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Elise Coletta, elise@now.org, (951) 547-1241
WASHINGTON - The Food and Drug Administration did the right thing by approving the first-ever medical treatment for women's most common sexual complaint and we hope that other safe and effective treatments will be approved. Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD) is a serious condition experienced by about ten percent of pre-menopausal women, yet it has taken seven years for this drug, Flibanserin (Addyi), to get the green-light.
The National Organization for Women insists on the right of women with HSDD to be taken seriously and to have treatment options that improve their health and quality of life.
Women - no less than men - deserve to have satisfactory sexual experiences and fulfilling intimate relationships.
View this statement online by clicking here.
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is the largest organization of feminist activists in the United States. NOW has 500,000 contributing members and 550 chapters in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
"Tomorrow we'll get an explanation that it wasn't a Sieg Heil, he was just pantomiming his 'heart going out to the people.' Legacy media will basically accept this explanation. But you know what you saw and you know what he is," wrote one observer.
While concluding his remarks at a Washington, D.C. celebration rally following President Donald Trump's inauguration Monday, Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk raised his right arm, with his palm facing down, in a gesture that closely resembled a salute associated with Nazi Germany. Musk can be seen making the gesture twice.
The Anti-Defamation League, a group that combats antisemitism, defines the Nazi salute as consisting of "raising an outstretched right arm with the palm down."
Former Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) wrote: "Dang he meant that. Looks as if he's been holding that in for a while and finally was able to let it rip. Like he practiced in the mirror to hit that angle just right."
Others also weighed in on social media. "Did Elon Musk just hit the roman salute at his inauguration speech?” Twitch streamer Hasan Piker posted on the platform X, which is owned by Musk. "Why isn't Elon Musk doing two Nazi salutes at Trump's inauguration a lead story today?" asked political strategist Walid Shahid.
A BlueSky user wrote "Casual Nazi salute on live television."
"He accidentally did a Nazi salute... TWICE," wrote the journalist Mehdi Hasan wrote. "He is who we think he is."
Musk, a GOP megadonor who is slated to play a large role in the Trump administration, has expressed his support for the Alternative for Germany party (AfD), a virulently ant-immigration party that has been designated by the German domestic intelligence service as a "suspected extremist" organization. Figures in the party have been accused of using Nazi slogans in speeches and downplaying the Holocaust. Musk held a live event on X with the leader of AfD, Alice Weidel, in early January.
Musk has also repeatedly attacked billionaire and philanthropist George Soros, who has been the target of antisemitic conspiracy theories, including by falsely claiming Soros "collaborated with the Nazis as a teenager" and describing him as a "psychopath trying to destroy the West," according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Michael McCarthy, a PhD student at Indiana University wrote on X: "Tomorrow we'll get an explanation that it wasn't a Sieg Heil, he was just pantomiming his 'heart going out to the people.' Legacy media will basically accept this explanation."
"But you know what you saw," McCarthy added. "And you know what he is."
Green groups vowed to fight against "all attempts by Trump and his allies in Congress to weaken commonsense environmental rules and put polluter profits over the health, safety, and well-being of people and the planet."
This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates...
U.S. President Donald Trump said during his Monday inaugural address that he would declare a "national energy emergency," intended to help deliver on his campaign pledge to "drill, baby, drill" for climate-heating fossil fuels—one of the Republican's various planned actions that have alarmed green groups in recent days.
Other plans—some confirmed by the Trump administration's White House website—include withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement again, lifting a pause on new liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, and attacking efforts to limit planet-heating emissions with actions targeting clean energy and automobile rules.
"These actions are an unprecedented handout to billionaires," said Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement. "They will make a small handful of rich men unimaginably richer while killing good-paying jobs and threatening our health and homes. As wildfires rage across California, families flee their homes, and workers struggle to make ends meet, Trump's actions make it clear whose side he's on: the billionaires and powerful corporations who bankrolled his campaign."
The combined wealth of the world's billionaires surged by $2 trillion last year, Oxfam revealed Monday, as some of them joined Trump for his inauguration—an event decried as "a coronation of our country's descent into oligarchy." The president has also nominated billionaires, climate science deniers, and fossil fuel backers to Cabinet posts and other key positions.
"We are organizing in every corner of the country to make sure the American people see these actions for what they are: handouts to billionaires at our expense," said Shiney-Ajay. "Democrats must take off the gloves and do everything in their power to expose this blatant corruption and stand against Donald Trump's agenda."
While the fossil fuel industry applauded what American Gas Association president and CEO Karen Harbert called "President Trump's decisive action to maximize the benefits from our nation's abundant and essential energy and to protect consumer choice," Oil Change International executive director Elizabeth Bast joined Shiney-Ajay in emphasizing the importance of organizing during his second term.
"The fossil fuel industry invested $75 million to secure Trump's victory, and now they're expecting a return on that investment. By appointing fossil fuel CEOs to key Cabinet positions and planning to dismantle critical environmental protections, Trump is handing these companies a blank check to expand their operations at precisely the moment we need to end fossil fuel extraction," Bast said. "But the greed of fossil fuel billionaires and their political allies cannot overcome the power of our movements. In communities across America and around the world, we're standing up not just to toxic fossil fuel projects, but to the bigotry, hatred, and division that props up corporate power."
John Noel, deputy climate program director at Greenpeace USA, similarly highlighted that "during his campaign, Trump openly requested $1 billion from Big Oil. Executive orders like declaring a 'national energy emergency' and rubber-stamping more LNG exports are the prize—a quid pro quo—rewarding those who financed his political rise."
"The latest science and economic analysis from the Department of Energy concludes that unfettered LNG exports are not in the US public interest," Noel noted. "LNG exports have already driven up U.S. energy prices. Rubber-stamping new export authorizations will only exacerbate the cost of living crisis for working people."
Nodding to Trump's previous withdrawal from the Paris agreement, which former President Joe Biden reversed, Oxfam America president and CEO Abby Maxman said that ditching the deal again "is more than reckless—it's economic self-sabotage and a betrayal of every community, both in the U.S. and globally, already facing catastrophic storms, heatwaves, and rising seas."
"While we will have a climate denier in the White House, any predictions that this is 'game over' for climate ambition are wrong," she added. "Most Americans support climate action, and communities, cities, and states across the country are stepping up to work for a sustainable future. The struggle to protect our planet isn't over—and together, we can still win."
Rachel Cleetus, policy director and lead economist for the Union of Concerned Scientists' Climate and Energy Program, similarly called the Paris withdrawal "a travesty" that "is in clear defiance of scientific realities and shows an administration cruelly indifferent to the harsh climate change impacts that people in the United States and around the world are experiencing."
"Last year was the first time global average temperatures exceeded 1.5°C above preindustrial levels for an entire year. Unless world leaders act quickly, the planet is on track for up to a 3.1°C increase, which would be catastrophic," she stressed. "As the largest historical emitter of heat-trapping emissions, the United States has a responsibility to do its fair share to stave off the increasingly dire consequences of the climate crisis."
"His disgraceful and destructive decision is an ominous harbinger of what people in the United States should expect from him and his anti-science Cabinet hell-bent on boosting fossil fuel industry profits at the expense of people and the planet," Cleetus added, pushing for "urgent actions from U.S. and global policymakers" to tackle the fossil fuel-drive climate emergency.
Green groups vowed to spend the next four years fighting against what Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter called "Trump's filthy fossil fuel agenda," which she said "may benefit billionaires invested in the oil and gas industry, but it will hammer everyday Americans."
"Trump's declaration of a national energy emergency leverages a false premise to encourage expanded fossil fuel production at a time when the United States is already the top oil and gas producer in the world," said Hauter. "Though Trump claims he is acting to reduce costs for consumers, his actions will only increase expenses for everyone, through higher utility bills, greater pollution impacts, and the overwhelming costs of climate change-supercharged disasters—all falling disproportionately on low-income families and communities of color."
"We will vigorously fight back against any and all attempts by Trump and his allies in Congress to weaken commonsense environmental rules and put polluter profits over the health, safety, and well-being of people and the planet," she pledged.
Kierán Suckling, executive director at the Center for Biological Diversity, declared that "no one in American history has shown more disdain for the environment than Donald Trump. His reckless contempt for our nation's natural heritage and people's health will only get worse, but we'll fight him at every step."
"The United States has some of the strongest environmental laws in the world, and no matter how petulantly Trump behaves, these laws don't bend before the whims of a wannabe dictator," he continued. "The use of emergency powers doesn't allow a president to bypass our environmental safeguards just to enrich himself and his cronies. We'll see Trump in court to challenge each of these horrific, senseless attacks on wildlife, public lands, and our health."
The Center for International Environmental Law said that "our vision remains clear: Justice, democracy, and a sustainable future are not aspirations—they are the foundation of our work and the promise we strive to fulfill every day. With communities and allies around the globe, we stand firmly and unapologetically for a world where these principles thrive, building a future rooted in hope, courage, and collective action."
"It is repugnant that these remarks occur from the highest U.S. office on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day," the group added. "Today, and every day, we channel Dr. King's call to action: 'Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.' Together and through collective, continuous action, we will bend the arc of history towards justice."
One human rights group said settlers aim "to impose a 'price tag' for the release of Palestinians from Israeli prisons."
A day after the cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas took effect, the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem said Monday that attacks by settlers in the West Bank—carried out with the "full cooperation" of Israeli soldiers, according to one rights group—were meant to "impose a 'price tag' for the release of Palestinians" as part of the truce.
West Bank residents shared accounts—backed up by footage that was verified by The New York Times—of masked Israeli settlers in the Israeli-occupied territory burning homes and vehicles on Sunday, with gangs of "dozens of men, some carrying slingshots," rampaging through at least three Palestinian villages.
The cease-fire deal reached last week was widely celebrated after more than 15 months of Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza, which has killed at least 46,913 Palestinians.
But some on the far-right in Israel, including settlers in the West Bank, object to the release of Palestinians from Israeli prisons.
In the first phase of the agreement, 33 Israeli hostages are set to be released by Hamas, while 737 Palestinian prisoners being held in Israel and 1,167 Palestinians detained by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will be freed. On Sunday, the first three Israeli hostages and 90 Palestinians were released.
B'Tselem reported that a 15-year-old boy was killed in the West Bank town of Sabastiya by soldiers who "escorted" gangs of settlers on Sunday.
In Sinjil, the Times reported that dozens of men threw stones and set houses ablaze, injuring several people, including an 86-year-old man.
"People screamed as their homes were burning," a resident, Ayed Jafry, told the newspaper.
Villagers in Turmus Aya reported that Israeli police officers did not try to stop at least 20 masked settlers who entered the town and threw stones, and CCTV footage showed Israeli police cars in the area.
Ofer Cassif, a member of the Israeli Knesset who has expressed support for South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, called on the international community to "enforce accountability on its own and bring these violent, racist criminals to justice."
"If their flames of hatred will not be vanquished," said Cassif, "it will engulf us all."