Tag Archives: service

Here’s the Hell Trump’s Order Created for Refugees Overseas

by GarnetI19its Posted on February 2, 2017

Mother Jones

For thousands of US-bound refugees worldwide, President Donald Trump’s so-called “Muslim ban” has thrown their future into question. Now that refugees are not allowed to come to the United States for 120 days—and Syrian refugees are barred indefinitely—resettlement workers are scrambling to figure out what will happen to these people fleeing war, persecution, and disaster in their home countries.

Trump’s executive order affects both refugees in the middle of the screening process and those already approved for resettlement in the United States, according to Sarah Krause, senior director of immigration and refugee programs for Church World Service, which operates one of the nine global resettlement support centers for US-bound refugees. “For someone to get referral to the US refugee admissions program is a feat,” says Krause, whose organization helped with the resettlement of more than 14,000 people from sub-Saharan Africa to the United States last year. “For them to have made it through the process and been approved is even more incredible. That they have gone through all of that and we are now shutting the door on them is unconscionable.”

In addition to its temporary freeze on resettlement, the order caps total incoming refugees for the 2017 fiscal year at 50,000 people—less than half of what the Obama administration had planned. Nearly 26,000 have already been resettled. For the 872 refugees already set to travel to the United States this week—not including those from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, or Yemen—the government has granted a temporary grace period. Those refugees will be allowed to enter the country until Friday. For those scheduled to enter the United States after Friday, their flights have been canceled.

Here’s what Krause sees as the most pressing issues facing the refugees left behind by Trump’s order:

People have been left without housing or their possessions. “These are individuals who, in many cases, have already sold their belongings in order to have some money upon entering to the United States,” Krause says. “Many of them knew their final destination—the cities to which they would be resettled. In Kenya, refugees coming from the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps are brought into Nairobi prior to their departure for the United States. There they stay at the International Organization for Migration transfer center, where they receive predeparture medical screenings as well as cultural orientation, where they learn about life in the United States. Currently, there are over 120 refugees in the IOM transfer center who were expecting to board flights this week and who are now being told they will be sent back to the camp. For those refugees, they have already given up their shelters to new refugee arrivals, and sold their belongings. Their future is very uncertain.”

Refugees already approved for US entry may need to restart parts of the resettlement process—a delay of months or years. “Their cases remain in processing,” she says. “Some of their clearances will expire during this 120-day period and will need to be re-requested. There are checks that are requested by the resettlement support centers: security opinions, interagency checks, as well as fingerprints. It is a challenge to line all those clearances up, which means the window for departure is very small. Once that window closes, it’s difficult to open again.”

Refugees from the seven banned countries were left stranded. “For those that had already been booked for travel, their flights have been canceled,” Krause says. “Processing has essentially halted. They are not in their home country, they’re in countries of asylum, and the conditions in those countries are often very difficult. Some refugees make it to urban centers but live on very little and are not permitted by the countries in which they’re residing to work. Others are living in camps with hundreds of thousands of other people. Our Somali refugees—most of them have been in exile since 1990. You have generations of Somalis that have never been to Somalia.”

Officials are trying to prioritize refugees in particularly dangerous circumstances. The executive order allows for some refugees to be admitted on a case-by-case basis, Krause says. “We’re working with the Department of State to compile a list of the most vulnerable cases, although at this point the process for seeking exemptions is not yet clear. This is a life-saving program, and a delay of even a day for some cases could mean death in a case of extreme medical need or protection issues. There are some who are being moved from safe house to safe house by UNHCR because they are being hunted by their persecutors. I know of a gay Somali man who is currently in a safe house and who has been attacked. He is one of those cases in our pipeline.”

But for others, there’s little hope of finding another home now that the United States has shut its doors. “For those for whom we don’t believe exemptions can be sought, or it may take too long, we will look at pulling those cases out and giving them back to UNHCR for referral to another resettlement country. While the US accepts less than 1 percent of the world’s refugee population, we take more than any other. So it is unlikely that any other countries will have the capacity to take those that we cannot. And other countries have their own processes. That will take time.”

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Here’s the Hell Trump’s Order Created for Refugees Overseas

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This Bumble Bee was Just Added to the Endangered Species List

by ClydeBrigstocke Posted on January 13, 2017

Mother Jones

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Earlier this week, the rusty patched bumblebee became the first bee in the continental United States to be added to the endangered species list. The designation was one of the Obama Administration’s last environmental moves.

There’s good reason this bee is now on the list: Its population has plummeted by 87 percent since the 1990s. According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, the bee once inhabited two provinces of Canada as well as 28 states, and Washington DC. Today it’s found in only two of its original habitats.

Greg Hottman/Flickr

The combination of disease, climate change, and loss of habitat have contributed to the species’ decline. But perhaps the greatest threat to this and other bees is neonicotinoids, a type of insecticide that’s commonly used on farm crops, pets, and gardens. (My colleague Tom Philpott has written extensively on the subject.) Bumblebees are thought to be even more susceptible to pesticides than honey bees are.

Sadly, many other organisms rely on this species to reproduce: The rusty patched bumble is a pollinator for various plants, including peppers, cranberries, and tomatoes.

Though the insect is the first bee in the continental United States to be placed on the list, seven yellow-faced bees, found in Hawaii, were put on the endangered species list in September of last year.

While the rusty patched bumble bee enjoys more protection under the Endangered Species Act, please enjoy these photos of the fuzzy creatures.

Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry/Flickr

Smithsonian’s National Zoo

Dan Mullen/Flickr

USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab/Flickr

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This Bumble Bee was Just Added to the Endangered Species List

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The Kochs launch campaign to convince black people that dirty fuel is good for them.

by ShanelDeLaConda Posted on January 6, 2017

The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service has announced that 2016 will be the warmest year in recorded history — by a lot.

The Arctic had an especially warm year, and experienced the sharpest rise in temperatures, while Africa and Asia also felt unusually high temps. Globally, surface temperatures climbed to an average 58.6 degrees F, 2.3 degrees F higher than before the Industrial Revolution, when humans got serious about burning fossil fuels.

The warming temps continue a well-established trend: Last year was also the hottest year on record at the time, and 2014 was the hottest year on record before that. In fact, 10 of the hottest years on record have occurred since 1998.

This warming trend has name — it’s called climate change, if you weren’t aware — and these rapidly accelerating temperatures come with severe consequences, including worsening storms, wildfires, droughts, and other extreme weather events. And climate change isn’t just scary — it’s expensive.

Despite all the evidence, the incoming president and much of the GOP-controlled Congress either ignore climate change or thinks it’s a giant ruse created by Al Gore. As for how they explain another hottest year of record — well, maybe it’s the just heat from the burning dumpster fire that was 2016.

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The Kochs launch campaign to convince black people that dirty fuel is good for them.

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Is Your Noisy Neighborhood Slowly Killing You?

by Eve6nx7b Posted on December 27, 2016

Mother Jones

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If you’re a tree frog or an ovenbird in mating season and you happen to live in the 83 percent of the continental United States that lies within 3,500 feet of a road, bummer for you. Not only are you more likely to collide with an SUV, but you’re going to have a harder time finding a mate. Research suggests that human-generated noises also mess with nesting behavior, predator-prey dynamics, and sleep patterns. In other words, wildlife gets stressed out by noise.

So do we, it turns out—and the world is getting louder. Scientists define “noise” as unwanted sound, and the level of background din from human activities has been doubling roughly every three decades, beating population growth. Road traffic in the United States has tripled over the last 30 years. By 2032, the number of passenger flights is expected to be nearly double the 2011 figure—at peak hours, planes are even audible overhead 70 percent of the time in the remote backcountry of Yosemite National Park. And while that’s obviously a nuisance for animals and visitors seeking a restorative experience, this growing anthropophony (a fancy word for the human soundscape) is also contributing to stress-related diseases and early death, especially in and around cities.

By evolutionary necessity, noise triggers a potent stress response. We are more easily startled by unexpected sounds than by objects that come suddenly into our field of vision. Our nervous systems react to noises that are loud and abrupt (gunshots, a backfiring engine), rumbling (airplanes), or whining and chaotic (leaf blowers, coffee grinders) by instructing our bodies to boost the heart rate, breathe less deeply, and release fight-or-flight hormones.

But the physical responses that helped save our asses from predators back on the veldt (and still might prove useful at a busy intersection) have obvious downsides in the middle of a school lesson or while you’re trying to get some sleep—especially if, like me, you live near a major airport. On the flip side, positive sounds like chill music, pleasing birdsong, and the voices of loved ones stimulate the brain’s emotional centers, bringing feelings of joy, calm, and well-being.

To learn more, I paid a visit to biobehavioral psychologist Joshua Smyth, who studies human responses to stress at his Pennsylvania State University laboratory. An affable guy who resembles a younger Al Franken, Smyth first hooked me up to a portable heart monitor and had me spit into a test tube to measure my baseline cortisol levels before giving me what was essentially a personality test to see how sensitive I am to unwanted sounds like, say, a roommate’s loud music. While the results suggested I am neither neurotic nor particularly introverted—both of which can predispose a person to noise annoyance—I scored a high 5.2 (adults average 4, college students 3.5), which put me near the 88th percentile.

Then came the fun part. To see how different types of sound affect my ability to recover from life’s ordinary stresses, Smyth first had to stress me out: Cue public speaking. He asked me to deliver a short extemporaneous speech in front of a large mirror, behind which, Smyth told me, sat a panel of judges. Several times during the five-minute speech, a lab technician interrupted and told me to speak up.

This gauntlet of misery is called the Trier Social Stress Test, and even though I knew there was no “panel of judges,” I exhibited a textbook response. My heart rate climbed from the mid-60s to the mid-90s, and my cortisol, an imperfect but suggestive marker of stress, almost doubled.

Next, Smyth assigned me one of three recovery exercises he uses: a video of a pretty summer meadow featuring chirping birds and a blue sky. As I watched, my heart rate fell to its mid-60s baseline range. A couple of minutes into the video, the abrupt rumbling of a truck engine upped my heart rate by 10 clicks. It took me a while to recover, but the soothing nature scene eventually coaxed my heart rate into the mid-50s—that is, until the sound of a propeller plane shot it up again, though not as high as the truck had. At this point, my cortisol was 8.2 nanomoles per liter—1.5 points over baseline—and the variations in my heart rate indicated similar patterns of stress.

My results were typical of Smyth’s findings, which support complementary psychological theories most of us would recognize as common sense. Namely, that pleasing natural sights and sounds are good for the heart and mind—our human cacophony, not so much. “Your recovery was clearly disrupted,” Smyth told me. “Those noises are violating your experience. It’s half as stressful as doing the speech task. Those aren’t trivial effects.”

It all adds up to a dagger twice thrust: Not only does background noise interfere with our much-needed ability to recuperate, but in the places where we live and play, we have increasingly fewer havens from the onslaught.

Even if you think you’re immune to city noise, it may well be affecting your health. The best research on this comes out of Europe. In one study of 4,861 adults, a 10-decibel increase in nighttime noise was linked to a 14 percent rise in a person’s likelihood of being diagnosed with hypertension. Health experts studying more than 1 million people in the vicinity of Germany’s Cologne Bonn Airport found that people subjected to background noise of greater than 40 decibels were at increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, kidney failure, and dementia compared with those who lived farther from the flight paths, where things were quieter. (For perspective, the legal nighttime noise limit in Washington, DC, is 55 decibels.)

Another study examined how the opening of a new airport in Munich affected nearby children. In the 18 months after flights commenced, the researchers observed soaring levels of stress hormones in their subjects. The children’s epinephrine levels rose 49 percent, their norepinephrine more than doubled, and their systolic blood pressure, on average, went up by five points.

Yet another depressing study examined the cognition of 2,800 students in 89 schools across Europe. Published in The Lancet in 2005, it found that aircraft and road noise had significant impacts on reading comprehension and certain kinds of memory. The results, adjusted for family income, the mother’s education, and other confounding factors, were linear. For every five-decibel noise increase, the reading scores of British children dropped by the equivalent of a two-month delay, so that kids in neighborhoods that were 20 decibels louder than average were almost a year behind.

This was no fluke: “To date, over 20 studies have shown a negative effect of environmental noise exposure on children’s learning outcomes and cognitive performance,” notes a 2013 paper in the Journal of Environmental Psychology. “Studies have demonstrated that children with chronic aircraft, road traffic or rail noise exposure at school have poorer reading ability, memory, and academic performance on national standardised tests.” There’s science behind the saying “You can’t hear yourself think.”

You can probably guess which communities face the greatest sonic barrage: the same ones stuck with the worst air, the shoddiest housing, and so on. Noise as a social justice issue is just beginning to gain traction. But as diseases and cognitive problems are increasingly chalked up to chronic stress, it makes sense to look at all the contributing factors to that stress. Much of what we know about urban noise in the United States actually comes from National Park Service researchers, who have spent the last 14 years collecting 1.5 million hours of ambient sound from loca­tions ranging from remote wilderness areas to urban street corners. What they’re finding is that noise may well be the most pervasive pollutant in America.

Now researchers can estimate people’s noise exposure down to the level of individual city blocks, says Peter James, a researcher at the Harvard school of public health whose team is using Park Service data to explore whether excessive noise is partly responsible for disparities in “cardiovascular outcomes” in disadvantaged communities. People living in such neighborhoods are also the least likely to have access to the restorative benefits of nature, and the granular noise data could help city planners, policymakers, and activists plan accordingly. Groups like Outdoor Afro and NatureBridge—which aim to get urban kids out into natural settings—are already springing up in cities nationwide.

A healthy soundscape, James says, “is not a wishy-washy amenity. It’s a potential public health factor we need to understand to make sure everyone has the same opportunities.” Smyth offers this advice: “We should think about soundscapes as medicine,” he told me. “It’s like a pill. You can prescribe sounds or a walk in the park in much the way we prescribe exercise. Do it 20 minutes a day as a lifetime approach—or you can do it as an acute stress intervention. When you’re stressed, go to a quiet place.” I’m ready.

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Is Your Noisy Neighborhood Slowly Killing You?

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RIP George Michael

by BusterBeall1243 Posted on December 25, 2016

Mother Jones

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Damnit.

The star, who launched his career with Wham! in the 1980s and later continued his success as a solo performer, is said to have “passed away peacefully at home”.

Thames Valley Police said South Central Ambulance Service attended a property in Goring in Oxfordshire at 13:42 GMT.

Police say there were no suspicious circumstances.

Rest in peace.

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RIP George Michael

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These 15 Albums Might Actually Make 2016 Tolerable

by NanceeLockhart Posted on December 4, 2016

Mother Jones

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Each year, Mother Jones‘ favorite music critic browses through hundreds of new albums and pulls out maybe a couple hundred for his weekly reviews. But only a few can make the final-final cut. Below, in alphabetical order, are Jon Young’s super-quick takes on his 15 top albums for 2016. (Feel free to heartily disagree and share your own faves in the comments.)

1. William Bell, This Is Where I Live (Stax): The tender, moving return of an underrated soul great.

2. David Bowie, Blackstar (Columbia/ISO): The Thin White Duke’s eerie, haunting farewell.

3. Gaz Coombes, Matador (Hot Fruit Recordings/Kobalt Label Services): Grand, witty megapop from the former Supergrass leader. (Full review here.)

4. Bob Dylan, The 1966 Live Recordings (Columbia/Legacy): A massive compilation of every note from his notorious tour. (Full review here.)

5. Margaret Glaspy, Emotions and Math (ATO): No-nonsense relationship tales that rock out with insistent verve.

6. Hinds, Leave Me Alone (Mom + Pop/Lucky Number): Frayed, rowdy femme-punk straight outta Madrid.

7. Jennifer O’Connor, Surface Noise (Kiam): Tuneful, deadpan folk-pop with a cutting edge. (Full review here.)

8. Brigid Mae Power, Brigid Mae Power (Tompkins Square): Hair-raising solo acoustic performances by an Irish chanteuse. (Full review here.)

9. Dex Romweber, Carrboro, (Bloodshot): A colorful Americana kaleidoscope from a master balladeer and rockabilly shouter. (Full review here.)

10. Sad13, Slugger (Carpark): Sadie Dupuis’ solo debut, poppier than her band Speedy Ortiz, and exuberantly feminist.

11 & 12. The Scientists, A Place Called Bad (Numero Group); and Blonde Redhead, Masculin Feminin (Numero Group): The great Chicago reissue label scores again with retrospectives devoted to The Scientists, Australian trash-rockers from the ’70s and ’80s, and Blonde Redhead’s ’90s shoegaze-noise recordings amid the chaotic New York scene. (Full review here.)

13. Allen Toussaint, American Tunes (Nonesuch): The gorgeous final works of the New Orleans R&B genius. (And here’s our recent chat with Toussaint collaborator Aaron Neville.)

14. A Tribe Called Quest, We Got It from Here…Thank You 4 Your Service (Epic): The long-overdue return, and devastating goodbye, of a hip-hop institution.

15. Various Artists, The Microcosm: Visionary Music of Continental Europe, 1970-1986 (Light in the Attic): An eye-opening survey of vintage new age music in all its oddball, unexpected glory.

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These 15 Albums Might Actually Make 2016 Tolerable

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102 million dead trees in California since 2010 will make for one helluva wildfire season.

by SimonAlston Posted on November 22, 2016

Sixty-two million trees perished in the state in the last year alone, mostly in the Sierra Nevada, according to the U.S. Forest Service. That’s a lot of kindling.

Trees killed by rising temperatures, pests, and sustained drought “elevate the risk of wildfire,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. Oh goody: just what California needs!

The state this year saw its most expensive wildfire in history: Monterey County’s Soberanes Fire took out more than 132,000 acres, and cost more than $260 million. South of Monterey, San Bernardino’s Blue Cut Fire burned more than 36,000 acres, and destroyed nearly 100 homes.

Removing the kindling before it burns is not a silver bullet, according to environmental scientist Char Miller in the Los Angeles Times.

Even if foresters had unlimited funds, it would be unwise to remove all the dead trees. Charred, decomposing trees are a natural element of the landscape and can support other life, making forests healthier in the long run.

Western fires in general are now bigger, and fire seasons last longer than they did a few decades ago, due to extended drought and elevated temperatures.

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102 million dead trees in California since 2010 will make for one helluva wildfire season.

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How Good Is Flint’s Water These Days?

by Porfirio07K Posted on November 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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Last week a federal judge in Michigan ordered the state to deliver four cases of bottled water each week to families in Flint that need it. On Thursday, the state asked the judge to stay his order, arguing that the court order would “require a ‘Herculean effort’ equivalent to a large-scale military operation and cost the state at least $10.45 million a month, or $125 million annually.” This prompted a reader to ask me what was up. Is Flint’s water still unsafe to drink?

I haven’t checked in on Flint since June, so I figured maybe it was time for an update. I brought up the latest testing results and created a new data point for the past two months, and then added the data point to my old chart using the same metric as always. Here it is:

That’s…not bad.1 Using a different measure, it turns out that about 6 percent of Flint homes were over the EPA’s “action limit” of 15 ppb and 1 percent were way over. That’s not great, obviously, but not catastrophic either. The catch is that presumably these measurements were all taken with water filters in place, and the judge’s ruling applied only to homes without filters:

The city is not required to deliver water to residents whose homes have properly installed and working filters, are unoccupied or decline the service. Judge Lawson also ordered that officials provide information in multiple languages, including English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic and Hmong, to residents about lead levels of city water and how to install filters that properly reduce the contamination.

….Flint had fought the request for deliveries of water, arguing that residents had sufficient access to clean water from distribution centers throughout Flint and at home using filters that the city provided. Judge Lawson disagreed. Residents struggled to properly install the filters because of language barriers, old age, cognitive barriers or a lack of necessary tools, the judge said. Others struggled to retrieve water even from the distribution centers.

I guess I’m a little puzzled. If Flint is getting good results even though lots of homes don’t have working filters, then its water is in pretty good shape and the judge might be overreacting. However, if it’s getting these results because most homes do have working filters, then the judge’s order wouldn’t be all that burdensome and it’s not clear why the state is fighting it. Perhaps someone with deeper knowledge of what’s going on will weigh in on this.

1There’s a broader measure of blood lead levels that looks oddly high, but the entire state of Michigan looks oddly high. I’m not sure what to make of it.

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How Good Is Flint’s Water These Days?

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Private Prison Company Frees Itself From Its Old Corporate Identity

by JonasLchfpiinrcl Posted on October 28, 2016

Mother Jones

The Corrections Corporation of America, the private prison company that was the subject of a recent Mother Jones investigation, has announced that it’s rebranding itself in the wake of increased scrutiny of the for-profit prison industry. CCA will now be known as CoreCivic, a “diversified government solutions company.” Don’t let the corporatespeak fool you; it will remain a private prison corporation offering “high quality corrections and detention management.”

The makeover comes after a slew of bad news for the company. After Mother Jones published its investigation, the Department of Justice announced it would phase out its use of private prisons. The Department of Homeland Security said it would reevaluate its relationship with private prisons. CCA shareholders filed a class action lawsuit against the company for allegedly failing to disclose that its practices could put its government contracts in jeopardy. Over the past six months, CCA’s stock price has fallen more than 50 percent, and the company announced a round of layoffs last month.

“Rebranding as CoreCivic is the culmination of a multi-year strategy to transform our business from largely corrections and detention services to a wider range of government solutions,” said Damon T. Hininger, the president and CEO of the business formerly known as CCA in a press release about the rebranding. “The CoreCivic name speaks to our ability to solve the tough challenges facing government at all levels and to the deep sense of service that we feel every day to help people.” The release claims the rebranding has been years in the making and was finalized before the Justice Department’s announcement in August.

The company formerly known as CCA is also adopting a “new visual identity”:

This includes a bolder, sleeker and more modern typeface, as well as a color palette intended to evoke attributes such as safety, strength, passion, stability, integrity and seriousness. The brand’s symbol, a 13-stripe American flag stylized to also represent a building, speaks to the Company’s commitment to public service, the professionalism of its employees and its expanding government real estate focus. There’s also a nod to the Company’s heritage with the right side of the symbol angled at 19.83°, representing the year that the Company was founded, and the left side of the symbol angled at 20.16° to mark the year the Company rebranded as CoreCivic.

Read more about the history of CCA and private prisons and Shane Bauer’s investigation into a CCA prison in Louisiana.

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Private Prison Company Frees Itself From Its Old Corporate Identity

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Here’s an Interesting Little Nugget From the FBI Records Release No One Is Talking About

by AlyssaU7785 Posted on October 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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The FBI released on Monday the fourth and last batch of interview summaries related to its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private home email server during her time as secretary of state. The files to date have summarized Clinton’s July 4 weekend interview with agents, the technical details behind the server, and some complicated aspects of the relationship between the State Department and the FBI.

But they also included another interesting nugget.

In a summary from May 25, 2016, one of the US Secret Service agents assigned to protect former President Bill Clinton told FBI investigators that he was also “asked to do network assessments and troubleshoot IT issues at the Clinton Foundation” in addition to his full-time job of protecting the former president. His apparent “information technology (IT) skills” were tapped to assist “in a case related to the theft of information on the Clinton Foundation information systems.” The agent also told the FBI that after being contacted by longtime Clinton aide Justin Cooper, he helped another Clinton aide, Bryan Pagliano, research a security issue with the Clinton’s home email server.

The US Secret Service is tasked with protecting the president, former presidents, and a handful of other high-ranking US politicians, along with foreign dignitaries who visit the United States. The agency, among the nation’s oldest federal law enforcement organizations, also investigates threats against those it protects and investigates crimes related to financial fraud. It’s unclear whether the work the agent described would violate any department regulations. The Secret Service did not respond to questions about the matter. The Clinton campaign and the Clinton Foundation also did not respond to any questions.

Cooper and Pagliano have both been embroiled in the private email server controversy from the very beginning. They helped the Clintons set up the email server in the first place, according to Politico Magazine, and Pagliano maintained the home email server as someone who worked for Hillary Clinton both at the State Department and privately. In 2015 he invoked his Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination during one of the lawsuits related to records about the server, and was one of five people who were given limited immunity deals from the FBI as part of its investigation into the case.

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Here’s an Interesting Little Nugget From the FBI Records Release No One Is Talking About

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