Protecting your skin and saving baby corals doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive
mmhmmn
Category: Local Interest,
Hawaii Passes Bill Banning Sunscreen That Can Harm Coral Reefs – The New York Times
An estimated 14,000 tons of sunscreen is believed to be deposited in oceans annually with the greatest damage found in popular reef areas in Hawaii and the Caribbean. In 2015, the nonprofit Haereticus Environmental Laboratory surveyed Trunk Bay beach on St. John, wherevisitors ranged from 2,000 to 5,000 swimmers daily, and estimated over 6,000 pounds of sunscreen was deposited on the reef annually. The same year, it found an average of 412 pounds of sunscreen was deposited daily on the reef at Hanauma Bay, a popular snorkeling destination in Oahu that draws an average of 2,600 swimmers each day.
Sunscreen alternatives …[with] mineral sunblocks with zinc oxide and titanium dioxide ..must be “non-nano” in size to be considered reef-safe. If they are below 100 nanometers, the creams can be ingested by corals.
Hawaii Passes Bill Banning Sunscreen That Can Harm Coral Reefs – The New York Times
hmmmm
Don’t pack sunscreen on your next trip to Hawaii. These hotels will make sure you’re covered
Before you pack for your next trip to Hawaii, be prepared to leave your favorite sunscreen at home. And don’t worry, your skin won’t fry.
Scientific research shows that oxybenzone – also known as BP-3, contained in many sunscreen lotions, cremes and sprays — is extremely harmful to the state’s fragile coral reefs
Check-in desks and towel supply stations at the company’s nearly 50 properties throughout the state will allow guests to swap their oxybenzone-containing sunscreen for a free bottle of Raw Elements, a reef-safe sunscreen.
Don’t pack sunscreen on your next trip to Hawaii. These hotels will make sure you’re covered
hmmm
Hawaii may ban sunscreen that kills coral reefs. What kind is safe?
State lawmakers passed a bill Tuesday banning sunscreens containing oxybenzone and octinoxate, chemicals believed to cause harm to marine life and coral reefs.
..The bill …prohibit[s] the sale and distribution of sunscreen with those chemicals on the island “without prescription from a licensed healthcare provider.”
“Amazingly, this is a first-in-the-world law,” Gabbard, who introduced the bill, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “When you think about it, our island paradise, surrounded by coral reefs, is the perfect place to set the gold standard for the world to follow. This will make a huge difference in protecting our coral reefs, marine life, and human health.”
Hawaii may ban sunscreen that kills coral reefs. What kind is safe?
hmmm
De Blasio: Feds have ‘no game plan’ for reuniting 300 immigrant kids in NYC with parents
Because the federal department of Health and Human Services has refused to provide information about how many children have been brought to New York, the city has resorted to reaching out to each provider with a contract with the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement. In the city, that’s Cayuga Centers, Lutheran Social Services and Catholic Guardian Services. Across the three, there are about 300 children here as a result of the policy, de Blasio said.
Most are at Cayuga — where a worker laid out the challenges involved with reaching their parents last week.
“She said some kids are old enough that they know the names of their relatives and they know the phone numbers. She said some kids have a scrap of paper in their pocket with a phone number for their mother or their grandmother, where they can reach them. She said younger kids a lot of time don’t have that, or they had the scrap of paper and they lost it,” de Blasio said.
…That the federal government has refused to provide information about the children to the city and the state is unprecedented, de Blasio said.
“People should see this as a very dangerous precedent where even senators and congress members can’t go into the centers in Texas and the federal government is refusing to give us a straight answer about how many kids are involved,” de Blasio said.
Aghhhhhhhhhhhh
Black Firefighter Questioned, Videotaped and Reported to Police While Conducting Official Inspections
What the hell is up with all the Bay Area Beckys calling the cops on people for existing while black???!
Philly’s new top prosecutor is rolling out wild, unprecedented criminal justice reforms.
In the church, queries and complaints from constituents that might have made his predecessors cringe were softballs for Krasner: a loved one has been wrongfully incarcerated? Send the case to the revamped Conviction Review Unit, a sort of in-house innocence project. How can lying officers be kept off the stand? He has staff working to verify and expand a formerly secret “do not call” list of 29 suspect officers. Late in the meeting, one elderly woman asked a question that cuts to the core of concerns for those who doubt Krasner’s reforms: What would he do about the drug dealers and users on her street that make her feel unsafe? He didn’t miss a beat: “The past solution was to lock [corner drug dealers] all up and that didn’t work. We have to go after root cause,” he says. This came after an extended riff promising “to go after doctors, and pharmaceutical corporations” for their role in the nation’s opioid crisis. Notably, his office had already initiated legal proceedings against some of those pharmaceutical companies.
…Krasner issued a memo to his staff making official a wave of new policies he had announced his attorneys last month. The memo starts: “These policies are an effort to end mass incarceration and bring balance back to sentencing.”
Over 90 percent of criminal cases nationwide are decided in plea bargains. …In an about-face from how these transactions typically work, Krasner’s 300 lawyers are to start many plea offers at the low end of sentencing guidelines. For most nonviolent and nonsexual crimes, or economic crimes below a $50,000 threshold, Krasner’s lawyers are now to offer defendants sentences below the bottom end of the state’s guidelines. So, for example, if a person with no prior convictions is accused of breaking into a store at night and emptying the cash register, he would normally face up to 14 months in jail. Under Krasner’s paradigm, he’ll be offered probation. If prosecutors want to use their discretion to deviate from these guidelines, say if a person has a particularly troubling rap sheet, Krasner must personally sign off.
…Krasner’s lawyers are also now to decline charges for marijuana possession, no matter the weight, effectively decriminalizing possession of the drug in the city for all nonfederal cases. Sex workers will not be charged with prostitution unless they have more than two priors, in which case they’ll be diverted to a specialized court. Retail theft under $500 is no longer a misdemeanor in the eyes of Philly prosecutors, but a summary offense—the lowest possible criminal charge.
…When a person does break the rules of probation, minor infractions such as missing a PO meeting are not to be punished with jail time or probation revocation, and more serious infractions are to be disciplined with no more than two years in jail.
In a move that may have less impact on the lives of defendants, but is very on-brand for Kranser, prosecutors must now calculate the amount of money a sentence would cost before recommending it to a judge, and argue why the cost is justified. He estimates that it costs $115 a day, or $42,000 a year, to incarcerate one person. So, if a prosecutor seeks a three-year sentence, she must state, on the record, that it would cost taxpayers $126,000 and explain why she thinks this cost is justified. Krasner reminds his attorneys that the cost of one year of unnecessary incarceration “is in the range of the cost of one year’s salary for a beginning teacher, police officer, fire fighter, social worker, Assistant District Attorney, or addiction counselor.”
…Krasner’s election was consistent with Philadelphia’s recent mood around criminal justice. Two years ago, the city elected Mayor Jim Kenney, who Philadelphia Magazine labeled “Mr. Criminal Justice Reform.” Under his leadership and with the help of a multimillion-dollar grant from the MacArthur Foundation, the city has brought the jail population down by 26 percent since July 2015.
Philly’s new top prosecutor is rolling out wild, unprecedented criminal justice reforms.
Wild.
Patient Demands Treatment And Release From NH Prison Since He Didn’t Commit Crime
Patient Andrew Butler, 21, who was a well-known athlete as a Hollis Brookline High School student, argued through his attorney that he is locked up in a maximum-security prison because of mental illness even though he hasn’t committed a crime.
…“He is held as a mental health patient without being in an accredited hospital, denied contact visits with his father, denied contact visits with his attorney, forced to wear prison clothing,” wrote his attorney Sandra Bloomenthal. “He is locked down 23 hours a day. He has been tasered. The treatment he has received is cruel and unusual punishment without having been convicted of a crime and with no pending criminal process.”
…[Butler’s father] believes his son may have reacted badly to illegal drug experimentation on a trip to Vermont in late August of last year.
…The problem, he believes, was compounded by the psychotropic drugs Andrew was prescribed.
…[Andrew Butler] was civilly committed to the New Hampshire Hospital, the state’s psychiatric hospital, in the fall of 2017, then involuntarily transferred to the Secure Psychiatric Unit at the men’s prison, according to his father, Douglas Butler.
…The state labels his son as psychotic and schizophrenic, [Douglas Butler] said, diagnoses that he doesn’t believe and is unable to get a second opinion or consider alternative treatments because he is no longer Andrew’s guardian.
…Andrew Butler is being denied his “right to due process of law by the State holding him indefinitely in a maximum-security prison,” attorney Bloomenthal wrote. “He is not being treated by an accredited hospital for his mental illness and in fact his treatment is harmful and cruel and violates the Americans with Disability Act.”
Patient Demands Treatment And Release From NH Prison Since He Didn’t Commit Crime | InDepthNH.org
hmmmm
Texas deputy arrested on allegation of child sexual assault
A sheriff’s deputy in South Texas is accused of sexually assaulting a 4-year-old girl and threatening the child’s mother with deportation if she reported him, authorities said.
…The sheriff said the assaults may have been going on for months, possibly years, and that there could be other victims.
…Authorities were notified of the alleged abuse when the child “made an outcry” and her mother, from Guatemala, took the girl to a fire station to make a report. The sheriff said authorities believe Nunez is related to the child victim.
Salazar said the criminal charge carries a minimum 25-year sentence. He reported on Sunday that the agency is filling out paperwork to give the mother protective status pending the case’s outcome, but declined to comment on the residence status of the child.
Texas deputy arrested on allegation of child sexual assault – Story | KTVU
Jeezus Christ,,,,
El Paso County Sheriff Prohibits Staff From Moonlighting at Tornillo Tent City for Children
El Paso’s sheriff has barred his deputies from working off-duty at a new temporary migrant children’s shelter, one of the most forceful steps yet from a growing chorus of law enforcement critical of the Trump administration’s practice of separating children and parents apprehended at the border. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services this month opened temporary tent shelters in Tornillo, about thirty miles east of downtown El Paso, where the sheriff’s prohibition has taken effect. “The Sheriff’s Office will not be working at these facilities, as we don’t support the current administration’s position of separating children simply to discourage illegal immigration,” Sheriff Richard Wiles said. Law enforcement officers frequently work off-duty jobs to supplement their income, but such work requires approval from superiors.
Wiles said he was approached by federal officials to provide off-duty deputies for security work at the Tornillo facility but declined. “I just thought that if the citizens saw that we were working there in an off-duty capacity, it may be [seen] as if we were approving of the administration’s policy, and it would hurt our relationship with the community that we serve.”
good
Pam Bondi heckled at Mister Rogers movie over healthcare, immigration
Florida’s Republican attorney general, Pam Bondi, was escorted out of a movie theater by police on Friday night after being confronted by labor activists over her positions on healthcare and immigration policy.
…One activist can be heard asking, “Would Mr. Rogers take children away from their parents?” Unlike Florida Gov. Rick Scott, Bondi has not publicly come out against the family separations.
…”What would Mister Rogers think about your legacy in Florida? Taking away health insurance from people with existing conditions? Shame on you! Shame on you!” one protester can be heard shouting at Bondi as uniformed officers walked her to her car.
…Approximately 1.7 million people in Florida get their health insurance through the market created by the ACA, and over 90% receive subsidies from the federal government to lower their premiums, according to the Orlando Sun Sentinel.
Pam Bondi heckled at Mister Rogers movie over healthcare, immigration – Business Insider
hmmmm
31 Orlando police officers sued over their response to Pulse nightclub massacre that left 49 dead
The lawsuit also lists 30 unidentified Orlando police officers who the plaintiffs allege either remained outside the nightclub while the shooting occurred or held witnesses against their will after they fled the massacre. The city of Orlando is listed as an additional defendant.
“While people, unarmed, innocent were inside a club getting absolutely massacred by a crazed gunman there were a bunch of people … with guns, with the training and capability to take that shooter out,” Solomon Radner, attorney for the plaintiffs in the case, told ABC News.
“Instead of doing their job, they worried about themselves, they stayed outside, they worried only about their own safety, knowing that people were literally getting mowed down by the dozens just a few feet away.”
…The police investigation showed that Mateen began the massacre around 2 a.m., but it wasn’t until around 5 a.m. that Orlando police officers shot him to death after they used an armored truck to breach a wall.
Among the 34 plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the estates of six people who were killed in the shooting. Nine of the plaintiffs were detained or “arrested” by police as they ran out of the nightclub, Radner said.
“As the people were running out of the club, thinking that they were safe, the police were there waiting for them, and the police, essentially, for all intents and purposes, arrested every single victim there and held them for 10 to 12 hours,” he added.
…”Virtually every victim they could get their hands on who wasn’t shot or dead, they basically arrested them. They were not free to leave, they were not free to call their loved ones, they were not even free to go to the bathroom or to get water.”
The officers violated the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures by detaining and holding the victims and witnesses against their will and confiscating the cellphones and vehicles of some of them, Radner said.
“The police are not allowed to detain you even if you are the victim of a terrible crime, even if they need to interview you,” Radner told ABC News. “You don’t get to decide that the Fourth Amendment doesn’t apply and to just go and arrest people. You don’t get to do that and that’s what they did.”
…”The only time you can sue a municipality is if you can demonstrate that the only reason those officers engaged in that unlawful conduct, that unconstitutional conduct, is because of a specific policy, procedure, protocol or custom either written or unwritten of the city which allows, encourages, approves or authorizes that conduct,” Radner told ABC News. “We certainly feel there’s enough here that demonstrates deliberate indifference on the part of the city.”
hmmmm
Fane Lozman wins First Amendment Supreme Court case
The nation’s highest court ruled in favor of political gadfly Fane Lozman on Monday in a 8-1 decision, the culmination of more than a decade of work for Lozman after he was dragged out of a Riviera Beach city council meeting and arrested after speaking about the allegedly corrupt dealings of a Palm Beach County commissioner.
The court’s decision on Monday affects citizens who show up to public meetings to vent and question the actions of elected officials. If one official orders the arrest of someone speaking at a public meeting and the rest of the elected body doesn’t object, the person arrested can now have a cause of action against the municipality if he or she can prove animosity.
That means it’s harder for angry elected officials to use their power to arrest people they simply don’t like.
…The ruling in Lozman’s favor was narrow in the sense that it applied to elected boards and municipalities who boot speakers from their meetings. There were also questions within the lawsuit about people arrested by police during events like protests who are not engaged in the act itself, such as journalists and bystanders. Those questions weren’t part of the Supreme Court’s decision.
…Lozman was already victorious in his fight against Riviera Beach that led to his arrest in the first place. He saved other people’s homes from being taken via eminent domain for a new private marina in Riviera Beach, and he was able to keep the public marina out of private hands.
…The semi-retired South Florida stock trader-turned First Amendment crusader also won a Supreme Court case in 2012, when justices ruled 7-2 that Lozman’s floating home was not a “vessel” and therefore not subject to the federal maritime jurisdiction that eventually led local officials to seize and destroy it.
Fane Lozman wins First Amendment Supreme Court case | Bradenton Herald
hmmm
New York Dairy Farmers Struggling To Stay In Business
On a lush hillside overlooking the Callicoon Creek Valley is The Diehl Family Dairy Farm, established in 1842.
Adam Diehl is generation number five to run the milking operation with his wife, Alice. Their daughter, Michaela, hopes to be generation six.
…The Diehl farm is one of six in Sullivan County, and 52 statewide, losing their wholesale contract. As of July, there’s no one to buy what they produce.
…Global forces are hitting local farms, everything from increased production in China, to Walmart bottling its own milk in Indiana. Tastes are changing too. The average American drinks 37% less milk today than in 1970.
…Farmers are encouraged that researchers are questioning the alleged link between whole milk and childhood obesity.
The Obama administration banned whole milk in schools. Farmers are working to overturn that. Some want a quota system to prevent mega-farms from producing so much milk it hurts family farms. Many want price supports so they at least break even.
“To create a floor, for the milk price,” said dairy farmer, Cindy Gieger. “So it can’t drop down below cost of production.”
New York Dairy Farmers Struggling To Stay In Business « CBS New York
hmmmm
Gavin Newsom’s Half True claim on reducing San Francisco’s homeless ‘street population’
Whoever becomes California’s next governor will be faced with a growing homeless crisis, one made worse by a lack of affordable housing. Homelessness in the state shot up nearly 14 percent in 2017, as it remained flat nationwide, according to federal data and our recent fact check on the topic.
…Newsom’s statement does not reflect the slight increase in San Francisco’s overall homeless population during his time as mayor. The first available report during his tenure, from January 2005, shows a total of 6,248. By January 2011, Newsom’s final month in office, that number was 6,455.
…Rhorer said [the increase] was also driven by the shuttering of several nonprofit homeless programs, including two drop-in centers, a shelter and a treatment program when private landlords sold buildings housing those services. Even considering the uptick in the last two years of Newsom’s term, the city’s unsheltered total still decreased by 31 percent from 2002 to 2011, he noted.
The executive director added that the city’s overall homeless population held steady from 2009 to 2011, hovering near 6,500.
…The city placed about 7,000 in permanent housing programs, while the remainder left the streets with a bus ticket through Homeward Bound, a program that’s been criticized by some homeless advocacy groups as simply moving the problem to another city.
…His claim that “We got 12,000 people off the street,” is supported by statements from his former homeless czar. It’s important to note, however, that the city used Homeward Bound, a bus ticket program, to move about 5,000 of those people out of San Francisco.
hmmmm
Report: Vacation Rentals Impact on Maui
Hawaiʻi’s housing costs are among the highest in the nation with workers earning the lowest wages in the country after accounting for cost of living.
Data from the report shows that:
– 43% of Hawai‘i residents are renters, the fourth highest percentage in the nation
– Rent is more expensive in Hawai‘i than any other state
– In recent years, rents have been increasing at more than twice the rate of wages
– Hawai‘i has the highest rate of homelessness in the nation
– In 2016, almost 13% of homeless services clients came from homes they were unable to retain
…The report adds that 1 in 7 housing units on Maui is a vacation rental unit. In Lahaina, it is 1 in 3.
Maui Now : Report: Vacation Rentals Impact on Maui
sigh….
N.H. ACLU: Concord Coach Lines Complicit With Immigration Officials
N.H. ACLU: Concord Coach Lines Complicit With Immigration Officials | New Hampshire Public Radio
Clearly and willfully complicit with Gestapo tactics.
California is on the verge of three important steps toward police accountability
Californians have lost much of their former ability to monitor the performance of police officers and agencies, due in large part to a series of unfavorable court rulings and to the timidity of elected leaders who repeatedly bowed to pressure from law enforcement labor unions. The Legislature now has taken up a modest yet valuable bill that would allow the public to learn which officers fired their weapons, used other serious force or lied about their actions.
…Without such data, it is nearly impossible to learn which officers account for disproportionate injuries, deaths and public liability. Nor is it possible to determine whether agencies operate effective internal investigations and unbiased disciplinary systems. That leaves police departments shockingly free of real oversight from the public they serve.
…Unlike teachers and sanitation workers, though, law enforcement officers take up badges and weapons and are uniquely granted the authority to arrest or even kill in the name of the law. In return, some modicum of access to police records is required to prevent abuse of that enormous power.
The bill, authored by Democrat Nancy Skinner of Berkeley, is so measured that the state’s district attorneys have dropped their opposition. It would make public the currently confidential reports that police departments prepare on a variety of incidents involving officers, including discharging a firearm or using a Taser or other electroshock weapon, striking a person on the head or neck or taking any action that results in serious injury or death.
Access also would be granted to records that show an officer sexually assaulted a member of the public, or lied or falsified evidence in the course of a police investigation or criminal prosecution.
California is on the verge of three important steps toward police accountability
Oversight and access to compromising information about officer performance and malfeasance? I’ll believe it when I see it in action.
Exeter police arrested a man for criticizing them on the internet.
Exeter police arrested a man for criticizing them on the internet.
Seriously????! I hope they get sued to kingdom come. Or at least hard enough that the citizens of Exeter demand a top-to-bottom change in their department.
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