Administration today for declaring that it plans to start testing for glyphosate residues in soybeans, corn, milk and eggs among other potential foods as concerns about the popular herbicide mount around the world. Though the FDA has responsibility for food safety and for routinely measuring for pesticide residues on certain foods, the agency has not routinely looked for glyphosate in its pesticide chemical residue monitoring regulatory program in the past.
Glyphosate is the chief ingredient in Roundup weed killer, made by Monsanto Co., and is also the active ingredient in hundreds of herbicide products sold around the world. It is the most widely used herbicide globally, and its use has surged in the United States with the spread of genetically engineered crops that have been designed to tolerate being sprayed with glyphosate. But concerns about the chemical's impact on human health and on the environment have been growing, and in March 2015 the World Health Organization's cancer experts classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen.
"The FDA move is a good first step, but the testing must be thorough and widespread," said Gary Ruskin, co-director of U.S. Right to Know. "USDA also should get on board."
The U.S. Department of Agriculture conducts its own annual testing of foods for pesticide residues through a "pesticide data program," that typically tests for several hundred different pesticides each year. But only once in the history of the 24-year program has the agency conducted tests for glyphosate residues. Those tests, in 2011, were limited to 300 soybean samples and found that 271 of the samples had glyphosate residues.
U.S. Right to Know is a nonprofit organization that investigates the risks associated with the corporate food system, and the food industry's practices and influence on public policy. We promote the free market principle of transparency - in the marketplace and in politics - as crucial to building a better, healthier food system.
U.S. Right to Know is a nonprofit investigative research group focused on promoting transparency for public health. We are working globally to expose corporate wrongdoing and government failures that threaten the integrity of our health, our environment and our food system.
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Group Behind Project 2025 Already Claiming Election Interference by Biden
The Heritage Foundation is "stoking irresponsible inflammatory fear of election fraud," said one journalist.
Jul 13, 2024
One election law expert warned this week that the right-wing Heritage Foundation is already baselessly claiming that President Joe Biden is likely to respond to the voting results as his predecessor, presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, did in 2020: by refusing to accept the will of American voters.
"This is gaslighting and it is dangerous in fanning flames that could lead to potential violence," Rick Hasen, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, toldHuffPost Friday.
The Heritage Foundation, the think tank that has spearheaded the drafting of Project 2025—a policy agenda threatening mass deportation and immigrant detention, the dismantling of federal agencies, and the consolidation of power with the president should Trump win a second term—said in a report released Thursday that Biden may try to continue his presidency "by force" even if he loses in November.
The claim has no basis in statements made by Biden, who has said he will accept the election results.
In May, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated that Biden "will accept the will of the American people." Trump has not made the same commitment.
Nevertheless, the Heritage Foundation report went on to say that "the lawlessness of the Biden administration—at the border, in staffing considerations, and in routine defiance of court rulings—makes clear that the current president and his administration not only possesses the means, but perhaps also the intent, to circumvent constitutional limits and disregard the will of the voters should they demand a new president."
Mike Howell, executive director of the group's Oversight Project, said at a press conference that "as things stand right now, there is a 0% chance of a free and fair election in the United States of America... I'm formally accusing the Biden administration of creating the conditions that most reasonable policymakers and officials cannot in good conscience certify an election."
"This is gaslighting and it is dangerous in fanning flames that could lead to potential violence."
Such comments show, saidNew York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica, that "these people are the insurrectionists. Or election terrorists."
Howell's comments echoed Trump's baseless warnings ahead of the 2020 election that voting would be "rigged" by widespread use of mail-in ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic. Trump relentlessly attacked voting by mail despite admitting that he had used mail-in ballots to vote in numerous elections.
The Heritage Foundation has conducted "role-playing exercises" that it says show "left-wing efforts to interfere with the election" are possible in 2024, HuffPost reported.
The report said voters should "reflexively disbelieve and challenge the intelligence community's allegations regarding Trump, foreign interference, and Republican efforts to legally win the White House."
Hasen told HuffPost that the group appeared to be trying to create doubt among the electorate about institutions that "give voters truthful information they need to evaluate evidence before them."
Journalist Jane Mayer said the group was "stoking irresponsible inflammatory fear of election fraud."
Political scientist Don Moynihan of Georgetown University added that the Heritage Foundation's baseless accusations against Biden likely preview how the Trump campaign could respond to the election results if he loses, four years after the former president urged his supporters to violently attempt to stop the certification of Biden's victory.
"The end game is to allow men in suits finish what the January 6th rioters started," he said.
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The United Nations' top expert on human rights in Palestine condemned the Israeli military as it resorted to a familiar excuse for the killing of nearly 100 Palestinians on Saturday in an area that had been designated as a "humanitarian zone"—just the latest massacre of dozens of people whom the Israel Defense Forces dismissed as collateral damage in attacks they claimed were targeting Hamas.
"The justification is always the same: 'targeting Palestinian militants,'" said Francesca Albanese, U.N special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories. "When is the world going to stop this death machine?"
Albanese was referring this time to the bombardment of al-Mawasi, a coastal area west of Khan Younis where hundreds of thousands of Gaza residents have been sheltering after fleeing cities including Rafah.
Al Jazeera reporter Tareq Abu Azzoum described the attack as "a new massacre committed by the Israeli military," with "five bombs and five missiles" hitting the area where Palestinians have been sheltering in makeshift tents for months.
Gaza's Ministry of Health reported that at least 90 people had been killed in the attack, which the IDF claimed was based on "precise intelligence" and targeted Hamas commanders Mohammed Deif and Rafa Salama.
"We have seen time and time again attacks on areas where there are displaced Palestinians in the tens of thousands," reportedAl Jazeera's Hamdah Salhut. "This is a tactic that is commonly used by Israeli forces, saying civilians are being used as 'human shields' for Hamas figures, using that as justification for killing dozens of civilians."
The Washington Post reported that it was "unclear" whether Deif, who has survived multiple assassination attempts by Israel, was killed in the attack.
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The British charity Medical Aid for Palestine reported that it was "forced to temporarily evacuate one of our medical points near the area, which is intended to provide primary healthcare services, due to the insecurity."
"MAP’s Mohammed Al Khatib in Khan Younis reports: 'Al-Mawasi is heavily crowded and has a big market where people move around to try and secure their basic needs,'" said the group. "We have been warning for months that there is no safe place for anyone in Gaza amid Israel's military bombardment."
"A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and civil defense crews are unable to reach them," the Health Ministry told the Associated Press.
The AP assessed footage that showed a "huge crater" in the area where thousands of people had been ordered to evacuate to when the IDF began its full-scale assault on Rafah in May. Burnt-out cars, household belongings, and charred tents—like those seen in previous attacks on so-called "humanitarian zones" in al-Mawasi and Rafah—were left after the bombings.
Academic and writer Ori Goldberg said it was "impossible to exaggerate the level of criminality, immorality, and crass, murderous stupidity that come together in the massacre Israel carried out in al-Mawasi this morning."
"Israel used wildly disproportionate force [to] assassinate two people," said Goldberg. "Israel pushed the displaced Palestinians to Mawasi, defining it a 'safe zone.' Then, assuming it had a chance to assassinate Muhammad Deif, one of the most senior Hamas leaders supposedly hiding there, Israel bombed the 'safe zone.' Dozens were killed. The death of a single person does not legitimize the slaughter of dozens."
Goldberg noted that the massacre came shortly after U.S. President Joe Biden announced Hamas and Israel were inching closer to a truce, with both sides agreeing to a "framework" for a cease-fire.
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The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said that as with previous attacks on designated safe zones, the IDF's massacre was made possible partially by the political and material support of the United States and other Western countries.
"Israel's far-right government carries out this mass slaughter of Palestinians secure in the knowledge that it will be supported and excused by the Biden administration and that American bombs and taxpayer funds will continue to flow," said Nihad Awad, national director of CAIR. "President Biden's continuing support for and silence about the genocide gives a green light for more Israeli abuses and war crimes. President Biden must stop enabling these daily massacres and end our nation's complicity in genocide."
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The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) said it was opening a 60-day comment period regarding a potential expansion of areas protected from drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A), also known as the Western Arctic.
The announcement comes three months after the Biden administration unveiled protections for 13 million acres of the 23 million-acre reserve, barring oil and gas companies from extraction there.
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"If enacted, these proposed protections would be another historic move towards long-term preservation of America's Arctic," said Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club's Lands Protection Program. "The Arctic is at the frontline of climate change. President Biden is making it the frontline of climate action."
"If enacted, these proposed protections would be another historic move towards long-term preservation of America's Arctic."
The group pointed out that further protections would allow the NPR-A to store carbon and provide subsistence hunting and gathering areas for Alaska Natives including the Iñupiat.
Protections like those proposed on Friday, said Nauri Simmonds of Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, are "vital for balancing the systematic disempowerment that's happened in our region for decades" as fossil fuel companies—with the approval of administrations including Biden's—have extracted oil and gas in the Arctic.
"In my Aaka's (grandmother's) lifetime, she witnessed the transition from living a traditional lifestyle to experiencing the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System being constructed and oil fields erected close enough to her traditional lands to be seen, heard, and lead to evacuations for Nuiqsut (the most impacted village from oil and gas development on the north slope of Alaska) as recently as 2022," said Simmonds. "We welcome this most recent announcement, and will continue to work towards building stronger communities in ways that lead to autonomy and self-determination on our traditional lands."
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