Extreme heat hits Texas and Florida early in the season
Denise Chow – May 22, 2024
Jason Fochtman
Scorching heat and humidity have descended over parts of Texas, the Gulf Coast and South Florida this week — a bout of early-season extreme heat that has experts bracing for what’s to come.
A full month before the official start of summer, Miami is already in the midst of its hottest May on record, according to experts.
The city’s heat index — a measure of what conditions feel like when humidity and air temperatures are combined — hit 112 degrees Fahrenheit over the weekend, smashing the previous daily record by 11 degrees, according to Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate at the University of Miami. The weekend heat index also beat Miami’s monthly record by 5 degrees, he wrote in a post on X.
Last summer was the hottest on record for Miami — and the entire planet. Forecasters say the coming season could match or surpass the temperatures seen in 2023.
Miami’s recent 112-degree heat index reading was recorded both Saturday and Sunday, marking only the second time in the city’s recorded history that there have been back-to-back days of heat index values at or above that level, according to McNoldy. The other instance was Aug. 8 and 9, 2023.
“But it’s only mid-May!” he wrote. “To anyone who was hoping 2023 was a freak anomaly: nope.”
Miami has already expanded the time period it considers to be the official heat season to span from May 1 to Oct. 31 annually — a response to earlier onsets of high heat and humidity.
Meanwhile, a heat advisory is in effect across much of south Texas. Temperatures up to 113 degrees can be expected in some places, particularly along the Rio Grande, according to the National Weather Service.
The agency said heat index values between 110 degrees and 120 degrees are expected this week, with still more dangerous heat lingering into the weekend.
“As a result, major to extreme risks of heat-related impacts are expected across South Texas,” the weather service said in its advisory. “Be sure to stay cool, drink plenty of water, and take frequent breaks if you are spending time outside!”
High heat and humidity, including heat indexes around 100 degrees, are also expected in Houston in the coming days. The city is still reeling from last week’s deadly storms, with tens of thousands of residents still without power.
Studies have shown that climate change is making early-season heat more likely, in addition to fueling more frequent, intense and longer-lasting heat waves.
Before Iran’s attack on Israel prompted them to change plans, last week was supposed to be “appliance week” for Republicans in the House of Representatives. The House GOP had scheduled a review of a slate of bills with names like the Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act, the Liberty in Laundry Act and the Refrigerator Freedom Act.
Each of these bills is a response to new energy efficiency standards from the Biden administration that, when they go into effect a few years from now, will require a whole range of household appliances to use less energy and water. Over the past year or so, the Department of Energy has released new standards for products including dishwashers, air conditioners, water heaters, home furnaces, washing machines, refrigerators and even lightbulbs.
There’s nothing unique about President Biden requiring appliances to be more efficient. It’s been common practice for presidents of both parties since the first standards went into effect in the late 1980s. Over the years, these rules have helped drastically cut the amount of energy the typical household appliance uses. The average refrigerator sold today, for example, consumes 75% less energy than its equivalent in 1973 despite having significantly more storage space.
In previous decades, most of these changes were met with little pushback, but there’s been a groundswell of opposition to government-mandated efficiency standards within the Republican Party over the past few years. A big reason for that is former President Donald Trump, who regularly complained about energy-efficient lightbulbs and low-flow toilets during his time in office. Trump’s administration rolled back rules for some products and only consented to updating the standards on others when ordered to do so by a federal court.
Many Republicans now accuse Biden of waging a “war on appliances,” and efficiency standards have become part of a larger cultural battle. The dishwasher claims echo the uproar that emerged in 2022 when Republicans falsely claimed the president intended to ban gas stoves.
Why there’s debate
Supporters say strong energy efficiency rules are a win-win for consumers and the environment. Beyond the benefits to the climate achieved by reducing the use of fossil fuels and water that home appliances consume, the program will have helped American households save trillions of dollars on their energy bills by the end of the decade, according to estimates from the DOE.
But critics of Biden’s new standards argue that while the rules may have been necessary to phase out inefficient machines of the past, they do more harm than good because they limit consumer choice. These critics say the free market already gives manufacturers a strong incentive to make efficient products. Others add that at a certain point, the standards backfire because they lead to products that simply don’t work well.
Many liberals say the debate over Biden’s efficiency plans is just a political controversy manufactured by Republicans in an attempt to make the president appear like a “big government” tyrant.
What’s next
At the moment, it’s unclear if the House GOP has any plans to reschedule its “appliance week.”
Most of the Biden administration’s new efficiency standards won’t go into effect until 2027 or 2028, but it’s possible that Trump may attempt to intervene to block them if he regains the presidency.
Perspectives
We can’t confront the challenge of climate change without curbing emissions everywhere we can
“Efficiency now is all about the opportunism. It’s also more critical than ever to meeting climate change goals. As more buildings and cars switch from fossil fuels to electric power, efficiency will be equally important to make sure the grid is actually meeting the strain from rising demand.” — Rebecca Leber, Vox
The government should just let people buy whatever they want
“What today’s environmentalists fail to realize is that people will change their purchasing behavior as it becomes easier and cheaper to do so, that the products they seek to impose will, in many cases, inevitably become part of the marketplace if they’re good enough. In the meantime, they’ve made our kitchens and cooking worse, with no real effect beyond annoyance and cost increases.” — Liz Wolfe, Reason
Efficiency rules have made our appliances better, not worse
“Making appliances more energy efficient does not affect their durability and quality. All of that … rests on the hands of the manufacturer and their designers.” — Shanika Whitehurst, associate director for product sustainability, research and testing at Consumer Reports, to NPR
The standards lead to worse products that cost more
“Americans have learned the hard way that stricter efficiency rules on already efficient appliances translate into higher costs, inconvenience, and ultimately waste.” — Editorial, Wall Street Journal
When energy-efficient products don’t get the job done, people end up being more wasteful
“Regulations that cap dishwashers at 3.1 gallons of water (who came up with that figure?) result in dishes that get less clean, which means a second run or washing dishes by hand. Low-flow toilets might use less water per flush, but are they actually saving water if you must flush two or three times to do the job? Rule-making bureaucrats rarely consider such questions — and we mustn’t ask them.” — Jon Miltimore, Washington Examiner
Strong rules ensure consumers make the right choices
“Part of the reason we have regulation is that consumers can’t research every product they buy. People normally count on regulators to decide these issues for them.” — Andrew Koppelman, Northwestern University law professor, to the Nation
Republicans are inventing a controversy for political gain
“This might all sound like a commonsense win-win: changes that save people money, reduce emissions, and are well within the bounds of long-established federal statute. Republicans beg to differ, of course. To hear the right tell it, new appliance efficiency regulations are the equivalent of federal agents barging, guns blazing, into the homes of hardworking Americans to burgle their laundry rooms.” — Kate Aronoff, New Republic
What a justice’s upside-down flag means for the Supreme Court
Mike Bebernes – Senior Editor – May 22, 2024
Photo illustration: Alex Cochran for Yahoo News; photos: Getty Images (Photo illustration: Alex Cochran for Yahoo News; photos: Getty Images)
What’s happening
Arecent report that an upside-down flag — a popular symbol of the “Stop the Steal” movement to reject the 2020 presidential results — flew outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in the days following the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol has created yet another scandal for a court that was already mired in controversy.
Late last week, the New York Times reported that neighbors had spotted the inverted flag at Alito’s Virginia home in mid-January 2020, just a few days before President Biden was inaugurated. Then on Wednesday, the newspaper published a followup story revealing that a flag featuring a different symbol popular among “Big Lie” proponents had flown outside Alito’s beach house in New Jersey.
The upside-down flag has historically been used as a distress signal by the U.S. military, but in recent decades it has been wielded by a variety of protest movements on both the left and the right. After Biden won the 2020 election, it was adopted by supporters of former President Donald Trump who subscribed to Trump’s lies that the race had been stolen, culminating in a Trump rally where his followers attacked the Capitol building to try to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s victory.
Alito told the Times that he had “no involvement whatsoever” in flying the inverted flag at his home. It was raised, he said, by his wife in response to yard signs featuring “objectionable and personally insulting language” outside their neighbor’s home.
Legal experts told the Times and other news outlets that the flag was a clear violation of judicial ethics rules, which bar judges from making political statements that might undermine the public’s faith in their ability to be impartial in divisive cases. Unlike other federal courts, though, the Supreme Court enforces its own rules, meaning any response to the flag could only come from the justices themselves.
The judicial code also calls for judges to recuse themselves from cases in which their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” But like the ethics rules, recusal decisions are left up to individual judges. Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, for example, chose not to take part in recent cases challenging Harvard’s admissions procedures because of her involvement at the school both as a student and a member of its board. Though Alito has recused himself as much as any of his colleagues in recent years, he has thus far declined to step aside from cases involving the 2020 election.
Alito isn’t the only conservative justice on the court to face ethical questions related to the “Big Lie.” His colleague Clarence Thomas also faced calls to recuse himself from cases related to the election and Jan. 6, which he ignored, because of his wife’s involvement in efforts to overturn the results.
Thomas has also been at the center of controversy over his friendship with a wealthy conservative political operative, who reportedly brought Thomas along on dozens of lavish vacations over the past several decades. Alito has faced similar questions about his relationship with a different conservative billionaire who later had cases before the Supreme Court. Both justices have asserted that there is nothing improper about their actions. However, the incidents helped prompt the court to adopt a new voluntary ethics code.
Why there’s debate
Democrats have characterized the flag report as yet more evidence that at least two of the Supreme Court’s conservative justices can’t be trusted to fairly rule on anything related to Jan. 6. Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, insisted that both Alito and Thomas recuse themselves from any cases on the issue — including the question of whether Trump has presidential immunity from prosecution, which is currently being considered by the court. Durbin also reiterated his call, echoed by other members of his party, for Congress to pass legally-binding ethics rules for justices.
Some left-leaning legal analysts have gone even further, arguing that Alito’s willingness to have such an inflammatory symbol outside his home is a sign of how the Supreme Court’s conservative majority feels no obligation to display even the appearance of political impartiality.
Judicial experts also worry about how this situation might further erode the public’s faith in the country’s highest court, which has hit record lows in recent years amid a wave of recent scandals and deeply controversial rulings — most notably the decision that overturned abortion rights established by Roe v. Wade.
Some Republicans have said they wish Alito had given more consideration to how the flag might be perceived. But they have roundly rejected suggestions that it indicates he’s incapable of doing his job fairly, arguing that it’s absurd to make the assumption that his wife’s response to a neighborhood spat in any way reflects on his ability to make sound decisions on the court. In the eyes of many conservatives, this controversy — along with broader criticism of conservative justices — is part of a Democratic campaign to pressure the justices into issuing less-conservative rulings or delegitimize the decisions that don’t fit their liberal worldview.
What’s next
Some Senate Democrats have called for an investigation into the flag incident, but Durbin is opposed to the idea, meaning it likely won’t happen.
The court is expected to release decisions in two major Jan. 6 cases — one concerning charges brought against hundreds of people who stormed the Capitol, the other on Trump’s immunity claims — within the next few weeks.
Perspectives
Anyone who is OK with the Big Lie can’t be impartial on Jan. 6 cases
“Who can possibly think he will decide this case in a neutral manner? Of course, Justice Alito’s political leanings were already well-known. But the flag flying incident indicates he has strong views about the facts underlying this case. His decision seems pre-ordained.” — Leslie Levin, University of Connecticut law professor, to Salon
There’s zero reason to question Alito’s ability to rule fairly
“The left wants to tarnish Justice Alito’s reputation, as well as cause him to recuse himself from participating in any case involving Mr. Trump. No such recusal is necessary on ethical or any other grounds. The political views of spouses don’t dictate, or in our experience even influence, how a Justice will rule.” — Editorial, Wall Street Journal
Alito knows that there are no consequences, no matter how openly partisan he is
“The arrogance is bottomless. Why did the Supreme Court justice do this, or allow ‘Mrs. Alito’—on whom he pinned the blame—to do it? He knew it was petty. And he surely knew that, by conventional ethical standards, it was wrong. But he didn’t care because he knew that he stands beyond punishment for such acts.” — Michael Tomasky, New Republic
Liberals have lost the court, so they’ll take any chance to try to tear it down
“There are two transparent purposes of these: to intimidate the justices into trimming their sails for fear of more criticism, and (when that fails) to delegitimize their decisions and lay the groundwork for radical changes to destroy the Court in its longstanding form.” — Dan McLaughlin, National Review
The integrity of the next election is in serious danger with Alito on the court
“After this November’s general election, there are almost certainly going to be further legal challenges to the election results, just as there were in 2020. Alito will be on the court to hear Trump’s arguments in those cases, too. The flag, then, is just the latest reminder of a disturbing reality: that as the Republican party further radicalizes against democracy, the Supreme Court – the body which is tasked with checking these unconstitutional impulses – has become their ally.” — Moira Donegan, Guardian
The court’s critics are trying to turn a nonstory into a national scandal
“If you look hard enough, you can find disturbing symbols anywhere you look, but you must sometimes suspend logic and reason in order to do so. This does not seem like a situation where a sitting Supreme Court justice is supporting overthrowing election results; it looks like a situation where the New York Times is straining to make that the narrative.” — Liz Wolfe, Reason
Alito and Thomas shouldn’t be on the court at all
“There are currently strong grounds to impeach not just Samuel Alito but his fellow benchwarmer Clarence Thomas. Both judges have given evidence of disqualifying corruption as well as of their harboring insurrectionist sentiment.” — Jeet Heer, The Nation
Alito’s wife has every right to express any opinion she wants
“Mrs. Alito has both the constitutional right to express whatever political opinions she pleases, whether I like them or not, as well as a moral right to express them independently of her husband and his position on the court.” — Bret Stephens, New York Times
It’s the hottest May ever in Miami. Heat index ‘completely off the charts’
Ashley Miznazi – May 21, 2024
It’s already the hottest May in Miami, ever — at least judging by the heat index, a “feels like” measure that combines temperature and humidity.
Last weekend’s record temps jacked up the average heat index into a record for May, according to Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science.
“The type of heat and humidity we had this weekend would’ve been exceptional even in another three months,” said McNoldy. “These temperatures in May are completely off the charts.”
McNoldy created an online chart that updates daily with the cumulative amount of time the heat index spent above various heat index thresholds. The reading in 2024 already rivals or tops nearly all end-of-summer 108°+ and 110°+ marks.
Brian McNoldy: Aside from crazy-2023, the heat index has ALREADY spent more time above the 108°F threshold (and tied for the most at 110°+) in #Miami than in *any other entire year*. And it’s not even June yet
Usually, the hottest time of the year is the first and second weeks of August but this weekend temperatures peaked at 112 degrees heat index— that’s a stunning six degrees hotter than any previous May heat index recorded.
Early-season heat events have some of the highest rates of heat illness and heat-related deaths because people are not prepared for it. Nearly 1,200 people die from heat every year, according to NOAA, and record-breaking heat waves fueled by climate change add to that threat.
Margaret Pianelli, a tourist from New York, visits the Hollywood Beach Broadwalk as temperatures soar into the 90s on Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in Hollywood, Fla.
Climate change makes things like these record highs more likely. But over the weekend McNoldy said there was also the “perfect combination” of a high pressure ridge (where air sinks and warms), fewer clouds and moist air coming in from the southwest.
Other records were broken over the weekend too. Sunday’s nighttime temperatures averaged (the average of the high and low temperature) to 89 degrees. That is a tie for the third-highest daily nighttime average temperature ever recorded in Miami, and that’s never happened as soon as May.
As of Monday, there had also been four new high daily average temperature records and record-high humidity levels in the past five days.
The National Weather Service is predicting that the record-breaking heat will ease in the coming week, thanks in part to the increasing relief of rain. But it also signals the potential for another scorching summer ahead. Summer 2023 was the hottest on record in Miami.
“What this looks like for June, July, August? Who knows,” McNoldy said. “But it’s not off to a promising start.”
Ashley Miznazi is a climate change reporter for the Miami Herald funded by the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Family Foundation in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners.
If I’d pictured Donald Trump’s first criminal trial a few years ago, I’d have imagined the biggest, splashiest story in the world. Instead, as we lurch toward a verdict that could brand the presumptive Republican nominee a felon and possibly even send him to prison, a strange sense of anticlimax hangs over the whole affair.
In a recent Yahoo News/YouGov poll, only 16 percent of respondents said they were following the trial very closely, with an additional 32 percent following it “somewhat” closely. “Those numbers rank as some of the lowest for any recent news event,” wrote Yahoo News’s Andrew Romano. When people were asked how the trial made them feel, the most common response was “bored.” TV ratings tell a similar story. “Network coverage of Donald Trump’s hush money trial has failed to produce blockbuster viewership,” Deadline reported at the end of April. Cable news networks, Deadline said, saw a decline in ratings among those 25 to 54 since the same time last year. At the courthouse last week, I met news junkies who’d lined up at 3 a.m. to get a seat at the trial and maybe score selfies with their favorite MSNBC personalities, but it felt more like wandering into a subcultural fandom than the red-hot center of the zeitgeist. A block or so away, you wouldn’t know anything out of the ordinary was happening.
Perhaps the trial would have captured more of the public’s attention had it been televised, but lack of visuals alone doesn’t explain America’s collective shrug. The special counsel Robert Mueller’s report didn’t have images, either, but when it was published, famous actors like Robert DeNiro, Rosie Perez and Laurence Fishburne starred in a video breaking it down. I’m aware of no similar effort to dramatize this trial’s testimony, and I almost never hear ordinary people talking about it. “Saturday Night Live” tried, last weekend, to satirize the scene at the courthouse with a cold open mocking Trump’s hallway press appearances, but it ended with an acknowledgment of public exhaustion: “Just remember, if you’re tired of hearing about all of my trials, all you’ve got to do is vote for me, and it will all go away.”
It wasn’t a particularly funny line, but it gets at something true that helps explain why this historic trial doesn’t seem like that big a deal. When Trump was president, his opponents lionized lawyers and prosecutors — often in ways that feel retrospectively mortifying — because liberals had faith that the law could restrain him. That faith, however, has become increasingly impossible to sustain.
Mueller punted on the question of whether Trump obstructed justice in trying to impede the Russia probe. The jury in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case found that he committed sexual abuse, but it had little discernible effect on his political prospects. A deeply partisan Supreme Court, still mulling its decision on his near-imperial claims of presidential immunity, has made it highly unlikely that he will face trial before the election for his attempted coup. A deeply partisan judge appointed by Trump has indefinitely postponed his trial for stealing classified documents. With the Georgia election interference case against Trump tied up in an appeal over whether District Attorney Fani Willis should be disqualified over an affair with a member of her team, few expect that trial to start before 2025 — or 2029, if Trump wins the election. And should he become president again, there’s little question that he’ll quash the federal cases against him once and for all.
In theory, the delays in Trump’s other criminal cases should raise the stakes in the New York trial, since it’s the only chance that he will face justice for his colossal corruption before November. But in reality, his record of impunity has created a kind of fatalism in his opponents, as well as outsize confidence among his supporters. In a recent New York Times/Siena poll, 53 percent of voters in swing states said it was somewhat or very unlikely that Trump would be found guilty. That included 66 percent of Republicans but also 42 percent of Democrats.
These voters may be overstating Trump’s chances of an acquittal; many legal experts think the prosecution has an edge. A hopeful possibility, then, is that a guilty verdict will come as a shock to many Americans who have checked out of the news cycle, perhaps giving them pause about putting a criminal in the White House. I wouldn’t count on it, though. In several polls, small but significant shares of Trump supporters said they wouldn’t vote for him if he was a felon, but if recent history is any guide, a vast majority of his supporters will easily rationalize away a conviction. Trump’s minions are already working hard to discredit the proceedings, with House Speaker Mike Johnson calling the trial “corrupt” and a “sham.” It’s worth remembering that the recent embarrassing uproar in a House Oversight Committee meeting, where the Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene insulted a Democratic colleague’s eyelashes, began with Greene’s insinuations about the daughter of the judge in the New York case.
Of course, no matter what Republicans say, Trump can still face prison time if he loses this case. But if he does, he will inevitably appeal, meaning there’s little chance that he’ll be incarcerated before Election Day. It’s not surprising, then, that most people are tuning out the twists and turns of the trial. Whether Trump truly gets his comeuppance is up to the voters, not the jury.
Cities look for new ways to keep people safe — and alive — as extreme summer heat looms
Denise Chow – May 16, 2024
More than five weeks remain before summer’s official start, but preparations for extreme heat have been underway for many months in parts of the country hit hard by last year’s sweltering conditions.
“We prepare for heat year-round in Phoenix,” Mayor Kate Gallego said. “It’s something that we know is coming, so we have to think about it even on the coldest day of the year.”
The 2023 heat waves revealed how challenging it can be to cope with extreme temperatures for weeks on end, even in places where residents are accustomed to warm weather. And the months ahead are expected to be just as hot — if not hotter.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday that based on global temperatures so far, 2024 will rank among the five warmest years in recorded history and has a 61% chance of being the hottest on record.
That has prompted cities across the South and the Southwest to re-evaluate how best to keep people safe — and alive — this summer. Some have launched new initiatives aimed at increasing shade in public spaces, strengthening health care systems to deal with victims of heat waves and doing outreach with outdoor workers, homeless populations and other vulnerable communities.
Gallego said Phoenix has been creating “cool corridors” by planting trees and resurfacing the pavement with more reflective coatings to reduce urban heat. A primary focus right now is mitigating high overnight temperatures, which plagued the city last summer.
“We were getting low temperatures that were setting records for how hot they were,” she said. “That’s really pushing us to focus on how we design the city — what materials we use and how we protect open spaces, which tend to dissipate heat at night.”
extreme heat help water hot weather (Matt York / AP file)
In Florida’s Miami-Dade County, chief heat officer Jane Gilbert said a key priority is channeling resources to protect residents who are most vulnerable to temperature spikes.
“It’s people who can’t stay cool at home affordably, it’s people who have to work outside, it’s the elderly, it’s people who have to take a bus on a route where they might have to wait at an unsheltered stop for over an hour in that heat,” she said.
To that end, the county’s Transportation Department installed 150 new bus shelters last year and is expected to add 150 more this year, according to Gilbert. With a $10 million grant from the Inflation Reduction Act, the office is also planting trees along roads maintained by the county and the state to increase shade.
Gilbert’s team has focused on raising awareness among renters and homeowners about affordable ways to cool their spaces. Her office also tries to educate employers about the importance of protecting their workers and holds training programs for health care practitioners, homeless outreach workers and summer camp providers.
Nationally, heat kills more people than any other extreme weather event; it’s often referred to as a “silent killer” because heat’s impact on the human body is not always obvious.
“When a hurricane hits or a wildfire comes through, there’s no doubt about what just happened, but heat is more difficult because, for the most part, we don’t have those same context clues in our environment until it gets so extreme,” said Ashley Ward, director of the Heat Policy Innovation Hub at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability.
Ward and her colleagues specialize in “heat governance,” helping local and state governments prepare for extreme heat events. The work includes finding ways to mitigate heat and develop emergency responses for major heat waves.
In North Carolina, for example, Ward and her colleagues have helped counties craft heat action plans to identify their most vulnerable populations.
She said government officials should treat onslaughts of high heat and humidity similar to hurricanes, tornadoes and other disasters.
“People in emergency management and public health have a lot of structures in place already for all kinds of other extreme weather events, but not so much for heat,” Ward said.
Last summer was a wake-up call, she added.
“That was our category 5 heat event,” Ward said. “The extreme nature of what we saw last summer was enough to focus attention on this topic.”
Climate change is increasing the frequency, duration and intensity of heat waves around the world, studies show. Last year was the planet’s hottest on record, and the warming trend continues. April was the 11th consecutive month with record-breaking global temperatures, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
In much of the U.S., temperatures over the next three months are expected to be above average, according to NOAA.
Ward said that it’s heartening to see cities take extreme heat seriously but emphasized that major challenges lie ahead. For one, preparing early for extreme heat requires funding, which is a major challenge, especially for rural communities.
Even trickier will be addressing the underlying social issues that get magnified during heat waves, such as homelessness, rising energy costs and economic inequality.
Ward is optimistic, though, that last summer’s experience has catalyzed some local governments to act.
“What I hope we see going forward is more emphasis on what we can do to reduce those exposures to begin with,” she said, “so that we’re not constantly in response mode.”
Four minors found working at Alabama poultry plant run by firm found responsible for teen’s death
Laura Strickler – May 18, 2024
Four minors as young as 16 were allegedly discovered working overnight at an Alabama slaughterhouse owned by the same firm that was found directly responsible for the death of a 16-year-old Mississippi worker last summer, the U.S. Labor Department said in federal court filings.
The company, Mar-Jac Poultry, has denied that it knowingly hired minors for its Jasper, Alabama, facility, saying the workers had verified IDs that gave ages older than 17, and has also argued that some of the workers were performing jobs that are not prohibited by federal regulations.
The Labor Department is seeking a temporary restraining order against Mar-Jac as part of the ongoing legal dispute. Agency officials declined to comment, citing their investigation.
The Labor Department has said that most slaughterhouse work is too dangerous for minors and is prohibited by federal regulations. Under the Biden administration, the department has taken action against companies for employing minors to clean, use or work near dangerous machinery. A chicken trade group to which Mar-Jac belongs says it has “zero tolerance” for employing minors, and a major meat industry trade group also stated recently that no minors should be working in slaughterhouses.
Mar-Jac’s attorney Larry Stine said the company has a policy of not hiring anyone under the age of 18. Federal law, however, does not categorically prohibit minors from working in slaughterhouses, listing a few narrow exceptions. Stine told NBC News that to defend against child labor allegations, he argued in court filings that the specific jobs were allowed under the law.
Mar-Jac Poultry in Jasper, Ala. (Google Maps)
Stine wrote in a brief that the job performed by two of the workers in the “rehang department,” which involves lifting and hanging chilled and eviscerated chicken carcasses, is not prohibited by federal regulations. He also wrote that the workers were not using power machinery, and that a job where one of the workers used a knife to cut wings from carcasses on a conveyor belt is also not prohibited.
The company said the workers were verified through the government’s E-Verify system and that once the Labor Department identified them as minors the workers were immediately fired. Stine said the alleged minors in Alabama were hired directly by Mar-Jac and not a third-party staffing company.
The Jasper plant was cited in December for a “serious violation” of worker safety by a different part of the Labor Department, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
In November, according to OSHA, an employee “reached into [a] machine using an unguarded approach attempting to rectify the hanging placement of a chicken and was injured.”
According to the agency’s online enforcement database, Mar-Jac formally settled with OSHA on the injury citation earlier this week.
Court documents show the Labor Department’s child labor investigation into the Alabama facility began with a complaint in March of this year. In May, 20 Labor investigators went into the plant without prior notice in the early-morning hours and verified that at least four of the workers at the plant were minors, according to the department’s court filings.
The Jasper facility processes more than 1.6 million chickens per week, according to the company’s website.
In affidavits, Labor Department investigators said there were 18-year-old workers present who told investigators they were hired by Mar-Jac when they were 15.
At least some of the minors working at the plant were Guatemalan and attended a local high school, Labor investigators said. They said the minors started their shifts at 11 p.m. and worked from Sunday through Thursday.
Death in Mississippi
In January, OSHA found Mar-Jac to be directly responsible for the death of 16-year-old Duvan Perez at its Hattiesburg, Mississippi, facility. Perez’s body was sucked into a machine that he was cleaning on the night shift and he died instantly. Perez’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Mar-Jac.https:
The company has contested OSHA’s conclusions, according to the agency’s enforcement database.
In a previous email about the incident, Stine said, “Mar-Jac thoroughly investigated the accident and has not found any errors committed by its safety or human resources employees. It has learned many lessons from the accident and has taken aggressive steps to prevent the occurrence of another accident or hiring underage workers.”
The NBC News documentary “Slaughterhouse Children” revealed that at least nine times in the past three years, American citizens have complained to the Hattiesburg Police Department and sometimes to Mar-Jac that their identities were stolen and being used by Mar-Jac workers, according to police reports obtained via public information requests.
The company maintained that it was duped by workers using false identities who were hired by an outside staffing firm.
Perez used the identity of a 32-year-old man to get his job at Mar-Jac in Mississippi, the company previously told NBC News. The company has also said Perez was a contract worker and that Mar-Jac relied on a staffing company to fill positions at the Hattiesburg facility and verify work eligibility.
As part of the company’s response to Perez’s death, Mar-Jac said it was applying additional scrutiny to any IDs presented for employment. Company representatives said they were also hanging up signs saying children could not be employed and the third-party hiring firm was required to provide a photo of applicants to Mar-Jac in addition to their photo ID.
Some of the steps Mar-Jac said it was taking in Mississippi are the same as those recommended in a new “best practices” document for meat processing companies released a few weeks ago by the nation’s largest meat industry trade group, the Meat Institute, which represents companies that sell beef, pork, lamb and poultry products.
The group’s best practices were published after a year of aggressive federal investigations and high-profile media coverage showing that the hiring of children to work in slaughterhouses was widespread across the industry.
But the trade group also said categorically that minors should not be working in slaughterhouses. In a press release accompanying the new best practices document, Meat Institute President and CEO Julie Anna Potts wrote, “The members of the Meat Institute are universally aligned that meat and poultry production facilities are no place for children.”
Stine noted that Mar-Jac is not a member of the Meat Institute. Mar-Jac does belong to trade groups representing the poultry industry, including the National Chicken Council, which says it represents companies that provide about 95 percent of chicken meat products to U.S. consumers.
In a statement, Tom Super, a spokesperson for the National Chicken Council, said, “The poultry industry has zero tolerance for the hiring of minors. Our members have recently come together to form a Task Force to Prevent Child Labor, to treat this issue as non-competitive and to foster collaboration through the sharing of best practices that aid in the prevention of minors from gaining employment.”
“Unfortunately, in most of these cases, minors are hired even when using all of the required government screening programs and the applicants appear to be of legal age. These challenges are not unique to the poultry industry but are systemic issues affecting many other sectors in the United States, as well.”
Asked about Mar-Jac’s assertion that minors are not barred from some jobs, however, Super said, “Some jobs are lawful, some aren’t. We oppose all unlawful hiring.”
Iran hangs two women as surge in executions intensifies: NGO
Stuart Williams – May 18, 2024
Activists are worried by the surge in executions in Iran (Ludovic MARIN)
Iran on Saturday hanged at least seven people, including two women, while a member of its Jewish minority is at imminent risk of execution as the Islamic republic further intensified its use of capital punishment, an NGO said.
Parvin Mousavi, 53, a mother of two grown-up children, was hanged in Urmia prison in northwestern Iran along with five men convicted in various drug-related cases, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) said in a statement.
In Nishapur in eastern Iran, a 27-year-old woman named Fatemeh Abdullahi was hanged on charges of murdering her husband, who was also her cousin, it said.
IHR says it has tallied at least 223 executions this year, with at least 50 so far in May alone. A new surge began following the end of Persian New Year and Ramadan holidays in April, with 115 people including six women hanged since then, it said.
Iran carries out more recorded executions of women than any other country. Activists say many such convicts are victims of forced or abusive marriages.
Iran last year carried out more hangings than in any year since 2015, according to NGOs, which accuse the Islamic republic of using capital punishment as a means to instil fear in the wake of protests that erupted in autumn 2022.
“The silence of the international community is unacceptable,” IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam told AFP.
“Those executed belong to the poor and marginalised groups of Iranian society and didn’t have fair trials with due process.”
– ‘Killing machine’ –
IHR said Mousavi had been in prison for four years. It cited a source as saying she had been paid the equivalent of 15 euros to carry a package she had been told contained medicine but was in fact five kilos of morphine.
“They are the low-cost victims of the Islamic republic’s killing machine, which aims at instilling fear among people to prevent new protests,” added Amiry-Moghaddam.
The group meanwhile said a member of Iran’s Jewish community, which has drastically reduced in numbers in recent years but is still the largest in the Middle East outside Israel, was at imminent risk of execution over a murder charge.
Arvin Ghahremani, 20, was convicted of murder during a street fight when he was 18 and is scheduled to be executed in the western city of Kermanshah on Monday, it said, adding it had received an audio message from his mother Sonia Saadati asking for his life to be spared.
His family is seeking to ask the family of the victim to forgo the execution in line with Iran’s Islamic law of retribution, or qesas.
Also at risk of execution is Kamran Sheikheh, the last surviving member of a group of seven Iranian Kurdish men who were first arrested between early December 2009 and late January 2010 and later sentenced to death for “corruption on earth” over alleged membership of extremist groups, it said.
Six men convicted in the same case have been executed in the last months almost one-and-a-half decades after their initial arrest, the last being Khosro Besharat who was hanged in Ghezel Hesar prison outside Tehran this week.
There has been an international outcry meanwhile over the death sentence handed out last month to Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi, seen by activists as retaliation for his music backing the 2022 protests. His lawyers are appealing the verdict.
The Saga of Clarence Thomas and His Luxury RV Takes a Disturbing Turn
Greg Sargent – May 16, 2024
Faced with a barrage of ethics scandals that have tarred the Supreme Court as riddled with corruption, Justice Clarence Thomas has sought to cast them as merely an outgrowth of politics in Washington, D.C. “It’s a hideous place,” Thomas said recently of the nation’s capital, in some of his most extensive remarks about his ethical lapses, noting that he’s been subject to “nastiness” and “lies.” Thomas added, “It’s one of the reasons we like R.V.ing.”
So it’s fitting that the latest sordid turn in these sagas involves none other than Thomas’s recreational vehicle, that symbol of his yearning to escape Washington to mingle with reg’lar folk who don’t subject each other to the viciousness he faces in the capital.
Thomas is still refusing to reveal whether he repaid the principal on the $267,000 loan that he received from Anthony Welters, a wealthy health care executive and personal friend, to purchase his R.V. in 1999, according to a letter that Senators Ron Wyden and Sheldon Whitehouse have sent to an attorney for Thomas.
Thomas also has yet to say whether the loan’s principal was forgiven by the lender, the Democrats argue in the letter, which was obtained by The New Republic. If it was forgiven all or in part, the senators say, it could constitute “a significant amount of taxable income” that should be reported on federal tax returns.
“Your client’s refusal to clarify how the loan was resolved raises serious concerns regarding violations of federal tax laws,” the senators write. Wyden chairs the Finance Committee, and Whitehouse chairs the Judiciary Committee’s panel on federal courts, both of which are spearheading an investigation of Supreme Court ethics scandals.
The tale involving this R.V. constitutes one of the higher-profile instances of Thomas potentially accepting a form of income from wealthy benefactors, resulting in a drumbeat of stories that have shaken the court. Though Thomas’s frequent depiction of his Prevost Marathon R.V. (which he purchased used) as a sign of his affection for salt-of-the-earth leisure activities appears sincere, it’s also a luxury vehicle and an extremely pricey asset, perhaps comparable to a medium-size yacht.
The whole saga began when The New York Timesrevealed last summer that Thomas had purchased the R.V. in 1999 for $267,230 with financing from Welters that Thomas almost certainly could not have obtained from a bank, as experts told the Times.
In response to the paper’s questions, Welters—a longtime friend who grew up poor, as Thomas did, and went on to amass a reported $80 million fortune in the health care industry—would say only that the loan was “satisfied.” As the Times noted, this doesn’t mean the loan was paid back.
Thomas also has not been forthcoming, the Democrats say. Since the Times story broke, Wyden’s Finance Committee has sought information about the loan and, through Welters’s cooperation, has obtained a limited number of documents related to it. As the committee announced last fall, those materials showed only that Thomas had paid back some of the interest and appeared to reveal that, in 2008, Welters forgave most or all of the principal of the loan.
But Thomas did not report this on his 2008 Financial Disclosure Report, the committee said, and in response to the committee’s questions, he has not clarified whether he reported any of that money as income on tax filings.
Which brings us to the present. The senators have been pressing Thomas’s lawyer, Elliot Berke, to provide additional detail on the forgiven loan, and last month, Berke responded with a letter. But once again, the letter—which TNR viewed—offered little additional clarity. It said Thomas “made all payments” on a “regular basis until the terms of the agreement were satisfied in full” and that he’s complied with judicial disclosure requirements.
That avoids detailing what those terms were, whether the payments were merely for interest—as opposed to paying off the loan’s principal—and whether the arrangement ended up forgiving much or all of that principal. If so, it would functionally constitute a large chunk of taxable income, Wyden argued.
“This raises the question of whether this justice is in compliance with federal tax law, which requires a disclosure of forgiven debt and taxable income,” Wyden told me. “The central question is: Did he ever repay the principal?”
The senators’ new letter demands more information on all those fronts. Berke, Thomas’s lawyer, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
This raises important issues even if there is no suggestion whatsoever that this particular money impacted any Thomas rulings or that Welters himself had any business before the court. We should expect such transparency from judges because we deserve to know what sort of financial interests could conceivably motivate those who issue rulings that shape our lives, and because judges should serve as models of upholding rules and laws upon which the integrity of the system rests, notes Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
“We subject all federal judges—including the justices—to financial disclosure rules because we are worried about even the appearance that they are deciding cases in ways that are consistent with their financial interests,” Vladeck said, stressing that the Democrats are raising legitimate questions about Thomas.
“We want judges and justices who are participating in the system and not subverting it,” Vladeck added, and thus “lead by example.”
After ProPublica revealed that Thomas accepted an extraordinary array of luxury trips and vacations from billionaire and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow without disclosing them, Thomas defended his conduct. He claimed that “colleagues” advised him that “hospitality from close personal friends” is “not reportable,” but ethics experts sharply dispute this and insist such disclosure is required.
That aside, as The New Republic’s Matt Ford argues, Thomas has made it clear he views all this mainly as a public relations problem and demonstrates little concern for any need to demonstrate ethical propriety, thus making him partly responsible for the questions and the “nastiness” that continue to dog him.
Wyden seconds the point. Thomas could simply be more forthcoming about the R.V. loan, he says, thus demonstrating both that he respects the need to maintain appearances and that he’s in compliance with income tax filing requirements.
“We’re giving the justice the opportunity to clear this huge mess up,” Wyden told me. “Nobody in this country is above the law. Not even Supreme Court justices.”
Lauren Boebert Admits Exactly Why Trump Stooges Descended on Trial
Talia Jane – May 16, 2024
Representative Lauren Boebert admitted exactly why she and her conservative coterie appeared at Manhattan Criminal Court on Thursday for Donald Trump’s hush-money trial: to help him circumvent his gag order.
The firebrand representative of Beetlejuice fame immediately took to X (formerly Twitter) to denigrate lead witness Michael Cohen and Judge Juan Merchan’s daughter on Trump’s behalf.
Boebert seemed to acknowledge that she was acting as a surrogate to violate Trump’s gag order, writing on X, “They may have gagged President Trump. They didn’t gag me. They didn’t gag the rest of us.”
“I wonder if I’ll run into Judge Merchan’s daughter here in court today,” Boebert wrote, accusing her of “being paid millions and millions of dollars by Democrat campaigns all across the country.”
Boebert also threw some barbs at key witness Michael Cohen, asking, “Why is that fraud Michael Cohen allowed on TikTok with a shirt of Trump behind bars but Trump can’t speak out?”
Conservative attacks against Merchan’s daughter—an attorney who operates a progressive political consulting firm—have raged on for weeks, spearheaded by Trump in an effort to remove Merchan from overseeing the case. Trump’s attacks have led to threats against family members of prosecutors overseeing the case. Merchan criticized the behavior as an effort to impede the rule of law.
Merchan’s gag order prohibits Trump from speaking about people participating in his hush-money trial, save for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Merchan himself. The order also bars Trump from speaking about the judge’s and prosecution’s family members. Trump is similarly prohibited from tapping surrogates to speak on his behalf.
While none have yet explicitly acknowledged they’re acting as surrogates for Trump, multiple conservative politicians have criticized the gag order while making denigrating statements in line with Trump’s against those Trump is prohibited from speaking about. Earlier this week, Senator Tommy Tuberville admitted he went to the trial to help Trump “overcome his gag order.”
When asked on Tuesday if Trump was using people to speak on his behalf, Trump declared, “I do have many surrogates, and they’re all speaking very beautifully.”
Merchan previously noted that, as Trump has violated his gag order 10 times, he may have to consider jail time should he violate it again. For Merchan to take action on surrogates, there would need to be proof that Trump directed them to speak. With these blabbermouths, direct admission seems to be just a matter of time.
