SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
Andrea McGimsey, Senior Director, Global Warming Solutions, 703-477-4722, amcgimsey@environmentamerica.org Â
Mark Morgenstein, Sr. Communications Manager, 303-573-5556, markm@publicinterestnetwork.org
Today is the last day that Americans can officially comment on the Trump administration's proposal to replace the Clean Power Plan. The original Plan was designed to cut air pollution and help prevent the worsening impacts of climate change. However, the suggested replacement would do just the opposite. Environment America delivered 17,317 comments to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) opposing the proposed rule.
Today is the last day that Americans can officially comment on the Trump administration's proposal to replace the Clean Power Plan. The original Plan was designed to cut air pollution and help prevent the worsening impacts of climate change. However, the suggested replacement would do just the opposite. Environment America delivered 17,317 comments to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) opposing the proposed rule.
If fully implemented, the Clean Power Plan would have eliminated 32 percent of the carbon pollution from the electric power sector by 2030. Instead, the administration aims to keep dirty coal plants online longer and increase carbon emissions, at a time when scientists are telling us we must reduce this pollution quickly to stave off catastrophic impacts of global warming.
Andrea McGimsey, senior director of Global Warming Solutions at Environment America, released the following statement:
"While kids and parents prepare for Halloween, the Trump administration continues its relentless erosion of our nation's strongest climate and pollution prevention programs. Their plan is a treat for coal companies, and a trick on the rest of us.
"We are already seeing the tragic outcome of global warming. Increasingly severe storms and destructive wildfires have devastated communities across the country this year. Instead of working as hard as we can to reduce carbon pollution from our power plants to prevent even worse impacts, the Trump administration's plan promises to set us back.
"As our families celebrate one of our nation's favorite holidays, Environment America is proud to stand up for the future of our children. We have a clear message for the Trump administration: Please get back to work protecting the environment and the health of our nation."
With Environment America, you protect the places that all of us love and promote core environmental values, such as clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and clean energy to power our lives. We're a national network of 29 state environmental groups with members and supporters in every state. Together, we focus on timely, targeted action that wins tangible improvements in the quality of our environment and our lives.
(303) 801-0581"This is both about the Kolkata doctor who was brutalized and every woman who has faced sexual violence or harassment in the country," said one protester.
Indian doctors and healthcare workers on Saturday ramped up a nationwide strike in response to the rape and murder of a trainee physician in a state-run hospital in Kolkata, shutting down all hospital services except for emergency care in a bid to force action to protect women from sexual assault.
The August 9th murder of the 31-year-old doctor at R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata sparked massive demonstrations that began Monday and continued throughout the week. On Wednesday, protesters at a "Reclaim the Night" march attacked the hospital where the woman was killed. Protests also took place in cities including Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Pune.
Saturday's strike, which was organized by the Indian Medical Association, is set to last for 24 hours, during which all treatment in government hospitals and outpatient clinics has been canceled. The IMA
condemned the "crime of barbaric scale and the lack of safe spaces for women" in the world's most populous nation.
"This is both about the Kolkata doctor who was brutalized and every woman who has faced sexual violence or harassment in the country," one Kolkata protester toldThe Guardian. Other demonstrators in the West Bengal capital shouted slogans including, "We want justice," "Enough is enough," and "Hands that heal shouldn't bleed."
"We don't feel safe,” Antara Das, a medical student who joined the Kolkata protest, toldAl Jazeera. "If this happened inside a hospital that is second home to us, where are we safe now?"
Indian physicians called for the implementation of the Central Protection Act, a proposed law meant to shield healthcare workers from violence.
"We just want to be safe while we are doing our duty," Sapna Rani, a 27-year-old female doctor in New Delhi, told Al Jazeera.
One man has been arrested in connection with the doctor's rape and murder. According to the Indian Express, the suspect's wife filed multiple complaints with police accusing him of assault, including while she was pregnant. The suspect is reportedly a "civic volunteer" who worked closely with police.
In stark contrast to the nationwide protests, local police and the principal at the victim's medical college, Dr. Sandip Ghosh, claimed the murdered doctor, who was sleeping in the hospital's seminar hall when she was attacked, killed herself.
Ghosh then claimed that the victim—who was found bleeding from her eyes, mouth, and genitals, and who had extensive traumatic injuries to her body—was still to blame for her own death.
"It was irresponsible of the girl to go to the seminar hall alone at night," he said, according toThe Wire.
Ghosh was interrogated Saturday by India's Central Bureau of Investigation. Earlier in the week, he tendered his resignation from R.G. Kar. Instead of accepting his resignation, the government transferred him to serve as principal of Calcutta National Medical College, where students staged a protest against the move.
India Todayreported Saturday that the West Bengal government has canceled Ghosh's transfer.
"It is impossible to conduct a polio vaccination campaign with war raging all over," said AntĂłnio Guterres after a 10-month-old infant became Gaza's first new poliomyelitis case in 25 years.
Following over a month of warnings, Gaza recorded its first case of polio since the highly contagious virus was eradicated there 25 years ago, prompting a Friday call by United Nations Secretary-General AntĂłnio Guterres for a temporary truce to enable a vaccination drive in the embattled strip.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Friday that an 10-month-old infant in the central city of Deir al-Balah "who has not received any polio vaccine dose" has tested positive for the virus, which often causes paralysis and can be fatal. The ministry said the baby is one of "a number of children" who have presented with symptoms consistent with polio in recent days.
"The ultimate vaccine for polio is peace and an immediate humanitarian cease-fire."
"The continued brutal Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip has caused a health disaster as witnessed by international organizations," the ministry added, citing "the lack of basic hygiene needs, the lack of sanitation services, the accumulation of waste on the streets and around the shelters of the displaced, and the lack of safe drinking water" as factors that "have created a conducive environment for outbreaks."
Responding to the news, Guterres implored Israeli and Palestinian forces to lay down their arms so that U.N. humanitarian aid workers can launch a campaign to vaccinate half a million Gazan children.
"I am appealing to all parties to provide concrete assurances right away guaranteeing humanitarian pauses for the campaign," he told reporters at the U.N. headquarters in New York.
"Let's be clear: The ultimate vaccine for polio is peace and an immediate humanitarian cease-fire," Guterres stressed. "But in any case, a polio pause is a must."
The U.N. World Health Organization and other groups sounded the alarm after poliovirus type 2 was found in Gaza wastewater last month. The discovery prompted the Israel Defense Forces to offer polio vaccines to its soldiers taking part in the invasion of the coastal enclave. Earlier this month, the Gaza Health Ministry declared the entire strip a "polio epidemic zone."
Guterres said Friday that Gaza's health, water, and sanitation systems "have been decimated" by Israeli attacks, which have destroyed or damaged most hospitals and primary care facilities and created fertile ground for the spread of disease.
As Leslie Roberts wrote recently for Science:
The poliovirus is transmitted through the "fecal-oral" route—by contact with the feces of an infected child or consumption of water or food contaminated by fecal matter. The conditions in which the 1.9 million displaced Gazans are living—crammed into unhygienic camps with little access to clean water and sanitation and untreated sewage flowing openly between tents—create an ideal environment for the virus to thrive.
Since the war began in October 2023, 70% of water and sanitation facilities in Gaza have been significantly damaged, and about 340,000 tons of solid waste have accumulated in or near populated areas, according to an estimate from the U.N. Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Cluster. In June, Oxfam estimated there is just one toilet for every 4,130 people in Al-Mawasi, a supposed "safe zone" west of Khan Younis that recently came under Israeli attack.
In addition to polio, Israel's assault on Gaza and its disruption of medical supplies have fueled the spread of other preventable diseases including measles and hepatitis A.
"We know how an effective polio vaccination campaign must be administered," Guterres said. "Given the wholesale devastation in Gaza, at least 95% vaccination coverage will be needed during each round of the two-round campaign to prevent polio's spread and reduce its emergence."
The Gaza Health Ministry said that it has been working with the U.N. and other international organizations "over the past weeks on developing an integrated comprehensive plan for the implementation of an expanded polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip," and that it will "carry out a vaccination campaign in the next few days targeting children under the age of 10."
Children, who make up around half of Gaza's population of 2.3 million people, have been particularly hard-hit by Israel's 316-day Gaza onslaught. More than 16,000 of the at least 40,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli bombs and bullets are minors. The "complete siege" of Gaza—which has been entered as evidence in the International Court of Justice genocide trial against Israel—has disrupted the entry of food, medicine, and other vital supplies, fueling a famine that has killed dozens of Palestinian children.
The Gaza Health Ministry said 1.1 million doses of a two-dose, orally administered type 2 polio vaccine have been provided by the United Nations Children's Fund, with another 400,000 doses on the way. UNICEF said it "is coordinating delivery efforts and the cold chain equipment needed for storage."
Medical teams from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)—which is the largest healthcare provider in Gaza, even as Israeli forces have killed around 200 of its workers—said they are ready to administer the polio vaccines and assist in their distribution.
The Gaza Health Ministry renewed its "appeal to the international community and the international health organizations to speed up intervention to immediately stop the barbaric Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, work to prepare the ground conditions in order to rescue what can be salvaged, and provide immediate healthcare services to... our people."
The agency also made an "urgent appeal" for "the necessity of immediate action to rebuild safe drinking water and sanitation systems, dispose of medical and solid waste, work on importing fuel to pump clean fresh water, and allow unconditional entry of medical supplies, medicines, and special materials used for personal hygiene."
Guterres underscored the need to "defeat a vicious virus that, left unchecked, would have a disastrous effect not only for Palestinian children in Gaza, but also in neighboring countries and the region."
"Polio does not care about dividing lines, and polio does not wait," he said. "Polio goes beyond politics. It transcends all divisions. And so it is our shared obligation to come together. To mobilize—not to fight people, but to fight polio."
However, he stressed, "it is impossible to conduct a polio vaccination campaign with war raging all over."
"A successful polio vaccination campaign needs safety," Guterres added. "Safety for health workers to do their jobs. Safety for children and families to get to the health facilities. And safety for those health facilities to be protected from bombardment."
In a 5-4 ruling—with Justice Neil Gorsuch joining the liberals in dissent—the court delayed Biden's expansion of Title IX protections to include gender identity and sexual orientation.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday denied the Biden administration's emergency request to reinstate parts of its updated Department of Education Title IX rule expanding the definition of "discrimination on the basis of sex" to include sexual orientation, gender identity, and pregnancy status.
The nation's highest court ruled 5-4—with conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch joining liberal colleagues Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson in dissent—that the Biden administration "has not provided this court a sufficient basis to disturb the lower courts' interim conclusions that the three provisions found likely to be unlawful are intertwined with and affect other provisions of the rule."
Republican attorneys general in more than two dozen states pushed courts to block the Biden administration's updated Title IX rule, which was set to take effect on August 1. The new rule has been on hold pending the outcome of litigation.
In her dissent, Sotomayor wrote: "A majority of this court leaves in place preliminary injunctions that bar the government from enforcing the entire rule—including provisions that bear no apparent relationship to respondents' alleged injuries. Those injunctions are overbroad."
While conservatives welcomed the ruling, LGBTQ+ advocates expressed disappointment.
"All young people deserve to show up to school and get an education without facing the threat of discrimination and bigotry. But five cruel justices on the Supreme Court just put countless LGBTQ+ students' health, safety, and lives in jeopardy," said Sarah Lipton-Lubet, president of the advocacy group Take Back the Court.
"The hateful right-wing movement with which these justices align themselves constantly invokes 'protecting children' as a false justification for their extremist agenda," Lipton-Lubet added. "But protecting children means keeping them safe from homophobic and transphobic violence; from gun violence; from attacks on equitable education; and from environmental destruction that threatens their futures. This court has failed them time and time again."
The Biden administration's effort to expand Title IX protections came amid a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ laws enacted in Republican-controlled states in recent years.
More than two dozen states have passed laws banning or restricting gender-affirming healthcare including puberty-blocking drugs, hormone therapy, and surgery for minors. At least 11 states have also passed laws banning transgender students from using school restrooms and other facilities consistent with their gender identity, and 25 states have banned transgender girls from competing on female scholastic sports teams.
Responding to Friday's decision, an Education Department spokesperson said that "while we do not agree with this ruling, the department stands by the final Title IX regulations released in April 2024, and we will continue to defend those rules in the expedited litigation in the lower courts."
Friday's ruling is not the last word on the Biden administration's Title IX rule, as the decision merely delays the issue pending further litigation that could ultimately be revisited by the Supreme Court in the future.