Officials plan to shoot 150 cattle from the sky Thursday. An 11th-hour lawsuit hopes to stop it.
Natalie Neysa Alund, USA TODAY – February 24, 2023
Less than 24 hours before bullets are set to fly, a group of animal activists including the Humane Farming Association hopes an 11th-hour lawsuit stops the planned aerial slaughter of 150 cattle in New Mexico.
During a federally-approved, three day-event set to start Thursday, the U.S. Forest Service plans to shoot feral cattle from a helicopter roaming a southwestern area of the state.
The federal agency announced its decision on Feb. 16, explaining feral cattle on the 560,000-acre Gila Wilderness Area “pose a significant threat to public safety and natural resources.”
Opponents including The New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association (NMCGA) this week asked a judge to grant a temporary restraining order to stop the mass killing. A hearing on the scheduled slaughter is set for Wednesday morning, court records show.
Federal officials are set to start shooting feral cattle in the Gila Wilderness starting February 23, 2023. A lawsuit filed just two days before the scheduled slaughter hopes to stop it.
On Tuesday, the group jointly filed suit in U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico against the Forest Service and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to prevent “the inhumane aerial gunning” of cattle.
“No matter what the Forest Service claims, this is unadulterated animal cruelty,” said Humane Farming Association National Director Bradley Miller. “These animals don’t take the shots standing still – they run in fear from the helicopter chasing them. These are not clean kills; the cattle experience horrifically slow deaths. Their orphaned calves are left to starve or be killed by predators.”
USA TODAY has reached out to the Forest Service and the USDA for comment.
The animals are to be shot within the Gila National Forest, a 3-million-acre reserve in New Mexico.
Last year, the NMCGA filed a temporary restraining order in an effort to stop the Forest Service’s plan to use aerial gunning to eliminate free-roaming cattle from the wilderness area, during which 65 cattle were shot at and killed from a helicopter. That legal effort was denied.
A stipulation resulting from last year’s lawsuit required that the agency provide the cattle growers and the public 75 days’ written notice before future shooting commenced, this year’s lawsuit alleges.
“Yet, this year, the Forest Service provided only one week’s notice,” according to a press release from the Humane Farming Association.
APHIS intends “to shoot as many as 150 cattle with high-powered rifles from a helicopter, leaving their carcasses strewn throughout New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness,” the new 31-page lawsuit reads. “Intervention is necessary to put an immediate stop to this unlawful, cruel, and environmentally harmful action, both now and in the future.”
Lawsuit claims violation of law
In the suit, the plaintiffs argue that, in addition to not complying with the 75-day notice, the Forest Service has no legal authority to carry out its aerial gunning plan, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs the process by which federal agencies develop and issue regulations.
“Shooting violates the APA because it is not authorized by statute or regulation, exceeds the Forest Service’s authority, and fails to follow the existing regulations for the removal of unauthorized cattle,” the suit continues.
In addition, plaintiffs argue that, by proceeding without first conducting an environmental review of the significant harms to the wilderness ecosystem, the Forest Service is violating the National Environmental Policy Act. Because the Forest Service intends to leave all 150 dead and dying cattle in the wilderness to decompose, the government will cause catastrophic pollution of the Gila River and impermissibly interfere with the natural feeding behaviors of native wildlife.
Natalie Neysa Alund covers trending news for USA TODAY.
People Boycott Popular Beer After Producer Breaks Promise to Pull Out of Russia
It’s not a good look.
Colette Bennett – February 24, 2023
People Boycott Popular Beer After Producer Breaks Promise to Pull Out of Russia
More than 10,000 people are spending their Friday morning on Twitter calling for a boycott of Dutch beer company Heineken.
A tweet featuring an incendiary fan-made image first used the hashtag on Feb. 23, which transformed Heineken’s signature green bottle into pointed bullets and stated “proud supporter of Russian genocide.”
The post also stated: “Heineken launched no less than 61 new products on the #Russian market last year after promising to stop investing there because of the war in #Ukraine.”
Heineken in March 2022 had vowed to pull its business from Russia after the country invaded Ukraine. But an investigative report from Netherlands-based website Follow the Money states that the company’s reports showed its Russian arm “launched 61 new products ‘in record time’ and sold 720,000 hectoliters more beer and soft drinks.”
Heineken was quick to respond to the controversy in a formal statement: “We’re working hard to transfer our business to a viable buyer in very challenging circumstances and we expect at a significant financial loss to the company, amounting to around €300M.
“In the meantime, our local colleagues at Heineken Russia are doing what they can to keep the business going, after fully delisting the Heineken® brand, to avoid nationalisation and ensure their livelihoods are not at risk.”
Researchers Have Pinpointed One Type of Exercise That Makes People Live Longer—It’s Not What You May Think
Ali Pattillo – February 24, 2023
If you’re looking to reboot your health this year, you might sign up for your first triathlon, kickstart a meditation habit, or cut down on ultra-processed foods. But the latest science suggests the best way to improve long-term health isn’t physical, it’s social: connection.
Strengthening relationship ties by exercising what experts call “social fitness” is the most influential brain and body hack. Like weight training staves off bone density loss as you age, social fitness counters the downstream effects of chronic stress.
“Not exercising your social fitness is hazardous to your health,” says Robert Waldinger, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
Waldinger directs the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest scientific study of happiness ever conducted. According to the psychiatrist, who recently summed up eighty-plus years of data in his book The Good Life (January 2023, Simon & Schuster), the formula for health and happiness hinges on positive relationships.
“If you regularly feel isolated and lonely, it can be as dangerous as smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day or being obese,” Waldinger cautions.
But even though humans are wired to connect, exercising social fitness can be tricky. There’s no clear roadmap for building–or maintaining–a solid social life.
Luckily, Waldinger’s data points to actionable exercises we can all use to supercharge our social fitness.
Studying the Good Life
In 1938, amid the worst economic depression in American history, researchers rounded up 268 Harvard sophomores to better understand how early psychosocial and biological factors influence life outcomes. For over eighty years, a team–now led by Waldinger–has tracked the students and their families, following them through marriages, careers, births, diseases, and deaths. In the 1970s, 456 Boston inner-city residents who were part of another study focused on juvenile delinquency and resilience were incorporated into the Harvard study.
The researchers check in with participants every two years, posing thousands of questions on topics like mood and life satisfaction. Every five years, they take physiological measurements including brain scans and blood work. As of 2023, the ongoing study is still tracking all living members of the original participant set and over 500 members of their offspring. The trove of data provides an unparalleled window into what makes up a good life.
When Waldinger first joined the study as a young psychiatrist at Harvard, he had an inkling that conventional measures of success like achievement, status, and awards were mere distractions on the path to real happiness. As he delved deeper in the data, hundreds of subjects confirmed this suspicion. Across the study, neither wealth nor social class were correlated with happiness levels or longevity. Positive relationships, on the other hand, were consistently linked to happier, longer lives.
Other large-scale data reinforces this link between connection and longevity. One systematic research review from 2010, including over 300,000 participants, suggests people with strong social ties are 50 percent more likely to survive over a given period than those with weak ties. Loneliness and social isolation are associated with immune dysfunction and may even spike the risk of heart attack or stroke by an estimated 30 percent. To help prevent these negative health outcomes, it’s essential to foster social fitness.
What Is Social Fitness?
Scientists have been studying humans’ social psychology in formal labs and universities for over a century, but the idea of flexing your “social muscle,” like you would a bicep or quad, didn’t emerge until 2011. That’s when social neuroscientists John and Stephanie Cacioppo shared results from testing a 10-hour social fitness training program with the U.S. military. The team found that social fitness exercises such as doing someone a favor or practicing conflict resolution reduced loneliness and boosted well-being in soldiers.
While scientists and philosophers had linked positive relationships and optimal health for decades, the Cacioppos and their research team were among the first to suggest positive relationships could be analogous to physical fitness. And just like you can’t remain physically fit without exercising, social fitness–the ability to cultivate and maintain positive relationships– withers without consistent effort.
Social Fitness and the Loneliness Epidemic
When the first Harvard study subjects were in their 80s, Waldinger and his team asked them to look back on their lives and share what they were proudest of. Nearly everyone talked about relationships.
“Almost all said: I was a good parent or a good mentor. I had a good marriage or I was a good friend,” Waldinger recalls. “Almost nobody said: I made a lot of money, I won these awards, or I got to be the chief executive of my organization.”
The team went on to ask subjects: Who could you call in the middle of the night, if you were sick or scared? Some people rattled off a long list. Others couldn’t list anyone.
“That’s real loneliness–this sense that nobody in the world has my back,” Waldinger says. “The costs of that are huge. It makes us feel unloved and unsafe, and eventually breaks down our health.”
In 2023, at the most technologically connected moment in human history, people report feeling farther apart than ever. Forty percent of older adults in the U.S. report chronic loneliness. Add in pandemic-related lockdowns and loneliness has hit record highs, culminating in what Vivek Murthy, physician, and former United States surgeon general classifies as a loneliness epidemic.
“When you lose emotional and social fitness, you lose everything,” says Emily Anhalt, a clinical psychologist, co-founder of Coa, a gym for mental health, and expert on emotional fitness who is not involved in the Harvard Study. “Everything in life is going to feel better if you feel connected to other people to get through the tough things and enjoy the good things.”
Like prescribing a dose of time outside, some physicians go as far to say that encouraging social interactions has the potential to have a healing effect on patients. Emerging data suggests cancer patients have higher chances of survival if they feel satisfied by their levels of social support. Some experts even liken social connection to a vital sign–that measuring people’s loneliness levels hints at general health as accurately as blood pressure or pulse.
To combat widespread loneliness and reap the positive benefits of social connection, it may seem like we’re all supposed to be extroverts or party animals. That’s a common misconception.
Humans are social creatures, but we’re not all social butterflies. Loneliness is a subjective experience. It’s not about the quantity of friends or family you have, but how fulfilling those relationships feel. The antidote to loneliness for some may entail a vast social network, while a few close relationships work for others.
Anhalt says people should treat social fitness proactively. Rather than wait until they feel isolated, people should regularly nurture their social life, which elevates mental well-being by default.
“Our culture’s way of thinking about mental health is very reactive–we make people feel like they have to wait until things are falling apart to get support.” To Anhalt, that’s like waiting until you have early signs of heart disease to do cardio. “I want to help people think about working on their mental health more like going to the gym and less like going to the doctor.”
To exercise your social fitness, try this training plan outlined by Waldinger in his new book, The Good Life:
Map Your Social Universe
To kickstart social fitness, start with self-reflection. Like completing a basic strength training circuit to pinpoint weak muscle groups, the following mental exercises can reveal your shaky social muscles. First, in a journal or notes app, outline how you are devoting your time weekly, and to who. Then ask yourself: What am I giving and what am I receiving? Am I having enough fun with loved ones? Am I getting enough emotional support? Waldinger suggests taking this comprehensive social evaluation annually, maybe every new year or birthday.
Strengthen Keystones of Support
Rather than aim for a total social rehaul, focus on improving the valued relationships you already have. An easy way to do this is by asking loved ones: Is there anything I can do better in our relationship? Can I communicate differently, or should we spend more time together? Based on their answers, tailor your communication or quality time to benefit your inner circle.
Build Routine
A great way to level up–and maintain–healthy relationships is by scheduling regular contact, virtual or in-person. Pencil in a weekly coffee date with a mentor or plan a monthly Zoom call with high school friends. Remove some of the logistical barriers that make connecting feel like a chore. There’s no exact rep of weekly social interactions to hit. For some, one or two a week will suffice, while others may want to schedule daily opportunities for connection. Reflecting on how these interactions make you feel–energized or drained–can help you find your sweet spot.
Create New Connections
One exercise to keep your social muscles in good shape is by expanding your network. But making friends in adulthood isn’t as easy as it once was on the playground or soccer pitch. A surefire way to connect with someone new? Get involved in something you care about. If you love cross country skiing in winter, join a local club. If you enjoy getting your hands dirty outside, volunteer at a local community garden. These activities provide an immediate conversation starter with those who have similar interests. If you’re worried that no one would enjoy your company, volunteer your time to those who may be lonely like the elderly. Forging new connections at an older age may feel impossible– like running a marathon after years spent jogging 5Ks– but the effort leads to major benefits. Friendship shapes mental health and in turn, our physical well-being.
And here’s a bonus tip from Anhalt: Do “emotional push-ups.” These include striking up conversations with strangers, saying thank you, or accepting compliments without deflection. Start small–Practice one or two emotional push-ups weekly. While there’s no shortcut to social fitness, regularly flexing your social muscles will add up to stronger relationships over time.
Ukraine: Drone video shows cost of intense fighting in east
The Associated Press – February 24, 2023
New video footage shot on Feb. 19, 2023 from the air with a drone for The Associated Press shows how particularly intense fighting since the Feb. 24, 2022, invasion has left no building in Marinka intact. Russian tank fire further added to the destruction, pounding what appeared to be Ukrainian positions amid the ruins. (AP Photo)
MARINKA, Ukraine (AP) — The hulking Russian tank swiveled into position between the ruins of two pulverized apartment blocks, paused and fired, a ball of fire and fumes spewing from the muzzle of its cannon.
Just 12 seconds later, it fired again, unleashing another shell on its targets about 50 meters (yards) away on the other side of what had once been a street — many years ago, before fighting destroyed it.
Although Friday marks the grim first anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, combat between Russian-backed forces and Ukrainian troops has raged in the country’s east since 2014.
The town of Marinka is among those that have been reduced to rubble. It is in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province, where territory is roughly split between Russian and Ukrainian control. The front line runs through what is left of the town — which is very little.
New video footage shot from the air with a drone for The Associated Press shows how particularly intense fighting since the Feb. 24, 2022, invasion has left no building in Marinka intact. Many are barely recognizable as buildings at all. Shell-fire has also made matchsticks of the town’s trees — many of them ripped apart at the trunk.
Russian tank-fire, filmed Feb. 19, further added to the destruction, pounding what appeared to be Ukrainian positions amid the ruins.
Marinka’s police chief, Artem Schus, describes his town as “completely destroyed.”
Apart from soldiers, the town has been entirely evacuated “because there is no way for the civilian population to live there,” he told The AP in an interview.
Still, dozens of townspeople have been killed and many wounded, he says.
Schus believes that Russian forces are deliberately razing the ruins, blasting walls that still stand, to “destroy all cover, regardless of whether it is a civilian shelter or a military facility.”
He adds: “They destroy everything because, with their tactics, they cannot defeat our troops, and resort to the destruction of all living things.”
AP video journalist Mstyslav Chernov contributed from Krasnohorivka, Ukraine.
Ukrainian soldiers with life-changing war injuries posed for portraits saying they are ‘living monuments’ of a brutal war
Mia Jankowicz – February 24, 2023
Oleksandr lost both his lower legs to a Russian missile.Marta Syrko
Ukrainian photographer Marta Syrko has asked war-injured soldiers to sit for her.
Oleksandr, who lost his lower legs, said he wanted to show that injured bodies can be powerful.
The pictures, both stark and tender, are a reminder of the human cost of Putin’s war.
Last summer, 26-year-old Oleksandr was resting in a trench.
Exactly six months earlier, he had been working as a barista while he trained in graphic design. But after Russia invaded, he became a leader in a mortar batallion.
He was exhausted. The safest place to rest would have been under tree cover along with his squad, but there was no more room there. So he drifted off in the trench.
The next thing he knew he was buried in soil, his legs in excruciating pain. After his friends had scrabbled through the earth, they laid him on his front, not wanting him to glimpse his legs.
He told Insider he accepted his injuries “from the first moment” the missile hit him. (He spoke to Insider through an interpreter.)
So when photographer Marta Syrko asked Oleksandr to sit for her, he felt he could send a message with his body: among other things, to show the world the carnage Putin is inflicting and the cost of defending his country.
‘We need an artist, not just a photographer’
One of Syrko’s main subjects is bodies. A skim through her Instagram feed shows the human form in all its glory, from an advertising-perfect washboard stomach to the soft millefeuille creases of her grandmother’s skin.
After Russia’s invasion, however, more and more people were returning to her hometown of Lviv with life-changing wounds.
So she approached a rehabilitation clinic near the city to ask if any of the soldiers — whose bodies had been radically transformed by war — would let her take portraits of them.
Four men agreed, three of whom lost limbs and one who received serious burns.
Serhii agreed to become one of Syrko’s “Heroes.”Marta Syrko
Among the soldiers was Serhii, pictured above cradling his second child, who had his leg torn off in the shockwave of a blast near Izyum, in Kharkhiv Oblast.
Another, Stanislav, also lost a leg last summer, in Bakhmut — one of the most fiercely contested cities in the entirety of Russia’s bloody war.
Syrko said she was inspired by the classical statues she saw in museums like the Louvre.
Foundational for Western art history, they, too, through wear and tear, are often missing limbs.
Illya Pylypenko received severe burns in a tank.Marta Syrko
Later, Neopalymi, a charity devoted to treating and rehabilitating people with severe burns, approached Syrko with a request. They asked her to photograph Illya Pylypenko, a soldier who had burns on much of his body after his tank caught fire.
Syrko’s unflinching photos of Pylypenko show how his face, in particular, was transformed.
A photo portrait by artist Marta Syrko of Ukrainian soldier Ilya, who was badly burned. Ilya is seen topless in a three-quarter view, chin in hand, looking ahead. Skin on his hand and arm, and much of his face, is badly damaged with red-colored burns on his otherwise white skin.
Neopalymi, a burns rehabilitation center, asked Syrko to photograph Illya Pylypenko.Marta Syrko
Maksym Turkevych, Neopalymi’s CEO, told Insider in an email that the project needed “an artist, not just a photographer.”
‘We don’t know what to say. How to behave.’
Syrko’s work has many fans, but she said she’s had occasional comments from people who say she’s exploiting disabled people through her work.
Asked about this, Syrko — who is able-bodied — said her aim is to make a real and complex discussion happen.
“It’s a hard question for Ukrainians now, because we don’t know how to act near them,” she said. “We don’t know what to say, how to behave. And so that’s why we have to discuss it.”
Stanislav also lost his lower leg.Marta Syrko
For Oleksandr, the decision to become a “monument” for Syrko’s photos, as he put it, was a deliberate choice that he embraced.
He liked Syrko’s thinking about statues, saying in an Instagram post that people like him are “living monuments, who have been close-up witnesses to war.”
Serhii, pictured here with his son, lost part of his leg near Izyum.Marta Syrko
But public attitudes can be disappointing, even though he was injured defending their homeland, he said. People “look away, and they break into lively talk when ‘monuments’ walk past.”
Society, he said, stops seeing these bodies as beautiful.
“I wanted to become something that would inspire others like me to feel that people are looking at them not with shame, but with exaltation!” he wrote.
This was Neopalymi’s goal, too. “The main reason for us to do it is to show the society that there is a beauty in it, and that they should not be scared or disgusted by this,” said Turkevych, the CEO.
Syrko’s unflinching images of Illya show the effects of his burns.Marta Syrko
With a 122,000-strong Instagram following, Syrko said she had conversations with her subjects about the exposure the pictures could bring.
“I told them that they are probably going to be a little bit popular,” she said. And so they turned out to be — her pictures have been shared by the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Twitter account, and by newspaper Ukrainska Pravda.
Oleksandr told Insider, laughing, about his surprise when he arrived at the studio and realized that Syrko wanted him to pose nearly nude.
But he quickly got comfortable. “Marta’s the kind of person with whom you can feel comfortable and free,” he said.
Rebuilding an accessible Ukraine
Oleksandr spoke to Insider from the US, where thanks to a partnership with Ukrainian organization Without Restrictions, he has been undergoing intensive rehabilitation.
There, he’s learning to walk and run on high-tech prostheses. But for some weeks before he flew out, he was using a wheelchair.
Syrko photographed Stanislav in her contemplative artistic style.Marta Syrko
While the Ukrainian government has not confirmed exact numbers of casualties, the number of people with life-changing injuries — whether civilian or soldiers — is likely to make accessibility a key concern for the country’s future.
It’s a realization echoed by disability organizations supporting relief efforts in Ukraine, who at a joint conference last year issued the Riga Declaration, a document calling for the country’s rebuilding to employ universal design principles.
“A lot of cities are in a rebuilding phase,” Syrko said, envisioning a new, post-war Ukraine. “We can start to build it from zero — why can’t we do it correctly?”
Republicans pushing a plan to remove you (yes, you too) from Arizona’s voter rolls
Laurie Roberts, Arizona Republic – February 24, 2023
Voters wait in line at a polling station at Mesa Community College in Mesa, Ariz. on Election Day.
In August, the attorney general of Arizona wrapped up his investigation into the Cyber Ninjas’ claim that hundreds of dead voters cast ballots in the 2020 election.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, braindead or alive, Attorney General Mark Brnovich concluded that the Senate’s vaunted auditors didn’t know what they were talking about. There was no vast graveyard full of dead voters determined to deny Donald Trump his due.
Not even so much as a small crypt of conspiracy.
So naturally, there’s a bill in the Arizona Legislature to take care of this nonexistent problem … by cancelling your voter registration.
I am not making this up.
Senate Bill 1566 would wipe Arizona’s voter rolls clean every 10 years, requiring millions of Arizonans to re-register to vote.
It is but one of the dozens of kooky bills born of MAGA zealots and their absolute refusal to consider the fact that maybe they are losing statewide races because their candidates just aren’t acceptable to a statewide electorate.
Both the Senate and House election committees are chaired by election deniers.
The chairwoman of the Senate Elections Committee is Sen. Wendy Rogers of Flagstaff, who wanted to decertify the 2020 election and regularly calls for the arrest of elections officials. After being tapped by Senate President Warren Petersen to run point on election bills this year, Rogers vowed to engineer a do-over of Maricopa County’s 2022 election, though it seems more like a fundraising gimmick than an actual plan.
The chairwoman of the House Municipal Oversight and Elections Committee is Rep. Jacqueline Parker of Mesa, who, like Rogers, was a co-sponsor of then-Rep. Mark Finchem’s 2022 proposal to decertify Arizona’s 2020 presidential election. Her panel is packed with election deniers.
Every week, we are treated to veritable buffet of bad bills designed to fix problems that exist only in their fevered imaginations.
There’s a bill to do away with early ballots, the voting method of choice by 8 in 10 voters.
There’s a bill to ban ballot tabulators, never mind that hand counts are considered less accurate and more expensive. Or that a hand count of up to 70 races on 3 million or more ballots is likely to last until Christmas.
There‘s a bill to ban unmonitored ballot drop boxes out of some undocumented fear that Eeyore is lurking about and another to return to voting in precincts, never mind it leads to more voters being disenfranchised when they show up to the wrong place to vote.
There’s a bill that would require elections officials to post online the name, year of birth and address of every voter and another that would allow representatives of the Republican and Democratic parties to challenge your signature on an early ballot.
Then there is SB 1566, requiring you to reregister every 10 years if you want to continue exercising your constitutional right to vote.
In pushing the bill, Sen. Sonny Borrelli, R-Lake Havasu City, noted that he decided to look into the issue after the Attorney General’s Office spent “thousands of hours” investigating claims of dead voters.
“So I had my audit team go through voter registrations on dead voters and bounced that against the people that voted,” he recently told the Senate Elections Committee. “They looked at 30 ballot envelopes. Within 45 minutes they found 17 people that somehow voted after they died.”
Fifty-six percent? Clearly, our elections are being determined by those whose forwarding address lies somewhere near the Pearly Gates … or perhaps a good ways south of there.
Curiously, Borrelli didn’t mention the findings of the Attorney General’s Office after all those hours of investigation.
The ninjas, as part of their five-month audit of Maricopa County’s election, reported that 282 dead voters cast ballots in the November 2020 election. The AG’s Office then said it spent hundreds of hours investigating those claims.
The conclusion: 281 of those 282 voters were alive and kicking when they cast ballots.
“Our agents investigated all individuals that Cyber Ninas reported as dead, and many were very surprised to learn they were allegedly deceased,” Attorney General Brnovich wrote in an August letter to then-Senate President Karen Fann.
AG investigators also checked out four other reports of up to 6,500 supposedly dead people who either cast ballots or were on the voter registration rolls. They came up with “only a handful of potential cases,” all of them isolated instances.
Yet another conspiracy gone kaput – consigned to the graveyard of crazy to rest in peace alongside Sharpies, green buttons, bamboo ballots, hacked machinery and all the other supposedly nefarious ways in which Arizona’s 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.
Only to rise again in the Senate Elections Committee, and to heck with federal law.
The National Voter Registration Act outlines how and when a person’s name can be removed from the voter rolls, for example if he or she requests it or moves or dies.
The act also requires states to make “a reasonable effort to remove ineligible persons by reason of the person’s death, or a change in the residence of the registrant outside of the jurisdiction.”
I’m guessing a wholesale wipeout of every Arizonan’s registration every 10 years might be considered a tad, I don’t know, unreasonable?
“It violates federal law,” Jen Marson, of the Arizona Association of Counties, warned the committee. “It’s totally in conflict with NVRA.”
Even some Republicans were queasy about the proposal. Sen. T.J. Shope, R-Coolidge said he doesn’t view the bill as legitimate. Sens. Ken Bennett, R-Prescott, and John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, agreed.
Then all three voted yes and the bill passed on a party line 5-3 vote.
Voters may not be dead but when it comes to the state Capitol, common sense is a goner.
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What’s the best way to leave your house to your heirs?
Carmen Cusido – February 24, 2023
The most important thing is to determine whether to transfer the home during your lifetime or after death.
Time passes and estate plans need updating — decide now what you want to do with the family home after you are gone — and then write it down and update as necessary. ISTOCK
This article is reprinted by permission from NextAvenue.org.
Francesca Maresca, 54, of Highland Park, New Jersey, had spoken in passing to her father, John, about whether he had an updated will. It was only when he died at 89 of congestive heart failure in September 2020 that she and her sister, Catherine, learned that he kept their late mother’s name on the deed to the family home and they, rather than their stepmother, had inherited the house.
The sisters sold their childhood home soon after the deed was transferred to them. “There was no squabbling over things,” Maresca said. “I recognize that’s rare.”
Indeed, homeowners who die before they decide and document what they want to do with their property can leave their relatives with a legacy no one wants: a protracted legal fight over what to do with the family home and the possibility of a substantial tax liability.
What is at stake?
Much is at stake. Cerulli Associates, a research and analytics firm in Boston, estimates that $84.4 trillion in personal wealth will be transferred from one generation to the next between now and 2045.
Most of it — more than $53 trillion — will come from baby boomers, people born between 1945 and 1964; another $15.8 trillion from people born before 1945. Primary residences represent more than 70% of that wealth, according to one estimate.
Members of Generation X — people born between 1965 and 1980 — stand to inherit the greatest portion of that transfer — $29.6 trillion over the next 25 years, including $8.9 trillion in the next 10 years, according to Cerulli. The millennial generation, which consists of people born from 1981 to 1996, are expected to inherit more than $27 trillion by 2045.
You can transfer a home or other property while you’re still alive, but Lazaro Cardenas, an estate lawyer in Freehold, New Jersey, said a drawback in doing so is that if your heirs are sued or otherwise get in trouble with the law, the property can be seized if it’s not adequately insured.
Additionally, by selling their house to their child or children, parents will lose the mortgage-interest deduction on their income tax return.
However, selling your house can generate cash that you may need for nursing care and other medical expenses late in life.
“If you bequeath the property in your will, one of the benefits is you can maintain control of your home until you die,” said Cardenas, a partner at Patel & Cardenas. “The drawback is that end-of-life care becomes expensive and usually is not covered by insurance.”
Cardenas added that if you apply for Medicaid to cover end-of-life expenses, the agency could consider your house as your asset if you sold it to your heirs within the previous five years.
“One solution is to sell your property to your child but create a deed that states you’re allowed to live in the house until you die, even if your child or children are now owners,” Cardenas said.
Another option is to place the property in a trust. That way, when you die, the property passes to the trust and the trustee then owns the home. The benefit here is the heir does not have to go to probate court after the last parent dies, Cardenas explained.
“Ultimately, you can leave your property to a child, all your children or none,” he added. “However, in a state like New Jersey, you cannot disinherit your spouse.”
Robert “Bob” Keebler, a Certified Public Accountant based in Green Bay, Wisconsin, with clients all over the world, advises parents to get ahead of potential arguments and create separate trusts for each child if there’s a lot of money involved.
“Lawyers bring CPAs in to get the math right so that there’s a clear delineation of what a client wants to accomplish from an economic standpoint,” Keebler said.
Potential hazards
He gave an example of a case he worked on where a man wanted his business to go to one of his children and the other child to inherit an equal amount of property.
“In this case, Child A must pay a little bit into the business so that it’s mathematically equal to what Child B gets,” Keebler added.
Other cases, though, are more complicated. For instance, children from a first marriage may have an issue with a stepparent or that stepparent’s children inheriting assets.
“As CPAs, we’re doing the tax work and projections on the settlements to defuse the situation with the least amount of tax for the group taken as a whole,” Keebler said. “We have clients who we help while they’re alive, but I sometimes get brought in after someone dies, when people start to understand what’s going to whom.”
The most important thing a person needs to determine is whether to gift their assets during their lifetime or after death.
The benefits of giving
“There are benefits to giving gifts during your lifetime,” Keebler said. “This is where you need to lay out a balance sheet and your goals and work with your accountants to structure your estate best.”
He added that giving real estate to your heirs while you are still alive can reduce the tax they will have to pay.
Inheriting money or other assets can bring up a lot of emotions, even when there are wills and trusts in place.
Jacquette M. Timmons, the president and CEO of Sterling Investment Management in New York City, said there’s often a sense of overwhelming responsibility from someone who inherits a home or a large sum of money. “There’s a sense of grief; you wouldn’t have this house or money if the person had not died,” she said. “Many want to ensure they’re a good steward of what they’re left with.”
Timmons advises her clients to wait at least a year before they make a big decision, like selling a home. “Time and distance bring clarity,” she said. “But I recognize that waiting before deciding is a privilege that few have.”
Instead of emphasizing death when working on wills and trusts, Timmons encourages her clients to view these legal documents as leaving a legacy.
“When someone has invested the time to put together an estate plan and say what their wishes are, that’s an incredible gift for the people left behind,” Timmons said. “They don’t have to worry about piecing things together. They can leave their loved ones with a full road map of what they’d like done. To me, that’s a love letter you’re leaving someone.”
In Maresca’s case, she and her sister spent two months cleaning their inherited home in Saddle River, New Jersey. They donated most of its contents. The three-bedroom, one-bathroom house went on the market in November 2021, and the sisters had 40 offers.
“We decided in about 10 minutes” Maresca said. “We went with the least amount of work; the investor who made a cash offer.” After the sale closed on Dec. 21, they split the proceeds evenly.
Maresca said the experience taught her the importance of communicating her wishes to her teenage son and establishing a trust in his name.
Carmen Cusido earned a bachelor’s from Rutgers University and a master’s degree from the Columbia School of Journalism. Her work has appeared in Newsweek, Oprah Daily, Refinery29, Health, NBC, CNN, NPR, Cosmopolitan, and other publications.
This article is reprinted by permission from NextAvenue.org, Twin Cities Public Television.
U.S. Man’s Death Suggests Deadly Tick Virus Is Spreading to New Regions
Ed Cara – February 24, 2023
The Lone Star tick (Amblyomma americanum) is known to spread several infectious diseases, including the Heartland virus.
A rare but sometimes fatal tickborne infection may be expanding its range in the U.S., local and federal health officials warn in a report this week. They say that a case of Heartland virus led to a man’s death in 2021. The infection is thought to have been caught in either Virginia or Maryland—a region of the country where the virus hasn’t been spotted in humans until now.
The report was published online Thursday in Emerging Infectious Diseases by officials with the Virginia Department of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health, as well as doctors at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
The man was in his late 60s and visited an emergency room in November 2021 with symptoms of fever, diarrhea, aches, and general discomfort. He didn’t appear to have any tick bites, but given his symptoms and the fact that he spent time between two homes in rural Virginia and Maryland, his doctors suspected a tickborne infection and sent him home with antibiotics. Unfortunately, two days later, he returned to the ER with new symptoms, including confusion and unsteady gait, and he was then admitted to the hospital.
The man’s health continued to worsen, and he was soon sent to a specialized care center. Despite testing for various germs, doctors couldn’t find the source of his illness. He eventually developed hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, a rare but life-threatening condition in which the body’s white blood cells attack the organs. His lungs and liver started to fail, and he developed cardiac arrest. He was then placed in palliative care. Thirteen days after his symptoms began, he died.
Doctors still suspected that he had contracted an infection spread by insects or ticks. Given the possibility of an ongoing threat to the public, officials with the Virginia Department of Health launched an investigation. They sent blood samples to the CDC for more extensive testing and went to the man’s homes in eastern Maryland and central Virginia the following summer to collect ticks in the area. The CDC testing finally revealed that he was infected with the Heartland virus, and a subsequent autopsy determined that he had died from complications of the infection.
Heartland virus was discovered in 2009 by doctors at the Heartland Regional Medical Center in northwestern Missouri. It’s known to be spread by the Lone Star tick (Amblyomma americanum), which is commonly found throughout the Eastern and Midwestern U.S. Many known cases of Heartland virus have led to hospitalization and death, but it’s only been sporadically documented in humans. Around 50 cases have been reported in over a dozen states to date, including Kentucky, Indiana, and as far north as New York.
Maryland and Virginia are within the tick’s expected range, but this case of Heartland appears to be the first ever traced back to either state. Because of the larger tick population found at the man’s home in Virginia, the report authors believe he caught it there. Interestingly enough, they failed to find the virus inside ticks at either location. But that doesn’t rule out its presence in these areas, they wrote, particularly because the virus seems to circulate in ticks at very low levels. They further suspect that the man caught the infection from larval ticks, since adults typically become inactive by late October (when he was likely bit). That could also explain why he didn’t notice the initial bite, given their smaller size, and why doctors failed to find any evidence by the time he felt sick roughly two weeks later, since any bite could have healed by then.
Especially compared to much more common tickborne diseases like Lyme disease, Heartland virus is a very rare danger to humans. But it is possible that we’re missing many milder cases of Heartland or that these infections are misdiagnosed as other tickborne diseases because they tend to share common symptoms, the authors say. And thanks in part to climate change, ticks generally are expanding their distribution throughout the U.S., which will make all of the many diseases they carry a bigger threat to worry about.
“Because tick ranges are increasing overall, incidence of previously regional tickborne infections, such as [Heartland virus], likely will continue to increase,” they wrote.
I spent a night at The Nuthouse and glimpsed the future of the Michigan Republican Party
M.L. Elrick, Detroit Free Press – February 23, 2023
LANSING — Reporters at last year’s Michigan GOP endorsement convention received credentials with “Whitmer protection team” printed on them.
This year, the candidates for party chairperson should have “Democrat protection team” printed on their credentials.
If you think I’m just provoking pachyderms, consider the literature long-shot chairman and co-chair candidates Kent Boersema and Orlando Estrade distributed at the Lansing Center Saturday. The headline under a photo of the dynamic duo shaking hands says: “AT LEAST WE DIDN’T LOSE STATEWIDE.”
That’s a shot at Matt DePerno and Kristina Karamo, the frontrunners in the race to run the state Republican party. DePerno lost his race for Attorney General by nearly 9 percent in 2022 and Karamo lost her race for Secretary of State by nearly 14 percent (though she still won’t admit it). Neither were prodigious fundraisers. And many GOP stalwarts who deserted the party in 2022 have said they won’t come back until the anti-establishment, election-denier flames fanned by DePerno and Karamo burn out.
Perhaps choosing to laugh to keep from crying, Boersema and Estrada’s cheeky flyer also refers to the Democrats’ 2022 takeover of the Michigan House and Senate.
“We lost everything already…” Boersema says at the bottom of the flyer, setting Estrada up for their pitch to take over the party: “… what do you have to lose?”
The back of the flyer goes on to steal lines from two Will Ferrell comedy classics. “Everybody love everybody!” from “Semi-Pro” and “If you’re not first, you’re last!” from “Talladega Nights.” Then Boersema and Estrada endorse ballot harvesting — a scheme Republicans accuse Democrats of practicing — and “improving engagement with people who live in ‘blue’ areas.”
But, unless you’re a Democrat, there’s nothing funny about the state of the once-mighty MIGOP.
As recently as 2018, Republicans boasted a governor, Speaker of the House, Senate Majority Leader, chief justice of the state Supreme Court and a dramatic photo-finish victory in the election that made Donald Trump president.
Since then, party infighting and an influx of activists who are so suspicious they don’t even trust other Republicans have left the GOP in such disarray that they picked a ponderous process for counting ballots at the Saturday convention, eschewing a machine count for a hand-count, even though the hand counts they performed after the machine counts at their last convention showed no errors (and not just because Hugo Chavez or Cesar Chavez or Cesar Romero or caesar salad really IS dead and consequently unable to secure the WiFi access required to manipulate Dominion voting machines, which it turns out even Tucker Carlson didn’t believe were rigged, even though he would never admit it on Fox News).
Even though party leadership changes should bear the same warning as investment opportunities — “past performance is no guarantee of future results” — I suspect Democrats were more interested Saturday in the outcome of the Michigan State-Michigan basketball game than who won the race to run the state Republican Party.
I’m not making this up
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A reporter walks into a bar hoping to meet a sore loser from Arizona who claims without evidence that she won the governor’s race and who agreed to fly to Michigan to headline a shindig hosted by two losers who say they can turn their party into a winner.
Before you answer, there’s more: The star of the show cancels at the last minute after yet another court found no evidence she won, leaving guests to once again stand in line for photos with Mike Lindell, the My Pillow guy, who seems to turn up at every MIGOP event and who still thinks Donald Trump was cheated in 2020, even though there’s no evidence Trump won.
And it all went down at a bar called The Nuthouse.
DePerno, who won failed Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s endorsement and promoted her visit to the Nuthouse, referenced her setback with an Arizona appeals court when asked Saturday why she did not show up to support him and his running mate, Garrett Soldano. DePerno said he understood, but was not happy about it.
Lake spokesman Ross Trumble told me in a text late Saturday that Lake had a previously scheduled event in Mohave County “and it became logistically impossible to make it to the GOP Convention.” He said she “tried every angle to find a flight that would work but it unfortunately didn’t work out.“ Trumble did not respond to a follow-up inquiring why Lake scheduled an event in the desert when she was supposed to be freezing her butt off with us here in Lansing.
With Lake AWOL, fellow failed gubernatorial candidate Soldano spent most of Friday evening holding down the fort at the Nuthouse and mugging for photos with Lindell and Republican delegates.
Meanwhile, longtime Republican operative Scott Greenlee packed delegates into The Studio at 414, a spacious entertainment venue a few doors from the Nuthouse on Michigan Avenue. The highlight of the night was a video of Ted Nugent endorsing Greenlee. The sound quality was poor, but at least anyone who came to see Terrible Ted didn’t leave terribly disappointed.
I couldn’t find where Karamo was huddling Friday night, but there were more than a few people who enjoyed the free drink tickets and appetizers DePerno and Soldano provided who told me they might vote for Karamo on Saturday.
It could have been a bit of foreshadowing, or a sign that the way to a delegate’s heart might not be through their stomach. Or it could finally give DePerno something worth investigating.
The beauty contest
Delegates arrived at the convention center around 9 a.m. Saturday to cast their votes. But first there was a three-hour debate about a proposed rules change that was so convoluted you would hate me for explaining it, even if I understood it well enough to explain.
So let’s get to the good stuff!
By the time candidates got their turn to take the stage, the field had shrunk from 11 to nine. And we started with a bang.
Scott Aughney scolded delegates for missing opportunities to pick up votes in urban areas. He said he was worried about the future of the party.
“I look at the faces of you and I don’t have a lot of hope,” he said, calling the thousands of delegates “soulless” and only receiving applause after cutting his speech short and storming off stage.
Not long after, state Rep. Angela Rigas of Alto, who complained while nominating DePerno that Democrats had cut off her microphone on the House floor, had her mic cut off by Republicans for talking too long.
Other candidates emphasized their Christian faith, their commitment to reverse the GOP’s losing streak, and their disdain for the party’s traditional leadership. Drew Born disclosed that he slept with four things next to his bed: A Bible, the Constitution, his marriage certificate and a gun.
DePerno didn’t speak, instead showing a video featuring Trump. Karamo told delegates the party “operated like a political mafia,” guided by its “own self-serving agenda.” She did not offer specifics beyond saying that the state GOP was run like a “private social club.”
Then instead of looking forward, she looked back.
“There’s a reason I did not concede the 2022 election,” Karamo said. “Why would I concede to a fraudulent process?”
Again, she offered no specifics.
Sometimes it’s what’s not said that speaks volumes.
The one thing the candidates and their nominators all had in common is that none of them mentioned the massacre at Michigan State University, even though it happened less than a week ago and less than four miles down the road from where they were choosing new leadership and a new direction — if you consider denying election results and worrying about Trump a new direction.
The Donald Trumped
For a guy who promised Republicans that they would get sick of winning, Trump has got to be getting pretty sick of losing in Michigan.
After helping DePerno and Karamo win the GOP nomination for attorney general and secretary of state in 2022, he favored DePerno over Karamo for party chair in 2023. He recorded a video, sent a letter hailing DePerno as “the only candidate running who can get the job done” (oops!), proclaimed “I cannot think of anybody who I trust more and look forward to working with and WINNING than Matt” (double oops!), and held an online rally Monday for DePerno.
In a moment unimaginable just six months ago, former state Rep. Terence Mekoski of Shelby Township told delegates as he endorsed Karamo that he loves Trump, Lindell and Nugent, but added: “Do they really know Michigan, and do they really know you delegates?”
About 15 minutes later, Greenlee told delegates: “I love Donald Trump. But as chairman, I don’t work for Donald Trump.”
While other candidates littered the convention hall with signs, literature and free t-shirts, Karamo just soaked up votes.
She led the pack after the first vote but, because she didn’t get to 50 percent, the field was winnowed down to the top three vote-getters. Karamo led DePerno and Greenlee after the second round. The third, and final, round came down to Karamo and DePerno. Karamo crushed her former ally 58-42. (In a refreshing twist, neither candidate alleged irregularities or election fraud.)
If there was any doubt true believers are now in charge of the state Republican Party, Karamo dispelled it in her brief victory speech.
“I am nothing without Jesus. I am a nobody without Jesus,” she said. “We will not betray you, we will not lie to you. We are committed to every promise that we made.”
There are many challenges facing Karamo, from uniting the party, growing the party and raising money to recruiting candidates.
While workers swept the convention floor, Jeff Sakwa, a former state Republican party co-chairman, told my colleague Paul Egan the event was “the Super Bowl of election deniers.” He predicted donors would stay away.
But the biggest challenge Karamo faces may be what to do if it turns out she really was elected Secretary of State.
If that happens, perhaps Governor Lake will finally make that trip from Arizona to the Nuthouse to help swear her in…
M.L. Elrick is a Pulitzer Prize- and Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter and host of the ML’s Soul of Detroit podcast.
Toxic wastewater from Ohio train derailment headed to Texas
February 23, 2023
FILE – This photo taken with a drone shows portions of a Norfolk Southern freight train that derailed Friday night in East Palestine, Ohio are still on fire at mid-day Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023. Toxic wastewater used to extinguish a fire following a train derailment in Ohio is headed to a Houston suburb for disposal. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo says “firefighting water” from the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment is to be disposed of in the county and she is seeking more information.(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
DEER PARK, Texas (AP) — Toxic wastewater used to extinguish a fire following a train derailment in Ohio is headed to a Houston suburb for disposal.
“I and my office heard today that ‘firefighting water’ from the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment is slated to be disposed of in our county,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a Wednesday statement.
“Our Harris County Pollution Control Department and Harris County Attorney’s have reached out to the company and the Environmental Protection Agency to receive more information,” Hidalgo wrote.
The wastewater is being sent to Texas Molecular, which injects hazardous waste into the ground for disposal.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality told KTRK-TV that Texas Molecular “is authorized to accept and manage a variety of waste streams, including vinyl chloride, as part of their … hazardous waste permit and underground injection control permit.”
The company told KHOU-TV it is experienced in managing this type of disposal.
“Our technology safely removes hazardous constituents from the biosphere. We are part of the solution to reduce risk and protect the environment, whether in our local area or other places that need the capabilities we offer to protect the environment,” the company said.
The fiery Feb. 3 derailment in Ohio prompted evacuations when toxic chemicals were burned after being released from five derailed tanker rail cars carrying vinyl choride that were in danger of exploding.
“It’s … very, very toxic,” Dr. George Guillen, the executive director of the Environmental Institute of Houston, said, but the risk to the public is minimal.
“This injection, in some cases, is usually 4,000 or 5,000 feet down below any kind of drinking water aquifer,” said Guillen, who is also a professor of biology and environmental science at the University of Houston-Clear Lake.
Both Guillen and Deer Park resident Tammy Baxter said their greatest concerns are transporting the chemicals more than 1,300 miles (2,090 kilometers) from East Palestine, Ohio; to Deer Park, Texas.
“There has to be a closer deep well injection,” Baxter told KTRK. “It’s foolish to put it on the roadway. We have accidents on a regular basis … It is silly to move it that far.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited the derailment site Thursday, has warned the railroad responsible for the derailment, Norfolk Southern, to fulfill its promises to clean up the mess just outside East Palestine, Ohio, and help the town recover.
