Israel: Archaeologists uncover 1,200-year-old mosque

The building is one of the oldest ever discovered in Israel. The researchers also uncovered a farm and a small settlement near the mosque in the Negev Desert.

‘Forgotten by society’ – how Chinese migrants built the transcontinental railroad

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In a new exhibition, the overlooked contribution of Chinese workers is being brought to the light for the 150th anniversary of the railroad’s completion

When one thinks of the transcontinental railroad, rarely do Chinese migrants come to mind. But in a new exhibition at the National Museum of American History in Washington, a vital revision is presented.

Until spring 2020, Forgotten Workers: Chinese Migrants and the Building of the Transcontinental Railroad peels back the layers to see who else should be commemorated during the recent 150th anniversary of the transcontinental railroad’s completion – an achievement which has typically been celebrated with photos of old locomotives, successful-looking men in suits and anonymous workers hammering away.

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Trump rally crowd chants ‘send her back’ after president attacks Ilhan Omar

Which side are you on?

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Chant follows Trump’s racist tweets targeting Omar and three other Democratic congresswomen of color

Goaded on by the president, a crowd at a Donald Trump rally on Wednesday night chanted “send her back! send her back!” in reference to Ilhan Omar, a US congresswoman who arrived almost 30 years ago as a child refugee in the United States.

Trump used the 2020 campaign rally in Greenville, North Carolina, to attack Omar and three other Democratic congresswomen – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayana Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan – calling them “hate-filled extremists”. The group, which calls itself “the Squad”, has been the focus of racist attacks by the president this week, kickstarted by tweets posted Sunday in which he said the lawmakers, all women of color, should “go back” to other countries.

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Museo Guadalupano (Virgin of Guadalupe Museum) in Mexico City, Mexico

Milagritos (religious charms).

The Virgin of Guadalupe is the most revered and well-known religious icon in Mexico. Each year, millions of parishioners arrive at Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe to ask for miracles or thank her for making them happen, often leaving gifts in their wake.

This museum exhibits a small sample of these gifts. Although it may look like a warehouse or a parking lot, do not be fooled by the entrance. Head through the two long corridors that lead to the museum, and you’ll be rewarded with a glimpse of the unique collection sheltered inside. 

You’ll first see traditional votive offerings. To give thanks for a miracle, it’s customary to paint the event in question and a phrase of gratitude on wood or “lamina.” There are paintings that give thanks for having survived an accident, a fight, or an illness. Among the unusual gifts of this sort are a Virgin made of bread and a spoon on which a girl nearly choked to death.  

You’ll also see votive offerings related to sports, such as trophies or medals. Among them are the replica of the golden boot that the soccer player Hugo Sánchez donated and a boxing medal Kid Azteca won in 1932. There are also political and merit medals, political ribbons, and even a trophy for the best pig breeder of 1962. An additional section of the museum is dedicated to artists who have given gold or platinum records, musical trophies, and a gift from a man who thanked the Virgin for the opportunity to record his first album of norteña music.

The exhibition includes gifts such as hair braids, wooden masks, popotillo paintings (traditional straw paintings), and even a diorama of a woman thanking the Virgin for having saved her son from bombings while he was in the Philippines during World War II.

Trump’s ‘go back’ racism is crude, but may be dangerously effective | Afua Hirsch

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As we’ve seen in the UK, attacking the identity of people of colour can be a route to political success

Pity Donald Trump. Even his racism is the most unsophisticated kind. Every black and brown person knows a “go back to where you came from” racist. For many of us who have never been migrants, to have this muttered at us was the first signal that to be a visible minority means to be forever perceived as an immigrant. And that being perceived as an immigrant is bad.

“Go back” racists are rarely intellectually capable of engaging with the question of whether the destination they deem so suitable for us actually exists. Trump’s latest outburst – in which he said four congresswomen should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came”, is a case in point. For the US president to say of Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, “if they’re not happy here, they can leave”, makes no sense because the women in question are Americans. Yet it makes perfect sense because they are not white.

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Notable that 187 members of Congress were not willing to stand in solidarity with their colleagues and unequivocally condemn Trump’s targeted racist attacks. https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/07/16/congress-should-condemn-trumps-racist-comments …https://twitter.com/nbcnews/status/1151270229303017472 …

Notable that 187 members of Congress were not willing to stand in solidarity with their colleagues and unequivocally condemn Trump’s targeted racist attacks. https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/07/16/congress-should-condemn-trumps-racist-comments … https://twitter.com/nbcnews/status/1151270229303017472 …

Bees and Beekeepers Feel the Sting of Trump Administration’s Anti-Science Efforts

Bees and Beekeepers Feel the Sting of Trump Administration’s Anti-Science Efforts

Bee populations are suffering nationwide, yet regulators continue to approve anti-bee actions.




Beekeeper Jeff Anderson minds his colonies in a California cherry orchard.

Beekeeper Jeff Anderson says the Trump administration’s anti-bee and anti-science efforts are hurting his business.

Chris Jordan-Bloch / Earthjustice

It’s been a particularly terrible summer for bees. Recently, the U.S. EPA announced it is allowing the bee-killing pesticide sulfoxaflor back on the market. And just a few weeks prior, the USDA announced it is suspending data collection for its annual honeybee survey, which tracks honeybee populations across the U.S., providing critical information to farmers and scientists.

The Trump administration pushed for these two anti-bee actions, even though our nation’s honeybee populations have been nosediving for years. Last winter, beekeepers reported a record 40 percent loss of their colonies.

A honey bee alights on a cherry blossom in Stockton, California.

A honey bee alights on a cherry blossom in Stockton, California.
Chris Jordan-Bloch / Earthjustice

Longtime beekeeper Jeff Anderson, owner of California-Minnesota Honey Farms, says the picture is even grimmer if you look at bee losses across the entire year, particularly in the spring and summer when farmers are spraying pesticides. It’s not just bees that are suffering, he says. Beekeepers are also feeling the sting of the Trump administration’s anti-bee and anti-science efforts. And consumers of healthy, fresh foods are next.

Were you surprised to learn that the USDA pulled its honeybee colonies report?  

No. The USDA quit doing the honeybees survey because they absolutely don’t want to document what’s happening, because then they’d have to do something about it.

How do you feel about the EPA reregistering sulfoxaflor?

One thing that stood out to me in the EPA’s notice is that it said it’s “providing long-term certainty for U.S. growers to use an important tool to protect crops and avoid potentially significant economic losses, while maintaining strong protection for pollinators. The wording, “long-term certainty… to use,” seems totally wrong for a regulatory agency to make a promise like that. It predisposes a defensive position for all decisions going forward.

Basically, the EPA’s buddies at Dow AgroSciences want to make billions on this pesticide, and the EPA is going to let them. But please don’t lie to us and say that sulfoxaflor is somehow pollinator safe. I’m not buying.

Why do bees get such short shrift by regulators and legislators?

Beekeeping has always been the ugly stepchild in agriculture. Agriculture needs us, but not everybody in agriculture needs us. Corn growers and wheat growers don’t need my bees. Cherry, almond, and blueberry growers need my bees. Any of the healthy foods that are in our diet need insect pollination, and if you want to eat chicken, beef, whatever, most of that doesn’t need my bees. But when it comes to our healthy, nutritious foods like nuts and fruits, almost all of those need insect pollination.

Farmers know that pesticides are a problem. In Minnesota, the standard question I get from farmers when I walk into a room or get gas at a gas station is, “How are the bees doing?” I tell them, “Well, not so good.” And it’s getting to be that most farmers these days will say, “It’s all these chemicals, isn’t it?” I tell them, “It should give you some pause to think about that because you and I are next. We just haven’t started coughing as much yet.”

Our environment is sick and our bees are a good indicator when that’s the truth. When my beehive gets sick, there’s something not right within the flight range of those bees. But the chemical industry is the one who speaks for everybody on the Hill, so it doesn’t matter what farmers think. That’s the reality.

Anderson minds his colonies in a California cherry orchard.

Anderson minds his colonies in a California cherry orchard.
Chris Jordan-Bloch / Earthjustice

How are your honeybees faring this year?

I’ve had about 90 percent honeybee loss between last spring and this spring. I typically run about 3,000 colonies in our spring count and we instead we had 300.

If you want to look at my winter losses, they were probably about like what the Bee Informed Partnership survey is claiming, around 40 percent. And that is almost exclusively painted up in the press like that’s the annual number that the industry is losing, which is absolute hogwash because it isn’t the full story. The spring losses are greater than the winter losses because generally most things die when they’re most exposed to pesticides. Is that rocket science? No. It’s just that nobody talks about it.

Has the bee die-off impacted your ability to do business?

I used to have all of my adult children working for me. My oldest, Jeremy, has worked with bees ever since he got out of diapers. He’s been my foreman for 20 years. Now, with honey production way down, he’s barely getting paid enough to put food on the table. Things are getting tight because our honey crops are way off. The most barrels of honey I ever produced was about 450. Last year, I had about 68 barrels. Sick bees don’t make honey.

That’s the other part of the bee story. I run a family operation and I can’t keep my kids employed anymore. When you can’t keep hives alive, you can’t keep income coming in. We all talk the demise of bees, but the demise of the beekeepers gets overlooked a lot of times. Beekeepers all have a form of PTSD. We just don’t get it in the military.

Is climate change impacting your bees?

Yes, but not like you’re thinking, where it’s too hot in the summer or too cold in the winter.

Neonicotinoid pesticides like sulfoxaflor cause problems with thermoregulation in affected insects. One of the problems we have with overwintering our bees is that the cold will now kill a beehive. That didn’t used to be normal. Before, most of the bees in the Midwest stayed all winter. The beekeeper would wrap them with insulation and give them a top entrance, so they could ventilate the moisture out of the colony. And the bees would be just fine, coming out in the spring big enough to split into separate hives. If you try to do that with a bee colony now, it’s dead by November.

It’s not the extreme temperatures. It doesn’t even have to get that cold. They have bee mortality in Florida at 40 degrees. The hive simply can’t thermoregulate.

Anderson works with members of his family in this photo from 2014. He once employed all of his adult children but can no longer afford to do so.

Anderson works with members of his family in this photo from 2014. He once employed all of his adult children but can no longer afford to do so.
Chris Jordan-Bloch / Earthjustice

Do you plan on continuing as a beekeeper?

My plan today should have been to go up to Fargo, North Dakota, for the bee convention with a for sale sign for anyone who wants my operation. That’s what I should have been doing.

My parents’ generation, they would have stuck with it because they knew you might have a bad year, but it was an anomaly, and the next year was going to be better. That’s what farmers always think. For the most part, that’s true. In the grand scheme of things, you’ve usually got one year in 20 that’s down, so it really wasn’t a stupid decision to dip into your savings to push things forward.

But in year after year after year we keep setting records for low honey production in the U.S. This year, we were down to 300-some hives. You don’t just take 300-some hives and magically sneeze and all of a sudden you’ve got 3,000. You work your tail off, you buy bees from other beekeepers, you get extra queens, etc. It costs a lot of money, and I decided I’m not gonna throw good money after bad in this operation. If Honey Farms can’t pay its way, than it’s going to cease to exist. I see no reason to put the 50 cents I have set aside for retirement into trying to manage a bee operation when I’m 62.  

What can people do to support bees?

Consumers are starting to understand that what they put in their mouth has a great deal to do with how often they see their doctor. There’s a direct connection between your health and what you eat. It’s not rocket science. Vote with your checkbook. The chemical industry is in charge on the Hill, unless we can un-buy Congress.


Editor’s note: In 2015, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that sulfoxaflor could not be used in the United States, following an Earthjustice lawsuit. The court found the EPA violated the law by approving sulfoxaflor without reliable studies regarding the impact that the insecticide would have on honeybee colonies.

“At a time when honeybees and other pollinators are dying in greater numbers than ever before, Trump’s EPA decision to remove restrictions on yet another bee-killing pesticide is nothing short of reckless,” says Earthjustice attorney Greg Loarie, who litigated the sulfoxaflor case. “Scientists have long said pesticides like sulfoxaflor are the cause of the unprecedented colony collapse. Letting sulfoxaflor back on the market is dangerous for our food system, economy, and environment.”

Exclude from Recent Victories: 

California city declares itself a gun ‘sanctuary’ in rebuke to liberal laws

Silliness and self-delusion go together

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Needles city council voted to ask state legislature to allow gun owners from other states to carry registered firearms in town

A small California city has voted to declare itself a “second amendment sanctuary” city, in a rebuke to the state’s strict policies on gun control.

The city council of Needles voted unanimously last week to ask the state legislature to allow gun owners from other states to carry registered firearms in the town.

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Trump administration to continue deporting Venezuelans despite crisis

They care only about the oil, not the people.

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  • US as yet unwilling to grant temporary protected status
  • Senators accuse Trump of ‘having it both ways’ over Maduro

The Trump administration has said it is not yet willing to grant temporary protected status to Venezuelans, meaning it will continue to deport people back to a country it says is being destroyed by a tyrant.

The news comes amid a humanitarian crisis that could forcibly displace as many as 8.2 million people by the end of 2020, and the same month that the United Nations accused the Venezuelan government of killing thousands of its own citizens.

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