Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features New Orleans r&b singer Tommy Ridgely. Enjoy!

“I wanted to tell him a story, but I didn't. It's a story about a Jew riding in a streetcar, in Germany during the Third Reich, reading Goebbels' paper, the Volkische Beobachter. A non-Jewish acquaintance sits down next to him and says, "Why do you read the Beobachter?" "Look," says the Jew, "I work in a factory all day. When I get home, my wife nags me, the children are sick, and there's no money for food. What should I do on my way home, read the Jewish newspaper? Pogrom in Romania' 'Jews Murdered in Poland.' 'New Laws against Jews.' No, sir, a half-hour a day, on the streetcar, I read the Beobachter. 'Jews the World Capitalists,' 'Jews Control Russia,' 'Jews Rule in England.' That's me they're talking about. A half-hour a day I'm somebody. Leave me alone, friend.”

-- Milton Sanford Mayer

News and Opinion

Worth a full read:

US federal court exposes Democratic Party conspiracy against Assange and WikiLeaks

In a ruling published late Tuesday, Judge John Koeltl of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, delivered a devastating blow to the US-led conspiracy against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. In his ruling, Judge Koeltl, a Bill Clinton nominee and former Assistant Special Prosecutor for the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, dismissed a civil lawsuit filed in April 2018 by the Democratic National Committee alleging WikiLeaks was civilly liable for conspiring with the Russian Government to steal DNC emails and data and leak them to the public.

The decision exposes the Democratic Party in a conspiracy of its own to attack free speech and cover up the crimes of US imperialism and the corrupt activities of the two parties of Wall Street. Judge Koeltl stated:

If WikiLeaks could be held liable for publishing documents concerning the DNC’s political financial and voter-engagement strategies simply because the DNC labels them ‘secret’ and trade secrets, then so could any newspaper or other media outlet. But that would impermissibly elevate a purely private privacy interest to override the First Amendment interest in the publication of matters of the highest public concern. The DNC’s published internal communications allowed the American electorate to look behind the curtain of one of the two major political parties in the United States during a presidential election. This type of information is plainly of the type entitled to the strongest protection that the First Amendment offers.

The ruling exposes the illegality of the conspiracy by the US government, backed by the governments of Britain, Ecuador and Sweden and the entire corporate media and political establishment, to extradite Assange to the US, where he faces 170 years in federal prison on charges of espionage. The plaintiff in the civil case—the Democratic Party—has also served as Assange’s chief prosecutor within the state apparatus for over a decade. During the Obama administration, Democratic Party Justice Department officials as well as career Democratic holdovers under the Trump administration prepared the criminal case against him. ...

The judge labeled WikiLeaks an “international news organization” and said Assange is a “publisher,” exposing the liars in the corporate press who declare that Assange is not subject to free speech protections. Judge Koeltl continued, “In New York Times Co. v. United States, the landmark ‘Pentagon Papers’ case, the Supreme Court upheld the press’s right to publish information of public concern obtained from documents stolen by a third party.”

As a legal matter, by granting WikiLeaks’ motion to dismiss, the court ruled that the DNC had not put forward a “facially plausible” claim. At the motion to dismiss stage, a judge is required to accept all the facts alleged by the plaintiff as true. Here, the judge ruled that even if all the facts alleged by the DNC were true, no fact finder could “draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Going a step further, the judge called the DNC’s arguments “threadbare,” adding: “At no point does the DNC allege any facts” showing that Assange or WikiLeaks “participated in the theft of the DNC’s information.”

Pompeo backtracks on Afghanistan withdrawal by fall 2020

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday backtracked on comments suggesting a massive U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan before the 2020 election, flatly stating “there is no deadline” for the end of the American mission there.

In response to reporters’ questions en route to a diplomatic trip to Thailand, Pompeo criticized the press for misinterpreting his earlier answers for when the nearly 18-year-old military conflict will come to a close.

“They got it wrong,” he said. “The president has been very direct about his expectations that we will reduce our operational footprint on the ground in Afghanistan just as quickly as we can get there." ...

Pompeo downplayed any confusion over the messages coming from the White House.

“We will have an orderly plan for how we’re going to maintain our counter-terrorism posture in the region,” he said. “There’s really not much news here other than as each day goes by, we’re getting closer to getting an understanding from all the parties in Afghanistan about how we would deliver this better outcome...”

“That’s the mission the president has laid out, and we’re working our way there. I hope in the next handful of weeks we’ll have significant progress we can announce.”

US Eyeing Militarization of Antarctic as Well as Arctic

A top U.S. military general said Tuesday that the country will be looking at militarizing the Antarctic just as it has the Arctic. Air Force general Charles Brown, commander of Pacific Air Force, made the remarks in an address at The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in Arlington, Virginia.

Brown pointed to moves already made by Russia and China, a self-declared "near-Arctic state," and noted both nations "have a presence in the Antarctic right now" as well as the Arctic.

At several points, Brown mentioned 2048, which is set to be a key moment for the Antarctic—a region "within increasingly convenient reach"—because it's when the Antarctic Treaty can go under review. Brown called the Arctic "kind of a precursor to the way I look at the Antarctic." He continued, "The capabilities we have in the Arctic are the same capabilities we probably want to have in the Antarctic."

He added that icebreakers were a lacking capability—"Russia has much more than we do." And, because the U.S. military will still need the few it has to operate in the Arctic, "we may need more" to bring them to Antarctica.

US imposes sanctions on Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif

The U.S. Just Slapped Sanctions on Iran’s Top Diplomat

The Trump administration slapped sanctions on Iran’s top diplomat Wednesday, in an aggressive gesture U.S. officials have been threatening for weeks.

Sanctions directly targeting Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, had been flagged by Treasury Department officials back in June. But they were put on hold by State Department officials, who reportedly worried such a hostile diplomatic step would slam the door shut on diplomacy.

“Javad Zarif implements the reckless agenda of Iran’s Supreme Leader, and is the regime’s primary spokesperson around the world,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. “The United States is sending a clear message to the Iranian regime that its recent behavior is completely unacceptable.”

Hong Kong protests: Chinese military warns unrest should not be tolerated

Hong Kong protests: China military breaks silence to warn unrest should not be tolerated

The head of the Chinese army in Hong Kong has spoken on the protests for the first time, saying the unrest has “seriously threatened the life and safety” of the people and should not be tolerated. The commander of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) garrison in Hong Kong warned it was “determined to protect national sovereignty, security, stability and the prosperity of Hong Kong”. ...

The PLA chief also gave his “firm” support to Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, as well as to to the Hong Kong police force for “rigorously enforcing the law”. ...

The commander’s intervention came as first chief executive of Hong Kong, Tung Chee-hwa, accused the US and Taiwan of orchestrating the protests that have rocked the former British colony for eight weeks. Tung claimed that “foreign politicians and anti-China forces with ulterior motives” were working “to incite the fear of the people of Hong Kong and undermine the relationship between the mainland and Hong Kong”. He warned Hong Kong people against “being used”.

Tung, who is the vice-chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, also gave his support to the Hong Kong authorities in “defending the rule of law and taking decisive measures to restore social order”, adding that they have “already heard the voice of the public”.

Labour attacks 'appalling waste' as Johnson adds £2.1bn to no-deal fund

The huge cost of a no-deal Brexit was laid bare on Wednesday as the government announced plans to set aside an extra £2.1bn for preparations including stockpiling of medicines, an extra 500 border officials and a public awareness campaign about disruption.

Boris Johnson is ramping up the funding for a no-deal Brexit on 31 October though he claims that reaching a deal with the EU is his preference.

The move, announced by Sajid Javid, the chancellor, is designed to show Brussels that the UK is ready and willing to countenance leaving without a deal in three months’ time. Javid will provide a new immediate cash boost of £1.1bn and make a further £1bn available if necessary, taking the total allocation of spending this year alone up to £6.3bn. ...

Labour branded the spending an “appalling waste of tax-payers’ cash, all for the sake of Boris Johnson’s drive towards a totally avoidable no deal”, especially as the majority of MPs had made clear their intention to block an exit without a withdrawal agreement.

John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said: “This government could have ruled out no deal, and spent these billions on our schools, hospitals, and people." ... Meg Hillier, chair of the Commons public accounts committee, vowed to scrutinise the spending. “Just because Boris Johnson is making it sound like he’s fighting a war, with seven-days-a-week meetings in Whitehall, that is not licence to spend taxpayers’ money like water, throwing good money after bad."

Gosh, what a surprise. Racists in the White House? Color me shocked, shocked, I say.

Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon Casually Tossed Around Racial Slurs, New Tapes Reveal

Newly-unearthed tapes reveal an astonishingly racist private exchange between President Richard Nixon and then-California Governor Ronald Reagan. ... They where just unearthed by NYU professor Tim Naftali and former director of the Nixon library, who shared them with the Atlantic.

“Last night, I tell you, to watch that thing on television as I did,” Reagan tells the president about African delegates to the United Nations. “To see those, those monkeys from those African countries — damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!”

Nixon responds with a laugh.

Just minutes after getting off the phone with Reagan, Nixon calls the Tanzanians “cannibals” who weren't "even wearing shoes” in a call with his Secretary of State, William Rogers.

The conversations stemmed from a vote the night before when the United Nations voted to offer a delegation seat to communist Beijing instead of Taiwan, whose government had been expelled from China’s mainland Communist Party 21 years earlier. ...

The tapes were originally released in 2000, but the racist portion of this conversation had been redacted “to protect Reagan’s privacy,” according to Naftali.

Federal Reserve cuts interest rates by 0.25% – its first in a decade

The US Federal Reserve has cut interest rates for the first time in more than a decade and signalled its readiness to provide more support as growth slows in the world’s largest economy.

The US central bank cut its key benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point, to a range of 2%-2.25%, in the first reduction in borrowing costs since immediately after the financial crisis a decade ago.

Jerome Powell, the Fed chairman, said weak global growth and the US-China trade war had been disruptive for the world economy and had an impact on growth in America, despite the US labour market remaining strong with the lowest unemployment rate since the late 1960s. ...

Stocks fell on Wall Street straight after the decision as investors warned the 0.25% cut might not be enough to deliver greater stimulus for US growth. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 1.23% at 26,864.

Dallas knowingly puts dangerous cops back on the streets with deadly results:

“You’re Gonna Kill Me”: Body-Cam Footage Shows Dallas Police Joking as Mentally Ill Man Dies

Tony Timpa, a 32-year-old Dallas man suffering from schizophrenia and depression, pleaded with the cops more than 30 times as he struggled to breathe while they held him down. As he lay dying, the officers joked about waking him up so he could have eggs and waffles for breakfast.

“You’re gonna kill me! You’re gonna kill me! You’re gonna kill me!” Timpa screamed, according to body camera footage published by the Dallas Morning News on Tuesday.

Timpa dialed 911 the night of August 10, 2016, from the parking lot of a Dallas porn store, according to the Dallas Morning News’ three-year investigation into the case. He said he hadn’t taken his medication, was high on cocaine, and needed help. When officers from the Dallas Police Department arrived, one of them pinned Timpa face-down on the ground for over 13 minutes. When he fell unconscious, police assumed he’d fallen asleep and didn’t check his pulse, according to the Dallas Morning News.

Twenty minutes after police arrived, Timpa died, according to the Dallas Morning News. An autopsy by the Dallas County Medical Examiner shows that Timpa’s death was the result of using cocaine coupled with “excessive physical restraint.”

The three police officers involved — Dustin Dillard, Kevin Mansell, and Danny Vasquez — were indicted in 2017 on charges of misdemeanor deadly conduct, but the charges against them were dropped in March. They have since returned to active duty.

If the Justice Department Prevails in a Florida Courtroom, More Americans May See Themselves Stripped of Citizenship

As the Justice Department made its closing argument on Tuesday afternoon that a federal court should strip a 62-year-old truck driver of his U.S. citizenship, one question appeared to weigh on U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Barksdale’s mind: If Parvez Manzoor Khan is denaturalized, will he be deported to Pakistan? In a Jacksonville, Florida, courtroom, Justice Department attorney Aaron Petty argued that Khan became a citizen by lying to immigration officials and hiding material facts about his immigration history, and therefore, his citizenship should be taken away. Barksdale, after asking Petty about the applicable legal standard in the case, asked, “If the court revokes citizenship, what’s Khan’s status?”

Petty told Barksdale, who sits on the bench in the district court for the Middle District of Florida, that Khan would once again be a lawful permanent resident — a status he gained in 2001 based on his marriage to a U.S. citizen, which opened the door to his naturalization. Barksdale then asked whether Khan could maintain that status or whether he would be at risk of losing it. Petty said that the Justice Department could not attempt to rescind Khan’s green card — the informal name for the document establishing permanent residence — and it is unlikely that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement could act on a 1992 deportation order against Khan. But, he added, it is possible that ICE could initiate new deportation proceedings. ...

In September 2017, the Justice Department marked Khan as one of three targets for denaturalization, the Trump administration’s first public declaration that it would be pursuing such cases under a Department of Homeland Security project called Operation Janus. The initiative, which started at the end of George W. Bush’s presidency and continued under Barack Obama, involved digitizing fingerprint data collected by immigration officials that was missing from a central database, and then combing through about 315,000 cases to determine whether anyone who had been issued a final deportation order later obtained legal status under a different name.

In Khan’s case, the federal government found fingerprint records belonging to Mohammad Akhtar, a Pakistani national who was ordered to be deported in 1992, that matched the fingerprints Khan gave when he applied for permanent residence and citizenship more than a decade later. After linking the two immigration files, the Justice Department accused Khan of becoming a citizen fraudulently by failing to disclose aspects of his immigration history, including the past deportation order — which Khan says he was not even aware of. It is now up to Barksdale to decide whether the government met its burden to prove that Khan illegally procured his citizenship, or that he obtained it by concealing or willfully misrepresenting a material fact. ... Her decision will be a bellwether of what’s to come. If Khan’s citizenship is revoked, despite the fact that he could have been eligible for citizenship even if he had been forthcoming about his history, it could embolden the government to bring more of these cases forward — which it has already indicated it intends to do. ...

A Justice Department victory will open the door for ICE to try to send Khan back to Pakistan, where he has not lived since 1991; the agency would not be obligated to do so, but the amount of resources the federal government has expended on this case, which has involved top Justice Department lawyers, mean the odds are not in Khan’s favor. The Justice Department’s efforts to strip people of citizenship — a practice that, for the last 50 years or so, has largely been reserved for war criminals and Nazis — have also expanded significantly under President Donald Trump. In the first two years of the Trump presidency, the total number of denaturalization cases nearly doubled over the total number of cases filed between 2004 and 2016.

Dolores Huerta & Cornel West Respond to Democratic Debate as Biden & Harris Face Harsh Scrutiny

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren Loom Large in Night 2 of Dem Debates as Healthcare Again Dominates the Conversation

Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren may not have been onstage, but their presence loomed large as the ten candidates for CNN's second Democratic primary debate fought over healthcare under the parameters set by the two progressive front-runners.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) was on the defensive for most of the first portion of the night due to her version of "Medicare for All" which involves a ten-year phase in for the program. ...

Harris also called back to Tuesday night's criticisms of more right wing Democrats from Warren and Sanders.

WOW Kamala Harris stealing lines from Bernie and Warren "We can't keep repeating Republican talking points!!!" after she repeatedly fails to explain/defend her healthcare plan.

— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) August 1, 2019

Tulsi Gabbard called out the corruption in Kamala Harris’s Medicare plan, and Kamala quickly pivots back to Biden because she can’t defend herself #WhyTulsi #Tulsi2020 #DemDebate2 pic.twitter.com/2eRY9eRWV0

— BAXTER (@baxtervaz3) August 1, 2019

Julian Castro, Cory Booker Not Allowing Biden to Avoid Responsibility for Obama Administration Immigration Policies

Joe Biden got a harsh reality check Wednesday during the second night of Democratic primary debates in Detroit as he discovered that repeatedly evoking the name of former President Barack Obama—at least with respect to immigration—is not necessarily helpful.

Biden's perceived unwillingness to learn from the past is increasingly a line of attack for his fellow Democrats, who seem to smell blood, especially after Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) broke the seal on criticizing Obama-era immigration policies in the first primary debate. ...

After a back and forth that began with protesters in the audience calling out "three million deportations," a reference to the record deportations under Obama, Biden replied to Castro's critiques with an attack on what Biden implied was Castro's unwillingness while in the administration to take a stand. "We sat together in many cabinet meetings,”" said Biden "I never heard him talk about any of this when he was secretary."

Castro responds to Biden on immigration: "One of us has learned the lessons of the past and one of us hasn't. ... What we need are politicians that actually have some guts on this issue" #DemDebate https://t.co/YM1tQQyymq pic.twitter.com/Z6j8JDw7ZY

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) August 1, 2019

Biden tried to evade the controversy by claiming he had helped to advise Obama on immigration, but demurred when asked specifics, claiming that it was private and part of his duty as vice president. That opened the door to a ringing attack from Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.).

"Mr. Vice President, you can't have it both ways," said Booker. "You invoke President Obama more than anybody in this campaign. You can't do it when it’s convenient and then dodge it when it's not."

Cory Booker calls out Biden's dividing up of immigrants, and calls out Trump's "shithole" countries comment. It was NOT bleeped. #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/x7WH6PHxGe

— Zack Ford (@ZackFord) August 1, 2019

"We don't want another President Obama." Activist urges Democrats to revisit immigration policies

NEW: Rep. Tulsi Gabbard was the most searched-for candidate across all 50 states during the second #DemDebate, per @GoogleTrends. https://t.co/ED1TyNXpO3 #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/8qq5miOQ1f

— ABC News (@ABC) August 1, 2019

Gosh, who knew that this sort of thing would happen when the debates were taken away from the League of Women Voters and given to corporate media to run for the parties?

Amid 'Existential Threat' and With Women's Freedom at Stake, CNN Slammed for Pushing Climate and Reproductive Rights to Back Burner

Voters and advocacy organizations alike expressed dismay Wednesday after the second round of Democratic primary debates kicked off with CNN asking few questions about two key issues Americans say they care about most in the 2020 election—the climate and women's rights.

Over the course of more than two hours, the network's debate moderators asked only three questions pertaining to the climate crisis and how the candidates plan to protect the planet, future generations, and American communities already facing rising sea levels and extreme weather events due to the crisis.

Critics said the few seconds Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was permitted to discuss her green manufacturing plan and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was allowed to call on Washington to "take on the fossil fuel industry" were insufficient to counter claims that cutting fossil fuel emissions to net zero by 2050 is enough to solve the crisis and suggestions that eliminating gas-powered cars is unfeasible.

"We are in a climate emergency and millions of people around the world are already suffering the consequences," said Jack Shapiro, a campaigner for Greenpeace USA. "Pushing climate change policy to the backburner for the second debate in a row is an insult to those dealing with extreme heatwaves, storms, and droughts right now and to future generations for whom everything is at stake."

Heh, if the DNC is going to sink the progressives, they are clearly going to have to find some smarter talking heads.

“Liberal and moderate democrats clash in Detroit”. This was a joke. @CNN used the #DemocraticDebate #DemDebate for its own benefit and produce drama to feed their narrative of Dems clashing. It was a sham and the @DNC needs to be smarter. pic.twitter.com/WwzIk027md

— Carlos Sainz Caccia (@sainzcaccia) July 31, 2019

Marianne Williamson Busted Out Some Reparations Math

In the middle of Tuesday night’s debate, political outsider and spiritual author Marianne Williamson re-upped her support for reparations — but she did so with some serious number-crunching. “If you did the math of the 40 acres and a mule, given that there were 4 to 5 million slaves at the end of the Civil War,” Williamson said, “it would be trillions of dollars, and I believe that anything less than $100 billion is an insult.”

Williamson has said she supports $200 billion to $500 billion in reparations for slavery and its institutional injustices. When a moderator referred to that money as "financial assistance," Williamson snapped back and corrected him as “a payment of debt that is owed." Afterward, the debate audience erupted into some of the biggest applause of the night. ...

Williamson's response to the question on reparations was far from her only memorable moment of the night, despite banking less speaking time than the vast majority of the other candidates. "If you think any of this wonkiness is going to deal with this dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred that this president is bringing up in this country, then I’m afraid that the Democrats are going to see some very dark days," Williamson said with her signature flair in response to a question about race in the U.S.

And in her closing remarks, Williamson left viewers with what might be the most memorable quip of the night: that the U.S. has “sold out to corporate overlords.”

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: Kamala's attack on me is "pathetic"

Biden and Harris attract hits for their records

Tonight’s debate seemed defined by candidates attacking Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on their records.

Biden was criticized for his major role in crafting the 1994 crime bill, while Harris was scrutinized for her handling of prosecutions as California’s attorney general.

As the top-polling candidates, the pair were bound to find themselves repeatedly under the microscope. But because of their contentious face-off during the last debate, Biden and Harris could not tag team the other candidates, as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren did the night before.

That dynamic, combined with every other candidate except Cory Booker scrambling to make the fall debate stage, left Biden and Harris constantly playing defense.

'We Urgently Need to Change Our Way of Living,' Experts Warn as Heat Wave Causes Historic Ice Melt in Greenland

The heat wave that smashed records in Europe last week has now reached Greenland, where it is causing the world's second-largest ice sheet to endure one of its most exteme melting events ever documented, leading experts to express fresh concerns about what the global climate crisis will mean for future sea level rise.

Josh Willis, a NASA scientist who researches Greenland's melting glaciers, told Mashable on Thursday that "it's no surprise that Greenland keeps setting records for melt and high temperatures."

"The entire planet is getting warmer, but the Arctic is warming faster than every place else," said Willis. "We are watching these huge ice sheets shrink every year now, and there is no sign of that stopping any time soon."

Sharing updates on Greeland's temperature and ice melt records from this week that Xavier Fettweis—a polar scientist at the University of Liège in Belgium—posted to Twitter Thursday, meteorologist and science writer Eric Holthaus declared in a tweet, "We are in a climate emergency."

Yesterday was the warmest day in recorded history on the Greenland ice sheet.

Today is its biggest melt day. More than 12 billion tons of water will have entered the ocean by tonight, permanently raising sea levels.

We are in a climate emergency.https://t.co/WUL0v2CW8O https://t.co/FnGMFZ1IsC

— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) August 1, 2019

Holthaus also shared his latest piece for Rolling Stone, published ahead of the heat wave's peak on Thursday. In the Rolling Stone article, Fettweis told Holthaus that "this melt event is a good alarm signal that we urgently need [to] change our way of living," and suggests that projections from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) "are too optimistic in the Arctic."

Fettweis, in an interview with InsideClimate News, explained that "the current melt rate is equivalent to what the model projects for 2070, using the most pessimistic model," According to NASA, the global sea level will rise 17 to 23 feet if Greenland's ice sheet melts entirely.

‘Ecological disaster’: Russia battles Siberia wildfires

‘It won’t be long’: why a Honduran community will soon be under water

Golden beaches once helped transform this fishing community on the Gulf of Fonseca into a thriving tourist destination. Nowadays, however, there are barely a few metres of sand left, and rising water levels and tidal surges have wiped out roads, homes and businesses. Locals estimate that around a metre of ground is lost every year – which means this entire community will soon be under water. The same predicament is faced by settlements along the Pacific coast of Honduras, where land and its people are disappearing fast.

In recent years, millions of people have fled Central America to escape grinding poverty, institutional collapse and untrammeled violence. But another factor behind the exodus has received less attention: conflicts over natural resources which have been intensified by corporate expansion and climate change.

Sea levels are rising around the world, but in this region another local factor is helping speed up coastal degradation: swathes of mangrove forests have been destroyed to make way for industrial shrimp farms which have proliferated even inside protected reserves. ... “The industry destroys huge mangrove sites promising development, but actually creates very few jobs – and actually increases poverty by restricting fishing access for locals,” said Dina Morel, director of a local marine conservation organization, known by its acronym Coddeffagolf.

According to Morel, shrimp farms are routinely approved in protected areas and environmental violations rarely punished as officials often have vested interests in the profitable industry. ...

Mangroves are essential to healthy, resilient coastlines. The sturdy trees protect shorelines from storms and floods, and help prevent erosion by stabilizing sediments with their intertwined roots. They are key factors in marine biodiversity, providing food, clean water, shelter and safety for fish and invertebrates such as crabs, lobsters and prawns. In order to take advantage of this natural symbiosis, acres and acres of shrimp farms have been built inland in ocean inlets which were once safe havens for tidal waves. But the farms block the natural flow of water, causing high tides and storm surges to immerse beach communities instead.

Southern white rhino calf at San Diego Zoo raises hopes for the future of wild rhinoceroses

The bumbling, sleepy rhino calf at San Diego Zoo is sure to delight animal lovers around the world. But for conservation scientists, his birth has additional meaning – it marks a significant step toward saving wild rhino populations from the edge of extinction.

The newborn southern white rhino is the first in North America, and the third in the world, born as the result of artificial insemination.

His mother Victoria, who carried the calf for 493 days, stayed calm during her 30-minute labor on Sunday, the zoo announced. “Victoria is doing a great job as a mother,” said Barbara Durrant, director of reproductive sciences at San Diego Zoo Global, the not-for-profit organization that runs the zoo. “And the calf is doing great. As soon as Victoria took the placenta off him, he was moving. He stood very quickly, and of course, he was very wobbly.”

“He is very cute, but he has much greater significance,” said Durrant. The birth of the new southern rhino calf is part of a plan to save the northern white rhino – a related subspecies whose population has dwindled to two. Whereas populations of southern white rhinos have recovered and stabilized, thanks to a century of protection and management, northern white rhinos have been decimated by hunting during the colonial era and poaching in recent years. The last male northern white rhino died in March, and only two females of the species remain.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

With Nation's Attention on Democratic Debate, McConnell Advances Over a Dozen Lifetime Trump Judges

Keiser Report: Money Printing & Landed Gentry

The War Party Is in Control

Far-Right Extremists Have Been Using Ukraine’s Civil War as a Training Ground. They’re Returning Home.

Secret texts cast light on UK's early role in Trump-Russia inquiry

DNI Nominee Intent on Getting to Bottom of Russiagate

Butina's lawyer says he's got evidence of possible FBI misconduct in the investigation

Why Yet Another General Election for Spain?

9 minutes of Tulsi Gabbard at the Debate

Outsider Marianne Williamson moves beyond the fringe in Democratic debate

Conventional Politicians Are Infinitely Weirder Than Marianne Williamson

Warren, Bullock spar over 'no first use' nuclear policy

‘Everybody’s Talking About How Terrible I Am’ — Biden Takes Shots From All Sides In Debate

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders Dominate Democratic Debate Set Up to Ambush Them

A Little Night Music

Tommy Ridgley - In the same old way

Tommy Ridgley - Three Times

Tommy Ridgley - Boogie Woogie Mama

Tommy Ridgley - Looped

Tommy Ridgley - Good Times

Tommy Ridgley - I've Heard That Story Before

Tommy Ridgley - Double-Eyed Whammy

Tommy Ridgley - I want some money baby

Tommy Ridgley - Jam Up