Chris Hedges's Blog, page 523

Flooding Could Severely Damage Internet Infrastructure by 2033

US engineers have identified a problem nobody had ever expected to confront so soon: the approach of the flooded internet, caused by worldwide sea level rise. Within 15 years, seawater could be lapping over buried fiber optic cables in New York, Seattle, Miami and other US coastal cities, according to a new study.

The consequences for global communications are unknown. But, as the glaciers melt, and the water in the oceans continues to expand as temperatures rise, the chances of urban flooding will increase.

And that means water where nobody expected it—over buried cables, data centers, traffic exchanges, termination points and other nerve centers of the physical internet, according to a team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Oregon.

“Most of the damage that’s going to be done in the next 100 years will be done sooner than later,” said Paul Barford, the computer scientist who led the study and presented it to a meeting of network scientists. “That surprised us. The expectation was we’d have 50 years to plan for it. We don’t have 50 years.”

In fact, such buried infrastructure is usually sheathed in water-resistant protection, but water-resistant is not the same as waterproof. And while submarine cables are fashioned to withstand extended seawater corrosion and pressure, urban services don’t have quite the same level of future-proofing.

But city managers already have the awful lessons of massive flooding in New York from Superstorm Sandy, or of New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina, or of Houston from Hurricane Harvey.

The message from climate science for the last five years has been simple: expect more coastal flooding.

The US scientists looked only at the challenges for the US. They calculate that by 2033 an estimated 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) of buried fiber optic conduit will be under water. More than 1,100 traffic hubs—internet exchange points that handle massive quantities of information at colossal speeds—will be surrounded by water.

Many of the conduits at risk are already at or near sea level, and only a very slight further rise could bring extra risk, especially at those places where the submarine cables come ashore.

“The landing points are all going to be underwater in a short period of time,” Barford believes. “The first instinct will be to harden the infrastructure. But keeping the sea at bay is hard. We can probably buy a little time, but in the long run, it’s just not going to be effective.”

And, he told academics and industry scientists at an Applied Network Research Workshop: “This is a wake-up call. We need to be thinking about how to address this issue.”

Violent Coup Fails in Nicaragua, U.S. Continues Regime Change Efforts

The violent coup in Nicaragua has failed. This does not mean the United States and oligarchs are giving up, but this phase of their effort to remove the government did not succeed.  The coup exposed the alliances who are working with the United States to put in place a neoliberal government that is controlled by the United States and serves the interests of the wealthy. People celebrated the failure of the coup but realize work needs to be done to protect the gains of the Sandinista revolution.

People Celebrate Revolution, Call For Peace, Show Support for Government

The people of Nicaragua showed their support for the democratically elected government of Daniel Ortega with a massive outpouring in Managua in a celebration of the 39th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution. In addition to the mass protest in Managua, various cities had their own, in some cases very sizeable. ones.

People have wanted peace to return to Nicaragua. They have also wanted the roadblocks removed, which have resulted in closed businesses, job loss and loss of mobility. Roadblocks have been removed, even in the opposition stronghold of Masaya. There were two opposition deaths and one police officer killed in the removal. There was also an earlier death of a policeman in Masaya, captured when he was off-duty, tortured and burnt to death. This brings the total of police killed since April up to at least 21 with hundreds injured. With the opening of the main road on the east side of Masaya, all Nicaragua’s main routes are open to traffic and buses etc are operating normally.

At the rally, President Ortega called on the people of Nicaragua to defend peace and reinstate the unity that existed in the nation before the violent opposition protests. He described how the violent coup attempted to destabilize the country and ended the peace that has existed through the eleven years of his time in office. He said, “Peace must be defended every day to avoid situations like these being repeated.”

He also criticized the Catholic Bishops for their role in the failed violent coup. Ortega described the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua as “coup leaders” for collaborating with the opposition during the protests. Not only did the Catholic leadership side with the opposition during the national dialogue, but priests were involved in kidnapping and torture. Pope Francis has a lot of work to do to reign in the Catholic Church in Nicaragua. If their role in these violent protests and opposition to an economy for the people is not stopped, this will become a scandal for the Catholic Church.

Other Latin American leaders spoke out against involvement in the coup. Bolivian President Evo Morales condemned US “interference” in Nicaragua, denouncing the “criminal strategies” used against the government of Daniel Ortega. Morales accused the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) of “openly supporting violence” in Nicaragua. Also at the celebration were the foreign ministers of Cuba and Venezuela, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, and Jorge Arreza, all supporting Nicaragua over the violent coup of the United States and oligarchs.

The United States is Escalating Economic War and Support for Opposition

The United States is not giving up. Also on the anniversary of the revolution, the NICA Act, designed to escalate the economic war against Nicaragua, was introduced in the Senate. It has already been passed by the US House of Representatives. The Senate bill, called the Nicaragua Human Rights and Anti-corruption Act of 2018, imposes sanctions, calls for early elections and escalates US intelligence involvement in Nicaragua. It is a law that ensures continued US efforts to remove the democratically-elected government.

At the same time, USAID announced an additional $1.5 million for Nicaragua to build opposition to the government. This will fund the NGOs that participated in the protests, human rights groups that falsely reported the situation, media to produce the regime change narrative and other support for the opposition.

The coordination between Nicaraguan opposition and the United States was shown by Max Blumenthal’s attempted visit to an organization that funnels USAID and NED money to the opposition. He visited the Managua offices of the Institute of Strategic Studies and Public Policies (IEEPP in Spanish), but it was closed because its director, Felix Maradiaga, who was at the heart of the violent unrest, was in Washington, DC seeking more funding from USAID.

An aerial view of yesterday’s rally in Managua, Nicaragua commemorating the 39th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution. The crowd would have been larger but supporters from other regions were told to stay put for fear of having caravans attacked by opposition. pic.twitter.com/qcBTc3y4EP

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) July 20, 2018

On July 18, the US-dominated OAS passed a resolution concerning “The Situation in Nicaragua.” An earlier effort to endorse a report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) was so biased that it failed. The report ignored the opposition’s widespread violence and only reported on the defensive violence of the government. The resolution approving the IACHR report was supported by only ten out of 34 countries.

The resolution, which was finally passed by the OAS, condemned violence on all sides and urged Nicaragua to pursue all options including the national dialogue to seek peace begun by Ortega. On the issue of elections, the resolution urged Nicaragua “to support an electoral calendar jointly agreed to in the context of the National Dialogue process.” Only this mainly symbolic resolution could pass muster in the OAS, despite US domination.

What Happened and What Was Learned

In our article “Correcting the Record: What Is Really Happening In Nicaragua,” Nils McCune and I describe what was behind the violent coup attempt. We reported that there was a lot of misinformation on what was occurring in Nicaragua, indeed the false narrative of regime change was part of the tactics of the failed coup. Perhaps most importantly we described the alignment of forces behind the coup.

The coup was a class war turned upside down. The Ortega government includes none of the oligarchic families, a first in the history of Nicaragua. He has put in place a bottom-up economy that has lifted people out of poverty, provided access to health care and education, given micro-loans to entrepreneurs and small businesses and created an economy energized by public spending. Ortega expanded coverage of the social security system; as a result, a new formula was required to ensure fiscal stability.

Ortega made a counter-proposal to the IMF/business proposal, which would cut social security and raise the retirement age. He proposed no cuts to social security and increasing employer contributions by 3.5% to pension and health funds, while only slightly increasing worker contributions by 0.75% and shifting 5% of pensioners’ cash transfer into their healthcare fund.  These reforms were the trigger as it was the business lobby who called for the protests.

The forces aligned with the violent coup included the oligarchs, big business interests, foreign investors (e.g. Colombian financiers), the US-funded NGO’s and the Catholic Church, a long-term ally of the wealthy. Also involved was the Movement for Renovation of Sandinismo (MRS), a tiny Sandinista offshoot party, of former Sandanistas who left the party when Ortega lost an election in 1990 who are aligned with the US State Department.

Regarding students, there were already student protests around university elections, and these were redirected by the violent coup effort and supported by a small minority of students from private universities, the April 19th Movement. Some of these students had been brought to the US by the Freedom House, which has long ties to the CIA and met with far-right interventionist members of the US Congress, including Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Sen. Marco Rubio, and Sen. Ted Cruz.

These groups acted in opposition to the bulk of Nicaraguan society and showed their true colors. This includes:

Being tied to and subservient to the US government.
Being led by oligarchs and big business interests that are out of power and cannot win elections.
Using violence as a strategy of creating chaos and trapping the government into responding with violence to restore order.
Spreading false propaganda through oligarch-controlled media, often funded by NED, as well as highly-manipulated social media echoed by western media, especially The New York Times, The Guardian, Washington Post and cable TV news outlets.

No doubt more will come out about this in the future as the coup is researched and analyzed. As the facts become clear, the opposition will lose more political power and be even less likely to win elections. The blockades of roads with violence undermined the economy and had a negative impact on the poor and working class. If it becomes evident that this was a strategy of the opposition, they will lose power. NGO’s that are funded by the US and run by members of the MRS will be noted for their dishonest narrative and will be seen as an arm of the United States and not trusted by the people of Nicaragua. Media outside of Nicaragua will come to understand that human rights groups and NGOs are not reliable sources of information but need to be questioned. They need to be pushed to break their ties with the United States.

This does not mean all is well on the Sandinista side of the alliance of forces. The coup is an opportunity for self-reflection and self-criticism that is already happening, as seen in this list of 20 results from the coup, which begins with “A more consolidated and United FSLN.” In addition, the Action Group of the Solidarity with Nicaragua Campaign put forward seven propositions to unify around. The protest took advantage of challenges the Nicaraguan government faces in continuing to lift up the poor and economically insecure. It shows their need to build their capacity to quickly let the public know their side of the story. And, it shows the need for planning for a post-Ortega Sandinista government, as the president is in his third term.

The anniversary of the revolution was a good beginning at strengthening the unity of the Sandinista movement and celebration of the defeat of the coup, but there will be challenges ahead. Nicaragua is a poor country that needs foreign investment. If the United States escalates the economic war, which seems to be the intent, it will make it challenging to continue the social and economic programs that are lifting up the poor. Nicaragua had relied on investment from Venezuela, but it is also in the midst of an economic war, which along with the low oil prices has created economic challenges for them. Nicaragua has begun to build economic relationships with China, Russia, Iran and other countries; these will likely need to expand.

The misinformation was deep and widespread. Inside Nicaragua, there were stories of students being killed that never happened but that escalated the protests. The opposition claimed to be nonviolent when their strategy was to use violence to force regime change while the government quartered the National Police. False news and videos of attacks on neighborhoods and universities never stopped being manufactured.  One example, students calling for help and claiming they were under attack, was later exposed in a video showing the students practicing the false social media narrative.

Peace and justice activists in the United States and western nations have learned they need to be much more careful believing reports on what is occurring in Nicaragua. The US-funding of NGOs involved in women’s issues, environmental protection and human rights in Nicaragua make them questionable sources of information for justice advocates. In addition, US-funded regime change efforts are getting more sophisticated at social media; and thus, care must be taken as social media has it is abused by regime change advocates. We must look to other sources that have shown the ability to report accurately e.g., Tortilla con Sal, Telesur, Redvolucion. Peace and justice advocates must be grounded in anti-imperialism and nonintervention by the United States.

 

FBI Warrant Application Called Ex-Adviser to Trump an Agent for Russia

Truthdig editor’s note: The redacted documents obtained by the media Saturday can be viewed by clicking here. One of the documents, a 2016 warrant application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, says Carter Page “is an agent of a foreign power” and that “[t]he FBI believes Page has been the subject of targeted recruitment by the Russian government. …”

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Saturday released a set of documents once deemed top secret relating to the wiretapping of a onetime adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

The New York Times reported that the documents involving former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page were released to the Times and several other media organizations that had filed Freedom of Information Act lawsuits to obtain them. The FBI later posted the documents to its FOIA website online.

The materials include an October 2016 application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to wiretap Page as well as several renewal applications, the Times reported. It is highly unusual for documents related to FISA wiretap applications to be released.

While the documents were heavily redacted in places, the Times reported that visible portions of the documents show the FBI telling the intelligence court that Page “has been collaborating and conspiring with the Russian government.” The agency also told the court that “the FBI believes Page has been the subject of targeted recruitment by the Russian government.”

Page has denied being a Russian agent.

After a redaction, the Times reported that the application to wiretap Page included a partial sentence: “… undermine and influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election in violation of U.S. criminal law.”

The surveillance of Page became a contentious matter between Republican and Democratic lawmakers earlier this year. Republicans alleged the FBI had abused its surveillance powers and improperly obtained the warrant, a charge that Democrats rebutted as both sides characterized the documents in different ways. The documents, meanwhile, remained out of public view.

House Democrats were quick to say that the documents bolstered their arguments.

“For more than a year, House Republicans have bullied the Department of Justice and FBI to release highly sensitive documents to derail the Special Counsel’s and other legitimate national security investigations and cover for the President,” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. “For the sake of our national security and our democracy, these vital investigations must be allowed to continue unhindered by Republican interference. The GOP must cease their attacks on our law enforcement and intelligence communities, and finally decide where their loyalty lies.”

Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who is the ranking member of the House intelligence committee, said the documents underscore the “legitimate concern” the FBI had about Page’s activities. Yet Schiff said the materials shouldn’t have been released during an ongoing investigation because of national security. He blamed Trump for making public House Republicans’ initial memo about the FISA applications, a move by Trump that the congressman called “nakedly political and self-interested, and designed to to (sic) interfere with the Special Counsel’s investigation.”

Sick of Student Loans? Some Schools Offer to Take Part of Future Earnings Instead

Norwich University will offer its students an income share agreement as an alternative to traditional repayment of education-related debt. The agreements will allow students to forgo loans and instead pay a portion of their future earnings over a set period.

The military university hails the program, which it announced earlier this week, as an “initiative aimed at improving affordability, student retention, and degree completion.” Lauren Wobby, the school’s chief financial officer and treasurer, said, “Norwich University is committed to offering this new way to help pay for college in a way that aligns incentives and helps reduce financial barriers to degree completion.”

To offer the payment option, Norwich University has partnered with Vemo Education, which has provided an estimated $23 million to fund income share agreements at other colleges.

Vemo Education touts its funding project as a way to increase upward social mobility. Co-founder and CEO of Vemo Education Tonio DeSorrento commented, “In many cases, the college degree remains a prerequisite for social and economic mobility—but rising costs and questions about affordability often lead students to underinvest in their higher education or not finish their degree program.” Social mobility may not be the only goal for institutions. When Purdue introduced ISAs [income share agreements], the university saw a monetary return of 5 to 7 percent. Vemo has since partnered with Purdue.

Some in the academic community are wary of the payment system, expressing doubt that it will make higher education substantially more affordable.

“I’m very concerned if we are saying it’s a positive that on top of people coming out with federal student loans to repay, we’re going to take another bite out of their income by adding an ISA obligation,” Jessica Thompson, policy and research director at the Institute for College Access & Success, told The Washington Post in January after Point Loma Nazarene University instituted a similar repayment system.

Some voice concern that discriminatory practices will be directed against students who choose to study subjects deemed less profitable by institutions. “If income share agreement providers aren’t careful, they can definitely see unintended consequences in discriminatory terms toward students. This is one of the biggest differences between income share agreements and federal student loans,” said Clare McCann, deputy director for education policy at the New America Foundation.

The Economist reports, “The share of income signed over ranges from 2% to 17%, with students in high-earning fields, such as medicine or engineering, usually paying a smaller share of earnings for a shorter time than students of literature or fine art.” Typical ISAs are structured to be paid over 10 years, but the payment period varies depending on the individual student’s agreement.

Baltimore Sues Fossil Fuel Companies Over Climate Change

Baltimore, Maryland, on Friday became the latest city to file suit against major oil and gas companies, aiming to hold them accountable for the “potentially catastrophic” damage that the global climate crisis—which is largely the result of burning fossil fuels—is increasingly inflicting on coastal communities the world over.

“In fact, they had a responsibility to do both, but they didn’t, and that’s why we are taking them to court,” Davis added. “Baltimore’s residents, workers, and businesses shouldn’t have to pay for the damage knowingly caused by these companies.”

Filed on Friday in the state’s Circuit Court for Baltimore City, the lawsuit  names 26 companies—including BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil, and Royal Dutch Shell—some of which have been common targets in other climate liability suits filed across the country.

The city’s suit outlines how these companies have misled the public about the risks of their products and reaped enormous profits, all while pouring greenhouse gases into the Earth’s atmosphere that have resulted in “global warming, rising atmospheric and ocean temperatures, ocean acidification, melting polar ice caps and glaciers, more extreme and volatile weather, and sea level rise.”

Baltimore is the East Coast’s fifth-largest city, and features some 60 miles of waterfront. Lisa Anne Hamilton of the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) warned that the climate crisis “poses increasingly urgent and calamitous risks to Baltimore residents,” noting that “in just the past two years, the Baltimore area was hit by two catastrophic ‘once in a 1,000 year’ storms.”

“We’re now on the front lines of climate change because melting ice caps, more frequent heat waves, extreme storms, and other climate consequences caused by fossil fuel companies are threatening our city and imposing real costs on our taxpayers,” asserted Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh, who announced the lawsuit on Friday morning.

Fossil fuel corporations’ decades of wrecking the climate—and lying about it—have harmed Baltimore communities & cost taxpayers millions.

So Baltimore is taking Big Oil to court to make polluters pay. Watch @MayorPugh50‘s announcement live: https://t.co/779J6DPA36 #ExxonKnew pic.twitter.com/aw27V7OwU8

— 350 dot org (@350) July 20, 2018

“Taxpayers in Baltimore can no longer afford to foot the bill for damages knowingly caused by climate polluters, nor should they have to,” responded Richard Wiles, executive director of the Center for Climate Integrity. “The people of Baltimore deserve their day in court.”

Baltimore’s filing comes just a day after a federal judge dismissed New York City’s suit against five top fossil fuels firms, and about a month after another federal judge tossed out a pair of suits brought by two cities in California. Despite those setbacks, several other cases are working their way through the courts, including a suit filed by Rhode Island, the first state to pursue this type of legal action against major oil and gas companies.

“The catastrophic impacts of climate change predicted by companies like Exxon decades ago have arrived,” concluded Wiles. “It’s only fitting then that the wave of lawsuits the industry have long feared and planned for have as well.”

Federal Agencies Halt Reviews of Pesticides That Endanger Wildlife

Right under the highway and wedged between a plant nursery and an auto manufacturer, a toxic trickle flows. This tributary of the Clackamas River is hardly an inviting sight. Once clear and gurgling, its muddy water barely moves, and plastic bags bunch along its shoreline.

Suzi Cloutier clambers toward the water’s edge, dipping a bottle into the creek. She pulls it out, murky and dripping, taking care to keep her hands away from the rim.

Suzi Cloutier collects a water sample from North Fork Deep Creek for Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality. (Susie Neilson/Reveal)

“It’s for the sample’s protection, not mine,” she half-jokes over the roar of 18-wheelers and minivans.

Cloutier routinely tests waters in the Clackamas River Basin, home to threatened and endangered species of Chinook and Coho salmon. Last year, every one of her samples from this tributary tested positive for multiple pesticides.

Salmon in this river – and throughout much of the Pacific Northwest – have dwindled from an onslaught of threats, including dams and overfishing. Scientists say pesticides from nearby farms are pushing them closer to extinction.

Suzi Cloutier, a field sampler from the Clackamas River Basin Council, routinely detects multiple pesticides in the river and its tributaries. The pesticides flow from nearby farms. (Susie Neilson/Reveal)

“It’s like kicking them when they’re down,” Cloutier says.

Under the Obama administration, the government began reviewing the impacts of all pesticides on the nation’s approximately 2,300 endangered and threatened species. Two days before President Donald Trump took office, federal officials issued a preliminary report on three highly toxic and popular agricultural insecticides, concluding that they jeopardize the survival of more than 1,800 species protected by the Endangered Species Act, including 18 types of salmon.

Now, under the Trump administration, these reviews have ground to a halt.

Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting has uncovered a close relationship between pesticide companies and federal agencies, mirroring a pattern the Trump administration has followed with many other regulated industries. The pesticide industry has spent years trying to fend off regulations designed to protect endangered species. Under Trump, it is succeeding.

Among the findings, according to documents obtained and interviews conducted by Reveal:

Three federal environmental agencies are reshaping the scientific methods used in their reviews at the request of pesticide manufacturers. Some researchers and advocates say that if these reviews, known as biological opinions, do begin again, this change could shift the results in favor of the pesticide industry – and away from protecting endangered wildlife.
Officials from all three agencies held a meeting with key pesticide manufacturers, teaching them how to influence the reviews of their products. Manufacturers, in turn, schooled the government on what data to use.
The agencies have granted repeated delays in the reviews to resolve questions posed by the companies that scientists say already have been addressed. One agency, the National Marine Fisheries Service, has rebuked its own 3,749-page report, which had documented that pesticides threaten half of the fish and other endangered species under its jurisdiction.
A major pesticide manufacturer, Dow AgroSciences, has poured money into lobbying federal agencies and Congress to influence the endangered species review process. Its parent company, Dow Chemical Co., also donated to Trump’s inauguration, and several of its former higher-ups now hold prominent positions in agencies that regulate pesticides.

The delays in the pesticide reviews are worrisome to scientists who research contaminants’ effects on wildlife.

John Stark, a Washington State University ecotoxicology professor who studies salmon, called the delays “really unfortunate. These pesticides are damaging wild (salmon) populations. And they’re still used and used extensively.”

Stark, who contributed to the federal fisheries review, said there is no scientific reason to delay the reviews to conduct more research.

“The review is one of the most comprehensive, well-done and thorough studies I’ve seen done in my life,” he said.

CropLife America, the trade association representing pesticide manufacturers that has advocated for the delays, said in a statement to Reveal that the reviews had relied on “overly conservative assumptions and superficial analysis.”

The goal of the companies is to help the federal agencies “develop an efficient, science-based approach” that will ensure species and their habitat “are protected while recognizing the essential role that pesticides play in the US food system, as well as the protection of public and private lands, homes and human health,” the statement says.

New Way to Review Pesticides

In the 45 years since Congress enacted the Endangered Species Act, wildlife hasn’t had much protection from pesticides. So in 2011, after environmental advocates sued multiple times, the Environmental Protection Agency asked the independent National Academy of Sciences to invent a new way of assessing the risks to endangered species.

Two years later, the process the academy came up with was rather complex: It required three agencies – the EPA, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service – to each report on the risks of every pesticide. To pilot this approach, the agencies started with malathion, chlorpyrifos and diazinon. Known as organophosphates, they are derived from chemicals developed in Nazi Germany as nerve gases.

Malathion, chlorpyrifos and diazinon target nervous systems, making them highly effective insecticides. They’re used to control pests on crops, vegetable gardens and Christmas tree farms. Although organophosphate use has declined since Cloutier’s childhood in the early 1980s, when she says helicopters regularly sprayed her hometown of Oakland, California, with malathion to kill crop-damaging Mediterranean fruit flies, the chemicals are still popular. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, an estimated 5.8 million pounds of chlorpyrifos, 200,000 pounds of diazinon and 900,000 pounds of malathion were used nationwide in 2015.

And they don’t harm just their targets. These chemicals alter salmon’s swimming patterns, reproductive systems and pursuit of prey, according to Nat Scholz, a scientist at the National Marine Fisheries Service who’s been studying organophosphates and salmon for decades. A salmon uses its powerful sense of smell – thousands of times better than a dog’s – in almost every vital endeavor, from finding food to avoiding predators and migrating. Even low exposure to organophosphates can permanently impair this sense.

In one study, Scholz and other scientists found that any mix of malathion, diazinon and chlorpyrifos at concentrations as low as several parts per billion – including the levels of diazinon and chlorpyrifos found along the Clackamas – can harm or kill Coho salmon.

“Studies on the toxicity of these chemicals to salmon and other fish date back decades,” Scholz said. “By design, organophosphates interfere with the normal function of the nervous system.”

Humans face risks from organophosphates, too. Researchers have linked chlorpyrifos, malathion and diazinon to reduced IQs in California children exposed in the womb. Last year, chlorpyrifos gained national notoriety when former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt rejected a long-awaited ban on agricultural uses of the chemical.

Under President Barack Obama, the three agencies working on pesticide reviews ensured the process was open to the public. They held five open workshops on their scientific methodologies, and the public was allowed to comment on drafts of their evaluations for 10 weeks in 2016. The EPA responded to 78,000 public comments, as well as industry critiques, in detail. On the second-to-last day of the Obama administration, the EPA published its initial reviews of the three pesticides, showing widespread harm to more than 1,800 species.

The agencies also set a deadline: By the end of 2017, all three would publish final biological opinions on the three pesticides.

Once Trump took office, “public input was halted on everything,” said Nathan Donley, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, an advocacy group that is suing the EPA for its failure to provide the reviews.

“The strategy here is to delay, delay, delay,” he said. “Meanwhile, there are species with a few hundred individuals left. And they’re getting poisoned right now.”

Shifting Science or Delay Tactic?

In April 2017, 10 federal agencies and committees received a letter from David B. Weinberg, legal adviser to the three largest manufacturers of organophosphates – Dow AgroSciences LLC; Makhteshim Agan, now known as Adama; and FMC Corp.

Weinberg wrote that the federal approaches to the science were “fundamentally flawed and should be set aside.” The companies said the agencies did not adequately consider how products actually were applied, but instead considered their effects at maximum use.

The reviews, in other words, need to be “science and reality based,” CropLife America said in its statement.

There’s a problem with this argument, however: “Actual use” data is limited. California and Arizona are the only states that require pesticide applicators to report their use, according to the Western Integrated Pest Management Center. Also, such data is not predictive. In other words, even if a pesticide isn’t used one year, it could be used later, especially for rotating crops such as soybeans.

Following Weinberg’s requests, the Fish and Wildlife Service in November sent a letter to the EPA requesting additional time to complete its final assessment. The wildlife agency sought data that mirrored the concerns of industry, especially actual use data and “extrapolation to areas where actual use data does not exist or cannot be obtained.”

Three days later, the EPA replied, granting the Fish and Wildlife Service’s request: “We agree that consultation should continue and be extended as necessary.”

The agencies did not specify when or if they would complete their reviews.

An EPA spokesman said the agency was working with the Fish and Wildlife Service to gather additional information on how and where the pesticides are used. Officials from both agencies said they did not have an estimated completion date for the biological opinions. The marine fisheries service declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation.

Since 2016, Dow AgroSciences has spent about $800,000 lobbying the EPA and Congress against organophosphate regulations, according to disclosures. Also, four months before it asked to delay the reviews, parent company Dow Chemical donated $1 million  toward Trump’s inauguration. Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris recently had been by Trump to lead the American Manufacturing Council, which disbanded in August.

Several more of Dow’s former higher-ups also have been appointed to positions in pesticide-regulating federal agencies. Former executives Ken Isley and Ted McKinney now work in top positions at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In March, Trump nominated Peter C. Wright, a longtime corporate lawyer at Dow, to serve as an EPA assistant administrator. Trump’s pick to lead the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, Michael Dourson, was paid by Dow AgroSciences to produce research papers casting doubt on the toxic effects of chlorpyrifos. (Following public outcry, Dourson withdrew himself from consideration in December.)

Dow AgroSciences did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

On the surface, many of the manufacturers’ requests sound reasonable. After all, they are asking for more on-the-ground data and corrections to flaws in the current assessment. But environmental advocates and scientists say the requests are scientifically unwarranted.

“What they’re doing is stall more. It’s ridiculous,” said attorney Patti Goldman of the environmental law organization Earthjustice, which has been suing agencies over organophosphates since the 1990s. “The finding (that organophosphates are harmful) is not going to change.”

Stark, the Washington State University professor, calls the documented effect of organophosphates and other pesticides on salmon “pretty incredible.” He said the National Marine Fisheries Service review was so thorough that it used population modeling, a complex tool that measures pesticides’ impact on individual species – something that no federal environmental risk assessment had included before. The report also traced the journeys of pesticides from spray to breakdown and developed toxicology reports.

Kevin Masterson, a researcher at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality who has been collecting and analyzing Cloutier’s data, agreed that organophosphates’ potential for harming wildlife already is well established.

“For those chemicals, the standards have been around for so long,” he said. “We know if it’s showing up at subparts per billion that it could be having an effect, either a chronic or acute effect, on aquatic life.”

Icon of the Pacific Northwest

At the turn of the 20th century, the Clackamas overflowed with salmon, providing ample food and wealth to the region. Some years, the catch was so large that fishermen dumped scores of surplus carcasses back into the river. The writer Rudyard Kipling visited the Clackamas then and wrote about its mighty hauls: “Salmon by the hundred – huge fifty-pounders, hardly dead, scores of twenty and thirty-pounders … burst(ing) out in a stream of quick-silver.”

The Clackamas River is home to threatened and endangered species of Chinook and Coho salmon. (Bureau of Land Management Oregon and Washington/Flickr)

Since then, the river has been overfished, dammed and polluted. The salmon have suffered: Since 1970, fall-run Chinook have dwindled from more than 34,000 fish to less than 4,000. A government report in 2008 found 63 types of pesticides in salmon spawning sites along the Clackamas.

“Given their frequent and widespread occurrence, especially during storms, pesticides have the potential to affect aquatic life and the quality of drinking water derived from the lower river,” the report concluded.

Two of these pesticides, chlorpyrifos and diazinon, regularly show up in concentrations greater than a threshold deemed safe for aquatic life by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. The largest concentrations occur in small tributaries, where salmon like to spawn and raise their babies, putting younger fish at risk of exposure.

The Clackamas runs alongside berry farms, plant nurseries and Christmas tree groves, making it a pooling point for organophosphate runoff. According to one government study, 99 percent of malathion, 86 percent of chlorpyrifos and 16 percent of diazinon sprayed on crops ran off fields into nearby waterways within 15 days of application.

Once in the water, pesticides mingle, compounding their effects on aquatic life, according to studies by Scholz, the National Marine Fisheries Service scientist. And the Clackamas is a tributary of the Willamette River, also home to several endangered species of salmon, which receives still more organophosphates from pesticides sprayed on vineyards and other farms in the nearby Willamette Valley.

Documenting Delays

Of the three agencies tasked with delivering a final biological opinion by the end of 2017, only the National Marine Fisheries Service published its review by the deadline imposed by a court order.

The document, supported by more than 900 cited studies, reviews and reports, found that of the 77 species for which the fisheries service had jurisdiction, the three organophosphates together likely would harm 49 percent of the listed species, including several varieties of sea turtles, sea lions, killer whales and 18 species of salmon. The species most at risk, the report said, are those that inhabit shallow waters near farms and other pesticide use sites.

The agency’s publishing announcement derided the quality of its own work, suggesting it was rushed and therefore invalid, despite years of prior discussions, analyses and decisions.

“Unfortunately, (the fisheries service) … was required to transmit the biological opinion which, given the time, cannot fully account for the need to coordinate on a different process for developing such opinions or to fully engage the public,” officials wrote in their announcement.

In January, less than a month after it originally was supposed to publish a biological opinion, the EPA created a working group to re-evaluate the pesticide reviews. The group will “help provide clarity as to what constitutes the ‘best scientific and commercial data available’ in the fields of pesticide use and ecological risk assessment” and “is not prohibited from seeking or receiving stakeholder expertise, experience, input, information, or other items deemed appropriate.”

In February, Richard Keigwin, director of EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs, sent a letter to the fisheries service, saying its report had a “general lack of transparency and reproducibility,” its estimates were too conservative and its suggestions impractical.

One month later, on March 23, the EPA reopened the biological opinion for comment. A month after that, the EPA and Fish and Wildlife Service held a meeting for representatives of the manufacturers of the organophosphates being examined. Participants included government scientists and representatives from FMC, Dow and Adama.. No environmental groups were invited.

According to a record of the meeting, government scientists briefed applicants on how to comment on draft reports and updated them on the status of the pesticide consultation – an update the public and environmental advocates have yet to hear.

The pesticide executives, in turn, provided government officials with a handout suggesting ways to measure the organophosphates, obtain use information and refine data on how endangered species are exposed. They proposed three more meetings between government and industry. The document does not specify who called the meeting, how long the additional data would take to gather or whether the proposed meetings would take place.

Throughout much of the Pacific Northwest, populations of salmon, including the chinook, have dwindled from threats such as dams and overfishing. Scientists say pesticides from nearby farms are pushing them closer to extinction. (Oregon State University/Flickr)

Stephanie Parent, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said this sort of meeting between industry and federal scientists is “probably not unusual.” But she said under the Trump administration, these meetings are likely happening more and having more influence.

Several days after the meeting, five pesticide businesses, coalitions and associations – including Adama and FMC – posted requests to extend the National Marine Fisheries Service review’s comment period 90 days, until Aug. 20. The EPA partially granted the request, extending it to July 23.

With these repeated delays, it’s unknown if or when federal officials will implement measures to protect the nation’s endangered species from pesticides.

After collecting samples at the polluted creek in Oregon, Cloutier and fellow conservationist Sharon Selvaggio drive to a nearby protected forest. The Clackamas here thunders along, cold and healthy: Cloutier detects pesticides here at a fraction of what she finds at the first site and sees far more salmon.

“You’d never believe it, but this is how (the first site) used to look,” Selvaggio says.

With the right protections in place, they say, perhaps it could be this way once again.

Democratic Socialism Rising in the Age of Trump

A week ago, Maine Democrat Zak Ringelstein wasn’t quite ready to consider himself a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, even if he appreciated the organization’s values and endorsement in his bid to become a U.S. senator.

Three days later, he told The Associated Press it was time to join up. He’s now the only major-party Senate candidate in the nation to be a dues-paying democratic socialist.

Ringelstein’s leap is the latest evidence of a nationwide surge in the strength and popularity of an organization that, until recently, operated on the fringes of the liberal movement’s farthest left flank. As Donald Trump’s presidency stretches into its second year, democratic socialism has become a significant force in Democratic politics. Its rise comes as Democrats debate whether moving too far left will turn off voters.

“I stand with the democratic socialists, and I have decided to become a dues-paying member,” Ringelstein told AP. “It’s time to do what’s right, even if it’s not easy.”

There are 42 people running for offices at the federal, state and local levels this year with the formal endorsement of the Democratic Socialists of America, the organization says. They span 20 states, including Florida, Hawaii, Kansas and Michigan.

The most ambitious Democrats in Washington have been reluctant to embrace the label, even as they embrace the policies defining modern-day democratic socialism: Medicare for all, a $15 minimum wage, free college tuition and the abolition of the federal department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Congress’ only self-identified democratic socialist, campaigned Friday with the movement’s newest star, New York City congressional candidate Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old former bartender who defeated one of the most powerful House Democrats last month.

Her victory fed a flame that was already beginning to burn brighter. The DSA’s paid membership has hovered around 6,000 in the years before Trump’s election, said Allie Cohn, a member of the group’s national political team.

Last week, its paid membership hit 45,000 nationwide.

There is little distinction made between the terms “democratic socialism” and “socialism” in the group’s literature. While Ringelstein and other DSA-backed candidates promote a “big-tent” philosophy, the group’s constitution describes its members as socialists who “reject an economic order based on private profit” and “share a vision of a humane social order based on popular control of resources and production, economic planning, equitable distribution, feminism, racial equality and non-oppressive relationships.”

Members during public meetings often refer to each other “comrades,” wear clothing featuring socialist symbols like the rose and promote authors such as Karl Marx.

The common association with the failed Soviet Union has made it difficult for sympathetic liberals to explain their connection.

“I don’t like the term socialist, because people do associate that with bad things in history,” said Kansas congressional candidate James Thompson, who is endorsed by the DSA and campaigned alongside Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, but is not a dues-paying democratic socialist. “There’s definitely a lot of their policies that closely align with mine.”

Thompson, an Army veteran turned civil rights attorney, is running again after narrowly losing a special election last year to fill the seat vacated by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Even in deep-red Kansas, he embraces policies like “Medicare for all” and is openly critical of capitalism.

In Hawaii, 29-year-old state Rep. Kaniela Ing isn’t shy about promoting his status as a democratic socialist in his bid for Congress. He said he was encouraged to run for higher office by the same activist who recruited Ocasio-Cortez.

“We figured just lean in hard,” Ing told the AP of the democratic socialist label. He acknowledged some baby boomers may be scared away, but said the policies democratic socialists promote — like free health care and economic equality — aren’t extreme.

Republicans, meanwhile, are encouraged by the rise of democratic socialism — for a far different reason. They have seized on what they view as a leftward lurch by Democrats they predict will alienate voters this fall and in the 2020 presidential race.

The Republican National Committee eagerly notes that Sanders’ plan to provide free government-sponsored health care for all Americans had no co-sponsors in 2013. Today, more than one-third of Senate Democrats and two-thirds of House Democrats have signed onto the proposal, which by one estimate could cost taxpayers as much as $32 trillion.

The co-sponsors include some 2020 presidential prospects, such as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and California Sen. Kamala Harris.

Those senators aren’t calling themselves democratic socialists but also not disassociating themselves from the movement’s priorities.

Most support the push to abolish ICE, which enforces immigration laws and led the Trump administration’s recent push to separate immigrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Of the group, only Booker hasn’t called for ICE to be abolished, replaced or rebuilt. Yet Booker’s office notes that he’s among the few senators backing a plan to guarantee government-backed jobs to unemployed adults in high-unemployment communities across America.

“Embracing socialist policies like government-run health care, a guaranteed jobs program and open borders will only make Democrats more out of touch,” RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel said.

Despite Ocasio-Cortez’s recent success, most DSA-endorsed candidates have struggled.

Gayle McLaughlin finished eighth in last month’s Democratic primary to become California’s lieutenant governor, earning just 4 percent of the vote. All three endorsed candidates for Maryland’s Montgomery County Council lost last month as well. And Ryan Fenwick was blown out by 58 points in his run to become mayor of Louisville, Kentucky.

Ringelstein, a 32-year-old political neophyte, is expected to struggle in his campaign to unseat Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats. He is refusing to accept donations from lobbyists or corporate political action committees, which has made fundraising a grind. At the end of June, King’s campaign reported $2.4 million cash on hand while Ringelstein had just $23,000.

He has tapped into the party’s national progressive movement and the southern Maine chapter of the DSA for the kind of grassroots support that fueled Ocasio-Cortez’s victory. As he has done almost every month this year, Ringelstein attended the group’s monthly meeting at Portland’s city hall last Monday.

More than 60 people packed into the room. The group’s chairman, 25-year-old union organizer Meg Reilly, wore a T-shirt featuring three roses.

She cheered the “comrades” softball team’s recent season before moving to an agenda that touched on climate change legislation, a book share program “to further your socialist education,” and an exchange program that lets community members swap favors such as jewelry repair, pet sitting or cooking.

Near the end of the two-hour gathering, Ringelstein thanked the group for “standing shoulder to shoulder with us throughout this entire campaign.”

“We could win a U.S. Senate seat!” he said. “I want to say that over and over. We could win a U.S. Senate seat! So, let’s do this.”

Hamas Accedes to Cease-Fire After Israeli Onslaught in Gaza

JERUSALEM—Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers said Saturday they had accepted a cease-fire ending a massive Israeli onslaught on militant positions after a soldier was shot dead, once again pulling the sides back from the brink of a full-fledged war.

Israel and Hamas have fought three such wars over the past decade and Hamas agreed to the second such cease-fire in a week under heavy Egyptian and international pressure.

Even after last week’s cease-fire ended the fiercest exchange of rocket fire and Israeli airstrikes since the 2014 war, incendiary kites and balloons continued to float from Gaza into Israel setting off damaging fires to farmlands. Israel has stepped up strikes since then to signal its new threshold for engagement after months of largely refraining to act.

Israel says it has no interest is engaging in another war with Hamas, but says it will no longer tolerate the Gaza militant campaign of flying the incendiary devices into Israel.

On Friday, a Palestinian sniper killed an Israeli soldier along the border — the first casualty it has sustained in four years — and Israel unleashed an offensive it says destroyed more than 60 Hamas targets, including three battalion headquarters. Four Palestinians were killed, of which three were Hamas militants.

“The attack delivered a severe blow to the Hamas’s training array, command and control abilities, weaponry, aerial defense and logistic capabilities along with additional military infrastructure,” the Israeli military said in a statement, adding that the strikes “will intensify as necessary.”

Israel’s top leadership convened late into the night Friday at military headquarters to discuss potential actions.

In a brief statement early Saturday, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said the movement accepted the cease-fire brokered by Egyptian and United Nations officials and that calm had been restored. Later, the Israeli military announced a return to civilian routine along the volatile border.

The recent outburst of violence comes after months of near-weekly border protests organized by Hamas aimed in part at protesting the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza. Over 130 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the protests began on March 30.

Israel and Egypt have maintained a blockade on Gaza for over a decade in an attempt to weaken Hamas. The blockade has caused widespread economic hardship. Israel says the naval blockade is necessary to protect its citizens from weapons smuggling.

Israel says it is defending its sovereign border and accuses Hamas of using the protests as cover for attempts to breach the border fence and attack Israeli civilians and soldiers.

“Hamas terrorists opened fire today on Israelis. Those are not ‘protesters,'” Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon wrote Friday on Twitter. “We will not tolerate attacks endangering Israelis. Under no circumstance.”

The Israeli retaliation Friday to the soldier’s killing was fierce, but Hamas’ response was far meeker with just a few projectiles launched that were intercepted by Israel.

Traumatized Teenagers Are Drugged Without Consent at Immigrant Shelters

Fleeing an abusive stepfather in El Salvador, Gabriela headed for Oakland, California, where her grandfather had promised to take her in. When the teenager reached the U.S. border in January 2017, she was brought to a federally funded shelter in Texas.

Initially, staff described her as receptive and resilient. But as she was shuttled from one Texas shelter to another, she became increasingly depressed. Without consulting her grandfather, or her mother in El Salvador, shelter staff have prescribed numerous medications for her, including two psychotropic drugs whose labels warn of increased suicidal behavior in adolescents, according to court documents. Still languishing in a shelter after 18 months, the 17-year-old doesn’t want to take the medications, but she does anyway, because staff at one facility told her she wouldn’t be released until she is considered psychologically sound.

Gabriela’s experience epitomizes a problem that the Trump administration’s practice of family separation exacerbated: the failure of government-funded facilities to seek informed consent before medicating immigrant teenagers. Around 12,000 undocumented minors are in custody of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement. The majority crossed the border unaccompanied, while more than 2,500 were separated from their parents while Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy was in effect from April to June.

Emotional distress and mental health issues are prevalent among these children, sometimes a result of traumatic experiences in their home countries, at other times triggered by being separated from parents at the border, or by fear that they will never be released from ORR facilities. Former shelter employees, and doctors and lawyers working for advocacy groups say the shelters lack sufficient counselors and too often turn to powerful psychotropic drugs when kids act out.

Under most states’ laws, before a child is medicated, a parent, guardian, or authority acting in the place of the parent—such as a court-appointed guardian ad litem—must be consulted and give informed consent. But in these shelters, the children are alone. Shelter staff may not know the whereabouts of the parents or relatives, and even when that information is available, advocates say that the shelters often don’t get in touch. Nor do they seek court approval. Instead, they act unilaterally, imposing psychotropic drugs on children who don’t know what they’re taking or what its effects may be.

“These medications do not come cost-free to children with growing brains and growing bodies—psychotropic medications have a substantial cost to a child’s present and future,” said Dr. Amy Cohen, a psychiatrist who has been volunteering in border shelters. “A person whose sole concern is, what is in the best interest of a child—a parent or a guardian ad litem—that role is desperately needed now.”

Gabriela is one of five immigrants under age 18 who are plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit filed last month in federal court in Los Angeles against Alex Azar, the head of HHS, and Scott Lloyd, director of ORR. The suit alleges that children are overmedicated without informed consent. Another plaintiff, 16-year-old Daniela, became suicidal after being separated from an older sister who accompanied her from Honduras to the U.S. border. She has been given Prozac, Abilify, Clonidine, Risperdal, Seroquel, and Zyprexa in various shelters as staff have been unable to settle on a diagnosis, detecting at different times bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, PTSD, and major depressive disorder. Her older sister was released from custody and allowed to stay in the U.S., but wasn’t consulted about whether Daniela should take those medications, which have side effects including weight gain, uncontrolled spasms, and increased suicide risk. The lawsuit doesn’t disclose the last names of the plaintiffs. Another ongoing class action lawsuit in the same court, against the U.S. Department of Justice, alleges the U.S. is inappropriately medicating immigrant minors as young as 11 years old, violating standards established in a 1997 legal settlement.

In legal filings, Justice Department lawyers have said that the shelters are acting appropriately, in accord with state laws on informed consent. “There is good reason for this Court to conclude that ORR’s provision of such medications complies fully with ‘all applicable state child welfare laws and regulations,’” the department said. State and local authorities, rather than the court, are best positioned to determine whether shelters are in compliance, it also argued.

Reports of overmedication extend beyond the lawsuits. At the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center, which has a program for unaccompanied immigrant teenagers, at least 70 percent of the residents were on antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications and sleep aids, often taking multiple pills, according to two former employees. The two staffers, who left the facility a few months ago, worried that the adolescents were over-medicated. Although the shelter offered group therapy, many teens didn’t participate.

Most of the teenagers had crossed the border alone, but often had family members in the U.S. who were seeking to sponsor them. Even in cases where a child had a mother or father living in the U.S., the parent was never contacted for permission to medicate, said the former employees, who asked for anonymity for fear of affecting future employment.

By law, when an unaccompanied minor crosses the border, the Department of Homeland Security must transfer the child to ORR within 72 hours. Children who arrive with parents can’t be held in a detention center for more than 20 days. The Bush and Obama administrations typically would release the family with an appointment to show up in court, while the Trump administration decided to separate the family, with the parents remaining in detention. ORR then places the unaccompanied or separated child in one of the roughly 100 shelters contracted to provide housing, education, and medical services. Immigrant children can remain in the shelters for months or even years. If the minor crossed unaccompanied but has family members in the U.S., as Gabriela did, the relative must be cleared by ORR as a sponsor, a stringent vetting process that can take months.

To provide mental health services, shelters typically have an in-house counselor who holds therapy sessions, and a psychiatrist on call to conduct mental health evaluations and prescribe medications. The troubled teens aren’t always easy to handle. Sometimes they try to run away or start fights. In a statement obtained by advocates for one of the pending class-action lawsuits, a 17-year-old boy described breaking a chair and window in frustration.

Virginia law has an exception that allows minors to give consent, without adult permission, for mental health care. The law is intended to help minors who want mental health treatment without having to disclose their diagnosis to their parents, according to Jessica Berg, dean of Case Western Reserve University’s School of Law and co-author of a book on informed consent.

Such laws presume “the individual in question actually has capacity” to make the decision, meaning that the physician should first determine that the minor can understand the consequences of treatment and make an educated choice, said Berg.

That’s not happening at the Virginia center, the former employees said. While skipping consent procedures, staff also made it hard for children to say no. A federal field specialist from the Department of Homeland Security instructed staff to file a “significant incident report” every time a teen refused to take medication, said one of the former employees. That report could then be used to justify delaying reunification with family. The teenagers, fearing being written up, would take their pills, the staffer said.

Johnitha McNair, executive director of the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center, didn’t respond to phone calls and an email requesting comment.

Other states, such as Texas and California, require informed consent from responsible adults for mental health prescriptions. Four of the five immigrant plaintiffs in last month’s class action lawsuit, including Gabriela, were given psychotropic drugs at Shiloh Treatment Center in Manvel, Texas, a facility for youths with especially severe mental health issues.

If a child “has a viable sponsor, Shiloh informs the sponsor about any changes in medication prescribed for the child, including starting a new medication or increasing the dose of a current medication,” the Justice Department said in response to the other lawsuit. It didn’t say what ORR would do if there wasn’t a “viable sponsor” available. Gabriela’s attorneys say that her grandfather wasn’t consulted even though he was a viable sponsor.

Shiloh is closely monitored by state officials for compliance with informed consent rules, the Justice Department said, adding, “ORR is not aware of any reported concerns by the State of Texas about Shiloh’s compliance with Texas state guidelines.”

HHS, the department that includes ORR, declined to comment when asked how it handles informed consent and how many children in its shelters were on psychotropic medications. When asked about its mental health policies, HHS sent a link to its policy guide, which says, without further elaboration, that shelters must provide “appropriate mental health interventions when necessary.”

Holly Cooper, co-director of the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of California, Davis, and one of the attorneys representing Gabriela in the class-action suit, said there needs to be a standard policy across all ORR shelters requiring a court-appointed neutral decision maker to approve the use of psychotropic medications when parents aren’t available or can’t be found. That’s already the law in California and Texas, which together are home to about 40 percent of the facilities receiving immigrant minors: a shelter cannot simply declare without court approval that it’s acting in the place of the parent.

ORR doesn’t “have the best interest of these children in mind. There has to be court oversight,” Cooper said.

Cooper said she’s investigating numerous reports of children who were separated from their families in recent months being medicated without their parents’ permission. Leecia Welch, an attorney at the National Center for Youth Law, said she’s hearing similar stories.

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to reunify all of the separated children with their families. As of July 12, the administration had reunited 57 children under age five with their parents, and was still working on reunifying more than 2,000 minors over the age of five.

Cohen, the psychiatrist working with advocacy groups at shelters on the border, has heard firsthand from immigrant teenagers about pressure tactics used to induce them to take pills. One teenage girl told Cohen she didn’t want to take antidepressants. So why was she taking them? Cohen asked. Because she was told that otherwise she would lose shelter privileges such as going to a nearby park, the girl said.

A teenage boy told Cohen that he had expected to be detained for only one or two days before being released to family members in the U.S. Eight months later, he’s despondent as he waits for ORR to decide whether his relatives qualify as sponsors. He told Cohen that he cried for two days when the only friendly staff member at his facility left. Shelter staff prescribed antidepressants.

“He wasn’t told what symptoms were being treated or what side effects he should expect,” said Cohen. Instead, he was informed that if he didn’t take his pills, “he couldn’t get out of there,” she said.

Cohen declined to share the teenagers’ names or further details because their cases may be litigated. For some children, medication might be warranted, she said, but the medical records she reviewed indicate that the facilities are opting for drugs too quickly.

The teenage boy’s shelter provided 20 minutes of counseling each week, but in eight months, nobody taught him basic techniques to calm himself down. Cohen interrupted her interview with him to teach him what she could in the limited time they had together. She showed him how to inhale through his nose, hold his breath for four counts, and then exhale slowly.

When you get upset, she instructed him, just remember to breathe.

Kavitha Surana contributed to this story.

Director James Gunn Fired From ‘Guardians 3’ Over Old Tweets

LOS ANGELES—James Gunn was fired Friday as director of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” because of old tweets that recently emerged where he joked about subjects like pedophilia and rape.

Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn announced the removal.

“The offensive attitudes and statements discovered on James’ Twitter feed are indefensible and inconsistent with our studio’s values, and we have severed our business relationship with him,” Horn said in a statement.

Gunn has been writer and director of the “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise from the start, taking an obscure Marvel Comics title about a group of multicolored misfits and turning it into a space opera decked with comedy and retro music that made Chris Pratt a major movie star. Through two installments the franchise has brought in more than $1.5 billion in global box office.

Gunn apologized for the old tweets Friday after his firing, echoing similar sentiments he expressed on Twitter a day earlier.

“My words of nearly a decade ago were, at the time, totally failed and unfortunate efforts to be provocative. I have regretted them for many years since—not just because they were stupid, not at all funny, wildly insensitive, and certainly not provocative like I had hoped, but also because they don’t reflect the person I am today or have been for some time,” Gunn said in a statement. “Regardless of how much time has passed, I understand and accept the business decisions taken today. Even these many years later, I take full responsibility for the way I conducted myself then.”

Gunn’s current Twitter account is heavy on left-leaning politics, and some on the right with whom he’d sparred found and promoted the tweets from 2008 to 2011 that led to his firing.

Disney did not announce a replacement director for “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.” Gunn had been writing the script and it’s not clear how far along he was or whether new writers will be brought in. Marvel Studios has not announced a release date, though Gunn had said 2020 was the target.

In addition to Pratt, the “Guardians” franchise stars Zoe Saldana and Dave Bautista, and features the voices of Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel.

The characters also were an essential part of this year’s Disney and Marvel megahit “Avengers: Infinity War.”

Fans at Comic-Con in San Diego said they disapproved of Gunn’s tweets, but were mixed on how they felt about his firing.

“It’s unfortunate to hear and makes me question whether I would see a movie like that even without his creative involvement,” Mario Panighetti of Mountain View, California said.

Joanne Renda of Toronto said, “It’s never really funny to joke about that stuff, but copping to it is the first step. Everyone deserves a second chance. It’s kind of crazy our culture today, firing people right away.”

AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr contributed to this story from San Diego.