World

World Health Organization Announces Independent Panel To Evaluate Global Response To COVID-19 Pandemic

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WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

WHO News:

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has announced the initiation of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPR) to evaluate the world’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In remarks to WHO Member States, Dr. Tedros said the Panel will be co-chaired by former Prime Minister of New Zealand Helen Clark and former President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Prime Minister Clark went to on lead the United Nations Development Programme and President Sirleaf is a recipient Read More

Homeland Security News Wire: TikTok Spying

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Courtesy image

By Paul Haskell-Dowland and James Jin Kang
Homeland Security News Wire

In an age of isolation, video sharing platform TikTok has emerged as a bonding force for many.

But recent headlines allege the service, owned by Beijing-based company ByteDance, is feeding users’ data to the Chinese Communist Party.

Earlier this week, the Herald Sunreported that an unnamed federal MP was pushing for the app to be banned.

Following suit, Liberal Sen. Jim Molan said TikTok was being “used and abused” by the Chinese government, while Labor senator Jenny McAllister called on TikTok’s representatives Read More

Udall, Heinrich Urge ICE And DHS To Withdraw New Guidance That Threatens International Students With Deportation

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CONGRESSIONAL News:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich today joined 96 Senate and House Democrats in a letter to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), urging the agencies to withdraw new guidance issued by ICE that imperils the status of international students who would be studying online at U.S. institutions this coming academic year.

The guidance threatens international students with deportation if they do not comply with the requirement that they take in-person classes.

In the letter, the lawmakers Read More

LANL: Study Finds Less Climate Impact From Wildfire Smoke

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Los Alamos research reveals that wildfire smoke plumes contribute less to warming temperatures than previously thought. Photo 70797968 © Tsphotog/Dreamstime.com

LANL News:

  • Observations suggest smaller warming effects of brown carbon than published model assessments

New research revealed that tiny, sunlight-absorbing particles in wildfire smoke may have less impact on climate than widely hypothesized because reactions as the plume mixes with clean air reduce its absorbing power and climate-warming effect.

In a unique megafire study, a Los Alamos National Laboratory-led research Read More

AGU: Climate Change May Cause Extreme Waves In Arctic

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A wave washing up on the Inuvialuit hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk in Canada’s Northwest Territories during an August 2019 storm. Photo by Weronika Murray

AGU News:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Extreme ocean surface waves with a devastating impact on coastal communities and infrastructure in the Arctic may become larger due to climate change, according to a new study.  

The new research projects the annual maximum wave height will get up to two to three times higher than it is now along coastlines in areas of the Arctic such as along the Beaufort Sea.

The new study in AGU’s Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans Read More

U.S. Citizen Charged With Violating Kingpin Act

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DEA News:

NEW YORK — A complaint was unsealed Monday in the Eastern District of New York charging Bryant Espinoza Aguilar, the stepson of Sinaloa Cartel leader and notorious fugitive Rafael Caro Quintero, with conspiring to commit violations of the Kingpin Act.

The Kingpin Act is an economic sanctions program against narcotics traffickers that is administered and enforced by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Department of Treasury.

Specifically, Espinoza Aguilar is charged with assisting Caro Quintero and his common law wife by putting their assets in his own name, thereby Read More

RSF: Journalists Face Archaic Sanction Of Death Penalty 

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Nine journalists are sitting on death row today across the globe. Courtesy/RSF

RSF News:

Four Yemeni journalists and an Iranian editor are under sentence death and await execution.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the use of the death penalty, an antiquated form of punishment, to threaten journalists in some parts of the world.

The Yemeni journalists Abdul Khaleq Amran, Akram Al-Walidi, Hareth Humaid and Tawfiq Al-Mansouri were found guilty of espionage by a Houthi court in Sanaa and received the maximum sentence in April this year.

The Iranian government critic Rouhollah Zam, Read More

Denis Hayes, Organizer Of First Earth Day, To Receive Prestigious Environmental Achievement Award

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Denis Hayes

Environmental Law Institute News:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Environmental Law Institute (ELI) has announced it will present its 2020 Environmental Achievement Award to Denis Hayes, the organizer of the first Earth Day and current president of the Bullitt Foundation, in recognition of his visionary leadership and outstanding environmental stewardship over a most distinguished career.

Hayes is perhaps best known as the principal national organizer of the first Earth Day in 1970 and founder of the Earth Day Network. A springboard to many initiatives that have greatly advanced Read More

Skolnik: Where Do We Really Stand On COVID-19?

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By RICHARD SKOLNIK
Los Alamos

The President, the Vice-President and other political leaders say that we lead the world in COVID-19 testing, our COVID-19 death rates are better than many other countries, and our efforts against the outbreak are bearing fruit. To protect ourselves and our families, we must know if the above is true. We must also understand how the U.S. is really doing against COVID-19 if we are to encourage appropriate policies to address it.

We are 13th globally in the total number of reported cases per million population. We have more cases per million than any other high-income Read More