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No one should go hungry while Republicans are “playing partisan games with peoples’ lives”

Following weeks of an escalating feud between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and a growing number of increasingly combative Republicans, a chaotic government shutdown was narrowly avoided this weekend, though just by a matter of minutes. 

Late Saturday night, McCarthy moved to pass a temporary bill — which will keep the government funded through November 17 — with support from Democrats, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden right before the midnight Saturday into Sunday deadline. This enabled many in Corporate America to breathe a sigh of relief as lead economists predicted that a shutdown would affect the national economy and slow spending leading into the holiday season. 

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“While brinkmanship is never the answer, we are pleased that the ‘adults’ stepped up to prevent a shutdown and the direct harm it would have caused to millions of Americans and American small businesses who would have been impacted,” Neil Bradley, chief policy officer at the US Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement this weekend.

However, for many of our country’s most vulnerable, this close call was just another reminder of how flimsy the safety net supporting hungry Americans already is. If the government had shut down, nearly 7 million  women and children who rely on the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) would have lost their benefits — benefits that some Republicans are still eager to slash. 

In a September 25 brief, a White House spokesperson described the ongoing budget conflict by saying that “extreme House Republicans are playing partisan games with peoples’ lives and marching our country toward a government shutdown that would have damaging impacts across the country.” 

“During an Extreme Republican Shutdown, women and children who count on WIC would soon start being turned away at grocery store counters, with a federal contingency fund drying up after just a few days and many states left with limited WIC funds to operate the program,” the statement read. “And the reason food assistance for these families is at risk is extreme House Republicans’ continued efforts to slash funding for vital programs, including WIC, rather than work in a bipartisan manner to keep the government open and address emergency needs for the American people.” 

Just a few days prior, Kate Franken, the board chair of the National WIC Association, strongly urged Congress to reach a deal that would avoid shutdown as millions of pregnant women, babies and young children would not have the nutrition support they needed to thrive. 

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“Without the urgent investment of additional funds, state WIC offices could soon be forced to consider waiting lists for prospective participants — a drastic step not seen in nearly 30 years,” Franken said in a statement. 

She continued: “We simply cannot cross that line. Congress must live up to its responsibility to all those who depend on the program, providing sufficient funding in a continuing resolution to ensure no one is turned away from WIC in the short term and full funding in a year-end spending package to support WIC’s critical mission moving forward.” 

Following the passage of the temporary funding bill, Franken released a second statement saying that for families who rely on WIC to put food on the table and receive pregnancy and postpartum support, the legislation provides only temporary peace of mind. 

“Because the fact remains that there is still a lot of work to do. Congress must next pass an appropriations bill that includes full funding for WIC to meet its expected rise in caseloads for the rest of the fiscal year,” she wrote. 

As Politico reported in May, reducing WIC funding has always been part of the GOP’s proposal to fund the government through fiscal 2024. According to their initial plan, WIC would have been funded at $6 billion, however that is $300 million less than the president’s budget called for and included other funding slashes. 

The proposal would have rescinded $500 million in unspent funds for the program, according to reporter Garrett Downs, and would have also cut the cash voucher for WIC recipients, known as the fruit and vegetable benefit. This means that many recipients would end up with around only $11 to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables for the month. 

This uncertainty surrounding the future of WIC funding comes at a time when more and more Americans are already facing food insecurity, a problem experts had referred to as a “looming hunger cliff.” It is largely the result of post-pandemic benefit cuts, grocery inflation and an unprecedented change in SNAP work requirements for older recipients. 

For now, the government has avoided a shutdown for at least the next six weeks. However, questions remain about whether WIC will ever be fully funded with the GOP standing in the way. 

“No one who needs WIC should be turned away, ever,” Franken said. “Congress must fully fund WIC to avoid any service delivery disruptions and refrain from implementing waitlists for the first time in 30 years. Anything less is indefensible.”

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What industry knew about the perils of PFAS

For decades, the chemical industry has shown a pattern of promoting its products to the public without disclosing their harms. We have now found that for chemicals known as PFAS, this industry practice has been harming our health once again.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, have been produced since the 1940s and are used in consumer products such as nonstick cookware, stain-resistant carpets, and waterproof clothing. Many studies have shown that PFAS persist in the environment and have contaminated drinking water, soil, and peoples’ bodies. The early producers of PFAS — 3M and DuPont — promoted them as a miracle of modern science. They have made billions of dollars producing millions of pounds of these chemicals. But these companies knew something long before the public did: PFAS are highly toxic.

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Thanks to a groundbreaking lawsuit filed in 1999, scientists and regulators learned about the harms these chemicals cause, which we now know can include increasing the risks of kidney and testicular cancers, autoimmune disease, adverse impacts on pregnancy, and birth defects. The lawsuit (Tennant v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company) was brought by attorney Robert Bilott and eventually settled in 2001. The settlement established that DuPont dumped more than 7,100 tons of sludge laced with perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, adjacent to the plaintiff’s property, where the chemical seeped into the ground and entered local water sources, including the Ohio River.

As environmental health scientists working with government and communities to prevent harmful chemical exposures, we have been studying what the industry knew about these harmful chemicals and when it knew about them.

Many studies have shown that PFAS persist in the environment and have contaminated drinking water, soil, and peoples’ bodies.

We can determine the timeline from internal industry documents donated to the Industry Documents Library hosted at the University of California, San Francisco, a publicly available and searchable archive of material collected through Freedom of Information Act requests, subpoenas, and litigation. The most recent set we analyzed were uncovered in Bilott’s litigation against PFAS manufacturers, which showed industry knew about the adverse health effects of these chemicals decades before they were made public. Many of the documents were marked “confidential,” and in some cases, were explicit that the document should be returned “for destruction.” (Bilott’s story was featured in the 2019 film “Dark Waters” and in his book, “Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer’s Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont.”)

We believe our study, published in Annals of Global Health, represents the first time that scientists have analyzed PFAS industry documents based on methods developed to expose tactics the tobacco industry used to cover up the dangers of their products.

In 1961, DuPont’s own testing showed that some components of Teflon had “the ability to increase the size of the liver of rats at low doses,” and advised that “contact with the skin should be strictly avoided.”

We were able to compare internal memos and industry scientists’ reports to public archives of the scientific literature. By doing so, we showed that many significant health hazards, including concern for reproductive toxicity and liver damage, were kept out of the public domain for decades. Research into these hazards is now growing rapidly, as the environmental damage of these chemicals has become more apparent.

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In this set of documents, we found that, in 1961, DuPont’s own testing showed that some components of Teflon had “the ability to increase the size of the liver of rats at low doses,” and advised that “contact with the skin should be strictly avoided.” According to a 1970 internal memo, the DuPont-funded Haskell Laboratory for Toxicology and Industrial Medicine found C8, a form of PFOA and one of thousands of PFAS, to be “highly toxic when inhaled and moderately toxic when injected.” And in a 1979 private report for DuPont, the Haskell Lab found that two dogs who were exposed to a single dose of PFOA “expired within 48 hours.” Despite these examples, DuPont’s confidential internal memos downplay their harms, with one employee stating that C8 “has a lower toxicity like table salt.”

In 1981, DuPont learned from 3M that C8 caused birth defects in the offspring of pregnant rats exposed to it. The company produced an internal memo notifying workers of the study and its plans to move female employees away from PFAS manufacturing areas, stating, “We know of no evidence of birth defects caused by C-8 at Du Pont.” However, an internal document dated the same month, April 1981, shows that the company learned that two of eight pregnant employees who had worked in C8 manufacturing gave birth to children with birth defects. No case reports were published in the medical literature describing the findings. We also found no public notification or further employee notifications of these findings.

The company learned that two of eight pregnant employees who had worked in C8 manufacturing gave birth to children with birth defects.

The PFAS story is one that has played out over and over again, with similarities to industry hiding health harms from tobacco, lead, PCBs, and DDT. In each case, companies knew about the harms of their products long before scientists and the public, suppressed the truth, and delayed much-needed regulations to protect people and communities.

So why does this keep happening?

One reason is industry influence on the development and use of science in decision-making. At a 2022 workshop hosted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, or NASEM, scientists presented empirical evidence showing that industry-sponsored research and conflicts of interest among authors are associated with more favorable results and conclusions that for the sponsor, called “funding bias.” Further, studies funded by industry were found to have results that skewed toward industry compared with non-industry-sponsored research. The tobacco and chemical industries not only use similar strategies to influence science, they often use the same consulting and communications firms, resulting in shared marketing tactics.

Researchers at the NASEM meeting recommended that investigators should be independent of the sponsor throughout the research process. Disclosing COIs is not enough; clear policies and procedures are needed to eliminate or mitigate them. Money that comes from vested interests has strings attached. Thus it is critical to prioritize public funding of research, to recognize industry funding as a source of bias, and to accounting for it in government guidelines and risk assessment.

For too long, the EPA has underestimated the risk of health harms.

Financial conflicts of interest must also be removed from the regulatory process, and changes are needed at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen chemical regulatory oversight. We convened a group of scientists in 2020 to develop recommendations on how to reduce harmful chemical exposures. In a series of papers, we recommended that EPA change how it measures chemical risks including evaluating chemicals by class rather than one at a time and changing methods to better reflect real-world exposures, such as being exposed to multiple chemicals at a time. PFAS are a great example of the need for this approach, as they represent a class of thousands of molecules with similar properties, but regulations have been limited to just a handful that have been named and studied.

For too long, the EPA has underestimated the risk of health harms. Adopting up-to-date scientific methods that are more inclusive can protect people better, especially those who live in highly impacted communities.

If we want to stop polluting industries from repeatedly lying to regulators and the public about their products, we need a major shift in how we approach chemical regulation and hold industry accountable for their products. Disclosure of internal documents is one way to hold industry accountable and ensure that public health, not polluter profits, drives our regulatory system.

Tracey J. Woodruff is director of the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment and the UCSF Environmental Research and Translation for Health (EaRTH) Center. She is a former senior scientist and policy analyst at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Nadia Gaber is affiliated faculty in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at UCSF and a former postdoctoral fellow at the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment. She also conducts water safety and affordability research with the community-led nonprofit We the People of Detroit.

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The unsung hero behind Donald Trump’s crushing fraud case: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

The main hero of the Donald Trump fraud trial that kicked off Monday is, of course, Letitia James. New York’s attorney general has worked tirelessly for years on investigating Trump’s decades of criminal and corrupt behavior, resulting in a $250 million lawsuit accusing Trump and his two grown sons of running a fraudulent business. Her case is so airtight, in fact, that New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ruled Trump liable for fraud from the bench, rather than waste a jury’s time figuring out what was indisputable from the evidence. The ensuing trial — which drew Trump himself into the Manhattan courtroom this week — is entirely about how serious the penalities will be. 

There are weeks, maybe months to go before we learn how much Trump will have to pay for defrauding investors, banks and insurance companies over several decades. So we’ll have to wait a bit for James to get her virtual ticker-tape parade for kicking the most hated man in New York real estate out of town. In the meantime, however, there’s another well-known New York City politician who is owed a debt of gratitude for bringing some accountability to Trump’s gold-painted front door: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

In our era of 24/7 media onslaught, four years can seem like like four lifetimes, so it’s easy to forget that when Ocasio-Cortez arrived in Congress in January 2019, there was a lot of curiosity and outright skepticism about her among the Beltway press. She’d gotten there in improbable fashion, winning a 2018 primary against Rep. Joe Crowley — a power broker in Queens who chaired the House Democratic caucus and was seen as a possible successor to Nancy Pelosi. Before that, Ocasio-Cortez had been working as a bartender in a Manhattan taco joint. So the media was watching eagerly to see whether she’d rise to the occasion or fall flat on her face. 

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Ocasio-Cortez’s first big test came in February 2019, when Trump’s former personal attorney and “fixer,” Michael Cohen, testified before the House Oversight Committee. Cohen was about to go to prison for a campaign finance crime committed at Trump’s behest, and told a genuinely moving story of crime and betrayal. But most of the Democrats on the committee whiffed this opportunity to ask questions of a guy who had been nestled within the Trump gang for years. Instead, they devoted their time to grandstanding for the cameras, rather than learning any new information about Trump’s illegal dealings. 

Except, of course, for the young congresswoman from a working-class, multiracial district in Queens and the Bronx. Much to the surprise and delight of mainstream journalists, Ocasio-Cortez was all business. She showed up with a long list of questions about how much Cohen knew about Trump’s business dealings and whether the man currently in the White House had spent his previous career defrauding creditors and investors. Cohen’s answer: Trump was criming all the time. The transcript is worth re-reading and relishing:

Ocasio-Cortez: To your knowledge, did the president ever provide inflated assets to an insurance company?

Cohen: Yes.

Ocasio-Cortez: Who else knows that the president did this?

Cohen: Allen Weisselberg, Ron Lieberman and Matthew Calamari.

Ocasio-Cortez: And where would the committee find more information on this? Do you think we need to review his financial statements and his tax returns in order to compare them?

Cohen: Yes, and you would find it at the Trump Org.

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That line of questioning, in which Cohen confirmed that Trump routinely manipulated numbers to evade taxes while defrauding banks and insurance companies, was the first step on the long road to Trump making a stink-face in court on Monday morning. New York state regulators started to sniff around Trump’s business. James had already been dealing with a smaller case involving Trump’s charitable foundation, but Cohen’s testimony opened the door to a much bigger investigation. 

Three years later, James came out with the stunning — and largely irrefutable — accusations she’s presenting in court this week: Trump’s wealth is built on a sandcastle of lies. He doubles, triples or quadruples the valuations of his assets in order to get loans from creditors, and drastically undervalues them to evade taxes. With this shell game, the four-times-indicted ex-president lives like a rich man despite his proven inability to make much money from his business ventures. Everything Cohen said before that committee has pretty much proven true, and only AOC even thought to ask him about it. 

The near-certainty that Trump’s allegedly enormous wealth is an illusion has already been documented in reporting on his tax documents showing that he is deep in debt — perhaps as much $1 billion — even though inherited nearly half a billion from his father and earned another $427 million from his reality-TV star turn on “The Apprentice.” All available evidence suggests Trump blew through that money and kept digging, creating a money pit so enormous that banks likely had given up hope of seeing any of it repaid. Yet Trump has kept up the illusion of immense wealth with his private jets and entourages, all paid for through dozens of opaque shell companies — and, as James’ evidence suggests, through massive fraud.

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He might have gotten away with it, too, if not for that nosy congresswoman from the outer boroughs. I’m a little surprised that almost no one seems to remember the crucial role Ocasio-Cortez played in this. At the time of the hearing, after all, she got an avalanche of good coverage for her showing, especially from journalists who were sick of listening to politicians bloviate rather than perform their constitutional duties of legislative oversight. Her willingness to do her actual job, however, didn’t just make her look good by comparison. It got a very big ball rolling that could eventually demollish Trump’s “business” in New York. 

One reason AOC’s role has been forgotten, I suspect, is that the Beltway press tends to think of “progressives” as entirely distinct from the people who really want to see Trump go to jail. Turn on MSNBC or CNN, after all, and the people talking on the Trump crime-and-punishment beat are often centrist Democrats and never-Trump Republicans, your Claire McCaskills and George Conways and the like. Progressive Democrats are usually called upon to talk about policy issues: health care, climate change, jobs programs and so on. So there’s this unspoken assumption that progressives don’t much care about corruption and accountability. 

In fact, there’s substantial evidence that progressives may put an even higher value on opposing corruption than their more moderate colleagues. For instance, progressives like Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania were among the first to call for the resignation of Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., after his recent indictment on bribery and corruption charges. This isn’t just about political progressives also being people of conscience. I think they understand how intertwined corruption and authoritarian politics are, and understand you can’t fight one without fighting the other. 

Authoritarians like Trump gain power by exploiting public cynicism. The more that voters believe that all politicians cheat the system, the more decent citizens will give up engaging meaningfully in politics at all. Eventually, the only people left in politics are the ones with no vision of a better world beyond a bitter desire to stick it to racial minorities, LGBTQ people and women. Getting people to believe in equal justice and functional government is a necessary prerequisite if folks like Fetterman and Ocasio-Cortez are to make any progress on the social and economic issues that matter most to them. It makes sense that AOC opened the door for the massive lawsuit that may bring Donald Trump’s business empire crashing down. Maybe the main reason she’s not taking more credit for that is that in the here and now she’s busy trying to expose the corruption of House Republicans. 

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How climate change is fueling alcohol-related hospitalizations

This story is part of Record High, a Grist series examining extreme heat and its impact on how — and where — we live.

Many studies have shown that climate change threatens alcohol production around the world, from vineyards in France to whiskey distilleries in Scotland. Now there’s alarming evidence that climate change affects hospitalizations for alcohol consumption, too.

A study published this week in the journal Nature Communications Medicine found that temperature spikes due to climate change have led to a marked increase in the number of hospital visits for alcohol-related disorders — such as alcohol poisoning, alcohol withdrawal and alcohol-induced sleep disorders — in New York state. “We found that there was an almost linear relationship between temperature increases and alcohol-related disorder hospital admissions and visits,” said Robbie Parks, an environmental epidemiologist at Columbia University and the lead author of the study.

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The researchers also found associations between temperature and hospitalizations related to cannabis, cocaine, opioids, and sedative use — a result that was felt most acutely in the suburban and rural areas outside of New York City. But the connection between hospitalizations related to alcohol use and temperature was the most “robust” in the study, Parks said. 

A growing body of research that shows Americans have become increasingly reliant on drugs, especially opioids, and alcohol over the past few decades. There has been a fivefold increase in overdose deaths in the United States since the turn of the century. This trend could be made even worse “with rising temperatures under climate change,” the study’s authors write.

By looking at hospital admission records and comparing them to weather data over the course of three decades between 1995 and 2014, the researchers figured out how short-term spikes in temperature over the course of a few days affect hospital admission rates related to substance use. 

“If today was 5 degrees hotter than this time last week or this time next week, we would expect more hospital visits for alcohol and substance disorders.”

Even a slight increase in temperature, say from 15 degrees Fahrenheit one week to 20 degrees F the next week, or from 60 to 65 degrees F, led to more hospitalizations for substance use. That trend held strong from negative 22 degrees F all the way up to 86 degrees F — the full range of daily average temperatures across New York state between 1995 and 2014. 

“It’s not just seasonal,” Parks said. “If today was 5 degrees hotter than this time last week or this time next week, we would expect more hospital visits for alcohol and substance disorders.”

Daily average temperatures in New York have risen 3 degrees F statewide since 1970 and are expected to rise another 3 degrees F by 2080, due to the warming effects of fossil fuel combustion. This trend has contributed to the short-term temperature fluctuations Parks and his team compared against local hospitalization rates in their study. 

Previous research has shown that temperature fluctuations can influence drug use in the United States and overseas, but this study is among the first to look at different types of drugs and find that climate change is linked to spikes in hospital admissions for alcohol-related disorders in the U.S., specifically. Parks and his team found that the pattern was near-universal across the demographic characteristics they looked at, which included age, sex, and social vulnerability (an umbrella term for socioeconomic and minority status). The study controlled for seasonal variations in alcohol use, such as peoples’ tendency to drink more during the winter holidays and summer months. 

“This is obviously relevant in the context of climate change, where we’re anticipating hotter average temperatures, including more frequent and severe heat waves,” said Francis Vergunst, an associate professor at the University of Oslo who has researched the effects of climate change on behavioral disorders and was not involved in the Columbia study. “That means there will be more days in which people potentially could be using substances at harmful levels that could require hospital admission.” 

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Though it’s not entirely clear why rising temperatures lead to more hospitalizations for substance use, Vergunst said researchers have some ideas about what may be behind the trend. One possible explanation is that people are more impulsive and uninhibited during periods of elevated heat, which leads them to drink more and consume more drugs. For some types of drugs, such as opioids, warm weather can diminish the perceived effects of the drug and lead people to take higher doses to get to their desired level of inebriation, which in turn could contribute to more hospital admissions for overdoses. Drinking alcohol, popularly thought to raise the body’s internal temperature, actually destabilizes the body’s ability to regulate its core temperature, which could also contribute to hospitalizations during periods of elevated heat. 

“I think it’s really important to start understanding what those underlying factors are,” Vergunst said, “because that could be the primary potential intervention point.” In other words, understanding what causes people to consume more drugs as temperatures warm will be crucial to preventing them from ending up in the hospital because of an overdose or some other substance-related condition.  

The study doesn’t make projections about how future warming due to climate change may influence the prevalence of hospital admissions for substance use, and Parks warned against extrapolating New York’s data to the rest of the country. More research needs to be done to figure out how people living in the United States’ many various and distinct climates respond to rising temperatures. But Parks said that the study hints at the possibility of a larger trend that needs to be investigated. It’s a starting point for beginning to understand how climate change may influence substance use across the nation and elsewhere. 

“New York is the fourth-largest state in the country, one of the most diverse, one of the most extreme in terms of socio-demographic profile,” Parks said. “You might surmise, though cautiously, that this would be an issue across the U.S. and worldwide.”

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

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“The Trump empire … will fold like a stack of cards,” says former prosecutor

Republican frontrunner and presumptive 2024 presidential nominee Donald Trump faces as many as four upcoming criminal trials — but a civil case that could destroy his business in New York has leapt to the forefront this week.

To some degree, the lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James alleging decades of fraudulent business practices has flown under the radar, perhaps because — unlike in the criminal cases Trump must face in New York, Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C. — there is no possibility of criminal convictions or a prison sentence. 

But all that changed last week when New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron issued a summary judgment against Trump and his co-defendants, ruling that the evidence of fraud was so overwhelming that a full trial was not necessary. If that decision stands, Trump will likely lose control of many of his most high-profile businesses. As a practical matter, his supposedly successful real estate empire may well lie in ruins.

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That could have all kinds of ripple effects. Trump may be deprived of easy access to funds he needs to pay his legal expenses, now estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars. His brand and public persona will be severely damaged. Part of his power over the MAGA cult comes from his self-presentation as a billionaire and a shrewd, ruthless deal-maker.

Losing control of his trademark New York business ventures will likely cause Trump to suffer a severe narcissistic injury, whose long-term consequences are unpredictable. In the here and now, he is of course using the New York civil case to extract still more cash donations from his followers. This past weekend, Trump sent out this appeal for money:

Patriot,

According to news reports, I will be attending the civil trial in New York tomorrow where an anti-Trump judge is attempting to bring down the Trump Organization and financially break me.

Democrats are seeking to bring down the world-famous “Trump Tower” and impose what some are calling “the corporate death penalty” upon me.

This will be the FIRST TRIAL in the Democrats’ string of witch hunts designed to destroy our 2024 presidential campaign.

The Left is hoping that if they can hurt me financially, that I will shut down my campaign and forever surrender our country to the radical Left Democrats and the Deep State.

They want to take away my freedom, my finances, and harass my family.

But they can never take away my resilience, my courage, and my determination to save this country.

And I’m certainly not alone in this fight…

…Millions of patriots have also declared that they will NEVER SURRENDER our country to the Left – and will peacefully defend our movement until Election Day 2024 when we win back the White House and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

Trump is a master propagandist, and a dictator in waiting. His claims in the above fundraising email, and more generally, are lies and gross distortions of facts and reality.

In an attempt to make better sense of Trump’s New York civil case and what Justice Engoron’s summary judgment means for his future criminal trials, America’s democracy crisis and what may happen next, I recently spoke with longtime attorney and author Kenneth Foard McCallion. He is a former Justice Department prosecutor who also worked for the New York attorney general’s office as a prosecutor on Trump-related racketeering cases. McCallion’s books include the companion pieces “Profiles in Courage in the Trump Era” and “Profiles in Cowardice in the Trump Era,” as well as “Treason & Betrayal: The Rise and Fall of Individual-1.” This transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Given all the legal developments surrounding Trump in recent weeks and months, especially the summary judgment in New York, how are you feeling? How do you make sense of all this? 

I’m feeling better and more confident about the legal system, which has been a long time coming in bringing Trump to justice. But finally, things seem to be picking up pace, and the summary judgment motion and decision in New York was outstanding, really a model of clarity. The other Trump decisions, particularly the D.C. court decision by Judge Chutkan regarding her non-recusal, were also excellent. The decisions slapping down Trump and his lawyers for the frivolous motions that they’ve made have become essential elements in the protection of our modern judicial system in this country.  

The central premise of our legal system is that the law applies equally to everyone and does not exempt the rich and powerful. Trump probably should have been brought to justice a lot sooner, but better late than never. Trump’s wealth and power certainly did give some prosecutors pause, and of course they wanted to make sure that they had a rock-solid case against him before filing their charges. The investigations have been far too long in coming, but now the moment of truth is upon us, and all the charges against Trump appear to be well grounded in fact and supported by the evidence.  

Trump is facing multiple legal challenges in both civil and criminal courts, and there is a window of opportunity to have these legal proceedings move forward. Hopefully Trump will be held accountable before next year’s election season is in full bloom.

At what point do Trump’s attorneys and other advisers tell him that he is in serious trouble and may go to prison? Has that already happened? 

Some of Trump’s lawyers have tried to have that very conversation with him and were fired. Trump is basically now surrounded by a collection of legal sycophants who are telling him what he wants to hear so that they can continue to stay on this high-profile legal team. But there will come a point in time where Trump will be in the courtroom and a judge or a jury will be deciding his fate. I believe that one or more of these proceedings will lead to a guilty verdict and then sentencing. Trump is self-deluded to a large extent, but he most certainly is not stupid. Trump is like a fox who is ultimately cornered by the hounds, and only then will he will try and cut a deal to avoid spending time in prison.

“Trump is like a fox who [will be] ultimately cornered by the hounds. Only then will he will try and cut a deal to avoid spending time in prison.”

Obviously, Trump, if convicted, would be sentenced to a gilded cage of sorts, be it in Mar-a-Lago or somewhere else. There are federal and state prisons for certain classes of inmates such as Trump. What Trump really fears is not so much being imprisoned, but the fear of conviction itself and public humiliation. He must have some awareness of the serious legal predicament he is in at this point, but he has to try to maintain a tough public facade for as long as he can. Trump will hold out until the last possible moment and then he will take a plea deal or some other arrangement with the prosecution. But at this point Trump’s ego won’t let him do it — at least for another six months or so. 

How would you assess the quality of the attorneys who are willing to work with Trump, given his reputation and behavior? What is their decision-making process like? I have to imagine that the best attorneys would want to avoid Trump because of the potential stain on their reputations. 

Trump’s legal team is not, for the most part, an A-list team. The best available former prosecutors and defense lawyers have declined to join the Trump legal team because they fear that the aroma of corruption emanating from Trump will engulf them too and their reputations will be permanently tarnished. Some of Trump’s prior counsel — obviously, Rudy Giuliani, and others — are immersed in their own legal problems now. The calculation being made by Trump’s current legal team is that they will advise him professionally on the process, they will file motions and they will attempt to avoid being held professionally responsible, meaning either sanctioned or disbarred. They will not cross that line, although Trump will certainly want them to. But ultimately, Trump’s attorneys will be in the limelight, and there’s nothing wrong with being a credible and honest defense lawyer.

They will have to tell Trump, or it will become apparent to him, that he needs an exit strategy — and sooner rather than later. Trump and his team will try muddying the waters and engaging in legal kabuki theater for the next few months. But ultimately the day of reckoning will come in the New York proceedings, or in D.C. or Florida or Georgia, whichever may come first. 

Trump will be held responsible and convicted or criminally or civilly fined and held responsible, much like his corporations in New York, which are now going to be barred from doing business. In the end, the Trump empire, both the business as well as him personally, will fold like a stack of cards pretty quickly when the first jury returns its verdict against him. One of Trump’s co-defendants in Georgia has already flipped and taken a guilty plea. More will follow. Trump’s predicament will only get worse as time goes on. 

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“Summary judgment” sounds like something out of a movie or TV show. What does that term actually mean as a practical matter? 

It is a very significant step in the civil legal process. Summary judgment means that the judge is deciding, and agreeing with the New York attorney general, that the case against Trump need not go to trial because the evidence on paper is so overwhelming that the legal issue of whether Trump and his companies acted irresponsibly is no longer a subject of reasonable factual dispute. The proper remedy is to have their certificates of incorporation revoked and to bar them from doing any further business in New York. In other words, you don’t need a jury to decide a case when there are no real disputed issues of fact. When you have irrefutable evidence, like the attorney general has in New York regarding the factual claims, a judge can — and will — grant a summary judgment motion, which eliminates the need for a full jury trial.

The evidence presented to Justice Engoron conclusively showed that Trump’s misrepresentations of fact about the value of his buildings and properties went far beyond mere negligence. Trump is a very detailed hands-on person with his businesses. He is a real estate developer. He is not someone who can claim ignorance. The evidence showed that Trump purposely misrepresented the numbers in order to grossly increase the amount of the loans that he was getting from the banks, but then undervalued the same properties for tax purposes. The attorney general of New York is in a very good place right now.  I would expect to see a very large award and judgment in favor of New York. I don’t see any way that Trump, at this point, can avoid it. 

What explains Trump’s ability to avoid consequences for decades when his alleged crimes were so obvious? 

The evidence has always been there, and some intrepid prosecutor could have taken this on much earlier. But these kinds of complex business crimes require a large amount of resources and expertise to investigate. The investigative journalists and forensic accounting experts deserve much credit for going through the laborious process of reviewing all the Trump Organization’s public filings and tax returns. Then, when the banks were forced to turn over the loan applications from Trump to the attorney general, the New York County district attorney and others, the floodgates were opened. It was no longer just a question of tax fraud, since there was also evidence of substantial banking fraud. Things went downhill pretty fast for Trump after that. 

I come from the working class, so my first concern is about the regular folks who will be caught up in a court’s decision to shut down Trump’s businesses. What will happen to them? 

That’s always a concern. I would expect that the likely procedure which has been followed in the past, and is followed by bankruptcy judges, is the appointment of a receiver who would protect the Trump assets and keep the payroll going while the assets are being liquidated in an orderly fashion. Hopefully, innocent employees will be protected in the process. 

What are some of the questions you want answered through these trials, given that you have faced Trump in court before as a prosecutor? I am very curious about the rumored connections, or in fact proven connections, between Trump’s businesses and foreign money. 

I’ve written several books on the money laundering aspects of Trump’s businesses. When Trump was basically banned by the large banks from any further loans and mortgages, this was right around the time when a lot of Russian and Eastern European money was looking for a home in the West. Therefore, it was an ideal time for Trump to start doing business with Russian oligarchs and others looking to park their cash in one or more of Trump’s real estate projects. In fact, a significant percentage of the early purchases of the apartments in Trump Tower were cash deals involving Russian and Eastern European money looking for a safe place away from the prying eyes of the banking regulators.

“The full picture can [now] be seen, which is that the Trump Organization was largely an organized crime organization propped up by money of questionable origin.”

Back then, large cash purchases of real estate in the U.S. were not as closely scrutinized when they did not involve large bank transfers. And Trump was more than happy to close on apartment deals with either bags of cash being transacted, or money orders or other financial instruments being used to circumvent the need for wire transfers and the red flags they would generate. The Russian uber-rich purchasers could actually use the apartment, or might not. That wasn’t the point of the purchase. The primary objective was to hold the property for a few years and then sell it. What might be questionable or dirty money would then be converted into clean money in New York. So it was a classic money laundering operation. Trump did the same with apartment buildings in the Miami area as well.

Now that the actual business records of the Trump Organization’s real estate transfers have finally come to light, the full picture can be seen, which is that the Trump Organization was largely an organized crime organization propped up by money of questionable origin, and that his real estate development projects were willingly used by Trump to facilitate huge money laundering operations.  

How would you assess Trump’s criminal exposure from the civil fraud case in New York? 

Many executives do not have their fingerprints all over everything, and are able to use the “I didn’t know what was going on” defense. Trump can’t do that, since he is unable to distance himself from the criminal actions that took place on his watch. Trump compulsively scrutinized every detail and micromanaged every aspect of the real estate enterprises, especially when it came to the valuation of Trump Organization properties. Trump worked very hard at inflating his valuations — and reaped the financial benefits of that valuation fraud. But the downside for Trump is that his fingerprints are all over those valuations, and all over those loan applications. Trump is in a huge amount of trouble, and has a substantial amount of liability, both in the criminal and civil cases, which largely overlap. Civil proceedings would lead to monetary awards and judgments. The parallel criminal cases can also lead to fines, but also his inevitable incarceration, unless a deal is struck with the prosecutors before his sentencing. One or more of those prosecutions will be successful. It is just a question of time now, and the clock is ticking. 

What is this doing to Trump’s ego and mind, to see his businesses destroyed? 

It is amazing to me that Trump has not had some type of emotional or mental breakdown by now. Trump certainly has to be given credit for his staying power. But there’s a limit to every person, and even the strongest among us will eventually crack if tortured long enough, Trump will not be able to deny the reality of his perilous position much longer. The walls are quickly closing in on him. I would expect to see that, after another few months of public defiance, the pressure he is under will finally take its toll, both physically and psychically. Trump has a lot to worry about. He will keep making his public bombastic threats, but in the end he will not be able to act that way in court. Trump will have to sit there quietly and watch the evidence pile up against him, brick by brick, before a jury. 

How do you think Trump will behave during the trials? Will he act out? Will he turn them into a theatrical spectacle in order to cry victim and rally his followers? Or will it be an anticlimax where Trump is subdued and meek?

“After another few months of public defiance, the pressure Trump is under will finally take its toll, both physically and psychically.”

Trump is not going to be able to disrupt the proceedings. If he does try to disrupt them, he will be put in another room or in a glass booth and forced to listen silently to the proceedings from there. It will not be “Trump theater” time. He will have to respect the rules or he will be physically removed from the proceedings. In any event, Trump’s trials will be among the greatest legal spectacles in recorded history, but they won’t be his spectacle. This will be a true inflection point for our country and all the world to see, as Trump is finally brought to justice. 

Where are we in the Trump saga, and what do you think comes next? 

Trump’s fall from grace and power will be precipitous. The climax will be the trial and the jury verdict, which will come sooner rather than later. 

You seem much more hopeful than you were a few months ago. I am pleasantly surprised, even given the seriousness of these matters. 

I am feeling much more hopeful. Several months ago, when we began having our conversations, the Justice Department was floundering. It had been several years, with nothing happening with the investigation. Trump then shot himself in the foot by announcing that he was running for president. The following day a special counsel was appointed, and the rest is history. A real professional prosecutor went to work on Trump; there were no political prevarications. That move by the DOJ emboldened prosecutors on the state level. The prosecutors stepped up to the challenge and said, “Enough is enough.” They now have mountains of evidence against Trump.

The congressional hearings and investigation of Jan. 6 were also very helpful. The select committee report really was a blueprint for at least one of the criminal indictments of Trump. Finally something was happening, and Congress deserves much of the credit for putting the prosecutors to shame and forcing them to finally do their jobs.

These prosecutors were just over-investigating and dithering on an extremely time-sensitive investigation. The 2024 election was approaching and the window of opportunity was rapidly closing. But now the wheels of justice are finally turning. Trump may never have to wear an orange jumpsuit with the “DOC” stamp on the back, but I’m quite optimistic that he will finally get his just deserts, in one form or another.  

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The drug war is over. Its hawks just don’t realize they lost

The Korean War is ongoing, despite no shots fired in roughly 70 years. The destructive U.S. invasion left more than 3 million dead, many of whom were civilians, with major conflict ending in 1953 — but as the war was never officially declared “over,” it technically isn’t over.

In the same way, global drug policy — which is often framed in the same violent rhetoric as a full-scale occupation of the Korean peninsula — is like a war that ended long ago, but its belligerants refuse to acknowledge this fact. The drugs won because they could never lose. They can’t surrender, but the campaign to eradicate them is unwinnable and thus absurd. War is hell, but as Boy George said, it’s also stupid. The drug war is just as inept as many global conflicts in history.

If people want to call this a war, fine, let’s treat it like one and evaluate its progress toward “victory.” This anti-narcotics machinery forbidding against certain drug use, while essentially endorsing tobacco and alcohol use, has been smoldering for more than a century, with former President Richard Nixon’s “official” declaration of the “War on Drugs” some 52 years ago. It has morphed into the U.S. government and the U.N. strong-arming other nations into participating in this charade, less they face steep tariffs or even invasion. Many countries, including Colombia, Panama and Bolivia, have found this out the hard way — don’t oppose Western drug hegemony.

Related

Thanks for nothing, DEA. Fifty years later, drugs are deadlier and more abundant than ever

Increasingly, the same government agencies who started this fight are acknowledging that they cannot win. A recent report in The Guardian detailed how the U.K. government suppressed internal recommendations to repeal drug prohibition. That 27-page document, leaked to reporter Mattha Busby after three years of fighting for its public release, was crafted by the U.K. government’s official drug advisers, who noted that there was “little consistent international evidence that the criminalization for possession of drugs for personal use is effective in reducing drug use.”

Increasingly, the same government agencies who started this fight are acknowledging that they cannot win.

Two months ago, Elena Whitham, Scotland’s minister for drugs policy, said as much, calling on her government to adopt progressive drug policy not dripping in punishment. Whitham noted that decriminalization was “no longer a novel approach,” but rather a growing practice “across the world and works well.” Recent research has shown that decriminalization is not associated with an increase in overdose deaths. In fact, the opposite is likely true: Overdoses spike following police seizures.

Downing Street was quick to dismiss any chance of adopting this sort of code. Rather, the U.K. government has resorted to banning yet more drugs, most recently nitrous oxide, also called “laughing gas,” with offenders caught producing or selling the drug facing up to 14 years in prison.

Nonetheless, Scotland plans to open the U.K.’s first ever supervised consumption site, which allows drug use to be monitored by medical professionals in case of an overdose. Dozens of such sites exist around the globe — in countries such as Canada and Australia — and have been proven to reduce overdose deaths. It makes sense: The harms of drug use, such as overdose, can be avoided if done in the right context. Prohibition makes it impossible to create such contexts.

“Laws, policies and practices deployed to address drug use must not end up exacerbating human suffering.”

Supervised consumption is only one of multiple strategies that can be taken up instead of guns and handcuffs. A Sept. 20 report from the U.N. Human Rights Council urged governments to stop punishing people and adopt effective public health strategies that recognize the humanity of drug users.

“Laws, policies and practices deployed to address drug use must not end up exacerbating human suffering. The drugs problem remains very concerning, but treating people who use drugs as criminals is not the solution,” Volker Türk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement. “States should move away from the current dominant focus on prohibition, repression and punishment, and instead embrace laws, policies and practices anchored in human rights and aimed at harm reduction.”

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A century of data indicates coercion and surveillance are simply not effective tactics to keep people from using drugs, though they are cruel methods. Another recent U.N. report described U.S. jail practices as “an affront to human dignity,” highlighting forced labor and the callous practice of shackling mothers during childbirth, disproportionately affecting Black women. Though not everyone winds up in jail for drugs, many people first encounter the criminal justice system through prohibition, which can trigger a cycle that is nearly impossible to break.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse notes that “85% of the prison population has an active substance use disorder or were incarcerated for a crime involving drugs or drug use.” Prohibition may not be why everyone is incarcerated, but it’s certainly the foundation of our exploitative and sadistic criminal justice system.

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There is hope, as prohibition continues to unravel, with reforms for cannabis and psychedelics gaining momentum across North America. But this smacks of a certain exceptionalism, permitting certain drugs while ignoring the fact that “Just say no” just doesn’t work on a fundamental level. There are literally thousands of intoxicating drugs that can be cooked up — unbanning a few here and there will take centuries at this rate and won’t address the underlying issue. We need a blanket repeal of prohibition altogether, coupled with robust investment in addiction treatment, housing and public health in general.

But we’ll never get there until we can force the drug warriors to admit what they already know: This crusade against drugs has failed on all fronts. It’s time to declare peace.

We need a blanket repeal of prohibition altogether, coupled with robust investment in addiction treatment, housing and public health in general.

It’s unlikely, however, that those in positions of power will do so of their own volition. At the end of the day, the issue isn’t whether the Drug Enforcement Administration or the cops “know” that prohibition doesn’t work. (For the record, anecdotal evidence suggests they’re very much aware this is a losing battle.) When it comes down to it, the reason why peace won’t easily be declared is because the drug war allocates way too much power enjoyed by the political establishment. It predicates a mass surveillance apparatus, enriches the prison-industrial complex and gives excuses for the U.S. intelligence agencies to prop themselves up in Latin American nations, all while globally eroding civil liberties and failing to make a meaningful impact on what really matters: the health and wellness of people who use illicit substances.

Despite mounting calls, such a Kafkaesque bureaucracy of suffering won’t be easy to dismantle. Far more funds are given to enforcement than harm reduction, for example; thus, there are plenty of financial incentives to maintain the status quo. But if we continue to use the same framework — that drug use and addiction are something to wage “war” about — then we must make it impossible for anyone to deny who is losing.

An earlier version of this article originally appeared in Salon’s Lab Notes, a weekly newsletter from our Science & Health team.

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“Love Is Blind” hasn’t really worked since the first season, so why are we still watching?

We are sold a fantasy when watching Netflix's "Love Is Blind." We are told and shown that two people can solely build an emotional connection sight unseen and it will lead to love, a future engagement, and a happily ever after. But if there's one thing this fifth season's newest episodes have depicted to its audience, is that the show's once-interesting formula has turned into a gimmick that leaves even its biggest fans questioning why they even continue to invest their time.

One could say that this season's cast is no different from the other seasons' levels of messiness. In the fourth season, a contestant Zack reneged on his proposal to Irina during what was supposed to be their honeymoon because he was in love with another contestant, Bliss. The two were obviously not in love with each other because, during their first in-person meeting, Irina harshly said that her fiancé Zack looked like a cartoon character and continued to pick apart his physical appearance — defeating the purpose of the show's "Love Is Blind" premise. Horrible, I know.

But the difference between this season and the handful of the others is that at least we usually have one couple to root for. While Zack and Bliss' storyline last season was messy and so were so many other couples' in "Love Is Blind," I was convinced that they loved each other. Their story portrayed to audiences that love conquers all and that it truly is blind — the sole premise or maybe even the fantasy the show is built on. This season, however, feels like the exception to the rule, or maybe the rule is no longer applicable to this extremely gimmicky way to find love on television. In the show's tenure, only seven couples are married and still together of the 20 engaged people across all four seasons. This means less than half of the couples have experienced the eternal love that the show is so dead set on telling us that it produces. But nobody is going to be its golden couple Lauren and Cameron from Season 1.

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That "Love Is Blind" twist gives us a glimpse at the meddling behind reality TV drama

Looking at the current season's Houston-focused cast, the main players in this new batch of episodes released Friday, Sept. 29, are JP and Taylor, Izzy and Stacy, and Uche and Aaliyah, Lydia and Milton. I know it's a lot to remember but stick with me.

The biggest storyline this season is a juicy and quite frankly convoluted twist that involves Uche and potential partner Aaliyah. After they overcome one rough patch, all seems great . . . until Uche reveals he used to date a woman named Lydia. That is the same sweet, understanding Lydia who is also a contestant on the show and whom Aaliyah has been confiding all of her Uche-related doubts to. Long story short, Lydia and Uche's former relationship makes Aaliyah so uncomfortable she ghosts Uche, who was potentially about to become her future fiancé. As a result, Lydia and her relationship with her guy Milton is also one that struggles to really land with audiences because of their 10-year age gap and her prior investment in Uche and Aaliyah's relationship.

Another relationship that disintegrates the second real adversity hits them is the quintessentially American blond-haired, blue-eyed couple, JP and Taylor. He's a firefighter who loves America so much that every article of clothing he wears is red, white and blue or the American flag — I'm not even being ironic. Taylor is a 20-something elementary school teacher looking for love. If this was a rom-com, they'd be the perfect match. But since misogyny exists in the real world JP and Taylor crash and burn. Whatever fairy tale they felt like they had in the experiment or as the contestants say "the pods" disappears when the couple can't physically or emotionally connect when they meet each other in person. This makes for a series of incredibly uncomfortable scenes with the couple who fight tooth and nail to get back to the connection they thought had in the pods. Taylor finally confronts JP and he admits that the reason why he is so distant from her is because when she first met him, she was "caked-up" in makeup. The makeup made her seem "fake" to him and he'd prefer her without any makeup. His words, not mine. 

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Taylor asks, "So the way I looked made you communicate differently?" And he responded, "It felt like you were fake." The next morning, Taylor returns her ring to him and calls off their engagement, and she absolutely did the right thing. For a show that prides itself on allowing its contestants to form connections regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, age and financial status — JP's physical disgust with Taylor for wearing makeup and regarding her as fake because of it clearly shows the subtle and often frank ways misogyny has infiltrated the show's dating dynamics. JP withholds affection and communication from Taylor because she wore makeup and he found that to be unattractive. It was a way to control the relationship, and Taylor did not stand for it.

In another instance with engaged couple Izzy and Stacy, who make it further than JP and Taylor, gender and socio-economic triggers have a funny way of playing out too. Stacy is a career woman who owns her house, comes from a wealthy family in Texas and loves the finer things in life. Izzy is seemingly a first or second-generation Mexican-American, who has more of a working-class background. They seem to be a good match regardless of the differences in ethnicity, gender and economic background. But the cracks start to show when they begin to discuss the differences in the standards of living. Even Stacy's father says to Izzy: "I get the whole love is blind thing but love also needs to eat. Love needs a roof. Sometimes love wants to fly first class." While these things may sound superficial to ask of someone while you're dating — the difference is they are considering a permanent future with one another. This leads to fights about how Izzy would serve his dates with disposable plates and utensils.

It sounds childish but the deeper insight into these arguments is fundamentally how incompatible this season's couples are, which makes me second guess if that just means the show's formula and experiment is irrevocably broken just like most of the show's past relationships. Maybe the contestants are so well aware of the show's concept and its outcomes that they just try so hard for it to work because they want to be one of the show's success stories. And what is our vested interest in the show if we know it doesn't work anymore? Is it because we just want to see these doomed couples try so hard to find the connection they seemingly love-bombed their way into? The glimmer of hope and shiny dreams of love died after the first season's success stories of Lauren and Cameron. As the audience who watches every year, we are just like the delusional suckers who keep signing up to find love on the show every season. 

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“Freshman-era hand stuff”: John Oliver mocks Lauren Boebert’s torrid “Beetlejuice” date

John Oliver has officially returned to hosting HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” now that his writers are back following a five-month-long hiatus. And although there were a slew of newsworthy topics for Oliver to cover on Sunday’s episode, one stood out the most: Rep. Lauren Boebert’s infamous yet steamy “Beetlejuice” date.

“It was a torrid production of ‘Beetlejuice: The Musical.’ I just need you to know that. I’m not saying it would be appropriate to engage in high school freshman-era hand stuff during a production of any musical,” Oliver joked. “I just want to be clear, this wasn’t one of the more sexually explicit ones like ‘Spring Awakening’ or ‘Rocky Horror’ or ‘Cats.’ This was ‘Beetlejuice.’ A show that’s quite loudly about death. 

“I’m just saying, if you’re gonna get your nipples tweaked and your pipes squeaked, save that shit for ‘Fiddler [On The Roof]’ like a goddamn adult.”

Oliver continued, poking fun at the fact that Boebert and her date got kicked out about five minutes into Act 2 of the production. He also made jabs at Boebert for asking, “Do you know who I am?” as she was escorted out of the theater: 

“If you’ve been caught for, again, sexual activity during ‘Beetlejuice: The Musical,’ you would hope no one knew who you were. And you definitely wouldn’t want to immediately get on the phone with the mayor to tell him what had just happened.”

Is this the protein plant of the future? New study finds “sweetness gene” that makes lupins tastier

If you walk into a bar in Italy, you might be served a dish of salty, nutritious snacks: lupin beans, a legume that has been eaten around the Mediterranean and in parts of the Middle East and Africa for thousands of years.

Lupins are very high in protein and fibre, low in carbs, have a low glycemic index and they’re easy to grow in a variety of climates. However, some varieties also contain high levels of unpleasantly bitter alkaloids.

In new research, an international team of researchers has for the first time identified the “sweetness gene” responsible for low alkaloid levels. This discovery may make it easier to reliably produce more palatable plants.

 

The search for sweetness

Around 100 years ago, plant breeders in Germany found natural mutations that produced “sweet lupins” with far lower levels of bitter alkaloids. They produced sweet varieties of white lupin (Lupinus albus), narrow-leafed lupin (Lupinus angustifolius, the main type grown in Australia) and the less common yellow lupin (Lupinus luteus).

Over the past 50 years or so, lupins have become more common as food for farm animals. Sweet lupins are good for this, as they don’t require extensive washing to be usable. They are also increasingly eaten by humans — and we are very sensitive to bitterness.

To find the genetic basis for “sweet” lupins, we used a few approaches.

 

A genetic search

Our colleagues in Denmark studied the biochemistry of the different alkaloids in both bitter and sweet varieties. By looking at the changes in the composition of the alkaloids, we could get an idea of the genes involved.

My own work was on the genetics end. We analyzed 227 varieties of white lupin and tested their alkaloid levels.

Then, with colleagues in France, we looked at markers across the lupin genome and tried to associate high and low alkaloid levels with the genetics.

We had clues about where we thought the gene would be, in a certain region of a few dozen genes. There was one we thought looked the most promising, so we designed a lot of DNA markers to work out what sequence varied in that gene.

Eventually we found a very strong link between a change in alkaloid levels and a variation of a single sequence in our gene.

The final test was to find out whether a variation in this gene would also produce sweetness in other types of lupin. In some other plants we would be able to use genetic modification tools to do this, but for various reasons this is difficult in lupins.

Instead, we went to a company called Traitomic who screened a huge number of seeds of narrow-leafed lupin until they found one which naturally had exactly the mutation we were looking for. And when we tested that plant, it had low alkaloids — confirming we really had found the “sweetness gene”.

 

A reliable marker

In practice, growing sweet white lupin can be a bit tricky. There are several different strains that have different low alkaloid genes and if these strains cross-pollinate, the result can be bitter lupin plants once again.

The research gives a reliable genetic marker for plant breeders to know what strains they are dealing with. This means it will be much easier to consistently grow sweet white lupin.

At the moment most of what is grown in Australia is narrow-leafed lupin, in part because the industry had a hard time keeping the white lupin sweet (and in part because white lupin was plagued by a fungal disease called lupin anthracnose). So perhaps in future we’ll see white lupin make a comeback.

Our vision is more cultivation of the high-protein, hardy lupins for consumption by humans.

Matthew Nelson, Plant Geneticist, CSIRO

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Legal experts: Trump’s unhinged attack on judge in court shows he “realizes he’s going to lose”

Former President Donald Trump on Monday lashed out at the judge overseeing his trial in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil fraud lawsuit in Manhattan. 

The former president referred to Judge Arthur Engoron as a “rogue judge” while speaking to reporters inside the courthouse, claiming the judge had undervalued his properties in a partial summary judgment handed down last week ruling that Trump had persistently committed fraud. “And he’s a disgrace to people that call themselves judges,” the ex-president told reporters. “And his clerk should not be allowed to be in his ear on every single question. You take a look at what’s happening with her. She hates Trump more than he does.”

Trump also slammed James, calling her lawsuit “a scam and a sham.”

“We have a racist attorney general who is a horror show!” Trump added. “She ran on the basis of she was going to get Trump before she even knew anything about me!”

Related

“Mind-blowing”: Legal experts warn that lawyer’s incredible “screw-up” is “very ominous” for Trump

Some legal experts characterized Trump’s courthouse meltdown as a sign that he knows his defense stands little chance of prevailing. 

“I think that Trump has already decided he’s going to lose on the law,” John Yoo, a Berkeley Law professor and former Justice Department official in the George W. Bush administration, told Fox News on Monday. “Last week, the judge already made all the key findings against him. So what I think President Trump has done is turn this all into a political strategy.”

“I would say it was the acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, because everything he said, whether it’s true or not, is all aimed at the political sphere,” he said. “Everything he said could only make sure that he’s going to lose. Attacking the judge for being rogue, saying the… attorney general is racist. Now, there’s no way that this judge is going to find at all in the favor of President Trump.”

Related

“Extensive financial wrongdoing”: Expert predicts ex-Trump officials’ testimony will be “explosive”

“And I think on appeal, he’s going to lose because this is not the kind of case appeal judges don’t want to get involved in and reverse factual findings by the trial judge,” Yoo added. “So I think what you’re seeing here is actually throwing in the towel on the law and using it instead as a platform to amplify his political message. But that political message will tube and tank his ability to prevail at all in this legal proceeding.”

CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elie Honing noted on Monday that it was “a counterintuitive strategy to openly attack the person who’s going to be rendering the verdict in this case, the judge.”

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“It seems to me Donald Trump’s strategy here is essentially damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead,” he said, according to Mediaite. “He understands he’s not going to kiss up to this judge. He’s not going to try to please this judge. I think he realizes he’s going to lose… He already has lost the first count, the most important count. I think he’s trying to make, A, a political appeal, B, I think his legal approach here is going to be his lawyers. They’re going to be hoping to set the stage for appeal, hoping that they can find something that was procedurally incorrect, find some sort of bias in the judge that will justify an appeal. But he’s leaning into this for sure.”

Anchor Sara Sidner underscored the use of the word “racist” in Trump’s criticism of James, observing how “every time he goes after the judge or the attorney general in saying that she’s racist, they get threats like this is actually dangerous for them every time he does it.” 

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“And I do think we have to call it out every time we get used to it, because he does it every single time. But there are real consequences to these statements,” Honig replied, adding “They are, in my view, what we just heard is over the line.”

“Look, you are allowed as a defendant in a criminal case or a civil case,” he continued. “You’re allowed to criticize the prosecutor, you’re allowed to criticize the other party. You’re allowed to criticize the judge. Again, query whether that’s a smart decision, but you can do that. But there is a line. And when you get to the point of calling the attorney general a racist, when you get to the point of saying some of the things that I won’t repeat about this, AG about other prosecutors, about the judge, that becomes dangerous. And the question is, will either the prosecutors in any of these cases or the judges in any of these cases do anything about it? We see that starting to happen now in one of the criminal cases, the federal case in D.C., the judge is considering a gag order as we speak.”

“And by the way, these statements that we’re hearing today probably aren’t going to help Donald Trump in arguing against that,” Honing asserted. 

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New single-use plastic ban takes effect in England — here’s why its impact may be limited

Single-use plastic and packaging has become an essential part of our lives. In the UK, households collectively throw away an estimated 100 billion pieces of plastic packaging each year.  

One way to reduce the amount of plastic we use is to introduce bans. In 2020, the UK government banned the sale of several single-use plastic products in England including straws, stirrers and cotton buds – but with exceptions for medical use.

Now, in an effort to further combat plastic pollution, a new ban has been introduced. From October 1 2023, businesses in England are prohibited from selling several other single-use plastic products including plastic cutlery, balloon sticks and polystyrene cups.

But what will this ban actually change and how effective is it likely to be? At the University of Portsmouth’s Global Plastics Policy Centre, we have reviewed more than 40 bans on plastic items to understand what makes such a policy successful.

 

What will the ban change?

People in the UK will no longer be able to buy single-use plastic plates, bowls and trays, unless they come with prepared food. Plastic cutlery and balloon sticks should disappear entirely. Plastics that are particularly difficult to recycle like polystyrene cups also have stricter rules, but with a few exceptions too.

We will probably see a shift away from the familiar polystyrene containers used by takeaways towards alternative materials. These new containers could be made from biodegradable materials (which are difficult to define and can also have an environmental impact), or from other types of potentially harmful single-use plastic.

The new ban also doesn’t cover single-use plastic packaging. Shoppers are therefore unlikely to notice significant changes in supermarket aisles selling prepared fruit and vegetables, ready meals, pre-packaged salads and snacks.

This is concerning. Single-use plastic packaging is one of the leading sources of plastic pollution in the UK.

 

 

How effective will the ban be?

The new ban is a step towards tackling the impacts of pollution caused by single-use plastics. It’s an easy and quick win that raises awareness about the plastic crisis and garners public support. However, for such a ban to be genuinely effective, several key elements must be in place.

A policy must have specific, clear and measurable objectives, along with a mechanism for monitoring progress. This ensures that those affected understand the ban’s purpose and how its progress will be assessed, while also promoting accountability.

The government’s new ban lacks any specific or measurable objectives. And there is no mechanism for monitoring.

There should be provisions for sustainable alternatives to single-use plastics that are less harmful to the environment and human health. But the government has provided no guidance on the alternatives businesses can use.  

Failing to provide viable alternatives can simply displace the problem instead of addressing it. Under the new rules, businesses are responsible for working out what complies and whether it is economically viable. This approach does little to discourage reliance on single-use materials.

Supporting initiatives that encourage a transition towards using reusable packaging for pre-packaged food and takeaways would have more impact on decreasing the need for new plastic production. This, in turn, would combat plastic pollution and align with goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

 

Improving awareness

Engaging businesses from the outset can generate buy-in and support for a ban. According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the UK government has worked closely with industry, trade bodies and local authorities to prepare businesses and promote compliance. For example, businesses were given several months after the consultation on the ban to prepare and use up excess stock.

However, this engagement may not have been successful. Many businesses have claimed they were unaware of the new regulations.

Adequate public awareness is also necessary to ensure everyone understands the reasons behind the ban, how it affects them and what the available alternatives are. In Rwanda, where a ban on plastic bags was introduced in 2008, announcements were made on airlines and at ports of entry to inform visitors.

In a similar way, the UK government’s recent ban is accompanied by official guidance explaining the ban’s implications. But the ban also includes numerous exceptions which could be confusing for businesses and customers.

Our research suggests that bans are most effective when part of a wider set of policies that address every stage of the plastic lifecycle, rather than being isolated measures. The ban in England does not restrict the production, import or export of single-use plastic items, allowing them to be manufactured and shipped abroad.

Additionally, the numerous exemptions and limited range of items covered mean the ban is insufficient to tackle wider plastic pollution issues, such as single-use plastic packaging, cigarette butts and actual balloons (as opposed to just balloon sticks).

Single-use plastic bans can help to remove problem plastics. But, to make any real difference, they require access to reusable alternatives, strong communication to businesses and users and must be supported by a wider framework of policies that change our relationship and dependence on single-use plastic.

Any progress towards ending plastic pollution is positive. However, the new ban has to be seen as merely the first step in addressing a fraction of a continually expanding problem. The UK government can enhance its bans by targeting the most significant contributors to waste — single-use plastic packaging would be a good place to start.

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Antaya March, Lead Researcher – Global Plastics Policy Centre, University of Portsmouth; Cressida Bowyer, Associate Professor in Arts and Sustainability, University of Portsmouth, and Keiron Roberts, Senior Lecturer in Sustainability and the Built Environment, University of Portsmouth

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

What that “Sex Education” disability story could learn from reality TV

When “Sex Education” debuted nearly four years ago, the world was in a different place. For one, we hadn’t an inkling of the imminent COVID pandemic, the U.S. was still under the tyrannical reign of He Who Must Not Be Named, and we hadn’t yet been flashed by a locker room full of penises on HBO’s gritty teen drama “Euphoria.” In short, we were in desperate need of something to disrupt the straight, all-white, non-disabled, buttoned-up status quo. Cue the British teen comedy that did just that.

The trailblazing Netflix original, starring former child actor Asa Butterfield as Moordale Secondary’s self-appointed sex therapist, Otis Milburn, impressively shattered our limited purview of decency and, more importantly, homogeneity on television. With its impressive racially and sexually inclusive cast of characters, the show dared to go where its predecessors had faltered. Across four seasons, Otis therapized his sexually ignorant queer, straight, Black and brown classmates on how to do it properly, safely and without kink-shaming. The inclusion only continued from there, making it clear that these characters weren’t just afterthoughts but carefully considered forethoughts. 

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Disability onscreen is improving but “still not enough”

This activist persona is a departure from the fully realized human Isaac as he had originally been written.

Then came its final season, which was released just this past month. Following the closure of Moordale Secondary in a triumphant finale, the fourth season opens with the student body newly relocated to the cushy Cavendish College. Where bee advocates, bike riders and LGBTQIA+ identifying persons all reign supreme, it’s the kind of place that would like to think it’s progressive and accommodating. Yet, somehow, it never has a properly functioning elevator. Several times, tetraplegic student Isaac (played by disabled actor George Ross Robinson) finds himself stranded in the broken lift, and each time, he’s offhandedly reassured that an engineer has been called to fix it. Finally, to make his frustrations known, he sets off the building’s fire alarm and blocks the staircase with chairs. “It’s annoying, isn’t it? Not being able to get where you need to go?” he yells at his panicked classmates before launching into an impassioned speech about the importance of listening to the needs of others.

In an instant, Isaac becomes the unofficial leading voice of the school’s disabled population. “It’s so much work,” series newcomer Aisha (Alexandra James) chimes in, explaining the “draining” challenges she faces as a deaf student. “I wish people understood that our problems come from barriers in society, not from our disabilities,” an unnamed wheelchair user adds. In a quick turn of events, the student body is called out for its performative activism in a way that, too, feels fairly . . . performative. 

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While the scene itself isn’t all bad, it feels like it’s written to explain disability issues to non-disabled people, which is to say, it doesn’t feel authentic to the character but to a message. This activist persona is a departure from the fully realized human Isaac as he had originally been written. Initially introduced as the morally ambiguous neighbor of rebellious Maeve (Emma Mackey) in Season 2, Isaac served as a minor roadblock for Otis and Maeve’s blossoming romance. However, as his feelings for Maeve developed, so too did his character’s story and arc. We soon learned that he and his brother survived the foster care system and that an accident put him in the chair.

He and Maeve eventually embark on a whirlwind romance and are additionally given an intimate scene, showing that yes, disabled people are sexually intimate beings, who too enjoy sexual pleasure. This more in-depth portrayal proved that he was much more than just a tick on a diversity checklist. Thus, it made it all the more unfortunate to see his storyline culminate in such a clunky “a-ha” moment. You know, that all too familiar scene, when marginalized characters have to justify their existence, typically in a cheesy speech? As if to assure viewers, Don’t worry, I’m here for a reason. I’m not just here to fill time. I’m also here to provide an important PSA.

Now, not to criticize “Sex Education” entirely, considering that only a few years ago it was commonplace to see disabled characters portrayed by non-disabled actors. Take for example “Glee,” Ryan Murphy’s cult classic series about a group of high school show choir misfits. Kevin McHale played the wheelchair-bound Artie Abrahams, despite McHale himself having full mobility of his legs. And even more recently, NBC’s big box store sitcom “Superstore,” which wrapped in 2021, saw able-bodied actor Colton Dunn starring as paraplegic employee Garrett. Netflix’s comedy-drama “Atypical” also garnered harsh audience disapproval for casting neurotypical Keir Gilchrist in the lead role of young adult Sam, who falls on the autism spectrum. So while “Sex Education” may not represent the perfect portrayal of disabilities onscreen, at least it’s cast with a person who shares that identity. This is essential for a more authentic portrayal, but also because disabled actors are not given the same chances for roles that non-disabled actors have.

Authentic and nuanced disability portrayals are necessary for everyone.

But there’s more to a portrayal than just the right casting. The story has to also do right by the character, and there are examples of when both things align. On the raunchy Max comedy “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” Lauren “Lolo” Spencer, who has ALS, plays the sassy, outspoken and incredibly horny co-ed Jocelyn. She also just happens to use a wheelchair, an assistive device that in no way draws the focus away from Jocelyn’s outrageous personality and is never used as a storytelling device. Meanwhile, deaf actor James Caverly plays Theo on Hulu’s comedy whodunit “Only Murders in the Building” over the course of the show’s three seasons. While one episode in the first season was told from his point of view – complete with altered audio to approximate his condition – it was done with empathy and nuance. In addition, Theo has continued to be a character that’s more than his deafness, also portraying a heartbroken son and cheeky neighbor in the apartment building. 

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Furthermore, if writers want to create a character that has a real-world disability, one avenue would be to pay attention to what reality shows are doing to include people with disabilities in a way that accepts but never hyperfocuses on their needs and experiences. For example, the last season of Netflix’s “The Circle” added its first deaf contestant, Raven Sutton and included her interpreter Paris McTizic in the room with her. Not only did that allow her to participate in the game – which uses sound effects to alert contestants and needs audible dictation to use the in-room social media platform – but it also gave her someone with whom she could joke and share gossip. In “The Circle,” having a big personality is essential for entertainment, and Raven was able to be chipper, goofy self.

Similarly, the current season of “The Great British Baking Show”  includes hearing-impaired contestant Tasha Stones while also introducing her interpreter to her fellow contestants. She’s therefore able to understand the full instructions that Paul and Prue give, while focusing on the baking (and joking with Noel and Alison). In both cases, the series offer the accessibility necessary for the contestants to compete without any fanfare, thus allowing the contestants’ personalities and skills to shine, rather than making their disability their only characteristic. This is not necessarily new, however. Back in the third season of “MasterChef,” blind cook Christine Ha competed, stole hearts . . . and won.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if Isaac wasn’t reduced to encapsulating a problem? If writers treat his character like a real person . . . or even a reality TV contestant, then accommodations like functioning elevators, proper ramps and door buttons would be part of the show. Having him then be a character enjoying his college sex education to the fullest would be the best way to show him as a human first. Who knows where his character could go on to do if the storytelling isn’t the one holding him back?

Authentic and nuanced disability portrayals are necessary for everyone. Seeing as how 27% of the adult population in the U.S. identifies with having a disability, it’s about time that these shows get it right. One important way this can be achieved is to populate the writers’ rooms with disabled folks who can speak to their everyday lived experience, or at the very least ensure disability advocates are consulted. Plus, considering that anyone, at any age, can develop a disability through illness (COVID is still among us and continues to increase disability rates) injury or aging, the empathy that these shows engender through nuanced, fuller examples of disabled characters is something that we can all benefit from.

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“Extensive financial wrongdoing”: Expert predicts ex-Trump officials’ testimony will be “explosive”

Donald Trump and his three adult children are listed as witnesses in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $250 million civil fraud trial against the former president and his companies – a case that could have extensive ramifications for his business empire. 

Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr. are among the 28 names on James’ list of witnesses to be called in the case alongside former Trump attorney Michael Cohen and former Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty last year to running a 15-year tax fraud scheme at the company.

James’ lawsuit accuses the ex-president and his two sons of committing massive fraud in New York for years by repeatedly misrepresenting his wealth by hundreds of millions of dollars while building Trump’s real estate empire.

Judge Arthur Engoron ruled last week that Trump committed fraud in his business dealings and some of his business licenses be rescinded as punishment. The judge also ordered that an outside “receiver” must be appointed to supervise the management of those Trump properties within 30 days. 

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“The end of Trump’s financial empire”: Legal experts say N.Y. fraud ruling could bring him down

The trial started on Monday and is expected to last for weeks, possibly even months as Engoron decides on the remaining claims in James’ lawsuit, including allegations of falsifying business records, issuing false financial statements, insurance fraud and conspiracy.

Trump’s defense lawyers submitted their list of 127 witnesses, including Trump and his two oldest sons. 

The decision may force Trump and his sons into a corner, Temidayo Aganga-Williams, white-collar partner at Selendy Gay Elsberg and former senior investigative counsel for the House Jan. 6 committee, told Salon. 

“Trump and his sons can choose to answer the attorney general’s questions truthfully on the stand and under oath,” Aganga-Williams said. “In a case where many gross misstatements are already documented on paper, this route may prove to be a treacherous one.  It will be difficult for Trump to credibly explain away the allegations against him and his companies.”

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The Trumps can also choose to plead their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, he added, pointing to the example of the ex-president pleading the Fifth last year when answering James’ questions during a court-ordered deposition in the same case. 

While the second option is what Trump may likely do, it is “equally problematic,” Aganga-Williams said. “Trump has the right to remain silent but exercising that right in this case is not without risk.” 

In his 35-page ruling last week, Engoron said that James “has demonstrated that there remain, at the very least, disputed issues of fact as to whether defendants violated these statutes, intentionally and materially.”

Trump’s fixer-turned-critic Cohen’s 2019 congressional testimony initially brought to public attention what the trial judge has already determined as widespread fraud in Trump’s annual financial statements to banks and insurers.

Cohen told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki that the former president’s “biggest fear” is losing money and not being considered a “mega-billionaire.”

“It is the death blow to Donald,” he said. “And I’ll tell you, during my tenure at the Trump Organization, I can tell you this has always been his biggest fear that he would lose money, that he would lose all of his money and that he would no longer be considered the mega-billionaire that he tried to portray himself as.”

James has credited Cohen’s testimony as the catalyst for the three-year investigation that ultimately led to her filing the fraud lawsuit. 

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Cohen and Weisselberg’s testimony could be “explosive,” since they both come from Trump’s inner circle and have admitted to “extensive financial wrongdoing” committed while working for Trump, Aganga-Williams said  

“Both men would be able to recount any alleged wrongdoing from a firsthand perspective, which bolsters their credibility and could be incredibly damaging to any defense Trump puts forward,” he added.  

The “best” witnesses for the plaintiffs will be those who can prove Trump’s knowledge that the finances were fraudulent, specifically, anyone who can testify to what Trump said and what was said to him, former federal prosecutor and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers Neama Rahmani told Salon. 

“The same applies to other executives in the Trump Organization because their knowledge can be imputed to the entity,” Rahmani said. “The other helpful witnesses will be experts who will opine on the inflated values of the properties used to secure the loans.”

The former president has blasted Engoron as a “deranged, Trump hating” judge who has violated his civil rights, calling him a “political hack” on his social media site Truth Social. He also sued Engoron himself, seeking to delay the trial and ultimately dismiss numerous allegations brought against Trump, according to The New York Times. 

“I’m going to Court tomorrow morning to fight for my name and reputation against a corrupt and racist Attorney General, Letitia James, who campaigned on ‘getting Trump,’ and a Trump Hating Judge who is unfair, unhinged, and vicious in his PURSUIT of me,” Trump wrote in a post Sunday night.

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AI versions of Tom Hanks and the late Robin Williams used without their consent

AI versions of stars are starting to pop up without their consent, and the actors and their families are hitting back.

On Sunday, Tom Hanks took to Instagram to warn his fans that a fake version of himself, generated using artificial intelligence, is being used without his permission to promote a dental plan online. “BEWARE!! There’s a video out there promoting some dental plan with an AI version of me. I have nothing to do with it,” Hanks wrote alongside a photo of an AI rendition of him from the clip.

The Oscar-winning actor has been outspoken about the use of AI within the entertainment industry, previously saying that AI could pose an “artistic challenge” in the future: “I could be hit by a bus tomorrow, and that’s it, but performances can go on and on and on and on,” Hanks said on The Adam Buxton Podcast in May. “Outside the understanding of AI and deep fake, there’ll be nothing to tell you that it’s not me and me alone. And it’s going to have some degree of lifelike quality. That’s certainly an artistic challenge, but it’s also a legal one.”

Meanwhile, Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda took to Instagram to slam AI recreations of her father, who passed away in 2014. Zelda called the recreations “personally disturbing.”

“These recreations are, at their very best, a poor facsimile of greater people,” Zelda said, adding, “but at their worst, a horrendous Frankensteinian monster, cobbled together from the worst bits of everything this industry is, instead of what it should stand for.”

The use of AI remains a contentious topic in Hollywood, especially amid an ongoing actors strike over studios usage of AI to digitally recreate and generate onscreen performances. The actors’ union SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) is in the process of seeking stricter regulations against such technology. SAG-AFTRA and studios are slated to resume negotiations Monday.

“Mind-blowing”: Legal experts warn that lawyer’s incredible “screw-up” is “very ominous” for Trump

New York Judge Arthur Ergoron on Monday said that he is holding a bench trial in New York Attorney General Letitia James fraud lawsuit against former President Donald Trump because “nobody asked for” a jury trial on either side, The Messenger’s Adam Klasfeld reported. “Trump isn’t getting a jury trial in his $250m civil fraud suit brought against him by New York AG James because his legal team didn’t request one on the paperwork,” explained The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell.

Legal experts were stunned by the revelation, characterizing it as a blunder by the former president’s lawyers. “So Alina Habba didn’t demand a jury trial?!” wrote MSNBC legal analyst Katie Phang. “I wonder how Trump feels about this screw-up by his legal team.” Former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman called the decision “mind-blowing.”

“For Trump to have his fate in the hands of this judge, whom he has vilified, is malpractice by his lawyers and very ominous for him,” Litman wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “It’s incredibly easy to ask for a jury trial. You just check a box on a form. Hard to believe that Trump understood that his lawyers hadn’t done it when he’s been savaging the judge who is now the factfinder in his huge fraud trial,” he added. “I honestly can’t believe that any lawyer hired on such an important case could make this mistake,” wrote defense attorney Andrew Fleischman. “But I also can’t think of any strategic reason you’d want a bench trial in front of a judge who just sanctioned your lawyers for making frivolous arguments.”

“Crooked as a barrel of fish hooks”: Whistleblower accuses Sarah Huckabee Sanders of ethics scandal

The lawyer for an anonymous whistleblower has renewed his client’s claim that Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders altered and withheld public records in connection to her office’s spending habits. Attorney Tom Mars, in a letter sent to state Sen. Jimmy Hickey, provided client testimony and supporting documents for a request for a legislative audit. Hickey last month asked the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee to investigate the purchase of a $19,000 lectern by Sanders’ office. He also asked the committee to scrutinize the “retroactive shielding of several government records after Sanders signed additional Freedom of Information Act exemptions into law this month after a special legislative session,” according to The Arkansas Advocate. “I have seen a copy of the letter you sent to Sen. Wallace and Rep. Gazaway, Chairpersons of the Legislative Joint Audit Committee,” Mars wrote, “requesting an audit of the following matters: (1) the purchase of a podium or lectern from Beckett Events LLC for the use of the Governor’s Office; and (2) all matters, involving the Governor or the Governor’s Office, made confidential by Section 4(a) of Act 7 of the First Extraordinary Session of 2023.”

“Does item (2) in your request encompass any documents that were: (a) altered by the Governor’s Office before being produced in response to a request for copies of public records made pursuant to the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) and (b) non-exempt documents that were knowingly withheld from production under the FOIA at the direction of the Governor’s office?” The letter adds that Mars’ client, a “witness with firsthand knowledge of these matters,” can “provide clear and convincing evidence of those occurrences to the Legislative Joint Audit Committee.” 

Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison blasted Sanders and her father, Mike Huckabee — the former governor of Arkansas — over the alleged scandal. “Her daddy is Mike Huckabee,” Harrison wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “She lied every day to the press on behalf of Trump … who on this spinning blue ball called Earth is surprised that Sarah is as crooked as a barrel of fish hooks?!”

While the Food Network is in flux, Magnolia shows there’s still a hunger for stand-and-stir TV

My earliest memories of Food Network were made when I was in middle school. After a long day of classes and homework, I’d find my way to the family living room and unwind by watching a few hours of Giada De Laurentiis and Ina Garten. Giada’s “Everyday Italian” introduced me to the tasty world of Italian-American cuisine and opened my eyes to the many ways simple spaghetti could be prepared. As for Ina, her sprawling East Hampton abode, which is a common sight on “Barefoot Contessa,” offered a nice reprieve from the dull suburbs of Maryland.

Amid the late 2000s and  2010s, Food Network enjoyed the heyday of stand and stir television. The genre of food entertainment typically features a celebrity chef — be it Giada or Ina or Rachael Ray — demonstrating, in great detail, how to whip up an assortment of their recipes. The main focus is, of course, the food. But it’s also the soothing narration, which adds to the overall appeal of stand and stir TV. Shows like “Everyday Italian” and “Barefoot Contessa” are comforting yet educational. And, they invite viewers to indulge in a bit of casual escapism. 

“‘Stand and stir’ is like a nice little xani bar laced with a hint of vicarious fulfillment,” Food Network’s Justin Warner told Salon’s Ashlie D. Stevens. “The viewer escapes into a perfect world, and leaves with a sense of  ‘maybe I can do that, someday, when my life is as perfect.'”

Today, however, stand and stir content seems to be a thing of the past, especially as Food Network struggles to define who they are in a new decade of programming. The network has been suffering from a decline in viewership after several of its staple chefs announced that they’d be taking their shows elsewhere. In February of this year, Giada parted ways with the network after serving 21 years as a host and chef personality. She revealed in an Instagram post that she had signed a multi-year deal for unscripted series production with Amazon Studios, instead. In July, chef Robert Irvine shared that Food Network had outright canceled his “Restaurant: Impossible,” claiming his hit show no longer fits the network’s idea of what its viewers want to watch.

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As Giada departs The Food Network, an appreciation of the channel she helped define

Food Network’s current lineup of shows are more akin to reality game shows. There’s “Beat Bobby Flay,” in which chefs compete against Bobby Flay in two rounds of intense competition. And there’s “Chopped” and “Guy’s Grocery Games,” which both feature chefs and cooking enthusiasts facing off in a series of time-based challenges. That being said, the network does have a few newer stand and stir shows, like “The Pioneer Woman,” “Girl Meets Farm,” and “Delicious Miss Brown,” that air on the daily. But they’re certainly in the minority. It’s also worth mentioning that the network broadcasts short-form cooking tutorials, which are similar to YouTube shorts — quick, digestible cooking videos that are less about inspiring viewers and more about generating clicks online.   

Watching Food Network nowadays can feel like a brain-suck. The network has lost its fun and great passion. Its new era is so nauseatingly formulaic, which raises the question: Is stand-and-stir TV officially a lost cause?

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Thankfully, the answer is no. You’re probably just watching the wrong channel.

For a fuller slate of stand-and-stir programs, try Magnolia Network — which is also available to stream on Max. The cable network comes from Chip and Joanna Gaines, owners of the famed Magnolia Homes remodeling empire frequently showcased on “Fixer Upper.” It’s described as “a collection of inspiring original series” that features “some of the country’s most talented makers, artisans, chefs, and entrepreneurs across home and design, food and gardening, the arts, and more…”

In terms of food, Magnolia Network’s cooking shows perfectly capture the comfort of classic Food Network programs. “Zoe Bakes” features professional pastry chef Zoe Francois offering tips and tricks on how to prepare an assortment of scrumptious desserts. The show itself is based in her Lowry Hill kitchen, which helps achieve that same level of hominess that’s seen in “Barefoot Contessa.” Francois also includes cameos of her husband and twin sons in a few episodes, thus inviting viewers to also step into her intimate, creative space.

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Another notable mention is “Family Dinner,” which combines the classic cooking show format with fun cultural lessons. Each episode spotlights chef and restaurateur Andrew Zimmern, who sits down with families across the United States to enjoy their homemade meals and explore how culture influences people’s choice of foods. That includes trying Korean-inspired dishes made by a Korean family who immigrated to North Carolina, reveling in home-cooked meals with rural Minnesota siblings, honoring Lebanese traditions by partaking in an elaborate family dinner and plenty more.

Magnolia’s food shows are a major hit on Reddit, where countless former Food Network enthusiasts raved about the network’s low-key programming. “The general calmness of most Magnolia shows is something I really appreciate,” shared one user. “The vibe/aesthetic is totally different from ‘Fixer Upper’ itself, which is interesting. I guess it’s the glorious lack of Chip Gaines.” A few users also recommended other shows to watch on the channel, including Recipe chef and food anthropologist Casey Corn’s “Recipe Lost and Found” and cattle rancher Elizabeth Poett’s “Ranch To Table.”

It’s a bit disheartening to know that the early days of Food Network probably won’t be making a comeback anytime soon. But it’s also reassuring to know that stand and stir television is still persevering today. Viewers still have a hunger for comfort cooking shows and Magnolia is more than happy to satisfy that craving. 

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This simple, spicy garlic hummus packs the heat in under 5 minutes

I have a spicy garlic hummus recipe that may make your breath smell like dumpster, but it’s healthy and you can proudly munch on as much as you want without feeling bad at all. 

I love hummus, which is funny because the first time I was presented with the dish, I couldn’t have been more grossed out. A creamy whipped hummus looks beautiful now, but the back in the day when I was an inexperienced teenager, I said some wildly disrespectful like “Who eats this, and more importantly why?”

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A group of my friends and I met up and Turkish restaurant on Charles Street, in what would be considered midtown Baltimore, called Cazbar, which is still one of my spots. I have traveled all around the world and I still have not had lamb chops or a chicken kabobs that could rival Cazbar (and no, this is not a paid advertisement, I don’t even know the staff). Their Baltimore location closed over the pandemic. However, they have the bigger, more beautiful location in Columbia, a county that is about 15 minutes outside of the city. 

Cazbar serves hummus with the warmest, most buttery, perfect pieces of pita bread that anyone has ever had. I went from the guy who proudly rejected the dish the guy who could knock back three orders of hummus and all of the pita that came with it on top of my lamb and check in and wash it all down with Lion’s Milk.

But I’m at a place health-wise where can’t load up on pita, so I was looking for new ways to eat hummus without feeling too guilty, which is how I came to make this recipe. And while I think my recipe is delicious, I want to be very clear in saying it is not as good as Cazbar — and it shouldn’t be, and that’s OK. 

Cazbar’s hummus offered a salty-tangy flavor that went perfect with the soft pita. While I love salty, I don’t add salt to my recipe, because high blood pressure is real. The beauty of the hummus dish I prepare, is that don’t have to wait for pita to bake, it’s salt free and my whole process takes under five minutes (once your chickpeas are cooked). Full transparency: I keep a bowl of cooked chickpeas in the house, because I eat them on salads and as their own dish. I normally cook them and boiling water, with a teaspoon of baking soda, for about 20 minutes. 

5-minute spicy hummus
Yields
4-6 servings
Prep Time
5 minutes
Cook Time
0 minutes

Ingredients

  •  1 ½ cups cooked chickpeas
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda 
  • ¼ cup lemon juice (from 1 ½ to 2 lemons), more to taste
  • Chopped garlic clove, to taste
  • ½ cup tahini
  • 1 teaspoon of red pepper
  • ½ teaspoon of curry powder 
  • 2 to 4 Tablespoons ice water, more as needed
  • ½ teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1 ½  Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

 

Directions

  1. Blend the chickpeas, olive oil, lemon juice, tahini and ice water in your food processor. Remove when it’s creamy and place it into a mixing bowl. 
  2. Stir in the rest of the ingredients. 
  3. Serve with sliced cucumbers 

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“Death blow to Donald”: Michael Cohen says Trump facing his “biggest fear” at New York fraud trial

Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen believes that his trial in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ fraud lawsuit will be a “death blow” to his image. Trump on Monday will face allegations that he, members of his family, and his family business knowingly and exponentially inflated his wealth in order to secure favorable terms from banks. New York Judge Arthur Engoron in a partial summary judgment handed down last week ruled that Trump had persistently committed fraud, a ruling which will divest the Trump family of control over their New York properties. The New York Times noted that this “could crush much of the business known as the Trump Organization.” Cohen told MSNBC on Sunday that Trump faces a “financial catastrophe” because it’s “not only the main company now going into the receivership, but there are hundreds of other subsidiary companies that additionally will ultimately go as part of the receivership.”

“It is the death blow to Donald,” Cohen said. “And I will tell you, during my tenure at the Trump Organization, I can tell you that this has always been his biggest fear, that he would lose money, that he would lose all of his money, and he would no longer be considered the mega-billionaire that he tried to portray himself as.” Cohen also questioned Trump’s appearance in court. “What is he showing up for? To show up and to watch? He is not being called tomorrow. He is going to sit and watch as the judge listens to testimony based upon how the evaluations were wrong, how the judge is going to determine the extent of the damage?” he said.

“No one can stand him at this point”: House GOP plots to expel Matt Gaetz amid McCarthy catfight

House Republicans are preparing a motion to expel Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., after the legislator doubled down on his call to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., “this week,” after McCarthy’s decision to look to Democrats for help in passing a stopgap spending bill to avoid a government shutdown. 

The House GOP will look to boot Gaetz if an ethics committee report determines he is culpable of anything, Fox News reported. After Gaetz stated that he would look to expel McCarthy from his seat, one House Republican told White House correspondent and Fox anchor Jacqui Heinrich, “No one can stand him at this point. A smart guy without morals.”

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A frequent critic of McCarthy, Gaetz said during a Sunday CNN appearance that it was time to remove McCarthy. “I think we need to rip off the Band-Aid,” he argued.

“I think we need to move on with new leadership that can be trustworthy,” the far-right lawmakers added. “Look, the one thing everybody has in common is that nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy. He lied to Biden. He lied to House conservatives. Kevin McCarthy’s goal was to make multiple contradictory promises to delay everything back up against shutdown politics and at the end of the day, blow past the spending guardrails he had agreed.” 

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McCarthy during an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” did not seem concerned that there was enough support to remove him from the speaker job.

“I’ll survive,” McCarthy said. “You know this is personal with Matt,” who he claimed was “more interested in securing TV interviews than doing something.”

“So be it, bring it on,” the speaker added. “Let’s get over with it and let’s start governing. If he’s upset because he tried to push us into a shutdown and I made sure the government didn’t shut down, then let’s have that fight.”

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said that she would be willing to vote to remove McCarthy.

“It’s not up to Democrats to save Republicans. From themselves, especially,” she said during an appearance on “State of the Union” over the weekend. 

When asked if she would vote to expel McCarthy, she answered with a resounding, “absolutely,” adding that she feels McCarthy is a “very weak speaker.”

“He clearly has lost control of his caucus,” she continued. 

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Joe Biden goes for the jugular: Attacking MAGA insanity could be the winning message for 2024

Joe Biden gave a speech last week that went largely unnoticed in the press, and it’s really too bad. It may have been the best speech he’s ever given, and if people actually saw or heard it, it might set their minds at ease a little about his prospects in the next election. He’s never been much of a speaker, but when he talks about the threat to democracy he’s been excellent. This is his fourth such speech, reflecting a sincere effort on his part to which we should all pay attention. After all, while we’re all painfully aware of the right’s anti-democratic turn, he is the actual president. It stands to reason he sees this from a different perspective. The fact that he’s so determined to sound the alarm should get much more attention than it does.

On the heels of a bizarre impeachment inquiry hearing last week in which Republican House members threw out outrageous smears against Biden without a shred of evidence and a GOP primary debate that had the candidates yelling at each other like drunken football fans, Biden traveled to Arizona to open the John McCain Institute and Library. He spoke at length about his long friendship with the former senator, reminding people of a time when the divisions between the two parties were not as uniformly bitter and hostile as they are now.

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But he didn’t linger too long on that. He used the legacy of McCain, the never-Trump patriot, to pivot to the MAGA movement’s assault on democracy. He said that for the late senator “it was country first,” subtly pointing the finger at contemporary Republicans who put Donald Trump before the Constitution. He said:

Let me begin with the core principles. Democracy means rule of the people, not rule of monarchs, not rule of the monied, not rule of the mighty. Regardless of party, that means respecting free and fair elections; accepting the outcome, win or lose. It means you can’t love your country only when you win.

Democracy means rejecting and repudiating political violence. Regardless of party, such violence is never, never, never acceptable in America. It’s undemocratic, and it must never be normalized to advance political power.

He talked about what it’s like to meet with world leaders who ask him, “Is it going to be OK?” and who wonder whether Americans understand just how unstable this big, powerful country appears to the rest of the world. “There is something dangerous happening in America,” he said. “There is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy: the MAGA movement.”

He said that movement was not hiding its attacks but was “openly promoting them — attacking the free press as the enemy of the people, attacking the rule of law as an impediment, fomenting voter suppression and election subversion.” Then he made his point even more clearly:  

They’re pushing a notion the defeated former president expressed when he was in office and believes applies only to him. And this is a dangerous notion: This president is above the law, with no limits on power. Trump says the Constitution gave him, quote, “the right to do whatever he wants as president,” end of quote. I’ve never even heard a president say that in jest. Not guided by the Constitution or by common service and decency toward our fellow Americans, but by vengeance and vindictiveness.

Do most Americans even know that Trump made those claims? I don’t think they do. I have been astonished at the media shrugging it off when he proclaimed on more than one occasion, “I have an Article II [of the Constitution] that says I can do whatever I want.” Any president or presidential candidate saying such a thing should be automatically disqualifying, but somehow it wasn’t.

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Biden exhorted Americans to take this threat seriously and recognize that the whole thing falls apart if these people are allowed to seize power. It was a simple and straightforward address without a lot of fancy rhetoric, just a strong, clear denunciation of something dangerous that’s happening in our society and has somehow been accepted by too many as business as usual.

After that speech, Biden sat down with John Harwood of ProPublica for an interview that was largely on the same topic. Take the time to watch it and then ask yourself whether you can possibly believe that this man is somehow incapacitated or has any cognitive disability. 

Then take the time to watch Donald Trump’s interview on “Meet the Press.” It’s quite a comparison.

There’s a lot of angst in the atmosphere about Biden’s chances of re-election. If it seems almost incomprehensible that it could even be close, remember that these are not normal political circumstances and that the GOP has pretty much devolved into a cult rather than a political party. Biden doesn’t quite say that, but the concept comes through loud and clear in his comments. So while many of the usual suspects are demanding that the president talk about “kitchen table issues,” he seems to recognize that something deeper than economic malaise is going on, which is why the remarkable job market and slowing inflation haven’t made people feel any better.

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Biden understands that a majority in this country is simply frightened that America has gone off the rails in some fundamental way, and don’t know how to deal with it, or even how to define it. Many of us share the sense that for all of Donald Trump’s clownishness, something seriously destabilizing is happening. We see him flouting every norm, every rule and every law, while his followers cheer him on. We see it in the right’s nearly unanimous defense of what happened on Jan. 6, 2021. We see it in the insane fetish for guns, the uncontrolled spread of conspiracy theories, the growing authoritarian impulse. We see it in book bans, in the pointless cruelty toward trans kids and in COVID denialism. We see it in the fact that every time “conservatives” get the power to do so, they start taking away constitutional rights.

Biden’s insistence on talking about this, over the objections of many Democratic strategists and pundits, shows confidence in his own judgment — which proved to be right in 2022, when he ignored their pleas to change his closing argument before the midterms from political extremism to the economy. Americans are palpably nervous and agitated, and it’s not about the price of eggs or gasoline. It’s about freedom. Their anxiety is justified, and Joe Biden gets it.

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Legal expert warns judge “increasingly frustrated” with Trump as he rages on Truth Social at 1 am

Former President Donald Trump raged on Truth Social ahead of his trial Monday in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ fraud lawsuit.

Trump and James are both expected to be in court in Manhattan on Monday, where the former president will face allegations that he, his adult sons and their family business inflated his wealth by billions to secure favorable terms from banks. Trump, who has denied the allegations, is eventually expected to be called to testify, according to The New York Times.

New York Judge Arthur Engoron last week ruled that Trump had persistently committed fraud, finding that no trial was necessary to determine whether the allegation is true. The ruling is set to strip the Trumps of control over their New York properties, which “could crush much of the business known as the Trump Organization,” the Times added.

“The trial is a bench trial—the case will be decided by the judge, not a jury,” former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance explained. “Judge Engoron is a distinguished jurist who has spent 2 decades on the bench & whose increasing frustration with Trump’s efforts to delay the proceedings was apparent  last week.”

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“The end of Trump’s financial empire”: Legal experts say N.Y. fraud ruling could bring him down

James is asking Engoron to fine Trump as much as $250 million and permanently ban him from operating any businesses in New York. The trial will determine how much Trump and his sons exaggerated their wealth and what the punishment will be.

“Those details determine what Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization will be prohibited from doing, as well as the size of any civil penalty,” Fordham Law Prof. Howard Erichson told the Times.

The witness list suggests the trial could last months, according to the outlet. James’ witness list includes more than 50 people, including former Trump Organization financial chief Allen Weisselberg, who is also a defendant and pleaded guilty in a separate case brought by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

Trump on Truth Social called James “corrupt and racist” over the lawsuit before lashing out at Engoron, calling him a “Trump Hating Judge who is who is unfair, unhinged, and vicious in his PURSUIT of me.”

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Engoron’s ruling last week cited multiple examples of Trump overstating the value of his assets. In one case, Engoron wrote, Trump’s financial statements valued his Mar-a-Lago club at between $427 million to $612 million even though the Palm Beach County assessor appraised the market value of the property at $18 million to $27.6 million.

“He values Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida, at 18 Million Dollars, when it is worth 50 to 100 times that amount,” Trump wrote shortly before midnight. “His valuations are FRAUDULENT in pursuit of Election Interference, and worse. THIS WHOLE CASE IS A SHAM!!!”

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Trump went on to claim that Engoron “refuses to accept our big win” from an appeals court in June, which raised the prospect that some of the allegations in the lawsuit were too old to try. But the court on Thursday rejected Trump’s attempt to dodge the charges and allowed the case to proceed to trial.

“Judge Engoron’s Valuation of Mar-a-Lago, the most spectacular property in Palm Beach, Florida, IS FRAUDULENT!” Trump continued to fume shortly before 1 am. “He states a value of 18 Million Dollars, knowing full well that it is worth, perhaps, 50 to 100 times that amount. Engoron is working diligently to misrepresent me, and my net worth, which is substantially MORE than is shown on my fully ‘disclaimed’ Financial Statements. I have not even included my most valuable asset – BRAND!”

Trump demanded that Engoron “resign” and “be sanctioned by the Courts for his abuse of power, and his intentional and criminal interference with the Presidential Election of 2024, of which I am leading all candidates, both Republican & Democrat, by significant margins.”

“Likewise, Letitia James should resign for purposeful and criminal Election Interference,” he added. “She is fully aware that Mar-a-Lago, and other assets, are worth much more than what she is claiming. Both of these Democrat Operatives are a disgrace to New York, and to the United States of America!”

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French toast bites are the simplest way to bring everyone to the breakfast table

My daughter likes dress shoes and I prefer Nike. She loves regular Cheerios and I am a Honey Nut guy. She loves for the windows to be rolled down, and I like them up. We are almost opposites — until we get into French Toast Bites.

We both love our French toast quick, crunchy and handheld, so I figured it out and it’s good. So good, in fact, that you can serve it with syrup or not. 

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My dad didn’t work hard at making me fall in love with the dish. While I loved so many of his creations, I must be honest when I say that breakfast was a ship he could not dock. For starters, he’d crack a few eggs in a big glass bowl, add a ridiculous amount of cinnamon, soak the regular white Wonder Bread in that cinnamon-eggy mix, and quickly fry them into pieces of what he called French Toast. To make matters worse, he then scrambled any remaining cinnamon egg mix and slapped it on the side of the plate. On these mornings, I would gladly choose a bowl of Fruity Pebbles. 

I rejected the dish for years because the soggy, burnt image of what my dad used to dole out was always stuck in my head. It was when I ordered Banana French toast from a gourmet restaurant that I realized the Watkins household needed to do it better. Other families and restaurants had served French toast with fresh fruit like strawberries and blueberries, or whipped cream (which I wasn’t really into) and prepared it using Texas toast, which was incredibly delicious when prepared right. 

I grew to appreciate French toast and gladly experimented with many different recipes when I got older.

 My favorite French toast — the version my child loves — is tiny, just like her, and so easy to make. The beauty of this recipe is that you can serve these hot or cool as a part of your breakfast or as a snack. My daughter has eaten them every which way. It’s also so easy to make, that you can enlist your toddler to help.

French Toast Bites 
Yields
36 French toast “bites”
Prep Time
15 minutes
Cook Time
10 minutes

Ingredients

A pack of Martin’s potato rolls (12 rolls)

1/2 cup of nondairy coffee Creamer

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 Tablespoon cinnamon, divided

1 Tablespoon sugar

Unsalted butter 

Maple syrup

 

Directions

  1. Mix the eggs, vanilla extract, creamer and 1/2 teaspoon of the cinnamon into a bowl.

  2. Mix the remaining cinnamon and all of the sugar into a small bowl or on to a plate

  3. Slice the potato rolls into thirds and bake on a cookie sheet at 350 degrees for about 5 minutes.

  4. Grease your pan with butter until you hear a light sizzle. 

  5. Dip your rolls into the egg solution and then quick fry them in the pan. Once they brown to your liking, drizzle them with the cinnamon and sugar and serve with or without the maple syrup. 

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A decades-long drop in teen births is slowing — and advocates worry a reversal is coming

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Cicely Wilson’s work doesn’t end when she leaves her day job as a lactation consultant, doula, and child care expert.

Wilson founded a nonprofit called Sunnyside Up Youth Pregnancy Services, which connects girls ages 13 to 19 with resources they need to care for their babies. After-hours, she looks for affordable Nashville apartments, books medical appointments, tries to find strollers and other baby supplies, and hosts conversations with pregnant teens about breastfeeding and preparing mentally for childbirth.

Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade just over a year ago, Wilson said, she is confident that more Tennessee teens will carry their pregnancies to term. “Because the access isn’t there,” she said. “I do anticipate that we’re going to get a lot more teens that are wanting to parent their babies rather than going to Illinois or Georgia or Florida.”

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Demand for services like Wilson’s could rise in the coming years even though the national teen birth rate has declined dramatically over the past three decades. It’s still dropping, but preliminary data released in June by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows the descent may be slowing.

Doctors, service providers, and advocates say they’re worried full CDC data released later this year — which will include state-by-state numbers — could show a rise in teen births in many Southern states, where rates remain among the highest in the country. They say several factors — including the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down federal protections for abortion rights, intensifying political pushback against sex education, and the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on youth mental health — could start to unravel decades of progress.

“It’s absolutely concerning,” said Laura Andreson, an OB-GYN in Franklin, Tennessee. The women’s health practice where she works is treating more pregnant teenagers than in recent years, which she thinks could reflect an emerging trend.

“It’s probably going to take a little bit of time,” she said. “But I would venture to say we’re going to see it every year: It’s going to go up.”

Nationally, the rate of teen births has dropped by 78% since a modern-day peak in 1991 of 61.8 births per 100,000 people, according to the CDC. Starting in 2007, the rate had consistently dropped by about 8% until 2021, when the rate of decline slowed to about 2%.

“It certainly does stand in contrast to what we’ve seen in prior years,” said CDC researcher Brady Hamilton. He is working on the updated version of the national data released in June that will break it down by state. Hamilton said that he can’t comment on the recent social and political factors at play, but that the “phenomenal decline” in the teen birth rates over more than 15 years could be reaching a natural plateau as states achieved their goals.

“There are a lot of states that have very low birth rates,” he said. “So you kind of potentially run into a situation where they’re already low and you really can’t go lower.”

But advocates say this leveling off could be the writing on the wall, signaling the start of a rise in teen births.

The “phenomenal decline” in the teen birth rates over more than 15 years could be reaching a natural plateau as states achieved their goals.

“We know that young people came back from the pandemic with record levels of mental health struggles, which can be very tied to things like teen pregnancy,” said Jen Biundo, senior director of research and policy at Healthy Futures of Texas, a nonprofit that advocates for science-based education to curb teen pregnancy. A person with mental health issues may be more likely to form unhealthy relationships and engage in riskier sexual behaviors, she said.

And the decision to strike down abortion rights unleashed a sea change of legislation across the nation affecting reproductive health and options for women. States like Tennessee enacted so-called trigger laws, overturning the right to most abortions. In August, an all-male South Carolina Supreme Court upheld what abortion opponents sometimes call a “fetal heartbeat law,” which bans most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. The term is a misnomer because a fetus’ heart is not fully developed in the early stages of pregnancy.

The sudden shift in the reproductive health landscape concerns Hannah Lantos, a researcher who specializes in maternal and adolescent health for Child Trends, a nonprofit research center. She said changes in abortion policy likely won’t have major effects on teen birth statistics because most abortion patients aren’t teenagers. Teenagers account for only 9% of abortions and 6% of all pregnancies reported in the U.S. each year, according to a report by Child Trends. Yet about 1 in 4 teens who do get pregnant in the U.S. will opt for an abortion, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Previous declines in the teen birth rate weren’t driven by access to abortions alone, Lantos said. Other factors like increased access to and more effective contraceptive methods and sex education contributed. Now, those tools also are under siege in many states.

In Texas, some school boards have banned sex education curricula amid backlash from parents. In New Hampshire, Republican state officials blocked more than $600,000 in federal sex ed funding, and officials in Miami-Dade County, Florida, banned new sex ed books. In Idaho, lawmakers told the state’s health departments the state would no longer fund adolescent pregnancy prevention programs.

Parents who oppose abortion could prevent their children from getting one. Even if the parents acquiesce, incentive for a teen is low, said Wilson of Sunnyside Up. People might need to travel hundreds of miles for abortion care now. That’s particularly tricky for teenagers, who may be too young to make decisions independently.

“That car ride can be very excruciating,” Wilson said, noting that the drive from Nashville to the nearest abortion clinic — in Carbondale, Illinois — can take seven hours. “That’s seven hours of potential silence. That’s seven hours of tension. That’s seven hours of thinking about what’s next. And that is a long time to process something so difficult.”

The fear of a disapproving parent might also prevent a teenager who decides to keep the baby from revealing the pregnancy early on, Andreson said. That could lead to a lack of prenatal care, which is concerning for teens, given they are more likely to have complications than other expectant mothers.

“Their bodies aren’t designed to have babies yet,” she said. “And this doesn’t even go into all the issues that go on once the baby’s born.”

Wilson, from Sunnyside Up, noted that teenage parents face unique challenges taking care of newborns. “It’s a lot for them,” Wilson said of the teens who seek her help. “They need that hands-on, in-person support.”

And one of the greatest challenges is housing. Teenagers need a co-signer on a lease. Even when they find a place, the median rent in Nashville is over $2,000 a month, and Tennessee observes the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Sunnyside Up has persuaded clients to become roommates.

“It’s like we’re literally having to stack families together in the same household for them to be able to pay basic living expenses,” Wilson said.

This story is part of a partnership that includes WPLN, NPR, and KFF Health News.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

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